South Africa: SIU to host anti-corruption, whistleblowing webinar series

The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) is expected to host a five part series of webinars that will shine the spotlight on the importance of whistleblowing in South Africa.

The first webinar is expected to be held on Sunday with SIU head, Advocate Andy Mothibi, billed to lead a three person panel, including former Public Protector, Professor Thuli Madonsela, and former SIU head Willie Hofmeyr.

In a statement, the SIU explained what the first webinar will entail.

The panel will unpack the importance of whistleblowing in the fight against corruption in South Africa. The panel will also look at the challenges confronting whistleblowers, as well as potential solutions to ensure a safer, more conducive environment, the statement said.

According to the investigating unit, the webinars are expected to cover themes such as whistleblower and witness protection, understanding of how whistleblowing works, whistleblowing regulations and the legal framework around it.

These themes will be unpacked by experts from the public, business and civil society.

The SIU said these webinars will also highlight the importance for potential whistleblowers to feel that they will be protected if they expose acts of potential corruption.

The success of the fight against corruption is largely dependent on whistleblowers who continuously detect and report acts of malfeasance in all sectors of the society. However, the threats and perceived poor protection of whistleblowers remains a big challenge in the fight against corruption, the unit said.

According to the SIU, the webinars are born out of Cabinets adoption of the National Anti-Corruption Strategy (NACS) which is a blueprint for the fight against corruption in the country.

The NACS has six pillars and one of those pillars emphasize the need to promote and encourage active citizenry, whistleblowing, integrity and transparency in all spheres of society. The NACS has adopted a whole of government and society approach in the fight against corruption. This approach requires all sectors of societyto play an active role in improving anti-corruption and integrity regulations, the investigating unit said.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2021-09-16. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
South Africa: Father sentenced to 25 years imprisonment for daughter's murder

Gauteng Provincial Commissioner, Lieutenant General Elias Mawela, has welcomed the 25-year sentence imposed on a father who killed his three-year-old daughter.

The sentence was handed down at the Gauteng South High Court on Wednesday.

In a statement, Gauteng SAPS spokesperson, Captain Mavela Masondo, said: On 24 January 2017, the deceased, Siphesihle Ndlovu, was left by her grandmother with her father Musi Hlatshwayo to be taken to preschool.

The father, aged 24, then killed his daughter and decapitated her. He threw the head into a stream and put the body on a tree branch in Vosloorus.

Masondo said a missing child was reported with the police. A search was launched and the body was recovered after five days in an open veld.

The police traced and arrested the father.

Mawela congratulated the detective in the case for the hard work and thorough investigation that led to the successful conviction of the accused.

The fight against crime committed against women and children remains on top of the Gauteng Police's list of priorities. We are pleased with this successful conviction and believe it will send a strong message to those who abuse children," he said.  SAnews.gov.za

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RTHK: Malaysian holiday island opens as tourism restarts

Visitors flocked to the Malaysian island of Langkawi Thursday as it became the country's first holiday hotspot to reopen after a coronavirus lockdown that has hammered the vital tourism industry.

Restrictions on local travel had been in place for months and international borders remain largely closed as Malaysia battles its worst Covid-19 wave.

But with the outbreak gradually easing, Langkawi, one of tropical Malaysia's premier holiday destinations, has been chosen for a pilot project to reopen the sector to domestic tourists.

The island began welcoming visitors Thursday, with water cannons firing over the first plane to land at its airport.

"We're very excited because we haven't been anywhere since February 2020," Andrea Manason, an Australian woman based in Kuala Lumpur travelling with her family of six, said.

"It's real exciting for us to be here, and to actually have the kids leave the house."

Under the initiative, hotels and businesses have been allowed to reopen while activities on the island's palm-fringed beaches are resuming.

Tourists must be fully vaccinated to visit and have to take a virus test before departure.

Alexander Isaac, head of a yacht charter firm, said he was delighted at the reopening as the island's tourism sector had been "badly impacted" by virus curbs.

"We can't afford any more lockdowns... We need to reopen the economy and get people working again."

The island off Malaysia's northwest coast has long been popular with domestic and overseas visitors, although for now foreign tourists are still barred from the country.

Langkawi welcomed around 3.9 million visitors in 2019, with the number falling dramatically since the pandemic began.

If the island's "tourism bubble" is a success, then other holiday destinations are expected to reopen soon.

Neighbouring Thailand has reopened several islands, including Phuket, to vaccinated foreign tourists.

Malaysia imposed a nationwide lockdown in June as the highly contagious Delta variant sparked a surge in infections, and has now logged more than two million cases and over 22,000 deaths.

But authorities have started easing curbs in recent weeks as the outbreak slows and the vaccine rollout picks up speed, with over half the population now fully inoculated. (AFP)

This story has been published on: 2021-09-16. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
South Africa: Deputy Minister Mkhize passes away

The Deputy Minister in the Presidency for Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities, Professor Hlengiwe Buhle Mkhize, has passed away on Thursday morning, after a short illness.

The Department of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities confirmed her passing in a statement.

The department extended its heartfelt condolences to the family, friends, colleagues, comrades, and the many citizens affected by this tragic news.

Deputy Minister Mkhize served this country with an unwavering spirit and her contribution to advancing the democratic goals of this country will be remembered for the longest time. Please keep her family and friends in your thoughts and prayers through this difficult time, the department said.

Mkhize was appointed as Deputy Minister in the Presidency for Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities on 30 May 2019.

Post 1994, she held the position of Commissioner at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Chairperson of its Reparations and Rehabilitation committee from 1995 to 2003, among many others.

At the time of her passing, Mkhize was serving as the National Executive Committee (NEC) Member of the ANC and the Convener of NEC deployees to the Eastern Cape.

She has also served as Treasurer General of the ANC Womens League and member of the NEC of the Womens League, among other positions.  SAnews.gov.za

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South Africa: President Ramaphosa pays tribute to Prof Hlengiwe Mkhize

President Cyril Ramaphosa has sent his condolences on the passing of Professor Hlengiwe Buhle Mkhize, the Deputy Minister in The Presidency for Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities.

Mkhize passed away today at the age of 69.

The President extended his condolences to the family, friends, colleagues, comrades and associates of the late Deputy Minister across the country and internationally.

Mkhize was appointed to The Presidency in May 2019.

President Ramaphosa said Mkhizes passing constitutes a national loss.

Prof Mkhizes legacy is indelible across so many dimensions and sectors of our national life. She distinguished herself as a tireless and passionate anti-apartheid and human rights activist, and campaigner for an end to gender inequality.

She availed herself for service at the international level, including her representation of Transparency International South Africa in global institutions. Prof Mkhize played a crucial role in conflict resolution during our transition to democracy.

We owe Prof Mkhize our gratitude and deep respect for the commitment she displayed as a Commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Chairperson of the Reparations and Rehabilitation Committee, and trustee of the National Peace Accord Trust.

She set a profound example for all of us by immersing herself in building a better South Africa, while pursuing a multifaceted path as an academic, from the Universities of Zululand, Natal and South Africa, to Mississippi and Illinois in the United States, the President said.

President Ramaphosa said Mkhize applied her extraordinary personal achievements to the upliftment of traumatised children, to asserting the equality of oppressed women, to upholding the human rights of victimised and persecuted people around the world, and ensuring the doors of learning would open wide to new generations of South Africans.

She played her part unselfishly and with great love for humanity. Our task is to keep her legacy intact and build on it, President Ramaphosa said.

Before her appointment to The Presidency, Mkhize served as Deputy Minister of Correctional Services, Deputy Minister of Economic Development, Deputy Minister of Telecommunications and Postal Services, Home Affairs Minister and Minister of Higher Education and Training.

She was also a former Ambassador to the Netherlands.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2021-09-16. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
South Africa: Treasury studying plans to tackle country's poverty gap

The National Treasury has commissioned a study to determine what long-term plan can be devised to narrow the countrys current poverty gap.

Addressing Parliaments Select Committee on Appropriations (SCOA), Treasury said it was considering five options.

These included evaluating the current R350 grant; the Basic Income Grant; the Brazilian model that offers grants to poor households rather than individuals; an evaluation of the Presidential Employment Initiative and consideration of a job seekers grant.

Treasury, the Financial and Fiscal Commission (FFC) and the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) presented their perspectives on the Second Special Appropriation Bill to the SCOA on Wednesday.

In a statement, Committee chairperson Dikeledi Mahlangu cautioned that the country should not be turned into a welfare state.

She said there was a need for a sustainable strategic plan going forward and called for the avoidance of a recurrence of the bungle during the previous disbursement of the R350 grant.

She also called for a proper plan to be put in place to avert any possible fraud.

The Committee said in a statement that Treasury had assured the committee that elaborate cross-reference checks were in place, involving multiple government departments and agencies, which counter the previous inefficiencies and make it difficult for fraud to occur.

Mahlangu in the meeting also called on the National Treasury to support small business owners through the application procedures.

She reiterated that the committee always derives valuable inputs and technical expertise from its interactions with these entities.

We value these interactions because it will go a long way in advancing the call for economic transformation and inclusive growth and to ensure that public finances are appropriated for their intended objectives and are managed more efficiently, she said.

To address the impact of the civil unrest in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal in July and the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, a proposed R32.85 billion was set to provide funding allocations to the South African Special Risks Insurance Association (Sasria), the Department of Social Development, the Department of Police, the Department of Defence, and the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition.

In its presentation, the National Treasury explained to the committee why Sasrias R3.9 billion injection request should be considered urgent.

Dr Mark Blecher from Treasury said the allocation to Sasria was meant to honour its insurance claims, estimated at well over R25 billion, emanating from losses incurred by its clients (shops, malls and factories) during the civil unrest in July.

Part of this Bill was an urgent request for R26.7 billion for the Department of Social Development, aimed at extending the R350 Social Relief of Distress (SRD) Grant to March 2022 for the benefit of 9.4 million eligible beneficiaries.

The FFC welcomed the R26.7 billion allocated to the Department of Social Development to extend the R350 SRD grant to March 2022.  SAnews.gov.za

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South Africa: GBV dialogues hailed as game changer

The Department of Higher Education and Training, through Higher Health, is rolling out stakeholder engagement programmes in response to gender-based violence and mental health incidents in the Post-School Education and Training (PSET) sector.

The Minister of Higher Education, Science and Innovation, Dr Blade Nzimande, has hailed stakeholder engagement programmes targeting the youth as a game changer.

Nzimande said the massive roll-out of these programmes adds to the already released set of instruments to further strengthen the realisation of the policy framework on GBV within the PSET sector.

Higher Health has established relationships with 21 campus-based radio stations and youth based regional and community radio stations to capacitate, train and run content 42 times a week on gender-based violence and mental health issues, Nzimande said.

The Minister said these programmes add to Higher Healths 24-hour toll-free helpline available in all 11 official languages that enable students to report GBV and mental incidents.

The line offers health, wellness and psychosocial risk assessment toolkits for early screening, empowerment and referral related to gender-based violence, mental health, HIV, TB and other matters.

All our universities have measures in place to raise awareness and offer guidance and advice on GBV-related matters. These include, but not limited to, workshops or presentations during orientation weeks and during various parts of the year for students, roadshows, training, production and dissemination of brochures and other literature for the university community, the Minister said.

The Minister said in addition to these initiatives, a large number of students have completed a curriculum on GBV prevention and mitigation, empowering them with knowledge and understanding of GBV.

The Ministerial Task Team established to advise the Minister and the Department of Higher Education and Training on gender-based violence held a series of consultation with institutions and established that not all of them have sufficient means to deal with GBV and other harm.

The department and Higher Health will continue to support these institutions to address this challenge because GBV and associated harm is another pandemic that we must collectively defeat, Nzimande said.

The rollout comes weeks after the death of Fort Hare Law student, Nosicelo Mtebeni, who was brutally murdered and dismembered by her boyfriend in East London.  SAnews.gov.za

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Hong Kong: Green initiatives create prospects

Chief Executive Carrie Lam

Before I speak on Hong Kong's "going green" agenda, let me first express my appreciation to the European Union Office to Hong Kong & Macao and the European Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong for jointly organising this event with InvestHK serving as a partner. With the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) due to take place later this year in Glasgow, it is indeed timely to focus our minds on this global issue. In fact, prior to COP26, my Government will publish a Climate Action Plan to map out the road to achieve carbon neutrality before 2050, a pledge I made in my Policy Address last year.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report released last month highlights the urgent need to tackle human-induced climate change, which is unequivocally affecting climate and weather extremes, and doing so in every corner of the world. While the world is still struggling with the COVID-19 pandemic, we must also gear up to act to limit global warming and the catastrophic consequences it can have for us all. On both COVID-19 and climate change, governments all over the world must act in concert; there is no room for confrontation or politicisation.

Hong Kong has been an active participant in global efforts to combat climate change since China signed the Paris Agreement in April 2016, and included Hong Kong in its pledge. Less than a year later, we produced the Climate Action Plan 2030+. I still remember as the then Chief Secretary, I was chairing an inter-bureau/departmental steering committee and authorised that plan. Among other things, the plan set a target to reduce our carbon intensity by 65% to 70% between 2005 and 2030. I am pleased to say that we should be on target. Hong Kong's carbon emissions peaked in 2014. By 2019, our carbon intensity was about 35% lower than the 2005 baseline year. This achievement has been made possible by the implementation of carbon reduction measures set out in our Climate Action Plan, including substantial investment in low-carbon technologies and infrastructure.

Indeed, over the last decade, we have allocated more than five billion euros to energy-saving and renewable-energy programmes and measures. In addition, with electricity generation being the predominant source of carbon emissions in Hong Kong, accounting for 66%, our two power companies are investing some 4.3 billion euros in decarbonisation projects over a 10-year span facilitated under their Scheme of Control Agreements with the Government. And my Government has put in place requirements that the power companies use cleaner fuel for electricity generation. As a result, last year, the share of coal accounted for less than one quarter of the fuel mix for electricity generation. That is substantially lower than coal's share - about 50% - just six years ago. Gas-fired units now generate about half of our electricity. I should add that the two power companies will continue to phase out their existing coal-fired generating units, gradually replacing them with natural gas and non-fossil fuels.

Turning to renewable energy, while Hong Kong's geographical environment restricts its development, we are determined to maximise its potential. For example, the Government has set aside about 300 million euros to install small-scale renewable energy systems on government premises. And, in co-operation with the two power companies, we have established a Feed-in Tariff Scheme to encourage the community to invest in distributed renewable energy. This scheme has proven to be very popular and to date, more than 16,000 applications have been received, and over 14,000 of which have been approved. These, we estimate, will generate sufficient renewable energy to meet the electricity demands of some 67,000 households in Hong Kong.

Our transport sector accounted for about 18% of Hong Kong's carbon emissions in 2019. To lower that, we have put in place a variety of initiatives, including the New Energy Transport Fund. The fund encourages the transport sector to test and adopt innovative green technology.

We are also supporting electric vehicles (EVs), offering first registration tax concessions and launching a 220 million Euro EV-charging at Home Subsidy Scheme. The initiative promotes the installation of EV charging facilities in the car parks of residential buildings. Six months ago, we published a roadmap on popularising EVs. Its purpose is to help Hong Kong reach zero vehicular emissions before 2050. Hand in hand with this is the Government's landmark decision to cease the new registration of fuel-propelled private cars by 2035. That fits smoothly with our carbon-neutrality target.

In February, the Government announced the Waste Blueprint for Hong Kong 2035. It will tackle the waste sector, which accounted for some 7% of our carbon emissions in 2019. In this, the Government will work with the industry and the community. Our goal is to reduce per capita municipal solid waste disposal by up to 45%, while raising the recovery rate to about 55% in the medium term. Eventually, we plan to move away from reliance on landfills, replacing them with waste-to-energy and waste-to-resources facilities. Zero waste landfill is the objective. The passing of the municipal waste charging legislation in the Legislative Council last month has certainly given us a major boost in our waste management efforts.

Finance plays a key role in creating a low-carbon world. And Hong Kong, one of the world's leading financial centres, is committed to becoming a global leader in green finance. It helps that the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Outline Development Plan supports Hong Kong's development as the region's green finance centre. Last year, we established the Green & Sustainable Finance Cross-Agency Steering Group. Chaired jointly by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and the Securities & Futures Commission, the group's goal is to accelerate the growth of green and sustainable finance in Hong Kong and support the Government's climate strategies.

We are no less committed to green bonds. In 2018, we introduced our first Government Green Bond Programme. It came with a borrowing ceiling of nearly 11 billion euros. To date, through two offerings, we have launched US$3.5 billion green bonds. In both, I learnt that no less than 20% of the bonds were allocated to European investors. This is a ringing endorsement of European investor confidence in Hong Kong's credit strengths and economic fundamentals. It also illustrates our shared commitment to promoting sustainable development and combating climate change. To enable Hong Kong to go further, we have already got LegCo's approval to double the borrowing ceiling of the Green Bond Programme to about 22 billion euros. That should allow the issuance of green bonds worth more than 19 billion euros over the next few years.

These and other green initiatives will go a long way towards limiting climate change in Hong Kong. They will also create business prospects, including more than 5,000 employment opportunities over the coming few years. In addition, the Government's drive to reduce carbon in electricity generation will boost investment in the private sector, estimated to create another 5,000 employment opportunities.

We need more young people to join us in this green journey, which is why the Environment Bureau launched a Graduates Subsidy Programme last year and renewed it again this year. The programme subsidises private companies and organisations wishing to employ fresh graduates specialising in areas related to environmental protection, green energy, sustainable development and more.

For the EU community, these endeavours could easily be translated into business prospects and sharing of technological know-how. We have seen this in almost all the advanced environmental facilities built in recent years - from TPARK and WEEEPark to OPARK1 and IPARK, involving companies from France, Germany, Spain and Belgium. On the automotive sector, the popularisation of EVs will mean plenty of opportunities for bringing in European brands. As for green finance, I am sure my colleague Chris Hui, the Secretary for Financial Services & the Treasury, will have more to say. And all these new technologies adopted in Hong Kong will have a much bigger market - the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area - to tap.

Ladies and gentlemen, China is committed to achieving peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and carbon neutrality before 2060. Hong Kong aspires to become a green leader, in infrastructure, in finance, transport, leisure and more. To that end, we will continue to be an active participant in combating climate change. And we will continue our participation in such global gatherings as the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group.

To underline the Government's commitment, I am chairing a new Steering Committee on Climate Change & Carbon Neutrality. It will lead the way for the Government in mapping out our climate strategy. The steering committee is now finalising an updated Climate Action Plan for Hong Kong to be published shortly after my 2021 Policy Address to be delivered on October 6, and I look forward to receiving your feedback on the plan.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam gave these remarks at the EU & Hong Kong: The Green Way forum on September 16.

This story has been published on: 2021-09-16. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
South Africa: Online African COVID-19 green stimulus programme launched

Securing and restoring livelihoods should be top of the agenda in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, an African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) has resolved.

It is against this backdrop that an online platform for the African Green Stimulus Programme has been launched to provide an overarching framework to support the green recovery from COVID-19.

This programme is intended to significantly contribute to Africas green recovery from the impacts of the pandemic and support the continents journey towards a sustainable and low-carbon development pathway, Minister of Forestry, Fisheries, and the Environment, Barbara Creecy, said on Thursday in her capacity as the outgoing President at the 18th Ordinary Session of the AMCEN.

Creecy described the rapid progress in the development and implementation of this African-led and owned initiative as a source of pride for the continent.

This launch comes after the Eight Special Session of the Conference, which took place late last year, recognised that the pandemic had placed additional pressure on Africas socio-economic development.

The Minister acknowledged that the COVID-19 outbreak had exasperated efforts to achieve sustainable development and called for continued efforts to conserve, protect and enhance the resilience of Africas environment to avoid similar crises in future.

The session agreed to adopt the continental-wide African Green Stimulus Programme to support the continents recovery to the devastating socio-economic and environmental impacts of the COVID-19 in a sustainable manner, she told the delegates.

AMCENs mandate is to provide advocacy for environmental protection in Africa, ensure that basic human needs are met adequately and in a sustainable manner.

It also aims to ensure that social and economic development is realised and that agricultural activities and practices meet the food security needs of the region.

This pandemic has affected all facets of our lives and I wish to extend my condolences to all those who have lost loved ones, friends and colleagues.

Since last year, she said the conference had decided to respond to the impact of the pandemic in such a way that it will inspire hope.

In line with this years theme for the 18th Ordinary Session of AMCEN, Securing peoples well-being and ensuring environmental sustainability in Africa, securing and restoring peoples livelihoods should be a priority in the wake of this pandemic.

United Nation's Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme, Inger Andersen, said Africa suffered the most from the climate crisis, from nature and biodiversity to the pollution crisis.

It is a crisis that we have to face while dealing with the ongoing human and economic tragedy of COVID-19, she said, adding that the pandemic has erased nearly 5% of per capita income in Africa, while food prices are soaring globally.

According to Andersen, if the green stimulus measure is done right, it could boost the economy in the short term, deliver growth pathways that are sustainable and mitigate environmental degradation.

All of these wins would deliver livelihoods, food security, economic prosperity and peace.

She described the stimulus programme as a critical step in taking advantage of this opportunity.

The programme hits all the right notes climate action, air quality, land restoration, biodiversity, blue economy, green cities and so on," Andersen added.

Creecy said it has been an honour and privilege to preside over the August Conference over the past two years and extended her best wishes to her successor, Minister Abdul Karim Sall of Senegal.  SAnews.gov.za

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Hong Kong: Chinese medicine committee meets

The fifth-term Chinese Medicine Development Committee held its first meeting today to discuss the latest progress of various initiatives relating to the development of Chinese medicine.

The meeting was chaired by Secretary for Food & Health Prof Sophia Chan during which relevant government departments and organisations briefed the committee on the initiatives.

They include the preparation for commissioning the Chinese Medicine Hospital, preparatory work for the establishment of the Government Chinese Medicines Testing Institute, the progress of government-subsidised Chinese medicine services, participation of Chinese medicine clinics and training & research centres to combat COVID-19 as well as the progress of the Chinese Medicine Development Fund.

Noting that the Chinese Medicine Hospital and the Government Chinese Medicines Testing Institute will be commissioned in 2025, Prof Chan said the Government will continue its support to the Chinese medicine sector through the fund.

Coupled with the staunch support to Hong Kong from the central government under the Construction Plan for the Chinese Medicine Highlands in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (2020-2025), the Chinese medicine sector of Hong Kong is presented with unprecedented opportunities for further development.

The Government will keep on working closely with the sector to join efforts in promoting the development of Chinese medicine," she added.

The committee noted that the design and construction work of the Chinese Medicine Hospital and the Government Chinese Medicines Testing Institute began in late June. The Food & Health Bureau is working with Baptist University on the preparation for their commissioning.

The committee was briefed on the work progress in relation to the 18 Chinese medicine clinics and training & research centres, including the provision of an annual quota of around 620,000 for government-subsidised outpatient services through them.

It also noted that the fund since its launch in 2019 has rolled out funding schemes to support training, clinic facility improvement, enhancement of proprietary Chinese medicine manufacturing quality and management systems. About 3,000 funding applications have been approved so far.

The bureau is reviewing the fund's overall implementation to further enhance the funding schemes and the utilisation of resources so as to support the Chinese medicine sector in a more effective and targetted manner.

Established in 2013, the Chinese Medicine Development Committee gives advice with a focus on four key areas: the development of Chinese medicine services, personnel training and professional development, scientific research and development, and development of the Chinese medicine drug industry.

This story has been published on: 2021-09-16. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
South Africa: Government funding comes to the aid of small business

Governments funding through the Small Enterprise Finance Agency (SEFA) to a small and developing small businesses, has provided a much needed lifeline for these companies.

For Bizrocket Trade and Projects, the assistance came at a time when it was most needed.

In a recent address to the nation, President Cyril Ramaphosa said that government continues to implement measures to assist households, employees and businesses that have been affected by the pandemic and by public violence incidents that took place in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal in July.

The Silverton, Pretoria based company received R80 000 from government to enable it to continue with its business operations at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic continues to badger the world.

The 100% black owned entity which currently employs five permanent staff members, was established in 2013 by 33-year-old entrepreneur Happy Shabangu.

The company which was formed as a branding, promotions and supply business, was like many others, affected by the lockdown and civil unrest witnessed in the two provinces.

We received R80 000 which was a COVID-19 relief loan from SEFA. This money was used to buy more sewing machines to meet the increased demand of cloth facemasks.

The demand for what we normally do, that is, corporate clothing and school uniforms, dropped dramatically during the hard lockdown and as such we had to look into other opportunities. We started manufacturing products like cloth masks and disposable masks and sanitisers to keep the business afloat, says Shabangu.

As many other companies would attest, COVID-19 also led to constant production interruptions as a result of workers infected by the virus.

This meant we could not meet some deadlines, he said, adding that the unrest experienced in the two provinces led to the companys suppliers shutting down. This meant that the company could not obtain the necessary material for production and fell behind on production, which in turn, resulted in delayed payments from its clients.

Currently the company is looking at securing more sustainable contracts to increase its capacity to deliver more and on time to their clients while also creating more permanent jobs.

The funding injection has led to the company being able to operate machinery for 24-hours in a bid to meet clients demands.

Currently we have five permanent staff members and when we receive more orders, we employ more temporary staff to enable us to meet clients orders. We looking forward to employing more permanent staff members, he says.

Schools, which place orders for school jerseys as well as government departments, which place orders for facemasks, are the companys main clients. The company also does work for private companies, stokvels and social clubs. In the past 14 to 18 months, the company manufactured over 300 000 cloth masks for both government and private sector companies.

Adapting to a changing environment

That changed our line of business a little bit to adapt to COVID-19. That means we have to do something we have not done previously. The manufacturing of face masks, that is the business our government helped [us] to secure. The Department of Small Business came to us with a list of clients, he said.

During a visit to the companys business premises, staff were hard at work to meet pressing deadlines.

Shabangus wife, Thoko, who is also the companys Operations Manager has been with the company since 2016, and cannot imagine working anywhere else.

I dont see myself doing something else other than working here, she said.

The Operations Manager, who learned to operate machinery on the job, also provides training to staff members.

To date, the company has 52 machines of which 40 are used for embroidery purposes.

Access to funding is one of the biggest hurdles for small business in South Africa. In response to this challenge, SEFA continues to provide assistance to build sustainable businesses, through repayable loans.

SEFAs core function is to foster the establishment, development and growth of small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) and co-operatives, and to contribute towards poverty alleviation, job creation and economic growth.

While the company has faced challenges in the past several months, it remains resolute to create more jobs for the community.

During the past few months, we had challenges but with the support we received from our government we are looking to grow the business. The company is committed to the creation of jobs for the community, he says.

To adapt to a changing environment, the company also intends to introduce more technology as a way to increase its manufacturing capacity.

While the country continues to face unemployment challenges that are further compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic, initiatives run by agencies such as the SEFA are making much needed difference in the lives of businesses. - SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2021-09-16. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
RTHK: UN chief says mistrust puts climate talks at risk

United Nations chief Antonio Guterres said a critical meeting on climate change later this year in Scotland is at risk of failure due to mistrust between developed and developing countries and a lack of ambitious goals among some emerging economies.

The UN COP26 conference in Glasgow aims to wring much more ambitious climate action and the money to go with it from participants around the globe. Scientists said last month that global warming is dangerously close to spiralling out of control.

"I believe that we are at risk of not having a success in COP26," Guterres said. "There is still a level of mistrust, between north and south, developed and developing countries, that needs to be overcome."

"We are on the verge of the abyss and when you are on the verge of the abyss, you need to be very careful about what the next step is. And the next step is COP26 in Glasgow," he said.

Guterres and Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson will on Monday host a meeting of world leaders on the sidelines of the annual high-level week of the UN General Assembly in a bid to build the chances of success at the climate conference, being held from October 31 to November 12.

"My objective and the reason why we are convening a meeting on Monday is exactly to build trust, to allow for everybody to understand that we all need to do more," Guterres said.

"We need the developed countries to do more, namely in relation to the support to developing countries. And we need some emerging economies to go an extra mile and be more ambitious in the reduction of air emissions," he said.

Monday's meeting, which will be both virtual and in-person, will be closed to allow for "frank and open discussions" on how to deliver success in Glasgow, said a senior UN official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Guterres played down the impact that the increasingly rancorous relationship between China and the United States  the world's two biggest emitters of greenhouse gases  will have on their cooperation on climate change.

"They are a multilateral issue," said Guterres. "So my appeal to both the United States and China is for each of them to do their part." (Reuters)

This story has been published on: 2021-09-16. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
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Juan Macababbad, vice president of the Union of Peoples' Lawyers in Mindanao, defended the victims of the 2018 Lake Sebu massacre. According to Global Witness, the Philippines ranked third in the world in 2020 for this type of murder with 29 activists killed defending their land.

Davao (AsiaNews)  Another lawyer who defended rights of tribal peoples was killed in Mindanao.

Juan Macababbad, the vice-president of the Union of Peoples' Lawyers in Mindanao (UPLM), was fatally shot in front of his home in Surallah, South Cotabato district.

He becomes the 58th lawyer to be killed since Rodrigo Duterte became President of the Philippines in 2016.

UPLM blamed what it called "the pervading culture of impunity, lack of serious probe and prosecution" of thousands of extrajudicial killings in the country for the murders of these lawyers.

Our colleagues have become main targets, especially those who resist tyranny and defend human rights, said UPLM chairman Antonio Azarcon.

The lawyer murdered yesterday represented the victims of the December 2018 Lake Sebu massacre, in the same district in South Cotabato.

Eight ethnic T'boli and Manobo were killed in an "anti-terrorism" operation in an area where local tribes have been fighting for decades to defend their ancestral lands threatened by the expansion of coffee plantations and mining.

In its latest report on environmentalists killed in the world, Global Witness, an international NGO, raised the alarm on the situation in the Philippines.

With as many as 29 people killed for defending in various ways the rights of local communities over their lands, the Philippines ranked third in the world in 2020 for this type of murder, first in Asia.

A few months ago, the Duterte administration lifted the moratorium on opening new mines in the Philippines.
Bristol Composites Institute at the University of Bristol has appointed two new co-directors, Professor Ole Thomsen and Professor Stephen Hallett, to succeed founding director, Professor Michael Wisnom.

The transition will mark a significant change for the Bristol Composites Institute which launched under Professor Wisnoms leadership as Advanced Composites Centre for Innovation and Science (known as ACCIS) in 2007. The new co-directors will be building on a strong legacy of global research and innovation. Research from Bristol Composites Institute is informed by the needs of our industrial partners and our changing world. For example, weight and cost saving technology from BCI research has been incorporated into Rolls Royces composite fan blade development programme, and award winning spin-outs like iCOMAT are innovating processes and bringing down the cost of lighter, stronger carbon fibre composites.

From renewable energy, to green aviation and medical devices, the applications of composite materials are endless. Recent research successes include; working with the international space station, a 1.5million grant from EPSRC for investigating cellulose based materials, and a 2million grant from the European Research Council to investigate natural neuroactive mechanical metamaterials.

As co-directors Professors Thomsen and Hallett will lead the BCI forwards into a world where the value of composites research and their potential to solve global challenges is becoming increasingly understood.

"We are delighted and honoured to be appointed jointly as directors of BCI. Professor Michael Wisnom has done a truly outstanding job in founding BCI and developing it to its status as a world leading institute for composites research. We wish to thank Michael for his unprecedented devotion and great service in the success story of BCI. We look forward to developing BCI even further, in close collaboration with BCI staff and students, the Faculty and University, and not least our colleagues at the NCC and our industrial partners."

Professor Ole Thomsen is the NCC Chair in Composites Design and Manufacture at the Bristol Composites Institute, University of Bristol and the National Composites Centre. Professor Thomsens main research interests are: design, experimental and computational characterisation of lightweight composite structures.

He has previously held senior positions at the University of Southampton, UK; Aalborg University, Denmark; European Space Agency, European Space Research and Technology Centre, the Netherlands; the University of Delaware, Center for Composite Materials, USA; Technion, Israel. He has been European editor, Composites Part B: Engineering since 2018; and was previously Chairman, Innovation Fund Denmark, Research Council for Technology and Production Sciences 20122014 (equivalent to EPSRC). He was made a Fellow of the Danish Academy of Technical Sciences (equivalent to FREng) 2007 and awarded a Knighthood by Her Royal Majesty Queen Margrethe II of Denmark in 2012.

Professor Stephen Hallett is Professor in Composite Structures at the University of Bristol where he is currently Deputy Director of the Bristol Composites Institute and Director of the Rolls-Royce supported Composites University Technology Centre (UTC). His principal research interests are: Composite failure mechanisms, Computational model for composites mechanical performance and manufacturing processes, Textile Composites, Impact and high rate effects.

He has worked at the University of Bristol since 2000, before which he worked in the automotive industry. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Mechanical Engineering (IMechE) and was awarded their Kenneth Harris James Prize, for best paper on an aerospace subject in 2016. He is Composites Topic editor for Composites and Advanced Materials (since 2019) and on the editorial board for Materials and Design.

Professor Ian Bond, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering said: As a member of the Bristol Composites Institute myself I am profoundly aware of the huge impact Michaels leadership has had on the field, and the positioning of the UK at the forefront of advanced materials science and technology. Our strong and close relationships with our many partners, but especially with the National Composites Centre and Rolls Royce via the UTC were established under Michaels stewardship and his legacy in the field of composites and across the wider research domain cannot be overstated.

Professor Michael Wisnom joined the University of Bristol in 1987 after an already distinguished career in industry, reaching the level of Technical Director, Europe, for SDRC Engineering Services. Over his time at Bristol he has grown the research group in Composites from just 4 faculty members in 1999 to its current 30 academic staff and 200+ research staff and postgraduate students. His work and leadership have placed the University of Bristol at the forefront of international composites research. He continues his role in the Institute as Professor of Aerospace Structures on a part-time basis.
NEWS PROVIDED BY

The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights

Sept. 16, 2021



NEW YORK, Sept. 16, 2021 /Christian Newswire/ -- Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the media's reaction to remarks made by Pope Francis aboard the papal plane:

It is not the Catholic Church that is obsessed with sex, it is the media.

Of the six questions Pope Francis was asked aboard the papal plane on September 15, half were on sex: there were two questions on homosexuality and one on abortion. Yet the pope was not returning from a conference on sexuality and the familyhe was returning from Budapest and Slovakia after addressing issues that had absolutely nothing to do with the media's obsession.

Most media accounts said nothing about the pope's comments on homosexuality, and they gave brief mention to his remarks on abortion. That's because most in the big media strongly disagree with the Catholic Church's teachings on these issues. Therefore, we will tell you what the media will not.

When asked about "the recognition of homosexual marriages," Pope Francis was quite blunt. "Marriage is a sacrament, the Church has no power to change the sacraments as the Lord has instituted them." In reference to civil unions, which are open to many parties, not just homosexuals, he said he understands that "the States have the possibility civilly to support them." What he said next was salient. "But marriage is marriage."

The pope continued with his comments on homosexual marriages. "The Lord is good, he desires the salvation of all, but please, don't make the Church deny its truth," he said. "Many people with a homosexual orientation approach penance, they seek counsel from the priests, the Church helps them, but the sacrament of marriage is something else."

The pope was even more precise when he spoke about abortion.

"It's more than a problem, it's murder, whoever has an abortion kills, no half words. Take any book on embryology for medical students. The third week after conception, all the organs are already there, even the DNA...it is human life, this human life must be respected, this principle is so clear! To those who cannot understand, I would ask this question: is it right to kill a human life to solve a problem? Is it right to hire a hitman to kill a human life? Scientifically it is a human life. Is it right to take it out to solve a problem? That is why the Church is so hard on this issue, because if it accepts this it would be like accepting daily murder."

While the media downplayed the pope's comments on some subjects, they gave much profile to his statement on pro-abortion politicians in the United States. He was asked about the propriety of them receiving Communion.

However, the brief statement that Pope Francis made on this subject lacked the clarity of what he said about homosexual marriage and abortion. Regrettably, this allowed the media to spin his words to suit their politics.

The pope acknowledged that there are Catholics who are "not in the community" and therefore "cannot take Communion." He certainly made plain his preference for priests to address this issue in a pastoral manner, but his comments were anything but precise.

"I am not very familiar with the details of the United States...But if you're close, tender, and give Communion? It's a hypothesis. The pastor knows what to do at all times. But if you go beyond the pastoral dimension of the Church you become a politician, and you can see this in all the non-pastoral condemnations of the Church."

The media were not put off by his rambling response. Instead, they seized upon it to defend their man, Joe Biden.

"Pope: No Place for Politics in Biden Communion Flap." This headline, courtesy of the Associated Press, was picked up by literally dozens of media outlets across the nation. But is it accurate? At best, it was a stretch; at worst, it was dishonest. However, the media know that many people only read the headline, so they have a vested interest in spinning things their way. In short, the pope's ambiguous remarks were quickly given clarity by his fans in the media.

The media do not want American bishops to criticize, much less sanction, pro-abortion Catholics such as President Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. They know that if their favorite politicians are tagged as Catholic phonies, it will hurt their ideological agenda. So they jump at every chance to protect them, even if it means twisting the pope's words. It's really not hard to figure out.

We have seen this game played many times before. When the pope says something the media don't like, such as on homosexual marriage and abortion, they either don't report it or they give it short shrift. But when he says something they likeor when his imprecise language gives them an opening to interpret things their waythey give it much attention.

The media have been using Pope Francis from the beginning of his pontificate. He doesn't deserve this treatment from anyone, especially not from those who identify as objective journalists.
President holds online talks with Japanese Prime Minister

President Nguyen Xuan Phuc expressed his hope that the Vietnamese and Japanese economies will be connected more effectively, in combination with green, digital transformation during his online talks with Japanese Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide on September 15.













President Nguyen Xuan Phuc holds online talks with Japanese Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide on September 15 (Photo: VNA)

During his online talks with Japanese Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide, Phuc rejoiced at the strong, comprehensive development of the Vietnam-Japan extensive strategic partnership with high political trust.



He praised Sugas contributions to the bilateral ties, as well as his good sentiments towards the land and people of Vietnam, saying the Japanese PM had selected Vietnam for his first overseas trip after taking office last October.



Phuc thanked the Japanese government and people for their support to Vietnam in the pandemic fight, with the latest donation batch of 400,000 vaccine doses announced recently, raising Japans total vaccine donations to Vietnam to 3.58 million doses.



He also used the occasion to thank Japan for assisting nearly 450,000 Vietnamese in the host country, and called for more Japanese support in the pandemic combat.



Sharing difficulties to Japanese firms, Phuc said Vietnam will continue to accompany them, remove obstacles to their production and business, and maintain supply chains.



He congratulated Japan on its successful organisation of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, which have become a symbol of solidarity amid COVID-19.



For his part, Suga highlighted Phucs attention to the Vietnam-Japan friendship over the past time, and recalled the Vietnamese leaders warm reception during his trip last year.



Japan will further assist Vietnam in the pandemic fight, he affirmed, expressing his thanks to the Vietnamese side for vaccinating Japanese citizens in the country, and its support to Japanese enterprises.



Suga also praised the Vietnamese sport delegations participation in the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, contributing to the success of the events./
Four Vietnamese digital transformation projects receive Australian funding

The Australian Government has announced a grant of nearly 1.4 million AUD (around 1 million USD) for four Vietnamese high-tech application projects in the field of digital transformation, through the Aus4Innovation Programme.









Four Vietnamese digital transformation projects receive Australian funding (Source: vneconomy.vn)



The funding is made within the framework of the Innovation Partnership Grants under the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trades Aus4Innovation Programme in cooperation with the Ministry of Science and Technology of Vietnam.



The projects were selected from nearly 70 initiatives in the third round of the Aus4Innovation Partnership Grants, which is themed Enhancing Digital Transformation.



They are projects of augmented reality to improve access to healthcare in remote areas; Smart Eye to improve sugar industry productivity; AI/IoT Technology to enhance search and rescue capacity; and AI-powered dashboard for environment ecosystem management.



Congratulating the winners, Robyn Mudie, Australian Ambassador to Vietnam expressed delight to continue supporting initiatives that address Vietnams most pressing socioeconomic growth challenges.



Vice Minister Bui The Duy from the Ministry of Science and Technology said that amid COVID-19 situation, the projects selected for funding are not only practical regarding the application of advanced technologies in areas of critical need in Vietnam, they are also very meaningful in todays context.



Partnership Grants are an important part of the AUD13.5 million (9.96 million USD) Aus4Innovation Program in the 2018-2022 period. In 2019 and 2020, eight projects were selected for funding./
Germany donates over 852,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccines to Vietnam

Germany has sent over 852,480 doses of the Astra Zeneca vaccine to aid Vietnam in the fight against Covid-19.



852,480 doses of Astra Zeneca arrive in Vietnam





The vaccine arrived in Vietnam on September 16 via the COVAX Facility and collaboration from UNICEF and WHO.



German Ambassador to Vietnam Guido Hildner said that Germany stood beside Vietnam in the fight against Covid-19. No one would be safe until everyone was safe and that was why Germany and the EU support a fair and transparent vaccine roll-out programme via COVAX Facility.



Kidong Park, the World Health Organisation (WHO) Representative to Vietnam expressed gratitude to Germany amid the pandemic. He also showed support for the policy to prioritise frontline workers, the elderly and people with underlying conditions.



With the newest donation from Germany, Vietnam has now received a total of 12,578,110 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine via the COVAX Facility.



On September 3, Germany also gave 2.5 million doses of AstraZeneca to Vietnam and promised to give 75 ventilators, 14 monitors and 20,000 oxygen meters.



The COVAX Facility is the pillar of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, which is a global collaboration to accelerate development, production, and equitable access to vaccines.
Chinese FM meets S.Korean president, wraps up four-nation visit

Global Times) 08:24, September 16, 2021

Wang Yi's Asia trip appeases neighbors amid US pressure

In the final stop of his four-nation Asia trip, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Wednesday, with both sides agreeing to boost ties, and Moon called on China to continue to play a constructive role in the Korean Peninsula issue.

Observers said that Wang Yi's tour, which took him to China's four neighboring countries - Vietnam, Cambodia, Singapore and South Korea, set a ballast stone for regional peace and economic prosperity, amid the chaos brought by the US.

Moon said South Korea attaches great importance to its relationship with China. Despite the pandemic challenge, South Korea and China have maintained close high-level communication, and their economic and trade cooperation has grown, setting a good example for international cooperation against the epidemic.

Moon said South Korea hopes China will continue to play a constructive role in maintaining peace and contributing to the realization of the denuclearization of the Peninsula.

South Korea hopes to maintain the momentum of high-level exchanges with China, give full play to the role of the committee for future development of China-South Korea relations, expand people-to-people and cultural exchanges, and push for more fruitful cooperation in the economic sector, trade and environmental protection. It also supports China in hosting the Beijing Winter Olympics, Moon said.

For his part, Wang said that China and South Korea are inseparable neighbors, as well as mutually beneficial and win-win partners.

Under the strategic guidance of the leaders of the two countries, the China-South Korea relations have maintained a sound momentum of development, and the friendship has been further deepened through joint efforts to fight the pandemic, Wang said.

Wang said that China firmly supports the efforts of two Koreas to overcome difficulties, remove interference and improve relations.

Wang also held talks with South Korean Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong in Seoul on Wednesday, and discussed the Korean Peninsula issue, Yonhap News Agency reported Wednesday.

The importance of China for South Korea is evident, as China is the largest market for South Korea whose trade with China exceeds that with the US and Japan. Maintaining peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula is an essential cornerstone for regional prosperity, also the common interests for both countries, Dong Xiangrong, a senior research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

For China, a stable diplomatic environment in its neighborhood is crucial, given the US military presence in South Korea at the current US-China competition in many areas, Dong noted. "Though South Korea is an ally of the US, its national interests do not always coincide with those of the US. This was reflected in South Korea's effort to keep a balance between its ally US and its strategic partner China in a bid to earn best interests."

"South Korea gradually realized that China is the anchor for regional peace while the US brought more instability and risks," Lu Chao, a fellow at the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.

Wang's visit to South Korea yielded the desired results, Lu pointed out, as South Korea has not publicly taken sides despite recent US pressure on Seoul.

"South Korea is facing a general election in 2022, and blindly picking sides will greatly increase the uncertainty of the election. The problems the country is facing include the epidemic and the sluggish economic development. If China and South Korea can reach a certain consensus in supporting South Korea to overcome the difficulties, it will help Moon to stabilize the political situation," Zheng Jiyong, director of the Center for Korean Studies at Fudan University, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

South Korea is Wang's last stop of a four-nation Asia tour after Vietnam, Cambodia, and Singapore.

Coming about two weeks after US Vice President Kamala Harris' trip to the region that sought to pit countries against China, Wang's trip showed that China and the neighboring countries are aiming to work together to strengthen diplomatic relations and guard against the interference and instigation from outside forces, experts noted.

The four-nation tour achieved considerable results and stabilized the surrounding geopolitics despite strong pressure from the US, as more countries have seen the practical benefits of closer ties with China in terms of trade, the pandemic fight, regional peace and stability, Zheng said. "While the US uses the vaccines and other anti-epidemic assistance as 'bargaining chips' to force other countries and regions to pick sides, China provides anti-epidemic support generously. The sharp contrast also makes more countries see China's responsibility as a major regional power."

"The US fans the flames in China's neighborhood while China talking about mutual benefits with its neighbors. What a sharp contrast!" Lu said.

(Web editor: Zhong Wenxing, Liang Jun)
Afghans long for better life as Taliban government manages to run country with calls for international aid

Xinhua) 08:31, September 16, 2021

An Afghan man drinks tea in Kandahar city, southern Afghanistan, Sept. 14, 2021. (Photo by Sanaullah Seiam/Xinhua)

KABUL, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- While the security situation in Afghanistan has remained stable since the Taliban takeover in mid-August, the Central Asian country is now facing economic and humanitarian challenges, with its people longing for better life and the Taliban new government calling for international assistance.

"WAR OVER"

There has been no major security incident or armed clashes since Aug. 15 when Taliban took over 33 of the country's 34 provinces, except a deadly suicide bomb blast and ensuing shooting outside the Kabul International Airport, which killed over 170 Afghan civilians and 13 U.S. soldiers, and wounded nearly 200 others.

On Sept. 6, the Taliban announced that its fighters had completely captured Panjshir, the only province that had remained out of Taliban's control, days after sporadic clashes were reported in the mountainous province.

There were no civilian casualties during the fighting in Panjshir, Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said, adding that electricity and internet service would resume in the province soon.

No major clashes have been reported in Panjshir since then, although the so-called National Resistance Front of Afghanistan led by Ahmad Massoud, the son of former anti-Taliban leader Ahmad Shah Massoud, has denied the Taliban's claim of capturing Panjshir.

"The war is over, and insecurity and fighting are not a concern among the Afghans anymore," Mujahid said.

Afghanistan would soon have a regular army to defend the country, Taliban's army chief of staff Qari Fasihuddin said Wednesday.

"Afghanistan would have a regular, disciplined and strong army in near future to defend and protect the country and consultations in this field continue," Fasihuddin said at a gathering in Kabul, adding members of the proposed army would be well-trained and disciplined to defend and protect Afghanistan.

Enamullah Samangani from the Taliban cultural commission said that some police officers from the former administration will soon return to work under the Taliban authorities for restoring order in Kabul and other big cities.

The Taliban military forces will quit cities, he told the local TV channel TOLO news Wednesday.

"Taliban militants have no high presence in Kabul ... security and safety in city is fine, all car theft groups, street robbers and criminal gangs disappeared," Kabul resident Mohammad Yama, 28, told Xinhua Tuesday.

ECONOMIC WOES

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has warned that 97 percent of Afghans could fall below the poverty line by mid-2022 unless the country's political and economic challenges are addressed promptly.

According to a UNDP report recently released, the latest developments and uncertainties have severely affected people's life in the country.

Shops, markets and business hubs reopened late last month. Although no shortage of food, medicines or daily necessities has hit the capital Kabul and other provinces, many people cannot afford to buy food and essential items for their daily life.

In recent days, government offices in Kabul and the country's 34 provinces partially resumed operations but the banking service has not yet returned to normal, with thousands of customers waiting in long lines to withdraw their savings.

"The reports of freezing of Afghanistan's central bank assets by the United States as well as the announced halt of funds by the World Bank have added to our concerns," Mohammad Mansour from northern Kunduz province told Xinhua.

About 5,000 small factories in industrial parks across the country still remained closed due in part to lack of resources.

On Aug. 28, the Afghan central bank issued an order to all banks setting a weekly limit of withdrawals of 200 U.S. dollars or 20,000 afghani for a customer.

WOMEN'S CONCERNS

On Sept. 7, The Taliban leadership announced the formation of a caretaker government led by acting Prime Minister Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund.

Several ministries of the interim government have urged their previous employees to return to work before Sept. 17, but with the female staff waiting for further notice. Female doctors and women working in the health ministry and female teachers at girls' primary schools have already returned to their work.

Karima Malikzada, a female government employee from the eastern Logar province, said, "the new government should ... allow men and women to rejoin their offices and their salaries must be paid, we have no other resources to afford daily life."

She told Xinhua that she thought the Afghan people would trust the Taliban if the latter could honor its promises for women, many of whom have to work to support their children.

On Sunday, Abdul Baqi Haqqani, acting minister of higher education, said that female students can attend higher education institutions and universities but in gender-separated classes.

"All government-run universities will reopen soon, possibly within a week. Higher education authorities are working on regulations as students will return to their classes," Haqqani told reporters.

The acting minister noted that the Islamic dress was necessary for the female students to attend classes.

HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently said the possibility of a complete economic collapse in Afghanistan was "serious" and highlighted an urgent need for funding support at a high-level ministerial meeting on Afghanistan's humanitarian situation in Geneva on Monday.

On Tuesday, the UN appealed to countries that together pledged 1.2 billion U.S. dollars in relief for Afghanistan to take action quickly.

Stephane Dujarric, chief spokesperson for Guterres, said the pledges in humanitarian and development aid announced at the Monday meeting included funding for the flash appeal for Afghanistan and a regional response.

"The United Nations and humanitarian partners, including national and international nongovernmental organizations, can move quickly to turn funds into food, health care and protection for Afghan children, women and men in need," Dujarric added.

A convoy with aid from the UN refugee agency UNHCR reached the eastern Nangarhar province, the spokesperson said. "This is the second convoy of relief items that have entered Afghanistan through the Torkham Border Crossing since Aug. 15."

Seasonal food assistance from the World Food Programme (WFP) continues with one month's worth of food for previously assessed vulnerable families, he said.

On Tuesday, in response, Amir Khan Muttaqi, acting foreign minister of the new Taliban government, said, "We are thankful for recent announcement of 1 billion U.S. dollars pledged in Geneva."

"The people of Afghanistan still need assistance and cooperation from the world," Muttaqi told reporters while calling on countries to continue "assisting Afghans in fields of education, health, refugees, and the struggle against the drought" as before without associating "humanitarian issues with the political issues."

He also urged foreign aid workers to return to help the country, saying, "Security and safety will be ensured for all aid workers."

(Web editor: Xia Peiyao, Liang Jun)
China, S. Korea vow to boost bilateral ties

Xinhua) 08:54, September 16, 2021

South Korean President Moon Jae-in (R) meets with visiting Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Seoul, South Korea, Sept. 15, 2021. (South Korea Presidential Blue House/Handout via Xinhua)

SEOUL, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- South Korean President Moon Jae-in and visiting Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi agreed on Wednesday to promote bilateral ties and strengthen cooperation.

During the meeting with Wang, Moon said that South Korea is ready to work with China to maintain the momentum of high-level exchanges, expand people-to-people exchanges and push for more fruitful cooperation in economy, trade and environmental protection.

South Korea supports China in hosting the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games and appreciates China's contribution to maintaining peace on the Korean Peninsula, Moon said, hoping that China will continue to play a constructive role in the Korean Peninsula issue.

For his part, Wang said the two sides should take the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties as an opportunity to push for greater development of bilateral relations.

On the same day, Wang also met with South Korean Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong, with both sides agreeing to establish a regular communication mechanism between foreign ministers of the two countries.

The two sides also agreed to hold a new round of high-level strategic dialogue between foreign ministries of the two countries and China-South Korea "2+2" dialogue on diplomacy and security as soon as possible.

During their meeting, Wang said that since the establishment of diplomatic relations nearly 30 years ago, China-South Korea relations have reached new heights and become more mature and stable.

The two countries have not only achieved mutual benefit and win-win results at the bilateral level, but also played a role as a guardian of peace and stability and facilitator for development and prosperity in international and regional affairs, he added.

In the face of a major shift in the international landscape, the two countries should further establish a sense of community, continue to expand common interests and tap the potential of cooperation, so as to promote the upgrading of bilateral relations, Wang said.

Wang said that China, which opposes politicizing the COVID-19 origins tracing and instrumentalizing the origins tracing work, is ready to work with South Korea to deepen cooperation in fighting the pandemic.

China is willing to speed up the alignment of development strategies of the two countries, accelerate the process of second-phrase negotiations on China-South Korea free trade agreement, and make the China-South Korea Year of Cultural Exchanges a success, he added.

Wang said that China and South Korea could strengthen cooperation on global issues such as climate change under multilateral frameworks including the United Nations, jointly safeguard the security and stability of regional and global industrial chains and supply chains, and facilitate the entry into force of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership free trade agreement as scheduled.

For his part, Chung hoped that the two sides will continue to strengthen high-level interactions, promote anti-epidemic cooperation, deepen cooperation in artificial intelligence, semiconductors and new materials, so as to inject new impetus into the development of bilateral relations.

South Korea supports carrying out global virus origin tracing in an open and transparent manner, and disagrees with politicizing origins tracing, Chung said.

The two sides also had in-depth exchanges on international and regional issues of common concern.

During his visit, Wang also met with Lim Chae-jung, chairman of the South Korean side of the committee for future development of China-South Korea relations.

(Web editor: Xia Peiyao, Liang Jun)
Xi sends congratulatory letter to folk culture, arts festival

Xinhua) 09:19, September 16, 2021

Photo taken on April 3, 2021 shows blooming flowers on Xiangshuihu section of the Great Wall in Huairou District, Beijing, capital of China. (Photo by Bu Xiangdong/Xinhua)

BEIJING, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory letter to The Belt And Road - The Great Wall International Folk Culture and Arts Festival, which opened Wednesday in Langfang City of north China's Hebei Province.

Civilizations become richer and more colorful through exchanges, Xi said in the letter.

Noting that joint efforts from all parties have resulted in positive progress in building the Belt and Road, Xi said improvements have been made in people's well-being of participating countries as well as interaction and dialogue among their civilizations.

The festival will help promote the value of the Silk Road and the Great Wall as world cultural heritages, Xi said, adding that it also serves as a stage for participating countries' folk culture and arts, a bridge for people-to-people exchanges and dialogue among them, and a link for communication and mutual learning among different civilizations.

Adhering to equality, mutual learning, dialogue and mutual accommodation among civilizations, China is willing to work with other countries to jointly build the Belt and Road, and to make greater contribution to the progress of human civilization, Xi said.

(Web editor: Xia Peiyao, Liang Jun)
Schools in Cambodia reopen gradually after majority inoculated with Chinese vaccines

Xinhua) 09:23, September 16, 2021

Students wearing face masks practice social distancing in class at the Preah Sisowath High School in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Sept. 15, 2021. Secondary and high schools in Cambodia reopened gradually on Wednesday after the majority of the population in the Southeast Asian nation have been vaccinated against COVID-19. (Photo by Sovannara/Xinhua)

PHNOM PENH, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- Secondary and high schools in Cambodia reopened gradually on Wednesday after the majority of the population in the Southeast Asian nation have been vaccinated against COVID-19.

At the Preah Sisowath High School in capital Phnom Penh, students had properly worn facemasks while entering the school and had their body temperatures checked and hands sanitized with alcohol at the entrance.

"We have strictly abided by the standard operating procedures (SOPs) and the number of students in a classroom is limited to a maximum of 15," Sam Kamsann, vice principal of the Preah Sisowath High School, told Xinhua.

"To maintain social distancing, students are also allowed to sit at least 1.5 meters from each other in the classroom," he added.

Dressed in school uniform, white shirt and blue skirt, and wearing a facemask properly, Khun Sopheak, a ninth-grade student at the Preah Sisowath High School, said she was delighted to go back to school after a closure for almost seven months due to the COVID-19.

"I feel relieved now after returning to in-person classes," the 15-year-old girl told Xinhua. "It's stressful to learn online from home because the learning atmosphere is not the same as sitting in a classroom with teachers and classmates."

"Moreover, the Internet is pretty laggy and when it freezes, we miss out on chunks of conversation," she added.

Sopheak said that she had been fully vaccinated with two doses of China's Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine.

"I'm quite confident in the safety, quality and efficacy of the Sinovac vaccine in protecting my life from the COVID-19," she said.

With its total population of 16 million, Cambodia launched a COVID-19 vaccination drive for 10 million adults in February and for nearly 2 million adolescents aged from 12 to under 18 in August.

To date, 9.77 million adults and 1.71 million adolescents had received their first vaccine dose, totally accounting for 71.8 percent of the kingdom's population, according to the Ministry of Health (MoH).

Almost all of the COVID-19 vaccines used in the country's immunization campaigns are China's Sinovac and Sinopharm.

"Without support from China, we would definitely not have had enough vaccines for our people," Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen said recently, adding that Cambodia appreciates China's assistance in helping the kingdom combat the COVID-19 outbreak.

Education Minister Hang Chuon Naron said in a statement on Monday that teachers and students must be vaccinated and must show their vaccination cards before entering schools.

"Unvaccinated educators and students should not be allowed to enter the school campuses, but they can continue teaching and learning online," he said.

The minister added that a classroom or a school will be temporarily closed if there is a transmission, and a report must be made to relevant authorities for immediate action.

Li Ailan, representative of the World Health Organization (WHO) to Cambodia, welcomed the gradual reopening of the schools, saying that it was timely and wise.

"Evidence shows that young children and schools are not major drivers of the COVID-19 transmission globally, including in Cambodia," she told Xinhua.

"While children can get infected from the virus, they are less likely to develop severe disease or die compared with adults, especially compared with the elderly," she added.

Li said the negative impacts of prolonged school closures would be huge, including losses in physical activity, mental health and learning, as well as an additional burden to working parents.

"While the risk of outbreaks in schools is not zero, it can be managed. Having a COVID-19 response in place for schools is essential so that any COVID-19 cases are detected and responded to quickly to prevent further spread," she said.

Foroogh Foyouzat, representative of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Cambodia, attributed the school reopening to the incredible progress the government has made in rolling out COVID-19 vaccinations.

"The biggest risk of all would be children not returning to school soon. Global evidence shows that the longer children remain out of school, the less likely they are to go back," she told Xinhua.

"They may feel that they have fallen too far behind to ever catch up, or their families may have become too reliant on extra income children provide through working. Every day we delay, these obstacles grow," she said.

Foyouzat suggested that schools in areas with low infection rates be opened first, with limited classroom sizes and a strong focus on hygiene and safety measures that have been proven to prevent most infections.

(Web editor: Xia Peiyao, Liang Jun)
China to further improve medical insurance system

Xinhua) 09:27, September 16, 2021

BEIJING, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- China will further improve its medical insurance system during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025) to better meet people's demands for medical services and drugs, according to a State Council executive meeting held on Wednesday.

The meeting, chaired by Premier Li Keqiang, adopted a plan for national medical security during the period.

Acknowledging the achievements made since the country advanced the new round of medical reform, including putting in place the world's largest basic medical insurance network covering the entire population, the meeting stressed improving the multi-tiered medical insurance system.

Support policies for medical insurance will be refined in a category-based manner, it said.

The serious illness insurance scheme will better dovetail with the basic medical insurance schemes to improve insurance benefits, according to the meeting, which also underscored improving the major disease relief mechanism for disadvantaged groups.

A mechanism will be improved where treatment is provided before the medical bills are paid in case of major epidemics, and policy measures for maternity insurance will be improved, according to the meeting.

Development of the tiered diagnosis and treatment system and medical consortiums will be advanced, and eligible medical institutions at the primary level will be listed as designated medical insurance institutions to improve medical services at the primary level, according to the meeting.

Centralized drug bulk-buying will continue to be implemented, and drugs with high clinical value and notable benefits for patients will be made reimbursable under the basic medical insurance schemes in a timely manner, the meeting added.

The meeting also underlined improving services of medical insurance handling and intensifying the oversight of medical insurance funds.

(Web editor: Xia Peiyao, Liang Jun)
U.S. attempts to make issue out of Taiwan futile: mainland spokesperson

Xinhua) 09:53, September 16, 2021

BEIJING, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- U.S. attempts to make an issue out of Taiwan so as to contain China would be futile, said a Chinese mainland spokesperson Wednesday, criticizing the United States' cold-war mentality and obsession with a zero-sum game.

Zhu Fenglian, spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, made the remarks in response to recent U.S. behaviors on the Taiwan question.

She noted that back in the 1970s when the United States established diplomatic ties with China, it made a solemn political pledge to maintain only cultural, business and other non-official relations with Taiwan.

There is only one China in the world and Taiwan is a part of China, said the spokesperson, adding that the one-China principle is a consensus shared by the international community and the political foundation of China-U.S. relations.

Given the U.S. reiteration of no intention to shift from the one-China policy, it should abide by the one-China principle and stipulations of the three China-U.S. joint communiques, live up to the promises it has made to China, and stop sending wrong signals to secessionist forces on the island, said Zhu.

The spokesperson warned Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authority that their collusion with external forces cannot change the historical and legal fact that Taiwan is part of China, neither can they stop the process of reunification.

She expressed opposition against the development of official ties or the establishment of official entities between China's Taiwan region and countries that have diplomatic relations with China.

She also appreciated moves by an increasing number of countries and organizations in the world to respect the one-China principle.

(Web editor: Xia Peiyao, Liang Jun)
Stricter rules help stabilize home prices

China Daily) 09:55, September 16, 2021

Workers construct a property project in Nantong, Jiangsu province. XU JINGBAI/FOR CHINA DAILY

Rises slow in August; tighter credit policies at local level reduce deals

China's home prices increased in August but at a slower pace as regulatory measures continue to rein in and stabilize the disorderly market. So, major cities are expected to see limited room for growth in home prices, industry experts said.

In August, home prices in 70 Chinese major cities either grew marginally or edged down, both in year-on-year and month-on-month terms, suggesting the long-term nature of tightening rules continues to have the desired effect at local levels, said Sheng Guoqing, chief statistician with the National Bureau of Statistics.

Last month, new home prices in the 70 major cities tracked by the NBS grew 0.2 percent month-on-month and 3.7 percent year-on-year. Some 46 cities reported higher new home prices, down from 51 cities in July.

Top-tier cities' new home prices remained resilient with a 0.3 percent increase on average from the previous month. Shenzhen reported the largest month-on-month price increase of 1 percent, followed by Shanghai (0.4 percent) and Beijing (0.2 percent). But, in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, home prices decreased by 0.1 percent.

Compared to a year ago, the four benchmark cities' new home prices grew at a slower pace of 5.7 percent on average. It was 0.3 percentage point less than that of the previous month, according to the NBS.

The 31 second-tier cities, mostly provincial capitals, rose 0.2 percent month-on-month, and 4.4 percent year-on-year, while the figures stood flat and 2.8 percent, respectively, for the 35 third-tier cities.

Entering the third quarter, there appeared apparent signs of prices cooling. Local governments' tighter credit policies, in particular, led to fewer transactions that in turn led to a decrease in home prices, said Yan Yuejin, director of Shanghai-based E-house China Research and Development Institution.

In third-tier cities, new home prices ended a 17-month period of growth in August although no tighter home purchase regulations were announced.

Likewise, cities like Changde and Yueyang in Hunan province, Taiyuan in Shanxi province, Dali in Yunnan province, and Beihai in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region reported comparatively larger year-on-year declines, showing a need for market order amid mounting pressure for destocking, Yan said.

In August, Yueyang's local bureau of housing and construction issued a notice requiring that new home prices cannot be higher than the selling price the developer has filed with local housing authorities, nor 15 percent lower. Similar measures were taken in at least seven third- and fourth-tier cities.

Li Yujia, chief analyst at the provincial residential policy research center of Guangdong, said residential developers' marketing and promotional activities do not reflect a spirit of fair play. Market dynamics could get skewed when low-quality projects sell more on extensive promotions than high-quality properties offering smaller discounts.

First-tier cities continued to see their pre-owned home prices pare gains by 0.2 percent compared with the previous month. Guangzhou reported the largest month-on-month increase of 0.5 percent in transaction prices among the four mega cities, followed by Beijing (0.4 percent) and Shanghai (0.2 percent). Shenzhen posted a negative growth rate of0.4 percent for the fourth successive month.

Pre-owned home prices in the 31 second-tier cities stayed unchanged from a month ago, and 3.2 percent year-on-year. The 35 third-tier cities saw their pre-owned home prices edge down 0.1 percent from the previous month, but rose 1.9 percent year-on-year.

"Apart from February 2020 when COVID-19 hit severely, this is the first time since 2016 that nearly half of China's major cities saw their pre-owned home prices drop, showing the new tighter regulations have had the desired effect," said Zhang Dawei, chief analyst at Centaline Property Agency Ltd.

Tighter rules are expected to further stabilize the home market, including first-tier cities that led the home price rise in the first half of this year, said Zhang.

Despite the overall home market showing signs of returning stability, the plight of cash-strapped, debt-laden China Evergrande Group, a prominent property company, has drawn public attention. Fu Linghui, an NBS spokesman, said on Wednesday some large-sized property companies are encountering some operational difficulties, and the impact on the real estate industry needs to be monitored.

"Overall, the current macro control measures have eliminated irrational demand, and secured people's normal demand for buying homes. With the consistent improvement of the Chinese property system, the real estate market would welcome long-term steady development," said Fu.

(Web editor: Zhong Wenxing, Liang Jun)
Senior Chinese diplomat urges U.S. to correct wrong China policies

Xinhua) 10:09, September 16, 2021

Yang Jiechi, a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), also director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee, meets via video link with representatives of the U.S. Democratic and Republican parties who attend the 12th China-U.S. Political Party Leaders Dialogue in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 15, 2021. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu)

BEIJING, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- Yang Jiechi, a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), has urged the United States to rectify its wrong China policies and work with China in bringing ties back to the right track as soon as possible.

Yang made the remarks Wednesday while meeting via video link with representatives of the U.S. Democratic and Republican parties who attended the 12th China-U.S. Political Party Leaders Dialogue.

Yang, also director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee, said Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sept. 10 took a phone call from his U.S. counterpart, Joseph R. Biden, and the two leaders held candid, in-depth and broad strategic communication and exchanges on bilateral relations and relevant issues of shared interest.

China hopes that the U.S. government will correct its wrong China policies, work with China to take positive actions to implement the important consensus reached by the two heads of state and bring bilateral relations back to the right track of stable development as soon as possible, Yang said.

Talks between political parties of China and the United States are very beneficial to enhancing mutual understanding and deepening dialogue and cooperation. It is hoped that people of insight from both parties and all walks of life in the United States will continue to play an active role in the development of bilateral relations, Yang added.

The U.S. representatives said this year's dialogue and exchanges between the political parties of the two countries were candid and in-depth. The relationship between the United States and China is the most important bilateral relationship in the world. People of the two countries and the rest of the world have long benefited from exchanges and cooperation between the countries. Global challenges such as climate change, the fight against COVID-19 and economic recovery call for greater U.S.-China cooperation.

The two sides should make efforts to deepen communication, continuously expand cooperation in economy, trade, culture and other fields, and jointly promote the positive development of relations, the U.S. representatives added.

(Web editor: Xia Peiyao, Liang Jun)
U.S. origin-tracing of COVID-19 a dead end, says Chinese envoy

Xinhua) 10:14, September 16, 2021

A medical worker operates at a "Falcon" air-inflated testing lab for COVID-19 nucleic acid testing at Yangzhou International Exhibition Center in Yangzhou, east China's Jiangsu Province, Aug. 14, 2021. (Xinhua/Li Bo)

The Chinese ambassador to Indonesia said that without providing any evidence, the United States has "cooked up one story after another to defame and accuse China," and to shirk responsibility for its failure in fighting the pandemic.

JAKARTA, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. intelligence community's origin-tracing investigation report goes against science and won't yield any results, Chinese Ambassador to Indonesia Xiao Qian wrote in a recent editorial in the Jakarta Post.

He referred to the report on the origins of COVID-19 after a 90-day closed-door investigation released by the U.S. intelligence community as "nothing but a complete political farce."

Xiao mentioned that without providing any evidence, the United States has "cooked up one story after another to defame and accuse China," and to shirk responsibility for its failure in fighting the pandemic.

As for origin-tracing, "it is actually the U.S. that is not being transparent, responsible and cooperative on this issue," said Xiao.

"The timeline of the outbreak in the U.S. has been backdated several times," the ambassador wrote, adding that "Besides, the international community has long raised concerns over safety issues and illegal, non-transparent and unsafe practices at Fort Detrick, and coronavirus and genetic modification experiments by the Baric team at the University of North Carolina."

Xiao also commented that the U.S. attempts to politicize origin-tracing have found no support and have met widespread opposition from the international community.

He believes that politicizing origin-tracing will lead nowhere. As the pandemic is still spreading around the world, Xiao wrote, China is willing to continue working with Indonesia to bring the origin-tracing work back to the right track of scientific cooperation, so as to jointly contribute to the ultimate victory of mankind over the pandemic.

(Web editor: Xia Peiyao, Liang Jun)
Chinese Sinopharm vaccines to boost Jamaica's vaccination drive: medical officer

Xinhua) 11:10, September 16, 2021

MEXICO CITY, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- Jamaica is expected to receive doses of the Chinese-made Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine before the end of the year, according to the island's Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Dr. Jacquiline Bisasor-McKenzie.

Speaking during an online event on the pandemic hosted by the Health and Wellness Ministry late last week, Bisasor-McKenzie said the Sinopharm vaccine should be among the approximately 1 million doses of vaccines expected by November.

"Our supply chain, therefore, is pretty good for the rest of the year," Bisasor-McKenzie was quoted by local website Loop News as saying.

Members of the Chinese community in Jamaica made calls earlier this year for the Sinopharm vaccine, which has already been administered to citizens in several other Caribbean countries, including Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana, the news website reported.

Jamaicans have so far been receiving the AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson vaccines.

(Web editor: Xia Peiyao, Liang Jun)
China calls on EU to stop sending wrong messages on issues concerning China's sovereignty

Xinhua) 13:18, September 16, 2021

BRUSSELS, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- China on Wednesday called on the European Union (EU) to stop sending wrong messages on issues concerning China's sovereignty, after Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa accused Beijing for its actions including the "expelling" of the Lithuanian ambassador.

On Aug. 10, Chinese Foreign Ministry announced the decision to recall its ambassador to Lithuania and demanded the Lithuanian government withdraw its ambassador to China, in reaction to the Lithuanian government's decision to allow the Taiwan authorities to open a "representative office" under the name of "Taiwan."

According to media reports, Jansa, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU, sent a letter to leaders of other EU member states on Sept. 13, claiming that China's actions including "expelling" the Lithuanian ambassador from China will have an impact on overall EU-China relations, and calling on member states to show solidarity with Lithuania to not let China "threaten" any of them.

Jansa also said concrete steps will be discussed during the informal leaders' dinner on Oct. 5.

"I have taken note of relevant reports and express my great concern," said a spokesperson for the Chinese Mission to the EU.

The spokesperson pointed out that the crux of this matter is the Lithuanian government's violation of the one-China principle and provocations that undermine China's sovereignty and territorial integrity.

"China's response to Lithuania's wrong actions is justified and legitimate," said the spokesperson. "The whole thing is clear. It has nothing to do with the size of the country."

The one-China principle, the envoy said, is a universally recognized norm in international relations and an international consensus. It is the political basis for China to develop relations with countries and organizations, including the EU and its member states, the spokesperson added.

While repeatedly emphasizing its commitment to the one-China policy, the EU should urge member states to correct their mistakes and stop sending wrong messages on issues concerning China's sovereignty and territorial integrity, said the spokesperson.

"China will not threaten anyone, nor will we accept anyone's threat or allow anyone to harm China's core interests at will," emphasized the Chinese envoy.

(Web editor: Xia Peiyao, Hongyu)
Chinas new-generation migrant workers keen to reap the rewards of becoming computer programmers

People's Daily Online) 14:17, September 16, 2021

China's new generation of migrant workers has an enhanced awareness of lifelong learning and an improved level of education, as indicated in a recently released report, adding that they preferred job opportunities with a focus on software and information technology.

Photo shows programmers in a company in a software park in south Chinas Hainan province. (Xinhua/Guo Cheng)

The report entitled Monitoring Report on the New Generation of Migrant Workers in Beijing in 2020, released by the National Bureau of Statistics, explained that migrant workers in the city included those who were born after the 1980s, were above the age of 16, and engaged in the non-agricultural sector, but possessed a registered permanent residence identity in another locality.

The proportion of this group that comprised young men reached 50.1 percent of the total number of migrant workers, according to the report.

One particularly interesting fact highlighted by the report is that the proportion of new-generation migrant workers engaged in information transmission, software and information technology services exceeded 7.9 percent, an increase of 3.7 percentage points over the previous year.

Zhang Shuai, a 26-year-old programmer born and raised in a small village in north Chinas Shanxi, has been employed at a medium-sized information technology company in Beijing for two years. As for the reason why he chose to become a programmer, Zhang disclosed that he was enticed by the high pay of this profession.

A monthly salary of over 10,000 yuan ($1,555) could cover not only his personal expenses, including housing rent, but also all his consumption related to clothing and food, Zhang disclosed.

Zhangs colleague Chen Xiao, a 30-year-old new dad, explained that the generous salary of a programmer enables him to cover all his familys day-to-day expenses in Beijing as well as providing allowances for his parents living in a rural area of northwest Chinas Shaanxi province.

If we work hard enough, we can eventually achieve our own bit of success, said Chen who has recently been promoted to the head of his team and has seen his personal income increase significantly.

(Web editor: Hongyu, Bianji)
Xi sends congratulations on 200th anniversary of Mexican War of Independence victory

Xinhua) 14:49, September 16, 2021

BEIJING, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday sent a congratulatory message to his Mexican counterpart, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, on the 200th anniversary of victory of the Mexican War of Independence.

In his message, Xi said Mexico is an important Latin American country with a long history and splendid civilization. In the course of development, the Mexican people have made remarkable achievements in exploring a development path suited to their national conditions, and made ineffaceable contributions to the progress of human civilization.

As President Lopez Obrador is currently promoting new development reforms, China sincerely wishes Mexico new and greater achievements in the course of its national construction, Xi said.

Xi stressed that China and Mexico are both developing countries with broad common interests. Facing unprecedented changes in a century and a pandemic of the century, China and Mexico have stood together and supported each other, which has enhanced their friendship.

Xi said he attaches great importance to the development of China-Mexico relations, and is ready to work together with Lopez Obrador to deepen political mutual trust, boost mutually beneficial cooperation and continuously bring China-Mexico relations to new levels to benefit the two countries and their people.

(Web editor: Xia Peiyao, Hongyu)
To keep more talents from leaving the province, East China's Anhui announced on Monday plans to carry out a marriage assistance project for college students. The announcement sparked the online discussion on key factors to retain talents.

The provincial department of human resources and social security said that it will carry out a series of activities to keep talents in the province, including "holding online dating activities, strengthening guidance to women's federations at all levels, the publication of magazines on topics such as love, marriage and family, and providing opportunities for college students in Anhui to communicate and improve the probability of a successful marriage match."

The measures were put forward by the department in a reply to Li Yuyun, a provincial political advisor who proposed a project to keep university graduates in Anhui.

The province will "further improve the supportive measures for college students to stay in Anhui to work or start businesses," reads the reply.

In addition to the marriage assistance project, the provincial department will hold job fairs for students, encourage institutes to adopt more flexible and effective ways to attract talents, implement policies on subsidies for graduates who want to work in public administration and social services agencies at the community level, and provide affordable housing for graduates.

The reply has sparked a heated discussion on China's social platform Sina Weibo on key factors to retain talents.

"Should the government keep talents by marriage? I think we should rely on employment," said one netizen.

"To keep talents rely on employment, environment and house prices. Stop acting like a human trafficker," said another.




Lyu Zhonglan, a street cleaner from Hefei, Anhui province, received breakfast from her team leader at 6 am on Tuesday. All of the city's more than 12,000 urban sanitation workers have recently been getting free breakfasts every day they are on duty. Lyu, whose 8-hour shift often starts at 4 am, was given porridge, steamed buns and a boiled egg on Tuesday. She said the distribution was a heartwarming and caring gesture to the workers. She said the food varies from day to day. The city's urban management authorities began piloting the practice in certain areas in 2019. "I usually brought some food from home," Lyu said. "Sometimes I got tired of preparing it and I didn't want to buy any from breakfast stalls to save money." Most of the city's urban sanitation workers earn less than 3,000 yuan ($466) a month, according to Xia Zeyi, an official from Hefei's urban management bureau. With the costs covered by the city government, multiple catering companies are involved in the breakfast distribution business, each responsible for certain areas, he said, adding that the cost ranges from 6 to 8 yuan per meal. Some workers may not need to start work as early as Lyu, Xia said. For example, they might start at 6 am or 8 am, but they would still have difficulties with breakfasts. "For those who do not need to work in the morning, the money will be added to their salary," he said, adding that only a few could choose that option. He said he believed that distributing the breakfasts was better than adding the money to their salaries. "They do have difficulties with breakfasts and we care about their health and convenience," he said. "If they choose money, some of them would probably still not have breakfast and could face health problems in the long run." There have been frequent reports across the country about caring people offering free meals to sanitation workers, but Xia said such occasional offerings could not solve the problem once for all. Recently, the provincial authorities, including the Anhui Provincial Housing and Urban-Rural Development Department, issued a document to encourage the province's 15 other cities to learn from Hefei's practice in offering breakfasts.


The United States is developing a "new system for international travel" that will include contact tracing for when the nation eventually lifts travel restrictions that bar much of the world's population from entering, a senior White House official said Wednesday.

White House coronavirus response coordinator Jeff Zients told the U.S. Travel and Tourism Advisory Board that the administration does not plan to immediately relax any travel restrictions, citing COVID-19 delta variant cases in the United States and around the world.

Reuters first reported early in August that the White House was developing vaccine entry requirements that could cover nearly all foreign visitors. The White House previously confirmed it was considering mandating vaccines for foreign international visitors.

"The American people need to trust that the new system for international travel is safer even as we -- I mean, at that point, we'll be letting in more travelers," Zients said Wednesday, adding that existing restrictions eventually would be replaced. "We are exploring considering vaccination requirements for foreign nationals traveling to the United States," Zients said.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said at the same meeting that the spike in COVID-19 cases was preventing the lifting of international travel restrictions. "We want to move to a metrics-based system," Raimondo said. "Before we can do that, we have to get a better handle on the domestic situation, which requires us to get everyone vaccinated."


Armin Laschet is the candidate for Merkel's Christian Democratic Union party, which currently shares power with the Social Democrats. Speaking shortly after the Taliban seized power last month, he pledged there would be no repeat of the refugee influx. "The European Union must be prepared that there will be refugees heading towards Europe. And this time we must provide humanitarian aid to the region, to the countries of origin in time. 2015 must not repeat itself. We need an orderly protection for those who are heading towards Europe," Laschet told reporters on Aug. 16.

In 2015, more than one million migrants, many of them Syrians escaping their country's civil war, traveled across the Mediterranean and Europe to reach Germany, according to German officials.

Campaigning to elect a new German leader this month is being clouded by concerns that the country will face a new influx of refugees -- this time those fleeing Taliban rule in Afghanistan.

Laschet's rival -- Olaf Scholz of the Social Democrats, who are leading in the polls -- also maintains that Europe must share the burden of any imminent refugee influx. "It isn't just Germany, but all of Europe has a responsibility, and we have to remember that almost all refugees, and there are millions in the world, have often found refuge in a neighboring country," Scholz told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle.

Germany has evacuated more than 4,000 Afghans since August. The government says anyone directly employed by German forces in Afghanistan is entitled to asylum. The situation for contractors, however, is not clear.

Afghan brothers Ahmad and Ikram, who did not want to give their real names, arrived in Germany in 2015 as part of the wave of migrants seeking a new life in Europe. They are currently staging a protest outside the Foreign Ministry in Berlin, to demand that Germany speed up the asylum process for refugees. Ikram says he worked with NATO forces in Afghanistan and recently showed VOA the documentation he hopes will secure him refugee status. After six years of trying, they have both been denied visas. The brothers were due to be deported to Afghanistan in August but were given a reprieve after the Taliban seized power. "Afghanistan is no longer safe. People cannot let themselves die there -- they themselves, and their families. And so, they say it doesn't matter how dangerous the way is, people are saying we're leaving, because otherwise they will be killed," Ahmad told VOA.

So, could Germany face another migrant influx? The situation is very different, says Nora Brezger of the Berlin Refugee Council, a support group for migrants. "At the moment now, there is actually no way to Europe where people can cross, like it was in 2015 or 2016. So, it's more that a lot of Afghan refugees are in the surrounding countries of Afghanistan, and in the Balkan route they are stuck in Bosnia, they are stuck in Serbia, they are stuck in Greece, they are stuck in Turkey," Brezger told VOA. "So, it's not a question of how we should avoid people coming here. For us, it's more a question of how should we make people come here because they need a safe place," she said.

VOA recently spoke to several Afghan refugees currently stuck in the Turkish city of Erzurum. Among them was Yusuf, who said he was doing casual work to try to save money to reach Europe. Germany continues to exert a strong pull for those seeking a new life. "We want to go to Germany, but the borders are closed at the moment. If you want to go to Germany via Bulgaria, you would be held in Bulgaria. The human smugglers say that the borders are open, you can go -- but we know that they are closed. Once the borders are opened, God willing, we will go," Yusuf said.

It appears unlikely that Germany -- or the rest of Europe -- is prepared to reopen those borders anytime soon.


South Korea on Wednesday test-fired its first ballistic missile from a submarine.

Cheong Wa Dae claimed that makes South Korea the seventh country to succeed in developing its own SLBM after the U.S., Russia, China, the U.K., France, and India. In fact it is the eighth since North Korea also has one.

The missile was launched from the Dosan Ahn Chang-ho, a 3,000-ton sub, in waters off the Agency for Defense Development's test site in Anheung, South Chungcheong Province as President Moon Jae-in and senior military officers looked on. It duly hit a target about 400 km from the launch site.

Earlier tests had been carried out on ground and in water tanks, including a successful underwater ejection test early this month.

"It's remarkable that the SLBM maintained its trajectory despite the bad weather and hit the target accurately," Moon said. "The improvement in our missile capabilities can be a surefire deterrent against provocations by North Korea."

Some 70 SLBMs will be deployed in a total of nine 3,000-4,000 ton-class subs after follow-up flight tests.


According to the Joint Chiefs of Staff here, the North fired the two short-range ballistic missiles into the East Sea from South Pyongan Province at 12:34 p.m. and 12:39 p.m. Wednesday.

North Korea lobbed two ballistic missiles with a range of 800 km into the East Sea on Wednesday in an apparent bid to draw attention to itself as its bigger neighbors gathered for talks. They come hard on the heels of two long-range cruise missiles it tested over the last weekend.

The JCS believes they have a range of 800 km and flew at a 60 km altitude. They are presumed to be an improved version of the Iskander KN-23 missile that the North fired last March, extending the range by 200 km in just six months.

The launch was the fifth armed provocation by the North this year.

It came immediately after President Moon Jae-in met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at Cheong Wa Dae the same day. It is unusual for the North to put on a show of force with missiles that could hit South Korea at a time when the top diplomat of its closest ally is visiting Seoul.

About an hour afterwards, Moon watched the test launch of South Korea's own first home-grown ballistic missile from a submarine. "The improvement in our missile capabilities can be surefire deterrent against provocations by North Korea," he said.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's younger sister Yo-jong shot back with a statement late in the afternoon that homed in on the word "provocations" and saying it would be "foolish to call him a nation's president."

"If the president joins in the slander and detraction [of the North], this will be followed by counter actions, and the North-South relations will be pushed toward a complete destruction," she added.

On Thursday morning, the North released a photo of a missile ostensibly being launched from a train in an undisclosed location. It said it succeeded in launching ballistic missiles from a train for the first time as part of continuing efforts to bolster its "war deterrence."

The North's missile launches flagrantly violate UN Security Council resolutions.
"There are strong concerns over infections spreading outside the capital region over Chuseok, and we urge everyone to avoid private gatherings as much as possible," a government official said Wednesday.

Some 2,080 people tested positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday alone, and infections in the Seoul metropolitan area soared to a record 1,656 or 80.5 percent of total infections.

Coronavirus infections are surging again as Chuseok, the biggest holiday of the year in Korea, approaches. The daily tally of new infections stood at 1,943 as of Thursday morning, over 1,000 for over more than two months, with most of cases found from the capital region.

Health authorities blame a growing number of private gatherings and the reopening of schools and universities that began their new semesters. In June, infections among schoolkids stood at only 22.5 per 100,000, but they surged to 83.7 last month. The Delta variant now accounts for 98.5 percent of cases.

More worryingly, so-called breakthrough infections among fully vaccinated people increased by 876 from a week ago to reach a cumulative 4,731.

So far 34.58 million people have had at least their first vaccine shot, accounting for 67.3 percent of the population and close to the government's target of 70 percent by Chuseok. But only 40.3 percent are fully vaccinated, which is slower than the 60 percent or more of many advanced countries.

As the bulk of vaccine supplies arrived recently, the government is considering slashing the six-week interval between first and second jabs of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines to the originally recommended three and four weeks.

When asked if health authorities believe herd immunity is achievable, a spokesman said, "The scientific definition of herd immunity is a form of indirect protection from an infectious disease that can occur when a sufficient percentage of a population has become immune to an infection, and 80 percent of adults and more than 90 percent of senior citizens must be inoculated. But if herd immunity means returning to 2019 when everyone could walk around without face masks, that could be difficult."
During the swine flu pandemic in 2009, some children in Sweden and Finland who were given the vaccine came down with narcolepsy, a rare brain condition that causes a person to suddenly fall asleep at inappropriate times. The World Health Organization launched a study and announced in 2011 that children who had the vaccine were nine times more likely to suffer from narcolepsy than those who did not, so the vaccine was pulled. But researchers have yet to find a direct link between the H1N1 vaccine and narcolepsy.

Something similar might happen again. Some male teenagers in the U.S. and Canada who had the Pfizer or Moderna mRNA vaccines are experiencing acute myocarditis or inflammation of the heart muscle. A team of researchers at California State University studied side effects and found that boys aged 12 to 15 are four to six times more likely to be diagnosed with myocarditis than be hospitalized for COVID-19. The team estimated 162.2 out of a million boys aged 12 to 15 and 94 out of a million boys aged 16 to 17 developed myocarditis after being fully vaccinated with Pfizer shots. The estimate for girls was 13.4 for every million aged 12 to 15 and 13 out of a million aged 16 to 17. According to Canadian statistics for men aged 30 or below, those who received Moderna vaccine shots were 2.5 times more likely to develop myocarditis than those who got the Pfizer injection.


Shanghai is our home! Expats are honored for contribution to city

By:Cao Jun, Wu Qiong | From:english.eastday.com | 2021-09-16 09:46

Fifty expatriates from 15 countries were honored with the Shanghai Magnolia Silver Awards in a grand ceremony held on September 15, 2021.

(A group photo of the honorees. Photo by Pan Jiandong)

All the award winners have made their contribution to the citys development in various fields such as business, finance, shipping, education, science & technology, health, sports, and culture.

VIPs including Zhang Xiaosong, director-general of the Shanghai Municipal Foreign Affairs Office, presented the awards.

(Zhang Xiaosong, director-general of the Shanghai Municipal Foreign Affairs Office, delivers a speech at the ceremony.)

Kamran Vossoughi, global vice president of Michelin Group and president & CEO of Michelin China, gave a speech on behalf of all the award winners. First coming to Shanghai in April 2019, he still remembers when he received his work permit from the staff of the Exit-Entry Administration, he was told Welcome to Shanghai! From now on, Shanghai is your home. As time went by, the meaning of the word home goes deeper and deeper in his heart. There is inclusiveness and warmth in this home. There is support and care in this home. There is vitality and confidence in this home, he said. Especially after the outbreak of COVID-19, more than ever, we feel Shanghai is our home.

(Kamran Vossoughi gives a speech on behalf of all the award winners.)

I love you Shanghai! Coming from Australia, Nusrat Marat (or Lao Bai as his Chinese friends call him) has lived in Shanghai for 12 years. He is a foreign volunteer in Jiangsu Road Sub-District in Changning. I just did some ordinary things. All the honor starts from Shanghai, he said, adding that he has unforgettable feelings for the city. Nusrat Marat also expressed his gratitude to his Chinese wife who has always been very supportive.

Gary Randolph Knight, chairman of INVISTA (China), has been in Shanghai for eight years. As he put it, this honor is just one example of how good the city is. I know this award is rarely given. Im so fortunate to have been given it. He also mentioned his companys partner in Chinathe Shanghai Chemical Industrial Park, with which he has enjoyed a long and prosperous partnership. Shanghai is my home. I have a green card and I am a permanent resident in Shanghai. This is where I want to stay.

Shanghai is my friend, said American architectural designer Marshall Strabala, another recipient of this years Magnolia Award. He has designed Chinas tallest building, the Shanghai Tower and has been memorized by the city. As he said, he is ready to help any of his Shanghai friends.

Named after the city flower of Shanghai, the Magnolia Award was set up by the Shanghai Municipality in 1989 to recognize the contribution of outstanding international friends to Shanghais development and international exchange. A total of 1,316 people have received the Award since then.
New Braunfels, TX (78130)

Today

Mostly cloudy with a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms. Low around 65F. Winds NNE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 30%..

Tonight

Mostly cloudy with a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms. Low around 65F. Winds NNE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 30%.
An online platform themedMeet Pingshan from Overseas and aimed at offering overseas Chinese a glimpse into Pingshan was launched at an opening ceremony held at the Innovation Plaza in Pingshan District on Sept.15.





The online platform has five parts, includingOverview,Business,Culture,News andFeature,

and so far has included210 articles written in both Chinese and English and30 videos. Viewers can learn about Pingshans local culture and revolutionary history as well as the achievements it has made in various aspects since the reform and opening up. Viewers can also find the latest news about Pingshans industrial policies, industrial space and supporting facilities on the platform.





Liu Xin, vice head of the United Front Work Department of CPC Shenzhen Municipal Committee, vice director of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of Shenzhen Municipality, and vice chairman of the Shenzhen Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese, said that the United Front Work Department of CPC Pingshan District Committee has been a window for overseas Chinese to learn about Pingshan and Shenzhen, and that the overseas Chinese affairs departments of Shenzhen will continue to serve overseas Chinese to help them learn more about Pingshan and Shenzhen.





Wang Liqian, chairman of the Pingshan Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese, expressed her gratitude to overseas Chinese groups for supporting Pingshan in international corporations and exchanges and contributing to the economic and social development of the district.

She also said that the United Front Work Department of CPC Pingshan District Committee has constantly improved services for overseas Chinese and involved returned overseas Chinese, families of overseas Chinese and Chinese compatriots residing overseas in the development of Pingshan through setting up the Pingshan Returnees Association, organizing the innovation and entrepreneurship conference for returnees, establishing a high-quality service center for overseas Chinese, constructing the Shenzhen Overseas Chinese Cultures Exchange Base, and other efforts.





Distinguished overseas Chinese people in foreign countries, including the U.K., the U.S., India, Australia and Malaysia, and representatives of overseas Chinese teenagers, also delivered speeches through videos at the opening ceremony.

The platform was jointly hosted by the Overseas Chinese Affairs Bureau of Pingshan District and the Pingshan Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese.




On 15 September some 500 Haitian, Central American and South American migrants in Mexicos Tapachula city (Chiapas state) staged protests, demanding documents that would allow them to head north.

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On 15 September, Uruguays umbrella trade union, the Plenario Intersindical de Trabajadores-Convencion Nacional de Trabajadores (PIT-CNT) held a short-notice general strike  the third such strike since the government of centre-right Presidenttook office in March last year.

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For 2022 proposed national budget

PCOO HAS BIG TICKET INFRA PROJECTS FOR 'MEDIA HUBS'--SEN NANCY

...but govt no money to build hospitals; cuts budget for health facilities

Senator Nancy Binay today questioned the proposal to allocate funds for the construction of media hubs amid budget cuts to various hospitals in the country in the proposed 2022 national budget.

"Sa gitna ng kakulangan ng kapasidad ng mga healthcare facilities natin dahil sa lumalalang kaso ng Covid-19 at budget cut sa maraming ospital, hindi tama na may mga 'big-ticket' construction projects para sa mga hindi naman pressing priority. We should be building hospitals, not media hubs," Binay said.

The senator questioned how essential the Visayas Media Hub that the Presidential Communications Operations Office plans to construct is in efforts to curb the pandemic.

The agency is asking P200 million in Capital Outlay in its proposed budget for next year for the hub's construction in Mandaue, Cebu.

Last December, the agency launched the Mindanao Media Hub in Davao City, for which P340 million was spent on the building while P408 million was spent for equipment.

Binay said that such projects should be deferred until the pandemic is under control.

"While we do not dismiss the value of these hubs, we have increasingly diminishing resources which we should dedicate towards our fight against Covid-19. Our people's lives and health should be given top priority right now over anything else," the lawmaker said.

"Sana ang mga ganitong construction projects na hindi urgent, ibuhos na lang natin sa mga ospital na nabawasan pa ang alokasyon imbes na dapat dagdagan," Binay added.

Seventy-six public hospitals are bound to suffer from the meager P157 billion allocated to the Department of Health's Office of the Secretary under which these are listed, she said.

Around nine major government hospitals have also had their maintenance and operating expenses (MOOE) budgets slashed.
De Lima blasts Duterte's double standards on witness credibility

Opposition Senator Leila M. de Lima slammed Mr. Duterte's double standards after he belittled the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee for relying on the statements of Police Colonel Eduardo Acierto in its probe on the Pharmally Scandal.

Acierto's name popped up during the Blue Ribbon Committee hearings on the controversial Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corporation because of his 2019 revelation implicating Duterte's businessmen allies, including former presidential economic adviser Michael Yang, in the drug trade. Yang is linked to the P8.6 billion "Pharmally heist."

De Lima highlighted Duterte's double standards by recalling how he and the DOJ continue to use criminal convicts as witnesses to implicate her in the alleged illegal drug trade inside the New Bilibid Prison (NBP).

"Duterte will do anything to save his skin. He says Acierto is not a credible witness against Michael Yang and his alleged drug links because Acierto has an alleged criminal past. Then why are Duterte's witnesses against me criminal convicts?" she asked.

"Ganern? Pag kay Michael Yang hindi credible, kapag sa akin credible?," she added.

Recent Senate probe revealed that Yang is the financier and guarantor of the Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corporation, which has bagged over P8.68 billion worth of government contracts, including the purchase of allegedly overpriced medical supplies for COVID-19.

In 2019, Acierto linked Yang to the illegal drug trade, along with his business partners Allan Lim (aka Huen Li Gen or Ayong) and Johnson Chua (aka Chung Nga Way or Greg Sia) who is based in Macau.

Amid the damning developments in the ongoing Senate Blue Ribbon Committee hearings about the Pharmally scandal, it is worthy to recall that way back in 28 March 2019, De Lima filed Proposed Senate Resolution (PSR) No. 1033 seeking to conduct an inquiry on the alleged involvement in the illegal drug trade of Michael Yang and on the extent of his influence over Duterte and the country's socioeconomic affairs.
The leader of the terrorist group Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) and polisario mercenary, Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi, was killed by French forces, French President Emmanuel Macron announced on Twitter on Wednesday night stating that This is another major success in the fight we are waging against terrorist groups in the Sahel, added the French Head of State.

This summer, in June and July, Paris had already announced the death or capture of several high-ranking ISGS executives by the French force Barkhane and its partners, as part of its strategy to target the leaders and executives of jihadist organizations.

The leader of the ISGS died as a result of a strike by the Barkhane force, French Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly tweeted for her part, hailing a decisive blow against this terrorist group. Our fight continues, she said.

The ISGS, created in 2015 by Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi, a member of the polisario front and the jihadist movement Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), had been designated as a priority enemy in the Sahel, during the summit in Pau (southwestern France) in January 2020.

He is considered to be behind most of the attacks in the tri-border region, a vast area straddling Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.

This area is a recurring target of attacks by two armed jihadist groups: the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) and the Al Qaeda affiliated Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (GSIM).

ISGS has carried out particularly deadly attacks, targeting civilians and military personnel, in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso. It had targeted U.S. soldiers in a deadly attack in October 2017, in which four U.S. Special Forces soldiers and four Nigeriens were killed in an ambush in Tongo Tongo, near Mali in southwestern Niger. By the end of 2019, ISGS had carried out a series of large-scale attacks on military bases in Mali and Niger.

On August 9, 2020, in Niger, the leader of ISGS personally ordered the assassination of six French aid workers and their Nigerien guide and driver. This attack against young people involved in humanitarian work caused a stir in France and in Niger, which was then classified as a red zone, i.e. formally inadvisable, with the exception of the capital Niamey, by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

After more than eight years of significant engagement, Emmanuel Macron announced in June a reduction of the French military presence in the Sahel and the end of the anti-jihadist operation Barkhane in favor of a tightened force, refocused on counter-terrorism operations and combat support for local armies, around an international alliance involving Europeans.

The Nation thinks tonight of all its heroes who died for France in the Sahel in the Serval and Barkhane operations, of the bereaved families, of all its wounded. Their sacrifice is not in vain. With our African, European and American partners, we will continue this fight, added Emmanuel Macron in another tweet.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has granted Egypt a loan worth 25 million for financing the countrys first dry port in the city of 6th of October, reports say.

The financial facility will cover the design, development, construction, operation, and maintenance of the project dubbed the 6th of October Dry Port (DP6).

The project is the first public-private partnership (PPP) project in the sector and the first under the EBRD Green Cities program in Egypt.

Upon completion, the DP6 will have an extended gateway to the seaports located in the northern and eastern regions of the country, thus supporting the existing port infrastructure and logistics market.

It is also expected to help make logistics more efficient as it will become the final destination of cargo and will provide efficient customs inspection and clearance procedures.

Likewise, it will reduce congestion in the sea ports and create economies of scale through the use of intermodal rail services at the sea ports. It will also improve the overall reliability and cost-efficiency of the logistical processes for the dry ports future clients.

A consortium of Elsewedy Electric, Schenker Egypt, and SLP Logistics are owners of the port. The financing is part of a total investment package of $60 million.

The Arab country is a founding member of the bank which has invested more than 7.7 billion in 132 projects across Egypt since its inception in 2012.
Tunisia has been selected to host the 2024 Organic World Congress, an event organized every three years by the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM), the state-run news agency TAP reports.

Tunisia garnered a total of 60 votes, or 32% of all electronic votes cast by IFOAM affiliates for its bid.

IFOAM for its congresses brings together 2,500 organic stakeholders, farmers, researchers and citizens to address issues of resilience, societal transformation, ecosystem regeneration, health and food sovereignty.

The North African country is first in the world in terms of area dedicated to organic agriculture and organic olive growing. The country is top of the list of exporters of organic products in Africa, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.

Tunisia last year established its first agency to promote organic agriculture.
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Emory University has received a transformative grant from Southern Company Foundation to establish the Emory University School of Law Center for Civil Rights and Social Justice and support other student success and access initiatives through Emory College and Winship Cancer Center. The grant, totaling $7 million, with $5 million dedicated to the new Center, will be one of the most substantial gifts dedicated to an academic center for civil rights and social justice in Georgia, and the largest single gift to Emory Law.

I am grateful to Southern Company Foundation for this visionary investment, says Emory President Gregory L. Fenves. By making this historic and timely gift to Emory University, they have sent a powerful message about our shared commitment to civil rights and social justice. This grant will provide our students and scholars with the resources to lead in their fields and make breakthroughs to serve communities in Georgia and across the nation.

The newly established center enhances the law schools already rich focus on issues of civil rights, human rights, and social justice and will serve as a hub for interdisciplinary scholarship, research, teaching, evidence-based policy reform, and community outreach that improves the lives of individuals who have experienced violations of their civil rights and been impacted by social injustice.

"We are incredibly pleased that Emory has further prioritized issues of social justice in our society with the recruitment of Professor Hutchinson as the John Lewis Chair earlier this year, says Chris Womack, President, CEO, and Chairman of Georgia Power. Through this new center, we now look forward to helping Emory Law build programs to advance civil rights, equity, and justice in our community and nationwide."

The grant will provide critical funding necessary to fulfill a key strategic priority for the law school, according to Emory Law Dean and Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Mary Anne Bobinski. The law schools new strategic plan establishes civil rights and social justice as key areas of focus for research, teaching and community engagement, says Dean Bobinski. Southern Company Foundations record-breaking gift will enable Emory Law to accelerate our work in these critically important areas and to address long standing challenges related to civil rights and social justice through research and university and community partnerships.

Emory Law named acclaimed legal scholar and social justice advocate Darren Lenard Hutchinson as the inaugural John Lewis Chair for Civil Rights and Social Justice in April of this year. The philanthropically funded John Lewis Chair for Civil Rights and Social Justice is intended to serve as a lasting tribute to the legacy of good trouble advocated by the late congressman from Georgias Fifth District and establish Emory Law as a leader in teaching, research, and community engagement related to civil rights and social justice.

About Emory University School of Law

Emory Law is a national and global leader in legal education that supports pathbreaking and influential scholarship and offers exceptional teaching and practical learning opportunities that enable our alumni to become respected professionals and leaders in a rapidly changing world. Emory Law strives for a diverse and inclusive law school community that works together to secure a more fair and just society by advancing the rule of law.
[September 16, 2021] ServiceNow Expands Strategic Partnership With Microsoft With New Collaborative App in Teams That Streamlines the Flow of Work ServiceNow (NYSE: NOW) today announced an expanded strategic partnership with Microsoft (News - Alert) to empower employees as they continue to navigate new ways of working. As part of ServiceNow's Now Platform Rome release, the company introduced a new collaborative app for its Employee Center that integrates with Microsoft Teams and offers streamlined employee experiences in the hybrid work environment. The companies also announced expanded investments in co-innovation and go-to-market efforts across ServiceNow (News - Alert) workflows and Teams. ServiceNow's new Employee Center will be available as a collaborative app that can be embedded directly into Teams. Collaborative apps are a new class of Teams apps that surface in rich ways across chat, channels, and meetings. Employee Center provides employees a single, unified portal to find information, get help across departments - including IT, HR, facilities, procurement, and legal - and request the services they need. Through the Teams app, employees can access the portal directly in the flow of their work. "With more than 250 million monthly active users, Teams has become a cornerstone for employees around the globe in navigating hybrid work," said Jared Spataro, corporate vice president of Modern Work at Microsoft. "Today's announcement builds on our longstanding relationship with ServiceNow, bringing together the power of Teams with ServiceNow to develop a collaborative app designed to help customers and their workforces communicate, collaborate, and innovate more efficiently." "Employees simply aren't going back to old ways of working, which is why employers must provide the digital workflows and collaboration tools to make them productive in any workplace environment - whether that's fully remote or in an office," said Blake McConnell, senior vice president of Employee Workflow Products at ServiceNow. "By embedding ServiceNow Employee Center within Microsoft Teams, we are improving the employee experience no matter where they're working. Employees can act on the right information at the right time within the tools they're already using. It is imperativeto help employees find better balance and keep them creative, productive, and engaged." ServiceNow announced a strategic partnership with Microsoft in July 2019. Since then, customers such as NTT (News - Alert) Data, a global digital business and IT services leader, have implemented ServiceNow within Microsoft Teams. To further accelerate this momentum, ServiceNow and Microsoft are deepening their investments and collaboration in product innovation, driving joint customer success and go-to-market across all ServiceNow workflows and Teams. "The pandemic changed the way we work and forced us to rethink all aspects of the employee experience, from ensuring the safety of our workforce to efficient vaccine administration," said Dai Urano, Head of Business Transformation, Strategy Office, Corporate Headquarters, at NTT Data. "Integrating Microsoft Teams into ServiceNow HR Service Delivery as a part of EX Portal will help our employees easily navigate the information they need across one familiar platform and enable better collaboration between employees no matter where they work - at home or at the office. As a ServiceNow Partner, we are also confident that these solutions will help our customers better adopt to the new normal and support their business growth." ServiceNow and Microsoft have partnered closely for more than a decade, working together to create exceptional work experiences and unlock productivity with more than 30 native integrations across both companies' full suites of products. As part of this expanded partnership, ServiceNow has adopted Microsoft Teams for chat, meetings, and collaboration with full deployment across its 15,000 global employees targeted for the end of September 2021. Microsoft is already using ServiceNow IT Service Management (ITSM) and ServiceNow Virtual Agent integrated with Teams to streamline workflows across its enterprise, resolve IT incidents as well as employees' IT issues and questions faster. Additional information: Learn more about ServiceNow's Now Platform Rome release, available today.

release, available today. Watch a demo of Employee Center .

. Visit ServiceNow's Digital Hub and Download our eBook.

Visit Microsoft's blog for details on collaborative apps with Microsoft Teams. About ServiceNow: ServiceNow (NYSE: NOW) is making the world of work, work better for people. Our cloud-based platform and solutions deliver digital workflows that create great experiences and unlock productivity for employees and the enterprise. For more information, visit: www.servicenow.com.  2021 ServiceNow, Inc. All rights reserved. ServiceNow, the ServiceNow logo, Now, and other ServiceNow marks are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company names, product names, and logos may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005260/en/

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Auburn Universitys fall commencement exercises, scheduled for Dec. 10-11, once again will take place in Jordan-Hare Stadium, contingent on current health and safety guidelines and weather.

Beginning at 5 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 10, all graduates will attend the University Commencement featuring a keynote address by former chairman and chief executive officer of Accenture, Joe Forehand Jr. In addition to fireworks, a flyover and the formal conferral of degrees by the Board of Trustees, graduates also will receive a commemorative cord and will be seated on Pat Dye Field during the ceremony. Graduates must attend the University Commencement on Friday to pick up their name cards for the Saturday ceremonies. Families and guests of graduates are welcome to attend the University Commencement on Friday.

Beginning at 8 a.m. on Saturday, Dec. 11, the university will host separate undergraduate and graduate ceremonies at set times throughout the day. Each ceremony will include brief remarks by the dean, followed by the student processionals. All graduates will receive a copy of The Auburn Creed and pose for an official university photograph with their names displayed on the videoboard. Times for each college are available on the commencement website, and graduates must enter the stadium through the Harbert Family Recruiting Center at least 30 minutes before their scheduled ceremony time. Graduates and guests will have access to Pat Dye Field following each ceremony. All ceremonies will be live-streamed on the commencement website for those unable to attend or who have health concerns.

Commencement is an important time where we celebrate the culmination of our students hard work and achievements, President Jay Gogue said. I look forward to congratulating all of our fall graduates during Fridays University Commencement and welcoming them to our prestigious family of alumni.

In preparing for the fall ceremonies, the university continues to monitor various health scenarios associated with COVID-19 as well as weather contingencies associated with the outdoor venue. Guests will be permitted to enter the stadium through gates 5-8 (Gate 9 will be open for accessibility) and a complete list of safety protocols is available on the commencement website.

The University Commencement on Friday, Dec. 10, showcases Auburns graduation traditions, including a keynote address delivered by Forehand, a 1971 Auburn industrial engineering graduate. An internationally recognized business executive and strategist, Forehand is the former CEO of Accenture and is credited with advancing the consulting firms growth. In 2000, he finalized Accentures split from Andersen Worldwide and successfully led its IPO and international rebranding campaign.

During his tenure as CEO, Forehand increased its revenue from $9.6 billion to $13.7 billion and added nearly 40,000 employees to its workforce. Following his retirement, Forehand continued to work as a senior advisor with corporations such as Kohlberg, Kravis and Roberts, First Data Corporation and was chairman of Aricent, a global design and engineering technology company. In addition to advisory and leadership roles at Auburn, Forehand was inducted into the Alabama Engineering Hall of Fame in 2001.

Fall graduates who need to order keepsake regalia should place orders through the Auburn University Bookstore. Early regalia orders placed by Oct. 29 can be picked up at the bookstore the week of Nov. 16-19. All other orders can be picked up during the week of final exams, Dec. 6-10.

All graduates attending the University Commencement and participating in graduation ceremonies must wear the proper regalia.

Additional information is available on the commencement website, and information will be posted on the Auburn University commencement Facebook and Instagram accounts. For questions regarding commencement, please email commencement@auburn.edu.
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Figure 1. (a) WISE false color image of Pa 30 where blue and green stand for 11 m emission, and red for 22 m. Here, the levels of the 22 m component have been adjusted to enhance the ring-like feature. (b) In this false color image, where green stands for WISE 11 m (as in the left panel) and red for WISE 22 m (adjusted to show extended emission), the emission from the central star is highlighted in blue from the GALEX near-UV data, while the XMM-Newton contours (10 levels, linear scale) show that the majority of the X-ray emission originates from the core of the nebula. A background point source is seen westward of the CS in the XMM-Newton contour map. (c) The 2.1 m KPNO [O iii] image, which we have stacked and rebinned from individual frames to enhance the low surface brightness, diffuse shell. The green cross in the center of the image marks the location of the CS. Panels (a)(c) are reproduced at the same angular scale and orientation. At the Gaia distance of Pa 30 of 2.30  0.14 kpc, an angular scale of 45'' translates to about 100,000 au.

A 900-year-old cosmic mystery surrounding the origins of a famous supernova first spotted over China in 1181AD has finally been solved, according to an international team of astronomers.

New research published today (September 15, 2021) says that a faint, fast expanding cloud (or nebula), called Pa30, surrounding one of the hottest stars in the Milky Way, known as Parker's Star, fits the profile, location and age of the historic supernova.

There have only been five bright supernovae in the Milky Way in the last millennium (starting in 1006). Of these, the Chinese supernova, which is also known as the 'Chinese Guest Star' of 1181AD has remained a mystery. It was originally seen and documented by Chinese and Japanese astronomers in the 12th century who said it was as bright as the planet Saturn and remained visible for six months. They also recorded an approximate location in the sky of the sighting, but no confirmed remnant of the explosion has even been identified by modern astronomers. The other four supernovae are all now well known to modern day science and include the famous Crab nebula.

The source of this 12th century explosion remained a mystery until this latest discovery made by a team of international astronomers from Hong Kong, the UK, Spain, Hungary and France, including Professor Albert Zijlstra from The University of Manchester. In the new paper, the astronomers found that the Pa 30 nebula is expanding at an extreme velocity of more than 1,100 km per second (at this speed, traveling from the Earth to the Moon would take only 5 minutes). They use this velocity to derive an age at around 1,000 years, which would coincide with the events of 1181AD.

Prof Zijlstra (Professor in Astrophysics at the University of Manchester) explains: "The historical reports place the guest star between two Chinese constellations, Chuanshe and Huagai. Parker's Star fits the position well. That means both the age and location fit with the events of 1181."

Pa 30 and Parker's Star have previously been proposed as the result of a merger of two White Dwarfs. Such events are thought to lead to a rare and relatively faint type of supernova, called a 'Type Iax supernova'.

Prof Zijlstra added: "Only around 10% of supernovae are of this type and they are not well understood. The fact that SN1181 was faint but faded very slowly fits this type. It is the only such event where we can study both the remnant nebula and the merged star, and also have a description of the explosion itself."

The merging of remnant stars, white dwarfs and neutron stars, give rise to extreme nuclear reactions and form heavy, highly neutron-rich elements such as gold and platinum. Prof. Zijlstra said: "Combining all this information such as the age, location, event brightness and historically recorded 185-day duration, indicates that Parker's star and Pa30 are the counterparts of SN 1181. This is the only Type Iax supernova where detailed studies of the remnant star and nebula are possible. It is nice to be able to solve both a historical and an astronomical mystery."

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This image shows several craters in Arabia Terra that are filled with layered rock, often exposed in rounded mounds. The bright layers are roughly the same thickness, giving a stair-step appearance. The process that formed these sedimentary rocks is not yet well understood. They could have formed from sand or volcanic ash that was blown into the crater, or in water if the crater hosted a lake. The image was taken by a camera, the High Resolution Imaging Experiment, on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

Some volcanoes can produce eruptions so powerful they release oceans of dust and toxic gases into the air, blocking out sunlight and changing a planet's climate for decades.

By studying the topography and mineral composition of a portion of the Arabia Terra region in northern Mars, scientists recently found evidence for thousands of such eruptions, or "super eruptions," which are the most violent volcanic explosions known.

Spewing water vapor, carbon dioxide, and sulfur dioxide into the air, these explosions tore through the Martian surface over a 500-million-year period about 4 billion years ago. Scientists reported this estimate in a paper published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters in July 2021.

"Each one of these eruptions would have had a significant climate impact -- maybe the released gas made the atmosphere thicker or blocked the Sun and made the atmosphere colder," said Patrick Whelley, a geologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who led the Arabia Terra analysis. "Modelers of the Martian climate will have some work to do to try to understand the impact of the volcanoes."



After blasting the equivalent of 400 million Olympic-size swimming pools of molten rock and gas through the surface and spreading a thick blanket of ash up to thousands of miles from the eruption site, a volcano of this magnitude collapses into a giant hole called a "caldera." Calderas, which also exist on Earth, can be dozens of miles wide. Seven calderas in Arabia Terra were the first giveaways that the region may once have hosted volcanoes capable of super eruptions.

Once thought to be depressions left by asteroid impacts to the Martian surface billions of years ago, scientists first proposed in a 2013 study that these basins were volcanic calderas. They noticed that they weren't perfectly round like craters, and they had some signs of collapse, such as very deep floors and benches of rock near the walls.

"We read that paper and were interested in following up, but instead of looking for volcanoes themselves, we looked for the ash, because you can't hide that evidence," Whelley said.





Whelley and his colleagues got the idea to look for evidence of ash after meeting Alexandra Matiella Novak, a volcanologist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. Matiella Novak already had been using data from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to find ash elsewhere on Mars, so she partnered with Whelley and his team to look specifically in Arabia Terra.

The team's analysis followed up on the work of other scientists who earlier suggested that the minerals on the surface of Arabia Terra were volcanic in origin. Another research group, upon learning that the Arabia Terra basins could be calderas, had calculated where ash from possible super eruptions in that region would have settled: traveling downwind, to the East, it would thin out away from the center of the volcanoes, or in this case, what's left of them: the calderas.

"So we picked it up at that point and said, 'OK, well these are minerals that are associated with altered volcanic ash, which has already been documented, so now we're going to look at how the minerals are distributed to see if they follow the pattern we would expect to see from super eruptions," Matiella Novak said.

The team used images from MRO's Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars to identify the minerals in the surface. Looking in the walls of canyons and craters from hundreds to thousands of miles from the calderas, where the ash would have been carried by wind, they identified volcanic minerals turned to clay by water, including montmorillonite, imogolite, and allophane. Then, using images from MRO cameras, the team made three-dimensional topographic maps of Arabia Terra. By laying the mineral data over the topographic maps of the canyons and craters analyzed, the researchers could see in the mineral-rich deposits that the layers of ash were very well preserved -- instead of getting jumbled by winds and water, the ash was layered in the same way it would have been when it was fresh.

"That's when I realized this isn't a fluke, this is a real signal," said Jacob Richardson, a geologist at NASA Goddard who worked with Whelley and Novak. "We're actually seeing what was predicted and that was the most exciting moment for me."

The same scientists who originally identified the calderas in 2013 also calculated how much material would have exploded from the volcanoes, based on the volume of each caldera. This information allowed Whelley and his colleagues to calculate the number of eruptions needed to produce the thickness of ash they found. It turned out there were thousands of eruptions, Whelley said.

One remaining question is how a planet can have only one type of volcano littering a region. On Earth volcanoes capable of super eruptions -- the most recent erupted 76,000 years ago in Sumatra, Indonesia -- are dispersed around the globe and exist in the same areas as other volcano types. Mars, too, has many other types of volcanoes, including the biggest volcano in the solar system called Olympus Mons. Olympus Mons is 100 times larger by volume than Earth's largest volcano of Mauna Loa in Hawaii, and is known as a "shield volcano," which drains lava down a gently sloping mountain. Arabia Terra so far has the only evidence of explosive volcanoes on Mars.

It's possible that super-eruptive volcanoes were concentrated in regions on Earth but have been eroded physically and chemically or moved around the globe as continents shifted due to plate tectonics. These types of explosive volcanoes also could exist in regions of Jupiter's moon Io or could have been clustered on Venus. Whatever the case may be, Richardson hopes Arabia Terra will teach scientists something new about geological processes that help shape planets and moons.

"People are going to read our paper and go, 'How? How could Mars do that? How can such a tiny planet melt enough rock to power thousands of super eruptions in one location?'" he said. "I hope these questions bring about a lot of other research.



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Bauporte Gulf, a leading European entrance system and door manufacturer headquartered in Dubai, has reported an increasing demand for burglary resistance class, RC3 entrance systems and doors from building owners and designers across MENA, in particular Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Threat-resistant doors have always been the benchmark standard for banks and financial institutions throughout the world, however a more recent trend has emerged where architects and designers of five-star hotels and an increasing number of government buildings are also enquiring about RC3-rated entrance systems, said the company in a statement.

Other security features such as night shutters for refurbishment and new build projects across the Mena region are also seeing an upswing in demand, it stated.

The internationally-recognised RC3 certification ensures the majority of burglars using a variety of tools such as drills, knives, saws, screwdrivers, crowbars or hammers, will encounter greater difficulty in trying to enact a break-in, said Bauporte Gulf in its statement.

The European company has been designing and manufacturing doors to these specifications at its factory in Germany which are then shipped to the Middle East and installed by its local team.

The company custom designs and manufactures automatic RC3-rated doors in a range of options including swing revolving, sliding and pivot doors, together with higher specification bullet and ballistic-resistant options also currently available, it stated.

"Installing RC3 doors can help hotel and exhibition centres win major government contracts, such as G7 summits, because organising officials are often required to choose venues with the highest level of security features," remarked Paul Haslam, partner at Bauporte Gulf.

"When you start talking about high-security doors, people often immediately think of thick steel doors with unbreakable locks. However, modern security doors are nothing like that," he stated.

"Next-generation security doors generally come in an all-glass finish so the doors look inviting and seamlessly blend into the modern all-glass entrance facades, creating that all-important first and last impression when entering or exiting a building," explained Haslam.

"Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states are currently generating the greatest demand for automatic RC3-rated doors which could be due to a higher perceived risk in those countries. This is less the case in the UAE, where most RC3-rated door enquiries are for bank and financial institution buildings, as well as some government building work," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
Star Education, a fast-growing educational institution with a number of schools offering British and American curricula, has announced the appointment of Gill Roberts as Director of Education. She will oversee the institutions overall direction, operations and long-term growth.

As an employee of Star Education, Roberts was previously the Principal of Star International School Mirdif for five years, where she successfully helped the school in creating effective educational initiatives and programmes across all levels.

Roberts new role at Star Education will see her design and implement educational programmes for educators of the organisation, where she will be overseeing the operations of certification and credentialing programmes, further enhancing the academic standards of the school on a larger scale.

As a long-time employee of Star Education, Roberts has the qualifications, experience, skills, knowledge, and qualities to lead, guide and support the school group and its leaders. More importantly, she has the vision to move our key leadership goals forward, with students at the core of decision-making, said Esref Temel, Managing Director, Bright Capital Investment.

Commenting on her new appointment, Roberts said: I am truly honoured to represent Star Education as the Director of Education, where I will be able to manifest the schools larger vision of education as a tool to change communities and lives. I believe my abundant experience within the educational field across the UK and UAE has well-equipped me with the leadership skills and tools necessary to take Star Education to the next level.

Roberts began her career within the educational sector back in 1984, and has since then held various educational posts where she gained a wealth of experience. The recently appointed Director initially embarked on her academic journey as a Secondary Specialist, working within this realm for 17 years, which then led her to an opportunity to retrain to teach Primary levels. This came as an advantage to Roberts to be equipped to teach students of different levels; from EYFS, primary, secondary, up till A-levels.

Roberts pathway to successful management experience began in the UK where she earned the title of Deputy Head, followed by her transitioning to the post of Headteacher just two years after her first role. She remained in this post for a total of eight years heading the school through the UK educational system of learning. As such, these various positions have enabled Gill Roberts to greatly propel her leadership skills to the highest levels over the course of the years.

Roberts now hands over the reigns of Star International Mirdif to Neal Oates, whilst she takes on the larger role of ensuring the three schools - Star International Mirdif, Star International Al Twar and Bright Learners under the group - work collectively together to achieve further success.

The group is now preparing to officially launch Star Internationals third branch, which will be located in Al Qusais and open doors to students in September of this year. As an expansion of one of its highly-esteemed schools, which is Star International School Al Twar, Star International School Al Qusais will act as an extension and not only provide its Secondary student body with a new facility, but also welcome new students to its Post-16 learning programme.-- TradeArabia News Service
The 8th edition of Zainnovate was held in Bahrain to support digital startups in the GCC region by assisting them to develop, grow, and sustain within the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

The event was hosted by Zain Bahrain, the leading Mobile Broadband network operator in the kingdom, in partnership with Alkeri Partners, a Bahrain-based digital startup foundry, and Oqal Angel Investors Network, the first Angel investor community in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Launched in 2019, Zainnovate the initiative aligns with Zain Bahrains corporate sustainability and social responsibility strategy focused on Innovation, Thought Leadership, and Youth Empowerment which is in line with Bahrains Economic Vision 2030 to be a leading tech and startup hub in the region offering 360-degree support to the SME sector.

The event was conducted virtually where the opening session was addressed by Sheikh Abdulla bin Khalid Al Khalifa, Director, Communications & Investor Relations at Zain Bahrain followed by Jamal A. Al-Hazeem, Chairman of Alkeri Partners and Oqal Bahrain Chapter, and Khaled Zainalabedin, Managing Partner of Alkeri Partners and Founder and President of Oqal Bahrain Chapter.

The first session was addressed by the Guest Speaker, Noor Sweid, Founder & General Partner of Global Ventures & Chairperson of Middle East Venture Capital Association, who spoke in-depth about the Venture Capital landscape in the GCC, the impact Venture Capital has had on the GCCs startup ecosystem and how the economy has adapted to the change. The talk session was followed by a Q&A session.

The second session titled, Demo Day presented Oqal Bahrains startup cohort pitch sessions, which included three leading startups in the Fintech and technology sectors. The first pitch was by Arshad Gadit from Prowire, a platform that commoditises professional services, followed by Hamza Khan from Letswork, a subscription- based marketplace providing users with workspaces, meeting rooms and private offices, and Sohaib Khan from Hazen.ai, a Saudi-founded startup specialising in artificial intelligence (computer vision) to provide cutting edge detection solutions for traffic enforcement.

Commenting on the successful hosting of the event, Sheikh Abdulla said: Zain Bahrain has always supported innovation and entrepreneurship in the kingdom. Through this initiative, it is Zain Bahrain's constant endeavour to provide a platform that supports the rapid innovation growth in the ecosystem. We are thankful to our partners who have joined us and are helping to take ideas to market and support the growth cycle of entrepreneurial ventures in the region.

Bahrain is emerging as one of the most exciting new locations for startup talent across the world and we are extremely proud that through Zainnovate we can help businesses and startups find the right funding access and contribute to Bahrains economy.

Zainalabedin said: Zainnovate is not only a platform for startups looking for funding, but also for investors looking for investment opportunities. We believe through our collaboration with Zain Bahrain, we are stimulating young innovators in Bahrain and the GCC by equipping them with opportunities to develop, grow and sustain.

Zainnovate has positioned Oqal Bahrain as a key aggregator and driver in the funding market; we have managed to grow and build an active Angel investor community that invests in early-stage startups, fostering growth and fuelling the startup culture in the kingdom.

Zainnovate targets different types of people such as, startup founders who want to pitch their new business ideas, get funded, or want to learn from industry experts. With the support of our partners and Oqal Angel Investors Network; Zain Bahrain is contributing towards the startup ecosystem in Bahrain by providing a platform for exceptional minds that will redefine the future.

For the event, Zain Bahrain, Alkeri Partners & Oqal Bahrain partnered with Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority, BDSMEs Society, PRO SKY, Saudi Aramco Entrepreneurship, Middle East Venture Capital Association, United Nations Industrial Development Organisation, and UNIDO Network of Investment and Technology Promotion Offices.-- TradeArabia News Service
Gradiant, an end-to-end cleantech water treatment solutions provider, announced that it has secured 26 new projects in 2021 year-to-date (YTD) across the Asia Pacific (APAC) region.

Four of the projects will be delivered as design-build-own-operate-manage (DBOOM) contracts for long-term concession periods of up to 20 years.

The business growth demonstrates increased demand for advanced water & wastewater treatment during the prolonged Covid-19 pandemic.

The new contracts in 2021 YTD are a mix of high-profile clients in the industrial, municipal, and government sectors, including multinational brand owners.

Eighteen of the 26 new projects in 2021 YTD are with new clients that have selected Gradiant for the first time to solve their complex water challenges.

New applications for Gradiants technologies this year have been in lithium mining, semiconductor fabrication, and high complexity industrial wastewater reuse.

"Our business has thrived this year at Gradiant, despite the challenging market dynamics brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic," remarked Prakash Govindan, the Co-Founder and COO of Gradiant.

"We have adapted to the evolving needs of the market by taking on new clients to penetrate new strategic pandemic-resistant market segments in semiconductors, mining, and personal protective equipment (PPE)," he stated.

According to him, facilities equipped with our SmartOps asset management and remote monitoring and control systems continue to produce mission-critical water during the Covid-related travel and access restrictions.

Since the onset of the pandemic in early 2020 until today, Gradiant has been awarded 56 new projects, delivering a total contract value of over $514 million, stated Govindan.

"We are proud of these accomplishments while managing through the pandemic  these results are only possible because of the commitment and passion of our team and our customers," he added.

CFO Luke Johnson said Gradiant is experiencing another year of robust growth.

"Growth remains consistently strong across our strategic market segments in semiconductors, mining, and pharmaceuticals, and our new contract wins support the markets sustained demand for cleantech solutions and DBOOM concession agreements," he noted.

"We have proven this year that our acquisitions of Sigma Water (Malaysia) and CRS Water (Australia) in 2020 created synergies to access new customers, applications, and geographies, when married to Gradiants clean water technologies and project development and financing capabilities.-TradeArabia News Service
The newly-formed Creative Media Authority (CMA) will play a key role in furthering Abu Dhabis strategy for the Culture and Creative Industries by creating a powerful alliance of interconnected creative domains.

As part of the DCT Abu Dhabi, the new entity is the latest milestone in the emirates AED30+ billion ($8.17 billion) investment strategy to expand the entire Culture and Creative Industries (CCI), a WAM report said.

The establishment of the CMA is part of a 10-year investment strategy across Abu Dhabi by both the public and private sectors to develop the emirates culture and creative infrastructure, with AED8.5 billion invested over the past five years and a further AED22 billion being rolled out in the next five years.

The move brings the CCI industry under one umbrella, as DCT Abu Dhabi now consolidates Abu Dhabis multidisciplinary domains such as film and TV production, popular music, gaming and esports with cultural fields such as heritage, crafts and design, publishing, performing arts, and visual arts, as well as the Arabic Language Centre.

Following the issuance of a law by UAE President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, in his capacity as Ruler of Abu Dhabi, establishing the CMA, the Department of Culture and Tourism - Abu Dhabi (DCT Abu Dhabi) has launched the authority with a mission to accelerate the growth of Abu Dhabis multidisciplinary creative sector.

The new entity will also oversee a range of talent development programmes to nurture the next generation of skilled professionals working in sustainable creative careers, as well. as grow the burgeoning gaming and esports sector in the emirate, and support and launch prizes that contribute to the development of media production and interactive media.

Commenting on the launch of the CMA, Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, Chairman of DCT Abu Dhabi, noted that the Culture and Creative Industries are key drivers of social and economic growth and diversification in Abu Dhabi, and that by harnessing the natural synergies in these sectors, DCT Abu Dhabis Culture and Creative Industries Strategy is enabling the development of outstanding facilities, world-class talent and diverse opportunities.

He added that with the launch of the CMA, various sectors are being unified into a single sustainable ecosystem that will enable creative individuals and businesses to express themselves and reach new levels of commercial success, further bolstering Abu Dhabis flourishing culture and creative scene.

-- TradeArabia News Service
Nestle is laying out its plans to support and accelerate the transition to a regenerative food system  one that aims to protect and restore the environment, improve the livelihoods of farmers, and enhance the well-being of farming communities.



Nestle will work with its food system partners, including the companys network of more than 500,000 farmers and 150,000 suppliers, to advance regenerative farming practices at the heart of the food system  a term that encompasses every actor, activity, process, and product in growing, raising, making, delivering, and consuming food. As part of this journey, the company will also initiate new programs to help address the social and economic challenges of the transition.



The announcement is being made in the lead up to the UN Food Systems Summit in New York, as part of Nestles contribution to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. It also follows the recent report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that shows the climate crisis is intensifying.



We know that regenerative agriculture plays a critical role in improving soil health, restoring water cycles and increasing biodiversity for the long term, said Paul Bulcke, Chairman of Nestle. These outcomes form the foundation of sustainable food production and, crucially, also contribute to achieving our ambitious climate targets.



Nestle is a signatory of the UN Business Ambition for 1.5C pledge and was one of the first companies to share its detailed, time-bound climate plan in December 2020. The company is taking measures to halve its emissions by 2030 and achieve net zero by 2050.



With our long-standing partnerships with farming communities globally, we want to increase our support for farming practices that are good for the environment and good for people, said Mark Schneider, Nestle CEO. In the spirit of enabling a just transition it is vital that we support farmers around the world that take on the risks and costs associated with the move towards regenerative agriculture.



Nestle is investing CHF 1.2 billion ($1.3 billion) over the next five years to spark regenerative agriculture across the company's supply chain, using three primary levers to help farmers adopt regenerative practices:



 Apply state-of-the-art science and technology, provide technical assistance: Leveraging its vast network of R&D experts and agronomists, Nestle is, for example, developing higher-yielding coffee and cocoa varieties with lower environmental impact and assessing novel solutions to reduce emissions in the dairy supply chain. Nestle will also offer agricultural training and help farmers exchange information and best practices that can be adapted locally.



 Offer investment support: The transition to regenerative agriculture comes with initial risks and new costs. Nestle will support farmers by co-investing with them, facilitating lending or helping them obtain loans for specific equipment. The company will also work with partners to fund pilot projects to test and learn how best to advance regenerative agriculture.



 Pay premiums for regenerative agriculture goods: Nestle will offer premiums for many raw materials produced using regenerative agriculture practices and buy bigger quantities. This means rewarding farmers not only for the quantity and quality of ingredients, but also for the benefits they provide to the environment through soil protection, water management and carbon sequestration.



Today, Nestle published the most important regenerative farming practices that the company wants to promote. They include, among others, enhancement of biodiversity, soil conservation, regeneration of water cycles and integration of livestock. Agriculture accounts for nearly two-thirds of Nestle's total greenhouse gas emissions, with dairy and livestock making up about half of that.



In dairy, for example, Nestle is assessing cutting-edge science and technology to reduce emissions at farm level. The company will start working with 30 reference dairy farms in 12 countries to test scalable, climate-friendly, and regenerative agricultural practices that help achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions. Nestle is also working with farmers to select and cultivate nutritious and tasty pulse varieties to be used as milk alternatives.



One example of collaborating with farmers in Mena is Nestles sourcing of more than 60,000 tons of raw milk per year directly from more than 6,000 small farms of various sizes in Morocco. The Model Village milk collection program helps farmers and future generations of farmers enhance safety, quality, quantity, breeding practices, water conservation, and environmental practices through technical and competencies training. For example, Nestle will help farmers improve manure management by building biogas stations that reduce CO2 emissions and provide biogas for domestic use. Solar energy will also be introduced to all milk collection centres by 2023.



Supporting farming communities through new living income and youth programs



Regenerative agriculture contributes to a regenerative food system, which should be fair and transparent for all participants. Nestle is committed to supporting improved and diversified farmer incomes through its sustainability programs. Furthermore, Nestle will implement new living income programs for farmers in its value chain to make farming more attractive. Later this year, Nestle will unveil specific plans for its coffee and cocoa supply chains.



To support young people who are passionate about farming, Nestle is launching a new training platform in November to attract and train the next generation of farmers. The training will focus on regenerative agriculture practices and improving the resilience of farms to climate change for more than 40,000 farmers participating in one of our agripreneurship programs.



Nestles regeneration efforts are launching under the umbrella title of Generation Regeneration focused on farmers, youth, consumers and its own employees.  TradeArabia News Service
The role of Abu Dhabis Authority of Social Contributions (Maan) Social Impact Bonds (SIBs) has been examined in the third part of a blog series published by the UKs Government Outcomes Lab  (GO Lab).

The article  Embedding an outcomes approach  Building capacity within a specific ecosystem is the latest of the Abu Dhabi Social Outcomes Contracting Blog Series, which is written by social contracting expert Dr Chih Hoong Sin, Chair of Traverse.

In his comprehensive piece, Dr Chih analyses Abu Dhabis wider strategy for embedding outcomes and how Maan, a Government entity and the Department of Community Development  Abu Dhabi (DCD) is aspiring to conduct business and achieve positive social impact.

He highlights the importance of building strong and meaningful partnerships with a wide range of organisations and Maans efforts to enhance the understanding and raise awareness of SIBs and Social Impact Contracting. He urges the use of other mechanisms to encourage social impact across Abu Dhabi as well as listening to feedback to help improve future programmes.

Dr Chih also pointed out that the international community has a lot to learn from the experience and innovation of Maan and Abu Dhabi. The strategic focus, the cross-sector partnership, and a clear vision on scaling up impact are key lessons that Abu Dhabi can share with the rest of the world.

In its role, Maan supervises social impact bonds and supports the contractual arrangements between government departments in Abu Dhabi, social service providers and social investors. It also monitors and measures performance.

Last year, Maan launched the GCCs first SIB project  ATMAH, a vocational training programme which aims to secure employment for young People of Determination. It is in collaboration with the Department of Community Development, Aldar Properties, Aldar Education and Zayed Higher Organisation for People of Determination.

The blog will be featured on the GO Labs blog online platform and its weekly newsletter which will be distributed to professionals, policy-makers and practitioners in the public, social and private sectors around the world.

This high-level distribution internationally strengthens Maan and Abu Dhabis position as leaders in implementing and addressing methods of financing and delivering solutions for the social challenges in Abu Dhabi.

Salama Al Ameemi, Director General of Maan, said: We are pleased to see details of our social impact bond programmes being shared on global platforms, allowing Abu Dhabi the opportunity to share an example of its knowledge and experience. We are grateful for the vision of international experts, whose wealth of knowledge and tremendous experience in this field translate into engaging content for global audiences. The blogs are evidence of the pioneering regional leadership played by the Authority in the field of social contracting, and we are delighted to showcase our experience and knowledge to the international community.

His article is further evidence of the outstanding work that we are doing by driving social innovation across Abu Dhabi and it is integral we continue to build on the foundations so that we can help enrich residents lives and make our communities more inclusive and connected.

Social Impact Bonds can be a real game-changer and we strongly believe that it can play a pivotal role in addressing social priorities in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, and help the city to flourish for many years to come.-- TradeArabia News Service
Hyundai Motor Company has announced its commitment to become carbon neutral by 2045 at IAA Mobility 2021.

Hyundais integrated strategy to achieve carbon neutrality rests on the following three pillars: clean mobility, next-generation platforms, and green energy.

Hyundai is showcasing the full breadth of its electrified vehicle lineup and latest solutions to progress with positive energy at this years IAA taking place from September 6 to 12 in Munich, Germany.

Under our companys vision, Progress for Humanity, Hyundai Motor is determined to do the right thing for the world, said Jaehoon (Jay) Chang, President and CEO of Hyundai Motor Company. Climate change is an undeniable challenge that needs everyones utmost and urgent attention. Hyundai Motor commits to become carbon neutral in its global products and operations by 2045, and we will make investments in cleaner transportation and greener energy solutions to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all.

IAA visitors can locate Hyundai Motors boothwhere the company is exhibiting BEV concepts, all-electric robotaxi model, and artistic displays on hydrogen value chainin Hall A1, Messe Munich.

IAA Visitors can reach the events various locations via Hyundais Blue Lane service, offering the opportunity to experience the brands latest clean mobility vehicles, including IONIQ 5, NEXO, Kona EV, and Elec City Fuel Cell bus.

Hyundais demonstration at IAA is available digitally as well. The press conference video is uploaded on Hyundai Motors Worldwide YouTube channel.

With a new location and a live-digital hybrid format, this years IAA is very different from previous events, and we are very happy that we are participating once again as an exhibitor, said Michael Cole, President and CEO of Hyundai Motor Europe. We are excited to be sharing our future company vision, which goes beyond automotive mobility. On top of this, we are outlining our roadmap to enable a carbon neutral society, which is imperative as the future of the planet is at stake.

PATH TO CARBON NEUTRALITY

At this years IAA, Hyundai Motor commits to reduce its carbon emissions 75% below the 2019 level by 2040. Hyundai will achieve carbon neutrality in its products and global operations by 2045.

Hyundai Motors integrated, multi-dimensional strategy for carbon neutrality consists of three pillars: expanding its clean mobility lineup, developing next-generation platforms, and investing in green energy solutions and technologies.

PILLAR 1: CLEAN MOBILITY

Since the first unveiling of its EV concept vehicle in 1991, Hyundai Motor has made progress towards carbon reduction through its leadership in clean mobility.

Hyundai Motor commits to gradually increase the sales share of zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) in upcoming years.

By 2030, Hyundai aims to secure 30% of its global vehicles sales with ZEVs, and by 2040, the company expects that battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles (FCEVs) will account for 80% of its total fleet sales.

By region, Hyundai Motor plans to offer only ZEVs in Europe, starting in 2035. By 2040, Hyundai will phase out all vehicles using fossil fuels in major markets, supportive of the transition to clean mobility.

Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV): In August 2020, Hyundai Motor launched its new IONIQ brand for dedicated BEVs, signaling its commitment to the electrified mobility era. Later that year, Hyundai Motor Group, the parent of Hyundai Motor Company, unveiled its Electric-Global Modular Platform (E-GMP) for dedicated BEVs.

Hyundai Motors IONIQ 5, which launched in February 2021, is the brands first BEV built upon E-GMP. IONIQ 5 has set a new benchmark for redefining the electric mobility lifestyle with sustainable and innovative features, such as 400 V and 800 V multi-charging and Vehicle-to-Load (V2L).

Hyundais next dedicated BEV will be IONIQ 6, which draws inspiration from its Prophecy EV concept that is on display at IAA 2021. IONIQ 6 is going to offer BEV experiences with a focus on customised, eco-friendly solutions that can fit any lifestyle.

Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle (FCEV): Hyundai Motor has invested in hydrogen fuel cell technology for more than 20 years. Hyundai launched ix35, the worlds first mass-produced FCEV, in 2013, followed by NEXO, the first dedicated hydrogen-powered SUV, in 2018.

Last year, the company delivered XCIENT Fuel Cell, the worlds first mass-produced, fuel cell electric heavy-duty truck, to customers in Switzerland. Hyundai recently presented its Elec City Fuel Cell bus in Munich and the vehicle is now in a testing phase in Europe.

At IAA, Hyundai unveils its passenger FCEV roadmap for the next few years. In 2023, Hyundai will introduce the next model of NEXO and hydrogen-powered multi-purpose vehicle (MPV) model. Hyundai plans to launch a large SUV powered by fuel cell after 2025.

Hyundai Motor is also going to provide its fuel cell powertrains to all types of mobility fleets and other areas of life.

PILLAR 2: NEXT-GENERATION PLATFORMS

Hyundai Motor has made leading investments in the field of next-generation transportation platforms. This includes an innovative set of mobility options to get from point A to B, such as UAM and autonomous vehicles, offering greater freedom of mobility without a carbon footprint. These platforms are also in line with the company's Progress for Humanity vision, and shows Hyundais commitment to enhance urban livability for the future generations.

IONIQ 5-based robotaxi: Hyundai Motor unveils the first look of its groundbreaking robotaxi model at IAA Mobility 2021. Hyundai has collaborated with Motional, a global leader in driverless technology, to develop the SAE Level 4 autonomous driving vehicle based on IONIQ 5.

With an advanced sensor suite attached to Hyundais latest dedicated BEV model, the robotaxi features a technology-driven design that celebrates the innovation behind the autonomous operation.

The vehicle will feature rider-focused interfaces to allow passengers to intuitively interact with the vehicle during their ride. Motional will begin transporting public passengers in the IONIQ 5-based robotaxi when it launches its fully driverless service in 2023.

Urban Air Mobility (UAM): At CES 2020, Hyundai introduced the UAM concept model, S-A1, being developed based on four principles: safe, quiet, affordable and passenger-centered solutions. Hyundai Motor aims to launch an all-electric UAM model optimised for intra-city operations in 2028. In the 2030s, the company plans to launch regional air mobility that connects adjacent cities.

PILLAR 3: GREEN ENERGY

Hyundai Motors carbon neutral strategy goes beyond the transition to ZEVs. It aims to provide cleaner and greener energy solutions for all.

This includes not only using renewable energy at the companys production facilities, but also making long-term investments in future technologies, such as green hydrogen based on renewable energy, Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) and Second Life Battery Energy Storage System (SLBESS).

Green Hydrogen: Green hydrogen obtained from electrolysis of water generated by low-carbon power sources is expected to significantly reduce carbon emissions. Hyundai Motor has invested in global startups, such as H2Pro, to cooperate in the field of green hydrogen.

Furthermore, Hyundai plans to establish green hydrogen infrastructures in countries with strong government support and abundant renewable energy sources.

Carbon reduction at sites: Hyundai Motor has been carrying out a number of activities to reduce the amount of carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions produced by its manufacturing processes. The companys actions include continuing with its energy reduction activities and building eco-friendly plants by converting them to renewable energy sources like photovoltaic power.

In July, Hyundai Motor teamed with other affiliates of Hyundai Motor Group to join Climate Groups RE100, a global initiative committed to moving toward 100% renewable energy.

Under the commitment, the Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Czech plant will be the companys first factory to completely convert its electricity usage to renewable energy in 2022. The company aims to meet the electricity needs of over 90% of its global operations with renewable energy by 2040. Hyundai commits to power its entire global operations only with renewable energy by 2045.

Vehicle-to-grid (V2G): V2G is the latest technology that allows energy to be pushed back to the power grid from the battery of an EV. It enables efficient energy demand management especially during peak hours, thus lessoning dependence on fossil fuels.

Hyundai is currently conducting several V2G pilot programmes with various stakeholders in the market. The company plans to implement the V2G function to its upcoming BEV models.

Second Life Battery Energy Storage System (SLBESS): Hyundai Motor is also looking to recover and transform end-of-life batteries into a new business of energy storage system. Hyundai is currently working with various local energy partners to run pilot projects to commercially reuse second-life EV batteries.

Also, the company is scheduled to test a small size application of SLBESS in Germany next year.

IAA Mobility is the perfect occasion to unveil our global vision for carbon neutrality. IAA is yet another milestone along the sustainable journey weve been paving for years. Hyundai Motor will remain steadfast in our pursuit of carbon neutrality and lead the way in the development of holistic solutions, said Thomas Schemera, Global Chief Marketing Officer at Hyundai Motor Company.

As a smart mobility solution provider, Hyundai also aspires to provide energy solutions for business and society overall. Climate change wont be solved without a concerted effort. We will strive to do more for the environment via multiple sustainability projects in the months to come, inviting everyone to join us on our journey towards a cleaner future, Schemera added.-- TradeArabia News Service
King Salman Energy Park (Spark) has reached an agreement with Hutchison Ports to set up a joint venture that will manage and operate the dry port and bonded logistics zone within the energy industrial city.

Designed to ensure ease of access to global markets, the 3-sq-km dry port will enable the future joint venture to capture the growing demand for logistics services for energy-related products in the Middle East and beyond while also serving the neighbouring industrial cities.

A first-of-its-kind, the dry port will connect the regions fully integrated energy hub to the world.

Spanning over a 50 sq km area, Spark is a sustainable, global energy hub in Saudi Arabias Eastern Province. It is a manufacturing, service center and logistics unit for the energy sectors and an integral part of the Saudi Vision 2030.

On completion, Spark will create significant employment, further diversify the economy, and attract additional foreign investment into the kingdom.

Chairman Mohammed Y. Al Qahtani summarised the significance of the agreement: "We are so proud to give investors another reason to do business at Spark. Hutchison is a world class ports and terminal operator, and the step we take together today will give Sparks investors ease of access to local and global markets."

"Furthermore, the logistic hubs will also serve the eastern region and its industrial cities. It will also help us fulfil our IKTVA promise to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the world by giving local manufacturers the physical infrastructure they need," he added.

Hutchison Ports Group Managing Director Eric Ip said: "Saudi Arabia is an important market and we are very excited to participate in this ambitious, game-changing mega project. As the worlds leading port group, we will leverage our logistics expertise to create value and competitiveness for the tenants of Spark."

The Saudi energy park's first phase is divided into a number of clusters: logistics zone, industrial hub, business district, digital hub, and residential and commercial areas.

The dedicated dry port and logistics zone will include warehouses and storage facilities, a bonded area and on-site customs clearance, he added.

President and CEO Saif Al Qahtani said: "Our partnership with Hutchison Ports marks an important milestone in the ongoing development of Spark. The dry port and logistics zone will be the key to unlocking the potential of our strategic location in the Eastern Province, a region which is known for its unmatched oil and gas resources."

"We are tremendously excited to work with Hutchison Ports to help connect our investors to the world, allowing them to operate efficiently and save on transport times and costs," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
Rolls-Royce has completed the first flight of its all-electric Spirit of Innovation aircraft propelled by its powerful 400kW (500+hp)electric powertrain with the most power-dense battery pack ever assembled for an aircraft.



This is another step towards the planes world-record attempt and another milestone on the aviation industrys journey towards decarbonisation.



Warren East, CEO, Rolls-Royce, said: The first flight of the Spirit of Innovation is a great achievement for the ACCEL team and Rolls-Royce. We are focused on producing the technology breakthroughs society needs to decarbonise transport across air, land and sea, and capture the economic opportunity of the transition to net zero.



This is not only about breaking a world record; the advanced battery and propulsion technology developed for this programme has exciting applications for the Urban Air Mobility market and can help make jet zero a reality.



Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said: The first flight of Rolls-Royces revolutionary Spirit of Innovation aircraft signals a huge step forward in the global transition to cleaner forms of flight. This achievement, and the records we hope will follow, shows the UK remains right at the forefront of aerospace innovation.



By backing projects like this one, the Government is helping to drive forward the boundary pushing technologies that will leverage investment and unlock the cleaner, greener aircraft required to end our contribution to climate change.



The aircraft took off from the UK Ministry of Defences Boscombe Downsite, which is managed by QinetiQ and flew for approximately 15 minutes. The site has a long heritage of experimental flights and the first flight marks the beginning of an intense flight-testing phase in which we will be collecting valuable performance data on the aircrafts electrical power and propulsion system.



The ACCEL programme, short for Accelerating the Electrification of Flight includes key partners YASA, the electric motor and controller manufacturer, and aviation start-up Electroflight. The ACCEL team have continued to innovate while adhering to the UK Governments social distancing and other health guidelines.



Half of the projects funding is provided by the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI), in partnership with the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy and Innovate UK. In the run up to COP26, the ACCEL programme is further evidence of the UKs position at the forefront of the zero-emission aircraft revolution.



The first flight of the Spirit of Innovation demonstrates how innovative technology can provide solutions to some of the worlds biggest challenges, said Gary Elliott, CEO, Aerospace Technology Institute.



The ATI is funding projects like ACCEL to help UK develop new capabilities and secure a lead in the technologies that will decarbonise aviation. We congratulate everyone who has worked on the ACCEL project to make the first flight a reality and look forward to the world speed record attempt which will capture the imagination of the public in the year that the UK hosts COP26.



Rolls-Royce is offering our customers a complete electric propulsion system for their platform, whether that is an electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) or commuter aircraft. We will be using the technology from the ACCEL project and applying it to products for these exciting new markets.



The characteristics that air-taxis require from batteries are very similar to what is being developed for the Spirit of Innovation so that it can reach speeds of 300+ MPH (480+ KMH)  which Rolls-Royce is targeting in its world record attempt.



In addition, Rolls-Royce and airframer Tecnam are currently working with Widere, the largest regional airline in Scandinavia, to deliver an all-electric passenger aircraft for the commuter market, which is planned to be ready for revenue service in 2026.  TradeArabia News Service
The British Airways BA1476 from London Heathrow to Glasgow Airport became the airlines first ever passenger flight to be powered directly by sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), with the remaining emissions produced by the flight offset.

The airline teamed up with Heathrow, air traffic service provider NATS, fuel giant bp, Glasgow Airport and Airbus to operate the short carbon neutral flight, which departed Heathrow at 10.36 on September 14 and arrived in Glasgow at 11.28 local time.

The short journey on the airlines new special liveried sustainability aircraft painted in partnership with Airbus replicated a flight British Airways operated to Edinburgh in 2010. At the time, neither offsetting nor sustainable aviation fuel were available to reduce the flights impact on the environment, and the journey was operated on an older aircraft carrying fewer passengers.

The aim of this weeks flight was to show how far the aviation industry has progressed in its efforts to decarbonise over the last decade.

The flight was operated by an Airbus A320neo, the quietest and most fuel-efficient short-haul aircraft currently in British Airways fleet.

British Airways Chairman and CEO Sean Doyle described the flight as a glimpse of the future. He said: This flight offered a practical demonstration of the progress were making in our carbon reduction journey. By working together with our industry partners weve delivered a 62% improvement in emissions reductions compared to a decade ago.

With BA Better World, were making progress on our journey to a sustainable future and have adopted a range of short, medium and long-term initiatives to get us to net zero emissions. Together, we can build a future for aviation that delivers the wonders of air travel while reducing the impact on the environment.

NATS CEO Martin Rolfe said: Live demonstrations like this show just what is possible and are an important step on the aviation industrys path to net zero by 2050. We can learn a lot from flights like these, as they help us understand how to redesign the airspace over the UK and play our part in making flying sustainable for the future.

Airbus Executive Vice President Corporate Affairs and Communications Julie Kitcher said: "The A320neo is a great example of how far our industry has come. It meets all the ICAO environmental standards thanks to advances in engines, aerodynamics, cabin and flight operations.

"Together with our industry partners, we want to bring the first zero emission commercial aircraft to the market by 2035. Perfect Flight is a clear example of how together we can achieve impressive results."

British Airways parent company International Airlines Group recently committed to operating 10% of its flights using SAF by 2030.-TradeArabia News Service
Bahrains tourism sector has attracted nearly $40 million worth of new investments in the kingdoms tourism sector to date, which will help create more than 260 jobs over the next three years, according to a treport by the Economic Development Board (EDB).

Bahrains EDB is seeking to capitalise on the growth of the countrys tourism sector as meaningful international travel resumes.

National carrier Gulf Air had last month announced that around 80% of its pre-pandemic flights will resume from the summer season and that Bahrain was appearing on more travel green lists across markets.

EDB said among the key tourism investments in the kingdom was Remza Investment Companys addition of Turkish hospitality brand, Gunaydin, to its portfolio.

Located at The Terminal, one of Bahrains unique real estate developments, Gunaydins $6.5 million investment will be its first restaurant in the kingdom. The outfit will create 80 jobs over three years and add to the wide variety of international restaurants springing up in the country.

Remza Investment Companys Chairman and CEO Dr Fadhel Al Arrayed said: "Gunaydin is a prestigious global brand and is a valued addition to the Kingdoms numerous eateries. Our first investment, a popular Istanbul restaurant, will be operated in Adliya in a 1,000-m sq space which can accommodate up to 300 customers."

"We would like to thank our partners and the EDB for providing us with a welcoming and supportive environment," he noted.

Another investment by renowned chocolate brand, Patchi, allocated $8 million for the expansion of the business in the Kingdom. Launching new projects that offer unique experiences for customers, Patchis expansion will help create 160 jobs over three years.

On the new venture, Patchi Bahrain lauded Bahrain for offering a business environment that is in line with its aspirations for expansion, both nationally and regionally.

The company believes that the countrys stability and openness, along with the support provided by the EDB and other organisations, helped it in developing the business, and stated that it was proud to be part of Bahrains vibrant and growing tourism sector.

ELSS Group, which specialises in the construction of aquariums and marine parks, also announced a $1 million investment in their regional operational base at the Bahrain Aquarium, the kingdoms largest aquarium which opened yesterday at the Mall of Dilmunia.

The largest cylindrical aquarium in the Middle East has a depth of 17 meters and is spread over four floors. It includes a life support (water purification) system on two floors beneath and another at the top of the aquarium.

ELSS will operate and maintain the aquarium until at least mid-2025. This is in addition to other aquarium projects ELSS plans to undertake in the Kingdom and neighboring countries including Saudi Arabia, Oman, and the UAE.

The groups projects are estimated to create approximately 20 jobs in the fields of local marine biology, environmental sciences, underwater diving, and engineering.

ELSS Groups Managing Director Jed McAteer said: "Bahrain presents an ideal destination to develop and expand our business across the region. We have benefitted from the many competitive advantages offered by the countrys business friendly environment."

"We are pleased to be working alongside the EDB as well as a number of qualified Bahraini companies in the architecture, construction, and retail industries. We welcome this valuable opportunity to share our expertise in Bahrain, which is an ideal environment for our future projects," stated McAteer.

EDBs Executive Director of Investment Origination Ali Al Mudaifa said: "Tourism, with its many restaurants, hotels, and resorts, is among the industries we expect to bounce back to previous levels of activity as the country continues to gradually reopen, and restrictions ease, allowing life to return to normal."

"Attracting investments such as these are in line with the EDBs strategy to further economic diversification by contributing to the development of the sector and supporting the creation of jobs in the local market, he added.-TradeArabia News Service
Global coronavirus cases saw their first substantial decline in more than two months last week, the World Health Organization reported Tuesday. Yet cases in the U.S. continue to remain highly elevated, particularly among children, according to a separate pediatric report.

New COVID-19 cases fell over the last week in all six global regions the WHO operates in  Africa, the Americas, the Eastern Mediterranean, Europe, South-East Asia and the Western Pacific  compared to the previous week. The total number of deaths reported globally also decreased compared to the previous week, according to The WHOs weekly case report which tallied about 4 million new cases, down from about 4.4 million.

The Americas and Europe had the highest weekly rates of COVID-19 cases and related deaths. This was similar to the week before. The U.S. continues to report the highest number of new cases, with 1 million added last week. The United Kingdom came in second, with 256,000 new cases, followed by India with 248,000 new cases.

Shoppers pass a sign encouraging people to wear masks to reduce the transmission of the coronavirus outside of a Tesco supermarket. The U.K. has the second highest number of COVID-19 cases, according to the WHO. (Photo: Daniel Harvey Gonzalez via Getty Images)

Caseloads have generally been climbing in the U.S. since the start of summer, though there has been a recent dip in the seven-day average, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

This weekslong rise has largely been seen in the South, particularly in the states of Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia and South Carolina, where vaccination rates have remained on the lower end and elected leaders have vowed to fight vaccine and mask mandates. Though Florida had long been a coronavirus hot spot, with its governor launching his own fight against such mandates, the state has seen a drop in new cases in recent weeks and has topped 31 states in its rate of vaccination doses administered per 100,000 people, according to CDC data.

Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia and South Carolina, seen in navy blue, have some of the highest seven-day COVID-19 case rates per 100,000 people in the country. (Photo: CDC.gov)

Collectively, 63% of people in the U.S. have received at least one vaccine dose, while 54% are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC. The WHO has said that all countries must reach a 70% vaccination rate by mid-2022 in order to control the pandemic, though not a single low-income country has reached any of its lowest target goals as of this month.

Story continues

High-income countries have now administered almost 100 doses for every 100 people. Meanwhile, low-income countries have only been able to administer 1.5 doses for every 100 people, due to lack of supply, the WHO said in a statement Tuesday.

WHO Director-General Dr, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus cautioned that this vaccination gap allows the virus to continue to spread and mutate, placing everyone at a greater risk.

The number of coronavirus vaccinations being administered daily in the U.S. has plateaued since June. This follows a high back in April, according to a recent report by the White House COVID-19 team. (Photo: healthdata.gov)

This doesnt only hurt the people of Africa, it hurts all of us, he said. The longer vaccine inequity persists, the more the virus will keep circulating and changing, the longer the social and economic disruption will continue, and the higher the chances that more variants will emerge that render vaccines less effective.

The European Unions executive chief announced Wednesday that it will donate 200 million vaccine doses to poorer countries by the middle of next year to help close this gap. This donation follows the EU previously pledging 250 million doses.

COVID-19 cases among children have meanwhile continued to climb to near-record numbers in the U.S., according to a report released Monday by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Childrens Hospital Association.

Pediatric COVID-19 cases have been steadily rising since July. Children represented 15.5% of all new COVID-19 cases reported in the U.S. last week, according to a weekly report by two health organizations. (Photo: aap.org)

More than 243,000 children tested positive for the virus over the past week, amounting to 15.5% of all new cases, according to the report. This was the second highest number of pediatric cases in a week since the pandemic began. About 252,000 new coronavirus cases were reported among children in the week prior, up from 8,447 new cases reported the week of June 24.

After declining in early summer, child cases have increased exponentially, with nearly 500,000 cases in the past 2 weeks, both health organizations said in a statement.

The WHO, in its own report this week, expressed concern that cases among children may be underreported due to children typically having more mild symptoms than adults, which could lead to less testing. Despite their symptoms being more mild, they remain able to transmit the disease.

If children and adolescents with mild or no symptoms also transmit the disease, they may also contribute to transmission in the community, the WHO said in its weekly report.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.

Related...
by Vladimir Rozanskij

Economic aid and commercial opening in exchange for the fight against the network of Fethullah Gulen, Erdogan's arch-enemy. The "Gulenists" have a strong presence in Central Asia. The goal is to bring trade to the billion dollar mark. Expert: the Turks act like masters in Kyrgyzstan.

Moscow (AsiaNews) - Turkey wants to step up its investment in the mining industry in Kyrgyzstan. The goal is to support energy production, tourism, health and education in the Central Asian country, bringing bilateral trade up to a billion dollars. Starting with Biskek, Ankara is continuing its plan for neo-Ottoman unification in Central Asia.

In return, the Turks expect concrete help in the "fight against terrorism". This means pressure on the "Gulenist" exponents still present in Kyrgyzstan. They are the supporters of Fethullah Gulen, historical former ally and now enemy of Turkish President Erdogan. Gulen is the founder of the Hizmet movement and many of his followers have integrated themselves into the Kyrgyz administrative and economic system.

Kyrgyzstan is in desperate need of financial support and is forced to bow its head to "Sultan" Erdogan. Ankara and Biskek discussed plans for cooperation on September 10. The meeting took place in the Kyrgyz capital, during the 10th Economic Forum of the Turkish-Kyrgyz Intergovernmental Commission for Business Cooperation, which was attended by the chairman of the Kyrgyz Council of Ministers, Ulubek Maripov, and Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay.

According to Oktay, "the billion plan is just the beginning - we need to work towards a billion budget." In the first eight months of the year, trade between the two countries stopped at just over half a billion dollars: still a 78% increase over 2020.

About 300 Turkish companies work in Kyrgyzstan, mostly in construction, transportation and trade. "Our potential is much more ambitious - Oktay added - and concerns the textile sector, agriculture, logistics, energy and digitalization." Turkish specialists will make an assessment on hydro-energy goals, to build a large hydroelectric station on the Naryn River soon.

The Turks are also willing to solve the Kyrgyz customs problems, provide know-how for the development of tourism and much more. Maripov assured that Turkey is considered one of the main partners in Biskek. He proposed a number of perspective projects, and the creation of a special investment fund, according to the will of Kyrgyz President Sadyr Zaparov.

Turkish-Kyrgyz relations have improved greatly since Zaparov's visit to Ankara last year, when the two governments signed memoranda that could now move into the implementation phase. That is, if the Kyrgyz manage to get rid of the Gulenists. Andrej Grozin, an expert at the Russian Academy of Sciences doubts it. Interviewed by Nezavisimaja Gazeta, Grozin points out that the network of educational and academic institutions "Sepat", created by Gulen in the various Central Asian republics, is still active in Kyrgyzstan. Only Uzbekistan and Tajikistan closed them immediately, accepting Erdogan's demands.

So far the Kyrgyz have limited themselves to renaming it "Sapat". To date, it remains the main educational network in the country, which has caused a chill in relations with Turkey, which considers all Sepat-Sapat students to be terrorists. Just before Zaparov's visit to Ankara, the Turkish secret service had kidnapped the director of the Sapat network, Orhan Inandi, from Kyrgyz territory, demanding that the leader of Biskek condemn him as a terrorist.

"Turkey feels in a certain way as the master of Kyrgyzstan, without fully recognizing its sovereignty," says Grozin, according to whom the "cleaning up of Kyrgyzstan" has a symbolic value from the cultural and social point of view. Maripov and Oktay together inaugurated the "Maarif" school complex in Biskek, dedicated primarily to the study and dissemination of the Turkish language. Students will be offered to finish their studies in Turkey. Another very effective symbol is the beginning of the construction of a large mosque in the Kyrgyz capital, financed by the Turks for about 35 million dollars.
Telecom company Telenor pulls out of the country refusing to spy on its customers for the ruling military junta. For now, the military regime will not get a seat at the UN General Assembly.

Yangon (AsiaNews/Agencies)  Fighting is intensifying in Myanmar after the latest statement by the National Unity Government (NUG), which urged the population to turn against Myanmars military.

The Chin Defence Force (CDF) recently warned civilians to avoid travelling between the cities of Kanpetlet and Saw due to the violence.

After the CDF ambushed soldiers, the military responded by attacking Kanpetlet. "Their reckless shelling hit the town, said a CDF spokesman.

After a pause Tuesday night, fighting resumed yesterday morning.

The military junta, which ousted the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi in a coup on February 1, is also trying to crush the opposition by other means.

Norwegian telecom company Telenor has announced that it is pulling out of the country because it would have to conduct surveillance on its customers, using equipment under international sanctions.

Operating such equipment in this situation would constitute a breach of our values and standards, the company said yesterday.

Human rights groups however criticised the companys decision to sell its Myanmar operation to Lebanese company M1, which also has relations with other authoritarian regimes and could pass customer data to the military.

Meanwhile, following an agreement between the United States and China, the military junta has not won a seat in the United Nations General Assembly.

In exchange, Myanmars current ambassador to the UN, Kyaw Moe Tun, will not be allowed to speak too critically about the military regime and Myanmars Armed Forces (Tatmadaw).

The rules of the international organisation provide that in the event of a dispute over a seat, a special committee will propose an evaluation which will then be approved by the General Assembly.

At present, Western nations are pursuing negotiations to maintain the status quo for as long as possible.
The measure affects some 30 prisoners for crimes of opinion or thought. A recent amendment by the monarch provides for alternative sentences to prison at any time of sentencing. Some detainees had ended up in cells while still underage. Of 3,800 total detainees, at least 1,400 are political prisoners.

Manama (AsiaNews/Agencies) - The authorities of Bahrain have ordered the conditional release of 30 political prisoners, based on the application of a reform of the penal code that allows electronic monitoring and house arrest in place of prison. This is reported by government sources confirmed by local activist groups, according to which almost all the people released in recent days are considered "prisoners of conscience or politicians".

Since the uprisings related to the Arab Spring in 2011, the Gulf state has imprisoned thousands of protesters, journalists, activists or ordinary citizens, judging them in mass trials in which the right to defense was not respected, Manama says it has prosecuted people who have committed crimes according to international law and rejects criticism from the United Nations and pro-human rights movements on the trials and prison conditions.

In 2017, a legal reform included the possibility of commuting prison sentences with other forms of repression - electronic surveillance, rehabilitative programs, community-based services, home detention - after serving at least half of the sentence. Last week, the king introduced an amendment allowing for changes to the prison regime at any time.

Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, an activist in exile and leader of the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (Bird), points out that at least 27 of the 30 people released this week are political prisoners. However, he adds, they "will continue to face severe restrictions on their freedoms and even the few releases remain overshadowed by the continued incarceration of hundreds of prisoners of conscience or politicians."

Among those released on the night of September 12 is Kameel Juma Hasan, who was arrested at the age of 14 and sentenced to 28 years in prison in 2019. According to the experts of the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (Wgad) this is a case of arbitrary detention. Reuters sources also point out that those released are subject to electronic monitoring of movements, a ban on talking to the press or the use of social media.

Bird estimates that, compared to a prison population of about 3,800, there are more than 1,400 political or opinion-related prisoners. Among the high-profile personalities still in cells is Abduljalil al-Singace, who has been on hunger strike for over 60 days.

Bahrain is a Gulf monarchy ruled by a Sunni dynasty in a reality in which the majority of the population (at least 60-70%) is Shiite and has long been asking for constitutional changes, social and economic rights. In 2011, in the wake of the Arab Spring, there have been riots that the King of Bahrain - allied with Washington and supported by Riyadh - has repressed thanks to the support of armed troops sent by Saudi Arabia.
South Korea tested its first submarine-launched missile, but denies it was a response to the North's provocations. Japan reports that North Korean rockets landed inside its exclusive economic zone. China's foreign minister was visiting Seoul.

Seoul (AsiaNews/Agencies) - The two Koreas tested ballistic missiles within hours of each other. Yesterday Pyongyang launched two ballistic missiles toward its east coast and a few hours later Seoul successfully tested its first submarine-launched ballistic missile, becoming the seventh country in the world to possess the technology.

South Korea said the test was not in response to the North's provocations, but was already planned. The launches took place while Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was visiting Seoul for talks with South Korean counterpart Chung Eui-yong.

According to the latest information, one of the two ballistic missiles launched by Pyongyang came from a train. "The rail-based missile system is an efficient means of counterattack" capable of responding to complex threats, the Korean Central News Agency reported.

Japan, which called the test "a serious threat to national security," later reported that the North Korean missiles landed inside Japan's exclusive economic zone.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in said South Korea now has "sufficient deterrence to respond to North Korea's provocations at any time," and urged the country to continue developing programs to develop new weapons in order to "overwhelm North Korea's asymmetric power." The comments were criticized by Kim Yo-jong, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, who described them as deplorable, and stressed that they could lead to a break in ties.

North Korea had also tested a long-range cruise missile last week, despite the country facing a severe economic crisis.
by Dario Salvi

WHO director general is in Lebanon today and tomorrow to vet the countrys unprecedented complex crisis. In August, dozens of cancer patients protested in front of the UN offices. For Caritas director Fr Abboud, the basic problem is corruption in a nation plundered by politicians. Yet, hope lives on, as does solidarity.

Beirut (AsiaNews)  In Lebanon there are no medicines and many knock on the doors of Caritas in search of help, especially for life-saving drugs, said Fr Michel Abboud, president of Caritas Lebanon.

We do what we can, he told AsiaNews, trying to find them through various channels, including foreign ones, but it is a difficult undertaking because they cost a lot.

Lebanons health system has reached catastrophic levels. Through mainstream and social media, Fr Michel is appealing for aid.

Some patients on ventilators died because power outages shut down the machines. People have told us some sad stories about relatives, stories that have remained private.

Drug shortages have become chronic in Lebanon, leading to preventable deaths. The problem has been compounded by the collapse of the countrys hospitals.

Many drugs do not arrive and if they do, they are not stocked or they cost an arm and a leg, Fr Michel explained.

"Many chronically ill people turn to Caritas for medications against hypertension or diabetes. We have no anti-cancer drugs so cancer patients are dying waiting for treatment. There are also no basic vaccines for children.

Some people travel to Turkey, but there the drugs are often too expensive, crushing all hope.

We see more and more people coming to Lebanon from abroad, landing at airports with suitcases full of medicines for relatives and friends.

We do not yet know the extent of this, how many Lebanese have died from lack of treatment, but, we ourselves have tried to assess it by looking at changes in the mortality rate. Meanwhile, we try to do what we can, providing solar panels or batteries to power ventilators.

World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and WHOs regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean Ahmed Al Mandhari are on an official two-day visit to the country today and tomorrow.

Their agenda includes meetings with high level officials and a stop at the renovated Central Drug Warehouse, which was destroyed by the explosion at the Port of Beirut on 4 August 2020.

In a statement, the UN health agency said that Lebanon is experiencing an unprecedented complex crisis, that has serious repercussions on the health system and on the health of an already vulnerable population.

For the Mideast nation, this is one of its worst economic crises in 150 years, caused by decades of corruption and mismanagement by political leaders who have piled on the country debts and debts and done very little or nothing to support the local economy.

The nation is largely dependent on imports, which are now unsustainable after the local currency lost 90 per cent of its value since 2019 leaving the central bank's reserves dry.

In August, dozens of cancer patients held a rally in front of the UN offices in Beirut, calling for international aid.

Everything is linked to corruption because Lebanon is not a poor country, Fr Michel explained. Instead, the countrys rulers have plundered and impoverished it. COVID-19 and the port explosion are great tragedies, but the primary causes are to be found elsewhere.

The new government announced last week "is a source of hope", but it must be judged on its actions, not words. Hopefully, it might change something or at least stop the descent into the abyss.

For its part, Caritas has launched several initiatives, including acquiring medicines and providing treatment for the needy.

We are going to villages with Egyptian doctors offering free cataract operations, over a hundred in a short period of time, the Caritas director said, but there are thousands who want one. Some people have been waiting two years for an operation.

In a final plea, Fr Michel noted: We must hold on and be united, maintain hope so that one day this crisis can be put behind us.
By AJ Mitchell, Research fellow, Australian National University

US Navy/Wikimedia Commons

The Australian government has just declared an historic defence agreement with the United States and United Kingdom that will see a new fleet of nuclear-powered submarines patrol our shores and surrounding waters.

Research into nuclear-based propulsion of marine vessels began in the 1940s with the dawn of the nuclear age. Since then, only six nations have owned and operated nuclear submarines: China, France, India, Russia, the UK and the US.

Considering Australia has just torn up a A$90 billion contract to construct a new arsenal of conventional submarines, yesterdays announcement will probably come as a surprise to many.





Read more:

Australia to build nuclear submarines in a new partnership with the US and UK





So what is nuclear about a nuclear submarine? The first thing to say is that a nuclear-powered submarine is not a nuclear weapon.

On the surface, they look like any other submarine. The key difference lies in the way they are powered.

In the early days of atomic research, scientists rapidly realised the huge amounts of energy released by splitting the atom can be harnessed to generate electricity. Nuclear reactors inside power stations have been powering homes and industry across the world for 70 years. Similarly, each nuclear submarine draws power from its own miniature onboard nuclear reactor.

At the heart of every atom is an atomic nucleus, made of protons and neutrons. The number of protons defines what chemical element that atom belongs to; nuclei with the same number of protons but varying numbers of neutrons are called isotopes of that element.

Some very heavy nuclei are highly susceptible to a process known as nuclear fission, whereby they split into two lighter nuclei with a total mass less than the original nucleus. The remainder is converted to energy.

The amount of energy released is immense, as we can see from Einsteins famous equation, E = mc, which tells us the energy is equal to the change in mass multiplied by the square of the speed of light!

Reactors in a nuclear-powered submarine are typically fuelled with uranium. Natural uranium mined from the ground consists mainly of an isotope called uranium-238, mixed with small amounts (0.7%) of the key isotope uranium-235.

For the reactor to work, the uranium fuel has to be enriched to contain the desired proportion of uranium-235. For submarines, this is typically about 50%. The degree of fuel enrichment is a crucial factor in maintaining a chain reaction that gives a consistent, safe level of energy output.

Inside the reactor, uranium-235 is bombarded with neutrons, causing some of the nuclei to undergo nuclear fission. In turn, more neutrons are released and the process continues in a so-called nuclear chain reaction. The energy is given off as heat, which can be used to drive turbines that generate electricity for the submarine.



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ANU, Author provided





What are the pros and cons of going nuclear?

One huge advantage of nuclear-powered submarines is they do not require refuelling. When one of them enters into service, it will be commissioned with enough uranium fuel to last more than 30 years.

The high efficiency of nuclear power also enables these submarines to operate at high speed for longer periods than conventional diesel-electric submarines. Whats more, unlike conventional fuel combustion, nuclear reactions do not require air. That means nuclear submarines can stay submerged at deep depths for months at a time, giving them better stealth capabilities and allowing for longer, more remote deployments.

The downside is the eye-watering cost. Each nuclear submarine typically costs several billion dollars to build, and requires a highly skilled workforce with expertise in nuclear science. With its dedicated training programs offered by world-class universities and government agencies, Australia is well situated to meet the increasing demands in this space, and will also benefit from existing UK and US expertise through the new trilateral security pact.

At this stage, details on where the fuel would be sourced are unclear. While Australia has an ample supply of uranium in the ground, it lacks the capacity to enrich or fabricate the reactor fuel, which could be sourced from overseas.

What will happen to the spent fuel? The 2015 Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission found commercial viability for long-term radioactive waste storage and disposal facilities in South Australia. Whether this eventuates will doubtless be subject to deliberations at local and federal government levels for years to come.





Read more:

Why nuclear submarines are a smart military move for Australia  and could deter China further





Popular misconceptions

Ill say it again. This is not a call by Australia to deploy nuclear weapons in our waters. For uranium to be designated weapons grade, it needs to be enriched to upwards of 90% uranium-235 - the fuel for a nuclear-powered submarine doesnt come close.

In any case, Australia has never produced a nuclear weapon, and it is a party to nuclear nonproliferation treaties and international export control regimes, including the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Initiative.

The tactical advantage of submarines comes from their stealth and ability to pinpoint targets secretly without detection.

Maintaining safety, for both crew and the natural environment, is crucial onboard any sea vessel. Hollywood movies such as K19: The Widowmaker, in which a nuclear submarine malfunctions on its maiden voyage, play on our emotions and our instinctive fear of nuclear radiation.

But advances in modern safety controls and procedures mean reactor accidents in submarines are hopefully now consigned to the past.

The strategic and geopolitical outcomes of this policy decision are yet to be seen. But one thing is already clear: Australias latest foreign policy venture is also a firm embrace of nuclear science.

AJ Mitchell works for The Australian National University, Canberra.

Originally published in The Conversation.
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Cameroonian refugees in Nigeria W. Musa

Authorities in Nigerias Cross River State say they are grappling with an influx of migrants fleeing the violence in Cameroons North West and South West Regions.

Cross River government regrets that the over 50,000 migrants from Cameroon residing in various parts of the communities across the state add to over 150, 000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) fleeing conflicts within Nigeria.

Speaking during a workshop on Children of Rural Africa- Nigeria (COR Africa) held at Transcorp Hotel, Calabar, the Cross River Director General DG, Migration and Control Agency, Prince Mike Abua, said it is high time federal government and the International Commission for Migrants, Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons conducted a comprehensive survey in the state so as to ascertained the number of migrants, refugees and persons who had been Internally displaced in the state.

Speaking on the topic Agro-business and Education Opportunities for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced, Abua said it would be easy for a database to be built to enable the government to have a full grasp of actual migrants and refugees figure in Cross River.

According to him, there are 150,000 Internally Displaced Persons as a result of civil unrest occasioned by inter-tribal/communal clashes over land.

He added that the database would also help the government to plan ahead of time in terms of infrastructure and facilities that can provide succor to the refugees and the internally displaced.

Cameroons state forces have been battling to dislodge armed separatists who pitched their tents in the North West and South West Regions since Anglophone protests transformed into an armed conflict in 2017.

Corporate demands by Common Law Lawyers and Anglophone Teachers led to protests in November 2016. The street demonstrations later morphed into ongoing running gun battles between state forces and armed separatist fighters in the predominantly English-speaking regions, leading to untold destruction of human lives, their habitats, and livelihoods.

Tit-for-tat killings, kidnappings, arsons, maiming, lockdowns, ghost towns, and outright terror have become part of daily lives in some parts of the English-speaking regions.
Suspected separatist fighter burned in Limbe Screenshot from amateur video

The population of the city of Limbe, on Tuesday, September 14, 2021, witnessed one of the goriest incidents that have taken place in recent times in the town.

News broke out about 9 p.m. that a thief had been apprehended around the Limbe Regional Hospital in Mile One. Earlier reports had indicated that the assailant had tried carting away a motorbike.

However, as many stormed the scene, it soon filtered out that the supposed thief was an alleged separatist fighter, who had been caught in possession of a bag containing arms and cartridges.

The veracity of this allegation has not been independently confirmed.

Nonetheless, the supposed Amba fighter, whose true identity remains unknown, met doom in the face of mob justice. He was stoned, but reports say he did not succumb to any pains as he struggled to escape.

The suspected separatist fighter was then stripped naked and reports say charms were found on him. This caused the angry mob to pour fuel on him to neutralize the potency of the charms.

Even so, the suspected Amba fighter still struggled to flee, but the fire was thrown on him, to the shock of many onlookers. Even in that state, many onlookers were amazed that the victim of mob justice did not shout out for help or defend himself in any way, but continued struggling to get the fire off his body.

Unfortunately for him, this did not bear any fruits, as the population continued adding fuel on him, to see an end to his earthly life.

Before elements of the defense and security forces arrived at the scene to disperse the crowd through gunshots, the alleged separatist fighter had been burnt to death.

Cameroons state forces have been battling to dislodge armed separatists who pitched their tents in the North West and South West Regions since Anglophone protests transformed into an armed conflict in 2017.

Corporate demands by Common Law Lawyers and Anglophone Teachers led to protests in November 2016. The street demonstrations later morphed into ongoing running gun battles between state forces and armed separatist fighters in the predominantly English-speaking regions, leading to untold destruction of human lives, their habitats, and livelihoods.

Tit-for-tat killings, kidnappings, arsons, maiming, and outright terror have become part of daily lives in some parts of the English-speaking regions.
Des militaires en zone anglophone archives

At least three Ambazonia separatist fighters including one of their commander have been killed.

They were neutralized reportedly by soldiers on the night of Tuesday breaking Wednesday, September 15 in Nake Bokoko, a village in Mbonge Sub-Division, Meme division in the troubled South West Region.

Inhabitants are said to have woke to notice that the soldiers had invaded the village, killing the three boys said to be separatist fighters. Commander Cross, Emanu Cigar, and Gazola were neutralized while still sleeping in their houses.

Two others are said to have escaped the attack. Sources say it was a calculated manhunt launched by the military against the separatist fighters who have been carrying out their activities along the Kumba-Mbonge stretch of road. We gathered that the wives of the two Amba fighters who escaped were arrested by the military for further questioning. They were later released.

According to locals, the said armed group led by Commander Cross were noted for terrorizing villagers and even travelers making use of the Kumba-Mbonge stretch of road.

Many commuters have lost huge sums of money as well as valuables to the gunmen who have repeatedly harassed them along the way. They are said to have imposed themselves as the only persons charged with judging issues involving villagers with inhumane treatment and fines meted on defaulters.

Villagers also confirmed the confiscation of their farms, properties, and other important items when caught by Commander Cross violating any of their orders. Worth noting is the fact that since the ongoing crisis escalated, Mbonge Sub-Division in Meme Division has been a center of concern as several bloody incidents have been recorded in the Kumba-Mbonge stretch of road.

Cameroons state forces have been battling to dislodge armed separatists who pitched their tents in the North West and South West Regions since Anglophone protests transformed into an armed conflict in 2017.

Corporate demands by Common Law Lawyers and Anglophone Teachers led to protests in November 2016. The street demonstrations later morphed into ongoing running gun battles between state forces and armed separatist fighters in the predominantly English-speaking regions, leading to untold destruction of human lives, their habitats, and livelihoods.
Des militaires en zone anglophone archives

A detachment of military officers raided an amba camp on September 13 in Barombi-Mbo, Kumba I subdivision, Meme Division, South West region killing suspected separatist fighters, freeing an elderly woman accused of being a witch in the process.

Reports hold that the gunmen believed to be amba fighters had abducted the elderly woman, accusing her of being a witch. They are said to have brutalized and locked her up in one of their hideouts. It remains unclear for how long the accused woman had been in the hands of the Amba fighters before the military intervention.

According to a resident of Barombi-Mbo village, the elderly woman was abducted over accusations that she killed her son through a mystical snake bite.

The said son is reported to have been bitten by a snake in a farm. The deceased is said to have killed the snake but died from venom which it had deposited into his system hours after.

Another local said the amba boys took over the matter, insisting that the said snake was the totem of the elderly woman whom they abducted.

A resident of Barombi-Mbo is reported to have hinted to the security forces about the development and other atrocities the fighters are reported to have been committing in the village.

Immediately the military launched a search operation for members of the non-state armed group whom we also further gathered had for long been terrorizing the population of Barombi-Mbo.

The military raid led to the death of a notorious kingpin of the Amba movement in Barombi-Mbo and at least three of his associates.

The successful operation led to the death of the camps commander and some other members whom we are yet to confirm the number. The other members were reported to have taken on their heels.

A family head said the military raid has ushered in an atmosphere of freedom in Baromi-Mbo. Inhabitants of Barombi-Mbo have in the last few days been going about their activities without fear of the unknown, we learned.

The deceased amba kingpin is also reported to have seized the farms of several locals.
Civilian killed in Mbalangi shootout Facebook

At least one person was confirmed dead and four others wounded in a shootout between the Cameroon military and gunmen suspected to be Ambazonia fighters in Mbalangi, Mbonge Subdivision, Meme Division of the South West region.

The incident, which occurred in the early hours of Tuesday, September 14, led to the death of Vanessa Akame Ndopo while Antonia Tako, Claudine Ngum, Florence Bando, and Emilia Moaperi were seriously wounded.

According to a survivor, they boarded a vehicle from Limbe to Kumba.

Arriving at Mbalangi, though with heavy rain they came across three gunmen who told them to continue their journey. However, a minute they met two others, and after they saw a military vehicle approaching.

She narrated that they were taken aback at the sounds of gunshots emanating from behind immediately when the gunmen saw the military vehicle approaching.

The source said though still in a state of confusion, they sought ways to protect themselves as bullets were raining from both fronts.

Unfortunately, four persons at the back seat sustained bullet injuries while one reportedly died.

According to the medics report, the deceased was shot on her head while two of the victims were shot on their backs, one on her thigh and the other on the head though they remain stable as no signs of unconsciousness were recorded.

A friend of the deceased narrated that: We were supposed to travel together from Limbe to Kumba for the burial of my late father in Mamfe. I went to the bus station earlier than Vanessa, paid our transport fare, waited for her to no avail. When our vehicle was about to leave for Kumba, I called her not to come again because we were already on our way.

Unfortunately, I didn't know she decided to travel again. I only learned of her demise when one of the passengers used her phone to call me.

The mortal remains of the deceased were later deposited at the Kumba District Hospital mortuary while the others continue to receive treatment at the emergency ward of the same hospital.

At press time another victim of the crossfire had reportedly been rushed to the emergency ward of the Kumba District Hospital.

Meanwhile, in two separate video clips, two Amba leaders were divided over the rumored lockdown.

Christopher Anu of the Interim government said his faction is in support of a lockdown from September 15 to October 2 while Lucas Cho Ayaba of the Ambazonia Defence Forces qualified the decision as punishment on the population of the two regions.

Some parts of the troubled North West and South West regions have been respecting the separatist-imposed lockdown since Wednesday. Those who were unable to leave the restive areas ahead of the lockdown are left at the mercy of fate.
Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh has ordered high alert in the state following the arrest of four more members of an ISI-backed terrorist module involved in a bid to blow up an oil tanker with an IED tiffin bomb last month, making it the fourth case of a Pakistani terror module being busted in the state in the past 40 days.

Two Pak-based terrorists, including a Pakistani Intelligence Officer, have also been identified and nominated in the case, in which one person was arrested earlier, DGP Dinkar Gupta disclosed on Wednesday.

Taking a serious note of the increased attempts by terror groups to disturb the state's peace, Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh has directed the police to be on high alert, particularly in view of schools and educational institutions reopening, as well as the festival season and the Assembly polls ahead. The Chief Minister has asked the DGP to ensure a high level of security arrangements to be put in place, especially in busy places, such as markets etc, as well as at sensitive installations across the state.

Giving details of the arrests, the DGP identified Pak-based ISYF Chief Lakhbir Singh and Qasim, a resident of Pakistan, and Lakhbir Singh Rode, who is currently based in Pakistan, as being behind the terror module. Those arrested earlier have been identified as Rubal Singh and Gurpreet Singh. While Rubal, also wanted in a murder case of September 1, 2021, was picked up from Ambala around 5 pm yesterday, the other three were nabbed from their villages in Ajnala, Amritsar. Their fifth accomplice, Gurmukh Brar, was arrested earlier by Kapurthala Police on August 20, 2021.

The DGP said the Pakistani intelligence officer, identified as Qasim, and International Sikh Youth Federation (ISYF) Chief Rode had promised to transfer over Rs 2 lakh to the terrorist module for carrying out the blast. Investigations into the financial aspects are also being carried Oil Tanker out to unravel the money trail, he added. Rubal and Vicky Bhutti were in touch with Qasim, who was working in close collaboration with Rode. Rode and Qasim had reportedly tasked the 4 members of a terrorist module to blast an Oil Tanker for causing maximum damage to people and property.

The terror attempt was made on August 8, 2021, when, at about 11:30 pm, the Ajnala police received information that an Oil Tanker (PB-02 CR 5926) parked at Sharma Filling Station Ajnala, located on the Amritsar-Ajnala Road near village Bhakha Tara Singh, had caught fire. The fire was controlled by a Fire Brigade and an FIR was registered at Ajnala Police Station. (ANI)

Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh has ordered high alert in the state following the arrest of four more members of an ISI-backed terrorist module involved in a bid to blow up an oil tanker with an IED tiffin bomb last month, making it the fourth case of a Pakistani terror module being busted in the state in the past 40 days.

Two Pak-based terrorists, including a Pakistani Intelligence Officer, have also been identified and nominated in the case, in which one person was arrested earlier, DGP Dinkar Gupta disclosed on Wednesday.

Taking a serious note of the increased attempts by terror groups to disturb the state's peace, Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh has directed the police to be on high alert, particularly in view of schools and educational institutions reopening, as well as the festival season and the Assembly polls ahead. The Chief Minister has asked the DGP to ensure a high level of security arrangements to be put in place, especially in busy places, such as markets etc, as well as at sensitive installations across the state.

Giving details of the arrests, the DGP identified Pak-based ISYF Chief Lakhbir Singh and Qasim, a resident of Pakistan, and Lakhbir Singh Rode, who is currently based in Pakistan, as being behind the terror module. Those arrested earlier have been identified as Rubal Singh and Gurpreet Singh. While Rubal, also wanted in a murder case of September 1, 2021, was picked up from Ambala around 5 pm yesterday, the other three were nabbed from their villages in Ajnala, Amritsar. Their fifth accomplice, Gurmukh Brar, was arrested earlier by Kapurthala Police on August 20, 2021.

The DGP said the Pakistani intelligence officer, identified as Qasim, and International Sikh Youth Federation (ISYF) Chief Rode had promised to transfer over Rs 2 lakh to the terrorist module for carrying out the blast. Investigations into the financial aspects are also being carried Oil Tanker out to unravel the money trail, he added. Rubal and Vicky Bhutti were in touch with Qasim, who was working in close collaboration with Rode. Rode and Qasim had reportedly tasked the 4 members of a terrorist module to blast an Oil Tanker for causing maximum damage to people and property.

The terror attempt was made on August 8, 2021, when, at about 11:30 pm, the Ajnala police received information that an Oil Tanker (PB-02 CR 5926) parked at Sharma Filling Station Ajnala, located on the Amritsar-Ajnala Road near village Bhakha Tara Singh, had caught fire. The fire was controlled by a Fire Brigade and an FIR was registered at Ajnala Police Station.

(ANI)

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According to the Cook County assistant states attorney who spoke at the hearing, the victim and Levy had known each other for about seven years. The day of the shooting, Levy and the victim were together for several hours at a barbers home, and then later went to another location together.
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CCTV: This year marks the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Against this backdrop, President Xi Jinping will attend the commemorative summit and deliver important remarks. What is China's expectation for this summit?

Zhao Lijian: This year marks the 20th anniversary of the SCO. Over the past two decades, the member states, following the Shanghai Spirit, have transcended differences in social systems, histories and cultures, and successfully found a new type of cooperation and development path for regional organizations. They have played active roles in regional and international affairs, and made vital theoretical and practical exploration for building a new type of international relations and a community with a shared future for mankind.

The impact of COVID-19, compounded with major changes unseen in a century, has brought complex and profound changes to international and regional situations. This means the SCO shoulders more important responsibilities in defending regional security and stability and promoting development and revitalization of the countries. At the upcoming SCO summit, President Xi Jinping will take stock of the successful experiences of the SCO with leaders of other countries, have an in-depth exchange of views on SCO cooperation across the board and major international and regional issues under the new circumstances, approve a series of key cooperation documents and charter the course for the SCO's development going forward. We believe that with the advancement of the heads of state, the SCO will make new progress at a new starting point and stay committed to building an even closer community with a shared future for the benefit of people of all countries in the region.

TASS: Diplomat source in South Korea told TASS today that six party talks on Korean Peninsula nuclear issue can be resumed till the end of this year. I wonder if you have any comment on this information?

Zhao Lijian: I notice that it's few days away from September 19. To be honest, I have not seen the information you mentioned. I can check with my colleagues after the press conference.

Xinhua News Agency: Can you tell us more about the meeting on Afghanistan of the heads of state of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO)?

Zhao Lijian: Tajikistan is currently holding the presidency of both the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). As suggested by parties including Tajikistan, the SCO and CSTO agreed to hold a joint summit of leaders from member states on Afghanistan after the SCO summit.

The Afghan situation bears on regional security and stability. As close neighbors of Afghanistan, member states of the SCO and CSTO actively support the peace and reconciliation process in Afghanistan. China, a member of the SCO, is ready to have close communication and coordination with relevant countries, jointly work on Afghanistan to build an open and inclusive political structure, adopt moderate and prudent domestic and foreign policies, make a clean break with all forms of terrorist groups, and live on friendly terms with neighboring countries. We are ready to continue to develop good-neighborliness and friendly cooperation with Afghanistan and play a constructive role in Afghanistan's peace and reconstruction.

MASTV: First question. Slovenian Prime Minister, whose country holds the EU presidency, criticized China for expelling the Lithuanian ambassador in a letter to fellow EU leaders. He wrote that these measures have hurt China-EU ties and called for unity among countries to oppose the threat from China on any member state. Do you have any comment? Second question, Indian media reported that the country is set to flight-test on September 23 its indigenous intercontinental-range ballistic missile Agni-V with a long range of around 5,000km, which will bring many inland cities in China under threat. What's your response?

Zhao Lijian: On your first question. The ins and outs of the Taiwan-related issues on the part of Lithuania are very clear. The responsibility rests solely with the Lithuanian side. China urges Slovenia and the EU to take correct and objective positions on Taiwan-related issues and not to make excuses to create new troubles in China-EU relations. The Slovenian side should be keenly aware of the highly sensitive nature of the Taiwan question, abide by the one-China principle, handle Taiwan-related issues cautiously and prudently and avoid creating unnecessary disturbances to China-Slovenia relations.

On your second question. Maintaining peace, security and stability in South Asia meets the common interests of all, where China hopes that all parities would make constructive efforts. As for whether India can develop ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons, the UNSCR 1172 already has clear stipulations.

China Daily: State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited the ROK on September 15. Could you brief us on the visit? What is China's expectation for the development of China-ROK relations going forward?

Zhao Lijian: From September 14 to 15, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi paid an official visit to the ROK, where he met with ROK President Moon Jae-in and held talks with Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong to have in-depth exchange of views on bilateral relations and international and regional issues of common concern.

State Councilor Wang Yi said that China and the ROK are inseparable neighbors and partners for win-win cooperation. China is ready to take the opportunity of the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties with the ROK to maintain high-level exchanges, deepen cooperation in such areas as economy, trade, culture and environmental protection, enhance friendly people-to-people exchanges and work for greater development of bilateral relations. China firmly supports the DPRK and the ROK in overcoming difficulties, removing disruption and improving relations, and will continue to play a constructive role in maintaining peace and stability and realizing lasting peace and security on the Korean Peninsula. China and the ROK can scale up cooperation under multilateral frameworks such as the UN, the G20, the WTO, and on global issues such as climate change and Security Council reform. Together, we can contribute wisdom and strength to regional and world peace and development.

The ROK side said that it is willing to capitalize on the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties and the "ROK-China Year of Cultural Exchanges" to strengthen high-level interactions with China, expand cultural and people-to-people exchanges, work for more fruitful cooperation in economy, trade and environmental protection and further develop the future-oriented bilateral relations. The ROK side appreciates China's contribution to maintaining peace on the Korean Peninsula, supports China in hosting the Winter Olympics Games in Beijing, and disapproves of politicizing the origins study on COVID-19. It stands ready to strengthen coordination and cooperation with China in multilateral institutions, and to work with China to combat the coronavirus, climate change and other global challenges.

Shenzhen TV: The FBI in its recent report identified 7,759 hate crimes in 2020, up 6 percent year on year, the highest since 2008. Do you have any comment?

Zhao Lijian: The US report shows that from 2019 to 2020 attacks targeting Blacks rose from 1,930 to 2,755, and the number targeting Asians jumped from 158 to 274, and most of the rise is attributable to racism-motivated crimes. A report recently released by the Major Cities Chiefs Association (MCCA) shows that in 2020, the number of violent crimes in major US cities remained high, and gun violence was even more serious. So far, there have been more than 200 mass shootings in the United States, killing 1,079 children and teenagers.

These alarming statistics are only a snapshot of the serious human rights problems in the United States. Systemic racism is so entrenched in the American society that people like Floyd can't breathe, many ethnic minorities live in discrimination and fear, and more than 40 million people still struggle in poverty. The US also has a brutal history of massacre of American Indians, and a large number of indeginous children were abused in so-called boarding schools. The long-term arbitrary imprisonment of overseas immigrants in the US has caused countless tragedies of broken families. The US also has a deplorable track record of crimes related to child labor and forced labor.

There is a well-known song "Blowin' In The Wind" in the US. The lyrics go as follows: "Yes, and how many times can a man turn his head, and pretend that he just doesn't see? Yes, and how many ears must one man have, before he can hear people cry? Yes, and how many deaths will it take 'til he knows, that too many people have died?" The US should listen to the cries and wailing of their people.

AFP: Two questions. Firstly, the US, UK and Australia announced a new military partnership which would provide Australia with nuclear powered submarines. Some people say that this is designed to counter China's influence in the Indo-Pacific. What's your response? Secondly, according to a new book, the US Army's top general Mark Milley called Chinese military to reassure that the US military would not attack China. What's your comment?

Zhao Lijian: The nuclear submarine cooperation between the US, the UK and Australia has seriously undermined regional peace and stability, intensified the arms race and undermined international non-proliferation efforts. The export of highly sensitive nuclear submarine technology to Australia by the US and the UK proves once again that they are using nuclear exports as a tool for geopolitical game and adopting double standards. This is extremely irresponsible. As a non-nuclear weapon state under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and a party to the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone (SPNFZ) Treaty, known as the Treaty of Rarotonga, Australia is now introducing nuclear submarine technology of strategic and military value. The international community, including Australia's neighboring countries, has full reason to question whether Australia is serious about fulfilling its nuclear non-proliferation commitments. China will pay close attention to the development of the relevant situation.

China always believes that any regional mechanism should conform to the trend of peace and development of the times and contribute to enhancing mutual trust and cooperation among regional countries. It should not target any third party or undermine its interests. Seeking closed and exclusive clique runs counter to the trend of the times and the aspirations of countries in the region, which finds no support and leads nowhere.

Relevant countries should abandon the outdated Cold War zero-sum mentality and narrow-minded geopolitical perception, respect the will of the people of regional countries and do more to contribute to regional peace, stability and development. Otherwise, they will only end up shooting themselves in the foot.

On your second question, I am not aware of the specific situation you mentioned. What I can tell you is that as permanent members of the UN Security Council and the world's two largest economies, China and the US stand to gain from cooperation and lose from confrontation.

Associated Press of Pakistan: On September 13, Prime Minister Imran Khan held a meeting with CEOs of different Chinese companies working in Pakistan and assured his government's full cooperation and support. I wonder if you have any comment on it?

Zhao Lijian: China appreciates the great importance Prime Minister Imran Khan and the Pakistani government attach to China-Pakistan practical cooperation and their positive efforts to this end.

China and Pakistan are all-weather strategic cooperative partners. In recent years, bilateral economic and trade cooperation has been deepened. China has been Pakistan's largest source of investment and largest trading partner for many years in a row. China is ready to work with Pakistan to promote high-quality development of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, continuously deepen and expand bilateral cooperation, and create a favorable environment for Chinese enterprises to invest in Pakistan for mutual benefit and common development.

Sputnik: Also about the trilateral security partnership between the US, the UK and Australia. According to Australian media, the Australian Prime Minister said Australia had previously held consultations with China and other countries in the Asia-Pacific region on the issue and extended an open invitation for talks with Beijing. Do you have any comment on that?

Zhao Lijian: I am not aware of what you said. I would like to reiterate that mutual respect and good mutual trust are the prerequisite for dialogue and cooperation between countries. Australia is the one to blame for current difficulties in China-Australia relationship. It is imperative for the Australian side to face up to the crux of the setbacks in bilateral relations, think seriously about whether it sees China as a partner or a threat, earnestly follow the principle of mutual respect and equality and the spirit of comprehensive strategic partnership in handling the bilateral relations, and do more to enhance mutual trust and promote pragmatic cooperation.

Reuters: Two questions. First, according to a German foreign ministry spokesperson, China denied a German warship entry into a local harbor. I was wondering if you have any comment on this? Second, Taiwan on Thursday proposed extra defense spending of nearly $9 billion over the next five years, warning that China was a severe threat. Do you have any comment on that?

Zhao Lijian: On your first question, thanks to the joint efforts of China and ASEAN countries, the situation in the South China Sea has remained generally stable. However, in recent years, in the name of safeguarding freedom of navigation, certain major country has frequently sent military vessels and aircraft to the South China Sea to flex muscles and stir up trouble, deliberately creating disputes on maritime issues. China is firmly resolved to safeguarding its territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests. We will continue to properly address differences with relevant countries through consultation and negotiation. We also hope that countries outside the region can respect the efforts of regional countries to safeguard peace and stability in the South China Sea and play a constructive role toward this end.

China attaches importance to its all-round comprehensive strategic partnership with Germany, including military-to-military cooperation. China is ready to conduct friendly exchanges on the basis of mutual respect and mutual trust and hopes relevant party can create a favorable condition for this.

On your second question, this is not a diplomatic issue. I want to stress that Taiwan is part of China. China must and will be reunified. This is the historical trend that can be held back by no one and no force. A word for the Taiwan authorities: Any attempt to seek independence and resist reunification with force is overestimating itself and doomed to fail.
Veteran Russian oil painter Valentine Sidorov, aged 93, has, for several decades, been depicting the idyllic and serene landscapes that mark his extensive homeland.



Sidorov's style of celebrating the simple beauty of daily life has influenced Chinese artists for generations. Meanwhile, he says the humanistic touch of his canvases was developed from his studies of Tang Dynasty (618-907) poetry, and that he is a fan of some of the dynasty's greatest poets, including Li Bai, Du Fu and Bai Juyi.

Recent years have seen Sidorov's works being exhibited in China, where he has gained popularity among ordinary people who are often deeply moved by his passion for nature and the concept of "hometown".

"Hometown is nature and four seasons. It is in the fields. It is people," Sidorov says. "Only one who loves nature and life is a true man."

Sidorov's two landscapes are now on show at For a Shared Dream, an exhibition running at the National Art Museum of China through Tuesday. More than 50 works are displayed on-site and nearly 90 works appear in rotation on screens, all by artists from the 18 member and observer states and dialogue partners of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

The SCO is a permanent intergovernmental international organization, established in Shanghai in 2001, which is dedicated to promoting mutual trust and cooperation between its members in social, economic, political and cultural fields.

The exhibition is a celebration of the SCO's 20th anniversary. Artworks on show are broken down into four sections, "homeland", "exchanges", "infusion" and "coexistence", reflecting the diversity and dynamics of the cultural landscapes of SCO member states, as well as a shared wish for mutual respect and support, a deepening of exchanges and a peaceful future.

Some of the works were shown at the eighth Beijing International Art Biennale, held at the NAMOC in 2019, at which a special section displayed art from SCO members.

NAMOC director Wu Weishan says the works at the current exhibition are not only aesthetic but also project a feeling of warmth, because some were donated by the artists themselves to the museum.

Sidorov and Russian sculptor Andrey Kovalchuk held a joint exhibition at the NAMOC in 2019, and then donated their works to the museum. Kovalchuk's work, An Oil Worker in the 1940s, made of bronze and stone, from that donation, is also on show.

"In their works, artists portray the beauty of the land they are rooted in and nurtured by," Wu says. "They share with us a dream, an ideal of the most promising vision of society."

The exhibition also shows recent works by female artists to accentuate the increasing influence of women in social development and international cooperation.

Meanwhile, dozens of paintings by children from SCO member states are also displayed at the NAMOC's public education space. In 2005, the NAMOC also held an exhibition to show children's paintings which were inspired by the folk tales from six SCO member countries.

Wu says, "Walking from the works by prominent artists to those created by small children at the show, we feel how different cultures have moved forward, and we find the traces of human progress.

"The exhibition expresses a faith in the vision of a community with a shared future for mankind. It is an encouragement for people to work hard on strengthening the friendship among people and nations."
Founded in 1952, Beijing People's Art Theater, about 20 minutes' walk from the bustling pedestrian shopping street of Wangfujing, is considered the flag bearer of Chinese drama. It's known as home to many established Chinese actors and actresses, including Lan Tianye, 94, who remains active in the theater.



It has also built a reputation for its good traditions and work ethic.

"A play is bigger than the sky" is a slogan inherited by the theater and is printed on a huge banner hanging on the wall of the rehearsal room.

On Sept 2, the institution's latest performance venue, Beijing International Theater Center, opened its doors. It is located next to the Capital Theater, the home of Beijing People's Art Theater, established in 1954.

The new venue covers an area of 23,000 square meters and houses two auditoriums, one with 700 seats and another with a 200-seat capacity. The bigger stage is named after Cao Yu, renowned playwright and the first president of Beijing People's Art Theater.

"For decades, we've been devoted to keeping the legacy of Beijing People's Art Theater. The new venue marks a new adventure," said Ren Ming, president of Beijing People's Art Theater, during the opening ceremony. "It will create, showcase and bring together more stage works and better serve audiences."

To celebrate the opening, Beijing People's Art Theater is staging new versions of Cao Yu's three classic plays: Sunrise, Thunderstorm and The Wilderness, featuring the company's young actors.

"We want to pay tribute to pioneering Chinese dramatists like Cao Yu and we are also keen on offering opportunities to young actors and directors, who will carry on the spirit of Beijing People's Art Theater," says Ren.

Cao Yu, whose real name was Wan Jiabao, was born in Tianjin and fell in love with acting during middle school. He died in Beijing in 1996.

On Sept 24, 1956, Sunrise became the first play staged by Beijing People's Art Theater. It portrays people from all walks of life and their struggles and failures in urban China during the 1930s. Chen Bailu, a courtesan, is the central figure in the story.

Celebrating this new dawn for the company, it seems appropriate that, from Sept 2 to 9, a new production of Sunrise, directed by actor-director Feng Yuanzheng, opened at the Cao Yu Theater.

Feng, incidentally, played the role of Fang Dasheng, Chen's boyfriend from school, in the company's production of Sunrise back in 2000.

On Sept 24, Thunderstorm, which is considered as one of China's most enduring 20th century dramas, will be staged.

Cao Yu wrote the script when he was a student at Tsinghua University in 1933. A year later, it was published and premiered in 1935.Revolving around two families, whose complex relationships lead to inevitable tragic consequences, and set against the backdrop of the decade's sociopolitical turmoil, the script was critically acclaimed both at home and abroad. It propelled the young Cao Yu to fame.

Since 1954, Beijing People's Art Theater has staged four versions of the classic play. Last year, to mark Cao Yu's 110th birth anniversary, it was staged again featuring young actors of the company.

According to Pu Cunxin, director of the new version of Thunderstorm, who also plays the role of Zhou Puyuan, he read Cao Yu's original script from 1934, which enabled him to have a deeper understanding of the writer.

As he describes, the process of researching Thunderstorm is like "decoding" and he says audiences will enjoy a familiar story with fresh interpretation.

The 68-year-old Pu, who has been working with Beijing People's Art Theater since 1986, performed the role of Zhou Ping, son of Zhou Puyuan.

"I never dared to dream about directing Thunderstorm, such a classic play, but now it's happening. What makes me more excited is that it will be staged at this new theater, which is a new beginning for Beijing People's Art Theater," says Pu, adding that he stopped playing the role of Zhou Ping in 2001 and thinks about Thunderstorm as "an important play" in his life.

Pu also invited Tang Ye to be co-director.

In 1937, Cao Yu released his third play, The Wilderness, which is a story about revenge in the Chinese countryside. Reflecting the influence of American playwright Eugene O'Neill on the writer, it revolves around a man, Qiu Hu, who escapes from prison to kill a local villager who ruined his family.

Actor-director Yan Rui will direct the new version of The Wilderness, telling a fresh story based on the classic script, with more detail to be revealed by the theater at a later date.
Last Monday, China's preeminent director Jia Zhangke was in Beijing for the premiere of his new documentary film, "Swimming Out Till The Sea Turns Blue," which features three highly acclaimed Chinese authors looking back at their lives and sharing personal stories intertwined with various periods in the country's history.

Director Jia Zhangke and writer Yu Hua gaze upon open waters on the set of "Swimming Out Till The Sea Turns Blue" in Haiyan, Zhejiang province, July 15, 2019. The film will be released in China on Sept. 19, 2021. [Photo courtesy of Wishart Communication]

The premier was held at the National Museum of Modern Chinese Literature and attended by more than 100 writers, literary critics and scholars including award-winning writers Wang Meng, Liang Xiaosheng and Li Er.

"Swimming Out Till The Sea Turns Blue" is divided into 18 chapters, and primarily takes its narrative threads from three Chinese writers, Jia Pingwa, Yu Hua and Liang Hong, who were born in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, respectively. The three writers relate their own personal experiences, along with descriptions of the literary worlds they created to capture the monumental shifts in China's societal landscape throughout those defining decades. Likewise, Jia also includes snippets from several other writers as well as their descendants, to present a comprehensive yet delicate historical account of the spiritual history of the Chinese people.

"The film is not just about the countryside, nor just about the literature. The private memories of these writers are like an emotional index to each of us. We can follow their clue and finally swim into the emotional sea of each of us," Jia said.

Director Jia Zhangke poses for a photo with his cast and crew at the premiere of "Swimming Out Till The Sea Turns Blue" held in Beijing, Sept. 13, 2021. [Photo/China.org.cn]

Incidentally, the film was originally entitled "So Close to My Land," however, Jia was inspired to rename it after hearing a story from Yu Hua. "When I was young I often stood at the water's edge, seeing the sea was the color of yellow," Yu told him, "but in textbooks, it says the sea is blue. So at one point then, when I swam in the sea here, I wanted to swim and swim on, swimming out till the sea turns blue."

According to Jia, the words reflected these writers' life experiences of growing up in China's rural areas, only to migrate to urban cities where they achieved fame and fortune. "The film contains a changing force in China, a kindest desire for life by everyone, or a kind of tenacity  even encountering many difficulties, people still insist on moving forward," Jia explained.

The film also touches on elderly residents who are left behind in rural areas while young people move to the cities in search of a better life, reflecting significant changes to the lifestyles, traditions and communities of China's countryside.

"As the element that has the deepest impact on the spiritual structure of the Chinese people, the countryside provides a foothold and historical dimension for us to understand contemporary China," Jia said, noting writers are the best messengers, and many of them were once rural children. "They observed the countryside for a long time, and have been writing about the rural stories. Many urban problems are originated from the rural areas, we need to look back to the countryside."

A poster for Jia Zhangke's new documentary film "Swimming Out Till The Sea Turns Blue." [Image courtesy of Xstream Pictures]

Given the unprecedented rate of China's growth, Jia fears anything that doesn't get documented will be lost forever. "Oral history about people who have experienced in their life is important, we can use them as a document, a kind of witness, and a kind of testimony."

"Making this film is for resolving a mystery: what people in this country have experienced," he added.
Economic and trade exchanges across the Taiwan Strait have been developing with good momentum, as mainland-Taiwan trade soared 31.8 percent year on year to 208.8 billion U.S. dollars in the first eight months of this year.



Zhu Fenglian, a spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, made this statement Wednesday in response to the remarks of Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen related to the cross-Strait trade.

In the first eight months, the mainland's exports to Taiwan amounted to 50.3 billion U.S. dollars, up 33.4 percent from the same period last year. The mainland's imports from Taiwan jumped 31.3 percent year on year to 158.5 billion U.S. dollars, Zhu said, citing figures released by mainland customs authorities.

"Growth rates of the cross-Strait trade volume, the mainland's exports to Taiwan, and the mainland's imports from Taiwan are all higher than 30 percent, which demonstrates continuous dynamism of the cross-Strait trade," she told a press conference.

Mainland investments from Taiwan enterprises kept growing, Zhu said. She added that the mainland approved 3,552 Taiwan investment projects in the first seven months of this year, up 47 percent year on year from a year ago. Investments by Taiwan enterprises totaled 640 million U.S. dollars in the first seven months, up 9.6 percent from the same period last year.

This notable increase in investment indicated that Taiwan investors remained optimistic about the mainland's market, its sound industrial system, its strong manufacturing capacity, and its broad economic prospects, Zhu said.

Cross-Strait cooperation in the financial sector has continuously improved, she said. Four more Taiwan-funded enterprises were listed on the mainland stock market so far this year, taking the number of such Taiwan-funded enterprises to 42.

In addition, compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait have shown an abiding interest in economic and trade exchanges. With proper anti-COVID-19 measures in place, several cross-Strait trade events were held by various provincial-level regions on the mainland, including the Shandong-Taiwan Economic and Trade Fair and the Chongqing-Taiwan investment promotion tour.

The facts show the mainland has always been the best choice for Taiwan compatriots and business people to invest in and start their businesses, Zhu said. Strengthening the cross-Strait economic and trade exchanges will bring better development for Taiwan's economy and more benefits to the people in Taiwan, she added.
The global economy is expected to bounce back this year with a growth of 5.3 percent, the fastest in nearly five decades, the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said on Wednesday.



The agency said in a report that the rebound was highly uneven along regional, sectoral and income lines.

During 2022, UNCTAD expects global growth to slow to 3.6 percent, leaving world income levels trailing some 3.7 percent below the pre-pandemic trend line.

The report warns that growth deceleration could be bigger than expected, if policymakers lose their nerve or answer what it regards as misguided calls for a return to deregulation and austerity.

According to the report, many countries in the South have been hit much harder than during the global financial crisis. With a heavy debt burden, they also have less room for maneuvering their way out through public spending.

Lack of monetary autonomy and access to vaccines are also holding many developing economies back, widening the gulf with advanced economies and threatening to usher in another "lost decade."

"These widening gaps, both domestic and international, are a reminder that underlying conditions, if left in place, will make resilience and growth luxuries enjoyed by fewer and fewer privileged people," said Rebeca Grynspan, secretary-general of UNCTAD.

UNCTAD believes the rise in food prices could pose a serious threat to vulnerable populations in the South, already financially weakened by the health crisis.

Globally, international trade in goods and services has recovered, after a drop of 5.6 percent in 2020. The downturn proved less severe than had been anticipated, as trade flows in the latter part of 2020 rebounded almost as strongly as they had fallen earlier, said the report.

"The pandemic has created an opportunity to rethink the core principles of international economic governance, a chance that was missed after the global financial crisis," said Richard Kozul-Wright, director of UNCTAD's globalization and development strategies division.

For the UN agency, the biggest risk for the global economy is that "a rebound in the North will divert attention from long-needed reforms without which developing countries will remain in a weak and vulnerable position."
China continued to see its housing market ease in August under strengthened market regulations, registering slower month-on-month and year-on-year growth of home prices in 70 major cities, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) Wednesday.



New home prices in four first-tier cities -- Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou -- rose 0.3 percent month on month in August, representing a slower growth pace from the 0.4 percent seen in July, according to the NBS data.

A total of 31 second-tier cities witnessed a month-on-month increase of 0.2 percent in new home prices, while 35 third-tier cities saw month-on-month growth in new home prices remain unchanged.

The operation of the property market has sustained stable momentum under the principle -- "housing is for living in, not for speculation," NBS spokesperson Fu Linghui told a press conference Wednesday.

The NBS data also showed that in August, second-hand home prices in second-tier cities stayed the same, while those in third-tier cities edged down 0.1 percent month on month.

On a year-on-year basis, new home prices in first-tier cities rose 5.7 percent in August, down from the 6-percent growth in July, while those in second-tier and third-tier cities went up 4.4 percent and 2.8 percent, respectively.

In this year's government work report, China reiterated the principle that "housing is for living in, not for speculation," vowing to keep the prices of land and housing as well as market expectations stable.

Based on the principle as well as the country's regulatory control on forestalling and defusing financial risks, bank loans issued to China's property sector saw slower expansion in the first six months.

Official data shows that outstanding property loans went up 9.5 percent from last year to 50.78 trillion yuan (7.9 trillion U.S. dollars) as of the end of June. According to the country's major commercial banks, the new loan quotas issued were mainly for meeting residents' demands for buying their own houses to live in.

In the first eight months, key indicators such as sales of commercial residential buildings and investment in property development also eased, according to Fu.

During the period, the two-year-average growth rate of commercial housing sales in terms of floor area dipped 1.1 percentage points from Jan.-July to 5.9 percent, while that in terms of value eased 1.4 percentage points to 11.7 percent.

Investment in property development is basically stable with two-year-average growth rate down 0.3 percentage points from first seven months to 7.7 percent.

The property market is expected to maintain stable growth, Fu predicted, citing factors including the built-up of market-related systems and continued regulatory measures.
The 18th China-ASEAN Expo and the China-ASEAN Business and Investment Summit concluded Monday in Nanning, the capital of south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. A total of 179 business deals worth a record-high combined value of over 300 billion yuan (about $46.59 billion) were signed during the expo. The value of deals marked an increase of 13.7% over the previous year.



In total, 148 economic and trade promotion activities and 26 high-level forums took place during this year's expo, covering industrial chains, industrial capacity cooperation, customs and health. With an exhibition area of more than 100,000 square meters, the expo set up 5,400 booths for exhibitors. Over 1,500 enterprises participated in the in-person exhibitions.

During the forum, China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi was visiting members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) such as Vietnam, Cambodia and Singapore, where he met with his counterparts. These visits revolved around a number of topics, such as COVID-19 cooperation and healthcare, vaccines, strategic challenges, as well as trade and regional economic integration.

As neighbors within the same geographic region, China and ASEAN's economic development and prosperity are interdependent and mutually intertwined, while also representing the most important potential markets for each side in terms of imports, exports and investment.

Asia, with its higher population sizes and much deeper potential, is becoming the new center of global trade, investment and commerce. The members of ASEAN are playing a huge part in that change in conjunction with China.

ASEAN contains some of the world's most populous countries, such as Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand and Myanmar, which have huge economic potential and capacity. As such, China, with its large market, will be instrumental in ASEAN rising to its full potential.

The signing of the landmark Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership could boost China-ASEAN bilateral cooperation and contribute to the global economy when it comes into effect as the world's largest free-trade deal.

This year's expo demonstrates the rewards that can be reaped as China works together with the bloc in pursuing greater regional integration, establishing common rules, regulations and norms, as well as fewer constraints on the flow of goods, capital and people. Both sides complement each other's development goals overwhelmingly in a manner which may be described as "win-win."

China and ASEAN have both benefited from their long-term cooperation since the establishment of dialogue relations 30 years ago, making their cooperation the most dynamic in the Asia-Pacific region. Going forward, given the rapid development of the digital economy, closer economic integration looks likely to bring more opportunities for China and ASEAN members.

Tom Fowdy is a British political and international relations analyst and a graduate of Durham and Oxford universities. He writes on topics pertaining to China, the DPRK, Britain and the U.S. For more information please visit:

http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/TomFowdy.htm

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.

If you would like to contribute, please contact us at opinion@china.org.cn.
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China on Wednesday strongly condemned the UK parliament for banning an event with the participation of the Chinese ambassador from taking place at the parliamentary estate.

Speaking at a briefing when asked to comment on the issue, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian said that, instigated by some anti-China parliamentarians, the UK Parliament did not agree to hold the event with the participation of the Chinese Ambassador to the UK at the parliamentary estate. "China strongly condemns this and will have to make necessary responses."

Zhao pointed out that China's sanctions on a handful of anti-China parliamentarians of the UK were completely justified and reasonable. It was a necessary response to these people who spread slanderous rumors and disinformation and to the unilateral sanctions imposed by the UK side.

"With regard to any words and deeds that are detrimental to China's core interests, the Chinese side always responds resolutely and never tolerates wrong moves," said Zhao.

As two major economies and permanent members of the UN Security Council, cooperation between China and the UK meets the development needs of both countries and contributes to tackling global challenges, he said.

China urges the British Parliament to immediately rescind its wrong decision, earnestly restrain the words and deeds of certain members, bear in mind the interests of the people and the well-being of the world, and make more concrete efforts to consolidate and develop China-UK relations, said the spokesperson.
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A spokesperson from China's top legislature said on Wednesday that China firmly opposes a recent decision by the UK Parliament to ban the Chinese Ambassador to the UK from participating in relevant events held at the parliamentary estate.

The remarks were made by You Wenze, spokesperson for the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), vowing China's corresponding measures and necessary responses.

You said the decision, in disregard of the fundamental interests of people in China and the UK, has violated international protocol, and is both erroneous and unreasonable.

He pointed out certain UK parliamentarians, with no factual basis at all, have maliciously spread slanderous rumors and disinformation related to China's Xinjiang, and the UK has unilaterally sanctioned relevant Chinese personnel and institutions under the pretext of Xinjiang-related issues.

The countermeasures China has taken are acts of justice to maintain national sovereignty and integrity, and they are both reasonable and legitimate, You added.

You said China is firmly resolved in safeguarding national sovereignty, security, and development interests. "We urge the UK Parliament to immediately correct its wrongdoing and contribute more to the sound development of bilateral ties."
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson carried out a reshuffle of his cabinet ministers on Wednesday, with Dominic Raab removed as foreign secretary among other changes.

Johnson's cabinet reshuffle aimed to put in place "a strong and united team to build back better from the pandemic," and would have a focus on "uniting and levelling up the whole country," according to Downing Street.

Raab will become justice secretary and also take up the role of deputy prime minister. He has been under fire for his handling of Britain's withdrawal from Afghanistan and his decision to stay on holiday until hours after Kabul's fall to the Taliban, according to local media.

His replacement Liz Truss, who was international trade secretary, has become the second woman to hold the position of foreign secretary in Britain. She has reportedly received praises for securing trade deals between Britain and a number of countries following the Brexit.

Raab replaced Robert Buckland who was removed from the justice secretary post. Buckland tweeted: "It has been an honour to serve in government for the last seven years, and as the Lord Chancellor for the last two. I am deeply proud of everything I have achieved. On to the next adventure."

Johnson's reshuffle also brought about the exit of Gavin Williamson as education secretary and Robert Jenrick as housing secretary.

The removal of Williamson from his post came as he was criticized for his handling of disruption to schools and exams during the pandemic, according to local media. Jenrick has faced calls for resignation after he admitted last year his decision to unlawfully approve a controversial property development bid by a Tory donor.

Anne-Marie Trevelyan, minister for energy, clean growth and climate change, has filled the vacancy left by Truss to become the international trade secretary.

Nadhim Zahawi, minister for COVID vaccine deployment, has been promoted to education secretary. Michael Gove, minister for the cabinet office, has been appointed as the new housing secretary. Nadine Dorries, minister for mental health, has become Britain's new culture secretary.

Home Secretary Priti Patel, Defense Secretary Ben Wallace and Health Secretary Sajid Javid retain their posts.

Britain's previous major cabinet reshuffle was in February 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic started and the country went into its first COVID-19 lockdown.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev discussed the situation in Afghanistan in a telephone conversation on Wednesday.

"In view of the upcoming Collective Security Treaty Organisation and (the) Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) events in Dushanbe, there was a detailed discussion of the developments in Afghanistan," the Kremlin said in a statement.

The conversation also covered bilateral issues including COVID-19 cooperation, it added.

The upcoming 21st meeting of the SCO Council of Heads of State will be held in a hybrid format in Dushanbe and will be chaired by Tajik President Emomali Rahmon.
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The United States, Britain, and Australia announced on Wednesday the creation of a new trilateral security partnership.

U.S. President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison made the announcement during a virtual event.

In a joint statement, the three governments said the partnership, called "AUKUS," will help "significantly deepen cooperation on a range of security and defense capabilities."

The first initiative under AUKUS will be delivering a nuclear-powered submarine fleet for Australia and the three countries will spend as many as 18 months discussing how this capability will be delivered, according to the statement.

Australia intends to build the submarines in Adelaide, a coastal city in the country's south, in cooperation with Britain and the United States, Morrison said in his remarks.

"Australia is not seeking to acquire nuclear weapons or establish a civil nuclear capability," he said, vowing to meet all of its nuclear non-proliferation obligations.

Biden and Johnson said the nuclear-powered submarines that Australia wants to acquire are conventionally armed, noting that their countries will also be fully in line with their non-proliferation obligations.

A senior administration official told reporters on Wednesday that AUKUS "is not aimed or about any one country," claiming that "it's about advancing our strategic interests, upholding the international rules-based order, and promoting peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific."
New Book Reimagines Holistic Pro-Life Care, Calls & Equips Churches and Readers to Better Help Those Faced with an Unplanned Pregnancy

Authors Brittany Smith & Natasha Smith Embark on Two-Week Book Tour to Mardel Christian Bookstores in Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas



"Women would rather go to God with an abortion than face their church with an unplanned pregnancy. It's time for us to do better when it comes to loving and caring for these women." -- Brittany Smith and Natasha Smith, Save the Storks



NEWS PROVIDED BY

ICON Media Group

Sept. 16, 2021



COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo., Sept. 16, 2021 /Christian Newswire/ -- At first glance, pro-life and pro-choice ideologies appear staunchly opposed to each other. But what if life and choice didn't have to be in opposition to one another? What if a womans life, and the life of the unplanned unborn, could both thrive simultaneously? Save the Storks, a pro-life nonprofit existing to support pregnancy centers nationally, is working to change the narrative around unplanned pregnancies and to depoliticize the topic of abortion.



In Unplanned Grace: A Compassionate Conversation on Life and Choice (David C Cook, September 2021), Brittany Smith and Natasha Smith, writing on behalf of Save the Storks, draw on personal interviews, inspiring stories, and eye-opening facts to help readers better understand the pressures and intricacies surrounding a woman's pregnancy decision, the importance of an empathetic approach to those facing unplanned pregnancies, and the enormous potential churches have to support women (and men) in crisis.



"Being pro-life actually means being pro-woman in a holistic way: caring for a woman's physical and emotional state, her relationships, her livelihood, her future, and any needed healing from her past," write Smith and Smith. "Approaching the issue of unplanned pregnancy with love and compassion opens doors and creates conversations in a way that judgment and shame never could."



Natasha and Brittany are available for interviews and can speak to:

Why being pro-life is pro-woman



3 myths about abortion that its advocates dont want you to know



How to get your church involved in pre- and post-abortive support



The most common reason women get abortions



The intricacies surrounding a woman's pregnancy decision



Empathy: you can't help women without it



What women (and men) need to hear from the pulpit about abortion



Men matter too: 4 ways to support unplanned fatherhood



Silence screams: why the church must engage on the issue of human life

Writing not just from a "pro-birth" perspective but from a "pro-abundant life" perspective, Unplanned Grace is a resource for churches and individuals who want to make a difference in the pro-life movement. Readers will learn about the myriad of resources available to women, how pro-life ministries come alongside unexpected mothers and fathers on their new journey, and how to discuss and approach sensitive topics with love and compassion, while speaking truth. Each chapter concludes with practical ideas for becoming involved in different aspects of pro-life outreach, scripture, and a prayer of reflection.



"The tragedy of a quiet church is the missed opportunities to tell the abundantly rich, beautiful, healing, and inspiring story of the gospela story that provides the foundation for the value of every human life, no matter its stage of development. A story that reveals a God who champions the vulnerable, cherishes the outcast, and heals the wounded. This is the story given uniquely through Scripture, and it is our responsibility as the church to not only tell it but live it as a daily expression of Gods kingdom invading and redefining the world through us."



Beginning September 16, the authors embark on a two-week book tour to Mardel Christian Bookstores in Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. All book signing events begin at 11:30am local time, unless otherwise noted. Please contact the individual stores for more information. Dates and locations are as follows:

September 16: Mardel, 5964 Barnes Rd., Colorado Springs, CO 80922



September 18: Mardel, 4887 S. Wadsworth Way, Ste 150, Littleton, CO 80123



September 21: Mardel, 2710 N. Greenwich Court, Wichita, KS 67226



September 22: Mardel, 1421 W. I-240 Service Road, Oklahoma City, OK 73159



September 23: Mardel, 3300 S. Boulevard, Edmond, OK 73013



September 24: Mardel, 2203 S Western Space 500, Amarillo, TX 79109



September 25: Mardel, 7020 Quaker Street, Lubbock, TX 79424

Unplanned Grace authors Brittany Smith and Natasha Smith work with Save the Storks, a nonprofit ministry that exists to inspire cultural change by empowering strategic partners, like pregnancy resource centers, to serve and value every life. They believe that to end abortion, people must be educated on its realities and equipped to respond with compassion and love. Learn more at http://unplannedgracebook.com/ and https://savethestorks.com/.



About the Authors

Brittany Smith is a journalist, content strategist and serves as the PR & Content Manager for the pro-life organization Save the Storks. She loves telling stories that show how the pro-life movement truly cares about women, how women are stronger than our culture wants them to believe, and firmly believes that it's always possible to change our own stories. Brittany hails from North Carolina and now lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where she tries to explore the Rockies whenever she isn't writing.



Natasha Smith is the Creative Projects Manager at Save the Storks where she supports the pro-life movement by telling stories through writing, video, and photography. Her academic background is in communications and biblical theology and she is currently seeking a Masters in Old Testament from Denver Seminary. Natasha's love for the pro-life cause is grounded in the understanding that all life has value because every life is created in the image of God (Gen. 1:27). In her free time, Natasha enjoys deep conversations, reading good books, and exploring the magnificent mountains of Colorado.



SOURCE ICON Media Group



CONTACT: storks@iconmediagroup.com


SIMON NZIVWA MUNDU, AEI INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS MANAGER

Simon is the International Operations Manager for AE overseeing AEs financial, procurement and asset management and financial reporting among others. Simon is also charged with establishing and operationalizing the African Enterprise Southern Africa Region (AESAR), a new mode of operation that AE is piloting.

I first heard about AE from my local congregation pastor who comes from the same locality with a former AE Kenya National Team Leader; Mr Gerishon Mwiti.

Born 54 years ago (12th March 1967) in the eastern region of Kenya, Simon is the second born in a family of nine (6 brothers and 3 sisters) him being the elder son. His parents are peasant farmers.

Simon is an holder of Bachelor of Commerce (Accounting) degree and an MBA both from the University of Nairobi. In addition, Simon is a Certified Public Accountant in Kenya and a member of the institute of Certified Public Accountants in Kenya. My work experience started 29 years ago in private sector with the last 5 years in government sector and now in the NGO sector.

I committed my life to Christ in January 1986 while a student in secondary school. Thereafter I served in various capacities in the Christian Unions culminating with being chair of Uttermost Evangelistic Team (UET) which spreads the gospel in the rural areas prior to joining AE. Being in AE is an extension of serving God just like in the previous role at UET but this time in urban locations which is a new environment.

I am married to one wife (Grace) and are blessed with three children (Euphemia, Elijah and Emmanuel). On the photo we are from the left: Emmanuel, Grace, Euphemia, Simon and Elijah.

The life of Jesus Christ influences my spiritual life deeply as I read how he lived and demonstrated his faith daily and in public. Consequently, my favourite book of the bible is the Acts of the Apostles. It lays the biblical foundations of the church and instructs the life of a Christian including demonstrating the power of God at work in believers.
When I was a teenager, I had a youth pastor who sat down all the lads in the youth group and had a frank chat to us about how to treat women. The talk could be summed up with worship the creator, not the creation.

Basically, we worship and glorify God by treating the women in our life well. Its good advice for any young man. It wasnt until recently that I realized that this helpful advice can also be used in how we treat the Bride of Christ, the Church.

The church

By the church I do not mean brick and mortar - I mean the nature of worship and politic of the fellowship of believers who meet together regularly. I note many of the writers in Christian Today address this same issue.

Ive seen all too often the church become the object of worship. Now dont misunderstand me, it is imperative that we love the church, it is after all who Jesus died for.

Being planted and serving the local church is not just crucial to the spread of the Gospel but for our growth and sanctification as Christians.

The Problem

The problem is when the priority shifts from spreading the Gospel to growing an individual church.

The difference can be subtle but incredibly important.

For example, at one large multi-campus church that I attended for some time, weekly video testimonies were a staple for our Sunday services. Showing testimonies of church members discussing their walk with God is a terrific way of encouraging the church and glorifying God.

These testimonies had the same structure as most testimonies, namely here is my life before, here is a catalyst, now my life is like this. The point of concern comes in the middle, instead attributing the change to a relationship with God, all to often it was attributed to attending the Church.

The church made them feel welcome, the church equipped them with the tools to make a change, the church has given them purpose and direction.

So close, yet so far.

When the church is what saved you, then its the church that receives your worship. In the modern church that worship takes the form of serving. The more you serve, the more you love your church. The more you love your church, the more the church loves you.

Throughout my life I have seen time and time again, new Christians walk away from the church experiencing what is commonly referred to as burnout. They have thrown themselves into joining a church team, attending multiple services and homegroups, going to team nights, practices, and conferences.

In reality, what they are experiencing is not a burn out but a revelation that what they are worshipping is not the true savior.

They have fallen into the cycle of works-based faith. They are, in actuality, worshipping the creation and not the creator.

This church worship is also why minor conflicts between church members or public falls of church leaders have such devastating effects. When the church is deified by individuals, then these issues are not just the actions of flawed humans, but the fall of their god.

Outcome

Tragically, when those individuals begin to pull out of serving, when they stop worshipping the church, the church stops loving them in return. It is an ugly story that has affected the lives of many.

In Galatians 1, Paul states that he is astonished at how quickly the church of Galatia have given up the gospel for a false gospel. What we are seeing in the modern church is the same 2000 year old story.

In my view, this results in churches drifting away from the gospel. Not by giant leaps, but by inches. It is important for me note that I do not believe that the leaders of these churches are intentionally leading their churches astray. I dont believe that pastors and leaders have set out to create a culture of church worship.

They have not consciously attempted to save people to the church and not to God. This drift has occurred because they have overlooked the importance of keeping the main thing the main thing. The fact is, what you save people with is what you save people to.

This phenomenon is detailed in the book Mission Drift (Greer, Horst, and Haggard, 2014). Although the book focuses on Christian organizations, the concept can easily apply to our local church. The idea that without a constant reminder of the mission, we can drift away and over time find ourselves far from where we started.

Having a well-run, large church with many members who serve on team is not a bad thing. Efficient and dedicated teams are far more effective at achieving their goals then teams that arent.

In fact, serving on team and regularly attending church and homegroups are incredibly helpful ways to grow as a Christian. But if the core, outworked, visible mission of the church is not the spread of the gospel and the making of disciples, then the church has given up the gospel for a false gospel.

The question

The question every church needs to ask is; what is the emphasis? Is Christ and His gospel central to every aspect of church life, or have other aspects of a functioning community of faith taken center stage?

Similar questions are raised by historically significant Christian leaders in every generation  not just me pontificating  where is the focus in each of our lives?

How central is the gospel for me? It is a common misconception that the gospel is just for saving people. Rather the gospel is for Christians too. When we do not constantly remind ourselves that its only through faith in Jesus Christ and what he achieved on the Cross that brings salvation, then we can easily stray.

Whether its the Galatians reverting to old Jewish law, or the modern church emphasizing serving the church, drifting away from the gospel is easy to do when its not central in our lives.
With the growing requirement for food products, on account of the mushrooming population, farmers are increasingly employing the use of modern agricultural practices such as the use of insecticides, fungicides, pesticides, and fertilizers in order to augment the crop productivity. Moreover, the rapid advancements being made in the agriculture sector, which is the dominant sector in several African countries, are also positively impacting the usage of specialty chemicals in farming processes. These chemicals are used during various stages in order to prevent crop damage because of environmental factors, pests, and weed growth and improve the fertility of the soil.

Besides the aforementioned factor, the rapid economic progress of several Middle Eastern and African nations is also contributing toward the soaring sales of specialty chemicals in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region. These chemicals are being increasingly used in the electronics, construction, and agriculture sectors, which is, in turn, generating lucrative growth opportunities for the players operating in the MEA specialty chemicals market. Apart from these factors, the increasing construction and infrastructural development activities and expansion of the oil & gas industry are also predicted to fuel the market at a CAGR of 5.3% from 2018 to 2023.

Additionally, the expansion of end user industries such as adhesives and sealants, construction, and plastics is also boosting the demand for these chemicals in the country. These factors are also encouraging the players operating in the MEA specialty chemicals market to launch mergers and acquisitions for providing new offerings to end user industries. For example, Saudi Basic Industries Corporation announced in 2017 that it was looking for $3-6 billion business acquisition opportunities in specialty chemicals, fertilizers, and petrochemicals.

Hence, it can be safely said that the sales of specialty chemicals will surge sharply in the MEA region in the coming years, primarily because of their growing usage in various industries such as plastics, construction, oil & gas, and agriculture in the region.
Veterinary Orthopedics Market Growth & Trends

The global veterinary orthopedics market size is anticipated to reach USD 930.1 million by 2028, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. The market is estimated to expand at a CAGR of 8.3% from 2021 to 2028. The growing pet population, the prevalence of pet obesity and arthritis, which may require orthopedic surgery, are expected to drive the market. Moreover, increasing technological advancements in veterinary devices is another driver expected to contribute to the market growth.

According to the American Pet Products Association (APPA), about 84.9 million American homes (67% of U.S. households) owned a pet in 2019. This number is significantly greater than 2017 statistics wherein nearly 60.2 million U.S. households had at least one pet dog.

In 2019, Americans spent USD 95.7 billion on pets, which was USD 5.2 billion more than the expenditure in 2018. The rise in the number of pet owners and, subsequently, expenditure on pets, is boosting the animal health industry, including veterinary orthopedics. Owners are concerned about their pets and, hence, the demand for efficient treatment is rising. This trend is expected to continue, thus, fueling market growth during the forecast period.

According to Association for Pet Obesity Prevention (APOP), 56% of dogs and 60% of cats were overweight or obese in the U.S., in 2018. Obesity increases pressure on joints and bones. According to APPA, nearly 20.8 million dogs in the U.S. had undergone orthopedic surgeries in 2016. The most common orthopedic surgeries carried out on canines were femoral head osteotomy, bones fracture repair, cruciate ligament repair, and medial patellar luxation.

The prevalence of osteoarthritis in animals is increasing because of obesity, which is boosting demand for veterinary orthopedic devices and surgeries. According to Kingsbrook Animal Hospital, 20% of all dogs-regardless of age-in the U.S. had osteoarthritis in 2017.

The COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted the market, as the number of elective surgeries went down due to lockdown and quarantine measures. However, the market is anticipated to be driven by the resumption of elective surgeries. In March 2020, the Harmony Veterinary Center in compliance with government guidelines, suspended all its elective procedures, surgeries, and dentistry services during the COVID-19 outbreak. However, this does not change the underlying need for these procedures and the market is expected to grow significantly as surgeries return to pre-COVID numbers.

Request a free sample copy or view report summary: Veterinary Orthopedics Market Report

Veterinary Orthopedics Market Report Highlights

The growing pet population and ailments, combined with rising concern for zoonoses and pet expenditure, is anticipated to fuel market growth

The implants segment accounted for the largest revenue share of the product segment in 2020. This can be attributed to an increase in the number of cases of severe musculoskeletal injuries or orthopedic disorders, such as cruciate ligament tears or hip and elbow dysplasia. This increases the need for surgery and, thus, the demand for implants

The TTA segment held the largest revenue share in the application segment in 2020. Various factors driving the demand for this surgical method include increased ability to bear weight postsurgery, less pain, faster recovery, and fewer associated complications

The veterinary hospitals and clinics segment dominated the end-use segment in 2020, as a wide range of procedures and treatment options are available in these healthcare settings

In 2020, North America held a dominant revenue share in the market. This can be attributed to the local presence of key market players undertaking extensive strategic initiatives

Access Press Release@ https://www.grandviewresearch.com/press-release/global-veterinary-orthopedics-market

Veterinary Orthopedics Market Segmentation

Grand View Research has segmented the global veterinary orthopedics market on the basis of product, application, end-use, and region:

Veterinary Orthopedics Product Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2016 - 2028)

Instrument

Implants Plates Compression plates Arthrodesis plates Acetabulum plates Screws Others



Veterinary Orthopedics Application Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2016 - 2028)

Total Knee Replacement

Total Hip Replacement

Total Elbow Replacement

Trauma Fixation

TPLO

TTA

Lateral Fixation

Others

Veterinary Orthopedics End-use Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2016 - 2028)

Hospitals & Clinics

Others

Veterinary Orthopedics Regional Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2016 - 2028)

North America US. Canada

Europe UK. Germany France Italy Spain

Asia Pacific Japan China India

Latin America Brazil Mexico

Middle East & Africa South Africa Saudi Arabia



List of Key Players of Veterinary Orthopedics Market

Braun Melsungen AG

Veterinary Orthopedic Implants

Kyon AG

STERIS

Integra LifeSciences Corporation

Ortho Max Manufacturing Company Pvt. Ltd.

BioMedtrix, LLC

Surgical Holdings Veterinary

GerVetUSA

About Grand View Research

Grand View Research, Inc. is a U.S. based market research and consulting company, registered in the State of California and headquartered in San Francisco. The company provides syndicated research reports, customized research reports, and consulting services. To help clients make informed business decisions, we offer market intelligence studies ensuring relevant and fact-based research across a range of industries, from technology to chemicals, materials and healthcare.
San Francisco, 16 Sep 2021: The Report Vessel Sealing Devices Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report By Application (General Surgery, Laparoscopic Surgery), By Product (Generators, Instruments, Accessories), By End User, By Region, And Segment Forecasts, 2021 - 2028

The global vessel sealing devices market size is anticipated to reach USD 2.4 billion by 2028, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. The market is expected to expand at a lucrative CAGR of 8.1% from 2021 to 2028. The key factors driving the market growth include the rising number of surgeries across the globe, aging population, and technological advancements.

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in several challenges such as logistical bottlenecks, low demand, decreased sales and marketing activities, and reduced sales. The key impact, however, was the cancellation or postponement of elective surgeries during the pandemic. Most nations went under lockdown with the implementation of movement restrictions while academic societies and regulatory bodies recommended postponement of elective surgical procedures. According to Harvard Business Review, around a 4.8% GDP decline in the American economy, in the first quarter of 2020, could be attributed to deferred healthcare services, in particular delayed elective procedures. The resumption of elective surgeries is expected to lead to increased demand over the coming years.

The number of surgeries performed is a key contributor to the market growth. In the U.S. increasing prevalence of chronic diseases and an aging population, are leading to increase in the number of surgical procedures performed every year. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, an estimated 75 million of the 328 million U.S. population, were aged 60 years and older in 2019. This implies that a significant number of American citizens are vulnerable to chronic and acute conditions, leading to an increased number of surgeries.

According to Definitive Healthcare, LLC, as of 2019, there were about 9,280 active ambulatory surgery centers in the U.S. This high number also contributes to market growth. In addition, ASCs enable large volumes of surgeries in a short period, which is expected to fuel the market growth during the forecast period.

The adoption of automated and robotic systems in surgery is another driver estimated to contribute to the market growth. In a study conducted by the University of Michigan, School of Medicine, it was found that from 2012 to 2018 the use of robotic technology in general surgery increased from 1.8% to 15.1%. Market players are leveraging this trend to introduce new products, expand their regional presence, and increase their market share. Bolder Surgical, partnered with Intuitive Surgical to provide an exclusive licensing agreement to its energy-based vessel sealing and tissue stapling technologies for use in the latters robotic-assisted surgery solutions. In May 2021, Bowa Medical opened a new office in Cairo to control and support sales activities for Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, and the entire Middle East region.

Access Research Report of Vessel Sealing Devices Market @ https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/vessel-sealing-devices-market-report

Vessel Sealing Devices Market Report Highlights

Rising prevalence of chronic diseases is increasing the number of surgeries performed around the globe. This is one of the key contributing factors towards market growth

The application segment was dominated by laparoscopic surgery in 2020 owing to wider use of vessel sealing devices in these procedures, while the general surgery segment held a significant share. In June 2021, for instance, Johnson and Johnsons Ethicon launched ENSEAL X1 Curved Jaw Tissue Sealer for use in colorectal, bariatric surgery, gynecological, and thoracic procedures

The laparoscopic surgery segment, however, is also anticipated to grow the fastest due to rise in technological advancements and minimally invasive surgeries

The instruments segment held the largest revenue share in 2020 and is also expected to register the highest CAGR over the forecast period. Easy availability of instruments is one of the primary factors driving this segment

The hospitals and specialty clinics segment held the largest revenue share of 57.4% in 2020, as they are the primary point of care for treatment. Furthermore, hospitals and specialty clinics are known to offer superior care to their patients and treatment at these centers are generally reimbursed, which drives adoption

List of Key Players of Vessel Sealing Devices Market

Medtronic

Olympus Corporation

Braun Melsungen AG

Medical Devices Business Services, Inc. (Johnson & Johnson)

Erbe Elektromedizin GmbH

Bowa Medical

OmniGuide Holdings, Inc.

Intuitive Surgical

Bolder Surgical, LLC

KLS Martin Group

Access Press Release of Vessel Sealing Devices Market @ https://www.grandviewresearch.com/press-release/global-vessel-sealing-devices-market
Mumbai: The telecom relief package announced by the government on Wednesday will ease the default risk that banks were staring at from debt-laden Vodafone Idea Ltd (VIL). Besides, analysts also said the provisioning requirements for banks would also ease. However, bankers said they are awaiting the plan of action from the telecom companies to assess the situation.

According to analysts, VILs debt from banks and financial institutions stood at Rs 23,400 crore. Its AGR dues are over Rs 61,000 crore. It has near-term repayment obligations of Rs 6,400 crore over December 2021-March 2022 and additional deferred spectrum/AGR liability payment of Rs 15,700 crore/Rs 6,600 crore due in March 2022/April 2022 as of now. Its total debt is of Rs 1.9 lakh crore.

The risk of default in the near to medium term has certainly come off. Besides, some banks with sizeable exposure to Vodafone had accelerated their provisioning and will now rework the provisioning, said Anand Dama, analyst at Emkay Global.

Banks fund-based and non-fund-based exposure to Vodafone is Rs 24,000 crore each. Banks were anticipating a default risk over the next few months. If Vodafone could not service the AGR dues it would have simply declared itself insolvent to protect the value in the company and then would have defaulted. But with this breather, the potential risk on debt servicing has come down. We have to wait and see what Vodafone plans to do now, said an analyst.

We need to understand the implications of the relief measures. Clarity should come from the telecom companies as to what is their plan of action going forward, how Voda-fone will pay off the obligations, said a banker with sizeable exposure to VIL.

According to Sabyasachi Majumdar, senior VP and group head, corporate ratings at Icra, the moratorium on AGR dues provides annual cash flow breather of around Rs 14,000 crore for the telecom industry while the moratorium on spectrum dues gives another Rs 32,000 crore of annual cash flow relief for the industry as a whole. Further, a moratorium of four years gives time for the telecom industry to improve its financials.
Bengaluru: One lane on highways should be kept free for ambulances and VIPs, said Karnataka Minister Shivaram Hebbar on Thursday.

"As part of a system of democracy, it is essential to keep one lane free on highways for ambulances and VIPs," he said.

The Minister claimed that the reservation of a lane for VIPs is as per government regulations. "The ambulances are not occupying the lanes 24/7. Hence, VIPs are free to use those lanes. It is a system of democracy," he said.

Earlier last month, the Minister had stoked controversy by claiming after the Mysuru gang rape case that such "incidents happen all the time".
The Supreme Court Thursday granted "last chance" to Telangana authorities to permit immersion of Lord 'Ganesh idols' made up of plaster of Paris in Hussain Sagar Lake in Hyderabad.

A bench headed by Chief Justice N V Ramana noted that this is a recurrent problem in Hyderabad city and despite giving several directions, the state government has not complied with the orders of the Telangana High Court prohibiting the immersion of idols and curb pollution there.

The apex court passed the order after taking note of the submission by the Solicitor General Tushar Mehta that steps have been taken to minimise pollution in the lake, and idols are lifted by cranes soon after the immersion and transferred to solid waste disposal sites for disposal.

"In view of the submissions, we allow this year as last chance, to use this lake for immersion of idols," said the bench, also comprising Justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli, while seeking an undertaking for the next year.

The Telangana High Court on September 13 had refused to modify its earlier order banning immersion of Ganesh idols made of plaster of Paris (PoP) in Hussain Sagar Lake and other such places in the city.
Kochi: The state-of-the-art Digital Hub occupying two lakh square feet of built-up space, set up by the Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM), will be inaugurated by Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan here on Saturday.

Housing a design incubator, healthcare incubator, Center of Excellence (CoE) for Mouser Electronics, co-working spaces, design studios, investors hive and an innovation center, the Digital Hub is conceived to emerge as one of South Asia's largest product development centers for technology startups, authorities said.

The digital hub is the latest addition to Startup Mission's Technology Innovation Zone (TIZ) as a global innovation hub for several technology sectors.

"As a destination for designing and prototyping, the hub will be open for international organisations and institutions to build world-class products," KSUM Chief Executive Officer John M Thomas said at a press meet here.

The hub has the capacity to support 200 startups, besides the 165 startups hosted in the adjoining Integrated Startup Complex.

"The CoE aims to groom shelter-related ideas and innovations, and will function as a one-stop center for all product-design and development activities for software and hardware components. These include all sectors and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, augmented reality/virtual reality, internet of things and natural language processing," Startup Mission said in a release.

Initially, the Hub will accommodate 200 startups giving direct employment opportunities to 2,500 talents, KSUM CEO said.

"The zone aims to create world-class infrastructure facilities for multi-sector technology incubators to incubate their startups and to support homegrown enterprises," John M Thomas said.

KSUM as the state's 2006-founded nodal agency for entrepreneurship development and incubation activities, has been primarily designated to establish and operate the TIZ as a global innovation incubator hub for various technology sectors.

The Zone comprises Incubators, Accelerators, built-up start-up modules, COEs, high-end fabrication labs, R&D lab facilities, office spaces and amphitheatre among other facilities.
KTR with the team of Malabar Gold and Diamonds. (Photo: Twitter/@KTRTRS)

Hyderabad: Kerala-based Malabar Gold and Diamonds on Wednesday said that it will establish a manufacturing unit along with a refinery in Telangana state with an investment of Rs 750 crore.

In a media statement issued by industries minister K.T. Rama Rao, the proposed investment will create employment for about 2,500 people in the state.

Malabar Group Chairman M.P. Ahammed and a team of representatives met Rama Rao in Hyderabad here on Wednesday.

The Malabar Group already has 260 jewellery stores across the globe.

Rama Rao welcomed the Malabar group to Telangana state. He stated that the Telangana state government will provide complete support to the firm.

The minister also expressed happiness over 2,500 jewellers getting employment in the region. He added that there were skilled jewellers in various districts of Telangana state and requested the company heads to consider creating employment for them in their firm.
This blog covers software patent news and issues with a particular focus on wireless, mobile devices (smartphones, tablet computers, connected cars) as well as select antitrust matters surrounding those devices.
China ramps up US tension by sending destroyers into Alaskan waters, farther than their usual range of operations. This comes after the recent call between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping, who did not meet personally on several points of contention.

It is also similar to the freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs) done by the US Navy in the South China Sea. The US cannot deny passage since it invokes international law.

Chinese warships made passage in Alaskan waters

Appearing in Alaskan waters, which is technically US territory, the Chinese embarked on a show of strength close to the farther part of the United States.

Chinese president Xi Jinping flexed the People's Liberation Army's military capability. For some, this can incite a third world war, with the South China Sea as the heart of the problem, reported the SUN UK.

Close to the Aleutian islands chain, a group of four PLA warships crossed, including the newest destroyer rolled out of Chinese shipyards in the package. The US Coast Guard released pictures of the Chinese navy ships, tailed by units of the Coast Guard that tracked their progress. This transit done by these ships had happened in international waters last August 29 to 30.

Hopefully when Chinese warships pass through the Caribbean Sea or show up near Hawaii and Guam one day, the US will uphold the same standard of freedom of navigation. That day will come soon. pic.twitter.com/7fRn8PVZuS  Hu Xijin  (@HuXijin_GT) September 8, 2021

Images were circulated through the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service, which showed that all the interactions of the maritime units of the US and China are safe and professional. A photo with Captain Tim Brown, commander of the coastguard ship, Bertholf, seen with a People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) part of the four-vessel task force, cited the Times UK.

Read Also: Beijing Says the UK Seems to Be Asking for a "Beating" After Carrier Queen Elizabeth Entered South China Sea

The South China Morning Post reports that the task group comprises the new Type 55 destroyer, Type-052D Destroyer, an 815 spy ship, and a 903 resupply ship that set sail for the Aleutians. Last Monday, the photos were posted online but taken down several hours later.

Tension rises as Beijing sails into US territorial waters

Previously, Beijing told the US administration that the PLAN would soon be sending naval groups as far out to Hawaii. However, it made one go into Alaska waters instead. It preceded the US Navy's announcement of the planned sailing of the US supercarrier Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group (CSG), which will enter the South China Sea in its current deployment.

Adding to the tension in the contested seas when one of USS Benfold's guided missiles was launched, flustering the Chinese with FONOPs conduct close to the claimed Spratly Islands. Getting to the 12 mile limit of the Mischief Reef, set by the UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea) that establishes the territorial seas in such areas. As usual, the CCP controlled media let loose a barrage of statements calling out the US Navy not to dare sail too close. A retaliation was warned soon after by the communist regime.

Hu Xijin, the chief editor of the Global Times, struck out with a tweet, said that when PLA vessels go through the Caribbean or close to Hawaii in Guam, the US should allow freedom of navigation. This day will come soon. China ramps up US tension by sending destroyers into Alaska, as Xijin foretold, which will increase the competition further, a great power competition between near peers in on the offing.

Related Article: USS Benfold Sails Close to Mischief Reef; Challenges Beijing's New Maritime Rules in the South China Sea

@ 2021 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
President Joe Biden announced a fresh initiative on Wednesday to assist Australia in acquiring nuclear-powered submarines, a significant step toward opposing China as he seeks international support for his approach to Beijing.

The statement was made as part of new trilateral cooperation between the US, Australia, and the United Kingdom, which was announced jointly by the three nations' presidents on Wednesday afternoon.

From next week's United Nations meetings to a White House gathering of Asian leaders to October's Group of 20 discussions in Italy, Biden is likely to have a rush of diplomatic engagements this autumn.

US, UK, and Australia presidents to meet over the next several months

Officials stressed ahead of the announcement that the new cooperation between the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia - three English-speaking maritime democracies - is not about China.

Instead, they said the three nations would meet over the next several months to collaborate on cyber concerns, new technology, and military to better tackle modern-day security challenges. AUKUS is the name of the new partnership, which is pronounced "aw-kiss."

The drive toward building nuclear submarine capabilities in Australia, which authorities say would allow the country to act militarily at a far higher level, will be at the heart of the announcement, KRDO reported. Nuclear submarines can move at higher speeds, for more extended periods, and more stealth than conventional submarines, which must surface more frequently.

China, which has frequently slammed Biden for concentrating US foreign policy on the Pacific in the early stages of his presidency, is likely to view the new security partnership as provocative. Per Stripes, a senior administration official tried to downplay the concept that the alliance would act as a deterrence to China in the area ahead of the announcement.

Read Also: Vladimir Putin Oversees Vast War Games as Russia, Belarus Agree to Deepen Economic Ties; Huge Military Exercises Spark Concern in West

New alliance agree to share information, nuclear-powered submarines

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in advance of the announcement, said the alliance's formation is part of a broader effort by the three countries to maintain engagement and deterrence in the Indo-Pacific. According to the official, the three countries have agreed to share information in areas such as artificial intelligence, cyber, and undersea defensive capabilities.

The official said the three nations also declared plans to assist Australia in getting nuclear-powered submarines. A little too far, the United States has only exchanged nuclear propulsion technology with the United Kingdom. The official from the government stated that Australia had no plans to build a nuclear weapons program and that intelligence exchange would be confined to assisting the country in developing a submarine fleet.

Boris Johnson stated during the announcement that the UK, Australia, and the United States would be linked even closer together, reflecting the measure of trust between us, the depth of our relationship, and the continuing strength of our shared principles of freedom and democracy. The new project's initial endeavor will be a partnership on future nuclear-powered submarines for the Royal Australian Navy.

According to the UK government, this will "promote stability" in support of shared values and interests. Rolls Royce near Derby and BAE Systems in Barrow have been building and operating nuclear-powered submarines for almost 60 years, as per Express.co.

Related Article: Joe Biden's COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate Heads For Trouble In Court; Top Immunologist Regrets Voting Him For President

@ 2021 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Numerous sources informed on the two leaders' 90-minute phone discussion last week claim that Chinese President Xi Jinping did not accept US President Joe Biden's offer.

On Tuesday, US President Joe Biden refuted a media report that his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, had turned down Biden's invitation for a face-to-face meeting last week. According to many people informed on the 90-minute discussion between the two leaders last week, Xi Jinping did not accept Joe Biden's offer.

Biden denies report Xi turned down offer

When reporters asked if he was unhappy that Xi Jinping refused to meet with him, Biden responded, "It's not true." According to NDTV, Jake Sullivan, Biden's national security advisor, said in a statement earlier on Tuesday that "the call was not an accurate portrayal. Period."

The report was accurate, a person who was among those informed on the call claimed. When contacted for comment, China's embassy in Washington did not immediately respond.

Biden is said to have floated the summit as one of many options for a follow-up meeting with Xi, and he did not expect an immediate response. A US person stated that while Xi was not interested in holding a meeting, the White House felt it was partially due to COVID-19 concerns.

The G20 summit in Italy in October has been mentioned as a potential location for a face-to-face meeting, although Xi has not left China since the pandemic broke out early last year. The conversation between Biden and Xi was their first in seven months, and they emphasized the need to avoid confrontation between the world's two greatest economies.

Before the meeting, a US official briefing described it as a test of whether direct top-level contact might break the impasse in relations, which are at their lowest point in decades. The White House stated later that it planned to keep lines of communication open, but no more engagements have been announced.

According to sources involved with the call who requested anonymity to discuss it, Biden recommended the two leaders meet in the coming months. Xi hasn't left China in over 600 days, the longest period of any G20 leader.

Read Also: Qatar, Russia Call For Afghanistan Humanitarian Aid to Detach From Politics; Urge to Help Afghans Surpass Crisis

Xi Jinping has not left China

Instead, he's been making virtual appearances at gatherings like the BRICS leaders' conference, as per Bloomberg. He is also not likely to visit the United Nations General Assembly in New York next week, despite the fact that Chinese presidents seldom attend such events.

At a regular news briefing in Beijing on Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian avoided addressing questions about whether Xi was interested in seeing Biden soon. He reiterated prior Chinese remarks regarding the necessity of frequent communication between the two parties.

President Biden will virtually assemble some of the world's most powerful leaders on Friday, pushing them to do more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions ahead of a crucial United Nations conference in November.

Biden will also call on other nations to join a worldwide target to reduce methane, the major component of natural gas and exceptionally potent greenhouse gas, according to a White House official who spoke to reporters on the condition of anonymity on a background call.

European and US climate negotiators who were not allowed to disclose specifics of the proposal publicly said countries who sign on to the "global methane pledge" hammered up by the US and Europe would promise to work together to cut global methane emissions by at least 30% by 2030.

The White House did not provide a list of attendees, but the Big Economies Forum typically attracts a mix of affluent European countries and major emerging economies. Although it is unclear if officials from China, the world's largest emitter of greenhouse emissions, would attend the second summit on Friday, the country's president, Xi Jinping, did attend the first in April, as per The New York Times.

Related Article: China, Russia Ditch US Dollars in Expanded Trade Settlements in Favor of National Currencies

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United States Joint Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley defended himself after receiving widespread criticism for speaking with his Chinese counterpart, Li Zuocheng, shortly before the presidential elections last year. He said it was a fulfillment of his duties and was not made to bypass authority.

In the final months of former U.S. President Donald Trump's administration, Milley allegedly took actions to prevent the Republican businessman from going into armed conflict with other nations. A new book by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa claims that the official was engaged in secret discussions with the Chinese Joint Chief of Staff, saying he was "fearful Trump might spark war."

Milley's Defense of his Actions

In a statement, Milley confirmed that he indeed talked with Li and other international military leaders in October and in January. However, those meetings were made in fulfillment of his duties and responsibilities as the U.S. Joint Chief of Staff and spokesperson Col. Dave Butler said. He added that Milley's contact with Li was not in violation of any protocol, NPR reported.

"All calls from the Chairman to his counterparts, including those reported, are staffed, coordinated, and communicated with the Department of Defense," said Butler. The spokesperson said Milley also made the communications under the knowledge of the U.S. security and intelligence community's interagency pipeline.

Read Also: Joe Biden Needs to Show China Who Is in Control Following Meeting With Chinese Leader Xi Jinping

The situation comes after Trump recently expressed his skepticism of the rumors surrounding Milley alleged discussions with Chinese officials. On Tuesday, the Republican businessman said that if the claims were true, they would be akin to treason. Trump made the statements during an interview, where he also acknowledged he was being tough on China when it came to the coronavirus pandemic and tracing the infection.

In a statement, the former president called on Milley to step aside and raised a theory that the Joint Chief of Staff started the rumor himself and leaked it to the book's authors. Trump also claimed that Woodward and Costa were writers who focused on fiction and not fact, Fox News reported.

Trump's Actions Against China

Trump also reassured that he never had any plans to start a war with China, calling the people who created the rumors "sick and demented." The Republican businessman claims he is the only United States president in history who did not put the country into war.

Woodward and Costa's book detailed that the Chinese nation was concerned about Trump's potential to preemptively strike in October 2020. They argued that the Republican was spurred on due to his failing chances to win the 2020 presidential election. Milley allegedly contacted Li again on Jan. 8, 2021, where he reassured his Chinese counterpart that the U.S. government was not an immediate threat to China.

Butler also seemingly confirmed that Milley talked with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi shortly after the events of the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riot. The Joint Chief of Staff allegedly reassured the official that there were safety measures in place to prevent Trump from using nuclear weapons or utilizing the military to maintain his position as the United States president, CNBC reported.



Related Article: Joe Biden Reveals New Alliance With UK, Australia; US Plans To Share Nuclear Submarine Technology

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The IRS department will send out a new batch of stimulus checks in Child Tax Credits on September 15.

The federal government of the United States has launched this program to assist Americans in coping with the economic crisis that has arisen as a result of the country's COVID-19 pandemic. The total amount of money being paid to eligible parents throughout the country as part of the scheme is $1.9 trillion.

Depending on the adjusted AGI for the year 2021, the stimulus check Child Tax Credit will be lowered to $2,000 for one child. If married couples are filing jointly or as a widower or widow, the sum must be greater than $150,000.

It must be more than $112,500 for those filing as the head of a household. If a person is single and filing a separate return, the total amount must be greater than $75,000. The quantity of the stimulus check assistance payments given to parents is determined by the children's age.

If the child is under the age of six, he will get a total of $300. Children between the ages of six and seventeen will receive a total of $250. The funds will be available until the end of December. The income of the recipients is a factor for eligibility.

Per Digital Market News, there will be no more adjustments to the stimulus payments for individuals who expect to receive the stimulus check financial aid payments on September 15. Payments had to be paid by a certain date, which had already gone. However, there is still time to make a few changes in preparation for the forthcoming federal aid payments, which are due on October 15.

Two $1,400 stimulus checks may rise

More stimulus payments may be on the way, as a proposed tax change may produce enough money for two more $1,400 stimulus payments. Democrats are preparing to develop a huge social spending program after passing President Joe Biden's $3.5 trillion domestic spending plan.

According to Business Insider, it will most likely be funded by tax increases on the richest Americans, investors, and major corporations. Biden has suggested a corporate tax rate of 28%, which is higher than the existing rate of 21%.

Senators Ron Wyden, Mark Warner, and Sherrod Brown have previously produced a draft framework targeted at eliminating incentives for businesses to relocate their operations outside of the US.

"My Republican colleagues are telling everybody that Bernie Sanders and the Democrats are going to raise taxes," Bernie Sanders told the crowd at an outdoor amphitheater in West Lafayette, Indiana, on Friday.

The Vermont senator was highlighting the differences between the two parties, pointing out that in past years, House Republicans have backed tax cuts for the rich, The Sun reported. Sanders' case is based on a spending plan that includes universal pre-kindergarten and community college tuition-free.

It also increases health-care coverage through Medicare, provides routes to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants, and pushes states to pass labor-friendly legislation. Republicans, on the other hand, claim that the proposal is loaded with wasteful expenditure and tax hikes.

Read Also: Democrats Urge Family Stimulus Checks To Last Until 2025 as Payments Help Millions of Americans Out of Poverty Last Year

IRS $1,600 unemployment refund

Meanwhile, sending out a new type of check to taxpayers is one of the numerous things the IRS is working on. This is due to the $1.9 trillion stimulus bill that was signed into law in March. This is on top of other payments like a $1,400 stimulus check and monthly Child Tax Credit payments, the third of which is due tomorrow, September 15.

IRS unemployment refund stimulus checks are still being sent, with an average of $1,600 being given to impacted households. This news will most certainly affect those on unemployment in 2020 who paid their federal taxes early this year, before the enactment of the stimulus bill in March. The stimulus package exempted up to $10,200 in unemployment compensation from taxable income calculations in 2020.

Individuals and married couples were both exempted, according to the tax agency. Those with a modified adjusted gross income of less than $150,000 in particular. In the aftermath of the stimulus package, the IRS has been recalculating taxpayer files automatically for many months.

It pays out unemployment refunds as necessary. Some people get more than the $1,600 average mentioned above. Of course, some individuals receive less - and others receive nothing at all - as a result of the recalculation, as per BGR.

Related Article: Still Got No $1,600 Unemployment Tax Refund? Here's How To Read IRS Transcript For Clues



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The fallen marine Rylee McCollum, one of the 13 who died in the Kabul blast, has his firstborn named after him by his wife. His sacrifice was remembered as one of the marines who died believing in helping others, whose deaths could have been preventable.

One of the fathers will never come home to see their loved ones while they grieve and ask why they died. Compared to the former US administration that kept men in uniform safer.

The sacrifice of the 13 was accorded military recognition, but many decry their unnecessary loss due to the administration's alleged missteps, which has not been accountable for this incident.

The day 13, good soldiers were forsaken.

Rylee McCollum, 20, was a casualty as the ISIS-K sent a suicide bomber to the airport in the last hours of the deadline on August 26. At this time, his pregnant wife, Jiennah Crayton, Gigi, had no idea of the events to come, reported the Daily Mail.

She later gave birth to his child, a baby girl named Levi Rylee Rose, in remembrance of her late father. Gigi celebrated the birth of Levi with a Facebook post that expressed her joy at the child coming despite the loss of her dad on that dark day.

Rylee's daughter Levi was born on a Monday at 8 lbs. and 10 ounces. The baby was with a pillow of her dad in military dress. But, the child will never see her dad, 'Marine Rylee McCollum' after, he was supposed to be home by October, but that will never happen.

Read Also: George W. Bush on 9/11 Attack: Says Americans Are Exceptional When Needed, Calls to Remember United Airlines Flight 93

A day after the childbirth, Gigi wrote a poem that described the overwhelming feelings of loss and cited the Mirror UK. She added her dad was watching her.

Afghanistan fell with unwanted consequences

The fallen soldier went to Afghanistan to be part of the ill-fated US pullout, where he died in the horrible blast by an ISIS-K suicide bomber. He was stationed at a checkpoint when he got caught in the powerful explosion, being one of 183 killed in the suicide attack at the Kabul airport.

The marine graduated from Jackson Hole High School, Wyoming, in 2019 and, enlisting in the US Marine Corps, got married to Gigi just in February 2019 on a trip to Las Vegas. When news came of McCollum's death, Jill Miller Crayton, the mother of Gigi, mentioned her daughter is only 20, got widowed, and pregnant was terrible to bear. She was like those who lost a loved one that day.

She never met her son-in-law even before his death in Kabul, though she was happy for what the couple shared in a very short time. Calling the man she never met a missed chance, but Gigi loved the fallen marine who was everything to her. The mother said she wanted to see him in October, and seeing the joy in her daughter with a child on the way was incredible.

Previously, Jill lost her husband at nine weeks pregnant with Gigi's brother, which was 15 years ago, and it happened again. She added the death of Marine Rylee McCollum should not be affected by the Biden administration politics; he deserves better than that for his selfless service to better his memory.

Related Article: F-16 Fighters on 9/11 Took Off on a Kamikaze Mission to Stop Flight 93 From Hitting the US Capitol Building in Washington D.C.

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Brian Laundrie has been declared a person of interest in the case of his New York girlfriend Gabby Petito's disappearance. Petito, 22, set off on a cross-country road journey with Laundrie on July 2 from New York, where her parents live.

Petito kept in touch with her family during the journey, and the pair documented most of it on YouTube and other social media platforms. She hasn't been seen since August 24, and her family hasn't heard from her since she Facetimed her mother, Nicole Schmidt, on that day.

Petito is said to have been in Wyoming at the time, near Grand Teton National Park. Her mother claims she received brief text messages between August 27 and 30, but she doesn't believe it was from her daughter.

Why does the missing woman's boyfriend refuse to cooperate?

On August 30, Schmidt got a final text from her daughter's phone, which said, "No service in Yosemite." Laundrie returned alone on September 1 with Petito's 2012 Ford Transit vehicle to the North Port house he had been living with Petito and his parents, according to authorities.

Authorities have now seized the vehicle and are processing it for evidence, with the FBI aiding with the investigation. After a witness phoned 911, the Moab Police Department in Utah responded to a dispute involving the couple on August 12, The Hill reported.

Petito allegedly slapped Laundrie on the arm and attempted to climb in via a window after locking her out of the van, according to the witness. The couple claimed at the time that there was no slap and no charges were brought.

According to a statement published by the family's attorney, Brian Laundrie, whose girlfriend Gabby Petito was reported missing on September 11, stated why Laundrie won't talk to the police about the matter.

In his experience, Attorney Steven Bertolino says that in instances like these, intimate partners are frequently the first people on whom law enforcement concentrates their attention. Whether or not his client had anything to do with Petito's disappearance, the threat that "any remark made would be used against you" is true.

Laundrie was identified as a "person of interest" in the disappearance of the young woman. Police said the boyfriend is obstructing the inquiry, as per the Insider.

Read Also: Boy in Medically Induced Coma After Lawnmower Projectile Fractured His Skull While Playing in Wisconsin Playground

Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie reportedly fought during their trip to Utah

On Tuesday, Petito's family publicly chastised Laundrie for refusing to help them in their search for the young lady, pleading with him to at the very least tell them whether they are looking in the appropriate places. Petito and Laundrie set out on a cross-country road trip in a white-modified camper van from New York on July 2, recording their journey on social media.

According to police records, missing New York woman Gabby Petito and her boyfriend scuffled outside a Utah national park last month, telling officers that animosity between the two had been growing for a few days. Petito reportedly told officers she was afraid her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie, would drive away and leave her "stranded."

Petito, who "was dealing with her mental health" and reportedly scratched Laundrie, was being investigated for domestic violence, according to police. However, authorities concluded that the scenario was more of a mental health crisis than a criminal issue, and advised the fighting pair to spend the night apart.

During the August 12 incident, Petito and Laundrie told officers in Moab, Utah, that they had been traveling together for four or five months and that the "emotional pressure between them" had led to an increase in the frequency of fights, The NY Post reported.

Related Article: Missing New York Woman Gabby Petito's Boyfriend Refuses To Help Search, Ignores Text Messages Despite Family's Plea To Talk To Police



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An Ohio Board of Education is facing widespread criticism and calls for resignation from Hudson Mayor Craig Schubert after high school seniors received writing assignments that asked for their description of sexual experiences and other inappropriate incidents.

"It has come to my attention that your educators are distributing what is essentially child pornography in the classroom," Schubert said during a board meeting on Monday. The official revealed he had spoken to a judge who confirmed the incident. He gave the entire board a simple choice: resign from the Board of Education or face criminal charges.

Inappropriate School Assignments

On Wednesday, the president of the board, David Zuro, said that no member has shown any intention of resigning from their positions. It remains unclear what kind of charges the board members could face related to the incident.

In a statement, Zuro said that while the board respected the mayor's position in Hudson, they said he had no authority to call for their resignation as the Board of Education is responsible for the supervision of the public schools in the district under State Laws of Ohio, NBC News reported.

The writing assignment that captured Schubert's attention was contained in a book titled "642 Things To Write About." It was given to seniors who were taking a college credit course at Hudson High School.

Read Also: Joe Biden Reveals New Alliance With UK, Australia; US Plans To Share Nuclear Submarine Technology

The book included some of the following tasks: "Write a sex scene you wouldn't show your mom. Rewrite the sex scene from above into one that you'd let your mom read." Another assignment asks the students' perspective on the taste of beer.

Many parents immediately criticized the writing assignments, and speakers who attended the board meeting called the tasks "disgusting" and a form of "grooming." Phil Herman, the Hudson City Schools Superintendent, demanded the books to be pulled on Monday, calling them "inappropriate and offensive writing prompts," Fox News reported.

Process of Reviewing Curriculum Content

Herman noted that the district immediately said that the writings had no place in educational establishments. He ordered officials on Monday to collect all the books from enrolled students in the course. On that same day, Hudson High School principal Brian Wilch said he and his administrative team talked with and expressed their apologies to the parents of the students.

Wilch argued that the course was offered in association with Hiram College and said that the "642 Things" book was previously used in other classes. He admitted that authorities did not do their due diligence in reviewing the resources which resulted in the oversight of the inappropriate content. The principal said that the assignments were not selected or discussed before being given to the students.

Staff attorney with the Ohio School Boards Association, Ralph Lusher, noted there have never been criminal charges filed against a school board over the content of a curriculum. Lusher emphasized that school boards usually had a process where committees review curriculums before it is sent to the board for approval. He said that it was "unlikely that something would get to them that is of such moral turpitude that it would bring criminal charges," USA Today reported.



Related Article: Missing New York Woman Gabby Petito's Boyfriend Refuses To Help Search, Ignores Text Messages Despite Family's Plea To Talk To Police

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Prince Charles' charity has been thrown into even more chaos after two top executives resigned over claims of "cash for access." The Prince's Foundation chairman, Douglas Connell, resigned yesterday, saying he was "shocked" by the charity's possible misconduct.

Chris Martin, the charity's executive director, has also stepped down - only days after allegations that the foundation took more than 500,000 ($692,000) from a notorious Russian tycoon. The actions are the latest setback for the troubled nonprofit, whose chief executive, Michael Fawcett, has already resigned over allegations that he aided a Saudi donor in receiving an honor.

They are also expected to put pressure on the prince, whose judgment has been called into doubt after allegations that he agreed to meet with rich businessmen in exchange for large contributions. The future king has stated that he was unaware of the purported "cash for honors" scandal.

Prince Charles was unaware of the "cash-for-honor" misconduct

The Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR), which is located in Dumfries House in Ayrshire, started an inquiry into the foundation earlier this week, Daily Mail reported. Dmitry Leus, a Russian banker, was accused of donating hundreds of thousands of pounds to the organization in exchange for access to Prince Charles, prompting the investigation.

There is no indication that the prince was aware of the purported offer of access made by fixer William Bortrick. Last year, after receiving a six-figure payment from Leus, the prince wrote him a letter in which he expressed his gratitude and said he was "incredibly grateful" for his generosity.

Scandals involving alleged "cash-for-honors" or "cash-for-favors," even ones that do not involve royals, have resurfaced regularly in the United Kingdom, enraging politicians, citizens, and the media.

Charles' former valet, whom he has characterized as "indispensable" to the running of his charity operations, stood aside temporarily from his executive post, and an independent investigation was begun.

Read Also: Prince Andrew's Lawyers Claim He Has Not Received Legal Papers as US Court Holds Pre-Trial Hearing Over Sex Abuse Allegations

Chairman of Prince Charles' charity resigned

Per USA Today, Connell said on Wednesday, he should accept responsibility if it seems that significant wrongdoing may have occurred. The Prince's Foundation has stated that it is "dedicated to the highest ethical standards" in light of the current allegations.

This is the third incident since Fawcett began working for Charles that he has briefly stood down, according to British media reports. The foundation's president is Prince Charles, however, he is not involved in its governance or day-to-day operations.

According to a spokesperson, Prince Charles completely supports the foundation's current inquiry. Last week, Prince Charles and his wife, Duchess Camilla of Cornwall, were seen in public for the first time at engagements in Scotland.

After Prince Charles and Fawcett, one of his most trusted confidants were reported to police over the accusations, Clarence House stated the prince had "no knowledge" of the matter. Both the future king and Fawcett, Charles' former royal valet, were denounced to Scotland Yard on suspicion of violating the Honors (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925 by the pressure group Republic.

The chief executive is accused of offering to assist a Saudi billionaire contributor to obtain a knighthood and British citizenship. An independent team on behalf of the foundation's trustees has begun an inquiry into the claims against Fawcett, The Scotsman via MSN reported.

Related Article: Prince Charles Hit With New Accusations of Intending to Meet Russian Donor After Receiving $740,000 Gift

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Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban's temporary prime minister, went to the radio on Wednesday to reassure his countrymen that he is still alive and well.

Baradar Had Been Absent from Public View in Nearly a Week

In a recently published article in MSN News, following rumors of severe disputes between Taliban factions over the makeup of the new government announced on Sept. 7, Baradar, the most prominent member of the leadership in recent years, had been gone from public view for almost a week.

Baradar's absence was most apparent when he did not attend during Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammed Al Thani's visit to Kabul on Sunday, despite the fact that he had already met with him. In addition to hosting the US-Taliban talks and failed follow-up talks between the militants and former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's government, Qatar has played a key role in the reopening of Kabul's international airport, allowing more Americans and others to leave the country following the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

Meanwhile, Baradar's departure from the capital came after an altercation in which he expressed his displeasure with Muttaqi and the Haqqanis' cabinet choices, according to sources acquainted with the matter in a recently published article in The Washington Post.

Read Also: Taliban Allows Afghan Women To Study Under Some Conditions

Baradar Sends Audio Message To Prove He is Alive and Well

In an interview with Afghan national television, Baradar said that he is well. Top Taliban leaders also said that the organization had excellent and friendly ties with one another, similar to those of a family. He also accused the media of spreading false information.

The footage of Baradar was taken in Kandahar, Afghanistan's second-biggest city, where senior Taliban commander Haibatullah Akhundzada is said to be based, despite the fact that he has not been seen in public since the takeover a month ago, according to a report published in Reuters.

The video occurred after a spooky audio recording purportedly belonging to Baradar was tweeted by the Taliban on Monday, denying reports of his own injuries or death. According to a handwritten letter from one of Baradar's senior aides, he was in Kandahar. However, the inability to produce real-time footage confirming it was Baradar on the tape only helped to fuel speculation about his death.

Officials in the Interim Government are All Men and Included in FBI's Most Wanted Persons

The cabinet itself, which was made up entirely of men chosen from different Taliban power centers, "clearly was an attempt to preserve internal cohesion," according to a senior official from the area, one of many who spoke on the condition of anonymity about the sensitive matter. Whether they are members of the Pakistan-based "shura" leadership or a top commander, "some of them are meeting each other" for the first time or after 20 years, according to the official.

In a published article in One News Page, the State Department puts a $10 million bounty on Sirajuddin Haqqani's head as a "specially designated terrorist," while the FBI has a $5 million reward for assaults during the conflict that was especially brutal or killed Americans. His uncle, Khalil Haqqani, who is currently the interim Taliban minister for refugees, has also received a $5 million offer from the State Department. Muttaqi was the cruel Taliban government's minister of culture and education in the late 1990s.

Related Article: Al Qaeda Leader, Rumored To Be Dead,Applaudes Al-Qaeda Assaults in Video During 20th Anniversary of 9/11 Terrorist Attacks



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According to the FDA, observational studies do not all support the idea that the injection's effectiveness diminishes with time and that a booster dose is required.

FDA's Independent Panel Skeptical About the Data

In a recently published article in The Hill, the proof that a supplemental dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccination was required for all Americans who got the injection was not instantly endorsed by FDA experts on Wednesday.

Agency officials expressed skepticism of the evidence provided by the pharma firm in papers released online before a crucial FDA vaccine advisory committee meeting on Friday, noting that all relevant data has not yet been submitted or evaluated.

On Friday, the FDA's independent panel of specialists will examine the data presented by Pfizer and will likely decide on whether boosters are required. The FDA is not required to adopt the panel's recommendations. Still, if it does, it would undoubtedly cause public confusion and raise serious concerns about political involvement, according to a published article in POLITICO.

Read Also: WHO Asks Rich Countries Not To Give Booster or Third Shots; Poor Nations Are Still About To Receive Their First Shot

Role of FDA and CDC in the Booster Shot

If the FDA panel approves a booster dosage, the agency will officially accept the recommendation, and a second advisory group formed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will vote on whether they should be widely administered.

Meanwhile, President Biden and senior health officials made an unprecedented announcement last month, announcing that a booster injection program would begin the week of Sept. 20, long before the FDA and CDC had reviewed the data, according to a report published in Forbes.

While authorities have been cautious about stating that the booster program is dependent on FDA and CDC clearance, several public health experts have chastised them for acting as if approval was a certainty. Additionally, Pfizer claimed that protection against COVID-19 infection waned mainly due to time, rather than the delta version, in its argument for a third dosage.

Two High-Ranking Officials Announced Their Resignation Over the Plan of the White House for a Booster Shot

Two high-ranking FDA officials indicated their intention to quit this week, citing disagreements with the White House on the COVID booster proposal. President Joe Biden stated last month that vaccination boosters would be widely distributed starting Sept. 20 before the FDA or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had given their approval.

In a published article in ABC News 10 San Diego, the two leaving officials co-authored a paper published in The Lancet. Based on the newest data, Dr. Marion Gruber, head of the FDA's Office of Vaccines Research and Review, and her deputy, Dr. Philip Krause, believe that there is no need to start deploying boosters in the general population.

Pfizer Cited Studies that Support their Push for Booster Shots

Pfizer highlighted findings from lab trials and real-world data from Israel, where boosters have been given to individuals over 60 since the end of July. Boosters have lately been extended to individuals over the age of 30 in the nation. Pfizer wants the FDA to approve boosters for anyone over the age of 16. The FDA said that the business fulfilled predetermined success criteria.

In its application for a third dosage, Pfizer admits that most trials indicate two doses are still more than 90 percent effective against severe illness, which is probably the most significant measure. However, the firm highlighted a tiny but concerning sample of data from Israel.

Related Article: Booster Shots of Pfizer and Moderna's COVID-19 Vaccines Will Begin on September

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After failing to submit required COVID-19 test results or evidence of immunization on Wednesday, over 13 percent of government employees in North Carolina's second-largest county were suspended without pay.

Employees Suspended For Refusing To Follow the New Rule

Mecklenburg County stated 598 employees, or 13.5 percent of all staff, would be suspended for refusing to obey pandemic guidelines. There were 290 full-time employees and 308 part-time or temporary employees among the non-compliant personnel. Among them were 128 Mecklenburg County Department of Social Services employees, 221 Mecklenburg County Parks and Recreation Department employees, and 149 other county employees, per a recently published article in MSN News

Employees of the county library and Sheriff's office were included in the list of workers facing suspension due to administrative discrepancies, increasing the likelihood that the actual number is considerably higher. The suspensions began on Tuesday, according to Mecklenburg County Commissioner Chairman George Dunlap; but it was unclear how many workers had been suspended by Wednesday evening.

The county said in a statement that Mecklenburg County Employees who have not submitted a negative COVID-19 test and are unvaccinated within the previous seven days will be suspended beginning today and will continue on unpaid suspension until evidence of immunization or a negative COVID-19 test is verified, according to a published article in Newsweek.

Read Also: Two Democratic Lawmakers Push for Vaccine Mandates for All Domestic Travelers; Fauci Supports Proposal But Will Biden Back It?

Vaccination Rate in the County

Last week, county statistics revealed that the vaccination rate for full-time workers was approximately 70 percent. Part-time workers, on the other hand, trail considerably behind, with less than 40 percent having verified vaccination. The incidence was greatest among Mecklenburg County Health Department employees, where almost 85 percent were vaccinated.

The official statement of the county states: "With approximately 70 percent of all employees vaccinated, Mecklenburg County remains committed to providing a safe work environment for all employees, as a well as a safe experience for our customers. The county has enacted this process to meet the highest standard of COVID-19 prevention possible," according to a published article in OLXPraca.

The Requirement Takes Effect on Sept. 7

On September 7, the new criteria went into effect. In early August, amid a Delta variant-driven outbreak of the virus, County Manager Dena Diorio stated that county employees will soon be required to show evidence of vaccination or submit to weekly COVID-19 testing. In addition, everyone entering indoor public venues in the county is required to wear a mask.

The need for government employees to be vaccinated or tested is tougher at the county level than in Charlotte, the Mecklenburg County headquarters and North Carolina's biggest city. Officials in the city, where about 62 percent of government employees have gotten at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, have not imposed a vaccination requirement but are providing a $250 incentive to those who get vaccinated before the end of the month.

Needless to say, Pres. Joe Biden has already ordered vaccine mandate among the federal employees, contractors with business transactions to the government, and private businesses with more than 100 employees. The recent action of the Biden administration to combat the global pandemic was both embraced and criticized.

Related Article: Biden Requires All Private and Federal Employees To Get Vaccinated



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Chinese authorities on Wednesday echoed the Taliban's demands for the United States government to unfreeze assets that belong to Afghanistan while simultaneously expressing its gratitude to the militant group for protecting China's investments in the nation.

In a statement, Zhao Lijian, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said that the assets that the U.S. government withheld belonged to Afghanistan. "The U.S. should give up the path of sanctioning, and should not create obstacles for the peaceful reconstruction and economic development of Afghanistan."

China's Support for the Taliban

American authorities revealed that they froze $9.5 billion in Afghanistan central bank assets shortly after the Taliban took control of the capital city of Kabul. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund stopped all operations and support to Afghanistan amid the takeover. This has forced the Taliban to call on nations, including China, to help with their reconstruction of the country's government.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman's announcement came after Wang Yu. Beijing's ambassador to Kabul talked with the Taliban's Foreign Minister Amir Muttaqi on Tuesday. Wang thanked the militant group for guaranteeing the safety and security of Chinese investments in the country, the South China Morning Post reported.

Wang also expressed his wishes for the establishment of a "broad and inclusive political framework" in Afghanistan. The statements came after the United States government opted to withdraw all American troops in the war-torn country, which marked the victory of the insurgent group in taking control of the region.

Read Also: Joe Biden Reveals New Alliance With UK, Australia; US Plans To Share Nuclear Submarine Technology

Zhao said that the Taliban spokesperson was right in his views that the Afghanistan assets belonged to the people of the country. The official demanded the American government adhere to the requests of the residents of Afghanistan and stop making obstacles towards the country's peace and reconstruction.

Afghanistan's economy is on the verge of collapse, reports from Kabul revealed, despite support from the United Nations. The global organization made desperate efforts to collect food and essential supplies and transport them to the war-torn country, Business Standard reported.

Afghanistan's Independence and Sovereignty

Wang echoed Beijing's support for Afghanistan's independence and sovereignty as it offers coronavirus vaccines and humanitarian aid to the region. The official said that China was willing to build a cooperative relationship with Afghanistan to help the people fight against terrorism and in so doing establish a stable and economic development process in the nation.

In a statement, the Taliban have called China as Afghanistan's most important partner" in rebuilding the country. Early last week, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid expressed the new government's wishes to join the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which is a $50 billion flagship program made by China under its Belt and Road Initiative.

In 2016, the first official memorandum on the partnership between Afghanistan and China was signed, marking the war-torn country's membership of the multinational Chinese strategy. However, since that time, there has been little progress due to the unstable conditions in the Afghan region. Most recently, after the Taliban's takeover of Kabul, fears of the country's instability have continued to grow, The Star reported.



Related Article: Joe Biden Needs to Show China Who Is in Control Following Meeting With Chinese Leader Xi Jinping

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During scary war drills, Russia has been showcasing its formidable weapons by "invading" NATO countries Poland and Lithuania. In a show of might to its Western-leaning neighbors, Vladimir Putin's military has linked up with Belarus, a former Soviet republic. The drills concluded in Russia conquering the countries to fend off a massive attack by a "mock enemy."

Moscow and Belarus have allegedly increased their military displays while Vladimir Putin has gone into self-isolation following the contracting of COVID-19 by a close aide. While Russian President Vladimir Putin is avoiding meetings, the footage shows S-400 anti-air missile systems and Pantsir-S air defense missile-gun complexes in operation.

Russia started Zapad military drills

The action is part of an alleged plan to stave off a massive walkout at the end of the exercises, as per The Sun. The drills, which featured the Triumph air defense system and were held in the Astrakhan area, were part of this year's war games.

The Kremlin began the Zapad-2021 drills - or West-2021 in English - a few days ago as a warning to the West. They include 200,000 troops, 80 airplanes and helicopters, and 760 pieces of military equipment, including 290 tanks, 240 pieces of artillery, multiple launcher rocket systems, and mortars. Another video depicts a barrage of fire from Russian and Belarusian soldiers near the Belarusian border city of Brest.

Per National Interest, the Sprint was a small, conical missile interceptor designed by the United States in the 1960s that could accelerate to Mach 10 and 100 G in five seconds. The Sprint, which would be pushed out of the silo by compressed air, would kill oncoming ICBM warheads by detonating its neutron-bomb payload between 5,000 and 100,000 feet in the sky.

Though the test was praised by Russian media as a spectacular display of Russian military might, it is unclear why.

A one-minute video of a rocket launch from Kazakhstan's Sary-Shagan test facility was broadcast on Russian television. The footage shows a canister being hauled on a flatbed truck and then lowered into a hole, probably with the missile inside. The launch, which was captured from several perspectives, shows a rocket erupting from a silo so quickly that all that is seen is a flash of flame and a rust-colored cloud of smoke.

Read Also: Xi Jinping Reportedly Denies Joe Biden's Offer To Meet Face-To-Face; White House Claims Discussion Ongoing With China

Anti-ballistic missile system aims to defend Moscow

The anti-ballistic missile system is in service with the Russian Aerospace Forces, according to the Ministry of Defense. Its purpose is to defend Moscow against air and space assaults.

In late August 2021, the Kalashnikov Concern revealed a new anti-tank missile called 'Vihr-1' during the "Army 2021" military expo outside of Moscow. The missile is designed to negate the capabilities of all modern tank armor sets, making it the ideal weapon for shooting down heavily armored vehicles in any future 21st-century battles.

The Vihr-1 is a modernized version of anti-tank missiles that were previously built in Russia. Engineers at a Kalashnikov subsidiary specializing in helicopter projectiles compare it to its direct equivalent, the 'Ataka' missile, and claim that the new projectile has more firepower and range than existing anti-tank missiles on the Russian market.

The new one has a range of ten kilometers, almost double that of the Ataka, and was designed to pierce even the active armor set off an "Abrams" tank. The weapon can burn through 150 mm of tank armor and is expected to be able to destroy even the most sophisticated weapons on the market, as per RBTH.

Related Article: Vladimir Putin Oversees Vast War Games as Russia, Belarus Agree to Deepen Economic Ties; Huge Military Exercises Spark Concern in West





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Vladimir Putin calls President Joe Biden's violation of international law; this comes as the failed US foreign policy has caused Kabul's fall. The Kremlin leader takes a shot at the weakening grip of the US in international affairs.

The current US administration is now in the crosshairs of Putin and Xi Jinping, testing the limits of Joe Biden to further cause a downslide of the US after the Afghan fall.

For most Americans, the Biden White House has not protected interests abroad which is confounding national security. It is comparable to what the feeling and sentiment in 9/11.

Putin pushes Biden on his foreign policy

Recently, the Russian President took a jab at the US president for allowing US troops in Syria to stay. According to him, it is damaging to international law compared to illegal occupation, reported the Express UK.

Putin further turned the screws on the flagging support for the US by saying US troops on Syria soil prevent normalcy from returning, noted the Republic. These were the remarks aimed at the US administration when he spoke with Syria's President Bashar-al-Assad, last Monday.

The US has been stationed in the Kurd-controlled east and northeastern Syria, with about 900 troops. These US forces are helping the Kurds in the fight against the Islamic State to secure US interests. Turkish forces are present in the north and northwest, where the last fortress of those opposed against Al-Assad.

US presence is imposed, not UN-sanctioned

The basis for the Vladimir Putin's critique that the US is infringing on international law is because the UN has no participation or approval. Usually, the UN approves, but the US does not have Damascus's blessings either, which the failed US foreign policy gets a hit.

Read Also: Putin Wants Live Debate Versus Biden After 'Killer' Remark

Russia has legalized its presence in the country, which will need to be dealt with by the State Department. Putin stated bluntly to the Syrian leader on the matter, which shows that president Biden is defying international law but staying to oppose the country's legitimate leader. He stressed that allowing Syria to settle its own concerns would it stop the war and bloodshed due to continual fighting. The United States should step out, now.

If Russia had not intervened during 2015 in the decade-long conflict, that kept Al-Assad from getting knocked from power. Moscow's military intervention pushed the advantage to Damascus, then to the overrun of the Kurdish dissidents, spoke the Kremlin Leader.

Russian forces

A large force of Russian forces is in Syria, with a military base on the Mediterranean coast which is allowed by Al-Assad, noted AP News.

Experts are concerned about Putin's intent to see how well Joe Biden, the foreign policy expert, can stay in Syria. But, notwithstanding how Afghanistan went sideways, that leaves everyone concerned. It shows that he's not getting 100% support. Add to the perception that the Taliban and even Syria might be on planned attacks against US military personnel. The death of 13 marines has dealt with demoralization in military ranks.

According to Neil Quillian of the Chatham House, Vladimir Putin would push Biden to make more mistakes due to his failed US foreign policy. It might make it worse for the US president.

Related Article: Vladimir Putin Mocks Joe Biden As Common 'Career Politician' After He's Called Killer, Says Donald Trump Is Far Better

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Will heavy rains in Henan cause the price of raw materials for medium weight cotton fabric to skyrocket?

In July 2021, a large-scale heavy rainfall in Henan affects the hearts of the people across the country. At the same time, as Henan is a major cotton textile province in China, whether heavy rains will have a significant impact on the textile industry has also attracted much attention.

According to a reporter from the Cailian News Agency, the industry has learned that the heavy rain in Henan currently has limited impact on the production of main raw materials in the cotton textile industry, but logistics and transportation are affected to a certain extent. As the rain gradually decreases, subsequent production and transportation may gradually return to normal.

According to the information obtained by reporters from the Financial Association, Henan cotton spinning spindles are mainly concentrated in Kaifeng, Shangqiu, Nanyang, Xinxiang, Jiaozuo, and Pingdingshan. Among them, Xinye in Nanyang is a famous cotton textile city in China. Its products are mainly pure cotton yarns, mostly in 40S and 60S counts. Henan\'s rayon yarn production enterprises are concentrated in Xinxiang, and their products are mainly ring-spun rayon yarn and strands.

A person in the cotton industry told a reporter from the Financial Association that Henan is one of the top three cotton spinning bases in the country. At present, most of the textile enterprises are concentrated in towns and villages, but the logistics operation is not affected. Slightly restricted.

A reporter from the Cailian News Agency also learned from some weaving factories in Zhoukou, Zhumadian and other places that the factories continue to operate according to orders, and the replenishment has not been affected for the time being.

The data shows that there is no obvious fluctuation in the spot transaction price of cotton yarn today, and the offer price of C32S is around 26,000 yuan/ton.

The above-mentioned people in the cotton industry told reporters from the Financial Association that the amount of cotton planted and processed in Henan is relatively small, and trade and storage are relatively concentrated. The number of cotton planting and spinning enterprises in Zhengzhou, which is most severely affected by the rainstorm, is not large. So far, there has been no flooding or damage to the local cotton warehouse. Subsequent flood discharge, logistics and transportation will have an impact, but as the weather improves, the impact will not last long. Moreover, the actual transaction volume of domestically produced cotton is not large at present. Due to the maintenance and high position of the raw material inventory of the spinning mill, the urgent shipment volume is also limited.

A staff member of Xinxiang Chemical Fiber, a leading spandex enterprise, told a reporter from the Financial Association: "We have taken good precautions in advance. At present, production is normal, and transportation has not been significantly affected. Due to the forecast, there is still rain, and the future is still uncertain. "

REFINEFABRICS is a professional one-stop fine cotton fabrics solution for apparel, bedding, clothes, T-shirts, and other fashion clothing manufacturers. Having been supplying all kinds of fine cotton fabrics for over 10 years, REFINEFABRICS provides high quality, durable and beautiful cotton fabrics from Refine fabrics. If you have any needs, welcome to contact us via: sales@refinefabrics.com

The impact of heavy rain on the industry and medium weight cotton fabric raw material prices

Tracking data from the China Cotton Textile Industry Association (hereinafter referred to as the China Cotton Industry Association) shows that June 2021 is the traditional off-season of the industry, textile enterprises have acceptable orders, the market transaction price of medium weight cotton fabric is relatively strong, and the overall performance of the yarn market is better than that of grey fabrics. , The boot rate remains high.

Compared with May, in June, the purchase and consumption of raw materials for medium weight cotton fabric of cotton textile enterprises increased, and the inventory of raw materials for medium weight cotton fabric decreased; yarn production and sales increased, and inventories decreased; grey cloth production increased, sales decreased, and inventories increased.

The medium weight cotton fabric raw material procurement and inventory

In June, the purchase of raw materials for tracking companies\' medium weight cotton fabric increased by 4.55% from the previous month, and the purchase of raw cotton increased by 7.08% from the previous month. Among them, the purchase of imported cotton decreased by 14.15% from the previous month; the purchase of non-cotton fiber increased by 0.65% from the previous month. With the support of orders, textile companies just need to stock more.

From the perspective of medium weight cotton fabric raw material prices, domestic cotton prices fluctuated widely in June. The government repeatedly reminded the risk of excessively rapid rise in commodity prices, and introduced a number of measures to ensure supply and stabilize prices. Cotton prices stopped rising and stabilized, while non-cotton fiber prices rose slightly. . On June 30, the main contract of Zheng Cotton Futures was 16,060 yuan/ton, an increase of 585 yuan/ton from the previous month; Chinas domestic standard cotton price was 16,460 yuan/ton, an increase of 475 yuan/ton from the previous month; the international cotton price A index was 96.7 cents/lb , A month-on-month increase of 7.0 cents/lb, discounted by a 1% tariff price of 15,362 yuan/ton, the price difference between internal and external cotton is 1,098 yuan/ton, and the price difference is reduced by about 527 yuan/ton from the previous month. In terms of non-cotton fibers, the price of viscose staple fiber was basically stable in June. On June 30, the price was 12710 yuan/ton, an increase of 110 yuan/ton from the previous month; polyester staple fiber rose slightly, and the price was 7010 yuan/ton on June 30. The month-on-month increase was 265 yuan/ton.

The medium weight cotton fabric raw material consumption and inventory

Tracking data shows that the consumption of raw materials for the medium weight cotton fabric of cotton textile enterprises increased by 2.84% month-on-month, of which raw cotton consumption increased by 2.76% month-on-month, and non-cotton fiber consumption increased by 2.99% month-on-month. As of the end of June, raw material inventory fell 4.54% month-on-month and increased 12.18% year-on-year. Among them, raw cotton inventory decreased by 5.24% month-on-month and 12.64% year-on-year; non-cotton fiber inventory decreased by 2.62% month-on-month and increased by 10.99% year-on-year.

The medium weight cotton fabric production status

Tracking data shows that in the first and second quarters, the output of cotton textile enterprises\' medium weight cotton fabric increased by 0.21% and 7.47% respectively from the previous quarter, and by 20.12% and 9.52% respectively year-on-year. In June, the order of textile enterprises\' medium weight cotton fabric was acceptable, and some enterprises\' orders were scheduled to September, and the equipment utilization rate remained at a relatively high level.

The medium weight cotton fabric sales and inventory

Tracking data shows that the sales volume of medium weight cotton fabric in May increased by 4.45% month-on-month, and the sales volume of medium weight cotton fabric in June decreased by 1.48% month-on-month. The overall performance of the medium weight cotton fabric market is relatively good, the inventory is low, the purchase and sales of the grey cloth market have weakened, and the inventory has risen.

In terms of prices, cotton prices have risen, medium weight cotton fabric prices have basically remained stable, and the profit margins of cotton textile enterprises have narrowed. On June 30, the price of 32 pure cotton carded yarn increased by 20 yuan/ton from the previous month, the price of 30 pure viscose yarn fell by 1,100 yuan/ton from the previous month, and the price of 32 pure polyester yarn increased by 170 yuan/ton from the previous month. The price of grey fabrics fell. On June 30, the cotton grey fabric 32*32 130*70 2/1 47" twill was 5.97 yuan/meter, down 0.03 yuan/meter from the previous month.

In terms of inventory, as of the end of June, yarn inventory decreased by 0.52% month-on-month, and cloth inventory increased by 3.26% month-on-month. In June, the yarn market was purchased and sold smoothly. The sales volume of conventional varieties in the grey cloth market was lower than that in the previous period, and the inventory had accumulated. As a whole, the company\'s yarn and cloth inventory was controlled within one month.

The medium weight cotton fabric supplier

REFINEFABRICS is a professional one-stop fine cotton fabrics solution for apparel, bedding, clothes, T-shirts, and other fashion clothing manufacturers. Having been supplying all kinds of fine cotton fabrics for over 10 years, REFINEFABRICS provides high quality, durable and beautiful cotton fabrics from Refine fabrics. If you have any needs, welcome to contact us via: sales@refinefabrics.com
NASA is set to launch a mission later this year to simulate how to deflect an Earth-bound asteroid by crashing a spacecraft on it.

The U.S. space agency will launch its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) as early as November 24 to as late as February 2022 for a year-long journey to target the asteroid Dimorphus--a stadium sized space rock that is orbiting Didymos, another much larger asteroid.

NASA DART Mission to Slam Asteroid, Alter Orbit

NASA's plan is to strike Dimorphus with a car-sized DART spacecraft at a speed of 6.5 kilometers per second, Technology Review reported. It aims to change its near 12-hour orbit around Didymos by a few minutes. A separate mission, the European Space Agency's Hera--which will arrive in Dimorphus five years later--will check the previous mission's success.

While the impact will have little effect on the asteroid's orbit, it would be significant enough to take an asteroid off its course on a potential hit on Earth. This is possible if it is stricken far enough in advance.

Read Also: Will an Asteroid Ever Hit Earth? NASA's Answer, DART Plan and MORE!

NASA DART program scientist Tom Statler told Technology Review that the mission will offer the ability to "prevent a truly catastrophic natural disaster."

DART Strike to Turn Asteroid into 'Chaotic State,' Study Says

The DART strike's effect on Dimorphus's orbit has been well-studied, Technology Review said, but nothing is known yet on the actual effect on the asteroid itself after the impact. Researchers simulated how DART could alter the asteroid's spin and rotation by calculating the how the impact of the crash could change Dimorphus's roll, pitch, and yaw. They stressed in a study that the asteroid could "start tumbling and enter a chaotic state," adding that their findings were "quite a big surprise."

The asteroid's unforeseen spinning could pose some difficulties, such as landing Hera spacecraft on Dimorphus. This could also deem subsequent attempts to deflect asteroids more complicated because a small rotation could influence an asteroid's path.

A DART strike on Dimorphus would be equivalent to an impact of three tons of TNT exploding, thus sending thousands of asteroid debris into space. While this may not have immediate changes to Dimorphus's spin, it would eventually change in the days to come, researchers said.

A slight wobble on the asteroid would happen soon, and this would increase as the impact's momentum brings Dimorphus's rotation out of balance, given the absence of friction in the vacuum of space that could slow it down, Technology Review further stated. As such, the asteroid could turn chaotic and spin back and forth uncontrollably or rotate along its axis.

What exactly would happen is unknown and depends on the Dimorphus's shape, which is believed to be elongated, and location of the impact. A hit slightly offcenter would lead it to spin even more chaotically, researchers said. As such, it may swing back and forth or tumble in several directions in a few weeks.

These extra tumbling and spinning is not expected to affect the DART practice strike for a possible Earth-saving move, neither would it result in any danger or threat to inhabitants on Earth. However, the astonishing event will offer useful scientific information on asteroids, such as their spin state and the sunlight they reflect that could influence their trajectories-date that can be used for future asteroid deflection missions.

Related Article: Is Asteroid Bennu Hitting Earth? Scientist Prediction, Date, and NASA Asteroid Deflector
SpaceX successfully launched its Inspiration4 mission into orbit on Wednesday. With that, Elon Musk's company accomplished several milestones.

At the NASA Florida Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39, the SpaceX Falcon 9 Rockets launched the Crew Dragon capsule "Resilience" into space. Inspiration4 crew members onboard the spacecraft include commander Jared Isaacman, pilot Sian Proctor, mission specialist Chris Sembroski, and medical officer Hayley Arceneaux.

Insipration4's mission is a multiday trip to space, paid by Isaacman, with a goal to raise $200 million for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

SpaceX Inspiration4 Launch: Full Video of the First All-Civilian Crew Flight

The SpaceX official YouTube account streamed the Inspiration4 launch on their channel live. The video started four hours before launch time, 8:02 PM EDT. The video featured highlights like crew training, flight preparation and boarding. The video also included messages and reactions from each crew member. The launch sequence started at the four-hour marker.



It is worth noting that none of the Inspiration4 crew members are professional astronauts. Isaacman was a full-time CEO of Shift4 Payments; Arceneaux is a hospital employee and bone cancer survivor; Proctor is a geology professor and science communicator; and Sembroski is a data engineer.

All crew members received six months of commercial astronaut training for their space mission. Their achievements as amateur astronauts marked a historic spaceflight mission for SpaceX. According to CNBC, some of the milestones they accomplished are:

First entirely nonprofessional crew to become astronauts

First Black female pilot of spaceflight

Youngest American citizen to fly in space

First private SpaceX spaceflight

SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell described the mission as "paving the way for a future where space is more accessible to all who wish to go," per CNBC.

Spaceflight Now recently tweeted that the SpaceX Crew Dragon reached the 585km orbit, a new Dragon altitude record. This adds yet another point to their long list of achievements.

SpaceX says two post-launch phasing burns by Crew Dragon's Draco thrusters placed the capsule in a circular 363-mile-high (585km) orbit, a new Dragon altitude record.



The Inspiration4 mission is set to return to Earth around 7pm EDT (2300 GMT) Saturday.https://t.co/K03ErG8ZHF  Spaceflight Now (@SpaceflightNow) September 16, 2021

Read Also: Starlink Internet Between Mars, Earth? Elon Musk Confirms Big Starship Plan

SpaceX Launch: Inspiration4 Live Tracker

Inspiration4 is set for a three-day drift around Earth's orbit. Inspiration4 crew are predicted to return to Earth by Saturday, 7 PM EDT, via splashdown off the coast of Florida.

With their current height, Inspiration4 crew members will conduct experiments to expand human knowledge about the universe. The Crew Dragon carried equipment dedicated to micro-gravity research and experimentation. They also hope to overcome barriers to traditional space-based research.

Fans interested in Inspiration4 development could follow their progress with two online trackers.

First is the Inspiration4 official news webpage. Researchers and related personnel in the space mission constantly update this page with crew blog posts, press releases, and news updates.

Another source is the SpaceX Twitter page. SpaceX post many real-time updates about the Inspiration4 mission. Minutes after the launch, the webpage already tweeted a "view from Dragon's cupola." This is the glass dome window, recently attached to Dragon Capsule in place of an opening hatch.

Related Article: NASA Reveals Plan to Crash Spaceship to Deflect Massive Asteroid: Full Simulation, Mission Launch Date and MORE
Marvel's "What If" Episode 6 showed yet another Tony Stark death. Moreover, the easter eggs of the episode make it the most eclectic and diverse installation so far--featuring jokes across the Marvel Cinematic Universe storyline.

The MCU alternative story "What If...?" mixed up stories between Iron Man (Tony Stark) and Erik Killmonger. In quick summary, Stark and Killmonger helped each other, used each other, and killed each other. Killmonger won, taking over Wakanda as its new king in the process.

Voice actors for the episode are Angela Bassett, Andy Serkis, Chadwick Boseman, Danai Gurira, Don Cheadle, Jon Favreau, Michael B. Jordan and Mike Wingert. Characters like Pepper Potts, Shuri, and General Ross are taken over by new actors.

Some of the best scenes for Marvel's "What If" Episode 6 are clipped together by YouTuber agameoffantasy. The video is embedded below:



Marvel 'What If' Episode 6 Easter Eggs, Clues, and References

With the chaotic events happening in Episode 6, fans might have missed some exciting clues and references. Screenrant listed some of the best easter eggs spotted on the episode. Warning: spoilers ahead.

"Iron Man" 2008

"What If" Episode 6 started with a scene taken from the first "Iron Man" movie. This is the scene of Tony Stark riding in a military transport with soldiers. Dialogue, gang signs, and the iconic selfie photo were included.

Killmonger in Afghanistan

Killmonger's appearance in the war is not entirely surprising because MCU Killmonger's backstory said he was a highly decorated Navy SEAL officer. "What If" amazingly brought these two histories together in one odd mix.

Read Also: iPhone 13 Specs, Major Upgrades: Fans Troll Apple With Memes After Big Reveal

Killmonger Steals Happy Hogan's Promotion

Happy told Pepper, "that was supposed to be my promotion," a direct reference to the events of "Iron Man 3."

Ten Rings Logo

In the scene where Killmonger proved Obadiah State's crime, a faint image of the Ten Rings logo appeared in the background. This is an easter egg for Marvel's "Shang-Chi & The Legend of the Ten Rings" movie.

Tony Predicts His Death

Tony Stark grossly foreshadowed his death on "Avengers: Endgame." He warned Steve Rogers "time messes back" early in the movie. In "What If" Episode 6, Stark compared himself and Killmonger to Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid. Stark already died, perhaps Killmonger is next.

Tony Stark's New Way to Die Draws Funny Twitter Reactions



Marvel fans take over Twitter to post their reactions about the latest episode. Here are some of the best tweets:



Spoiler Warning, every important scene on "What If" episode 6.



What If Episode 6 spoilers without context. #WhatIf pic.twitter.com/ksnQDytu9S  The Marvel Bulletin (@marvelbulletin_) September 15, 2021

Tony Stark gets killed again. It's turning to a meme now.

#WhatIf Spoilers!

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Me watching Tony Stark being killed on What If episode 6: pic.twitter.com/gGsrz5SSuc  //SHANG-CHI/WHAT IF ERA (@giselleb1234) September 15, 2021

Unfortunately, the scene still hurts for many fans

#WhatIfMarvel #whatIf

WHAT IF EPISODE 6 SPOILERS

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me after marvel decided to kill tony for the 4th time pic.twitter.com/MLeeN1Ux0a  justine.rzp (she/her) (@RzpJustine) September 15, 2021

Others are also taking a moment to appreciate T'Challa, the legacy of Chadwick Boseman

WHAT IF EPISODE 6 SPOILERS#WhatIf #WhatIfMarvel

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can we talk about how t'challa is literally the best part of each episode he's in pic.twitter.com/gRW1Ue3p4X  ethan  | saw shang-chi (@wandapilots) September 15, 2021

However, not everybody enjoyed "What If" Episode 6. Hopefully, things will get better in Episode 7.

The action was very good aswell but the what if scenario was no where near as fun or clever as the other ones

But I did like how true they stayed to the character of killmonger

Even the cliffhanger didnt leave me gassed like the others

Easily the worst ep

Episode 6- 6/10 pic.twitter.com/Lr0eCJyWQl  AllthingsMarvel8 (@AllthingsMrvl8) September 15, 2021

Related Article: 'The Matrix 4' Trailer, Release Date: Best Memes, Reactions to Resurrections First Look
A scene from the film, "The Bad Man" / Courtesy of Lee Yong Chao



By Kwak Yeon-soo



Myanmar has one of the world's longest-running civil wars and is estimated to have one of the largest numbers of child soldiers in the world. The Kachin Independence Army (KIA), a non-state armed group most vehemently opposed to the ruling military junta, is infamous for forcibly recruiting children to serve in the armed forces.



Director Lee Yong Chao's documentary, "The Bad Man," examines the aftermath of Myanmar's decades-long civil war and how it shaped the life of a boy, who was taken by the KIA while working at a gold mine.



Making 30 dollars a month, the protagonist, whose name is not given in the film, was raised to be a killing machine. It was after losing his leg to a landmine that he came back to his senses and felt responsible for the atrocities. Realizing his mistakes, he enters a rehabilitation center to wipe out traumatic memories and become a pastor.



Director Lee, who was born in Myanmar and educated in Taiwan, said making his latest documentary was the most painful experience, because he was the victim of a similar incident in the past.



"This happened to me when I was little, seven or eight years old. It was very late in the night when the KIA soldiers came to my house and tried to take me by force. My parents tried to stop them by offering wine and goods, and they left," he said in a recent Zoom interview with The Korea Times.



"After that incident, I couldn't stop thinking whether I would have turned out like him if I was forcibly recruited to join the KIA. If I became a soldier, I would perceive killing as a normal thing and probably got used to it."



Asked why he doesn't reveal the protagonist's name in the film, Lee said, "I wasn't trying to hide it on purpose. When I was post-editing, I realized that nobody really mentions his name in the film. I felt it was fine that way."



It took him two years to shoot this documentary, between 2019 and 2020. Although "The Bad Man" is banned in Myanmar, it was invited to the Locarno Film Festival and DMZ Documentary Film Festival.



"When I choose to film something, it has to touch my mind first and resonate with me. Over the past few years, I've been trying to film minorities. This film is not allowed to screen in Myanmar, but I want to do a little something to change the society," he said.



Below is an excerpt of The Korea Times interview with Lee on his new film. It has been edited for clarity and readability.





Filmmaker Lee Yong Chao / Courtesy of Lee Yong Chao



Q. How did you come up with "The Bad Man"?

At first, I was at the rehab center filming other people (who are trying to overcome addictions to drugs, alcohol and deal with the trauma of war). After one or two months, the protagonist of the documentary entered the rehab center. I talked to him and realized he was captured when he was little to become a soldier. It was a surprise because back then, I was also planning to shoot a short film about a soldier who lost his leg in the war. When I met this boy, I realized that I could shoot a real life story instead of a fictional film.



Q. The protagonist murmurs, "I was dangerous in every way," and talks about rape and killings as a solider, domestic abuse toward his family and intense alcoholism. Were you shocked listening to him?

I think the difficult part of making a documentary is that it's really difficult to get into someone's heart. During the first year of filming, I was lingering outside of his world. When I took the long interview near the end, he talked to me about killing people and all his violent deeds. The more I listened to his story, the more scared I got. I avoided editing during the night and instead tried to get it done during the day.



Q. The protagonist looks like a proud man who likes to brag about himself. Did you ever feel that he was exaggerating or lying about his past actions?

When I was post-editing, I excluded things that didn't convince me. For example, he told me how many people he had killed. I think there was some exaggeration. Regardless of that, I believe that he really killed some people and did bad things. I could feel it from the way he talked about it.





A scene from the film, "The Bad Man" / Courtesy of Lee Yong Chao



Q. What is your opinion of him? In some parts, it felt like you pity this guy, especially where you ask the protagonist, "Do you forgive yourself?"

I wouldn't say that I pitied him. But I felt sorry for the things that he went through, because I believe it was the environment that made him a soldier. I think he didn't want to be a bad person before he became a soldier. But because of his identity (being raised like an orphan) and the country where he was born, he had no choice. The environment completely changed him.



Q. Whether what he did in the past should be forgiven is a contradictory subject. This may be seen as giving voice to the perpetrator.

While editing, I kept thinking, "Should I include this?" or "Should I reveal this information?" I realized that I could not include only the bright side because it's not real. It's not multi-dimensional. So I decided to keep both the bad and the good sides of him.

I didn't include the names of the victims, and I think that was a form of protection for them. Regarding why the protagonist was willing to tell me that story (about rape) is that he wanted to share and help others avoid making the same mistake.



Q. Following the 2021 Myanmar coup, international filmmakers, including Korean film festival organizers and actors, expressed their support for Myanmar protesters. What's the situation in Myanmar now for filmmakers?

We got a lot of support from international filmmakers and I know they are advocating those who have been arrested. Sometimes I feel like their effect is limited, but I still think support from international society is necessary. I greatly appreciate it.

If you try to film the protest or include things regarding the coup, it's a suicidal act. It's really dangerous. I believe filmmakers are trying to shoot films secretly without revealing it to the world. They need to be really careful in sharing them even on social media.





A scene from the film, "The Bad Man" / Courtesy of Lee Yong Chao




By Lee Min-hyung







The state-run Export-Import Bank of Korea (Eximbank) has delivered meal boxes to socially vulnerable in Seoul to fulfill its corporate social responsibility (CSR) ahead of the Chuseok holiday, the bank said Thursday.







The meals were donated to 270 households  including 170 elderly people living alone  in Yeongdeungpo District, southwest Seoul.







Eximbank teamed up with local welfare centers there for contactless home delivery of the meal boxes, with officials from the centers leaving the deliveries at the front door of recipients' residences amid lingering fears of the ongoing pandemic.







The bank also donated fruits and agricultural products for them by partnering with the district-run food market. Vulnerable citizens can visit the market and receive items or food they need for free.







"It was tough for us to undertake the voluntary work in person due to the spread of COVID-19, so we carried out our CSR campaign in an indirect manner by collaborating with local welfare organizations," an official from Eximbank said. "We hope they have taken comfort from our small contributions."







The bank also pledged to become a more socially responsible lender by taking part in a series of other CSR activities down the road.







Early this week, employees and executives from Eximbank joined a blood donation campaign. A group of Eximbank officials voluntarily donated blood for those in urgent need upon the request from the government.







"We have participated in the campaign to preemptively fulfill our social responsibility as a state-run financial organization," the official said.




HLB Chairman Jin Yang-gon speaks during an online press conference via YouTube in this February file photo. Captured from YouTube



Pharmaceutical firm resolves uncertainties regarding stock price



By Park Jae-hyuk



The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), a sub-commission within the Financial Services Commission (FSC), eventually rejected a request from the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) to ask the prosecution to indict biopharmaceutical company HLB over an unfair transaction.



In its regular meeting on Wednesday, the SFC decided to just "inform" the prosecutors of the case involving the Kosdaq-listed firm, alleviating the sanctions imposed by the FSS.



Sources familiar with this issue view the recent measure as a virtual acquittal, considering that the SFC has tended to let prosecutors make the final decision if its commissioners do not consider a company guilty of allegations.



"It is regrettable that we have not been acquitted officially, because we have tried to vindicate ourselves by submitting a huge volume of data to the financial authorities," an HLB spokesman said. "We hope the prosecutors will draw a conclusion as soon as possible, so that we can completely resolve any remaining uncertainties."



An FSC official declined to comment on this issue. The financial regulator has not disclosed its stance or the specifics about the unfair trading allegations involving listed companies, in order to follow the "presumption of innocence" principle.



Although HLB has to wait for the prosecutors' decision, market observers believe uncertainties regarding the company have almost been resolved. On a related note, its stock price rose 6.35 percent to 67,000 won during Thursday's session.





The Financial Services Commission headquarters in the Government Complex Seoul / Korea Times file
gettyimagesbank



In a memoir, author says her family's American dream shattered but their years of struggles were worthwhile



By Kang Hyun-kyung



A 34-year-old author, who identifies herself only with her pen name Hae-gil, published a memoir this week about her and her parents' seven years of living as legal aliens in the United States, defining the nature of their life in the foreign land as a total failure.



In the book, "Back Then, We Shouldn't Have Gone to the US," released by Daejeon-based small independent publisher txt.kcal, she narrates about her family's shattered American dream, and the wisdom she gained from the years of struggle and harsh living as a second-class citizen. One of the toughest challenges she and her parents had faced was downward social mobility, she said.



In Korea, her family was upper-middle class, thanks to her hard-working parents who made a considerable fortune through their business. Her financially stable parents had a nice apartment as well as property in Seoul, enabling their only child Hae-gil to lead an impeccably satisfying life as a film student.



In the United States, they were blue-collar workers, hopping from one precarious job to the next with long periods of unemployment.



Their unsuccessful migration and ensuing poverty put their family ties to the test.



"While living together after returning to Korea, the three of us realized that we were unwittingly hurting one another. Our small actions or words hurt us and caused us to recall what happened to us in the United States," she told The Korea Times over the phone. "So we agreed to live apart."



Hae-gil said she felt her family suffered severe post-traumatic stress disorder-like readjustment problems in Korea.



She now lives in the suburb of Seoul, earning an income from her day-job working in marketing at a small company located there.





"Back Then, We Shouldn't Have Gone to US" by Hae-gil
This photo, released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on Sept. 16, shows a railway-borne missile regiment holding a firing drill a day earlier. Yonhap



North Korea said Thursday that a railway-borne missile regiment held a firing drill a day earlier, confirming the launches, apparently from a train, of two short-range ballistic missiles into the East Sea.



"The railway-borne missile regiment took part in the drill with a mission to strike the target area 800 kilometers away from its location after moving to the central mountainous area at dawn on September 15," the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.



The KCNA said the North accurately struck the target in the East Sea.



The missiles appeared to have been launched from a train rather than a transporter erector launcher (TEL), according to photos released by state media.



The launches came just days after the North tested a newly developed long-range cruise missile.



The KCNA said that the drills were organized to "increase the capability of dealing an intensive multi-concurrent blow at the forces posing threats to us at a time of conducting necessary military operations."






North Korea launches a short-range ballistic missile from a train during a live-fire exercise in a central mountainous area of the country, in this photo released by the North's Korean Central News Agency, Thursday. The country launched two ballistic missiles into waters off its east coast, Wednesday, a violation of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions. Yonhap
Visitors wearing face masks to help curb the spread of the coronavirus arrive at the International Quarantine Expo in Goyang, Sept. 14. AP-Yonhap



South Korea's daily coronavirus cases fell under 2,000 on Thursday, but health authorities are keeping their guard up against potential virus flare-ups after an upcoming major holiday as infections continue to spread in the capital area.



The country added 1,943 COVID-19 cases, including 1,921 local infections, raising the total caseload to 279,930, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).



The latest caseload was down from 2,080 cases the previous day.



Daily cases have stayed above the 1,000 threshold for over two months amid the fast spread of the more transmissible delta variant nationwide.



The country added six more deaths from COVID-19, raising the death toll to 2,386. The fatality rate was 0.85 percent.



Infections in the greater Seoul area, home to half of the country's population, have been a challenge to the country's virus fight, with 80 percent of domestic cases being reported in Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and Incheon.



The authorities are bracing for possible upticks after the Chuseok holiday, the Korean autumn harvest celebration, when tens of millions of people are expected to travel across the country. South Koreans will have a five-day holiday period from Saturday to Wednesday.



They will enforce special quarantine measures, including running COVID-19 testing clinics at highway rest stops, for two weeks through Sept. 26, urging people to stay at home and receive vaccine shots.



The authorities earlier extended the current social distancing measures  Level 4 in the greater Seoul area, which is the highest in the four-tier system, and Level 3 in other regions  for another four weeks through Oct. 3.



While limiting the size of private gatherings and restaurant business hours, the authorities have eased some restrictions to give leeway to vaccinated people.



A total of 34.97 million people, or 68.1 percent of the country's population, have received their first shots of COVID-19 vaccines, and 21.16 million people, or 41.2 percent, have been fully vaccinated, the KDCA said.



South Korea's COVID-19 vaccination program has been using vaccines from Moderna, Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Janssen.



The authorities said a first-shot vaccination rate of 70 percent is expected to be achieved this week. The country aims to reach herd immunity in November.



Of the newly confirmed domestic cases, 717 cases came from Seoul, 652 from the surrounding Gyeonggi Province and 137 cases from the western port city of Incheon.



Busan, the country's second-largest city, added 56 cases, while the southeastern city of Daegu reported 47 more cases.



Imported cases, which include South Korean nationals, came to 22. The total number of imported cases is now at 14,049.



The number of patients with serious symptoms across the country reached 348, down two from the previous day.



The total number of people released from quarantine after making full recoveries was 252,038, up 2,205 from a day earlier. (Yonhap)


Education Minister Yoo Eun-hae speaks during a meeting with vice superintendents of 17 metropolitan and provincial education offices at the Government Complex in Sejong, Wednesday. Yonhap



By Bahk Eun-ji



The health authorities are urging citizens to refrain from gathering and traveling, amid growing concerns that the country's virus cases are likely to reach a peak during the Chuseok holiday, the Korean equivalent of Thanksgiving, which runs from Sept. 20 to 22 this year.



Ahead of the traditional holiday, the numbers of daily new cases of COVID-19 are hovering around 2,000.



Experts are concerned that the virus spread will gain speed after Chuseok, and predict that infections will continue to increase especially in the capital area.



The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) reported 1,943 new infections for Wednesday, including 1,921 local transmissions, raising the aggregated total to 279,930.



Daily cases were down from the previous day's 2,080, but quarantine authorities remain vigilant over a series of mass infections centered on the metropolitan area where the country's population is concentrated.



In particular, the proportion of infections in the capital region reaches nearly 80 percent daily. A total of 1,512 people, or 78.5 percent of all infections here, were reported in the Seoul metropolitan area, including 719 in Seoul, 656 in Gyeonggi Province and 137 in Incheon on the same day.



Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum urged the public to observe quarantine measures and refrain from gatherings and traveling for the sake of the health and safety of all family members.



"The COVID-19 situation in the metropolitan area has been serious ahead of Chuseok, as the daily new cases has been soaring for the fifth week in a row," Kim said in a recent interagency meeting on the government's COVID-19 response.



"While quarantine authorities and local governments in the metropolitan area will concentrate all their quarantine capabilities, we urge the public to stay home instead of traveling to visit relatives during the holidays," Kim said.



Education authorities have also asked schools and private academies for cooperation in quarantine measures to prevent infections from spreading in schools after the Chuseok long weekend.



Deputy Prime Minister for Social Affairs and Education Minister Yoo Eun-hae held a meeting with vice superintendents of 17 metropolitan and provincial offices of education at the Government Complex in Sejong, Wednesday, to discuss quarantine measures during the holidays.



Yoo said that Chuseok could become a tipping point for in-person classes in schools.



"If we overcome the current crisis well by strictly following quarantine rules during Chuseok, we will be able to expand face-to-face classes at all schools nationwide in October, but if the increasing trend continues after the holiday, it will not be easy to maintain the policy," Yoo said.



"Please minimize travel to visit parents or relatives, and face-to-face contact between students, parents, and faculty during the holiday."



The ministry urges families and relatives to express the holiday spirit in a non-face-to-face manner.



The measures proposed by the ministry included: greeting through videos between family members and relatives, refraining from close contact with others, not using dense and closed multi-use facilities, and not participating in gatherings with unspecified numbers of participants such as alumni associations.


President Moon Jae-in and first lady Kim Jung-sook wave as they disembark from the presidential airplane at Seoul Air Base in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, June 18, following a trip to the U.K., Austria and Spain. Courtesy of Cheong Wa Dae



North Korea's missile tests fly in the face of Moon's peace speech



By Nam Hyun-woo



President Moon Jae-in will depart for New York, Sunday, to attend the United Nations General Assembly next week, however, his trip is feared to end up as a fruitless one, with his peace message at the event likely clouded by North Korea's missile tests.



In addition, given that Moon will not have summits with the leaders of countries immediately impacted by issues on the Korean Peninsula, it is highly likely he will return home empty-handed.



According to Cheong Wa Dae, Moon will visit the U.N. headquarters to give a speech during the first-day's session of the high-level General Debate, Tuesday. He will then fly to Honolulu to attend a ceremony marking the return of the remains of U.S. soldiers who fought and died in the Korean War.



"During his speech at the U.N., Moon will express his intention to continue efforts to talk and cooperate with North Korea for peace on the Korean Peninsula and improved inter-Korean relations," a senior official at the presidential office said. "He will also ask international society to support our government's efforts toward complete denuclearization and permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula."



However, this message is feared to echo hollow, after North Korea launched two short-range ballistic missiles into the East Sea, Wednesday, despite the regime being banned from testing any ballistic missile technology under a set of U.N. resolutions.





This photo provided by the North's Korean Central News Agency shows a missile being launched from a train at an undisclosed location in North Korea, Wednesday. Yonhap




Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong spoke by phone with U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry on Thursday and discussed efforts to bolster climate action, including achieving carbon neutrality, Chung's office said.







During the talks, the two sides agreed to use the upcoming Major Economic Forum on Energy and Climate as an occasion to reaffirm the shared commitment of the Group of 20 nations to tackling climate change, the ministry said.







The U.S.-led conference was created to discuss joint responses to climate change under the Obama administration but stopped operating during the Trump administration.







U.S. President Joe Biden has reconvened the gathering, and President Moon Jae-in is expected to attend the conference Friday.







During the phone talks, Chung and Kerry also agreed to closely work together for a successful opening of the 26th U.N. Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) slated to take place in Glasgow, Scotland, in November.







In line with the Paris Agreement on climate change, the two vowed to work together in various areas to faithfully carry out climate action plans, including encouraging those who have yet to set the targets higher to do so.







South Korea has made a pledge to the U.N. it will reduce carbon emissions by 24.4 percent from the 2017 level by 2030 and achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. (Yonhap)














Participants discuss global crises during the Peace BAR Festival held at Kyung Hee University in Seoul last Sept. 23. This year's event will begin Friday. Courtesy of Kyung Hee University System



By Jun Ji-hye



The Kyung Hee University System will host the Peace BAR Festival 2021 to mark the 40th U.N. International Day of Peace that falls on Sept. 21.



The event will kick off Friday under the theme of "No Time to Lose, A Quest for Immediate Action for Planetary Crisis."



The International Day of Peace was established in 1981 by the U.N. General Assembly after Dr. Choue Young-seek, founder of the Kyung Hee University System, proposed it through the International Association of University Presidents and the government of Costa Rica that year.



Two decades later, in 2001, the General Assembly unanimously voted to designate the day as a period of non-violence and ceasefire, to be observed around the world on Sept. 21 each year.



The 2021 theme for the day, set by the U.N., is "Recovering better for an equitable and sustainable world."



The Kyung Hee University System has been holding international academic conferences since 1982 to mark the day, with the Peace BAR Festival having taken place since 2004  "BAR" stands for "spiritually beautiful, materially affluent and humanly rewarding," according to the university.



This year's festival will consist of five conferences to be held until December, bringing together scholars from around the world, including representatives of the Club of Budapest and Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, and professors from Stanford and Harvard universities.



They will discuss measures to overcome various crises facing the world, such as climate change, exhaustion of natural resources, the COVID-19 pandemic, social polarization and inequality.



On the opening day, Kyung Hee University System Chancellor Choue In-won will deliver a commemorative address, followed by a keynote speech by Ervin Laszlo, founder and president of the Club of Budapest.



Laszlo will also be present at the first conference on that day to discuss a paradigm shift necessary to overcome crisis and prepare for the future.



The second conference will take place Oct. 15 with the participation of Paul R. Ehrlich, professor emeritus of biology at Stanford University, while the third will be held Oct. 29 with Avi Loeb, an astronomy professor from Harvard University.



The fourth conference, which will discuss the climate crisis, will take place Nov. 26, with Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director emeritus of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, who will talk about what should be done to overcome a variety of problems caused by global warming.



The last will be held in December, during which time the Kyung Hee University System will call for changes in politics and stress the importance of the role of politicians in avoiding climate disaster and protecting the Earth.



All conferences will be held online due to the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, and will be streamed through the YouTube channel of the Kyung Hee University Global Academy for Future Civilization.


This photo released by North Korea's state-run Korean Central News Agency, Thursday, shows a missile test-launched from a train the day before in an undisclosed location in North Korea. Yonhap



Experts say Biden administration must change its North Korea strategy



By Jung Da-min



Contrary to the narrative of establishing peace on the Korean Peninsula, the arms race between the North and South is intensifying as both countries accelerate their missile development projects.



North Korea's state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Thursday that the country's railway-launched missile regiment held a firing drill early in the morning the day before, striking a target in the East Sea 800 kilometers from its launch location in a central mountainous area.



Two hours later on the same day, the South Korean military successfully test-fired a domestically developed submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) to become the world's seventh country to have actual combat operational capability for such a weapon. The missile was launched from the ROKS Dosan Ahn Chang-ho, the nation's first 3,000-ton submarine equipped with six vertical launch tubes, at a naval weapons test site off the west coast of Anheung, South Chungcheong Province. The missiles reportedly flew about 400 kilometers southwards to strike their target.



Aside from the missile tests carried out by both Koreas the same day, the countries have also engaged in other cruise and ballistic missile development programs, with test launches of such missiles escalating tensions on the peninsula. Both Koreas have said they would continue to develop various types of missiles to counter the military threats posed by each other.





South Korea's domestically developed submarine-launched ballistic missile is test-fired from the ROKS Dosan Ahn Chang-ho, at a naval weapons test site off the west coast of Anheung, South Chungcheong Province, Wednesday. Courtesy of Ministry of National Defense
China should not try to pit Korea against US



Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi's two-day visit to South Korea raised more concern that hope over relations between the two countries which will mark the 30th anniversary of their diplomatic normalization next year. He cannot deflect criticism for trying to undercut the South Korea-U.S. alliance and failing to condemn North Korea for its launching of two ballistic missiles.



On Wednesday, Wang expressed his objection to a U.S. legislative move to expand the America-led "Five Eyes" intelligence alliance by including South Korea and three other countries. He derided the move as an "outdated" byproduct of the Cold War era, after meeting with South Korean Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong in Seoul.



The U.S. House Committee on Armed Services recently passed a defense authorization bill that would require the Biden administration to consider expanding the five-way intelligence alliance to include South Korea, Japan, India and Germany. The alliance is currently composed of the U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.



Minister Wang seemed to be against the move which he apparently believes is aimed at forming a wider international coalition against China amid the intensifying Sino-U.S. rivalry. "I think that is utterly a byproduct of the Cold War era. And that is already outdated," he told reporters. His remarks suggested that Seoul refrain from joining the Five Eyes. They also certainly reflected China's animosity toward the U.S.



Wang was apparently seeking to issue a warning to the administration of President Joe Biden which is trying to rally the U.S.'s allies and partners behind its efforts to check the rise of China. Biden pledged to focus more on the Indo-Pacific region after completing the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. So Washington is expected to engage in an ever fiercer competition with Beijing over wide-raging issues such as China's human rights abuses, the Taiwan issue, and frictions over trade and technology.



However, it is regrettable to see Wang turning South Korea into a battlefield to confront the U.S. He appeared to go out of his way to take China's anti-U.S. sentiment out on the South, one of America's traditional allies. It is wrong for him to apply more pressure on Seoul to prevent it from moving closer toward Washington. Such pressure can be seen as nothing more than China attempting to intervene in South Korea's foreign policy.



Equally dumbfounding is Wang's remarks about North Korea's military provocations. The North fired two ballistic missiles into the East Sea, Wednesday, after it launched new types of cruise missiles over the weekend. The ballistic missile launch is a flagrant violation of the U.N. Security Council resolutions on North Korea. But, Wang stressed the need for concerned countries to exercise restraint to prevent a unilateral military action from causing a "vicious cycle" of tensions on the peninsula. As for the North's cruise missile tests, he also said that other countries engage in such military activities.



Now we cannot help asking the question: Why was he visiting South Korea? If he wanted to use his visit as leverage to counter the U.S., this was exhibiting diplomatic disrespect to the host country. We urge Wang and his country to have a sincere attitude to strengthening partnership with South Korea based on mutual respect and trust, instead of trying to drive a wedge between Seoul and Washington.


By John J. Metzler





We all remember where we were on Sept. 11, 2001. We all remember with sheer disbelief watching the unfolding horror and the realization that "it could happen here." We all remember and vowed never to forget the al-Qaeda terrorist attacks on America, and, just as importantly, ensure that they never happen again.



As I wrote on that fateful day, "On a picture perfect clear September morning, the Grim Reaper visited New York." The azure blue of that sunny day was shattered by hijacked airliners being flown into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, and into a side of the Pentagon.



I vividly recall seeing the Twin Towers burning from a few miles away, standing like two giant smokestacks against the panoramic sky in lower Manhattan. My memories are as surreal as they are painfully poignant. As I penned on that day, this unprovoked attack "became this generation's Pearl Harbor."



The attackers came from a violent and hateful ideology, not a formal state as was Imperial Japan when the latter's military attacked the U.S. Navy base in Hawaii. The surprise Dec. 7 assault came from a formal state with a fixed address: Tokyo.



In the case of the al-Qaeda attacks on America, the terrorists represented an Islamic fundamentalist ideology operating from the vastness of Afghanistan's Islamic Emirate. The subsequent military counter-strike on Afghanistan, the toppling of the Taliban regime and the hunting down of Bin Laden's network soon followed.



Nowadays, each year the somber commemorations in New York recall, revere and respect the fallen. Each year the commemorations try to evoke not only the pain and fury of that fateful September day, but the sacrifice and the heroism too. Thus, the annual respect for the fallen is a kind of celebration of life rather than a wake for the dead.



This year is the 20th anniversary year of the incident. The political optics of Sept. 11 commemorations always attempt to recreate that fleeting moment when the United States was united as one and steadfast in the mission to track down the terrorists.



The remembrances in New York, the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pennsylvania are but a somber reminder of America being jolted into a reality long present in so many parts of the world facing terrorist violence.



Indeed, the unprecedented unity which America experienced following the attacks is long gone and replaced by bitter divisions, revisionist recriminations and even airbrushing of the 9/11 story.



Nearly 3,000 civilians were murdered that fateful day. Some 343 members of the New York City Fire Department died in a heroic but fateful rescue attempt. Twenty three New York Police Department and 37 Port Authority police were killed. And many thousands more people both among first responders and civilians are still affected by post-9/11 illnesses.



The losses, the sacrifice and the memories continue.



They form what I call, the "Legion of the Silent," those who fell on Sept. 11 and still remain in our memories and our prayers. But they are gone forever. Their kids are grown up and in college, indeed many serve in the military or are among first responders themselves. Some are now part of that thin blue and red line, the Police and the Fire Departments, who protect us 24/7, to use the phrase.



But there is another stunning reality facing us this Sept. 11. We are living through the immediate aftermath of the fall of Afghanistan and the return of the Taliban regime we helped topple 20 years ago. History indeed has a strange, if not bitter way, of repeating itself.



The safe havens al-Qaeda once had in Afghanistan could soon be back. Afghanistan is now once again run by the Taliban fundamentalists. American honor has been stained and bloodied with the fall of Kabul. Were the lives of 2,400 U.S. troops over 20 years, and 13 more just two weeks ago, lost in vain? Were more than 20,000 injuries in Afghanistan so quickly forgotten?



History seems to be scolding us for the lessons we never seem to learn. The precipitous U.S. pullout from the strategic Bagram Airbase, set up by former President Trump and carried out by current President Biden, tipped the scales and psychologically devastated the wavering Afghan military. Defeat was in the air. Then, valuable munitions and military material, 27 Humvees to 73 aircraft, were left to fall into enemy hands.



Now that the war in Afghanistan has ended with a Taliban victory, the U.S. faces the possibility of an energized jihadi international movement planning its next move.





John J. Metzler (jjmcolumn@earthlink.net) is a United Nations correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He is the author of "Divided Dynamism  The Diplomacy of Separated Nations: Germany, Korea, China."


EBay Korea's Mega G sale promotional poster / Courtesy of eBay Korea



Gmarket's Global Shop collaborates with K-pop stars



By Kim Jae-heun



EBay Korea offered the latest installation of its annual Mega G Festival sale for global customers from Sept. 1 to 14.



During this year's sales event, eBay Korea saw its home appliance and furniture sales surge a record 110 percent compared to 2020's event. Revenue from book and music sales during the Mega G promotion period also surged over 30 percent.



Mega G targeted non-Koreans living here and overseas who are interested in Korean products such as cosmetics and fashion items as well as K-pop-related goods. It is the largest sales event offered by eBay Korea every year on Gmarket and Auction, two open market platforms run by eBay Korea, in celebration of the Korean autumn holiday.



Local brands like AmorePacific, Etude, Coreana, CJ CheilJedang and CKD Healthcare participated in the event.



EBay Korea also provided various discount benefits. It sent all customers two types of discount coupons on a daily basis ranging from 50,000 won to 100,000 won off the sticker price depending on the product.



The e-commerce firm also cut the delivery fees for its global customers, offering an 83 percent discount on shipment fees to Hong Kong, the largest market for Gmarket Global Shop, as well as 94 percent to the United States, 45 percent to Thailand and 86 percent to Taiwan.



Korean cosmetics have been top-sellers during past Mega G events. This time, popular brands like Etude and Coreana offered up to 74 percent and 85 percent discounts, respectively. Laneige and Mamonde also sold their products at up to 58 percent off.



Etude and Rom&nd introduced limited editions of cosmetic pouches that were available for only 3,000 won for this special event.



Ebay Korea said its fast delivery system and simple payment service are what bring customers back to Gmarket's Global Shop.



Gmarket's Global Shop currently provides English and Chinese language services and is available in 80 countries around the world, and Korea Post and SF Express are in charge of overseas delivery services. Nearly 80 percent of the packages arrive within three days of purchase.



Customers can make simple purchases without downloading specific payment systems or accredited verification by using PayPal or Alipay. Gmarket also hires special helpers to aid foreign customers who are having difficulties. Individual sellers in this open market platform can utilize Gmarket's warehouse in Incheon, from where the e-commerce firm will send orders abroad.



Collaboration with K-pop stars is another merit that customers shopping with Gmarket can enjoy. The popular YouTube channel "INSSA OPPA G" introduced Korean products in collaboration with the e-commerce firm to its 440,000 subscribers during the Mega G event. K-pop idol group MONSTA X became a new marketing model for INSSA OPPA and the band's members Minhyuk and Hyungwon appear on the YouTube channel every Sunday at 6 p.m. to introduce Korean products.



Gmarket launched a live shopping service recently to introduce new products and communicate with global shoppers online. K-pop group AB6IX appeared in the live shopping event in collaboration with Etude in May and sold cosmetic items to its fans in 17 countries, including Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. The boy band also worked with local food firm Daesang in August and ran a live cooking show.


Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison, center, appears on stage with video links to Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson, left, and U.S. President Joe Biden at a joint press conference at Parliament House in Canberra, Thursday. AP-Yonhap



Australia has canceled a contract with France for conventional submarines and instead will build nuclear-powered submarines using U.S. technology because of changing strategic conditions in the region, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Thursday.



President Joe Biden announced on Wednesday a new U.S. security alliance with Australia and Britain that will help equip Australia with a nuclear submarine fleet.



The agreement would make Australia the first country without nuclear weapons to obtain nuclear-powered submarines.



Morrison said U.S. nuclear submarine technology wasn't available to Australia in 2016 when it entered a 56 billion Australian dollar ($43 billion) deal with France to build 12 of the world's largest conventional diesel-electric submarines. The United States has previously only shared the technology with Britain.



Biden did not mention China by name in announcing the new security alliance, but it is likely to be seen as a provocative move by Beijing, whose military strength and influence have grown rapidly.



Peter Jennings, head of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute think tank, said Australia's decision to acquire nuclear submarines was a response to China's increasing military might, aggressive bullying of Australia and intimidation of Japan and Taiwan.



''We should call the first submarine in this new category the 'Xi Jinping,' because no person is more responsible for Australia going down this track than the current leader of the Chinese Communist Party,'' Jennings said.



Australian Defense Force chief Gen. Angus Campbell welcomed the shift to nuclear submarines.

''Our strategic environment has deteriorated,'' Campbell said. ''That challenging environment is becoming more challenging and is set to do so into the future at an accelerated pace.''



Unlike nuclear-powered submarines, conventional subs that are traveling long distances must spend time on the surface, where they are most vulnerable, using their diesel engines while they recharge their batteries. The batteries propel them underwater.



Morrison said he expects the first of the nuclear subs, which are to be constructed in the Australian city of Adelaide, will be built by 2040.



He said Australia hasn't decided which class of nuclear submarines it will select and does not know how much the fleet of at least eight submarines will cost. But the country's defense budget will grow above the current 2.2% of gross domestic product, he said.



Morrison said he told French President Emanuel Macron in June that there were ''very real issues about whether a conventional submarine capability'' would address Australia's strategic security needs in the Indo-Pacific.



''Of course they're disappointed,'' Morrison said. ''They've been good partners. This is about our strategic interest, our strategic capability requirements and a changed strategic environment and we've had to take that decision.''



Australia notified France that it will end its contract with DCNS, a majority state-owned company, to build the conventional submarines. Australia has spent AU$2.4 billion ($1.8 billion) on the project since 2016. The first of the French-designed submarines were to have been delivered in 2027.



French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian expressed ''total incomprehension'' at the decision and criticized both Australia and the United States.



''It was really a stab in the back. We built a relationship of trust with Australia, and this trust was betrayed,'' Le Drian said Thursday on France-Info radio.



''I'm angry today. This is not done between allies,'' he said. ''We are demanding explanations from both sides.''



British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told Parliament on Thursday that the alliance with Australia and the U.S. is a ''new pillar of a strategy demonstrating Britain's generational commitment to the security of the Indo-Pacific.''



Stressing Britain's long-standing close relationship with Australia, he said the alliance also shows ''how we can help one of our oldest friends to preserve regional stability.''



Left out of the new alliance is Australia's South Pacific neighbor New Zealand, which enacted policies in the 1980s to ensure it remains nuclear-free. That includes a ban on nuclear-powered ships entering New Zealand ports, a stance which has seen it clash at times with the U.S.



Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Thursday that New Zealand wasn't asked to be part of the alliance and wouldn't have expected an invitation.



''The centerpiece, the anchor of this arrangement are nuclear-powered submarines,'' Ardern said. ''And it will be very clear to all New Zealanders, and to Australia, why New Zealand would not wish to be a part of that project.''



Ardern said the new alliance doesn't diminish its close ties to the U.S., Britain and Australia.



Morrison said Ardern was the first foreign leader he called to explain the new alliance. He later called the leaders of Japan and India, which together with the United States and Australia form the Quad security dialogue.



''She was my first call because of the strength of our relationship and the relationship between our countries,'' Morrison said. ''All in the region will benefit from the peace and the stability and security that this partnership will add to our region.''



The Chinese government has long suspended minister-to-minister contact with Australia because of soured bilateral relations. But Morrison said he was willing to discuss the new alliance with President Xi Jinping.



''There's an open invitation for President Xi to discuss these and many other matters,'' Morrison said.



''I believe and hope we would both share the same objective of a peaceful Indo-Pacific where the sovereignty and independence of nations is understood and respected and that enables their own citizens to flourish,'' he said.



China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Zhao Lijian said it was ''highly irresponsible'' for the U.S. and Britain to export the nuclear technology, and that Australia was to blame for a breakdown in bilateral relations.



''The most urgent task is for Australia to correctly recognize the reasons for the setbacks in the relations between the two countries, and think carefully whether to treat China as a partner or a threat,'' Zhao said. (AP)




U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks about a national security initiative in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Sept. 15. EPA-Yonhap



President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that the United States is forming a new Indo-Pacific security alliance with Britain and Australia that will allow for greater sharing of defense capabilities  including helping equip Australia with nuclear-powered submarines. It's a move that could deepen a growing chasm in U.S.-China relations.



Biden, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison appeared together virtually to detail the new alliance, which will be called AUKUS (pronounced AWK-us). The three announced they would quickly turn their attention to developing nuclear-powered submarines for Australia.



''We all recognize the imperative of ensuring peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific over the long term,'' said Biden, who said the new alliance reflects a broader trend of key European partners playing a role in the Indo-Pacific. ''We need to be able to address both the current strategic environment in the region and how it may evolve.''



The new security alliance is likely to be seen as a provocative move by China, which has repeatedly lashed out at Biden as he's sought to refocus U.S. foreign policy on the Pacific in the early going of his presidency.



Before the announcement, a senior administration official sought to play down the idea that the alliance was meant to serve as a deterrent against China in the region. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preview the announcement, said the alliance's creation was not aimed at any one country, and is about a larger effort to sustain engagement and deterrence in the Indo-Pacific by the three nations.



Johnson said the alliance would allow the three English-speaking maritime democracies to strengthen their bonds and sharpen their focus on an increasingly complicated part of the world.



''We will have a new opportunity to reinforce Britain's place at the leading edge of science and technology, strengthening our national expertise, and perhaps most significant, the U.K., Australia and the U.S. will be joined even more closely together, '' Johnson said.





U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks on a National Security Initiative virtually with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, inside the East Room at the White House in Washington, Sept. 15. Reuters-Yonhap
Thierry Paysant, security worker and firefighter at the Pasteur hospital, and Christophe, caregiver at the Pasteur hospital, hold a banner which reads "Hunger strike" to protest against France's restrictions, including compulsory health passes, to fight the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, near the Abbaye Saint-Pons in Nice, France, Sept. 15. Reuters-Yonhap



Thousands of health workers across France have been suspended without pay for failing to get vaccinated against COVID-19 ahead of a deadline this week, Health Minister Olivier Veran said Thursday.



France's national public health agency estimated last week that roughly 12 percent of hospital staff and around 6 percent of doctors in private practices have yet to be vaccinated.



"Some 3,000 suspensions were notified yesterday to employees at health centers and clinics who have not yet been vaccinated," Veran told RTL radio.



He added that "several dozens" had turned in their resignations rather than sign up for the jabs.



That compares with 2.7 million health workers overall, Veran said, adding that "continued healthcare is assured."



"A large number of these suspensions are only temporary" and mainly concern support staff, with "very few nurses" among those told to stay home, he said.



Based on figures provided by individual hospitals, the actual number of suspended employees could be higher.



The Paris hospital system said Thursday that 340 workers had been suspended. Local press reports have cited large numbers at hospitals in smaller cities  up to 450 in Nice and 100 in Perpignan.



Available figures point to nearly 1,500 suspensions Thursday at just over a dozen hospitals, according to an AFP tally, with dozens more elsewhere across France.



'Pandemic isn't over'



President Emmanuel Macron gave staff at hospitals, retirement home workers and the fire service an ultimatum in July to get at least one shot by September 15 or face unpaid suspension.



France has also made a COVID "health pass" mandatory for entering cafes, restaurants and many other public places, prompting weekly protests by tens of thousands of people who claim they are being discriminated against.



Many healthcare workers are still avoiding jabs, citing safety or efficacy concerns, raising the specter of disruptions to services in facilities forced to suspend staff without pay.



Overall, 70 percent of the French have received both doses required to be fully vaccinated, which are available to everyone over age 12  one of the highest rates in the world.



But 74 percent have had one dose only, suggesting that many people are holding out against the jabs despite their widespread availability  and as the more contagious Delta variant spreads worldwide.



While vaccines have helped France limit a "fourth wave" of infections, with fewer than 2,000 COVID patients now in intensive care each day, Veran said it is "too early" to considering lifting the health pass requirement.



"There are still around 10,000 new cases each day  the pandemic isn't over," he said.



On Wednesday, the health ministry reported 79 COVID deaths over the previous 24 hours, bringing the French total to 115,829. (AFP)




Regional

Mizoram CM seeks aid for Myanmar refugees

File photo of Mizoram CM Zoramthanga with PM Modi.

Aizawl, Sep 16 (IANS) | Publish Date: 9/16/2021 1:11:28 PM IST

Mizoram Chief Minister Zoramthanga once again urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to provide humanitarian assistance to Myanmar nationals as the bordering northeastern state is witnessing a fresh influx of refugees from the military coup hit neighbouring country after a renewed clash between the Army and the pro-democratic forces, officials said on Thursday.

According to officials, around 11,500 Myanmarese nationals have taken refuge in 11 districts of Mizoram, whose six districts share unfenced borders with the neighbouring country, since the military coup there on February 1.

Mizorams lone Lok Sabha member C. Lalrosanga met Union Home Secretary (Border Management) Sanjeeva Kumar and Additional Home Secretary (North-East) Piyush Goyal in Delhi on Wednesday and requested them to provide necessary assistance including money to the Myanmar nationals, who are taking shelter in the bordering state.

Mizoram planning board Vice-Chairman H. Rammawi said that the Chief Minister on Wednesday in a reminder letter to the Prime Minister over the predicament of the Myanmar nationals, has urged him to provide all humanitarian help to the men, women and children sheltered in the state since March.

Rammawi, who is closely dealing with Myanmar refugee affairs, said that besides the Chief Ministers letters to the Prime Minister, high level delegations led by state MPs since March met the Vice-President and other central ministers and officials seeking asylum and humanitarian aid for the Myanmar nationals.

The central government has yet to respond positively and ignore the repeated requests and even remained silent on the issue for almost seven months now, he said.

Rammawi said that the Chief Minister besides writing letters, also over phone had talked to the Prime Minister and Union Home Minister Amit Shah on a number of occasions requesting them to extend humanitarian assistance to the Myanmar refugees.

He said that he has been in constant touch with the External Affairs and Home Ministry and the people of Mizoram are deeply disappointed over the Centres silence and apathetic attitude towards the unprecedented sufferings of the hapless and distressed people from Myanmar, who fled their country for their survival.

He said that during the states delegations meeting with the ministers and officials of the MHA and MEA requested them to review the Countrys foreign policy towards Myanmar and to provide assistance to the Myanmar nationals, but to no avail yet.

According to Rammawi, the state is now reeling under a severe financial crisis and limited infrastructure of health and other services and non availability of required manpower due to the Covid-19 pandemic has already crippled the states overall situation.

When the state government, all officials, NGOs, churches and all political parties are unitedly battling against the pandemic, the situation further turned critical due to the influx of refugees from the trouble torn Myanmar, he pointed out.

As a generous state and the human being of the people of the state cant ignore the sufferings and helpless conditions of the Myanmar nationals with whom we share ethnic ties and common ancestry. We cant ask them to return as they came here to take shelter to save their lives, the ruling Mizo National Front (MNF) leader said, adding that the community leaders and NGOs are providing shelter and food to the Myanmar people amid the pandemic.

He said that more people expected to come to Mizoram as the renewed clash between civilians and the Myanmar army after a Burmese government in exile on September 7 called for a nationwide uprising to defeat the military junta.

Earlier, Mizoram Lok Sabha member C. Lalrosanga and Rajya Sabha member K. Vanlalvena had also raised the Myanmar refugees issue in the parliament.

As per the MHA advisory, the state governments and UT administrations have no power to grant refugee status to any foreigner, and India is not a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention of 1951 and its 1967 Protocol.
Baysider FBLA  where business leaders are created

ALTON  Jennifer Cove, Prospect Mountain High School teacher and Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) advisor, addressed members of the Alton Centennial Rotary club last Thursday about what the goals and objectives are to prepare high school students on how to become business leaders.



Cove's background in business more than qualifies her to teach and advise students on how to become business professionals. She has a business background that includes working within the corporate world for five Fortune 500 corporations, many years as an executive team leader.



Her background also includes a B.A. & B.S. from Salve Regina and a MS in Business Management & Organization from Antioch School. Her vast knowledge, experiences and skills



are of great benefit for the FBLA Prospect Mountain students as its teacher and advisor for the 'Wolf Den,' a student-run program that includes operating the school store.



The FBLA is a nationally recognized organization created for business oriented students who want to learn more about the field of business and to develop business skills. The FBLA program



under Cove's leadership has grown, and since her arrival has earned awards both nationally and at the NH state level. Cove is also a FBLA NH state advisor.



What do FBLA student members do? They participate in regional and national events that can



result in winning scholarships, engage in community services, fundraising for charities, and take business courses. These are considered to be life-long character builders and be of service to others. The FBLA was founded in 1940.



"If there's one thing I want my students to understand, it's OK not to be OK, be authentic and lead by example," concluded Cove.



The Alton Rotary club meets every Thursday AM at the Alton Community Center for breakfast and discussions on how to help save and improve lives both locally and globally. If interested in Joining Rotary, call Membership Chair Duane Hammond, 569-3745. ALTON  Jennifer Cove, Prospect Mountain High School teacher and Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) advisor, addressed members of the Alton Centennial Rotary club last Thursday about what the goals and objectives are to prepare high school students on how to become business leaders.Cove's background in business more than qualifies her to teach and advise students on how to become business professionals. She has a business background that includes working within the corporate world for five Fortune 500 corporations, many years as an executive team leader.Her background also includes a B.A. & B.S. from Salve Regina and a MS in Business Management & Organization from Antioch School. Her vast knowledge, experiences and skillsare of great benefit for the FBLA Prospect Mountain students as its teacher and advisor for the 'Wolf Den,' a student-run program that includes operating the school store.The FBLA is a nationally recognized organization created for business oriented students who want to learn more about the field of business and to develop business skills. The FBLA programunder Cove's leadership has grown, and since her arrival has earned awards both nationally and at the NH state level. Cove is also a FBLA NH state advisor.What do FBLA student members do? They participate in regional and national events that canresult in winning scholarships, engage in community services, fundraising for charities, and take business courses. These are considered to be life-long character builders and be of service to others. The FBLA was founded in 1940."If there's one thing I want my students to understand, it's OK not to be OK, be authentic and lead by example," concluded Cove.The Alton Rotary club meets every Thursday AM at the Alton Community Center for breakfast and discussions on how to help save and improve lives both locally and globally. If interested in Joining Rotary, call Membership Chair Duane Hammond, 569-3745.

Baysider Simpson, Dowd lead Prospect in Pinkham Notch Thanks for visiting SalmonPress.com
Berlin Reporter Council approves nominations to city boards

by Tara Giles

Sports reporter - Coos County Democrat and Berlin Reporter Sports reporter - Coos County Democrat and Berlin Reporter write the author BERLIN  On Sept. 7, the Berlin City Council met and held a public hearing regarding Resolution 2021-19 Great Northwoods Community Foundation Donation. There was no public discussion, and the Council approved the Resolution.



The Resolution states, "A RESOLUTION authorizing the City of Berlin to accept a donation from the Great Northwoods Community Foundation in the sum of Twenty Thousand Dollars ($20,000) for the purpose of use in projects and programs that advance the health and well-being of its Citizens for Fiscal Year 2022. Resolved by the City Council of the City of Berlin as Follows:



"WHEREAS the Great Northwoods Community Foundation wishes to make a $20,000 donation to the City of Berlin; and



"WHEREAS the City of Berlin recognizes the use of this donation in projects and programs that advance the health and well-being of its Citizens; and



"WHEREAS the City of Berlin recognizes the Public Benefits of improving recreation opportunities for its Citizens which aligns with the foundation's vision of promoting health and well-being."



The Council, moving along, approved disbursements in the amount of $2,085,526.23.



Under new business, the sale of 121 Main St. and abutting lots was discussed. A public hearing will take place on Sept. 20 regarding the sale.



James Wheeler, City Manager offered his report. He included a property transfer list for August 2021, and stated that sale prices continue to average considerable higher than assessed values. He also included the August Fire Department incident report, and stated that the Capital Improvement Plan process for the fiscal year 23-28 has been initiated with all departments.



In other news, Wheeler said, "Spencer Croteau of the Public Works Dept. has received notice of his promotion to the position of Carpenter with the department. Congratulations Spencer."



Eamon Kelly of Berlin sent a letter, requesting to be considered for an open seat on the Planning Board. Kelly stated that he graduated with a B.S. in Physics in 2012 from Boston College and afterward returned to Coos to work at his family's lumber business in Berlin.



He wrote, "Over the last decade I've filled numerous positions there which have exposed me to many parts of the construction process. My academic background has pushed me to examine those practices through a scientific lens, but I also have a soft spot in my heart for the historical character of our city. I look forward to playing a part in blending the old with the new. Although I feel qualified for this position, I am no expert and I know that I will learn a lot from the current board members. I hope that I can take the knowledge they provide and help pass it along to the next generation of city leaders."



The Council accepted the Mayor's nomination of Kelly to fill the open seat. Susan Tremblay was then appointed to the Berlin Housing Authority Commission, replacing Theresa Saucier, who's term is set to expire December of 2022. The Mayor then nominated Michael Perrault as Commissioner for the Berlin Housing Authority, the motion carried.



B. Edward Bryant will continue to serve on the Cemetery Committee with his term expiring in August of 2024. BERLIN  On Sept. 7, the Berlin City Council met and held a public hearing regarding Resolution 2021-19 Great Northwoods Community Foundation Donation. There was no public discussion, and the Council approved the Resolution.The Resolution states, "A RESOLUTION authorizing the City of Berlin to accept a donation from the Great Northwoods Community Foundation in the sum of Twenty Thousand Dollars ($20,000) for the purpose of use in projects and programs that advance the health and well-being of its Citizens for Fiscal Year 2022. Resolved by the City Council of the City of Berlin as Follows:"WHEREAS the Great Northwoods Community Foundation wishes to make a $20,000 donation to the City of Berlin; and"WHEREAS the City of Berlin recognizes the use of this donation in projects and programs that advance the health and well-being of its Citizens; and"WHEREAS the City of Berlin recognizes the Public Benefits of improving recreation opportunities for its Citizens which aligns with the foundation's vision of promoting health and well-being."The Council, moving along, approved disbursements in the amount of $2,085,526.23.Under new business, the sale of 121 Main St. and abutting lots was discussed. A public hearing will take place on Sept. 20 regarding the sale.James Wheeler, City Manager offered his report. He included a property transfer list for August 2021, and stated that sale prices continue to average considerable higher than assessed values. He also included the August Fire Department incident report, and stated that the Capital Improvement Plan process for the fiscal year 23-28 has been initiated with all departments.In other news, Wheeler said, "Spencer Croteau of the Public Works Dept. has received notice of his promotion to the position of Carpenter with the department. Congratulations Spencer."Eamon Kelly of Berlin sent a letter, requesting to be considered for an open seat on the Planning Board. Kelly stated that he graduated with a B.S. in Physics in 2012 from Boston College and afterward returned to Coos to work at his family's lumber business in Berlin.He wrote, "Over the last decade I've filled numerous positions there which have exposed me to many parts of the construction process. My academic background has pushed me to examine those practices through a scientific lens, but I also have a soft spot in my heart for the historical character of our city. I look forward to playing a part in blending the old with the new. Although I feel qualified for this position, I am no expert and I know that I will learn a lot from the current board members. I hope that I can take the knowledge they provide and help pass it along to the next generation of city leaders."The Council accepted the Mayor's nomination of Kelly to fill the open seat. Susan Tremblay was then appointed to the Berlin Housing Authority Commission, replacing Theresa Saucier, who's term is set to expire December of 2022. The Mayor then nominated Michael Perrault as Commissioner for the Berlin Housing Authority, the motion carried.B. Edward Bryant will continue to serve on the Cemetery Committee with his term expiring in August of 2024.

Berlin Reporter Mountaineer girls start off with a pair of wins Recent Tara Giles Who says life is fair? Where is that written?

2021-Sep-16 Diane Baker inducted into Eastern Snowmobile Racing Hall of Fame

2021-Sep-16 School year off to a smooth start in Groveton

2021-Sep-08 City Council discusses Fire Department bids

2021-Sep-01 Bezanson wins belt, turns pro

2021-Sep-01 More... Thanks for visiting SalmonPress.com
Gilford Steamer Resuce plan funds going to Gunstock Water District project

by Erin Plummer Part of the town's American Rescue Plan funds will go to water system improvements for Gunstock Acres Water Village District and the selectmen will further discuss some citizen proposals such as for broadband and solar panels.



The selectmen held a public hearing on Aug. 11 to accept $378,610.11 in federal funding from the American Rescue Plan which can be used for COVID-19 relief, certain infrastructure improvements, and others. Town Administrator Scott Dunn said during the Aug. 11 hearing that the money is already in the bank and is the first of two payments from the ARPA. The second will be received in the spring of 2022 and will be factored into that year's budget process.



The board approved a few items during a hearing on Aug. 11, including sewer system improvements, water testing at town hall for PFAS, and others. The board will review a request by Lockes Island residents for broadband improvements at a later time.



During Wednesday's meeting, the board approved putting over $177,000 to improvements in the Gunstock Acres Village Water District. The district had also requested some funding to help with the $1 million in projected water system improvements over the next several years. This year's budget would need to raise an estimated $177,392 from tax dollars to help with the improvements. Dunn said the federal funding could help offset the tax burden for a project that would serve at least 600 residents.



"My thought  it's a good chunk of our population's water system improvements, and if we could give those folks some tax relief through the use of this fund, that might be an appropriate thing to do," Dunn said.



Resident Carolyn Johnson questioned the expenditure, saying this is a service that would go to a small, more affluent subset of the town, and said tax mitigation wasn't an allowed use of the funds. Dunn said the funds would be used for water system improvements, which is a designated use.



The board approved spending $177,392 for these water improvements at Gunstock Acres.



Johnson proposed using some of the funding for solar panels on town hall. She said she reviewed the list of requirements for the funds and said she found the list is nonexclusive and the funds can be used in any way for communities to help mitigate money lost from the pandemic. Johnson said could reduce the town's electric bill to a fraction and the money they save could be used for the good of the town. She also said town could also use this to establish a better energy structure that could branch off into other areas.



"You can set up a virtuous circle for the town that builds into a future of a more efficient energy system and takes adv of this onetime opportunity," Johnson said.



Dunn said he would not support this and said he questioned if this would be an allowed use. Selectman Chan Eddy said, from an engineering standpoint, solar panels aren't as effective in colder northern environments like New Hampshire. Johnson said her solar panels have generated close to 14,000 kilowatts, even during the winter, and said places like Germany have had great success with them.



Eddy asked Johnson to talk with some experts and come up with possible costs for such a project. She said she would get that information. Part of the town's American Rescue Plan funds will go to water system improvements for Gunstock Acres Water Village District and the selectmen will further discuss some citizen proposals such as for broadband and solar panels.The selectmen held a public hearing on Aug. 11 to accept $378,610.11 in federal funding from the American Rescue Plan which can be used for COVID-19 relief, certain infrastructure improvements, and others. Town Administrator Scott Dunn said during the Aug. 11 hearing that the money is already in the bank and is the first of two payments from the ARPA. The second will be received in the spring of 2022 and will be factored into that year's budget process.The board approved a few items during a hearing on Aug. 11, including sewer system improvements, water testing at town hall for PFAS, and others. The board will review a request by Lockes Island residents for broadband improvements at a later time.During Wednesday's meeting, the board approved putting over $177,000 to improvements in the Gunstock Acres Village Water District. The district had also requested some funding to help with the $1 million in projected water system improvements over the next several years. This year's budget would need to raise an estimated $177,392 from tax dollars to help with the improvements. Dunn said the federal funding could help offset the tax burden for a project that would serve at least 600 residents."My thought  it's a good chunk of our population's water system improvements, and if we could give those folks some tax relief through the use of this fund, that might be an appropriate thing to do," Dunn said.Resident Carolyn Johnson questioned the expenditure, saying this is a service that would go to a small, more affluent subset of the town, and said tax mitigation wasn't an allowed use of the funds. Dunn said the funds would be used for water system improvements, which is a designated use.The board approved spending $177,392 for these water improvements at Gunstock Acres.Johnson proposed using some of the funding for solar panels on town hall. She said she reviewed the list of requirements for the funds and said she found the list is nonexclusive and the funds can be used in any way for communities to help mitigate money lost from the pandemic. Johnson said could reduce the town's electric bill to a fraction and the money they save could be used for the good of the town. She also said town could also use this to establish a better energy structure that could branch off into other areas."You can set up a virtuous circle for the town that builds into a future of a more efficient energy system and takes adv of this onetime opportunity," Johnson said.Dunn said he would not support this and said he questioned if this would be an allowed use. Selectman Chan Eddy said, from an engineering standpoint, solar panels aren't as effective in colder northern environments like New Hampshire. Johnson said her solar panels have generated close to 14,000 kilowatts, even during the winter, and said places like Germany have had great success with them.Eddy asked Johnson to talk with some experts and come up with possible costs for such a project. She said she would get that information.

Gilford Steamer Defense sparks Gilford-Belmont to big win over Pembroke Thanks for visiting SalmonPress.com
Gilford Steamer Town officials reviewing cyber security

by Erin Plummer Gilford officials are taking steps to protect its own electronic financial security after a town in the state lost over $2 million from cyber fraud.



On Aug. 23, town officials in Peterborough announced around $2.3 million in town funds had gone missing in an alleged case of Internet fraud by an outside party. Peterborough town administrator Nicole MacStay and board of selectmen chair Tyler Ward issued a statement that the town learned the ConVal School District had not received its $1.2 million electronic transfer from the town and later learned money for a bridge project had been diverted before. After investigation the town learned it had been the victim of an alleged email-based fraud. The US Secret Service was investigating the incident and traced funds that were turned into cryptocurrency.



In the wake of the incident, Gilford officials have been reviewing their cyber security to make sure this doesn't happen. Gilford's finance director Holly Burbank gave the selectmen an update on the measures being taken during Wednesday's meeting.



Burbank said all but one of Gilford's payments are sent out by paper check and not by automated clearinghouse (ACH) transfer. The only exception is for credit card services to Bank of New Hampshire, Burbank said they were running into problems with their payments not getting through on time and the transfers not happening quick enough.



Some payroll money is distributed through ACH, though these require an employee to submit a signed physical form requesting the transfer. The town clerk's motor vehicle also uses ACH to submit motor vehicle payments to the state.



ACH is used to accept payments from several different sources, but Burbank said no one can use these to withdraw anything from their account.



"It's for deposit only, there's no way that they can pull money out of our account so we're safe there," Burbank said."



She did call Bank of New Hampshire to get a review on their account safety, a representative looked over their accounts and said overall they are safe and made a few suggestions on how they can be safer.



Six people in town hall have access to ACH actions, all of which can only be conducted after being checked by another person. Bank of NH will soon meet with those six people to go over best practices. The decision was also made for Burbank to be the only one in the office who can change account numbers when two people had that authority.



The town's computer provider, Mainstay Technologies, also conducts periodic tests to see how vulnerable the town is to email phishing scams. Town administrator Dunn said the numbers of people who failed the test have significantly gone down and this time only one clicked on the link. There is also a filter in the town's email system that gets rid of phishing emails before that reach someone's inbox. Gilford officials are taking steps to protect its own electronic financial security after a town in the state lost over $2 million from cyber fraud.On Aug. 23, town officials in Peterborough announced around $2.3 million in town funds had gone missing in an alleged case of Internet fraud by an outside party. Peterborough town administrator Nicole MacStay and board of selectmen chair Tyler Ward issued a statement that the town learned the ConVal School District had not received its $1.2 million electronic transfer from the town and later learned money for a bridge project had been diverted before. After investigation the town learned it had been the victim of an alleged email-based fraud. The US Secret Service was investigating the incident and traced funds that were turned into cryptocurrency.In the wake of the incident, Gilford officials have been reviewing their cyber security to make sure this doesn't happen. Gilford's finance director Holly Burbank gave the selectmen an update on the measures being taken during Wednesday's meeting.Burbank said all but one of Gilford's payments are sent out by paper check and not by automated clearinghouse (ACH) transfer. The only exception is for credit card services to Bank of New Hampshire, Burbank said they were running into problems with their payments not getting through on time and the transfers not happening quick enough.Some payroll money is distributed through ACH, though these require an employee to submit a signed physical form requesting the transfer. The town clerk's motor vehicle also uses ACH to submit motor vehicle payments to the state.ACH is used to accept payments from several different sources, but Burbank said no one can use these to withdraw anything from their account."It's for deposit only, there's no way that they can pull money out of our account so we're safe there," Burbank said."She did call Bank of New Hampshire to get a review on their account safety, a representative looked over their accounts and said overall they are safe and made a few suggestions on how they can be safer.Six people in town hall have access to ACH actions, all of which can only be conducted after being checked by another person. Bank of NH will soon meet with those six people to go over best practices. The decision was also made for Burbank to be the only one in the office who can change account numbers when two people had that authority.The town's computer provider, Mainstay Technologies, also conducts periodic tests to see how vulnerable the town is to email phishing scams. Town administrator Dunn said the numbers of people who failed the test have significantly gone down and this time only one clicked on the link. There is also a filter in the town's email system that gets rid of phishing emails before that reach someone's inbox.

Gilford Steamer Defense sparks Gilford-Belmont to big win over Pembroke Resuce plan funds going to Gunstock Water District project Thanks for visiting SalmonPress.com
Granite State News Huggins Hospital handling increased Covid-19 cases

by Elissa Paquette WOLFEBORO  According to the Center for Disease Control, as of Sept. 14, Carroll County is in the high risk range of Covid-19 incidence. That includes 99 cases and an 8.52 percent positivity rate with 15 new hospital admissions.



Closer to home, Wolfeboro has seven new cases, bringing the active case load to 22. Tuftonboro has 3 new cases, bringing the town case load to seven active. Ossipee has six new cases, with a total of 17 active cases.



Huggins Hospital's Vice President of Nursing and Clinical Services, Susan Dionne, RN, attests to the impact of area increases, noting "We are balancing the ICU capacity daily based upon patient acuity and available critical care nursing resources. We are seeing an increase in patients diagnosed with COVID-19 throughout our organization, including in our Drive Up Testing service, our Emergency Department, our Medical/Surgical unit and our ICU."



Asked how the hospital is managing the New Hampshire wide deficits of nursing staff, Dionne responded that Huggins Hospital has had to utilize, as it typically does in the summer season, traveling nurses and other contract labor to help manage the influx in demand on services.



"This year, we have had to rely on those contracted services more as we experience even more demand on services, issues with staffing, and our focus on new services that are specifically developed to serve those with COVID-19," she added.



The CDC says that 68.9 percent of the county's population is fully vaccinated. Dionne encourages everyone to be vaccinated as soon as possible "in order to protect themselves, their family, our healthcare workers and our entire community." WOLFEBORO  According to the Center for Disease Control, as of Sept. 14, Carroll County is in the high risk range of Covid-19 incidence. That includes 99 cases and an 8.52 percent positivity rate with 15 new hospital admissions.Closer to home, Wolfeboro has seven new cases, bringing the active case load to 22. Tuftonboro has 3 new cases, bringing the town case load to seven active. Ossipee has six new cases, with a total of 17 active cases.Huggins Hospital's Vice President of Nursing and Clinical Services, Susan Dionne, RN, attests to the impact of area increases, noting "We are balancing the ICU capacity daily based upon patient acuity and available critical care nursing resources. We are seeing an increase in patients diagnosed with COVID-19 throughout our organization, including in our Drive Up Testing service, our Emergency Department, our Medical/Surgical unit and our ICU."Asked how the hospital is managing the New Hampshire wide deficits of nursing staff, Dionne responded that Huggins Hospital has had to utilize, as it typically does in the summer season, traveling nurses and other contract labor to help manage the influx in demand on services."This year, we have had to rely on those contracted services more as we experience even more demand on services, issues with staffing, and our focus on new services that are specifically developed to serve those with COVID-19," she added.The CDC says that 68.9 percent of the county's population is fully vaccinated. Dionne encourages everyone to be vaccinated as soon as possible "in order to protect themselves, their family, our healthcare workers and our entire community."


Littleton Courier 9/11 tribute held in Littleton

by Angel Larcom

Littleton residents gathered at the Mascoma Bank knoll early Saturday morning to honor the fallen on the 20th anniversary of 9/11. (Photos by Angel Larcom) (click for larger version) LITTLETON  The Northern Grafton County Republican Committee hosted a memorial tribute in downtown Littleton last Saturday to mark the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.



The four-hour non-political event honored the 2,977 Americans who perished when Al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked commercial airplanes, attacking the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.



During the tribute, the organizers held a moment of silence for each catastrophic event. The Veterans of Foreign Wars were on-hand, as were the Littleton Fire Department. Senator Erin Hennessey and Executive Councilor Joseph Kenney also attended the memorial.



Using Ladder Truck 1, Littleton firefighters suspended a massive flag over the intersection of Union, Cottage and Main Streets in downtown Littleton as passerby honked in solidarity. Pastor John Anan led an opening prayer during the early morning event.



"We ask for a blessing over our nation that is so divided right now. Today, we remember Sept. 11. We thank you for America and what this great nation stands for in the rest of the world," said Anan.



The Littleton memorial service was one of several in the region, as communities remembered the fateful day that permanently changed the American landscape. Thousands of civilians lost their lives, as did military personnel, firefighters, EMTs and police officers.



Four commercial airliners traveling from the northeast to the West Coast were hijacked mid-flight. The first plane struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m. Seventeen minutes later, United Airlines Flight 175 hit the South Tower and both skyscrapers collapsed less than two hours later.



A third plane hit the Pentagon's west side less than an hour after the first attack. Airline passengers diverted the fourth plane, destined for the US Capitol. Instead, it crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pa., shortly after 10 a.m. that morning. LITTLETON  The Northern Grafton County Republican Committee hosted a memorial tribute in downtown Littleton last Saturday to mark the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.The four-hour non-political event honored the 2,977 Americans who perished when Al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked commercial airplanes, attacking the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.During the tribute, the organizers held a moment of silence for each catastrophic event. The Veterans of Foreign Wars were on-hand, as were the Littleton Fire Department. Senator Erin Hennessey and Executive Councilor Joseph Kenney also attended the memorial.Using Ladder Truck 1, Littleton firefighters suspended a massive flag over the intersection of Union, Cottage and Main Streets in downtown Littleton as passerby honked in solidarity. Pastor John Anan led an opening prayer during the early morning event."We ask for a blessing over our nation that is so divided right now. Today, we remember Sept. 11. We thank you for America and what this great nation stands for in the rest of the world," said Anan.The Littleton memorial service was one of several in the region, as communities remembered the fateful day that permanently changed the American landscape. Thousands of civilians lost their lives, as did military personnel, firefighters, EMTs and police officers.Four commercial airliners traveling from the northeast to the West Coast were hijacked mid-flight. The first plane struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m. Seventeen minutes later, United Airlines Flight 175 hit the South Tower and both skyscrapers collapsed less than two hours later.A third plane hit the Pentagon's west side less than an hour after the first attack. Airline passengers diverted the fourth plane, destined for the US Capitol. Instead, it crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pa., shortly after 10 a.m. that morning.

Littleton Courier Grafton County broadband project requires municipal involvement Thanks for visiting SalmonPress.com
Plymouth Record Enterprise Ashland selectmen accept Rescue Plan funds

by David Ruell ASHLAND  At their Sept. 13 meeting, the Ashland selectmen approved the acceptance of American Rescue Plan Act money, the final payment for the new fire truck, the purchase of a truck for the Sewer Department, and repairs to the Fire Station foundation.



The first order of business was a public hearing on the acceptance of $107,568.61 for this year from the American Rescue Plan Act. The same amount will be available to Ashland next year. Town Manager Fred Welch explained that the money was limited by the federal government to expenditures on water, sewer and communications projects. Any money not used for those purposes will have to be returned to the State of New Hampshire for reallocation. The Town will have four years to spend its total allotment. Currently, most communities in Grafton County have joined a consortium to develop broadband communications in the county. The state employees' union, which represents Ashland's town employees, had asked that some of the money be used to raise the salaries of those employees, but that does not seem to be allowable for the ARPA funds. The selectmen voted unanimously to accept the funds, but did not determine at this time how the funds were to be spent.



In 2017, Ashland's voters authorized a four-year lease purchase of a new fire truck, which went into service in July of 2018. The final payment of $204,229.52 is due this year. The Selectmen voted to withdraw that sum from the Fire Department Capital Reserve Fund to make the final payment.



The Sewer Department wishes to replace one of their trucks with a new truck. The Department requested the purchase of that new truck for $48,500, which is in their current budget. They would use the state's joint bid process, which helps to reduce the price. The selectmen approved the purchase as requested. The disposition of the old truck



will be decided later, as no trade-in of the old truck is involved in the purchase.



Town Manager Welch presented proposals for concrete repairs at the Fire Station in two parts, $16,345 for filling holes and treating exposed metal rods in the foundation, which he described as needing to be done before winter, and $7,880 for repairs to window sills and other parts of the building, which he said could be put off until next year.



As the capital reserve fund for repairs of all town buildings is limited, the selectmen decided to spend the $16,345 for the more pressing repairs and wait on the other repairs, just in case other building repairs may be needed over the winter.



The Purple Heart Community project is asking towns and cities across the country to proclaim themselves Purple Heart Communities to honor those who were wounded in the service of their country. The selectmen voted for Ashland to become a Purple Heart Community and to issue a proclamation to that effect. They also voted to buy two Purple Heart Community signs, at $52.70 each, and to erect them on Route 3.



The selectmen did formerly vote to appoint Scott Vien as Ashland's Health Officer, but no one sent the proper paperwork to the state to complete the appointment. The selectmen therefore voted to complete the forms for the nomination of Vien as Health Officer.



At the end of the meeting, Chairman Eli Badger appealed for volunteers to serve on the Planning Board and the Zoning Board of Adjustment, which needs more members. The ZBA has three members, when it could have five members and two alternates, so it operates with the bare minimum of members. That means, as Charles Bozzello, the acting chair of the ZBA, said, that an applicant needs the unanimous support of all three board members to win his case. It was pointed out that many feel that they do not have the knowledge to serve on either board, but Badger said that the main qualification for a candidate is a willingness to learn, as there is training available from the State,



both in person and online, supplemented as well by training from other board members. The selectmen favored putting an appeal on the town Web site for volunteers for these boards. ASHLAND  At their Sept. 13 meeting, the Ashland selectmen approved the acceptance of American Rescue Plan Act money, the final payment for the new fire truck, the purchase of a truck for the Sewer Department, and repairs to the Fire Station foundation.The first order of business was a public hearing on the acceptance of $107,568.61 for this year from the American Rescue Plan Act. The same amount will be available to Ashland next year. Town Manager Fred Welch explained that the money was limited by the federal government to expenditures on water, sewer and communications projects. Any money not used for those purposes will have to be returned to the State of New Hampshire for reallocation. The Town will have four years to spend its total allotment. Currently, most communities in Grafton County have joined a consortium to develop broadband communications in the county. The state employees' union, which represents Ashland's town employees, had asked that some of the money be used to raise the salaries of those employees, but that does not seem to be allowable for the ARPA funds. The selectmen voted unanimously to accept the funds, but did not determine at this time how the funds were to be spent.In 2017, Ashland's voters authorized a four-year lease purchase of a new fire truck, which went into service in July of 2018. The final payment of $204,229.52 is due this year. The Selectmen voted to withdraw that sum from the Fire Department Capital Reserve Fund to make the final payment.The Sewer Department wishes to replace one of their trucks with a new truck. The Department requested the purchase of that new truck for $48,500, which is in their current budget. They would use the state's joint bid process, which helps to reduce the price. The selectmen approved the purchase as requested. The disposition of the old truckwill be decided later, as no trade-in of the old truck is involved in the purchase.Town Manager Welch presented proposals for concrete repairs at the Fire Station in two parts, $16,345 for filling holes and treating exposed metal rods in the foundation, which he described as needing to be done before winter, and $7,880 for repairs to window sills and other parts of the building, which he said could be put off until next year.As the capital reserve fund for repairs of all town buildings is limited, the selectmen decided to spend the $16,345 for the more pressing repairs and wait on the other repairs, just in case other building repairs may be needed over the winter.The Purple Heart Community project is asking towns and cities across the country to proclaim themselves Purple Heart Communities to honor those who were wounded in the service of their country. The selectmen voted for Ashland to become a Purple Heart Community and to issue a proclamation to that effect. They also voted to buy two Purple Heart Community signs, at $52.70 each, and to erect them on Route 3.The selectmen did formerly vote to appoint Scott Vien as Ashland's Health Officer, but no one sent the proper paperwork to the state to complete the appointment. The selectmen therefore voted to complete the forms for the nomination of Vien as Health Officer.At the end of the meeting, Chairman Eli Badger appealed for volunteers to serve on the Planning Board and the Zoning Board of Adjustment, which needs more members. The ZBA has three members, when it could have five members and two alternates, so it operates with the bare minimum of members. That means, as Charles Bozzello, the acting chair of the ZBA, said, that an applicant needs the unanimous support of all three board members to win his case. It was pointed out that many feel that they do not have the knowledge to serve on either board, but Badger said that the main qualification for a candidate is a willingness to learn, as there is training available from the State,both in person and online, supplemented as well by training from other board members. The selectmen favored putting an appeal on the town Web site for volunteers for these boards.

Plymouth Record Enterprise Bobcat football rolls over Kingswood in home opener Thanks for visiting SalmonPress.com
Plymouth Record Enterprise Plymouth Area Community Closet is still here with food, fuel, and financial aid

PLYMOUTH  Like many other local non-profit groups, the Plymouth Area Community Closet (PACC) has been affected by the covid pandemic. The Thrift Shop closed in March 2020, and Meals for Many held in the Plymouth Congregational Church has been cancelled till further notice. Boomerang, a local consignment store on South Main St. in Plymouth, has generously offered to share their proceeds from donated items in their shop with PACC which is helping immensely!



PACC still has office space on South Main St. where the Food Pantry is open on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8-10 a.m. (536-9889) under the management of Dawn Miller. Grocery gift cards from Hannaford (purchased by PACC) are also available. Fuel assistance through the Keep The Heat On program will re-start Tuesday, Oct. 12 by phone only at 536-1101 on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9 a.m.-noon. All types of fuel are included from pellets, to propane, wood, oil, electric, and kerosene. You only need to be a resident of one of our catchment towns to request aid  fuel help is only given one time during the heating season.



Through the management assistance of Whole Village, PACC is sponsoring a new program for families by offering clothing vouchers to Ladders and financial aid for new shoes with a gift card from Marshall's for their school-age kids! We are very excited to assist families help clothe their children as the new school year starts.



As winter and the holidays begin, PACC will again continue the Holiday Food Basket program in a different mode due to covid concerns where packing up and delivering some 300 baskets is not feasible at this time. Sources for funding this project are being sought and PACC will meet the remaining costs out of its general fund. Further information about completing an application to receive a basket will be announced later this fall through this newspaper, social media, and Whole Village in Plymouth.



The PACC Board of Directors is committed to continuing its mission of meeting clients' needs throughout our region which includes Alexandria, Ashland, Bridgewater, Ellsworth, Campton, Dorchester, Groton, Plymouth, Rumney, Hebron, Holderness, Waterville Valley, Thornton, Wentworth, and Warren. Covid has upended our lives for well over a year and shows little sign of abating, but with our area partners and generous donors we will continue helping people's lives stay safe, warm, and food-secure. PLYMOUTH  Like many other local non-profit groups, the Plymouth Area Community Closet (PACC) has been affected by the covid pandemic. The Thrift Shop closed in March 2020, and Meals for Many held in the Plymouth Congregational Church has been cancelled till further notice. Boomerang, a local consignment store on South Main St. in Plymouth, has generously offered to share their proceeds from donated items in their shop with PACC which is helping immensely!PACC still has office space on South Main St. where the Food Pantry is open on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8-10 a.m. (536-9889) under the management of Dawn Miller. Grocery gift cards from Hannaford (purchased by PACC) are also available. Fuel assistance through the Keep The Heat On program will re-start Tuesday, Oct. 12 by phone only at 536-1101 on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9 a.m.-noon. All types of fuel are included from pellets, to propane, wood, oil, electric, and kerosene. You only need to be a resident of one of our catchment towns to request aid  fuel help is only given one time during the heating season.Through the management assistance of Whole Village, PACC is sponsoring a new program for families by offering clothing vouchers to Ladders and financial aid for new shoes with a gift card from Marshall's for their school-age kids! We are very excited to assist families help clothe their children as the new school year starts.As winter and the holidays begin, PACC will again continue the Holiday Food Basket program in a different mode due to covid concerns where packing up and delivering some 300 baskets is not feasible at this time. Sources for funding this project are being sought and PACC will meet the remaining costs out of its general fund. Further information about completing an application to receive a basket will be announced later this fall through this newspaper, social media, and Whole Village in Plymouth.The PACC Board of Directors is committed to continuing its mission of meeting clients' needs throughout our region which includes Alexandria, Ashland, Bridgewater, Ellsworth, Campton, Dorchester, Groton, Plymouth, Rumney, Hebron, Holderness, Waterville Valley, Thornton, Wentworth, and Warren. Covid has upended our lives for well over a year and shows little sign of abating, but with our area partners and generous donors we will continue helping people's lives stay safe, warm, and food-secure.

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Winnisquam Echo Wood & Clay supports Gale School project



Shannon Robinson-Beland (left), co-owner of Wood & Clay; right, Becky Bryant, President & CEO of Lakes Region Community Services. (Courtesy Photo) (click for larger version) BELMONT  Wood & Clay, a local company that specializes in custom home construction and renovations in the Lakes Region, purchased $50,000 in New Hampshire business tax credits to support the redevelopment of the Gale School in Belmont. The project will transform the historic schoolhouse into a community facility that will include on the second floor a new program center for Lakes Region Community Services (LRCS).



Wood & Clay, based in Gilford, is owned by husband and wife team Kevin Beland and Shannon Robinson-Beland.



"We hope our contribution inspires other local businesses to support this wonderful project," said Shannon Robinson-Beland. "It's exciting that LRCS will be part of the next chapter for the Gale School  what a great way to put this historic building back to good use serving local families again."



"We had been thinking for a few years about opening a satellite program center," said Rebecca Bryant, President & CEO of LRCS. "The Gale School will be a great location for us  a place where we can offer our full range of programming to new families and to existing clients who will find it more convenient."



Lakes Region Community Developers (LRCD) is the developer for the project. LRCD and LRCS are partnering to sell the tax credits to local businesses. They have $536,000 left to sell in order to move ahead with construction, which could start as early as next summer if fundraising is successful. Businesses interested in purchasing tax credits for the Gale School project should contact Carmen Lorentz at LRCD by calling (603) 524-0747, ext. 110.



The Gale School was built in 1894, and was used by the Belmont school district until the mid-1980s. The building has been mostly vacant since then, and years of neglect have taken their toll. The Gale School was named to the New Hampshire State Register of Historic Places in 2018, and was selected as one of New Hampshire's Seven to Save in 2017.



In July 2020, the building was successfully moved by the local Save Our Gale School Committee (SOGS) to a new location at 60 Concord Street in Belmont Village. LRCD agreed to partner with SOGS to redevelop the building.



The tax credits are administered by New Hampshire Community Development Finance Authority (CDFA). Any business with operations in New Hampshire that contributes to a CDFA tax credit project receives a NH state tax credit worth 75 percent of their contribution. The credit can be used over a period of five years to reduce the business' state tax liability (business profits, business enterprise or insurance premium taxes). The tax credit program allows New Hampshire businesses to redirect a significant portion of their state tax dollars to support local projects that they care about.



CDFA reviews many project applications each year and awards tax credits to those they determine are feasible and will make the biggest impact on economic development in the state. LRCD was awarded $750,000 in credits for the Gale School project, and has sold $214,000 to date. BELMONT  Wood & Clay, a local company that specializes in custom home construction and renovations in the Lakes Region, purchased $50,000 in New Hampshire business tax credits to support the redevelopment of the Gale School in Belmont. The project will transform the historic schoolhouse into a community facility that will include on the second floor a new program center for Lakes Region Community Services (LRCS).Wood & Clay, based in Gilford, is owned by husband and wife team Kevin Beland and Shannon Robinson-Beland."We hope our contribution inspires other local businesses to support this wonderful project," said Shannon Robinson-Beland. "It's exciting that LRCS will be part of the next chapter for the Gale School  what a great way to put this historic building back to good use serving local families again.""We had been thinking for a few years about opening a satellite program center," said Rebecca Bryant, President & CEO of LRCS. "The Gale School will be a great location for us  a place where we can offer our full range of programming to new families and to existing clients who will find it more convenient."Lakes Region Community Developers (LRCD) is the developer for the project. LRCD and LRCS are partnering to sell the tax credits to local businesses. They have $536,000 left to sell in order to move ahead with construction, which could start as early as next summer if fundraising is successful. Businesses interested in purchasing tax credits for the Gale School project should contact Carmen Lorentz at LRCD by calling (603) 524-0747, ext. 110.The Gale School was built in 1894, and was used by the Belmont school district until the mid-1980s. The building has been mostly vacant since then, and years of neglect have taken their toll. The Gale School was named to the New Hampshire State Register of Historic Places in 2018, and was selected as one of New Hampshire's Seven to Save in 2017.In July 2020, the building was successfully moved by the local Save Our Gale School Committee (SOGS) to a new location at 60 Concord Street in Belmont Village. LRCD agreed to partner with SOGS to redevelop the building.The tax credits are administered by New Hampshire Community Development Finance Authority (CDFA). Any business with operations in New Hampshire that contributes to a CDFA tax credit project receives a NH state tax credit worth 75 percent of their contribution. The credit can be used over a period of five years to reduce the business' state tax liability (business profits, business enterprise or insurance premium taxes). The tax credit program allows New Hampshire businesses to redirect a significant portion of their state tax dollars to support local projects that they care about.CDFA reviews many project applications each year and awards tax credits to those they determine are feasible and will make the biggest impact on economic development in the state. LRCD was awarded $750,000 in credits for the Gale School project, and has sold $214,000 to date.

Winnisquam Echo Defense sparks Gilford-Belmont to big win over Pembroke Thanks for visiting SalmonPress.com
Source: Xinhua| 2021-09-15 23:08:54|Editor: huaxia

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South Korean President Moon Jae-in (R) meets with visiting Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Seoul, South Korea, Sept. 15, 2021. (South Korea Presidential Blue House/Handout via Xinhua)

SEOUL, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- South Korean President Moon Jae-in and visiting Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi agreed on Wednesday to promote bilateral ties and strengthen cooperation.

During the meeting with Wang, Moon said that South Korea is ready to work with China to maintain the momentum of high-level exchanges, expand people-to-people exchanges and push for more fruitful cooperation in economy, trade and environmental protection.

South Korea supports China in hosting the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games and appreciates China's contribution to maintaining peace on the Korean Peninsula, Moon said, hoping that China will continue to play a constructive role in the Korean Peninsula issue.

For his part, Wang said the two sides should take the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties as an opportunity to push for greater development of bilateral relations.

On the same day, Wang also met with South Korean Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong, with both sides agreeing to establish a regular communication mechanism between foreign ministers of the two countries.

The two sides also agreed to hold a new round of high-level strategic dialogue between foreign ministries of the two countries and China-South Korea "2+2" dialogue on diplomacy and security as soon as possible.

During their meeting, Wang said that since the establishment of diplomatic relations nearly 30 years ago, China-South Korea relations have reached new heights and become more mature and stable.

The two countries have not only achieved mutual benefit and win-win results at the bilateral level, but also played a role as a guardian of peace and stability and facilitator for development and prosperity in international and regional affairs, he added.

In the face of a major shift in the international landscape, the two countries should further establish a sense of community, continue to expand common interests and tap the potential of cooperation, so as to promote the upgrading of bilateral relations, Wang said.

Wang said that China, which opposes politicizing the COVID-19 origins tracing and instrumentalizing the origins tracing work, is ready to work with South Korea to deepen cooperation in fighting the pandemic.

China is willing to speed up the alignment of development strategies of the two countries, accelerate the process of second-phrase negotiations on China-South Korea free trade agreement, and make the China-South Korea Year of Cultural Exchanges a success, he added.

Wang said that China and South Korea could strengthen cooperation on global issues such as climate change under multilateral frameworks including the United Nations, jointly safeguard the security and stability of regional and global industrial chains and supply chains, and facilitate the entry into force of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership free trade agreement as scheduled.

For his part, Chung hoped that the two sides will continue to strengthen high-level interactions, promote anti-epidemic cooperation, deepen cooperation in artificial intelligence, semiconductors and new materials, so as to inject new impetus into the development of bilateral relations.

South Korea supports carrying out global virus origin tracing in an open and transparent manner, and disagrees with politicizing origins tracing, Chung said.

The two sides also had in-depth exchanges on international and regional issues of common concern.

During his visit, Wang also met with Lim Chae-jung, chairman of the South Korean side of the committee for future development of China-South Korea relations. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2021-09-16 00:48:49|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- A spokesperson from China's top legislature said on Wednesday that China firmly opposes a recent decision by the UK Parliament to ban the Chinese Ambassador to the UK from participating in relevant events held at the parliamentary estate.

The remarks were made by You Wenze, spokesperson for the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), vowing China's corresponding measures and necessary responses.

You said the decision, in disregard of the fundamental interests of people in China and the UK, has violated international protocol, and is both erroneous and unreasonable.

He pointed out certain UK parliamentarians, with no factual basis at all, have maliciously spread slanderous rumors and disinformation related to China's Xinjiang, and the UK has unilaterally sanctioned relevant Chinese personnel and institutions under the pretext of Xinjiang-related issues.

The countermeasures China has taken are acts of justice to maintain national sovereignty and integrity, and they are both reasonable and legitimate, You added.

You said China is firmly resolved in safeguarding national sovereignty, security, and development interests. "We urge the UK Parliament to immediately correct its wrongdoing and contribute more to the sound development of bilateral ties." Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2021-09-16 02:06:20|Editor: huaxia

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Nadhim Zahawi leaves 10 Downing Street in London, Britain, on Sept. 15, 2021. Nadhim Zahawi, minister for COVID vaccine deployment, has been promoted to education secretary. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson reshuffled his cabinet on Wednesday. (Xinhua/Han Yan)

LONDON, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- British Prime Minister Boris Johnson carried out a reshuffle of his cabinet ministers on Wednesday, with Dominic Raab removed as foreign secretary among other changes.

Johnson's cabinet reshuffle aimed to put in place "a strong and united team to build back better from the pandemic," and would have a focus on "uniting and levelling up the whole country," according to Downing Street.

Raab will become justice secretary and also take up the role of deputy prime minister. He has been under fire for his handling of Britain's withdrawal from Afghanistan and his decision to stay on holiday until hours after Kabul's fall to the Taliban, according to local media.

His replacement Liz Truss, who was international trade secretary, has become the second woman to hold the position of foreign secretary in Britain. She has reportedly received praises for securing trade deals between Britain and a number of countries following the Brexit.

Raab replaced Robert Buckland who was removed from the justice secretary post. Buckland tweeted: "It has been an honour to serve in government for the last seven years, and as the Lord Chancellor for the last two. I am deeply proud of everything I have achieved. On to the next adventure."

Johnson's reshuffle also brought about the exit of Gavin Williamson as education secretary and Robert Jenrick as housing secretary.

The removal of Williamson from his post came as he was criticized for his handling of disruption to schools and exams during the pandemic, according to local media. Jenrick has faced calls for resignation after he admitted last year his decision to unlawfully approve a controversial property development bid by a Tory donor.

Anne-Marie Trevelyan, minister for energy, clean growth and climate change, has filled the vacancy left by Truss to become the international trade secretary.

Nadhim Zahawi, minister for COVID vaccine deployment, has been promoted to education secretary. Michael Gove, minister for the cabinet office, has been appointed as the new housing secretary. Nadine Dorries, minister for mental health, has become Britain's new culture secretary.

Home Secretary Priti Patel, Defense Secretary Ben Wallace and Health Secretary Sajid Javid retain their posts.

Britain's previous major cabinet reshuffle was in February 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic started and the country went into its first COVID-19 lockdown. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2021-09-16 02:51:18|Editor: huaxia

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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson attends a virtual summit of G7 leaders, in London, Britain, on Aug. 24, 2021. (Simon Dawson/No 10 Downing Street/Handout via Xinhua)

Raab's replacement Liz Truss, who was international trade secretary, has become the second woman to hold the position of foreign secretary in Britain. She has reportedly received praises for securing trade deals between Britain and a number of countries following the Brexit.



LONDON, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- British Prime Minister Boris Johnson carried out a reshuffle of his cabinet ministers on Wednesday, with Dominic Raab removed as foreign secretary among other changes.

Johnson's cabinet reshuffle aimed to put in place "a strong and united team to build back better from the pandemic," and would have a focus on "uniting and levelling up the whole country," according to Downing Street.

Raab will become justice secretary and also take up the role of deputy prime minister. He has been under fire for his handling of Britain's withdrawal from Afghanistan and his decision to stay on holiday until hours after Kabul's fall to the Taliban, according to local media.

His replacement Liz Truss, who was international trade secretary, has become the second woman to hold the position of foreign secretary in Britain. She has reportedly received praises for securing trade deals between Britain and a number of countries following the Brexit.

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab (R) walks with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken outside Downing Street ahead of the meeting of the Group of Seven (G7) foreign and development ministers in London, Britain, on May 3, 2021. (Tim Hammond/No 10 Downing Street/Handout via Xinhua)

Raab replaced Robert Buckland who was removed from the justice secretary post. Buckland tweeted: "It has been an honour to serve in government for the last seven years, and as the Lord Chancellor for the last two. I am deeply proud of everything I have achieved. On to the next adventure."

Johnson's reshuffle also brought about the exit of Gavin Williamson as education secretary and Robert Jenrick as housing secretary.

The removal of Williamson from his post came as he was criticized for his handling of disruption to schools and exams during the pandemic, according to local media. Jenrick has faced calls for resignation after he admitted last year his decision to unlawfully approve a controversial property development bid by a Tory donor.

Britain's International Trade Secretary Liz Truss leaves 10 Downing Street after attending a cabinet meeting in London, Britain, on July 25, 2019. (Photo by Alberto Pezzali/Xinhua)

Anne-Marie Trevelyan, minister for energy, clean growth and climate change, has filled the vacancy left by Truss to become the international trade secretary.

Nadhim Zahawi, minister for COVID vaccine deployment, has been promoted to education secretary. Michael Gove, minister for the cabinet office, has been appointed as the new housing secretary. Nadine Dorries, minister for mental health, has become Britain's new culture secretary.

Home Secretary Priti Patel, Defense Secretary Ben Wallace and Health Secretary Sajid Javid retain their posts.

Britain's previous major cabinet reshuffle was in February 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic started and the country went into its first COVID-19 lockdown. 
Source: Xinhua| 2021-09-16 04:36:36|Editor: huaxia

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Irish UN Ambassador Geraldine Byrne Nason (L) chairs a UN Security Council meeting on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile at the UN headquarters in New York, on Sept. 15, 2021. The Security Council on Wednesday encouraged Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan to resume negotiations on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile. (Manuel Elias/UN Photo/Handout via Xinhua)

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Security Council on Wednesday encouraged Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan to resume negotiations on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile.

In a presidential statement, the council encouraged the three stakeholders to resume talks at the invitation of the chairperson of the African Union (AU) to finalize expeditiously the text of mutually acceptable and binding agreement on the filling and operation of the dam, "within a reasonable time frame."

The Security Council called on the three countries to take forward the AU-led negotiation process in a constructive and cooperative manner.

The council also encouraged observers that have been invited to attend the AU-led negotiations and any other observers that the three countries may consensually decide to jointly invite, to continue supporting the negotiations with a view to facilitating the resolution of outstanding technical and legal issues.

It underscored that this statement does not set out any principles or precedent in any other transboundary water disputes. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2021-09-16 05:25:13|Editor: huaxia

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Tourists visit the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the United States, on Aug. 18, 2021. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

COVID-19 deaths and cases in the United States have climbed to levels not seen since last winter, wiping out months of progress and potentially bolstering President Biden's argument for sweeping new vaccination requirements, media reported.

NEW YORK, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- The federal government of the United States is commanding a strong gear for its COVID-19 vaccination efforts with new vaccine approval planned and extra pressure exerted on the country's top businesses and incoming immigrants, as the pandemic has killed roughly one in every 500 Americans.

U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to meet on Wednesday with executives from companies including Walt Disney Co., Microsoft Corp. and Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. to advance his COVID-19 vaccination requirements for the private sector.

The White House meeting comes after a plan Biden announced last week designed to bring the pandemic under control, which includes vaccine requirements affecting roughly 100 million workers. Attendees are expected to discuss how they are expanding requirements at their companies and institutions and how mandates have driven up vaccinations among employees.





ANOTHER GRIM MILESTONE

According to Johns Hopkins University data, as of Tuesday night, 663,913 people in the United States have died of COVID-19. Per the U.S. Census Bureau, the country's population as of April 2020 was 331.4 million.

This meant that roughly "one in 500 Americans have died from coronavirus since the nation's first reported infection," "another grim milestone in its fight against the devastating COVID-19 pandemic," reported CNN on Wednesday.

A U.S. national flag and flowers are seen at a cemetery in New York, the United States, July 29, 2020. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)

Meanwhile, according to The New York Times, the 7-day average of confirmed cases of the pandemic stood at 152,177 nationwide on Tuesday, with its 14-day change striking a 5-percent fall. COVID-19-related deaths were 1,888 on Tuesday, with the 14-day change realizing a 50-percent rise.

COVID-19 deaths and cases in the United States have climbed to levels not seen since last winter, wiping out months of progress and potentially bolstering President Biden's argument for sweeping new vaccination requirements, reported ABC late Tuesday.

Fifty four percent of U.S. adults said the worst of the outbreak is still to come, despite widespread vaccination efforts, according to a Pew Research Center report based on a survey of 10,348 U.S. adults conducted from Aug. 23 to 29, which was released on Wednesday.





VACCINES FOR SMALL CHILDREN

Pfizer and BioNTech plan to file for Food and Drug Administration (FDA) emergency authorization in November for their COVID-19 vaccine for children younger than 5, Pfizer Chief Financial Officer Frank D'Amelio said on Tuesday.

The company expects to have data for the 5 to 11 age group by the end of September, while data for the even younger group is expected later in October, D'Amelio added.

Children go out with their teachers in San Francisco, California, the United States, June 15, 2021. (Photo by Dong Xudong/Xinhua)

The FDA is under pressure to authorize a vaccine for children younger than 12, as many parents say they are anxious to get their children vaccinated as schools reopen and the highly contagious delta variant continues to spread.

Studies for the Pfizer vaccine in children ages 5 to 11 are ready for review, according to the FDA. Pediatrician Pia Fenimore in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, said that meant the vaccine could be ready sooner than expected, possibly in mid- to late October.

"A lot of people were willing to volunteer their child for these studies, so we were able to get the numbers of children in these studies faster than we thought we would," NBC on Tuesday quoted her as saying.





MORE VACCINATIONS

The above-mentioned Pew report also found that 73 percent of those aged 18 and older say they've received at least one dose of a vaccine for COVID-19. About a quarter of adults say they have not received a vaccine.

Some of the lowest vaccination rates are seen among those with no health insurance and white evangelical Protestants (57 percent each) as well as among Republicans and Republican leaners (60 percent), per the report.

In another development, the United States will require new immigrants to be fully vaccinated against the coronavirus as part of its routine medical examination, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced on Tuesday.

People walk past a mobile COVID-19 testing site on a street in New York, the United States, on July 20, 2021. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)

The measure goes into effect on Oct. 1. Most people applying to become a permanent resident in the United States are required to receive the immigration medical examination "to show they are free from any conditions that would render them inadmissible under the health-related grounds," according to USCIS.

The coronavirus vaccination requirement follows updated guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, USCIS said. Exceptions to the requirement will be allowed for medical conditions, if there is a lack of vaccine supply or if the vaccine is "not age-appropriate" for the immigration applicant, USCIS said. Religious or "moral convictions" exemptions may be requested on a case-by-case basis. 
Source: Xinhua| 2021-09-16 12:08:44|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping has sent a congratulatory letter to the China Quality Conference, which opened Thursday in Hangzhou, capital city of east China's Zhejiang Province.

Noting that quality is an important guarantee for production and life for humanity, Xi said in the letter that China is committed to carrying out quality enhancement actions, improving quality standards, strengthening quality management, promoting reforms for better quality, higher efficiency and more robust growth drivers, and pushing high-quality development.

China is willing to work with all countries to strengthen international cooperation on quality, jointly promote quality reform and innovation, promote quality infrastructure connectivity, and make contributions to promoting global economic development and creating a better future for humanity, Xi said.

Themed with "Quality Evolution, Digital Empowerment, Green Development, Global Synergy," the two-day conference was held for the fourth time since 2014. The previous editions took place in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, respectively. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2021-09-16 15:48:48|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping has visited revolutionary sites on the Loess Plateau during his domestic inspection this week, continuing a practice he has been following for some time.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, attaches great attention to revolutionary sites and has personally visited many such sites across the country.

Xi said these revolutionary resources bear witness to the Party's arduous but glorious journey and form the "most precious spiritual wealth," calling for carrying forward the revolutionary traditions.

The following are highlights of some of Xi's trips to the "red sites" in the past two years.

September 13-14, 2021

In a two-day inspection tour of Yulin City in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Xi visited the revolutionary site of Yangjiagou, where Mao Zedong and the Party's central authorities stayed for over four months between 1947 and 1948, commanding the War of Liberation and leading the land reform movement.

Xi stressed always upholding and improving the Party's leadership, upholding the basic tenets of Marxism and the principle of seeking truth from facts, and adapting Marxism to China's conditions.

Xi also visited the premises of the former prefectural Party committee of Suide.

The CPC has the support of the people, Xi said, explaining the success of the revolution. "We must carry forward revolutionary traditions and fine conduct and always keep the people's interests uppermost in mind," he said.

June 25, 2021

Xi led members of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee to visit the "Red Building," once the main campus of Peking University.

During the visit, Xi noted that Peking University, the base of the New Culture Movement and a cradle of the May 4th Movement, witnessed the early spread of Marxism in China.

Xi said the place also witnessed the Party's early revolutionary activities in Beijing and is a place of great significance in the founding of the CPC.

April 25, 2021

In south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Xi visited a memorial park dedicated to the Battle of Xiangjiang during the Long March in the 1930s.

The battle, which happened soon after the beginning of the Long March, cost the Central Red Army more than 50,000 of its 86,000 troops. But the CPC remained unshaken in its convictions and emerged stronger from the setbacks.

Xi said that the battle was a life-or-death event of the Chinese revolution and stressed the importance of CPC members staying true to their ideals and convictions.

Xi called for carrying forward this spirit and meeting head-on with major risks and challenges on the country's new Long March to achieve the second centenary goal.

September 16, 2020

In central China's Hunan Province, Xi visited a revolution-themed exhibition chronicling the story of an impoverished villager named Xu Jiexiu.

In the 1930s, Xu offered shelter to three female Red Army soldiers on the Long March. Before their departure, the soldiers cut their only quilt into two pieces, leaving one part with Xu.

Xi said the story illustrates the people-oriented nature of the CPC and its deep care about the people. He urged CPC members to deliver on the Party's commitments and promises and stand together with the people on the Long March of the new era.

August 19, 2020

During an inspection tour to the city of Hefei, Xi visited a memorial hall commemorating the Crossing-the-Yangtze Campaign.

In April 1949, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) crossed the Yangtze River to seize Nanjing, the center of the reactionary rule of the Kuomintang, leading to national liberation.

The campaign's victory comes from masses of boats paddled by the people, Xi said. "We should never forget our original aspiration and founding mission, never forget the people, and always be loyal servants of the people."

July 22, 2020

Xi visited the memorial hall for the Siping Battle of the Chinese People's War of Liberation in northeast China's Jilin Province.

During the battle, nearly 20,000 officers and soldiers lost their lives. The battle, however, provided valuable experience for the PLA in city battles.

"We must keep firmly in mind that New China did not come easily," Xi said, calling on efforts to safeguard the great socialist cause and carry it forward.

September 16, 2019

During a three-day tour to central China's Henan Province, Xi chose a martyrs' cemetery in Xinxian County, an old revolutionary base, as his first stop and presented a basket of flowers at a monument to revolutionary martyrs.

Museums, memorial halls, and martyrs' cemeteries serve as the 'gene pool' of the revolutionary traditions for the Party and country, Xi said.

"Stories of the CPC, the revolutionary history, the old revolutionary bases, and heroes and martyrs must be told well," Xi added.

September 12, 2019

At Fragrant Hills in suburban Beijing, Xi visited places where Mao Zedong and other older-generation Party leaders had worked and lived after they arrived in the city in early 1949.

From there, Mao and his comrades led the revolution to a national victory and prepared for the founding of the People's Republic of China in October 1949.

Xi said that commemorating this part of history is to strengthen confidence in the path, theory, system, and culture of socialism with Chinese characteristics. "It will embolden us to carry out the great struggle with many new historical characteristics and overcome any difficulties ahead," Xi said.

The CPC members should always maintain their enterprising spirit, ensure the Party's purity and advanced nature, and pass the test of the new era, Xi said. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2021-09-16 16:55:28|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping Thursday sent a congratulatory letter to the First International Summit on BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) Applications, which was held in Changsha, central China's Hunan Province.

In his letter, Xi noted that with the rapid development of global digitalization, spatiotemporal information as well as positioning and navigation services have become important new infrastructures.

"Since I announced the commissioning of the BDS-3 global navigation satellite system in July last year, the BDS has been put into use in more than half of the countries and regions in the world," he said, adding that the large-scale application of BDS has entered a critical stage of marketization, industrialization and internationalization.

Xi emphasized that the BDS has benefited the Chinese people as well as people around the world. China is committed to openness and integration, coordination and cooperation, compatibility and complementarity, and sharing. It is willing to work with all sides to promote the building of the BDS and the development of the BDS industry.

China is also willing to share the achievements of the BDS with all sides, promote the progress of the global satellite navigation industry, and make the BDS better serve the world and benefit humankind, he added.

The First International Summit on BDS Applications opened Thursday with the theme "BDS serves the world, application fuels the future." Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2021-09-16 23:06:23|Editor: huaxia

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"War is the American way of life," says U.S. historian Paul Atwood.

BEIJING, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- In the bloody drone strike on what the U.S. military claimed "suspected suicide bombers" in Afghanistan late August, 10 members of one family, including a two-year-old girl, were killed. All of them were innocent civilians.

However, when U.S. media raised doubts with evidences suggesting the targeted vehicle contained no explosives and the family had no connection to terrorist groups, a spokesperson for the U.S. Ministry of Defense understated the attack, saying "not aware of any plans to put investigators on the ground."

The remarks are a typical reflection of Washington's disregard for life. For centuries, the United States has been obsessed with aggressive wars. Its endless military actions have seriously violated human rights and caused tremendous humanitarian disasters across the world, and made the country the biggest saboteur of global peace and stability.

File photo shows American soldiers patrolling at attack scene in Maidan Shahr, capital city of Wardak province, Afghanistan on Sept 8, 2013. (Xinhua)

As U.S. historian Paul Atwood put it, "War is the American way of life." Since its independence on July 4, 1776, in more than 240 years, the United States was not at war for merely 16 years. Its path towards global dominance was built on wars, slavery and slaughters.

After the end of World War II, the United States has launched a series of wars in foreign lands and brought about conflicts and chaos in many places of the world, leaving horrific civilian casualties and property damage.

Take the Iraq War as an example. Amid global oppositions, Washington invaded the oil-rich country in 2003 with allegations that the country possessed weapons of mass destruction, although there was no concrete evidence.

According to Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, between 184,382 and 207,156 Iraqi civilians were directly killed in war-related violence in the country.

The invaders also deployed such weapons as depleted uranium bombs and white-phosphorus bombs during the war, which has posed a grave threat to local environment and the public health. According to the Iraqi authorities, prior to the First Gulf War in 1991, the rate of cancer cases in Iraq was 40 out of 100,000 people, while by 2005, the figure had soared to at least 1,600 out of 100,000.

A study by the Smithsonian Magazine in 2019 showed that the U.S.-launched wars and military operations under the pretext of "anti-terrorism" after the 9/11 attacks have "spread to more than 40 percent of the world's countries."

A woman commemorates victims in the 9/11 attacks at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum in New York, the United States, Sept. 10, 2021. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)

Over 929,000 people were killed in the violence of the post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere, with 38 million people displaced in the past two decades, showed September data by the Costs of War project of Brown University.

"Endless campaigns abroad unleash a host of political forces -- militarism, secrecy, enhanced executive authority, xenophobia, faux patriotism, demagoguery, etc," wrote Stephen M. Walt, a professor of international relations at Harvard University, in an earlier piece on Foreign Policy magazine.

The United States is not only a notorious war criminal, but also the "dirty hands" that messed other countries up. In his book "America's Deadliest Export: Democracy," U.S. writer William Blum pointed out that the United States has tried to overthrow more than 50 foreign governments since the end of World War II, interfered in elections in at least 30 nations, and attempted to assassinate over 50 foreign leaders. Cuba's Granma daily has reported that in the last 20 years, U.S. institutions including the Agency for International Development and the National Endowment for Democracy have allocated about 250 million U.S. dollars to finance destabilizing and subversive activities in the island country.

A countless number of facts have proved that the United States is the real disruptor of international rules and the world order, the source of growing uncertainties across the world, as well as the major stumbling block in the pursuit of peace and development.

If the United States continues to be addicted to hegemony and the law of the jungle, it will be drifting toward antithesis of peace-loving people and countries, and be left behind by the times. 
Source: Xinhua| 2021-09-17 03:50:21|Editor: huaxia

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Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi (L) meets with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, Sept. 16, 2021. (Xinhua)

Lavrov said that the two sides should continue to boost anti-epidemic cooperation, push forward pragmatic exchanges, and expand trade volumes.



DUSHANBE, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made a common commitment on Thursday to strengthen cooperation in various fields between the two countries.

Not long ago, the two ministers attended the commemoration of the 76th anniversary of the victory of World War II, voicing loud and clear their position that history should not be tampered with and truth should not be erased, Wang said during a meeting with Lavrov.

He said that China firmly backs Russia in pursuing a development path that is suited to its national conditions and taking measures to protect its state power, sovereignty and security.

China is ready to work with Russia to safeguard the outcome of the victory of World War II and uphold international fairness and justice, Wang said.

He suggested that the two countries continue to advance anti-epidemic cooperation, achieve the bilateral trade target of 200 billion U.S. dollars annually at an early date, and open up a new chapter of the China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era.

Wang said that China is ready to step up coordination with Russia on the Afghan issue and respond together, urging the United States and the West to shoulder their due responsibilities and jointly maintain regional peace and stability.

The senior official said China appreciates Russia's opposition to politicizing COVID-19 origins tracing and human rights issues, and stands ready to deepen back-to-back strategic coordination with Russia, and promote international cooperation against the pandemic.

He added that China and Russia should communicate and coordinate within the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), jointly safeguard peace and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region, and tackle various global challenges.

Lavrov said Russia and China held events commemorating the victory of World War II, which once again proved the unbreakable friendship forged on the battlefield and indestructible partnership between the two countries.

He said that the two sides should continue to boost anti-epidemic cooperation, push forward pragmatic exchanges, and expand trade volumes.

Russia unwaveringly supports China's positions on issues related to Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Tibet and human rights, Lavrov said, adding that tracing COVID-19 origins is a scientific issue and should not be used as an instrument for political pressure.

Russia supports China in hosting the Beijing Winter Olympic Games and wishes Chinese athletes more achievements in the event, he noted.

He said Russia is willing to work with China to push for greater influence of the SCO, strengthen coordination on the Afghan issue, jointly safeguard peace and stability in Central Asia, address global issues such as information security, biosecurity and cyber crimes in the United Nations and other multilateral arenas, and increase coordination and cooperation in Asia-Pacific affairs. 
Source: Xinhua| 2021-09-17 04:24:21|Editor: huaxia

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Wang Qun (R, Front), Chinese envoy to the United Nations and other international organizations in Vienna, is interviewed after a meeting of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) Joint Commission in Vienna, Austria, on June 12, 2021. (Xinhua/Guo Chen)

"This contradicts the purpose, objective and core obligation of the NPT to the detriment of the international nuclear non-proliferation regime with the NPT at its core and on-going international efforts on this front," Wang stated.

VIENNA, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese diplomat on Thursday expressed China's "grave concern" at the pronounced assistance by the United States and the United Kingdom to Australia's acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines.

Addressing the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) Board of Governors meeting here, Wang Qun, Chinese envoy to the United Nations and other international organizations in Vienna, described the trilateral move as "sheer act of nuclear proliferation".

The U.S. and the UK, both nuclear weapon states, and are state parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) which prevents proliferation of nuclear weapons and technologies, the core obligation for its state parties, Wang stated.

He stressed that such assistance "will apparently give rise to proliferation of nuclear materials and technologies by openly providing assistance to Australia", a non-nuclear weapon state, in its acquisition and building of the nuclear-powered submarine.

Photo taken on Sept. 3, 2021 shows the White House in Washington, D.C., the United States. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

"This contradicts the purpose, objective and core obligation of the NPT to the detriment of the international nuclear non-proliferation regime with the NPT at its core and on-going international efforts on this front," Wang stated.

"While firmly safeguarding the validity of the international non-proliferation regime, China wishes to register its grave concern at the development," Wang said.

"In the meantime, we believe that, it is the responsibility of IAEA, as an international organization mandated to implement NPT non-proliferation regime, to openly express its solemn position at the trilateral act by the U.S., the UK and Australia, which contradict their obligations under the NPT," Wang stated.

Wang also stressed that, such an act of nuclear proliferation "will give rise to serious negative implications on the on-going international efforts to address the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula as well as the Iranian nuclear issue".

A lantern is seen on the doorstep of 10 Downing Street in London, Britain, on March 23, 2021. (Xinhua/Ray Tang)

"Given the ongoing review and discussions of the Korean Peninsula and Iranian nuclear issues at the IAEA Board of Governors and the General Conference, it is essential that all members of the Board and international organizations including IAEA, make solemn position on the trilateral collaboration among the U.S., UK and Australia in helping Australia develop nuclear-powered submarine, in promotion of the full and effective implementation of international non-proliferation obligations under the NPT by all countries," he stated.

Exporting highly sensitive nuclear submarine technology to Australia has shown that the U.S. and the UK have "once again adopted a double standard on nuclear export", and "have taken nuclear export as a means of their geo-political game", Wang pointed out.

Wang said that, in the meantime, it is "utterly irresponsible" for Australia, as a non-nuclear state and state party to the NPT and South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty, to import nuclear submarine technology with strategic militarily value.

"The international community, including neighboring countries, has every reason to question Australia's sincerity in implementation of nuclear non-proliferation commitment under the relevant treaties," he said.

The trilateral collaboration by the U.S., the UK and Australia "will seriously impair the regional peace and stability, escalate arms race, to the detriment of international peace and security," Wang added.

Wang said that China will closely follow its development and reserve the right to make further responses. In the meantime, China will call on the international community to "work together to check such a dangerous act".

In a joint statement issued on Wednesday, governments of the U.S., the UK and Australia announced the creation of a new trilateral security partnership called "AUKUS," which will help "significantly deepen cooperation on a range of security and defense capabilities".

The first initiative under AUKUS will be the delivery of a nuclear-powered submarine fleet for Australia, and the three countries will spend as many as 18 months discussing how this capability will be delivered, according to the statement. 
Source: Xinhua| 2021-09-16 09:09:38|Editor: huaxia

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TRIPOLI, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on Wednesday said that 345 illegal migrants were rescued and returned to Libya in two separate operations.

The UN refugee agency tweeted, "32 persons were disembarked today at Azzawiya Refinery point (western Libya) and 313 others were returned to Tripoli last night after being rescued/intercepted at sea."

"UNHCR & IRC were present during both disembarkations to provide urgent medical aid and humanitarian assistance to all survivors," it said.

Libya has been suffering insecurity and chaos since the fall of late leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, making the North African country a preferred point of departure for illegal migrants seeking to cross the Mediterranean Sea to European shores.

So far this year, 23,601 illegal migrants have been rescued, while hundreds of others have died and gone missing off the Libyan coast on the Central Mediterranean route, according to the International Organization for Migration. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2021-09-16 15:52:02|Editor: huaxia

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UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese envoy on Wednesday called for efforts to build on the remarkable progress achieved in the political process in South Sudan in the past three years and work toward lasting peace.

The Revitalized Peace Agreement signed three years ago provides the only framework for peace in South Sudan, said Dai Bing, China's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations.

"All factions in South Sudan should maintain the current positive momentum, continue to advance the preparations for general elections and the building of unified forces, among other tasks, so as to steadily promote the implementation of the peace agreement," he told the Security Council.

The talks between the government of South Sudan and the opposition have encountered some difficulties. All parties should maintain a constructive attitude and sign the peace agreement as soon as possible. The international community should respect the leadership of South Sudan in handling its own national affairs and support regional organizations in playing an active role. The Security Council should heed the call of the African Union to lift the sanctions against South Sudan as soon as possible to effectively improve the environment for peace and development in South Sudan, he said.

At present, peace and stability have been generally maintained in South Sudan and the cease-fire is taking hold. However, inter-communal conflict and armed violence still occur from time to time. All parties concerned must keep the overarching goal in mind, resolve differences through dialogue and consultation and work together for the peace process, he said.

Promoting inter-communal reconciliation is a key link in the security and stability in South Sudan. Resolving inter-communal conflicts cannot be accomplished overnight. Multiple means that integrate mediation, good offices and development need to be adopted to eliminate the root causes of conflict, he said.

The government of South Sudan has made a lot of efforts to that end, but faced many difficulties. The international community should provide financial and technical support to help the government of South Sudan to improve its capacity to protect civilians, said Dai.

Though economic reform in South Sudan has achieved some results, many difficulties and challenges remain, including prominent food security issues, COVID-19, and a large gap in its humanitarian needs, he said.

"We call on the international community to continue to provide humanitarian assistance and economic support to South Sudan to solve its food security issues," he said. "The focus should be on increasing investment in agriculture, energy, infrastructure, education, and health care, in order to help the people of South Sudan rebuild their homeland and stimulate their self-generated development momentum."

China is concerned about the difficulties faced by the humanitarian organizations and hopes that the parties concerned will provide favorable conditions for humanitarian relief operations and work together to improve the humanitarian situation in South Sudan.

China will continue to provide assistance within its capacity to South Sudan, he said.

Over the past decade, parties in South Sudan have worked hard to overcome various difficulties and challenges and have taken important steps to rebuild the country. The international community and the parties in South Sudan must draw lessons from history while looking into the future, and work together to push South Sudan forward on the path of lasting peace and sustainable development, and make contributions to the prosperity and development of the region, he said. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2021-09-16 21:18:21|Editor: huaxia

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KAMPALA, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- The Ugandan police, working with a non-governmental organization, have rescued 38 victims of human trafficking in neighboring Kenya, a police spokesperson said here on Thursday.

Charles Twiine, the Criminal Investigations Directorate spokesperson, said in a tweet that working with the organization of "Make a Child Smile," they have rescued 31 females and seven males, all Ugandans.

Twiine said the victims are currently housed at a hotel at the border town of Busia, pending reintegration to their respective homes.

Human trafficking is common in Uganda, and according to the immigration department, the country is increasingly being used as a transit route by traffickers who promise to take people to work in the Middle East.

Late August, Uganda rescued eight Burundian female nationals from suspected human traffickers. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2021-09-16 22:51:06|Editor: huaxia

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CAIRO, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry on Thursday met with his counterpart of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to discuss efforts to resume talks on the controversial Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Shoukry stressed that all parties should reach "a legally binding agreement on the rules of filling and operating the dam" as soon as possible, adding the vision of DRC President Felix Tshisekedi, the current chairperson of the African Union (AU), over resuming talks contributes positively to solving the issue.

For his part, DRC Foreign Minister Christophe Lutundula said that talks with the Egyptian side were positive and will help in finding a legal solution for Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan.

"My visit to Cairo, Khartoum and Addis Ababa comes upon directives of President Tshisekedi to deliver a message of hope and trust to all sides," the DRC diplomat said, stressing that Africa needs unity and integration among its countries.

Lutundula also hailed the United Nations Security Council's statement on Wednesday encouraging Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia to continue the AU-sponsored talks on the GERD.

Ethiopia, which started building the GERD in 2011, expects to produce more than 6,000 megawatts of electricity from the dam project, while Egypt and Sudan, downstream Nile Basin countries that rely on the Nile river for its freshwater needs, are concerned that the GERD will affect their shares of the water resources. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2021-09-16 18:41:19|Editor: huaxia

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ISTANBUL, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- China and Turkey have been creating win-win cooperation within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), experts said recently.

The two nations have seen their cooperation flourishing since 2013, when China first proposed the BRI, aiming to mobilize more resources, strengthen connectivity between countries, regions and markets, as well as leverage potential growth drivers.

As a strong supporter of the BRI, Turkey signed a memorandum of understanding with China in 2015 to align its Middle Corridor (MC) plan linking Turkey and Europe with China via a Trans-Caspian transport route.

"Since this agreement, we have seen important infrastructure investment from China in Turkey, which has led to better understanding between the two states," Selcuk Colakoglu, a Turkish academic and expert on China, told Xinhua.

Colakoglu said Ankara would benefit from increasing national infrastructure investment within the BRI.

"In this initiative, China and Turkey are good partners who are working hand in hand for a common target, which is to boost trade and economic relations between partner nations," said Colakoglu, head of the Asia-Pacific Studies.

Beijing has invested in some of the MC's key projects to boost the transportation between China and European countries through this route, the expert said.

The most notable was the 840-km-long Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railroad (BTK) linking Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, completed in 2017. The BTK shortened the Asia-Europe transportation route between Beijing and London by some 7,000 km.

"The number of journeys between Europe and China shows the huge potential between Turkey and China in the BRI and the Middle Corridor," a Turkish government source told Xinhua.

"In the following years, we may be able to see more dynamic railway-based exports and imports between Asia and Europe," the source said.

Several other infrastructure projects financed by Ankara within the MC, such as the Canakkale Strait Bridge and the Edirne-Kars high-speed rail, are underway.

Ankara is seeking more Chinese investments in Turkish transportation, energy and mining infrastructure, said Colakoglu.

"The BRI will become a game-changer for the future in terms of the large picture of the economy," Colakoglu said.

"China is bringing investments, while Turkey is set to gain from it because of its geographical position," he added.

While the BRI has created an "important momentum" in China-Turkish ties, Ankara's financial woes since a currency meltdown in 2018 pose a challenge to the Turkish portion of the enormous initiative, scholars noted.

"Ankara's financial resources are limited ... and it would be advantageous for Turkey if it calibrates its visions on the BRI with those of China's," Emre Demir, a scholar of international relations at TED University in Ankara, told Xinhua, calling on Turkey to make long-term commitments.

Demir stressed that the BRI is "without doubt an endeavor" to forge closer relations between China and Turkey. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2021-09-16 11:20:20|Editor: huaxia

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NEW YORK, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- American private space company Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) launched its first civilian space tourism mission on Wednesday night in Florida, a SpaceX webcast said.

The Crew Dragon spacecraft, named as Inspiration4 and sent from Kennedy Space Center, entered the orbit of earth shortly after the launch.

As the world's first all-commercial astronaut mission to orbit, Inspiration4 is commanded by Jared Isaacman, the 38-year-old founder and CEO of Shift4 Payments, said SpaceX.

The spacecraft will remain in a 575-km high orbit for three days before reentering Earth's atmosphere for a soft water landing off the coast of Florida.

The Inspiration4 crew will conduct scientific research designed to advance human health on Earth and during future long-duration space flights.

Isaacman is donating the three seats alongside him aboard Dragon to other three individuals including Hayley Arceneaux, a physician assistant at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and pediatric cancer survivor, Chris Sembroski, an Air Force veteran and aerospace data engineer, and Sian Proctor, a geoscientist, entrepreneur, and trained pilot.

The mission is also aimed at raising awareness and funds for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.

The Dragon spacecraft was lifted by Falcon 9, a two-stage rocket designed and manufactured by SpaceX for the reliable and safe transport of satellites and the Dragon spacecraft into orbit.

SpaceX is in a race to take customers to space with Virgin Galactic Holdings and Blue Origin.

Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Inc., recently announced the launch of a private space company Privateer Space to "keep space safe and accessible to all humankind."

Headquartered in Hawthorne, California, SpaceX was founded in 2002 by entrepreneur Elon Musk with the goal of reducing space transportation costs and enabling the colonization of Mars. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2021-09-16 21:17:30|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- In the bloody drone strike on what the U.S. military claimed "suspected suicide bombers" in Afghanistan late August, 10 members of one family, including a two-year-old girl, were killed. All of them were innocent civilians.

However, when U.S. media raised doubts with evidences suggesting the targeted vehicle contained no explosives and the family had no connection to terrorist groups, a spokesperson for the U.S. Ministry of Defense understated the attack, saying "not aware of any plans to put investigators on the ground."

The remarks are a typical reflection of Washington's disregard for life. For centuries, the United States has been obsessed with aggressive wars. Its endless military actions have seriously violated human rights and caused tremendous humanitarian disasters across the world, and made the country the biggest saboteur of global peace and stability.

As U.S. historian Paul Atwood put it, "War is the American way of life." Since its independence on July 4, 1776, in more than 240 years, the United States was not at war for merely 16 years. Its path towards global dominance was built on wars, slavery and slaughters.

After the end of World War II, the United States has launched a series of wars in foreign lands and brought about conflicts and chaos in many places of the world, leaving horrific civilian casualties and property damage.

Take the Iraq War as an example. Amid global oppositions, Washington invaded the oil-rich country in 2003 with allegations that the country possessed weapons of mass destruction, although there was no concrete evidence.

According to Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, between 184,382 and 207,156 Iraqi civilians were directly killed in war-related violence in the country.

The invaders also deployed such weapons as depleted uranium bombs and white-phosphorus bombs during the war, which has posed a grave threat to local environment and the public health. According to the Iraqi authorities, prior to the First Gulf War in 1991, the rate of cancer cases in Iraq was 40 out of 100,000 people, while by 2005, the figure had soared to at least 1,600 out of 100,000.

A study by the Smithsonian Magazine in 2019 showed that the U.S.-launched wars and military operations under the pretext of "anti-terrorism" after the 9/11 attacks have "spread to more than 40 percent of the world's countries."

Over 929,000 people were killed in the violence of the post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere, with 38 million people displaced in the past two decades, showed September data by the Costs of War project of Brown University.

"Endless campaigns abroad unleash a host of political forces -- militarism, secrecy, enhanced executive authority, xenophobia, faux patriotism, demagoguery, etc," wrote Stephen M. Walt, a professor of international relations at Harvard University, in an earlier piece on Foreign Policy magazine.

The United States is not only a notorious war criminal, but also the "dirty hands" that messed other countries up. In his book "America's Deadliest Export: Democracy," U.S. writer William Blum pointed out that the United States has tried to overthrow more than 50 foreign governments since the end of World War II, interfered in elections in at least 30 nations, and attempted to assassinate over 50 foreign leaders. Cuba's Granma daily has reported that in the last 20 years, U.S. institutions including the Agency for International Development and the National Endowment for Democracy have allocated about 250 million U.S. dollars to finance destabilizing and subversive activities in the island country.

A countless number of facts have proved that the United States is the real disruptor of international rules and the world order, the source of growing uncertainties across the world, as well as the major stumbling block in the pursuit of peace and development.

If the United States continues to be addicted to hegemony and the law of the jungle, it will be drifting toward antithesis of peace-loving people and countries, and be left behind by the times. Enditem
PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa yesterday handed over five brand new buses to the military and police and pledged three more for each of the State security agencies by year-end. This comes as the general public is faced with a severe public transport crisis following the banning of privately-owned kombis at the start of the COVID-19-induced lockdown last year.

Government recently also promised to set up exclusive hospitals, garrison shops and shopping malls in barracks in what observers said was tantamount to pampering the security sector ahead of the 2023 harmonised elections.

Mnangagwa handed over two buses to the Zimbabwe National Army, one for the ZNA headquarters while the Presidential Guard, Airforce of Zimbabwe and the Zimbabwe Republic Police received one each.

He pledged to procure more buses for the security sector to address their transport needs.

He said: Some buses are on the high seas, we should be able to have another batch in October, another batch in November and another in December. Newsday


President Mnangagwa, who turned 79-years yesterday, called on Zimbabweans to be peaceful, united and most of all, be patriotic to develop the country.

Speaking at his African-themed birthday dinner hosted by First Lady Amai Auxillia Mnangagwa at State House last night, the President gave an insight into his private life, saying he is treated by his wife of 38 years to traditional cuisine at home.

On a mild September night, the dinner was graced by his governing Zanu PF party deputies  Vice President Chiwenga and Vice President Mohadi, Cabinet ministers and service chiefs as well as men of the cloth.

I met my wife Auxillia 38 years ago and up to date, we are still together. At our home you wont find cutlery at the table, we eat using our hands. My mother who gave birth to me is the one who taught my wife to stick to traditional cuisine.

President Mnangagwa and First Lady Amai Auxillia Mnangagwa arrive for the birthday dinner at State House in Harare last night. The dinner was hosted by First Lady Amai Auxillia Mnangagwa.

Traditional food is healthy and we learned that from my mother. Tiri vemufushwa nemukaka. When you hear that the President is into agriculture, it is because of our backgrounds, he said.

The President also spoke about the economic sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by the West, saying the illegal embargoes are designed to paralyse the country. He said despite the sanctions, Zimbabwe will achieve its goals to become an upper middle class economy by 2030 because he has under him a team of dedicated lieutenants.

I am glad that I have a team that is united in building the nation brick by brick. We should teach our children to be patriotic. If we are united and peaceful then we will leapfrog the countrys development.

Responding to Vice President Chiwengas question on how he felt at 79, the President said he felt no different from what he felt the day before.

I dont feel any different at 79. Of course, we have walked a long journey and that makes you realise that one day you will have to rest. The most important thing though is to love your country, your countrymen and women, he said.

In her welcome remarks, the First Lady described the President as a loving husband.

President Mnangagwa receives a bouquet of flowers from First Lady Auxillia Mnangagwa at State House in Harare last night.

Your Excellency, allow me to congratulate you (by) saying happy birthday to the man I fell in love with so many years ago. I shall love you more and more as the years pass by. Happy birthday my best friend. We have an amazing life together, the First Lady said.

The Presidents daughter, Mrs Farai Mlotshwa described the President as a loving father who is committed to empowering the girl child.

President Mnangagwa blows off candles at his birthday dinner at State House in Harare last night while First Lady Auxilla Mnangagwa looks on.

Thank you for being the best dad, especially for the daughters, you always supported what we did career-wise. You put your mouth where your money is in supporting women, said Mrs Mlotshwa.

The Presidents son, Emmerson Jnr, called on Zimbabweans to be patriotic, saying the sacrifices that were made by the countrys liberators should forever be celebrated.

President Mnangagwas sons Sean and Collins and their uncle (right) follow proceedings at State House last night.

My father is a man who has survived the toughest conditions humanly possible  death row, imprisonment, poison, numerous assassination attempts  I could go on.

As a result of his determination and unconditional love for his country and family, today our lives have been made easier.

The small things we took for granted, dreams we dismissed as being unattainable, the notion of becoming whatever you desire, simple things like voting and acquiring decent education, freedom, and equal rights . . . the possibility for us young people to determine our destiny is achievable.

These are things dad never had but look at him now, a boy from Mberengwa now the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe. Thats the stuff that dreams are made of and thats the stuff Mnangagwas are made off.

I challenge you all to remain strong and resilient like my dad here. (We) must not only dare to dream but dare to believe, said Emmerson Jnr.

Bishop Nehemiah Mutendi spoke glowingly about the difficult road that the President walked over the years, including surviving assassination plots, but never wavered in his dedication to the motherland. Herald
THE family of late national hero and Cabinet minister Perrance Shiri has questioned the authenticity of documents used by the Master of the High Court Eldard Mutasa to handle his vast empire.

A decorated national hero and ex-Air Force of Zimbabwe commander, Shiri became Agriculture minister soon after President Emmerson Mnangagwa took over in a November 2017 coup and served in that capacity until he succumbed to COVID-19 on July 29 last year.

Some of his children have, through their lawyers, written to Mutasa on several occasions, arguing that the estate administration documents were not authentic.

Shiris estate beneficiaries also challenged Mutasas appointment of former Attorney-General Sobusa Gula-Ndebele as executor when the late Agriculture minister had a family trust with its own executor.

They claimed that Gula-Ndebele had shown bias in executing the estate as he had un-procedurally given authority to undeserving relatives to use Shiris property, namely his nephew Bornwell Chitanda who is now staying at the deceaseds property in Borrowdale after moving out of his Hatcliffe home to occupy the house which had key documents and family safes.

But Chitanda yesterday said: I was asked to stay at the late ministers house because there was no relative staying with him at the time of his death. I am just looking after the property. I know nothing about the late ministers documents to do with his estate. I wouldnt concern myself with his estate because I am not a beneficiary anyway.

The matter is now being investigated by police under reference ER5/2021 with the hope that the estate does not fall into wrong hands.

Shiris children argued that Mutasa had used a 1995 will, which the late minister had disregarded after registering a family trust with one of his children Rufaro Stephanie Shiri as executor, but who some family members are allegedly wanting to muscle out.

According to documents seen by NewsDay, the late Agriculture ministers children, Rufaro Stephanie reportedly with the support from sisters Tatenda and Cynthia, accused the Masters office of using fraudulent documents to deprive them of their inheritance.

The estate issue has ceased to be a family issue as portrayed to the public and government. People are using government letterheads and offices to execute their fraudulent activities. Mr Gula-Ndebele was appointed executor both dative and testamentary, was the Masters Office confused on what role to give to him since the family trust has its own executor? His (Mutasa) letter appointing him as administrator was stamped on August 20, 2020, but signed on August 21. Was the stamp stolen on the 20th and someone who was not supposed to sign signed his letters of administration, Stephanie queried.

The children also questioned the addition of other individuals to benefit from the estate among them Tawanda Zulu and Tanaka Stephanie Shiri who they claimed her real name was Tanaka Musvamhiri, yet they were allegedly not Shiris biological children. Zulu has been given Shiris farm under unclear circumstances through a letter reportedly signed by the late minister.

After approaching the Agriculture ministry officials who had worked with our father they happened to confirm the offer letter existed and that the farm had been subdivided, but the question is if the farm was truly subdivided, and if the Agriculture minister chairs the committee for subdivision of farms. Why did he decide to write to himself stating he wanted his farm to be given to Tawanda Zulu, whom he had not given the name Shiri and (though) (he) had stayed with the family for 10 years. The letter can only be read over the phone and had been read on the phone with ministry officials requiring a family meeting to release the letter. No one has ever seen a hard copy of the letter, but what we can confirm is its on the ministrys letterhead, she said.

But Gula-Ndebele dismissed the allegations in heated exchanges with Stephanie and her sisters lawyers.

Shiris estate was registered on August 3, 2020 by his daughter Stephanie.

If Mr Sobusa Gula-Ndebele knew he was an executor, why didnt he register the estate? Under the laws and statues of Zimbabwe, a family meeting is done to appoint an executor and the decision lies among deceaseds spouse and/or children. Such a meeting was not done, Stephanie said.

The Master of High Court has records of all wills and trusts and it is his duty to scrutinise wills and approve if they can be used to administer ones estate. The 1995 will in particular, has the following grey areas: (for instance) the marital clause states that: In the event of death of any of my daughters, her inheritance will go to her children. If the daughter has no children at the time of her death, her share of the inheritance will be shared equally among her.

She added: The clause eliminates Mr Titus Takudzwa Chikerema Shiri. I believe when the will was registered in 1995 according to the document we have only three children listed. Titus being one of them! How could he have been included in one clause and eliminated in the marital clause. How did the deceased know that Titus would not be able to marry and would not die, but the daughters would die and clearly states their children were to benefit and or siblings if there were no children?

Today, Titus is no more, he died in 2013, he had been allocated a house in the will, had no children, what is going to happen to that house since the will eliminated him in the marital clause? The clauses also suggest that he no longer has male children which people could have derived from the trust and the reason why Titus was eliminated in the new documents is because he doesnt exist, he died in 2013.

Stephanie confirmed that Gula-Ndebele was once Shiris lawyer, but argued that as an interested party, he should not have drafted and executed the will.

Witness names are not there, only signatures present, no names with ID numbers. At the time of my fathers death, Sobusa Gula-Ndebele was no longer his lawyer.

She added that the documents provided to Gula-Ndebele as executor had many disparities.

The document Acceptance of Trust as Executor MHC 11 on the top left part is printed by Printflow (Private) Limited and the signature used to sign that document is not Sobusa Gula-Ndebeles.

The bond of security for the issue of letters of administration to executor also on the top left part is printed by Printflow (Private Limited) on the top right reference number 63911-0 MHC 52 333 (J). Letter of administration is on the other hand printed by the Government Printer, Harare M.H.C.16, she said, adding that the bond of security document and letters of administration did not have the Masters signature and stamp.

She also argued that there were two copies of letters of administration  the one with the government emblem date-stamped on August 20, 2020 and deemed to have been signed by one D Gutu (for the Master of High Court) on August 21, 2020.

These are to certify that . (But) how do they certify that he (Gula-Ndebele) has a letter of administration with no official stamp or signature from the Master. This letter was only issued on the 29th of August 2020, while the one with the government emblem was issued on the 21st of August 2020, werent they supposed to be done on one day? The letter to certify him as executor has no stamp and no signatures, Stephanie questioned.

She added that according to every document provided, Gula-Ndebele was appointed executor dative and testamentary.

Executor dative is an executor that is appointed by the Master of the High Court where the deceased died without a will (intestate and/or real executor doesnt wish to accept the appointment). So on whose behalf was he being appointed executor testamentary on executor nominated by will? Stephanie asked.

Documents show that Shiri in 1995 appointed Gula-Ndebele as executor of his will and administrator of his estate together with late General Solomon Mujuru in the event that Gula-Ndebele would have failed to perform his duty properly. But Mujuru died in 2011 in a mysterious inferno at his Beatrice farmhouse.

In the will, Shiri bequeathed 50% of his bank savings, insurance policies to his now late son Titus and the other half of savings to his children Tatenda and Cynthia Shiri, and all his other children who were yet to be born and to come.

A death notice filed at the Masters Offices indicated that three more children Tawanda (adopted son who stayed with his family for 10 years before he reportedly moved out), Stephanie and Tanaka were also listed as beneficiaries of Shiris estate.

So this implies even those that Gula-Ndebele would want to include can only benefit from the savings and nothing else which then nullifies his distribution account which allocates shares to Tawanda Zulu and Tanaka Musvamhiri also in the overall estate distribution, Stephanie argues.

Yesterday, Tanaka responded: I do not dispute the documents that are being used by the Master of the High Court. I accept them as authentic. I cant comment further, but I insist that I am the late ministers daughter and I have proof to that effect.

Zulu said: I cant comment on the matter. Those who are making claims on the authenticity of the documents are better placed to answer your questions.

On April 12, 2021, Stephanie wrote to Mutasa requesting to be appointed as executrix dative of her fathers estate, since Gula-Ndebele as the executor testamentary had allegedly failed to register the estate following her fathers death.

On May 17, 2021, she wrote another letter requesting for the removal of Gula-Ndebele as the executor of Shiris estate, accusing him of neglecting his duties.

She also accused the executor of a litany of issues including failing to register the estate, read the will on time and to urgently address important issues for estate administration.

Stephanie recommended her lawyer to be appointed as executor of the late Shiris properties, in place of Gula-Ndebele and implored Mutasa to carry out investigations on suspected fraudulent acts on her fathers estate.

Sometime in December 2020, the executor refused me the right to legal representation, violating my constitutional right to legal representation by a lawyer of my choice, she stated in the letter.

This is why my lawyers have been writing directly to the Office of the Master of the High Court because the executor refused them the opportunity to represent me. I, therefore, now appeal to your high offices as the Master of the High Court to remove the executor from office in terms of section 116 of the Administration of Estates Act (Chapter 6:01).

She asked Mutasa to convene a meeting of the beneficiaries, with two sisters, Cynthia and Tatenda to appoint an executor.

But, Mutasa in response stated that there was no need for a meeting to deliberate on the dictates of section 116 of the Administration of Estates Act.

We note that Ms Rufaro filed an objection to the account, which the executor has already filed. The estate appears to us to be almost finalised, Mutasa said in a May 17, 2021, letter.

What remains is to address the issues you raised as the basis for your objection to the account which we have forwarded to the executor and now awaits his responses before the office takes a position.

On the issue of registration of the estate, please note that any of the interested parties connected to the deceased could have registered the estate and what Ms Rufaro did was completely in order. There was no need to wait for the lawyers to attend to the registration.

Yesterday, Mutasa said: I am not allowed to comment to the media without authorisation from the Judicial Service Commission secretary. I have to seek his authority first.

Stephanie questioned why the Masters Office had failed to remove Gula-Ndebele as executor of the Shiri estate given Shiris childrens misgivings over how the estate was being handled.

We, therefore, appeal to the leadership of this country to see to it that those involved in these shenanigans are brought to book. This poses a serious security threat to us as beneficiaries if its not addressed urgently. We believe we still have a lot to benefit from our fathers colleagues, but there are people who would want to taint them for no reason. All culprits should be brought to book, Stephanie said.

Gula-Ndebele was recently at the centre of a messy wrangle which erupted over the distribution of another heros estate which includes several houses, a farm, residential stands and cash. Newsday
Abuja, Nigeria (PANA)  Nigerian Air Force (NAF) headquarters has set up a board of inquiry to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of civilians during a bombing mission, involving an aircraft from the Air Component of Operation Hadin Kai in northeast Nigeria
Nairobi, Kenya (PANA)  African countries have spent US$1 billion to deal with the impact of the coronavirus, dedicating the lions share of the budget to healthcare, the Executive Director of the UN Environmental Programme, Inger Andersen, said on Thursday
New York, US (PANA) - The United Nations announced on Wednesday that all Gabonese military units deployed to the peacekeeping force in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA), are to be sent home immediately, following credible reports alleging that unidentified blue helmets had abused five girls
Tripoli, Libya (PANA) - Libyan Prime Minister of the Government of National Unity Abdelhamid Al-Dbaiba Thursday hailed efforts of the Libyan-Tunisian Ministerial Committee in formulating a health protocol allowing the resumption of passenger traffic between the two countries from Friday after more than two months of closure
Googles Grace Hopper subsea cable lands in the UK

posted by: Paige West, Group Editor

(Shutterstock image)

The Grace Hopper cable, named after the computer science pioneer, has landed in Bude, Cornwall and is one of the first new cables to connect the US and the UK since 2003.





The 16-fibre pair cable will connect New York (US) to Bude (UK) and Bilbao (Spain). Grace Hopper, alongside Cuire, Dunant, Equiano and Firmina, is the latest cable to connect continents along the ocean floor with an additional layer of security beyond whats available over the public internet. In a blog post, Google states, Weve worked with established channels and experts for years to ensure that Grace Hopper will be able to achieve better reliability in global communications, and free flows of data.



Following a successful Bilbao landing earlier in September, Grace Hopper also marks our first ever Google-funded route to Spain, taking a unique path from our existing cables, such as Dunant, which connects the US and France, and Havfrue, which links the US and Denmark. The cable will use novel fibre switching, which allows us to better move traffic around outages for increased reliability. Once it is complete, Grace Hopper will carry traffic quickly and securely between the continents, increasing capacity and powering Google services like Meet, Gmail and Google Cloud.



The COVID-19 pandemic has created a new digital normal and Grace Hopper will connect the UK to help meet the growing demand for high-bandwidth connectivity and services. As our first Google-funded cable to the U.K., Grace Hopper is part of our ongoing investment in the country, supporting users who rely on our products and customers using our tools to grow their business, said Google.



More information...
If you were looking for the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee website and ended up here, try this





Got news tips, gossip, suggestions, complaints?E-mail us: progressivecharlestown@gmail.com We strive to avoid errors in our articles. Our correction policy can be found here
Asset sale procedure against lawyer Yakubovsky prolonged once more until spring 2022

 RAPSI, Vladimir Burnov

10:32 16/09/2021

MOSCOW, September 16 (RAPSI)  The Moscow Regional Commercial Court has once more extended the asset sale procedure against businessman and lawyer Dmitry Yakubovsky until March 5, 2022, according to court records.

Moreover, in April, the court obliged Yakubovsky to transfer keys and other items providing access to his premises near Moscow.

Previously, in March, the asset sale procedure was prolonged for 6 months, right until September. The court therefore granted an application filed by the debtors bankruptcy receiver Artem Sladkov.

In December 2019, the Tenth Commercial Court of Appeals dismissed Yakubovskys appeal against a ruling of September 2019 declaring him bankrupt.

In mid-December 2017, the court initiated a debt restructuring process against Yakubovsky. His 2.2-billion-ruble debt (about $38 million) to a regional inspection office of the Federal Tax Service was added to the creditors list. In late December 2017, Gazprombank lodged a petition with the court seeking to include a 1.1-billion-ruble debt ($19 million) of the businessman.

In March 2018, Bank Monolith filed a motion with the Moscow Regional Commercial Court seeking to include a 6.4-billion-ruble debt ($112.4 million) of Yakubovsky in the list of creditors' claims.

He acted as a TV host, a lecturer in Moscows Griboyedov Institute of International Law and Economy, a chairman of Presidium of the First Moscow Bar Association. Since 2007, he has run real estate development business.

Yakubovsky owns the Swiss company Engelberg Industrial Group.
Russian Supreme Court backs initiation of new case against ex-Moscow judge

 RAPSI, Vladimir Burnov

14:14 16/09/2021

MOSCOW, September 16 (RAPSI)  The Supreme Court of Russia has upheld the Higher Judges' Qualifications Boards decision to launch a new criminal case against ex-judge of the Moscow Commercial Court Igor Korogodov, the courts press service has told RAPSI.

The court has thus dismissed Korogodovs lawsuit against the Boards decision.

In July, the Higher Judges' Qualifications Board gave its consent to open an attempted fraud case against the former judge.

Earlier, the Moscow City Court repeatedly overturned sentences against him in a case over attempts to embezzle $70,000.

Investigators claimed that in January 2016, Korogodov offered legal assistance of attorney Alexander Mosin to a former director of one of firms in a bankruptcy case. He promised the businessman that the lawyer could assist in the further delivery of a ruling in his favor. The judge asked $70,000 for his help.

The defendants were arrested when receiving the money. It was found that Korogodov and Mosin planned to spend $70,000 in their discretion.
About 182,000 prisoners an seek for community service  Russian Justice Minister

 The live streaming screenshot

16:54 16/09/2021

MOSCOW, September 16 (RAPSI)  About 182,000 prisoners in Russia have a right to seek for the replacement of their jail sentence with community service, Justice Minister Konstantin Chuichenko said opening a new correction centre near Moscow on Thursday.

A new module structure permits acceptance of cost-efficient design solutions that affords grounds for further construction of such centres throughout Russia, the Minister stressed.

The opening ceremony of the correctional centre for convicts sentenced to community service was also attended by First Deputy Minister of Justice Evgeny Zabarchuk, Director of the Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) Alexander Kalashnikov, Chief of Moscows FSIN Directorate Georgy Volkov, Moscows Business Ombudsman Tatiana Mineyeva and Deputy Chair of the Business and Construction Committee of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation Sergey Bystrov.
Posted by Jay on at 10:01 AM CST

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Featuring the return of beloved characters, shocking twists, epic feats of the Force and a story that will reach from Star Wars' darkest underworld all the way to the Imperial Palace on Coruscant, Crimson Reign is a Star Wars saga like no other!40 PGS./Rated T $4.99GREG PAK (W)  GUIU VILANOVA (A)  COVER BY RYAN STEGMANLUCASFILM ANNIVERSARY VARIANT COVER BY CHRIS SPROUSEVARIANT COVER BY RUSSELL DAUTERMANDARK ORDER! In the bowels of Bespin, DARTH VADER told his son he wanted to bring order to the galaxy. Now Vaders' promise is put to the test as he leads an unlikely crew of heroes and assassins against the criminal organization known as CRIMSON DAWN. What does "order" mean to a DARK LORD OF THE SITH? How far will he go to fight for it as the depth of Crimson Dawns' infiltration becomes clearer? 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As Crimson Reign has ignited the underworld in all-out war, T'ONGA's team of bounty hunters  including BOSSK, ZUCKUSS and TASU LEECH  are running out of time to save the one young girl who can stop the conflict between syndicates! A mysterious bounty hunter is out to assassinate a high ranking Imperial officer in a daring hit on a heavily armed cruiser. But was the hunter given the right target?32 PGS./Rated T $3.99(of 5)DANIEL JOSE OLDER (W)  DAVE WACHTER (A)  Cover by DAVID LOPEZVARIANT COVER BY ANNIE WU  VARIANT COVER BY GERALD PARELCOLD COMFORT! A mysterious attack brings EMERICK and SIAN together at the Starlight to investigate connections to their case. Meanwhile, ARATHAB tries to ambush a Nihil ship with deadly results. Can Jedi Master Emerick and private eye Sian Holt uncover the clues to solve this case, or are they about to face their deadly demise at the hands of Nihil?32 PGS./Rated T $3.99ALYSSA WONG (W)  MINKYU JUNG (A)  COVER BY SARA PICHELLILUCASFILM ANNIVERSARY VARIANT COVER BY CHRIS SPROUSEVARIANT COVER BY W. SCOTT FORBESEVOCATIONS! DOCTOR APHRA and SANA STARROS stumble upon a STRANGE RITUAL...And STRANGER ENEMY! Will they fall victim to a practitioner of an ANCIENT CULT?32 PGS./Rated T $3.99CHARLES SOULE (W)  MARCO CASTIELLO (A)  Cover by CARLO PAGULAYANACTION FIGURE VARIANT COVER BY JOHN TYLER CHRISTOPHERLUCASFILM ANNIVERSARY VARIANT COVER BY CHRIS SPROUSEVARIANT COVER BY MARC LAMINGDANGEROUS LESSONS! LUKE SKYWALKER has found a key piece of instruction in his journey along the JEDI path - the voice of his teacher, JEDI MASTER YODA. But the lesson Luke must learn will not be taught by Yoda, and it will take - and give - more than the young Skywalker could ever have imagined.32 PGS./Rated T $3.99Written by JASON AARON, KIERON GILLEN, KELLY THOMPSON, JASON LATOUR & MOREPenciled by JOHN CASSADAY, SIMONE BIANCHI, STUART IMMONEN, MIKE DEODATO JR., MIKE MAYHEW, LEINIL FRANCIS YU, JORGE MOLINA, SALVADOR LARROCA, MARCO CHECCHETTO, ANDREA BROCCARDO, ANGEL UNZUETA, EMILIO LAISO, MICHAEL WALSH & MORECovers by JOHN CASSADAY, MARK BROOKS & STUART IMMONENWhen Star Wars returned to Marvel, Jason Aaron was the ideal candidate to steer the rebels into all-new adventures! Now Aarons entire saga is collected in full! The Death Star has been destroyed  but the Empire isnt toppled yet! Join Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo, Chewbacca, C-3PO and R2-D2 as they continue the fight for freedom against Darth Vader! Luke battles Boba Fett! A woman from Han Solos past returns! The Dark Lord crash-lands  but you cant keep Vader down for long! And the roguish Doctor Aphra lures Luke to the Screaming Citadel! Plus: the deadly stormtroopers of Scar Squadron  and tales from the journals of Obi-Wan Kenobi! Collecting STAR WARS (2015) #1-37, STAR WARS: VADER DOWN, DARTH VADER (2015) #13-15, STAR WARS: THE SCREAMING CITADEL, STAR WARS: DOCTOR APHRA (2016) #7-8 and STAR WARS ANNUAL (2015) #1-3.1192 PGS./Rated T $125.00ISBN: 978-1-302-93409-5Trim size: 7-1/4 x 10-7/8
A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind.
Filmmaker Vishal Bhardwaj is all set to direct a spy-thriller titled 'Khufiya' for streaming giant Netflix.

'Khufiya' is inspired by true events and based on an espionage novel 'Escape to Nowhere' by Amar Bhushan. The film stars Tabu, Ali Fazal, Wamiqa Gabbi and Ashish Vidyarthi in pivotal roles.

Bhardwaj said, "With 'Khufiya', my attempt is to create an edgy espionage film that contrasts the slow burn of intelligence & surveillance work with one's deep rooted emotional conflicts"

Tabu will once again be seen working with Bhardwaj. The two have previously worked in films like 'Maqbool', 'Haider' and 'Talwar', which Bhardwaj co-wrote and co-produced with Meghna Gulzar.

She will also be seen in his son Aasman Bhardwaj's directorial debut 'Kuttey'.

Tabu said, "Khufiya is a one of a kind project, extremely close to my heart and I am excited to be a part of this gripping spy thriller. As always, it's a delight working with VB (Vishal Bhardwaj) again, and feels like homecoming!"

Produced by Vishal Bhardwaj Films and directed by Vishal Bhardwaj, 'Khufiya' is a story about Krishna Mehra, a R&AW operative who is assigned to track down the mole selling India's defence secrets. All along, grappling with her dual identity of a spy and a lover.
The ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) will hold a farmers' meet in Lucknow on September 19 on the completion of four years of the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh.

The Kisan Morcha of the party will felicitate the chief minister on the occasion.

The programme is designed to establish a direct connect with farmers amid indications that the ongoing farmers' agitation will intensify ahead of the 2022 state assembly election.

BJP Kisan Morcha president, Kameshwar Singh, said that an estimated 20,000 farmers are expected at the Lucknow meeting.

"Fifty farmers from each assembly constituency will be present on the occasion to thank the chief minister for various pro-farmer measures," Singh said.

The BJP programme comes ahead of the September 27 Bharat Bandh call given by all the farmers' union backing the agitation.

The ruling BJP is now trying to present a division between 'real farmers' and ones agitating for political reasons.

"Theirs is not a farmers' agitation, it's a political agitation," said Kameshwar Singh.

The BJP has already held farmers' meeting at 298 places in 95 assembly constituencies of the state.

"We selected those assembly segments which had a substantial presence of sugarcane farmers. In these meetings, we interacted with nearly 60,000 farmers," Singh said.

The Kisan Morcha also intends to felicitate 71 farmers at each district headquarter on September 17 which is Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 71st birthday.

"We have so many achievements to talk about. As many as 2.50 crore farmers in UP are benefitting through the Kisan Samman Nidhi, soil health cards, crop insurance, kisan credit card, 50 per cent discount of farm equipment. These are some of the many achievements that we will talk about," Singh said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi lashed out at critics of Central Vista project on Thursday during inauguration of the Defence Offices Complexes in Delhi.

The Prime Minister said that the people who are against the Central Vista Project conveniently ignore the fact that the defence complexes project is also a part of it. "These people ignore this fact so that they can continue spreading falsehood regarding the project," he said.

About defence complexes he said that these new complexes will now make it feasible for the armed forces to operate in better working conditions with all modern amenities.

The prime minister said, "Today the world is witnessing the magnanimous Central Vista that has been established on the pedestals of modern technology and facilities to enhance the quality of work for the Army officials working 24X7."

He also said that when the country is focusing on Ease of Living and Ease of Doing Business, modern infrastructure plays an essential role. "This is the spirit at the core of the Central Vista projects being done."

Modi said that the projects have been completed in 12-13 months while the estimated timeframe was 48 months. It saved 50 per cent of time and has also employed thousands of people that too when there was Covid-19 pandemic.

On the occasion, he also launched the Central Vista project's website.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, present during the occasion, complimented Prime Minister Narendra Modi for inaugurating the newly constructed Defence Offices Complex, which is a state of the art facility.

"The successful completion of this project in a record time is indeed a significant milestone in the history of India's defence sector," he said.

Singh further pointed out that this Defence Offices Complex is in line with the Prime Minister's vision for a 'New India' and his commitment for the 'Central Vista' project.

"I express my heartfelt gratitude to PM Modi for inaugurating the Defence Offices Complex and sharing his words of wisdom on the occasion," he said.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said, "Previous buildings were in a tattered state, affected working conditions of our officers... Optimum utilisation of space was not done, which is why this complex has been brought up. Over 7,000 workers can be accommodated in good working conditions."

Over 7,000 defence personnel will be shifted into new complexes that have been built at Kasturba Gandhi Marg and African Avenue in the central Delhi. These personnel were working from colonial era hutments and barracks which are situated in the back of North and South Blocks on the Raisina Hills.
More than 634,000 Afghans have been internally displaced by conflicts in 2021, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the war-torn nation said on Thursday.

A total of 634,800 people had been verified as having been displaced by conflicts as of September 12, 2021, out of which 282,246 displaced people had received assistance, Xinhua news agency quoted the OCHA as saying in a report.

The report came as the security situation in Afghanistan has remained stable since the Taliban's takeover of the country in mid-August.

Afghan officials and humanitarian agencies have expressed concern over the living condition of the displaced families in the country since the it affected the life of women and children as they do not have access to health facilities and schooling.

More than 28,000 Afghans have been also affected by natural disasters across Afghanistan starting this year, according to the figures provided by OCHA.

On Monday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the possibility of a complete economic collapse in Afghanistan was "serious" and highlighted an urgent need for funding support at a high-level ministerial meeting on Afghanistan's humanitarian situation in Geneva.

On Tuesday, the UN appealed to the countries pledging $1.2 billion in relief for Afghanistan to take action quickly.
Some unexplained results from the XENON1T dark-matter detector  a 1,300-kg vat of super-pure liquid xenon shielded from cosmic rays in a cryostat submerged in water deep 1.5 km beneath the Gran Sasso mountains of Italy  may have been caused by dark energy particles produced in a region of the Sun with strong magnetic fields, and not the dark matter the experiment was designed to detect, according to physicists from the XENON Collaboration.

Despite both components being invisible, we know a lot more about dark matter, since its existence was suggested as early as the 1920s, while dark energy wasnt discovered until 1998, said Dr. Sunny Vagnozzi, a physicist in the Kavli Institute for Cosmology at the University of Cambridge.

Large-scale experiments like XENON1T have been designed to directly detect dark matter, by searching for signs of dark matter hitting ordinary matter, but dark energy is even more elusive.

To detect dark energy, scientists generally look for gravitational interactions: the way gravity pulls objects around.

And on the largest scales, the gravitational effect of dark energy is repulsive, pulling things away from each other and making the Universes expansion accelerate.

About a year ago, the XENON Collaboration reported an unexpected signal, or excess, over the expected background.

These sorts of excesses are often flukes, but once in a while they can also lead to fundamental discoveries, said Dr. Luca Visinelli, a researcher at Frascati National Laboratories.

We explored a model in which this signal could be attributable to dark energy, rather than the dark matter the experiment was originally devised to detect.

At the time, the most popular explanation for the excess were axions  hypothetical, extremely light particles  produced in the Sun.

However, this explanation does not stand up to observations, since the amount of axions that would be required to explain the XENON1T signal would drastically alter the evolution of stars much heavier than the Sun, in conflict with what the researchers observe.

They then constructed a new physical model, which used a type of screening mechanism known as chameleon screening, to show that dark energy particles produced in the Suns strong magnetic fields could explain the XENON1T excess.

Our chameleon screening shuts down the production of dark energy particles in very dense objects, avoiding the problems faced by solar axions, Dr. Vagnozzi said.

It also allows us to decouple what happens in the local very dense Universe from what happens on the largest scales, where the density is extremely low.

The researchers used their model to show what would happen in the XENON1T detector if the dark energy was produced in a particular region of the Sun, called the tachocline, where the magnetic fields are particularly strong.

It was really surprising that this excess could in principle have been caused by dark energy rather than dark matter. When things click together like that, its really special, Dr. Vagnozzi said.

Their calculations suggest that experiments like XENON1T could be used to detect dark energy. However, the original excess still needs to be convincingly confirmed.

We first need to know that this wasnt simply a fluke, Dr. Visinelli said.

If XENON1T actually saw something, youd expect to see a similar excess again in future experiments (such as XENONnT, PandaX-4T, and LUX-ZEPLIN), but this time with a much stronger signal.

The teams paper was published in the journal Physical Review D.

_____

Sunny Vagnozzi et al. 2021. Direct detection of dark energy: The XENON1T excess and future prospects. Phys. Rev. D 104, 063023; doi: 10.1103/PhysRevD.104.063023
Does it matter who stays in or gets sacked in a UK Government reshuffle

We were told a reshuffle was in focus for weeks but were not informed when?

by Victor Cherubim

Students in Sri Lanka were recommended by their lecturers to refer to Sir Ivor Jennings treatise Cabinet Government to understand the essence of Collective Responsibility. Today in UK, a seismic Cabinet change is taking place, which can have an impact in Sri Lanka.

Boris Johnson, became Prime Minister of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in July 2019. The last time he reconfigured his Cabinet was in February 2020 after the UK formally exited the European Union.

We were told a reshuffle was in focus for weeks but were not informed when?

Though everything in UK happens for a reason and timing is of paramount importance, this day 15 September 2021, perhaps, may well go down among the notable dates for students of British Constitution. Why?

Boris and the non- Carrie reshuffle of Cabinet

Boris is a very astute but shrewd British politician. He has wanted to consider a major reshuffle removing his most under fire, politically gaffe prone colleagues, after getting them to deliver what he wanted of them, without individually removing them at will.

He believed in the wait and see policy but more to move strategically waiting patiently until he had achieved his publicly acclaimed successful COVID-19 vaccination programme, to refocus his government on raising living standards, in Britain.

The country expected there would be a change in strategy after his discredited Health Secretary, Matt Hancock fell on his sword and resigned, a matter of regret that had to be duly recompensed?

Within the 18 months of discontent and severe criticism of the stringent Health regulations accompanying Lockdown and intrusion in peoples freedom which was sacrosanct, the Prime Minister, started a softly, softly process of being keen in tackling regional inequality within the UK. One way was by bringing in more geographic diversion of his Cabinet, which predominantly comprised members from constituencies in the South and Midlands of England.

There is no denying that Boris was faced with an impossible task, no other wanted to shoulder. He had to cope with the Scots who were clamouring for an Independent Scotland. He had the Northern Ireland and the Good Friday arrangement fiasco after Brexit and was at loggerheads with the EU. He had the French at his coat tails with fishing in troubled waters in the Channel. He had the Russians submarines in the Hebrides, the Chinese wanting trading relations, but not on his terms. Least of all, he had to contend with President Joe Biden and the Afghan pull-out and the steams of migrants in boatloads across the English Channel. All this was a tall order.

What did Boris fail to do?

With all the stresses and strains of office, Prime Minister Boris Johnson did receive a shattering personal blow. He is now in mourning for the loss of his mother, Charlotte Johnson Wahl, 79, who died suddenly and peacefully on Monday 13 September 2021. It is difficult to envisage if he had the notice in due time to be able to be at her bedside, we are never to know?

What are some the attributes, qualities necessary to be in the Cabinet of Ministers?

We are not living in normal times, but in normal times, a Prime Minister has a job of being, First among equals. He has to appoint his Cabinet of Ministers with much discretion, thought and planning in mind.

1. There is always the question of Competence  a Minister has to perform exceedingly well as an Administrator, as a Parliamentarian and as a spokesman, a communicator, - a liaison between the Government and the public and his ministry. to be a Secretary of State is a responsibility, no easy matter. It needs years of extensive knowledge, experience, loyalty to Government, the party, and simultaneously be a respected leader either in the House of Commons or the House of Lords.

2. There is the Big Issue of National Balance  Governments of UK, in essence need to contain Ministers of all nation states, Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland and be not only knowledgeable of their delegated authority but of the diverse national areas and boundaries, their language, heritage, history as well as the feelings of citizens.

3. There is the all-important Cabinet Solidarity, Cabinet Unity and Security, let alone Cabinet confidentiality and Sexual Balance.

Several Key Figures in Boris Cabinet were sacked, removed, replaced, and retired

It is no easy matter for a Prime Minister to reshuffle a Cabinet of Ministers. Several key figures in UK Government of Boris Johnson were expected to be out of office. The scale of the reshuffle is in the sole hands of the Prime Minister. This could be either extensive, or limited in scale, or both.

Naming and shaming?

We are informed as at writing the reshuffle has been done, rather ruthless, but refined, perhaps, with Junior Ministerial positions to be assigned,in the days ahead.

I am sure those in Sri Lanka will hardly want to know a roll call of new Ministers of Cabinet rank. The reason for my inclusion of what is in the public domain, is to show how and why Boris is a very seasoned politician, using the best of both worlds, from Asia, Africa and the Middle East to complement his TEAM BORIS.

Whos Who?

Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab who had faced calls to resign since he went on holiday in Crete, Greece, as the Taliban advanced on the Afghan capital, Kabul, a month ago, is among the major casualties of the reshuffle, with Boris indulgence, he is still in Cabinet. In measured response and to cushion the blow, Boris Johnson has created a new post for him as Deputy Prime Minister. Dominic will combine this role being also Justice Secretary.

Others promoted include Liz Truss, International Trade Secretary becomes, Foreign Secretary. There is no need to say more of her capacity in negotiating the trade treaties after Brexit. A word of caution for our Sri Lanka Foreign Secretary. Liz Truss, is no pushover as she is an ardent, cautious and seasoned legal wizard-negotiator.

Staying put are Ben Wallace as Defence Secretary and the Three Asians Rishi Sunak, as Chancellor, Priti Patel as Home Secretary and Sajid Javed as Health Secretary. Michael Gove a Cabinet Office Minister and a keen player in the negotiations with the European Union, has been moved to be the new Housing and Local Communities Secretary.

The new entrants Nadine Dowden becomes Culture Secretary and Anne Marie Trevelyan returns to Cabinet as International Trade Secretary while Kwasi Kwarteng of Ghanian origin is assisting her as Business Secretary. Nadim Zadawi, who did a yeoman service as Vaccinations Secretary, who hails from Iraq, is highly respected, the reserved mouthpiece of Boris Johnson. He is rewarded to replace gaff prone Gavin Williamson as the new Education Secretary, a prominent position.

As a Sri Lankan living in the UK over many years, I find it fascinating how the Brits use anyone from anywhere on earth to promote their wellbeing. We in Sri Lanka have to learn this lesson of diplomacy and strategy combined?
For too long, politicians relied on the Supreme Court to uphold the right to an abortion. Now that the Texas law has been allowed to take effect, its prime targets are low-income people of color.

by Sonali Kolhatkar

Texas, with the help of conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court, has made abortion all but illegal for most pregnant people living within state borders. Republican state legislators passed a draconian and diabolically innovative bill that Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law in May ensuring that all abortions after six weeks of gestation can be subject to lawsuits brought by any individual anywhere against anyone involved in the procedure. That includes the patient, their medical provider, or even their Lyft driver. Those seeking abortions will likely need to leave Texas, effectively making the procedure out of reach of the poorest residents of the state.

Blair Wallace, of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, told NBCNews.com, We know the brunt of this will fall on our Black and brown communities and our poor communities the most. Only those with the financial resources and ability to take time off work can travel to neighboring states to terminate a pregnancy. Already abortion providers in Louisiana are fielding calls from desperate Texans seeking abortions, leading to longer wait times.

Imani Gandy, senior legal analyst for RewireNewsGroup.com, explained to me in an interview that the Texas law is really, really pernicious, because it is using taxpayer dollars to provide a bounty for bounty hunters to go attacking or harassing abortion providers.

In fact, the hundreds of Republican-led state-level legislative attacks against abortion have cost taxpayers millions of dollars in legal fees of both pro-choice and anti-abortion forces. According to the Washington Post, states have paid at least $9.8 million in abortion providers [attorney] fees, in the last four years alone. This is money that could be put to better usesuch as providing health care to low-income residents that includes abortion and other reproductive medical care.

For a party that has been railing in favor of individual liberties when it comes to lifesaving masks and vaccinations during a pandemic, asserting that a series of electrical impulses between newly formed cells are more important than a persons bodily autonomy is the height of hypocrisy and reeks of performative politics.

Indeed, Republicans may be victims of their own success, having relied on the Supreme Court for years to preserve the seminal Roe v. Wade precedent against most egregious anti-abortion laws in order to score political points with evangelical voters. According to one legal analyst for Slate.com, Mark Joseph Stern, it seems undeniable that Republicans did not anticipate this abrupt triumph over Roe, instead assuming that the Texas law would be blocked by the courts.

Gandy called the Texas law patently unconstitutional, and pointed out that no federal appeals court has upheld it, which is why pro-choice activists and legal scholars had expected the nations highest court to intervene. Except that the Supreme Court is currently, as Gandy described, hyperpartisan and captured by conservatives.

Of the five justices who chose to let the ban remain, three were appointed by former President Donald Trump as a gift to evangelical voters. Robert P. Jones, author of White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity, wrote a year ago that white evangelicals political behavior is animated by racial resentment, and that this demographic will be the most powerful force in hindering this work for racial justice and reconciliation. Given that low-income people of color are likely to be the most impacted by the Texas ban, this prediction appears prescient.

It isnt solely Trumps fault that the right to an abortion is on its way out. Maines supposedly moderate and pro-choice Republican Senator Susan Collins in 2018 cast a deciding vote for Trumps anti-abortion nominee for the Supreme Court. In voting to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was one of five justices choosing to let the Texas abortion ban stand, Collins now bears partial responsibility for beginning the end of abortion rights in the United States.

Even Democrats bear some blame. A party that has upheld the right to an abortion as the centerpiece of its feminist agenda has done remarkably little to ensure the law is preserved from the Supreme Courts increasingly activist conservative justices. In the nearly 50 years since the Roe v. Wade decision, Democrats have enjoyed political power in the House, Senate, and White House simultaneously four timesunder Presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and now Joe Bidenand could have passed legislation protecting the constitutional right to an abortion so that it didnt hinge on the Supreme Courts political makeup.

In the short term, corporations like Uber and Lyft have offered to pay the legal fees of any of their drivers who might get sued for transporting a pregnant person to get an abortion. Some celebrities are announcing their own boycotts of the state of Texas, and the city of Portland, Oregon, is also considering a boycott.

But none of these commercial responses are a substitute for decisive government action ensuring that all Americans, especially low-income communities of color, have an equal right to access abortion care. In the wake of the Texas abortion ban taking effect, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the House of Representatives would soon take up a vote on the Womens Health Protection Act, which, if passed, would ensure that the right to an abortion was cemented in law.

While Gandy denounced Democratic inaction, saying, weve had Democrats in office that have not bothered to codify Roe, she added that the lawmakers inaction really underscores how powerful the anti-abortion lobby is. A majority of Americans support the right to an abortion, and yet the demands of the anti-abortion minority have held the nation hostage to its whims.

Although Bidens Justice Department has filed a lawsuit and is seeking an injunction to stop the law from being enacted in Texas, critics point out that it is a long shot. Now, six other states, including Florida and Mississippi, are hoping to follow in Texas footsteps and pass similar abortion bans. The train has left the station, so to speak.

In addition to legislation like the Womens Health Protection Act, activists want Biden to use his executive powers right now to protect abortion access. Kristin Ford of NARAL Pro-Choice America said, The White House should make clear their commitment to this critical legislation to ensure no other state has the opportunity to follow in Texas footsteps.

According to Gandy, the bottom line is, there will always be abortion. In light of the Texas ban, the questions center on how people are going to access it, and who the lack of access is going to affect mostwhich is poor people, and people of color.

Nations like Poland and Nigeria offer a glimpse of the mental and physical toll in store for Americans if the Texas ban were to take hold nationwide. Polish women are suffering from a mental health epidemic as a result of their nations abortion ban. In Nigeria, dangerous back-alley abortion procedures are endangering lives.

Other nations offer a different path. Shortly after the Texas ban took effect, Mexicos Supreme Court decriminalized abortion, setting the stage for a nationwide legalization of the procedure. And, in France, where abortions are legal for pregnancies up to 12 weeks of gestation, the government says it will begin offering free contraception for everyone under the age of 25.

Here in the United States, California is bucking the terrifying state-by-state anti-abortion trend by considering a bill that will make the medical procedure cheaper, and even free of charge. Already it is one of only six states that require health insurance plans to cover abortion care. California State Senator Lena Gonzalez said, Were taking a stance, not just to make abortions available but to make them free and equitable. Indeed, if such a trend were pursued nationally, the right to control ones body would not be relegated to the privileged among us.

This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

Sonali Kolhatkar is the founder, host and executive producer of Rising Up With Sonali, a television and radio show that airs on Free Speech TV and Pacifica stations. She is a writing fellow for the Economy for All project at the Independent Media Institute.
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System error

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context: ... 21: </%method> 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: </%perl> 28: <table width="90%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> 29: <tr> ... code stack: /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html:25

/usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm:951

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/usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html:149



Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. Trace begun at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 129 HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.^J') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 160 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f639bc9cdc0)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 951 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f639bd2fd20)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f639bc9cdc0)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1305 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 958 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f639bd2fd20)') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html line 149 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f639bcaf110)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1303 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 436 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f639bd2fd20)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f639bd2fd20)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f639b3e8980)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f639bd9b6f8)') called at (eval 487) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f639bd9b6f8)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0
Amplitude Modulation Amateur Radio Society announces monthly 80m AM net The recently formed Amplitude Modulation Amateur Society has announced the date of it's very first monthly AM Net!



The Net will take place on Sunday 19th September at 18:30 UTC (19:30 British Summertime) on 3.625MHz.



NET Controller for this auspicious occasion is Robert GW6GBY, using the society callsign G5AMS from the historic transmitter site at Criggion. As this is in Wales, Robert shall be using the club secondary locator for Wales and the full callsign in use will be GC5AMS.



Members and non members in the UK and throughout Europe are welcome to join in using the original voice mode, Amplitude Modulation!



If you are interested in joining Amplitude Modulation Amateur Radio Society, full details can be found on qrz.com, simply search for the callsign G5AMS.
Deaf pupils to talk to astronauts on the International Space Station in a world first

A group of pupils at the Mary Hare School for deaf children in Newbury will be talking to an Astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS) as it orbits above them at 11,000 miles per hour.

Mary Hare School, with Pippa Middleton as its Ambassador, is the largest school for deaf children in the UK.

In October 2021 the school will be using Amateur Radio equipment set up with the help of Radio Amateurs from the Newbury and District Amateur Radio Society (NADARS).

These will be the first deaf children to have done this, making it a world first. The pupils will each ask a question to the astronaut who will then answer live over amateur radio. The reply will then be interpreted into subtitles.

During September the school will be running a competition inviting students to enter their question from one of five categories, science in space, space technology, living in space, space communication and earth from space. The ten best questions were chosen by staff and those students invited to ask their question on the day of broadcast. It is a very exciting event  a world first for deaf pupils, said Mr Ayling a science teacher at the school. I think it is very important to our deaf pupils as it shows whatever your challenges with communication there is no limit to what you can achieve. The sky is not the limit.

The event will be made possible by the world-wide organisation ARISS (Amateur Radio International Space Station) that heads up the amateur radio contacts for space agencies NASA and ESA. The ISS has an Amateur Radio station on board and the Astronauts are also licenced Radio Amateurs. The signal will be transmitted and received on the VHF Amateur band and can be heard live all over the UK using amateur radios or scanners. There will also be a live web feed available on the internet enabling people to watch the event worldwide including Mission Control, Houston!

Source: Today UK News
As the smoke has cleared and the flames have died in the Sierra Bermeja, the question has shifted from "when" and "how much" to "who" and "why."

Specialists from the Forest Fire Investigation Brigade (BIIF) and the Seprona nature protection branch of the Guardia Civil are working together on the complex task of piecing together the evidence  and all of them are experts in finding the answers.

At this point, there is little doubt that the fire was deliberately started. Two ignition points were found located near Genalguacil, and just a few kilometres away from each other. One of them was in the Garapalillos area. The other, paradoxically, a few metres from a reservoir where the Infoca helicopters scoop up the water to put out the fires. Both were located next to the road that connects Genalguacil with Estepona.

/ NITO SALAS

Perfect storm

The president of the Junta de Andalucia, Juanma Moreno, supported the intentionally-started theory saying that the person or persons who did it knew that the weather forecasts were adverse, with a terral wind (gusts of up to 45 kilometres per hour) blowing, high temperatures (above 30 degrees) and a drop in humidity. The perfect storm.

Additionally the fires were started at night when the fire-fighting helicopters cannot fly, and in terrain that is difficult to access by foot.

Moreno also pointed to the presence of litter and pine cones in both areas where the fires started.

Public's help

The location where the fires were started does not help the investigators. It is a place little travelled, and less so at that time (after nine at night). Investigations in urban environments have other resources, such as security cameras. You hardly find any witnesses here, explains a specialist. Hence, the head of Junta has called for the publics help with the investigation.

BIIF and Seprona are already working on a reconstruction of the fire from the two sources. At this time, all the hypotheses are open, and, among other lines of investigation, the agents are collecting information from previous cases in the area.

The Sierra Bermeja has suffered several other forest fires this year. The first was in May, when a little more than three hectares burned. The second was in July and 350 hectares were scorched. In both cases, the Guardia Civil believe that that there were marijuana plantations at the origin of both fires.

The vegetation in the area offers the perfect camouflage for the operations. They cannot be seen, not even with drones, says a source close to the case.

/ NITO SALAS

Arsonists

According to the latest statistics, published in 2019, 46 per cent of the fires in Spain were caused by "arsonists", although Greenpeace says that, in reality, if we take into account only those who suffer a conduct disorder (pyromania) it drops to 7.11 per cent. Another significant motivation memory is that of "revenge, vandalism or damage to third parties", accounting for 16.15 per cent.

In 2019, a total of 513 people were arrested (31) or investigated (482) for forest fires, even though, according to the statistics there were 10,883 incidents declared in Spain.

We have to be aware that it is very difficult to find the culprits. It is one of the easiest crimes to commit and also to go unpunished, says the delegate prosecutor for the Ministry of the Environment in Malaga, Fernando Benitez.
The Spanish government has reached an agreement with the unions to raise the minimum wage by 15 euros per month, to stand at 965 euros, SUR has learned.

And it will do so from this month, September, according to the same sources, which, however, warn that some fine details still have to be ironed out.

If so, the battle will have been won by the Minister of Labour, Yolanda Diaz, who had promised to apply it from September, while the First Deputy Prime Minister, Nadia Calvino, wanted to delay the increase to the last quarter of the year.

Both the UGT and CC OO unions had demanded an increase of between 25 and 30 euros a month for this year. But the unions, in recent days, had expressed their willingness to lower their request for this year, as long as the minimum wage in January amounted to 1,000 euros per month, rising in 2023 to 60 per cent of the average salary, which they say would be 1,060 euros.

The talks will continue as the path of increases for the next two years are negotiated, one of the demands of the unions.
The fight against the coronavirus is progressing apace in Spain, and the vaccination campaign even better.

According to data released by the Minister of Health, Carolina Darias at a press conference this Wednesday (15 September), three out of four people in Spain are already vaccinated, so the possibility of administering a third dose is back on the table. Among the first to receive this extra reinforcement jab would be the users of nursing homes.

As Darias explained after a meeting of the Interterritorial Health Council, the proposal is to add the group to those "people with some type of immunosuppression or disease for who that additional dose is advised." This extra vaccination jab would begin to be administered from 4 October if the proposal gets the green light from the Public Health Commission.

Darias said: Last week it was unanimously agreed to start the administration of additional doses to groups with severe immunosuppression, transplants, etc. Today we have made another proposal that has to be evaluated and agreed, which is to give a third dose to the elderly and staff in residencies from 4 October. We will always follow the recommendations of the experts.
by Nora Paul

paulnora@grinnell.edu

COVID-19 cases rose significantly in Poweshiek County and across the state of Iowa this August. There were 41 new documented cases in the county during the last week of August, compared to eight in the last week of July. Although the case counts remain significantly lower than during the spike in positive tests in fall 2020, the increase in cases threatens to raise what has been a flatter trend line in the last few months.

Poweshiek County has a full vaccination rate of 51 percent, lower than Iowas overall vaccination rate of 65 percent. The county has had a higher positive test rate than the Iowa average, with 12.6 percent positive compared to 9.2 percent.

Russ Behrens, the Grinnell city manager, emphasized that when it has come to keeping case counts low, people who have elected to be vaccinated have done a big part.

The vaccination rate in Iowa has remained relatively stagnant since the end of May, only climbing by approximately 10 percent of the population, compared to a nearly 30 percentage point increase between February and April. In Poweshiek County there was a 30.2 percent vaccination rate in May, and since then rose by about 20 percent of the countys population, a greater increase in the percentage vaccinated than in the rest of the state.

The Poweshiek County Department of Public Health (PCPH) holds regular vaccine clinics on Wednesdays in addition to other recurring public health clinics. They administer Moderna and Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines. Walmart has also been administering vaccines on a walk-in basis, in coordination with PCPH.

For those who do not attend the clinics at PCPH, over-the-phone registration for vaccination is available. However, the voicemail of the Unity Point Health Grinnell Family Practice Clinic states that vaccines are only available to specific groups at this time. Callers are encouraged to visit the Unity Point Health website for more information.

In the first week of May 2021, the county declined part of its weekly vaccine allocation due to decreased demand from its residents. Behrens says he believes that the population of Poweshiek County who have not been vaccinated remain unvaccinated by choice, rather than due to issues of access or availability.

To the best of my knowledge the only barrier to being vaccinated is peoples willingness to do so, Behrens said. Unfortunately, the vaccination rates are a bit predictable based on the politics of the county,

Shaunna Callaway, director of public health for Unity Point in Grinnell, wrote in an email to the S&B: Vaccine hesitancy is unique to each individual, but some common trends were seeing are concerns related to safety and efficacy, preference for natural immunity, media misinformation and personal choice to wait-and-see.

Behrens also stressed that the COVID-19 case count has not risen to the level it had been before in 2020 and early 2021, but that conditions could change overnight. He said he commends the students, staff, and faculty of Grinnell College who elected to receive the vaccine, while alluding to the Colleges vaccine requirement policy.

Unity Point Hospital and Grinnell College are among the few employers in Poweshiek County that mandate vaccinations. The city of Grinnell doesnt, but the majority of its employees are vaccinated. The city will continue to monitor case counts among its employees to see if they get worse, but Behrens is confident that they are not heading in that direction.

Behrens stressed the importance of vaccination for Grinnell residents in light of the recent uptick in positive cases, given the large population of residents over the age of 85.

The Mayflower Community, Grinnells assisted living facility, is not accepting visitors due to COVID-19. I cant believe people are living their last days unsure if they will see their loved ones again, said Behrens. This may continue for another winter, spring, and summer.

Kellie McGriff, Mayflower associate director, was not available for comment.

Callaway urged each individual to seek reliable medical information from reputable sources and consult their healthcare provider with any questions or concerns.

Receiving a COVID-19 vaccine remains the leading public health prevention strategy to protect yourself and others against COVID-19. We know this has been a trying time for everyone  continue to check in on each other and yourself.

Update 9/18/2021: Updated with current COVID positivity and vaccination statistics.
By Millie Peck

peckcami@grinnell.edu

Eighteen months have passed since Grinnell College has had its full student population living on campus  and that campus is composed of a drastically different student body than lived there in March of 2020. The class of `20 and `21 are gone. Other students have transferred. Even returning students who are arriving back on campus describe themselves as different people than when they left at the start of the pandemic.

Antonella Diaz `23 was on the last flight into Quito, Ecuador in March of 2020, and did not return to campus until this August. Diaz struggled with her mental health over the course of the pandemic, making it difficult to keep in touch with her friends. When she arrived back in Grinnell, she said she was scared and didnt remember how to do many of the basic things like get in line at the Dining Hall.

She also wondered how her first-year friendships would be affected. But Diaz noted the social aspect of her experience has been extremely positive, saying, We all really went through something and then we came back and we could empathize with each other and be like, yeah, Im sorry this happened, something similar happened to me, and you know Im here for you. I just really like that its just a much more supportive community.

I feel like I have been meeting the same people again, because theyve changed completely, like with their relationship with their family, their relationship with themselves, their majors even, said Diaz. So, I feel like I am just getting to know my friends again. Which has been really cool.

For third- and fourth-year students, there seems to be a clear difference between the returners and those who never experienced Grinnell prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

It feels like the lower classmen dominate more so than us because this is their reality. This is what theyve always known. Whereas we are kind of finding the balance between what we used to know versus what is Grinnell now. We are kind of more unstable [and] uneasy than even they are, said Diaz.

Returning to campus has proved equally daunting for many second years, who have never experienced Grinnell. Haily Collins `24 arrived on campus this fall knowing no one. Without the structure usually provided for first years through New Student Orientation and other organized activities, she said, meeting people has been difficult. Aside from the few familiar faces from online classes and her roommate, Collins said she knows no one else on campus.

Collins said socializing has been particularly difficult, largely because she often doesnt feel like she knows what is happening on campus. One of the most substantial changes on campus has been the lack of all-campus activities. Normally Harris dances, concerts and other social events provide a place for underclassmen to meet people and connect with the campus. Without those events, people rely on word-of-mouth to hear about student gatherings, which leaves the people without social networks grasping in the dark.

As far as different activities and stuff going on Im always like, I feel like Im last to hear because I dont talk to many people yet and so I dont know whats going on, said Collins.

Declan OReilly `22 and Sam Rowekamp `22 both took the 2020-21 academic year off so they could have their last year at Grinnell in person. They said they found it strange to be on a campus with as such a minuscule population overlap from when they started at Grinnell in 2017, but both expressed optimism about the future.

OReilly said that despite not knowing many of the students on campus, It feels like we keep admitting the same kind of students, so even though I dont know them, its oddly familiar just being around them because a lot of them seem to have a lot of the same values or just shared experiences.

Rowekamp feels that the fresh attitudes on campus might be creating a shift for the better.

Ever since I can remember, jadedness has always very much been a thing at Grinnell. People are very like, Self-gov is dead, fuck the administration, they are always working against us, everything is broken and what is the point, said Rowekamp.

It feels like we keep admitting the same kind of students, so even though I dont know them, its oddly familiar just being around them because a lot of them seem to have a lot of the same values or just shared experiences.  Declan OReilly `22

People dont have that residual bitterness that comes from having been on campus for four full years, he said, adding that he thinks this is a shift for the better.

Elina Keswani `24 spent her entire first year off-campus doing classes remotely. Despite the difficulties of navigating relationships she formed completely over the internet, Keswani said she was pleased with the culture she walked into.

Its just a really collaborative and cooperative environment and I think people are just trying to lift each other up as well, she said. We are all kind of going through this big thing together and it has made us all closer, theres some kind of solidarity at least.
The fundamentals are really falling off in this country and one wonders when it all will end.

The direct attack on freedom of speech and freedom of expression is really quite concerning and at times it is quite unfathomable. It would seem we are stuck in a zero-sum game when in essence we should all be focusing on settling for an outcome that will improve national welfare than one that will render us in a worse off position than when we started.

Freedom of speech

I will not exert much effort explaining the linkages between freedom of speech and the economic development. I believe I have done justice explaining the development and democracy nexus and how we stand to benefit as a country if individual liberties are protected. In the famous words of Amartya Sen, no country can say it is developed if its citizens do not enjoy individual liberties and freedoms. I am honestly failing to understand the gag on Gawuzela and Ncandweni music on national radio and on the national television. These are public entities funded entirely by the taxpayer and it does not make sense, none whatsoever, why we should be deprived the pleasure to listen to certain music.

Limiting consumption space

The move by the authorities to put a gag on the two groups, only just makes the point for the dissident voices. It does not inspire confidence on why the status quo shall be maintained. It is concerning that instead of trying to unify the nation by addressing discerning voices the authorities are moving towards a more authoritarian route. The ban of the two groups from the national airwaves limits the consumption space for music lovers. It signals that we are headed in a direction, where certain individuals will end up determining what commodities are suitable for us to consume. We are slowly but surely moving to join the ranks of North Korea, since its the only country that even determines what type of hairstyle people can wear. This is totally unacceptable! Development is also measured by the amount of goods available to an individual in their consumption basket.

Alternative media

What good will the ban do? We are living in an information age, in the digital age, in the fourth industrial revolution. One can simply access the banned music online, through social media and other avenues in the digital world where all music is sold. One, therefore, wonders if the ban will be effective in silencing Ncandweni and Gawuzela. Note that I am making reference to the groups not the outspoken and critical Members of Parliament and one wonders what the music has to do with what is happening in the political landscape.

Terrorism gospel

We are entering into really interesting times but rather scary. One can assume that the groups are either banned because they are linked to terrorist entities or because they contribute to the radicalisation of the nation. I mean this is gospel music we talking about here. For a country that received a vision re-affirming that we are indeed the pulpit of Africa, this is quite a paradox, akucondzakali what is expected of us and what direction are we to take as a population. Are the authorities communicating that gospel music has become an avenue for terrorism? Oh pulpit of Africa what has become of you?

When does it end?

I recall back in 2010 when I went to study in East Africa; I was flabbergasted when I saw police officers and security guards carrying automatic weapons. I was not used to even seeing a gun that is the Swaziland from which I had come from, not this Eswatini where even traffic officers carry automatic weapons. I am astonished at the level of radicalisation that has occurred just within a decade in this country. The police service seems to be so overtly radicalised and armed, now EBIS seems to be joining the fray. What I worry mostly about is the radicalisation of the masses, will the police and the army be able to control a radicalised population?

Mass radicalisation of Eswatini

The answer is a simple no! Every day we wake up to some news of arson; if it is not a school, its police quarters or the home of some unfortunate police officer. These are indicators of a radicalised mass, we wake up to news of the different political factions calling people to self-defence training, so they are able to defend themselves from the police. The very state apparatus that should protect the people is becoming the enemy of the people. You tax the people and use their taxes to fund a police service that will brutalise the very people.

Less radical path

Can the leadership of the country chose a less radical solution to the impasse. It does not have to be a zero-sum game, it does not have to end in a civil war, that would be more destructive and no one will win. I am losing whatever ounce of faith I had in the authorities with each passing day; somebody call the nation to a dialogue before it is too late!
MBABANE  All towns and municipalities have been directed to ensure that billboards illuminating Hallelujah as the prominent praise word within their jurisdictional areas are erected.

The directive was issued by Prince Simelane, who is the Minister of Housing and Urban Development. Through the directive dated September 14, 2021, written to all chairpersons of councils and Boards, the minister said pursuant to His Majesty King Mswati IIIs call and command, that the country should flight signs and boards whose face must illuminate the praise word Hallelujah, he was directing all towns and municipalities to do likewise. All erected billboards and signs including postings on advertisement digital platforms must be at conspicuous places within the jurisdictional area of the town or municipality, stated the minister.

Prince Simelane said such places could include intersections of major road entry or exit points within the urban boundary. This directive further states that the plighted Hallelujah message should stay for a period of at least a month from the date of His Majestys speech of September 6, 2021, said the minister. He further advised councils and Boards to be creative in the design and aesthetics of the billboards and signs. On September 6, 2021, which was also the countrys 53rd Independence Day, which coincided with the Reconstruction Fund Launch, during his speech, the King said Hallelujah must be sung and written everywhere in the country.

While delivering this message, the King broke into the song Hallelujah with the assistance of a choir and invited the attendees of the launch to join him in song. He said the message was from God and that spreading of the Hallelujah message should be done for a period of not less than a month, which meant it should continue until October 6, 2021. He said the Hallelujah should be written and shouted in all corners of the country from royal residences, chiefdoms, homes, Parliament, churches, streets and all roads. His Majesty said like the children of Israel who were instructed to have signs of blood on their doors, emaSwati would be protected from all the demons. He encouraged others to even go beyond the month in using the word Hallelujah and said even with COVID-19, God would assist the country.

The King said in this regard, God would continue to bless the nation. He said this was the message from God following the three-day fast, which he had called him last month, worked for the country as God would answer the prayers. He said he had a message from God for emaSwati especially since God heard their cries from Heaven. The fasting was for peace in the country, COVID-19 and HIV/AIDS and the lack of employment in the country, he said. The King said after the Holy Communion had been taken it was clear that God had heard the prayers because it begun to rain and that was a clear sign that God had heard the prayers. He informed the about 200 attendees that when he last addressed the nation at the Mandvulo Grand Hall in 2019, he said his message to the nation was to keep it moving.

Meanwhile, a majority of the councils and Boards received the communication yesterday and said they were already looking for quotations in order to set up some of the signs and billboards. Yes, we are running around looking for quotations, said one of the council members from one of the towns. Communications Officer in the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development Lungelo Nkambule confirmed that the communication was from the ministry. Other institutions which have already heeded the Kings call include some magistrates courts, police stations, Eswatini TV and some parastatals that have put up the message on their websites and social media pages.
MBABANE  They will not go down without a fight!

After their second bail application was dismissed by Judge Mumcy Dlamini on Tuesday, incarcerated Members of Parliament (MPs) Mduduzi Bacede Mabuza of Hosea and MP Mthandeni Dube of Ngwempisi have approached the highest court in the land, which is the Supreme Court. In their notice of appeal, they raised six grounds why they believed Judge Dlamini misdirected herself when she came to the conclusion that the High Court was functus officio and, therefore, precluded from hearing their second bail application. Functus officio means the principle in terms of which decisions of a judicial officer are deemed to be final and binding once they are made. They cannot, once made, be revoked by the same judicial officer. The appeal was filed by their lawyer, Thulani Maseko yesterday.

In her judgment, Judge Dlamini said: I find that this court is functus officio. Applicants remedy, if any, lies with not this court, but elsewhere in this regard. The appellants averred that the court a quo (High Court) misdirected itself in finding that it was functus officio. MP Mabuza and Dube are also of the view that Judge Dlamini erred in fact and in law in finding that there was no need to make consideration whether there were new grounds. They contended that the decision of the judge to dismiss their second bail application was bad in law. According to the appellants (Mabuza and Dube), Judge Dlamini in fact did consider the new facts filed in the second bail application. It was further their contention that the High Court misdirected itself in finding that their counsel argued that the court did not make a factual finding against them.

The High Court erred in finding that it was precluded from hearing an application on new facts with reference to the cases of Shongwe vs Rex and Moyo vs Rex, reads part of the notice of appeal. The date of the hearing of the appeal is still not known and the Crown is opposing same and it is still to file its papers outlining its reasons for opposing. Mabuza and Dubes trial is expected to resume on October 11, 2021. The two MPs had filed another bail application after their initial one was dismissed by the same judge on August 6, 2021. In the second application, they cited new facts and circumstances which they said had arisen. Last week, Judge Dlamini asked the parties to address her on the point of functus officio which she had raised mero motu (of her own volition).

Doctrine

The doctrine of functus officio prevents the reopening of a matter before the same court, tribunal or other statutory actor that rendered the final decision. On Tuesday, the judge found that the High Court was functus officio and proceeded to dismiss the MPs bail application. In her judgment, Judge Dlamini stated that she was not the one who was functus officio, but it was the High Court. In their initial application, the judge found that the MPs made a bare denial of the allegations raised by the Crown and the denial translated to no evidence to be put on the scales of justice against the evidence of the respondent that was put on the same scales. Judge Dlamini said nothing controverted the evidence adduced by the Crown which was put on the scales by this court. She said the upshot of it was that the evidence by the Crown that they were a flight risk, posed a danger to national security, the public relied on the courts to protect it and their properties were accepted as likely or probable and not as a fact against the MPs because it stood unchallenged in law.

Fresh

According to the court, from the second bail application, Mabuza and Dube were not saying that they were filing the fresh bail application on grounds of such procedural aspects or that there were no findings by the court in the first bail application. They are contending that there are new facts. In other words, applicants (MPs) appreciated that the court accepted that the interests of justice did not favour their release based on the tilting of the said scales, said the judge. Judge Dlamini asked: Is it open for this court to determine if there are new facts on the applicants fresh bail application, therefore? The judge said she asked this question because that was the impression created by the MPs representative, Advocate Jacobus Lodewicus Coetzee Jansen Van Vuuren, from South Africa.

Judge Dlamini cited a case of former Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs Sibusiso Shongwe, who was arrested for corruption-related offences. His bail application was dismissed by Principal Judge Qinisile Mabuza and he filed another application. The second application was dismissed by Judge Nkululeko Hlophe. He was, however, released by the Supreme Court. In Shongwes matter, the Supreme Court said: Where a court hearing a bail application has made specific findings refusing bail, an accused person is precluded from lodging a subsequent bail application before the same court on the pretext that new facts exist. The court is functus officio and has no jurisdiction to entertain the matter.

The Supreme Court in Shongwes case proceeded to say, the new facts or change of circumstances should be invoked in circumstances where bail had been granted and the application was only intended to vary the bail conditions, otherwise the subsequent bail application would offend the general principle of our law that once a court has pronounced a final order of judgment, it becomes functus officio and cannot, therefore, alter, correct or supplement its judgment. The judgment was written by Judge Bheki Maphalala, who is now the Chief Justice (CJ). The court in Shongwes matter concluded that, in light of specific findings made by Judge Mabuza refusing the accused bail; it was not open to him (Shongwe) to lodge a fresh bail application before the same court. Judge Dlamini said Section 96 (18) and (19) allowed an accused person, if he or she had been granted bail, to lodge a subsequent application before a court of the same jurisdiction with a view to amend the amount of bail or supplement any of the bail conditions.

In the Shongwe matter, Judge Dlamini said the Supreme Court, as per Judge Maphalala, held that: Where a court makes a specific finding refusing bail, it is not open to the same court in a subsequent bail application to review its own decision under the guise of new circumstances. The court becomes functus officio and the matter should be taken up on appeal. It is only the Appeals Court which could deal with the specific finding of the court a quo (that heard the matter). Judge Dlamini said in the MPs matter, there was no need for her to make a determination whether there were new grounds for the present bail application. I find that this court is functus officio. Applicants remedy, if any, lies not with this court but elsewhere in this regard, said the judge. The Crown was represented by Principal Crown Counsel Macebo Nxumalo. The MPs were represented by Human Rights Lawyer Thulani Maseko, who instructed Advocate Jacobus Lodewicus Coetzee Jansen Van Vuuren, from South Africa.
MBABANE  A member of the Royal Science and Technology Park (RSTP) Board, Phiwa Nkambule, learnt on the institutions official website that he was no longer part of it.

On the one hand, the Ministry of Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) claims that his term of office had elapsed, however, Nkambule insists that his appointment was valid until May 2022. Nkambule, a liSwati based in South Africa, took to social media, in particular Twitter, to reveal that he had on Tuesday learnt that his royal job was now officially gone without any formal communication from either the ICT Ministry, the institution or the Board which is chaired by Sthofeni Ginindza. Nkambule said such a move had been expected anyway. This could have been due to his critical political views he expressed on social media. Interviewed on Tuesday, Nkambule said he was appointed into the Board by the Minister of ICT Princess Sikhanyiso in May 2019, for a period of three years which, according to him, would end next year.

Announced

He said again, when the then Acting Minister of ICT Manqoba Khumalo last year announced new members of the Board, he was still part of the list. This was confirmed by Minister Khumalo on Tuesday, that when he left his acting position in January this year, Nkambule was still part of the Board. Nkambule said when he checked the RSTP website, something he frequently did, he was surprised to learn that his name had been removed. Instead, in his position, the institution had written that there were two vacancies and the names of those Board members were still to be announced. The other members of the Board include; businessman Walter Bennett, Prince Hlangusempi, Dr Gugu Sibandze, Simile Muwape and the Chief Executive Officer Vumile Dlamini.

Nkambule further stated that he suspected that the reason why he may have been removed was because since the political unrest that engulfed the country, he had been vocal on his social media pages and sided with the people calling for political reforms, especially after the alleged killings of emaSwati by so-called mercenaries. Contacted for comment about Nkambules position on the Board, the Acting Principal Secretary in the ICT Ministry, Macanjana Motsa, said Nkambules term in office had elapsed.

Motsa responded to this after the PS, Maxwell Masuku had said he was indisposed and Motsa was in charge. Motsa, when informed that Nkambule was maintaining that his tenure would only expire next year, said for now that was the ministrys position. A WhatsApp message sent to Ginindza had not been responded to by yesterday, although there were blue ticks. It had been sent on Tuesday. He had been asked whether it was true that Nkambules tenure had been terminated without him being formally informed. Meanwhile, on September 11, 2020, it had been revealed that Nkambule wrote a letter to the then acting Ict Minister, Khumalo, where he had offered to vacate his RSTP Board seat.

Controversy

This was at the height of the controversy surrounding some of the members of the Board as reported by our sister publication, the Times SUNDAY, that some of them were not based in Eswatini including the former Chairperson Dr Phindile Masangane and United States of America Professor Theodore David, who was a lecture at UNESWA. In that letter, Nkambule said he had noted the growing concern around the presence of certain members on the RSTP Board, including himself. He said the concern had been followed by an investigation/vetting process into my visits to the kingdom by the Executive at the RSTP initiated on 10-09-2020. My appointment by HRH Princess Sikhanyiso, the Minister of ICT in May 2019, was a strategic one and was goal/target-based at the centre of it all being His Majesty the Kings vision, he wrote.

He further stated that his appointment had also been based on what Princess Sikhanyiso believed he could contribute to the Board, the RSTP and the national science and technology ecosystem because of his involvement in technology. If this is not the case anymore, then I would like to request you to reconsider my presence in the Board, Nkambule had further written. He had further stated that the current atmosphere was not healthy in the pursuit of the ministrys goals of accelerated digital transformation in the Kingdom of Eswatini. I am willing to step aside to open up space for a better locally-based candidate as that will help relieve the ministry and the park of the public pressure and will help the RSTP achieve its objectives and improve performance, he had stated.

He further stated that if his offer was accepted, they could invoke Section 5(a) of the Royal Science and Technology Act, 2012 (Act No. 5 of 2012). In response to Nkambules letter, Khumalo stated that it was with grave concern that his offer to vacate the office that he had just recently been appointed to by the Government of the Crown. Crowning my failure to understand the rational informing the decision and offer is that the reason herein forwarded were considered in nominating and ultimately arriving at the decision for your candidature and ultimately your appointment, wrote Khumalo in a letter that was also copied to the Minister of Economic Planning and Development. The former acting minister further stated that he, therefore, found a challenge to accept Nkambules offer to reason in light of the explained process that was undertaken to arrive at the decision to appoint him. Minister Khumalo then kindly asked Nkambule of Ndzingeni to reconsider his offer. Meanwhile, Nkambule said although he was based in South Africa, he was still using his Eswatini international passport, and his work permit and residence permit were attached to it.
Global supply chain operator Geodis is acquiring 21.5 hectares of land at Trade Port Noord from Greenport Venlo. Here, Geodis plans to build one of the most sustainable logistics facilities in the Netherlands.

The 130,000-sq-m contract logistics site will serve customers from various vertical sectors and is designed to accommodate the current growth in e-commerce.

The Venlo region is one of Europes prime spots for logistics activities, located near the Dutch border with Germany, acting as a link between the nearby air and seaports of Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Antwerp with the major industrial markets of the continent.

On the strategic move, CEO Marie-Christine Lombard said: "Trade Port Noord has excellent connections to the European multimodal infrastructure via road, river, rail, ocean and air. This makes it the ideal location for Geodis to operate cargo flows for international clients, and to manage their warehousing and logistics needs utilizing our European distribution network  and to expand our Benelux-Germany-Poland corridor at the same time."

The construction of the new facility will start in 2022. Geodis is committed to protect the environment and ensure the well-being of its employees.

This new build will be designed to standards aimed at a BREEAM outstanding certification, and a WELL Silver certification. BREEAM is a world-known sustainability assessment method for buildings; WELL is an international standard for creating spaces that enhance human health and well-being.

Health and safety of our employees have always been our first priority  already before the COVID 19 pandemic, and still today, says Marie-Christine Lombard. In the same spirit, the Geodis logistics campus in Venlo will be one of the very few logistics buildings in the world with a WELL certification.

To ensure all standards for the desired certifications will be in place, Geodis has involved real estate services and investment company CBRE, advising on the land acquisition and project management.

The new Geodis campus is not only impressive in size, but it is also ambitious. To achieve the highest possible BREEAM-rating, we will pay attention to every detail in both design and material use, as well as design various energy saving systems, says Tim Habraken, Sustainability Director at CBRE.
Mycrane has appointed new franchisees in four countries - UAE, Oman, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan -

thus expanding the footprint of the worlds first digital platform for the search and selection of cranes.

The appointments, confirmed during the recent Big 5 construction trade show in Dubai, mark the launch of Mycrane operations in some of the world's biggest markets, with the opening of its offices in Dubai, Muscat, Nur Sultan and Tashkent.

The global B2B platform simplifies the process of crane rental procurement, allowing users to submit details of their lifting requirements in order to receive personalised quotes from a range of registered crane providers.

Already operational in Russia, Mycrane has been developed by seasoned industry executive Andrei Geikalo, a former commercial director at heavy lift specialist Mammoet.

For the first time, customers of the platform can simply and quickly request a crawler, mobile or tower crane without having to rely on manual processes, such as calling suppliers or making multiple offline requests, said the statement from Mycrane.

The service, operated in countries around the world by a network of local franchisees supported by Mycranes head office team in Dubai, offers cranes with a capacity of between 6 and 750 tonnes, it stated.

Drawing on the management teams experience in the industry, the innovative Mycrane platform has been carefully designed to ensure ease of use, and that the quotes generated are directly comparable. Registration is free for both users and equipment rental companies.

Welcoming his new partners, Geikalo said: "The confirmation of four franchisees so soon after our launch is a testament to the strength of the Mycrane concept."

"Our new partners share our passion for changing the way the crane rental business works, and we would now be happy to hear from other entrepreneurs who may be interested in operating Mycrane in their home country," he added.

Besides the lifting services search, Mycrane offers a number of other tools for the crane industry, including a Marketplace to advertise used equipment, rigging equipment, spare parts and auxiliaries, plus career vacancies.

Mycrane said the new portal allows users to stay up to date with the latest industry developments, while in-house support services such as engineering and legal consultancy are also available.

Support services, such as engineering for heavy lift projects, are offered on a truly independent basis, meaning clients are presented with a full range of solutions, service providers from the whole of the market and the most cost-effective solution, it added.-TradeArabia News Service
ADQ, one of the region's largest holding companies, has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Swiss-based Acino, a leading provider of high-quality pharmaceuticals. Acino is focused on growth-leading markets across the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, Russia, Ukraine and the CIS Region.

Acino is a leader in more than 20 therapeutic areas including gastroenterology, cardiovascular and pain relief for high-quality pharmaceutical products in novel drug delivery forms.

With its own sales force and distribution partnerships, Acino is active in more than 90 countries. As a trusted partner to pharmaceutical companies worldwide, Acino also supplies bespoke one-stop solutions through contract manufacturing and out-licensing.

Fahad Al Qassim, Executive Director, Healthcare & Pharma at ADQ, commented: "Building on a series of strategic acquisitions throughout this year, we are creating a strong platform to fortify the UAE's position as a regional hub for pharmaceutical manufacturing, commercialisation and distribution in select growth-leading markets. Our aim for ADQ's healthcare and pharma cluster is to ensure access to affordable, essential medicines and advance new, innovative treatments that help improve people's lives. With the company's industry experience and broad reach, Acino will enable ADQ to deliver an even greater level of growth, innovation and ambition across the pharma value chain."

Steffen Saltofte, CEO of Acino, said: "Acino is committed to advancing the development of healthcare by enhancing access to high-quality medicines that patients and governments can trust and value, and ADQ's support will accelerate this ambition. Having built a solid reputation as a leading provider of advanced pharmaceutical solutions in the emerging markets, we are excited about the opportunity for business transformation and commercial growth potential as Acino joins ADQ's healthcare and pharma portfolio."

With the Acino acquisition, ADQ intends to create an integrated pharma platform in select growth-leading markets with formulation development, in-licensing, manufacturing, and commercialisation capabilities.

Earlier this year, ADQ acquired Amoun Pharmaceutical Company, one of Egypt's leading manufacturers, distributors and exporters of branded pharmaceutical and animal health products, and Pharmax Pharmaceuticals, a UAE-based pharmaceutical company which manufactures and markets affordable, branded generic medications.

Additionally, ADQ purchased a minority stake in India-based Biocon Biologics Limited, which specialises in developing, manufacturing and marketing high-quality, affordable biosimilars across global markets.

Acino's strong management, commercialisation capabilities, diverse product portfolio and licenses across many emerging markets will be essential to ADQ's long-term strategy of developing its integrated pharma platform and meeting the need for high-quality, affordable medicines in the UAE and the broader region.

The agreement builds on a collaboration agreement between Acino and Pharmax to license, manufacture, and supply select Acino products across the Middle East and Africa, based on the local needs of patients.

The definitive agreement is for ADQ to acquire 100 per cent of Acino from its current shareholders, which include Nordic Capital and Avista Capital Partners. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals. -- TradeArabia News Service
A high-level delegation from the UAE led by Mariam Almheiri, Minister of State for Food and Water Security, was on a four-day visit to Ukraine to discuss ways to foster new sustainable agricultural investment partnerships in the European nation, which is one of the most natural-resource-rich countries in the world.

Ukraines vast capacity for grain production and its ability to export cereals to the UAE was one of the main topics discussed during the visit of Almheiri which concluded yesterday (September 15).

Discussions focused on ways to foster new tieups in order to establish competitive and sustainable agricultural investment projects.

"This visit was strategically important as it enabled us to explore the opportunities for creating a strong food security partnership with Ukraine," stated the minister.

"While Ukraine can help the UAE meet the goals under the first of its five National Food Security Strategy pillars, diversifying international sources of food and foreign agricultural investments, we in turn can share our expertise in agricultural technology, particularly closed environment agriculture and aquaculture, to help the european nation establish a viable and productive AgTech sector," she added.

Ukraine, she stated, was located on one of the worlds most prominent arable regions.

"More than two-thirds of the countrys 600,000 sq km is allocated to agriculture, and more than half of this area is actually used and suitable for agricultural production. These lands consist predominantly of black soil that contains a host of elements that ensure an abundant crop yield," remarked Almheiri.

"The soil here is very fertile, which makes it exceptionally suited for growth crops, especially wheat, barley, maize, sugar beet, sunflower, soybean, and rapeseed," she added.

Taking in a number of Ukraines cereal and sugar production and storage facilities during the visit, the minister held discussions on the various aspects of international grain trade and responsible foreign agricultural investment, such as logistics and supply line issues.

The conversations were all centred on exploring a strong food security alliance between Ukraine and the UAE.

The second day of the visit saw Almheiri meet the Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine, Roman Mykolayovych Leshchenko, in the capital Kiev.

The duo held talks on the new reforms on investing in agricultural lands being introduced in Ukraine and the potential investment targets for privatisation.-TradeArabia News Service
Tourism leaders from across Asia and the Pacific have met to plan the sectors restart and recovery even as borders remain closed throughout the region at a meeting of the UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO).



The 33rd Joint meeting of the World Tourism Organizations Commission for East Asia and the Pacific and its Commission for South Asia came on the back of a challenging year for the region. The first to feel the impacts of the pandemic, the tourism sector of Asia and the Pacific has also been the hardest hit, recording a 95% fall in international arrivals in the first five months of 2021.



Coordinated restart and recovery



With the right policy measures and strong coordination, destinations can start safely welcoming back international visitors, thereby allowing tourism to deliver on its potential as a driver of recovery and inclusive growth



With UNWTO data also showing that this region continues to have the largest proportion of destinations closed to tourists, the Member States taking part in the virtual meetings focused on the coordination of policy measures and strategies to accelerate the recovery of tourism activities in the region.



These include the phased lifting on travel restrictions and the introduction of travel corridors. Looking ahead, Members also agreed on the importance of upgrading the skills of the tourism labour force, as well as embracing innovation and digital transformation.



UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili said: The Asia and Pacific region has a proven record as a dynamic tourism destination. With the right policy measures and strong coordination, destinations can start safely welcoming back international visitors, thereby allowing tourism to deliver on its potential as a driver of recovery and inclusive growth.



Elections for the future



The meetings attracted around 120 participants from 25 of UNWTOs 29 Member States in the region under the chairmanship of Malaysia and the Maldives. Ahead of the 24th Session of the UNWTO General Assembly (November 30December 3, 2021, Marrakesh, Morocco) the meeting concluded with elections and nominations for positions within key UNWTO bodies.



India and Iran were nominated to represent South Asia on the UNWTO Executive Council; Cambodia and Maldives were nominated to represent the region as Vice-Presidents of the 24th General Assembly, while Samoa and Bhutan will serve the members on the Credentials Committee.



Malaysia and the Maldives were nominated as Chairpersons to serve their Commissions for a second term, with Fiji and Japan appointed to play the role of Vice-Chairs for the Commission for East Asia and the Pacific, while Bangladesh and Iran will serve as Vice-Chairs for the Commission for South Asia.



Finally, Maldives was nominated as the venue for the next Joint Meeting of the two Commissions (CAP and CSA) in 2022, and Indonesia was endorsed as the host of World Tourism Day 2022.  TradeArabia News Service
The Indian Ocean island nation of Mauritius continues with its proactive and transparent response to the global Covid crisis, as it prepares to reopen its borders to fully vaccinated visitors, but in a safe and secure manner, on October 1.

The country has one of the highest fully vaccinated rates in Africa, currently standing at over 60 per cent of the overall population (82% of the local adult population), said a statement from Mauritius Tourism Promotion Authority.

The vaccination campaign is ongoing, and the rollout will also include those below 18 years from the end of September 2021, it added.

Minister of Health and Wellness Dr K. Jagutpal said: We adopted a health-first approach with strict protocols to protect the population, from the beginning of the pandemic. Our public health services continue to operate to their normal capacity, with protocols being updated when relevant.

We instituted airport screening and the quarantining of travellers since 2020. Our vaccination rollout has been systematic, and we have already exceeded our target of fully vaccinated adults well ahead of the complete reopening of our borders to vaccinated travelers on October 1, he noted.

The nations health service has coped well throughout the pandemic, implementing strong protocols. The countrys vaccination programme and overall health management resulted in very low hospitalisation numbers  an average of just over 3% hospitalised patients over the last 28 days, most of them being in health facilities because of associated comorbidities rather than Covid-19 suggestive symptoms.

The local representative of the World Health Organisation Dr Laurent Musango said: We now have to learn to live with Covid-19. The vaccination rollout in Mauritius was good and the vaccination rate high enough to make it safe to now ask the population to resume their normal lives, while respecting barrier measures.

Of course, in the context of a pandemic, there are always more avenues to be considered to optimise safety, but Mauritius is doing well, he added.

Unvaccinated travellers can travel to Mauritius, subject to a 14 days in-room quarantine in a state designated hotel/facility, stated Mauritius Tourism Promotion Authority.

This same protocol for unvaccinated travellers will remain when the country reopens for tourists on October 1, it added.-TradeArabia News Service
New Delhi, Sep 16 (UNI) During the visit this week to Portugal by Minister of State for External Affairs Meenakshi Lekhi, the two sides inked a milestone bilateral agreement on the Recruitment of Indian Citizens to Work in Portugal  the first such dedicated agreement on labour mobility signed with a European country.



This is also the first such agreement signed by Portugal outside the EU.



The agreement sets out the procedures for recruitment of Indian workers and professionals in Portugal and will open up new employment opportunities for Indians, further strengthening the socio-economic linkages between the two countries, an official statement said.



Prior to the signing, the Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, had approved the signing of an agreement on the recruitment of Indian citizens to work in Portugal on September 8.



The agreement will set an institutional mechanism for partnership and cooperation between India and Portugal on sending and accepting Indian workers.



Under the agreement, a Joint Committee would be set up to follow-up on the implementation of the agreement.



Signing the agreement with Portugal will add a new destination for Indian migrant workers in an EU member nation, especially in the context of many Indian workers who have returned to India following the Covid-19 pandemic.



It would also provide new opportunities for skilled Indian workers and professionals.



Indian workers would have enhanced job opportunities to work in Portugal. The Government-to-Government mechanism proposed in the agreement will ensure that the movement of workers happens smoothly with the maximum support from both sides.



During her September 12-14 visit, Lekhi had an in-depth review of the bilateral relations with her counterpart, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Co-operation, Francisco Andre.



She also met the Foreign Minister of Portugal Augusto Santos Silva, who lauded Indias mass vaccination efforts and expressed hope to continue the momentum of high-level bilateral visits between the two countries as the pandemic situation improves. Minister Silva also referred to the successful India-EU Leaders Meeting in Porto in May this year and stressed on the early implementation of its outcomes in Brussels.



Lekhi called for greater focus on enhancing and diversifying bilateral economic and commercial relations with Portugal and reiterated the urgency regarding mutual recognition of vaccinations and vaccine certificates for resumption of political, business and people-to-people engagements.



In her meeting with the Minister of Culture of Portugal, Dr. Graca Fonseca, Lekhi explored avenues of cooperation in the field of culture such as exchange of youth and literary delegations, establishment of Maritime Heritage Gallery at Lothal under the MOU signed with Portugal in February 2020, capacity building in heritage conservation, archives and museology and training of trainers in related skills.



She also met the Executive Secretary of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP) Dr. Zacarias da Costa. This was the first high level interaction between India and the CPLP, since Indias joining the CPLP as an Associate Observer at the Luanda Summit in July 2021. Lekhi conveyed Indias commitment towards intensifying cooperation with Lusophone countries as per the expressed objectives of the CPLP.



She also interacted with the Indian diaspora and participated in the Azadi ka Amrut Mahotsav celebrations there. The visit was the first Ministerial-level from India since the onset of the pandemic, and provides further impetus to Indias growing relations with Portugal and the EU.

UNI/RN
New Delhi, Sep 16 (UNI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi will have a bilateral meeting with US President Joe Biden during his visit to Washington for the first in-person Quad Leaders Summit on September 24, and there is likelihood of bilateral meetings with the other Quad leaders -- Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia and Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga of Japan, time permitting, the MEA said on Thursday.



While the Prime Minister is in Washington he will also have a bilateral meeting with President Biden. We also look forward to bilateral meetings with other Quad leaders, time permitting, as well as bilateral meetings with some other leaders while he is in New York on September 25, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said at a media briefing here.
TVS Motor launches Naked Street Design TVS Raider motorcycle globally for Gen Z

Hosur, Sep16 (UNI) TVS Motor Company on Thursday announced the launch of the feature-rich offering in the125cc segment TVS Raider for the aspirational young customers in India and globally.

The distinctly young and sporty motorcycle comes with first-in-class features such as a reverse LCD digital speedometer, optional 5-inch TFT cluster with Voice Assist, multiple ride modes and first-in-segment under-seat storage, the company said in a statement.

Equipped with best-in-class Acceleration and first-in-segment Ride Modes, Reverse LCD Cluster Outstanding mileage through powerful advanced 3V engine with TVS IntelliGO (Start/Stop) and ETFi Upcoming TVS SMARTXONNECT TM variant will offer TFT cluster, Bluetooth Connectivity & Voice Assist 125cc segment TVS Raider for the aspirational young customers in India and globally.

Commenting on the launch, Mr. KN Radhakrishnan, Director & CEO, TVS Motor Company, said, TVS Motor Company caters to customers across almost everycontinent. We are happy to add a new global motorcycle platform to our portfolio with the TVS Raider, which is designed for the young, digitally native Gen Z. True to its

target segment, it is equipped with cutting-edge in vehicle and connected technology. I am confident that TVS Raider shall be the preferred choice for our young consumers both in India and globally.

Mr. Aniruddha Haldar, Vice President (Marketing) Commuters, Corporate Brand & Dealer Transformation, TVS Motor Company, said, TVS Motor Company has long recognised Gen Z as a key consumer cohort. Some of the favourite brands of Gen Z come from our stable, like in EV  TVS iQUBE and the TVS Racing born TVS Apache series and TVS NTORQ 125. We will again seize their imagination with the TVS Raider and its Naked Street Styling, best-in-class Acceleration with Ride Modes and mono-shock based ride-handling together with the TVS intelliGO and ETFi led mileage performance. I am sure our

customers would appreciate the distinctive ride character of the TVS Raider; its one-of-a-kind

animalistic headlight and the first-in-segment reverse LCD cluster.

UNI BSP JW
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Ministry of Equality Makes Final Call for Mentors and Mentees for the Womens Mentorship Programme

The Ministry of Equality have said that they would like to remind the public that expressions of interest for the current cycle of the Womens Mentorship Programme continue to be invited.

To date, the Womens Mentorship Programme has been extremely successful and has run for two cycles. The Programmes success is evident from the high number of returning mentors and, similarly, from the number of mentees who have gone on to become mentors. The opportunities the Programme offers are therefore wide-reaching and long-lasting and participants are clearly invested in both the short-term and long-term benefits of this initiative.

The Programme is open to women of 18 years of age and over, are resident in Gibraltar and feel that they would benefit from an experienced mentor. The Ministry encourages women who fall in this category to register their interest in the Womens Mentorship Programme by emailing This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Applications are accepted on a rolling basis, so if applicants are not successful in securing a mentor for this third cycle it is likely that they will be matched with a mentor in the next cycle.

Potential mentors are also encouraged to register their interest by sending an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Mentors of the scheme are volunteers with significant experience and expertise, who can offer advice and learning opportunities to women seeking career advice or support.

The final deadline for applications for the third cycle of the Womens Mentorship Programme is Friday 24th September.

Minister for Equality, the Hon Samantha Sacramento MP, said: I am delighted by the interest registered for the third cycle of the Womens Mentorship Programme so far. After so many uncertain and difficult months due to the Pandemic I am heartened by the imminent start of the third cycle of this Programme. For many people, the world of work has changed dramatically over the last year and this Programme offers mentees the opportunity for continued professional growth and support. Past mentors and mentees have related their very positive experiences of the Programme and therefore I would like to strongly encourage women who believe they could benefit from the Programme to register their interest. Our mentors, who are professionals in their respective fields, have a host of skills and a wealth of expertise which will be highly beneficial to the professional development of our future mentees. This is a wonderful opportunity that I hope many potential mentees will be encouraged to embrace.
On 16 September, the World Customs Organization (WCO) joins the international community in celebrating the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer- also known as World Ozone Day  under the theme Montreal Protocol  keeping us, our food and vaccines cool. World Ozone Day commemorates the anniversary of the signing, in 1987, of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, and reaffirms the importance of the international instruments that support this effort.

On this day, the WCO reaffirms its support to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and OzonAction for the implementation of the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer, the Montreal Protocol and the Kigali Amendment. The effective implementation of these Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) is instrumental in guaranteeing that products being traded are safe both for human health and for the environment.

The ozone layer protects the Earth from the suns more harmful ultraviolet rays. However, a number of commonly-used chemicals have been found to be extremely damaging to this protective gas layer. A united global effort to phase out ozone-depleting substances is necessary to heal the hole in the ozone layer, which is fundamental to both human health and the preservation of nature, as well as for addressing climate change.

Customs plays a key role in the implementation of these international instruments for ozone layer protection and, therefore, in ensuring the protection of both people and ecosystems. At borders, Customs monitors the transboundary movements of environmentally sensitive goods, and can check their compliance with the provisions of the MEAs, recalled WCO Secretary General Dr. Kunio Mikuriya. In so doing, Customs makes an effective contribution to the achievement of the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including the SDG 3 which aims at ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for all, at all ages, he added.

Customs officers, being at the frontline of human and environmental protection, have a duty to prevent and detect illegal trade in ozone depleting substances (ODS). To support them in this mission, the WCO, in cooperation with OzonAction and the partners of the Green Customs Initiative, provides training and guidance to Customs world-wide, enhancing Customs officers skills and facilitating their access to information, so that they can successfully mitigate the illegal trade in ODS. The WCO also coordinates global enforcement operations such as the Demeter operations targeting illicit shipments of ODS. During the latest edition in 2020 - Operation Demeter VI - Customs officers seized approximately 42 metric tons of illegally traded ODS.

The success of Customs enforcement efforts in terms of the durable implementation of MEAs lies in multilateral cooperation, managing risks and applying technology to data exchange and analytics, alongside continued capacity building. By developing a cooperation network and enhancing the gathering and exchange of intelligence, Customs services continue to contribute actively to the protection of the planet and its people.
Fort Polk, LA (71446)

Today

Isolated thunderstorms early, then cloudy skies after midnight. Low 63F. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 30%..

Tonight

Isolated thunderstorms early, then cloudy skies after midnight. Low 63F. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 30%.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-09-16 09:35:30|Editor: huaxia

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WELLINGTON, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- Air New Zealand and aircraft manufacturer Airbus have announced Thursday a joint initiative to research how hydrogen-powered aircraft could be part of their fleet by 2030.

The two organisations have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to cooperate on a joint research project to better understand the opportunities and challenges of flying zero-emission hydrogen aircraft in New Zealand.

Under the MoU, Air New Zealand will analyse the impact hydrogen aircraft may have on its network, operations and infrastructure, while Airbus will provide hydrogen aircraft performance requirements and ground operations characteristics to support Air New Zealand to develop its decarbonisation roadmap.

Air New Zealand Chief Executive Officer Greg Foran said the MoU is an exciting step towards understanding how hydrogen-powered aircraft could become a reality in New Zealand.

"New Zealand has a unique opportunity to be a world leader in the adoption of zero emissions aircraft, given the country's commitment to renewable energy which can be used to generate green hydrogen and our highly connected regional air network. This agreement brings us a step closer seeing low carbon solutions in place for our shorter domestic and regional flights in the next decade."

"At this stage, both hydrogen and battery electric aircraft are still on the table as potential options for our shorter domestic flights, along with Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) for long haul operations. This research will help to inform future decision making as we work towards net zero emissions by 2050," Foran said.

Airbus Asia-Pacific President Anand Stanley said, "This agreement with Air New Zealand will provide us with important insights about how we could put a zero-emission aircraft into service. The joint study will enable us to gain invaluable feedback on what airlines will expect and their preferences in terms of configuration and performance," Stanley said. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2021-09-16 10:42:08|Editor: huaxia

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WELLINGTON, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand reported 13 new community cases of Delta variant of COVID-19 on Thursday, all in the largest city Auckland, which brought the total number of cases in the country's community outbreak to 996.

Of the current community cases, 19 cases are in hospital, including four cases in intensive care units (ICUs) or high dependency units (HDUs), Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield told a press conference.

Auckland has 979 community cases and the capital Wellington has 17 cases, Bloomfield said.

There are 966 cases that have been clearly epidemiologically-linked to another case or sub-cluster, and a further 10 cases for which links are yet to be fully established, he said.

According to the Ministry of Health, New Zealand also reported five historical cases in recent returnees. These cases have remained in managed isolation and quarantine facilities in Auckland, Hamilton and Christchurch.

Areas outside Auckland moved to Alert Level 2 from 11:59 p.m. local time on Sept. 7, which means businesses and schools are back to normal, with masks mandatory in certain settings and gatherings limited to 50 people in size.

Auckland currently remains at Level 4, the top-level COVID-19 lockdown, for another week. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2021-09-16 13:37:28|Editor: huaxia

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TOKYO, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- Good exports in Japan saw a 26.2-percent expansion in August from the previous year, keeping to recover rapidly from the initial influence of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, government statistics showed Thursday.

A preliminary report by the finance ministry showed that exports gained for the sixth consecutive month to 6.61 trillion yen (60 billion U.S. dollars), thanks to active exports of steel to the European market and semiconductor-producing equipment to some Asian nations.

Compared with the same period last year, the growth in exports topped 20 percent for the fifth successive month rebounding from a plunge of 14.8 percent in August last year when Japan remained affected by the decline in global demand for automobiles and other commodities.

Exports increased 7.6 percent from August two years ago before the virus epidemic broke out, which reflected strong demand, the ministry said.

As the pandemic led to a global chip shortage and the impact on parts suppliers in Southeast Asia, automobile exports went up 4.0 percent in the reporting month, slowing down largely from the jump of 43.5 percent the month earlier, probably indicating a decline in output by some domestic automakers, a ministry official said.

Imports soared 44.7 percent to 7.24 trillion yen (66.2 million dollars) for the seventh month in a row, triggered by growths in medicine and liquefied natural gas imports as well as higher prices of crude oil purchases from nations such as Saudi Arabia.

Totally, the country marked a 635.36 billion yen (5.8 million dollars) goods trade deficit, ending in the red for the first time in three months.

All numbers were compiled on a customs-cleared basis. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2021-09-16 14:34:39|Editor: huaxia

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DHAKA, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- Bangladeshi Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi and his counterpart Australian Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment, Dan Tehan have signed a framework on trade and investment between the two countries.

The Trade and Investment Framework Arrangement (TIFA), the first of this kind between Australia and Bangladesh in the last five decades, is expected to provide a platform for institutionalized economic interactions and to open newer opportunities for trade and investment between the two countries, Bangladesh's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

It said a joint working group is expected to offer a mechanism to take forward discussion to realize full potentials of trade and investment.

While speaking at a virtual signing ceremony on Wednesday, Minister Tipu Munshi said, "I am profoundly happy that TIFA has been signed in the year while Bangladesh is celebrating the golden jubilee of independence and the birth centenary of the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman."

"We would expect the TIFA to address all relevant questions including retention of the Duty-Free Quota-Free (DFQF) treatment for Bangladesh in the post LDC graduation (least developed countries), trade liberalization, creating a conducive atmosphere for greater trade in services and flow of investment," Munshi said.

He invited his Australian counterpart to visit Dhaka soon.

Tehan warmly accepted the invitation and promised to visit Bangladesh next year with a trade and investment delegation.

He assured Bangladesh of the continuation of DFQF treatment pending the next review which is not scheduled in the foreseeable future.

"Australian has the potential to meet Bangladesh's increasing education, training and energy needs," he added.

Bangladesh-Australia bilateral trade has grown six times over the past decade, reaching 2.6 billion U.S. dollars last year. Ready-made garment, agriculture, food and education services were key drivers of this growth.

Despite not being an elaborate and legally binding agreement, TIFA can help add new tradeable items from both sides and facilitate bilateral trade and investment. Australia proposed to host the inaugural meeting of the joint working group in early 2022. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2021-09-16 18:49:23|Editor: huaxia

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KATHMANDU, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- Chinese investors had pledged direct investment worth 11.15 billion Nepali rupees (94.65 million U.S. dollars) in Nepal during the first two months of the 2021-22 fiscal year starting in mid-July, about half of the total committed during the whole 2020-21 fiscal year, the latest figures from the Department of Industry showed.

According to the department, Chinese investors registered a total of 62 enterprises from mid-July to mid-September, and the amount of investment pledged is about half of the 22.5 billion rupees (190.87 million dollars) committed by the Chinese investors during the entire 2020-21 fiscal year.

During the first two months of last fiscal year, Chinese investors committed 7.4 billion rupees (62.77 million dollars) in foreign direct investment (FDI) in Nepal.

Jiblal Bhusal, director general at the department, told Xinhua that the agency had approved many pending investment proposals from the Chinese side in the last two months as the restrictive measures imposed to contain the COVID-19 pandemic were eased gradually, and the lockdown was lifted in the Kathmandu Valley early this month.

"China has emerged as the largest FDI contributor to Nepal in recent years, which has also been reflected in the approved FDI amount in the last two months," said Bhusal.

The amount pledged by Chinese investors during the first two months of the current fiscal year accounted for 95 percent of the total commitments made to Nepal by foreign investors, according to the department.

China had been topping the chart in terms of FDI pledges to Nepal for six years in a row till last fiscal year, the department noted.

Among the 62 enterprises registered by the Chinese investors, 26 are related to hotels and restaurants, while the others cover cargo handling, electronic equipment maintenance, mask manufacturing, construction, slaughter house, software development, packaged drinking water production, ready-made garment and assembly of electric vehicles, among others. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2021-09-16 21:43:22|Editor: huaxia

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Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi (R) meets with Mongolian Deputy Prime Minister Sainbuyan Amarsaikhan in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, Sept. 16, 2021. (Xinhua)

DUSHANBE, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Thursday met with Mongolian Deputy Prime Minister Sainbuyan Amarsaikhan in the capital of Tajikistan here, with both sides vowing to promote bilateral cooperation.

Wang said that China and Mongolia are friendly neighbors linked by mountains and rivers, and that the development of bilateral relations maintains a good momentum.

China has always pursued a good-neighborliness policy, and is willing to continue to help Mongolia develop its economy and improve people's wellbeing, Wang said.

He noted that both sides should continue to uphold mutual respect for each other's independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity, core interests and major concerns, and provide political guarantees for the stable and healthy development of bilateral relations.

China will firmly support Mongolia's fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, steadily promote bilateral cooperation on major projects, and create more growth points for cooperation, Wang said, adding that China supports Mongolia in strengthening its cooperation with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

For his part, Amarsaikhan said that China is Mongolia's good neighbor and partner.

With China's help, Mongolia is gradually emerging from the worst in fighting the pandemic, Amarsaikhan said, expressing his sincere gratitude to China for supporting Mongolia's fight against the pandemic, especially the provision of high-quality vaccines.

Amarsaikhan added that Mongolia firmly supports China in safeguarding its core interests, adheres to mutual respect for each other's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and attaches great importance to strengthening cooperation with China in the fields of economy, trade, education, and humanities.

He also hoped that the two sides will strengthen high-level exchanges, lift the level of bilateral cooperation, and further strengthen the friendship between the peoples of the two countries. Enditem
YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan  Pictures posted on social media by an Air Force spouse of filthy, moldy accommodations set aside for families in coronavirus quarantine have prompted the base commander to announce a thorough review.

The images posted Sunday on the Yokota Spouses & Families Facebook page and a response from base officials sparked more than 800 comments, with many blaming Air Force leaders for the conditions.

In a statement Tuesday afternoon, 374th Airlift Wing commander Col. Andrew Campbell thanked those who brought their concerns to his attention.

"Yokota's leadership team is dedicated to ensuring the facilities used reflect the care and respect we have for our community," he wrote. "As the Wing Commander, I'm responsible for any lapse in focus to that end. Along with Yokota's leadership team, I'm executing a comprehensive review of how we manage COVID related isolation and quarantine."

Photographs of quarantine quarters at Yokota Air Base, Japan, show a dirty bathroom, stained carpet, food waste spattered on kitchen floors and appliances, holes in the ceiling and walls and what looks like mold growing on fixtures. (Heather Ann Knef/Facebook)

Campbell said he has given another colonel authority to make needed changes related to the facility's cleanliness and its team's readiness to properly host and support the community.

Air Force spouse Heather Ann Knef posted images of a dilapidated apartment where her family was sent for 14 days of quarantine after her daughter tested positive for the coronavirus.

The photographs show a dirty bathroom, stained carpet, food waste spattered on kitchen floors and appliances, holes in the ceiling and walls and what looks like mold growing on fixtures.

The family was overwhelmed by the smell of mold and mildew when they arrived at the unit, Knef said in her post.

"Not to mention you can see mold everywhere you look," she wrote. "This room wasn't even cleaned before they forced us to quarantine here. There is pee and poop on the toilets, toothpaste in the sink, food and filth on the carpets, trash on the bathroom floor, rust everywhere, food crusted on the microwave and the shower is still wet from the last people that stayed here."

No one should be expected to live such conditions like this, Knef said in her post.

"They are sending sick, vulnerable Covid patients from the comfort of their home to quarantine in this filth," she wrote.

The 374th Airlift Wing addressed Knef's post on the popular Facebook page with one of its own Monday evening that blamed a breakdown in administrative processes and communication for sending the family to an apartment that hadn't been cleaned.

Photographs of quarantine quarters at Yokota Air Base, Japan, show a dirty bathroom, stained carpet, food waste spattered on kitchen floors and appliances, holes in the ceiling and walls and what looks like mold growing on fixtures. (Heather Ann Knef/Facebook)

"When the accidental assignment was identified by wing personnel, the family in question was reassigned to another unit," the message said.

However, Knef said the second unit was in poor condition, too.

Her concerns were echoed by Alexandra Kliber, 36, who said she was sent to the tower in August along with her sons, ages 2 and 10, to care for her husband, Air Force Capt. Eric Kliber, 38, who had tested for the coronavirus, she said in a telephone interview Tuesday.

Eric Kliber was severely ill but his request to be hospitalized was refused and the family was forced to go to the temporary quarters, she said.

"The carpets were full of mildew," she said. "It was hard to keep my 2-year-old off them."

Knef's post drew almost 500 comments about the tower's condition and questioning the need for people to be there when they could quarantine at home.

Temporary assignment to the tower is a hardship but it's one of the community's most effective tools for mitigating virus spread, according to the wing's post, which prompted more than 300 additional comments.

Some questioned the impact of quarantines on people who had already faced more than a year of restrictions due to the pandemic. Others said unsanitary conditions in the quarantine tower have been present for more than a year.
A black and white photo posted on Facebook shows a group of people standing around and staring intently at a large wooden box.

"Back in 1932, when our people in one of Kenyan's villages first heard music from a speaker," one caption to the photo reads. Another caption is similar: "Back in 1932, when Kenyans first heard music from a speaker."

But what does the photo really show? We checked.

International Library of African Music

Using a TinEye reverse image search, we found the photo on akg-images, an online picture library describing itself as specialised in fine art, history and vintage photography.

Here the photo is captioned only with keywords: "Batwa pigmies listening to playback 2, Batwa, Hugh Tracey, International Library of African Music, Democratic Republic of Congo."

The Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization describes the Batwa people - "also known as the Twa or the Pygmies of Central Africa", as an "indigenous group and the oldest recorded inhabitants of the Great Lakes Region in Central Africa".

We also found the photo on Africa Media Online, a digital archive of African media from several collections. Here two descriptions of the photo indicate it was taken in 1949 or 1950.

Both websites credit British ethnomusicologist Hugh Tracey, who founded the International Library of African Music in 1954. Based at Rhodes University in South Africa, the library describes itself as "one of the world's great repositories of African music".

A 2016 article on the website of The World, a US-based public radio program, gives more detail on the photo and dates it to 1952.

"A group of Mbuti Pygmies listen to playback of their own music in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1952," its caption reads. "The recording was made by ethnomusicologist Hugh Tracey."

We've seen no evidence that the photo was taken in 1932, in Kenya. It shows an indigenous group listening to a recording of their own music in the Democratic Republic of the Congo some time around 1950.

In 2019 Africa Check debunked a similar claim that the photo showed "Nigerians listening to music for the first time".
The militarisation of the Zimbabwean government raises serious questions about who really wields political power. In this 2019 photograph, Commander-in-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces President Emmerson Mnangagwa and Commander Zimbabwe Defence Forces General Phillip Valerio Sibanda inspect a parade during Zimbabwe Defence Forces Day celebrations in Harare.

analysis

The capture of democratic political systems by private power networks is arguably the greatest threat to civil liberties and inclusive development in Africa. That's the conclusion of two new reports that address the issue of threats to democracy on the continent.

The first report is published by Ghana's Centre for Democratic Development. It focuses on the capture and subversion of democratic institutions in Benin, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique and Nigeria.

These case studies reveal that even in more democratic states such as Benin and Ghana, ruling parties can "hijack" democracy and appropriate its benefits. They do this by capturing the institutions of democracy itself. This includes electoral commissions, judiciaries, legislatures and even the media and civil society.

The net effect is to undermine transparency and accountability. This in turn facilitates the abuse of power, especially in more authoritarian contexts.

The second report was curated by Democracy in Africa and takes a slightly different approach. It looks at how unelected networks can infiltrate and subvert state structures.

In particular, it maps the emergence of shadow states in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. These case studies show that networks of unelected businessmen, civil servants, political fixers and members of the presidents' families wield more power than legislators.

By mapping how these networks are organised across different groups and countries, the report reveals how influential and resilient certain groups have become. It also shows how many shadow states have been integrated into transnational financial and - in some cases - criminal networks.

This is not an "African" issue. Similar processes have been identified in a number of different countries and regions. These include Bangladesh, Brazil and the US. But this does not mean that the need to recognise and confront these issues is any less pressing.

States with higher levels of democracy capture are prone to becoming more authoritarian, corrupt and abusive.

Democracy capture and the shadow state

According to politics professor Emmanuel Gyimah-Boadi, democracy capture occurs when

a few individuals or sections of a supposedly democratic polity are able to systematically appropriate to themselves the institutions and processes as well as dividends of democratic governance.

In other words, democracy capture expands the idea of "state capture" to include all political institutions and democratic activities including civil society and the media.

The term is widely used in South Africa to refer to the undue influence of special interest groups over state institutions.

Indeed what is striking about this process is the well-structured networks that encompass a broad range of individuals from government to the security forces, traditional leaders, private businesses, state-owned enterprises, and their family members. According to a separate study by South African academics Ivor Chipkin and Mark Swilling, what distinguishes these actors is their privileged "access to the inner sanctum of power in order to make decisions".

One helpful way of conceptualising these networks is the idea of shadow states developed by the influential political scientist William Reno.

For Reno, a shadow state is effectively a system of governance in which a form of parallel government is established by a coalition of the president, militias, security agencies, local intermediaries and foreign companies. In extreme versions such as Sierra Leone real power no longer lies in official institutions of government such as the legislature.

This kind of shadow state is characterised by the existence of private armies and a severely limited, almost imaginary, formal state.

More recently, researchers have identified manifestations of the shadow state in countries that are not in the middle of civil war and have stronger formal political systems. Good examples include Kenya and Zambia.

In these cases, the shadow state is more oriented towards hampering the activities of opposition parties and ensuring impunity for its members.

Africa is not a country

The nine case studies featured in the two reports show that the extent of democracy capture varies significantly. It is lower in states like Ghana, where robust electoral contestation among rival parties has seen multiple transfers of power. It's much higher in states such as Zimbabwe, where the government has never changed hands.

The shape and resilience of unelected power networks also varies in important ways. In Uganda, the shadow state is run by an axis of President Yoweri Museveni's family, a "military aristocracy" and interlocutors in the business community.

In Benin, President Patrice Talon has exploited the weakness of the legal system, the judiciary and the legislature to expand his power. Through this process he has turned one of the continent's most vibrant democracies into a near political monopoly.

The picture is different again in the DRC. International military alliances were critical to the way that former presidents Laurent Kabila and Joseph Kabila took and held power. This led to a shadow state that has been more profoundly shaped by transnational smuggling networks and the activities of the security forces.

The situation in Zambia is also distinctive. Under former president Edgar Lungu, the security forces were less relevant than the nexus between politicians, government officials and businessmen. This led to rampant corruption and mismanagement. But it did not prevent a transfer of power in 2021.

In contrast, in Zimbabwe the government has been progressively militarised, penetrating further areas of the state and the economy. This raises serious questions about whether President Emmerson Mnangagwa - or army leaders - holds real power.

It is, therefore, important to map the shadow state on a case-by-case basis because no two networks are the same. The differences between them reveals who really holds power.

The consequences

Shadow states have a negative impact on democracy and accountability. But the damage they do goes well beyond this. It undermines inclusive development through three related processes:

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creating a culture of impunity, which facilitates corruption and diverts resources from productive investments

manipulating government expenditure and other public resources and opportunities to sustain the patronage networks and ensure the shadow state's political survival

creating monopolistic or oligopolistic conditions that increase prices and enable companies with links to the shadow state to make excessive profits.

The result is that resources and investment are systematically diverted into private hands.

In Uganda, Museveni issues tax waivers to business allies in return for election support. This denies the treasury hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.

In Zimbabwe, companies in league with the ruling party and the military have used these connections to establish near monopolies in key sectors of the economy that exploit the public. In one case, this led to severe fuel shortages that artificially inflated prices.

When added to the billions of dollars lost through straightforward corruption, theft and fraud, it is clear that these processes represent one of the most significant barriers to inclusive development in Africa. Unless these networks are challenged, they will continue to keep citizens in poverty while enriching those connected to the shadow state.

Professor H. Kwasi Prempeh, executive director of the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development, co-authored this article

Nic Cheeseman, Professor of Democracy, University of Birmingham
analysis

In early August the former president of Cote d'Ivoire, Laurent Gbagbo, floated the idea of creating a new political party. Gbagbo's comments came after his return to Cote d'Ivoire on 26 June after nearly 10 years of facing charges at the International Criminal Court.

In July 2019, the court acquitted him of crimes against humanity, including murder, rape and "other inhuman acts" during the 2010-2011 post-election violence.

Gbagbo's return was sealed when the court's Appeals Chamber confirmed the acquittal in March 2021. And President Alassane Ouattara gave him a diplomatic passport.

Gbagbo's announcement confirms his interest in exercising political influence in a country where the opposition is divided and the president faces criticism for obtaining a third term.

The prospect of a new political party with Gbagbo's blessing could unify the opposition and pose a formidable challenge to Ouattara and his ruling coalition. It is also likely to enhance political participation and interest, which has trailed off during successive opposition defeats and boycotts.

Party divisions

Cote d'Ivoire has three main political parties: the Front Populaire Ivoirien, Ouattara's Rassemblement des Republicains and its coalition partner the Parti Democratique de la Cote d'Ivoire - Rassemblement Democratique Africain.

During the 1990s, under Gbagbo, the Front Populaire Ivoirien was the main opposition party. After the 1999 military coup and the interim leadership of General Robert Guei, the party's strength and a lack of alternatives allowed Gbagbo to win the 2000 presidential election.

The Front Populaire Ivoirien ruled until the disputed 2010 elections. The source of the dispute was the presidential run-off election results, which Gbagbo refused to accept.

While the party was in government, there were internal differences on policy and how to deal with the rebels during the civil war that began in 2002. Some members wanted Cote d'Ivoire to distance itself from France, while others were more conciliatory. Some wanted to negotiate a settlement with the rebels while others sought to win the war militarily.

During the 2010 election, the divisions became more serious. Hardliners close to Gbagbo insisted that he dig in and refuse to transfer power to Ouattara. Others in the party claim to have expressed their support for a power-sharing government like those in Kenya and Zimbabwe.

Gbagbo's arrest

The most relevant disagreement among party leaders was about how to deal with Gbagbo's status in the party after his arrest and indictment at the International Criminal Court. Some leaders encouraged the party to avoid political activities without Gbagbo as their flag bearer. They believed he would return to the country and reestablish his political position.

Other party leaders sought to press ahead with activities and replace Gbagbo as the head. Pascal Affi N'Guessan, a former prime minister during the 2000s, became the head but faced resistance from Gbagbo allies.

Unlike Gbagbo, N'Guessan was not a popular politician in his party. Gbagbo and his allies have stated that N'Guessan held the Front Populaire Ivoirien "hostage, trampling on years of sacrifice by the men and women who are party activists".

The party under N'Guessan's leadership has failed to gain broad-based resonance and political influence. Despite many smaller opposition parties boycotting the 2015 elections, N'Guessan garnered a meagre 9.3% to Ouattara's 83.7% of the vote. N'Guessan was subsequently approved to run in the elections in 2020 while Gbagbo was barred due to the ongoing court proceedings. Opposition parties, including N'Guessan's, boycotted the 2020 election and Ouattara won a third-term election without competition.

Power vacuum

The boycott highlights the opposition vacuum since the 2010 disputed election. According to Gbagbo loyalists, the vacuum can only be filled by him. But the debate reflects deeper trends of political party alignment in Cote d'Ivoire. In the last five years, the realignment has accelerated, with 57% of Ivorians indicating that they do not feel close to a political party.

Citizens are also increasingly critical of ruling and opposition parties. Ruling party trust is firmly under 50% and declined to 41% in 2019. Trust in opposition parties has largely stagnated during Gbagbo's absence.

Although trust in Ouattara is just shy of a majority (50%), the ruling party significantly underperforms.

The realignment also shows in citizens' voting preferences over the past ten years. Ouattara's Rassemblement des Republicains has seen a decline in support as Ouattara has cobbled together political alliances under the Rassemblement des Houphouetistes pour la Democratie et la Paix banner, which Ouattara emphasizes as his electoral vehicle. Opposition parties have stagnated. The Front Populaire Ivoirien received only 12% of self-reported support in the 2019 Afrobarometer survey.

The party realignment offers an opportunity for new political movements and new (or old turned new) political figures to capture disaffected voters. In recent years, at least a fifth of Ivoirians reported that they would not vote and one in ten said they did not know who they would vote for.

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The discontent is yet to find a home in a cohesive opposition movement and is likely helping to drive the present apathy. Moreover, there is a disconnect between a rejection of a third-term president and the reality of the present third term for Ouattara. Gbagbo seeks to tap into this discontent.

Prospects of a new party

Gbagbo's interest in forming a new party reflects an opportunity to re-imagine opposition politics in the country. It also reflects opportunities to forge new alliances. N'Guessan and his allies insist that any Gbagbo takeover of the Front Populaire Ivoirien would be illegal and emblematic of autocratic politics.

It is not clear whether a Gbagbo-sponsored party would fare better than the Front Populaire Ivoirien. But with Ouattara's eventual exit from the political scene and with growing discontent, Gbagbo's return to politics could lead to greater political participation.

It is also possible that Gbagbo's return will accelerate recent efforts among Francophone countries to reevaluate their relationship with France and shape new continental relationships, as seen with Gbagbo's recent trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Peter Penar, Director of the Leaders of Africa Institute and Research Affiliate with Davidson College, Davidson College
opinion

Citizens are continually robbed of their legitimate right to change leaderships that do not address their socio-economic needs.

On 5 September 2021, Alpha Conde, the former president of Guinea, became the latest African leader to be deposed. The coup in Guinea, like the case in Mali, is reflective of an emerging trend of mass discontent and resolute action against humbug democratic processes, corruption and economic hardships in countries led by authoritarian regimes.

Prior to the coups in Guinea and Mali, Africa had witnessed seven successful popular uprisings leading to the overthrow of authoritarian regimes since 2010 when the Arab Spring began.

The action - or inaction - of the military is critical to the success of these uprisings thereby raising concerns about categorising them as coups or popular uprisings.

Autocratic regimes and economic hardships

In Libya, mass protests transitioned into rebel action that ousted and claimed the life of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. In Egypt (2011), Burkina Faso (2014) and Sudan (2019) however, the military usurped power following mass protests, while President Robert Mugabe was forced to resign by the Zimbabwean military in 2017. In Tunisia (2011) and Algeria (2019), the presidents were forced to resigned during mass protests.

The trend shows glaring correlations between autocratic regimes with ambitions for long-term stay in power, and protracted economic hardships which heightens the probability of uprisings and coups on the continent.

Most importantly, coups and uprisings are not dependent on a leader's length of stay in power, rather they are significantly motivated by the deterioration of state institutions and public goods - a phenomenon which is prevalent in states run by patronage networks of long-serving regimes.

Sudan's most recent popular uprising was inspired by a cascade of mass grievances over President Omar Al-Bashir's 30 years autocratic regime that was marred by rising costs of living and economic hardships.

While elections have become common across Africa, autocratic regimes use fraudulent electoral processes and constitutional amendments to remain in power and legitimise their leadership claims in a world where democratic governance is favoured.

The subtle and seeming democratic nature of the process further makes it difficult for international bodies to respond. Citizens are continually robbed of their legitimate right to change leaderships that do not address their needs which creates room for radical transitions via coup and uprisings.

The negative aftermaths of a coup

It is worth noting that most of the deposed autocratic regimes came to power themselves via military action in response to perceived grievances from the population, yet they turned out to be oppressors.

The challenge with coups and radical transitions is that they provide false and short-lived hope about the future. Countries like Zimbabwe, Sudan and Tunisia continues to face economic hardships and political crises. An extreme scenario is Libya, which experienced worsened economic conditions, governance crises and civil war since the overthrow and death of Gaddafi.

In Guinea, Conde's seemingly democratic regime came after three military coups that resulted in repressive regimes that failed to solve the country's challenges. When he came to power, Conde also failed to deliver on the promises of democracy, economic growth and human rights.

It is likely that countries that face radical transitions could face deteriorating conditions on civilian livelihoods.

The 'inadvertent' impact of international sanctions

Additionally, sanctions by the international community on juntas often inadvertently impact vulnerable populations.

The African Union (AU) and subregional organisations like the Economic community of West African States (ECOWAS) have consistently condemned overt coups and expelled the regimes of juntas from its activities. However, those affected more are ordinary citizens especially when the sanctions target economic relationships with neighbouring countries.

Yet, African intergovernmental organisations have been criticised for their inaction to prevent the excesses of ruling regimes who govern at will and change constitutions to remain in power, while failing to provide public goods and resolve socio-economic hardships.

In Guinea for instance, the AU and ECOWAS failed to condemn and act against Conde when he changed the constitution in 2010 to remain in power - an act that violates Article 23(4) of the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance (ACDEG).

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Similar amendments of the constitution have been witnessed in Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Republic of Congo, Gabon, Chad, Djibouti and Equatorial Guinea thereby paving way for the re-election of incumbent strongmen. This trend has been ongoing without a resolute action by African intergovernmental organisations to prevent them as well as government crackdowns on protesters. Rather, they show reactive measures against uprisings and coups rather than the root causes.

To gain credibility and relevance for ordinary populations, the international community must put in place actionable plans to challenge regimes that seek to elongate its stay in office against the wish of the people.

Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Dr. Ndubuisi Christian Ani, Regional Advisor, GIZ Support to the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC)
In a letter to the National Assembly on Tuesday, Mr Buhari requested its approval to obtain $4 billion and 710 million foreign loan to fund the deficit in the 2021 budget.

Nigeria's two dominant political parties have argued over President Muhammadu Buhari's request for approval to borrow $4 billion and 710 million to fund the deficit in the 2021 budget.

PREMIUM TIMES reported Mr Buhari making the request in a letter addressed to the National Assembly on Tuesday, as many Nigerians struggle to survive the country's biting economic situation.

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in reaction to the development, cautioned the NASS against approving the request, saying it could set the country's debt profile skyrocketing without a feasible repayment plan.

With the approval to borrow $8.3 billion and 490 million loans by its legislative body barely two months ago, Nigeria's debt profile risks reaching over N40 trillion.

"More alarming is that the debts that APC is hanging on Nigerians are for nebulous projects whose scopes, utilities, locations and contractors are largely vague; a development that validates apprehensions of a huge swindle on our nation at the expense of innocent Nigerians, including generation yet unborn.

"Our party holds it as an act of wickedness that individuals who know that they will be leaving office in less than two years will be accumulating debts instead of seeking ways to reduce the liability they have brought upon our nation.

"The APC knows it will not be around after May 29, 2023. That is why it is pushing our nation into a deeper economic quagmire with foreign loans, which are largely diverted to the personal pockets of their corrupt leaders," the opposition PDP said in a statement signed by its spokesperson, Kola Ologbondiyan, on Tuesday.

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Response

But responding to the PDP's criticism, the All Progressives Congress (APC) on Wednesday, said the loans are for "the good of the country" and well-being of the citizenry.

The ruling party also accused the opposition party of looting foreign loans obtained during its 16 years rule rather than spending on infrastructure and economic growth as, according to it, Mr Buhari-led government is doing.

"It was in PDP's era that loans to fund power generation, purchase arms and ammunition to fight a raging insurgency were misappropriated and diverted to fund PDP activities; and the borrowed money ultimately found its way to the pockets of cronies, friends and family members of administration officials. Nigeria is still servicing a $460 million loan taken from China to fund a phoney Abuja Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) contract awarded in August 2010.

"Nigerians should also reflect and recall that the PDP had in its 16 years of misrule pushed the country into a dark ditch of insolvency, and a period in which most state governments could not pay workers salaries, not even the minimum wage, or settle contractors' bills and cater for patients in hospitals, to name a few," the APC interim National Secretary, John Akpanudoedehe, said.

Before relinquishing power in 2015 after 16 years, the PDP left the national debts at about N12 trillion, a figure that has now jumped to N33.1 trillion as of March 2021.
opinion

The Federal Inland Revenue Service, on behalf of Nigeria's federal government, has been locked in a legal tussle with the Rivers and Lagos state governments over the collection of value added tax. In the last few minutes, a VAT collection Bill, similar to the aforementioned two states, has passed second reading in the Ogun State House of Assembly. It is going to become a law.

The return to civilian rule in 1999 gave some states, starting with Lagos, the courage to challenge the FG on various parts of tax collection. After Lagos lost on a technicality at the Supreme Court in 2014, it kinda relaxed, but now that the Rivers State Government has successfully challenged the powers of the Federal Government to collect the VAT, Lagos is back on the hunt. I expect the current kerfuffle to go all the way to the Supreme Court, and even at that, I think that there will be movements in terms of trying to change certain laws after the apex court has delivered a ruling.

At the base of this rumble is a lingering battle for legitimacy by the Nigerian state, symbolised by the federal government. One of the ways Nigeria is being slowly restructured can be seen in the manner in which its federating units are steadily gnawing at the FG and usurping authority for themselves while the latter looks on almost helplessly. The outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in Nigeria in early 2020 ushered in an opportunity that some state governors took advantage of. When the FG moved to lock down Lagos, Abuja and Ogun at the end of March 2020 as a means of curtailing the spread of the virus, other state governments took matters into their own hands and locked down their states. The pandemic coordination efforts were largely spearheaded by the FG under the leadership of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, but one could witness how governors damned federal authority. Cross River and Kogi for instance refused to test for the virus and despite all anecdotal evidence to the contrary, consistently declared that the virus did not exist in their states. As a result, the NCDC did not get covid data from those states. Furthermore, the manner in which the lockdowns were enforced by the states gave a window into how state policing would be implemented - the very same abrasive, rash and blanket use of force that we have come to know and love is to be expected from state police forces.

This battle for legitimacy will also be felt in the area of tax collection. International financial institutions like the World Bank and the IMF have entrenched a belief that Nigerians do not pay tax, or that taxation is only focused on the formal sector. Nigerians have also parroted this for years. However, recent findings from SBM Intelligence showed that Nigerians are among the most overtaxed in the world, and this is important. There is a world of difference between not wanting to pay tax at all yet going ahead to pay, and not wanting to pay tax and successfully evading tax. Nigerians pay tax, but to whom? While the state is focused on taxing the formal sector, the informal sector is being taxed by non-state actors, most of them armed and out of control. In Lagos - the state with the largest contributor the VAT purse - there is a huge tax base not controlled by the government, but by area boys who shake down business owners and remit very little to the state coffers while the government looks the other way. Perhaps this is the state government's own way of creating employment for many young people in the state who would otherwise have nothing to do. This however means that the state has subcontracted its basic authority to non-state actors, a sign of its receding legitimacy.

In areas outside Lagos, the political implication of this fight for, or loss of legitimacy, is seen in multiple ways - Nigeria loses vast areas of its territories to armed groups that have more or less assumed state functions. The Islamic state West Africa Province demonstrates this fact ever so clearly. In areas around the Lake Chad, it has set up a rival government and appointed emirs to oversee various state functions such as the enforcement of and collection of taxes such as cattle and farm taxes. ISWAP's success is largely predicated on providing what the Nigerian state has failed to provide for people under its control - a social contract, social amenities and a form of security. Despite the near constant air raids by the Nigerian military, ISWAP has been able to do one thing right: provide security and relative stability for people under its control. It did that simply by not antagonising those who accepted its way of life, but by choosing rather to focus its insurgency on the Nigerian military. There are other groups that are doing similar stuff in other parts of the country. Proto-states if you like.

The struggle over VAT will lead to many consequences-some intended. What is not been seen amidst the banal noise is the possibility of states struggling to raise VAT in the near future for one single reason: in the beginning of the life of a state, the state has a lot of believers, and thus little or no problems raising revenue. At that point, it can easily meet up with its basic task - providing security and stability. As the population expands and the state grows, it may struggle to maintain control if it loses legitimacy, thus depleting its revenue sources. Ironic because a rapidly expanding population should provide the basis for increased revenue. States who are unable to maintain legitimacy, struggle to raise revenue, opening up vacuums which non-state (not necessarily violent) actors to fill. When such people fill such vacuums, they tend not to give back such proceeds to the state because they feel they have done the work the state failed to do for them. The state does not think so, and thus resorts to the use of force to extract tax. This is reinforces the crisis of legitimacy as the people at the receiving end of that force are left with no other option but to perceive the state as an illegitimate entity.

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Nigerian states have not put the necessary mechanisms in place to extract VAT, and like the federal government, will continue to focus their attention on the formal sector. The only state which appeared to have this under control is Lagos, but its dependence on louts to extract tax reduces its legitimacy in the eyes of its people.

The VAT debate is great for all of us as the centralised Nigerian structure has clearly failed. But underneath it all is a crisis of legitimacy for Nigeria's states, perhaps best put in words by the Ebonyi state governor, David Umahi (who supports FIRS) when he said, "Our very weak states must be taken care of before we say let everybody control their resources."

I do not believe that the states at the forefront of this push have sat down to count the cost.

Cheta Nwanze is a partner at SBM Intelligence.
Joseph Kpokpogri, the former lover of Nollywood actress, Tonto Dikeh, has debunked the news of his arrest by the Department of State Services (DSS).

An anonymous blogger had said Kpokpogri was picked up by the DSS based on a petition the former actress filed against him.

But Kpokpogri took to his Instagram page to debunk the news.

He said, "Everybody is saying that I have been arrested by DSS. DSS ki*l una there! You look me like one small rat, Abeg make una no vex jare.

"I'm sorry I talked very angrily because of the rumors that everybody is spreading around. I just want to clear the air that there's nothing like that. I'm a very peaceful person, I don't want anybody coming to social media that Kpokpogri did this or that.

"When you are talking to people, show them the evidence. Someone said they transferred Eight million naira to me and I paid back Six million naira, to balance up Two million naira, why didn't you provide the receipt? Why didn't you show the general public that you transferred into my account?"
Ndalatando  The President of the Republic, Joao Lourenco, declared this Wednesday, in Ndalatando, that the great housing solution for the majority of the Angolan population is through directed self-construction instead of the construction of Centralities by the Government.

The Head of Angolan Government made this statement after visiting a project of directed self-construction in Quilometer 11, on the outskirts of the city of Ndalatando, in the province of Cuanza Norte, where he worked for two days.

For the President of the Republic, the illusion that the Centralities are the ones that will solve the housing problem should be left behind.

The State's responsibility, he said, involves building infrastructures, providing land, guaranteeing water and power, as well as creating incentives for each person to build his or her own residence.

"It is evident that there will be houses on the market, but there should be houses for everyone through directed self-construction," he said.

For this reason he said he hoped that other provincial governments would follow the example of Cuanza Norte. They should identify spaces for directed auto-construction and offer infrastructed land, avoiding construction under water lines, high tension lines and slopes, which put human lives at risk.

Governance of proximity

On the other hand, he expressed his interest in visiting all the provinces, without the programme being related to political campaign or pre-campaign, because it is a year away from the elections.

"The objective of the visit is proximity governance, in which on the spot we debate, with the local authorities, the main problems that afflict the populations of those provinces," he said.
Udora Orizu in Abuja

The House of Representatives has appealed to the federal government to redeem its pledge of 10 billion naira for the resettlement of victims of Plateau attacks, and to also extend to them, similar privileges accorded to victims of crises in the North East and other parts of the country.

The House, therefore, mandated the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, National Emergency Management Agency and other relevant humanitarian agencies to as a matter of urgency, provide relief materials to the victims of the attacks, in order to assuage the sufferings of their survivors.

It further mandated the Speaker, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, to lead a high-powered delegation to pay a condolence visit to the Government of Plateau State and commiserate with the Governor on the lives and properties lost.

The Green Chamber equally mandated the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to as a matter of urgency, conduct bye election to fill the vacant seat of Jos North/Bassa Federal Constituency, so that they could also have their voice back in the parliament.

The resolutions were sequel to the adoption of a motion of urgent public importance, sponsored by the Chairman, House Committee on Navy, Hon Yusuf Gagdi.

Moving the motion, Gagdi recalled that within the duration of their recess, a lot of ugly events bothering on the state of security of the people occurred.

He lamented that scores of lives were killed with farmlands and properties worth hundreds of millions destroyed in various communities in Jos, Plateau State.

He said the House was aware that these barbaric killings had caused a serious breach of peace in some parts of Jos and the said communities had no voice in the parliament to air their grievances, following the death of their representative, late Hon. Maitala Haruna, who passed away in an accident on April 2, 2021.

Adopting the motion, the House commended Governor of Plateau State, Simon Lalong for taking active steps that prevented the escalation of the reprisal attacks that was imminent and also observed a minute silence in honour of victims of the recent killings.
Ilorin  The Inspector General of Police, Mr. Usman Alkali Baba, on Wednesday, disclosed that as part of initiatives to tackle prevalent shortage of manpower as well as contain increasing insecurity, President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the recruitment of 10,000 police personnel each year, translating into 60,000 in six years.

This, nonetheless, the Kwara State Governor, Alhaji AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, has called for increased presence of police officers and other security officials in the state to enhance the security of life and property.

Baba, who dropped the hint in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, during his one-day visit to the state said, the exercise would take place across the 774 local government councils in the country in order to reflect the home-based grown security apparatus.

According to him, the engagement of more police personnel was supposed to have started last year.

"A total number of 20,000 police personnel would be employed this year across the 774 local government areas of the country in order to take care of last year planned employment that did not take place.

"President Muhammadu Buhari has given approval for us to recruit 10,000 police personnel every year for six years. We have started but we have not done for 2020. So, we are doing for 2020 and 2021 between now and the end of the year. Their training is for six months. Latest by the end of 2021, our strength is expected to increase by 20,000," he said.

He stressed that the recruitment exercise would help employ those that stayed within their localities since they were expected to know the areas they would be covering.

The police boss pointed out that, the development would also assist the police to have cultural background of the recruited men that would be monitoring the day-to-day maintenance of law and order in their areas.

He, however, contended that the country was winning the war against banditry and insurgency, adding that the police were not fighting the war alone.

"All other security agencies are in synergy in the fight against the bandits, including the military, which is leading the war and we're winning," he said.

Baba charged the officers and men of the Police to change their attitude to work by shunning bribery and stop extortion, saying, "anything that comes through bad ways, affects you in bad ways," even as he encouraged the officers and men to rededicate themselves to their job.

Baba, who also said part of his visit was to inspect the Nigeria Police Intelligence School, which was under construction in Share, Ifelodun local government area, stated: "I am here on a one-day visit to appreciate and give words of encouragement to our officers and men in Kwara, as well as tell them what my administration has come to do.

"The government of President Muhammadu Buhari is doing its best efforts to meet our needs. The police reform is also being pursued. Our pension, which is one of the bane of retired police officers, is also being looked at.

"We have one of our most important institutions in Kwara, which is our intelligence school, which ought to have taken up since in Share (Ifelodun local government). My mission is to get it take off immediately."

According to him, his administration was adopting intelligence gathering and ICT to check crimes and criminalities in the country.

"I have a mission and vision of policing through intelligence and proactive means of policing. Policing is key, ICT is key and training is key. With the three, you can sit down and police the whole state.

"It is our intention to do manpower development in the art of intelligence gathering so that we will be able to police the country not manually but through e-policing.

"We can do a lot with proactive policing instead of being reactive. We are asking for more support from your administration to ensure that the school takes off. We are ready and willing under this administration to make the condition of service more conducive for our officers and men to better serve the people, he said.

Speaking directly to his men, he said, "You're here doing the job of law enforcement officers. Most of us serving here must have come from other part of the country. It is Nigeria Police, it is not Kwara Police or Ilorin Police. So, we must dedicate ourselves to do more. However, I want to congratulate you that Kwara State is the most peaceful state compared to many others."

He clarified that community policing was a voluntary vocation and meant for people, who had jobs but only wanted to give back to their society by helping to keep it safe.

The clarification came on the heels of suggestions that the government was meant to pay some community police constabularies that were recently inducted across the country, including in Kwara State.

"For those who are interested in the community policing project, community Police officers are supposed to be people, who have lawful means of livelihood. It is not a paid job. Community Police officers are not going to be paid.

"They are people, who have the interest of protecting their community, who would volunteer service to their community at their own leisure hours, may be after closing from work, market or their business, and come together in support of their community and try to provide service.

"We have made a lot of efforts to train those who are interested and we are also training more. Our training is just for them to have rudiments of policing, rudiments of crime prevention and control. The training is for them to know the rules of 'dos and don'ts'. These are some of the aspects of the things we do," he said.

He, however, maintained that, "Nobody eliminate crimes completely from any society but you can mitigate or reduce it to the barest minimum. When you reduce crimes to the barest minimum, people will go about their lawful businesses. When you enforce law and order, the society will be a society, where impunity is brought down and other forms of lawlessness will not be there.

"When you dedicate yourself to your job as law enforcement officer, you have your reward not only here but also in heaven, because it is a social service. This uniform will give you your paradise and it can also give you your hell, depending on how you wear it and how you want work with it.

On his part, AbdulRazaq, who made the call for better security, when he received Baba at the presidential lodge, Ilorin, said, "Our challenges are enormous. Being a relatively safe state, security agencies tend to be comfortable with Kwara and that explains why they often take out forces from Kwara to bolster security elsewhere.

"For example, the Army has taken out most of their men to Northeast and we are making efforts to get them back. For the police, our need requirement is about 8,000-10,000 men but we have only about 3,000 now. Many officers of the two mobile squadrons here have been moved out. I am saying this because we definitely need more men on ground here.

"The recent ban on grazing by Southern Governors and some security issues in our neighbouring states have resulted in influx of internally displaced persons to Kwara.

"In many parts of some of our villages, the communities are outnumbered by those that are coming in. This is a state of harmony and people are welcome but this (influx) is clearly overstretching the manpower of the Nigeria Police, which is the primary agency for internal security. From Kwara North to Kwara South, it is an enormous task for them, so, we definitely need and seek more hands."

The governor also called for improved collaboration among security agencies to sustain relative peace in the state, with the traditional rulers equally playing vital roles in strengthening security architecture.

His words: "There is no chance for criminalities in the state, because of the nature of security architecture in the state. We also involve and encourage our traditional rulers to work with the security agencies by providing actionable intelligence for use.

"We thank the Police authorities for the Police School in Ballah and the Intelligence School in Share. In fact, we had to put a transformer there few months ago to make sure we get the place working. But we are saddened by the relocation of Police Public Relations School that was here in Ilorin before. We hope you will look into that again and return it," he said.

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AbdulRazaq, however, commended the police and other security agencies for making the state relatively safe for economic activities.

"We appreciate your efforts for keeping this state safe. Now, we have peace and people are coming to live in Kwara State. Now, we have four airlines coming to the state and the economy of the state is booming, hotels are often filled and rent are going up.

"This points to better security, and I commend the security agencies for what they do to keep us safe. Now, people see Kwara as a safe haven and they are coming here to settle. The security issue is kept to the barest minimum by the police and other security agencies."

Earlier, the Commissioner of Police in the state, Tuesday Assayomo, lamented the shortage of manpower, saying it has affected policing capacity in the state, especially, now that bandits were being bombarded and chased away from Zamfara and Katsina States.

"The concern of Kwarans today is that they do not enter Kwara State through this ungoverned reserve forest in the Northern part of the State, hence my subtle request to the IGP to graciously order for the return of our Mobile Policemen currently on special duty in the states outside Kwara so as to help strengthen the security of the state.

"Kwara State is called the state of Harmony but with her fair share of security challenges like kidnapping, herdsmen/farmers' clashes, cultism, boundary disputes, communal clashes, migration of people from the crisis-ridden states to Kwara State, the state has become crime-prone.

"Kwara State has three senatorial districts: the North Senatorial district has an international border with Republic of Benin in Baruten Local Government area, which makes the area vulnerable to cross-boundary crimes like smuggling and human trafficking.

"Kaiama Local Government Area of the state has a large ungoverned forest reserve that stretches to Borgu Local Government Area of Niger State, which also makes the place a bandit rendezvous," he said.
THE State yesterday lost its bid to have one of its own witnesses declared hostile in the trial of suspended police commissioner Erasmus Makodza on charges of criminal abuse of office, after the court ruled that the witness had not previously exhibited an adverse mind against the State.

Harare regional magistrate Mr Noel Mupeiwa ruled that Superintendent Chidhakwa Mugove had not exhibited any hostility towards the State in the build-up towards the on-going trial and the State had failed to place enough evidence before the court that warranted the declaration of hostility.

Having one of your own witnesses declared as hostile allows you to switch into the same sort of cross-examination mode used for witnesses of the other side. The State led by Mrs Tendai Shonhai and Mr Tafara Chirambira had applied that Supt Chidhakwa Mugove be declared a hostile witness after Superintendent Chidhakwa Mugove disowned contents of his warned and cautioned statement and the signature appended on it. Comm Makodza, through his lawyer Mr Tapiwa Makanza, had opposed to the State's application saying Supt Chidhakwa Mugove was being truthful in his testimony. Mr Mupeiwa allowed Supt Mugove to continue giving testimony in the matter.

He chronicled how a Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission investigating officer Eric Chacha recorded his statement, which he acknowledged having been done freely and voluntarily. Supt Chidhakwa Mugove told the court that he was not influenced to disown his warned and cautioned statement.

"On December 19, 2020 I was at my office when he called at around 11am. We went in his vehicle where he was in the company of his wife Constable Dube. I suggested that we go into my office and he said he wanted confidentiality in his enquiry. We then drove off and dropped his wife in town and we went to Ben Love complex," he said.

Supt Chidhakwa Mugove told the court that he restricted himself to roles of background checks, which he undertook before the decision to allocate Comm Makodza's ex-lover and investment opportunity at the police farm in Mashonaland East Province.

"I indicated that my role was to carry out background checks and that my statement was going to contain that. He then said it will not be sufficient to make a statement.

"I narrated all the four pillars of our engagement with Maonei (Comm Makodza's lover) as was stated to this court. He duly recorded a statement from me and I proof read it before he went to print it. It had all my IDs and four pillars of my engagement with Maonei. After he went to print, I proof-read it and left.

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"After 30 minutes, the investigating officer called me over the phone and indicated that he had committed to insert the ID on his statement. I requested for a copy of my first statement and he said there was no need. I called him over the phone and he promised that I would come and sign. When I returned to the complex, I asked him to give me the statement before I committed to sign saying there was no need and I signed the second statement..

"After about 45 minutes, the investigating officer called me again and indicated that he had forgotten to show me a copy of a birth certificate reflecting that the accused was father and Maonei was the mother.

"I informed him that it was not part of my evidence. I only agreed to his request on condition that the investigating officer showed me a copy of my birth certificate. I proofread. I freely signed and requested a copy and he said there was no need,"he said.

Supt Chidhakwa Mugove told the court that Comm Makodza confided with him in a meeting that he had a relationship with Maonei and wanted to recuse himself from sitting on a committee that was to decide on her application. The matter is expected to continue on September 21.
The Federal Government and the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) are to continue their negotiations next week, on the proposed new hazard allowance for doctors working in government-owned hospitals.

The Minister of Labour and Employment, Sen. Chris Ngige stated this at a meeting of the Presidential Committee on Salaries with the leadership of NMA and its affiliates, on the review of the hazard allowance in the health sector.

This was conveyed in a statement signed by Mr Charles Akpan, Deputy Director, Press and Public Relations, in the ministry, on Wednesday, in Abuja.

The minister recalled that this discussion had begun with all the health workers since March, but along the line, the NMA disagreed on fundamental principles of negotiation with the Joint Health Sector Unions (JOHESU).

He noted that the president of the NMA requested that the discussion should be compartmentalised, which is allowed in any Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).

According to the minister, when people who are not doing the same work are negotiating an interest, if they decide to be separated, it can be done at the beginning or midway, but that will put a lot of load on the negotiator.

He, therefore, appealed to the NMA and JOHESU to sheath their swords, to enable the conclusion of the matter before the end of September.

"If we do so, it is to your own advantage because it has to be captured in the 2022 budget. The government will also look at its purse and if there is money, the President will sign and it will be a win-win situation for all of us.

"Last week, we discussed with JOHESU. We had a fruitful discussion. It is in that spirit that I am asking you that this should be fruitful so that we can rest the issue of paying the N5,000 hazard allowance.

"In 2020, it was not you who informed the government. It was by our own volition that we invited both sides to the meeting where we handed over special COVID allowances to medical, dental workers and other allied health workers and we did it seamlessly.

'I don't know whether it was because of the fear of COVID that you worked together. Today, the divide is there. Having read the altercation between you and JOHESU, which is in the media, we can't believe that both of you are managing one patient.

"We are appealing to you, let us unite and see how we can navigate this thing. This is COVID-19 period. Stop this dichotomy between you and JOHESU. Both of you are managing one patient. It is teamwork. Nobody can do it alone," he said.

On the prolonged strike of the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD), Ngige called on the striking resident doctors to note their insensitivity to the plight of Nigerians, by embarking on strike in the middle of a pandemic.

He maintained that the Federal Government had been religiously implementing its own part of the Memorandum of understanding (MOU) it signed with the NMA, but that rather than do their own part, the doctors have chosen to make the government the whipping dog.

Ngige noted that he had remained neutral as the conciliator, but that he would no longer allow the idea of unions whipping the government every time they come for negotiations, even when the government was trying its utmost best with the other side liable of not doing their own part.

He also said that timeframes had been fixed for actions to be taken, with those who are to take the actions spelt out.

On the issue of MEDSABAN and MDCAN raised by the NMA, Ngige said they had set up a committee, which had held its inaugural meeting, adding that even before their inaugural meeting, the government had placed all of them back on CONMESS.

"I used my powers as conciliator to say that there is a court judgment and that the government must obey. Court judgments are not what you pick and choose. No matter how bad a court judgment, affected persons must obey.

"That is whether you are government or private sector. A court has ordered that these people should be placed back on CONMESS, pending when it concludes this suit.

"Again, we have a presidential committee on salaries and wages. We have put every wage on hold. There is a circular to that effect.

"So, we would have had a look at it before the amputation of people's income in the emergency situation of COVID-19. Government is sensitive. I am sensitive to all these things," he said.

He noted that in the same MOU, NMA was asked to work towards the withdrawal of the case filed by some doctors at the industrial court and prevail on the resident doctors to call off their strike, but both have not been done.

"The same goes with the Medical Residency Training Fund (MRTF). On this table, the budget office of the federation said we have N4.8 billion. Last time we paid N4.2 billion with skirmishes.

"We don't want those skirmishes to recur. And they assured that their N4.8 billion is there and awaiting disbursement. We gave you an assignment with the CMDs and the Postgraduate Medical College to work and bring a genuine list.

"Postgraduate Medical has submitted a list of about 8,000 persons to the Ministry of Health and they discovered about 2,000 do not have registration numbers to say that they are registered, doctors. So, the list was withdrawn and sent back to the college," he said.

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Ngige also said that the local ARD chapters were supposed to be helping to make that possible, especially the CMDs of teaching hospitals ought to supply names of residents there.

He added that most importantly, the Postgraduate College should have a database of your residents. Some of the names there are SMO 1, SMO 2, PMO 1 and PMO 2. Some have finished residency and gone out. Some are residents who have spent more than six years.

"According to the Act, they are supposed to exit. So, if you gather 8,000 of such people, why should the government pay you? It happened in 2020. The problem is still there.

"Those who said they will return the money are not returning. The number is there. The Accountant General opened the account. So, you now sit down here and castigate government," he said.

Also, the Secretary-General of NMA, Dr Philip Ekpe, who called for the prompt attention to resolve the anarchy in the health sector, also urged the ministry to explore the window opened by the intervention of President Muhammadu Buhari to see that all the negotiations were not in vain.

Vanguard News Nigeria
Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) is being sued US$23, 000 by it's former employee Donald Duruza for unlawful dismissal and wrongful arrest.

Duruza also cited his former superiors, Betty Chimbera and Gibson Mavundutse as second and third respondents in the summons.

He told the High that Mavundutse made false allegations against him which resulted in him.being prosecuted back in 2018.

Duruza was however cleared of wrongdoing.

At the time of his acquittal, he had already been fired.

It is his allegations that all these encounters traumatised him, stripped him of dignity and made his family suffer.

He said the damage is irreparable and want compensation I the hardships.

The matter is yet to be heard.

In the summons, Dumbura said Chimbera and Mavundutse alleged that he forged medical exam details and caused his employer to lose over US$2 000.

Duruza want damages for the breaching of his employment contract, peddling falsehoods of fraud and forgery, causing malicious prosecution and defying magistrates court verdict as well as for his dismissal.

According to the summons, Chimbera was then Zimra's acting director human capital while Mavundutse was plaintiff's immediate supervisor.

His lawyers said in October 2017, Mavundutse refused to approve Duruza's sick leave as was provided in his contract.

He went on to suspend him from employment without a legal basis.

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In January 2018, Mavundutse made malicious statements to the police concerning Duruza alleging that he had forged a medical certificate and had subsequently prejudiced his employer of US$2,293, 32 through misrepresentation.

After this he was arrested and detained in February 2018 before he was taken to court where he was acquitted.

"However, the plaintiff was found not guilty and was acquitted on the criminal counts of fraud and forgery in May 2018. By alleging forged medical certificates to the police who subsequently took the matter to the magistrate court, the defendants obviously sought clarity on the authenticity of the medical certificate produced by the plaintiff in terms of the employment contract," the summons read.

Duruza said the magistrate court's decision validated the same medical certificate he had produced to Mavundutse.

"This proves the arrest malicious as it was not reasonable in the circumstances to cause the plaintiff's arrest. Their conduct was unprocedural and therefore illegal."

He said because of what transpired, his family suffered severe loss and damage, severe stress and suffering, permanent damage to his repute, loss of amenities of life, loss of future earning capacity and loss of amenities of life. Loss of future earning capacity and loss of expectation of life.
IN a shocking revelation, Rushinga legislator Tendai Nyabani told parliament Wednesday primary schools in the country are operating with a single teacher taking all classes from grade one to seven.

Nyabani said this the Wednesday question and answer session in the National Assembly.

He said areas like Mbire, Rushinga and Muzarabani, in Mashonaland Central province as well as Binga, Matabeleland North province have only one teacher stationed at a school for all grades.

"In areas like Mbire, Rushinga, Muzarabani and Binga, there is only one teacher teaching Grades 1 to 7. How are these children going to write examinations like the rest of the children doing online lessons," Nyabani said.

His question was a follow-up after other members of the National Assembly grilled education deputy minister Edgar Moyo on how students were expected to write exams after having gone for classes for a few months during the year due to Covid-19 closures.

The MPs were calling for an extension of learning and revision period before exams are written.

The exams are expected to commence in November and Mid-December this year extending into 2022 according to the ministry.

Responding to Nyabani, the deputy minister said: "the matter has been brought to our offices and we are dealing with it. The situation is not universal in all schools. Yes, there are schools which are in that kind of situation but there are others which are well resourced in terms of human resources."

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"Yes, there are other schools in remote areas that are disadvantaged in terms of human resources but there are others that are well resourced. What really determines that usually is the attractiveness and the provision of amenities and accommodation in those areas? So, we are specifically attending to that, and we hope that our human resources deployment strategy is going to address some of those issues," he said.

Mudenda ordered Moyo to include statistics regarding the schools that had only one teacher for all grades.

Parliamentarians also raised a red flag on measures being taken by government to deal with a spike in Covid-19 cases in schools after they reopened recently.

Reports by MPs and teachers' unions indicated that some schools had temporarily closed due to Covid-19 cases that were detected.

The deputy minister assured the house that his ministry was doing everything to make sure students and teachers were safe.
Determined to push on with its agenda, even in the face of sanction threats by the international community, Guinea's military leaders have commenced a four-day national consultation to chart a way forward for the country.

From September 14-17, the coup leaders will be meeting with representatives of key socioeconomic and political players to build consensus for the transition to democracy, according to a statement issued by the National Committee for Rally and Development (CNRD) junta.

They will meet representatives of political parties and civil society organisations, diplomats, religious and traditional leaders and business executives.

The CNRD spokesman, Colonel Amara Camara, said on state TV at the weekend that the meetings were part of national consultations promised by the junta when it took over the reins.

All meetings are scheduled to be held at the Palais du Peuple in Conakry, to be chaired by coup leader Lt-Col Mamady Doumbouya, according to the statement.

Lt-Col Doumbouya led a group of special-forces soldiers on September 5 to seize power in the West African nation, ending the 11-year rule of President Alpha Conde, whom they accused of corruption and maladministration.

Conde has been in custody since the coup, in spite of appeals to free him by the West African regional bloc Ecowas, the African Union and the United Nations.

Talks with leaders of political parties were scheduled for Tuesday. On Wednesday, the junta will meet with leaders of civil society organisations, diplomats and diaspora Guineans.

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Lt-Col Doumbouya, is also scheduled to meet with top business leaders, including mining companies that are concerned about the effect of the coup on their operations.

On Thursday meetings are scheduled with heads of employers' organisations, while on Friday it will be the turn of commercial and financial institutions, including banks and microfinance institutions, as well as representatives of trade unions.

While the junta says this week's meetings are designed to hear the views of the people on the future of Guinea, analysts say they will also shed light on the kind of transitional government the military has in mind.

The national consultation starts amid growing international pressure for the junta to return the country to civilian rule.

Last week a delegation from Ecowas met with the military authorities to persuade them to hand over power to civilians.

Conde is reported to have reiterated his claim to the presidency in a meeting with a visiting UN envoy this week.

He is reported to have refused to resign, in defiance of the junta's request, insisting that he must be restored as the legitimate president of Guinea.

Mahamat Saleh Annadif, the special representative of the UN Secretary-General for West Africa and the Sahel, said in Conakry on Tuesday that the global body did not have a timeline for the transition to civilian rule. That is for Guineans to decide, he told reporters.

"So far we have said [that] we want a reasonable duration, but the reasonable duration depends on the Guineans themselves," he stated.
Tunis/Tunisia  A ministerial delegation composed of the Chief of Staff of the President, the ministers of the interior, foreign affairs, health and public works, on Wednesday, went to Djerba, governorate of Medenine, where they learnt about the preparations for the XVIII Francophonie Summit to be hosted by the Island on November 20 and 21.

The delegation inspected the infrastructure works, namely the open-air theatre where the opening session of the summit will take place, as well as the tourist facilities that will acccommodate the participating delegations.Minister of Foreign Affairs, Migration and Tunisians Abroad and President of the Organising Committee of La Francophonie Summit Othman Jerandi commended the event's preparations which have been completed at 80%.Jerandi said several countries have confirmed their participation in the event. "The number of participants will be set soon, since we continue to receive confirmations of participation," he pointed out.

Journalists tasked with the media coverage of the delegation's visit have had difficulty in doing their job and were prevented by police officers to access the theatre and approach the building, TAP correspondent in the region noted.
VICE President, Dr Constantino Chiwenga, would be the guest of honour during the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) International Business Conference to be held in Bulawayo on Wednesday next week.

The high-level business indaba, to be hosted by the ZITF in conjunction with the national Economic Consultative Forum (NECF), is a critical feature of the annual trade convention.

This year's business conference would focus on business recovery support initiatives and guide producers on how to create export market opportunities in the digital economy, according to ZITF board chairperson, Mr Busisa Moyo.

In addition to representation from the Government, a number of international and regional speakers, all with vested interest in Zimbabwe's sustained industrial development, have been invited.

On Tuesday, the Minister of Industry and Commerce, Dr Sekai Nzenza, presented to Cabinet the state of preparedness for hosting of the 61st edition of the ZITF, which would be held under the theme: 'Showcasing the New Normal for Business and Industry: Realities and Opportunities'.

"The Vice President, Honourable CGDN Chiwenga will deliver the keynote address at the ZITF International Business Conference, which will be on 22 September 2021," said Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister, Monica Mutsvangwa, in a post Cabinet media briefing.

"His Excellency the President (Mnangagwa) will officially open the fair on 23 September, 2021, and attendance will be strictly by invitation to manage numbers."

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The fair will run for four days from 21 to 24 September 2021and the first three days will be business days.

The Zimbabwe Diplomats Forum, a new feature at the showcase, is also scheduled for Thursday and will be hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

The function aims at engaging locally-based foreign diplomats on the ongoing measures by the Government to facilitate investment.

There will also be an Innovators' Forum targeting innovators drawn from Innovation Hubs of the local universities, which will present students with an opportunity to showcase their innovations to address real life challenges.

According to ZITF Company, 396 local exhibitors, as well as international exhibitors from 10 countries have already confirmed participation.

These include Malawi; Tanzania; Namibia; Botswana; Nigeria; Indonesia; South Africa; Kenya; Mauritius; and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Given that the fair is being held during Covid-19 times, Minister Mutsvangwa said an elaborate Covid-19 risk management plan has been produced and circulated to all exhibitors.

"There will be heightened health and safety protocols, modified venue layouts, digital and hybrid meeting platforms and emphasis on numbers management," she said.
analysis

Judge Mmonoa Teffo adjourned the proceedings in order not to 'contaminate evidence' because of documentation that had been incorrectly filed and captured for the inquest.

Levy Mosenogi, the chief director of the Gauteng Department of Health (GDoH) and former project leader of the Life Esidimeni transfer of patients to NGOs, on Wednesday testified at the inquest into the death in 2016 of 144 mental health patients who died after being transferred.

However Mosenogi's time on the witness stand came to an abrupt halt when Judge Mmonoa Teffo adjourned proceedings until 4 October in order not to "contaminate evidence" because of documentation that had been incorrectly filed and captured for the inquest.

This is the fourth time the inquest has been delayed, and only four of the 36 witnesses have so far testified.

"We can resume on the next term on the 4th of October. And on that particular day, I will keep on checking with the other parties... the evidence leader, my registrar, those parties... and then we will confirm whether on that particular day we will proceed."

Before the adjournment, Mosenogi testified that, "I requested an extension of the contract of six to 12 months to allow the department...
BARELY a week after the Zanu PF politburo issued an injunction barring its members from engaging in premature election campaigns, Energy and Power Development minister Zhemu Soda, has been caught up in a vote buying storm after he gathered hundreds of villagers in Muzarabani and dished out grocery humpers.

Soda, who is the Muzarabani DCC chair, is rooting for his cabinet colleague, Home Affairs minister Kazembe Kazembe who is facing stiff competition in his bid to retain the provincial chairmanship.

Soda has also been in the news for the wrong reasons after he allegedly moved around the province instructing people not to mention the name of current provincial women's league chair, Tsitsi Gezi - who is also the deputy speaker of the National Assembly.

Former Education minister Lazarus Dokora has emerged as the hot favourite to land the highly influential position. Tycoon James Makamba and former MP Christopher Chitindi are the other two top contenders.

Soda on Saturday allegedly dished out food hampers to branch chairpersons and traditional leaders at Muzarabani Hall.

"The hampers had cooking oil, sugar, two coffee mugs and salt. This is vote buying ahead of the provincial elections," a Zanu PF member, who declined to be named, said.

"Soda was supported by Kazembe during his campaign to be DCC (district development committee) chairperson for Muzarabani. Kazembe used his influence as the provincial chairperson to mobilise support for Soda, who is now paying back by supporting the provincial chairman to retain his position. What the ministers ae doing is tantamount to vote buying."

Soda is alleged to be trying to block the deputy speaker of Gezi from retaining her position as provincial chairlady because she is believed to be a Dokora ally.

Soda however denied the allegations saying: "That is not true. Hampers were given at a women's league meeting which was addressed by Mai Gezi on Saturday."

Gezi confirmed the meeting which she said was for women's league members, from politburo to the grassroots, where they were launching a goat rearing project.

"They were bought by Hon Soda," she said. "They food hampers were distributed to all the district women's league structures."

Asked to comment on allegations of vote buying, she said: "I don't know the reason why Hon Soda bought the hampers, so I cannot comment on that."

On allegations that she was being blocked by Soda from retaining her position, she said: "I was there as the women's league provincial chair."
Police in Mzuzu City are keeping in custody a soi-disant and self-proclaimed prophet for encroaching and illegally making his home Kaning'ina Mountain, a natural preserve situated just outside the precincts of Mzuzu City since 2018.

The self-appointed prophet, who is popularly known, by his faithful and followers in the northern city and surrounding districts, as Munthu wa Mulungu Khumbo Madise, was arrested on Tuesday by the police and is currently under lock and key.

According to the police, Madise constructed makeshift huts with grass and plastic sheets at a place popularly known as 'ku Chihema' among his followers.

Said an officer handling the case but sought anonymity: "We have arrested a middle-aged man who calls himself a prophet of God for encroaching Kaning'ina Mountain which is a protected area and we will be taking him to court soon."

"This man has people who believe in him that they believe in themselves. Some people have even slept outside the police station as way of showing support to the preacher who they are saying it is God who sent him on this mission."

Mzuzu Police Station where Munthu wa Mulungu Khumbo Madise is being held is currently under siege as the prophet's followers and hordes of hangers-on are thronging Mzuzu Police Station premises to offer moral support and solidarity to what many are describing as the 'promised one' or in vernacular, 'Olonjezedwa uja.'

However, Mzuzu Police spokesperson Paul Tembo said in an interview, Madise was arrested following a complaint from the Forestry Department.

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"The so called prophet, Khumbo Madise is answering charges contrary to Section 64(C) of the Forestry Act and will appear before court soon," said Tembo.

According to the law, the police said, it is an offence under Section 64(C) to reside, erect a building, hut, livestock enclosures or any structure in a forest reserve or protected area.

However, the suspect, Madise insist that God has not told him to leave the mountain yet and therefore he has no plans to leave until he is instructed by God to do so.

"Although physically I am in custody but spiritually I am still on Kaning'ina Mountain. It is God who in His wisdom instructed me to leave my home in Nkhorongo Location and to go and live at the peak of the Kaning'ina mountain and until God told me otherwise, I will not live the mountain because this is where God wants me to be and do His errands, said Munthu wa Mulungu Madise.

Madise further said God instructed him to eat porridge only (soya or rice) once a day.

In 2020, officials from the department of forestry burned down his makeshift home and place of worship in an attempt to force him to leave the mountain.

He didn't.

His followers and believers follow him to the mountain for prayers and assistance from various ailments.

Madise, who is not married, was once in video production business in South Africa before he returned home to his motherland Malawi.

"I didn't choose myself. God called me to serve him," said a defiant Madise.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) member of Parliament for Nkhata Bay Central Constituency Symon Vuwa Kaunda has disclosed that he will seek the intervention of the court on his K600 million claim from the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC).

Vuwa Kaunda, through Mbulo Attorneys At Law, is demanding that MEC should pay him for the psychological and physical torture and economic loss he suffered to defend his victory in the May 2019 parliamentary elections.

But MEC has refused to honour the claim, a decision MEC Director of Legal Affairs, David Matumika Banda, said they have already communicated to the claimant's lawyers.

Vuwa Kaunda, acknowledged receipt of the response from the pollster, vowed that the negative response he has received will not discourage him from fighting for his right to be compensated.

"From the onset, it was evident that this matter would end in court. It's the court that must help us because it is MEC that mismanaged an election and not me as a contestant. Therefore, MEC must be held accountable for the loss I incurred due to it incompetence. After all, the courts found them incompetent!" he said.

Vuwa Kaunda emphasized that he would not have demanded for compensation if the irregularities were attributed to him personally.

"But it is MEC, which handled the election unprofessionally. That's why Honourable Ralph Mhone successfully challenged the outcome of the election. So, what's the defense of MEC in all this? Why should I suffer for a misdemeanor MEC committed?

"So, I am demanding from them what I have lost because of their incompetence. Remember, the High Court already found them incompetent. So, it should not be coming as a surprise that I am demanding compensation from them for the loss I incurred because of their incompetence. Elections were nullified because of irregularities. Irregularities committed by who? MEC! Am I an employee of MEC? Was I not a mere candidate in the election?"

Kaunda's initial victory in May 2019 was overturned by the Malawi Supreme Court of Appeal after his closest contender, Raphael Joseph Mhone of the People's Party (PP), challenged it in the court.

This forced the flamboyant MP to incur additional costs atop those he invested during the campaign ahead of the contested parliamentary elections.
THE Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ) has issued operators' licences to eight community radio stations across the country.

In a statement Wednesday, BAZ acting chief executive officer, Matthius Chakanyuka said the licenced entities include; Radio Balanga, Matobo Community Radio Trust (CRT), Chimanimani CRT, Vemuganga CRT, Ndau CRT, Twasumbuka CRT, Madziwa CRT, and Patsaka Nyaminyami Trust, which will be known as Kasambabezi FM.

"After licensing the stations should be operational within eighteen (18) months, failure of which the licences will be automatically revoked as stipulated by the Broadcasting Services Act," said Chakanyuka.

Previously, BAZ has been strongly criticised for dishing out licenses to Zanu PF cronies.
AWARD-winning journalist Hopewell Chin'ono is being sued for defamation to the tune of US$100 000 by President Emmerson Mnangagwa's lawyer Tinomudaishe Chinyoka.

Chinyoka is claiming that the journalist defamed him after he made some Twitter and Facebook posts claiming that he was ignorant.

The alleged damaging tweet was made on April 29 this year.

In May, Chinyoka wrote a letter to Chinono demanding an apology over the posts.

He gave him a few days ultimatum adding that if the journalist refuses, he had no option but to sue him for US$50 000.

According to court papers, the tweet reads, "When @advocatemahere, @JobSikhala1 & myself were arrested, the world saw what it means to have a degree & yet be empty. Zanu-PF sent its surrogates like Bright Matonga, Obert Gutu & Tino Chinyoka to defend the use of a law that doesn't exist. It was ignorance & stomach politics."

The Facebook post was almost similar.

Chinono further said, it was ignorance and stomach politics on show. To avoid being subjected to what is in this video, register to vote

He went on to attach numbers to call for more information.

Chinyoka claimed the film maker had blocked him on his twitter account so that he can freely tarnish his image without being noticed.

Both the tweet and the Facebook post contained a link to a five-minute video in which a person identified as Bright Matonga baselessly claims that a law passed in 2016 and which is allegedly part of the Zimbabwean law justified his arrest in the circumstances relevant to Chinono before his lawyer Doug Colthart.

Chinyoka said the statements according to his understanding imply that he shares the same position with Matonga.

The lawyer complained that the posts were widely circulated therefore the damage is far reaching.

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The said tweet and Facebook statement stated or implied that the plaintiff had been sent by Zanu PF to defend the use of a law that does not exist, he might be degreed but is vacous, he is ignorant of the law and he had been motivated by greed in his legal practice.

His lawyers wrote: "The said tweet and Facebook statement in the context were defamatory of the plaintiff in that they had the effect of lowering him in the estimation of reasonable ordinary persons generally.

"They diminished his esteem or standing in the eyes of ordinary members of the public, they had the potential of causing the plaintiff to be shunned or avoided by legal practitioners on whom he relies for briefs and the general public. The statements exposed the plaintiff to hatred, ridicule or contempt, they cast aspersions on his character, trade, business and profession."

The matter is yet to be heard.
The country's leading commercial bank, National Bank of Malawi (NBM) plc has supported the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Malawi (Icam) with a K3 million donation for its annual lake conference scheduled for 16-18 September 2021 in the Lake District of Mangochi.

NBM plc Head of Internal Audit Daniel Jere said the conference dubbed 'the biggest of them all' attracts a diverse range of high-profile personalities and professionals in the country ranging from government, parastatals, NGOs, development partners, international partners and members of the private sector, among others.

"As the Bank of the Nation, we have partnered with ICAM previously and are partnering with them again this year. This is because we know that with all these powerful people gathered at one place, it presents an ideal opportunity to engage them on financial solutions that the Bank is capable of providing to them."

"Above all, the conference presents an opportunity for Bank participants to network with like-minded individuals and keep abreast with the latest global trends," said Jere.

He also assured participants at the conference that NBM plc will strive to cater to their banking needs.

"We all know that accountants follow the money keenly and it is our hope that participants at the conference will use several of our digital platforms to transact whilst at the lake and in so doing make their jobs easier as they can trace where the money is going," said Jere.

Icam Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Francis Chinjoka Gondwe hailed NBM plc for the support saying the bank has been a true partner since time immemorial.

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"We are grateful to NBM plc for this support, it will go a long way in making this year's annual lake conference a success.

"NBM plc has been supporting us in most of our activities since time immemorial and the bank is indeed a true partner for Icam," said Gondwe.

He said recently NBM plc contributed K2 Million towards the awards for best performing ICAM students and also rolled out ICAM payment options on its USSD based mobile banking platform Mo626 ice for various Icam functions.

Listed National Bank of Malawi Plc is a commercial is one of the country's leading financial institution and it is licenced by Malawi's Central Bank, The Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM), the national regulator.

National Bank of Malawi traces its history from the 1890s when African Lakes Corporation established banking business in Nyasaland, now Malawi.

The ICAM is the only professional accountancy organization in Malawi and all individuals practicing accountancy must join the institute.

The institute was established in 2013 under the Public Accountants and Auditors Act (PAA) Act No 5 of 2013, which repealed the PAA 1982.

ICAM was created through a merger of the Public Accountants Examination Council of Malawi and the Society of Chartered Accountants of Malawi, the preceding accountancy organization to ICAM.

The grouping strives to maintain the highest professional standards in accountancy, through the education and training of its members to serve the business community, the government and the nation at large.

Last months, NBM partnered with the Institute ICAM to provide its members a channel for making various payments through the Bank's digital platforms.
THE decision by government to maintain the ban on all unvaccinated congregants from attending church services is an affront to the constitution and sets a bad precedence likely to undermine the rule of law, a human rights group has said.

Zimbabwe Lawyers for Truth, Health, Justice and Freedom (ZLTHJF) has come out guns blazing attacking President Emmerson Mnangagwa's Cabinet of violating last week's High Court order allowing unvaccinated congregants to attend sit-in church sermons.

ZLTHJF took aim at cabinet following Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services minister, Monica Mutsvangwa's announcement Tuesday that the ban still exists despite the High Court order.

Mutsvangwa revealed that cabinet resolved to maintain its decision not to allow unvaccinated congregants to attend church services, in defiance of a last week's High Court order stating that those not vaccinated against Covid-19 can now attend church services, with the police barred from arresting them.

Mutsvangwa said the minister's council had resolved that only vaccinated congregants were allowed to attend church and increased the permissible number at other public gatherings to 100.

Government said churches can now carry 50% of their usual capacity at any given day if their congregants were vaccinated.

"Whilst all other gatherings shall not exceed 100 persons, with regards to churches, cabinet has resolved that only vaccinated congregants can attend and should be limited to 50 percent of the holding capacity of the church," Mutsvangwa said.

Some churches are big enough to accommodate 15 000 congregants and have now been given the greenlight to have 7 500 vaccinated congregants.

In response to the Cabinet decision, ZLTHJF on Wednesday issued a cautionary statement warning Mnangagwa to stop his contemptuous conduct.

"We take great exception to this unlawful and contemptuous position taken by Cabinet and point out that in our law a litigant who is aggrieved with a decision must take legal steps against that decision and not seek to undermine the court order or threaten unlawful action against the successful litigant.

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"The position taken by Cabinet in this regard poses a serious threat to justice and the rule of law in Zimbabwe and conveys a wrong message to all those who uphold constitutionality and constitutionalism," said the lawyers' body led by Obert Kondongwe.

Added ZLTHJF, "We must state that the position taken by Cabinet is now in clear violation of the court order issued by the High Court on 9 September 2021.

"The court order was clear that unvaccinated congregants cannot be barred from attending physical church meetings."

The executive arm of government was now threatening the principle of separation of powers that also reposes autonomy in the judiciary and legislature.

"The position by Cabinet is not only unlawful and discriminatory, but now borders on contempt of a court order.

"It also contains threats to judicial independence which are unacceptable in a democratic nation and are inconsistent with the doctrine of separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution," ZLTHJF said.

Government has also taken a stance blocking its unvaccinated employees from reporting for duty, a move likely to have negative repercussions on schools which recently reopened with just 5% of teachers having been vaccinated.
The Mangochi Senior Resident Magistrate Court has on Wednesday, September 15, 2021 sentenced Jafali Phiri, 34 and three others each to 5-years imprisonment and forfeited a Toyota Sienta they used to ferry Indian hemp on September 8, 2021, according to the Mangochi Police Public Relations Officer (PRO) Sub Inspector Amina Tepani Daudi.

Mangochi Station Prosecution Officer, lnspector Amos Mwase informed the court that Mangochi Police detectives were tipped by members of the community that the convicts were transporting the illicit drug from Nkhotakota to Balaka via Mangochi.

"Following the tip, the four were intercepted at Maloya village along Chilipa-Balaka road in a white Toyota Sienta registration number NN 7778," said Tepani Daudi in a statement issued on Wednesday, September 15, 2021.

Police found 24 bags weighing 50 kilogrammes each of Indian hemp in the motor vehicle without any permit hence the police arrested the convicts and also impounded the motor vehicle.

All accused persons pleaded guilty to the charge when they appeared before the court.

In mitigation, according to the PRO the convicts pleaded for leniency, saying that they are family breadwinners.

However, Prosecutor Mwase argued that there is a lot of drug abuse among the youths, causing many mental problems. He said government is spending a lot of money to deal with memtal problems hence prayed for a stiffer sentence. Senior Resident Magistrate Rodrick Michongwe sentenced each of them to 5-years imprisonment with hard labour.

Michongwe also ordered the forfeiture of all bags and the Toyota Sienta to Malawi government.
PRESIDENT Samia Suluhu Hassan has called on women to join forces to ensure a woman is elected as President of Tanzania in the 2025 General Election.

President Samia recalled that her ascendancy into power was by God's will and more so, by virtue of the country's Constitution and that women should work hard to ensure that a woman candidate wins the election in 2025.

She made the statement in Dar es Salaam yesterday at an event to mark the International Day of Democracy themed: 'Ajenda ya Mwanamke ni Turufu ya Ushindi' literally translated as 'A Woman's Agenda is Trump Card for a Victory'.

The president's remarks were greeted with a thunderous applause and ululations from the gathering, which packed the Diamond Jubilee Hall to the brim.

The attendees, mostly women, sang and danced to praise and symbolise their confidence in President Samia.

"As women, we played a pivotal role in ensuring that we had a female Vice-President, but getting here (to the president's throne) would be quite tough if it weren't for God's grace. If we put in the effort, we will have a female president in 2025," she said.

She added: "If the grace of God comes into your hands, do not let it go, women, we have played a crucial role in fighting for freedom and building the politics of this county, and it is about time we cash in on this opportunity." President Samia reiterated her pledge to appoint more women to positions of leadership, in a bid to attain 50-50 gender parity in various leadership roles.

That has been reflected in her appointments, with women accounting for 46 per cent of Administrative Secretaries, 43 per cent of Judges, 44 per cent of District Commissioners and 30 per cent of ministers.

"The government will work to address women's rights and gender equality to promote democracy in the country, including implementing the Third National Five-year Development Plan (FYDP III) 2021/22 - 2025/26, the Beijing Declaration and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)," she noted.

In marking the Day, the Tanzania Women Cross Party (TWCP) - Ulingo platform presented President Samia with an award as a sign of the victory of Tanzanian women. TWCP National Coordinator, Dr Ave Maria Semakafu, lauded President's leadership, expressing satisfaction with the tangible actions taken to guarantee that Tanzania achieves gender parity.

"Within your first 100 days as president, you have been able to pick several young women who have demonstrated their leadership abilities," she reflected on President Samia's presidency.

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President Samia took oath of office, becoming Tanzania's first female president on March 19, 2021 following the passing on of her predecessor Dr John Magufuli.

Dr Semakafu said in both private and public spheres, women face occupational segregation, and multiple barriers-such as lack of access to land, capital, financial resources and technology, as well as gender-based violence-because of cultural mindsets and stereotypes.

"These barriers make it more difficult for women to compete equally with males in the workplace or politics. Legal impediments exacerbate gender disparities," she said.

UN Women Deputy Representative, Ms Julia Broussard said to have a democratic society, the decisions that are taken must involve women.

"Women's inclusion at all levels of decision-making is a crucial indicator of a maturing democracy such as Tanzania," she said.

Furthermore, she said research has shown that having more women in leadership positions not only benefits women but society as a whole; it leads to more gender-responsive policies and budgets, more peaceful and inclusive societies, and more resources allocation.

Ms Broussard said the presence of more women leaders also has the potential of changing patriarchal mindsets, increasing the number of women leaders in many areas beyond politics and the public service.

In 2007 the United Nations General Assembly resolved to observe 15 September as the International Day of Democracy-with the purpose of promoting and upholding the principles of democracy-and invited all member states and organizations to commemorate the day in an appropriate manner that contributes to raising public awareness.
Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) has revealed that the reason it seized the passport of a former Rivers State governor, Dr. Peter Odili was because he was on the watch list of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

But Odili has dragged the service and its Comptroller General before a Federal High Court in Abuja, over the seizure of his international passport, which took place at the Nnamd Azikwe International airport in Abuja for undisclosed reasons.

The service, which made the disclosure in a counter affidavit deposed to by one Okwe Ernest from its Legal Department, averred that Odili was watch listed at the request of the EFCC.

The Immigration Service claimed that the former governor was not entitled to the request presented before the court and that his suit should be dismissed as premature.

The deponent asserted that the action of Immigration was as a result of collaborations of all the federal government security agencies and that the respondents were only carrying out their statutory functions.

The affidavit stated that since the passport was seized, Odili has never for once demanded for its release or cared to know why it was seized.

However, Odili, in the fundamental rights enforcement suit, claimed that the international passport with numbers B50031305 was seized from him on June 20, 2021 by operatives of the Immigration Service and has since been withheld.

In an eight paragraph affidavit personally deposed to, the former governor claimed that the passport was seized from him upon his return to Nigeria from the United Kingdom, where he had gone for his medicals.

Odili averred that on his arrival, his traveling documents were checked and given back to him and that while waiting for his luggage an official of Immigration demanded for the passport on claim of routine check, which he complied with but that the document has since been withheld.

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He claimed to be a senior citizen of Nigeria, law abiding and had not done anything to warrant the seizure of the passport from him.

Odili prayed Justice Ahmed Mohammed to compel the two respondents to release the passport to him and also issue an order of perpetual injunction against the respondents from further harassing, embarrassing, intimidating or interfering with his fundamental right to freedom of movement.

The former governor also demanded a written apology for the embarrassment caused him by the Immigration.

When the matter came up on Wednesday, counsel to Immigration Service, Mr Jimoh Abdulkadir Adamu, informed Justice Mohammed that he had just filed counter affidavit to oppose the suit of the former governor and served same on him as required by law.

Adamu, the Legal Adviser to the two respondents, therefore, sought a brief adjournment to enable him put his house in order.

Odili's lawyer, Chief Ifedayo Adedipe, SAN, did not oppose the request for the short adjournment

Justice Mohammed subsequently fixed September 28 to hear the matter.
The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, has written the 36 states governors of the federation regarding the state of stamp duty collection and remittance in the country.

Malami in the letter stated that although recoveries were being conducted for federal Ministries, Departments, Agencies and the financial institutions but, "At this stage liabilities are being established, and no actual recovery has been made."

The letters according to Malami's media aide, Dr. Umar Gwandu, were written pursuant to the provision of Section 111 of the Stamp Duty Act which provides that, "all duties, fines, penalties and debts due to the government of the federation imposed by this Act shall be recoverable in a summarily manner in the name of the Attorney General of the Federation or the state."

In a statement made available to journalists yesterday, the media aide added that the letters were for the purpose of compliance with audit and recovery of back years of stamp duty from January 15, 2016 to June 30, 2020.

"Pursuant to Mr. President's approval and directives, I also wish to request Your Excellency to direct the State Ministries, Departments, Agencies, and Regulatory Institutions of Financial Sector to engage and grant access to the appointed Recovery Agents for the purpose of the Audit and Recovery of Stamp Duty to ensure that all established liabilities are remitted as appropriate," the letter read in part.

Gwandu noted that Section 111 of the Stamp Duty Act granted the Attorney General of the Federation an exclusive power to recover any outstanding payment or remittances related to stamp duty.

He explained that what the Attorney General of the Federation did was to activate those powers, conduct the audit and recovery of back years stamp duty in collaboration with stakeholders.

He said the federal government of Nigeria has set up an Inter-Ministerial Committee on Audit and Recovery of Back years Stamp Duties from January 15, 2016 to June 30, 2020.

Members of the committee were drawn from Office of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice in collaboration with relevant agencies including the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Federal Inland Revenue Service, Office of the Accountant General of the Federation, Ministry of Finance, Central Bank of Nigeria, Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Allocation Commission, among others.

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The statement explained that in view of the need to provide a comprehensive overview of the process and to properly understanding the task, the AGF organised a meeting with Attorneys General of States since they have similar powers with respect of stamp duty of Ministries, Departments, Agencies and Financial Institutions in their respective states.

Only last month, the Attorneys-general of the 36 states sued Malami, over the alleged failure of the federal government to remit funds generated from stamp duties into states accounts.

The states had argued that they are the sole authority to collect stamp duties and not the federal government.

Meanwhile, states starting with Rivers are challenging the right of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) to collect Value Added Tax (VAT), with a Federal High Court already given judgment in favour of Rivers State.

Justice Stephen Pam of a Federal High Court in Port Harcourt had in a Judgment delivered August 9, stopped the FIRS from collecting VAT in Rivers and directed the state government to take charge of the duty.

Following the court judgment, Lagos had asked FIRS to stop issuing demand notices for VAT payments in the state, as well as went ahead to pass its own law on VAT.

Although, the Court of Appeal, Abuja had made a temporary order asking Rivers and Lagos not to give effect to the judgment of Justice Pam, the Rivers State Government however on Tuesday appealed the ruling, asking the Supreme Court to nullify the temporary order restraining it from obeying the order of the Federal High Court.
Alhagie Alieu Mamor Njai, the chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has stated that the electoral commission's election process is "very transparent, accurate and fair."

Mr. Njai was speaking to journalists and Civil Society Organisations during the IEC's monthly election briefings on Tuesday; held in a local hotel at Kotu.

"Every party is allowed to send an agent to witness every process of the voting system. As you know, we are using the balloon box and make sure all political party agents are there when the balloon boxes are empty and seal them in their presence and take the serial numbers."

He said after voting, the IEC officers and party agents will agree how to vote, record and sign all election documents transparently to avoid conflict at all.

He added that prior to the voting, all party agents will lay hands on voters list of their various polling stations.

Speaking further, he said, all electorates will vote where they registered except the security officers and IEC staff who are allowed to vote at the posting polling stations.

He noted that agents having a list of voters in all polling stations and knowing the security personnel on the ground would ensure the vote tally if counted.

"That is why we are always trying so that no forces or authority can influence the voting pattern of the IEC," he said.

The IEC top official said the IEC is always working with political party agents from the beginning to the end of the election to enable them know the outcome of the election.

"So the election is very transparent, accurate and fair," he emphasised .

Further justifying transparency and fairness of Gambia's election, he said, the IEC has allowed all political parties to have agents in all voter registration stations across the country so that they understand the registration process. "They had the right to complain on anything regarding the vote issuing process in accordance with the election Act."

However, Chairman Njai said the electoral commission has not received any complaint from any registration centre about the issuing of the voters cards.
FANTANKA, is a non-governmental organisation established in December 2018 to close the gap in Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) and Rights awareness-raising and advocacy in the country.

Since establishment, the organisation which comprised dedicated team in the areas of Psychosocial Support and young advocates have reached out to many communities, especially youths on the importance of sexual and reproductive health issues and how to deal with Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV).

Mariama Jobarteh, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Fakanta explained that in addition, and in line with its values of supporting and empowering victims of abuse, the organisation has worked with and supported women and victims of human rights violations.

"Fantanka has also provided a number of psychosocial support interventions to victims of sexual and gender-based violence and other human rights violations."

While interacting with victims, she disclosed that the organisation was able to gather insight about numerous SGBV challenges women face in various settings such as in the case of women traders, employees in both government and private institutions, and girls in school and other institutional and informal settings.

This, she added, helps them to provide support in the form of psycho-education, support groups, and counseling to assist them in their healing processes after the trauma they endured.

"With support from the UNFPA, Fantanka has also been conducting Out-of-School Comprehensive Sexuality Education with persons living with disabilities, youths, women groups, beach youths and Civil Society Organizations. This program included teaching participants about maintaining personal boundaries, understanding the nature, benefits and risks in different relationships, the risks and dangers of STI, unplanned pregnancies and unsafe abortions etc."

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She indicated that women, girls, boys, and men were all enlightened on those subjects and how best they could prevent SGBV as well as how to encourage and support victims of SGBV to come forward and access needed help and redress.

"These activities have covered both rural and urban communities. Currently, Fantanka is providing training to promote parent and child sexuality communication to different institutions in The Gambia. With support from CSVR, a South African-based NGO, Fantanka has a female counselling psychologist and Senior MHPSS practitioner, who provide technical expertise to the MHPSS component of the organisation's work."
Presidente @PedroCastilloTe: Vamos a asumir el compromiso y responsabilidad del Estado con las ollas comunes que necesitan apoyo alimentario y otras prioridades como asistencia medica a las familias que las conforman. pic.twitter.com/sJ4WLZbYjL
09:35 | Lima, Sep. 16.

The appointment was made official by Supreme Resolution No. 115-2021-RE , published on Thursday in the official gazette El Peruano.
At a press conference, the Cabinet chief said that Guzman was "a genocide and terrorist," adding that the Council of Ministers did not address his case.

"There were many items on the agenda yesterday, the topic has not been addressed, and the Executive Branch's position remains unchanged: this has to be examined by the Public Ministry, which has asked Congress to show what actions would be taken," he stated.
#EnImagenes | El presidente de la Republica, @PedroCastilloTe, participa en la sesion solemne por el 199. aniversario del Congreso de la Republica. pic.twitter.com/6gppgpxsHu
DUSHANBE, SEPTEMBER 16, ARMENPRESS. Tajikistans President Emomali Rahmon said at the CSTO summit in Dushanbe that his countrys chairmanship of the military bloc coincided with a period of emergency challenges and threats facing the region.

The Tajik leader said that the member states of the organization were generally able to maintain high level of political partnership and ensure coordination of foreign political positions, and that inter-parliamentary partnership was expanded and the practice of adopting joint declarations on pressing issues continued.

We were able to complete the work of adopting the re-equipment program of the CSTO collective rapid reaction forces. This is a very important achievement. The respective decision will be adopted today. In terms of fulfilling objectives, the high level of readiness of the Collective Security Forces was maintained, which is extremely important, given the tense situation in neighboring Afghanistan, President Rahmon said.

He added that during his countrys chairmanship the CSTO expanded contacts with international organizations. The organization has also advanced in developing its peacemaking potential, he said.

President Rahmon thanked CSTO member states for joint work and added that the CSTO Secretary General Stanislav Zas has a big role in all achievements.

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 16, ARMENPRESS. The chairmanship of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) passes to Armenia, and on this occasion the Armenian side would like to propose its partners to focus on the joint consistent work aimed at dynamically developing the organization and raising the efficiency of its mechanisms, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in his speech during the extended-format meeting of the CSTO Collective Security Council in Dushanbe.

He emphasized the need for continuing the work on foreign policy coordination and deepening of mutual support.

For this purpose we give a major importance to the regular holding of multi-level consultations, including in the format of a high-level group, which the deputy foreign and defense ministers are member of. We believe that the practice of adopting joint statements has justified itself, and it should expand, the PM said. The necessity for monitoring, forecast and prevention mechanisms of crisis situations is obvious. This will be formed in practice, including through ensuring the full operation of the Crisis Response Center, he said.

Pashinyan said Armenia plans to closely cooperate with CSTO member states to raise the combat preparedness, harmony and mobility of the CSTO forces.

There is no doubt that it is necessary to upgrade and develop the potential of the CSTO collective forces, supplement them with modern and new, including drone formations, arm them with latest means and improve their management, he stated.

Armenia is also proposing to strengthen the CSTO reputation in the international arena, also through the expansion of the cooperation with other interested international organizations, the PM said.

In this sense its important to maximally use and develop the existing joint working experience with the UN, OSCE and other organizations. We believe that while solving such issues we could have relied on the support of our parliamentarians, Nikol Pashinyan said.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 16, ARMENPRESS. Armenia and Portugal plan to expand the commercial cooperation.

Today, on September 16, the leaders of the respective structures of the two countries signed a memorandum of cooperation for boosting the business ties and investments.

CEO of the Trade Agency and Investments of Portugal (AICEP) Luis Filipe de Castro Henriques and Director of the Enterprise Armenia Levon Ohanesyan signed the respective document in Yerevan.

The Director of the Enterprise Armenia said that Armenia, in terms of foreign investments, is interesting also as an EAEU market.

Currently, Armenia has certain business cooperation with Portugal. However, Mr. Ohanesyan is confident that still a lot needs to be done. We must strengthen those bilateral business ties, organize business forums so that our and Portuguese businessmen will get acquainted with one another and will start cooperation, he said.

According to the memorandum, the sides agreed to strengthen the business ties with forums and expand the partnership. Portugal will direct its investors to us, we will serve them with the one window principle and will assist at all stages. As well as, if there is an interest from the Armenian side to invest in Portugal, we will do the same, he said and thanked the Armenian Ambassador to Portugal, the diplomatic corps.

In his turn Luis Filipe de Castro Henriques said: We believe that Armenia will very soon be much more interesting for the Portuguese business. Currently, the business community of Portugal doesnt know so well Armenia. This is the first step.

He also commented on the geographical positions of Armenia and Portugal. We believe that when Portuguese companies arrive in Armenia, we will look at the whole region with which you have trade, and when Armenian companies arrive in Portugal, they will look at the region with which Portugal has trade, he said, adding: We are searching for new trade opportunities, not only for expanding the current export, but also diversifying the export portfolio.

He stated that there are some fields which can have potential investments from Portugal in the future, in particular mentioning the fields of IT and food production.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 16, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian government will allocate around 1 billion dollars for the construction of the Kajaran-Sisian section of the North-South Road Corridor, Minister of Economy Vahan Kerobyan told reporters while speaking about the situation at the Kapan-Goris section, where the Azeri authorities have set up a police checkpoint in an area that has gone under their control.

You know that we have a bypass [linking Kapan with Goris], which is in poor condition, but which is also a functional road, and its our so-called plan B for a worst case scenario. We are now intensely working to make that road easier to pass. We also know that in terms of the Kajaran-Sisian section of the North-South we are already very close to making practical, major steps. The government plans to invest approximately 1 billion dollars in the construction of the Kajaran-Sisian section, he said.

Kerobyan dismissed concerns that Iran could potentially halt shipments through Armenia because of the problems caused by Azerbaijan on the interstate road.

I am very well aware of the composition of the trade with Iran, but I dont think that there is a major problem. Certainly there is an obstacle, but I am sure that this obstacle will be resolved very soon, the economy minister said.

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 16, ARMENPRESS. On September 16, Speaker of Parliament Alen Simonyan received Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) to Armenia Abbas Badakhshan Zohouri, the Parliament told Armenpress.

Welcoming the guest, the Parliament Speaker has underlined that the relations with Iran are of strategic importance for Armenia. He has noted that the centuries-old friendship and the two peoples peace loving attitude serve as a unique bridge between the Republic of Armenia and Iran. The active political dialogue formed as a result of Armenia-Iran collaboration is considered to be as a firm basis and guarantee in all spheres for continuous development and strengthening of the inter-state cooperation. Alen Simonyan has underscored that our country seeks to maintain and to further strengthen the continuous growth for the dialogue of the political and economic fields and the trade cooperation. In this aspect, the Speaker of Parliament drew attention especially to the fact that during 2020, despite the spread of COVID-19 and its negative consequences, the Armenian-Iranian trade turnover had not undergone the most serious changes, and the export even had grown to some extent. Alen Simonyan also noticed that the indices of the Iranian investments in Armenia and the Armenian investments in Iran affirm that the potential of the Armenian-Iranian trade-economic relations is not realized with its entire volume. In the viewpoint of the Armenian side Iran is a reliable friend and a good neighbour. Alen Simonyan highlighted the Armenian-Iranian interaction in the development of the regional strategic infrastructures, as well as in the regional military-political security issues. The works for the solution of the situation in the vicinity of Vorotan settlement of Goris-Kapan inter-state road were touched upon.

Thanking the Parliament Speaker for the reception, the Ambassador has documented that the role of the Armenian cultural heritage is considerable in the Iranians life, and the Armenian community is rather active and inclusive is presented Iran.

The sides referred to the role of the inter-parliamentary cooperation in strengthening of bilateral mutually beneficial cooperation bases. In this context the activity of the parliamentary friendship groups was emphasized.
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 16, ARMENPRESS. On September 16, Speaker of Parliament of Armenia Alen Simonyan received Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Netherlands to Armenia Nicolas Schermers, the Parliament told Armenpress.

Nicolas Schermers is the first resident Ambassador of the Netherlands to the Republic of Armenia.

Welcoming the guest, Alen Simonyan noted that he had an effective meeting with the President of the Senate of the Kingdom of the Netherlands Jan Anthonie Bruijn within the framework of the Fifth World Conference of Speakers of Parliaments recently held and invited him to pay an official visit to Armenia.

Presenting some details from the meeting, Alen Simonyan thanked the Ambassador for the substantive position of the Netherlands towards our region and for supporting democratic priorities of Armenia.

The Speaker has referred to the scope of issues, where Armenia expects political support from its partners. Those are the establishment of peace in our region, the urgent implementation of the repatriation of Armenian prisoners of war and civilians, and the effective implementation of the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement. He has underlined the destructive position of the Azerbaijani delegations at different parliamentary assemblies, emphasizing that their rhetoric is not aimed at establishing peace in the region.

Thanking the Parliament Speaker for the reception, the Ambassador reaffirmed the readiness to support the activities of the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group in the region.

The sides touched upon the development of the inter-parliamentary relations and the need to develop a roadmap promoting the further deepening of the cooperation.
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 16, ARMENPRESS. Speaker of Parliament of Armenia Alen Simonyan received today Member of House of Lords of the United Kingdom, Baroness Caroline Cox and her delegation, the Parliament told Armenpress.

Speaker Simonyan said its an honor for him to host the great friend of the Armenian people. He expressed gratitude to the Baroness for her long-term consistent support to Armenia and Artsakh.

The Parliament Speaker and the Baroness discussed the post-war situation, the return of Armenian prisoners of war and civilian captives from Azerbaijan.

Baroness Caroline Cox expressed concerns over Azerbaijans unconstructive statements made at different international platforms, but she expressed hope that the repatriation of the Armenian captives will be possible to solve with the practical support of the international community.

At the end of the meeting the sides reached an agreement over future cooperation.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 16, ARMENPRESS. President of the National Assembly of Armenia Alen Simonyan received Ambassador of the USA to Armenia Lynne Tracy, ARMENPRESS was informed from the press service of the National Assembly of Armenia.

Welcoming the Ambassador, Alen Simonyan noted that since the establishment of democratic relations with the United States Armenia has developed partnership and friendly relations, which includes a large scope of cooperation. He highly appreciated the support shown for many years by the U.S. in strengthening democracy, economic development, reforms being implemented in different spheres. Alen Simonyan stated that the format of the inter-parliamentary cooperation plays an important role in the Armenian-American bilateral relations. He informed the Ambassador that the Armenia-USA Friendship Group will be formed in the National Assembly soon, which is an important link between the cooperation of the legislative bodies of the countries, as well as for the development of inter-state relations.

Regarding the post-war situation, Alen Simonyan emphasized that at this moment the issue of the urgent repatriation of Armenian prisoners of war and civilians being detained in Azerbaijan remains a priority. He underlined that the unconstructive rhetoric of Azerbaijan cannot result in the solution of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. The conflict should be settled exclusively through dialogue, under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmanship and based on the implementation of the principles developed by the mediatory mission.

Thanking the President of the National Assembly for the reception, the Ambassador noted that the U.S. Administration will continue the close cooperation with the Armenian authorities. During the talk, the collaboration with the legislative body, the development and the strengthening of democratic processes were highlighted. The Ambassador stressed the faithfulness of the U.S. Administration to the implementation of the activities within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group.

Issues concerning the reforms to be implemented in a number of spheres of bilateral interest were also discussed.
Saudi Arabias World Defense Show has revealed its official venue model at DSEI in London, showcasing a model of the purpose-built venue which will host the inaugural event in March 2022.



The inaugural World Defense Show will take place biennially starting March 2022 in Riyadh - Saudi Arabia, to showcase the latest in interoperable defense solutions. The event will be held in the presence of Saudi Arabias key leadership, international delegations and prominent industry decision makers from around the world (Picture source: World Defense Show)

With Hall One nearing completion and infrastructure being put in place for Hall Two, the unveiling of the scale model and new renders at the Saudi Pavilion  alongside show founder General Authority for Military Industries (GAMI) and strategic partner Saudi Arabian Military Industries (SAMI) brings the World Defense Show grounds to life for the first time.

The state-of-the-art venue, on a site spanning 800,000 square metres, will welcome more than 30,000 visitors and 800 exhibitors from 6-9 March next year. A regular program of site visits for local businesses, government officials and industry leaders is underway, with major interest in on-site progress from across the defense sector.

Features of the venue include the worlds first purpose-built runway dedicated to defense events, dedicated exhibition space across two halls, hard standing for ground equipment and dozens of hospitality suites with views over the static display area and runway.

Featuring design elements inspired by traditional Saudi architectural styles, the venue hosts immersive experiences, offering a window into the future of defense.

The centerpiece of the show, which is held under the Patronage of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud, is a 2.7km-long and 50m-wide purpose-built runway where live demonstrations of air power will fly over static aircraft and land equipment displays.

An interactive on-site command and control center, equipped with the latest systems and technologies from the worlds leading defense companies, will showcase integration and interoperability across the various domains.

The centerpiece of the show, which is held under the Patronage of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud, is a 2.7km-long and 50m-wide purpose-built runway where live demonstrations of air power will fly over static aircraft and land equipment displays (Picture source: World Defense Show)

The World Defense Show site is located adjacent to two major highways, offering convenient access for display products and visitors. Shuttle busses will be available to and from the show site, departing and arriving from select hotels.

Shaun Ormrod, Chief Executive Officer of World Defense Show, commented: We started from a blank slate when designing the venue, so everything is completely purpose-built in line with the requirements of a modern defense event.

Dedicated spaces have been specifically created to meet the needs of our exhibitors, including a two-kilometer runway, hard standing for ground equipment and a command and control center which facilitates the show theme of interoperability.

Ultimately, this will enable exhibitors to fully demonstrate the capabilities of a wide range of products providing a real immersive experience for visitors of the show.

As you would expect, our venue will also deliver key networking areas, on-the-floor conference spaces and hospitality to entertain, connect and unlock business leads and opportunities.

Hosted in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from March 6-9 2022, World Defense Show will serve as the global stage for defense interoperability, a topic that has become a growing challenge for decision-makers around the world, connecting all five key domains  air, land, sea, space and security.

It is the first event to put KSA on the map as a global defense hub, gathering peers and partners from the east and west to work together. The biennial event will enable the industry to keep pace with developments across defense and technology. The speed at which these developments take place compels the industry to cooperate across borders and domain expertise to generate opportunities throughout the defense value chain.

By connecting key defense contacts, primes, SMEs, and buyers, World Defense Show has laid the foundations to advance the defense industry and address the challenges presented by ever-deeper defense systems integration.



Featuring design elements inspired by traditional Saudi architectural styles, the venue hosts immersive experiences, offering a window into the future of defense (Picture source: World Defense Show)
After the 44-Day Artsakh War, the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund is implementing unprecedented programs in Artsakh, including providing housing to displaced families.

September 15, 2021, 19:04 The Hayastan All-Armenian Fund implements unprecedented programs in Artsakh

STEPANAKERT, SEPTEMBER 14, ARTSAKHPRESS: Deputy Director of the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund, Ararat Khlghatyan told"Artsakhpress".

At present, the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund is implementing a program to build about 1,075 apartments in Artsakh, including 530 in Stepanakert, 224 in Ajapnyak, 50 in Hovsepavan, 200 apartments and 80 private houses in Ivanyan.

We also implement road construction projects in Artsakh.

During this visit we witnessed a number of construction projects being implemented in Artsakh. We are going to realize other initiatives, in particular, to build residential buildings with about 120 apartments in Stepanakert and 32 in Askeran, to construct external water pipes in Chartar - Berdashen communities, to improve 5.4 km of road section in Mokhratagh community of Martakert region, he said.

Ararat Khlghatyan assesses the progress of the programs as satisfactory and according to the schedule. "We already have two residential buildings on Tumanyan Street that are being completed, one of which has 108 and the other one 153 apartments.

By the end of the year, about 300 apartments will be provided to our displaced compatriots," he said.
Eco Zaino is a social enterprise operating in Artsakh.

September 16, 2021, 10:57 The production of Artsakh eco-bags has an ecological and social direction: Founder

STEPANAKERT, SEPTEMBER 16, ARTSAKHPRESS: It is engaged in the production of cloth bags. The bags, in addition to being trendy, also have an environmental and social orientation.



Zina Gasyan, the founder-director of the company producing eco bags, told "Artsakhpress" that the idea of producing bags arose before the 44-day war; the business idea was realized in 2020. Zina Gasyan, the founder-director of the company producing eco bags, told "Artsakhpress" that the idea of producing bags arose before the 44-day war; the business idea was realized in 2020.



"My son is my motive power, whose presence always makes me think about where we live, what environment we will leave to our generations. This idea is aimed at preventing natural pollution, reducing the use of plastic bags and removing them from circulation.



The period of realizing the idea coincided with my admission to the School of Social Entrepreneurs in Armenia. While studying the school curriculum, I decided to give the idea a social orientation as well.

The situation in Artsakh after the war is different. Today, the production of bags is aimed at raising the living standards of the population and reducing unemployment," said Z. Gasyan.



Zina Gasyan noted that those people are included in the production process who really need work.

"The list of beneficiaries includes parents of children with health problems and students. We also try to include our displaced compatriots."



"Our customers are of different ages, mainly from Artsakh and the regions of Armenia. After the war we have an opportunity to send the bags to European countries, as well.

If we really want to have a positive shift in the social sphere of post-war Artsakh, then we must support the implementation of social programs ourselves.
The withdrawal of the western coalitions troops from Afghanistan was "hasty, mildly speaking," Russian President Vladimir Putin said addressing a summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) via video link on Thursday, and noted the related threats in the region, Tass informs.

September 16, 2021, 16:15 Putin says withdrawal of western coalitions troops from Afghanistan "put mildly hasty"

STEPANAKERT, SEPTEMBER 16, ARTSAKHPRESS: The environment in the zone of the CSTOs responsibility and the external borders of its members is "not only unstable, but carries new, truly critical challenges and risks for security of our countries," he said.

"Right after a hasty, mildly speaking hasty withdrawal of the troops of the US and its allies from Afghanistan and the rise to power of the Taliban (outlawed in Russia - TASS) we shared views on the dangers related to the drastically changed situation in the country at an extraordinary CSTO summit. All approved then the conclusion that amid the current environment a close cooperation between CSTO member-states is required as never before," Putin emphasized.
Turkey is sending a top diplomat to the United States for political consultations as part of efforts by the two countries to repair fraught ties, Ahval News reports.

September 16, 2021, 17:31 US, Turkish officials hold political talks in Washington

STEPANAKERT, SEPTEMBER 16, ARTSAKHPRESS: Turkish Deputy Foreign Minister Sedat Onal starts a two-day trip to Washington D.C. on Thursday. He will meet with Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland during the visit, the Turkish government said in a statement.

Bilateral relations, regional issues and international developments are planned to be discussed in the framework of comprehensive political consultations to be held between the delegations during the visit, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said.

Relations between the two NATO countries have reached the lowest point in decades after Turkey fought Kurds allied with the United States against Islamic State in Syria (ISIS) and bought S-400 air defence missiles from Russia. Former U.S. President Donald Trump imposed sanctions on Turkeys defence industry in January after Ankara refused to mothball or return the missiles that it purchased in 2019.

President Joe Biden and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met at a NATO summit in Brussels in mid-June to discuss how to mend relations. An agreement in principle that Turkey would continue to provide security at the international airport in Kabul after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan raised hopes of an improvement in ties. But the Talibans earlier than anticipated seizure of the capital has scuppered those plans.
In China, the Peoples Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) controls its strategic land-based nuclear and conventional missile forces

New Delhi: The Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Bipin Rawat, said on Wednesday that India is looking to create a Rocket Force that could potentially control and maintain the countrys missiles.

In China, the Peoples Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) controls its strategic land-based nuclear and conventional missile forces. It is reported to be the largest ground-based missile force in the world.

To a question on whether, given the limited number of aircraft with the Air Force, it could pose a challenge to the proposed theatre commands, Gen. Rawat said: Look at the kind of aircraft and other systems that we have Weve now got missiles and we are looking at creating a rocket force. Let me also tell you that the more the aircraft you keep in the air, the more will also be on the ground because look at the air defence system that is coming up. So, we have got that fear too -- that we are looking at missile strength coming up along with the air force.

Gen. Rawat said that the world is now again heading back towards a bipolar or multipolar world. Is that good or bad for the international community  that only time will tell. But I think what were certainly seeing is more aggression on the part of nations, especially the one that is trying to go into the bipolar world or making their presence felt that is China, he said. The CDS said China was becoming more and more aggressive. We share land borders with them, therefore I think it is time for us to start looking at our strategies as to how we going to deal with the two borders with aggressive adversaries -- Pakistan on the western front and China on the north, he said. Gen. Rawat said that we need to also start looking at transformation for the betterment and to ensure that the national security architecture that we want to evolve is capable of dealing with the kind of threats we are seeing on the borders. He said Pakistan could be regarded as Chinas proxy.

About Afghanistan, Gen. Rawat said that only time will tell what will happen in that country. Only time will tell what will happen in Afghanistan Nobody expected the Taliban to take over the country so fast. There can be more turmoil..., he added.
North Korean state media put out images of the new cruise missile

North Korea's recent missile tests show continuing progress in its weapons programme, which it says is necessary to defend itself against a possible US invasion.

One of these was of a cruise missile, which state media said on 13 September could travel up to 1,500km (930 miles), putting much of Japan within range.

In January this year - just days before President Biden took office - North Korea had unveiled a new submarine-launched ballistic missile at a military parade, calling it "the world's most powerful weapon".

This weapon's actual capabilities remain unclear, as it is not known to have been tested.

North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un has pledged to expand the country's nuclear arsenal and military potential, outlining a list of desired weapons.

The country has managed to significantly advance its arsenal despite being subject to economic sanctions.

Missiles that can reach the US

Throughout 2017, North Korea tested several missiles demonstrating the rapid advances in its military technology.

The Hwasong-12 was thought to be able to reach as far as 4,500km (2,800 miles), putting US military bases on the Pacific island of Guam well within striking distance.

Later, the Hwasong-14 demonstrated even greater potential, with a range of 8,000km although some studies suggested it could travel as far as 10,000km if fired on a maximum trajectory.

This would have given Pyongyang its first truly intercontinental ballistic missile, capable of reaching New York.

Eventually, the Hwasong-15 was tested, peaking at an estimated altitude of 4,500km - 10 times higher than the International Space Station.

If fired on a more conventional "flatter" trajectory, the missile could have a maximum range of some 13,000km, putting all of the continental US in range.

In October 2020, North Korea unveiled its new ballistic missile.

It has not yet been named or tested. Like the Hwasong-15, it is a two-stage liquid fuelled missile, but with a greater length and diameter. It could possibly allow for multiple warheads.

Story continues

It is believed to be able to deliver a nuclear warhead to anywhere in the US, and its size had surprised even seasoned analysts when it was put on show in 2020.

In January 2021, North Korea unveiled another missile - a new type of submarine-launched ballistic missile which it declared to be "the world's most powerful weapon".

The unveiling of the new missiles appeared to be a message to the Biden administration of the North's growing military prowess, say experts.

In March this year, it carried out a launch of what it called a "new-type tactical guided projectile", which is said was able to carry a payload of 2.5 tons - so capable of in theory of carrying a nuclear warhead.

The weapon has not been formally identified. Analysts at the James Martin Centre for Nonproliferation Studies told Reuters that it appeared to be "an improved variant" of a previously tested missile, the KN-23.

Some experts have suggested that the missile could have features enabling it to manoeuvre more easily, and making it harder to detect.

Graphic: North Korean Missiles

The recent test of a long-range cruise missile could pose yet more challenges for defence systems, as these missiles don't have to follow a straight trajectory and can be programmed to avoid detection.

However, it's not clear as yet how it is guided, and whether or not it could carry a nuclear payload - although it is believed that North Korea has successfully miniaturised a nuclear warhead to fit on to missiles.

Unlike ballistic missiles, current UN Security Council sanctions do not prohibit North Korea from testing cruise missiles.

Thermonuclear bombs

On 3 September 2017, North Korea conducted by far its largest nuclear test to date, at its Punggye-ri test site.

Estimates of the device's explosive power, or yield, ranged from 100-370 kilotons. A yield of 100 kilotons would make the test six times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

North Korea claimed this test was its first thermonuclear weapon - the most potent form of nuclear explosion where an atomic detonation is boosted by a secondary fusion process to produce a far bigger blast.

Map: North Korean nuclear testing

In April 2018, North Korea announced it would suspend further nuclear tests because its capabilities had been "verified".

North Korea also promised to dismantle the Punggye-ri site and in May 2018 blew up some of the tunnels in the presence of foreign journalists - but with no international experts .

As dialogue got underway between Kim Jong-un and President Trump's administration that year, Pyongyang also said that it would destroy all its nuclear material enrichment facilities.

President Trump and North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un in 2019

However, the talks with the US were inconclusive.

The UN's atomic agency reported in August that on the basis of satellite imagery, it appeared North Korea had restarted the Yongbyon reactor, thought to be its main source of weapons-grade plutonium.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in September that the nuclear programme was going "full steam ahead," with work on plutonium separation, uranium enrichment and other activities.

Millions of soldiers

North Korea has one of the largest standing armies in the world - with more than one million army personnel and estimated reserves of some 600,000.

Much of its equipment is old and obsolete, but its conventional forces could still inflict massive damage on South Korea in the event of war.

North Korea also has around tens of thousands of special forces troops which could be expected to infiltrate the South in the event of any conflict.

Data pic showing military balance between N and S Korea

A further threat comes from thousands of North Korean artillery pieces and rocket launchers deployed along the border, putting South Korea, including the capital Seoul, which is a distance of less than 60km, well within range.

In 2012, the South Korean government assessed that North Korea could have between 2,500 and 5,000 tons of chemical weapons, potentially one of the largest stockpiles in the world.

And there've also been concerns that North Korea could have a biological weapons programme, although very little is known about it and how far advanced it might be.
It probably goes without saying that cult leaders are, generally speaking, massive creeps, but David

Berg - leader of US-based cult Children of God  took creepy to a whole new level. Sex underpinned

most of Children of Gods best-known policies, with Berg as its dirty-old-man in chief.

A cult of many names, Children of God started as the cheesy-sounding Teens For Christ, and now

exists as The Family International, albeit with some extremely welcome policy tweaks. Early

followers included actress Rose McGowans parents and the parents of River, Joaquim, and Rain

Phoenix, all three of whom sang on the streets for donations to help fund the cults communal

lifestyle.
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A year ago, with statewide restrictions on public gatherings in place, the Jordan Fall Festival still found a way to serve the community some autumn flavor with a one-day drive-thru event serving up its famous homemade doughnuts.

Those doughnuts are back for this year's event  along with everything else that has made the festival in the western Onondaga County village a central New York destination for more than seven decades.

This year's festival is scheduled to run Friday through Sunday, with the well-known grease pole climb set once again for the final afternoon at the festival grounds on Beaver Street. Two and half days of rides, food, arts and crafts vendors, and live music are also planned.

The grease pole contest, scheduled to start at 1 p.m., brings out teams of people climbing onto each other's shoulders with the goal of reaching the top in the shortest amount of time. With a slippery pole that stands 28 feet tall with a diameter of 18 inches, that proves to be an impossible task for many participants.
This is the second 2021 I LOVE NY Fall Foliage Report for New York State. Reports are obtained from volunteer field observers and reflect expected color conditions for the coming weekend. Reports are issued every Wednesday afternoon. I LOVE NY urges travelers to follow all COVID-related public health and safety guidelines while enjoying the foliage this season. Visitors should call ahead and check websites and social media to make sure attractions are open and available. More information on New York State travel and COVID-19 is available here.

Vibrant fall colors continue to appear and spread throughout most of the Adirondacks, Catskills and Thousand Islands-Seaway regions, with signs of the spectacular seasonal colors to come in a few parts of the Chautauqua-Allegheny and Central New York regions, according to volunteer observers for the Empire State Development Division of Tourisms I LOVE NY program.

In the Adirondacks, Franklin County spotters in Tupper Lake are expecting significant color change this weekend, with up to 40% transition and leaves heading toward midpoint of change. Look for a rosy, mustard glow marking the landscape, with the leaves transitioning to goldenrod, maize, saffron, ginger, scarlet, cranberry and raspberry. In addition to the great foliage views at The Wild Center, the Tupper Lake Triad of Mount Arab, Goodman Mountain and Coney Mountain provide incredible vistas and are relatively easy climbs. Saranac Lake observers are predicting up to 25% color change with increasing pockets of reds, yellows, and oranges appearing, and a few trees that have completely changed color. Look for the most significant changes in trees along waterways and marshes, with more orange and yellow in the mix, while wooded areas are still predominantly green. Spotters reporting from Mountain View project 10% color change, with some shades of yellow and pops of orange starting to appear on the mostly green trees.
"My sincere religious convictions may not be 100% the same as the leader of my church or my denomination," Crampton said. "And the law respects that and it should."

New York has a long history of requiring health care workers to be immunized against diseases that pose a major public health threat, including measles, mumps and rubella. Schoolchildren are required to be vaccinated against many diseases, too.

The state doesn't offer religious exemptions for vaccination requirements for schoolchildren or health care workers and has argued it isn't obligated to do so for the COVID-19 vaccine, either.

Students at colleges and universities, however, don't have to comply with New York's vaccine mandates if they hold "genuine and sincere religious beliefs which are contrary to the practices herein required." New York also has a religious exemption for a requirement to vaccinate infants born to a mother with Hepatitis B.

The use of human cell lines is commonplace in the manufacture of vaccines including rubella, chickenpox, shingles and Hepatitis A. For decades, researchers have multiplied cells from a handful of legally aborted fetuses from the 1960s to produce human cell lines that provide cell cultures used to grow vaccines. Those cell lines are also used to make drugs treating rheumatoid arthritis and cystic fibrosis.
The seeds of discontent may have been sown in the spring but they began to bloom in July over Biden's acquiescence to a Russia-to-Germany gas pipeline that will bypass Poland and Ukraine, and a month later in August with the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan that left Europe scrambling to keep up after it had expressed reservations about the pullout.

Then just this week, Biden enraged France and the European Union with his announcement that the U.S. would join post-Brexit Britain and Australia in a new Indo-Pacific security initiative aimed at countering China's increasing aggressiveness in the region.

Unsurprisingly, China reacted angrily, accusing the U.S. and its English-speaking partners of embarking on a project that will destabilize the Pacific to the detriment of global security. But, the reactions from Paris and Brussels were equally severe. Both complained they were not only excluded from the deal but not consulted on it.

The White House and Secretary of State Antony Blinken say France had been informed of the decision before it was announced on Wednesday, although it was not exactly clear when. Blinken said Thursday there had been conversations with the French about it within the past 24 to 48 hours, suggesting there had not been an in-depth consultation.
Oklahoma, which over the course of the 20-year war had resettled a relatively small number of Afghans, is slated to resettle 1,800 new arrivals.

Many of the new evacuees requested to be resettled in those states because they already have family and close friends living in those states, according to two U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the calls to state government officials. Resettlement agencies also have a large presence and capacity in many of those states.

The State Department resettled evacuees based on the advice of local affiliates of nine national resettlement agencies the U.S. government is working with, the officials said.

The officials said Afghan evacuees are advised that other parts of the country -- including areas with plentiful job openings and cheaper housing -- could be good places to begin their new lives in the U.S.

The Afghan evacuees go through a Department of Homeland Security-coordinated process of security vetting before being admitted. And every evacuee who comes into the United States also goes through health screening. Evacuees who are 12 and older are required to get the COVID-19 vaccination as a term of their humanitarian parolee status after entering the country.

Still, there have been unexpected complications.
David Stantons Aug. 19 letter to the editor identified the motivation behind the money grab by the Diocese of Rochester and some of the skullduggery used to gain and hold on to that money. In summary Stanton points out that the hierarchy holds a lot of money and receives taxpayer money in excess of the money it has to dole out for the hierarchys criminal behavior involving sexual abuse.

Most people Catholic and non-Catholic alike know this is the case even if they know not the details. For that reason alone most people do not see bishops as leaders and teachers, including faithful church-going Catholics. Almost every bishop is guilty of this criminal behavior if not in explicitly the sin itself, then in the coverup or for that matter staying silent.

But to make matters worse, the hierarchy have abrogated the teachings of the Church undermining their own authority, and forcing the faithful to look elsewhere for spiritual or psychological nourishment.

Thus today the hierarchy finds itself in a leadership role, with no credibility with anyone Catholic or otherwise in its ability to teach and lead.

The picture is pretty grim, because to change will require humility on the part of the bishops who fancy themselves as smarter, more spiritual, more powerful and wealthier than those around them.
I am writing today to Ron Curvin of Scipio. I don't always agree with President Biden on all of his policies. Just because I disagree doesn't mean I don't support him. I do support him over Donald Trump. Let's get this straight, I am a Democrat union man. I don't always go along with my party's policies. I disagree with President Biden on the southern border and I believe we should finish building the wall.

On Afghanistan, I don't support his getting out. I think we should keep a permanent base of 20,000 troops there just to keep the Taliban and al-Qaeda in check. Donald Trump made a deal with the Taliban, with Secretary Pompeo taking a picture with them. Trump made a deal with terrorists who helped kill us on 9/11. That was totally wrong.

President Reagan on down said they would not meet with terrorists, but Trump did just that. I don't know how he handled this. That remains to be seen. You didn't say anything about Trump when he instigated the insurrection on the Capitol Jan. 6. You didn't say anything about him being impeached twice, the only president to be so. President Biden carried out Trump's agreement to leave Afghanistan. That is a proven fact.
BYD intends to replace oil-fueled cars with DM-i models

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- BYD is gradually decreasing the proportion of oil-fueled vehicles in production and attempts to replace ICEV (internal combustion engine vehicle) with DM-i models in the future, the company recently disclosed at a meeting held for investors.

The automaker also revealed it plans to terminate the production of the F3, a compact oil-fueled sedan model launched in 2005, in October this year. Other ICEV models, which are sharing assembly lines with hybrid models, will bow out of production as appropriate in the future.

BYD Song PLUS DM-i; photo credit: BYD



According to BYD's announcement, the company's sales of DM models (referring to plug-in hybrid electric passenger vehicle models) reached 30,126 units in August, rocketing 555.63% from a year earlier and accounting for 44.5% of BYD's total passenger vehicle sales. The sales of the Song DM and the Tang DM series amounted to 8,726 units and 5,433 units last month, soaring 1,594.4% and 256.3% year over year respectively.

Notably, the year-on-year increase in the monthly sales of BYD's DM models was standing above 170% for 10 consecutive months as of August.

On Jan. 11, BYD launched its DM-i super hybrid technology that focuses on ultra-low fuel consumption. At the same time, the company kicked off the presale of three new models armed with the DM-i system, namely the Qin PLUS DM-i, the Song PLUS DM-I, and the Tang DM-i, which all hit the market before May.



BYD Qin PLUS DM-i; photo credit: BYD

The advent of the DM-i-powered models significantly drove BYD's sales. For instance, the sales of the BYD Qin PLUS DM-i reached up to 13,043 units in August, growing 16.1% month on month and making up 43% of BYD's DM models sales.
Car and City: July 2021 registrations of BYD vehicles

Beijing (Gasgoo)- Monthly insurance registrations of BYD vehicles continued to grow in July, hitting the highest level of the first seven months of this year as the company tries to expand its new energy vehicle (NEV) business.

In July, the insurance registration volume BYD-branded vehicles amounted to 57,140 vehicles, up by 13.7% month over month, according to data from China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC). By the end of July, the year-to-date insurance registrations of BYD vehicles totaled 262,339 vehicles.

Among all BYD vehicles registered in July, 50,591 were registered by individual consumers while 4,093 new vehicles were bought for renting businesses.

Beijing registered the most BYD vehicles in July, followed by Shanghai and Shenzhen. Apart from the top 10 cities on the list, monthly registrations of another two cities also surpassed 1,000 vehicles, namely Zhengzhou (1,091) and Chengdu (1,008).

NEVs registrations accounted for 72.8% of BYDs total July registrations. In July, a total of 41,582 BYD-branded NEVs were registered in the biggest vehicle market, including 19,208 plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and 22,374 battery electric vehicles. For the first seven months of this year, the share of NEVs was 64.6% with a total of 169,524 NEVs registered.

Shenzhen topped other cities in China by Jan.-Jul. registrations of BYD vehicles, with 22,439 registered in the period. Shanghai and Beijing also registered over 15,000 BYD-branded vehicles.

Seven out of BYDs top 10 registered models in July were NEV models, including three plug-in hybrid electric vehicle models and four battery electric vehicle models.



The top 2 registered models were both from DM-i series. In January, the automaker officially launched its DM-i hybrid technology, as well as the presale of three models powered by the technology, the Qin PLUS DM-i, the Song PLUS DM-i and the Tang DM-i. With BYDs DM-i technology, vehicles can have a combined range of 1,200 kilometers. Due to the surge in DM-i models sales, BYD aims to ramp up production capacity and has apologized for slow delivery of DM-i models .

Photo credit: BYD

When asked about whether it has suspended the production of certain traditional fossil fuel vehicles, the company said it is reducing the product share of traditional fossil fuel vehicles which will be replaced by DM-i models. BYD will stop the production of the F3 in October.

Besides, BYD also makes continuous efforts in battery electric vehicle segment. Earlier this month, the automaker officially launched its BEV-dedicated e-platform 3.0, which boasts advantages in four major aspects, including intelligence, high efficiency, safety, and aesthetics.

Based on the e-platform 3.0, BYD plans to launch its Ocean model series, the first of which is the BYD Dolphin, which hit the market at the 2021 Chengdu Motor Show last month.
Leapmotor partners with China Construction Bank, securing RMB10 billion in capital

Beijing (Gasgoo)- Chinas EV startup, Leapmotor, has signed a strategic agreement with China Construction Bank, Zhejiang provincial Branch.

The agreement brings reciprocity and mutual benefit to both parties. Both parties will cooperate in offering various services, such as assets management, supply chain finance, auto finance, and settlement. Besides, the bank will provide nearly RMB10 billion in strategic funding support for the technology company in five years.

the C11; photo credit: Leapmotor



Founder, chairman,and CEO of Leapmotor, Zhu Jiangming stated, that Chinas new energy vehicle industry is seeing exploding growth in a few years. Leapmotor is accelerating its business layout in aspects like production capacity, technology, and vehicle stock. The partnership with China Construction Bank is a win-win strategy to achieve a high-efficiency capital utilization rate.

Leapmotor possesses comprehensive developing and producing capacity as a technology-focused NEV manufacturer, with an extreme capital utilization rate. The company has three models on the market, the S01, the T03, and the C11.

The automakers new car deliveries skyrocketed 720% year on year to 4,488 vehicles in August, up 1.9% compared to July, indicating a consecutive monthly growth for half a year.

The companys new car orders saw a 16% rise month on month to 7,607 vehicles in August, accumulating to 35,662 vehicles for the first eight months. Its mainstay model T03 has an order number of 7,228 vehicles, increased by 18% versus the previous month, making up 95% of the total orders in August.

Leapmotor set an annual target of selling 800,000 vehicles in 2025, and bring forward eight new models pricing under RMB350,000. The company intends to continue developing its computing center in five years, hoping to lead the intelligent vehicle field. Leapmotor plans to enter the overseas market in 2022.
Former manager of Microsoft Research Asia said to lead Baidu auto team

Beijing (Gasgoo)- Sources disclosed that the senior principal research manager of Microsoft Research Asia (MSRA) and scholar in the computer vision and deep learning field, Wang Jingdong, has left MSRA and joined Baidu, according to a local media outlet. With Wang Jingdongs ability and credentials, he shall be a valuable asset to Baidus computer vision research.

photo credit: Github

Upon finishing his doctorate at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 2007, Wang Jingdong joined Microsoft Research Asia. Wang climbed his way up to the senior principal research manager position, working on multiple territories significant to the perceptual function in autonomous driving, such as neural architecture design, human pose estimation, semanteme division, image classification, target detection, and large-scale index and salient target detection.

Moreover, Wang Jingdong is a brilliant member of ACM and an IAPR Fellow. He was once the subeditor of IEEE TPAMIIEEE TMMIEEE TCSVT, and regional chairman of numerous AI congress including CVPRICCVECCVACM MMIJCAI, and AAAI.

Based on Wangs exceptional resume in the field, strong speculations have been made that he will lead Baidus autonomous driving lab. According to early information, former chief of Baidus robotics and autonomous driving lab, senior 3D vision scientist Yang Ruigang has left the company and joined Incecptio.ai as CTO, leaving the position empty since then.
Twenty-four Republican attorneys general signed a letter to President Joe Biden on Thursday threatening litigation against the president's requirement for employees of businesses with 100 or more workers to be either vaccinated against COVID-19 or undergo weekly testing.

The prosecutors, led by South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, called the requirement "disastrous and counterproductive." The prosecutors said the requirement would "drive further skepticism" about vaccines and cause some Americans to leave the job market, including healthcare workers.

The letter was also signed by the attorneys general in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.

The letter comes after Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich on Tuesday filed a legal challenge to the federal requirement, calling it an overreach. Brnovich's office filed a complaint in U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona seeking a ruling that declares the new federal policies unconstitutional. The Attorney General's Office said the lawsuit was the first of its kind filed in the U.S.

Also in the news:

The White House offered to connect Nicki Minaj with one of the Biden administrations doctors to address her questions about the COVID-19 vaccine after the Trinidadian-born rappers erroneous tweet alleging the vaccine causes impotence went viral.

The boards of the San Francisco Bay Areas two largest school districts  West Contra and Oakland  are set to vote next week on whether to mandate vaccinations against COVID-19 for all staff and students age 12 and older.

Chinese health officials say more than 1 billion people have been fully vaccinated in the worlds most populous country. That represents 72% of its 1.4 billion people.

Russian President Vladimir Putin says dozens of his staff have been infected with the coronavirus and hell continue his self-isolation because of the outbreak. Putin, who said he tested negative, was previously fully vaccinated with Russias Sputnik V.

Story continues

Nursing home aides are the most likely staffers to have direct contact with residents but were the least likely workers at the homes to be vaccinated in a July survey, a new study shows.

A federal judge in Florida denied a request by parents of disabled children for a preliminary injunction to block Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis's ban on school mask mandates.

All workers at child care centers in New York state now must wear face coverings under a plan announced by Gov. Kathy Hochul.

Chinese health officials say more than 1 billion people have been fully vaccinated in the worlds most populous country.

Today's numbers: The U.S. has recorded more than 41.7 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and more than 669,800 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data. Global totals: More than 226.9 million cases and 4.6 million deaths. More than 179 million Americans  54% of the population  have been fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

What we're reading: The costs of long-haul COVID-19 care and government aid are unknown but experts warn of potential economic woes and long-term financial ramifications. Read more here.

Keep refreshing this page for the latest news. Want more? Sign up for USA TODAY's Coronavirus Watch newsletter to receive updates directly to your inbox and join our Facebook group.

White flags stand near the Washington Monument on the National Mall in Washington. The flags, which will number more than 630,000 when completed, are part of artist Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg's temporary art installation, "In America: Remember," in remembrance of Americans who have died of COVID-19.

Pfizer CEO urges FDA to approve vaccine booster dose

The head of Pfizer made a pitch for COVID-19 booster shots Thursday, one day before a federal advisory committee is expected to decide whether third shots of coronavirus vaccines are safe and protective against infections.

Dr. Albert Bourla, in an open letter released Thursday, said the amount of time passed since vaccination appears to be a "significant factor" in so-called breakthrough cases of COVID-19, a finding he said supports the important role booster shots can play in helping curb the pandemic.

Bourla said evidence collected from Pfizer's clinical trial up through six months after the second dose shows the vaccine "continues to be safe, well tolerated, and highly effective in preventing COVID-19, despite the appearance of different variants."

Some top U.S. officials say it's time to begin offering third shots to compensate for what appears to be fading protection. Others, such as the director general of the World Health Organization, argue that Americans would benefit far more by getting initial shots to the unvaccinated around the world.

FDA OKs treatments to be used together to prevent COVID after exposure

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration expanded emergency use authorization Thursday to allow two monoclonal antibody treatments to be administered together to prevent infection in high-risk individuals who have been exposed to someone infected with COVID-19 or who are at high risk of exposure in an institutional setting, such as a nursing home or prison.

The authorization applies to patients 12 years of age and older who have not been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or are not expected to mount an adequate immune response, pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and Company said in a statement.

"Recent reports suggest that fully vaccinated residents of nursing homes have contracted COVID-19, some of whom became quite ill," Dr. Myron Cohen, director of UNC's Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases, said in a statement. "This additional emergency use authorization of monoclonal antibodies for post-exposure prophylaxis in addition to the treatment of COVID-19 offers a significant achievement in the fight against this pandemic."

Court halts use of COVID-19 health order to expel migrant families

A federal judge ruled Thursday that the U.S. government must stop using a public health order to quickly expel migrants with children who are apprehended along the U.S.-Mexico border.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan gave the government two weeks to halt a practice that opponents say is unnecessary and improperly relies on the threat posed by COVID-19 to deprive people of their right to seek asylum in the United States.

Sullivan granted a preliminary injunction in response to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of migrant families, saying they were likely to succeed on their challenge to the use of the public health law known as Title 42.

Title 42 was invoked early in the pandemic, under President Donald Trump, ostensibly to help control the spread of COVID-19 in detention facilities by turning back migrants encountered by the Border Patrol without giving them a chance to seek to stay in the U.S. by asking for asylum or for some other reason.

Cuba begins vaccinating children as young as 2

Cuba on Thursday began a COVID-19 vaccination campaign for children between the ages of 2 and 10, saying it was necessary to curb the spread of the delta variant.

Cuba has two homegrown vaccines, Abdala and Soberana, that it says are safe and effective. Both require three shots. In previous weeks, the government started vaccinating people between 11 and 18 years old.

Cuba faces a persistent outbreak of COVID-19, putting heavy pressure on medical facilities and compounding economic problems. Hard-hit provinces such as Matanzas, Ciego de Avila and Cienfuegos have received support from doctors from other areas of the country as well as international donations.

Research connects online learning with nearsightedness in kids

Data suggest that development of nearsightedness in young Chinese schoolchildren may have increased during the COVID-19 outbreak, Chinese researchers say. The study, published Thursday the Journal of the American Medical Association Opthalmology, notes that outdoor activities were limited and digital learning increased during the pandemic.

The percentage of kids who became nearsighted among elementary students in the survey almost doubled from statistics available before the pandemic began, the authors wrote. The issue could affect American kids as well, some experts say.

A journal editorial said the results and those from earlier studies "should prompt parents, schools and governmental agencies to recognize the potential value of providing children with outdoor activity time and monitoring how much time is spent on near work."

Alaska's largest hospital enacts crisis standards of care

Overwhelmed by a surge in COVID-19 patients, Alaskas largest hospital implemented crisis standards of care, prioritizing resources and treatments to those patients who have the potential to benefit the most.

"While we are doing our utmost, we are no longer able to provide the standard of care to each and every patient who needs our help," Dr. Kristen Solana Walkinshaw, chief of staff at Providence Alaska Medical Center, wrote in a letter addressed to Alaskans. "The acuity and number of patients now exceeds our resources and our ability to staff beds with skilled caregivers, like nurses and respiratory therapists. We have been forced within our hospital to implement crisis standards of care."

Idaho public health leaders announced Thursday they, too, have expanded health care rationing statewide amid a massive increase in the number of coronavirus patients requiring hospitalization.

Contributing: The Associated Press

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Pfizer CEO Bourla urges FDA to approve vaccine booster: COVID updates
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In one of 2021's many odd plot twists, container ship Ever Given blocked the Suez Canal for nearly a week in March, creating a traffic jam of hundreds of vessels and a major disruption in global trade.

Let's hope history doesn't repeat itself. A brand new, even bigger ship, Ever Ace, will head through the canal in the coming days. While the ill-fated Ever Given held 20,124 cargo units, Insider reports that the new ship, Ever Ace, can hold 23,992 units. It will be the largest container ship to go through the Suez.

According to American Bureau of Shipping records, the two ships are the same length, but the Ever Ace is wider and deeper. The Ever Given is 192.9 feet wide, slightly narrower than the Ever Ace's 201.7 feet. The Ever Given has a draught, or depth, of 52.4 feet in comparison with the Ever Ace's 54.1 feet. Cheryl Teh for Insider

What's with all the "Ever" names? Taiwanese company Evergreen follows an "Ever" + "G-word" naming convention. Its 20-ship fleet contains ships with names like Ever Gentle, Ever Gleamy, Ever Genius, and Ever Going.
The Colorado Department of Law concluded a 14-month investigation into the Aurora Police Department, finding that the department "uses excessive force and racially biased police practices and violates state and federal laws as part of its patterns and practices," reports The Denver Channel.

From The Denver Channel:

The report found police officers used force against people of color 2  times more often than white people based on population and that almost half of people who had forced used against them by officers were Black, even though only 15% of Aurora residents are Black.

It also found people of color were arrested 1.3 times more often than white people based on population, and Black people were more than twice as likely to be arrested as white people.

Weiser said that APD officers have regularly applied greater force than is reasonably warranted in situations, including taking people to the ground without giving them time to respond to officers and telling people to stop resisting when they were not in fact resisting officers.

He said Aurora officers had a "misplaced understanding" of de-escalation and focused more on calming down officers after using force rather than avoiding unnecessary escalation in the first place
FYT Website and Service Review

Need a Fitness Refresh? Hiring a Trainer Through FYT Might Be the Answer

The AskMen editorial team thoroughly researches & reviews the best gear, services and staples for life. AskMen may get paid if you click a link in this article and buy a product or service.

With all of the events of the last 18 months, it should come as no surprise that exercise enthusiasts and gym rats are seeking alternative ways to maintain fitness levels without actually having to set foot in a crowded gym. In my personal situation, Ive made do with a range of at-home, virtual options, and plenty of time outside, but a computer cant correct your form and I know that if Im ever going to improve my deadlift, Im going to need a second opinion.

There is no shortage of training pairing platforms and among the most popular is FYT (Find Your Trainer). The idea works largely as it sounds: search through a list of trainers in your area, match up based on time, budget, and availability, then get started.

RELATED: Best Personal Trainer Apps

FYT was founded in 2013 when a former gym operator and a tech entrepreneur were looking for a better way to help people get fit without being limited to the structure of a traditional gym. With eight years under its belt, the platform has become a way for thousands of active users to connect with more than 10,000 trainers servicing 97% of all US addresses, according to the company. FYT has trainers in a range of disciplines, meaning users should always be able to find someone for a specific need. For obvious reasons, the platform has seen exponential growth throughout the pandemic, especially as more exercisers want to return to some sort of in-person guided workout experience.

With the help of the FYT team, I set off on a four-session journey with a trainer in my area to see where I needed the most support and how my body would react with the transition back to a traditional experience.

(As a note, this is only a review of the site and interaction with the platform and trainer, not FYTs Duo personal training app.)

Getting Set Up

Upon first visit, the site asked for some simple information, including fitness goals, general location and desired radius, then churned out a list of trainers in my area. Being in a decently-sized city, there were no shortage of options with trainers in a range of specialities. (I should note that many trainers list their COVID-19 vaccinations as well.)

FindYourTrainer

My eventual choice, Chris, had 15+ years of personal training and nutrition experience and seemed like a well-rounded choice for the four sessions I had lined up. In my particular case, since I dont have a suitable home gym space, I filtered my search to a trainer that had his or her own space. Chris informed me that he was using a friends home gym space about a 20-minute drive from my home, which is probably about the maximum distance I would travel for a training session. Chris reached out over text to ask some additional questions and to plan our first meeting.

One of the downsides of the FYT platform is that trainers are required to update their availability and keep it current (and it seems that FYT doesnt particularly monitor this). Timing was a minor issue as I attempted to schedule my first session based on my trainers availability, but it turned out he was gone the entire week. However, we communicated and figured out a better schedule for the weeks following in just a few texts. Problem solved.

Download FYT Here

FYT Pricing

Trainers can set their own pricing and mine was at $110 per session, which seems right in line with the going rate for an all-around personal trainer. Clients are required to book in four-session increments and there are minor discounts offered for more commitment up-front. If your desired trainer offers small group or partner sessions, there may be additional discounts for those options as well.

From $29/session at FindYourTrainer.com

Training Experience

Chris gave me detailed directions and I arrived for my first session at a high-end home in a suburban area. The actual gym was well-equipped with a small footprint in one half of a large garage. The area was clean and ready for action with ample spacing.

Our first session was a full evaluation of where I was at and a lot of listening to the goals I wanted to achieve. Coming off of this extended, no-guidance workout era as most of us have, I knew my form was awful and I wanted to improve a range of basic movements to prevent injury and improve mobility as I climb into my 30s. By the end of session one, I felt like we had a good roadmap.

Ideally, in our digital age, most of the communication can happen within the centralized platform, but the FYT site itself isnt great. Once signed up, all you have is a rather basic profile page, an FYT Score I never really figured out and an area for payment. It should speak volumes that my trainer and I chose to communicate over text and use outside training apps instead of FYTs offering.

Chris actually introduced me to a nutrition tracking app where he could also dial in some figures to help gauge my general 5 lb. weight loss goal over our four weeks. I wasnt a fan at first, but his logic gave me the mental fuel to keep on it.

Our second and third sessions focused on those basic forms with weights and a full session dedicated to TRX movements. I was getting the exact help I needed working on form and figuring out how to efficiently get a solid workout in under 45 minutes. Perhaps most importantly, Chris offered a new way of thinking about foam rolling and stretching pre-workout, which is something I had never thought of until we were in the gym.

Overall Experience with FYT

As I await our last session (youre sort of at the mercy of a trainers personal schedule going this route), Im excited to take what Ive learned and integrate it into my own at-home workouts.

Finally getting some help with form and even just some new exercise ideas has been crucial at a time where things felt like they were getting stale. There really is no substitute for working with a trained, licensed professional and I feel that much better (and that much sorer) for working with someone who knows what theyre doing.

For those needing flexibility in training plans in a less chaotic environment, FYT could be the route to go. The pricing is reasonable, and with such a diversity of trainers available, theres bound to be something that fits your needs, and chances are, youll find the overall experience refreshing as those of us who thrive on exercise begin to emerge from the repetition of virtual fitness.

Download FYT Here

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A beach in Cesme district of Izmir, Turkey. (Photo: Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Ministers are poised to announce the number of red list travel destinations is to be dramatically scaled-back as part of an overhaul of Covid-era border restrictions.

On Friday, the government is also expected to say that the green and amber lists will be merged to form one category of low-risk countries.

In a move that will offer UK holidaymakers greater freedom to travel abroad, more than 30 of the 62 countries on the red list are set to be removed.

The changes would come into force ahead of the October half-term break.

Countries on the list include Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, the Maldives, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

The Times reported Turkey will be among the countries that will come off the red list.

It is anticipated that people arriving from red list countries will continue to be required to spend 11 nights in a quarantine hotel, at a cost of 2,285 for solo travellers.

Reports also suggest that fully vaccinated arrivals will no longer need to take a pre-departure lateral flow test or a post-arrival PCR test. This would save travellers around 100 per trip.

Currently, travellers who have not had both doses of a coronavirus vaccine must take one PCR test and are not required to self-isolate after arriving from a green list destination.

According to reports, they could be required to quarantine at home and be required to take two tests when arriving from a low-risk location under the new system.

Transport secretary Grant Shapps is expected to make the announcement on Friday, and the move will only apply to England. But recently the devolved administrations have implemented rule changes for travel announced in Westminster.

Paul Charles, chief executives of travel consultancy The PC Agency, said earlier this week that 24 countries should be taken off, including Pakistan, South Africa, the Dominican Republic, Argentina and Chile.

He added that he would be very surprised if Turkey is removed due to worsening coronavirus data.

Story continues

But coronavirus data analyst Tim White said: With Grant Shapps and the travel lottery, no-one can be sure. But the data firmly support Turkey being removed as it has no threat of variants and a lot of genomic sequencing.

The travel sector has been desperate for the testing and quarantine rules for international travel to be relaxed.

Heathrow said this week it has gone from being Europes busiest airport in 2019 to number 10 on the list, behind rivals in cities such as Amsterdam, Paris and Frankfurt.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost UK and has been updated.

Related...
(Bloomberg) -- In the impoverished West African country of Liberia, a unit of the worlds second-largest palm oil company has admitted to destroying forests and violating the rights of indigenous people. Yet its parent is among the industrys leaders in investor ratings for environmental and social policies.

Golden Agri Resources Ltd. acknowledged in February that its Golden Veroleum Liberia (GVL) unit hadnt done enough to compensate local residents for business practices that included razing part of one of the planets richest biodiversity regions. Among the companys shareholders is BlackRock Inc., the worlds largest asset manager, whose chairman Larry Fink has made combatting climate change a focus for the $9.5 trillion of assets his firm manages.

Part of Golden Agris attraction for investors is that it tops a global list of more than two dozen agricultural producers and wholesalers for its environmental efforts, and ranks fourth on social-related issues, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. And while the industrys performance as a whole isnt good  Golden Agri rose to the top of the environment chart with a score of only 4 out of 10  it makes the company the best of the pack for investors that need to keep a diverse portfolio.

This is an example of a common problem with ESG ratings, says Andrew King, professor of management at Boston University's Questrom School of Business, who focuses on ESG measurement and corporate sustainability. Their inaccuracy can protect bad actors by impeding pressure for real improvement.

It also shows the difficulty investors and activists face in tracking and bringing to book wayward agricultural enterprises that often operate through units or joint ventures in remote, poor areas of the world.

The controversy surrounding Golden Veroleum surfaced three years ago when Friends of the Earth and the Sustainable Development Institute Liberia filed a complaint with the High Carbon Stock Approach, a body set up a decade ago by Golden Agri and environmental groups to develop a scientific way of evaluating tropical forests to curb deforestation and protect the rights of local people. HCSAs members now include some of the worlds biggest food producers such as Unilever Plc and Cargill Inc.

Story continues

Activists for the environmental groups had visited the area around Wiahs Town, a ramshackle group of some 100 tin-roofed buildings strung along a red-dirt road an hours drive from the coast. Inhabitants say GVL promised to provide jobs and amenities such as piped water, but instead the company cut down the forest, deprived farmers of their land and polluted the water supply.

GVL cleared the land of the Lower Kulu people called Blogbo land without our consent, says Russels Kumon, 67, a retired teacher who returned to Wiahs Town a few years after his countrys second civil war ended in 2003. The whole place has been enclaved. We are just in the enclaved area, making farming and any other things difficult for us. The land has been destroyed.

Looking up at the palm oil mill, belching out smoke, he says the factory was built on a sacred hill, Tarhuowon, that members of the community used to climb to rectify ailments. GVL said there was no indication from local representatives that the hill was sacred when it erected the plant.

Few of the expected jobs materialized, Kumon says. Several of those who are employed in the mill and plantation complained to Bloomberg of low wages and arduous working conditions, with some saying they work seven days a week for $150 a month.

Further down the road, in the village of Butawu, 48-year-old electrician Othello Jartoe says the palm oil grower constructed just one hand pump, to be shared by more than 100 people, while he and others were laid off by the company after a year. The minority is employed and the majority is unemployed, he says.

The High Carbon Stock Approach has a system to investigate such complaints and in February it concluded that GVL failed to conduct a proper consent process with local communities before clearing land and setting up its operation, and hadnt done enough to remediate the misconduct and compensate residents. HCSA said the palm oil company must halt land development until conflicts with communities are resolved, provide new biodiverse forest and adopt policies to prevent further rights violations.

But restoring rainforest biodiversity is difficult if not impossible. GVL operates in the Upper Guinean forests, which span six West African nations, from Guinea in the west to Togo in the east. Only about 20% of the original forest remains  about half of it in Liberia  and it is considered a vital carbon sink and a world biodiversity hotspot, with an estimated 390 terrestrial mammal species, or more than a quarter of all those in Africa.

The region is a mosaic of forests interspersed with villages, and as such is more vulnerable to deforestation than other regions such as the Congo, says Wannes Hubau, associate professor of tropical forest ecology at Ghent University in Belgium. Its accessibility is hastening the switch from being a carbon sink to releasing carbon dioxide.

GVL said in a Sept. 7 response to queries from Bloomberg that it had made mistakes and had stopped clearing land in February, though it denied many of the allegations leveled by local communities. Singapore-listed Golden Agri, part of the Sinar Mas Group of the billionaire Indonesian Widjaja family, said in a statement that GVL has suspended further land development and implemented some other recommended measures, including drawing up a sustainability plan. Liberian Information Minister Ledgerhood Rennie referred queries to the company and didnt comment further.

Since the HCSA ruling, Friends of the Earth said that local communities hadnt been consulted about the sustainability plan. GVL said it has consulted communities, investigated complaints when they were made, followed the law with regard to land acquisition and met the water quality standards of the nations regulator.

For investors, the resolution of cases like the one in Liberia and better oversight of operations, especially in developing countries, is critical if ESG investing is to be meaningful.

A group of more than 60 indigenous leaders and activists from six continents wrote to BlackRock executives in March, saying the asset manager cant turn a blind eye to the destruction of the Upper Guinean forests and similar ecosystems in South America and Southeast Asia. Climate change isnt simply a risk to be calculated in terms of profit margins, they wrote. It is a constant stream of risks to our peoples and our planet, which we face every day.

BlackRock holds only about 0.7% of Golden Agri and is one of several dozen banks, investment firms and pension funds that have small stakes in the grower. Officials at Vanguard Group, which held about a 1.3% stake in Golden Agri as recently as late August, declined to comment about its investment. Blackrock said in March it will press companies on their environmental and human rights policies, and those that fail to properly oversee the use of natural resources may face negative consequences arising from regulatory, reputational or operational risks.

BlackRock, without disclosing the companys name, said in a quarterly stewardship report in May that it had engaged with a Singapore-listed palm oil producer and its unit in Africa to discuss environmental and social controversies related to that business. It referenced HCSAs February report and said it was told about remediation steps the unnamed company had taken and that it had commissioned a third party to investigate the extent of deforestation.

The palm oil company told BlackRock that HSCA is still determining the amount of compensation for the cleared forests and acknowledged the lack of progress in providing remediation to the communities. The pandemic had delayed the process and the review had resumed in March, the company told BlackRock.

We expect the company to continue paying attention to the environmental and social controversies signaled in HSCAs report and work towards resolving them, BlackRock said in its report. A BlackRock spokesman declined to name the company.

At the heart of the problem for investors are the ESG scores, which are largely based on self-reported and unaudited information, lack consistency between ratings providers, and emphasize corporate policies and processes rather than impacts.

Even within those limits, many of the worlds top agricultural producers and wholesalers score poorly. Golden Agri has spent years trying to build an image as a producer of sustainable palm oil and topped the environmental list in 2019 after its rating rose to 4 from 0.9 in 2015, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

The poor showing of the plantation owners and food companies shows how much more needs to be done to protect the rights of individuals and preserve some of the earths most important carbon stores.

About 20% of Liberias tree cover has vanished during the past two decades, releasing about 1 gigatonne of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere during that period, according to Global Forest Watch. Thats the equivalent of greenhouse gas emissions from 217 million passenger cars driven in one year. The World Bank forecast in July that the global economy risks losing as much $2.7 trillion a year by 2030 if countries continue to destroy biodiversity.

If you promised to do something and you did it only halfway, to me you have done nothing, says Jartoe in Butawu village.

(Updates data from Global Forest Watch in 26th paragraph.)

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2021 Bloomberg L.P.
(Bloomberg) -- Vivendi is planning to make a bid for Lagardere SA if regulators approve its plan to buy out Amber Capitals stake, a deal that would create one of Europes biggest media companies.

Vivendi agreed to buy 25.3 million shares of Lagardere, owner of assets including Paris Match magazine and Europe 1 radio, held by the activist investor for 24.10 euros apiece, according to a statement on Wednesday.

Lagardere rose as much as 22.6% to 23.90 euros on Thursday, while Vivendi shares were little changed.

The new deal would push Vivendis holding above 30% of Lagardere, triggering a requirement to bid for the rest of the business under French law. While Vivendi anticipates that regulators would want to see some remedies from the combination of the two media companies, it plans to go ahead with the offer once its approved, a spokesman said in an interview. Vivendi supports Chairman Arnaud Lagardere, he said.

If the 610 million-euro ($720 million) purchase is approved, Vivendi will hold 45% of Lagarderes share capital and 36% of the voting rights, it said in the statement.

The deal is a good outcome for Lagardere shareholders and represents a floor price for the stock, Tom Singlehurst, an analyst at Citigroup Inc., said in a note. But for Vivendi investors, the transaction lacks compelling strategic logic and obtaining approvals from regulators for the combination of the book-publishing businesses could be problematic, he said.

Vivendis current offer for Ambers stake would value Lagardere at 3.4 billion euros. Lagardere had a market value of 2.75 billion euros at close of trading in Paris on Wednesday. The shares have declined 4.8% this year.

Vivendi and Amber Capital, Lagarderes two largest shareholders, have been battling to gain more control over the French retail, media and publishing group and push through structural changes. After initially losing a court battle to force Lagardere to hold a special shareholder meeting last year, the two investors succeeded in getting their nominees on the board.

Story continues

The fight for control over Lagardere has also been viewed in France as a battle between rival billionaires. Earlier this month, luxury goods titan Bernard Arnaults investment firm said it was terminating its shareholder agreement with Arnaud Lagarderes holding company, swapping its entire stake in Lagardere Capital for Lagardere SA shares.

This effectively robbed Lagardere of Arnault support with battle Vincent Bollore, the largest shareholder in Vivendi, and Amber Capital.

Bollore had previously clashed with Amber Capital over Vivendis investment in Lagardere, in which Amber is the second-biggest shareholder. The two then joined forces when Arnault began building his own, rival stake in the company.

Lagardere said in a statement it is delighted with Vivendis plans to buy Ambers stake and that the companys board would give its opinion on a potential takeover offer at the appropriate time. It confirms the respect of the integrity of the Lagardere group and the support given to its management, Lagardere said.

Vivendi has been growing its extensive media business, securing the French publishing assets held by Germanys Bertelsmann SE in December, and building a 9.9% stake in Prisa, the owner of Spains national paper of record El Pais, after working with Joseph Oughourlian, the founder Amber Capital and the top Prisa shareholder.

Bollore has also long wanted to pick up pieces of Lagardere including its Hachette publishing house that has a strong presence in the U.S.

Vivendi has a significant war chest to keep on striking deals. It is spinning off Universal Music Group, valued at 35 billion euros, via a listing expected next week in Amsterdam.

(Updates with analyst comment in sixth paragraph. A previous version corrected the Lagardere share price.)

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

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Speaker / Lectures

Constitution Day

USIs public reading of the Constitution and Bill of Rights in honor of Constitution Day is back this year as part of the University Core Curriculum Speaker Series.

On September 17, 1787, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention met for the last time to sign the document they had created. Citizens across the nation recognize September 17 as Constitution Day. To honor this day the University of Southern Indiana holds a public reading of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Faculty, staff, students and guests from our community will read the document in its entirety beginning at noon on Friday, September 17, in the Rice Plaza Amphitheatre. If it rains, the reading will take place inside the Cone in University Center East.

The event is part of the University Core Curriculum Speaker Series. For more information, contact Dr. Kenny Purcell, director of the University Core Curriculum, at kmpurcell@usi.edu or 812-461-5337.
Mobile

Louisiana Tech Using Mobile App to Reach Students Where They Are

This fall, Louisiana Tech University is rolling out a mobile app designed to provide students both on and off campus with easy access to resources and services, increase their awareness of clubs, groups, organizations and events, and help them navigate the university experience. The institution partnered with mobile platform Rah Rah to develop the app as part of its student success strategy.

"In my 30 years of administration, one of the most critical aspects of student success is engagement," explained Sam Speed, dean of student engagement and undergraduate recruitment at the university, in a statement. "Rah Rah gives us a great avenue to provide this connectivity for our students in a familiar format. Putting a path to success in the palm of each student's hand, and simplifying the process for students and administrators alike, is an invaluable asset."

Whether students are living on campus, commuting or learning remotely, they can use the app to search for resources, make appointments with faculty and staff and sign up for local events. The app makes personalized recommendations based on a student's calendar, preferences and in-app behavior, and provides an interactive, annotated map of the campus.

"Putting myself in the shoes of students, whether full time or part time, the ability to connect with the content I'm personally interested in makes everyone feel more connected to campus," noted Wes Cavin, director of student activities. "The more students are engaged and connected, the more likely they are to complete their degrees."

In particular, the app is expected to make a positive impact among first-year students, Cavin added. "Freshmen who don't belong to any groups have a lower probability of completing their degree than students who come in and get involved in student life. Rah Rah makes getting involved much more accessible and appealing to students because the app is designed with students in mind."
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 16)  The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas secured fresh funding from a French agency for its efforts to further boost financial inclusion in the country, it announced Thursday.

In a statement, the BSP confirmed it signed a grant facility deal worth 700,000 (around 41.3 million) with Agence Francaise de Developpement (AFD).

The agreement hopes to support its efforts to increase capacities for financial inclusion, especially among rural and women-owned enterprises, it noted.

The central bank added the grant will finance a technical assistance program supporting efforts to maximize technology for effective digital finance regulation and contribute to public policy dialogue on agricultural insurance.

The grant also complements the Inclusive Finance Development Program, which the AFD has been supporting starting 2019 along with the Asian Development Bank (ADB), through a sovereign policy-based loan to the country worth 100 million.

We welcome this maiden technical assistance program of the AFD for the BSP. This endeavor demonstrates our organizations' shared commitment to advance financial inclusion in the country through responsible digital innovations, said BSP Governor Benjamin Diokno.

Diokno added he is looking forward to a fruitful collaboration with the French agency with the programs implementation in the five years ahead.

AFD country director Laurent Klein, meanwhile, cited their strategic objectives of supporting financial systems and combatting social and economic inequalities.

French Ambassador to the Philippines Michele Boccoz also reaffirmed her countrys support to the national government through AFD by means of strategic reforms towards digital transformation and inclusion.

The COVID-19 pandemic gave rise to challenging situations, but also opportunities to leverage on digital technologies to improve financial sector services that would ultimately benefit Filipinos from all walks of life, said Boccoz.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines)  Parents wear multiple hats. They are providers, meal planners, and teachers after office hours. As the lines between work and family life are now blurred due to stay-at-home orders, where does that leave our childrens education?

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, many children were engaged in full-day learning and extracurricular activities. With schools and program centers still closed, families are searching for an alternative to engage and encourage their children.

Good thing that parents are now enticed into using the online platform Chalkboard. It offers one-on-one tutoring on core academic subjects and other specialized interests like Math, English, Art, Music, and even Coding.

Chalkboard was developed by Filipino parents for Filipino parents, prioritizing access to highly skilled and well-vetted instructors, easy-to-use platform, and exceptional customer service.

Chalkboard enables learners to engage with the same tutor to provide a familiar face who is trained to have a rapport with young learners.

My son is having a nice time while learning with his current tutor, shared Lani Busania, a mom based in Manila. The website is user-friendly, easy to use and navigate, she added.

Chalkboard prioritizes personalized learning. Their program is individualized and it is tailored to the kid's learning style. We sensed the love, joy, and enthusiasm of our children whenever we ask them about their lessons and their tutors, commented by Dr. Warly Remegio, a Filipino parent in the United States.

Parents who are not tech savvy need not worry because Chalkboard offers on-demand customer service and a concierge service for families who may need help finding a specialized tutor or managing a complex schedule. Because of its ease of use, high quality and affordability, Chalkboard has been adopted by Filipinos globally.

Photo from Chalkboard

Chalkboard also recognizes the impact distance learning has had on those without access to personal computers or internet at home. The company has volunteered to lead workshops in the cities of Pasig and Taytay to train their Community Leaning Hub volunteers on best practices for reading and math tutoring.

Photo from Chalkboard

Apart from the core subjects such as Math, English, Science, and Filipino, parents can also book teachers in other interest fields like Coding and music classes for piano, guitar, ukulele, violin, and voice lessons. Chalkboards platform is perfect for children who are eager to learn beyond the subjects in the local curriculum.

Looking for an online tutor has never been this easy. Get the help that you need for your child at www.chalkboard.com.ph.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 16) The country should revive contributions to international organizations as part of goodwill efforts in the global community, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs during deliberations on its proposed 2022 budget on Thursday.

Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Teddy Boy Locsin, Jr. told lawmakers that the allocation would not go to waste, adding that the country even got more in return after donating to the World Health Organization-led COVAX vaccine initiative and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations COVID-19 response fund this year.

It got paid back. We got it all back and more. That one helps, I think. As long as we monitor who are gonna be given these bigger donations, I think were fine because we get the respect and attention of the world, Locsin said.

The provision was removed by the Department of Budget and Management, Foreign Affairs Assistant Secretary Myla Macahilig told the Senate finance subcommittee.

DFA officials have not requested a specific amount for next years donations.

In the current budget, more than 2.3 billion was allotted for contributions to global organizations, subject to the review of the DFA and the International Commitments Fund Panel, and to the approval of the President.

Senator Richard Gordon backed the DFA in its appeal, citing his experience as chairman of the humanitarian organization Philippine Red Cross.

Were not a rich country and they (international organizations) realize that but at least there's an effort to show that we are in solidarity with them, he said.

The DFA has a proposed budget of over 21 billion for 2022. It does not include funds for the hosting of regional or international conferences, Locsin said, adding that he and President Rodrigo Duterte already turned down such requests.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 16)  The Duterte administration reiterated it will not cooperate with the International Criminal Court after its pre-trial chamber approved the start of the investigation into the alleged crimes against humanity in the Philippine government's war on illegal drugs, chief presidential legal counsel Salvador Panelo said on Thursday.

He maintained the ICC has no jurisdiction over the Philippines since the country withdrew from the Rome Statute  the treaty that established the ICC  on March 17, 2019. However, the ICC previously said it retains jurisdiction over the alleged crimes conducted while the country was still a member of the tribunal.

Like what President Rodrigo Duterte claimed before, Panelo said the Philippines signing of the Rome Statute never took effect in the country since it wasn't published in the Official Gazette.

Panelo claimed Duterte and his appointees are neither bothered nor troubled by the ICC decision, saying it reeks of political propaganda to "dethrone the President from his seat."

"While we expect that more theatrics will be employed by the detractors of the President as election season draws near, this blatant and brazen interference and assault on our sovereignty as an independent country by the ICC is condemnable," he said in a statement.

With this refusal to cooperate, there likely would not be enough progress to even bring the case to trial, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said.

Ang aking prediction po, matutulog lang yung kasong yan, he said in a Malacanang briefing. Dahil in the absence of cooperation, lalong-lalo na sa kapulisan, ay wala po talagang ebidensyang makakalap.

[Translation: My prediction is that the case will stay idle. Because in the absence of cooperation, especially by police, they really wont be able to gather evidence.]

Roque said this lack of proof is also why other cases being investigated by the ICC are unable to move forward years after.

He added that while the Philippines previously consented to being a member of the tribunal, it will only acknowledge ICCs jurisdiction if the countrys justice system is no longer working  something he insisted is not the case.

The ICC on Wednesday stated that the Chamber found reasonable basis to proceed with the investigation into "the crime against humanity of murder" with respect to killings committed during the drug war from July 1, 2016 to March 16, 2019, as well as in Davao City  by what is known as the Davao Death Squad  between Nov. 1, 2011 to June 30, 2016.

The Chamber said it reviewed 204 victims' representations, adding 94% of the victims were in favor of the investigation.

RELATED: Drug war victims 'overwhelmingly support' ICC probe, report finds
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 16)  Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque on Thursday accused the International Criminal Court of only being quick to probe those from less-developed countries like the Philippines.

In his regular briefing, Roque said that on the contrary, preliminary examinations on crimes allegedly committed by those from wealthy nations are not concluded as swiftly.

Kapag ang mga akusado ay mga from developed countries na mga puti, sampung taon sila nagd-desisyon. At ang desisyon doon ay para wag na ituloy ang preliminary investigation, Roque said, citing the case of Englands reported war crimes against Afghanistan.

Pero kapag hindi mga taga-developed countries, gaya ng Pilipinas, napakabilis ng resolusyon, he continued.

[Translation: If the accused are from developed countries, or are white people, it takes them 10 years to decide. And the decision is to not pursue the preliminary investigation. But when it comes to those from less-developed countries, like the Philippines, they issue a resolution right away.]

On Wednesday, the ICCs pre-trial chamber authorized the start of the investigation into alleged killings under President Rodrigo Duterte's war on illegal drugs. But the Philippine government continues to push back, maintaining the ICC has no jurisdiction over the country.

READ: PH won't cooperate as ICC opens drug war probe, Duterte's counsel says

The supposed unequal treatment is also the reason why a number of African nations have moved to withdraw from the ICC, Roque said.

Ngayong nasa New York po ako, nakakausap ko ang mga kapatid natin sa Africa, he said. There was a time na lahat ng mga African nations belonging to the African Union ay nais nang bumitiw sa ICC. Bakit? Ang perception nila, pinupuruhan ang mga Africans.

[Translation: Now that Im in New York, Im able to talk to people from Africa. There was a time that all African nations belonging to the African Union wanted to leave the ICC. Why? Their perception is that the ICC is targeting Africans.]

The President is of the same opinion, he added. Roque said Duterte believes the ICC is unfairly attacking his government by launching an investigation when the countrys judiciary is still working.

The ICC on Wednesday stated the Chamber found reasonable basis to proceed with the probe into "the crime against humanity of murder" with respect to the drug war from July 1, 2016 to March 16, 2019. It also cited reported killings in Davao City  by what is known as the Davao Death Squad  between Nov. 1, 2011 to June 30, 2016.

The Philippines withdrew from the ICC in March 2018, after the tribunal initiated preliminary examination into the bloody anti-drug campaign. The withdrawal became effective in March 2019, a year after the country deposited notice of its pullout to the United Nations Secretary-General.

However, the ICC said withdrawal has no impact on on-going proceedings or matters already under consideration by the court prior to the date the pullout became effective.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 16) Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte will seek reelection in the 2022 polls, her camp said on Thursday.

"Yes, this is confirmed. According to Mayor Sara, she will run for reelection as Davao City Mayor," her spokesperson Liloan, Cebu Mayor Christina Frasco told CNN Philippines in a text message.

Frasco also confirmed that Sara's brother, incumbent Vice Mayor Sebastian "Baste" Duterte will also run for the same post next year.

For the past months, the Davao City mayor has been floated as a possible presidential bet  as she has been a frontrunner in several election surveys.

However, the mayor has said she will not be vying for the country's top post should her father, President Rodrigo Duterte, push through with his vice presidential bid.

The chief executive already declared he would be running for the position. He has accepted the nomination of the ruling PDP-Laban party.

On Wednesday, the presidential daughter urged her supporters to back her father's 2022 plans.

RELATED: Sara Duterte backs father's 2022 VP bid

Sara assumed the mayoralty post in Davao City from 2010 to 2013, and was elected again in 2016, when the older Duterte clinched the presidency.

She again won the seat in 2019  with her siblings Baste and Paolo Duterte also securing posts for Davao City vice mayor and House representative, respectively.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 17)  Around 20 Filipinos are still in Afghanistan, and 18 of them will stay in the war-torn country for work, the Department of Foreign Affairs said.

During a Senate budget hearing on Thursday, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin, Jr. said the 18 Filipinos who will stay in Afghanistan are members of the international organization Doctors without Borders. The two others signified intent to return to the Philippines.

Three more Filipinos were evacuated from Afghanistan over the weekend, bringing the total repatriation count to 191 since the Taliban took over the country, according to DFAs latest bulletin.

On asylum seekers and refugees, Locsin said the Philippines will continue to extend assistance in line with its long tradition of timely and responsive humanitarian action.

Last Sept. 8, the DFA chief said the Philippines welcomed several Afghan refugees, including women and children. No details were given for their security.

CNN Philippines correspondent Eimor Santos contributed to this report.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 16)  Authorities seized millions of pesos worth of methamphetamine or shabu at Pork of Clark in Pampanga on Tuesday following an inspection of a shipment from Malawi in East Africa.

According to the Bureau of Customs (BOC), the shipment from Lilongwe, capital of Malawi, was declared as "flask," but authorities had received information that it contained illicit substances.

"The x-ray scanning resulted to images of organic substances and therefore subjected to physical examination which revealed five (5) packs of crystalline substances suspected to be methamphetamine hydrochloride concealed inside two (2) units of electric air pot flask," the BOC statement said.

"Samples were taken for the conduct of laboratory analysis which confirmed the same as methamphetamine hydrochloride (Shabu)," it also said.

A warrant of seizure and detention of the items was issued by district collector Alexandra Lumontad for violation of the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act in relation to the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.

The drugs were turned over to the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency.
(CNN)  Weeks of deliberation are coming to a head Friday when the US Food and Drug Administration meets to discuss COVID-19 boosters. But the science of the vaccine's effectiveness will not be up for debate, one expert said.

There is widespread agreement that the vaccines are primarily intended to reduce hospitalizations and deaths -- which data shows they do well, CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Leana Wen said.

"What not everybody would agree to is the second thing, which I believe, that the point of vaccination is to also reduce the level of infection," Wen said.

That is the issue now being debated by officials and health experts, just as the average of new daily cases has shot up over the past two months.

President Joe Biden and many experts say there's a good reason for a third dose. And three reports published Wednesday support the argument that people may need a booster dose of Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine over time, and suggest such boosters would be safe.

The reports are part of a batch of data that will be discussed by the FDA's vaccine advisers as it considers a request by Pfizer to approve a third, booster dose for most people six months after they get their first two doses of vaccine.

But there isn't unanimity right now. On Monday, a group of international vaccine experts, including some from the FDA and the World Health Organization, wrote in the Lancet that current evidence does not appear to support a need for booster shots in the general public right now.

There also is fear that a focus on boosters will distract from the mission of getting a greater proportion of the public to get their initial doses.

Only around 54% of the US population is fully vaccinated, which experts agree is the best form of protection against the virus.

There is no clear answer yet on whether vaccine boosters are necessary, Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, said Wednesday, but there is "a mountain" of data for experts to consider before making a decision.

Friday's discussion will be public, he added, so people can see the data that goes into the decision.

Local health departments are planning on being ready to roll out booster doses next week if given the green light from the FDA, but many still have questions, Lori Tremmel Freeman, chief executive officer of the National Association of County and City Health Officials, told CNN on Wednesday.

"What is the interval for boosters? Is it any shorter than eight months at this point? What is the age cut-off? Will there be priority groupings?" Freeman said. "We don't want to be unprepared. We don't want to appear uncoordinated on boosters."

More Idaho hospitals to ration care

The number of Covid-19 patients in Idaho hospitals has prompted the state's health department to expand its "Crisis Standards of Care," allowing more hospitals to ration care.

"CSC is activated statewide because the massive increase of COVID-19 patients requiring hospitalization in all areas of the state has exhausted existing resources," department officials said in a news release.

St. Luke's Health System, a non-profit health system with 15 hospitals and medical centers, requested that the standard be broadened to include the entire state, after northern regions were covered by a previous directive.

Critical standards of care prioritize some patients, over others and "someone who is otherwise healthy and would recover more rapidly may get treated or have access to a ventilator before someone who is not likely to recover," the health department said.

Idaho reported 8,718 new Covid-19 cases and 134 new deaths in the past week, according to Johns Hopkins University. As of Monday, there were a record 678 people hospitalized with Covid-19, of which a pandemic high 173 were in intensive care, according to state health data.

Numb to tragedy

As the pandemic continues to take a toll -- Covid-19 has killed more than 666,000 people and infected 41.5 million in the US since January 2020 -- the public is becoming numb to the tragedy, the former commissioner of the FDA Dr. Scott Gottlieb said Wednesday.

"We are somewhat complacent with a very excessive amount of death and disease," he said during an appearance at the SALT hedge fund conference in Manhattan.

The US marked another grim milestone Wednesday: 1 in 500 Americans has died of Covid-19.

It's a number that can be hard to process, Wen said.

"Imagine if 1 in 500 Americans had died in a war due to a foreign adversary in the last year and a half. How would we be processing that information now? What would we be doing differently?" she asked. "Wouldn't we be doing everything we can to end the war, end the suffering and deaths?

"For us to not do everything we can with vaccines and masks in the meantime, it's really unconscionable."

The increasing number of cases among young people is also alarming experts. In the first nine months of 2021, Covid-19 infections among children and adolescents in the Americas (including the US and Canada) reached over 1.9 million, according to Dr. Carissa Etienne, Director of the Pan American Health Organization on Wednesday.

That is more than 400,000 more than there were all of last year -- before Covid-19 vaccines were available to young people over the age of 12.

In the US, cases are likely to rise now that schools have reopened in the Northeast, Gottlieb said.

"That's going to build," Gottlieb said, pointing to school outbreaks in other regions hit by the Delta variant. "The schools will become sources of spread in the Northeast as well."

However, Gottlieb, who sits on the board of Pfizer, doesn't expect the Northeast to get hit nearly as hard as the South, mostly because of prior infections and high vaccination rates.

Most Americans support Covid-19 restrictions

Other strategies officials have promoted to increase virus protection are vaccine mandates and mask requirements.

Last week, Biden announced a plan to tackle the pandemic, which included mandating businesses with more than 100 employees to require their workforce be either vaccinated or regularly tested.

Many states and workplaces had already introduced similar measures.

Los Angeles is set to expand vaccination requirements with the implementation of a new health order that will mandate vaccine verification for indoor bars, wineries, and nightclubs, and recommend the same for indoor restaurants, County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer announced Wednesday.

There is support for Covid-19 vaccination requirements, but only in certain settings, according to a report released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center.

About 61% of adults say proof of vaccination should be required to travel on an airplane, 57% say it should be required to attend public colleges or universities and 56% say it should be required to go to sporting events.

When it comes to restaurants, Americans are split, with 50% saying proof should be required for people to eat inside.

For stores and businesses, 54% oppose a vaccination requirement.

And most Americans believe that the public health benefits of restrictions due to Covid-19 are worth the economic and lifestyle costs, the report said.

This story was first published on CNN.com, "There is no question about the effectiveness of vaccines, expert says, as FDA weighs possible booster shot."
The final book of comic book illustration legend Alex Nino is a historical epic that starts with a bang.

Its the year 1762. A conquistador is fleeing the chaos of a naval battle in Jolo. The Spanish military commander Sevellano Rodriguez is running, trying to reach his escape galleon as cannonballs explode around him and the collective wrath of the Kingdom of Sulu, Moro soldiers and the sultans agents give chase. Who is the child he carries with him?

Written by J. Philip Ignacio, with lettering by Lorraine Mare Garcia Barte, and illustrated by Alex Nino, under the imprint of Komiket Inc., this landscape-format graphic novel is all about the adventures of the young Sabina, her coming of age into her identity and an eventual date with destiny, as she trains under her father, the former conquistador whos been exiled by the Spanish colonial forces.

Alandal, the first of a two-part graphic novel, debuted last Sept. 4 as part of the online Philippine International Comics Festival (PICOF) and has been hailed as a landmark return of the iconic drawing pen of Alex Nino.

J. Philip Ignacio and comics legend Alex Nino with their graphic novel Alandal. Photo courtesy of JAY IGNACIO

A Filipino comics artist best known for his work with publishers like DC Comics, Marvel Comics, and his covers for Heavy Metal magazine, Nino was part of the Pinoy-wave of illustrating talents who broke into the comics business in the 1970s. Along with Alfredo Alcala, Nestor Redondo, and Gerry Talaoc, he paved the way for future local illustrators like Whilce Portacio (Wetworks) and Leinil Francis Yu (X-Men) to make it to the big leagues. Before he retired, Nino also worked on Disney movies like Mulan and The Emperor's New Groove.

Writer Jay Ignacio, also known for his stand-up comedy and a member of the band Da Pulis, is still pretty bowled over about it. The fact that he has debuted a graphic novel at the ripe old age of 48, and that the legendary Alex Nino has come out of retirement to be his collaborator on said comic makes him sanguine. This is his second collaboration with Nino, the first was the traditional comics Merchant of Oltrarno (2018).

Now that its over, its only now that its sinking in, says Ignacio, on a Zoom call with CNN Philippines Life, his ecstatic relief palpable after more than three years of hard work. I realized hey Oh, my God Alex Nino is my illustrator!

Ninos art is that classic rich and textured style that made him famous during an era where illustrating was a competition for detail and atmosphere. The darling of Heavy Metal, Creepy, and classic DC has mastered the techniques of overwhelming the eye through sheer beauty of overlapping lines, shades, and tones. His style is no different on Alandal as he depicts ships on rocking, mountainous waves, swarthy pirates, clashes between swordsmen and women and the courtside politics of Sulu and Spain-occupied Philippine islands. All are ripe and gorgeous on a landscape format like a mural, the black and white and grey flowing together to give life to Ignacios script. Sometimes, theres a distinct vibe that the printing on the page is just playing catch-up with the original art, that something has been lost in this format from Ninos original intent.

A preview of the first page of Alandal. Photo from JAY IGNACIO/FACEBOOK

The filmmaker behind the Filipino Martial Arts (FMA) documentary The Bladed Hand (2012) and himself a practitioner of escrima system Kali Ilustrisimo Repeticion Orihinal, Ignacio was always fascinated with the roots of our national martial sport. Alandal was born out of the seed of his fevered dreams, imagining how cool it would be if he could bring to life the world and imagery of the 1700s, a time when it was almost perpetual conflict. According to Ignacios research for his film, arnis as swordplay was being taught to Filipinos by the Spanish colonial military. This was partly towards forming a militia that would aid their expansion in Mindanao against the Sultans and also to protect the galleons plying the shipping routes of the Sulu and Celebes waters, seas plagued by fierce Iranun marauders.

The first time Ignacio thought of pitching the story to Nino was at the 2013 Comic-Con in the U.S. Nino has been based in Los Angeles since the 1980s and Ignacio asked him to draw something for a documentary he was working on back then as B-footage. The illustrator drew this Moro warrior, it was kind of a fantasy-looking figure in his typical style, he did it in just 18 minutes.

When Ignacio took his moonshot, telling Nino as best he could about the opening scene, how conquistador Sevellano Rodriguez was running with a child in his arms, dodging bullets and trying to reach a galleon. But that was just an image, there was no story yet, said Ignacio. Really, it was a patapon pitch. I expected na babalewalain, so I didnt care what he would say afterwards and at least, I told myself, I took my shot. But when he said Yes it was a holy sh*t moment!

Well, we better get started on your comic, Nino told Ignacio. While I am still alive.

[Mang Alexs] condition was: just give me a synopsis and 100% I will take care of the rest, recalled Ignacio. So he had zero input during the process, but it all paid off when, after sending the illustrator the first three chapters, he received photos of the covers a month later, drawn on sprawling 18" x 24" art paper. Photo courtesy of JAY IGNACIO

Ignacio got to cracking on a full script, mindful of the time pressure that the ageing Ninonow 81 years oldcautioned him about. Ignacio threw himself into the research and execution. He consulted historical experts like Dr. Felipe Jocano Jr., learned some Indonesian silat (what would have been the combat system of the Mindanao warriors), dutifully shot reference photos and videos, and took trips to Zamboanga and Basilan.

I went as far south as I could, said Ignacio. I also wanted to go to Jolo and Tawi-Tawi as well but they said I needed a police escort because, that time, the Marawi siege had just finished.

Writing Alandal came with its own valleys and hiccups. Primary among them was the illustrating conditions of Nino. [Mang Alexs] condition was: just give me a synopsis and 100% I will take care of the rest, recalled Ignacio. So he had zero input during the process, but it all paid off when, after sending the illustrator the first three chapters, he received photos of the covers a month later, drawn on sprawling 18" x 24" art paper. I was shocked and surprised at the details! I was enthralled by the imagery, said Ignacio.

The greatest difficulty for Ignacio, in the three-year process of birthing Alandal, came in late-2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and his friend passed away. That was when it got to me, Ignacio said. Because Danry Ocampo was one of the most eager to see the release. His death affected me so much that I lost motivation for several months. I just couldnt work. Everything was delayed and I must say Alandal should have been released last year. Every day I was thinking: Whos going to buy this comic now? Whos even going to care about this? After several months I snapped out of it and said to myself: Wait, teka muna, Mang Alex is waiting for this and it is his last comics! I have a duty to finish this. I remember him saying gawin na natin yan habang buhay pa ako. That rang in my head: while I am still alive.

Ignacio promises that the next part of Princess Sabinas saga, part two of Alandal, will have much more explicit fight scenes, and the swordplay that eventually became our FMA systems, featured in the drawings. Taking inspiration from Arya Stark of Game of Thrones and a real life-ancestor of Ignacios, Sabina is based on the Westerosi princess turned assassin and Princess Sabina Sabane of the Davao Kaagan Tribe  a person that Ignacio can trace his lineage back to the Spanish occupation.

Alandal was born out of the seed of his fevered dreams, imagining how cool it would be if he could bring to life the world and imagery of the 1700s, a time when it was almost perpetual conflict. According to Ignacios research for his film, arnis as swordplay was being taught to Filipinos by the Spanish colonial military. Photo from JAY IGNACIO/FACEBOOK

I also hope readers get curious about the truth behind the fiction, said Ignacio, referring to how the style of Indonesian silat versus Filipino arnis battles are contextualized in true historic incidents, like the Spanish teaching the Visayans militia tactics.

The title itself, Alandal, is a clue that brings clarity and drama to the story, both from an FMA and historical perspective. Though, discussing the intricacies of the story here would be too much of a spoiler, so youll just need to read the graphic novel to find out what or who that is.

I hope that readers learn more after reading about the tribes of the Sulu archipelago. Theres a flash forward there, my statement about colonization and the atrocities that were done against the people of Jolo. A lot of Bangsamoro issues are rooted in the forced annexation of their territory and Alandal tackles those, too.

***

.Alandal is available at Komiket
As news of government-implemented closures of food and beverage spaces swirled across Metro Manila these past few months, the nightlife operators of Poblacion are starting to realize that perhaps indeed, they are left to subsist away from the radars of government aid.

A stroll along Kalayaan Avenue at night used to inspire a whole different feeling charged by the energy of the people who dwell and work in the area. But the absence of nightlife during the pandemic has profoundly altered the neighborhood, with its narrow streets agape and its once glaring lights dimmed.

Dripping in historical references, Barangay Poblacion, the first settlement in Makati City during the Spanish colonial era, has over the last six years embraced modernity with youthful establishments, most of which are social in nature. By the time the weekend crept in, people would descend on Don Pedro and Enriquez to end their week (or start their weekend).

When the pandemic began, the shift proved challenging. Poblacion was left immobile, with the exception of hostels and hospitality spaces, who repositioned themselves as quarantine quarters for the remaining work force stuck in the area.

Z Hostel, one of the well-known spots of the area, began taking local employees in. Cao Ocampo, one of the hostels partners explains, Throughout this whole situation, the first thing we really prioritized was our staff. As much as possible we wanted to hold onto most of our staff.

For OTO co-owner David Ong managing multiple ventures in F&B is not ideal for lockdown conditions. Photo from OTO/INSTAGRAM

OTO co-owner David Ong shares similar sentiments, having described the struggle to remain open as being complicated. For Ong, managing multiple ventures (as the co-founder of EDSA Beverage Design Group and The Curator) in F&B is not ideal for lockdown conditions. We operate in a way where we're able to afford it  to break even. It's to be comfortable, but at the same time, [we struggle] to earn enough to give back to our staff.

Ong has cited difficulties in providing enough for his staff, but emphasized the particular struggle in keeping his physical spaces intact. As the increasingly unpredictable restrictions continued, many more obstacles emerged to plague ongoing operations, nonetheless, government aid remains insufficient. For Futur:st co-founder Samantha Nicole, the support is neither sustained nor proactive, sentiments she shares with Ocampo and Ong.

Apart from that, while there exists a Viber group for Poblacion nightlife proprietors, its easy to get overwhelmed with the influx of news and messages in the thread. According to Samantha, the process of information dissemination is faulty and reaching out to officials has not been made easy. I don't think it is good enough [because] we're always the one chasing it. [Its] not meet us halfway or do you want to have a dialogue?.

For small-businesses such as OTO, Z Hostel, and Futur:st, there is always the need to proactively get creative as information is neither available nor sufficient  leading management to operate in instability. But for an experiential stage such as Poblacion, the space is holy ground and the vacancy has been hard on those who struggle to maintain it. With a fresh set of lockdown regulations, Metro Manila first eased into GCQ status by June of last year. However, things had yet to switch to normal. The Makati City government implemented a citywide liquor ban by July, a practice that was also adopted by cities in neighboring areas. With that, Poblacion had to work around yet another batch of restrictions. There is that stigma that [consuming] alcohol transmits COVID-19, says Ong, who is also a renowned bartender. He believes that this isnt the time to look for cocktails, but rather, readjustment.

For Ocampo, the Z Hostel rooftop bar, frequented not just by hostel guests, turned into a restaurant. After we were able to [manage quarantine accommodations], we adjusted operations and opened our roof deck and then focused on our food. Since re-establishing their rooftop space, Z Hostel has been concentrating on improving their food selections, however, having live musicians play for guests was still a grey area.

On Samantha's side of Poblacion, its about cultivating a community they were already familiar with. When talking about their recent pursuit into the creative community, she claims, [w]e've always wanted that because the credo has always been wanting to branch out Future when we open in 2019. Futur:st, the Poblacion counterpart of Cubaos beloved Today x Future (which was closed the previous year), had turned into a haven for creatives since the pandemic ensued.

READ: How a bar in Cubao became home for a generation of Filipino creatives

I guess that took a bit of a slow burn, just because Poblacion is usually more anchored towards nightlife. Actually, a lot of these spaces wanted to anchor towards art, but it's more popular for the nightlife, drinking, and bar hopping. So even when we were doing [these things] pre-pandemic, we would have art shows and noise music fests in there and collaborations and whatnot. People never really noticed it.

In Poblacion, the misdeed of one turns sour for all and businesses regularly face a damn if you do, damn if you dont predicament. As such, there is a brewing community spirit being forged in the silence and the readjustment of the establishments has granted them the opportunity to nudge Poblacion into a new sphere. Communities that sprouted during the pandemic such as Manila Community Radio and Built Cycles can be directly tied to the Poblacion locality, with the latter being physically present in the area. For Sai Villafuerte, one of Manila Community Radios DJs, the neighboring establishments of the area have since become institutions in its evolving fabric.

Since the pandemic began, there has been a wave of support to strengthen the Poblacion spirit, composed of proprietors, friends, and regulars. Before the pandemic, there were [different] circles in the nightlife [scene], said Samantha. One thing I could say is I think people are starting to erase that line and actually understand that we're all in this together. At the end of the day, we all just want to reactivate one way or another.

The spectre of the Poblacion nightlife remains very vivid in our minds, but perhaps it has evolved into something new entirely. Its no longer about drunkenly sharing an intimate proximity with people you don't know, or tracks mixed by a DJ across the room, but rather, sharing a collective experience, separately. Contrary to popular belief, the night remains very much alive.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 16)  President Rodrigo Duterte again defended his administrations controversial face shield policy, saying the plastic covering provides some kind of added protection despite causing inconvenience.

Itong (this) face shield will provide an added premium of prevention. It might not really be a big percentage, but even if it's just 5% more protected because you have the shield, mas maganda na yan (then, that is better), Duterte said in a taped address that aired on Thursday.

Ano ba naman iyang inconvenience [compared] to getting sick and probably dying, added Duterte, who, like the Cabinet officials present, was not wearing a face shield.

[Translation: The inconvenience is nothing compared to getting sick and probably dying.]

In June, Duterte agreed with Senate President Tito Sotto that face shields should only be worn in hospitals. The Inter-Agency Task Force convinced Duterte that the use of face shields should still be required in all enclosed spaces.

Last week, he apologized for flip-flopping on the use of the face shield.

World Health Organization country representative Rabindra Abeyasinghe earlier said the Philippines is one of a few countries that advocates the wearing of face shields in addition to masks.

Amid debates on its effectiveness in preventing the spread of the coronavirus, he said the government should only talk about changing the face shield rule once the COVID-19 situation is already under control as relaxing the measure at this time may give a wrong signal to the public.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 16)  President Rodrigo Duterte wants Solicitor General Jose Calida to instruct the Commission on Audit (COA) to conduct an audit on the Philippine Red Cross (PRC).

His instruction comes as he questions the character of Sen. Richard Gordon, chair of the PRC and head of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee probing the governments purchase of medical supplies for pandemic response.

I am ordering the SolGensi Calidato write [COA chair Michael] Aguinaldo a letter and ask Aguinaldo to conduct immediately an audit diyan sa Red Cross na yan (on that Red Cross), Duterte said in a taped public address which aired Thursday morning.

Duterte has consistently pushed for a state audit on the humanitarian organization as he has accused Gordon of using the PRC to finance his electoral bids.

May I remind the good senator: Alam mo yang corruption mo sa Red Cross, buhay ang nilalaro mo diyanang kapital mo nga, dugo, the President said, referring to PRCs bloodletting activities.

[Translation: May I remind the good senator: You know your corruption in Red Cross, youre playing with lives, your capital is blood.]

RELATED: 'Unsalaried volunteer': PH Red Cross, Gordon dismiss Duterte's allegations

RELATED: Philippine Red Cross: Use of govt donations 'faithfully accounted for'

The Palace has maintained that the PRC is subject to COAs questioning, even with Aguinaldo saying that the COA has no mandate to audit the PRC.

https://cnnphilippines.com/news/2021/9/3/COA-audit-Philippine-Red-Cross-Duterte.html

Gordon has been the subject of Dutertes recent tirades as the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee continues to probe the handling of the pandemic response funds.

The hearings have scrutinized how the countrys top medical supplier, Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corp., bagged billions of pesos in deals despite having only 625,000 in initial capital.

Reacting to the Senate inquiry, Duterte called Gordon a despot and claimed that the senator disrespects resource persons in the hearing as he always cuts them short.

Earlier, Gordon said he was "disappointed" at the President because Duterte was making it a personal fight.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 16, 2021)  The country's decision to accept Afghan refugees may become a source of concern if terrorists will be able to blend in, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said Thursday.

He added that the Defense department had no hand in the decision to accept Afghan refugees and asylum seekers.

That is the reason why he is hoping that the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Immigration Bureau, and the police will have a thorough screening of refugees who will be allowed to enter the Philippines.

"It is concerning situation kung kasama ng refugees ang, kung may terrorist na kasama. So yan ang dapat nating manmanan. Siguro yung processing pa lang ng refugees ay matindi na para masala natin yung mga taong hindi kailangang pumunta dito," Lorenzana said during a virtual press conference.

[Translation: It is a concerning situation if there are terrorists posing as refugees. So that's what we have to monitor. The processing of refugees should be stringent so we can screen out those people who should not seek admission.]

Last week, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teddy Locsin said the country has already started taking in Afghan refugees.

As a policy, the Philippines would accept refugees and asylum seekers from Afghanistan through requests from other governments.

In case an Afghan terrorist manages to enter the country, Lorenzana said it may take some time before he or she may cause trouble.

"Tingin ko naman kung papasok dito ang Afghan, hindi naman sila makakapag-gala agad e. Siguro ang gagawin niyan ay kumontak ng local terrorist. But it will take time," the defense secretary said.

[Translation: I think if Afghans enter the country, they won't be able to roam right away. Maybe that person will first contact a local terrorist. But it will take time.]

During his visit to Washington DC last week, Lorenzana said American defense officials informed him that they had around 5,000 prisoners in Afghanistan before they left.

But the Taliban released them all.

He said there is no Filipino among the prisoners but there could be Malaysians and Indonesians.

It is unclear as to why American soldiers imprisoned around 5,000 individuals in Afghanistan.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 16)  The Ateneo Martial Law Museum has urged actress Toni Gonzaga to reach out to martial law victims and their families, following her controversial interview with former senator Bongbong Marcos, son of the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos.

"Your show has contributed to the Marcos familys attempts to whitewash their human rights violations and its proven historical record," the museum said in an open letter to Gonzaga on Wednesday, two days after she released her interview with Marcos on her YouTube show Toni Talks.

"Inviting the son of a murderous and corrupt dictator of our country to your show benefits no one and pushes back the struggle to gain justice from the atrocities committed by the Marcos regime and against historical revisionism running rampant amongst our people," it added.

The Marcos presidency was marred by allegations of stolen public funds and human rights violations with the declaration of martial law in 1972. His widow Imelda was found guilty of graft in 2018 over crimes during his regime, but the Sandiganbayan dismissed some civil cases on the alleged ill-gotten wealth of the family due to lack of evidence.

Gonzagas vlog titled "The Greatest Lesson Bongbong Marcos Learned from His Father" is the top five trending YouTube video with 1.8 million views so far.

The Ateneo Martial Law Museum offered to facilitate Gonzaga's interview with martial law victims, saying that "hearing their stories and struggles will be much more inspirational for your audience than talking to anyone from the Marcos family."

"In the first place, the only reason why we are able to pursue our creative pursuits in a free society today was because of their sacrifices. We owe a lot to those who sacrificed their lives in order to fight for our freedom and democracy," it added.

Ateneo Martial Law Museum director Miguel Paolo Rivera also told CNN Philippines that what they are really questioning is the way the son of the late dictator was presented when he "is far from ordinary."

"He (Bongbong) has personally benefitted from what the Marcoses have stolen from public coffers and he continues to say outright lies about what had happened during his father's dictatorship," Rivera said.

Gonzaga or her team has yet to reach out to them, he added.

Netizens expressed their disappointment and questioned Gonzaga's neutrality in her vlog since the actress works for broadcast giant ABS-CBN, which was first shut down by the Marcos administration in 1972.

"Dapat ipaalala kay Toni Gonzaga na si Marcos ang unang nagpasara sa ABS-CBN. At sa gitna ng laban ng mga Kapamilyang Filipino sa sakit, sa korapsyon, sa kamatayan, ang pag-interview sa anak ng diktador ay tacit na endorsement ng values na kinakatawan ng pamilya ito," author and Kapamilya writer Jerry Gracio tweeted.

[Translation: Toni Gonzaga must be reminded that Marcos was the one who first shut down ABS-CBN. And amid the Filipinos fight against sickness, corruption and death, interviewing the son of a dictator is a tacit endorsement of values that his family represents.]

Others pointed out that the former senator was a godfather when the actress wed director Paul Soriano.

"It is highly impossible to be unbiased when your interviewee is your Ninong," @peacemotivated tweeted.

Meanwhile, supporters pointed out that Gonzaga was fair since she had previously interviewed members of the opposition, including Vice President Leni Robredo and lawyer Chel Diokno.

However, Rivera said this is not about political opponents, but about accountability.

"It is not about who Toni interviewed. It is about our people getting to know and getting to respect our history so that mistakes of dictatorship from the past will not be repeated," he said.

"As educators, our mission is to educate people, to lead them to the truth...they are free to decide based on their conscience on what needs to be done," Rivera added. "We will not dictate...We invite her, we are very open to have people who are actually heroes of our democracy be featured on her show."

Gonzaga has yet to comment on the matter.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 16)  The Davao City government issued an executive order on Thursday requiring all its personnel to get vaccinated against the coronavirus.

Executive Order No. 45 Series of 2021 mandates the vaccination of all workers including plantilla, job order and contractual personnel, as well as volunteers, on or before Nov. 30.

Violators may be suspended for up to six months for the first offense and relieved from duty for the second offense, it added.

They may be exempted, however, for medical reasons.

The order said the local government unit's human resource management office shall lead the coordination with the citys COVID-19 task force in arranging the vaccination, as well as in monitoring compliance.

Asked about the legal implications of such an order, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said it warrants further study.

"This is a very delicate matter that needs a lot of study and theres a proper procedure for obtaining a formal [Department of Justice] opinion," he told CNN Philippines in a message.

For its part, the Department of Health cited Republic Act 11525, which states that vaccine cards shall not be considered an additional requirement for employment.

"While vaccination is not mandatory, we call on all eligible population to register in their respective LGUs and avail of COVID-19 vaccines for free, for additional protection," the DOH said.

The agency has monitored 3,606 active cases in Davao City. It recorded a total of 44,836 infections  including 365 that were added on Wednesday  with 40,339 recoveries and 891 deaths.
(CNN)  The US National Institutes of Health said Wednesday it's starting a $470 million study to try to understand what's become known as long COVIDthe long-term, sometimes serious effects of COVID-19.

The study will aim to include 30,000-40,000 people and will make use of digital data  including input from wearable devices, the NIH said.

"We know some people have had their lives completely upended by the major long-term effects of Covid-19," NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins said.

"These studies will aim to determine the cause and find much needed answers to prevent this often-debilitating condition and help those who suffer move toward recovery."

The study, called Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery or RECOVER, will include researchers at more than 30 institutions across the country, the NIH said. They'll study existing and new patients with some of the mystifying conditions that show up after people supposedly get over the intense, acute effects of a bout with COVID-19.

"These post-Covid conditions are often referred to as long COVID, long-haul COVID, post-acute COVID-19, long-term effects of COVID, or chronic COVID. NIH refers to this scientifically as PASC- post-acute sequalae of SARS-CoV-2," Collins told a briefing.

"Persistent symptoms originate in multiple organs. The most common symptoms include pain, headaches, fatigue, what's called brain fog, shortness of breath, anxiety, depression, fever chronic cough and sleep disorders. PASC also includes multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children or MIS-C and also in adults -- MIS-A."

It's not clear what causes these symptoms and the study will seek to find what they might be.

"Is it a misfiring of the immune system that fails to reset after the infection with this coronavirus? Is it a triggering of some metabolic dysfunction?" Collins asked.

"We don't know. The diversity of symptoms and presentations leads us to believe that long COVID is not just one condition," he added.

"The only way, therefore, we're going to sort this out is with very large studies that collect lots and lots of data about symptoms, physical findings and laboratory measures."

The NIH said it would encourage researchers to recruit a variety of patients -- people of all ages, ethnicities, pregnant women, and others. Researchers will be including input from the patients -- an unusual approach that Collins said is important to make sure the study covers all the bases.

Studies will also include data from wearable devices. Collins said the study has been put together in months, rather than the usual multi-year process for something so big and complex.

The NIH has set up a website where people who would like to volunteer can sign up.

Funding for the study comes from $1.15 billion Congress appropriated specifically for studying long Covid as part of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan President Biden signed into law last March.

Collins said the $470 million for the study will leave money over to start research into possible treatments.

The study will look into whether various treatments used for severe cases of Covid-19 affect the risk of long Covid, whether vaccination affects risk, and will include people who had only mild symptoms of coronavirus infections, the NIH said.

This story was first published on CNN.com US launches study of long COVID in tens of thousands of patients
" " Google Chrome web browser has a bookmark bar where you can save your favorite websites for easy access. Thiago Prudencio/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Oh, how we love our internet browser bookmarks. Whether you use this nifty tool to save your settings or as a shortcut to get to your favorite articles, videos and food sites, your bookmark bar is vital to your daily website use.

But what happens when you update your computer? You don't want to lose all of your favorite bookmarks. The good news if you don't have to. Knowing how to properly export them from a browser like Chrome will save all of them when you either update to a new computer or when you restore your browser settings in Chrome.

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How to Export Your Bookmarks From Chrome

Open Chrome. On the top-right corner of your Chrome browser, you should see an icon with three vertical dots. Click the dots. A window will pop up with options. Hover over Bookmarks and then click Bookmark Manager. Once the Bookmark Manager window opens, you'll see an icon of vertical dots at the very top-right corner of the screen. Click the dots and choose Export Bookmarks. This will direct you to a pop-up window where you'll choose where on your computer to save the download. Give your file a descriptive name and designate where you want the file to be saved.

" " Exporting your Chrome bookmarks is simple and takes just a few steps. HowStuffWorks

When it's time to transfer the file over to a new computer, email the file to yourself as an attachment (or upload it to the cloud) and follow the same steps, but when you get to step 5, choose Import bookmarks instead of Export bookmarks.
Uruguay Regulator Suggests that Crypto-Real Estate Exchanges Are Possible

Source: Adobe/Palacio SalvoSpectral-Design

A Uruguayan financial regulator has issued an ambivalent statement in answer to a question about how it views property sales for crypto  hinting that under the right circumstances, it could allow such moves to go ahead.

Per El Observador, the Montevideo-based notary Perez del Castillo & Asociados approached the General Tax Directorate (known locally as the DGI), an agency that answers to the nations Ministry of Economy and Finance, for advice on the matter.

The media outlet noted that a number of specialized portals that advertise real estate for sale in exchange for cryptoassets have appeared in the Latin American nation. It added that a growing number of property vendors were also stating that they would accept crypto payments.

However, the notarys request has uncovered something of a mixed response from the DGI on the matter. The agency stated that any such sale would not in fact be a traditional real estate sale at all. Instead, it would be classified as an exchange of assets  with intangible assets (crypto) being swapped for a tangible real estate asset.

For a sale to take place, the DGI noted, money needs to change hands. And as the Uruguayan legal system does not recognize digital tokens as having monetary value, crypto cannot be used in legal sales.

However, the DGIs response hinted that crypto could indeed have some form of legal status, albeit that of an intangible personal property. This would allow it to be used as a means of exchange, a fact that, according to mainstream economic theory, means it fulfills at least one of the characteristics of money.

At no point did it overly state that real estate-crypto exchanges should be discouraged.

Regardless, the agency added, an exchange is still a taxable event  and even crypto-powered property exchanges must be registered with the Land Registry Office and taxed accordingly, presumably in line with the cryptoassets fiat peso worth at the time of sale.

The nations central bank has recently stated that it is preparing to make a statement about crypto, where it is expected to outline its policy on tokens and how they should be regulated. The statement should be forthcoming in the weeks ahead.

____

Learn more:

- Uruguay Senator Sartori Unveils Crypto Adoption and Regulation Bill

- Argentinian MP Calls for Govt Mining Answers as Crypto Real Estate Interest Grows

- Spanish Property Experts: Interest in Bitcoin-powered House Buying Rising

- Spains First Tokenized Property Sells for ETH to Investors in 3 Countries



- Taiwanese Buy USD 15m Condo In New York with Bitcoin

- Would You Buy This Townhouse for USD 30mln - or 45mln in BTC?
Denton

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Company accused of fraud in Denton did not survive vetting in Decatur

Jeff Woo/DRC The exterior of Dentons Development Service Center is shown on Wednesday in downtown. Arizona-based RanchLand Foods, which is now under investigation, had reached a deal with Dentons Economic Development Partnership Board. Jeff Woo/DRC file photo RanchLand Foods had sought an economic development incentive to relocate from Phoenix to Denton, in the former Miller of Denton building on Interstate 35. Another tenant is now in the building.

Editor's note: This story has been updated with additional information from RanchLand's economic incentive application with the city of Decatur.

RanchLand Foods, an Arizona-based meat production company that had reached a deal with Dentons Economic Development Partnership Board for an incentives package but now is the subject of a police investigation, applied for similar economic incentives with Decatur in March, city staff there confirmed Monday.

But that application derailed during Decaturs vetting process.

Questions arose earlier this month about RanchLand, which planned to move its headquarters to Denton. A RanchLand executive said he was owed more than $12,000 in back wages, and the city simultaneously filed a police report alleging potential fraud, citing an anonymous tip that claimed RanchLand was not what it seemed.

Discrepancies in RanchLands background also surfaced, with Arizona officials confirming the address CEO Kenny J. Davis listed for the companys headquarters in Vernon, Arizona, was not an accurate one  something Decatur staff noticed at the time of RanchLands application.

Kenny J. Davis

Apart from Denton, Decatur and Lewisville were among the top locations RanchLand was considering for its relocation, Davis told Denton City Council in May. He did not mention whether he had filled out applications with either citys economic development offices but said he had settled on Denton because of its strategic location.

Companies interested in initiating an economic development project in Decatur fill out an online project data form, answering initial questions about the proposed project and the company itself. In addition to questions about the jobs and capital investments the company would bring to the city, forms also ask applicants for their history of taxable sales and purchases, employment distribution across the company and when and where it was founded.

Its a comprehensive form that requires the company to provide a lot of information about the project and about their company, and he [Davis] did fill that out, Decatur Economic Development Corporation Executive Director Kevin Holzbog said Monday. I recall that their address was difficult to pinpoint exactly where they were on a map, and we couldnt really find their physical location.

Decatur application

After businesses fill out project data forms, staff works to verify information provided and continues conversations with the company, Holzbog said. In RanchLands case, those conversations fizzled when Davis stopped responding.

We do a lot of research on these companies  youre wanting to see if the company [has] been a good corporate citizen at their current location, have they executed economic development agreements in other communities in the past, Holzbog said. We had a lot of questions for him [Davis] regarding their project, but we never had an incentive agreement together, so it doesnt look like the conversation ever traveled that far.

Though staff did notice that the address on the application was hard to locate, that did not automatically prevent conversations with RanchLand from moving forward.

Some companies that do a lot of business are in very small locations or their address is outdated or something like that  maybe the person youre dealing with, they dont have the updated address, and they fill it out wrong, Holzbog said. Sometimes you can look past that, but as I recall, there were a couple of different things that seemed strange on this project, but there were also a lot of things on this project that seemed very legitimate. We werent going to let that keep us from continuing the conversation, but we were going to need to do a lot of verification.

The sales figures for RanchLand also stood out, but in a positive way, Holzbog said. RanchLand proposed investing $14,150,000 on land purchase and the construction of a new building at Eagles Landing Business Park, according to documents filed with Decatur Economic Development. The project would create 125 community jobs and pay salaries of $75,000, supporting its $5,000,000 in inventory and $8,720,000 in taxable sales, the documents claimed.

On the company's application for an incentive agreement in Denton, Davis wrote that RanchLand makes $11 million in taxable sales annually.

They were impressive numbers, but anything that has significant numbers youre going to take a really, really close look at that, Holzbog said.

Communication with Davis began to slow a month or two after contact was first made, and Holzbogs last communication with Davis was an email Holzbog sent in May congratulating him on the Denton deal.

At Lewisvilles economic development office, no application was submitted by RanchLand, coordinator Christina Williams said Wednesday. Although Davis could have spoken with the offices former specialist to inquire about application processes, office staff typically communicate when that is the case.

We usually keep kind of a record if theres any prospective conversation, Williams said. I dont have a record of any applications, and I havent talked to a Kenny Davis either.

When businesses do apply for incentives, the vetting process looks different for every company, Williams said. Since some leads come through the governors office, the Dallas Regional Chamber or a site selector, much of the background work has already been completed. When companies do apply directly, there isnt a formal checklist of what supporting documents are required, but staff typically requests paperwork to assist in the vetting process.

We gather as much information as we can from their corporate headquarters, Williams said. Theyll usually say, We anticipate this is going to be our value every year, so especially if theyre relocating and they have an existing location, then we ask for those prior years information, especially in sales tax or any type of sales  well ask for that information.

In Denton, forms for Chapter 380 economic incentive agreements ask applicants to share some background information on the company, but questions  along with staff vetting  focus largely on what benefit the company will bring to Denton, officials said.

We really kind of get a broad array of information, and well take that information and review it against our policy and see if theres any particular program they qualify for, Denton Economic Development Director Jessica Rogers told the Record-Chronicle Sept. 3. We usually sit down and talk with them about what is their intent, their goal, their purpose, what is it about the project that warrants the use of public funds.

Rather than extensively researching applicants, staff relies on the economic development contracts themselves  which are drawn up after approval by the City Council  to protect taxpayer funds, Rogers said.

On the legal side, we do verify through the secretary of state, or whatever entity it may be in the state, that the individual signing the document is authorized to sign that document and that theyre in good standing, she said. Generally, how it [vetting] occurs is through interviews or conversations between staff and the applicant, and if staff feels like the information presented by the applicant is sufficient, we really rely on that contract.

The Economic Development Partnership is evaluating its policies in the wake of the RanchLand agreement, Rogers told the Record-Chronicle Sept. 3. Rogers could not be reached for further comment Wednesday afternoon, but city spokesperson Ryan Adams confirmed the agreement is still under review.

Council has not taken any action on RanchLand, but that is an agreement we continue to review, Adams said.

But Stephen Harris, chief investment officer at IHI Holdings  a parent company of RanchLand also owned by Davis  has said RanchLand will not bring its headquarters to Denton, making the agreement void. In fact, RanchLand was bought by another meat company, and Coolistics  another of IHIs brands  would handle distribution, he said.

That location is not going to be happening now, and theyll be shipping products out of Dallas, Harris told the Denton Record-Chronicle Sept. 8. Weve secured a location in the city that is already ready as a cold storage facility and is already operating that way.
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Republic of Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania, Islamic Republic of Mauritius Mayotte Micronesia, Federated States of Moldova, Republic of Monaco, Principality of Mongolia, Mongolian People's Republic Montserrat Morocco, Kingdom of Mozambique, People's Republic of Myanmar Namibia Nauru, Republic of Nepal, Kingdom of Netherlands Antilles Netherlands, Kingdom of the New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua, Republic of Niger, Republic of the Nigeria, Federal Republic of Niue, Republic of Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Norway, Kingdom of Oman, Sultanate of Pakistan, Islamic Republic of Palau Palestinian Territory, Occupied Panama, Republic of Papua New Guinea Paraguay, Republic of Peru, Republic of Philippines, Republic of the Pitcairn Island Poland, Polish People's Republic Portugal, Portuguese Republic Puerto Rico Qatar, State of Reunion Romania, Socialist Republic of Russian Federation Rwanda, Rwandese Republic Samoa, Independent State of San Marino, Republic of Sao Tome and Principe, Democratic Republic of Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of Senegal, Republic of Serbia and Montenegro Seychelles, Republic of Sierra Leone, Republic of Singapore, Republic of Slovakia (Slovak Republic) Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia, Somali Republic South Africa, Republic of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Spain, Spanish State Sri Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic of St. Helena St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Pierre and Miquelon St. Vincent and the Grenadines Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Suriname, Republic of Svalbard & Jan Mayen Islands Swaziland, Kingdom of Sweden, Kingdom of Switzerland, Swiss Confederation Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan, Province of China Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand, Kingdom of Timor-Leste, Democratic Republic of Togo, Togolese Republic Tokelau (Tokelau Islands) Tonga, Kingdom of Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Tunisia, Republic of Turkey, Republic of Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda, Republic of Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe
An education technology, food-safety technology, bioscience and medical device company might be headed to, or expanding in, Colorado with the promise of more than $11 million in economic incentives to create more than 600 jobs, the states Economic Development Commission decided Thursday.

The commission approves incentives presented by the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade.

It uses code names to protect the confidentiality of companies, as most are also being wooed by other states.

The biggest of the recent projects is called Tempus. Its described as a global healthcare company that develops, manufactures, and sells medical devices and healthcare technology products, according to office documents.

The company is looking to locate its North American headquarters in Denver, as well as a global headquarters for one of its subsidiaries. Its also got 12,000 employees located in New Jersey and Texas, so its looking there as well, said Andrew Trump, office business development manager. Colorado now houses six similar firms.

Were a global diagnostics and life sciences business, a company representative told the panel. We have a significant presence on the East Coast and the Mid-West with team members all over the United States. So we need a North American headquarters before the end of the year.

Denver is attractive to us because of its large millennial population, technology presence and its a hub for the life sciences sector.

It would create 300 jobs here, at an average salary of $154,957 for management, administrative, marketing, and finance roles. Commissioners approved an incentive package totaling $7.65 million in Job Growth Incentive Tax Credits over the next 8 years.

Project Linen creates molecular detection technology for food safety, which enables rapid onsite detection of foodborne pathogens, according to the office. Its also looking at Austin, Texas or remaining in Californias Bay Area for a combined headquarters and development facility.

As a newly formed company, it only has four employees and contractors.

The company has promised to create 144 new jobs, at an average salary of $124,573, in exchange for $1.45 million in tax credits. Jobs include microbiologists, production and test engineers, sales and marketing workers, and manages.

Commissioners put requirements in the offer that the company must raise significant amounts of capital before accepting it. Commissioners agreed the company would help with growing and diversifying the food and agriculture industry in Colorado and, in particular, the foodtech sector which is a strategic focus ...

Project Norman is described as an educational technology company that partners with institutions of higher education to develop and deliver online degree programs. Its experienced significant growth during the pandemic, as classroom learning moved online for many educational institutions.

The company has outgrown its Denver location. It's agreed to create 138 new jobs with an average salary of $85,490 in exchange for $1.7 million in economic incentives.

Finally, Project Discovery provides laboratory and analytical services to bioscience companies engaged in product discovery and development.

Its looking to create 28 jobs in Larimer County for an expansion of the companys early drug and medical device contract research services. It currently has 500 employees, 100 of which are in Colorado.

Those jobs come with a $71,616 average salary. Commissioners approved $459,658 in tax incentives over the next eight years.

The company is also looking at Indiana and Missouri.
SALIDA  A Chaffee County judge did not make a ruling Tuesday on whether there was sufficient evidence for Barry Morphew to stand trial in the murder of his wife, Suzanne.
As part of its drive to address Africas vulnerability to climate risk, Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) has created an independent asset management arm, AFC Capital Partners, with a debut offering: the Infrastructure Climate Resilient Fund (ICRF).

AFC Capital Partners plans to raise US$500m in the next twelve months and US$2 billion over the next three years. The ICRF will act as a direct investor and a co-investment fund to enhance the quality of African ports, roads, bridges, rail, telecommunications, clean energy, and logistics in the face of rising temperatures and sea levels due to climate change.

AFC Capital Partners will enhance our firepower in driving integrated infrastructure solutions that are core to Africas development in the post-Covid era, said Samaila Zubairu, President and CEO of Africa Finance Corporation. The Infrastructure Climate Resilient Fund will enable us to support climate adaptation as well as projects that reduce carbon emissions and catalyse our continent to build back better, with more climate-resilient and sustainable infrastructure.

Ayaan Zeinab Adams will take the role of CEO at AFC Capital Partners. As the former leader of the private sector arm of the Green Climate Fund under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, as well as a former CIO and Senior Manager of the World Bank Groups IFC, she brings 27 years of experience in climate response and investment to her new role.

The continent that has contributed the least to climate change is the most exposed because of housing, transport, industrial, and energy structures ill equipped to survive storms, floods, droughts, wildfires, and other hazards from extreme weather patterns. According to the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, without urgent intervention, the cost of structural damage caused by natural disasters will increase to US$415 billion a year by 2030 from between US$250-300 billion now. Damage to rail tracks, roads, bridges, seaports, and power grids will add to an infrastructure deficit currently at US$130170 billion per year. The UN Conference on Trade and Development estimated that a total of US$2.3 trillion worth of infrastructure is needed across Africa.

AFC Capital Partners forms a core part of the Corporations five-year strategy, as set out in 2018 to expand its suite of pragmatic and innovative funding solutions by mobilising capital to drive the development of infrastructure that is resilient to the impact of climate change.

Significant financing is urgently required to build physical infrastructure that will survive the forces of climate change, said Ayaan. The good news is that much of this investment is compatible with competitive returns for investors through leveraging the expertise, relationships, and blended finance models that have been tried and assessed for many years by Africa Finance Corporation.

Ayaan played a key role in building the mandate of the Green Climate Fund Private Sector Facility and rapidly scaled its portfolio within three years to US$2.1 billion invested across Africa, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and the Caribbean.

The mandate of AFC Capital Partners is aligned to AFCs in offering attractive investment opportunities to the global development finance and commercial investor community seeking long-term returns through structures that protect African built infrastructure from climate risks. The newly created fund, incorporated in Mauritius, will employ traditional project finance and private equity structures, supported by a blend of concessional finance, grants and soft equity.

Our objective is to stay true to AFCs track record, competency and investor interest without compromising on the ability to provide timely exits and a seamless entry by new investors on an arms length basis, said Ayaan.
Statement by Ambassador Brian Flynn at the UNSC on South Sudan

Statement

First, I want to thank our briefers SRSG Haysom and Ms Ghelani. Your interventions were extremely useful.

Ms Nanjia, I want to thank you in particular for your participation today as well as for your eloquence and candor in outlining the challenges facing South Sudan. And the suggestions you made.

We have heard today worrying accounts of subnational violence, regressive political posturing, sexual and gender-based violence, and a growing humanitarian crisis. As Ms Ghelani outlined in her briefing, the appalling prospect of famine now, once again, threatens South Sudan. We should not forget that conflict is the single greatest driver of hunger. We are also deeply alarmed at the increased violence and displacement around Tambura, where some 70% of those killed recently are believed to have been women and children.

It is just over three years since the Revitalized Agreement was signed, but we have not seen the progress hoped for. As mentioned in our last meeting, while the present ceasefire is not something we can take for granted, equally the country cannot move forward, or contemplate elections, if it represents the only noteworthy achievement to date.

A ceasefire alone does not guarantee peace. It should become the foundation for peacebuilding and a broad-based political process, with the full, equal and meaningful participation of women, and the inclusion of youth. While there has been good progress, we call on the South Sudanese authorities to ensure the 35% quota for women is met.

The obstacles facing South Sudan are many, from shrinking civil society space and widespread food insecurity, to extrajudicial killings and increasingly disaffected youth; however, they are not insurmountable. A renewed commitment by South Sudans leaders, allied with the determination of the South Sudanese people and supported by the international and humanitarian communities, can overcome these challenges. In this regard, we welcome the launch of the Joint Action Plan for the Armed Forces on addressing CRSV, and look forward to its implementation.

A recommitment and renewed political impetus can pave the way for the state to provide opportunities which citizens should legitimately expect: to protest in safety, to go to school, to work, to thrive - put simply, to have their human rights respected, protected and fulfilled.

Protection of civilians is rightly at the heart of the UNMISS mission and we welcome their efforts alongside South Sudanese forces to deliver a safe and secure environment, including through monitoring conditions at redesignated IDP camps. It is crucial that site transitions take place with the human rights of those affected being put to the fore.

Finally, I welcome and deeply appreciate the presence of the Permanent Representative of South Sudan here today. Ambassador, you were present in June when we stated unequivocally that Ireland believes in South Sudan. We still do. We stand ready to assist you and your government and we look forward to continued engagement outside this Chamber.

Thank you.

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Vietnam surpassed Thailand in the first half of this year to become the biggest exporter of tuna to Israel.

It accounted for 31 percent of Israel's imports while that country became Vietnam's third largest market behind the U.S. and Italy.

Israel bought less tuna from most countries amid the Covid-19 pandemic, but increased its imports from Vietnam, the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) said.

Latest data from VASEP shows that Vietnams exports to Israel jumped by 34 percent during the year until Aug. 15 to nearly $25 million.

Eight companies ship tuna fish to Israel, but have all complained about Covid-related restrictions hurting their production in recent months.

VASEP has repeatedly been petitioning the government to quickly vaccinate workers in the fisheries sector to ensure the supply chain is not disrupted.
The AstraZeneca vaccine doses donated by Germany arrives in Hanoi, September 16, 2021. Photo by German Embassy in Vietnam

A batch of 852,480 AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine doses donated by Germany via the Covax initiative arrived in Hanoi on Thursday.

"Germany stands with Vietnam in fighting and overcoming the Covid-19 pandemic. We can only defeat the pandemic if it is brought under control everywhere. Therefore, Germany and the European Union support the Covax vaccination campaign for fair and transparent access to Covid-19 vaccines worldwide," German Ambassador to Vietnam, Guido Hildner, was quoted in a German Embassy statement.

Kidong Park, World Health Organization (WHO) representative in Vietnam, said: "Given the challenging pandemic situation in the country now, we continue to advocate for the government to prioritize vaccination of health care workers and frontline workers, the elderly, people with co-morbidities and those who are at highest risk of severe diseases or death."

In late April, Vietnam was hit by the fourth Covid-19 wave, by far the most challenging the nation has ever faced.

So far in the wave, 641,245 cases have been recorded along with 16,151 deaths.

With the latest delivery of vaccines donated by Germany, Vietnam has received more than 12.57 million vaccine doses via the Covax initiative, co-led by the WHO, Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovations (CEPI), GAVI - the Vaccine Alliance, and UNICEF as a key delivery partner.

Vietnam aims to receive 150 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines to inoculate 70 percent of its 96-million population in order to achieve herd immunity by April next year.

By the end of August, Vietnam had received 33 million doses from different sources, including government aid and commercial contracts secured by the Health Ministry and local firms.

Up until Wednesday, more than 31.2 million people have been vaccinated, with over 5.8 million getting two doses.
The Biden-Harris administration believes countering corruption is a core United States national security interest. As such, the United States takes action against perpetrators of corruption around the world.

To impose consequences on corrupt actors and to protect the U.S. financial system from abuse, the U.S. Department of the Treasurys Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, sanctioned three Paraguayan nationals: Kassem Mohamad Hijazi, Khalil Ahmad Hijazi, and Liz Paola Doldan Gonzalez, for their roles in corruption in Paraguay. OFAC also designated five entities connected to the designated individuals. The United States is committed to supporting Paraguays efforts to combat corruption and promote accountability for those who undermine government institutions, said Secretary of State, Antony Blinken.

Kassem Mohamad Hijazi controls a global money laundering organization based in Ciudad Del Este, Paraguay. Kassems network, which was enabled by the bribery of government officials, operates through front companies and business relationships around the world, including the United States.

His associate Khalil Ahmad Hijazi was designated for providing material assistance to Kassem in connection with Kassems corrupt activities.

OFAC designated Paraguay-registered companies Espana Informatica, Emprendimientos Inmobiliarios Misiones S.A., Apolo Informatica S.A., and Mundo Informatico as being owned or controlled by Khalil, and Paraguay-registered company Espana Informatica S.A. for being owned or controlled by Kassem.

Liz Paola Doldan Gonzalez is one of Kassems associates. In her role as an intermediary, she paid bribes to port workers and Paraguayan customs officials to process imports and exports through Paraguay. Her company, Paraguay-based Mobile Zone International Import-Export, was designated by OFAC as being owned or controlled by Doldan.

Kassem, Khalil and Doldan have been sanctioned pursuant to the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, which targets perpetrators of serious human rights abuse and corruption around the world.

As a result of these sanctions, all property of designated individuals or entities that are within the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons are blocked and U.S. persons are prohibited from conducting transactions with designated persons.

These designations under the Global Magnitsky sanctions program show that we are committed to combatting corruption and promoting accountability for officials who undermine government institutions, said OFAC Director Andrea M. Gacki. The Treasury Department will continue to use our authorities to prevent illicit actors and their front companies from abusing the international financial system to hurt people around the world who play by the rules.
The extra unemployment benefits kept up supplies to Americans throughout the pandemic, along with a raft of large state support unheard of for a generation. But now the pandemic is estimated to be receding, and with it the extra support.

In terms of the extra unemployment benefits these were the two schemes that ended on Labor Day:

Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), which provided unemployment benefits to individuals who are self-employed, seeking part-time employment, or who otherwise would not qualify for regular unemployment compensation.

which provided unemployment benefits to individuals who are self-employed, seeking part-time employment, or who otherwise would not qualify for regular unemployment compensation. Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC), allowed those eligible to receive unemployment compensation, additional coverage as many states have a cap on the number of weeks claims can be made. This program also provided a $300 extra payment sent by the federal government in addition to state benefits.

As many as 800,000 New Yorkers had their benefits stripped by the expiry. Across the country, the number is closer to 9.2 million people.

Economists have projected that New York City may not fully regain all its pandemic job losses until 2024.

What other support is available?

Despite the end of the federal eviction moratorium, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed a state moratorium on evictions. However, she added that the state could not afford to keep the extra benefits on their own and would need extra support from the federal government.

There will still remain various federal support schemes for the duration of the pandemic. These include the Child Tax Credit, the latest payment of which was sent on Wednesday, SNAP vouchers and the Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP).

What are people doing to change the situation?

New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez brought forward new legislation in the House in an attempt to extend the extra unemployment support throughout 2022.

Ive been very disappointed on both sides of the aisle that weve just allowed pandemic unemployment assistance to completely lapse, when we are clearly not fully recovered from the cost effects of the pandemic, Ocasio-Cortez said in a town hall on Tuesday.

"I simply just could not allow this to happen without at least trying," she added.

It remains to be seen what support this legislation will garner.
Gabby Petito and her fiance Brian Laundrie set out on a cross-country road trip earlier this summer. She went missing 25 August, days after the couple had what appeared to be an altercation prompting a witness to call 911.

Police in Moab, Utah have released bodycam footage of their 12 August interaction with couple when they responded to the "possible domestic violence" call. The video shows the officers talking to a distraught Petito who told them she had struck her boyfriend and was struggling with her mental health.

Police alerted to possible domestic violence

Laundrie and Petito began their road trip 2 July from New York where Petito is a native of Long Island, although the couple live in Florida. They planned to cross the country camping at national parks along the way in their converted van. An altercation between the two promoted a witness to call 911 when they were near Moonflower Community Cooperative in Moab two weeks before Petito disappeared.

The witness said a man and Gabbie were fighting over a phone and that the male tried to create distance by telling Gabbie to go take a walk to calm down. However, she wouldnt separate from him and started slapping Laundrie. The police report says "He grabbed her face and pushed her back as she pressed upon him and the van, he tried to lock her out and succeeded except for his drivers door. Once she had the door open, she managed to get in the van and they drove off.

Police consider incident a "mental/emotional health break"

The more than hour-long video from the encounter with Moab City Police, which can be viewed at ABC7NY, shows officers stopping the white converted van the couple was using for their cross-country road trip. The officers immediately separate the two to get each sides version of events. Petito told police that she suffers from serious anxiety and other redacted medical conditions according to the report.

Neither party wanted to press charges but all agreed that Petito had slapped Laundrie and that he had not hit her. As there were no serious injuries the officers allowed the couple to leave without filing charges but on the condition that they separate for the night. Laundrie was taken to a hotel for the night and Petito was left with the van which she slept in that night.

The officers wrote it down as a "mental/emotional health break" incident rather than domestic assault. Since they were engaged to be married the officer did not consider Laundrie, who is now a person of interest in Petitos disappearance, to be a risk of danger or harm. Although Petito did tell the officers that tensions had been building over the previous days.

Petito goes missing

The last know whereabouts of Petito is assumed to be Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. On 23 August she told her mother and stepfather that she and Laundrie were leaving Utah and heading north to the park. Her last post on Instagram was dated 25 August.

Laundrie for his part returned alone to Florida, where the couple had moved two years prior, 1 September. Petito was declared missing by her family 11 September and police have since sequestered the van. Laundrie is not cooperating with police.
Photo for illustration (Source: cand.com.vn)

This is part of the document regulating COVID-19 prevention and control measures in Hanoi signed by the Chairman of the municipal Peoples Committee Chu Ngoc Anh on September 15, according to the Nhan Dan Newspaper.



The 19 districts and townships that meet the requirement are Ba Dinh, Ba Vi, Bac Tu Liem, Cau Giay, Dan Phuong, Gia Lam, Hoai Duc, Long Bien, Me Linh, My Duc, Nam Tu Liem, Phu Xuyen, Phuc Tho, Quoc Oai, Soc Son, Son Tay, Thanh Oai, Ung Hoa and Tay Ho.

Service businesses which are allowed to reopen include stores for stationery, textbooks, and other school supplies, garages for vehicle repairs, mechanics, electronics, and home appliances.

Meanwhile, food and beverage establishments are permitted to reopen for delivery only and must be closed before 9pm every day.

The businesses and services must strictly follow COVID-19 prevention and control measures including wearing face masks, keeping distance, making medical declarations, and disinfecting the establishments regularly.

Since fourth wave of COVID-19 pandemic began in the country in late April, Hanoi has logged more than 3,850 COVID-19 infections as of September 15.

Two biosphere reserves of Vietnam recognized by UNESCO

Two biosphere reserves Nui Chua in the central province of Ninh Thuan and Kon Ha Nung in the Central Highlands province of Gia Lai have been recognized by UNESCO.

They were among 22 reserves across the world voted at a session of the International Coordinating Council of the Man and the Biosphere Programme (CIC-MAB), which is being held in Nigeria from September 13-17, said the Vietnam News Agency.

Animals in the Rescue Centre of Kon Ha Nung Biosphere Reserve (Photo: PanNature)

With the recognition, Vietnam has 11 biosphere reserves, becoming one of the countries with the largest number of UNESCO-recognised biosphere reserves.

Ambassador Le Thi Hong Van, Permanent Representative of Vietnam to UNESCO, said Vietnam was the sole country with two dossiers that were approved in the first round.

It is also the first time since 2015 that Vietnam has had biosphere reserves nominated for voting by UNESCO, she added.

On the occasion, the CIC-MAB assessed a 10-year review on the management and development of Can Gio and Cu Lao Cham reserves.

The CIC-MAB, known as the governing body of the Man and the Biosphere programme, comprises 34 member nations biennially elected by the UNESCO General Assembly.

Vietnam is largest tuna provider to Israel

The export value of Vietnamese tuna exports to the Israeli market by mid-August grew by 34% to roughly US$25 million against the same period last year, accounting for 5.6% of the total tuna export value, according to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP), said the VOV.

Israel continues to represent the nations third largest single tuna export market, behind only the US and Italy.

Photo for illustration (Source: VGP)

Despite experiencing a decline in 2019, since the end of 2020, tuna exports to the market have consistently bounced back, with the average export price in the market hovering at US$5,464 per tonne.

Most notably, Vietnamese frozen tuna fillets coded HS03048700 remain the key export product in the market, accounting for 47% of the total export value.

According to statistics released by the International Trade Center (ITC), the first half of the year saw the country surpass Thailand to become the largest tuna supplier to Israel, accounting for roughly 31% of their overall import value.

Furthermore, Israel simultaneously reduced tuna imports from other countries, whilst also increasing imports from the Vietnamese market.

At present, there are eight local enterprises, including Tuna Vietnam, Bidifisco, and Havuco which are actively involved in exporting tuna to the Israeli market.

Despite a wealth of export opportunities for Vietnamese tuna to the market, the local tuna industry is projected to face numerous difficulties due to the fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, with several enterprises reducing their processing capacity./.
Source: ADB

Khentii provincethe birthplace of Chinggis Khanis getting ready to welcome more tourists, with the support of an ADB-financed project, participants heard.



ADBs consultation event in eastern provinces coincides with the launch of the new country partnership strategy on 6 September, under which ADB will support social development and a climate-friendly, diverse economy, said ADB Deputy Country Director for Mongolia Declan Magee. One of the areas supported under the new strategy is developing the tourism industry to create more jobs and revenue for local economies, which was highlighted at todays discussion by all governors.



The event started with presentations by the provincial governors offices on the impact of and lessons from ADB-financed programs and projects. High-level representatives of parliament, project executing agencies, and governors of the three provinces discussed development objectives and the resources, including much-needed human resources.



The eastern region of Mongolia is known for its endless steppes, extinct volcanoes, and large herds of white-tail gazelles. It is also the least densely populated region of the country with 0.8 persons per square kilometer of land. Operation of major public and private infrastructure and tourism projects planned in the region will increase the demand for a highly trained and skilled labor force. Education, training, and retention of a skilled labor force is a critical issue for all sectors. The participants of todays consultation emphasized that ADBs support to human and social development is indispensable./.
Americans for Free Trade, a coalition of over 150 industry associations, has again urged the Joe Biden administration to put an end to the "misguided trade war" initiated by the previous US administration.

"It's time for a new approach to working with our trading partners that relieves the weight of the current tariffs and finally brings an end to this misguided trade war," AFT spokesperson Jonathan Gold said in a statement on Tuesday.

This is the second time over the past two months that major trade groups have made such a call, on the basis that it is the US businesses and consumers that have been footing the bill for the punitive tariffs imposed on the goods worth $350 billion imported from China each year.

However, the Biden administration has been turning a deaf ear to the cries of suffering, and there have been recent US media reports that the administration is considering launching a so-called Section 301 investigation into Chinese subsidies, which could lead to new tariffs on imports from China.

The previous administration initiated the tariff hikes, raising them bit by bit, as a tactic to press China to swallow an unfair trade deal. The Biden administration, however, is intent on normalizing the weaponization of the tariffs as an intrinsic part of his administration's strategy to contain China.

Over the past four years, the bipartisan foundation for the containment of China has become more fortified, as it is one of the few issues on which the two political parties in the US can find any meeting points and it has become a theatrical touchstone of patriotism for politicians in the US, which has prompted the anti-China policy portfolio to be transformed from a trade war into an all-society campaign.

That being said, as both countries have been able to live with the tariffs, which are painful but not fatal, and the tensions between them are continuing to build up, it is unrealistic to expect the Biden administration to take the initiative to end the tariffs.

That's why Chinese Ambassador to the United States Qin Gang pointed out on Monday during a virtual meeting with board members of the US-China Business Council that the difficulties and uncertainties in the Sino-US economic and trade cooperation originate from the US side.

But as Qin said, economic and trade cooperation have been the ballast and propeller for Sino-US relations. As such, having agreed in his recent telephone conversation with President Xi Jinping that the two countries' competition should not veer into conflict, Biden should ensure they can still play those roles.

In so doing, his administration can help create the right conditions for the two sides to come back to the negotiation table for phase two of their trade deal. Given the broad implications of their trade concerns, the negotiations, if carried out with mutual respect and on an equal footing, have the potential to build guardrails for their interactions in the form of rules of behavior that would allow their relation to develop in a more predictable manner.

Editor: WXY
According to calculations, the budget of Kyiv in 2022 will amount to about UAH 65 billion, said mayor of the capital Vitali Klitschko.

"As for the city's budget, it will be slightly more than this year. Despite the shortfall due to the pandemic, the estimate for 2022 will amount to approximately UAH 65 billion," the press service of Kyiv City State Administration quoted Klitschko as saying.

According to the mayor of the capital, almost a third of the budget will be spent on education. A significant part of the funds will also be allocated for medicine, transport, construction and repair of roads.

"Traditionally, we will direct almost a third of the budget to education. This is more than 500 kindergartens, more than 500 schools, higher educational institutions. This is the salary of teachers. Medicine is in second place. In a pandemic, we need to support doctors," Klitschko stressed.

He also noted that this year alone, due to the crisis caused by the pandemic, the city received almost UAH 5 billion less.
Ukraine is discussing the local content in manufacturing mRNA vaccines for COVID-19 in the country, Health Minister Viktor Liashko said.

"In the future, we have agreements on the local content of other vaccines, we are negotiating the manufacture of an mRNA vaccine on the territory of Ukraine. By the end of this year, we will have a clear understanding of how to establish all these processes [...] mastered the technology and became involved in the worldwide scientific progress on mRNA vaccines and not only on mRNA," Liashko told the Word and Deed online publication.

He also said that Ukraine intends to become a "pharmaceutically independent state." The Ministry of Health has already prepared a draft of the first hundred medicines, critical if all borders are closed, as happened in 2020.

According to Liashko, the Health Ministry should provide a full cycle of their manufature. Medicines should include immuno-biological agents and antibiotics.
The U.S. Embassy in Ukraine has called on the Ukrainian authorities to bring to justice the murderers of journalist Georgiy Gongadze, as well as everyone involved in his abduction and murder in 2000.

"On the 21st anniversary of journalist Georgiy Gongadze's disappearance, we say again: authorities must bring his murderers, and all those responsible for his abduction and murder, to justice," the embassy said on Twitter on Thursday.
The United Nations (UN) disregarded the Crimea Platform summit, which took place in Kyiv on August 23, and was not represented at it for political reasons, so Ukraine will speak with the leadership of the organization about the inadmissibility of such a relationship, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has said.

"This happened absolutely for political reasons, and we will talk with the leadership of the organization about the inadmissibility of such an attitude, since the key task of the UN is precisely to support peace and security," Kuleba said at an online briefing on Thursday.

The Ukrainian Foreign Minister said the UN should defend the principles, not the interests of individual states that violate international law.

"When we see the participation of such respected organizations as the Council of Europe, NATO, GUAM in the summit of the Crimea platform, and the UN deliberately disregards this event, this tells us about the state of affairs in the organization itself, and about its understanding of its role and mission in the world. Frankly speaking, diplomatically, that this is a wrong understanding, which we will change, as it is necessary to protect the principles, and not the interests of individual states that violate international law," Kuleba said.
The number of civilians killed as a result of hostilities in eastern Ukraine in August 2021 was 11, since then the number of ceasefire violations has increased by almost a third, OSCE Chairperson-in-Office in Ukraine and in the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) Mikko Kinnunen.

"The security situation along the contact line remains volatile with an average of 273 cease-fire violations per day reported by OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) during the first two weeks of September 2021, an increase of about 30% compared to the month of August. I particularly deplore the rising number of civilian casualties, namely 11 in the month of August, the highest number of monthly civilian casualties since the entering into force of the July 2020 agreement on strengthening the ceasefire," Kinnunen said in a statement following the Wednesday's TCG meeting.

According to him, the participants in the Security Working Group continued working on the draft Addendum to agreement on strengthening ceasefire, however, disagreements over the nature of the possible new coordination and verification mechanism remained. The Political Working Group discussed issues related to the elaboration of a draft action plan in full compliance with the Minsk agreements. Participants in the Economic Working Group engaged in a detailed discussion on different aspects of water supply to certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine.

According to Kinnunen, the meeting of the Humanitarian Working Group could not take place as the controversy over a recent expert appointment was not yet solved. "The issues of vital importance to population on both sides of contact line, such as the opening of new crossing points and the mutual exchange of conflict-related detainees could not be discussed," he said in the statement.
Russia-occupation forces in Donbas on Thursday morning fired mortars at the settlement of Schastia, as a result of which Head of the local military-civil administration Oleksandr Dunets was wounded.

"On September 16, 2021, from 06:40 to 07:50, from the positions of the Russian armed formations, which are located in the Vesela Hora region, the settlement of Schastia was shelled with the use of 120 mm and 82 mm mortars. As a result of the shelling, a civilian was wounded by shrapnel and a craniocerebral injury, whose condition is assessed as satisfactory," the press center of the Joint Force Operation (JFO) headquarters said on Facebook.

It is clarified that during the verification of the consequences of the aforementioned shelling by the observation group of the Ukrainian side of the JCCC, the fact of damage to a private house at 2b/15 Enerhetykiv Street was established and documented.

"The roof of the house, walls, windows and civilian vehicles were damaged from a burst of 120 mm mines," the JFO headquarters said.

They said the Ukrainian side of the JCCC reported to the OSCE SMM about all violations of the ceasefire, providing comprehensive evidence of the crimes.

"In the event of further aggravation of the situation and non-observance of the ceasefire by the Russian armed formations, the Armed Forces of Ukraine reserve the right to provide an adequate response with the involvement of the forces and means permitted by the Minsk agreements," the headquarters said.

Later, the press service of Schastia territorial community on Facebook said the wounded civilian was the head of the local military-civilian administration.

"As a result of the shelling, Oleksandr Dunets, head of Schastia military-civil administration, was wounded, now his health is satisfactory," the JFO said.

The press service of the community adds that law enforcement agencies are currently working at the scene.
A working meeting is being held at the President's Office with the participation of the chair of the Council of Judges, the Supreme Court, representatives of parliament, as well as G7 Ambassadors, sources in the Council of Judges told Interfax-Ukraine.

As reported, at their meeting on September 13, members of the Council of Judges refused to delegate their representatives to the Ethics Council, which is supposed to check the integrity of candidates and members of the Council of Judges.

After that, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said that he would not allow the blocking of judicial reform.

"I will not allow the blocking of the main reform of the country, which I promised to the Ukrainians and which I initiated. Every illegal action aimed at blocking the judicial reform will be immediately evaluated and rebuffed. I will not allow judges who are hindering the reform and cleaning of the judicial system to deprive Ukrainians of the right to justice. And judges who want to work in a transparent system must have full support," Zelensky said.

According to subclause 6 of clause 23-1 of the final and transitional provisions of the law on amendments to certain legislative acts of Ukraine concerning the procedure for election (appointment) to the positions of members of the High Council of Justice and the activities of disciplinary inspectors of the High Council of Justice No.1635-IX dated July 14, 2021 , the subject of the formation of the Ethics Council submits to the chair of the High Council of Justice a list of candidates for the Ethics Council within 30 days from the date of receipt of the relevant appeal from the chairman of the Supreme Council of Justice.
As part of the Migrant operation, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) identified illegal migrants from Belarus who lived in one of the hostels in Kyiv.

The SBU, from September 1 to September 31, together with the National Police, is carrying out the Migrant operation, which provides for a number of measures to identify persons who have illegally found themselves on the territory of Ukraine, the press service of the SBU told Interfax-Ukraine.

"On September 16, as part of this operation, one of Kyiv hostels was checked, where 12 citizens of the Republic of Belarus were identified. At the same time, law enforcement officers established that two of these citizens had illegally crossed the state border of Ukraine. These persons were invited to the administrative building of the SBU to be interviewed," the SBU said.

The SBU press service added that after the relevant checks, the citizens of Belarus were transferred to the State Migration Service of Ukraine.
In Donbas, for the second time in a day, Russian mercenaries have shelled a peaceful settlement, as a result of which a private house was damaged, none of the people were injured, according to the Ukrainian side of the Joint Center for Control and Coordination of Ceasefire Issues (JCCC).

"For the second time today, the armed formations of the Russian Federation carried out the insidious shelling of a civilian settlement along the contact line. Shelling with the use of 122 mm cannon artillery from the Russian military formations poses a direct threat to the life and health of the civilian population and damages the houses of the civilian population," the press center of the Joint Forces Operation Headquarters reported on Facebook.

So, at 06:40 on September 16, Russian mercenaries fired at Taramchuk settlement with the use of barrel artillery of 122 mm caliber.

"During the verification of the consequences of the shelling by the observation group of the Ukrainian side of the JCCC, the fact of damage to a private house was documented. The walls, windows of the house and the adjacent territory were damaged from the rupture of a 122 mm caliber shell," it says.

No civilians were injured.

The Ukrainian side of the JCCC reported all violations of the ceasefire to the OSCE SMM.

"In the event of a further aggravation of the situation and non-observance of the ceasefire by the Russian military formations, the Armed Forces of Ukraine reserve the right to provide an adequate response with the involvement of forces and means permitted by the Minsk agreements," the Ukrainian side of the JCCC added.
KYIV. Sept 16 (Interfax-Ukraine)  The owners of biogas plants need to create a biofuel exchange to ensure uninterrupted supplies of biomass, Board Chairman of the Bioenergy Association of Ukraine (UABio) Heorhiy Heletukha has said.

"The number of boiler houses and power plants [burning biogas], which today replace the consumption of 4 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year, consumes a huge amount of biomass. Now, unfortunately, we have difficulties with where to buy this biomass, how to buy it... Our biomass market is undeveloped. Therefore, a civilized decision is to create a separate biofuel exchange," he said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Thursday.

He said that the respective bill was developed more than three years ago and has already passed approval several times, but at present it is "frozen at the level of the Ministry of Energy" and is not being submitted to the Cabinet of Ministers. "We ask the legislators: well, take this bill, take it from the Ministry of Energy, register, consider quickly. This is the way to how to saturate the bioenergy of Ukraine with real fuel," the head of the UABio said.

According to him, the exchange will ensure the quality of biomass, delivery guarantees and a reduction in the price of this product. "When there is real competition, prices always go down. This is a very important bill. We ask you to support it," Heletukha said.

As reported, the then acting Minister of Energy and current CEO of NJSC Naftogaz Ukrainy, Yuriy Vitrenko, supports the development of an electronic platform for the purchase and sale of solid biofuels in Ukraine, contributing to a competitive and transparent market for such fuels.

"The mechanism for organizing the biofuel market in Ukraine should be the use of a single electronic platform on which all interested producers and consumers will trade in biofuels," Vitrenko said at a meeting with Minister of Energy of Lithuania Dainius Kreivys in March 2021. During the meeting, the development of biofuels was noted as one of the promising areas of cooperation between the two countries, while the experience of Lithuania in the creation of the Baltpool biofuel exchange is of special interest of Ukraine.
KYIV. Sept 16 (Energy Reform) - The Feed-in-Premium tariff system for producers of "green" electricity will be of interest primarily to bioenergy enterprises, but the Ministry of Energy's bill on this system needs to be improved, Heorhiy Heletukha, the head of the Bioenergy Association of Ukraine (BAU), says.

"In general, we see a prospect in this bill. Perhaps even it is interesting primarily for bioenergy. Therefore, the first step towards the transition to this tariff is to leave the balancing group of Guaranteed Buyer. And it will be easier for bioenergy companies to do this by comparison with solar and wind power generation, because we are more stable," he said at a press conference entitled "Green Tasks for Parliament" at the Interfax-Ukraine agency.

According to him, this bill could have been very relevant a year ago, when there was a low level of settlements with "green" generation, from which bioenergy suffered to a greater extent, feeling an acute shortage of funds for the purchase of raw materials.

At the same time, Heletukha noted that the enterprises of the association as a whole support the bill, but "there are several points that were not pleasant".

"For example, the basic bill stipulates that auctions will give a contract for 20 years. In this bill, if you won the auction, and after that you want to go for contracts for difference, then the term is already 15 years. I think that this is somewhat incorrect - five years have been lost somewhere," the association head noted, adding that the association sent its proposals, including technical amendments, to the ministry.

In turn, the head of the Ukrainian Wind Energy Association, Andriy Konechenkov, also supported the bill, but noted the presence of several risks in it.

"If a company left the Guaranteed Buyer balancing group, but it did not manage to sell as it wanted, then it can go back. But this is not spelled out in the bill," he noted.

He also said that in fact the bill concerns large companies.

"Both wind and solar power plants are responsible for imbalances. But if a small company leaves the Guaranteed Buyer balancing group, it will not be able to answer for them, they will cost much more than the cost of electricity that the company can sell," Konechenkov said.

According to him, it is necessary to continue the discussion on the draft law in order to regulate its norms as much as possible.
KYIV. Sept 16 (Interfax-Ukraine) - Best Water Technology (BWT, Austria), a leading group of companies in the European water purification market, intends to invest, together with its member manufacturer of water filters Ecosoft (Irpin, Kyiv region), up to EUR5 million in the development of the infrastructure for bottling purified water in Ukraine.

BWT's intentions to develop the BWT Aqua project in Ukraine, which is a network of public terminals for bottling purified water - aqua boxes, was announced by Andriy Mitchenko, the CEO and co-owner of Ecosoft, at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine.

He clarified that currently EUR1 million has been invested in the development of the aqua box infrastructure, and in the future it is planned to invest about EUR4 million more.

According to the CEO, the market for bottling purified water through electronic terminals has been developing in Ukraine for almost eight years, during which about 1,200 terminals were installed in the country, of which about a third (400 units) belong to BWT Aqua. Mitchenko noted that about 200 aqua boxes of the company are located in Kyiv and cover an audience of 25,000 regular users, selling 2 million liters of purified water monthly. In addition, the BWT Aqua infrastructure is represented in Odesa, Lviv, Kropyvnytsky, Poltava and a number of other large cities.

"Aqua box is a modern device designed to purify and dispense fresh water into a buyer's bottle. Water enters the aqua box from a water main, after which it is purified using nine technologies, the most important of which are reverse osmosis technology, water enrichment with natural minerals and ultraviolet disinfection," Rostyslav Mudryk, the business developer of Ecosoft/BWT Ukraine, said.

According to him, BWT Aqua terminals are connected to the Internet, which allows operators to fix problems and change the technology of purification of the water supplied to them in real time.

"In addition to installing aqua boxes in supermarkets and near houses, we have an interesting project, when we install a device that makes water chilled and carbonated, we rethink the Soviet soda water machine and place it in parks and in the central streets of large cities," Mitchenko said about one of the company's investment areas.

BWT/Ecosoft is also considering projects to create in small towns and settlements without centralized water supply "new generation pump rooms" for on-site water treatment, which will solve the problem of water shortages in a relatively cheap way.

Mitchenko also noted that the transition of users from bottled water to the consumption of water through the BWT Aqua infrastructure will reduce the annual volume of plastic waste produced by 5.25 kg per person, which will reduce the amount of waste produced in the country and have a positive impact on the environmental situation.

As reported, the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine on December 10 last year allowed BWT Aktiengesellschaft (Austria) to acquire a controlling stake in Ecosoft Holding.

Ecosoft is a manufacturer and distributor of water purification equipment for home and industrial use with production sites in Ukraine and Germany and a wide international presence.

BWT Aktiengesellschaft is the holding company of Best Water Technology, a leading European group in the field of water technologies with a turnover of about EUR670 million in 2017 and 3,600 employees. It offers systems for the purification of drinking water, water for pharmaceuticals and industrial processes, heating and cooling systems, air conditioning and swimming pools.

Ecosoft was founded in Ukraine in 1991. Since 2012, it has been actively supported by the EBRD through consulting and financing programs.

According to the company, its filters are sold in 50 countries of the world. The company has 8,000 square meters of production and storage facilities. Finished goods warehouses are located in four business regions - in Western and Eastern Europe, the United States and Russia.

The company's capacity is 2.6 million filters per year.
White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Jeff Zients delivers remarks during a press briefing at the White House in Washington, U.S. (Photo : REUTERS/Tom Brenner)

The United States is developing a "new system for international travel" that will include contact tracing for when it eventually lifts travel restrictions that bar much of the world's population from entering the country, a senior White House official said on Wednesday.



White House coronavirus response coordinator Jeff Zients told the U.S. Travel and Tourism Advisory Board the administration does not plan to immediately relax any travel restrictions citing COVID-19 Delta variant cases in the United States and around the world.



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Reuters first reported early in August that the White House was developing vaccine entry requirements that could cover nearly all foreign visitors. The White House previously confirmed it was considering mandating vaccines for foreign international visitors.



"The American people need to trust that the new system for international travel is safer even as we - I mean at that point - we'll be letting in more travelers," Zients said on Wednesday, adding it will eventually replace existing restrictions.



"We are exploring considering vaccination requirements for foreign nationals traveling to the United States," Zients said.



Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said at the same meeting that the spike in COVID-19 cases is preventing lifting international travel restrictions. "We want to move to a metrics-based system," Raimondo said. "Before we can do that, we have to get a better handle on the domestic situation, which requires us to get everyone vaccinated."



Zients said the new plan would replace the current restrictions and would be "safer, stronger and sustainable." He did not lay out specific metrics for when the administration might relax restrictions.



"Vaccination rates matter here at home and other countries," Zients said, urging travel companies like airlines to quickly mandate employee vaccines.



Some industry officials fear the Biden administration may not lift travel restrictions for months or potentially until 2022.



The extraordinary U.S. travel restrictions were first imposed on China in January 2020 to address the spread of COVID-19. Numerous other countries have been added, most recently India, in May.



The administration wanted to lift travel restrictions "as soon as we can," Zients said.



CONTACT TRACING



Zients said the new system will include collecting contact tracing data from passengers traveling into the United States to enable the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to contact travelers if exposed to COVID-19.



The Trump administration in 2020 blocked an effort to require airlines to collect contact tracing information from U.S.-bound international passengers after some senior administration officials cited privacy concerns.



Zients said they want the new system to be "ready to press go on" when it is safe to lift restrictions. "We get the importance of this," Zients said.



The United States currently bars most non-U.S. citizens who within the last 14 days have been in the United Kingdom, the 26 Schengen countries in Europe without border controls, Ireland, China, India, South Africa, Iran and Brazil.



The United States separately bars non-essential travel by most non-U.S. citizens at U.S. land borders with Mexico and Canada.



Critics say restrictions no longer make sense because some countries with high rates of COVID-19 infections are not on the restricted list while some countries on the list have the pandemic under control.


Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Army General Mark Milley holds a news briefing at Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, U.S. (Photo : REUTERS/Yuri Gripas/File Photo)

President Joe Biden on Wednesday threw his support behind the top U.S. military officer, Mark Milley, a day after a new book said he went around civilian leaders to place secret calls to his Chinese counterpart over concerns about then-President Donald Trump.



Milley's office pushed back against the report in the book, saying the calls he made as chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff were coordinated within the Pentagon and across the U.S. government.



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According to excerpts of the book, Milley secretly called General Li Zuocheng of the People's Liberation Army twice in the final months of the Trump administration to say the U.S. government was stable. Milley reportedly told Li that the United States was not going to attack China and, if there were to be an attack, he would alert him ahead of time.



The excerpts were reported by the Washington Post on Tuesday.



The calls raised concerns that Milley may have subverted civilian control, but Biden defended him on Wednesday.



"I have great confidence in General Milley," Biden said.



Colonel Dave Butler, a spokesman for Milley, said Milley's calls with Chinese officials and others in October and January were in line with his responsibility to "maintain strategic stability."



"All calls from the Chairman to his counterparts, including those reported, are staffed, coordinated and communicated with the Department of Defense and the interagency," Butler said in a statement. "General Milley continues to act and advise within his authority in the lawful tradition of civilian control of the military and his oath to the Constitution."



He did not directly dispute the report on the contents of the calls.



The Pentagon strongly backed Milley as well.



"The secretary has complete and utter trust and confidence in General Milley and in his role as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff," Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters, while declining to address the book's allegations.



The book, "Peril," by journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, which they said relied on interviews with 200 sources, is due to be released next week.



In a statement on Tuesday, Trump called the story "fabricated." If it was true, he said, Milley should be tried for treason.



"For the record, I never even thought of attacking China," Trump said.



Trump, a Republican, named Milley to the top military post in 2018 but began criticizing him, as well as other appointees and former staffers, after losing the presidential election to Biden in November 2020.



According to the Washington Post, the book also said that Milley called senior officers to review the procedures for launching nuclear weapons and told them that while the president alone could give an order to use them, he had to be involved.



"The meeting regarding nuclear weapons protocols was to remind uniformed leaders in the Pentagon of the long-established and robust procedures in light of media reporting on the subject," Butler said on Wednesday.


Hit Netflix comedy-drama "Sex Education" is back for a third series this week with lead character Otis Milburn "sassier" than before thanks to a secret affair.



The hugely popular show about teenagers trying to figure out their love lives returns to the fictional Moordale secondary school five months after the end of series two, where a new head teacher is seeking to restore order.



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Otis, the awkward teenager turned school sex therapist, is secretly seeing fellow student Ruby after a party hookup in series two.



"Otis has really unfurled his petals this year, and much of that, thanks to ... Ruby, whose really brought out a side to him we haven't really seen so far," actor Asa Butterfield, who plays Otis, told Reuters.



"Older, yes, wiser - a little, sassier."



While there are plenty of laugh out loud moments in the show, Mimi Keene, who plays Ruby, said this season's message is about shame around sex and other aspects of life.



"It's really important because it's one of the worst things to feel," she told Reuters.



"We're really moving forward ... in getting rid of a lot of stigma around certain things, obviously sex ... But just in general, about being who you are and ... being able to be comfortable in your own skin."



The show features plenty of intimate scenes and the cast, who have worked together for several years and have an intimacy coordinator on set, say they are no big deal.



"The intimate scenes for me are the least that I worry about," said Ncuti Gatwa who plays Otis' best friend Eric.



"The intimate scenes to me now are a bit water off a duck's back, I think for all of us.''



While the show is centered around teenagers, the adult characters - including Otis' sex therapist mother - also have their own share of dilemmas.



"Whether you're a teenage girl or whether you're an adult, in the next season we've really demonstrated that the grown ups are just as messed up as the teenagers," Butterfield said.



"Sex Education" season 3 is released on Friday.


Britain's Prince Andrew leaves St Mary the Virgin church in Hillington, near royal Sandringham estate, in Norfolk, Britain (Photo : REUTERS/Chris Radburn/File Photo)

London's High Court said on Wednesday it would take steps if necessary to serve papers on Britain's Prince Andrew in a U.S. lawsuit brought by a woman who accuses him of sexually assaulting her two decades ago.



The prince, Queen Elizabeth's second son, is accused by Virginia Giuffre of assaulting her when she was 17, at a time she says she was being abused by the financier Jeffrey Epstein.



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Andrew, 61, who is officially known as the Duke of York, has rejected the accusations and his lawyers have described the case as baseless. His legal team declined comment.



Last week, Giuffre's legal team said it had tried to serve papers on Andrew by leaving the documents with a police officer at his home in southern England. The prince's lawyers told the U.S. District Court in Manhattan they had not been properly served under English law and the Hague Convention.



A spokesperson for London's High Court said the issue about how claims could be served on parties in different jurisdictions was governed by the Hague Service Convention, which requires requests to be made and approved by the relevant authority in each country.



"The lawyers acting for Ms Giuffre have now provided further information to the High Court, and the High Court has accepted the request for service under the Hague Service Convention," the spokesperson said in a statement.



"The legal process has not yet been served but the High Court will now take steps to serve under the Convention unless service is arranged by agreement between the parties."



Sigrid McCawley, a lawyer representing Giuffre, said the U.S. case against the prince "is and will continue to move forward".



"The ruling by the High Court signals its agreement that the requirements for service have been satisfied," McCawley said in a statement. "And importantly, by directing service, the High Court is putting its own independent, undisputable legal muscle to work in serving Prince Andrew."



MANHATTAN HEARING



At a hearing on Monday in Manhattan, the prince's lawyer, Andrew Brettler, said Giuffre appeared to have in 2009 signed away her right to sue the prince in resolving a separate lawsuit.



"This is a baseless, nonviable, potentially unlawful lawsuit," Brettler said. "There has been a settlement agreement that the plaintiff has entered into in a prior action that releases the Duke and others from any and all potential liability."



Andrew is a former friend of Epstein, a registered sex offender who killed himself in a Manhattan jail in August 2019 after U.S. prosecutors charged him with sexually exploiting dozens of girls and women.



The prince stepped down from royal duties and charities and other organisations distanced themselves from him after a BBC interview in November 2019 about his relationship with Epstein.



He denies having sex or any relationship with Giuffre. Her lawsuit, filed last month, says he forced her to have unwanted sexual intercourse at the London home of Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite and Epstein's longtime associate.



It also said Andrew abused Giuffre at Epstein's mansion on Manhattan's Upper East Side, and on a private island Epstein owned in the U.S. Virgin Islands.



Maxwell has pleaded not guilty to charges she aided Epstein's sexual abuses. She faces a scheduled Nov. 29 trial before U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan in Manhattan.



The next conference for Giuffre's lawsuit is scheduled for Oct. 13.


The logo for electric vehicle startup Rivian is seen on the hood of its new R1T all-electric truck in Mill Valley, California, U.S. (Photo : REUTERS/Nathan Frandino/File Photo)

Rivian, the Amazon.com Inc-backed electric vehicle maker that registered last month for a stock market debut, is aiming to raise between $5 billion and $8 billion with the listing, making it one largest U.S. initial public offerings of recent years, according to people familiar with the matter.



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Rivian, which counts Ford Motor Co and T. Rowe Price among its investors, registered the IPO confidentially with U.S. regulators last month. It is seeking a valuation of about $80 billion in the listing, which is expected to land in late October or November, the sources said.



Rivian declined to comment.



If Rivian raises $8 billion in the IPO, that would rank as the fourth biggest of the past decade in the United States. Only three other companies have raised more than $8 billion in IPOs since 2011, according to Dealogic: Alibaba, which raised a world-record $25 billion in 2014; Facebook, which raised $16 billion in 2012; and Uber, which raised $8.1 billion in 2019.



Proceeds from the IPO will allow Rivian to expand production beyond its assembly plant in Normal, Illinois. The startup has said it is in talks with multiple locations to build a second U.S. factory, which documents viewed by Reuters show would include an investment of at least $5 billion.



Rivian has not provided details on its IPO plans, but it is expected to reveal its finances for the first time in a public filing in the coming weeks.



California-based Rivian is among the most well-funded U.S. startups, having raised $10.5 billion since the start of 2019. Other investors include BlackRock Inc, Soros Fund Management, Fidelity and Saudi auto distributor Abdul Latif Jameel Co (ALJ).



While Rivian has been dubbed as the "Tesla killer" in some quarters, it is still tiny compared with Tesla Inc, which boasts of a market cap of nearly $740 billion and plans to build a pickup truck that would compete with Rivian's own version, the R1T.



Rivian's flotation is expected to round out another record year for U.S. IPOs. Companies have raised more than $230 billion so far this year through share sales, according to data from Dealogic, and are on track to raise tens of billions more before the year ends.



Founded as Mainstream Motors in 2009 by Chief Executive R.J. Scaringe, the company changed its name to Rivian in 2011. "Rivian" is derived from "Indian River" in Florida, a place Scaringe frequented in a rowboat as a youth.


Iran's deputy negotiator Ali Bagheri speaks during a news conference in Almaty (Photo : REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov)

Iran, emboldened by the messy U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, is betting that its new hardline cabinet -- including Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani -- can force concessions in talks on Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.



Bagheri, a hardline senior diplomat, was named on Tuesday to replace Abbas Araqchi, a seasoned pragmatist diplomat and chief negotiator in the negotiations that Tehran hopes will lead to a lifting of U.S. sanctions.



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"Kani is an extension of the hardline deep state that is now in charge across all institutions in Iran and can more readily negotiate with the West as he is not just representing the government but has the empowerment of the inner circle," said Andreas Krieg, associate professor at the School of Security at King's College in London.



"It (the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan) has given the regime in Tehran more confidence in their regional surrogate warfare approach while showing that the U.S. is on the backfoot in the region."



Iran has alarmed Washington and its Gulf Arab allies by relying on proxies in Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon, to steadily spread its influence across the Middle East.



Bagheri, who was named deputy foreign minister for political affairs, had been a senior negotiator in the nuclear talks under former hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from 2007 to 2013. He is a relative of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.



Iran's parliament in late August approved all but one of President Ebrahim Raisi's big-name nominees for a cabinet of hardliners that will have the task of implementing his plans to ease U.S. sanctions and tackle worsening economic hardship.



Indirect talks between Iran and the United States stopped in June, days after Raisi was elected president of Iran. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken last week said time was running out for Iran to return to the nuclear accord.



An official involved in the talks said Iran's enrichment with large numbers of advanced centrifuges is an unresolved issue, as is Iran's demand that it "verify" U.S. compliance before curbing its nuclear program.



This official said verification meant the easing of U.S. sanctions, Iran's export of some of oil and its payment through an international bank before Tehran would take steps to make its program less capable of being used to make nuclear weapons



Western powers on Monday scrapped plans for a resolution criticising Iran at the U.N. atomic watchdog after Tehran agreed to prolong monitoring of some nuclear activities, even though the watchdog said Iran made no "promise" on another key issue.



During a last-minute visit to Tehran this weekend by IAEA chief Rafael Grossi, Iran agreed to grant his agency overdue access to its equipment in Iran that monitors some sensitive areas of its nuclear programme. Inspectors will swap out memory cards more than two weeks after they were due to be replaced. Grossi said on Sunday that the agreement solved "the most urgent issue" between the IAEA and Iran.



He made clear on Monday, however, that on another source of concern - Iran's failure to explain uranium traces found at several old but undeclared sites - he had obtained no firm commitments.



Nicki Siamaki, analyst at Control Risks, said Bagheri's appointment, particularly if he replaces Araqchi as chief nuclear negotiator, could prolong the process of reaching a deal with the United States as his masters would raise the stakes to reach a deal they see meets their conditions.



The 2015 nuclear agreement imposed restrictions on Iran's nuclear activities in return for the lifting of international sanctions against Tehran.



Then-President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the deal in 2018, re-imposing tough economic sanctions on Iran. Tehran responded as of a year later by breaching many of the agreement's restrictions and later enriching uranium to purity levels much closer to weapons-grade.



Mohanad Hage Ali, fellow at the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center, said the Iranian narrative is to persevere with their demands and they will emerge victorious against a weakening United States.



Lebanon's Iranian-backed Hezbollah paramilitary group, he said, has been using the images of people falling from a U.S. plane departing from Afghanistan to suggest that those who bet on U.S. power will suffer the same fate.



"The images from Kabul's airport sent shockwaves, and have consequences," he said.


U.S. President Joe Biden talks with French President Emmanuel Macron at the final session of the G7 summit in Carbis Bay, Cornwall in Britain, (Photo : Doug Mills/Pool via REUTERS)

France accused U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday of stabbing it in the back and acting like his predecessor Donald Trump after Paris was pushed aside from a historic defence export contract to supply Australia for submarines.



The United States, Britain and Australia announced they would establish a security partnership for the Indo-Pacific that will help Australia acquire U.S. nuclear-powered submarines and scrap the $40 billion French-designed submarine deal.



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"This brutal, unilateral and unpredictable decision reminds me a lot of what Mr Trump used to do," Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told franceinfo radio. "I am angry and bitter. This isn't done between allies."



It is the latest dramatic twist in a contest that has seen naval shipbuilding powers battle for years over what many observers called the world's largest single arms export deal.



In 2016, Australia had selected French shipbuilder Naval Group to build a new submarine fleet worth $40 billion to replace its more than two-decades-old Collins submarines.



Just two weeks ago, the Australian defence and foreign ministers had reconfirmed the deal to France, and French President Emmanuel Macron lauded decades of future cooperation when hosting Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison in June.



"It's a stab in the back. We created a relationship of trust with Australia and that trust has been broken," Le Drian said.



French relations with the United States soured during the presidency of Trump, who often irritated European allies by demanding they increase their defence spending to help NATO while reaching out to adversaries like Russia and North Korea.



Diplomats say there have been concerns in recent months that Biden is not being forthright with his European allies.



France's ties with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson have also soured over the UK's exit from the European Union.



Washington's actions in Australia are likely to further strain transatlantic ties, political analysts said. The European Union was due to roll out its Indo-Pacific strategy on Thursday and Paris is poised to take on the EU presidency.



"This is a clap of thunder and for many in Paris a Trafalgar moment," Bruno Tertrais, Deputy Director of the Paris-based think tank the Foundation of Strategic Research said on Twitter, referring to a French naval defeat in 1805 that was followed by a long period of British naval supremacy.



He said it would "complicate the transatlantic cooperation in and about the region. Beijing will benefit."



Biden said on Wednesday France remained a "key partner in the Indo-Pacific zone."



Morrison said Australia looked forward to continuing to work "closely and positively" with France, adding: "France is a key friend and partner to Australia and the Indo-Pacific."



'JAW-DROPPING'



It is the second setback to French defence exports in three months after Switzerland spurned Dassault's Rafale to buy U.S.-made Lockheed Martin F-35 fighters.



Analysts said the loss of the much bigger submarine contract was a significant blow to France, whose experienced arms sales machine had gone all out to wrest the submarine deal from likely winner Japan under then defence minister Le Drian in 2016.



Germany had also been in the race.



The 2016 win came a decade after France radically overhauled the way it handled arms sales following Paris' embarrassment over the loss of a contest to sell fighters to Morocco.



Word of its cancellation dominated Europe's largest arms fair in London where one delegate called it "jaw-dropping".



France's Thales, which analysts say stood to gain about $1 billion from sales of sonars and optronics - the eyes and ears of the French submarines - swiftly reassured investors its 2021 finances would not be hit.



But some analysts warned France's furious reaction over the Australian contract could backfire and noted there had been reports of Australian doubts over the pace of implementation.



Thales, which owns 35% of Naval Group, remains Australia's biggest local defence contractor through a subsidiary.



"Betrayal is the wrong language and hurts France's position in Australia; it can poison the well," said UK-based defence analyst Francis Tusa, adding France would now be more reliant on selling Rafales to secure its place in the global arms market.


Naomi Campbell presents a creation by designer Anthony Vaccarello as part of his Spring/Summer 2020 women's ready-to-wear collection show for fashion house Saint Laurent during Paris Fashion Week in Paris, France, (Photo : REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes)

British model Naomi Campbell is joining international development charity the Queen's Commonwealth Trust (QCT) as a global ambassador to support young leaders.



The trust, founded in 2018, supports young people pushing for change in their communities across sectors including healthcare, environment and education.



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Marking what will be Queen Elizabeth's 70-year reign in 2022, the charity is launching a Platinum Jubilee Fund for Young Leaders to give more support to 18-35 year-old entrepreneurs across the 54 countries of the Commonwealth.



As a QCT Platinum Jubilee Global Ambassador, Campbell's role will be to boost the profile of the trust's fundraising campaign as well as promote the work of its young leaders.



"Regardless of where you are from or where you are now, there are young leaders within your community doing amazing work. Sometimes they are not seen and some of them may not even see themselves as 'leaders' yet, but they all deserve our support, and access to education and resources," Campbell said in a statement.



"I have been doing the work with empowering young people for over 25 years. This is something very close to my heart and I will continue to do everything I can to uplift the next generation, so they can create a better future for their communities."



One of fashion's most recognisable faces, Campbell is also known for her charity work, namely in Africa, which she first began with late South African President Nelson Mandela who named her "honorary granddaughter" for her activist work.



Campbell also founded Fashion For Relief in 2005, which hosts catwalk shows to raise funds for causes including victims of Hurricane Katrina and Typhoon Haiyan.


Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao attends a State Council Information Office news conference in Beijing, China (Photo : REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins)

China has filed an application to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the country's commerce ministry said on Thursday, as the world's second-biggest economy looks to bolster its clout in trade.



Commerce Minister Wang Wentao submitted China's application to join the free trade agreement in a letter to New Zealand's trade minister, Damien O'Connor, the Chinese ministry said in a statement.



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The CPTPP was signed by 11 countries including Australia, Canada, Chile, Japan and New Zealand in 2018.



Before that, it was known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and seen as an important economic counterweight to China's regional influence.



It was central to then-U.S. President Barack Obama's strategic pivot to Asia but his successor, Donald Trump, withdrew the United States from the pact in 2017.



Accession to the CPTPP would be a major boost for China following the signing of the 15-nation Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) free trade agreement last year.



Beijing has lobbied https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/china-lobbies-australia-parliament-joining-regional-trade-pact-2021-09-10 for its inclusion in the pact, including by highlighting that the Chinese and Australian economies have enormous potential for cooperation. However, relations between the two countries have soured.



Britain and Thailand have also signalled interest in joining the CPTPP.



Wang and O'Connor held a telephone conference to discuss the next steps following China's application, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said.


The Egyptian and Libyan transport ministers discussed during a meeting in Cairo on Wednesday enhancing cooperation on land and dry ports, including upgrading Egypt's Salloum and Libya's Musaed land ports.

The two ministers also discussed preparations for signing a number of transport agreements between the two countries, including a land transport deal, according to a statement issued by the Egyptian transport ministry.

Libyan Transport Minister Mohamed Al-Shahoubi, who arrived in Egypt earlier today, stressed his country's keenness to cooperate with Egypt in implementing road, bridge and infrastructure ventures in post-conflict Libya.

During the meeting, Al-Shahoubi heaped praise on the development of the transport system in Egypt and its mega infrastructure projects.

In April, 11 memoranda of understanding were signed between the two countries in Tripoli to boost cooperation ties in various domains, including transport, road infrastructure, and power linkage.

Egyptian PM Mostafa Madbouly said at the time that Egypt plans to establish a marine shipping line linking the Egyptian and Libyan ports as well as resuming flights from Libyan cities to Cairo International Airport.

During Tuesday's meeting, Minister El-Wazir said his ministry will support the Libyan side with a number of specialised engineers to implemented the agreed upon projects.

He also expressed support for expanding the presence of Egyptian construction companies on Libyan soil to help further develop the countrys infrastructure.

In 2011, Libya was plunged into chaos on the heels of NATO-backed uprising that ousted long-time dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

An interim government was established earlier this year to guide the country towards national elections slated for December, after almost six years of being torn between warring administrations, one in the east and one in the west, backed by different powers.

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Egypt is planning to begin vaccinating minors between the ages of 12 and 18 years old against the coronavirus within days, according to Ministry of Health Spokesperson Khaled Megahed, as the country seeks to widen its coronavirus vaccination rollout for school pupils.

The state intends to start vaccinating 12- to 18-year-olds, but the vaccine that will be administered has not been determined yet, Megahed told Newsroom show on Sada Al-Balad TV channel on Wednesday evening.

The vaccine will be determined according to the relevant scientific studies and research, the spokesperson noted.

What I can say is that we will start vaccinating this age group within days.

Vaccination is mandatory for all teaching staff, employees, and workers, as well as students who are 18 or above at lower and higher education institutions in Egypt, with unvaccinated people barred from entering the premises, according to a government decision issued in August.

The governments decision, which comes in parallel with the return of in-person classes at Egyptian schools and universities, did not mention school pupils at the time. Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, however, has assured that, if possible, the countrys vaccination campaign will target high-school pupils.

We seek to achieve high vaccination rates in a short period of time to achieve herd immunity, the president said during an event in September.

Following a year-and-a-half of a hybrid system of in-person and remote classes due to the pandemic, students are set to return to schools and universities in Egypt in October.

Over this period, most students have remained at home, as attendance was optional, with assignments given online, however, pupils who had to take their final high school exams were required to do so in person in June and July.

Egypt is ramping up its efforts to inoculate 40 million citizens by the end of 2021 in parallel with a low priority plan to provide booster shots to those who were inoculated at least 6-8 months ago.

Since the vaccination campaign started earlier this year, nearly 13 million citizens have been vaccinated against COVID-19 in Egypt, which has recorded a total of 293,951 infections, including 16,860 deaths.

The six vaccines that have been administered in Egypt since the beginning of the vaccination campaign earlier this year are Sinopharm, Sinovac, Sputnik V, AstraZeneca, and Johnson & Johnsonm  with the latter two currently reserved for travellers  in addition to the locally-made VACSERA Sinovac vaccine.

Doses of the Pfizer vaccine are scheduled to arrive in Egypt on Thursday evening as well.

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Egypt has welcomed the presidential statement issued Wednesday by the UN Security Council on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) as part of the UN body's commitment to preserving international peace and security.

The UNSC has urged observers of previous GERD negotiations under the African Union's sponsorship, and any other observers to be involved in future dam talks, to continue supporting the negotiation track with a view to reaching a compromise on any outstanding issues, including the technical and legal aspects, said a statement by the Foreign Ministry.

The council has also encouraged Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia to revive African-led GERD negotiations to thrash out a legally binding deal on the dam filling and operation process within a reasonable timeframe, the ministry added.

The ministry noted that the council's statement reaffirms the special importance state members attach to the dam issue, as well as their appreciation of the dire need to contain its grave implications on international peace and security.



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Egypts President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi stressed on Wednesday that drama, education, media, family, and mosques are among the basics of promoting and building awareness.

In a telephone call with TV anchor Youssef El-Husseini during Al-Tasea show on Egypts Channel One, the president stressed that proper education is not limited to obtaining grades but lies in being able to think critically.

El-Sisi also said that drama is capable of depicting awareness in a great way, adding that drama has a more influential effect on audiences and their way of thinking.

Renewal of religious discourse

The president said that the renewal of religious discourse must keep pace with development, stressing that there are constants in religion that are unchangeable.

He said early Muslims used to study religion among other sciences, but their understanding of religion came within a comprehensive vision of the reality they live in, noting that early Muslims were able to deduce and issue rulings consistent with their time and place.

El-Sisi also said that religion cannot be lost, because God sent his messengers and books and will preserve them until judgement day.

He stressed that renewing the religious discourse and raising awareness cannot be done in a year or two.

The idea of being absolutely dependent on religion without thinking has declined in Egypt after 2011, he added.

He affirmed that renewing religious discourse does not mean discussing religious constants like prayers, but jurisprudential matters that must be addressed to keep pace with human development.

Loving the country

El-Sisi said that when it comes to loving ones country, actions speak louder than words.

If we really love our country, we should be ready to fight for it.

The president said that 65 million out of 100 million Egyptians are under the age of 45. If 10 percent of them loved their country and worked hard for it, their impact would be substantial, he added.

I am not undermining the efforts of Egyptians, but if we really love our country, we should work very seriously for it, he said.

It is normal for any person in any place in the world to love his country, but most importantly, does a person love his country with words or is he ready to make sacrifices for it?

Human rights violations, jail complex

El-Sisi assured Egyptians that there are no human rights violations in Egypt, saying that poverty and ignorance over the past few years have undoubtedly led to the appearance of some unethical practices.

No one has the right to offend others by bullying or harassing them, because that is a violation of human rights, he said, stressing the importance of enacting laws to control society and punish those who violate others rights.

What we have gone through over the past ten years is not an easy thing and we should work hard to preserve our stability, he said.

He also unveiled the opening of the biggest jail complex in Wadi Al-Natroun within the coming few days, saying if a person committed a crime, he will not be punished twice.

Within the prison, he will be treated humanely, El-Sisi said.

Decent living conditions and proper medical, humanitarian, and correctional care are provided to any prisoner, El-Sisi said, adding that representatives of judicial bodies will be present in the jail complex.

Egyptian female blacksmith

El-Sisi expressed his deep appreciation for Bossi Saad, the first Egyptian woman to work as a blacksmith in Mansoura governorate.

She is a great woman that did not turn her back on her family and is struggling to support them, he said.

She is working in a tough profession that is rare for a woman to work in.

He wished her success in supporting her children and 14 brothers and sisters, saying that this is a massive burden and that the government will contribute to alleviating the situation because it is their duty to give a hand to people in need.

The woman, who also spoke on the TV programme, expressed how happy she was for talking to President El-Sisi and prayed to God to bless and protect him for the sake of Egypt and its people.

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Egypt and Sudan welcomed a presidential statement issued by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Wednesday encouraging Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia to continue the African Union-sponsored talks on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).

Ethiopia, however, said it will not recognise any claim that may be raised on the basis of this statement.

The UNSC adopted a draft presidential statement on Wednesday encouraging Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan to resume negotiations under the auspices of the African Union to swiftly conclude a deal on Ethiopias controversial mega-dam on the Nile.

The settlement should be a mutually acceptable and binding agreement on the filling and operation of the GERD within a reasonable time frame, the UNSC said in a declaration drafted by Tunisia.

A press release by the Ethiopian foreign ministry on Wednesday welcomed the UNSCs step to direct the GERD issue to the African Union-sponsored negotiations but claimed that the issue is outside of the councils mandate.

It is regrettable that the council [has chosen to impose] itself over an issue of water rights and development that is outside of its mandate, the statement read.

The UNSCs presidential statement came two months after Tunisia submitted a draft resolution on the GERD to the 15-member council, calling on the three countries to finalise the text of a binding agreement on the filling and operation of the GERD within a period of six months.

Tunisia is currently the only Arab member of the 10 elected and non-permanent members of the UNSC. Its draft resolution on the GERD was slammed by Ethiopia in August as inappropriate.

Security Council Report, a non-profit organisation based in New York, said on Wednesday that the council decided to pursue a presidential statement, as members were not able to agree on Tunisias proposed resolution.

In its press release on Wednesday, the Ethiopian foreign ministry slammed Tunisias draft resolution at the UNSC in July as a historic misstep that undermines [Tunisias] solemn responsibility as a rotating UNSC member for Africa.

The ministry also commended the UNSC members who played a part in rectifying breaches against the integrity of the working method of the council in processing the statement.

Taye Atske, Ethiopias permanent representative to the UN, claimed on his Twitter account that the UNSCs presidential statement affirms that the council views the GERD file as a water rights and water development issue.

Egypt and Sudan will be ready for a rule-based order on the Nile Basin, whereby each of the 11 riparian countries will utilise their share from the resource, Atske said, without giving further details.

Qatars Al-Jazeera cited Atske as claiming that the UNSC has issued the statement in a non-binding format.

Egypt welcomes UNSCs statement

Egypt welcomed the UNSCs statement on the GERD on Wednesday, saying that it is of a binding nature.

The statement also obliges Ethiopia to engage seriously and with a sincere political will with the aim of reaching a legally-binding agreement on the filling and operation of the dam in the way mentioned in the security councils presidential statement, a statement by the Egyptian foreign ministry read.

The ministry noted that the councils presidential statement affirms the special importance the security council members attach to the GERD dispute, as well as their appreciation of the need to contain its grave repercussions on international peace and security.

The presidential statement also stems from the UNSC members responsibility to remedy any deterioration in the situation resulting from not paying the necessary attention to it, the Egyptian ministry added.

The members of the UNs top security body, in their Wednesday statement, have invited all observers who would be acceptable to the three parties in the disputed project to continue supporting the negotiations with a view to facilitating a resolution of outstanding technical and legal issues.

The security council calls upon the three countries to take forward the AU-led negotiation process in a constructive and cooperative manner, the statement said.

UNSCs draft statement balanced

Sudan on Thursday hailed the UNSCs presidential statement as balanced and takes into consideration the interests of the three sides, affirming its readiness to engage in the African Union-sponsored talks, Sudans news agency SUNA reported.

The security councils statement also reflects the importance the council attaches to this very important issue and its keenness to find a solution to it in order to avoid its repercussions on security and peace in the region, a statement by the Sudanese foreign ministry read.

Sudan, in its statement, expressed hope that the adoption of the councils presidential statement pushes the three countries into resuming negotiations under the auspices of the African Union.

The Sudanese ministry said the negotiations should be conducted in accordance with a new methodology and tangible political will so that parties sign a binding agreement that takes into consideration [their] interests.

The ministry reiterated Sudans keenness to engage in any operation that leads to the resumption of negotiations among the three parties under the umbrella of the African Union.

This should lead the three countries to reach a binding agreement on the filling and operation of the GERD in accordance with the fifth article of the statement that gives observers a facilitating role in the negotiation process, the Sudanese ministry added.

Resuming AU-sponsored talks

The DR Congos Foreign Minister, Christophe Lutundula, started a visit to Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt this week to discuss arrangements regarding the resumption of the GERD talks. The DR Congo is currently the chair of the African Union.

After concluding his visits to Ethiopia and Sudan, Lutundula has arrived in Egypt on Thursday.

In a meeting on Wednesday, Lutundula handed Sudanese Foreign Minister Mariam Al-Sadiq Al-Mahdi a document on the GERD prepared by a team of joint experts from the Congolese presidency and the AU Commission, SUNA reported.

The document contains a brief of the points of agreement and disagreement among Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia regarding the dam in order for the experts to study them and work on bringing the three countries views closer in a bid to help them reach a satisfying deal.

The three countries have shown willingness to continue the GERD negotiations that have been stalled since April.

Previous rounds of the AU-sponsored talks have collapsed before they could reach an agreement between Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia, with the two downstream countries blaming the talks failure on Ethiopias intransigence.

Given the failed round in April in the Congolese capital of Kinshasa, the two downstream countries proposed the formation of a quartet mediation committee led by the AU that includes the European Union, the United States, and the United Nations.

Ethiopia rejected the proposal, however, accusing both countries of obstructing the AU-sponsored talks.

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Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said on Thursday that Egypt has received a vision and plan from the DR Congo, the current chair of the African Union (AU), on the resumption of the AU-sponsored talks regarding the GERD during the coming period.

Shoukrys remarks were made in a press conference held in Cairo with Christophe Lutundula, the DR Congos foreign minister and deputy prime minister.

The presser comes a day after the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) issued a presidential statement encouraging the three countries to continue the AU-sponsored negotiations regarding the mega-dam.

Lutundula embarked on an official visit to Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt this week to discuss arrangements regarding the resumption of the GERD talks.

Shoukry affirmed Egypts full readiness and flexibility to study the proposals introduced based on the Congolese plan and provide feedback to the DR Congos presidency about this document that will definitely contribute positively to launching the negotiations process again.

He noted that a timeframe for the negotiations should be determined after they are launched.

During the presser, Shoukry affirmed Egypts willingness to receive invitations to resume the AU-sponsored GERD talks with Sudan and Ethiopia at the earliest opportunity, as per the UNSCs statement.

The GERD talks should be supported by the active participation of the international community to back the chair of the African Union and to reach a legally binding solution on the filling and operation of the dam.

Shoukry hailed the UNSCs statement, saying that it has provided important and needed international support that enables the AUs chair to fulfill their duties as a mediator in the GERD negotiations.

The Egyptian FM said this support should also help apply the principle of African Solutions to African Problems and enhance the role of the AUs chair by giving them the chance to resort to international observers agreed upon by the three states.

Shoukry also said that he hopes the African chairmanship will make a suitable decision that meets the aspirations of not only the three countries, but also the international community, now represented in the security council.

The minister highlighted the importance of time in the GERD negotiations as indicated by the UNSCs statement, which called for resuming the talks and reaching a binding agreement within a reasonable time frame.

In the event the political will is present, we will reach an agreement, Shoukry added, affirming that all the technical issues of the GERD file have been discussed in previous sessions.

Lutundula said he and Shoukry held positive discussions, expressing hope that a solution will be reached to the decade long dispute.

The Congolese FM said the three countries are in agreement on the need to resolve African differences within an African framework through African solutions.

In a meeting on Wednesday, Lutundula also handed Sudanese Foreign Minister Mariam Al-Sadiq Al-Mahdi a similar document on the GERD prepared by a team of joint experts from the Congolese presidency and the AU Commission, Sudans news agency (SUNA) reported.

The document contains a brief of the points of agreement and disagreement among Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia regarding the dam in order for the experts to study them and work on bringing the three countries views closer in a bid to help them reach a satisfying deal.

Egypt and Sudan welcomed on Wednesday the UNSCs statement urging the three countries to continue the AU-sponsored talks on the GERD.

The statement came two months after the UNSC held a session on the GERD at the request of the two downstream countries.

Ethiopia, however, said it will not recognise any claim that may be raised on the basis of this statement, claiming that the GERD issue is outside of the councils mandate.

The three countries have shown willingness to continue the GERD negotiations that have been stalled since April.

Previous rounds of the AU-sponsored talks have collapsed before they could reach an agreement between Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia, with the two downstream countries blaming the talks failure on Ethiopias intransigence.

Given the failed round in April in the Congolese capital of Kinshasa, the two downstream countries proposed the formation of a quartet mediation committee led by the AU that includes the European Union, the United States, and the United Nations.

Ethiopia rejected the proposal, however, accusing both countries of obstructing the AU-sponsored talks.

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Egypt and Libya signed on Thursday 14 memoranda of understanding (MoUs) and six executive agreements in several fields during the 11th round of meetings of the Egyptian-Libyan joint higher committee.

Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouy and his Libyan counterpart, interim Prime Minister Abdel-Hamid Dbeibah, attended the meetings and witnessed the signing of the agreements, a statement read.

The MoUs include one between the Central Agency For Organisation and Administration in Egypt and Civil Service in Libya, another to establish a joint commercial committee, and an agreement between the Egyptian Industrial Development Authority and the Libyan Ministry of industry and Minerals.

Other MoUs were signed in the fields of agriculture, social solidarity, civil aviation security, oil and gas, counter-maritime pollution, marine search and rescue, housing, construction, and youth and sports.

A number of agreements and MoUs were inked between the Egyptian private sector and the Libyan government.

An MoU was signed between Libyas Organisation for the Development of Administrative Centres and the coalition of Egyptian companies Orascom Construction, Rowad Modern Engineering, and Hassam Allam Holding.

The Egyptian coalition also signed an agreement with the Libyan Housing and Infrastructure board to construct a third ring road in Tripoli and another agreement with the Libyan Transportation Ministry to provide maintenance for Ajdabiya-Jallu highway.

The Libyan General Electricity Company inked an agreement with the Egyptian coalition of companies to design and supply two gas stations in the cities of Derna and Mellita. A separate agreement was signed to contract a group of Egyptian advisers to the projects of the two stations.

Libya's Central Bank will finance these projects, said Dbeibah, who arrived in Cairo on Wednesday.

The Libyan interim prime minister met with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi on Thursday.

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Egypts President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa discussed in Sharm El-Sheikh on Thursday the latest developments regarding the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) following a UN Security Council presidential statement urging resuming talks, the Egyptian presidency said.

According to the Egyptian presidency, King Al-Khalifa of Bahrain reiterated his country's support and solidarity with Egypt and Sudan including all efforts to safeguard their legitimate rights and water security in the Nile River as well as all efforts to establish a fair and legally binding agreement concerning the filling and operation policies of the dam in a way that prevents harm and benefit all parties involved in accordance with the rules of the international law.

On Wednesday, the UNSC issued a presidential statement urging Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia to continue the African Union-sponsored talks on the GERD, stressing the need to reach a mutually acceptable binding agreement on the filling and operation of the dam within a reasonable time frame.

Aside from the GERD, the Egyptian president and Bahraini king held talks on bilateral cooperation between the two countries, especially in the economic and investment fields.

The two leaders also discussed the latest regional developments, especially in Libya and Afghanistan, in addition to joint efforts to address the repercussions of the coronavirus pandemic.

During their talks, El-Sisi and Al-Khalifa agreed to boost Egyptian-Bahraini cooperation and coordination in a way that helps protect Arab national security and boosts their capabilities in the face of challenges and threats in the region.

According to the Egyptian presidency, El-Sisi stressed Egypts commitment to the security of the gulf region, rejecting any attempt to destabilize it.

The two leaders also talked about developments in the Middle East peace process between Israelis and Palestinians; the Bahraini King praised recent Egyptian efforts to cement the ceasefire deal and the Egyptian initiative to rebuild Gaza.

Both King Al-Khalifa and President El-Sisi also agreed in their talks on the necessity of intensifying international efforts to revive the peace process and to resume negotiations in order to reach a settlement for the Palestinian crisis based on international laws and resolutions.

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Libyas Interim Prime Minister Abdel-Hamid Dbeibah said on Thursday that his presence in Cairo sends a regional message highlighting Egypts great role in the region in particular and the entire world in general.Active political will is the key factor of cooperation between the two countries, Dbeibah added during a joint press conference held here with Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly after signing several memorandums of cooperation between both governments.He asserted that the Libyan Government of National Unity was honored to attend the 11th session of the Egyptian-Libyan Higher Committee that convened after a 12-year halt.It was great honor for me to meet today with President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, Dbeibah said.During the meeting, President El-Sisi asserted the deeply-rooted historical ties binding both countries and noted that he is working during such a critical stage on supporting international efforts aiming to ensure Libyas stability, Dbeibah noted.Dbeibah added that the president said Egypt would only stand with the Libyan people to help them achieve stability and help launch the reconstruction process via joint cooperation.The preparatory committee worked over the past two days on drafting many memorandums of cooperation between various sectors in both countries, he said.He conveyed the greetings of the Libyan people and council to the great Egyptian people, wishing Egypt growth and stability.

From his side , Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said that the Egyptian government is keen on providing all political, logistical and economic support for Libya to complete the country's political road map.



Madbouly said that President Abdel Fattah El Sisi emphasized during his meeting with Dbeibeh that Egypt was keen on supporting all Libyan parties to finalize the political road map and achieve the Libyan people's aspirations for stability, growth and prosperity in the coming phase.



He added that Egyptian and Libyan ministerial delegations agreed to implement several projects in Libya in the fields of energy, electricity, industry, trade, transport, aviation, sports, education, infrastructure and security.



Madbouly noted that also major Egyptian companies participate in carrying out infrastructure projects in Libya.

Meetings of the 11st round of the Egyptian-Libyan joint higher committee in Cairo headed by both PMs witnessing the signing of 14 MoUs and 6 executive agreements in different fields.

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Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly asserted Egypt's support to Iraq in its war against terrorism, reiterating Cairo's backing for all efforts exerted by the Iraqi government to achieve development and enhance security and stability.

The premier's remarks were made during his meeting in Cairo on Thursday with Iraqi Parliament Speaker Mohamed Al-Halbousi in the presence of Egyptian Minister for Parliamentary Council Affairs Alaa El-Din Fouad and Iraqi Ambassador in Cairo Ahmed Nayyef Al-Delimi as well as a number of Iraqi lawmakers.

Mabdouly said Egypt's backing of Iraq was evident in the two presidential visits made by President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi to Iraq this year.

During the meeting, the premier praised the brotherly relations binding Egypt and Iraq which are based on mutual respect, highlighting that his visit to Baghdad in the past year was crowned with an agreement on a number of joint development projects.

Cabinet Spokesman Ambassador Nader Saad said the Iraqi speaker voiced deep appreciation for Egypt, praising the stances of the Egyptian political leadership towards Iraqi issues in various regional and international forums.

Al-Halbousi asserted the importance of exchanging visits between the two countries' officials in the coming period, noting that the Iraqi parliament will support the implementation of a number of joint projects in the coming phase.

Concluding the meeting, Madbouly asserted that he will direct the housing minister to pay a visit to Baghdad to meet with officials in the companies concerned to agree on more projects as part of a mechanism of oil-in-return-for-reconstruction efforts, adding that such projects will be ratified in Iraq's budget for the coming year



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The 15-member regional ECOWAS group already suspended Guinea after Conde's ouster on September 5 by a special forces commander who captured the president and declared a political transition.

ECOWAS sent a mission to Guinea last week to meet with coup leader Lieutenant-Colonel Mamady Doumbouya and on Thursday will review the mission's report and decide on next steps.

"We are required to take informed decisions on these matters," Ghana's President Nana Akufo-Addo, who is also the current chair of ECOWAS, said opening the summit. "I count on your excellencies to help proffer durable solutions to the crisis."

Ghana's Foreign Minister Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey said on Wednesday the coup leaders were probably still not in a position to decide on a timetable for a return to democratic rule.

But the ECOWAS heads of state will take decisions on what they want to see over the next months for progress in Guinea, she said.

"I am not saying that sanctions will be applied but that may happen," Botchwey said.

"The heads of state will... consider the totality of the situation and then come up with decisions on what they will do... to put pressure on the coup makers, the military, to return their country back to constitutional rule."

Guinea's military rebellion has fuelled international concerns over democratic backsliding across west Africa and drawn parallels with Mali, which suffered two coups since August last year.

- No timetable -

Guinea's junta began a four-day series of talks on Tuesday designed to sound out the country's leaders on the path towards civilian rule.

Doumbouya and his ruling officers have so far met political leaders, religious authorities and rights activists, and are due to speak to foreign diplomats, trade unionists and mining executives through to Friday.

When addressing political leaders in Guinea on Tuesday, Doumbouya said the coup was the result of "the failure of the entire political and military class".

He also refused to commit to a timetable to restoring civilian rule.

"The only timetable that counts is that of the Guinean people who have suffered so much," the strongman said.

After seizing power earlier this month, Doumbouya cited rights abuses under Conde and promised a government of "national unity" that will guarantee a transition.

There have been no concrete details on transition plans since, however.

When faced with a similar coup in Mali last year, ECOWAS imposed economic sanctions, but lifted them after the military committed to restoring civilian rule.

But over a year since that putsch, Mali's army is still in power and there are increasing doubts about a pledge to hold elections in February next year.

- Captive Conde -

Public discontent in Guinea had been brewing for months before the coup over the leadership of Conde, 83.

A former opposition figure, Conde became Guinea's first democratically elected president in 2010 and was re-elected in 2015.

But last year, he pushed through a controversial new constitution that allowed him to run for a third term in October 2020.

The move sparked mass demonstrations in which dozens of protesters were killed. Conde won the election but the political opposition maintained the poll was a sham.

The military is currently holding the former president, despite international calls for his release, including from ECOWAS.

Guinea's junta has agreed to the principle of freeing Conde, but the issue remains highly sensitive -- and it is unclear what will happen to the former leader if he is released.

Opposition groups are also opposed to his liberation, citing the danger he might try to regain power.

A poor nation of 13 million people, Guinea has abundant deposits of iron, gold, diamonds and bauxite, the ore used to make aluminium. Mining is the driver of the economy.

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At least 50 rebels and pro-government troops, including a high-ranking officer, have been killed in clashes in Yemen's central province of Al-Bayda, military sources told AFP on Thursday.

"A colonel and 19 other loyalists were killed in the past 24 hours in fighting with the Houthi insurgents in Al-Bayda district," a government military official said, adding that 30 rebels also died.

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The Libyan National Army forces (LNA) said Thursday they are now battling their former allies, Chadian rebels who have sought refuge in southern Libya as they fight the government in Chad's capital, N'Djamena.

The LNA forces led by commander Khalifa Hafter said it launched an operation against the Chadian fighters in the Libyan towns of Tamsah and Tarbo, on the border with Chad.

The clashes, which flared up earlier this week, could further destabilize the wider Sahel region, months after Chadian President Idriss Deby Itno _ who ruled Chad for more than 30 years and became an important ally to Western nations in the fight against Islamic extremism in Africa _ was killed under murky circumstances. The Chadian government blames the rebels for his killing.

LNA's forces, which control eastern and most of southern Libya, said they launched airstrikes on the rebels' positions and sent reinforcement to the border area.

The Chadian rebels _ the Front for Change and Concord in Chad, also known by the French acronym FACT _ reportedly have 1,000 to 1,500 fighters in their ranks.

In April they clashed with Chadian forces north of N'Djamena, leading to the killing of Deby.

It was not clear what caused the fighting, but the rebels claimed that LNA's forces, in cooperation with France, aim to capture or kill their leader, Mahamat Mahdi Ali, who is currently in Libya. They provided no evidence for that claim.

LNA's forces and the Chadian rebels were allies in his failed attempt to capture the Libyan capital of Tripoli from a UN-supported government there.

That campaign lasted 14 months and ended with a cease-fire in 2020, leading to an interim government that is supposed to take Libya into national elections in December.

A UN experts' report earlier this year said the Libyan National army forces used the Chadian rebels to protect oil facilities during his 2019 attack on Tripoli.

Libya has been in turmoil since 2011, when a civil war toppled long-time dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who was later killed.

The country has for years split between rival administrations in the east and the west, each backed by armed groups.

* This story has been edited by Ahram Online

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Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi formed ISGS in 2015 after splitting with Al-Qaeda linked jihadists and pledging allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) group, which at that time controlled swathes of Iraq and Syria.

Sahrawi was "neutralised by French forces," President Emmanuel Macron tweeted early Thursday.

"This is another major success in our fight against terrorist groups in the Sahel," Macron said.

Defence Minister Florence Parly said Sahrawi died following a strike by France's Barkhane force, which battles jihadists across the arid expanses in the Sahel region of Western Africa.

"It is a decisive blow against this terrorist group," she tweeted.

"The attack was carried out a few weeks ago, and today we are certain that it was the Number One of ISGS," Parly told RFI radio later Thursday, without identifying where Sahrawi was killed.

Sahrawi was "the one we were looking for, since he was the uncontested, authoritarian leader with no rival" within the jihadist group, she said.

"When you take out a key link in the chain, you disrupt and weaken these terrorist groups," she said, adding that the second- and third-in-command of ISGS had been "neutralised" over the spring and summer.

String of killings

Sahrawi was behind the killing of French aid workers in 2020 and was also wanted by the United States over a deadly 2017 attack on US troops in Niger.

The group is also blamed for most of the jihadist attacks in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.

The flashpoint "tri-border" area is frequently targeted by ISGS and the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (GSIM) with deadly attacks against civilians and soldiers.

The United States had offered a $5 million reward for information on the whereabouts of Sahrawi, who was wanted over an October 4, 2017, attack in Niger that killed four US Special Forces and four Niger soldiers.

On August 9, 2020, in Niger, the ISGS head personally ordered the killing of six French aid workers and their Niger guides and drivers.

In late 2019, the group carried out a series of large-scale attacks against military bases in Mali and Niger.

A former member of Western Sahara's Polisario Front independence movement, Sahrawi joined Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and had also co-led Mujao, a Malian Islamist group responsible for kidnapping Spanish aid workers in Algeria and a group of Algerian diplomats in Mali in 2012.

The French military has killed several high-ranking members of ISGS under its strategy of targeting jihadist leaders since the start of its military intervention in Mali in 2013.

In June this year, Macron announced a major scaleback in France's anti-jihadist Barkhane force in the Sahel after more than eight years of military presence in the vast region to refocus on counter-terrorism operations and supporting local forces.

"The nation is thinking this evening of all its heroes who died for France in the Sahel in the Serval and Barkhane operations, of the bereaved families, of all its wounded," Macron added in another tweet after Sahrawi was killed.

"Their sacrifice is not in vain. With our African, European and American partners, we will continue this fight."

'Take back control'

The north of Mali fell under jihadist control in 2012 until they were pushed out of the cities by France's military intervention in 2013.

But Mali, an impoverished and landlocked nation home to at least 20 ethnic groups, continues to battle jihadist attacks and intercommunal violence, which often spills over to neighbouring countries.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian reiterated Thursday the need for local governments to step up efforts to wrest back control of vast swathes of the Sahel from the insurgents.

"It's particularly important, especially in Niger, that state actors quickly take back control of territories abandoned to the Islamic State and recover its role, so that daily life can resume with essential services," he told France Info radio.

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EU Executive Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis on Thursday pleaded for urgent reform of the World Trade Organization, saying it was high time for change at the global trade body.

Dombrovskis said he was ready to consider a major shake-up of the WTO's dispute settlement system.

He visited the WTO headquarters in Geneva for a meeting with the organisation's director-general, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

He then set out the European Union's priorities for the future of the WTO, two months before the trade body's ministerial conference, which is to be held in Geneva from November 30 to December 3.

"The face of trade has changed considerably since the foundation of the WTO" in 1995, Dombrovskis said.

"Meanwhile, the rules that govern the organisation have not.

"In its current form and state, the WTO is caught between a rock and hard place. Its negotiating function is paralysed. Its dispute settlement system is frozen."

And he said there was an absence of common purpose among its 164 member states.

"The WTO is in urgent need of reform," said the EU commissioner.

Diplomats and experts alike agree that the global trade body -- which only takes decisions by consensus -- has been stuck in a rut for years and unable to conclude large-scale negotiations.

Former US president Donald Trump's administration neutered the organisation's legal arm by blocking the appointment of any new judges.

His successor Joe Biden has yet to put an end to the paralysis.

Dombrovskis called for reform of the WTO's investment facilitation and subsidy rules, including industrial and agricultural subsidies.

The former Latvian prime minister said trade must play its part in addressing the "big tests of our time -- from health issues to climate change to digital".

Good Vibrations

He said the EU was open to considering "major reforms" of the WTO's Appellate Body dispute settlement system, provided that they make it "more effective and legitimate".

Dombrovskis said the forthcoming 12th ministerial conference must start a serious process of negotiations on reforming the Appellate Body, to be completed before 13th conference.

"We need the United States on board for a meaningful WTO reform," he added.

Revitalising the dispute settlement system is one of Okonjo-Iweala's top priorities.

She also hopes to present the forthcoming ministerial conference with an agreement on fisheries subsidies to show that the WTO can still conclude tricky negotiations.

Dombrovskis said an agreement on the matter was "doable", but stressed that countries which had very large fishing fleets "like China should not be claiming special and differentiated treatment".

He was confident that the November-December meeting in Geneva could achieve "meaningful outcomes", saying there was "good momentum" thanks to the new WTO leadership of Okonjo-Iweala and a Biden administration which seems "much more committed to multilateralism" than Trump.

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Thousands of health workers across France have been suspended without pay for failing to get vaccinated against Covid-19 ahead of a deadline this week, Health Minister Olivier Veran said Thursday.

France's national public health agency estimated last week that roughly 12 percent of hospital staff and around six percent of doctors in private practices have yet to be vaccinated.

"Some 3,000 suspensions were notified yesterday to employees at health centres and clinics who have not yet been vaccinated," Veran told RTL radio.

He added that "several dozens" had turned in their resignations rather than sign up for the jabs.

That compares with 2.7 million health workers overall, Veran said, adding that "continued healthcare is assured."

"A large number of these suspensions are only temporary" and mainly concern support staff, with "very few nurses" among those told to stay home, he said.

Based on figures provided by individual hospitals, the actual number of suspended employees could be higher.

The Paris hospital system said Thursday that 340 workers had been suspended.

Local press reports have cited large numbers at hospitals in smaller cities -- up to 450 in Nice and 100 in Perpignan.

Available figures point to nearly 1,500 suspensions Thursday at just over a dozen hospitals, according to an AFP tally, with dozens more elsewhere across France.

'Pandemic Isn't Over'

Emmanuel Macron gave staff at hospitals, retirement home workers and the fire service an ultimatum in July to get at least one shot by September 15 or face unpaid suspension.

France has also made a Covid "health pass" mandatory for entering cafes, restaurants and many other public places, prompting weekly protests by tens of thousands of people who claim they are being discriminated against.

Many healthcare workers are still avoiding jabs, citing safety or efficacy concerns, raising the spectre of disruptions to services in facilities forced to suspend staff without pay.

Overall, 70 percent of the French have received both doses required to be fully vaccinated, which are available to everyone over age 12 -- one of the highest rates in the world.

But 74 percent have had one dose only, suggesting that many people are holding out against the jabs despite their widespread availability -- and as the more contagious Delta variant spreads worldwide.

While vaccines have helped France limit a "fourth wave" of infections, with fewer than 2,000 Covid patients now in intensive care each day, Veran said it is "too early" to considering lifting the health pass requirement.

"There are still around 10,000 new cases each day -- the pandemic isn't over," he said.

On Wednesday, the health ministry reported 79 Covid deaths over the previous 24 hours, bringing the French total to 115,829.

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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday called France a "vital partner" in Asia after Paris was infuriated by a US-UK pact with Australia that scuppered a major French submarine deal.

"I want to emphasize that there is no regional divide separating the interests of our Atlantic and our Pacific partners," Blinken told reporters.

"We want to find every opportunity to deepen our transatlantic cooperation in the Indo-Pacific and around the world," Blinken said.

"France, in particular, is a vital partner on this."

The United States, Britain and Australia announced a new alliance under which Canberra will be the second country to obtain nuclear submarines with US technology.

Australia said it was scrapping a multibillion-dollar deal for conventional submarines from France after concerns over cost overruns.

Blinken said the United States stood solidly behind Australia, which has faced growing pressure from China.

"Beijing has seen over the past months that Australia will not back down and the threats of economic retaliation and pressure simply will not work," Blinken said.

"The United States will not leave Australia alone on the field or, better yet, on the pitch," he said, using sporting metaphors.

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France called off a gala at its ambassador's house in Washington scheduled for Friday, its US embassy said, following a new defense alliance that resulted in the US supplying Australia with submarines instead of France.

The event was supposed to celebrate the anniversary of a decisive naval battle in the American Revolution, in which France played a key role. However the occasion "has been made more sober," the embassy said, adding that the ambassador's event "has been canceled."

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The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) will launch a series of discussions with Egypt to address the priorities of the next phase following the country's adoption of the UNDPs 2022/2025 strategy in coordination with the Ministry of International Cooperation and government agencies.

The talks will be held through the UNDP office in Egypt, said Khalida Bouzar, the UNDP assistant secretary-general and director of the UNDP Regional Bureau for Arab States.

Bouzar made the announcement during a meeting on Thursday with Egypts Minister of International Cooperation Rania Al-Mashat to discuss joint economic relations between Egypt and the UN and its affiliated organisations.

The meeting is part of the Ministry of International Cooperations endeavours to boost strategic relations between Egypt and its development partners.

Bouzar said the strategic plan is expected to focus on several areas, including gender equality, building resilient communities, governance, energy, environment, and climate change. This is in addition to putting private sector engagement at the forefront.

The UN official referred to the UNDPs endeavours to enhance joint cooperation with Egypt to benefit from its expertise in the official development assistance-sustainable development goals (ODA-SDG) mapping, combating climate change, and ensuring the transfer of this knowledge and expertise to Africa.

Al-Mashat stated that the Ministry of International Cooperation has led national discussions to chart a roadmap for the 2023/2027 UN Partnership Development Framework for Egypt (UNPDF).

This took place with the participation of over 30 governmental entities and UN-affiliated organisations to identify the strategic framework of cooperation during the coming years according to national priorities, Al-Mashat noted.

Al-Mashat also addressed the ministrys mapping of the ODA to the UNs SDGs and its contribution in coordinating the efforts of development partners, as well as the role the map played in pushing forward the national efforts based on the global standards of the UN and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

The Egyptian minister spoke about the profound cooperation between countries of the South and the role this cooperation plays in serving as a crucial factor of multilateralism to achieve sustainable development.

Al-Mashat referred to the importance of revitalising the Academy of South-South Cooperation.

The UNDP was established in 1965 by the General Assembly of the UN. It operates in 170 countries to eradicate poverty, reduce inequalities, and achieve the UN 2030 SDGs.

The UNDPs Regional Bureau for Arab States oversees country programmes across 17 countries, including Egypt.

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The day before he officially recognised the Armenian genocide, which is commemorated on 24 April, US President Joe Biden called Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to notify him. That was the first official phone call he made to his Turkish counterpart after taking office. He later personally met with Erdogan on the fringe of the NATO summit in Brussels, but subsequently dismissed the importance of the meeting.

Erdogan was forced to try other avenues to soften Washingtons shoulder, which his own actions had provoked. He went knocking on the doors of US allies in the Middle East he had previously alienated, in the hope that this would send the right message. In addition to offering Turkish military services to help the US extricate itself from Afghanistan, he also reiterated its desire to join the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) connected to the European Unions security and defence policy.

Still, he would also have to make some gestures related to his arms deals with Moscow. This, he knew, was unavoidable in order to press reset with Washington. In this regard, the Anatolian air is thick with rumours of a frost between Ankara and Moscow against the backdrop of the formers purchase of the Russian-made S-400 missile systems which have been a main source of tension between the US and its European allies in NATO. It appears that Turkey is looking for a way to back out of the S-400 deal. On 24 August, observers cited sources close to Erdogan as saying that Turkey was not ready to buy more S-400s. This contradicted a previous Russian statement that Moscow and Turkey were on the verge of signing a deal for a second consignment of the controversial weapons system. A senior Turkish official said Russia was trying to poison Turkeys relations with the United States by releasing misleading statements.

If so, it looks like the Russians had a second go at this. In late August, Alexander Mikheyev, who heads the Russian arms export agency, Rosoboronexport, said the second batch of S-400s would soon be heading for Turkey.

The announcement reignited concerns in Turkey that Ankara was lured into a trap when it signed onto the S-400 deal, a prospect the opposition had warned of from the outset. [W]hat many feared could now be turning out to be true. Indications are emerging that Moscow may be using the S-400 issue to apply pressure on Turkey at a time when Ankara is trying to improve its ties with the West, writes Samih Idiz in Al-Monitor of 3 September under the title, Is Moscow using the S-400 against Turkey?

French President Emmanuel Macron had warned Turkey, a fellow NATO member, against going through with the purchase, stressing that the S-400s are incompatible with NATO defence systems. At the time he said that members of the same defence organisation cannot go out and buy equipment that goes against interoperability nor carry out unilateral actions that conflict with the collective interests of the alliance.

Idiz cited sources close to the Turkish defence industry who denied that there was a second S-400 deal in the works. One was a defence source who told BBC Turkish: This is a topic that can be discussed at any time, but we have no such request at this stage. Referring to talks between Ankara and Washington on cooperation in Afghanistan, the same source said, the Russian side is either declaring its intention or trying to manipulate the cooperation we are engaged in with the United States.

President Erdogan was uncharacteristically cautious on the subject of the S-400s when reporters asked him about Mikheyevs statement during his flight home from a recent visit to Bosnia Herzegovina and Montenegro. We have no hesitation about dealing with Russia on a second consignment or similar issues. We have taken many steps with Russia whether with regard to the S-400s or other defence industry matters, he told Milliyet newspaper.

As Idiz observed: He refrained from going into details and said nothing to indicate that a deal for the delivery of more S-400s was in the pipeline and would be concluded by the end of the year.

Analysts believe Erdogan is caught between a rock and a hard place with regard to Russia today, Idiz continues. His vision of establishing strategic ties with Moscow to replace Ankaras seriously deteriorated ties with the West has proven to be little more than a pipe dream. Ankara has discovered over these past three years in particular that differences with Moscow and Russia over issues such as Syria, Libya, the Caucasus and Ukraine are not only insurmountable but are also sources of potential tension between the two countries if not managed carefully.

This, indeed, is the fix Erdogan currently himself in with Russia. A spate of foreign policy setbacks with disastrous results on the economy are among the reasons that Ankara has awoken to the fact that it is more dependent on the West than it had thought. It is now trying to work its way back into Western good graces, but Moscow is not making it easy.

The once much-touted notion by Erdogan and his followers that Turkey and Russia could establish strong ties with a view to jointly opposing the West has proven to be the fallacy that it always was, Idiz writes. Made aware of this at a time when it faces serious problems on all sides, Ankara is trying to restore its place in the Western alliance.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 16 September, 2021 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly

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The Justice and Development Party's loss in the Moroccan legislative elections last week culminates a train of defeats the Muslim Brotherhood has sustained since the Egyptian people overthrew them on 30 June 2013.

Other major landmarks in the downward spiral of the Islamist movement are the overthrow of the Omar Al-Bashir regime in Sudan in 2019 and the massive outpourings of jubilant grassroots support for Tunisian President Kais Saied's decisions in July 2021 to dismiss the prime minister and suspend the Ennahda-controlled parliament. Now, Moroccans have reaffirmed the Arab rejection of the Muslim Brotherhood which has proven its total inability to respond to the socio-political needs of the societies in which they rose to power.

We must stress, here, that the Muslim Brotherhood's political debacles all reflect the will of the people. This is undeniable regardless of how much the West chooses to ignore the mass demonstrations that expressed that will, attempting to portray the Muslim Brotherhoods fall in Egypt and Tunisia as a "blow to democracy." Morocco has just delivered a stinging rebuttal to that claim from the ballot box, the foundation and emblem of democratic practice. I wonder what the Western media might come up with in response.

In Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco, the Islamist current rode a wave of popular belief that the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates possessed the long awaited solution to the problems of development that have encumbered Arab societies for decades and that previous regimes had been unable to deal with. Voters fell for the Muslim Brotherhood campaign slogan "Islam is the solution." But they would soon discover the hollowness of its political pledges and promises. Once in power, the Muslim Brotherhood affiliated parties showed that they had no developmental programme or future vision to offer societies yearning to catch up with the 21st century. What they had were retrograde visions mired in the 14th century.

The true nature of Muslim Brotherhood rule in Egypt was exposed within a year. In Tunisia and Morocco the organisations' facades were able to perpetuate their deception longer because they played their cards more carefully. They had learned from the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood's mistake of boasting that it would stay in power for the next 500 years. President Morsi's November 2012 decrees insulating his executive decisions from any legal oversight were a bid towards this end, one that did not stir a Western outcry against a Muslim Brotherhood "blow to democracy." The Egyptian people delivered their answer to this in one of the largest grassroots demonstrations in world history. The organisation's political facades in Tunisia and Morocco saw it as their duty to salvage the movement. But in those countries, too, the people eventually woke up to the deception and delivered their answers in the street in Tunisia and in the ballot box in Morocco. With these answers, the Arab peoples have shown that their position on the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates is one and that the fate of this organisation in Egypt was just the prelude.

The results of the polls in Morocco, where municipal and legislative elections were held at the same time, are a gauge of the magnitude of the Islamist movement's failure. The Justice and Development Party (PJD), which had held 125 seats in the 395 seat parliament, won only 13 seats, a net loss of 112 seats. Moroccan voters had sent it to the bottom of the heap along with the usual marginal parties that, together, won another 10 seats. The opposition soared to the lead, with the National Rally of Independents (NRI) winning 102 seats, the Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM) 87 and the Istiqlal Party 81. Moreover, PJD Chairman Saadeddine Othmani, now the outgoing prime minister, lost in his own constituency to one of the upcoming younger Moroccan politicians.

It appears that voters were so dissatisfied with the PJD's performance that they not only wanted it out of power, they wanted revenge. Othmani received the message and resigned from his party's secretariat. There was a 50 percent turnout for the polls, up seven percent from the 2016 parliamentary elections despite Covid-19 related circumstances. According to the Moroccan Interior Ministry figures, in the southern regions, where the Islamist parties are believed to be more popular than in the north, the turnout was around 66 percent. The voters' retaliation against the party extended to its traditional strongholds.

Following Othmani's resignation, King Mohammed VI tasked the liberal oriented RNI Chairman Aziz Akhannouch with forming a new government, bringing to an end ten years of PJD governments. Now will the Western media call the humiliating defeat the Moroccan people handed to the Muslim Brotherhood too a "coup"?

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Cairo welcomes UNSC presidential statement on GERD



MENA, , Thursday 16 Sep 2021



The UNSC has urged all parties involved to continue supporting the negotiation track

Egypt has welcomed the presidential statement issued Wednesday by the UN Security Council on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) as part of the UN body's commitment to preserving international peace and security.



The UNSC has urged observers of previous GERD negotiations under the African Union's sponsorship, and any other observers to be involved in future dam talks, to continue supporting the negotiation track with a view to reaching a compromise on any outstanding issues, including the technical and legal aspects, said a statement by the Foreign Ministry.



The council has also encouraged Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia to revive African-led GERD negotiations to thrash out a legally binding deal on the dam filling and operation process within a reasonable timeframe, the ministry added.



The ministry noted that the council's statement reaffirms the special importance state members attach to the dam issue, as well as their appreciation of the dire need to contain its grave implications on international peace and security.





https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/423188.aspx
Sisi discusses GERD, regional developments with the King of Bahrain



Ahram Online , Thursday 16 Sep 2021



King Al-Khalifa of Bahrain reiterated his country's support and solidarity with Egypt and Sudan including all efforts to safeguard their legitimate rights and water security in the Nile River



Egypts President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa discussed in Sharm El-Sheikh on Thursday the latest developments regarding the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) following a UN Security Council presidential statement urging resuming talks, the Egyptian presidency said.



According to the Egyptian presidency, King Al-Khalifa of Bahrain reiterated his country's support and solidarity with Egypt and Sudan including all efforts to safeguard their legitimate rights and water security in the Nile River as well as all efforts to establish a fair and legally binding agreement concerning the filling and operation policies of the dam in a way that prevents harm and benefit all parties involved in accordance with the rules of the international law.



On Wednesday, the UNSC issued a presidential statement urging Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia to continue the African Union-sponsored talks on the GERD, stressing the need to reach a mutually acceptable binding agreement on the filling and operation of the dam within a reasonable time frame.



Aside from the GERD, the Egyptian president and Bahraini king held talks on bilateral cooperation between the two countries, especially in the economic and investment fields.



The two leaders also discussed the latest regional developments, especially in Libya and Afghanistan, in addition to joint efforts to address the repercussions of the coronavirus pandemic.



During their talks, El-Sisi and Al-Khalifa agreed to boost Egyptian-Bahraini cooperation and coordination in a way that helps protect Arab national security and boosts their capabilities in the face of challenges and threats in the region.



According to the Egyptian presidency, El-Sisi stressed Egypts commitment to the security of the gulf region, rejecting any attempt to destabilize it.



The two leaders also talked about developments in the Middle East peace process between Israelis and Palestinians; the Bahraini King praised recent Egyptian efforts to cement the ceasefire deal and the Egyptian initiative to rebuild Gaza.



Both King Al-Khalifa and President El-Sisi also agreed in their talks on the necessity of intensifying international efforts to revive the peace process and to resume negotiations in order to reach a settlement for the Palestinian crisis based on international laws and resolutions.



https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/423237.aspx
Egypt, Sudan welcome UNSC statement on GERD, Ethiopia claims it's not binding



Amr Kandil, , Thursday 16 Sep 2021



The settlement should be a mutually acceptable and binding agreement on the filling and operation of the GERD within a reasonable time frame, the UNSC said in a declaration drafted by Tunisia



Egypt and Sudan welcomed a presidential statement issued by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Wednesday encouraging Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia to continue the African Union-sponsored talks on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).



Ethiopia, however, said it will not recognise any claim that may be raised on the basis of this statement.



The UNSC adopted a draft presidential statement on Wednesday encouraging Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan to resume negotiations under the auspices of the African Union to swiftly conclude a deal on Ethiopias controversial mega-dam on the Nile.



The settlement should be a mutually acceptable and binding agreement on the filling and operation of the GERD within a reasonable time frame, the UNSC said in a declaration drafted by Tunisia.



A press release by the Ethiopian foreign ministry on Wednesday welcomed the UNSCs step to direct the GERD issue to the African Union-sponsored negotiations but claimed that the issue is outside of the councils mandate.



It is regrettable that the council [has chosen to impose] itself over an issue of water rights and development that is outside of its mandate, the statement read.



The UNSCs presidential statement came two months after Tunisia submitted a draft resolution on the GERD to the 15-member council, calling on the three countries to finalise the text of a binding agreement on the filling and operation of the GERD within a period of six months.



Tunisia is currently the only Arab member of the 10 elected and non-permanent members of the UNSC. Its draft resolution on the GERD was slammed by Ethiopia in August as inappropriate.



Security Council Report, a non-profit organisation based in New York, said on Wednesday that the council decided to pursue a presidential statement, as members were not able to agree on Tunisias proposed resolution.



In its press release on Wednesday, the Ethiopian foreign ministry slammed Tunisias draft resolution at the UNSC in July as a historic misstep that undermines [Tunisias] solemn responsibility as a rotating UNSC member for Africa.



The ministry also commended the UNSC members who played a part in rectifying breaches against the integrity of the working method of the council in processing the statement.



Taye Atske, Ethiopias permanent representative to the UN, claimed on his Twitter account that the UNSCs presidential statement affirms that the council views the GERD file as a water rights and water development issue.



Egypt and Sudan will be ready for a rule-based order on the Nile Basin, whereby each of the 11 riparian countries will utilise their share from the resource, Atske said, without giving further details.



Qatars Al-Jazeera cited Atske as claiming that the UNSC has issued the statement in a non-binding format.



Egypt welcomes UNSCs statement



Egypt welcomed the UNSCs statement on the GERD on Wednesday, saying that it is of a binding nature.



The statement also obliges Ethiopia to engage seriously and with a sincere political will with the aim of reaching a legally-binding agreement on the filling and operation of the dam in the way mentioned in the security councils presidential statement, a statement by the Egyptian foreign ministry read.



The ministry noted that the councils presidential statement affirms the special importance the security council members attach to the GERD dispute, as well as their appreciation of the need to contain its grave repercussions on international peace and security.



The presidential statement also stems from the UNSC members responsibility to remedy any deterioration in the situation resulting from not paying the necessary attention to it, the Egyptian ministry added.



The members of the UNs top security body, in their Wednesday statement, have invited all observers who would be acceptable to the three parties in the disputed project to continue supporting the negotiations with a view to facilitating a resolution of outstanding technical and legal issues.



The security council calls upon the three countries to take forward the AU-led negotiation process in a constructive and cooperative manner, the statement said.



UNSCs draft statement balanced



Sudan on Thursday hailed the UNSCs presidential statement as balanced and takes into consideration the interests of the three sides, affirming its readiness to engage in the African Union-sponsored talks, Sudans news agency SUNA reported.



The security councils statement also reflects the importance the council attaches to this very important issue and its keenness to find a solution to it in order to avoid its repercussions on security and peace in the region, a statement by the Sudanese foreign ministry read.



Sudan, in its statement, expressed hope that the adoption of the councils presidential statement pushes the three countries into resuming negotiations under the auspices of the African Union.



The Sudanese ministry said the negotiations should be conducted in accordance with a new methodology and tangible political will so that parties sign a binding agreement that takes into consideration [their] interests.



The ministry reiterated Sudans keenness to engage in any operation that leads to the resumption of negotiations among the three parties under the umbrella of the African Union.



This should lead the three countries to reach a binding agreement on the filling and operation of the GERD in accordance with the fifth article of the statement that gives observers a facilitating role in the negotiation process, the Sudanese ministry added.



Resuming AU-sponsored talks



The DR Congos Foreign Minister, Christophe Lutundula, started a visit to Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt this week to discuss arrangements regarding the resumption of the GERD talks. The DR Congo is currently the chair of the African Union.



After concluding his visits to Ethiopia and Sudan, Lutundula has arrived in Egypt on Thursday.



In a meeting on Wednesday, Lutundula handed Sudanese Foreign Minister Mariam Al-Sadiq Al-Mahdi a document on the GERD prepared by a team of joint experts from the Congolese presidency and the AU Commission, SUNA reported.



The document contains a brief of the points of agreement and disagreement among Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia regarding the dam in order for the experts to study them and work on bringing the three countries views closer in a bid to help them reach a satisfying deal.



The three countries have shown willingness to continue the GERD negotiations that have been stalled since April.



Previous rounds of the AU-sponsored talks have collapsed before they could reach an agreement between Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia, with the two downstream countries blaming the talks failure on Ethiopias intransigence.



Given the failed round in April in the Congolese capital of Kinshasa, the two downstream countries proposed the formation of a quartet mediation committee led by the AU that includes the European Union, the United States, and the United Nations.



Ethiopia rejected the proposal, however, accusing both countries of obstructing the AU-sponsored talks.



https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/423209.aspx
Jia Zhangke, one of Chinas most acclaimed directors, recently premiered his new documentary film, "Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue," in Beijing.

Jia Zhangke, veteran director, poses on the set of his new movie "Swimming out Till the Sea Turns Blue," which is scheduled to hit theatres September 19, 2021.[Photo provided to China Plus]

The film presents an intimate portrait of three seminal Chinese writers born in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, each of whom narrates their own story, revealing how they navigated life's hardships to become prominent literary figures.

After attending a premiere in Wuhan earlier this week, some moviegoers of the 2000s generation lauded the director for bringing these historical stories of Chinese society to light.

Though Im quite interested in the stories by writer Yu Hua and Liang Hong, the times they once lived in are quite unfamiliar to me," explained one attendee. "Peers of my generation may clearly feel the distance from that age, so it is movies like this that may take me back to that age, knowing the essence and lifestyle of the then-Chinese society.

Renowned author Yu Hua in the film "Swimming out Till the Sea Turns Blue," scheduled to hit theatres on September 19, 2021. [Photo provided to China Plus]

In addition to featuring interviews with the three acclaimed writers  Jia Pingwa, Yu Hua and Liang Hong  Duan Huifang, daughter of late Chinese author Ma Feng recounted stories about her and her father, highlighting how social transformation in recent decades affected both individuals and the family unit.

"Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue" will hit theatres on the Chinese mainland Sept. 19.

A still from the documentary film, "Swimming out Till the Sea Turns Blue," scheduled to hit theatres September 19, 2021.[Photo provided to China Plus]
Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles told Congress in forceful testimony Wednesday that federal law enforcement and gymnastics officials turned a blind eye to USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassars sexual abuse of her and hundreds of other women.

United States gymnasts from left, Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney, Aly Raisman and Maggie Nichols, arrive to testify during a Senate Judiciary hearing about the Inspector General's report on the FBI's handling of the Larry Nassar investigation on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021, in Washington.[Saul Loeb/Pool via AP]

Biles told the Senate Judiciary Committee that enough is enough as she and three other U.S. gymnasts spoke in stark emotional terms about the lasting toll Nassars crimes have taken on their lives. In response, FBI Director Christopher Wray said he was deeply and profoundly sorry for delays in Nassars prosecution and the pain it caused.

The four-time Olympic gold medalist and five-time world champion  widely considered to be the greatest gymnast of all time  said she can imagine no place that I would be less comfortable right now than sitting here in front of you." She declared herself a survivor of sexual abuse.

I blame Larry Nassar and I also blame an entire system that enabled and perpetrated his abuse, Biles said through tears. In addition to failures of the FBI, she said USA Gymnastics and the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee knew that I was abused by their official team doctor long before I was ever made aware of their knowledge.

Biles said a message needs to be sent: "If you allow a predator to harm children, the consequences will be swift and severe. Enough is enough.

The hearing is part of a congressional effort to hold the FBI accountable after multiple missteps in investigating the case, including the delays that allowed the now-imprisoned Nassar to abuse other young gymnasts. All four witnesses said they knew girls or women who were molested by Nassar after the FBI had been made aware of allegations against him in 2015.

An internal investigation by the Justice Department released in July said the FBI made fundamental errors in the probe and did not treat the case with the utmost seriousness after USA Gymnastics first reported the allegations to the FBIs field office in Indianapolis in 2015. The FBI has acknowledged its own conduct was inexcusable.

Wray blasted his own agents who failed to appropriately respond to the complaints and made a promise to the victims that he was committed to make damn sure everybody at the FBI remembers what happened here" and that it never happens again.

A supervisory FBI agent who had failed to properly investigate the Nassar case, and later lied about it, has been fired by the agency, Wray said.

McKayla Maroney, a member of the gold-medal winning U.S. Olympic gymnastics team in 2012, recounted to senators a night when, at age 15, she found the doctor on top of her while she was naked  one of many times she was abused. She said she thought she was going to die that evening. But she said that when she recalled those memories in a call with FBI agents, crying, there was dead silence.

Maroney said the FBI minimized and disregarded her and the other gymnasts as they delayed the probe.

I think for so long all of us questioned, just because someone else wasnt fully validating us, that we doubted what happened to us," Maroney said. "And I think that makes the healing process take longer.

Biles and Maroney were joined by Aly Raisman, who won gold medals alongside them on the 2012 and 2016 Olympic teams, and gymnast Maggie Nichols. Raisman told the senators that it disgusts" her that they are still looking for answers six years after the original allegations against Nassar were reported.
KYODO NEWS - Sep 16, 2021 - 16:35 | All, Japan

Google LLC expanded its News Showcase service to Japan on Thursday, enabling users to view headlines from more than 40 Japanese newspapers and news agencies that each collect a license fee from the tech giant.

Unlike news content that appears through Google searches, the service allows news organizations to curate and package their coverage on the News Showcase page or app.

The service, already provided in countries in Europe and South America, features national and local Japanese newspapers including The Asahi Shimbun, The Mainichi Shimbun, The Yomiuri Shimbun, The Chunichi Shimbun and Kyodo News, with selected content in multiple languages. License fees are not disclosed.

The News Showcase is available on both desktop and smartphone platforms. Several headlines at a time are packaged by each news organization and link to the stories on their websites. The publishers who keep content behind a paywall can decide whether to allow free access to individual stories or not.

While Google raises massive search advertising revenue, newspaper publishers have struggled due to declines in print circulation and ad revenues in both their print and online offerings. The licensing program is expected to increase revenues and subscriptions for publications.

Google started the News Showcase program last October in Germany and Brazil. Currently, more than 1,000 news outlets such as Reuters and News Corp., the parent company of The Wall Street Journal among other major outlets, have joined the scheme in over a dozen countries.

The tech giant expects to pay $1 billion to news publishers around the world over the three years from Oct. 2020.
Solapur:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi Wednesday defended the introduction of the 10 per cent quota for the general category poor in jobs and education, even as he asked the Congress to clarify what was driving its ongoing allegations on the Rafale fighter jet deal. Addressing a public rally after launching a slew of infra projects here, Modi said the smooth passage of the bill which provides 10 per cent quota for the general category poor in jobs and education in the Lok Sabha is a strong answer by the Parliament to those spreading lies.

Hoping the Rajya Sabha will pass the Bill Wednesday, Modi said the rights of deprived sections, including Dalits and tribals won't be affected because of this bill. He termed the the passage of the bill in the Lok Sabha as a historic step aimed at uplifting the deprived sections. On the passage of the Citizenship Bill, seeking to provide Indian citizenship to non-Muslims from Bangaldesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan, Modi assured people of Assam and North East that their rights will not be curtailed in any way through the bill's provisions.

Modi indicated that alleged middleman Christian Michel, arrested in the AgustaWestland VVIP chopper case, was lobbying for French manufacturer Rafale's rivals in the multi-role aircraft deal.

The onus is on the Congress to come clean on what is driving its allegations on the (Rafale) deal, he said. Citing media reports, Modi said Michel was lobbying for "some other contender" as well.

Congress should answer which leader of their party, now shouting about this (Rafale deal), has a connection with Michel, he said. Modi said the 'chowkidar' (watchdog), has embarked on a campaign to root-out corruption cannot be bought or scared and will continue with his work relentlessly. The 'chowkidar' can pick a wrongdoer even in darkness, he added. Modi launched four-laning of Solapur-Osmanabad section of NH-211, underground sewerage system and three sewage treatment plants and also laid foundation stone of 30,000 houses under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana.
New Delhi:

PRS Legislative Research on Wednesday said the question hour during the Winter Session was one of the least productive and the productivity of Parliament was the third lowest in the present (16th) Lok Sabha. The Lok Sabha was adjourned sine die on Tuesday, while Rajya Sabha's sitting was extended for a day and the session is likely to conclude on Wednesday. "This was one of the least productive Question Hours of the 16th Lok Sabha. Due to disruptions, Question Hour in Parliament functioned for its entire duration on two days," according to data collated by the PRS Legislative Research.

"Lok Sabha has lost a sixth of its time to disruptions, while Rajya Sabha has lost a third of its scheduled time," it said.

As compared to the 14th and 15th Lok Sabha, this Lok Sabha spent more of its productive time on legislative business, it said. Lok Sabha spent 52 per cent and Rajya Sabha spent 17 per cent of its productive time on legislative business, it said.

In the current Lok Sabha, 62 per cent of bills have been discussed for more than two hours. Time spent discussing a bill in Rajya Sabha has remained consistent, with about 25-35 per cent of them being discussed for over two hours.

While duration of discussion on each bill has increased, fewer are being referred to standing committees. The figure comes to 24 per cent.

"More Bills have been introduced and passed in the same session in the 16th Lok Sabha (34 per cent) compared to the 14th Lok Sabha (29 per cent) and 15th Lok Sabha (18 per cent)," the think tank said.

As many as 16 bills were introduced and three were passed during the session by both the Houses.

While 23 per cent of all the Bills passed by Parliament in the 15th Lok Sabha were discussed for more than three hours, 18 per cent were passed with less than 5 minutes of discussion, it said.

(With PTI inputs)

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New Delhi:

Immediately after tendering their resignation from the Assam Cabinet on Wednesday, the three Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) ministers went to the AASU office and paid obeisance at the "Sahid Vedi" (memorial) there. Arriving at the All Assam Students Union (AASU) office 'Sahid Niyas', Agriculture Minister Atul Bora, Water Resources Minister Keshav Mahanta and Food and Civil Supplies Minister Phanibhushan Choudhury paid tributes to the 855 martyrs of the anti-foreigners Assam Movement (1979-1985).

Bora and Mahanta used to lead the AASU as students in the past. The ministers then held a meeting with the AASU leadership, including its chief adviser Dr Samujjal Bhattacharya.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Bora said, "We are with the people of Assam and will join in their struggle to protect their interests at any cost. The AGP was formed by the blood of martyrs who sacrificed their life to protect the existence and identity of the Assamese people. We cannot disrespect their sacrifice by remaining in power when the Centre decided to go ahead with the Citizenship Amendment Bill."A A A "The Centre's obstinacy not to withdraw the bill forced us to take the decision to come out of the government as we cannot go against the interest of the Assamese people."

Guwahati: Asam Gana Parishad (AGP) leaders including Atul Bora leave after tendering resignation as state Ministers to Assam CM Sarbananada Sonowal. AGP quit that BJP-led Assam Govt in protest against #CitizenshipAmendmentBill. pic.twitter.com/oQ1jzIBVvq a ANI (@ANI) January 9, 2019

The three had tendered their resignation to Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal two days after the party pulled out of the BJP-led coalition government in the state over the bill.

The Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2019 was passed in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday. Briefing the mediapersons, Bhattacharya said, "We are happy they came to our office. We reminded them that the AGP was responsible for taking forward the main cause of the Assam Movement for which 855 people sacrificed their lives, many became disabled due to bullet injuries, women were raped."

The AGP pulled out of the state government after its "last-ditch attempt to convince" the Centre to withdraw the proposed legislation failed on Monday. The withdrawal of the AGP, which has 14 MLAs in the 126-member assembly, will not have any immediate effect on the future of the Sarbananda Sonowal-led government that still has the backing of 74 MLAs.

The BJP has 61 members and the party has support from 12 MLAs of the Bodoland People's Front and the sole Independent member.

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New Delhi:

The Supreme Court on Thursday adjourned the hearing in politically sensitive Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land dispute case in Ayodhya till January 29 after All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) lawyer Rajeev Dhavan objected to Justice UU Lalits inclusion in the constitution bench. Dhavan had cited that Justice Lalit had earlier represented one of the parties in the case before the court. On this, Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said that he leaves it to Justice Lalit if he wants to rescue himself from the case. Following this, Justice Lalit recused himself from the five-judge constitution bench set up to hear the matter. Now, a new bench would be constituted by CJI Gogoi that would hear the case on January 29.

Earlier, the Supreme Court had constituted a five-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and comprising Justices SA Bobde, NV Ramana, UU Lalit and DY Chandrachud to hear a bunch of pleas against the 2010 Allahabad High Court judgment that ordered equal distribution of the 2.77-acre land among the Sunni Waqf Board, the Nirmohi Akhara and Ram Lalla.

Also Read | Who is Justice UU Lalit? From Amit Shah to Salman Khan, know all about key court battles fought by this jurist

Besides CJI, the other four justices of the Constitution Bench were in line to be the Chief Justice in the future. When justice Gogois term ends, his successor would be Justice Bobde followed by Justices Ramana, Lalit and Chandrachud.

With Lok Sabha elections approaching the nation, various Hindutva organisations, including the RSS, are demanding the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government to bring an ordinance for the early construction of a grand temple of Lord Ram at Ram Janmabhoomi in Ayodhya.

However, PM Modi had recently rejected the idea of bringing an Ordinance before the judicial process is over. Modi had said that an Ordinance can be brought only after the hearing in the Supreme Court concludes.

In October last year, the Supreme Court had decided to take up the matter on January 4 before the appropriate bench. However, on January 4, the matter was adjourned till January 10 in the hearing the lasted less than a minute.

Also Read | Chirag Paswan warns again: Issues like Ram Temple, triple talaq may harm NDA

During the January 4 hearing, when the matter was last taken up, it was not indicated that the case would be heard by the Constitution Bench. Then Chief Justice Gogoi had adjourned the matter till January 10 saying that it would be taken up by the appropriate bench, as may be constituted.

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Mumbai:

Days after BJP chief Amit Shah's remarks that his party will thrash former allies if a pre-poll alliance did not materialise ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, senior Shiv Sena leader Ramdas Kadam has threatened to bury the BJP.

Kadam, whose party is currently an ally of the ruling BJP at the Centre and in Maharashtra, also noted that the Sena had won 63 seats, out of the total 288, in the 2014 state Assembly polls despite the 'Modi wave'.

"They (BJP) have already lost elections miserably in five states. Don't come to Maharashtra and threaten us or we will bury you. Don't forget that we won 63 seats despite the (Modi) wave," Kadam, who is a minister in the Maharashtra government, told reporters on Tuesday evening.

In a veiled warning to the Sena, Shah had said on Sunday that if an alliance happened, the BJP will ensure victory for its allies, but if it did not, the party will thrash its former allies in the coming Lok Sabha polls.

Asked about the central government's bill to provide 10 per cent reservation in jobs and education for the general category poor, Kadam said there is already quota for the Marathas, Dhangars and Muslims.

"Then how will they give further reservation to everybody? Are these decisions being taken in view of the elections?" he asked.

Dhangars, who are included in the Vimukt Jati Nomadic Tribe (VJNT) category, have been demanding Scheduled Tribe (ST) status for long.

The Lok Sabha had on Tuesday passed the bill to provide 10 per cent reservation in jobs and education for the general category poor with most parties backing the proposed legislation, described by the government as "historic" and in the country's interest.

The Opposition, including the Congress, had dubbed the proposed law as a political gimmick that may not stand judicial scrutiny but came around to support it during voting, underlining the huge political import of the measure aimed at placating upper castes.
New Delhi:

2019 has not begun on a good note for West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. Just 9 days into the year, Soumitra Khan, one of the prominent Trinamool Congress leader deserted the party only to join Banerjees arch rivals  the BJP. Khan joined the BJP in the presence of Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and Mukul Roy, the former confidant of the West Bengal Chief Minister, who joined BJP in 2017. Media reports from Kolkata suggest that there were speculations about Bishnupur lawmakers impending decision. Before formally joining the BJP, Khan had met party chief Amit Shah on Wednesday. At the event, Roy claimed that as many as five leaders from Trinamool Congress are likely to join the BJP.

Khan has been very vocal about his differences with the Mamata Banerjee government. Recently, Khan took to Facebook and said that a cop was trying to murder him. He also claimed that the state government will try to frame him in false cases. He had also expressed desire to work with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Khans decision will not augur well for Mamata Banerjees poll strategy. His decision comes at a time when there are reports that more than 2,000 TMC workers have joined the Congress.

In 2017, Mukul Roy, who was long the second most powerful leader of the Trinamool Congress, joined the BJP on November 3, 2017. Roy had claimed that that people of West Bengal wanted an alternative to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, and will vote the saffron party to power in the next polls. The former railway minister, known for his organisational skills, joined the BJP in the presence of its chief Amit Shah.

Roy had recalled how the TMC forged an alliance with the BJP soon after Banerjee founded it and became a minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. He said the regional party could not have grown without the BJPs support. Rejecting Banerjees charge against the BJP, he had said, "It is not a communal party. It is a secular party. People in Bengal are not happy and are looking for an alternative. The BJP will soon clinch power in the state."

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New Delhi:

After addressing a huge public rally in Maharashtras Solapur, Prime Minister Narendra Modi held an election rally in Agra. At Maharashtras Solapur, PM Modi launched the four-lane of Solapur-Osmanabad section of NH-211, underground sewerage system and three sewage treatment plants. PM Modi also laid the foundation stone for a Rs 1811 crore housing project of 30,000 units under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana. The project will improve connectivity between Solapur and Marathwada region. In Agra, PM Modi launched a scathing against Congress and other opposition parties. Highlights below:

17:44 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In PM Modi in Agra: No one can stop the investigating officers to perform their duties. Offenders will be brought to book.

17:43 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In PM Modi in Agra: Opposition party leaders will have to pay the price of hurling insults at Defense Minister.

17:41 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In PM Modi in Agra: Nirmala Sitharaman's speech in the parliament has them so rattled that they have now started insulting her. Defense Minister's insult tantamount to nation's shame.

17:33 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In PM Modi in Agra: Our defense minister exposed the lies of the opposition parties on the floor of the parliament.

17:30 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In PM Modi in Agra: The rivals are joining hands, just to remove chowkidaar from his post.

17:22 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In PM Modi in Agra: The arch rivals are coming together to stop 'chowkidaar'.

17:18 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In PM Modi in Agra: Let there be 'One Nation One Election'. Politicians should come together to curb unnecessary expenditures.

17:13 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In PM Modi in Agra: Yesterday late night, a historic bill was passed in Lok Sabha. By passing the bill regarding 10% reservation being granted to the economically weaker section in the general category, our principle of Sabka Sath Sabka Vikas has been further strengthened.

17:10 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In PM Modi in Agra: Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas is not a mere slogan but the soul of good governance.

17:09 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In PM Modi in Agra: Opposition parties are spreading lies about GST.

17:04 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In PM Modi in Agra: Within 100 days only, around 7 lakh poor people have been treated or are being treated in hospitals under Ayushman Bharat Yojana, which is also called 'Modi Care' by the people.

17:02 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In PM Modi in Agra: Both Centre and UP Government are working round the clock to strengthen the small businesses.

17:00 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In PM Modi in Agra: The poor people are getting benefited from Ayushmaan Bharat scheme.

16:57 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In PM Modi in Agra: The city of Agra will be under 1200+ CCTV surveillance. This will help the tourism industry to grow.

16:52 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In PM Modi in Agra: I want to inform you that under Namami Ganga Mission, the cleaning of river Yamuna is also our priority.

16:51 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In PM Modi in Agra: Furthering Ease of Living for people of Agra through development works.

16:48 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In PM Modi in Agra: The water projects launched today will transform the lives of the people of Agra.

16:46 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In PM Modi in Agra: I have been working reluctantly to fulfill the aspirations of my countrymen.

16:42 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In PM Modi in Agra: PM Modi inaugurates and lays foundation stone for various development projects in Agra.

16:39 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In PM Modi in Agra: PM Narendra Modi to launch various projects in Agra.

16:37 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath lists the achievements of the government.

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New Delhi:

A massive cut out of actor Ajith collapsed during 'paal abhishekam' (pouring of milk on the cut-out) in Thirukovilur, Tamil Nadu which injured five people.

We are awaiting more updates.

Watch Video Here:

#Watch: Five people injured in Thirukovilur, Tamil Nadu after a cut-out of actor #Ajith collapsed during 'paal abhishekam' (pouring of milk on the cut-out). pic.twitter.com/jazc6eWInV a ANI (@ANI) January 10, 2019

Earlier today, Ajithas fans got into a scuffle inside a theatre in Vellore where his film Viswasam was screening. According to a Mirror Now report, two men were stabbed in the incident by a group of four men. They had gone to a 1.30 am special screening of the film. The two groups clashed while deciding where to sit for the screening. While the perpetrators fled the scene, the victims were rushed to the hospital.

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Washington:

The World Bank on Tuesday projected moderation of global growth from three per cent last year to 2.9 per cent this year, as one of its top officials described the current situation of the world economy as "darkening of the skies". "Global growth is slowing and risks are rising. We think that skies are darkening over the global economy," World Bank Prospects Group Director Ayhan Kose told PTI on the occasion of release of its Global Economic Prospects. According to the report, global economic growth is projected to soften from a downwardly revised 3 per cent in 2018 to 2.9 per cent in 2019 amid rising downside risks to the outlook.

International trade and manufacturing activity have softened, trade tensions remain elevated, and some large emerging markets have experienced substantial financial market pressures, it said. The World Bank said growth among advanced economies is forecast to drop to two per cent this year. Slowing external demand, rising borrowing costs, and persistent policy uncertainties are expected to weigh on the outlook for emerging market and developing economies.

Growth for this group is anticipated to hold steady at a weaker-than-expected 4.2 per cent this year. The January 2019 edition of the report "Darkening Skies", highlights how precarious the current economic juncture is. "In a nutshell, growth has weakened, trade tensions remain high, several developing economies have experienced financial stress, and risks to the outlook have increased," said Shantayanan Devarajan, senior director, Development Economics Vice Presidency, the World Bank Group.

Observing that the outlook for the global economy has darkened, the report said global financing conditions have tightened, industrial production has moderated, trade tensions have intensified, and some large emerging market and developing economies have experienced significant financial market stress.

"Faced with these headwinds, the recovery in emerging market and developing economies has lost momentum. Downside risks have become more acute and include the possibility of disorderly financial market movements and an escalation of trade disputes. Debt vulnerabilities in emerging market and developing economies, particularly low-income countries, have increased,? it said.

Noting that a number of developments could act as a further brake on activity, the report said a sharper tightening in borrowing costs could depress capital inflows and lead to slower growth in many emerging market and developing economies.

Past increases in public and private debt could heighten vulnerability to swings in financing conditions and market sentiment. Intensifying trade tensions could result in weaker global growth and disrupt globally interconnected value chains, it said.

"Robust economic growth is essential to reducing poverty and boosting shared prosperity," said World Bank Group Vice President for Equitable Growth, Finance and Institutions, Ceyla Pazarbasioglu.

"As the outlook for the global economy has darkened, strengthening contingency planning, facilitating trade, and improving access to finance will be crucial to navigate current uncertainties and invigorate growth," said the official. "Designing tax and social policies to level the playing field for formal and informal sectors as well as strengthening domestic revenue mobilization and debt management will be important priorities for policymakers to overcome the challenges associated with informality in developing economies," said Kose.

"As the economic outlook dims, such efforts become even more important," he added.

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New Delhi:

Congress president Rahul Gandhi today addressed a huge rally in Jaipur where he attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi on various issues. On the Rafale deal, Gandhi slammed PM Narendra Modi and said that there will be justice in the deal. aWe wonat disrespect Prime Minister. But if PM Modi has given Rs 30,000 crore to Anil Ambani in the Rafale deal, justice will not be denied. There will be no pressure, no witch hunting,a he said.

Targeting the Prime Minister for not participating in the debate on the multi-crore Rafale jet deal, Gandhi said, "Chowkidaar could not stand in Lok Sabha for a minute during the debate on Rafale issue."

Rahul Gandhi in Jaipur: PM could not even come to Lok Sabha for a short while, Defence Minister Nirmala ji spoke in the house for 2 1/2 hours but we exposed each and every lie. She had no answer to our direct questions. https://t.co/yka4UU9rWL a ANI (@ANI) January 9, 2019

He also targeted Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and said the minister spoke for hours but couldnat defend Rafale deal or Modi. PM Modi was hiding and asked a woman to face the Parliament for him.A "We demand a JPC probe of the Rafale deal," Gandhi said, asserting that Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman could not reply to his questions during the debate on the issue in Lok Sabha.

Rahul Gandhi in Jaipur: CBI Director Alok Verma was removed at midnight. Now Supreme Court said he will be reinstated. We want an inquiry in #Rafaledeal, we want a JPC also. 56 inch ki chhati wale PM Lok Sabha mein 1 minute ke liye bhi nahi aa paye. pic.twitter.com/U65qiVzjPJ a ANI (@ANI) January 9, 2019

Rahul also criticized policies like demonetization and GST and said that the Modi government has destroyed small businesses and farmers. aPM Modi gave the money to Anil Ambani. How much money did you give to youths and farmers and small businesses,a said Rahul Gandhi.A

Addressing the farmers in Jaipur, he promised to waive farm loans in every state if the Congress is voted to power in 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

The Congress president, however, said waiving farm loans is a small step towards addressing the agriculture distress and "a new green revolution (harit kranti) is needed to address the problem."

Rahul Gandhi in Jaipur: PM could not even come to Lok Sabha for a short while, Defence Minister Nirmala ji spoke in the house for 2 1/2 hours but we exposed each and every lie. She had no answer to our direct questions. https://t.co/yka4UU9rWL a ANI (@ANI) January 9, 2019

"We will start food processing units near farms. Mega food parks will be set up and connect with the world," said Rahul Gandhi.

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New Delhi:

As many as 35 Sikh sarpanch and panches (members) have announced their resignations in Pulwama area of south kashmir. The move came after a Sikh youngster was targeted by unknown gunmen a few days back in Tral. The youth later died in the hospital. The All Parties Sikh Coordination Committee (APSCC) said 35 members have decided to quit, but the authorities are yet to accept their resignations.

All those Sikhs who recently won Sarpanchs and Panchs elections, about 25 to 30 in number, have resigned en-masse in Pulwama in view of security concerns, following killing of a Sikh youth in Tral on Friday.

The youth, identified as Simranjeet Singh, is the brother of a sarpanch, APSCC said. Expressing anguish on the alleged silence of pro-freedom leaders over the killing of a Sikh youth by unidentified gunmen in south Kashmirs Tral, the APSCC said some vested interests are trying to harm the centuries old communal harmony in the Valley, according to local media reports.

Singh's elder brother was elected as a sarpanch in recently held panchayat elections.

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New Delhi:

Christian Michel, the alleged 'middleman' in the AgustaWestland VVIP chopper scam, on Thursday moved an application before a special CBI court, seeking permission to make international calls to his family, friends and lawyers. Post that, the court has asked the jail superintendent to submit a report regarding the matter on January 14.

"Christian Michel has moved an application before a special CBI court seeking permission to make international calls to his family, friends and to his lawyers. The court has asked the jail superintendent to submit a report on January 14," the news agency ANI reported.

Christian Michel has moved an application before a special CBI court seeking permission to make international calls to his family, friends and to his lawyers. The court has asked the jail superintendent to submit a report on January 14. #agustawestland (file pic) pic.twitter.com/r5JTXDafEE  ANI (@ANI) January 10, 2019

Read | On Rahul Gandhis Rafale reproach, Modis Augusta pillory: 'Congress-linked middleman.....'

Last week, Delhi's Patiala House Court had sent Michel to judicial custody. In the ED case, Michel was sent to judicial custody till February 26 while in the CBI case, the court sent him to judicial custody till February 27. Michel, who was extradited from Dubai last month, was arrested by the ED on December 22 and sent to a seven-day custody of the agency. He was earlier lodged in the Tihar Jail in a related CBI case.

Interestingly, the court had earlier imposed restrictions on Michel meeting his lawyers in ED custody after the agency alleged that he was misusing legal access by passing chits to the advocates, asking them how to tackle questions on "Mrs Gandhi". The agency sought that Michel be barred from meeting his lawyers in custody, alleging that he was being tutored from outside through his lawyers.

Read | AgustaWestland row: AK Antony defends Rahul and Sonia Gandhi, says they never interfered in deals

Michel is among the three alleged middlemen being probed by the ED and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the AgustaWestland chopper scam case. The others are Guido Haschke and Carlo Gerosa.

The AgustaWestland VVIP Chopper case pertains to the Indian governments deal to purchase 12 AW101 helicopters from AgustaWestland. The deal was signed by the then Congress-led UPA government in February 2010. The choppers were supposed to ferry VVIPs, including the President of India and the Prime Minister.

However, controversies surrounded the deal after reports that Finmeccanica paid a huge amount of money to several officials and politicians to win the VVIP choppers deal with the Indian Air Force.

Read | AgustaWestland Case: Congress says ED an 'embarrassing disaster', BJP asks 'why are you scared'

It was alleged that the some of the technical specifications were changed to help AgustaWestland bag the deal. According to a CBI claim, the deal had cost the taxpayers a loss of approximately Rs 3,666 crore.

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New Delhi:

India on Friday hit back at Pakistan for accusing Indian spy agency RAW of being involved in the November terrorist attack on the Chinese consulate in Karachi, saying it was "fabricated and scurrilous". "We have seen statements in the Pakistani media attributed to the police chief of Karachi making false allegations against India for the terrorist attack on the Chinese consulate in Karachi in November, 2018. We completely reject these fabricated and scurrilous attempts to levy accusations on India. Instead of maliciously pointing fingers at others for such terrorist incidents, Pakistan needs to look inwards and undertake credible action against support to terrorism and terror infrastructure in its territories," a spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi said.

The Karachi police said it has arrested five suspects from a separatist Baloch group for the November 23 attack on the Chinese consulate that killed four people, which they claimed was carried out to "sabotage" the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

At a press conference, Karachi police chief Amir Sheikh said the men arrested confessed to their role in facilitating the three attackers, who were also killed during the attack on the consulate. Shaikh added that the attack was planned in Afghanistan and executed with the help of India's Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).

According to Sheikh, the detainees were linked to the Baloch Liberation Army, a Balochistan-based group which had claimed responsibility for the attack at the time.

What happened?

# In November, 2018, three militants tried to storm the consulate Karachis posh Clifton area but security forces foiled their bid by killing all of them in a gunbattle. The attack also killed two police officials and two visa applicants.

# "The aim was to sabotage the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and create the impression in China that Karachi is not safe," Sheikh said.

India condemned

# India had strongly condemned the terror attack on the Chinese consulate, saying such strikes only strengthen the resolve of the international community to combat terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.

# "There can be no justification whatsoever for any act of terrorism. The perpetrators of this heinous attack should be brought to justice expeditiously," the Ministry of External Affairs had said in a statement last November.

India opposed the CPEC

# India has opposed the CPEC as it passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). The ambitious $60 billion CPEC project connects China's northwestern Xinjiang region to Pakistan's Arabian Sea port of Gwadar.

(With PTI inputs)

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New Delhi:

British Prime Minister lost a key vote on Brexit procedure in Parliament on Wednesday. Rebel Tory MPs have joined forces with Labour to inflict a fresh blow on May's government in a Commons Brexit vote. The results mean the May government will have to come up with fresh plans within three days if her EU withdrawal deal is rejected by MPs next week, reports BBC.

Today's blow to May came a day after MPs on Tuesday voted to scupper a no-deal Brexit. Over 20 MPs from across political parties on Wednesday tabled an amendment that would give the prime minister three days to set out a 'Plan B' if the House voted against her Brexit deal next Tuesday.

While 308 lawmakers supported the amendment, 297 voted against it. The amendment gives MPs the chance to formally put forward alternatives to her deal for the first time, including a people's vote and the Norway and EFTA "soft Brexit" options.

If UK decides on a Norway-style Brexit it would join the EU and join the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and, through the latter, become a member of the European Economic Area (EEA). A country can be a EEA member only if it is in the EU or EFTA.

This arrangement would give UK a full access to the single market, which means there would be no new non-tariff barriers, which would have the least impact on the British economy.

Under the arrangement, though Britain would not be ruled over by the European Court of Justice, it would still have to be held accountable by the EFTA court, which means the UK would not be completely free of EU jurisdiction.

The UK will officially leave the EU on March 29.

(With PTI inputs)

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New Delhi:

Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Director Alok Verma was sacked after a two-hour-long meeting of the Selection Committee. The high-power committee meet took place at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's residence on Thursday. CJI nominee Justice A.K. Sikri of the Supreme Court and Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge, along with PM Modi, are part of the committee. Verma, a 1979-batch AGMUT-cadre IPS officer was removed from the post after a 2-1 decision with Justice Sikri siding with the government.

Verma, whose tenure is to end this month-end, has now been appointed Director General, Fire Service. Kharge opposed the move to sack Verma and gave a six-page dissent note during the meeting and instead asked the panel to compensate him by granting him 77 more days in office as the agency's chief.

ALSO READ: Congress says CVC is working on Modi government's direction, attacks PM over Rafael again

According to sources, Kharge said during the meeting that Verma, who was sent on forced leave, should not be penalised and be given an extension of 77 days for which he was not allowed to attend the office. "It would be grossly unfair not to restore Alok Verma to the full extent of the authority enjoyed by the office of the Director CBI and compensate him by extending his term appropriately to accommodate for the loss of 77 days caused by the illegal orders of the CVC and DoPT on October 23, 2018," he said in his dissent note.

"It is clear that in the case of criminal charges, the burden of proof beyond reasonable doubt. In the four cases where the CVC returns unflattering conclusions, even they admit that there is no proof of any pecuniary benefit, no unimpeachable evidence corroborating the story and the conclusion is arrived at on the basis of circumstantial evidence," he said in his letter to the panel.

Also Read: CBI chief Alok Verma transfers 5 officers after his return to work

Alleging Verma was deprived of his powers wrongfully, the Congress leader in the Lok Sabha demanded the restoration of his full tenure and powers.

"There can be no alternative but to restore unto Alok Verma the full range of authority enjoyed by the office of the Director, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), so as to ensure the independence and neutrality of the CBI," Kharge said.

ALSO READ: IPS Mohit Gupta to head probe against CBI Special Director Rakesh Asthana

During the meeting, Justice Sikri said there are charges against Verma to which Kharge asked "where are the charges", according to the sources.

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New Delhi:

US President Donald Trump has walked out of a meeting with top Democratic leaders, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Senator Chuck Schumer, after they refused to allocate a whopping USD 5.7 billion funding for his controversial US-Mexico border wall plan. "Just left a meeting with Chuck and Nancy, a total waste of time. I asked what is going to happen in 30 days if I quickly open things up, are you going to approve Border Security which includes a Wall or Steel Barrier? Nancy said, NO. I said bye-bye, nothing else works (sic)!" a furious Trump tweeted. The Democrats are refusing to allocate the money, arguing that a wall would be costly and ineffective. Mexico has rejected Trump's demand to pay for the border wall.

Just left a meeting with Chuck and Nancy, a total waste of time. I asked what is going to happen in 30 days if I quickly open things up, are you going to approve Border Security which includes a Wall or Steel Barrier? Nancy said, NO. I said bye-bye, nothing else works!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 9, 2019

ALSO READ | In Donald Trumps tributes for Indian-origin cop, a message for wall



The sharp differences between the Trump administration and the opposition Democrats over border security has resulted in a partial government shutdown, which entered its 19th day on Wednesday, making it the second-longest in history after the 21-day shutdown in 1995-96.

Earlier, Donald Trump had threatened to "entirely close" the Southern border with Mexico and change the immigration laws if the opposition Democrats did not agree to his demand of funding for a border wall. The Trump administration is seeking more than US dollar 5 billion for the construction of the border wall. Trump also threatened to end all US aid to three Latin American countries--Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras-- arguing that these nations have done nothing to stop the flow of illegal immigrants into the US. Donald Trump made a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border to combat illegal immigration and drug trafficking a key campaign promise in the 2016 election when he said it would be paid for by Mexico.

"We will be forced to close the Southern Border entirely if the Obstructionist Democrats do not give us the money to finish the Wall & also change the ridiculous immigration laws that our Country is saddled with. Hard to believe there was a Congress & President who would approve," Trump had said in a series of four tweets.



"The United States looses soooo much money on Trade with Mexico under NAFTA, over 75 Billion Dollars a year (not including Drug Money which would be many times that amount), that I would consider closing the Southern Border a 'profit making operation'," the US President had tweeted.

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Dhaka: Bangladesh and Australia today signed the trade and investment framework arrangement (TIFA) to attract investment and remove trade barriers between the two countries through discussion. Accordingly, Bangladeshi Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi and his counterpart Australian Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment, Dan Tehan have signed a framework on trade and investment between the two countries, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Dhaka said in a statement on Thursday.

The Trade and Investment Framework Arrangement, the first of this kind between Australia and Bangladesh in the last fifty years, is expected to provide a platform for institutionalized economic interactions and to open newer opportunities for trade and investment between the two countries, according to reports. It said a joint working group is expected to offer a mechanism to take forward discussion to realize full potentials of trade and investment. A Joint Working Group (JWG) will be formed under TIFA, with due representations from relevant sectors and sub-sectors, according to a statement from the Bangladeshi high commission in Australia. A big investment team from Australia is scheduled to visit Bangladesh in the first part of next year, according to reports.

This is the second such bilateral trade-related platform for Bangladesh as the country also signed the Trade and Investment Cooperation Forum Agreement with the USA in November 2013.

Sri Lanka: The 16th Governor of the CBSL, Ajith Nivard Cabraal, assumes office

Formed govt, but couldn't command... Ministers of Taliban govt fought inside Rashtrapati Bhavan in Kabul

Australian researchers identifies probable cause of Alzheimers disease
New Delhi: The Indian Coast Guard (Indian Coast Guard) has caught a Pakistani boat entering the border. There were 12 people present on it. All the persons are being arrested and questioned. The boat had entered India's waters illegally. According to reports, the Indian Coast Guard ship 'Rajratan', which monitors infiltrators near the Gujarat border, detected the Pakistani boat 'Allah Pavakal' during the surveillance mission and the coast guard troops immediately seized the boat.

Even after the weather worsened, the Pakistani boat could not escape the surveillance of 'Rajratan'. The boat has been brought to Okha in Devbhoomi Dwarka district of Gujarat for investigation. In another incident, ICG rescued seven fishermen from a sinking boat at Vanakbara in Diu on the night of September 13. The Indian Coast Guard has arrested 'Allah Pavakal' at a time when Delhi Police has arrested six terrorists after foiling a major terror plot by Pakistani intelligence agency ISI.

Two of these terrorists had returned from Pakistan after undergoing training. The terrorists were planning to disrupt Delhi, Maharashtra and UP. With the expose of the module of the terrorists, the connivance of Pak intelligence agency ISI and the underworld came to light. The terrorists were about to carry out attacks during Navratri, Ramlila and Dussehra. The serial bomb blasts were plotted by their uncles in several states including Delhi, UP, Maharashtra. Delhi Police said underworld don Dawood Ibrahim's brother Anis was also part of the team and funding was being done through a different network.

Nitin Gadkari to come to Indore today, state to get several gifts

''Marriage had no effect on my career'', Says Samantha Akkineni

COVID-19 cases in Mizoram a matter of concern for health department
Finally, the wait is over for all the iPhone fans as Apple has launched its latest smartphone, iPhone 13.

There are four smartphone models in iPhone 13 series: iPhone 13, iPhone 13 Mini, iPhone 13 Pro, and iPhone 13 Pro Max. There is a significant amount of changes and updates on the new iPhone that is sure to grab the attention of many people. With the launch of the iPhone 13 series, it sure is on its way to becoming the best smartphone of 2021.

Today, we are talking specifically about iPhone 13 Pro Max. it has got some of the best benchmark scores on its performance and some industry-leading features. Cameras, processors, and battery backup have got the major updates in the new iPhone 13 Pro Max.

Although the phone is yet to be available in Nepal, it is sure to excite Apple fans once it comes in, thanks to upgraded features on the phone. Hence, lets get into the details of the phone.

Specifications

Dimensions Height: 160.80mm

Width: 78.10mm

Depth: 7.65mm

Weight: 240 grams RAM 8GB Storage 128GB/256GB/512GB/1TB Display 6.7 inches Super Retina XDR OLED with ProMotion Resolution 2778*1284 pixels Camera Front: 12 MP, f/2.2, 23mm (wide), 1/3.6

SL 3D, (depth/biometrics sensor)

Rear: 12 MP, f/1.5, 26mm (wide),dual pixel PDAF, sensor-shift stabilisation (IBIS)

12 MP, f/2.8, 77mm (telephoto), PDAF, OIS, 3x optical zoom

12 MP, f/1.8, 13mm, 120 (ultrawide), PDAF

TOF 3D LiDAR scanner (depth) Operating system iOS 15 Chipset Apple A15 Bionic (5 nm) GPU Apple GPU (5-core graphics) Connectivity Wifi 802.11, Bluetooth 5.0, Lightning USB 2.0 Battery Built-in rechargeable Li-ion battery 20W fast charging (upto 50% in 30 minutes) Sensors Face ID, LiDAR scanner, barometer, three-axis gyro, accelerometer, proximity sensor, ambient light sensor Colours Sierra blue, silver, gold, and graphite

Design and display

Photo: Apple

iPhone 13 Pro Max has a similar design to its predecessor iPhone 12 Pro Max but with some minor changes. The phone has a glass back, glass front, and stainless steel frame. The company claims the ceramic shield has made the glass of the phone tougher than any other smartphone out there.

Photo: Apple

The phone comes with a 6.7-inch Super Retina XDR OLED display with an adaptive high refresh rate of up to 120Hz. The display will automatically adjust between 10 to 120Hz refresh rate according to the app you use. This is the first time Apple has introduced a high refresh rate display on iPhone. The phone also has the industry-leading IP68 water resistance certification under its belt. The display also reaches a peak brightness of 1,200 nits which can be very handy while using the phone under sunlight.

Camera

Photo: Apple

Another main upgrade on the phone is the camera. The company claims this phones camera system has got the biggest upgrade ever. Upgrades in hardware as well as in software make the camera in this phone capture brilliant photos and videos. This phone can be the best camera phone in the market at the moment.

Though it has the same set as the iPhone 12 Pro Max, major updates and amazing new features are added to make the photography and videography of the phone amazing and more professional. There is a 12MP triple camera setup on the rear and there is a single 12MP camera on the front.

Photo: Apple

iPhones are always known for their brilliant camera quality and this phone is the pinnacle of all other phones. It now not only can capture macro photographs but also macro videos including slow motion and time-lapse. Similarly, the wide camera can capture 2.2x more light for better photos and videos for better low-light photography while the ultra-wide camera captures 92% more light. This time, there is a night mode on every camera of the phone.

Photo: Apple

There is also a new telephoto camera that features a 77mm focal length and a 3x optical zoom. One of the coolest upgrades of the phone is the cinematic mode. It holds the focus on the subject as they move and automatically adds elegant focus transitions between subjects. The cinematic mode can also anticipate the entry of a new subject on the frame and automatically bring them to the focus. This is the only smartphone on the market that lets you edit the depth effect after you shoot. This can be an interesting feature for all the photographers and videographers out there.

Photo: Apple

Another cool feature of the phone is it can pre-apply your preferred tone and warmth settings to your photos. You can capture 4K videos up to 60fps from both rear and front cameras.

Performance and battery life

Photo: Apple

iPhone 13 Pro Max runs on Apples own iOS 15 operating system and is powered by probably the fastest smartphone chipset A15 Bionic. The phone also has an all-new 5 core GPU that is said to deliver up to 50% faster graphics performance than any other smartphone chip. Combining this with an adaptive 120Hz display, the gaming will absolutely be fun. You can enjoy heavy graphic games without a problem.

Photo: Apple

The battery life of the phone is also supposedly upgraded from the previous generation. It can last up to 22 hours of video playback and up to 95 hours of audio playback. The battery can be charged through a 20W fast charging adapter or a 15W wireless charging.

Storage and connectivity

Photo: Apple

iPhone 13 series has ditched the 64GB variant and the lowest memory storage the phone has is 128GB. There are also 256GB, 512Gb and a mammoth 1TB memory options. The RAM space on the Pro Max version is 8GB regardless of the storage space.

This phone supports nano sim cards. It also supports a 5G network. For further connectivity, it supports a dual-band Wifi 802.11, Bluetooth 5.0, NFC and Lightning, USB 2.0.

iPhone 13 Pro Max comes in four colours: sierra blue, silver, gold, and graphite. The starting price for the iPhone 13 Pro Max version is $1,099 for the base 128GB variant.

Differences within the iPhone 13 series

Photo: Apple

There is no big difference among different phones in the iPhone 13 series. The iPhone 13 Pro Max and iPhone 13 Pro are almost identical and so are iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Mini. The Pro and Pro Max version differ only on the size and battery backup; other features like processor, camera, and the display remains the same. The same goes for iPhone 13 and the mini version. Both these phones have the exact same specifications except for the size and battery backup.

Other differences are given below:

The Pro and Pro Max: The Pro Max series has a triple camera setup while the other has only two.

The Pro versions has a five-core graphics while the other two have four-core graphics.

The Pro versions have 8GB RAM whereas iPhone 13 and Mini have 6GB.

The Pro series has a 1TB memory option.

The Pro series has a higher refresh rate with 120Hz.

The Pro series has a larger battery backup.

Verdict

Regardless of what people say about iPhone, it is undoubtedly the most desired smartphone. Always known for its excellent build quality and tremendous feature, the iPhone 13 series has only reached further heights. Though they are late, they have finally managed to catch up with Android phones with a 120Hz refresh rate display.

Already known for their excellent camera quality, the new upgrades have made people more curious and the cinematic mode is definitely something everyone wants to try. The upgrades on the battery cannot be neglected as well. This improvement on the battery will provide more time for the users to perform their creative works on the phone. Backed up by probably the fastest smartphone processor and mobile chip, this phone can perform tremendous work effortlessly.

Also, see the latest price list of iPhones in Nepal.
Home  Just In  Ozone layer depletion: What factors in Nepal contribute to this? What you should do to minimise this?

Have you ever wondered about the fascinating reason why there is known life on earth only? Yes, it is because of oxygen, but not just the oxygen that you breathe, but also because of the oxygen that protects you from the sun. This oxygen settles and surrounds the earth in a thin layer and helps reduce harmful ultraviolet (UV-B) rays from reaching the earths surface making life possible on earth.

However, due to various reasons, including the urban lifestyle like that of Kathmandu, the ozone layer is depleting day by day. What is ozone layer depletion? What activities in Nepal are causing it? How can you contribute to preserving it?

On the occasion of International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer, we discuss all of them today.

What is the ozone layer?

The ozone layer is a thin layer of the earths atmosphere with a relatively high concentration of ozone (made up of three oxygen molecules or O). This layer ranges from 15 to 35 km in the earths atmosphere, in the lower portion of the stratosphere. It absorbs most of the harmful UV-B rays and protects the earth from harmful rays. This layer also keeps the earth warm enough for humans to live a stable life, even during the night, by absorbing the infrared radiation emitted by the earth.

Representational Image. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

What is ozone layer depletion?

Ozone layer depletion refers to the gradual thinning of the ozone layer in the earths atmosphere. In the name of development, different industrial areas or factories and humans have been producing chemicals compounds releasing chlorine or bromine atoms that made the ozone layer thinner day by day. Ozone layer depletion results in the suns harmful UV-B radiation coming directly, which will be damaging human health as well as all other living things on earth.

For the awareness to protect the ozone layer, September 16 is marked as World Ozone Day, since 1995, following the UN General Assembly in 1994, commemorating the day when the Montreal Protocol was signed. This year, the theme for International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer 2021 is ozone for life.

What in Nepal is causing ozone layer depletion?

More greenhouse gases

The presence of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), hydrofluorocarbon (HFCs) and other nitrogenous gases are the main causes of ozone layer depletion. Though nontoxic nonflammable chemicals, they react with the ozone layer and destroy it. For example, the CFCs react with the O3 and gives chlorine monoxide (ClO) and oxygen (O2). The molecules then linger in the atmosphere and capture more heat, causing the earth to warm up, like inside a greenhouse; hence the name. The reactive atoms of carbon, chlorine, and fluorine are commonly released by spray aerosols, refrigerators, solvents and air conditioners.

An increasing number of industries in Nepal is also contributing some amount of greenhouse gases.

Reduction in stratospheric ozone

When chlorine or bromine come into contact with ozone in the stratosphere, they destroy ozone molecules. Even one chlorine atom can destroy over 100,000 ozone molecules so it needs to be removed from the stratosphere.

Natural causes

The ozone layer has been found to be depleted by certain natural processes such as solar storms and stratospheric wind. But, they do not cause more than 1-2 per cent of the ozone layer depletion. Another factor that can deplete the ozone layer is volcanic eruptions. Nepal also does not have any volcanic mountains, which is why this factor is also negligible in the Nepali context.

Unregulated rocket launches

Many researchers say the unregulated launching of rockets is a huge factor behind the depletion of the ozone layer. The soot and aluminium oxide from rocket fuel expedites ozone depletion. This is why it has been said, if the rocket launches are not controlled in time, it will result in a huge loss of ozone by 2050. But, as Nepal does not have launch pads and is only just starting to get into space research, Nepal is not contributing in this regard.

Ozone layer depletions impact on Nepal

Representational image. Photo: Pixabay

The depletion of the ozone layer, directly or indirectly, has a great impact on human beings and all humans are to blame for this too.

Human beings will be directly exposed to harmful UV-B radiation from the sun due to the depletion of the ozone layer. This can lead to serious health issues among humans, such as skin diseases, cancer, sunburns, cataract, quick ageing and weak immune system.

Strong ultraviolet rays may lead to minimal growth, flowering, photosynthesis in plants. Forests also have to bear the harmful effects of the UV-B rays. It also creates a disturbance in the water cycle process. Planktons are greatly affected by exposure to UV-B rays; though microscopic, they create a large impact on the earths ecosystem.

Solutions to save the ozone layer

So, there is a problem created by human beings. There must be a solution that can be solved by humans as well. In Nepal, this is what you can do:

Avoid using ozone-depleting substances (ODS)

Simply, you can reduce the use of such things that can deplete the ozone. Avoid refrigerators, fridges, air conditioners, fire extinguishers that have CFCs as much as you can.

Minimise the use of fuel-powered vehicles

Vehicles emit large amounts of greenhouse gases that lead to global warming as well as deplete the ozone layer. So, we should minimise the use of vehicles powered by fossil fuels. Nepal can surely make amendments and use more electric vehicles and make green cities.

Use eco-friendly cleaning products :

Many cleaning products people use today have chemicals that release chlorine and bromine. These chemicals get released into the atmosphere and start depleting the ozone layer. This is why, to preserve the life-saving layer, one should opt to use substitute products with natural ingredients.

Do not use nitrous oxide

Nitrous oxide adversely affects the ozone layer. So, people should be made aware of the harmful effects of nitrous oxide and about the products emitting the gas so that its use can be minimised at the individual level as well. In this, if the government can take action and prohibit the use of such chemicals, the effect will be more impactful.
Description

Merchants Hospitality is pleased to announce the return of OktoberFest NYC 2021, New York Citys largest outdoor Oktoberfest festival at their waterfront restaurant & bar, WATERMARK, at Pier 15. This years festivities will kick off Friday, September 10th and will span seven weeks. The open-air, family-friendly festival will run rain or shine all week long. Guests will have access to a variety of activities including ping pong, corn hole, and volley pong on weekdays.

Perched on the edge of the stunning double-level Pier 15 and adjacent to NYCs historic South Street Seaport, guests will have the opportunity to enjoy the temperate early fall weather while taking in the breathtaking views of the Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Williamsburg Bridges. Pier 15 will be transformed into a lively celebration of traditional German foods, Oktoberfest decorations, fun games for the entire family and of course the star of the showauthentic German beers. Expect traditional Hofbrau as well as Weihenstephan and Radeberger beer. Watermarks interior bar will provide a full-service bar in addition to German beer with wine, cocktails, and non-alcoholic beverages.

OktoberFest NYC 2021 is located at Watermark Bar at 78 South Street Pier 15. This is an outdoor event. General admission to OktoberFest NYC 2021 is complimentary. Patrons can RSVP online to confirm attendance, or they can reserve a VIP table or cabana and skip the line for their group with a prepaid deposit. For more information, please visit OktoberFests Website or visit on social media on Instagram or Facebook. #OktoberFestNewYork

OktoberFest NYC 2021 will begin on September 10, 2021 and run through October 24, 2021.Hours of Operations are as follows: Monday - Thursday from 4pm-11pm, Friday from 2pm-12am, Saturday from 11am-12am, and Sunday from 12pm-11pm.
Pecan field day scheduled Sept. 23 in Ada

Media Contact: Brian Brus | Agricultural Communications Services | 405-744-6792 | bbrus@okstate.edu

The states pecan producers are expecting a larger harvest than last year, but still below average due to a cold snap in April, according to an Oklahoma State University Extension specialist.

Weather impacts will be one of several topics discussed at the pecan field day in Ada on Sept. 23, said Becky Carroll, associate Extension specialist in OSUs Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture.

The free event at the Bryant Pecan Farm will include an orchard tour and a presentation of the Bryant familys history. Other scheduled topics include crop insurance, low-input orchard management, weed control and disease-resistant cultivars.

In addition to the freeze, Carroll said producers will examine the effects of pecan scab infections due to high levels of moisture this year. The impact of bagworms on orchards was discussed recently on SUNUP.

The field day is a great opportunity to learn about what is happening around the state and network with other growers, she said.

Producers can earn one continuing education unit (CEU) toward private pesticide applicator licensing at the event. Growers need to sign in with their private applicators number.

The field day is hosted by the Oklahoma Pecan Growers Association, Noble Research Institute and Pontotoc County Extension. More event information and registration is available online or by contacting ssloan@okpecangrowers.com.
Workforce

What will the new Digital Corps look like?

When Chris Kuang was in college, he searched USAJOBS for an entry-level tech job in government. The only thing that came up was an unpaid position installing basic software.

He wants to change that with the new U.S. Digital Corps, a two-year fellowship set to launch with about 30 fellows in 2022, which he co-founded with the intention that it becomes an onramp into public service for young technologists.

Kuang already has experience founding initiatives to bridge divides between young tech talent and government. He helped launch Coding It Forward, a nonprofit aiming to create new pathways for social impact and civic tech for young people, and the student-initiated internship program, Civic Digital Fellowship.

Kuang spoke to FCW in a recent interview about the genesis of and goals for the program. The following conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

FCW: Whats the origin of U.S. Digital Corps?

Chris Kuang: In government, I think one thing that weve always seen is that opportunity hasnt always been available to folks who are just starting out their career.

If you had five or 10 years of experience, great, you had all of these opportunities and on-ramps. But if youre just coming out of school, perhaps, or youve completed a boot camp or apprenticeship program, and youre looking for your first or your second job, you were kind of out of luck. And it wasnt necessarily because there wasnt work for you to contribute, or that kind of background or level of experience wouldnt be valuable in government, the mechanisms didnt exist.

So where the Digital Corps came from is that realization that the need in government is significant, and that early career technologists have a way of contributing, whether theyre software engineers or data scientists or really any number of technical fields.

FCW: How does it differ from other tech-centered tour-of-duty programs like the U.S. Digital Service, 18F and the Presidential Innovation Fellows program?

Kuang: The Digital Corps is designed to attract folks for whom it might be their first job, not just in government, but their first job, full stop. I think that is really unique. One of the long-term goals for the program is to be able to build a bridge for these folks to kick-start a career in public service.

Some of the existing programs have a tour-of-duty model, which has been very successful... One thing we hope to add to this ecosystem is perhaps that longer-term pathway.

Were looking at about 30 or so in our first iterations in 2022 with our cohorts and partner agencies, but  we believe that it can scale perhaps a magnitude higher than that to really be meeting the size of the gap in the tech workforce.

FCW: How are you planning on competing in a tight market for tech talent?

Kuang: What the federal government can compete on and has done a really fantastic job and been successful with for a long time is competing on mission, on impact and on the work that is possible only here in government.

We feel strongly that theres a unique opportunity, a moment in time, and I think a broader recognition than there has been in the past, that technology is crucial in the effective operation of our government. Its effect can be seen in really any interaction that folks are having today, and that impacts our view and our trust in our public institutions.

I think that is a mission and a line of work that a lot of folks will be attracted to. And I think that were seeing that on college campuses, were seeing that with the number of organizations that have been stood up in recent years, that folks who are studying technology are looking for these elements. Theyre looking for their work to be meaningful, and I think the Digital Corps is designed to bridge the supply of talent thats wanting and has been wanting to get involved and the agencies and assets of federal government that have been looking for this talent for a long time.

FCW: What will fellows work on? Will they have dedicated projects over their two-year stints, or will they work on multiple initiatives?

Kuang: Were hoping that the Digital Corps fellows will be working on high-impact projects, many of which might be aligned to priorities across government. So whether its coronavirus response, or economic recovery, racial equity, cybersecurity -- a laundry list of items that touch technology.

We expect them over the course of their two years to have multiple opportunities on different areas within that agency to contribute on different projects or to understand different initiatives, but there also might be fellows who really find a niche and say, hey this is project where I have a unique value add and I want to contribute for the duration over two years.

We dont necessarily have a preference, other than ensuring that the fellow has the opportunity to contribute in whatever way their skillset and interests would add the most value It will vary from agency to agency, from project to project as it does, but were confident that fellows will be working on really high-impact work and meaningful initiatives.

FCW: What details can you give about the benefits and pay will fellows get?
IT Modernization

How do Americans feel about federal tech?

Sixty-eight percent of Americans agree that investments in federal IT are usually worth it, according to a new national survey by MeriTalk and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

The survey probes how the government has fared in adapting to a digital world, delivering services during the pandemic and protecting Americans personal data online, as well as what efforts might help.

So, how effective is the federal government at adapting to the digital world?

About half of Americans, 47%, think its somewhat effective. Twenty-one percent said its extremely or very effective, but 31% said it isnt effective at all or isnt very effective.

In terms of ongoing pandemic response, a minority gave the federal government high marks for effectively connecting people with services like unemployment insurance and food assistance. Only 26% of surveyed Americans said they thought the federal government extremely or very good at making these connection. Twenty percent said it wasnt effective at doing this at all, and 52% said it was somewhat effective.

Of those who had interacted with online government services from Social Security or disaster relief agencies over the past year, about half, 49%, said that they were either very or somewhat satisfied with the website or apps ease of use. Slightly more, 52%, were satisfied with the availability of information about the service they were getting, and 48% expressed satisfaction with their ability to submit applications or documents online.

When it comes to finding and using online services, 81% of Americans said the government should expend at least moderate effort on making it easier for the public to take advantage of online programs and services like student financial aid and natural disaster assistance, according to the survey.

If the government did take measures to improve online services, 78% said that increasing the number of services offered online would have some impact on them personally.

Another high scorer: sending personalized notifications like reminders to submit documents. Thirty seven percent said it would have a major impact on them.

Americans gave the federal government lower marks on data protection efforts.

When asked how satisfied they were with current federal efforts to protect privacy and security of personal data online, only 23% said they were very or somewhat satisfied. More, 38%, were dissatisfied.

As to how the government could improve online data security, Americans agreed with imposing stronger punishments for cyber criminals, with 80% supporting that measure.

Seventy-four percent also expressed support for national standards on the collection, processing and sharing of personal data, and 72% agreed with increasing investments in federal cybersecurity measures.

Other measures  partnering with businesses to share information on data and cyber threats, treating data privacy as a national security issue and reducing the amount of personal data collected by government agencies  also all scored at least 65% in support.
Fosler Construction is a leading U.S. provider of construction services for the solar energy sector

Strategic acquisition expands B&Ws reach to capitalize on robust solar projects pipeline

B&W to acquire 60% of Fosler Construction

AKRON, Ohio, September 15, 2021--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Babcock & Wilcox Enterprises, Inc. ("B&W" or the "Company") (NYSE: BW) announced today that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire a majority ownership stake in Illinois-based solar energy contractor Fosler Construction Company Inc. ("Fosler Construction"), significantly enhancing its capabilities in solar energy. The transaction is expected to close at the end of September 2021, subject to customary closing conditions.

Fosler Construction will be part of B&Ws Renewable segment and will continue to be led by its Chief Executive Officer Paul Fosler, who will retain a minority ownership in the company.

Fosler Construction provides commercial, industrial and utility-scale solar services and owns two community solar projects in Illinois being developed under the Illinois Solar for All program. Founded in 1998 and employing approximately 120 people, it recently ranked in the top 10 percent of Inc. 5000s listing of the nations fastest-growing private companies. The company has a track record of successfully completing solar projects profitably with union labor and aligning its model with a growing number of renewable project incentives in the U.S. The company is positioned to capitalize on the high-growth solar market in the U.S., with a near-term pipeline of more than 1 gigawatt of solar capacity.

"This transaction aligns with B&Ws aggressive growth and expansion of our clean and renewable energy businesses," said Kenneth Young, B&W Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. "Fosler Construction is an established leader in the commercial and utility solar business, and were excited about the many opportunities we see to work together to capitalize on a North American solar market that is expected to have a high rate of growth over the next five years."

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"B&Ws strong presence in the energy industry will provide the synergies and scale to support Fosler Constructions growth, including sales and operational support, and the resources of a larger parent company. Fosler Constructions expertise in the growing solar market, combined with B&Ws access to its existing customer relationships and resources to support larger projects, will allow us to aggressively pursue our ongoing renewable energy expansion and diversification. Were thrilled to welcome the Fosler Construction employees to the B&W family," Young said.

Fosler Construction CEO Paul Fosler said, "Fosler Construction has more than 20 years of construction experience and a dedication to supporting the growth of clean energy in the U.S. Were proud of the work weve done and the great team of employees at Fosler who will continue to be a critical part of our success going forward. We believe this transaction will help propel our growth to take advantage of the significant solar installation pipeline we have on the near-term horizon, and were excited to join with B&W, which has more than 150 years of experience in energy and environmental technologies and a strong, highly experienced leadership team."

About Babcock & Wilcox

Headquartered in Akron, Ohio, Babcock & Wilcox is a global leader in energy and environmental technologies and services for the power and industrial markets. Follow us on LinkedIn and learn more at www.babcock.com.

About Fosler Construction

With more than 100 operational solar installations across the state of Illinois and active projects in New York, Virginia and Maryland, Fosler Construction is an experienced industry leader, committed to provide forward-thinking solar solutions with union labor, outstanding service, and the highest quality construction available in the solar industry. Fosler is headquartered in Illinois with a satellite office in NY.

Forward-Looking Statements

B&W cautions that this release contains forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, statements relating to our ability to close on the planned acquisition of Fosler Construction and the timing of such closing, the expected growth of the North American solar market, and the benefits expected to be achieved following the acquisition of Fosler Construction, including our ability to explore new opportunities in the U.S. power sector, propel our growth and take advantage of the solar installation pipeline. These forward-looking statements are based on managements current expectations and involve a number of risks and uncertainties, including, among other things, our ability to satisfy the conditions to closing and to consummate the planned acquisition of Fosler Construction, the impact of COVID-19 on the Company; the reaction of customers, suppliers and stockholders to the announcement or consummation of the acquisition; risks that the acquisition disrupts current plans and operations of the parties to the transaction; the amount of the costs, fees, expenses and charges related to the acquisition; the capital markets and global economic climate generally; and the other factors specified and set forth under "Risk Factors" in the Companys periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the Companys most recent annual report on Form 10-K and its quarterly reports on Form 10-Q for the quarters ended March 31, 2021 and June 30, 2021. If one or more of these risks or other risks materialize, actual results may vary materially from those expressed. These forward-looking statements are made based upon detailed assumptions and reflect managements current expectations and beliefs. While the Company believes that these assumptions underlying the forward-looking statements are reasonable, the Company cautions that it is very difficult to predict the impact of known factors, and it is impossible for the Company to anticipate all factors that could affect actual results. We caution readers not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this release, and we undertake no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, except to the extent required by applicable law.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210915006012/en/

Contacts

Investor Contact:

Megan Wilson

Vice President, Corporate Development & Investor Relations

Babcock & Wilcox

704.625.4944 | investors@babcock.com

Media Contact:

Ryan Cornell

Public Relations

Babcock & Wilcox

330.860.1345 | rscornell@babcock.com
FILE PHOTO: Trade visitors walk past an advertisement for BAE Systems at Farnborough International Airshow in Farnborough, Britain

LONDON (Reuters) - British defence company BAE Systems, which makes nuclear submarines for the UK, said it was ready to support a new defence partnership between the United States, Australia and Britain called AUKUS.

"As a company with a significant presence in all three markets we stand ready to support the AUKUS discussions as they progress," a spokeswoman for BAE Systems said in a statement on Thursday.

Under the new AUKUS deal, Australia will build eight nuclear-powered submarines.

(Reporting by Sarah Young; Editing by Alistair Smout)
NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / September 16, 2021 / Bernstein Liebhard, a nationally acclaimed investor rights law firm, reminds investors of the deadline to file a lead plaintiff motion no later than November 15, 2021 in a securities class action lawsuit that has been filed on behalf of investors who purchased or acquired the securities of The Boston Beer Company, Inc. ("Boston Beer" or the "Company") (NYSE:SAM) from April 22, 2021 through September 8, 2021 (the "Class Period"). The lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York alleges violations of the Securities Act of 1934.

If you purchased Boston Beer securities, and/or would like to discuss your legal rights and options please visit The Boston Beer Company Inc Shareholder Class Action Lawsuit or contact Rujul Patel toll free at (877) 779-1414 or rpatel@bernlieb.com

According to the complaint, Boston Beer issued materially false and/or misleading statements and failed to disclose adverse facts pertaining to the Company's business, operations, and prospects. Boston Beer specifically failed to disclose to investors: (1) that Boston Beer's hard seltzer sales were decelerating; (2) that, as a result, Boston Beer was reasonably likely to incur inventory write-offs; (3) that the Company was reasonably likely to incur shortfall fees payable to third party brewers; (4) that, as a result of the foregoing, Boston Beer's financial results would be adversely impacted; and (5) that, as a result of the foregoing, Defendants' positive statements about the Company's business, operations, and prospects were materially misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis.

On July 22, 2021 after the market closed, the Company reduced its full year 2021 guidance, expecting earnings per share between $18 and $22, down from a prior range of $22 and $26. Boston Beer cited softer-than-expected sales in the hard seltzer category and overall beer industry and also stated that it had "overestimated the growth of the hard seltzer category in the second quarter."

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On this news, the price of Boston Beer shares fell $246.54, or 26%, to close at $701.00 per share on July 23, 2021, on unusually heavy trading volume.

On September 8, 2021, after the market closed, the Company withdrew its 2021 financial guidance, citing decelerating sales of hard seltzer products. The Company also stated that it "expects to incur hard seltzer-related inventory write-offs, shortfall fees payable to 3rd party brewers, and other costs" for the remainder of fiscal 2021.

On this news, Boston Beer's share price fell $21.09, or 3.7%, to close at $538.31 per share on September 9, 2021, on unusually heavy trading volume.

If you wish to serve as lead plaintiff, you must move the Court no later than November 15, 2021 . A lead plaintiff is a representative party acting on behalf of other class members in directing the litigation. Your ability to share in any recovery doesn't require that you serve as lead plaintiff. If you choose to take no action, you may remain an absent class member.

If you purchased Boston Beer securities, and/or would like to discuss your legal rights and options please visit https://www.bernlieb.com/cases/thebostonbeercompanyinc-sam-shareholder-class-action-lawsuit-fraud-stock-438/apply/ or contact Rujul Patel toll free at (877) 779-1414 or rpatel@bernlieb.com

Since 1993, Bernstein Liebhard LLP has recovered over $3.5 billion for its clients. In addition to representing individual investors, the Firm has been retained by some of the largest public and private pension funds in the country to monitor their assets and pursue litigation on their behalf. As a result of its success litigating hundreds of lawsuits and class actions, the Firm has been named to The National Law Journal's "Plaintiffs' Hot List" thirteen times and listed in The Legal 500 for ten consecutive years.

ATTORNEY ADVERTISING.  2021 Bernstein Liebhard LLP. The law firm responsible for this advertisement is Bernstein Liebhard LLP, 10 East 40th Street, New York, New York 10016, (212) 779-1414. The lawyer responsible for this advertisement in the State of Connecticut is Michael S. Bigin. Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome with respect to any future matter.

Contact Information:

Rujul Patel

Bernstein Liebhard LLP

https://www.bernlieb.com

(877) 779-1414

rpatel@bernlieb.com

SOURCE: Bernstein Liebhard LLP





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(Bloomberg) -- Commodity superpower Cargill Inc. is starting to pay American farmers to adopt growing practices that boost soil health and trap carbon.

The biggest closely held U.S. company says such farming methods, known as regenerative agriculture, will create new revenue streams for farmers and allow customers who buy packaged goods from Cargill to meet sustainability goals.

The sequestration of carbon helps eliminate man-made greenhouse gas emissions, and farmers could play an important role in slowing climate change by using more environmentally-friendly growing techniques. Agriculture accounts for 10% of all U.S. emissions.

While other companies including Indigo Ag have started paying farmers for capturing carbon, Cargill says its reach from the field to finished products such as meat and animal feed give it an advantage.

We are acting as a bridge between farmers and consumer packaged goods companies, Ben Fargher, vice president of sustainability at Cargill, said by phone. We need to produce food and deliver an environmental outcome together.

Cargills program is part of a commitment to advance regenerative-agriculture practices across 10 million acres of North American land by 2030. Techniques include growing cover crops, which are planted after principal crops to help reduce erosion. So far, farmers have enrolled in the program for states including Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Arkansas, Missouri and Tennessee.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.

2021 Bloomberg L.P.
NEW YORK, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Castle Brands, the Pernod Ricard owned marketer of premium and super-premium beverage alcohol brands, will assume responsibility for Irish Distillers' experimental, super-premium Method and Madness Irish Whiskeys in the U.S. effective Oct. 1, 2021.

Castle Brands (PRNewsfoto/Pernod Ricard USA)

Nick Papanicolaou, CEO of Castle Brands, said the explosive popularity of Irish Whiskey in the U.S. has led to increased consumer demand for new offerings, and Method and Madness has shown great potential that will be enhanced by Castle Brands' entrepreneurial approach. "Castle Brands is all about providing a customized marketing approach for promising brands by giving them the focus needed to build impactful activation plans that create long term value," he said. Papanicolaou added that Method & Madness will nicely complement Castle Brands' existing portfolio, which includes Goslings Rum, Ginger Beer and RTD products, as well as Ramazzotti, Our/New York Vodka and Our/Los Angeles Vodka.

Simon Fay, Director of Business Acceleration of the Pernod Ricard-owned Irish Distillers brand company, said Castle Brands' local brand building expertise and energy will help build awareness and trial for Method and Madness with a new generation of U.S. whiskey drinkers. "Method and Madness seeks to push the boundaries of the Irish whiskey category, and Castle Brands will help accelerate our journey, to the benefit of our consumers and customers," he said.

Taking inspiration from the famous Shakespearean quote, 'Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't'', Method and Madness is designed to reflect a next generation Irish spirit brand with a measure of curiosity and intrigue (MADNESS), while honoring the tradition and expertise grounded in the generations of expertise at the Midleton Distillery (METHOD).

The Method and Madness range currently available in the U.S. includes three Irish Whiskeys, each with its own twist; a Single Grain Irish Whiskey Finished in Virgin Spanish Oak; a Single Pot Still Irish Whiskey Finished in French Chestnut; and a Single Malt Irish Whiskey enhanced with French Limousin Oak.

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About Castle Brands

Castle Brands is a developer and international marketer of premium and super-premium brands including Goslings Rums, Goslings Stormy Ginger Beer and Goslings Dark 'n Stormy RTD, as well as Ramazotti, Our/New York Vodka and Our/Los Angeles Vodka. The company was acquired in 2019 by Austin Nichols & Co. Inc., a subsidiary of Pernod Ricard S.A. Additional information concerning Castle Brands is available on the Company's website, www.castlebrandsinc.com.

About Irish Distillers

Pernod Ricard-owned Irish Distillers is Ireland's leading supplier of spirits and wines and producer of some of the world's most well-known and successful Irish whiskeys. Led by Jameson Irish whiskey, the world's best-selling Irish whiskey, Irish Distillers' brands are driving the global renaissance of Irish whiskey and are exported to more than 130 markets. At the core of everything done by Irish Distillers is a passion for its craft, a commitment to sustainability and an ambition to create drinks that can be enjoyed the world over. Irish Distillers employs more than 600 people across its operations in Cork, Dublin and Belfast.

About Pernod Ricard

Pernod Ricard is the world's No 2 in wines and spirits with consolidated sales of 8,448 million in FY20. Created in 1975 by the merger of Ricard and Pernod, the Group has undergone sustained development, based on both organic growth and acquisitions: Seagram (2001), Allied Domecq (2005) and Vin&Sprit (2008). Pernod Ricard, which owns 16 of the Top 100 Spirits Brands, holds one of the most prestigious and comprehensive brand portfolios in the industry, including: Absolut Vodka, Ricard pastis, Ballantine's, Chivas Regal, Royal Salute, and The Glenlivet Scotch whiskies, Jameson Irish whiskey, Martell cognac, Havana Club rum, Beefeater gin, Malibu liqueur, Mumm and Perrier-Jouet champagnes, as well Jacob's Creek, Brancott Estate, Campo Viejo, and Kenwood wines. Pernod Ricard's brands are distributed across 160+ markets and by its own salesforce in 73 markets. The Group's decentralized organization empowers its 19,000 employees to be true on-the-ground ambassadors of its vision of "Createurs de Convivialite." As reaffirmed by the Group's strategic plan, "Transform and Accelerate," deployed in 2018, Pernod Ricard's strategy focuses on investing in long-term, profitable growth for all stakeholders. The Group remains true to its three founding values: entrepreneurial spirit, mutual trust, and a strong sense of ethics, as illustrated by the 2030 Sustainability and Responsibility roadmap supporting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), "Good times from a good place." In recognition of Pernod Ricard's strong commitment to sustainable development and responsible consumption, it has received a Gold rating from Ecovadis. Pernod Ricard is also a United Nations' Global Compact LEAD company. Pernod Ricard is listed on Euronext (Ticker: RI; ISIN Code: FR0000120693) and is part of the CAC 40 and Eurostoxx 50 indices. For further information, please visit http://www.pernod-ricard.com

Cision

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SOURCE Castle Brands
Key Companies Profiled in Data Visualization Market are Alteryx, Inc. (California, United States), Visually, Inc. (California, United States), Adaptive Insights (Subsidiary of Workday, Inc.) (California, United States), SAP SE (Walldorf, Germany), Dundas Data Visualization, Inc. (Toronto, Canada), IBM Corporation (New York, United States), Domo, Inc. (Utah, United States), Microsoft Corporation (Washington, United States), QlikTech International AB (Pennsylvania, United States), Highsoft AS (Sogn, Norway), Looker Data Sciences, Inc. (California, United States), ChartBlocks Ltd. (New York, United States), Tableau Software, LLC (California, United States), Cluvio GmbH (Berlin, Germany), Sisense, Inc. (New York, United States), Other vendors.

Pune, India, Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The global data visualization market size is projected to showcase significant growth on account of the increasing inclination towards visual analytics, scientific visualization, and information visualization by various small and large enterprises. Data visualization is the presentation of information or data in a graphical format and the tools used here help to layout the data in an accessible way and for better understanding statistics, graphs, and outliners. A recently published report by Fortune Business Insights, titled, Data Visualization Market Size, Share and Industry Analysis, By Component (Software, Services), By Solution (Standalone Visualization Software, Embedded Data Visualization Module), By Enterprise Size (Small Enterprises, Medium Enterprises, and Large Enterprises), By Industry (BFSI, Construction and Real Estate, Consumer Goods, Education, Government, Healthcare and Pharmaceuticals, Information Technology, Services and Telecommunications, Research, Retail and E-commerce, Transportation and Logistics, and Others) and Geography Forecast, 2020  2027, states the value of the market stood at USD 8.85 billion in 2019 and is likely to rise at a CAGR of 10.2%, thereby reaching USD 19.20 billion by the end of 2027.

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The current pandemic of COVID-19 has not only affected personal lives but also has had a devastating effect on all businesses worldwide. The governments of every nation are engaging in various strategies to improve the situation, and we hope to overcome this situation soon. We, at Fortune Business Insights, are offering analytical reports on multiple markets affected by this pandemic for business management teams and financers to get a clear understanding of the pros and cons of investments on the same. These reports offer insights into various markets and the steps that can be adopted to improve their revenue generation in the coming years.

What Are the Objectives of the Report?

The Data Visualization Market report provides a 360-degree overview of the market and focuses on key growth factors such as advantages, disadvantages, challenges, and upcoming opportunities of the market. It also throws light on the significant industry developments, currently prevalent trends, and other interesting insights into the market. The report offers charts and graphs of various segments of the market and provides future market figures predicted by analysts. It also discusses the nature of the market competition, list of players, and the crucial strategies adopted by them to gain a prominent position. For more information, log on to the company website.

Click here to get the short-term and long-term impacts of COVID-19 on this Market.

Please visit: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/data-visualization-market-103259

Drivers & Restraints-

Increasing Adoption from Retail and E-commerce Industries will Augment Growth

Data visualization helps to identify the inter-relation between multi-dimensional sets of data and provide practical features for interpreting them. Therefore, most of the small, medium, and large enterprises are adopting these tools for scrutinizing the customer buying and other business operational patterns to forecast their future sale strategies accordingly. This acts as a significant factor in promoting the data visualization market growth. Additionally, the increasing acceptance of such platforms for software advisory and predictive analysis is also set to aid in the expansion of the market in the forecast period.

On the contrary, the high cost of installing such tools may pose a significant drawback to the market in terms of revenue generation. This, coupled with the lack of centralized data security, may restrict the growth of the market.

Nevertheless, adoption of the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are likely to result in a massive data pool for both unstructured and structured data, thereby creating better growth opportunities for the market in the coming years.

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Competitive Landscape-

Players to Focus on Geographical Expansion to Maintain their Position

The key players operating in this Data Visualization Market are engaged in merger and acquisition strategies to expand their geographical footprint and attract higher revenue in the coming years. Besides this, they are also investing in innovative technology-quipped solutions, such as natural language processing, artificial intelligence, and others to maintain a strong position in the market competition.

Key Industry Developments of the Market Include:

February 2019  DataRobot Inc. and QlikTech International AB entered into a strategic partnership for the integration of automated machine-learning modelling directly into their platform. This will help the users to get access to predictive data and accordingly take decision-making steps.

Data Visualization Market Share Report Scope and segmentation:

Report Coverage Details Forecast Period 2020 to 2027 Forecast Period 2020 to 2027 CAGR 10.2% 2027 Value Projection USD 19.20 Billion Base Year 2019 Market Size in 2019 USD 8.85 Billion Historical Data for 2015 to 2018 No. of Pages 160 Segments covered Component; Solution; Enterprise; and Industry Growth Drivers Increasing Adoption from Retail and E-commerce Industries will Augment Growth Growing Acceptance of Visualization Platforms for Predictive Analysis and Software Advisory Services



Pitfalls & Challenges High Cost and Security Issues to Cause Hindrance to Market Growth

Fortune Business Insights Data Visualization Market lists out the names of all the providers. They are as follows:

Alteryx, Inc. (California, United States)

Visually, Inc. (California, United States)

Adaptive Insights (Subsidiary of Workday, Inc.) (California, United States)

SAP SE (Walldorf, Germany)

Dundas Data Visualization, Inc. (Toronto, Canada)

IBM Corporation (New York, United States)

Domo, Inc. (Utah, United States)

Microsoft Corporation (Washington, United States)

QlikTech International AB (Pennsylvania, United States)

Highsoft AS (Sogn, Norway)

Looker Data Sciences, Inc. (California, United States)

ChartBlocks Ltd. (New York, United States)

Tableau Software, LLC (California, United States)

Cluvio GmbH (Berlin, Germany)

Sisense, Inc. (New York, United States)

Other vendors

Quick Buy  Data Visualization Market:

https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/checkout-page/103259

Table Of Content:

Introduction Definition, By Segment Research Approach Sources

Executive Summary

Market Dynamics Drivers, Restraints, and Opportunities Emerging Trends

Key Insights Macro and Micro Economic Indicators Consolidated SWOT Analysis of Key Players COVID-19 Impact Analysis

Global Data Visualization Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast, 2015-2027 Key Findings / Summary Market Size and Forecast  By Component (Value) Software On Premise Cloud Services Consulting Services Support Services Market Size and Forecast  By Solution (Value) Standalone Visualization Software Embedded Data Visualization Module Market Size and Forecast  By Enterprise Size (Value) Small Enterprises Medium Enterprises Large Enterprises Market Size and Forecast  By Industry (Value) BFSI Construction and Real Estate Consumer Goods Education Government Healthcare and Pharmaceuticals Information Technology, Services and Telecommunications Research Retail and E-commerce Transportation and Logistics Others (Veterinary, Environmental Services, Non-Profit Organization Management etc.) Data Visualization Market Size and Forecast  By Region (Value) North America Europe Asia Pacific Middle East & Africa Latin America

North America Data Visualization Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast, 2015-2027 Key Findings / Summary Market Size and Forecast  By Component (Value) Software On Premise Cloud Services Consulting Services Support Services Market Size and Forecast  By Solution (Value) Standalone Visualization Software Embedded Data Visualization Module Market Size and Forecast  By Enterprise Size (Value) Small Enterprises Medium Enterprises Large Enterprises Data Visualization Market Size and Forecast  By Industry (Value) BFSI Construction and Real Estate Consumer Goods Education Government Healthcare and Pharmaceuticals Information Technology, Services and Telecommunications Research Retail and E-commerce Transportation and Logistics Others (Veterinary, Environmental Services, Non-Profit Organization Management etc.) Market Size and Forecast  By Country (Value) United States Canada



TOC Continued!

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Have a Look at Related Research Insights:

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Market Size, Share & COVID-19 Impact Analysis, By Component (Software, Services), By Deployment (On-Premises, Cloud), By Enterprise Size (Large Enterprises, SMEs), By Application (Marketing and Sales Automation, Customer Management, Lead Generation & Customer Retention), By Vertical (BFSI, Manufacturing, IT & Telecommunications, Retail & Consumer Goods, Healthcare) and Regional Forecasts, 2021  2028

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Chipsets Market Size, Share & COVID-19 Impact Analysis, By Chipset Type (Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs)), By Application (Natural Language Processing (NLP), Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Machine Learning), By Computing Technology (Cloud Computing and Edge Computing), By Function (Training and Inference), By Industry and Regional Forecast, 2020-2027

Payment Processing Solutions Market Size, Share & COVID-19 Impact Analysis, By Payment Method (Debit Card, Credit Card, e-Wallet, Automated Clearing House (ACH), and Others), By Industry Vertical (Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI), Manufacturing, IT and Telecommunications, Travel and Hospitality, Retail and Consumer Goods, Healthcare, Transportation and Logistics, and Others), and Regional Forecast, 2020-2027

Virtual Meeting Software (3D Virtual Event) Market Size, Share & COVID-19 Impact Analysis, By Type (VR Headset, Without VR Headset), By Function (Virtual Event, Video Conferencing, Mobile Event App, Event Management, Lead Retrieval, Attendee Management, Gamification, and Others), By Deployment (On-premises and Cloud), By Enterprises Size (Small & Medium Enterprises and Large Enterprises), By Industry and Regional Forecast, 2020-2027

Wireless Temperature Sensor Market Size, Share & COVID-19 Impact Analysis, By Type (Thermocouple, Thermistor, Resistance Temperature Detector (RTD), Semiconductor Temperature Sensor), By Channel Output (Single-channel, Multi-channel), By Technology (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ZigBee, Radio-frequency identification (RFID)), By End-user (Healthcare, Consumer Electronics, Automotive, Aerospace and Defense, Food and Beverages), and Regional Forecast, 2020-2027

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Identifying toxic managers who are causing employees to disengage and quit is an incredibly cost-effective way to boost corporate culture, according to new research.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Feeling respected at work is what matters most to employees and is the single best predictor of a company's culture score, according to new research released in an article today in MIT Sloan Management Review.

Corporate Culture Elements Most Important to Employees

The finding is extremely important to CEOs and CHROs, who are fighting to retain employees more than ever. Nearly 4 million Americans quit their jobs in April  the highest monthly number ever recorded by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. During this wave of resignations, culture is top of mind for many employees.

A new analysis, featured in the article "10 Things Your Company Needs to Get Right About Culture," finds that respect is 18 times more powerful as a predictor of a company's culture rating than the average topic in the study, which measured over 150 dimensions of the employee experience.

The strong language employees use to describe disrespect suggests how deeply it affects them. Employees describe being demeaned and degraded; viewed as disposable cogs in a wheel or robots; or treated like children, second-class citizens, crap, garbage, dirt, trash, scum, or idiots.

Respect for employees varied by industry. In industries with a large number of front-line employees  including casual restaurants, grocery stores, and specialty retailers  workers were more likely to talk about respect in negative terms. In sectors with a high percentage of professional and technical workers such as management consulting, enterprise software, and semiconductors, employees were less likely to mention respect but were more positive in their ratings when they did.

"Human resources and business leaders face a series of challenges while navigating the post-COVID return to work," says Donald Sull, senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management and cofounder of CultureX. "Understanding the elements of culture that matter most to workers can help retain star employees and attract new recruits, especially during this huge labor shortage."

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The authors report that leadership is the most frequently discussed culture topic, after respect. "Nearly half of employees (45%) mention management in their reviews, and their collective assessment of the top team is a strong predictor of a company's culture rating  four times more important than the average culture topic and twice as important [as] discussions of an employee's immediate boss."

"Employees assign more of the credit (or blame) to the C-suite, as they are responsible for several of the factors that matter most to employees' assessment of culture, including benefits, learning and development opportunities, job security, and reorganizations."

Another important predictor of a company's culture score, according to the authors, is whether managers support their employees. "Employees describe 'supportive leaders' as helping them do their work, being responsive to requests, accommodating employees' individual needs, offering encouragement, and having their backs."

"Toxic managers" are at the other end of the spectrum from supportive leaders. Employees describe them as "horrible" or "poisonous" and say they are "abusive, disrespectful, noninclusive, or unethical."

Unethical behavior is "a particularly dangerous form of toxic management. Integrity is the cornerstone of most organization's official culture: Nearly two-thirds of all companies list integrity or ethics among their official core values. Integrity also matters to employees. Ethical behavior is more than twice as predictive of a company's culture rating than the average topic. Pockets of unethical behavior, unfortunately, remain a reality in many organizations."

"Identifying toxic leaders and addressing their behavior is often the single most impactful step an organization can take to measurably improve its culture," says Charlie Sull, cofounder of CultureX.

The MIT Sloan Management Review (MIT SMR) article, "10 Things Your Corporate Culture Needs to Get Right," is based on a five-year, rigorous large-scale research project conducted by CultureX to measure corporate culture in top companies, using a data set of 1.4 million employee reviews on Glassdoor.



CultureX analyzed the average culture score for companies in the MIT SMR/Glassdoor Culture 500  a sample of large organizations, mostly based in the U.S.  using cutting-edge artificial intelligence (its natural employee language understanding platform) and human expertise. To identify which factors were most important in predicting a company's overall culture score, CultureX calculated the SHAP value for each topic. SHAP values are based on a game-theoretic model developed by Nobel laureate Lloyd Shapley.





MEDIA CONTACT:

Veronica Kido

vkido@kidocommunications.com

508-242-5134

About the Authors

Donald Sull (@culturexinsight) is a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he directs the Strategic Agility Project and the Culture 500. He is also the cofounder of CultureX, which leverages proprietary AI to measure and improve corporate culture. The Economist named him "a rising star in a new generation of management gurus," and Fortune listed him among the 10 new management gurus.

Charlie Sull is a cofounder of CultureX. He leads successful consulting engagements for top teams from around the world around a variety of strategic and cultural issues. He published several articles about related research in leading journals, including MIT Sloan Management Review.

About MIT Sloan Management Review

MIT Sloan Management Review (MIT SMR) is an independent, research-based magazine and digital platform for business leaders, published at the MIT Sloan School of Management. MIT SMR explores how leadership and management are transforming in a disruptive world. We help thoughtful leaders capture the exciting opportunities  and face down the challenges  created as technological, societal, and environmental forces reshape how organizations operate, compete, and create value.





Connect with MIT Sloan Management Review:

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SOURCE MIT Sloan Management Review
A woman is seen at the Um Rakuba refugee camp which houses Ethiopians fleeing the fighting in the Tigray region

By Katharine Houreld

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Eritrean soldiers and Tigrayan militias raped, detained and killed Eritrean refugees in Ethiopias northern region of Tigray, an international rights watchdog said on Thursday.

Human Rights Watch's report detailed attacks around two camps in Tigray, where local forces have battled the Ethiopian government and their Eritrean allies since November in a conflict that has rocked the Horn of Africa region.

Tens of thousands of Eritrean refugees live in Tigray, a mountainous and poor province of about 5 million people.

Tigrayans distrusted them because they were the same nationality as occupying Eritrean soldiers, Eritreans because the refugees' loyalty was suspect after they fled their homeland.

"The horrific killings, rapes, and looting against Eritrean refugees in Tigray are clear war crimes," said Laetitia Bader, Horn of Africa director at Human Rights Watch (HRW), whose work - first reported by Reuters - drew on interviews with 28 refugees and other sources, including satellite imagery.

Eritrea's minister of information did not immediately return calls seeking comment, but Eritrea has previously denied atrocities and said their forces have not targeted civilians.

A spokesman for the Tigray People's Liberation Front said formal, uniformed Tigrayan forces had only recently moved into the area and that it was possible abuses were committed by local militias.

"It is mostly the last month or so that our forces moved into those areas. There was a huge Eritrean army presence there," Getachew Reda told Reuters. "If there were vigilante groups acting in the heat of the moment I cannot rule that out."

International investigators were welcome to visit the area, he said.

Prior to the Tigray conflict, Ethiopia hosted around 150,000 Eritrean refugees, fleeing poverty and authoritarian government.

Much of the report focused on two camps - Shimelba and Hitsats - destroyed during the fighting. HRW cited U.N. refugee agency UNHCR figures that 7,643 out of 20,000 refugees then living in Hitsats and Shimelba camps are still missing.

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UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency, said it was "appalled" at the reports of "immense suffering" in refugee camps, which it was unable to access from November to March.

'IN EVERY HOUSE, PEOPLE KILLED'

Eritrean forces arrived in the northern town of Hitsats on Nov. 19, killed residents, and pillaged and occupied the refugee camp, HRW said. Some refugees helped direct looters, one resident told HRW.

"In every house, people were killed," one resident told HRW.

Four days later, Tigrayan fighters attacked an area near Hitsats camps Ethiopian Orthodox church, killing nine refugees and injuring 17, HRW reported.

"My husband had our 4-year-old on his back and our 6-year-old in his arms. As he came back to help me enter the church, they shot him," one refugee told Human Rights Watch.

Two dozen residents in Hitsats town were reportedly killed in clashes that day, HRW reported.

The report said that HRW had been unable to determine the extent that Tigray's formal forces directly commanded over local Tigray militias operating around Hitsats.

Shortly after, Eritrean soldiers detained two dozen refugees, who were never seen again, HRW said. They also took the 17 injured refugees back to Eritrea.

Eritrean forces withdrew from Hitsats camp in early December. Tigrayan forces returned on Dec. 5, sending refugees fleeing under attack.

Refugees around the villages of Zelasle and Ziban Gedena, northwest of Hitsats, reported being shot at and attacked with grenades. Tigrayan forces marched fleeing refugees back to Hitsats, shooting some stragglers, refugees reported to HRW. Some women also said they were raped by Tigrayan fighters as they fled. One 27-year-old woman said Tigrayan fighters raped her along with her 17-year-old sister.

Tigrayan forces withdrew from Hitsats on Jan. 4, HRW said. The Eritrean forces returned, ordered remaining refugees to leave, then destroyed the camp.

In the northernmost camp, Shimelba, Eritrean forces killed at least one refugee, raped at least four others and killed local residents, HRW said.

The violence and severe food shortages forced some refugees to return to Eritrea. Others fled south to two other camps, Adi Harush and Mai Aini. Tigrayan forces took over those camps in June and refugees have reported killings and looting.

"We are extremely worried about the current situation of over 20,000 Eritrean refugees living in Mai Aini and Adi Harush camp in southern Tigray," UNHCR told Reuters on Wednesday, saying there were severe food and water shortages and healthcare was unavailable.

(Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
By Thomas Escritt

BERLIN, Sept 16 (Reuters) - An east German city was due to go to court on Thursday seeking to remove election posters saying "Hang The Greens" placed by a far-right party with suspected links to neo-Nazi groups.

The posters festooning the city of Zwickau were put up by The Third Way, a small party monitored by security services, days before a vote that will set the course of Europe's largest economy after the departure of Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The Greens, third in the polls, are likely to play a crucial role in forming government after the Sept. 26 vote.

German concerns about far-right violence were heightened two years ago when conservative politician Walter Luebcke was shot dead https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-crime-idUSKCN1TI1SB by a neo-Nazi for his pro-immigration views.

A lower court overruled Zwickau's order for the posters to be removed, accepting The Third Way's argument that the slogan was ambiguous, especially in the context of an election, and that there was a free speech justification.

The Third Way noted that green was its party colour too and pointed to barely visible text on the posters calling for its colours to be hung across the city.

The administrative court in Chemnitz, with jurisdiction over Zwickau, accepted this meant it was uncertain that the Greens were the posters' target so long as they were not hung within 100 metres of Green posters.

That decision was greeted with widespread scorn on social media and elsewhere.

"It makes no difference to us if the posters are here or 100 metres further away," said Zwickau mayor Constance Arndt.

"A call for Greens to hang is and remains totally unacceptable, undemocratic and irresponsible." (Reporting by Thomas Escritt; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
EDMONTON, AB, Sept. 16, 2021 /CNW/ - The success of other provincial governments in lowering COVID-19 hospitalizations with vaccination policies means that Albertans face a more serious threat: Premier Jason Kenney.

Jason Kenneys mismanagement makes COVID-19 deadlier for Albertans (CNW Group/Unifor)

"There's simply no question that Jason Kenney is the most dangerous threat facing Albertans," said Jerry Dias, Unifor National President. "People living in British Columbia or Ontario aren't hospitalized with COVID at nearly the same rate. The blame lies squarely on Jason Kenney and his refusal to protect Albertans with sensible public health policy at every turn."

Alberta, under a new state of public health emergency since yesterday, has suffered more than any other province because of Jason Kenney's failed half-measures, says Unifor.

"Conservative Party Leader Erin O'Toole repeatedly expressed confidence in Jason Kenney's COVID-19 response," said Gavin McGarrigle, Unifor Western Regional Director. "O'Toole and Kenney are a grave threat to public health. It matters who we elect. Albertans are less safe under Jason Kenney and it will only get worse if Erin O'Toole is elected Prime Minister."

Unifor is Canada's largest union in the private sector, representing 315,000 workers in every major area of the economy. The union advocates for all working people and their rights, fights for equality and social justice in Canada and abroad, and strives to create progressive change for a better future.

SOURCE Unifor

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Sept 16 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories from selected Canadian newspapers. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

THE GLOBE AND MAIL

** Teck Resources Ltd has held talks with Lundin Mining Corp and Glencore PLC as the Vancouver mining company continues to weigh its options for unloading its highly profitable but out-of-favour coal business. https://tgam.ca/3lrrwGx

** Copperleaf Technologies Inc is expected to file a prospectus to go public with Canadian regulators as early as next week in a deal underwritten by Bank of America and BMO Capital Markets, a source familiar with the matter said. https://tgam.ca/3lyQWlH

** Toronto-Dominion Bank expects most of its staff will continue to work remotely until 2022, pushing back plans for a broader return to offices as the Delta variant of COVID-19 creates new public health challenges. https://tgam.ca/3EmsKLE

NATIONAL POST

** Toronto-Dominion Bank is set to continue "pruning" branches as the pandemic unwinds, while building new brick-and-mortar locations with less space but more technology. https://bit.ly/3hCdhxA

** Alberta is enacting stronger provincewide public health restrictions and a vaccine passport system as the fourth wave of COVID-19 threatens to collapse the province's health-care system. https://bit.ly/3EpAixq (Compiled by Bengaluru newsroom)
DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ticket prices for short-haul flights across Europe next summer will be significantly higher than they were before the COVID-19 pandemic, Ryanair Chief Executive Michael O'Leary told Reuters on Thursday.

O'Leary said bookings over the coming months were "patchy", with some periods of extraordinary demand around school holidays in October and at Christmas, while current prices were low.

"Prices will rise I think during October and at Christmas and I think prices into next summer will be significantly stronger than they were pre-COVID because there's about 20% less capacity in the short-haul market across Europe," O'Leary said in an interview after the airline's annual general meeting.

(Reporting by Conor Humphries, writing by Padraic Halpin; editing by Jason Neely)
Digital identity verification now available for both international and domestic clients

TORONTO, Sept. 16, 2021 /CNW/ - In a Canadian first, today Simplii Financial announced digital identity verification enabling both international and domestic clients to open accounts completely digitally. Soon-to-be Canadian residents can use their international ID to conveniently set up their banking with Simplii Financial in a matter of minutes, prior to their arrival in the country.

Simplii Financial Logo (CNW Group/Simplii Financial)

With digital identity verification, international students and newcomers to Canada can receive real-time authentication and will no longer need a manual review of their documentation, which can take up to three days. The majority of these clients will be able to open their deposit accounts while still overseas, enabling them to transfer funds before their move, for a smoother transition to Canada.

"Moving to a new country is a significant undertaking, and by choosing Simplii Financial for their banking needs, new clients can check off an important task on their to-do list, ahead of their arrival," said Vineet Malhotra, Head, Simplii Financial. "Simplii's new digital identity verification offering is yet another way we're living up to our promise of simplifying the banking experience for all Canadians, international students, and newcomers to Canada."

How it works

Using AI-based document verification and biometric technology, Simplii Financial can now set up and remotely verify the identity of all international and domestic clients, meaning new clients can digitally open an account with no requirement to go into a physical location, such as a banking centre or Canada Post location.

To set up an account using digital identity verification, new clients will need:

Passport or Canadian driver's licence for domestic clients Passport, driver's licence, national ID card, tax ID card, voter ID card or another approved identity document, for international clients Photo selfie

The latest updates for Simplii clients

As a direct financial services brand, Simplii continues to build and develop innovative digital, and product and service offerings. Recent updates include:

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The Simplii Financial Cash Back Visa Card, offering premium rewards with no fees, is now available to non-Simplii account holders;

Simplii clients can now transfer USD to 62 countries, with recent Global Money Transfer enhancements;

And Simplii's International Student Banking Offer, in collaboration with the Government of Canada, now offers seamless bank account opening and documentation to support student permit applications prior to arrival in Canada.

Simplii Financial also offers credit card applications with a limit of up to $10,000 with no Canadian credit history, to further support newcomers through its New to Canada Program.

About Simplii Financial 

Simplii Financial is committed to delivering simple, straightforward banking. With a fully mobile experience, nearly 1.8 million clients enjoy no-fee daily banking with no minimum balance and high interest savings rates. In the 2020 Ipsos Financial Service Excellence study, Simplii was an award winner for Online and Mobile Banking Excellence among all financial institutions in Canada. Simplii delivers a simple and easy way to bank with 24/7 access to online, mobile and telephone banking as well as access to one of the largest national ATM networks through CIBC. For more information about Simplii Financial please visit www.simplii.com or by following on Twitter @SimpliiFin, Instagram @SimpliiFin or on Facebook.

SOURCE Simplii Financial

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ONTARIO, Calif., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The announcement from Southwest Airlines that the low-cost carrier will fly daily nonstop from Ontario International Airport (ONT) to Austin (AUS) starting in March 2022 is welcome news for the Southern California gateway and the Inland Empire.

The announcement from Southwest Airlines that it will fly daily nonstop from Ontario International Airport (ONT) to Austin (AUS) starting in March 2022 is welcome news for the Southern California gateway and the Inland Empire.

Southwest will offer flights between ONT and Austin-Bergstrom International Airport daily on the following schedule effective March 10, 2022.

Flt # Origin Destination Departure Arrival Frequency Aircraft 1204 ONT AUS 10:55 a.m. 3:35 p.m. Mon  Fri &

Sun 737-700 474 ONT AUS 9:50 a.m. 2:30 p.m. Sat 737-700 1739 AUS ONT 4:35 p.m. 5:55 p.m. Mon  Fri &

Sun 737-700 257 AUS ONT 2:55 p.m. 4:10 p.m. Sat 737-700

The new flights are available for booking immediately at southwest.com.

"The addition of the Texas state capital to our route map is welcomed news and further indication of confidence by ONT's largest air carrier," said Alan D. Wapner, President of the OIAA Board of Commissioners. "It is also another sign that ONT's recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic is well underway and gaining momentum."

Announcement of the new Southwest flights comes as ONT continues to experience an impressive pandemic recovery. In August, ONT reported passenger traffic was within 7% of pre-COVID levels.

About Ontario International Airport

Ontario International Airport (ONT) is the fastest growing airport in the United States, according to Global Traveler, a leading publication for frequent fliers. Located in the Inland Empire, ONT is approximately 35 miles east of downtown Los Angeles in the center of Southern California. It is a full-service airport which, before the coronavirus pandemic, offered nonstop commercial jet service to 26 major airports in the U.S., Mexico and Taiwan. More information is available at www.flyOntario.com. Follow @flyONT on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

About the Ontario International Airport Authority (OIAA)

The OIAA was formed in August 2012 by a Joint Powers Agreement between the City of Ontario and the County of San Bernardino to provide overall direction for the management, operations, development and marketing of ONT for the benefit of the Southern California economy and the residents of the airport's four-county catchment area. OIAA Commissioners are Ontario Mayor Pro Tem Alan D. Wapner (President), Retired Riverside Mayor Ronald O. Loveridge (Vice President), Ontario City Council Member Jim W. Bowman (Secretary), San Bernardino County Supervisor Curt Hagman (Commissioner) and retired business executive Julia Gouw (Commissioner).

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OIAA Media Contact:

Steve Lambert, (909) 841-7527 slambert@flyontario.com

Ontario International Airport (ONT) (PRNewsfoto/Ontario International Airport)

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SOURCE Ontario International Airport
GREENSBORO, N.C., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Tanger Factory Outlet Centers, Inc. (NYSE:SKT), a leading operator of upscale open-air outlet centers, announced today that its Board of Directors approved a 2.8% increase in the dividend on its common shares to $0.73 from $0.71 per share on an annualized basis. Simultaneously, the Board of Directors declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.1825 per share, payable on November 15, 2021 to common shareholders of record on October 29, 2021.

Tanger Outlets. (PRNewsFoto/Tanger Factory Outlet Centers, Inc.)

About Tanger Factory Outlet Centers, Inc.

Tanger Factory Outlet Centers, Inc. (NYSE: SKT) is a leading operator of upscale open-air outlet centers that owns, or has an ownership interest in, a portfolio of 36 centers. Tanger's operating properties are located in 20 states and in Canada, totaling approximately 13.6 million square feet, leased to over 2,500 stores operated by more than 500 different brand name companies. The Company has more than 40 years of experience in the outlet industry and is a publicly traded REIT. For more information on Tanger Outlet Centers, call 1-800-4TANGER or visit the Company's website at www.tangeroutlets.com .

Investor Contact Information

Cyndi Holt Jim Williams SVP, Finance and Investor Relations EVP, CFO and Treasurer 336-834-6892 336-834-6800 cyndi.holt@tangeroutlets.com jim.williams@tangeroutlets.com



Media Contact Information

CorporateCommunications@tangeroutlets.com



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SOURCE Tanger Factory Outlet Centers, Inc.
FILE PHOTO: People holding mobile phones are silhouetted against a backdrop projected with the Twitter logo in Warsaw

ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria said on Wednesday it expects to end its ban on Twitter in a "few more days", raising hopes among users eager to return to the social media platform three months after the suspension took effect.

The ban, announced in June, has hurt Nigerian businesses and drawn widespread condemnation for its damaging effect on freedom of expression and the ease of doing business in Africa's most populous nation.

But Information Minister Lai Mohammed told a post cabinet media briefing the government was aware of the anxiety the ban had created among Nigerians.

"If the operation has been suspended for about 100 days now, I can tell you that we're just actually talking about a few, just a few more days now," Mohammed said without giving a time frame.

When pressed further, Mohammed said authorities and Twitter officials had to "dot the I's and cross the T's" before reaching a final agreement.

"It's just going to be very, very soon, just take my word for that," he said.

The government suspended Twitter after it removed a post from President Muhammadu Buhari that threatened to punish regional secessionists.

It was a culmination of months of tension. Twitter Chief Executive Jack Dorsey's posts encouraging donations to anti-police brutality protests last October and Twitter posts from Nnamdi Kanu, a Biafran separatist leader currently on trial in Abuja, infuriated authorities.

Last month, Mohammed told Reuters the Twitter ban would be removed before the end of this year, adding that the government was awaiting a response on three final requests made of the social media platform.

The ban is just one area of concern for free speech advocates. Nigeria dropped five spots, to 120, in the 2021 World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders, which described Nigeria as one of the most dangerous and difficult West Africa countries for journalists.

(Reporting by Felix Onuah, Writing by MacDonald Dzirutwe, Editing by William Maclean)
A group of 117 Afghans who had been recently evacuated to Kosovo have left for Britain.

The evacuees, described as civilians who have worked with NATO forces in Afghanistan and their families, departed Pristina International Airport on September 16.

"Today, after lots of hard work, together with NATO and the Government of Kosovo, we are saying goodbye to the first group of Afghans who formerly worked for NATO as they fly to the UK to start a new life after a stay in Kosovo," the British Embassy in Pristina said on its Facebook page.

The United States and its allies evacuated tens of thousands of at-risk Afghans after the Taliban toppled the Western-backed government in Kabul a month ago.

Thousands more people want to leave the war-torn country.

Around 2,000 former NATO contractors and their families were evacuated from Afghanistan, according to the U.K. Embassy, which said that the Balkan country has committed to relocate around 150 Afghans affiliated with the Western military alliance.

Britain has committed to relocate around 150 NATO-affiliated Afghans, it also said.

Kosovo has said it would temporarily house about 2,000 Afghans.

We are extremely grateful for Kosovos generosity in hosting these vulnerable people and for stepping forward to support NATO in its time of need, the embassy said.
A doctor in central Afghanistan says surviving the conflict in her war-torn country was her biggest worry as she helped women through pregnancy and childbirth in a rural region.

There were days when firefights broke out just outside the hospital walls, Zarghuna, an obstetrician-gynecologist who requested a pseudonym because of fears for her security, told RFE/RL's Gandhara. Those were dangerous times, but now we face a much bigger killer in the form of hunger.

Treating about 70 women most days at her hospital in the Maidan Wardak Province, Zarghuna says the most pressing issue now is the suspension of international aid that followed the Talibans seizure of power on August 15.

Her hospital had previously relied on assistance from the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA), an international NGO that has helped vulnerable Afghans for more than 40 years.

But now the hospital is running out of medicine, can no longer provide food for patients, and faces power shortages.

These days Im forced to help women deliver their babies by the flashlight on our smart phones because our hospital ran out of money to buy fuel for the generator, Zarghuna says. Carrying out a C-section by flashlight is a nightmare we now have to face regularly.

Hundreds of health-care clinics throughout Afghanistan have already closed since the Taliban takeover, and she worries the country will once again become one of the worlds worst countries for women and children.

Twenty years ago, Afghanistan had some of the highest infant and maternal mortality rates in the world, with nearly 90 children dying from every 1,000 live births and 1,800 mothers dying for every 100,000 giving birth. Today, the infant mortality rate is half that rate and the maternal mortality rate stands around 600 out of 100,000.



The hospital staff also hasn't been paid in three months.

I am responsible for looking after my family. We have three children. If I dont receive my salary I will have no choice but to leave [the hospital], Zarghuna says.



Risk Of Total Collapse



Since the Taliban takeover, hundreds of thousands of qualified Afghans -- government officials, professionals, aid workers, intelligentsia, businesspeople, and other technocrats -- have fled the country.



Across Afghanistan, humanitarian aid and development projects worth billions of dollars are in jeopardy after international aid was suspended and government assets frozen following the Talibans taking control of the country.

Many organizations have left completely, some have relocated all or most of their staff to other countries, while others are not yet sure how to work under the Taliban-led government.

Amid a looming humanitarian crisis and an economy spiraling downward, the Taliban has not made clear how it will deal with the aid groups helping Afghans with health care, education, agriculture, and poverty alleviation.



The world community pledged more than $1 billion in humanitarian aid to Afghanistan this week but delivering assistance to the most vulnerable people will require negotiations with the Taliban-led government, which has still not been internationally recognized.

During the militants previous stint in power from 1996 to 2001, their restrictions on international organizations and donor reluctance meant aid was hard to come by for a population long ravaged by war and natural disasters.



"After decades of war, suffering, and insecurity, [Afghans] face perhaps their most perilous hour," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on September 13, adding that there is a risk of the collapse of basic services and their "entire country -- all at once."



Working With The Taliban



Some NGOs such as the SCA have a history of dealing with the Taliban and are ready to work with the new rulers.

The organization ran one of the largest aid projects during the Talibans first regime, operating thousands of clinics and schools, including some for girls. The NGO also dealt with the militant group as it expanded control over rural regions in the 17 provinces in which the SCA currently has projects.

We do not see any changes in how we operated under the republic and now [under the Taliban], says Syed Habibullah, who heads an SCA-founded high school for girls in Maidan Wardaks Jalreez district. He told Gandhara that the Taliban captured Jalreez three months before the fall of Kabul. To alleviate fears among his students -- who stopped attending school after the Taliban takeover -- a local Taliban official visited them at his request.



Qari Sayed Aziz, in charge of the Talibans education branch here, assured us there wont be any problem, he said. We were told to convey to our teachers and students to observe hijab, which they were doing anyway, he added. Overall, so far we are happy because the Taliban has not created any problems for us.



In Kabul, senior representatives in the Taliban-led government are eager to portray recent UN humanitarian pledges as a success. On September 13, donors pledged $1.2 billion in response to a UN appeal.

Besides welcoming this pledge, we promise that the Islamic emirate will cooperate completely to deliver the aid to needy people, the Taliban's acting foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, told journalists in Kabul on September 14.



But Filippo Grandi, the UN high commissioner for refugees, noted they are still in talks with the Taliban. We also discussed other critical issues like ensuring that women staff can return safely to work, the importance of education for all Afghan children, and the safety and security of all Afghans, including minorities, he said on September 15. I encouraged the interim government to reiterate these important commitments publicly and to ensure that they are upheld in practice.



In Kabul, Ahmad Khalid Fahim, a deputy country director for the SCA, says adopting a neutral stance and understanding local dynamics helped them work in the regions controlled by the Taliban. He says the Taliban allowed women to participate in their education, health-care, and development projects.



They demanded that our women workers observe the Islamic veil in line with Sharia law, he told Gandhara. They insisted on having separate classrooms for girls after the sixth grade and wanted them to be taught by women only, he added. Such policies varied greatly region to region and were ultimately tied to the attitudes of local Taliban commanders.



Fahim says that with the help of community elders they were often able to persuade the Taliban not to tax the SCAs development or construction projects. Overall, there were problems but, in most instances, we were able to resolve them. Our engagement with the Taliban at local levels was aimed at securing access.



The Shadow Government



After making a comeback in the mid-2000s, the Taliban insurgency began to take the form of a shadow government. The hard-line group created a bureaucracy made up of commissions for specific sectors. Fahim says NGOs would approach these commissions if their problems were not being resolved at the local level.



He cites the example of the Talibans requirement that working women be accompanied by male relatives.

In most cases, this condition was only applicable to women traveling away from their home on longer journeys," he says. "It was hardly applicable to women going to a clinic or school in the same district in which they resided.



Fahim says that based on what he learned from colleagues who worked under the Taliban in the 1990s, todays Taliban has changed considerably.

During the 1990s they didnt allow higher education, he said. Then they did not allow women to work but they allowed women to work in regions under their control with certain caveats such as observing the Islamic veil and being accompanied by a male relative, he said.



Anders Fange was the SCAs director in the 1990s and still occasionally deals with the Taliban in his role as a board member.

Last year in Doha he was part of a team to discuss the organizations work with the Taliban office there. His takeaway from the talks was that the Taliban wanted to control whom they hired.

Now when they are a government it will be a problem if they are going to approve all the teachers we are going to have on the Swedish committee, he told Gandhara. All aid organizations are concerned about being able to recruit employees without Taliban interference.

Standing Up For Aid



Fange says the international community has to stand up for humanitarian assistance in the form of food, shelter, and health care.

If the Taliban government is putting conditions on this, then the international community has to take a stand, he says. But it has to go pretty far before you abandon the humanitarian imperative.

The unwillingness of Western donors to deal with the Taliban is a huge potential obstacle.

It looks like the priority for the Taliban is their own coherence, and they are not so bothered yet about what is happening economically, financially, from a humanitarian point of view, he said.



The freezing of Afghanistans nearly $10 billion in assets and the suspension of IMF and World Bank funds means the Taliban will find it difficult to pay hundreds of thousands of government workers, many of whom are civilians who have continued working under the new regime.

With few prospects of direct aid from Western donors and Kabuls dependence on foreign funding, the economic crisis could rapidly become a humanitarian catastrophe.

The UN estimates that already 18 million Afghans -- nearly half of the countrys population -- need emergency humanitarian assistance.



Senior Taliban leaders are not completely in the dark on this.

America is a big country, they need to have a big heart, said Muttaqi, in urging the United States to unfreeze his countrys assets.



But in Washington and other Western donor capitals, any future relations with the Taliban-led government are tied to the hard-line Islamists treatment of Afghans and whether they prevent Afghanistan from lapsing into becoming a global terrorist hub.
Human rights and refugee groups are urging to the European Union to step up its protection for Afghans trying to flee their country following the Talibans takeover last month.

The EU should be sharing, rather than shirking, the responsibility to offer them protection, Amnesty International, Caritas Europa, and 22 other organizations said in a joint statement on September 16.

The groups called on the 27 EU member states to expand safe pathways for people in need of protection, including through an ambitious and additional resettlement programme for Afghan refugees.

There was no immediate reaction from the EU, whose asylum agency EASO reported on September 16 that applications by Afghans increased for the fifth consecutive month to 7,300 in July -- before the Western-backed government in Kabul fell.

Nearly 1,200 were unaccompanied minors from Afghanistan, according to EASO.

More than half of applications by Afghans were rejected in June.

Tens of thousands of Afghans fled the country after the Taliban toppled the Western-backed government in Kabul a month ago.

Thousands more people want to leave the war-torn and drought-stricken country.

In Europe, some governments have raised alarms over a possible repeat of events in 2015, when well over 1 million people poured into the continent from Syria as well as other conflict zones and hardship countries.

We regret the misleading and alarmist rhetoric expressed by some European leaders in the past weeks, the groups said in their statement.

They said such talk may raise barriers to refugees integration and inclusion in European societies and could stoke fears about a non-existent crisis at Europes borders.

Iran and Pakistan currently host nearly 90% of displaced Afghans  over two million registered refugees in total  and should not have to bear this responsibility alone, according to the statement.

With reporting by AP
Russia and its Central Asian allies have launched two days of talks in the Tajik capital to discuss the situation in Afghanistan a month after Taliban militants entered Kabul and seized power in the war-torn country.

Leaders of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) met for a summit in the Tajik capital on September 16, to be followed a day later by a gathering of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which includes China.

The talks come as Moscow and Beijing move to assert themselves as key players in the region following the rapid collapse of the Western-backed government in Kabul at the end of a 20-year-old U.S.-led military mission in Afghanistan.

Both regional security blocs have been viewed as Moscow's and Beijing's counters to U.S. geopolitical dominance.

With Afghanistan facing a looming major humanitarian crisis in the aftermath of the Taliban's takeover, Afghanistans Central Asian neighbors are wary of the security threats emanating from the war-torn country and the potential for tens of thousands of refugees to pour over the border.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was forced to join via video conference after self-isolating because of close contact with several people in his inner circle who tested positive for COVID-19, and other leaders of CSTO member states, which include Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, kicked off the diplomatic talks in Dushanbe.

The leaders agreed to fortify the CSTOs southern borders and continue to plan and implement a package of measures aimed at bringing down the level of and neutralizing potential threats in the organizations space," Tajik President Emomali Rahmon said after the talks, according to TASS.

Meanwhile, the office of Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev said he "supported the joint CSTO position that the placement of Afghan refugees or foreign military bases on our countries' territories is unacceptable."

At a presummit meeting on September 15, CSTO Secretary-General Stanislau Zas acknowledged that the situation on the Tajik-Afghan border was "unfavorable" and pledged that Dushanbe would be provided with "all the necessary military and military-technical assistance" to combat any threat from the south.

In recent weeks, the security grouping held military exercises in Kyrgyzstan to prepare for any possible trouble. Tajikistan conducted military maneuvers with Russia and Uzbekistan while Uzbekistan also held separate drills with Russia along the Uzbek-Afghan border.

The CSTO has scheduled three more sets of military maneuvers close to the Tajik-Afghan border in October, with a fourth scheduled for November.

Russia has military bases in the former Soviet republics of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Leaders from the eight-member SCO are then due to hold talks in Dushanbe on September 17.

Founded in 2001, the SCO initially consisted of China, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan before India and Pakistan joined in 2017.

Putin, who is self-isolating due to "all-day" exposure to a close contact who tested positive for the coronavirus, canceled his attendance at the two summits.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi will also participate in the SCO meeting virtually.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, whose country is an observer member of the SCO and keen to join the grouping, will attend the gathering.

Before heading to Dushanbe, Raisi said that Tehran's participation in the SCO meeting shows that "regional cooperation is a top priority for us."

Afghanistan holds observer status at the SCO, but Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on September 15 that the Taliban had not been invited to observe proceedings in the Tajik capital.

"Nobody is hurrying to give full recognition to the Taliban," Lavrov said.

The Taliban has sought to reassure neighboring countries and Russia that it poses no threat since gaining control last month over almost all of Afghanistans territory, including Kabul, the capital.

The hard-line Islamist group also promised inclusiveness and a general amnesty for former opponents, but many Afghans remain deeply fearful, especially after the group formed an all-male government led by hard-line veterans, banned protests, and cracked down on demonstrators and journalists.

Lavrov said he "welcomed" several Taliban promises, including on curbing drug-trafficking and preventing attacks on other countries, but added: "Now we are monitoring to see how it will be fulfilled in practice."

Tensions between CSTO member states also surfaced during the September 16 talks, with Kyrgyzstans President Sadyr Japarov proposing to "draw up mechanisms for rapid response and decision-making within the [CSTO] in case of armed conflict between member states, according to his press service.

The proposal follows deadly ethnic clashes that erupted earlier this year near a disputed segment of the Kyrgyz-Tajik border.

With reporting by AFP, Reuters, and TASS
A Syrian refugee accused of plotting to bomb a Christian church in Pittsburgh and who was inspired by the Islamic State group is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to a single charge in federal court
When the devil visits a 17th century village in playwright Jen Silverman's dark comedy, "Witch," he finds easy marks among the townsfolk, who readily give up their souls in exchange for their deepest wishes. But then he encounters Elizabeth, whom the village has deemed a witch and cruelly shunned. She won't give up her soul so easily, even though it seems she has much to gain. The new Theatreworks play opens Thursday at Ent Center for the Arts and runs through Oct. 10.
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Colorado Springs, CO (80903)

Today

Plenty of sunshine. High 63F. Winds SE at 10 to 15 mph..

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A clear sky. Low near 40F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph.
A Colorado Springs man on Thursday was sentenced to 45 years in prison for trying to kill a police officer with a bullet that pierced the officers skull.

Karrar Noaman Al Khammasi was found guilty in June of an attack in the citys Knob Hill neighborhood that ended former Colorado Springs police officer Cem Duzels policing career and left him with permanent deficits.

"Today was a closure," Mumtaz Duzel, Cem's father, said. "As a father, was it enough? Probably not, to be honest, but justice was served today."

Al Khammasi was convicted in June of attempted murder of a police officer, menacing, illegal possession of a weapon and five more counts plus sentence enhancers, for the 2018 attack, court records show.

On Thursday, a jury of 12 sentenced him to 45 years in prison.

According to prosecutors, Al Khammasi shot Duzel while drunkenly shooting at police after Al Khammasi was kicked out of an Uber car for being handsy."

Duzel and other officers were responding to reports of shots fired in a neighborhood east of the Olympic Training Center when they encountered Al Khammasi in the 2300 block of East Boulder Street, the El Paso County Sheriffs Office said at the time.

"This case really speaks to the dangers that law enforcement encounter every single day," district attorney Michael Allen said Thursday. "And it's not in the streets of New York City or Los Angeles; it's even right here in Colorado Springs."

The shooting, Colorado Springs police Deputy Chief Adrian Vasquez said, deeply affected the city's police force, but Cem's healing process and "steadfast" and "eager" pursuit of justice inspired officers.

"If you can imagine, police officers, after understanding what he's gone through, still continue to patrol the streets of our city every single day," he said. "Watching Cem has been inspiring."

The bullet caused a serious brain injury that sent Duzel to a Denver brain injury clinic for months. His healing process was previously highlighted in November 2019, when he walked across a stage at a police ceremony just over a year after the shooting to accept a Medal of Valor, the department's highest honor.

"I've spent time with this family going all the way back to the day that Cem was shot," Howard Black, spokesman for the district attorney's office, said. "I can remember standing at his head with then-police Chief Pete Carey, and both of us looking at one another, thinking, 'He's not gonna make it.'"

"When you talk about heroes  this guy is a hero," he said.

On Thursday, Cem thanked the people of Colorado Springs, whom his family said kept in touch through letters and prayers throughout the case, and made them feel at home as they sought justice for Cem.

"Thanks for everything  to all of them, everybody," Cem said.

Al Khammasi, who came to the United States as an Iraqi refugee, had been slated for deportation in 2016, until a change in immigration law meant that a prior felony trespassing conviction wasn't grounds for removal, federal officials said.

Al Khammasi had faced a prison term of as much as 48 years on the attempted murder charge, and other convictions could have extended his penalty further.

At the close of one of the most difficult chapters in Cem's life, his family is excited for what will come next. Next summer, they said, Cem's planning to get married to his fiancee, Layne Elizabeth.

The family's tentatively scheduled the wedding for later in the summer, Mumtaz said, allowing time for Cem to continue to get better.

"No one is supposed to survive that kind of wound, but he did, and he's working to get better day by day," Mumtaz said.
While an independent investigation for Denver Public Schools was unable to substantiate sexual assault allegations against Tay Anderson, one of its members, the details of the report released Wednesday confirmed what appear to be incidents of sexual harassment against teens by Anderson. Here is Colorado Politics' analysis of the 96-page report from ILG Legal Services.
The number of coronavirus cases in K-12 schools across Colorado has nearly doubled in the last week, updated statewide outbreak data showed on Wednesday.

The number of active COVID-19 cases among students and staff at elementary, middle and high schools statewide rose to 1,583, up from 886 cases reported the week prior, according to data from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

Colorados seven-day average of infections is about 1,700 cases, state data showed. That's compared to about 300 in June, state epidemiologist Dr. Rachel Herlihy previously said.

The highly transmissible delta variant continues to drive increases in case numbers statewide and accounts for more than 99% of new cases this week, she said.

At a news conference Wednesday, Herlihy told reporters school children aged 6-17 continue to see the highest rates of infection. But of the nearly 900 people hospitalized with COVID or suspected to have it, only 12 of them are 17 years old or younger, she said.

Nearly 18 months after the pandemic hit Colorado and almost a year after the first vaccines were administered to adults, there is still no COVID-19 vaccine available for children 11 and under. State data on Wednesday showed about 75% of eligible teens and adults have received one dose of the vaccine, and nearly 69% are fully immunized.

Among Colorados largest counties with 100,000 or more residents, Douglas, Mesa, Larimer, El Paso and Pueblo counties are seeing school cases higher than the state average, data showed.

El Paso County, the states largest county by population, has roughly two times the rate of cases in schools compared to other large counties in the state. El Paso County reported 358 total cases among K-12 schools on Wednesday, the most of any Colorado county.

The largest school outbreaks are all in District 49 schools, including Power Technical Early College, Horizon Middle School and Vista Ridge High School. Those outbreaks were all reported between Aug. 16 and Sept. 1, data show.

In the last week, several new El Paso County schools have joined the outbreak list, including Lewis-Palmer Elementary and Prairie Winds Elementary in Lewis-Palmer School District 38; Ranch Creek Elementary in Academy District 20; and Thomas MacLaren School, Trailblazer Elementary and William J. Palmer High School in District 11.

Douglas County reported the second-highest number of school cases this week, state outbreak data show. As of Wednesday there are 305 COVID-19 cases in Douglas County schools, with the largest outbreaks reported between Aug. 19 and Sept. 1 at Douglas County High School, Mesa Middle School and STEM School Highlands Ranch, all in the Douglas County School District. No additional Douglas County schools joined the active outbreak list this week.

There are 56 active cases in Pueblo County schools, data showed, at Bradford Elementary, Corwin International Magnet School and Dolores Huerta Preparatory School, all in Pueblo School District 60. Other outbreaks are reported at Connect Charter School and Swallows Charter Academy, both in District 70.

El Paso County has not issued a mask mandate for schools, although some school districts have enacted their own. Douglas County commissioners voted unanimously this month to leave the Tri-County Health Department  which provides public health services to Adams, Arapahoe and Douglas Counties  after a disagreement over the health departments school mask mandate. In Pueblo County, people 2 and older must wear masks indoors at all childcare centers, youth camps and K-12 schools.

Among the states largest counties, Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Denver, Jefferson and Weld counties were all well below the statewide rate for school infections. School districts in those counties also have mask mandates.

Herlihy on Wednesday touted the effectiveness of masks at preventing infection, encouraging parents to mask their children in school and in other indoor public spaces.

We know what works to decrease the risk of disease transmission and we know that masks play a really important role in decreasing transmission, she said.  We know that the risk to children right now is higher than its ever been during the pandemic because of the delta variant being more transmissible.

Public health officials on Wednesday also encouraged unvaccinated people who are eligible to receive the vaccine get their inoculations, saying it was the best way to prevent contracting the disease and the best defense against severe illness and hospitalization.

Whether youre mandated or not, the key to us returning to our normal lives is to get this vaccine, state COVID-19 Incident Commander Scott Bookman said. While we may all be done with this virus, it is not done with us.
Bustang is set to resume its commuter route between Colorado Springs, Monument and the Denver Tech Center next week, the Colorado Department of Transportation announced Thursday.

This comes after Bustang suspended the commuter route in March 2020, due to budget constraints and low ridership during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Starting Monday, the route will run four times per weekday: twice in the morning from Colorado Springs to the Denver Tech Center and twice in the afternoon from the Denver Tech Center to Colorado Springs, the department said.

Providing service to the (Tech Center), one of the largest employment centers along the Front Range, will help alleviate commuter traffic between the states two largest cities, said Rail Director Amber Blake.

Blake said the Colorado Department of Transportation hopes the commuter route will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide congestion relief in the Interstate 25 South Gap project near Monument.

The route stops at 19 locations between Arapahoe Road, Yosemite Street and Belleview Station in Denver. One-way travel from Colorado Springs to the Denver Tech Center costs $9.

Passengers and drivers are required to wear face masks at all times, per federal transit requirements. Hand sanitizer wipes are offered to passengers while boarding and the bus is disinfected between each route, the department said.
WASHINGTON (AP)  The top U.S. military officer on Wednesday defended the phone calls he made to his Chinese counterpart in the turbulent fina
FILE PHOTO: People gather to demand repayment of loans and financial products as security personnel guard outside Evergrande's headquarters in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, China, September 15, 2021. REUTERS/David Kirton
FILE PHOTO: A health official draws a dose of the AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, at Infectious Diseases Hospital in Colombo, Sri Lanka January 29, 2021. REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A mob of supporters of then-U.S. President Donald Trump climb through a window they broke as they storm the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, U.S., January 6, 2021. REUTERS/Leah Millis
FILE PHOTO: Russian President Vladimir Putin looks on during a meeting with athletes, participants of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, in Moscow, Russia September 11, 2021. Sputnik/Evgeny Biyatov/Kremlin via REUTERS
FILE PHOTO: Haiti's Prime Minister Ariel Henry attends the signing ceremony of the "Political Agreement for a peaceful and effective governance of the interim period" with the opposition, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. September 11, 2021.REUTERS/Ralph Tedy Erol
Joe Barrera, Ph.D., is the former director of the Ethnic Studies Program at UCCS. He teaches US Southwest Culture and US Military History.
Just days after a resort at Lake Tahoe changed its name from Squaw Valley Ski Resort to Palisades Tahoe, Colorado's Geographic Naming Board backed a name change for Squaw Mountain in Clear Creek County.

The new name, one advanced by the Northern Cheyenne tribe, would be Mestaaehehe (pronounced mess-ta-HAY) Mountain.

The word "Squaw" is considered offensive, especially to indigenous women, according to Indian Country Today.

It's the first name change approved by the 13-member board, which convened after a five-year absence last year.

The unanimous vote is a recommendation to Gov. Jared Polis to approve the name change, and it also must be reviewed by the U.S. Board of Geographic Names. The federal board's representative told the Colorado board in June that this name change waited for four years and urged the Colorado board to act quickly. Clear Creek County commissioners have also signed off on the change.

The federal board has already made that naming change for at least 16 landmarks around the country. At least seven states (Oklahoma, Oregon, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, South Dakota and Arizona) have taken legislative action to remove the name from their geographic landmarks. There have been proposals over the years to make a blanket replacement with the name "Indian Woman," although that hasn't been adopted by the federal board.

Colorado's name change honors Owl Woman, a Southern Cheyenne leader and wife of William Bent. According to the proposal submitted by proponent Teanna Limpy, the Northern Cheyenne Tribal Historic Preservation Officer, Owl Woman "helped negotiate trade between the many groups who traded at Bent's Fort, and helped maintain good relations between the white people and the Native people. As the eldest daughter of the powerful Cheyenne leader White Thunder, Mestaaehehe worked as a translator and important bridge between the indigenous tribes and the newcomers, in an era before the military-ordered massacres and removals."

The previous name dates back to 1923 and appears to be part of a trio of mountain names in the area, including Papoose Mountain and Chief Mountain, according to board documents.

The renaming isn't likely to be the last time the board will be asked to consider name changes for landmarks with the word "Squaw." There are two other mountain summits, three streams and 36 total features, both natural and man-made, that contain the word "Squaw" in Colorado.

The board postponed discussion on two proposals from Delta County Commissioner Don Suppes regarding the names of Negro Creek (changing it to Clay Creek) and Negro Mesa (changing it to Clay Mesa). The board will review those proposals in October.
INDUSTRY INSIGHT

How data, analytics and AI power public health

The pandemic has put a spotlight on how big data and analytics technologies are being used in the public health sector.

A prime example of this? Contact tracing, where phone numbers and location data from mobile devices were combined with lab results in public health systems to issue alerts when an individual came in contact with a confirmed COVID patient. This information empowered people to preemptively self-isolate and/or head for rapid testing. Google and Apple, meanwhile, developed some groundbreaking application programming applications (APIs) for contact tracing that protected anonymity, while allowing their devices to receive updates from state disease surveillance systems and send out alerts.

The use of big data during the pandemic is certainly a harbinger of things to come, and public health agencies must understand how such data is being used. They should start working on plans to protect the privacy of the end user and comply with the evolving laws around personal data privacy.

Additionally, organizations should determine what theyll do with the data theyre gathering. Of course, all the data in the world is worthless without the right tools to read and interpret it. Artificial intelligence is vital for processing the vast amounts of data collected by todays technology. It has powered everything from tracking the initial spread of the outbreak to helping researchers quickly analyze and interpret huge amounts of data to come up with a vaccine. Going forward, AI and big data will be vital to analyzing vaccine efficacy, identifying breakthrough case trends and more.

Targeted outreach and prevention

Big data and AI have been foundational technologies for other programs. During the pandemic, data has been used for targeted outreach and prevention efforts, especially during the vaccine rollout. The ability to recognize trends in a cohort or region allowed for more effective risk mitigation. For immunization information systems (IIS), this meant parsing data to identify and prioritize groups who are at the most risk from a lack of vaccination. The age-bracketed rollout of the vaccine is a good example of this. Yet, new insights from ongoing data analytics efforts will help micro-target more at-risk groups as time goes on.

Identifying at-risk groups is just one part of the pandemic response process. From there, it involves what are essentially next-generation logistics efforts: monitoring vaccine distribution, managing vaccine appointments and tracking the growing numbers of vaccinated individuals. This efforts feature an incredible number of moving parts: government and public health offices, vaccine providers, health care workers and more. Marketing and education components will also see data analytics play an important role in their efforts.

All of which places a high data load on systems -- a load which requires modern architectures and flexibility to manage. Unfortunately, most public health offices today are using outdated systems that were designed for managing a load about 10 times smaller than what they're forced to deal with now.

Cloud computing can help public health agencies scale up to accommodate the new data load, with architectures that auto-scale and adapt to changing flows. But the systems themselves must also be architected to support the horizontal scaling enabled by cloud computing.

Stateless architectures and BPMN 2.0

Newer architectures are designed for this sort of flexibility. Called "stateless applications," these architectures dont store their state on the server and dont need to know the history of what was happening on the system, allowing organizations to add more servers to scale up and meet demand. The pandemic served as a powerful reminder of just how fast things can change. Stateless applications are the ideal way to keep up with evolving requirements and mandates, allowing agencies to implement new functional changes quickly and easily.

Along with the versatility of stateless architectures, public health organizations should be leveraging Business Process Management Notation 2.0. This notation method allows systems to take in, change and adapt to new requirements with ease. One of the major stresses placed on health systems during the pandemic was that new requirements from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention didnt necessarily fit into the outdated systems public health offices used. Agencies then had to manually solve for many new processes. BPMN 2.0 avoids that problem altogether, saving countless hours of work and ensuring a higher level of compliance.

Sharing data among multiple entities

Science depends on reliable data, but it has traditionally been a rare occurrence for health care data to be shared among multiple entities. Data privacy concerns are one of the main reasons for this siloed approach. However, those silos started coming down as health care researchers and public health agencies around the world started collaborating during the pandemic.

REST-based APIs can serve an important function here. Public health agencies have relied on the HL7 industry standard for sharing health information via APIs, but before the COVID outbreak many of these agencies were transitioning to the updated FHIR standard, which offers more functionality and flexibility than HL7. During the pandemic, many of these transition projects went on hold. Its now time to get back to implementing FHIR in order to meet public certification requirements.

Sharing health care data is a new trend, and an exciting one. As AI makes it easier to provide meaningful data ownership and protect personal data privacy, it facilitates collaboration by multiple entities on shared data. This in turn spurs innovation, allowing the best minds in science to work together toward a better future. For IIS, this means sharing ideas about what works that will lead to new best practices across organizations.

Big data, analytics and AI allow public health organizations to respond rapidly to public health emergencies, which potentially translates into lives saved.

And thats the big goal for all of these innovative new approaches for IIS: save lives and improve public health. Todays developing trends will help mitigate the effects of the next pandemic and result in a safer future for all.
The volume of cyber security attacks has grown so much during the COVID-19 pandemic that victims were lodging a new cybercrime report every 8 minutes, the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) reported, as it launched its latest annual report into Australian cybercrime.

With over 67,500 reports of cybercrime received during the 2020-21 financial year, the ACSC Annual Cyber Threat Report 2020-21 found that attack volumes increased nearly 13 per cent compared with the previous year when the agency received one report every 10 minutes.

Not only were there more incidents, but more were classified as substantial in their impact  reflecting an increase in attacks on larger organisations and their bigger consequences for victims.

Malicious cybercriminals are escalating their attacks on Australians, Andrew Hastie, Assistant Minister for Defence, said as the new report was launched.

We need all Australians to be vigilant [and] on guard against malicious emails and texts.

Reflecting the surge of cybercrime during the pandemic, over 1,500 COVID-related reports were lodged per month with the ACSC  which also provided domestic and foreign advice and assistance for more than 1,630 cyber incidents as nation-state actors searched for sensitive information about Australias response to COVID.

The increasing frequency of cybercriminal activity is compounded by the increased complexity and sophistication of their operations, the report warns, flagging the development of off-the-shelf cybercrime tools  such as ransomware-as-a-service  that had simplified cybercrime for a growing number of malicious actors without significant technical expertise and without significant financial investment.

Sophisticated or not, those malicious actors were moving at speed and scale, the ACSC said, often exploiting new vulnerabilities within hours of their public disclosure.

We know some of the tried and true methods cybercriminals use to target organisations, Tenable staff research engineer Satnam Narang said in response to the ACSC update, [yet] despite this knowledge being widely discussed, we continue to witness cybercriminals successfully utilising these tactics.

Readily available proof-of-concept exploit code typically provided for defenders are being routinely incorporated into toolkits by cybercriminals and used against vulnerable systems.

Attacks on key Australian infrastructure operations had increased dramatically over the past year, with one-quarter of incidents reported to the ACSC related to significant targeting of critical Australian infrastructure or services.

While the consequences of supply-chain attacks were not as severe for Australian companies as last years SolarWinds compromise, the ACSC said, a number of organisations were forced to take mitigation actions to prevent more serious impacts to their networks.

The threat from supply chain compromises remains high.

Also problematic is business email compromise (BEC)  a type of email attack in which cybercriminals pretend to be trusted executives or business partners to manipulate employees into wiring them money.

The average BEC victim lost over $50,600 during 2020-21 representing a more than 50 per cent increase over the previous year  and the ACSC warned of worse damage to come as these groups have developed enhanced, streamlined methods for targeting Australians.

Time for a new approach

The new figures are the latest in a parade of statistics confirming that cybercriminal activity surged during 2020 and shows no signs of stopping this year, with Australia one of the worlds most-hacked countries and costs spiralling into the millions per incident.

Compromises of Australian hospitals were of particular concern, given their importance in the ongoing national COVID response.

By targeting bigger businesses and essential services, the attackers are calculating that the victims cant afford to be offline for any extended period and will pay the ransom just so they can continue operating as usual, noted Dale Heath, engineering manager with anti-ransomware firm Rubrik ANZ.

These attacks are not going to stop anytime soon. In fact, quite the opposite. They will continue to evolve, becoming more sophisticated, and more disruptive as attackers aim to make recovery as difficult and costly as possible.

Preparedness is critical to minimising the impact of attacks, the ACSC said, citing the proactivity of Victorias Department of Health in recovering after a ransomware attack crippled Victorian hospitals earlier this year.

Prompt action by the health service, the use of advanced cyber security tools provided by the Department, and collaboration between the health service, government and contracted cyber security partners, the report notes, significantly reduced the impact of the ransomware attack and the restoration time.

Hastie repeated a familiar refrain, exhorting Australians to fight attacks  and the widespread exploitation of legitimate user credentials to execute them  by taking simple cyber security steps such as using strong passphrases, using two-factor authentication, updating software and devices, and maintaining regular data backups.

Yet there are signs authorities are tiring of offering the same old advice over and over, with new discussions this year considering whether to light a fire under company directors by holding them personally responsible for cyber attacks.

If the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect a different result, then government and business must acknowledge that a completely new approach to protecting and verifying identity credentials online is required, said H. Daniel Elbaum, chairman and co-CEO of Australian security firm Veroguard.

With new technologies like AI, big data, analytics and virtual reality set to add further complexities and greater vulnerabilities to already stressed systems, he said, prevention is better than detection and remediation  which is always too late.
Technologists from Future Crunch will open this years ISACA Conference Oceania, examining the latest tech trends and discussing new solutions to current challenges facing the industry. The thought-provoking and future thinking session will engage participants to consider their own skill set and workplace challenges, in order to propel the industry further and faster.

The three-day virtual conference taking place 28-30 September 2021 is aimed at cybersecurity, governance and risk professionals in Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea. This years conference brings a wealth of knowledgeable, diverse speakers from Europe, Asia, ANZ and North America with expertise in blockchain, cybersecurity, IT governance and risk and compliance across the government, technology, finance and healthcare sectors.

The conference will also feature mental health and wellness experts to address stress and burnout in the industry. And ISACAs One in Tech Foundation will hold a panel discussion with women technology leaders to discuss gender equity and representation in the workplace.

The ISACA Conference Oceania will focus on a holistic perspective of a persons journey in the IT sector, states Amanda Raible, ISACA senior director, customer success and operations. From addressing emerging trends in cyber such as DeepFakes to highly technical risk frameworks and modelling to developing interpersonal and soft skills, these high-calibre conference speakers will arm attendees with information and tools to enhance their roles. Its also a fantastic opportunity to meet peers and discuss the challenges and opportunities in the industry.

Virtual networking sessions and discussion boards will be set up throughout the conference to allow participants to connect and share their thoughts and learnings from the sessions.

Troy Hunt, creator of Have I Been Pwned, Microsoft Regional Director and MVP in Developer Security will address cybersecurity and data breaches in the closing keynote for the conference.

Other speakers include:

Ira Winkler, CISSP, CISO for Skyline Technology Systems and author of Advanced Persistent Security and the forthcoming You Can Stop Stupid.

and author of and the forthcoming Georgia Turnham, Trustwave

Uday Ali Pabrai, CEO, ecfirst

David Vohradsky, Cyberisk Australia

Rodman Ramezanian, CISA, CDPSE, CISSP, CCSP, McAfee

Matthew Trentler, CISSP, CISM Head of APAC Enterprise & Cloud Security, JP Morgan Chase

Sharda Shetty, CISA, Accenture

Dan Vasile, CISM VP Information Security, ViacomCBS

Due to the conference being held online, participants have the opportunity to attend the entire conference or can select a one-day pass or just the keynotes. Participants can earn up to 28.5 Continuing Professional Education (CPE) points for their attendance.



For more information about the ISACA Conference Oceania and to register, please go to https://www.isaca.org/conferences/isaca-conference-oceania-2021. Registration closes Saturday, 25 September 8:00 AEST (Friday, 24 September 2021 at 17:00 CDT). ISACA will experience a planned website upgrade from 9-13 September; be sure to visit before or after this planned outage.
1. Yes. Several other districts factor them in. It would provide a more complete picture.

2. Yes. Theyre not as accurate, but they can be useful in spotting a trend in infections.

3. No. The district is keeping tabs on those numbers, so the public doesnt need to.

4. No. As long as the public health district is aware of those stats, thats all that matters.

5. Unsure. The district isnt obligated to include them, but it might be helpful.

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Biles: FBI turned blind eye to reports of gymnasts abuse

Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles told Congress in forceful testimony Wednesday that federal law enforcement and gymnastics officials turned a blind eye to USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassars sexual abuse of her and hundreds of other women.

Biles told the Senate Judiciary Committee that enough is enough as she and three other U.S. gymnasts spoke in stark emotional terms about the lasting toll Nassars crimes have taken on their lives. In response, FBI Director Christopher Wray said he was deeply and profoundly sorry for delays in Nassars prosecution and the pain it caused.

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The four-time Olympic gold medalist and five-time world champion  widely considered to be the greatest gymnast of all time  said that she can imagine no place that I would be less comfortable right now than sitting here in front of you. She declared herself a survivor of sexual abuse.

I blame Larry Nassar and I also blame an entire system that enabled and perpetrated his abuse, Biles said through tears. In addition to failures of the FBI, she said USA Gymnastics and the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee knew that I was abused by their official team doctor long before I was ever made aware of their knowledge.

Biles said a message needs to be sent: If you allow a predator to harm children, the consequences will be swift and severe. Enough is enough.

The hearing is part of a congressional effort to hold the FBI accountable after multiple missteps in investigating the case, including the delays that allowed the now-imprisoned Nassar to abuse other young gymnasts. At least 40 girls and women said they were molested after the FBI had been made aware of allegations against Nassar in 2015.

An internal investigation by the Justice Department released in July said that the FBI made fundamental errors in the probe and did not treat the case with the utmost seriousness after USA Gymnastics first reported the allegations to the FBIs field office in Indianapolis in 2015. The FBI has acknowledged its own conduct was inexcusable.

Wray blasted his own agents who failed to appropriately respond to the complaints and made a promise to the victims that he was committed to make damn sure everybody at the FBI remembers what happened here and that it never happens again.

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A supervisory FBI agent who had failed to properly investigate the Nassar case, and later lied about it, has been fired by the agency, Wray said.

McKayla Maroney, a member of the gold-medal winning U.S. Olympic gymnastics team in 2012, recounted to senators a night when, at age 15, she found the doctor on top of her while she was naked  one of many times she was abused. She said she thought she was going to die that evening. But she said that when she recalled those memories in a call with FBI agents, crying, there was dead silence.

Maroney said the FBI minimized and disregarded her and the other gymnasts as they delayed the probe.

I think for so long all of us questioned, just because someone else wasnt fully validating us, that we doubted what happened to us, Maroney said. And I think that makes the healing process take longer.

Biles and Maroney were joined by Aly Raisman, who won gold medals alongside them on the 2012 and 2016 Olympic teams, and gymnast Maggie Nichols. Raisman told the senators that it disgusts her that they are still looking for answers six years after the original allegations against Nassar were reported.

Raisman noted the traumatic effect the abuse has had on all of them.

Being here today is taking everything I have, she said. My main concern is I hope I have the energy to just walk out of here. I dont think people realize how much it affects us.

Biles acknowledged in January 2018 that she was among the hundreds of athletes who were abused by Nassar. She is the only one of the witnesses who competed in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics  held this year after a one-year delay due to the coronavirus pandemic  where she removed herself from the team finals to focus on her mental health.

She returned to earn a bronze medal on beam but told the committee the lingering trauma from her abuse at the hands of Nassar played a factor in her decision to opt out of several competitions. At the hearing, she said she had wanted her presence in Tokyo to help maintain a connection between the failures of officials and the Olympic competition, but that has proven to be an exceptionally difficult burden for me to carry.

Democratic and Republican senators expressed disgust over the case and said they would continue to investigate. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said it was among the most compelling and heartbreaking testimony he had ever heard.

We have a job to do and we know it, Durbin said.

Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said Congress must demand real change, and real accountability, and we will not be satisfied by platitudes and vague promises about improved performance from federal law enforcement. Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, called Nassar a monster and wondered how many other abusers have escaped justice, considering that even world-class athletes were ignored in this case.

The internal probe by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who testified alongside Wray, was spurred by allegations that the FBI failed to promptly address complaints made in 2015 against Nassar. USA Gymnastics had conducted its own internal investigation and the organizations then-president, Stephen Penny, reported the allegations to the FBIs field office in Indianapolis. But it was months before the bureau opened a formal investigation.

The watchdog investigation found that when the FBIs Indianapolis field offices handling of the matter came under scrutiny, officials there did not take any responsibility for the missteps and gave incomplete and inaccurate information to internal FBI inquiries to make it look like they had been diligent in their investigation.

The report also detailed that while the FBI was investigating the Nassar allegations, the head of the FBIs field office in Indianapolis, W. Jay Abbott, was talking to Penny about getting a job with the Olympic Committee. He applied for the job but didnt get it and later retired from the FBI, the report said.

Nassar pleaded guilty in 2017 to federal child pornography offenses and sexual abuse charges in Michigan. He is now serving decades in prison after hundreds of girls and women said he sexually abused them under the guise of medical treatment when he worked for Michigan State and Indiana-based USA Gymnastics, which trains Olympians.

Litigation over the abuse may soon be coming to an end after USA Gymnastics and hundreds of Nassars victims filed a joint $425 million settlement proposal in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Indianapolis last month.
Bill to Ban Police Restraints that Cut Off Oxygen Headed to Governors Desk

Assembly Bill 490 or Angelos Law, authored by Chair of the Select Committee on Police Reform, Mike A. Gipson (D-Carson) passed the California State Legislature. AB 490 seeks to ban law enforcement from using restraints that cause positional asphyxia, a deadly condition that can occur when a person being restrained cannot get enough oxygen.

Last year, we witnessed the death of my API brother, Angelo Quinto, a Navy veteran, who was tragically killed by police as they knelt on his neck for nearly five minutes, said Assemblymember Gipson. The circumstances of Angelo Quintos death are a stark parallel to George Floyds, which both exposed loopholes in use-of-force policies.

Prior to this bill, AB 1196 (Gipson) was signed by the Governor in 2020 and bans law enforcement from using the same kinds of chokeholds that killed George Floyd. Current use-of-force policies statewide now prohibit law enforcement from using any type of chokehold, including carotid restraints.

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AB 490 takes this a step further and ensures that, in addition to chokeholds, officers are not continuing to use other types of techniques, like the knee to neck restraint, that actually led to the death of George Floyd and Angelo Quinto.

My bill still allows officers to protect themselves in life-threatening situations, but it does not allow them to cut off anyones airway, said Assemblymember Gipson. We need to make sure all methods of restraining someone do not turn unnecessarily deadly!

AB 490 will create a uniform statewide policy on restraints that cause positional asphyxia to make sure these restraints are no longer used.

This bill is now headed to the Governors desk for consideration.
Brookins-Kirkland AME Hosts Fall Revival

Spiritual renewal tops the agenda for the virtual Fall Revival hosted by Brookins-Kirkland Community AME Church. The three-day virtual gathering begins Tuesday, Sept. 21 through Thursday, Sept. 23, at 7 p.m., via Zoom. The theme is Wait On The Lord based on Isaiah 40:28-31.

According to Pastor Mary S. Minor, the revival will be preceded by Friends and Family Day on Sunday, Sept. 19, at 9 a.m. Elder Aquyla Walker, the young adult overseer at Greater Zion Church Family in Compton, will deliver the message.

The revival will feature Pastor Roderick Walker of New Mount Zion Church on Sept. 21, Pastor Carolyn Baskin-Bell of First AME Church  Santa Monica on Sept. 22, and Pastor Barry Settle of Allen Chapel AME  Riverside on Sept. 23.

The public is invited to attend all of the worship services. To participate in Friends and Family Day, use Free Conference Call by dialing (605) 472-5406, access code 571547.

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The revival can accessed via Zoom. The meeting I.D. is 841 8032 7960 and the passcode is 767856. Audio only of the services can be heard via telephone, which is a toll call, at (669) 900-9128.

To learn more, call the church office at (323) 296-5610.
Congresswoman Cori Bush Lauds Black Press Ahead of Receiving Prestigious Award

As the clock ticked down on the federal eviction moratorium and jeopardized the shelter and well-being of so many Americans, Congresswoman Cori Bush boldly acted.

The Missouri Democrat, who had once experienced homelessness herself, camped out on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.

On full display with a bright sleeping bag and nothing else to protect her from the elements, Congresswoman Bush made her point: she closely identified with those experiencing homelessness and those who were about to because of the moratorium expiration.

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Her act of self-sacrifice isnt the only thing that defines the Congresswoman, who sits as the first woman to represent Missouris 1st Congressional District and the first activist from the Black Lives Matter Movement elected to the U.S. Congress.

The Congresswoman sits as vice-chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security, and the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties.

Additionally, Congresswoman Bush is a member of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy and the House Oversight Subcommittee on the Environment.

The 2020 Black Reps Frankie Muse Freeman Spirit Award winner, Congresswoman Bush, will receive the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) 2021 National Leadership Award.

Each year, the NNPA recognizes courageous Americans that have impacted the nation and world in positive ways.

Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., the president and CEO of the NNPA, said the Black Press is saluting excellence and innovative leadership in Black America.

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Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Drs. James E.K. Hildreth and Ebony Hilton, and record-setting Olympic Champion Allyson Felix also will receive awards.

The NNPA celebrates 81 years as the trusted voice of Black America and 194 years of the Black Press of America.

The National Leadership Awards are virtual this year and scheduled for 7 p.m. EST on Thursday, September 16.

Registration is free at www.virtualnnpa2021.com.

Before the awards, the NNPA will host a special interview with actress Gabrielle Union.

According to NNPA Board members, while the recipients career paths may vary, one cannot underestimate the impact of their shared commitment to creating meaningful and beneficial change in the lives of African Americans.

A St. Louis native, Bush also counts as the recipient of the 2015 Woman of Courage Award from the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation.

I am humbled to receive a National Leadership Award from the NNPA and the Black Press of America, stated Congresswoman Bush, who earned a nursing degree from the Lutheran School of Nursing in St. Louis.

As we know, Black journalists have been denied a platform in this country for far too long. The excellence of Black journalism should never be taken for granted, the Congresswoman added.

From the incredible writers in St. Louis to the journalists pushing for equality abroad, I am deeply honored to be in the company of such dedicated individuals who lead our campaign for a better future for every human being, starting with those who have the least.

Click here to register for the NNPA National Leadership Awards Reception.
First, she was a survivor: #MeToos Burke tells her story

Maybe it wont catch on.

Thats what Tarana Burke was thinking  indeed, hoping  when she first found out the phrase MeToo was suddenly circulating online in October 2017, in the wake of shocking revelations about Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein.

It was a phrase she had come up with over years of working with survivors of sexual violence. And she worried that it would be co-opted or misused, turned into a mere hashtag for a brief moment of social media frenzy and ruining the hard work she had done.

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As it turned out, it did catch on. Actor Alyssa Milano had asked victims of sexual assault or harassment to share their stories or simply say #MeToo, and hundreds of thousands had done so on the very first day. But Burkes fears did not materialize, and her movement has taken off in a way shed never dreamed.

I wasnt even dreaming this big, she told The Associated Press in an interview. I thought I had big, lofty goals and I didnt dream nearly big enough.

Now, as the #MeToo movement  the social reckoning that began in 2017  approaches its fourth anniversary, Burke, 48, has come out with a highly personal, often raw memoir of her childhood in the Bronx in New York City, her journey into activism, and the beginnings of #MeToo. She also provides a vivid account of how she herself was raped when she was only seven years old  an event that shaped her future in profound ways. She spoke to AP ahead of the books release this week. (Interview has been edited for clarity and length.)

AP: Why was it time for this memoir?

BURKE: People will think this is a book about, you know, going to the Golden Globes and meeting a bunch of celebrities, and a bunch of powerful men whose lives were impacted by #MeToo. I want to tell a different story. My story is ordinary and also extraordinary: Its so many other little black girls stories, so many young womens stories. We dont pay attention to the nuances of what survival looks like or what sexual violence feels like and how it impacts our lives. So it just felt important. This is a story thats been growing inside me for more than 40 years. It was time to give it a home outside of my body.

AP: What message do you hope to send other women and girls who, like you, experienced rape or sexual assault?

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BURKE: That their experiences arent singular, and they arent alone. It feels really isolating, particularly if youre dealing with sexual violence. I really want to convey the message that you are not alone. YOU are normal and the things that happened to you are NOT normal. It doesnt make something wrong with you.

AP: You write about how you felt both guilt deep shame about what happened to you.

BURKE: Shame is insidious. Its all-consuming. It can get into all the nooks and crannies and cracks and crevices of your life. Theres not enough messages that say, This is not your shame to carry. This is not your burden to bear.

AP: A key issue moving forward is the intersection of #MeToo and race. Have we moved forward as a society in that regard?

BURKE: We havent moved nearly enough. It became even more evident during the racial reckoning the country found itself in the last year or so. People cannot connect the two. Really, this is about advancing humanity. All of it is about liberation. And so Black lives have to matter. Women, people, have to have bodily autonomy. We need to live in a world that thinks about the environment and the actual space that we live in. All of those things are related to how we coexist as human beings. And we have to recognize that these systems of oppression we all live under affect us differently. I am Black and I am a woman and I am a survivor. And all those things exist at the same time.

AP: A very raw part of this book explores how when you were young, you felt ugly. You had to navigate those feelings. Did this experience help you to parent your own child?

BURKE: I was very worried about Kaias self-esteem. But then Kaia turned out to be this beautiful child, a physically beautiful child. And still in middle school she came to me and said, I want Hannah Montanas nose, and things like, kids were bothering them because they thought they were ugly. And I was just like, wow, it doesnt matter what you physically look like. People will find ways to to tear you down. If they see the vulnerability and and parts of you that shine, theyll take the lowest hanging fruit and try to take that from you.

AP: You describe how when #MeToo exploded in 2017, you were so afraid your movement, the work youd done, would be co-opted. How did you get over that concern?

BURKE: Over time it became clear to me that whatever Im supposed to do, whatever this assignment is that Ive been given, its clearly an assignment for ME. And so if you take away how the world or the media describes #MeToo, what I built hasnt really changed. I say this in the book: little Black girls in Selma and white women in Hollywood really need the same things. And I realized, nobody can take that away from me. I just became really comfortable. It may not ever look like it looked in October 2017. But thats OK, because what happened in October 2017 was a phenomenal moment that we shouldnt be trying to duplicate. We should be trying to build on that and do other things. So I dont have that fear anymore. And its been an incredible journey of learning.
Haiti faces fresh instability as PM comes under scrutiny

Haitis government is starting to crumble as Prime Minister Ariel Henry faces increased scrutiny from authorities investigating the presidents slaying, with one top official resigning Wednesday as he accused Henry of obstructing justice in a sharply worded letter.

Renald Luberice, who served more than four years as secretary general of Haitis Council of Ministers, said he cannot remain under the direction of someone who is under suspicion and who does not intend to cooperate with justice, seeking, on the contrary, by all means, to obstruct it.

Luberice also said he is concerned about the alleged evidence against Henry in the killing of President Jovenel Moise.

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May each minister put himself at the height of his mission at this historic crossroads, he said.

Related: Haiti prosecutor seeks to charge PM in killing, is replaced

A spokesman for Henry declined to comment.

Last week, former Port-au-Prince chief prosecutor Bed-Ford Claude asked Henry to meet with him Tuesday to explain why he had two phone conversations with a key suspect just hours after the July 7 killing of Moise at his home. The suspect, Joseph Badio, was fired from the governments anti-corruption unit in May and remains a fugitive.

On Tuesday, Claude ordered the judge overseeing the case to charge and investigate the prime minister based on that evidence. Hours later, a new chief prosecutor replaced Claude on orders of Henry.

The developments underline that Moises Tet Kale party is fracturing, said Robert Fatton, a Haitian politics expert at the University of Virginia.

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Related: Haiti and the Heavy Hand of History

Some politicians are aligning themselves with Henry and others are breaking away, threatening to further destabilize the country as it tries to recover from the turmoil of the assassination and a recent earthquake that killed more than 2,200 people as it prepares for upcoming presidential and legislative elections.

Among those breaking away is Senate President Joseph Lambert, a one-time Moise ally who recently proclaimed himself as provisional president in a move that has only received support from several politicians and has not been recognized by Henrys administration or anyone in the international community.

I dont know how long the power struggle can continue, Fatton said. All of it is bewildering. Well have to wait to see if the situation settles and if Ariel Henry wins that battle.

Related: Core Group signals support for Haitis designated PM

Henry, who Moise named as prime minister shortly before he was killed, has not spoken publicly on the issue this week, saying only over the weekend that he is focused on stabilizing Haiti and would not be distracted by summons, maneuvers or threats.

More than 40 suspects have been arrested in the slaying, including 18 Colombian ex-soldiers who have accused Haitian authorities of torturing them while they are in custody. The investigation has faced several setbacks, including death threats that have forced court clerks to go into hiding and a judge to step down after one of his assistants died in unclear circumstances.
Hawthorne Woman, Boyfriend Charged in 7-Year-Old Girls Death

A Hawthorne woman and her boyfriend are facing murder and other charges stemming from the death of the womans 7-year-old daughter, authorities announced today. The girls mother, Ida Helen Brockman, 30, is charged with one count each of murder and child abuse resulting in death, while her boyfriend, Malachi Xavier Whalen, 29, is charged with one count each of murder, torture and assault on a child causing death.

The girl was identified in the criminal complaint only as Amaiya D. The two are set to be arraigned Sept. 23 at the Airport Courthouse, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorneys Office. Brockman and Whalen have remained behind bars in lieu of $2 million bail each since being arrested Friday by Hawthorne police, jail records show. Hawthorne police officers responded last Thursday afternoon to Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital in connection with a possible child abuse/child death call, according to Deputy Grace Medrano of the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Departments Information Bureau.

Related: Man Killed in Compton Shooting IDd

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Investigators learned that the girl had been brought unresponsive to the hospitals emergency room by her mother and the mothers boyfriend, according to the sheriffs department. Authorities said the girl had suffered multiple injuries that were inconsistent with statements made by the woman and her boyfriend.

The investigation  in which sheriffs homicide detectives and the District Attorneys Office have also been involved  subsequently led police officers and detectives to the crime scene at an apartment in the 3000 block of El Segundo Boulevard, where the girl lived with her mother and the

mothers boyfriend, Medrano said. Anyone with information about the case was asked to call the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Departments Homicide Bureau at 323 890-5500 or Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS or to use the website www.lacrimestoppers.org.
Jobs, Mental Health, Gun Violence: Cal Leaders Discuss Helping Black Men and Boys

The California Assemblys Select Committee on the Status of Boys and Men of Color held a meeting last month that brought legislators face-to-face with community organizers to discuss investing in African American and other youth of color in a post-pandemic California.

Introducing the various panelists, Committee Chair Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer (D-Los Angeles), who is a member of the California Legislative Black Caucus, spoke about the bipartisan nature of the committees goals.

He said people from different backgrounds and political perspectives reach agreement when talking about the plight of youth of color because their conversations are based on hard numbers.

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In California, per capita, Black men and boys are incarcerated more than any other group; are unhoused more than any other group; are affected by gun violence more than any other group; and in public schools, Black childrens standardized test scores fall only above children with disabilities.

One of the things that brings both sides of the aisle together is data. What we would like to see is either internal audits or accountability measures to show that your numbers are not only successful but youre keeping data over a period of time showing your success rate, Jones-Sawyer said.

Committee vice-chair Assemblymember Tom Lackey (R-Palmdale), a Republican, agreed with this assertion.

I am looking forward to the instruction that were going to get today, Lackey said. This is a part of our population that deserves the attention and a much stronger effort than has been displayed in the past.

The first topic discussed during this meeting was gun violence, as panelists towed the line between cracking down on gun violence and preventing the over-policing of communities of color.

How can we do this without returning to a punitive approach that grows the prisons, the jails and the criminalization of our community without achieving the public safety we so desire, asked the Rev. Michael McBride who is known in the Bay Area as Pastor Mike. McBride is a social justice advocate and the National Director for Urban Strategies/LIVE FREE Campaign with the Faith in Action Network.

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The meeting was an opportunity for participants representing community-based organizations to share ideas with legislators with the hope of influencing their decision-making.

As of 2019, California had the 7th lowest firearm mortality rate in the country. But with the states large population of almost 40 million people  the largest in the country  that still equated to 2,945 deaths that year.

As everyone knows, there are probably too many guns in too many peoples hands who should never probably ever have guns, Jones-Sawyer said.

Jones-Sawyer addressed the racial element of victims of gun violence in America.

Many of those individuals were Latino and African American so it behooves us that post-pandemic, we need to figure out what were doing, what we need to do if we want to protect our boys and men of color, Jones-Sawyer said.

He also offered up part of a solution.

This year we need to infuse the California Violence Intervention and Prevention grant program (CalVIP) with a large sum, we did put in money for a large sum to fund the work that we so desperately need to get not only guns off the street but out of the hands of people who should not have them.

The second topic on the agenda was post-pandemic mental health care.

Le Ondra Clark Harvey, chief executive officer of the California Council of Community Behavioral Health Agencies, spoke on the intersectional nature of mental health issues in communities of color.

Historically, Black and Indigenous people of color (BIPOC) communities mental health and substance abuse disorder services have been impacted by several factors including access to treatment, cultural beliefs and stigma, she said.

Largely, Clark Harvey said mental health treatment for BIPOC people has not been preventative.

When BIPOC individuals do seek help, it tends to be at a time of crisis; at an emergency room, a psychiatric hospital or due to some type of interaction with law enforcement, Harvey said.

She also spoke about the increase in opioid use, suicide and calls to crisis hotlines for boys and men of color.

Two of the programs in California mentioned during the meeting that are making headway on mental health problems facing Black men and boys are COVID-19 Black, an organization dedicated to lessening the effects the pandemic has had on the Black community, and Strong Family Home Visiting Program, a Los Angeles County-based program that provides in-home family support services.

Wraparound service approaches to care were also discussed as a way to shift focus away from a traditional service-driven, problem-based approach to care and instead follows a strengths-based, needs-driven approach, according to the California Department of Social Services.

The last topic of discussion was on career pathways and building generational wealth for communities of color.

Tara Lynn Gray, director of the California Office of the Small Business Advocate, highlighted that most of the disparities in communities of color can be traced to economics.

Some of the challenges facing boys and men of color stem from economic challenges in their communities and lack of investment for years prior to this administration, Gray said.

The pandemic induced economic hardships that weve experienced have exacerbated those issues with many businesses closing their doors and roughly 40% of Black and Latinx businesses closed, Gray continued.

Gray claimed that it is not all doom and gloom, however, as she mentioned what the state has done to assuage these disparities.

The good news about the challenges we have seen is that our leadership, both in the administration and in the legislature, have created access to programs, resources and financial assistance for small businesses to help with economic recovery and make an impact on some of the challenges facing boys and men of color, Gray said.

Gray also spoke about investing in business opportunities for the formerly incarcerated.

Through the California Reinvestment Grant Program CalCRG, for example, the state has been directly funding community-based organizations across California to expand job and re-entry programs for Black and other men of color who were impacted by the War on Drugs.

Services include criminal record expungement for some marijuana-related crimes; job training and placement help; mental health treatment; addiction services; housing placement and more.
LA City Council Moves Toward Developing Unarmed Crisis Response Model

The Los Angeles City Council today took a step toward developing an unarmed model of crisis response by authorizing the city administrative officer to revise and release a Request For Proposals for the program that would divert nonviolent calls for services away from police officers. Nonprofits in Los Angeles will be able to submit proposals for operating the program and providing staff that would respond to the calls. The city will hold question-and-answer sessions during the process to engage with communities and encourage submissions.

Related: LAPD Launches Program For Mental Health Clinician To Respond To Some Calls

I really want to make sure that we have a lot of bidders because there are such amazing nonprofits in Los Angeles, and they all need to hear about this and hear about the opportunity to engage because were really trying to create something special here, Councilman Bob Blumenfield said before the vote Wednesday.

Blumenfield, Council President Nury Martinez, Councilmen Curren Price and Marqueece Harris-Dawson and former Councilman Herb Wesson introduced a

motion on June 16, 2020 to develop an unarmed model of crisis response. The program will be modeled after the Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets, or CAHOOTS, program that has been in operation in Eugene, Oregon for about 30 years. The program diverts about 17% percent of 911 calls in Eugene.

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Herb Wesson (Photo by Brandon I. Brooks/L.A. Sentinel)

Related: Wesson, Martinez Call for Reforms to Replace Police Officers with Non-Law Enforcement Agencies For Non-Violent Calls

Law enforcement is always critical to keeping our neighborhoods safe, but we cant keep asking our officers to also be social workers, mental health clinicians and outreach workers, said Blumenfield. On Feb. 23, council members heard an update on the programs development, which could be ready during the 2022-23 or 2023-24 fiscal years.Basically what the program would do would be to divert nonviolent 911 calls to health care professionals and interventionists away from an (LAPD response)  We understand its a high priority for the council and the community in general so we take this very seriously, Chief Administrative

Analyst Ed Roes told council members during the update.

Councilwoman Nury Martinez (courtesy photo)

A mandatory bidders conference for potential vendors and partners will be held two weeks after the Request for Proposals release, and proposals will be due 45 days after the release, according to a June 30 report from the

CAO. Proposals will be evaluated by a review committee made up of city representatives and other government entities chosen by city officials. Applicants will submit narratives and supporting documentation to show their ability, proposed program design and cost. Theyll be evaluated on a system with a maximum score of 100 points, with 40 points for program design, 40 points for demonstrated ability and 20 points for cost.

Related: COVID-19 and Race-Based Traumatic Stress Result in Major Mental Health Concerns Among Black Population
LACo to Require COVID Vaccine/Test for Outdoor Events, Vaccines at Indoor Bars

(File Photo)

Los Angeles County is preparing a revised health order that will impose new COVID-19 vaccine mandates, requiring proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test for outdoor mega-events of 10,000 people or more, the public health director said today.

Related: LACo Reports 27 New COVID-19 Deaths, 1,725 New Cases

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The new health order, expected to be issued later this week, will also require proof of vaccination for all customers and employees in indoor portions of bars, wineries, breweries, nightclubs and lounges. The order will require patrons and employees to have at least one dose of vaccine by Oct. 7 and receive their second by Nov. 4. The order will recommend, but not require, vaccine verification for employees and customers in indoor portions of restaurants.This modified health officer order aligns with the continued need to reduce risk of transmission and increase vaccination coverage, Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer told the Board of Supervisors. This is a reasonable path forward that will position us to be better able to break the cycle of surges. She said county health officialsbelieve that targeted vaccine mandates are now a very important strategy for quickly raising vaccination coverage across our county and ending the pandemic.

Related: Respiratory Emissions During Birth Increase Risk of COVID Transmission

The vaccination/testing requirement for outdoor mega-events including Dodger, Ram and Charger games  will take effect Oct. 7. Attendees at indoor mega-events of 5,000 or more people are alreadyrequired to show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test.
LAWA Launches Program To Encourage LA Business Discounts To Airport Employees

The Los Angeles World Airports, which operates LAX and the Van Nuys Airport, announced a program today for local businesses to promote their products by offering incentives to the airports 45,000 employees.

The We Fly As One program is available to any business that serves the area surrounding LAX or the Van Nuys Airport and that is in good standing with its local chamber of commerce, business improvement district or business association. More than 50 businesses have pre-registered for the program so far, LAWA officials said Thursday.

Our airports are supported by tens of thousands of employees who come from our local communities, and the We Fly As One program is an opportunity to use that economic power to give back to our local businesses while at the same time providing a benefit to LAX and Van Nuys Airport workers, said Justin Erbacci, CEO of LAWA. Were excited for the launch of We Fly As One with an incredible group of neighborhood businesses and we look forward to helping promote these important community partners.

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Businesses that enroll in the program will upload their logo and website link to the programs website. Then, theyll provide an exclusive offer for employees who work at LAWA airports. The offers include discounts and rebates on products, and it is up to each business how long they participate in the free, voluntary program.

We are proud to be a partner with our good neighbor, LAX, said Karen Dial, owner of The Book Jewel. We Fly As One is a great way for us to introduce our business to thousands of employees working at LAX, and we look forward to welcoming them to The Book Jewel and developing relationships with them that last a lifetime. A list of businesses participating in the program is available at bit.ly/3EzqEIG.
Lawmakers Approve Upward Mobility Bill, Proposing More Slots for Blacks on State Boards, Commissions

On Thursday, Sept. 9, 2021, Assemblymember Chris Holdens (D-Pasadena) Upward Mobility Bill (AB 105) passed the California State Senate with a 29-to-8 vote.

The legislation promotes more opportunities for people of color in Californias civil services system and requires diversity on state boards and commissions. The bill now heads to the governors desk to either be signed into law or to be vetoed.

Upward mobility is integral to achieving racial justice, and we should be setting the example, said Holden. The existing systems in place at our own state agencies fail to create inclusive workplace environments and hinder qualified individuals to move up within their department simply based on the color of their skin. Today, the Legislature took a bold step to fix the problem.

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Specifically, AB 105 would require the California State Personnel Board (SPB) to establish a process that includes best practices and emphasizes diversity in the announcement, design, and administration of exams for potential state employees.

The bill also directs the Department of Human Resources (CalHR) to develop model upward mobility goals to include race, gender, and LGBTQ identity as factors to the extent permissible under state and federal equal protection laws.

Additionally, AB 105 calls for state agencies to collect and report demographic data using more nuanced categories of Californians of African descent, similar to the data collected for Californians of Asian descent. This data will be critical in accurately reporting who among Californians of African descent is experiencing barriers to upward mobility. Last year, Gov. Newsom signed AB 3121 into law, which was authored by former Assemblymember, Dr. Shirley Weber, who is now Secretary of State. That bill established a task force to study and develop reparations proposals for African Americans. AB 105 would give the task force more accurate data to utilize in its deliberations.

CALHR data shows that the majority of non-white civil service personnel are paid a salary in the $40,000 and below range. When the salary range increases, the percentage of non-White civil servants working in upper-level or management positions decreases. The opposite is true for White civil servants who predominate in management and upper-level civil service positions.

The Sacramento Bee has published a series of letters written on behalf of Black employees working at state agencies such as the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation with detailed accounts of how Black employees are passed up for promotions over White employees. The problem, however, is not limited to upward mobility. In early November, three Black employees at the California Office of Publishing found racial slurs written on cards at their desk.

We already mandated the private sector to do their part. Its time for the state to step up and do theirs, said Holden.

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Newsom has until Oct. 10, 2021 to sign the legislation.
Love Your Neighbor: Get Vaccinated Against COVID-19

Ill be honest. As co-pastor at Immanuel Praise Fellowship in Rancho Cucamonga, I had decided I wasnt going to encourage my parishioners to get the COVID-19 vaccine until I was sure the vaccine was safe.

And I was not alone among my peers in the Southern California faith community. Dr. Andrea King, pastor at 16th St. Seventh Day Adventist Church in San Bernardino and a fellow member of Inland Empire Concerned African American Churches, felt the same way.

We know all too well that Black people have been mistreated by doctors, scientists and others for generations. So, its no surprise that many of our brothers and sisters believe the stories circulating on social media making false claims about the vaccine.

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However, the truth is that we have a life-saving vaccine that protects us against a virus that has hospitalized and killed far too many of us.

While hospitals are struggling to keep up with the number of unvaccinated people with severe COVID-19 illness, the FDA granted full approval last month of Pfizers vaccine for those ages 16 and up. Its worth noting that emergency-use authorization also remains in place for the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson shots, as well as Pfizers for 12- to 15-year-olds.

Dr. King and I believe in being informed, so despite our reservations, we prayed about it and then we got educated. We connected with a group of Black and brown health care providers from nearby Loma Linda University School of Medicine. We fired question after question at them and talked about our suspicions and fears. We delved into how the vaccines were developed, how they work in our bodies, and the possible risks and benefits of getting vaccinated.

We recognized that these people, who look like us, are the real experts. We trusted them to tell us the truth.

When I learned that people with immune system disorders can be fatally impacted by the virus, I thought of my only child, who has lupus. I asked myself, How can I be out engaging with people and getting exposed to the virus unintentionally and then endanger my daughter? For me, it was a real Come to Jesus moment.

Soon, we were hosting town hall meetings and vaccination clinics for our congregations and surrounding Inland Empire communities. We have educated hundreds of people through our town hall meetings, webinars, and a Black church summit on COVID-19 with Loma Linda University and county health experts. We have vaccinated thousands at more than 20 pop-up clinics.

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When people ask me if I took the vaccine, I tell them, Yes. If they ask me how I feel, I say good. We cannot argue with the numbers. As an African American, we cant argue that we are 12 percent of the U.S. population but 34 percent of those who have died of COVID-19, according to CDC data Think about it for yourself and the people around you.

Of course, there are those among us who still dont trust the vaccine and still dont want to take it. I pray about it. I tell them that I cant make them get vaccinated, but I also try to help them understand that we must do better, especially when we have deathly ill children in hospital ICUs with the highly contagious Delta variant of the virus.

I urge my congregation and anyone who follows Biblical teachings to love their neighbor as they love themselves.

The virus itself is what it is. What is keeping COVID-19 around is the hardness of the heart of humanity. If everybody looked out for everybody else, and got vaccinated, we would be talking about something different. The virus can only do what we allow it to do. Its not about the virus now, its about humanity.

Bishop Kelvin Simmons is co-pastor of Immanuel Praise Fellowship in Rancho Cucamonga, president of the Inland Empire Concerned African American Churches, and a member of Congregations Organized for Prophetic Engagement (COPE).
Man Flees With Clothing, Shoes and Money in Fairfax District Store Robbery

An armed man robbed a district clothing store of clothing, shoes and money today. The 25-30-year old suspect entered the store in the 7800 block of

Melrose Avenue, near Fairfax Avenue, shortly before 12:30 p.m. A male employee believed he was a customer and approached to assist him, police said.

The suspect threw a couple of white trash bags at the employee, pointed a black handgun at him and demanded he fill the bags with clothing,

shoes and money, police said. The employee complied and the suspect took the property and fled the store on foot.

The suspect is described by police as approximately 5 feet, 7 inches tall and weighing around 200 pounds. He was wearing a black beanie, a blue surgical mask, a navy blue Los Angeles Rams hoodie, blue pants and shoes of an unknown color.

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Anyone with information about the robbery is asked to call Wilshire Division robbery Detective Flores at 213-922-8217. During non-business hours or on the weekends, calls should be made to 1-877-LAPD-24-7. Anyone wishing to remain anonymous should call Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS. Tipsters may also

use the website www.lacrimestoppers.org.
NNPA Honors Dr. Ebony Hilton with National Leadership Award

From the onset of the global pandemic about 18 months ago, Dr. Ebony Hilton emerged as a leader and a powerful voice of reason.

Critical Care Anesthesiologist doctor at the University of Virginia and founder of GoodStock Consulting, LLC, Dr. Hilton has loudly denounced quick re-openings, anti-vaxxers, and reckless gatherings during the pandemic.

Through her Twitter account, which has an ever-growing list of followers, and her appearances with the Black Press and major media outlets like MSNBC and CNN to provide a reality check for people around the globe.

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If we could stop saying we may be at the peak of Delta and Covid, thatd be great, Dr. Hilton railed in a recent Twitter post.

As if were anywhere near vaccination rates needed locally, nationally, and globally to prevent the next variant. Its this rhetoric that has people walking around bare-faced in the middle of Florida, she demanded.

Its because of her bold and courageous stand and tireless work that Dr. Hilton will receive the 2021 National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) National Leadership Award for excellence and innovative leadership in Black America.

Dr. James Hildreth, Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Congresswoman Cori Bush (D-Missouri), and Olympic record-setter Allyson Felix also will receive National Leadership Awards from the NNPA, the trade association of more than 230 African American-owned newspapers and media companies.

Its free to register for the ceremony, which takes place virtually at www.virtualnnpa2021.com.

I cannot begin to tell you how honored I am to be considered, Dr. Hilton said of the NNPA honor.

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I have to be honest. Its difficult to think of my efforts as worthy when there is so much left to do. One thing I can promise is to continue trying my best and showing up in hopes of truly deserving this prestigious recognition, Dr. Hilton stated.

Dr. Hilton received her M.D. from the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in 2008.

She remained at MUSC to complete her Residency in Anesthesia, followed by a Fellowship in Critical Care Medicine.

In 2013 Dr. Hilton made history as the first African American Female anesthesiologist since the hospitals opening in 1824.

Throughout her tenure at MUSC, Dr. Hiltons passions have centered on exploring the issue of health disparities, particularly as it pertains to race, and bridging the gap between physicians and the communities they serve.

According to Dr. Hiltons official biography, her works have led to her integration into the medical school curriculum, serving as a clinical instructor for fourth-year medical students in Intern 101.

She traveled the globe to participate in numerous medical mission trips via Project Madaktari Bugando Medical Center in Mwanza, Tanzania.

As a practicing physician at the University of Virginia  Charlottesville, Dr. Hilton has continued advocating for underserved and marginalized populations.

Her efforts have received recognition from the National Medical Association and the National Minority Quality Forum as one of the top 40 under 40 Leaders in Health Care award recipients.

In addition to pioneering medicine, Dr. Hilton is a childrens book author of the Ava Series, a public speaker, and a community activist.

This past Tuesday, September 14, Dr. Hilton appeared on the NNPAs live morning breaking news program, Let It Be Known.

The segment marked her second appearance on the program this year, which airs weekdays at 7:30 a.m. EST on many of the social media channels of the Black Press of America, including YouTube.com/c/BlackPressUSATV, Facebook/BlackPressUSA, and on Twitter @BlackPressUSA.
Officials: Police in Elijah McClain hometown racially biased

A civil rights investigation that was launched amid outrage over the death of Elijah McClain  a Black man put into a chokehold during an encounter with suburban Denver police two years ago  found a deeply engrained culture of racially biased policing within the department, Colorados attorney general said Wednesday.

Attorney General Phil Weiser said the investigation found the Aurora Police Department has long had a culture in which officers treat people of color  especially Black people  differently than white people. He said the agency also has a pattern of using unlawful excessive force; frequently escalates encounters with civilians; and fails to properly document police interactions with residents.

Its the latest mark against the Aurora department since Weisers office indicted three officers and two paramedics on manslaughter and other charges this month in connection with McClains death.

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These actions are unacceptable. They hurt the people that law enforcement is entrusted to serve, Weiser said.

The investigation cites numerous examples of biased policing in addition to McClains death. Among them:

 Police responded to two mental health calls on the same day. In one, police drew their weapons and aimed at a Black man who claimed he had a knife and planned to kill himself in what the report called a tense standoff. The other incident with a white man who was very drunk and exhibiting mental health issues ended after an officer walked up to him, extended his hand, and said, Im (Joe), you look to be hurting. How can we help you?

 A city panel that oversees officer hiring and discipline overturned a decision by a former police chief to fire a lieutenant who used a racial epithet to refer to a group of Black residents.

Weiser urged the police department to commit to recommended reforms in officer training, its policies on use of force and especially stricter standards for police stops and arrests. If it fails to do so, he said his office will seek a court order compelling the department to do so  but he noted that the department fully cooperated in the investigation.

Police stopped McClain, a 23-year-old massage therapist, as he walked home from a store on Aug. 24, 2019, after a 911 caller reported a man wearing a ski mask and waving his hands who seemed sketchy.

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Officers put McClain in a chokehold and pinned him down. Paramedics injected him with 500 milligrams of ketamine, an amount appropriate for someone 77 pounds (35 kilograms) heavier than McClains 143-pound (64-kilogram) frame, according to an indictment. He fell unconscious, was pronounced brain-dead at a hospital, and was taken off life support.

The state civil rights probe, announced in August 2020, was the first of its kind under a sweeping police accountability law passed in Colorado amid protests over the killings of McClain and George Floyd.

Weiser said his office wants a state agreement with Aurora, called a consent decree, to be submitted to a court. The agreement would have ongoing independent oversight and would specify what the city and department must do to fulfill his investigations recommendations.

Aurora police Chief Vanessa Wilson and City Manager Jim Twombly said in statements that they will cooperate with Weisers office and already have been working to implement reforms in the department.

We acknowledge there are changes to be made, Wilson said, adding: We will not broad brush this agency or discount the professionalism and integrity that individual officers bring to our community every day.

Sheneen McClain, the single mother who raised Elijah, said she participated in the state investigation, welcomed its findings and urged the police department to work with Weisers office.

Its just terrible that it takes my sons death for Aurora police to change what theyve been doing for a long time in this community, she said. Front and center: Elijah would still be here if the system was operating like it should. My sons death was preventable and its really sad that it took all this to get justice done and make sure it wont happen to someone else.

The Colorado police accountability law made it unlawful for police officers or other employees of government agencies to deprive people of their constitutional rights and gave the attorney general the power to enforce it.

Under the law, if the attorney general finds an agency has a pattern or practice of violating peoples rights, the attorney general must notify the agency of the reasons for that belief and give it 60 days to make changes. If the agency does not make changes, the attorney general can file a lawsuit to force them.

State Rep. Leslie Herod, a Democrat from Denver who helped craft the police accountability legislation, said Weisers recommendations proved the law is working.

We have affirmed what the citizens of Aurora and so many folks already knew: That the Aurora Police Department has operated in a way that is racist and that is particularly racist against Black people and presents harm to our community, said Herod, who is Black.

Weisers office is also prosecuting three police officers and two paramedics on manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and assault charges in McClains death. He convened a grand jury to decide whether to file criminal charges after being ordered to take another look at the case by Democratic Gov. Jared Polis amid last years protests.

The grand jury indicted all five.

The Aurora Police Department faced criticism when officers put four Black girls on the ground last year and handcuffed two of them next to a car that police suspected was stolen but turned out not to be.

And an officer was charged with assault in July after being captured on body camera video pistol-whipping and choking a Black man during an arrest. Another officer was charged with not intervening as required under the new police accountability law.

Lorenzo M. Boyd, stewart professor in criminal justice and community policing at the University of New Haven in Connecticut, said Weisers action is unusual because the federal, not state government generally reaches court-approved agreements with local police departments to ensure changes are made.

A lot of times the state tries to not ruffle feathers at home. Theyll farm things out to the feds to kind of keep their hands clean, Boyd said. But it seems like in this situation, the states attorney general in Colorado decides, you know, we need to fix our own house before outsiders need to come in and do it.

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Associated Press writers James Anderson and Thomas Peipert contributed to this report.

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Nieberg is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
Residents Proclaim Community Pride at Redistricting Public Hearings

Keep communities together was repeatedly expressed by residents during the last two public hearings hosted by the Los Angeles City Council Redistricting Commission.

The testimony from citizens will be used to assist the 21-member commission in establishing the boundaries of L.A.s 15 council districts (CD). The city charter requires that borders be redrawn following each census to make each district approximately equal in population size.

For the past three months, public hearings have been held in every district with the last two, on September 8 and 11, focused on CD 8 and citywide perspectives, respectively. The meetings allow commissioners to hear directly from residents about the characteristics that define their community such as prominent landmarks, historical roots, distinctive cultures or significant institutions.

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We want to know what makes your community unique, what you and your neighbors share in common and what are the special needs of your community. This is vital in redistricting and recreation of new boundaries and maps, said Commissioner Valerie Shaw in her welcoming remarks at the CD 8 hearing. People who have common interest, needs, often benefit being grouped together in a single district.

Explaining that the commission adopted several core values to guide the group in redrawing and recommending new CD boundaries, she cited those values as equity, integrity, transparency, respect, compassion, dignity, data driven, solution oriented and inter dependence. The former public works commissioner and current California Community College governor added, The vision is to strengthen the governance of Los Angeles by empowering its communities to have their diverse needs served through fair and inclusive representation.

Shaw, who was appointed by Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson, is one of three African Americans on the commission. The other Black commissioners are Charisse Bremond-Weaver, president of the Brotherhood Crusade and selected by Mayor Eric Garcetti, and the Rev. Edward Anderson, pastor of McCarty Memorial Christian Church and chosen by Councilmember Mark Ridley-Thomas.

The three commissioners joined other members of the panel in listening to comments from people living throughout Los Angeles, who outlined the elements that comprise their district. But, one of the top concerns of CD 8 residents was the fear of losing valuable resources.

Under the 2010 redistricting process, USC and Leimert Park were removed from CD 8 along with half of the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza Mall. Several speakers were adamant that the commission either restore those assets or avoid replicating similar actions in the current procedure.

More than ever, we need to protect South Central L.A., especially during a time of race and gentrification. We cannot afford to lose anymore land. Ten years ago, we lost sections, implored Carlos Leon, who said he was raised in South L.A. Our communities [are] asking [you] to strengthen our boundaries, to continue investing in our Black and Brown communities so we can rise after this pandemic stronger.

John Gonzalez, land use chair for the Baldwin Hills Homeowners Association, shared a similar viewpoint. Economically, the last redistrictingleft our district without key socioeconomic assets. We also feel that removing the plaza, splitting a single property which is the heart of commerce into two districts, was a mistake and disservice.

That outlook continued to be expressed at the citywide meeting where several Park Mesa Heights residents voiced disappointment with the previous redistricting results. Robbie Davis insisted, We want Leimert Park and USC returned to CD 8! Trey Rogers, who said he was newly elected to the board of the Empowerment Congress Central Area Neighborhood Development Council, noted, I would appreciate [CD 8] not getting broken.

Offering an alternate solution, Chandra Mosley suggested another move for the commission to consider. I really feel that we need a new council district so we can provide those core values mentioned earlier in your introduction. Those core values mean a lot to me as a retired city employee, said the View Heights resident. So, Im just asking that we consider creating a new council district so we can provide those services and that we will not be lacking as we are now.

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However, regardless of where the individual resided, the most recurring phrase heard was some form of dont change my council district boundaries. As Dolores Spears of Jefferson Park related, Our neighbors and residents are very activewere in support of keeping CD10 intact.

Anita, who described herself as Asian American, spoke on behalf of keeping historic Filipino whole and intact in Council District 13. Greg Meredith, president of the Eagle Rock Association, was equally passionate stating, We ask to remain a single council district in CD 14.

Many people who live in Koreatown conveyed their desire for the neighborhood to be contained in one council district, instead of divided into four CDs as the area is currently assigned. Conrad Star, president of the Greater Wilshire Neighborhood Council, said, We support a single council district for Koreatown.

During the two public hearings, scores of people testified before the redistricting commission over two four-hour sessions. Robert Battles, commission associate director of community outreach and engagement, also reminded citizens that written comments can be submitted via email at [email protected] or by completing the online Community of Interest (COI) form at laccrc2021.org. In addition, the website features the Districter software, which allows the public to draw and submit maps of one or more CDs.

Fred Ali, commission chair, announced that the upcoming schedule includes special Zoom meetings on September 20 and 21, at 5 p.m., to review maps submitted by the public and begin creating draft maps. On September 29, at 6 p.m., the focus will be on adopting a draft map.

Visit laccrc2021.org to learn more, watch videos of past meetings or review the redistricting timeline.
Secretary Fudge, HUD convened African American officials to discuss the housing investments in President Bidens Build Back Better plan

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia L. Fudge convened a virtual roundtable discussion with over 90 mayors, state legislators, county commissioners, and local municipal leaders on the housing investments and racial equity opportunities that would be created through President Bidens Build Back Better plan. The mayors and state and local elected leaders make up the executive teams and memberships of the National League of Cities- National Black Caucus for Local Elected Officials, National Organization of Black County Officials, African American Mayors Association, and National Black Conference of State Legislators.

Speakers included Georgia State Rep. and President of the National Black Conference of State Legislators Billy Mitchell, African American Mayors Association President and Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, Harris County Commissioner and National Organization of Black County Officials President Rodney Ellis, and Akron City Councilman and National League of Cities- National Black Caucus for Elected Officials President Russell C. Neal, Jr.

Secretary Fudge underscored the Biden-Harris Administrations Build Back Better plan and its investments in housing construction and rehabilitation, economic development, and community revitalization.

She noted that even before the pandemic, nearly 11 million households spent more than half their incomes on rent  and that people of color represent a disproportionate number of these households.Secretary Fudge reiterated President Bidens commitment to addressing the affordable housing crisis through the Build Back Better plan, which calls for historic investments in our nations housing.Further, the group discussed how the federal government will continue to work with local officials to protect renters through quickly delivering assistance to stop evictions during the pandemic.

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The local officials raised their priorities to ensure communities of color receive investments to build more affordable housing and break down barriers that drive up costs.
Senator Cory Booker (D-NY), Environmental Justice Advocate, Proud to Receive NNPA Leadership Award

U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) recently joined EPA Administrator Michael Regan, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Shawn LaTourette, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, Ironbound Community Corporation, and New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance for an environmental justice tour of the Ironbound neighborhood in Newark.

A roundtable discussion on federal policies to address issues affecting environmental justice communities followed the tour, which put, in a nutshell, the work Sen. Booker has accomplished during his stellar political career.

Since my early days as a tenant rights lawyer in Newark, Ive seen how underserved communities and communities of color bear the burden of legacy pollution, toxic Superfund sites, and the lack of clean air or water, Sen. Booker stated in a news release.

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I was proud to host Administrator Regan, Commissioner LaTourette, and local environmental justice advocates for this important tour and discussion that underscores the urgent need to address stark environmental inequalities and racism.

He continued:

Such discussions between local, state, and federal entities are essential to ensuring residents in overlooked communities across the United States are given the tools, resources, and funding they need to achieve environmental justice.

Sen. Booker, who served two terms as Newark mayor before his election to the Senate, will receive the 2021 National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) National Leadership Award for excellence and innovative leadership in Black America.

Drs. James Hildreth and Ebony Hilton, Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Congresswoman Cori Bush (D-Missouri), and Olympic record-setter Allyson Felix also will receive National Leadership Awards from the NNPA, the trade association of more than 230 African American-owned newspapers and media companies.

Its free to register for the ceremony, which takes place virtually at www.virtualnnpa2021.com.

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Im humbled and honored to be honored by the National Newspaper Publishers Association, Sen. Booker remarked.

The members of the NNPA provide an invaluable service to their communities, shining a light on issues that affect Black Americans and our families.

I stand with the NNPA and its membership in their efforts to inform, educate, and advance their mission of promoting a more just, equal society.
Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock (D-GA) to Receive 2021 NNPA National Leadership Award

One day before the unprecedented insurrection at the U.S. Capitol inspired by former President Donald Trump, the United States Senate underwent a sea change.

Thanks to heavy voter turnout  largely as a result of the efforts of Black women and other community organizers  Georgia residents elected Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Raphael Warnock to the Senate.

When combined with the tie breaking vote represented by the then newly elected Vice President, Kamala Harris, Georgias special election gave Democrats the Senate majority.

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For Rev. Warnock, the election provided an unusual opportunity to expand the ethics, commitment and desire to serve he demonstrated regularly from the pulpit as pastor of the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church. Just in time to provide comfort for a nation in need of leadership and healing.

Born in Savannah, Georgia, on July 23, 1969, Warnock graduated from Morehouse College with a degree in psychology. He later graduated from Union Theological Seminary in New York.

When selected for the position of pastor, Warnock was the youngest ever to serve in that leadership role at the historic church. As the now Senator Reverend Warnock, in addition to a seat on the church dais, he fills a critical seat in the U.S. Capitol Building and Senate.

In his less than one year as a Senator, it has become difficult to overstate the impact of his contributions.

He serves as a member of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee. He chairs the subcommittee on Commodities, Risk Management, Trade, and the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. He is also a member of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, the Senate Aging Committee, and the bicameral Joint Economic Committee.

For his tireless work for the citizens of Georgia and all Americans, Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock has been selected to receive the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) 2021 National Leadership Award, saluting excellence and innovative leadership in Black America.

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Thank you to the Black Press of America and the National Newspaper Publishers Association for this gracious award, said Sen. Rev. Warnock.

To my brother, Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., Chair Karen Carter Richards, National Correspondent Stacy Brown, and the countless others who do the important work to keep our communities informed, engaged, and motivated through these unprecedented times.

This award is not about me, but the millions of Black Americans in Georgia and across the country who continuously display their courage, perseverance, and fortitude as we navigate increasingly challenging times in our communities and throughout our world. Know that I will continue to do my part in the United States Senate to uplift Georgia voices in the continual march toward what Dr. King called the beloved community.

This year, the NNPA celebrates 81 years as the trusted voice of Black America and 194 years of the Black Press of America. Each year, the NNPA recognizes courageous Americans that have impacted our nation and our world in positive ways.

Sen. Cory Booker, Congresswoman Cori Bush, Dr. James E.K. Hildreth, Dr. Ebony Hilton, and record-setting Olympic Champion Allyson Felix will also receive awards during this years Reception Ceremony.

While the recipients career paths may vary, one cannot underestimate the impact of their shared commitment to creating meaningful and beneficial change in the lives of African Americans, the members of NNPAs Board of Directors in a joint statement.

Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., the president and CEO of the NNPA, said the Black Press is saluting excellence and innovative leadership in Black America.

Before the awards, the NNPA will host a special interview with actress Gabrielle Union.

The National Leadership Awards are virtual this year and scheduled for 7 p.m. EST on Thursday, September 16. Registration is free at www.virtualnnpa2021.com.
The County of Los Angeles Department of Parks and Recreation Launches New Program to Recruit BIPOC Youth to Aquatic Careers

In collaboration with Los Angeles Board of Supervisors Chair Hilda L. Solis and Supervisor Holly J. Mitchell, the County of Los Angeles Department of Parks and Recreation launched its Lifeguard Ready Training (LRT), a free program preparing youth and young adults ages 16 to 24 with the skills necessary to become Los Angeles County Swimming Pool Lifeguards. Special emphasis will be placed on recruiting Black and Latino youth in the program.

The Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation is proud to launch the Lifeguard Ready Training Program that will make a significant investment in our youth of color in East Los Angeles and South Los Angeles, said Los Angeles County Parks and Recreation Director Norma Edith Garcia-Gonzalez. Were committed to addressing the underrepresentation of diversity in lifeguard careers. We are excited about the opportunities to provide BIPOC and youth of promise summer jobs and a career ladder in aquatics and beyond. The intentionality behind the Lifeguard Ready Training curriculum and mentoring framework can serve as a model for our region.

Starting September 27, 2021, the first of three-phases of the program will initiate with up to 40 participants who will receive 24-hours of training over 12 sessions. Successful candidates will have an opportunity to transition into a paid Lifeguard Cadet position. The program will run in Supervisors Solis and Mitchells districts at the Belvedere Aquatic Center in East Los Angeles and the Jesse Owens Park and Roosevelt Park Pools in South Los Angeles offering slots to a total of 120 participants in this first phase of the program.

The Lifeguard Ready Training program will increase diversity in Los Angeles Countys lifeguard workforce while providing meaningful job opportunities for BIPOC youth, including those who are system-involved, inspiring them to explore careers in aquatics or with the County, said Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Chair Hilda L. Solis, Supervisor to the First District. Programs like these open up career paths that our young people may not have considered before. To that end, I am proud of our ongoing efforts to at provide opportunities for inclusive education and training to youth in communities of color.

The LRT program will provide participants with all the equipment necessary to complete the program including swimsuits, towels, duffel bags, etc., with an estimated value of $600. Program participants are expected to attend all 12 training sessions. Trainees will be paired up with a group mentor who will also provide individual evaluations and support. Participants can also access lap swim hours at any of the Countys five year-round facilities and instructors will be available for assistance both before and after scheduled training days. Those who do not successfully complete the training at the initial phase of the program can automatically enroll onto the next LRT session or can choose to explore additional recreation career opportunities within the County.

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Im proud to join with the Department of Parks and Recreation in engaging our school and community partners to make this enriching program more accessible to communities throughout the Second District. In addition to inspiring more Black and Brown youth to see themselves as lifeguards, this program helps equip them with the skills and resources to make it happen said Supervisor Holly J. Mitchell. Were working intentionally with community partners to increase diversity in the field of aquatics, provide life-saving swim skills to communities of color and to strengthen the talent pipeline of lifeguards so all residents can enjoy their county pool.

Candidates will receive instruction in swim stroke development, basic water rescue and an introduction to first aid, CPR and AED. After the completion of the program, participants should be ready to successfully complete the County of Los Angeles Pool Lifeguard Training and can also attend the County of Los Angeles Lake Lifeguard examination and complete their training. The physical skill gained through this program can also be used to try out for the County of Los Angeles Beach Lifeguard examination.

The basic requirements to enroll in the program include being able to swim 500 yards in 9 minutes and 30 seconds or less and have at least 20/30 in each eye with correction and at least 20/200 with both eyes open without correction.

POOL LOCATIONS

Jesse Owens, 9651 S Western Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90047

Roosevelt Pk, 7600 Graham Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90001

Belvedere Pk, 4914 East Cesar E Chavez Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90022

REGISTRATION OPEN:

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Jesse Owens Pk http://apm.activecommunities.com/losangelescounty/ Activity_-Search/8274

Roosevelt Pk http://apm.activecommunities.com/losangelescounty/ Activity_-Search/8275 Belvedere Pk http://apm.activecommunities.com/losangelescounty/ Activity_-Search/8273

To locate the information session links and to register for the LTP, or for more information, visit https://parks.lacounty.gov/lifeguard-ready-training
Tucker Traces Journey from Prison to Freedom in Christ

Rev. Walter Tucker III shares his triumphant experience behind bars in From the Pit to the Pulpit

Four years ago, the Rev. Walter Tucker III chronicled his path in politics in From Compton to Congress which told how his lineage in law and government influenced his career as an elected official.

At the close of that book, Tucker was sentenced to an 27-month term at the Lompoc Federal Prison Camp for bribery due to what many believed was an illegal entrapment scheme conducted by the FBI.

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Now, his jailhouse experience is detailed in From the Pit to the Pulpit where he not only gives readers insight into the life behind bars, but also reveals how God is at work in the lives of believers even at the lowest point in their lives.

This book gives people an opportunity to peek behind the curtain and see what goes on in prison. More importantly, it people an opportunity to see that God can be with you and for you, no matter if the world is against you, if youre His child and walking with Him, declared former U.S. Congressman who has served the last 18 years as the pastor of truth and Love Christian Church in Carson.

Literally, my ministry started in prison. I was a prisoner ministering inside to other prisoners, like Apostle Paul. That experience compelled me to write this book as an encouragement to believers, non-believers, and people who have had similar prison experiences, he said.

The autobiographical account begins with the overwhelming despair encompassing Tucker as he reports to Lompoc and covers the humiliating intake procedures, the guards demeaning treatment of him and other inmates and how he received undue negative attention stemming from his political career.

I was in conflict with the administrator from day one. He said, Hey, we know who you are. We need you to be cool, be quiet and dont rock the boat. Youve got nothing coming. We dont want to hear from you at all. From that day forward, it was on and cracking. I knew I needed to do ministry there, recalled Tucker.

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All of the demons you can think of  the demon spirits of despair, depression and defeat [are there]. The whole concept of being down permeates the spirit of every inmate and while youre down, you cant do anything. It plays on the psyche of so many people in there  suicide and anything else you can imagine, he noted.

Despite the degrading environment, Tucker maintained his faith in God, which inspired him to establish a weekly Bible Study and Sunday worship service for his fellow believers in the prison. He also expanded on his creative skills, writing songs, poems and skits focused on praising the Lord.

The book also shared how his incarceration affected his immediate family. His wife, children, mother and siblings were all impacted by Tuckers prison sentence. The pastor details some of the challenges his relatives  especially his spouse, Robin  encountered and how being imprisoned limited the extent of his ability to resolve the situation. He remembered that the only factor that sustained him was his relationship with Christ.

I write about having faith in God and faithfulness to one another and this book keeps it real, he insisted. It talks about the pressures of men hitting on my wife while Im in prison and how she stayed strong, how I was being hit on by the administrators wife and had to get out of harms way and how we had to believe and encourage one another.

Robin even went to the [prison] powers that be to tell them, My husbands up for a furlough. Why havent you given it to him? Im a married woman. We have needs. Are you trying to punish him? Hes a model prisoner here. Basically, I emphasize not giving up in spite of the circumstances and not losing hope, said Tucker, who referred to his wife as the rock who held his family together while he was at Lompoc.

Anybody can read this book and see how your attitude in anything is everything. Recently, I posted on Facebook, Life is not a matter of what happens to you, but how you respond to what happens to you. This can relate to anybody because trials and tribulations can happen to anybody, he stressed.

So far, reviews of From the Pit to the Pulpit have been positive with readers sharing that Tuckers story is inspiring and recounts situations that are relatable to men and women of all ages. Surprisingly, he almost didnt write the book this year because COVID-19 wouldnt allow for book signing events.

But God directed Tucker to get this book out in 2021 and he worked night and weekends to complete it. As a result, he has been astonished by the popularity of From the Pit to the Pulpit.

Everybody whos read the book, has read it in about two days, some people in one day. They cant put it down. This story [of being in prison] affects people in a lot of ways. My wife was going through her own type of prison, explained Tucker.

Whether youre the person who went in or praying and waiting for a person to come out, were all touched by that experience or tragedy. Its one of the starkest things that can happen to you where your life is totally changed, he said.

But, I want people to know how to overcome the great challenges and trials in their lives. I want to instill hope that people can overcome and God wanted me to know that it was His spirit and anointing on me to cause me to write this book.

From the Pit to the Pulpit is available on Amazon and all digital book outlets.
Waters Statement on the Passing of Archbishop Carl Bean

Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Chairwoman of the House Committee on Financial Services, issued the following statement on the passing of Archbishop Carl Bean.

Archbishop Carl Bean was not only a talented artist, devoted religious leader, and community organizer; he was my dear friend and an outstanding person. He was someone who worked every single day to make this world a better place. His role in awakening America to the AIDS pandemic cannot be overlooked or overstated.

I was first educated about how HIV/AIDS was tragically impacting young African Americans by Archbishop Carl Bean, who made this his lifes work. Archbishop Bean took me to a place called Catch One in Los Angeles and introduced me to several young African American men who were abandoned by their families due to their diagnoses. It was then that I, along with a few community members, began to help Archbishop Bean to create a new Minority AIDS Project.

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Not only did we work together on his Minority AIDS Project, but we also worked to initiate funding in the federal governments budget to address the cause at the national level. When we first started out, we were able to secure an allocation of $156 million for the national Minority AIDS Initiative, and Im proud that Archbishop Bean was here to see that the allocation has grown to over $400 million for this year alone. I know that he is so proud of what we have been able to accomplish.

In all the years weve spent working together, there was never a day in which his kindness and loving spirit did not shine through. He was a wonderful human being and will be sorely missed. In this difficult time, I send my heartfelt condolences to his family, friends, and loved ones.
An Israeli military contractor has built an armed, unmanned robot designed to be deployed in many battle situations.

The vehicle is called Rex MK II. It was developed by state-owned contractor Israel Aerospace Industries, also known as IAI. The robot is semi-autonomous, with the ability to perform some operations on its own. It can also be guided by humans remotely through an electronic controller.

Officials from IAI said the vehicle was built to support Israeli military ground forces in different levels of fighting. It can carry equipment and supplies, gather intelligence and open fire at nearby targets.

The robot can carry two machine guns and a series of cameras and sensors to support military activities. It was also designed with the ability to transport injured soldiers.

Rani Avni helps lead the development of autonomous systems for IAI. He told The Associated Press the Rex MK II is the most advanced in a series of unmanned vehicles developed for the Israeli military over the past 15 years.

Israels military is currently using a similar but smaller vehicle called the Jaguar. The Jaguar is used to guard Israels border with the Gaza Strip. The Islamic militant group Hamas took control of Gaza from the Palestinian Authority in 2007. As a result, Israel closed off its border with Gaza and enforces a blockade.

Gaza is home to 2 million Palestinians who face the blockade, which is supported by Egypt. Protests take place there and Palestinian militants and laborers try to cross over into Israel.

The Israeli army's website states that the semi-autonomous Jaguar was designed to reduce danger to soldiers working along the Gaza-Israel border. The Jaguar also carries a machine gun and is one of many technology tools used by the Israeli military. The army also has used drones with guided missiles in operations against Hamas forces.

Unmanned ground vehicles are increasingly being used by other armies. Countries include the United States, Britain and Russia. They are designed for things like providing operational support, removing landmines and firing weapons.

The military contractor says the new Rex MK II can complete many actions on its own, such as controlling movements and carrying out surveillance. Actions such as firing a weapon require a human to operate the electronic controller.

Critics have raised concerns that robotic weapons could decide on their own, possibly mistakenly, to shoot at targets. The company said that while the new robotic vehicle was developed with that ability, the current version being offered does not have it.

It is possible to make the weapon itself also autonomous, however, it is a decision of the user today, developer Rani Avni said. The maturity of the system or the user is not there yet, he added.

Yonni Gedj is an operational expert in IAIs robotics division. He said the robot is built to become smarter over time. With every mission, the device collects more data which it then learns from for future missions, he told the AP.

Bonnie Docherty is a researcher with the arms division of Human Rights Watch. She said such weapons can be dangerous because they cannot be trusted to recognize soldiers from civilians. The robots are also not equipped to make the right decisions about the harm attacks could cause to civilians.

Machines cannot understand the value of human life, Docherty said. This undermines human dignity and violates human rights laws, she added. In a 2012 report, Docherty called for fully automated weapons to be banned by international law.

Im Bryan Lynn.

The Associated Press reported this story. Bryan Lynn adapted the report for VOA Learning English, with additional information from Israel Aerospace Industries. Mario Ritter, Jr. was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page.

Quiz - New Armed Robot for Israels Military Raises Concerns Start the Quiz to find out Start Quiz

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Words in This Story

autonomous  adj. independent and having the power to operate automatically without human involvement

remote  adj. far away, from a distance

advanced  adj. having developed or progressed to a late stage

drone  n. a small, pilotless aircraft

surveillance  n. the process of getting information about a place or an area for military use

maturity  n. the time when someone or something is completely grown or developed

mission  n. an important job, usually involving travel somewhere

undermine  v. lessen the effectiveness, power or ability of something

dignity  n. the state of being worthy of honor or respect
Nine Hong Kong activists were jailed Wednesday for taking part in a ceremony honoring the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.

The pro-democracy activists are facing up to 10 months in jail.

The nine are part of a group of 12 defendants who pleaded guilty earlier this month for participating in the ceremony. Three others were given suspended sentences.

The ceremony had traditionally been held every year to honor the June 4, 1989 student-led pro-democracy protests in Beijings Tiananmen Square. The students called for an end to official corruption, political reforms and a more democratic society. The government response turned violent, and many demonstrators died.

All nine activists were charged with taking part in an illegal gathering. Seven of them are facing an additional charge of persuading others to take part in the event.

Police last year banned the annual ceremony for the first time in 30 years. Police said the ban was needed for public health reasons related to COVID-19, but critics say the ban is part of ongoing measures to stop political dissent. In 2019, there were months of anti-government protests in Hong Kong, which is a partly independent Chinese territory.

More than 12 activists first attended the June 4 ceremony despite the ban and thousands came later. The crowds broke through barriers set up around Victoria Park to light candles and sing songs.

Police later arrested over 20 activists, including leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China. That is the group that organizes the yearly ceremony.

Among those sentenced Wednesday were lawyer Albert Ho and Figo Chan, former leader of the Civil Human Rights Front. They were already serving jail sentences over other illegal gatherings.

Eight others pleaded not guilty and will stand trial in November. Jimmy Lai, the founder of the closed Apple Daily newspaper, as well as alliance leader Lee Cheuk-yan, are among those who face trial.

The 2019 protests led Beijing to approve a national security law in Hong Kong last year. Under the law, anyone believed to be involved in terrorism or the weakening of state power could be tried and face life in prison. The government has arrested more than 100 people under the law.

Beijing and Hong Kong officials have been criticized for restricting freedoms promised to Hong Kong when the former British colony was handed over to China in 1997.

Im Dan Novak.

Dan Novak adapted this story based on reporting by The Associated Press and Voice of America.

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Words in This Story

plead  v. to say in court that you are either guilty or not guilty of a crime ; to make a plea

dissent  n. public disagreement with an official opinion, decision, or set of beliefs

candle  n. wax that has been formed into a stick or another shape and has a string in the middle that can be burned


The United Nations human rights chief is warning the use of artificial intelligence technology presents a threat to human rights.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, called for a freeze on the use of artificial intelligence, or AI technology. That includes face-scanning systems that track people in public places.

She said countries should ban AI computer programs that do not observe international human rights law.

Applications that should be banned include government social scoring systems that judge people based on their behavior. She also said some AI-based tools that organize people into groups based on their ethnicity or sex should not be permitted.

AI-based technologies can be a force for good, Bachelet said. But she added that they can also have harmful effects if human rights are not considered.

Her comments came with the announcement of a U.N. report that examines how countries and businesses have used AI systems. It warns that AI systems affect peoples lives and livelihoods if measures to prevent discrimination and other harms are not in place.

The human rights chief did not call for a complete ban of facial recognition technology. But she said governments should halt the scanning of peoples faces in real time until they can show the technology is accurate and meets privacy and data protection standards.

Countries were not named in the report. However, China has been among the countries using facial recognition technology. A surveillance system is used in the western area of Xinjiang, where ethnic minority Uyghurs live.

The report warns of tools that try to find out a person's emotional and mental condition by looking at their facial expressions or body movements. It says such systems can give incorrect results and lack scientific support.

The use of emotion recognition systems by public authorities, for instance for singling out individuals for police stops or arrestsrisks undermining human rights, such as the rights to privacy, to liberty and to a fair trial, the report says.

The reports recommendations repeat the thinking of many political leaders in Western democracies. They want to realize gains from AIs economic and societal possibilities. But they worry about the dependability of tools that can track and keep information on individuals and make recommendations about jobs, loans and education.

Im Mario Ritter, Jr.

Jamey Keaten and Matt OBrien reported this story for The Associated Press. Mario Ritter Jr. adapted it for VOA Learning English. Ashley Thompson was the editor.

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Words in This Story

artificial intelligence n. an area of computer science that deals with giving machines the ability to seem like they have human intelligence

scanning adj. using machines to copy information about a physical object and store it for study and record-keeping

track v. to follow and observe, especially in an effort to find evidence

application n. a computer program that carries out a specific job

accurate adj. free from mistakes

standard n. a level of quality or of being correct that is acceptable or desireable

authorities n. (pl.) people who have power to make decisions and enforce rules and laws

undermine v. to make someone or something weaker or less effective, often in a secret or slow way

societal adj. related to society

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Vietnam is speeding up its COVID-19 vaccination program. The countrys government hopes the effort will permit officials to loosen coronavirus restrictions in major cities by the end of the month.

More than a million vaccine shots were given over the weekend in Hanoi. The capital city has been under a lockdown since July. About 5.5 million injections have been given in the country since vaccinations started in March, the Health Ministry said.

Hanois mayor, Chu Ngoc Anh, said Sunday, We have to speed up the vaccination program so we can make a plan to reopen the city.

More than half of Vietnam's 98 million people are under lockdown.

About 80 percent of the 5.7 million adults in Hanoi have received at least one shot. Officials aim to have 100 percent of the adult population at least partly vaccinated by the end of this week.

However, the countrys overall vaccination rate remains low at about 28 percent. Only 4 percent of the population has been fully vaccinated with both shots.

Vietnam was able to keep its infection rate generally low until April of this year. At that time, it had only 35 reported deaths from the virus. And last year, it was praised for keeping the virus under control.

But the delta variant of the virus has infected over 600,000 people and killed more than 15,000 in just four months. Vaccine shortages forced Vietnam to slow down its vaccination program

Ho Chi Minh City, the nations business center, is the most hard-hit area. Over 95 percent of adults there have received their first COVID-19 vaccine. But many people who need to come in for the second shot are not able to get it because of low supplies.

To help deal with the shortage, the countrys health officials have permitted combinations of different two-dose COVID-19 vaccines. Experts say this method is likely safe and effective, but researchers are still gathering data to be sure.

Vietnam is currently using AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Moderna and Sinopharm, a Chinese-made vaccine.

I'm Ashley Thompson.

The Associated Press reported this story. Ashley Thompson adapted it for VOA Learning English. Caty Weaver was the editor.

_________________________________________________

Words in This Story

variant - n. something that is different in some way from others of the same kind
Credit: Kyoto University

Is a new high-income job offer worth accepting if it means commuting an extra hour to work? People often have to make tough choices regarding whether to endure some level of discomfort to take advantage of an opportunity or otherwise walk away from the reward. In making such choices, it turns out that the brain weighs our desire to go for the reward against our desire to avoid the related hardship.

In previous research, negative mental states have been shown to upset this balance between payoff and hardship toward more 'pessimistic' decision making and avoidance. For example, scientists know that people experiencing anxiety have a stronger-than-normal desire to avoid negative consequences. And people with depression have a weaker desire to approach the reward in the first place. But there is still much we do not know about how the brain incorporates feelings into decision making.

Neuroscientists at Kyoto University's Institute for Advanced Study of Human Biology (WPI-ASHBi) have connected some of the dots to reveal the brain networks that give anxiety influence over decisions. Writing in the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience, the group has published a review that synthesizes results from years of brain measurements in rats and primates and relates these findings to the human brain.

"We are facing a new epidemic of anxiety, and it is important that we understand how our anxiety influences our decision making," says Ken-ichi Amemori, associate professor in neuroscience at Kyoto University, ASHBi. "There is a real need for a better understanding of what is happening in the brain here. It is very difficult for us to see exactly where and how anxiety manifests in humans, but studies in primate brains have pointed to neurons in the ACC [anterior cingulate cortex] as being important in these decision-making processes."

Thinking of the brain as an onion, the ACC lies in a middle layer, wrapping around the tough 'heart', or corpus callosum, which joins the two hemispheres. The ACC is also well-connected with many other parts of the brain controlling higher and lower functions with a role in integrating feelings with rational thinking.

The team started by measuring brain activity in rhesus macaques while they performed a task to select or reject a reward in the form of food combined with different levels of 'punishment' in the form of an annoying blast of air in the face. The potential choices were visually represented on a screen, and the monkeys used a joystick to make their selection, revealing how much discomfort they were willing to consider acceptable.

When the team probed the ACC of the monkeys, they identified groups of neurons that activated or deactivated in line with the sizes of the reward or punishment on offer. The neurons associated with avoidance and pessimistic decision-making were particularly concentrated in a part of the ACC called the pregenual ACC (pACC). This region has been previously linked to major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder in humans.

Microstimulation of the pACC with a low-level electrical pulse caused the monkeys to avoid the reward, simulating the effects of anxiety. Remarkably, this artificially induced pessimism could be reversed by treatment with the antianxiety drug diazepam.

With knowledge of the pACC's involvement in anxiety-related decision-making, the team next searched for its connections to other parts of the brain. They injected viruses at the specific sites that instructed nerve cells to start making fluorescent proteins that would light up under microscope observation. The virus then spread to other connected nerve cells, revealing the pathways other areas of the brain linked to this center of 'pessimistic' thought.

The team found interconnections with many parts of the prefrontal cortex at the front of the human brain, which is associated with higher cogitative function and reasoning. They also noted a strong connection with labyrinth-like structures known as striosomes.

Amemori explains that "the function of the striosome structure has been something of a mystery for a long time, but our experiments point to these being an important node linking pessimistic decision-making to the brain's reward system and dopamine regulation."

The team noted a further connection, namely that between these striosomes and another more distant region, the caudal region of the orbitofrontal cortex (cOFC) at the front of the brain. This part is also known to be involved in cognition and decision-making.

When the team repeated their brain monitoring, microstimulation, and virus tracing studies in cOFC, they found a very similar influence on the monkey's tendency toward pessimistic decision making. Curiously, the pACC and the cOFC also shared many of the same connections to other parts of the brain.

The team was able to generalize these findings in primates to humans by drawing comparisons with the body of knowledge in human brains studies based on magnetic resonance imaging or MRI.

Amemori says that "the many parallels in brain activation point to a common mechanism for both humans and monkeys. It's important that we have associated striosomes and their extended network with decision making under an anxious condition, and we hope that this study will be useful toward developing brain pathway-specific treatments for neurological and psychiatric disorders in humans."

More information: Satoko Amemori et al, Causal Evidence for Induction of Pessimistic Decision-Making in Primates by the Network of Frontal Cortex and Striosomes, Frontiers in Neuroscience (2021). Journal information: Frontiers in Neuroscience Satoko Amemori et al, Causal Evidence for Induction of Pessimistic Decision-Making in Primates by the Network of Frontal Cortex and Striosomes,(2021). DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2021.649167
Queensland state Deputy Premier Steven Miles, center, waves to the public gallery after the vote for the Voluntary Assisted Dying bill at Queensland Parliament in Brisbane, Australia, Thursday, Sept. 16, 2021. Voluntary euthanasia became legal in a fifth Australian state more than 20 years after the country repealed the world's first mercy-killing law for the terminally ill. Credit: Darren England/AAP Image via AP

Voluntary euthanasia became legal in a fifth Australian state on Thursday, more than 20 years after the country repealed the world's first mercy killing law for the terminally ill.

Queensland's Parliament passed the law with 61 of the state's 93 lawmakers voting in favor.

New South Wales, the nation's most populous state, is now the only state that doesn't allow assisted suicide.

The Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory do not have the same rights as states and the Federal Parliament has barred them from making such laws.

Queensland's law, which takes effect in January 2023, allows people suffering from a disease or medical condition that is advanced, progressive and terminal to have access to so-called voluntary assisted dying.

Their condition must be expected to cause death within a year, they must have decision-making capacity, and proceed without coercion.

Deputy Premier Steven Miles said the law would ease pain and suffering.

"It has been a very considered debate and ... it's been a very difficult debate," Miles told Parliament.

Opponents argued that due to a funding shortfall for palliative care, the law would put pressure on some patients to end their lives.

"Will this government provide a guarantee that people will get access to quality integrated palliative care services wherever they live in Queensland, when they have a terminal diagnosis, and not just in the last few months of life?" opposition lawmaker Fiona Simpson said.

But Miles said palliative care and voluntary assisted dying are complementary policies which give more options to terminally ill people.

The sparsely populated Northern Territory in 1995 became the first jurisdiction in the world to legalize doctor-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients. But the Australian Parliament overturned that law in 1997 after four people had been helped to die.

The Federal Parliament does not have the same power over the six states, and Victoria became the first to legalize assisted suicide in June 2019.

New South Wales' Parliament rejected a doctor-assisted suicide bill by a single vote two weeks before the Victorian law was passed.

Explore further Australian state reaches brink of legalizing mercy killings

 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
The US government is seeking to block a settlement with Purdue Pharma that would prevent further lawsuits against its founders.

The US Justice Department has challenged a plan that would dissolve Purdue Pharma, manufacturer of the OxyContin drug that has been blamed for the country's opioid crisis, while shielding its founders from lawsuits.

The government wants the settlement, which was approved this month by a federal judge, to be put on hold while prosecutors challenge it in a federal appeals court.

Under the deal, the Sackler families that founded and profited from the company would have to pay $4.5 billion, but they could not be taken to court again over the drug.

In a court filing released Wednesday, Justice Department Trustee William Harrington argues the deal falls short of providing accountability for the nationwide addiction crisis that caused more than 500,000 overdose deaths in the United States over the past 20 years.

The agreement "harms both the public and countless individuals by extinguishing the rights that opioid victims hold against possibly thousands of Sackler Family members and associated parties."

If the settlement is allowed to proceed, there will be no "full accounting" of these individuals and groups' roles in the "opioid disaster," the government argues.

The attorneys general of Washington, Maryland, Oregon and Connecticut also have objected to the deal, though other states support it.

Facing an avalanche of litigation, Purdue last year pled guilty to three criminal charges over its aggressive drive to push sales of OxyContin, a highly addictive prescription painkiller.

Under the terms of the deal, the company will be sold by 2024 to be replaced by a new entity managed by a trust, and its involvement in selling opioid products will be restricted.

Purdue also will be required to create a repository for tens of millions of documents detailing its sales and marketing practices.

The Sacklers have welcomed the deal, saying it avoids litigation that could take years to resolve, though detractors including Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson have argued it lets the families "off the hook."

Like many American billionaires, the Sacklers have made donations to prestigious institutions such as the Met Museum in New York. Many of the institutions now ban their donations.

The family's fortune diminished amid the crisis, but was still estimated at around $10.8 billion late last year, according to Forbes, which said much of that wealth came from Purdue.

Explore further US judge approves deal dissolving Purdue Pharma in opioid saga

 2021 AFP
A participant breathes into a machine developed by UMD Professor Don Milton to measure virus content in breath. Credit: University of Nottingham

Results of a new study led by the University of Maryland School of Public Health show that people infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 exhale infectious virus in their breathand those infected with the Alpha variant (the dominant strain circulating at the time this study was conducted) put 43 to 100 times more virus into the air than people infected with the original strains of the virus. The researchers also found that loose-fitting cloth and surgical masks reduced the amount of virus that gets into the air around infected people by about half. The study was published in Clinical Infectious Diseases.

"Our latest study provides further evidence of the importance of airborne transmission," said Dr. Don Milton, professor of environmental health at the University of Maryland School of Public Health (UMD SPH). "We know that the Delta variant circulating now is even more contagious than the Alpha variant. Our research indicates that the variants just keep getting better at traveling through the air, so we must provide better ventilation and wear tight-fitting masks, in addition to vaccination, to help stop spread of the virus."

The amount of virus in the air coming from Alpha variant infections was much more18-times morethan could be explained by the increased amounts of virus in nasal swabs and saliva. One of the lead authors, doctoral student Jianyu Lai, explained, "We already knew that virus in saliva and nasal swabs was increased in Alpha variant infections. Virus from the nose and mouth might be transmitted by sprays of large droplets up close to an infected person. But, our study shows that the virus in exhaled aerosols is increasing even more." These major increases in airborne virus from Alpha infections occurred before the Delta variant arrived and indicate that the virus is evolving to be better at traveling through the air.

To test whether face masks work in blocking the virus from being transmitted among people, this study measured how much SARS-CoV-2 is breathed into the air and tested how much less virus people sick with COVID-19 exhaled into the air after putting on a cloth or surgical mask. Face coverings significantly reduced virus-laden particles in the air around the person with COVID-19, cutting the amount by about 50%. Unfortunately, the loose-fitting cloth and surgical masks didn't stop infectious virus from getting into the air.

Dr. Jennifer German, a co-author, said, "The take-home messages from this paper are that the coronavirus can be in your exhaled breath, is getting better at being in your exhaled breath, and using a mask reduces the chance of you breathing it on others." This means that a layered approach to control measures (including improved ventilation, increased filtration, UV air sanitation, and tight-fitting masks, in addition to vaccination) is critical to protect people in public-facing jobs and indoor spaces.

More information: Oluwasanmi O Adenaiye et al, Infectious SARS-CoV-2 in Exhaled Aerosols and Efficacy of Masks During Early Mild Infection, Clinical Infectious Diseases (2021). Journal information: Clinical Infectious Diseases Oluwasanmi O Adenaiye et al, Infectious SARS-CoV-2 in Exhaled Aerosols and Efficacy of Masks During Early Mild Infection,(2021). DOI: 10.1093/cid/ciab797
White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Jeff Zients attends a meeting with President Joe Biden, business leaders and CEOs on the COVID-19 response in the library of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021. Credit: AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

The Biden administration is considering requiring vaccinations against COVID-19 and contact tracing of international visitors after the U.S. revamps current broad restrictions that bar many foreigners from traveling to the U.S., a top White House adviser said Wednesday.

Jeffrey Zients, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, said that because of the recent increase in COVID-19 cases, current travel restrictions will remain in place until the administration rolls out a "new system" for regulating international travel.

The system will include a prominent role for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"We will also be putting in place contact tracing to enable CDC to follow up with inbound international travelers and those around them if someone has potentially been exposed to COVID-19," Zients said, "and we are exploring vaccination requirements for foreign nationals traveling to the United States."

Zients made the comments to a panel that advises Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo on issues around travel and the U.S. tourism industry.

The U.S. currently bars most non-Americans who have traveled to China, India, the United Kingdom, most of Europe, Brazil and other countries in the previous 14 days. Airlines and other travel companies have pushed the administration to ease the restrictions, particularly on U.K. visitors.

Separately, Anthony Fauci, the government's top expert on infectious disease, has said he would support a proposal to require vaccination for people on domestic flights.

The airline industry is adamantly opposed to such a requirement, saying it would be difficult to enforce and could lead to long lines at airports. Industry officials say it would be unfair to single out air travelers with a mandate that would not affect people who travel by train, bus or car.

Explore further US plans to require COVID-19 shots for foreign travelers

 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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HSE University researchers Evgeny Osin and Irina Turilina conducted an intervention study looking into the effectiveness of a short-term online mindfulness meditation course. They discovered that even after a three-week course of daily 10 to 15-minute meditation sessions, novice participants benefitted from improved emotional wellbeing, concentration, motivation and self-reflection. The practitioners were also less likely to fixate on negative thoughts. However, these effects only applied to people who already had sufficiently high levels of self-control and motivation to meditate and were thus less likely to give up on the practice. The research is presented in an article published in Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being.

What is it about?

In modern psychology, the term "mindfulness" is used to refer to a psychological process typically described as "an intentional, non-judgmental focus on the present moment directed in a specific way" or "non-judgmental observation of the flow of internal and external stimuli as and when they appear."

Mindfulness meditation is popular in both religious and secular circles, and is widely used in clinical and personal development contexts. The authors of the research note that, "Numerous interventions aimed at personal growth, coping with stress, overcoming addictions and achieving other goals often include various exercises borrowed from different traditions. These include concentrating on breathing, body scanning and awareness of bodily sensations, loving-kindness meditation, non-reactivity meditation and more." Programs for developing mindfulness can take the form of long-term courses, short-term retreats, and online classes.

Mindfulness has only become a topic of scientific research in the last two decades. However, the psychologists established that the Scopus abstract and citation database now contains nearly 20,000 publications featuring the key word "mindfulness."

The effects of long-established interventions such as Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy are well studied. They have positive effects on physical health (alleviating chronic pain and strengthening immunity), psychological health (preventing episodes of depression, reducing anxiety, improving control over addictions), and cognitive and emotional functioning (improving working memory and interpersonal relations).

Nevertheless, the researchers emphasize that there are numerous unanswered questions about the mechanisms behind these positive effects of mindfulness. One such question is why mindfulness comes easily to some and not to others. In order to understand more about this and gain more insight into the factors that could explain the effects of mindfulness meditation, the psychologists conducted an intensive longitudinal intervention study with novice volunteers interested in meditation.

How was it researched?

The research involved Russian-speaking volunteers recruited through social media. The sample size was 175 people aged between 18 and 67, around 80% of whom were women. More than 75% of participants had a university-level education, and 20% were university students.

For three weeks, the participants received an email with a link to daily meditation session followed by a text message reminder. Audio meditation sessions with an average duration of 12.8 minutes were recorded by Irina Turilina, one of the authors of the research and a practicing psychologist with several years of personal meditation experience. The structure of the meditation sessions corresponded to those found on popular meditation apps for smartphones. The sessions followed the logic of vipassana meditation, and involved the development of breathing concentration skills (week 1), body scanning (weeks 1 and 2), and practicing concentrated awareness of one's thoughts and emotions (weeks 2 and 3).

The volunteers were asked to fill in surveys before the start and after the end of the course. They surveys were used to investigate the influence of meditation on psychological wellbeing, the effectiveness of the course on mindfulness and reflection, and various aspects of self-regulation. The participants were also asked to provide brief daily reports tapping into their experiences of today's meditation and difficulties encountered.

The psychologists wanted tested a range of hypotheses, namely:

Credit: National Research University Higher School of Economics

During the meditation course, experiences of pleasure during meditation and its value (meaning) tend to increase, whereas the experiences of effort and boredom during meditation decrease.

Subjective assessment of one's success at immersing in the meditation exercise increases over time. It is positively related to the experiences of pleasure and value of meditation and is negatively related to the experience of boredom.

There are substantial differences between individuals in how quickly the experiences of pleasure, meaning, effort, boredom and subjective success at meditation change over time.

What are the findings?

The research confirmed that longer practice of meditation brings about more feelings of pleasure and the value of meditation, whereas the feelings of effort and emptiness decrease. Participants with higher levels of internal motivationa deeper interest in meditation and greater awareness of the importance of trainingshowed higher levels of involvement. They also experienced stronger feelings of pleasure and meaning during meditation than those participants who were motivated by external and superficial factors, such as the desire to improve their self-worth or win the approval of others.

Higher levels of mental health had a positive correlation with experiencing pleasure and meaning while practicing, and a negative correlation with the likelihood of discontinuing the sessions and experienced difficulty of meditation. The experiment found that participants with higher levels of rumination (the inability to distance themselves from their problems and worries) saw meditation as a practice that required effort.

One important result of the research is the discovery of a link between developed self-regulation skills (being able to manage one's emotions and behavior) and decreased levels of effort and emptiness while meditating. In other words, participants with greater self-control skills found meditation easier, experienced less boredom, and tended to overcome tension more quickly while meditating.

Participants with lower levels of self-control were more inclined to give up on the classes and more likely to experience difficulties while meditating. For example, they were more likely to report feelings of annoyance at the instructor's voice, as well as headaches, boredom, the desire to sleep, etc.

One unexpected finding of the research was that the participants who experienced more emptiness and boredom reported deeper immersion in meditation. This result is in line with pas findings showing that boredom could play an adaptive role in the process of self-regulation: "This suggests that participants who are more successful at focusing their attention and avoiding distractions may experience more boredom while meditatingbut they are ultimately more capable of becoming absorbed in the practice," the research reports.

The results of the intervention study broadly confirm the hypotheses put forward by the researchers. The authors note that meditation is just one area of life where people can encounter difficulties while pursuing their intended goals. "It is not surprising that regular meditation requires the skills of self-regulation and self-control, much like any other self-guided activity. The good news is that meditation helps to develop these skills," they note.

Why is this research important?

The results contribute to our overall knowledge about the influence of individual differences on the outcomes of mindfulness practices. Moreover, online meditation continues to gain popularity, which is why it is important to understand both how effective it can be and which factors influence its effectiveness. "Future research could explore the best ways to create tailored distance-based meditation practices that would take into account different levels of reflection and self-regulation across individuals," note the researchers.

Explore further Certain meditation strategies may help perfectionists

More information: Evgeny N. Osin et al, Mindfulness meditation experiences of novice practitioners in an online intervention: Trajectories, predictors, and challenges, Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being (2021). Evgeny N. Osin et al, Mindfulness meditation experiences of novice practitioners in an online intervention: Trajectories, predictors, and challenges,(2021). DOI: 10.1111/aphw.12293

Provided by National Research University Higher School of Economics
Fig. 1. Scheme of the portable sensing system and the gate modification processes of the IgG sensor. The device is connected to a portable meter that is controlled by a mobile phone through Bluetooth. The biological modification on a gate electrode is carried out with several steps. Credit: DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abg8387

A team of researchers at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University has developed what they describe as a fast and inexpensive way to test for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in human patients. The results are published in the journal Science Advances.

When a person becomes infected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, their immune system responds by creating antibodies as one of the ways to fight the infection. The immune system continues to produce such antibodies long after the infection has been cleared. Unfortunately, it is still not known just how long the body continues to make them; thus, discussions regarding when to administer booster shots have become heated in recent weeks. A possible way to reduce such discourse and to relieve the minds of patients, would be access to a cheap and readily available testing device that could measure the level of antibodies produced by a given individual. Such a device would also be able to report if a person had previously been infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, or if they had been vaccinated against it. In this new effort, the researchers in Hong Kong are claiming to have created just such a device.

The new device is based on the use of organic electrochemical transistorstypes of transistors that drain current controlled by ions in an electrolyte after injection into a conductor. In this case, the researchers were able to use them to convert bio-signals in bodily fluids to electrical signals that could be analyzed using software running on a smartphone. To make use of the transistors, the researchers placed them inside individual plastic strips which were then fitted onto a housing. During use, a drop of blood or saliva would be placed on the strip, allowing the transistor to do its work. Making it even easier to use, the researchers used Bluetooth so testing could be done wirelessly. Once the analysis begins, results can be returned in as little as five minutes. The researchers claim that that the plastic strips cost as little as US $1.

The researchers have tested their device and have found it to be highly accurate when analyzing both blood and saliva samples. They have also already made arrangements for their device to begin clinical trials as soon as possible.

More information: Hong Liu et al, Ultrafast, sensitive, and portable detection of COVID-19 IgG using flexible organic electrochemical transistors, Science Advances (2021). Journal information: Science Advances Hong Liu et al, Ultrafast, sensitive, and portable detection of COVID-19 IgG using flexible organic electrochemical transistors,(2021). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abg8387

 2021 Science X Network
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Placing parents with children suspected of having illnesses such as meningitis nearer to the center of decision-making, simplifying health services, and ensuring children see the same health professionals will help accelerate treatment and reduce deaths.

This is according to research published by the University of Northampton (UON), University of Plymouth and partner organizations.

The Before Arrival at Hospital (BeArH) project looked at the pre-hospital journeys of children later diagnosed with a serious infectious illness such as meningitis and sepsis.

Researchers spoke with 40 parents and 30 health professionals, including hearing about the concerns raised by mothers whose children died from serious infectious illnesses such as sepsis after failures in the health system.

Infections such as these continue to be a major cause of childhood deaths in the UK, particularly in the first five years of life. The most recent analysis of child mortality data (from 201315) in England and Wales found that infection was associated with 20% of all childhood deaths (Ferreras-Antolin, Oligbu et al. 2020).

Researchers worked with parents and health professionals to understand what happens to children later diagnosed with a serious infectious illness, before they are admitted to hospital.

They asked about every point on the child's illness journey from falling ill at home, through all the contacts with health services up until they were admitted to hospital.

The research aimed to identify points in this journey where improvements could be made, to ensure timely treatment and, ultimately, save lives. The findings include:

Parents feel powerlessness and a loss of control over their child's health and their access to treatment.

Parents often report feeling criticized for using services in the early stages of the illness. This can lead to delay in seeking help again.

Parents and health professionals both miss signs and markers of serious illness.

The health system can be complex for both professionals and parents.

There is a lack of continuity of the health professionals caring for individual childrenfew see the same professional when seeking help again.

Risk averse agencies refer more suspected cases to hospitals, adding extra stress in the system. One emergency doctor quoted in the report commented: "We have made the haystack bigger. There is still only one needle, but the haystack is enormous."

The report outlines the need for further research into parents' consultations with health professionals to identify causes of perceived criticism.

It also suggests a feasibility study for a safety-netting app, reducing the complexity of services and improving the continuity of health professionals involved in the care of each child with a serious infectious illness.

Tash Bayes, Research Assistant at UON was BeArH's project manager. She said:

"We are very happy to share the important findings of the BeArH project, the implications for young children and their families and to outline our next steps. BeArH has been a multifaceted, multi-site project in collaboration with academics, health professionals, parents and charity organizations over three years. Their perspectives throughout the research were crucial; without them, conducting and completing BeArH would not have been possible."

Professor Sarah Neill from the University of Plymouth is chief investigator of the BeArH project. She said:

"During our research, we heard heart-breaking accounts from parents. I'd like to express my thanks to them for their time and courage in sharing their stories, and to the health professionals for lending us their valuable insights.The findings from the BeArH research provide important insights into the complex interplay of factors that influence the timing of treatment for these serious infectious illnesses.

"Parents, already distressed when their child is unwell, feel disempowered in the face of the established knowledge of health professionals in an overstretched service. For both, that system can be a complicated terrain to navigate. This can lead to a 'perfect storm' with tragic outcomes, ironically in a system designed to stop this. We hope that the BeArH findings and follow-up investigations will help to reduce child deaths."

Explore further Doctors tell parents too late that their child is near death, survey suggests

More information: Before Arrival at Hospital (BeArH): Factors affecting timing of admission to hospital for children with serious infectious illness project. Before Arrival at Hospital (BeArH): Factors affecting timing of admission to hospital for children with serious infectious illness project. nectar.northampton.ac.uk/14927  _illness_project.pdf
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Guinea has declared the end of an outbreak of the Marburg virus, which belongs to the same family as Ebola, the World Health Organization said Thursday.

Health authorities in the country confirmed West Africa's first recorded case of Marburg on August 9, in a man whose infection was detected after he had died a week earlier.

No treatment or vaccine exists for Marburg, which belongs to the same filovirus family as Ebola and is somewhat less deadly.

Its symptoms include high fever and internal and external bleeding.

To prevent the spread of the virus, Guinean health authorities began monitoring the Marburg victim's contact cases.

The WHO said in a statement that no other cases had been detected since, and the outbreak is over.

"Without immediate and decisive action, highly infectious diseases like Marburg can easily get out of hand," the statement quoted WHO Africa director Matshidiso Moeti as saying.

She added that Guinea's growing expertise in responding to viral outbreaks had prevented a "spillover" and saved lives.

A poor nation of 13 million people, Guinea was hit hard by the 2013-16 West African Ebola outbreak, which killed about 2,300 people in the country.

Ebola resurfaced in northeastern Guinea in February, killing 12 people, before that outbreak was declared over in June.

Explore further WHO, Guinea find at least 4 contacts of Marburg virus victim

 2021 AFP
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Western Australian healthcare workers face a growing risk of injury from treating increasing numbers of obese patients, according to Edith Cowan University (ECU) research.

Studies from ECU's School of Nursing and Midwifery reveal WA nurses, orderlies and other patient care professionals are among the most at risk for musculoskeletal injuries and reports of back, wrist, knee and shoulder injuries have increased when handling obese patients.

It's a growing problem, with 42 percent of the Australian population predicted to be obese by 2035.

Lead researcher Kim McClean said staff were put at extra risk due to inadequate recording procedures.

"We found high levels of under-reporting of patient obesity, with only 11 percent of patients coded as obese despite statistics demonstrating likely patient obesity rates of 33 percent," Ms McClean said.

"Without accurate data we can't ensure hospitals have appropriate equipment, staffing levels or training to reduce risks to nurses and other healthcare staff."

Physical and financial strain

Studies show 46 percent of nursing assistants have reported being hurting themselves while lifting, moving or helping a patient, with 40 percent reporting back injuries when conducting these tasks.

Additionally, 50 percent of nursing staff consider leaving the job due to the physical stress and injury involved.

Ms McClean said the poor recording of obesity in patients also meant WA hospitals miss out on vast sums of vital activity-based funding (ABF), which reimburses healthcare organizations based on the type of patient care provided and the equipment needed to provide it.

"Obesity patients cost more to treat, however poor obesity recording is reducing potential hospital fundingin my case study by $2.3 million per year," Ms McClean said.

A way forward

Ms McClean's latest research shows the issue can be addressed.

Over 12 months, nursing staff attended education sessions emphasizing how to accurately record obesity data, were given tape measures, taught methods to measure heights of bed-ridden patients and other ways to better find out and record patients' body mass indexes (BMI).

After the trial, patient BMI recording rose from 6 percent to 33 percent, while height measurements increased from 12 percent to 33 percent.

It also saw more accurate obesity recording, which Ms McClean said could become easier for staff workers as hospitals move towards electronic health records.

"User-friendly improvements should be considered, such as compulsory recording of patient weight and height, embedded and automatic BMI calculators and 'check boxes' for obesity conditions which may affect treatment," she said.

"In the meantime, improvements can be made by aiming to record 100 percent of patients' weight, height and BMI, educating workers and making sure staff record the necessary information.

"All of this will result in a better ability to use obesity data to reduce the chances of healthcare staff being injured and hospitals receive the ABF reimbursements they should."

"Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Clinical Practice Intervention in Increasing Obesity Data Recording at a Western Australian Country Health Service Hospital: A Quasi-Experimental Controlled Trial" was published in the Journal of Multidisciplinary Healthcare.

Explore further Australian public hospitals cannot meet the rising demand for obesity care

More information: Kim McClean et al, Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Clinical Practice Intervention in Increasing Obesity Data Recording at a Western Australian Country Health Service Hospital: A Quasi-Experimental Controlled Trial, Journal of Multidisciplinary Healthcare (2021). Kim McClean et al, Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Clinical Practice Intervention in Increasing Obesity Data Recording at a Western Australian Country Health Service Hospital: A Quasi-Experimental Controlled Trial,(2021). DOI: 10.2147/JMDH.S325903
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

From the start, Norma Cavazos was surrounded by friends and family who were vaccine skeptics: "No one was going to take it, including myself. That was something that we were all adamant about."

As a public health worker for the state of Texas, she was aware of the coronavirus long before people around her in Harlingen, a city about 14 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border in the Rio Grande Valley, started getting sick. But her concerns about the vaccines then being developed stayed steadfast even as the disease started shuttering businesses and claiming family members' lives.

She heard all kinds of falsehoods. The vaccines were being rushed. They were a part of a government plot against Hispanic people. And, most serious to her, that they were dangerous for someone with her health issues, which included a heart condition.

Cavazos, 62, said she worked hard to find facts, but what she read overwhelmed her. "I was just so confused and so upset."

Her experienceand the story of how she turned around and began urging others to get the free vaccineillustrate some of the reasons vaccination rates among Hispanic people have been lagging, as well as what might help speed up a recent reversal in that trend.

Until recently, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Hispanic people have been getting vaccinated at low levels relative to their population, even though COVID-19 has hit them disproportionately hard.

Deep-seated mistrust in medical research and massive amounts of disinformation are two of the biggest barriers for Hispanic people, said Amelie G. Ramirez, who has a doctorate in public health and is director of the Institute for Health Promotion Research at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.

The mistrust predates the pandemic.

A 2019 Pew Research Center survey found 60% of Hispanic respondents considered misconduct by medical research scientists to be a very big or moderately big problem. Only 42% of white people said the same.

Social media amplified that mistrust, particularly among Latinos, who are heavy users of cellphones to connect with far-flung family, Ramirez said. She's seen falsehoods about microchips, fertility risks and more spread rapidly, in English and Spanish, across the hemisphere. "I have a cousin who's a nun, and her whole order didn't want to be vaccinated, even knowing that the pope is supporting it."

Some of the problem is simply people don't like to be told what to do, she said.

But resistance crosses educational, economic and cultural lines among Hispanic people, said Ramirez, who also is director of Salud America, an organization that promotes Latino health. Getting to the core is a challenge. "It's this onion that we just kind of keep peeling back in terms of trying to better understand why and where did this mistrust start."

Hesitancy alone does not explain low vaccination rates, said Dr. Fatima Rodriguez, an assistant professor of cardiovascular medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine in California.

"There are issues of trust in the community, but also factors like access," said Rodriguez, who has researched health disparities.

Many Hispanic workers have jobs that require them to be there in person, which limits when they can get the vaccine, she said. "It is exactly the people who can't take time off work to get vaccinated or can't sign up on complicated online portals who need the vaccine the most."

Despite such obstacles, vaccination rates have been rising in recent months. The CDC reported that as of Sept. 14, Hispanic people, who make up 17% of the U.S. population, made up 26% of the those receiving their initial dose in the previous two weeks.

Why the change? Ramirez said the delta variant, which has filled intensive care units with unvaccinated people, is scaring people into action. She also credited better efforts to share information in English and Spanish. "Finally, the messaging is getting out there to reach our communities," she said.

To keep things moving in the right direction, Rodriguez emphasized a need to remove barriers that keep people from getting vaccinated. Workers shouldn't be forced to take time off work to get vaccines, for example, and to face questions about their immigration status, "particularly in undocumented groups, who may fear deportation."

She also said people need a way to address their fears. Community leaders and trusted public figures could help with that.

Ramirez agreed. She also said people can help themselves by being skeptical about what they read online. For reliable information, she suggested starting with a local medical school or public health department, or the CDC.

The CDC and other major public health organizations like the American Heart Association and American Academy of Pediatrics recommend all eligible people get COVID-19 vaccinations. Those still unsure can talk with their doctor, nurse practitioner, physician assistant or pharmacist, or go to getvaccineanswers.org for credible information.

A wide-ranging report from the CommuniVax Coalition noted "vaccination moves at the speed of public trust." And finding local, trustworthy experts is what helped Cavazos change her mind.

Exasperated by all the conflicting information she found, she finally called her personal doctor directly. "I'd never done that before, to just pick up the phone and call my doctor."

She was demanding. But he was clear, telling her, "It's going to protect you. It's going to keep you from going into the hospital, to the ICU, and into the hospital, and possibly dying." She then asked several specialists she sees. All saidget vaccinated.

So, in January, she did. She's since worked with Salud America to share her story.

Cavazos, whose job involves teaching community workers and others about health issues, said people have the right to make their own choices, but efforts to provide information need to be personal and direct.

"You can't get that from a politician or a commercial," she said. And you can't just tell people to get a vaccine because it's good for them and leave it at that. "People want to know everything. They want to know the truth. And they want it from a person that they trust."

Explore further Fighting COVID-19 misinformation
Inuit in the Qikiqtaaluk (Baffin) region must travel long distances south to receive specialized health-care services. Credit: Janet Jull, Author provided

Inuit are resilient. They have demonstrated self-determination and the ability to navigate and adapt to harsh and changing environments.

Inuit live in many locations including urban environments, although most Inuit in Canada live in the traditional territory called Inuit Nunangat. Inuit who live in Inuit Nunangat must travel long distances south to receive specialized health-care services, such as cancer care, obstetrics and dialysis.

They must navigate complex health systems in major urban centers, often with little or no personal support. These circumstances limit the opportunities of Inuit community members to participate in their health decisions.

When people have opportunities to participate with their health-care providers and to share what is important to them in their health decisions, it is called shared decision making. Shared decision making is identified as a high standard of person-centered care, and supports positive health outcomes.

We are members of a team of Inuit and non-Inuit community service providers and academic health-care researchers who are working on a research project we call "Not Deciding Alone."

Our focus is on enhancing opportunities for Inuit to participate in decisions about their health care through the shared decision-making model. Our research approach applies the guiding principles of Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit, a system of knowledge and beliefs used to serve the common good through collaborative decision making. Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit are grounded in caring for and respecting others, and are the foundation for a strengths-based approach to promote Inuit self-determination and self-reliance.

For patients from the Qikiqtaaluk (Baffin) region, the journey to receive cancer care involves negotiating a complex health system and travelling thousands of kilometres to large cities in Ontario. Credit: Janet Jull, Author provided

Like many First Nations and Metis populations, Inuit face a high and worsening health burden in relation to others across Canada. Ineffective policies perpetuate these health and social inequities.

Research can help people (community members, health-care providers, policy and decision makers) to identify, understand and address health inequities, that is, differences in health that are unnecessary, avoidable and unjust. We aim to build evidence that Inuit can use to improve their experience in the health system.

Learning about the health-care journey

We conducted a study to understand the experiences of Inuit who travel from remote to urban settings for cancer care. For participants in our study from the Qikiqtaaluk (Baffin) region, the journey to receive cancer care involves negotiating complex health systems and traveling thousands of kilometers from very remote geographic areas to large cities in Ontario.

Our study shows that the journey to receive health care consists of a series of connected events that we describe as a "decision chain." Participants described themselves as directed, with little or no support, and as seeking opportunities to collaborate with others on the journey to receive health care.

There is a travel burden to access health care for people who live in the northern regions of Canada. For many Inuit, decisions about accessing health care also involve decisions about commuting or moving from remote communities to a major urban center in the south and leaving dependents, their home, employment and other community roles. The alternative is to opt out of treatment.

While all who live in remote areas of Canada are confronted with difficult decisions related to health-care access, the decision-making of Inuit (and other Indigenous people) is further complicated by factors related to health care. These factors include limited community health resources. For example, in some regions of Canada such as Nunavut, there is limited access or a lack of organized cancer screening programs.

As a result, people need to have an awareness of cancer symptoms and act as self-advocates. In addition, they must rely on a local health system that faces challenges of health-care provider recruitment and retention, and high patient caseloads. Many Inuit must also access and navigate health care in their second language, another health-care challenge and barrier to equitable access and uptake of health care.

Indigenous peoples' history of negative experiences with the health-care system also impact decisions to seek treatment. Inuit have painful memories about the removal of family members for tuberculosis treatment to hospitals and sanatoria located in unknown southern regions of Canada in the 195060s. Inuit must also deal with the intergenerational trauma of residential schools

Lillian Elias: A Residential School Survivors Story.

Support on the health-care journey

People who live in remote areas are identified as being at risk to experience stress because, to receive care, they must leave their family and community supports to travel to the location of care. Research with Indigenous populations who live in remote areas shows that health-care systems do not accommodate the context and logistic complexity of health-care access. Inuit have also been identified to be at increased risk of harms during their transition to urban centers.

The recommendations of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Inquiry (MMIWG) call on governments to plan and fund safe, sufficient and readily available transportation in towns and cities with particular consideration of the limited transportation available, especially in fly-in, northern and remote locations.

There is an urgent need to improve opportunities for Inuit to participate in their health decisions. With leadership from Inuit partners, our team is learning how health-care systems can better support collaboration among those who use, deliver and facilitate health care. Inuit need to know that they are not alone on the health-care journey.

Explore further Urban Inuit communities suffer from poor health and limited access to healthcare

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

Over the past decade, scientists have been exploring vaccination as a way to help fight cancer. These experimental cancer vaccines are designed to stimulate the body's own immune system to destroy a tumor, by injecting fragments of cancer proteins found on the tumor.

So far, none of these vaccines have been approved by the FDA, but some have shown promise in clinical trials to treat melanoma and some types of lung cancer. In a new finding that may help researchers decide what proteins to include in cancer vaccines, MIT researchers have found that vaccinating against certain cancer proteins can boost the overall T cell response and help to shrink tumors in mice.

The research team found that vaccinating against the types of proteins they identified can help to reawaken dormant T cell populations that target those proteins, strengthening the overall immune response.

"This study highlights the importance of exploring the details of immune responses against cancer deeply. We can now see that not all anticancer immune responses are created equal, and that vaccination can unleash a potent response against a target that was otherwise effectively ignored," says Tyler Jacks, the David H. Koch Professor of Biology, a member of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, and the senior author of the study.

MIT postdoc Megan Burger is the lead author of the new study, which appears today in Cell.

T cell competition

When cells begin to turn cancerous, they start producing mutated proteins not seen in healthy cells. These cancerous proteins, also called neoantigens, can alert the body's immune system that something has gone wrong, and T cells that recognize those neoantigens start destroying the cancerous cells.

Eventually, these T cells experience a phenomenon known as "T cell exhaustion," which occurs when the tumor creates an immunosuppressive environment that disables the T cells, allowing the tumor to grow unchecked.

Scientists hope that cancer vaccines could help to rejuvenate those T cells and help them to attack tumors. In recent years, they have worked to develop methods for identifying neoantigens in patient tumors to incorporate into personalized cancer vaccines. Some of these vaccines have shown promise in clinical trials to treat melanoma and non-small cell lung cancer.

"These therapies work amazingly in a subset of patients, but the vast majority still don't respond very well," Burger says. "A lot of the research in our lab is aimed at trying to understand why that is and what we can do therapeutically to get more of those patients responding."

Previous studies have shown that of the hundreds of neoantigens found in most tumors, only a small number generate a T cell response.

The new MIT study helps to shed light on why that is. In studies of mice with lung tumors, the researchers found that as tumor-targeting T cells arise, subsets of T cells that target different cancerous proteins compete with each other, eventually leading to the emergence of one dominant population of T cells. After these T cells become exhausted, they still remain in the environment and suppress any competing T cell populations that target different proteins found on the tumor.

However, Burger found that if she vaccinated these mice with one of the neoantigens targeted by the suppressed T cells, she could rejuvenate those T cell populations.

"If you vaccinate against antigens that have suppressed responses, you can unleash those T cell responses," she says. "Trying to identify these suppressed responses and specifically targeting them might improve patient responses to vaccine therapies."

Shrinking tumors

In this study, the researchers found that they had the most success when vaccinating with neoantigens that bind weakly to immune cells that are responsible for presenting the antigen to T cells. When they used one of those neoantigens to vaccinate mice with lung tumors, they found the tumors shrank by an average of 27 percent.

"The T cells proliferate more, they target the tumors better, and we see an overall decrease in lung tumor burden in our mouse model as a result of the therapy," Burger says.

After vaccination, the T cell population included a type of cells that have the potential to continuously refuel the response, which could allow for long-term control of a tumor.

In future work, the researchers hope to test therapeutic approaches that would combine this vaccination strategy with cancer drugs called checkpoint inhibitors, which can take the brakes off exhausted T cells, stimulating them to attack tumors. Supporting that approach, the results published today also indicate that vaccination boosts the number of a specific type of T cells that have been shown to respond well to checkpoint therapies.

Explore further Adoptive cell therapy plus checkpoint inhibitors show promise in non-small cell lung cancer

More information: Antigen Dominance Hierarchies Shape TCF1+ Progenitor CD8 T Cell Phenotypes in Tumors, Cell (2021). Journal information: Cell Antigen Dominance Hierarchies Shape TCF1+ Progenitor CD8 T Cell Phenotypes in Tumors,(2021). DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2021.08.020
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Six stages of engagement in treatment of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) have been reported by researchers at Boston Medical Center based on a diverse study, inclusive of parents of predominantly racial and ethnic minority children with ADHD. Published in Pediatrics, this new framework has been informed by the experiences of parents throughout the various stages that families navigate from diagnosis to the treatment process, and the interplay between themselves, their families, communities and the systems serving their child, including healthcare and education.

ADHD is one of the most common neurodevelopmental disorders of childhood, a chronic pediatric condition that can persist into adulthood. The condition is treatable, but racial and/or ethnic minority families experience disproportionate barriers to treatment engagement.

This study is a first to provide a comprehensive framework with a developmental trajectory navigated by parents and providers together. Researchers suggest that typical measures of treatment engagement, such as missed appointments or prescriptions filled, do not capture the full extent of family engagement in care.

"This framework is family-centered, focused on breaking down the barriers that families face from before diagnosis to preparing children with ADHD for the future," says Andrea Spencer, MD, director of the Reach for ADHD Research Program, director of Pediatric Integrated Behavioral Health, and a child, adolescent and adult psychiatrist at Boston Medical Center. "This framework can help serve as a model to develop engagement interventions that will be more beneficial to families."

The six stages of engagement that the research team identified are:

Normalization & Hesitation Stigmatization & Fear Action & Advocacy Communications & Navigation Care & Validation Preparation & Transition

These stages of engagement unfold in families in a similar way to a typical developmental process, hampered by providers and parents being at different stages in the process. Known as stage mismatch, this can cause difficulty and conflict, interfering with the engagement in treatment. Researchers found that any difficulty patients feel in resolving earlier stages in the engagement process could interfere with successfully navigating later stages of the process.

Within each stage, interventions could be offered to support families in that phase and help them journey successfully to the next. During Stage Two, parents explained that discrimination based on race or ethnicity intersected with ADHD stigma in their community, which led to delays in care. Interventions would target discrimination and bias among healthcare providers, as well as address misconceptions about ADHD within families and communities.

"Parents were successful when support was provided in a way that matches their own stage of engagement," says Spencer, also an assistant professor of psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine. "Using the Six Stages framework could allow the health system to better match the needs of children with ADHD whose families are at different stages of their engagement process."

This study included 41 diverse, urban, low-income families with racial and ethnic minority youth, who are most likely to experience difficulty engaging in care. Families who speak English, Spanish and Haitian Creole who engaged in a pediatric setting at a safety-net hospital answered questions to help researchers understand how families came to engage in treatment for their children. In-depth interviews were conducted with families whose children aged three to 17 years old were in treatment for ADHD between June 2018 and October 2019. Open-ended questions were also asked to explore the journey of ADHD diagnosis and treatment, community attitudes about ADHD, and other factors influencing treatment access and decision-making.

Future research should include the perspectives from families with undiagnosed and untreated children, with the inclusion of the years of treatment and age of diagnosis, and study how families of specific racial or ethnic groups may progress differently through the stages, which could be used to further inform this model.

More information: Andrea E. Spencer et al, Six Stages of Engagement in ADHD Treatment Described by Diverse, Urban Parents, Pediatrics (2021). Journal information: Pediatrics Andrea E. Spencer et al, Six Stages of Engagement in ADHD Treatment Described by Diverse, Urban Parents,(2021). DOI: 10.1542/peds.2021-051261
Human heart. Credit: copyright American Heart Association

Researchers from Queen Mary University of London have developed a new approach to address cardiac disease in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients.

Currently patients with RA are particularly susceptible to a type of cardiac deficiency termed diastolic dysfunction, which may lead to heart failure, resulting in a higher mortality rate amongst this patient group.

The new study, published in PNAS, addresses this unmet clinical need by developing an experimental model of cardiomyopathy in inflammatory arthritis.

After several attempts the team of researchers from Queen Mary's William Harvey Research Institute (WHRI) successfully identified the right model by characterizing experimental animals with arthritis. The animals developed cardiac diastolic dysfunction, recapitulating the symptoms presented by RA patients. Diastolic dysfunction means the heart is able to contract as normal but unable to dilate properly, ultimately leading to heart failure over time.

Professor Mauro Perretti, lead study author and Professor of Immunopharmacology at Queen Mary University of London said, "As is often the case, the description of a valid model of disease can open new vistas on pathogenic mechanisms as well as on novel therapeutic approaches. At present, the cardiomyopathy of patients affected by rheumatoid arthritis is not treated, and on top of this, current anti-rheumatic drugs (e.g. biologics or steroids) may even worsen it. As such there is an urgent therapeutic need to intervene and treat, if not cure, the cardiomyopathy of patients affected by rheumatoid arthritis."

"The broad area of cardiac inflammation is largely unexplored. At the WHRI we have several groups addressing experimental and translational work on several syndromes of the heart. Thus, there is work on myocarditis, on diabetes-induced cardiomyopathy and now with this study, the cardiomyopathy of inflammatory arthritis. The WHRI at Queen Mary University of London is a place of excellence to study cardiac inflammation in all its multiple faces, thanks also to our partnership with the Barts Heart Centre at Barts Health NHS Trust."

Explore further Targeting the gut to relieve rheumatoid arthritis

More information: Jianmin Chen et al, Annexin A1 attenuates cardiac diastolic dysfunction in mice with inflammatory arthritis, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2021). Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Jianmin Chen et al, Annexin A1 attenuates cardiac diastolic dysfunction in mice with inflammatory arthritis,(2021). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2020385118
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

With COVID-19 cases flooding emergency rooms and deaths on the rise among the unvaccinated, Northeastern researchers wanted to know why a sizable portion of the United States remained weary of or flat-out opposed to vaccines.

In their first direct questioning of unimmunized people, researchers learned that wide-ranging concerns about the potential risk of the vaccines, including possible side effects such as blood clots and heart inflammation, were the top reasons given by more than half (56 percent) of the unvaccinated people who participated in a study released Thursday.

There were also worries about how vaccines would impact existing health conditions such as allergies. Some respondents felt that the vaccines had not been tested enough to guarantee that problems won't pop up years from now.

The following are some of the actual responses that unvaccinated people provided to the COVID States Project, a collaborative effort by researchers from Northeastern, Harvard, Northwestern, and Rutgers.

Comments have been edited for brevity:

"I'm worried about the effects it could have on my heart, as I saw stuff in the news about it affecting young males' hearts."

"Severe reactions to vaccines in the past, was told by doctor never to get vaccinated for any reason. Allergic to too many things."

Another 15 percent of unvaccinated respondents reported a deep mistrust of government and other institutions that vouch for the safety of vaccines, followed by 10 percent who do not believe the coronavirus poses considerable risk to them. Here are some of their reasons:

"I don't always trust what the government tells us."

"I do not trust the government as a Black woman, they are pushing a little too hard for people to take this when other infectious diseases are treated as cash cows."

"I don't need a vaccine for something that has a 99.9% survival rate."

In all, more than 1,000 peopleboth vaccinated and unvaccinatedparticipated in the national survey; 33 percent of which said they had not yet received their shots. Most of those (18 percent) responded with a hard and fast "no" when asked if they would get inoculated; 15 percent said they were at least open to the idea.

The survey was conducted over the summer, weeks before the Food and Drug Administration gave full approval to Pfizer's vaccines. But the FDA action isn't expected to trigger a rush to get shots, says David Lazer, university distinguished professor of political science and computer sciences at Northeastern, and one of the researchers who conducted the study.

"There may be a modest shift of a few points in the pro-vaccine direction, but the hardcore vaccine resistant probably are not going to shift very much," he says. Lazer and other researchers are currently out in the field conducting a separate survey to see if mistrust of institutions is too deep-seated to spur vaccinations.

"If you don't trust the FDA, and then the FDA says "OK, all is good now," we probably won't see dramatic changes," he adds.

Trust in hospitals and doctors, on the other hand, ranked highest among institutions, with 92 percent of respondents believing in them, followed by scientists and researchers at 86 percent. Trust begins to wane steadily when respondents were asked about government agencies, drug companies, and the White House.

The news media and social media companies were the least trusted. Lazer says news coverage may be fueling a "see, I told you so" moment among people on both sides of the vaccination issue.

"That's how humans are," he says. "They interpret the evidence according to their predispositions." The media's relentless focus on breakthrough cases involving the highly contagious Delta variant has contributed to a "man bites dog" slant toward the sensational that feeds into some of these predispositions, Lazer adds.

"'See, the vaccines aren't protecting people because people are getting sick,'" he cites as an example. "The reality is that being vaccinated dramatically reduces your odds of getting sick and dying."

The U.S. vaccination rate has slowed after a strong start, putting the country second to Russia among countries with the highest vaccine hesitancy, according to Morning Consult, which conducts over 75,000 weekly interviews across 15 countries on the COVID-19 vaccine rollout.

U.S. President Joe Biden announced a number of sweeping actions to spur some of the nearly 80 million Americans who are eligible for shots but have not been vaccinated. He is requiring the vast majority of federal employees to get vaccinated or face disciplinary action. Companies with more than 100 employees are also impacted.

"We can and we will turn the tide," he said at the White House on Sept. 9.

Lazer says convincing people to change their minds and get inoculated points to longer-term questions around increasing trust in institutions.

"That's not going to happen within months, unfortunately," he says.

But a big effect of the FDA green-lighting the Pfizer shots is that some institutions will feel more comfortable mandating vaccines, but probably not in states where there's less political support for mandates. The result is dramatic differences in vaccination rates based on regional politics.

Indeed, within parts of the country where there is political acceptance of vaccinations, "I do think that we will see institutions, especially educational institutions and employers, really start to put pressure on people to get vaccinated," Lazer says.

More information: The report is available online: The report is available online: news.northeastern.edu/uploads/  63-TRUST-Sep2021.pdf
Meetings of Ambassador of Belarus N.Ovsyanko in Ecuador

On September 15, 2021, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Belarus to the Republic of Colombia and the Republic of Ecuador concurrently Nikolai Ovsyanko met with Vice President of Ecuador Alfredo Borrero.

During the talks, the Sides touched upon the main areas of Belarusian-Ecuadorian cooperation. Ambassador N.Ovsyanko presented the agricultural, industrial, medical and educational potential of Belarus. A.Borrero expressed his interest in strengthening cooperation in all areas of mutual interest.

Earlier in Quito, the Belarusian diplomat met with the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ecuador Juan Carlos Castrillon. The interlocutors discussed the main issues of the development of economic interaction between the two countries.

The Ambassador of Belarus also had a number of meetings with business circles representing the medical and commercial and industrial sectors of Ecuador. They agreed on the development of specific areas of joint work.

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It may seem unusual to hear a Republican lawmaker call for more regulation rather than less. But U.S. Rep. Warren Davidson says that the U.S. needs to have more regulation of cryptocurrency and financial technology because right now, it has virtually none.

I'm frustrated because for the five years I'd been in Congress, I've been talking about doing some sort of regulatory clarity for the fintech space and crypto in particular, he said. We're messing it up badly, frankly, not because we have heavy-handed regulation, we just don't have any regulation. We're having regulation by enforcement.

Davidson, the representative for Ohios Eighth District, was the featured speaker for the latest Farmer School of Business Executive Speaker Series presentation, invited by the Miami University Blockchain Club. The ESS brings key leaders to campus and provides an engaging atmosphere in which they can reflect on their experiences. Students and faculty members gain insights about how these executives think, manage and inspire.

Davidson told students that by not having clear regulations, the U.S. risks falling behind other countries in financial technology innovation.

If you look at the agricultural revolution, that technology and innovation happened in America. You look at the industrial revolution and it got underway elsewhere, but really accelerated in the United States. The automobile era flourished foremost in America. Aviation, the Wright brothers, America flourished. Aerospace, America flourished. The computing age, America flourished. The internet age, America has flourished. And right now I think we're in the fintech age, we're in an era where financial innovation is the driver, I think, for this era of global innovation. he explained.

Davidson said he became interested in blockchain and cryptocurrency technology when he worked in the private sector, using the technology to more seamlessly make financial transactions with suppliers halfway around the world. He noted that fintech isnt a partisan issue in Congress as much as it is a knowledge issue. People just don't understand it very well, Davidson remarked. This isn't the burning platform for most people in Congress. So if they don't already know about it, they're not highly motivated to learn about it.

Davidson said the U.S. should look to how it handled regulation in the early days of the internet as a guide to what it should do moving forward. One of the things that Congress got right in the 90s was saying, We're going to take a kind of hands-off approach to the internet. We have to let it grow. We're not going to crush it by putting all these heavy, burdensome things on it, he recalled. Part of the innovation happened because we use the power of government to protect the innovation.

Davidson and U.S. Rep. Darren Soto introduced the Token Taxonomy Act in 2018 and in 2021, which would define a digital token and stipulate that securities laws would not apply to cryptocurrencies after they become a fully-functioning network. Because you can't really attract capital if the people that are putting their investment at risk think that you're somehow going to be regulated as a security. You can't really move it without having somebody who's a licensed broker dealer to move the security, Davidson said. Once you're treated as a security, with regulatory compliance issues and costs, it's essentially like going public from the get-go, but without a customer.

Davidson said that regulatory clarity will continue to be a critical step towards wider institutional adoption of cryptocurrency and financial technology. I tell some of my Democrat colleagues, Look, you finally found a Republican that wants to regulate something, come on, work with me, people! I'm not talking about heavy regulation, I'm talking about regulatory clarity that is positive and affirmative in the sense that it protects private digital wallets and protects the ability to get yield on products, he noted. And it is incredibly high stakes to get this right.
PRESIDENT RODRIGO Duterte who accepted the endorsement of his own political party, the PDP-Laban, for him to run as Vice President in next y...
The Pleasure Island section of Tumon remains nearly empty of visitors on Sept. 6, 2021 as Covid-19 pandemic restrictions still keep most of Guam's main source tourism market from traveling.
A United Airlines Boeing 737-800 sits at a gate after arriving at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois on June 5, 2019.
Zimbabwe asked Mozambique and Zambia to supply it with more electricity as it tries to fill a power shortfall thats led to outages of 12 hours a day.

We are in discussions with Mozambique for the recently commissioned power plants to give us an additional 180 megawatts, Energy Minister Soda Zhemu told lawmakers Wednesday, according to a transcript on parliaments website.

We are also at final stage of discussion with Zambia to get an additional 100 megawatts.

The current electricity cuts were because of rehabilitation work at the Kariba South hydropower plant, constraints at its coal-fired Hwange plant and limited power imports, according to the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority.

A total of 1,276 megawatts was being produced by plants in the country on Thursday, according to data from the state-owned power company. Demand is at 1,700 megawatts.

The two neighboring countries currently supply Zimbabwe with as much as 170 megawatts of electricity.
Deputy Minister in the Presidency and former deputy communications minister Prof Hlengiwe Mkhize has died at 69, News24 reports.

A member of the national executive committee (NEC), official records state that Mkhize was elected as a member of Parliament in the National Assembly during 2009.

Former President Jacob Zuma appointed her as Deputy Minister of Telecommunications and Postal Services on 26 May 2014, where she served until 31 March 2017.

She briefly served as the Minister of Home Affairs from 31 March 2017 to 17 October 2017 before being moved to the portfolio of Higher Education and Training, where she served until 26 February 2018.

Mkhize was without portfolio until Ramaphosa appointed her as Deputy Minister in the Presidency for Women, Youth, and Persons with Disabilities on 30 May 2019.

Mkhize held a BA degree in Psychology, Social Work, and Sociology from the University of Zululand obtained in 1976; a BA Honours in Psychology from the University of Natal obtained in 1978; and a Masters degree in Clinical Psychology from the University of Natal obtained in 1981.

She was an Honorary Professor of Psychology at the University of South Africa and was studying towards a PhD through the University of Natal.

Prior to her appointment as Deputy Minister, Prof Mkhize served as Ambassador of South Africa to the Netherlands from 2005 to 2008.

She was Deputy Minister of Correctional Services from May 2009, to June 2012, and the Deputy Minister of Economic Development from June 2012 until May 2014.

Now read: South African broadband legend Rudi Jansen dies
Sinovac Biotech Ltd.s South African partner plans to have a vaccine-making facility operational as early as the end of the year after the two companies started a Covid-19 inoculation trial in infants, children and adolescents.

Numolux Group expects the so-called fill-and-finish factory to produce 100 million doses a year once its operating at full capacity, Chief Operating Officer Anton Arendse said in an interview on Wednesday, without saying how long it may take to reach this output. The plant would eventually produce vaccines other than for Covid-19, he said.

The long-term plan is the manufacture and distribution of vaccines on the continent of Africa, Arendse said.

The plans add to those of Aspen Pharmacare Holdings Ltd., which is making vaccines on behalf of Johnson & Johnson in South Africa, and Cape Towns Biovac Institute, which plans to producing the shot designed by Pfizer Inc. and BionNTech SE.

South African regulators approved Sinovacs double-dose Covid-19 vaccine candidate in July, the first shot developed for the disease by a Chinese company to be sanctioned in the country. The World Health Organization has also given the dose an emergency-use listing.

The South African government, which is distributing vaccines in the country, has yet to procure any.

The Numolux and Sinovac phase 3 study in South Africa is part of a global trial that will evaluate the efficacy, safety and immune response of CoronaVac in people aged six months to 17 years. Of the 14,000 participants enrolled, about 2,000 will be from South Africa.

The study will use placebos and active shots. After the first 47 infections in South Africa, a preliminary analysis will take place, said Sanet Aspinall, who is leading the study.

While children are less likely to develop severe disease from Covid-19 infections than adults, they still contract the virus and can spread it to other, more vulnerable people. The country will need a pediatric vaccine to ensure enough people are inoculated against the virus to slow its spread, Arendse said.

Inactivated Virus

While the immediate production plans of the Pretoria-based company are for bottling and labeling, Numolux hopes to expand that to building a factory that supplies the active pharmaceutical ingredients. The cost for this may be as much as $250 million, Arendse said.

Sinovac has already started production of its vaccine in Egypt.

The CoronaVac shot uses technology similar to other established childhood vaccines and so is considered a safe shot. While it may not be as effective as other candidates, its a good option for children, said Glenda Gray, who is co-lead of another South African trial using Johnson & Johnsons vaccine in health-care workers.

Coronavac stimulates an immune response against Covid by using a killed, or inactivated, version of the virus. Messenger RNA vaccines such as those produced by Moderna Inc. and Pfizer Inc. instruct cells to temporarily make viral proteins that provoke immunity. Shots from AstraZeneca Plc and J&J are so-called vector vaccines that use harmless cold viruses to bring about immunity against Covid.

People are saying we want our kids to be vaccinated, but we do not feel comfortable using a technology that does not have that extensive platform and use platform that a traditional inactivated-virus vaccine has, Arendse said. People are saying we are denied the choice about what kind of vaccine we want to use.
WhatsApp told Reuters that it launched a feature on Wednesday which would allow users to search for businesses within the app.

According to Will Cathcart, service lead at WhatsApp, the rollout will begin with a test in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

He shared images of how WhatsApp will organize businesses in the directory into categories such as restaurant and automotive service.

Reuters said the test would include thousands of businesses in Sao Paulo and would bolster ecommerce on WhatsApps services by allowing users to find and contact businesses through the in-app directory.

WhatsApp, unlike Facebook and Instagram, does not feature in-app advertisements.

According to Matt Idema, Vice President of business messaging at Facebook, companies previously promoted their WhatsApp details on packaging and websites or used Facebook ads to bring potential customers into WhatsApp chats.

The Facebook-owned messaging platform currently offers an app for small businesses and a specialised software interface for larger organisations to link their systems.

WhatsApp indicated to Reuters that the new directory feature would not allow the company to know or store user data relating to location, searches, or results.

This comes after the company faced criticism over privacy updates and breaches, which ultimately landed WhatsApp a R4 billion fine.

Idema indicated that India and Indonesia are ideal next candidates to expand the feature further.

Im excited were starting to pilot a local business directory within @WhatsApp. This will help you find and contact local businesses, like your neighborhood coffee shop, florist, clothing store and more.https://t.co/kNvUtn7FWR  Will Cathcart (@wcathcart) September 15, 2021

Now Read: Google Search gets dark mode on desktop
These wines undergo the standard winemaking protocol, fermentation, blending, heat and cold stabilization and filtration, said Epperson. Many liquor-based hard seltzers have added sugars and artificial flavors with a high-calorie count, [but] our more sophisticated wine seltzers contain only 80 calories and 2-3 grams of carbohydrates per serving.

Another wine enthusiast that got hooked on seltzer-ing his product was BJ McCaslin, co-founder of Coastal Spritz based out of Washingtons Columbia Valley. McCaslin said that FMBs (fermented malt beverages) werent actually on his mind when he and his partners created the line in 2017, as he is a longtime bar owner.

I have always been into mixology, so it made sense to move from health and wellness back into my passion, he said. Prior to Coastal, McCaslin had an espresso and coconut water beverage company that was eventually sold to Vita Coco.

As you see the FMBs slow down and reach a run rate, we will see spirits based continue to grow with many more entrants into the space, he predicts. And that is why we love Coastal being wine-based  There will not be as many players, because the category is so much smaller than the FMB and spirit-based RTDs.
DoorDash is suing New York City over a new law that requires delivery companies to share customer data with restaurants.

The lawsuit filed Wednesday is the latest in a string of legal tussles between delivery companies and local governments, reflecting unease over the phenomenal growth of delivery and its impact on restaurants.

Last week, DoorDash, Grubhub and Uber Eats sued New York over a separate bill that caps fees delivery companies can charge to restaurants. DoorDash and Grubhub are also suing San Francisco over fee caps adopted there.

In its new lawsuit, DoorDash says an ordinance passed by the New York City Council in late July is unconstitutional and violates customer privacy. Under the law, delivery companies must share data collected on customers  including names, addresses, phone numbers and order contents  with any restaurant that requests that information. Customers can opt out and keep their information private, but only on an order-by-order basis.

In an era of heightened concerns about data privacy and identity theft, this compelled disclosure is a shocking and invasive intrusion of consumers privacy, the San Francisco company said in its court filing. The company noted that in-person diners would never be asked to share the same information with restaurants.
I believe it is incredibly obvious that this recall showed that if you keep the focus on Gavin Newsom, he can be beat, but what we clearly saw in this election that the focus of this election turned into national politics and personalities, said Faulconer, whose prescriptions for homelessness, housing affordability, wildfire prevention and drought management never gained traction.

Despite having difficulty increasing his name recognition beyond his home turf, Faulconer had said prior to Tuesday that he was would run for governor in 2022 regardless of what happened in the recall. But those plans may be dashed by the twin realities that Newsom is in a stronger position to win a second term next year and Faulconer will have monumental challenges raising money off such a poor performance.

There are still millions of mail-in votes left to count and Brian Adams, a political science professor at San Diego State University, said Faulconer needs to finish with at least double-digit support to have any shot at being taken seriously.
California has already taken important steps to confront the climate crisis, setting a legal requirement for 100% clean electricity by 2045, with an interim goal of 40% by 2030. Under Newsoms leadership, we have a unique window to meet these goals and tap the promise of offshore wind, which has the potential to power a quarter of the states energy needs on its own.

Major corporations and employers across California are eager to see this resource expand in the state. Companies want to transition to reliable and affordable sources of clean energy that will free them from the volatility of fossil fuel prices, and stave off the severe economic risks of climate change to their businesses and communities.

Sierra Nevada Brewing Co operates the largest solar array in craft brewing as part of its strategy to meet its climate and energy goals. But the brewery still needs to purchase some electricity, and a cleaner grid powered by sources like offshore wind is essential for businesses to reduce the emissions footprint of purchased electricity. Thats why more than a dozen companies, including the Sierra Nevada, have called on lawmakers to pass AB 525.
When I read Steven Rodriguezs letter attacking the pro-life law recently enacted in Texas ("Some kind of justice," Sept. 9), I was struck by the phrase a womans constitutional right to an abortion. What constitution, I asked myself, was the learned Mr. Rodriguez alluding to?

Like many people, Id read the U.S. Constitution  and couldnt remember seeing the word abortion employed in that august document.

Just to be sure, I accessed my searchable copy on Amazon Kindle and sought occurrences of the word abortion. Result: zero. I also searched for womans right. Result: zero. I searched for a lot of other words and phrases, too. Planned Parenthood. Infanticide. Sacred baby-killing ritual. Offering to Moloch. The result was always the same. Zero.

So Id been correct. The U.S. Constitution contains no mention of any right to abortion. I concluded that Rodriguez was probably referring to a right established by judicial fiat  maybe in Roe v. Wade (1973), almost two centuries after the U.S. Constitution became the highest law in the land.
Minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure of Armenia Gnel Sanosyan on Wednesday received Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Lithuania to Armenia Inga Stanyte-Tolockiene.

As the press service of the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure of Armenia told Armenian News-NEWS.am, Sanosyan greeted the Ambassador and stressed that his ministry is one of the largest ministries, and this creates wide opportunities for cooperation in various sectors. He also noted that Lithuania has taken a rather interesting path for development and that the Lithuanian experience in many areas will be interesting for Armenia.

In her turn, Stanyte-Tolockiene also mentioned the importance of the existing cooperation with the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure, particularly in the fields of transport and transport security. She also expressed hope that when the situation regarding the pandemic is somewhat mitigated, in the near future it will be possible to implement an agreement with Wizz Air to organize direct flights to and from Vilnius and Yerevan which can contribute to the growth of tourism.

The Ambassador also emphasized the importance of possible cooperation in the field of renewable energy, and in the future  in the field of nuclear energy, as well as exchange of experience. Cooperation in the field of migration with the EU after liberalization of the visa regime was also discussed.
Putin, Erdogan to discuss Syria and other regional conflicts

Karabakh's Arayik Harutyunyan visits Armenia 1st President, latest developments in Artsakh discussed

Members of "Armenia" alliance and MPs of homonymous faction visit Yerablur Military Pantheon (PHOTOS)

Monument to Marshal Baghramyan unveiled in Moscow

Karabakh President sends condolence message to Russia's Putin

Karabakh emergency situations service: Remains of another Armenian serviceman found in Mataghis

Catholicos of All Armenians visits Yerablur Military Pantheon (PHOTOS)

Russian State Duma chairman congratulates Armenian counterpart on Armenia's Independence Day

Putin appoints Armenia's Mikayel Aghasandyan Russia's Permanent and Plenipotentiary Representative to CSTO

Resident of Karabakh's Karmir Shuka runs over three 14-year-olds, body found hanged from a tree later

Adam Schiff congratulates Armenians on 30th anniversary of Armenia's Independence

Nikol Pashinyan: Grove of Life will symbolize the start of era of peaceful development of Armenia

Armenia premier: History has shown that it's not mandatory and is sometimes unnecessary to defeat others to win

Azerbaijan FM meets with Turkish counterpart in New York

Karabakh President meets with President of Tashir Group Samvel Karapetyan in Yerevan

New Armenian flag placed in Armenia's Tegh village, higher than Azerbaijani flag

UN Secretary General urges to ban weapons that kill without human participation

Russia Federation Council chairwoman congratulates Armenia Parliament Speaker on Independence Day

US may approve Pfizer child vaccine drug soon

Biden calls on UN to protect rights of sex minorities from Chechnya to Cameroon

"Vivid" Independence Day event kicks off at Republic Square in Yerevan

Iranian Deputy FM to arrive in Azerbaijan on a three-day visit

Police inspecting citizens with metal detectors before Independence Day event at Republic Square in Yerevan

Armenia marks Independence Day: Digest on congratulations from int. leaders

Largest flag of Armenia raised in Yeraskh village of Ararat Province (PHOTOS)

China PM to Armenia counterpart: Cooperation in sidelines of One Belt One Road joint construction steadily develops

Lukashenko to Pashinyan: Belarus, Armenia will be able to fully realize bilateral cooperations potential

Kazakhstan President: Armenia achieved great success, enjoys well-deserved reputation in international arena

Putin to Pashinyan: Trilateral agreements implementation will ensure your countrys peaceful, prosperous development

Mishustin to Pashinyan: Russia-Armenia relations progressively developing in all directions

Guy Parmelin: Switzerland remains reliable partner of reforms in Armenia

France MP: Armenia fighting for survival of itself, its people, against Azerbaijan, Turkey

Wendy Morton: UK will continue to be proud supporter of Armenias democratic, economic development

Russia envoy to Armenia: Any challenge in modern world can be overcome only through joint efforts

Top Iran officials congratulate Armenia, Armenian people

Armenia health minister's vaccinated mother contracts COVID-19

Pope Francis: May divine blessing be with people of Armenia

Wreath laid on behalf of Armenia ex-President Sargsyan at Yerevan military pantheon (PHOTOS)

Sweden ambassador: My best wishes to all Armenians (VIDEO)

Netherlands envoy to Armenia: This beautiful country, wonderful people have bright future (VIDEO)

Xi Jinping to Armen Sarkissian: Dynamics of development of China-Armenia relations is maintained

Armenia First President: Independence is non-negotiable for me

Putin: Development of Russia-Armenia relations corresponds to fundamental interests of our fraternal peoples

Blinken: US remains committed to helping negotiate long-term political settlement of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

Armenia Security Council chief refuses to speak about possible Pashinyan-Erdogan meeting

Biden: US will continue to advocate for release of all Armenian detainees held in Azerbaijan

Armenia FM to head for New York

Macron to Armenias Sarkissian: We will spare no effort to find lasting solution to conflict

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: Defeat, authorities that symbolize it cannot be source of inspiration, creation

494 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia 3rd President Sargsyan: Challenging but honorific struggle awaits us ahead

Karekin II: Main meaning of 30th anniversary of independence is to rebuild progressive, prosperous country

Karabakh President: Strong, developing Armenia has no alternative

Shombi Sharp: UN will continue to stand with Armenia in addressing impact of recent crises, pandemic, conflict

Armenia President: Today it turns out that we did not appreciate what we had

Georgia capital Tbilisi TV tower illuminated in colors of Armenia flag (PHOTOS)

US ambassador: We continue to look with confidence at future for Armenia as sovereign, prosperous state

Police not allowing reporters to cover PM's visit to Yerevan military pantheon

Newspaper: Azerbaijanis get more active after dismissal of commander of Russia peacekeepers in Artsakh

Armenia marks Independence Day 30th anniversary

Senior officials visiting Yerevan military pantheon on Armenia Independence Day 30th anniversary (PHOTOS)

US launches strike at one of al-Qaida leaders in Syria

Biden to declare end of "20-year war" in Afghanistan in speech at UN General Assembly

US Ambassador to Armenia: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has yet to be settled, Artsakh status will be clarified

Nikol Pashinyan: Russian-Armenians and their businesses stand strong with the Armenian State

Armenian businessman Samvel Karapetyan pledges investments worth $780,000,000

US says it is willing to consider return to nuclear deal with Iran

Azerbaijani-Turkish military exercises are being held in Nakhchivan

Businessman Samvel Karapetyan: I don't agree that systems have changed in Armenia, only people have changed

Two residents of Armenia's Kasakh who disappeared in Vorotan section and were returned, are at home

Kyrgyz MP proposes to appoint one Ambassador to Armenia and Azerbaijan

Armenia Central Bank head: Buffer of Armenian financial organizations is sufficient to resist challenges

OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Special Representative for South Caucasus to visit Armenia

Armenia PM sends telegram of condolence to Russia President

Armenia Deputy PM: Government shouldn't be involved in business

Nearly 700 projects considered during "Armenia 2020-Armenia 2041" meeting

Putin, Aliyev hold phone talks

Armenian filmmaker calls on Armenia citizens to join march to Yerablur Military Pantheon on Independence Day

Digest: Armenian women die in the Netherlands shooting, Azerbaijan returns 2 Armenians

Relatives of deceased servicemen protesting in front of Armenia government building

Russian Expert Center: Russia is ready to offer Yerevan buses and new metro wagons

"High-Level Observer Day" held as part of "Three Brothers-2021" Azerbaijan-Turkey-Pakistan military drills

Flights to and from Gyumri and Moscow launched

Russia deputy PM: Development of new strategic document has started with Armenia

Armenian businessman: I would like for Armenia to have three official languages

Karabakh emergency situations service: Remains or relics of soldiers not found in Hadrut today

COAF and AMAA partner to revamp dairy production in Lori Province of Armenia

Gunshots heard in Armenia's Kut village again

Alexey Overchuk: Russia is ready to help Armenia overcome economic crisis and pandemic

Armenia economy minister: Unblocking of communication will help increase country's GDP by 30%

Armenia army's units to march on country's Independence Day

Armenia PM congratulates Vladimir Putin on United Russia Party's victory

Malta Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sergey Smbatyan, performs at InClassica festival (PHOTOS)

Russian official: Bandwidth of Upper Lars checkpoint to grow by 6.5 times in 2022

Armenian Deputy PM: Armenia-Russia trade turnover made up $1.9 billion in first semester of 2021

Nursultan Nazarbayev congratulates Armenia President on 30th anniversary of Independence

Iran Ambassador to Armenia: We hope alternative road to Goris is built as soon as possible

Egypt President congratulates Armenia President on 30th anniversary of Independence

Erdogan to visit Russia on a working visit

Young Dutch man with mental disorder shoots at passers-by, kills 2 female members of AGBU Holland
Dolphin hunting is a centuries-old practice in the Faeroe Islands.

But the tradition is facing fresh scrutiny after more than 1,400 of the aquatic mammals were killed Sunday in a record-breaking slaughter that has sparked outcry among local residents and global environmental groups, NBC News reported.

The hunt in the North Atlantic islands is not done for commercial purposes and is authorized by the government, but even those who support the practice expressed concern this year's event could prompt greater scrutiny.

For hundreds of years, residents of the Faeroe Islands have participated in the annual hunting tradition, which is known as the "grind," or grindadrap in Faeroese. It sees pilot whales, the second largest species of dolphins following the orcas, and other dolphins corralled into fjords before being stabbed to death.

According to the Faeroese government, the practice is "fully regulated" and considered "sustainable," with around 600 pilot whales and 250 white-sided dolphins caught on average each year over the past two decades.

Sunday's catch blew past that average, however, with the Seattle-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society estimating that at least 1,428 white-sided dolphins were killed in what the organization branded a "cruel and unnecessary hunt."

Pall Nolsoe, a spokesperson for the Faeroe Islands' Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Culture, acknowledged that Sunday's catch was "exceptionally large."

However, he maintained that even Sunday's catch would be considered sustainable by the Faeroese government, with the hunting practice helping to sustain communities through locally sourced means.

"It's very important to understand that the basis of whaling in the Faeroe Islands is to provide food," he said. "The meat is distributed among the participants ... and also to local communities."

Further, he noted that the whale drives have taken place in the Faeroe Islands "since the Viking age," so the "grind" is considered by many to be an important part of the Faeroese cultural identity and heritage.
To demarcate and delimitate borders, Armenia is exploring the base of regulatory legal acts in the period of acquisition of independence of Soviet republics, as well as other documents. This is what Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan said in response to deputies questions during a question-and-answer session with government officials in parliament.

In response to deputy of the opposition Armenia faction of the National Assembly of Armenia Artur Khachatryans question why demarcation wasnt launched on, say, October 15, 2018 when the situation in Armenia was more favorable, Pashinyan recalled that when the governments program was being considered, and before that, the Armenian authorities were talking about the willingness to launch demarcation and delimitation of the borders with Azerbaijan, as well as the creation of all the conditions required for this.

We also expressed willingness to resume the peace process with Azerbaijan and mentioned this in response to the statement by the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs, he added and informed that negotiations were underway in the period specified by the deputies.

According to the Prime Minister, the authorities will continue to follow the strategy adopted under the governments program.

Yes, we believe that there needs to be demarcation and delimitation of the borders. In this context, it would be great and useful, if we presented the realities, opportunities and risks during discussions with citizens. Our government will take this path, the premier assured.
Armenias Minister of High-Tech Industry Vahagn Khachaturyan yesterday received the delegation led by Head of the EU Delegation to Armenia, Ambassador Andrea Wiktorin, as reported the press service of the Ministry of High-Tech Industry.

The minister presented the main functions of the ministry and placed emphasis on technological industry, digitization, the formation of an eco-system and the ministrys educational programs.

Wiktorin congratulated the minister on assuming his new office, touched upon the importance of the public-private partnership in the field of high-tech industry and mentioned that it is also important to present the completed work to the public from the perspective of strategic communication.

Talking about the support that the EU has provided to Armenia over the past years, Wiktorin particularly touched upon several programs targeted at the introduction of e-governance tools, electronic documentation, as well as innovations and the promotion of startups. She also talked about a new project through which the EU is developing a unified platform for interoperability of services provided by the government and creating one window for all border checkpoints of the country.

At the end of the meeting, Minister Khachaturyan thanked the Ambassador for supporting the ministrys programs and for the European Unions efforts for the functioning and strengthening of democracy in Armenia. He added that the ministry is open for advice and criticism from EU partners and viewed the Ambassadors comment on strategic communication as a guideline.
Today the opposition Armenia faction of the National Assembly hosted the delegation led by Member of the House of Lords of the United Kingdom, Baroness Caroline Cox. This is stated in the factions press release.

The members of the delegation visited Armenia to learn about the current situation, as well as discuss with the public and political circles of Armenia the issues on the support required for Armenia on international platforms. As a matter of fact, the delegation visited Syunik Province yesterday.

Greeting the guests, leader of the faction Seyran Ohanyan highly appreciated Baroness Coxs friendship and the invaluable support provided to the Armenian people.

During the meeting, the parties discussed the political and socio-economic situation in Armenia and Arstakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) in the post-war period, as well as the challenges facing the two Armenian states and the needs for assistance. The members of the faction asked the Baroness and her colleagues to exert pressure on Azerbaijan to return the Armenian prisoners of war to Armenia as soon as possible and without preconditions, as well as prevent the destruction of Armenian spiritual and historical-cultural heritage in the seized territories of Artsakh. The deputies also asked the guests to speak out about the war crimes that Azerbaijan and Turkey committed during the 44-day war.

The parties agreed to continue and deepen the cooperation, the press release also reads.
YEREVAN.  Hraparak daily of the Republic of Armenia (RA) writes: Secretary of the SC [(Security Council)] Armen Grigoryan was participating from Armenia in the joint session of the CSTO Foreign Ministers, Defense Ministers, and SC secretaries yesterday.

If Defense Minister Arshak Karapetyan has been in Russia for several days and is in such important negotiations on our border tension issues that even the death of [his] mother did not force him to return urgently, then [FM] Ararat Mirzoyans absence from these events is incomprehensible. Yesterday, the MFA spokesman had conveyed reporters that Mirzoyan did not leave for Dushanbe due to a plane malfunction. This explanation had caused laughter in the MFA; they were calling it clumsy and baseless.

And as for what the real reason is for not leaving for Dushanbe [to attend the aforesaid joint session], they assume: "Probably, he had an agenda of meeting with more important European officials, that's why he did not leave."

Our source conveys that it is not ruled out that this is a response from the RA to the indifference shown by the CSTO in the Artsakh [(Nagorno-Karabakh)] war [last fall] and the [Azerbaijani] encroachments on the RA borders.
The A-lister Angelina Jolie is known for her stunning beauty and great acting skills on-screen. But she also dedicates her life to important causes that arent as glamorous as her Hollywood life.

Jolies dedication to humanitarian causes started when she was named as a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador in 2001. But the big shift came when she went to Cambodia a year before to shoot Tomb Raider.

The actress started traveling the world as a volunteer in humanitarian causes in her early twenties. Jolie shared with Vogue how much she learned and evolved with her social work:

Angelina Jolie has been working in humanitarian causes since her twenties. | Source: Getty Images

I have learned more from [refugees] about family, resilience, dignity and survival than I can express.

Since then, shes been helping social causes worldwide. Weve listed the main projects the Academy Award-winning actress has been involved in.

UNHCR SPECIAL AGENCY

Angelina Jolie speaks during a press conference after visiting a refugee camp in the border between Colombia and Venezuela on June 8, 2019 in Maicao, Colombia. | Getty Images

After years of being the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) Goodwill Ambassador, Jolie was invited to become a UNHCR special envoy in 2012.

Since her early twenties, when she began working as an ambassador, the actress has completed around 60 fields missions and traveled to many refugees camps and war zones in Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Sudan, and many others.

She founded the National Centre for Refugee and Immigrant Children, got involved in building schools for refugees girls, and won awards for her work alongside the UN.

DRAW ME TO SAFETY WITH WAR CHILD UK

Actress and Special Envoy to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Angelina Jolie visits The United Nations on September 14, 2017 in New York City. | Source: Getty Images

We all agree that rape is a terrible crime. But many people have got used to thinking of it as an inevitable feature of war.

In 2014, Angelina Jolie joined forces with Stella McCartney and the War Child UK to launch the Draw Me To Safety Campaign. The goal is to help children in war-torn countries and to end sexual violence. At the time, she said to Marie Claire:

PREVENTING SEXUAL VIOLENCE IN CONFLICT INITIATIVE

Stella McCartney and Angelina Jolie attend a photocall to launch War Child's 'Draw Me To Safety' campaign during the global conference to prevent sexual violence in conflict at ExCel on June 10, 2014 in London, England. | Source: Getty Images

Jolie co-founded the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative in 2012 with the former Foreign Secretary Lord William Hague. War-zone rape is a huge problem and still seen as a lesser crime, as the actress addressed the issue.

The initiative works together with NATO to support, train, and protect peacemakers in war zones since theyre also part of the problem.

SOS CHILDRENS VILLAGE

Angelina Jolie meets Falak, 8, during a visit to West Mosul during a visit to Iraq, on June 16, 2018. | Source: Getty Images

The actress is also one of the ambassadors of the largest NGO on child development globally, SOS Children's Village. The organization works on supporting and defending the rights of foster children.

The 46-years-old actress and activist have traveled to many places with the organization, and she shared that it is important to see children growing up in a safe and loving environment.

THE JOLIE-PITT FOUNDATION AND THE MADDOX JOLIE-PITT FOUNDATION

Angelina Jolie attends a photocall for "Maleficent: Mistress of Evil" at Mandarin Oriental Hotel on October 10, 2019 in London, England. | Source: Getty Images

A year after adopting the 20-years-old Maddox, a foster child from Cambodia, Jolie and her former husband, the Hollywood actor Brad Pitt founded The Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation. Four years later, they founded the Jolie-Pitt Foundation.

Both initiatives aim to work in humanitarian causes such as ending poverty, improving education and health, and protecting the environment in Cambodia and across the globe.
Idas transformation into the monster hurricane that would devastate Louisiana had still not occurred. It was Saturday, Aug. 28, a day before the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, and the storm was still only a Category 2 cyclone when University of Miami physical oceanographer Lynn Nick Shay went to bed late that night.

But as the storm moved into the northern Gulf of Mexico, tracking ever closer to the Bayou State, it started to bulk up. And by the time Shay awoke at 8 a.m. Sunday to get the latest storm telemetry, Ida had intensified into a dangerous Category 4 hurricane; its top winds going from 115 mph to 145 mph in just a few hours.

That Ida intensified so quickly didnt surprise Shay at all. A professor of ocean sciences and associate dean of research at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, he had seen such rapid intensification occur in other hurricanes before; and in many of those cases, knew what caused the phenomenon: an enormous circular pool of warm water called an eddy.

For many coastal communities in the Gulf, their formation during hurricane season can lead to catastrophe, said Shay. He noted that at any one time, as many as three eddies are circulating in the Gulf of Mexico.

Ocean heat graph shows shows Idas track over the Gulf of Mexico toward Louisiana and the rapid intensity change in the storm that occurred in about 12 to 18 hours.

In the days leading up to Idas U.S. landfall, Shay had been watching one particular eddy very closely, using satellite imagery to track its movement and position. Nearly 125 miles across, it had separated from the Loop Current. An area of warm water that travels up from the Caribbean, past the Yucatan Peninsula, and into the Gulf of Mexico, the current is known to shed massive eddies that retain considerable amounts of heat, turbocharging hurricanes that pass over them. And thats precisely what happened as Ida headed up the Gulf before making landfall near Port Fourchon, Louisiana, on Aug. 29the storm passed directly over an eddy packing surface temperatures over 86 degrees Fahrenheit, Shay discovered.

Ocean-monitoring devices that can descend as deep as 2,500 feet revealed that the eddy also contained heat down to approximately 480 feet below the surface. So, even if Idas winds had resulted in some upwellingbringing deep, cold water to the surfacethe eddy was going to retain heat, providing the high-octane fuel the storm needed to intensify, Shay said.

Like watching reruns of an old television show, Shay has seen this scenario play out before, with Hurricane Opal in 1995 being a tipping point, he said.

When forecasters were looking out over the Gulf of Mexico, they were just looking at a sea surface temperature image, and it was pretty much uniformly warm, Shay recalled. Opal was meandering down in the Bay of Campeche, and no one really thought about it deepening and having a big impact in the Gulf. But suddenly, it started taking off toward the northeast and right over a warm eddy that had separated a few months earlier. It exploded. It went from a minimal hurricane to a Category 4 within 12 hours or so. So, it took forecasters totally by surprise.

The 15th named storm and ninth cyclone of the active 1995 Atlantic hurricane season, Opal caused widespread damage along the northern U.S. Gulf Coast in October 1995. It destroyed hundreds of homes in the Florida Panhandle and left millions in Alabama without electricity.

Now, more than 25 years later, forecasters are paying a lot closer attention to warm water, and Shays pioneering work in studying these currents is a big reason why. Hes flown on a multitude of scientific missions aboard Hurricane Hunter and C-130 Hercules aircraft, releasing probes into the ocean that collect and transmit critical data on the upper ocean and air-sea interactions.

During the then record-breaking hurricane season of 2005, Shay and his team of researchers were especially busy, flying into the maelstrom of two of historys most notable stormshurricanes Katrina and Rita, both of which, like Ida, were supercharged by warm-water eddies.

For Katrina, we deployed a slew of sensors to map out an eddy, the winds, and atmospheric parameters, Shay noted. The original forecast had the storm cutting across Miami-Dade County and then making a hard right and going right up over the west Florida shelf. We knew where the Loop Current was. We knew that it was going through a bulge and that it was getting ready to separate an eddy, and it did. And Katrina followed that path and explosively deepened. Then, a week and a half later, we were back out again, flying through Rita, he added.

So, weve seen this show several times; we know what to expect, Shay continued. With Ida, some of the thinking was that dry air was going to make it into the Gulf, but that didnt happen, and that wind shear was going to remain high, but that didnt happen either. What was left was the fact that Idas circulation was getting its act together. There was nothing but warm water in the Gulf of Mexico, and there was this big, warm eddy sitting right in the target zone. We saw it coming.

Shay studies eddies year-round, knowing quite well that these circular currents of warm water can not only supercharge tropical cyclones during the warm summer months, but also influence weather patterns during other times of the year. That may have been the case during the so-called Storm of the Century in mid-March of 1993, when an intense storm system ravaged the eastern coast of North America as it moved from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada, causing record snowfall in some areas and killing more than 250 people.

Eddies in the Northern Gulf of Mexico can help fuel these strong atmospheric fronts that come through in the winter months, Shay explained. Weve looked at some of the previous frontal storms, and it looks like the 1993 Superstorm just got such an energy boost from a warm eddy in the Gulf.

Shay has been studying the dynamics of hurricanes for more than four decades, sowing his seeds in the field in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, in the late 1970s, when he worked as a physical oceanographer for the Naval Oceanographic Office. During the summer months of 1979, he deployed a series of moorings in the Northeastern Gulf of Mexico near the DeSoto Canyon, and those ocean-monitoring buoys captured a wealth of data on sea-surface temperature and current when the Category 4 Hurricane Frederic passed directly over them. That got me hooked, Shay declared. Frederic was really the first storm I studied extensively, and I was able to produce a fair share of scientific papers on it. And the rest is pretty much history.

From studying how hurricanes affect red tide outbreaks to conducting research on how storms influenced the flow of petroleum from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Shays research runs the gamut. While 65 percent of his work is focused on the Gulf, he has also studied currents in the Eastern Pacific. And his team has a suite of high-frequency radars deployed along the South Florida coast, mapping currents, winds, and waves in real time.

We have an enormous set of surface-current data measuring the Florida Current across the Straits of Florida, looking at the small-scale eddies and the Florida Current itself and the large-scale eddies on the other side of the Straits, Shay explained.

The oceanographers research has been funded by the Office of Naval Research, the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, and NASA. He has published more than 120 peer-reviewed articles in top-tier journals and collaborated with scientists at universities and government and private-sector laboratories around the nation.

Shay emphasized that his work is a team effort involving a diverse group of scientists in his Upper Ocean Dynamics Laboratory, including associate scientist Benjamin Jaimes de la Cruz, senior research associate Jodi Brewster, and research associate Jorge J. Martinez-Pedraja.

Our partnership with NOAAs Hurricane Research Division led by Frank Marks and our relationship with NOAAs Aircraft Operations Center in Lakeland, Florida, have been invaluable over the past few decades as well, Shay said. He also noted the contributions of current and former students Eric Uhlhorn, Daniel Jacob, Joshua Wadler, Patrick Meyers, Johna Rudzin, Claire McCaskill, Michelle Mainelli, and many others.

As much as Shay knows about eddies and currents, the breadth of knowledge in that field of study still needs to be expanded, he said. He and a team of scientists from multiple institutions could get a big boost in that area should their grant proposal to examine the dynamics of the Loop Current come through.

We dont have the clearest picture on eddy-shedding behavior, but we know it occurs, Shay said. We need more measurements and models to understand it, because ultimately, our goal is to improve forecasts and save lives.
Arthur Simon, a senior lecturer with the University of Miami College of Arts and Sciences Department of Political Science, former Florida representative, and constitutional specialist, described the proceedings that generated the U.S. Constitutiona new experiment in self-governanceas nothing short of amazing.

Below are 39 curios and rare facts culled from comments by the constitutional specialist.

Delegates met on 89 of the 116 days between May 25 and their final meeting on Sept. 17, 1787. The meetings took place at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

It was illegal. The delegates far exceeded the authority invested in them. Congress authorized the convention for the express purpose of proposing amendments to the existing Articles of Confederation. The delegates quickly decided amendments would not be enough, so they crafted a new Constitution and a mechanism for its enactment. It was unauthorized, but it turned out for the best, Simon said. Seventy delegates were originally selected; 55 actually participated in deliberationsthough not all were present at the same time as many were going back and forth to their home states. Ultimately, 39 signed, not that any opposedmany were just not there on the day of the signing. The delegates agreed to deliberate in secret to avoid speculations that might derail their efforts until they had finished. Philadelphia was hot in the summer. To keep people lingering outside the hall from listening, the delegates shut the large windows and deliberated inside in the sweltering heat. At the end of each day, the delegates would filter out and walk back to where they were staying, someones home or a tavern that had rooms. People might ask them whats going onbut they had given their word and as gentlemen they kept it. No information was leaked. Despite the fact they had such dramatically opposing views on so many issues, they honored their vow to keep their proceedings secret. In this day and age, it just seems inconceivable to get a group together, making such important decisions, without someone leaking information, Simon commented. They all fundamentally recognized that there was a need for a major change and that it was critical that they proceed in secrecy to avoid the likelihood that word would leak out that they were considering this or that, and before you know it, delegates would be withdrawn. Though they came from different backgrounds, different cultures, and most didnt know each other, they recognized the task at hand, maintained their bond of secrecy, and adopted a number of huge compromises. Benjamin Franklin, the oldest member of the convention, epitomized the delegates. Franklin long aspired to become a gentleman, which meant he sought to achieve financial security and be able to spend time and energy contributing to society in some fashionscience, participating in government, etc. Commonalities: Almost all 55 had taken part in the revolution, more than half in a fighting capacity in the Continental Army, and many had been commanding officers. Close to 75 percent were members of the Confederation Congress (who were appointed by their state legislatures). More than half were trained as lawyers. Twenty-five delegates were slave owners, and 16 of them were owners whose plantations depended on slave labor. All had financial means. A few would have been considered among the wealthiest in the country at the time. The delegates were elite in the sense that they had resources and were among the best educated1 in 4 were practicing attorneys. Delegates were fervent believers in 18th-century republicanisman ideology of governing a nation with elected representatives, encouraging all public officials to practice civic virtue, and fostering a political system that protects liberty. Yet they were somewhat allergic to the notion of democracy, based on their belief that only those who were dutifully qualifiededucated and financially successfulwere suitable to participate in governing and decision-making. If only 10 percent of the populace met these qualifications, by any contemporary standard this would not be viewed as democracy. Among the incentives to revamp the Articles of Confederation was the concern for the excess of democracythe political power exercised by state legislatures. Some state legislatures were passing laws that interfered with property rights and other contract rights, which scared a lot of the business interests and the wealthy to the point that they were supportive of a new constitution that would protect those kinds of rights. The Articles of Confederation contemplated only the legislative branch. There was no separate executive branch, no federal courts, or judiciary. The delegates leaned on their own experience in their own states to determine advantages or disadvantages of different variations. Pennsylvania had the most delegates, since the convention was held in Philadelphia. New York and Virginia, two of the most important states at the time, had just one and two delegates, respectively, who ultimately signed the document. James Madison of Virginia was considered the architect of the constitution and became the foremost constitutional advocate and lawyer. Roger Sherman, one of the Connecticut delegates, was responsible for the Great Compromise [sometimes referred to as the Connecticut Compromise]. This compromise created the bicameral legislature, where the big state view was instituted for the House of Representatives (representation based on population) and the small state view in the Senate (each state gets two senators). The Great Compromise meant that neither the big states nor the small ones could dominate. This hugely important compromise was the first and most important substantive issue because if they couldnt agree on the composition of what the new Congress should be, there would be no new Constitution. Slavery was the most divisive issue of all. Some depended on slavery for their livelihood, others rejected the odious practice all together. On every levelpersonally, economically, socially, and politicallyslavery was the most contentious. The delegates recognized that if they couldnt accommodate the slave states, then the new Constitution would never be adopted and ratified. Recognizing what was at stakereconstructing the whole government of the countrythey reached a compromise. Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution prevents Congress from passing any laws regarding the importation of slaves until 1808. The compromise had to do with the slave trade, but essentially avoided the issue of slavery for the next 20-year period. The southern states agreed to the compromise because the populations of enslaved people were booming and some feared that the increasing numbers represented a danger of enslaved people revolts. Given the economics of the slave trade, these states were satisfied that Congress couldnt pass any law banning the importation of enslaved persons within the next 20 years. Moreover, there was no guarantee that Congress would address the issue of slavery at the later date. Not only was democracy as we know it somewhat taboo, so were political parties. The framers didnt contemplate political parties because these ran afoul of their republican ideology that persons who would be elected would represent all the people, not just a portion, or a specific economic or religious group. George Washington served two terms as the one and only president who didnt belong to a political partyit was not contemplated under the original system. One of the provisionsand possibly the single most important oneis Amendment 5, the amending article. This amendment imbues the Constitution with its constitutional character as an instrument of fundamental and extraordinary law. Most of the framers recognized this new Constitution may not be perfect and over time there might arise the need for changes. Yet having lived through a war, they wanted to ensure that should the need and overwhelming consensus arise, people would not have to resort to violence or revolution. So, they built in an institutional mechanism for orderly change when warranted. The Constitution is an instrument of fundamental or extraordinary law, meaning it is federal law but not an ordinary lawits not a statute that can be revised from year to year by a simple majority, but instead requires extraordinary consensus in Congress to accomplish any type of a change. The ratification of the Constitution was by no means a sure thing. In some states the voting was very close. In Massachusetts, John Hancock had to appear in person to convince the state ratifying convention to vote to adopt. One of the principal reasons it did finally get ratified was because there had been a major dispute between the Federalists and the so-called Anti-Federalists about the lack of a bill of personal rights. James Madison originally thought it was unnecessary to include a Bill of Rights because the federal government had limited p Anti-Federalists, however, believed there needed to be stronger provisions in the original Constitution protecting individual rights. Sensing that the Constitution might not attain the votes to ratify, Madison changed his position saying if the Constitution is ratified at the very first session of the new Congress, he would propose a series of new amendments pursuant to Article 5 (eventually the Bill of Rights). That was enough to convince a few states on the fence to support ratification. On the last day of the convention, delegates filtered out and headed for home. There was amazing curiosity as to what had been decided. As Benjamin Franklin walked down the street, a woman called out. Dr. Franklin, what kind of a government are we now going to have, a monarchy or a republic? A republic, Franklin replied, if you can keep it.

If there is one lesson to be learned from the constitutional convention that would be valuable for our elected members of Congress today, said Simon, it was the willingness of these delegates to compromise.

The University is marking the day on Friday with a number of events, including participation in Bells Across America. The University carillon, housed within the Richter Library, will sound its bells at 4 p.m. together with schools, cities, churches, firehouses, etc. across the country. Individuals are encouraged to ring their cell phones at that same time.

The Butler Center for Service and Leadership and the Get out the Vote student organization are also handing out pocket Constitutions at their event from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Lakeside Canopy.
NSF director praises OSU innovation following research facilities tour

Media Contact: Harrison Hill | Research Communication Specialist | 4057445827 | harrison.c.hill@Okstate.edu

In his first official visit outside of Washington, D.C., since being appointed director of the National Science Foundation in June, Dr. Sethuraman Panchanathan joined U.S. Rep. Frank Lucas on a tour of OSU research facilities Wednesday.

Accompanied by President Kayse Shrum, as well as faculty and staff from across campus, the group toured OSUs premier research spaces, including the newest unmanned systems research and mixed reality labs.

I am impressed with the innovation, talent and facilities I saw today at Oklahoma State University, Panchanathan said. Hearing from the amazing faculty and students about how they are using NSF funding to solve real world challenges and bring more people with diverse backgrounds into science is truly inspirational.

OSU administration as well as Dr. Panchanathan and Rep. Frank Lucas visit a mixed reality lab on campus.

The NSF supports basic research and education in non-medical sciences and engineering. Federal research agencies, like the NSF, are the largest source of research funding across OSU.

Lucas, a fifth-generation Oklahoman and OSU alumnus, is a staunch advocate for OSU research. He is the ranking member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, which oversees the NSF.

Im extremely proud of the work Oklahoma State University is doing to advance research and STEM education for the state and the nation, Lucas said. It is an honor to have the opportunity to spend the day with the National Science Foundation director, Dr. Panchanathan, on campus touring OSUs cutting-edge research facilities and meeting some of the most talented researchers in the world.

The NSF has supported a thriving environment for hands-on research opportunities for students on the OSU campus, an innovative model for learning that is spurring research in mixed-reality, autonomous transportation and more.

Basic research is the cornerstone of America's competitiveness, and the partnerships between NSF and OSU are shining examples of why America continues to lead the world in science and technology.

The group also discussed the growth and impact of OSU research during a working lunch.

We are so pleased that Dr. Panchanathan and Rep. Lucas were able to visit our campus, dialogue with our faculty and students and discuss future directions for science and innovation, said Dr. Kenneth Sewell, vice president for research.

OSU has several research initiatives with long term funding from NSF and we appreciate the director's acknowledgement and support of these programs. OSU looks forward to working with the NSF to continue producing life changing, impactful research.

Panchanathan was nominated as NSF director in 2019 and was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate in June 2020. He is a leader in science, engineering and education with more than three decades of experience and has a distinguished career in both higher education and government.

It was a pleasure to experience all of this with Congressman Lucas, who is a strong champion for NSF and science overall. I look forward to seeing how we can continue to partner at speed and scale to benefit our nation for decades to come, Panchanathan said.

During the visit, Congressman Lucas also sat down with Dr. Sewell to discuss research opportunities at OSU and how they impact our state. Watch their talk below:
Embassy hits out at UK, US, Australia pact

Embassy hits out at UK, US, Australia pact
NZ won't lift nuclear ban for Australian nuclear subs

New Zealand's Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, says the country is sticking with its anti-nuclear stance, which means Wellington won't allow Australia's nuclear submarines into its waters. File photo: AP

New Zealand will not lift a decades-long ban on nuclear-powered vessels entering its waters in the wake of key ally Australia's decision to develop a nuclear submarine fleet, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Thursday.



Ardern said her Australian counterpart Scott Morrison had briefed her on Canberra's plan to develop nuclear-powered submarines with the help of the United States and Britain.



She described the deal as "primarily around technology and defence hardware", playing down implications for the so-called "Five Eyes" partnership of the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.



"This arrangement in no way changes our security and intelligence ties with these three countries, as well as Canada," the New Zealand leader said in a statement.



But she also said New Zealand would maintain a ban on nuclear-powered vessels that dates back to 1985, meaning Wellington will not allow the prized naval asset being developed by Australia into its waters.



"New Zealand's position in relation to the prohibition of nuclear-powered vessels in our waters remains unchanged," Ardern said.



The ban was introduced in the wake of French nuclear testing in the Pacific and led to the US navy banning its warships from entering New Zealand ports for more than 30 years.



The destroyer USS Sampson visited in late 2016 but only after the then-prime minister John Key gave a special exemption, saying he was "100 percent confident" the vessel was not nuclear powered or carrying nuclear weapons.



Official US policy is to neither confirm nor deny whether its vessels are nuclear-capable. (AFP)
Brexit-hit Marks & Spencer closes French stores

A Marks & Spencer store at Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris. The British retailer says it can no longer operate most of its French outlets.

British retailer Marks & Spencer said it would close all 11 French franchise food stores it runs with its partner SFH because trade rules in place since Britain left the European Union had hammered product availability.



M&S said on Thursday that its remaining nine French franchise stores, run with Lagardere Travel Retail, will continue to trade and the pair were working on a sustainable future business model.



Chairman Archie Norman has complained for months that M&S was struggling to get goods into Ireland and France since Britain left the EU single market at the beginning of the year, due to the huge amount of extra paperwork.



"M&S has a long history of serving customers in France and this is not a decision we or our partner SFH have taken lightly," Paul Friston, M&S' international director, said.



"As things stand today, the supply chain complexities in place following the UKs exit from the European Union, now make it near impossible for us to serve fresh and chilled products to customers to the high standards they expect, resulting in an ongoing impact to the performance of our business," he added.



The 11 stores that will close by the end of this year are located predominantly across the high streets of Paris, while the nine run by Lagardere are located in travel hubs such as airports, railway and metro stations.



A spokesperson for Prime Minister Boris Johnson defended the Brexit process.



"We believe that the approach we have taken is the correct one. It is something that the public voted for and it is already bringing benefits to the public," the spokesperson said. (Reuters)
The Jonas Brothers at MTV's "Total Request Live" in August 2008. Evan Agostini/AP

The Jonas Brothers (Nick, Joe, and Kevin Jonas) have been in the limelight since the early 2000s.

As the siblings have grown up in front of fans, their fashion choices and hairstyles have evolved.

They went from color-coordinated vests to developing their own styles.

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Here's the band at their first Kids' Choice Awards appearance in April 2006.

The Jonas Brothers at Nickelodeon's 19th Kids' Choice Awards. SGranitz/WireImage via Getty Images

Nick Jonas wore an Ed Hardy shirt and Joe's hoodie sleeves included thumb cutouts.

At a 2006 appearance on MTV's popular show "Total Request Live," the band chose laid-back clothes and goofed around behind-the-scenes.

The Jonas Brothers at "Total Request Live" in March 2006. Jason DeCrow/AP

Wearing T-shirts over long sleeved tops was a popular trend at the time.

The brothers matched with black, grey, and white hues at the 2007 Teen Choice Awards.

The Jonas Brothers at the Teen Choice Awards in California on August 26, 2007. Chris Pizzello/AP

Joe's short hair grew out and he started rocking a side part. He also wore his tie under his collar while Kevin accessorized with a scarf-like garment. At nearly 15 years old, Nick channeled his inner businessman for his outfit.

Joe's hair defied gravity at the November 2007 American Music Awards.

The Jonas Brothers also performed at the 2007 American Music Awards in Los Angeles, California. David Livingston/Getty Images

"I have a few hair and facial hair regrets," Joe told GQ in 2015. "I had long hair to my shoulders at one point and I would flat-iron my hair so that it would point out. It was like I was an animated character. Someone taught me how to do it and I sort of got addicted to it. As I got older I realized that was kind of an abnormal thing to do."

In January 2008, Nick's curly locks covered his entire forehead.

The Jonas Brothers in Burbank, California in January 2008. Matt Sayles/AP

Kevin's hairstyle remained relatively the same, but Joe was still addicted to straightening his hair.

The Jonas Brothers' 2008 KCA outfits featured bits of green that perfectly fit with the show's signature slime.

At the 21st Kids' Choice Awards in March 2008, the group won the orange blimp for favorite music group. Chris Pizzello/AP

"I think we hit that age where we didn't want to be kids anymore, and we were trying to be adults," Joe recalled during an interview with People in 2017. "We wore really oversized suits to the Kids' Choice Awards, which is just kinda fun and wild and crazy."

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He added: "I'm not saying it was a bad look! It just probably a little bit premature and wasn't right, exactly. I had an ascot underneath. It was really great. I think we were one step away from top hats! Which we ended up doing, as well, for a while."

Here's Kevin accessorizing with a scarf, Joe wearing a skinny tie, and Nick rocking a striped polo in May 2008.

The Jonas Brothers on the red carpet for the Disney Channel Games in 2008. Reinhold Matay/AP

For a few summers, Disney Channel rounded up the network's stars to compete in a series of obstacles. It was known as the "Disney Channel Games."

In June 2008, Nick, Joe, and Kevin refined their styles for the premiere of "Camp Rock."

The Jonas Brothers at the "Camp Rock" premiere at the Ziegfeld Theater in New York. Evan Agostini/AP

Nick also started keeping his curls at a shorter length.

At the Teen Choice Awards in 2008, Nick wore a white outfit and a dark blue V-neck shirt underneath.

The Jonas Brothers at the Teen Choice Awards in August 2008. Chris Pizzello/AP

They dominated the awards show that year, taking home wins for choice breakout group, choice music single (for "When You Look Me in the Eyes"), choice music love song (also for "When You Look Me in the Eyes"), choice summer song (for "Burnin' Up"), most fanatic fans, choice male hotties, and choice male red carpet icons.

Joe rolled up his sleeves for the September 2008 MTV Video Music Awards.

The Jonas Brothers at the MTV VMAs. Andreas Branch/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images

Joe went all-out with blue piping on his blazer, a navy shirt underneath, and a striped tie. Meanwhile, Kevin chose all-black attire.

They wore sweaters and ties at a book signing in November 2008.

The Jonas Brothers at Barnes & Noble in New York City on November 28, 2008. Charles Sykes/AP

The band released a book called "Burning Up: On Tour With the Jonas Brothers." As suggested by the title, it gave fans a glimpse into their touring adventures and featured behind-the-scenes photos and commentary.

The band looked spiffy in black outfits at the 2009 Golden Globes.

At the Golden Globes, they presented the award for best animated feature. Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

Nick chose a Burberry suit, Joe selected a Dior Homme suit, and Kevin wore Emporio Armani for Product Red.

At the 2009 Grammys, Nick wore Burberry while his older siblings wore Versace and bow ties.

The Jonas Brothers at the 51st Grammys at the Staples Center on February 8, 2009 in Los Angeles, California. Steve Granitz/WireImage via Getty Images

That night, the band was nominated for best new artist.

White-framed glasses were necessary for the premiere of their 3-D movie, "Jonas Brothers: 3-D Concert Experience" in 2009.

The Jonas Brothers at the premiere of their concert movie at El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood on February 24, 2009. Jeff Kravitz/Getty Images

The concert film featured appearances from Demi Lovato and Taylor Swift.

By the 2009 KCAs, the guys seemed comfortable not wearing coordinating outfits.

The Jonas Brothers at the 22nd Kids' Choice Awards on Saturday, March 28, 2009 in Los Angeles, California. Chris Pizzello/AP

Joe's hair grew out into a curly mop, while Kevin and Nick's styles remained the same.

Months later at the 2009 MTV European Music Awards, Joe once again changed his hairstyle.

The Jonas Brothers at the MTV European Music Awards in Berlin, Germany on November 5, 2009. Joel Ryan/AP

They were nominated for best group.

Joe wore thick-framed glasses at the 2010 Grammys.

The Jonas Brothers at the Grammy Awards on Sunday, January 31, 2010. Chris Pizzello/AP

Kevin wore a Lanvin suit, Joe picked a Dolce & Gabbana suit, and Nick chose a Gucci suit.

At the 23rd KCAs in March 2010, Kevin wore a striped outfit and Nick paired a multicolored bow tie with a tan jacket.

The Jonas Brothers at Nickelodeon's 23rd Kids' Choice Awards on Saturday, March 27, 2010. Chris Pizzello/AP

Meanwhile, Joe wore a gray jacket and a white V-neck shirt.

Here's a photo from Joe's top hat phase.

The Jonas Brothers at the Young Hollywood Awards in Los Angeles, California on May 13, 2010. Chris Pizzello/AP

This is also the year that "Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam" was released.

The siblings cleaned up nicely at the 2012 Met Gala with tuxedos and black bow ties.

The Jonas Brothers at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 7, 2012. Charles Sykes/AP

Nick rocked custom Richard Chai, Joe chose Calvin Klein Collection, and Kevin wore Black Fleece by Brooks Brothers.

Fans were distraught when Joe shaved off most of his hair in June 2013. It grew back a bit by the time the Teen Choice Awards took place two months later.

The Jonas Brothers at the Teen Choice Awards at the Gibson Amphitheater on August 11, 2013. Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

Joe showed off the dramatic transformation on Instagram and Vine.

A few months later, in October, the band announced that they were breaking up and not releasing a fifth album that was already in the works. The stars cited frequent arguments as the reason for their split and Nick was the one to initiate the separation.

"In a nutshell, I said, 'Look, I feel like we've had some complications within the group for a long time without addressing them. I think this train will fall off the tracks without really getting real about some of the concerns and some of the limitations that we may feel as individuals in the group,'" Nick said on "Good Morning America." "It was a tough conversation  It was the first time we really had that real conversation."

Despite the group's split, they were photographed together a few times. Here they are at New York Fashion Week in September 2013.

Joe Jonas, Kevin Jonas, and Nick Jonas at the Mercedes-Benz Star Lounge in September 2013. Mike Coppola/Getty Images for Mercedes-Benz

Nick started styling his hair a bit differently, with the front section neatly combed upwards.

Nick attended the 2015 Grammys without his siblings, wearing a buttoned up white shirt and a gray striped suit.

Nick Jonas at the 57th Grammy Awards at the Staples Center on Sunday, February 8, 2015. Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

That night, he presented the award for best country album.

Following the success of solo tracks "Chains" and "Jealous," Nick showed off his biceps while performing in California in May 2015.

Nick Jonas performing at Wango Tango in May 2015. Rich Fury/Invision/AP

Fans became aware of Nick's ripped physique after he posted a shirtless photo on Instagram in 2013. He continued working out after landing a role as an MMA fighter named Nate on the series "Kingdom," which lasted from 2014 to 2017.

While the Jonas Brothers were on hiatus, Joe formed a band called DNCE. He also dyed part of his hair teal.

DNCE at the American Music Awards at the Microsoft Theater in November 2015. Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

The group consisted of Joe, Jack Lawless, JinJoo Lee, and Cole Whittle. They released the song "Cake by the Ocean" in September 2015 and the track became a chart-topper.

Nick Jonas stepped out with a buzz cut at the Vanity Fair Oscars Party in February 2016.

Nick Jonas at the Vanity Fair Fair Oscar Party on Sunday, February 28, 2016. Evan Agostini/Invision/AP

"I shaved it because I was shooting 'Kingdom,' and I wanted to look different," he told MTV News. "And I wanted to have a bit of a harder look, and I felt like  and other people felt like  when I have a shaved head that I do look that way, but more menacing."

At one point, Joe completely shaved off the hair on the left and right sides of his head.

DNCE at Z100's iHeartRadio Jingle Ball at Madison Square Garden in December 2016. Charles Sykes/Invision/AP

He showed off the look at the Z100 Jingle Ball in December 2016.

And then he went back to a buzz cut, as seen at the 2017 Vanity Fair Oscars Party.

Joe Jonas at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party on Sunday, February 26, 2017. Evan Agostini/Invision/AP

Joe wore Ermenegildo Zegna Couture to the event.

In May 2017, Nick attended the Met Gala with future-wife Priyanka Chopra. They both wore outfits designed by Ralph Lauren.

Nick Jonas and Priyanka Chopra at the Met Gala in 2017. Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images For Entertainment Weekly

"We were both wearing Ralph Lauren! And we decided to go together because it was fun," Chopra told Jimmy Kimmel after fans began speculating that the two stars were dating.

At that point, they weren't dating. But the following year, their whirlwind relationship was in full swing.

You might have forgotten about the time in 2017 when Joe wore a mustache.

Joe Jonas on September 26, 2017. Christopher Smith/Invision/AP

The look was polarizing among fans.

In December 2017, Joe reunited with Nick at the premiere for his movie, "Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle."

Nick Jonas and Joe Jonas at the Los Angeles premiere of "Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle." Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

Joe still had facial hair, but he got rid of the full-blown mustache.

The three brothers rocked leather jackets while sitting in the front row at a New York Fashion Week show in January 2018.

Kevin Jonas, Joe Jonas, and Nick Jonas in January 2018. Paul Bruinooge/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images

They were in attendance for John Varvatos' fashion show.

In October 2018, Joe and now-wife Sophie Turner made a stylish duo at Paris Fashion Week.

Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas at the Louis Vuitton show as part of Paris Fashion Week on October 2, 2018. Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images

Joe's mop of curls returned.

Following two elaborate wedding ceremonies in India in December 2018, Nick and Chopra wore elegant outfits to their many receptions.

Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas at their wedding reception in Mumbai, India. Rajanish Kakade/AP

Nick was even crowned GQ's most stylish man of 2018.

The Jonas Brothers returned to the music scene as a band in 2019, looking all grown up.

The Jonas Brothers at SiriusXM studios on March 1, 2019 in New York City. Cindy Ord/Getty Images for SiriusXM

Nowadays, they pick looks that reflect their personal styles.

At the Billboard Music Awards in May, the band coordinated their striped outfits.

Joe Jonas, Nick Jonas, and Kevin Jonas at the Billboard Music Awards. Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP

The Jonas Brothers performed at the award show and Joe married Turner at a Las Vegas chapel afterward.

At the premiere of their Amazon documentary in June, Nick and Kevin wore similar colors while Joe dressed in a mustard shirt.

Nick Jonas, Joe Jonas, and Kevin Jonas in June 2019. Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP

In their documentary, titled "Chasing Happiness," the stars revealed that their Disney Channel sitcom "stunted" their growth.

They wear bright, colorful outfits on their Happiness Begins tour.

Nick Jonas, Kevin Jonas, and Joe Jonas performing in Toronto, Canada in August 2019. Arthur Mola/Invision/AP

The hues range from hot pink to forest green.

At the 2019 MTV VMAs, the Jonas Brothers wore black and gray clothing.

Kevin Jonas, Joe Jonas, and Nick Jonas at the MTV Video Music Awards at the Prudential Center on Monday, August 26, 2019. Evan Agostini/Invision/AP

They also performed "Sucker" and "Only Human" from New Jersey's Asbury Park.

They wore outfits with similar hues and patterns at the 2020 Grammys.

Kevin, Nick, and Joe Jonas attend the 2020 Grammys. Frazer Harrison / Getty Images

That night, they performed "What a Man Gotta Do" and played a small portion of a then-unreleased track called "Five More Minutes." Their stage looks all had patterns that incorporated a gold color.

The siblings wore varying shades of pink, purple, and brown at an event in February 2020.

Nick Jonas, Kevin Jonas, and Joe Jonas in February 2020. Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

Nick wore a head-to-toe pink outfit, Kevin chose an all-brown ensemble, and Joe wore shades of purple at a 2020 gala called An Unforgettable Evening in Beverly Hills, California.

They went semi-casual at the 2021 Billboard Music Awards.

Nick Jonas, Kevin Jonas, and Joe Jonas at the Billboard Music Awards on Sunday, May 23, 2021. Chris Pizzello/AP

Nick wore blue jeans, a white T-shirt, and a green jacket with orange lining; Kevin wore a navy printed outfit; and Joe wore a bright yellow T-shirt with black slacks.

They closed out the awards show with a performance of their track "Leave Before You Love Me" with Marshmello.

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A coronavirus contact tracing sign is pictured as people walk out during lunch break in Raffles Place in Singapore on 14 September, 2021. (PHOTO: AFP via Getty Images)

SINGAPORE  The Ministry of Health (MOH) on Thursday (16 September) confirmed 910 new coronavirus cases in Singapore, taking the country's total case count to 74,848.

Thursday marks the highest daily recorded COVID-19 cases since 1 May last year, when 932 infections were reported.

The ministry also confirmed the death of a 72-year-old Singaporean woman from complications due to COVID-19, the city-state's 59th such fatality.

Before her death on Thursday, the woman had developed symptoms on 4 September, and tested positive for COVID-19 two days after. "She had not been vaccinated against COVID-19, and had a history of atypical chest pain, Graves disease, hypertension, and dyslipidaemia," said the MOH.

Of Thursday's cases, 906 are local infections: 803 are in the community, while 103 are dormitory residents. Among the local cases are 244 people above the age of 60, said the MOH.

The remaining four cases are imported, of whom three were detected upon their arrival in Singapore, while one developed the illness during their stay-home notice or isolation period.

Thirteen active COVID-19 clusters in Singapore are being closely monitored, said the MOH. Three of them are linked to staff members at bus interchanges in Toa Payoh, Tampines, and Punggol.

Of the list of monitored clusters, the highest number of 46 new cases was added to a new cluster at Blue Stars dorm. The cluster now has 53 cases infected by an "intra-dormitory transmission" among residents, said the MOH, adding that all residents are being tested.

Seventeen new cases were added to the Chinatown Complex cluster, now totalling 242 infections, the majority of whom are stallholders and assistants.

Eleven new cases were also added to the cluster at the DHL Supply Chain Advanced Regional Centre, which is now linked to 83 infections. It has been classified by the MOH as "workplace transmission with further spread to household contacts of cases".

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Daily new cases in Singapore are expected to rise to 1,000 over the upcoming weeks, and 2,000 by early October, if the current rate of infection persists, said authorities here.

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In a separate statement by the expert committee on COVID-19 vaccination on Thursday afternoon, it recommended that vaccinated individuals, particularly adolescents and those of younger age, avoid strenuous physical activity for two weeks  up from a week previously  after any dose of the mRNA vaccines.

In the latest COVID-19 vaccine safety update released on Thursday by the Health Sciences Authority (HSA), the overall local incidence of myocarditis or pericarditis after the second vaccine dose was 1.06 per 100,000 doses administered, and the incidence rate in males below 30 years old after the second vaccine dose was 4.84 per 100,000 doses administered.

"While most of the cases reported previously had occurred within one week of vaccination, the HSA had also started to receive reports of some cases that occurred within the second week of vaccination," said the expert committee.

It also recommended that those who developed delayed mild or non-specific skin reactions after receiving an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine may be suitable to receive subsequent doses of the same vaccine. Previously, they were deemed ineligible to do so.

77 require oxygen supplementation; 12 in ICU

Over 66,600 cases in Singapore, or some 99 per cent of the overall total, have fully recovered from their infection and have been discharged from the hospital.

As of Thursday, 837 cases are currently warded, most of whom are well and under observation.

There are currently 77 cases of serious illness requiring oxygen supplementation and 12 in critical condition in the intensive care unit (ICU).

Of those who have fallen very ill, 69 are patients above the age of 60, said the MOH.

Apart from the 59 patients who have died from COVID-19 complications, 15 others who tested positive for the virus were determined to have died from unrelated causes, including three whose deaths were attributed to a heart attack and another four whose deaths were attributed to coronary heart disease.

Over the last 28 days, the percentage of local cases who were asymptomatic or had mild symptoms is 98.2 per cent. Over the same period, 135 cases required oxygen supplementation, 12 had been in the ICU, and four died, of whom none was fully vaccinated.

As of Wednesday, about 8.89 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered under the national vaccination programme. Some 4.56 million have received at least one dose of the vaccine, with some 4.43 million having completed the full vaccination regimen.

Separately, 180,118 doses of other vaccines recognised in the World Health Organizations Emergency Use Listing (WHO EUL) have been administered as of Wednesday, covering 86,813 individuals.

This means that 82 per cent of the population have completed their full regimen, or received two doses of COVID-19 vaccines, and 84 per cent have received at least one dose.

Stay in the know on-the-go: Join Yahoo Singapore's Telegram channel at http://t.me/YahooSingapore
It wasnt long after school started in Californias Solana Beach School District that some classrooms shifted to remote learning because of positive COVID-19 cases. During the first four weeks of school, there were 19 positive cases among students and staff and eight classrooms in quarantine.

But on Aug. 30, the 2,800-student district began requiring students to wear masks outside as well as in the building  and hasnt had to send a whole classroom home since. The new policy was prompted by the states revised quarantine protocols for unvaccinated students, which allow asymptomatic students to stay in school if they meet several conditions, including wearing masks both inside and outside.

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We are optimistic it is working, said Kristie Towne, manager of board and superintendent operations for the Solana district, part of San Diego County. The policy is meant to keep as many children in school [and] in class as much as possible.

With the recent rise in positive cases due to the more transmissible Delta variant, districts like Solana Beach are now enforcing additional measures  policies that go beyond recommendations from most state health departments and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which says masks arent needed during recess. The Los Angeles Unified School District was among the first to institute the practice and several other California districts have followed suit. Others as far as Vermont and North Carolina have instituted similar measures but are targeting them to younger students or athletes. One problem: The research behind such moves is pretty thin.

Outside, theres an infinite volume of air to dilute the virus, said Dr. Dean Blumberg, a pediatric infectious disease expert at the University of California, Davis.

Dr. Benjamin Linas, a Boston University epidemiologist, warns that outdoor masking could even be counterproductive.

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If there is any hope of successfully implementing masks when we need them  indoors during Delta surge  then we cannot insist on masks when we do not need them, and we should not routinely round up when not certain, he said. Too much masking is real.

Advocacy groups that were already fighting the states mandate that students wear masks indoors argue that requiring them outdoors further hinders childrens social development.

Outdoors our kids need to be breathing fresh air. They need to have social interaction and share smiles, said Sharon McKeeman, who founded Let Them Breathe and in July filed a lawsuit, with Reopen California Schools, against California Gov. Gavin Newsom, the state health department and other officials. These restrictions are arbitrary, and they are infringing our kids rights.

The measures came as some districts faced criticism for quarantining too many students without symptoms.

In August, thousands of students in Los Angeles and other districts missed class and did not always have access to remote learning. Other California districts requiring masks outside include the 12,000-student Palo Alto Unified School District, where the most recent data shows two cases districtwide, and the 9,600-student Alameda Unified School District, which had 27 cases in August and seven so far in September.

Related: Everyone Had Their Heads in the Sand: Push To Reopen Schools Leaves Many Quarantined Students Without Remote Learning Options

The benefits are uncertain

Some opponents of mask requirements note that the World Health Organization, which President Joe Biden rejoined as soon as he became president, doesnt recommend masks at all for children 5 and under.

A growing body of research on transmission of the virus shows that the proportion of cases originating outside are well below 10 percent and could be even less than 1 percent, according to a June article in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.

International studies provide further evidence of significantly low risk. A Chinese study found that out of 7,300 cases, one outbreak resulting in two cases was linked to an outdoor conversation between two people. An Irish study showed that about one in 1,000 cases was due to outdoor transmission.

Most outdoor cases are linked to lengthy interactions between people or crowded events, studies show.

I am having a very hard time thinking of when a school would generate such an opportunity for transmission, Linas said. It is not recess or outdoor classwork. Perhaps if a school had an outdoor pep rally in a relatively small stadium with full bleachers and kids on the field, too. I am struggling to come up with a realistic scenario.

Experts stress that with the Delta variant, local vaccination rates of those 12 and above should guide decisions about whether additional caution is needed.

Thats why Andrew Hayes, a school board member in the Lakeside Union Elementary School District in San Diego County, questions the governors inside mask mandate to begin with.

Related: Youth Vaccination Rates Plummet, Reigniting Debates Over Masks in School

The state is bragging about being at an 80 percent vaccination rate, but we are still having all these mitigation strategies everywhere, Hayes said. I understand that people want to follow the experts, but they arent allowing the experts in education to make decisions.

His district has not yet required masks outside, but surrounding districts have.

Chase Beamish, 12, listens to a speaker during an anti-mask rally outside the Orange County Department of Education in Costa Mesa, California, on Monday, May 17. More than 200 people came out to protest children in school being forced to wear masks. (Jeff Gritchen / Orange County Register via Getty Images)

Hayes is among district leaders in California who want to loosen local mask requirements in violation of the statewide mandate requiring students to wear them indoors. The California Department of Public Health on Aug. 23 sent districts a letter stating they could face fines and civil lawsuits if they dont enforce masking.

The dynamic is the opposite of that in Florida, where districts mandating masks are locked in a protracted legal battle with a Republican governor who says parents should choose.

Related: Waiting for Someone Else to Blink: Next Move DeSantis as Florida Districts Refuse to Rescind Mask Mandates

California isnt the only state where some districts are going above and beyond CDC guidelines, which state: In general, people do not need to wear masks when outdoors for play, recess and physical education. But other examples are more targeted.

The Essex Westford School District, near Burlington, Vermont, requires masks outdoors for students in K-5 if they cant socially distance. The Madison, Wisconsin district is requiring masks outside for elementary and middle school students, and the Wake County district in North Carolina requires athletes to wear masks outside when theyre not actively participating in a game or practice.

In California, McKeeman, with Let Them Breathe, said even in districts that dont require students to wear masks outside, theres still a lot of enforcement to keep it on anyway.

Some experts recognize the challenges teachers and other school staff members face when children are constantly taking masks on and off. Blumberg, who said he still wears a mask when he goes to the farmers market, noted that many classroom buildings in the states schools are connected by outside hallways.

For the sake of consistency, he said, Its easier to just say, Mask while at school and dont think about it.

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(Fixes typo in para 13)

By Rupam Jain

(Reuters) -The Taliban's abrupt return to power has left hundreds of Afghan diplomats overseas in limbo: running out of money to keep missions operating, fearful for families back home and desperate to secure refuge abroad.

The Islamist militant movement, which swiftly ousted Afghanistan's Western-backed government on Aug. 15, said on Tuesday that it had sent messages to all of its embassies telling diplomats to continue their work.

But eight embassy staff who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, in countries including Canada, Germany and Japan, described dysfunction and despair at their missions.

"My colleagues here and in many countries are pleading with host nations to accept them," said an Afghan diplomat in Berlin, who said he feared what might happen to his wife and four daughters who remain in Kabul if he allowed his name to be used.

"I am literally begging. Diplomats are willing to become refugees," he said, adding he would have to sell everything, including a large house in Kabul, and "start all over again".

Afghanistan's missions overseas face a period of "prolonged limbo" as countries decide whether to recognise the Taliban, said Afzal Ashraf, an international relations expert and visiting fellow at Britain's University of Nottingham.

"What can those embassies do? They don't represent a government. They don't have a policy to implement," he said, adding that embassy staff would likely be granted political asylum due to safety concerns if they returned to Afghanistan.

The Taliban, who enforced a strict interpretation of Islamic law with punishments like amputations and stonings during their previous rule from 1996 to 2001, have sought to show a more conciliatory face since coming back to power.

Spokespeople have reassured Afghans that they are not out for revenge and will respect people's rights, including women's.

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But reports of house-to-house searches and reprisals against former officials and ethnic minorities have made people wary. The Taliban have vowed to investigate any abuses.

A group of envoys from the deposed government issued a first-of-its-kind joint statement, reported by Reuters on Wednesday ahead of its public release, calling on world leaders to deny the Taliban formal recognition.

'THERE IS NO MONEY'

Afghanistan's acting foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi told a news conference in Kabul on Tuesday that the Taliban had sent messages to all Afghan embassies telling them to continue work.

"Afghanistan invested in you a lot, you are assets of Afghanistan," he said.

One senior Afghan diplomat estimated there were around 3,000 people either working in the country's embassies or directly dependent on them.

Ousted president Ashraf Ghani's toppled administration also penned a letter to foreign missions on Sept. 8 calling the Taliban's new government "illegitimate" and urging embassies to "continue their normal functions and duties".

But these calls for continuity do not reflect the chaos on the ground, embassy staff said.

"There is no money. It is not possible to operate in such circumstances. I am not being paid now," a source at the Afghan embassy in Canada's capital Ottawa said.

Two Afghan embassy staffers in New Delhi said they were also running out of cash for a mission serving thousands of Afghans who are trying to find ways home to reunite with families or need help applying for asylum in other countries.

Both staffers said they would not return to Afghanistan for fear of being targeted due to their connections to the previous government, but would also struggle to get asylum in India where thousands of Afghans have spent years seeking refugee status.

"I have to just sit tight for now in the embassy premises and wait to exit to any nation that is willing to accept me and my family," one said.

GOVERNMENT IN EXILE

Some of Afghanistan's envoys have openly criticised the Taliban.

Manizha Bakhtari, the country's Austria ambassador, regularly posts allegations of human rights abuses by the Taliban on Twitter https://twitter.com/BakhtariManizha, while China envoy Javid Ahmad Qaem warned against believing Taliban promises https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/beware-taliban-promises-afghanistan-envoy-china-warns-2021-08-06 on extremist groups.

Others are lying low, hoping that their host countries will not rush to recognise the group and put them at risk.

Several Afghan diplomats said they would be closely watching the annual meeting of world leaders at the United Nations in New York next week where there is uncertainty https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/un-faces-rival-claims-myanmar-seat-doubts-over-afghanistan-2021-09-13 over who will fill Afghanistan's seat.

United Nations credentials give weight to a government, and no one has yet formally claimed Afghanistan's seat. Any move seen as legitimising the Taliban might empower the group to replace embassy staff with their own, the diplomats said.

In Tajikistan, some embassy staff managed to bring their families across the border in recent weeks and they are considering converting the embassy into residential premises to house them, a senior diplomat there said.

And, like peers spread out across the globe, they have no plans to return home with the Taliban back in power.

"It's very clear that not a single Afghan diplomat posted overseas wants to go back," said a senior Afghan diplomat in Japan. "We are all determined to stay where we are and maybe many countries will accept we are a part of a government that is in exile."

(Reporting by Rupam Jain; Writing by John Geddie; Editing by Mike Collett-White)
Andrew Murdaugh (right) (WJCL)

A lawyer who allegedly organised a botched assassination on his own life after the deaths of his wife and son, will again be the focus of an investigation in South Carolina for the 2018 death of a former housekeeper, authorities have said.

In a statement on Wednesday, South Carolinas investigative agency said that it was opening an investigation into 53-year-old Alex Murdaugh, a well known attorney, for the death of Gloria Satterfield, a longtime housekeeper for his family in Hampton.

Coroner Angela Topper said she felt it was prudent to pursue an investigation into Gloria Satterfield's death because it was not reported to the coroner at the time, nor was an autopsy performed.

It was also alleged that the 57-year-olds death certificate was inconsistent with her death, from a fall, reported Fox News.

The announcement of an investigation followed a lawsuit filed by Ms Satterfields sons, Tony Satterfield and Brian Harriott, on Wednesday against Mr Murdaugh for his failure to pay $500,000 (362,000) in damages for the death of her mother.

The sons also allege that Mr Murdaugh was at fault for Ms Satterfield's death, which happened inside the family home of Mr Murdaugh, according to the report.

Citing an attorney, Richard Harpootlian, NBC News said Mr Murdaugh was due to hand himself into authorities on Thursday in Hampton after admitting to the attempted assassination on himself on 4 September.

It was allegedly carried out in the belief that his death would release a $10 million (7.2 million) life insurance policy to a surviving son.

Mr Harpootlian said Mr Murdaugh organised the botched assassination after falling into depression and an opioid addiction following the deaths of his wife and son in June, who were killed in a shooting that remains largely unsolved.

He is listed as a co-defendant with Curtis Edward Smith, aged 61, who faces charges including assisted suicide, assault and battery of a high aggravated nature and conspiracy to commit insurance fraud, police said.

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The two investigations follow a third inquiry into Mr Murdaugh in connection to alleged fraud at his work, it was reported.

Mr Harpootlian told NBCs Today show on Wednesday that he expected his client to be charged and that clearly knew what he had done was wrong.

He was in a dark, dark, dark place and wanted to help his remaining son Buster in any way he could and he thought this was the only way he could leave him with anything, Mr Harpootlian said.

Additional reporting by Reuters.

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Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reaffirmed his confidence in Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley after an alleged call to reassure his Chinese counterpart there would be no surprise U.S. attack in the waning days of former President Donald Trumps term.

It was the latest sign that both the Biden administration and the Joint Chiefs of Staff were closing ranks behind Milley as he faces calls to resign over what critics perceived as undermining civilian control of the military and Trumps constitutional powers as commander in chief. Milleys call to China was first reported in a book by veteran journalist Bob Woodward and Washington Post reporter Robert Costa.

I have confidence in Gen. Milley, Austin told reporters at a joint briefing with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and their Australian counterparts. President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that he had great confidence in Milley. White House press secretary Jen Psaki described him as having complete confidence.

FIVE REASONS BIDENS APPROVAL RATINGS HAVE TAKEN A POUNDING

Austin would not comment on the Woodward-Costa book, which also contains reporting on the defense secretary and Blinken, more generally. But he was specifically asked about Milley's call to China.

"And finally, regarding Gen. Milley, again, much of whats  all of whats in that book happened before I became secretary of defense, so I cant comment on that, as well, Austin said. Certainly, I wont comment on whats in the book.

Austin is himself a recently retired Army general who required a congressional waiver to serve as secretary of defense.

The bombshell report said that Milley grew so concerned about Trumps erratic behavior and claims of a stolen election between November and the Jan. 6 Capitol riot that he sought to reassure China there would be no sneak attack to shore up the incumbent commander in chiefs position.

Critics said this would mean Milley inserted himself into a process where the president is the legitimate constitutional decision-maker and potentially projected uncertainty about the U.S. government to a hostile foreign power in the midst of a contested election. Trump said if Milley behaved as Woodward and Costa describe, it would constitute treason. In a statement on Thursday, Trump called Milley, who was already under fire for the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan last month, the Taliban and Chinas all-time favorite General!

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The White House has said it is important to recognize that Milley was acting in the context of a president encouraging an insurrection.

"The president has complete confidence in his leadership, his patriotism, and his fidelity to our Constitution," Psaki said of Milley. "It's the obligation of every chairman of the Joint Chiefs to follow constitutional orders to prevent unlawful military action. ... That's what the president believes."

Asked about Republican calls for Milley to resign, Psaki said, "I don't think the president is looking for the guidance of members of Congress who stood by while the president of the United States and the leader of their party fomented an insurrection and many of them were silent.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Milley regularly communicates with Chiefs of Defense across the world, including with China and Russia, Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesman Col. Dave Butler said in a statement. These conversations remain vital to improving mutual understanding of U.S. national security interests, reducing tensions, providing clarity and avoiding unintended consequences or conflict.

The Butler statement did not deny the claim that Milley made the call or dispute Woodward and Costas characterization of its contents.

Joel Gehrke contributed to this report.

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Tags: News, White House, Defense, National Security, Lloyd Austin, Joe Biden, Antony Blinken, Mark Milley, Donald Trump, Pentagon

Original Author: W. James Antle III

Original Location: Austin latest Biden official to express 'confidence' in Milley after China call
By Wayne Cole

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia's new security pact with the United States and the UK, seen as a move to contain China, may worsen strained ties with its biggest export customer, but China's insatiable appetite for resources may limit its punitive responses, say analysts.

The security pact with the Western powers, including access to U.S. nuclear submarine technology, will be seen by Beijing, which is embroiled in a long-running trade spat with Canberra, as a threat, said Michael Sullivan, International Relations Lecturer at Flinders University.

"China will view the decision to expand defence cooperation with the US and UK and, in the future, base US strategic strike capabilities in Australia as confirmation that we are a growing military threat to its interests, such as the Belt and Road Initiative," said Sullivan.

China has in recent years imposed hefty tariffs and restrictions on Australian exports including wine, beef and barley, and outright banned coal imports to express its displeasure over Canberra's foreign policies, though with only limited success so far.

The sums at risk are massive as Australia exported a record A$173 billion ($127 billion) of mostly resources to China in the 12 months to July, accounting for more than 35% of Australia's total exports. Australia bought just A$87 billion of, mostly manufactured, goods from China in the same period.

That torrent of cash has blessed Australia with a run of current account surpluses, while boosting miners' profits and dividends. It's also been a vital windfall to government tax receipts at a time when it is running huge budget deficits to fund emergency support for citizens in coronavirus lockdowns.

By far the biggest export earner has been iron ore as China's demand for steel drove prices for the mineral to all-time highs in May. Australia's metal ore exports in July alone reached A$19 billion, or more than 40% of total earnings.

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China has partly turned the tables in recent months by clamping down on steel output and warning of stricter controls on major carbon emitters, steps that have seen iron ore prices plunge 45% from their peaks.

Still, China has few options other than to keep buying Australian iron ore. Its own mines produce only 15% of the ore it consumes and the only other major international source is Brazil which is hitting capacity constraints.

"If China just stopped importing iron ore, that would be a disaster for Australia," said Shane Oliver, chief economist at AMP Capital. "But it would essentially mean China would have to shut much of its own economy as well."

"Australia has also been able to find new markets for its exports," he added. "So while tensions with China are a threat, the impact hasn't really been severe so far."

Another point of pressure on Australia had been Beijing's control over Chinese tourists and students that used to spend time and money in the country.

The pandemic has put paid to that for now by effectively closing Australia's international borders, though the local tourism and education sectors are pushing hard for a re-opening by the end of this year.

($1 = 1.3624 Australian dollars)

(Reporting by Wayne Cole; Editing by Michael Perry)
By Neil Hartnell

NASSAU (Reuters) - Bahamians headed to the polls on Thursday to elect a new government as the Atlantic island chain continued to reel from an ongoing surge in COVID-19 cases and slump in the tourism-dependent economy due to the pandemic.

Prime Minister Hubert Minnis of the Free National Movement (FNM) is hoping to become the first premier in 24 years to win a second five-year term. But his party was neck-and neck with the opposition Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) in polls ahead of the snap election.

The PLP has focused its campaign on what it says is the government's mishandling of the COVID-19 outbreak and the economy which has seen unemployment surge to an estimated 20% and the fiscal deficit balloon during the pandemic.

Some 119 new COVID-19 cases were confirmed on Wednesday, taking the active number to 1,679 in the nation of just 400,000 people, while the positivity rate has hovered around 25 percent for the past six weeks.

Julian Rolle, chairman of the Public Hospitals Authority, told Bahamian media it had become difficult to staff healthcare facilities properly given about 5-10 percent of staff was quarantined due to exposure to the virus.

"We can continue to wander aimlessly under the visionless, inept, scandalized Free National Movement, or we can usher in greater transparency, equality and prosperity with the PLP," PLP leader Philip Davis told voters during his eve-of-election campaign rally.

Minnis has countered that the PLP cannot be trusted with reviving one of the most prosperous economies in the Atlantic-Caribbean region where tourism accounts for around 50 percent of output and 60 percent of employment.

Under his watch, the Bahamas received a record 1.8 million visitors in 2019 and Tourism Minister Dionisio D'Aguilar says he is targeting 1 million air arrivals for 2021.

"The PLP is a threat to the economic progress that has begun," Minnis said on Wednesday at his party's last rally. "They would stop many of the projects that we started."

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Whichever party wins will face some formidable challenges in office due to COVID-19 and its continuing health and economic impact. The scattered archipelago stretching from just off eastern Florida to near Cuba is also still rebuilding after being pummeled in 2019 by Hurricane Dorian, one of the strongest Caribbean hurricanes on record, which killed several hundred people in the Bahamas and left tens of thousands homeless.

National debt stood at $10.356 billion at end-June 2021, according to the Bahamian Ministry of Finance, which forecasts a $951 million fiscal deficit for 2021-2022.

Gowon Bowe, chief executive of Fidelity Bank (Bahamas), a publicly-traded bank, told Reuters: "The reality is that we dont have much wiggle room left. There wont be a honeymoon for a new administration. Its going to be right about the business because theres a lot we have to right."

(Reporting by Neil Hartnell in Nassau; Editing by Sarah Marsh and Alistair Bell)
VARNVILLE, S.C. - Prominent attorney Alex Murdaugh surrendered Thursday after authorities, and his own defense, say he attempted "to have himself executed" so his son could collect a $10 million life insurance policy.

Murdaugh, 53, arrived at the Hampton County Law Enforcement Center, which houses both the sheriff's office and magistrate court, at about 11:30 a.m. and changed into jail grab for a late afternoon bond hearing.

Murdaugh, whose bail was set at $20,000, was charged with insurance fraud, conspiracy to commit insurance fraud and filing a false police report.

The attorney-turned-defendant agreed to surrender his passport and waive any extradition, as he'll be undergoing addiction treatment out of state.

Prosecutor Creighton Waters argued that Murdaugh is a danger to the community and asked Hampton County Judge Tonja Alexander to set bail at $100,000.

Image: Lawyer Alex Murdaugh walks into his bond hearing on Sept. 16, 2021, in Varnville, S.C. (Mic Smith / AP)

"While the charges here under the law are not violent the underlying facts are violent," Waters said.

Defense attorney Dick Harpootlian agreed to virtually all allegations made against his client, but blamed an opioid addiction for Murdaugh's actions. He insisted Murdaugh is not a threat to the community.

"This crime involved his attempt to have himself shot, so his son could collect insurance money. The only violence he's ever been involved in is this, which was to have himself executed," Harpootlian told the court.

"So he's not a danger to the community. The only person he's a danger to is himself."

Hours earlier, a judge set bail at $55,000 for the man suspected of pulling the trigger in Murdaugh's alleged suicide-for-hire plot.

Curtis Edward Smith, 61, was shackled and wore a beige jail jumpsuit during his initial court appearance, as Judge Alexander read allegations against him.

He's been charged with conspiracy, pointing and presenting a firearm, assisting a person in suicide, assault and battery of a high aggravated nature, conspiracy and insurance fraud.

Story continues

Smith answered basic questions and signed forms, affirming that he understood the proceedings against him. Alexander asked Smith if he'll apply for representation by a public defender.

"I'm probably going to go for one, yes," he responded.

Image: Alex Murdaugh Hampton County (Mic Smith / AP)

Murdaugh was shot in the head on Sept. 4, three months after the unsolved slayings of his wife and adult son, but suffered a superficial wound. His attorney said Murdaugh was depressed and enlisted a man to kill him, believing his life insurance had a suicide clause.

The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division also said it opened a criminal investigation into the 2018 death of a longtime housekeeper and nanny for the Murdaugh family.

I can assure you that SLED agents will continue working to bring justice to anyone involved with any criminal act associated with these ongoing investigations, SLED Chief Mark Keel said in a statement shortly after Murdaugh surrendered. The arrests in this case are only the first step in that process.

Catie Beck reported from Varnville, South Carolina, and David K. Li from New York
Exiled Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya on Wednesday urged "decisive action" from France to solve her country's political crisis, calling for Western nations to stand firm against its authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko.

Over a year after a disputed vote that sparked unprecedented protests and was derided by the West as rigged, Tikhanovskaya said sanctions and an international push for new elections were needed.

"Belarusians need new energy and fuel to go forward," she told reporters in Paris during a four-day visit to drum up support.

She called on French President Emmanuel Macron to take "decisive action in solving the Belarusian crisis".

"We do not have the right to lose momentum... democratic countries have to be firm and principled and have a policy of non-recognition of Lukashenko," added Tikhanovskaya, who now lives in Lithuania.

But she made clear that the "only solution" to the crisis in Belarus was new elections, saying that France could be part of a "mediation platform" with the regime to set up new polls.

Tikhanovskaya was not scheduled to meet Macron on the trip, but made clear she would "with pleasure meet him any day, any moment."

She did however later Wednesday meet French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, who said he wanted to send a "strong political message of solidarity" with the talks.

Le Drian said the crackdown in Belarus "had only radicalised" over the last year and vowed France "would continue efforts" for a political solution.

The Belarusian authorities would only win political legitimacy through "political dialogue and free and fair elections, under international observation", he added.

- 'Not stopped for a day' -

Tikhanovskaya said there could be no let-up of support as activists and journalists continue to be arrested and tried in Belarus, and thanked leaders like Macron who condemned last year's polls.

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"This support of world leaders helped the people in Belarus to believe that they are not alone in their fight for freedom and democracy," she said.

"However, the repressions have not stopped for a day in Belarus since last year."

Tikhanovskaya ran against Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994 and been described as Europe's last dictator, after the candidacy of her blogger husband was blocked and he was arrested.

She claimed victory in the election but fled to Lithuania after a violent crackdown by the authorities.

She has rallied Western support and met world leaders, including US President Joe Biden, but now faces a challenge to keep up pressure as a defiant Lukashenko remains in power.

According to a count kept by the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), there are over 660 political prisoners behind bars in Belarus.

One of the best-known activists is opposition blogger Roman Protasevich who was dramatically arrested in May after Belarus scrambled a fighter jet to intercept the Ryanair flight in which he was flying over the country.

He is currently under house arrest.

sjw/cb/har
Some of the Triangles most influential coworking companies and incubators are coming together to launch a new jobs board that is more beneficial to the regions homegrown startups.

Raleigh Founded, Durham-based American Underground and the nonprofit Leadership Triangle said Thursday they are creating a Triangle-focused jobs board  one that, in their opinion, should help smaller, homegrown startups standout.

The three organizations previously hosted their own jobs boards for companies that were members of their organizations, but realized they would have a greater reach if they came together.

More than 2,000 jobs are already listed on the board, which can be accessed at triangle-jobs.com.

The board is not limited to just startups, and is open to any job seeker. But only companies that meet a certain criteria can post a job opening on the site.

The group said that, in addition to its own member companies, firms can list jobs on the site if they meet at least a majority of the following benchmarks: they are locally owned or operated, have women or people of color in executive leadership, employ 250 workers or less, and list a salary range.

Jess Porta, who leads Raleigh Founded, previously known as HQ Raleigh, said the current labor crunch is making it hard for all companies to hire right now, and startups are no exception. She added that the traditional places people look for job openings, like LinkedIn and Indeed, have become crowded.

Its really hard to find Triangle-specific jobs on Indeed or LinkedIn that focus on locally-owned companies and startups, Porta said in a phone interview with The News & Observer.

Companies team up

She said previously that leaders of Triangle coworking companies, which are home to hundreds of startups, were spreading word of job openings ad hoc on Slack, a communication platform many companies use.

The reason we wanted to invest in it, is we saw it as a great resource for our members, Porta said. We know there are talented people in our ecosystem that want to work for startups and locally-owned companies and we know those are struggling to stand out on traditional jobs boards.

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In addition to the three main organizations supporting the Triangle Jobs Board, CED, First Flight Ventures and the Raleigh Chamber are also supporting the project.

The American Underground in Durham will again serve as the host for the Google for Startups exchange for black founders.

The jobs board is just the latest way that Triangle coworking communities in Durham and Raleigh are teaming up.

The two hubs announced in April that members of each community will now be able to use each others spaces on a limited basis, such as one day per week or four days per month. Previously, a member needed an individual membership to both organizations to access both of their meeting rooms and offices.

Porta said the partnership is about realizing that Raleigh and Durham are part of the same ecosystem, not separate. Many people go between both on a daily basis.

With them only in Durham and us only in Raleigh, we arent really competitors, Porta told The N&O in April. and we are like minded.

In April, Adam Klein, who runs the American Underground, said to expect Raleigh Founded and the AU to continue collaborating.

It was a bit overdue, Klein told The N&O earlier this year. I think its a pretty strong signal to the region that Raleigh and Durham are united and working together to make sure that our entrepreneurs have everything they need to succeed.

This story was produced with financial support from a coalition of partners led by Innovate Raleigh as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work. Learn more; go to bit.ly/newsinnovate.
By Charlotte Bruneau

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A powerful mix of insecurity and traditional prejudice against more liberal female politicians put Awatef Rasheed off running for parliament when she returned to Iraq in 2014 after years abroad.

Seven years later, with Iraq less unstable, Rasheed has decided to contest a Oct. 10 election for the assembly, even if abuse and intimidation of women would-be lawmakers persist.

Today, she is one of the 951 women, representing close to 30% of the total number of candidates, running for election to the country's 329-seat Council of Representatives.

Passing a new domestic violence law, and more representation for women in the executive branch of government, are among the goals of some of the would-be female lawmakers.

For Iraq's women politicians, elections can be an excruciating experience.

Rasheed scrolled through her smartphone and looked at pictures of one of her campaign banners that had been ripped up, with the tear precisely crossing the image of her face.

"Out of 38 banners we put up in my city of Basra, 28 were damaged and four disappeared", she said.

Video: Iraq seeks neighborly help with shrinking rivers

Back in 2000, Rasheed had fled Saddam Hussein's regime to Canada, where she first started to campaign for women's social and political empowerment. It led to a career path she continued after returning to Iraq.

But at the time "political parties did not easily accept women like me, who have a gender perspective", she said, adding her family also worried about Iraq's political violence.

Discrimination still looms large, although Iraq this year introduced steps to protect women candidates. They can directly report violence to judicial investigators instead of having to notify the police first. The interior ministry has dedicated hotlines to receive complaints from women candidates.

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Human rights activist Hanaa Edwar said in elections in 2018 female candidates were subjected to defamation, smears and threats, abuses which deterred some from running this year.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

Edwar had worked to advance women in politics in 2003 after Saddam's fall, in a campaign that sought a gender quota of at least 40% in parliament and government. In the end, a quota was introduced guaranteeing women 25% of parliamentary seats.

Nada al-Jubori, a medical doctor and politician, has been elected to parliament through the gender quota twice since 2005.

"Defending womens issues has never been easy, Jubori told Reuters from her office in Baghdad's Adhamiya neighbourhood.

She cited years of violence, sectarian strife and tribal pressure as additional challenges for women trying to put their agendas forward in parliament.

Religious political parties expect their female members to be adopt their mostly conservative social agenda, she said.

Ola al-Tamimi, 35, an engineer and candidate of the secular National Awareness Movement, is among a new generation of women entering politics for the first time. To her, passing a new domestic violence law is a pressing issue.

"Women remain marginalised and the amount of domestic violence in Iraq is dangerous," she said. "Passing a law against domestic violence is very important, and it really requires the unity of women."

Womens rights advocates who have campaigned for a domestic violence law for about 10 years want to introduce shelters for victims of domestic violence and stricter punishment of so-called honour crimes, for example the murder of a woman accused of shaming her family. But opposition, mostly from religious parties, means no law has so far been adopted.

Beyond parliament, Jubori wants to see a better representation of women in the executive. In the current government, only three women have ministerial positions.

According to Jubori, more women should be nominated to top jobs in public institutions to enable them to acquire political capital and visibility over time. "They will get the chance to become better known and increase their resources, so that in future elections, we won't need the quota anymore."

(Additional reporting by Reuters TV in Iraq, Editing by William Maclean)
By Lisandra Paraguassu

BRASILIA (Reuters) -Brazil's federal government wants to halt COVID-19 vaccinations for most adolescents, citing a death under investigation and adverse events after some 3.5 million teens have already been immunized, but several state governments vowed to press on.

At a news conference, Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga criticized states and cities for jumping the gun by vaccinating 12- to 17-year-olds without health issues that put them at risk of severe COVID-19, which he said was only supposed to start on Wednesday.

Queiroga said healthy adolescents who have already taken one shot should not take a second - effectively seeking to halt nationwide immunizations for teenagers.

In a statement, federal health regulator Anvisa said there was "no evidence to support or demand changes" to its approval for children from 12 to 17 to be vaccinated with Pfizer shots.

Queiroga did not specify a reason for requesting a halt, but said there were 1,545 adverse events registered, with 93% of them in people who received COVID-19 shots other than the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine - the only one approved for minors in Brazil. He also said there had been one death registered, in the city of Sao Bernardo do Campo just outside the Sao Paulo state capital.

Anvisa in its statement said it was looking into the death of a 16-year-old who got a first dose earlier this month.

"At present, there is no definite causal relationship between this case and the administration of the vaccine," it said.

Sao Paulo state, the country's most populous, said it has already vaccinated nearly 2.5 million people under 18 years old. Governor Joao Doria said on social media that Sao Paulo would not stop vaccinating adolescents.

Queiroga said evidence about the efficacy of vaccines for healthy teenagers was not yet certain, although clinical trial data has shown them to be effective in preventing illness.

The United States, Israel and some European countries have rolled out vaccinations to children. On Monday, England decided that all 12- to 15-year-olds will be offered a shot after senior medical advisers said kids would benefit https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/britains-top-medics-recommend-12-15-year-olds-get-covid-vaccine-2021-09-13 from reduced disruption to their education.

It remains to be seen if Queiroga's comments will carry much weight. According to Carlos Lula, the president of the association of state health secretaries, the majority of states do not plan to halt vaccinations for this age group.

(Reporting by Lisandra ParaguassuWriting by Gabriel StargardterEditing by Brad Haynes and Bill Berkrot)
(Bloomberg) -- Online education giant Byjus is paying about $200 million to acquire the coding platform Tynker, people familiar with the matter said, as Indias most valuable startup accelerates its expansion ahead of an initial public offering expected next year.

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Byjus is paying for the purchase in cash and stock, the people said, asking not to be named because the details are private. The companies didnt disclose the value in their statement announcing the deal on Thursday. Byjus has made nine acquisitions this year as it seeks to expand the education options it can offer online.

Tynkers service, launched in 2013, offers classes and camps on coding, with some curriculum offered for free and premium content sold to schools for an average of $5,000 a year. Co-founders Krishna Vedati, Srinivas Mandyam and Kelvin Chong will remain in their roles after the acquisition.

Byjus, led by former teacher Byju Raveendran, pioneered online education and has seen the sector surge during the Covid-19 pandemic, when many schools closed and parents rushed to find high-quality options. The startup was valued at $16.5 billion with a fundraising this year, making it the most valuable startup in the country, according to market research firm CB Insights.

In an interview, Raveendran pointed out that computer science and programming are increasingly viewed as essential skills for kids coming out of school. Silicon Valley-based Tynker will complement Whitehat Jr., a Mumbai-based coding startup that Byjus acquired last year.

Coding is a very important future skill and we expect to accelerate very very fast in the online coding class segment, Raveendran said in a video interview. Well spend $1 billion in the U.S. edtech market in the next three years on acquisitions and organic growth.

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Vedati said one in three U.S. schools subscribe to Tynkers services and the startup has been profitable for five years.

The Silicon Valley dream motivates parents to enroll their kids in the hope that theyll build the next Facebook or Google, he said. We have subscribers from every small town in America including from states like South Dakota.

Byjus is at the head of a booming class of startups in India, which have benefited from a surge in venture capital funding and started to go public. The food-delivery startup Zomato Ltd. went public in July to strong investor demand, helping to set the stage for what could be a record year for IPOs.

The second-most valuable startup in the country, digital payments provider Paytm, recently filed its initial documents for what could be the countrys largest IPO to date at $2.2 billion. Byjus is accelerating plans to go public and aiming to file initial IPO documents as early as the second quarter of next year, Bloomberg News has reported. The startup and its bankers are discussing a valuation of $40 billion to $50 billion, although the final determination will depend on financial results and investor demand, the people said.

The online education startup, formally called Think & Learn Pvt., has prominent global investors including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerbergs Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, Naspers Ltd., Tiger Global Management and private equity giant Silver Lake Management.

The company added 45 million students to its platform last year as the pandemic raged in India and said in July it has more than 100 million users on the app.

Among the companys other acquisitions are Osmo, a learning system aimed at healthy screen time experiences, and Epic, a digital reading platform.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

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COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP)  Coach Jimbo Fisher insists that things wont be much different for No. 7 Texas A&M this week with quarterback Zach Calzada making his first career start in place of Haynes King.

Well feature things he does, but we wont change a lot, Fisher said.

Calzada was thrust into the job last weekend against Colorado when King was injured on Texas A&Ms second possession. King had surgery this week to repair a broken right leg, leaving Calzada to start Saturday against New Mexico.

Calzada and King competed for the job throughout camp and Fisher said King had only a slight edgewhen he was named the starter for Week 1.

Calzada had trouble moving the offense against the Buffaloes and lost a fumble near the goal line with about nine minutes left in the fourth quarter. But he rebounded to throw an 18-yard touchdown with 2:41 left to give the Aggies a 10-7 victory.

Fisher believes that the adversity will help Calzada as he moves into the starting role. He was asked what he hopes the sophomore learned from that experience.

It means that I can, Fisher said. The more he played, the more it slowed down. The more he saw it, the more plays he was able to make.

This game is Texas A&Ms final non-conference tuneup before the Aggies open Southeastern Conference play Sept. 25 against No. 20 Arkansas. Theyre looking to extend their winning streak to 11 games and post their first 3-0 start since opening the 2016 season with six consecutive wins.

New Mexico is also 2-0 entering this game after beating rival New Mexico State 34-25 last week.

Were going against ... one of the best football teams in the country in one of the hardest environments to play, coach Danny Gonzales said. Thats fun. Thats why you do this.

DOMINANT DEFENSE

With Texas A&Ms offense sputtering against Colorado, the defense stepped up to help secure the victory. The Aggies allowed just 54 yards in the second half. While Fisher was happy with the performance, he was disappointed that his defense didnt play that way the entire game.

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I think they realized the game has to turn up, Fisher said. This was a good wakeup call, even for them, why they cant pick and choose when they take a break, or dont need to be that intense.

SEC EXPERIENCE

New Mexico quarterback Terry Wilson has experience playing in front of crowds like the one hell face Saturday after playing 25 games in three seasons at Kentucky. Wilson nearly helped the Wildcats upset Texas A&M in College Station in 2018 when he threw for 108 yards and a touchdown in a 20-14 overtime victory by the Aggies.

Preparation-wise its unbelievable, Gonzales said. Hes been there. He knows exactly what kind of environment it is. He can explain it.

Wilson is off to a great start this season and was named Mountain West offensive player of the week this week after throwing for a career-high 382 yards with three touchdowns in the win over New Mexico State. He has thrown for 559 yards and six touchdowns without an interception in two games this season.

SPILLERS WORK

Running back Isaiah Spiller had a tough time on the ground against Colorado, managing just 20 yards rushing after running for 113 yards in Texas A&Ms opener. He helped in other ways and had 56 yards receiving and caught the game-winning TD.

His leadership and his demeanor, how hes affecting guys, was outstanding in the game, Fisher said. I was extremely proud of Isaiah Spiller and the way he played. Then he made the big play to win the game.

___

More AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/college-football and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25.
Steam and exhaust rise from the power plant of STEAG in Germany.

A lack of detail in financial reporting will dramatically reduce firms' chances of meeting global emissions targets, researchers have warned.

There is no way of knowing if money is being put into sustainable activities, Carbon Tracker said.

Firms also need to be more transparent as to how they will hit sustainability targets, the think tank said.

The think tank studied 107 global firms and found a "glaring absence of climate risks in financial reporting".

More than 70% of the companies it looked at did not include climate impact in their financial statements.

Plans for net zero targets and limiting climate risks were also omitted.

Eight out of 10 audits of these firms also showed no evidence of assessing climate risk.

The research looked for effects of material climate-related matters already required to be included in the financial statements and assessed by auditors today.

Researchers assessed the 202 financial statements of 107 listed companies, from oil and gas firms to construction, car manufacturers and aviation businesses.

The study, conducted by the independent charity group-funded Carbon Tracker and the Climate Accounting Project (CAP), said the lack of detail in their financial reporting would dramatically reduce the chances of meeting global emissions targets.

"The fact that we don't have transparency means we have no idea if capital is being allocated to sustainable activities so we can actually transition to a greener future," Barbara Davidson, analyst at Carbon Tracker and lead author of the report, told the BBC.

Researchers also found that none of the accounts reflected aims set by the Paris Agreement - an international treaty on climate change which aims to limit global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The 2020 fire season ended as the most destructive season on record.

"Lacking this information means we don't know if funds are being allocated to unsustainable businesses, which further reduces our chances to decarbonise in the short time remaining to achieve our Paris goals," Ms Davidson added.

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The report identified inconsistencies across company reporting, with firms announcing emission targets and climate strategies but not indicating how these targets would affect their financial statements.

"There's a level of disclosure that needs to be provided so we know how they are going to achieve these targets.

"It's very important for companies to set these goals but without understanding the risks it's hard to know if they're greenwashing - so investors need to take the statements with a pinch of salt."

'Knock-on loss for ordinary pensioners'

Ms Davidson said that the worst case scenario is that these companies will "go under because they can't continue to invest in polluting activities" and because pension funds have invested in these companies, that "will mean a knock-on loss for ordinary pensioners".

Andy Mayer, chief operating officer at free market think tank the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), said firms should not have to focus on "ticking boxes for activists" and said he was "not surprised at all that this is information is being left out".

"UK companies are not required to report their perception of climate risks in their annual reports," he said.

"If investors genuinely want more climate risk information in reports they will disinvest and punish companies not providing it."

"Serious climate action involves taking risks and investing in new technologies, then seeing what the market will bear. Big companies, with their vast R&D budgets need to focus on that, not ticking boxes for activists," he added.

'Investors not given the data needed'

Tracey Cameron, senior manager from the Corporate Climate Engagement at Ceres - a US organisation that works closely with investors - said: "Investors grappling with quantifying portfolio risks aren't given the data needed to make informed decisions.

"In many cases, that data exists but it lives behind a locked door, and only companies and auditors have the key."

Auditors PwC, KPMG and EY did not immediately respond to the BBC's request for comment.

A spokesperson from Deloitte said that under current accounting and auditing standards, companies and auditors were not required to issue the "kinds of information and opinions the PRI report calls for, and there may be cases where issuing such opinions would not be permissible under current rules and standards".

In 2019 and 2020, global accounting and auditing standard-setters said that climate-related risks should not be ignored in accounts, or audits.

The International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) said: "If climate change impacts the entity, the auditor needs to consider whether the financial statements appropriately reflect this."

Correction 17th September 2021: An earlier version of this story incorrectly attributed a quote from the Institute for Economic Affairs to the International Energy Agency and this has been amended.
A girl crouched against the wall. (PHOTO: Getty Images)

SINGAPORE  A mother of three admitted to abusing her two daughters, with her violence against the girls captured on CCTV footage.

The 38-year-old appeared in court via videolink on Thursday (16 September) to plead guilty to seven of her 11 charges  all of which are for ill-treating her daughters.

The eldest daughter, now 10, often bore the brunt of the assault, and at one point lost a tooth from a particularly brutal slap from her mother. The girl was eight and 10 years old at the time of the offences.

Her second daughter, now six, was four at the time of the offences. The woman has a son whose age was undisclosed. He is not a victim.

All the children cannot be named due to a gag order imposed by the court.

On 21 June 2019, the police received a report from the KK Women's and Children's Hospital (KKH) that the woman had assaulted, slapped and kicked the eldest daughter, causing her to lose two front teeth.

Around 19 December 2018, the father installed a CCTV camera in the living room as his wife would often leave the three children alone at home.

On 18 June 2019, the man came home to find that his eldest daughters front teeth were broken. The girl revealed that her mother had kicked her, causing her mouth to bleed and her front teeth to break. The father brought the girl to seek medical attention at KKH.

He then checked the CCTV recordings and discovered that his wife had assaulted the two girls on other occasions.

The girl later revealed that her mother began beating her when she was in kindergarten. The beatings worsened in 2018, when the girl began attending primary school. The girl did not speak of the assault to anyone as she was afraid her mother would beat her more. She did not know she could confide in her schoolteachers.

When confronted, the woman said she was disciplining her children as they were very naughty. She claimed that she only hit them when necessary, and would mostly scold or ground them in their room or make them face the wall.

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The abuse occurred from June 2019 to August 2021, with CCTV footage revealing the womans brutality towards her eldest daughter. In the seven recordings played in court, she can be seen flinging the girl onto the floor, dragging her by her hair from the living room to the bedroom, and throwing a marker at her head. She is also seen slapping and kicking the girl.

In the only footage with audio played in court, the woman can be seen pulling her daughters ear in the kitchen and scolding her in a mixture of English and Malay, with the girl heard sobbing.

At the end of the exchange, the woman is heard yelling, Now get out of my face at the girl, who scurries from the kitchen.

When the woman was investigated, she would deny certain actions.

Following an incident on 5 July 2019, after the woman had pinched her younger daughter and slapped her face, both girls were temporarily taken from the home on 22 August 2019 by a Child Protection Officer. However, the children were returned afterwards and the abuse continued.

On 1 December 2019, the woman threw a marker pen at her elder daughters forehead after the girl complained about her siblings. Realising that her daughters head was bleeding, the woman told the girl she deserved it and asked her to get out of the house, prompting an apology from the girl.

Her husband alerted the Child Protection Officer, who then said she would come by the house the next day. Upon finding out that the officer was coming by, the woman asked her daughter to lie that the girl and her mother had merely been playing when a toy hit her forehead.

After noticing that his wife was losing his temper at the children for no reason in August this year, the man viewed CCTV and was shocked to see his wife abusing their daughters again earlier in the year, despite being charged for child abuse and placed on bail. He alerted Child Protection Services.

In the course of investigations, the woman claimed that she was discipling her daughter to behave as she was going to jail.

A psychiatric report stated that the woman did not have a diagnosable mental illness at time of offences, nor does she currently suffer from any condition.

She also failed to demonstrate a convincing level of insight into how her methods would affect the childrens emotional, social and cognitive development.

The woman also displayed a degree of resistance in adopting alternative acceptable methods to teach her children.

The report stated that any future interaction between the woman and her children should be strictly supervised by responsible adults, as the possibility of her using harsh punishment on her children remained high.

She will return to court for her sentencing on 29 September.

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A 30-year-old man has been charged with attempted murder in connection with an April shooting.

Keenan Levy, of the 11500 block of South Lafayette Avenue, was arrested Wednesday near his West Pullman home after Chicago police said he had been identified as the gunman in a West Woodlawn attack.

He appeared before Judge David Navarro for a bond hearing Thursday, and was denied bail.

Levy is accused of shooting a 40-year-old man multiple times in the torso in the 700 block of East 67th Street on April 22. The 40-year-old had been standing outside when someone walked up and shot him just before midnight, according to Chicago police.

Levy was charged with first-degree attempted murder and unauthorized use of a weapon because, as a felon, he was not allowed to possess or use a firearm. Two warrants also were issued for his arrest, police said.

According to the Cook County assistant states attorney who spoke at the hearing, the victim and Levy had known each other for about seven years. The day of the shooting, Levy and the victim were together for several hours at a barbers home, and then later went to another location together.

Witnesses said they saw the shooter approach the victim from behind, striking him 11 times before he escaped in his car, a white Pontiac, the prosecutor said. The shooting was captured by a surveillance camera at a nearby liquor store.

The victim later identified Levy as the gunman by name and by photograph. While surveilling him, officers noted Levy in the same car that the shooter was said to have driven off in after the shooting.

Levy had a loaded firearm in his car, but one of a different caliber than the weapon used in the shooting, according to the prosecutor.

The defendant has two prior controlled substance convictions.

His public defender said Levy lives with his mother and has two children, a 12-year-old and a newborn. He works full time as a truck driver.

The defense argued that since the gun was not the same as the one used in the shooting, there was no proof that Levy committed the crime. He also added that there are issues with photo identification in criminal cases.

Levy is scheduled to be back in court Sept. 24.

mrush@chicagotribune.com
BEIJING (Reuters) -Japan said it would have to determine if China meets the "extremely high standards" of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) after the world's second-biggest economy formally applied to join.

Commerce Minister Wang Wentao submitted China's application to join the free trade agreement in a letter to New Zealand's trade minister, Damien O'Connor, the Chinese ministry said in a statement late on Thursday.

The CPTPP was signed by 11 countries including Australia, Canada, Chile, Japan and New Zealand in 2018.

Before that, it was known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership and seen as an important economic counterweight to China's regional influence.

Japan, the CPTPP's chair this year, said it would consult with member countries to respond to China's request, but stopped short of signalling a timeline for doing so.

"Japan believes that it's necessary to determine whether China, which submitted a request to join the TPP-11, is ready to meet its extremely high standards," Japanese Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura told reporters on Friday.

The TPP was central to former U.S. President Barack Obama's strategic pivot to Asia but his successor, Donald Trump, withdrew the United States from the pact in 2017.

Asked to comment on China's bid, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said it deferred to CPTPP, given that the United States was not a member, but added: "That said, we would expect that Chinas non-market trade practices and Chinas use of economic coercion against other countries would factor into CPTPP parties evaluation of China as a potential candidate for accession."

CPTPP accession would be a major boost for China following the signing of the 15-nation Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership free trade agreement last year.

Beijing has lobbied https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/china-lobbies-australia-parliament-joining-regional-trade-pact-2021-09-10 for its inclusion in the pact, including by highlighting that the Chinese and Australian economies have enormous potential for cooperation. However, relations between the two countries have soured.

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In a new alliance dubbed AUKUS announced this week, the United States and Britain said they would provide Australia with the technology to deploy nuclear-powered submarines, a move seen as aimed at countering China's influence in the Pacific.

Zhao Lijian, China's foreign ministry spokesman, said on Friday that the application to join CPTPP was "completely unrelated" to AUKUS.

China was pushing for regional integration while AUKUS countries were "promoting war and destruction," he said at a briefing in Beijing.

Taiwan, which has also been angling to join the trade pact, expressed concern about China's decision to apply.

China claims Taiwan as its own territory and would not be pleased if Taipei was allowed to join the grouping before Beijing.

Japan's deputy finance minister suggested in a tweet on Friday that China's subsidies of state-owned firms and arbitrary application of the law were likely to make it hard for the country to join the trade pact.

"China ... is far removed from the free, fair and highly transparent world of TPP, chances that it can join are close to zero," State Minister of Finance Kenji Nakanishi said in a tweet https://twitter.com/Kenji_Nakanishi/status/1438808864858591236?s=20. "This can be thought of as a move to prevent Taiwan from joining."

Britain in June began negotiations to enter the trade pact, while Thailand has also signalled interest in joining it.

Wang and O'Connor held a telephone conference to discuss the next steps following China's application, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said.

(Reporting by Colin Qian, Twinnie Siu, Tom Daly and Gabriel Crossley in Beijing, Daniel Leussink and Sakura Murakami in Tokyo, Ben Blanchard and Jeanny Kao in Taipei and David Brunnstrom in Washington; Editing by Angus MacSwan, Alex Richardson and Mark Porter)
China's D.C. embassy said Thursday in response to a new security pact between the U.S., United Kingdom and Australia that the countries should "shake off their Cold-War mentality and ideological prejudice," per the Australian Associated Press.

Why it matters: The AUKUS partnership is a warning to China's government as the Biden administration moves to counter Beijing in the Indo-Pacific. It's also raised the ire of the French government, after the countries revealed the U.S. and U.K. would help Australia acquire nuclear-powered submarines.

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French officials condemned the deal because it means that the $90 billion submarine contract with Australia's government that France won in 2016 has been abruptly scrapped.

Australia has spent AU$2.4 billion ($1.8 billion) on the project.

What they're saying: Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., likened the pact to cold war policies and said countries "should not build exclusionary blocs targeting or harming the interests of third parties," per AAP.

In France, Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and Defense Minister Florence Parly issued a joint statement on Wednesday, calling the decision to end the French deal "regrettable."

"The American choice to push aside a European ally and partner like France from a structural partnership with Australia at a time we are facing unprecedented challenges in the Indo-Pacific region ... shows a lack of coherence that France can only acknowledge and regret."

Le Drian and Parly

The big picture: Chinese military power in East Asia has been approaching parity with the U.S. in recent years, and Beijing has been constructing or leasing military bases for its own use around the Indo-Pacific, Axios' Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian notes.

Chinese military activities in the South China Sea in particular are viewed by the U.S. as a top security threat.

China's government has also sent military jets to fly near Taiwan's airspace this year in what it said was a warning to "foreign forces" over the democratic island it claims is a breakaway province.

Of note: New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern during a news conference on Thursday welcomed the focus on the region, but said Australia's new submarines wouldn't be permitted in its territorial waters due to the country's long standing nuclear free policy.

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The other side: Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison defended his country's switch, telling reporters that the $2.4 billion already invested "has further built our capability and that is consistent with the decision that was taken back in 2016 for all the right reasons to protect Australias national security interests and has served that purpose."

Morrison said there's "an open invitation" for talks with President Xi Jinping.

The Biden administration did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment.

Go deeper: Biden's muddled China policy

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By Luis Jaime Acosta

BOGOTA (Reuters) - A former Colombian soldier detained in Haiti for allegedly participating in the assassination of President Jovenel Moise says he and 17 others are being held in inhumane conditions and suffering torture by Haitian police, without access to legal council.

More than 40 people, including 18 Colombians, have been detained as part of the investigation of Moise's July killing. It has made little apparent progress and has been riddled with irregularities.

"We are in a twenty first century concentration camp. We are dying slowly," a man, who identifies himself as one of the detained but does not give his name, said in an audio recording shared with Reuters.

Although the man's mother confirmed the voice on the audio belongs to her detained son, Reuters could not independently verify its origin, nor conditions at the prison.

Neither the director general of the Haitian police nor a spokesperson immediately responded to requests for comment.

Colombia's foreign ministry said it was giving humanitarian assistance to those detained through its embassy in the neighboring Dominican Republic. Colombia has previously called for the men to be held in better conditions and given legal council.

Though many family members and former colleagues say the men were hired as bodyguards, not killers, Colombian President Ivan Duque has said some knew of the assassination plan.

"Please help us, help us, pressure the Haitian government to free us... We don't even have a lawyer, we don't have contact with our families, we don't have money," the man says in the audio. "We are here among rats, amidst human excrement."

In the audio, also published by local media, the man says the detained are given just one meal of rice a day.

"All of the statements given to the judicial police occurred under torture," the man said. "They have burned us with acid, they have used machetes on our bodies, they have pulled out our fingernails, they have broken our teeth with kicks."

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The man's mother - who asked that neither she nor her son be named for fear of reprisals - said Colombia must urgently ensure legal aid.

"They are torturing them, they are leaving them without food, they will let them die of hunger," she said.

(Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta; Writing by Julia Symmes Cobb; Editing by Dan Grebler)
Investigators are seen at the scene of a double homicide in Colleton County, South Carolina. WJCL

Authorities have opened a criminal investigation into the death of Alex Murdaugh's former housekeeper.

Her death was previously deemed a "trip and fall," but a coroner alleged an autopsy was never conducted.

Alex Murdaugh is turning himself in on Thursday on charges related to paying a hitman to shoot him.

Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Law enforcement agencies in South Carolina said they have opened a criminal investigation into the 2018 death of Gloria Satterfield, South Carolina legal mogul Alex Murdaugh's family housekeeper, according to local news station WCBD.

In a wrongful death settlement at the time, the Murdaugh family described Satterfield's death as a "trip and fall" accident.

But on Wednesday, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) said it opened an investigation into Satterfield's death "based upon a request from the Hampton County Coroner  as well as information gathered during the course of [the] other investigations involving Alex Murdaugh."

Coroner Angela Topper said Satterfield's death was not reported on time and no autopsy was performed, per WCBD. Topper said she wrote a letter to SLED chief Mark Keel requesting an investigation into Satterfield's death, noting it was deemed "natural" in a wrongful death settlement petition submitted by the Murdaugh family, which is "inconsistent with injuries sustained in a trip and fall accident."

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On Wednesday, Satterfield's sons also filed a lawsuit against Murdaugh in which they alleged they were never awarded the $500,000 payment they were owed from the 2018 wrongful death settlement.

A series of incidents linked to the Murdaugh family

Alex Murdaugh and his family, a local legal dynasty, have been the subject of tragedy and scrutiny in connection with several incidents.

In 2019, the youngest Murdaugh son, Paul, was charged in connection to a boating crash that resulted in the death of a 19-year-old woman named Mallory Beach. Authorities said Murdaugh, who was driving, and the boaters were "grossly intoxicated," per Bluffon Today, and Murdaugh was charged with three felony counts of boating under the influence. Murdaugh pleaded not guilty to all charges.

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In June, while he was awaiting trial, authorities found Paul and his mother, Margaret "Maggie" Murdaugh, shot to death outside their family home. Their deaths remain unsolved.

And on September 4, Alex Murdaugh was shot in the head and survived, his lawyer told The New York Times at the time. Murdaugh now stands accused of trying to arrange his own murder in the shooting, state police said in a report released Tuesday. Authorities allege that Murdaugh hired a hitman to shoot him so his surviving son could receive a $10 million life insurance payment.

SLED charged Curtis Edward Smith, who was accused of shooting Alex Murdaugh, with assisted suicide and insurance fraud, as well as aggravated assault and battery.

On Wednesday, Fox Carolina reported that Alex Murdaugh would be turning himself in on Thursday in Hampton County on multiple charges.

Read the original article on Insider
A Tenaya Stone, gifted by a Miwok elder descended of Chief Tenaya of the Yosemite Valley, is a focal point and place for guests to set their intentions at Disneyland Resort's Tenaya Stone Spa.

Just days after Lake Tahoe's Squaw Valley ski resort rebranded itself as Palisades Tahoe in recognition of the "derogatory and offensive" connotations of its former name, a new destination with Native American influences debuted Thursday at Disneyland Resort.

Tenaya Stone Spa at Disney's Grand Californian Hotel and Spa is "inspired by the spirit of nature, Indigenous cultures of California and design principles of the Arts & Crafts movement," according to Disney Parks.

"A huge reason we chose to lean into incorporating Native inspiration was to honor the spirit of nature," Katrina Mosher, art director with Walt Disney Imagineering, told USA TODAY. "The universal thinking in Native values are similar, if not one in the same, as craftsman values and intentions. The idea of self-care, taking care of the Earth, and taking care of our community were all values we set out to achieve with this space. It was a natural fit and an important acknowledgment."

Dawn Jackson, a Native American cultural adviser with Disney, who was an Imagineer with the Story Development team at the project's onset, was brought in early on.

Warning: Disney+ adds stronger, longer warnings about racist stereotypes to classic films

Disney World 'wokeness' comes under fire: Column on Splash Mountain, Jungle Cruise, other changes stirs debate

"I was so appreciative because we've all seen stories out there that the Native Indigenous population is invisible," Jackson said. "So that really told me the intention was right. There was a pureness to the question."

"We knew that we wanted to do it the right way," Mosher said.

Over the years, Disney has been criticized for its depictions of Native Americans in films like "Peter Pan" and "Pocahontas." Disneyland and Disney World recently removed racially insensitive depictions of Indigenous people from their Jungle Cruise attractions.

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The parks are also making other changes when it comes to the representation of marginalized communities, like replacing Splash Mountain's "Song of the South"-related theme with a new storyline featuring Princess Tiana of "The Princess and the Frog."

Tenaya Stone Spa at Disney's Grand Californian Hotel & Spa draws inspiration from nature, Native cultures and Craftsman style.

Jackson, who is Saginaw Chippewa from Michigan, said that while she's done a lot of work with Southern California tribes, she didn't know much about the tribes of the Yosemite Valley, the thematic backdrop of the spa, which borders the Grizzly Peak area of Disney California Adventure Park.

"So that was the next part of the journey, really reaching out to elders, people I knew, colleagues, and asking: 'What tribes do I need to think about? How do I need to increase my own knowledge and respect for those cultures?' " she said.

"I met with Pomo, Paiute, Wintun, Miwok, just in California alone," Jackson said, adding, "It was always about learning from them, their cultural knowledge."

'The story of Chief Tenaya is not a children's story'

Tenaya had already been chosen as the spa's name when the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian connected Jackson with a Miwok family descended from Chief Tenaya, one of the last chiefs of the Yosemite Valley.

"Tenaya can be interpreted 'to dream' in the Indigenous culture of the Yosemite Valley," Jackson told the Disney Parks blog. Learning of the family's connection to Chief Tenaya, Jackson told USA TODAY, " ... felt like this was the journey we were meant to be on."

She visited the family in person to pay respects, break bread and begin a relationship that eventually led to a gift from a Miwok elder: the stone that now sits at the heart of the spa, which guests are invited to touch.

Tara Fouch-Moore, tribal secretary for Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation, one of the tribes that called Yosemite Valley home, says she's also a descendant of Chief Tenaya and appreciates the spa trying to be culturally representative.

"However, they miss the point," she said. "They are not doing this with the intention of educating the public on the tragic story of Chief Tenaya and his people. The story of Chief Tenaya is not a children's story. It includes the genocide of his people and neighboring tribes. He and his sons were murdered. He was put on a reservation in Fresno and had to fight to come back. He's a hero because of his strength and his unwillingness to give in. And this isn't the story they're telling."

She said Disney is able to tell any story they like, while tribes like her own are still fighting to be seen.

There are 574 federally recognized tribes across the U.S., but more than 300 others who don't have federal recognition like the Yosemite Valley's Southern Sierra Miwuk.

Among other tribes, Disney's team met with the Ahwaneechee Miwok family whose elder gifted them with the stone and cultural knowledge. From the beginning, Jackson said they aimed to approach everything in a "good way."

Disney's Grand Californian Hotel & Spa's new Tenaya Stone Spa features Native American artwork with traditional materials. Magnesite was once used as currency by some California tribes. The spa's white magnesite came from a place called Chalk Mountain.

"In my own culture, one of the highest compliments you can get is if someone says, 'You did it in a good way,' " she said. "It means you did it with the pure heart, the right intention. You approached it with the right respect. And some of that is never rushing. It's always taking the time that it takes to create those relationships and that trust. And so I can say that all along the way I felt like we did this in a good way."

But Shannon O'Loughlin, CEO and attorney for the Association on American Indian Affairs, thinks Disney could have done more. "What all of this makes me think of (are) the opportunities lost," she said.

The Association on American Indian Affairs describes itself as "the oldest nonprofit serving Indian Country protecting sovereignty, preserving culture, educating youth and building capacity."

"I'm sure they're trying to create peace and relaxation," O'Loughlin, who is Choctaw of Oklahoma, said of the spa. "But there (are) also opportunities to educate. They could use that platform as an opportunity to understand better those sacred places in those sacred lands, including the place where the spa is actually located."

Honoring the land and peoples

Several tribes are historically tied to the land where Disneyland Resort sits in Southern California.

Disney's Jackson worked with them on a new land acknowledgment plaque outside the spa, which reads:

We gratefully acknowledge the Native peoples on whose ancestral homelands we live and work on. Here in Los Angeles and Anaheim we honor Juaneno Acjachemen, Gabrielino Tongva, Fernandeno Tataviam, Ventureno Chumash. They are the original caretakers and continue to be a vibrant part of our Native community today.

Wallace Cleaves, director of the California Center for the Native Nations at the University of California, Riverside and a professor, would like to see more engagement between Disneyland and local tribes. He is Tongva.

"I've seen that they've used the Native design as a selling point for the spa, so you know it is marketing Indigenous identity in a way that is also a little bit problematic ... Really concerning is, of course, kind of the displacement," he said, recalling Disneyland's history of featuring Plains Indians, who are not from the area, in Frontierland, which also used to include an Indian Village.

"The amount of positive impact that a corporation like Disneyland could have on pushing back against the erasure of Acjachemen and Tongva people is almost inconceivable," said Angela Mooney D'Arcy, who is Juaneno Acjachemen and the founder and executive director of the Sacred Places Institute for Indigenous Peoples. The institute aims to "build the capacity of Native Nations and Indigenous Peoples to protect sacred lands, waters, and cultures."

For now, only Disneyland Resort hotel guests can book appointments at the new Tenaya Stone Spa at Disneys Grand Californian Hotel & Spa. The spa will open to non-resort guests down the line.

Jackson said it was very important to her that Tenaya Stone Spa staff go through cultural training. Katrina Mosher said staff will tell guests about the stone gifted by the Miwok elder.

"They're told the story about how Indigenous people believe that stones have memory and that it carries the energy of all that have come before it, for eons and eons," Mosher said. "And it's really that touchpoint to create the connection back to nature."

Fouch-Moore of the Southern Sierra Miwuk acknowledges the spa is beautiful. "All of the artwork and everything in there, it's Disney. They are able to do these things in a beautiful way, and when they find a theme, they really run for it," she said. "It's also totally inaccessible to your average California Native. Our tribal members couldn't afford to go there."

'Far too late': Colorado governor rescinds 1864 order to kill Native Americans

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Disneyland's Native American-inspired spa Tenaya comes with history
The Department of Justice announced on Thursday that the Madoff Victim Fund began distributing $568 million in additional payouts to those affected by the Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC (BLMIS) fraud scheme, marking the seventh distribution the MVF has made.

The newest distribution will be sent to nearly 31,000 victims, with 2,600 receiving their first payment from the MVF. The $568 million distributed today brings the total amount of MVF's distribution to $3.7 billion, with the goal of reaching the approximately $4 billion that victims lost from the collapse of BLMIS, according to the Department of Justice.

ANGER AT DOJ FOR NOT PROSECUTING FBI AGENTS WHO BOTCHED LARRY NASSAR CASE

This distribution provides nearly 31,000 victims additional financial recovery from the egregious crimes committed by Bernard Madoff, acting Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite Jr. said. The Departments continued efforts to ensure justice for victims of crime is demonstrated through the ongoing Madoff remission process and the billions given back to innocent victims worldwide.

As the chairman of BLMIS, Bernie Madoff used his business to steal billions from his clients for decades. Madoff pleaded guilty to 11 federal felonies on March 12, 2009, admitting to turning his wealth management business into the worlds largest Ponzi scheme. He was sentenced to 150 years in prison that year on June 29, the Department of Justice reported.

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Madoff asked for early release from prison on Feb. 6, 2020, saying he had chronic kidney failure and only 18 months to live. Prosecutors argued that Madoff should not be released, even if it meant he would die in prison, where he did eventually die on April 14, 2021.

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Tags: News, Bernie Madoff, Department of Justice, fraud, money

Original Author: Asher Notheis

Original Location: DOJ announces Madoff Ponzi scheme victim payouts have reached $3.7 billion
Special counsel John Durham reportedly seeks a grand jury indictment against Michael Sussmann, a cybersecurity lawyer at a Democratic-allied law firm closely linked to British ex-spy Christopher Steeles discredited dossier.

The charge is said to be related to an alleged false statement to the FBI about a client's identity when Sussmann pushed now-debunked claims about secret communications between Russias Alfa Bank and the Trump Organization in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election.

Durham has told the Justice Department that he will ask a grand jury to indict a prominent cybersecurity lawyer on a charge of making a false statement to the FBI, the New York Times reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The report said Durhams case against Sussmann, who works at the powerhouse Perkins Coie law firm, centers on the question of whom his client was when he conveyed certain suspicions about former President Donald Trump and Russia to then-FBI General Counsel James Baker in September 2016.

Sussmann relayed data and analysis from cybersecurity researchers who thought that odd internet data might be evidence of a covert communications channel during the meeting with Baker, the report said.

Durham has until the weekend to charge Sussmann because of a five-year statute of limitations. Neither Durham nor the Justice Department has commented on the report as of press time. Sussmann has denied wrongdoing.

Special counsel John Durham. (Bob Child/AP Photo)



Baker testified in 2018 that Sussman, a former DOJ colleague of his, shared the Alfa Bank claims with him during a September 2016 meeting. Notes from DOJ official Bruce Ohrs December 2016 meeting with Glenn Simpson show the Fusion GPS co-founder said the New York Times was wrong to doubt the story that Alfa Bank and the Trump Organization were communicating through secret servers.

DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz criticized the Justice Department and the FBI in December of 2019 for at least 17 significant errors and omissions related to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants against Trump campaign associate Carter Page in 2016 and 2017 and for the bureau's reliance on Steeles Democratic-funded dossier, which played a "central and essential" role in the FBI's wiretap efforts.

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This followed the release of special counsel Robert Mueller's report on the Russia investigation in April of that year.

Mueller said his team identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign but "did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.

In his December 2019 report, Horowitz said the FBI "concluded by early February 2017 that there were no such links between Alfa Bank and the Trump Organization. A Senate Intelligence Committee report did not find "covert communications between Alfa Bank and Trump Organization personnel."

Robby Mook, Hillary Clintons 2016 presidential campaign manager, said in 2017 he authorized Marc Elias  who, until recently, headed Perkins Coies political law group and started his own firm this summer  to hire an outside firm to dig up dirt on Trumps connections with Russia in 2016. Mook said Elias received information from Fusion GPS about the research into Trump and Russia in 2016, and Elias periodically briefed the Clinton campaign.

Sussman is reportedly the source for news stories in 2016 about alleged secretive server claims.

The New York Times reported, Sussmanns lawyers have told the Justice Department that he sought the meeting because he and the cybersecurity researchers believed that the New York Times was on the verge of publishing an article about the Alfa Bank data and he wanted to give the FBI a heads-up." However, the outlet said that in fact it was not ready to run that article, but published one mentioning Alfa Bank six weeks later  just days before the 2016 election.

At the end of October 2016, researchers found a sustained relationship between a server registered to the Trump Organization and two servers registered to an entity called Alfa Bank," Slate reported.

The New York Times published a report at the start of November 2016 that stated the FBI ultimately concluded that there could be an innocuous explanation, like a marketing email or spam, for the computer contacts.

Durham found an inconsistency in Sussmanns story, according to the New York Times report published on Wednesday. The outlet added that Baker is said to have told investigators that he recalled [Sussmann] saying that he was not meeting him on behalf of any client.

However, Sussmann testified to the House Intelligence Committee in December 2017 that he had sought out the FBI meeting on behalf of an unnamed alleged cybersecurity expert client.

During that deposition, Sussmann indicated his client was not the Clinton campaign or the co-founders of Fusion GPS.

Durham also obtained internal billing records from Perkins Coie that show when Sussmann logged certain hours as working on the Alfa Bank matter  though not the Baker meeting  he billed the time to Clintons 2016 campaign, the news report said.

"Michael Sussmann is a highly respected national security and cyber security lawyer, who served the U.S. Department of Justice during Democratic and Republican administrations alike," Sussmann attorneys Sean Berkowitz and Michael Bosworth said in a statement obtained by the Washington Examiner. "Mr. Sussmann has committed no crime. Any prosecution here would be baseless, unprecedented, and an unwarranted deviation from the apolitical and principled way in which the Department of Justice is supposed to do its work. We are confident that if Mr. Sussmann is charged, he will prevail at trial and vindicate his good name."

Sussmanns attorneys are said to have insisted that their client was representing the cybersecurity expert he mentioned to Congress and was not there on behalf of or at the direction of the Clinton campaign." They are also said to have argued that the billing records are misleading because Sussmann was not charging his client for work on the Alfa Bank matter, but needed to show internally that he was working on something," the outlet said.

Sussmanns lawyers contended he was discussing the matter with Elias and the campaign paid a flat monthly retainer to the firm." Therefore, Sussmanns hours did not result in any additional charges," the report added.

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Steele testified in a British court that Sussman provided him with other claims about Alfa Banks purported ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin during a late July 2016 meeting. These allegations made their way into a mid-September 2016 memo that became part of Steeles dossier, although Steele repeatedly misspells Alfa as Alpha.

Shortly after writing that memo, Steele met with Elias, who was the general counsel for Clintons campaign and had personally hired the opposition research firm Fusion GPS on the campaigns behalf.

Clinton tweeted on Halloween 2016 that computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank. She shared a statement from her campaign foreign policy adviser, Jake Sullivan, who is now Bidens national security adviser, who said that the secret hotline may be the key to unlocking the mystery of Trumps ties to Russia.

So far, Durham has obtained a single guilty plea from ex-FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith.

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Tags: News, John Durham, Hillary Clinton, 2016 Elections, Russia, Donald Trump, Justice Department

Original Author: Jerry Dunleavy

Original Location: Durham seeks indictment against lawyer at Steele dossier-linked law firm over Alfa Bank matter: Report
Shots are a crowd-pleasing party favorite no matter the celebration. The single-gulp drink is famous for its many variations. Now thanks to some adventurous TikTokers and a seriously convenient shot glass mold, you can have your shot and eat it, too! From candy to cookies, here are five edible shot glass recipes guaranteed to make your next soiree a memorable one.

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This recipe is a grown-up take on the classic hard candy. After unwrapping the Jolly Ranchers, the sweet-toothed TikToker places them into a silicone shot glass mold. They recommend using 15 candies per glass. Finally, they bake them in the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 15 minutes before letting them cool for a few hours to solidify their shape.

Decode and demystify Gen Z's latest online slang terms with In The Know's new glossary.

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Chocolate has ascended to a new form with this recipe. TikToker @areesa begins by pouring melted chocolate into a small paper cup. Once the cup is filled, she pours out any remaining chocolate. After chilling, she pokes a small hole in the bottom of the paper cup and then pops out the chocolate shot glass. For a finishing touch, she dips the rim of the glass in melted chocolate before topping it off with rainbow sprinkles.

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This sweet shot glass recipe involves tucking your grannys favorite hard candy caramels into the shot glass mold. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes, then let them harden and cool. This particular flavor of shot glass goes splendidly with brandy.

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This recipe will be the toast of the holiday party. To make it, snap up a bunch of candy canes into small sticks. Next, place the peppermint sticks evenly along the side of the shot glass mold and cover the top with fragments from the hook end of the cane. Finally, bake and let cool. Pour in some hot chocolate and peppermint schnapps, then garnish with whipped cream and a dusting of any remaining peppermint scraps.

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For a daring take on Starburst candy, look no further than this recipe. TikToker @bigman8041 unwraps each chewy candy and tucks them into the shot glass mold. Next, he bakes them until the candy completely melts and then sets them out to cool. This citrusy shot glass pairs well with any vodka.

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If you enjoyed this story, check out these delicious breakfast parfait muffins!

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It literally smells so bad: Parents stunned to discover washing machine filter needs to be cleaned monthly

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The post These edible shot glass recipes are reason enough to throw a party appeared first on In The Know.
Camden, New Jersey  A charter school in New Jersey was one of the worst performing schools in the state until a group of educators led by principal Susanna Tagoe stepped in.

"Camden is not just the boarded up houses that you see. There are lives, there are brilliant, beautiful scholars," Tagoe said. "There are families who love their kids, who are passionate about education, passionate about equity, passionate about change."

That passion helped turn Camden's failing public schools into a success story. Eight years ago, the state took over the schools and transformed them. Once a rundown building, Camden Prep is now the highest performing school in the area.

The percentage of kids in the elementary school who are at or above grade level in math soared from 3% in 2014 to 60% in 2019. In reading, there was an increase from 4% to 50% during the same time period.

"When you see our kids in action and you see how much brilliance and how capable they are, then you understand not to limit them," Tagoe said.

The creation of what are called "renaissance schools" is part of Camden's second act. Unlike traditional charter schools, there is not lottery admission at Camden Prep. Students get to go there because they live in the neighborhood. "That proves that a ZIP code does not determine your ability," Tagoe said.

The curriculum is tailored to each student's ability and measures both their academic and emotional progress. Teachers are in daily communication with students' parents.

Rashad McCray, a fifth-grader, said his teachers will give him one-on-one time when he needs help. "When I go to school, I see my teachers and my classmates and I think, 'OK, I'm going to be comfortable here,'" he said.

It's a feeling Tagoe never experienced as the only student of color at her elementary school. When she was 5, a boy at school told her, "Don't touch me, you're dirty."

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"When I think about that moment  especially being dark skinned and you know you're different  I think about why I do this work," she said. "They're going to be the next generation to change society and ensure that everything is better for them, and better for the next generation after, and that's a big responsibility. But it's a beautiful one."

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Tesla CEO Elon Musk is criticizing House Democrats and the Biden administration for providing tax incentives for union-made electric cars that won't help his company or others that are not unionized.

Musk and other automakers say the tax benefit will unfairly boost the business of car companies such as GM, Ford, and Chrysler, which are represented by the United Auto Workers union.

IS THE SELF-DRIVING CAR DOOMED ALREADY?

House Democrats in the Ways and Means Committee introduced a proposal earlier this month, as part of their $3.5 trillion spending bill, that would allow $4,500 in consumer incentives to buy a new electric vehicle, provided it is union-made in the United States.

Tesla, as the only major American car company that is not unionized, is opposed to the proposed benefit, as are foreign automobile giants such as Toyota, Honda, Kia, and Nissan, which say the union-made incentive is discriminatory and biased.

This is written by Ford/UAW lobbyists, as they make their electric car in Mexico. Not obvious how this serves American taxpayers," Musk tweeted earlier this week.

Ford is planning to produce more of its electric vehicles in the U.S. next year, which will allow it to take advantage of the new tax incentive.

In the past, Tesla, which is the largest electric vehicle manufacturer in the U.S., has benefited immensely from government incentive programs for electric vehicles, such as the current $7,500 federal tax credit to purchase an electric vehicle. The new $4,500 incentive for union-made electric vehicles would be on top of the existing $7,500 credit for all electric vehicles bought in the U.S.

House Republicans this week also slammed the electric vehicle tax credit plan as 'perverse' and 'unfair.'

Republican Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania told the Detroit News that the tax incentive would primarily benefit giant automobile corporations and wealthy people, who have the ability to purchase expensive electric cars.

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However, Democrats such as Rep. Dan Kildee of Michigan, who has been backed by the United Auto Workers union, say electric cars becoming more affordable and the tax incentives are needed to combat climate change by reducing carbon emissions that come from gas powered vehicles.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Democrats also say the tax incentive is representative of their priorities and goals.

The Democratic Caucus strongly values workers rights as well as American-based manufacturing, both of which this proposal encourages, Erin Hatch Thomas, the House Ways and Means Committees communications director, said in a statement to the Washington Post.

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Tags: News, Policy, Economy, Car Makers, Car, Electric Vehicles, Tax Credits, Biden Administration, House Ways and Means Committee, House Democrats, Elon Musk, Tesla, GM, Ford, Chrysler

Original Author: Nihal Krishan

Original Location: Elon Musk upset over proposed Democratic subsidies for unionized electric car companies
By Katharine Houreld

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Eritrean soldiers and Tigrayan militias raped, detained and killed Eritrean refugees in Ethiopias northern region of Tigray, an international rights watchdog said on Thursday.

Human Rights Watch's report detailed attacks around two camps in Tigray, where local forces have battled the Ethiopian government and their Eritrean allies since November in a conflict that has rocked the Horn of Africa region.

Tens of thousands of Eritrean refugees live in Tigray, a mountainous and poor province of about 5 million people.

Tigrayans distrusted them because they were the same nationality as occupying Eritrean soldiers, Eritreans because the refugees' loyalty was suspect after they fled their homeland.

"The horrific killings, rapes, and looting against Eritrean refugees in Tigray are clear war crimes," said Laetitia Bader, Horn of Africa director at Human Rights Watch (HRW), whose work - first reported by Reuters - drew on interviews with 28 refugees and other sources, including satellite imagery.

Eritrea's minister of information did not immediately return calls seeking comment, but Eritrea has previously denied atrocities and said their forces have not targeted civilians.

A spokesman for the Tigray People's Liberation Front said formal, uniformed Tigrayan forces had only recently moved into the area and that it was possible abuses were committed by local militias.

"It is mostly the last month or so that our forces moved into those areas. There was a huge Eritrean army presence there," Getachew Reda told Reuters. "If there were vigilante groups acting in the heat of the moment I cannot rule that out."

International investigators were welcome to visit the area, he said.

Prior to the Tigray conflict, Ethiopia hosted around 150,000 Eritrean refugees, fleeing poverty and authoritarian government.

Much of the report focused on two camps - Shimelba and Hitsats - destroyed during the fighting. HRW cited U.N. refugee agency UNHCR figures that 7,643 out of 20,000 refugees then living in Hitsats and Shimelba camps are still missing.

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UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency, said it was "appalled" at the reports of "immense suffering" in refugee camps, which it was unable to access from November to March.

'IN EVERY HOUSE, PEOPLE KILLED'

Eritrean forces arrived in the northern town of Hitsats on Nov. 19, killed residents, and pillaged and occupied the refugee camp, HRW said. Some refugees helped direct looters, one resident told HRW.

"In every house, people were killed," one resident told HRW.

Four days later, Tigrayan fighters attacked an area near Hitsats camps Ethiopian Orthodox church, killing nine refugees and injuring 17, HRW reported.

"My husband had our 4-year-old on his back and our 6-year-old in his arms. As he came back to help me enter the church, they shot him," one refugee told Human Rights Watch.

Two dozen residents in Hitsats town were reportedly killed in clashes that day, HRW reported.

The report said that HRW had been unable to determine the extent that Tigray's formal forces directly commanded over local Tigray militias operating around Hitsats.

Shortly after, Eritrean soldiers detained two dozen refugees, who were never seen again, HRW said. They also took the 17 injured refugees back to Eritrea.

Eritrean forces withdrew from Hitsats camp in early December. Tigrayan forces returned on Dec. 5, sending refugees fleeing under attack.

Refugees around the villages of Zelasle and Ziban Gedena, northwest of Hitsats, reported being shot at and attacked with grenades. Tigrayan forces marched fleeing refugees back to Hitsats, shooting some stragglers, refugees reported to HRW. Some women also said they were raped by Tigrayan fighters as they fled. One 27-year-old woman said Tigrayan fighters raped her along with her 17-year-old sister.

Tigrayan forces withdrew from Hitsats on Jan. 4, HRW said. The Eritrean forces returned, ordered remaining refugees to leave, then destroyed the camp.

In the northernmost camp, Shimelba, Eritrean forces killed at least one refugee, raped at least four others and killed local residents, HRW said.

The violence and severe food shortages forced some refugees to return to Eritrea. Others fled south to two other camps, Adi Harush and Mai Aini. Tigrayan forces took over those camps in June and refugees have reported killings and looting.

"We are extremely worried about the current situation of over 20,000 Eritrean refugees living in Mai Aini and Adi Harush camp in southern Tigray," UNHCR told Reuters on Wednesday, saying there were severe food and water shortages and healthcare was unavailable.

(Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
Sep. 16LAWRENCE  In Marine Sgt. Johanny Rosario's picture, Betsy Rodriguez saw herself.

At 18, Rodriguez, a native of Puerto Rico, joined the U.S. Army and had a military career that spanned 30 years. The sergeant major now lives in Florida but has been vacationing in Gloucester. When she learned Rosario, 25, was killed, Rodriguez wanted to be there for her when she finally came home.

"Seeing this young female in the military reminded me of myself," she said.

Rodriguez was among the thousands who lined Lawrence streets on Saturday as Rosario, a fallen daughter, was returned to the city in a somber, dignified and patriotic procession.

Rosario, who is also referred to as Sgt. Johanny Rosario Pichardo, was killed by suicide bombers in Kabul, Afghanistan on Aug. 26.

She had volunteered for deployment there and was screening women and children leaving the Middle Eastern country as the Taliban resumed control and the United States relinquished its involvement after 20 years.

A 2014 graduate of Lawrence High School, she had been a Marine for the past eight years.

With many clad in red, white and blue, crowds gathered on the sides of city streets as Rosario's 7,700-mile journey home came to an end.

Lawrence firefighters carefully hoisted and hung a gigantic American flag in the air between two ladder trucks over Route 114.

The procession, from Logan Airport in Boston, came off Interstate 495 onto Route 114 and went right under Old Glory hanging from the ladders above.

The motorcade was led by dozens of motorcycles, then local and state police and firefighters and then her hearse, with the Marine Corps symbol affixed to the side.

After bagpipers played "Amazing Grace," the crowds were silent as she passed and made her way to the Farrah Funeral Home on Lawrence Street.

City workers handed out nearly 800 flags to those who lined the streets for the procession. The flags represented the total of the city's veterans who have died in war, explained worker Laura Alefantis.

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"It was our way to recognize other fallen brothers and sisters in arms standing with her and welcoming her home as well," she said.

Students from Central Catholic High School in Lawrence dominated a street corner, showing their respects for Rosario.

Meanwhile, Lynn Sayarath, a mother from Templeton, Massachusetts, drove a little more than an hour with her sons, Tai, 11, and Jaiden, 14, to be in Lawrence on Saturday.

"This is a lesson that can't be taught in a classroom and so significant on 9/11. There was no question in mind. We had to come," said Sayarath, whose father, John Cormier, 71, is a disabled Vietnam War veteran who served in the Navy.

Sayarath said she wants to impress on her boys the role and importance of strong women as well as patriotism.

"From the time I was very little being a proud American was very important. I know they can read about things in a textbook but it doesn't hold the same meaning as being here today," she said.

A wake will be held for Rosario on Tuesday at Veterans Memorial Stadium from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. She will be buried at Bellevue Cemetery, in the veterans section, later Tuesday afternoon.

Follow staff reporter Jill Harmacinski on Twitter @EagleTribJill.
MADRID (Reuters) - A bomb threat which forced an evacuation of a central part of the northern city of Oviedo on Thursday morning was a false alarm, National Police said.

"The police operation has ended," a national police spokesperson said.

An anonymous bomb threat was received by telephone at 9:50 a.m. (0750 GMT) saying there was an explosive device in an underground parking. Following protocols, police cordoned off the area, near the city courthouse, and proceeded to evacuate it.

Traffic has resumed and people can freely move on the area, the police added.

(Reporting by Jesus Aguado and Emma Pinedo; Writing by Nathan Allen; Editing by Inti Landauro and Alex Richardson)
David K. Jones

GoFundMe David K. Jones with his family

The family of a Boston University professor who died after falling through a gap in a closed public staircase is speaking out.

In a statement issued through BU, Dr. David Jones' family  including his wife Sarah Sacuto and their three kids, Olivia, Anne and Thomas  said they were devastated by his sudden passing.

"Our lives were changed forever last weekend with the sudden, tragic, and preventable passing of our beloved father, husband, son, brother David Kline Jones," the statement read, in part. "David cared wholly and deeply about people, about communities, and about humanity. He knew that the love and care we have for each other is reflected in how safe and nurturing every community is."

"David was a champion for high-quality equitable education and healthcare for all," they went on. "He cherished each and every one of his students and colleagues. He loved to have deep conversations where he would listen intently to try to understand the perspective of others and share his ideas."

"David's life was shaped by his kindness and compassion for others, and we are grateful for the lasting impact that he has made in his professional and personal relationships," they finished. "He meant the world to us, and we thank you again for your incredible support."

David K. Jones

Boston University School of Public Health Dr. David K. Jones

RELATED: 'Beloved' Professor, 40, Dead After Apparent Fall Through Gap in Rundown Staircase Near Train Stop

Jones, an associate professor in the Department of Health Law, Policy and Management at BU's School of Public Health, was found dead on Saturday near the JFK/UMass Red Line T station on Saturday. He was 40.

Massachusetts State Police told The Boston Globe that the staircase he was found underneath was "deemed unsafe and closed for approximately 20 months." The closed-off stairway was blocked by a wire fence, a chain-link fence, and other barriers, authorities said.

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New warning signs are now around the staircase, according to CBSN Boston.

In a Facebook post on Sunday, Sacuto said that her "beloved" husband had "left for his long run yesterday and never returned."

Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins confirmed in a statement on Monday that the the investigation into his death is ongoing: "We continue to look at how Dr. Jones accessed a stairway that had been closed for some 20 months. Whether accidental or intentional, any death is a tragedy and the harm to loved ones is the same."

"While the investigation is ongoing, we are available to offer his family support and connect them to community resources through our victim-witness assistance program," Rollins added.

RELATED VIDEO: Calif. Professor Dies During 'Recreational Mummification Bondage' Session at Hollywood Exec's Home

Following Jones' death, a GoFundMe page was set up on behalf of his family. So far, it has raised over $125,000.

A Facebook page, titled In Memory of David Kline Jones, was also set up to help people share memories of Jones and celebrate his life.

In a statement on their website, Boston University announced that they would be holding a memorial for Jones on Thursday, Sept. 23 from 3-5 p.m. where loved ones can "be together to mourn and to celebrate his life."

In lieu of flowers and gifts, the family has asked people to consider donating to the GoFundMe.
By Michelle Nichols and Mary Milliken

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday said any suggestion the world body can solve Afghanistan's problems is "a fantasy" and that its capacity to mediate for a more inclusive Taliban government is limited.

Asked in an interview with Reuters a month after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan from a Western-backed government whether he felt pressure to repair the country's plight, Guterres said: "I think there is an expectation that is unfounded" of U.N. influence as the main international organization still on the ground there.

The world has watched a number of countries send thousands of soldiers to Afghanistan and spend vast sums of money for 20 years since a U.S.-led invasion ousted the Taliban for harboring al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

The United States spent $1 trillion, only to see the Afghan government and military it supported collapse ahead of a full withdrawal of U.S. and other foreign forces in August.

"To think - given that they have failed with all these resources to fix the problems of Afghanistan - that we can now, without those forces and money, solve the problems they couldn't solve for decades is a fantasy," Guterres said ahead of next week's annual U.N. gathering of world leaders in New York.

The United Nations will be doing everything it can for a country that Guterres said is on "the verge of a dramatic humanitarian disaster" and has decided to engage the Taliban in order to help Afghanistan's roughly 36 million people.

Even before the Taliban's seizure of the capital Kabul, half the country's population depended on aid. That looks set to increase due to drought and shortages and the World Food Programme has warned 14 million people were on the brink of starvation.

Guterres said he supports efforts to convince the Taliban to form a more inclusive government than when it ruled 20 years ago. The United Nations has little capacity to mediate, he said, and should focus on its "position of an international organization that is there to support the Afghan people."

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"You cannot expect miracles," he said, stressing that the United Nations could engage with the Taliban, but that the Islamist movement would never accept a U.N. role in helping form a new Afghan government.

Humanitarian aid, Guterres said, should be used as an instrument to help convince the Taliban to respect fundamental rights, including those of women and girls.

Governments pledged more than $1.1 billion in aid this week for Afghanistan and refugee programs in neighboring countries. Guterres also appealed for countries to make sure the Afghan economy is "not completely strangled."

World reaction to the government of Taliban veterans and hardliners announced last week has been cool, and there has been no sign of international recognition or moves to unblock more than $9 billion in foreign reserves held outside Afghanistan.

"There must be ways to inject some cash in the Afghan economy, for the economy not to collapse and for the people not to be in a dramatic situation, forcing probably millions to flee," said Guterres, who will begin his second five-year term as U.N. chief on Jan. 1, 2022.

He said the United Nations will work with its partners to ensure that aid is distributed based on humanitarian principles and "that everybody should be treated equally without any kind of distinction based on gender, on ethnicity or any other consideration."

Guterres emphasized that it is too early to know if the Taliban will respect rights and govern responsibly.

He called the situation in Afghanistan "unpredictable," adding: "Nobody knows what will happen, but it's important to engage."

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols and Mary Milliken; Additional reporting by Daniel Fastenberg; editing by Grant McCool)
The father of Gabby Petito, a 22-year-old camper who went missing during a cross-country trip with her boyfriend Brian Laundrie, made a public plea Thursday afternoon for her safe return.

"Finding this girl is what matters," Joe Petito said. "Anything else comes second to this."

Gabby Petito was reported missing Saturday after her family said they hadn't heard from her since the end of August. She was believed to be in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming when she disappeared.

BOYFRIEND OF GABBY PETITO NAMED AS PERSON OF INTEREST IN DISAPPEARANCE

Laundrie has taken hits in the press and on social media for not making himself available to investigators. However, North Port Police Chief Todd Garrison said Thursday that no criminal charges were forthcoming.

"Brian is exercising his constitutional rights, and I have to respect him," Garrison said during a press conference. The police chief added the focus was on finding Petito and "isn't to bring Brian in right now."

His comments come two days after Laundrie was listed as a person of interest in the case.

Petitio and Laundrie left for their weekslong trip on July 22 from New York and made stops in Colorado and Utah. Petito was last seen on Aug. 24 when she and Laundrie checked out of a hotel in Salt Lake City. Her mother, Nicole Schmidt, said she last heard from her daughter on Aug. 25 when Petito told her they were headed to Wyoming.

Schmidt said her daughter seemed "excited" about their next adventure, but Schmidt began to worry when Petito stopped communicating.

POLICE RELEASE BODY CAMERA FOOTAGE OF INCIDENT BETWEEN GABBY PETITO AND BOYFRIEND

"A few days is one thing when you're out camping, but when it starts to become seven, eight, nine, 10 days, that's a problem," Schmidt told ABC News.

Laundrie returned to his hometown in Florida with Gabby Petito's white Ford van.

Utah police added to the mystery when they released body camera footage of a separate incident between Gabby Petito and Laundrie.

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Moab City Police Department released their hourlong response footage to a 911 call following an Aug. 12 fight between the young couple in which Petito slapped Laundrie, and he told her to calm down and take a walk.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

In the police report, Laundrie is listed as the victim and Petito as the suspect, though Moab City Police Chief Bret Edge said earlier this week there was not enough evidence for a criminal charge.

Washington Examiner Videos

Tags: News, Crime, National Parks, New York, Florida, Utah, Wyoming, Missing Person

Original Author: Barnini Chakraborty

Original Location: Father of missing camper Gabby Petito makes plea for safe return
Sep. 15A federal appeals court has reversed a lower court decision and determined that the results of a blood test taken by police as they investigated the deadliest crash ever in Acadia National Park should be admissible in court.

Last year, U.S. District Court Judge John Woodcock ruled that police did not follow proper procedure in obtaining a blood test from Praneeth Manubolu, who is accused of driving a car that crashed on the Park Loop Road in the early morning hours of Aug. 31, 2019. Three passengers in Manubolu's new Dodge Challenger died in the crash.

Woodcock barred the test results, which showed that Manubolu's blood alcohol content was above the legal limit, because police did not obtain a warrant to collect the evidence before having Manubolu's blood drawn.

Federal prosecutors had argued that the evidence should be admissible because if police had gone through the long process of obtaining a warrant, evidence about Manubolu's blood-alcohol content would have been "destroyed" by the natural dissipation of alcohol in the defendant's bloodstream.

The situation created "exigent" circumstances that allowed police to test Manubolu's blood without first getting a warrant, they said. Those circumstances included being unable to get in touch with federal prosecutors, having other immediate tasks to tend to and being unable to draft the needed warrant application paperwork while at the accident scene.

On Tuesday, the federal First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston agreed with federal prosecutors, and ruled that Manubolu's blood test results should be admissible in court. Ranger Brian Dominy, who investigated the crash on behalf of Acadia National Park, reasonably believed that "exigent circumstances existed" in obtaining the evidence, the panel of three judges decided.

"Ranger Dominy felt there was simply too much valid police work to be done before he could leave the scene to draft a warrant affidavit," O. Rogeriee Thompson, one of three judges on the panel, wrote in the decision. "Given the totality of the circumstances, the government has met its burden to show it was reasonable for Ranger Dominy to think exigent circumstances existed" and thereby justified collecting a blood sample from Manubolu before getting a warrant.

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Manubolu's attorney, Walter McKee of Augusta, said he thought Judge Woodcock's decision was "100 percent right," but the appeals court decision is the one his client has to contend with.

"The upshot of this decision is that the whole requirement to get a warrant for a blood test is basically gone when it comes to rural Maine," McKee said. "Law enforcement can now just claim 'well it will take too long to get a warrant out this way' and dispense with it."

The legal limit for blood-alcohol content for anyone driving a motor vehicle in Maine, and in Acadia National Park, is 0.08 percent. Manubolu's blood-alcohol content from the warrantless test was 0.095 percent, according to court documents.

Manubolu, 30, has been charged with three counts of manslaughter for the deaths of Lenny Fuchs, 36, Laura Leong, 30, and Mohammad Zeeshan, 27, all of New York City.

A citizen of India who at the time was living in New Jersey, Manubolu had met up with the trio the day before at Smuggler's Den Campground in Southwest Harbor after making arrangements via Meetup, an app that connects members with mutual interests. That evening Fuchs, Leong and Zeeshan rode with Manubolu to Bar Harbor to get a late dinner and then, after going to a dance club, decided to drive into the park, where the crash occurred.

Manubolu was released from custody on Sept. 20, 2019, on $7,500 bail and, since October of that year, has been living and working in the Atlanta area. He has surrendered his Indian passport to the court to help ensure that he does not leave the country while awaiting trial. A trial date has not been set.

The circumstances under which police officers are permitted to take blood samples from drivers without first getting a warrant have prompted recent appeals of similar cases at both the state and federal court levels.

In 2019, a state judge in Hancock County threw out the results of a blood test taken from a driver in a fatal crash in Eastbrook, saying that police failed to get a warrant for the test and were not justified in getting a blood sample without one.

That same year, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court heard oral arguments concerning the admissibility of a blood sample obtained from a trucker from Tennessee who was convicted of causing a 2016 crash that killed two people on Route 17 in the Knox County town of Washington. In 2020, the state supreme court ruled that a state law that mandated a blood draw from drivers in fatal accidents was unconstitutional because it did not require police to obtain warrants before collecting blood from drivers who did not consent to the test.

However, also in 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that police can obtain a blood sample without a warrant from drivers who are unconscious and who are suspected of driving under the influence of alcohol, or if exigent circumstances require that police obtain a sample quickly.
A federal judge has ordered the Biden administration not to use its public health authority to turn away any migrant families who illegally cross the southern border into the United States, an abandonment of U.S. policy in effect since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

U.S. District Judge for the District of Columbia Emmet Sullivan wrote in a ruling issued Thursday that any parent or guardian and child under the age of 18 should not be immediately pushed back into Mexico or returned to their country of origin under Title 42, the public health authority the U.S. has used to expel migrants during the pandemic.

MEDIA COVERAGE OF BORDER MAYHEM DROPS 94% UNDER BIDEN

The decision will take effect in 14 days, and it will force federal law enforcement at the border to take thousands of more people into custody daily because they cannot send them back to Mexico.

Facilities where illegal immigrants are held and processed at the border are already severely overwhelmed.

The ruling is a victory for the American Civil Liberties Union, which sued the Trump administration in 2020 following the implementation of the policy in March.

The Biden administration has not followed Title 42 protocols for several months and has not expelled families because Mexico refuses to take people back.

At the onset of the pandemic, encounters of illegal immigrants at the southern border dropped significantly, down to below 20,000 per month. Monthly encounters began rising after Title 42 was initially implemented, growing to nearly 70,000 by the end of 2020. While the policy mandates anyone caught to be turned away, it also means those who are apprehended will not be referred for prosecution for illegal entry  allowing people multiple tries without consequences.

When President Joe Biden took office in January, approximately 78,000 were encountered at the border. In each of July and August, more than 200,000 people have been encountered.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

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Unable to hold so many people in custody, Border Patrol is releasing most families directly into the U.S. Migrants are not required to get coronavirus vaccinations and are not tested by the government while in federal custody.

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Tags: News, National Security, Public Health, Judge, Federal Courts, Migrants, Immigration, Joe Biden, White House

Original Author: Anna Giaritelli

Original Location: Federal judge orders Biden to stop using pandemic emergency authority to turn away migrants
Reuters

SYDNEY (Reuters) -France should not have been surprised that Australia cancelled a submarine contract, as major concerns about delays, cost overruns and suitability had been aired officially and publicly for years, Australian politicians said. Paris has recalled its ambassadors from Canberra and Washington, saying it was blindsided by Canberra's decision to build nuclear-powered submarines with the United States and Britain rather than stick with its contract for French diesel submarines. Yet as early as September 2018, an independent oversight board led by a former U.S. Secretary of the Navy Donald Winter had advised Australia to look at alternatives, and questioned whether the project was in the national interest, a 2020 public report from the country's Auditor-General shows.
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Credit Mexican engineering and entrepreneurship for developments that led to the in color television, oral contraception and finding a way to help mend the ozone layer. Why it matters: The contributions helped modernize how we could see the world; improve women's health and expand women's roles beyond the home; and identify dangerous emissions and how to reduce them.Get market news worthy of your time with Axios Markets. Subscribe for free.Details: In 1940, a 23-year-old Guillermo Gonzalez Camar
Four Los Angeles Police Department officers allegedly added false gang information to field interview cards, the same allegations that saw six cops criminally charged last year.

All four are under investigation but no charges have been filed yet, according to the Los Angeles Times.

One of the officers, Samantha Stauber Fielder, sued the LAPD last year, claiming that there was a quota for Metro officers to identify gang members.

Fielder allegedly entered false gang information on four different field interview cards, according to an internal record from the L.A. County district attorneys office obtained by the Times. Three other officers, identified only by their last names, have been accused of doing so once each.

Six officers were charged last year with falsifying police reports, all stemming from an allegation from a San Fernando Valley mother, who said her son had been misidentified as a gang member.

The LAPD noted inaccuracies in the documentation complete by an officer, based on body-worn camera footage and other information.

In response, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra barred other law enforcement agencies from using records generated by the Los Angeles Police Department for CalGang, a statewide shared database of suspected gang members.
The Arkansas native was a longtime faculty member at the university

A veteran actress who was known for her booming voice and was a beloved teacher of voice and acting at CalArts has died.

Fran Bennetta native of Arkansas, was a member of the Linklater Voice faculty at the illustrious institution from 1978 until her retirement in 2014. Bennett was also the head of acting and director of performance from 1996 to 2003.

Her passing this past weekend was recently announced and reported by The Hollywood Reporter. She was 84.

In a statement, Travis Prestonthe Dean of the School of Theater wrote, Frans voice was unmistakable. She never shied away from using it. And she taught so many throughout the years to find and free their own.

Before there were diversity committees and personnel at CalArts, there was Fran. She unceasingly championed students, artists, and innovators of all backgrounds, and demanded that leaders do more to serve the left out and kept out.

Her King Lear launched the CalArts Center for New Performance. As her director, I was utterly blown away by her fearlessness and ferocity, and it has emboldened me and my work ever since.

Credit: Fran Bennett in Star Trek: The Next Generation via Paramount

Preston continued, Her legacy will live on in the hearts and minds and voices of the countless people she impacted. I will never forget her and miss her terribly. May we all follow her example  and speak with honesty, grace, strength, and freedom.

Bennett first appeared on the daytime soap opera, Guiding Light, in 1965. She was also featured on such shows as Quantum Leap, In the Heat of the Night, Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Book of Daniel, and most recentlyon Scandal, starring Kerry Washington.

Bennett continued acting until the end of her life. She will appear in her last film, The Manor, from the Welcome to Blumhouse horror collection for Amazon Studios.

Bennett was a recipient of an NAACP Theatre Award and was the first recipient of an AEA/SAG/AFTRA Diversity Honor Award. The Arkansas native has long been a member of the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame.

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Students of Bennetts were encouraged to leave comments about her life on the universitys tribute page. One student wrote, She was one of the most pow-her-full women I have ever known. She pulled no punches, expected nothing but the deepest of truth and honesty from you as an actor and a human being.

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She demanded respect and I felt I had to EARN it from herbut she gave it readily if you were doing your best. I have never had a teacher scare me more by her presence, her power, and her strength of character while encouraging me to be brave and honestAND support me more in my journey to finding my voice.

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Sep. 16One day in late August, Frederick County Sheriff's Office Detective and retired U.S. Marine Josh Stears went for a mountain bike ride in the park.

He usually hits the trails around Clarksburg three days a week to get a good workout. He keeps track of the mileage on his phone.

After this particular ride, Stears loaded his gear into his car and checked his phone to see how many miles he traveled. The screen read 13, and a bell went off in his head.

A day or so before, 13 U.S. military service members were killed in an attack in Kabul, Afghanistan  a place Stears once served with the 3rd Battalion, 8th Marines to protect the U.S. Embassy. He was there for about six months in 2002, spending six hours a day on a rooftop at a marksman post and six more hours waiting at the ready in full gear should they be needed.

Watching the U.S. pull out of Afghanistan from afar, and seeing the 13 service members killed, Stears felt angry and confused. Those deaths and Stears' coincidental 13-mile ride sparked his decision to partner with local nonprofit Platoon 22 to start the 13 For 13 Ride Challenge to pedal for patriots. Since Sept. 11, Stears has been biking 13 miles a day to raise funds for Platoon 22, which seeks to prevent veteran suicide.

Each day of the ride is dedicated to one of the 13 killed in Afghanistan, and community members are encouraged to come along or bike on their own.

"I wanted to do something positive surrounding this tragedy to honor the Marines and other service members killed in the attack," Stears told the News-Post, and Platoon 22 seemed like a fitting cause.

The organization is named for the 22 veterans on average that die by suicide each day.

Niki Falzone, director of operations and veteran services for Platoon 22, said she was touched when Stears reached out to her with the idea.

"Josh was able to take a heart wrenching tragedy and bring a positive outlook with #pedalforpatriots," she wrote in an email. "We immediately got to work with flyers and information so that we could share with the community."

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Falzone commended Stears for rallying the mountain biking community and encouraging other groups to get involved. LifeCYCLE Studio in Frederick hosted a special class Monday in support and raised nearly $500, according to Falzone.

"Anytime that we can get involved with the veteran, active duty, or first responder community, it aligns with our goals," Falzone wrote. "There is a lot of mixed emotion and moral injury felt among those communities mentioned in light of the Afghanistan withdrawal that ultimately cost these brave men and women their lives."

With those fallen heroes in mind, Stears on Tuesday set up to ride at Little Bennett Regional Park. He was joined by his friend Chris Duley, of Frederick, and two strangers who saw his post on Facebook.

"Sounded like a good reason to ride," said Ryan Jones of Keedysville. "I just think we can do a better job supporting our veterans when they return home."

Jefferson resident Matt Kauffman, a friend of Jones', agreed, saying he wanted to ride for a good cause.

As the four men became acquainted, they talked about their mountain biking gear and trails. The sun beat down on the gravel parking lot by the Pine Grove Trail as other mountain bikers gathered nearby for an evening ride. When the clock reached 5:30 p.m., the 13 For 13 riders climbed on their bikes and set out on a narrow dirt trail leading into the woods.

They rode in honor of U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Rylee McCollum. He was 20 years old when he was killed and hailed from Jackson, Wyoming. McCollum was serving his first deployment when the attack happened, The New York Times reported. He was married and had a child on the way.

"I wanted to do something to show that we do value their ultimate sacrifice," Stears said. "What they do does matter."

Follow Mary Grace Keller on Twitter: @MaryGraceKeller
By Eric Gaillard

NICE, France (Reuters) - A French hospital worker has said he is on hunger strike to protest against a government rule that healthcare workers will be suspended if they are not vaccinated against COVID-19.

Thierry Paysant, a fire safety officer with the public hospital system in Nice, southern France, has pitched a tent in front of the city's Saint-Pons abbey, and erected a placard reading "Hunger Strike" in large red letters.

"We will go as far as we are able to go," Paysant said outside the abbey, where he had also set up a camping stove.

He said he was not against the vaccination itself, but objects to people being forced to get the shot or risk losing their jobs. "It's hard to swallow," he said. "It was imposed in a violent way."

About 3,000 workers in the health and care sectors have been suspended in France for failing to get vaccinated against COVID-19 before a government deadline, health minister Olivier Veran announced on Thursday.

The new rules took effect on Wednesday, as part of a drive by the French government to boost vaccination rates and prevent a new flare-up of COVID-19. Most healthcare workers have complied, public health officials said, but a small percentage have refused to get the shot. [ nL1N2QI0L0]

One care home director said he feared staff shortages because some employees had refused to get vaccinated.

Outside the abbey in Nice, Paysant was joined by another man who said he was also on hunger strike.

According to his own social media posts, Paysant has in the past acted as a street medic during protests by the Yellow Vests, a citizens' movement that has organised demonstrations against the rule of President Emmanuel Macron.

Paysant said he hoped his hunger strike would amplify the voices of ordinary people who are uncomfortable about the vaccine mandates.

"I watch television and I see that people who are against or who express doubts are pushed to one side or dismissed as conspiracy theorists," he said. "We hope there will be a public debate."

(Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)
Police in Utah have released bodycam footage showing officers interacting with Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie after a witness called 911 around two weeks before she disappeared to report a "possible domestic violence" incident.

The video shows officers from the Moab City Police Department talking to a visibly distraught Petito  and Laundrie  after they pulled their white van over.

Police separated the pair before they each described the incident that prompted the 911 call.

GABBY PETITO: SEARCH FOR MISSING WOMAN CONTINUES; BRIAN LAUNDRIE IS PERSON OF INTEREST: LIVE UPDATES

A witness had called 911 around 4:30 p.m. on Aug. 12 over "possible domestic violence" near Moonflower Community Cooperative in Moab and said he saw Petito and Laundrie arguing over a phone.

"The driver of the van, a male, had some sort of argument with the female, Gabbie," a responding officer wrote in the report, citing conversations he had with Petito, Laundrie, and the witness.

"The male tried to create distance by telling Gabbie to go take a walk to calm down, she didnt want to be separated from the male, and began slapping him," the report said. "He grabbed her face and pushed her back as she pressed upon him and the van, he tried to lock her out and succeeded except for his drivers door, she opened that and forced her way over him and into the vehicle before it drove off."

UTAH POLICE DETAIL ALTERCATION BETWEEN COUPLE BEFORE PETITO DISAPPEARED

A responding officer initially wrote that he believes "it was reported the male had been observed to have assaulted the female," but later wrote that "no one reported that the male struck the female."

An officer eventually pulled the van over and said that when he approached, Petito was "crying uncontrollably" in the passenger seat.

One of the responding officers said the incident can be "more accurately categorized as a mental/emotional health break than a domestic assault," and that "no significant injuries" were reported.

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Laundrie stayed in a hotel that night, while Petito stayed with the van, according to the report.

Petito's last known location was Aug. 25 in Grand Teton National Park. Laundrie, meanwhile, drove back to the Florida Gulf Coast town of North Port, where their trip began, on Sept. 1, and the van was recovered by police at his family's home on Sept. 11.

Fox News's Michael Ruiz and Stephanie Pagones contributed to this report.
EXCLUSIVE: Sources tell theGrio that movement on police reform could soon make headway on Capitol Hill

Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia will be meeting next week with South Carolina Senator Tim Scott on the currently stalled police reform bill, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, according to sources who tell theGrio that movement on police reform could come soon.

Left to right: Sen. Joe Manchin and Sen. Tim Scott. (Photo: Getty Images)

Tiffany Crutcher, the twin sister of Terence Crutcher who was fatally shot by a Tulsa, Oklahoma police officer on Sept. 16, 2016, pressed the West Virginian Democratic lawmaker for details on the legislations progress during a chance encounter with Sen. Manchin in Washington.

Crutcher was on Capitol Hill Wednesday looking for answers on the 5th anniversary of her brothers death when she ran into Manchin, who, as a moderate Democrat in the slim Democratic-majority U.S. Senate, holds significant weight as to whether the bill will get through procedural votes in the Senate.

Crutcher told theGrio that Manchin wants an update from Republican Sen. Tim Scott and told her that something needs to be done on this issue that has been lingering on the Hill since George Floyd was murdered by former officer Derek Chauvin in Minnesota over a year ago. Tiffany Crutcher remembers during the conversation with Sen. Manchin that he [said he] was sorry for what happened to my brother and my family.

Left to right: Former Tulsa police officer Betty Shelby and Terrence Crutcher. (Photo: Courtesy of Terence Crutcher Family/Tulsa Police Department)

Attorney Ben Crump, who has recently been named one of Time Magazines 100 Most Influential People of 2021 said, Terrence Crutchers blood is also on that bill.

Crump told theGrio on Thursday that he is also calling for the U.S. Justice Department to investigate Crutchers case, in which he was shot and killed by former Tulsa officer Betty Shelby with his hands up in the air. The DOJ confirmed to theGrio that it received Attorney Crumps letter petitioning for the department to investigate Crutchers death.

From this point, the DOJ will review the letter and deliberate internally on potential next steps.

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There are also reports from Rolling Stone Magazine that President Joe Biden is said to be leaning in to calls from progressives to push Senators Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, another moderate Democrat, to abandon the filibuster in order to bypass needed Republican votes to pass the George Floyd policing bill, as well as voting rights legislation.

Sen. Scott, Sen. Cory Booker and U.S. Congresswoman Karen Bass of California have been negotiating since last year on a compromise for the police reform package.

Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA), Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) speak briefly to reporters as they exit the office of Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) following a meeting about police reform legislation on Capitol Hill May 18, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Others in the search for justice against police-involved killings include Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner who would have turned 51 this week had he survived the deadly chokehold he was placed in by New York City police six years ago.

My son, Eric Garner, we have a hearing coming up in about a month  we are trying to hold those police officers accountable, the ones who was involved in my sons death that day all over the city keep playing games with us, even though the judge ruled for us to get the papers that we need in order to have a trial. But we are getting games played as it always happens, Carr said.

But we are confident  We are going to get some sort of justice or were going to get transparency, because right now they keep blocking the transparency.

Gwen Carr, left, mother of Eric Garner, speaks during a news conference after leaving court in New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)

Meanwhile, when it comes to passage of the police reform bill, there are dissenting voices on the possible elimination of qualified immunity from the proposed policing act. Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, told theGrio he does not support a bill without qualified immunity and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, along with other progressive members of Congress, has said support for police reform bill is essentially moot without the inclusion of reforming qualified immunity.

Thus far, on Tuesday, the Department of Justice issued department-wide policies explicitly prohibiting the use of chokeholds and carotid restraints unless deadly force is authorized, and limiting the circumstances in which the departments federal law enforcement components are authorized to use unannounced entries, which are otherwise known as no-knock warrants.

There a lot of good provisions in the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act; eliminating no knock warrants, dealing with racial profiling training of police officers  , Congressman Bobby Scott told theGrio exclusively. Theres a lot to be said for the act.

However, when it comes to qualified immunity, the Virginia Congressman explained, regrettably, the Supreme Court has defined the qualified immunity with several decisions to make it virtually absolute immunity. And what the bill does is roll back some of those Supreme Court decisions to what the law was for about 100 years. And thats nothing unreasonable.

Former Orlando police chief and now U.S. Congresswoman Val Demings told theGrio, This is a moment for all of us to step up and be better so we can all do better. This is a moment where we can further bridge the gap between the police and the community.

Protesters at a rally calling for police reform lead by New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams on June 8, 2020 in New York City. (Photo by David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)

But the concern over the bill not coming up for air and passing is real.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has discussed with her federal delegation, members of the Congressional Black Caucus and others, about her thoughts on the matter.

She told theGrio exclusively, the bottom line is we got to get something done.

We dont have the luxury of kicking the can down the road. Were on the front lines. People are demanding immediate action. And we got to weve got to make sure that were responding to our constituents, Lightfoot said as she emphasized the role of mayors in the national push for police reform.

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The CDC moved too slowly at several points in the coronavirus pandemic, ultimately hindering the U.S. response, former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb writes in a new book, Uncontrolled Spread.

The big picture: The book argues that American intelligence agencies should have a much bigger role in pandemic preparedness, even if that's sometimes at the expense of public health agencies like the CDC.

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"Typically, security agencies have viewed the CDC as 'having this mission' or 'having the ball on this.' Clearly they don't," Gottlieb told Axios.

Details: The CDC initially recommended 10 feet of social distancing, but officials in the Trump administration pushed the agency to reduce that to six feet  which still required many schools to stay closed.

"If that had gotten out at the time, everyone would had said 'Oh my God. It's White House interference in the CDC.' But the White House was right to oppose it. It was arbitrary and it couldn't be implemented," Gottlieb said.

"That was the single costliest recommendation the CDC issued during this whole pandemic," he said.

Under the Biden administration, the CDC finally reduced social distancing recommendations to three feet  based on data that had been available for six months.

Better intelligence at the beginning of an outbreak would also help the U.S. swing into action more quickly, Gottlieb writes.

"We need to have human assets in the medical community so we understand when an outbreak emerges," he said. "We need to have the capability of monitoring typical streams of intelligence, like signals intelligence and maybe even satellite intelligence, looking for things that could be trip wires for an outbreak of disease."

The intrigue: Gottlieb confirms that some Trump administration officials had an "attitude of emphatic nonchalance about the pandemic, often mocking personal precautions as marks of weakness, taunting colleagues who wore masks."

Story continues

Gottlieb said he told Trump not to pull the U.S. out of the World Health Organization, but also criticized the Biden administration's "hasty" return to WHO without certain conditions attached.

The book comes out Sept. 21.

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U.S. Border Patrol agents arrive to detain a group of Central American asylum seekers near the border on June 12, 2018 in McAllen, Texas. (John Moore / Getty Images)

It was after dark at the border, and a U.S. Border Patrol agent used his body to shield a migrant father and child in his custody from Anthony Aguero, a Jan. 6 Capitol rioter who was trying to film them to spread QAnon-style propaganda about child sex trafficking at the border.

Step back, the agent, whose face is blurred in Agueros video of the exchange, told him. For months, Aguero had been filming migrant families in U.S. custody. The agent in the video stayed firm, telling Aguero he was invading his space. Aguero, who has a history of criminal violence, claimed to be a journalist concerned about children. But he lost his temper, crying, The only invaders here are the ones youre protecting, bro!

Aguero is part of a growing network of self-proclaimed social media reporters and activists focusing on the border as a place of depravity and fueling the QAnon delusion about a satanic cabal of pedophilic Democratic elites  using images of migrant children.

A separate video posted this month by Aguero, who has previously shared QAnon and Pizzagate propaganda, has been viewed tens of thousands of times on social media and aired on the right-wing cable channel Newsmax on Sept. 6. In the film, children appear to sleep in their parents arms while detained by agents outside. Aguero says of the kids, without evidence: Theyre sedated. They are sedated! Newsmax host Rob Schmitt aired the video on a segment, saying: This is some pretty scary stuff.

Aguero tweeted a longer version of the video with his livestream brand Border Network News, writing, PATRIOTS TO THE BORDER. (Aguero has previously patrolled the border with vigilantes and chased terrified families he compared to roaches.) The online film of alleged sedation features horror-film music and zooms in on childrens faces as he questions them: Did they treat you well, my queen? A caption reads: Single adult males importing children BY THE MASSES.

The images suggest that the children are being trafficked by strangers who drugged them. Theres no evidence any of it is true, but its effective in stirring up hatred of migrant adults.

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Rep. Nanette Diaz Barragan (D-San Pedro), a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, called this kind of propaganda disgraceful. She told me, The goal of these conspiracy theorists is to distract from reality in order to fuel hysteria and xenophobia. It is factually wrong and it is morally wrong.

Alan Bersin, former U.S. Customs and Border Protection commissioner, said this kind of disinformation also defames Border Patrol agents as enablers of trafficking and abuse.

As a CBP spokesman told me: We have zero proof that theres been any sedating of children on the border. He added that agents have been told not to engage with Aguero but that they cant stop him from filming vulnerable families in public.

Other social media influencers have shared Agueros film, including Landon Starbuck (Landon Newsom), who sang the national anthem at the 2021 Conservative Political Action Conference and previously shared pro-Trump misinformation about child trafficking. Her husband is running for Congress in Nashville.

Starbuck and Agueros girlfriend, who calls herself Natly Denise, are organizing a Sept. 25 rally in McAllen, Texas, to defend our borders and the innocent children being smuggled, drugged, raped and trafficked. The advertising falsely claims President Bidens policies fuel the epidemic of modern day slavery.

David "Nino" Rodriguez, a retired El Paso boxer with more than 300,000 followers across several social media platforms, has also collaborated with Aguero. Recently on Steve Bannons War Room show, Rodriguez said: Anybody can go pick up a kid. You want a kid? Go pick up a kid.

For QAnon conspiracy theorists, the use of migrant children in their propaganda conveniently conflates voluntarily traveling to the border for asylum with trafficking, which involves forced labor or sexual exploitation. The fantasy effectively energizes support for draconian border policies known to endanger migrants, such as the Trump administrations so-called Remain in Mexico policy, which has resulted in migrant kidnappings and killings.

According to Kids in Need of Defense, a nonprofit agency focused on protecting migrant children, most foreign trafficking victims actually arrive at ports of entry, including airports. Half of all trafficking victims in this country are U.S. citizens or permanent residents, often enslaved by people they know. While QAnon casts Trump as a hero, child sex trafficking prosecutions declined under his administration.

Polaris, a nonprofit that runs the National Human Trafficking Hotline, has warned that false claims about trafficking can spin out of control and mislead well-meaning people. The hotline has been overwhelmed with false reports; disinformation harms real victims by diverting resources. These lies also help violent extremists recruit well-meaning people.

Polaris chief technology officer, Anjana Rajan, told me, Disinformation about human trafficking serves as a gateway narrative to radicalize susceptible audiences on every platform and encourage them to perform acts of violence and potentially terrorism. She pointed out that both Ashli Babbitt and Rosanne Boyland, who died as part of the mob attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, were radicalized by child sex trafficking conspiracy theories  which are especially effective with women. But of course, many in the QAnon crowd  like Aguero  have no interest in tackling real causes of human trafficking, rooted in economic and racial inequities.

Sophie Bjork-James, a Vanderbilt University assistant professor of anthropology who studies QAnon, says the delusion survived Trumps loss thanks to local Republican politics and now drives anti-COVID masking and anti-vaccine hysteria, among other things. The appeal of the QAnon border variant is not all that surprising. In this reshaping of reality, she said, Anti-immigrant Americans can be the saviors of immigrant children and the childrens parents become the villains.

People like Aguero  who has an ally in Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and QAnon-promoting congressional candidates  could usher in a new era of hatred. We must recognize the threat their disinformation poses to our democracy and work to stop its viral spread.

@jeanguerre

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Ariel Henry was nominated as prime minister by Jovenel Moise two days before the president was killed

Haiti's Prime Minister Ariel Henry has sacked the justice minister after the latter backed a prosecutor who sought charges against Mr Henry over the murder of President Jovenel Moise.

The government is in disarray after another senior official resigned saying that he would not work under a prime minster "who had come under suspicion for the murder of the president".

Mr Henry has not commented on the allegations.

Mr Moise was shot dead on 7 July.

Gunmen stormed his residence in the suburbs of the capital, Port-au-Prince, and killed him and injured his wife.

Police say they have arrested 44 people - including 18 former Colombian soldiers - in connection with the killing but the investigation into who may have ordered the killing continues.

The investigation took a dramatic turn last week when prosecutor Bed-Ford Claude sent a letter to Prime Minister Henry asking to discuss phone records he said showed Mr Henry had phone conversations with one of the key suspects just hours after the president was killed.

President Jovenel Moise was shot dead at his residence on 7 July

The suspect - former justice official Joseph Felix Badio - is suspected of having given the order to the Colombian gunmen to kill the president. He remains on the run.

Prime Minister Henry did not comment on the phone conversations except to say that "no distraction, no summons or invitation, no manoeuvre, no threat, no rear-guard combat, will distract me from my mission".

Sackings and resignations

On Monday the prime minister went on the offensive when he tried to dismiss the justice minister, the secretary of Haiti's Council of Ministers (the equivalent of the cabinet in Haiti) and prosecutor Bed-Ford Claude.

A letter signed by Mr Henry accused Mr Claude of "serious administrative errors".

However, all three men continued working on Tuesday amid confusion over whether the prime minister had the power to fire them.

Prosecutor Bed-Ford Claude launched a counter-offensive asking the judge investigating the Moise murder case to charge Mr Henry over his alleged involvement in the president's killing.

Story continues

But legal experts in Haiti say the prosecutor's request came too late. They argue that a prosecutor cannot ask for charges to be issued once the investigation has been handed over to a judge, which had happened in this case.

Winners and losers

On Wednesday, the Prime Minister appeared to have got his way when decrees ordering the replacement of both the justice minister, Rockfeller Vincent, and that of the secretary-general of Haiti's Council of Ministers, Renald Luberice, were published in the official gazette.

But Mr Luberice did not go quietly. In a letter to the Council of Ministers, Mr Luberice said he had stood down because he could not remain in his post "under the leadership of a person who was nominated by Jovenel Moise, accused over his murder and who won't co-operate with the judiciary".

Prime Minister Henry scored another victory when diplomats from the US, the UN and elsewhere backed his efforts towards "allowing the establishment of an inclusive government".

But a bitter fight over who should lead the country until elections can be held continues to brew.

The leader of the Senate, Joseph Lambert, tried to have himself sworn in as interim president late on Tuesday but he said that he was prevented from entering the parliament building by people firing shots at its windows.

It is not clear how much support Mr Lambert has beyond a small number of senators, who backed his claim to the presidency in the days after President Moise's killing.
(Bloomberg) -- International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva was called out Thursday by the World Bank, her previous employer, for applying pressure to boost Chinas position in a ranking of economies.

Georgieva said she disagreed with the findings, compiled by an outside law firm at the World Banks direction.

The World Bank found such serious ethics issues in its probe of the Doing Business report that it decided to abandon the series entirely, a statement released in Washington showed.

Chinas position in the 2018 report, released in October 2017, should have been seven places lower -- at No. 85 rather than remaining at 78 -- the World Bank said in a review released in December.

The changes to Chinas data in Doing Business 2018 appear to be the product of two distinct types of pressure applied by bank leadership on the Doing Business team, the World Bank said in a report Thursday. The bank cited Georgieva, along with an adviser, for pressure to make specific changes to Chinas data points in an effort to increase its ranking at precisely the same time the country was expected to play a key role in the banks capital-increase campaign.

Disagree Fundamentally

Georgieva served as chief executive officer of the World Bank prior to being chosen to succeed Christine Lagarde as head of the IMF, the development lenders partner in the Bretton Woods system.

I disagree fundamentally with the findings and interpretations of the Investigation of Data Irregularities as it relates to my role in the World Banks Doing Business report of 2018, Georgieva said in a statement. I have already had an initial briefing with the IMFs Executive Board on this matter.

Georgieva told the IMF board at a meeting Thursday before the news came out that the report was forthcoming, but that she was going to keep to her work as usual, according to people familiar with the matter.

While her alleged actions were taken while she was at the World Bank, they have been referred to the IMFs ethics committee within the funds board of directors, the people said, asking not to be named as the deliberations were private. That panel consists of the chief IMF representatives -- known as executive directors -- from Brazil, France, Russia, the U.K. and an official representing the group of Iran, Morocco and Pakistan.

Story continues

U.S. Reaction

The U.S. Treasury, which manages the countrys engagement with the IMF and World Bank, said it was reviewing the report. The U.S. has an outsize role in decisions at the Washington-based lenders because of the weight of its voting power. Many Republican lawmakers have opposed expanding support for the World Bank and IMF, and Thursdays news could renew GOP criticism.

These are serious findings and Treasury is analyzing the report, Treasury spokesperson Alexandra LaManna said. Our primary responsibility is to uphold the integrity of international financial institutions. A National Security Council spokesperson later also said that the report was troubling, and that the administration was committed to upholding the integrity of institutions like the IMF.

Georgieva is expected to address the World Bank report at an all-staff meeting of the IMF on Friday, according to people familiar with the plans. An IMF spokesman said that that forum was previously scheduled to discuss IMF policy priorities ahead of the annual meetings of the fund and the World Bank next month.

The probe was produced by the law firm WilmerHale, which was retained by the World Bank executive boards ethics committee -- the body responsible for ethical matters involving board officials. The findings were shared with the World Banks executive directors Wednesday, and the board authorized their release.

Detailed Account

From mid-2017 to April 2018, World Bank management was consumed with sensitive negotiations over boosting the lenders capital, and China at the time was apprehensive about how its ownership share would be recalculated as a result of that process, the WillmerHale report said.

World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, the institutions top leader at the time, was overseeing the talks along with Georgieva, and both of them pointed in interviews to the tensions surrounding the process, WillmerHale said.

Against that backdrop, Chinese officials repeatedly told Kim and other top World Bank officials that the 2017 Doing Business report had failed to reflect Chinas reforms, the report said. As it became clear that the draft 2018 report would show a drop in Chinas ranking, staff discussed options including incorporating data from Taiwan and Hong Kong into the mainlands rating, the report showed.

Georgieva, who in an Oct. 18, 2017, meeting represented that she was now overseeing the issue, ruled out incorporating Hong Kong data for political reasons. Georgieva asked a Mr. Djankov to guide the Doing Business report to final publication, and he worked with the unit to identify changes to Chinas data that would raise the countrys score, the WillmerHale findings showed.

Georgievas Role

After searching for data points that wouldnt also alter other countrys ratings -- such as putting greater weight on major cities -- officials concluded that adjusting Chinas legal rights indicator was an ideal vehicle thanks to differing expert opinions on the effect of Chinese law, the report said. Tweaking the assessment helped China keep its prior ranking, and Mr. Djankov then authorized publication.

Georgievas actions following changes to Chinas data confirm her involvement, the review found. WillmerHale cited her thanks, after the changes, to the senior director for Development Economics for doing his part for multilateralism, and her visit to the home of the Doing Business manager the weekend after the report was published to thank the manager for resolving the China problem, the report showed.

WillmerHale identified no evidence Kim had directly ordered illegitmate changes to Chinas data, although the Doing Business manager said it was clear that aides in President Kims office were acting on his behalf, the report showed.

The Doing Business report plays a notable role in emerging markets, with governments often showcasing moves up in ranking in appeals for foreign investment. But the integrity of the ratings has been the source of heated debate in recent years. Paul Romer quit in 2018 as the World Banks chief economist after questioning changes to Chiles order in the report.

Read More: World Bank Corrects Country Rankings After Probe of Altered Data

The WillmerHale probe also looked at issues surrounding the ratings of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan.

After reviewing all the information available to date on Doing Business, including the findings of past reviews, audits, and the report the bank released today on behalf of the Board of Executive Directors, World Bank Group management has taken the decision to discontinue the Doing Business report, the World Bank said Thursday.

The IMF and World Bank have confronted a number of ethics issues over the years. Former French Finance Minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn resigned as head of the fund in 2011 after charges of sexual assault in a New York hotel room, which were eventually dropped. In 2007, Paul Wolfowitz, a top Pentagon official in the Bush administration, stepped down as head of the World Bank over his involvement in arranging a pay increase and promotion for his companion.

Lagarde, while leading the IMF, was convicted of negligence in 2016 by a Paris court over her handling of a multimillion-euro dispute during her time as Frances finance minister nearly a decade before. She didnt face a fine or prison term, and went on to become the head of the European Central Bank.

(Updates with IMF ethics committee referral in paragraph before U.S. Reaction subheadline.)

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French President Emmanuel Macron announced via Twitter on Wednesday that French military forces killed the head of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, Abu al-Walid al-Sahrawi.

Why it matters: "It is a decisive blow against this terrorist group," French Defense Minister Florence Parly tweeted, congratulating the military and intelligence agents who contributed to the mission.

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The big picture: Al-Sahrawi has been the "historic leader" of the Islamic State in the Sahel, which has taken credit for numerous of attacks throughout the region, Reuters reports.

No further details were given regarding when or where al-Sahrawi was killed.

Al-Sahrawi also spent time as the spokesman of the Mali-based group known as MUJAO, an organization that was loyal to the regional al-Qaeda affiliate, the Associated Press noted.

The context: France has been fighting Islamic extremists in the Sahel in West Africaa region it once ruled under colonialismsince 2013, when it carried out an intervention in Mali.

In July, Macron announced that France would be reducing its military presence in the region by half, with the goal of completing this restructuring in 2022.

What they're saying: "This is another major success in our fight against terrorist groups in the Sahel," Macron wrote.

"Tonight, the Nation is thinking of all its heroes who died for France in the Sahel," as well as the wounded and their families, Macron added in another tweet.

"Their sacrifice is not in vain. With our African, European and American partners, we will continue this fight," he added.

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Islamic State-allied jihadists killed 18 Nigerian security personnel in an ambush on their convoy using roadside bombs and rockets in one of the deadliest assaults on the army this year, military sources said on Thursday.

Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) militants claimed responsibility for Wednesday's attack on a highway between northeast Borno State capital Maiduguri and the garrison town of Monguno.

Borno is at the heart of Nigeria's grinding 12-year jihadist insurgency that has killed more than 40,000 people, displaced two million more and spilled over borders into neighbouring Chad, Cameroon and Niger.

Jihadists detonated roadside bombs on Wednesday before opening fire with rocket-propelled grenades and heavy weaponry, killing 16 soldiers and two members of a militia that helps fight ISWAP, the military sources said.

"Sixteen soldiers and two members of the Civilian JTF (militia) paid the supreme price in the attack while two soldiers were taken hostage by the terrorists," one military officer said.

Eleven troops were also wounded in Wednesday's attack in which several military vehicles were destroyed, said the officer who asked not to be identified as he was not authorised to speak to the media.

An army spokesman did not immediately answer calls seeking comment.

Another military source said the jihadists had detonated seven improvised explosive devices planted in the road as the convoy drove past. He gave a similar casualty toll.

ISWAP on Wednesday claimed responsibility for the attack, saying its fighters killed 25 troops in an ambush on a convoy, according to SITE, which monitors jihadist activities.

Nigeria's air force also said on Thursday it was investigating reports air strikes against jihadists in neighbouring northeast Yobe State had accidently killed and wounded civilians.

Residents in Buhari village said ten people had been killed and at least 19 wounded by a jet strike. The air force did not confirm any casualty figure.

Story continues

- ISWAP consolidation -

Wednesday's highway ambush was the most high-profile since ISWAP began consolidating its position in Nigeria's northeast following the death of rival Boko Haram commander Abubakar Shekau in May.

Shekau died during infighting between his men and ISWAP militants in his Sambisa forest enclave, which has fallen under ISWAP control.

ISWAP has recently intensified attacks on civilians along the 135-kilometre (84-mile) Maiduguri-Monguno highway where they set up checkpoints, robbing and killing motorists, according to accounts of local residents.

The near daily attacks prompted military patrols along the highway, the military sources said.

Since 2019, soldiers have mostly shut down smaller army bases and moved into larger, fortified garrisons known as "super camps" in an attempt to better resist militant attacks.

But critics say the "super camp" strategy has also allowed jihadists more liberty to move around in rural areas and left travellers more vulnerable to kidnapping along highways.

Jihadist violence in the northeast is just one security challenge facing President Muhammadu Buhari as his armed forces also battle heavily armed criminal gangs behind mass abductions and looting in the northwest.

abu/pma/lc
WASHINGTON - Senate Democrats were riding high on the afternoon of July 28: A long-delayed bipartisan infrastructure package had finally come together, with many senators eager to finish that bill and move forward with a multitrillion-dollar piece of economic, climate and social legislation - President Biden's signature "Build Back Better" plan.

But one senator, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, R-Ariz., punctured the gleeful atmosphere with a warning shot. While Democratic members of the Senate Budget Committee may have agreed on the size of the second bill, she had not.

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"[W]hile I will support beginning this process, I do not support a bill that costs $3.5 trillion," Sinema said in a statement that struck some of her fellow Democrats as poorly timed - coming just hours before she was counting on a united caucus to advance the infrastructure deal she had painstakingly negotiated.

Sinema, 45, is not the only Senate Democrat to raise pointed concerns about the size of the party's legislative agenda. In fact, her objections have been largely obscured by the much more prominent complaints that fellow Sen. Joe Manchin III, D-W.Va., has aired about the left wing's ambitions in newspaper op-eds, TV news appearances and near-daily comments to reporters.

Sinema, on the other hand, has remained almost entirely mum. While Manchin appeared on multiple Sunday news programs this month, Sinema hasn't done a national television interview in weeks. But her vote in the evenly divided Senate is just as crucial as Manchin's, and some Democrats quietly fear her objections could be even more nettlesome.

She remained silent when asked about her priorities in shaping the bill at the Capitol this week, and a spokesman, John LaBombard, said in a statement Wednesday that Sinema "is continuing to work in good faith with her colleagues and President Biden as this legislation develops."

Story continues

According to more than a dozen interviews with her Senate colleagues and aides involved in the negotiations, Sinema and her staff have been closely involved in the talks, asking detailed questions to several key lawmakers and committee aides to understand the justification for proposed spending and tax increases.

"She's gone through the whole package and has very specific concerns and questions about very specific pieces," said Sen. Christopher Coons, D-Del., who said Tuesday that he has personally fielded questions from Sinema about his own proposal for a new Civilian Climate Corps - a multibillion-dollar line item that is a key priority for the left.

Sinema, Coons said, wanted to know more about whether the program could be quickly grown to the scale that its supporters envision.

"It's a perfectly reasonable question," Coons added. "I spoke up in caucus and said, you know, this is one of the ones I'm working really hard on. And she said, 'OK, I need answers to this, this, this and this.' "

Other Democrats familiar with Sinema's work behind the scenes, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations, said a major priority has been to ensure that matters that were negotiated out of the bipartisan infrastructure bill - additional transit funding, for instance - do not reappear in the Build Back Better bill, which would violate an agreement with Republicans to keep the two bills separate.

Sinema, the Democrats said, has also been exploring ways to "means test" some programs to target their effect on the nation's neediest at a moment when many liberals argue that a much larger swath of Americans need help from the federal government.

Her voting record also provides warnings. Notably, with Democrats eyeing $2 trillion or more in tax increases to offset their spending plans, Sinema has publicly allied with Republicans on several tax bills. As a House member, she was one of seven Democrats to support a GOP bill eliminating the federal estate tax in 2015 and was one of only three Democrats who, in 2018, voted to permanently extend individual tax cuts passed by Republicans the year prior.

"She does not like tax increases," said one Republican senator who has worked with Sinema and spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe her views.

In a signal of how seriously Sinema's views are being taken, she met with Biden at the White House on Wednesday morning, with Manchin attending a similar meeting later in the day. LaBombard characterized the meeting as "productive," and a White House spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

While Democrats privately express exasperation at both of the holdout senators, several colleagues said that they have become accustomed to Manchin's penchant for putting himself into the center of virtually any hot-button negotiation. Sinema's motivations, they said, have been harder to read - and her concerns tougher to predict - but party leaders have had no choice but to take them seriously in the 50-50 Senate.

"The conversations are ongoing to allay her concerns," said Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., the No. 2 Senate leader and lead vote-counter. "We take them very seriously, respect her positions and try our best to find common ground."

Sinema has already garnered outsize attention among liberals for her role, alongside Manchin, in dampening their push to eliminate the Senate's filibuster rule - the 60-vote supermajority requirement that has blocked the advancement of a major voting rights bill and forced party leaders to use special budget procedures to pass the rest of Biden's agenda.

Her firm position against changing the rules has fueled efforts at pressuring her at home in Arizona, including ad campaigns, activist rallies and pleas from statehouse Democrats. But there has been little indication that Sinema has been discomfited by the backlash on the left, and she has appeared increasingly comfortable adopting the party-snubbing mantle of her GOP predecessor and political idol John McCain.

This time, however, some fellow Democrats said they believe they have significant leverage that will ultimately cajole her into supporting their vast legislative ambitions, with perhaps marginal tweaks: The trillion-dollar bipartisan infrastructure bill that Sinema negotiated with a group of fellow centrists.

"Is it appropriate for one person to destroy two pieces of legislation?" Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said in an ABC News interview Sunday, in response to a question about Manchin. "I think we're going to work it out, but it would really be a terrible, terrible shame for the American people if both bills went down. And that is a real danger."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., vowed to bring the infrastructure legislation to a vote later this month, regardless of whether Build Back Better is ready. But many liberal House members are threatening to withhold their votes so long as the larger bill remains in flux.

Some senators are skeptical that Sinema will simply go along to get along after seeing her theory of politics - that bipartisan negotiation and cooperation can produce significant, lasting results - validated by the infrastructure deal.

"I just don't think they're related in her mind, or in reality, and I think that's what's hard for people to understand," said the senator who has worked with Sinema. "This is not all about trade-offs and hostage-taking. It's just, each on its own merits."

In a recent statement first published by Politico, Sinema reiterated her opposition to a $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill and said that the infrastructure accord "should be considered on its own merits."

"Proceedings in the U.S. House will have no impact on Kyrsten's views about what is best for our country," LaBombard said.

Her willingness to snub party leaders - or at least talk tough - has been greeted with great encouragement across the aisle. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has urged fellow Republicans to praise Sinema as a bulwark against a left-wing push to eliminate the filibuster.

"I pray for Manchin and Sinema every night, give them a lot of love, wish them well, and hope they can withstand the pressure," McConnell said at a Kentucky event earlier this month. "I think they know this is the wrong thing to do for the country."

To the Republican senators who hammered out the infrastructure deal, Sinema is doing what they hoped she and other centrist Democratic senators would do: Apply downward pressure on an agenda that would otherwise have soared to $6 trillion or more.

"I do believe that she just has a genuine concern with potential for overreach and negative fiscal repercussions," said Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who said Sinema shared concerns about the size of the Democrats' plans as the bipartisan group negotiated the infrastructure deal but made no promises about where she would ultimately end up.

But Tillis and other Republicans who dealt with Sinema said they were optimistic she would hold firm.

"Anyone who thinks she's going to be a pushover," said Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, "is going to be severely surprised."

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Former President Trump on Thursday expressed solidarity with people facing prosecution in connection to the Capitol insurrection.

Why it matters: The statement was issued ahead of Saturday's rally to protest the treatment of Capitol rioters. Over 600 known federal defendants face charges related to the Jan. 6 insurrection.

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Rioters committed over 1,000 assaults against police officers, according to prosecutors.

What he's saying: "Our hearts and minds are with the people being persecuted so unfairly relating to the January 6th protest," Trump said in a statement.

"In addition to everything else, it has proven conclusively that we are a two-tiered system of justice. In the end, however, JUSTICE WILL PREVAIL!"

The big picture: The "Justice for J6 rally" is organized by a nonprofit group led by former Trump campaign staffer Matt Braynard. Trump has not indicated whether he will attend or participate.

The U.S. Capitol Police asked the Department of Defense to provide support in the form of National Guard troops should they become necessary on Saturday.

The protective fence set up around the Capitol following the riot has been reinstalled ahead of the rally.

Multiple congressional offices will also be closed Friday as a security precaution.

Don't forget: In the lead-up to the Capitol riots, Trump had told his supporters he would join them on their march to Congress to "show strength."

He ultimately did not join the rioters, nor did he issue any address as they breached the Capitol.

Later that day, he appeared in a video message, still claiming "we had an election that was stolen from us" before telling his supporters to go home. "We love you," he said. "You're very special."

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THE HAGUE, Netherlands  Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister Sigrid Kaag has resigned after the lower house of parliament passed a motion of censure against the government over its handling of evacuations from Afghanistan amid the Taliban takeover of the country.

In a parliamentary debate on Wednesday night, Kaag acknowledged that the governments slow or muddled response to warnings about the situation in Afghanistan meant some local staff members and people who had worked as translators for Dutch troops during their deployment in the country had not been evacuated before or after the Talibans swift sweep to power.

After parliament passed the motion of censure on Thursday, Kaag immediately said she would tender her resignation, saying that parliament had decided that the Cabinet has acted irresponsibly.

I can only accept the consequences of this judgment as the minister with ultimate responsibility, she added.

___

MORE ON AFGHANISTAN:

 Afghan killed by drone praised by co-workers in US aid group

 Friction among Taliban pragmatists, hard-liners intensifies

 Iran resumes commercial flights to Afghanistan

 Indiana Marine killed in Afghanistan remembered as hero

 AP Interview: UN refugee chief says Afghan stability needed

___

HERES WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:

___

ISLAMABAD  Pakistans interior minister has assured the U.N. refugee agency that his country will continue to provide humanitarian assistance to Afghan people.

Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told visiting U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi on Thursday that no new Afghan refugees had entered Pakistan since the Taliban took control in neighboring Afghanistan last month.

According to a government statement, Ahmed said Pakistan has sent trucks carrying food for the Afghan people to help try to avoid a humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. It said Grandi thanked Pakistan for hosting 3 million Afghan refugees in recent decades.

Since the Taliban toppled Afghanistans U.S.-backed government Aug. 15, Pakistan has urged the world community to speed up efforts to avoid a humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan.

Story continues

Pakistan says it cannot host any more Afghan refugees for several reasons, including financial constraints.

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PRISTINA, Kosovo  The British Embassy in Kosovo says a number of Afghans working with NATO and evacuated from their country after the Taliban takeover last month will be relocated to Britain.

A statement from the embassy says: 117 NATO affiliated Afghan evacuees are being relocated to the UK from Kosovo.

Over 800 evacuated Afghans working with NATO in their country have been temporarily sheltered in Kosovo since the end of August.

Around 2,000 former NATO contractors and their families were evacuated from Afghanistan, according to the embassy, adding that the country has committed to relocate around 150 NATO affiliated Afghans.

Kosovo has said it will temporarily house about 2,000 Afghans.

___

BEIJING  China says it will attend a virtual meeting of Central and South Asian state leaders to discuss the situation in Afghanistan.

The meeting of members of the China and Russia dominated Shanghai Cooperation Organization is scheduled for Thursday and hosted by Tajikistan. Afghanistan is an observer member of the grouping, but it wasnt clear if any representatives from the Taliban leadership would be attending.

China hasnt said whether it will recognize the new Afghan authorities who have excluded outside parties and women, although it has courted its leadership and kept its Kabul Embassy open.

The government and state media have accused the United States of destabilizing Afghanistan through what it calls a hasty and chaotic withdrawal of its troops, even as the Taliban swiftly overcame Afghan government forces over recent weeks.

China has used the Shanghai Cooperation to boost its standing in Central Asia through political dialogue and joint military exercises, aimed largely at diminishing U.S. influence in the region.

Beijing has also called on the Taliban to hold to its pledge to restrain militants seeking independence for the traditionally Muslim northwestern region of Xinjiang, Foreign Minister Wang Yi has urged the group to keep border crossings open, while offering $31 million in humanitarian assistance, along with 3 million doses of Chinese-made COVID-19 vaccines.
A prominent US lawyer who allegedly attempted to stage his own murder was charged on Thursday with insurance fraud and lying to the police in the latest twist in a bizarre crime saga.

Alex Murdaugh, 53, whose wife and son were murdered in June of this year, is accused of paying a man to shoot him so his surviving son could collect on a $10 million insurance policy.

Murdaugh survived the September 4 shooting on the side of a country road in South Carolina and surrendered on Thursday to face charges of insurance fraud and filing a false police report.

Hampton County Judge Tonja Alexander granted Murdaugh's release on a personal recognizance bond of $20,000 to allow him to get treatment at a rehabilitation facility for what his lawyer said was a "tremendous opioid addiction."

Murdaugh, who appeared in court in handcuffs and wearing an olive-colored jump suit, replied "Yes ma'am" when asked by the judge if he understood the conditions of his release.

Murdaugh's lawyer, Dick Harpootlian, told the court that Murdaugh was "not a danger to his community."

"The only person he's a danger to is himself," Harpootlian said. "This crime involved his attempt to have himself shot so that his son could collect insurance."

Murdaugh's wife, Maggie, 52, and their son Paul, a 22-year-old college student, were shot dead on June 7 at the family's sprawling hunting lodge in Islandton, in southwestern South Carolina.

No arrests have been made in connection with their deaths.

One line of speculation surrounding the murders is related to the fact that Paul Murdaugh, at the time of his death, was awaiting trial on charges stemming from a February 2019 boat crash that left a 19-year-old woman dead.

- 'Put him over the edge' -

Harpootlian said Murdaugh had a 20-year opioid addiction and "financial issues," and the deaths of his wife and son had "put him over the edge."

Story continues

Disconsolate, Murdaugh had paid a man to kill him so his surviving son, Buster, could collect on the insurance policy, he said.

But Curtis Smith, the hit man hired by Murdaugh, botched the job. He shot him in the head but the bullet only grazed his skull.

Smith, 61, has been charged with assisted suicide, aggravated assault and battery, and insurance fraud.

Murdaugh's lawyers said Smith was a former client of Murdaugh's who had supplied him with opioids in the past.

Murdaugh's staged murder attempt came a day after he was forced out of his law firm for allegedly embezzling millions of dollars. Police are investigating Murdaugh in that case for misappropriating funds.

In another development, police announced on Wednesday that they have opened an investigation into the 2018 death of Gloria Satterfield, 57, a housekeeper at the Murdaugh home.

Her death was initially ruled to be the result of a fall.

The Murdaugh family has deep roots in law enforcement in South Carolina. Murdaugh's father, grandfather and great-grandfather all served as regional prosecutors.

cl/st
Lindsey Graham has donated $500,000 to overturning the election result (Getty)

Senator Lindsey Graham reportedly told former President Donald Trump that the defeated, one-term chief executives volatile nature had f*****up his time in office, a forthcoming book by the Washington Posts Bob Woodward and Robert Costa reveals.

In Peril, Mr Woodward and Mr Costa report that Mr Graham admonished Mr Trump during one of the myriad phone calls between the South Carolina Republican and the ex-president this past summer.

Your problem is too much drama, too much volatility, Mr Graham said while advising Mr Trump that he could fix [his] problems more easily than President Biden could correct his own flaws, according to the book. He also reportedly criticised his close ally for perpetuating lies about the 2020 election, which Mr Trump lost.

You keep saying the election was rigged and you were cheated  you lost a close election, the senator continued.

After he told Mr Trump: You f***** your presidency up, the twice-impeached former president reportedly hung up the phone.

Mr Trump, who became the first sitting president in more than two decades to lose his re-election bid last November, has continuously lied about the existence of fraud in the multiple swing states that he lost. He began making false allegations of fraud months before the election took place and stuck to those lies after it became clear that he had lost.

His repetition of them incited his followers to riot at the Capitol in hopes of disrupting Congress certification of Mr Bidens victory on 6 January, according to court documents in many of the hundreds of criminal cases brought against Trump supporters who breached the Capitol that day. To this day, Mr Trump continues to claim that his loss was due to fraud and falsely allege that Mr Biden was not legitimately elected.

Although Peril describes Mr Graham as having accepted the legitimacy of Mr Trumps loss, he was an active proponent of the idea that Mr Bidens victory may have been in part reversible.

Story continues

According to multiple news outlets, the South Carolina Republican is the subject of an investigation by Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis, who is looking into a post-election phone call between Mr Graham and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

Mr Raffensperger, a Republican, described the phone call in a November interview with the Washington Post, in which he claimed the senator asked whether Mr Raffensperger had authority as Georgias top elections official to discard results of postal balloting in a number of key counties. Mr Graham has denied the allegations.

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Nine years after a University of North Carolina student was found dead in her off-campus apartment, a man has been arrested in connection to the murder, authorities said Thursday.

Miguel Enrique Oliveras, 28, has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of Faith Hedgepeth, who was 19 at the time. Oliveras was taken into custody without incident and is being held at the Durham County Detention Center without bond, CBS affiliate WBTV reported.

Hedgepeth was found in the bedroom of her Chapel Hill apartment on September 7, 2012. An autopsy revealed she died from a severe beating to her head, WBTV reported.

When police responded to the scene, they found a note that read "I'm not stupid" followed by the words "b****" and "jealous," officials said. The note was written on a fast food bag.

Faith Hedgepeth / Credit: WBTV

Although investigators recovered DNA from the crime scene, including from semen collected through a sexual assault kit, no one had been charged in connection to the case, according to WBTV.

Connie Hedgepeth, Faith's mother, spoke after the arrest was made Thursday. "When I got the news this morning, I didn't do anything but cry and thank God and praise God," she said. "When I cried, it was tears of joy, tears of relief that someone had been arrested in her case."

North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein said police detectives and state bureau of investigation agents conducted thousands of interviews as part of the investigation. Connie Hedgepeth thanked the Chapel Hill Police Department and the State Bureau of Investigation for their work on the case.

Governor Roy Cooper praised law enforcement for their work on the case Thursday. "Thanks to the NC State Bureau of Investigation, the State Crime Lab, Chapel Hill Police and other law enforcement who worked relentlessly and have never given up on solving the murder of UNC student Faith Hedgepeth more than 9 years ago," Cooper tweeted.

Story continues

Biden outlines economic plan saying saying country is at an "inflection point"

U.S. Army sets deadline for vaccine mandates

60 Minutes Archive: The Match of Their Lives
Photo credit: All Elite Wrestling (AEW)

The Mandalorian star Rosario Dawson made a surprise appearance on AEW Dynamite last night (Wednesday, September 15) and even got physical.

The actress was standing ringside when Malakai Black made his entrance and decided to call her out for wearing a tracksuit of the Nightmare Family, Cody Rhodes' stable.

Black has been feuding with Rhodes in recent weeks and the two are set to have a match on next week's Dynamite (September 22), which comes from Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York.

Photo credit: All Elite Wrestling (AEW)

After Black called out Dawson, Rhodes came down from the top of the arena but before he could make it to the ring, Dawson leaped over the barrier and onto Black's back.

Rhodes then made it to Black and the pair brawled all over the arena.

Dawson is one of the judges on TBS' Go-Big Show alongside Rhodes, Jennifer Nettles, and Snoop Dogg. The series just finished filming its second season, which is due to air later this year.

This is not the actress's only wrestling connection, as she also has a role on NBC series Young Rock, which is based on the life of wrestler-turned-actor Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson.

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Related: CM Punk signs with AEW after a seven-year absence from wrestling

Dawson also starred in season two of The Mandalorian as Ahsoka Tano alongside WWE Superstar Sasha Banks.

Meanwhile, earlier this week Dawson joined the cast of Disney's upcoming Haunted Mansion movie.



The star-studded ensemble cast already includes Owen Wilson, Girls Trip star Tiffany Haddish and Get Out's LaKeith Stanfield.



Catch AEW Dynamite live every Thursday at 1am in the UK and Rampage every Saturday at 3am on FITE with an AEW Plus subscription. US customers can also watch both shows on TNT, and in the UK, Dynamite repeats air on ITV4.

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The state began incorporating coronavirus vaccination data of Virginians who received their shots in Maryland into its records Thursday.

The Virginia Department of Health said obtaining the information from a neighboring state and providing it to the public will present a more accurate picture of herd immunity levels in the state. The data is available through the agencys online COVID-19 dashboard.

The new information predominantly affects numbers in the Northern Virginia localities close to Washington and the Eastern Shore. The Eastern Shores fully vaccinated rate benefited the most, with an increase of close to 1%.

State public health officials are working on gathering the same data from North Carolina and Washington. Data from Tennessee was added in August, they said.

The change boosted first dose rates by 0.33% in Alexandria, 0.46% in Arlington and 0.39% on the Eastern Shore. The fully vaccinated rates for those localities rose 0.28% in Alexandria, 0.25% in Arlington and 0.91% on the Eastern Shore.

The state will reciprocate by providing Virginia-administered vaccinations of Marylanders to Maryland but hasnt done so yet, a health department spokeswoman said.

Elisha Sauers, 757-839-4754, elisha.sauers@pilotonline.com
Facing a potential default on U.S. debt payments in a matter of weeks, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday to ask for his bipartisan cooperation in passing an increase or suspension of the debt ceiling. But the Kentucky Republican rejected her request, according to reports Thursday, and stuck to his position that the GOP will not help Democrats address the debt limit.

This is a unified Democrat government, engaging in a partisan reckless tax and spending spree, a McConnell spokesman said late Wednesday after the call. They will have to raise the debt ceiling on their own and they have the tools to do it.

In an interview with Punchbowl News published Thursday, McConnell explained why he is refusing to support any effort to raise or suspend the debt limit: Let me make it perfectly clear. The country must never default. The debt ceiling will need to be raised. But who does that depends on who the American people elect, McConnell said. So the only issue is, whose responsibility is it to do it? A Democratic president, a Democratic House, a Democratic Senate. ... It's their obligation. They should step up. It's hard being in the majority. They are the ones who will raise the debt limit.

McConnell tipped his hat to earlier bipartisan efforts  I have voted a number of times to raise the debt ceiling in divided government, he said  but insisted that Democratic control absolves the Republican Party of any responsibility to help avoid what could be a global financial calamity, should the U.S. default.

Democrats push back: Not for the first time, Democrats rejected McConnells argument, pointing out that they voted several times to raise the debt ceiling during the Trump administration and that the debt that must be paid now was incurred in the past.

Senators from both parties overwhelmingly voted in support of the many laws that contributed to this obligation, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said. So neither party can wash its hands of responsibility to pay the bills.

Story continues

According to an analysis by the Associated Press, nearly 98% of the countrys $28.4 trillion national debt was incurred before President Joe Biden took office. And the total includes more than $7 trillion that was added during the Trump presidency.

A strategic gamble: While theres more than one way for Democrats to attempt to raise the debt limit, including attaching it to the reconciliation bill they plan to use to pass President Bidens $3.5 trillion economic package, their current strategy appears to be including an increase to a must-pass bill that will keep the government open after September 30 and provide assistance to hurricane victims and Afghanistan war refugees  while waiting for Republicans to lose their nerve and vote to support the measure.

However, Sen. Roy Blunt, a Republican from Missouri who voted to raise the debt limit during the Trump presidency, told reporters Thursday that bipartisan cooperation isnt likely, despite Bidens oft-spoken desire for lawmakers to work across the aisle. I dont think anything in the last month has increased the likelihood that he can now create an atmosphere of: Lets work together, Blunt said.

And McConnell doesnt sound like hes in any mood to change his mind. Im not voting [for a debt limit increase], he told Punchbowl. How many different ways do I need to say this?

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Megan Cusack at the TRIC Awards. (Getty Images)

Call The Midwife star Megan Cusack had to be rushed to hospital for 17 stitches after apparently taking a tumble at the TRIC Awards.

The actor  who plays pupil midwife Nancy Corrigan in the much-loved BBC drama  hurt herself when she fell at the ceremony in London, with reports suggesting she fell down the stairs and hurt her leg.

She was later seen being pushed outside in a wheelchair.

Cusack later relayed her visit to hospital to her fans on Instagram, revealing that she had to have 17 stitches.

Read more: Call The Midwife star Helen George pregnant with second child

The actor first shared a video showing her arriving at the hospital along with her co-star Fenella Woolgar.

And she later posted a picture with the words: 17 stitches later Im home.

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"I also finally be that kid who has crutches, she added.

Earlier, the actor was seen walking the red carpet in a bright blue patterned dress and heels, with her hair pulled back into a high ponytail.

The 25-year-old is the niece of Sinead Cusack and Jeremy Irons is one of her uncles.

She joined Call The Midwife as Nancy this year, and previously told Hello! magazine that the rest of the cast put her at ease straight away on her first day.

Megan Cusack plays a pupil midwife in the BBC drama. (Getty Images)

Everyone's so warm and giving and welcoming," she said. "So I really enjoyed it. But I got home and I was absolutely wrecked. I felt like the day hadn't really happened because it was all so mad."

Read more: Call The Midwife confirmed for screens until at least 2022

Cusacks previous TV credits include Doctors and The Cherry Orchard.

Watch: Jeremy Kirby describes how they shoot birth scenes in Call The Midwife
When Chancellor Angela Merkel's government smashed its debt taboo and opened the money taps to help the German economy weather the pandemic crisis, it vowed to return to fiscal rigour as soon as possible.

But as the post-Merkel era beckons, voters may have other ideas.

In the closing stretch before September 26 polls that will see Merkel bow out after 16 years, surveys show her CDU-CSU alliance trailing the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD).

Hoping to turn the tide, the conservatives have returned to their favoured attack lines.

The SPD's candidate for the top job, Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, would be a "debt chancellor", warned CSU leader Markus Soeder.

Conservative millionaire Friedrich Merz, the CDU's economic policy spokesperson, said taxpayers would end up footing the bill for an SPD-led government's "free beer" policies.

Scholz himself has said he wants higher taxes for top earners and the reintroduction of a wealth tax to help fund much-needed investments in Europe's biggest economy.

Whoever wins, any future German government will be presented with a "difficult choice" between "changing budgetary rules" to match the economic reality, or "sharply reducing the public deficit", says Patrick Artus, chief economist at Natixis.

Germany's cherished balanced finances have been turned upside down during the pandemic, with Merkel's government taking on 370 billion euros ($438 billion) of new debt in 2020 and 2021.

Total public debt is expected to exceed 70 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) this year, up from 59.7 percent before the pandemic.

- EU watching -

Merkel's Germany is well-known for its budgetary discipline -- and at times for enforcing it on fellow Europeans -- but the pandemic spending forced it to suspend the "debt brake" written into the constitution in 2009.

The rule forbids the government from borrowing more than 0.35 percent of its GDP, other than in "exceptional circumstances" approved by parliament.

Story continues

Between January and March this year, the public deficit exceeded 80 billion euros, equivalent to 4.7 percent of GDP.

It's a long way from Germany's vaunted "black zero" budget -- the shorthand name given to the achievement of balancing the books and a target the country consistently met between 2014 and 2019.

The crisis also saw Merkel spearhead the European Union's 800-billion-euro coronavirus recovery fund, which will be financed through joint borrowing for the first time -- crossing a German red line on EU debt pooling.

But European member states watching the election and hoping for a transformation of German debt attitudes may be disappointed.

As a battle looms on whether to loosen the EU's strict budget rules, Scholz ruled out any changes at a recent meeting of EU finance ministers.

The pandemic had shown that the bloc's fiscal rules already had enough flexibility, he said.

- 'Gigantic sums' -

By Merkel's own admission, Germany will have to "spend gigantic sums of money in the coming years".

The country's biggest challenges -- energy transition, climate protection and digital infrastructure -- mean that "40 to 50 billion euros of public investment a year, between 1 and 1.5 percent of GDP, will be needed for the next 10 years," said Marcel Fratzscher president of the economics think-tank DIW.

To solve this budgetary equation, it will be necessary to "reform" the debt brake to reflect EU norms, which tolerate deficits of up to three percent of GDP, Fratzscher said.

The catch: any change to the debt rule would have to be approved by a two-thirds super majority in the German parliament.

- Another way -

"The ruling parties will have to find another way to get around the rule," Fratzscher said.

Much will depend on the balance of power between the parties in Germany's next coalition.

Sticking to the debt brake will be "impossible without tax rises", Fratzscher said -- something the conservatives have ruled out.

The left-wing Greens, who fancy their chances of being part of the next government, want to adapt the debt brake to allow 50 billion euros of borrowing for investment annually until 2030.

The SPD are open to more public spending, but within the limited scope allowed by the constitutional brake.

jpl-sea/mfp/lth
Hands clasped in front of the stomach, thumbs and fingertips touching to form a diamond shape -- Angela Merkel's "rhombus" hand gesture has become almost as famous as the German chancellor herself.

It has its own Wikipedia page and even its own emoticon, "<>", and the German leader has been immortalised adopting the pose at London's famous Madame Tussauds waxworks museum.

And with Merkel about to bow out of politics following an election this month closing the door on her 16 years in power, the hand gesture has been catapulted to the spotlight once again after a candidate from a rival party adopted it on a magazine cover.

Olaf Scholz, the Social Democrat (SPD) chancellor candidate, used the gesture in a photo shoot for the Sueddeutsche Zeitung magazine -- part of his strategy to position himself as the true Merkel continuity candidate, as opposed to Armin Laschet, the challenger from Merkel's party.

This claim on Merkel's legacy prompted a backlash from the CDU and even from Merkel herself, who was at pains to point out that there were "enormous differences" between herself and Scholz, the frontrunner in the polls ahead of the September 26 vote.

In a debate in parliament, Laschet told Scholz: "You can't go around making rhombus signs and talking like Saskia Esken" -- the co-leader of the SPD, who represents the left wing of the party.

After all, the rhombus gesture has become the veteran chancellor's signature.

- 'Love of symmetry' -

The "Merkel-Raute", as it is known in German, made its first appearance during a photo shoot for Stern magazine in 2002.

Then head of the Christian Democrats (CDU) but still three years away from being elected as chancellor for the first time, Merkel "didn't know what to do with her hands", photographer Claudia Kempf later recalled.

"She let them hang down next to her, which made her look a bit exposed, or she joined them together. I said to her, 'You look too much like a pastor's daughter'," the photographer told the Rheinische Post newspaper in 2009.

Story continues

A few months before German elections in 2013, Merkel offered her own explanation of how the gesture had come about.

"It's about the question of where to put your arms," said the trained physicist, adding that the rhombus also showed "a certain love of symmetry".

- 'Personality cult' -

At the time of that interview, Merkel was campaigning for a third term in office.

The whole parliament comes up for renewal in German federal elections, but her party had decided on a very personalised campaign.

A billboard 70 metres wide by 20 metres tall (230 feet by 66 feet) was erected near Berlin's central station featuring a giant image of the Merkel rhombus, made up of over 2,000 photographs of hands, with the slogan "Germany's future in good hands".

The SPD slammed what they called an "empty personality cult" around Merkel, while the Greens lamented: "If this is politics, we have fallen very low."

But the woman affectionately nicknamed "Mutti" (mummy) won the election by a wide margin a few weeks later, with the Merkel rhombus becoming "probably one of the most recognisable hand gestures in the world", according to Britain's Guardian newspaper.

The gesture has also been likened to a bridge, a protective roof, and even a sign made between Illuminati members to identify themselves.

"I believe the Merkel rhombus was initially adopted unconsciously," Jochen Hoerisch, a communications specialist at the University of Mannheim, told AFP.

"But once it had been noticed by the public it was then consciously used by the chancellor as a brand."

mat-fec/hmn/jv
Mining executives in Guinea said they were reassured on Thursday after meeting Lieutenant-Colonel Mamady Doumbouya, who seized power in a coup in the mineral-rich West African country this month.

The putsch on September 5 drew international condemnation, and also sent the price of aluminium soaring. Guinea is one of the world's largest producers of bauxite, the ore used to make aluminium.

An official working in Guinea for Russian aluminium giant Rusal told AFP that talks between Doumbouya and mining executives in the capital Conakry on Thursday had been "promising".

"Everything is stable, business is going on," he said. "It's just a transition period we are going through."

The meeting was part of a series of talks between the junta, politicians and civil-society leaders, which are due to end on Friday and are intended to pave a return to civilian rule.

It also came as West African leaders were meeting in Ghana's capital Accra to decide how to respond to the coup.

Doumbouya has promised to form an inclusive government that will steer a transition to civilian rule. But he has resisted committing to a timetable.

He also sought to reassure an alarmed mining industry after the coup, promising to uphold existing agreements.

Doumbouya repeated this message at the closed-door meeting with the executives, according to Alexander Alferink, an attendee who works in the gold industry.

"We were very comforted by the continuity," he said.

Fode Konate, a gold-mining executive, also said that Doumbouya had guaranteed to protect the security of mining operations.

Despite abundant reserves of iron, gold, diamonds and bauxite, Guinea remains one of the poorest countries in the world. Mining is the driver of the economy in the nation of 13 million people.

lal/eml/pbr
By Will Dunham

(Reuters) - People may take the necessity and existence of clothing for granted, from shirts to pants to dresses, coats, skirts, socks, underwear, bow ties, top hats, togas, kilts and bikinis. But it all had to start somewhere.

Scientists on Thursday said artifacts unearthed in a cave in Morocco dating back as far as 120,000 years ago indicate that humans were making specialized bone tools, skinning animals and then using tools to process these skins for fur and leather.

The items from Contrebandiers Cave, located roughly 800 feet (250 meters) from the Atlantic coastline in the town of Temara, appear to be the oldest-known evidence for clothing in the archaeological record, they added.

Our species, Homo sapiens, first appeared more than 300,000 years ago in Africa, later spreading worldwide. The advent of clothing was a milestone for humankind, reflecting cultural and cognitive evolution.

"We assume that clothing was integral to the expansion of our species into cold habitats," said evolutionary archaeologist Emily Hallett of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany, lead author of the study published in the journal iScience.

The scientists found 62 tools made from animal bones and also identified a pattern of cut marks on the bones of three small carnivore species - a fox, jackal and wildcat - indicating they had been skinned for fur, not processed for meat. Antelope and wild cattle bones suggested that the skins of these animals may have been used to make leather, while the meat was eaten.

"Clothing is a unique human innovation," said evolutionary archaeologist and study co-author Eleanor Scerri, also of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.

"We use clothes in a practical sense, to stay warm, for example, or to protect our skin. We also use clothes symbolically, to express something about who we are, and they also meet a plethora of social conventions that articulate with our diverse global cultures," Scerri added.

Story continues

The cave artifacts date to a time period when evidence of personal adornment and other signs of human symbolic expression appear at various archaeological sites.

Fur, leather and other organic clothing materials are highly perishable over time, and no actual prehistoric clothing was found at the cave. The tools were made during a period when the cave was occupied by members of our species from approximately 120,000 years ago to 90,000 years ago. The nature of the clothes they may have fashioned remains unclear.

Of particular interest were tools with a broad rounded end, called spatulate tools.

"There are striations on the spatulate bone tools that are the result of use, and the sheen on the ends of the bone tools is the result of repeated use against skin. Bone tools with this shape are still used today to prepare pelts because they do not pierce the skin, they are durable and they are effective at removing connecting tissues without damage to the pelt," Hallett said.

Until now some of the oldest evidence for Homo sapiens clothing was bone needles about 45,000-40,000 years old from Siberia.

The researchers suspect that our species had begun making clothing thousands of years before the date of the Morocco artifacts, though archeological evidence is lacking. Genetic studies of clothing lice by other researchers suggest an origin for clothing by perhaps 170,000 years ago in Africa.

It also is likely that Neanderthals, a close human cousin who entered Eurasia before Homo sapiens, made clothing, considering the cold regions they inhabited, the researchers said. They cited evidence for leather-working bone tools made by Neanderthals from roughly 50,000 years ago.

(Reporting by Will Dunham in Washington, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)
By Ardo Hazzad

BAUCHI, Nigeria (Reuters) -The Nigerian air force said on Thursday it may have killed and injured civilians while pursuing suspected Islamist insurgents in the northeast, in an incident that local authorities said left nine people dead.

Another 23 people from the village of Buwari, including five children, were injured on Wednesday, the State Emergency Management Agency in Yobe State said, after what it described as reports of a strike.

The Nigerian armed forces are fighting two Islamist insurgent groups in the northeast, Boko Haram and Islamic State's West African Province (ISWAP), in a conflict that has killed 350,000 people and made millions dependent on aid.

The air force, after initially denying involvement in the incident, said it may have killed and injured civilians by mistake.

Air Commodore Edward Gabkwet said a fighter jet had responded to intelligence on suspicious movements of suspected insurgents from Boko Haram or ISWAP on Wednesday and fired "some probing shots".

"Unfortunately reports reaching Nigerian Air Force headquarters alleged that some civilians were erroneously killed while others were injured," he said in a statement.

"Therefore a board of inquiry has been set up to thoroughly investigate the circumstances of the incident."

Three residents in Yobe's Yunasari local government area, where Buwari is located, told Reuters that an air force jet had flown over the village on Wednesday morning before there were explosions.

"We saw it hovering around the village and suddenly we heard two loud bangs," resident Ibrahim Goni told Reuters by phone.

One resident said he had lost four of his relatives while another said his mother and niece had died in the incident.

The emergency response agency said food parcels and cash had been distributed to relatives and survivors in the village and that authorities had tried to subdue panic among residents.

(Reporting by Ardo Hazzad in Bauchi and Camillus Eboh in Abuja, Writing by MacDonald Dzirutwe and Estelle Shirbon, Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Andrew Heavens)
Northern Illinois (1-1) at No. 25 Michigan (2-0), Saturday at noon EDT (Big Ten Network).

Line: Michigan by 27 1/2, according to FanDuel Sportsbook.

Series record: Michigan leads 1-0.

WHATS AT STAKE?

Michigan can stay ranked with another win and continue to build momentum, going into next week's Big Ten opener against Rutgers and its first big test in two weeks on the road against No. 18 Wisconsin.

KEY MATCHUP

Michigan's running game against Northern Illinois' defense. If the Wolverines can run the ball as they have so far this season, the Huskies will not have a chance to be competitive in a game they're expecting to lose by about four touchdowns. Michigan is averaging 339 yards rushing a game, ranking fourth in the nation, with Blake Corum and Hassan Haskin running through huge holes.

PLAYERS TO WATCH

Nothern Illinois QB Rocky Lombardi. The transfer led Michigan State to a 27-23 win at Michigan Stadium last year, throwing for a career-high 323 yards and a career-high matching three touchdowns. Lombardi also made his college debut in the Big House three years ago.

Michigan QB Cade McNamara. His job has been to hand the ball off early and often, averaging just 13 pass attempts over the first two games. The Huskies and other teams will likely put eight defenders in the box, daring McNamara to beat them through the air.

FACTS & FIGURES

Michigan beat Northern Illinois 33-17 in 2005. ... The Huskies opened with a 22-21 win at Georgia Tech on a touchdown pass and 2-point conversion with 38 seconds left. They lost 50-43 to Wyoming at home, rallying from a 26-point deficit to lead by one before giving up a score with 1:35 remaining. ... Corum leads the country with 221.5 all-purpose yards per game. ... Northern Illinois RB Harrison Waylee is averaging 161.5 yards rushing, ranking third in the country, and has run for 100 yards in four straight games. ... The Wolverines are 34-1 against Mid-American Conference teams, losing to Toledo in in 2008.

___

More AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/college-football and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25. Sign up for the APs college football newsletter: https://apnews.com/cfbtop25
Sep. 16Nursing home leaders and advocates for patients and care workers clashed Wednesday, with one side asking state officials to put the brakes on plans to increase staffing levels at Pennsylvania's 700 skilled care nursing homes and the other saying reforms can't come soon enough.

Industry representatives told lawmakers at a state Senate hearing that raising nursing care minimum levels from 2.7 to 4.1 hours per day per patient would exacerbate critical staffing shortages. They said it also would increase financial problems at institutions already struggling to remain afloat on Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements, which fall short of covering costs. They suggested the issue needs further review.

Failing to act, however, could make matters even worse, according to patient and care worker advocates.

Matthew Yarnell, president of SEIU Healthcare PA and a former direct care worker, said it's untenable to ask direct care workers like nursing assistants, many of whom lack retirement benefits and adequate health care, to care for 20 to 30 patients on a daylight shift.

"Providing quality care to that many residents is  quite frankly  impossible," Yarnell said. "Whether it's unanswered call bells, developing bed sores from lack of movement or getting cold food, nursing staff don't have time to do the basics, let alone offer residents personal time and attention they need and deserve."

He said raising staffing levels is just part of the answer to ensuring patient safety and creating a stable workforce in the industry.

He said higher pay, access to training and career advancement as well as healthcare benefits all are needed to attract and retain staff.

State Sen. Maria Collett, D-Bucks and Montgomery counties and minority chair of the Senate Aging and Youth Committee, joined Yarnell after the hearing, calling for sweeping reforms in Pennsylvania nursing homes where some 13,000 residents have died of covid-19.

Story continues

Collett, an attorney-turned-nurse educator, labeled calls to slow down the reform process disgraceful and disingenuous.

Diane Menio, executive director of CARIE, the Center for Advocacy for the Rights & Interests of the Elderly, said reforms must make it clear how much of the money that flows to nursing homes is actually going to patient care.

Collett said state lawmakers must to ensure that Medicare and Medicaid funds are going toward patient care rather than into bonuses for administrators who cut corners to reduce costs.

"We've got to structure the law so they cannot funnel those dollars to something other than bedside care," Collett said. "New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts have all moved to models that ensure dollars go to care at the bedside.

"The time is now," Collett said. "There is no clearer indication (of the need) than what we and our loved ones experienced during covid."

Deb Erdley is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Deb at 724-850-1209, derdley@triblive.com or via Twitter .
Rally goers hold signs protesting vaccines at the "World Wide Rally for Freedom", an anti-mask and anti-vaccine rally, at the State House in Concord, New Hampshire, May 15, 2021. JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images

A pastor is encouraging people to donate to his church for signed religious exemption vaccine forms.

Jackson Lahmeyer is also running for Senate and giving out exemption forms on his campaign website.

Lahmeyer told The Washington Post the form has been downloaded 30,000 times in the last two days.

See more stories on Insider's business page.

Those seeking proof of a religious vaccine exemption need look no further than Oklahoma pastor Jackson Lahmeyer, who is offering members of his congregation a signed opt-out form.

But the exemption might cost you.

The Tulsa pastor is encouraging people to donate to his church so they can stream his services and become an online member of the church, according to The Washington Post. Only then, will his signed exemption "carry any weight," he told the outlet.

In a Wednesday conversation with Insider, Lahmeyer cited the impending federal vaccine mandate for employers with more than 100 employees as the catalyst for his offer.

The legality surrounding religious exemptions for COVID-19 vaccines is far from uniform, with different states or organizations often requiring their own signed form. Religious freedom experts told The Post most people probably don't even need a signed letter from a religious leader in order to be exempt.

"He's not really selling a religious exemption," Charles Haynes, senior fellow for religious freedom at the Freedom Forum in Washington, told The Post. "He's selling a bogus idea that you need one."

Lahmeyer, a 29-year-old small business owner, leads Sheridan Church in Tulsa with his wife Kendra.

In addition to presiding over a congregation and running a real estate company, Lahmeyer is also running in the Republican primary to challenge Sen. James Lankford in 2022. Earlier this year, he secured the endorsement of former President Donald Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who was pardoned by Trump after pleading guilty to lying to the FBI.

Story continues

Lahmeyer is distributing the exemption forms through both his church website and his Senate campaign website. He told The Post he modeled the form after a generic state of Oklahoma document asking the individual to explain the religious belief that requires a request for vaccine exemption.

Lahmeyer said the form has already been downloaded about 30,000 in the past two days. The Washington Post's article, which Lahmeyer criticized as being "fake news," helped spur another 5,000 reach outs, he told Insider.

Anyone is able to download the form after providing contact information, and Lahmeyer said he would sign it for anyone.

"I'm willing to sign it no matter what," he told The Post. "But I want it to have weight. In order for it to carry any weight, you have to be an online member of our church."

According to Lahmeyer, his church's bylaws require that individuals stream church services and donate at least $1 in order to be considered online members. The Post reported Sheridan Church has about 300 in-person members.

Lahmeyer told Insider that while he would encourage individuals to first reach out to their own pastors and churches to inquire about vaccine exemptions, he was inspired to offer his services to anyone after realizing many clergy people had chosen not to sign religious exemption forms.

The father of five told the paper he was not vaccinated against the coronavirus but did not consider himself anti-vaccine. He said he had already had the virus and believed people who get sick with COVID-19 can be treated with medications like ivermectin, an anti-parasite and dewormer. The US Food and Drug Administration has warned against using ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment.

Lahmeyer said he would not investigate anyone's reasons for requesting the religious exemption.

"What if someone says, 'God told me not to get a vaccine.' I don't know if God told them that. I'm not going to argue with that," he told The Post.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Paul Ryan addressing the House for the final time in 2019 (EPA)

Former Republican House speaker Paul Ryan allegedly researched how to interact with people suffering from narcissistic personality disorder in the aftermath of Donald Trumps election victory, a new book claims.

Mr Ryan, according to Peril, a book by Watergate reporter Bob Woodward and his Washington Post colleague Robert Costa, was alarmed by the TV personalitys rise to the Republican Party nomination in 2016.

As reported by Business Insider, which obtained a copy of the book, Mr Ryan began researching how to deal with someone who is "amoral and transactional after Mr Trumps win against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, who had been tipped to win 2016s contest.

As the Republican leader of the House, Mr Ryan reportedly braced himself for working with Mr Trump after that election because the party took control of the House and the Senate, in addition to the White House.

Woodward and Costa write that Mr Ryan read articles about narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) for weeks because he was convinced Trump had the personality disorder, and also sought advice from a Republican donor on how to handle the incoming president.

The donor, who was also a wealthy doctor from New York, allegedly told Mr Ryan that "You need to understand what narcissistic personality disorder is, and emailed him with his "thoughts on how to best deal with a person with anti-social personality disorder.

The email, Woodward and Costa reportedly wrote, also included links to articles about NPD in The New England Journal of Medicine, and information from the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, 10th edition.

The US National Library of Medicine describes NPD as being characterised by a persistent pattern of grandiosity, fantasies of unlimited power or importance, and the need for admiration or special treatment.

Behavioural features include impulsivity, volatility, attention-seeking, low self-esteem, and unstable interpersonal relationships that result in a pervasive pattern of interpersonal difficulties, occupational problems, and significant psychosocial distress, the library adds.

Story continues

Mr Ryan eventually fell out with the former president for sympathising with white supremacists who held a deadly riot in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Mr Trump, according to the authors of Peril, told Mr Ryan that he could not backstab the people who support me, before admitting that there's some bad people, reported The Hill. The House speaker, before the encounter, had tweeted that "white supremacy is repulsive.

The book, which is published on 21 September, has also alleged that Mr Trumps Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley assured China that Washington would not launch an attack on Beijing, and that the former president complained that his vice president, Mike Pence, would not be his friend anymore if he did not overturn 2020s election.

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A bipartisan group of Pennsylvania lawmakers has introduced legislation that would establish a statewide tracking system for sexual assault evidence.

State Rep. Tarah Toohil, R-Luzerne, House Democratic Leader Joanna McClinton, D-Philadelphia/Delaware, and state Sen. Katie Muth, D-Chester/Montgomery/Berks, are working together to push the proposal forward.

The legislation would create an Advisory Committee to develop and implement best practices in creating and maintaining a tracking system which would give sexual assault victims the ability to track the status of their evidence and find out who to contact for more information.

If we are serious about empowering victims and increasing transparency, we need to establish a tracking system that gives victims timely access to their evidence and updates on their cases, Muth said in a news release.

Implementing a tracking system would help to prevent a backlog of untested rape kits and provide a comprehensive analysis of total rape kits in the state and how many are in possession at hospitals, law enforcement locations, and at state labs.

Washington Examiner Videos

Tags: States, News, Pennsylvania, Sexual Assault

Original Author: Natalie Kapustik, The Center Square

Original Location: Pennsylvania lawmakers introduce legislation for sexual assault evidence tracking system
President Rodrigo Duterte will not cooperate with the International Criminal Court's probe into the Philippines' drug war, his lawyer said Thursday, after its judges found the crackdown could be a crime against humanity.

ICC judges authorised Wednesday a full-blown investigation into Duterte's anti-narcotics campaign, which rights groups estimate has killed tens of thousands of people, saying it resembled an illegitimate and systematic attack on civilians.

Duterte "will not cooperate since first of all, the Philippines has left the Rome Statute, so the ICC no longer has jurisdiction over the country", chief presidential legal counsel Salvador Panelo told local radio DZBB.

"The government will not let in any ICC member to collect information and evidence here in the Philippines. They will be barred entry."

Duterte pulled Manila out of the Hague-based court after it launched a preliminary probe, but the ICC said it had jurisdiction over crimes committed while the Philippines was still a member.

Rights groups, lawyers and relatives of people killed in the drug war welcomed the ICC decision.

"I'm glad because this might be a way for us to get justice for the deaths of our loved ones," said Corazon Enriquez, who blames Duterte for the killing of her son during a police raid on their home in 2016.

"That's what we're hoping for -- for that person responsible for the deaths of our children and family members to pay."

Edre Olalia, the president of the National Union of Peoples' Lawyers, said the organisation hoped this was "the beginning of the end to impunity" while rights group Karapatan said: "Duterte and his cohorts should be made accountable for these crimes."

- 'We have hope' -

Duterte was elected in 2016 on a campaign promise to get rid of the Philippines' drug problem, openly ordering police to kill drug suspects if officers' lives were in danger.

Story continues

At least 6,181 people have died in more than 200,000 anti-drug operations conducted since July 2016, according to the latest official data released by the Philippines.

ICC prosecutors in court papers estimate the figure to be between 12,000 and 30,000 dead.

Duterte has repeatedly attacked the world's only permanent war crimes court and vowed not to cooperate with its probe.

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said Thursday Duterte had "no reaction" to the ICC announcement.

"From the start he has said he will die first before he will face foreign judges," Roque told reporters.

"If there are complaints, they have to be adjudged in the Philippines because our courts are functioning, and the ICC court has no jurisdiction."

But the country's top judges disagreed, ruling earlier this year that the ICC can prosecute "government actors" for alleged crimes committed before the nation withdrew from the tribunal.

The ICC said there was a "reasonable basis" to believe that the crime against humanity of murder had been committed in the crackdown.

Its investigation will also cover alleged extra-judicial killings in the southern Davao region between 2011 and 2016, when Duterte was mayor.

"If he's guilty, he should be held accountable," said Santos Reario, a barber in the capital Manila.

"Maybe that's why he's planning to run for vice president -- to escape accountability."

Duterte, barred under the constitution from seeking a second term, declared last month he will run for the country's second-highest office next year.

Critics said the move was partly driven by fear of criminal charges, though there is debate over whether the vice president enjoys legal immunity.

Police chief Guillermo Eleazar vowed Thursday to continue the "aggressive campaign against illegal drugs", which he said had contributed to a 64 percent drop in "index crime", including robbery and murder, in the past five years.

Human rights lawyer Kristina Conti told AFP the ICC investigation could take months or even years.

The government's refusal to cooperate would make the probe "hard", but she said ICC prosecutors could work with groups on the ground to get the evidence they needed.

Families said they were prepared to wait.

"Even if it will take a long time, at least we have something to look forward to instead of just waiting for nothing," said one victim's mother, who asked not to be identified.

"At least we have hope."

bur-amj/cgm/axn
Associated Press

A sheriff said no charges will be filed against a South Carolina father whose 20-month-old boys died from heat after he forgot to drop them off at daycare and left them in his vehicle because he was under intense pressure at work. Watching investigators interview the father was one of the most heartbreaking things Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said he has seen in his 46 years in law enforcement. Brycen and Brayden McDaniel died from exposure to the heat as temperatures inside the SUV reached 120 degrees Fahrenheit (49 degrees Celsius) on a muggy late summer day, Richland County Coroner Nadia Rutherford said.
The director kept his eyes on the audience, ignoring the cops in the back of the room.

It was a private screening of a romance film by Kiwi Chow. Several dozen friends had gathered in the office of a local district councilor to watch the movie and hear Chow speak. He was a politically sensitive figure whod made films about Hong Kongs protests and China's crackdown on the citys liberties.

His new work was an apolitical tale about a schizophrenic man who falls in love with a psychological counselor. Hardly a storyline that would provoke dissent or violate a national security law. But the audience took note when two dozen police officers arrived. Chow, undeterred, went on with his talk.

By midnight, police had shut down the screening, fining each attendee HK$5,000 for violating social distancing rules. If the screening had featured Chows protest documentary, they could have been fined HK$1 million and imprisoned for up to three years, according to a law proposed by the Hong Kong government in August.

Police raids on movie screenings  unimaginable in Hong Kong a few years ago  are the latest reality in Beijings relentless suppression of the territorys civil liberties. For filmmakers like Chow, 42, they are a sign of how Chinas grip on Hong Kong is not only about asserting political control but also suffocating the cultural spaces where art can reflect truth and build solidarity in a society.

They are afraid of art, of people making connections, of organizations and groups  because essentially, they are afraid of the people, Chow said. We were having a conversation about art and humanity, sharing our lives, building a relationship. They are tearing it down.

Much is being torn down and reinvented in Hong Kong. Textbooks have been rewritten, political novels purged. The largest pro-democracy newspaper has been shut down, its founder imprisoned. All opposition candidates who participated in primaries for local elections have been arrested. This month, the organizers of Hong Kong's annual Tiananmen Square vigil were arrested too.

Story continues

A film censorship law expected to be passed soon by Hong Kongs legislature (which has been cleared of all opposition members) would exact heavy fines and imprisonment for screening unapproved films. Inspectors would have the power to enter and search any place without a warrant if they deemed evidence was at risk of being destroyed. Previously approved films could be retroactively banned if considered contrary to the interests of national security.

The new law would bring direct political censorship not seen since colonial times to Hong Kong. But self-censorship had for years been creeping into Hong Kong's movie industry. Many directors and screenwriters have become skilled at navigating the censor's demands in order to gain access to the mainland Chinese market, which opened to Hong Kong actors and filmmakers in 2003.

That brought vast commercial opportunity: Chinese audiences, budgets and revenues were much larger than for Hong Kong productions. Many moviemakers headed north, hollowing out the filmmaking scene in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong films released in theaters dwindled from hundreds per year in the 1990s to several dozen in 2020. A growing portion of them are co-productions with mainland Chinese companies that are careful to avoid Beijings disapproval.

The mass migration of film talent to mainland China has left a vacuum in Hong Kong, said Shu Kei, former dean of film and television at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. The new films produced with mainland partners might hit impressive box office numbers. But their self-censorship means an era of Hong Kong identity and history could go unrecorded just as the city's independent spirit is being recast by China's Communist Party.

Films serve as a social record, or even a record of a nation, said Shu. He loves watching Cantonese films from the 1940s and 50s, he said, because they capture how Hong Kong was  and who its people were  at a moment in time.

It reminds me of my childhood. It also depicts a collective memory, Shu said. The suppression of films about the last few years, when millions of Hong Kongers rose up in a massive protest movement that was then brutally crushed, is also an attempt to suppress that collective memory and identity.

The loss is monumental, he said.

That erasure is already happening, even without police raids. In recent months, cinemas have canceled screenings of Inside the Brick Wall, a documentary about a police siege against protesters at a university in 2019. The film's distributor, Ying E Chi, lost government funding and was evicted from its studio after pro-Beijing media accused it of glorifying riots.

The few independent filmmakers still trying to explore Hong Kongs social realities are wrestling with whether its possible to continue working  or if its time to leave.

Mok Kwan Ling, a former journalist who covered the protests in 2019, was recently asked to censor her first fictional project, a short film about a young woman whose boyfriend is arrested during protests and who then confronts his parents when she goes to clean up his apartment. It explores how political disagreement divides families  a familiar theme for many Hong Kong families whose parents and children took opposing sides during the protests.

But in June, the Film Censorship Authority ordered Mok to change the films title  Clean Up is also slang for removing evidence of protest participation  and cut out 14 scenes, including one where the father expresses sympathy with his sons political actions. They also required Mok to add a warning that the activities in the film could constitute a crime.

Mok no longer plans to screen her film in Hong Kong. She wonders if she was too naive when she shot and produced it last November  and if she should leave the city, though she plans to stay for now.

I didnt think the political decline would be so rapid, that something so mild could become controversial in less than a year, she said. I was too optimistic about Hong Kong.

Director Jun Li, 30, said the new censorship rules solidified his decision to pursue independent art films rather than commercial projects. Many directors in mainland China do the same thing  produce low-budget movies that don't compromise on content but can only be screened at festivals abroad.

We come here because we like to create art, not because its easy money, Li said. If we cannot make films freely, I would rather not make films.

In recent years, Hong Kong has cultivated a small but growing audience for stories that sidestep politics but touch on social issues such as minorities, mental disabilities and the disadvantaged, Li said.

Those concerns come from a general change in how we look at our society  and how we participate more in social discussions, Li said.

Lis debut feature film, Tracey, turned heads in 2018 as the first Hong Kong film on transgender issues. His latest movie, Drifting, tells the tale of a homeless community suing the government for destroying their properties. Hes not sure if such topics will soon become taboo.

Chow, the director whose screening was disrupted by police, is under even more pressure. In July, the Cannes Film Festival premiered a documentary hed secretly spent two years making; it takes its title, Revolution of Our Times, from a banned slogan from the 2019 protests. Since then, he has received threats from anonymous callers, warning him to leave the city. Investors and actors have pulled out of his upcoming projects.

Chow knew how risky his project was. The first person arrested under the new national security law had been convicted of inciting separatism and sentenced to nine years in jail for displaying that slogan. But complying with censorship is like dealing with the devil, he said. You become complicit with an unjust system. You might as well pronounce the death of your creative life.

The point of filmmaking  and especially documentary film  is to capture truth, Chow said.

Facing a government that tells lies after lies, an entire society living under lies  I want to tell honest stories, Chow said.

Even with the censors closing in, arrests rising and no one able to watch his documentary in Hong Kong, Chow made his movie. It was a choice, he said, to be free.

Special correspondent Cheung reported from Hong Kong. Staff writer Su reported from Beijing.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Utah authorities have released body camera footage of an incident between missing camper Gabby Petito and her boyfriend Brian Laundrie, who police have named as a person of interest in her disappearance.

Moab City Police Department released their hourlong response footage to a 911 call following an Aug. 12 fight between the young couple in which Petito slapped Laundrie, and he told her to calm down and take a walk.

BOYFRIEND OF GABBY PETITO NAMED AS PERSON OF INTEREST IN DISAPPEARANCE

In the police report, Laundrie is listed as the victim and Petito as the suspect, though Moab City Police Chief Bret Edge said earlier this week that there was not enough evidence for a criminal charge.

According to the police report: "The male tried to create distance by telling Gabbie [sic] to take a walk to calm down. She didn't want to be separated from the male, and began slapping him. He grabbed her face and pushed her back as she pressed upon him and the van."

Petito told officers she suffered from serious anxiety and other medical conditions, and police eventually categorized the incident as a "mental/emotional health break" rather than domestic assault.

She also told police that tension had been growing between her and Laundrie over the past few days and had spilled over. The couple agreed to take a break from one another that night, and police helped Laundrie find a hotel room while Petito remained in possession of her white Ford van.

Petito was reported missing Saturday after her family said they hadn't heard from her since the end of August. She was believed to be in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming when she disappeared. Laundrie has "not made himself available to be interviewed by investigators," police said.

The couple left for the trip on July 22 from New York and made stops in Colorado and Utah. Petito was last seen on Aug. 24 when she and Laundrie checked out of a hotel in Salt Lake City. Her mother, Nicole Schmidt, said she last heard from her daughter on Aug. 25, when Petito told her they were headed to Wyoming.

Story continues

Schmidt said her daughter seemed "excited" about their next adventure but that she began to worry when Petito stopped communicating.

"A few days is one thing when you're out camping, but when it starts to become seven, eight, nine, 10 days, that's a problem," Schmidt told ABC News.

Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie during the road trip in which she went missing. Courtesy of Rick Stafford / Find Gabby





Schmidt said she received two text messages from Petito's phone after Aug. 25 but is skeptical they had been sent by her daughter. The texts did not contain any photos or details of her whereabouts.

On Wednesday, authorities in Florida, where the couple lived, named Laundrie as a person of interest in the missing persons case.

On Thursday, North Port Police Chief Todd Garrison told Good Morning America there were no plans to obtain a search warrant for Laundrie's parents' home.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

"We don't have a crime in this," he said. "We are investigating a missing person. Two people went on a trip, and one person returned. And that person is not talking to us."

He added that Laundrie had the "pieces to the puzzle" that authorities needed to find Petito.

Despite mounting pressure for Laundrie to talk, his family released a statement through their attorney, who described Petito's disappearance as an "extremely difficult time."

"This is understandably an extremely difficult time for both the Petito family and the Laundrie family," attorney Steven Bertolino said. "It is our understanding that a search has been organized for Miss Petito in or near Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. On behalf of the Laundrie family, it is our hope that the search for Miss Petito is successful and that Miss Petito is re-united with her family. On the advice of counsel, the Laundrie family is remaining in the background at this juncture and will have no further comment."

Washington Examiner Videos

Tags: News, Crime, New York, Florida, Utah, National Parks, Missing Person, Law Enforcement

Original Author: Barnini Chakraborty

Original Location: Police release body camera footage of incident between Gabby Petito and boyfriend
The Daily Beast

YouTubeThe last text Gabby Petito sent before she went missing while road-tripping across the U.S. with her fiance set off alarm bells for her mother, who became fearful for the 22-year-olds safety after receiving the odd message.Thats according to a newly-unsealed search warrant giving North Port, Florida, police permission to search a hard drive investigators found in Petitos white van, which she and Brian Laundrie, 23, had been using to tour the countrys national parks.The text message
Pope Francis speaks with journalists on board an Alitalia aircraft enroute from Bratislava back to Rome, Wednesday, 15 September 2021 after a four-day pilgrimage to Hungary and Slovakia (AP)

Pope Francis on Wednesday cautioned Catholic bishops not to get into politics, amid questions among conservative US elements of the church over whether pro-choice politicians like Joe Biden should be allowed to receive communion.

Francis said bishops must deal with those who support abortion rights with compassion and tenderness.

At the same time the pope reiterated strict church doctrine by calling abortion murder, even when done soon after conception.

Francis was speaking to reporters on his flight home from Slovakia, and was asked about the debate simmering among US bishops in the wake of the high-profile Texas abortion law, which Mr Bidens administration strongly opposes.

The problem is not theological, its pastoral, the pope said. How we bishops deal with this principle. We must be pastors, also with those who are excommunicated. Like God with passion and tenderness. The Bible says so, he was quoted as saying by CNN.

Francis declined to address Mr Bidens any more directly, but it was the closest the pope has come to addressing the issue since the Vatican in July ordered bishops to drop their demands to deny Catholic politicians communion for supporting a womens right to abort a baby.

Communion is not a prize for the perfect... communion is a gift, the presence of Jesus and his church, said the pope.

Nonetheless, he went on to say that abortion is murder... those who carry out abortions kill. At the third week after conception, often even before the mother is aware [about her pregnancy], all the organs are already [developing]. It is a human life. Period. And this human life has to be respected. It is very clear. Scientifically, it is a human life.

The pope cited historic atrocities committed by the church in the name of faith when it involved itself in politics, as he asked the pastors to be pastors and not go condemning, condemning.

Be a pastor, because he is a pastor also for the excommunicated.

The comments from the pope come as Mr Bidens Justice Department moved the courts to block the highly restrictive abortion law in Texas from coming into effect. The law effectively prevents a woman from getting an abortion as soon as the foetus develops a heartbeat, which is within six weeks of her pregnancy.

According to a Pew survey, more than half of US Catholics favour abortion rights and over 67 per cent say that Mr Biden should be allowed to receive Communion during Mass despite his abortion stance.

Additional reporting from agencies
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP)  The City Council in Portland, Oregon, has scrapped a plan to boycott Texas businesses because of a new law that prohibits most abortions there, deciding Wednesday to instead set aside $200,000 to fund reproductive care.

The liberal Pacific Northwest city made headlines earlier this month when Mayor Ted Wheeler announced plans to ban city business with the Lone Star State. However the proposal was abandoned due to concerns that it could be punitive to Texans who, are in fact, the most affected by the abortion law.

Ive heard some suggest that this (law) has no bearing on our local community ... I could not disagree more, Wheeler said during a meeting Wednesday. If this Texas law, restricting the rights of women, is allowed to stand then it will spread to other states  it will jeopardize Roe v. Wade and it will impact our constituents here in the city of Portland."

The boycott would have banned the purchase of goods and services by Portland from Texas and bar city employee travel until the legislation is reversed or overturned.

The boycott threat drew the ire of Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who described Portland on Twitter as a dumpster fire and called its leaders depraved in response.

The new plan to fund reproductive services passed 4-1 on Wednesday. Commissioner Mingus Mapps cast the only no vote, saying he was genuinely mystified by what the City Council was trying to accomplish by allocating the $200,000 to fund reproductive care.

Our city is overwhelmed by multiple crises, this council should focus on solving those, said Mapps, who opposed Texass new anti-abortion law. We have a gun violence crisis. We have a homelessness crisis. We have a trash crisis. And we have a pandemic.

The announcement of a possible ban by Portland on doing business with Texas appeared to have come long before the actual policy making, as officials scrambled to nail down how such a boycott would work or could impact Oregon's largest city.

Story continues

Spokesperson Heather Hafer said the city had purchased slightly less than $35 million in goods and services from Texas in the past five years.

During Labor Day, city officials met with reproductive health care providers and advocates to discuss the boycott. Wheeler said advocates disagreed with some elements of of the ban and suggested alternatives.

As a result, the measure approved by the Council sets aside $200,000 for organizations that deliver programs and services related to reproductive healthcare. The resolution does not specify where these organizations should be located, but the city is expected to pick the groups and finalize the grant money during the fall.

The resolution also directs the Council to send a letter to the Oregon Congressional delegation urging them to pass the Womens Health Protection Act.

Will what we do today fundamentally change the mindset of Texas legislators? Probably not," Portland City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty said. But what it will do is send a very strong message, to the people of Texas, that we dont abandon them just because unfortunately they have the leadership that they have.

___

Sara Cline is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
Prince Andrew, Duke of York - David Moffitt/Getty Images

The Duke of York has suffered an early setback in his US sex assault case after a judge refused to unseal a document that could invalidate the damages claim.

Prince Andrew, 61, is said to be pinning his hopes on the settlement  signed by his long time accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre in 2009  which allegedly prevents her from suing.

It came as Ms Giuffres lawyer, David Boies, warned him to accept the lawsuit, saying: Service is not intended to be a game of hide and seek behind palace walls.

The Dukes US lawyer, Andrew Brettler, told a pre-trial hearing on Monday that he believed the agreement Ms Giuffe made with Jeffrey Epstein released the Duke and others from any and all potential liability.

The decision to keep it under wraps means the Duke will now have to engage with his own court process in order to request a copy. That would mean accepting that he has been served the lawsuit and then being exposed to a potentially damaging discovery process.

Alan Dershowitz steps in

Alan Dershowitz, a former lawyer for Epstein, had asked a judge to give the Dukes lawyers a copy of the confidential settlement, believing it will allow them to get the case dropped.

Ms Giuffre had accused Mr Dershowitz of sexual assault in 2019. But she reportedly dropped the claim last month as a direct result of the agreement.

"The same reasons for dismissing the case against me seem to apply to Prince Andrew," Mr Dershowitz said. "These documents should get the charges against Prince Andrew thrown out."

He urged the judge in his own case, Loretta Preska, to unseal the document, warning he was compelled not to sit back silently knowing its contents.

The issue before the court is a matter of professional ethics and the interests of justice, he said.

Alan Dershowitz at the Oxford Union - Roger Askew/Shutterstock

'No basis' to obtain the document

However, Judge Preska was cutting in her response, stating there was no basis for him to obtain the document for a party in a different case.

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To the courts knowledge, Mr Dershowitz has not been commissioned as a roving ethics monitor, she said.

The judge noted that Prince Andrew may have valid reasons for trying to obtain the agreement but that he could do so through the discovery process in his own case.

Meanwhile, the Dukes legal team has sought to further delay the court process by challenging the High Courts agreement to serve him with the claim.

In a move that risks exasperating New York federal judge Lewis Kaplan, his solicitor Gary Bloxsome claimed on Thursday that due process had still not been followed.

The High Court was forced to intervene in the ongoing litigation when Prince Andrew refused to accept that the lawsuit, sent by courier to his Windsor home, posted to his lawyers office and sent by email, had not been properly served.

Mr Bloxsome said in order to comply with the Hague convention, a British court official had to deliver the paperwork.

After representation from Ms Giuffres legal team, the court accepted the request for service. However, Mr Bloxsome said the request had to be made by Judge Kaplan.

Ms Giuffre claims she was forced to have sex with the Duke three times when she was 17. The Duke denies all the claims and says he has no recollection of meeting her.
Paul Veneto pushes his beverage cart. AP Photo/Mary Schwalm

It took more than two weeks for Paul Veneto to walk from Boston Logan Airport to lower Manhattan, and he wasn't alone on his journey  he carried with him the memories of his friends who worked on United Airlines Flight 175, which crashed into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

Veneto, 62, is a retired flight attendant, who regularly worked the Flight 175 route but was off on Sept. 11. On the 20th anniversary of 9/11, Veneto decided he wanted to not only honor the flight crews who lost their lives that day, but also raise money for their families. He called his fundraiser Paulie's Push, and it involved him walking from Boston to Manhattan, pushing a beverage cart.

He traveled more than 200 miles, arriving in Manhattan on Saturday. Along the way, he stopped to meet with other flight attendants, first responders, and people who heard about what he was doing and wanted to offer him support. His beverage cart was decorated with photos of the 9/11 flight crews, and Veneto told The Associated Press in August that it is his mission to ensure they are recognized, adding, "We all can tell this country and the world that these crew members were heroes on 9/11."

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Sep. 15WASHINGTON  The Rochester woman arrested by the FBI this spring for her alleged involvement in the riots at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 pleaded not guilty to four charges Wednesday morning.

Victoria C. White pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court District of Columbia to charges of civil disorder and aiding and abetting, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, and disorderly conduct in a Capitol building or grounds.

White was arrested by Capitol police on Jan. 6. In April, she was arrested by the FBI after a criminal complaint was filed in federal court. She was ordered released on conditions on April 8. Prosecutors did not seek pretrial detention.

While the case was filed this spring, White was not indicted on the charges until Sept. 8. She was arraigned Wednesday morning via a video conference. A speedy trial demand was made by prosecutors on Sept. 3, according to court records.

Court documents state that White was seen in a video arguing with other rioters who were attempting to break the glass of Capitol windows and is seen attempting to physically pull them away from the glass.

In the days after the Capitol riot, the FBI received an anonymous tip that White was involved. The tip asserted that White was using a Facebook page under the name "Janice Marie Evans" and that the profile included photos and posts about White's conduct at the Capitol on Jan. 6, according to court documents.

White allegedly posted on Jan. 7 "A friend said Delete FB stuff. ... I stated I'm not scared i was in the capitol DETAINED and they took my social security # name address they are coming for me. I am not afraid of them or anyone!! There I said it Come get me, You don't know the story, it's not what you think," court documents state.

White is one of five of Minnesotans who have been charged in connection to the Jan. 6. riots. The first Minnesotan to be charged, Jordan Kenneth Stotts, pleaded guilty in July to a single count of parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 9.

More than 500 people have been charged in connection with the Jan. 6 siege of the Capitol that left five people dead and more than 130 police officers injured after thousands of then-President Donald Trump's supporters stormed the building in a failed bid to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden's victory.
An elderly American couple are returning to San Diego after weeks of being harassed and intimidated by the Taliban when trying to get to the Kabul airport in Afghanistan, U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, a San Diego Republican, said in a statement Wednesday.

"This is a cause for celebration and the result of almost countless hours of work under very difficult conditions," Issa said in the release posted to his website. "Our team simply would not give up, and today it paid off and we got them home. While we have made extraordinary progress, but were not stopping until everyone comes home."

The names of the couple, both in their 80s, were being withheld because of safety concerns since they still have family in Afghanistan, according to his office.

Issas office began helping the couple logistically after their granddaughter, Zuhal, contacted his office to tell him they had been repeatedly stopped by the Taliban at airport checkpoints for weeks. Her last name was also withheld for safety reasons.

His office didn't detail how the couple got out of the country.

REP. ISSA ANNOUNCES 2 SAN DIEGO FAMILIES SUCCESSFULLY FREED FROM AFGHANISTAN

The couple is among 33 San Diegans Issa has helped get out of the country since the U.S. withdrew forces and the Taliban took over, the release said.

Among them were six families from San Diego's El Cajon neighborhood who had traveled to the country in the spring to visit relatives.

One family who has students enrolled in the Cajon Valley Union School District remains stuck in Afghanistan. El Cajon, east of San Diego, has a large refugee population.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Congress this week that about 100 U.S. citizens remain in the country and want to leave. Rescue groups and lawmakers believe the number could be higher.
COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP)  Missouris Republican attorney general, Eric Schmitt, sued China over the coronavirus. He signed on to a failed lawsuit seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Now, as he positions himself for a Senate run, hes turning his attention closer to home and suing to stop mask mandates in the state's liberal cities and Missouri schools.

For state attorneys general hoping to gain greater influence and advance their own political agendas, filing lawsuits has become an increasingly common strategy. The partisan divide over coronavirus restrictions has given GOP politicians an opening to showcase their conservative bona fides to voters and capitalize on the publics exhaustion with COVID-19 protocols a year and a half into a pandemic that shows no signs of waning.

For Schmitt, the fight over mask mandates could bolster his support in a crowded primary for retiring GOP Sen. Roy Blunts seat in next years midterm elections.

Schmitt is taking advantage of what we call the politics of grievance, said retired St. Louis University political scientist Steven Puro. Hes going to play on that as much as he possibly can.

Schmitts spokesperson framed the lawsuits as his way of fighting back against government bureaucrats.

Nothing is off the table in our mission to beat back the encroachment and overreach from local to federal government on the liberties and freedom of the people of Missouri, Chris Nuelle said in a statement.

Schmitt, 46, signed on to a letter Thursday from two dozen Republican state attorney generals warning the White House of impending legal action over President Joe Bidens federal vaccine mandate that all employers with more than 100 workers require them to be vaccinated or be tested for the virus weekly.

Missouri has been a national leader in pushing back against the Biden Administration & Covid related mandates, Schmitt tweeted last week. Bidens historic overreach on vaccine mandates will not stand in Missouri.

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While the jobs responsibilities vary by state, most attorneys general are tasked with defending state laws and constitutions and acting as consumer-protection watchdogs.

Theyve long had the power to file headline-grabbing lawsuits with a political edge, but Paul Nolette, an associate professor at Marquette University and an expert on state attorneys general, said theyve traditionally stuck to lower-profile lawsuits against scammers and defending state laws that are challenged in court.

Filing flashy legal challenges became increasingly popular among Republican attorneys general during the Obama era, Nolette said. When Donald Trump became president, Democratic attorneys general took the lead in suing the White House over its policies.

Now Republican (attorneys general) are flexing their muscles during the Biden administration as well, particularly on this issue of suing municipalities and essentially their own constituents," Nolette said. "I would classify that as still unusual, but it's become more common just in the last few years.

GOP attorneys general in red states now are zeroing in on liberal policies adopted by majority Democratic cities, the one place where Democrats have some control, he said.

For example, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has been fighting in court with San Antonio since 2018 over the city's handling of immigrants suspected of being in the United States illegally, accusing city officials of violating a new state law targeting what conservative critics call sanctuary cities."

The practice is less common among Democratic attorneys general. Not because theyre less political, Nolette said, but because fewer people tend to live in rural Republican strongholds, so the impact of blocking conservative policies there is less attention-grabbing.

Even though Schmitt is technically suing his own constituents, University of Central Missouri political scientist Robynn Kuhlmann said Schmitt's lawsuits will resonate in drastically different ways with Republicans and Democrats.

While it may seem as if hes attacking constituents of the liberal perspective, I think its important to note for those who are conservative it is in essence defending rights and liberties, Kuhlmann said.

In fighting mask mandates, Schmitt is acting against the guidance of public health officials, who encourage mask wearing to stop the spread of COVID-19, particularly when it's caused by the more contagious delta variant that has caused a spike in cases, hospitalizations and deaths. Schmitts lawsuit cites the low death rate among school-age children, and he has stressed the importance of letting families make their own health decisions.

A Columbia Public Schools spokesperson said in a statement after Schmitt sued that the district is extremely disappointed to learn that the Missouri Attorney General has chosen to pursue litigation against the school district for providing safety measures for its scholars, teachers, and staff members.

But Republicans might find there are limits to such moves. A recent Republican-fueled effort in California to recall Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, in part over COVID-19 restrictions that he imposed, came up short amid increasing worries over the perniciousness of the delta variant.

Lawsuits can be used as a tool for politically ambitious attorneys general to drum up name recognition, fundraising and votes, Nolette said.

The tactic works, Nolette said, because attorneys general can sue and immediately cash in on the recognition for taking action. The process is more complicated for a state lawmaker, who must work for months and sometimes years to get legislation passed.

Some of these lawsuits, even if the expectation is that theyre not really going to go anywhere, the fact is you can always sue and get a hearing, even if the argument is ridiculous, Nolette said.

Schmitt's lawsuit seeking to hold China responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic is pending in federal court, and the Chinese government has refused to participate. Lawsuits against other countries typically dont go anywhere because U.S. law generally prohibits them.

Schmitt is making more progress on his lawsuits against local masking rules. He secured a win last month when a Missouri judge banned St. Louis County from enforcing its mask mandate while Schmitt's lawsuit plays out in court.

A number of Missouri attorneys general have used the position as a steppingstone to higher political office.

Republican John Ashcroft was attorney general from 1977 to 1985 and later was elected Missouri governor and U.S. senator and then appointed U.S. attorney general under President George W. Bush.

Democrat Jay Nixon served as attorney general from 1993 to 2009, when he was elected governor. And Schmitts predecessor, Republican Josh Hawley, served two years as attorney general before catapulting into the U.S. Senate.

The stakes are high for Schmitt, who faces a slew of other Republican Senate candidates, including former Gov. Eric Greitens, who resigned amid scandal in 2018, and Mark McCloskey, who was recently pardoned along with his wife for waving guns at social justice demonstrators last year. U.S. Reps. Vicky Hartzler and Billy Long also are running.

And even though Missouri now is considered a red state, theres concern among Republicans that the crowded field could give Greitens a path to the GOP nomination and possibly squander what should be an easy win for Republicans.

If Schmitt wants to win, Puro said, he needs to quickly clear the GOP field. Filing lawsuits that garner attention from state voters and wealthy national donors will help, Kuhlmann said.

This allows for name recognition to occur in this crowded field, and also some credit claim in that he has this position as attorney general and is acting on defending Missouris laws, she said.

____

Associated Press writer Meg Kinnard contributed to this report.
Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Steve Daines (R-Mont.) introduced a bill on Wednesday that would award Congressional Gold Medals to 13 U.S. service members killed in last month's bombing at Kabul's international airport.

Why it matters: The deadliest day involving American troops in Afghanistan in more than a decade occurred four days before the full U.S. military withdrawal from the country.

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Details: The medals would be awarded to Maxton Soviak, Kareem Nikoui, David Espinoza, Rylee McCollum, Jared Schmitz, Hunter Lopez, Taylor Hoover, Daegan William-Tyeler Page, Nicole Gee, Humberto Sanchez, Dylan Merola, Johanny Rosario Pichardo, and Ryan Knauss.

The medals would go to the Smithsonian for display and research.

What they're saying: "These individuals demonstrated incredible courage throughout their careers, and we owe it to them to pass legislation to recognize their heroic service with the Congressional Gold Medal," Warren said in a statement.

Daines added: "As the U.S. concludes 20 years of combat in Afghanistan, I believe its fitting that Congress commemorates their sacrifice in this moment with the Congressional Gold Medal."

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WASHINGTON  The special counsel appointed by President Donald Trumps Justice Department to probe the Russia investigation has charged a prominent Democratic lawyer with making a false statement to the FBI by not disclosing he was working for multiple clients, including the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.

Special counsel John Durham charged lawyer Michael Sussman over a statement during a Sept. 19, 2016 meeting between Sussmann and the then-FBI general counsel, James Baker, at which Sussman told Baker about suspicions relating to alleged secret communications between the Trump campaign and Russia. The suspicions were later determined to be unfounded.

According to the indictment, "During the meeting, Sussmann lied about the capacity in which he was providing the allegations to the FBI. Specifically, Sussmann stated falsely that he was not doing his work on the aforementioned allegations for any client, which led the FBI General Counsel to understand that Sussmann was acting as a good citizen merely passing along information, not as a paid advocate or political operative."

"In fact, Sussmann acted on behalf of specific clients, namely a U.S. Technology Industry Executive, a U.S. Internet Company and the Hillary Clinton Presidential Campaign.

The indictment says the lie was material because it misled the FBI about the political nature of his work.

President Joe Bidens Justice Department allowed the indictment to go forward despite a written appeal by Sussmans lawyers to Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Sussmann has resigned from his law firm, Perkins Coie, to focus on his defense, the firm said in a statement.

Sussmanns lawyers, Sean Berkowitz and Michael Bosworth of Latham & Watkins, issued a statement Thursday night decrying the indictment.

Michael Sussmann was indicted today because of politics, not facts," the statement said. "This case represents the opposite of everything the Department of Justice is supposed to stand for."

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"Stripped of its political bluster, innuendo, and irrelevant details, what is striking about the allegations in the indictment is how few of them actually relate to the charge the Special Counsel chose to bring. At its core, the Special Counsel is bringing a false statement charge based on an oral statement allegedly made five years ago to a single witness that is unrecorded and unobserved by anyone else. The Department of Justice would ordinarily never bring such a baseless case."

The indictment says that Sussmann was advising the Clinton campaign in 2016 on cybersecurity matters, and that a partner at his firm served as general counsel for the campaign. It also says that Sussmann billed the Clinton campaign for his time when meeting with the tech executive to discuss the alleged links between Russia and the Trump campaign.

Sussmann's lawyers have denied that he was working for the Clinton campaign during the 2016 meeting with the FBI's Baker, a source familiar with the matter said.

Baker told investigators he remembered Sussmann saying he was not meeting him on behalf of any client. In 2017, Sussman told Congress that when he spoke to Baker he was representing an unnamed cybersecurity expert.

Durham, a former U.S. attorney for Connecticut, was appointed to examine how the FBI, the CIA and other agencies investigated Russias interference in the 2016 election and potential connections between Russia and the Trump campaign. He negotiated a guilty plea from an FBI lawyer who was sentenced to probation after admitting to lying on a surveillance warrant application.

The Sussmann meeting with Baker has been the subject of sworn testimony by both men before the House Intelligence Committee investigating the Trump-Russia affair. At the time, Sussmann represented the Democratic National Committee and was working on matters related to Russias 2016 hacking of its servers, according to his 2017 Congressional testimony.

At the Sept. 19, 2016, meeting, Sussmann passed along analysis by cybersecurity researchers who were asserting that obscure internet data raised the possibility of a secret communications channel between computer servers associated with the Trump Organization and Russias largest commercial financial institution, Alfa Bank, according to the source and to Sussmanns House testimony.

At the time, the Clinton campaign was pushing the Alfa Bank story hard to the news media.

The FBI later ruled out the idea that Alfa Bank was involved in secret Trump-Russia communications, according to a bipartisan Senate report on the Trump-Russia affair.

A source familiar with the matter said Sussmanns lawyers argued to the Justice Department that regardless of who he was representing, no statement he made to Baker met the test of being material, meaning that it influenced the FBIs actions. The FBI would have investigated the Alfa Bank allegations either way, the lawyers argued, because the New York Times had been working on a story about them.

Typically, legal experts say, people prosecuted for false statements are witnesses or potential defendants who misled FBI agents investigating crimes, as was the case with Trumps former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and then was pardoned.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Thursday that the State Department is partnering with Welcome.US, an aid group helping to welcome and support Afghan refugees who fled their country for the U.S.

Why it matters: The partnership is part of the Biden administration's Operation Allies Welcome, which involves the processing and resettlement of the more than 65,000 Afghans evacuated during the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan.

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Former Presidents Obama, Bush and Clinton, along with former first ladies Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush and Michelle Obama, will serve as honorary co-chairs of Welcome.US, which officially launched on Tuesday.

Several governors, including Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, and other leaders have also partnered with the organization.

What they're saying: "This initiative aims to catalyze support from Americans from all walks of life to support newly arriving Afghans, engaging a range of private sector actors," Blinken said in a statement.

"The generosity displayed by the American people in welcoming newly arrived Afghans as part of Operation Allies Welcome has been nothing short of remarkable and is a clear demonstration of our values as a nation of immigrants that welcomes refugees and vulnerable populations from across the world," he added.

The big picture: An initial group of 37,000 Afghan evacuees is set to start arriving in 46 states in the coming weeks, Axios' Stef Kight reports.

The group of refugees includes some Afghans who helped the U.S. in Afghanistan and applied for the Special Immigrant Visa.

Go deeper: Afghanistan feeds U.S. immigration crisis

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By Ben Blanchard and Yimou Lee

TAIPEI (Reuters) -Taiwan proposed on Thursday extra defense spending of T$240 billion ($8.69 billion) over the next five years, including on new missiles, as it warned of an urgent need to upgrade weapons in the face of a "severe threat" from giant neighbor China.

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen has made modernizing the armed forces - well-armed but dwarfed by China's - and increasing defense spending a priority, especially as Beijing ramps up military and diplomatic pressure against the island it claims as "sacred" Chinese territory.

The new money, which comes on top of planned military spending of T$471.7 billion for 2022, will need to be approved by parliament where Tsai's ruling party has a large majority, meaning its passage should be smooth.

Taiwan's Defense Ministry said China's military strength had grown rapidly and it had continued to invest heavily in defense.

"In the face of severe threats from the enemy, the nation's military is actively engaged in military building and preparation work, and it is urgent to obtain mature and rapid mass production weapons and equipment in a short period of time," it said in a statement.

Deputy Defense Minister Wang Shin-lung told reporters the new arms would all be made domestically, as Taiwan boosts its own production prowess, though the United States will probably remain an important provider of parts and technology.

Taiwan has been keen to demonstrate that it can defend itself, especially amid questions about whether the United States would come to its aid if China attacked.

"Only if we ensure our security and show determination will the international community think well of us," said Cabinet spokesman Lo Ping-cheng. "Others will only help us if we help ourselves."

The additional cash will likely be well received in Washington, which has been pushing Taiwan to modernize its military to make it more mobile so it can become a "porcupine," hard for China to attack.

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Ingrid Larson, one of Washington's unofficial representatives for Taiwan, stressed there was "a real and urgent need" for Taiwan to pursue defense reforms.

"As allies and partners in the region and around the globe increasingly push back on China's aggressive action, it is important that Taiwan remain committed to the changes that only it can make for itself," she told the Center for a New American Security think tank.

"Taiwan must build as strong a deterrent as possible and as quickly as possible. Taiwan needs truly asymmetric capability, and a strong reserve force. Asymmetry means systems which are mobile, survivable and lethal."

Larson is managing director of the Washington office of the American Institute in Taiwan, which handles U.S. relations with Taiwan in the absence of formal diplomatic links.

The weapons Taiwan aims to buy with the money include cruise missiles and warships, the defense ministry said.

Taiwan has been testing new, long-range missiles off its southern and eastern coasts, and while it has not given details, diplomats and experts have said they are likely to be able to hit targets far into China.

Taiwan has already put into service a new class of stealth warship, which it calls an "aircraft carrier killer" due to its missile complement, and is developing its own submarines.

The announcement comes as Taiwan is in the middle of its annual Han Kuang military drills.

On Thursday, its army simulated fending off an invasion, firing artillery out to sea from a beach on its southern coast.

($1 = 27.6330 Taiwan dollars)

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Yimou Lee; Additional reporting by Roger Tung and Jeanny Kao and David Brunnstrom in Washington; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman, Sam Holmes and Jonathan Oatis)
AUSTIN, Texas  Texas Gov. Greg Abbott made the unprecedented move of shutting down six ports of entry with Mexico on Thursday following a surge of migrants crossing illegally into the United States. However, he reversed course an hour later, saying the Biden administration changed course and refused to shut the crossings.

Earlier in the day, the Republican governor said he directed the Department of Public Safety and the Texas National Guard to shut down six points of entry on the southern border to "stop these caravans from overrunning our state."

The sheer negligence of the Biden Administration to do their job and secure the border is appalling," he had said in a statement provided to the Washington Examiner Thursday afternoon. Abbott's office did not specify which six ports of entry would be shuttered or how long the closure would last. However, Abbott said the federal agency, Customs and Border Protection, asked the state to step in and assist.

But shortly after announcing the closure, which only the federal government has the ability to do because ports are federally operated, Abbott reversed course, saying ports would be open.

"Six hours after the U.S. Customs and Border Protection requested help from Texas to close ports of entry and secure the border, the Biden Administration has now flip-flopped to a different strategy that abandons border security and instead makes it easier for people to cross illegally and for cartels to exploit the border," Abbott wrote in a statement.

"The Biden Administration is in complete disarray and is handling the border crisis as badly as the evacuations from Afghanistan," Abbott said.

Instead, Texas National Guard and Department of Public Safety officers will be present in the area to "deter crossings." However, military and police cannot arrest migrants on immigration crimes, as it is a federal crime and only federal law enforcement can make an arrest.

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Images that show thousands of people who illegally crossed the border and are in Border Patrol custody under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas, were published this week on Twitter by Fox News reporter Bill Melugin.

Border Patrol does not have facility space to detain and process the thousands being encountered, and an unknown number of people are evading detection when crossing and getting away.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

CBP, which oversees the Border Patrol, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Washington Examiner Videos

Tags: News, National Security, Immigration, Migrants, Coronavirus, Greg Abbott, Texas, Customs and Border Protection, Border Patrol

Original Author: Anna Giaritelli

Original Location: Abbott says Biden reversed course and refused to allow closure of Texas border crossings
A Texas man has been arrested in the killing a teenager whose nude body was left near a road over 28 years ago, officials said.

Emily Jeanette King, 15, was no longer living with her mom and sister in the time before her death and instead stayed with friends in San Antonio, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Her body was found by a road in nearby Comal County on Feb. 25, 1993. Investigators said she had been strangled and sexually assaulted.

Emily remained unidentified until 1994 when a family member saw a news report about the death and called police, officials said.

But the investigation stalled for decades until the Comal County Sheriffs Office reopened its investigation in 2017 and this year asked the Texas Rangers to review the case.

Texas Rangers and the sheriffs office re-interviewed numerous people included in the initial investigation and uncovered new information.

On Friday, Thomas Ray Galindo, 50, was arrested at his home in Brazoria and charged with murder, officials said. Galindo, who was 21 at the time of Emilys death, was described as an acquaintance to her.

The Texas Department of Public Safety has not released details of the renewed investigation.

Alabama Guard member at Texas border tries to traffic cocaine at Whataburger, feds say

Man shot and killed while riding his four-wheeler in Texas neighborhood, police say

EMT and sister-in-law found shot to death in ambulance barn, Oklahoma officials say
Thai lawmakers on Thursday gave initial approval to a law against torture and forced disappearances, after years of delay and criticism from rights groups.

Activists have long accused authorities of state-sanctioned abductions and torture, and the UN says there have been more than 80 disappearances since 1980.

The kingdom's criminal code does not currently recognise the offences, but rogue state officials convicted under the new legislation will face long prison terms.

On Thursday, the draft law passed a first reading in parliament, though it is not clear when lawmakers will take it up again, or when it will finally come into effect.

"This is considered as an initial success after we waited for a year and a half for the draft bill," opposition Move Forward Party MP Rangsiman Rome told local media.

"Torture and disappearance cases have become an important issue, which the parliament has agreed to push forward."

The legislation has been long in coming -- the cabinet approved the changes in 2016 and bills languished for years on the parliamentary agenda.

Nine Thai citizens have disappeared in neighbouring countries since a military coup in 2014, including two whose bodies were dumped in the Mekong River after they were abducted in Laos in 2018.

Last year prominent Thai activist Wanchalearm Satsaksit was dragged off the street in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh and has not been seen since.

Thursday's vote came weeks after police brutality was thrust into the headlines with the leaking of video showing a drug suspect being suffocated with plastic bags during police interrogation.

Thailand signed a UN convention on enforced disappearances in 2012 but has yet to ratify the treaty.

In its 2021 annual report, Human Rights Watch said Thai authorities "engage in practices that facilitate torture and enforced disappearances, such as the use of secret detention by anti-narcotics units, and secret military detention of national security suspects".

ton-lpm/pdw/axn
Just because a business does not make any money, does not mean that the stock will go down. For example, although Amazon.com made losses for many years after listing, if you had bought and held the shares since 1999, you would have made a fortune. But while history lauds those rare successes, those that fail are often forgotten; who remembers Pets.com?

Given this risk, we thought we'd take a look at whether Genesis Minerals (ASX:GMD) shareholders should be worried about its cash burn. For the purpose of this article, we'll define cash burn as the amount of cash the company is spending each year to fund its growth (also called its negative free cash flow). Let's start with an examination of the business' cash, relative to its cash burn.

View our latest analysis for Genesis Minerals

When Might Genesis Minerals Run Out Of Money?

A company's cash runway is the amount of time it would take to burn through its cash reserves at its current cash burn rate. When Genesis Minerals last reported its balance sheet in December 2020, it had zero debt and cash worth AU$18m. In the last year, its cash burn was AU$12m. So it had a cash runway of approximately 19 months from December 2020. While that cash runway isn't too concerning, sensible holders would be peering into the distance, and considering what happens if the company runs out of cash. The image below shows how its cash balance has been changing over the last few years.

How Is Genesis Minerals' Cash Burn Changing Over Time?

Whilst it's great to see that Genesis Minerals has already begun generating revenue from operations, last year it only produced AU$114k, so we don't think it is generating significant revenue, at this point. Therefore, for the purposes of this analysis we'll focus on how the cash burn is tracking. Over the last year its cash burn actually increased by a very significant 70%. Oftentimes, increased cash burn simply means a company is accelerating its business development, but one should always be mindful that this causes the cash runway to shrink. Genesis Minerals makes us a little nervous due to its lack of substantial operating revenue. We prefer most of the stocks on this list of stocks that analysts expect to grow.

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How Easily Can Genesis Minerals Raise Cash?

Given its cash burn trajectory, Genesis Minerals shareholders may wish to consider how easily it could raise more cash, despite its solid cash runway. Issuing new shares, or taking on debt, are the most common ways for a listed company to raise more money for its business. Commonly, a business will sell new shares in itself to raise cash and drive growth. By comparing a company's annual cash burn to its total market capitalisation, we can estimate roughly how many shares it would have to issue in order to run the company for another year (at the same burn rate).

Genesis Minerals has a market capitalisation of AU$155m and burnt through AU$12m last year, which is 7.4% of the company's market value. Given that is a rather small percentage, it would probably be really easy for the company to fund another year's growth by issuing some new shares to investors, or even by taking out a loan.

So, Should We Worry About Genesis Minerals' Cash Burn?

Even though its increasing cash burn makes us a little nervous, we are compelled to mention that we thought Genesis Minerals' cash burn relative to its market cap was relatively promising. While we're the kind of investors who are always a bit concerned about the risks involved with cash burning companies, the metrics we have discussed in this article leave us relatively comfortable about Genesis Minerals' situation. On another note, Genesis Minerals has 4 warning signs (and 2 which are a bit unpleasant) we think you should know about.

If you would prefer to check out another company with better fundamentals, then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, that have HIGH return on equity and low debt or this list of stocks which are all forecast to grow.

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.



Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.
NEW YORK (AP)  Three imprisoned Iranian dissidents will be honored next month at Pen America's annual gala.

The literary and human rights organization announced Thursday that writer-filmmaker Baktash Abtin, novelist-journalist Keyvan Bajan and author-critic Reza Khandan Mahabadi are this year's recipients of the 2021 PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award. All three are members of the anti-censorship Iranian Writers Association and are serving a collective 15.5 years on charges including endangering national security and spreading propaganda.

Baktash Abtin, Keyvan Bajan, and Reza Khandan Mahabadi are embodiments of the spirit that animates our work at PEN America. They are writers who are called not only to offer prose and ideas on a page, but to live fearlessly  and sacrifice immensely in service of the liberties that underpin free thought, art, culture, and creativity," PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel said in a statement.

By taking up the mantle of leadership within Irans literary community, they have served as beacons for countless authors and thinkers whose ability to imagine, push boundaries, and challenge repression under the most dangerous conditions is fed by the knowledge that they do not stand alone.

The PEN gala is scheduled for Oct. 5 at its longtime venue the American Museum of Natural History, with Awkwafina serving as host and others receiving awards including scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Walt Disney Chairman Robert Iger. Last year's ceremony was held online because of the pandemic.

The Freedom to Write Award, given to artists and writers jailed for their work, has been awarded to Russian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov and the Chinese writer-activist Xu Zhiyong among others. According to PEN, 44 out of the previous 48 honorees have since been freed.

PEN has not yet determined who will accept the award on behalf of this year's winners.
Two people were killed and dozens injured when a shallow earthquake struck southwestern China in the early hours of Thursday, triggering the second-highest level of emergency response by rescuers in Sichuan province.

The US Geological Survey put the magnitude of the quake at 5.4 but the China Earthquake Networks Centre measured it at magnitude 6.0. Both put it at a shallow depth of 10 kilometres (six miles).

It struck Luxian county around 120 kilometres southwest of the sprawling megacity of Chongqing, which along with its surrounding area is home to around 30 million people.

Luxian authorities said the seismic event had left "two dead, three seriously injured and 50 slightly injured, while 22 houses in the county collapsed".

Scores of houses have been damaged, while communications had been disrupted to tens of thousands of people.

But authorities downplayed the immediate threat of a larger aftershock.

"It is unlikely there will be a larger earthquake in the area in the near future, but aftershocks will continue for some time," Du Bin, deputy chief of the Sichuan Earthquake Administration, told reporters.

State broadcaster CGTN confirmed the death toll, sharing security camera footage showing TVs and refrigerators shaking on the walls of houses as the quake struck, as ornaments smashed onto floors and cracks ran through buildings.

Bricks were strewn across roads and trees felled in some areas as firefighters clawed through the rubble of collapsed houses, the images showed.

Residents were urged to stay outside of their homes, state media reported, although images showed there was little sense of wider panic by residents in an area of high seismic activity.

The USGS said that "significant damage is likely and the disaster is potentially widespread", in a preliminary assessment.

The Sichuan government said in a Weibo statement that multiple power lines had been disrupted and 62,000 households were hit by power cuts after the earthquake.

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A powerful 7.9-magnitude quake in Sichuan province in 2008 left 87,000 people dead or missing.

Among them were thousands of children, killed when poorly constructed school buildings collapsed, but the government failed to release an exact number of dead as the issue took on a political dimension.

Police detained activists who attempted to count the number of children who had died and mark the buildings which collapsed amid suspicions of poor construction.

bur/apj/qan
The Conversation

With a beam of light, an otoscope allows a clinician to examine the ear canal and eardrum. SolStock/E+ via Getty ImagesEar pain is one of the most common reasons that young children go to the doctor, and acute otitis media  which means middle ear infection  is the most frequent cause for the use of antibiotics in children under 5 years of age. Twenty-five percent of children will have an ear infection by their first birthday, and 60% by age 5. As a pediatrician, I see children in my clinic d
MANILA (Reuters) - The United Nations children's agency UNICEF has urged education authorities to reopen schools as soon as possible in countries where millions of students are still not allowed to return to classrooms 18 months into the COVID-19 pandemic.

Schools in around 17 countries remain fully closed, while those in 39 countries remain partially closed, according to a report released by UNICEF on Thursday.

Among those "almost completely closed" are schools usually attended by nearly 77 million students in the Philippines, Bangladesh, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Panama and Kuwait.

Nearly a third of this figure is accounted for by the Philippines, which is fighting one of Asia's worst coronavirus outbreaks and where a new school year started this week.

Pupils from the six countries represent more than half of the 131 million students worldwide that have missed more than three-quarters of their in-person learning, UNICEF said.

"The education crisis is still here, and with each passing day that classrooms remain dark, the devastation worsens," said UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore.

The report said teachers should be prioritised for COVID-19 vaccines, after health workers and those most at risk, to protect them from community transmission.

Students may be safer at home, but the availability of computers, mobile phones and internet, and the uneven quality of education, are among challenges they continue to face.

In the Philippines, some children have been forced to climb onto roofs just to get an internet signal.

In June, President Rodrigo Duterte rejected a proposal to allow face-to-face classes to resume in some areas, saying: "I cannot gamble on the health of the children."

In a report released in April, the Asian Development Bank estimated school closures lasting more than a year could slash future earnings among the region's students by as much as $1.25 trillion, or equivalent to 5.4% of GDP in 2020.

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UNICEF and its partners will shut down their digital channels for 18 hours on Thursday to draw attention to the crisis and the "18 months of lost learning".

"This is a crisis we will not allow the world to ignore," UNICEF's Fore said. "Our channels are silent, but our message is loud: Every community, everywhere must reopen schools as soon as possible."

(Reporting by Enrico Dela Cruz; Editing by Ed Davies)
(REUTERS)

The union representing hundreds of striking Nabisco workers has reached a tentative agreement with the snack giants parent company as work stoppages in several states, nationwide boycotts and protests entered a second month.

Workers behind Oreo and Chips Ahoy! cookies and Ritz crackers initiated a strike in August after failing to reach a deal on a new contract with Mondelez International, the brands parent company.

The strike spread to Nabisco facilities in five states, as workers reached a breaking point amid factory closures, concerns over outsourcing to Mexico, and changes to pay, schedules and healthcare coverage that workers and unions say have undermined their labour, all during the coronavirus pandemic that has seen a snack boom with record profits.

Workers called for a product boycott, drawing widespread public attention, including from actor Danny DeVito, who called his Twitter followers to support workers striking for humane working hours, fair pay, outsourcing jobs.

NO CONTRACTS NO SNACKS, he wrote.

US Senator Bernie Sanders also announced his support for striking workers.

If Nabisco can rake in billions of dollars in corporate profits, they can afford to treat their workers with dignity and respect, he said on 18 August.

Mondelez briefly threatened legal action against the union, which was hit with a cease-and-desist notice for interrupting the companys operations.

The union reached a tentative agreement on a new contract on 14 September, according to Anthony Shelton, president of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union.

Local union chapters will vote on the contract after it is presented to members in the coming days, he said.

I want to thank and commend all of the members of the bargaining committee for their many, many hours of extremely hard work to reach this tentative agreement, Mr Shelton said in a statement. As always in our Union, the members will have the final say on the contract.

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This year, Mondelez closed Nabisco facilities in Georgia and New Jersey, where the companys decades-old bakeries employed roughly 1,000 workers combined.

Those shutdowns triggered concerns among workers that the company could eliminate their union jobs and move production to Mexico, after closures at a Chicago plant and a shift to production in Mexico in 2016 made headlines during that years presidential race.

The 2021 strike kicked off in Portland, Oregon, where more than 200 workers at a Nabisco bakery ignited a strike that spread to Illinois, Virginia, and distribution centres in Colorado and Georgia.

Workers have objected to company proposals to roll back healthcare coverage and work shifts that include 12-hour days without overtime pay.

In an offer released publicly on 31 August, Mondelez modified a work schedule proposal and offered a bonus of $5,000 per employee, annual wage increases, and a boost to the companys matching contributions to workers 401k plans.

It also offered alternative work schedules of 12-hour shifts which would alternative three to four days a week only on select, high-demand lines in bakeries.

That offer expired on 7 September, and the company and union resumed in-person bargaining this week.

Mondelez said the latest agreement for new contracts has been fully recommended by both parties.

Union employees at the Portland, Richmond and Chicago bakeries and at distribution facilities in Aurora, Colorado, Addison, Illinois and Norcross, Georgia will have the opportunity to vote on ratifying the new contracts in the coming days, the company said in a statement.

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Macron, Merkel to meet in Paris on world's crises, EU issues
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A teenage city council member in Morgan County, Alabama, who tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday after railing against mask mandates said hes now battling coronavirus-related pneumonia in the hospital.

I am still shallow in breathing but my oxygen remains okay for now, Decatur City Councilman Hunter Pepper, 19, wrote on Facebook Thursday. He received a CT scan on Wednesday night that confirmed he has COVID pneumonia, which is absolutely terrible, he wrote.

On Wednesday, Pepperwhos repeatedly slammed mask mandates and refused to get vaccinated said that he took two rapid tests and a PCR test for the coronavirus after he started to feel sick on Monday.

Well, it has finally happened to me. Unfortunately, this morning I have confirmed two positive [tests] for Covid-19, Pepper wrote Wednesday on Facebook. Everything In me wants to tell myself it is something different but every way I look its Covid this, Covid that and it has terrified me and my family.

Another COVID Orphan, Another Dead Hero, and Now More States Forced to Ration Care

Pepper wrote that he was terrified by the way that the media continues to report on Covid-19 and explains Death each time they do, adding that he has faith in the lord.

Maybe this will clear up soon and the symptoms of this sickness shall not progress as I can tell you, it feels terrible not to be able to breathe.

He later told the Decatur Daily News that he had begun to show a massive amount of symptoms of the virus on Wednesday and that his oxygen levels were holding a little well, and I dont feel good at all.

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Peppers diagnosis has raised concerns over whether he may have exposed other local officials during a city council work session earlier in the week.

Carlton McMasters, a councilman who was seated beside Pepper at the in-person meeting, told the outlet that he has not had any symptoms.

Im fully vaccinated, McMasters said, according to the outlet. Im trying my best to follow the CDC guidelines.

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Pepper, who is training to become an emergency medical technician, has routinely challenged pandemic-related restrictions as a city councilman, both slamming mask mandates and opting not to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, the outlet reported.

I dont believe you should be forced to do something like this, its wrong and its government overreach, Pepper said in April as the city considered repealing a local mask mandate, according to WAFF.

Me wearing a mask should be my choice, Pepper said, days later, in an April 9 vote to end the citys mask order, per WAAY.

Last month, Pepper, who became the youngest person elected to Decaturs city council last year, vowed that he would fight to the end against another city mask mandate.

Only 41 percent of the countys eligible population has been vaccinated, CDC data shows.

Everybody at City Hall is over 18 and old enough to make their own medical decisions, he declared at the time.

On Aug. 18, the Alabama Hospital Association said that there were negative 29 ICU beds available in the state, meaning that dozens of people in the emergency room were kept waiting for beds to be vacated for treatment, WBRC reported at the time.

As the Delta variant ripped through the state over the summer, Alabama saw a massive COVID-19 spike, with more cases recorded in August than in any month since the pandemic began.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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General Mark Milley said the calls were made as part of his duty as Joint Chief of Staffs

Top US General Mark Milley has defended himself after a book reported he had "secret" phone calls with China amid concerns about then-President Donald Trump.

The calls last October and January were to reassure the Chinese military, Gen Milley said on Wednesday.

Mr Trump said the claims were fabricated and Republicans have called for the general to be fired.

President Joe Biden said he has "great confidence" in Gen Milley.

Gen Milley's spokesman said that the calls were in keeping with his "duties and responsibilities conveying reassurance in order to maintain strategic stability".

The phone calls to Chinese General Li Zuocheng were revealed on Tuesday in extracts from a new book by Washington Post investigative reporters. They were made just after the presidential election and after Mr Trump refused to accept his defeat.

The book, "Peril", said that after the January 6 riots, Gen Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "was certain that Trump had gone into a serious mental decline in the aftermath of the election".

He was allegedly worried that Mr Trump could "go rogue", the book claims.

He allegedly told the Chinese general that the "American government is stable" and reassured Gen Li that the US would not attack. If they did so, the Chinese would be warned first, the extract quotes him as saying.

The book also said that Gen Milley had told his staff that if Mr Trump ordered a nuclear strike, then he would have to confirm it before it was carried out.

Mr Trump accused Gen Milley of "treason" and described the claims as "fake news" in a statement.

Senior Republican Senator Marco Rubio has also called for Mr Biden to fire the general.

On Wednesday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said: "The president has complete confidence in his leadership, his patriotism and his fidelity to our Constitution."

She added that Mr Biden has complete confidence in Gen Milley continuing to serve in his role.
(Photo: Team Secret)

Team Secret have punched their ticket to VALORANT Champions, the final and marquee tournament of the 2021 VALORANT Champions Tour (VCT), even after their roster missed out on competing in the ongoing VCT Stage 3 Masters tournament in Berlin, Germany.

While the circumstances leading to Secret's qualification for VALORANT Champions have been complicated, it ultimately boiled down to rivals Paper Rex making an early exit from Masters Berlin in 13th-15th place.

As a result, both Secret and Paper Rex earned 175 VCT circuit points from the tournament and had a total of 225 points.

Secret won the point tiebreaker by virtue of their roster, then playing under Bren Esports, sweeping Paper Rex in the grand finals of the VCT SEA Stage 3 Challengers Playoffs back in August.

Both squads earned a spot in Masters Berlin for finishing in the top two of their region's Stage 3 Challengers event, though the then-Bren Esports squad were forced to sit out Masters Berlin due to visa issues.

The roster then parted ways with the Bren Esports organisation on 8 September to join Team Secret on 9 September.

In accordance to VCT rules, Secret's roster were able to keep the circuit points they earned from their time with Bren Esports as the entire roster was retained in their move to a new organisation.

In such situations, a minimum of three players from the previous team were required to be transferred to the new organisation in order to retain their circuit points.

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With that said, Paper Rex can still earn a spot in VALORANT Champions through the Last Chance Qualifier for the circuit's Asia-Pacific region.

Aside from Secret, Thai team X10 Esports have also secured a direct invite to VALORANT Champions as a result of leading Southeast Asia in circuit points with 295.

Secret and X10 Esports will be joining 16 other teams from North America, Latin America, Brazil, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Korea, and Japan in VALORANT Champions.

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The final and marquee tournament of the 2021 VCT will be held in Berlin, Germany from 2 to 12 December and will crown the first-ever VALORANT world champions.

Team Secret VALORANT roster:

Jessie "JessieVash" Cuyco Jayvee "DubsteP" Paguirigan Jim "BORKUM" Timbreza Kevin "Dispenser" Te Riley "witz" Go

For more esports news updates, visit https://yhoo.it/YahooEsportsSEA and check out Yahoo Esports Southeast Asias Facebook page and Twitter.

Watch more videos on Yahoo
Marlboro cigarette maker Philip Morris International (PMI) has sealed its 1bn bid for the UK inhaler firm Vectura.

PMI has said its bid is now supported by owners of almost three-quarters of Vectura's shares - more than the 50% needed for the takeover to go through.

Vectura makes inhaled medicines and devices to treat respiratory illnesses such as asthma.

Dozens of health groups had urged Vectura to reject the firm's bid.

In a statement, PMI's chief executive, Jacek Olczak, said: "We have reached an important milestone in our acquisition of Vectura and are pleased to have secured over 74% of the company's shares, in excess of the 50% required to make our offer unconditional and PMI the majority shareholder.

Mr Olczak added that he was "excited" by expanding the firm's product offer beyond cigarettes and vape pens and working with Vectura's scientists.

PMI recently said that it could stop selling cigarettes in the UK in 10 years' time as it focuses on alternatives, such as heated tobacco.

The firm says that since 2008, it has invested more than $8bn (5.8bn) in developing smoke-free products.

Nonetheless the deal has faced controversy, with charities and medical groups warning the British firm Vectura against "selling out".

'Considerable problems'

More than 20 UK, US and European organisations have written to Vectura's management urging it to reconsider the takeover on ethical and practical grounds.

"Vectura has sold out millions of people with lung disease, and instead prioritised short-term financial gain over the long-term viability of Vectura as a business," said Sarah Woolnough, chief executive of Asthma UK and the British Lung Foundation.

She added that the fact Vectura was now owned by a tobacco company could cause "considerable problems", such as the firm being excluded from research trials.

Story continues

"It creates perverse incentives for PMI to sell more of its harmful products so they might then profit again through treating smoking-related diseases."

Ms Woolnough called on the government to stop the deal from happening, citing its commitment to the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

The board of Vectura had backed the 1.1bn takeover by PMI unanimously. After that, Philip Morris started buying shares on the open market, securing a stake of 29.9% last month.

Remaining shareholders were asked to approve the deal and sell their shares in principle. For the deal to complete, 50% needed to agree.

PMI is now calling on the remaining investors to accept its offer of 1.65 per share, which beat a rival bid from US private equity group Carlyle. They have until 30 September to do so.
CARACAS/LA PAZ (Reuters) - Venezuela and Bolivia on Thursday rejected U.S. President Joe Biden's claims the prior day that the countries had failed to meet counternarcotics obligations.

In a memo released by the White House, Biden said the two South American countries had not improved their efforts over the prior 12 months. U.S. officials have long accused Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and other top authorities of involvement in drug trafficking, which they deny.

In a statement posted on Twitter, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Felix Plasencia accused Washington of behaving like a "supranational police of sovereign and independent states."

"Venezuela complies strictly with the requirements of international conventions on the control of psychotropic and narcotic substances," read the statement.

Maduro, a socialist and staunch critic of the United States, has long maintained that Venezuela is a victim of the violence surrounding drug trafficking because of its lengthy, porous border with Colombia, one of the largest cocaine-producing countries in the world.

Bolivian Interior Minister Eduardo del Castillo said leftist President Luis Arce's government had managed to eradicate more than 6,000 hectares (14,800 acres)of coca plants, the main raw material to make cocaine, and had taken down criminal organizations.

"We reject this report because it has been prepared unilaterally," del Castillo told reporters, adding that the United States had not conducted research inside the country as multilateral organizations focused on combating drug trafficking tend to do.

"We have a strategy, we have a plan, and we have the mission of a full fight against drug trafficking."

(Reporting by Deisy Buitrago in Caracas and Daniel Ramos in in La Paz; Writing by Luc Cohen)
By Christian Akorlie

ACCRA (Reuters) -West Africa's main regional bloc on Thursday imposed sanctions against the junta in Guinea and those slowing Mali's post-coup transition - its toughest response yet to a run of military takeovers.

The move was agreed at an emergency summit of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in Accra to respond to last week's putsch in Guinea https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/guinea-junta-starts-transitional-government-talks-following-coup-2021-09-14 and perceived slow progress towards constitutional rule in Mali following a coup last year.

Regional heads of state decided to freeze the financial assets and impose travel bans on Guinea's junta members and their relatives, insisting on the release of President Alpha Conde and a short transition.

"In six months elections should be held," said ECOWAS Commission President Jean-Claude Kassi Brou at a briefing.

The bloc also piled more pressure on Mali's transitional government, demanding they stick to an agreement to organise elections for February 2022 and present an electoral roadmap by next month, according to the post-summit communique.

Anyone in Mali hindering preparations for the elections faces the same sanctions as those imposed in Guinea, it said.

Leaders who took part in the summit hailed this more hardline stance. West and Central Africa has seen four coups since last year - political upheaval that has intensified concerns about a backslide towards military rule in a resource-rich but poverty-stricken region.

"I welcome the strong actions of the summit to safeguard democracy, peace, security and stability in the subregion," Senegalese President Macky Sall tweeted.

Coup leaders in Guinea are holding consultations this week with various public figures, groups and business leaders in the country to map a framework for the transition.

Late on Thursday they said they were also expecting a delegation of regional heads of state to visit Conakry for talks on Friday.

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Soldiers behind the Sept. 5 coup have said they ousted Conde because of concerns about poverty and corruption, and because he was serving a third term only after altering the constitution to permit it.

Meanwhile the putsch in Mali was largely precipitated by a security crisis, which has seen militants linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State extend their influence across the north and centre of the country.

The new Malian authorities' pledge to hold presidential and legislative elections early next year has been undermined by their failure to meet various deadlines, including the start of voter roll updates and the presentation of a new constitution.

The transition was dealt a further setback in May when the colonel who led the initial coup, Assimi Goita, ordered the arrest of the interim president and then took over the role himself.

(Additional reporting by Saliou Samb in Conakry and Bate Felix in Dakar; Writing by Cooper Inveen, Bate Felix and Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne, Marguerita Choy and Grant McCool)
Nicki Minaj questioned the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine this week on Twitter, prompting an offer from the White House for a call with a doctor to discuss the safety of the vaccine, White House press secretary Jen Psaki confirmed Thursday.

Driving the news: Minaj on Monday wrote on Twitter that she would not attend the Met Gala because she had not received the COVID vaccine, which was a requirement to attend the event.

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"They want you to get vaccinated for the Met. if I get vaccinated it wont for the Met," Minaj wrote in the tweet.

Minaj then drew widespread attention over a subsequent tweet that included false information about the side effects of the vaccine, writing that her "cousin in Trinidad wont get the vaccine cuz his friend got it & became impotent."

Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN's Jake Tapper that "theres no evidence that [male fertility problems] happen, nor is there any mechanistic reason to imagine that it would happen."

Following the internet uproar over Minaj's tweets with misinformation about the vaccine's side effects, the White House offered a call with Minaj to explain the safety of the vaccine.

"As we have with others, we offered a call with Nicki Minaj and one of our doctors to answer questions she has about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine," a White House official said in a statement.

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Psaki on Thursday said officials had proposed "a very early stage call" about the efficacy of the vaccine.

"This is pretty standard and something we do all the time. It was a very early stage call at a staff level, staff-to-staff, and ... we weren't even at the point of discussing the mechanisms or the format or anything along those lines, it was simply an offer to have a conversation, and an early-stage call"

"We work with a range of partners to communicate the efficacy and the safety of the vaccine," Psaki said.

"We know there might be more effective voices, we don't always know how effective working in partnership with celebrities may or may not be, but sometimes it is a tool that we can use," Psaki said.

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The White House has offered to arrange a phone call between Nicki Minaj and one of its doctors, multiple US outlets reported, after the rapper sparked widespread derision over claims a cousin's friend had become impotent after receiving a Covid-19 vaccine.

Minaj on Wednesday claimed she had been invited to the White House in the wake of her viral tweets about an unnamed acquaintance in her native Trinidad and Tobago -- an invitation she said she accepted.

But a White House official told multiple US outlets that Minaj had only been offered an educational phone call.

"As we have with others, we offered a call with Nicki Minaj and one of our doctors to answer questions she has about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine," the official said.

The Grammy-nominated rapper sparked a media storm Monday when she said she had skipped New York's star-studded Met Gala this week due to its requirement that attendees be vaccinated, saying she would only get the jab once she had "done enough research".

She said a friend of a cousin in Trinidad had experienced swollen testicles after getting the vaccine -- claims that sparked a formal rebuttal from the Caribbean nation's health minister.

"One of the reasons why we could not respond yesterday in real-time to Miss Minaj is that we had to check and make sure that what she was claiming was either true or false," Terrence Deyalsingh told a press conference.

"Unfortunately, we wasted so much time yesterday running down this false claim."

British and US health officials have also condemned the claims.

Experts say there is no evidence that vaccines affect fertility or male genitalia.

AFP's Fact Check story on the topic can be read here: https://factcheck.afp.com/http%253A%252F%252Fdoc.afp.com%252F9MU4CR-1

bur-oho/dva/leg
A woman was shot and wounded Thursday as she traveled on Interstate 57 in Markham, according to Illinois State Police.

The woman was treated at a hospital for a gunshot wound she suffered about 2:05 a.m., Trooper Joshua Robinson said Thursday morning in an email. She had been traveling on I-57 near 155th Street when she was shot.

Robinson said he did not know the womans direction of travel or whether she was driving when she was shot or if anyone else was in the vehicle with her. The womans age and the make and model of her vehicle also were not provided.

All lanes of Interstate 57 were closed for investigation and traffic was diverted off at 159th Street, officials said. All lanes reopened at 6:15 a.m., according to Robinson.

The shooting was at least the 171st on a Cook County expressway so far in 2021, Robinson said. It was the 24th shooting this year on I-57, according to a detailed breakdown by Cook County roadways provided by state police spokeswoman Trooper Haylie Polistina.

Although some see it as an extension of the gun violence that has ravaged Chicagos disinvested South and West sides for decades and note that surging numbers of the past two years have coincided with an overall spike in city shootings, the expressway attacks have increased far more rapidly.

Shootings throughout all of Chicago this year have risen by about 10% over last year, according to Chicago Police Department data, while expressway shootings during the first nine months of the year have increased more than 24% over the whole of last year.

Shootings on expressways have far exceeded those in all of 2020, when there were 128 such shootings, according to state police data. And in 2020 there had been more than twice the number of shootings than the 52 expressway shootings in 2019. There were 43 in 2018, data shows.

One program touted as a means of better detecting and deterring expressway shootings is the ongoing installation of high-resolution cameras and some 200 license plate readers. Installation work began in August and is expected to continue over the next year.

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In a project announcement, Brendan Kelly, director of state police, called it an important step toward expanding force-multiplying technology, long needed to protect travelers on Chicago expressways.

These cameras will be an increasingly important tool for the ISP to collect the evidence we need to detect and deter crime on our interstates, Kelly wrote in a statement.

The project was funded with $12.5 million in state funds secured through the Tamara Clayton Expressway Act, named for a Chicago woman who was killed in 2019, also while traveling on Interstate 57.

Claytons sister, Alma Hill, has said Clayton specifically avoided traveling on the Dan Ryan Expressway because she was afraid shed be shot. As of Thursday, there had been 52 shootings on the Dan Ryan, the most of any Chicago area highway, followed by 36 on the Eisenhower Expressway.

Increasingly, weve seen shootings throughout the Chicagoland expressways, and I am glad that we will now have the access to technology that will aid in the investigation of expressway shootings, state Sen. Napoleon Harris III (D-Harvey) was quoted as saying in the state police news release. With these innovations, I hope many crimes are solved and (those responsible) brought to justice, so that the victims families may know peace.

kdouglas@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @312BreakingNews
By Andrea Shalal and David Lawder

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - World Bank leaders, including then-Chief Executive Kristalina Georgieva, applied "undue pressure" on staff to boost China's ranking in the bank's "Doing Business 2018" report, according to an independent investigation released Thursday.

The report, prepared by law firm WilmerHale at the request of the bank's ethics committee, raises concerns about China's influence at the World Bank, and the judgment of Georgieva - now managing director of the International Monetary Fund - and then-World Bank President Jim Yong Kim.

Georgieva said she disagreed "fundamentally with the findings and interpretations" of the report and had briefed the IMF's executive board.

The World Bank Group on Thursday canceled the entire "Doing Business" https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/statement/2021/09/16/statement-on-release-of-investigation-into-data-irregularities-in-doing-business-2018-and-2020 report on business climates, saying internal audits and the WilmerHale investigation had raised "ethical matters, including the conduct of former Board officials, as well as current and/or former Bank staff."

The U.S. Treasury Department, which manages the dominant U.S. shareholdings in the IMF and the World Bank, said it was analyzing what it called the "serious findings."

The WilmerHale report https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/84a922cc9273b7b120d49ad3b9e9d3f9-0090012021/original/DB-Investigation-Findings-and-Report-to-the-Board-of-Executive-Directors-September-15-2021.pdf cited "direct and indirect pressure" from senior staff in Kim's office to change the report's methodology to boost China's score, and said it likely occurred at his direction.

It said Georgieva, and a key adviser, Simeon Djankov, had pressured staff to "make specific changes to China's data points" and boost its ranking at a time when the bank was seeking China's support for a big capital increase.

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Kim did not respond to a request for comment. Djankov could not be immediately reached.

China's ranking in the "Doing Business 2018" report, published in October 2017, rose seven places to 78th after the data methodology changes were made, compared with the initial draft report.

The "Doing Business" report ranks countries based on their regulatory and legal environments, ease of business startups, financing, infrastructure and other business climate measures.

'SERIOUS FINDINGS'

The report comes nearly two years after Georgieva took over as IMF chief, shortly before the biggest global economic crisis in the Fund's 76-year history, prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The U.S. Treasury is analyzing "serious findings" in the WilmerHale report, Treasury spokeswoman Alexandra LaManna told Reuters. "Our primary responsibility is to uphold the integrity of international financial institutions.

The WilmerHale report also cited pressures related to data used to determine rankings for Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan in the "Doing Business 2020" report published in 2019, but found no evidence that any members of the World Bank's Office of the President or executive board were involved in these changes.

Saudi Arabia climbed 30 places to 62nd in the "Doing Business 2020" report https://www.reuters.com/article/us-worldbank-regulation-rankings-idUKKBN1X304R.

"Going forward, we will be working on a new approach to assessing the business and investment climate," the World Bank said.

WilmerHale said it was hired by the lender's International Bank for Reconstruction and Development in January to review the internal circumstances that led to the data irregularities. It said the bank supported the probe, but it was wholly independent.

CAPITAL INCREASE

The report said the push to boost China's ranking came at a time when the bank's management was "consumed with sensitive negotiations" over a major capital increase, and China's disappointment over a lower-than-expected score.

Georgieva told WilmerHale investigators that "multilateralism was at stake, and the Bank was in 'very deep trouble' if the campaign missed its goals," the report said.

The World Bank in 2018 announced https://www.reuters.com/article/us-imf-g20-wbank/world-bank-shareholders-back-13-billion-capital-increase-idUSKBN1HS0QS a $13 billion-paid in capital increase that boosted China's shareholding stake to 6.01% from 4.68%.

WilmerHale said Georgieva visited the home of a "Doing Business" manager to retrieve a hard copy of the final report that reflected changes that boosted China's ranking, and thanked the employee for helping "resolve the problem."

The report said a "toxic culture" and "fear of retaliation" surrounded the Doing Business report, and said members of that team "felt that they could not challenge an order from the Bank's president or CEO without risking their jobs."

Nonprofit group Oxfam welcomed the bank's decision to discontinue the Doing Business report, saying it had long encouraged governments to slash labor regulations and corporate taxes in order to improve their spot in the rankings.

Former World Bank chief economist Paul Romer first voiced concerns about the integrity of the "Doing Business" report in 2018, saying Chile's ranking may have been biased against socialist then-President Michelle Bachelet. Romer left the bank shortly after his comments.

(Reporting by David Lawder and Andrea Shalal; Editing by Marguerita Choy, Heather Timmons, and Jon Boyle)
French President Emmanuel Macrons team is outraged at President Joe Biden's announcement to share U.S. and British nuclear submarine technology with Australia, which scuttles an agreement for Australia to purchase French vessels.

The American choice to exclude a European ally and partner such as France from a structuring partnership with Australia, at a time when we are facing unprecedented challenges in the Indo-Pacific region ... shows a lack of coherence that France can only note and regret, French Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and French Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly said in a joint statement Wednesday evening.

Their protest cast a Parisian pall over an agreement that American observers hailed as a major strategic advance for Australia and a testament to the power of the U.S. alliance network, in defiance of Chinas argument that the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan foreshadows future failures of American support for allies. Yet, Macrons government regards the announcement as a breach of trust by Australia and a sign of disrespect from Biden that enhances the need for strategic autonomy from the United States.

The regrettable decision ... only reinforces the need to make the issue of European strategic autonomy loud and clear, the French leaders said. There is no other credible way to defend our interests and our values in the world, including in the Indo-Pacific.

BIDEN LOSES EUROPES TRUST

Bidens team cited the United Kingdoms involvement in the deal as a mechanism to bring a transatlantic ally into the Indo-Pacific, as U.S. officials try to manage and deter looming threats from China.

These relationships with Great Britain and Australia are time tested  our oldest allies, generally, a senior administration official told reporters earlier Wednesday. This is designed not only to strengthen our capabilities in the Indo-Pacific but to link Europe, and particularly Great Britain, more closely with our strategic pursuits in the region as a whole ... Great Britain is very focused on the concept of global Britain, and their tilt is about engaging much more deeply with the Indo-Pacific, and this is a down payment on that effort.

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Biden extended an olive branch to France, the oldest ally of the U.S. while implying the new deal represented an example of London following Pariss lead.

Indeed, this effort reflects a broader trend of key European countries playing an extremely important role in the Indo-Pacific, Biden said. France, in particular, already has a substantial Indo-Pacific presence and is a key partner and ally in strengthening the security and prosperity of the region. The United States looks forward to working closely with France and other key countries as we go forward.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Yet, the agreement dooms a plan for Australia to purchase $90 billion of diesel-powered submarines from France.

The world is a jungle. France has just been reminded this bitter truth by the way the U.S. and the UK have stabbed her in the back in Australia, former French Ambassador to the United States Gerard Araud wrote on Twitter. Cest la vie.

Washington Examiner Videos

Tags: News, Foreign Policy, National Security, France, Australia, China, Joe Biden, Nuclear Submarine, United Kingdom

Original Author: Joel Gehrke

Original Location: The world is a jungle: France fumes at US-Australia nuclear submarine deal
Former WWE star Al Snow's wrestling glory days may be over, but on his vacation down in Florida, Snow entered the ring one more time to save a young boy's life.

Snow was on vacation in Destin, Florida, with his wife when Tropical Storm Mindy hit, bringing gusty winds and downpours to the Destin area. Fatefully, after losing one nice day at the beach, Snow and his wife decided to stay in town to get one more nice day of Florida weather on the beach.

When Snow arrived at the beach, it was a beautiful day with clear blue skies; however, Snow noted that the waves were a bit aggressive.

"A friend and I were in the water, and I began to hear a lot of yelling," Snow said in an interview this week on AccuWeather Prime with Broadcast Meteorologist Geoff Cornish. The retired wrestler, now 58 years old, said he looked to his right and "saw a boy who was panic swimming. It was almost like a rope was tied to his foot, and every time a wave came in he got pulled further and further out."

Snow, fearing the lifeguard was too far away to make a quick rescue, swam and grabbed the boy by the wrist, immediately feeling the strength of the rip current the boy was caught in and recalling the death of his friend and wrestling star Shad Gaspard, who died last year in California after saving his son from a rip current before being overtaken himself.

As soon as Snow grabbed the boy, a wave washed over both of them, the former wrestler recalled, allowing Snow to feel the unbelievable force of the water that was taking the boy out to sea.

"The rip current was incredible, the strength was absolutely amazing," Snow said. "I dug my feet into the sand and pushed forward with all I could."

A photo of Al Snow carrying a mannequin head, which was part of his schtick while wrestling for the WWE.

After passing the boy off to the lifeguard, Snow swam diagonally out of the rip current, nearly collapsing in exhaustion after rescuing the boy, who was embraced by his parents after being rescued.

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"I'm just glad I was in the right place at the right time," Snow said. Snow, whose actual name is Allen Sarven, rose to prominence in the late 1990s and was among the generation of wrestlers that included Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Mick "Mankind" Foley. His wrestling persona involved him carrying around the head of a mannequin in a humorous way.

Rip current July 22

To escape a rip current, the National Weather Service (NWS) recommends swimming parallel to the shoreline, as a rip current is generally narrow. Swimming directly toward the shore through a rip current can exhaust even the strongest swimmers.

"You cannot fight that volume of water going out," AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Dan Kottlowski said. "It's impossible."

Rip currents vary in their width and strength. The currents can be extremely narrow, between 10 and 20 feet wide, or more than 10 times that width, according to the NWS. They can also pull people out to sea at speeds higher than 5 miles per hour, which is faster than Olympic swimmers.

Rip currents kill more Americans yearly than lightning, the effects of cold and high winds.

To escape from a rip current, you should swim parallel to the shore until you feel the rip current's tug lessen. If swimming parallel does not work, The United States Lifesaving Association recommends calmly treading water and waiting out the current until it's possible to swim safely back to shore.

"The only thing that really saved me and saved him was that I was able to plant my feet on the bottom into the sand and push with all my might," Snow said, adding that he never received lifeguard training or was a particularly strong swimmer.

Kottlowski stressed the importance of being aware of potential dangers by checking NOAA forecasts for any warnings and alerts as well as with local officials before venturing into the surf.

It is important to swim in areas with lifeguards, who are trained to recognize rip currents. In Snow's case, the lifeguard on the beach did mark off the area with cones indicating not to swim there, but the boy was still dragged into the rougher seas.

"You could see the water was a little bit rougher, a little more aggressive, but other than that there was no way really to tell that rip current under the water was so strong and so fast," Snow said.

For more safety and preparedness tips, visit AccuWeather.com/Ready.

For the latest weather news check back on AccuWeather.com. Watch AccuWeather Network on DIRECTV, DIRECTVstream, Frontier, Spectrum, fuboTV, Philo, and Verizon Fios. AccuWeatherNOW is streaming on Roku and XUMO.
(Photo: Frasers Centrepoint Singapore)

SINGAPORE  A woman placed on a five-day medical certificate for an acute upper respiratory infection instead visited her friend, shopped at Northpoint City and spent time with her boyfriend and his family.

Janani Kalaychelvam, 24, pleaded guilty on Thursday (16 September) to breaching the terms of her medical certificate, which required her to stay home. Two charges of a similar nature will be taken into consideration for her sentencing.

The Singaporean went to OneDoctors Family Clinic along Yishun Ring Road on 30 January for a sore throat, cough and shortness of breath, which she had been experiencing for a few days. She was seen by a doctor at about 7.55pm, and was diagnosed with an acute upper respiratory infection.

The doctor asked Janani to return to the clinic to take a COVID-19 swab test on 1 February, as the clinic had stopped collecting swabs for that day.

Janani was issued with a five-day medical certificate (30 January to 3 February), instead of the usual three days, since she would only be doing her swab two days after seeing the doctor. She was informed that she would not be allowed to leave home during this period except to seek medical treatment and to do her swab test, which she acknowledged.

However, upon leaving the clinic, Janani took a taxi to her friends house for dinner and remained there until about 3.50am on 31 January.

On the evening of 1 February, Janani left home and travelled in a Grab car to Northpoint City to shop for a shirt for her boyfriend at Uniqlo. She then proceeded to her boyfriends residence, where she remained until the early hours of 2 February. Her boyfriend and his mother were also present.

Janani did not tell anyone about her MC and did not wear a mask while she was there. She only returned home, via a Grab car, at about 1.16am on 2 February. In total, she left home for about five hours and 29 minutes.

According to her charge sheet, Janani again left her house on 3 February and travelled in a Grab car to Apple Orchard Road to shop before returning home in a taxi.

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On 2 February, a doctor from OneDoctors Family Clinic informed the Ministry of Health that Janani had not attended her swab test. It was eventually discovered that Janani did not have COVID-19 at the time of the offences.

She will return to court on 5 October for her sentencing. For breaching her medical certificate terms, she may be jailed up to six months, and or fined up to $10,000.

Stay in the know on-the-go: Join Yahoo Singapore's Telegram channel at http://t.me/YahooSingapore
US information technology giant Google has launched its News Showcase service in Japan, enabling users to view news content provided by more than 40 publishers in the country.

Unlike news content that appears through Google searches, the News Showcase portal shows content selected by the news outlets and Google pays fees to them. Users will, case by case, be allowed to view paid articles for free.

News organizations have demanded that Google pay fees for the use of their content as they have struggled with declining advertisement revenues, while Google has generated massive ad revenues.

Google has not disclosed how much it pays to each of the publishers.

But the tech giant said last year that it planned to pay 1 billion dollars to its media partners over the next three years.

Besides Japanese media firms, more than 1,000 news outlets in at least 12 countries, including Britain, France, Germany, Brazil, and India, have joined the Google project.
New Cabinet takes oath in Gujarat, amid dissent within the BJP

Gujarat, Thu, 16 Sep 2021 Supratik Mitra

The new Gujarat assembly cabinet took the oath, on Thursday, administered by the governor of Gujarat Acharya Devvrat, and in the presence of the newly appointed CM Bhupender Patel and his predecessor Vijay Rupani.



24 cabinet ministers have been selected by CM Patel to hold office under his term of being Chief Minister of the state of Gujarat. The Cabinet saw many new faces, even after strong dissent amongst those who were previously in charge. Many old faces like the last CM Vijay Rupani were dropped from being part of CM Patels new Cabinet for Gujarat.



Kanubhai Desai, Kiritsinh Rana, Naresh Patel, Pradip Parmar and Arjunsinh Chauhan, Rajendra Trivedi, Jitu Vaghani, Rushikesh Patel, Purnesh Modi and Raghavji Patel were administered oath as Gujarat ministers.



Harish Sanghvi, Jagdish Panchal, Brijesh Merja, Jitu Choudhary, Manisha Vakil were sworn in as Ministers of State with independent charge. Assemblys speaker, Rajendra Trivedi, who gave his resignation today, was also present at the ceremony and took oath as a minister.



The Oath ceremony which was to be held on Wednesday got deferred last-minute after elaborate arrangements had already been made. It can be speculated that the difference in opinions amongst the party leaders, over the selection of the new council, might have been a reason for the delay.



The BJP expected a smooth transition of the CMs office after CM Vijay Rupani handed in his resignation after the party was not happy with him, without any protest. However, the transition doesnt seem to be one of the smoothers of operation for the BJP.



Old party leaders who had held positions in the government were not comfortable giving in, not being selected to be in the Cabinet. Among the several senior ministers who were fighting for their post, Deputy Chief Minister in the last cabinet, Nitin Patel was part of the group too. Nitin Patel initially was considered to be the new CM but many partys members were surprised by the shocking appointment of Bhupendra Patel.



However, the chance of serious revolt in the BJP cadre seems to be less, since reports suggest, partys leader Amit Shah has been instrumental in the engineering of the change in Chief Minster. Amit Shah along with PM Modi have been part of this course correction, after reports of dwindling public support towards Vijay Rupani appeared, right before the next assembly elections, in 2022.



Home Minister Amit Shah had held a series of meetings after the swearing-in ceremony of Bhupendra Patel on Monday to sort out the issues over the council of ministers and the new cabinet.
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Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images

Like many books about the Trump administration before it, Bob Woodward and Robert Costas latest on the cacophony in the last White House has stirred up a bit of controversy  this time surrounding a reported incident in which chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley called up a leading general in the Chinese military, informing his counterpart that the outgoing president would not attack the country in his waning days in charge. But unlike past scandals related to reporters writing Trump books, the controversy extends beyond partisan outrage and journalists holding onto facts to market their own work. As Woodward and Costas reporting faces scrutiny and conservatives call for General Milley to be tried for treason, below is everything you need to know about the controversy surrounding Peril.

What does the book allege?

According to Woodward and Costa, who are both with the Washington Post, Milley circumvented Trumps authority by calling General Li Zuocheng of Chinas Peoples Liberation Army in October 2020 and in January, informing him that there would not be a U.S. attack on the nation with the worlds largest standing army. And if there were a strike, Milley reportedly told Li that he would give him a call ahead of time.

The calls reportedly came after Milley learned last October that Chinese officials were worried about a preemptive attack amid an escalation of the trade war. The first contact took place days before the election, and the second occurred two days after the insurrection, when Milley was worried that Trump would go rogue. He also told House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that theres not a snowballs chance in hell this president, or any president can launch nuclear weapons illegally, immorally, unethically without proper certification, according to Peril. On the day of the second call, Milley also gathered senior military officials at the Pentagon for a private meeting, where he informed them not to follow through on any orders without his supervision. No matter what you are told, you do the procedure, he reportedly said. You do the process. And Im part of that procedure.

The claims as they stand in the book resulted in Republicans calling for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to be tried for treason for his alleged act of insubordination.

How has the Pentagon responded?

In a press briefing, a Pentagon spokesperson confirmed the conversation between Milley and Li in January, saying that the pair conferred in order to maintain strategic stability. When asked about calls for his firing and a treason charge, the spokesperson dismissively said oh my goodness, adding that these calls are a function of the job, suggesting that the reporting exaggerated the extreme nature of Milleys outreach.

Joint Staff spokesperson David Butler added that all calls from the Chairman to his counterparts, including those reported, are staffed, coordinated and communicated with the Department of Defense and the interagency.

When asked about the allegations on Wednesday, President Joe Biden told reporters he had great confidence in the general, who remains the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the body made up of the leaders of the armed forces. Milley has also denied wrongdoing and will testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee on September 28.

What has follow-up reporting revealed about the allegations?

While initial outrage over the incident focused on Milleys alleged act to undermine the president, the flack is now returning to the sender. On Wednesday, Politico reported that a Defense official familiar with the calls described Woodwards and Costas depiction of them as grossly mischaracterized. Just as the Pentagon spokesmen confirmed on the record, this official said that coordination with foreign military leaders is not uncommon. Another former Defense official also contested the description of Milley acting on his own, when he actually asked permission from acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller before calling the Chinese general. After the call, he also briefed Millers office about its contents, though Miller told Politico that he didnt recall the specifics of the post-call briefing. It was more perfunctory/routine, he said.

In a statement provided to Politico, Woodward and Costa said that they stand by our reporting.
Twins, when it comes to vote share. Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

Without question, the overwhelming defeat of the effort to recall California governor Gavin Newsom was a big victory for a Democratic Party that has had its troubles lately. With the margin of victory for the no on recall campaign roughly doubling the already-robust advantage shown in pre-election polls, the earlier scare that the recall threw into the ranks of the Golden States dominant party dissipated entirely. With about three-fourths of the expected vote now counted, no leads yes by a 63.8 to 36.2 margin (which could get even larger if the usual pattern of last-cast mail ballots leaning Democratic manifests itself once again).

The no vote was remarkably close to Joe Bidens performance in California in 2020 (he won 63.5 percent). Given the extreme partisan polarization that underlay the recall vote (exit polls showed 89 percent of self-identified Republicans voting yes and 94 percent of self-identified Democrats voting no), that means the partisan patterns of the presidential race were reduplicated to a remarkable extent in a non-presidential special election, where Democrats often experience a falloff, particularly when they control the White House (and in this case, the governorship). Thats great news for California Democrats, and not a bad sign for Democrats nationally, who are bracing for the midterm losses the White House Party typically suffers.

But in assessing the implications of the results, its important to look back at what happened down ballot in California in 2020, while looking ahead to the most critical 2022 battleground, the fight for control of the House. Of the 13 net House seats Republicans gained in 2020, four were in deep-blue California. There is no likely path for Democrats to hang onto House control in 2022 without flipping some or all of those lost seats in one of their strongest states.

Precisely because of the reduplication of the 2020 patterns, theres really nothing about the recall returns that suggests Democrats are sure to claw back some House seats in California. Two of the four seats Republicans flipped in 2020 (with Asian-American women Young Kim and Michelle Steele as candidates) were centered in Orange County. While no won in Orange, the recall race there was closer than the Biden-Trump contest of 2020. A third battleground seat was the one Republican David Valadao won in a very competitive section of the San Joaquin Valley. The recall improved on Trumps 2020 performance in every county in his district (e.g., Trump won 55 percent in Kings County, but yes on recalling Newsom won 63 percent). These results could reflect an intensifying alienation of this heavily agricultural area from Sacramentos environmental and water-supply policies. Or it could reflect a drop-off in Latino turnout that could spell disaster for Democrats in close 2022 races. Either way the recall numbers should give pause to Democratic optimism about midterm House races.

One study of 2020 returns in California showed Latino turnout trailing non-Latino turnout by about 10 percent. One mail-ballot tracker for the recall showed the turnout gap between Latinos and non-Latino white voters swelling to 20 percent. Youth turnout for the recall was also terrible, exit polls suggest. Yes, these are constituencies that are difficult to mobilize in special elections. But thats also true of midterm elections, which is a problem Democrats in California and elsewhere need to solve.

The bottom line is that Newsom won the Democratic and Democratic-leaning elements of the California electorate by strongly encouraging partisan polarization via his lavishly funded campaign. This was the obvious smart strategy in this heavily Democratic state. Its less clear the same strategy will work wonders downballot for Democrats in 2022, which they probably will not have a big financial advantage and shifts in public opinion away from the presidential winner may have settled in, as they did for the last three presidents. Even if Democrats hang onto their monopoly of statewide offices and their super-majorities in the state legislature, any failure to make progress in House races could contribute to the much-dreaded moment when Californian Nancy Pelosi hands over her gavel to Californian Kevin McCarthy, and the Democratic trifecta that gives Biden a chance to implement his agenda comes to an end.
A long exposure shows the SpaceX Falcon 9 launching into orbit at NASAs Kennedy Space Center. Photo: Getty Images

SpaceX successfully launched into orbit the first-ever flight crewed entirely by civilians, marking a giant leap for the aerospace company hoping to make space travel a more regular part of the lives of the exceptionally rich. For the next three days, the tourists will orbit 360 miles above the Earth in a 13-foot-wide capsule called Crew Dragon.

The mission, known as Inspiration4, was launched Wednesday at NASAs Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, with billionaire Jared Isaacman onboard with a crew featuring a physician assistant and childhood cancer survivor; a geologist; and a Lockheed Martin employee who won his seat through a raffle. Isaacman, the founder of a payment-processing firm, is paying for the entire trip and intends to use the exposure to fundraise for St. Judes Research Hospital.

The technical aspects of the flight will be controlled by SpaceX mission control in Hawthorne, California, and the crews main objective will be to monitor the onboard systems. However, if something were to go wrong, Isaacman and another crew member have been trained to fly the spacecraft. The crew intends to perform a series of medical procedures, including ultrasound scans, while in orbit.

While the recent flights involving Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos featured all-civilian crews, those billionaires only made it to the upper limits of the atmosphere and stayed there for a matter of minutes. According to SpaceX, which is owned by fellow space-curious billionaire Elon Musk, the 360-mile orbital altitude of Inspiration4 is higher than the International Space Station and the Hubble telescope, and it will be the highest any human has gone since the end of the Apollo moon program in 1972. The splashdown on Saturday is scheduled to be in the Atlantic.
All I needed to see was All Too Well at #69  So true Rolling Stone.

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Royals by Lorde at #30??  Is Lorde holding them at gun point?

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nice

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I don't even know how you'd go about ranking something like that.



All I know is my #1 favorite song is Dante's Prayer by Loreena McKennitt. :3

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"Please remember me....."



The first time I heard that song my whole body was chills and I bawled my eyes out at the end.



Good lord!!!!

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when I saw Loreena live for the first time, I cried when she opened the show (Samhain Night) and then I cried again at the end when she finished with Dante's Prayer. T____T she hits me right in the heart every time

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Idek remember the fandom but someone made a fanvid with Dante's Prayer, first time I heard it and I cried lmao its so good 

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Such a beautiful song. Mystic's Dream is also entrancing.

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I remember listening to it on my walkman (shuddup, I'm old) on a bus back from an all-state music competition.



Something about seeing the dark, foggy landscape go by while listening to that song gave me goosebumps.

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I love a lot of the songs on the list. And Im happy that Duran Duran was included. I feel like theyre under appreciated by critics.



These sort of rankings will never completely please everyone. Either something will get left off or something is ranked too low/too high. I loved the original list since it was how I was introduced to some artists whove become my favorites 

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Rio is such a great record so damn catchy.

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I love Duran Duran, they have so many great songs and I love they keep releasing music

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duran duran are phenomenal, like even the current stuff is great! their anniversary EP is awesome!

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I listen to Girls on Film whenever I want to feel like a glam 80s/90s supermodel 

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"Save A Prayer" is the best song from that album.

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Save a prayer for the morning after....

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Ive become reobsessed with Closer after rewatching Magic Mike XXL recently. Im so tired of music snobs trying to educate me on the real meaning of the song though. I just want to enjoy it superficially as a sexy banger, damnit!



Also, Since U Been Gone made the Top 100, so Im happy.

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Literally all I care about what was since u been gone lol

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They included Dynamite on this list. LMAO

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it's above many great songs but the most insulting thing is that it's above Enjoy the Silence and Hungry like the wolf, come on RS



Edited at 2021-09-15 11:57 pm (UTC)

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Surely they mean the one by Taio Cruz!

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surely it's for what the song "means" more than its actual quality, right? if they wanted to namedrop bts there were a lot of better songs.

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yeah, cultural relevance and stuff is definitely a factor

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the bts song??? how much did bighit pay

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I like lists like this so I can hear things I've not heard before, but I don't consider the numerical values to have any meaning... music is too subjective. From the first fifty songs or so, it seems like there's a lot of recency bias, but I could be wrong!

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Rolling Stone does the most shit-soaked of music lists and basically invented trolling via cickbait, with these lists designed to court controversy and even anger. Joke's on them because no one under 50 (or stans) gives a shit about their opinion anymore.



Edited at 2021-09-15 11:43 pm (UTC)

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Rolling Stone lists are always a damn joke and hacky haha

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I think I read in the Jann Wenner bio that these started as him and the staff giving his friends or artists he wished to appease, high spots.

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I would've had Sittin' on the Dock of the bay in my top 5. It's one of my faves and it's a shame that Otis died so young. I keep thinking about all the great music he didn't get to make.

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I hate that I love Closer but it makes me want to send slutty things to guys. However I think Sunspots by NIN is also pretty sexy. Both are slutty songs to me.

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It's a masterpiece, it's so catchy but interesting.

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oh yes, Sunspots is very sexy. And I always go crazy when Closer comes on in a club.

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Imagine is legit one of the worst songs ever and of course it's top 20

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but it gave us this precious moment





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i was gonna look through to see where this ranked but this article is so big it keeps crashing my browser ugh



also gasolina came out in 2010??? i could have sworn i heard it in high school

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and yep.. i guess it charted in 2010 for some reason? i guess re-released as a single for some reason, so confusing to see that next to the title instead of 2004 lol

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It was on an album in 2004. I knew it was earlier than 2010 because I first heard it, and reggaeton in general, in 2006 and 2007 when I was living in Central America. I was damn tired of it by the time it became popular in the US.

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It's at #224!

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Duane Allman earned 275 of those places. Clapton can get fuuuuuucked. I'm so glad everyone hates him now.

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i had to read it in incognito mode for it to not crash

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In what world is Lorde (#30, Royals) ranked higher than Alanis (#103, You Outta Know) and Kate Bush (#60, Running Up That Hill)?



I was pleasantly surprised to see PJ Harvey's Rid of Me, and I knew not to expect to see Tori. But it was wild not seeing Bjork and then seeing Lorde placed so high.



Rolling Stone is a trip.

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That is all bonkers. No Tori?! I love Lorde but not higher than Alanis or Kate Bush

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No Bork?!* Not even Hyperballad? Joga?



I listened to Royals the other day and it sounds like an a cappella cover of a 90s hip hop track, the production is so flat. I know thats the sound they were going for but idk the bridge is a bit clunky.



* Even autocorrect is erasing Bjorkquelle conspiracy!



Edited at 2021-09-16 05:31 am (UTC)

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There was a lot of Lorde mash ups with 90s hip hop at the time when it came out being played at the (rip) clubs so YEAH you're not the only one who hears that on pure heroin!!

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I take it there's no point in checking if Regina Spektor got her laurels

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I like how he sings the "do do do do" bit of Hungry Like the Wolf. I feel like most other singers would have lip synced the lyric and left it at that, but he was committed.



Edited at 2021-09-15 11:52 pm (UTC)

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My two favourite songs of all time are probably The Beatles' "In My Life" (because it reminds me of childhood and my parents) and The Cure's "Lovesong".

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In My Life is one of their best songs.

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What do you think of the list?



It's a pretty good list of songs in English, for sure.

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I didn't expect anything else from RS

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The fact they don't mention it even once is kinda hilarious to me and quite a testament of how highly gringos think of themselves. Or maybe they did mention, I didn't read the whole thing.

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I saw La Vida Es Un Carnaval (should be higher), Amor Prohibdo (ok) and Gasolina (??????????????????)

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Right? Sorry I didnt grow up listening to English songs, wheres my top 500 Indian/Pakistani songs list @RS

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They really needed the backlash to realize this was a shit idea.



Competitive activism goes against the entire idea behind societal mobilization. Unless your cause is, you know, the fight against COVID-induced testicular swelling

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I think you should sign up for the show and make that your cause.

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Fire emoji because those testicles are BURNING.

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i didn't even realize the original format was problematic/incoherent, oop @ my passive dumb ass.

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It was going to be competition show where activists would compete for grant money. It was gross af

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The fact that this project was greenlit in the first place just shows how tone deaf and out of touch Hollywood is.



If, from the jump, the show was showing how a cash grant of $X can impact a non-profit and what kind of work they can do, then sure. Make a show about it. But the fact that it was conceived of as a show where people working on important issues compete to show whose issue is best/most important/most deserving and like idk. Weirdly performative? And no one in the boardrooms saw an issue with this??? And various hosts signed on???

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The idea of making social activism a fucking competition show has to be the epitome of late stage capitalism at its worst. I do a lot of disability advocacy in my professional life from conferences to actually conversing with elected officials and the idea that my (often unpaid) work is somehow something to be ranked in a game show way fucking infuriates me to my core. The pitch of The Oppression Olympics Race fucking enrages me.

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Well, I'm glad they're changing it + that the orgs involved will all be getting money.

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i'm curious who signed up for the show... It seems like it would be ppl like shaun king and other celeb activists but who knows. The format was off putting and I'm curious how these individuals viewed the backlash

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twitter has been on a roll lately with getting people together and making changes happen. love that

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I have not heard of this show and missed the initial issues. Was it a competition between who could be the stronger/better activist?

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I missed it too, from what I just read the idea was to pair activists with famous people and have them compete to win, the prize being going to the G20 Summit.

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Jesus CHRIST.

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lmao Priyanka going from clapping dramatically from her balcony for frontliners to being a "judge" in this show, how my circa 2012 faves have fallen



but yeah obvi this isn't just on her. I can imagine this being pitched and everyone in the room patting each other on the back over how woke they are, fucking hell

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Of course Julianne Hough is involved in this fiasco. Exactly how many passes does Ms. Blackface get?

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She put up a five slide statement on IG before the change was announced. It was a lot of words but I think shes the only one who acknowledged the backlash

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I'm glad CBS actually deigned to attempt to "fix" their shitshow of making Oppression Olympics a tv show, but I'm still infuriated that this was a real thing that was going to really aired without the hint of irony. I do a lot of disability advocacy offline and the idea that the work and tons of others do to push for social justice can be made into game show bullshit.

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Oy

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reality show where activists compete for funds for their causes, hosted by uber wealthy celebrities judging the worth of the causes, with a budget that could itself have a massive impact on said causes but instead is funneled into this globally broadcasted spectacle is a new level of dystopian America.

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Bullying works. Bless.

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Is this the show where bits have already apparently been filmed (according to DMs on Twitter lmao) and it was like... giving food to a school or something? If so, does that mean they're just going to re-edit the footage they've got or what? Or is this something else?!

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I love that Jolie, for all of the things that shes assumed to be, is above all else a problem-solver.

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Its great mom energy tbh

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as a non-mom problem solver... not really??? It is a quality that has nothing to do with mom energy.

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I only discovered her when she joined the Walking Dead a couple of years agolove at first sight tbh!

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This is awesome, this entire post is just so uplifting and i hope this can be the beginning for smth great re: representation.

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I've been loving the increase in disabled actors lately. I really liked that the little girl in the Godzilla vs Kong movie was actually deaf. There were a few moments during stunts where you can see the adult actors always had their hands on her so she didn't get scared or confused.



I've been loving the storyline on Corrie right now with Gemma and Chesney debating whether to get a cochlear implant for their deaf toddler son. They brought back a recurring deaf character to talk to them about it, and it's been a several month long subplot.

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Yeah, for all that Corrie can be ridiculous that story has been really well done. A lot of shows would probably have positioned the implants as some no brainer or Gemmas concerns about not taking away his identity irrational

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I ended having some really interesting conversations with my family when I brought up the storyline too, which is the point of these sorts of storylines, I think.

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. There were a few moments during stunts where you can see the adult actors always had their hands on her so she didn't get scared or confused.



Yeah, from how I heard the actors talk about her, they seemed great with her. I read that when Alexander Skarsgard found out he would be working with her, he started learning ASL so they could communicate.

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Shocked that there were probably many adults involved and they all couldn't figure out a solution until Angelina. lol.

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That's not unusual, though. It's why inventions happen that all of us then say, "Well I could have thought of that." but we didn't.

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Very true! But I am still shocked at the same time. lol

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Yeah, its not unusual to not think about accommodating folks with different needs. Im constantly telling people that they need to redesign slide decks or charts because theyre not ideal for those with visual impairments, for example.

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This is why it's important to have people who think differently around tbqh.

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i realize anyone could say this but as i was reading i was like "laser pointer?" and then a few lines down the answer was laser pointer lol

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It seems that Angelina was the first one who actually cared enough to think of something.

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I saw this on sm earlier and it shocked me. You hired a deaf actor, how do you not think of the "possibility" of her not being able to hear verbal cues??

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Deaf actors in action movies may be in a different situation than those in a domestic or office scene. Deaf actors have been on other films and tv, so there was probably a standard way of cueing them that simply wasn't right for Ridloff's situation. And no one, even the deaf actor, could think outside of the box until Jolie's suggestion.

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I was not generalising, I meant in her specific case... but I see your point

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It reminds me of ANTM when they had a modeling assignment in the dark even though Nyle DiMarco is deaf.

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I love this! I'm not gonna love all the dudebros suddenly pretending they care about this character in order to bitch about how ~wokeness is ruining everything~ or whatever, but I'm sure the good will outweigh the bad with Chloe + this great cast.

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I legit cried when I read about this last night. Accessibility is SO important but its been really disheartening to see it come and go during Covidfor a time it was so easy to do things virtually but once non-disabled people decided things were safe again things went right back to where they were pre-Covid.



So just seeing this lil instance of growth for accessibility for a Deaf actor is monumental.

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once non-disabled people decided things were safe again things went right back to where they were pre-Covid



god I feel this so hard, they really dgaf about making or keeping disabled people's lives easier

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Ugh yeah, I noticed that among people with chronic illness and mental health too. It went from solidarity to oh its over now back to work you slackers.

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I became disabled at the start of the pandemicI didnt know I had a chronic condition and it started flaring up so badly that I knew something was seriously wrong in mid-March 2020. It aligning perfectly with that was so great in the beginningand then beyond jarring when the switch happened. Made it impossible to ignore how much society only cares about those that can work.

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how this community treated disabled members during the pandemic was really disheartening to me.

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FYI: Alaqua Cox is a deaf actress playing the deaf Marvel character Echo in Hawkeye, and is also getting her own spinoff series.



And looks like they are finally doing the deaf Hawkeye storyline in the series as we was wearing a hearing aid in some of the scenes

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Yeah I noticed that

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so did everyone behind the camera just assume because she's deaf and a actor that she would have all the answers and didn't bother to even ask if they needed to come up with a way to cue her

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Probably. Most people don't think about accessibility issues. Casual ableism strikes again.

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youd be surprised, thats usually how it is. i was left to read the lips of a professor in auditorium, university setting.

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Hawkeye should have been deaf, and they should have cast a deaf actor

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Its not the same but maybe theyll make him deaf for the TV series (and the rest of us blind so we dont have to see him).

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He wasnt deaf anymore as of 2005 so it isnt surprising that they didn't go that route.

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I was going to say he's not deaf in certain comic book series.

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Clint Barton was meant to be that but okay

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I follow her on instagram and she's so beautiful. I'm happy she's doing great and hope with this film she gets more roles. She was in Sound of Metal too.

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Good for her! I'm glad to see more representation.



Is Clint deaf in the Ultimate universe? MCU is originally based on the Ultimate comics, though now I have zero idea because I haven't touched comics in years. 616 Clint was retconned to be deaf, but the MCU seems to be a mixed bag of everything Marvel so I'm not sure where they source some decisions from anymore.

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Is Clint deaf in the Ultimate universe?



No. But at the time the MCU was introducing Hawkeye, he wasn't deaf in the 616 universe either.

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Argentinas government has unveiled a bill to promote investment in oil and gas in the country with the ultimate goal to boost hydrocarbon production from its key shale play and export potential surplus output.

On Wednesday, the government sent the bill to incentivize investments in oil and gas to Congress for approval.

The bill will boost the production capacity of oil and gas the country needs and will allow us to export the rest, center-left Argentinian President Alberto Fernandez tweeted on Wednesday.

It is time to take advantage of our energy potential and thus become more independent, Fernandez said.

Argentina is betting big on boosting oil and gas production at its largest shale play, Vaca Muerta in the Neuquen province. Vaca MuertaSpanish for dead cowhas been dubbed the Argentinian Permian, although its geologic properties have been compared more appropriately to the Eagle Ford.

Vaca Muerta is recovering from the pandemic slump and is estimated to hold recoverable resources consisting of 16 billion barrels of oil and 308 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

Those numbers make the Vaca Muerta the worlds second-largest shale gas deposit.

Argentina is now looking to further incentivize production in Vaca Muerta and elsewhere, including with incentives, approvals of oil and gas exports, and easier access to foreign exchange markets. This access is currently constrained by capital controls in the country.

The ambition is for Argentina to produce in excess and export the surplus to bring in dollars, Fernandez said at a ceremony to unveil the legislation, as carried by Reuters.

We have enormous potential and we cannot waste it, the president added.

Argentinas plan to incentivize more investment includes proposals for stability in terms of fiscal matters over the next 20 years to lure back investors by giving them certainty over the financial aspects of their investment and involvement, according to Fernandez.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Two weeks ago, Iran announced it was planning to boost oil output and exports despite ongoing sanctions by the U.S. As we see continually increased output from Iran since the beginning of 2021, can the country overcome U.S. restrictions to regain its title as a major oil-producing state? At the beginning of September, Iran announced it would be increasing its oil output over the coming months, despite ongoing sanctions from the U.S. restricting the countrys export market.

Iranian Oil Minister Javad Owji stated "There is strong will in Iran to increase oil exports despite the unjust and illegal U.S. sanctions." Going on to say, "I promise that good things will happen regarding Iran's oil sales in the coming months."

After three years of reinstated sanctions, after the U.S. withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) under President Trump in 2018, Iran seems to have had enough of the U.S. using energy as a political tool. Output levels fell lower than 500,000 bpd of oil through much of 2019 and 2020, resulting in a huge blow to the Iranian economy, as well as its trade links, leaving Iran extremely tired of the ongoing situation.

New president, Ebrahim Raisi, was voted into office in June this year, providing international hope that Iran would finally come to a nuclear agreement with the U.S., which would see the easing of energy sanctions and a resurge in oil output and exports. However, to date, this is yet to be seen.

Energy giant Iran sits on the world's fourth-largest oil reserves, and has stated that the country plans to increase output from 2.1 million bpd of oil to 3.8 million bpd should President Biden ease sanctions. This will go hand in hand with the easing of OPEC+ restrictions on oil production this year.

However, in recent weeks, Iran has been criticised for continuing to significantly increase the production of highly-enriched uranium as well as failing to fully cooperate with international monitors. This increased production could provide Iran with WMD capabilities, which U.S. sanctions were supposed to deter.

Meetings between the U.S. and Iran to discuss the potential to revive the JCPOA, meaning the reining in of Irans nuclear programme in exchange for U.S. support for the countrys oil and gas industry and the end of sanctions, have been suspended since Irans general election in June. During this time, Iran has been increasing its atomic activity and seeking to establish economic support from key energy partners, China and Russia.

Iran has apparently defied sanctions this month by shipping crude oil exports to Lebanon via Syria, according to TankerTrackers, an online service that monitors ships. Iran is also said to be supporting Syrias energy deficit by shipping three tankers a month to the state. Ships carrying petroleum have been known to disable their automatic identification system (AIS) transponders as a means of moving unseen.

In addition to Lebanon and Syria, Afghanistan, under its new Taliban rule, is expected to depend upon ongoing Iranian oil imports to meet its energy needs. Iran resumed fuel exports to the war-torn state in late August following a pause on exports due to concerns over safety. The Taliban requested that Iran continue its energy export route to Afghanistan, as the Taliban sees U.S. sanctions as less of a threat following the withdrawal of American troops from the country.

Prices in Afghanistan have soared to $900 per tonne of gasoline, forcing the Taliban to admit its reliance on Iran for its fuel needs. The Taliban decided to cut tariffs on fuel imports, including gasoline, diesel, and LPG, from Iran and other neighboring states. Despite sanctions and the ongoing American presence in Afghanistan, Iran apparently exported around 400,000 tonnes of fuel to the state between May 2020 to May 2021. However, actual figures are unknown and could be much higher.

Irans oil sales appear to have increased overall in 2021, with international monitoring groups speculating that Iranian exports in the spring totaled twice as much as those of last year. With oil prices rising continually since the beginning of 2021, this could be significant for Irans struggling economy. However, some suggest that the illicit export of oil through middlemen could have a detrimental impact on Irans oil profits.

Related: The Top Two Commodities To Watch In The Short Term

Iran projected its oil exports for this period at around 2.3 million barrels a day and it has officially stated that it achieved only 3 percent of this projection. However, experts speculate that the actual export figure could be around 650,000 bpd, or about 30 percent of its projected target, meaning the true state of Irans oil industry and export links is unknown.

Iran is thought to have intermediaries supporting its oil export business in China, shipping back vital goods to Iran in exchange for fuel. This means that Iran is realistically receiving little money for these exports, even if it is already boosting its oil output.

As the new government presents its plan to increase oil output in 2021 as well as seemingly increasing its atomic activity, essentially having its cake and eating it, the revival of the JCPOA is looking more uncertain. However, if Iran wants to put its energy trade links back out in the open and profit from them, it will have to decrease its dependence on intermediaries carrying out covert operations, meaning it will need U.S. backing to help its oil economy thrive once again.

By Felicity Bradstock for Oilprice.com

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Saudi Arabias crude oil exports rose to above 6 million barrels per day (bpd) in July, to the highest volume in six months, as the OPEC+ alliance continued to ease their supply cuts.

The worlds largest oil exporter saw its crude exports hit 6.327 million bpd in July, up by around 360,000 from June, data from the Joint Organisations Data Initiative (JODI) showed on Thursday.

The July crude export levels were the highest since January this year, when the Kingdoms exports averaged 6.582 million bpd, according to JODI, which compiles self-reported data from the countries. January was also the last time when the Saudis exported more than 6 million bpd, before this past July.

In June, Saudi crude oil exports averaged 5.965 million bpd, JODI data showed last month, as the worlds top oil exporter, and the entire OPEC+ group continued to ease the cuts amid recovering global demand.

In July, total Saudi oil exportsincluding crude oil and total oil productsrose further month-on-month by 327,000 bpd to 7.65 million bpd, according to JODI.

In January 2021, the Saudis surprised the market with the decision for a unilateral cut of 1 million bpd, while the OPEC+ group was only slightly easing the cuts due to the concessions to Russia and Kazakhstan.

At the following OPEC+ meeting in early March, Saudi Arabia surprised the market yet again, saying it would keep the extra cut into April instead of only in February and March as originally planned. OPEC+ decided not to ease the cuts in Aprilexcept for a combined 150,000 bpd increase for Russia and Kazakhstanas the group was looking to tighten the market and keep its powder dry until it sees tangible proof of rebound in global oil demand.

Starting in August, OPEC+ plans to add 400,000 bpd of supply every month until all 5.8 million bpd remaining cuts are restored.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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Global oil and gas prices will remain higher for longer as companies resist the urge to ramp up production, the chief executive of Chevron, Mike Wirth told Bloomberg in an interview.

One of the reasons for this reluctance to produce more is that investors are not on board with it, Bloomberg notes. Indeed, investors in oil and gas have become quite nervous about the long-term future of their investments there and have prioritized cash returns now rather than later.

The other reason is weak equity markets, according to Wirth. There are two signals Im looking for and Im only seeing one of them, he said. We could afford to invest more. The equity market is not sending a signal that says they think we ought to be doing that.

Then there is climate change and investor worries about whether energy companies are adjusting to a changing situation fast enough. But its not just investor worries. There is also pressure from governments and the public, and this makes decisions on output expansion even harder.

Youve got some real new dynamics, whether its government policy, efforts to constrain capital into the industry, to make it harder for the industry to access capital markets, Wirth also said during the interview. That in the short term could create some risk for the global economy. Wirth added that the emission footprint of future projects has become a big part of decision-making for energy companies.

In another interview, however, with CNBC, Wirth said the company will not be betting heavily on wind and solar power unlike other oil majors because it believes it would not create enough value for shareholders.

The returns in wind and solar are actually being bid down, and weve concluded that management in our company cant create value for shareholders by going into wind and solar, Wirth told CNBC.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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The history of oil and natural gas is marred by instability and conflict. The rise of the Eastern Mediterranean as a prolific energy region has increased existing tensions between certain littoral states while strengthening cooperation between others. The ratification of the charter concerning the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum (EMGF) further cements the importance of gas exporting countries in general and Egypt in particular.

In a political and economic sense, Cairo has succeeded in strengthening the country's position as a major producer and exporter of gas while highlighting its role as an energy hub. Egypts large domestic market, significant production capacity, and strategic location make it an ideal candidate to host the EMGFs headquarters in Cairo.

Besides the economic logic, Egypt's growing population requires ever-larger volumes of raw materials to satisfy demand. Therefore, liquidity and access to additional sources are important to improve energy security. Cairo learned a lesson from the developments of 2014/2015 when domestically produced natural gas for export purposes was diverted to satisfy the exploding Egyptian demand. After becoming a net importer in 2015, the countrys two liquefaction facilities in Idku en Damietta were reconfigured for the regasification process of LNG.

The EMGF seeks to bring together the energy-rich countries of the Eastern Mediterranean through dialogue, layout policies, ensure safety and reliability to increase investments, and support growth. The charter is signed and ratified by the founding members Egypt, Cyprus, Greece, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Palestine, and France. The U.S. and the EU are observers. Noticeably, Turkey has been sidelined while two European countries who are geographically not part of the region, Italy and France, are members. It shows the hard geopolitical reality of Ankaras isolation.

According to Osama Mobarez, undersecretary at the Petroleum Ministry in Cairo, this is a very important step for the Eastern Mediterranean countries and a big win for Egypt in particular. The fact that the charter selected Cairo to host the headquarters of the forum will turn Egypt into the regions hub for natural gas producers and exporters.

In addition to the ratification of EMGFs charter, Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and President Sisi of Egypt recently used the opportunity to reaffirm their commitment to bilateral cooperation. The two countries expressed their willingness for intensified collaboration in political, economic, commercial, and agricultural areas. The countries primarily share antagonism towards Turkey whose hostile actions have estranged it from its neighbors.

More importantly, Cyprus and Egypt reaffirmed their commitment towards shared energy infrastructure that would connect their resources. A subsea pipeline from Cypriot offshore fields should bring the gas to Egypts LNG facilities to re-export the gas to Europe by 2024/2025. The linkage would further cement Egypt's role. Already Israeli gas is exported to the two LNG facilities in the North African country for the same purpose.

Besides natural gas and EMGF, Egypt pursues a trilateral approach with Cyprus and Greece that goes further than fossil fuels. The three countries are supposed to sign a memorandum of understanding in September that should pave the way for the EuroAfrica interconnector. With the submarine cable, the EU could make use of Egypt's substantial capacity in the area of renewable energy in general and solar in particular.

Nevertheless, the road towards European-African integration remains long and marred with difficulties. Besides the technical challenges and the enormous associated costs, Turkey could yet again act as a spoiler. Ankara already signed a delimitation agreement with the Lybian government in Tripoli that undercuts the trilateral ambitions of Greece, Cyprus, and Egypt. Although the accord wouldnt stand a chance in an international court, Turkey could use it to sow uncertainty and instability.

If there is one thing business doesn't like, it's instability and conflict. Therefore, it remains uncertain whether commercial companies will be willing to invest billions in a project that could face delays and even uncertainty concerning its completion with the Turkish navy around the corner to stall progress. Nevertheless, Ankara's aggressive posturing will also have the adverse effect of strengthening multilateral cooperation. Expect the littoral states to push projects such as EMGF and strengthen relations in the absence of Turkey.

By Vanand Meliksetian for Oilprice.com

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Crude export operations have returned to normal at two major Libyan oil ports after days of protests and sit-ins that had disrupted loadings, the National Oil Corporation (NOC) said on Thursday.

Protesters at Libyas oil export terminals Es Sider and Ras Lanuf erupted last week, disrupting oil tanker loadings.

Loading operations and exports from a third oil port, Hariga, were also blocked due to protests over the past week.

Protesters at the Es Sider terminal derailed the loading of a Suezmax tanker, Yannis P, sources familiar with the situation told Bloomberg in the middle of last week.

The demonstrators were demanding that NOCs chairman Mustafa Sanalla resign.

In a separate protest, graduates were protesting at the port of Tobruk in eastern Libya, demanding employment, Argus reported last week, citing Libyan shipping sources.

This week, NOC announced on Wednesday the end of the sit-in at the Hariga oil port and the resumption of crude export operations.



Related: Russian Oil Exports Under Fire As Iraq Slashes Prices

The National Oil Corporation has listened to all the demands of the protesting youth, which were represented in their request to obtain suitable job opportunities. NOC has expressed its understanding of the legitimacy of the demands, and its reservations about the means by which their demands were expressed, explaining to the youth the great technical and economic consequences of the oil closure, the company said on Wednesday.

On Thursday, the corporation announced the end of the protests at the Es Sider and Ras Lanuf oil ports, after NOC chairman Mustafa Sanalla held a meeting with the local elders.

The protests at Libyan oil terminals came at a turbulent time for the oil industry of the OPEC member exempted from the OPEC+ cuts. The tension among Libyas top oil officials escalated at the end of last month when Libyan Oil Minister Mohamed Oun said he had suspended NOCs chairman Sanalla. The tension between Oun and Sanalla has been growing since Oun was appointed oil minister in March in the government of national unity, which includes a post for an oil minister for the first time in five years.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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Geo-analytics company Kayrros has recently detected by satellite methane plumes near natural gas producing fields in Turkmenistan in central Asia and associated pipelines shipping gas to China and Russia, Bloomberg reports.

Methane, the simplest hydrocarbon and primary component of natural gas, is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide (CO2).

According to data from Kayrros cited by Bloomberg on Thursday, a methane plume with an estimated emissions rate of 172 tons an hour was spotted on August 31 close to gas-producing fields and the Central Asia Center gas pipeline system in Turkmenistan. The pipeline system connects gas fields in Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan and transports gas to Russia.

Another methane plume was detected on the same day near producing fields and another pipeline, this one transporting gas to China, according to Kayrros.

As the oil and gas industry is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, including carbon dioxide and methane emissions, Turkmenistana former Soviet republicin central Asia is among the highest methane emitters and methane intensity gas-producing countries in the world.

Turkmenistan is the sixth-largest holder of natural gas reserves in the world, according to the Oil and Gas Journal. Despite its large gas and oil reserves, the country is not a major player on the energy markets due to a lack of infrastructure to export more of its gas. In recent years, however, Turkmenistan has boosted its natural gas exports via pipeline to China. State-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) has also recently signed a deal with Turkmenistan to make more wells operational in the giant Galkynysh field in the central Asian country.

According to data from the International Energy Agency (IEA), Turkmenistan was the worlds fourth-largest methane emitter in 2020. It also had the third-highest methane intensity last year, behind only Libya and Venezuela.

Commenting on last years methane emissions, the IEA said that Reductions were seen across a number of regions in 2020, but large levels of emissions were still seen across US shale plays, in Turkmenistan, and from pipelines in the Russian Federation.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

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The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) will hold an extraordinary summit in Accra today to discuss the coup detat and the political crisis in Guinea.



Heads of State and other top officials of the 15-member sub-regional bloc will deliberate on a report by a fact-finding mission sent to assess the situation in Guinea on September 10, this year.



It is expected that after the summit, ECOWAS will give the military junta in Guinea timelines to prepare the country back to democracy, in accordance with the ECOWAS treaty and protocol on democracy and good governance.



This is the second time ECOWAS will be meeting with Guinea on the agenda.



The first meeting was held virtually on Wednesday, September 8, this year, during which the Authority of the Heads of State and Government, the highest decision-making body of ECOWAS, suspended Guinea over the coup that toppled President Alpha Conde on September 5, this year.



Participants



Heads of State of six countries  Togo, Liberia, Cote dIvoire, Guinea Bissau, Niger and Senegal  are expected to join President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the ECOWAS Chairman, at the summit.



The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Ms Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, who confirmed the participants at a press conference in Accra yesterday, said Nigeria would be represented by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, while The Gambia and Sierra Leone would be represented by their Foreign Affairs ministers.



Guinea and Mali, the two West African states currently being ruled by military juntas, will not be participating in the summit, as they have been suspended from the sub-regional body.



Agenda



Ms Botchwey said the Authority of Heads of State of ECOWAS would assess the report of the fact-finding mission, after which it would come up with a communique detailing the next line of action.



At the moment, the ministry has not received any indication of participation by Cape Verde and Benin. We also expect the participation of the President and the Vice-President of the ECOWAS Commission, she said.



Coup d'etat



Guinea was thrown into political turmoil on September 5 when Prof. Conde was overthrown in a coup by the countrys Special Forces, led by Colonel Mamady Doumbouya.



Col Doumbouya formed a military junta dubbed: National Committee for Reconciliation and Development (CNRD).



Prof. Conde, who had been in power since 2010 and was in the first year of his controversial third term, is currently being held under house arrest by the junta.



The coup was condemned by ECOWAS, the African Union and the United Nations, with all of them calling for the unconditional release of Prof. Conde and the restoration of democratic rule in Guinea.



Last Tuesday, Col Doumbouya and other leaders of the CNRD met political, religious and business leaders and other stakeholders, which meeting the junta said would lay the framework for forming a transitional government that would set the country on the path back to democracy.



State of shock



Ms Botchwey, who is the Chairperson of the ECOWAS Council of Ministers, led a high level mission to Guinea on September 10 to assess the situation.



The delegation informed Col Doumbouya of its mission to ascertain, among others, the issues that led to the coup and about the plan of the CNRD for the restoration of constitutional order in Guinea, she said.



The Foreign Affairs Minister said the delegation also met with Prof. Conde and spent some time with him.



She revealed that the ousted President was in good health, but was in a state of shock.



He looked very well, but for anybody who had gone through a traumatic experience like he did, he was still in a state of shock, she said.



Road traffic disruption



Meanwhile, the Ghana Police Service has announced that there will be temporary road blocks on some roads in Accra today as a result of the summit.



The Director of Public Affairs of the Ghana Police Service, Superintendent of Police Mr Alexander Obeng, said the temporary road blocks were to facilitate the transportation of the Heads of State and other dignitaries to the Kempinski Hotel, where the submit would be held.



Speaking at the same event, he indicated the affected areas to include the Kotoka International Airport, the Opeibia House, the Akuafo Roundabout, Afrikiko, the Ako-Adjei Interchange, the National Theatre, the Ridge Roundabout and finally the Kempinski Hotel.



There will be about 100 policemen to direct traffic. The road blocks will be temporary, meaning they will be done as and when the dignitaries are being escorted to the venue, he said.

Source: graphiconline.com









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The Meridian Masquerading club is set to launch into mainstream masquerading in the Tema area this week. The event is scheduled to happen on the 19th of September 2021 at the old corner opposite community 8 and 9 junction.



The purpose of the launch is to initiate the club into the competitive masquerading show that has gotten traction in the Tema and Ashaiman areas of the Accra region.



After the launch, the group will show its wardrobe of costumes and skills by embarking on a masquerading procession across the principal streets of Tema.



The masquerading show has become an important part of community life in many parts of Ghana including Secondi, Takoradi, and Tema.



In these shows, each participant wears a specially tailored costume, with the designs for each club kept top secret until their first public showing.



Clubs usually take to the streets amidst music and dancing, where various skills are exhibited to the awe of the community. At Christmas, there are competitions for the best costumes, music and dancing skills. On other occasions, the processions are normally less competitive.



The clubs are an important part of community life, providing a safety net for members who may face financial difficulties from unemployment or funeral costs.



The meridian Masquerading club will become one of the few clubs to have a formal launch and unveiling, and set to lead the masquerading events in the Tema Metropolis.

Source: Peacefmonline.com/ghana









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Grow, Unite, Build, Africa (GUBA) will dedicate its 2021 Awards to the celebration of a century of the passage of Yaa Asantewaa, the influential warrior and Queen mother of Ejisu, who rose to lead an Asante army against the invading British. This event will be in Accra, a first in Ghana.



This years Awards, is a celebration of an important moment in African history, one that is unique to the relations between the Republic of Ghana and the Republic of Seychelles and also to celebrate the resilience of the African woman. The theme for GUBA Awards 2021 is Celebrating a Symbol of Courage and Resilience.



The Awards, which will be held on Monday, November 8, 2021, in Accra, is expected to host several high-profile personalities in Ghana and from the diaspora. The plethora of dignitaries and personalities expected to grace this years Awards, reflects the shift from an event celebrating the Ghanaian diaspora to a truly Pan-African occasion.



More importantly, the event will also mark the centenary of the death of Yaa Asantewaa, an Asante Queen Mother and the last African woman to lead a major war against the then colonial powers. Yaa Asantewaa is honoured across Africa and the African diaspora for her resistance to then British imperialism and she is widely considered as a symbol of courage, strength, and resilience. She was a critical figure in recognizing and using the power of women to mobilize both men and women to resist colonial power. GUBA Enterprises President and CEO, Dentaa Amoateng MBE, indicated.



Dentaa noted, GUBA awardees are the modern day representation of Yaa Asantewaa; at the time the world was faced with an unprecedented pandemic, they took up the mantle of leadership, and with courage and resilience, helped to steer the world back onto the path of progress.



While celebrating the contribution of Black women, the GUBA Awards 2021 will also raise awareness on maternal mortality and call for measures to ensure safe child delivery across the continent. GUBA Enterprise believes that every child, born and unborn, has great potential and must be given the opportunity to fulfill this potential.



GUBA Enterprise seeks to promote greater economic, social and cultural cooperation between Africa and the African diaspora through harnessing the power of the African youth to advance the socio-economic interests of the continent.



About the Theme



The year 2021 marks a centenary of the death of Yaa Asantewaa, an Asante Queen Mother and the last African woman to lead a major war against colonial powers in 1900, where she played the role of the Commander-in-Chief of the powerful Asante Empire. After the war, Yaa Asantewaa was captured and taken to Seychelles in exile, where she lived until her demise in October 21, 1921. This year, marks exactly 100 years of her transition.



About GUBA Awards



The GUBA Awards is a non-profit organisation that focuses on enriching the African community in the Diaspora and in Africa with the aim of empowerment and growth. It is an event dedicated to highlighting and rewarding outstanding achievers. As one of the most professionally executed and entertaining events, the GUBA Awards ceremony attracts a high caliber of African political luminaries as well as business and entrepreneurial personalities.





Source: Peacefmonline.com









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Guinea's health ministry has said that the outbreak of Marburg disease, announced at the beginning of August, is now over.



The country confirmed West Africa's first case of Marburg, a highly infectious disease in the same family as the virus that causes Ebola, almost six weeks ago.



At the time, the World Health Organization (WHO) said the virus needed to be "stopped in its tracks".



But no additional case has been recorded, according to a statement signed by Dr Sekou Conde from the health ministry.



However, the authorities are still investigating how the man was infected.



Marburg virus disease is transmitted to people from fruit bats and spreads between humans through the transmission of bodily fluids.



Cases are extremely rare with the last major outbreak in Angola in 2005.



It is a severe, often fatal illness with symptoms including headache, fever, muscle pains, vomiting blood and bleeding.

Source: BBC









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Water is expected to flow through the taps from tomorrow to residents of parts of Accra affected by repair works on the Weija Water Treatment Plant.



The plant was shut down last Monday to allow engineers of the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) to undertake some repair works on its main 900-millimetre transmission pipelines.



The Managing Director of the GWCL, Dr Clifford Braimah, said the repair works had been completed, and that water would be distributed to the communities after scheduled test runs.



Dr Braimah made this known when the Minister of Sanitation and Water Resources, Ms Cecilia Dapaah, joined a team of GWCL officials to inspect the repair works.



He explained that the repair works included replacing faulty valves on the transmission pipelines and repairing leakages within the supply area.





"GWCL engineers will also take advantage of the shutdown to install some electromagnetic meters at the Weija Treatment Plant, which will help in the companys drive to reduce non-revenue water," he added.



He said the leakages had caused the GWCL volumes of water daily, and that they had impacted the volumes available for consumption.



He said the faulty valves had also impeded the flow of water, causing serious challenges in the distribution lines.



Treatment plants





Dr Braimah noted that the repair works were part of a nationwide rehabilitation exercise being done on all water treatment plants across the country.



He noted that it was funded from GWCLs internally generated funds to improve the supply of water to the growing population.



Dr Braimah was quick to add that the rationing of water would still continue to enable them to supply water to areas that previously did not have access to water.



That is why we encourage people to store water as rationing of water will continue due to increase in population, he said.





Dr Braimah also noted that the necessary equipment, logistics, funding and personnel required to execute the repair works were available to complete them on time.



Encroachment



Ms Dapaah later commended the engineers for working on schedule.



She, however, expressed worry about the encroachment on GWCL lands, and asked the company to start processes to demolish structures that had encroached upon their property.









Source: graphiconline.com









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France has angrily reacted after being left out of an agreement between the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia to give Australia nuclear-powered submarines.



On Wednesday, September 15, U.S. President Biden joined British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison in announcing the creation of an enhanced trilateral security partnership, called "AUKUS", which involves sharing highly sensitive nuclear submarine technology with Australia.



"As the first initiative under AUKUS, recognizing our common tradition as maritime democracies, we commit to a shared ambition to support Australia in acquiring nuclear-powered submarines for the Royal Australian Navy," the White House said.

"Today, we embark on a trilateral effort of 18 months to seek an optimal pathway to deliver this capability. We will leverage expertise from the United States and the United Kingdom, building on the two countries submarine programs to bring an Australian capability into service at the earliest achievable date."



The announcement of the partnership is widely perceived as a challenge to Chinas authority in the region and the Chinese embassy quickly responded to the news.



"Exchanges and cooperation between countries should help expand mutual understanding and trust,"

"Countries should do more things that are conducive to solidarity and cooperation among countries and regional peace and stability. Meanwhile they should not build exclusionary blocs targeting or harming the interests of third parties. In particular, they should shake off their Cold-War mentality and ideological prejudice." the Chinese Embassy in the U.S. said in a statement



But France blasted the US and UK for not involving it in the deal.





In a statement issued by French Minister Of Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-yves Le Drian and Minister of the Armed Forces Florence Parly, the country said the decision announced on Wednesday "is contrary to the letter and spirit of the cooperation that prevailed between France and Australia, based on a relationship of political trust as well as on the development of a very high-level defence industrial and technological base in Australia."



"The American choice to exclude a European ally and partner such as France from a structuring partnership with Australia, at a time when we are facing unprecedented challenges in the Indo-Pacific region, whether in terms of our values or in terms of respect for multilateralism based on the rule of law, shows a lack of coherence that France can only note and regret," the statement continued.





The statement went on to call the announcement "regrettable."



"The regrettable decision that has just been announced regarding the FSP program only reinforces the need to make the issue of European strategic autonomy loud and clear," the joint statement said. "There is no other credible way to defend our interests and our values in the world, including in the Indo-Pacific."



France added that it is the "only European nation present in the Indo-Pacific with nearly two million citizens and more than 7,000 military personnel."









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Featured Video
Governance lecturer at the Central University, Dr. Benjamin Otchere-Ankrah, has condemned the politics of insults in the country.



Speaking on Peace FM's 'Kokrokoo' programme, Dr. Otchere-Ankrah fumed at the trend where politicians and the youth insult particulary the President of Ghana and elderly people, and instead of being reprimanded, rather receive praises for their disrespect to the elderly.



He slammed the elderly for failing to discipline those who he termed as having 'diarrhoea mouth'.



"When an NPP person is talking, the person says His Excellency Nana Akufo-Addo, but addresses Mahama as 'that Mahama'. Come on! If Mahama was your family member or elder brother, wouldn't you like it? How many people can be President in Ghana? Likewise, when somebody is talking, the person says His Excellency John Mahama . . . what is this? Look at our generation, how many people can be President of Ghana?" he questioned.



"When the youth are insulting particularly the opponents, what do you say to them? What future generation are we building?'' he further asked.



He called for decorum saying "let's respect the Presidency".





Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
" " Protesters hold placards in front of the Pennsylvania State Capitol during the Rally for Reproductive Rights. The rally was organized after the United States Supreme Court refused to block a Texas law prohibiting almost all abortions. Paul Weaver/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Nearly 50 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court made one of its most controversial rulings with its landmark decision in Roe v. Wade. The ruling declared states criminalizing abortion violates a woman's right to due process, meaning a woman has the right to choose whether to terminate a pregnancy with limited government restrictions.

Until that point, nearly all 50 states outlawed abortion except in cases to save a woman's life or health, or in situations such as rape, incest or fetal anomaly.

In the years since the landmark decision, state legislators have made numerous attempts to chip away at abortion rights through ballot measures and legislative moves, and cumulatively have passed more than 1,300 restrictions on abortion. Dozens more are currently making their way through state legislatures. But the precedent set by Roe v. Wade and its progeny case, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, remain intact.

However, a Mississippi case set to be reviewed this fall by the Supreme Court holds the potential to shake the very foundation upon which these cases stand. The aftershocks of which will either strengthen or reshape the future of abortion rights in America.

" " Attorney Gloria Allred (right) and Norma McCorvey (center), aka Jane Roe, are seen here during an abortion rights rally, July 4, 1989, in Burbank, California. Bob Riha, Jr./Getty Images

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Background of Roe v. Wade

On Jan. 22, 1973, by a vote of 7 to 2, the Supreme Court legalized abortion in the U.S. under Roe v. Wade. The court's judgment was based on the decision that a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy fell under the freedom of personal choice in family matters protected by the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The case created the "trimester" system, which says states cannot impose any restrictions on women choosing to terminate their pregnancies during the first trimester, though it does allow some government limits in the second trimester. States can restrict or ban abortions in the last trimester once the fetus becomes able to live outside the womb.

However, Roe v. Wade also established that, in the final trimester, a woman could obtain an abortion if doctors certify that it is necessary to save the life or health of the woman.

In 1992, the Supreme Court made another landmark decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. In that case, the court upheld a woman's constitutional right to have an abortion established by Roe, but also applied the undue burden standard for abortion restrictions establishing that no laws should be too burdensome or restrictive of one's fundamental rights.

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Recent Developments Threatening Roe

There have been numerous challenges to Roe and Casey through the years that the Supreme Court has struck down, including a six-week ban in North Dakota and a 12-week ban in Arkansas. The court also struck down a 2016 Texas law that impeded clinics' abilities to perform abortions.

Earlier this year, however, Texas lawmakers found a way to get around the Supreme Court  at least for now.

At midnight Sept. 1, 2021, the nation's strictest abortion law went into effect in the state. Known as the "fetal heartbeat" bill or SB8, the law bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy (or six weeks after a person's last menstrual cycle)  before most women know they are pregnant and far earlier than legally provided by Roe v. Wade. What makes Texas' law different from others is that it is enforceable only through private civil action.

Essentially that means the law empowers citizen(s) to sue abortion providers or anyone who helps another get an abortion  or even intends to assist someone  after a fetal heartbeat has been detected. The person suing does not have to be connected to the person considering the abortion or to a provider  or even live in the state of Texas. If the accuser wins their case, the person or entity being sued would have to pay the accuser (or accusers) at least $10,000, as well as costs for attorney's fees, according to the law.

" " Pro-choice protesters march outside the Texas State Capitol Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2021, in Austin after Texas passed SB8, which effectively bans abortions. Sergio Flores For The Washington Post via Getty Images

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The Supreme Court's Hesitance

Whole Woman's Health, an independent abortion provider in Texas, challenged the law in an emergency application to the Supreme Court on the grounds that the six-week ban was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court remained mute on the subject until hours before the law went into effect, issuing an unsigned opinion consisting of a single, long paragraph that stated the abortion providers failed to make their case. Chief Justice John Roberts, who was appointed by Republican President George W. Bush, and left-leaning Justices Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, dissented.

The Texas law was able to skirt a Supreme Court review at this juncture "because it relies on private actors to enforce the law [as opposed to state officials] and no one yet has enforced it," explains Stefanie Lindquist, foundation professor of law and political science at Arizona State University and a recognized expert on the Supreme Court. "Courts are very reluctant to resolve cases that have not yet reached a concrete dispute."

However, the U.S. Department of Justice has a different source of standing, she explains. On Sept. 9, 2021, the Department of Justice sued Texas on behalf of U.S. citizens on the grounds that Texas' abortion law is a violation of federal law. "The act is clearly unconstitutional under long-standing Supreme Court precedent," Attorney General Merrick Garland said during a news conference.

The Justice Department filed the lawsuit in the Western District of Texas and seeks a permanent injunction. But the case will likely eventually make its way to the Supreme Court.

" " Anti-abortion activists participate in the March for Life outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. The March is an annual event to mark the anniversary of the 1973 Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion in the U.S. SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

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Changing Landscape of the Supreme Court

When Roe went into effect in 1973, the majority of the court comprised Republican-appointed justices. Even Justice Harry Blackmun, who wrote the Roe v. Wade opinion, had been appointed by Republican President Richard M. Nixon. Since then, "the ideological orientation toward abortion has changed," Lindquist says. "The Republican Party is now firmly entrenched as the party that opposes abortion."

By degrees, the balance of the Supreme Court has been changing, and it was by design. Before President Donald Trump took office in 2017, he vowed to appoint justices to the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Justice Anthony Kennedy's retirement in 2018, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death in September 2020, allowed Trump to do so, with conservative picks Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. The Supreme Court now has a 6-3 conservative majority with all six taking hostile positions against abortion at one point or another.

Since Roe was decided, legislators in conservative states have pressed to impose additional restrictions on abortion, but now they see a window of opportunity with the personnel changes at the Supreme Court, Lindquist says. "With the majority of justices being Catholic and most of them being appointed by Republican presidents, the assumption is that now is the time," she says. "Strike while the iron is hot. Legislation can finally get to the Supreme Court where Roe could be challenged and struck down."

" " A technician wears a shirt supporting a woman's right to choose at Jackson Women's Health Organization, the only remaining abortion clinic in the state of Mississippi. The clinic is challenging the the constitutionality of a state law banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The Supreme Court will hear the case this fall. Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post via Getty Images

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The Mississippi Case and Roe v. Wade

The opportunity to entice the Supreme Court to revisit Roe v. Wade presented itself in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.

The case stems from a law passed by the Mississippi legislature in 2018 that banned abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the only licensed abortion provider in Mississippi, challenged the law's constitutionality. A U.S. District Court sided with the clinic, reasoning that Roe v. Wade does not allow states to ban abortions in the first six months of pregnancy when the fetus is not yet viable outside the womb. The U.S. District Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld that decision on appeal.

Mississippi took the case to the Supreme Court, asking the justices to weigh in on whether pre-viability bans on elective abortions are unconstitutional. On May 17, 2021, the Supreme Court announced it would review the case this fall, the outcome of which could impact the precedents set by both Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

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And Speaking of Precedent, Doesn't Roe Set One?

It does, so what does that mean? "Precedent is one of the cornerstones of our judicial system," Lindquist explains. Precedents are considered as authority for deciding subsequent cases involving similar facts or legal issues. The concept, called stare decisis, which means "let the decision stand" in Latin, provides stability and predictability in law.

"The system of precedent provides that when courts make decisions and those decisions become law, they will remain on the books until that same court or an appellate court overrules those precedents," Lindquist says.

Judges and justices often rely on precedents to make rulings in other cases. For example, five justices relied on precedent set by Casey when striking down a Louisiana law that would have required doctors performing abortions to have admissions privileges at a state-authorized hospital within 30 miles (48 kilometers) of the clinic.

The Supreme Court can overturn an existing precedent with a majority vote. And this happens surprisingly more often than the general public realizes, about two to three times per term, Lindquist says. "But these are cases that don't make the news," she says. "In the case of Roe v. Wade, obviously if the precedent is overturned, it would, in fact, disrupt many, many, many peoples' expectations and abortion providers' expectations about the legal restraints on their actions."

When a new precedent is established or law is changed on an issue, it is known as a "landmark decision."

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What Happens if Roe Is Overturned?

If Roe is ultimately upended, the aftershocks would be felt immediately. According to the Guttmacher Institute, a worldwide research and policy organization, 11 states have trigger laws in place that would instantly ban abortions. Conversely, 14 states plus Washington, D.C., have laws in place to protect abortion access.

Overturning Roe would also add strength to Texas' fetal heartbeat law, Lindquist says. However, if Roe is upheld, "it will have major implications for the Texas case simply because it will reaffirm the core right to abortion prior to viability."

The Supreme Court isn't likely to deliver a decision in the Mississippi case until the spring or early summer 2022.

Now That's Interesting One well-known example in which precedent was overturned occurred in the landmark 1954 case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. In that case, the justices ruled unanimously that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional. The decision overturned the high court's prior ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson, which established the precedent of "separate but equal" in education.
US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad (left) signs a deal with withdraw US forces with Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar sin the Qatari capital Doha on February 29, 2020 (AFP/Giuseppe CACACE)

The US negotiator on Afghanistan said that president Ashraf Ghani's abrupt exit scuttled a deal in which the Taliban would hold off entering Kabul and negotiate a political transition.

In his first interview since the collapse of the 20-year Western-backed government, Zalmay Khalilzad, who brokered a 2020 deal with the Taliban to withdraw US troops, told the Financial Times that the insurgents had agreed to stay outside the capital for two weeks and shape a future government.

"Even at the end, we had an agreement with the Talibs for (them) not to enter Kabul," he told the newspaper in the interview published Wednesday.

But Ghani fled on August 15 and the Taliban, in a previously arranged meeting that day with General Frank McKenzie, chief of Central Command, asked if US troops would ensure security for Kabul as government authority crumbled.

"And then you know what happened, we weren't going to take responsibility," Khalilzad said.

President Joe Biden had insisted that US troops would only work to evacuate Americans and Afghan allies and not extend America's longest war.

Asked about Khalilzad's remarks, State Department spokesman Ned Price said it was not an option to stay "a moment longer" in Kabul.

"There was never a realistic, there was never a viable, there was never a practical option for the United States to stay," Price told reporters.

"We were left with a very clear and stark impression that if the United States sought to prolong our presence on the ground, our servicemembers... would again be targets of Taliban violence not to mention terrorist attacks by groups like ISIS."

Ghani, who sought safety in the United Arab Emirates, has apologized for how the government ended but said he left on the advice of palace security to avoid bloody street fighting.

The Taliban had been demanding the resignation of Ghani as part of any transitional government. Ultimately, the Islamists named a caretaker government with no non-Taliban nor women and that includes US-designated terrorists.

Story continues

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, testifying before Congress this week, also said he spoke to Ghani on August 14 and that the Afghan leader agreed both to work on a transitional government and, if the Taliban reneged, to "fight to the death."

Blinken said Ghani gave no warning he would leave the next day.

The Afghan-born Khalilzad, a senior figure in former president George W. Bush's administration who was tapped by Donald Trump to negotiate the withdrawal, has come under fierce criticism in Washington after the Taliban takeover.

Khalilzad, who said he was surprised Biden kept him, did not take responsibility for how the war ended, saying it had been up to Afghans to reach a peace deal.

sct/mlm
Africas leopards, like this one in Botswana, are increasingly under threat. Credit: Shutterstock

In recent years, ecologists have been able to confirm the existence of species previously thought to be lost from former parts of their range.

For example, in 2020, lowland gorillas were confirmed to persist in central mainland Equatorial Guinea by University of the West of England researchers. This year, Babirusa, a southeast Asian wild pig species, were documented for the first time in 26 years on Buru Island, Indonesia.

Collecting this evidence is possible due to the increasing use of remotely triggered cameras, commonly known as camera traps. Camera traps are triggered by motion and take photos of an animal that passes in front of the camera's detection zone.

By deploying cameras in wildlife habitat, we can gather valuable information about the animals that live there and how many may be left. This is especially important in areas subject to intense human pressure, which has increasingly left species under threat.

In 2019, our research team deployed 19 camera traps in southern Cameroon in Central Africa. A sighting of an adult leopard was captured by one of our camera traps in the Campo-Ma'an area. This was the first sighting of a leopard in 20 years.

Photos showed only one individual, but its presence provided real evidence that leopards still occur in this conservation area. This would make leopards the apex predator in this area.

The leopard has the widest range of any big cat species in Africa, and can persist in a range of habitat types including savanna and rainforest environments. Population estimates are not known, though numbers in Africa are thought to be declining. A 2016 study estimated that the African leopard's range has reduced to 67%.

There is little information about leopard populations in Central Africa but in sub-Saharan Africa as a whole, prey loss within protected areas as well as habitat loss and illegal hunting are expected to have played an important role in leopard declines in this region.

Although the Congo Basin was previously thought to be a stronghold for leopards, they are now believed to be absent in many parts of this region, so our recent sighting of a leopard in Campo-Ma'an shows the importance of conservation efforts to protect leopard habitat and their prey.

In light of increasing habitat loss and fragmentation in the region, further research in our study area is urgently needed.

Campo-Ma'an

The region is part of the Congo Basin which, besides Cameroon, spans parts of Equatorial Guinea, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Republic of Congo and Gabon.

The Congo Basin is a biodiversity hotspot that is home to thousands of species and is the second largest tropical rainforest on the planet after the Amazon. This forest system is also home to several endangered species, including the western lowland gorilla, forest elephant, chimpanzee, mandrill and giant pangolin.

Campo-Ma'an National Park is a 2,680 square km protected area in southern Cameroon. Campo-Ma'an was thought to have one of the last remaining leopard populations in the region. But after decades of hunting and forest loss, there had been no indisputable evidence that leopards were still there.

An unexpected find

In 2019, one of our camera traps photographed a leopard, as an unexpected byproduct of a study on the ecology of endangered forest elephants in Campo-Ma'an.

Cameras were deployed in areas thought to be used by elephants so we were surprised to see an adult leopard in one of the photos.

Knowing that leopards still exist in Campo-Ma'an helped us secure research funds to expand our camera trapping efforts in the area in 2022. Working with local communities and the Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife in Cameroon will help us collect data to better understand what leopards need to be able to live in this area and importantly, prevent human-leopard conflict.

Our team will carry out an extensive camera trap survey throughout the Campo-Ma'an conservation area to gather more information about leopard habitat use there. This will help us get a better idea of how many leopards there are, and in turn, encourage strategies to protect the species.

This is urgently needed as human disturbance and encroachment is a major threat to wildlife in the area. Campo-Ma'an National Park is surrounded by more than 100 human settlements, as well as palm oil plantations and logging concessions.

Our findings were valuable in confirming the presence of leopards in the area but a great deal more work needs to be done. Our work will form the basis of a long-term wildlife monitoring program in the region which we hope will contribute to conservation efforts in Campo-Ma'an, for leopards as well as the many other endangered species that live there.

Explore further Researchers confirm the presence of the African leopard in southwestern Cameroon

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Australia on Thursday approved a controversial coal mine extension, doubling down on a commitment to continue extracting fossil fuels despite growing pressure to cut carbon emissions.

Environment Minister Sussan Ley green-lighted Whitehaven Coal's Vickery mine extension near Sydney, just a week after the pro-coal conservative government said global demand was rising and vowed to keep mining coal for export.

It comes ahead of the United Nations COP26 climate conference in Glasgow in November, and as world leaders urge Australia to step up climate action and commit to a target for reaching net-zero emissions.

In her decision, Ley said she "found that the approval of the proposed action is consistent with Australia's commitments under the Paris Agreement", adding the mining firm had identified Japan, South Korea and Taiwan as likely customers.

The mine has attracted controversy in Australia and a lawsuit from eight teenagers who scored a major victory in May when a judge agreed extending it would cause them climate-related harm.

But while the federal judge ruled the government must take into account the damage the project would do to the group's health, wealth and wellbeing, he rejected their calls for an injunction to stop the project outright.

"The minister has a duty to take reasonable care to avoid causing personal injury to the children when deciding... to approve or not approve the extension project," Justice Mordy Bromberg found.

Ley has attached a number of conditions to the minewhich will produce a mix of coking coal used to make steel and thermal coal for electricity generationincluding that threatened species living in the area and nearby rivers are protected.

However, Tim Buckley, from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, slammed the move as "ignoring the science of climate change and the rapidly escalating economic cost of inaction".

"The Australian court system has ruled that our government has a duty of care to future generations, but our Federal government continues to ignore thisand increased stranded asset costs will be the direct result," he said.

Australia is one of the world's largest producers of coal and natural gas, but has also suffered under increasingly extreme climate-fuelled droughts, floods and bushfires in recent years.

A study published in the journal Nature last week found that 89 percent of global coal reservesand 95 percent of Australia's sharemust be left untouched to address the climate crisis.

Explore further Australia vows to keep mining coal despite climate warning

 2021 AFP
When Mt Pinatubo erupted in 1991, it ejected 20 million tonnes of sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere. Over the months following the eruption, the aerosols formed a global layer of sulphuric acid haze. Global temperatures dropped by about 0.4 C from 19911993. That's a natural form of solar geoengineering that humans could try to mimic to cool the planet. Credit: Dave Harlow, United States Geological Survey/Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain

It sounds like something out of a bad science fiction movieartificially blocking sunlight to keep global warming from overheating the Earth. Nevertheless, a small cadre of researchers is studying the optionso that if humankind ever needs to use it, it will be an informed decision.

The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released in early August, made it clear that humankind needs to take immediate action to curb global warming. There's hope that international climate talks in Glasgow this November may finally result in strong enough greenhouse gas emission limits to make a difference.

But just in case, an international group of researchers, including NTNU's Helene Muri, has been studying a technology called solar geoengineering as an action of last resort.

Solar geoengineering is exactly what it sounds like, where various technologies are used to block sunlight and cool the Earth. Typically, three main approachesnone of which is currently technologically readyare being studied for their ability to block sunlight and lower ground temperatures. (See box)

Muri, a senior researcher at the university's Industrial Ecology Programme, has spent the last decade looking at how solar geoengineering mightor might notwork.

In June, she and her colleagues from the US, China and the UK published a paper in Nature Food that used computer models to assess solar geoengineering's potential effects on agriculture in a high emission world. Their findings sparked international media coverage because they found that solar geoengineering in those scenarios could actually have a positive effect on crop growth from higher humidity.

Other studies that used simpler models found either a limited effect or losses for rainfed crops, since there could be less rainfall with the lower temperatures that come with solar geoengineeringdepending on the way the technology is used to cool the Earth.

Now, as the world prepares to debate limits on CO 2 emissions during November's climate talks, it's worth a look at the measures being examined by researchers like Muriand an assessment of their possible risks and pitfalls.

Band-aid or tourniquet?

Any discussion of solar geoengineering has to acknowledge that it's far from a perfect fix, Muri says.

"Solar geoengineering, no matter how well we do it, will never perfectly offset the effects of climate change," she said.

The problem is that solar geoengineering may cool the Earth, but doesn't get rid of the excess carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping substances in the atmosphere. And carbon dioxide does more than simply warm the Earth.

It fertilizes plantswhich could be a good thingbut because much of it gets dissolved in sea water, it makes the oceans more acidic.

"There will always be things that you cannot fix with solar geoengineering, specifically ocean acidification," she said. "A more acidic ocean affects everything in the food chains in the ocean, including coral reef diebacks, which is terrible for the ecosystem as a whole. That becomes evident as soon as you really start looking at it. There is no one silver bullet. It's not the one solution that can fix everything."

Muri says that any discussion of geoengineering also assumes that CO 2 emissions will be dealt with at the same time any solar geoengineering is deployed.

Alan Robock, a climate researcher at Rutgers University in the US who is leader of an international cooperative research project of called GeoMIP, of which Muri is a part, agreed.

"It's not a solution to global warming at its best. If it were ever used as a band-aidor a tourniquetit doesn't solve the root problem," he said.

Many unknowns, but still need to know

Muri says there is still much that is unknown about solar geoengineering, in part because most climate change research is focused on issues other than geoengineering.

"Just to put the level of research into context, for the last five to 10 years, there have been about 100 to 130 papers published per year on solar geoengineering," she said. "When it comes to climate change it's more like 30,000 papers per year over that period. The important thing is that it is a vastly, hugely different amount. It's just a minority of effort and funding going into researching solar geoengineering."

At the same time, she says, the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine published a comprehensive report on solar geoengineering that said the urgency of the risks posed by climate change meant that "the U.S. should pursue a research program for solar geoengineeringin coordination with other nations, subject to governance, and alongside a robust portfolio of climate mitigation and adaptation policies." The report recommended US funding of about $100 million-$200 million over the first five years.

Muri says that climate researchers' main focus needs to remain on climate change itself, because society needs to know what the effects will be, how to adapt, and how to mitigate these effects. Nevertheless, she says, researchers do need to study solar geoengineering to see if it could be helpful as a stopgap measure while the world transitions away from fossil fuels.

"The question is if it could contribute to reduce some level of harm from climate change for a certain period, whilst we are trying to sort out both emissions of CO 2 and concentrations of CO 2 within the climate system," she said. "Nobody sees it as a one and only solution, but it's not clear yet whether it could be helpful or not. At the moment, there are too many unknowns and uncertainties to really say whether it's overall a good idea or a bad idea."

Robock agrees.

His group at Rutgers University is "doing research to evaluate the risks of doing solar geoengineering versus the risks of not doing it. And that's the information that governments will need in the future to decide whether or not to ever implement it," he said. "I spend millions of dollars of taxpayer money to do my research. And if I find a danger to society, it's my obligation to warn people about it."

Three main types of solar geoengineering that are now being studied. Credit: US National Academy of Science

A cooler Earth but potentially changed monsoons

Robock's group is looking at the benefits and risks of using stratospheric aerosols to cool the planet, which emulate a volcanic eruption.

"Benefit number one would be, if you could do it, you would reduce global warming, and many of its risks," Robock said. "We know that if you could get the aerosols up there, it would work because it doesn't involve creating or affecting clouds in the troposphere, it's just putting a shield up there to reflect sunlight."

Researchers know that big volcanic eruptions, like the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo, cooled the Earth. But these natural solar geoengineering experiments have also given them the ability to observe other pitfalls, Robock said.

"We know that there were other things that were not so good; (the eruption) destroyed ozone," he said. "And you actually get a huge reduction of monsoon rainfall. We observed that after Mount Pinatubo."

Volcanic eruptions only cause the Earth to cool for a year or two, because the aerosols eventually dissipate. However, if stratospheric aerosols were to be used as solar geoengineering to cool the Earth, their use could alter monsoon rainfall for a much longer period, which could result in famine, Robock said.

Some modeling has shown that solar geoengineering could in fact have less of an impact on monsoons than global warming, but nevertheless, the issue illustrates just how difficult making these predictions are.

Who decides?

Then there are issues such as insect-borne diseases, like malaria, Muri points out. How would solar geoengineering affect mosquito populations and the potential spread of malaria?

And what if a failure to cut CO 2 emissions and reduce global warming results in devastating heat waves, where thousands of people die? Is that enough to outweigh other negatives?

"There are still so many areas where we don't know enough," she said.

Finally, there are areas that are far outside of what climate scientists who study the physical effects of climate change can predict. The biggest question is who decides what the temperature of the planet should be?

The political decision making surrounding solar geoengineering is daunting, if you consider the difficulty the nations of the world have already had in trying to agree to curb CO 2 emissions, Muri said.

"How would one deal with geoengineering in terms of geopolitics and governance?" Muri said. "We need to develop regulations. Who sets the thermostat and how would you go about agreeing on something like that?"

In a companion piece to Muri and her colleague's article on geoengineering and agriculture, Ben Kravitz, an assistant professor at Indiana University's Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Department, summed it up like this.

"Agriculture is one important piece in our understanding of the effects of climate engineering," he wrote. "Gaining a better picture of the impacts of climate engineering requires looking at numerous effects in addition to food supply, including water security, geopolitics, and environmental justice. It is important to figure out whether climate engineering would ultimately be more or less risky than climate change (and to whom)."

What is solar geoengineering?

Researchers are studying a number of engineering approaches as possible methods for cooling the planet. The three described here have been identified by a March report by the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine as meriting further study. The three approaches either rely on controlling the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth, or reducing the amount of heat trapped by the atmosphere.

Stratospheric aerosol injection

This technique requires injecting aerosol particles, like sulfates or pre-cursor gases, like sulfur dioxide, into the stratosphere, which is the layer of air 10 to 50 km above the Earth's surface. Most studies are looking at placing aerosols at about 20 km above the Earth, where the particles scatter and reflect solar radiation to cool the planet. This technique mimics what happens with large volcanic eruptions. When Mount Pinatubo erupted in 1991, it sprayed 15 to 20 megatons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, which cooled the Earth by about 0.4 degrees Celsius for two years. Currently, however, there are no planes capable of flying into the stratosphere to do this.

Cirrus cloud thinning

This technique involves spraying chemicals into cirrus clouds, at about 6-13 km above the Earth's surface, to cause them to thin or disappear. The clouds trap heat, so thinning them or reducing them cools the planet by allowing heat to escape the atmosphere. The challenge for this technique is that cirrus clouds are in the region of the atmosphere where jets fly, which could make implementing this measure difficult.

Marine cloud brightening

This approach would add particles to low laying liquid clouds over the ocean to make them thicker and more reflective, which would cool the Earth, if it did not have side effects on other clouds. This mimics what happens now under certain conditions when ships spew pollution into the atmosphere. The effect only works for a few days, and sea salt could be sprayed up from the ocean to seed the clouds.

Explore further Solar geoengineering may be effective in alleviating impacts of global warming on crops

More information: Toni Feder, Should solar geoengineering be part of how humanity counters climate change?, Physics Today (2021). Toni Feder, Should solar geoengineering be part of how humanity counters climate change?,(2021). DOI: 10.1063/PT.3.4768 Yuanchao Fan et al, Solar geoengineering can alleviate climate change pressures on crop yields, Nature Food (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s43016-021-00278-w Peter J. Irvine et al, An overview of the Earth system science of solar geoengineering, WIREs Climate Change (2016). DOI: 10.1002/wcc.423 Journal information: Nature Food , Physics Today
Credit: Alexander Viduetsky, some rights reserved (CC-BY-NC)

Releasing a higher number of kiwi into large predator-controlled areas could increase the success of efforts to help their survival in the wild, new research shows.

"Kiwi translocation review: are we releasing enough birds and to the right places?" is co-authored by Lincoln University's Peter Jahn, Ph.D. candidate, and Associate Professor James Ross, along with the University of Canterbury's Fernando Cagua, Verum Group's Laura Molles, and the Department of Conservation's Jen Germano.

Translocations are intentional movements of wildlife by humans from one place to another and are often used in conservation management.

The research looked at more than 100 translocations of relocated wild or captive-hatched kiwi over more than 120 years.

It found that translocations have played a vital role in conserving the rarest kiwi: Little Spotted Kiwi, Rowi, and Haast Tokoeka. However, most translocations have been for North Island Brown Kiwi.

Early translocations from the turn of the 19th century until the 1980s often failed and those populations that still persist need management to survive in the long term. However, the majority of all kiwi translocations has occurred over the last two decades. While several of these recently translocated populations have successfully established in the new areas, for most of them, the researchers found, it was too soon to assess if they will persist in the medium-long term.

Releasing higher numbers of birds in predator-free or large predator-controlled areas was found to have the best chances of success. Larger areas had fewer birds wander out to establish their territories and provided more space protected from mammalian predator incursions.

More birds in a translocation also gave a larger gene pool to increase long-term breeding success, another area that needed consideration according to the research.

Translocated wild-caught and captive-sourced birds survived on average substantially longer compared to younger birds raised from eggs in captivity, particularly at sites that were not predator-free.

It also advocated monitoring and managing the population after the releases of the new birds to help them overcome any obstacles. For populations that did not have ongoing monitoring, it was not possible to tell if they are doing well and if they need management intervention to address any post-translocation issues.

Mr Jahn said differences in kiwi survivalbased on the type of released birds and release site's area size and predator statusshould be considered during translocation planning.

He also encouraged a standardized monitoring approach, increased reporting, and publishing the outcomes of translocations, to ensure data was available for research to help future success.

"Translocations of kiwi are one of the most common and growing types of conservation translocations in New Zealand. However, their outcomes remain mostly unpublished, which does not allow for sharing of lessons learnt from past developments."

"We hope this review and its recommendations will assist kiwi survival."

Explore further Gaps in genetic knowledge affect kiwi conservation efforts

More information: Kiwi translocation review: are we releasing enough birds and to the right places?, New Zealand Journal of Ecology (2021). Kiwi translocation review: are we releasing enough birds and to the right places?,(2021). DOI: 10.20417/nzjecol.46.1

Provided by Lincoln University
While wildfires are a natural part of Californias landscape, a severe drought, coupled with extreme temperatures and low rainfall, have sustained several major fires for much of August. The map shows wildfire hotspots along the US West Coast in 2021. Further north, a number of Canadian Provinces (including British Columbia) have also been experiencing intense fires since the end of June. The data has been extracted from NASAs Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) which uses data from NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Terra and Aqua satellites and NASA's Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) aboard the joint NASA/NOAA Suomi National Polar orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) and NOAA-20 satellites. Credit: ESA (Data: NASA FIRMS)

While wildfires are a natural part of California's landscape, a severe drought, coupled with extreme temperatures, have sustained several major fires for much of August. As of 14 September, more than 7,000 wildfires have been recorded, burning over 900,000 hectares across the state.

The Dixie megablaze, the largest wildfire of the 2021 fire season and the second-largest blaze in recorded state history, has burned more than 388,000 hectares of mainly forested land and has destroyed more than 1,200 buildings on its path. The fire, named after the road where is started, began on 13 July in the Feather River Canyon, and as of 14 September, is only 75% contained.

With thousands of firefighters continuing to battle the blaze, several were diverted to help harness the nearby Caldor Fire which has burned more than 88,700 hectares, threatening communities near Lake Tahoe before crossing the state's border over to Nevada.

The map above shows wildfire hotspots along the US West Coast in 2021. Further north, a number of Canadian Provinces, including British Columbia, have also been experiencing intense fires since the end of June.

The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission has been used to image the fires. The Sentinel-2 satellites each carry just one instrumenta high-resolution multispectral imager with 13 spectral bands. Captured on 1 September, the smoke and burn scars of the Caldor and Dixie Fires are visible in this image.

While wildfires are a natural part of Californias landscape, a severe drought, coupled with extreme temperatures, have sustained several major fires for much of August. As of 14 September, more than 7000 wildfires have been recorded, burning over 900 000 hectares across the state. Credit: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2021), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

According to the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), smoke from the fires in North America has been transported across the continent and out over the Atlantic Ocean towards Europe yet is unlikely to affect Europeans as it is high up in the atmosphere. The smoke has, however, impacted air quality across the US and Canada, where it was much closer to the surface.

The Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite is dedicated to monitoring air pollution by measuring a multitude of trace gases that affect the air we breathe. Images captured on 30 August show the presence of aerosols in the atmosphere caused by the fires. The plumes continued their journey eastwards, across the US even reaching Europe.

Claus Zehner, ESA's Copernicus Sentinel-5P mission manager, says, "Copernicus satellites like Sentinel-2, Sentinel-3 and Sentinel-5P allow on one hand the point source detection of fires, and on the other hand, to monitor the movement of the emitted air pollutants over different states in the US and even to another continent like Europe."

The Dixie megablaze, the largest wildfire of the 2021 fire season and the second-largest blaze in recorded state history, has burned more than 388 000 hectares of mainly forested land and has destroyed more than 1200 buildings on its path. The fire, named after the road where is started, began on 13 July in the Feather River Canyon, and as of 14 September, is only 75% contained. Credit: ESA (Data: CAL FIRE)

The Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite captured the presence of aerosols caused by the ongoing wildfires in California on 30 August. The plumes of particles have been swept eastwards caused by western winds, even reaching Europe. Credit: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2021), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

As the fires continue to burn, hot and dry conditions and forecasted thunderstorms have prompted officials to issue warnings through part of the state's northwest coast.

Climate change is considered a key driver of this trend. In a recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), scientists concluded that that there is an unequivocal link between human activity and global warming. The report pointed to observations showing increases in drought and fires in the western United States, expecting this trend to continue in the future.

Explore further Images of the U.S. west coast on fire
A man is silhouetted as he watches a TV screen showing CCTV broadcasting a news of Chinese astronauts sit inside the Shenzhou-12 manned spacecraft preparing to return to earth, at a shopping mall in Beijing, Thursday, Sept. 16, 2021. Credit: AP Photo/Andy Wong

Three astronauts who lived for 90 days on China's space station departed Thursday in preparation for returning to Earth.

The national space agency said Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo boarded the Shenzhou-12 spacecraft and undocked from the space station at 8:56 a.m. Thursday (0056 GMT).

State broadcaster CCTV aired footage of the astronauts securing packages inside their spacecraft, which is due to parachute to a location in the Gobi Desert near the Jiuquan launch center on Friday.

The astronauts have already set China's record for the most time spent in space. After launching on June 17, mission commander Nie and astronauts Liu and Tang went on two spacewalks, deployed a 10-meter (33-foot) mechanical arm, and had a video call with Communist Party leader Xi Jinping.

Before the undocking, the astronauts downloaded data from their experiments and ensured the station would continue operating without a crew, CCTV reported.

The journey home is expected to take at least 30 hours, CCTV said. Before departing, Nie and his colleagues expressed their thanks for the "round-the-clock support and devotion from all the staff."

Four drills have been conducted on the ground at the Dongfeng landing site in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region to ensure the safe return of the crew.

A woman walks by a TV screen showing CCTV broadcasting a news of Chinese astronauts sit inside the Shenzhou-12 manned spacecraft preparing to return to earth, at a shopping mall in Beijing, Thursday, Sept. 16, 2021. Credit: AP Photo/Andy Wong

While few details have been made public by China's military, which runs the space program, astronaut trios are expected to be brought on 90-day missions to the station over the next two years to make it fully functional.

The government has not announced the names of the next set of astronauts nor the launch date of Shenzhou-13.

China has sent 14 astronauts into space since 2003, when it became only the third country after the former Soviet Union and the United States to do so on its own.

When completed with the addition of two more modules, the station will weigh in at about 66 tons, a fraction of the size of the International Space Station, which launched its first module in 1998 and will weigh around 450 tons when completed.

In preparation for the permanent station, China launched two experimental modules over the past decade.Tiangong-1 was abandoned before it burned up during an uncontrolled loss of orbit. It's successor, the Tiangong-2, was brought out of orbit in 2018 under full control.

China launched its bid to build such facilities in the early 1990s following successes in earlier missions and its exclusion from the International Space Station, largely due to U.S. objections over the Chinese program's secretive nature and close military ties.

A visitor looks at a mural showing an artist's rendering of China's space station at the World Robot Conference in Beijing, Saturday, Sept. 11, 2021. Three Chinese astronauts have departed from the country's orbiting space station in preparation for returning to Earth after 90 days in orbit, the national space agency reported Thursday, Sept. 16, 2021. Credit: AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein

U.S. law requires congressional approval for contact between the American and Chinese space programs, but China is cooperating with space experts from other countries, including France, Sweden, Russia and Italy.

China has also pushed ahead with un-crewed missions, particularly in lunar exploration. It has placed a rover on the little-explored far side of the Moon and in December, the Chang'e 5 probe returned lunar rocks to Earth for the first time since the 1970s.

China this year also landed its Tianwen-1 space probe on Mars, with its accompanying Zhurong rover venturing out to look for evidence of life.

Another program calls for collecting soil from an asteroid, something that has been a particular focus of Japan's rival space program.

China also plans to dispatch another mission in 2024 to bring back lunar samples and has expressed a desire to land people on the moon and possibly build a scientific base there, although no timeline has been proposed for such projects. A highly secretive space plane is also reportedly under development.

China's space program has advanced in a steady, cautious manner and has largely avoided the failures that marked the U.S. and Russian programs that were locked in intense competition during the heady early days of spaceflight.

Explore further China's astronauts make spacewalk to upgrade robotic arm

 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Scientists sample a brown mat of aggregated phytoplankton. Credit: Katrin Schmidt

Global warming is likely to cause abrupt changes to important algal communities because of shifting biodiversity 'break point' boundaries in the oceansaccording to research from the University of East Anglia and the Earlham Institute.

A new study, published today in the journal Nature Communications, finds that as climate change extends the warm hemisphere, these boundaries are predicted to shift pole-wards over the next 100 years.

Instead of a gradual change in microbial diversity due to warming, the researchers suggest it will happen more abruptly at what they call 'break points' - wherever the upper ocean temperature is around 15 degrees on an annual average, separating cold and warm waters.

The UK is one of the areas most likely to be severely affected, and more suddenly than previously thought. But the team say that the changes could be stopped if we act swiftly to halt climate change.

Prof Thomas Mock, from UEA's School of Environmental Sciences, said: "Algae are essential in maintaining a healthy ecosystem to balance ocean life. By absorbing energy from sunlight, carbon dioxide and water, they produce organic compounds for marine life to live off.

"These organisms underpin some of the largest food webs on Earth and drive global biogeochemical cycles.

"Accountable for at least 20 percent of annual global carbon fixation, temperature changes could have a significant impact upon the algae that our marine systems, fisheries and ocean biodiversity depend on.

As average sea surface temperatures increase due to climate change, Thomas Mock has seen shifting aquatic life  for example, this European sea bass  off Englands southeast coast. European sea bass have a temperature optimum range of around 50 to 77 degrees Fahrenheit, while cod, iconic for its popularity at UK fish-and-chip shops, prefer to live between about 34 to 59 degrees Fahrenheit. Credit: Thomas Mock

"We wanted to better-understand how the climate crisis is impacting algae worldwide from the Arctic to the Antarctic."

The research was led by scientists at UEA in collaboration with the US Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Genome Institute (JGI, U.S.) and the Earlham Institute (UK).

The major study was conducted over more than 10 years by an international team of 32 researchers, from institutions including the University of Exeter in the UK and the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Germany.

It involved the first pole-to-pole analysis of how algae (Eukaryotic phytoplankton) and their expressed genes are geographically distributed in the oceans. Thus, the team studied how their gene activity is changing due to environmental conditions in the upper ocean from pole to pole.

As the upper ocean is already experiencing significant warming due to rising CO 2 levels, the researchers estimated how the distribution of these algal communities might change based on a model from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 5th Assessment Report.

The algal communities' diversity and gene activity are shaped by interactions with microscopic single-celled organisms, or prokaryotes, as part of complex microbiomes.

The researchers found that these global communities can be split into two main clustersorganisms that mainly live in cold polar and warm non-polar waters.

Scientists sampling under-ice phytoplankton communities utilising a mummy chair. Under-ice communities are vital for, for example, krill and other under-ice feeding organisms. Credit: Katrin Schmidt

The geographic patterns are best explained by the differences in the water's physical structure (for example, seasonally mixed cold versus permanently stratified warm water) of the upper ocean caused by latitudinal gradients of temperature.

The organisms were analyzed through nucleic acids extraction and DNA and mRNA sequencing of samples collected during four research cruises in the Arctic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic Ocean and Southern Ocean.

Prof Mock said: "Significant international efforts have provided insights into what drives the diversity of these organisms and their global biogeography in the global ocean, however, there is still limited understanding of environmental conditions responsible for differences between local species communities on a large scale from pole to pole.

"Our results provide new insights into how changing environmental conditions correlate with biodiversity changes subject to large-scale environmental fluctuation and disturbances. This knowledge is essential for predicting the consequences of global warming and therefore may guide environmental management.

"We can expect the marine systems around the UK and other countries on this latitude to be severely affected, and more suddenly than previously thought.

"The largest ecosystem change will occur when marine microalgal communities and their associated bacteria around the UK will be replaced by their warm-water counterparts.

"This is expected to be caused by the pole-ward shifting ecosystem boundary or 'biodiversity break point' separating both communities. For this to take place, the annual average upper ocean temperature needs to become warmer than 15C.

Colouring the water, the algae Phaeocystis blooms off the side of the sampling vessel, Polarstern, in the temperate region of the North Atlantic. Credit: Katrin Schmidt

"It's not irreversible though, if we can stop global warming," he added.

Co-author Dr. Richard Leggett at the Earlham Institute, added: "This study also shows what an important role advances in DNA sequencing technologies have played in understanding ocean-based ecosystems and, in doing so, helping researchers shed light on and grapple with some of the biggest environmental challenges facing the planet."

The work was led by two former Ph.D. students from UEA's Schools of Environmental Sciences and Computing Sciences, Dr. Kara Martin (also based at the Earlham Institute) and Dr. Katrin Schmidt.

Dr. Martin said: "These results suggest that the most important ecological boundary in the upper ocean separates polar from non-polar algal microbiomes at both hemispheres, which not only alters the spatial scaling of algal microbiomes but also shifts pole-wards due to global warming.

"We predict that 'break points' of microbial diversity will move markedly pole-wards due to warmingparticularly around the British Isleswith abrupt shifts in algal microbiomes caused by human-induced climate change.

"This has been a wonderful experience and an incredible opportunity to work with a magnificent team. Together, we analyzed an amazing dataset which expands the latitude of our microbial ocean research, enabling us to gain insights to our changing ocean from pole to pole."

Dr. Schmidt said: "During our research cruises we already noticed quite different algal communities from warm to cold waters. This initial finding was supported by our results suggesting that the most important ecological boundary in the upper ocean separates polar from non-polar algal microbiomes at both hemispheres. And more importantly, this boundary not only alters the spatial scaling of algal microbiomes but also shifts pole-wards due to global warming."

A curious polar bear near Greenland checks out the icebreaker Polarstern. Polar bears, which feed on seals, are part of the arctic ocean food web that climate change threatens. Credit: Katrin Schmidt

Prof Tim Lenton, from the University of Exeter said: "As the ocean warms up with climate change this century we predict that the 'break point' between cold, polar microalgal communities and warm, non-polar microalgal communities will move northwards through the seas around the British Isles.

"As microalgae are key to the base of the food chain we can expect major changes in the rest of the marine ecosystem, with implications for fisheries, as well as marine conservation.

"The 'biological carbon pump' whereby the ocean takes up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere will change with this shift in microalgal communitiesmost likely becoming less effectivewhich could in turn feedback to amplify global warming."

Sequencing was done at the JGI as part of the Community Science Program project Sea of Change: Eukaryotic Phytoplankton Communities in the Arctic Ocean.

"The biogeographic differentiation of algal microbiomes in the upper ocean from pole to pole" is published in Nature Communications on September 16, 2021.

Explore further Ocean acidification locks algal communities in a simplified state

More information: The biogeographic differentiation of algal microbiomes in the upper ocean from pole to pole, Nature Communications (2021). Journal information: Nature Communications The biogeographic differentiation of algal microbiomes in the upper ocean from pole to pole,(2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-25646-9
In this July 2, 2021 photo provided by John Kraus, from left, Sian Proctor, Chris Sembroski, Jared Isaacman and Hayley Arceneaux pose for a photo at Duke Health in Durham, N.C, during hypoxia training to understand how each crew member reacts in a low-oxygen environment. Credit: John Kraus/Inspiration4 via AP

The four people on SpaceX's first private flight are fairly ordinary, down-to-Earth types brought together by chance.

They'll circle Earth for three days at an unusually high altitudeon their own without a professional escortbefore splashing down off the Florida coast.

Meet the crew that's taking space tourism to new heights following Wednesday night's launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center:

JARED ISAACMAN, SPONSOR

Isaacman struck it rich with the payment-processing business he started in his parents' basement after quitting high school. He later went to an aeronautical university, took to the skies in fighter jets and started Draken International to provide military-style training in tactical aircraft. Space beckoned, and the Easton, Pennsylvania, entrepreneur purchased an entire flight from SpaceX to circle the Earth. The 38-year-old considers flying in air shows, his other hobby, as way more dangerous. "I don't consider myself like a risk-taker or a thrill-seeker," says Isaacman, whose daughters are 7 and 5. "I try to seek out what I think are interesting challenges in life and, when I can, I tether it with a very worthwhile cause." This time it's St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Isaacman has pledged $100 million to St. Jude and is seeking another $100 million in public donations. To drive home the message that space is for "just everyday people," Isaacman offered one of the four capsule seats to St. Jude and held sweepstakes for the other two.

In this July 28, 2021 photo provided by John Kraus, from left, Jared Isaacman, Sian Proctor, Hayley Arceneaux and Chris Sembroski stand in the crew access arm at Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. They will use this arm to board the Falcon 9 rocket on launch day. Credit: John Kraus/Inspiration4 via AP

HAYLEY ARCENEAUX, ST. JUDE'S REP

Now a physician assistant at St. Jude, Arceneaux was a bone cancer patient at the Memphis, Tennessee, hospital at age 10. To save her left leg, St. Jude replaced her knee and part of her thigh bone, implanting a titanium rod. She's the first person with a prosthesis in space and, at age 29, the youngest American. She was St. Jude's runaway choice in January as the hospital's representative in space. Arceneaux kept up with her fellow passengers in training, even while trudging up Washington's Mount Rainier in the snow. Her only compromise: SpaceX adjusted her capsule seat to relieve knee pain. "I'm so excited about opening space travel up to so many, so many different kinds of people and those that aren't physically perfect," Arceneaux says. She'll chat with St. Jude patients from orbit, reminding them that their dreams, too, can come true. She's taken along her late father's St. Jude tie, a prized possession. "I am so thankful for my journey with cancer because it gave me a love for life, just a zest for life and the confidence to say 'yes' to opportunities," she says. "This is the biggest honor of my life."

In this July 11, 2021 photo provided by John Kraus, from left, Hayley Arceneaux, Chris Sembroski, Jared Isaacman and Sian Proctor float during a zero gravity flight out of Las Vegas. The plane, a modified Boeing 727, flies multiple parabolic arcs to provide 20-30 seconds of weightlessness. Credit: John Kraus/Inspiration4 via AP

CHRIS SEMBROSKI, RAFFLE WINNER

Sembroski, an Air Force veteran and data engineer for Lockheed Martin in Everett, Washington, always saw himself as the space booster behind the scenes, helping to educate the public. He shot off model rockets in college and worked as a Space Camp counselor. So he considered it a "crazy fantasy" when he saw the Super Bowl ad in February announcing the space seat raffle and made a donation to enter. He didn't win but a college friend did, and he offered Sembroski his spot on the flight. Sembroski says he was more subdued than others when he found out: "Just no words were coming out. Since then, I've gotten a lot more enthusiastic." After six months of training, Sembroski, 42, has "no worries, no concerns, maybe a little bit of stage fright" about singing and playing a ukulele in orbit that will be auctioned off to support St. Jude. His schoolteacher wife, Erin, is "more than anxious about it for the two of us." They have two daughters, ages 3 and 9. Sembroski says he'll reflect on the historic nature of the flightand his role in itonce he's back on Earth.

In this Aug. 8, 2021 photo provided by John Kraus, from left, Chris Sembroski, Sian Proctor, Jared Isaacman and Hayley Arceneaux stand for a photo in Bozeman, Mont., during a "fighter jet training" weekend to familiarize the crew with G-forces. Credit: John Kraus/Inspiration4 via AP

SIAN PROCTOR, BUSINESS WINNER

Proctor applied to NASA three times to become an astronaut. The 51-year-old geologist and community college professor from Tempe, Arizona, actually made it to the finals more than a decade ago. After striking out with NASA, she set her sights on private spaceflight. But as 2021 loomed, she thought she'd aged outuntil she learned of Isaacman's space sweepstakes for his clients. She'd begun creating space-themed artwork when the coronavirus pandemic struck and turned to Isaacman's Shift4 company to sell her paintings. When asked on the eve of launch if she was nervous, she said her only worry was that "this moment would never come in my life." As only the fourth Black woman in space after three NASA astronauts, Proctor hopes to inspire other minority women. "As we move to the moon and Mars and beyond, we're writing the narrative of human spaceflight right now" by focusing on diversity, Proctor says. "We're on Starship Earth and we want to bring everybody along with us." She caught the space bug early: Her late father worked at NASA's tracking station in Guam during the Apollo moon landings.

 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
An example of extra-terrestrial material that will be analyzed in SAL: the little glass vial is containing about 45 mg of lunar soil (regolith) returned to Earth in 1976 by the robotic soviet mission to the Moon Luna 24. Credit: DLR

The Institute of Planetary Research at DLR (German Aerospace Center) is starting construction of a new Sample Analysis Laboratory (SAL) dedicated to the study of rock and dust samples from planetary bodies such as asteroids and the Moon. The first phase will be operational by the end of 2022, on time to welcome samples collected by the Hayabusa2 mission, and fully ready by 2023. A status report will be presented today at the Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC) 2021.

The 2020s promise a bounty of new missions returning planetary samples to Earth for analysis. Scientists can learn a huge amount about planetary bodies by sending remote sensing orbiters, and even more by 'in situ' exploration with landers and rovers. However, sensitive laboratory instruments on Earth can extract information far beyond the reach of current robotic technology, enabling researchers to determine the chemical, isotopic, mineralogical, structural and physical properties of extra-terrestrial material from just a single, tiny sample.

"The SAL facility will allow us to study samples from a macroscopic level down to the nanometric scale and help us answer key question about the formation and evolution of planetary bodies," said Dr. Enrica Bonato from DLR. "Sample return provides us with "ground truth" about the visited body, verifying and validating conclusions that can be drawn by remote sensing. SAL will unlock some really exciting science, like looking for traces of water and organic matter, especially in the samples returned from asteroids. These are remnants of "failed" planets, so provide material that gives insights into the early stages of the Solar System and planetary evolution."

The establishment of SAL has taken three years' planning and the facility will see its first instruments delivered in summer 2022. The state-of-the art equipment will allow researchers to image the rock samples at very high magnification and resolution, as well as to determine the chemical and mineralogical composition in great detail. The laboratory will be classified as a "super-clean" facility, with a thousand times fewer particles per cubic meter permitted than in a standard clean room. Protective equipment will be worn by everyone entering in order to keep the environment as clean as possible, and SAL will be equipped with glove boxes for handling and preparation of the samples. All samples will be stored under dry nitrogen and transported between the instruments in dry nitrogen filled containers.

Together with other laboratory facilities within the Institute of Planetary Research (including the Planetary Spectroscopy Laboratory and Planetary Analogue Simulation Laboratory), the new SAL will be open to the scientific community for "transnational access" visits supported through the Europlanet 2024 Research Infrastructure.

The first studies at SAL will relate to two small, carbonaceous asteroids: Ryugu, samples from which were returned by JAXA's Hayabusa2 mission in late 2020, and Bennu, from which NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission will deliver samples back to Earth in 2023.

"Hayabusa2 and OSIRIS-REx are in many ways sister missions, both in the kind of body being visited, and in the close cooperation of scientists and the sponsoring agencies. International collaboration is an important part of the sample return story, and becomes even more key when it comes to analysis," said Bonato. "We are also looking forward to receiving (and potentially curating) samples from Mars's moon, Phobos, returned by JAXA's Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission late in the decade. We also hope to receive samples at SAL from the Moon in the early part of the decade from China's Chang'E 5 and 6 missions."

A collaboration with the Natural History Museum and the Helmholtz Center Berlin in Berlin aims to establish an excellence center for sample analysis in Berlin within the next 5-10 years. In the future, SAL could be expanded into a full curation facility.

"Returned samples can be preserved for decades and used by future generations to answer questions we haven't even thought of yet using laboratory instruments that haven't even been imagined," added Jorn Helbert, Department Head of Planetary Laboratories at DLR.

Explore further Japan aims to bring back soil samples from Mars moon by 2029

More information: Enrica Bonato et al, A New Facility for the Planetary Science Community at DLR: the Planetary Sample Analysis Laboratory (SAL)., (2021). Enrica Bonato et al, A New Facility for the Planetary Science Community at DLR: the Planetary Sample Analysis Laboratory (SAL).,(2021). DOI: 10.5194/epsc2021-561

Provided by Europlanet
An illustration showing what Yuanchuavis might have looked like in life. Credit: Haozhen Zhang

If you had to describe a male peacock's tail feathers, you might pick words like "dazzling" or "beautiful." You probably wouldn't go with "stealthy," "aerodynamic," or "subtle." Peacock tails are just one example of how evolution walks a line between favoring traits that make it easier to survive, and traits that make it easier to find a mate sometimes, it's less about "survival of the fittest" and more about "survival of the sexiest." In a new paper in Current Biology, scientists have found evidence of this age-old conundrum in the form of a fossil bird from the Early Cretaceous with a pair of elaborate tail feathers longer than its body.

"We've never seen this combination of different kinds of tail feathers before in a fossil bird," says Jingmai O'Connor, a paleontologist at Chicago's Field Museum and one of the study's authors.

"This new discovery vividly demonstrates how the interplay between natural and sexual selections shaped birds' tails from their earliest history," says Wang Min, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the paper's first author, along with scientists from Nanjing University and Shandong Tianyu Museum of Nature.

The fossil was discovered in the 120-million-year-old deposits of the Jehol Biota in northeastern China. The researchers named it Yuanchuavis after Yuanchu, a bird from Chinese mythology. It was a small bird, about the size of a bluejay, but its tail was more than 150% the length of its body. And the tail's length isn't the only unusual thing about it.

"It had a fan of short feathers at the base and then two extremely long plumes," says O'Connor. "The long feathers were dominated by the central spine, called the rachis, and then plumed at the end. The combination of a short tail fan with two long feathers is called a pintail, we see it in some modern birds like sunbirds and quetzals."

The holotype fossil of Yuanchuavis. Credit: Gao Wei

"Yuanchuavis is the first documented occurrence of a pintail in Enantiornithes, the most successful group of Mesozoic birds," says Wang. "Notably, the morphology preserved in Yuanchuavis essentially represents a combination of the two tail morphologies previously recognized in other enantiornithines which are most closely related to Yuanchuavis: the tail fan is aerodynamically functional, whereas the elongated central paired plumes are used for display, which together reflect the interplay between natural selection and sexual selection." In other words, Yuanchuavis would have been able to fly well, but its long tail feathers that might have helped it find mates didn't make flying any easier its fancy tail was literally a drag.

This balance between natural and sexual selection has interested scientists since the time of Darwin: if evolution produces organisms that are better able to meet the pressures of the world around them, then why would an animal develop traits that make it worse at flying or more noticeable to its predators?

"Scientists call a trait like a big fancy tail an 'honest signal,' because it is detrimental, so if an animal with it is able to survive with that handicap, that's a sign that it's really fit," says O'Connor. "A female bird would look at a male with goofily burdensome tail feathers and think, 'Dang, if he's able to survive even with such a ridiculous tail, he must have really good genes.'"

From just a few tail feathers, scientists have been able to piece together hypotheses about what Yuanchuavis was like in life. Long, elaborate tail feathers can help attract a mate, but they're not especially useful they're less aerodynamic than a short fan of feathers, so birds that have them tend not to live in places that require superb flight. "Birds that live in harsher environments that need to be able to fly really well, like seabirds in their open environment, tend to have short tails," says O'Connor. "Birds with elaborate tails that are less specialized for flight tend to light in dense, resource-rich environments like forests."

A Malachite Sunbird, a modern bird with a pintail similar to what Yuanchuavis had. Credit: Jason Weckstein

And when birds have features that make them less efficient flyers or more noticeable to predators, that tends to give some information about their home lives. "When you see something on a bird that's really extravagant, that bird is usually male and not very involved with caring for its young," says O'Connor. Big flashy feathers require more resources to maintain, making the male unable to invest resources in childrearing, and there's a risk that his plumage might draw attention to the location of its nest. So, its plainer partner will do most of the work caring for the young.

In addition to better picturing what this specific bird was like in life, the discovery of Yuanchuavis could help scientists answer bigger-picture questions about the birds that survived the big extinction event 66 million years ago. Yuanchuavis is an enantiornithine, a member of a group that was very successful in the time of the dinosaurs, but went extinct along with the dinos. "Understanding why living birds are the most successful group of vertebrates on land today is an extremely important evolutionary question, because whatever it was that allowed them to be so successful probably also allowed them to survive a giant meteor hitting the planet when all other birds and dinosaurs went extinct," says O'Connor.

Fossil of Yuanchuavis, with illustration indicating the fossil's tail feathers. Credit: Wang Min et al.

Understanding how sexual selection may have shaped ancient birds like Yuanchuavis could help us better understand bird diversity today. "It is well known that sexual selection plays a central role in speciation and recognition in modern birds, attesting to the enormous extravagant feathers, ornaments, vocals, and dances," says Wang. "However, it is notoriously difficult to tell if a given fossilized structure is shaped by sexual selection, considering the imperfect nature of the fossil record. Therefore, the well-preserved tail feathers in this new fossil bird provide great new information about how sexual selection has shaped the avian tail from their earliest stage."

Photograph and interpretive drawing of the tail plumage of Yuanchuavis kompsosoura. Credit: WANG Min

"The complexity we see in Yuanchuavis's feathers is related to one of the reasons we hypothesize why living birds are so incredibly diverse, because they can separate themselves into different species just by differences in plumage and differences in song," says O'Connor. "It's amazing that Yuanchuavis lets us hypothesize that that kind of plumage complexity may already have been present in the Early Cretaceous."

Explore further Small bird fills big fossil gap

More information: An Early Cretaceous enantiornithine with unique tail plumage highlights sexual selection, Current Biology, 2021. Journal information: Current Biology An Early Cretaceous enantiornithine with unique tail plumage highlights sexual selection,, 2021. dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2021.08.044
Corallicolids and their hosts. A variety of anthozoan animals surrounding a corallicolid (centre: SEM of Anthozoaphila gnarlus). Clockwise from top left: Rhodactis (the type host of Corallicola aquarius), the complex scleractinian Acropora, the robust scleractinian Orbacella, the tube-dwelling anemone Pachycerianthus, the actiniarian anemone Condylactis, the gorgonian Eunica, the zoanthid Parazoanthus, and the black coral Cirrhipathes. Credit: Keeling PJ et al., 2021, PLOS Pathogens, CC-BY 4.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

In a Pearls article publishing September 16th in the open-access journal PLOS Pathogens, Patrick Keeling and colleagues at the University of British Columbia in Canada describe investigations into an enigmatic group of coral-infecting microbes.

Coral reefs provide homes for biodiverse ecosystems including fishes, mollusks, and crustaceans, and inside their cells, they also harbor a diverse community of microbes. The best-known are photosynthetic symbionts in the genus Symbiodiniaceae, which provide essential ingredients to build the corals' calcium-carbonate skeleton, in return for protection and fuel for photosynthesis. However, over the past two decades, researchers have identified millions of new eukaryotic sequences associated with corals, including a mysterious group of microbial parasites called Corallicolida. First discovered by accident as artifacts in molecular ecological surveys, and eventually isolated from an aquarium, Corallicolida live inside coral cells. Corallicolida are colorless and their genomes lack key genes needed for photosynthesis, indicating that they are not photosynthetic symbionts like the Symbiodiniacea. Perhaps, ecologists wondered, the Corallicolida are the descendants of a once-beneficial photosynthetic symbiont that lost its photosynthetic machinery and became a parasite. However, so far there is no evidence that they cause any harm to their host. In fact, Corallicolida don't seem to have any major effectgood or badon the coral cells they inhabit.

A further twist in the story came with the discovery that, despite lacking genes for photosystems or photosynthetic reaction centers, the Corallicolida genome includes genes for the four types of chlorophyll. The chlorophyll genes are expressed in Corallicolida cells and are subject to purifying natural selectionindications that they are still playing some role in the cell. Exactly what that role might be remains unclear, and much more research is needed to determine whether the Corallicolida are friends or foes to reef-building corals, the authors say.

"Coral reefs are an important marine habitat and well-studied biodiversity hotspot, so the fact that so many corals around the world are infected with an intracellular parasite that had hardly even been noticed is a testament to how little we know about microbial biodiversity," Keeling adds. "For years these parasites were largely known only from hints buried in large-scale molecular sequence surveys, so hopefully by connecting a few dots to link up pictures, sequences, and host identification we can now start to look more deeply into how they infect, spread between hosts, and what effects they have on coral health."

Explore further Scientists discover first organism with chlorophyll genes that doesn't photosynthesize

More information: Keeling PJ, Mathur V, Kwong WK (2021) Corallicolids: The elusive coral-infecting apicomplexans. PLoS Pathog 17(9): e1009845. Journal information: PLoS Pathogens Keeling PJ, Mathur V, Kwong WK (2021) Corallicolids: The elusive coral-infecting apicomplexans.17(9): e1009845. doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1009845
In this Aug. 20, 2019, file photo, Freya Mayo, left, and her sister Evie, of London, try out a paddle board on Lake Tahoe near South Lake Tahoe, Calif. With wildfire no longer threatening Lake Tahoe, residents, tourists and scientists drawn to its clean alpine air, clear blue waters and fragrant pine trees now wonder about the long-term effects that will remain after wildfire season ends. Credit: AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File

When a wildfire crested the mountains near North America's largest alpine lake, embers and ash that zipped across a smoky sky pierced Lake Tahoe's clear blue waters.

The evacuation order for thousands to flee their homes has been lifted, but those who returned have found black stripes of ash building up on the shorelinea reminder that success fighting the Caldor Fire won't insulate the resort region on the California-Nevada line from effects that outlast wildfire season.

Scientists say it's too soon to draw conclusions about the lasting damage that record-setting wildfires will have on Lake Tahoe. But they're not wasting time. Many expect to bring their research plans to the Tahoe Science Advisory Council at a meeting Thursday.

Scientists funded by California, Nevada and the League to Save Lake Tahoe are researching lake clarity and biodiversity during and after wildfires. They're using collection bucketssome loaded with glass marblesto capture and measure the size and quantity of particles and pollutants from wildfires that have sullied the normally crystal-clear waters. They're studying how particles enter the lake, how they move around it and the effect on algae production.

In this Aug. 8. 2017 file photo, boats ply the waters of Emerald Bay of Lake Tahoe, near South Lake Tahoe, Calif. With wildfire no longer threatening Lake Tahoe, residents, tourists and scientists drawn to its clean alpine air, clear blue waters and fragrant pine trees now wonder about the long-term effects that will remain after wildfire season ends. Credit: AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File

The clarity of the iconic alpine lake can vary even without catastrophic wildfires. On average, Lake Tahoe is clear 65 feet (20 meters) below the water's surface. Through wildfire season, scientists stationed near the lake's center have only been able to see 50 feet (15 meters) below the surfacea reduction they aren't sure is due to particles, algae or simply lack of sunlight, said Geoff Schladow, professor of civil and environmental engineering and director of the University of California, Davis' Tahoe Environmental Research Center.

"My feeling is, in some ways, it may look worse than it is," Schladow said. "What smoke in the basin actually does, particularly when it lasts for months, is something we don't really know. We're finding that out as we speak."

Smoke from Northern California wildfires has cloaked the Lake Tahoe basin in some past years. But as blazes have grown in size and intensitypartially due to climate change, scientists saysmoke from wildfires inside and outside the basin that has sat atop the lake for two to three months in the past two wildfire seasons has exceeded the expectations of many residents and tourists who flock to the deep blue lake for its clean alpine air and fragrant pine trees.

In this Sept. 6, 2021, file photo, smoke shrouds parts of Lake Tahoe visible from Ski Run Marina in downtown South Lake Tahoe, Calif. With wildfire no longer threatening Lake Tahoe, residents, tourists and scientists drawn to its clean alpine air, clear blue waters and fragrant pine trees now wonder about the long-term effects that will remain after wildfire season ends. Credit: AP Photo/Samuel Metz,File

It's also concerned scientists, who have spent years studying how algae, erosion and air pollution from vehicles that 15 million tourists drive in each year affect clarity. They say the sheer amount of wildfire smoke that has lingered could harm lake clarity in ways that weren't previously considered.

"Our bread-and-butter sources of declining lake clarity are pretty well understood," said Allison Oliver, an ecologist at the Skeena Fisheries Commission in western Canada who studied how rivers and creeks delivered murky sediment to Lake Tahoe after the 2007 Angora Fire.

"This new phenomenon where we're getting these big shifts in climate regimes and this pattern of big summer fires," she said of the Sierra Nevada mountains, "that's not something that was on people's radar as much 15 or 20 years ago. Now, it's routine."

This photo provided by UC Davis shows Brandon Berry, a researcher at the University of California Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center, collects on a research vessel in Lake Tahoe, Calif. on Aug. 23, 2021. Scientists say it's too soon to draw definite conclusions about the lasting damage that record-setting wildfires will have on Lake Tahoe. But they're not wasting time. Many plan to bring their research plans to the Tahoe Science Advisory Council when it convenes for a scheduled meeting Thursday Sept. 16, 2021. Credit: Katie Senft/UC Davis via AP

On many days, smoke has blotted out views of the mountains that wrap the lake's pristine waters and left an inescapable campfire stench on clothes, in cars and beneath fingernails.

"It's really apparent that we need to be concerned about not only fires burning in the basin that cause erosion and burn scars, but the smoke generated from massive fires outside the basin," said Jesse Patterson, the League to Save Lake Tahoe's chief strategy officer. "We need to think bigger, if we want to keep Tahoe blue decades to come."

The league, best known for its "Keep Tahoe Blue" bumper stickers, has aggressively pursued environmental restoration projects to maintain the lake's clarity, prevent erosion and replant burn scars. But amid accelerating climate change, Patterson fears local land management efforts may no longer be enough to protect the lake.

In this Aug. 31, 2021 file photo boats float in the water away from a dock in South Lake Tahoe, Calif., as the Caldor Fire approaches Lake Tahoe. With wildfire no longer threatening Lake Tahoe, residents, tourists and scientists drawn to its clean alpine air, clear blue waters and fragrant pine trees now wonder about the long-term effects that will remain after wildfire season ends. Credit: AP Photo/Jae C. Hong,File

This photo provided by UC Davis shows Brandon Berry, a researcher at the University of California Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center, examines a collection bucket that scientists are using to measure particles and gauge wildfire's effect on the clarity of Lake Tahoe in Lake Tahoe, Calif., on Aug. 25, 2021. Scientists say it's too soon to draw definite conclusions about the lasting damage that record-setting wildfires will have on Lake Tahoe. But they're not wasting time. Many plan to bring their research plans to the Tahoe Science Advisory Council when it convenes for a scheduled meeting Thursday Sept. 16, 2021. Credit: Brant Allen, UC Davis via AP

This photo provided by University of Nevada Reno shows Dr. Facundo Scordo of University of Nevada, Reno's Global Water Center analyzes ash deposits floating to the eastern shore Lake Tahoe, Nev. on Sept. 3, 2021. Scientists say it's too soon to draw definite conclusions about the lasting damage that record-setting wildfires will have on Lake Tahoe. But they're not wasting time. Credit: Sudeep Chandra/University of Nevada Reno via AP

This photo provided by UC Davis shows a buoy in Lake Tahoe keeps a collection bucket in place that researchers have positioned to measure particles and gauge wildfire's effect on the clarity of Lake Tahoe in Lake Tahoe, Calif., on Aug.23, 2021. Scientists say it's too soon to draw definite conclusions about the lasting damage that record-setting wildfires will have on Lake Tahoe. Credit: Brandon Berry/UC Davis via AP

Scientists fear alpine lakes can act as "sponges," soaking up the microscopic particles in wildfire smoke, said Sudeep Chandra, a biology professor and director of the Global Water Center at the University of Nevada, Reno. Regardless of whether studies end up showing smoke obscures algae-fighting sunlight or increases the flow of pollutants into the lake, he believes the challenge for scientists will be expanding the scope of research into factors affecting Lake Tahoe.

Chandra applauded efforts to maintain lake clarity through restoring rivers, preventing erosion and encouraging responsible development. But after he saw how much smoke from California's Dixie Fire further north in the Sierra Nevada ended up in the basin, he said questions about the lake's future need to reckon with broader climate change trends.

"We're clearly regionally connected. That's going to be a new way of thinking about managing the Lake Tahoe basin," he said.

Explore further Pristine Lake Tahoe shrouded in smoke from threatening fire

 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

A Griffith University-led study provided the first evidence of mercury accumulation in humpback whales and screened levels in other marine megafauna foraging in the Southern Ocean.

Conducted in collaboration with the Australian Antarctic Division, the British Antarctic Survey and the University of Southern Demark, the study found mercury levels increased along the Antarctic food chain, however relatively low levels were found in whales' skin and blubber.

"Mercury is a potent neurotoxin," said lead researcher Associate Professor Susan Bengtson Nash from the Centre for Planetary Health and Food Security.

"But how this neurotoxin cycles between the living organisms and the environment in the remote Antarctic region is poorly understood, particularly in the context of a rapidly changing Antarctic climate."

The researchers assessed the potential use of humpback whales as bioindicators of mercury under the Minamata Convention, an international treaty that came into effect in 2017 designed to monitor mercury exposure and protect human and environmental health from harmful impacts.

"We need systems in place for long-term monitoring of mercury levels in the environment, but these are challenging to effectively implement in the remote Antarctic region," Associate Professor Bengtson Nash said.

"Our goal was to evaluate the potential use of humpback whales as sentinels of mercury accumulation in the Antarctic sea-ice ecosystem."

The research team found the greatest amounts of mercury in Antarctic fur seals, with high levels also recorded in three Southern Ocean species of petrel. Krill, at the bottom of the Antarctic food web, had the lowest levels of mercury, however, levels varied with the krills' life stage, reflecting the differences in ice and open ocean foraging.

The second highest levels of mercury among the Southern Ocean species analyzed was found in humpback whale muscle.

"Interestingly, mercury accumulation in the whales' blubber and skin were relatively low, more than 100 times lower than that in the muscle," Associate Professor Bengtson Nash said.

"The low level of mercury found in the whales' skin and blubber, and the apparent lack of bioaccumulation between Antarctic krill and these tissues in humpback whales, likely masks preferential storage of mercury in other body tissue like the muscle."

"That means, before we can use non-invasive skin and blubber samples from humpbacks as to evaluate mercury accumulation, we need an accurate understanding of how mercury distributes throughout the whales' various body tissues, in order to relate these back to levels in the blubber."

"Such investigations will pave the way for the inclusion of mercury monitoring into the Humpback Whale Sentinel Program, a long-term biomonitoring program for circum-polar surveillance of Antarctic climate change and pollution.

Explore further Chemical profiles in whale blubber reveal changes in Antarctic food chain

More information: Susan M. Bengtson Nash et al, Mercury levels in humpback whales, and other Southern Ocean marine megafauna, Marine Pollution Bulletin (2021). Journal information: Marine Pollution Bulletin Susan M. Bengtson Nash et al, Mercury levels in humpback whales, and other Southern Ocean marine megafauna,(2021). DOI: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2021.112774
Lead author: Dr Sam Macaulay. Credit: University of Otago

New research highlights the impact of one of the world's most widely used insecticides on stream macroinvertebrate communities in the context of climate change.

The research is the first to study the combined effects of the neonicotinoid insecticide imidacloprid and raised water temperatures due to climate-change on experimental stream communities, using the award-winning ExStream System developed by University of Otago researchers.

Lead author Dr. Sam Macaulay, graduate of the Department of Zoology, says the combined effects of the insecticide, increased temperature and a ten-day natural heatwave that occurred during the experiment caused a shift in the stream invertebrate community.

"Relative abundances of pollution-sensitive insect species such as mayflies, stoneflies and caddisflies decreased, and the communities instead became dominated by more tolerant invertebrates such as stream-dwelling worms, crustaceans and snails," Dr. Macaulay says.

The study assessed pesticide and warming effects in fast-flowing and slow-flowing experimental streams, simulating the effects of water abstraction on reduced flow velocity.

"Overall, we found that freshwater invertebrate communities were significantly impacted by environmentally realistic concentrations of the common pesticide imidacloprid, and that communities present in fast-flowing and unheated experimental streams were the most negatively affected as they contained higher numbers of pollution-sensitive species," Dr. Macaulay says.

"Although pesticides are applied onto land, many easily dissolve in water and get washed into streams and rivers where they can kill aquatic insects that are important for the health of streams and the surrounding ecosystems they support."

The study, published recently in the leading science journal Global Change Biology, suggests that conservation efforts may therefore be most effective when allocated to protecting healthy, diverse systems from exposure to pesticides.

"To maintain the biological integrity of streams and the ecosystems they support, streams with fast flows need adequate protection from pesticide contamination, as well as protection from excessive water abstraction."

Pesticide use in New Zealand is high, given the country's economic reliance on agriculture, with estimates from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations of more than 5,000 tons applied annually.

Many of these pesticides are water-soluble and can end up in groundwater or surface waters. However, as New Zealand has no regular monitoring program for surface water bodies such as streams and lakes, very little is known about pesticide presence or concentrations in these freshwaters.

The research was undertaken at the Kauru River in North Otago using the experimental ExStream System developed by University of Otago researchers Professor Christoph Matthaei and Dr. Jeremy Piggott, both co-authors of the published study.

Over a period of seven weeks, the experiment simulated the impacts of pesticide inputs and raised water temperature on invertebrate communities representative of fast- and slow-flowing microhabitats in streams.

Dr. Macaulay says that while the experimental research simulated increased water temperatures forecast with climate change, it serendipitously also captured the effects of a natural heatwave that occurred at the same time.

"The combination of the simulated climate warming and the natural heatwave strongly reduced populations of heat-sensitive insect larvae in our experimental communities, highlighting how negative effects can be exacerbated when more than one stressful factor is affecting an ecosystem."

Imidacloprid is one of the most widely used insecticides in the world. In New Zealand, it is the active ingredient in several agricultural insecticides, and is also used in applications such as flea treatment and some household insecticides.

Its highly toxic effects on non-target insects including bees has led to the ban of the majority of neonicotinoid insecticides (including imidacloprid) for outdoor use in the European Union since 2019. In New Zealand however, these pesticides remain in use and there is limited information available of volumes imported, sold or used.

Professor Matthaei says further surveys of streams in catchments where pesticides are used in known quantities are required, as little is known about pesticide concentrations in New Zealand's freshwaters.

"The only regular monitoring of pesticides undertaken in New Zealand is a four-yearly survey of groundwater, and accordingly very little is known regarding in-stream pesticide concentrations," Professor Matthaei says.

"Contamination by pesticides in freshwaters is a global problem, and the prevalence of pesticide use and the impacts they are having on aquatic insects that are crucial for maintaining healthy stream ecosystems require urgent attention."

Explore further Small streams in agricultural ecosystems are heavily polluted with pesticides

More information: Samuel J. Macaulay et al, Warming and imidacloprid pulses determine macroinvertebrate community dynamics in experimental streams, Global Change Biology (2021). Journal information: Global Change Biology Samuel J. Macaulay et al, Warming and imidacloprid pulses determine macroinvertebrate community dynamics in experimental streams,(2021). DOI: 10.1111/gcb.15856
Lateral view of cichlids oral and pharyngeal jaws. Credit: Craig Albertson

A family of fishes called cichlids in Africa's Lake Malawi is helping researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst to refine our understanding of how evolution works.

In new research published in Nature Communications, co-authors Andrew J. Conith, postdoctoral researcher in the UMass Amherst biology department, and Craig Albertson, professor of biology at UMass Amherst, focus on the jaws of cichlidswhich are notable because they have two sets of them.

"Remember the movie 'Alien,'" asks Conith, "when the alien is about to eat Sigourney Weaver's character? It opens its mouth and out comes a second set of jaws. Fast forward twenty years, and here I am, studying animals that have jaws in their throats."

Cichlids thankfully don't eat humans, but thanks to their twin pairs of jaws, they are a phenomenally successful group of fishes from an evolutionary standpoint. In Lake Malawi alone, more than 1,000 different species of cichlids have evolved over the last 1 to 2 million years. One set of jaws, the oral jaw, is similar to our own, and its role is to capture food. But cichlids, like the Xenomorph from "Alien," have a second set of jaws, deeper in their throats, that's made to process food once it has been captured by the first set. Having two pairs of jaws means that each jaw can specialize in a specific role, a feature that should increase their feeding efficiency and make them more evolutionarily successful.

One of Lake Malawis many cichlids. Credit: Craig Albertson

Given the success of cichlids, understanding the evolution of these two jaws has become an important line of inquiry for biologists. "We're trying to gain a better understanding of the origins and maintenance of biodiversity," says Albertson. Researchers have long thought that the two sets of jaws are evolutionarily decoupled and can evolve independently of one another, pushing the boundaries of morphological evolution. However, Conith and Albertson demonstrated that such decoupling does not appear to be the case for cichlids, challenging a quarter-century-old assumption. "What we've found is not just that the evolution of the two sets of jaws is linked, but that they're linked across multiple levels, from genetic to evolutionary," says Albertson.

These findings are a significant step forward in better understanding how evolution works. For instance, many models of evolution theorize both that organisms are constructed from repeated unitsdigits on your hand or teeth in your mouthand that these individual units evolve independently from one another. "It is this 'modularity' of organisms that is thought to facilitate the evolutionary process," Albertson notes.

Linked systems are usually thought to lack evolutionary potential. "They just cannot evolve in as many dimensions," Conith says. This is referred to as an evolutionary constraint, and it plays an important role in shaping biodiversity. Constraints determine what body structures are possible.

Remarkably, this constraint seems to be the key to cichlid's success by promoting rapid shifts in jaw shapes and feeding ecology, all of which is likely to be an advantage in a dynamic and fluctuating environment, like the East African Rift Valley, where Lake Malawi is located. "The constraint is actually facilitating cichlid evolution, rather than impeding it," says Conith.

"This tells us that we need to rethink the fundamentals of evolutionary mechanisms," says Albertson. "Perhaps constraints play a wider role in the evolutionary success of species around the world."

Explore further New insights into phenotypic complexity and diversity among cichlids

More information: Andrew J. Conith et al, The cichlid oral and pharyngeal jaws are evolutionarily and genetically coupled, Nature Communications (2021). Journal information: Nature Communications Andrew J. Conith et al, The cichlid oral and pharyngeal jaws are evolutionarily and genetically coupled,(2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-25755-5
The global average mean surface temperature for 2017 to 2021 is estimated to be 1.06 C to 1.26 C above pre-industrial levels.

A new climate change report out Thursday shows that limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius will be impossible without immediate, large-scale emissions cuts, the UN chief said.

The United in Science 2021 report, published by a range of UN agencies and scientific partners just weeks before the COP26 climate summit, said climate change and its impacts were accelerating.

And a temporary reduction in carbon emissions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic had done nothing to slow the relentless warming, it found.

The 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, struck at the COP21 summit, called for capping global warming at well below 2 C above the pre-industrial level, and ideally closer to 1.5 C.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the report's findings were "an alarming appraisal of just how far off course we are" in meeting the Paris goals.

"This year has seen fossil fuel emissions bounce back, greenhouse gas concentrations continuing to rise and severe human-enhanced weather events that have affected health, lives and livelihoods on every continent," he wrote in the report's foreword.

"Unless there are immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, limiting warming to 1.5 C will be impossible, with catastrophic consequences for people and the planet."

COP26, the UN Climate Change Conference, will be held in Glasgow from October 31 to November 12.

Pandemic effects

Fossil greenhouse gas emissions peaked in 2019, shrinking by 5.6 percent in 2020 due to the Covid-19 restrictions and economic slowdown.

But outside aviation and sea transport, global emissions, averaged across the first seven months of 2021, are now at about the same levels as in 2019.

And the report said concentrations of the major greenhouse gasescarbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxidecontinued to increase in 2020 and the first half of 2021.

The 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change called for capping global warming at well below 2 C above the pre-industrial level.

Overall emissions reductions in 2020 likely shrank the annual increase of the atmospheric concentrations of long-lived greenhouse gases, but the effect was "too small to be distinguished from natural variability", it said.

The global average mean surface temperature for 2017 to 2021with this year's data based on averages up to Juneis estimated to be 1.06 C to 1.26 C above pre-industrial (1850-1900) levels, the report said.

The global mean near-surface temperature was meanwhile expected to be at least 1 C over pre-industrial levels in each of the coming five years, with a 40-percent chance it could climb to 1.5 C higher in one of those years, it said.

Guterres said the world had reached a "tipping point", and the report showed "we really are out of time".

Net-zero goal

World Meteorological Organization chief Petteri Taalas warned that in the worst case scenario, sea levels could rise by up to two metres before 2100 if the Antarctic glacier melts more quickly than expected.

The report said that in 2020, an estimated 267 million peoplefour percent of the world's populationwere living within two metres above sea level.

Mohamed Nasheed, the Maldives former president and current speaker of parliament, told a meeting in Geneva that low-lying island states were now "under stress to the extent that we might not have an island, or a country".

The report said the increasing number of countries committing to net-zero emission goals was encouraging, with about 63 percent of global emissions now covered by such targets.

But, it said, far greater action was needed by 2030 to keep those targets feasible and credible.

Calling for all countries to commit to net zero emissions by 2050, Guterres said: "I expect all these issues to be addressed, and resolved, at COP26."

"Our future is at stake."

 2021 AFP
This image, provided on Thursday, Sept. 16, 2021 by the European Space Agency (ESA) shows a map of the ozone hole over the South Pole on 16 September 2021. Scientists say the Southern Hemisphere ozone hole is larger than usual and already surpasses the size of Antarctica. Credit: AP Photo/European Space Agency, ESA

Scientists say the hole in the Earth's protective ozone layer over the Southern Hemisphere is larger than usual this year and already surpasses the size of Antarctica.

The European Union's Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service said Thursday that the so-called ozone hole, which appears every year during the Southern Hemisphere spring, has grown considerably in the past week following an average start.

"Forecasts show that this years hole has evolved into a rather larger than usual one," said Vincent-Henri Peuch, who heads the EU's satellite monitoring service.

"We are looking at a quite big and potentially also deep ozone hole," he said.

Atmospheric ozone absorbs ultraviolet light coming from the sun. Its absence means more of this high-energy radiation reaches the Earth, where it can harm living cells.

Peuch noted that last year's ozone hole also started out unremarkably but then turned into one of the longest-lasting ones on record.

The Montreal Protocol, signed in 1987, led to a ban on a group of chemicals called halocarbons that were blamed for exacerbating the annual ozone hole.

Experts say that while the ozone layer is beginning to recover, it's likely to take until the 2060s for the ozone-depleting substances used in refrigerants and spray cans to completely disappear from the atmosphere.

Explore further EU program spots largest ozone hole over Antarctica in years

 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Physics doctoral student Adbhut Gupta in the lab of Jean Heremans at Robeson Hall. Credit: Steven Mackay / Virginia Tech

When electrons flow through a conductorsuch as the copper wires in our phone chargers or the silicon chips in the circuit boards of our laptopsthey collide with material impurities and with each other in a tiny atomic frenzy. Their interaction with impurities is well known.

Yet, while understanding how electrons interact with each other is fundamental to understanding the physics, measuring the strength of these interactions has proven to be a tricky challenge for physicists.

A team led by Virginia Tech researchers has discovered that by creating a specific set of conditions, they could quantify electron-electron interactions more precisely than ever. Their findings expand upon existing physics theories and can be applied to improving electronic devices and quantum computers. They recently published their findings in the journal Nature Communications.

To study how electrons interact together, the team fabricated tiny devices that would create a beam of electrons. They needed three specific conditions to get the results: low temperatures, a magnetic field to make the electrons whirl around in orbits, and ultrapure materials provided by collaborators at Purdue University. Their goal: To see how far electrons would travel on their orbits before they encounter other electrons and scatter. As the device was made from ultrapure materials, the team knew that there weren't any other variables that could cause the scatteringthey could witness the electrons interacting without any confounding variables.

"What usually happens in a regular, impure semiconductor is that electrons undergo so many collisions with impurities that you basically never know what the electron-electron interactions are actually doing," said Jean Heremans, a professor in the Department of Physics in the College of Science. "But when you remove those impurities, you're left with an ultrapure material, and suddenly those electron-electron interactions become evident. It was a bit of a surprise to us that it was such a big effectthat we could use it to quantify the electron interactions."

However, this wasn't the only surprise that the team encountered. Scientists have recently found that in certain materials and conditions, groups of electrons flow collectively and behave similar to a liquid. Using high-powered computers, project collaborators at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, simulated how the group of electrons flowed. Their images revealed that the electrons flowed into vortices, like whirlpoolsa behavior that has yet to be documented in the presence of a magnetic field.

"The whirlpools actually persist even if the interactions between electrons are very weak," said Adbhut Gupta, the lead author of the study and a Ph.D. candidate in Heremans's lab. "At this point, not much is known about this collective behavior in the weak interaction limit. It's a new phenomenon, one that a single particle would not have shown. Ours is the first experiment to hint at this kind of collective behavior."

Also working on the study was Gitansh Kataria, a graduate student in the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, part of the Virginia Tech College of Engineering.

The team's discoveries could be critical in helping scientists rethink some of the most fundamental physics theories, such as Fermi liquid theory, which describes the normal state of metals at low temperatures.

"What we found is that those theories are obeyed but only proximately. We saw deviations from the theoretical expectations," said Heremans. "That's interesting because if everything is according to theory, why is there a need to do experiments to begin with? It's not that we have to agree completely, but we have to understand what is missing from the theory."

The outcomes of this study could be applied to help improve electronics, such as sensors and telecommunication devices, Heremans said. Plus, this research could help further the cutting-edge field of quantum computing, part of which relies on electron-electron interactions to form new quantum states. Understanding electron behavior will allow physicists to fully harness the power of electrons in new innovations and applications.

Explore further Researchers reveal a novel metal where electrons flow with fluid-like dynamics

More information: Adbhut Gupta et al, Precision measurement of electron-electron scattering in GaAs/AlGaAs using transverse magnetic focusing, Nature Communications (2021). Journal information: Nature Communications Adbhut Gupta et al, Precision measurement of electron-electron scattering in GaAs/AlGaAs using transverse magnetic focusing,(2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-25327-7
Cones block the entrance to Sequoia National Park, Calif., as the KNP Complex Fire burns nearby on Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021. The blaze is burning near the Giant Forest, home to more than 2,000 giant sequoias. Credit: AP Photo/Noah Berger

More firefighting resources were being brought in Thursday to battle two forest fires that have shut down California's Sequoia National Park and threaten its ancient trees.

A national interagency management team "equipped to handle the largest and highest-complexity emergency situations" was scheduled to take command of the firefighting effort, according to a statement from Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks.

The Colony and Paradise fires named for the areas where they started were ignited by lightning strikes last week and on Wednesday covered about 14 square miles (36 square kilometers) in California's rugged Sierra Nevada.

The Colony Fire as of Wednesday was about a mile (1.6 kilometers) from Giant Forest, a grove of about 2,000 sequoias, according to Mark Ruggiero, fire information officer for the two national parks.

Ground crew access to the Colony Fire was limited and the extreme steepness of the Paradise Fire terrain prevented any ground access, requiring extensive aerial water and retardant drops on both fires. The two fires were being managed collectively as the KNP Complex.

The fires are among the latest in a long summer of blazes that have scorched more than 3,500 square miles (9,065 square kilometers) in California, destroying hundreds of homes.

A sign announces the closure of Sequoia National Park, where the KNP Complex Fires are burning, Tuesday, Sept. 14, 2021, in Tulare County, Calif. Individually named the Colony and Paradise Fires, the blazes are burning near the Giant Forest, home to more than 2,000 giant sequoias. Credit: AP Photo/Noah Berger

Sequoia National Park has been closed and its headquarters and resident employees have been evacuated, along with a portion of the community of Three Rivers outside the entrance.

The park's historic wooden entrance sign dating to 1935 was covered in fire-resistant wrapping, and hoses were in place at the headquarters area for structure protection.

More than 300 firefighters were on the lines, aided by helicopters and air tanker planes when smoke conditions allowed them to fly.

A 50-year history of using prescribed burnsfires set on purpose to remove other types of trees and vegetationin the park's sequoia groves was expected to help the giant trees survive by lessening the impact if flames reach them, Ruggiero said.

Giant sequoias, some thousands of years old, grow on the western flank of the Sierra. They are adapted to fire, which can help them to thrive by releasing seeds from their cones and creating clearings that allow young sequoias to grow.

A firefighter lays hose around the Foothills Visitor Center while battling the KNP Complex Fire in Sequoia National Park, Calif., on Tuesday, Sept. 14, 2021. The blaze is burning near the Giant Forest, home to more than 2,000 giant sequoias. Credit: AP Photo/Noah Berger

But Ruggiero noted that the extraordinary intensity of fires in current climate conditions can overwhelm sequoias, a scenario that happened when the 2020 Castle Fire killed many trees in the region.

Studies estimate that 7,500 to 10,600 large sequoias were killed by that fire, along with many of other sizes, according to the National Park Service.

The Colony Fire also poses a broader danger because it is burning at an elevation of the central Sierra where there are 280 million pine trees and other types of trees that have been killed by drought and bark beetles, Ruggiero said.

"The Colony Fire specifically is burning in a really bad spot ... where these trees are like jackstraws and it's difficult to put fire personnel into some of these areas because of that," he said.

Elsewhere, two California fires that have caused extensive destruction in the northern Sierra and southern Cascades were not growing.

Flames from the KNP Complex Fire burn a hillside above the Kaweah River in Sequoia National Park, Calif., on Tuesday, Sept. 14, 2021. The blaze is burning near the Giant Forest, home to more than 2,000 giant sequoias. Credit: AP Photo/Noah Berger

Flames from the KNP Complex Fire burn along a hillside above the Kaweah River in Sequoia National Park, Calif., on Tuesday, Sept. 14, 2021. The blaze is burning near the Giant Forest, home to more than 2,000 giant sequoias. Credit: AP Photo/Noah Berger

U.S. Forest Service firefighter Lucas Duarte cleans his fire engine's windshield in Sequoia National Park, Calif., not far from the KNP Complex Fire, on Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021. The blaze is burning near the Giant Forest, home to more than 2,000 giant sequoias. Credit: AP Photo/Noah Berger

As the KNP Complex Fire approaches, U.S. Forest Service firefighters Armando Flores, right, and Heron Hilbach-Barger clear vegetation around structures at the Ash Mountain headquarters in Sequoia National Park, Calif., on Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021. The blaze is burning near the Giant Forest, home to more than 2,000 giant sequoias. Credit: AP Photo/Noah Berger

U.S. Forest Service firefighter Lucas Duarte closes his fire engine's hood in Sequoia National Park, Calif., not far from the KNP Complex Fire, on Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021. The blaze is burning near the Giant Forest, home to more than 2,000 giant sequoias. Credit: AP Photo/Noah Berger

A sign announces the closure of Sequoia National Park, where the KNP Complex Fires are burning, Tuesday, Sept. 14, 2021, in Tulare County, Calif. Individually named the Colony and Paradise Fires, the blazes are burning near the Giant Forest, home to more than 2,000 giant sequoias. Credit: AP Photo/Noah Berger

As the KNP Complex Fire approaches, U.S. Forest Service firefighters Armando Flores, right, and Heron Hilbach-Barger clear vegetation around structures at the Ash Mountain headquarters in Sequoia National Park, Calif., on Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021. The blaze is burning near the Giant Forest, home to more than 2,000 giant sequoias. Credit: AP Photo/Noah Berger

Fire-resistant wrap covers a historic welcome sign as the KNP Complex Fire burns in Sequoia National Park, Calif., on Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021. The blaze is burning near the Giant Forest, home to more than 2,000 giant sequoias. Credit: AP Photo/Noah Berger

As the KNP Complex Fire burns nearby, U.S. Forest Service operations section chief Casey Cheesbrough speaks with private firefighter Jake Heckathorn of Wildfire Defense Systems in Sequoia National Park, Calif., on Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021. The blaze is burning near the Giant Forest, home to more than 2,000 giant sequoias. Credit: AP Photo/Noah Berger

The state's second-largest fire on record, the Dixie Fire, was 86% contained Wednesday after burning 1,500 square miles in the northern Sierra and southern Cascades region. Near Lake Tahoe, containment of the 342-square-mile (885-square-kilometer) Caldor Fire increased to 71%.

North of San Francisco, a 20-year-old man was arrested Tuesday and jailed on suspicion of starting the Hopkins Fire in Mendocino County, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said in a statement.

The fire that sparked Sunday north of the small city of Ukiah charred 257 acres (104 hectares), destroyed 30 homes and forced evacuations.

Explore further California winds shifting as wildfire battles go on

 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
In this photo provided by Inspiration4, Elon Musk, front center, poses with the all-amateur crew before departure to Launch Complex 39A for a launch into space, Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021, at Kennedy Space Center, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. Standing behind Musk, from left to right, are Chris Sembroski, Jared Isaacman, Sian Proctor and Hayley Arceneaux. Credit: John Kraus/Inspiration4 via AP

SpaceX's first private flight streaked into orbit Wednesday night with two contest winners, a health care worker and their rich sponsor, the most ambitious leap yet in space tourism.

It was the first time a spacecraft circled Earth with an all-amateur crew and no professional astronauts.

"Punch it, SpaceX!" the flight's billionaire leader, Jared Isaacman, urged moments before liftoff.

The Dragon capsule's two men and two women are looking to spend three days going round and round the planet from an unusually high orbit100 miles (160 kilometers) higher than the International Space Stationbefore splashing down off the Florida coast this weekend.

It's SpaceX founder Elon Musk's first entry in the competition for space tourism dollars.

Isaacman is the third billionaire to launch this summer, following the brief space-skimming flights by Virgin Galactic's Richard Branson and Blue Origin's Jeff Bezos in July. Only 38, Isaacman made his fortune from a payment-processing company he started in his teens.

Joining Isaacman on the trip dubbed Inspiration4 is Hayley Arceneaux, 29, a childhood bone cancer survivor who works as a physician assistant where she was treatedSt. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. Isaacman has pledged $100 million out of his own pocket to the hospital and is seeking another $100 million in donations.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, with four private citizens onboard, lifts off in this time-exposure photo from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39-A, Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. Credit: AP Photo/John Raoux

Arceneaux became the youngest American in space and the first person in space with a prosthesis, a titanium rod in her left leg.

Also along for the ride: sweepstakes winners Chris Sembroski, 42, a data engineer in Everett, Washington, and Sian Proctor, 51, a community college educator in Tempe, Arizona.

Once opposed to space tourism, NASA is now a supporter. "Low-Earth orbit is now more accessible for more people to experience the wonders of space," tweeted NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, a congressman when he hitched a ride on a space shuttle decades ago.

The recycled Falcon rocket soared from the same Kennedy Space Center pad used by the company's three previous astronaut flights for NASA. But this time, the Dragon capsule aimed for an altitude of 357 miles (575 kilometers), just beyond the Hubble Space Telescope.

A SpaceX Falcon 9, with four private citizens onboard, lifts off from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39-A Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021, in Cape Canaveral , Fla. Credit: AP Photo/Chris O'Meara

Across the country, SpaceX employees at company headquarters in Hawthorne, California, cheered wildly at every flight milestone, including when the spent first-stage booster landed upright on an ocean platform. French astronaut Thomas Pesquet rooted from the space station on Twitter: "No matter if you're a professional or not, when you get strapped to a rocket and launch into space, we have something in common. All the very best from, well, space."

Isaacman noted upon reaching orbit that few people have been to spacefewer than 600 over 60 years. But he added, "Many are about to follow. The door's opening now and it's pretty incredible."

Their capsule has already been to orbit: It was used for SpaceX's second astronaut flight for NASA to the space station. The only significant change is the large domed window at the top in place of the usual space station docking mechanisms.

This image from video provided by SpaceX shows passengers aboard SpaceX's first private flight as it blasts off Wednesday night, Sept. 15, 2021, from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39-A in Cape Canaveral, Fla. It was the first time a rocket streaked toward orbit with an all-amateur crew - no professional astronauts. Credit: SpaceX via AP

An accomplished pilot, Isaacman persuaded SpaceX to take the fully automated Dragon capsule higher than it's ever been. Initially reluctant because of the increased radiation exposure and other risks, SpaceX agreed after a safety review.

"Now I just wish we pushed them to go higher," Isaacman told reporters on the eve of the flight. "If we're going to go to the moon again and we're going to go to Mars and beyond, then we've got to get a little outside of our comfort zone and take the next step in that direction."

Isaacman, whose Shift4 Payments company is based in Allentown, Pennsylvania, is picking up the entire tab for the flight, but won't say how many millions he paid. He and others contend those big price tags will eventually lower the cost.

"Yes, today you must have and be willing to part with a large amount of cash to buy yourself a trip to space," said Explorers Club President Richard Garriott, a NASA astronaut's son who paid the Russians for a space station trip more than a decade ago. "But this is the only way we can get the price down and expand access, just as it has been with other industries before it.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, with four private citizens onboard, lifts off from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39-A Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021, in Cape Canaveral , Fla. Credit: AP Photo/Chris O'Meara

Though the capsule is automated, the four Dragon riders spent six months training for the flight to cope with any emergency. That training included centrifuge and fighter jet flights, launch and reentry practice in SpaceX's capsule simulator and a grueling trek up Washington's Mount Rainier in the snow.

Four hours before liftoff, the four met with Musk before emerging from SpaceX's huge rocket hangar, waving and blowing kisses to their families and company employees, before they were driven off to get into their sleek white flight suits. Once at the launch pad, they posed for pictures and bumped gloved fists, before taking the elevator up. Proctor danced as she made her way to the hatch.

Unlike NASA missions, the public won't be able to listen in or watch events unfold in real time. Arceneaux hopes to link up with St. Jude patients, but the conversation won't be broadcast live.

Inspiration4 crew member Jared Isaacman, right, waves to family members before a trip to Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39-A and a planned liftoff on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021, in Cape Canaveral , Fla. For the first time in 60 years of human spaceflight, a rocket is poised to blast into orbit with no professional astronauts on board, only four tourists. Looking on is Dr. Sian Proctor, left. Credit: AP Photo/John Raoux

Inspiration4 crew member Dr. Sian Proctor, right, waves to family members as Chris Sembroski talks to a family member before a trip Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39-A and a planned liftoff on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021, in Cape Canaveral , Fla. For the first time in 60 years of human spaceflight, a rocket is poised to blast into orbit with no professional astronauts on board, only four tourists.Credit: AP Photo/John Raoux

Jared Isaacman, left, and Hayley Arceneaux prepare to head to launchpad 39A for a launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Wednesday Sept. 15, 2021. Credit: AP Photo/John Raoux

Sian Proctor, right, talks to a friend from a car window before a trip to Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39-A and a planned liftoff on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. For the first time in 60 years of human spaceflight, a rocket is poised to blast into orbit with no professional astronauts on board, only four tourists. Credit: AP Photo/John Raoux

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, with the Crew Dragon capsule attached, sits on Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39-A in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021. For the first time in 60 years of human spaceflight, a rocket is poised to blast into orbit with no professional astronauts on board, only four tourists. Credit: AP Photo/Chris O'Meara

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket sits on pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021. For the first time in 60 years of human spaceflight, a rocket is poised to blast into orbit with no professional astronauts on board, only four tourists. Credit: AP Photo/John Raoux

In this Aug. 8, 2021 photo provided by John Kraus, from left, Chris Sembroski, Sian Proctor, Jared Isaacman and Hayley Arceneaux stand for a photo in Bozeman, Mont., during a "fighter jet training" weekend to familiarize the crew with G-forces. Credit: John Kraus/Inspiration4 via AP

Workers stand on the service structure for a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39-A in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021. For the first time in 60 years of human spaceflight, a rocket is poised to blast into orbit with no professional astronauts on board, only four tourists. Credit: AP Photo/Chris O'Meara

In this July 2, 2021 photo provided by John Kraus, from left, Sian Proctor, Chris Sembroski, Jared Isaacman and Hayley Arceneaux pose for a photo at Duke Health in Durham, N.C, during hypoxia training to understand how each crew member reacts in a low-oxygen environment. Credit: John Kraus/Inspiration4 via AP

In this July 28, 2021 photo provided by John Kraus, from left, Jared Isaacman, Sian Proctor, Hayley Arceneaux and Chris Sembroski stand in the crew access arm at Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. They will use this arm to board the Falcon 9 rocket on launch day. Credit: John Kraus/Inspiration4 via AP

Elon Musk, founder, CEO, and chief engineer at SpaceX, left, talks to Inspiration4 passenger family members before the four head to Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39-A Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021, in Cape Canaveral , Fla., for a planned liftoff on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Credit: AP Photo/John Raoux

Sian Proctor waves as she prepares to head to pad 39A for a launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Wednesday Sept. 15, 2021. Credit: AP Photo/John Raoux

SpaceX's next private trip, early next year, will see a retired NASA astronaut escorting three wealthy businessmen to the space station for a weeklong visit. The Russians are launching an actress, film director and a Japanese tycoon to the space station in the next few months.

"Someday NASA astronauts will be the exception, not the rule," said Cornell University's Mason Peck, an engineering professor who served as NASA's chief technologist nearly a decade ago. "But they'll likely continue to be the trailblazers the rest of us will follow."

Explore further SpaceX aiming for night launch of 4 on 1st private flight

 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

A series of small earthquakes in Spain's Canary Islands has put authorities on alert for a possible volcanic eruption, with one official saying Thursday there is "intense seismic activity" in the area off northwest Africa.

Authorities have detected more than 4,200 temblors in what scientists are calling an "earthquake swarm" around La Palma island since last Saturday. An earthquake swarm is a cluster of quakes in one area during a short period and can indicate an approaching eruption.

But officials said they had no indication an eruption was imminent, and a scientific committee monitoring the activity said that the number of tremors and their magnitude had fallen Thursday.

Even so, the Scientific Committee for the Special Civil Protection Plan and Emergency Response for Volcanic Risks warned there could be a rapid, renewed surge in quakes and kept the public warning level on yellow, according to private Spanish news agency Europa Press.

Volcano warnings are announced in accordance with the level of risk, rising through green, yellow, orange and red.

The committee reported that ground depressions up to 10 centimeters (4 inches) deep have formedan occurrence often attributed to magma movements.

Before a volcano erupts, there is a gradual increase in seismic activity that can build up over a prolonged period.

The Canary Islands Volcanology Institute said that by Thursday 11 million cubic meters (388 million cubic feet) of molten rock had been pushed into Cumbre Vieja, a dormant volcanic ridge on La Palma where the last eruption was in 1971. The strongest quake so far was a magnitude 3.4 one, according to the institute.

La Palma has a population of around 85,000 people.

The institute has is telling staff on the island to monitor any changes, including testing the water in wells.

The Canary Islands are a volcanic archipelago made up of eight islands. At their nearest point to Africa, they are 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Morocco.

Explore further Scientists detect earthquake swarm at Hawaii volcano

 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
WASHINGTON  On a visit this week to Kyrgyzstan, RFE/RL President Jamie Fly met with Kyrgyz Republic President Sadyr Japarov and Foreign Minister Ruslan Kazakbaev, representatives of independent news outlets, media freedom advocates, and journalism students, and spent time with RFE/RL`s local journalists to discuss the important role that RFE/RL`s journalism plays in supporting Kyrgyz democracy.

During his meetings, Fly expressed appreciation for the Kyrgyz governments support for freedom of the press and the ability of journalists to operate in the country, noting the governments willingness to accredit journalists covering the country and the region for several services, not least its Kyrgyz Service and Current Time digital network. He met with members of civil society and other Kyrgyz news organizations and discussed with government officials recent legislation that has raised concerns about possible encroachments on press freedom in Kyrgyzstan.

While meeting with President Japarov, Fly discussed the challenging situation facing journalists across much of Central Asia and the potential for Kyrgyzstan to play an even greater role in the region. During his meeting with Foreign Minister Kazakbaev, Fly spoke about RFE/RL plans to expand existing media projects and to create new projects serving not just the Kyrgyz Republic, but other audiences in the region. Fly also visited the American University of Central Asia, where he met with journalism students.

RFE/RLs Kyrgyz Service, known locally as Radio Azattyk, is one of the most popular multimedia sources of independent news and information in Kyrgyzstan, reporting on topics that other media ignore, including minority rights, government corruption, and radicalism and extremism issues. The Service, which won the 2019 Tom Renner Award for its groundbreaking multipart investigative report Plunder and Patronage in the Heart of Central Asia, has averaged over 4.3 million page views per month over the past 12 months on its Kyrgyz- and Russian-language website, and 9.8 million video views per month on its YouTube channel.

About RFE/RL

RFE/RL relies on its networks of local reporters to provide accurate news and information to more than 41 million people every week in 27 languages and 23 countries where media freedom is restricted, or where a professional press has not fully developed. Its videos were viewed 6.5 billion times on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram/IGTV in FY2020. RFE/RL is an editorially independent media company funded by a grant from the U.S. Congress through the U.S. Agency for Global Media.

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FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:

Martins Zvaners in Washington (zvanersm@rferl.org, +1.202.457.6948)

Jana Hokuvova in Prague (hokuvovaj@rferl.org, +420.221.122.072)
September 16, 2021 in FileMaker (E)

[prMac.com] Fremont, California - .com Solutions Inc. announces the addition of a new MySQL to FileMaker Pro conversion feature within FmPro Migrator 9.37. FmPro Migrator is a stand-alone application which quickly and accurately migrates FileMaker Pro databases to MySQL, Oracle, Access, SQL Server, Sybase, DB2, PostgreSQL, and SQLite. FileMaker Pro database structure and data are migrated to a database table in the destination database. Large text, repeating fields data and container field JPEG preview images are also migrated without manual data entry.



MySQL is one of the most popular database platforms in use today. FileMaker Pro is widely recognized for being the leading low-code database development platform. FmPro Migrator brings these two database platforms together by offering bi-directional schema and data transfers between them. FileMaker Pro developers can help companies skip IT scheduling bottlenecks by moving SQL database apps into FileMaker Pro solutions.



FmPro Migrator uses an automated 3-step process to migrate MySQL tables and data into a local copy of FileMaker Pro running on your desktop. Once completed, the FileMaker Pro database is ready to serve as the starting point for building or enhancing FileMaker Pro solutions.



Using the FileMaker Pro development platform, previously online only MySQL databases can now be used in offline desktop and mobile apps. FileMaker Pro solutions running on desktop and mobile platforms enable users to edit data locally and sync to the server once the internet connection has been restored.



FileMaker Pro solutions deployed to macOS, Windows, IOS or Android devices using LiveCode for FM include built-in support for offline sync to FileMaker Server using the data API.



FmPro Migrator connects to MySQL and FileMaker databases using UTF-8 encoding in order to insure that all characters are transferred accurately between databases. Alternate data transfer methods might not retain all character encoding. FmPro Migrator saves money and reduces errors by avoiding manual data entry of large data sets.



FmPro Migrator 9.37 also includes the following improvements:



* Visual FoxPro & Other Data Conversions - The compiled Perl xferData.EXE 32bit and 64bit apps have been updated to include additional dll libraries to insure errors don't occur if Perl isn't installed on the computer when xferData.EXE is used. This utility is used with all Visual FoxPro conversions and also other data transfers when holding down the shift key.



* VB6 to LiveCode Conversion - Fixed a couple of issues found when converting fonts and colors from VB6 to LiveCode.



* Access to FileMaker Conversion - Updated the AccessDDRExport utility to version 33 in order to fix Error #53.



* Table Consolidation - Enhanced the Relationship_Error_Report.txt with a SQLite delete command, to make it easier to delete defective relationships to allow the automated relationship creation process to continue. Fixed an issue in which the FmPro Migrator AppleScript Code.zip file wasn't created properly when selecting the File -> Export AppleScript or WinAutomation Scripts menu.



* SQL Server to FileMaker - Fixed an issue with SQL Server to FileMaker conversions in which the error text Invalid column name Ctable_name... was displayed when gathering metadata from SQL Server. Fixed an issue with SQL Server to FileMaker Transfer data step in which the "Gathering Data" dialog was displayed without data being transferred. Now these data transfers use the xferDataPerl.EXE/App in all situations. Fixed an issue with SQL Server to FileMaker conversions in which the FileMaker login info was incorrect because it was using the SQL Server login info.



* LiveCode Conversion - Fixed an issue with the saveRecordsAsPDF handler in which a couple of local variables weren't declared (added: tFoundSetFlag,tCurrentRecordPosition). This problem will only show an error if the Variable Checking feature is enabled in the LiveCode IDE - this is the recommended setting to help catch typos.



* General GUI - Made a cosmetic improvement to the position of the right edge of fields displayed on the various tabs of the Migration Process window. Fixed an issue with the FileMaker Pro Networking app causing FmPro Migrator to give the error that 2 or more copies of FileMaker are running when performing AppleScript based GUI automation tasks on macOS. These processes may show up as: fmscwpc or node app.js in the process list.



* FmPro Migrator Batch Transfer - Updated the manual with info about 64-bit support now being available.



* FileMaker to Access Conversion - Replaced the Access2013.accdc file with with a zipped copy of the Access2016.accdb to prevent security errors when opening the file. Added a dialog to the Image Export to SQL Database feature and the PDF manual recommending the use of the Microsoft SQL Server Migration Assistant for dealing with transferring of images into Access databases from FileMaker Pro. Updated the PDF manual to specify using the UTF-8 encoding option when configuring the Advanced Language options of the FileMaker ODBC driver. Since Access databases always use the xferDataPerl.EXE data transfer method - the generated Perl scripts always use SQL_WVARCHAR instead of SQL_VARCHAR to insure that Unicode data is transferred properly.



Pricing and Availability:

For a limited time, as part of the MySQL to FmPro feature introduction, FmPro Migrator (including Developer Edition and Platinum Edition features) is available for a 50% discount ($49.50) and is available immediately.

Founded in 1999 by David Simpson in Sunny California, .com Solutions Inc. develops multi-platform graphical applications supporting FileMaker Pro, SQLite, Oracle, MySQL, Access, SQL Server, Sybase, DB2, PostgreSQL, LiveCode and Visual FoxPro developers. FmPro Script Diff, compares and edits FileMaker Pro scripts. SQLite Diff compares SQLite database schema and data. Copyright (C) 1999-2021 .com Solutions Inc. All Rights Reserved. FileMaker is a registered trademark of Claris International, Inc. - an Apple company. Apple, the Apple logo and macOS platforms are trademarks of Apple Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries.

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CALmatters is a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California's state Capitol works and why it matters. Dan Walters has been a journalist for nearly 60 years, spending all but a few of those years working for California newspapers.
 "COVID-19 Relief and the Ordinary Inmate" | Main | Utah prosecutors urge repeal of death penalty as "grave defect that creates a liability for victims of violent crime, defendants' due process rights, and for the public good" 

September 15, 2021

Convicted January 6 rioter, who (below-guideline) sentence of eight months in federal prison, seeks to undo his plea and sentence

This new Politico piece, fully headlined "First Jan. 6 rioter sentenced for a felony seeks to unwind plea deal; Paul Hodgkins is claiming through a new attorney that his signature on the deal was forged," reports on a notable post-sentencing effort by a notable defendant to undo his plea. Here are just some of the interesting details:

The first Jan. 6 rioter sentenced for a felony charge began mounting a desperate bid Wednesday to unravel his plea agreement, claiming through a newly retained attorney that his signature on the deal was forged. But the federal judge in the case, Randy Moss, expressed skepticism about the claim and noted it could even put Paul Hodgkins at legal risk, since he said under oath that he had reviewed and accepted the plea deal. Hodgkins was charged with felony obstruction of Congress for breaching the Capitol and making his way to the floor of the Senate, where images show him donning gloves and rifling through some papers left in the evacuated room. He pleaded guilty to the charge in June, while being represented by attorney Patrick Leduc, a JAG Reserve officer who later deployed to Qatar, where he is assisting with Afghan refugee rescue operations. Moss sentenced Hodgkins in July to an eight-month jail term, far below the governments recommended 16-month sentence, an acknowledgment that Hodgkins was among the first to accept responsibility for his role in the breach. But Hodgkins new claim puts the matter into turmoil. Hodgkins had asked Moss to delay his jail sentence, which is set to begin on Sept. 20, until January, giving him time to mount his effort to unwind the plea agreement. But Moss rejected that attempt Wednesday afternoon, saying Hodgkins "has not demonstrated good cause for the requested four-month delay." His new attorney, Carolyn Stewart, made the forgery allegation during a hearing called by Moss to address Hodgkins claim that Leduc provided ineffective counsel. She said she retained handwriting expert Curt Baggett to review the document and confirmed that it was not Hodgkins signature on the agreement. Baggett, she said, would be willing to testify to it in court. Stewart suggested that the allegedly forged signature was one of many irregularities tainting the case. Its mind boggling, the defense attorney said, mentioning that she is attuned to such patterns because of her work as an intelligence analyst in Afghanistan. These kinds of things keep popping up ... Im floored. LeDuc said in an email to POLITICO that the claim of a forged signature was "insane" and that he painstakingly reviewed the deal with Hodgkins. "I went over every single line of that plea agreement with Paul for about three hours to include the factual stipulations and he signed the thing in front of me and then came back and [re-signed] the other form as well," he said. "Nothing happened in the case without Pauls consent. I dont understand any of this this. It is insane and I am just so over it all." In a phone interview, Baggett confirmed he conducted the analysis of Hodgkins handwriting at Stewart's request and indeed concluded the signature had been forged. Its unclear, though, what bearing the allegation has on Hodgkins guilt, since he entered the plea in an open court hearing and acknowledged his guilt for the alleged offenses, and Moss ran through many of the provisions of the deal with him. The judge didnt opine directly on the forgery allegation Wednesday, but he did note that the reason a lot of time was spent on the colloquy with Hodgkins is to guard against subsequent claims that the defendant didnt understand the agreement or the consequences of pleading guilty. Moss also warned Stewart that by claiming the signature was forged she could be suggesting that her client lied under oath in his statements at the plea hearing in June.... Stewarts allegation appeared to rankle prosecutor Mona Sedky, who called the Florida-based lawyer a relatively new attorney and said some of the messages shed gotten from the lawyer were unconventional. Ive been tolerant of a lot of very strange and and unorthodox communications, for lack of a better word, and Ive been not putting it in my pleadings and not raising it with the court out of respect to her, the prosecutor said.

Prior related posts on Hodgkins:

September 15, 2021 at 04:41 PM | Permalink

Comments

I have previously litigated a Federal habeas corpus case that led to the District Judge being reversed by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals for denying relief based upon ineffective assistance of counsel at plea bargaining, so I know this area of law well. These new allegations of forgery seem far-fetched, particularly in light of the fact that the Judge reviewed the plea agreement in detail with the defendant in open court at the time he changed his plea to guilty. Also, defense counsel says he thoroughly reviewed the plea agreement with defendant line-by-line and watched him sign it, so it is hard to believe that a handwriting expert says the signature is a forgery. If the matter goes forward, I would expect that the Government would retain its own hand-writing expert to render an opinion about the contested signature. In the end, I don't see the Judge overturning the plea or permitting the defendant to withdraw it. This is also a curiosity, since the Judge sentenced the defendant to only 8 months in prison, despite the Government's request for 16 months. If the Defendant succeeds in withdrawing his plea, he will most likely end up with a much longer sentence the next time around, perhaps after a jury trial. I have only seen one stranger request to withdraw a guilty plea, but that one was granted. In that case, the defendant testified at his habeas corpus case that he recognized only his signature on the plea agreement because he is demonstrably illiterate and his attorney did not read the plea agreement aloud to him before getting him to sign it! He really did not understand what he was agreeing to when he signed that plea agreement, which led to a life sentence for transporting thousands of kilos of cocaine up the East Coast from Miami over a period of years! He was an illiterate drug mule driver who got caught.

Posted by: Jim Gormley | Sep 15, 2021 6:26:17 PM

Ah, the Mike Flynn gambit.

Sorry, Barr is not longer the AG.

Posted by: Joe | Sep 15, 2021 9:09:20 PM

Joe, I had the exact same thought.

Or maybe its the CyberNinjas defense. Will they be claiming to have found bamboo fiber in the plea document next?

But we shouldnt be concerned about this. Rachel Barkow assured us these folks have learned their lessons. Who are we to question that conclusion, just based on all the contrary evidence we can readily observe? (And yes, clowning on that will never get old for me!)

Posted by: kotodama | Sep 16, 2021 12:03:16 AM

It makes me wonder who this expert is. Is this somebody who has a solid reputation or somebody with a history of shoddy analysis who will say anything that the party that retained them wants?

I don't practice in federal criminal court, but I know that, in my state, we have moved away from having defendants sign plea agreements and instead just go over the terms in open court. Even if there is a signed plea agreement, the plea hearing controls.

In any case, filing this type of motion just increases the likelihood of the government appealing the sentence.

Posted by: tmm | Sep 16, 2021 10:14:09 AM

If recent news reports are to be believed, the expert seems dodgy AF. What a surprise right!? According to the linked article below, he's been Dauberted previously in at least three different states. It also seems like he just narrowly missed that fate in the case the article discusses.

https://www.al.com/live/2012/04/state_bar_rejects_complaint_ag.html

Coincidentally, amendments were recently proposed for Rule 702 that are intended to crack down on just this kind of sketchy forensic testimony.

I also agree it makes sense to always revisit best practices for handling plea agreements/hearings. But that and the discussion of this particular expert's qualifications seem quite beside the point in this context. When the 1/6 insurrectionists (I'm a broken record on this, but they are *not* mere "rioters" and the blog's ongoing refusal to recognize thiseven if the excuse here is the OP is just following the quoted article's characterizationis getting close to deliberate misinformation) are involved, you can be sure the arguments are 100% frivolous. With any luck the judge will see this and not only reject the challenge out of hand, but also jack up the sentence.

Posted by: kotodama | Sep 16, 2021 1:10:16 PM

honestly, everyone is coming off badly here: old counsel for dumping on his former client, new retained counsel for presenting a ludicrous claim, expert for being a sham, defendant for lying, AUSA for big-timing retained counsel.

Posted by: afpd | Sep 16, 2021 1:15:07 PM

afpd: I agree with you on points (2)-(4), but do you see how it's impossible for those to be true and (1) also be true? Likewise, it seems to me the AUSA is displaying excessive restraint, as opposed to what I suspect the meaning of "big-timing" is (sorry, but I'm just not up on the kids' lingo these days!).

Posted by: kotodama | Sep 16, 2021 1:48:27 PM

prior counsel should not be commenting on his former client in any way absent a court order to do so, especially not to accuse him of lying now.

Posted by: afpd | Sep 16, 2021 1:58:09 PM

Since everyone in US law knows that Federal prosecutors (especially though we have to include state ones) are corrupt cretins who will do absolutely anything to convict anyone they have deemed to be guilty before trial, this comes as no surprise to any one of us. These horrible people will lie, hide evidence, threaten you, threaten your wife, kids, even your grandparents, in order to get a plea deal. They will lock you up for years until you capitulate. This is there MO. We all wish the latest victim of this horrid corrupt system the best of luck in his attempt to overturn this bogus, unjust, nonsense plea deal and subsequent conviction.

Posted by: restless94110 | Sep 16, 2021 2:30:56 PM

I overall respect Rachel Barkow, even if what is being referenced (apparently something addressed here in the past) included some too one-sided in a certain direction comments.

I find the Flynn shenanigans a basic low point of the Trump years, from the judge allowing his case to linger on so long (something like two years) and so on. He got a very good deal from what I can tell given what he could have been charged for, but oh sorry, even a slap on the wrist is too much.

As with trolling about pardons, this sort of thing just makes it harder to actually promote a Barkow-like approach to criminal justice. I'm not surprised that the sort of litigant found in these cases will act this way, but it has to be treated strictly to avoid unwarranted gaming of the system.

He received a below-guidelines sentence. This is not just token behavior, putting aside the sentiment nothing here is really token.

"Hodgkins was charged with felony obstruction of Congress for breaching the Capitol and making his way to the floor of the Senate, where images show him donning gloves and rifling through some papers left in the evacuated room."

Pleas in various cases are unfair but this doesn't look like one of them.

Posted by: Joe | Sep 16, 2021 7:14:28 PM

afpd: Sorry, that doesn't make sense. You and I both agree the defendant is lying, the judge apparently agrees too, and it's also pretty clear to anyone else who's not into mainlining Ivermectin. Not only is the defendant lying, but that lie also implies that his ex-counsel committed or was at least involved in quite severe misconductsignature forgery. So, the ex-counsel is not "dumping" on the defendant. He's simply rebutting a very serious accusation, and one that everybody here already agrees is false. That is totally reasonable and appropriate behavior. Also, as a purely legal matter, you're not right either. What ex-counsel is doing falls quite comfortably into the scope of Rule 1.6(b)(5), which doesn't require a court order. You can also refer to pages 714-16 of the article linked below. If you look up his ex-counsel, LeDuc, he's a well-seasoned attorney and obviously knows this stuff cold. Finally, the actual disclosures that LeDuc made were quite minimal. All he said about the accusation was that it's "insane"and it clearly is. Otherwise, he just gave a brief description of his processnot even confidential communications reallyfor reviewing the plea agreement with the defendant. I would imagine the review process was brought up at the plea colloquy too, so it's pretty much public record anyway.

http://fordhamlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/assets/pdfs/Vol_79/8_Newmark_Nov_79.pdf

Joe: I know nothing about Barkow aside from that remark. She may otherwise be doing excellent work, and if so that's great. But boneheaded statements like that are just unforgiveableand quite dangerousso I'll continue to hammer that one for some time to come.

Posted by: kotodama | Sep 16, 2021 11:42:01 PM

"Joe: I know nothing about Barkow aside from that remark. She may otherwise be doing excellent work, and if so that's great. But boneheaded statements like that are just unforgiveableand quite dangerousso I'll continue to hammer that one for some time to come."

Others know her more, but I did read her book & some other stuff she wrote. And, I'm overall sympathetic with her overall mission, so to speak. But, I understand your concerns.

I'm not sure how much she harped on the theme. So, I'm less inclined to hang on to it but again I understand your concerns, I think.

Posted by: Joe | Sep 17, 2021 11:27:23 AM

Joe, I completely understand your take, and I would probably be well served to study up on what Barkow is doing in other areas. The constructive discussion is much appreciated, that being so rare on the interwebs these days, so thank you. Have a great weekend!

Posted by: kotodama | Sep 17, 2021 4:59:05 PM

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 Convicted January 6 rioter, who (below-guideline) sentence of eight months in federal prison, seeks to undo his plea and sentence | Main | Making the case for a ceiling on the trial penalty 

September 15, 2021

Utah prosecutors urge repeal of death penalty as "grave defect that creates a liability for victims of violent crime, defendants' due process rights, and for the public good"

As reported in this local article from Utah, a "coalition of district attorneys and county prosecutors from around the state made noise on Tuesday, presenting a joint letter to be sent to Governor Spencer Cox and the State Legislature, asking for a repeal of the death penalty." Here is more:

Citing six specific reasons, the four attorneys; Christina Sloan of Grand County, Margaret Olson of Summit County, David Leavitt of Utah County, and Sim Gill of Salt Lake County combined their influence to pen a recommendation to replace the death penalty sentence for aggravated murder to a term of 45 years to life.... The last person to be executed by the state in Utah was Ronnie Lee Gardner on June 18, 2010. His execution by firing squad (yes, that is still an option if lethal injection is held unconstitutional, unavailable, or if the convicted selected that method before May 3, 2004) was highly publicized at the time. However, it came 26 years after his murder of an attorney during an escape attempt while being transported to a hearing for a separate robbery and murder. Following his death sentence, which was given in October 1985, Gardners case was trapped in a series of appeals and defense motions that delayed his execution. Likely, the court and legal fees that were involved in finally carrying out his sentence were in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more.... The coalition of attorneys in Utah referred to another study concluding that death penalty convictions cost taxpayers $1.12 million more than holding them for life. A death sentence also carries the inevitable expenses of appeal. The taxpayers must pay for both the prosecution and the defense in these hearings, the letter reads.... Attempts have been made before to repeal the death penalty in Utah. In 2018, a death penalty amendment was introduced in the state legislature as House Bill 379. The provisions were filed in the house but didnt pass, even after a favorable recommendation from the Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee.

This four-page prosecutor letter, styled as "An Open Letter to Governor Spencer Cox and the Utah State Legislature," is worth a full read. It starts and ends this way:

As attorneys and duly elected public prosecutors, we have sworn to support, obey, and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of Utah. We also have a statutory duty to call to the State Legislature's attention any defect in the operation of the law. In fulfillment of that oath and responsibility, we alert legislators and the people of a grave defect that creates a liability for victims of violent crime, defendants' due process rights, and for the public good. The defect which we urge the Legislature to repeal is the death penalty.... Doctors take the Hippocratic oath to do no harm to people when they become licensed. The promise of an attorney is one to uphold and defend the Constitution. Yet as prosecutors, our client is the public. We file our cases in the name of the state of Utah. We work to protect public safety, preserve the privacy and dignity of crime victims and to hold the guilty accountable. Then, once a defendant is convicted, we seek to make victims whole and ensure that a defendant does not harm others again. When someone commits a violent murder, nothing can repair the damage that person has caused. No earthly court can order restored life to a murdered son or daughter or a healed heart to a crushed husband or wife. However, we can ensure that the offender goes to prison. If the Legislature repeals the death penalty, the available sentences for aggravated murder will be life without parole or 25 years to life. Twenty-five years is far too short of a time for our most violent offenders. Most people convicted of aggravated murder are young men. We believe that justice requires the third optionof45 years to life to be made available. As prosecutors, we are not seeking mercy for the murderer but justice for the people. A 45 to life sentence will mean that if an offender ever gets out, it will not be until the twilight of their lives. That will protect the public and, to the extent possible, provide a small measure of justice for what that person has taken away. Accordingly, we call on the Legislature to remedy this defect in the law by repealing the death penalty and creating a new possible alternative to life without parole of 45 years to life.

September 15, 2021 at 05:10 PM | Permalink

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Dushanbe [Tajikistan] September 16 (ANI): The member nations of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) have decided to reinforce the Tajik-Afghan border amid the worsening security situation in Afghanistan.

The members have also decided to step up efforts to tackle the significant increase in drug trafficking and resist illegal migration on the border after the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan, The Frontier Post reported citing a statement from the office of Russia's Security Council.

Plans were discussed for "reinforcing the Tajik-Afghan border, conducting special command staff military exercises and a special anti-drug operation and an inter-state operation to resist illegal migration on the CSTO's southern borders," the statement informed.

"Special attention was paid to the situation inside and around Afghanistan. A list of measures was approved to respond to the challenges to the security of Central Asian countries stemming from the risk of a likely aggravation of the terrorist threat," the statement added.

The developments came a few days after the Taliban announced a caretaker government in Afghanistan.

Alongside this development, the Russian military base in Tajikistan has also been reinforced with new machine guns.

A batch of 12.7-mm heavy machine guns NSV" Utes "entered service with the 201st Russian military base in Tajikistan to enhance its combat capabilities, The Frontier Post reported citing the press service of the Central Military District reports.

Earlier, Russian President Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov had expressed that the country is not planning to negotiate with the Taliban.

These remarks came from Russian President Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov when he was asked in what format it is planned to conduct negotiations with the Taliban and who will conduct this dialogue: the military or diplomats, The Frontier Post reported. (ANI)
FILE PHOTO: Bats fly out from Linno Gu cave in Hpa-An, Karen State on March 1, 2020. (Photo: YE AUNG THU/AFP via Getty Images)

By Jason Gale

Hundreds of thousands of people may be infected annually by animals carrying coronaviruses related to the one that causes Covid-19 in China and Southeast Asia, according to a study emphasizing the ongoing pandemic threat from spillover events.

An average of 400,000 such infections occur each year, most going unrecognized because they cause mild or no symptoms and arent easily transmitted between people, researchers with the EcoHealth Alliance and Singapores Duke-NUS Medical School said in a study released Thursday before peer review and publication. Still, each spillover represents an opportunity for viral adaptation that could lead to a Covid-like outbreak.

The question of where and how the virus that causes Covid emerged has become particularly contentious, with some leaders blaming a hypothetical leak from a lab in Wuhan, China that studies the pathogens. The new research, supported by the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, builds on evidence that bats are the main host-animals for viruses like SARS-CoV-2 and that people living near their roosts are especially vulnerable.

This is probably the first attempt to estimate how often people are infected with SARS-related coronaviruses from bats, said Edward Holmes, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Sydney who wasnt involved in the research. Humans are continually exposed to bat coronaviruses, he said. Given the right set of circumstances, one of these could eventually lead to a disease outbreak.

If you can stop this at the level of individual infections, youve got a much higher chance of stopping the next pandemic.Peter Daszak, EcoHealth Alliance

Almost two dozen bat species that can be infected by coronaviruses dwell in an area of Asia more than six times the size of Texas, with southern China and parts of Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam and Indonesia deemed the riskiest for spillovers. Peter Daszak and colleagues at the New York-based EcoHealth Alliance used bat distribution modeling and ecological and epidemiological data to estimate the risk of exposure to SARS-related coronaviruses, and the rate of unreported bat-to-human infections in China, South Asia and Southeast Asia.

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If you can stop this at the level of individual infections, youve got a much higher chance of stopping the next pandemic, Daszak said Tuesday in a Zoom interview.

The approach provides proof of concept for a systematic risk assessment of wildlife-to-human spillover events and a strategy to identify key geographic areas that can be prioritized for targeted surveillance of wildlife, livestock, and humans, the researchers said.

Given the challenges of identifying the origins of Covid-19 and pathways by which SARS-CoV-2 spilled over to people, this approach may also aid efforts to identify the geographic sites where spillover first occurred, they said in the study.

Almost two years since Covid began infecting people in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, scientists are yet to determine the pandemics genesis. Daszak, who supports the theory of wildlife source, has been criticized for collaborating on National Institutes of Health-funded research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology on lab studies that some scientists say may have led to the creation of a progenitor virus.

No evidence supporting the lab-leak theory has emerged. Last month, the U.S. intelligence community ruled out the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 was developed by China as a biological weapon, but no consensus was reached on its origin.

Daszaks study estimated a median of 50,000 bat-to-human spillover events occur in Southeast Asia annually and said the number could run into the millions.

Animal Intermediaries

That makes the risk of exposure to animal viruses in nature far, far greater than any possible exposure in a lab, Holmes said. And this is just bats. The risk of exposure is even higher when you factor in all the possible intermediate animal species.

These include mink, civets, raccoon dogs, and other mammals commonly farmed and traded for food and fur in Asia, according to the research. It said 14 million people were employed in wildlife farming in China alone in 2016  an industry worth $77 billion annually.

This is about finding communities within countries that are at risk and trying to block them from getting infected, helping people in those communities reduce public health threats.

In Asia, about 478 million people live in an area inhabited by coronavirus-carrying bats, covering most of Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, Nepal, Bhutan, peninsular Malaysia, Myanmar, southeast China, and the western islands of Indonesia. Wildlife hunting, trading, farming and consumption is common across this region, increasing the risk of exposure to bat-borne viruses, Daszak said.

Wildlife sampling in China has been far more intense than in nearby countries, many of which are undergoing dynamic social and environmental changes known to increase the risk of spillover events, Daszak and colleagues said in the study.

This isnt about finding viruses and saying this country is a high risk to the rest of the world, Daszak said. This is about finding communities within countries that are at risk and trying to block them from getting infected, helping people in those communities reduce public health threats.

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New York [US], September 16 (ANI): United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Wednesday renewed the mandate of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya to September 30 and adopted Resolution 2595 after voting at horseshoe table.

India, along with other countries in UNSC voted for unanimous adoption of Resolution 2595 and renewing mandate of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya.

Taking to Twitter, Pratik Mathur, Counsellor in India's Permanent Mission to the UN said, "#UNSC votes at horseshoe table! India voted with others for unanimous adoption of Resolution 2595, renewing mandate of @UNSMILibya. #Libya headed for Elections in December 2021 during this crucial moment. India also CHAIR of UNSC subsidiary committee on Libya."

Speaking after the vote, the representative of the Russian Federation, emphasising the central role that the United Nations is playing in Libya, said that today's technical rollover will enable Council members to focus on a mutually acceptable solution to outstanding questions regarding the Mission's functioning.

All efforts should aim at helping the Libyan people stick to the timetable for presidential and parliamentary elections on December 24 , Russian representative said, expressing hope that all Council members share that goal, the UNSC in a statement said.

The representative of the United States recalled the Independent Strategic Review of UNSMIL (document S/2021/716), which stated that the situation on the ground has changed since the Mission's mandate was last renewed. Among other things, it recommended that the Head of Mission should be relocated to Tripoli to engage with Libyan stakeholders following the October 23, 2020 ceasefire agreement.

The US representative called on all Council members to work together expeditiously to adopt a mandate that adopts the review's recommendations. "We cannot fail the Libyan people at this critical moment," he added.

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The Libya Sanctions Committee is a very important subsidiary body of the council, which implements the sanctions regime, including a two-way arms embargo on Libya, an assets freeze, a travel ban, measures on illicit export of petroleum.

Libya has had little peace since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that overthrew Gaddafi, and in 2014 it divided between the warring eastern and western factions.

However, they agreed to a ceasefire last year and a new unity government that both sides backed was installed in March to prepare for national elections in December, moves seen as the best chance for peace in years. (ANI)
Sahrawi was killed by French forces stationed in the Sahel region

The head of the Islamic State group in the Sahara has been killed by French troops, President Emmanuel Macron has said.

Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi formed Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) in 2015.

The group is blamed for many attacks in the region, including the targeted killing of French aid workers in 2020.

Mr Macron called Sahrawi's death "another major success in our fight against terrorist groups in the Sahel".

The Sahel is a vast, three million sq km (1.16 million sq miles) area that stretches across Africa south of the Sahara desert, from Senegal in the west to Eritrea in the east.

Mr Macron did not disclose the location or any details of the operation.

French Defence Minister Florence Parly tweeted that Sahrawi died after a strike by France's Operation Barkhane force, which fights Islamist militants in the Sahel, mostly in Mali, Niger, Chad and Burkina Faso.

She added that it was "a decisive blow against this terrorist group", and that the "fight continues".

Sahrawi, who was born in the disputed territory of Western Sahara in 1973, had been a member of the Polisario Front which is fighting for independence from Morocco.

He later joined al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and co-led Mujao, a Malian Islamist group responsible for kidnapping Spanish aid workers in Algeria and a group of Algerian diplomats in Mali in 2012.

Last August, Sahrawi personally ordered the killing of six French charity workers and their Nigerien guides and drivers, the French presidency said.

The killings followed a series of large-scale attacks on military bases in Mali and Niger in late 2019. The group was also said to have been behind a deadly attack on US troops in Niger in 2017.

The Sahel's porous borders are often exploited by drug runners, people smugglers and militants such as the ISGS.

Jihadist attacks also spill into neighbouring Nigeria.

Map

French forces have been hunting jihadist cells in the region for years. In 2013, France intervened to prevent an al-Qaeda affiliate from taking over the Malian capital Bamako.

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There are several missions running concurrently in the Sahel - including a UN peacekeeping mission, comprising 56 nations and 14,000 troops, and the French-led counter-terrorism mission Operation Barkhane, which is backed by US intelligence.

In June, Mr Macron announced that Operation Barkhane would end in its current form, and that French troops would be cut in the region over the course of several years. Last month, Chad announced it was halving its counter-terrorism force in the region.

After announcing Sahrawi's death, Mr Macron added in a tweet: "The nation is thinking this evening of all its heroes who died for France in the Sahel in the Serval and Barkhane operations, of the bereaved families, of all its wounded.

"Their sacrifice is not in vain. With our African, European and American partners, we will continue this fight."

Show of strength from France

Analysis by Mayeni Jones, BBC West Africa correspondent

Despite France planning to withdraw more than 2,000 troops from Mali by early next year, President Macron is keen to show his allies that it is still capable of striking at the heart of jihadist organisations in the strategically important region.

The European Union (EU) and US look to France for leadership in the fight against jihadist groups in the Sahel.

There are fears that, with both IS and al-Qaeda focusing their attention on Africa, an already volatile continent could be further destabilised, increasing the flow of migrants to Europe.

France's decision to reduce its troop strength risked sending the message to its allies that the fight against the jihadists was a lost cause. The death of Sahrawi enables France to reassure them that this is not the case.

But Sahrawi's death will not necessarily lead to an end to jihadism in the region. That may still be a long way off.
All across the internet, people are trying to understand why they loved the late, great Norm Macdonald so much. There are a lot of lovely reminiscences and great analyses, but if you just want to kind of roll around in Norm, I recommend reading his 2016 memoir Based on a True Story: Not a Memoir. This is a book that people (Norm fans? OK, just my husband) urged on me in 2016, and I didnt read it then because I saw a review of it in the New York Times that was less than a hundred percent glowing.

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In that review, John Williams, who did admit to laughing at some parts of the book, called what it did evasive clowning, complained that some parts are just recycled bits, and somewhat snarkily pointed out that its limited to talking about stand-up and Macdonalds tenure on Saturday Night Live, because of the limits of Macdonalds career: Mr. Macdonalds one big starring film vehicle, Dirty Work (1998), was called leaden, taste-deprived attempted comedy in the New York Times. Other roles have included an uncredited bartender in Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo.

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I think Williams missed the point in that last bit, which is that the book is by an author deeply aware of what an awkward fit he made with the world of Hollywood celebrityan author who made that awkward fit into kind of the point. In this memoir, the character of Norm is constantly wearing an SNL jacket, a Norm Show T-shirt, and a Dirty Work hat: a walking embodiment of insecure, grasping celebrity, and the opposite of whatever Normwho famously lived in Los Angeles but didnt drive, and so attended very few industry functionswas in real life. New York City was the site of my greatest success, the narrator writes. I made it there and then I didnt make it anywhere else. I guess Frank Sinatra isnt so smart after all.

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Now that Macdonald is dead, reading the bookdigesting its deep oddnessfeels like communing with pure Norm. Its got a gimmick: Theres a character in it, Keane, whos the ghostwriter of the book, who constantly interjects to voice his annoyance with Norm, his fury at Norm, his total lack of respect for Norm. My colleague Lili Loofbourow, who reviewed the book for the Week when it came out, called Macdonald an extraordinary wordsmith and generally recommended the experience of reading Based on a True Story but found this way of constructing the story frustrating: There has never been a less straightforward book. Its playful and spry and just unbelievably cagey.*

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Lili is correct, and I get her frustration, but this is part of why I liked reading the book as a memorial exercise. I am but a medium-level Macdonald fana low-level one, according to my husbandand so I loved the parts of the book that other people might have found recycled, while also getting to be delighted to discover how freaking weird Macdonald could be when set loose on a long-form project. Theres a list of the 25 best Weekend Update jokes of all time, the first of which came from Chevy Chase, the other 24 of which are Norms. (Well, the results are in, and once again Microsoft CEO Bill Gates is the richest man in America, goes No. 9. Gates says he is grateful for his huge financial success, but it still makes him sad when he looks around and sees other people with any money whatsoever.) The book also has the full text of the famous Moth joke, which has been much-shared on Twitter since Macdonalds death was announced. In that clip from Conan OBriens show, Macdonald puts the joke in the mouth of a driver; in the book, its a doctor who tells it, to a hallway full of people, and to raucous laughter, which Norm resents. Everybody thinks theyre a comedian, he gripes. Especially in my line of work.

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As some have pointed out since Macdonalds death, he had a history of building jokes around transphobic premisesa history he apologized for in a 2018 New York magazine interview with David Marchese. After talking around the issue, building jokes around it, Macdonald eventually said, God bless trans people. They should be given every right in the world, and anybody who wants to hurt them is bad. This part of Macdonalds legacy is in the book, too. There is a chapter thats basically a long prison rape joke. (I loved this book; I really hated that chapter.) Theres another plot line that revolves around Norms friend being in love with a woman who Norm knows is a man. This trans woman eventually betrays the friend for money.

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But is it Norm Macdonald whos responsible for these less-than-great parts of the book? Or is it Norm, the venal sybarite the ghostwriter Keane has created? In one of the ghostwriters narrated passages, Keane describes meeting Norm for the first time, at which occasion Keane uses the word splendidly. It sounds womanish, Norm says. I dont care what filthy things a man does with another man when they lay down together, but I just dont want any words like splendidly showing up in this book. You understand me, brother? So was it the real Norm who has these thoughts and feelings? Or was the real Norm, off to one side, shunting these thoughts and feelings into a fictional Norm? Or was the real Norm just playing around? As Lili wrote for Slate on Thursday, this pile of obfuscation is confusing; this is perhaps, the point: The book produced the perfect opposite of whatever illusion of intimacy a memoir is supposed to confer.

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But at the time of Macdonalds death, its his material on cancer, like a chapter in the book where Norm takes a Make-a-Wish child to Canada to club a harp seal, that really makes the read worthwhile. He had cancer when he published the book, although that wasnt known even to much of his friends and family until after his death. The boy had been alive nine years, which made him young, but he would only be alive for one more year, which made him old, Norm (or, actually, Keane) describes this child, a bitter and blunt way to talk about a dying kid.

When its unexpected, Norm/Keane writes, death comes fast like a ravenous wolf and tears open your throat with a merciful fury. But when its expected, it comes slow and patient like a snake, and the doctor tells you how far away it is and when, exactly, it will be at your door. And when it will be at the foot of your bed. And when it will be on your flesh. Its all right there on their clipboards. This, of course, is not really funny. But its good.
Maybe you saw the video of a New York delivery guy during Hurricane Ida, trudging slowly through waist-high water, plastic takeout bag slung over his handlebars. Some people saw him as stoic. Others saw him as tragic. But the 65,000 delivery workers like him saw it as just another day on the job.

Please do not be the person who orders delivery during a flash flood that the NWS has deemed a dangerous and life-threatening situation. It puts vulnerable people at risk.



If its too dangerous for you, its too dangerous for them. Raid your cabinets or ask a neighbor for help. https://t.co/pzF1jVDaaz  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) September 2, 2021

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Josh Dzieza calls that a policy failure. Dzieza, investigations editor at the Verge, just reported a piece about the sprawling, hidden world of New Yorks delivery workers, whose jobs have gotten way more demanding and dangerous since apps like Uber Eats and DoorDash took over the market. On Thursdays episode of What Next, I spoke to Dzieza about the unique challenges of the job, the workers nascent organizing efforts, and what it all says about the future of work in America. Our conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Mary Harris: People who deliver food used to work for restaurants. Now most of them are gig workers. Instead of dropping off a pizza a few blocks away, theyre speeding 60 blocks uptown on an e-bike to drop off ice cream or fries. Instead of coming back to a home base where they can probably score a free meal, theyre scavenging around for a place to pee. The workers you spoke with said they actually like their freedom. But theyre also working without a net, contracting for apps. Sometimes they work for a bunch of them at once, trying to game the system.

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Josh Dzieza: Each one is a little different and has its own little rewards and penalties. Uber Eats and DoorDash, you have more freedom to pick and choose orders. Uber Eats doesnt punish you for not accepting orders. DoorDash sort of doesyou lose what they call Top Dasher status, getting top pick of good deliveries. I mean, its a game. It feels like gambling. You never know what kind of tip youre going to get, where youre going to go, how much youre going to make.

So if I wanted to become a delivery worker, how would I go about it?

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You never know what kind of tip youre going to get, where youre going to go, how much youre going to make.  Josh Dzieza

The first thing youre going to need is an electric bike. The bike that most workers in New York use, its called an Arrow, and its just a heavy-duty mountain bike with a battery on the back as a throttle that goes up to a bit under 30 miles an hour. And thats what they all use. Every worker said its the only way you can do enough deliveries for long enough to make a living at the job. So once you get that, which is quite expensiveits 1800 bucks, 2500 after you get a second battery and all the other stuff you needthen you sign up for the apps.

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How much did these jobs pay initially, and how much do they pay now?

They paid pretty well. You would hear stories in the mid-2010s about workers who were making $20, $30 an hour or something like that. Now, according to a recent study by the Workers Justice Project and Cornell, when you factor in expenses, base pay is $7.87 an hour on average. With tips, its $12.40. So below legal minimum wage standards in New York.

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In your reporting you really articulate this whole world that I didnt know existed, all of these garages and repair shops and places around the city that I wouldnt know about because Im not a delivery worker. Can you tell me about this other world that developed around the apps and the workers because theres been such a sudden influx of them?

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Yeah. So the core thing to remember about the apps is that when workers switched from restaurants to apps, they had no more shelter, they had no more access to restrooms, they had nowhere to store their bikes. They lost all these things that you wouldnt even really have thought of as perks of being a delivery person, but they were. They were things that the restaurant had provided. And so they had to build their own infrastructure. One response was to cut deals with parking garage lot managers and create bike storage space and some sort of a break room. They set up a table where they can hang out and eat between the lunch and dinner lull.  They stored, it must have been, dozens of bikes. They charged batteries there. They had installed shelving to charge all their batteries.

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And the workers came up with this themselves.

Yeah.

Im tempted to think about it as innovative. But in addition to this impressiveness, it also shows how this infrastructure is very rickety.

Absolutely, I think it is innovative and impressive and resilient and kind of inspiring that theyve come together as a community to support each other. But theyve had to do that because theyve been failed by every other institution. You know, the apps are not concerned with them. Their contractors, the restaurants, are no longer concerned with them because they work for the apps. The city just has ignored them. Its changing a little bit now after the pandemic, but for years they were just sort of treated as a nuisance, and so they really had to develop the system because no one else was looking out for them. And its expensive. It externalizes a lot of costs of delivery onto the workers. They have to pay for a garage, which is 100, 120 bucks a month. They have to maintain their bike. They have to pay for all this cold-weather gear and their delivery bags.

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If you watch these workers get from point A to point B on their bikes, theyre going fast. Theyre zipping between cars, going the wrong way on streets, all in the name of delivering your order on time. Its dangerous. During the pandemic, New York delivery workers began getting attacked, robbed for those e-bikes. They set up an informal infrastructure to help keep one another safe. They have Facebook and WhatsApp groups to track down stolen bikes.

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You tell the story of this one delivery guy, Nicolas, who walks out from delivering some food and realizes, oh, my God, my bikes been stolen, and he goes through this whole saga and he ends up intersecting with the folks behind this Facebook group. Can you tell that story?

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Yeah. So his bike is stolen. His brother is in one of these WhatsApp groups and posted a photo of it, and, really remarkably, an hour or so later, someone spots it in the Bronx. They tail the guy whos wheeling the bike down the sidewalk. They film him as he carries it to an apartment building.  [Nicolas] doesnt know who filmed it. Its just that theyre all delivery people, they all ride bikes, they all live in fear of having a bike stolen, and so they are always on the lookout for something suspicious.

So Nicolas goes to the building. Five other workers from the WhatsApp group have all joined him in front of the building, and he just calls 911 repeatedly and is told a car is going to come. It doesnt come. They all go home. The next day he visits the precinct near the building. They say to go to a precinct in Manhattan where it was stolen. He does that. He gets some paperwork, is told to go back to the Bronx. He goes back to the Bronx precinct. They say theyll send someone. They dont send someone. So he just sort of runs around the city trying to get help from the police and nothing happens.

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But then several days later, someone else in the group has a bike stolen. It has a GPS and it shows it to be in the same building that Nicolas bike is in. And so a much larger group gathers. They again try the police several times. They go back to the Bronx precinct several times, cant get any help. And so they decide to hold a stakeout. I mean, its quite remarkable, the detective work they did. They got surveillance footage. He has a GPS signal. He has a remote alarm that he triggered on his bike so you can hear it behind the door, so they know its there and they know who took it. And so theyll wait for hours outside until the guy comes down.

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No one is really responsible for them. And I think that means theres a lot of blame to go around.  Josh Dzieza

How many people is this?

Fifteen, about. And then he comes down and they surround him and say, we know you took the bikes, we have you on video, please give them back, we dont want trouble. And the guy eventually agrees and they all run upstairs after a bit of a confrontation but are given the bikes back.

Is that a success story?

It is and it isnt. I mean, its dangerous. It worked out well in that case, but it very well might not have. I think a success story would have been, at some point during their many attempts, the police get involved and help get the bikes back.

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What do the apps say?

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The policing stuff they rightly say is a city issue. Thats their view on it. The other issuesI mean, they insist they pay workers well. They say that theyre contractors, they have a lot of freedom and flexibility. DoorDash in particular always stresses that their workers tend to be part time as a side gig. And some of that might be more true elsewhere than it is in New York. In New York its overwhelmingly a full-time job. I think they dont acknowledge the work that workers are doing just to be able to do the job. And I think theyre very resistant to doing that.

Are the workers thinking of forming a union? Could they even do that?

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They cant do that because theyre contractors, and due to the quirks of U.S. labor law theyre not allowed to. That may change. The PRO Act has a provision that would allow contractors to unionize. Well see what happens with that, but its something people are talking about. In lieu of that, theyve had to organize in this grassroots way that theyve been doing. But they dont have the ability to bargain collectively with the apps.

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There are so many different players in thisthe consumer, the app, the restaurant, the delivery worker. I feel like that spreads out the blame. How do you think about who to hold responsible for the situation the workers are in?

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Absolutely I think part of the reason that they are in the situation that theyre in is because as things currently work, no one is really responsible for them. And I think that means theres a lot of blame to go around. I think consumers need to be more aware of the labor behind their actions, some of which is enabled by just things like software interface design, where it doesnt really make a point of showing you how far away something is youre ordering. I think the city and state and government in general shares a lot of the blame for letting these companies grow for so long, unregulated, without really analyzing how theyve changed work and how some of those changes could have really negative impacts on workers.

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While contract delivery workers cant necessarily form a union, they can advocate for themselves through protests and rallies. They held one just this week, at New Yorks City Hall. Theyre hoping representatives will pass a package of bills providing rudimentary protections, like being able to set a maximum trip distance, requiring restaurants to let workers use the bathroom, and making sure apps give workers insulated food delivery bagsright now, they have to buy their own.

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They see it as a start. They want the higher pay, in particular the restroom access. Those are all helpful. But, yeah, the core issue is that they are contractors without benefits in a dangerous and precarious industry, and that isnt really going to be addressed by these bills.

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I wonder when the workers you spoke with noticed that the pandemic was reshaping the work they did and how they noticed that.

It was really interesting to me how little the pandemic came up in our conversations. They knew they were working through the pandemic and that it was dangerous and a lot of people got sick. The main thing that they talked aboutother than the thefts, which they associated with the pandemic and the streets being emptywas the longer distances. They said every restaurant expanded its delivery radius, and so that was their big complaint about the pandemic. I think at the same time, they were very aware of all the rhetoric around being heroes. The apps were saying it, the city was saying it, and they did not feel treated like heroes. For years theyve been kind of persecuted by the police. When e-bikes were illegal, restaurants were not letting them use their restrooms. So the job had only become more difficult at the same time everyone was talking about these heroic essential workers who are feeding the city. And I think that was pretty galling for them. And they started to think about what it would mean to be treated in a way that reflected that rhetoric.

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Some people might hear our conversation and think this is just a New York thing, this doesnt affect me. And I wonder what youd say to someone whos thinking that.

First, these companies are everywhere, especially during the pandemic. Theyve expanded into every city, into the suburbs. Its really a growing business. And they might not be on bikes, but a lot of the same issues applycars, the maintenance, things like that, costs that get externalized to workers. I think theres a general push towards fast and unlimited delivery wherever you are, that its something you can click a button and not really think about how it gets to you, like Amazon. And so I think wherever you see that, youre going to see kind of an underworld of improvisation and costs that workers will have to bear.

The second thing is that this type of work has implications for all workers. I think these companies have been very effective in organizing large workforces quite efficiently. And I think we are seeing similar forms of precarious labor in other industries. And so I think that no matter where you are or what your job is, it is helpful to see this as a possible form the future of work could take.

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A lot has been going on with Nicki Minaj, vaccines, swollen testicles, the White House, Tucker Carlson, Twitter, sexual assault, etc., this week. Below, four Slate staff writers attempt to make sense of the situation.

Rebecca Onion: OK. So heres my understanding of things as they are: Nicki, who uses (used?!) Twitter quite a bit, had been replying to fans who were upset about not seeing her out and about, explaining that she has a little baby and no child care because of the virus, and that she got COVID at one point and it was stressful because she couldnt be around him. Then in a separate tweet, she said that she wasnt going to the Met ball because they required a vaccination and she wasnt going to get vaccinated for that, but advised everyone to wear a good mask. THEN in ANOTHER tweet, honestly an all-timer, she said her cousins friend in Trinidad got the vaccine and his testicles swelled up and his fiancee called off their wedding. At some point, she said she would get vaccinated to go on tour. Then she asked her fans (???) which of the vaccines she should get (???). Then she got mad at Joy Reid and Meghan McCain for scolding her publicly for not getting vaccinated; then she retweeted Tucker Carlson approving of her recent tweets with the bulls-eye emoji; then she said the White House had asked her to come talk to them about the vaccine; then it turned out that no, she was just getting to talk to a doctor about it or possibly have some kind of White House phone call; then, she said she was suspended from Twitter for spreading misinformation (even though she wasnt).

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DID. I. Miss. Anything?????

Julia Craven: Somehow, despite how comprehensive this is, you did miss that the White House offered to connect her with a doctor to talk about her tweets.

Heather Schwedel: There were a few smaller things.  The health minister in Trinidad said that they checked, and there is no person that happened to in the entire country. Nicki also mentioned that Drake told her he got COVID despite being vaccinated.

Onion: Ah yes, Drake. So, to turn to deciphering this, do you guys think she is trolling? Or is she really up in the air about the vaccine and trying to figure out how to handle it?

Nitish Pahwa: I think its two things: that she legitimately is skeptical about the vaccine, but could also be actively playing this up so as to distract from certain  developments in her life and career, like her manager switch and troubles with her husband. Shes always been very good at directing the narrative, especially for her stans.

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Craven: I wont say shes trolling or up in the airlike Nitish said, she could genuinely be skepticalbut I will say the timing is convenient. Her husband, Kenneth Petty, pleaded guilty to failing to register as a sex offender in California last week. And now hes potentially facing up to 10 years in jail.

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Onion: This has worked with her in the past, rightare there other examples we can think of, of times when she has gotten particularly  uh  viral on social media while things are going poorly in other areas?

Craven: Yes! In March, the Daily Beast published an article about how shes essentially bankrolling the harassment of her husbands accuser. That story, if I remember correctly, continued getting a lot of traction throughout the spring. And, in May, Nicki rereleased Beam Me Up Scotty, the mixtape that put her on the map as an insanely talented rapper, on streaming. Again, no direct connections or gotchas on the timing of this, but its all very convenient.

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Schwedel: In 2018, there was the time a fan criticized her and she lashed back by posting her DMs with the fan and effectively siccing her followers on her, as the New York Times reported at the time.

Pahwa: Yeah I feel like this part was especially important from that Times story: Ms. Minaj has been particularly present online lately, rallying her troops in the run-up to her new album, as early songs from the project have failed to stick commercially.

Schwedel: The Barbz are a particularly fearsome fan army.

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Onion: With her career currently, theres not just the husbands legal troubles, but also the general fallow-ness of the pandemic, combined with her recently having a baby, right? Like, she hasnt been around really, musically or otherwise.

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Pahwa: Yeah, besides rereleasing Beam Me Up Scotty with a few new songs, and appearing as a feature on some other remixes and albums, she hasnt done too much new stuff since 2018s Queen, which was nowhere near as well-received as some of her previous projects. Although last year, she had a chart-topping single with Tekashi69, who had pleaded guilty to child sexual abuse in 2015.

Schwedel: Theres definitely a narrative out there that she has been usurped by Cardi B, right?

Onion: Heather, be careful, the Barbz are real!

Craven: I think the Cardi-Nicki beef is pretty much done between the artists, even though online I see the hives clash at times.

Onion: Lets talk about the Barbz. Who are they, what are their characteristics as a fan base, and why are they called that? We should also say that some Nicki fans went to protest at the CDC in Atlanta during all of this, if that shows you how active they are.



Pahwa: I think we should be very careful about how we go about describing the Barbz, but: They are indeed named after one of Nickis alter egos (the Harajuku Barbie), and they are extremely devoted and powerful. A lot of them are LGBTQ fans. As Brian Feldman reported a couple years back, Lil Nas X comes from the Barb world, and he was able to leverage that fan base to reach his current level of success. Plus, theres another key quote from that NYT piece about the music journalist Nicki fought with: Her fans mimic her behavior.

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Schwedel: I just wanted to add that her gay male fans are called Ken Barbz.

Onion: So this brings me to the question. How does Nicki fit in with the other celebs who have been publicly antiCOVID vax? Like, is she the most famous of them? Have they expressed similar reasons why they dont want to get it? And does she have more sway over her fans than they do? This feels like a breakout celebrity vax hesitancy moment. Is that because of the nature of her tweets? Her strong fan base? Or just  her balls?

Craven: This is gonna be nitpicky, but I also think it speaks to the way she operates online. She technically never said she was anti-vax. She said she wasnt getting vaccinated for the Met Gala and then she spread misinformation about vaccine side effects to 22 million people. But because news outlets picked up on it and covered it as being anti-vax, she was able to turn the narrative on its nose a bit. Shes very savvy in that way. Everything is just inflammatory and just vague enough to where, if you arent actually paying attention, youll miss whats happening. This also gives her a lot of leverage when, and if, she decides to pivot into saying shes being unfairly attacked.

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Onion: But in a way, Julia, I think the way this has gone has been very telling about vaccine hesitancy in general in this pandemic. Like the one anti-COVID-vaxxer I know in my life is just like this: not anti-vax, but suspicious, and continually suspicious for months and months.

Its hard because you end up trying to persuade somebody, but youre not sure if theyre persuadable.

Craven: Oh, yeah, I agree. And Im not convinced theres any research left to be done, or if anyone saying theyre doing research can be persuaded either. It feels like  code for evading the anti-vaxxer label at times. Im nervous laughing.

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Onion: Theres a lot of nervous laughter involved in this situation for everyone, because it feels like her influence is so strong and people who want to poke holes in the vaccine are very happy to have her.

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Craven: Like, what are you going to find that scientists havent found? I still am sympathetic to people who are hesitant for whatever reason, but this feels different than, say, someone with myocarditis who is afraid of getting vaccinated. Or people who dont have large platforms and access to phone calls from White House doctors.

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Schwedel: She did say at one point shed probably get it.

Onion: Honestly it was somewhat heartening. And it was funny to see people recommending vaccines like they were telling you what kinds of jeans to get when she asked that question.

It strikes me that during this pandemic, it really doesnt seem like any pro-vax celebrities have made a dent. Like, does anyone get the COVID vaccine because Jennifer Aniston told them to? The reaction to this episode made me think oh crap. The influence of celebrities is much stronger on the anti-vax side   But on the other hand, if she does get the vaccine, this little narrative will be more powerful than when Oprah came out back in the spring to say Get vaxxed. Right??

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Craven: I definitely think Nicki Minaj has more power, at least on social media, than Oprah (lol), which is why it was frustrating to see her tweet about her cousins friends allegedly swollen balls! While she didnt say she was anti-vax and she did say shed probably get it to go on tour, sharing that kind of misinformation is bad.

But I also agree that if she shares a pic of her getting the vaccine, a lot of people who havent will go do it. And I did also enjoy the people in her comments saying, Omg, queen get Moderna!

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Pahwa: Plus, if she gets the vaccine, Im sure shed be very likely to engage with fans and randos and other celebrities about it.

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Onion: Thats my last question actually. Do you guys think she will get it? Lets place bets. I bet  yes.

Craven: Yeah, I think she will. I genuinely think this dust-up was, like I said earlier, convenient. Its kinda stupid that it escalated to the point that the White House weighed in. But its also started a decent convo about power, celebrity, and vaccines. And a lot of her fans seem to be pro-vaccine, but they will also go to war for her over any perceived slight.

Pahwa: I agree. When things calm down, there will be a news cycle in a few weeks or so about how Nicki got the vaccine and is encouraging her fans to do so.

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Schwedel: I think shes a bit of a wild card  the way shes claiming the White House invited her and the White House is claiming no it didnt makes me think she is not going to work with the White House or any official government entity. Maybe she was just annoyed that she was planning on dressing up a la Legally Blonde and its a lot less fun to dress up for a call than a visit. But as a celebrity, she might see some advantage to leaving things ambiguous and decide the smartest move is to just never address this again.
I am not going to waste your time or mine asking whether Justice Amy Coney Barretts remarks this past weekendwhen she stood next to Mitch McConnell in Louisville and intoned that the court is not composed of a bunch of partisan hacksmean she is irredeemably clueless or just that she believes we are. I dont much care. A celebration of McConnellwho blocked Merrick Garlands appointment to the Supreme Court in 2016 and then described it in June as the single most consequential thing Ive done in my time as majority leader of the Senateis not a perch from which to serve up platitudes about judicial independence. McConnell manipulated the size of the court, not once but twice in the past four years, and Barrett accepted those spoils. McConnell has also already pledged that if a vacancy appears and the GOP wins the Senate next year, he will block any Biden nominee in 2024 and very likely in 2023 as well. He is indeed the patron saint of an independent federal judiciary, so long as the jurists there are all dependent on him.

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The court has been so busy being partisan these past few weeksit functionally ended legal abortion in Texas, reinstated the Remain in Mexico policy, and struck down the eviction moratoriumthat it should have been hard for any of its members to find the time to give fatuous speeches about being nonpartisan. And yet, listening to Supreme Court justices busily instruct us on how to think about Supreme Court Justices seems to have occupied an outsize amount of judicial time this past summer. The terrible optics and annoying sophistry of Barretts specific remarks aside, there is real harm suffered when justicesand here Barrett is hardly alonetake it upon themselves to blame the press for things they have brought upon themselves. That, and not the cynicism, was the real problem with Barretts Kentucky foray into media criticism.

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Lets start with the fact that the Supreme Court press corps is almost never advised of these appearances. They werent in Barretts case, as Gerg Stohr noted that evening. There is no transcript or video available of the speech. Journalists on the scene included an AP reporter who published an account, along with local education writer Jess Clark, who penned an article that clarified that press were allowed at the event but were not permitted to record audio or video other than for note-taking purposes. Reporters were not allowed to ask questions. Clark also tweeted that the press had been moved to the back of the room, where they were unable to hear.

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Theres a long, long history of Supreme Court justices throwing punches at the press, often while barring reporters from their events. In 2004, Justice Antonin Scalia famously had to apologize to two Mississippi reporters covering a speech he gave, after a U.S. marshal seized and erased the recordings on their tape recorders because they violated the justices preferred policy of no recorded speeches. In 2003, reporters were famously barred from recording a speech Scalia gave as he accepted a freedom of speech award. In 2009, when Justice Anthony Kennedy gave a speech at the prestigious Dalton School in Manhattan, his chambers insisted on giving preapproval to any article written about it in the student paper. The list goes on.

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Andrew Cohen has detailed the rank insanity of justices who roam around D.C. in a bubble of silence and then swan off around the globe to give off-the-books speeches that are never recorded and not reported in full. I wrote back in 2006, after several justices received blowback for allegedly off-the-record talks in foreign lands, that they seemed to be deeply confused both about the distinction between public and private and about how the internet works:

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Some justices still seem to think that if they say something very far away, or to an audience without visible tape recorders, it wont be made public. Consider, for instance, that some justicesmany of whom utterly reject the value of foreign lawreserve their most substantive legal speeches for foreign audiences. Why is Justice Ginsburg yelling at congressional Republicans from South Africa when she can just open the window of her chambers and shout across to the Capitol? Whether its a good thing or a bad thing, the combination of the Internet, bloggers, and bored law students means that everything a justice now sayswhether its at a private prayer service in Mississippi or a Hadassah meeting in Reykjavikis public. And what Supreme Court justices say, particularly when they are taking brickbats to unnamed others, is news, whether or not you destroy every tape recorder in the room. In fact, giving speeches without publishing transcripts or permitting recording devices is now doubly fraught, in that we are left to trust the reports of the listeners alone.

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The extra hypocrisy sauce in Barretts case is that she went on to use the occasion to trash-talk the press. Again, since there is no transcript, we still cannot perfectly report on what was said. But according to those in the room last week, among Barretts knocks on the (constitutionally protected) free press was her claim that she actually doesnt read it. She also reportedly blamed the media for pushing the narrative that the court is partisan, as opposed to the, er, partisan court: The media, along with hot takes on Twitter, report the results and decisions, she said. That makes the decision seem results-oriented. It leaves the reader to judge whether the court was right or wrong based on whether she liked the results of the decision.

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The problem with this critique is that it comes just as the court has produced a record number of unsigned, barely reasoned shadow docket opinions that are in fact anything but nuanced. If some of the justices spent more time crafting actual coherent and principled decisions and less time giving partisan speeches about their awesome lack of bias, efforts to shift the blame onto the media would be less galling. But, coming from a court whose members can barely be bothered to sign their names to their orders anymore, the suggestion that reporters are too lazy to read and understand them is laughable. They are giving us shockingly little to go onand for the record, whether Barrett reads them or not, there are plenty of reporters who really do strive to report the courts complicated opinions accurately.

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I join the millions of you who believe that producing Onion-worthy speeches about an unbiased judiciary while kissing Mitch McConnells ring is doing absolutely nothing to improve public confidence in an independent judiciary. But I add this final gloss: When the same jurists tasked with protecting the First Amendment and a free press are blaming that press for polarization they themselves foment, its not merely vexing and Trumpy. Its also dangerous. The courts plummeting approval ratingsand new polling shows historically low public approvalare a genuine source of concern for the rule of law. The conservative supermajority blaming reporters for that is an very old very cheap trick. No matter what the speeches say, they are the authors of their own misery.
When, this past spring, a succession of stories about communities pushing back, angrily, against the supposed teaching of critical race theory in their school districts began to overtake my social media feeds, I had a hunch that it was a direct result of white fear. But a recent data analysis from NBC News confirms it.

Reporters found that the districts hosting some of the most combative debates over diversity and inclusion initiativesincluding just teaching about racismhave seen a steady increase in students of color attending their schools. In Gwinnett County, Georgia, where parents have squared off over critical race theory, there has been a 52.4 percent increase in students of color since 1994. And in Loudoun County, Virginia, where the rights of transgender students and teaching racism have become ugly, loud battleground issues, there has been a 29.5 percent increase in that span of time.

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If youve been following how whiteness has evolved since the 2016 election, this isnt surprising. But it is nice to have the numbers to back it up. It reminded one of my colleagues of a similar, equally unsurprising yet very real finding following the Capitol riot. Political scientist Robert Pape, after going through polling and demographic data, discovered that most people who participated in the riots came to D.C. from places where residents were terrified of being replaced by people of color and immigrants. More specifically, as the New York Times put it, counties with the most significant declines in the non-Hispanic white population are the most likely to produce insurrectionists.

If you look back in history, there has always been a series of far-right extremist movements responding to new waves of immigration to the United States or to movements for civil rights by minority groups, Pape told the New York Times. You see a common pattern in the Capitol insurrectionists. They are mainly middle-class to upper-middle-class whites who are worried that, as social changes occur around them, they will see a decline in their status in the future.

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Similarly, in response to NBCs findings on the CRT panic, Stanford University professor Tomas Jimenez said, In virtually any community, when there is rapid demographic change you see a backlash. (Or as one Black mom told NBC of the pushback in her town, Folks like me welcome [diversity], and there are a lot of folks who do not feel that wayI think they feel very threatened.)

This is all, of course, part of a much larger and longer pattern. During the Reconstruction era, as Black Americans started to get some rights, domestic terror groups like the Ku Klux Klan, Louisianas White League, and the Knights of the White Camelia organized in order to stop the progress.* In more recent years, the fear stems back to white replacement theory, or the great replacement, a racist and delusional ideology devised by French writer Renaud Camus asserting that theres a deliberate plot to rid the world of white people. Its popped up during the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, in tweets from known white supremacist and former lawmaker Steve King, and in manifestos from racist mass shootersto name a few. As suburbs become more racially diverse, white families are moving out into whiter communities. And, pretty much every immigration law was constructed to keep America as white as possible.

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The NBC News reporting on CRT backlash is important because it makes clear that the fights currently happening in school districts nationwide are an extension of those desperate grasps to maintain power and limit interactions with people of color. Sure, a white parent shouting at a school board meeting because they dont want their child learning the truth about racial inequality isnt as blatant as the violence carried out by the Klan. But it is motivated by the same desire to protect whiteness, its stature, and the privilege it bestows.
Democrats had a neat plan for their health care agenda. As part of the $3.5 trillion spending bill theyre putting together as I type, they would finally, after years and years of pledges to do so, pass legislation to cut the costs of prescription drugs. This would have two wonderful benefits for the Democrats. First, the obvious: They would fulfill a campaign promise to cut the costs of prescription drugs. Fulfilling popular promises is good! Second, the Medicare drug negotiationsprice negotiations between the government and pharmaceutical companies would save the government hundreds of billions of dollars that Democrats could then use to pay for the rest of their health agenda: covering new services under Medicare, bringing the ACAs Medicaid expansion to all 50 states, and making permanent the improvements Democrats made to Obamacares insurance exchanges in their COVID relief bill earlier this year.

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Again, a neat plan on paper. In terms of actually shepherding this idea through Congress, though, there was always one problem that tended to be overlooked: Doing this would require punching the pharmaceutical industry, and its powerful lobby, squarely in the jaw. Theres a big reason such a popular idealet the government negotiate drug prices!hadnt happened already, namely that the pharmaceutical sector wouldnt take kindly to the threat of losing $500 billion. And now, they havent. Which means that, even in the early stages of Democrats in Congress trying to cobble together the Build Back Better Act, the plan is in deep trouble.

This week, the Energy and Commerce Committee met to discuss drug pricing. The legislation that House Democrats wanted to pass has an aggressive mechanism for making sure drug manufacturers complied with negotiated prices. And if they didnt, the government would slap the companies with an escalating tax that would ultimately reach 95 percent of sales. The criticism from pharmaceutical companies, then, was that this wasnt much of a negotiation at all, but instead the government setting rates at gunpoint. They further explained, as they often do, that these funds would severely hamper pharmaceutical innovation.

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Their lobbying efforts got somewhere. Three moderate members of the committeeCalifornia Rep. Scott Peters, Oregon Rep. Kurt Schrader, and New York Rep. Kathleen Riceannounced that even though they had voted for this idea in 2019, they had since changed their minds, and now had grave concerns about pharmaceutical innovation. (It is also worth noting that Peters, in particular, has accumulated sizable donations from the pharmaceutical industry this year.)

The three members held strong, and all three voted against the drug-pricing proposal in a Wednesday committee vote. That was just enough to create a tie, and the drug-pricing plan failed to advance. PhRMA, the pharmaceutical lobby, crowed in a statement afterward that the House markups on health care demonstrate there are real concerns with Speaker Pelosis extreme drug pricing plan and those concerns are shared by thoughtful lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. (And themselves, they left out.)

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Just because the drug plan couldnt get out of that committee on Wednesday doesnt technically mean its dead. The Ways and Means Committee, which also has health care jurisdiction, also considered drug-pricing on Wednesday and passed its slice of things. And the House Rules Committee, the last stop for legislation before it reaches the floor for a vote and an effective extension of the Speakers power, could always vote to add the provision later on.

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Polling consistently shows immense bipartisan support for Democrats drug price negotiation legislation, including overwhelming majorities of Republicans and independents who are fed up with Big Pharma charging Americans so much more than they charge for the same medicines overseas, Henry Connelly, a Pelosi spokesman, said Wednesday after the committee vote. Delivering lower drug costs is a top priority of the American people and will remain a cornerstone of the Build Back Better Act as work continues between the House, Senate and White House on the final bill.

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The broader problem, though, is that the drug-pricing plan simply may not have the votes to make it into law. Democrats can only afford to lose three votes on the Build Back Better Act when it reaches the House floorthey cant lose any in the Senateand this provision lost three votes in just one committee. There will likely be some drug-price negotiation provision in the final package. But the less aggressive it is, the less it will reduce the cost of prescription drugs, and the less cash Democrats will have freed up to cover the remainder of their agenda. And as long as moderates are demanding the whole package be paid for, thats a problem.

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This is the most alarming episode in a week where the swamp has begun to disrupt Democrats best-laid plans. House Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee could not find a way, in their menu of tax increase options, to eliminate a loophole that gives private equity and hedge fund managers a fat tax break, and which President Obama, Trump, and Biden have all called to get rid of. That committee also dropped Bidens plan to tax unrealized capital gains at death. Democrats vision for the most ambitious remaking of the social contract since the Great Society remains largely intact, for now. But the process is starting to smell.
The Biden administration believes the future of solar to be bright (ba-dum-tss), but several questions remain as to the feasibility of its renewable energy vision. On Sep. 8, the Department of Energy released the Solar Futures Study, which in the words of the administration is an illuminating blueprint for a zero-carbon grid. If youre someone concerned about the climate and the domestic energy future, this report should come as a welcome contribution. The report imagines a 2050 in which solar power supplies 40 percent of the nations electricity, while employing somewhere in the ballpark of 1.5 million people. This solar expansion would be paired with significant contributions from wind and nuclear energy (and smaller contributions from hydro and geothermal power) to round-out a carbon-free grid.

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But the blueprint is missing some crucial components. While the document provides a generalized plan for transitioning the United States to a grid dominated by renewable energy production, including a breakdown of renewables dominated by solar, it is at times sparse on the details for moving forward. One such example is how the report provides little detail as to how the U.S. supply chain will adapt to achieve such an energy mix by 2050. As Washington continues to attempt to find political solutions to the infrastructure debate, keeping supply chain issues in mind would be extremely prudent.

In 2020, solar energy represented just a 2.3 percent share of utility-scale electricity generation. That does represent a significant increase over that last couple of decades (it was less than 0.1 percent in 1990), but it is a far cry from the necessary production to meet the vision of the Solar Futures Study. Therefore, production and installation will have to significantly ramp up to meet the targets outlined in the report.

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However, that task is proving more difficult in the wake of the pandemic. A surge in costs for metals, shipping, and freight following pandemic-related supply chain bottlenecks has led to an increase in price for solar manufacturing. Steel, used in both racks for holding solar panels and polysilicon to make panels, has tripled in price alone. That increase in cost is impacting other renewables like wind, too. Now add to that the reality that SolarEdge, a prominent renewables company, said in May 2021 that it had experienced a 100 percent increase in ocean freight costs. All of this equals a price and supply chain future for solar and renewables that is less than certain.

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Sure, its possible that bringing the pandemic to a manageable state globally could decrease some of these costs, as could returning some manufacturing to the U.S. But its not entirely clear how creating a predominantly domestic supply chain would reduce the cost of raw materials necessary. And sure, Bidens plan is a long-term one at that. However, if the U.S. is really going to pull-off such a massive shift in its energy supply, it cant wait and lollygag around.

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Even in an eventual (or, so we can hope) post-pandemic world, more issues for solar expansion remain. First, a significant amount of the polysilicon needed for solar panels comes from China. Thats currently proving problematic. Given the accusations of Chinas use of forced labor in Xinjiang, the White House has currently banned the imports of some materials necessary to make more solar panels. While it is currently rather cheap to produce solar panels, in comparison with a decade ago, increasing the demand for specialized materials and the metals required for solar panel construction paired with diminished supply is driving prices up for the first time in years. As it is, there is already difficulty in just accessing the materials needed to jumpstart production.

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Thats not even to get started on the labor front, as there are also disruptions in finding the necessary workers and machinery to build solar panelsand other renewable infrastructure. Not only is there a shortfall of construction labor currently, the number of solar workers actually decreased slightly in 2020a fact that could prove problematic for the Biden administration in meeting 2035 climate goals and the vision of the Solar Futures Study. Solar industry members have noted a vexing skills gap and a small applicant pool among the competitive job market as key obstacles to growing their workforce. Plus, overall costs for solar panel construction, including things like labor, are up 12 percent in 2021. To reach the goals of the report, the solar industry would need to rush to train tens of thousands of new workers. Renewables have also faced installation issues due to machinery availability, as competition for equipment like cranes has led to shortages in their supply. This not only increases costs but lengthens the timeline for installations.

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Beyond that, the Solar Futures Study plan requires the installation of a smart grid. The smart grid requires two-way communication between generators, transmitters and customers on the grid. The smart part requires network-based communication across the grid. Which while important in both theory and practice, still opens significant questions as to how the government will manage the security of the supply chain itself. The issue isnt just building energy infrastructure, but also protecting it. Adding thousands of new internet-capable devices provides thousands of new entry points for hackers and bad actors intending to gain access to or destroy the capabilities of the grid. As the U.S. Resilience Project framed it, Supply chain cybersecurity problems stem from the risk that compromised or counterfeit components could enter the chain from lower tiers, which are less visible to the utilities. Therefore, a smart grid necessitates collaboration between the federal government, grid operators, and manufacturers to ensure the safety of the new grid at all times.

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None of this is to say that Bidens plan is misguided or impossible. Or that solar isnt part of the solutionit clearly is part of the path forward. As Michelle Davis, an analyst at energy research and consulting firm Wood Mackenzie, pointed out to the New York Times: No matter how you slice it, you need solar deployments to double or quadruple in the near term for the Biden administration to achieve its climate goals. The truth is that solar and other renewables remain a relatively cheap energy option that demand increased use (especially given the rising impacts of fossil fuel extraction and combustion), but governmental reports and climate scientists havent always been great at predicting the changes in their price.

So, when thinking about the looming infrastructure deals in Congress and the mission to increase renewables, political commitment, funding and will arent the only obstacles to overcome. Just because prices have decreased for renewables over the last decade to a point where the DOE sees a viable solar future doesnt mean theyll stay that way. A massive increase in demand for renewable technology must be paired with a serious consideration and overhaul of our national supply chain.

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.
At this castle, visitors become archaeologists

A new archaeological sandpit has opened at Pusty Hrad, near Zvolen, and people can dig out something they can keep as a souvenir.

Pusty Hrad was once one of the most important settlements of Hungarian kings and in the Zvolen County. (Source: Pavel Albert)

At the Pusty Hrad castle ruins, visitors can put themselves in the shoes of an archaeologist and dig out coins.

The new archaeological sandpit at the castle overlooking the town of Zvolen will be open during guided tours, as reported by the My Zvolen website.

People will uncover replicas of denarii, which were found at this archaeological site in the past, under the supervision of experienced archaeologists.

The replicas were made by a local craftsman. One looks exactly like the denarius minted during the reign of King Bela IV of Hungary.

Many people don't know that it depicts an angel killing a dragon, said Jiri Pec from the Stredne Slovensko regional tourism organisation.

The coins people will find can be kept as souvenirs.

Next guided tour in October

During the first tour, archaeology experts Jan Beljak and Noemi Beljak Pazinova shared stories about the castle and interesting finds. Another guided tour is planned for October 2.

They also tell the story of the minting of counterfeit coins at the castle or how the Lower Castle was uncovered from below the ground, " Pec added.

The replicas of denarii were made by a local craftsman. (Source: Jiri Pec)

Built in the 12th century, Pusty Hrad, consisting of two parts, was one of the most important settlements of Hungarian kings and in Zvolen County.

Spectacular Slovakia travel guides

16. Sep 2021 at 11:35 | Compiled by Spectator staff
Airline connection with Russia renewed, chartered flights continue

Summer might be over, but not seasonal chartered destination flights.

Font size: A - | A +

As the summer tourist season ends, chartered flights from Bratislava Airport continue.

Flight connections with Slovakia are being established around the world.

Russia will renew its connections with Slovakia along with Iraq, Kenya, and Spain starting September 21, 2021, the TASS newswire reported. Four weekly flights will connect Moscow with Bratislava and 2 weekly flights will connect Saint Petersburg with Bratislava, RIA Novosti reported. Russia ended foreign air connections on March 27, 2020 as a result of the Covid-19 outbreak. Flights resumed in August 2020.

A summertime flight between the Croatian island of Brac, which was active on a once-per-week basis from the beginning of July, is being discontinued. However, there are other options for vacationers seeking to experience the Mediterranean, Black or Red Seas - be it Spain, Greece, Turkey, or Egypt.

Even in October

Flight plans include chartered flights for the second half of September, and even October, for example to Hurghada, Larnaca, Antalya and Rhodes, Matus Hrabovsky, speaker for airport told the SITA newswire.

However, the execution of these flights will depend on tour sales and decisions made by travel agencies, he added, stating that the flights could be cancelled in case of weak sales .

The airport did not state what chartered flights or destinations were overall the most popular in the summer months, as it is still processing data from August.

In July, the Bulgarian city of Burgas along with the islands of Crete and Rhodes were the most popular, Hrabovsky elaborated.

This week, the Bratislava airport planned to facilitate 25 arrivals and 21 departures along with seven regular connections. On Saturday, it was possible to fly to Heraklion, Patras, Antalya, Burgas, Palma de Mallorca, Tel Aviv, and on Sunday to Corfu, Malta and Larnaca.

The Czech airline Smartwings reported that as of October 24 2021 they will commence direct flights between Bratislava and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

The flight will take place once a week via a Boeing 737 MAX 8, the airline told SITA. The airline added that tickets are already on sale in Dubai.

Smartwings currently offers chartered flights from Bratislava and Kosice to destinations in Greece, Turkey and Egypt. In the winter season (from the end of October 2021 to the end of March 2022) the airline will also offer chartered flights to Salalah airport in Oman once a week. Pre-pandemic, a direct connection between Bratislava and Dubai was facilitated by the UAE flydubai airline, but the carrier has yet to renew the connection.

Along with chartered flights, there are regular connections to coastal destinations.

16. Sep 2021 at 11:33 | Compiled by Spectator staff
Slovakia will have its first ever representative on the WHO Executive Board

Professor Jozef Suvada will represent Slovakia.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) Committee for Europe confirmed that professor Jozef Suvada will represent Slovakia on WHO's Executive Board.

The decision is confirmation of the expert qualities of this Slovak candidate and also the significant success of Slovak diplomacy, the press department of the Foreign Affairs Ministry wrote in a press release.

Professor Suvada will begin his work on the WHO Executive Board after the organisation's May meeting.

"This will be the historically first three-year mandate of the Slovak Republic in this important body," emphasised the Foreign Affairs Minister Ivan Korcok (nom. SaS).

WHO's Executive Board is composed of 34 health professionals from around the world. Its main role is to implement the decisions and policies of WHO's highest body, the World Health Assembly, and it is also its main governing body between sessions.

I believe that Slovakia, with the help of teamwork in its historical opportunity to be in this body, will help improve health, the social determinants of health, and the implementation and sustainability of innovations. It will also reduce inequalities, discrimination, stigma, improve patient safety, prevent trauma and disease, improve warnings in epidemic prevention, and ensure transparent and ethical approaches at the WHO level too, he wrote on social network. Global inspiration will perhaps also be our national path in improvement and development.

16. Sep 2021 at 17:08 | Compiled by Spectator staff
UPDATED: Heger announces a working group for rule of law, Sme Rodina won't take part

It will include representatives of courts, prosecutors, ministries and other institutions under the statute of the Security Council.

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The government's Security Council approved the establishment of an expert working group for restoring confidence in the rule of law, PM Eduard Heger announced in response to "extremely worrying" developments in law enforcement authorities.

"This is not just a government struggle, this is our common struggle," Heger told the media.

Finance Minister Igor Matovic added: "We have bugs in the system that we need to identify quickly."

The working group will start meeting continuously from Monday, September 20. It will prepare proposals for changes for the government and parliament to improve the functioning of the security forces. It will include representatives of courts, prosecutors, ministries and other institutions under the statute of the Security Council.

Coalition Sme Rodina will, however, not take part in it.

Worrying development in police

17. Sep 2021 at 13:35 | Compiled by Spectator staff
https://sputniknews.com/20210915/cdc-research-sees-spike-in-us-obesity-rate-from-2018-to-2020-1089111274.html

CDC Research Sees Spike in US Obesity Rate From 2018 to 2020

CDC Research Sees Spike in US Obesity Rate From 2018 to 2020

New research from CDC shows that the number of US states with an obesity rate over 35% has nearly doubled since 2018. 15.09.2021, Sputnik International

2021-09-15T23:29+0000

2021-09-15T23:29+0000

2021-09-15T23:29+0000

united states

cdc

obesity

america

bmi research

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The CDC reports that in 2018 only nine states reported an obesity rate over 35%, with that number jumping to 12 in 2019, and hitting 16 in 2020. Delaware, Iowa, Ohio and Texas joined Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia on that list in 2020.The ballooning of Americas obesity rate is a recent development. According to a news release from Trust for Americas Health, as recently as 2012 no state had an obesity rate that eclipsed 35%. Every state now has an adult obesity rate that eclipses 20%.The results of the study show serious demographic differences in the nations obesity rate, as well. Thirty-five states reported an obesity rate among African American adults above 35%, 22 states reported an obesity rate among Hispanic adults above 35%, with another seven states having an obesity rate among non-Hispanic white adults above 35%. Zero states reported an obesity rate among Asian adults above 35%. Education also plays a key factor in obesity rates.There is also evidence that the pandemic has fueled the growth in obesity. A Harris poll discovered that 42% of Americans reported weight gain since the pandemic started. Of the respondents, the average weight gained was 29 pounds. A body mass index over 3.0 is considered obese by the US Centers of Disease Control and Prevention. A gain of 29 pounds for a 59, 150-pound person takes an individual from a healthy BMI of 22.1 to an overweight BMI of 26.4. BMI is a useful tool for quickly and cheaply determining someones health based upon weight. It provides insights when aggregated in large datasets, but on an individual level can be misleading.The results of the CDCs findings pose a serious problem for the United States healthcare systems. Research has shown that obesity can lead to serious adverse health effects and increases the risk of serious complications from Covid. With healthcare and Covid polling highly on voter priorities, how public health officials combat Americas growing obesity crisis could become a heated political debate.

TruePatriot And the newest cold/flu bug just loves the morbidly obese. 6

vot tak Where I live the fatties are at least 75%. This report seriously under reports the fatberg ratio. In fact, most regions of the usa I have been in, the pot bellies greatly outnumbered the flat bellies. 2

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https://sputniknews.com/20210916/as-toll-of-south-africa-unrest-exceeds-blm-riots-damage-activist-says-instigators-will-walk-free-1089108094.html

As Toll of South Africa Unrest Exceeds BLM Riots' Damage, Activist Says Instigators Will Walk Free

As Toll of South Africa Unrest Exceeds BLM Riots' Damage, Activist Says Instigators Will Walk Free

According to Dr Dan Roodt, who is the founder of the Pro-Afrikaans Action Group (PRAAG), this year's unrest in South Africa has led to heavy financial losses... 16.09.2021, Sputnik International

2021-09-16T09:10+0000

2021-09-16T09:10+0000

2021-09-16T09:10+0000

jacob zuma

africa

south africa

riots

cyril ramaphosa

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Sputnik: The riots in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng provinces in the summer of 2021 left 337 people dead. More than 2,500 individuals were arrested. What were the causes of the unrest?Dan Roodt: The riots were due to factional infighting within the ruling party and especially the power struggle between the tribes of the Kwazulu-Natal Province and the other tribes in the country. The president comes from the minority Venda tribe in the north of the country and so, the power struggle between the Zulu tribe in KwaZulu-Natal and other powerful figures in the ANC from minority tribes such as Cyril Ramaphosa, the president - that was one of the leading causes of the riots. There was an ethnic mobilisation in KwaZulu-Natal to get the Zulus to make the country ungovernable. And then, of course, there's a lot of joblessness in South Africa. And the corruption and the mismanagement have got us into a situation where people are so desperate that they will storm the supermarkets and ransack shops and loot and so on.Sputnik: Insurance companies must be paying a high price for the riots. Will they be able to live through this crisis without going bankrupt?Dan Roodt: Under the old government, after the 1976 riots they set up a new form of insurance that goes by the abbreviation SASRIA. The purpose of this form of insurance is to actually compensate businesses that suffer losses during riots and political unrest or social unrest. And South Africa is one of the few countries in the world which has this kind of insurance, and it's also guaranteed by the government. And every time you take out an insurance policy in South Africa, you contribute to this general fund against riots that will compensate you in the event that you are yourself a victim of rioting. But the riots that we had in July, they were was so bad and so extensive - they were far bigger than anything else ever in the world, I think, even bigger than anything we've had in the United States in the 1960s, in Detroit and other places, even bigger than the Los Angeles riots of 1992.They caused 100 billion rands worth of damage. And, of course, a lot of the businesses and shops and distribution warehouses that were looted - they are now claiming under the SASRIA insurance policy, but apparently, they don't have enough money to pay out everybody for their claims.So now, recently, there have been talks between the treasury and the SASRIA insurance institution, and it also went down to a portfolio committee in parliament. They are now trying to recapitalise the SASRIA insurance company - that state-owned insurance company because it has essentially been bankrupted by these riots. And I think they are putting a bit of a positive spin on it because it's obvious that they don't have enough money and they will not have enough money for the foreseeable future to pay off all these claims.We have a lot of riots in this country. In fact, I saw a statistic somewhere that we have 15 protests per day all over the country, and off of those 50 percent turn violent. So, you've got about 7 small riots, or violent protests every day. So, businesses get damaged and they have to claim under this insurance.Sputnik: Media reports say that the South African Riots of 2021 brought more losses than the unrest in 20 US states following the death of George Floyd. And since the treasury is becoming involved right now, as you've mentioned, does it mean that those who rioted, those who looted shops - they shot themselves in the leg because these losses might eventually lead to higher taxes for everyone in the country. Is that correct?Dan Roodt: Yes, you are quite right. In fact, it has caused a lot of job losses because some companies even went bankrupt after these riots. There was even famine down there in KwaZulu-Natal for 48 hours until supermarket groups - you know, it wasn't a government initiative at all, but the supermarket groups whose warehouses were damaged down there - they've sent hundreds of trucks full of food down there to save the people from famine, the famine that they caused themselves. But a lot of those distribution centres will never get going again. And they will probably move them to other parts of the country. So, there have been huge job losses as a result.Sputnik: How big was the impact of the riots on Boer and Afrikaner businesses? Were they targeted by the looters as well?Dan Roodt: Yes. A lot of people had businesses looted and burned down, and even some of the small towns were destroyed. They razed some of the small towns to the ground. They burnt everything. So, the people there without livelihoods, they don't even have access to proper supermarkets or distribution or anything like that. So, it has definitely had a detrimental effect because as a result of affirmative action, and so on, in the state sector and in the corporate sector, a lot of people now have to run small businesses and be entrepreneurs. And this is the result - they get looted like that.Sputnik: South Africa's police minister said that the riots were fuelled by certain individuals on social media. Is it known already who these people are, and do you think that they will be brought to justice?Dan Roodt: Well, a few names have been mentioned, such as, for example, Jacob Zuma's son, Duduzane Zuma. He was one of the people whose names were mentioned. But in fact, I don't think they have established a concrete connection between him and the riots. And, I mean, lots of people are commenting on social media - Twitter and so on. But to ascribe criminal culpability to somebody as a result of some tweet that he sent out for a riot that took place in a given province, you have to prove quite a lot in court. And I don't think any of them will actually be brought to justice. And the whole thing about prosecuting these people - I haven't seen anything in the media since then. So, I presume that it's dead in the water that the prosecutors aren't pursuing this.

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jacob zuma, africa, south africa, riots, cyril ramaphosa
https://sputniknews.com/20210916/baltic-russophobes-continue-nord-stream-2-battle-gavin-newsom-wins-california-recall-1089114108.html

Baltic Russophobes Continue Nord Stream 2 Battle; Gavin Newsom Wins California Recall

Baltic Russophobes Continue Nord Stream 2 Battle; Gavin Newsom Wins California Recall

California Governor Gavin Newsom easily defeated Republican challenger Larry Elder in a recall election. 16.09.2021, Sputnik International

2021-09-16T01:57+0000

2021-09-16T01:57+0000

2021-09-16T12:53+0000

north korea's nuclear program

haiti

mark milley

nord stream 2

north korea

the critical hour

covid-19

life under covid-19 quarantine

delta variant of covid-19

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Baltic Russophobes Continue Nord Stream 2 Battle; Gavin Newsom Wins California Recall California Governor Gavin Newsom easily defeated Republican challenger Larry Elder in a recall election.

Greg Palast, investigative reporter, joins us to discuss the California recall election and the Democrats' new election bill. California Governor Gavin Newsom easily defeated Republican challenger Larry Elder in a recall election. Also, will the Democrats bypass the filibuster to enact their signature legislation?Dan Lazare, investigative journalist and author of "America's Undeclared War," joins us to discuss the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. The Nord Stream 2 pipeline has been completed and the last obstacle is to obtain the proper certifications. The Russophobic leaders in the Baltic States are working to thwart the operation. In response to the issue, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently stated "I was once again convinced that they are trying to adapt the entire policy of the European Union to the views, tastes, and manners of this Russophobic minority,"Scott Ritter, former UN weapon inspector in Iraq, joins us to discuss General Milley and former President Trump. A new book states that General Mark Milley was concerned over the possibility of President Trump attacking China and took significant steps to frustrate the possibility of that outcome. Was this a valiant act of heroism or an illegal coup? Did Milley also use this opportunity to stop the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan as Trump had ordered?Kathy Kelly, American peace activist, joins us to discuss Pentagon spending. According to recent reports, upwards of 14 trillion dollars was spent by the Pentagon since 9/11. At least half of that sum was sucked up by contractors, with corporate giants such as Lockheed Martin and Raytheon gobbling up the lion's share.Gerald Horne, professor of history at the University of Houston, author, historian, and researcher, joins us to discuss US sanctions and China. China is dealing a significant blow to the sanctions policy of the US empire. A major blow to the sanctions against Venezuela seems to be in the offing as China seems poised to revive the oil industry of the Bolivarian republic.Ajamu Baraka, former VP candidate for the Green Party, joins us to discuss the recent earthquake in Haiti and the issue of the international response bringing neoliberal economic pain to the people of the island nation.Dr. Gigi El-Bayoumi, professor of medicine at George Washington University Hospital and founding director at Rodham Institute at GWU, joins us to discuss vaccine hesitancy. Dr. El-Bayoumi discusses some of the reasons for vaccine hesitancy and whether these obstacles can be overcome. Also, the team discusses what the surveys show as the main reasons for people refusing the vaccine.Dr. Linwood Tauheed, associate professor of economics at the University of Missouri- Kansas City, joins us to discuss North Korea. North and South Korea have both fired missiles into the sea recently, as the two Peninsula nations may be falling back into a downward spiral of relations.We'd love to get your feedback at radio@sputniknews.com

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https://sputniknews.com/20210916/bjps-politics-behind-96-jump-in-communal-riots-in-india-says-opposition-congress--1089117465.html

'BJP's Politics Behind 96% Jump in Communal Riots in India', Says Opposition Congress

'BJP's Politics Behind 96% Jump in Communal Riots in India', Says Opposition Congress

Part of India's Ministry of Home Affairs, the National Crime Records Bureau, headquartered in New Delhi, is entrusted with the task of collecting and analysing... 16.09.2021, Sputnik International

2021-09-16T14:48+0000

2021-09-16T14:48+0000

2021-09-16T14:48+0000

bharatiya janata party (bjp)

india

indian national congress

crime

riots

caste

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A day after the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) released data for 2020, the Indian National Congress, the main opposition in India, has slammed the "BJP's politics of polarisation and hate" for a 96% jump in communal riots in India over the past several years. On Thursday, the national spokesperson for Congress, Dr Shama Mohamed, said that the 50% increase in caste riots in the country in the past year has demonstrated how the politics of hate "is showing its deadly effects on the fabric of society".On Wednesday, the NCRB released a report called "Crime in India 2020" that portrayed startling crime patterns. A total of 50,291 cases of crimes against Scheduled Castes were registered, showing an increase of 9.4% over 2019. Though cases of kidnapping and abduction went down by over 19% last year, at least 77 rapes were reported every day from across the country along with 80 murders on a daily basis. As many as 371,503 cases of crime against women were reported from across the country last year which is down from the 405,326 recorded in 2019. The state of Rajasthan reported the most incidences of rape last year: 5,310.Of the total crimes against women last year, 111,549 were under the category "cruelty by husband or relatives". India also recorded 6,966 cases of dowry deaths last year.The report says that due to the complete lockdown imposed by the federal government in response to COVID-19 from March 25 of last year, the number of cases registered for crime against women, children, and senior citizens, theft, burglary, robbery, and dacoity, among others, dropped by 200,000.

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https://sputniknews.com/20210916/german-chancellor-merkel-french-president-macron-to-meet-in-paris-on-thursday-1089113861.html

German Chancellor Merkel, French President Macron to Meet in Paris on Thursday

German Chancellor Merkel, French President Macron to Meet in Paris on Thursday

BERLIN (Sputnik) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron will hold a working dinner in Paris on Thursday. 16.09.2021, Sputnik International

2021-09-16T01:50+0000

2021-09-16T01:50+0000

2021-09-16T01:50+0000

france

bilateral meeting

emmanuel macron

germany

angela merkel

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The German cabinet announced the upcoming visit on September 10. The talks are supposed to focus on "urgent international issues, primarily Afghanistan, as well as European politics."Before the meeting, Merkel and Macron are expected to make statements for the press.According to German media reports, citing sources in the Elysee Palace, in addition to Afghanistan, the sides will touch upon the situation in the Sahel region of Africa, where the French and German military are involved in operations against terrorists. In addition, the topic of the conversation will be the French presidency of the Council of the European Union, upcoming from January next year.The most recent bilateral meeting between Merkel and Macron took place in June this year on the eve of the EU summit. Then the leaders of the two countries came up with an initiative for a common dialogue for the EU with Russia, but it did not receive unanimous support at the EU summit. Merkel said that the issue would be discussed further.Merkel's visit to Paris will take place 10 days before the elections to the Bundestag, after which Germany will have a new chancellor. At the same time, the German cabinet did not announce the upcoming meeting in Paris as the last working visit to France for Merkel as German chancellor. In theory, if the talks on the formation of a ruling coalition in Germany drag on, Merkel will be able to remain in office for a few more months.

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https://sputniknews.com/20210916/labour-foreign-spokeswoman-urges-strategic-nuke-sub-response-to-chinas-genocide-1089136571.html

Labour Foreign Spokeswoman Urges Strategic Nuke Sub Response to Chinas Genocide

Labour Foreign Spokeswoman Urges Strategic Nuke Sub Response to Chinas Genocide

The AUKUS agreement between Australia, the UK and the US  all members of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing pact with Canada and New Zealand  will see... 16.09.2021, Sputnik International

2021-09-16T19:39+0000

2021-09-16T19:39+0000

2021-09-16T20:12+0000

joe biden

us

britain

china

australia

scott morrison

nuclear submarine

keir starmer

uk labour party

boris johnson

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Labour's foreign policy spokeswoman has called for an even stronger "strategic" confrontation with China over its alleged "genocide" of Uighurs and territorial claims to islands in the South China Sea.Shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy made her comments in an interview with Sky News on Thursday morning, the morning after Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his counterparts announced the AUKUS intelligence and technology-sharing alliance aimed at Beijing."Weve seen in recent years increasingly aggressive behaviour in the South China Sea by China, she accused, adding: "Todays deal will be helpful."The Labour frontbencher also indicated that her party backs economic sanctions against the UK's fifth-biggest trade partner.And she repeated claims that Beijing was committing "genocide" against the Muslim Uighur ethnic group in north-western Xinjiang province  where the East Turkestan Independence Movement (ETIM) and Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) have waged a guerrilla war for decades  and undermining the quasi-autonomy of Hong Kong since the UK ceded control in 1997. "We have also seen China increase its influence in the global economy, including in the economy here in the UK," she added. "Theres no global challenge that can be solved without the active engagement of the Chinese government, whether its climate change or Covid-19."The US and recently Britain have sought to intervene in territorial disputes between China, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei over two chains of small islands in the South China Sea.Earlier Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer also welcomed the AUKUS agreement, which will see the UK and US help Australia build a fleet of nuclear-powered hunter-killer submarines, calling China a "systemic competitor."The pact drew protests from France, where defence contractor Naval Group was set to win a contract from Canberra for up to 12 subs.The opposition leader referred to a recent strategic review, saying: Chinas assertiveness does pose risks to UK interests in a secure Pacific region, in a stable trading environment, and in democracy and human rights," but conceded that "the UK must maintain a commercial relationship with China."But Starmer's predecessor Jeremy Corbyn, who the new leader suspended from the party last year, condemned the move to launch a "new cold war"  a charge echoed by Chinese media and rejected by Defence Secretary Ben Wallace.

https://sputniknews.com/20210916/uk-defence-sec-fires-back-at-chinas-aukus-accusations-of-cold-war-mentality-1089122182.html

Terranian The 1st I'm really sick & tired of all those rotten western russo+sinophobe fear/hate/war-mongering and constant parotting stupid fabricated and debunked BS propaganda "Narratives" and flat out blatant LIES...24/7 like an broken record but never present any 'Facts' to their nonsense and always in concert with the combined western Fake-News/Propaganda MSM. 4

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https://sputniknews.com/20210916/message-for-india-aukus-announcement-sparks-debate-about-relevance-of-quad-reliability-of-us-1089118018.html

Message for India? AUKUS Announcement Sparks Debate About Relevance of Quad, Reliability of US

Message for India? AUKUS Announcement Sparks Debate About Relevance of Quad, Reliability of US

Concerns are being expressed in India and elsewhere that the newly announced AUKUS alliance overlaps the security role of the Quad and thus relegates the... 16.09.2021, Sputnik International

2021-09-16T14:29+0000

2021-09-16T14:29+0000

2021-09-21T11:16+0000

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The newly announced "trilateral security partnership (AUKUS)" between Australia, the US, and the United Kingdom has triggered a debate in India about its exact role in Washington's Indo-Pacific strategy, with analysts pointing out that New Delhi's "reluctance" to become involved in a security grouping is prompting the US to look for options elsewhere.He reckons that the UK intends to be more "relevant" in the Indo-Pacific and on the global stage after its exit from the European Union (EU), describing it as a possible reason the North Atlantic power pledging to join forces with other English-speaking countries."There couldn't have been a better opportunity for the UK", states the Indian think tank director.Speaking about the criticism that the Biden administration has put the Quad on the backburner and sidelined India by excluding it from the AUKUS alliance, Vasan points out that Washington's primary objective in the region is to check the rise of China."This new alliance serves their national interest", he says. Vasan also points out that Australia's decision to scrap its $90 billion nuclear submarine contract with France's Naval Group and instead opting to manufacture them under AUKUS was a win for the "military-industrial" complex in the US.A media statement from the Australian government said the three nations would "intensely examine" the underpinnings of nuclear submarine technology over the next 18 months. "Australia will establish a Nuclear-Powered Submarine Taskforce in the Department of Defence to lead this work", said the official statement.Several observers have raised concerns on social media that the new initiative "contradicts" Washington's original objective in its Indo-Pacific strategy, namely to get New Delhi more involved in the regional security architecture.America's Indo-Pacific strategy, published by the former Trump administration in January of last year said that a "strong India" would act as a "counter-balance" to China and called upon New Delhi to take a "leading role" in the region.Vasan, however, argues that the Quad will continue to remain relevant, as the new trilateral alliance is purely "defence-oriented".Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar last week rejected China's categorisation of the Quad as an "Asian NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation)", while addressing journalists in New Delhi after the first-ever 2+2 Dialogue between India and Australia."I think the term, like NATO, is very much a Cold War term, looking back I think Quad looks in the future. It reflects globalisation. It reflects the compulsions of countries to work together. And if you look at the kind of issues Quad is focused on today, vaccines, supply chains, education, connectivity, you know, I can't see any relationship between such issues and NATO or any other kind of organisations like that", stated Jaishankar.India Has Its Own Set of Competing Groups, Says Ex-EnvoyFormer Indian diplomat and strategic affairs analyst Anil Trigunayat says the AUKUS announcement signifies that the Biden administration is trying to "create a reliable, alternative mechanism in the Indo-Pacific region".Trigunayat further recalls that India is part of several multilateral groupings where the other members "don't look at Quad" kindly."We are living in the age of bilateral, trilateral, and plurilateral arrangements and I don't see any conflict or let up in India's other trilaterals or multilaterals", states the former Indian ambassador.The virtual summit, featuring US President Joe Biden, UK PM Boris Johnson, and Australia's Scott Morrison, unveiled the new Indo-Pacific security alliance ahead of the 21st meeting of the China-backed SCO Council of Heads of State in Dushanbe on 17 September.France Says 'Stab in the Back', India Refuses to ReactFrance has demanded an explanation from both the US and Australia over the scrapping of the nuclear submarine contract, with Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian describing the decision as a "stab in the back".The Indian Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, has refused to comment on the development. However, Indian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi pointed out at a weekly media briefing on Thursday that PM Scott Morrison as well as Australian Defence Minister Peter Dutton did speak to their Indian counterparts Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on the eve of the announcement.

https://sputniknews.com/20201124/a-very-british-tilt-how-uk-may-influence-us-china-strategic-competition-in-indo-pacific-region-1081251586.html

https://sputniknews.com/20210914/india-looks-to-get-quad-involved-in-afghanistan-as-us-announces-groups-first-ever-leaders-summit-1089050363.html

https://sputniknews.com/20210916/france-may-demand-compensation-from-australia-for-submarine-deal-breach-defence-minister-says-1089124947.html

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https://sputniknews.com/20210916/morrison-touts-tomahawk-missile-procurement-says-nuclear-subs-will-be-in-the-water-in-10-years-1089115095.html

Morrison Touts Tomahawk Missile Procurement, Says Nuclear Subs Will Be 'in the Water' in 10 Years

Morrison Touts Tomahawk Missile Procurement, Says Nuclear Subs Will Be 'in the Water' in 10 Years

As leaders from Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States unveiled their new trilateral security partnership for advanced defense-tech sharing on... 16.09.2021, Sputnik International

2021-09-16T04:08+0000

2021-09-16T04:08+0000

2021-09-16T04:07+0000

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Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison returned to his Canberra podium Thursday afternoon to divulge that the country should expect more than just a costly nuclear submarine fleet within the next several years. The acquisition of Australia's new capabilities will come as part of the country's 2024 structure plan, and the missiles will be fitted on Australias Collins-class submarine fleet. As for the nuclear submarine fleet, Morrison projected that the country should have a portion of the submarines "in the water" before 2030. Morrison rejected claims that Australia "wasted" some $2.4 billion that was already funneled to France's Naval Group as part of a $90 billion submarine contract -- a deal that was rendered defunct following Wednesday's announcement. "Weve invested $2.4 billion in the attack class program and I say all of that investment, I believe, has further built our capability," he proclaimed, "and that is consistent with the decision that was taken back in 2016 for all the right reasons to protect Australias national security interests and has served that purpose."The French defense contractor notably expressed "deep disappointment" in response to the AUKUS nuclear submarine initiative on Wednesday. The Australian prime minister went on to issue a public apology to Naval Group, the French government and French President Emmanuel Macron. "There is few if any other country around the world that understands the importance of the Pacific and has been as committed to the Pacific as France," he said. "We share a deep passion for our Pacific family and a deep commitment to them, and I look forward and I hope to see us continue once we move past what is obviously a very difficult and disappointing decision for France." China also took issue with the AUKUS announcement, which was viewed as another example of the participating nations' "Cold War mentality and ideological prejudice," according to a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington.Morrison also stressed to the global community that Australia is not looking to become a nuclear power, or superpower, through AUKUS. "This is about propulsion. This is not about acquiring nuclear weapons," he said, pledging continued adherence to obligations under the treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.US President Joe Biden previously clarified that Australia's submarine fleet would be powered by nuclear reactors, but "conventionally-armed" when it comes to weaponry.

eddy2020 This is the tip of the iceberg, Australia will become a nuclear power and it will happen far more quickly than Morrison alludes to. The British will play a big part in this. 10

Rottie Are just imbeciles to the exponential degree 6

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https://sputniknews.com/20210916/new-zealand-being-left-out-of-aukus-shows-canberra-wellington-going-in-very-different-directions-1089126814.html

New Zealand Being Left Out of AUKUS Shows Canberra, Wellington 'Going in Very Different Directions'

New Zealand Being Left Out of AUKUS Shows Canberra, Wellington 'Going in Very Different Directions'

On Wednesday, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison together with British counterpart Boris Johnson and US President Joe Biden announced the formation of... 16.09.2021, Sputnik International

2021-09-16T12:50+0000

2021-09-16T12:50+0000

2021-09-21T11:16+0000

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The fact that New Zealand is not part of a new security pact between the US, the UK, and Australia exposes Wellington's current differences with its traditional allies, experts have told The Guardian.The creation of AUKUS was announced late Wednesday by US President Joe Biden, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, and his UK counterpart Boris Johnson. Australia's nuclear-powered submarine programme will be the alliance's first major project.Referring to AUKUS, Geoffrey Miller, an international analyst at the Democracy Project at Victoria University in Wellington, claimed that New Zealand was "conspicuous by its absence" in the new alliance.He added that even though Australia and New Zealand are "culturally quite similar and geographically in similar positions", they are "poles apart in terms of the way they see the world".According to the analyst, "this [AUKUS] alliance underlines that they're going in very different directions".Miller was echoed by Professor David Capie, director of the Centre for Strategic Studies at Victoria University in Wellington, who described AUKUS as a pact that reflects existing divisions between New Zealand and its security partners.He insisted that the AUKUS agreement is "driven overwhelmingly by concerns about China" and that "notwithstanding the fact that China is not mentioned in the statements, it's all about China".NZ Bans Australian Subs From Its Territorial Waters The remarks came as New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Thursday that Australia's nuclear-powered submarines would not be allowed in her country's territorial waters after Canberra announced it would get new submarines as part of the new defence partnership with the US and the UK.According to her, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison understands and accepts New Zealand's position on the issue.Ardern emphasised the long-standing nuclear-free policy of her country, one that does not prevent it from taking a leading position in the Indo-Pacific region. The official hailed the engagement of other states in the region and said that New Zealand's partnership with the UK, the US, Canada, and Australia has not been "diminished" by the AUKUS deal.New Zealand has pursued a policy of being a "nuclear-free zone" since 1984. This prohibits any foreign ships carrying nuclear weapons from entering its territorial waters. In 1987, the provisions were expanded and became legally binding.

https://sputniknews.com/20200505/australia-new-zealand-to-introduce-travel-bubble-between-two-countries-1079206401.html

wtfud Kiwis are far more cultured than the Wallabies, who happen to be a cuckolded Bulldog-Eagle vassal. G'day! 4

TruePatriot I roll my eyes every time I hear the term Indo-Pacific, which didn't exist until recently the US thought that would lend more credibility to their China provocations by roping in India. With AUKUS, it has nothing to do with anything involving India; it's all about Asia and poking the dragon. I also get a laugh out of their petty little nuclear sub that won't be ready to hit the water until 10 years out. This is all such meaningless political theater - but it shows clearly who the vassals are and that the main protagonist is the horribly defeated and utterly humiliated US. 1

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https://sputniknews.com/20210916/palestinians-welcome-egypts-mediation-between-israel--palestinians-but-will-it-yield-results-1089117221.html

Palestinians Welcome Egypt's Mediation Between Israel & Palestinians But Will It Yield Results?

Palestinians Welcome Egypt's Mediation Between Israel & Palestinians But Will It Yield Results?

The Palestinians are divided and thus do not have a common goal. The Israeli government is not determined enough to push for a peace deal, and would rather... 16.09.2021, Sputnik International

2021-09-16T07:34+0000

2021-09-16T07:34+0000

2021-09-16T07:34+0000

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Samer Sinijlawi, a Fatah activist from Jerusalem, was not surprised when news about the meeting between Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett was made public. Egypt has been an active mediator between Israel and the Palestinians for decades and al-Sisi's recent attempt to revive the peace talks was just another initiative.Welcoming Egyptian EffortsJust like many Palestinians around him, Sinijlawi says he welcomed the move taken by the Egyptian president and he believes it could be beneficial to the region.Israel Not Seeking SolutionsThe problem is, says the activist, these aspirations are still remote and he pins the blame for this on Israel and its actions vis-a-vis the Palestinians."We see how Israel's settlement activity is expanding, their infrastructure is growing, Jews keep enjoying rights, Israeli Arabs have some, whereas the Palestinians are kept in the dark".The first Israeli settlement in the West Bank was established in 1967, after Israel captured the area from Jordan in the Six-Day War. Since then, hundreds of settlements have been established, and today there are more than 250 of them in the West Bank. They house some 430,000 Jews.The tenure of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was associated with extensive settlement activity. His name has also been linked to the persecution of the Palestinians, but Sinijlawi says the current government is not much different and will not bring about the much-needed change."So far, the Bennett government hasn't taken any serious steps in the direction of reaching peace with the Palestinians. They are not ready to end the occupation. They are just open to shrinking it".Sinijlawi is far from being the only Palestinian who thinks that way.In February 2020, a poll conducted by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research found that while support for a two-state solution had dropped to 40 percent, the absolute lowest since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, a one-state solution received the backing of 37 percent of respondents, compared to the 28 percent registered in January of that same year.Fault of the Palestinians?The drop in support for the two-state solution can partially be explained by Israel's growing settlement activity, but Sinijlawi says the Palestinian leadership is equally guilty for the lack of any progress on that front."One of our major weaknesses is the split between the West Bank and Gaza", said the activist referring to the chasm that inceased in 2007 following the Hamas takeover of the Strip and the subsequent ouster of Fatah.Sinijlawi's accusations are nothing new. In the past some members of Fatah, the ruling party of Abbas, have shared similar views. They accused him of poor leadership, corruption, and the desire to keep his post at all costs, accusations that became louder following his decision to cancel the legislative elections that were supposed to take place on 22 May."There is nothing that the Palestinians can do right now. They need to wait until he is gone from the political scene, and the younger generation, that's more connected to the people, takes over".For now, says Sinijlawi, the Palestinians are waiting and the peace process is at an impasse. But the activist warns that time is a precious commodity that neither the Palestinians, nor the Israelis have.

https://sputniknews.com/20210205/icc-decides-its-jurisdiction-extends-to-territorries-controlled-by-israel-since-1967-six-day-war-1081991985.html

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https://sputniknews.com/20210916/red-bull-boss-slams-lewis-hamilton-and-mercedes-for-faking-his-injuries-after-italian-gp-crash-1089101442.html

Red Bull Boss Slams Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes for Faking His Injuries After Italian GP Crash

Red Bull Boss Slams Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes for Faking His Injuries After Italian GP Crash

World champion Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes and Red Bull's Max Verstappen were involved in a collision during last weekend's Italian Grand Prix at Monza. The... 16.09.2021, Sputnik International

2021-09-16T09:19+0000

2021-09-16T09:19+0000

2021-09-16T09:47+0000

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The head of Red Bull's driver development programme, Helmut Marko, has slammed seven-time Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton and his team Mercedes after he alleged that the Briton faked his injuries in Italy.Marko's accusations came after Hamilton, who holds the record for most wins in F1, suffered a head injury as his Red Bull rival, Max Verstappen's car flipped and landed on his head during Sunday's race at Variante del Rettifilo.Since the serious accident, Hamilton has revealed that his neck has been getting "tighter and tighter" and he would need to consult a specialist before the upcoming Russian Grand Prix. Marko believes that his injuries are anything but serious."It was a normal racing accident. All the stories around it were pulled up by the hair by Mercedes", Marko told the Austrian newspaper Osterreich on Wednesday. "Verstappen had already got out when Hamilton tried to go back to get out of the gravel". "The medical car saw that and drove on. And then a show is put on that poor Hamilton is suddenly injured".Marko's anger seemed to have been borne out of the International Automobile Federation (FIA)'s decision to hold Verstappen responsible for the crash as the sport's governing body imposed two penalty points and a three-place grid penalty on him.Despite the unfortunate accident, Verstappen still leads the driver standings with 226.5 points with Hamilton close behind on 221.5 points.

TruePatriot Shamilton's thuggery continues. If anyone was at fault, it was him. I've seen that accident multiple times, but Shamilton's crying evidently got some in the FIA to bend towards him. There is no way that Max should have been penalized. He had position and was on the racing line and Shamilton turned into him. Again. Very similar to his stunt at Copse corner at Silverstone. On that one, Shamilton should have been parked for the rest of that race if not the next one. Someone is going to get hurt or killed with those stunts by that clown Shamilton does. Why does he do them? Because he is a pathetic little sod that cannot stand to be outperformed. I hope next year that Russell shows him what a real driver acts like and can do, though all the whinging and crying from Shamilton may be a bit much for some. 2

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https://sputniknews.com/20210916/ruckus-over-aukus-1089132254.html

Ruckus Over AUKUS

Ruckus Over AUKUS

US President Joe Biden this week hailed a "historic" new military alliance with the United Kingdom and Australia  known as AUKUS  that is evidently aimed at... 16.09.2021, Sputnik International

2021-09-16T15:27+0000

2021-09-16T15:27+0000

2021-09-21T11:16+0000

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Such is Washington's keenness to ramp up hostility towards Beijing that the US is to supply Australia with secret nuclear technology to build a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines. Those vessels will enable Australian naval power to increase its presence in the South China Sea.Canberra rushed to assert that the submarines will not carry nuclear weapons. As a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty that would have been a violation. Nevertheless, the acquisition of nuclear reactors to drive submarines opens the door to future weaponisation. The move by the US to supply this technology to Australia is an unconscionable weakening of international nuclear-proliferation controls  at the same time that Washington is lecturing Iran on that ostensible concern.The trilateral military pact was unveiled this week in a virtual joint press conference by Biden and his British and Australian counterparts Boris Johnson and Scott Morrison. China slammed the alliance as driven by "Cold War mentality" and "ideological prejudice". Beijing said AUKUS would increase insecurity and instability in the Asia-Pacific hemisphere in direct contradiction to what its participants claim.Ultimately, though, it's a sign of weakness, albeit pumped up with macho militarism. Washington realises that its waning power cannot contest with China alone. Hence, the US is enlisting the support of Britain and Australia to add weight to its military forces in Asia-Pacific. The awkward moment when Biden couldn't remember Australian premier Scott Morrison's name, stammering about "that fella down under", shows the cynicism behind Washington's opportunistic outreach.For the Brits, post-Brexit economic travails mean that the Johnson government is desperate to ingratiate itself with American power in order to cobble together a transatlantic trade deal. London is also trying to work up trade business with Australia. So lending British military forces for the Asia-Pacific is a bid to promote "Global Britain".Australia's Scott Morrison is a pathetic flunky who is willing to toady to Washington even though he is jeopardising the Australian economy and millions of workers' livelihoods by alienating his country's biggest export market  China. Beijing has already curbed imports of Australian iron ore, cereals and wine in protest over perceived anti-China policies out of Canberra in hock with US hostility.Morrison's decision to align more explicitly with Washington by forming a formal military alliance that is provocatively pointed at China will rebound badly for Australia's economy.The unveiling of AUKUS seems to blindside other allies and partners. Canada and New Zealand  the other members of the so-called Five Eyes intelligence-sharing axis  were left out of the loop. In recent years, New Zealand has been more reluctant to adopt the anti-China rhetoric that Australia has willingly shown in deference to Washington. This is because China is also the biggest export market for New Zealand. In peeved reaction, the government in Wellington said that future Australian nuclear-powered submarines would be banned from its territorial waters.But the biggest ruckus over AUKUS came from France which has as a consequence lost a $50 billion contract with Australia to build 12 submarines. That deal signed in 2016 was for the construction of diesel-electric vessels for Australia's navy. Canberra has abruptly dropped the French for the Americans. The anger in Paris was palpable. French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian described the move as a "stab in the back" and a betrayal.The Afghanistan debacle is relevant here. Washington provoked howls of disdain among NATO members who complained that they were not consulted about Biden's hurried withdrawal from Afghanistan. It was done as a fait accompli thereby undermining Biden's erstwhile vows of a new multilateralism and respect for NATO partners.This latest surprise move to set up AUKUS is another blow to NATO's morale and trust in American leadership. It seems that the plan for the US, British and Australian military alliance was done behind the backs of other NATO allies and partners.When President Biden met with G7 and NATO leaders back in June during summits in England and Belgium there was one notable trilateral meeting on the sidelines between the US president, Johnson and Morrison. Why Morrison should have been afforded this high-profile confab with Biden and Johnson was commented on in the Australian press as "unusual". China was reportedly top of their agenda. Australia is not a member of the G7 nor NATO. In hindsight, it seems obvious now that the three leaders were using the summit as a cover for discussing plans to set up AUKUS. That was three months ago and yet other allies were kept in the dark until this week.Washingtons ambition to project military force at China is undermined by inherent US weakness to contend with Chinas rise to power and so that necessitates forming ad hoc alliances like AUKUS and the Quad (US, Australia, Japan and India). Meanwhile, this outreach is inevitably creating tensions and overstretch for existing NATO allies and other partners.Beijing is right. AUKUS is only leading to more instability and insecurity, including among Americas so-called allies.Views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.

https://sputniknews.com/20210916/morrison-touts-tomahawk-missile-procurement-says-nuclear-subs-will-be-in-the-water-in-10-years-1089115095.html

https://sputniknews.com/20210916/eu-not-informed-about-new-us-uk--australia-alliance-plans-to-assess-implications-1089131728.html

feketehollo the Anglo nations forming a military alliance - it was all there pretty much before, their conspiracy against the World is just intensifying 2

astrodetective The spreading Mossad Big $$$ Pharma experimental C19 vaccine continues 1

4

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united kingdom, columnists, united states, australia
https://sputniknews.com/20210916/special-counsel-durham-allegedly-seeking-to-indict-lawyer-at-firm-with-ties-to-2016-clinton-1089137641.html

Special Counsel Durham Allegedly Seeking to Indict Lawyer at Firm With Ties to 2016 Clinton Campaign

Special Counsel Durham Allegedly Seeking to Indict Lawyer at Firm With Ties to 2016 Clinton Campaign

Special Counsel John Durham, who has been looking into the origins of the Trump-Russia probe since April 2019, is reportedly targeting a lawyer from a firm... 16.09.2021, Sputnik International

2021-09-16T20:32+0000

2021-09-16T20:32+0000

2021-09-16T20:32+0000

news

world

us

hillary clinton

2016 election

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fbi

john durham

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The New York Times revealed on 15 September that John Durham had told the Justice Department that he would ask a grand jury to indict Michael Sussmann, a partner at Perkins Coie, for making an allegedly false statement to the FBI with regard to his client's identity.Political law firm Perkins Coie worked on behalf of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clinton campaign while digging dirt on then-presidential contender Donald Trump. On 19 September 2016, Sussmann informed the FBI about his suspicions with regard to the supposed secret ties between Russias Alfa Bank and the Trump Organisation.Sussmann delivered his allegations to then-FBI General Counsel James Baker, who reportedly told the investigators that the lawyer denied that he was acting on someone's behalf. However, while testifying before Congress in 2017, Sussmann claimed that he sought the meeting on behalf of "an unnamed client who was a cybersecurity expert and had helped analyse the data," NYT notes.In addition to that, Durham has reportedly obtained billing records from Perkins Coie which indicate that Sussmann billed the Clinton 2016 campaign for hours he spent working on the now-debunked theory of Alfa Bank's secret communications with the Trump Organisation.However, Sussmanns lawyers, Sean M. Berkowitz and Michael S. Bosworth of Latham & Watkins, told NYT that their client had "committed no crime."An indictment against the Perkins Coie lawyer "is not a certainty," since "on rare occasions, grand juries decline prosecutors requests," according to NYT. Still, Berkowitz and Bosworth acknowledged that they expect Sussmann to be indicted.Durham has a deadline of this weekend to charge Sussmann because of a five-year statute of limitations, according to the newspaper.Meanwhile, a legal observer known by his nom de plume Techno Fog has drawn attention to the fact that it was Sussmann who requested CrowdStrike's help in investigating the alleged DNC hack in 2016. Subsequently, CrowdStrike blamed the "breach" on supposed "Russian hackers." However, CrowdStrike President Shawn Henry admitted under oath in 2017 that the company does not have "concrete evidence" that the alleged "Russian hackers" exfiltrated any data from the servers. Furthermore, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), a group of former US intelligence officers from the CIA, the FBI, and the NSA later concluded that the alleged "hack" was nothing but an inside job.As of yet, only one individual has been convicted in Durham's Trump-Russia probe: ex-FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith pleaded guilty for a felony false statement and was convicted in August 2020. Clinesmith doctored an email about Trump aide Carter Page to conceal the fact that the latter was "a source" for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He did so in order to extend a FISA warrant against Page that allowed the FBI to surveil the aide and his contacts. Conservatives and GOP politicians argued that Clinesmith got a very lenient sentence for his misconduct. The former FBI lawyer received just 12 months probation, 400 hours of community service, and a $100 fine despite government prosecutors insisting on putting him behind bars.Previously, the New Yorker reported in October 2020 that Durham had summoned a number of individuals involved in the investigation of alleged communications between the Trump Organisation and Alfa Bank to testify before a grand jury. A month earlier, The New York Times wrote that Durham had widened the scope of his investigation, seeking information about the FBI's Clinton Foundation inquiry. According to the newspaper, Durham sought to uncover how law enforcement officials handled the probe into allegations of political corruption at the Clinton Foundation.

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Ekaterina Blinova

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Ekaterina Blinova

news, world, us, hillary clinton, 2016 election, clinton campaign, fbi, john durham
https://sputniknews.com/20210916/stab-in-the-back-ex-french-official-blasts-new-trilateral-defence-deal-between-us-uk--australia-1089117683.html

'Stab in the Back': Ex-French Official Blasts New Trilateral Defence Deal Between US, UK & Australia

'Stab in the Back': Ex-French Official Blasts New Trilateral Defence Deal Between US, UK & Australia

During a virtual press conference late Wednesday, the leaders of Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States unveiled a new security pact AUKUS (named... 16.09.2021, Sputnik International

2021-09-16T07:55+0000

2021-09-16T07:55+0000

2021-09-18T07:50+0000

france

united kingdom

world

united states

china

australia

security agreement

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https://cdn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/107924/60/1079246009_0:160:3073:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_bf77572e4736c64f51ac256d0fd6172b.jpg

Former French Ambassador to the United States Gerard Araud has blasted the trilateral security pact between Australia, Britain, and the US, describing it as a "stab in the back". "The world is a jungle. France has just been reminded [of] this bitter truth", the former official wrote in a statement on Twitter reacting to the deal.Under the accord, Australia is to receive its first fleet of nuclear-powered submarines. According to official data, the vessels won't be equipped with nuclear weapons and will simply be powered by nuclear reactors. Following the announcement of a new defence pact, Canberra terminated a deal with the French defence contractor, Naval Group, for the supply of 12 conventional attack-class submarines.Reports say the deal worth $90 billionm(AUD) included cost blowouts as well as Canberra's demands that components for the submarines be sourced locally. The first submarines were expected to become operational no earlier than the 2030s or even the early 2040s.Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said that the delivery of nuclear-powered submarines under the trilateral pact with Britain and the US will allow Canberra to meet its mission to protect its "national interest, and that of our regional friends".Gerard Araud argued that Australia wasn't motivated to purchase nuclear-powered submarines and simply got itself a "juicy contract at the expense of an ally".Current French officials too voiced regret over the surprise announcement.US President Joe Biden and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison tried to soften the blow. The Democrat said Paris already has a "substantial" presence in the Indo-Pacific and plays a key role in strengthening the security and prosperity of the region. Morrison said that France remains an "incredibly important partner" in the Pacific and voiced hope that the two sides will continue to cooperate once "we move past what is obviously a very difficult and disappointing decision" for Paris. Although when announcing the trilateral security pact the leaders of the three nations didn't mention China, the wording of the agreement, to "sustain peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region" was widely seen as being directed at Beijing. In recent years, China and the West have had bitter disagreements over a number of issues ranging from territorial disputes, human rights, national security, and most recently the coronavirus pandemic. Beijing quickly reacted to the announcement of the trilateral pact, saying nations shouldn't "build exclusionary blocs targeting or harming the interest of third partners. In particular, they should shake off their Cold-War mentality and ideological prejudice", said a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in the United States.

Proof Reader Critic  So why not? The EU have threatened to withdraw security and intelligence sharing with UK since Brexit. They have punished the UK for wanting its sovereignty back. We can't trust the EU so go for it AUKUS. 8

Terranian The 1st I suspect the unholy sinophobe US/UK alliance punished France for NOT on their idiotic Anti-China bandwaggon. Australia has already wrecked their existential economic relationship with China on behest of their US Pimps + Masters. Lets face it, for everything Australia produces mines grows, for every piece of lifestock they breed...China was their main market with NO substitute market anywhere who could + would absorb + made up for the losses...the Australian Puppet Regime destroyed the economic ties out of stupid ideological spite. I guess their US Neocon Masters are surely pleased...and they surely give a crap about the livelihood of the pesky Australian commoners. 3

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Max Gorbachev

france, united kingdom, world, united states, china, australia, security agreement
https://sputniknews.com/20210916/swedish-gay-priest-refuses-to-wed-straight-couples-1089116617.html

Swedish Gay Priest Refuses to Wed Straight Couples

Swedish Gay Priest Refuses to Wed Straight Couples

While same-sex couples have been allowed to get married in the Church of Sweden since 2009, there is no requirement for priests to agree to perform such a... 16.09.2021, Sputnik International

2021-09-16T05:55+0000

2021-09-16T05:55+0000

2021-09-16T05:55+0000

news

europe

lgbt

church

christianity

scandinavia

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Openly homosexual priest Lars Gardfeldt of the Carl Johan Parish in Gothenburg has refused to wed heterosexual couples.In doing so, Lars Gardfeldt referred to an individual priest's right not to marry a couple in case of conscientious objection.The Swedish church currently allows individual priests to refuse to wed specific couples if they consider there to be an issue with the union. This is typically illustrated by either of the parties being drunk or under the influence of drugs, but could also include homosexuality, which an individual priest may not necessarily condone.By his own admission, 56-year-old Garfeldt wants to "show the absurdity of refusing marriage to two consenting adults".Same-sex couples have been allowed to get married in the Church of Sweden since 2009. However, there is no requirement for priests to agree to perform such a marriage. A priest can today say no, a right many church politicians want to remove, demanding that all priests be prepared to marry same-sex couples. Of late, this issue has flared up anew in the run-up to church elections on 19 September.Archbishop Antje Jackelen, however, maintained that making it mandatory to wed same-sex couples is untenable."That attitude is impossible because it is contrary to the Church of Sweden's creed. This is the responsibility of the bishops", Jackelen said.On the other hand, the Church of Sweden is obliged to find an officiant for all couples that wish to get married.On social media, however, sarcastic jokes were made about Gardfeldt being a "champion of tolerance" and "Protestants' taking L's". Others ventured that the Church of Sweden has become a "freakshow".At over 5 million worshippers, the Church of Sweden is Europe's largest Lutheran denomination. Formerly a state church, it is famous for its liberal stance on social issues including its vehement support of feminism, sexual minorities, and migrants, as well as having ordained the world's first openly lesbian bishop.Gardfeldt is known as a long-time LGBT activist. He previously ran for parliament with the Feminist Initiative party, as well as penned a pulp fiction novel with erotic scenes.

https://sputniknews.com/20210902/swedish-pastor-defrocked-for-bdsm-sex-with-minor-becomes-school-principal-1083774495.html

Nevi'im Sweden is a Degenerate Society on a course to oblivion! Societies who encourage Soros style LGBTI+ amoral standards just rot within! 4

Yaffle Sweden is the bellwether for Western values. The furure of humankind looks grim. 3

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Igor Kuznetsov

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Igor Kuznetsov

news, europe, lgbt, church, christianity, scandinavia
https://sputniknews.com/20210916/uk-defence-sec-fires-back-at-chinas-aukus-accusations-of-cold-war-mentality-1089122182.html

UK Defence Sec. Fires Back at China's AUKUS Accusations of 'Cold War Mentality'

UK Defence Sec. Fires Back at China's AUKUS Accusations of 'Cold War Mentality'

Shortly after the announcement of AUKUS - a defence alliance between the US, UK, and Australia apparently formed in order to counter China - the Chinese... 16.09.2021, Sputnik International

2021-09-16T10:30+0000

2021-09-16T10:30+0000

2021-09-21T11:16+0000

asia & pacific

us

china

australia

cold war

uk

aukus

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https://cdn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/09/10/1089122798_0:0:3072:1728_1920x0_80_0_0_fbf5b80b58fb6d4fe648365cd4a00bee.jpg

UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, when speaking on BBC Radio 4 on Thursday, fired back at Beijing's assertions that the new AUKUS partnership between Washington, London, and Canberra is a display of a "Cold War mentality".Wallace went on to assure that the alliance is "not about antagonising anyone", and asserted that the new defence pact is "not only about China".AUKUS was announced on Wednesday as something that would "preserve security and stability around the world" and generate "hundreds of high-skilled jobs", as UK PM Boris Johnson put it. Under the pact, Australia will acquire nuclear-powered submarines - something that prompted concerns from New Zealand, with Wellington immediately stating that it will bar them from its territorial waters.While China was not directly mentioned in the AUKUS announcement, Beijing swiftly voiced concerns concerning the new pact, saying that it "seriously undermines regional peace and stability, intensifies the arms race, and harms international non-proliferation efforts". Besides this, China accused the three countries participating in the alliance of having a "Cold War mentality and ideological prejudice".Beijing is not the only one triggered by the new defence group, as it rose some eyebrows in France. On Wednesday, Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and Defence Minister Florence Parly issued a joint statement, describing the trilateral deal between Washington, London, and Canberra as "regrettable".Despite the division of the global community on the new defence pact, Australia's foreign minister touted the agreement as a "real reorientation" of the UK's foreign and security policy following Brexit, welcoming the new partnership with Australia. Biden, for his part, said that the goal of AUKUS is to ensure allies in the region have capabilities to counter "rapidly evolving threats", and addressed concerns about Austrialia's nuclear-powered submarines. According to the US president, "these are conventionally-armed submarines that are powered by nuclear reactors", meaning that the submarines will not be equipped with nuclear weapons. With regard to France, Biden argued that Paris already enjoys a "substantial" presence in the Indo-Pacific and plays a key role in strengthening regional security.

https://sputniknews.com/20210916/china-warns-against-exclusionary-blocs-after-aukus-launched-1089113532.html

Proof Reader Critic  Only the fifth largest economy in the world you  end. 13

Barros Not relevant. UK is a poor slave US colony. 9

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Daria Bedenko

asia & pacific, us, china, australia, cold war, uk
https://sputniknews.com/20210916/us-judge-denies-trumps-request-to-delay-defamation-suit-filed-by-e-jean-carroll--1089114457.html

US Judge Denies Trump's Request to Delay Defamation Suit Filed by E. Jean Carroll

US Judge Denies Trump's Request to Delay Defamation Suit Filed by E. Jean Carroll

Back in 2019, then-Elle columnist E. Jean Carroll accused US President Donald Trump of sexually assaulting her in a department store dressing room in the... 16.09.2021, Sputnik International

2021-09-16T02:41+0000

2021-09-16T02:41+0000

2021-09-16T02:40+0000

donald trump

us department of justice

us federal court

allegations

sexual assault

defamation

sexual misconduct

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US District Judge Lewis Kaplan of the Southern District of New York has denied a request from Trump's legal team to halt proceedings in E. Jean Carroll's ongoing defamation lawsuit against the former US president. Kaplan's order - entered on Wednesday - denied the request without prejudice, dashing Trump's attempt to receive a "stay" on the federal judge's December 2020 ruling. At the time, Kaplan rejected the then-US president's attempt to substitute the US Department of Justice as the defendant in the lawsuit. The federal judge argued that Trump must remain the defendant, as he was not acting in his official capacity when he rebutted Carroll's allegations. "His comments concerned an alleged sexual assault that took place several decades before he took office, and the allegations have no relationship to the official business of the United States," Kaplan wrote in a December 2020 statement. The DoJ, of both the Trump and Biden administrations, has asserted that 45 was acting within the scope of his employment when he responded to press questions about Carroll's accusations in June 2019. However, Kaplan declared in his December ruling that even if Trump was in office at the time of the alleged incident, his statements toward Carroll would be outside the scope of his employment. The Wednesday order allows the defamation suit to resume normal proceedings, following several months of delays by Trump and the federal government. At the same time, Trump's legal team is permitted to request another stay, due to the judge's order being issued "without prejudice." "In the meantime, we are reviewing Judge Kaplans order," she added. Carroll, a longtime columnist for lifestyle magazine Elle, made mainstream US headlines after she alleged that Trump threw her against the wall of a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in either 1995 or early 1996. After a "colossal struggle," the columnist was able to escape from the famed real estate mogul, according to her account.

raindrop A Clinton appointed judge. Attack on Trump. 8

vot tak "The DoJ, of both the Trump and Biden administrations" ... Why is biden's doj defending this trump turd? Somebody needs to do some house cleaning and take out the garbage. 1

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Evan Craighead

donald trump, us department of justice, us federal court, allegations, sexual assault, defamation, sexual misconduct
https://sputniknews.com/20210916/woman-who-threatened-to-kill-vp-kamala-harris-because-she-is-not-actually-black-pleads-guilty-1089120721.html

Woman Who Threatened to Kill VP Kamala Harris Because She is 'Not Actually Black' Pleads Guilty

Woman Who Threatened to Kill VP Kamala Harris Because She is 'Not Actually Black' Pleads Guilty

Prior to her arrest in April, Niviane Petit Phelps, who is herself Black, worked as a nurse in the Jackson Health System in Florida. Her legal team insists... 16.09.2021, Sputnik International

2021-09-16T08:48+0000

2021-09-16T08:48+0000

2021-09-16T08:48+0000

us

threat

assassination

vice president

kamala harris

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A woman has pleaded guilty to threatening to kill US Vice President Kamala Harris. According to a press release by the Justice Department, 39-year-old Niviane Phelps sent her husband, who was in prison, short videos, where she talked about her plans to kill the official within 50 days."You are going to die. Your days are numbered already", the woman said in one video.In another clip, Phelps claimed she had received $53,000 to carry out the "hit" against Kamala Harris. The ex-nurse also sent her husband a photograph of herself standing next to a target sheet with a firearm. Two days later she applied for a concealed weapons permit.Phelps sent messages to her husband via JPay, a computer application used for communication between incarcerated individuals and their relatives or friends. According to local media outlets, a prison offical saw the woman's disturbing messages and informed the US Secret Service about them.During a subsequent interrogation, Phelps said she was angry that Harris, first Asian-American and first woman to be elected vice president, was "not actually black" and claimed that Harris didn't put her hand on the Bible during the swearing-in ceremony, which is false.Phelp's mother told local media that her daughter was depressed and desperate and that she "listened to what people tell her". Her lawyer said Phelps "led an honorable life until this incident" and noted that the woman plans to demonstrate "significant mitigating circumstances". The 39-year-old faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

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Max Gorbachev

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Max Gorbachev

us, threat, assassination, vice president, kamala harris
https://sputniknews.com/20210916/young-chinese-student-recounts-panicked-escape-from-dormitory-during-earthquake-1089136279.html

Young Chinese Student Recounts Panicked Escape From Dormitory During Earthquake

Young Chinese Student Recounts Panicked Escape From Dormitory During Earthquake

MOSCOW (Sputnik), Tommy Yang - A young high school student shared with Sputnik her firsthand experience of a devastating earthquake that killed at least three... 16.09.2021, Sputnik International

2021-09-16T16:49+0000

2021-09-16T16:49+0000

2021-09-16T16:49+0000

sichuan

asia & pacific

china

earthquake

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After finishing her last class on Wednesday evening at around 10:20 p.m., as usual, Ke Mengyuan, a 15-year-old student from the No. 2 High School in Lu County, Sichuan, was fast asleep when she was woken up by a slight tremble at around 4:30 a.m.Once Ke was able to stabilise herself, she jumped off the bed and rushed into the hallway. Stepping onto the debris that had fallen from the walls in the hallway, Ke realised she needed to go back to the room to put her sandals on. After grabbing her glasses and her watch, Ke joined about 2,000 students in her dorm who were rushing to get out of the building.Ke shared a room with five other roommates and her room was on the fifth floor of a seven-story building. With everyone rushing to get out of the building, the hallway was packed with panicking students.No Mobile Phone at SchoolOnce the students were gathered in the playground of the high school, they were forced to wait in the open-air space under heavy rainfall for more than three hours. They were only allowed to return to their dorms at around 7 a.m.Her school had about 7,000 students, who mostly lived in dorms on campus.What made Ke still more nervous while waiting in the rain was the fact that she could not even call her parents because the school did not allow the students to use their mobile phones on campus.The young student was also worried whether her parents had made it to safety during the earthquake because her home is not far from the school. Fortunately, none of her family members was injured during the earthquake.Damaged School BuildingsSchool buildings in China have in recent years attracted public scrutiny, after poorly constructed school buildings collapsed during a devastating earthquake in 2008, burying many young students under the rubble.Despite incurring visible damage during the earthquake on Thursday, none of the buildings at Kes school collapsed.When Ke was taking her evening classes the night before, she said she noticed a possible warning at around 8:30 p.m.Nevertheless, as the Sichuan province is located in an active earthquake zone, Ke's school has held regular evacuation drills, and most of the students were aware of what to do when an earthquake hits.Thanks to its spacious playground, Kes school has also been designated a temporary evacuation centre for local residents affected during the earthquake. That's also why all the students, including Ke, were sent home.Ke said she did not know when she could resume her studies, but she felt lucky to be safe and could spend more time with her family. Due to her busy schedule at school, students like Ke are allowed to go home for only three days each month. So the time off during the earthquake has given Ke more time to be with her family.According to local authorities in Lu County, the earthquake has killed three people and left three others in serious condition, with another 85 people suffering minor injuries.

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sichuan, asia & pacific, china, earthquake
The three $12,600 co-featured featured conditioned events at Harrahs Philadelphia on Wednesday afternoon (Sept. 15) went to male pacer Uncontrollable, trotter Year Of The Bride, and female pacer Three Way Split.

Uncontrollable moved at the quarter to control the pace and proceeding onward to a 2-1/2-length victory in a new mark of 1:52. Tim Tetrick, the meets leading driver who topped the colony with three wins on the Wednesday card, drove the three-year-old Control The Moment gelding for trainer Paul Stafford and owner Thomas Ceraso Jr.

George Napolitano Jr. overcame the outside post with the Donato Hanover sophomore filly Year Of The Bride, taking a race mark of 1:57.2. Year Of The Bride was parked a long way until reaching the lead, but then she resisted giving up command, holding off the late surge of Gingertree Stakias by a head for trainer Trish Adams and owner Joseph Riad.

The Somebeachsomewhere three-year-old Three Way Split toyed with her opposition by 5-1/2 lengths as she reduced her lifetime tab to 1:52.4. Andy McCarthy drove the winner for trainer Tony Alagna and the ownership of Bottom Line Racing LLC, Brad Grant, and Marvin and Lynn Katz.

This was the last Wednesday card at Harrahs Philadelphia until Oct. 27, as the basic schedule in early fall shifts to Thursday and Friday afternoons at 12:25 p.m. and Sundays at 12:40 p.m. The Thursday headliners at Philly are a pair of $14,400 races for developing trotters; programs are available at the PHHA website.

(PHHA/Harrah's Philadelphia)
Casimir Swamp Girl ($4.40) and Gold Edition ($13.20) were the stars of the Wednesday (Sept. 15) show at Grand River Raceway, posting comfortable victories in their respective $8,500 Preferred 3 events.

Casimir Swamp Girl protected pole position to establish the lead in the Preferred 3 Pace for distaffers right from the outset, and she maintained her advantage for the entire 1:55 it took her to complete the one-mile journey. The five-year-old Up The Credit mare coasted through a :57.3 first half before facing a first-over challenge from So Frisky up the backstretch. After parrying her outside foe past three-quarters in 1:26.1, Casimir Swamp Girl  under absolutely no urging from driver Colin Kelly  held off an inside challenge from pocket rival Outlaw Imahotvixen (Travis Cullen) by a half length. So Frisky (Alfie Carroll) maintained third after levelling off.

Kyle Bossence trains Casimir Swamp Girl, now a five-time winner this season with 23 career victories.

The Preferred 3 Trot saw Gold Edition sustain a first-over onslaught from midfield and push clear decisively to a measured 1:57 score. Trainer-driver Blair Burgess rated the five-year-old son of E L Titan in fourth behind Charmbo Prince, who clicked off a :58 first half before finding himself overmatched. Heading into the second circuit, Gold Edition sustained a first-over attack, pushing clear of Charmbo Prince nearing three-quarters in 1:27 and opening up a four-length lead on the home turn. Burgess took Gold Edition in hand nearing the line, and the pair maintained 2-1/2 lengths of clearance over Katch Kanna (Jason Ryan), who rallied into a narrow second over Madame Sherry (Kelly).

Gold Edition, who campaigns for Stirling Fisher and Karin Olsson Burgess, won for the second time this season and the 12th time in his career.

To view Wednesday's complete results, click the following link: Wednesday Results  Grand River Raceway.
The Harness Horse Youth Foundation in cooperation with the Indiana chapter of the United States Harness Writers Association participated in the 2021 Dan Patch Festival Parade last weekend to help commemorate the horse's 125th birthday in Oxford, Indiana.

Participants included Sonora and Jeff Dever, Bryce Nickells, Abigail, Lydia and James Platz, Chloe and Sandy Tetrick, Bob Heyden, Ellen Taylor, and Hoosier Buddy on loan from Harrah's Hoosier Park.

Pennants were designed highlighting the greatness of Dan Patch's racing feats and distributed to an eager crowd of parade watchers, both young and old.

Following the parade, the crew set up interactive activities in the kids area of the Festival. The "authentic" horseshoes proved to be the most popular handout among those in line to attend the upcoming rodeo.

The festival has been held annually since 1969 with the exception of 2016 and 2020.

(With files from Harness Horse Youth Foundation)
Hanover Raceway closes their 2021 season this Saturday (Sept. 18) with lots of things happening on their final day.

A $1,529.50 Pick-5 carryover kicks off the card in race one, with the Raceway offering a $4,000 guarantee for the pool and a mandatory payout. The wager offers a low 15 per cent takeout, as always.

Also on the card are the Ethel Fritz Memorial Pace, the Lynn Wedow Memorial Race and the Ontario Standardbred Adoption Society's 25th Anniversary Race, along with year-end seasonal awards in seven categories, including the Bud Fritz Rising Star Award, and Driver and Trainer of the Year.

After the race card, the Raceway and the Hanover, Bentinck and Brant Agricultural Society will hold a free concert by local rising star and country music artist Owen Riegling, as well as a charity barbecue in support of the Hanover Public Library. The concert and barbecue will begin 15 minutes after the conclusion of the races.

Fans can register to attend on the Hanover Raceway website.

To view Saturday's complete entries, click the following link: Saturday Entries - Hanover Raceway.

(Hanover Raceway)
Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler has described the cryptocurrency industry as "the Wild West"

With offers of loans and interest-earning accounts, more new cryptocurrency firms are straying into the world of traditional banks, to the consternation of US financial regulators.

Government agencies have been cracking down recently, trying to regain control of the largely unregulated sector.

Digital currency exchange Coinbase in early September went public with a complaint about a threat from top US markets cop the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to sue the company if it goes ahead with its lending platform.

Coinbase Lend would allow individuals to earn interest when they loan out their digital currencies, a service offered by several other crypto players for several years.

In July, prosecutors in several US states went after another platform, BlockFi, demanding it put an end to its interest-bearing accounts, which the company says can earn up to eight percent annually at a time when most traditional banks offer just 0.01 percent for savings.

"Crypto is the new shadow bank," Senator Elizabeth Warren told The New York Times.

"It provides many of the same services, but without the consumer protections or financial stability that back up the traditional system," said the senator, a long-time crusader for tougher financial regulations to safeguard individuals.

These platforms fall into somewhat of a gray area. Since they are not classified as banks or lending institutions, they are outside the reach of the Federal Reserve or the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the main US bank regulators.

"They are offering banking products. But as a matter of US law, banking law doesn't apply to Coinbase," said Dan Awrey, professor of law and financial regulation at Cornell University.

However, he said securities law can apply to cryptocurrency platforms, something SEC Chair Gary Gensler agrees with.

While elected officials in Congress are only just drafting bills to deal with these firms, and central bankers are debating their role, the former Goldman Sachs investment banker is taking action.

"I think it's more like the Wild West," Gensler said of the industry at a Senate Banking Committee hearing on Tuesday, noting he was interested particularly in its lending features.

'Ill-fitting law'

Antoni Trenchev, co-founder of the England-based Nexo platform, said "it's a matter of time" before the SEC "reaches all companies operating in crypto."

Nexo says its customers can earn up to 12 percent annually for term deposits, or borrow using their cryptocurrency holdings as collateral.

But the push from regulators is a sign "our industry is becoming mainstream" and poised for more growth, he told AFP.

Good regulation "will drastically increase people's faith and sense of security in crypto," which will bring in more potential customers.

"I also don't see it as a bid to control our industry. It's simply a means of protecting consumers which is ultimately what regulators are designed to do," Trenchev said.

Nevertheless, there is concern that the SEC is quick to prohibit certain products. The agency has gone after many crypto sales, saying they are actually securities which must be approved.

"Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for companies to find themselves in a position where a regulator says 'no' without explaining the rationale behind its decision," said Hailey Lennon, attorney at Anderson Kill and former legal officer in charge of regulatory issues at Coinbase.

"In an ideal world, the SEC would come out with standalone (rules), offering-specific guidance around token offerings, lending and yield products but that is not what we are seeing," Lennon told AFP.

Still, the SEC's abilities to take action are somewhat limited, as the agency is mostly concerned with transparency around risks, Cornell's Awrey told AFP.

"We don't care whether you win or lose, but we want to have information that enables you to make a decision," he said of the agency's policies.

But securities rules are not suitable for savers who would like to use these platforms like an old fashioned savings account, but which do not benefit from federal deposit insurance that covers banks.

"There's an ill-fitting law that probably does apply to Coinbase. And a perfectly well-fitting law that doesn't," he said, referring to the gap between securities and banking law.

Cryptocurrencies started as a way to operate outside the mainstream, and many platforms like Nexo are global and decentralized, meaning it would be difficult for American regulators to go it alone without international cooperation.

Still, the SEC is the one to watch, Trenchev said.

If Washington were to "pass legislation for crypto, many other jurisdictions are likely to follow suit."

Explore further Coinbase wows in Nasdaq debut amid cryptocurrency frenzy

 2021 AFP
Chief Executive of Ryanair, Michael O'Leary, speaks during a press conference in London, Tuesday, Aug. 31, 2021.Credit: AP Photo/Frank Augstein

Irish airline Ryanair said Thursday that it's planning to create 5,000 jobs over the next five years as part of its recovery from the shock of the coronavirus pandemic.

The additional pilots, cabin crew and engineers will mean that the company will have more than recouped the 3,000 jobs it got rid of at the start of the pandemic last year.

CEO Michael O'Leary said the carrier has been snapping up slots that have been vacated by airlines that have either collapsed or retrenched over the past 18 months or so.

"Ryanair will open 10 new bases across Europe this year as we work with airport partners to help them recover traffic and jobs post-COVID, and take up slot opportunities that are being vacated by competitor airlines who have collapsed or significantly reduced their fleet sizes," he said before the company's annual shareholder meeting in Dublin.

Ryanair also upgraded forecasts for growth over the next five years, with projections that passenger numbers will grow by 50%, compared with 33% predicted previously. That equates to 226 million passengers by March 2026, 25 million more than previous targets.

"We can recover strongly from the COVID pandemic and deliver higher-than-expected growth in both traffic and jobs over the next five years," O'Leary said.

Explore further Irish airline Ryanair cuts up to 3,000 jobs over virus

 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Credit: US Navy/Wikimedia Commons

The Australian government has just declared an historic defense agreement with the United States and United Kingdom that will see a new fleet of nuclear-powered submarines patrol our shores and surrounding waters.

Research into nuclear-based propulsion of marine vessels began in the 1940s with the dawn of the "nuclear age." Since then, only six nations have owned and operated nuclear submarines: China, France, India, Russia, the UK and the US.

Considering Australia has just torn up a A$90 billion contract to construct a new arsenal of conventional submarines, yesterday's announcement will probably come as a surprise to many.

So what is "nuclear" about a nuclear submarine? The first thing to say is that a nuclear-powered submarine is not a nuclear weapon.

On the surface, they look like any other submarine. The key difference lies in the way they are powered.

In the early days of atomic research, scientists rapidly realized the huge amounts of energy released by "splitting the atom" can be harnessed to generate electricity. Nuclear reactors inside power stations have been powering homes and industry across the world for 70 years. Similarly, each nuclear submarine draws power from its own miniature onboard nuclear reactor.

At the heart of every atom is an atomic nucleus, made of protons and neutrons. The number of protons defines what chemical element that atom belongs to; nuclei with the same number of protons but varying numbers of neutrons are called isotopes of that element.

Some very heavy nuclei are highly susceptible to a process known as nuclear fission, whereby they split into two lighter nuclei with a total mass less than the original nucleus. The remainder is converted to energy.

The amount of energy released is immense, as we can see from Einstein's famous equation, E = mc, which tells us the energy is equal to the change in mass multiplied by the square of the speed of light!

Reactors in a nuclear-powered submarine are typically fuelled with uranium. Natural uranium mined from the ground consists mainly of an isotope called uranium-238, mixed with small amounts (0.7%) of the key isotope uranium-235.

For the reactor to work, the uranium fuel has to be "enriched" to contain the desired proportion of uranium-235. For submarines, this is typically about 50%. The degree of fuel enrichment is a crucial factor in maintaining a chain reaction that gives a consistent, safe level of energy output.

Inside the reactor, uranium-235 is bombarded with neutrons, causing some of the nuclei to undergo nuclear fission. In turn, more neutrons are released and the process continues in a so-called "nuclear chain reaction." The energy is given off as heat, which can be used to drive turbines that generate electricity for the submarine.

Conceptual diagram of a nuclear fission chain reaction. Credit: ANU, Author provided

What are the pros and cons of going nuclear?

One huge advantage of nuclear-powered submarines is they do not require refueling. When one of them enters into service, it will be commissioned with enough uranium fuel to last more than 30 years.

The high efficiency of nuclear power also enables these submarines to operate at high speed for longer periods than conventional diesel-electric submarines. What's more, unlike conventional fuel combustion, nuclear reactions do not require air. That means nuclear submarines can stay submerged at deep depths for months at a time, giving them better stealth capabilities and allowing for longer, more remote deployments.

The downside is the eye-watering cost. Each nuclear submarine typically costs several billion dollars to build, and requires a highly skilled workforce with expertise in nuclear science. With its dedicated training programs offered by world-class universities and government agencies, Australia is well situated to meet the increasing demands in this space, and will also benefit from existing UK and US expertise through the new trilateral security pact.

At this stage, details on where the fuel would be sourced are unclear. While Australia has an ample supply of uranium in the ground, it lacks the capacity to enrich or fabricate the reactor fuel, which could be sourced from overseas.

What will happen to the spent fuel? The 2015 Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission found commercial viability for long-term radioactive waste storage and disposal facilities in South Australia. Whether this eventuates will doubtless be subject to deliberations at local and federal government levels for years to come.

Popular misconceptions

I'll say it again. This is not a call by Australia to deploy nuclear weapons in our waters. For uranium to be designated "weapons grade," it needs to be enriched to upwards of 90% uranium-235the fuel for a nuclear-powered submarine doesn't come close.

In any case, Australia has never produced a nuclear weapon, and it is a party to nuclear nonproliferation treaties and international export control regimes, including the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Initiative.

The tactical advantage of submarines comes from their stealth and ability to pinpoint targets secretly without detection.

Maintaining safety, for both crew and the natural environment, is crucial onboard any sea vessel. Hollywood movies such as K19: The Widowmaker, in which a nuclear submarine malfunctions on its maiden voyage, play on our emotions and our instinctive fear of nuclear radiation.

But advances in modern safety controls and procedures mean reactor accidents in submarines are hopefully now consigned to the past.

The strategic and geopolitical outcomes of this policy decision are yet to be seen. But one thing is already clear: Australia's latest foreign policy venture is also a firm embrace of nuclear science.

Explore further Understanding nuclear weapons and Iran's uranium enrichment program

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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ON Republic Day, activist Jerome Alexander will run a marathon from OMeara Road in Arima to South Quay, PoS to raise public awareness about the dangers of pornography. Alexanders idea to run the 26-mile marathon was in part inspired by a friend of his in the US who ran 30 marathons in 30 days.
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Vietnam-based VNLife Corporation, the parent firm of digital payments startup VNPay, has raised more than US$250 million in a series B funding round co-led by U.S. investors General Atlantic and Dragoneer Investment Group.

The investment pushed VNLifes valuation above $1 billion, Reuters reported, citing a source close to the deal.

SoftBank Vision Fund 1, PayPal Ventures - venture capital arm of PayPal Holdings Inc, Singapores global fund EDBI, and existing investor GIC also participated in the round, according to Reuters.

VNLife was founded in 2007. Its subsidiary VNPay provides e-payment services for more than 40 banks, five telecommunications companies, and 20,000 businesses, according to its LinkedIn profile.

The company intends to use the injection of capital to fund existing businesses and develop new platforms.

The number of fin-tech startups in Vietnam increased by 215 percent between 2015 and 2020, according to the Vietnam Fintech Report 2020, with digital payment firms accounting for 31 percent of the segment.

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A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying four space tourists blasted off Wednesday night from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the first mission to orbit the globe with an all-civilian crew.

A huge fireball illuminated the sky as the rockets nine engines began to pull away from Earth at 8:02 pm (0002 GMT Thursday).

Around 12 minutes later, the Dragon capsule separated from the rockets send stage as the crew entered orbit, while the re-usable first stage made its way back to Earth for a vertical landing on a sea barge.

A few have gone before and many are about to follow, said Jared Isaacman, the 38-year-old billionaire who chartered the flight.

The spaceships trajectory will take it to an altitude of 357 miles (575 kilometers), which is deeper into space than the International Space Station (ISS).

After spending three days spinning around the planet, the four-person crew, all Americans, will splash down off the Florida coast.

The #Inspiration4 launch reminds us of what can be accomplished when we partner with private industry! tweeted NASA administrator Bill Nelson ahead of the launch.

Building up commercial capability has been the vision of NASAs commercial crew program since it was founded in 2011.

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon is seen sitting on launch Pad 39A at NASAs Kennedy Space Center as it is prepared for the first completely private mission to fly into orbit. Photo: AFP

Tough training

SpaceX hasnt disclosed what the trip cost Isaacman, a highschool dropout who went on to found Shift4 Payments and is also a keen aviator. But the price tag runs into tens of millions of dollars.

Isaacmans three crewmates were selected through a competition, and their stories have been followed in a Netflix documentary.

Hayley Arceneaux, a pediatric cancer survivor, is a 29-year-old physician assistant. She will be the youngest American to go into orbit and the first person with a prosthesis, on a part of her femur.

Chris Sembroski, 42, is a US Air Force veteran who now works as an aerospace data engineer.

Sian Proctor, a 51-year-old geoscientist and educator, was almost selected to become an astronaut for NASA in 2009.

She is only the fourth African-American woman to go to space.

They bonded over the course of six months training that included climbing Mount Rainier, high G-force conditioning and experiencing a taste of weightlessness on a parabolic flight.

The mission is aiming to raise $200 million for St Judes Childrens Research Hospital, a leading facility in Tennessee. Arceneaux received treatment there as a child, and now works there.

The crew will take with them various objects  a ukulele, hops intended to brew space beer and several digital assets known as non-fungible tokens  that will be auctioned off for the cause.

Throughout the flight, biological data including heart rate and sleep, as well as their cognitive capacities, will be analyzed to study the health impacts of space.

The Dragon is equipped, for the first time, with a cupola observation dome  the largest ever space window  to take in the view. The dome replaces the usual mechanism used on Dragons to dock with the ISS.

Pilot Sian Proctor (2nd L) makes the Vulcan salute from television series Star Trek, after she and the Inspiration4 crew blasted off from NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Photo: SPACEX/AFP

Privatization of space

Beyond the charitable and scientific aspects, the missions stated goal is to represent a turning point in the democratization of space, by proving that the cosmos is accessible to people who have not been handpicked and trained for many years as astronauts.

For SpaceX, this is nothing less than a first step towards a multi-planetary humanity  founder and CEO Musks ultimate vision.

The flight should remain fully automated, but the crew has been trained by SpaceX to be able to take control in the event of an emergency.

The space adventure bookends a summer marked by the battle of the billionaires Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos to reach the final frontier.

Branson, the Virgin Galactic founder, achieved the feat first, on July 11, and was followed by the Blue Origin boss nine days later.

But these flights only offered a few minutes of weightlessness. SpaceXs mission is far more ambitious  though flights organized by a private company that contracted Russian Soyuz rockets in the 2000s took tourists to the ISS.

This is the fourth crewed mission for SpaceX, which has now sent 10 astronauts to the ISS for US space agency NASA.
Vietnam s State President Nguyen Xuan Phuc will pay a three-day visit to Cuba before taking part in the ongoing United Nations General Assembly session in the U.S., the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Wednesday.

The official visit to Cuba will take place from September 18 to 20 at the invitation of First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba Central Committee and President of Cuba Miguel Diaz-Canel.

Vietnam and the Caribbean country established diplomatic relations on December 2, 1960, nearly two years after the successful Cuban Revolution on January 1, 1959.

Over the past six decades, the traditional solidarity, mutual support, and comprehensive cooperation between the two countries have been consolidated and developed in politics, economics-trade, security-defense, agriculture, construction, education, health, biotechnology, traffic, and sports.

The two sides have maintained cooperative relations and assistance to each other within international organizations and multilateral forums, particularly at the United Nations.

In recent times, senior leaders and ministries of the two countries have maintained their relationship through online exchanges due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

During a phone dialogue with his Vietnamese counterpart on August 23, President Diaz-Canel promised to deliver 10 million doses of Abdala, a Cuban-developed COVID-19 vaccine, to Vietnam before the end of this year.

The Cuban leader also said Cuba plans to send experts to the Southeast Asian country to transfer its vaccine production technology.

Earlier on July 27, President Diaz-Canel held a phone talk with General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Nguyen Phu Trong.

On April 1, 2020, the Vietnam - Cuba Trade Agreement officially came into effect, bringing benefits to businesses of the two nations and creating favorable conditions for bilateral trade.

After the Cuba visit, State President Phuc and his entourage will attend the high-level General Debate of the 76th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA 76) and conduct a number of bilateral activities in the United States from September 21 to 24, the foreign ministry said.

The UNGA 76 opened on Tuesday and will end on September 30.

Vietnam is currently a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) for the 2020-21 term, after getting 192 votes out of the 193 member countries and territories of the UN General Assembly on June 7, 2019.

This is the second time the Southeast Asian country has been elected as a non-permanent member of the UNSC, after the first in 2008-09.

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Read what is in the news today:

Politics

-- Vietnams State President Nguyen Xuan Phuc will lead a high-raking delegation to pay an official visit to Cuba from September 18 to 20 at the invitation of Miguel Diaz-Canel, First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cubas Central Committee and Cuban President.

-- State President Nguyen Xuan Phuc expressed appreciation to the government and people of Japan for their valuable assistance toward combating COVID-19 in Vietnam, during his phone conversation with Japanese Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide on Wednesday.

Society

-- The Peoples Committee of Ho Chi Minh City has allowed residents to go out for exercising within the premises of their apartment or housing complexes located in safe areas.

-- Ho Chi Minh City police officers booked more than 17,000 cases of unnecessary traveling and large gatherings from August 23 to Wednesday, imposing fines totaling more than VND28 billion (US$1.2 million).

Business

-- The Peoples Committee of Hanoi has permitted restaurants in 19 out of its 30 districts and towns to offer takeout service and close before 9:00 pm every day, starting 12:00 pm on Thursday.

-- The Peoples Committee of Ho Chi Minh City has allowed shops that sell office supplies, books and other study materials, garages, facilities that offer maintenance and repair services for building projects, provide machinery, equipment, and spare parts, and veterinary facilities to reopen from Thursday.

-- VNLife, which owns Vietnamese digital payments firm VNPay, has received more than $250 million in a series B funding round co-led by U.S. investors General Atlantic and Dragoneer Investment Group.

World news

-- Microsoft announced a $60 billion share buyback on Wednesday, despite the fact that its stock has risen 50 percent in the past 12 months, according to Reuters.

-- A SpaceX rocket ship blasted off from Florida on Wednesday carrying a billionaire e-commerce executive and three less-wealthy private citizens he chose to join him in the first all-civilian crew ever launched into Earth orbit, Reuters reported.

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Residents in Hoang Liet Ward, Hoang Mai District, Hanoi who refuse COVID-19 vaccination must sign a legal statement accepting responsibility for any plausible transmission they may cause in the future, local authorities confirmed.

The mandate was mentioned in an official document on COVID-19 vaccination released by Hoang Liet Ward officials on Tuesday.

The responsibility form will also allow ward authorities the opportunity to survey residents on their reasoning for refusing vaccination, said the ward leader, Ta Van Hai, in a discussion with Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Wednesday.

Everyone who transmits the disease must take responsibility," he said.

"Our directive is a non-issue.

According to Dang Thanh Huyen, deputy head of the National Office for the Expanded Program on Immunization  the unit charged with Vietnams COVID-19 vaccination campaign, local authorities may coerce eligible residents in outbreak areas into taking the vaccine, as prescribed by the Law on Prevention and Control of Infectious Disease.

However, in the current scenario, local governments should only attempt to persuade residents to take the vaccine for the sake of public health and should refrain from exacting penalties.

During Vietnams mass vaccination drive, which started in March, the vast majority of the public has been willing to get vaccinated.

As of Wednesday, Hanoi had administered 4,687,618 out of the 5,359,676 COVID-19 vaccine doses so far received.

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It is no walk in the park for Vietnamese doctors to take care of mentally ill people infected with COVID-19 as these patients are often unpredictable and their psychiatric conditions cause them to reject treatment.

According to health workers treating COVID-19 patients with psychiatric issues, the patients usually refuse to take medicine, do not wear a mask, cause troubles, escape medical facilities, and even jump off buildings.

Unpredictable patients

The COVID-19 Thu Duc Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City recently admitted a COVID-19 male patient, who was transferred from a lower-level hospital with a warning about his manifestations of mental illness.

Following his admission, the patient wandered around the isolation area despite being asked to return to his room many times by medical staff, before somehow managing to avoid security guards and climb the fence to flee to his home in Tan Phu District only 11 hours later.

In Binh Chanh District, its field hospital for COVID-19 treatment has received 12 psychiatric patients infected with the virus since it was put into operation in July, according to Dr. Nguyen Viet Thinh, a specialist at the hospital.

Nine of them were already discharged upon their recovery from the viral disease.

Caring for a normal COVID-19 patient is tough, but it is much more difficult and dangerous to take care of COVID-19 patients with mental illness, especially schizophrenia, Dr. Thinh said as he referred to a recent case of a 37-year-old male patient with schizophrenia from the same district.

While medical staff were away to have lunch, the man went out of his ward, climbed to the second floor of the building, and jumped down, resulting in a broken leg and arm, Dr. Thinh recalled.

Doctors then immediately skipped their meal and rushed to give the patient first aid before transferring him to 115 Peoples Hospital in District 10 for further treatment.

Due to their mental instability, many patients wandered around the field hospital, against medical staffs request to stay inside their wards, Dr. Thinh said.

They cannot distinguish between areas for medical staff and patients.

It is also very difficult to make them wear face masks or oxygen masks.

Further, they are vulnerable to malnutrition due to a lack of self-awareness and failure to feed themselves.

When doctors gave them milk, they even threw the cartons at the doctors, Dr. Thinh said.

They even managed to cross the barricade to break into doctors' room when they were sleeping.

Understanding the patients conditions, health workers are usually on alert all day.

Nguyen Cao Huy Thanh, a student at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy at Ho Chi Minh City, who directly cares for many psychiatric patients with COVID-19, said that he was a bit worried when he began the job with no experience.

After a period, Thanh has realized that such patients are generally kind, except when having a panic attack.

Thanh has also learned some tactics to easily deal with his unpredictable patients, including seeking help from their family members or roommates in persuading them to take medicine and listening and talking to them in a gentle manner during health checks.

Priority for COVID-19 treatment

People with chronic mental illness or a history of depression or anxiety disorders that had been well controlled tend to suddenly relapse when they or their families have COVID-19, according to Dr. Huynh Thanh Hien at the Ho Chi Minh City Mental Health Hospital.

Facing a great deal of stress, they become agitated, accompanied by screaming, smashing things, and running out of isolation wards.

In addition, Dr. Hien noted that a number of people who had been completely normal began developing signs of mental illness before such big events as losing many loved ones at once, contracting COVID-19 themselves, life in quarantine, and the obligation to practice social distancing measures.

Regarding treatment for psychiatric patients with COVID-19, Dr. Hien emphasized the priority for helping them recover from the coronavirus disease in parallel with treating their mental disorders.

Constant supervision is a must to prevent the patients agitation that can cause danger to themselves and people around them, the doctor added.

More care for psychiatric patients

Ho Chi Minh City authorities have converted a part of the second branch of the Ho Chi Minh City Mental Health Hospital in Binh Chanh District into the 100-bed Le Minh Xuan COVID-19 treatment hospital for mentally ill patients infected with the novel coronavirus.

The hospital has received nearly 100 cases of COVID-19 with mental problems, ten of whom have been discharged, since the beginning of July.

Its medical staff pay more than 100 visits as well as provide medications and treatment for three to ten patients with acute psychosis, anxiety, insomnia, or emotional disturbance at field hospitals across the city every day, according to Dr. Tong Quoc Dang Khoa, director of the infirmary.

In terms of immunization, Nguyen Tuan Hung, director of the National Psychiatric Hospital No. 1 in Hanoi, said that administering COVID-19 vaccine doses to mentally ill patients is being carefully considered, given no existing legal grounds for such practice and no regulations on approvals from their guardians.

In addition, it is difficult to detect underlying and complex pathologies during pre-injection screening procedures for psychiatric patients.

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The Ministry of Health reported 10,489 coronavirus cases throughout Vietnam on Thursday, alongside 10,901 discharged patients and 239 fatalities.

Thirty-seven provinces and cities recorded 10,482 domestic cases whereas the country logged seven separate imported infections, the health ministry said.

The ministry had documented 10,583 locally-infected patients on Wednesday.

Over 6,500 of the latest domestic cases were found in the community, with the remaining detected in sectioned-off areas or centralized quarantine facilities.

Ho Chi Minh City registered 5,735 local infections, up by 434 patients from yesterday; Binh Duong Province 2,998, down by 230; Dong Nai Province 567, Long An Province 281, Kien Giang Province 198; An Giang Province 126; Hanoi 15; and Da Nang two.

Vietnam has confirmed 651,726 community transmissions in 62 out of its 63 provinces and cities since the fourth  and worst  virus wave emerged in the country on April 27.

Ho Chi Minh City is on top of the list with 320,823 patients, followed by Binh Duong Province with 169,073, Dong Nai Province with 37,736, Long An Province with 29,570, Tien Giang Province with 12,642, Dong Thap Province with 8,001, Khanh Hoa Province with 7,423, Da Nang with 4,846, Hanoi with 4,103, and Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province with 3,962.

By comparison, Vietnam detected a combined 1,570 locally-transmitted infections in the previous three waves.

The health ministry documented 10,901 recoveries on Thursday, bringing the total to 423,551.

The toll has soared to 16,425 deaths after the ministry logged 239 fatalities on the same day, including 160 in Ho Chi Minh City and 46 in Binh Duong Province.

Vietnam has reported 656,129 patients since the COVID-19 pandemic first hit it early last year.

Health workers have administered around 32.3 million vaccine doses, including 715,550 shots on Wednesday, since inoculation was rolled out on March 8.

Nearly six million people have been fully vaccinated.

Health authorities aim to immunize at least two-thirds of a population of nearly 98 million people against COVID-19 by the first quarter of next year.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
10s broadcast of the Melbourne Cup Carnival begins with Victoria Derby Day on October 30 followed by Melbourne Cup, Oaks Day and Stakes Day.

Michael Felgate hosts alongside Caty Price, Brittany Taylor, James Winks and David Gately. International racing expert Francesca Cumani will join in crosses from the UK.

Michelle Payne also features plus Rob Mills, Kate Freebairn and Natalie Hunter.

The Melbourne Cup Carnival is one of the leading sporting events in the world. Now, more than ever, Australia needs something to celebrate.

Its about the people and that awesome Aussie spirit. The racing and the quality and power of the athletes, both equine and human.

So, with a spring in our step, lets remind ourselves that theres joy to be found in the little things and embrace the rich history and the festivity that belongs to all of us  the 2021 Melbourne Cup Carnival.

It all begins with Penfolds Victoria Derby Day on Saturday, 30 October, followed by Lexus Melbourne Cup Day on Tuesday, 2 November, Kennedy Oaks Day on Thursday, 4 November and Mackinnon Stakes Day on Saturday, 6 November, live and free on Network 10 and 10 Play.

Michael Felgate saddles up to host the four-day racing spectacular alongside racing presenter Caty Price, mounting yard expert Brittany Taylor, Group 1 winning jockey James Winks and form expert David Gately. International racing expert Francesca Cumani will join in the action as we cross to her in the UK for her insights and analysis.

Network 10 is also thrilled to announce Lexus Melbourne Cup winning jockey Michelle Payne joins our stellar field.

One of Australias most sought after media and racing personalities, Michelle captured the hearts of a nation back in 2015 when she became the only female to win the event.

Michelles triumph catapulted her into stardom where she is now a highly successful trainer, jockey and author.

Bringing the glitz and the glamour are Rob Mills and 10 News Firsts Kate Freebairn covering all things fashion and entertainment, including the Myer Fashions on your Front Lawn competition. Joining them is presenter Natalie Hunter who also has the privilege of presenting the winning trophies.

Revel in Cup Week with the 2021 Melbourne Cup Carnival broadcast live and free on Network 10 and 10 Play on demand.
Former Seven presenter Andrew OKeefe has pleaded not guilty to new domestic violence charges.

OKeefe is charged with assault occasioning bodily harm common assault, contravening an apprehended violence order and resisting police.

He was not required to appear in a Sydney court today due to COVID rules.

The defence emailed Magistrate Carolyn Huntsman to inform her OKeefe was pleading not guilty to the four charges.

Prosecutors said they had a large amount of footage of the incident involving OKeefe  which allegedly occurred at a Point Piper home on Friday night.

OKeefe was also excused from attending the next mention of his case on November 11, and has strict bail conditions in place that prevent him from going within 200metres of the alleged victims home, or communicating with her.

On Saturday OKeefe said he would vigorously defend the charges.

Im just getting back from last time, he told 10 News First. Two strikes and youre out in this country.

He added, Its certainly not where I want to be. And certainly not where I anticipated I would be.

He was also excused from attending the next mention of his case on November 11.

A hearing is set down for August 2022.

Source: Daily Mail
Her silent, stealth character in ABC drama The Newsreader may be a fictional creation, but actor Marg Downey knows her well.

Shes not based on anyone in particular, but I do feel as though if Ive met at least 20 Evelyns in my lifetime! she admits.

Ive had a long time to encounter these types. I think I even saw them in my childhood. My parents had some friends and Im sure that one of the wives was Evelyn-esque!

As the wife of veteran news presenter Geoff Walters (Robert Taylor) Downeys character has had audiences glued to their screens. Writer Michael Lucas has endowed the role with enormous influence in the politics of the 1980s newsroom.

While Downey is famous for her comedy work on Fast Forward, in more recent years she has moved to dramatic roles, especially in theatre, but also Newtons Law, Top Of The Lake: China Girl, The Doctor Blake Mysteries, House Husbands and City Homicide.

Hang on, Evelyns in every single episode!

She won the role after submitting an audition tape from home.

I thought it would be my usual sort of inserted-into-a-couple-of-scenes guesty, she tells TV Tonight.

When I got the full scripts I realised, Hang on, Evelyns in every single episode! I rang my agent and said, This is just a great part. Its something I could really sink my teeth into. Shes a really interesting character, because on the one hand, people say shes manipulative. I think one critic described me as horribly good, inferring that shes horrible. But shes also fiercely loyal and loves her husband. So its multi layered.

I was so thrilled when I got the role.

Shes the power behind the throne, really

Evelyn manoeuvres from organising society soirees to underhanded negotiation with news boss Lindsay (William McInnes).

Shes the power behind the throne, really. Shes very smart and aware. I feel as though she could have worked in television behind the scenes in publicity or something. Shes got a handle on how people operate within that industry.

Shes a bit of an all rounder. She is raking the leaves out of the pool, preparing the roast dinner and meanwhile being across all the politics in her husbands workplace. Shes a bit of a dynamo.

In Sundays finale, Evelyn will wield her most influence yet, in a stinging exchange with Lindsay.

Its a beautifully written scene, she teases. Also that was the first scene I shot in the whole series. It was totally out of sequence. It was the first time William and I interacted. I was very prepared but I was a bit nervous, to be honest.

Yet while many have likened the character of ambitious news presenter Helen Norville (Anna Torv) to Jana Wendt  a claim Michael Lucas denies- coincidentally, it was Downey who famously parodied Wendt in Fast Forward and The D-Generation in the late 1980s and into the 1990s.

I was sitting sometimes in make-up chairs right next to them

Having worked in TV stations for decades, she is convinced the ABC series has accurately captured the era.

I was in those make-up rooms with women, like Simone Semmons, Naomi Robson, Jennifer Keyte. I was sitting sometimes in make-up chairs right next to them, having a chinwag. Even pre-dating that I was doing Jana at the ABC. So there were female journalists running around the corridors. I suppose through osmosis, I picked up a little bit of information along the way which is why (The Newsreader) rings very true to me, having been there and witnessed it.

Downey once met Jana Wendt at the Logie Awards and describes her as absolutely charming which is fonder than her recollection of one unnamed producer who, during the early 1990s, had an idea for her impression to become part of a current affairs war.

I was so appalled I went made a complaint

I do remember a producer from the Hinch program calling me in and saying, Your impersonation is spot on. We actually have the power to destroy Jana!' she recalls.

I burst out laughing. I was doing a parody! I certainly wasnt out to destroy anyone! I think he thought we could take her down in the ratings or undermine her somehow. I was so appalled I went and made a complaint.

It just goes to show how ruthless television can be in that endless chasing of ratings. Theyll go to the ends of the earth to achieve that.

Maybe a plot idea for Season 2?

The Newsreader finale airs 8:30pm Sunday on ABC.
Distributor Escapade Media has secured rest of world rights from Lune Media for Osher Gunsberg: A Matter Of Life And Death.

Screening this Sunday on SBS the documentary hopes to start the conversation on mental health and suicide and looks at the latest solutions on offer.

Lune Media Executive Producer Leonie Lowe said: Millions of Australians, whatever their background, are impacted by issues surrounding mental health, mental illness and suicide  either directly, or through the experiences of friends and loved ones.

Making this documentary weve had the privilege of meeting those working at the frontline of suicide prevention in Australia, as well as others whove been personally affected, including survivors and family members. By bravely sharing their stories, theyve helped us put a face to the issues that affect so many of us.

And by challenging the stigma associated with mental health and mental illness, and highlighting the solutions that are out there, we hope we might be able to inspire many others to be brave and ask for the help they need.

8:30pm Sunday on SBS.

Australia is often thought of as the lucky country. So why is it that eight people a day die from suicide? The situation is nothing short of a national crisis. Yet the experts agree that there are ways we can be better dealing with the issues. The SBS documentary Osher Gunsberg: A Matter of Life and Death will provide a comprehensive portrait of suicide in Australia today. Through the prism of Osher Gunsbergs own mental health experience, hell investigate why suicide rates remain high in Australia, and feature what is being done to mitigate the problem. The documentary will focus on solutions and what Australia and Australians can do to reduce the national suicide rate. In fact, the mission statement of this film is to go beyond the informative. Its charter is to be part of the solution and actually help stop suicide by offering hope and some practical answers.

Produced by SBS and Screen Australia, in association with Screen NSW and directed by Jodi Boylan.

Lifeline 13 11 14

Beyond Blue 1300 22 46 36
By Allison Brace 22

University of Dayton alumna Olivia LeBlanc 21 is looking forward to teaching English in Estonia through the Fulbright U.S. Student Program because of that countrys school system.

I plan to become a school psychologist in the future, and I believe that experiencing a more equitable school system in Estonia will allow me to better understand inclusive educational practices and incorporate these methodologies into my career as a school psychologist, LeBlanc said.

LeBlanc, who holds a bachelors degree in psychology, is one of two University graduates to receive Fulbright awards in the 2020-21 cycle.

Elizabeth Michalenko 19 will be attending the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom beginning in fall 2021 through the Fulbright program. She is pursuing a Master of Science degree in electrical engineering for sustainable and renewable energy.

Michalenko, who holds a bachelors degree in electrical engineering, participated in other international programs as a UD undergraduate. She studied in Italy with the School of Engineering and in London with the Global Flyers Program.

The University has now produced 37 Fulbright Scholars since 2002. It also boasts two Fulbright Scholarship alternates and one Boren Scholarship alternate for the 2021 cycle.

The Fulbright Scholarship alternates were Emily Ruebleman, a communication major from Somerville, Massachusetts, who is an alternate for English teaching assistant in Thailand, and Emily Johnson, an environmental biology major from Valparaiso, Indiana, who is an alternate for English teaching assistant in Germany.

Kevin McLeeson, a junior business administration major from Rocky River, Ohio, is a Boren Scholarship alternate. Boren Scholarships provide up to $25,000 to U.S. undergraduate students to study abroad in areas of the world that are critical to U.S. interests and underrepresented in study abroad.

McLeeson is planning to reapply with the hope of receiving the scholarship next year to further his studies in Arabic. Ruebleman also plans to reapply for a Fulbright scholarship.

The Fulbright U.S. Student Program offers research, study and teaching opportunities in more than 140 countries. During their grants, Fulbright scholars meet, work, live with and learn from the people of their host country, sharing daily experiences. About 20% of students who apply receive an award.

The fact that Olivia and Elizabeth received the awards at all is remarkable, said Laura Cotten Howell, associate director of the University Honors program. Lora Seery, the Fulbright outreach and recruitment manager, said this was the most competitive cycle for Fulbright in two ways. First, in terms of the overall number of applications received, and second, based on the country awards actually offered.

The number of Fulbright awards presented this year was down more than 40%. This is because host countries are still attempting to honor awards from the 2019-20 application cycle due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Only half of the 2019-20 Fulbright Scholars have actually gone abroad to complete their awards.

The pandemic has resulted in limited in-person activities and halted most international travel.

I navigated the Fulbright application, interview and orientation process completely remotely, which was a very unique and challenging process, LeBlanc said. Unfortunately, I was unable to meet other Fulbrighters in person at the pre-departure Fulbright orientation, which was very disappointing, but I was still able to connect with amazing people virtually through conferencing calls and email, which makes me feel more prepared and relaxed for my upcoming departure.

The Fulbright experience also prepares students for their professional and post-graduate careers.

Continuing my engineering studies abroad has been on my mind since my senior year at UD, Michalenko said. After graduating, I explored opportunities while working full time. When I started working from home and everything shut down for a while, I found I had time to think about the next steps in my career and focus my efforts on important applications.

The Office of Fellowship Advising offers support and preparation assistance for students and alumni interested in applying to prestigious national fellowships like Fulbright and Boren.

Although applying for a Fulbright grant was daunting, if this is something you are interested in potentially pursuing, you should definitely go for it, LeBlanc said. I received immense support and guidance from UD faculty members and the Office of Fellowship Advising, students and alumni during my application process, which made me feel supported and prepared from start to finish. I even received a handwritten note from President Eric F. Spina congratulating me for my Fulbright award, which demonstrates how supportive the UD community truly is.

For more information, visit the Honors Programs fellowship advising website.

Pictured top, L to R: Elizabeth Michalenko and Olivia LeBlanc.
The Greater West Dayton Incubator will soon begin accepting applications for a new microloan program, which aims to support Black-owned, women-owned and other underrepresented businesses as well as those serving the Greater West Dayton community.

Microloans are important to help grow small businesses, especially for historically marginalized entrepreneurs who have faced barriers to traditional funding, said Vince Lewis, director of UDs Crotty Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership, which oversees the program. Our goal in offering these loans, along with other support services, is to champion equitable opportunities, and by doing so, create jobs and economic value that help shape a brighter future for our community.

The Cultural Capital microloans, which will range from $500 to $20,000, can be used toward operating expenses, new equipment, website development, marketing, hiring staff, and other costs of running a business. Applications will be evaluated based on more flexible criteria emphasizing passion, persistence and planning.

"This program has the potential to provide direct access to capital to the Greater West Dayton community through intentional outreach, said Cherrelle Gardner, who serves on the risk review committee. A lot of businesses could be successful if they had even a small loan to help get them off the ground; however, those channels are limited for Black and brown founders. The microloans represent the opportunity for more purposeful support in the community where entrepreneurs live and work from a program that is more invested in their success than traditional transactional lending models.

CityWide and UDs student-run Flyer Consulting are partners in distributing the microloans and supporting entrepreneurs with the loan process, financial wellness education and other services.

We are excited to be a part of this collaboration and help bring these much-needed resources to underrepresented businesses, said Brian Heitkamp, CityWide president.

UD undergraduates will gain experience in lending and managing the loan portfolio. They also will be involved in assisting applicants who do not meet the loan criteria on their first application to re-apply, as well as to help businesses that do receive loans prepare to apply for additional funding from traditional banks.

Students in Flyer Consulting are passionate about real-world impact, especially in our local community, said Bryan Johnson, managing director for Flyer Consulting. The Cultural Capital Microlending Program will not only expand Flyer Consultings impact, but it will also allow our students to engage with the Greater West Dayton community. Furthermore, our students will have the opportunity to support underrepresented business owners, an experience that cannot be found in the classroom.

The microloan fund is supported by an anonymous gift to the University, and the Greater West Dayton Incubator continues to seek more partner banks and foundations to grow the size of the funding pool.

Underrepresented business owners in the Greater West Dayton area that meet certain eligibility requirements, including being in operation for at least one year, can apply. Applications open Oct. 4. More information, including details on upcoming informational sessions, is available online.

The microloan program builds on the efforts of the Greater West Dayton Incubator, created in partnership between community and University leaders to support underrepresented businesses as they launch and grow by providing access to co-working space, consulting, training, capital and other resources. More information about the incubator is available online.
The previously all-male school allows girls in for the first time, but the teachers and students arent prepared for this radical change. The creator and showrunner Marie Roussin ("Lupin", "Borgias") meticulously researched the period and the result is a funny, mischievous exploration of sexuality, self-acceptance and the emerging emancipation of women.

Cast

"Mixte" includes stars such as Pierre Deladonchamps, the award-winning Film actor from "Stranger by the Lake"; Nina Meurisse ("Camille"); Maud Wyler ("Blue Is the Warmest Color"); Amira Casar ("Call Me By Your Name"); and many talented up-and-coming actors including Leonie Souchaud ("How I Became A Superhero"), Lula Cotton-Frapier ("Skam"), Anouk Villemin, Nathan Parent, Baptiste Masseline, Gaspard Meier-Chaurand and Vassili Schneider.

"Mixte" looks at the run-up to the student revolts that shook all of Europe in 1968, and dives into the generational clash that started brewing in the early 1960s.

Executive producers

Executive producer Eleonore Dailly said: Mixte felt like a great opportunity to revisit a pivotal time period of modern French history from a contemporary point of view  hence the modern music choices  and having a lot of fun doing it, by being sometimes irreverent with the era.

Executive producer Edouard De Lachomette added: The show explores the emergence of teen culture and identity, defined in conflict with the established order of their parents, through music and sexual freedom.

It was exciting to us to revisit this pivotal moment in French history as a dramedy with a razorsharp female point of view, Eleonore Dailly said.

These educated girls were the trailblazers that helped empower their peers. It shocked me when I found out that French women were forbidden to have their own bank accounts until 1965. Its crucial for us as producers to enable stories of hope and change in our rather tormented times.

Autopilot

The eight-part show is produced by Autopilot, which was established in Los Angeles and Paris in 2015 and now produces feature films and TV series with international appeal, in English and French.

Its founders are Eleonore Dailly and Edouard de Lachomette, who felt "Mixte" would fit perfectly with Autopilots focus on authentic local-language stories that can be shared and experienced by audiences globally.

Autopilot has previously produced "I Am Not An Easy Man", Netflixs first French-language hit, starring Vincent Elbaz and stand-up comedian Blanche Gardin ("I Talk To Myself", "Bonne Nuit Blanche").

Eleonore Dailly and Edouard de Lachomette are also currently in post-production on a new Netflix Original feature, and is filming Lisa Azuelos "I Love America", a French comedy starring Sophie Marceau. Marceau, one of Frances most accomplished actors ("Braveheart", "The World Is Not Enough"), will next be seen in Francois Ozons "Everything Went Fine", which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.

After a special screening event organised by Series Mania, "Mixte" premiered to rave reviews in France and was released worldwide on Amazon Prime Video on 10 September.
By Nick Carey

LONDON (Reuters) - Electric truck startup Volta Trucks said on Thursday it has raised 37 million euros ($43.7 million) in its latest funding round led by hedge fund Luxor Capital and including an investment by Volta's battery supplier Proterra.

The latest funding brings Volta's total raised to 60 million euros. Luxor also invested in the previous funding round.

Volta said the funding will be used to develop a test fleet of trucks for customers in Paris and London.

The company aims to launch production of the Volta Zero, a 16-tonne electric truck, by the end of 2022 and says it currently has an order book of 2,500 trucks worth more than 600 million euros.

Volta Trucks said this month that its first trucks will be made under contract starting in late 2022 in Austria by Steyr Automotive, a newly formed company that has taken over a factory that formerly belonged to Volkswagen AG unit MAN.

(Editing by Jason Neely)
An Islamic State leader in the Sahara has been killed by the French military.

President Emmanuel Macron said Adnan Abu Walid al Sahrawi's death was "a major success".

Al Sahrawi was the leader of IS in the Greater Sahara, and had previously claimed to be behind terror attacks in the region.

Mr Macron said in a post on Twitter: "The nation is thinking tonight of all its heroes who died for France in the Sahel in the Serval and Barkhane operations, of the bereaved families, of all of its wounded.

"Their sacrifice is not in vain.

"With our African, European and American partners, we will continue this fight."

France has been operating in the Sahel - the strip of Africa between the Sahara running east to west - since 2013.

It is particularly active in the areas in which it was a colonial power.

The UK has provided support to the French-led operation - including 300 troops being sent to Mali at the end of last year.

There were concerns the withdrawal of Western powers from Afghanistan may lead to an emboldening of Islamists in Africa.

Al Sahrawi had said he was behind a terror attack in 2017 in Niger that killed four US military members and four Niger service personnel.

France said that, in August 2020, al Sahrawi ordered the execution of six French charity workers and their Nigerien driver.

The US had offered a reward of up to $5m (3.6m) for information leading to his location.

Al Sahrawi was born in the disputed Western Sahara region, and later joined the Polisario Front before travelling to Algeria and Mali.

He then joined a group called MUJAO, which worked for the local al Qaeda affiliate.

In 2015, Al Sahrawi pledged allegiance to IS in Iraq and Syria.

The death comes as Salah Abdeslam goes on trial in France for the 2015 Paris terror attacks.

He said the killings were "nothing personal" and were carried out in response to French airstrikes in Syria and Iraq.
The annual State of the European Union address provides a unique chance for all EU residents to get a sense of their lives shared direction.

This years speech was expected to reflect on the EUs ongoing efforts to emerge from the coronavirus pandemic and chart a recovery path for a collective future. Yet, in her second State of the Union address, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen missed a historical opportunity to inspire and bring along citizens in the ongoing, epochal effort aimed at redefining our societies and their underlying systems in a post-COVID world.

This is all the more surprising as she succeeded in her first State of the Union in 2020 in repositioning the EU political agenda in a post-pandemic world, both internally, with digital and green transitions revisited in the light of the NextGenerationEU, and externally via the then-novel concept of strategic autonomy. Many expected that, as a result, the pandemic could act as a major catalyst for more, and a different kind of, integration.

Yet, in her 2021 address, von der Leyen failed to show what these reforms  notably the New Green Deal as materialised in the Fit for 55 initiative  entail for citizens, and companies, and how, ultimately, they will affect each of us.

Von der Leyen emerges as one of the least politically autonomous, and therefore one of the weakest, presidents of the European Commission in EU history.

But thats exactly what citizens expect today, as they increasingly realise the EUs impact on their daily lives. Take the surging energy prices as a case in point.

As eye-watering bills come in across the Union, citizens are  legitimately  concerned that they might end up footing the bill of the ecological transition as charted by the Union. Europes gas and electricity price surge is already putting the most vulnerable and poorest at a disadvantage.

While the prices increase cannot be directly ascribed to the EU climate policy  notably to the EU's Emissions Trading System which has seen the cost of a permit to emit a ton of CO2 more than double over the last year to around 60 , it offers a preview of the social cost and distributive consequences of the ambitious EU's climate policies.

Story continues

The violent message sent by the Yellow Vests movement, which arose out of this very same concern, does not seem to have transcended the French borders, and reached the Berlaymont, the European Commissions headquarters. The announced new Social Climate Fund wont, alone, address nor alleviate these concerns about a fair green transition.

What a missed opportunity to do pedagogy, by addressing citizens', and companies', most immediate concerns and illustrate what complex trade-off the EU and its Member States do face.

Instead, von der Leyens speech embraced a rather solemn (I see a strong soul in everything that we do), self-complacent (COVID: We did it the right way), and sloganeering (And in the gravest planetary crisis of all time, again we chose to go it together with the European Green Deal) tone regarding her past achievements.

In a moment of Covid-imposed transformation, Europeans deserve more than a laundry list of policy measures that, lets be frank, were imposed on us, and not chosen, by events. The EU political process alone proved unable to proactively come up with any new initiative.

In essence, EU action remains reactive, and largely directed and shaped by member states' interests, the sum of which tend not to coincide with the EU interest. Since the Commissions job is to identify and advance that interest, von der Leyen emerges as one of the least politically autonomous, and therefore one of the weakest, presidents of the European Commission in EU history.

Consider this.

The State of the European Union is the second biggest political moment  right after the EU Parliamentary elections  in the bloc's life. As such, it should also serve as a great "moment of truth" in which the main EU political leader  a de facto Prime Minister  "names-and-shames" those political groups and national governments that prevent the Unions government agenda from going forward.

In essence, EU action remains reactive, and largely directed and shaped by member states' interests, the sum of which tend not to coincide with the EU interest

Alberto Alemanno

This is key as none of the multiple, catchy-named new initiatives  from the launch of the Global Gateway to compete with China's Belt and Road Initiative, the dedicated European Semiconductor Fund to the adoption of a Health Union and launch of the Erasmus-styled work placement ALMA programme  can be realised unless all EU member states are on board.

It took six months of parliamentary debates, high-level political confrontations, and judicial procedures, to have 27 EU countries ratify the legal instrument that underpins the bloc's 750-billion recovery fund. Yet, the new own resources (i.e. EU taxes) to partly fund this still have to be agreed upon. And the Health Union did not advance despite being announced a year ago, already.

The truth is that over the past year the EU has become less, not more, strategically autonomous due to its major regression on the rule of law, and its inability to counter this internal crisis in countries like Poland and Hungary. In other words, how can the EU increase self-sufficiency  from semi-conductor manufacturing to defence  at the very same time it departs from its foundational self-organisational principle of the rule of law?

Historically, what brought together  and kept together  EU countries is not only a set of shared rules, but also and especially a deeper commitment to abide by them. Yet recent events, from the EU response to coronavirus  both as a health and financial crisis  are putting into doubt the Unions adherence to, and relationship with, the rule of law. This might have consequential effects for the Unions future.

How credible can the von der Leyen Commission be vis-a-vis Poland and Hungary  and the rest of the world  when it gave up on holding these rebellious members accountable in the name of EU shared values and common interest?

Alberto Alemanno is Jean Monnet professor of EU law at HEC Paris and the founder of the civic startup The Good Lobby.
These days, Azerbaijan marks the 103rd anniversary of the liberation of Baku, the country's capital, under the leadership of the Caucasian Islamic Army, which was headed by the 29-year-old Nuri Pasha (Killigil), Yeni Safak writes. The friendly political, legal, trade, and military relations between Azerbaijan and Turkey were documented shortly after the foundation of the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic on May 28, 1918 with the Treaty of Batumi, signed between the newly established country and then Ottoman Empire on June 4, 1918. With the pact, the empire recognized the independence of Azerbaijan, which could in return request its military help in case of any threat.

After the republic's declaration of independence in Georgia, Fatali Khan Khoyski, Azerbaijan's first prime minister, formed the government in Ganja, now northwestern Azerbaijan, in June, as he was not able to travel directly to Azerbaijan's current capital Baku since the city was then controlled by Armenian militants and Bolsheviks. On Sept. 15, 1918, an elite Ottoman force called the Caucasian Islamic Army under the leadership of Nuri Pasha (Killigil) was sent by then Minister of War Enver Pasha to what is today Azerbaijan in the closing months of the World War I following a plea from the region's people. The Caucasian Islamic Army, made up of Turkish and Azerbaijani soldiers, completed its mission in September, liberating Baku and thus laying the groundwork for the country's independence decades later in 1991.

Over 1,100 Caucasian Islamic Army members sacrificed their lives together with the Azerbaijani people for the cause. The Caucasian Islamic Army has an irreplaceable role in Azerbaijan's life, ownership of Baku and turning the city into the capital. The liberation of Baku at the time paved the way for the transfer of the capital from Ganja and ensured the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, providing the basis for its modern day boundaries. Enver Pasha  also an elder brother of Ottoman Gen. Nuri Pasha  personally conveyed the message to the Ottoman capital Istanbul that Baku had been liberated from Armenian gangs.

Situation in region one century ago

Emerging from the internal upheaval brought by the fall of the Romanov Tzars in Russia, a Transcaucasian parliament, known as the Seym or Supreme Power of the Transcaucasia, was formed in Tbilisi, the capital current of Georgia, on Feb. 14, 1918, by representatives from the Southern Caucasus. The Muslim faction of the Seym comprised of 44 delegates who were elected from the region to the Russian Constituent Assembly formed after the 1917 Revolution and represented over a million Turkic Muslims in Azerbaijan and the Southern Caucasus. The Muslim faction, or Council of Muslims, was functioning as a Muslim Parliament of Transcaucasia.

Following the persistent claims of the Azerbaijani representatives, who were among the most consistent attendees in the parliament, the Seym proclaimed the independence of Transcaucasia on April 9, 1918. This led to the establishment of the United Republic of Transcaucasia. However, serious contradictions and conflicts among the disparate national interests hampered both the Transcaucasian Seym and the Republic of Transcaucasia.

As a result, the Georgian delegation left the Seym and announced the independence of Georgia on May 26, 1918. Following Georgia, members of the Muslim faction held a separate meeting one day later and decided to declare the independence of Azerbaijan. With this purpose, the Transcaucasian Muslim Council proclaimed itself the National Council of Azerbaijan  the country's lawmaking body.

During that meeting, a statesman and prominent public figure, Mammad Amin Rasulzade, was elected chairman of the National Council of Azerbaijan, though he was not present at the meeting, but in Batumi, Georgia. On May 28, 1918, a historic meeting in Tbilisi adopted the Declaration of Independence of Azerbaijan, consisting of six articles, making Azerbaijan the first Parliamentary Republic in the Muslim East. Being the beacon of hope for the independence movement of Azerbaijan in the 20th century with his remarks, "Once raised, the flag never falls!" Rasulzade played a key role in the formation of the modern Azerbaijani identity.

The government led by Khoyski then came to Ganja in June, and was not able to come directly to Baku because the city was then controlled by Armenian and Bolshevik militants. The newly founded state managed to form the national army on June 26, 1918. The Caucasian Islamic Army came to help the Azerbaijani people in Ganja upon their appeal to the Ottoman Empire, and completed its mission in September in Baku after liberating the city. In December 1918, the first decision of the newly established Azerbaijani Parliament was to place a monument for the "martyred Ottoman soldiers and officers" at the highest location in Baku.

Though its plan and sketches were prepared, the Soviet occupation in April 1920 did not allow its construction. Finally, the monument was erected in 1999-2000. The Azerbaijani Democratic Republic was toppled after almost two years by the Soviet Union, and the country restored its independence only after the collapse of the USSR in 1991. Turkey was the first country to recognize Azerbaijan's independence, and Baku opened its embassy in Turkey in 1992.
North Korea test-fired two ballistic missiles into the sea off the east coast of the Korean Peninsula on Wednesday, September 15 according to Seouls Joint Chiefs of Staff. The missiles were fired from the central county of Yangdok in South Pyeongan province and flew around 800 kilometers (497 miles) at an altitude of around 60 km. They did not enter Japanese territorial waters, according to Japans Defense Ministry, although they did land in Japans Exclusive Economic Zone, The Diplomat writes.

Just a few days after conducting cruise missile tests, North Korea showed its so-called adversaries that it is still developing more advanced weapons by testing ballistic missiles  which is a violation of U.N. Security Council Resolutions  and firing them toward Japan. It was the first ballistic missile test in six months and came after Washington expressed its willingness to renew dialogue with the North.

While we have assessed that this event does not pose an immediate threat to U.S. personnel or territory, or to our allies, the missile launch highlights the destabilizing impact of the DPRKs illicit weapons program, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement, referring to the formal name of North Korea. The U.S. commitment to the defense of the Republic of Korea and Japan remains ironclad, INDOPACOM added.

A few hours after the Norths ballistic missile launch, South Koreas presidential Blue House officially announced its first successful underwater submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) test on Wednesday afternoon. The missiles flew the planned distance and hit a target while President Moon Jae-in was observing, according to the Blue House. South Korea is now the seventh country in the world to possess SLBMs  not counting the North, which has never provided clear information on its own underwater SLBM launch test.

Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, responded by saying that Moons comments at the SLBM launch about deterring North Korean provocations could lead to a breakdown in relations. If the president joins in the slander and detraction [against North Korea], this will be followed by counter actions, and the North-South relations will be pushed toward a complete destruction, she said. We do not want that.

On Tuesday, special envoys of the United States, South Korea, and Japan gathered in Tokyo to discuss shared concerns related to the denuclearization of North Korea and reaffirm trilateral cooperation. Sung Kim, the U.S. special envoy on North Korea, has consistently sent a message to Pyongyang that he is ready to sit down with his North Korean counterparts anytime, anywhere, and with no preconditions.

In addition, Kim and his South Korean counterpart discussed offering humanitarian assistance to North Korea, as the countrys devastating economic crisis is expected to deepen under the U.N.-led economic sanctions and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. After the meeting on Tuesday, Kim urged Pyongyang once again to engage in dialogue with Washington. Pyongyangs response to the U.S. envoys call to embed permanent peace in the Korean Peninsula was test-firing two ballistic missiles.

Also on Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi had a meeting with his South Korean counterpart, Chung Eui-yong, to discuss bilateral cooperation on the denuclearization of the North. However, Wang refrained from criticizing the missile tests of the North.

As the quick succession of missile tests shows, the tense situation between the two Koreas has sparked an arms race on the Korean Peninsula. A recent poll shows that South Koreans support the redeployment of tactical nuclear weapons on Korean soil to counter the Norths military provocations and ensure national security. A majority of Koreans believe that the South needs to develop more weapons to fend off the nuclear threats of the North.

At the summit between Moon and U.S. President Joe Biden in May, U.S. and South Korea agreed to terminate the missile guidelines that were first signed in 1979 to put limits on the Souths missile development program. The South Korean Defense Ministrys initiative to develop more weapons is finding popular support at home.

However, some experts say that the Norths recent military activities could be a positive sign, indicating that denuclearization negotiations  whether bilateral or multilateral  are likely to happen in the near future. Something is going to happen on the diplomatic front and some kind of multilateral negotiations can be made public in the near future, said Andrei Lankov, a professor at Kookmin University in Seoul and a director of Korea Risk Group, in an interview with The Diplomat. Lankov pointed out that the Norths missile launch could indicate the diplomatic solutions are about to come out, as representatives of related countries in East Asia are having meetings this week. North Korea wants to improve their negotiating position and they want to remind all that they exist and [require] attention, Lankov said.

The Norths message has been clear: No U.S. concessions, no dialogue. Two very different paths could follow from here: the next Cold War or a long-term phased denuclearization progress involving multilateral cooperation.
Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov on Wednesday met with the European Union (EU) Special Representative for the South Caucasus Toivo Klaar, Trend reports citing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

During the meeting, the parties exchanged views on the current situation in the region, including the delimitation of the state border, the opening of communications, infrastructure projects, and other issues.

Informing the opposite side about the implementation of the trilateral statements, Minister Jeyhun Bayramov in this context stressed the inadmissibility of Armenia's actions serving to aggravate the situation, its groundless claims and reservations.
The member countries of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) have expressed their readiness to provide assistance to Tajikistan in the event of an aggravation of the security situation on the border with Afghanistan, Daily Sabah reports.

The situation in Afghanistan was the central issue of the joint meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers, the Council of Defense Ministers and the Committee of Secretaries of Security Councils of the CSTO member states that was held Thursday in Tajikistan's capital of Dushanbe.

Secretary-General of CSTO Stanislav Zas said that member states, which include Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan agreed to deploy military forces along the Tajikistan border with Afghanistan to halt threats from terrorism as well as to conduct operations against drug trafficking and illegal immigration.

Zas underlined that if the security situation in Afghanistan deteriorates the "member states will provide Tajikistan with necessary assistance," arguing that the country, which has a 1300-kilometer (808-mile) common border with Afghanistan, may be exposed to sundry threats from its neighbor after the Taliban's power grab.
Turkey logged 27,802 new COVID-19 cases on Sept. 14, the highest number of daily infections since May 4, official figures showed, as Health Minister Fahrettin Koca urged people to get vaccinated, Harriet daily reports.

The country also recorded 276 deaths from the coronavirus, near record daily levels.

Of the cases previously mentioned in the figures, 276 resulted in deaths today, Koca said on Twitter, stressing that the number of cases and then the casualties will decrease rapidly in a short time if unity and solidarity in vaccination and measures are ensured.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has suspended its approval process for Russias Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, pending a fresh inspection of at least one Russian factory manufacturing the shot, The Moscow Times reported.

Speaking at a press briefing of the Pan American Health Organization, a regional branch of the WHO, Assistant Director Jarbas Barbosa said Russias bid for emergency authorization had been put on hold after a number of manufacturing infringements were uncovered during a WHO inspection in Russia in May.

The process for Sputnik Vs emergency use listing (EUL) was suspended because while inspecting one of the plants where the vaccine is being manufactured, they found the plant was not in agreement with best manufacturing practices, Barbosa said Wednesday.
The largest Vietnamese mobile carriers such as Viettel, VinaPhone, and Mobifone are named in the list of 5G networks that iPhone 13 supports.

The largest Vietnamese mobile carriers such as Viettel, VinaPhone, and Mobifone are named in the list of 5G networks that iPhone 13 supports.



At the event where Apple introduced iPhone 13 and a series of iPad and Apple Watch products on the morning of September 15, the US technology company emphasized that one of the advantages of the new iPhone is the 5G connection.

Kaiann Drance, Vice President of iPhone Marketing, affirmed the importance of the 5G network, which allows iPhone 13 to connect with low latency, high download and upload speeds, and enhance the user experience. iPhone 13 is designed to work with many 5G networks in the world.

Later this year, Apple will cooperate with about 200 mobile carriers across 60 countries and regions around the world, twice as many as before, to connect iPhone 13 to 5G.

Among the mobile carriers displayed at the event, there are three major carriers in Vietnam including Viettel, MobiFone, and VinaPhone. In Vietnam, these networks have all successfully tested 5G networks in big cities. It is expected that 5G network will be officially licensed in 2022.

Vietnam is among the first countries in Southeast Asia testing 5G networks. Currently, 5G is available in Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

Hai Dang
The success in welcoming the first international visitors to Phu Quoc Island is expected to have a huge media impact.

In late May 2020, tourism experts proposed opening some islands in Vietnam such as Phu Quoc and Con Dao to international tourists but the proposal never launched. This time, the plan to welcome international visitors with vaccine passports to Phu Quoc Island in Kien Giang Province has been approved by the Prime Minister. The island is expected to have the first guests in October.

Duong Mai Lan, Director of Ascend Travel, says that this is a very good direction to quickly restore the tourism industry of Vietnam in general and Phu Quoc in particular. Opening the door for guests with a vaccine passport has been done by many countries and this is considered the only solution for the tourism industry at the moment.

Tran Quoc Vu, CEO of Vtravel Vietnam, General Secretary of the Tourism Association of Kien Giang Province, said that accepting the vaccine passport is the way for countries to reopen, restore aviation and tourism industries, and create a push to develop related service industries.

However, the localities open for international tourists must also achieve herd immunity, with at least 70% of local people receiving two doses of Covid-19 vaccine. Up to now, no locality in Vietnam, including Phu Quoc - which is allowed to welcome international arrivals in October - has achieved it.

Therefore, Nguyen Tran Hoang Phuong, Chairman of Golden Smile Travel, said that this is a golden time for Phu Quoc to accelerate vaccinations.

Nguyen Ngoc Toan, Director of Images Travel Company (specializing in serving European tourists), told VietNamNet that people who prefer resort tours are mainly Russian and Eastern European visitors. They often travel in November-December so it is suitable for Vietnam to begin welcoming foreign tourists in October or November.

Toan noted that this plan should be carried out as soon as possible. Initially, instead of organizing many flights a day, only 2-3 flights per week will be enough so that tourists will be served well.

He cited Thailand's Sandbox program as a good example for Vietnam. When the first visitors arrived at Phuket airport, it was news on major global media outlets.

Ngoc Ha

Welcoming visitors with "vaccine passports" Van Don international airport in Quang Ninh province was selected to welcome the first visitors with a "vaccine passport" on September 4.
Debt ceiling stalemate as Sen. Mitch McConnell declares that Republicans are opposed to increasing the debt. Republicans will not facilitate another reckless, partisan taxing and spending spree.

The Democratic leadership seems to be adopting the following strategy when it comes to increasing the federal borrowing ceiling, presumably since it is the government's whole confidence and credit that is at stake: Prepare to humiliate Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, the Senate's Republican leader, into caving into your requests.

Democratic leaders are urging Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to back down once more, from his pledge to lead Republicans in opposition to raising the statutory limit on the Treasury Department's borrowing authority. A potential government default is just weeks away, according to Democrats.

"Let's be very clear about this." "With a Democratic president, a Democratic House, and a Democratic Senate, Democrats have every tool they need to raise the debt limit. It is their sole responsibility. Republicans will not facilitate another reckless, partisan taxing and spending spree," Mr. McConnell said in a tweet earlier this week.

In addition to President Biden, Democratic members of the House of Representatives, and Democratic senators, Democrats have every weapon at their disposal to increase the debt ceiling.

They are solely responsible for their actions and decisions.

Dems and Republicans are united in their opposition to another irresponsible, partisan taxing and spending binge.

Democratic leaders, on the other hand, are preoccupied with the completion of a huge 10-year, $3.5 trillion social policy program. A possibly more important date, namely, the deadline for ratification of the Paris Climate Agreement, is fast approaching.

Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen has informed Congress that she would no longer transfer money from one government account to another after October due to the expiration of her authority to do so under the law.

Treasury will not pay all of the nation's creditors unless Congress increases or suspends the limit on the amount of debt that the federal government may issue.

Defaulting on the federal government's obligations would be extremely rare, and it would almost certainly result in a widespread financial disaster  or, at the very least, a crisis of confidence among the countries, banks, and other creditors who keep the federal government afloat by purchasing its bonds and notes.

Democrats, on the other hand, are confident that if they continue to insist on spending billions of dollars on infrastructure, climate change, and social welfare programs, they will be held fully responsible for increasing the debt ceiling.

Conservatives will be encouraged in their election-year assaults on the Democratic Party, which they describe as out of control and "socialist" if a majority of Democrats vote to raise the debt limit.

"Mitch McConnell is the most scrutable leader; he's not a bluffer; all you have to do is listen to what he's saying. He is not going to budge," said a former McConnell aide and political strategist in Kentucky.

Tax cuts enacted by President Donald Trump and unrestrained spending have been the primary causes of our nation's debt ceiling reaching critical proportions.

Increases in the credit limit, as Democrats point out, are akin to paying the nation's credit card account for previous acts rather than future expenditures.

In August of this year, Congress and President Donald J. Trump reached an agreement to extend the debt ceiling through July 31, marking the most recent time the matter has been brought up.

Several days after President Biden took office in August, the Treasury Department increased the nation's debt ceiling to $28.4 trillion. The country surpassed a few days later, less than seven months into his administration.

Secondly, Senate Republicans will likely have to concur to overcome a filibuster and put a debt limit hike to a vote.

For the social policy package to succeed, Mr. McConnell would want Democrats to include a rise in the debt limit.

Current plans are under development to ensure that the proposal passes with 51 votes in the Senate, the number required by budget rules.

Democrat leaders, on the other hand, made it clear many months ago that they would not participate.

Given the difficulties in garnering almost universal Democratic support for the proposal and the many procedural hurdles that would need to be overcome, the plan's passage on the House and Senate floors in time to prevent default is doubtful.

In dealing with the debt ceiling, Democrats claim that they assisted President Trump and Republican leaders. They also claim that cooperation is necessary now, particularly on such a crucial issue as the debt ceiling.

This resulted at the beginning of the "shame campaign."

On Wednesday, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said, "If Senator McConnell and Senate Republicans choose to default to avoid paying debts they helped accrue during President Trump's administration, it will devastate the economy and irreparably discredit our country's financial standing, their party, and themselves."

The Senate Republicans, led by Mitch McConnell, will be remembered as the first people in history to force a default, and every single American will hold them responsible.

Mitch McConnell is not the only target of Democratic strategists. According to whom several Senate Republicans, including Mitt Romney of Utah, Susan Collins of Maine, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, are aware of their dangers.

Democrats will press Republicans in Louisiana, Idaho, Montana, and other interested legislators to support a debt limit increase as part of an emergency spending package that includes money for Hurricane Ida recovery, wildfire suppression, and Afghan refugee resettlement.

Whatever his reputation, Mr. McConnell has been defeated before.

A bill to limit the federal government's post-September 11 monitoring of phone records in the United States was passed in 2015, despite significant opposition from Senator McCain.

During the current legislative session, he pledged to oppose a Senate organizational resolution that would give Democrats control of the chamber unless and until the new majority agreed to preserve the constitutional right to filibuster legislative action.

The American people need to be convinced that the contemporary Republican Party is just too hazardous for the American economy and American democracy, and it is feasible, if not essential, to show this to them.

Several Republicans are worried by the escalation of the brinkmanship in the political arena.

Even as they are outraged that Democrats were able to pass a $1.9 trillion pandemic-relief plan over the united Republican opposition  and that they are now doing the same with their social-policy measure  they recognize the seriousness of the situation if the United States defaults on its obligations.

According to Ms. Collins, Democrats have piled on enormous sums of debt, including the $1.9 trillion stimulus program and an extra $3.5 trillion in debt after taking office.

Democratic Party members will thus bear some of the blame for raising the debt ceiling.

In addition, the author says, "we'll have to wait and see what occurs."

" I don't want our nation to go into default, but we'll have to wait and see."

Shelby, the senior Republican on the Appropriations Committee, told reporters earlier this week that "after a lot of stops and starts," the Senate Appropriations Committee will eventually approve some debt ceiling.

Because the alternative is not desirable, and it is undesirable in both directions."

But Antonia Ferrier, a former McConnell spokesperson, said that if McConnell were not acting by the wishes of the Senate Republican conference, he would not be so emphatic about his position.
Back in July, we reported on the American Airpower Museum, and the success they had encountered in holding their C-47 D-Day Living History Flight Experience event which they held at their airfield in Farmingdale, New York. A nation starved for more than a year of meaningful aviation experiences was eager to take flight in historic aircraft again, and happily, it seems this also proved true when the museum held a repeat performance at the end of July  indeed the demand was so high that they have decided to provide a further opportunity this season for people to fly in their C-47! This is currently scheduled to take place on Saturday, October 9, 2021, with a rain date set for the following day.

Guests will fly aboard AAMs WWII-veteran Douglas C-47B-30-DK Skytrain 44-76717 (nicknamed Second Chance), along with AAMs Living Historians who will deliver a breathtakingly realistic recreation for some of what U.S. paratroopers would have experienced during their preparations for the Invasion of Normandy. There are four flights currently scheduled for for October 9th, and these will take place between 9:00 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. Seats are allocated on a first-come-first-served basis, so the sooner you call to book your flight the more likely you are to pick your perfect spot. To contact the AAM to arrange your flight, please call (516) 531-3950 or (631) 454-2039. You can also book in person by visiting AAMs gift shop (Wednesdays thru Sundays) between 10:30am and 5:00 pm at Hangar 3, Republic Airport, 1230 New Highway, Farmingdale, NY 11735.

Regarding what participants in the C-47 D-Day Living History Flight Experience can expect, its pretty comprehensive! The museums press release describes it as follows

The folks going up on these living history flights are a mixed group, mostly adults, some veterans and theres a sprinkling of young adults and teenagers. Minors under 14 years must be accompanied by an adult. Each guest is assigned the identity of a member of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment. All will get a feel for what it was like as a 101st and 82nd Airborne Division paratrooper making their incredible 1,200-plane airborne D-Day assault when the Allies stormed the coast of northern France.

The crew are all licensed pilots, some being ex-military, who have flown our C-47 and other restored aircraft for several years. Reenactment flights are led by famous World War II Living Historian Robert Scarabino, who is Director of the 101st Airborne Living History Group. With help from his 101st Airborne Living Historians, Commander Scarabino transports his passengers back in time. This D-Day Flight Experience as a WWII paratrooper includes a mission briefing for the Battle of Normandy, the Allied operation which launched the successful invasion of German-occupied Western Europe during World War II; a chance to wear authentic military field jackets, helmets, and gear throughout this mission; the rare chance to take flight in an original WWII-era C-47, one of the few true C-47s still in original military condition.

Commander Scarabino starts off in a small Ready Room with walls covered in maps of the French coast. He lays out the objective, to destroy a Nazi German garrison and secure the causeways leading to the beach. Before dismissing his troops, he will issue them a tourniquet, a box of what was meant to be morphine, plus a reminder to take out a GI life insurance policy. Youve been training hard and fast for two years, Scarabino will shout to the room full of his soldiers. God bless you, and Ill see you in the assembly area.

Once onboard AAMs C-47, Scarabinos troops will experience the sights, smells, and sounds as the aircrafts twin Pratt & Whitney R-1830 Twin Wasp engines fire up  and then they will be off into the blue! Theyll watch the crew operate their C-47 as paratroopers get ready for battle. As they fly over Jones Beach, they line up and get ready to parachute down. They will relive the WWII experience right up until the moment when each paratrooper hooks their parachute ripcord up to the static line rail above them and gets ready to jump! (Many participants have noted how they were sweating with racing hearts by this moment, as it felt so authentic.)

After about half an hour in the air, the flight will return to Republic Airport, taxi back to Hangar 3  and then participants will pull a card from their pocket describing the fate of the paratrooper whose identity they had assumed the teachable moment which brings the reality of the Greatest Generations sacrifice so powerfully home to everyone who takes part in these remarkable flights.

Of course, once back on the ground, visitors can then tour the Museum which contains over a dozen flight-ready military aircraft used throughout the 20th century. Those taking part in the flight experience will have gained a whole new perspective on the exhibits they will explore

The American Airpower Museum at Republic Airport is Long Islands only flying military aviation museum, for more information please visit americanairpowermuseum.com


State Government Commendation for Yangibana RE Project

Perth, Sep 16, 2021 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Australia's next rare earths producer Hastings Technology Metals Ltd ( ASX:HAS ) ( FRA:5AM ) is pleased to announce that it has received the commendation of Premier Mark McGowan and the Western Australian Government for the Company's development of the Yangibana Rare Earths Project (Yangibana), in the State's Gascoyne region.Premier McGowan said Hastings' development of Yangibana was expressly aligned with the State's Future Battery Industry Strategy, which aims to expand the range of future battery minerals that are extracted and processed in Western Australia. Appendix 1 provides a copy of the public commendation that Hastings has received.The Premier's commendation follows the West Australian Department of Jobs, Tourism, Science and Innovation (JTSI) acknowledging that the Yangibana Project represents a strategic opportunity for investment and growth to position the State as a reliable supplier of speciality rare earth minerals.DevelopmentWA approval for ANSIA Lot 600The Premier's commendation coincides with the DevelopmentWA Board approving Hastings' application to enter into discussions for an option to lease Lot 600 within the Ashburton North Strategic Industrial Area (ANSIA) for a tenure period of up to 30 years. ANSIA, approximately 15km southwest from Onslow, is a well-connected industrial precinct that also houses the Chevron-operated Wheatstone LNG project. Lot 600 is the proposed site for Yangibana's hydrometallurgical plant. DevelopmentWA board approval is an important Yangibana Project milestone that enables Hastings to complete detailed engineering, planning and secondary permitting for early works of the hydrometallurgy plant infrastructure.Yangibana mine site fly camp operational, civil works advancingEarly works as part of a $20 million infrastructure scope of activities are now underway at the Yangibana mine site. The 60-bed fly camp is operational and key staff and contractors are operating from the site. Enabling infrastructure works will continue ahead of the plant construction activities and mine development planned for 2022.As Hastings announced last month - see ASX announcement dated 25 August 2021 Site Works Commence at Yangibana Rare Earths Project - the initial construction focus will encompass:- Access roads connecting the mine site to the public Shire roads;- A 2,000m-long airstrip capable of accommodating aircraft up to 50 seat capacity;- A 300-bed accommodation village;- A multi-tower communications microwave link to connect the site to the public intra-state network;- Water reticulation from the borefield to the processing plant; and- Ongoing geotechnical activities.Yangibana Project finance progressing quicklyHastings has made significant progress towards securing the project finance required to fund Yangibana's construction, with extensive due diligence undertaken by potential lenders since late July. Potential lenders are now preparing final credit submissions and Hastings is expecting responses to be received during Q4 2021.Hastings is actively engaged with leading project finance banks in Australia and Europe as well as specialist mining funds in addition to the Commonwealth's Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, Finland's export credit agency (Finnvera) and Germany's state bank (KFW-Ipex Bank).Once firm credit-approved commitments are received in Q4 2021, the drafting of formal loan documentation will be undertaken ahead of completion of standard conditions precedent and first drawdown in 2022.Following the Company's announcement of a significant increase in Yangibana's Ore Reserves - see ASX announcement dated 27 July 2021 Yangibana Ore Reserve Tonnes Up 37%, NdPr Tonnes up 18% - Hastings is updating the project economic outputs. These outputs will also incorporate the latest general market consensus for NdPr pricing. The updated project economic outputs will be provided to investors with the confirmation of the final project debt finance position.Commenting on the McGowan Government commendation and positive progress at Yangibana, Hastings Technology Metals Executive Chairman Charles Lew said:"I would like to personally thank Premier McGowan and the Government of Western Australia for their support of Hastings and our ambition to contribute towards the State's Future Battery Industry Strategy through the development of our Yangibana Project."I am incredibly proud of the Hastings team's commitment and dedication to the challenge of building Australia's next rare earths operation in the Gascoyne region of Western Australia."Early works activity is gathering momentum at Hastings across a number of fronts as we move into readying Yangibana for plant construction to commence."The acceleration in decarbonisation globally in the past 12 months has placed an increasing impetus on the Yangibana Project to play a vital part in the transition to a cleaner energy mix, a message we are hearing loud and clear from our offtake partners in Europe and Asia. Yangibana is in the right place at the right time to support this transition."To view tables and figures, please visit:About Hastings Technology Metals Ltd

Hastings Technology Metals Ltd (ASX:HAS) (FRA:5AM) is advancing its Yangibana Rare Earths Project in the Upper Gascoyne Region of Western Australia towards production. The proposed beneficiation and hydro metallurgy processing plant will treat rare earths deposits, predominantly monazite, hosting high neodymium and praseodymium contents to produce a mixed rare earths carbonate that will be further refined into individual rare earth oxides at processing plants overseas.

Neodymium and praseodymium are vital components in the manufacture of permanent magnets which is used in a wide and expanding range of advanced and high-tech products including electric vehicles, wind turbines, robotics, medical applications and others. Hastings aims to become the next significant producer of neodymium and praseodymium outside of China.

Hastings holds 100% interest in the most significant deposits within the overall project, and 70% interest in additional deposits that will be developed at a later date, all held under Mining Leases. Numerous prospects have been identified warranting detailed exploration to further extend the life of the project.

Brockman Project

The Brockman deposit, near Halls Creek in Western Australia, contains JORC Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resources, estimated using the guidelines of JORC Code (2012 Edition).

The Company is also progressing a Mining Lease application over the Brockman Rare Earths and Rare Metals Project.

Hastings aims to capitalise on the strong demand for critical rare earths created by the expanding demand for new technology products.


Drill Assay Results for Hunter West, Red Mountain, Alaska

Ballarat, Sep 16, 2021 AEST (ABN Newswire) - White Rock Minerals Limited ( ASX:WRM ) ( OTCMKTS:WRMCF ) is pleased to announce the first drill assay results from the 2021 field season at the Company's 100% owned Red Mountain VMS project in Alaska.Hunter West - Drill TestingRecent assay results have been received for the Hunter West drill hole (HR21-07) where massive sulphide was intersected 200m down dip of surface mineralisation. The sphalerite-rich massive sulphide drillhole intercept returned 0.2m @ 11.9% Zinc (Zn), 2.8% lead (Pb), 0.9% Copper (Cu), 63g/t silver (Ag), and 0.2g/t gold (Au), from 184.8m down hole. This polymetallic suite of metals can also be summarised as a 17.5% Zinc equivalent grade.The Hunter West target is a fault displaced continuation of the massive sulphide horizon originally discovered at Hunter in 20182. Initial drilling of this WRM-led discovery in 2018 returned highly encouraging results:- Drill hole HR18-01 intersected 1.4m @ 17.4% Zn, 3.9% Pb, 90g/t Ag & 1.6% Cu, for a Zinc Equivalent grade of 25.7% ZnEq, from 48.2m down hole, and- Drill hole HR18-02 intersected 1.8m @ 13.8% Zn, 3.1% Pb, 56g/t Ag & 0.9% Cu, for a Zinc Equivalent grade of 19.4% ZnEq, from 60.8m down hole.The mineralised horizon at Hunter West can be mapped over one kilometre of strike from the fault offset. Overall mineralisation appears to be similar to Hunter with no increased thickness encountered to date, although it is recognised that VMS deposits do pinch and swell along their length and down dip.The Hunter / Hunter West massive sulphide horizon is hosted towards the base of a distinct and readily recognizable sequence of carbonaceous phyllites at the contact with underlying maroon-green phyllites. The horizon is locally associated with the development of chert beds within the sequence which have proven to be important marker horizons in the district and indicative of a quiet underwater sedimentary basin that allowed sulphides to accumulate forming mineral-rich VMS horizons. The Hunter massive sulphide sheet has shown to be laterally extensive along strike and down-dip similar in thickness to the West Tundra Flats deposit to the east.Work to date has shown that the Hunter massive sulphide mineralisation occurs as an extensive through going and metal-rich horizon. Future work will use a combination of geology, structure and geophysics to identify positions along strike and down-dip where the massive sulphide could occur as thicker accumulations.Future drill hole results from the 2021 field seasonNorth American analytical laboratories are experiencing unprecedented delays during the 2021 field season. The first batch of samples from the first drill hole at Dry Creek have been in the laboratory for 12 weeks with final results now expected within the next two weeks. The Company has begun using a second laboratory to expedite assay results for subsequent drill holes.To view tables and figures, please visit:About White Rock Minerals Ltd

White Rock Minerals Ltd (ASX:WRM) (OTCMKTS:WRMCF) is a diversified explorer and near-stage producer, headquartered in Ballarat, Victoria. The Company's flagship exploration project is Red Mountain in central Alaska. At Red Mountain, there are already two high grade zinc - silver - gold - lead VMS deposits, with an Inferred Mineral Resource of 9.1 million tonnes @ 609g/t AgEq / 13% ZnEq. The Company is also exploring its recently discovered large intrusion related gold anomaly at Last Chance, also located in the Tintina gold belt of Alaska, home to multi-million gold ounce deposits like Pogo, Fort Knox and the Donlin Project. The Company also has the Mt Carrington project, located near Drake, in Northern NSW, which is a near-production precious metals asset with a resource of 341,000 ounces of gold and 23.2 million ounces of silver on an approved mining lease, and with a Gold First PFS and JORC Reserve.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.  SpaceXs first private flight streaked into orbit Wednesday night with two contest winners, a health care worker and their rich sponsor, the most ambitious leap yet in space tourism.

It was the first time a spacecraft circled Earth with an all-amateur crew and no professional astronauts.

Punch it, SpaceX! the flights billionaire leader, Jared Isaacman, urged moments before liftoff.

The Dragon capsules two men and two women are looking to spend three days going round and round the planet from an unusually high orbit  100 miles (160 kilometers) higher than the International Space Station  before splashing down off the Florida coast this weekend.

Its SpaceX founder Elon Musks first entry in the competition for space tourism dollars.

Isaacman is the third billionaire to launch this summer, following the brief space-skimming flights by Virgin Galactics Richard Branson and Blue Origins Jeff Bezos in July. Only 38, Isaacman made his fortune from a payment-processing company he started in his teens.

Joining Isaacman on the trip dubbed Inspiration4 is Hayley Arceneaux, 29, a childhood bone cancer survivor who works as a physician assistant where she was treated  St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. Isaacman has pledged $100 million out of his own pocket to the hospital and is seeking another $100 million in donations.

Arceneaux became the youngest American in space and the first person in space with a prosthesis, a titanium rod in her left leg.

Also along for the ride: sweepstakes winners Chris Sembroski, 42, a data engineer in Everett, Washington, and Sian Proctor, 51, a community college educator in Tempe, Arizona.

Once opposed to space tourism, NASA is now a supporter. Low-Earth orbit is now more accessible for more people to experience the wonders of space, tweeted NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, a congressman when he hitched a ride on a space shuttle decades ago.

The recycled Falcon rocket soared from the same Kennedy Space Center pad used by the companys three previous astronaut flights for NASA. But this time, the Dragon capsule aimed for an altitude of 357 miles (575 kilometers), just beyond the Hubble Space Telescope.

Across the country, SpaceX employees at company headquarters in Hawthorne, California, cheered wildly at every flight milestone, including when the spent first-stage booster landed upright on an ocean platform. French astronaut Thomas Pesquet rooted from the space station on Twitter: No matter if youre a professional or not, when you get strapped to a rocket and launch into space, we have something in common. All the very best from, well, space.

Isaacman noted upon reaching orbit that few people have been to space  fewer than 600 over 60 years. But he added, Many are about to follow. The doors opening now and its pretty incredible.

Their capsule has already been to orbit: It was used for SpaceXs second astronaut flight for NASA to the space station. The only significant change is the large domed window at the top in place of the usual space station docking mechanisms.

An accomplished pilot, Isaacman persuaded SpaceX to take the fully automated Dragon capsule higher than its ever been. Initially reluctant because of the increased radiation exposure and other risks, SpaceX agreed after a safety review.

Now I just wish we pushed them to go higher, Isaacman told reporters on the eve of the flight. If were going to go to the moon again and were going to go to Mars and beyond, then weve got to get a little outside of our comfort zone and take the next step in that direction.

Isaacman, whose Shift4 Payments company is based in Allentown, Pennsylvania, is picking up the entire tab for the flight, but wont say how many millions he paid. He and others contend those big price tags will eventually lower the cost.

Yes, today you must have and be willing to part with a large amount of cash to buy yourself a trip to space, said Explorers Club President Richard Garriott, a NASA astronauts son who paid the Russians for a space station trip more than a decade ago. But this is the only way we can get the price down and expand access, just as it has been with other industries before it.

Though the capsule is automated, the four Dragon riders spent six months training for the flight to cope with any emergency. That training included centrifuge and fighter jet flights, launch and reentry practice in SpaceXs capsule simulator and a grueling trek up Washingtons Mount Rainier in the snow.

Four hours before liftoff, the four met with Musk before emerging from SpaceXs huge rocket hangar, waving and blowing kisses to their families and company employees, before they were driven off to get into their sleek white flight suits. Once at the launch pad, they posed for pictures and bumped gloved fists, before taking the elevator up. Proctor danced as she made her way to the hatch.

Unlike NASA missions, the public wont be able to listen in or watch events unfold in real time. Arceneaux hopes to link up with St. Jude patients, but the conversation wont be broadcast live.

SpaceXs next private trip, early next year, will see a retired NASA astronaut escorting three wealthy businessmen to the space station for a weeklong visit. The Russians are launching an actress, film director and a Japanese tycoon to the space station in the next few months.

Someday NASA astronauts will be the exception, not the rule, said Cornell Universitys Mason Peck, an engineering professor who served as NASAs chief technologist nearly a decade ago. But theyll likely continue to be the trailblazers the rest of us will follow.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz.  Crews searching for a missing man at Grand Canyon National Park made an unexpected discovery this summer.

They found the remains of another person, believed to be Scott Walsh, who was last seen stepping off a shuttle bus at the parks South Rim in 2015. The clothing had blended in with the surroundings, and the body was positioned in a way that made it almost undetectable, said park spokeswoman Joelle Baird.

It happens every once in a while here during searches that we end up finding people we werent expecting, she said Wednesday.

Crews had been looking for Gabor Berczi-Tomscanyi, a Hungarian national who lived in Hong Kong. He was reported missing to police in Las Vegas in late July while traveling in the U.S. Southwest. The car he was driving was located in a Grand Canyon parking lot in mid-August and his body was found a few days later  about 430 feet (131 meters) below the canyons rim at Yavapai Point.

Authorities determined Berczi-Tomscanyi died from a traumatic fall but are still investigating what led up to it.

The other body was spotted during an aerial search for Berczi-Tomscanyi. It was found about 600 feet (182 meters) below the Pipe Creek overlook and about 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) from where Walshs day pack was found in 2015, Baird said.

The fact that he was found was just coincidental, she said. We werent necessarily looking for him, and he wasnt a person that was really on our radar.

Walsh wasnt reported to the park as missing in 2015. His last known residence was in Ecuador. Park officials believe its him because the day pack had prescriptions with his name on them, and a jacket found with the remains had a drivers license issued to Walsh out of Brooklyn, New York, Baird said. He was 56 years old.

The park hasnt been able to locate any immediate family but has talked with friends of Walsh, Baird said.

The Coconino County medical examiners office is working to confirm the identity of the skeletal remains. County spokeswoman Trish Lees said that might require DNA testing.

Unintentional finds dont happen often at Grand Canyon National Park, which covers 1,904 square miles (4,931 square kilometers) and is bigger than the state of Rhode Island.

Eight people are still listed as missing from the Grand Canyon or last seen there over the past 10 years, Baird said.

Rangers doing scheduled training have found the remains of others months and years after they were reported missing. Sometimes, rafters on the Colorado River that flows through the Grand Canyon find them.

In December 2017, rafters on a day hike found the remains of a California man who was last seen on a trail in June of that year.

In 2015, a group of rafters in search of old mining equipment on a hike in the canyon came across the wreckage of a small aircraft with human bones scattered nearby.

Investigators had long suspected the homebuilt plane was piloted by Joseph Radford of Glendale, Arizona, and crashed in the canyon in March 2011, likely on purpose, according to a National Transportation Safety Board report. But until the rafters discovery, there were no visual signs of a crash site.
SACRAMENTO, Calif.  Hours after California Gov. Gavin Newsom beat back a recall election that could have cost him his job, his fellow Democrats in the state Legislature said Wednesday that they will push for changes to make it more difficult to challenge a sitting governor.

That could include increasing the number of signatures needed to force a recall election, raising the standard to require wrongdoing on the part of the officeholder and changing the process that could permit someone with a small percentage of votes to replace the states top elected official.

I think the recall process has been weaponized, Newsom said a day after his decisive victory.

He said the recall rules affect not just governors but school boards, city councils, county supervisors and district attorneys, notably in Los Angeles and San Francisco, where progressive prosecutors with reform agendas are facing recall efforts.

The governor noted that California has one of the nations lowest thresholds for the number of signatures needed to trigger a recall election. In Newsoms case, organizers had to collect nearly 1.5 million signatures out of Californias 22 million registered voters in their bid to oust him, or 12% of the electorate who voted him into office in 2018. By contrast, Kansas requires 40%.

But the efforts faced pushback from those who organized the recall election against Newsom and questions from experts, who said Californias law is better than many others in limiting requirements that make it harder to recall politicians.

Theyre working in opposition of the will of the people when they take action like that to limit our ability to self-govern, said Orrin Heatlie, chief proponent of the recall effort.

There is little benefit for Democrats in pushing changes that could anger voters, said Joshua Spivak, an expert on recalls and senior fellow at the Hugh L. Carey Institute for Government Reform in New York.

From a political point of view, its kind of crazy, and I cant imagine why they would spend political capital on this, Spivak said. Are you going to go to the voters and say, Well, we didnt deal with the homeless problem but yeah, we fixed the recall? It just doesnt seem like a smart move.

Newsom declined to say what changes he favors, saying he is too close to the process as a recall target who could someday face another attempt.

Other Democrats were more specific.

We need to create a system where a small, small, small minority of Californians cant create, cant initiate a recall that the California taxpayers spent almost $300 million on and that frankly distracts and really has an impact on our ability to govern for nine months, Assemblyman Marc Berman said.

State Sen. Josh Newman, who was recalled in 2018 before regaining his seat two years later, said he will propose two constitutional amendments: one to raise the number of required signatures and another to have the lieutenant governor finish the governors term if a recall succeeds.

Newsom on Tuesday became only the second governor in U.S. history to defeat a recall; the other was Wisconsin Republican Scott Walker in 2012. The win cements him as a prominent figure in national Democratic politics and ensures that the nations most populous state remains a laboratory for progressive policies.

The race was seen as a test of whether opposition to former President Donald Trump and his brand of conservative politics remains a motivating force for Democrats and independents as the party looks ahead to midterm elections next year. With an estimated 74% of ballots counted, the no response to the question of whether to recall Newsom was ahead by a 28-point margin.

At the Capitol, Berman and Sen. Steven Glazer, who head the elections panels in their respective chambers, promised bipartisan hearings in the coming months, with the goal of proposing constitutional changes after lawmakers reconvene in January. Changes to the recall law must be approved by voters.

GOP Assemblyman Kelly Seyarto, vice chairman of the elections committee, said Republicans will seek to ensure the proposals protect voters ability to hold politicians accountable.

The two elections committees will look at recall laws in other states and hear from experts on Californias process.

I want to make sure we have is a system where a governor cant be recalled and replaced by someone who gets fewer votes because thats undemocratic, and theres really no other way to say that, Berman said.

Nineteen states have some sort of recall process, Glazer said, but only Colorado has a similar two-stage process. The California system asks voters first whether they want to remove the incumbent. Then, if a majority favors removal, the candidate who gets the most votes on the second question becomes governor. In this weeks race, 46 candidates were on the ballot.

In the majority of other recall states, he said, the only question on the ballot is whether the official should be recalled. If a majority of voters say yes, the office is declared vacant and filled by appointment or a separate special election.

Changes have the backing of the California Legislatures two leaders, both Democrats, and their party holds two-thirds majorities in both chambers. But the final decision will come down to voters because the recall process was enshrined in the state Constitution in 1911.

This is a system that was set up about a century ago and to the extent to which its still valid in its current form, it needs to be looked at for sure, Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon said.

A Public Policy Institute of California survey in July showed that 86% of likely voters approve of having a way to recall elected officials, a sentiment that transcends political parties, regions, and demographic groups. But two-thirds of likely voters also supported major or minor changes, though Republicans and Democrats split over the extent of the changes.

Newsom on Wednesday hailed the election results as evidence that most voters support his approach to the coronavirus pandemic, including mask and vaccine mandates.

Supporters of the recall expressed frustration over monthslong business closures and restrictions that kept most children out of classrooms. Rising homicides, a homelessness crisis and an unemployment fraud scandal further angered Newsoms critics.

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See APs recall coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/california-recall
Copyright  2021 Albuquerque Journal

An alleged robber was armed with a BB gun when he was shot to death by a sandwich shop employee early Tuesday morning in Southeast Albuquerque, police said.

Gilbert Gallegos, an Albuquerque Police Department spokesman, said Wednesday that detectives interviewed the Subway employee and he is not being charged at this point.

This is being investigated as a likely justifiable homicide, he said. The alleged robber has not been publicly identified.

Officers responded around 5:20 a.m. Tuesday to the shooting at a Subway in the 1300 block of Gibson SE, near Interstate 25. Police found a man shot to death inside the shop and discovered an employee was the shooter.

Police said the man had tried to rob the store when the employee opened fire. Gallegos said the robbers gun turned out to be an air pistol.

It was the second time an alleged robber was fatally shot by a employee in just over a week. On Sept. 6, the employee of a Tobacco Town in the North Valley shot an alleged robber as he fled the store.

The alleged robber, 32-year-old Leandro Trujillo, was found on the sidewalk half a block away and died at the scene. Gallegos said that case is also being looked at as a justified homicide.
On Aug. 28, Diane Dimond sounded the alarm about our election system (Clock is ticking on ways to fix the US election system). After admitting Joe Biden is indeed the president of the United States, she then proceeds to spread misinformation about the integrity of our elections.

This is not the first time Dimond has gone down this path. In a May 1 piece, Finally, someone is challenging media bullies in court, Dimond praised the work of Project Veritas in uncovering voter fraud in Minnesota. Actually, Project Veritas concocted a hatchet job. Their specialty is gathering dubious video in deceptive ways and editing it to further their agenda. James OKeefe, the founder of Project Veritas, has been found guilty in court (of entering federal property under false pretenses.) Nonetheless, Dimond claimed that OKeefes methods were merely unconventional.

For her latest piece, she basically cuts and pastes from a Heritage Foundation database that, once the innuendos and hyperbolic language are pulled back, shows how very infrequent fraud has been in our election system. Rather than thousands of cases of voter fraud as Dimond claims, the database claims 1,333. And those numbers are arrived at by looking back at elections local, state and federal going back to Trumans victory over Dewey.

In other words, we are talking about a thousand cases of alleged fraud out of more than 3 billion votes cast. To give some perspective, a thousand seconds is around 16 minutes and 3 billion seconds is around 90 years. There simply is no there there. Just as in other states where followers of the former president have tried, and failed, to show widespread electoral fraud, the only fraud is in the claim itself. Dimond should know better.

She has gone from being a respected investigative journalist to carrying water for a right-wing agenda that threatens to pull apart the very fabric of our democracy. And under the banner of crime and justice no less. If she is concerned about the state of our elections, perhaps she should focus on the vast bribery that occurs under the monikers of campaign contributions and lobbying. But that would put her in opposition to the Heritage Foundation. They support Citizens United as a First Amendment issue because, as they put it, Money Has the Right to Talk.
Copyright  2021 Albuquerque Journal

Judicial leaders fired back at critics of pretrial release on Wednesday, citing research showing that only a small minority of defendants commit crimes while freed from jail pending trial.

An analysis of more than 10,000 felony cases in Bernalillo County found that 95% of felony defendants were not arrested for a violent crime while on pretrial release.

Only 13 of the cases analyzed  about one-tenth of 1%  involved arrests for first-degree felonies while defendants awaited trial, according to a new study conducted by the University of New Mexico Institute for Social Research.

The evidence from research clearly shows that the great majority of people released pending trial are not committing new crimes, said Artie Pepin, director of the Administrative Office of the Courts.

The states system of releasing felony defendants awaiting trial has come under fire from police, politicians and prosecutors who argue that pretrial release has created a revolving door for violent offenders.

In recent weeks, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina have echoed persistent calls for changes to the bail system by 2nd Judicial District Attorney Raul Torrez.

Lujan Grishams spokesman, Tripp Stelnicki, said he would let others speak to the merits of the study, but Lujan Grishams previous position on bail reform has not changed and will not change.

Stelnicki said the 5% of felony defendants arrested for a violent crime on pretrial release is not a marginal figure and can still be utterly devastating to a family or a community.

Lauren Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for Torrezs office, said those few violent crimes committed by people on pretrial release are an unacceptable price for our community to pay. She said Torrez is working with Lujan Grisham to craft a legislative fix that will keep violent offenders behind bars where they belong.

However, court officials believe the study shows the current system works.

Officials with the Administrative Office of the Courts said Wednesday that the new UNM study supports their contention that the existing system does not endanger the public.

UNM researchers analyzed 10,289 Bernalillo County felony cases from July 2017 to March 2020 in which defendants were released from jail while awaiting trial. Among the key findings:

 Of the cases analyzed, only 13 were arrested for a first-degree felony while on pretrial release, or about 0.1% of the total.

 19% of felony defendants released from jail pending trial  1,951 of 10,289  were arrested for new criminal activity during the pretrial period. Most of those arrests were for fourth-degree felonies and misdemeanors, including property, drug and violent crimes.

 Fewer than 5% of defendants  or roughly 480  released pretrial were arrested for new violent crimes. Of the cases analyzed, 95.3% were not arrested for violent crimes during the pretrial period.

Objective research validates the pretrial justice improvements under way in New Mexico, Pepin said in a written statement. Blaming judges and courts for crimes highlighted in news accounts does nothing to make anyone safer.

New Mexico voters approved a constitutional amendment in 2016 that largely eliminated the former system of money bail bonds.

The change was intended to prevent low-level defendants from being kept in jail because they lacked money to post bail. It also authorized judges to order defendants held without bail pending trial if certain conditions were met.

Torrez, a candidate for the Democratic Partys nomination for attorney general, asked the Legislature in 2019 to change the law to require judges to lock up defendants charged with certain violent crimes.

Torrez plans to seek the change in the coming session.

His proposal would create a rebuttable presumption against release in crimes including first- and second-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter, and sexual exploitation of children.

Prosecutors and law enforcement officials have repeatedly slammed judges and the court system for letting out those accused of violent felonies, particularly when they re-offend or abscond.

Most recently, in August, Torrez, Mayor Tim Keller and Chief Medina, took aim at judges after a homicide suspect escaped from a halfway house by cutting off his ankle bracelet. He was later arrested without incident.

In the weeks that followed, Lujan Grisham joined in.

Stelnicki said the governors support for rebuttable presumption for pretrial detention and criminal justice reform in general is driven by her understanding of the importance of ensuring that murderers, rapists and gun criminals are brought to justice.

Jennifer Burrill, president-elect of the New Mexico Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, said its unfortunate that Lujan Grisham and Torrez are having a knee-jerk reaction that is not well thought out or well researched to shift the burden of proof to the defendant.

That basically means they are sacrificing the constitutional rights for their own political career, she said.

Burrill said the report, done by an independent agency, is the kind of evidence lawmakers should base their decisions on.

We continue to ask the Legislature to make sure whatever decisions are made are based on evidence and not some kind of knee-jerk reaction, because that does not make the problem better, she said. Thats the same thing that we need to ask of our leaders on this situation.

Editors note: This story has been changed to correct the percentage of released defendants arrested for a first-degree felony.
Copyright  2021 Albuquerque Journal

Dorothy Donohoe was so excited about her flight Wednesday in a vintage, open-cockpit, bi-wing Stearman aircraft that she forgot to see if she had a parachute.

You have to have a lot of faith, said Donohoe, 97, an Army Air Forces veteran, after she was back on the ground. I havent been up in a small plane in a long time. You get to see the landscape in one fell swoop. And there are no distractions. Not a lot of people talking. I had a good time.

At first, Donohoe, a resident of Albuquerques Sandia Vista Senior Living community, thought the plane ride was an early gift for her birthday next month.

But actually, the ride, which climbed to 1,000 feet and lasted about 20 minutes, was courtesy of Dream Flights, a nonprofit that honors the service of military veterans by giving them a complimentary ride in the World War II era Stearman. Dream Flights present mission, Operation September Freedom, which started Aug. 1 and continues through Sept. 30, is dedicated to honoring veterans of World War II.

Donohoe, who grew up in Wilmington, Delaware, joined the Army in 1944 when she turned 21.

My first husband had been killed in France, shortly after D-Day, and I was going in to win the war by myself, she said. Donohoe completed her service with the rank of master sergeant.

During his flight, Bernie Kuenzels late wife was very much on his mind.

Audrey, up in heaven. I think I saw you up there, he said as the plane rolled to a stop at Atlantic Aviation, near the Albuquerque International Sunport.

Kuenzel, 94, a self-described Minnesota farm boy, served in the Army during World War II and in the Navy during the Korean War. He lives now at Good Samaritan Society  Manzano del Sol Village in Albuquerque.

Kuenzel said he had always wanted to be a pilot but a bad eye denied him.

But I dont think she could have flown the plane without me, he said, a light-hearted reference to Stearman pilot Molly Littlefield. I picked out the place where I lived right away. I expected there to be people up on the roof waving at me.

Ken Eberhard, 94, also a resident at Manzano del Sol, actually had been a pilot. He says he soloed in about 1968 and has 650 air hours to his credit. He said his time as a pilot came back to him while he was in one of the Stearmans two cockpits.

When I was on that flight, I was watching the instruments all the time, he said. I knew where we were all the time and our speed and altitude.

Eberhard is from Cleveland, Ohio. He joined the Army when he was 17 and served with the 77th Infantry Division in the Philippines during World War II.

After the war he went to college and medical school, earned his medical degree, became a general practitioner, moved to Albuquerque in the early 60s and opened a clinic on Fourth Street.

Today was my first time in a biplane, he said. That was fun. I enjoyed it.

Harold Chorley, 97, served in the Navy during World War II, with the Army during the Korean War and then joined the Air Force. Hes from New Hampshire, but moved to New Mexico after retiring from the Air Force and resides at Sandia Vista Senior Living.

Chorleys vision is impaired, so he did not exactly have a birds-eye view during his flight on Wednesday.

The only thing I could really recognize was the interstate  and houses, of course, he said. But it was very interesting.

Dream Flights has been giving veterans rides in its restored Boeing Stearmans for more than 10 years. The plane in Albuquerque on Wednesday has a 450-horsepower Pratt & Whitney engine rather than the 220-horsepower engine more common to the plane. It cruises at 100 mph.

Stearmans were used extensively during World War II to train pilots for the U.S. Army Air Forces and the U.S. Navy. Molly Littlefields father trained pilots in a Stearman during the war and then taught his six kids and his wife to fly in a Stearman after the war.

Molly soloed when she was 19, said Keith Littlefield, Mollys husband, who is accompanying her on the Operation September Freedom tour. At that time, she thought everyone had a Stearman on their farm. Molly has hundreds of hours in Stearmans.

The Littlefields are both retired airline pilots. The present tour, which started in Arlington, Washington, and will end in Mariposa, California, is Molly Littlefields first for Dream Flights.

Dream Flights gives rides to veterans of all eras, but only World War II veterans have the honor of signing the planes tail after completing their flight.

A half dozen or so veterans did so at Atlantic Aviation on Wednesday, including Kuenzel, who got somewhat choked up by the experience.

When you get to this age, you dont think something like this is going to happen to you, he said.
I met them in the worst moments of their lives, the grief so strong I could feel it coursing through the telephone or across their living rooms or in courtroom hallways.

As a former cops and courts reporter, I spoke to a lot of these folks whose lives were suddenly undone by the violent death of someone they loved. Its a part of the job some journalists hate, but I saw it as an honor.

Most of these people were generous and gracious in their thoughts, and sometimes that was because they still wanted to talk about their grief and loss but felt their pain had become a crushing weight on those around them. But here I was, a fresh ear, a dry shoulder, willing to listen for as long as they needed.

Sometimes I listened for years.

If the death of their loved one was by homicide, I often became a guide through the minutiae and machinations of the murky criminal justice system they were pushed into. I was often easier for families to reach than overworked and ever-changing prosecutors and detectives or the victim advocates whose numbers were never enough to cover so many cases.

I accessed records, phone numbers and services for them, explained the process, kept them apprised of pertinent court dates and updates, rattled cages when necessary.

I was thankful I could help, but this isnt how its supposed to work. It occurred because too often the justice system doesnt work.

Fortunately, in 2012 two women with the help of a third opened the Resource Center for Victims of Violent Death, a nonprofit agency in Albuquerque that provides information, referrals, advocacy and support for the families and friends of victims of violence  all at no charge.

Executive director Pat Caristo and victim advocate Joan Shirley, who has since retired, accompanied the families to court, referred them for counseling, helped them understand their rights as victims, helped them understand that in their pain they were not alone.

They are the bridge, they say, across the gaps in the availability of information and resources for victims.

This Monday, the Journal published a guest column Caristo wrote in response to an Aug. 13 editorial that expressed the need for solid solutions to combat the high numbers of homicides in the metro area and to fix the broken criminal justice system.

Caristo, who knows more than most about the human cost of homicide, offered some solutions.

While crime statistics and numbers of killings are astonishing, our loved ones should not be referred to by a number, Caristo wrote. They were living souls, a person who was and is loved and who had meaning.

Those who loved and knew those living souls ask for two specific things, she said:

 Information on how the system works, what comes next, what and who can offer assistance. Caristo suggests providing survivors with detailed information sheets and a list of referrals, resources and contacts  all of which her agency can help provide. She also recommends periodic contact between law enforcement and legal teams and the survivors.

 Understanding that survivors are struggling through grief to comprehend a cumbersome justice system.

Please be mindful that our sense of order and control was taken away, she wrote. We are grieving and picking up the pieces, and we dont speak the language of the system.

Caristo was a longtime police officer and investigator. Her private investigative agency, NIA/NM, has provided pro bono work for families of victims of unsolved homicides and missing children for decades. She has been involved with past victim advocacy groups, including the New Mexico Justice Project and New Mexico Survivors of Homicide.

But if Caristos name is familiar, its because she was the longtime private investigator involved in seeking answers in the July 16, 1989, shooting death of 18-year-old Kaitlyn Arquette.

Late last month, that case made headlines again after Albuquerque police say a man named Paul Apodaca, a prime suspect according to Caristos investigation, confessed to several rapes and at least three homicides, including Arquettes.

Caristo had been hired by Arquettes family. Arquettes mother, author Lois Duncan, continued to quietly support Caristos work with families of victims of homicide, including those who have benefited from the Resource Center for Victims of Violent Death.

More than 32 years ago, Albuquerque police ignored Caristo and the wealth of knowledge she and her agency have. It would be shameful for police and other leaders in the criminal justice system to ignore her again.

It seems she wont be.

One of the people to reach out to Caristo after her guest column appeared Monday was Terry Huertaz, the newly hired victim liaison manager for the Albuquerque Police Department.

Huertaz is no stranger to dealing with the pain and confusion victims of crime face. For years, she was the executive director of the state Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

I cant help but think Huertaz and Caristo joining forces is a good thing for those whose lives have been torn asunder by violence. And no, that wont stop the homicides from happening, but it seems a good first step toward helping those living the worst moments of their lives, their numbers increasing by the day.

UpFront is a front-page news and opinion column.
SANTA FE  Food banks in New Mexico with its high rates of childhood poverty and hunger are watching with apprehension as the federal government boosts standard food stamp benefits in October and extends generous emergency allotments temporarily.

President Joe Bidens administration has approved a permanent 25% increase in food aid over pre-pandemic levels, available to all 42 million SNAP beneficiaries nationwide. The increase on Oct. 1 coincides with the expiration of a smaller, 15% boost in food-aid benefits that was ordered as a pandemic protection measure.

At the same time, emergency allotments in food aid are continuing in most states, including New Mexico, but will phase out as public health emergency designations eventually come to an end.

The allotment often doubles standard monthly benefit payments and the eventual expiration threatens to send shock waves through personal and family finances in New Mexico, where more than one-in-four residents depends on the federal governments Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to help put food on the table.

We enjoy seeing families  low-income families  being able to access their own food. Its certainly a more dignified and respectful way to get the food that their families need, said Sherry Hooper, executive director of The Food Depot that acts as a food bank of last resort for 40,000 people in New Mexico across a sparsely populated area the size of West Virginia.

The Food Depot is here to help if any of those benefits end or if they need additional help, she said.

She said the pandemic has increased the number of people seeking help with food essentials by about 30% in her territory in northern and eastern New Mexico.

The federal government fully funds the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, without state matching funds.

New Mexico lawmakers nonetheless funneled $10 million toward emergency food aid during legislative sessions in early 2021 and November 2020, and the administration of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is lobbying for a more robust emergency nutrition package for the coming fiscal year that starts on July 1, 2022.

The pandemic has been accompanied by an unprecedented outpouring of federal assistance designed to limit disruptions in housing, food security and the broader economy. But some direct emergency aid to low-income households is already winding down.

The federal government in early September ended its supplemental unemployment benefit of $300 a week that went out to roughly 50,000 residents. State finance authorities are sprinting to provide rental assistance to people who have fallen behind on payments to landlords, while a statewide eviction moratorium remains in effect for people who cant afford to pay rent.

On the food-aid front, about 540,000 people were enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program as of August, across a state with 2.1 million residents, according to the Human Services Department that administers federal nutritional benefits.

Agency spokeswoman Jodi McGinnis-Port says the average household SNAP benefit of $237 in July 2019 increased to $477 in July 2021  and will nudge higher in October.
The Rio Rancho Governing Body recently approved giving city employees one-time hazard pay for staying on during the pandemic, as well as ongoing vaccination incentives.

The 5-1 vote came at the governing body meeting Sept. 9 at City Hall.

Councilor Jeremy Lenentine cast the dissenting vote, saying he supported the hazard pay but was concerned the vaccination incentive could create two social classes of employees within city government culture.

That intent is not to try to create something, but that will be the effect, he said.

Federal American Rescue Plan Act money is paying for the incentives and most of the hazard pay. The hazard pay, or premium pay, is newly instituted, while city employees have already started receiving $250 incentives for getting COVID-19 vaccines.

City spokeswoman Annemarie Garcia said the city has provided $93,000 in vaccine incentives, with another batch set to be paid this month.

On the vaccination incentives, City Attorney Greg Lauer said the goal was to encourage employees to voluntarily let the city know who was vaccinated, since the information wasnt available any other way. He said that data is important in risk management.

There isnt any intent to create a two-tier system or a second class, Lauer said.

With the premium pay, employees who worked for the city between March 13, 2020, and June 30, 2021, and who continue to work for the city through this month are eligible for one-time payments of $1,000 for first responders and custodians; $500 for other full-time employees; or $250 for part-time employees.

Employee retention is critically important as employees are faced with challenges associated with the ongoing pandemic, according to city information. Further, the city is hoping to reduce employee turnover during this period when the regions employment marketplace is in a state of flux.

The city will use almost $467,000 of federal ARPA money, plus just more than $86,000 from the city general fund, for the hazard payments and associated payroll taxes.

According to the city, ARPA money cant be used for payments that would increase a workers total wages above 150% of the average wage of their state or county, whichever is higher  $77,385 of income last year in Rio Rancho, City Manager Matt Geisel said.

That cap would exclude many employees, especially public-safety workers who chose to put in a lot of overtime last year, he said. Instead, the city will use its general fund money not budgeted for other expenses to provide hazard pay to employees not eligible under the federal income cap.

Almost $12.9 million in ARPA funds is earmarked for Rio Rancho. The city received half this May and is set to get the other half in May 2022, in accordance with federal guidelines.

Retired Rio Rancho Fire Chief Paul Bearce says goodbye to City Manager Matt Geisel during the Rio Rancho Governing Body meeting earlier this month at City Hall. The governing body recognized Bearce for his 20 years of service with the city.
CANBERRA, Australia  Australia has canceled a contract with France for conventional submarines and instead will build nuclear-powered submarines using U.S. technology because of changing strategic conditions in the region, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Thursday.

President Joe Biden announced on Wednesday a new U.S. security alliance with Australia and Britain that will help equip Australia with a nuclear submarine fleet.

The agreement would make Australia the first country without nuclear weapons to obtain nuclear-powered submarines.

Morrison said U.S. nuclear submarine technology wasnt available to Australia in 2016 when it entered a 56 billion Australian dollar ($43 billion) deal with France to build 12 of the worlds largest conventional diesel-electric submarines. The United States has previously only shared the technology with Britain.

Biden did not mention China by name in announcing the new security alliance, but it is likely to be seen as a provocative move by Beijing, whose military strength and influence have grown rapidly.

Peter Jennings, head of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute think tank, said Australias decision to acquire nuclear submarines was a response to Chinas increasing military might, aggressive bullying of Australia and intimidation of Japan and Taiwan.

We should call the first submarine in this new category the Xi Jinping, because no person is more responsible for Australia going down this track than the current leader of the Chinese Communist Party, Jennings said.

Australia notified France that it will end its contract with DCNS, a majority state-owned company, to build the conventional submarines. Australia has spent AU$2.4 billion ($1.8 billion) on the project since 2016. The first of the French-designed submarines was to have been delivered in 2027.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian expressed total incomprehension at the decision and criticized both Australia and the United States.

It was really a stab in the back. We built a relationship of trust with Australia, and this trust was betrayed, Le Drian said Thursday on France-Info radio.

Morrison said he told French President Emanuel Macron in June that there were very real issues about whether a conventional submarine capability would address Australias strategic security needs in the Indo-Pacific.

Of course theyre disappointed, Morrison said. Theyve been good partners. This is about our strategic interest, our strategic capability requirements and a changed strategic environment and weve had to take that decision.

Unlike nuclear-powered submarines, conventional subs that are traveling long distances must spend time on the surface, where they are most vulnerable, using their diesel engines while they recharge their batteries. The batteries propel them underwater.

Morrison said he expects the first of the nuclear subs, which are to be constructed in the Australian city of Adelaide, will be built by 2040.

He said Australia hasnt decided which class of nuclear submarines it will select and does not know how much the fleet of at least eight submarines will cost. But the countrys defense budget will grow above the current 2.2% of gross domestic product, he said.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told Parliament on Thursday that the alliance with Australia and the U.S. is a new pillar of a strategy demonstrating Britains generational commitment to the security of the Indo-Pacific.

Stressing Britains long-standing close relationship with Australia, he said the alliance also shows how we can help one of our oldest friends to preserve regional stability.

Paul Keating, a former Australian prime minister from the opposition Labor Party and an adviser to the state-owned China Development Bank, slammed the new nuclear alliance, saying materiel dependency on the United States robbed Australia of any freedom or choice in any engagement Australia may deem appropriate.

Left out of the new alliance is Australias South Pacific neighbor New Zealand, which enacted policies in the 1980s to ensure it remains nuclear-free. That includes a ban on nuclear-powered ships entering New Zealand ports, a stance which has seen it clash at times with the U.S.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Thursday that New Zealand wasnt asked to be part of the alliance and wouldnt have expected an invitation.

The centerpiece, the anchor of this arrangement are nuclear-powered submarines, Ardern said. And it will be very clear to all New Zealanders, and to Australia, why New Zealand would not wish to be a part of that project.

Ardern said the new alliance doesnt diminish its close ties to the U.S., Britain and Australia.

Morrison said Ardern was the first foreign leader he called to explain the new alliance. He later called the leaders of Japan and India, which together with the United States and Australia form the Quad security dialogue.

She was my first call because of the strength of our relationship and the relationship between our countries, Morrison said. All in the region will benefit from the peace and the stability and security that this partnership will add to our region.

The Chinese government has long suspended minister-to-minister contact with Australia because of soured bilateral relations. But Morrison said he was willing to discuss the new alliance with President Xi Jinping.

Theres an open invitation for President Xi to discuss these and many other matters, Morrison said.

I believe and hope we would both share the same objective of a peaceful Indo-Pacific where the sovereignty and independence of nations is understood and respected and that enables their own citizens to flourish, he said.

Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Zhao Lijian said it was highly irresponsible for the U.S. and Britain to export the nuclear technology, and that Australia was to blame for a breakdown in bilateral relations.

The most urgent task is for Australia to correctly recognize the reasons for the setbacks in the relations between the two countries, and think carefully whether to treat China as a partner or a threat, Zhao said.

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Associated Press journalists Nick Perry in Wellington, New Zealand, Angela Charlton in Paris and Sylvia Hui in London contributed to this report.

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A previous version of this story has been corrected to show that the first submarine will be built by 2040, not within a decade.
PARIS  The leader of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara died of wounds from a drone strike that hit him on a motorcycle last month in southern Mali, in a French-led operation involving backup from U.S., EU, Malian and Nigerien military forces, French authorities said Thursday.

The French government did not disclose how they identified him as Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi, whose group has terrorized the region. The claim could not immediately be independently verified.

France declared the killing a major victory against jihadists in Africa and justification for years of anti-extremist efforts in the Sahel. French government officials described al-Sahrawi as enemy No. 1 in the region, and accused him of ordering or overseeing attacks on U.S. troops, French aid workers and some 2,000-3,000 African civilians  most of them Muslim.

Experts called the announcement big and welcome news for governments struggling against violent extremists  but warned that ISGS could find a new leader, and that the threat of jihadist violence remains high.

The death of Al-Sahrawi will likely disrupt ISGS operations in the short-term. But it is unlikely to permanently cripple the extremist group, said Alexandre Raymakers, senior Africa analyst at risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft.

He called it a tactical success for Operation Barkhane considering Al-Sahrawis elimination had been a top priority for the French military, but noted that despite the loss of several senior leaders to French military operations over the years, the jihadist group has continued to expand its footprint in the Sahel.

This reinforces our determination to fight terrorism with our partners in the Sahel, with our American and European partners, French Defense Minister Florence Parly told reporters in Paris. We will not leave the Sahel.

Intelligence gleaned from the capture of ISGS fighters earlier this year allowed France to hone in on specific areas where Al-Sahrawi was likely to hide, Parly said.

He was on a motorcycle with one other person when they were hit by a drone strike in the Dangalous Forest near the Niger border on Aug. 17, one of several airstrikes in the region in mid-August, said the chief of staff of Frances military, Thierry Burkhard.

France then sent a team of 20 special ground forces to the region to verify the identities of those hit, and determined that about 10 ISGS members were killed, including Al-Sahrawi, according to Burkhard.

French President Emmanuel Macron announced the death overnight, after authorities took time to verify his identity. According to Macrons office, al-Sahrawi personally ordered the killing of six French aid workers and their Nigerien colleagues last year, and his group was behind a 2017 attack that killed four U.S. troops and and four Niger military personnel.

His group also has abducted foreigners in the Sahel and is believed to still be holding American Jeffrey Woodke, who was abducted from his home in Niger in 2016, as well as a German hostage.

The leader of the Islamic State was one of the biggest criminals and (IS) was one of the most violent groups that killed many people in the Sahel, said Mahamoudou Savadogo a conflict analyst and former military officer in Burkina Faso. He said this death would unburden local communities and governments in the region.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian urged African governments to fill the void and seize back ground taken by the Islamic State extremists.

Rida Lyammouri, senior fellow at the Policy Center for the New South, a Moroccan think tank, called it a huge blow for ISGS but added, there will be someone whos ready to take over. The real success is when (the) civilian population is no longer terrorized by this group and others.

Frances head of foreign intelligence, Bernard Emie, estimated that several hundred jihadist fighters remain in the area.

Rumors of the militant leaders death had circulated for weeks in Mali, though authorities in the region had not confirmed it.

The extremist leader was born in the disputed territory of Western Sahara and later joined the Polisario Front. After spending time in Algeria, he made his way to northern Mali where he became an important figure in the group known as MUJAO.

MUJAO was loyal to the regional al-Qaida affiliate. But in 2015, al-Sahrawi released an audio message pledging allegiance to the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

France, the regions former colonial power, recently announced that it would be reducing its military presence in the region, with plans to withdraw 2,000 troops by early next year.

But Parly insisted that France wouldnt pull out entirely, saying the attack was proof that the international cooperation in the region is bearing fruit.

She also reiterated concerns about reports of the possible deployment of Russian mercenaries in Mali. If Malis government were to reach such a deal with Kremlin-backed private military firm Wagner Group, that would be totally incompatible with the anti-terrorism strategy in the Sahel that led to the killing of the Islamic State leader, Parly said.

Wagner has been accused of human rights abuses in the Central African Republic and involvement in the conflict in Libya. Russia denies any involvement in Mali.

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Ahmed reported from Bamako, Mali. Krista Larson and Carley Petesch in Dakar, Senegal, and Sam Mednick in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, contributed.
GENEVA  The head of the United Nations called Thursday for immediate, rapid and large-scale cuts in greenhouse gas emissions to curb global warming and avert climate disaster.

Ahead of the annual U.N. General Assembly meeting next week, Antonio Guterres warned governments that climate change is proceeding faster than predicted and fossil fuel emissions have already bounced back from a pandemic dip.

Speaking at the launch of a U.N.-backed report summarizing current efforts to tackle climate change, Guterres said recent extreme weather  from Hurricane Ida in the United States to floods in western Europe and the deadly heatwave in the Pacific Northwest  showed no country is safe from climate-related disasters.

These changes are just the beginning of worse to come, he said, appealing to governments to meet the goals of the 2015 Paris climate accord.

Unless there are immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, we will be unable to limit global heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit), said Guterres. The consequences will be catastrophic.

In their report, titled United in Science 21, six U.N. bodies and scientific organizations drew on existing research to argue that there is a direct link between human-caused emissions, record high temperatures and disasters that have a tangible impact on individuals and societies, including billions of work hours () lost through heat alone.

Because of the long-lasting effects of many emissions already released into the atmosphere, further impacts are inevitable, they noted.

Even with ambitious action to slow greenhouse gas emissions, sea levels will continue to rise and threaten low-lying islands and coastal populations throughout the world, the authors wrote.

University of Michigan environment dean Jonathan Overpeck, who wasnt part of the report, said scientists have said this before but its important: The situation is getting bad, we know why and we know how to solve it in ways that leave us, and future generations, with a better, healthier, more sustainable world.

Guterres urged governments to put forward more ambitious plans for cutting emissions by the upcoming U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, including a commitment to stop adding more greenhouse gas to the atmosphere by mid-century than can be removed.

Michael Mann, a prominent climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University, said he agreed with the reports message of urgency but questioned some of the starker warnings it contained.

In particular, the 1.5C threshold agreed in Paris didnt apply to individual years, some of which can be unusually hot due to other factors, he said.

This misleading framing unnecessarily feeds the fears that the public has that weve somehow already crossed that threshold and that it is too late now to prevent, said Mann. We have not. And it is not.

He also noted that the drop in emissions seen during the pandemic could be viewed as a positive sign that significant cuts are possible if entire economies are weaned off fossil fuels.

The United States, Britain and the European Union have already made pledges that  if implemented  would help avert dangerous planetary warming, said Mann.

Kim Cobb, a professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech, was equally reassured that the 1.5C target isnt out of reach.

However, this new report is a stark reminder of the difference between the emissions pathways required to achieve that target, and the reality on the ground, she said. Simply put, we are way off course.

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Jordans reported from Berlin. AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein contributed from Washington.

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Read more of APs climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/Climate

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On Twitter, follow Seth Borenstein at @borenbears, Frank Jordans at @wirereporter and Jamey Keaten at @jameykeaten
ATLIT, Israel  Israels navy has stepped up its activities in the Red Sea exponentially in the face of growing Iranian threats to Israeli shipping, the countrys just-retired navy commander said in an interview.

Vice Adm. Eli Sharvit stopped short of confirming a series of attacks and mishaps on Iranian ships that have been attributed to Israel. But he described Iranian activities on the high seas as a top Israeli concern and said the navy is able to strike wherever necessary to protect the countrys economic and security interests.

The state of Israel will protect its freedom of navigation across the globe, Sharvit told The Associated Press, days after completing his five-year term. Thats not related to distance from the country.

Sharvit was a busy man during his tenure  overseeing a small but well-equipped force responsible for safeguarding Israels Mediterranean coast as well as the Red Sea, a vital gateway for imports from Asia.

While the Israeli navy has an overwhelming advantage over its enemies in the region, it nonetheless faces an array of threats. They include the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which possesses an arsenal of guided surface-to-sea missiles, and Gazas Hamas militant group, which has developed a small squad of naval commandos, as well as the challenges posed by Irans military activity across the region.

One of the navys most important responsibilities is protecting Israels natural gas platforms in the Mediterranean Sea, which now provide some 75% of the countrys electricity.

To the north, Hezbollah has made no secret of its intentions to target those platforms if war breaks out. The Iranian-backed militant group successfully struck an Israeli naval vessel during a 2006 war, killing four soldiers, and is believed to have vastly upgraded its missile stockpile since then. Israel says Iran continues to try to smuggle sophisticated weapons to Hezbollah.

Sharvit confirmed that Israel has intercepted many arms shipments to Hezbollah. We are very vigilant concerning seaborne arms shipments, and every time that a shipment is one of arms, and not something else, we act, he said.

With Lebanons economy in disarray, however, he said Israel has no interest in stopping fuel deliveries meant for civilian use.

Along Israels southern flank, Sharvit said Hamas has a small but formidable unit of well-trained naval commandos.

Hamas frogmen managed to infiltrate an Israeli beach during a 2014 war before they were killed. Since then, the unit has been equipped with state-of-the-art equipment allowing them to travel underwater well up Israels coastline and making them much harder to detect, Sharvit said.

During a recent war in May, Israel says it thwarted an attempt by Hamas to launch a torpedo-like underwater drone at Israeli targets.

Israel has faced criticism over its naval blockade and heavy restrictions on Gaza. Israel says the blockade is needed to prevent a Hamas military buildup. But critics, including human rights groups and U.N. officials, say the policy amounts to collective punishment.

Israels disproportionate and unreasonable restrictions on access to Gazas territorial waters as well as to vital items needed to repair fishing boats harm the livelihoods of thousands, put lives at risk and hinder economic development, said Gisha, an Israeli rights group that has called for the blockade to be eased.

Sharvit, however, said it is difficult to separate the civilian and military spheres because Hamas uses the open waters to test rockets and train its navy commandos. The sea is the biggest test site in Gaza, he said.

But Israels biggest concern, by far, is archenemy Iran. Israel accuses Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons, a charge Iran denies. It also cites Irans military presence in neighboring Syria and Irans support for militant groups like Hezbollah and Hamas.

In recent years, Israel and Iran have been engaged in a shadow war that has seen the killings of Iranian nuclear scientists, mysterious explosions at Iranian nuclear facilities and more recently a series of explosions on cargo ships with Iranian or Israeli connections. In most cases, no one has claimed responsibility.

Sharvit refused to discuss specific operations but said Israeli naval activity in the Red Sea has grown exponentially over the past three years.

Iran for years anchored a ship off Yemen that was believed to be a base for its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. That ship, the MV Saviz, came under a suspected Israeli attack last April.

The Red Sea also has deep strategic significance by hosting key global shipping routes, including the Suez Canal and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. Almost all of Israels imports enter by sea.

We have increased our presence in the Red Sea most significantly, Sharvit said. We are operating there continuously with main ships, that is to say missile frigates and submarines. What in the past was for relatively short periods of time is now done continuously.

He also said that Israel is ready to respond even further away to direct attacks on Israeli shipping. If there were an attack on Israeli shipping lanes or Israeli freedom of navigation, Israel would have to respond, he said.

He said that has not yet happened. The cargo ships believed to have been targeted by Iran in the Persian Gulf had Israeli connections but were owned and operated by businesses based elsewhere. He said such attacks merit an international response.

Yoel Guzansky, a senior fellow and Iran expert at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, described the navy as good but small and cautioned against relying too heavily on it in Israels overall Iran strategy.

I think some operations may be an overstretch, he said, adding that heightened tensions at sea could expose Israels vulnerabilities connected to its heavy reliance on global shipping.

I would put my efforts elsewhere, he said.
THREE RIVERS, Calif.  Firefighters wrapped the base of the worlds largest tree in a fire-resistant blanket as they tried to save a famous grove of gigantic old-growth sequoias from wildfires burning Thursday in Californias rugged Sierra Nevada.

The colossal General Sherman Tree in Sequoia National Parks Giant Forest, some other sequoias, the Giant Forest Museum and other buildings were wrapped as protection against the possibility of intense flames, fire spokeswoman Rebecca Paterson said.

The aluminum wrapping can withstand intensive heat for short periods. Federal officials say they have been using the material for several years throughout the U.S. West to protect sensitive structures from flames. Near Lake Tahoe, some homes that were wrapped in protective material survived a recent wildfire while others nearby were destroyed.

The Colony Fire, one of two burning in Sequoia National Park, was expected to reach the Giant Forest, a grove of 2,000 sequoias, at some point within days. It was unclear Thursday night whether that had happened. The fire didnt grow significantly as a layer of smoke reduced its spread, fire spokeswoman Katy Hooper said.

It comes after a wildfire killed thousands of sequoias, some as tall as high-rises and thousands of years old, in the region last year.

The General Sherman Tree is the largest in the world by volume, at 52,508 cubic feet (1,487 cubic meters), according to the National Park Service. It towers 275 feet (84 meters) high and has a circumference of 103 feet (31 meters) at ground level.

Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks Superintendent Clay Jordan stressed the importance of protecting the massive trees from high-intensity fire during a briefing for firefighters.

A 50-year history of using prescribed burns  fires set on purpose to remove other types of trees and vegetation that would otherwise feed wildfires  in the parks sequoia groves was expected to help the giant trees survive by lessening the impact if flames reach them.

A robust fire history of prescribed fire in that area is reason for optimism, Paterson said. Hopefully, the Giant Forest will emerge from this unscathed.

Giant sequoias are adapted to fire, which can help them thrive by releasing seeds from their cones and creating clearings that allow young sequoias to grow. But the extraordinary intensity of fires  fueled by climate change  can overwhelm the trees.

That happened last year when the Castle Fire killed what studies estimate were 7,500 to 10,600 large sequoias, according to the National Park Service.

A historic drought and heat waves tied to climate change have made wildfires harder to fight in the American West. Scientists say climate change has made the region much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.

A national interagency fire management team took command of efforts to fight the 11.5-square-mile (30-square-kilometer) Paradise Fire and the 3-square-mile (8-square-kilometer) Colony Fire, which was closest to the grove. Operations to burn away vegetation and other fuel that could feed the flames were done in that area.

The fires forced the evacuation of the park this week, and parts of the town of Three Rivers outside the main entrance remained evacuated Thursday. A bulldozer was cutting a line between the fire and the community.

To the south, a fire on the Tule River Indian Reservation and in Giant Sequoia National Monument grew significantly overnight to more than 6 square miles (15 square kilometers), and crews had no containment of it, a Sequoia National Forest statement said.

The Windy Fire, also started by lightning, has burned into part of the Peyrone Sequoia Grove in the national monument, and other groves were threatened.

Due to inaccessible terrain, a preliminary assessment of the fires effects on giant sequoia trees within the grove will be difficult and may take days to complete, the statement said.

The fire led the Tulare County Sheriffs Office to warn the community of Johnsondale and Camp Whitsett, a Boy Scouts camp, to be ready to evacuate if necessary.

The wildfires are among the latest in a long summer of blazes that have scorched nearly 3,550 square miles (9,195 square kilometers) in California, destroying hundreds of homes.

Crews had limited ground access to the Colony Fire and the extreme steepness of the terrain around the Paradise Fire prevented it completely, requiring extensive aerial water and flame-retardant drops on both fires. The two fires were being managed collectively as the KNP Complex.

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Antczak reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press reporter Brian Melley contributed from Los Angeles.
A new daily direct flight between Albuquerque and Hollywood Burbank Airport is expected to begin early next year, according to a release from Albuquerque International Sunport.

The Southwest Airlines flight will begin Jan. 17, according to the release, which called the announcement a testament to Albuquerques growing film industry.

Tickets are on sale now at southwest.com, which shows the two-hour flight departing Albuquerque daily at about 3:05 p.m. The eastbound flight departs California at 11:30 a.m. Pacific Time, arriving in Albuquerque at about 2:25 p.m. Mountain Time. As of Thursday, tickets were listed between $99 and $189 each way.

The flight will be the Sunports first daily service offering connecting the two airports, although Southwest, Delta Air Lines and American Airlines currently offer daily direct service between Albuquerque and Los Angeles International Airport, according to Sunport spokeswoman Stephanie Kitts.

The Sunport is New Mexicos connection to the world, and service to and from Burbank is a big boost as filming continues to ramp up in our state, said Mayor Tim Keller, according to the release. This new service not only provides better connection for our film industry, but also opens new doors for economic development and tourism with southern California  a win for building a gateway to the southwest.

According to the release, Southwest also plans to increase the frequency or number of flights from Albuquerque to several cities, including Dallas, Houston, Las Vegas, Phoenix and San Diego, starting in the first quarter of 2022.
WASHINGTON  President Joe Bidens decision to form a strategic Indo-Pacific alliance with Australia and Britain to counter China is angering France and the European Union. Theyre feeling left out and seeing it as a return to the Trump era.

The security initiative, unveiled this week, appears to have brought Bidens summer of love with Europe to an abrupt end. AUKUS, which notably excludes France and the European Union, is just the latest in a series of steps, from Afghanistan to east Asia, that have taken Europe aback.

After promising European leaders that America is back and that multilateral diplomacy would guide U.S. foreign policy, Biden has alienated numerous allies with a go-it-alone approach on key issues. Frances foreign minister expressed total incomprehension at the recent move, which he called a stab in the back, and the EUs foreign policy chief complained that Europe had not been consulted.

France will lose a nearly $100 billion deal to build diesel submarines for Australia under the terms of the initiative, which will see the U.S. and Britain help Canberra construct nuclear-powered ones.

As such, French anger on a purely a commercial level would be understandable, particularly because France, since Britains handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997, is the only European nation to have significant territorial possessions or a permanent military presence in the Pacific.

But French and European Union officials went further, saying the agreement calls into question the entire cooperative effort to blunt Chinas growing influence and underscores the importance of languishing plans to boost Europes own defense and security capabilities.

Some have compared Bidens recent actions to those of his predecessor, Donald Trump, under Trumps America First doctrine. Thats surprising for a president steeped in international affairs who ran for the White House vowing to mend shaken ties with allies and restore U.S. credibility on the world stage.

Although its impossible to predict if any damage will be lasting, the short-term impact seems to have rekindled European suspicions of American intentions  with potential implications for Bidens broader aim to unite democracies against authoritarianism, focused primarily on China and Russia.

Just three months ago, on his first visit to the continent as president, Biden was hailed as a hero by European counterparts eager to move beyond the trans-Atlantic tensions of the Trump years. But that palpable sense of relief has now faded for many, and its one clear winner, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, is on her way out.

Since June, Biden has infuriated Americas oldest ally, France, left Poland and Ukraine questioning the U.S. commitment to their security and upset the European Union more broadly with unilateral decisions ranging from Afghanistan to east Asia. And, while Europe cheered when Biden pledged to return to nuclear negotiations with Iran and revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, both efforts remain stalled nine months into his administration.

The seeds of discontent may have been sown in the spring but they began to bloom in July over Bidens acquiescence to a Russia-to-Germany gas pipeline that will bypass Poland and Ukraine, and a month later in August with the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan that left Europe scrambling to keep up after it had expressed reservations about the pullout.

Then just this week, Biden enraged France and the European Union with his announcement that the U.S. would join post-Brexit Britain and Australia in a new Indo-Pacific security initiative aimed at countering Chinas increasing aggressiveness in the region.

Unsurprisingly, China reacted angrily, accusing the U.S. and its English-speaking partners of embarking on a project that will destabilize the Pacific to the detriment of global security. But, the reactions from Paris and Brussels were equally severe. Both complained they were not only excluded from the deal but not consulted on it.

The White House and Secretary of State Antony Blinken say France had been informed of the decision before it was announced on Wednesday, although it was not exactly clear when. Blinken said Thursday there had been conversations with the French about it within the past 24 to 48 hours, suggesting there had not been an in-depth consultation.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, who in June extolled the excellent news for all of us that America is back, expressed total incomprehension at the announcement of the initiative. It was really a stab in the back, he said. It looks a lot like what Trump did.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki dismissed the comparison. I would say the president doesnt think about it much, she told reporters. The presidents focus is on maintaining and continuing our close relationships with leaders in France, with the United Kingdom, with Australia and to achieving our global objectives, which include security in the Indo-Pacific.

In Brussels, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell echoed the French ministers complaints. I suppose that an agreement of this nature was not cooked up the day before yesterday. It takes a certain amount of time, and despite that, no, we were not consulted, he said. That obliges us, once again  to reflect on the need to put European strategic autonomy high on the agenda.

Indeed, the 27-member European Union on Thursday unveiled a new strategy for boosting economic, political and defense ties in the Indo-Pacific, just hours after the announcement by the U.S., Britain and Australia. The EU said the aim is to strengthen and expand economic relations while reinforcing respect of international trade rules and improving maritime security. It said it hopes the strategy will result in more European naval deployments to the region.

U.S. officials brushed aside the French and EU complaints on Thursday.

There are a range of partnerships that include the French and some partnerships that dont, and they have partnerships with other countries that dont include us, Psaki said. That is part of how global diplomacy works.

Speaking alongside Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and the Australian defense and foreign ministers, Blinken said there is no regional divide with Europe over Indo-Pacific strategy. We welcome European countries playing an important role in the Indo-Pacific, he said, calling France a vital partner.

But how closely they will work together remains to be seen.



AP writers Darlene Superville, Sylvie Corbet in Paris and Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed to this report.
PHOENIX  An attorney representing the Republican-controlled Arizona Senate told a judge Thursday that the long-delayed review of 2020 election results in the states most populous county will be released next week.

The results of the so-called audit of President Joe Bidens win and their unprecedented review of Maricopa Countys vote counts, elections procedures, voting machines and related computers will be made public on Sept. 24, attorney Kory Langhofer told the judge.

Langhofer was ordered to say when the final report would be ready by Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Michael Kemp at the conclusion of a hearing on a public records lawsuit related to the review. The Senate had fought to keep its records and those of its outside contractors secret, but Kemp ruled both the Senates records and those of its outside contractors must be made public.

The Arizona Court of Appeals upheld the ruling on the contractors records last month in a decision allowed to stand Tuesday by the Arizona Supreme Court.

The Senate has already turned over a raft of records after losing the lawsuit filed by the watchdog group American Oversight. But so far, Cyber Ninjas and other contractors that conducted the recount have not turned over any documents.

Langhofer told Kemp on Thursday that he expects the companies to give the records to the Senate, which will review them and release any that are not subject to being withheld due to legislative or attorney-client privilege. He also said several thousand Senate records withheld on privilege grounds continue to be a matter of dispute between the Senate and the watchdog group, and Kemp may ultimately need to review them and decide if they should be made public.

Senate President Karen Fann told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Cyber Ninjas and the contractor had not yet handed over the completed audit, which was launched amid unfounded claims by former President Donald Trump that he lost in Arizona and other battleground states because of fraud.

I havent even seen the whole report, Fann said Ive been able to see some bits and pieces and mostly that was just in conversations.

When pressed by the judge to say whether the Senate has received the draft report, Langhofer said not yet.

I believe the Senate is in possession of, or its agents are in possession of, a draft report, but not from Cyber Ninjas, he said. There were some ancillary reports, but the main one the Senate does not have yet.

Fann has repeatedly said that Senate Republicans plan to review the report and may make changes before it is released.

But American Oversight attorney Keith Beauchamp said that he wants the draft report released immediately.

Your honor, our view is we ought to receive that today if its in their possession and its a public document, Beauchamp said.

Langhofer disagreed, arguing that a draft report is not public, and the two sides agreed to take that issue up later.

Multiple courts have now confirmed that these records belong to the public, not to Cyber Ninjas, and they must be released, American Oversight Executive Director Austin Evers said in a statement after the hearing ended. With the Senate apparently releasing its audit report next Friday, its more urgent than ever for the public to get the full story about how this process was conducted.

Senate Republicans issued subpoenas to Maricopa County for all 2020 ballots, the machines that counted them and other data in the states most populated county early this year.

The materials were given to contractors with little to no election experience for what Fann calls a forensic audit. Election experts say the 2020 election was secure and well-run, and the contractors are using bizarre and unreliable procedures. Maricopa County has refused further participation.

Even after the report is released, the Senate plans to do additional probes of the countys election systems. The Senate issued additional subpoenas in late July seeking access to the countys computer routers, but the Board of Supervisors refused to hand them over, saying elections equipment was never hooked into the countys system and handing over the routers would compromise law enforcement, health and other sensitive records.

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich issued a decision late in August that said the county must comply. He said an earlier judicial ruling said Senate subpoenas were valid, and the county would be penalized under a state law that withholds shared revenues to local governments if they dont hand over the routers. He gave the county until Sept. 27 to comply.

The Republican-dominated Board of Supervisors has discussed the decision in closed session several times without taking action. But on Thursday it posted an agenda for an special Friday afternoon meeting where it said it may decide how to proceed. Brnovich had suggested a negotiated settlement.

The audit that began in April was originally set to take about 60 days, but there have been repeated delays. Most recently, Cyber Ninjas canceled plans to submit its report last month saying several of its team members contracted COVID-19 and had serious symptoms.

Fann, Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan, volunteers who worked on the audit and several Republican senators who have vocally backed the review gathered Wednesday night for a celebratory reunion, according to numerous social media posts. GOP state Sen. Wendy Rogers in one post called the volunteers Patriots, everyone of them  real people who did the Lords work.

Other Republican-controlled battleground states are also considering or starting reviews of Bidens 2020 election wins. On Wednesday, Pennsylvania GOP senators pressed ahead with conducting their own forensic investigation of the election.

___

Associated Press reporter Jonathan J. Cooper contributed.
SACRAMENTO, Calif.  The recall election that once threatened to derail California Gov. Gavin Newsoms political future has instead given it new life, offering a rare midterm vote of confidence that could fuel an ambitious legislative agenda featuring new coronavirus vaccine mandates, housing for the homeless and health insurance for people living in the country illegally.

Nearly 64% of voters in the recall election voted to keep Newsom in office, according to early returns, giving him a larger margin of victory so far compared to his 2018 election.

On Wednesday, one day after surviving the recall that a few months ago had him sweating, Newsom indicated he planned to go even bigger in 2022 as he heads into his reelection campaign.

When you face a recall  it sharpens your focus about time, Newsom said. Things that you may have looked at on the horizon and said, You know over the next two, three years, we want to get this done, you start looking very differently and say, Whats possible in the next two to three months?'

Newsom was not afraid to take big swings in his first term, often eschewing the moderate tendencies of some of his predecessors. While he hasnt always satisfied the most liberal wing of the Democratic Party, he has relished governing what he calls a nation state given its status as the nations most populous.

In his first three years in office, Newsom signed legislation that allowed college athletes to get paid, gave free lunch to every public school student and issued executive orders aiming to ban the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035 and end all oil extraction in the state by 2045.

This year, he has already issued orders requiring all of the states roughly 2.2 million health care workers to get vaccinated to keep their jobs. Hes also required all state workers and public school teachers and staff to either get vaccinated or submit to weekly testing.

President Joe Biden has already ordered large employers to require their workers be vaccinated. But some Democrats in Californias Legislature want to go further by applying that standard to companies with fewer than 100 employees and to schoolchildren old enough to be immunized.

State Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks, a Democrat from Oakland who is preparing to introduce vaccine verification legislation, said the Newsom campaign didnt hold back from saying vaccine mandate in campaign ads.

And the voters responded to it. I see that, I think my fellow legislators see that, she said. We cant be intimidated by a very small group that live in baseless conspiracy theories.

Some local governments are already doing this. San Francisco requires proof of full vaccination for a host of indoor activities, including dining inside and visiting the gym. Los Angeles County will implement a similar policy for customers and workers at bars and nightclubs starting next month. The Los Angeles Unified School District will soon require all eligible students to be inoculated.

Newsom said Wednesday that he supports those decisions and urged other local governments to do the same thing but hes satisfied with local rules right now, though he said there are conversations happening about a statewide vaccine mandate for public school students.

The pandemic has also intensified efforts to increase the number of people who have health insurance in California for primary and preventive care. The UC Berkeley Labor Center estimates nearly 3.2 million Californians wont have health insurance next year, the largest percentage of them immigrants who are living in the country illegally.

Newsoms budget this year offers government-funded health insurance to low-income adults 50 and over who are living in the country illegally, but some Democrats want him to expand coverage to all low-income adults, regardless of their immigration status.

I believe this year was a significant down payment for us to work toward universal coverage, said Assemblyman Joaquin Arambula, a Democrat from Fresno who chairs the budget subcommittee that oversees health care spending.

Newsom indicated Wednesday that he plans to renew his focus on housing the homeless. He devoted his entire 2020 State of the State address to that issue, but the pandemic soon hit and quickly shifted his focus to public health. Still, Newsom pointed to his administration getting 6,000 housing units for the homeless online in only five-and-a-half months, a remarkable pace made possible by the urgency of the pandemic.

He added: Thats now focused my energy to say what more can we do in that space with that same sense of urgency on climate change, on issues of affordability of housing?

Advancing those issues will require reaching consensus among Democrats who dominate the state Legislature, a task thats not as easy as Californias progressive reputation would suggest.

But Michael Bustamante, a Democratic consultant who worked for former Democratic Gov. Gray Davis during the recall campaign that led to his 2003 ouster, said Newsom should not hold back.

When you have a near-death experience, it seems to me that people tend to become far more appreciative of the life that they have, he said. Newsom almost has nothing to lose and everything to gain by thinking big, by being aggressive.
Covid-19 vaccines for children between the ages of 5 and 11 could get the green light from the US Food and Drug Administration sometime this fall, Dr. Anthony Fauci said.

"If you look at the studies that we at the (National Institutes of Health) are doing in collaboration with the pharmaceutical companies, there will be enough data to apply for an emergency use authorization both by Pfizer, a little bit later by Moderna," Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN's Jake Tapper on Tuesday.

"I believe both of them -- with Pfizer first -- will very likely be able to have a situation where we'll be able to vaccinate children. If the FDA judges the data sufficient enough, we could do it by the fall," he added.

Also Tuesday, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said data on how the company's Covid-19 vaccine works in children between 5 and 11 should be submitted to the FDA by the end of this month or the first week of October. Vaccine data for younger children will soon follow, he added.

"We are working also on younger kids actually all the way down to 6 months old, between 6 months all the way to 5 years old," Bourla said at an event hosted by the ResearchAmerica Alliance. "Those data will be available a month, month and a half later. So it will be end of October, beginning of November."

Acting FDA Commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock and Dr. Peter Marks, who heads FDA's vaccine division, said in a Friday statement the agency will carefully review data for a vaccine for children 5 to 11 once it's available and is "prepared to complete its review as quickly as possible, likely in a matter of weeks rather than months."

But "the agency's ability to review these submissions rapidly will depend in part on the quality and timeliness of the submissions by manufacturers," they added.

How to keep children safe

The United States has averaged 171,394 new Covid-19 cases every day over the past week, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. That's a 33% increase from one month ago.

And over the past week, an average of 1,843 Americans have died every day from Covid-19, according to Johns Hopkins data. That's almost triple the average daily death rate from one month ago.

Covid-19 cases are surging among children, too, as schools have welcomed students back -- in many cases without mask mandates. The latest weekly count of new pediatric cases -- 243,373 -- marks about a 240% increase since July, the American Academy of Pediatrics said Monday.

Factors including school reopenings without proper masking have likely contributed to the increase, Fauci said Wednesday.

"Also, we've got to realize that this is happening in the context of the Delta variant, which is remarkably more transmissible, so we're getting more cases in everyone," Fauci said. "When you get a highly transmissible virus that's going around the community, you're going to see a lot more children get infected.

Masks and vaccines are key to keeping children safe in schools, he added.

"If you surround the kids with vaccinated people and you have everybody wear a mask, you can get a situation where the children will be relatively safe in school," Fauci said.

But putting mask mandates in schools remains a heavily debated topic. In New York, two Long Island public school districts are suing the governor and state health commissioner over a statewide school mask mandate imposed ahead of the school year's start.

In Ohio, Gov. Mike DeWine said Tuesday children's hospitals are overwhelmed with Covid and respiratory cases and encouraged schools to issue mask mandates. Just over 54% of the state's public school students are under a mask requirement. The governor said he hasn't implemented a statewide mandate because the state's legislature made it clear they will "take it off" and create further confusion.

"Reasonable people may disagree about a lot, but we can all agree that we must keep our children in the classroom," DeWine said.

In Iowa, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order Monday that will allow the state's school districts to mandate masks in classrooms. The state will appeal, said Gov. Kim Reynolds, who signed a law in May that bans local entities and school districts from issuing their own mask mandates.

"Today, a federal judge unilaterally overturned a state law, ignored the decision by our elected legislature and took away parents' ability to decide what's best for their child," Reynolds said.

Des Moines Public Schools Superintendent Thomas Ahart called the court's decision "welcome news." Effective Wednesday, students, staff and visitors will be required to wear masks in Des Moines schools, the district said a news release.

Local leaders at odds against mandates

There has been tension in various states over mandates for both vaccines and masking.

Despite Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's restrictions on who can mandate vaccinations, the San Antonio Independent School District has required district employees to be vaccinated against the virus. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit Monday against the district and Superintendent Pedro Martinez over the mandate.

"The decision to openly violate state law and devote district resources to defending Superintendent Martinez's unlawful actions is irresponsible," Paxton said in a news release. "But if school districts decide to use their limited funding to try to get away with breaking the law, my office will oppose them and uphold the rule of law in Texas."

Following President Joe Biden's announcement that businesses of more than 100 employees must require their workforce to get vaccinated or regularly tested, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has said that cities and counties in Florida requiring employees to show proof of vaccination or post-infection recovery will face $5,000 fines per violation.

The mayor of Orange County, Florida, said that although the consequences could be costly, the county will not overlook the well-being of its community.

"It could be a lot of money. There is no question about it," Mayor Jerry Demings said at a news conference in reference to the fines. "At the end of the day, it is all of our goal to protect the greater collective of the people in our community, to keep them safe. That's the fundamental role of government."

Debate over booster doses

There is also is a debate over the need for -- and the timing of -- vaccine booster doses.

The Biden administration had announced plans to roll out a third dose as early as next week, pending FDA approval, but some experts say it is not needed yet.

But an international group of vaccine scientists, including some from the US Food and Drug Administration and the World Health Organization, published a paper Monday in The Lancet saying the current evidence does not appear to support a need for booster shots in the general public right now.

The authors of the paper include two senior FDA vaccine leaders, Dr. Philip Krause and Marion Gruber, who will be stepping down in October and November, the FDA announced late last month.

Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine, said he has seen evidence that boosters may "keep people out of the hospital, prevents long Covid ... and could restore interrupting asymptomatic transmissions."

"From the data from Israel, I come out strongly in favor of the boosters," Hotez said.

The FDA is scheduled to meet about boosters Friday, though the agency has been late in getting data to its panel of outside vaccine experts, two sources told CNN.

Committee members will receive materials ahead of the meeting, FDA spokesperson Stephanie Caccomo told CNN.

"Our vaccine team is working around the clock on many priorities, including preparing for Friday's (Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee) meeting," she said.

The-CNN-Wire

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. - A Butte County woman has pleaded guilty to making false statements in a FEMA application in connection to the Camp Fire, according to Acting U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert.

Court documents show FEMA provided disaster benefits to people who either lost their primary home or it was destroyed.

53-year-old Kristen Canapary filed a claim for the disaster benefit and falsely listed a rental home she used to live in as her primary home at the time of the Camp Fire.

RELATED: 2 women indicted for Camp Fire FEMA fraud

According to the property owner, Canapary left the home earlier in 2018 and the home was vacant and undergoing renovations.

Canapary was given money for rental assistance and the replacement of personnel property.

She was given about 13 months of temporary FEMA housing.

Canapary is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 16 and faces a maximum statutory penalty of 30 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
OROVILLE, Calif. - Five people were arrested after deputies located a dead body inside a vehicle near an illegal pot farm, according to the Butte County Sheriffs Office.

On Saturday, deputies with the Butte County Sheriffs Office located a vehicle without a license plate and was parked in a rural area on Forbestown Rd.

Deputies located a dead body inside the rear of the car and had the vehicle towed to be processed by detectives and personnel from the Department of Justice.

The dead person was identified as 33-year-old Melvin Garcia-Vargas of Sacramento. Detectives found evidence that led them to believe Garcia-Vargas was shot in the lower body.

On Saturday, detectives contacted Carlos Garcia-Hernandez, the father of Garcia-Vargas, and obtained a search warrant for his home in Sacramento.

During the investigation, detectives learned that Garcia-Vargas died at illegal marijuana grow site in the Squaw Flat Rd. area of Forbestown.

More information that detectives gathered was Garcia-Hernandez and his two other kids, Juan and Ronald Garcia-Vargas, moved and concealed Melvins body.

A search warrant was issued for the marijuana grows on Dquaw Flat Rd. where the detectives believed Melvin was shot. They found a firearm and 600 marijuana plants.

On Sunday, the detective learned Carlos, Juan and Ronald had another marijuana grow located in the area of Knob Hill Ave. in Oroville.

The swat team served a search warrant at the Knob Hill Ave. location where they found five firearms and over 1,400 marijuana plants.

Detectives believe Melvin may have shot himself accidentally while working at the illegal marijuana grow in Forbestown but the investigation is ongoing.

They also believe the body was moved in an attempt to conceal the dead body and prevent the marijuana grows from being located.

Carlos, Juan and Ronald were arrested. Detectives also arrested Jaun Cruzcupido and Edgar Najera who are from Sacramento.
REDDING, Calif.- The Redding Police Department and Shasta County Health and Human Services have teamed up to create the Crisis Intervention Response Team (CIRT).

This team of two officers and one mental health professional aim to help people going through a mental health crisis by assisting them in finding help and resources.

The CIRT began operating last Monday and has already worked on 24 calls to 911, including two follow-up calls.

Most of these calls would otherwise be dealt with by a police officer, but now they are being dealt with by mental health professionals like mental health clinician Nichole Brandon.

"People are calling 911 more than they should be because of the mental health piece, and they get tagged that they need some type of attention or help," Brandon said. "And so, then we show up and we investigate and get to the bottom of it and we try to figure out what kind of treatment they need and how we can help that person get connected to the service they need."

The team has also gone into homeless camps twice to recommend mental health services to those who need it and plans to do more soon.

Members of the plain-clothed team say they take a less intimidating approach to these calls than an officer alone might, helping in situations officers aren't explicitly trained for.

Members say the goal is to help, not incarcerate.

"The goal of the program is to not take people to jail when theyre threatening or having you know mental health issues, and of course not taking them to the ER all the time as well," Brandon said. "So, were trying to find a happy medium and get them connected to whoever is providing them their mental health treatment."

Paige Greene, the Adult Services Director at Shasta County Health and Human Services, told Action News Now that the officers on the CIRT team enthusiastically volunteered to join.

Redding police officers Devin Ketel and Teffy Snyder also went through the same training Brandon went through before joining the team.

Brandon told Action News Now that the CIRT has already helped people avoid hospitalization, with one person voluntarily entering the Crisis Residential Unit at Shasta County Health and Human Services.

The unit is an alternative to so-called 51-50 calls where patients are hospitalized for up to 72 hours.

The CIRT team isn't the first program of its kind, even in the Redding area.

Hill County's Mobile Crisis Outreach Team (MCOT) does a similar service to help people during a mental health crisis, except that the CIRT answers 911 calls.

While the CIRT only services Redding right now, Greene said she hopes the team will grow to service the rest of Shasta County.

"This mobile crisis team as we continue to grow will be going into other outlying areas, probably not as far as Burney just because of the time, but to Anderson, to Cottonwood, to Shasta Lake, to really be able to go out into those outlying areas," Greene says.

At the moment, the CIRT only works five days a week.

Timothy Renault, Sargent for the Redding Police Department Neighborhood Police Unit, told Action News Now that he hopes they can add a second full-time CIRT team in the future to better assist people in Shasta County.
LASSEN COUNTY, Calif. - On Sunday at approximately 8 a.m., the Lassen County Sheriffs Office Dispatch Center received several 911 calls regarding a structure fire on U.S. Highway 395 in Johnstonville.

Calls reported hearing multiple explosions before seeing a garage on fire, according to the Lassen County Sheriffs Office. Deputies and fire personnel responded to the incident.

The Lassen County Sheriffs Office said when deputies arrived on the scene, a detached garage was fully engulfed with fire.

The sole occupant of the house met with deputies in the driveway. Deputies were told there may have been someone inside the garage.

Fire personnel arrived shortly after deputies but neither were able to access the garage due to the extreme heat of the structural fire. Firefighters aggressively fought the fire as it began to spread to trees and the home on the property, the Lassen County Sheriffs Office said.

After the fire was extinguished a deceased person was found in the garage.

An arson and bomb investigator from the State Fire Marshalls Office and the Butte County Bomb Squad was requested by deputies after securing the scene.

Investigators later arrived and assisted deputies in processing the scene. The remains of the deceased person were sent to Washoe County Regional Medical Examiners Office for autopsy.

The investigation is ongoing and anyone with information is being asked to contact the Lassen County Sheriffs Office.
BBDO Singapore and Heckler Singapore together with The On-Demand Delivery App and Asia-based technology company, Lalamove, have brought their newest campaign to life in SEA and LATAM.

As one of the biggest players within the on-demand delivery service providers, Lalamove aims to stand out and tell their target audience in South East Asia and Latin America about their excellent services through this fun, quirky, energetic and ownable campaign. The campaign was remotely directed by Hecklers Sao Paulo based duo Nylon, comprising Boca Ceravolo and Caio Montanari. The film was shot across two days in studio in Singapore and remotely attended by Lalamove in Hong Kong.

Set in a bright, playful, colour block aesthetic, the campaign features a 30 film and five shorter films that focus on specific features such as service, speed, reach, fleet and value for money. Working closely and remotely with global clients and their partners, from Hong Kong and Singapore to Sao Paulo, BBDO and Heckler created close to 120 campaign assets that will be showcased on all channels in 8 markets across SEA and LATAM with various bespoke localised elements in each edit including vehicles, UI and talent.

"Just Lalamove it" as a concept has always existed, but has not yet been brought to life in the way it is for this campaign. BBDO collaborated with SongZu for this project to compose a piece of music that reflects the brands personality and that is also ownable to Lalamove. Once you hear the song, you can't stop listening to it. What BBDO and Song Zu created is a sonic signature that's unique to Lalamove. By building a sound asset that can identify the brand without saying a word.

A brand name like "Lalamove" is the perfect opportunity to use the brand name as a verb. BBDO wanted to create a catchy song to evoke the relevant emotions to trigger memories for brand awareness and high recall.

Gerard Fitzpatrick said: "The song was created by one of Song Zu's most experienced composers who was exceptional at making engaging musical jingles. It's not an easy thing to do. It's got to sound likeable. Good repetition in the medley is what makes it stand out."

Ensuring Lalamove was Instagrammable and trendy as well as being on-brand was vital for this campaign, said Guan Hin Tay, CCO BBDO Singapore.So, the team made sure that we optimized the brand colours and made creative, eye-catching content telling a story of what Lalamove offers and one that would stand out amongst the sometimes overwhelming, endless content of today. The music we had composed with Songzu is both catchy and fun and we hope that people will enjoy getting the jaunty lyrics and Lalamove brand recall stuck in their minds as much as we have. he continued.

People are shopping online more than ever since the pandemic, and the demand for delivery services is continuing to rise. This rebranding will position Lalamove as the consumer's first choice for digital last-mile delivery service.`

Hecklers Executive Producer Charu Menon said, We enjoyed working with the creative team at BBDO and crafting these vibrant monochromatic CG worlds.

The campaign launched in September in SEA (Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia) and LATAM (Mexico and Brazil).

Lets see who gets excited to Just Lalamove it with this catchy and joyful tune.

Credits:

Client: Lalamove Hong Kong

Alex Kwan - Head of Marketing

Kristie Cheung - Global Head of Marcom

Charlie Liu - Global Marketing Manager

Agency: BBDO Singapore

Monica Hynds: General Manager

Guan Hin Tay: Chief Creative Officer

Derek Chia: Senior Art Director

Joe Yeoh: Senior Copywriter

Chermaine Chong: Senior Account Executive

Anne Lee: Head of Operations

Jaye Ong: Producer

Production & Post: Heckler Singapore

Charu Menon: Executive Producer

Boca Ceravolo: Co Director (Nylon)

Caio Montanari: Co Director (Nylon)

Shoot Producer: Maryann Chan

DOP: Adrian Tan

Assistant Director: Tiffany Ng

VFX Supervisor: Cody Amos

Senior Motion Designer: Adrien Girault

Senior VFX Producer: Amy Jarman

Editor: Meghan Dwyer

Motion Designer: Gareth Chang, Woon Yeng Chen, Ruiting Wang

Compositors: Bertrand Polvika, Nitin Amin

Online: Abi Santos

IO: Johnson Lim

Head of VFX: Jamie Watson

Audio: SONGZU Singapore

Donny - Executive Producer

Gerard - Executive Creative Director
Authored by Niranjan Gidawani, Consultant Director | Member UAE Superbrands Council

Every month, a few hundred thousand people flock to the website of a famous German car brand to check out on its new range of cars. The market for new luxury cars has taken a setback over the past several months. As per Statista, the revenues in the luxury car market segment in the UAE are likely to be around 273 million dollars in 2021. This would average to around 2100 vehicles in a year. In India, the demand is around 40,000 vehicles in a year.

Now, if this famous carmaker wants to find out who might be wanting to buy its cars, it would be looking for a needle in a haystack. So, its best hopes are to get some traction from digital advertising.

At the other end, for a consumer durables major brand, the market for cookers, refrigerators, washing machines and air conditioners presents a big opportunity. It hopes to tap into this via digital advertising campaigns.

Similarly, in a third scenario, there is an online aggregator betting on digital ads to get more traction.

Each of these three scenarios are just a few examples of companies betting on the precision of digital technologies and have correctly and significantly jumped their digital advertising spends over the past couple of years.

Of late, technology providers have started the process of empowering users to control campaigns, and policy makers are looking at privacy aspects closely. This is likely to make it progressively tougher for companies to directly target users, or to be able to collect data without consent. The result is that, as advertisers and their support teams or outsourced agencies move forward, they will be forced to reimagine their digital campaigns. In April of this year, Apple released something called its app tracking transparency framework. This means that users can switch off access, and advertisers will not be able to find target users who block them.

By 2023, Google is likely to phase out third party cookies. Blocking ads, and removing third party cookies would make it difficult to figure out end customers buying patterns and interests. Also, regulations like the European GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) are being adopted by more and more countries.

This is progressively going to make the job of advertisers tougher. Yet, it needs to be emphasized that digital is still the best way to target and customize campaigns. Digital advertising spends will continue to grow at a much faster pace than traditional advertising spends.

Because of these changes coming up, advertisers will now be forced to spend more time and money to re-imagine campaigns. Media houses and publications will need to get aligned rapidly. Cost per click is surely on the way up, and so will be the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning. In the days ahead, advertising is surely and certainly going to become more demand-led, listening and responding to customers. We will need to forget the old ways of pushing out messages and waiting for ads to convert to sales.

The advertising world has to start re-adjusting to the new privacy norms. Do expect the cost per click to go up significantly, anywhere between 10-20 percent. Agencies and brands may need to set up new tools and freshly train professionals, which could entail a rise in the cost of operations. And, if this is not done over time, then the returns on ad dollars spent may begin to look hazy.

Brands, distributors and advertisers must realise that the first-party data they collect from their own customers is like gold. This needs to be cleanly collected, stored well, protected well and used well. Age-old marketing tools like loyalty points and direct marketing may become relatively more useful. For example, giving an additional five percent one-time discount to customers who give their consent to access data.

One of the biggest changes coming in the world of digital advertising is in the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning. So, all in all, exciting times ahead for the world of digital advertising. And yet, by just transferring a portion of spends to digital, or by hiring someone who is good at just creating digital ads, the end result may not necessarily be commensurate.
General Mills India  a part of the US-based Fortune 500 Company, General Mills, Inc. announced the launch of its ready to cook (RTC), two minutes Pillsbury Pancakes portfolio in India. The launch of the Pillsbury brand in the country closely follows General Mills Indias continued efforts to tap into the growing need for quick snacks among young moms for their children. The Pillsbury Pancakes come in two variants  Choco Chip and Funfetti. The 2 minutes Pillsbury Pancake snack variants are priced at INR 99 for a 165 gram pack and INR 250 for a 400 gram pack respectively.

The Choco Chip and Funfetti Pancakes aim to cater to the young moms. Young moms are often faced with difficult choices when it comes to finding the right and easy to make snacking options for their children. Currently, there is an unaddressed demand for quick yet delicious snacking options in India. With the launch of the Pillsbury Pancakes, General Mills India looks to flip the way kids consume snacks and equip young moms with new snacking options.

Commenting on the launch, Mr. Anindya Kundu, Executive Director at General Mills India said, It is our constant endeavour to Make Food the World Loves. The launch of the Choco Chip and Funfetti Pancakes under the Pillsbury brand is a natural step in our efforts to continue to delight our consumers in India. We are sure that the new quick snack options will become kids favourite everyday snack, helping young moms find the right options for their children. The Choco Chip and Funfetti Pancakes are also available on Amazon, Big Basket, Milk Basket, Super Daily, Grofers and Flipkart.

The fast pace lives of young mothers, particularly in urban settings, have necessitated the need for convenient yet delicious snacking options. With the launch of the Choco Chip and Funfetti Pancakes, Pillsburry would seek to address this gap.

The rise in demand for RTC snack category will further help the Pillsbury brand create its own space in the market. With General Mills legacy and brand loyalty, we are certain that the Pillsbury brand will be able to command a sizable market share in this category, added Mr. Kundu. The RTC segment in India is currently estimated at INR 1,900 crore and has seen a nearly 61 percent increase during the pandemic, according to a study by RedSeer Consulting.
Following the announcement last week of a spectacular line up of speakers which include business leaders and heads from MX Player, Sony Liv, Discovery +, VOOT, YouTube, Amazon Prime, Hotstar, Hoichoi, Eros Now to name a few - DIGITAL REINVENT 2021, CONFERENCE AND AWARDS in association with Promax India is delighted to announce the first two sessions. The days agenda is headlined by the MASTERMIND SESSION: LEADERS IN OTT.

The OTT space in the country is witnessing a tussle between the indigenous and global players. Today, there are nearly 40 VoD providers in India, and at the rate in which new players are springing up, the number is expected to reach 100 by 2023. While local players like Hotstar, Sony Liv, Voot and Zee5 have gained a stronger footing in the domestic market, global platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime have also steadily grown their market share.

Moderated by Senior Journalist, Gautam Srinivasan, hear from the likes of Karan Bedi from MX Player, Satya Raghavan from YouTube, Rohit Jain from Lionsgate, Gaurav Rakshit from Voot, Vishnu Mohta from Hoichoi and Issac Jon from Discovery + in this Mastermind session where these stalwarts in the industry discuss their brands strength, and the need for more International and Local content.

Dont go anywhere as our second session aptly titled; GLUED TO YOUR PLATFORM will keep you further engaged.

Moderated by Uday Sodhi, of Kurate Digital Consulting this is an absolutely engaging session and will keep you glued to your screens! Programming heads and Creative Directors of the largest OTT networks like Saugata Mukherjee of Sony LIV, Aparna Purohit of Amazon Prime, Nikhil Madhok of Hotstar share invaluable insights on how platforms decide on their content strategy to make an impact and drive engagement and relevance for the billion plus consumers. What elements spell the difference between a hit and a miss.

As DIGITAL REINVENT 2021  CONFERENCE AND AWARDS gets popular with each passing year, as does the OTT space in India. We are very grateful to our sponsors, MX Player/ MX TakaTak, Sony LIV, Discovery +, Voot, BMG Production Music for their support.

Abhishek Joshi - Business Head, SVOD & Head of Marketing and Business Partnerships at MX Player and MX TakaTak. says:

"To capture a share of a burgeoning subscription market, one requires an intuitive understanding of what the consumers want, without the users having to ask for it. Time spent on your app is driven by compelling content and product innovation while value for money coupled with easy payment gateways will be the pillars that drive growth in this category."

Adds Aman Srivastava, Head of Marketing, Digital Business, SonyLIV

With a wholesome offering of originals, a host of regional content and a robust outline of top sporting events, we at SonyLIV have been making deeper inroads, reaching out to a diverse set of audience across geographies. Furthermore, our efforts in regionalizing the content have witnessed a tremendous surge in subscription base and viewership. Streaming our top sporting events in 6 different languages has gained momentum in non-metro cities. SonyLIV has observed an overall growth of 3X in terms of viewership and a significant rise in the paid subscriber base growing to 7 million from 5.5 million in April this year. Going forward, our aim is to provide a seamless viewing experience, engage with our audience in relevant ways and offer great content across languages.

So fasten your seatbelts, block your calendar on Friday, 8th October 2021 to get ready for an amazing ride in the fast moving OTT Space.
Vice President and Rajya Sabha Chairman, M Venkaiah Naidu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla jointly launched Sansad TV yesterday (September 15, 2021) on the occasion of International Day of Democracy.

Addressing the event, the Prime Minister lauded the transformation of the channel associated with the Parliament in accordance with rapidly changing times, especially when the 21st century is bringing revolution through dialogue and communication. The Prime Minister termed the launch of Sansad TV a new chapter in the story of Indian democracy as, in the form of Sansad TV, the country is getting a medium of communication and dialogue which will become a new voice of the nations democracy and peoples representative. The Prime Minister also greeted Doordarshan for completing 62 years of its existence. He also greeted all the engineers on the occasion of Engineer's day.

Noting that today is also International Day of Democracy, the Prime Minister remarked that when it comes to Democracy, Indias responsibility is more as India is the mother of democracy. Democracy for India is not just a system, it is an idea. Democracy in India is not just a constitutional structure, but it is a spirit. Democracy in India is not just a collection of streams of constitutions, it is our life stream, he said.

The Prime Minister highlighted the role of the media in the context of 75 years of independence when both glory of the past and promise of the future are before us. He said when the media takes up issues like Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, that reaches the people with great speed. He suggested that the media can play a role in disseminating the efforts of the people during Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav by planning 75 episodes on the freedom struggle or bringing out special supplements to mark the occasion.

Talking about the centrality of content, the Prime Minister said while it is said that content is king, in his experience "Content is Connect." He explained that, when one has better content, people automatically engage with it. As much as this applies to the media, it is equally applicable to our parliamentary system as there is not only politics in Parliament, there is also policy. He emphasized that common people should feel the connect with the proceedings of the Parliament. He asked the new channel to work in that direction.

The Prime Minister said when the Parliament is in session, debates are held on diverse subjects, so there is so much for the youth to learn. Members of Parliament also get inspiration for better conduct, better debate inside the Parliament when the country watches them. He also stressed the need to focus on duties of the citizens and said that the media is an effective medium for this awareness. The Prime Minister noted that from these programs, our youth will get to learn a lot about our democratic institutions, their functioning as well as civic duties. Similarly, there will be a lot of information about working committees, importance of legislative work, and working of legislatures which will help in understanding the democracy of India in depth. He wished that programs will also be made on Panchayats working as grassroots democracy in Parliament TV. These programs will give a new energy, a new consciousness to the democracy of India.
Founded in 2010 by Indian engineer Krishna Kumar, Simplilearn has been providing online training across technologies and applications in data science, AI and machine learning, cloud computing and other digital disciplines. Headquartered in San Francisco California, the company has offices in Raleigh, North Carolina and Bangalore.

Initially, Simplilearn started out as a technology blog. However, it later became a training website for project management related topics. As of 2020, the company's learning portal provides online certifications (MOOCs) related to cybersecurity, cloud computing project management, digital marketing and data science.

Recently, Blackstone, a private equity firm, acquired a majority stake in Simplilearn for $250 million.

Simplilearn has rolled out its latest campaign, Ambition #CannotBeLockedDown, in which it seeks to inspire aspirants to challenge all odds. The campaign focuses on how ambition and determination can enable individuals to realise their fullest potential despite the challenges that they face and grow beyond the restraints of the current times. As part of this campaign, the company has launched 3 new digital films highlighting the success stories of aspirants who completed a Simplilearn certification program during the pandemic.

In an exclusive interview with Adgully, Mark Moran, Chief Marketing Officer, Simplilearn, elaborates on the Ambition #CannotBeLockedDown campaign, the objective and the creative ideation behind the campaign, brand positioning an more.

What is the objective of the campaign Ambition #CannotBeLockedDown? Who are you targeting through your new piece of communication?

The campaign celebrates the inspirational spirit of individuals around the world, who have steadfastly pursued their ambitions even during the current global pandemic. This digital-first campaign will be launched across multiple digital platforms, print and television. The digital campaign is going to be PAN India and we are primarily looking at targeting individual learners and corporates. As a company, we have traditionally focused on tech-based learners, who range from fresher graduates, early career professionals 3-5 years into their careers and mid-career professionals.

What is the thought process behind the campaign? Any research that threw this insight and how did the creative idea germinate?

There has been extensive research and media coverage around the world about people feeling overwhelmed and despondent due to the pandemic. Meanwhile, as weve seen from our 100,000s of learners, some people are seizing the moment to re-prioritise and invest in their future. We wanted to celebrate these individuals and bring some joy to our viewers.

For the #CannotBeLockedDown campaign, we drew insights from customer feedback along with a survey conducted recently by us. During our survey, we found that post the pandemic, 64.8% people had enrolled in an upskilling program to strengthen their careers. Around 57.2% believed that upskilling themselves is the next step for their future, whereas 29.6% cited lacking key skills as an obstacle in their careers.

These findings highlighted the fact that upskilling continues to hold prominence when it comes to career growth, and the pandemic and WFH were most definitely not barriers for aspirants.

How do you plan to engage with your target audience besides the three digital films? Are you looking at exploring any other media avenues to reach your audience?

Apart from the campaign, we are also engaging with the audience through our free learning platform, Skillup. Additionally, our marketing is primarily around content where we offer users access to rich resources like our online blogs to stay updated on recent skills, jobs, etc. In fact, the nature of our user experience in itself has helped receive substantial organic enrolments through learner referrals. Further, in the due course of the campaign we will maximise our reach on OTT and digital platforms.

The education space is highly cluttered. How have you positioned your brand and whats the product differentiation that you are offering to the potential students?

As a brand, the primary differentiator is our product itself. We excel in a truly interactive learning experience via our bootcamp-style learning model which consists of self-paced videos, live virtual classes conducted by industry experts, hands-on projects and Masterclasses by academic heads across partner universities. Our technology stack has been designed to be truly interactive, and offers a product that drives better outcomes for learners.

Whats going to be the overall media strategy for the campaign to achieve the desired results and impact? How do you plan to measure the effectiveness of the campaign?

With the campaign going live pan-India, the overall digital strategy includes a phased rollout over several weeks. This means that there is a possibility that we may introduce edits based on audience response to the campaign. Currently, the campaign is digitally focused and will be run primarily using social media platforms, user-generated content, and contests.

The campaign success will be evaluated based on the increase in brand searches and direct traffic that would consequently lead to higher brand consideration and eventually customer conversion, as well as higher click-thru and conversion rates due to stronger brand equity.

(Edited and Additional Inputs by Shanta Saikia.)
As late as 3:43 p.m. on Thursday, September 9, the long-lived mantra of the pro-abortion movement, My Body, My Choice, was still showing signs of life. It was at that time, that the White House published the remarks made by Vice-President Kamala Harris at a Reproductive Rights roundtable.

The President and I are unequivocal in our support of Roe v. Wade and the constitutionality of Roe v. Wade, and the right of women to make decisions for themselves with whomever they choose  about their own bodies, said Ms. Harris.

And, needless to say, Harris continued much too quotably, the right of women to make decisions about their own bodies is not negotiable. The right of women to make decisions about their own bodies is their decision; it is their body.

So far is Harris out of the White House power loop that she may not have known the mantra had less than two hours to live.

Although clearly on the defensive, Harris was targeting the wrong enemy at the White House roundtable. She thought the threat to My Body, My Choice came from those rascally Republicans in Texas that had passed the Texas Heartbeat Act. Despite legal challenges, the new law had gone into effect just a week earlier. Attempts to challenge the terminology of the heartbeat bills inevitably reinforced just whose body was being violated, namely the baby with the beating heart. And unlike other heartbeat states, say, Mississippi or North Dakota, Texas was too big to boycott.

In a jam, the abortion rights crowd turned to Harris. As attorney general of California, she had proved her killer instinct. When undercover journalist David Daleiden recorded Planned Parenthoods traffic in baby body partsand even Hillary Clinton conceded his videos were disturbingHarris had Daleiden arrested and silenced. End of threat.

Not one to be silenced herself, Harris cut off Mike Pence in the 2020 vice-presidential debate, saying, Im speaking. This was apparently a milestone moment in feminist history. NARAL Pro-Choice America now asks its followers to show your support of our first woman VP and her support for reproductive freedom by buying for just $10marked down from $15an I'm Speaking VP Kamala Harris Quote Face Mask.

At the Reproductive Rights roundtable, Harris was trying to shore up one of the principal lies abortion activists have used to sustain their movement, namely that their political opponents hope to restrict what women do to their own bodies or, by extension, what they do in their own bedrooms. Of course, this is nonsense, but as Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels is reported to have said, If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.

The propagandists at NARAL seem to be reading out of the Goebbels playbook. Unwilling to say out loud what they hope to accomplishthe right to kill unborn babiesthey cloak everything they say in euphemism, including the very name of the organization.

The NARAL acronym covers a lot of sins. The group started as the Association to Repeal Abortion Laws then morphed successively into the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws, the National Abortion Rights Action League, and, later, the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League. The problem with all these names was the word abortion. It was too specific, too honest, too ugly.

Finally, to sustain the brand, the group kept the acronym NARAL, added the subtitle, Pro-Choice America, and ditched all references to abortion. In fact, the website is now just prochoiceamerica.org. To the uninitiated, the home page would seem a tribute to constitutional liberty. NARAL is famously pro-choice. It believes in reproductive rights and reproductive freedom. It boldly declares that Freedom is for EVERYBODY and demands Bans Off Our Bodies.

In the real world, of course, conservatives have no particular interest in what women do with their bodies and have never challenged a womans freedom to reproduce. No, it was Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger and her fellow progressives who wanted to limit reproductive freedom. Possibly drastic and Spartan methods may be forced upon American society, wrote Sanger in 1922, if it continues complacently to encourage the chance and chaotic breeding that has resulted from our stupid, cruel sentimentalism.

On the same Thursday Harris was endorsing My Body, My Choice, Biden was endorsing drastic and Spartan methods. Death came suddenly to the old mantra, if not unexpectedly. Just 79 minutes after Harris breathed new life into it, President Joe Biden put the mantra out of its misery. Biden told America in no uncertain terms that the right of women to make decisions about their own bodies is his, not theirs. Going forward the new understanding is, Your Body, My Choice.

As your President, Im announcing tonight a new plan to require more Americans to be vaccinated, to combat those blocking public health, said the president. This is not about freedom or personal choice. That much was obvious. The presidents mandate, by his own estimate, would affect two-thirds of all workers or about 100 million Americans, nearly half of them female. And except perhaps for those women working for the Post Office, there was nothing negotiable about this assault on their bodily integrity.

Scarier still, Biden was not talking in euphemism. He was actually talking to women about their bodies. Not surprisingly, NARAL remains stone silent, and Harris is not speaking here. It is hard to defend a con, even a venerable one like My Body, My Choice. Meanwhile, real freedom lovers have mischievously adopted the abortion rights credo as their own, and leftists fume in dismay, having been cruelly hoisted on their own petards.

Photo credit: James McNellis CC BY 2.0 license

Jack Cashills latest book, Barack Obamas Promised Land: Deplorables Need Not Apply, is now widely available. See www.cashill.com for more information.

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Just returned from a 10-day trip to the UK, visiting relatives and seeing a few sights.

Thanks to COVID, the streets were not nearly as busy as is usual in the fall -- and prices in normally expensive London were reasonable for once. My hotel in Paddington cost me just $116 per night. Its often double or even triple that.

The bad news is that the turnkey totalitarianism that observers on both the political Left and Right have been warning about for years -- the ability of first world governments and their Big Tech co-conspirators to shut off civil liberties with the flip of a switch -- is painfully apparent when you travel.

The government of Australia is only the most obvious example. Overnight, Australia has gone from being one of the worlds most highly rated democracies to a dystopian nightmare, with the government banning all travel not merely internationally but also between individual regions and cities.

Like the former democratic peoples republics in the old Soviet bloc, Australia now bars its own citizens from leaving the country (whether vaccinated or COVID-free or not) and has instituted state-of-the-art surveillance technologies, similar to what East Germanys old secret police implemented, to ensure that its cowering citizens comply with orders to stay locked in their homes.

Not lost on constitutionally aware Americans is the reality that Aussies voluntarily surrendered all their weapons in 1996 following a mass shooting -- and so, as the Hill recently put, the state and federal governments well know that they have a monopoly on authority -- and force.

All this is in the air when you travel internationally.

The UK, for example, requires not one but up to three COVID tests as a condition for entering the country. You must take a PCR test within 72 hours of leaving before you are allowed on the plane, with the details of your vaccination status uploaded to the airlines website.

You must also fill out a Passenger Locator Form and transmit it to the UK government with details on where you are staying and for how long, the seat number of the plane you take to get to the UK, and so on. Plus, you have to show proof that youve booked and paid for a Day 2 COVID test (and, depending upon where you come from and your vaccination status, a Day 8 test as well). When returning to your country of origin, you have to also buy a government-supervised Fit to Fly COVID test.

For its part, the U.S. simply bans all foreigners from entering the country at all --unless, of course, you enter illegally across the southern border.

Thats the bad news: our newly power-mad rulers are determined to make international travel solely the prerogative of the Davos set, those who can fly to global warming conferences in their private Gulfstream jets.

Yet heres the good news: Since governments are, by their very nature, often populated with the dumbest and worst people on the planet -- none of this works all that well.

Like airport security, much of COVID security is theatre. Disobedience is widespread. Incompetence and noncompliance are ubiquitous.

For example, although mask mandates are strictly enforced on the airlines, theyre actually not.

Since youre not required to wear a mask while eating, and since most people spend a lot of their time eating on planes, most of the people on my flights kept their masks tucked firmly under the chins throughout most of the flight. Even the stewardesses wore their masks haphazardly.

In London, the UK government regularly threatens its citizens with all sorts of fines and punishments for even questioning its edicts -- and yet it is cheerfully ignored by most of the people.

As a foreigner, I dutifully wore my mask on the Tube, but I would say at least half of the people didnt -- and the police didnt utter so much as a peep.

Also, the authoritarianism varies greatly from country to country.

Statist France, like the UK, threatens its citizens regularly for disobedience (under the widely despised technocrat Emmanuel Macron) -- which has predictably resulted in massive riots across the country.

Switzerland, on the other hand, doesnt require any COVID tests for vaccinated people to enter -- and Denmark, which used gentle persuasion rather than state terror to get 90% or more of its citizens vaccinated, just announced that it was officially ending virtually all of its COVID restrictions. No more tests, masks, or social distancing. The Danish health minister even took the unusual step of encouraging its citizens to have sex again.

The net result of all this is that the turnkey totalitarianism of the Anglophone world -- Australia, the UK, Canada, and Vladimir Bidens America -- has red pilled virtually the entire planet.

Many suspect that democracy is now largely an illusion. We have seen with our own eyes that our cherished civil liberties can disappear overnight at the whim of self-appointed autocrats and Big Tech oligarchs.

We also now know that government authoritarians will no longer tolerate dissent, and will use all of the repressive tools at their disposal -- including omnipresent surveillance, contract tracing via mobile phones, work firings, massive censorship, and corporate propaganda, and sharp restrictions on travel -- to enforce their decrees.

At least for the next several years, well all be living in the capitalist equivalent of Communist East Germany -- a grim bureaucratic dystopia in which everyone is under surveillance, travel is restricted, and no one really believes anything government officials say.

The threat from COVID will eventually fade and there will be a worldwide political reckoning, comparable to the fall of the Berlin Wall when the autocrats who took advantage of the pandemic to seize power and abuse their fellow citizens will face the justice they so richly deserve.

Robert J. Hutchinson regularly writes about the intersection of politics and ideas. His most recent book is What Really Happened: The Lincoln Assassination.

Image: PxFuel

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The news in our country and abroad has been relentlessly bad ever since we entered the calamitous Biden Era just months ago, but there are a few hopeful signs out there still.

One of the best is a story receiving almost no coverage in the larger press: the Venezuela elections this November. The democratic opposition has agreed to participate after years of boycotting the Maduro regime's rigged voting. The E.U. will send a large team of election monitors, and Maduro has already been releasing some political prisoners in a bid to end sanctions. Some are even predicting that Maduro will be willing to retire from office at the end of his current term in 2024.

Why the possible change of heart by the dictator? For one, the economy is still a wreck. The Bolivar is worthless, and most people have simply moved to dollars, denying the government its ability to buy support. Petroleum exports, which once made this a rich country, have crashed. It will take billions of dollars of Western investment and know-how in the oil sector to revive it, and that won't happen with the present government. In short, it's no fun being dictator of this place anymore.

Also, unlike a Putin or Xi, Maduro as yet does not have a lot of blood on his hands. He is reasonably confident he could step away and enjoy his Swiss bank accounts without much hassle, in the tradition of Latin American caudillos left and right. And contrary to his mentor, Hugo Chavez, Maduro may at heart not be such a fanatical lefty. He started his career as a bus driver and union organizer, and it's often speculated his second wife Cilia is more the scolding ideologue in the family. Leaving the Presidential Palace is one way to get this termagant off his back.

There is a long way to go still, but if democracy returns to Venezuela, it would a have a salubrious effect on the rest of the hemisphere  perhaps even leading to changes in the last Marxist holdout, Cuba.

Stranger things have happened. Gamal Nasser and his violent Arab nationalist movement brought ruin across the Middle East for decades, yet his chosen successor, Anwar Sadat, wound up making peace, kicking out the Soviets, and changing history much for the better.

If Maduro were to essentially throw in the towel, it would also tell us a lot about the actual power of Red China. Back in the day, the Soviets had real cash to throw around and subsidize their global ambitions. They could truly buy off whole countries. Xi, and Putin, for that matter, really don't have that kind of juice. They still trade with Venezuela, but it's a one-sided barter system that sucks up what's left of the oil. No meaningful investment is coming.

Just as with China's once ballyhooed road projects in Pakistan or the failed copper mines in Afghanistan, they are not proving to be much of an ally to anyone. Their P.R. skills are a lot greater than their financial and management talents for big overseas projects. Maduro must have long ago concluded that Xi is nothing but a Marxist loan shark.

That also tells us something about China's real intentions in the dangerously weak Biden Era. Expect a lot of posturing but maybe no real adventures. Certainly nothing so reckless as an attack on Taiwan, which would likely be a military disaster of epic proportions for Red China.

Perhaps the most optimistic part of the current negotiations in Venezuela is that they are being led by Norway and Barbados. No sign of Joe Biden's clown show getting involved so far. So nobody wake him up on this one.

Frank Friday is an attorney in Louisville Ky.

Image: LuisCarlosDiaz.

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President Biden has been in office less than a year and is putting out a new fire almost every month. How many more will there be?

Most of the difficulties at the core of Biden's domestic problems have been self-inflicted. Starting from day one of his presidency, his flurry of executive orders immediately declared war against American energy independence and our southern border and foolishly sought to rebuild the relationship between the United States and the controversial China puppet, the World Health Organization (WHO).

Some of Biden's more spectacular early failures can be attributed to his so-called "Build Back Better" economic plan that has fallen flat in Congress, and to the failings of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) as the U.S. suffered a flurry of cyber-attacks against, among others, Colonial Pipeline and one of the country's major food suppliers, JBS.

But as bad as all the aforementioned incidents are, they truly pale in comparison to the crisis and associated human suffering occurring in Afghanistan as a result of the president's desperation to claim victory in declaring America's involvement in the Afghanistan War over. Sadly, his desire at all costs to meet a symbolic deadline on or before the twentieth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks actually allowed for the meaningful date to represent a victory for the enablers of the worst terror attack on U.S. soil.

One of the most pathetic displays seen over the past several weeks was Defense Department spokesman John Kirby's inability to answer a question related to the number of Americans trapped behind enemy lines. The press conference created the appearance optics that portrayed an America that would readily abandon its allies and was negligent in its responsibility to provide for the safe transfer of its own citizens out of a raging war zone. As a result of this, some of America's enemies have begun to promote the idea of our decline as the world's greatest superpower.

Over the past several weeks, China, which is America's top rival, seized upon the opportunity to use its state-controlled media to attempt to shame the U.S. while simultaneously using its superior military power to intimidate Taiwan.

The Chinese Communist Partycontrolled Global Times media outlet called the Afghanistan pullout "a heavy blow to the credibility and reliability of the U.S.," while Taiwan reported in the last week an incident involving Chinese military jets, including fighters and nuclear-capable bombers, entering its airspace.

Maybe the most inexcusable part of this all is the fact that the Biden administration has now fortified the evil forces that we went to war with 20 years ago to destroy. Whether it was by design or not, the Biden administration is directly responsible for handing a weapons cache worth nearly $90 billion to the Taliban. This happens as an al-Qaeda presence continues to grow in Afghanistan and other terrorists groups are present, too. According to an unclassified report from the United Nations released earlier this summer, there are al-Qaeda terror cells in at least fifteen provinces in the country.

This also puts global terror power Iran in a favorable position, as it has now gained an even more powerful ally with a well equipped military, thanks to the Biden administration's fumbling of the situation. For months, Iran has been surpassing the uranium enrichment limits that were set for the country by the international community. Even worse, the emboldened Iranian regime claimed in July that it could enrich uranium to weapons-grade, or 90%, purity.

This poses grave danger to the United States, Israel, and Europe as another resurgence of global terror attacks, possibly even involving nuclear weapons, may materialize over the next few years.

This puts Iran in a very different situation from what it was in just about eleven years ago, when the military hack that is generally considered the first shot fired in the ongoing global cyber-war  2010's Stuxnet attack  took down Iran's nuclear program.

Have we hit rock bottom yet under Biden? Can it possibly get worse? Well, unfortunately for Americans, we have well over three years left to answer those questions.

Julio Rivera is a business and political strategist, the editorial director for Reactionary Times, and a political commentator and columnist. His writing, which is focused on cyber-security and politics, has been published by websites including Newsmax, Townhall, American Thinker, and BizPacReview.

Image: Pixabay, Pixabay License.

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Brian Ewert, the superintendent of Littleton (Colorado) Public Schools, recently informed his school board that they could be held criminally liable for not enforcing the mask mandate.

He did so because Colorado's Tri-County Health says that if educators don't enforce its mask mandate, they will be subject to a class 1 misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in prison and a $5,000 fine. Yes, teachers and administrators could be charged, arrested, prosecuted, and jailed if they don't wear masks themselves in school, and if they fail to force their students to wear them, too.

Say, didn't you used to be the United States of America?

Reports indicate that some parents are suing the Tri-County Health Department over the draconian mask mandate. Some?! Every single parent  and person  possessing a functional brain and beating heart should join the suit. Yet, here again, a misplaced hyper-tolerance is leading to the destruction of cognitive reasoning and personal liberty.

Tara Kohl has a son in the third grade at Pine Grove Elementary School in Parker, Colorado. She says, "I'm not an anti-masker. I support anything that we can do. What I am against is abusing the power of teachers against their will, against the will of the children and against the will of people." I would not be so sanguine.

Why stop at fining, arresting, and imprisoning teachers for insufficiently zealous mask mandate compliance? Perhaps their firstborn child should be taken from them. Maybe they should be waterboarded or subjected to crueler forms of torture. That oughta learn them! Perhaps they should even be given the death penalty or be forced to watch every episode of The View.

Photo credit: Xnatedawgx, CC BY-SA 3.0 license.

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As a Cuban who grew up in the U.S., I've learned how different Hispanics are. For example, Mexicans eat "huevos rancheros" for breakfast, and Cubans eat "tortilla de huevos." They are both eggs, but with a different name and sauce. Someone from El Salvador eats "pupusa," but his Mexican friend at the plant has tacos in his lunch box. I recently attended a program on Argentina food, and it was incredible.

It's amazing how we eat different things that reflect our very different histories. I won't even mention "5 de Mayo" because no one in Mexico actually celebrates that the way we do. It's amazing!

Over the years, I've argued that Democrats do not understand that Hispanics differ, from our place of origin to whether we live in cities or suburbs.

Last week, an article in Texas Monthly confirms that we are indeed different and Democrats may be learning it the hard way. In other words, calling Trump a racist or engaging in pathetic demagoguery over an election law did not work as planned.

This is from Texas Monthly:

South Texas lately has become an object of political fascination for pundits, some of whom have not taken the time to understand even the most basic facts about the region. Until recently, officials from McAllen typically found themselves on the national radar only when they welcomed visiting national politicians. But Villaloboss win  albeit in a race in which his party affiliation did not appear alongside his name on the ballot and fewer than 10,000 of the citys 73,000 registered voters went to the polls  was noteworthy for one reason. It seemed to confirm what Democrats had spent the past seven months denying: they have a deep problem in South Texas  and therefore in statewide races as well. The problem was seen in Arlington and Ft. Worth in North Texas, or what we call the Metroplex, where GOP candidates were elected in two cities with significant Hispanic populations. They won comfortably, as we posted here a few months ago. Democrat candidates learned that Hispanics are not into defunding the police either. What we saw in those huge Texas cities is that Hispanics are maturing and moving beyond being a group that just talks about immigration or DACA.

So far, the Texas Democrats are avoiding the aforementioned trends, or living inside the bubble. It reminds me of one of my late mother's favorite phrases whenever I did not see reality. She would say in Spanish, "Abre la ventana y veras que esta lloviendo": open the window, and you'll see that it's raining.

It looks as if many Democrats don't want to open the window and see that it's raining on their parade.

PS: You can listen to my show (Canto Talk).

Image: Pixabay.

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Just when you resigned yourself that maybe, just maybe, a jab against Wuflu might outweigh some negatives, along comes the news that you might need to update your measles protection also. Along with an affinity for pederasty  i.e., older men sodomizing young boys, bacha bazi as it is known locally  and those same  or different  older men's preference for child brides, it seems some of the unvetted Afghan "refugees" are bringing measles to America.

Wisconsin, Virginia report measles cases among Afghan refugees Six people who recently traveled to the United States after fleeing the Taliban in Afghanistan have been diagnosed with measles, officials said Tuesday. The cases in Virginia and Wisconsin are being reported four days after the U.S. halted in-bound flights of Afghan evacuees following the discovery of a few cases of measles among new arrivals.

Although most Americans have been vaccinated against measles, some have not been. And of course, many of the illegal aliens...uh, excuse me, undocumented migrants...have no documents proving they have received a measles shot. Or an anti-Wuhan, China coronavirus shot. Or any other basic health protection.

According to WebMD:

Measles is a respiratory disease caused by a virus. It can have life-threatening complications. [Sound familiar? ed] The CDC calls it the "most deadly of all childhood rash/fever illnesses." It spreads easily, but the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine can prevent it. The CDC recommends that all children, and some adults, get the MMR vaccine. The U.S. declared measles eliminated from the nation in 2000, but there have been outbreaks since then, and it's still common in other countries.

One more jab?

But while you're diligently wearing a mask, social distancing when you're not locking down, and taking other precautions, all the new arrivals  legal, illegal, or unvetted  are exempt from such pesky requirements. Multi-culturalism or something. Diversity, maybe. Oh, yeah, pluralism. Oh, and that new, politically correct word, equity, as in you too must share our illnesses.

More to come.

Photo credit: Teseum, CC BY-NC 2.0 license.

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In a Facebook post shared on September 4, the United States Army Garrison Japan (USAGJ) warned personnel and locals:

To our Camp Zama community. Please be aware that Sagamihara City officials have had reports of wild monkeys in the wooded area just northwest of Camp Zama in between the 900-area housing and the airfield. Officials are warning that the monkeys could easily enter the installation, as they have previously.

It's come to this? After Afghanistan? The U.S. Army is shamelessly warning all and sundry that wild monkeys could "easily" break into its army base located in Kanagawa Prefecture, near the Japanese capital?

I assume we will soon hear Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, solemnly state: "We have no way to stop them. But we are in negotiations with them." Followed by President Biden saying, "There's nothing we can do. It's Trump's fault. Where's my ice cream cone?"

Or maybe Milley will promise the alpha monkey that he'll warn him if the military should decide to defend the camp against a future monkey insurgency.



Monkey senior negotiator? (Photo credit: Shankar S., CC BY 2.0 license.)

Be prepared for the U.S. military to flee Camp Zama, leaving behind billions of dollars in high-tech military equipment  or maybe just tons of bananas  after which President Biden will call the shocking retreat "an unparalleled success."

To comment, you can find the MeWe post for this article here.
The plan to force Americans into receiving an experimental drug that acts on their RNA faced some big obstacles, including Joe Biden's promise that he wouldn't do it; decades of Democrats' rhetoric over "my body, my choice"; and the CDC's admission that it lacks the power to do so.

But Biden's chief of staff, Ron Klain [i], seems to think of himself as a pretty smart fellow, a guy who gets things done. Maybe that's why he exulted over the approach the administration is taking to force Americans to inject the experimental gene therapy into their bodies. He retweeted MSNBC's Stephanie Ruehl, saying, "OSHA doing this vaxx mandate as an emergency workplace safety rule is the ultimate work-around for the Federal govt to require vaccinations."

"Work-around" has such a nice bureaucratic insider ring to it. It bespeaks a command of the intricacies of government, the details of rules, regulations, and precedents, and a mastery of the incredibly complex organization.

But it turns out that "working around" by piling responsibilities on OSHA (The Occupational Safety and Health Administration), part of the Department of Labor, overlooked a small problem: OSHA is incapable of handling the responsibility. From Politico:

"I think this redefines 'ideas are simple, execution is hard,'" said attorney Michael Lotito, who represents businesses for law firm Littler Mendelson. "What we have right now is chaos," Lotito added, "because of the unintended consequences of making such an announcement where there is no clarity with respect to a gargantuan number of questions that have been left open."

The open questions include such issues as who will pay for the weekly COVID tests for people working for private companies with more than 100 employees, who have the testing option if they decline the vaccine. These tests are not cheap, and employees may have to take 50 or more of them every year.

"It's millions of dollars a year to any size company. I've seen companies do it before Biden issued his order and it's incredibly burdensome and time consuming and may not even guarantee health and safety in the way that mandating vaccines would," Schaefer [an employment lawyer at Loeb and Loeb] said.

But even more fundamentally, OSHA is, by the standards of the federal government, a tiny agency. Even worse, when President Trump streamlined the regulatory burden on employers, resulting in the economic boom of his presidency, OSHA's headcount declined, as departing workers were not replaced. There simply aren't enough bureaucrats to go around, given the enormous new tasks. Business Insider, which seems to think this is a tragedy, writes:

[B]efore the first legal challenges against the mandate roll in, the Biden administration faces the more immediate conundrum of whether the chronically resource-strapped Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is up to the task of enforcing it. The agency's challenge comes at a particularly inopportune time: It's reeling from deep staffing cuts under the Trump administration, and its fines are relatively low and often fought out in long court battles, two experts told Insider.

Bryan Shepardson of Reuters adds:

With more than 80 million workers covered, "OSHA won't be able to police every employer," said A. Scott Hecker, a labor lawyer in Washington at Seyfarth Shaw. OSHA plans to publish an Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) to enact the new requirements, the White House said Friday. That measure, which is used to accelerate urgent rules, has only been used 10 times in OSHA's 50-year history. Courts have invalidated or halted four of those rules and partially blocked one, according to the Congressional Research Service. (snip) OSHA now has an estimated 800 safety and compliance inspectors to cover the more than 100,000 private-sector companies affected by the new rule. (snip) In addition, the agency has largely failed to hold employers accountable for unsafe conditions during the pandemic, Reuters reported earlier this year, identifying dozens of workplaces where employees complained of slipshod pandemic safety. Regulators never inspected the facilities or, in some cases, took months to do so. Two-thirds of employers cited by OSHA for COVID-19 safety violations had not paid fines, and more than half appealed the OSHA citations.

There are many avenues for legal challenges to the mandate, including the question of whether an illness with a 99%+ recovery rate for anyone of working age constitutes an "emergency" sufficient to cancel the "right" to "privacy" that the SCOTUS proclaimed resided in the penumbra of the Constitution.

Find the right federal judge(s), and the mandate can be tied up for years in the courts.

As the lawyer quoted above said, "ideas are simple, execution is hard."

___________________________

[i] Kalin may or may not be the real president, the one with the power to pull the plug on the POTUS's video feed mid-sentence when he strays off-topic or into incoherence, the guy that Biden fears he will "get in trouble" with if he speaks on certain topics.

To comment, you can find the MeWe post for this article here.
The current White House occupant seems upset with the unvaccinated. Is he upset just because there are tens of millions unvaccinated? Or is he upset because of why we are unvaccinated?

The current White House occupant is using the bully pulpit of the presidency and the might of the federal bureaucracy to try to put fear into all Americans. This appears to me to be in response to Americans challenging the false narratives, putting fear aside, and thinking for themselves.

Biden is upset not just because we are unvaccinated. He seems more upset that despite a relentless eighteen months of fear porn, suppression of all items of hope, etc., people are not trusting the (incompetent) leadership. We are not afraid for ourselves. We want the "at risk" to get the vaccine. We want anyone who is afraid to get the vaccine. But for those of us who are low-risk and know there are treatment options, we are making a choice. By making that choice, we are demonstrating that we are not afraid of the virus.

The unvaccinated have found our own path to properly manage our lives and the virus, and that scares Biden more than anything. His team is watching what is happening in Australia, and they desperately want to be dictators, declare martial law, and lock people down. But if the majority of people in our democracy know that the government is lying and incompetent, he can't take those draconian steps without significant backlash.

The other issue is that without a compliant populace, "The Great Reset" in the U.S. is stalled. The current White House occupant is upset because we will not provide the unconditional compliance that he has demanded  now or ever.

Maker S. Mark (a pseudonym) is an American worried about the state of the nation and how to solve the problems we face. United we stand; divided we fall.

Image via Public Domain Pictures.

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I love playing some Stadia using the EPOS H3 headset.

It's a great fit, super comfortable and easy to use that microphone boom. Just with the H3 it was wired only.

Well, now there's a Bluetooth model - the H3 Hybrid. I can't wait to check it out. Hopefully, there's no BT lag.



EPOS Expand H3 Series with H3 Hybrid and H3PRO Hybrid  Delivering Uncompromised Audio Excellence Across All Gaming Experiences

Copenhagen, Denmark  September 14, 2021  Today premium gaming audio brand EPOS reveals the USB-connected H3 Hybrid and wireless H3PRO Hybrid gaming headsets, providing high-quality digital audio experiences and new features for a wide range of immersive experiences for all gamers.

Following the critical success of the recently released H3 wired closed acoustic headset, the EPOS H3 Hybrid launches today, boasting multiple connectivity options, a removable boom arm, simultaneous Bluetooth for audio mixing, and a long-lasting battery for on-the-go Bluetooth audio - unlocking the Power of Audio anywhere. The H3 Hybrid is compatible with PC, Mac, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch and Bluetooth compatible devices.

H3 Hybrid  Available Now

The H3 Hybrid brings true to life gaming audio and user versatility together. The H3 Hybrid is crafted with renowned EPOS engineering and high-quality gaming audio, achieving acoustic clarity and deep bass with exchangeable USB and 3.5 mm console cables. The headset is available in Onyx Black and Ghost White colorways.

The H3 Hybrid provides up to 37 hours of Bluetooth audio, offers multiplatform compatibility, and is equipped with simultaneous Bluetooth connection, dual microphones, EPOS Gaming Suite compatibility and a detachable boom arm for next-level gaming.

For gamers looking to take their play to the next level, the H3 Hybrid offers an array of features to unlock the Power of Audio, including:

 Long Lasting Battery Life with Bluetooth  A single charge provides up to 37 hours of Bluetooth audio and up to 24 hours when playing on a 3.5 mm console cable connection. Dual connectivity (3.5 mm cable and Bluetooth) provides up to 19 hours of play.

 Simultaneous Bluetooth Connection for Audio Mixing  When paired with a smartphone via Bluetooth, simultaneous connectivity allows players to chat with friends using their favorite third-party app while gaming on their preferred platform via USB or 3.5 mm cable. Separate intuitive volume control enables players to balance each audio stream.

 Convenient Magnetic Detachable Boom Arm  Gamers can easily detach and reattach the microphone with a magnetic connection in the boom arm. When the boom arm is removed, a cover plate protects the connectors and keeps the H3 Hybrids sleek, seamless look.

 Dual Microphones  The H3 Hybrid includes a secondary microphone in the ear cup that allows gamers to pick up calls when wearing the headset on-the-go without the main boom arm microphone attached to the headset.

 Multiple Connection Options  The H3 Hybrid allows for multiple connection options with included USB cable for PC, 3.5 mm cables for consoles and Bluetooth for mobile devices

 EPOS Gaming Suite  When connected to a PC through USB, players can download the EPOS Gaming Suite to unlock 7.1 surround sound and tailor audio and microphone preferences

Game. Stream. Spectate

Guaranteeing convenient use across all devices and all use cases, both at-home and on-the-go, the H3 Hybrid delivers versatility for all types of players.

H3PRO Hybrid  Coming Soon Expanding on its H3 Hybrid counterpart, the H3PRO Hybrid meets the needs of demanding gamers looking for wireless freedom and high-quality audio. The H3PRO Hybrid will debut in Sebring Black, while boasting long-lasting battery life, and proprietary EPOS wireless technology delivering lag-free transmission - all without sacrificing performance.

More features and details will be announced soon.

Both the H3 Hybrid and H3PRO Hybrid will offer quality-of-life features to enhance users overall gaming experience, including intuitive smart buttons for quick control of audio settings, instant mute by lifting the boom arm, lightweight adjustable fits, integrated volume control on the ear cup and exchangeable ergonomic ear pads.

Price and Availability

The EPOS H3 Hybrid gaming headset is available now at eposaudio.com/ gaming and from selected retailers at a suggested retail price of $179 USD/$259 CAD.

Further details on the H3PRO Hybrid will be announced soon. Gamers looking to learn more about the H3 series can read more here and sign up for latest news.
The upcoming Google Pixel 6 Pro flagship will feature an LTPO display. This information comes from Ross Young, a well-known display analyst. Chances are the information is spot on, as his tips usually are.

The Google Pixel 6 Pro will feature an LTPO display aka adaptive refresh rate

Thats not all, though, as Ross Young shared some additional info in the comments. He confirmed that this will be Samsungs new E5 panel. That means it will be able to show us up to 1 billion colors, and this is a 10-bit panel.

Some of you are probably wondering what does LTPO stands for? It represents Low-Temperature Polycrystalline Oxide tech, contrary to LTPS display. Long story short, this display offers an adaptive refresh rate.

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That means that the Pixel 6 Pro will offer an adaptive refresh rate, which, if used properly, can benefit battery life quite considerably. The Pixel 6 Pro will offer a refresh rate up to 120Hz, in case you were wondering, but this display will be able to lower it almost all the way down (10Hz minimum) when needed.

The Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra will utilize a huge 14.6-inch panel

In that very same tweet, Ross Young also confirmed that the Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra is coming with a WQHD display, which will measure 14.6 inches. It will be an OLED display, and a truly huge one, apparently.

Anyhow, the Pixel 6 Pro is expected to launch alongside the Pixel 6 next month. We still dont know if the Pixel 6 will feature an LTPO display, but chances are it will not.

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Both of these devices will be fueled by Googles very first mobile SoC, the Google Tensor. Google confirmed that a while back, when it also released official renders of the two smartphones.

The company will also use a brand new camera sensor this time around, and it was about time. The most likely option is Samsungs ISOCELL GN1 50-megapixel sensor. Nothing has been confirmed just yet, though. More information is expected to arrive soon.
The latest Samsung One UI 4.0 Beta has uncovered support for eSIM capabilities in the U.S. Although eSIM capabilities arrived with the Galaxy S21, S21+, and the S21 Ultra earlier this year, U.S. variants were left out of the compatibility list (via).

After a few months of waiting, it now seems like the Android 12-based One UI 4.0 has finally enabled eSIM support in the region. Samsung recently enabled eSIM capabilities on the T-Mobile Galaxy Note 20 and Note 20 Ultra earlier this year.

For most users, support for eSIM will be enabled when the company pushes the final version of Android 12 and One UI 4.0. With the Beta only going live a couple of days ago, the stable version is still a couple of months away. However, this revelation gives a hint of whats to come for Samsungs 2021 flagships and beyond.

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Samsung recently opened One UI 4.0 Beta for the Galaxy S21 series in select markets

If youre eager to try out the new eSIM capabilities on the Galaxy S21, S21+, or the S21 Ultra, you can sign up for the One UI 4.0 beta. The beta program is open for customers of T-Mobile, Sprint, or unlocked Galaxy S21 phones. Users should try out beta versions on a spare device as such releases are generally unstable and buggy.

Samsung has talked about One UI 4.0 beta since July, although the beta release faced delays. According to industry reports, the stable version of One UI 4.0 would only roll out by early November.

As for compatibility with One UI 4.0, Samsung could send the update to over 70 Galaxy devices. This includes mid-range smartphones as well as tablets. The company will reportedly send the update to phones in the Galaxy A, Galaxy F, and the Galaxy M series. Though these phones and tablets will get the update, the timeline is currently unclear. The company usually updates its flagship lineup first, followed by mid-range and budget devices.

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While we dont have all the details yet, One UI 4.0 will likely include a handful of new features. Early information from the beta build indicates that the company brings camera zoom and other new animations. Users can also expect minor improvements to the Always-On Display and Samsung Keyboard.
(ANSA) - ROME, SEP 16 - The Gimbe medical foundation said in its regular monitoring report on the coronavirus on Thursday that the COVID-19 cases in Italy's hospitals at the moment regard "unvaccinated people almost exclusively".

It said Italy's data regarding the pandemic improved in the week between September 8 and 14 with respect to the previous week.

It said the number of new cases dropped by 14.7%, deaths were down 6.7%, the number of people in quarantine dropped 8.8%, hospital cases fell 3.3% and the number of COVID patients in intensive care was down 1.6%. (ANSA).


Serbia: 1,000 animals at risk of dying due to drought Army intervenes with tanker trucks in the Suva Planina area

(ANSA) - BELGRADE, SEP 16 - A thousand animals, about 800 cows, and 200 horses are at risk of dying because of the drought, as they have been without water since last weekend. An African desert climate occurs in the mountains of Suva Planina, southeastern Serbia, where hundreds of grazing livestock suffer from thirst due to the lack of water caused by the absence of rain.



The only water source has long since dried up due to the drought affecting the area for several weeks. Military tanks supplying the area have stopped traveling since Saturday, Serbian news agency Beta reported. "Cataclysmic scenario" is how local media described the situation.



Many appeals to save livestock have been launched among residents and on social media. Finally, the authorities seem to have taken up the requests. "After four days of suffering, the animals will have water again," the newspaper Kurir informed today, telling of two tankers of the Serbian army that arrived during the night in Suva Planina. (ANSA).





 Copyright ANSA - All rights reserved
(ANSAmed) - PARIGI, 16 SET - Australia's decision to build nuclear submarines in a new partnership with the US and Great Britain is "deplorable", France said Thursday.



A statement issued noted that the decision ran counter to the "letter and the spirit" of cooperation between France and Australia.



The US, Great Britain, and Australia on Wednesday launched a security partnership for the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, especially to contain any threats from China.



The partnership, the White House said in a statement, will focus on security, defense, information and technology sharing, cyber capacities, and artificial intelligence.



The alliance will be called AUKUS, an acronym of the three countries.



The stated aim is to contribute to supporting peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region and China was not mentioned in the official communication.



However, most US media noted that the alliance is seen as a move to contain and counter Chinese threats in the area.



The new security partnership will enable Australia to get nuclear-propelled submarines, a White House source said in a conference call with the media.



Australia prime minister Scott Morrison confirmed that the country will not finalise a 90-billion-dollar (Australian dollars, equal to 66 billion USD) agreement with France for submarine supply and will instead build its own nuclear-propelled ones using US and UK technology.



He added that the decision not to go forward with plans to purchase the French Attack Class submarines was due to need and not a betrayal of any sort.



The EU noted that it had not been informed of the US-UK-Australia alliance and that it was currently in contact with its partners to find out more and to discuss the implications with member states, said spokesman for European External Action Service Peter Stano.
ROME - On Thursday morning, Greek president Katerina Sakellaropoulou was welcomed by the Comunita di Sant'Egidio in the Rome area Trastevere.



A statement said that, following a visit to the Santa Maria in Trastevere Basilica, where she was welcomed by the priest Marco Gnavi, the president went to a school of Italian language and culture run by the Comunita di Sant'Egidio and frequented over the years by thousands of immigrants as part of integration and reception programs.



She there met with some refugee families that had arrived in Rome from Greece, mostly from the island of Lesbos, through humanitarian corridors as part of an agreement between Sant'Egidio and the Italian state in collaboration with Greek authorities for 300 vulnerable refugees.



In attendance were some Afghans that had arrived in Rome in recent days and were welcomed by Sant'Egidio.



The visit ended with a meeting with San'Egidio directors.



Among the issues discussed was the need to respond urgently in Europe to growing poverty among the weakest sections of the population due to the pandemic and the need to take action on the issue of migration, which affects all EU states.



It was underscored that humanitarian corridors make it possible to prevent refugees from being caught up in human trafficking rackets.



The importance of peace was also stressed by Greece and Sant'Egidio in relation to both the Mediterranean area and all the Middle East, with special attention on the social and humanitarian emergency caused by the Afghan crisis.
BEIRUT - Much-awaited loads of oil get to Lebanon from Iran and from Iraq. The load of Iranian oil that the Lebanese armed and political movement Hezbollah had requested of its regional ally to "help the Lebanese" hold up under a prolonged lack of fuel for power stations and generators arrived Thursday morning in Lebanon, openly smuggled through Syria.



The first tankers coming from Syria crossed the border with Lebanon between the Syrian plains of Qusayr, under the control of Shia militias, and the city of Hermel, also under the control of Hezbollah. Hezbollah's al-Manar television station and other Lebanese media have been widely publicizing the news, which analysts call "symbolic" in terms of quantity but which in any case serves Hezbollah's desire to show the population its support for "the Lebanese people" and not only the Shia community.



"We have shown that we can break the siege imposed by the US," the spokesman for Hezbollah in the Bekaa, Hajj Ahmad Rayai, said.

After the 'Iranian oil' openly smuggled by Hezbollah into Lebanon from neighbouring Syria, an initial load of fuel arrived in the country from Iraq on Thursday for the country's power stations. Lebanon has for a long time been suffering from a lack of electricity. Beirut and Baghdad had reached an agreement in recent weeks for Iraqi fuel in exchange for Lebanese doctors in Iraqi hospitals, which lack specialists.
Lebanon gets fuel for power stations from Iraq In exchange for medical personnel

(ANSAmed) - BEIRUT, 16 SET - After the 'Iranian oil' openly smuggled by Hezbollah into Lebanon from neighbouring Syria, an initial load of fuel arrived in the country from Iraq on Thursday for the country's power stations.



Lebanon has for weeks been suffering from a lack of electricity.



Beirut and Baghdad had reached an agreement in recent weeks for Iraqi fuel in exchange for Lebanese doctors in Iraqi hospitals, which lack specialists. (ANSAmed).




Iranian oil arrives in Lebanon via Syria, Hezbollah Tankers enter Bekaa, stronghold of movement under Nasrallah

(ANSAmed) - BEIRUT, 16 SET - A much-awaited load of Iranian oil requested that the Lebanese armed and political movement Hezbollah had requested of its regional ally to "help the Lebanese" hold up under a prolonged lack of fuel for power stations and generators arrived Thursday morning in Lebanon.



The first tankers coming from Syria crossed the border with Lebanon between the Syrian plains of Qusayr, under the control of Shia militias, and the city of Hermel, also under the control of Hezbollah. Hezbollah's al-Manar television station and other Lebanese media have been widely publicizing the news, which analysts call "symbolic" in terms of quantity but which in any case serves Hezbollah's desire to show the population its support for "the Lebanese people" and not only the Shia community.



"We have shown that we can break the siege imposed by the US," the spokesman for Hezbollah in the Bekaa, Hajj Ahmad Rayai, said. (ANSAmed).




Islamic State Greater Sahara leader killed by French forces French president announced the news, no details

(ANSAmed) - ROME, 16 SET - The head of the jihadist group the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), Adnan Abou Walid al-Sahrawi, has been "neutralized" by French forces, French president Emmanuel Macron announced Thursday on Twitter.



He called it "another greater success" in the country's fight against terrorist groups in the Sahel.



ISGS is believed to be behind most of the attacks in recent years in the area of "three borders" between Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso.



Sahrawi was born in Morocco's El-Aaiun, in Marocco and in 2010 he joined a faction of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, later becoming its spokesman.



In 2013 he declared himself the head of an organization called the Mujahideen Shura Council in Gao, Mali.



In 2015 he declared his loyalty to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and has been linked to several attacks.



In 2019, the US offered 5 million dollars to anyone providing information leading to his capture or killing. (ANSAmed).




France disappointed by Australia's submarine deal pullout Paris excluded from new Australia-UK-US alliance

(ANSAmed) - PARIGI, 16 SET - Australia's decision to build nuclear submarines in a new partnership with the US and Great Britain is "deplorable", France said Thursday.



A statement issued noted that the decision ran counter to the "letter and the spirit" of cooperation between France and Australia.



The US, Great Britain, and Australia on Wednesday launched a security partnership for the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, especially to contain any threats from China.



The partnership, the White House said in a statement, will focus on security, defense, information and technology sharing, cyber capacities, and artificial intelligence.



The alliance will be called AUKUS, an acronym of the three countries.



The stated aim is to contribute to supporting peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region and China was not mentioned in the official communication.



However, most US media noted that the alliance is seen as a move to contain and counter Chinese threats in the area.



The new security partnership will enable Australia to get nuclear-propelled submarines, a White House source said in a conference call with the media.



Australia prime minister Scott Morrison confirmed that the country will not finalise a 90-billion-dollar (Australian dollars, equal to 66 billion USD) agreement with France for submarine supply and will instead build its own nuclear-propelled ones using US and UK technology.



He added that the decision not to go forward with plans to purchase the French Attack Class submarines was due to need and not a betrayal of any sort.



The EU noted that it had not been informed of the US-UK-Australia alliance and that it was currently in contact with its partners to find out more and to discuss the implications with member states, said spokesman for European External Action Service Peter Stano. (ANSAmed).




Greek president Sakellaropoulou visits Sant'Egidio Meets with refugees who came via humanitarian corridors

(ANSAmed) - ROME, 16 SET - On Thursday morning, Greek president Katerina Sakellaropoulou was welcomed by the Comunita di Sant'Egidio in the Rome area Trastevere.



A statement said that, following a visit to the Santa Maria in Trastevere Basilica, where she was welcomed by the priest Marco Gnavi, the president went to a school of Italian language and culture run by the Comunita di Sant'Egidio and frequented over the years by thousands of immigrants as part of integration and reception programs.



She there met with some refugee families that had arrived in Rome from Greece, mostly from the island of Lesbos, through humanitarian corridors as part of an agreement between Sant'Egidio and the Italian state in collaboration with Greek authorities for 300 vulnerable refugees.



In attendance were some Afghans that had arrived in Rome in recent days and were welcomed by Sant'Egidio.



The visit ended with a meeting with San'Egidio directors.



Among the issues discussed was the need to respond urgently in Europe to growing poverty among the weakest sections of the population due to the pandemic and the need to take action on the issue of migration, which affects all EU states.



It was underscored that humanitarian corridors make it possible to prevent refugees from being caught up in human trafficking rackets.



The importance of peace was also stressed by Greece and Sant'Egidio in relation to both the Mediterranean area and all the Middle East, with special attention on the social and humanitarian emergency caused by the Afghan crisis. (ANSAmed).




The Government of Abu Dhabi and a foundation linked to furniture giant Ikea have thrown 825 million at an effort to roll out full-fibre broadband in the UK.

CityFibre said that it had secured more than 1.1 billion to invest, including 300 million worth of new loans.

It is money that will help the company reach into a third of UK homes by the middle of the decade, it said on Thursday.

Investors include Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund, the Mubadala Investment Company, and Interogo Holding  which is owned by a foundation set up to safeguard the IKEA Concept.

This new capital will not only underpin our rollout to up to eight million homes across 285 cities, towns and villages, but will also enable our participation in the Governments Project Gigabit programme to extend our future-proof infrastructure to rural areas and ensure no one is left behind, said the CityFibre chief executive, Greg Mesch.

If nurtured and protected, infrastructure competition at scale will continue to unleash huge investment from the private sector as well as catalyse investment from incumbent operators.

CityFibres network is used by Vodafone and TalkTalk among other internet providers. It is live in 46 places around the UK.

Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, said: The Government is committed to making high-speed broadband available for every part of the UK, and this exciting investment will turbocharge the UKs full-fibre rollout. It will revolutionise peoples lives and generate huge economic benefits, jobs and growth.

The UK is open for business and attracting investments like this as a high-value, high-growth science superpower, specialising in industries of the future.
A Worcestershire hop grower has teamed up with a Derbyshire brewery and retailer Tesco on the first of a series of all-British grown IPA-style beers aimed at halting the charge of imported ingredients from America.

Newland-based hop factor and merchant Charles Faram has been on a 10-year mission to modernise the flavour of British hops through natural cross-breeding programmes, making some varieties fruitier to compete with US-grown competitors used in East and West Coast IPAs.

Traditional hop-growing areas including Kent, Herefordshire and Worcestershire have faced increasing competition in recent years from New World hops brought in from the US, Australia and New Zealand, as younger drinkers demanded bolder new tastes.

Paul Corbett, managing director of grower-owned merchant Charles Faram, which has been operating for more than 150 years, said: We have to move with the times in terms of current beer tastes but this shouldnt be at the expense of the great and historic British hop industry.

Paul Corbett with a tray of British grown hops. (Credit: Tesco/PA)

British hops used in the UK travel fewer miles from farm to brewery so have a lower carbon footprint than most imported hops.

By choosing British hops we support the local economy; everyone from the farmer to those who work on the farms, to those who service the tractors and the picking machines.

Charles Faram is supplying four hop varieties, Jester, Harlequin, Mystic and Olicana, to the Buxton Brewery to flavour the 6.8% ABV Brithop, billed as a modern all British-grown hop IPA.

Figures show the amount of hops imported from the US grew from around 1,642 metric tonnes in 2006 to 1,973 metric tonnes last year, while UK hop production slipped back from 1,410 tonnes to 924 over the same period.

The growing thirst for IPA styles of craft beer, which have relied heavily on US hop varieties, is said to be responsible for part of the decline.

As well as direct-from-brewery sales, Brithop is hitting the shelves at 800 Tesco stories as the first in a series of beer launches the retailer hopes will help to re-popularise British hops.

Geoff Quinn, managing director at Buxton Brewery said: As brewers who believe in great tasting, fresh, locally brewed British beers we feel that using locally grown ingredients is a key part of the process.

We feel that these new modern British hop varieties could be the very beginning of more UK brewers using more locally grown varieties and we would very much like to be pioneers by using them in a range of modern craft IPAs.

Tesco craft beer buyer Luke OConnor said the development of new fruitier-tasting British hops could herald a fight back by home-grown varieties.

Theres a bitter irony here because IPAs, made with New World hops, which are helping fuel the craft beer boom, were originally created in Britain with British hops 200 years ago, he said.

We hope that the launch of this refreshing and modern tasting new British hopped ale could help kickstart that revival.
Britain has denied it is seeking a new cold war with China following the announcement of a defence pact with the US and Australia to check Beijings growing power in the Indo-Pacific.

The three allies said they would be working together to enable the Australian navy to acquire for the first time a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.

The move drew an angry response from Beijing, with the Chinese embassy in Washington warning countries against building exclusionary blocs targeting or harming the interests of third parties.

Embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu said: In particular, they should shake off their cold war mentality and ideological prejudice.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace insisted the Chinese were wrong to see the trilateral agreement  dubbed Aukus  as an act of aggression.

In the Cold War everyone was stuck behind fences and didnt really communicate with each other and certainly didnt engage in global trade, and I think its probably a Cold War view to describe it as a cold war, he told the BBCs Radio 4 Today programme.

At the same time, he acknowledged that Chinas military expansion  and its involvement in a series of disputes with neighbouring nations over navigation rights in the South China Sea  inevitably led to a reaction elsewhere.

The first initiative under #AUKUS is the delivery of nuclear-powered submarines for the @Australian_Navy. This will allow @DeptDefence to meet its mission to protect Australia and its national interests, and that of our regional friends, into the future. #AUKUS pic.twitter.com/CYF05qJqPZ  Scott Morrison (@ScottMorrisonMP) September 15, 2021

China has launched on a huge investment in its military and its surface fleet and aircraft. It is probably one of the largest armed forces on the planet, Mr Wallace said.

China is obviously engaged in a number of disputes around freedom of navigation. That just causes a reaction elsewhere.

But it is not just about China. It is about the modern capabilities a country such as Australia needs.

The pact was announced in a joint statement on Wednesday by Boris Johnson, US president Joe Biden and Australian prime minister Scott Morrison.

Ben Wallace said China would be wrong to interpret the new military pact as an act of aggression (PA)

Mr Johnson said they would work hand-in-glove to preserve security and stability in the Indo-Pacific.

At the same time he said Scotland and parts of the north of England and the Midlands would benefit from work on the Australian submarine fleet.

The move to nuclear-powered  although not nuclear-armed  vessels will give the Australian navy the ability to operate undetected for longer periods underwater.

However, it is a blow to France which had a contract with Canberra to supply a new fleet of conventional diesel-electric submarines which has now been scrapped.

In a joint statement, foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and armed forces minister Florence Parly condemned the move as contrary to the letter and spirit of the co-operation between France and Australia.

France regrets #Australia's decision on submarine cooperation, which is "contrary to the letter and spirit of the cooperation which prevailed," say Foreign Minister @JY_LeDrian and Armed Forces Minister @florence_parly: https://t.co/KNxf4kzQCx pic.twitter.com/ND94Pqytjp  French Embassy UK (@FranceintheUK) September 16, 2021

They added: The American decision, which leads to the exclusion of a European ally and partner like France from a crucial partnership with Australia at a time when we are facing unprecedented challenges in the Indo-Pacific region, be it over our values or respect for a multilateralism based on the rule of law, signals a lack of consistency which France can only notice and regret.

Mr Wallace acknowledged French frustration over the agreement but insisted that Britain had not sought to to disrupt Pariss relationship with Australia.

We didnt go fishing for these opportunities, fundamentally the Australians made a decision they wanted a different capability, he told Sky News.

We have no intention of doing anything to antagonise the French  the French are some of our closest military allies in Europe.

The UK Carrier Strike Groups warships led by aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth (MoD/PA)

The initial scoping phase for the submarines is expected to take 18 months, with UK officials predicting the programme will create hundreds of highly skilled scientific and engineering roles across the country, as well as driving investment in high-tech sectors.

At a press conference in Canberra, Mr Morrison said it was undecided if Australia would purchase British-built BAE Systems Astute class submarines or the Virginia class vessels constructed in the US.

Mr Johnson will make a statement on the pact  which also covers artificial intelligence, cyber and quantum technologies  in the Commons on Thursday

It comes after the Governments integrated review of security and foreign policy earlier this year outlined plans for a tilt towards the Indo-Pacific.

The Royal Navy carrier strike group  led by HMS Queen Elizabeth with US support  is currently being deployed in the region as a sign of the new priority it is being given.
Noel Gallagher has attended the premiere of new documentary Oasis Knebworth 1996.

The new release celebrates the 25th anniversary of the Britpop band playing two concerts at Knebworth Park, Hertfordshire, a year after the release of their album Whats The Story (Morning Glory).

The two August performances in 1996 saw the band play in front of 250,000 music fans.

The films premiere was held on Thursday in central London.

Noel Gallagher with fans (Jonathan Brady/PA)

Speaking at the event, Gallagher said the significance of the concerts didnt really register at the time.

Its only since Supersonic and this film that you try and put yourself back in there and you start to get goosebumps about it because Im not sure there are many bands that had that kind of lift-off that we did.

He added: Its a real snapshot of a band at its zenith and thank god we had the foresight to film it and thank god we had the foresight not to put it out for all these years.

Because if wed put it out at that time, we wouldnt be sat here now talking about it.

The story of the concerts is told through the eyes of fans who were there and features unseen archive footage from the concert, as well as backstage interviews with the band and organisers.

The Gallagher brothers have been embroiled in a feud since the band split in 2009, prompted by a backstage brawl at the Rock en Seine festival in Paris.
The Scottish Government has officially requested support from the military to deal with pressure in the ambulance service that has extended waiting times, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has confirmed.

On Thursday, Nicola Sturgeon told MSPs during First Ministers Questions the possibility of asking for aid was under active consideration, but the request came just a few hours later.

The MoD has said the request relates to support of the mobile testing units currently deployed by the Scottish Ambulance Service, which would free up resources within the service.

The First Minister apologised to those who had endured long waits for ambulances (Andy Buchanan/PA)

Ms Sturgeon apologised to people who had endure long waits for ambulances, including the family of 65-year-old Gerald Brown, the Glasgow man who died while waiting 40 hours for treatment.

A spokeswoman for the MoD said: The Ministry of Defence has received a request from Scottish Government under the Military Aid to Civilian Authority process.

We are working hard to identify where we can most effectively assist other government departments and civil authorities.

Speaking in Holyrood on Thursday, the First Minister said: I apologise unreservedly to anyone that has suffered or is suffering unacceptably long waits.

A range of actions have already been taken to address these challenges, for example additional funding to support new recruitment.

A number of additional actions are currently under active consideration and Im happy to summarise these in further exchanges, but I can confirm now that this includes consideration of seeking targeted military assistance to help deal with short-term pressure points.

Such military assistance is already being provided to ambulance services in England and of course we have had military assistance for other aspects of the pandemic over the past 18 months.

Health Secretary Humza Yousaf, who said on Wednesday that people should think twice before calling for an ambulance, will make a statement to parliament next week, setting out measures being taken by the Scottish Government to ease the crisis.

The Tory leader Douglas Ross criticised Mr Yousafs comments, calling them dangerous and reckless, and urged the First Minister to apologise on Mr Yousafs behalf  which she did not.

Instead, the First Minister said people should never hesitate in calling an ambulance if that is the intervention they think is required.

Mr Ross said: This shouldnt be happening in Scotland in 2021.

He added: Last week, the First Minister wouldnt accept the ambulance service is in crisis, surely the last seven days will have changed her mind?

Ms Sturgeon refused to say there was a crisis, instead saying: I dont challenge the extent of the pressure thats on our ambulance service and indeed on all parts of our national health service.

It is incumbent on me as First Minister, with all of my colleagues across government, as it faces up to these challenges.

Pressure because of coronavirus, the First Minister said, was driving the problems being seen in the sector.

She added: These are challenges mirrored in health services across the UK and indeed many parts of the world because of the realities of Covid.

The fact that anyone in our country waits an unacceptable period of time for an ambulance when they need urgent care is not acceptable to me and its not acceptable to anyone, and that is why we will work closely and intensively with the ambulance service to support it to meet those challenges, which I would expect to continue for a period as the Covid pressure continues and as we go into the winter months.

The military has been requested to help the ambulance service (Jane Barlow/PA)

The First Minister continued: I do not, in any way, underestimate the extent of the challenge facing the ambulance service and by extension people across Scotland.

This is the latest in a number of significant challenges posed to us as a result of this pandemic, our responsibility is to take the action to support the service to meet that challenge and thats what Im focused on, what the Health Secretary is focused on and what the entire Government is focused on.

Speaking specifically about the case of Mr Brown, a spokeswoman from the Scottish Ambulance Service said: We have started an investigation into the circumstances relating to the delay in reaching Mr Brown and will be in contact with Mr Browns family directly to apologise for the delay in response and pass on our sincere condolences.

We are really sorry for their loss and our thoughts are with them at this difficult time.

All findings and lessons learned will be shared with Mr Browns family as part of the investigation process.

Mr Browns death has been reported to the Procurator Fiscal, who said an investigation was ongoing.
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP)  The widow of a U.S. Marine killed in a bombing in Afghanistan in August has given birth to a baby girl.

Levi Rylee Rose McCollum was born early Monday at Naval Hospital Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, California, according to a Facebook post by the baby's grandmother, Jill Miller Crayton.

The 8-pound, 10-ounce (3.9-kilogram) girl was born in a lightning quick delivery and doing well, according to Crayton's Monday evening post.

Crayton is the mother of Jiennah Crayton, who is the widow of Lance Cpl. Rylee McCollum, 20, of Bondurant, Wyoming. McCollum was among 13 U.S. soldiers killed in the suicide bombing Aug. 26 at the Kabul airport.

Several online fundraising efforts as of Wednesday had raised about $1 million for the baby's education and for her mother.

McCollum grew up in western Wyoming's Jackson Hole area. Relatives said McCollum played with toy rifles as a toddler and was interested from an early age in becoming a soldier.

He was a high school wrestler known for working hard, even before Marine training.

Hundreds of people lined the streets in Jackson, Wyoming, last Friday when McCollum's remains returned home from Afghanistan. Law enforcement saluted as the hearse passed.

McCollum was killed on his first deployment.
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP)  The U.S., Britain and Australia have announced they're forming a new security alliance that will help equip Australia with nuclear-powered submarines. The alliance will see a reshaping of relations in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond. Here's what it might mean for various players:

THE UNITED STATES

Ten years ago under President Barack Obama, the U.S. began discussing the need to focus more attention on the Indo-Pacific region while pivoting away from conflicts in the Middle East. Under President Joe Biden, the U.S. has now withdrawn its troops from Afghanistan while finding that tensions with China have only grown. In the Pacific, the U.S. and others have been concerned about China's aggressive actions in the South China Sea and its antipathy toward Japan, Taiwan and Australia. In announcing the deal, none of the three leaders mentioned China, although the alliance was seen as a provocative move by Beijing. The U.S. had previously only shared the nuclear propulsion technology with Britain. Biden said it was about ensuring peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific over the long term.

Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison, center, appears on stage with video links to Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson, left, and U.S. President Joe Biden at a joint press conference at Parliament House in Canberra, Thursday, Sept. 16, 2021. The leaders are announcing a security alliance that will allow for greater sharing of defense capabilities  including helping equip Australia with nuclear-powered submarines. (Mick Tsikas/AAP Image via AP)

BRITAIN

Leaving the European Union under Brexit has left Britain seeking to reassert its global position. Part of that has been an increased focus  or tilt  toward the Indo-Pacific. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the new alliance would allow the three nations to sharpen their focus on an increasingly complicated part of the world. He said that perhaps most significantly, it would bond the three nations even more closely together.

AUSTRALIA

Under the arrangement, Australia will build at least eight nuclear-powered submarines using U.S. expertise, while dumping a contract with France for diesel-electric subs. Experts say the nuclear subs will allow Australia to conduct longer patrols and give the alliance a stronger military presence in the region.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he had called the leaders of Japan and India to explain the new alliance. Japan, India, Australia and the U.S. already have a strategic dialogue known as the Quad. Biden is set to host fellow Quad leaders at the White House next week.

In this photo provided by U.S. Navy, the Virginia-class fast-attack submarine USS Illinois (SSN 786) returns home to Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam from a deployment in the 7th Fleet area of responsibility on Sept. 13, 2021.Australia decided to invest in U.S. nuclear-powered submarines and dump its contract with France to build diesel-electric submarines because of a changed strategic environment, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Thursday, Sept. 16, 2021. (Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Michael B. Zingaro/U.S. Navy via AP)

CHINA

China said the alliance would severely damage regional peace and stability, and jeopardize efforts to halt nuclear weapon proliferation. It said it was highly irresponsible for the U.S. and Britain to export the nuclear technology, and that Australia was to blame for a breakdown in bilateral relations.

The most urgent task is for Australia to correctly recognize the reasons for the setbacks in the relations between the two countries, and think carefully whether to treat China as a partner or a threat," said Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Beijing has been unhappy with the Biden administration calling it out over human rights abuses in the Xianjing region, the crackdown on democracy activists in Hong Kong, and cybersecurity breaches. Biden spoke by phone with Chinas President Xi Jinping last week. After the call, the official Xinhua News Agency reported that Xi expressed concerns that U.S. government policy toward China has caused serious difficulties in relations.

FRANCE

Australia told France it would end its contract with state majority-owned DCNS to build 12 of the worlds largest conventional submarines. The contract was worth tens of billions of dollars. France is furious, demanding explanations from all sides.

It was really a stab in the back. We built a relationship of trust with Australia, and this trust was betrayed, said French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian on France-Info radio.

NEW ZEALAND

Left out of the new alliance is Australia's neighbor New Zealand. It has a longstanding nuclear-free policy that includes a ban on nuclear-powered ships entering its ports. That stance has sometimes been a sticking point in otherwise close relations with the U.S. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said New Zealand wasnt asked to be part of the alliance and wouldnt have expected an invitation. Still, it leaves New Zealand out of a deal to share a range of information including artificial intelligence, cyber and underwater defense capabilities.
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The package comes six weeks after Kumar Mangalam Birla resigned from the post of chairman of Vodafone Idea Ltd on August 4

New Delhi: In a bid to provide substantial relief to the cash-strapped telecom companies like Vodafone Idea, which owes thousands of crores in unprovisioned past statutory dues, the Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved a crucial package for the telecom sector. The slew of measures granted to the sector include a moratorium on unpaid dues, redefining adjusted gross revenue or AGR prospectively and cuts in spectrum usage charges, etc.

Announcing the decision on the sector, communications and IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that all those who will avail of the moratorium will have to pay some interest. The moratorium will start from October 1. The reforms are deep and broad. They are structural. These reforms will bring in change today, tomorrow and in the future as well. I do not like to put a number on the package as it is revenue-neutral for the government, the minister said, adding that the moratorium will not impact the governments revenues.

The package comes six weeks after Kumar Mangalam Birla resigned from the post of chairman of Vodafone Idea Ltd on August 4. Vodafone, which was created from the merger of British telecom giant Vodafones India unit and Birlas Idea Cellular Ltd, has to pay about Rs 50,399.63 crores in statutory dues dating back over past many years.

According to top government sources, the proposed measures will be beneficial for the ailing telecom companies and will pave the way for reforms in the sector as well. Besides, these concrete measures taken by the government are expected to ease the cash flow issues being faced by some players in the industry, industry sources said.

The steps being deliberated will offer immediate relief to the sector. There is also a component of equity-related conversion, that is being mulled, which, if accepted, will offer a gesture of goodwill and help companies raise funds, the sources added.

Vodafone Idea Ltd, in its annual report, has flagged the industrys unsustainable financial duress and hoped that the government would provide the necessary support to address all structural issues faced by the sector. The total gross debt (excluding lease liabilities and including interest accrued but not due) as of June 30, 2021 of VIL stood at Rs 1,91,590 crores, comprising of deferred spectrum payment obligations of Rs 1,06,010 crores and adjusted gross revenue (AGR) liability of Rs 62,180 crores that are due to the government.
Heavy early morning traffic is seen in September 2017 on a highway a few miles from Baltimore, MD.

Share This: More than 90 agencies in Maryland will receive more than $12 million in federal highway safety grants, Gov. Larry Hogan announced.

The grants are part of the states focus to prevent motor vehicle crashes and eliminate roadway fatalities, the governor said in a news release.

With traffic already back to pre-pandemic levels, it is even more important that we continue working to make our streets and roadways safer and more accessible, Hogan said in the release. This critical funding will help us prevent crashes and fatalities all across the state and ensure highway safety remains a top priority.

The states Department of Transportation Motor Vehicle Administrations Highway Safety Office will begin dispersing the funds Oct. 1, according to the release, coming on the heels of the Hogan announcing the distribution of nearly $1 million in funding to focus on pedestrian and bicycle safety measures earlier this year.

Last year, 573 people were killed on the states roadways, a significant increase from 2019s 535 fatalities, the release reads. Last year, 138 pedestrians and 15 bicyclists were killed, compared to 125 pedestrians and 10 bicyclists killed the previous year.

The governor said in the release the fatalities occurred despite average vehicle traffic volumes dropping as much as 50% during the peak months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The highway safety funding will support efforts to increase the use of seat belts in all seats; prevent impaired, aggressive and distracted driving; and increase safety for pedestrians, motorcyclists and bicyclists, the release reads.

Funding, according to the release, will also be used to promote the correct use of child passenger safety seats, police training for highway safety and traffic enforcement, fund overtime enforcement for Marylands traffic laws and...
On Wednesday, Rolls-Royce announced the completion of the first-ever flight of the winged machine, and a successful one at that. According to the available info, the Spirit took off from the UK Ministry of Defences Boscombe Down site in the UK, and was in the air for about 15 minutes. We are not told what speed it reached, or what other systems were tested during the brief stunt in the clear British skies.The Spirit is powered by a battery with 6,000 cells, the most power-dense battery pack ever assembled for an aircraft as Rolls-Royce describes it. The battery powers axial-flux electric motors manufactured by YASA and rated at over 500 horsepower.The British company is not doing this whole record thing just for kicks and laughs. And its not doing it solely for the aviation industrys journey towards decarbonization either. It plans on making the tech and selling it as products for these exciting new markets, meaning electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL), commuter aircraft, and air taxis.For instance, Rolls-Royce is working with a Scandinavian regional airline for the development of an all-electric passenger aircraft for the commuter market, which should be able to enter service in 2026.As for the record attempt of the Spirit of Innovation, no exact date has been set yet, but rest assured were going to come back to this as soon as more info about Rolls plans is revealed.
Over the years, the House of Munich produced many outstanding tourers, but theres one machine that seems to make its way to just about any top ten list youll read online. The bike in question is none other than the BMW K1  a fierce spartan with comfy ergonomics and a sizeable herd of untamed ponies on tap.What you see above is an impeccable 1990 MY phenom with a little over 5k miles (8,000 km) on the clock. The bike spent as many as 30 years with its current owner, and it is now heading to the auction block at no reserve! Those of you who feel inclined to bid for this Beemer will have to visit the BaT (Bring A Trailer) website before Friday, September 17.For the time being, youd need something in the neighborhood of seven grand to best the top bid. In case you cant seem to recall what makes the glorified K1 so desirable, well be more than happy to bring you up to speed in the paragraphs that follow.Underneath its snazzy bodywork, the Bavarian hosts a liquid-cooled 987cc inline-four engine, with dual overhead camshafts, four valves per cylinder and a compression ratio of 11.0:1. When the tachometer displays 8,000 rpm, a maximum power output figure of 94 horses will be generated at the rear wheel. On the other hand, the leviathan will summon a torque output of no less than 74 pound-feet (100 Nm) at about 6,750 wailing spins per minute.The mills ungodly oomph is routed to an enclosed driveshaft by a five-speed gearbox. While sprinting to a top speed of 149 mph (240 kph), Motorrads missile will cover the quarter-mile distance in a spectacular 11.4 ticks. Moreover, the K1 is capable of accelerating from zero to 62 mph (0-100 kph) in just 3.9 numbing seconds, which is rather impressive for a brute whose dry weight is rated at 516 pounds (234 kg).
The New Zealand airline claims the partnership brings the company a step closer to its net zero emissions goal, hoping it can become a reality by 2050. It is why, in the next decade, it plans to use low carbon solutions for its shorter regional and domestic flights, as explained by Greg Foran, Air New Zealand CEO. Foran added that both hydrogen and battery electric planes are on the table at this point, while for long-haul operations, the airline will rely on sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).This joint research project between Airbus and the New Zealand carrier was validated through the signing of an MoU (Memorandum of Understanding). The airline carrier wants to collaborate with Airbus to understand both the opportunities and challenges hydrogen would bring, in order to know what infrastructure and logistics changes are necessary to implement this technology.Airbus commits to providing hydrogen aircraft performance requirements and ground operations characteristics, which is something is capable of delivering. Last year in September, Airbus revealed three concepts of zero-emission commercial aircraft, with all of them relying on hydrogen as a primary power source. They were named ZEROe and included a turbofan design, a turboprop design and a blended wing body design.The turbofan design allows for 120 to 200 passengers and would have a range of 2,000 nautical miles. It would be powered by a modified gas-turbine engine running on hydrogen.Then theres the turboprop concept that would allow for up to 100 passengers, which would use a turboprop engine, also powered by hydrogen. It would have a range of over 1,000 NM.The blended wing body aircraft would have a capacity of up to 200 passengers and a range of up to 2,000 NM. In this case, the wings would merge with the main body of the plane.Airbus will decide which design goes into production by 2025.
The high-end British yacht brokerage Burgess added a stunning model on September 15, which turned out to belong to a celebrity in the business world. The yachts instantly-recognizable name, the IJE, is made up from the initials of James Packers three children. Designed by the renowned Italian brand Benetti, the superyacht was customized for Packer, at the time.The giant, 354-foot (108 meters) long superyacht is actually Benettis longest yacht and the flagship of the company's custom fleet. It boasts no less than 11 cabins, enough to accommodate up to 22 guests, with the private owners cabin deck offering direct access to the side decks. With so many guests on board, you bet there were plenty of options for fun activities too  from the large swimming pool on the main deck, to the integrated cinema and nightclub.Like any self-respecting superyacht, the IJE is designed with large, luminous areas for socializing. It provides the perfect space for open air dining, a luxurious lounge with a bar and a sun lounge with a fire pit.The main salon with ceiling-to-floor sliding glass walls offers a spectacular view on three sides, while the large gym opening up to a sea terrace is one of the biggest and most inviting gyms youll see on a yacht.Such a majestic superyacht had to come with the best water toys  theres enough storage for two 40-foot (12 meters) tenders and a wide selection of toys.Presented as the ultimate world-cruising family yacht, Packers IJE is ready to delight a new owner for $206 million (175 million). Instead of cruising around the world, the Australian mogul will likely spend more time at his equally-lavish $50 million Mexican retreat , in Cabo.
We stumbled upon the one we have here as we were looking for exciting two-wheelers to bring to your attention. And it fits the description, despite being rather old (it was completed in 2001), and aiming to look even older.The project, sporting on the sides of the fuel tank the name Jap Hunter (no idea if thats a reference to the Japanese as a people, or the motorcycles they make), is the work of German custom shop called X-Trem, who brought together a wealth of parts sourced from elsewhere to complete it.The custom-made frame, rocking a self-supporting tail section, cradles an S&S 96ci engine rated at 91 hp. It is fed by means of a carburetor and kept in check via a 5-speed transmission. Breathing is ensured thanks to a Vance & Hines exhaust system. The engine sends its power to the 120-spoke wheels, sized 21 inches at the front and 18 inches at the rear.As said, the Jap Hunter is a composite of parts supplied by a variety of shops. Most of them, including things like the fuel cap, footrest system, and oil tank, are the work of West Coast Choppers  the name can also be seen on the seat of the thing.Crime Scene Choppers supplied the air filter, Thunderbike the insert plate and aluminum rear light cover, and X-Trem contributed the tail section and the overall vision for the Jap Hunter.As said, this is an older build, and sadly we have no info on what happened to it since it was made. We brought it to your attention because seeing such machines, not made in America, is a rare occurrence. And its also a fine-looking bike , provided you can get past all the curse words written on the fuel tank and the seat.
General Motors has confirmed that the temporary production halt at some North American facilities would be extended, with popular models like the Chevrolet Camaro to be impacted.Earlier this month, the American carmaker announced production downtime at its plants in the United States and Canada, blaming the chip crisis as the reason it can no longer manufacture cars at the same pace.But on Thursday, the company revealed that given the shortage isnt going anywhere, for now, it has no other option than to just suspend the production of cars for a little bit longer at some facilities.One of the impacted sites is the Lansing Grand River Assembly plant, where General Motors is making the Chevrolet Camaro and the Cadillac Blackwing. The production lines at this factory will be shut down through the week of September 27, the company revealed.The Lansing Delta Township Assembly plant is also targeted by the extended downtime, so it will halt all operations during the week of September 27, with the production of the Chevrolet Traverse and Buick Enclave to resume on October 4.Unfortunately, it doesnt seem like the chip shortage would ease up anytime soon, despite forecasts that the semiconductor production would gain pace in late 2021.Most carmakers, including Daimler and Volkswagen, expect the lack of chips to continue into 2023 , with a small recovery to be recorded next year when foundries across the world would finally be able to accelerate their output. But until this happens, suspending the production at certain plants and even launching cars without some critical systems seem to be the only ways to deal with the lack of chips.
The contract gives GM Defense sole ownership of the rights to manufacture heavy-duty, often armored full-sized SUVs for a wide variety of uses ranging from police tactical response to US Secret Service.Heavy-duty Chevrolet Suburban s have been high ticket commodities since the previous generation GMT-900 platform was discontinued back in 2014. The DOD is hopeful that a lucrative partnership with General Motors  Security and Defense division will yield reliable heavy-duty trucks that the U.S. government has been lacking for the past half-decade.The project is expected to yield at least ten examples of heavy-duty GMT1YC Chevrolet Suburbans by the end of this year. The contract is expected to yield a fleet of 200 vehicles exclusively for the DOD before the end of the decade.Were excited to be developing a fully-integrated, purpose-built HD Suburban in partnership with the U.S. Department of State, said Steve Dumont, president of GM Defense. "The Chevrolet Suburban has been an iconic name in commercial transportation since 1935. Our development contract win speaks to our long-standing legacy of exceeding transportation capabilities, he added.GM Defense LLCs plan is to deliver the custom Suburbans in two phases. The first phase will see the initial production run produced this year delivered in the spring of 2022. The remaining of the proposed 200-vehicle fleet will be delivered under the new nine-year contract, slated to begin in May 2023.Governments and civilians alike have been longing for the next generation heavy-duty Suburban for years now. From the looks of GM Defenses latest dealings, it seems the call from government far exceeds the musings of us average civics.
EV

If you go check the recall page for the Bolt, youll see the new guidance is not included there, which makes it seem pretty specific. Bloomberg did not mention how the company is contacting these owners. Luckily, CNBC got in touch with the automaker to ask about that and announced that it was not GM who contacted clients. It was actually, the other way around.The carmaker is advising all customers that have already contacted GMs call center, to park the Bolt EV in structures or parking lots. We also got in touch with GM and we are expecting to receive a similar answer soon.In other words, this is a general recommendation that should probably show up on the recall page any day now. According to the company, Bolt EV owners should also try to park on the top floor or on an open-air deck, always respecting the minimum 50-feet distance from other vehicles.As Bloomberg stresses, many Bolt EV customers that live in crowded urban areas may not have anywhere to park their at such a distance from others. On the Chevrolet Bolt EV forums, people are also arguing that they can only charge their vehicles at night, among other things. That said, some refuse to wake up in the middle of the night to unplug their cars and park them outside their garages. Unfortunately, as uncomfortable as the procedure is, avoiding it is not an option. According to NHTSA , 110,324 Bolt vehicles from 2017 up to 2022 are included in the recall: 50,932 cars from 2017 up to 2019 and 59,392 EVs from the 2019 model year until the 2022 model year. CNBC says that GM reported 12 fires so far. It is not clear if the count includes the latest blaze in Georgia.
Things take time when it comes to eVTOLs (electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft), since its new territory in terms of regulations and infrastructure. But Volocopter has made a big step  its getting ready to bring the famous Volocity to the U.S.The company has joined forces with Urban Movement Labs in Los Angeles. The L.A.-based organization claims to be the first of its kind to connect government, industry and community partners for improving local transportation. This new partnership doesnt mean that people in L.A. will switch to air taxis tomorrow, because the eVTOL developer is still waiting for certification. But its a big step in establishing a policy framework and the related infrastructure.Its not the aircraft developers first contact with America. Earlier this year, the Volocopter 2X prototype conducted a crewed flight demonstration at the Oshkosh air show, for approximately four minutes, at 160 feet (49 meters) in the air. According to the startup, it was the first public crewed flight of an eVTOL in the U.S. A previous demonstration flight was conducted in Paris. Volocopter also claims to be the only player in the UAM industry to hold two European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) certification approvals for designing and producing eVTOLs. As remarkable as that may be, it still needs to wait for the final EASA certification, as well as the one from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), in order to operate in the U.S.If everything goes according to plan, Los Angeles might become the first American city to support Voloports (eVTOL airports), air taxis and heavy-lift cargo drones. Volocopter is set to launch its services in the next two to three years.
1954 GMC P250 Short-flatbed hydraulic dump truck, complete and running, just needs gas tank reattached - $6,000

1967 Camaro rolling Chassis - $12,500

1967 Camaro Rally Sport Rolling chassis - $14,000

1968 Camaro basket case - $20,000

1969 Camaro complete non-running - $24,000

1968 Chevelle 300 Deluxe body/chassis (2 door post) - $7,500

1968 Chevelle Coupe ran when parked - $14,000

1968 Chevelle Super Sport 138xxx Vin rough body with chassis - $15,000

1968 Chevelle Malibu Wagon factory stick shift, complete, non-running with 1994 LT1/4L60e - $12,000

1969 Chevelle Coupe complete roller - $16,000

1969 Chevelle Coupe with 5.3l LSx straight, solid - $25,000

1969 Chevelle Coupe with 5.7l LS1 - $27,500

1972 Chevelle Coupe, new suspension/steering/brakes/rebuilt 12-bolt posi - $12,000

1969 Pontiac GTO Convertible - $30,000

1970 El Camino - drive it home - $12,500

1969 C20 LWB Truck - $7,500

1971 K5 Blazer 4x4 - $15,000

1972 K2 Blazer 2wd conversion started - $15,000

1970 Olds Cutlass Vista Cruiser, skylight glass top roof - $7,500

1972 Olds Cutlass Vista Cruiser, skylight glass top roof with 5.3l LSx swap - $14,000

With a proper restoration, even a rust bucket can become a head turner, as long as such a project makes sense not necessarily from a financial perspective, but also when it comes to how rare the car is in the first place.And if youre looking for a project car to restore, heres something that should totally lend you a hand.The owner of this massive herd of vehicles is selling over 20 classic cars, obviously not in their best shape, with the list including quite a lot of GM models, some of them even still running.Located in Clearlake, California, all the vehicles require more or less critical fixes, but very important to keep in mind is these are all project cars. Some ran when parked, as its the case of a 1968 Chevrolet Chevelle coupe, while others are just rollers, like the 1967 Camaro Rally Sport.Theres one 1970 El Camino thats ready to take you home, meaning it comes in a fairly solid condition, as well as a 1968 Pontiac GTO convertible available for $30,000 and which could end up being worth quite a small fortune with the right restoration job.The LS1-powered 1969 Chevelle coupe looks intriguing as well, and so does the 1969 Chevelle roller that comes in a fairly solid condition and could make for a pretty good home for a restomod.The full list of cars, along with a few essential details and the pricing, is available below just as provided by the seller on Craigslist . They claim they also have several other models not included on the list, and prices are sometimes negotiable.
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Despite all these prototypes be, there are still some steps toward mass production. The next one will be manufacturing pre-production units that will confirm if the vehicles have the right quality to be delivered to their buyers. To make things easier to understand, the tooling trial tests if the factory is ready for production. Meanwhile, pre-production verifies if the product already achieved the desired standards. According to CNEVPost , the ET7 is the NIO with the most pre-orders so far. When deliveries start, the Chinese company expects to sell 50,000 units in 2022. We are unsure if series production will begin by the end of 2021 or at the beginning of 2022, which could affect sales estimates. However, it was pretty clear that the sedan would sell well in a country that still loves them as much as China does.The ET7 will start at RMB526,000 ($81,772.70 at the current exchange rate). With government incentives, the price drops to RMB448,000 ($69,391). Those prices are only valid if you want to buy thewith a battery pack. As you are probably aware, NIO can sell you only the vehicle and allow you to use the swappable battery pack for a monthly fee.Called BaaS (battery as a service), it makes you pay from RMB980 ($151) for the 70-battery pack up to RMB1,480 ($229) per month for the 100-kWh unit. Without this component, the ET7 starts at RMB378,000 ($58,548.80) before incentives. If you could buy it in the U.S. for the same prices, youd save $23,223.90 only with that decision. You'd also protect yourself against failing battery packs : if one goes bad, it is NIO's problem, not yours. You'd just have to swap it.Considering you can replace the battery packs whenever they run low, subscribing to a larger unit would only make sense if you drove more than 615 kilometers (382 miles) per day. Thats what the 100-kWh battery pack offers for the EC6 in thecycle.As a sedan, the ET7 should run a lot more due to less aerodynamic drag. For all other cases, getting the 70-kWh battery pack and swapping it in 3 to 6 minutes when the car needs more electrons seems the best option. In 2022, customers in Norway and Germany will have access to it. Other European customers will urge NIO to plan for a more aggressive expansion.
By combining a single fuselage and one set of avionics with different types of wings, engines and mission systems, you could obtain a wide range of configurations at a much lower cost. In fact, Aeralis claims that switching from mixed fleets to this modular concept could cut more than 30% of costs for military customers.According to the manufacturer, this strategy has been successfully used in commercial aviation, but had not been implemented by military forces until now.This groundbreaking concept is centered around the common core fuselage (CCF), which acts as the backbone for all the versions, ranging from basic and advanced training, operational training, light combat and acrobatic display. The open architecture avionics, digitally developed, are the other main common element for all modules, easy to reconfigure for specific types of missions and to update with new technologies.Two interchangeable cockpits and two wing configurations enable the Aeralis jet to be transformed for different types of missions. The company even plans to add three other wing versions for a wider range of configurations.When it comes to engines, flexibility is also key. The aircraft manufacturer has recently partnered up with Rolls-Royce, precisely for developing a propulsion system technology that can be used across all jet versions. During the first phase of the collaboration, Rolls-Royce will be testing propulsion systems for the pre-production model and focusing on integrating them into the aircrafts digital design process.Instead of dealing with the costs of logistics, operation and training for each aircraft, UKs Royal Air Force could cut costs significantly and enjoy much more flexibility with the help of this innovative modular concept.Aeralis is getting ready to enter the pre-production phase, and hopes its modular aircraft will conduct the first flight in three years from now.
Khaby Lame is a hugely popular TikToker, with over 111 million followers and 1.7 billion likes, and hes TikToks second most followed person. He became famous during the health crisis, when he started posting videos showing the easy way to do habitual things. With an estimated net worth of $1 million, he became known for his short comedy skits where he sarcastically and wordlessly ridicules people, adding his trademark hand gesture at the end.We could all use some laugh, and the Senegalese-Italian comedian delivers all the time. A guest at Monza, Italy , Khaby showed hes a true phenomenon as he visited Ferrari, apparently a source for new content.The influencer published a new video on September 15, giving instructions to F1 driver Carlos Sainz, who pretended to have a problem getting into his Ferrari, going headfirst into the drivers seat and failing to actually find a good position after several attempts. But theres an easy way to do this, as the influencer shows us later in the video. Khaby shows up wearing the Scuderia outfit and a helmet, before showing his face. With his custom hand gestures, he shows the Spanish driver the right way to get over the halo so he could sit correctly into the Ferrari SF21 After showing him, Lame joked in the caption: It was an honor to help you my friend, but next time learn how to get into the car. The Spaniard also stepped in the joke, replying: Thanks for the help.
Nellie Bly, which was built by Damen Shipyards, is the autonomous, SM300-equipped vessel involved in the Machine Odyssey, an epic journey that will begin and end in Hamburg, Germany. In between, the smart boat will also visit Denmark, which is part of its 1,000 nm autonomous tour. The ship will make over a dozen port stops in Kiel, Troense, Copenhagen, Skagen, Heligoland, and a few others.While Sea Machines plans to put its SM300 autonomy system at the helm of the vessel, the ship will also operate under the authority of commanding officers located in the United States. The remote team will be in charge of monitoring the Nellie Bly from a shoreside station all the way in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the same team involved in the development, testing, and perfecting of the companys SM300 autonomous marine technology, which increases predictability, safety, efficiency, and also productivity. Two professional mariners and occasional guest passengers will be carried by the Nellie Bly during its demonstrative journey.Based in Boston, Sea Machines builds autonomous command and control technology for marine navigation. Its systems are deployed on vessels all around the world.Its SM300 system enables waypoint autonomy, remote command, and control from a second location, whether its the shore or another vessel . It also features computer vision, obstacle detection, as well as collision avoidance. You can integrate the autonomous system with your ships onboard equipment such as GPS, radar, AIS ENC charts, and specialized cameras that can offer full awareness at sea.

The autonomous boat was named so in honor of Nellie Bly, one of the most famous journalists in the United States. In 1889, inspired by Jules Vernes book "Around the World in 80 Days", she took a 25,000-mile journey around the globe, setting an international record. She completed the expeditious voyage in 72 days.



Sea Machines will stream real-time voyage data throughout the entire journey, on a website dedicated to The Machine Odyssey, so that enthusiasts can have 24/7 access to live updates. More details are to follow.
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Although it may seem small, the P5 is 4.81 meters (189.4 inches) long, 1.84 m (72.4 in) wide, 1.52 m (59,8 in) tall, and has a wheelbase of 2.77 m (109.1 in). With a drag coefficient of 0.223, the sedan promises to be quite efficient.Sadly, Xpeng only released its ranges under thecycle, which does not properly compare withor EPA. The Chinese company said independent tests achieved 97.1% of the NEDC range in real-life conditions for the battery pack theoretically able to run 460 kilometers (285.8 miles). The P5 with 600 km (372.8 mi) of range would have returned up to 94.9% of that capability in these tests. Xpeng said the Tesla Model 3 would reach only 74.3% of its alleged 468 km (290.8 mi) range.Although there is information that the P5 will haveand RWD options, Xpeng did not mention a word about that in its official press release. It only said that the car would have a maximum power of 155(208 hp) and 310 Nm (228.6 lb-ft).The P5 will have six derivatives. Two of them (460G and 460E) present an LFP battery pack that delivers 55.9and 460 km of range. All the others use ternary cells (NCA or NMC). The versions 550G, 550E, and 550P have a 66.2-kWh battery pack, and you already know the range it presents. The top version is the 600P, with a 71.4-kWh battery pack and 600 km of range, obviously. Xpeng was much more concerned in presenting the P5 , called XPILOT. It would be much superior to Teslas Autopilot or, starting by the number of sensors it offers. Apart from two double-prism LiDARs for the 550P and 600P derivatives, it also presents 12 ultrasonic radars, 5 millimeter-wave radars, 13 high-definition cameras, and a high-precision positioning unit.The LiDARs are integrated with XPILOT 3.5  Xpengs ADAS latest version, available only on the 550P and 600P. One of its functions, NGP (Navigation Guided Pilot), would now be able to steer the car and control its speed in a city environment, which could give you the idea that it is autonomous. Not yet: no vehicle currently for sale goes beyond Level 3. Xpeng did not mention what is the level XPILOT 3.5 presents.The Chinese company did not inform how much the car will cost without government incentives. Including them, the 460G starts at RMB157,900 ($24,457 at the current exchange rate). It is then followed by the 550G (RMB172,900, or $26,781), 460E (RMB177,900, or $27,555), 550E (RMB192,900, or $29,879), 550P (RMB199,900, or $30,963), and the 600P (RMB223,900, or $34,680).
Russian Pantheon was designed for the 30th anniversary of the Declaration of the State Sovereignty of Russian Federation Day. The Millennium of Russia monument, located in Novgorod the Great, was chosen as the main object of our web application.

The monument, erected in 1862 at the time of Russian czar Alexander II, was itself an interactive project - at least for its time. The whole century-old history compactly fitted into one monument which you can endlessly look at, each time finding new details. Now any internet user has the opportunity to further explore numerous details of the Millennium of Russia monument and obtain complete information about each part and the reason for its inclusion in the composition.

The shooting of the Millennium of Russia monument was made both from quadcopter and by hand.

Shooting & Photogrammetry

The Millennium of Russia monument includes 128 characters from Russian history, its height is 15,7 meters and its diameter is 9 meters. We made the shooting with the help of a quadcopter and also by hand. We waited for a cloudy day to shoot so that there wouldn't be too many contrasting shades which could be an obstacle to making a high-quality photogrammetry model. To make each of the 128 figures 100% recognizable and to avoid distortion of the sculptures, we shot them from 20 angles. Large figures of the upper-tier - an angel with a cross and the figure impersonating Russia - were shot from a drone.

Six sculpture groups of the middle tier were shot with a remote control camera fixed on a tripod. We shot the lower tier from head-height without any technical devices like a stand or tripod. In total, we made about 3000 shots from which we made our photogrammetry model that consisted of 5 million polygons with 76 4K textures.

To shoot the middle tier of the monument we pulled the tripod to the height of 3 to 8 meters.

Along with making our photogrammetry model, we were also considering how to make it possible to view such a massive 3D model using a browser - equally fast and with no lag at any internet speed. The final concept of the user interface (3D model gradually moving along with text and on any device) was a real challenge for us, we have never done such a difficult task before and in such a short time (3 weeks).

It became necessary to use the algorithm of loading and unloading of textures from video memory on the base of the THREEJS method.

The first and the main problem was the size. This is not just about the weight of the uploaded resources (more than 700 MG) but also about the video memory size needed for this amount of textures and that would be 6,3 GB. It became necessary to use the algorithm of loading and unloading of textures from video memory on the base of the THREEJS method. Of course, we could limit the zoom function, showing the viewer a low-poly model at some distance and not worry about the detail -. but in that case, the 109 out of 128 characters on a lower tier of the monument would become unrecognizable. Thats why we needed dynamic loading.

We decided to cut the photogrammetry model into dozens of fragments, each of them had several levels of detailing.

With the help of the BLENDER PYTHON API, the model was cut into tiers and each tier was cut into several segments. Each segment was baked with different levels of detail into a separate GLB file.

The source geometry of the model versus the simplified geometry.

Loading the 3D geometry and textures

The algorithm on JAVA-SCRIPT looks like this: on initial page load, all segments of all tiers are loaded with simplified geometry, which corresponds to simplified texture. Then, if while you are scrolling, a segment is in the field of view and is quite close, the bigger texture is loaded for the segment, and after that, the same segment with full geometry and maximum texture is loaded. And vice versa, if a segment is out of view, it is being cashed and the texture is unloaded from video memory and frees it up. And this continues while the viewer scrolls and swipes.

As for the flight around the model, it is nothing more than a camera animation in BLENDER baked into a GLTF file. The scroll event causes GSAP animation which smoothly changes the camera position according to data which comes from the file.

Very often while working on this project we had to feel our way through the process because of lack of time, studying all the necessary materials on the subject as we went along and right away deciding how to use them. In most cases, it was an absolutely new experience for us. The final result was exactly what we had expected - Russian Pantheon looks as if a virtual camera controlled by a user goes around the monument one by one focusing on each of its 128 characters. The visual and the text parts of the project are a single entity: the picture and the description are two equal components.

With the help of the most simple method - swipe - the user alternately moves from one fragment of the monument and the relevant text.

While interacting with the project with the help of the most simple method - swipe - the user alternately moves from one fragment of the monument and the relevant text to another. The user experience is based on the most comprehensible logic: I can see it - I can read about it. We have ensured that the perception of visual and text information was structured and comfortable.

It was crucial that our project could be viewed on any device with any internet speed equally fast and without lags and delays.

It took only 28 days from the idea of creating such an unusual interactive history textbook to its publication. And still this project remains the most challenging in the history of Gigarama in terms of programming code and 3D modeling.

Technologies

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MySQL, PHP, Wordpress, nginx.

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HTML5, CSS3, JS, Webflow, Three.js, jquery, luxy.js, gsap, webpack.

Company Info

Gigarama is a small team of like minds (there are only 6 of us) who once were carried away by the idea of telling stories with all sorts of web and multimedia technologies. It all started with shooting panoramic high-resolution images which allow you to view a large object or a mass event in all the details. This way The Broken Heart of Paris and Army of Memory projects appeared. Though very soon we got bored of using this format only. That is why today we are working with lots of interactive techniques including photogrammetry, video 360, FPV-drone shooting, and many others. Verbal components of our projects include texts, infographics, documentary shooting, short video interviews.
Iran's outgoing nuclear negotiator has been replaced as deputy foreign minister for political affairs by an ultra-hardliner, potentially further complicating efforts to revive the 2015 nuclear deal.

The state of play: It's not yet clear whether the new deputy foreign minister, Ali Bagheri, will play as central a role in nuclear negotiations as his predecessor, Abbas Araghchi. Araghchi was Iran's chief nuclear negotiator since 2013, played a key role in reaching the 2015 deal and comes from the more moderate camp.

Bagheri is a leading critic of the 2015 deal and the recent negotiations in Vienna. He previously led nuclear diplomacy under the hardline government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

If he is picked to lead the nuclear negotiations, it would be roughly analogous to John Bolton running nuclear talks with Iran.

The big picture: President Ebrahim Raisi took office in August stating that he was open to resuming nuclear talks with the U.S., but that any understandings reached over the past several months in Vienna were now void.

Talks have been frozen since the new hardline government replaced the more moderate administration of Hassan Rouhani. It's not yet clear whether future negotiations will be run out of the Foreign Ministry, as under Rouhani, or the National Security Council.

Bagheri was Raisi's representative at the Foreign Ministry during the transition and also Raisi's representative to a government monitoring committee on the nuclear deal.

Bagheri is not a fluent English speaker, which complicated the nuclear talks during his previous stint in office.

What's next: There is still no date for resuming indirect nuclear talks between Iran and the U.S. over returning to compliance with the 2015 agreement.
An energy coalition launched by Bill Gates is backing a new publication called "Cipher" dedicated to the coverage of the climate crisis, its new editor tells Axios.

Why it matters: The outlet promises to have complete editorial independence from its backer, Breakthrough Energy, a six-year-old climate advocacy network founded by Bill Gates.

Details: The new publication will be led by Axios and Wall Street Journal alum Amy Harder, who has spent over a decade covering energy and climate from Washington D.C.

Harder, now based in Seattle, will author a weekly newsletter and will host a regular video series. As executive editor, she will oversee all editorial coverage for the outlet. She plans to hire a staff that will help launch a full website next year.

will author a weekly newsletter and will host a regular video series. As executive editor, she will oversee all editorial coverage for the outlet. She plans to hire a staff that will help launch a full website next year. The word "Cipher means zero. Breakthroughs mission is to find solutions that will take society from the 51 billion tons of greenhouse gases emitted per year today to zero by 2050.

Breakthroughs mission is to find solutions that will take society from the 51 billion tons of greenhouse gases emitted per year today to zero by 2050. For now, the publication will be made available for free without ads or subscriptions and will be fully funded by Breakthrough Energy. Executives may consider additional ways to introduce sponsors for its events and newsletters in the future, but that's not in its current plans.

The goal of Cipher is to support Breakthroughs mission by providing objective journalism from a global perspective about the climate crisis.

Coverage will include everything from essential technologies for clean energy  like clean hydrogen and electricity storage  to how capitalism can help or hinder the technologies needed to drastically reduce emissions.

everything from essential technologies for clean energy  like clean hydrogen and electricity storage  to how capitalism can help or hinder the technologies needed to drastically reduce emissions. "Consider Breakthrough Energy the driver  and Cipher the narrator," Harder writes in a manifesto describing Cipher's mission.

The big picture: The past few years have given a rise to several new upstarts, collaboratives and content-driven non-profits covering climate change and the transition to clean energy, including Canary Media, The Uproot, Floodlight News, and Currently. They join a slew of existing climate publications, such as Climate Central, Inside Climate News and Grist.

Cipher plans to not only produce its own independent journalism but also partner with other reporters covering climate.

The Breakthrough Energy network includes a venture fund, policy and research enterprises and an initiative encouraging later-stage climate technologies.

Cipher is part of the network's latest expansion effort, but Harder says Cipher will cover the network and its partners objectively. "Practically speaking, this means our editorial leadership will have final say over our journalism," she writes.

but Harder says Cipher will cover the network and its partners objectively. "Practically speaking, this means our editorial leadership will have final say over our journalism," she writes. "We will stress transparency, including disclaimers when we cover topics, people and companies that are in or connected to the Breakthrough Energy network. I anticipate disagreements and tension  internally and externally."

including disclaimers when we cover topics, people and companies that are in or connected to the Breakthrough Energy network. I anticipate disagreements and tension  internally and externally." Bill Gates tends to be focused on big breakthroughs in technology to address climate, whereas others in the space are aiming to scale up existing and emerging technologies, like solar, wind and battery storage.

What's next: Cipher officially launches on September 29th.
Armenia does not have a national system of health insurance and its citizens have to pay for surgeries and other treatment at not only private but also state-run hospitals.

The current and previous governments have paid medical bills of various categories of the population, notably young children and socially vulnerable patients, through funds allocated to the hospitals. Some 1.3 million Armenians are eligible for such assistance.

Armenian media outlets have reported in recent weeks, that they are now increasingly denied free treatment on the grounds that hospitals have already run out of government money allocated for this year. The Ministry of Health has effectively confirmed that, citing a major increase in the number of people seeking free surgeries and other essential treatment.

Health Minister Anahit Avanesian said on Wednesday that the hospitals must now draw up waiting lists of patients that need to be operated on or undergo expensive medical examinations.

One woman, who did not want to be identified, claimed to have been told by a hospital that it can no longer treat her underage child suffering from a serious chronic disease for free until December 2022.

What if my childs health condition deteriorates during that time? she told RFE/RLs Armenian Service. She said she cannot afford to pay around 100,000 drams ($200) for every visit to hospital doctors.

An opposition lawmaker, Aregnaz Manukian, said she has received similar complaints from many other citizens. She raised the matter with Avanesian during the governments question-and-answer in the parliament on Wednesday.

You must find budgetary funds to fully solve the problem, Manukian told the health minister before asking: Is the government taking steps to rectify this disgraceful situation?

Avanesian replied that people in need of urgent medical aid will continue to enjoy free healthcare. She said the government is also continuing to cover the cost of cancer surgeries and other procedures and has allocated 550 million drams ($1.1 million) for that purpose.

Also, an additional 2 billion drams has been allocated for medical aid provided to military personnel and members of their families, added the minister.

One woman suffering from cancer said, however, that a Yerevan hospital has told her that she will have to pay for her next course of chemotherapy.

That should be followed by surgery, but I dont know whether or not it will be free, said the woman, who also spoke with RFE/RLs Armenian Service on the condition of anonymity for fear of upsetting the hospital management.
The Anti-Corruption Committee (ACC) will inherit most of its powers from divisions of four Armenian law-enforcement bodies that have long prosecuted corruption-related crimes. One of them, the Special Investigative Service (SIS), will be dissolved after the ACC starts operating in full next year.

The ACC will be headed by Sasun Khachatrian, the SIS chief until now. He was nominated for the post by a government commission that declared him the winner of a job contest organized by it.

Speaking during a cabinet meeting in Yerevan immediately after his appointment, Khachatrian expressed confidence that the new agency will increase the efficiency of the governments fight against corruption. He said the ACC will start operating by the end of October and will finally take shape in the course of next year.

Khachatrian, 44, worked as a senior prosecutor under Armenias former governments and was appointed as SIS chief shortly after Nikol Pashinian came to power in 2018. Pashinian has repeatedly claimed to have eliminated systemic corruption in Armenia since then.

The SIS and other law-enforcement agencies have launched dozens of high-profile corruption investigations mainly targeting former senior state officials, including ex-Presidents Robert Kocharian and Serzh Sarkisian.

Supporters of Kocharian and Sarkisian, who now lead major opposition alliances, as well as other critics of Pashinian say that most of those corruption cases are based on dubious charges and aimed at boosting the prime ministers popularity, rather than the rule of law. They have accused Khachatrian of acting on Pashinians orders.

The outgoing SIS chief again denied executing such orders earlier this week.
Alex Murdaugh will turn himself in after alleged suicide plot with $10 million insurance payout
Three Recent Deaths Around Oregon Coast: Two in Traffic, One in Surf

Published 09/15/21 at 5:56 AM PDT

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff





(Yachats, Oregon)  A fatal jump across a famed Oregon coast attraction and two traffic deaths on the routes to the beaches are cause for continued vigilance for visitors, even during the months when things are slowing down. (Above: Devil's Churn)

Two fatal traffic accidents occurred Sunday, one along Highway 6 about 33 miles from Tillamook and another on Highway 18 in wine country.

Yet last week's incident at the Devil's Churn near Yachats is one that illustrates a need for keeping safety in mind at nature areas of the Oregon coast.

According to Oregon State Police (OSP), a California man - Steve Allen (67) of Walnut Creek  was declared missing and presumed late last week after attempting to jump the Devil's Churn and falling into what is almost always a chaotic brew of seawater.

Troopers, along with emergency personnel from Newport, Yachats and the U.S. Coast Guard, responded to the scene on September 9 about 2 p.m. There, other visitors had attempted to rescue the man, which included some throwing him a makeshift line and a quickly-fashioned raft of sorts. However, witnesses described Allen has having a considerable head injury and not being able to hold for long in the frothy chasm.

Allen was last observed by rescue agencies unresponsive prior to losing sight of him, OSP said in a press release.

The U.S. Coast Guard continued searching for him until about 6:45 p.m.

Witnesses told OSP he had tried to jump across the churn and lost his footing.



A woman very unwisely takes her kids along the backside of the Churn

This is a reminder that jumping across even the smallest sections of the Devil's Churn is never a good idea. The natural feature is too wide to do so without great risk. People frequently risk their lives at this Oregon coast landmark by hanging out too closely to the edges of the Churn and often get walloped by waves.

Oregon Coast Beach Connection caught just a scene back in 2008 (above), where you can see one person running from a wave that was about smack where she and her boyfriend were sitting.

People often wander the very back edge of the Churn as well, where the compacted waves head straight into. You need only look at the large pools of water there to see that big waves have hit that area. It's also known for tossing up large objects onto that section, which will easily kill or maim someone.

Highway 6 between Portland and Tillamook has been problematic all summer, with a rush of fatalities at one point. It proved deadly again Sunday when Gene Carlson (66) of Oregon City drifted off the highway, lost control and struck a guardrail. His truck was towing a 17-foot boat and rolled over.

Just east of McMinnville on Sunday, a 21-year-old Dayton man pulled out of a private driveway and was hit on the side door by a motorcycle driven by a 22-year-old Michael Abeyta of Hillsboro. He sustained fatal injured and died later. Jared Nissen, the driver of the other vehicle, sustained some injuries.

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Skinnier section of the Churn: this is still too wide to jump





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In March 2020, the City of Grapevine Parks and Recreation Department and its residents launched a community project asking residents and tourists to paint a rock and display it on one of its trails at Parr Park.

As more Texans took to state parks during the pandemic, the Dallas area park's collection of tiny works of art grew to unprecedented numbers  so much so, it blasted through previous records.

On September 8, officials with the Guinness World Records visited the Rock Art Trail and evaluated their quality for a total of 24,459, beating the previous record of 8,542.

According to a news release from the city, the trail first began as a way to inspire and uplift the community during the coronavirus pandemic. It lies between Wall-Farrar Nature Trail and the trail connection from Parr Park along Big Bear Creek.

The community-driven project has been led by Ron Olsen and Chris Penny, both Grapevine residents, who joined forces to transform the trail into an artsy attraction for anyone in Grapevine and beyond who wanted to escape the stress of the pandemic.

Grapevine Parks & Recreation

"The Rock Art Trail is a beautiful symbol of our community's resilience and resolve in the face of such a devastating and disruptive

pandemic," Olsen, who placed the first cluster of rocks that started the collection, stated in the release.

Penny discovered the trail with his daughters in early March 2020, and connected with artists around the world who would later donate rocks to the trail. In the release, Penny stated he's amazed at how the trail has grown into something "extraordinary."

"It amazes me that people from all over the world have sent rocks to be placed on a trail that they might not ever visit," he added. "These works of art have led to the trail being filled with laughter, new friendships being developed, people spending

more time outdoors, couples holding hands, and childhood memories being relived. In essence, the rock trail ended up being

exactly what the community needed during these unique times."

Jason Fochtman, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

This Grapevine trail filled with thousands of rocks is now "a wonderland of tiny paintings" as described by the Washington Post. Tourists can visit it at 1175 Municipal Way, Grapevine, about four hours north of San Antonio.
They say everything is bigger in Texas  but from a museum dedicated to toilet seats to a large fire hydrant donated by the Walt Disney Company, things may be quirkier, too.

Below, we highlight some of the most off-the-wall attractions and destinations in the Lone Star State.

Austin may now be known as a growing and thriving tech hub, but for years, residents and others have called for keeping Austin weird. Nowhere is that exemplified more than The Cathedral of Junk, a chaotic framework of improvised trusses mixed in with native Texas vegetation.

You can find the remnants of everything from circuit boards and lawnmowers to car parts and eating utensils, cobbled together into an imposing architectural masterpiece. The owner, Vince Hannemann, began creating his eclectic structure more than 30 years ago. It's free to tour and can even be rented out for events like parties and weddings.

30-foot eyeball structure in Dallas

Courtesy of The Joule

Someone (or something!) may be watching you in Dallas. This 30-foot structure of an eyeball by Tony Tasset sits outside The Joule hotel in downtown Dallas. Simply called "Eye," the fiberglass eye was purchased by Joule Hotel owner Tim Headington as part of the hotel's expansive art collection.

The 30-foot tall eyeball was modeled after the artist's own eye, and was made from 8,000 to 9,000 pounds of fiberglass, 9,000 pounds of steel, resin and paint. Tony Tasset created the giant eye sculpture in 2007, and it made its way to Dallas in 2013 when it was installed at The Joule's outdoor exhibition and event space across the street from the hotel.

Truck Yard

This oddball museum has toilet seats galore adorned with cassette tapes, shells, magnets, light switches, flags and just about anything else you can imagine. Creator Barney Smith, who made over 1,400 art pieces out of toilet seats over the course of many decades, opened the original museum in 1992 in a large garage in his backyard. The museum located in The Colony has garnered widespread adulation from local residents and visitors alike. Open daily, the museum can be used for events like birthdays and corporate events.

Courtesy of the Fire Museum of Texas

Donated by the Walt Disney Company in 1999 as part of the re-release of the animated movie "101 Dalmatians, this 24-foot-tall Dalmatian-spotted structure is one of the tallest of its kind.The structure sits at the Fire Museum of Texas. But why Beaumont? The city was selected among 300 that applied for the honor to become home to the hydrant. It was assembled at Disneyland in Anaheim, California, and weighs 4,500 pounds and can blast 1,500 gallons of water a minute. The fire hydrant is constructed of fiberglass and reinforced with 1,000 feet of steel. Another fun fact: the Dalmatian spots on the hydrant are copyrighted by Walt Disney. Though it held the prestigious title of worlds largest fire hydrant for a time, it was ultimately surpassed by a larger one.

A smattering of towns and cities across the U.S. are named after the famed French capital, but its Paris, Texas, that stands out. The town has erected a 65-foot-tall replica of the Eiffel Tower. And just so you wont forget which Paris youre in, a 10-gallon red cowboy hat completes the experience.

Courtesy of Marriott Marquis

The Marriott Marquis Houston in downtown Houston is home to the world's largest Texas-shaped rooftop lazy river. Complete with views of the city skyline, the lazy river is part of Altitude Rooftop & Pool, which brings a lively resort-like experience to the hotel. As part of the rooftop experience, guests can float in the lazy river, relax in the rooftop infinity pool, grab a photo-worthy cocktail or enjoy the poolside live music.

Courtesy of the National Museum of Funeral History.

Not just for the morbid, this museum focuses on the culture of funerals around the world, from ornate coffins to a collection of hearses. Learn about the funerals of presidents, popes, pop stars and more at this museum in Houston. Open since 1992, this 30,500-square-foot museum has the largest collection of funeral service memorabilia. There are 16 permanent exhibits, including an examination of cremation, embalming, fantasy coffins from Ghana and much more. A new exhibit looks at Jazz Funerals of New Orleans, focusing on the late 1800s through today.

Courtesy of the National Museum of Funeral History.

Todays jazz funerals adhere to a strictly defined parade structure, said Bob Boetticher, Sr., chairman of the National Museum of Funeral History, in a press statement. Once the funeral wake ends, the band accompanies the family from the funeral home or church. It leads its way to the cemetery, sometimes using a horse-drawn hearse. The group, also known as the first line, play somber funeral dirges and traditional spiritual hymns.
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP)  Republicans in the Pennsylvania Senate prepared Wednesday to test how far they can go in pursuing what the GOP calls a forensic investigation of last years presidential election, as Democrats accused them of helping perpetuate the big lie of baseless claims that former President Donald Trump was cheated out of victory.

The Republican-controlled Senate Intergovernmental Operations Committee held a party-line vote to issue a subpoena for detailed state election records, including the names of who voted in last year's presidential election, their birth date, address, driver's license number, and the last four digits of their Social Security number.

Pennsylvania law prohibits the public release of a voters drivers license number and Social Security number, and Senate Democrats said they will go to court within days to contend that the demand violates the separation of powers and the authority of lawmakers.

Its not clear whether Democratic Gov. Tom Wolfs administration will provide the information or can be forced to produce it, even by court order. The Senate subpoena gives a deadline of Oct. 1.

The majority of the information being requested is already available to the public, said Attorney General Josh Shapiro, a Democrat.

But, Shapiro said in a statement, "voters private and sensitive information is also being requested. We will do everything within our power to protect Pennsylvanians personal data.

Democratic lawmakers warned that sensitive information on voters could fall into the hands of Trump allies still intent on overturning the election, likening it to the Arizona Senate GOP's widely discredited and partisan election audit that critics say is a fruitless search for fraud to legitimize Trumps baseless conspiracy theories.

Republicans insist the undertaking has nothing to do with Trump or trying to overturn last years presidential election, but rather is about fixing problems in the state's elections.

During debate in the committee hearing, Democrats questioned who will have access to such sensitive information and why Republicans wanted it.

Because there have been questions regarding the validity of people who have ... voted, whether or not they exist, said the committee chairperson, Sen. Cris Dush, R-Jefferson. Again, were not responding to proven allegations. We are investigating the allegations to determine whether or not they are factual.

Asked about those allegations, Dush said he had heard of sworn affidavits of people visiting addresses that were listed for a voter and found only a condemned building. Dush could give no other details.

Under questioning by Democrats, Dush suggested that the information will be given to a yet-to-be hired contractor so that lawmakers can create legislation which will prevent that from happening in future elections.

The states voter registration system contains all the voter data points mentioned in the subpoena or are available by link with the state Department of Transportation, said a spokesperson for Wolfs Department of State, which oversees how counties administer elections in Pennsylvania.

Dush said the Department of State has previously given that information to third-party contractors, but the Department of State spokesperson, Wanda Murren, said nobody at the agency knows of a time that happened.

The idea of election audits or investigations have been propelled by Trumps most ardent supporters in battleground states where he lost. Still, even as Senate Republicans voted Wednesday to issue the subpoena, Trumps allies rained down criticism that Senate Republicans are not going far enough and must get ahold of ballots, as was done in Arizona.

Republicans also want to know by what method each person voted, whether in-person or by mail, absentee or provisional ballot, as well as information on when each registered voter last cast a ballot.

The subpoena also seeks voters records for last Mays primary, all changes to voter records from May 31, 2020, to May 31, 2021, and records of communication between state election officials and county election officials during the same period.

In a statement, Wolf, a Democrat, accused Republicans of undermining democracy, capitulating to Trumps conspiracy theories and perpetuating lies that led to the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

Senate Republicans would rather cater to the fringe elements of their party who still are perpetuating the Big Lie rather than focus on issues that affect Pennsylvanians lives," Wolf said.

Democrats have sharply criticized it, saying the Republicans sham audit, or fraudit, is a stunt to erode the legitimacy of President Joe Bidens victory and an extension of a national campaign to attack voting rights. Biden beat Trump in Pennsylvania by more than 80,000 votes, according to certified results.

___

Follow Marc Levy on Twitter at https://www.twitter.com/timelywriter.
GULFPORT, Miss. (AP)  A federal judge in Mississippi ruled in two cases that his court didnt have the authority to order the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to complete an environmental impact study on repeated openings of a Mississippi River flood control structure.

U.S. District Judge Louis Guirola Jr. dismissed a lawsuit filed by the state of Mississippi against the corps and others over damage to the Mississippi Sound caused by openings of the Bonnet Carre Spillway north of New Orleans, the Sun Herald reported.
A third federal inmate a senior who recovered from COVID-19 last year  has died within two months while in the custody of a Beaumont prison.

Robert Neal Hatchell, 63, died Monday at a local hospital, while serving a 15-year sentence for distribution and possession of child pornography and sexual exploitation of children, according to a news release from the U. S. Department of Justices Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Hatchell was sentenced by the Southern District of Texas and has been in custody at the Federal Correctional Institutions low security facility. On November 6, 2020, Hatchell tested positive for the novel coronavirus and was immediately placed in medical isolation, the release said. His medical status was changed on November 17, 2020.

In accordance with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines, Mr. Hatchell was converted to a status of recovered, following the completion of medical isolation and presenting with no symptoms, the release said. On Friday, September 3, 2021, Mr. Hatchell was evaluated by institution medical staff for abdominal symptoms and subsequently was transported to a local hospital for further treatment and evaluation. On Monday, September 6, 2021, Mr. Hatchell, who had long-term, pre-existing medical conditions, which the CDC lists as risk factors for developing more severe COVID-19 disease, was pronounced deceased by hospital staff.

The facility currently houses 1,457 male offenders. Its also where another senior inmate, Armando Ramirez, 71, died earlier this year.

Related: Second federal inmate in less than a month dies in Beaumont

The Bureau of Prison recently released new information about the circumstances surrounding Ramirezs death. The news release said Ramirez was being held at the low security Federal Correctional Institution when he died Aug. 31. The Enterprise previously reported that Ramirez had tested positive for the novel coronavirus in Dec. 20 and had pre-existing medical issues.

Following the completion of medical isolation and a status change to recovered on Dec. 28, he returned to be evaluated by the prisons medical staff for shortness of breath. He became responsive. After emergency life-saving efforts, he was taken to a local hospital where he later died.

Other facilities also have had reported recent inmate deaths.

Related: BOP releases information about inmate's death in Beaumont prison

Michael Fossler, 33, was found unresponsive late Aug. 9 at the United States Penitentiary  a different high-security facility,in Beaumont  with just one-quarter of his sentence remaining. He too later was later pronounced dead at a local hospital following staff and EMSs life-saving efforts.

Fossler was sentenced in the Western District of Texas to more than 3 years for being a felon in possession of a firearm. He had been in custody at USP Beaumont for a month in the facility that currently houses 1,359 male offenders, a previous release said.

He already had served 30 of his 41 months, defense attorney Jon Evans recently told The Enterprise.

Related: Federal inmate dies with just one-quarter of sentence remaining

The Bureau of Prisons will continue to provide daily updates and information on actions related to COVID-19 at www.bop.gov/coronavirus/index.jsp. Additional information about the Bureau of Prisons can be found at www.bop.gov. the release said.

meagan.ellsworth@beaumontenterprise.com

twitter.com/megzmagpie
Texas officials vowed to fight a federal regulator's decision to approve plans to allow thousands of tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste to be stored in oil fields in the state.

"Texas will not become America's nuclear waste dumping ground," Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, said on Twitter Tuesday. Abbott last week signed into law legislation that attempts to block the project from moving forward.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a license Monday to Orano CIS LLC and its joint venture partner, J.F. Lehman & Co.'s Waste Control Specialists LLC, to establish a repository in the heart of Texas' Permian Basin oil fields for as many as 40,000 metric tons of radioactive waste.

Texas' blowback underscored the federal government's decades-long, futile hunt for a permanent disposal site for spent nuclear fuel. A political logjam over the issue has stranded tons of waste on site at several dozen power plants and other sites across the country including at two nuclear power plants in Texas.

The joint venture, known as Interim Storage Partners, plans to have waste shipped by rail from around the country and sealed in concrete casks where it would be stored above ground at a site about 30 miles (48.28 kilometers) from Andrews, Texas, near the New Mexico border.

Local officials once embraced the Texas project as an economic boon, but it now faces stiff opposition from the local community, the state, and oil companies that fear a leak could taint a region that produces millions of barrels of oil a day. The waste can remain radioactive for thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years.

"We have opposition to this project on every level," said Karen Hadden, executive director of the Sustainable Energy & Economic Development Coalition, an Austin, Texas-based environmental group fighting project. "We do not consider this fight over. We will continue to battle these dangerous plans."

The Andrews County Commissioners' Court, which functions as the county's board of commissioners, had previously backed the plan as a means of diversifying the area's fortunes from the boom and bust of oil cycles. But it reversed course earlier this year and voted unanimously to oppose the project.

"The concerns are what if there was a leak, if there an was an attack, if there was a transportation accident," County Judge Charlie Falcon said in a phone interview. "It could affect our entire area and we are a very large oil producer in the state."

Congress in 1987 designated a ridge in the Nevada desert about 90 miles north of Las Vegas called Yucca Mountain to be the nation's repository. But decades of political opposition led by Nevada Democrat and former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid kept the project from moving forward. In 2010, President Barack Obama scrapped the plan and the Biden administration opposes its use as well.

Instead, the administration plans to work with Congress and states to reach consent on storing nuclear waste, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told Congress earlier this year.

A similar nuclear waste storage project, proposed in New Mexico by Holtec International Corp., is also awaiting approval by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The agency said it expects to make a decision on that proposal in January 2022.
Midland County Records

Jeffrey Marmaduke Johnston, a Midland oil and gas attorney, was arrested last Thursday after allegedly threatening to kill TxDOT contractors who were redirecting traffic after a collision.

Johnston allegedly drove around traffic cones and vehicles blocking a fatal accident on State Highway 349, according to an arrest affidavit. He then drove toward three TxDOT contractors who were near the barricade and told them to get out of his f---ing way I will kill you, the affidavit states.
For Rio Grande Valley nonprofit Frontera Fund, Texas Senate Bill 8 means it could be targeted for its existence alone.

Frontera Fund is a nonprofit that provides funding and support like travel for women seeking abortions in the Rio Grande Valley and South Texas.

With Senate Bill 8 now law, the organization has halted help line calls and texts until September 16, according to a new notification on its website.

Executive Director Zaena Zamora says the pause helps Frontera Fund and its staff ground itself in the "new reality."

Gov. Greg Abbott signed SB 8 into law on September 1, which bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. Anyone who helps a woman get an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy can be sued and face a minimum fine of $10,000.

The U.S. Department of Justice is suing Texas over the abortion ban, which brings Zamora some hope. However, until a decision comes out of that lawsuit, the law still puts a bounty on abortion fund organizations like Frontera Fund and Lilith Fund.

"So that's very concerning to us as an organization, right, because our whole mission is to help people get abortions," Zamora says. "So even by having our mission statement up on the website, puts us in danger of civil litigation."

If Frontera Fund were to face a lawsuit, Zamora says the organization has pro bono legal services at its disposal to fight it in the courts, but that's just another added difficulty for those seeking abortions.

Frontera Fund has aided women seeking abortions in clinic deserts like Laredo and Corpus Christi by pointing them to San Antonio Planned Parenthood clinics. Fearful of lawsuits, three out of four of San Antonio's Planned Parenthood clinics have since put a pause on abortions.

Abortions before six weeks are still legal, but the law directly conflicts Roe v. Wade, which prohibits state bans on abortion before fetal viability  usually between 22 to 24 weeks of pregnancy.

Zamora says about 80 percent of women who come to Frontera Fund seeking aid find out they're pregnant after six weeks. The organization and individuals seeking abortions received no relief from the Supreme Court of the U.S., which ignored an emergency request to block the law.

She says she wasn't surprised but the SCOTUS decision.

"Now under SB 8, they would have had they would either have to continue with the pregnancy or find a way to get an abortion either through their own means," Zamora says.

Those means can lead abortion seekers to a non-clinical setting, out of the states or even at home.

People can still volunteer with Frontera Fund, and it is still accepting donations. Lilith Fund, which could not respond by time of publication, also offers volunteer opportunities and accepts donations.
With the arrival of Tropical Storm Nicholas today, September continues to live up to its reputation as the most active month for dangerous weather for Southeast Texas. Even though this apparently wont be the most severe wind threat we have faced, Nicholas forecasted winds of up to 60 mph can clearly do a lot of damage. Even more concerning is the flash floods that are expected in the region with rainfall totals of 8 to 16 inches.

Thats the kind of water that get into homes and businesses in Southeast Texas, and sadly, some of that is going to happen today. Our region had a full day to get ready for this on Monday, and we hope that all vulnerable people took advantage of that opportunity. If you know of a neighbor who needs help at a time like this, please be the person who reaches out now.

With periodic rain expected today, the one thing that can still be done is to stay off our roads if at all possible. Isolated street flooding is expected, depending on rainfall of course, and you dont want to have to deal with that. Never drive into standing water because you dont know how deep it is; most modern cars also dont have that high of clearance under their engine.

Rainfall amounts are expected to vary, and that could be good or bad. If the rain slows for enough time, water levels can drain down and flooding will be reduced. But a heavy sustained downpour can clearly bring more water than a drainage system can handle, and some flooding is almost inevitable. This is another reason that homeowners and cities must keep drainage ditches as free of tree limbs and debris as possible during hurricane season.

Many area school districts and businesses are closed today, and thats the right response to something like this. If we are fortunate, we will face winds and rains today, but the worst of it should be over by Wednesday. Then we can begin to assess the damage and start drying out any structures that took on water.

Entergy certainly hopes to keep electric power running, but as usual the weather will have the final say on that. If high winds bring branches or whole trees onto power lines, we will experience outages. Many Entergy workers were sent to Louisiana to work on damage from Hurricane Ida, but now they face another threat in Southeast Texas. You can do your part in this regard by securing loose items in your yard that could  and probably will  get blown about.

By now Southeast Texans know what to do. We have endured many of these threats in recent years, although fortunately Nicholas is not causing evacuation. When the skies finally clear, we will be here and ready to respond as needed. As always, we hope and pray for the best outcome but are prepared to deal with whatever happens.

Be strong and be safe.
The Indonesian Navy patrol boat KRI Bontang (907) is pictured at a naval base in Banyuwangi, East Java, on April 26, 2021.

Indonesia has dispatched one of its naval ships close to a Chinese survey vessel that is operating in its exclusive economic zone, BenarNews has learned.

The U.S. aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson passed as close as 50 nautical miles to the same Chinese vessel, the Haiyang Dizhi 10, on Saturday, and broadcast its location as it did so during a sail through the southern part of the South China Sea.

On Monday, the Indonesian Navy deployed the KRI Bontang (907) to the same area, ship tracking records show, suggesting it was closely following the Chinese ships movements near an important oil and gas field. Both ships were still in the area on Wednesday.

The Haiyang Dizhi has been operating there since late August, about 90 nautical miles north of Indonesias Natuna Islands.

The Indonesian Navy and the Maritime Security Agency, also known as Bakamla, could not immediately be reached for comment on Wednesday but the tracking records analyzed by BenarNews show the Indonesian ship has been tailing the Haiyang Dizhi 10, and was at one point just 1.7 nautical miles away from the Chinese ship.

The KRI Bontang (907) is essentially a replenishment-at-sea tanker but is equipped with weapon systems including cannons and machine guns.

The choice of the supply ship may be intentional, says Sunaryo, a maritime affairs expert at the University of Indonesia.

We are facing a dilemma. If we deploy warships, it will be seen as aggressive, but (the non-military) Bakamla doesnt have many large ships, he said.

Flexible but firm

On Tuesday, a Bakamla spokesman when asked told BenarNews that there had been no violation of shipping rules by the Haiyang Dizhi.

Wisnu Pramandita said the Chinese survey ship had its AIS [automatic identification system] on and could be monitored.

It was probably a normal passage, he said.

The seemingly evasive reply is not unexpected, says Richard Heydarian, a regional affairs analyst. Indonesia, and some other countries in the region, have been leading a flexible approach when dealing with China.

They prioritize diplomatic tools and avoid confrontational language in order to not jeopardize the relationship with China, but also try to be firm when needed to protect national interests, Heydarian said.

The same approach was witnessed in January 2020 when Indonesias strong but restrained and diplomatic response helped repel dozens of Chinese ships fishing illegally in the same North Natuna area, according to Heydarian.

However, Indonesia may be facing a greater challenge this time.

Apart from the survey ship, the Kompas newspaper quoted local fishermen as saying that they sighted at least six Chinese ships, including a 7,500-ton destroyer  the Kunming (172)  in the North Natuna Sea on Monday.

A regular presence

Bakamla official Suprianto Irawan was quoted in Indonesian media as saying that there has been a regular presence of Chinese coast guard ships around the Tuna Block, an important oil and gas field in Indonesias Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) where the Haiyang Dizhi 10 is operating.

Although Indonesia does not regard itself as a party to the territorial disputes in the South China Sea, the northern part of the Natuna Sea overlaps with the nine-dash line that China uses to demarcate its sweeping claims in the South China Sea  a position not recognized by international law.

Ship tracking data shows that the Chinese ship has been conducting a survey since Aug. 31 near the semi-submersible oil rig Noble Clyde Boudreaux, which was commissioned to drill two wells there until mid-November, according to industry sources.

The Chinese survey ship Haiyang Dizhi 10 is seen on a visit to Pakistan for hydrocarbon research and geological mapping in February 2019. [Pakistan Navy]

Chinese ships have been accused of harassing neighboring countries oil exploration activities, but Beijing insists they are operating within Chinas jurisdiction.

The Indonesian government has been under immense domestic pressure to protect national interests.

As an archipelagic state, we have designated sea lanes for continuous passage of foreign ships, but we must not take our EEZ for granted. If we dont do anything, our claims could be undermined, warned maritime expert Sunaryo from the University of Indonesia.

This is happening in the Natuna with foreign ships in our EEZ. Some parties are taking advantage of lax security there.

A countrys EEZ extends 200 nautical miles beyond its coastlines and provides it certain resource rights to the waters there  hence the sensitivity of a foreign nation conducting a survey in such an area.

But Bakamla officials have been saying that they have limited resources and are poorly equipped with just 10 ships and no aircraft.

Ahmad Syamsudin in Jakarta contributed to this report.
Philippine police investigate the killing of a man during an anti-drug operation Manila, Aug. 18, 2017.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte will not cooperate with the International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation into the war on drugs, his lawyer said Thursday, less than a day after The Hague announced its decision to start the inquiry.

In a statement, chief presidential legal adviser Salvador Panelo said the Philippines has not been a member of ICC since 2019.

The foreign institution has no  as it never had  jurisdiction over the affairs of the Republic of the Philippines and its people, Panelo said, adding the development neither bothers nor troubles the president and his administration.

A three-judge ICC chamber on Wednesday approved a request by its former chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, to investigate thousands of drug war killings under Dutertes administration.

The judges authorized Bensoudas successor, Karim Khan, to begin the investigation after finding a reasonable basis for allegations of crimes against humanity during Dutertes anti-drug campaign.

Although official numbers put the drug wars death toll at around 8,000, the chamber noted information supplied by rights advocates and drug war victims themselves indicate that as many as 30,000 people may have been killed.

While the Duterte administration does not deny that there have been killings, claims that use of lethal force during official anti-drug operations was for self-defense were undermined by findings in Bensoudas preliminary investigation, the judges said in their decision.

Prosecutor Khan could issue arrest warrants for the president and others responsible for the drug war, but the Duterte administration has always insisted it would not entertain any move by the ICC, raising questions about any effort to prosecute.

Political and propaganda tool

The timing of this development reveals that the ICC is bent on proceeding with a case against our government officials in violation of our constitution and in contravention with the Rome Statute that created it, Panelo said.

He alleged that the ICC was being used as a political and propaganda tool by the presidents detractors and echoed earlier Duterte camp claims that the probe infringes on Philippine sovereignty, calling it condemnable.

An investigation by a foreign body is unwarranted, Panelo said Thursday, because the Philippine government is able and willing to prosecute those who abuse their power and commit crimes against the citizenry.

On Wednesday, the judges said that supporting material indicates that the Philippine authorities have failed to take meaningful steps to investigate or prosecute the killings, noting that only one case has resulted in convictions.

They noted Duterte promised immunity and to pardon any police officer who would kill suspects in the drug war, adding his administration listed the killings among its accomplishments in 2017.

The judges ruled the ICC has jurisdiction over alleged crimes committed before the countrys withdrawal, adding the investigation will cover the period between Nov. 1, 2011, and March 16, 2019, when the Philippines was an ICC member nation.

The time frame includes part of Dutertes tenure as mayor of the southern city of Davao, where he allegedly controlled an anti-drugs death squad.

Panelo challenged the judges decision, saying the ICC no longer has jurisdiction since Duterte unilaterally withdrew the Philippines from the Rome Statute two years ago.

His statement goes against the Philippine Supreme Court which ruled in July that the ICC maintains jurisdiction before the pullout and authorities are obliged to cooperate with an investigation.

Philippine President Duterte holds an Israeli-made Galil rifle during a news conference at Camp Crame in Quezon City, April 19, 2018. [AP]

Probe will never reach trial

On Thursday, Duterte spokesman Harry Roque said he believes the ICC probe will not see Duterte or any other official charged because the government will not cooperate.

My prediction is, that case will end up dormant because of the absence of cooperation, especially from the police  they wont be able to gather any evidence, said Roque, a former human rights lawyer, during a televised briefing.

Meanwhile, rights advocates and opposition figures have hailed the ICCs decision.

To the families of the extrajudicial killing victims, this is another step closer to attaining justice for your loved ones, said Antonio Trillanes, a former senator who initiated filing of the complaint with the ICC.

To Duterte and his cohorts, this is another step closer to prison, he said in a statement.

Opposition Sen. Risa Hontiveros also challenged the president.

Its time for Duterte to face this investigation. He shouldnt stand in the way of International Criminal Court officials fulfilling their duty, Hontiveros said in a statement.

Sometimes, the president ought to heed his own words  if theres nothing to hide, why be afraid, she asked.

Dutertes six-year term ends in 2022 and he has announced plans to run for vice president.

Presidents and vice presidents are elected separately to a single six-year term. Duterte, who cannot seek a second term under the constitution, announced his candidacy for the number two spot in July.

The law says if you are vice president, you have immunity. Then I will just run for vice president, he said at the time.

However, constitutional lawyers have noted that presidents, but not vice presidents, enjoy immunity from lawsuits.
Bennington, VT (05201)

Today

Partly cloudy this evening with more clouds for overnight. Low near 60F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy this evening with more clouds for overnight. Low near 60F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph.
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Australia's prime minister says it has canceled a contract with France for conventional submarines and instead will build nuclear-powered submarines using U.S. technology because of changing strategic conditions in the Asia-Pacific region
PITTSFIELD  A man with a history of arson was arrested Thursday afternoon after allegedly setting a fire at White Terrace apartments  the second fire at the complex in just under a week.

Joseph A. Stone, 43, of Pittsfield, was arrested on South Street about 2:52 p.m. Thursday, said Lt. Gary Traversa, just under 40 minutes after police and firefighters responded to a report of a fire in the rear building.

Firefighters were about to quickly extinguish the fire in the basement, according to Fire Chief Thomas Sammons, and no one was injured. All three buildings in the complex are vacant.

It was a quick, aggressive interior attack, he said. They got it out quickly.

In contrast, firefighters one week ago battled a three-alarm blaze in the front building of the complex on Sept. 9. The building lacked electricity and gas service and had long ago been boarded up.

'Major structure fire' damages White Terrace apartment complex in Pittsfield Authorities are investigating a fire that occurred overnight at the White Terrace Apartments on North Street.

The first and fourth floors of the building had heavy fire, heat and smoke damage, according to a Fire Department report. The second and third floors had only smoke damage.

Four firefighters suffered minor injuries, including two who were treated at Berkshire Medical Center for smoke inhalation.

The cause of that fire remains under investigation by members of the Pittsfield Police Department Detective Bureau in collaboration with a Fire Department investigator, Traversa said. He did not say whether Stone was a suspect in that fire.

Stone was arrested quickly after Thursdays fire as investigators were able to connect enough dots to establish probable cause, Traversa said.

He was charged with one count of arson, and an additional count of possession of a Class B substance, Traversa said. He is expected to be arraigned Friday in Central Berkshire District Court.

Stone has a history of engaging in arson. He was convicted by a jury of setting a fire that destroyed a historic Fenn Street apartment building in 2004 that displaced 13 tenants during the wintertime and caused what the owners estimated was approximately $1 million in damages and debt.

He initially had been celebrated as a hero for evacuating tenants when the fire broke out Feb. 7, 2004. It took 70 firefighters three days to fully stamp it out.

But ultimately, Stone signed a five-page confession and admitted that had set a blue winter jacket on fire inside the basement of the Fenn Street apartment building. He told authorities at the time that he had been helping out around the building in exchange for a break on rent and had felt underappreciated by the owners.

In November 2005, a Berkshire County Superior Court Judge sentenced Stone to up to 12 years in state prison.

He also was charged more than two decades ago with setting on fire his pickup truck because he owed restitution on it.

Anyone who has information to share about either fire is asked to contact the lead investigator, Detective James Losaw, at 413-448-9700, ext. 572.
The attorney representing Brian P. McCreary, of North Adams, at left wearing a blue mask while holding a cellphone, says that McCreary is sorry for his involvement in the events at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6 that shook the nation. McCreary has struck a plea deal with prosecutors who agreed to drop felony charges in exchange for pleading guilty to a misdemeanor offense.
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Community News Editor / Librarian

Jeannie Maschino is community news editor and librarian for The Berkshire Eagle. She has worked for the newspaper in various capacities since 1982 and joined the newsroom in 1989.
Danny Jin, a Report for America corps member, is The Eagles Statehouse news reporter. He can be reached at djin@berkshireeagle.com, @djinreports on Twitter and 413-496-6221.
From left, members of the Dalton Fire Department serving in Louisiana in the wake of Hurricane Ida: Nico Amuso, Zack Morrissey and Jordan Anderson. Amuso is a firefighter and EMT. Morrissey and Anderson are firefighters. Another Dalton firefighter, Brian Sears, is working out of a mutual aid base camp and assisting in some of the storms hardest-hit areas.
We dont often tie the words discipline and church together, but there is a place for it within the body of Christ. I must say, some churches have carried this idea overboard but that doesnt mean it does not belong. One of the most difficult and extreme forms of church discipline is excommunication, where a person is removed from fellowship. In todays church this practice is not used very often and to be honest many churches struggle with any type of discipline at all.

What I want you to think about is this. Is discipline in church ever appropriate and is excommunication something that should even be practiced in the twenty first century?

What Does Excommunication Mean?

In general, excommunication is when a person is excluded or expelled from being able to participate or remain a member of a group, club, or association. In short, a person is kicked out or banned.

In a church setting, excommunication is when a person is either cut off from fellowship within a church or they are barred from participating in the sacraments, one of which is taking communion. This is done by order of the leadership in the church. The purpose of excommunication is not to exact revenge, but to hopefully encourage repentance. The thinking is that by doing this the person will realize the error of their ways and turn away from them.

Is Excommunication Biblical?

Many may wonder if excommunication is biblical or is it just mean? Doesnt it go against the mandate to love everyone and accept everyone? The answer to these questions is that excommunication is biblical, but if this step is taken, how you do it is equally important.

There are some instances you can argue excommunication is actually good for a particular church and not mean at all. In the New Testament there were instances where the idea of separating or removing a person seemed to be allowable. There were primarily two instances where removing someone from the fellowship of the church would seem appropriate.

1. When There Was Blatant, Unrepentant Sin

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate: A man is sleeping with his fathers wife. And you are proud! Shouldnt you rather have gone into mourning and have put out of your fellowship the man who has been doing this? (1 Corinthians 5:1-2).

As you can see in this instance, removal or excommunication was recommended because there was blatant, open, obvious, unrepentant sin. In the case of the church in Corinth a man was having sexual relations with his stepmother, and if that wasnt bad enough the church was not ashamed of it, but they were proud of it. If someone chooses to live in open, unrepentant sin, that can be a ground for removing them. If that decision is made, always remember the hope is this person will turn from their sinful condition and find true repentance.

So when you are assembled and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord (1 Corinthians 5:4-5).

2. They Are Spreading False Teachings or Causing Division

I urge you, brothers and sisters, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people (Romans 16:17-18).

While this instruction does not say directly to remove the person from the fellowship, it does give the warning to avoid this type of person who is causing division and promoting bad or false doctrine. I believe it would be safe to say in a situation like this, the leadership of the church would be wise to remove such a person from the fellowship.

Removing this person is about protecting the other members of the church from heretical teaching. Taking this step may cause that person to repent or it may not, but doing so is necessary to prevent others from falling victim to their false teaching or divisive nature.





Photo credit: Unsplash/Lilian Dibbern

Other Scriptures That Point to Excommunication

But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless. Warn a divisive person once, and then warn them a second time. After that, have nothing to do with them. You may be sure that such people are warped and sinful; they are self-condemned (Titus 3:9-11).

In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers and sisters, to keep away from every believer who is idle and disruptive and does not live according to the teaching you received from us (1 Thessalonian 3:6).

Take special note of anyone who does not obey our instruction in this letter. Do not associate with them, in order that they may feel ashamed. Yet do not regard them as an enemy, but warn them as you would a fellow believer (1 Thessalonians 3:14-15).

What Churches Practice Excommunication?

Within the Catholic church there is a written provision for excommunication, and again it is not meant to be vindictive but to hopefully move a person to repentance. Within the canon of the Catholic church there are defined reasons for excommunication, some of which can lead to automatic excommunication. Among these are procuring an abortion, apostasy or heresy.

Within the Protestant church, the process that leads to excommunication is not as clear, primarily because the Protestant church does not have the same type of structure as the Catholic church. There is not one Protestant church, instead there are many different Protestant denominations and each one may have a different doctrinal position on when excommunication is appropriate. Because of this lack of uniformity, it is difficult to make a general statement of how the Protestant church handles excommunication, but there are some guidelines from Scripture to follow.

How Do Protestant Leaders Decide to Excommunicate Someone?

If you are going to use excommunication, what would be the guidelines to warrant when this action is appropriate? Without one uniform written policy on excommunication, most Protestant churches should use Scripture as the guide, which is probably best anyway. A great guideline on the process is found in Matthew 18.

If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector (Matthew 18:15-17).

As you can see, the road to excommunication is a process, not an instant decision. It should never be the first option, but the last resort. No one leader should have the authority to execute this of their own accord. This will help prevent excommunication being used in a vindictive manner. What is also important to note is that excommunication should come after a continued refusal of a person to turn from their sinful behavior once they have been made aware of it. When that happens, then removal becomes the only appropriate action.

Can Someone Who Has Been Excommunicated Still Participate in Church?

If a person is refusing to repent or causing divisions, while they still may be allowed to attend the local church (remember the goal is hopefully they will repent) this person should not be allowed to serve in ministry, and they should not be in any leadership position. Again, most churches today dont actually use this practice of excommunication, but churches will sometimes ask someone to step down from leadership, or to stop serving in the church. Though that person is still free to attend, most of the time it is only a matter of time before that person leaves.

Is Someone Who's Been Excommunicated Still a Christian?

It is important to note that excommunication is not a judgment of a persons eternal condition. I will say this however, if a person is living in willful unrepentant sin or they are causing divisions and teaching heresies, then I would call into question whether this person is a believer or not. I cant say that definitively, but it is a question worth asking.

Hopefully for most people you will never have to deal with excommunication. However, as we have seen, there are times when it may be appropriate. In those moments, lets make sure everything we do aligns with Scripture and that we are rooting for repentance of the individual, not revenge.

Photo credit: Getty Images/Ivan Balvan
One of the largest COVID-19 testing labs in Michigan, Orchard Laboratories, has been overwhelmed with calls from companies in the state needing help navigating the new rules regarding vaccination testing that were outlined by President Biden in his mandate on Sept. 9.

"Companies are scrambling to navigate the new rules and we are here to help," said Sami Ahmad, co-founder and president of Orchard Laboratories, in a press release. "As a high-quality laboratory, we can help companies logistically implement testing for COVID-19 and arrange vaccination and testing programs to comply with the new mandate."

Biden's mandate has directed the U.S. Labor Department to require all businesses with 100 or more employees to have workers vaccinated or be tested weekly for the virus. This means a lot of COVID-19 tests will need to be done, and Orchard Laboratories will be one of the main organizations in the state to complete the tests.

Prior to the presidential announcement, Orchard Laboratories saw a 25% increase in demand for tests in the last month.

Additionally, soon after the pandemic started, Orchard Laboratories was the first private laboratory in Michigan to provide rapid testing for COVID-19 with state-of-the-art equipment using the Emergency Use Authorization protocol for the ThermoFisher TaqPath Covid 19 assay, according to Ahmad.

Since then, the company has been open seven days-a-week, added new technology, and continues to receive samples from throughout the state from residential nursing homes, doctors' offices, urgent cares, municipalities, schools and hospitals.

"Same day or next day COVID-19 test results are important because the issue is that's the only way companies are going to know if they have to keep people home from work or quarantine them," Ahmad said. "And, as you know, with all the staffing shortages that are already there, timeliness becomes more and more important."

The increased need for tests is likely to continue as guidelines for the mandate are released. Questions such as how companies that are required to test their employees should report their findings, and how will all of these tests be funded, are yet to be answered, according to Ahmad.

"A lot of the confusion we're seeing from companies is because there hasn't been any specific guidelines presented yet," Ahmad said. "The mandate was presented during President Biden's speech, but there are no details yet on how it's supposed to be implemented. So, the stance we've been taking when companies call us is to assure those corporations that as soon as those guidelines are released, they have a partner that will help them."

The 24-hour lab, with more than 300 employees, has the capacity to conduct 10,000 COVID-19 tests a day. Ahmad thinks the demand for that amount of tests is there, as the delta variant continues to spread.

"In the beginning of the pandemic, we were doing around that 10,000 sample a day number. It slowed down, but I think, unfortunately, it's going to ramp back up," he said.

In the future, Ahmad hopes there will be some federal money allocated to corporations required to conduct weekly tests to offset costs, because it's going to be expensive.
Plus, Bill's Message of the Day, on General Mark Milley's call to the Chinese.

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Patel was addressing East Asia Summit-Economic Ministers Meeting

The T9th EAS-EMM (East Asia Summit-Economic Ministers Meeting) was recently held virtually. Addressing the meeting, Anupriya Patel, Minister of State for Commerce and Industry said the World Trade Organisation (WTO) had observed that the strong monetary and fiscal policies introduced by many governments in response to pandemics helped to sustain the global demand and trade. Considering the encouraging trend, WTO had also revised its projection for global trade volume growth in 2021 to 8 per cent compared to the 7 per cent earlier.

Various immediate supportive actions taken by India, including the milestones reached in vaccination helped us to manage the pandemic crisis. We have learnt lessons, adapted our approach and fine-tuned our systems as we went along, she said.

She said that the world needs meaningful partnerships, sharing of advanced technologies, collaboration in vaccine and pharmaceutical production, capacity building and transparency in health information. India is willing to collaborate with East Asian partners in the production of generic drugs and medical technologies used for the treatment of COVID-19 patients, as also in the area of vaccines production. 70 per cent of the global vaccines are produced in India and our capacity to produce quality medicines and vaccines at affordable prices are globally recognised.

In an interconnected and globalised world, no one is safe until everyone is safe; India looks forward to an early outcome on the TRIPS Waiver proposal for vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics. Shared prosperity is impossible without shared commitment.

She stated that India endorses the concept of working towards ensuring a trustworthy and reliable supply chain. I have keenly listened to Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA) discussion on the value chains and post-pandemic recovery in East Asia. Regional and global value chains are a core element of the economic strength of the EAS region. It is heartening to know from ERIAs research work that the pandemic so far did not disrupt the production system and trade patterns in East Asia Region and the region maintained its importance in the World Trade Network, the MoS said.

While acknowledging the progress achieved so far, India would like to emphasise the need to further strengthening the EAS work processes for appropriate coordinated responses to the pandemic, learning from each others best practices.

Acting East is now a central element in India's Indo-Pacific vision. India wants to see a strong, unified and prosperous ASEAN playing a central role in the emerging dynamic of the Indo-Pacific. We see a great deal of convergence between India's vision for the Indo-pacific and the ASEAN Outlook on Indo-Pacific.

She congratulated and thanked Brunei for its efficient role as the Chair of ASEAN. She also commended the ASEAN Secretariat for putting together a useful analysis of regional and global economic development in the discussion papers. She concluded by reiterating that India's support in collective actions of the EAS Forum aimed at mitigating the economic impact of the pandemic and strengthening regional economic architecture.
Mama Succubus becomes Mettlestate's official streamer and content creator

Esports and gaming content specialist, Mettlestate has signed South African streamer, Mama Succubus as the brand's official streamer and content creator. She will post content on Mettlestate's social media pages, assist with content creation, and participate in both contests and charity events that Mettlestate hosts.
Automotive retail group launches first true digital brand - Motus.cars

Corne Venter, CEO of the retail and rental division of Motus South Africa, discusses the launch of digital brand Motus.cars, the new emotive brand campaign, as well as the importance of having a real dealer network behind all of their cars.
Continuing its commitment to making a significant contribution to the development of contemporary art in Africa and its diaspora, Zeitz Mocaa has partnered with Unfinished, an alliance of nine international arts organisations, as part of the alliance's art initiative Unfinished Camp.

We are extremely pleased to be part of this global initiative, which is driven by a conviction that the next generation of artists should have a seat at the table, says Koyo Kouoh, Executive Director and Chief Curator at Zeitz Mocaa.

Zeitz Mocaa s participant artists include:

Unfinished Camp aims to provide a global platform for the voices of young artists and to kick off the initiative, each institution has invited three young artists to produce a short video artwork exploring the question, What is the future of art in a decentralized world?More importantly, Unfinished Camp provides yet another opportunity for Zeitz Mocaa to continue our work within the civic space as an active agent that caters to and nurtures society. Working with the global partners and extraordinary group of artists that constitute Unfinished Camp underscores Zeitz Mocaas core values of collaboration and active participation in change-making. Supporting emerging artists and their contributions to the questions of our time is an essential part of the work we do. The selected artists poignant responses draw from within to connect to the relations and conditions that surround them in ways that also challenge and question the status quo and propose new ways of seeing and being. concludes Kouoh.Naomi Lulendo whose works are materialisations of an interest in misappropriation  of words, meaning, objects and identity. Her work includes painting, sculpture, photography, installation and performance. Lulendo uses the concept of play as a tool to shape and create hybrid objects, images and texts as she observes the individual and collective, social and political implications of human mobility and cultural encounters in her work.Helena Uambembe Bhulungu was born to Angolan parents and her work is dominated by themes of the 32 Battalion (of which her father was a soldier), Pomfret and her Angolan heritage. In it, she explores narratives surrounding history and place, interweaving connected symbols and archival material.The Botswana Pavilion is an art collective comprising Kim Karabo Makin, Thebe Phetogo, Thero Makepe, Legakwana Leo Makgekgenene and Sade Shoalane. Through their work, the artists attempt to support and validate young creatives from Botswana by creating a platform for international visibility and art exchange and inspiring a local sustainable creative industry.Unfinished Camp spans five continents and currently includes 27 young artists from Botswana to Brazil. Zeitz Mocaas participating artists films will debut alongside films by the 24 other artists at the House of Electronic Arts in Basel, Switzerland on Thursday, 23 September and at The Shed in New York City, United States on Friday, 24 September during Unfinished Live, a two-day virtual and live event.Zeitz Mocaa will continue to screen the films by its participating artists through 31 October in the museums Scheryn Arena, as well as host a panel discussion with the artists on Thursday, 23 September. The panel will be moderated by Thulile Gamedze, a Johannesburg-based reader-writer-drawer whose work is vested in flexible, historical moving matter such as dreams, Queerness, Black Consciousness and water.Adding the voices of artists to important conversations about creating more ethical technology has never been more urgent, adds artistic director of Serpentine Galleries Hans Ulrich Obrist and author and cultural strategy advisor Andras Szanto, who spearheaded Unfinished along with civic entrepreneur Frank McCourt. "We see this alliance as an opportunity to demonstrate new ways of working in the arts, with arts organisations collaborating across borders and professional boundaries to promulgate new ideas and action.For more information and Zeitz Mocaas programming schedule for Unfinished Camp, follow the museum on Facebook , Instagram ( @zeitzmocaa ) and Twitter ( @ZeitzMOCAA ).
On 16 September 2021, Netflix announced a commitment of $400,000 (R5.5m) in the form of a grant and creation of scholarships to extend the support for Black representation in the film and TV industry to the creative ecosystem in South Africa.

Create and promote more opportunities and training for people from underrepresented Black communities in South Africa to enter and succeed in the film and TV industry,

Provide Black filmmakers with access to scarce funding required to create screen productions in South Africa,

Support organisations that are involved in bespoke programmes geared towards identifying, training and/or providing creative opportunities for members of the Black community in South Africas film and TV industry.

The Netflix Black Creatives Empowerment Fund will be implemented in a two-pronged approach: the first being a $100,000 (R1.4m) grant in benefit of The Independent Black Filmmakers Collective NPC (IBFC), with the second being $300,000 (approx. R4.4m) designated towards funding full scholarships at higher education institutions in South Africa to support the formal qualification and training of aspiring Black creatives in the film and TV disciplines.The goal of the fund is to:Netflix has chosen a two-pronged approach for achieving the goals set out above, which includes a $100,000 (R1.4m) grant in benefit of The Independent Black Filmmakers Collective (IBFC) and $300,000 (R4.4m) designated to provide financial assistance through full scholarships and graduate debt relief at higher educational institutions in South Africa so as to support the formal qualification and training of aspiring Black creatives in the film and TV disciplines.Institutions where qualifying students will be able to apply for scholarships and where debt relief opportunities will be available include: University of Cape Town; University of the Witwatersrand; University of Johannesburg; University of Pretoria; University of KwaZulu-Natal; Cape Peninsula University of Technology; Durban University of Technology; Tshwane University of Technology; AFDA; Boston Media House; AACA Film and Acting School; and CityVarsity.Netflix will again be working in partnership with social investment fund management and advisory firm Tshikululu Social Investments, as the implementing partner/fund administrator with the responsibility of supporting the outreach and execution of the project. In July 2020 and March 2021, Tshikululu worked closely with Netflix, the South African Screen Federation (SASFED) and their member organisation, Independent Producers Organisation (IPO), to create the Covid-19 Film and Television Relief Fund that helped the hardest-hit workers in the South African creative community.From 17 September 2021, students interested in applying for the fully-funded scholarships will be able to find additional information, application criteria and will be able to apply online on Tshikululus website . We recognise that being part of the local creative community in South Africa also comes with responsibilities, in particular the need to develop the talent pipeline and give new voices the chance to be heard. Talent development is extremely important to us and we will continue to work with the industry in South Africa to support and develop new opportunities to grow the creative community,  said Ben Amadasun, director of content for Netflix in Africa. We are delighted to have offered this opportunity and established such a strong partnership with Netflix who share our intention to build capacity in the black filmmaker and practitioner value chain. It is through such intentional and systematic approaches to empowerment that we will build effective economic participation. We thank Netflix for walking this road with us, said Azania Muendane, co-chairperson, IBFC.
The findings, which have been collated into a position paper, suggest that innovation-driven startups with a turnover of less than R100m be exempted from the limitations of existing policies and the red-tape that constrains their growth as well as their ability to contribute to job creation. Doing so will accelerate the socio and economic spillover of such startups to the rest of South Africa.The vast majority of new small and micro business enterprises that exist beyond the first three years of operations do not grow. Rather, it is the remaining balance comprised of a tiny portion of startups that are responsible for creating a disproportionate number of jobs. Such firms, with their high-growth potential, are the intended beneficiaries of the proposed South African Startup Act, explains Stephan Lamprecht, founder of VS Nova.Proposed interventions contained in the position paper are premised on the finding that immediate benefits can accrue to job creation, economic transformation and the competitiveness of the South African economy  all mainstays of the National Development Plan (NDP) - if barriers limiting the creation and impact of startups are removed. The findings advocate for a number of relaxations to current legislation and policies impacting on the growth of, and investment into startups, including exchange controls and Capital Gains Tax.Other relaxations include simplifying procurement policies with which to scale up the involvement of startups in the national economy; direct funding of startup businesses through automatic reinvestment of PAYE and VAT; and easing of labour and immigration laws to foster the availability of and access to talent. The findings also support the introduction of incentives to stimulate capital contributions from early-stage funding entities.Lamprecht explains that between 2013 and 2019, the contribution of small businesses to national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has increased by almost 40%, eating into the share from large businesses, which has waned by 9% over the same period.The South African Startup Act sets out to enable economic policy through an amendment or a standalone act. In addition to radically increasing the contribution to and impact on the national GDP by startups, the Act seeks to address the growth objectives outlined in the NDP. It also strives to leverage and grow the existing ecosystem so that more South African startups can become successful locally and globally. And to do this in a way that South African talented youth and entrepreneurs wont have to relinquish their country ties as a consequence of experiencing startup growth and success.Simodisa vice-chairperson and South African Startup Act Steering Committee chairperson, Matsi Modise, concludes by saying that by removing the constraints that come with operating a South African startup business, the Act will maximise the value and impact of South Africas startups and successful entrepreneurs for the benefit of the country and her people.
Marguerite Poland takes home the Sunday Times Literary Award

South African writer and author, Marguerite Poland has been awarded the 2021 Sunday Times/CNA Literary Award for Fiction for her historical novel A Sin of Omission. The book was also shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2020.



A Sin of Omission tells the story of Stephen (Malusi) Mzamane, a young Anglican priest who must travel to his mother's rural home to inform her of the death of his older brother.
Johannesburg, Bedfordview

We are looking for a Graphic Designer to raise the bar on creativity across the studio and drive our clients creative strategy and objectives. The role...
Senior Art Director

Remuneration: R40000 - R45000 per month basic salary Location: Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg Education level: Diploma Job level: Senior Type: Permanent Reference: #YG#SeniorArtDirector Company: Cardilogix

Portfolio - Behance/WeTransfer/PDF

To conceptualise and, using your imaginary design skills, produce award-winning creative work within the scope of the brand and creative brief supplied. Present to the client

Work closely with the creative director and, as directed, by the creative brief

The responsibility vests in the attitude, behaviour, determination and accountability to pursue all avenues in order to ensure that the end product/design craft is of a high standard

By taking ownership and making use of all available resources, the end product/design craft should project keen attention to detail

Exceptional drawing skills (as in slick rendering and scamps) - a necessity for art directors and nice to have for designers

Exceptionally fast conceptual skills

Capable of driving copy and guiding the response mechanisms

Thorough understanding of promotional activities and experiential marketing disciplines

A portfolio that demonstrates these skills beyond a shadow of doubt and the results of the activities to prove it

Finely honed graphic design skills and latest techniques

Capability to take on campaigns with multi-element tasks which require a concept and a thought-through process, as well as briefing the copywriters with specific objectives and tasks at hand

Fully Mac literate in all relevant programs

Must have a diploma or similar in art direction from a design college or similar

Minimum three to five years' experience as an art director - essential

Team player

Hard-working, conscientious

Creative thinker  cross boundaries to conceptualise

Work under pressure

Goal-orientated achiever

Pro-active thinker

Key responsibilities (broad description)

A leading creative agency seeks to hire a talentedto join their team. The search is on to find the perfect candidate who combines conceptual and creative excellence with experience in design.When submitting your CV, ensure the following accompany your application:This is a key role within the agency. You will be an art director across a number of extremely high profile accounts and will constantly champion excellent creative standards throughout the company. You will be working closely with a team of client service personnel and the creative director.You must be willing to work on a host of different accounts such as posters, print, billboards, advertising, promotions, brands, etc. (Full TTL function). Send samples in either pdf or jpeg format of your very best work, not exceeding four megs to our offices.Please only apply if you have the relevant experience as per our job ad. Our client does not have the capacity to train anyone  you need to hit the ground running.Your application will be passed to our team of recruitment consultants and should your skills and experience match the recruitment needs of our client, we will be in touch within a 96 hour turn-around time. Should you not hear from us, please treat your application for this job as unsuccessful. Posted on 16 Sep 15:24
Digital Publishing Editor

Remuneration: basic salary Location: Cape Town Education level: Degree Job level: Mid Type: 4 months Reference: #Digital Editor 01 Company: Film & Event Media

Full-time contract position for four months

Remuneration: market-related

Remote work with own laptop/computer and reliable internet connection

Contribution towards internet connectivity

Relevant qualifications in journalism and/or marketing

2-5 years experience in a management position

Excellent communication skills and an ability to build rapport and remain professional with clients and team across multiple platforms such as email, WhatsApp, telephone, etc.

Proficient in MS Office software including Word, Outlook, PowerPoint and Excel

Proficient on Google platforms, e.g. GDrive, Sheets, Docs, Slideshow, etc.

Proficient on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for business

Proficient in WordPress CMS with a good understanding of writing and editing for SEO

An eye for design and basic knowledge of Adobe programmes such as Photoshop and InDesign

Team leadership skills (you will be leading a team of between 2 and 5 young people during your contract)

Excellent organisational skills as you will be juggling several projects at any given time

Ability to maintain deadlines, run projects, and timeously delegate tasks

Own laptop/computer

Stable internet connection

Open to receiving and answering questions from the team, giving advice and assisting wherever possible

An attitude of learning  our team constantly learns new skills and shares ideas and you will become part of this environment

Willing to grow with and build a warm, inviting and cohesive team culture

Young at heart and open to trying new ideas, campaigns, platforms and avenues of content creation

Print or digital magazine design experience

Adobe Photoshop and InDesign skills

Ability to operate Canva

Company Description

Film and event media is in search of a full-time digital editor to manage the editorial team while our current editor is on maternity leave.We are in search of a dynamic digital editor to take over from our current editor while she is away on maternity leave. The successful candidate would have excellent communication and team management skills, as well as the ability to write, edit, manage projects, and potentially do design work across a spectrum of brands.. If you have not heard from us within two weeks of submitting your application, please consider your application as unsuccessful.Film & Event Media is a publishing house established in 2003. It is home to several digital trade publications and platforms: the bi-monthly Callsheet Africa serving the film industry, SA Chef Media serving chefs, restaurants and the foodservice sector; two annual marketing resources, namely the Event Planners Guide to Africa and the Filmmakers Guide to Africa; Event Africa, serving the exhibitions, conferencing, incentives and meetings sector; and the Live-Cook Channel, a monthly live-streamed show with a B2C audience. The company also takes on several bespoke or special publishing and video production projects for clients annually.Visit us:www.thecallsheet.co.zawww.sachefmag.co.zawww.theevent.co.za Posted on 16 Sep 16:10
There are more federal facial recognition technology (FRT) systems than there are federal agencies using them, according to the U.S. General Accounting Office. Its latest report on current and planned use of FRT by federal agencies reveals that, among the 24 agencies surveyed, there are 27 federal FRT systems. Just three agenciesthe U.S. Departments of Homeland Security, Defense, and Justiceuse 18 of these systems for, as they put it, domestic law enforcement and national security purposes.

But 27 current federal systems are not enough to satisfy these agencies. The DOJ, DHS, and Department of the Interior also accessed FRT systems owned by 29 states and seven localities for law enforcement purposes. Federal agencies further accessed eight commercial FRT systems, including four agencies that accessed the infamous Clearview AI. Thats all just current use. Across federal agencies, there are plans in the next two years to develop or purchase 13 more FRT systems, access two more local systems, and enter two more contracts with Clearview AI.

As EFF has pointed out again and again, government use of FRT is anathema to our fundamental freedoms. Law enforcement use of FRT disproportionately impacts people of color, turns us all into perpetual suspects, and increases the likelihood of false arrest. Law enforcement agencies have also used FRT to spy on protesters.

Clearview AI, a commercial facial surveillance entity used by many federal agencies, extracts the faceprints of billions of unsuspecting people, without their consent, and uses them to provide information to law enforcement and federal agencies. They are currently being sued in both Illinois state court and federal court for violating the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). Illinois BIPA requires opt-in consent to obtain someones faceprint. Recently, an Illinois state judge allowed the state case to proceed, opening a path for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to fight against Clearview AIs business model, which trades in your privacy for their profit. You can read the opinion of the judge here, and find EFFs two amicus briefs against Clearview AI here and here.

FRT in the hands of the government erodes the rights of the people. Even so, the federal governments appetite for your facethrough one of their 27 systems or commercial systems such as Clearview AIis insatiable. Regulation is not sufficient here; the only effective solution to this pervasive problem is a ban on the federal use of FRT. Cities across the country from San Francisco, to Minneapolis, to Boston, have already passed strong local ordinances to do so.

Now we must go to Congress. EFF supports Senator Markeys Facial Recognition and Biometrics Technology Moratorium Act, which would ban the federal governments use of FRT and some other biometric technologies. Join our campaign and contact your members of Congress and tell them to support this ban. The government cant get enough of your face. Tell them they cant have it.

You can find the GAOs Report here.
Twenty-seven Republican governors or attorneys general have vowed to fight the latest executive order issued by President Joe Biden mandating that over 80 million private employees receive COVID vaccinations or undergo weekly testing, or their employer will be fined.

The executive order directs the U.S. Department of Labors Office of Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to require private businesses with more than 100 employees mandate that their workers receive both doses of the COVID-19 vaccine or undergo weekly testing. Noncompliance would result in fines of $14,000 per violation.

The governors whove expressed opposition include those from Arizona, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

Republican attorneys general from states with Democratic governors who also vowed to fight include Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron and Louisiana AG Jeff Landry.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, with whom Biden has sparred over mask mandates and vaccine passports, said Florida would fight back.

When you have a president like Biden issuing unconstitutional edicts against the American people, we have a responsibility to stand up for the Constitution and to fight back, and we are doing that in the state of Florida, he said. This is a president who has acknowledged in the past he does not have the authority to force this on anybody, and this order would result potentially in millions of Americans losing their jobs.

Texas, which is already embroiled in several lawsuits with the Biden administration, vowed to sue. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said after hearing Bidens announcement that Texas is already working to halt this power grab and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Texas would be suing the Biden administration very soon.
Australia has joined the US and UK in an enhanced trilateral security partnership called AUKUS with the unspoken-yet-obvious goal of coordinating escalations against China. Antiwar reports:

President Biden and the leaders of Australia and the UK announced a new military agreement on Wednesday aimed at countering China. The pact, known as AUKUS, will focus on the sharing of sensitive military technologies, and the first initiative will focus on getting Australia nuclear-powered submarines. US officials speaking to CNN described the effort to share nuclear propulsion with another country as an exceedingly rare step due to the sensitivity of the technology. This technology is extremely sensitive. This is, frankly, an exception to our policy in many respects, one unnamed official said.

This deal will replace a planned $90 billion program to obtain twelve submarines designed by France, an obnoxious expenditure either way when a quarter of Australians are struggling to make ends meet during a pandemic that is four times more likely to kill Australians who are struggling financially. This is just the latest in Canberras continually expanding policy of feeding vast fortunes into Washingtons standoff with Beijing at the expense of its own people.

If readers are curious why Australia would simultaneously subvert its own economic interests by turning against its primary trading partner and its own security interests by feeding into dangerous and unnecessary provocations, I will refer them once again to the jarringly honest explanation by American political analyst John Mearsheimer at a debate hosted by the Australian think tank Center for Independent Studies in 2019. Mearsheimer told his audience that the US is going to do everything it can to halt Chinas rise and prevent it from becoming the regional hegemon in the East, and that Australia should align with the US in that battle or else it would face the wrath of Washington.

The question thats on the table is what should Australias foreign policy be in light of the rise of China, Mearsheimer said. Ill tell you what I would suggest if I were an Australian.

Mearsheimer claimed that China is going to continue to grow economically and will convert this economic power into military power to dominate Asia the way the US dominates the Western Hemisphere, and explained why he thinks the US and its allies have every ability to prevent that from happening.

Now the question is what does this all mean for Australia? Mearsheimer said. Well, youre in a quandary for sure. Everybody knows what the quandary is. And by the way youre not the only country in East Asia thats in this quandary. You trade a lot with China, and that trade is very important for your prosperity, no question about that. Security-wise you really want to go with us. It makes just a lot more sense, right? And you understand that security is more important than prosperity, because if you dont survive, youre not gonna prosper.

Now some people say theres an alternative: you can go with China, said Mearsheimer. Right you have a choice here: you can go with China rather the United States. Theres two things Ill say about that. Number one, if you go with China you want to understand you are our enemy. You are then deciding to become an enemy of the United States. Because again, were talking about an intense security competition.

Youre either with us or against us, he continued. And if youre trading extensively with China, and youre friendly with China, youre undermining the United States in this security competition. Youre feeding the beast, from our perspective. And that is not going to make us happy. And when we are not happy you do not want to underestimate how nasty we can be. Just ask Fidel Castro.

Nervous laughter from the Australian think tank audience punctuated Mearsheimers more incendiary observations. The CIA is known to have made numerous attempts to assassinate Castro.

So there you have it. Australia is not aligned with the US to protect itself from China. Australia is aligned with the US to protect itself from the US.

This new move happens as Northern Territory Chief Minister Michael Gunner announces his governments policy for Covid-19 restrictions once the territorys population is 80 percent vaccinated which will include lockouts during outbreaks wherein people will only be allowed to work and move freely in society if they verify that they are vaccinated using check-in measures which Gunner literally calls a freedom pass.

Ill say it again and again. If you want your life to continue close to normal, get your jab, Gunner said. For vaccinated people, the check-in app will basically be your freedom pass. For people who make the choice to not get vaccinated, no vax means no freedom pass. Were working with other governments now to get this technology ready.

This is in alignment with what weve been told to expect as the rest of Australia prepares to roll out the use of vaccine passports.

And we continue to see other authoritarian escalations in Australia which have nothing to do with Covid as well. Authorities have been proposing new legal provisions which will allow Australian visas to be cancelled and citizenship revoked in entirely secret proceedings based on information provided by secretive government agencies. The horrifying Identify and Disrupt bill which allows Australian police to hack peoples devices, collect, delete and alter their information and log onto their social media was passed through Parliament at jaw-dropping speed last month. Neither of these escalations are Covid-related.

People who just started paying attention to Australian authoritarianism during Covid often get the impression that its entirely about the virus, but as we discussed previously the actual fundamental problem is that Australia is the only so-called democracy without any kind of statute or bill of rights to protect the citizenry from these kinds of abuses. This is why Australia is looked upon as so freakish by the rest of the western world right now: because, in this sense, it is. People call it a free country, but there has never been any reason to do so.

Covid has certainly played a major role in the exacerbation of Australian authoritarianism, but its a problem that was well underway long before the outbreak. Back in 2019 the CIVICUS Monitor had already downgraded Australia from an open country to one where civil space has narrowed, citing new laws to expand government surveillance, prosecution of whistleblowers, and raids on media organizations.

This slide into military brinkmanship and authoritarian dystopia shows no signs of stopping. The abuses of the powerful will continue to grow more egregious until the people open their eyes to whats going on and begin taking action to steer us away from the existential dangers we are hurtling toward on multiple fronts. If there is any good news to be had here, its that if such a miracle ever occurs it will then be possible to immediately course correct and start building a healthy society together.

_____________________

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Federal candidates in Dauphin-Swan River-Neepawa were mostly in agreement during a Wednesday evening debate focused on rural issues and the federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Federal candidates in Dauphin-Swan River-Neepawa were mostly in agreement during a Wednesday evening debate focused on rural issues and the federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

While the candidates came from different parties, the major target was the federal Liberal party on a host of issues.

"This election is about the future," Conservative candidate Dan Mazier said in his opening statement.

"For the last six years, (Liberal Leader) Justin Trudeau has neglected you and rural Canada. At a time when the government should be working to secure your future, Justin Trudeau plunged our nation into an election."

The 90-minute debate, which was jointly hosted by the Dauphin & District Chamber of Commerce, The Dauphin Herald, The Brandon Sun and Westman Communications Group, was held virtually due to the pandemic.

Neither NDP candidate Arthur Holroyd nor Liberal candidate Kevin Carlson were in attendance at Wednesday evenings debate.

Climate change and the impact on rural Canadians was a hot topic at the mostly collegial debate. Mazier said "the horse has left the barn" on the question of whether climate change is real and the party has a plan to remove the federal-implemented carbon tax.

Peoples Party of Canada candidate Donnan McKenna said Canada accounts for a relatively low percentage of global carbon emissions, so the focus should be on bigger polluters. He also blamed the carbon tax for rising prices and derided its impact on farmers, saying it punishes them.

"Any climate plan that we have to reduce our carbon has to include the big polluters and theres a bunch of different ways to do it," he said.

Maverick Party candidate Lori Falloon-Austin agreed, saying the carbon tax is one of the biggest issues facing farmers. She called the carbon pricing system "unproductive," "unhelpful" and something that only adds production costs for producers.

Green party candidate Shirley Lambrecht blamed the fossil fuel industry for the majority of the countrys emissions and said her party has a plan to transition to a greener economy, including through education. The federal government also needs to support farmers and look at exemptions from the tax, she said.

Mazier also attacked the Liberal Party of Canada on gun control, saying the government has "demonized" responsible gun owners by banning certain gun models deemed "assault-style." If the party forms government, he said the Conservatives would classify firearms based on their function, not how they look.

Other candidates agreed. Falloon-Austin said the Maverick Party wants to see a chief firearms officer appointed, who would be based in Western Canada.

Lambrecht called firearms a "tool of the trade" for farmers and agreed they should be classified based on capability.

"I think we do need to defer to the science," she said.

Similar to Mazier, McKenna also attacked the federal government, saying they went after legal firearm owners in the wake of the 2020 Nova Scotia mass shooting.

The candidates did clash, however, over vaccine mandates. Falloon-Austin, Mazier and McKenna all said they are against vaccine mandates. Falloon-Austin said being vaccinated is a personal choice and not one the government should interfere with.

Lambrecht, representing the Green Party, said the government shouldnt force anyone to do anything, but hospital workers should be vaccinated against COVID-19.

"We know that unvaccinated people are more susceptible to the virus. We cant take that risk into our hospitals, so I do agree that in health-care settings  that we do need to have that expectation that the staff will be vaccinated," she said.

Mazier and McKenna clashed over the June arrest of Peoples Party of Canada Leader Maxime Bernier in Manitoba for breaking public health orders.

Berniers arrest was an unequal application of the law, McKenna said and pointed to busy beaches where people werent physical distancing that same weekend.

But Bernier was breaking the rules, Mazier responded, and he came into the province knowing he was going to break the rules.

Voters across Canada go to the polls on Sept. 20.

 dmay@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @DrewMay_
Advance polls in the Brandon-Souris riding attracted 68 per cent more voters than in 2019, according to Elections Canada.

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Advance polls in the Brandon-Souris riding attracted 68 per cent more voters than in 2019, according to Elections Canada.

Eager to cast a ballot, 9,020 voters in the riding voted at advance polls this year compared to 5,355 in the 2019 federal election  a difference of 3,655 voters.

While many of the ridings in Winnipeg had higher numbers of votes cast in advance, Brandon-Souris secured the third-highest increase by percentage in all of Manitoba.

Portage-Lisgar recorded the highest percentage increase in Canada, with 13,462 advance votes (a 128.26 per cent increase). Winnipeg North ranked second with 10,420 advance votes (an increase of 81.63 per cent).

By comparison, Dauphin-Swan River-Neepawa had a much smaller increase in the number of advance voters.

The 8,616 votes cast, up from 6,294 in the previous election, represented only a 37.55 per cent increase, making it the third-lowest increase among Manitobas 14 federal ridings.

Only Elmwood-Transcona (a 35.47 per cent increase) and Churchill-Keewatinook Aski (a 34.07 per cent increase) had smaller increases in advance voting activity.

For all of Manitoba, there was a total of 184,611 votes cast at advance polls  66,903 more than in 2019, representing an increase of 56.84 per cent.

Thats the highest increase percentage-wise of advance ballots cast among all provinces and territories. In second place was Yukon, with a 35.51 per cent increase in advance voters.

None of the ridings in Manitoba experienced a drop in the number of voters at advance polls. The only province or territory to see a decline in the number of advance voters was Nunavut, which had 19.71 per cent less activity.

The riding in Canada with the biggest drop in activity was South Okanagan-West Kootenay in British Columbia, which had a 50.49 per cent decrease in advance votes.

Advance voting has closed. Those who have yet to cast a ballot can do so on Monday, when polling stations will be open from 8:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Many Brandonites will be voting at the Keystone Centre this year, with schools off-limits as polling places due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Though signs on the venues doors state that guests need to be double-vaccinated, Elections Canada has confirmed that no polling place will require, or even ask for, proof of vaccination.

However, voters may be required to wear a mask while voting due to the provinces indoor mask mandate for public places.

 cslark@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @ColinSlark
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CHELSEA KEMP/THE BRANDON SUN The BFC Indigenous Eats food truck staff plan a fundraiser to honour Truth and Reconciliation Week in Brandon.

The Indigenous Eats food truck is raising funds and awareness for residential school survivors and victims.

The fundraiser was inspired by Brandon Mayor Rick Chrest proclaiming Sept. 27 to Oct. 1 Truth and Reconciliation Week, said Indigenous Eats food truck managers Darian and Caitlin Kennedy.

"We have been passionate about spreading awareness. We decided we wanted to do something to help with Every Child Matters and spread awareness," Caitlin said. "I noticed back when the Kamloops school was searched, you saw it all on social media. Now its starting to fade away."

For the fundraiser, the food truck will first be parked at Waywayseecappo Gas Bar on Monday and Tuesday, followed by a stop Sept. 24 at Livingstone Landscaping before heading back to the Waywayseecappo Gas Bar on Sept. 25.

During the event, Indigenous Eats will be offering large tacos for $10. Funds raised will be allocated by the Brandon Friendship Centre. Orange Every Child Matters T-shirts will also be available at the food truck and Brandon Friendship Centre for $25.

Darian said he hopes to see as many people as possible attend the fundraiser and help start and maintain conversations about the horrific legacy of residential schools in Canada.

The fundraiser has been informed by the duos work with the Brandon Residential Schools Cemeteries Project based out of Simon Fraser University. The projects goal is to bring the bodies of children discovered at former schools back to their communities and families so they can be buried with their relatives. He noted the future of each unmarked grave will be decided by individual First Nations.

In June, when graves were discovered in Kamloops, Darian saw an overwhelming urgency, including at the Brandon Residential School Cemeteries Project, in regards to unmarked graves.

The discoveries demonstrated the need for Indigenous voices in Canada and highlighted gaps in the countrys education system that failed to address the traumatic history of residential schools.

"Remembering the children should be at the forefront for everyone. We need to understand why the children are there in the first place. Its because they were deemed a problem and the residential school was the solution. It was inhumane and it was wrong," Darian said. "Its reflected in how they were disposed of."

Unmarked graves continue to be found at former residential schools, Caitlin said, and she wants to see people continue to engage as the number of confirmed unmarked graves rises. Each grave contains a child who was unable to return home and whose family was left wondering what happened to them.

"Were all still mourning those children. The survivors still have to live with the trauma," Caitlin said. "Its never going to be done. Its never going to end. Were always going to be mourning those children that never made it home."

It is difficult and uncomfortable having these conversations about the traumas that occurred at residential schools, Darian said, but there is a need to understand and unpack how these traumas ripple through to contemporary society.

Canada is getting better in terms of understanding between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, but hard work remains in regard to reconciliation.

"With Indigenous Eats programs, with the Friendship Centre and other great programs across Canada, I feel like we can have hope," Darian said. "I see a problem here and I think about it as if they were my own children. We need to find a solution because we need to give dignity to the ones that lost their lives at the residential school."

The food truck serves as a way to connect and share culture in a positive way, Caitlin said. She shared a story of Indigenous Eats visiting the Dakota Tipi First Nation for a powwow. During the celebrations, they interacted with visitors trying bannock and attending a powwow for the first time.

"Thats exactly what we want. We want them to come and be friends with us and get to know our culture and learn," Caitlin said.

For those affected by the discovery of unmarked graves at former residential schools across Canada, the National Indian Residential School Crisis Line is available 24/7 at 1-866-925-4419.

 ckemp@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @The_ChelseaKemp
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MIKE DEAL/WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Gary Filmon, former Manitoba premier, poses for a photo outside Government House in Winnipeg, where he lives with his wife, Manitoba Lt.-Gov. Janice Filmon. Earlier this month, Filmon released his memoir titled "Yes We Did: Leading in Turbulent Times."

Gary Filmon navigated many choppy waters while premier of Manitoba between 1988 and 1999.

From the Meech Lake crisis to the Red River flood of 1997 to the loss of the Winnipeg Jets, Filmon contended with one historic event after another, never really having the time to put his thoughts on paper.

SUBMITTED The cover of Gary Filmon's new autobiography, "Yes We Did: Leading in Turbulent Times.

But Filmon had much more breathing room to reflect on his stint as an elected official after leaving politics in 2000, and even began writing a memoir midway through the 2010s.

Earlier this month, Filmon finally released his autobiography, entitled "Yes We Did: Leading in Turbulent Times," which aims to provide Manitobans with an inside look at his career in politics, as well as his upbringing and family life.

In a Wednesday afternoon conversation with the Sun, Filmon chatted about his writing process, his connection to Westman and his thoughts about how the world of politics has changed in the last 20 years.

The following is a transcription of that conversation, which has been slightly edited for length and clarity.

The Brandon Sun: When did you make the active decision to start writing your memoir? What brought about this decision in the first place?

Gary Filmon: It was about five years ago.

A snapshot of former Manitoba premier Gary Filmon hanging out with his political rival and friend Gary Doer on a Gimli beach in the 1980s. This picture is one of many personal photos included in Filmon's new memoir, "Yes We Did: Leading in Turbulent Times." (Submitted)

I had been having discussions with academics and journalists who said "nobodys really written the history of the 90s and your role in it" and "why are you leaving it to somebody else to tell?"

I was very busy, thankfully, with a new career that I had carved out doing some consulting and being on corporate boards and serving on the Security Intelligence Review Committee ... and I really couldnt see myself devoting the time to it that it required.

But about five years ago, I started to write little anecdotes, as I would call them. They were just discussions and stories that were anywhere from four or five pages, to 30 or 40 pages when you got into some of the bigger items.

And I started to collect those and eventually I had 37 of these anecdotes written, and I thought "yeah, I think Ive got the making of a book here."

So I worked with someone who provided me with some editorial advice and we got the anecdotes essentially put in chronological and topical order and we had the makings of a manuscript. And then it was just a matter of continuing the edit process until we felt it was readable.

SUN: What kind of previous writing experience did you draw on to make this 280-page volume a reality?

GF: Ive always been an avid reader, all the way back to the time I was in junior high school  and that carried on through my life.

In doing that, I think I became a bit of an aficionado on the written word. And so I decided that Id test my own skills and my own approach to writing and see whether or not anybody liked it.

So I showed some of the things that I had done to other people, whether they be friends or acquaintances or actually people with writing backgrounds.

And the positive response I got said to me that maybe I did have some writing ability. Therefore, I went forward with it.

Gary Filmon poses with Jean Chretien and his wife Janice in a photo that is included in his new memoir "Yes We Did: Leading in Turbulent Times." (Submitted)

SUN: So is this really your first big writing project?

GF: Absolutely!

I wrote a mini-book for my grandchildren about two years ago, which really formed what is the first couple chapters of (this new) book.

It was to tell them my history, so that they knew our family history and my own experiences as a child. They were fascinated by it. At least the ones who were old enough to be in high school or university loved it.

So that said to me, again, that there were the makings of a book here.

SUN: Having read parts of the book already, it features many anecdotes about both your family life and political career that are peppered with very specific details. So what kind of work went into recalling these details and putting them onto paper? Was it all memory or was there research involved in this process?

GF: It was a combination of the two.

I had a very vivid memory of everything Ive written about. But I did a lot of fact-checking because many of the things that Im talking about were covered by media, or were the result of reports or written recommendations or all those things that come to make policy issues.

I also met with former senior staff members (to check) their recollections against mine. So, ultimately, what you see is the product of the ways in which I wanted to verify that my memory was accurate.

SUN: Your anecdotes fluctuate between personal stories and stories about your political career. So between your personal stories (like about your wifes cancer diagnosis) and political recollections (like the Meech Lake negotiations), what was the most difficult subject to write about?

GF: Emotionally, for sure, it was Janices cancer diagnosis and treatment and the effect that it had on me personally and on our family. For sure, that was the most emotional piece there.

The stories of many of the events I talked about, whether its Meech Lake, whether its the Flood of the Century, the loss of the Jets, they were examples of the really stressful things that I had to deal with and the kind of pressure that somebody in a leadership role is put under.

And, at the same time, recognizing that you do these things under the microscope of the public watching you and the media and what goes along with it makes it even more stressful.

SUN: You spent a couple chapters recalling your time working as an area manager for UMA Engineering in Southwestern Manitoba, and how the job helped you gain "an appreciation for our political leaders." In this sense, would it be accurate to say that the origins of your political career can be traced back to the Westman region and the time you spent living here?

GF: I think thats accurate.

And the reason that it is accurate is that I really did not, as I explained in the book, come from a family who really spent any time with politics, aside from (championing) the sanctity of the vote. Because they had come from Eastern Europe, where they didnt get a chance to vote, and it was not a very democratic place to live.

So it was not a natural thing in my family to be politically involved or active. And I suppose I became more and more involved as a result of observing those that I was dealing with in the Westman area.

I actually joined a political party for the first time when I lived in Brandon.

SUN: You mentioned in the book that one of your keys to election victory as a city councillor was face-to-face interactions with your voters. Do you think this is still a viable election strategy in the age of COVID, where were being encouraged to socially distance?

GF: Thats a difficult question, in that social media and all the different ways in which, electronically, people gain their information these days, would suggest that more and more peoples decisions are being made by the greater (social) media involvement in their lives.

I believe, still, that there is a certain level of comfort and credibility in the face-to-face approach to it.

So I still believe in either picking up the phone and talking to somebody or meeting them on their doorstep, and I think that has a great deal more power of persuasion even than the electronic means.

SUN: Throughout parts of the book, you emphasize the importance of maintaining a civil discourse with your political opponents and opposition party leaders. Given how polarized and partisan the world of politics seems right now, do you think this style of governing will die out in the future?

GF: Its an interesting thing. I have spent more than 20 years getting myself out of active politics, so I dont want anything that I say to be considered a criticism of those who are there today.

But I do believe that we did have much more collaboration, more consultation and friendly relationships with not only opponents but certainly people of different political stripes from across the country.

There was a level of collaboration and respect that I think probably doesnt exist today.

SUN: What do you think happened? What changed that since you got out of office?

GF: Its very difficult for me to judge what has caused that. I guess part of it is the tendency of people to speak through the filter of social media and all of that. Thats probably not as good as picking up the phone and having a straight conversation.

SUN: Do you have any predictions about how the current PC leadership race will go next month? Do you have any advice for whoever becomes the next premier?

GF: Im going to be very careful to ensure that I stay out of any discussion about those things, just simply because I think it would probably be unfair to those who are in the contest and actively involved as politicians.

So I really wont be making any comment on or giving any advice on the current circumstances.

SUN: To follow up on that a little bit, what do you think Brian Pallisters legacy will be now that his run as premier has come to an end after five years?

GF: When I left politics, as I say in my book, and I was asked what my legacy will be, I said Id let history decide that, and I would say the same for Brian or anybody else.

History will be the judge of what we do when were in public office. Its not fair to make a judgment on the basis of current knowledge or current circumstances.

SUN: Is there anything else you wanted to add about this book or the work that went into writing it?

GF: Ive been very happy that I did decide to do it.

It took a long time for me to make the decision to finally write about ... both my personal life and public life.

Having done it, Im really happy that I did and I just hope its a contribution to the understanding of what life was like in the 90s and the time leading up to that.

Filmon will be visiting Brandon on Sept. 22 to take part in a book launch at the Riverbank Discovery Centre. The event is scheduled to run from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Proof of vaccination will be required to attend.

 kdarbyson@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @KyleDarbyson
Immunocompromised Manitobans or people wanting to travel now have the option of receiving a third COVID-19 vaccine shot through their family doctor or physician.

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Dr. Joss Reimer, medical lead for Manitoba's vaccination rollout, speaks about COVID-19 vaccination initiatives and answers media questions during a COVID-19 livestreamed news conference at the Manitoba legislature in Winnipeg on Wednesday, March 17, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/John Woods

Immunocompromised Manitobans or people wanting to travel now have the option of receiving a third COVID-19 vaccine shot through their family doctor or physician.

On Wednesday, the province made third doses of the COVID-19 vaccine available for people who are moderately to severely immunocompromised due to a medical condition and/or treatment; people who wish to receive a third dose for travelling purposes; and people who have received one or two doses of a vaccine that is not approved by Health Canada.

Dr. Joss Reimer, medical lead for of the vaccine implementation task force for the province, said the third vaccine will be available to people with these immunocompromising conditions:

 severely immunocompromised due to a medical condition and/or treatment such as receiving active chemotherapy for cancer;

 have received a solid organ transplant and are currently receiving chemotherapy or other immunosuppressive therapy;

 were born with moderate or severe dysfunction of their immune system;

 are living with untreated or advanced HIV-AIDS;

 are taking certain medications that severely affect the immune system.

"We know that people who are immunocompromised may not be able to develop a good defence against COVID-19 with just two doses of the vaccine," Reimer said.

"This initial plan for the third dose recognizes those who are at increased risk of severe illness. It also responds to the individual challenges faced by people travelling outside of Canada."

The change is consistent with the National Advisory Committee on Immunizations recommendations for third shots for people with immunocompromising conditions.

"For those who are immunocompromised, two doses of the vaccine may not provide adequate defence against COVID-19, particularly given concerns with the highly contagious delta variant," Reimer said.

The list of conditions is not all-inclusive. A more comprehensive list will be available to Manitoba physicians as they discuss those conditions with their patients.

The need for further consultations with their doctor will be necessary if their condition impacts their immune response following the third vaccine.

Manitobans who received a mixed vaccine schedule and are planning to travel, can now ask their doctor for a third shot, Reimer said.

Individuals who would like to receive a third dose for travel purposes must be vaccinated by their health-care provider and go through an informed consent process, or present a prescription to a pharmacist.

People who previously received a vaccine not approved by Health Canada can be immunized at supersites, pop-ups or mobile clinics or by a health-care provider. Individuals who receive a dose of mRNA vaccine following one or two doses of a vaccine not approved by Health Canada will be considered fully immunized by the province and can have their immunization records updated.

In all situations, the doses should be given a minimum of 28 days after the persons most recent dose of any COVID-19 vaccine.

Meanwhile, Reimer said the province is finalizing the process for acquiring a medical exemption for COVID-19 vaccination.

Based on the guidance of the vaccine implementation task forces medical advisory committee, people in one of three situations may be eligible for a temporary or permanent medical exemption to vaccination.

It must be reviewed by a specialist physician and then submitted to the vaccine implementation task force. It includes people who had a severe reaction after the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine (i.e. myocarditis, Guillain-Barre syndrome); are receiving treatment that affects their ability to mount an immune response, meaning vaccination must be timed carefully with their treatment schedule; or had a severe allergy or anaphylactic reaction to a previous dose of a COVID-19 vaccine or its components that cant be managed by the Health Sciences Centre Allergy Clinic.

The province is also developing a way to ensure individuals with a valid medical exemption are able to access the same benefits as those with an immunization card.

This work is expected to be completed in the coming weeks.

 kkielley@brandonsun.com
Two electric vehicle drivers have launched a High Court legal challenge against the State of Victoria, arguing it lacks the constitutional power to tax drivers with a road user charge.

The plaintiffs, Kathleen Davies and Chris Vanderstock, are represented by Equity Generation, the same legal firm that acted for eight teenagers in a landmark climate court action against federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley.

Engineering consultant Kathleen Davies is one of the plaintiffs taking the Victorian government to court over the electric vehicle tax. Credit:Jason South

In July, Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas introduced a controversial new levy which charges electric vehicle drivers between 2 and 2.5 cents for every kilometre they drive.

Equity Generation lawyer Jack McLean said the constitution divides powers between the states and the Commonwealth, and gives the Commonwealth the exclusive power to levy taxes of this kind.
Lingering symptoms of COVID-19 rarely persist in children beyond 12 weeks, in a reassuring sign they are far less likely than adults to suffer the debilitating effects of what is referred to as long COVID.

These are the findings of a new scientific review by a group of leading paediatric researchers at Melbournes Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, who suggest that most global studies into long COVID in children had significant limitations and many overstated the risk.

Children aged 12 to 15 are now eligible for the jab. Credit:Eddie Jim

Long COVID is not an official medical term, but it is used to describe people still suffering symptoms of the virus longer than the official World Health Organisations recognised two-week period.

In a bid to determine the severity of the virus in children, the Australian researchers undertook a scientific review scrutinising 14 international studies involving more than 19,400 children and adolescents globally who had reported persistent symptoms following a COVID-19 infection.
The states departing head of planning has called for a ceasefire between the government and developers and a renewed focus on pushing through major housing and urban design reforms before the political appetite is lost.

Jim Betts, who is leaving his post as secretary for the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment to head the Department of Premier and Cabinet, asked during a property developer forum that industry members and other stakeholders to lay down the inflammatory rhetoric as it was difficult to drive change while under attack.

Departing planning secretary Jim Betts has called for a raft of housing reforms to be pushed through before the political will is lost. Credit:Jessica Hromas

I think we need to collectively grow up and have a discussion about the real issues rather than throwing bombs at each other, Mr Betts told the Urban Development Institute of Australias online forum on Solving the Housing Supply Crisis in NSW on Thursday morning.

Im not here to argue about whether there is a housing crisis in NSW; it seems to me thats a slogan as much as anything.
The death toll from the Delta outbreak in NSW continues to grow, with another 12 fatalities and 1351 new COVID-19 cases.

Health Minister Brad Hazzard said of the 12 new deaths recorded in NSW, 10 people were unvaccinated. It takes the total number of deaths to 266.

NSW Minister for Health Brad Hazzard at the COVID-19 briefing on Thursday morning. Credit:Rhett Wyman

These people are in a range of ages and I just want to stress that the range of the ages reflects the fact that this is a severe disease and can impact you at all ages and for those who are still reluctant to go and get vaccines, can I say that is the way forward, he said.

I want to stress that of those 12 people who passed away, 10 people were not vaccinated.
A dozen of the states top cardiologists were forced into isolation and multiple urgent heart procedures cancelled after two unvaccinated nurses worked while infectious with COVID-19 at a major Sydney hospital.

Critical procedures, including angiograms, pacemakers, stent and valve replacements, were called off at St Vincents Hospital in Darlinghurst last week after the nurses worked shifts across at least four cardiac wards.

One senior interventional cardiologist at St Vincents, who could not be named because they were not authorised to speak publicly about the issue, said cardiac procedures were brought to a standstill and wait times for operations such as pacemaker surgery had blown out with dozens of patients facing weeks-long delays.

St Vincents Hospital in Darlinghurst. Credit:James Brickwood

We normally run four cardiac cath labs every day but because of [the exposures] we are now down to running only one theatre, and only for half a day with reduced staff, they said.
I apologise to anybody who will be inconvenienced by public transport changes during those hours, but its not the government thats inconveniencing you, its potentially thousands of people who very selfishly are deciding to protest, as if protests work against this virus. They dont. Mr Andrews said that his government had a long track record of providing things requested by the Chief Commissioner Shane Patton. An anti-lockdown protest in August in Melbournes CBD. Credit:Justin McManus The Chief Commissioner considers very carefully what he asks for, and then the government considers those requests. If he says to me, I need these things to keep people safe, what Im indicating to you is my answer will invariably be yes, he said. Police have made it very clear to me, and I think to the border community, that the stuff we saw a couple of weekends ago is some of the ugliest stuff weve seen in 20 years. So, I just urge people, dont be out protesting.

About 2000 police will be in attendance on Saturday, more the double previous protests. Well do everything we can to prevent access to the city, Mr Patton said on Wednesday. Two hundred arrests were made after more than 4000 people descended on the city for the last anti-lockdown rally on August 21. Mr Patton said intelligence suggested thousands more may be planning to attend this weekends protest. Anti-lockdown campaigners and their followers on Thursday debated whether the location of the protest needed to be changed on the encrypted app Telegram, with several suggesting more suburban locations. We gotta be smart, one person said. No-one needs or wants a bloodbath. However, one of the main anti-lockdown event Telegram channels posted on Thursday afternoon that the protest would continue as planned. The rally will not be cancelled, they said. Police union boss Wayne Gatt told The Age police had no choice but to do what they could to stop protesters coming into the city.

[Police] dont want to be at demonstrations any more than protesters want to be in lockdown, he said, adding that Victoria Police had done all it possibly could to stop the event from happening and to warn people that attendance would be illegal and irresponsible during a pandemic. Lawyer Gemma Cafarella from civil liberties group Liberty Victoria said while they did not support large-scale gatherings during the pandemic, the shutdown of the CBD was going too far. There is an important conversation to be had about how we balance our rights, such as the right to protest, with community safety, she said. So we say yes, people generally have the right to protest and it is at the moment, we say, proportionate to put some limits on peoples capacity to protest. The issue for us comes in relation to the methods that Victoria Police are saying they are going to utilise. It is our view that shutting down the whole CBD is not a proportionate limitation on peoples rights. She said they were particularly concerned about essential workers, people who commute through the city to get to their jobs, and the CBD residents.

Loading Our view on this is that it is a huge restriction on those people in a context where theyre not doing the wrong thing. We say that its not a proportionate measure. Victorian Opposition Leader Matthew Guy said shutting down the public transport network to stop anti-lockdown protesters entering the CBD was heavy-handed and may hinder people getting to work or a vaccination site. Its very heavy-handed and it does disadvantage those who still have to go to work and those who have to go and get vaccinated, he said. He encouraged Melburnians not to attend the rally. [The protest] is not helping the situation. Reasonable average Victorians are saying its not going to help. What does help is abiding by the rules and getting vaccinated.
Loading A ban on removing masks to drink alcohol outdoors  established in reaction to an illegal pub crawl last month  will persist, meaning public health rules will prohibit people drinking outdoors. The government considered whether the ban was still required and decided to maintain it in a bid to dissuade people from gathering in larger groups and behaving in a manner that heightened the risk of transmission. Shadow attorney-general Tim Smith said not allowing people meeting outdoors to drink alcohol was utterly bizarre. Victoria recorded 514 new cases on Thursday.

About 62 per cent of the new cases are in Melbournes northern suburbs and about 85 per cent of all active cases in the state are people under 50 years of age, while almost a quarter are people in their 20s. The Age has confirmed eight Indigenous Victorians have contracted COVID-19 in the current outbreak. Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews indicated the eased rules would not have a significant effect on case numbers, brushing off a call from the Victorian branch of the Australian Medical Association to ease restrictions only after 80 per cent of Victorians aged 12 and above had been double-vaccinated for two weeks, which will probably be several months away. A greater proportion of older people will be able to take advantage of the new outdoor freedoms for vaccinated people because they have been eligible for jabs for longer.

More than 75 per cent of people aged over 40 had received at least one vaccine by Thursday morning, compared with 62.5 per cent of Victorians aged 35 to 39, 55.4 per cent of those between 30 and 34, 49.6 per cent of 25 to 29-year-olds, 45.5 per cent of 20 to 24-year-olds and 44.29 per cent of those aged between 16 and 19. CBD resident Edbert Limen, 28, received his first jab at the Melbourne Town Hall, where a large display has been set up to project the states rolling vaccination rate and progress towards inoculation targets. Recently vaccinated Edbert Limen poses in front of the big screen at Melbourne Town Hall displaying Victorias vaccination tally on Thursday. Credit:Jason South I want to help the community, he said. My friends at the moment are just having issues with the long queue waiting to get vaccinated, but they all want to be part of the program. Melbourne lord mayor Sally Capp said the signage was displayed to engender pride and communitarian spirit.

Loading We are putting the numbers up there loud and proud, and we hope this encourages more conversations and compels more people to be a vaccine hero, she said. While the state has moved past the 70 per cent first-dose target, hotspots with few GP clinics are lagging. Hume, the local government area that has by far the highest active COVID-19 case rate in the state, also has the second-lowest first dose rate of Victorias 79 LGAs. As of Monday morning (the most recent date for which data is available), 55 per cent of Hume residents aged 16 and over had received their first vaccine dose, compared with 66.8 per cent for the entire state on that date. First-dose rates are also lower in some of the LGAs in Melbournes north and west with the highest active case rates. About 56 per cent of the eligible population in Whittlesea has received their first dose, 57.9 per cent in Brimbank, 59.3 per cent in Darebin, 59.8 per cent in Melton and 60.4 per cent in Moreland.

Part of the reason these areas have lower first-dose rates is because their population skews younger than the rest of the population. Hundreds of thousands of top-up vaccines are being sent into these areas from this month. Mr Andrews revealed several new rules for construction workers, including a ban on crossing the metro-regional boundary for work and a mandate that all employees must have received at least one vaccine dose by next Friday to keep working. The construction industry, currently operating at 25 per cent of capacity, has come into the spotlight amid claims of tradespeople not wearing masks and infections linked to worksites, including cases that led to Ballarat being locked down on Wednesday. Mr Andrews called Thursdays mandate a down payment on construction reopening to 50 and 75 per cent in the coming weeks and months.

This is a plan to keep the thing open, rather than doing what you could do, and thats to say oh well, were just going to close it down to zero, the Premier said. Loading Victoria is the only jurisdiction to make vaccination mandatory for construction. The move appeared at odds with the views of the states construction union head John Setka, who said earlier this week he preferred a conversation with people than a broad mandate. However, Mr Setka, the Victorian secretary of the CFMEU, said on Thursday that extreme circumstances sometimes call for extreme measures and his union would not oppose the change.

I think it is one of the prices we have to pay, he told 3AW radio. Three-quarters of the construction industry is already sitting at home not working  people are financially suffering. I respect peoples right to be an anti-vaxxer but, you know, I havent heard of a road map or plan that they have. Master Builders Victoria chief executive Rebecca Casson agreed, saying a mandate was the only way to keep open an industry that employs 320,000 people in the state. Thats why MBV has been discussing mandatory vaccinations with the government  because our industry cannot survive on a pilot light forever, she said.
A suppression order covering a high-profile Melbourne rape case has been revoked in court, meaning it can now be revealed another man who boasted he tag-teamed the victim was jailed over the sexual assault.

The revocation of the order, a result of an application by The Age, means the impact of the abhorrent crime on the victim can also be reported.

Jarrod Vincent Thomas was jailed after he pleaded guilty, it can now be reported.

The newly engaged woman was found intoxicated and lying on a footpath in Lygon Street, Carlton, in June 2018.

Instead of giving her a safe lift home, Harley Jarthur Palise and Jarrod Vincent Thomas diverted into a street in Coburg and repeatedly raped her.
A Victorian woman in her 50s has died with COVID-19 and the state recorded more than 500 new local cases on Friday as the 70 per cent first-dose vaccination milestone was reached ahead of a modest easing of restrictions.

Also included in the 510 new local coronavirus cases announced on Friday, 95 per cent of which were recorded in Melbournes north and west, were nine new cases in regional Victoria.

Medical staff administering COVID-19 tests in Melbourne. Credit:Getty

COVID response commander Jeroen Weimar said three new cases in Ballarat were all linked, and he was closely following mystery cases in the Mitchell Shire and Geelong, and the situation in Wodonga after four truck drivers who passed through the border town subsequently tested positive.

More than 43,993 vaccine doses were administered in Victoria on Thursday, with the state scraping past its target reaching 70.25 per cent first dose vaccinations.
Public transport will be closed to thwart a potential violent demonstration in the dead heart of the city. More than 2000 police will be lying in wait, prepared if necessary to fire capsicum rounds and non-lethal projectiles into the crowd to keep order. (My suggestion of firing vaccine darts into the crowd from helicopters has been rejected.) The trouble with the lunatic anti-vaxxers and COVID deniers who turn up to take on the cops is they take the headlines and conceal the truth. Most of the protesters want to attend not because they have been fed lies, but because they are fed up. Victoria Police confront protesters in Victoria Street, North Melbourne, on May 29 for breaching lockdown directives. No social distancing there either. Credit:Chris Hopkins People who have lost their jobs, lost their way, are battling with home schooling or cant see their elderly parents, want to be heard. It was about 50 years ago that we started to understand that protests are legitimate when more than 100,000 people would march in the streets in anti-conscription, anti-Vietnam war demonstrations.

At first, police put their most experienced cops on the front line, many who had fought in previous wars. They thought the protesters were traitors, and the confrontations were violent and frequent. The then assistant commissioner Mick Miller didnt call for more weapons or stricter rules. He put his most junior cops at the front. Men and women around the same age as the protesters and the violence dropped. Most times empathy beats beltings. Anti-Vietnam War protesters sit down outside Myer on Bourke Street in 1970. Credit:The Age Archives The trouble this time is the legitimate right to protest is trumped by the health concerns. Large gatherings have the potential to spread the virus. To beat the public transport ban, demonstrators will arrive in groups that can be virus spreaders. The people who want their rights back may unwittingly extend the period that we are being forced to live as cave-dwelling hermits.

The Premier must change his message that if we continue to be naughty we will be kept in after school. Police are caught in a terrible bind. They want to work for the community, not oppress them with health restrictions that read like an Orwell novel. Make no mistake  the average cop hates making people move on from a coffee shop, staff hotel quarantine or check registrations in regional Victoria to make sure some sneaky resident from Bentleigh doesnt turn up in Benalla. And they dont want to be spat at and punched at demonstrations. It may take years for police to win back the confidence of many. The message has to be to the vaccine hesitant  perfectly reasonable people who have doubts  and forget about the anti-vaxxers who believe COVID is a hoax, Barack Obama was born in Nigeria, Trump won the last election, Elvis is snorkeling for coconut crabs off the Cook Islands, Harold Holt owns a dumpling restaurant in Beijing and Neil Armstrong took one small step for mankind in a sandpit at Paramount Studios. Stop talking down to people who havent embraced the restrictions and werent first in line for the needle. Being double vaccinated makes you sensible not superior.

We cannot let COVID split us into us and them. We have suffered together and need to recover together. Peaceful people who want to be heard need to be given an alternative than to take to the streets. Loading What about an online petition? Post pictures with the sign Open Up. Stand outside your closed business, closed school, favourite restaurant or your own home. There are so many ways to be heard without yelling cliches into a bullhorn in the city. We have lost so many civil rights but not the one to have a different opinion. There was a leader who, while he was always up for a fight, knew that confrontation was the last resort. He said, meeting jaw to jaw is better than war. His name was Winston Churchill.
Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size Dominating the seas has been the ambition of countries for centuries and in the modern age (beyond the sails and masts) the nuclear submarine has emerged as a leading choice for distance, speed and stealth. Countries such as the United States, China, the United Kingdom, France, Russia and India already have nuclear fleets. Now the Prime Minister has billed a new plan for Australia to build its own nuclear-powered submarines using US technology as a game-changer. Its part of a historic new security pact called AUKUS (pronounced AWK-us) between Australia, the US and the UK to step up their response to Chinese aggression in the region. This was pretty much unimaginable five years ago, says Marcus Hellyer, a senior analyst with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. It would be unimaginable for us to ask for the technology, and pretty much unimaginable for the US to provide it to us  So, the world has fundamentally changed. But it also means Australia has scrapped a $90-billion program to build 12 French-designed diesel-powered subs  and that will cost taxpayers at least $2 billion in compensation to the company that had already started work on those models. (Not to mention seriously angering the French government.) So, how do nuclear subs work and why do we need them? The new submarines based on US tech will not be in operation for years. Credit:General Dynamics What are nuclear submarines? When scientists split the atom, they quickly realised it could do more than build bombs. It could be used to generate electricity. These nuclear reactors have been powering homes and industry across the world for the past 70 years. Nuclear submarines work in a similar way  they each have their own miniature nuclear reactor on board, using highly enriched uranium as fuel.

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A conventional submarine, meanwhile, uses diesel generators to charge batteries, which then use the electricity stored in them to run a motor. As with any battery, though, they go flat. To recharge, they need to surface and do a thing called snorkelling  bringing in air to run their generators. Snorkelling makes them vulnerable: they can be spotted from the sky or by submarine-hunting ships. Loading If you think of Indiana Jones hitching a ride on the back of a submarine at the surface, most of the time subs really are up at the top like that, says nuclear physicist Professor Andrew Stuchbery at the ANU. But a nuclear sub can sink below the waves and not come up for months and months. They come up, generally, to refresh the crew. They can also go faster, hitting say, 60 kilometres an hour, says Hellyer, whereas a conventional sub can be outrun by a ship; its commander could pull the sub into a sprint, but at only about 30 km/hr Hellyer says it has to always be mindful of preserving battery power. The current generation of US attack submarines is, like, over 8000 tonnes  so theyre moving this massive body through the water at 60km/hr. At a glance: How many subs does Australia, the UK, US, China have? With fewer moving parts than a diesel model, nuclear submarines are also famously quiet, perfect for stealth missions behind enemy lines. The technology has become so silent that in 2009 British and French nuclear subs, carrying ballistic missiles, accidentally ran into each other in the Atlantic Ocean.

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Still, as Stuchbery explains, nuclear subs also cannot be switched off the way diesel and electric models can, water must always be flowing through to keep the reactor cool. That means, although theyre not dependent on air, they do discharge used hot water that can be detected as it rises to the surface using good thermal imaging, UNSW defence technology expert Dr Jai Galliott says, (and in battery mode with their generators off, diesel is still quieter). While the new fleet will allow Australia to patrol more of the Indo-Pacific region for longer periods, some experts say that traditional diesel models are more nimble. Nuclear subs tend to be larger and so harder to navigate through the nooks and crannies near the coast, says Galliot  less useful for defending our shores in combat. The nuclear reactors powering a sub are actually very small, just a metre across, says Stuchbery, who recalls stepping aboard the worlds first nuclear sub, the USS Nautilus, after it was retired. Nuclear subs still tend to be larger than other models because they need more anti-radiation layers built in, more distance between the crew and the reactor. And because they can go further and people are staying on them longer, so we make them bigger to keep more people happy and healthy under the sea. Galliott, who was formerly in the Australian Navy, thinks that the new nuclear fleet will be a step up from the diesel ones we originally ordered from France. But this is long overdue for Australia. Given nuclear submarines are also very expensive to make, he adds its generally not cost-effective or practical to build as many as diesel fleets. Ideally, what Australia needs is a few nuclear subs for international engagement, with a larger fleet of advanced diesel subs for home defence, but this is beyond our resourcing ability as a smallish middle power, he says. Does it mean they carry nuclear weapons? No. Weapons are one thing, nuclear power is quite another. The countries that already have nuclear-powered submarines  the US, China, UK, France, Russia and India  all have nukes and sometimes carry warheads on board their fleets. But, while the US-designed subs will come equipped with missile launch tubes, Australia is not one of the nine nations worldwide to hold nuclear weapons and Scott Morrison has stressed this new submarine deal wont change that.

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This is about propulsion, he said on September 16. This is not about acquiring nuclear weapons. Loading Nuclear-powered submarines, as with nuclear weapons, use enriched uranium to work but they will not violate our treaty against nuclear weapons because we are not enriching it ourselves. Still, given Australia will be in the rare position of running nuclear subs without nuclear weapons, and now under an even louder banner of alliance with the US and the UK, Galliott worries our subs could become easy targets in the event of attack. If war were to break out, our ships [could] be among the first targets, he says. Interrupting our relationship with America and the UK will be a top priority. Acquiring the nuclear subs meanwhile will send a very strong message to China, inevitably aggravating them, but leave us completely beholden to the US and UK, he says. Meanwhile, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons has warned that the plan to build at least eight nuclear subs will isolate Australia from many of its regional neighbours who want a nuclear-free Pacific. Just hours after news of the Australian subs deal broke, New Zealands Prime Minister Jacinta Arden said that the ships will be banned from the countrys waters (bans are also in place in some Australian ports). And Chinese government spokesman Zhao Lijian slammed the plan as intensifying the arms race in the Indo-Pacific. The US, UK and Australia are engaging in cooperation in nuclear-powered submarines that gravely undermines regional peace and stability, aggravates the arms race and hurts the international non-proliferation efforts, he said.

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What about safety? Galliott says nuclear submarines have a good safety record. There are no known nuclear reactor meltdowns involving submarines. When things go wrong, Stuchbery adds, they tend to be for the reasons any sub can run into trouble  water depth and pressure or equipment malfunctions. The nuclear risk is well understood and closely managed, he says. Loading As for handling the radioactive waste that comes out of this fleet, Galliott notes it wont be a problem for some 30 years. Australia will likely end up sending waste to the US or UK for disposal via their programs, but we could well build our own waste storage facility. Our geography and desolate central locations are ideal for it. Stuchbery agrees, but notes militaries often have different regulatory requirements for nuclear waste than privately owned power stations around the world. It will be interesting to see how its handled. Some experts are concerned this move could signal a deeper push into nuclear power for Australia. But Professor Mahananda Dasgupta says its time the question of a nuclear industry (and waste disposal) in Australia had more focus. She works with Stuchbery at the ANUs Heavy Ion Accelerator, which can detect even the finest traces of the radioactive isotopes used in nuclear reactors. Its so sensitive, if it was searching an MCG filled with salt, itd find the two grains of sugar, she says. We know how to monitor for radiation from these kinds of reactors, just testing ocean water is enough. Is the new alliance all about submarines?

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China is well on its way to achieving its goal of complete military modernisation by 2027 and already has more warships and submarines than the US. Chinas shipyards launch a new sub every year or so.

Australia is well on its way to achieving world champion status in faffing about with submarine acquisition. As of Thursday, Australia has no agreement with anyone to build any new submarines whatsoever.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has signed an agreement with the United States and Great Britain on nuclear-powered subs. Credit:Bloomberg

China has 66 submarines. Its expected to have 10 more by 2030, six of those nuclear powered, according to the US Office of Naval Intelligence.

By that time, Australia will have exactly as many subs as it has today, which is the same number it had a quarter-century earlier, according to the Morrison governments statements on Thursday.
The nuclear-powered submarines may not arrive until as late as 2040, despite Defence officials last year warning the country no longer had a 10-year window to defend itself from an attack. With the first of Australias six existing Collins-class submarines to start being decommissioned from 2038, national security experts fear the government has not left itself any room for delays in the nuclear-powered submarine program. To fill this void, Australia will acquire long-range missiles  including Tomahawk cruise missiles on its Hobart-class destroyers, anti-ship missiles for the Super Hornet aircraft and hypersonic missiles that can travel at least five times the speed of sound  as well as unmanned underwater vehicles under the AUKUS pact. More US Marine troop deployments in Australia, on top of the existing 2500-strong force that rotates through Darwin, could also be on the agenda.

Australian taxpayers have forked out $2.4 billion to Naval Group for work already done and the government will probably have to pay at least $140 million more for breaking the agreement. The nuclear-powered submarines will also cost more than the $90 billion that was projected for the French submarines. Mr Morrison on Wednesday attempted to contact French President Emmanuel Macron, who is said to be extremely disappointed by the decision, but the two leaders did not have a phone conversation. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told news site France Info he felt stabbed in the back over the unacceptable deal that shuts the French military out of a key initiative in Western efforts to build a bulwark against China. This unilateral, brutal, unforeseeable decision really looks like what [former US president] Mr Trump was doing, Mr Le Drian said. This move is unacceptable between allies who want to develop a structured Indo-Pacific partnership.

Australia commissioned the new submarine fleet from France in 2016 amid rising tensions in the Indo-Pacific as China began militarising the South China Sea through the construction of artificial reefs and atolls. But the program has been plagued by cost blowouts, schedule slippages and disagreements over commitments to use local contractors. Loading Lowy Institute executive director Michael Fullilove said the nuclear option contained a number of upsides, adding Australia was doubling down on its old alliance with the United States and seeking to draw the United Kingdom more deeply into our neighbourhood. But he warned the move would have consequences for Australias relations with China and other regional powers. France feels ill-used ... Australia should look for other opportunities to deepen our partnership with France, as fellow Indo-Pacific democracies, he said.

Building and operating nuclear-powered submarines is a highly complex operation and our record on submarine development is mixed. This will be a massive and difficult national undertaking. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian described the transfer of US nuclear technology as extremely irresponsible. China always believes that any regional mechanism must go with the trend of the times for peace and development, and should be conducive to mutual trust and co-operation between regional countries, he said. They should not target any third party or harm the partys interests by forming an exclusive and closed small group. Australia, the US and Britain are looking to project a more powerful posture in the region amid Chinas growing assertiveness across a number of flashpoints. However, Mr Morrison insisted the pact was not aimed at any one country and said he was happy to talk with Chinese President Xi Jinping about the decision.

The construction of the nuclear-powered submarines in Adelaide is not expected to affect any of Australias international nuclear non-proliferation agreements. The reactors will arrive in Australia already containing enriched uranium, and using the American technology means it does not have to be refuelled for the life of the submarine, unlike other nuclear-powered boats. Domestic laws governing nuclear power may need to be tweaked for the purposes of building and operating the submarines locally. The decision to go with nuclear-powered submarines was made on the basis that they are considerably faster and can stay underwater, undetected, for days longer than conventional submarines. Australia, the US and Britain will work out how best to deliver them over the next 18 months. The submarines will be built at the Osborne Naval Shipyard in Adelaide, where Naval Group was to construct the 12 attack-class submarines. Senior government officials confirmed the first one or two submarines could be built in the US or Britain but no decisions had been made.

Nuclear-powered submarines do not have the same limitations that face conventional submarines on weapons storage, speed and endurance, Mr Morrison said. They can stay completely submerged for many months, limiting the opportunities for detection by adversaries. Loading Labor leader Anthony Albanese, who was briefed on the proposal on Wednesday, said he welcomed the new partnership but would seek further details. While there is much that we welcome, its also clear that todays announcement is the single biggest admission of failure on the part of the Morrison-Joyce government over its $90 billion future submarines program, he said. A program that is running 10 years late from its original schedule and $40 billion over budget. Marcus Hellyer, a senior analyst with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said the development showed how much the world has changed in five years and called it the biggest defence capability story of my lifetime.

He said nuclear submarines were better hunters, better at escaping, and can spend much more time on station. Loading Naval Group said the development was a major disappointment for the company and that it had offered Australia a regionally superior conventional submarine with exceptional performances. Mr Morrison also confirmed the full cycle docking of Australias existing fleet of six Collins-class submarines would remain in Adelaide, despite years of lobbying from Perth. With Latika Bourke and Matthew Knott
Terminally ill Queenslanders will be able to legally access drugs to end their own lives after the state became the fifth in the country to legalise voluntary euthanasia.

Following three days of emotional debate in the Queensland Parliament, the voluntary assisted dying legislation passed with a clear majority with 61 votes in favour and 30 against, being met with applause and cheers from the public gallery, after MPs from both major parties were granted a conscience vote.

Two MPs did not vote at the technical vote on the long title of the bill.

Labors Joe Kelly, Linus Power and Bart Mellish went against most of their parliamentary colleagues by voting against the proposal.
Apna, a digital hiring startup in India that connects millions of blue-collar workers to employers, reached a valuation of $1.1 billion with a new funding round led by Tiger Global Management.

The startup reached unicorn status just 15 months after beginning full-scale operations, raising $100 million in a Series C round also joined by Owl Ventures LLC, Insight Partners Inc. and Sequoia Capital India. It serves more than 16 million users and 150,000 employers and enables an average of 18 million job interviews each month, the company said in a statement Thursday.

We are solving the biggest problem in the world and, if successful, will not just remedy unemployment but also poverty, health care and education of the next generation, said Nirmit Parikh, a Stanford graduate who quit Apple Inc. to found Apna in 2019. The company is targeting all 2.3 billion people in the emerging working class around the globe, he said in a video interview from Dallas.

Hiring is at an all-time high for Indias 250 million low-skilled workers and Apna -- which means ours in Hindi -- listed 5 million job openings last month. The coronavirus outbreak accelerated digital hiring, with a surge in job listing across manufacturing and e-commerce spurred by the countrys recovery from several infection waves.

The app is currently available in 11 Indian languages across 28 cities. It will cover nearly all Indian cities by year-end before expanding to the U.S., Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa in early 2022. We want to be a made-in-India app for the world, said the 33-year-old Apna founder.

Apna helps bottom-of-the-pyramid job seekers with setting up simple profiles requiring only their name, age and skills, generating a virtual business card. It then seeks out a match among recruiters like Amazon.com Inc., online learning startup Byjus, Burger King or smaller enterprises and neighborhood kirana stores. The firm has also created 70 community networks for specialists in various spheres, from beauticians to electricians, to learn from peers and discuss opportunities.
Byjus, the worlds most valuable edtech company with a valuation of $16.5 billion, is acquiring US-based Tynker, a leading K-12 creative platform. This marks Byjus eighth major buy this year. The acquisition would further accelerate Bengaluru-based Byjus US market expansion. However, the didnt reveal the value of the transaction. According to the sources, Byju's is spending about $200 million on the acquisition.

The acquisition will enable Tynker to introduce its creative platform to even more kids, educators, schools and camps globally. Tynkers creative coding platform has been used by over 60 million kids and 100,000 schools in 150 countries.

Joining forces with Tynker will unlock the ability for us to bring imagination to life for hundreds of millions of students through coding, said Byju Raveendran, founder and CEO, Byjus. Our goal is to ignite a love for programming in children globally and we feel strongly that Tynker's creative coding platform and approach to making programming fun and intuitive for kids will get us there even faster.

Tynker co-founders Krishna Vedati, Srinivas Mandyam and Kelvin Chong will remain in their roles. They would continue carrying out Tynkers mission of providing every child with a solid foundation in computer science, programming, and critical thinking skills. All three co-founders are parents themselves and started Tynker to create a platform that would provide children with the proper tools to create an engaging introduction to computer science. Since its inception in 2013, Tynker has helped kids create over seven billion lines of code. The founders said they remain passionate about bringing every young learners creation to life and making an indelible impact on the current education system.

Our focus is on understanding what kids are passionate about  whether thats building games, making animations or modding Minecraft, said Krishna Vedati, co-founder and CEO of Tynker. We then create specific experiences, apps and personalized learning paths to empower them to create with code. We wholeheartedly believe that joining Byjus family can help children on a global level develop fundamental STEM skills. It will serve them well as they progress in school and ultimately help prepare them for careers in both technical and non-technical fields.

Vedati said that Tynker has been profitable and growing well, but couldnt have become a big public company. It then decided to partner with the leadership team at Byjus. We saw how they are executing at an enormous scale to become the number one edtech company in the world, said Vedati, an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology, Varanasi and West Virginia University.

Byjus has over 100 million registered students and 6.5 million paid subscribers. Bringing Tynker into the Byjus family will help guide the two edtech firms to their goal of unlocking a love for creative coding. They would be innovating, exploring and setting new benchmarks for tech-enabled personalized learning solutions. The acquisition will help expand Byjus U. S. footprint by providing access to more than 60 million students and over 100,000 schools in Tynkers existing global user base. It would also be key for both brands that share the same vision to democratize access to coding for students. One of the goals is how do we reach from 60 million to 200 million kids in the next 2-3 years, said Vedati.

The said that technology is integrated into virtually every aspect of our lives and continues to evolve.

Due to this, learning about it is more important than ever. In fact, parents and educators alike believe that coding is an important skill that children will need to succeed in the digital economy.

We are looking at coding as an important future skill, said Anita Kishore, chief strategy officer of Byju's. We would continue to expand and scale Tynker as a product and at the same time the core features of that would get integrated across (our platform).

Tynker said it is loved and known by kids, parents and educators around the globe. It has notable partners to help drive its vision, including BBC Learning, Google, Microsoft, Mattel and NASA. Additionally, Tynker is also known for its pioneering role in providing fun and engaging coding games and puzzles to the Hour of Code, a global movement to introduce people of all ages to computer programming, with millions of students participating each year.

One of the core parts of Tynker is story-based learning. We introduce a story to the kids and then engage with them based on their interest, said Srinivas Mandyam, founder and chief technology officer of Tynker. They can actually connect digital blocks like Lego and can create anything like apps, they can fly drones or program hardware, said Mandyam. He said the firm has more than 1000 hours of curriculum, all the way from kindergarten to 12th grade.

Tynker is the second acquisition for Byjus in the coding space. In August last year, Byjus acquired Mumbai-based coding start-up WhiteHat Jr for $300 million. Last month, the WhiteHat Jr founder Karan Bajaj decided to move on.

Byjus is on an acquisition spree in India and globally as the pandemic has accelerated the adoption of online education. Students and professionals are looking to upgrade their skills, while schools and offices remain shut.

The start-up has now acquired about 8 in India and the US this year and spent more than $2 billion in the past six months on these acquisitions, according to sources. The inorganic route is expected to help Bengaluru-based Byjus to dominate the edtech market.

Some of these deals include the $1 billion buy of New Delhi-based Aakash Educational Services (AESL) in April and the $600 million acquisition of Singapore-headquartered Great Learning, a leading global player in professional and higher education.

This month it also acquired Gradeup, one of India's largest online exam preparation platforms. In July this year, Byjus acquired US-based digital reading platform Epic for $500 million. In 2019, Byjus bought US-based educational gaming company Osmo for $120 million in a stock-and-cash deal.

Byjus is aiming to become one of the largest players in the space in the US, with a target to hit revenues of $1 billion in the next three years.

Over the last year and a half, besides Tynker, Byjus has acquired two additional major edtech companies in the U. S.  Osmo, and Epic. All three acquisitions map back to Byjus goal of investing $1 billion in the U. S. edtech market over the next three years.

Experts say that coding should be part of the school curriculum  not because it pushes more students to pursue careers in the field, but due to the inherent value that coding adds to kids learning. Coding, they say, is a new kind of literacy and those who gain coding skills from a young age will not only be able to take part in the automated economy but will also have a civic voice.

Policymakers in many countries have already begun to implement initiatives related to national coding education. Since 2014 in China, more than 100 companies have been established to teach children computer programming, including Ultrabear, Codemao and Vipcode, to name only there. The value of Chinas programming education market for children was 7.5 billion yuan in 2017, and was expected to surpass 37.7 billion yuan last year, according to research firm Analysys. And in Israel, schools launched training programmes in 2017 to teach their students coding and cybersecurity skills  part of a national mission to become world leaders in cybersecurity and cyber technology.

More about Tynker US-based Tynker is a leading K-12 creative coding platform. It marks Byjus eighth major buy this year. Tynkers platform has been used by over 60 million kids and 100,000 schools in 150 countries. Acquisition would further accelerate Bengaluru-based Byjus US market expansion.
Gofrugal, a company that offers cloud and mobile ERP solutions to retail, and distribution businesses with over 30,000 customers across India, said it is expanding its presence in tier-2 cities and emerging markets and is expected to double its turnover during the current financial year.

For all the problems the pandemic has caused, it has also presented us with new opportunities to go rural and grow more rural. Apart from the enormous amount of talent in tier-2 market, we also witnessed small towns having a large share of aspirational businessmen who long for our hand-holding and digital support, said Kumar Vembu, chief executive officer and Founder, Gofrugal. He added that the company is expected to double its turnover on the back of rising business. During the past one year, the companys customer base increased by around 6,000-7,000.

The firm is expanding its presence in emerging markets with its first office launch in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, which it launched with an employee strength of 90. It plans to grow its talent pool to 150 in the region.

With an existing customer base of 2,000 small and medium-sized businesses in the town, Gofrugal aspires to maximise digitisation of businesses in Madurai, in the same manner as its contemporaries in Tier 1 cities have done, through simplified solutions. The Madurai office is multi-floor with about 15,000 sq ft where 150-plus staff can work. The company also plans to set up an exclusive walk-in experiential center for customers to get a firsthand understanding of a digital store. This will give them the confidence to automate their processes and transform their businesses through technology.

While Indian businesses in emerging tier-2 cities were not fully using the power of technology due to lack of awareness and need for better infrastructure, the Covid-19 pandemic pushed small businesses, traders, retailers from tier-2 and 3 cities to go digital and meet the needs of changing consumers behaviour. From selling products online to sending digital copies of invoices to consumers phones, business owners can greatly use technology and obtain their objective via contactless business process, the company said.
Automobile dealers' body FADA has sought clarity from about the compensation structure it is working out for its dealer partners after announcing the closure of its two manufacturing plants in the country as part of a restructuring exercise.

In a letter to India MD President and Managing Director Anurag Mehrotra, FADA President Vinkesh Gulati pointed out the difficulties being faced by the company's dealers across the country.

He noted that dealers were staring at huge losses as customers have started cancelling the bookings in the wake of the plant closure announcement.

Gulati said dealers were worried about the compensation structure as many were not even five years old in the system and may not have even reached the break-even point.

"We would request you to kindly share with us the broad contours of the compensation structure, which you may have planned by now for compensating our members. This will not only help us in understanding the entire compensation process but will also assist us in handholding our members and ensure that the entire process is done in an amicable and justified manner," Gulati said in the letter.

He also pointed out issues with the Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) communication sent by the automaker to its dealer partners.

"The Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) at present includes all information of any nature whatsoever under the definition of confidential information.

While dealing with confidentiality, one can understand in case the financials owing to the proposed exit, which gets discussed with each independent dealer, should remain confidential, the recitals to the NDA should hence carry a specific description of the nature of things which needs to be kept undisclosed," Gulati said.

The NDA shared by the company should have clarity, he added.

"I hence request you to kindly modify the current NDA and also let us know the same so that we can fittingly explain it to our members.

"We will once again like to reiterate the fact that FADA will continue to stand strong with its dealer members and will do whatever is possible for them as well as the 40,000 employees who work at Ford Dealerships," Gulati said.

Last week, US auto major Ford Motor Co announced that it will stop vehicle production at its two plants in the country and will sell only imported vehicles going ahead as part of a restructuring exercise.

The company, which invested about USD 2.5 billion at its Chennai (Tamil Nadu) and Sanand (Gujarat) plants, has accumulated operating losses of around USD 2 billion in India in the last ten years. Its decision will impact over 4,000 employees and about 150 dealer principals who operate over 300 outlets.

It will, however, continue to manufacture engines from its Sanand plant, which will be exported to the company's global operations.

With the shutting down of the vehicle manufacturing operations, the automaker will stop selling vehicles such as the EcoSport, Figo, Endeavour, Freestyle and Aspire, which are produced from these plants.

Ford dealers in India are staring at huge losses, with the automaker deciding to shut production in the country with immediate effect.

FADA, which represents over 15,000 automobile dealers having 26,500 dealerships across the country, has termed the automaker's decision as shocking as dealers have invested over Rs 2,000 crore in creating sales infrastructure while employing around 40,000 people across the country.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
India is the second-largest technology hub for globally, with some of the most talented software developers, product managers, machine learning scientists, and research scientists as part of the team, says Amit Agarwal, global senior vice president and country head, India.

Our teams are powering innovations not only for India, but also for customers globally, says Agarwal, during the e-commerce companys first-ever Career Day in India on Thursday. They are building services that practically touch every aspect of the customer journey with 

For instance, Amazons team in Bengaluru has built a cloud-based Warehouse Management System to help sellers streamline their warehouse operations, and ship orders to customers fast and reliably. While this service launched in India first, it is now being used by selling partners worldwide to serve millions of customers.

Another team developed a vision-based information extraction capability used to automate identity verification, helping streamline the new seller onboarding experience worldwide. One of the companys AI teams is using computer vision technology and deep learning techniques for a great experience for customers. Amazon Web Services (AWS) India teams are working on the AWS Quantum Computing Applications Lab. This is in partnership with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.

Now, this happens to be the world's first quantum computing applications lab on AWS to support a national government's mission to drive innovation, says Agarwal.

He says Indian customers are not only using Amazon for their shopping needs but they're also engaged with it every day, from paying their bills using Amazon Pay, listening to Prime Music, getting entertained on Prime Video.

Amazon has also helped bring technology to strengthen India's societal infrastructure. A case in point is its artificial intelligence-powered voice assistant Alexa, supporting schools in a remote town in central India and enabling students to engage with Alexa in Hindi, and improving their grasp of math, science, English, and general knowledge. Across all of these innovations, Agarwal says what really drives is the firms unique workplace culture. Not surprisingly, the list starts with customer obsession as our first principle, says Agarwal.

Another one on the list reminds the firm that seeking diverse perspectives is key to being right a lot. Agarwal said building a culture that is welcoming and inclusive is integral to diversity. The firm said it has numerous initiatives to attract the best builders out there. Be it hiring women, who have taken a career breakthrough, being inclusive of the LGBTQ community, attracting military veterans, or focusing the efforts on PWD (persons with disabilities) candidates. We are committed to creating a safer, more productive, high performing, more diverse, and inclusive work environment that builders can thrive and ensure personal success, says Agarwal.

He says India is at the threshold of a digital transformation. One that will have a profound impact in driving inclusion and equity in our societies. At the same time, it will gear India to become a trillion-dollar digital economy. This would require significant investments in technology and infrastructure. He says Amazon's global scale and local momentum over the last few years has uniquely positioned it to play a critical role as a catalyst in fueling India's transformation.

At the same time, I strongly believe that our local innovations will also shape the experience for our next 500 million customers globally, says Agarwal.

Last year, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos made a prediction that the 21st century will be Indias. To back it up, the firm made a pledge to digitize 10 million small businesses, enable 10 billion in exports, and create two million jobs in India by 2025.

I find this super energizing. I wake up every day feeling grateful about the opportunity to work alongside some of the smartest people to solve some really hard problems and innovate at scale, says Agarwal. And with Amazon India, I feel we have once in a lifetime opportunity to tap into India's potential in the 21st century, transform daily lives and livelihoods, and leave behind a lasting legacy.

Agarwal who has a background in computer science started nearly 23 years ago as a software development engineer at Amazon. I still remember my interview. It was in a Fulfillment Center in Seattle, and I could watch associates skating around picking orders while I was discussing picking algorithms with the team, recalls Agarwal. I knew right there, this was a place focused on exciting real-world problems that use technology to invent at scale.

When he joined Amazon, he had the opportunity to work on some of Amazons initial experiments, inviting other sellers to sell alongside the company and dramatically increase selection for the customers. We started with auctions and failed. We tried building zShops or stores on Amazon and failed yet again. It was only until our third try that we invented Marketplace as we know today, says Agarwal.

He also got the opportunity to be part of the team that started AWS (Amazon Web Services). He, later on, served as Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' Technical Advisor. Over the last 10 years, Agarwal has been part of building from the ground up. He says today, Amazon in India employs over one lakh professionals across diverse areas from engineering, applied sciences, business management to supply chain, finance and content creation.

Peerzada Abrar
Corporate India is back to travelling for work with 100 per cent recovery across pharmaceuticals, healthcare, real estate and biotech sectors on MakeMyTrip, the online platform.

There is significant recovery in sectors including manufacturing, defense and space, logistics as well as utilities with professionals returning to for work. MakeMyTrips recent market study on the recovery trends for the corporate segment further indicates that sectors including financial services, IT, consumer goods and automotive will see relatively slower recovery and are likely to be the last to see a complete recovery as far as corporate travel is concerned, the firm said.

As the second wave started to ease out July onwards, we began noticing an upward trajectory in travel bookings from medium and small business enterprises followed by professionals from large corporates. While recovery has definitely been slow within this segment considering corporates continue to work remotely, corporate travel is returning steadily with consistent week-on-week recovery. We have enhanced our existing corporate travel solutions and have attuned products to the travel requirements post the pandemic. Our priorities included improving discoverability of travel options basis travellers preferences and past booking behavior, and offering a smooth post-travel experience of filing and seeking approval on reimbursements among others," said Raj Rishi Singh, Chief Business Officer  Corporate Travel at

The market study by further indicates that two-third of the corporates who returned to travelling were sales representatives, followed by professionals in consultant and leadership roles.

Currently, 50 per cent of the travel bookings made on MakeMyTrips corporate travel offerings are being made for client meetings, followed by visit to vendors and distributors, and factories or manufacturing plants.

Data from the online travel platform indicates nearly 90 per cent travellers prefer staying at hotels in close proximity to the office  that also follow adequate safety and hygiene protocols followed by 10 per cent who prefer booking a guest house or service apartment.

Travelling by air continues to remain the most preferred mode of travel with merely 10% professionals willing to travel in their personal vehicles for work.

With the pandemic bringing along long-term changes in travel booking behaviors for good, planning and booking behaviors of corporate travellers have also undergone some changes over the course. Flexibility for travel bookings is the number one priority for travel administrators and travellers alike.

Considering the ever-evolving scenarios around the pandemic, corporates prefer searching and booking flights and hotels closer to the date of travel with 40-45 per cent bookings being made within a week of travel date. Some of the other offerings actively searched and opted for include travel insurance, COVID-19 health insurance and bookings with zero or minimum cancellation charges.

While health and safety remains a top priority amid the pandemic, access to travel solutions that offer a stress-free post-travelling experience with regards to filling reimbursements has also emerged as one of the key requisite of new-age business travelers.

To help corporates do away with the tedious process of filing travel expenses, recently launched a new Expense Management (EM) feature for myBiz users. The tool allows corporate travellers to easily upload their travel expenses for reimbursements with a single tap on their mobile devices. The platform also allows travellers to also upload other expenses including mobile, meal, cab, laundry and others. The end-to-end expense management platform helps fasten the overall process of claiming reimbursements, approving claim requests and processing reimbursements further making the process easy and hassle-free, in a few taps.
Leading power sector lender, issued its maiden Euro Green Bond of 300 million. The 7-year instrument has been priced at 1.841 per cent.

said this is the lowest yield locked in by an Indian Issuer in the Euro markets.

"It is not only the first Euro bond issuance by PFC, but also the first-ever Euro denominated Green bond issuance from India. Moreover, it is the first ever Euro issuance by an Indian NBFC and the first Euro bond issuance from India since 2017," said in a public statement.

With the issuance, has also forayed in the European market for its international fund raising.

The company also said the issuance saw participation from institutional investors across Asia and Europe from across 82 accounts and was oversubscribed 2.65 times.

R S Dhillon, chairman and managing director, PFC said the bond issuance would assist the company in managing the renewable energy portfolio.

"This issuance also demonstrates our commitment for achieving Indias renewable energy goals. Further, this bond issuance would help PFC in diversifying its currency book as well as the investor base," Dhillon said.

PFC is witnessing a marked shift in its lending portfolio owing to stress in thermal power generation, with no new private investment in the sector. It is expected that renewable energy and transmission & distribution (T&D) would attract the bulk of the lending by PFC going forward, along with newer sectors such as lift irrigation, electric mobility and energy efficiency.

PFC's loans to the T&D sector have grown 387 per cent in the past five years. In comparison, loans to thermal power units have grown 16.56 per cent. While a late entrant in the renewable space, PFCs RE assets basket stands at Rs 37,005 crore.
Gurugram-based e-commerce firm Snapdeal, which has repositioned itself as a value e-commerce company, said on Thursday it would offer new mothers the option to work from home for six months, in addition to six months of

As look to welcome employees back to the office, announced this update to its policy keeping in mind the ongoing pandemic and apprehensions that new mothers may have while returning to the office.

We all are acutely aware that childcare is not easy and women ofen leave the workforce because they cannot find flexible arrangements to balance home and work. And now that offices are reopening everywhere, we also heard from new mothers that while they are looking forward to being back at work, they have apprehensions about putting their infants health at risk. Taking all these into consideration, we have decided to enable this opportunity for new mothers to be at home with their babies for a longer period of time, said a spokesperson.

In addition to maternity leave, also has several other benefits for new parents including two weeks of paternity leave and twelve weeks of adoption leave as part of its Parenting Partners Program.

The emotional and physical well-being of our team is of immense importance to us. Offering benefits that support this, like giving moms and dads the opportunity to be at home with their new child for a longer period of time, provides the security and balance needed for our people to be able to build long-term careers with us, the Snapdeal spokesperson added.

In another wellness measure for the team, Snapdeal also announced a one day period leave every month for all its women employees, which will be in addition to the entitled sick/ casual leaves that they are entitled to.

Last August, Zomato introduced period leaves for its employees, making it one of the first in India to do so.

Snapdeal is also conducting a month-long campaign to make period talk normal and create awareness about the same. As part of the campaign, male team members got the chance to use a simulator to experience the period cramps that many women experience through the year.

The company has been making efforts to break stigmas and encourage honest conversations on mental health and well-being. Last year Snapdeal started providing its employees and their family members access to licensed counselors, in addition to meditation and breathwork classes.
Chairman on Thursday said he had reached out to Vodafone's Nick Read after bold telecom reforms were announced by the government and will also speak to RIL's Mukesh Ambani, as the telecom czar vowed to take the lead in bringing the industry together to unleash India's telecom dream.

Mittal exhorted the industry to collaborate in areas such as infrastructure sharing to reduce costs but vehemently ruled out possibility of any cartelisation among players.

Amid reports of its potential tie-ups with handset makers to counter Jio's upcoming ultra low-cost smartphone, Mittal said Airtel is in a state of "readiness" on an affordable smartphone "should a need arise".

Calling on the industry to join forces to take the telecom sector to newer heights, Mittal at a virtual briefing said he would like to take a lead in ensuring that the industry works closely together.

On whether a "collaboration" in the market borders on cartelisation, Mittal emphasised that the telecom market has been and will be competitive.

Conversations will be about the health of the industry, about market distribution structure, not on tariffs.

"How can it be. When you have to have more marketshare against each other, how can you have tariff discussion. Impossible," Mittal quipped.

Mittal said that he had spoken to Vodafone CEO and will also reach out to Reliance Industries' chairman.

"I have reached out to Nick Read yesterday, I will reach out to and speak to him and ensure that industry truly becomes role model for many other infrastructure industries in the country," Mittal said.

Mittal said he had told Read (Vodafone) that the Voda Idea has a "lifetime opportunity" to retake what has been a "lost cause", and that it was time for Vodafone Group and Kumar Mangalam Birla (Aditya Birla Group Chairman) to step up their own contribution into their company.

"I feel that if I was in their place, this is an opportunity to retrieve a lot of value back into hands of people who have invested large amounts of money. Vodafone has put in USD 20 billion, I'm sure Birla would have put in billions of dollars. It is time for them to really take advantage to contribute their own money and resources, to revive the beleaguered company," Mittal said.

Mittal added that his conversations with Ambani will be around telecom and India.

"Let's see what comes out of that conversation," he said.

Asked about reports on the company's potential tie-ups with Indian hardware makers for launching cobranded or bundled phones, Mittal said that the company is in a state of "readiness" for putting out an affordable smartphone, if needed.

"As a philosophy we like people to buy their own phones...we supply the fuel, you buy your car, choose your colour or features...and rather not start supplying you phone but readiness is there," Mittal said.

On what would be the trigger for putting out an affordable smartphone, Mittal explained that the company would push ahead if competitors are in that space and gaining ground.

"...it could be if competitors are in that space and gaining some ground, we will have to respond in smarter ways and that is part of our arsenal. With spectrum deferment and AGR deferment (it) gives us enough money, if we need to do any counter action to that, we would be in a ready position to do so," Mittal said.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Two angel networks based out of Tamil Nadu, the Chennai Angels (TCA) and Native Angels Network (NAN), have joined hands to invest in based in the state.

Both networks will coordinate and plan common pitch sessions on a case-by-case basis. The networks will not only fund but will also mutually support for select activities. The intention is to ensure that Tamil Nadu-based enterprises reach out to a larger number of investors relevant to their industries.

K Chandran, chief executive officer, The Chennai Angels said, The coming together of two of the largest leading angel networks in is certainly a landmark initiative. This will benefit promising start-ups across the state gain access to a huge pool of elite mentors and capital for scaling up their early stages of growth. We look forward to a fruitful and rewarding partnership with the Native Angels Network.

In an effort to help a new generation of entrepreneurs, a group of prominent entrepreneurs came forward to form a consortium called The Chennai Entrepreneurship Trust Fund in November 2007, which is now The Chennai Angels (TCA). As of today, TCA has invested over Rs 130 crore across over 60

R Sivarajah, Founder and chief executive officer, Native Angels Network said, We are mainly concentrating in investing in early-stage start-ups emerging from small towns of The association with The Chennai Angels will enable us to explore newer horizons in investing. This partnership will strengthen the investment ecosystem in 
India on Thursday announced a contribution of Rs 75 lakh to the towards COVID-19 relief measures.

" India places utmost importance on safety and care and this has been amply demonstrated both in our product offerings and our people centric policies. We are confident that our contribution will bring some comfort to those whose lives the touches," India Managing Director Jyoti Malhotra said in a statement.

The company said it has been focused on ensuring safety and care against the pandemic.

As part of the company's internal covid related initiatives, it has completed a vaccination drive covering the entire workforce of its dealer network.

While the company ensured that it contributed towards the vaccination of its employees, the benefit also extended to their spouses, children and parents who were eligible to receive the vaccine, it added.

The company also extended financial assistance towards term insurance of all its dealership staff and also for the treatment in case of an employee, or a family member was afflicted, the automaker noted.

The Swedish automaker established its presence in India in 2007. It currently sells models like XC40 and XC 60 in the country through 25 dealerships.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
India has fully vaccinated 20 per cent of its adult population for Covid, while 62 per cent have received at least one dose, the health ministry said on Thursday. Amid studies indicating waning antibodies for both Covishield and Covaxin vaccines, the government said that booster dose is not the central theme of scientific and public health discussions.

Getting full is a priority. Antibody levels should not be the measure of immunity, said Balram Bhargava, director general, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

Bhargava said the vaccines can generate cellular or mucosal immunity and not just antibody-related immunity.





India has so far given almost 770 million doses. The average has been the highest in September so far, with more than 7.4 million doses given per day against around 6 million average daily doses administered in August.

The health ministry also clarified that there is no earmarked quota of vaccines for the private sector and that the 25 per cent allocation for private hospitals is an indicative quantity of vaccines which would be made available to them.

Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said, If the private sector is unable to procure or utilise the earmarked percentage, whatever is the shortfall will be procured by the government. Whatever is produced in the country must be utilised.

The government has also condemned the report by the New York Times that said that the ICMR suppressed data showing the risks of a second wave. The report said, They pressured scientists to withdraw another study that called the governments efforts into question, the researchers said, and distanced the agency from a third study that foresaw a second wave.

Calling the report provocative and attention-seeking, Bharagava said it had been published at a time when India was doing good and numbers were excellent. All issues raised are dead ones which do not merit attention, he said.

Bhushan said that the governments focus is on fighting the pandemic. We cannot afford to be diverted by things that can be addressed at a later date, which are not a priority from a public health point of view. Thirty-two districts in India are still reporting a weekly positivity rate between five and ten per cent and 34 districts are reporting more than 10 per cent weekly positivity. The government has advised people to act responsibly while travelling or celebrating the upcoming festivals and ensure double vaccination.



So far 10 states  including Kerala, which is contributing highest to the active caseload of the country  have vaccinated more than 85 per cent of their eligible population with a single dose.
Even after both India and agreed to disengage from key areas in Eastern Ladakh, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) continues to build up infrastructure along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

As per The HK Post, this shows the real Chinese intent towards India despite engaging in several rounds of military-level discussions over disengagement from the points of tension that occurred in the standoff in Eastern Ladakh last year.

The build-up by the PLA has been observed since the start of the year and most recently through satellite imagery in August 2021.

Tensions have again flared up with the extension of the Tainwendian Highway leading up to the Depsang plains just 24 km away from India's highest airfield, Daulat Beg Oldie (DBO), reported The HK Post.

Satellite images dated August 17, 2021, have revealed upgraded infrastructure near the Depsang Plains along with the Western sector of the LAC between India and

According to the Twitter handle @detresfa_, the Tianwendian Highway that leads up to the Depsang Plains area under PLA's control in Aksai Chin has been undergoing roadworks, widening and upgrades this year.

This handle has released numerous images since tensions between India and China began building in May 2020. The Highway connects the PLA's post in Tianwendian in Aksai China to the Depsang plains.

The Tianwendian highway connects the PLA's Tianwendian all-season post in Aksai Chin to the Depsang Plains. The post is situated barely 24 km from DBO, reported The HK Post.

During the current standoff, Chinese troops have brought in their tanks and troops close to Indian positions.

India has been asserting that not just Pangong but all friction points across Eastern Ladakh including Depsang and areas around Demchok where Indian grazers have been obstructed should be dealt with.

Despite the talk of disengagement, the Chinese are clearly asserting their military control over Aksai Chin. In particular, the focus on Depsang Plains is of concern because it is very close to India's DBO and Karakoram Pass, reported The HK Post.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
India on Thursday reported a net decrease of 8,164 in active cases to take its count to 342,923. Indias share of global active cases now stands at 1.84 per cent (one in 54). The country is seventh among the most affected countries by active cases. On Wednesday, it added 30,570 cases to take its total caseload to 33,347,325 from 33,316,755  an increase of 0.1%. And, with 431 new fatalities, its Covid-19 reached 443,928, or 1.33 per cent of total confirmed infections.

With 6,451,423 more Covid-19 vaccine doses being administered on Wednesday, Indias total count of vaccine shots so far reached 765,717,137. The count of recovered cases across India, meanwhile, reached 32,560,474  or 97.64 per cent of total caseload  with 38,303 new cured cases being reported on Thursday.

Now the seventh-most-affected country by active cases, third by deaths, second by total cases, and first by recoveries, India has added 207,344 cases in the past 7 days.

India now accounts for 1.84% of all active cases globally (one in every 54 active cases), and 9.51% of all deaths (one in every 10 deaths).

India has so far administered 765,717,137 vaccine doses. That is 2296.18 per cent of its total caseload, and 54.88 per cent of its population.

Among Indian states, the top 5 in terms of number of vaccine shots administered are Uttar Pradesh (95032678), Maharashtra (74674445), Gujarat (56951696), Rajasthan (55978957), and Madhya Pradesh (55647616).

Among states with more than 10 million population, the top 5 in number of vaccine shots per one million population are Kerala (979237), Uttarakhand (901259), Gujarat (891648), Delhi (883151), and Karnataka (757970).

Backwards from here, the last 1 million cases for India have come in 28 days.

The count of active cases across India on Thursday saw a net reduction of 8,164, compared with 11,120 on Wednesday. States and UTs hat have seen the biggest daily net increase in active cases are Mizoram (448), Andhra Pradesh (191), Karnataka (138), Himachal Pradesh (118), and Tamil Nadu (87).

With 38,303 new daily recoveries, Indias recovery rate stands at 97.64%, while fatality rate remained unchanged at 1.33%.

The Indian states and UTs with the worst case fatality rates at present are Punjab (2.74%), Uttarakhand (2.15%), and Maharashtra (2.13%). The rate in as many as 16 is higher than the national average.

Indias new daily closed cases stand at 37,446  339 deaths and 37,127 recoveries. The share of deaths in total closed cases stands at 0.9%.

Indias 5-day moving average of daily rate of addition to total cases stands at 0.1%.

Indias doubling time for total cases stands at 755.8 days, and for deaths at 713.6 days.

Overall, five states with the biggest 24-hour jump in total cases are Kerala (17681), Maharashtra (3783), Tamil Nadu (1658), Andhra Pradesh (1445), and Mizoram (1402).

Among states with more than 100,000 cases, the five with worst recovery rates at present are Kerala (95.16%).

India on Wednesday conducted 1,579,761 to take the total count of tests conducted so far in the country to 547,701,729. The test positivity rate recorded was 1.9%.

Five states with the highest test positivity rate (TPR)  percentage of tested people turning out to be positive for Covid-19 infection (by cumulative data for tests and cases  are Dadra & Nagar Haveli-Daman & Diu (14.74%), Goa (13.68%), Kerala (13.16%), Sikkim (12.56%), and Maharashtra (11.54%).

Five states with the highest TPR by daily numbers for tests and cases added  are Kerala (18.21%), Mizoram (14.97%), Manipur (7.66%), Meghalaya (6.14%), and Sikkim (6%).

Among states and UTs with more than 10 million population, five that have carried out the highest number of tests (per million population) are Delhi (1425286), J&K (1035654), Kerala (941921), Karnataka (676254), and Telangana (651684).

The five most affected states by total cases are Maharashtra (6507930), Kerala (4424046), Karnataka (2964083), Tamil Nadu (2638668), and Andhra Pradesh (2033419).

Maharashtra, the most affected state overall, has reported 3783 new cases to take its tally to 6507930.

Kerala, the second-most-affected state by total tally, has added 17681 cases to take its tally to 4424046.

Karnataka, the third-most-affected state, has reported 1116 cases to take its tally to 2964083.

Tamil Nadu has added 1658 cases to take its tally to 2638668.

Andhra Pradesh has seen its tally going up by 1445 to 2033419.

Uttar Pradesh has added 18 cases to take its tally to 1709605.

Delhi has added 57 cases to take its tally to 1438345.
accounted for nearly 40 per cent of all and almost 25 per cent murder cases among 19 metropolitan cities in India in 2020, according to latest government data.

Altogether, 1,849 murder cases and 2,533 were reported across the country in 2020, a year that witnessed COVID-19 outbreak and lockdowns, the Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data showed.

The NCRB, which functions under the Union home ministry, classified 19 cities with over 20 lakh population as metropolitans -- Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Coimbatore, Delhi, Ghaziabad, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Kanpur, Kochi, Kolkata, Kozhikode, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, Patna, Pune and Surat.

logged the maximum 461 (24 per cent of 1,849) murder cases in 2020 followed by Bengaluru (179), Chennai (15), Mumbai (148) and Surat (116), while Kolkata reported 53, according to the data.

A total of 1,849 cases of murder were registered during 2020, showing a decrease of 8.3 per cent over 2019 (2,017 cases). The crime rate registered also show a decrease of 1.8 in 2019 to 1.6 in 2020, the NCRB stated.

Another 192 cases of 'culpable homicide not amounting to murder' were registered across the metropolitans with alone accounting for 57 of these cases followed by Lucknow (28) and Bengaluru (10), it showed.

During 2020, India reported a total of 2,533 cases of rape across the metropolitan cities, with Delhi accounting for the maximum 967 (38 per cent) cases followed by 409 in Jaipur (16 per cent), 322 in Mumbai (12 per cent), the NCRB data showed.

Bengaluru reported 108 rape cases, Chennai 31 and Kolkata 11 during the year.

Of the total rape victims in the 2,533 cases, 2,448 were above the age of 18 years while the remaining were minors, according to the NCRB, which is responsible for collecting and analysing crime data as defined by the Indian Penal Code and special and local laws in the country.

A total of 35,331 cases of were registered during 2020, showing a decrease of 21.1 per cent over 2019 (44,783 cases), it stated in the annual crime report.

Majority of crimes against women were registered under 'cruelty by husband or his relatives' (30.2 per cent) followed by 'assault on women with intent to outrage her modesty' (19.7 per cent), 'kidnapping and abduction of women' (19 per cent) and 'rape' (7.2 per cent), it added.

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As flu and coronavirus have similar symptoms, the government should continue vigorous testing to keep the spread of COVID-19 in check during the flu season, experts said at a meeting of the Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) held recently.

At the meeting held under the chairmanship of LG Anil Baijal, Delhi's Covid situation was discussed and it was advised that the city should continue with its containment strategy.

According to the minutes of the meeting, Dr Sujit Kumar Singh, Director, National Centre For Disease Control said new Covid cases have been fewer than 100 for quite some time in Delhi.

While referring to Shahdara district where the cases rose from 21 to 82 in two weeks, he advised that it may be investigated, according to the minutes of the meeting held on August 27.

Referring to the current flu situation in the city, Dr V K Paul, member, Niti Aayog, pointed out that symptoms of influenza and Covid are almost similar and therefore, contact tracing and influenza like illness (ILI)/severe acute respiratory illness (SARI) survey must be promoted.

Dr Randeep Guleria, AIIMS director, concurred with Paul, saying Delhi should continue testing vigorously as influenza and Covid symptoms are similar.

Delhi battled a brutal second wave of the Covid pandemic that claimed several lives while shortage of oxygen at hospitals across the city added to the woes of the people.

On April 20, Delhi had reported 28,395 cases, the highest in the city since the beginning of the pandemic and on April 22 the case positivity rate was 36.2 per cent, the highest so far.

The highest number of 448 deaths was reported on May 3.

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Experts have suggested opening all the gates of the Metro stations to reduce congestion for commuters during a recent meeting of the Disaster Management Authority (DDMA), officials said.

The suggestion was made by National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) Director Dr Sujit Kumar Singh at the meeting held under the chairmanship of Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal.

According to the minutes of the meeting held on August 27, Singh observed that only some gates of the stations are opened and advised opening of all the gates at the earliest as this would lead to lesser congestion.

The DDMA, though, is yet to decide on the suggestion.

The Rail Corporation (DMRC) is facilitating passenger entry at all its stations through 276 gates.

An official of the DMRC said, "We are following the guidelines of the DDMA and some gates are closed at metro stations. Opening of more gates would lead to more people inside the station. We will follow the guidelines of the DDMA."



Currently, Delhi Metro is operating at 100 per cent seating capacity with no standing passengers allowed.

Delhi Metro services were fully suspended since May 10 in view of the COVID-induced lockdown, which was first imposed on April 19 and then successively extended by the city government.

Metro services initially ran partially, catering only to people from essential services, but from May 10, it was suspended in view of rising cases amid the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic.

On June 7, metro services resumed after a hiatus of four weeks in view of the improved COVID situation in the national capital, but with 50 per cent seating capacity and no provision for standing travel for commuters.

On July 26, the trains started running with full capacity but there was no provision for standing passengers.

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Union minister for road transport and highways inspected the construction work of the eight-lane Delhi-Mumbai (NH-148N) on Thursday to assess the status of the project and suggest improvement measures to the Highway Authority of India (NHAI) officials. This is the longest in India.

After the construction of the expressway, people will be able to travel from Delhi to Mumbai by road in just 12 hours. At present, the distance from Delhi to Mumbai is about 1,510 km by road. Once operational this distance will be reduced to 1,380 km.

Haryana Chief Minister, Manohar Lal Khattar was also present during the inspection.

The union minister also saw the model of the project and asked for information from the NHAI officials over the ongoing project. Gadkari arrived at village Lohatki in to inspect the construction work.

This eight-lane longest of the country will pass through 11 villages of district, 7 villages of Palwal and 47 villages of Mewat district, overall 65 villages in Haryana.

The total length of this highway in Haryana will be around 160 km the construction of which will cost about Rs 10,400 crore. Out of 160 km, construction of 120 km is underway. The whole stretch is expected to be completed by March 2022.

NHAI officials said the eight-lane Delhi-Mumbai expressway could be expanded to twelve-lane in future.

Addressing the media, Gadkari said once operational this expressway will help reduce traffic congestion and pollution level across Delhi and adjoining areas.

"With the construction of this expressway, employment generation opportunities will increase in Haryana. Also, Haryana's connectivity with other states states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra etc, will increase which will boost the economy," Khattar told mediapersons.

The expressway will pass through most of the remote areas of five states giving wings of development to the areas.

Gadkari said that the work of the expressway is in full swing.

"With the construction of the expressway, the distance between Delhi-Mumbai will be reduced and it will also save fuel. The toll will be collected through electronic mode. Also, extra care is being taken by the NHAI over constructing the expressway and no negligence of work will be tolerated on the part of the NHAI," Gadkari said.

--IANS

str/skp/

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Haryana Chief Minister on Thursday met Prime Minister here and discussed various issues, including those related to the ongoing protest by farmers.

The meeting between the two leaders lasted more than an hour.

Talking to the media after the meeting, Khattar said he has invited the prime minister to the inauguration of the railway corridor built along the Kundli-Manesar-Palwal expressway.

Asked about the farmer agitation, Khattar said they also discussed the issue and the recent protest by farmers in Karnal.

A section of farmers, mainly from Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, has been protesting against the Centre's three farm laws for over nine months now.

The protesting farmers have been demanding the repeal of the laws which they feel will do away with the MSP system, leaving them at the mercy of big corporations.

The government has insisted that these laws have given farmers a new opportunity to sell their produce and rejected claims that they are aimed at doing away with the minimum support price regime and farm mandis.

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The on Thursday stayed the operation of certain sub-clauses of the recently introduced Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, passing orders similar to the one by the Bombay High Court on the matter last month.

The sub-clauses -- (1) and (3) of Rule 9, which were stayed today, stipulated the adherence to the Code of Ethics. They were inserted to the original IT Rules in February this year. Incidentally, the Bombay High Court had on August 14, granted an interim stay to the operation of parts of the Information Technology Rules, 2021 which require that all online publishers follow the "code of ethics".



On Thursday, the first bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice PD Audikesavalu of the granted the stay while passing interim orders on a batch of PILs from carnatic musician T M Krishna and Digital News Publishers Association, consisting of 13 media outlets and another individual, challenging the constitutional validity of the new rules. Prima facie, there is substance in the contention of the petitioners that the mechanism to control the media by government may rob the media, both print and electronic, of their independence and the democratic principles, the bench said.



The court adjourned the matter to the last week of October, when it was informed that similar cases pending before the Supreme Court are scheduled to come up for hearing in the first week of next month. The Bombay HIgh Court, while granting the interim stay in August, had held that "dissent" was vital for democracy.Sub-clauses 1 and 3 of clause 9 of the new Rules were, on the face of it, "manifestly unreasonable", and "the indeterminate and wide terms of the Rules bring about a chilling effect qua (regarding) the right of freedom of speech and expression of writers/editors/publishers" as they can be hauled up for anything if the authorities so wish, it had then said.

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Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Thursday called for a major push to the COVID-19 vaccination drive during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's birthday on Friday, saying it would the perfect gift for him.

He also called on people who have not taken the vaccine till now to get inoculated.

"Prime Minister has given a gift of 'vaccine for all, free vaccine' to the country.

"Tomorrow is the birthday of our beloved prime minister, lets do #VaccineSeva by helping all unvaccinated people including their loved ones, family members and all sections of the society by getting them vaccinated. This would be a birthday gift for the prime minister," he said in a tweet in Hindi on Thursday.

The BJP has asked its units across the country to help get a large number of people vaccinated on the occasion of prime minister's birthday.

The cumulative COVID-19 vaccine doses administered so far in the country has crossed 77 crore, the Union Health Ministry said in a tweet.

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Russian President said on Tuesday he was self-isolating after several members of his entourage fell ill with Covid-19, including someone he worked with in close proximity and had been in close contact with all of the previous day.

Putin, who has had two shots of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine, explained the situation to a government meeting by video conference after the Kremlin said he was "absolutely" healthy and did not have the disease himself.

"It's a natural experiment. Let's see how Sputnik V works in practice," Putin said. "I have quite high levels of antibodies. Let's see how that plays out in real life. I hope everything will be as it should be."

Putin, 68, said the circumstances had forced him to cancel a planned trip to Tajikistan this week for regional security meetings expected to focus on Afghanistan, but that he would take part by video conference instead.

The Kremlin said Putin took the decision to self-isolate after completing a busy round of meetings on Monday, which included face-to-face Kremlin talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. read more

Putin also met Russian Paralympians and travelled to western Russia on Monday to observe joint military drills with Belarus.

He was quoted by the RIA news agency as telling the Paralympians on Monday that he was worried about the Covid-19 situation in the Kremlin.

"Problems with this Covid are even surfacing in my entourage," Putin was quoted as saying at the time. "I think I'll be forced to quarantine myself soon. Many people around me are sick."

He said on Tuesday the colleague he worked with in close proximity - one of several entourage members who had fallen ill with Covid-19 - had been vaccinated but that his antibody count had later fallen and that the individual had fallen ill three days after being revaccinated.

"Judging by everything, that was a little late (to get revaccinated)," Putin said.

The Kremlin has had a rigorous regime in place designed to keep Putin, who turns 69 next month, healthy and away from anyone with Covid-19.

Kremlin visitors have had to pass through special disinfection tunnels, journalists attending his events must undergo multiple PCR tests, and some people he meets are asked to quarantine beforehand and be tested.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin's work rate would not be affected.

"But it's just that in-person meetings will not take place for a while. But that does not affect their frequency and the president will continue his activity via video conferences."

Asked if Putin had tested negative for Covid-19, Peskov said: "Of course yes. The president is absolutely healthy."

Alexander Gintsburg, director of the Gamaleya Institute which developed the Sputnik V vaccine, was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying that, in his view, Putin would need to self-isolate for one week.

Gintsburg said any decision on the length of the isolation period was a matter for the Kremlin's own medical specialists.

Other world leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, have also been forced to self-isolate during the pandemic.

Reporting by Maxim Rodionov, Andrew Osborn, Tom Balmforth, Darya Korsunskaya, Gleb Stolyarov and Vladimir Soldatkin Editing by Angus MacSwan

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Wading into an acrimonious debate over booster doses, researchers in Israel reported on Wednesday that a third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine can prevent both infections and severe illness in adults older than 60 for at least 12 days.

The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, is the latest salvo in the conflict over whether booster doses are needed for healthy adults and whether they should be given out, as the Biden administration plans to do, when so much of the world remains unvaccinated.

Several independent scientists said the cumulative data so far suggest that only older adults will need boosters  and maybe not even them.



remains powerfully protective against severe illness and hospitalization in the vast majority of people in all of the studies published so far, experts said. But the vaccines do seem less potent against infections in people of all ages, particularly those exposed to the highly contagious Delta variant.





ALSO READ: Covid-19 live: Punjab logs new cases, outbreak in China province grows

What the Israeli data show is that a booster can enhance protection for a few weeks in older adults  a result that is unsurprising, experts said, and does not indicate long-term benefit.

What I would predict will happen is that the immune response to that booster will go up, and then it will contract again, said Marion Pepper, an immunologist at the University of Washington in Seattle. But is that three- to four-month window what were trying to accomplish?

Federal health officials  including Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, President Bidens top medical adviser on the pandemic  have justified plans to distribute booster shots by pointing to emerging evidence from Israel and other countries suggesting that immunity from wanes over time.

The idea has sent some Americans scrambling for booster shots even before they are formally authorized, a step the F.D.A. may take as soon as Friday. But even among government scientists, the idea has been met with skepticism and anger.

Two scientists who lead the F.D.A.s vaccine branch said they would leave the agency this fall, in part because of their unhappiness over the administrations push for booster doses before federal researchers could review the evidence.

On Monday, an international group of scientists, which included the departing F.D.A. officials, decried the push for boosters. In their review, published in The Lancet, the scientists analyzed dozens of studies and concluded that the world would be better served by using vaccine doses to protect the billions of people around the world who remain unvaccinated.





ALSO READ: Eyes in the sky: Drones aim to deliver vaccines, drugs in India amid Covid

Our primary goal here in this pandemic was, first of all, to avoid, to end all preventable deaths, said Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, chief scientist at the World Health Organization and a co-author of The Lancet review. And since we have the tools to do that very effectively, we should be using it to prevent deaths around the world.

To prevent the virus from morphing into even more dangerous forms than the Delta variant  and perhaps into one that evades the immune response entirely  the more urgent need, experts said, is to protect the unvaccinated, both in the United States and elsewhere.

The W.H.O. has asked world leaders to refrain from rolling out boosters at least till the end of the year, with the goal of immunizing 40 percent of the global population. But some high-income countries have already begun offering boosters to their residents, and others may follow their lead.

British scientists on Tuesday recommended giving third doses to adults over 50 and other medically vulnerable people in that country. France, Germany, Denmark and Spain are also considering boosters for older adults or have already begun administering them. Israel has authorized boosters for everyone over age 12 and is already contemplating fourth doses for its population.

In the new study, the Israeli team collected data on the effect of booster shots, based on the health records of more than 1.1 million people over age 60. At least 12 days after the booster, rates of infection were elevenfold lower and of severe disease nearly twentyfold lower in those who received a booster compared with those who had received only two doses, the researchers found.

The researchers acknowledged that their results were preliminary. We cannot tell at this point what will happen in the long run, said Micha Mandel, a professor of statistics and data science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The question is scientifically complex, in part because protecting against infection is a substantially different goal than protection against hospitalization and death.

Antibodies are the bodys frontline defense against infection. It is unlikely that vaccines will reliably protect against infections over the long term, because the antibodies they stimulate the body to produce inevitably decline over time, scientists say.

But the cellular branch of the immune system is the bodys heavy armament against hospitalization and death. So-called immune memory that is encoded in this branch can take a few days to kick in, but it remains robust months after the initial immunization.

Therein lies the problem with the booster strategy, some scientists say: The tools to prevent hospitalization and death are already at hand. If the goal is to prevent infections, the nation will be stuck in a never-ending cycle of booster shots.

If you really use infection as an outcome, you probably need a booster every six months, which is unrealistic and unattainable, said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease expert at the University of California, San Francisco. I dont care about symptomatic disease  I care about severe disease.

The only vaccinated patients he has seen in the hospital are immunocompromised or adults over 70 who also have other health conditions, he added.

In citing the need for boosters, Dr. Fauci and other health officials have referenced the Israeli data showing a rise in severe illness among vaccinated people of all ages. But lumping all age groups together can statistically inflate the rates.





ALSO READ: Mumbai's daily Covid-19 case count goes above 500 for second time in Sept

When the Israeli figures are broken down by age, only people above 60 show a notable drop in efficacy against severe illness, noted Dr. Celine Gounder, an infectious disease specialist at Bellevue Hospital Center and a former adviser to the Biden administration.

We have known for some time that the vaccines elicit less robust immune responses in the elderly, Dr. Gounder said. Recommending additional doses of vaccine for the elderly isnt controversial.

There are other differences in the campaigns in Israel and America that raise questions about whether the new results are applicable to citizens of both countries. More than 90 percent of Israelis older than 50 have been immunized, for example, and older adults are more likely to be hospitalized for Covid-19.

F.D.A. scientists acknowledged this limitation on Wednesday, saying studies based in the U.S. may most accurately represent vaccine effectiveness in the U.S. population.

Research in the U.S. so far also suggests a drop in vaccine efficacy against severe illness only in older adults. Three studies published last week by the C.D.C. found that the ability of the vaccines to prevent hospitalizations barely budged even after the Delta variants arrival, except in adults over 75.

An ongoing analysis of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine indicates a decline in efficacy against symptomatic infection from 95 percent during the first two months to 84 percent at four to six months after the second dose.

But other data from Pfizer, also published Wednesday, showed that the vaccines efficacy against severe disease held steady at 97 percent.

We remain confident in the protection and safety of the two-dose vaccine, said in a statement. However, we continue to believe that a booster dose can be used to maintain as high a level of protection over time as possible.

For older people, a decline in protection against infection is a compelling argument for boosters, some scientists said. One would always want to be proactive in that group versus reactive, Dr. Chin-Hong said.

Michel Nussenzweig, an immunologist at Rockefeller University, said he wanted the booster shot (he is 66), but also supported their use in the general population to interrupt chains of transmission.

Although immunity in younger people is not yet waning, he said, an extra dose that prevents infections would curtail the spread of the virus to the unvaccinated people around them.

It will ultimately prevent others from going to the hospital, and it ultimately would benefit the way the country is going, he added.

Other experts questioned that premise, saying there is no data to suggest that the drop in transmission would be significant enough to justify boosters.

In younger people, officials must balance the limited benefit of a third dose with the risk of side effects like blood clots or heart problems, researchers said. And repeatedly stimulating the bodys defenses can also lead to a phenomenon called immune exhaustion, Dr. Pepper said.

Theres obviously some risk in continuously trying to ramp up an immune response, she said. If we get into this cycle of boosting every six months, its possible that this could work against us.
The head of the called Thursday for immediate, rapid and large-scale cuts in greenhouse gas emissions to curb global warming and avert climate disaster.

Ahead of the annual UN General Assembly meeting next week, Antonio Guterres warned governments that is proceeding faster than predicted and fossil fuel emissions have already bounced back from a pandemic dip.

Speaking at the launch of a UN-backed report summarizing current efforts to tackle climate change, Guterres said recent extreme weather from Hurricane Ida in the United States to floods in western Europe and the deadly heatwave in the Pacific Northwest showed no country is safe from climate-related disasters.

These changes are just the beginning of worse to come," he said, appealing to governments to meet the goals of the 2015 Paris climate accord.

Unless there are immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, we will be unable to limit global heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit), said Guterres.

The consequences will be catastrophic.

In their report, titled United in Science 21, six UN bodies and scientific organizations drew on existing research to argue that there is a direct link between human-caused emissions, record high temperatures and disasters that have a tangible impact on individuals and societies, including "billions of work hours (...) lost through heat alone.

Because of the long-lasting effects of many emissions already released into the atmosphere, further impacts are inevitable, they noted.

Even with ambitious action to slow greenhouse gas emissions, sea levels will continue to rise and threaten low-lying islands and coastal populations throughout the world, the authors wrote.

University of Michigan environment dean Jonathan Overpeck, who wasn't part of the report, said scientists have said this before but it's important: The situation is getting bad, we know why and we know how to solve it in ways that leave us, and future generations, with a better, healthier, more sustainable world.

Guterres urged governments to put forward more ambitious plans for cutting emissions by the upcoming U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, including a commitment to stop adding more greenhouse gas to the atmosphere by mid-century than can be removed.

Michael Mann, a prominent climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University, said he agreed with the report's message of urgency but questioned some of the starker warnings it contained.

In particular, the 1.5C threshold agreed in Paris didn't apply to individual years, some of which can be unusually hot due to other factors, he said.

This misleading framing unnecessarily feeds the fears that the public has that we've somehow already crossed that threshold and that it is too late now to prevent, said Mann. We have not. And it is not.

He also noted that the drop in emissions seen during the pandemic could be viewed as a positive sign that significant cuts are possible if entire economies are weaned off fossil fuels.

The United States, Britain and the European Union have already made pledges that if implemented would help avert dangerous planetary warming, said Mann.

Kim Cobb, a professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech, was equally reassured that the 1.5C target isn't out of reach.

However, this new report is a stark reminder of the difference between the emissions pathways required to achieve that target, and the reality on the ground, she said. Simply put, we are way off course.

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The has issued an order withdrawing 868 cases of stubble burning registered against in

The order comes two weeks after Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had announced that the government will withdraw cases of stubble burning pending against

The order was issued on Wednesday night by additional chief secretary, home, Avanish Awasthi.

Awasthi said these cases will be withdrawn by each district and intimated to the law and home departments within a week.

Another officer said that the state government is committed to the welfare and betterment of the

As per records available with the police, around 1,500 FIRs were lodged against farmers across 38 districts of the state for stubble burning.

Of these, charge sheets were filed in 868 cases while the remaining were either closed with a final report for absence of evidence or expunged for some reason.

This is a move by the to appease farmers who have been agitating against three contentious farm laws since last year.--IANS

amita/dpb

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Delhi-Mumbai and Chambal Expressways will serve as growth engines for once they are completed and accelerate the state's development besides creating jobs, Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways said on Thursday.

The Delhi-Mumbai Expressway will pass through (nearly 250km), while the 404-km Chambal Expressway will link far-flung areas of MP, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Both the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway and the Chambal Expressway will become growth engines for They will speed up the state's development and generate a lot of new employment opportunities, Gadkari said. The minister was addressing a function after inspecting the progress of under-construction Delhi-Mumbai Expressway at Jaora in Ratlam district.

Gadkari said the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway is the world's longest highway having a total length of 1,350-km



This distance can be covered in just 12 hours and the road will also reduce fuel consumption by 320 million litres, which will be very beneficial for the environment, he said. The Madhya Pradesh portion of the eight-lane highway is being constructed at an estimated cost of Rs 8,500 crore, Gadkari said. Though originally a 12-lane highway, in the first-phase only eight are being constructed and as traffic increases it will be enhanced to 12 lanes in the second leg, he said.

Work on 106km stretch of the expressway in Madhya Pradesh has been completed, while construction of remaining 139km highway will be concluded by November 2022, Gadkari said. A 143km four-lane highway will also be constructed as part of the project to give connectivity to the Malwa region. It will go up to Indore, Dewas, Ujjain and Garoth, he said.

He said Ratlam is a major road and rail centre between Delhi and Mumbai and a large logistics hub will be developed here with help of the Madhya Pradesh government.

Once the highway linking India's financial and political capitals is completed, Jhabua and Ratlam will become prosperous, he said.

The Chambal Expressway (also called Atal Expressway) will pass through backward areas of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.

Out of the 403km Chambal Expressway, 313km will pass through Madhya Pradesh, Gadkari said. This high-speed road corridor will contribute to development of areas located near it with establishment of logistics parks, industrial units, agriculture production centres and food processing facilities, among others, he added.

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Kerala will oppose the move to increase the on as it will affect the interests of the people of the state, official sources said here on Thursday.

State Finance Minister K N Balagopal, who has already reached Lucknow to attend the meeting commencing on Friday, will raise the matter in the meeting to be chaired by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, they said.

The sources said that there was a move in the to increase the of from the present 5 per cent to 18 per cent.

According to them, a hike in the on will pave the way for the rise in prices of coconut oil, which is the major edible oil item in Kerala and parts of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

Sources said Kerala will strongly oppose in the its move to increase the tax of the coconut oil as it is against the interest of the people of the state.

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The GST Council, chaired by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, will meet on Friday, which among other things may review of over four-dozen items and extend till December 31, tax concessions on 11 COVID drugs.

Also, taxing petrol and diesel under the single national GST tax and a proposal to treat food delivery apps such as Zomato and Swiggy as restaurants and levy a 5 per cent GST tax on supplies made by them would be taken up by the Council at its meeting in Lucknow on September 17.

"Finance Minister Smt @nsitharaman will chair the 45th meeting at 11 AM in Lucknow tomorrow. The meeting will be attended by MOS Shri @mppchaudhary besides Finance Ministers of States & UTs and Senior officers from Union Government & States," the tweeted.

The Council, comprising central and state finance ministers, will deliberate on the proposal of extending the existing concessional structure on Amphotericin B, Tocilizumab, Remdesivir and anti-coagulants like Heparin, till December 31, 2021, from the present September 30.

on Amphotericin B, Tocilizumab was cut to 'Nil', while Remdesivir and Heparin was reduced to 5 per cent in June 2021.

The Council on Friday may also discuss the proposal of reducing GST from 12 per cent to 5 per cent to seven more drugs till December 31, 2021. These are Itolizumab, Posaconazole, Infliximab, Bamlanivimab & Etesevimab, Casirivimab & Imdevimab, 2-Deoxy-D-Glucose and Favipiravir.

To curb tax evasion, the proposal to make the food delivery platforms like Swiggy and Zomato liable to pay the Goods and Services Tax on restaurant services supplied through them would also be considered by the Council.

Once approved by the GST Council, food delivery apps will have to collect and deposit GST with the government, in place of restaurants, for deliveries made by them. There would be no extra tax burden on the end consumer.

As per estimates, tax loss to exchequer due to alleged under-reporting by food delivery aggregators is Rs 2,000 over the past two years.

In light of the Kerala High Court order, the Council will also discuss taxing petrol and diesel under the GST, a move that may require huge compromises by both central and state governments on the revenues they collect from taxing these products.

In June, the Kerala High Court, based on a writ petition, had asked the to decide on bringing petrol and diesel within the GST ambit.

The Council will also discuss the interim report of a state-ministerial panel on capacity based taxation on pan masala and composition scheme for brick kilns and stone crushers.

The Panel has recommended a Special Composition Scheme in the Brick Kiln sector with effect from April 1, 2022, prescribing a GST rate of 6 per cent, without ITC, similar to the rate in the services sector.

It has also suggested hiking the GST rate on supply of bricks from 5 per cent to 12 per cent (with ITC), with effect from April 1.

The council will review and also clarify regarding GST rates 32 goods and 29 services.

The items under review are Zolgensma and Viltepso medicines for personal use, solar PV modules, copper concentrate, carbonated beverage with fruit juice, coconut oil, scented sweet supari, oncology medicine, and diesel-electric locomotives.

Watch this video

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Finance Minister will address the media Thursday at 5 pm in Delhi, said her ministry on Twitter. It didnt give details but a media report said she is expected to make announcements about a proposal to set up a

Clearing the path for the launch of National Asset Reconstruction Company (NARCL), the Cabinet is learnt to have approved the government guarantee on security receipts that will be used to buy bad loans of lenders. The Centre has earmarked about Rs 31,000 crore for this, Business Standard reported this morning.

The NARCL has been incorporated in Mumbai following its registration with the Registrar of Companies (RoC). The capital requirement of the has been estimated at Rs 6,000 crore by the IBA, which has been tasked with setting up the entity. It has mobilised an initial capital of Rs 100 crore as mandated by the regulator.

Sitharaman will on Friday attend a meeting of the goods and services tax (GST) Council in Lucknow Friday. The council is likely to turn down requests for exemption of indirect tax on services provided by statutory bodies like the Competition Commission of India (CCI) and the International Financial Services Centers Authority (IFSCA).

The meeting will consider if online food-delivery operators, such as Swiggy and Zomato, should pay GST on restaurant services supplied through them.
PRI ESPL INT .SHEFFIELD FES10 ALZHEIMER-TREATMENT Alzheimer's disease: hyperbaric oxygen proposed as treatment in new study By Osman Shabir, Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Sheffield Sheffield (UK), Sep 16 (The Conversation) Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia, has long been associated with a build-up of plaques (clumps of protein) in the brain. Scientists in have shown that a type of oxygen therapy can stop new plaques forming and even remove existing plaques in mice with Alzheimer's. The scientists used a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease called 5xFAD. The genetically modified mice were treated with hyperbaric oxygen therapy to see if they could halt or slow the disease progression. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy involves breathing pure oxygen in a pressurised chamber. In the chamber, the air pressure is increased two to three times higher than normal air pressure. It is commonly used to treat decompression sickness (a condition scuba divers can suffer from), carbon monoxide poisoning, and some forms of stroke or brain injury. It works by forcing increased oxygenation of tissues with low oxygen levels (hypoxia). And it could improve blood flow to the brain to nourish brain cells that are usually deprived of blood, and hence oxygen, in Alzheimer's disease. The scientists, from the University of Tel Aviv, treated 15 six-month-old mice (about 30 human years) with hyperbaric oxygen therapy for an hour a day, five days a week for four weeks. The therapy not only reduced the number and size of plaques in the brains of the mice, it also slowed the formation of new plaques, compared with a control group of mice who did not receive hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Blood flow to the brain is reduced in people with Alzheimer's. This study showed increased blood flow to the brain in the mice receiving oxygen therapy, which helps with the clearance of plaques from the brain, and reduces inflammation a hallmark of Alzheimer's. By improving blood flow to the brain, reducing plaque levels and reducing hypoxia, the mice undergoing daily oxygen therapy began to show improvements to their cognitive abilities, such as their spatial recognition memory as well as contextual memory the ability to remember emotional, social, spatial or temporal circumstances related to an event. Not just mice The researchers then used these findings to assess the effectiveness of oxygen therapy in six people over the age of 65 with cognitive decline. They found that 60 sessions of oxygen therapy, over 90 days, increased blood flow in certain areas of the brain and significantly improved the patients' cognitive abilities improved memory, attention and information processing speed. An earlier study found that oxygen therapy reduced plaques in the brain in another mouse model of Alzheimer's disease. And, before that, my colleagues and I published a study in Scientific Reports which showed that pure oxygen at normal atmospheric pressure can increase the blood volume in the brains of six-month-old mice with Alzheimer's disease, and this may be able to increase the clearance of plaques from the brain. Taken together, these findings suggest that oxygen therapy may be able to reduce cognitive decline associated with ageing and dementia in both mice and people. I don't think this can cure' Alzheimer's in humans, Professor Uri Ashery, lead author of the research, told The Times of Israel, but it may be able to significantly slow its progression and severity. However, it is important to note that the Israeli study was too small to draw any firm conclusions. Also, 60 sessions of pressurised oxygen therapy lasting an hour each is simply not feasible for most people. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy cannot yet be offered at home or in a care home, where most people with Alzheimer's will be based. And daily visits to a hospital or clinic is not a practical thing to do for most people with the disease. The chambers cost up to 100,000, with around an additional 1,500 on maintenance a year. And treatments cost between 40 and 250 per session. Given that there are close to a million people with dementia in the UK alone, it is clear that offering every patient hyperbaric oxygen therapy for 60 days is not currently workable or economically viable. And the results, while promising in mice, still need to be confirmed in people with Alzheimer's in large clinical trials. (The Conversation) NSA NSA 09161024 NNNN

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is joining a new Indo-Pacific security partnership with the U.S. and U.K. that will allow it to acquire nuclear-powered submarines, sparking a rift with at a time when the Biden administration is pushing allies to counter Chinese assertiveness.



Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, U.S. President Joe Biden and U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson earlier unveiled the security partnership in a virtual meeting. said the new partnership scuppers Australias 2016 deal with a French shipbuilder Naval Group to build up to 12 submarines -- a project that had blown out to an estimated A$90 billion ($66 billion).

In a press briefing on Thursday, Morrison defended the decision and said he understands its disappointing for Touting a forever partnership with the U.S. and U.K., he said it would take as many as 18 months to work out details of the agreement before work on the subs begins in Building and commissioning such nuclear-powered submarines can take years, or even decades.

As a prime minister I must make decisions that are in Australias national security, Morrison said. I know that France would do the same.

Today, begins an enhanced trilateral security partnership with the and the US to enable deeper cooperation on security and defence capabilities. This is an historic opportunity for our countries to strengthen our nations security in uncertain times. #AUKUS  Scott Morrison (@ScottMorrisonMP) September 15, 2021

Lack of Coherence



The decision to scrap the program was contrary to the letter and spirit of the cooperation that prevailed between France and Australia and shows a lack of coherence, Frances Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves Le Drian and Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly said in statement.

The regrettable decision that has just been announced regarding the FSP program only reinforces the need to make the issue of European strategic autonomy loud and clear, the French ministers said in reference to the Future Submarines Program. There is no other credible way to defend our interests and our values in the world, including in the Indo-Pacific.

Early reports that the submarine deal would be scrapped came as a surprise to Naval Group, according to a person familiar with the matter. The company had met all its contractual obligations to date, from pricing to timelines and pledges for local production in Australia, the person said. It had expected commitments over 50 years under its contracts and would negotiate a breakup fee.

Morrison said the nuclear submarines would be built in Adelaide. That city is where Naval Group has been planning to build the 12 conventionally-powered submarines in a program that has been hit by reports of time and cost over-runs.

Realistically, the nuclear-powered submarines wont be ready for commission in this decade, said Paul Maddison, former commander of the Royal Canadian Navy. Its a bold decision and a real opportunity for Australia.

Morrison said Australia isnt seeking nuclear weapons and the submarines would be conventionally armed. News of Australias deal prompted New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to say the country wouldnt allow Australian nuclear-powered submarines to enter its waters.

She cited a decades-old nuclear-free policy as one of the reasons why New Zealand wasnt invited to join this new partnership. However, the pact means absolutely no change in our already strong relationship with the United States, the U.K. and of course, Australia.

Military Capability



The new framework comes as Beijing increases its military capability and influence in the Asia-Pacific, though a senior U.S. official said it isnt targeting or any other country. As part of the agreement, the countries intend to increase cooperation on other defense measures, such as cybersecurity and artificial intelligence.

We all recognize the imperative of ensuring peace and stability of the Indo-Pacific over the long term, Biden said earlier at the initial announcement of the partnership.

We need to be able to address both the current strategic environment in the region and how it may evolve, because the future of each of our nations and indeed the world depends on a free and open Indo-Pacific, enduring and flourishing in the decades ahead, he added.

Biden had a telephone conversation with Chinese President Xi Jinping last week to complain about Beijings lack of engagement on bilateral and global issues such as climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic. He proposed an in-person meeting with Xi but the Chinese president declined to commit to one.

The U.S. President also mentioned this trilateral plan in his conversation with Xi, though he didnt share specifics, one official said. The Biden administration will explain the intentions behind the pact -- which the countries are calling AUUKUS -- to countries that are interested, the official added.

Morrison said he had further calls with allies around the region after announcing the partnership, which he would extend to despite growing tensions between the two countries that have put ministerial-level ties in a deep freeze. Theres an open invitation for President Xi to discuss other matters, he said.

Australia Relations



The pact will be seen as a coup for Morrison, who has wanted to ramp up his nations involvement in U.S.-led pacts in a bid to counter what he sees as an assertive China in the Indo-Pacific. Thats included crafting the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network into a group thats issuing statements criticizing Beijings human rights record and bolstering the Quad security arrangement that also involves Japan and India, and is due to hold its first leaders level meeting in Washington this month.

Under Morrisons watch, Australias relations with China -- its largest trading partner -- have nosedived in the wake of his governments call last year for independent investigators to enter Wuhan to probe the origins of the coronavirus. Beijing has since inflicted a range of trade reprisals, including crippling tariffs on Australian barley and wine, while blocking coal shipments.

Herve Lemahieu, a director of research at the Lowy Institute, described Morrisons new deal as momentous, with Australia set to join an elite group operating nuclear-powered submarines.

It does send a very clear signal, Lemahieu said in a Bloomberg Television interview. This is very clearly designed to bolster alliances amid rising tensions with China over disputes ranging from the South China Sea to Taiwan. There is no way America would be sharing this kind of technology with Australia if it werent for China.




Hundreds of overseas workers could be welcomed to in the next 10 months, under travel exemptions for holders of a government visa created to aid the post-pandemic recovery -- even as tens of thousands of its own citizens remain stranded overseas.



The exemption will streamline entry requirements to allow the rapid relocation of workers critical to establishing a business in Fewer than than 500 exemptions are expected to be granted to holders of the temporary Activity (subclass 408) Post Covid-19 Event visas during the next 10 months, before the the program is designed to expire.

This governments initiatives to bring top talent to are cementing our economic recovery, Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews said in an emailed statement. Returning Australians remain the priority, however this automatic travel exemption recognizes the importance of significant investment.

At the start of the pandemic in March 2021, Australia implemented a ban on non-citizens and non-residents from entering the nation thats exacerbated skills shortages in some key industries and services. Strict caps have also been placed on its own citizens; as of late July, some 38,000 Australians were still stranded abroad.

The measures, some of the strictest in the world, earned the country the nickname Fortress Australia. In recent months, the government cut arrivals by 50% and barred non-resident citizens who enter the country from leaving again to reduce pressure on a quarantine system thats being tested by the delta variant.

That strain seeded itself in Sydney in mid-June; now around half the nations population of 26 million people are in lockdown as authorities seek stem an outbreak thats infecting more than 1,500 people a day. New South Wales, the most-populous state, is seeking to start remove lockdown restrictions and start allowing travel again later this year when vaccination thresholds are reached.

The governments automatic exemption for skilled non-Australians will be restricted to businesses deemed by the Global Business and Attraction Taskforce as likely to make a significant contribution to economy, including investment value and job creation potential. Arrivals will still need to meet all standard health requirements and quarantine protocols, as administered by states and territories.

These visa holders are bringing the skills, investment, and new ideas that employ Australians and keep us internationally competitive for years to come, Andrews said in the statement. Theyre adding to our economy, generating new jobs, and contributing to our tax base so we can continue to provide the essential services all Australians rely on.
A county in western will give cash subsidies to couples to have children, the latest push to encourage more births in a country where the population is set to decline in coming years.



Families with three children in Linze county in Gansu province will be able to receive 5,000 yuan ($777) in a lump sum payment when the third child is born, as well as 10,000 yuan a year before the kid reaches three years old, the local government said in a WeChat post this week. Families with one or two children can receive smaller subsidies, and the local authority has promised subsidies for schooling fees and home purchases.

Panzhihua city in the southwestern province of Sichuan became the nations first city in July to offer cash handouts to encourage childbirth. Authorities are taking more active steps to slow the declining birthrate, making a surprise decision in May to allow all couples to have a third child and promising supportive measures to help parents raise kids.

Linzes policy was introduced because the number of permanent residents in the area has shrunk significantly, falling 22,000 in the latest census from the previous one 10 years earlier, local health official Jia Yongming said in a report by Beijing Youth Daily. The county government aims to increase the local population by 9% by 2030 from 2020.

--With assistance from Lulu Shen.
European stocks rose on Thursday as a rebound in stocks and overnight strength in helped offset concerns about China's slowing economy that dragged down miners.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index rose 0.7%, bouncing off a six-week closing low hit in the previous session.

& leisure jumped 3.1% to break a four-day losing run, while automakers rose 0.6% to a one-month high.

Europe's largest low cost carrier Ryanair surged 5.6% after it raised its long-term traffic forecast. Rivals easyJet, British Airways-owner IAG and Wizz Air gained almost 4% each. read more

While Asian stocks came under pressure from concerns about China's economy and the fallout from debt-ridden developer China Evergrande Group's financial troubles, European stocks were on a firm footing as strong U.S. data on Wednesday reinforced optimism about a recovery in the world's largest economy.

"Some decent corporate news and an upbeat report from the U.S. manufacturing sector outweighs continuing worries about China which is dragging down mining stocks and other firms with links to the Chinese economy," AJ Bell Investment Director Russ Mould said.

Miners including Rio Tinto, Anglo American and BHP Group were among the top drags as metal prices fell after China reiterated plans to release more metals from its reserves.

German automotive supplier Continental AG fell 2.5% to the bottom of STOXX 600 after the spin-off of its unit Vitesco.

The utilities index edged up 0.1% after a near 3% fall on Wednesday. Spain passed emergency measures earlier this week to reduce energy bills, raising concerns over the hit to utilities' profits.

Spain's Endesa and Iberdrola extended losses for a third day to fall to their lowest since 2020.

Italy is also looking to introduce short-term measures to offset the expected rise in retail power prices, a minister said in radio interview. read more

"Stocks in the sector are suffering from the risks of regulatory intervention, as in Spain, and it will be necessary to see how other governments in Europe will intervene," Equita analysts said.

"Current prices do not reflect high energy and gas prices."

Paris Match magazine owner Lagardere surged 20.3% after media group Vivendi said it would buy another stake in the company, paving the way for a full takeover. read more

British fashion brand Superdry jumped 14% after it forecast a recovery in full-year 2022 revenue.

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US President announced Wednesday that the is forming a new Indo-Pacific security alliance with and that will allow for greater sharing of defense capabilities  including helping equip with nuclear-powered submarines. Its a move that could deepen a growing chasm in U. S.- relations. Biden made the announcement alongside British Prime Minister and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who joined him by video to unveil the new alliance, which will be called AUKUS.

The three announced they would quickly turn their attention to developing nuclear-powered submarines for We all recognise the imperative of ensuring peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific over the long term, said Biden, who said the new alliance reflects a broader trend of key European partners playing a role in the Indo-Pacific. We need to be able to address both the current strategic environment in the region and how it may evolve. In a press briefing on Thursday, Morrison defended the decision and said he understands its disappointing for France. Touting a forever partnership with the US and UK, he said it would take as many as 18 months to work out details of the agreement before work on the subs begins in Australia. Building and commissioning such nuclear-powered submarines can take years, or even decades. As a prime minister I must make decisions that are in Australias national security, Morrison said. I know that France would do the same. The Australian prime minister said plans for the nuclear-powered submarines would be developed over the next 18 months and the vessels would be built in Adelaide, Australia. sharply criticised the US, the UK and Australia's trilateral military partnership under which Canberra would be assisted to build nuclear-powered submarines for the first time, saying it would closely monitor the pact that will gravely undermine regional stability and aggravate the arms race and hurt non-proliferation efforts. The partnership greatly undermines regional peace and stability, aggravates the arms race and hurts the non-proliferation efforts, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters in Beijing on Thursday. He also questioned Australias commitment to foregoing nuclear weapons, and said the US and UK were using nuclear exports as geopolitical gaming tool and applying double standards.
Monetary Fund Managing Director was called out Thursday by the World Bank, her previous employer, for applying pressure to boost Chinas position in a ranking of economies. Georgieva said she disagreed with the findings.

The World Bank, in a probe of its Doing Business report, found such serious ethics issues that it decided to abandon the series entirely, a statement released in Washington showed.

Chinas position in the 2018 report, released in October 2017, should have been seven places lower  at No. 85 rather than remaining at 78 -- the said in a review released in December.

The changes to Chinas data in Doing Business 2018 appear to be the product of two distinct types of pressure applied by bank leadership on the Doing Business team, the said in a report Thursday. The bank cited Georgieva, along with an adviser, for pressure to make specific changes to Chinas data points in an effort to increase its ranking at precisely the same time the country was expected to play a key role in the banks capital-increase campaign.



According to a reports, the irregularities had affected four countries: China; Saudi Arabia; United Arab Emirates; and Azerbaijan.

Disagree Fundamentally



The probe was produced by the law firm WilmerHale, which was retained by the executive boards ethics committee, the body responsible for ethical matters involving Board officials. The findings were shared with the World Banks executive directors on Wednesday, and the board authorised their release.Georgieva served as chief executive officer of the World Bank prior to being chosen to succeed Christine Lagarde as head of the IMF, the development lenders partner in the Bretton Woods system.

I disagree fundamentally with the findings and interpretations of the Investigation of Data Irregularities as it relates to my role in the World Banks Doing Business report of 2018, Georgieva said in a statement. I have already had an initial briefing with the IMFs Executive Board on this matter.



The US Treasury, which manages the countrys engagement with the and World Bank, said it was reviewing the report. The US has an outsize role in decisions at the Washington-based lenders because of the weight of its voting power. These are serious findings and Treasury is analysing the report, Treasury spokesperson Alexandra LaManna said. Our primary responsibility is to uphold the integrity of financial institutions.



Troubled Report



Many Republican lawmakers have opposed expanding support for the World Bank and IMF, and Thursdays news could renew GOP criticism.

The Doing Business report plays a notable role in emerging markets, with governments often showcasing moves up in ranking in appeals for foreign investment.

But the integrity of the ratings has been the source of heated debate in recent years.

Paul Romer quit in 2018 as the World Banks chief economist after questioning changes to Chiles order in the report. The and World Bank have confronted a number of ethics issues over the years. Former French Finance Minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn resigned as head of the fund in 2011 after charges of sexual assault in a New York hotel room, which were eventually dropped.

In 2007, Paul Wolfowitz, a top Pentagon official in the Bush administration, stepped down as head of the World Bank over his involvement in arranging a pay increase and promotion for his companion.

Economies like India, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Togo, Bahrain, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Kuwait, China, and Nigeria made notable improvements in the Doing Business 2020 report after they, according to the World Bank, implemented one-fifth of all the reforms in 2018-19 recorded worldwide.
Prime Minister has said the community must engage with the and "incentivise" them on issues such as women's rights and an inclusive Afghan government to prevent the conflict-torn nation from ending up in chaos.

Speaking to CNN from his private Bani Gala residence in Islamabad on Wednesday, Khan said that was on a historic crossroads.

He asserted that the best way forward for peace and stability in the war-torn country is to engage with the Taliban, which seized Kabul last month.

"The hold all of and if they can sort of now work towards an inclusive government, get all the factions together, could have peace after 40 years," he said.

"But if it goes wrong (in Afghanistan), and which is what we are really worried about, it could go to chaos, the biggest humanitarian crisis, a huge refugee problem, unstable Afghanistan and [...] the possibility of again terrorism from Afghanistan's soil, Khan said.

Khan suggested that the should be given incentives to handle the current situation instead of being forced to do something, calling it a "fallacy" that Afghanistan could be controlled from outside.

"So rather than sitting here and thinking that we can control them, we should incentivise them because this current government in Afghanistan clearly feels that without aid and help they will not be able to stop this crisis. We should push them in the right direction, he said.

Khan insisted that the world should "give them (the Taliban) time" to form a legitimate government and make good on their promises.

The Taliban seized control of Afghanistan in mid-August, ousting the previous elected leadership which was backed by the West. The interim Cabinet consists of high-profile members of the insurgent group.

At least 14 members of the Taliban's interim government are on the UN Security Council's terrorism blacklist, including acting Prime Minister Mullah Hasan and his both deputies.

The Taliban had promised an "inclusive" government that represents Afghanistan's complex ethnic makeup, but there is no Hazara member in the Cabinet. No woman has been named in the interim Cabinet.

"Our intelligence agencies told us that the Taliban would not be able to take over all of Afghanistan, and if they tried to take Afghanistan militarily, there would be a protracted civil war, which is what we were scared of because we are the ones who would suffer the most," Khan said.

He was asked about apprehensions that the Taliban will not protect human rights and the future of Afghanistan.

Khan said the Taliban have said that they want an inclusive government and promised to give rights to their women and also announced amnesty as part of efforts to gain acceptability.

Talking about the issue of women rights in Afghanistan, Khan said it was a mistake to think that the rights of Afghan women can be imposed from outside. Afghan women are strong. Give them time, they will get their rights," he said.

He recalled that history showed "no puppet government in Afghanistan is supported by the people".

Khan reiterated that suffered a lot after joining the US war on terror and there was a time about 50 militant groups were attacking To a question, the premier said that he had not spoken to US President Joe Biden since the collapse of the Afghan government.

When asked why Biden hadn't called him since coming into office, the premier curtly said: "He is a busy man" and later said Biden should be asked "why he is too busy to call".

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Prime Minister has said the US war against was disastrous for as Washington used Islamabad like a hired gun during their 20-year presence in We (Pakistan) were like a hired gun, Khan said in an interview with CNN. We were supposed to make them (the US) win the war in Afghanistan, which we never could. Khan said that the US invasion of proved to be disastrous for He said thousands of Pakistanis were killed because the and its affiliates saw them as an ally of the US. "The hold all of and if they can sort of now work towards an inclusive government, get all the factions together, Afghanistan could have peace after 40 years. But if it goes wrong and which is what we are really worried about, it could go to chaos. The biggest humanitarian crisis, a huge refugee problem," Khan said. Khan claimed that the are looking for aid to avoid a crisis, which could be used to push the group in "the right direction towards legitimacy." However he warned that Afghanistan could not be controlled by outside forces. No puppet government in Afghanistan is supported by the people, he told CNN. "So rather than sitting here and thinking that we can control them, we should incentivize them.

Because Afghanistan, this current government, clearly feels that without aid and help, they will not be able to stop this crisis. So we should push them in the right direction. I would imagine he's very busy, but our relationship with the US is not just dependent on a phone call, it needs to be a multidimensional relationship, said Khan.
Tech honchos like Apple CEO and Tesla CEO are among the list of the 100 Most Influential People of 2021 according to TIME's newly published rankings.

Cook's inclusion comes a day after Apple revealed the iPhone 13 series, Apple Watch Series 7 and upgraded iPads during a virtual event, reports CNET.

In Time's profile, Nike co-founder Phil Knight praised Cook's "character, compassion and courage". He also noted that "Apple stock has gone up 1,000 per cent, making it the most valuable company in the world" during Cook's decade as CEO.

Writing about Musk, Huffington Post co-founder Arianna Huffington said he's "augmenting human possibilities".

"And by doing it all with his relentlessly optimistic, space-half-full showmanship, he's offering a model for how we can solve the big, existential challenges in front of us," she wrote.

DeepLearning.ai founder Andrew Ng gave Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang credit for helping to advance artificial intelligence by directing the company to adapt graphics processing units for more general computing tasks.

"The resulting advancements -- and powerful chips -- laid a foundation that could accommodate much bigger neural networks, the programs behind much of today's AI," Ng said of Huang.

TIME shares an annual list highlighting world leaders, celebrities, tech company executives, authors, musicians, athletes and more.

--IANS

vc/in

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Ahead of the SCO summit, on Thursday said it is ready to have close communication and coordination with the bloc's member states and jointly work on to build an open and inclusive political structure in the war-torn country controlled by the Taliban.

The eight-member (SCO) grouping of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India and Pakistan will hold its 21st summit on Friday at Tajikistan's capital Dushanbe.

is an observer in the SCO.

The SCO and the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) comprising Russia and Central Asian States will hold a joint summit meeting on

Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with Chinese President Xi Jinping would address the summit via video link.

Asked about the SCO and CSTO summit on Afghanistan, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a media briefing here that the Afghan situation bears on regional security and stability.

Members of the SCO and CSTO are all close neighbours of Afghanistan and they all actively support the peace and reconstruction and reconciliation process in Afghanistan, he said.

is a member of the SCO which is ready to have close communication and coordination with relevant countries, jointly work on Afghanistan to build an open and inclusive political structure, adopt moderate and prudent domestic and foreign policies, make a clean break with all forms of terrorist groups and live on friendly terms with other countries.

We are ready to continue to have good neighbourliness and friendly cooperation with Afghanistan, and play a constructive role in its peace and reconstruction, he said.

China, which has kept its embassy open in Kabul along with Pakistan and Russia, has maintained close communication with the Taliban's interim government though it has not formally recognised it.

Beijing has announced a USD 31-million aid for the war-torn country.

The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan on August 15, two weeks before the US' complete troop withdrawal on August 31 after a costly two-decade war. This forced Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to flee the country to the UAE.

The Taliban insurgents stormed across Afghanistan and captured all major cities in a matter of days, as Afghan security forces trained and equipped by the US and its allies melted away.

Thousands of Afghan nationals and foreigners have fled the country to escape the new Taliban regime and to seek asylum in different nations, including the US and many European nations, resulting in total chaos and deaths.

On the SCO, Zhao said that the grouping has transcended differences in social systems, histories and cultures, and successfully found a path of cooperation and development of a new type of regional organisation.

The SCO members have played active roles in regional and affairs and vital theoretical and practical exploration for building a new type of relations and a community with shared future for mankind, he said.

At the upcoming SCO summit, President Xi will review the success of the SCO with leaders of other countries, have an in-depth exchange of views on SCO cooperation, and major regional and issues, and approve a series of new key cooperation documents, and charter the course for the SCO going forward, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

We believe that with the advancement of the heads of states, the SCO will make new progress at new starting points and stay committed to building an even closer community for a shared future for the benefit of people of all countries in the region, he added.

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan will pay a two-day official visit to Tajikistan to attend the 20th Council of Heads of State (SCO-CHS) Summit in Dushanbe.

The SCO, seen as a counterweight to NATO, is an economic and security bloc which has emerged as one of the largest transregional international organisations.

India and Pakistan became its permanent members in 2017.

The SCO was founded at a summit in Shanghai in 2001 by the Presidents of Russia, China, Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

The SCO also has four Observer states -- Iran, Mongolia, Belarus and Afghanistan and six Dialogue Partners -- Azerbaijan, Armenia, Cambodia, Nepal, Turkey and Sri Lanka.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The governments four-year breather to from paying spectrum and adjusted gross revenue (AGR) has fired up the telecom stocks at the bourses in the past two trading sessions.

While most brokerages have given a thumbs up to the development and suggest the provisions give some breathing space to (VI)  at least for four years  Bharti and Reliance Jio, too, stand to gain in case VI is unable to retain customers, improve connectivity and invest in ramping up the 5G network infrastructure in the long run.



WATCH VIDEO: What govt relief package means for telecom sector

Heres how leading brokerages have interpreted the move.

Jefferies

The government's four-year moratorium on AGR/spectrum payments will offer VIL cash-flow relief and could lead to the government taking up a sizable stake in the company. However, Bharti's usage of its Rs 117 billion annual cash-flow relief for capex will accelerate market share shifts in its favour. We expect Bharti to gain 340 basis (bps) market share to 39 per cent over FY22-24 driving 20 per cent CAGR in India mobile EBITDA. We raise our price target to Rs 850 on higher multiples to factor potential growth acceleration. Retain Buy rating on

CLSA

Deferred spectrum payments (interest + principal) in fiscal 2022-23 (FY23) for Vodafone Idea, and would have been 44 per cent, 7 per cent and 5 per cent of their annualised Q1-FY22 revenues, respectively. Although interest will be applicable in moratorium, spectrum and AGR relief amount to $11 billion cash-flow savings over FY22-FY25 for are crucial for its survival. This major relief package and inevitable tariff hikes will improve the health of the debt-laden sector and India mobile will remain a three private player market.



Edelweiss Securities

The measures have resuscitated the idea of a three-player market for the time being. For long-term sustainability though, will require not only capital infusion, but a sizeable tariff hike for 4G pre-paid customers. In absence of this, the industry can slip towards a duopoly, which would benefit and (RJio).

Emkay Global

Downgrade Bharti Airtel to Hold from Buy with an unchanged target price of Rs 730. This is based on the visibility on Vodafone India's survival for the next four years, imminent tariff hikes providing the cash-flow support for Vodafone Idea to invest in the business, which in turn could restrict subscriber losses and the recent rally in Bhartis stock. That said, our long-term thesis still favors Bharti as we believe Vodafone Idea's survival will be in question once the moratorium ends in FY26-27E. Further, Voda Ideas inability to invest in 5G, home broadband and enterprise businesses will also adversely affect it in the long run. That said, Bharti and Jio may not opt for the moratorium as they have comfortable liquidity position.

Motilal Oswal Securities

The moratorium helps to solve the immediate liquidity woes of Vodafone India, but its ballooning debt and payment after four years will be difficult to address. For Vodafone India, we await further guidelines on debt to equity conversion but the interest component is huge (Rs 500-550 billion) against its current market capitalisation of Rs 390 billion. Hence, the conversion of interest accrued into equity could have a significant impact on the shareholding.

ICICI Securities

In the worst case, we believe this could pave the way for Voda Idea to become majority owned by the government, thus increasing going concern visibility. Tariff hike should happen sooner, as the relief package does not fully address VILs cash-flow requirements. Even for raising funds, tariff hike remains critical. Bharti and do not have much to gain from the relief pack, but improvement in spectrum norms will benefit during 5G spectrum auction.
Abhay Bhutada, managing director of Poonawalla Fincorp Ltd (PFL) has resigned from post after the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) barred him from accessing the securities market for allegedly in shares of PFL.

Vijay Deshwal, Group Chief Executive Officer, will continue to run the operations of the company, PFL said in a statement.

Meanwhile the finance company also moved its chief risk officer (CRO) Girish Poddar to credit monitoring role in the organization and appointed Sharad Pareek as new CRO for a five year term.

Bhutada decided to step down as the Managing Director's post in the broader interest of the Company and its stakeholders, PFL informed BSE. PFL stock closed five per cent lower at 172.15 per share on BSE.

Besides Bhutada, barrsed seven others from accessing the securities market for allegedly in shares of PFL - formerly known as Magma Fincorp. The regulator also impounded ill-gotten gains of Rs 13.6 crore.

The market regulator in its order said Sebis surveillance alert system detected suspicious trading patterns in the shares of Magma Fincorp ahead of the acquisition of a controlling stake by Adar Poonawalla-led Rising Sun Holding (RSHPL) in February 2021.

An analysis done by showed that a group of connected entities had taken long positions in Magma and later squared off their positions, generating substantial profits.

After Magma made a preferential allotment of Rs 3,456 crore to the Poonawalla Group, its scrip hit upper circuit for seven straight trading sessions.
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There was a drop in the number of information requests that the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) made to foreign in 2020-21. Incoming requests from foreign also dropped to their lowest since 2012-13.

seek assistance from their counterparts in a foreign jurisdiction through such requests to help with investigation and enforcement. Such requests are made through a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between regulators. There is also a multilateral memorandum of understanding (MMoU) between members of the global regulatory association, the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO).

During 2020-21, a total of 51 requests were received from overseas regulators seeking Sebis assistance. responded to such requests subject to the provisions of the applicable MoUs/MMoUs. Similarly, 24 requests were made by to its regulatory counterparts in other jurisdictions. Further, received information through 6 unsolicited references from three securities market regulators who are members of the IOSCO, said a note in the annual report released in August.

A lawyer said that requests can cover things like beneficial ownership of companies situated in foreign jurisdictions. There may have been a decline on account of Coronavirus (Covid-19) in the number of such instances, according to him.

"Pandemic has played...(a) role," he said.

The pace of regulatory enforcement has only picked up in recent times, he added, as technology assists regulators in surveillance and other activities.

Sandeep Parekh, founder of Finsec Law Advisors and former executive director, Sebi agreed that a decline in requests for information to foreign regulators could be related to the Covid-19 pandemic. Market cycles can also play a role. Illegal activity also happens during the kind of bull market that has been recently seen, according to him, though complaints tend to only follow when the cycle reverses.

"Fraud comes to light when the go down," he said.

Foreign regulators have made 617 requests since 2011-12, shows Sebi data. The highest number of such requests was 94 in 2013-14. Foreign regulators made an average of over 60 requests a year over the last ten years. Outgoing requests to foreign regulators numbered 190 in the last decade. This works out to an average of around 19 requests a year. The lowest number of requests was 9 in 2018-19. The same number was seen in 2011-12 and 2012-13. The highest was 44 in 2015-16. This years drop comes even as regulatory assistance between securities regulators went up globally in the pandemic year (2020). They rose 8 per cent during the year, shows IOSCO data.

Co-operation between international securities regulators came about after the terror attacks on September 11, 2001. An IOSCO special project team looked at ways to increase cooperation between different regulators. The MMoU came into being in 2002. It sets a framework for the nature of the information which can be shared, the legal capacity to compel and share the same, as well as the permissible use of information.

It also sets out specific requirements regarding the confidentiality of the information exchanged, and ensures that no domestic banking secrecy, blocking laws or regulations will prevent securities regulators from sharing this information with their counterparts in other jurisdictions, according to a note on the IOSCO website.




Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) Chairman on Thursday defended the recent reforms announced by the regulator, such as peak margin norms and shortening of the trade settlement cycle, saying they were in the interest of investors.



The moves were criticised by the broking community and the foreign portfolio investors (FPIs).



Speaking to the media after his inaugural address at the CII Financial Summit, Tyagi said: The new peak margin norms are in everyones interest. An investors margins should not be used for others or for proprietary trading by brokers. Given the increase in retail participation, higher margin norms will give us the peace of mind and assurance that nothing will go wrong.From September 1, has barred brokerage from giving any additional intraday leverages for both equity and derivatives trading. This means investors are required to provide for minimum margins  VAR+ELM for stocks and SPAN+Exposure for derivatives, even for intraday trading.On the issue of a bubble in the equity market, the chief said there are some possible headwinds. How excess liquidity in the system would be managed by the central banks, including the timing and pace of unwinding. The level of inflation is another factor to watch. Given the uncertainty, it is difficult to predict the inflection point, he said.SPAN stands for standard portfolio analysis of risk, VAR is value at risk, and ELM is extreme loss margin  metrics used to determine the risk to investment for securities.On the T+1 settlement cycle, Tyagi said: The transition from T+3 to T+2 took place in 2003. There is a need to reduce it further now as there has been significant reforms in the payments and banking system. Investors have the right to receive what they purchase as quickly as possible.On September 7, issued a circular introducing an optional T+1 settlement cycle for the domestic from January 1, 2022. The regulator has directed stock exchanges to decide whether they want to opt for the shorter cycle for any of the listed scrips.Tyagi said Sebis is moving towards a shorter settlement cycle in a phased manner because of concerns and challenges highlighted by FPIs.FPIs have been opposed to the move citing several operational challenges such as time zone difference, cumbersome information flow process and foreign exchange related issues. Brushing aside some of these concerns, Tyagi pointed out that FPIs have been investing in the derivatives market since 1999, where upfront payments are required. Also, they invest in the IPO market where money is blocked for seven days. Even the US clearing corporation has floated a discussion paper to move towards T+1 settlement. It is something that is desirable to everyone, he said, adding that FPIs need to introspect.The Sebi chief said domestic investors account for 95 per cent of the volumes on one of the exchanges (BSE) at present. When asked whether different exchanges opting for different settlement cycles will fragment liquidity, Tyagi said: this wont impact liquidity. Taking into account overall liquidity and costs, investors will take a call where to trade. On the requirement of separation of chairman and managing director post for listed companies Tyagi said one can understand the argument that it should not be made mandatory but suggest that both can be related is unfair I want to ask if they are related then what is the relevance of separating them, he said.On Sebis recent crackdown against insider traders, Tyagi said the regulator is effectively dealing with the problem. However, he refused to share details on the technology it uses, as that could lead to people gaming the system, he added.In the recent past, the regulator has passed orders for breach of insider trading norms in companies such as Poonawalla Fincorp, Infosys, and Zee by making use of sophisticated technological tools.On foreign listings, Tyagi said the government has to decide on the issue. Commending the recent instances of shareholder activism, he said it is good for everyone, especially minority shareholders.
Shares of Vodafone Idea (VIL) were locked at the 15 per cent upper circuit at Rs 10.25 on the BSE in early trades on Thursday after the Union Cabinet on Wednesday announced key telecom reforms, including moratorium of telecom dues both adjusted gross revenue (AGR) and Spectrum for 4 years. As of 09:35 am; a combined 106 million shares changed hands at the counter and there were pending buy orders for 96 million shares on the NSE and BSE. The stock of telecom services provider trades in the futures & option (F&O) segment, which has no circuit limits. With todays gain, the stock has zoomed 72 per cent in past 10 trading days on the BSE. According to analysts, the move translates into a relief in the companys cash outflow by over Rs 65,000 crore. However, with VIL losing market share month-on-month, will it be able to use the improved cash flows to upgrade its network (from 2G to 4G) and get back on track? To be sure, it has got much more than what it had asked from the government another two-year moratorium only on spectrum payments, the Business Standard reported. CLICK HERE TO READ FULL REPORT ICICI Securities believe, the spectrum moratorium is likely to provide annual cash flows relief of around Rs 24,000 crore and Rs 12,000 crore for VIL and Airtel, respectively for next 4-year period, effectively ensuring VIL survival hopes. Similarly, the other measures, being prospective, will improve the overall health of sector. We note that while cash flow relief improves the investment ability of Airtel to an extent, VIL would need some fund raise (~Rs 6000 crore of NCD is due for repayment in few months and Rs 13,000 crore of guarantee renewal along with need to step up capex).

We also believe that given the relief, any major tariff hike could be postponed. Airtel, therefore, remains poised to be key beneficiary (alongwith Jio), with VIL ability of invest remaining restricted, the brokerage firm said in a note. The government announced a relief package for the telecom sector, providing a near term liquidity solution, particularly helpful to VIL, and addressed multiple long term issues of the sector. These measures show a strong intent of the government to address the near term liquidity of VIL. But a tariff hike is a must and VIL investment the business is a key monitorable, Motilal Oswal Securities said. Meanwhile, Bharti Airtel has slipped into red after registering a fresh high at Rs 743.90 at the opening bell. The stock is now down 0.2 per cent at Rs 724, with a volume of around 26 lakh shares on the BSE.
The Australian share market finished session higher on Thursday, 16 September 2021, as market sentiments lifted up on easing restrictions for vaccinated citizens in the country's largest state New South Wales. Total 9 of 11 sectors inclined along with the S&P/ASX 200 Index, led by energy, realty, materials, financials, and technology stocks.

At closing bell, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 advanced 43.18 points, or 0.58%, to 7,460.21. The broader All Ordinaries added 36.57 points, or 0.47%, to 7,759.78.

The top performing stocks in this index were CHALICE MINING and AUB GROUP , up 6.37% and 5.17% respectively.

The bottom performing stocks in this index were REDBUBBLE and WASHINGTON H SOUL PATTINSON, down 6.9% and 5.3% respectively.

The New South Wales government eased restrictions in the country's largest state for vaccinated citizens, ending a night curfew in Sydney, while officials said some curbs on travel and outdoor exercise in Melbourne would be eased when the state of Victoria hits 70% first-dose coverage targets on Friday.

ECONOMIC NEWS: Australia Employment Falls Sharply In August- Australian employment dropped by 146,300 in August, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said on Thursday, following the addition of 2,200 jobs in July. 68,000 full-time jobs were lost last month, while 78,200 part-time jobs were lost. The unemployment rate fell to a seasonally adjusted 4.5%, down from 4.6% in the previous month. The participation rate slipped to 65.2%, down from 66% a month earlier.

CURRENCY NEWS: The Australian dollar changed hands at $0.7321, still off levels above $0.735 that were seen earlier this week.

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The state-run corporation has commissioned a 25 MW (mega-watt) floating special purpose vehicle (SPV) project covering an area of 100 acres in NTPC Simhadri, Andhra Pradesh, to save land resource and conserve water by reducing evaporation.

The floating solar photo-voltaic (PV) plant will also have a higher yield as compared to conventional ground-mounted projects due to the cooling effect. Bharat Heavy Electricals (BHEL) has designed an floating array to meet the unique requirement of anchoring the support structures without touching or loading, either the reservoir floor or the bund structure.

This module array has been designed - for the first time in India - to withstand gusts of wind up to 180 km/hr. In view of the coastal location of the project site that leads to severe corrosion, all the platform structures and other equipment have been made corrosion resistant.

BHEL's scope of work in the project included design, engineering, procurement and construction of the solar project and has been executed by its recently formed Solar Business division. Its portfolio of floating SPV projects is the largest in the country with more than 45 MW projects commissioned and around 107 MW under execution.

On a consolidated basis, BHEL reported net loss of Rs 448.20 crore in Q1 FY22, lower than net loss of Rs 893.14 crore in Q1 FY21. Net sales rose 43.6% to Rs 2,723.82 crore in Q1 FY22 over Q1 FY21.

State-run BHEL is engaged in design, engineering, construction, testing, commissioning and servicing of a wide range of products and services to the core sectors of economy.

Shares of Bharat Heavy Electricals (BHEL) rose 0.95% to Rs 58.45 on BSE. As of 30 June 2021, the Government of India held 63.17% stake in the company.

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The construction company said it will receive Rs 357.79 crore plus accrued interest.

Shares of Man Infraconstruction were up 0.77% at Rs 85.35.

The Maharashtra state government had signed a contract with Manaj Tollway in 2013, which the latter opted out of in 2015 and invoked arbitration. On 12 December 2019, Bombay High Court (HC) passed an order finalising the consent terms. As only Rs 1 crore was paid, Manaj moved a contempt petition for non-compliance of the order. On 30 January 2020, the state deposited Rs 357 crore in HC. In March this year, the HC had rejected the government's review petition against Manaj and upheld the consent terms signed December 2019.

"The Supreme Court of India has dismissed the Special Leave Petition (SLP) filed by the Government of Maharashtra in the said matter and accordingly High Court at Bombay has, vide its order dated 14 September 2021, ordered and directed the Prothonotary and Senior Master, High Court, Bombay to forthwith release the amount deposited with it by the Government of Maharashtra to the tune of Rs. 357.79 crore plus accrued interest," the company said in a statement on 16 September 2021.

Meanwhile, Man Infraconstruction on Wednesday (15 September) announced that Man Infra Contracts LLP was appointed as a developer by Juhu Sai Darshan Co-operative Housing Society in Juhu, Mumbai to undertake redevelopment work.

Man Infraconstruction holds 70% partnership interest in Man Infra Contracts LLP. The company said it expects to generate total revenue of more than Rs 250 crores from the said project.

On a consolidated basis, net profit of Man Infraconstruction rose 1327.39% to Rs 32.83 crore on 571.20% spurt in net sales to Rs 153.37 crore in Q1 June 2021 over Q1 June 2020.

Man Infraconstruction undertakes various infrastructure projects like port infrastructure, residential constructions, commercial & institutional constructions, industrial constructions and road constructions.

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Amid a bout of volatility, key equity indices traded with small gains in morning trade. The Nifty traded above 17,550 level after briefly slipping below that mark. Banks and financial stocks rose while IT and media shares corrected.

At 10:30 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was up 172.23 points or 0.29% at 58,895.87. The Nifty 50 index gained 36.65 points or 0.21% to 17,556.90.

The Sensex hit record high of 58,908.18 while the Nifty scaled record high of 17,576.90 in early trade.

In broader market, the S&P BSE Mid-Cap index was up 0.46% while the S&P BSE Small-Cap index was rose 0.18%.

The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, was positive. On the BSE, 1699 shares rose and 1213 shares fell. A total of 141 shares were unchanged.

Economy:

A two-day meeting of Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council will begin today in Lucknow. The meeting will be the maiden physical meet of the GST council following the outbreak of the COVID pandemic.

Meanwhile, Finance Ministry has said that Air India received financial bids for its disinvestment process. In a tweet, Secretary, Department of Investment and Public Asset Management Tuhin Kanta Pandey said, financial bids for Air India disinvestment received by Transaction Adviser.

He said, the process now moves to concluding stage.

COVID-19 Update:

Total COVID-19 confirmed cases worldwide stood at 226,353,280 with 4,659,398 deaths. India reported 342,923 active cases of COVID-19 infection and 443,928 deaths according to the data from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India.

Buzzing Segment:

Shares of telecom operators saw demand after the Union Cabinet unveiled a relief package, which includes a slew of measures comprising nine structural reforms and five process reforms.

Vodafone Idea (up 12.21%), Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (up 1.57%), Reliance Industries (up 0.22%) and Bharti Airtel (up 0.21%) were top gainers in telecom space.

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday announced nine structural reforms and five procedural reforms for the telecom sector, including a fixed calendar for spectrum auctions with an extended tenure of 30 years for future spectrum allocations, and a mechanism to surrender and share spectrum.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) in the sector has also been allowed up to 100% under the automatic route, from the existing limit of 49%. The cabinet decided to bring know-your-customer (KYC) reforms, allowing an app-based self-KYC and bringing down the e-KYC rate to Re 1.

Further, the cabinet approved a redefinition of the much-litigated concept of adjusted gross revenue (AGR) to exclude non-telecom revenue and a four-year moratorium on players' dues to the government. The cabinet also provided an option to the telecom service providers (TSPs) to pay the interest amount arising due to the moratorium of payment through equity.

Stocks in Spotlight:

Shares of H. G. Infra Engineering gained 2.78% to Rs 655.15 after the EPC company received Letter of Award (LOA) from National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) for construction of two four lane access controlled new Greenfield Highway in the state of Telangana. Both the projects are under Inter Corridor Route under Bharatmala Pariyojana, on Hybrid Annuity Mode (HAM) in the state of Telangana with a completion period of 730 days.

Finolex Industries rose 1.14% to Rs 194.95 after the company said it plans to sell a 70-acre land in Pune for Rs 725 crore. The proposal is subject to necessary due diligence, approvals, consents, permissions from the concerned authorities including MIDC.

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Srei Infrastructure Finance announced that Rakesh Kumar Bhutoria, the chief executive officer (CEO) of the company, has stepped down from his position with effect from (i.e., w.e.f) Wednesday, 15 September 2021.

As per the company's exchange filing, Mr Rakesh Kumar Bhutoria will explore alternative sectors post departure. Srei Infrastructure Finance further added that Mr Bhutoria is stepping down from his position as a consequence of salary payment issues arising out of the Trust and Retention Account (TRA) operationalized by the bankers.

TRA mechanism is a method of financing of infrastructure projects. It seeks to protect the project lenders against the credit risk (the risk of debt service default) by insulating the cash flows of the project company.

On a consolidated basis, Srei Infrastructure Finance reported a net loss of Rs 971.05 crore in Q1 June 2021 as compared to a net profit of Rs 23.01 crore in Q1 June 2020. Net sales dropped 35.4% to Rs 793.34 crore in Q1 FY22 over Rs 1,228.88 crore in Q1 FY21.

The scrip was locked locked in an upper-circuit of 5% at Rs 9.21 on BSE. Srei Infrastructure Finance has a presence majorly in the financing of the infrastructure sector and construction and mining equipment (CME), besides the financing of IT, medical and farm equipment and loans against property (LAP).

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Sunteck Realty rose 1.57% to Rs 433.40 after the real estate firm planned to develop a 50-acre land parcel in Shahad, Kalyan (Maharashtra).

The company would develop a luxury integrated residential township in this location, under the asset light Joint Development Agreement (JDA) model with Amar Dye Chem. This acquisition would help Sunteck Realty establish its presence in the Eastern suburbs of Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR). The project is expected to generate a top line of around Rs 9,000 crore over the next 7-8 years, strengthening the cash flow and the balance sheet of the company. This will be the fourth acquisition by the realty firm since the beginning of COVID-19 pandemic.

Before the Shahad (Kalyan) project, Sunteck Realty has done three project acquisitions at Vasai, Vasind and Borivali (Mumbai, Maharashtra) totaling 8 million sq. ft. and will add another 10 million sq ft - thus, adding in total 18 million sq ft to Sunteck Realty's portfolio.

On a consolidated basis, Sunteck Realty reported a net profit of Rs 3.03 crore in Q1 June 2021 as compared to a net loss of Rs 3.08 crore in Q1 June 2020. Net sales jumped 68.7% to Rs 92.74 crore in Q1 FY22 over Rs 54.97 crore in Q1 FY21.

Sunteck Realty (SRL) is one of the fastest growing Mumbai-based luxury real estate development companies. SRL focuses on a city centric development portfolio of about 40 million square feet spread across 28 projects.

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Vodafone Idea surged 10.64% at Rs 9.88 after the government approved several measures to extend a lifeline to the cash-strapped telecom sector.

Shares of Vodafone Idea rose 2.76% to settle at Rs 8.93 in the previous session. The stock has surged 13.69% in two sessions.

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday announced nine structural reforms and five procedural reforms for the telecom sector, including a fixed calendar for spectrum auctions with an extended tenure of 30 years for future spectrum allocations, and a mechanism to surrender and share spectrum.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) in the sector has also been allowed up to 100% under the automatic route, from the existing limit of 49%. The cabinet decided to bring know-your-customer (KYC) reforms, allowing an app-based self-KYC and bringing down the e-KYC rate to Re 1.

Further, the cabinet approved a redefinition of the much-litigated concept of adjusted gross revenue (AGR) to exclude non-telecom revenue and a four-year moratorium on players' dues to the government. The cabinet also provided an option to the telecom service providers (TSPs) to pay the interest amount arising due to the moratorium of payment through equity.

The earlier definition of AGR, upheld by the Supreme Court in 2019, had made telcos liable to pay Rs 1.6 lakh crore. The change in definition that will reduce the burden on telcos, applies only prospectively, so those past dues remain payable. Interest on those dues will now be compounded annually instead of monthly and the interest would be charged at a 'reasonable' rate of marginal cost of funds-based lending rate (MCLR) plus 2%.

Ratings agency ICRA has assessed that the moratorium on AGR dues provides annual cash flow respite of around Rs 14,000 crore for the industry, while the moratorium on spectrum dues gives another Rs 32,000 crore of annual cash flow relief for the industry as a whole.

Following the cabinet announcement, Kumar Mangalam Bina, chairman, Aditya Birla Group said, "The pathbreaking reforms announced by the government today will go a long way in unshackling the telecom sector. These reforms demonstrate the government's firm commitment to ensuring healthy growth of the industry. The measures also reflect the decisiveness of the Prime Minister, the Telecom Minister, and the government to address long-standing issues. These reforms will bring alive the digital aspirations of 1.3 billion people and accelerate lndia's journey to be a digitally powered economy as envisaged by our Honorable Prime Minister."

Nick Read, CEO, Vodafone Group said: We commend the resolve shown by the Government of India, under PM Modi's leadership, to find a comprehensive solution that would support a competitive and sustainable telecom sector n India.

Vodafone Idea's total gross debt (excluding lease liabilities and including interest accrued but not due) as of 30 June 2021 stood at Rs 1,91,590 crore, comprising of deferred spectrum payment obligations of Rs 1,06,010 crore and AGR liability of Rs 62,180 crore that are due to the government and debt from banks and financial institutions of Rs 23,400 crore. Cash & cash equivalents were Rs 920 crore and net debt stood at Rs 1,90,670 crore.

Vodafone Idea reported a consolidated net loss of Rs 7,319.1 crore in Q1 FY22 as against a net loss of Rs 25,460 crore in Q1 FY21. Gross revenue declined by 14.1% to Rs 9,152.3 crore in Q1 FY22 as against Rs 10,659.30 crore in Q1 FY21.

Meanwhile, telecom sector major Bharti Airtel was down 0.20% to Rs 724.10. It surged 4.53% on Wednesday.

In a regulatory statement, Bharti Airtel said it welcomed the path breaking policy directions and interventions announced by the Government of India to support the telecom industry that has been battered by unprecedented stress, high debt and low return on investments.

The reform package heralds a new dawn for the Indian telecom industry and will catalyse explosive growth of this vital sector. More importantly, it paves the way for a sustainable three private plus one state owned telecom operator structure to serve alarge market like India, it added.

Gopal Vittal, MD & CEO (India and South Asia), Bharti Airtel said: For over two and a half decades, Bharti Airtel has pioneered India's telecom revolution. These fresh reforms will further boost our efforts to invest in this exciting digital future and enable us to be one of the leading players in India's digital economy. More needs to be done, however, towards a sustainable tariff regime to ensure the industry gets a fair return. This will in turn allow it continue investing in new technologies and innovation to bring world-class services to customers."

Bharti Airtel's Net Debt-EBITDA ratio (annualized) and including the impact of leases as on 30 June 2021 was at 3.03 times as compared to 3.02 times as on 30 June 2020. Excluding pending AGR dues, the Net Debt-EBITDA ratio (annualized) is at 2.55 times as on 30 June 2021.

Bharti Airtel reported a consolidated net profit of Rs 284 crore in Q1 FY22 as against a net loss of Rs 15,933 crore in Q1 FY21. Total revenues increased by 15.3% YoY to Rs 26,854 in the first quarter.

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Wipro said that it has secured a multi-year contract from Kuala Lumpur- headquartered Maxis Broadband, a leading converged solutions provider.

As part of this strategic partnership, Wipro will provide several aspects of IT managed services for hybrid infrastructure and application maintenance.

In addition, the IT major will enable new ways of working for application development and testing services and provide state of the art cybersecurity services for Maxis.

Wipro will support Maxis by leveraging its global service delivery model, telecommunications domain expertise, and Wipro Holmes, its Augmented Intelligence and hyper-automation platform.

This will further modernize, automate, simplify and standardize part of Maxis' global IT managed services and testing functions, and consolidate many of their current vendors across non-core application support and development, infrastructure maintenance, cyber security, and new ways of working.

Bhavya Kapoor, managing director - Southeast Asia, Wipro, said, We are delighted to be selected as a strategic partner by Maxis, and look forward to supporting them in their IT transformation journey. Our strong capabilities, backed by extensive global experience in working with some of the biggest telecommunication providers in the world, will enable us to deliver this transformational engagement.

This partnership endorses the value we bring to the industry and bears testimony to our growing footprint in Malaysia, which is a strategic market for Wipro in Southeast Asia.

Southeast Asia is one of the 6 focus regions that comprise Wipro's APMEA (Asia Pacific-Middle East - Africa) Strategic Market Unit. Wipro has been present in Southeast Asia for over a decade, and works with customers across the telecom, manufacturing, energy, natural resources, utilities, financial services, and retail industry verticals.

Wipro is a global information technology, consulting and business process services company.

The IT firm reported a 9.20% rise in consolidated net profit to Rs 3,248 crore in Q1 FY22 as against Rs 2,974.30 crore in Q4 March 2021 Q4 FY21.

The scrip shed 0.33% to currently trade at Rs 671.85 on the BSE.

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The on Thursday cited a recent media report to allege "criminal culpability" of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, former Health Minister Harsh Vardhan and senior officials of the in fudging COVID-19 data "to build a false narrative that everything was normal" ahead of the second wave, and demanded a judicial inquiry against them.

Citing the New York Times report which quoted former scientists of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) to claim political interference in giving out data on COVID-19 and related deaths, senior spokesperson of the Ajay Maken said this is a very serious issue and should be probed by a sitting judge of the Supreme Court or a high court.

The government has rejected the media report with Niti Aayog member (health) V K Paul describing it as "out of context report that is not desirable".

chief Balram Bhargava said, "This is a provocative, attention seeking article published at a time when India is doing good and our vaccination is excellent and it is diverting attention. All the issues raised are dead ones and probably do not merit any attention."



At a press conference, Maken said former scientists have themselves come out openly now and said that because of political interference, the data was fudged and a false narrative was built that everything is normal.

"We are demanding that a criminal investigation be carried out against the prime minister, against the former health minister and against senior officials of ICMR," he told reporters.

The leader said this is a very serious issue that the scientists have raised and noted that the party has said earlier too that an inquiry is best conducted when it is a judicial inquiry conducted by a sitting judge of the Supreme Court or a high court under the supervision of the court.

"That is the best form of any investigation. There should be a criminal investigation under court supervision by a sitting judge as this is not a small matter," he said.

"We feel that it was because of this reason that the guard was lowered and the state governments were unprepared and so was the general public, because of which there were large number of avoidable deaths during the second wave of that caused so much devastation," he said.

"We could have saved so many lives had the false narrative not started and hence it requires a criminal investigation," he said.

The Congress party will hit the streets on the issue as well as raise it in Parliament in the coming days, Maken said.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In a major overhaul ahead of next year's Assembly elections, the on Thursday inducted 24 ministers, including 21 who have become ministers for the first time, into the Bhupendra Patel-led ministry.

With the fresh inductions, which include two women, the strength of the ministry led by Patel, a first-term MLA and minister, has gone up to 25.

No minister from the earlier Vijay Rupani-led ministry was inducted.

Governor Acharya Devvrat administered the oath to 10 cabinet ministers and 14 ministers of state, including five ministers of state with independent charge.

Political observers say the expects to make an impact ahead of the 2022 Assembly polls with this new-look ministry. The party expects to go into the elections with a clean slate, they added.

Those sworn in at the 1.30 pm Raj Bhavan ceremony include former Assembly Speaker Rajendra Trivedi and former state president Jitu Vaghani.

The ministry formation exercise shows that the party has tried to balance caste and regional representation.

After picking Patel, a Patidar community leader as the CM, the BJP has given berth to six Patidars and OBCs each, four from scheduled tribes, three from scheduled castes, two each from among Brahmins and Kshatriyas and one member from the Jain community.

Like the CM, who is considered close to Uttar Pradesh Governor Anandiben Patel, the new cabinet minister Rishikesh Patel and minister of state with independent charge Jagdish Panchal, are also considered close to the former CM.

Cabinet ministers Rajendra Trivedi and Kiritsinh Rana are old-timers and considered close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while minister of state Harsh Sanghvi is known to be close to state BJP president C R Paatil.

Bhupendra Patel (59), who was sworn in as the 17th chief minister of the state on Monday, was present at the Raj Bhavan ceremony, along with Rupani, whose sudden resignation from the post on Saturday led to the formation of the new ministry.

Rajendra Trivedi, Jitu Vaghani, Rushikesh Patel, Purnesh Modi, Raghavji Patel, Kanubhai Desai, Kiritsinh Rana, Naresh Patel, Pradip Parmar and Arjunsinh Chauhan were sworn in as cabinet ministers.

Trivedi, Rana and Raghavji Patel have been ministers earlier.

Harsh Sanghvi, Jagdish Panchal, Brijesh Merja, Jitu Choudhary and Manisha Vakil took the oath as ministers of state with independent charge.

The nine other ministers of state are Mukesh Patel, Nimisha Suthar, Arvind Raiyani, Kuber Dindor, Kirtisinh Vaghela, Gajendrasinh Parmar, R C Makwana, Vinod Moradia and Deva Malam.

Ahead of the swearing-in, there were speculations that senior ministers in the Rupani ministry, like former deputy CM Nitin Patel, Bhupendrasinh Chudasama, Kaushik Patel, Pradeepsinh Jadeja, and R C Faldu may not be included.

The BJP took the no-repeat formula a step further by not inducting any member of the Rupani ministry.

Bhupendra Patel's elevation - he is the first from the Patidar sub-group to be a chief minister - is key to BJP's plans to woo the Kadva Patidar community, which some political observers feel, has drifted away from the party.

Making him the CM is being seen as an attempt by the BJP to woo the Patidars ahead of the 2022 polls and retain the grip on Gujarat, which is under its rule for over two decades.

Before Bhupendra Patel, saw Anandiben Patel, Keshubhai Patel, Babubhai Patel and Chimanbhai Patel as chief ministers from the Patidar or Patel community.

There was jubilation among supporters of the new ministers as they took the oath. They shouted slogans when their leaders rose to take the oath.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Expecting a berth in Bhupendra Patel's new cabinet, the Gujarat state Assembly speaker Rajendra Trivedi on Thursday tendered his resignation.

The Gujarat state Assembly secretary D.M. Patel informed about this development and declared the seat of the speaker as vacant.

Trivedi, a legislator from Vadodara, who held the position of speaker in the Gujarat state Assembly, is expected to be included in the cabinet to be formed under the newly appointed Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel.

It is believed that the Kutch legislator Nimaben Acharya will be temporarily holding the charge of the speaker. Acharya also received a call from the BJP top brass intimating her about her inclusion in the new cabinet, said sources.

According to the sources in the BJP, around 25 legislators, all new faces have been given telephonic calls about their inclusion in the new cabinet. From the sources available, two women legislators will be included in the cabinet.

Sources also said that seven faces from the Saurashtra region will be given a chance, six from South Gujarat, three from Ahmedabad, three new faces will be from North Gujarat and five from Central Gujarat.

As per sources, eight legislators from the Patidar community and six MLAs will be representing the OBC community, two each will be from the Kshatriya community and the Scheduled Caste (SC) community.

There will be three representatives from the Schedule Tribe (ST) and one will be from the Jain community, said sources.

--IANS

amc/dpb

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Nan Ya Printed Circuit Board Corp. is hardly a household name in the tech industry. But the obscure Taiwanese company makes an essential component for chipmaking that has become the latest bottleneck for automakers and electronics companies suffering from shortages.



The component goes by the unwieldy name of Ajinomoto build-up film (ABF) substrate and its one of the least glamorous niches in the chips industry. Its part of the packaging that protects the handful of chips needed to power your computer or car and allows communication among them.

Many of the worlds most advanced semiconductors cant run without the substrates. So while giants like Corp. and Manufacturing Co. spend hundreds of billions trying to alleviate chip shortages, the lack of that single component could hinder production for years. Supplies are likely to remain constrained until at least 2025 due to limited capacity, according to people familiar with the matter.

Top executives from Intel, Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. have all warned about shortages in recent months. Broadcom Corp. recently told customers the lead time for its main router chips is going up from 63 weeks to 70 weeks due to a lack of substrates, according to one person, who asked not to be named as the information is not public.

The crunch shows how vulnerable global supply chains remain to disruptions almost two years into the Covid-19 pandemic. Companies and investors have almost no visibility into where the next shock could come from.

This crisis caught a number players off guard, said Peter Hanbury, a partner at Bain & Co. As demand for PCs, gaming cards and cloud services increased with Covid-19 and working from home, this critical component suddenly became a real bottleneck for many players such as AMD and 

The squeeze is turning low-profile companies like Nan Ya into stock market stars. Its shares have soared 1,219% in the past three years through Wednesday, and analysts project more to come. ABF substrate makers such as Unimicron Technology Corp., Kinsus Interconnect Technology Corp., and Ibiden Co. have all seen their stocks climb too.

Profits at these companies are expected to keep soaring for years to come as shipment quantities skyrocket, said Hideki Yasuda, an analyst at Ace Research Institute.

Nan Ya rose as much as 3.2% Thursday, while Unimicron gained 3.9% and Kinsus added 2.7%.





ABF substrate is a relatively new component, pioneered by in the late 1990s as it developed more powerful microprocessors. It takes its name from Ajinomoto Co., a Japanese company that produces the substrates film-like insulation. The material was first adopted as the preferred packaging technology for central processing units in personal computers and servers because it facilitates speedy computations by high-end chips.

Sales of ABF substrates surged in the early 2000s with the internet boom, then took a hit as began replacing PCs in the late 2000s. Substrate makers fortunes started to recover around 2018 as countries began to roll out fifth-generation wireless services, which led companies like Broadcom that make networking chips to adopt the material for use in routers, base stations and related applications. The advent of 5G also boosted demand for more powerful server chips to handle cloud computing, artificial intelligence and smart-driving technologies. The cost of ABF substrate, usually quoted per chip, starts at about 50 cents a chip and tops $20 for premium server CPUs.

Major semiconductors companies like Intel, AMD and now all depend on ABF substrates to produce the most powerful chips in the world. But substrate makers have been reluctant to invest aggressively in capacity because of money-losing slumps in the past. Supply is expected to rise at a compound annual growth rate of 16% through 2024, while demand is estimated to climb 18% to 19%, Citigroup Inc. analysts Grant Chi and Takayuki Naito forecast in early July.

Owen Cheng, an analyst at President Capital Management Corp., wrote in a note this month that the gap between demand and supply will rise as much as 33% next year compared to this year because of growth in technologies like high-performance computing and artificial intelligence. That will probably benefit the likes of Nan Ya and Unimicron.

Nan Ya could raise its ABF substrates price by 35% in 2022, Cheng wrote.





The ABF situation adds to a series of bottlenecks in the chip industry that have hampered the global recovery from Covid-19, hitting even giants like Toyota Motor Corp. and Apple Inc. Companies around the world are struggling to produce enough to meet demand.

warned in July that revenue in its client computing group will decline sequentially due to constraints from substrates and other components. Broadcom, which sells to companies like Apple and Cisco Systems Inc., declined to comment on its wait times.

Some customers are taking matters into their own hands. AMD Chief Executive Officer Lisa Su told analysts in April that the chipmaker would put its own money into increasing capacity at suppliers.

On the substrate side, in particular, I think there has been under-investment in the industry, she said. And so weve taken the opportunity to invest in some substrate capacity dedicated to AMD, and that will be something that we continue to do going forward.

Auto chip suppliers will use more ABF substrates as vehicles grow increasingly electrified and digitized. They are, however, struggling to get top priority among substrate makers because they lack the bargaining power of major companies like Intel, people familiar with the situation said. That could mean more direct investment in substrate producers or the entry of new ABF substrate players.

Going forward, I expect well see more players change their approach to this segment with a more careful plan to monitor capacity and more efforts to reserve capacity in advance, said Hanbury of Bain.

Nan Ya is stepping up investment. The company is spending at least NT$8 billion ($289 million) in capital expenditure this year and even more in 2022. The company will boost ABF substrate production capacity 40% from its 2020 level by 2023, according to company spokesman Jack Lu. Even that wont be enough for customers.

Demand will continue to outpace supply until 2023, Lu said.

Unimicron said in July that most of the companys ABF substrate capacity has been allocated to various customers up until 2025.

The tightness is pushing up profits throughout the industry. Nan Ya is projected to see operating profit almost triple this year as revenue rises 33%, according to analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Citigroup analysts Chi and Naito raised their price targets for all the major ABF substrate makers, including Unimicron, Nan Ya, Kinsus and Ibiden.

Cheng of President Capital Management recently bumped his price target for Nan Ya to NT$570. Thats 27% higher than its current price.

--With assistance from Vlad Savov and Ian King.
Snapping their sideways movement amid encouraging economic data and ebbed Covid-19 cases, benchmark indices clinched new record peaks on Wednesday.

The frontline S&P BSE Sensex claimed an all-time high of 58,777 in the intra-day deals, before closing 476 points higher at 58,723.

Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty index settled above 17,500 for the first time at 17,519, up 139 points. It had scaled a fresh high of 17,533 earlier in trade.

Now, going into trade on Thursday, the spotlight would, largely, be on financials and telecom stocks after the government announced relief measures for telecom service providers.

According to Dr. V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services, the measures announced for the telecom industry are sweeping with far-reaching impact.

He further says, the four-year moratorium on dues of the telecom sector is positive for banks, too, since their exposure too will decline significantly.

Rahul Sharma, co-Founder of Equity99, too, expects banks to perform well in the coming session as the relief measures for telcos, announced during the fag-end of the session, resulted in big white candles on hourly charts, highlighting bullish sentiment.

That said, weekly F&O expiry and US retail sales data, due later today, may keep secondary mildly volatile.

On the other hand, the primary market may see increased investor activity as today is the last day to apply for the Sansera Engineering IPO.

The public offer of the auto component maker sailed through on the second day of the issue, backed by retail investors.
Whats new: China formally applied to join a multilateral trans-Pacific trade pact as the U.S. resumes engagement in the region.

Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao officially handed a letter Thursday to New Zealands trade minister requesting to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), according to the Ministry of Commerce.

The two ministers held a teleconference and discussed follow-up work on Chinas application, the ministry said.

The background: The CPTPP, formed in 2018, is a free trade agreement among Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, New Zealand, Singapore and Vietnam.

China also lobbied Australia and Malaysia for their support.

The U.S. withdrew from the pact under former President Donald Trump, even though his predecessor Barack Obama conceived it as an economic bloc to counter Beijings growing power.

Chinas application came as the U.S. announced Wednesday a new security partnership with the U.K. and Australia in the Asia-Pacific region, a move seen as a countermove to China. The pact will allow Australia to build nuclear-powered submarines for the first time using American technology.

China condemned the agreement as extremely irresponsible. Chinas embassy in Washington accused the countries of a Cold War mentality and ideological prejudice.

Quick Takes are condensed versions of China-related stories for fast news you can use.

Contact reporter Denise Jia (huijuanjia@caixin.com) and editor Bob Simison (bobsimison@caixin.com)

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Whats new: Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. launched an operating system Tuesday for National Energy Group specifically designed for the coal mining industry to replace the Linux, Unix and Windows operating systems currently in use on mining equipment.

The new operating system, named Kuanghong in Chinese, is based on Huaweis in-house HarmonyOS and is the first customized operating system developed by Huawei for industrial application.

The Kuanghong operating system adds more features, including a unified data protocol, which enables all underground mining equipment to use a single interface to transmit and gather data for analysis. The system is compatible with nearly 400 types of equipment used in coal mines.

This is a major technological revolution of the industry, which will minimize high-risk jobs, prevent workers from encountering disasters, free underground workers from heavy labor, and significantly improve the underground work environment, said Zhou Dechang, deputy director of the National Mine Safety Administration, at a press conference.

The background: The coal mining software is one of the industrial internet projects that Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei has emphasized. In February Huawei opened a new lab in the northern Chinese city of Taiyuan aiming to bringing innovative technology to the mining industry. Ren said Huaweis intelligence systems could help coal mining companies reduce the number of surface workers by 60% and underground miners by 10%20% each shift.

As part of its business response to crippling U.S. sanctions, Huawei developed its own Harmony operating system. The company reported Monday that users of HarmonyOS topped 100 million and that more than 1,000 hardware companies and 1.3 million developers have participated in building up the HarmonyOS ecosystem.

Contact reporter Denise Jia (huijuanjia@caixin.com) and editor Bob Simison (bobsimison@caixin.com)

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The scenic southwestern Chinese province of Yunnan is known for its tourism and rich resources for hydropower. Over the past few years, it has donned a new name  the aluminum valley of China  thanks to the massive relocation of electrolytic aluminum producers attracted by the regions low electricity prices from all that hydropower.

The transition has turned out to be faster than the province was ready for. In mid-September, the provincial government announced that local smelters must cut aluminum production by 30% for the rest of 2021.

Its part of the policy responses to an unusual power shortage that happened in May in the province. The shortage was due in part to the surge in industrial electricity consumption. The squeeze was also felt by the more developed, southern coastal province of Guangdong, which also experienced surging power demands and relies heavily on Yunnan for electricity.

Yunnans attempt to balance its traditional role as electricity supplier with more aspirational positioning as an industrial base illustrates that provinces, though all enthusiastic about Chinas massive decarbonization campaign, have their own agenda. Its a sign that Chinas decarbonization campaign needs more comprehensive planning and coordinated actions.

Power shortage

In May 2021, Yunnan province was caught in a surprise power shortage, despite being a large producer of hydroelectricity.

Water flows out of the Baihetan dam on Sept. 3 during a flood discharge trial. Photo: VCG

Part of the reason was that Yunnan has suffered a more severe dry spell than in previous years. Yunnans energy mix is heavily dependent on the weather. Hydropower accounts for more than 70% of its total installed generation capacity, and the province relies on other power sources such as coal to supplement its energy mix during the dry season, which usually lasts from November to May each year.

Coal power accounts for about 15% of the provinces installed capacity, but the high price of coal in April and May this year, the low coal inventories at Yunnans coal power plants, and the plunge in hydropower output, have exacerbated the electricity shortage.

It was a shortage that was quickly felt across the downstream industrial chain.

Yunnan then implemented electricity controls for major power consuming companies in the province. Electrolytic aluminum producers bore the brunt. According to AZ China Ltd., an energy information platform, Yunnans production capacity for electrolytic aluminum stands at nearly 4 million tons. A total of nearly 1 million tons of capacity was shut down in May, amounting to an average reduction in the electricity supply of 25%.

Chinas aluminum valley

Yunnan has made great strides in increasing its electrolytic aluminum capacity in recent years. In 2020, the province added about 2.6 million tons of electrolytic aluminum production, a year-on-year jump of 72%. That obviously led to a jump in power usage electricity consumption for the nonferrous metal smelting and processing industry in the province increased 38% from the previous year, accounting for a quarter of the provinces total.

And more capacity is expected to come online this year. In 2021, about 1.4 million tons of electrolytic aluminum capacity will be put into operation in Yunnan; in the first four months, Yunnans nonferrous metal smelting and rolling processing industry consumed 62.9% more electricity than the previous year.





Yunnan immediately felt the tension between the available power supply and rapid rise in demand. The provincial government, however, insisted on its Aluminum Valley plan.

The Yunnan Daily reported on May 30 that the province was promoting the implementation of new projects in 2021, including the second batch of 2 million tons of electrolytic aluminum capacity from Weiqiao Pioneering Group, the largest private aluminum company in China, and the interprovincial transfer and capacity replacement of 138,000 tons of electrolytic aluminum capacity of Aluminum Corp. of China, the largest state-owned aluminum enterprise in the country. When these projects are finished, the province will have about 8.46 million tons of aluminum production capacity, the highest of any province in the country.

Clean and more environmentally friendly, hydroelectric aluminum is in fashion in the aluminum industry. For the Yunnan provincial government, increased electrolytic aluminum capacity can help the province upgrade its industries and shift from selling electricity to selling a product  in this case, aluminum.

A worker loads aluminum. Photo: VCG

Yunnan provinces primary policy for attracting electrolytic aluminum enterprises is its compelling preferential electricity price  0.25 yuan (3.9 U.S. cents) per kilowatt-hour (kWh), a price that is 16% to 22% lower than the average in the industry.

Thats an attractive offer, since the cost of electricity accounts for 40% to 50% of an electrolytic aluminum enterprises costs.

In January 2020, to fulfill the promise of an ultra-low electricity price of 0.25 yuan per kWh, the Yunnan government set up a new company called Yunnan Electric Power Distribution and Trade Co. Ltd. The new companys purpose is to intercept a portion of the profits from the sale of electricity on the west-to-east power transmission project, which it then uses to subsidize electricity prices paid by newly commissioned electrolytic aluminum enterprises. The company is a wholly state-owned enterprise under the provincial government, with the provinces economic planning agency and energy administration each holding 50% of the companys shares.

Yunnan is attractive to electrolytic aluminum companies. For one thing, using hydroelectric aluminum is in line with Chinas decarbonization policies and it makes their business development plans more sustainable. For another, Yunnans electricity price concessions are significant, but seats are limited as the provinces hydropower resources arent endless. That creates a ceiling for production capacity. Companies want to come early, before the door closes.

However, an insider of the China Non-Ferrous Metals Industry Association pointed out that Yunnan province also needs to moderate the pace of electrolytic aluminum enterprises production, as a sudden jump of excess production could be accompanied by hidden dangers. This year, Yunnan has been taught a lesson, and in 2022 it should learn from its mistakes, the insider said.





Weather has had a huge impact on Yunnans (power supply), but the province has more and more enterprises with continuous production, thus having continuous demand for electricity. How can Yunnan ensure its supply of power when the dry season comes? This is really a problem that deserves to be thought about and solved by the entire industry, said Zhang Meng, an AZ China analyst.

Electrolytic aluminum production is characterized by a large load, long-term stability, and the need for the basic load of electricity. The development of electrolytic aluminum with the amount of abandoned hydropower itself is not in line with the characteristics of the industry. We have to use thermal power in the dry season, said a source from China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association.

Hungry Guangdong

Yunnan is a critical part of one of Chinas big power infrastructure projects which was designed to ease the countrys imbalance of energy.

The west-to-east electricity transfer project was initiated during the 10th Five-Year Plan for the years 2000 to 2005. The goal was to bring investment and development to Chinas economically lagging West while providing power to the electricity-hungry eastern provinces.

Yunnan and Guangdong are respectively the largest transmitter and largest receiver of electricity supplied by the project. Yunnans sudden shortage of power was felt immediately in Guangdong.

If China is the worlds factory, then Guangdong is Chinas factory. It is home to one of the largest manufacturing industries in the country. In the first five months of 2021, Chinas manufacturing sector was strong, operating at full capacity when other manufacturing countries were still struggling with Covid-19. The high industrial electricity consumption was coupled by equally high demand from residents, due to the provinces warm weather. In May, electricity consumption remained high, while there were widespread power cuts and restrictions in Guangdong.





During the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-2020), 45% of electricity generated in Yunnan was transferred to Guangdong through the west-to-east power transmission project, which accounted for about one-third of Guangdongs power consumption at the time. At present, the two provinces are engaged in a protracted negotiation over the 14th Five-Year Plan framework agreement for the project.

The contest between Yunnan and Guangdong over clean electricity reflects the new situation now that China has targets for peaking its carbon emissions and achieving carbon neutrality. Different provinces now have different agendas. Yunnan, as a resource-rich province, wants to reduce cross-provincial power transfers to boost its own industrial base, while Guangdong province doesnt have enough clean energy to offset the reduced transmission from Yunnan.

Yunnan wants to retain hydropower to develop its own industry, and clean electricity is good for the nations ambitious goals to peak carbon dioxide emissions in 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality in 2060, known as the 30-60 plan, as well as product exports, an industrial analyst explained.

A number of industry insiders said that, based on the current situation, Yunnan will continue to experience tension in its power supply, and the contradiction between industrial transfer and cross-region power transmission will become more and more pronounced.

In the long run, the industrial transfer will continue during the 14th and 15th Five-Year Plan periods, and there is a lot of uncertainty about the balance of electricity consumption in Yunnan, Guizhou and other clean-energy-rich provinces. The most feasible way is to establish a regional electricity market, break the barriers between provinces, and take better advantage of the market ability to allocate resources efficiently, said Feng Yongsheng, an associate researcher at the National Academy of Economic Strategy under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

A senior electricity expert supports energy production centers such as Yunnan in developing their own industrial sectors. In his opinion, capital has voted with its feet as a large number of enterprises are moving closer to energy sources. As the economy in western China is taking off and a wave of load shifting is already taking place, it is time for the west-to-east power transmission project to be adjusted accordingly. As the eastern provinces lack local resources, low-end manufacturing should be reduced.

Meanwhile, in promoting investment in electrolytic aluminum projects, Yunnan also promised to greatly expand its capacity for solar and wind power. Caixin has learned that the province plans to build 3 gigawatts (GW) of new solar power generation capacity and 8 GW of wind power capacity starting this year. However, solar and wind power both share a drawback with hydropower in that all three are intermittent sources of power, while electrolytic aluminum production requires an uninterruptible supply of electricity.

It appears that Yunnan will need to develop some sort of energy storage to keep the power flowing during the dry season. As a leader of Huaneng Lancang River Hydropower Inc. put it: The road is clear: we should develop new energy, use hydropower and energy storage to regulate peaks, and we must improve energy storage in a big way.

Zhao Xuan contributed to this story.

Contact editor Michael Bellart (michaelbellart@caixin.com)

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Here is todays ranking of the 10 most-read news stories in China, in economics, finance and current affairs, to help give you a sense of whats trending in the Chinese language sphere.

Chinese social media users have been paying close attention to the earthquake that struck Sichuan province early Thursday morning. They also continue to follow news about the debt-ridden China Evergrande Group, which denied rumors of bankruptcy.

1. Al-Qaida leader appears in a video amid rumored death

Ayman al-Zawahri appeared in a video released Saturday (external source), which marks the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, amid rumors of his death that have been circulating since late last year, the Associated Press reported.

2. Denmark removes all Covid restrictions

Denmark had lifted all restrictions (external source) to curb the spread of Covid-19 as of Friday, including a rule requiring people to present proof of vaccination to enter nightclubs. The decision was taken after more than 83% of eligible people aged above 12 in Denmark had been fully vaccinated, according to the Danish Health Authority.

3. Uniqlo boss loses crown as the richest person in Japan

Takemitsu Takizaki, founder of electronic-sensor maker Keyence Corp., has beaten out Uniqlo billionaire Tadashi Yanai (external source) to become the richest person in Japan, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Takizaki is worth $38.2 billion after his companys shares almost doubled from last year. Fast Retailings Yanai is now worth $35.6 billion.

4. Evergrande denies bankruptcy rumors

Debt-ridden China Evergrande Group on Monday denied rumors of bankruptcy (external source, in Chinese), saying the company is facing unprecedented difficulties but will firmly carry out its corporate responsibilities. The company offered retail investors in its high-yield wealth management products three repayment options Monday after hundreds of them protested over overdue payments Sunday.

5. Chinas two epidemic prevention mini programs on Alipay combined

Chinas two epidemic control functions on Ant Groups Alipay  a national health code and a travel card that traces where citizens have been within 14 days  have been combined into one (external source, in Chinese) to facilitate Covid-19 inspection at checkpoints, Chinese media reported.

6. Top American military officer had secret talks with Chinese counterpart, new book says

A forthcoming book written by Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa said that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley (external source, in Chinese) made two secret phone calls to his Chinese counterpart in October and January to reassure Beijing that the U.S. would not attack, U.S. media reported.

7. Infertility rate rises to 12%-18%

The infertility rate (external source, in Chinese) among Chinese couples of childbearing age has risen to between 12% and 18%, according to state media.

8. Earthquake strikes Sichuan province

A 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck Lu county in the Sichuan province city of Luzhou early Thursday morning, killing at least three people and injuring 88 others. The city has launched the highest level emergency response (external source, in Chinese).

Photo: VCG

9. Chinas top cyberspace regulator urges online platforms to strengthen account management

New guidelines issued by the Cyberspace Administration of China urge online platforms to strengthen account management (external source, in Chinese) and improve content reviewing mechanisms. The guidelines were issued Wednesday just weeks after the administration ordered a crackdown on online fandom culture.

10. China to blacklist after-school tutoring institutions employees who have illegal practices against students or minors

The Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security have jointly issued guidelines for employees at after-school tutoring institutions (external source, in Chinese). The guidelines say that the authorities will establish a blacklist of employees who have been found engaging in misconduct such as insulting or otherwise maltreating minors.

Translated by reporter Cai Xuejiao and Wang Xintong.

Caixin has not independently verified the veracity or accuracy of all of the headlines or stories.

The daily ranking of most-read news stories among Chinese people, about China and global affairs, is jointly provided to you by Caixin Insight and HANA Data, an artificial intelligence technology team.

The key indicators calculated on the list are based on mass data sourced from Chinas mainstream social media platforms and online news websites. Click here for a detailed introduction of our methodology.
The green power trading pilot kick-off meeting is held in Beijing on Sept. 7. Photo: cpnn

Chinas top coal producers have sworn to buy more green energy through the countrys recently launched trading program, which aims to support the transition away from energy sources which fuel climate change  such as coal.

A total of 12 state-owned coal companies signed the pledge on Tuesday, including China Energy Investment Corp., Jinneng Holding Shanxi Coal Industry, and Shandong Energy Group  the countrys top three coal producers by output in 2021.

The national program, which started operating on Sept. 7, allows electricity generators to sell green power directly to end-users. A spokesperson for Chinas top economic planner previously said the program mainly involves wind and solar power at the moment, and will gradually expand to other renewable energy sources such as hydropower.

Hong Kong-listed CGN New Energy Holdings Co. Ltd. sold the most on the programs first trading day, offloading nearly 2 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) to 20 buyers, including German-Chinese joint chemical venture BASF-YPC Co. Ltd., data center operator GDS Holdings Ltd., multinational chemical firm Linde PLC, and Shell China Ltd.

That day, a total of 259 vendors in 17 provincial-level regions traded 7.9 billion kWh.

The market is likely to operate as a monthly event, said a source inside Beijing Electric Power Trading Center, one of Chinas two power trading exchanges.

Overall, the power traded via the program costs between 0.03 yuan and 0.05 yuan per kWh more than on the countrys similar markets for all electricity.

The idea behind separating green power from the general market is to help offset the high cost of developing the countrys new energy infrastructure, said Lian Weiliang, deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission.

Next year should see between 20 and 30 billion kWh of green power sold on the market, and trading volume could grow to over 100 billion kWh annually after the EU carbon border tax goes into trial in 2023 and is officially launched in 2026, Sinolink Securities Co. Ltd. Chief Analyst Li Rong told Caixin.

The trading program is one of various initiatives to support Chinas plan to peak its carbon dioxide emissions by the end of this decade and to reach net zero by 2060.

Before the launch of the nationwide program, similar markets were trialed in a few regions, including the Jing-Jin-Ji region which includes Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei province.

Besides the big three, the other producers who signed the pledge (link in Chinese) were China National Coal Group Corp., Shanxi Coking Coal Group, Shaanxi Coal and Chemical Industry Group, Shanxi Luan Mining Group, Henan Energy and Chemical Industry Group Co. Ltd., Huabei Mining Holdings Co. Ltd., Huaihe Energy Group Co. Ltd., Inner Mongolia Yitai Group Co. Ltd., and Inner Mongolia Mengtai Group Co. Ltd.

Tang Ziyi contributed to this story.

Contact reporter Manyun Zou (manyunzou@caixin.com) and editor Joshua Dummer (joshuadummer@caixin.com)

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Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi has concluded his six-day trip to neighboring countries in Southeast and East Asia to promote cooperation on issues including the Belt and Road Initiative and manage tensions in the South China Sea, according to statements from the foreign ministry.

The top diplomat met his counterparts and country leaders during the visit to Vietnam, Cambodia, Singapore and South Korea from Friday to Wednesday. His trip was taken a few weeks after U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris weeklong visit to Asia in late August when she accused China of continuing to coerce, to intimidate and to make claims to the vast majority of the South China Sea and undermine the rules-based order and threaten the sovereignty of nations.

Wang addressed issues regarding the South China Sea with Southeast Asian officials during his visit, reaching consensus with Cambodia and Singapore that both countries would support an acceleration of consultations on the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea between China and ASEAN countries, according to the ministry.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi speaks at the 13th Meeting of the China-Vietnam Steering Committee for Bilateral Cooperation in Hanoi, Vietnam, on Sept. 10. Photo: fmprc.gov.cn

And during his talks with Vietnams Standing Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh, Wang noted that the two countries should cherish the hard-won peace and stability in the South China Sea, and place maritime issues in an appropriate position in bilateral relations.

Wang also said China and Vietnam should accelerate connectivity and cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative and the strategy of Two Corridors and One Economic Circle, and strive for greater breakthroughs in bilateral trade volume in 2021.

China and Singapore also agreed to focus on Belt and Road cooperation. The two countries will enhance the functions of the New Land-Sea Corridor  a trade and logistics passage jointly built by Singapore and western Chinese provinces  to make it play a bigger role in promoting regional connectivity, according to a statement issued by the foreign ministry.

China and Singapore also agreed to focus on multilateral cooperation. Both sides should give full play to the in-the-same-boat spirit and discard the zero-sum mentality, the statement said. China is willing to join hands with Singapore to firmly uphold the UN-centered international system and promote multilateralism of win-win cooperation to usher in a new era of common development.

Promoting multilateralism is a theme Wang reiterated during his trip. He noted that China and Vietnam should unequivocally oppose unilateralism during his talks with Vietnams Pham Binh Minh.

He also noted when he met with his South Korean counterpart Chung Eui-yong that both China and South Korea stand for multilateralism and the two countries can cooperate more on global issues.

Commenting on an idea that a U.S. House of Representatives bill is calling for the Biden administration to consider expanding the U.S.-led Five Eyes intelligence alliance to include South Korea, Wang said Wednesday "I think that is utterly a byproduct of the Cold War era. And that is already outdated, according to Yonhap News Agency.

Contact reporter Cai Xuejiao (xuejiaocai@caixin.com) and editor Michael Bellart (michaelbellart@caixin.com)

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In todays Caixin energy news wrap: Chifeng Jilong Gold Mining to invest $1.46 million in MetalsTech; Aluminum prices reach 15-year high in China; China-Africa sea-rail transport service in operation; supplier withdraws $74.5 million of orders with CATL; Tianqi Lithium resumes listing plan in Hong Kong; Chinas coal production rises 0.8% in August.

China to release 7.38 million barrels crude to lower oil prices

China will auction off 7.38 million barrels of crude oil from strategic reserve Sept. 24. The unprecedented move by the worlds top oil importer is an attempt to intervene in the global oil market to push down prices, which rose roughly 40% this year. Besides oil, China faces surging costs for coal and natural gas.

Chifeng Jilong Gold Mining to invest $1.46 million in MetalsTech

Chifeng Jilong Gold Mining signed a strategic investment agreement via a subsidiary with Australian mining services provider MetalsTech Ltd. to invest A$2 million ($1.46 million) in exploration of the Sturec Underground Gold Mine in Slovakia. Its another move by Chifeng to invest overseas. It planned to buy the Bibiani mine in Ghana from Australian gold miner Resolute last year, but the acquisition was canceled when the mining lease was terminated.

Aluminum prices reach 15-year high in China

Chinese aluminum prices climbed more than 50% since the start of this year to a 15-year high of 24,000 yuan ($3,720) per ton. Aluminum is extensively used in lithium-ion batteries, and demand is surging amid a boom in the electric vehicle industry. Production is affected by tightening output limits in China, which reinforced worries about an aluminum shortage. Last week, Chinas southwest Yunnan province, a major aluminum producer, told local smelters to slash output to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

China-Africa sea-rail transport service in operation

China-Africa sea-rail transport service started operation Wednesday. Goods are delivered by freight trains from Central Chinas Hunan province to ports in the Greater Bay Area and then transferred by ship to Africa. The new service shortens logistics time to East Africa by 10 days compared with traditional river-sea transport.

Supplier withdraws $74.5 million of orders with CATL

Jingshi Electromechanical Technology Co. Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of lithium-ion battery material supplier HNAC Technology Co., withdrew 480 million yuan ($74.5 million) of orders with Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. (CATL). Jingshi said it dropped the orders because of a change in project locations and technical conditions and lack of production capacity.

Tianqi Lithium resumes share sale plan in Hong Kong

Leading lithium producer Tianqi Lithium Corp. resumed a three-year-old plan to sell shares in Hong Kong. The company plans to issue stock equal to as much as 20% of its total issued share capital and use the funds to increase capacity, cover operating costs and pay debt. Tianqi Lithium planned to raise as much as $1 billion on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange three years ago but called off the listing because of a lower-than-expected valuation.

NDRC calls for actions to stabilize coal supply

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) urged provincial governments and state-owned enterprises in a recent meeting to secure coal supplies. If necessary, local governments should organize power generation and heating plants to sign additional medium and long-term coal supply contracts.

Chinas coal production rose 0.8% in August

China reported coal production of 340 million tons in August, swinging from a year-on-year drop of 3.3% in July to a 0.8% rise, data from National Bureau of Statistics shows. Coal imports soared 35.8% to 28.05 million tons.

Jilin Power to buy part of State Power unit

Jilin Power Share Co. Ltd. (000875.SH) plans to acquire some of the clean energy business of China Power International Development Ltd., a Hong Kong-traded subsidiary of State Power Investment Corp. Ltd., one of Chinas Big Five state-owned power generators. Jilin Power intends to issue new shares to China Power, which will become its controlling shareholder under the plan.

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DNEG, which is headquartered in London, is not the first British company to make this shift. At the start of this month, 1.5x overtime pay came into effect at Bournemouth-based Outpost VFX. But DNEG is a giant of the industry, with close to 700 U.K. employees (and vacancies for 200 more artists), and its decision carries proportional weight.

Chris Burn, DNEGs general manager in London, told Screen he expects other vfx studios in the U.K. to introduce similar policies. It is the right thing for the staff, the right thing for the industry to do, he said. This industry has matured to a point where it is the right time to bring this in.

DNEG has been on growth mode lately. The company, which recently received a $250 million investment from Novator Capital Advisers, is expanding to Toronto and creating up to 500 new Canadian jobs. It is also setting up shop in Bangalore, its fourth Indian location (these dont yet enjoy overtime pay).

Its recent vfx credits include the upcoming Dune, No Time to Die, and The Matrix 4. Its young feature animation division worked on Locksmith Animations Rons Gone Wrong (image at top), which Disney will release next month.
A group of independent B.C. fishers is protesting the federal government's decision to close some major salmon fisheries in the province for the 2021 season.

The Canadian Independent Fish Harvesters' Association addressed the media near Vancouver's Granville Island on Sep. 15.

The organization is upset over Fisheries and Oceans Canada's (DFO) salmon closures at the end of June. According to Federal Fisheries Minister Bernadette Jordan, the move was made as "an initial step towards longer-term reductions in fishing pressure on stocks of conservation concern."

DFO's Salmon Integrated Fisheries Management Plan will likely reduce B.C.'s commercial harvest by 60 per cent this year.

Commercial fisher James Lawson says "I started behind almost $70,000 and at the last second I found out I'm not going to be able to fish; so that's not a great position to be in and there's no light at the end of the tunnel."

Sonia Strobel, CEO of community-supported fishery Skipper Otto, calls it an obvious political issue during an election year and a "gross oversimplification."

She adds salmon stocks could be replenished by measures such as habitat restoration and removing salmon farms from open waters.

A federal fishing licence buyback program is available to commercial fishers in Canada. DFO is also offering a financial relief program until Oct. 1 in the wake of COVID-19.

Some fishers say they need more compensation.

"Many of the fishers don't have licences that they own. They have nothing to sell back to the government, so they're left with nothing but a boat that doesn't get to go fishing anymore because the government has closed those opportunities," explains the Native Fishing Association's Andy Olson.

The Canadian Independent Fish Harvesters' Association represents about 1,200 independent harvesters on the B.C. coast.
Photo: The Canadian Press Alberta Premier Jason Kenney arrives for a press conference in Calgary, Friday, Sept. 3, 2021.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Todd Korol

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, facing a COVID-19 crisis that is collapsing the province's health-care system, says his government will implement a vaccine passport.

Kenney also declared Wednesday a state of public health emergency, with strict new limits on gatherings, and warned the province is at risk of exhausting intensive care beds and staff within 10 days.

Kenney said he was reluctant to approve what he called the "restriction exemption program."

"With unvaccinated patients overwhelming now our hospitals, this is now the only responsible choice that we have," he said.

Several provinces are bringing in vaccine passports, which compel people to prove they have been vaccinated before being allowed to use non-essential services such as pubs and restaurants.

Kenney had resisted such measures for health privacy reasons. But critics said he did so for political reasons to prevent a revolt by anti-restriction members of his United Conservative caucus.

Alberta lifted almost all public health restrictions more than two months ago and is facing skyrocketing COVID-19 cases that have pushed intensive care beds beyond normal capacity and forced mass cancellation of non-urgent surgeries.

Kenney apologized Wednesday and said lifting the restrictions was the wrong call.

"The governments first obligation must be to avoid large numbers of preventable deaths. We must deal with the reality we are facing. We cannot wish it away."

Alberta has more than 18,000 active cases  the most of any province. On Wednesday, there were 877 people in hospital with the illness, including 218 in intensive care.
Photo: The Canadian Press This undated image provided by Rewards For Justice shows a wanted posted of Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi, the leader of Islamic State in the Greater Sahara. French President Emmanuel Macron announced the death of al-Sahrawi Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021, calling the killing a major success for the French military after more than eight years fighting extremists in the Sahel. Macron tweeted that al-Sahrawi was neutralized by French forces but gave no further details. (Rewards For Justice via AP)

France's president announced the death of Islamic State in the Greater Sahara's leader late Wednesday, calling Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi's killing a major success for the French military after more than eight years fighting extremists in the Sahel.

French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted that al-Sahrawi was neutralized by French forces but gave no further details. It was not announced where al-Sahrawi was killed, though the Islamic State group is active along the border between Mali and Niger.

The nation is thinking tonight of all its heroes who died for France in the Sahel in the Serval and Barkhane operations, of the bereaved families, of all of its wounded," Macron tweeted. Their sacrifice is not in vain.

Rumors of the militant leader's death had circulated for weeks in Mali, though authorities in the region had not confirmed it. It was not immediately possible to independently verify the claim or to know how the remains had been identified.

This is a decisive blow against this terrorist group, French Defense Minister Florence Parly tweeted. Our fight continues.

Al-Sahrawi had claimed responsibility for a 2017 attack in Niger that killed four U.S. military personnel and four people with Nigers military. His group also has abducted foreigners in the Sahel and is believed to still be holding American Jeffrey Woodke, who was abducted from his home in Niger in 2016.

The extremist leader was born in the disputed territory of Western Sahara and later joined the Polisario Front. After spending time in Algeria, he made his way to northern Mali where he became an important figure in the group known as MUJAO that controlled the major northern town of Gao in 2012.

A French-led military operation the following year ousted Islamic extremists from power in Gao and other northern cities, though those elements later regrouped and again carried out attacks.

The Malian group MUJAO was loyal to the regional al-Qaida affiliate. But in 2015, al-Sahrawi released an audio message pledging allegiance to the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

The French military has been fighting Islamic extremists in the Sahel region where France was once the colonial power since the 2013 intervention in northern Mali. It recently announced, though, that it would be reducing its military presence in the region, with plans to withdraw 2,000 troops by early next year.

News of al-Sahrawi's death comes as France's global fight against the Islamic State organization is making headlines in Paris. The key defendant in the 2015 Paris attacks trial said Wednesday that those coordinated killings were in retaliation for French airstrikes on the Islamic State group, calling the deaths of 130 innocent people nothing personal as he acknowledged his role for the first time.
Photo: The Canadian Press FILE - In this Wednesday Dec. 13, 2018, file photo Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte salutes to soldiers during a ceremony to destroy hundreds of guns and weapons confiscated from pro-Islamic State group siege in Marawi, southern Philippines at the Philippine Army Headquarters in Manila, Philippines. International Criminal Court judges on Wednesday Sept. 15, 2021, authorized an investigation into the Philippines' deadly "war on drugs" campaign, saying the crackdown "cannot be seen as a legitimate law enforcement operation." (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

International Criminal Court judges on Wednesday authorized an investigation into the Philippines deadly war on drugs campaign, saying the crackdown cannot be seen as a legitimate law enforcement operation.

The courts former prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, sought permission from judges earlier this year to investigate the Philippine governments campaign.

She said that a preliminary probe she began in February 2018 found a reasonable basis to believe that the crime against humanity of murder has been committed in the Philippines between July 1, 2016 and March 16, 2019, the date the Philippines withdrew from the court.

In a written decision, judges who considered Bensoudas request found a reasonable basis to proceed with an investigation into killings committed throughout the Philippines as part of the war on drugs, saying they appear to amount to a crime against humanity under the courts founding statute.

The court said in a statement that the judges ruled that based on the facts as they emerge at the present stage and subject to proper investigation and further analysis, the so-called war on drugs campaign cannot be seen as a legitimate law enforcement operation, and the killings neither as legitimate nor as mere excesses in an otherwise legitimate operation.

They added that the available material indicates, to the required standard, that a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population took place pursuant to or in furtherance of a State policy.

The judges also included in the scope of the investigation killings in the Davao area from Nov. 1, 2011, the date the Philippines joined the ICC, to June 30, 2016. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is the former mayor of Davao.

When Duterte announced he was withdrawing his country from the court he defended the campaign as lawfully directed against drug lords and pushers who have for many years destroyed the present generation, specially the youth.

More than 6,000 mostly poor drug suspects have been killed, according to government pronouncements, but human rights groups say the death toll is considerably higher and should include many unsolved killings by motorcycle-riding gunmen who may have been deployed by police.

Duterte has denied condoning extrajudicial killings of drug suspects although he has openly threatened suspects with death and has ordered police to shoot suspects who dangerously resist arrest.

When Bensouda announced she had asked for authorization to investigate, Dutertes spokesman, Harry Roque, called the move legally erroneous, saying the ICC, as an international court of last resort, could only intervene if a countrys judiciary and prosecutorial system fail to work and investigate domestic crimes. Roque cited many pending murder and other cases involving the governments campaign against illegal drugs which were being tried by Philippine courts.

Human Rights Watch welcomed Wednesday's announcement.

The International Criminal Courts decision to open an investigation into brutal crimes in the Philippines offers a much-needed check on President Rodrigo Duterte and his deadly war on drugs, said Carlos Conde, the rights group's senior Philippines researcher. Victims families and survivors have reason to hope that those responsible for crimes against humanity could finally face justice.

Bensouda has since left the court and been succeeded by British lawyer Karim Khan.
Ive voted for (former Conservative prime minister) Brian Mulroney, admire (former Conservative PM) Joe Clark, currently support the federal Liberals and the provincial NDP, and sometimes donate to the Greens. Issues should take precedence over partisan politics.

Affordability is a key issue for me. I am deeply concerned about the future of young people in our community. Like many other families, I have children and grandchildren who would like to live and work in Kelowna. Making housing and daycare affordable is the key to making their dreams a reality.

No party fully addresses my concerns about affordability, but the Liberals seem to come closest.

Recently, I spent an hour talking with the 30-year-old Liberal candidate Tim Krupa. Krupa grew up in Kelowna, went to local schools, and graduated from UBC-O. He left for Oxford and then found work in government and business. Hes now returned home, and hes keenly aware of how much harder it is today for younger people to the build a life in Kelowna. He explained the Liberal agenda on affordable housing and day care and seemed to really understand the issues.

I came away feeling enthusiastic about both Tim Krupa and the Liberals.

Afterward, I looked more closely at the Liberal affordable housing strategies. They do seem to be making progress. In 2017, they introduced a $40 billion National Housing Strategy to create 100,000 affordable housing units over 10 years, and the most recent budget included $2.5 billion for 35,000 affordable housing units.

The Liberals have also made specific policy promises, including repairing or rebuilding 1.4 million homes in four years, directing the CMHC to cut mortgage insurance rates by 25%, banning foreign ownership of new homes for the next two years, doubling the first-time home buyers tax credit to $10,000, spending $1 billion on a rent-to-own program, and allowing Canadians under age 40 to contribute up to $40,000 to a designated savings account and withdraw the money tax free when they buy a home. A few of the Conservative and NDP promises are worth consideration. But overall the Liberals policies seem to be both thoughtful and detailed.

What about daycare? The Liberals $10-a-day day care program clearly delivers more to our young families.

The Liberals have committed $30 billion over the next five years to a new national child care system. Theyve already signed multi-billion-dollar deals with eight provinces and territories. Their agreement with BC will create 30,000 new spaces over five years, cut fees in half by the end of 2022, and deliver $10-a-day child care in five years or less.

The NDPs child care program is identical to the Liberals plan. The Conservatives, however, will scrap the deal for a refundable tax credit for up to 75% of daycare costs for the poorest families. But the plan, as (Conservative leader Erin) OToole remarked on CBCs Face-to-Face program, wont help middle-class families like Toronto teachers and new parents. Thats just not good enough.

Diane Eaton, Kelowna
Photo: Pexels

Metro Vancouver is aiming to get Lower Mainland residents to clean up their laundry by going cold.

The regional government says that each time you do the laundry, the fabrics shed tiny fibres into the water, contributing to the hundreds of tonnes of microfibres released into rivers and oceans every year.

Microfibres are tiny pieces of plastic that can be harmful to fish and other aquatic life. Once these pieces are in the environment, they carry toxic chemicals up the food chain  first they get ingested by zooplankton, which in turn get eaten by fish and so forth, impacting progressively larger animals, said Richard Stewart, chair of Metro Vancouvers Liquid Waste Committee, in a news release.

Thankfully, were learning that small acts can have positive impacts, like washing your laundry in cold water. Warm and hot water causes clothes to break down more quickly than cold water, increasing the shedding of microfibres.

Microfibres are pieces of fibre  less than 5mm in size and thinner than a human hair  that are shed from fabrics when they are washed. Many microfibres are made of synthetic materials and are basically tiny pieces of plastic, but natural materials (like cotton) also shed microfibres when washed.

While all fabrics, whether natural or synthetic, shed fibres in the wash, synthetic microfibres are one of the largest sources of microplastics pollution in the worlds oceans.

The science around microfibres is still emerging  Metro Vancouver is collaborating with Ocean Wise, UBC and others to better understand how this type of pollution affects ecosystems and what may be done to address it, said Sav Dhaliwal, chair of the Metro Vancouver Board of Directors. Currently, pilot testing has shown that washing in cold on shorter cycles reduces microfibre shedding by up to 50 per cent.

Metro Vancouver is part of the Microfiber Partnership, a research initiative that brings together researchers, the apparel industry and governments, and is supporting the development of standardized methods to quantify and track microfibres in wastewater.
Photo: The Canadian Press A CN rail worker stands on an idle locomotive as protesters opposed to the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion block rail lines, in Burnaby, B.C., on November 27, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

Canadian National Railway Co. has been fined $2.5 million for spraying pesticides along a rail corridor that runs along the Skeena River in British Columbia.

Environment and Climate Change Canada says the railway pleaded guilty in Prince Rupert provincial court on Wednesday to a charge of violating the Fisheries Act by using pesticides in or around waters frequented by fish.

The government says enforcement officers observed a spray truck discharging a mist in August 2017 as it moved along the rail corridor between Terrace and Prince Rupert.

An inspection and investigation later confirmed that the pesticides sprayed along the rail line were harmful to fish.

The government says the fine will go to its environmental damages fund which is used to support projects that will benefit the environment.

CN will also be added to the Environmental Offenders Registry.
Once upon a time (on Aug. 15) the Canadas Governor-General officially dissolved parliament, to kick-start Canadas 36-day federal election campaign during the Coronavirus pandemics ominous fourth wave.

Thankfully, this bizarre fairy tale is almost over, with the upshot still uncertain, despite myriad promises made by party leaders.

Only pompous politicians claim to know what the outcome will be, while the puzzled public, pundits and pollsters will simply have to wait and see where the chips fall on Sept. 20.

Pollsters are notorious for getting election predictions wrong, but (I) listened to one surveying the battlefield recently (and) he surmised there would be another minority government, either Liberal or Conservative.

The only English language leaders debate was quite farcical, with an erratic performance from the Liberal leader, and a more solid one from the Conservative. Yet polls taken since that debate show Liberals gaining in popularity to draw dead-level with the Conservatives. That may sound a little strange but the pollster explained some progressive voters are now supporting the New Democratic Party (NDP) will vote strategically for the Liberals to block the Conservatives.

To confuse the gullible public even more, Quebecs premier voiced support for the Conservatives on three occasions before the debate. However, following comments by the moderator, which were considered racist towards Quebecers, the pollster predicted their votes could favour the Bloc Quebecois instead.

Adding to voters' skepticism, a tell-tale book by the former attorney-general, who was unceremoniously ousted from the Liberal Party in 2019, has been released days before the election. Excerpts have been widely published that are very damaging to the Liberal leader.

With the cost of the NDP platform announced only eight days before the election, more progressives could turn away from (the partys) irresponsible $214-billion in (promised) new spending.

The only certainty is that a minority government will mean this tawdry fairy tale called a federal election will be repeated sooner rather than later, and nobody will believe they all lived happily ever after.

Bernie Smith, Parksville
Photo: The Canadian Press Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole listens to a reporter's question during a campaign stop at a curling rink Thursday, Sept. 16, 2021, in Saint John, N.B. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

Mark Ross first applied to Veterans Affairs Canada for assistance with post-traumatic stress in June 2019. More than two years later, he is still waiting to hear whether his claim has been approved and the government will cover the costs of his treatment.

That's the reason I'm upset, the former soldier said in a recent interview from his home in Pembroke, Ont. Because they say if its post-traumatic stress, theyll hear it very quickly and they'll do everything. Well, I'm 100 weeks now.

Like Ross, tens of thousands of other Canadian veterans have been forced to wait months and sometimes years to learn whether their requests have been approved for disability benefits stemming from psychological and physical injuries sustained while in uniform.

The backlog is among several issues that have become a source of stress, frustration and anger within Canadas veterans community but was noticeably  and unusually  absent from the federal election campaign.

Canada's veterans' community is far from united, but it is large, with roughly 700,000 Canadians having served in uniform. When it has mobilized in the past, political parties have stepped up with a number of grand promises.

The most famous example was in 2015 when veterans mobilized against the Harper governments decision to close several Veterans Affairs Canada offices across the country and fire hundreds of departmental staff, which started the backlog.

That fight coincided with the high-profile Equitas lawsuit, in which six Afghan war veterans were fighting in court to bring back lifelong pensions for disabled soldiers, a program that had been adopted after the First World War but replaced in 2006 by a system characterized by lump-sum payments.

While exact numbers are difficult to confirm, it is largely accepted that Liberal Leader Justin Trudeaus promise to reopen the offices, hire back staff, stop fighting the Equitas lawsuit and reinstate the pension system won him many votes.

Yet, while the Liberal government did reopen the offices and hire staff, the backlog continued to grow as demand outpaced resources, adding what the veterans ombudsman has repeatedly warned is additional stress and hardship on injured veterans.

The Liberals also continued to fight Equitas, which the Supreme Court threw out in 2018, and they created their own pension system rather than reinstating the old one, which the parliamentary budget officer in 2019 found would have provided more money to veterans.

Then-Conservative leader Andrew Scheer sought during the 2019 election to parlay the sense of betrayal many former service members felt toward Trudeau into support for the Tories, which many see as the party for which veterans traditionally vote.

Among Scheer's promises were to clear the backlog, introduce legislation enshrining in law a "military covenant" between the government and veterans, and the creation of a "reliable, dependable pension system" that is "fair to Canada's most disabled veterans."

Fast forward two years and the issue has been noticeably absent from this election campaign. None of the leaders have gone out of their way to court the community or highlight their partys promises, while the issues that arose in 2015 and, to a lesser degree, 2019 have largely flown under the radar.

That is despite what Jim Scott, president of the Equitas Society, which spearheaded the lawsuit by the same name, says is continuing frustration over the fact there are now three separate systems offering different benefits to veterans with the same injuries.

Many like Ross are also upset the backlog of disability claims stands at around 40,000.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the short length of the campaign have been cited as among the reasons veterans' issues have not come up. Another factor, advocates say, is the communitys focus on saving hundreds of Afghans who served alongside Canadian troops as interpreters and support staff from 2001 to 2014 and who are now at risk of Taliban retaliation.

It's demanded the attention of a lot of veterans because they cared deeply about their colleagues that they worked with in Afghanistan, Oliver Thorne, executive director of the Vancouver-based Veterans Transition Network, said in an interview Wednesday.

They're literally offering the shirts off their back because they care so deeply. So I think we may be seeing is veterans are so focused on trying to assist with the Afghan evacuation effort that perhaps they're less vocal about their own needs.

Scott acknowledges a level of fatigue within the community as well, with many veterans tired of fighting what has to this point been a largely losing battle for the benefits, services and respect that were promised to them.

Veterans have just moved on, Scott said in an interview Thursday. A lot of them just said: You know, this is an unhealthy place for me to be, fighting the government. At the end of the day, I need to move on. Because I'm not getting any support.

He said he is also concerned that with the war in Afghanistan increasingly disappearing into the rear-view mirror, Canadians dont have as much of an attachment to the military and those who have served in uniform.

That doesnt mean parties havent included promises in their platforms for veterans. The NDP, for example, have promised to create one pension system, while the Conservatives say they will reinstate the lifelong pension for veterans with moderate to severe injuries.

OToole and Peoples Party of Canada Leader Maxime Bernier are the only two leaders to have signed a pledge put forward by the Equitas Society, committing to introducing a social covenant with military members and a bill of rights.

Yet none of the leaders have gone out of their way to talk about their promises. Even OToole has talked about his 12 years in uniform but not the fact he is a veteran.

The Conservative leader on the campaign trail also hasn't emphasized his role as veterans affairs minister during the last 11 months of the Harper government, for which he had received some praise for having started to undo the damage caused under the watch of his predecessor, Julian Fantino.

The lack of discussion on veterans issues during the election doesnt sit well with Royal Canadian Legion dominion president Bruce Julian.

We've found unless those issues become public and are brought forward where the public can see them and discuss them and take a position, they  don't become priorities of governments when they take power," he said in a recent interview.

Back in Pembroke, Ross isnt surprised by the lack of attention on people like himself.

We've been swept under the rug for years, he said. They don't want to bring it up (in the election), they don't even want to bring it up in Parliament. Because it's a touchy issue and there's never any answers coming out of them.
Vicat announces methanol production at Montalieu-Vercieu cement plant

16 September 2021

In partnership with Hynamics, a subsidiary of the EDF Group specialising in hydrogen production, Vicat is developing an integrated solution for capturing CO 2 and producing carbon-free methanol.

The Hynovi project aims to create the first production sector for decarbonised methanol in France and is in line with the French government's objectives in terms of decarbonisation of industry and energy independence, of which synthetic fuels constitute one of the main levers.

The project seeks to capture 40 per cent of the CO 2 emitted by the Vicat cement plant in Montalieu-Vercieu. The carbon produced by the cement plant will be recovered and combined with Hynamics' low-carbon hydrogen to produce low-carbon methanol.

Thanks to the installation of an electrolyser with a capacity of 330MW by 2025 on the cement plant site, the capture of CO 2 emissions at the exit of the kiln and the use of oxygen to make oxy-combustion, Vicat expects to produce more than 200,000tpa of methanol, ie a quarter of total consumption in France. This ambitious project can then be duplicated in other European industries and around the world.

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Belarus cement exports up 54% in 7M21

ICR Newsroom By 16 September 2021

Cement exports from Belarus increased by 53.7 per cent YoY in the January-July 2021 period, according to Belarusian Cement Co. Total cement shipments increased 110 per cent and total sales surpassed BYN14.1m (US$5.7m), reflecting a profit margin of 8.9 per cent.



The companys cement production advanced by 4.6 per cent, while its lime and chalk output were up by 7.9 and 9.5 per cent, respectively.

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Like a beloved shortened novel, Southern Lit Alliances literary arts festival SouthWord Abridged is a two-day event packed with literary treasures in Southern literature, said officials. The event will be held virtually on Nov. 5 and 6 with a kick-off on Friday night and a full day of panels and speakers on Saturday. The event will be held on Zoom.

First Horizon is the presenting sponsor for the weekend with additional support from Arts Build and the Tennessee Arts Commission.

The virtual keynote speaker is Natasha Trethewey, former U.S. Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner. The Friday, Nov. 5, kick-off session will feature John Shelton Reed discussing his new book On Barbeque, a history of barbeque in the South and its impact on culture. Authors speaking on Nov. 6 include Richard Bausch and George Singleton. A virtual panel on the topic of Southern literature includes Steve Yarbrough and Michel Stone, Finally, a panel discussing book publishing will feature insights from George Singleton, Daniel Wallace, and UTC professor Karen Babine.

Tickets are $25 for all events and are available at www.southernlitalliance.org. Proceeds will benefit Southern Lit Alliance programs encouraging passionate readers and writers.

About Natasha Trethewey, the Keynote Speaker



Natasha Trethewey was US Poet Laureate in 2012 and 2013. She won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry for her work Native Guard. Her recent memoir Memorial Drive: A Daughters Memoir shook the literary world with her honest portrayal of trauma and how it shaped who she became as an artist. Her poetry, structurally, combines free verse with more structured and traditional forms, while thematically, it tends to focus on memory and Americas racial history.

Her other poetry collections include Bellocqs Ophelia, Domestic Work, Thrall, and Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

Ms. Trethewey previously served as the Robert W. Woodruff Professor of English and Creative Writing at Emory University and is currently the Board of Trustees Professor of English at Northwestern University. She earned her BA from The University of Georgia, her Masters from Hollins University, and her MFA in poetry from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.




A man on Latitude Circle said his Weber grill caught fire and was completely destroyed. He said he followed the directions on the instruction booklet, which was to turn the grill on high for approximately 30 minutes upon first time use. He said after approximately 10 minutes the entire grill was engulfed in flames. The man was able to turn off the gas to stop the fire from causing damage to his back porch. The total loss came to $900. The rear porch was not damaged by the fire, only the grill suffered damage. The Chattanooga Fire Department responded to the scene to assess the cause of the fire.



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Police were called to Broomsedge Trail on a call of a disorder. A woman and her boyfriend were able to come to the conclusion that they had gotten into a verbal argument but never escalated to being physical.



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A woman on Judy Ann Drive told police she broke up with her boyfriend. She wanted police to stand by while she packed her belongings into her vehicle. The woman said there was a verbal disorder but nothing further. She left without further issue.

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Police did a bar check at Sweet Melissa's at 1966 Northpoint Blvd. No infractions were found by officers.

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A man on Sunset Terrace told police he believes he heard someone in the apartment under him. He said he thinks it was the man who was evicted from the property and that he broke into the apartment below. Officers checked the residence and found no signs of forced entry or someone being in the apartment.

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Police were called to Reliable Lawn Care at 203 Workman Road where they were told a truck had been stolen as well as five leaf blowers, two weed eaters, and three car batteries. The complainant was unable to give serial numbers or any additional information for the items stolen. The batteries were cut from two of the other landscaping trucks on the fenced lot of the business and the lawn equipment was taken from the unlocked truck beds. Officers spoke to an employee who had footage of the theft which took place around 3:30 a.m. The suspect seems to have entered underneath a fence belonging to a adjacent business (Valley Machine) behind Reliable Lawn Care and then was able to cut the fence of Reliable Lawn Care. The camera footage shows a white male, medium build, wearing a gray shirt and a blue hat, enter a Ford F350 truck with a black landscape bed on the back and moments later drive it through the fence closest to the side of the building causing extensive damage to the six foot chain link fence. The truck was entered into NCIC. There was also a flashlight, possibly belonging to the suspect, with no identifying prints. The neighboring business (Valley Machine) may have additional camera surveillance.

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An employee at Mapco at 9101 Lee Hwy. told police a black male attempted to use a counterfeit $100 bill to purchase cigarettes and lottery tickets. The employee said when he told the customer the money was fake, the customer replied he got it from his bank and quickly walked out of the store without any merchandise. The counterfeit money was taken and turned into the CPD Property Division.

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A man on North Chamberlain Avenue told police his daughter has been coming to his house starting verbal disorders. At the time of the officer's arrival the daughter was gone.

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A woman on Bonnie Drive reported she got into a verbal argument with her husband. The officer spoke with the husband who also reported the same. The husband agreed to leave the residence for a while to allow things to settle down. No further police assistance was needed.

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A woman was staying on Mitchell Avenue when her bicycle was stolen. She told police she will see if they have anything on video footage and will update the report if they find anything.

* * *

An officer saw a man walking on the side of Cummings Highway. This particular part of the roadway is very narrow and dangerous for pedestrian travel. Police made contact with the man who said he was trying to get to Lookout Valley. Police placed the man in the patrol vehicle for his safety due to the traffic conditions. He showed a warrant out of Walker County but it was not extraditable. Police gave the man a ride to the Mapco at 200 Browns Ferry Road.

* * *

Police responded to an alarm at 300 Montessori Way. They found a man who appeared to be homeless sleeping under an awning on the property of the school. He said he has just been lying there as it rained earlier, and had not attempted to enter the building. After checking all outer doors and windows that were accessible, and not enclosed by a fence, no broken glass or open doors could be found. The man was asked to leave, to which he complied.

* * *

A man on Patterson Road called police to say someone stole his Glock 23 from his vehicle overnight. He said there were no signs of forced entry. The firearm was entered into NCIC.

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A woman on Pan Gap Circle said when she returned from vacationing in Florida she noticed her 2015 Polaris XP 1000 was stolen. She still has the key to the ATV. She could not provide the VIN number so the ATV was not entered into NCIC as of now. Police let the woman know that when she is able to get the VIN to call back and then police would be able to put it into NCIC. Police did have dispatch BOLO the vehicle out.

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A woman on Tacoa Avenue said sometime during the night someone broke into her 2011 Honda Pilot and stole her purse and the contents of it. She said she thought her vehicle was locked, but found no damage to it.

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A woman called police to say her Surge Master Card was stolen from Popeyes in East Ridge recently and it was then used in several illegal charges. She said all the charges were done on one day and three of them were in Chattanooga. One of them was at Wine & Spirits for $162.75 and the other two were at Speedway Chattanooga # 07114 - $46.25 and Benis Cubano Chattanooga - $10.87. She's not sure about the exact locations of the other two charges and she has no idea whos doing this. She said she will call back with more information about exact locations once she gets it.

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A man told police over the phone he had ordered an Asus laptop to his home on East 17th Street and it was stolen off his porch when it was delivered. He said he did not know who took it and he did not currently have the serial number, but would call back to update the report.

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Police were called to BODE Chattanooga at 730 Chestnut St. The general manager said there had been complaints of barking from the room occupied by a man and woman and that dogs were not allowed in the building. The general manager called the man several times and informed him that dogs were not allowed and that they needed to leave. During the phone call, the general manager said the man told him, "Why don't you come down here so I can break your face?" The general manager did not have direct contact with either the man or woman until officers arrived on scene. He did not wish to press any charges. Both the man and woman, upon making contact with the officers, stated that they were both checking out and leaving. Both individuals corroborated the general manager's story, but said that they did not explicitly threaten him. Both left and the general manager requested a memo. He was provided with a complaint card.
The fourth member of the United States Supreme Court from Tennessee, James Clark McReynolds, served on the Court from 1914 to his retirement in 1941. He also served as United States Attorney General under President Woodrow Wilson. Although he was born in Elkton, Kentucky after graduating from the University of Virginia Law School, he moved to Nashville, Tennessee where he served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Vanderbilt Law School for three years.

Active in politics he was an unsuccessful candidate for Congress in 1896 and that same year headed the Tennessee delegation to the Democratic convention. Under President Theodore Roosevelt he served as Assistant Attorney General from 1903-1907. McReynolds was an expert in anti-trust matters and was often retained by the government to file cases in that field of law. He was particularly successful in matters against the Tobacco Trust.

On March 15, 1913 he was appointed as the 48th United States Attorney General where he served until appointed to the United States Supreme Court on August 19, 1914. During his 27 years on the High Court he authored 506 opinions plus 157 dissents. He was a thorn in the side of Franklin Delano Roosevelts New Deal as he wrote 93 dissents against the legislation proposed by Roosevelt.

McReynolds was continuously in conflict with the other justices and was labeled Scrooge by national journalist Drew Pearson. He was called a bigot, prejudiced and earned the reputation of being someone who seemed to take pleasure in making others uncomfortable. His prejudices extended to his selection of law clerks as he would only select white males to work for him. One of his displays of his prejudice against Jews was his dislike of Associate Justice Louis Brandeis, the first Jewish member of the court, and who McReynolds would not speak to for three years after Brandeis appointment. McReynolds' list of prejudices had no limits. Race, smoking, segregation, sexism were all part of his makeup which created discord on the Court.

McReynolds died on August 24, 1946, alone in a hospital without a single friend or relative present. In death a tribute by the Christian Science Monitor praised McReynolds as being "the last and lone champion on the Supreme Bench battling the steady encroachment of Federal powers on State and individual rights.

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Jerry Summers



(If you have additional information about one of Mr. Summers' articles or have suggestions or ideas about a future Chattanooga area historical piece, please contact Mr. Summers at jsummers@summersfirm.com)




The East Ridge Police Department and the city of East Ridge will be hosting a National Night Out event at East Ridge City Hall on Tuesday, Oct. 5, beginning at 5:30 p.m. Booths will be set up along the back lawn of City Hall with safety information, Neighborhood Watch info, fingerprint kits for children, activities and food.

Also present will be the East Ridge Animal Shelter, the East Ridge Fire Department and other city volunteers. The city will also hand out free face masks and have hand sanitizer on hand as well as will practice safety and social distancing.

The National Night Out event is in its 38th year and involves citizens, law enforcement agencies, civic groups, businesses, neighborhood organizations and local officials from 16,790 communities from all 50 states, U.S. territories, Canadian cities and military bases worldwide. In all, over 38 million people participated in NNO 2020.

National Night Out is designed to: (1) Heighten crime and drug prevention awareness; (2) Generate support for, and participation in, local anticrime programs; (3) Strengthen neighborhood spirit and police-community partnerships; (4) Send a message to criminals letting them know that neighborhoods are organized and fighting back.








Jonathan William Miller, 37, was convicted on Tuesday, in a Catoosa County Superior Court of two counts of child molestation against a 12-year-old family member.

For years, Miller sexually molested a young girl in Tennessee and continued the abuse when the family moved into Georgia in September 2019. Miller instructed the victim to lie about the abuse if questioned, which resulted in a delay in her disclosure.

The victim finally disclosed Millers abuse while in foster care where she felt safe enough to share the trauma. The initial disclosure was to her foster sister to whom the victim had grown close during her time with the foster family. The foster sister encouraged the victim to disclose the abuse which she did at the Childrens Advocacy Center.

The case was investigated by Detective Clay Thompson of the Catoosa County Sheriffs Department. Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit (LMJC) Assistant District Attorney David M. Wolfe presented the case over two days. After a deliberation of about 10 minutes, the jury returned a verdict of guilty on all counts.

Miller, who had a prior conviction for child molestation in 2003, was sentenced by Judge Brian House to a total of 30 years with the first 20 years to be served in prison.

I would like to thank Detective Thompson, the Catoosa County Sheriffs Department, and the Childrens Advocacy Center for their work on this case and their continued dedication to seeking justice for abused children in our community, said Chris Arnt, LMJC District Attorney. D.A. Arnt expressed appreciation for the dozens of hours Assistant District Attorney Wolfe spent preparing this case and helping the jury understand the facts and evidence. Ms. Nicholson worked closely with the victim and her foster family to prepare them for the emotional toll a trial can take on a victim and to assist them with support services.

The prosecution and sentence in this case demonstrates my offices strong commitment to combat sexual abuse and to fight to protect our children and the most vulnerable members of our community, said D.A. Arnt. While many voices in our country are calling to empty our prisons and complaining about over incarceration, I believe anyone who targets children like this should be behind bars. We will not tolerate the sexual abuse of our children. The LMJC secures some of the toughest sentences for sexual abuse in the entire State of Georgia.

Following the verdict and sentencing, the victims guardian sent the following email to the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit District Attorneys Office:

"This may have been one of the hardest things our family has ever had to do. However, I am eternally grateful for the employees and service of the Catoosa County District Attorneys office. We are happy with the outcome and grateful that our justice system and the jurors found and served justice for our foster daughter. Thank you Mr. David Wolfe for an excellent job in court, Judge Brian House for sentencing and bringing a small little window of hope to this little girl, to Mr. Arnt and all the district attorneys who came to offer support and lastly to Mrs. Ashley Nicholson, Catoosa County DA child advocate for walking us through every step of this process and defining some of those big lawyer words that no one can possibly understand. Thank you all for finding justice for [M.A.]!"
Locke & Key leaves all the magic for the kids. In season 1 of the Netflix series, viewers learn that most adults cant remember any of the keys of Keyhouse or the magic they produce. However, the show doesnt quite explain why that is. Perhaps the answer will arrive in season 2, but in the meantime, a possible explanation lies in Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguezs Locke & Key comic books: The Riffel Rule.

[Spoiler alert: The following story contains some spoilers for Locke & Key Season 1.]

Locke & Key stars Emilia Jones as Kinsey Locke and Darby Stanchfield as Nina Locke | Amanda Matlovich/Netflix

Rendell Locke and his friends took Duncan Lockes memories

Locke & Key Season 1 follows Nina Locke (Darby Stanchfield) and her kids, Tyler (Connor Jessup), Kinsey (Emilia Jones), and Bode (Jackson Robert Scott), on their move to Matheson, Massachusetts, after the death of father Rendell Locke (Bill Heck).

Their new home, Keyhouse Manor, has been in the Locke family for generations. Rendell and his brother, Duncan Locke (Aaron Ashmore), grew up there. However, the house has a secret: its filled with magical keys that give the kids the power to do virtually anything.

Throughout season 1, the Locke kids find several keys. They also learn that Rendell, Duncan, and Rendells high school friends (known as the Keepers) used the keys when they were younger until an accident led to some of the Keepers deaths. Tyler and Kinsey discover that Duncan witnessed the accident, but the Keepers took his memories to keep it a secret.

Kinsey tries to show Duncan his memories involving magic, but he still doesnt understand because adults cannot comprehend magic.

The Locke & Key comics use The Riffel Rule to explain why adults cant remember magic

When the new season of #LockeandKey drops you'll want to be like Duncan and Anywhere Key yourself straight to your TV. pic.twitter.com/bgLZfj4pTL  Joe Hill (@joe_hill) June 8, 2021

In the Locke & Key comics, adults inability to remember the keys can be traced back to Hans Riffel. As a spy sent to the Locke family in the 1940s, Hans knew about the keys and used them to harm Germans during World War II.

The Lockes never intended for the keys to be used with malice. So, they created the Riffel Rule. When Keepers turn 18 years old, they lose the ability to remember magic to ensure they cant abuse the keys powers.

Locke & Key Season 1 didnt mention the Riffel Rule, and its unclear if future seasons will. The Netflix series has made some changes from the comics, including an overall shift in focus from horror to young adult fantasy. Hill and Rodriguez adapted character storylines, including Tyler and Dodge, and invented a few keys for the show.

So, season 2 might introduce an entirely different reason for adults not remembering the keys. As the oldest Locke child, Tyler is approaching 18 years old, so that could become an important detail in season 2 or 3.

Why can Ellie and the other Keepers remember?

Were back. You ready? Locke & Key Season 2 drops October 22 pic.twitter.com/QEmaQqc3sk  Locke & Key (@lockekeynetflix) September 14, 2021

In season 1, Rendells friend, Ellie Whedon (Sherri Saum), revealed to Kinsey and Tyler that the Keepers did something to remember the magic after they turned 18. However, she didnt specify what it was. In the comics, the Keepers forged a new key that would bypass the Riffel Rule to bring magic into adulthood. The Locke kids may need to find their own way to keep the magic in order to keep Tyler in the loop.

Locke & Key Season 1 is now streaming on Netflix. Season 2 arrives on Oct. 22.

RELATED: Is Netflixs Locke & Key Scary?
The newest movie in the James Bond franchise, No Time to Die, hits theaters on Oct. 8. As what is meant to be Daniel Craigs final outing as 007, theres already a lot to be excited for in this film, especially when it comes to Craigs co-stars. The Bond series is no stranger to interesting supporting characters, and the latest installment is no different. In fact, No Time to Die is making history this time around because of its cast, as it marks the first time that a film in the series will feature two Black women as Bond girls.

Two Black Bond girls will be featured in No Time to Die

Daniel Craig, Naomie Harris and Lashana Lynch | Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images for Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures

As we said, No Time to Die marks the first time in franchise history that two Bond girls will be played by Black women. For the uninitiated, a Bond girl is the designation given to a female character featured in a James Bond movie that acts as either his love interest or companion during the events of the movie. Many also have a suggestive pun for a name (Pussy Galore, anyone?), but this isnt necessarily required to get the job.

The first of these women is Naomie Harris, returning to the role of Eve Moneypenny that she played in both Skyfall and Spectre. Though normally portrayed as secretary to M (Bonds boss), the Craig movies reinvented her as a former field agent with an action-packed past working with Bond. If youre thinking that sounds like spinoff potential, you wouldnt be wrong.

The second is Lashana Lynch as new character Nomi, whos also making headlines for being the first woman and person of color to take on the 007 designation in a movie. As is pointed out in her talk with Harpers BAZAAR, though, that shouldnt be confused as her taking over Craigs role as the character of James Bond; instead, she is another agent of MI6 whos been given the iconic codename after Bonds retirement prior to the start of the new movie.

There are now five Bond girls of Jamaican descent in the films

Now that Lynch is coming to the franchise, No Time to Die will also mean that there are officially five different Bond girls of Jamaican descent in the series. Harris is the fourth woman on the list, her mother originating in the country and Harris herself having spent time there growing up. Grace Jones in A View to Kill is another prominent Jamaican Bond girl, having lived in Spanish Town for the first 13 years of her life.

Lynch in particular has talked about how proud she is to represent her heritage in the film, as described by Page Six. This made even more intriguing as Jamaica will be a major location in the film.

The Bond franchise has had a complicated history with race in the past

13 Black Actresses That Would KILL The Game As Bond Girlshttps://t.co/u2KVNKUaOj pic.twitter.com/OP14kW9rtx  BET (@BET) November 10, 2015

As much fun as the James Bond movies are, theres an undeniable dark side to the franchise. Many of the original books and some of the earliest movies were written when the British empire still had power, and the specter of colonialism can be felt throughout them. As HuffPost dissected when talking about the original novelist, Ian Fleming, James Bond as a character was very much emblematic of the imperial power England used to hold.

This history is reflected in many of the previous non-white Bond girls of the movies, Nerdist doing a good job at breaking down the roles of previous Black Bond girls in the series. While many have been present in various roles throughout the series, the quality of those roles has been quite inconsistent.

One of the more major Black Bond girls of days gone by is Rosie Carver (played by Gloria Hendry) of Live and Let Die, who unfortunately did little before dying early in the film. Beyond named roles, the film Diamonds Are Forever has a particularly cringe-worthy example of poor representation when an unnamed Black woman held in a cage is transformed into an actual gorilla as part of a circus sideshow.

Somewhat better is Jones role as May Day. Not only does she get the chance to be a competent fighter and overall fun character, she even defects from the villains to help Bond save the day. Unfortunately, she also dies before the end of the film.

All that having been said, the Craig movies have been somewhat of a turning point for the franchise, the newest movie being a good example. While its roots are inescapable, the newer movies have helped to push the franchise forward in terms of representation and presentation of the character of Bond. Hopefully, that positive trajectory continues on even after this chapter comes to an end.

RELATED: James Bond: Why This Actor Played 007 Once and Never Again
Theres a rule among the Pogues that they dont date each other, but fans of Outer Banks cant help but root for Pope and Cleo. The two share a certain chemistry that says theyre meant to be more than just friends. But is a romance actually in the cards for them? Heres what actor Carlacia Grant (Cleo) said when asked about a possible Pope and Cleo relationship in Outer Banks Season 3.

Outer Banks Season 2 stars Rudy Pankow, Jonathan Daviss, Madison Bailey, Madelyn Cline, and Chase Stokes | Elaine Siemek/Netflix

Who is Cleo in Outer Banks?

Cleo first shows up at the beginning of Outer Banks Season 2, when John B and Sarah board the boat shes working on in hopes of being transported to the Bahamas, where Ward Cameron is hiding the gold he stole from them. She conspires with other workers to turn the two into authorities to collect the $50,000 reward on them, but they call off the plan when John B and Sarah offer a share of the gold in exchange for their freedom.

After two attempts to steal back the gold, the crews split up. Cleo goes on to get a job working on the Coastal Venture, where she runs into the Pogues once more. In a fight with Pope, she learns hes a friend of John B and Sarah, whom shed become close to earlier in the show. She decides to try and help them get the treasure back and later becomes a member of their friend circle.

RELATED: Outer Banks: Elizabeth Mitchell Comments on Season 2s Cliffhanger Ending

Will Cleo and Pope get together?

Many fans of Outer Banks enjoyed the banter between Pope and Cleo and believe she could be just what he needs after his heartbreak over Kiara. Speaking to Elite Daily, Grant said she cant confirm or deny whether a Pope and Cleo romance would happen, but she admitted her character is definitely crushing on him.

Cleo definitely has a thing for Pope! Grant told HollywoodLife. She definitely has taken a liking to him she showed him her knife skills, she doesnt do that for just anybody.

And fans arent the only ones rooting for them  Grant is here for it too.

Im really interested in seeing this whole Cleo and Pope thing happen, if it does happen, she told Elle.

RELATED: Outer Banks Season 2 Star Carlacia Grant; What Other Shows Is She In?

In addition to a Pope and Cleo romance, shed like for the show to explore Cleos past. I would love to see more of Cleos backstory. I, personally, really want to see more of her, more of where she came from. And I want her to be more badass, definitely more badass, she added to Elle.

When does Outer Banks come back on?

Outer Banks has not yet been approved for another season. But it seems likely, given the immense popularity of the show, especially after this latest season. Be sure to check back in with us for updates on the show as they come up.
Hes taken us to space (multiple times), to ancient Rome, to war, and off cliffs. Ridley Scott is now bringing us to medieval France in The Last Duel.

Despite his expensive and impressive career, Scott recently told reporters at a press conference that there were still some items on his movie bucket list he wanted to do.

Ridley Scott | Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for DGA

Ridley Scott has a massive filmography

Scotts filmography spans over 40 years and numerous genres. From Alien, Blade Runner, Thelma & Louise, G.I Jane, Gladiator, American Gangster, and The Martian, the directors ability to tell a compelling story is evident no matter where it is set.

One woman defied a nation and made history. Based on a true story, #TheLastDuel is only in theaters October 15. pic.twitter.com/VX50A1GDbQ  The Last Duel (@TheLastDuelFilm) September 9, 2021

The director and producer was nominated for four Oscars for his efforts on Thelma & Louise, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, and The Martian. His range includes sci-fi, historical dramas, and even a gangster flick.

A musical could be the Alien directors new project after The Last Duel

However, two film genres Ridley Scott has not conquered yet are the musical and the western. I tend to look for material that I havent done before, the director said at a press conference for The Last Duel, per Collider. Im constantly looking for something that is fresh and different. Ive never done a musical. Ive never done a western. So Im looking for that now.

Co-writer and star Ben Affleck joked: See? Ridley can do everything, so you cant even joke with him. Hes like, Yes, I will do a musical!'

Scotts most recent leading lady was entirely on board with the idea. Ridley, I really want to do a musical, if youre free, Jodie Comer joked. The Killing Eve star sang a bit of Mariah Careys Fantasy in 2021s Free Guy.

Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez Take Center Stage at The Last Duel Premiere, But Jodie Comers Performance Stokes Applause https://t.co/q0WrSiMnu1  Variety (@Variety) September 11, 2021

Then, Scott recounted his favorite musicals of all time. Legendary Broadway choreographer Bob Fosse directed both. Scott even acknowledged the genres heavy hitters.

Gene Kelly was an athlete. So was Fred Astaire, Scott said. When you see those guys do it then, it is never that good. Until Cabaret and All That Jazz.

The Last Duel is 1 of 2 films Ridley Scott is releasing this year

Ridley Scott has two films coming out in 2021, just in time for award season. The Last Duel was co-written by Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and Nicole Holofcener. Damon, Adam Driver, and Harriet Walter join Comer and Affleck in the cast.

The film follows Comer as a married French noblewoman who accuses her husbands best friend (Adam Driver) of rape. Her husband (Damon) then challenges his former friend to a duel that will end up changing history. It will be released in theaters Oct. 15, 2021.

'In the name of the father, the son and the house of Gucci' #HouseOfGucci pic.twitter.com/9oYl0ybphD  Universal Pictures (@Universal_NL) September 15, 2021

Driver will also appear in Scotts House of Gucci this year. He and Lady Gaga will play real-life married couple Maurizio Gucci and Patrizia Reggiani. Reggiani was convicted of arranging her ex-husbands assassination and served 18 years in the Italian prison system for her crime.

Jared Leto, Jeremy Irons, Salma Hayek, and Al Pacino also star as various members of the Gucci fashion house and family. The film is set to premiere Nov. 24, 2021.

RELATED: Ridley Scott: 5 of His Best Movies
When Cameron Cruse and Lisa Bradley pitched their handbag company R. Riveter on Shark Tank in 2016, they fielded offers from investors Robert Herjavec, Kevin OLeary, and Mark Cuban. The Sharks were impressed by Cruse and Bradleys mission to employ military spouses nationwide and were confident in their ability to grow the business. The entrepreneurs went with Mark Cubans offer of $100K for 20 percent equity in their company, and have no regrets.

Mark Cuban on the set of Shark Tank | Christopher Willard via Getty Images

Mark Cuban is there when we need him

Military spouses Cruse and Bradley launched R. Riveter in 2011 to fulfill an employment need they found prevalent among military families. Creating a business that offered mobile, flexible income for those often being relocated, the entrepreneurs decided to produce handbags as a way to hire others in military families from around the country. Their business model and mission won over Herjavec, OLeary, and Cuban when they pitched in the Tank. Cuban was picked as an investor.

We got a great partner with Mark Cuban and hes still involved in the business today, Cruse told Showbiz Cheat Sheet. The way he resonated and seemed to just connect with the idea of how we were supporting military families was just something you cant describe  you can just sort of feel that they understand. Hes been awesome and hes really helped to support and be there when we needed to grow the business. Were really happy with our our choice.

Cuban has made a profitable and positive impact on the company, but doesnt micromanage. The Shark Tank star makes himself available to Cruse and Bradley but gives them freedom in running R. Riveter.

Hes great because hes there when we need him, but he still trusts us to run and grow the business as founders, so we kind of get the best of both worlds, Cruse said of Cuban. We get his experience and his resources. But at the same time, hes pretty hands off when it comes to just letting Lisa and I make those decisions.

Shark Tank experience was terrifying but well worth it

Appearing on Shark Tank has become a primary goal of entrepreneurs wanting to catapult their businesses to success. Pitching in front of the famous business icons was a nerve-wracking experience for Cruse.

It was surreal, the R. Riveter co-founder said. It was one of the scariest things Ive ever done, but obviously it turned out really well it really propelled us forward. Being in the Tank was a terrifying experience, but well worth it and very rewarding afterwards.

Still learning the ropes in the business world, Cruse felt a bit unsettled in the choppy waters of the Tank at first. But sticking to R. Riveters mission helped her navigate her way through the pitch.

Lisa and I had never done anything like this before, she explained to Showbiz Cheat Sheet. When we started the business in 2011, we were basically Googling how to make handbags and how to start a business and how to register your LLC. So from just kind of getting our our footing underneath us, then to stand up in front of the five most famous business people on TV was very intimidating.

When we got up there and we started the pitch, we knew that all we can do is be who we are and tell them our mission and everything that we were trying to do, Cruse continued. And the coolest part about it was the way that everybody resonated with it, even though we didnt have 20 years in business. You can see that our mission was worth supporting and we had something worth pursuing.

R. Riveter launches new products

The company recently launched the Ada tote in honor of English mathematician Ada Lovelace. The black canvas and brown leather bag offers a roomy interior with two slip pockets and one zipper pocket.

Putting the spotlight on Breast Cancer Awareness month in October, R. Riveter has teamed up with BreastCancer.org to raise awareness of early detection. Releasing the Fight Like Rosie collection on Sept. 16, a portion of the proceeds will go towards this mission.

Fight Like Rosie  Think Pink | R. Riveter

Think Pink R. Riveter keychain | R. Riveter

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Cruse, who holds a Masters degree in architecture, added that R. Riveter also carries accessories like candles and jewelry that we call Riveter-made, that is made by remote Riveters all across the country.

The entrepreneurs plan to introduce more new designs in November to celebrate the companys 10th anniversary. For more information and to check out products, go to R. Riveters website.
The first season of veterinary reality show The Incredible Dr. Pol premiered on Nat Geo Wild in 2011. Following veterinarian Dr. Jan Pol as he fulfills his duties to the farmers and pet owners of his rural Michigan community, the series quickly became a hit for the cable channel. And as Dr. Pol will readily agree, his clinics success is due to the great team effort of his staff veterinarians and office crew. Heres the shows incredible cast and staff.

Dr. Jan Pol, right, of The Incredible Dr. Pol greets fans in 2019 | The Walt Disney Company/Image Group LA via Getty Images

Dr. Jan Pol

In a conversation with AARP, Dr. Pol revealed that what you see is what you get from his family, no matter what producers might want viewers to see. What you see on the [Nat Geo Wild] show is real family life. In the beginning, a producer wanted me and my son, Charles, to get into a fight for the cameras. I said, Im not going to do it; our family loves each other.

My glass is always half full. I think thats what people are looking for and why the show is so popular. My wife, Diane, and I go to church every Sunday, and we believe in treating others how we would want to be treated.

Holy Moses! Thank you for all of the birthday wishes this past weekend! #DrPol pic.twitter.com/jhpSPhBwpv  Dr. Pol (@DrPol) September 7, 2021

Diane Pol

Dr. Pol in his 2015 memoir Never Turn Your Back on an Angus Cow recalled meeting the love of his life, Diane, who also eventually helped him build his veterinary practice and still runs the office.

He described the family with whom he stayed in America as a high school student, particularly their daughter, who was around his age and caught his eye. I stayed with the Dalrymple family in the small town of Mayville, Michigan, he wrote. I was eighteen years old and in the same grade as their daughter, Diane.

Mom was always a real trooper. #DrPol #DianePol #MyHero pic.twitter.com/8fu95arTXZ  Charles Pol (@ChuckPol) March 17, 2019 Left to right: Charles Pol, Diane Pol, and Dr. Jan Pol of The Incredible Dr. Pol

The teenage Dr. Pol and Diane quickly became friends. We were very much the same in many ways, but especially in our love of animals. How could anybody not find a woman who played tag with her pet duck attractive? But we liked each other as friends so much, it didnt even occur to us that maybe we were also falling in love, he said.

The two married in 1967, and thirty years after opening Dr. Pols veterinary clinic in 1981 out of their garage, premiered The Incredible Dr. Pol on Nat Geo Wild.

Charles Pol

If not for Charles, there likely would not be any Incredible Dr. Pol, as his father explained.

What makes all of the wonderful things that have happened to us even more enjoyable is the fact that our success is all Charles doing, Dr. Pol added. It was his vision. He was the one who believed his father was strange enough that other people would find him entertaining. . . I dont kid myself . . . The reason our show has been so successful isnt because of my good looks, my clever jokes, or my sophisticated demeanor. Its because the whole audience and I share one very important bond: We love and care about animals and want them to be as healthy and pain-free as possible.

Join us on Saturday, March 6 at 1pm ET on #FacebookLive to celebrate this season's #DrPol finale, plus a special someone's birthday! (Can you guess who?) https://t.co/dm9Rb0T3mt pic.twitter.com/VCAFLS7wCh  Dr. Pol (@DrPol) March 5, 2021 The Incredible Dr. Pol creator Charles Pol and daughter Abigail

Dr. Nicole Arcy

In 2018, Dr. Nicole went to work at Pol Veterinary Services. Before that, she was a huge fan of The Incredible Dr. Pol program.

She told Charles in 2020 on his YouTube show Recheck, [Dr. Pol] has been a great mentor these past couple of years and he has taught me how to handle different animals, how to treat them, and if I have any questions, hes right there.

Dr. Brenda Grettenberger

A fan favorite on the reality show, Dr. Brendas career with Dr. Pol took off, she explained, when she saw an ad in a professional journal.

She told Monsters and Critics that she began working with the Netherlands-born veterinarian in the 1990s: I answered a help wanted ad in the AVMA journal (magazine) to find my way to Pol Veterinary Services.

Her bio on the Dr. Pol website revealed more about her education and background: Dr. Brenda Grettenberger was born in Eaton Rapids, Michigan, in 1967. She grew up on a dairy farm and always had an interest in large animals. After graduating from Michigan State University College of Veterinary Medicine in 1992, Dr. Brenda began working at Pol Veterinary Services. When Dr. Brenda is not working, she enjoys dancing, reading, and training her oxen to pull wagons.

Dr. Ray Harp

For Dr. Ray, who became part of the clinics staff in 2019, watching the Nat Geo Wild program led him to Dr. Pols door.

Well, when I was deciding whether or not I should go to vet school, we were actually watching Dr. Pol, Harp told Charles on Recheck. And my wife said, I think you should just go ahead and apply. That looks like a lot of fun. So, thats how I ended up going to vet school and I graduated. She had been checking the want ads for me and it turned out that Dr. Pol was hiring.

Dr. Lisa Jones

As for Dr. Rays fellow 2019 hire Dr. Lisa Jones, she explained to Charles on Recheck that Yeah, all the way up until I went to college, I was home-schooled, she said. The Cornell University graduate added, I think [home-schooling] was a very unique experience; we had a lot more flexibility in our schedule. If we had a nice day outside, we could all go out and stare at flowers and identify roots for science class. We were able to go on some pretty cool field trips and see a lot of the country.

And of course, theres Tater the office cat

Although its not clear who Tater belonged to before becoming Dr. Pols forever cat, the story goes that he was brought in after getting caught in an animal trap. His leg was damaged beyond repair, forcing the veterinarian to amputate it.

Tater has his own Instagram account and generally can be seen sleeping on a desk, a waiting room chair, or splayed out on the waiting room floor. He faithfully welcomes patients and clients streaming in and out of the busy clinic.

Tater is very much at home in the clinic, Dr. Pol said on his show about his feline rescue. He is his own boss. He gets spoiled so much, its unbelievable. Right now, hes getting sneaky, running off to sneak outside. He is not afraid of anything or anybody and is very friendly to everybody.

RELATED: The Incredible Dr. Pol Was Bowled Over by a Doberman Client: How Did You Get Him That Way?
The Sept. 16 episode of the FX comedy What We Do in the Shadows takes the vampires on a road trip. Nandor (Kayvan Novak), Laszlo (Matt Berry), Nadja (Natasia Demetriou) and Colin Robinson (Mark Proksch) visit Atlantic City, New Jersey with Guillermo (Harvey Guillen) in tow. However, executive producer Paul Simms revealed they were not actually in the east coast gambling capital.

Well, none of it was in Atlantic City, Simms told the Television Critics Association at a Zoom panel on Aug. 13.

L-R: Kayvan Novak and Harvey Guillen | Russ Martin/FX

Simms also regretted the ambition of the Atlantic City episode. What We Do in the Shadows went back into production under coronavirus (COVID-19) safety protocols. A road trip episode would be challenging in the best of circumstances, but Simms admitted he did not anticipate the added challenges of COVID-19 safety.

Obviously, there were challenges this season with COVID and everything, and that episode was one that if I had to I love that episode, but it was such a challenge to, when we are trying to limit the exposure of the actors to other people and to big groups, to try and shoot an episode that looks like its in a fullfilled casino.

The What We Do in the Shadows vampires are based in New York City. However, the show films in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where many Hollywood productions double the Big Apple.

A couple invites the vampires to celebrate their anniversary, so the gang neglects their Vampiric Council duties to celebrate. Simms said they also found a nearby Canadian casino to double for Atlantic City.

It was actually a casino we found that was on the Canada side of the border in Niagara Falls, Simms said.

Matt Berry and Natasia Demetriou as Nadja | Russ Martin/FX

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The episode also proves fraught for the fictional vampires. With casinos keeping people up all night, its up to Guillermo to remind them to go back to their rooms before the sun comes up. The casino provides plenty of marks for energy vampire Colin, but the clans attempt to bring ancestral soil to their bedrooms proves no match for the hotel maid staff.

Atlantic City was not the only excursion What We Do in the Shadows had to fake. In another episode, Guillermo takes a trip around the world. Simms said What We Do in the Shadows found locations around Canada.

Guillermos around-the-world journey we all managed to fake somehow, Simms said. I know our British cast members will tell you that theres no real red, doubledecker buses that pull up outside of Heathrow. But, for an American audience, they see that red doubledecker bus, and they go, Holy cow. We must be in England. My favorite one of those was the Iran/Iraq border, which I still dont remember where we found that in Toronto, but somehow

Guillen said he filmed Guillermos world-wide journey in relatively close proximity.

It was right next to Heathrow, Guillen said of the Iran/Iraq scene. It was literally, like, 20 feet across from Heathrow was Iraq, and then down the street was Cherry Beach where we shot Greece and so everything was within, like, a mile radius.

L-R: Harvey Guillen, Matt Berry, Kayvan Novak and Natasia Demetriou | Russ Martin/FX

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Although What We Do in the Shadows is normally set in New York, it is clear the world is densely populated by vampires. The show spun off from the New Zealand movie created by Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi. Showrunner Stefani Robinson couldnt put a number on how many other vampires they could encounter around the world.

The question is how many vampires are there in the world? Robinson said. Countless. It would be a fools errand to try to put a number on it.

What We Do In the Shadows airs Thursdays at 10 p.m. on FX and premiere on Hulu Fridays.
Left panel: Blossom-like structure of the superconducting order parameter in one of the possible unconventional superconducting states, which only returns to itself when rotated by multiples of 180 degrees. Right panel: Bloch sphere displaying different states of the superconducting order parameter. The south pole represents the left-handed state (a specific mix of two different blossom-like states like the one displayed in the left panel), the north-pole its right-handed mirror image. Under a magnetic field, the system is forced into a non-handed, but nematic state (red arrow at the equator).

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) in Hamburg and RWTH Aachen University have suggested a surprising connection between the nematic behavior of a superconductor in a magnetic field  a state that resembles liquid crystals used in LCDs  and its spiral-like groundstate in the absence of the field. Their theory could not only explain recent experiments on twisted bilayer graphene at the so-called magic angle, but would also point to potential applications in topological quantum computing.

In conventional superconductors  materials that conduct electricity without losses  the collective wavefunction of superconducting electrons in the material (the superconducting order parameter) looks the same in all directions in space. Like a circle, it can be rotated without changing its shape. By contrast, unconventional superconductors have an order parameter that does not look like a circle, but can have lobes like a blossom and only returns to itself when rotated by certain angles (see figure, left panel). Such unconventional order parameters can even be combined to form spiral-like, handed states. These are states which  like left and right hands  do not look the same in a mirror, but instead a right-handed state turns into a left-handed one as its mirror image, and vice versa.

Now postdoctoral researcher Tao Yu from the Emmy Noether group at the MPSD and colleagues put forward the theory that such spiral-like states can lose their handed character but instead attain the nematic state when they are exposed to a magnetic field. In the nematic state, known from liquid crystal displays, long molecules align to all point in the same direction like little needles do in a magnetic field. In the superconductor, the consequence of this nematic state is that electrons carry electricity better in one direction (from left to right) than in the other (from top to bottom). Imagine that you have a circle with an arrow along its edge, for instance a clock on which the arrow shows the clockwise rotation of the clocks hands, explains Yu. Now you start compressing the clock by pushing from left and right until you have completely squeezed it into a line. At this point, you cannot tell the handedness anymore because the 9- and the 3-oclock positions are identical. The magnetic field effectively squeezes the handed superconductor until its electrons prefer to move in the same direction.

The physics can also be illustrated by the Bloch sphere (see figure, right panel), which is formed by all the different shapes and orientations of the clock. The south pole is the usual clock with a left-handed, clockwise rotation of hands. The north pole is its mirror image. The equator has different orientations of nematic states without handedness. The effect of the magnetic field on the material is to move the arrow from one of the poles to the equator in this picture, says Yu.

The theorists interest in this problem was sparked by a recent experiment in the group of Pablo Jarillo-Herrero at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, published in Science earlier this year. There, the researchers observed nematic behavior in magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene which was exposed to a magnetic field. Twisted bilayer graphene is one of the most-studied and fascinating materials of the past few years. That paper did not draw the connection between the observed nematic behavior and underlying handed states, says Dante Kennes, co-author of the study and professor at RWTH Aachen University. It remains to be seen whether our theory explains the nematicity in magic-angle graphene, or whether it has some other origin. This will require more experiments. However, our theory does not only apply to this material, but is more general.

Michael Sentef, Emmy Noether group leader at the MPSD and senior author of the study, says these are potentially groundbreaking results: Intriguingly, the experiment may have revealed indirect evidence for handed superconductivity, which would be huge, if confirmed. However, he adds, it also illustrates a more fundamental issue: What I find equally fascinating is how the idea was conceived. Tao worked on the optical manipulation of handed states, in which we showed that handedness can be flipped by laser pulses, an idea developed by some of us a few years ago (see this Press Release). When he saw the paper by the Jarillo-Herrero group, he connected the dots and realized that a magnetic field can have a very similar effect to a laser pulse.

In Sentefs opinion, this points to an important lesson: The recently deceased Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg once wrote that one of the key insights from his impressive research career was that one should forgive oneself for wasting time. I believe what he meant was that research is not always straightforward and it is incredibly hard to predict which problems are worthwhile pursuing. Here we have a perfect example of a truly serendipitous finding  an unplanned discovery that is only possible when we have the opportunity to deeply think about nature without exactly knowing where this will lead us. The MPSD is a land of ideas which provides such opportunities, and I sincerely hope it will remain this way.
Dr. Carla Recker (Continental), Prof. Dr. Dirk Prufer (University of Munster) and Dr. Christian Schulze Gronover (Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology IME) have been nominated for the Federal President's Award for Technology and Innovation 2021 (Deutscher Zukunftspreis 2021) with their joint project Sustainable tires through dandelions  innovations from biology, technology and agriculture. The German Federal Presidents Office announced this at the Deutsches Museum in Munich. Every year, the Federal President presents the Federal President's Award to individuals or teams for outstanding technical, engineering, or scientific innovation.

This award is a great honor for us. It once again confirms the potential of a new raw material source for natural rubber. Together with our project network, we have been able to significantly advance research into the entire value chain of the Russian dandelion, explains Dr. Carla Recker, Head of the Expertfield Materials Chemistry at Continental Tires. The industrialization of the cultivation of dandelion rubber is the goal of our long-term project, where the key to success is mutual trust and perseverance, she adds. Our first, series-produced bicycle tire made from dandelion rubber, the Urban Taraxagum, shows that marketable products made of natural rubber from the dandelion plant are possible.

Since 2011, the project team has been working together on extracting natural rubber regionally from dandelions instead importing it exclusively from far-away tropical regions  a crucial advantage of this project for Dr. Dirk Prufer, Professor of Plant Biotechnology at the University of Munster. The protection of our tropical forest is a top priority in the fight against climate change. For this reason, the natural rubber processing industry also needs to rethink. Our approach to sustainably gaining natural rubber from dandelions can counteract many socio-economic and ecological challenges in these regions, the Munster scientist emphasizes. The extraction of natural rubber from dandelions allows raw materials to be produced close to Continentals tire mills. This also makes it possible to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions caused by long transport routes.

The path to establishing the Russian dandelion to become a cultivatable raw material source posed a major challenge for the researchers. Through consistent, knowledge-based action and with modern analytics, we have worked with a plant breeder to establish high-yielding and hardy plants from wild Russian dandelion. We have also developed an environmentally friendly process for extracting rubber from the roots of the plants, explains Dr. Christian Schulze Gronover, Head of Research at the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology IME, Munster. "The whole of society is already benefiting from these innovations, for example farmers, logisticians, machine builders and, naturally, cyclists."

The extended network, which contributes significantly to the implementation of the project, also includes among others the Julius Kuhn Institute and the plant breeding company ESKUSA.
CHENEY  The booths and chairs of the Speak Easy restaurant (formerly Willow Springs) were filled with an assortment of clowns, flappers, and gangsters Friday night to raise funds for Shriner's Hospital and Feed Cheney.

Organized by the West Plains Angels, founded by Tony and Amy Blount, the evening included a colorful fashion show of Shriners clowns and a feast of food that netted over $1,000 in donations.

"It went very, very well," Tony Blount said. "Everyone was very happy."

The Angels were excited to partner with Feed Cheney, a local organization dedicated to providing food services to struggling community members, for the event.

"Feed Cheney has evolved into a year-round free monthly scratch-made meal, grocery distribution, and community hub for volunteering," their mission statement reads. "There are no paid staff or administrators for Feed Cheney! We are a small group of Cheney residents who believe in the mission of Feed Cheney and, through our churches and community affiliations, volunteer our time and talents to organize and solicit donations to maintain Feed Cheney."

The other beneficiary, Shriners, undertakes the vital mission of caring for the medical needs of kids across the region, "to make lives richer, easier and less complex for children and families in Washington, Idaho, Montana, Alaska and Canada, as well as other U.S. and international locations."

Scott Davis can be reached at news@cheneyfreepress.com.
Fourteen years ago, Cheshire played host to a special traveling monument  the Vietnam Traveling Memorial Wall.

For a few days in November of 2007, residents from all over the state came to pay their respects to those who lost their lives in the Vietnam War, and some were able to make a rubbing of the name of a loved one whom they had lost.

Now, one Cheshire resident is bringing the wall back, in hopes of introducing a new generation to the history of the war and the sacrifices those who fought in it made for freedom.

Cheshires Hayley Falk, 18 year-old founder of the local veterans-focused group Because of The Brave, is responsible for coordinating the walls return scheduled for the spring of next year, and is excited to bring the experience back to her hometown.

Each day, I hope to remind everyone of the service and sacrifice of those who have gone before us to preserve our way of life, our freedom, Falk said. With The Traveling Vietnam Memorial Wall coming to town, it is a time for us as citizens of this great nation to honor every name on the Wall along with the Gold Star Families.

The Traveling Vietnam Memorial Wall, which is also referred to as The Wall That Heals, is a 3/5-scale replica of the monument in Washington, D.C., and stands roughly 6 feet tall and is nearly 300 feet long. Like the original wall, it is a chevron shape and has 140 numbered panels on which the names of the more than 58,000 who perished fighting the war are engraved.

The wall was created in 1996 by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund for the distinct purpose of being able to travel to all communities in the United States.

The memorial will allow for residents to make rubbings of individual names.

We are making a volunteer committee through Because of the Brave in order to make sure we can prepare everything for the event, Falk said. We will need to be able to help with everything from getting the word out about the wall to building a handicapped accessible ramp. Its going to take a lot of work, but I am so excited to have it come back.

Because of the Brave is partnering with the Bozzutos Hometown Foundation and the Town of Cheshire to display the wall at Bartlem Park from June 26 next spring. Other businesses, such as Mission BBQ, will be at the event when the wall first arrives.

This Traveling Memorial stands as a moving reminder of the great sacrifices made during the Vietnam War, explained Jeff Falk, Hayleys father, who served as a U.S. Navy officer and as president of Because of The Brave. It was made for the purpose of helping heal and rekindle friendships and to allow people the opportunity to visit loved ones in their hometown who otherwise may not be able to make the trip to Washington (D.C).

It is Falks hope that the walls return to town will not only teach the newer generations about the Vietnam War, but also help them make a real-life connection to something that they might have only learned about through books or documentaries.

Kids my age forget why its important to remember our veterans and why we need to remember the events that happened in the past, Falk said. Having the wall back will make an impact on a lot of people.
As we approached the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, a rather common observation was made: An entire generation of young people, many college-aged or soon-to-be, have no direct memory of the events of that fateful September day.

In fact, as The Herald recounts in todays paper, Cheshire Academy dedicated significant time and effort this week to educating their students about not only the attacks themselves, but also the impact of 9/11 and what transpired afterward. For the students, Sept. 11, 2001, has been and will remain simply a day to be studied, rather than a lived experience to be remembered.

That, of course, is the nature of history. Some can still recall where they were when news of the attack on Pearl Harbor was announced. Many others recall with great clarity what they were doing the exact moment they learned that President John F. Kennedy had been shot and killed. For millions, however, such historical happenings are objects of academic interest rather than life-altering events.

Thats why it should come as welcomed news that, once again, Cheshire will play host to The Wall That Heals, a miniaturized version of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. The traveling display, originally showcased in Cheshire back in 2007, allows those who have never had the chance to visit the D.C. memorial an opportunity to experience the powerful impact the wall makes on all who visit it, while connecting to the names that are inscribed on its gleaming back surface.

And while the walls arrival in Cheshire, planned for next spring, would be an important moment no matter who served as organizer, there is something special about that fact that it is an 18-year-old who has taken the initiative and is spearheading it all.

It likely isnt a surprise that Hayley Falk, founder of the Because of the Brave organization, is the one organizing this endeavor. Coming from a military family, and a grandfather who served in Vietnam, it makes sense that she would be the one looking to keep the memory of all those who died during the war alive.

But its not just Falk. Cheshire has a laudable legacy of students taking the reins when it comes to events honoring military service and historical moments. Going all the way back to the first visit from The Wall That Heals, it was Cheshire High School students who helped make the whole thing a possibility.

History is only maintained if each new generation commits to maintaining it. The fields at Gettysburg would be unidentifiable hills if generations of Americans, born decades, even a century, after the Civil War had ceased, did not dedicate themselves to preserving it. Independence Hall in Philadelphia attracts thousands of visitors per year, precisely because Americans have decided to remember and honor what took place in that building more than 200 years ago.

The Vietnam War ended in April of 1975. That means anyone under the age of 46 would not have born before the conflict concluded. Anyone under 50 years of age likely has no real memory of what it was like to be alive when the war was raging, or how much the conflict impacted the lives of those back home in the U.S.

Now more than ever, we need to ensure that the generations of today remember what happened during that period of American history and pay tribute to the men and women who served in that controversial war. Its why The Wall That Heals return is so important. It will be an event, one complete with a lot of fanfare, that will communicate the importance of that time in a way words on a page just simply cannot.

We may yet be months away from the walls official arrival, but that doesnt mean we cant acknowledge the impact it will likely have on Cheshire once it has departed. A generation of residents who were there 14 years ago can attest to that.
Despite tense polarization, there was no mass exodus from evangelicalism by white evangelicals who disliked Donald Trump nor by evangelicals of color during the four years of his presidency, Pew Research Center found.

According to analysis released Wednesday, more Americans started identifying as born-again or evangelical Protestants between 2016 and 2020 than stopped calling themselves evangelicals. The boost came almost entirely from white Trump supporters.

Among those who didnt consider themselves evangelicals when the former president was elected, nearly 1 in 6 had begun identifying as evangelicals by 2020. Just 1 percent of white Americans who did not favor Trump made the same switch.

The findings complicate an already fraught discussion around the future of the evangelicalism and the political baggage the label carries in the United States.

Evangelicalism is not collapsing, despite the enthusiastic predictions of its detractors. However, what it is becoming I think is worthy of more conversation, said Ed Stetzer, executive director of the Wheaton College Billy Graham Center. There are significant implications to the fact that significant numbers of white Trump supporters now identify as evangelical or born again. We dont know why, and correlation does not always mean causation, but there is more to study here.

In the past two presidential elections, white evangelical Protestants made up a core voting bloc for Trump, as they did for previous Republican candidates, including Mitt Romney, John McCain, and George W. Bush. But just 30% of non-White voters who identify as born-again or evangelical Protestants (including just 12% of Black evangelical voters) reported casting a ballot for Trump in 2020, researchers wrote.

Still, evangelical identity among people of color held steady in the Pew survey. Non-white respondents were just as likely to drop the evangelical label during Trumps term in office as they were to adopt it. Around a quarter identified as born-again or evangelical in both 2016 and 2020.

Among white evangelicals, although slightly more Trump opponents had given up their evangelical identity in recent years compared to Trump supporters, the difference was not statistically significant since it fell within the margin of error, Pew researchers wrote.

To historian Thomas Kidd, the possibility that Americans began calling themselves evangelical simply because they backed president Trump should be of concern to all pastors and committed churchgoers.

His 2019 book Who Is an Evangelical?: The History of a Movement in Crisis argues that the popular connotation that evangelicals are white Republicansor white Republican Trump supportersfails to capture the historic and current breadth of the movement. It was released in the midst of a renewed debate over the evangelical label following the 2016 election.

There are good reasons for churches to continue to describe themselves as evangelical, if by that term they are referencing their historic commitment to the Bible's authority, the necessity of spiritual conversion, and the felt presence of God in daily life, Kidd said this week.

But pastors in particular should realize that the meaning they attach to evangelical may not be the same as that of some in their congregation. I suspect most pastors would not want to inadvertently signal to their congregations that they are effectively branch offices of Donald Trumps GOP, simply by making undefined use of the term evangelical.

While many evangelicals and evangelical institutions see their movement in theological terms, to the point that Christian pollsters have tried to break out evangelicals by belief rather than self-identity, the label has taken on a political dimension over decades of polling, media coverage, and the partisan involvement of evangelicals themselves.

But what if a gap between what we claim to be and what we support politically emerges? The Trump administration raised these questions in new and unusual ways, said Mark Caleb Smith, director of the Center for Political Studies at Cedarville University. If the Pew study holds up, and is confirmed by other data sources, it presents the challenge in a new light. Is it possible that people not within the religious tradition of evangelicalism are only political evangelicals? Does this reflect poorly on us?

Trump embraced the support of dozens of evangelical leaders, ranging from prominent Southern Baptist pastors to prosperity preachers popularized on TBN like his longtime friend Paula White-Cain. While a swath of Christians decried Trumps character, others celebrated how his administration defended religious freedom, the pro-life cause, and conscience protections. (And some Christians did both.)

After the 2016 election, analyses of voter surveys indicated that Clinton voters were more likely than Trump voters to disaffiliate, but not dramatically. In 2018, the General Social Survey found that, even with the divide over Trump and growing numbers of unaffiliated Americans, the evangelical share of the population in the US continued to hold steady, as it had for a decade.

Smith at Cedarville says the social and political overtones to evangelicalism in America may be unavoidable, which becomes a challenge if they interfere with the mission of the church.

My concern is that this shift might make it more difficult to present ourselves as ambassadors for Christ. Will those who disagree with our politics dismiss us theologically out of hand? If so, this presents real problems for who we are, he said. The Great Commission still beckons us, but our culture is so politicized and polarized that spreading the gospel under what is seen as a political banner becomes much harder.
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For peace in Ethiopian conflict, church leaders say diplomatic process must be fair

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As tensions continue to mount in the ongoing civil war in Ethiopia that has left thousands dead and some 2 million people displaced, leaders in the North American Dioceses of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church urged the Biden administration and Congress this week to intensify efforts to bring an end to the conflict in Tigray.

Ten archbishops attended meetings this week with the U.S. State Department, Congress and the White House, calling for a fair diplomatic process that will hold the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front accountable for atrocities they have committed.

The atrocities that have been done by this terrorist organization is untold," Archbishop Abune Fanuel of Washington D.C. and chairperson for the Ethiopian Religious Council told The Christian Post in an interview Thursday. "Millions have been destabilized from their property and the kind of damage they do to the people takes different forms.

He was also joined by Archbishop Abune Nathanael, who oversees the archdioceses of Colorado, Utah, Kansas and Nebraska.

The current conflict in Ethiopia erupted last November when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered a military offensive against the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front, a left-wing rebel group that led Ethiopia from 1991 until Abiy became prime minister in 2018, The New York Times reported.

Abiy reportedly preached a message of hope and unity and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019. He has accused TPLF of attacking a federal military base and attempting to steal weapons.

The conflict has since escalated and militia fighters from the Amhara region to the south and Eritrean troops from the north joined the Ethiopian military in opposing the Tigrayan rebels who have also captured Mekelle, the regional capital of Tigray.

In May, President Joe Biden expressed concern over the escalating violence and noted that his administration was working with the Ethiopian Government, the African Union, the United Nations and other international partners to reach a diplomatic solution to the crisis. He also urged Ethiopian officials to promote reconciliation, human rights, and respect for pluralism.

Doing so will preserve the unity and territorial integrity of the state and ensure the protection of the Ethiopian people and the delivery of urgently needed assistance," Biden said. "The Government of Ethiopia and other stakeholders across the political spectrum should commit to an inclusive dialogue. Working together, the people of Ethiopia can build a shared vision for the countrys political future and lay the foundation for sustainable and equitable economic growth and prosperity."

The church leaders who met with senators and members of Congress about the situation in Washington Thursday argued that the international partners need to hold TPLF accountable if a peaceful solution is to be reached.

The religious leaders were scheduled to meet with Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., according to a source with knowledge of the arrangements.

Lasting solution can come only when its based on fairness and truth, Archbishop Nathanael said, noting that the analysis of the conflict by American government and media has been biased.

That may be the policy of the American government to invite diplomats, but what has actually [been happening] is a very biased part of the terrorist groups even when it is clearly seen that these terrorist groups have been killing thousands and violating every [law] on the books, Fanuel added.

Even before this war began, there had been a lot of attempts by the Ethiopian government and the Ethiopian people for a peaceful resolution to the problem. But they started the war and they have done a lot of damage," he added. "Even when the government has taken a unilateral ceasefire, they wage war in Amhara and the Afar regions. Thats the reason for millions fleeing those places."

Abiy had called for a ceasefire in June.

How could negotiations go with a terrorist organization when they are not willing to take a ceasefire? When they are not willing to negotiate with the people in the Ethiopian government? Fanuel asked. If it could be balanced in terms of holding both parties accountable, then that is how [it can work].

He further added: As spiritual leaders, our primary responsibility is to pray to the Lord to bring solutions. But what we also say at the same time, the process has to be fair for the Ethiopian people and the Ethiopian government. There is an elected government that is putting conditions on the terrorists to respect the Ethiopian sovereignty.

Nathanael said spiritual leaders have been to the Tigray and pleaded for peace many times, but TPLF has refused to come to the table.

As the saying goes, it takes two to tango," he said. "It takes two parties to bring peace."

A source with knowledge of the meetings said that the archbishops sought to encourage the U.S. to "work more constructively with the Ethiopian Government to ensure aid is made available to the vulnerable and those who have committed atrocities are prosecuted."

There was much international media focus at the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021 surrounding the military offensive carried out in the Tigray region. Reports had circulated about atrocities committed against civilians in the Tigray region by suspected Eritrean troops. Among the dead were said to be priests, women, entire families and even a group of Sunday school children.

Some witnesses claimed that Eritrean soldiers went from door-to-door to kill Tigrayan men and boys as young as 7 years old.

Reports indicate that the Tigray forces retook their home region in June. Since then, the conflict has crept into the Amhara region.

While much international attention was placed on the actions of the Eritrean and Ethiopian military in Tigray, Tigray militants are facing growing allegations that they have attacked civilians in retaliation for the atrocities committed in Tigray.

A dozen witnesses told The Associated Press about how Tigray forces have attacked communities and religious sites with artillery. Witnesses say that civilians were killed while schools and health centers were looted, leading to thousands of people fleeing from their homes in the past two months.

Additionally, a Human Rights Watch report released this week details that both Eritrean government forces and Tigrayan militias have committed killings, rape and other grave human rights abuses against Eritrean refugees in the Tigray region.
Students sue Catholic university for denying them vaccine exemptions on religious grounds

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Four pro-life students are suing a Catholic university for denying their request to obtain religious exemptions from the coronavirus vaccine.

Creighton University, a Jesuit-affiliated school with campuses in Omaha, Nebraska, and Phoenix, Arizona, is the subject of a lawsuit by four of its students, who are challenging the newly instituted requirement that students provide proof that they have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine before they can attend classes on campus. While the university allows students to request medical exemptions from the vaccine requirement, it does not allow exemptions based on religious objections.

The lawsuit was filed in the District Court of Douglas County, Nebraska, on Wednesday by attorney Robert Sullivan on behalf of Creighton University students Lauren Ramaekers, Patrice Quadrel, Sarah Stinsel and Jane Doe. It noted that Creighton University set Sept. 7 as the deadline for all students to receive at least one dose of the vaccine. Any student who did not receive at least one dose of the vaccine by this time was to be unenrolled or administratively withdrawn after 4:30 p.m. on that date.

Each of the plaintiffs have religious objections to the Covid-19 vaccines based on the fact that the vaccines were developed and/or tested using abortion derived fetal cell lines and some have serious medical conditions which make the vaccine not recommended, Sullivan wrote. The use of vaccines developed and/or tested using abortion derived fetal cell lines has divided the Catholic Church, which is known for its outspoken opposition to abortion.

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans has urged faithful Catholics to refrain from taking the morally compromised single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine due to its use of aborted fetal cells in production and testing. Meanwhile, the Vatican has assured Catholics that it is morally acceptable to receive Covid-19 vaccines that have used cell lines from aborted fetuses in their research and production process.

Catholic World Report noted that Ramaekers received a letter from Tanya Winegard, Creighton vice provost for student life, informing her that Creighton University communicated to you that vaccination documentation of your first vaccine dose must be submitted by Sept. 7, 2021. Winegard told Ramaekers that Student Health Education and Compliance (SHEC) records indicate that you have not submitted the required documentation. Therefore, you are in violation of the Creighton University Standards of Conduct.

The lawsuit maintained that because the students have been attending classes since the semester started, and Defendant has accepted tuition money and other fees the Plaintiffs have paid, the university had entered into a binding contract with the students.

Sullivan argued that keeping the plaintiffs tuition money while expelling them from campus for refusing to take the coronavirus vaccine constituted a breach of the contract. The lawsuit asked a judge to order Creighton to re-enroll and [reinstate] Plaintiffs to Creighton University, and enjoining Defendant from expelling, unenrolling, disciplining, retaliating against, or otherwise restricting all students access to classes, and any other service or privilege afforded to the students of Creighton University due to their vaccination status.

On Sept. 2, Sullivan sent a letter to the president and board of Creighton University seeking relief for his clients. He never received a response and filed the lawsuit shortly thereafter.

Ramaekers was scheduled to graduate from Creighton in December 2021. Quadrel had completed 97 credits of coursework while Sinsel was on track to graduate from dental school at Creighton at the conclusion of the 2021-'22 academic year.

As noted in the lawsuit, Creighton Universitys student population has an extremely high vaccination rate of more than 93%. By contrast, according to Johns Hopkins University, just under 55% of the U.S. population as a whole is fully vaccinated.

Creighton University is not the only institution of higher learning to embrace a vaccine mandate for its students. A case challenging Indiana Universitys vaccine mandate went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which dismissed the case, thereby leaving the mandate in place. A.T. Still University School of Dentistry and Oral Health in Missouri amended its vaccine mandate to accommodate religious exemptions for two Christian dental students following legal action.

Last week, President Joe Biden announced that he was directing the U.S. Department of Labor to institute mandates on businesses with over 100 employees, requiring their employees to either get vaccinated or produce at least one negative coronavirus test per week. Threats of legal action soon followed.
Senators launch investigation as leaked internal data shows Instagram can be harmful for teens

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Members of the U.S. Senate have vowed to investigate Instagram's negative impact on the self-esteem of young users after a recent report showed that the platform's parent company, Facebook, knew but didn't disclose how the image-sharing platform is harmful to teen users.

On Tuesday, Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., the chair and ranking member of the Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security, announced intent to launch a bipartisan probe into Facebooks knowledge of its platforms negative impact on teenagers. The probe is expected to begin next month.

The announcement comes days after a Wall Street Journal report revealed that an internal study launched by the social media giant found that one out of three teenage girls who used Instagram say the platform made them feel worse about their bodies. The leaked study also found that among teens who reported suicidal thoughts, "13% of British users and 6% of American users traced the desire to kill themselves to Instagram."

It is clear that Facebook is incapable of holding itself accountable. The Wall Street Journals reporting reveals Facebooks leadership to be focused on a growth-at-all-costs mindset that valued profits over the health and lives of children and teens," the senators stressed in a joint statement.

"When given the opportunity to come clean to us about their knowledge of Instagrams impact on young users, Facebook provided evasive answers that were misleading and covered up clear evidence of significant harm. We are in touch with a Facebook whistleblower and will use every resource at our disposal to investigate what Facebook knew and when they knew it  including seeking further documents and pursuing witness testimony. The Wall Street Journals blockbuster reporting may only be the tip of the iceberg.

Last month, Blumenthal and Blackburn called on Facebook to release its internal research on the potentially harmful impacts of its platforms on mental health and how the data has been used for marketing its products to young users.

Blumenthal and Blackburn held a hearing in May focusing on how to protect children online as the amount of time children spend on popular social media apps has surged.

On Wednesday, Sens. Edward Markey, D-Mass, along with Reps. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., and Lori Trahan, D-Mass., wrote Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to demand answers in light of the Wall Street Journal report. They called on Facebook to abandon plans to develop an Instagram platform for kids under 13.

"Children and teens are uniquely vulnerable populations online, and these findings paint a clear and devastating picture of Instagram as an app that poses significant threats to young peoples wellbeing," the lawmakers wrote in their Sept. 15 letter. "As the internet  and social media specifically  becomes increasingly engrained in children and teens lives, we are deeply concerned that your company continues to fail in its obligation to protect young users and has yet to commit to halt its plans to launch new platforms targeting children and teens."

"The recently uncovered evidence published in the Wall Street Journal underscores Facebooks responsibility to fundamentally change its approach to engaging

with children and teens online," they added. "That starts with Facebook abandoning its plans to launch a new version of Instagram for kids."

The Wall Street Journal reports that researchers from Facebook discovered that 32% of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse. Out of 1 billion Instagram users, 22 million teen logins occur per day.

Comparisons on Instagram can change how young women view and describe themselves, said researchers in a March 2020 slide presentation posted to Facebooks internal message board, according to the newspaper.

Findings displayed in the presentation also revealed that teens blame Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiety and depression.

Anastasia Vlasova, a teenager in Virginia, told The Wall Street Journal that she started to see a therapist because she developed an eating disorder, which she believed developed due to viewing Instagram content.

When I went on Instagram, all I saw were images of chiseled bodies, perfect abs and women doing 100 burpees in 10 minutes, she said.

The negative impact social media can have on mental health is well-documented.

Child Mind Institute research found that increased time on social media can cause teenagers to feel more isolated, which could be linked to pre-existing feelings of loneliness. Theories suggest that social media is not helpful and can potentially be harmful to teenagers self-esteem.

Seeing lots of perfect pictures online might make kids (especially girls) view themselves negatively [and] feeling bad about themselves can lead to depression, the Child Mind Institute study states.

The less you are connected with human beings in a deep, empathic way, the less youre really getting the benefits of a social interaction, Alexandra Hamlet, a clinical psychologist, told researchers. The more superficial it is, the less likely its going to cause you to feel connected, which is something we all need.

In May 2021, an option was rolled out on Facebook and Instagram so that users can hide the number of likes generated from each post.

Now, Facebook is being accused of keeping its internal studies secret from the public. In May, Instagram head Adam Mosseri told reporters that he had seen research revealing the apps effects on teen wellbeing is likely quite small, according to The Wall Street Journal report.

The hope here was to try and depressurize the experience a little bit, Mosseri told the reporters on a press call. It turned out that it didnt actually change nearly as much about the experience in terms of how people felt or how much they use the experience as we thought it would.

Tony Souder, head of the Chattanooga-based Pray for Me Campaign, a Church-wide initiative that equips adult believers to pray for children and students, told The Christian Post that todays teens are being discipled by their phones.

As a Church, we have to be able to think differently and help them differently than we ever even imagined, he said. The Church has to come alongside young people in a different way. If we dont do something different, were going to miss an entire generation. We have to create intergenerational relationships so they will have the resources they need to flourish in faith and life.
Controversial Episcopal bishop John Shelby Spong, who advocated for LGBT affirmation, dies at 90

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Theologically liberal Episcopal Church Bishop John Shelby Spong, an outspoken advocate of progressive views on LGBT issues and biblical interpretation, has passed away at age 90.

St. Pauls Episcopal Church of Richmond, Virginia, where Spong served as a pastor, announced that he died in his sleep on Sunday morning.

It is with great sadness that we announce the death of the Rt. Rev. John Shelby Spong. He died peacefully in his sleep at his home on Sunday morning, the church stated in an email.

The Westar Institute, which hosted a critical biblical scholarship gathering known as the Jesus Seminar, honored Spong, a longtime supporter of the organization.

His work and witness have inspired and freed many Westar members and a generation of thoughtful people. May his memory be a blessing, tweeted the Institute.

News has come to us that Westar scholar Bishop John Shelby Spong died peacefully in his sleep at his home this morning. His work and witness have inspired and freed many Westar members and a generation of thoughtful people. May his memory be a blessing.https://t.co/nMrgdGvStPpic.twitter.com/cWd9PpMIFw  Westar Institute, Home of the Jesus Seminar (@WestarInstitute) September 12, 2021

According to the Westar Institute, Spong was born in 1931 and initially identified as a fundamentalist Christian while growing up in North Carolina. He later rejected such views as being detrimental to faith.

He was ordained into the priesthood in 1955 and consecrated as a bishop for the Episcopal Diocese of Newark, New Jersey, in 1976. Spong held the position of bishop until 2000.

Spong authored several books, including Living in Sin? A Bishop Rethinks Human Sexuality (1988), Born of a Woman: A Bishop Rethinks the Birth of Jesus (1992) and Why Christianity Must Change or Die: A Bishop Speaks to Believers in Exile (1998).

As the Christian Courier's Wayne Jackson reports, Spong became known for his support of progressive sexual ethics in the 1980s. Specifically, he advocated for the Church to accept sex outside of marriage and the blessing of same-sex relationships.

In 1989, Spong made headlines when he ordained an openly gay priest despite opposition from traditionalist Episcopal Church bishops.

Spong also openly embraced the theory of evolution and denied many of the key teachings of the Bible, including the virgin birth and the historical existence of Judas Iscariot.

[Judas] was a totally fictional character, a totally literary character created by [the] early Christian Church in the ninth decade for [the] sole purpose of shifting blame for Jesus death away from Romans who were certainly responsible for it, and placing that blame on the backs of the Jewish people, Spong reportedly claimed in a 2016 lecture.

Many, including Jackson, have critiqued Spong's work over the years, arguing against the bishops claims about the Bible and morality.

Though Spong claims to have studied the Bible with great intensity, his writings reveal an abysmal lack of knowledge of the sacred text. His ignorance is exceeded only by his arrogant disrespect for the time-tested volume, wrote Jackson.

Not everything that parades under the name Christian is deserving of that appellation. And there is no better example of that maxim than that of John Shelby Spong, the rogue priest who has made a career of bashing the Son of God and disgracing that sacred name before an uninformed public.

In recent years, the Episcopal Church has taken a progressive stance on issues of sexuality, particularly regarding LGBT issues. In 2012, the bishops of the Episcopal Church amended the definition of marriage to accommodate same-sex marriages.

Six years later, the Episcopal Church began requiring all dioceses to perform same-sex marriages, even if the diocese bishop remained opposed. Bishops who have refused to allow same-sex marriages have faced disciplinary action.
Kodak Black, rapper pardoned by Trump, accepts Jesus as my Lord and Savior

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Rapper Bill Kahan Kapri, popularly known by his stage name "Kodak Black," was one of 73 people granted pardons by former President Donald Trump before he left office earlier this year. On Sunday, the rapper announced his acceptance of Jesus as my Lord and Savior."

The announcement from Kapri comes days after Christian ministers Kevin Louidor and Annia Icart, who both attend King Jesus Universal Ministry, prayed with the artist at a gas station in Florida last Tuesday.

On Facebook, Louidor also shared how shortly after they helped the rapper pray, God protected their lives in a grisly crash.

TESTIMONY! GOD SAVES! On our way to our church King Jesus Universal Ministry with my sister in Christ Annia Icart, we went to stop by the gas station and we happen to meet a popular rapper Kodak Black and the Lord used us to minister to him and his crew, and Kodak gave his life to Jesus Christ! Louidor wrote.

Then after we was done, we started driving to church and the presence of God filled the car, and we [were] praising God and out of nowhere [I] start[ed] speaking in tongues and declare may the angel of protection be with us! And soon as I finished saying that the car lost control and we got [into] a car accident. We know the enemy is not happy of what took place because we brought a soul to kingdom so he retaliated! Victory is won! Jesus is Lord! he declared.

In a video of Kapri saying the prayer, he declared to God, in part: I pray right now that you forgive me of all of my sins, and I receive your forgiveness and I believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins and He rose from the dead. I accept you, Jesus, as my Lord and my Savior. Come into my heart, clean me up. Use me for your glory. I believe that if I was to die that when I wake up, I will be in your arms. In Jesus' name, I am saved. Amen.

On Sunday, Kapri, who previously identified as a Hebrew Israelite, shared the video of his conversion in a post on Instagram. He captioned the video, GOD VS THE DEVIL WHO SIDE YOU ON FA THE WAR?

The Christian Post reached out to King Jesus Universal Ministry, Louidor, Icart and Kapri for comment on Monday but none of them were immediately available.

Icart, who is of Haitian heritage along with the rapper and Louidor, shared on her Facebook page that shortly after the accident, her mother received a call from a pastor in Haiti who said he had been praying against death.

My mom Caroline received a phone call after the incident from a pastor in Haiti. The Lord revealed to him a fatal car accident with me in it the day before the accident happened. He was praying against death since the day before! PRAYER WORKS, she wrote.

God gave my brother Kevin Louidor and I life. We shared the love of God. We are not blaming anything on anyone. The Lord will locate you and have people praying for you when you dont even know it! I say this to say, obey God. You do not know whose life depends on it. Peace and blessings, she added.

Kapri, 24, whose second album, Dying to Live, peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart in 2018, was sentenced to nearly four years in prison in 2019 for making a false statement to buy a firearm. In September 2020, he sued the Federal Bureau of Prisons claiming torture and religious suppression while he was at the Big Sandy maximum security prison in Kentucky.

Court documents say Kapri was transferred from a Miami prison to Big Sandy in October after he was involved in an altercation with another inmate which resulted in the injury of a prison officer.

Shortly after he arrived at Big Sandy, Kapri alleged the guards put a "gang beating" on him in retaliation for the injury of the Miami prison guard and "flicked" his testicles during the ordeal.

He further alleged that he was routinely mistreated by guards without cause and was once placed in a four-point restraint for six hours while wearing a backless paper gown with no access to a bathroom. He alleged he defecated and urinated on himself while the guards made jokes.

He was later transferred to a prison in Illinois, and Trump's pardon would come a few months later.

In their statement on Kapri, the Trump administration called him a prominent artist and community leader whose pardon had the support of numerous religious leaders, including Pastor Darrell Scott and Rabbi Schneur Kaplan.

Before his conviction and after reaching success as a recording artist, Kodak Black became deeply involved in numerous philanthropic efforts. In fact, he has committed to supporting a variety of charitable efforts, such as providing educational resources to students and families of fallen law enforcement officers and the underprivileged, the White House statement said.

In addition to these efforts, he has paid for the notebooks of school children, provided funding and supplies to daycare centers, provided food for the hungry, and annually provides for underprivileged children during Christmas. Most recently while still incarcerated, Kodak Black donated $50,000 to David Portnoys Barstool Fund, which provides funds to small businesses affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Kodak Blacks only request was that his donation go toward restaurants in his hometown, it added.
Alveda King launches new mission to bring pro-life curriculum to classrooms, Sunday schools

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Evangelist Alveda King, one of the nation's leading pro-life voices and niece of Martin Luther King Jr., has launched a new pro-life organization to bring pro-life curriculums to Sunday schools and after-school clubs to inform the next generation on the importance of life.

King launched the new group Speak For Life earlier this month, in which she will travel around the nation to speak on college campuses, schools and in other venues.

Human life is sacred from the womb to the tomb, the activist told The Christian Post in a video interview that can be viewed below.

The 70-year-old King, who has advocated against abortion for over half her life, wants her lifes mission to help further encourage people to value all human life, regardless of color, creed or age. She recently retired from Priests for Life to pursue her own ministry goals.

Speak For Life  the organization is new, but my ministry and mission has been ongoing for all of my life," she said. "I was rescued from abortion myself in 1950 when my mom was pregnant with me, and my grandfather convinced her to have me."

The following is an edited transcript of Kings interview with CP. She details some of the curricula that her organization will offer students, ranging from elementary school to college.



Christian Post: Can you tell us about how Speak for Life came about?

King: As a Christian evangelist, I was born again in 1983. My whole worldview changed. I was pro-abortion, for example. I was such a feminist that I thought women should take over the world.

In 1983, I had been an actress, a state legislator, accomplished many things and I received Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. So I began to realize that human life is sacred from the womb to the tomb. The little babies in the womb are people. Once they're born, they begin to grow. We become adults. Sometimes we're sick or elderly, or so many things can occur in life. But human dignity must exist, from the womb to the tomb and everything between.

Also, we are one human race. We're not separate races. Acts 17:26 says, "Of one blood, God made all people." Therefore, we should not be fighting over skin color. That's ethnicity; that's not race. There's one race, and we should not be fighting over who has a right to live and who does not. So, I've learned this within my 70 years of life, not only as the niece of Martin Luther King Jr., my dad, his brother, Reverend A.D. King, my mom, my grandparents. I've learned this in the human experience of accepting Jesus and beginning to live in a way where every life matters.

Speak For Life bridges the gap with the generations. At Speak For Life, we don't believe the children are our future. We believe the children are present. Right now, we are breathing the same air together, and our young people, our children need to articulate to be able to talk about and defend the dignity of all human life, human dignity.

We are working on a curriculum for children, not for the adults to do it and teach children how to do it. But for the children to speak life. This will be certainly for churches in Sunday schools, but there are extracurricular clubs after school and the public and private schools. And it will be available to children all over America and maybe around the world.

CP: Can you give us an example of what the Speak For Life curriculum for the younger people would contain?

King: Well, in a beautiful way, and I don't want to give too much of it away, but [we show them] 3D and 4D ultrasounds now, and just ask [them] the question, "When does life begin?" Then, you ask for an opportunity for the young people to write and answer that question. As it unfolds, you might see that conception, which is spectacular. It's just beautiful. You see the baby unfolding. And then [we] say, "When is the baby, a baby?" You let the students begin to answer, but you have the science there.

Now, you can have the Scripture there for the Christian schools and the Sunday schools, of course. For the public schools, we have the science and say, "All human beings have something in common." It is the human blood that looks red when it comes from the body and the veins, but it looks blue. So no matter what color your skin is, we are probably all related.

We let them do their own little TikToks, their own little videos or they write their own little paragraphs. And they have their own little discussion groups. It's totally interactive.

CP: How important is it to instill pro-life values in the children?

King: [I] have children in Heaven because of abortions and a miscarriage. I have six living children and 11 grandchildren right now. We are certainly talking about letting the babies live and be born  helping the mother, the father, the grandparents, the community to sustain life.

But for example, on issues of human sexuality  when the girl children say, "Well, I was born a girl, I want to be a boy" [or] "I was born a boy, I want to be a girl." And they're little children, so if we legalize ... where they can begin to get reproductive surgery and cut things off, then they grow up and they want it back, and they won't grow it back. That's the thing. So we need to let children be children. Not hyper-sexualized, not aborted, not human trafficked, not inundated. There's so much stuff in the media.

CP: What do you think about the new heartbeat law in Texas that went into effect this month banning abortion once a heartbeat can be detected?

King: I personally believe the Texas heartbeat decision had to do with an act of God! Those of us who affirm life from the womb to the tomb, we have been crying out. And the legislation that passed in Texas said it's ... heartbeats at six weeks ... so let's save those babies, and I agree. The Supreme Court [let the law go into effect] ... so you can't get an abortion in Texas after the baby is six weeks old in the womb. So everybody doesn't agree with it for one reason or the other.

Of course, those who want to keep aborting babies all the time from conception till they come right out of the mother, they don't like it. Then some others say, "Well, you're not really pro-life because you only save the six weeks old babies. What about the others?" Hey, one step at a time. Rome wasn't built in a day, and it took a minute for it to fall. So we have to save babies, never forgetting any baby, but we began to make it possible to rescue, to recover.

CP: As the daughter of the late civil rights activist Rev. A.D. King and the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., what would you say Christians should be willing to do for the cause of life?

King: Everybody can't do what I do, but we can each do our part. Now, as Christians, we can pray and ask God to guide us: "What should I be doing?" However, we'll open this up to the Jews, the Muslims, the Buddhists, everybody of every faith. Seek your purpose and your destiny. Find out what you can do to support human life from the womb to the tomb. How can you support human dignity? Define human dignity, define human life.

Now, this is the tip. I learned this from my Pastor Allen McNair. I've been at the church for over 30 years. He left the planet and went to Heaven in 2015. He says, "some of us have to work too hard because everybody won't do his or her part." So find out your part. Do your part.

You can find out about legislation. You can vote for people who will affirm human dignity and human life from the womb to the tomb. You can pray at a pregnancy care center and donate and give. You can pray in front of an abortion [clinic] and say, "Let's us help you." There are so many things that we can all do in our community.

We can all pray. We can all love each other. We can all study to ... find out what is human life. Why is human life important to God? Once we know why it's important to God, life may become sacred to us and human dignity.

Visit Speakforlife.org, the website. It's new, and we are building. So visit and just pray for us. Please know that we are praying for you because you're part of the human family. God bless everybody.
Street preacher hails victory after case over breaking draconian COVID regulations is thrown out

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When coronavirus restrictions on outdoor gatherings during the pandemic were first implemented in March 2020, Christian preacher and lay minister Mike Overd didn't let that stop him from preaching in the streets as part of his ministry.

The 56-year-old has spent well over a decade evangelizing as a street preacher, offering Bibles to passersby and praying with pedestrians. He continued his efforts even when gatherings were restricted by the U.K. government last year.

While in his usual spot preaching at Taunton town centre in Somerset, England, on April 2, 2020, Overd was confronted by police from Avon and Somerset and became the first Christian preacher to be prosecuted for violating COVID-19 regulations banning outdoor gatherings.

Officers instructed Overd to go home after a member of the public filed a complaint against him.

Overd, however, questioned the officers' actions toward him and refused to go home.

The Christian Legal Centre, which represented Overd in his case, noted that he was carrying out his work as a minister by "offering pastoral support" for those who were struggling during the pandemic while also adhering to social distancing guidelines of standing just over 2 yards (2 meters) apart from others.

After being ordered to leave the premises and go home, Overd asked the officers whether authorities were "now banning Christian workers from coming to help people?

The officers then proceeded to confiscate Overds Bibles and forced him to leave the area. Overd was also fined $83 (60).

After contesting the fine, Overd waited 547 days in anticipation of his court hearing, only to learn that the Crown Prosecution Service had decided to drop his case.

Tom Allen of Christian Concern told The Christian Post that on Sept. 1, he was informed by the Crown Prosecution Service that the prosecution is no longer proceeding in this matter and that the trial listed for Sept. 6 will be vacated at Weston Magistrates Court.

The fact that it has been quietly dropped ... after dragging on for 18 months, shows that my case, and the laws in general, have been all about control and intimidation, Overd said in a statement shared with CP, noting that he was ridiculed and even lost friends over his decision to "bring a message of hope to people struggling at the start of this crisis."

He added: A year-and-a-half on, with draconian measures still in place and more Christian preachers being arrested than ever before, I knew I was right to take a stand and I am glad to have been vindicated. It was always wrong for Christian ministries and churches to be shut down at such a moment of need. Never in our history have so many Christians that sought to support the most vulnerable in our communities been treated so badly by the authorities."

The BBC reported in April that more than 85,000 fixed penalty notices have been issued in England since the pandemic began, and 8,000 in Wales, citing a report that was released at the time by members of Parliament.

A Joint Committee on Human Rights comprised of cross-party members of Parliament determined that fines of nearly $14,000 (10,000) for breaking COVID-19 regulations "are muddled, discriminatory and unfair," especially for the poor and those who are "unfairly targeted" by police.

The report said in part:

"We are aware that more recently the police have moved more quickly to enforcement action. This is problematic given the confusion over the state of the frequently changing law, and in light of confused communications from the Government which continue to conflate guidance with the law. A heavy-handed approach to enforcement in such circumstances risks unjustly penalizing a wide range of behavior, in circumstances where there are insufficient safeguards in place to protect people from arbitrariness and unjustified interferences with basic human rights."

Looking back to the start of the pandemic, I knew that something was not right with the power the police had been given by the government," Overd added. "It did not sit right with me sitting at home and not going out to preach when people were in need."

In Overds case, which was originally scheduled for a court date last Friday, his lawyers argued that Overd had been out on the streets for the purposes of voluntary or charitable services'' while adhering to coronavirus regulations.

Lawyers further stated that the regulations, as interpreted by the police officers on that day, were disproportionate and constituted an unreasonable interference with Overds rights under European law and English common law, Christian Legal Centre said.

Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, added in a statement: The coronavirus regulations required society to willingly surrender basic freedoms. Many courageous Christians, seeing the danger in the laws, simply refused to close down their outreach Christian ministries and stop helping people."

"For that many have been disproportionately punished," she added. "Mike is one of many Christian preachers and outreach workers who have been intimidated and fined during this crisis, but who have ultimately been vindicated and told they have not done anything wrong. Christian street preachers are now being arrested every month in the U.K. for preaching the Gospel. This is a phenomenon in our history unique only to the 21st century.

Williams said she finds the powers given to the police during the pandemic to be setting a dangerous precedent, which are continuing to have a ripple effect despite a return to relative normality.

We said at the time when this story happened that the coronavirus regulations would have far-reaching implications for Christian freedoms in the U.K., and this has proven to be so, she added.

Overds case was also supported by Christian theologian Martin Parsons, who submitted his expert testimony to the Crown Prosecution Service in which he stressed: street preaching is an important part of evangelical Christianity, even during epidemics.

A long and continuing practice of street preaching and other forms of open-air evangelism in the U.K., which is seen by evangelical Christians as being an essential part of fulfilling Christs command to preach the Gospel to all people, particularly those who are unlikely to ever enter a church, Parsons said. During times of epidemic this has been viewed as being particularly important as helping men and women to find peace with God.

From the perspective of Christian public theology and church history the use of coronavirus regulations to prohibit street preaching raises significant issues relating to the development of freedom of religion in British constitutional history, the theologian concluded.
Wales 'LGBTQ+ Action Plan' may put pastors at risk of prosecution for hate incident

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A proposed law in Wales could threaten the religious freedom of pastors and their ability to provide counseling to people with unwanted same-sex attractions, a Christian advocacy group has warned.

The draft version of the LGBTQ+ Action Plan for Wales, published by the devolved government of Wales in July, seeks to ban "all aspects" of sexual orientation change efforts therapy, or what's often derisively known as "conversion therapy."

While the plan states that its goal is to improve the recognition of LGBTQ+ people and advance LGBTQ+ equality and inclusion, some Christians fear it would restrict pastors' ability to counsel their parishioners, and put them at risk of facing a hate crime charge if they share their biblically-based beliefs about human sexuality.

One proposal included in the plan calls for the Programme for Government to ban all aspects of LGBTQ+ conversion therapy."

Many religious leaders and Christian therapists seek to provide those with unwanted same-sex attraction with counseling and therapy. In recent years, several Western governments have implemented or sought to impose bans on so-called conversion therapy, primarily at the state and local level.

Carys Moseley of the U.K.-based legal and advocacy group Christian Concern warned about the consequences bans on therapy might have for the religious community. Specifically, Moseley expressed concern that the Welsh government wants people to be able to report faith leaders to the police for hate incidents.

Moseley cited the Integrated Impact Assessment of the LGBTQ+ Action Plan, which states the Welsh governments intent to take an intersectional approach and build on the existing work of faith leaders in Wales to promote LGBTQ+ inclusion and support many LGBTQ+ people to express their own faiths or beliefs.

The Welsh government also published a detailed Equality Impact Assessment, which examines the effect that aspects of the LGBTQ+ Action Plan will have on different groups, including the religious community.

While admitting that A proposal to ban conversion therapy practices may curtail a qualified right to manifest a religious or philosophical belief, the document claims that potential interference with this qualified right may be justified in a democratic society on the grounds of public safety, health or morals, or protecting the rights and freedoms of others.

The Equality Impact Assessment predicts that it might also "restrict religious freedoms and place faith leaders at risk of prosecution. However, the Welsh government vowed to continue dialogue with faith communities in Wales while slamming the practice of so-called conversion therapy.

The Welsh Governments position is clear  any attempts to try to change or alter a persons sexual orientation or gender identity through conversion therapy are wrong and wholly unacceptable. These practices can inflict severe pain and suffering on LGBTQ+ people, often resulting in long-lasting physical and psychological trauma. We want every LGBTQ+ person in Wales to feel safe and able to live authentically and openly as themselves.

According to Moseley, who characterized the promotion of LGBTQ+ inclusion by certain parts of the faith community as heresy, isolated support of LGBT ideology among Christians is used as the justification for restricting the right to manifest a religious belief when it does not support such inclusion.

Reacting to the Welsh governments stated desire to promote dialogue between the LGBTQ+ community and faith groups, Moseley asserted that the government admits that faith leaders who refuse to bow down to this agenda could be at risk of prosecution. In other words, if you do not agree to participate in the (perhaps enforced) dialogue in exactly the way the Welsh Government wants, you will be reported to the police.

As Moseley explained in the piece, Wales, which is part of the U.K., does not have the power over criminal law. U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson vowed to end conversion therapy earlier this year but the British Parliament has not passed a ban on the practice thus far. While Johnson has stressed that such a ban would not apply to pastoral counseling, LGBT activists have pressured the British government to include gentle non-coercive prayer in the ban.

The open consultation period for the LGBTQ+ Action Plan, which allows time for public comment on the draft plan, ends Oct. 22. From there, the Welsh government will reflect on the responses to the consultation to refine a final version of the plan. The final version of the LGBTQ+ Action Plan will likely be published in early 2022.

Moseley noted that among her concerns is the possibility that consultation responses critical of LGBT ideology could be reported to the police, noting that the instruction page for the consultation process previously stated that it will not tolerate hateful comments about a persons sexual orientation, gender identity, race, religion or disability and any responses that contain hate speech will be passed to the authorities.

Following backlash, the language was altered to instruct those responding to the consultation to abide by the Public Order Act [of] 1986 and the Malicious Communications Act [of] 1988.

The debate about Wales LGBTQ+ Action Plan is the latest example of an apparent clash between freedom of religion and expression and LGBT nondiscrimination measures. Earlier this summer, an American pastor was arrested in London while preaching that homosexuality is a sin. Law enforcement officials pointed to an alleged violation of the aforementioned Public Order Act, which bans people from causing intentional harassment, alarm or distress, as the justification for his arrest.
Why abortion activists need to exploit rape

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There is always a predictable response from pro-abortion activists, politicians and the news media to any pro-life measure. Theyll exploit the horrific tragedy of rape.

Rape is one of the most violent things one human can do to another. Victims need wholeness and healing, not abortion profiteers and activists waving the latest pink euphemistic signage. Mainstream media isnt interested, either, in presenting anything other than a pro-abortion narrative.

They deliberately miss opportunities to share the valuable perspective of rape survivors whove rejected the violence of abortion. One of the most powerful stories is that of Nancy Kelly. She personified courage. At a Students for Life rally in Montgomery, Alabama, she shared that her healing from rape came from her twins conceived in it.

In my travels as an international public speaker, Ive heard from women whove become mothers through rape (an estimated 50% of whom choose abortion). A common thread in their journeys (even from those who are post-abortive) is that children are the only redemptive part of such horrific violence. Highlighting this reality is the story of Kathy Barnette whose mother was raped at the age of 11. Its hard to imagine such an inhumane violation of a child, but the mother and daughter story of inexplicable courage defies what were constantly told.

I was conceived in rape but adopted in love. I am the 1% used to justify 100% of abortions. And Ive been callously told numerous times by activists, college professors and politicians that I shouldve been aborted. Did any of us control the circumstances of our conception? Then why do some pretend they can be arbiters of inherent human value?

The circumstances of our conception dont change the condition of our worth. Ever.

In MSNBCs The Grio (a color-based news outlet), Texas Heartbeat Act (SB8) is blasted as a perfect example of rape culture. In the article, activist Kimiya Factory weaves a typical pro-abortion tale: When were talking about abortions, were talking about situations of domestic violence where a child can be brought into a circumstance that they should not have to withstand. Were talking about instances of rape and molestation and incest.

The vast majority of abortions have nothing to do with rape or incest. Even the radically pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute doesnt make such assertions. In its study Reasons U.S. Women Have Abortions Guttmacher reveals that 0.4%-1.3% of respondents claimed to be victims of rape (not sure why theres a range), and less than half a percent claimed to be victims of incest. State statistics (here, here, and here) show even far lower numbers. In Florida, 0.1% of abortions were for rape and .01% were due to incest. In Louisiana, 0.5% were attributed to rape and incest. Part of the problem is that only seven states even require rape-related abortion statistics to even be reported.

Also, the notion that the actual violence of abortion is better than possible domestic violence once born is such an extreme mentality. We dont kill people because they might (or do) experience adversity.

To the abortion activists who constantly exploit rape with impunity, I ask this simple question: If I were to concede that tragic (less than) 1%, would you agree to end the other 99% of elective abortions? Of course, the answer is always the same: either silence or an emphatic no. Its because this automatic-go-to defense of abortion really doesnt have to do with rape. Its why they always vehemently protest pro-life bills that include exceptions for rape and incest.

Lets keep in mind, this is the same movement that announced a massive March For Choice event to protest the passage of the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act in on June 5, 2003. Five days later, Planned Parenthood, The National Organization for Women and NARAL joined forces to demand the protection of what most consider the most barbaric form of abortion  partial birth abortion. Planned Parenthood claims there is no such thing as partial birth abortion. Really? See one here. (WARNING: It is insanely graphic.) How any of these extremist abortion groups could defend this is unconscionable.

Big Abortion and its allies continually insist partial birth abortions were a myth and that late term abortions are extremely rare as if to dismiss them as trivial. Abortions beyond 21 weeks gestation occur at a higher percentage than those from rape: 1.2%.

None of its trivial. Every human being deserves the right to life, born and unborn.

The resistance to Texas SB8 and all other pro-life measures isnt about rape. Its about an ideology that pretends that abortion is healthcare and that women arent equal without its violence. I call it fake feminism. Where are their demands to punish the rapists? Wheres their outrage when abortionists sexually assault their patients? Where are their demands to hold abortion businesses responsible for failing to report rape? Planned Parenthood has been sued in state after state for such failure (here, here, here and here). The $2 billion abortion empires actions allow predators to keep on harming, but thats not enough to spur any fake feminist protests.

Planned Parenthoods staunchest supporter, Whoopi Goldberg, infamously defended a famous rapist saying that director Roman Polanskis drugging and raping of a 13-year-old wasnt rape rape. The abortion giants own celebrity spokespeople have joked and lied about rape. Not-so-funny comedian Sarah Silverman asked: Whos gonna complain about a rape joke? Rape victims? They dont even report rape. Theyre traditionally not complainers. Actress Lena Dunham, whose vile book Not That Kinda Girl boasted about how she molested her younger sister, lied about being raped and lied to cover up the crime of an accused rapist. Of course, her book tour was sponsored by Planned Parenthood.

Fake feminists help to aid and abet rape culture, whether intentionally or not. Abusing the criminal act of rape to justify more violence is reprehensible and reveals that abortion activists truly have no defense for limitless abortion-on-demand.

The Department of Justice, led by a radically pro-abortion Attorney General, just sued Texas over SB8. AG Merrick Garland unsurprisingly called the law clearly unconstitutional. Roe v. Wade, which allowed the unrestricted commercialized killing of the unborn and the harming of their mothers, was and is clearly unconstitutional. This is the same AG who suspended all federal executions back in July saying: "The Department of Justice must ensure that everyone in the federal criminal justice system is not only afforded the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and laws of the United States but is also treated fairly and humanly [sic]," he said.

So, criminals, including rapists, deserve to be treated fairly and humanely but not unborn children? My biological father deserved punishment for the crime he committed, but those like him are afforded far more protection and dignity than those conceived in rape. The Supreme Court, never one for consistency, delivered a ruling in 1977 in Coker v. Georgiadeclaring the death penalty to be cruel and unusual. The justices concluded: Although rape deserves serious punishment, the death penalty, which is unique in its severity and irrevocability, is an excessive penalty for the rapist. That same Roe Court ruled just 4 years prior that an unborn child (regardless of how he or she was conceived) could be killed for any reason. Thats undeniably cruel and unusual.

May we never forget, either, that Roe v. Wade began with a lie. Norma McCorvey, aka Jane Roe, lied that she had been raped. The exploitation continues nearly five decades later. Through the organization I cofounded, The Radiance Foundation, Ill keep on fighting for the most marginalized among the marginalized. Why? Because every human life, planned or unplanned, has purpose.
In trauma of pandemic, 9/11 survivor sees a familiar spirit

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When millions of Americans pause on Sept. 11 to mark the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that left nearly 3,000 people dead in 2001, Leslie Haskin, 57, wont need to watch television broadcasts to remember.

For the past 20 years, says Haskin, she has been forced to remember the attack each day by memories that seem to have a life of their own.

Every day something forces that memory back to the surface and I have to deal with it, so its [been] 20 years of yesterday for me, the youngest daughter of a Baptist minister told The Christian Post in a recent interview.

The former high-powered insurance executive was inside her office on the 36th floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City when Islamic extremist group al-Qaeda crashed a hijacked airplane into it before crashing another into the South Tower shortly after.

As stunned Americans would watch the towers burn before they collapsed in a colossal crash into the surrounding life below, the horror Haskin experienced on the inside caused her to be committed to a psychiatric hospital shortly after the event with severe post-traumatic stress disorder. Her life unraveled so badly she became homeless and separated from her son.

I think living the event, coming out of the building was horrific. It was beyond what you can even imagine. Its nothing like what you see on TV, maybe a hundred times, a thousand times worse. But even as bad as that was, what was worse was reliving the fear and the uncertainty for months and even years after that, said Haskin, who also lost 22 friends in the attack.

To this day, I cant even look at roadkill. Im drawn into it so deeply I see it as [human] body parts when Im driving down the road, and that will force my mind to remember or think about which one of my friends died in that way, she explained. Trauma does not make sense. There is no rhyme or reason to it. I cant look at someones hands for too long because then I will see their hand disconnected from their person. By the time I got home, I was still holding someones hand; their body was not attached. So my brain has embedded that picture.

And as America and the world struggle to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic that has left over 4.6 million people dead globally, Haskin, who chronicled her 9/11 experience in her 2008 book, Between Heaven and Ground Zero: One Woman's Struggle for Survival and Faith in the Ashes of 9/11, says she sees parallels in the trauma experienced by survivors in the aftermath of 9/11 and the trauma unfolding in the wake of the pandemic.

I think for me and other survivors, this pandemic is reminiscent of the same uncertainty and panic that we experienced immediately after 9/11, she said. This pandemic brings that kind of forces us to have those same uncertainties and face our mortality all over again. Thats not something that we should do in the normal course of our lives. It limits us. And this pandemic has forced us back into that corner and said, OK, life is short. Life is fleeting. Its not certain. You might not make it tomorrow. And you have no control over that all over again.

Some people, says Haskin, might not recognize how the trauma of the pandemic has been influencing their behavior, but it is anyway.

Vaccinations and trauma

One of the reasons some people are refusing to get vaccinated, she argues, is due to trauma that has built up collectively on the American psyche since 9/11.

For the people who are watching, who watched that event across the world, it traumatized them as well, in a different sense, but trauma nonetheless because it said to them, at any moment your world could change and you could be dead. Thats the message the world received and people heard it loud and clear, said Haskin, who published her latest book, When YOUR Towers Fall: A Survivor's Guide to Life After Loss, shortly after the World Health Organization declared the world was experiencing a pandemic in March 2020.

She then pointed to the trauma of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 which killed more than 1,800 people, along with other major events during the pandemic like the murder of George Floyd in May 2020.

The world experienced one of the most traumatic heartbreaking events that I can remember when we watched a grown black man call for his mother as he was being killed. For nine minutes the world received the message that you could be killed at any moment, so the nature of PTSD its like a snowball. If its not resolved, the trauma just gets bigger until it believes that there is some unseen force trying the kill them, and I think the last bit of trauma that we suffered is this pandemic, she said.

The people are getting a message, because were hearing huge numbers, hundreds of thousands of people dying today from COVID. It could be you. Dont do this or youre going to die, reinforcing that fear.

"And rather than saying Hey, get the vaccine, it could save your life. What were hearing is, either way, life could change and this could kill you. So people are unsure which way to go because theyre trying to protect themselves from an unseen force thats out to get them. This is about trauma. Its not merely about to get a vaccine or not. Its about people so traumatized that they dont know which way to turn. Which way keeps them safe, she explained.

Haskin believes that more trauma experts are needed to help people navigate the psychological strain of the pandemic and the Church needs to be more vocal about the issue.

The sad thing about it is the Church, rather than be more vocal, has been more silent through all of it, she said.

Faith

In addition to trauma experts who can help people make sense of the trauma they are experiencing amid the pandemic, Haskin shared how her faith in God has been helping her to live since 9/11.

It has been a growing relationship experience for me. My career goals were about my ability and my work ethic and reaching my goals.  What has changed over the years is because of my relationship with Jesus Christ; it defines who I am. Its the best part of me and it has given me freedom. Freedom from the work-reward way of thinking, so Ive been able to divorce myself from the outcomes, she said.

The way that I live now is not goal-oriented. Its not about Im going to reach this goalpost. Its more about being in the moment that Im in, in the place that God has set me. For this day, Im going to do all that I can to deliver a message that whatever life is bringing, whatever is going on, God is bigger than that. It doesnt matter what the end result is, God is still bigger than that end result. And that end result has nothing to do with his ability or his inability, she said.

That outlook, she says, is now helping her to navigate the challenges of the pandemic. So as she was forced to socially-distance from her church family, Haskin took the opportunity to improve her personal relationship with God.

It brought me close to God, I think because it took away all of those social barriers. And Im calling them barriers now, but before the pandemic, I thought these were just fellowshipping. Its just were going to stay after service and fellowship together.

Thats important. Its nice to have, but I think somewhere along the generational line, we have made fellowshipping with one another more important than fellowshipping with God. And weve assigned God an hour before bedtime or 30 minutes in the morning for devotion and thats our fellowship with God and we think, oh thats good. But what the pandemic did for me is it took away all of that extra fellowship.

That what the pandemic did for me. It reinforced the urgency and the reality that we are not in control of whats coming or whats around the corner, God is. And our best approach is to partner with Him in what Hes doing and say Lord, how can I partner with you in this? she said.

The best part about this, the pandemic and 9/11, is that God is still saying to us, use Me, use My strength to get through this. And it doesnt return us to any normalcy because there was never any normalcy in the first place. What weve called normal is a culture and a society that weve built. God is trying to rip that from us and saying normal is what My plan is. So we dont really want to go back to pre-9/11 days or pre-pandemic days. We want to embrace whatever it is that He has for us in this season, Haskin added.

Homelessness and the church in the pandemic

Earlier this year, the Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge said the number of homeless people in America had increased by 2% since more than the approximately 580,000 counted a year earlier.

Haskin, who recalled how vulnerable she felt when she was homeless, said the Church can help with more than just prayers.

I think its about a commitment to that person and not just the prayer. Theres an old saying that it takes a village to raise a child and that same village supports the family. Im all in favor of community living and people living together and supporting each other, said Haskin, who explained she was homeless for about two years while I got my head in a space where I could even be productive enough to work.

My son and I were separated for a while which was probably one of the most painful things that weve gone through  being separated and being homeless at the same time. But I have someone that was committed to me, my wellness and making sure that I felt safe during the time that I was most vulnerable, and thats what homeless is. If we stop calling it homeless and start calling it most vulnerable, then I think we would know how to respond to it better, she said. When we dont have a place of safety to call our own, we are most vulnerable.

In animals, when theyre a pack and one is [vulnerable] the rest of the pack will encircle them while theyre feeling vulnerable until they feel safe and strong again. And I think if we can apply the same type of pack behavior to one another rather than saying, Ive got mine, you get yours or Im going to pray for you that God helps you. Or being afraid to lean into that person for fear that theyre going to ask for money or something. Lean in and say, Ive got you covered.

Maybe its not being able to provide a home for that person, maybe its just providing meals every day, just providing that covering for one another as the Church until that person is less vulnerable I think is the way to go, she said.
Nigerian pastor macheted to death, body found by search party

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Unknown assailants in Nigerias Kaduna State macheted to death a pastor from the Evangelical Church of Winning All whose body was later found by a search party, as the troubling trend of deadly attacks on Christians carry on unabated in that country, according to a report.

The slain pastor has been identified as the Rev. Silas Ali of ECWA in Kaduna States Zango Kataf Local Government Area who left his home to go to Kafanchan area on Saturday, Nigerias Punch news outlet first reported Sunday.

Ali was apparently attacked around Kibori community, near Asha-Awuce area, where a search party discovered his body that was described as having been macheted to death.

Kaduna States Commissioner for Internal Security and Home Affairs, Samuel Aruwan, confirmed the pastors murder, saying security agencies had started an investigation.

Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai described the killing as cruel and sent his condolences to the pastors family and the ECWA Church, The Guardian Nigeria reported.

While the assailants have not been identified, thousands of Christians have been killed in Nigeria  Christians are killed by radicalized Fulani herders in the farming-rich Middle Belt of Nigeria and by Islamic extremists in the countrys northeast.

In July, a civil society group, International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, or Intersociety, released a report estimating that at least 3,462 Christians had been killed and at least 3,000 Christians had been abducted in just 200 days. The report also estimates that no fewer than 300 churches and 10 priests had been attacked.

Many have accused the Nigerian government of inadequately responding to protect its citizens.

The Nigerian Government has continued to face sharp criticisms and strong accusations of culpability and complicity in the killings and supervision of same, Intersociety said in the report. The countrys security forces have so fumbled and compromised that they hardly intervene when the vulnerable Christians are in danger of threats or attacks, but only emerge after such attacks to arrest and frame up the same population threatened or attacked.

Nigeria, Africas most populous country, is ranked No. 9 on Open Doors 2021 World Watch List for Christian persecution worldwide due to an extreme level of Islamic oppression.

Jihadi attacks in West Africa have been on the rise since the beginning of 2021, and Nigeria is targeted more than any country in the region, the United States-based Christian persecution watchdog group International Christian Concern reports.

Islamic terrorist groups have killed thousands in the region in recent years as they seek to impose a caliphate and Islamic Sharia law.

Christians have been specifically targeted and disproportionately been affected by this violence.  The responses by the government are clearly not enough, since perpetrators of such violence are able to continue attacking Christians, and other Nigerians, with impunity, Illia Djadi, Open Doors senior analyst on freedom of religion and belief in sub-Saharan Africa, said, according to ICC.

The Global Terrorism Index ranks Nigeria as the third country most affected by terrorism in the world. It reports that from 2001 to 2019, over 22,000 were killed by acts of terror.

Mark Jacob, a Nigerian barrister, and former Attorney General of Kaduna State, said last month that selected killings of Christians, particularly in the Middle Belt region of Nigeria had been going on, and he has been part of several mass burials of Christians.
Courtesy of U.S. Navy Office of Community Outreach / Courtesy of U.S. Navy Office of Community Outreach

Lamar State College Orange (LSCO) has named Keith Jones as the new associate dean of technical studies.

Jones, a former superintendent of Deweyville ISD, will be leading the technical education programs at LSCO, including instrumentation, industrial technology, maritime, process technology and welding.

He will also be developing new programs, ensuring students and faculty have resources to be successful, connecting faculty with business and industry partners, supporting internships and apprenticeships and pursuing grants for buildings, equipment, and other resources.

Jones began his career in the maritime industry and eventually moved to teaching. He began his teaching career through LSCOs Alternative Certification for Educators (ACE) program while teaching economics at Memorial High School in Port Arthur. He then spent nearly a decade at Bridge City ISD as an assistant principal before moving to Deweyville ISD, where he later became superintendent.

After graduating from Port Neches-Groves High School, Jones earned a Bachelors of Science Degree in Maritime Administration from Texas A&M University Galveston. In addition to his maritime degree, Dr. Jones earned a Masters Degree of Business Administration and a Doctorates Degree of Educational Leadership from Lamar University, and is currently earning a Masters Degree of Education in Special Education.

Jones is also certified as U.S. Coast Guard-licensed captain, holding certificates as master for vessels to 25 tons, mate for vessels to 100 tons and towing and sailing endorsements.

Gov. Greg Abbott has appointed Cynthia Stinson to the Texas Health Services Authority Board of Directors for a term set to expire on June 15, 2023. The Texas Health Services Authority is responsible for coordinating the implementation of the health information exchange (HIE) in Texas.

Stinson, of Lumberton, is a registered nurse, associate professor and chair of the JoAnne Gay Dishman School of Nursing at Lamar University. She is a member of the Texas Nurses Association, American Nurses Association and Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society.

In addition, she is a member and medical educator with Julie Rogers Gift of Life Program.

Stinson received a Bachelors Degree of Science in Nursing from Lamar University, Masters Degree of Science in Nursing from the University of Texas Medical Branch Galveston and a Doctorates Degree of Philosophy in Nursing from Texas Womans University Houston.

Yailine Obregon, a native of Port Neches, is currently serving aboard USS Essex, a U.S. Navy Wasp class amphibious assault ship.

Petty Officer 3rd Class Obregon is a 2018 graduate of Port Neches High School and a Northern Virginia Community College graduate.

Obregon serves as a Navy hospital corpsman responsible for providing medical care to U.S. Navy and Marine Corps personnel and their families.

Homeported in San Diego, California, USS Essex is the second ship in the Wasp-class of multipurpose amphibious assault ships and the fifth ship named for Essex County, Massachusetts. The first Essex was a 1000-ton ironclad river gunboat of the U.S. Army and later U.S. Navy during the American Civil War.

jacob.dick@beaumontenterprise.com

twitter.com/jd_journalism
Wilfredo Lee/AP

WASHINGTON (AP)  The Transportation Department said Thursday it will give rights for several afternoon and evening flights in Newark, New Jersey, to a budget airline to drive down fares.

The coveted takeoff and landing rights were previously used by Southwest Airlines, which pulled out of Newark Liberty International Airport in 2019 and consolidated its New York City-area operations at LaGuardia Airport.
Bill Miller Bar-B-Q heir Douglas Miller might have to somehow work an old brothel and Boys Town building into his plans for a high-rise.

The Historic and Design Review Commission approved a historic designation application Tuesday afternoon for the building at 503 Urban Loop, sparing it from demolition to clear the way for Miller's planned eight-story residential tower for now.

James McKnight, managing partner with Brown & Ortiz, represented the owner of the property at the HDRC meeting. He says the owner did not want the property designated as historic.

McKnight says the building is not a visual reminder of anything significant to the neighborhood of Laredito, and argues that the building doesn't have enough mission style architecture to mark its construction as an important contribution.

"You don't drive down that street and have a reminder of the brothel that was there," McKnight says.

Commissioner Gabriel Vasquez says the developer can still request demolition from the board of adjustments despite historic designation, and he urged the Westside groups to meet with the developers to find a common line.

Now city council must a approve a resolution for the designation, upon which it will return to HDRC for a majority approval.

The two-story property was built in 1883 and was home to prominent San Antonio figure Fannie Porter, and then the infamous gang known as the Wild Bunch, according to HDRC documents.

It served as a brothel until 1912. Antonia Castaneda, with the Westside Preservation Alliance, says the sex workers at the brothel were working class women who contributed to the economy of the area, and despite social attitudes towards sex work, marking the building's time as a brothel as culturally and historically significant to the area.

Rev. J. W. Shaw, the bishop of the San Antonio diocese at the time, bought the property in 1912, and then sold it to the Carmelite Sisters of the Carmel of Divine Heart of Jesus in 1918.

The Carmelite Sisters sold the property to Father Flanagan's Boys Home of San Antonio in 1990, later known as Boys Town. It operated out of the building until Boys Town closed its Texas properties in 2017.
The U.S. government plans to control where COVID-19 antibody treatments are sent, and that means there will be fewer infusions provided in Midland and Odessa.

That was the news from Midland Health CEO and President Russell Meyers on Thursday during a press conference. He said while Regeneron monoclonal antibody infusions have been very successful in keeping people out of the hospital, the availability to markets will change. He referenced reports -- like a Bloomberg article earlier this week -- that stated, Hospitals and other care providers will no longer be able to directly order monoclonal antibody therapies from distributors, according to a Sept. 13 update posted on the Department of Health and Human Services website.

Instead, the U.S. government will determine what quantity of the drugs to ship to each state and territory based on COVID-19 case numbers and use of the treatments locally, the Bloomberg article stated. State health departments will then determine how to distribute the antibody therapies to hospitals and other sites, according to the HHS update.

And so, while we've been able to get a meaningful allocation of Regeneron, week after week for some period of time, those days are coming to an end right now, Meyers said. And we don't know when our next supply will be available.  So accordingly, we're going to have to tighten our criteria for giving Regeneron to make sure that we give it to the people who can most benefit from it, those who are at the highest risk.

Meyers said effective immediately, the hospital has gone back to earlier criteria that were tighter  for people age 50 and older, those with a body mass index over 35 or those having other comorbid conditions.

Rodd Huber, assistant fire chief  EMS for Odessa Fire Rescue and a leader of the incident command team in Odessa, stated he is concerned and frustrated by the news as well. He said more than 1,000 infusions have been provided in around a month.

Midland Memorial has provided more than 1,260 in the months it has provided the therapy, according to Meyers, but that the number had increased recently to around 40 a day. He said that daily count should drop as the hospital had around 100 available on Thursday.

As the demand increased, we've broadened our criteria to give it to more people because we know it works, Meyers said. Unfortunately, we're not going to be able to give that many going forward.  So, we will essentially be rationing (Regeneron) to only the highest risk patient population. And 40 a day won't be our number going forward.

Meyers said the last tracking the hospital performed showed 7 percent of patients who were given an infusion eventually had to be hospitalized and those were patients who are known to be positive and known to be high risk.

Bloomberg reported earlier this week that under the most recent distribution mechanism, the largest shipments were sent to Florida, Texas, Georgia and Mississippi, according to data provided in the government announcement.

Bloomberg cited the HHS when it wrote, A rise in infections caused by the delta variant has caused a substantial surge in the utilization of monoclonal antibody (mAb) drugs, particularly in areas of the country with low vaccination rates. The agency stated it is committed to helping ensure consistent availability of these critical drugs for current and future patients in all geographic areas of the country.
President Biden had harsh words for Republican governors who are fighting Covid-19 in the midst of the pandemic.

Were facing a lot of pushback, especially from some of the Republican governors, Biden said in a speech delivered from the White House on Thursday. The governors of Florida and Texas are doing everything they can to undermine the life-saving requirements that Ive proposed.

This is the worst kind of politics because its putting the lives of citizens of their states, especially children, at risk, Biden said of the GOP governors. And I refuse to give in to it.

"This is the worst kind of politics cause it's putting the lives of citizens of their states, especially children, at risk. And I refuse to give into it," President Biden says on GOP governors undermining 'the life saving requirements I've proposed' on Covid vaccines. pic.twitter.com/rW9sRYaiNp  MSNBC (@MSNBC) September 16, 2021

In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis has spoken against mandatory vaccines and invited anti-vaxxers to speak at a press conference he organized, and two of them spread misinformation about the vaccine during their remarks.

DeSantis also proudly banned public school districts from implementing mask mandates, leading to a prolonged court battle as 13 districts fight the governors order. Texas governor, Greg Abbott  when he wasnt busy suppressing voting rights and ostensibly banning abortion in his state  attempted a mask mandate ban similar to Floridas that has also landed in court. Both governors actions go against guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that recommends all students and staff mask in K-12 environments.

Some of the same governors attacking me are in states with the strictest vaccine mandates for children attending school in the entire country, Biden said, referring to Mississippis Republican Governor Tate Reeves and all other vaccines aside from Covid-19. Reeves has called Covid vaccine mandates unconstitutional and a tyrannical-type move. As of Thursday, Mississippis vaccination rates against the Coronavirus are far behind the national average, with only 42% of its total population fully vaccinated compared to 54% nationally.

In Mississippi, children are required to be vaccinated against measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox, hepatitis B, polio, tetanus and more, Biden said. These are state requirements. But in the midst of a pandemic that has already taken over 660,000 lives, I propose a requirement for Covid vaccines and the governor of that state calls it a tyrannical-type move? A tyrannical-type move?

On the same day as Bidens speech, Fox News obtained a letter sent to the president by 24 Republican attorneys general threatening legal action against the administration for a swath of new federal vaccine mandates the president announced last week.

You have offered the American people flimsy legal arguments, contradictory statements, and threatening directives, the AGs wrote. It is almost as if your goal is to sow division and distrust, rather than promote unity and the publics health.

Meanwhile, one out of every 500 people in the U.S. has died from the virus, and, according to the CDC director, unvaccinated people are 11 times more likely to die of Covid-19.
Texas' budding wine scene is getting a magical new entrant all the way from Paso Robles, California.

Serrano Wine, founded by husband and wife team Brice and Sarah Garrett, is bringing its "Harry Potter"-themed wines to the Texas Hill Country next spring.

The Garretts met at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee and moved to Paso Robles after graduating to start their winery. The winery's name "Serrano" means "one of/from the mountains."

"Today, we still cling to the idea of conquering our mountains, but the meaning of Serrano has evolved a bit," Sarah Garrett writes on the winery's website. "It is now a journey of freedom, passion, and discovery. With that in mind, we have decided to take on another big challenge: the Texas wine scene! We bought a 10-acre property in Hye, TX and are planning on building a tasting room (hopefully to be open by Spring 2022) and winery, while working to make the best wines possible from both Texas and Paso Robles."

Sarah Garrett, a self-proclaimed "Harry Potter" enthusiast (and reported Slytherin), has named several of their wines after items from the series, such as the "Firebolt" white blend, "Liquid Luck" white blend, and "Horcrux" red blend.

Hye is located in the Texas Hill Country near Fredericksburg and is already home to William Chris Vineyards and Hye Meadow Winery.

Screenshot via Instagram/@serrano_wine

No word on if there will be a variation of Butterbeer at the new tasting room, but a version of Felix Felicis is more than welcome in Texas.
Houstonian food blogger Suu Khin impressed the judges with her Burmese menu on the season finale of "MasterChef," which aired Sept. 15.

She was one of two Houstonians competing in the 11th season of "MasterChef" and made it all the way to the final. She entered the competition with a Burmese coconut noodle soup, which greatly impressed judge Gordon Ramsay (and she later shared the recipe with the Houston Chronicle's Emma Balter).

"Burmese cuisine is something the world is missing out on, and I just want the world to have a taste of it," Khin said in the finale.

Judges Ramsay, Aaron Sanchez and Joe Bastianich were joined by Curtis Stone for the first courses and Michael Cimarusti for the second half of the finalists' menus. Khin competed against Autumn Moretti and Kelsey Murphy for a prize of $250,000 and the MasterChef trophy in the show's first all-female finale.

Khin's first course, a surprise canape course the judges requested at the last minute, was a beef and potato curry in puff pastry with tamarind sauce. Sanchez described it as "memorable."

Her official appetizer consisted of a Burmese chickpea tofu salad with baby octopus, tamarind fish sauce caramel, red cabbage and lime leaf slaw and crispy lotus chips. However, she left the beak in the octopus, and Bastianich called the octopus a "huge mistake" in an otherwise delicious and beautiful dish.

Khin's main course was a banana leaf-wrapped sea bass with coconut rice, herb salad, shishito peppers and banana ketchup. Ramsay noted the dish was slightly too spicy but told Khin she needed to "get that [banana ketchup] in a bottle and sell it."

For dessert, Khin created a rose flan cake with saffron and cardamom ice cream, pistachio tuile and pistachio dust. Her dish had an interactive element that impressed the judges and the gallery of former contestants. Each judge dipped a provided red rose into liquid nitrogen, which Khin then smashed over her dish, sending rose petal fragments across the plate for a colorful (and flavorful) final touch.

"I feel like you are the person who could put Burmese cuisine on the map," Cimarusti told Khin.

Murphy's modern fine-dining inspired menu ultimately earned her the prize, but Khin received a new Viking range and other tools for her home kitchen.

"I'm feeling so happy," Khin said after Murphy was announced as the winner. "I feel like I've accomplished so much, and I'm so, so happy for Kelsey."
A federal judge on Wednesday scheduled a hearing for Oct. 1 to consider temporarily blocking Texas near-total abortion ban, following an emergency request from the Biden administration.

The Justice Department requested the temporary restraining order late Tuesday as part of its lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas aiming to overturn the law.

Instead of immediately acting on the request, U.S. District Judge Robert L. Pitman agreed to the states request to hear arguments before ruling. If the restraining order is granted, the laws implementation will be blocked as court proceedings unfold.

The law will have been in effect for one month by the time the hearing is held. The statute outlaws abortions once fetal cardiac activity is detected  which can occur before many people know theyre pregnant. Texas abortion clinics worked until the last minute to finish procedures before the deadline and canceled future appointments. Some have even stopped offering abortions that are still allowed under the law, for fear of being sued.

No court has yet reviewed the constitutionality of the law because of the way it was written. State officials and state and local law enforcement agencies are not allowed to enforce the restrictions; instead the statute relies on private citizens to file lawsuits against anyone who may help a person get an abortion that is illegal under the law. Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to block the law from going into effect, citing procedural difficulties but not addressing its constitutionality.

Because there isnt a clear defendant to name in lawsuits seeking to overturn the law, its difficult for a court to issue an injunction to block it. Legal experts say its hard to predict how such lawsuits will play out.

Justice Department attorneys wrote in their filing that the abortion law is in open defiance of the Constitution. They argued it should be overturned on those grounds, as well as alleging that it interferes with federal interests.

The United States has the authority and responsibility to ensure that Texas cannot insulate itself from judicial review for its constitutional violations and to protect the important federal interests that S.B. 8 impairs, the petition read.

It isnt the only ongoing lawsuit aiming to stop the law. Pitman, a 2014 Obama nominee, is also overseeing a suit filed in district court by abortion providers before the law went into effect. Pitman refused a request from defendants to throw out that case, prompting them to appeal.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, known as perhaps the nations most conservative appeals court, canceled the district court hearing on the providers lawsuit and issued a temporary stay on the suit, keeping it in limbo since late August. The lawsuit would return to district court if the stay is ended.
A Lake Conroe tour boat operator whose double-decker vessel capsized last month did not have proper insurance coverage, according to the attorney for the family of a passenger who died.

After the Lake Conroe Queen tipped over Aug. 14 following a windstorm, Karl Katzenberger, 80, of Montgomery, died of reported cardiac issues at a hospital. He and 52 other passengers, including his wife, Jean, 77, were stranded in the water. Several other passengers who sustained injuries already filed a lawsuit against Dale Shaver, the boats owner and operator.

A letter from Shavers insurance company explains the policy on the Lake Conroe Queen does not cover bodily injuries incurred during business operations. The letter, sent to Shavers attorney, was shared with the Houston Chronicle by Jean Katzenbergers attorney, Mark Murray.

What it means is if you dont have the right policy, we dont have the obligation to indemnify you and so youre exposed for these problems, Murray said about the five-page letter dated Aug. 26.

However, Murray said the couple of nearly six decades were running late for the 90-minute, $16 sunset cruise and were instructed by crew members to board without paying or signing a disclaimer. The Katzenbergers did sign a manifest, he pointed out.

CRIME: Authorities investigate shooting between students in The Woodlands

The Houston-based attorney is looking to see if those factors will exempt Jean Katzenberger from prohibitive insurance rules.

Murray said it appears Shaver switched policies from commercial-use liability to personal use when he moved from Louisiana to Texas to operate the Lake Conroe Queen.

Shavers attorney did not respond to requests for comment.

Billed as a paddle boat and styled after 1860s riverboats, the 35-year-old vessel began tours on Lake Conroe in June.

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department requires commercial boats have a minimum $300,000 liability insurance, said Cody Jones, a commander with the agency, in an Aug. 24 interview.

The San Jacinto River Authority requires businesses on Lake Conroes waters to hold liability insurance to compensate those with injuries or other damages, its general manager, Jace Houston, said in an Aug. 24 interview.

We tell companies you cant come here and do business if youre not gonna protect the public by carrying insurance, Houston said.

Jean Katzenbergers claims in a potential lawsuit would include injuries for being doused in diesel from the wrecked boat and for witnessing her husband die, Murray noted. He said the widow also represents her husbands estate, meaning she could potentially be owed for injuries sustained by Karl Katzenberger, including his pain, suffering and mental anguish prior to his death.

Shes been deprived of the care, comfort, solace and companionship of her life-long partner, Murray said.

The boat was so rocky the evening of the incident, Jean Katzenbergers plastic chair on the second deck broke before the vessel was swamped with water, Murray said. Then, Karl Katzenberger fell through the stairwell to the first deck, the lawyer added.

Jean Katzenberger managed to get off the boat but did not have enough time to properly put on her life jacket and she began to float away, seeing her husband clinging to the side before he disappeared, Murray detailed.

Murray said Karl Katzenbergers official cause of death is pending autopsy results. Montgomery County Precinct 1 Justice of the Peace Wayne Mack said it would take 60 to 90 days for the return of Katzenbergers autopsy results.

FIRE: 50 people saved from fire by sprinklers at Spring LA Fitness

All cause of death eventually gets to cardiac arrest and the question was, is that because he could not get air.  Did he inhale water? Murray said. I dont know if the event was so traumatic that it caused him to go into shock and die.

A few days after the Lake Conroe Queen capsized, Houston attorney Ryan MacLeod filed a lawsuit seeking $1 million on behalf of eight passengers. Personal injuries incurred by some of the plaintiffs include leaking diesel inhalation and fractured ribs, according to an Aug. 23 interview with MacLeod.

Passengers received life jackets about 15 seconds before the boat flipped and those on the top deck were never told to go to the bottom deck, according to the suit and MacLeod.

Jean Katzenberger has three children with her late husband. The two moved to Texas from St. Louis in 1985 to be close to a daughter, according to Murray.

The couple booked the reservations for the Lake Conroe Queen the night they celebrated their 57th wedding anniversary, Murray said.

jose.gonzalez@chron.com

twitter.com/jrgzztx
SAN FRANCISCO (AP)  The boards of the San Francisco Bay Area's two largest school districts are set to vote next week on whether to mandate vaccinations against COVID-19 for all staff and students age 12 and older.

Board members for West Contra Unified, which serves more than 28,000 students in Richmond, El Cerrito, Hercules, Pinole, San Pablo and several unincorporated areas, will vote on the policy Tuesday. Meanwhile, board members for Oakland's school district, which serves about 50,000 students, plan to take up the proposal Wednesday.
BEIJING (AP)  Three astronauts who lived for 90 days on China's space station departed Thursday in preparation for returning to Earth.

The national space agency said Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo boarded the Shenzhou-12 spacecraft and undocked from the space station at 8:56 a.m. Thursday (0056 GMT).

State broadcaster CCTV aired footage of the astronauts securing packages inside their spacecraft, which is due to parachute to a location in the Gobi Desert near the Jiuquan launch center on Friday.

The astronauts have already set Chinas record for the most time spent in space. After launching on June 17, mission commander Nie and astronauts Liu and Tang went on two spacewalks, deployed a 10-meter (33-foot) mechanical arm, and had a video call with Communist Party leader Xi Jinping.

Before the undocking, the astronauts downloaded data from their experiments and ensured the station would continue operating without a crew, CCTV reported.

The journey home is expected to take at least 30 hours, CCTV said. Before departing, Nie and his colleagues expressed their thanks for the round-the-clock support and devotion from all the staff.

Four drills have been conducted on the ground at the Dongfeng landing site in north Chinas Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region to ensure the safe return of the crew.

While few details have been made public by China's military, which runs the space program, astronaut trios are expected to be brought on 90-day missions to the station over the next two years to make it fully functional.

The government has not announced the names of the next set of astronauts nor the launch date of Shenzhou-13.

China has sent 14 astronauts into space since 2003, when it became only the third country after the former Soviet Union and the United States to do so on its own.

When completed with the addition of two more modules, the station will weigh in at about 66 tons, a fraction of the size of the International Space Station, which launched its first module in 1998 and will weigh around 450 tons when completed.

In preparation for the permanent station, China launched two experimental modules over the past decade.Tiangong-1 was abandoned before it burned up during an uncontrolled loss of orbit. Its successor, the Tiangong-2, was brought out of orbit in 2018 under full control.

China launched its bid to build such facilities in the early 1990s following successes in earlier missions and its exclusion from the International Space Station, largely due to U.S. objections over the Chinese programs secretive nature and close military ties.

U.S. law requires congressional approval for contact between the American and Chinese space programs, but China is cooperating with space experts from other countries, including France, Sweden, Russia and Italy.

China has also pushed ahead with un-crewed missions, particularly in lunar exploration. It has placed a rover on the little-explored far side of the Moon and in December, the Change 5 probe returned lunar rocks to Earth for the first time since the 1970s.

China this year also landed its Tianwen-1 space probe on Mars, with its accompanying Zhurong rover venturing out to look for evidence of life.

Another program calls for collecting soil from an asteroid, something that has been a particular focus of Japans rival space program.

China also plans to dispatch another mission in 2024 to bring back lunar samples and has expressed a desire to land people on the moon and possibly build a scientific base there, although no timeline has been proposed for such projects. A highly secretive space plane is also reportedly under development.

China's space program has advanced in a steady, cautious manner and has largely avoided the failures that marked the U.S. and Russian programs that were locked in intense competition during the heady early days of spaceflight.
CONCORD, N.H. (AP)  Workers at New Hampshire's youth detention center abused children like it was a team sport, according to a 42-year-old man who on Thursday filed the latest of what is expected to be many individual lawsuits after a judge denied a class action earlier this year.

The man, identified in the lawsuit as John Doe #1, is suing the Sununu Youth Services Center in Manchester and four of 11 former staffers who were arrested in April  Stephen Murphy, James Woodlock, Jeffrey Buskey and Frank Davis. It is the third lawsuit against the center, and the second since a judge dismissed the class action suit.

Murphy and Woodlock have been criminally charged with being accomplices to the rape of John Doe in 1996.

In an email, Murphy's attorney, Bruce Kenna, described the lawsuit as a part of a money-making scheme that has attracted former detainees no matter how frivolous their claims, no matter their criminal background, no matter how ridiculous their assertations that they were victims of horrendous abuse but never realized they should tell someone.

Buskey is charged with assaulting four other teenagers but not Doe. His attorney did not respond to a request for comment, nor did a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services. Attorney Justin Shepherd, who represents Frank Davis in a criminal case accusing him of one count of rape involving a different teenager, said his client maintains his innocence.

More than 350 men and women have come forward with allegations involving 150 staffers from 1963 to 2018 at what was then called the Youth Development Center, which has been under criminal investigation since 2019 and is slated to close in 2023.

John Doe said he was held there from 1994 to 1997 and later spent nearly his entire adult life behind bars for violent burglaries and robberies before being released in January.

He said youth center staffers forced him to fight other teens for food and routinely sent him and others to solitary confinement in a room with no toilet. He then was beaten for urinating on the floor, he said. Though he didn't come from a violent home, he said he quickly developed a killer instinct.

Every confrontation Ive had from when I got there from (age) 15 on out, was met with violence because I was scared. I dont want to be abused. I dont want to get hit first. I dont want to get attacked first. And so I overly react to stuff. I have to, because its survival, especially when I was a child fighting grown men.

And it was often men, plural, he said.

They dont come in there and fight you by themselves. Theres three guys in there abusing you in whatever capacity they want to abuse you. They dont do it by themselves, he said. It became a sporting event for them. Its a sporting event for grown men. Its survival for children.

The Associated Press does not typically name people alleging sexual assault unless they agree to be publicly identified.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP)  The announcement that the U.S. Justice Department will provide technical assistance to Columbus police  at the city's invitation  has done little to curb community activists allegations that officials aren't doing enough to change the department following a series of fatal police shootings of Black people.

The activists, including several faith leaders, are dismissive of the review announced by the Justice Departments Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, saying it wont lead to the changes needed within the division, which was also criticized for its handling of last year's racial injustice protests following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

On Thursday, the activists asked the Justice Department to launch an investigation through its Civil Rights Division, a probe sometimes called a pattern-or-practice investigation that can lead to court-ordered oversight of a troubled police department.

We watched Mayor Ginther attempt to calm the community by calling on the Department of Justice to review current practices within the division, Adrienne Hood, the mother of 23-year-old Henry Green, who was killed by Columbus police officers in 2016, said on video Thursday.

Hood added, As people of faith, we demand more than a review. We need a reckoning that will transform law enforcement into a public safety department which cares for, serves and protects all of its citizens."

The mother-turned-activist read the letter to the Justice Department on video, pleading for the department to investigate the internal police practices she said killed her son.

Ginther, a Democrat, said he agrees with the group's position and said as much when he asked the Justice Department to intervene in April. But ultimately it was the Justice Departments call, he said.

"Thats what we asked for, but we dont tell the attorney general what to do and how to handle things, Ginther said. He doesnt need our invitation or request.

A COPS Office review or a pattern-or-practice investigation could help us do even more with respect to reform, oversight, accountability and transparency, Ginther told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division considers a number of factors when deciding whether to open a pattern-or-practice investigation, including the status of local police reform efforts, the agency said Thursday in a statement to the AP.

The department also consults with staff in the COPS Office and other Justice programs, to consider whether a pattern-or-practice investigation and enforcement action is the best approach or whether other forms of intervention would be more appropriate to address the concerns of the community, the agency said.

An AP review of city correspondence indicates city leaders were directed to the COPS Office in April when they asked the Justice Department and Attorney General Merrick Garland to step in. The April 21 request came one day after a white Columbus officer fatally shot 16-year-old Ma'Khia Bryant, who was Black, as she swung a knife at a woman.

I would like to possibly schedule a call with AG Garland, you and his team about the possibility of inviting the Justice Dept to Columbus to help us reform the Columbus Division of Police, Zach Klein, the Columbus City Attorney, said in an email to Garlands chief of staff, Matthew Klapper.

We want Columbus to be the model of how things can be done when we all work together, Klein wrote in the email obtained by the AP through a records request.

Klapper responded the same day by introducing Klein to Robert Chapman, acting director of the COPS Office.

Klein responded by welcoming the introduction. The positive possibilities are endless, and Im confident a partnership between Columbus and DOJ could serve as a national model to improve policing for communities and police, Klein wrote.

Six days later, Columbus formally requested a review from Chapman of Columbus police operations, identifying any and all racial biases in policing efforts.

In that April 27 letter, Klein and Ginther spoke of a desire to willingly and voluntarily engage with the Justice Department. But they also said they were open to a tougher approach involving court-ordered enforcement mechanisms.

If we exhaust all remedies available to us as partners, and litigation becomes necessary, we will fully support these efforts because we share the ultimate goal of reforming policing practices in the City of Columbus, the two leaders said.

But advocates and civil rights attorneys believe the city could have done more to ensure lasting changes would take place as a result of the Justice Department coming in.

Ginther and city leaders still had the opportunity to turn down the Justice review offer and asked for an investigation where there is an enforcement mechanism through court-ordered mandates, said Sean Walton, an attorney who has represented the families of several Black people fatally shot by Columbus police.

Walton also criticized the city's use of the word partnership to describe the effort between them and Justice.

Im more skeptical of a process where we do not have any accountability, Walton said Thursday. And when the final decisionmakers or the final authorities in terms of enforcing the reforms that are needed is the mayor and the public safety director of Columbus.

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Farnoush Amiri is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
AP

STANFORD, Calif. (AP)  An alleged San Francisco Bay Area serial killer was convicted Tuesday of the murder of the daughter of former Stanford University athletic director Chuck Taylor nearly 50 years ago.

A San Mateo County jury took about an hour to convict John Getreu of strangling Janet Taylor, 21, who was last seen hitchhiking on the western edge of the Stanford campus on March 24, 1974. Her body was discovered on the side of a road by a truck driver.
SAN DIEGO (AP)  A California Republican congressman said Wednesday that he has helped a San Diego area couple who are both in their 80s and are U.S. citizens get out of Afghanistan after they were repeatedly blocked by the Taliban.

Rep. Darrell Issa said in a statement that the couple was on their way home to San Diego County. His office said their names are not being released at the request of the family because their Afghan relatives remain in the country and may be at risk.

This is a cause for celebration and the result of almost countless hours of work under very difficult conditions, Issa said in a statement.

Issa's office said the couple tried repeatedly over multiple weeks to get through Taliban checkpoints but were harassed and intimidated, blocking their efforts to board a plane home. The couples granddaughter, Zuhal, contacted the Issa district office, to request help. Issa's office said it was also withholding her last name for the same reason it is not identifying her grandparents.

Issa did not give details on how the couple left the country.

Issa has helped dozens of others, including six families who live in the San Diego suburb of El Cajon who had trouble boarding their flights last month amid the chaotic evacuation of Afghans, Americans and others as the Taliban seized power and the last American troops left the country.

One family who has students enrolled in the Cajon Valley Union School District remains stuck in Afghanistan, desperate to leave. El Cajon, east of San Diego, has a large refugee population.

The families had traveled to Afghanistan in the spring and earlier this summer to visit their relatives. Many are U.S. permanent residents who came to the United States on a special visa for Afghans who worked for the U.S. government during the war. Some are U.S. citizens, including many of their children.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Congress this week that about 100 U.S. citizens remain in the country and want to leave. Rescue groups and lawmakers believe the number could be higher.
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP)  The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals on Thursday again ruled that Oklahoma has no concurrent jurisdiction over crimes committed on tribal lands by non-American Indians against American Indians.

The court rejected the states appeal of the dismissal of the manslaughter conviction and 19-year sentence of Richard Roth, 42.
WARSAW, Poland (AP)  The European Parliament adopted a resolution Thursday calling on Polands prime minister to cancel a case in which he asks a top Polish court whether Polands or the European Union's law takes precedence in the country.

The courts ruling, when it eventually comes, could be of fundamental nature for the EU legal order and for Poland's relations with the bloc. Poland's right-wing government insists that law systems are the sole responsibility of member states, not of the EU.

In their resolution, the European lawmakers stressed the fundamental nature of primacy of EU law as a cornerstone principle of EU law, to which all 27 members have agreed in adopting EU treaties.

They called on Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki not to question the primacy of EU law over national legislation and to withdraw his motion, pending before the illegitimate Constitutional Tribunal, to review the constitutionality of certain parts of the EU Treaties.

The resolution was backed by 502 European lawmakers, while 149 were against and 36 abstained. Although a strong statement, the document has no binding power.

Morawiecki asked the Constitutional Tribunal for the review in March after the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that EU law takes precedence over the Polish Constitution. That ruling came amid a larger dispute over changes to the Polish court system, initiated by the governing Law and Justice party, which the EU views as an erosion of democratic principles and the rule of law in Poland.

The next session in the dragging case is set for Sept. 22.

The lawmakers call on the EU Commission, the bloc's executive arm, to launch sanctioning infringement procedures against Poland regarding the continued operation of the Constitutional Tribunal, which is seen as illegitimate due to the political influence on its composition, consisting largely of government loyalists.

The parliament resolution on media freedom and further deterioration of the rule of law in Poland also condemned Poland's latest draft bill limiting non-EU media ownership, seen as targeting the U.S. ownership of the TVN station that is critical of Poland's government. It is being processed in Poland's parliament but President Andrzej Duda has voiced his reservations.

The resolution said the draft law is an attempt to silence critical content and a direct attack on media pluralism, in violation of EU and international laws.

In view of Poland government's shortcomings on media and legislative issues, the lawmakers urged the EU Commission to apply in response the bloc's rule of conditionality that links payment of EU funds to members' observance of its laws. Poland has repeatedly protested the conditionality rule.
BRUSSELS (AP)  The European Union on Thursday unveiled a new strategy for boosting economic, political and defense ties in the Indo-Pacific, just hours after the United States, Britain and Australia announced a new security alliance likely to reshape their relations with the vast region.

The EU believes the region, which stretches from India and China through Japan to Southeast Asia and eastward past New Zealand to the Pacific, is growing in importance given its rising population and political weight, its role in global trade and security and its impact on climate change.

It says the aim of the strategy is to strengthen and expand economic relations while reinforcing the respect of international trade rules, help partners fight and adapt to climate change and biodiversity loss, and boost cooperation on health care so least-developed countries can better prepare for crises like the coronavirus pandemic.

The plan, which comes amid rising U.S.-China tensions, is also to improve maritime security and ensure safe passage through sea lanes. The EU hopes it will result in more naval deployments to the region by European countries. Transport and energy ties would also be beefed up.

The EU is already the top investor, leading development cooperation partner and one of the biggest traders in the Indo-Pacific. But it wants to step up its involvement given the rise in regional geopolitical tensions which are hurting trade and supply chains and undermining security.

The 27-nation blocs relations with China are currently at a low point, but the EU insists that the move is not aimed at countering Beijings influence, even though the strategy does foresee the deepening of trade and investment ties with Taiwan.

On many areas such as climate and biodiversity, Chinas cooperation is essential. Our strategy is one of cooperation, not confrontation. I think its important to stress this sentence: our strategy is built on the will to cooperate, not to confront it, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told reporters.

The new security alliance between the U.S., Britain and Australia, which is aimed at equipping Australia with nuclear-powered submarines, is already seen as a provocative move by China. Beijing believes it will undermine regional stability and jeopardize efforts to halt the spread of nuclear weapons.

The alliance has also angered France for resulting in the termination of a lucrative submarine contract with Australia. Asked about it, Borrell said that these events show the importance of the region and the need for us to engage there.

Borrell lamented that the Europeans had not been informed about the security alliance. EU foreign ministers are expected to discuss it when they meet next month.
BOSTON (AP)  A former executive at a nearly 140-year-old shoe manufacturer in Massachusetts has been sentenced to nearly six years in prison for embezzling $30 million from the company and spending it on luxury items and travel for himself and another person, federal prosecutors in Boston said.

Richard Hajjar, 64, the former chief financial officer of Alden Shoe Co., was also sentenced Wednesday to three years of probation and ordered to pay more than $60 million in restitution and penalties.
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio (AP)  One of the eight men charged in the fraternity hazing death of a Bowling Green State University sophomore pleaded guilty on Thursday in Ohio.

Niall Sweeney, 21, of Erie, Pennsylvania, pleaded guilty in a Wood County courtroom to felony tampering with evidence and misdemeanor hazing in the March death of 20-year-old Stone Foltz, a sophomore from Delaware, Ohio.
BAMAKO, Mali (AP)  France's president announced the death of Islamic State in the Greater Sahara's leader late Wednesday, calling Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi's killing a major success for the French military after more than eight years fighting extremists in the Sahel.

French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted that al-Sahrawi was neutralized by French forces but gave no further details. It was not announced where al-Sahrawi was killed, though the Islamic State group is active along the border between Mali and Niger.

The nation is thinking tonight of all its heroes who died for France in the Sahel in the Serval and Barkhane operations, of the bereaved families, of all of its wounded," Macron tweeted. Their sacrifice is not in vain.

Rumors of the militant leader's death had circulated for weeks in Mali, though authorities in the region had not confirmed it. It was not immediately possible to independently verify the claim or to know how the remains had been identified.

This is a decisive blow against this terrorist group, French Defense Minister Florence Parly tweeted. Our fight continues.

Al-Sahrawi had claimed responsibility for a 2017 attack in Niger that killed four U.S. military personnel and four people with Nigers military. His group also has abducted foreigners in the Sahel and is believed to still be holding American Jeffrey Woodke, who was abducted from his home in Niger in 2016.

The extremist leader was born in the disputed territory of Western Sahara and later joined the Polisario Front. After spending time in Algeria, he made his way to northern Mali where he became an important figure in the group known as MUJAO that controlled the major northern town of Gao in 2012.

A French-led military operation the following year ousted Islamic extremists from power in Gao and other northern cities, though those elements later regrouped and again carried out attacks.

The Malian group MUJAO was loyal to the regional al-Qaida affiliate. But in 2015, al-Sahrawi released an audio message pledging allegiance to the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

The French military has been fighting Islamic extremists in the Sahel region where France was once the colonial power since the 2013 intervention in northern Mali. It recently announced, though, that it would be reducing its military presence in the region, with plans to withdraw 2,000 troops by early next year.

News of al-Sahrawi's death comes as France's global fight against the Islamic State organization is making headlines in Paris. The key defendant in the 2015 Paris attacks trial said Wednesday that those coordinated killings were in retaliation for French airstrikes on the Islamic State group, calling the deaths of 130 innocent people nothing personal as he acknowledged his role for the first time.

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Larson reported from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press writer Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.
DECATUR, Ga. (AP)  Employees in the Decatur school system in suburban Atlanta have until the end of October to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

The move could set up a showdown with Gov. Brian Kemp, who issued an executive order in May that he says bans government entities from mandating vaccines. The issue hasn't been tested in court, though.

Decatur Superintendent Maggie Fehman issued the employee mandate on her own authority. The Decatur district, with about 1,000 employees, is the first district in Georgia known to take such a step. She said staffers who obtain an exemption would have to take a daily COVID-19 test at work, a pharmacy or somewhere else. Home tests will not be accepted.

Decatur, home to many U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Emory University employees, also has been discussing requiring students 12 and up to get inoculated, but is still considering whether to take that step.

For students, this is a much bigger issue, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Fehman told school board members on Tuesday.

The sprawling Los Angeles school district has mandated that its students get vaccinated, as well as a smaller California district.

School board approval would be needed to require vaccination for the district's 5,700 students.

Employees and students are currently required to wear masks in Decatur schools. Infection rates are relatively low, with the district reporting 20 COVID-19 cases among students and employees last week.

Some parents are supporting the requirement.

I think a vaccine mandate is just going to make it that much more likely we can all finish the year with as many days as possible in the classroom, parent Peter Isbister told WAGA-TV.

Kavia Kreitel, who has three children enrolled in Decatur, said its only responsible for teachers to be required to get inoculated.

I work in health care, Kreitel said. I have had three doses of this vaccine and it is completely safe, and I think its whats going to get us out of this.

Others are opposed, though. Parent Anna Hinson told school board members it would override parental authority and take away from students' ability to think for themselves.

With a mandate, you would be telling the kids you teach that no matter how curious, self-directed, self-aware and autonomous they are in their growth process, there will always be an authoritative power that is ready to squash the direction of their growth and independence if it does not conform, she said.
MONTICELLO, Ga. (AP)  A helicopter with three people on board crashed in a national wildlife preserve in Middle Georgia and search crews were looking for the wreckage, federal authorities said.

Teams of people were searching Thursday for the downed aircraft after it went missing late Wednesday in the Piedmont National Wildlife Refuge north of Macon, The Telegraph newspaper reported.

There were three people on board the helicopter, Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Emma Duncan said in an email to The Associated Press late Thursday.

Officials did not say whether anyone survived the crash, nor did they identify anyone on board.

The crash involved a Robinson R66 helicopter, which went down in a heavily wooded area, the National Transportation Safety Board said. The five-seat chopper is capable of flying 160 mph (257 kph) and traveling up to 400 miles, he said.

It was pouring rain" in the area Wednesday evening, when authorities said the helicopter went missing around 8:30 p.m., a woman who lives nearby told The Telegraph. She said her husband heard a low-flying aircraft over their house and felt like something was wrong.

It was flying really low, April Seabolt told the newspaper.

Local rescue crews set up a command post at the nearby Enon Baptist Church, and Seabolt went there Thursday to tell authorities what she knew about the crash.

The NTSB and FAA will investigate the crash, and the NTSB will provide updates, Duncan said.

Few other details were available Thursday.
SPARTA, Wis. (AP)  Democratic U.S. Reps. Gwen Moore and Ilhan Omar have asked the secretary of defense to investigate claims of possible mistreatment of Afghan refugees staying at Fort McCoy in western Wisconsin.

Moore, of Wisconsin, and Omar, of Minnesota, wrote a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin III on Wednesday about concerns raised with their offices about conditions at Fort McCoy, including families lacking access to basic necessities and staff speaking in a rude, condescending manner to refugees.

The Wisconsin State Journal reported this week that many Afghan refugees staying at Fort McCoy still had not been able to get a new set of clothes and that there were long lines for meals.

Thomas Gresback, a Fort McCoy spokesperson with the Department of Homeland Security, said the base initially experienced supply chain issues, but that has been addressed and clothing is being distributed as fast as possible.

The base said personnel seek constant feedback from the Afghans on how they can improve the refugees stay.

Fort McCoy, 40 miles (64 kilometers) east of La Crosse and the Minnesota border, is one of eight military bases in the U.S. that is temporarily housing refugees who fled from Afghanistan after the Taliban toppled Afghanistans U.S.-backed government on Aug. 15. As of this week, 12,500 Afghans were staying at the Wisconsin base.

In addition to the investigation, Moore and Omar asked Austin to provide information on how the Defense Department is ensuring that Afghans are treated respectfully. They also requested all reports that Afghans have made about any alleged mistreatment and information on the reporting process.

We urge you to swiftly take action to address these concerns and ensure that any such shortfalls are immediately alleviated and that these vulnerable individuals have access to all their basic needs while they await movement to their final places of refuge in our country, Moore and Omar said.
Japans exports rose 26% in August from a year earlier, preliminary data released Thursday showed, below analysts forecasts, as supply chain disruptions hit manufacturers.

The 6.6 trillion yen ($60 billion) in exports compared with 5.2 trillion yen a year earlier, when the economy was just beginning to recover from the initial impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

Analysts had forecast an increase of more than 30%. Exports rose 37% year-on-year in July.

The figures showed the worlds third largest economy logged a trade deficit of 635 billion yen ($5.8 billion), as imports surged nearly 45% to 7.24 trillion yen ($66 billion), driven largely by imports of oil, gas and coal.

Tokyo and some other regions remain in a state of emergency due to outbreaks spurred largely by the delta variant of COVID-19. The strong rise in imports suggests that consumer demand has remained relatively strong, said Marcel Thieliant of Capital Economics.

However, the external trade data suggest that net exports may knock off around 0.3 percentage points from Q3 GDP growth," he said in an analysis.

Overall exports to the U.S. rose 23% and shipments to Asia climbed 26%. But exports to China were weaker, rising almost 13%.

Japan's exports of machinery and other factory equipment will likely remain strong in coming months as regional economies emerge from recent waves of pandemic lockdowns, economists said.

But auto manufacturers have had to slow production as they struggle with shortages of computer chips and other parts due to soaring demand for IT products.

The data showed exports of cars slipped 1.5% in August, while imports of oil and other fuels surged 21%.
AUSTIN (AP)  A federal judge has accused Texas leaders for failing to act on her orders to fix the foster care neglect in which 400 or so children are being abused and spending multiple nights each month in motels or offices buildings.

Tuesday's hearing before U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack was the latest development as the state struggles to implement reforms Jack ordered as she presides over a 2011 class-action lawsuit against Family and Protective Services alleging that children were held in unsafe conditions.

Texas Department of Family and Protective Services Commissioner Jaime Masters acknowledged Tuesday that case workers are not adequate for the tasks they're assigned.

The steep rise in displaced children only means more and more of them were looked after by case workers whose training amounted to as little as a 60-minute video on how to care for troubled kids, she said.

The number of foster children without a place to stay nearly doubled from August to September of 2020, from 47 to 87, then shot upwards throughout the year and has hovered around 400 since June.

Many of the children have been in foster care for years and were abused while in the care of the state, Masters said, and she had heard reports that some children had engaged in prostitution in the offices of case workers who were supposed to be protecting them.

Your days of looking the other way while children are warehoused, raped and abused, and fed psychotropic drugs are done, said the judge, who resolved on Tuesday to ask Gov. Greg Abbott what he intends to do about it.

Tuesdays hearing finished with Jack saying her focus has shifted away from sanctioning the state . In 2019, Jack leveled $50,000 daily fines for every day that foster care group homes went without 24-hour supervision.

She said she now wants to coordinate with the plaintiffs and the state to find solutions to the problems with Texas foster care system immediately. She asked a lawyer for Abbott to find out what he is willing to do to address it, saying she wanted the governors blessing before proceeding.
MADISON, Wis. (AP)  A Madison man has pleaded guilty to fatally stabbing his 13-year-old daughter and attempting to kill his wife last year.

Travis Christianson, 45, entered the plea to first-degree intentional homicide Wednesday in Dane County Circuit Court in the death of Addrianna Christianson.

Christianson also pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree intentional homicide for trying to kill his wife, Dawn Christianson, last July, the State Journal reported.

According to a criminal complaint, Christianson stabbed his daughter to death after his wife had threatened to end their marriage and left the house for a short time to buy more beer for him because he was already intoxicated and she didn't want him to drive drunk.

When she arrived home she found Christianson with a large kitchen knife and when she asked about their daughter Christianson said he had already killed her, the complaint said.

He then tried to attack his wife who was able to get the knife away from him and call 911 before going to a neighbor's house for help, according to authorities.

A judge will decide during sentencing Dec. 1 whether Christianson will ever be eligible for parole.
MENOMONIE, Wis. (AP)  One of two men suspected in the shooting deaths of four people found in an abandoned SUV in Wisconsin was spotted meeting with one of the victims the night before at a Minnesota bar, authorities said Thursday.

Darren Lee McWright, 56, from St. Paul, Minnesota, who also uses the alias last name of Osborne, was arrested on a warrant from Dunn County, Wisconsin and is being held in the Ramsey County Jail. A warrant is out for the other suspect, Antoine Darnique Suggs, 38, who is believed to be in the Twin Cities area.

A complaint filed Thursday against McWright, who's charged in Dunn County with four counts of hiding a corpse, said witnesses told police they saw Suggs late Saturday evening in the White Squirrel Bar in St. Paul with Nitosha Lee Flug-Presley, 30, of Stillwater. One witness noticed the pair at the bar, the complaint said, while a second witness saw Flug-Presley buy a shot of tequila and hand it to Suggs.

The complaint said Flug-Presleys aunt stated that her niece had a thing with Suggs and he would fly in from Arizona to see her. Public records show that Suggs had been living recently in Scottsdale, Arizona, where hes listed as the manager and owner of Darnque Apparel.

A farmer discovered the bodies of Flug-Presley and three others Sunday in his Dunn County cornfield, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) to the east. All four had suffered gunshot wounds, authorities said.

The other victims were Flug-Presleys longtime friend, Jasmine Christine Sturm, 30, of St. Paul; Sturms brother, Matthew Isiah Pettus, 26, of St. Paul; and Sturms boyfriend, Loyace Foreman III, 35, of St. Paul. Police have not stated a motive for the killings.

Authorities were able to connect the suspects and victims through surveillance videos and witnesses.

Investigators said street camera footage outside the White Squirrel showed a dark SUV at about 2:08 a.m. Sunday. The passenger side is open and the footage shows Sturm run into the vehicle. Another witness said she saw Flug-Presley, Sturm and Pettus get into a black SUV in the early morning hours, according to the complaint.

All four victims were shot once in the head, according to the complaint. Flug-Presley was found in the front passenger seat of the 2008 Mercedes Benz GL and the other three victims were in the backseat.

Surveillance video at the Bridgestop convenience store near Sheridan Town Hall in Wheeler, Wisconsin showed the Mercedes pulling up to a gas pump just after noon on Sunday. A minute later, a black Nissan Rogue is seen pulling up to another pump. Police traced the Nissan Rogue to the mother of Darren Suggs, who told authorities that his brother, Antoine Suggs, uses the vehicle when hes in town.

Darren Suggs told police that McWright is his biological father and confirmed through a still photo that he was one of the suspects at the Bridgestop.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP)  A Topeka man has been convicted of seven felonies, four years after he fled to Mexico while awaiting trial for rape.

Shawnee County District Attorney Mike Kagay said a jury on Thursday found Daniel Arreola guilty of a 2015 sexual assault in Topeka.

Prosecutors said Arreola forced his way into the apartment of a woman who was having a party in Topeka on July 11, 2015. He forced the woman into a backroom and raped her at gunpoint, Kagay said.

Arreola cut off his GPS ankle bracelet and fled to Mexico four days before his trial was scheduled to begin on Feb. 17, 2017. He was apprehended in Mexico and returned to Kansas in August of 2019 and has remained in custody since.

Arreola was convicted of rape, aggravated criminal sodomy, aggravated burglary, three counts of aggravated assault and unlawful tampering with electronic monitoring equipment.

His sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 15.

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This story was first published on Aug. 13. It was updated on Sept. 16 to correct an instance in which District Attorney Mike Kagays last name was used to refer to the convicted. Daniel Arreola was convicted of rape and other charges, not Kagay.
ROCKVILLE, Md. (AP)  A Maryland man is facing charges after his fathers decomposing body was found in the home they shared, authorities announced Wednesday.

Gary D. Howes, 51, of Rockville was arrested last week and charged with neglect of a vulnerable adult that resulted in death and/or serious physical injury, the Montgomery County States Attorneys Office said in a news release.
John Hart/AP

MADISON, Wis. (AP)  A new political action committee headed by a longtime Republican operative has formed to help Rebecca Kleefisch win the governor's race.

Stephan Thompson, who previously served as head of the Wisconsin Republican Party and ran Gov. Scott Walker's 2014 reelection campaign, announced Thursday that he will lead the new group known as Freedom Wisconsin. Thompson previously served as an adviser to a group Kleefisch formed called the 1848 Project.
BRUSSELS (AP)  The European Union's executive arm asked its member countries Thursday to better protect journalists amid a rise of physical attacks and online threats against media professionals.

According to the European Commission, 908 journalists and media workers were attacked across the 27-nation bloc in 2020. A total of 23 journalists have been killed in the EU since 1992, with the majority of the killings taking place over the past six years.

No journalist should die or be harmed because of their job. We need to support and protect journalists; they are essential for democracy," said Vera Jourova, the commission vice-president for values and transparency. The pandemic has showed more than ever the key role of journalists to inform us. And the urgent need for public authorities to do more to protect them."

Murders of reporters remain rare in Europe, but the killings of journalists in Slovakia and Malta in recent years have raised concerns about reporters safety in developed, democratic societies.

Earlier this year, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen expressed support to investigative journalism after the killing of Peter R. de Vries, a renowned Dutch journalist who reported on the violent underworld of the Netherlands.

The commission's non-binding proposals include recommendations for EU countries to ensure fair and effective investigations and prosecutions, and to provide protection to those under threat, with a strong focus on female journalists.

According to the EU, 73% of female journalists have experienced online violence and the commission said EU countries should support initiatives aimed at empowering women journalists and professionals belonging to minority groups and those reporting on equality issues."

The bloc's executive arm also proposed the creation of support services, including helplines, legal advice, and psychological support. It insisted on the need to ensure reporters' safety during demonstrations, where most of the attacks take place.

Member states should provide regular training for law enforcement authorities to ensure that journalists and other media professionals are able to work safely and without restrictions during such events," the commission said.

Noting that digital and online safety has become a major concern" because of online attacks but also the risks of illegal surveillance, the executive branch also encouraged EU countries to improve cooperation between media and cybersecurity bodies.

Relevant national cybersecurity bodies should, upon request, assist journalists who seek to determine whether their devices or online accounts have been compromised, in obtaining the services of cybersecurity forensic investigators," the commission said.

The proposals were unveiled just months after the commission's annual report on adherence to the rule of law concluded that democratic standards were eroding in several member countries. That report notably singled out Slovenia, which currently holds the six-month rotating presidency of the European Council, for attacks against the Balkan nations media.

This is not only Slovenia, we see the very aggressive rhetoric in some other member states," Jourova said, adding that the EU will keep putting pressure on member countries where continuous issues are spotted.
FARGO, N.D. (AP)  A North Dakota district judge has pleaded guilty to a drunken driving charge after allegedly crashing into two parked cars in downtown Fargo last weekend.

An attorney for Southeast Judicial District Judge Cherie Clark entered a guilty plea on her behalf to a misdemeanor DUI charge in Fargo Municipal Court. Clark did not appear in court.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP)  North Korea said Thursday it successfully launched ballistic missiles from a train for the first time and was continuing to bolster its defenses, after the two Koreas test-fired missiles hours apart in dueling displays of military might.

Wednesdays launches underscored a return of the tensions between the rivals amid a prolonged stalemate in U.S.-led talks aimed at stripping North Korea of its nuclear weapons program.

Pyongyangs official Korean Central News Agency said the missiles were launched during a drill of a railway-borne missile regiment that transported the weapons system along rail tracks in the countrys mountainous central region and accurately struck a sea target 800 kilometers (500 miles) away.

State media showed what appeared to be two different missiles streaking up from rail-car launchers engulfed in orange flames along tracks surrounded by dense forest.

A rail-based ballistic system reflects North Koreas efforts to diversify its launch options, which now includes various vehicles and ground launch pads and may eventually include submarines. Firing a missile from a train could add mobility, but some experts say North Koreas simple rail networks running through its relatively small territory would be quickly destroyed by enemies during a crisis.

Our military assesses that North Korea is continuously developing various mobile launch equipment, said Col. Kim Jun-rak, a spokesman for South Koreas Joint Chiefs of Staff. He said the South Korean and U.S. militaries were continuing to examine the Norths launches.

The South Korean and Japanese militaries said earlier that North Koreas two short-range ballistic missiles landed inside Japans exclusive economic zone but outside its territorial waters. The last time a North Korean missile landed inside that zone was in October 2019.

Pak Jong Chon, a senior North Korean official who has been seen as influential in the countrys missile development, said Wednesdays tests were successfully conducted in line with the strategic and tactical design and intention of the Norths ruling Workers Party.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un vowed at a party congress in January to bolster his nuclear deterrent in the face of U.S.-led sanctions and pressure and issued a long wish list of sophisticated weaponry, including longer-range intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear-powered submarines, spy satellites and tactical nuclear arms.

In another weapons display over the weekend, the North said it tested new cruise missiles, which it intends to make nuclear-capable, that can strike targets 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) away, a distance putting all of Japan and U.S. military installations there within reach.

Hours after the latest North Korean launches, South Korea reported its first test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile. As President Moon Jae-in and other top officials watched, the missile flew from a submarine and hit a designated target, Moons office said.

Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of the North Korean leader, threatened a complete destruction of bilateral relations over Moon's comments while he observed the test, when he said the Souths growing conventional missile capacities would be a sure deterrence against North Korean provocation.

South Korea, which doesnt have nuclear weapons and instead is protected by the U.S.s, has been accelerating efforts to build up its conventional arms, including developing more powerful missiles. Observers say Moons government, which has been actively pursuing reconciliation with North Korea, may have wanted to appear tougher in response to criticism that its too soft on the North.

Kim Yo Jong took offense to Moon describing North Korean weapons demonstrations as a provocation and said warned of dire consequences in inter-Korean relations if he continues on with what she described as slander of North Korea.

Kim Dong-yub, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, said the North Korean photos indicated the rail-fired missiles were a solid-fuel, short-range weapon the North first tested from truck launchers in 2019. The missiles, likely modeled on Russias Iskander missiles, are designed to fly at relatively low altitudes where the air is dense enough to allow for maneuverability in flight, making interception by missile defense systems more difficult.

While the North is trying to broaden its launch systems, the analyst Kim questioned whether rail-mobile missiles would meaningfully improve the countrys military capabilities when the Norths simple rail networks would be easy targets during crisis.

Experts say North Korea is building up its weapons systems to apply pressure on the United States in the hopes of winning relief from economic sanctions aimed at forcing the North to abandon its nuclear arsenal. U.S.-led talks on the issue have been stalled for more than two years.

Kim Jong Uns government has so far rejected the Biden administrations overtures for dialogue, demanding that Washington abandon what it calls hostile policies first  a reference to the sanctions.

The United States said it had no hostile intent and called for North Korea to return to talks. What we seek to do is to reduce the threat to the United States, to our allies in the region, ... and we think we can do that through diplomacy, State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters in Washington.

While testing various short-range weapons recently, North Korea has maintained its self-imposed moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile tests, a sign it may not want to scuttle chances for diplomacy entirely.
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP)  The U.S., Britain and Australia have announced they're forming a new security alliance that will help equip Australia with nuclear-powered submarines. The alliance will see a reshaping of relations in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond. Here's what it might mean for various players:

THE UNITED STATES

Ten years ago under President Barack Obama, the U.S. began discussing the need to focus more attention on the Indo-Pacific region while pivoting away from conflicts in the Middle East. Under President Joe Biden, the U.S. has now withdrawn its troops from Afghanistan while finding that tensions with China have only grown. In the Pacific, the U.S. and others have been concerned about China's aggressive actions in the South China Sea and its antipathy toward Japan, Taiwan and Australia. In announcing the deal, none of the three leaders mentioned China, although the alliance was seen as a provocative move by Beijing. The U.S. had previously only shared the nuclear propulsion technology with Britain. Biden said it was about ensuring peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific over the long term.

BRITAIN

Leaving the European Union under Brexit has left Britain seeking to reassert its global position. Part of that has been an increased focus  or tilt  toward the Indo-Pacific. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the new alliance would allow the three nations to sharpen their focus on an increasingly complicated part of the world. He said that perhaps most significantly, it would bond the three nations even more closely together.

AUSTRALIA

Under the arrangement, Australia will build at least eight nuclear-powered submarines using U.S. expertise, while dumping a contract with France for diesel-electric subs. Experts say the nuclear subs will allow Australia to conduct longer patrols and give the alliance a stronger military presence in the region.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he had called the leaders of Japan and India to explain the new alliance. Japan, India, Australia and the U.S. already have a strategic dialogue known as the Quad. Biden is set to host fellow Quad leaders at the White House next week.

FRANCE

Australia told France it would end its contract with state majority-owned DCNS to build 12 of the worlds largest conventional submarines. The contract was worth tens of billions of dollars. France is furious, demanding explanations from all sides.

It was really a stab in the back. We built a relationship of trust with Australia, and this trust was betrayed, said French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian on France-Info radio.

CHINA

China said the alliance would severely damage regional peace and stability, and jeopardize efforts to halt nuclear weapon proliferation. It said it was highly irresponsible for the U.S. and Britain to export the nuclear technology, and that Australia was to blame for a breakdown in bilateral relations.

The most urgent task is for Australia to correctly recognize the reasons for the setbacks in the relations between the two countries, and think carefully whether to treat China as a partner or a threat," said Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Beijing has been unhappy with the Biden administration calling it out over human rights abuses in the Xianjing region, the crackdown on democracy activists in Hong Kong, and cybersecurity breaches. Biden spoke by phone with Chinas President Xi Jinping last week. After the call, the official Xinhua News Agency reported that Xi expressed concerns that U.S. government policy toward China has caused serious difficulties in relations.

NEW ZEALAND

Left out of the new alliance is Australia's neighbor New Zealand. It has a longstanding nuclear-free policy that includes a ban on nuclear-powered ships entering its ports. That stance has sometimes been a sticking point in otherwise close relations with the U.S. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said New Zealand wasnt asked to be part of the alliance and wouldnt have expected an invitation. Still, it leaves New Zealand out of a deal to share a range of information including artificial intelligence, cyber and underwater defense capabilities.
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP)  Pennsylvania's state-run liquor system will begin rationing sales of a few dozen products on Friday in response to what it describes as supply shortages beyond its control.

The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board notified license holders on Thursday that two-bottles-per-day purchase limits for customers at state stores, as well as well for bars, restaurants and other license holders, will remain in place indefinitely.

The PLCB said sustained supply chain disruptions and product shortages prompted the restrictions on certain types of alcohol.

The 43 items on the list of restricted products also will not be available through store-to-store transfers starting Friday.

The list of rationed booze  a small fraction of the vast array of items the state liquor system sells  contains specific types of champagne, bourbon, tequila, cognac and whiskey. The rationing will remain in place for the foreseeable future and until the supply chain becomes more reliable, the PLCB said.

The Pennsylvania Licensed Beverage and Tavern Association said it will make it more difficult for members to run their businesses.

Supply and labor issues are not helping with recovery from the pandemic, the business association said in a statement. We hope the Legislature will take all of this into consideration when they return to Harrisburg. The industry still needs help moving forward.

PLCB spokesman Shawn Kelly said bars, restaurants and other customers were informed of the purchase restrictions on Thursday.

If you take a look at stories that have come out from around the country because of COVID-19, supply chains have been disrupted, production has been disrupted, Kelly said. In some cases there have been shortages of cans and bottles.

Supply shortages in North Carolina have caused restaurants and bars to scramble to find popular brands, with supply shortages made more acute because of pandemic-era increases in customer demand.
DENVER (AP)  A man accused of killing three people at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado in 2015 is incompetent to stand trial, a federal judge ruled Thursday, delaying U.S. prosecutors' efforts to bring the suspect to trial after he was repeatedly deemed incompetent in state court.

U.S. District Court Senior Judge Robert Blackburn found Robert Dear incompetent during a brief hearing in Denver. Neither prosecutors nor the defense contesting the finding  but Dear did, as he has on past occasions, The Denver Post reported.

Im opposing it; Im not crazy, Dear shouted via a video feed from a mental health facility in Missouri. He was diagnosed in 2016 with a delusional disorder that has caused him to believe for decades that the FBI was persecuting him.

Dear, 63, is accused of killing three people and wounding eight others during the Nov. 27, 2015, attack on a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs.

Authorities have said Dear planned to wage war on the clinic because it performed abortions. Dear arrived at the clinic with multiple firearms and more than 500 rounds of ammunition, prosecutors have said.

Dear has been declared mentally incompetent to stand trial because he lacks a rational understanding of the case against him and is too distrusting of his attorneys to aid in his defense. That judgment has been affirmed multiple times.

Dear had been undergoing treatment at a state psychiatric hospital aimed at restoring him to competency before undergoing the federal evaluation.

Killed in the shooting were Garrett Swasey, a University of Colorado Colorado Springs campus police officer who rushed to the clinic to help, and KeArre Stewart, 29, and Jennifer Markovsky, 35, who were accompanying friends to the clinic.

Four police officers were wounded during a five-hour standoff. Police eventually rescued 27 people who were hiding inside the clinic during the attack.

Blackburn ordered that Dear continue receiving mental health treatment to determine if he will attain the capacity to permit the proceedings to go forward.

After state proceedings were repeatedly stalled by incompetency findings, federal prosecutors brought 68 criminal counts against Dear in 2019, including use of a firearm during a crime resulting in death and violating a law ensuring access to clinic entrances. They sought their own mental evaluation.

Dear was first found legally incompetent in May 2016. The rulings mean he cannot understand the charges he faces or help in his own defense. Dear, however, repeatedly has insisted that he is competent.
BERLIN (AP)  A 16-year-old boy was detained Thursday in connection with a possible plan for an Islamic extremist attack on a synagogue in the German city of Hagen, authorities said.

The detention took place on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism, and two years after a deadly attack in another German city on the Yom Kippur holiday.

Police cordoned off the synagogue on Wednesday and a worship service planned for the evening was called off.

Officials had received very serious and concrete information that there could be an attack on the synagogue during Yom Kippur, said Herbert Reul, the interior minister of North Rhine-Westphalia state, where Hagen is located. The tip pointed to an Islamist-motivated threat situation, and named the possible timing and suspect, he added.

Police using sniffer dogs found no dangerous objects in or around the synagogue, Reul said. On Thursday morning, the 16-year-old, a Syrian national who lives in Hagen, was detained. Three other people were detained in a raid on an apartment, the minister said.

Those three  reportedly the teenagers father and two brothers  were released on Thursday evening and are currently not under suspicion, prosecutors told news agency dpa. They said the boy allegedly acknowledged having had contact with a bomb-building expert via the messaging app Telegram, but denied having intended to attack the synagogue.

Investigators didn't find any bomb components in a search of the teenager's home, but did seize cellphones and other materials that they will now evaluate.

Reul didn't say where the tip on the alleged threat came from.

News magazine Der Spiegel reported, without identifying sources, that it came from a foreign intelligence service. It said the teenager told someone in an online chat that he was planning an attack with explosives on a synagogue, and the probe led investigators to the 16-year-old.

Two years ago on Yom Kippur, a German right-wing extremist attacked a synagogue in the eastern German city of Halle. That attack is considered one of the worst anti-Semitic assaults in the countrys post-war history.

The attacker repeatedly tried, but failed, to force his way into the synagogue with 52 worshippers inside. He then shot and killed a 40-year-old woman in the street outside and a 20-year-old man at a nearby kebab shop as an appropriate target with immigrant roots.

He posted an anti-Semitic screed before carrying out the Oct. 9, 2019, attack in the eastern German city of Halle and broadcast the shooting live on a popular gaming site.

German Justice Minister Christine Lambrecht sharply condemned the foiled Hagen attack.

It is intolerable that Jews are again exposed to such a horrible threat and that they cannot celebrate the start of their highest holiday, Yom Kippur, together," the minister said.

___

Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP)  The City Council in Portland, Oregon, has scrapped a plan to boycott Texas businesses because of a new law that prohibits most abortions there, deciding Wednesday to instead set aside $200,000 to fund reproductive care.

The liberal Pacific Northwest city made headlines earlier this month when Mayor Ted Wheeler announced plans to ban city business with the Lone Star State. However the proposal was abandoned due to concerns that it could be punitive to Texans who, are in fact, the most affected by the abortion law.

Ive heard some suggest that this (law) has no bearing on our local community ... I could not disagree more, Wheeler said during a meeting Wednesday. If this Texas law, restricting the rights of women, is allowed to stand then it will spread to other states  it will jeopardize Roe v. Wade and it will impact our constituents here in the city of Portland."

The boycott would have banned the purchase of goods and services by Portland from Texas and bar city employee travel until the legislation is reversed or overturned.

The boycott threat drew the ire of Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who described Portland on Twitter as a dumpster fire and called its leaders depraved in response.

The new plan to fund reproductive services passed 4-1 on Wednesday. Commissioner Mingus Mapps cast the only no vote, saying he was genuinely mystified by what the City Council was trying to accomplish by allocating the $200,000 to fund reproductive care.

Our city is overwhelmed by multiple crises, this council should focus on solving those, said Mapps, who opposed Texass new anti-abortion law. We have a gun violence crisis. We have a homelessness crisis. We have a trash crisis. And we have a pandemic.

The announcement of a possible ban by Portland on doing business with Texas appeared to have come long before the actual policy making, as officials scrambled to nail down how such a boycott would work or could impact Oregon's largest city.

Spokesperson Heather Hafer said the city had purchased slightly less than $35 million in goods and services from Texas in the past five years.

During Labor Day, city officials met with reproductive health care providers and advocates to discuss the boycott. Wheeler said advocates disagreed with some elements of of the ban and suggested alternatives.

As a result, the measure approved by the Council sets aside $200,000 for organizations that deliver programs and services related to reproductive healthcare. The resolution does not specify where these organizations should be located, but the city is expected to pick the groups and finalize the grant money during the fall.

The resolution also directs the Council to send a letter to the Oregon Congressional delegation urging them to pass the Womens Health Protection Act.

Will what we do today fundamentally change the mindset of Texas legislators? Probably not," Portland City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty said. But what it will do is send a very strong message, to the people of Texas, that we dont abandon them just because unfortunately they have the leadership that they have.

___

Sara Cline is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP)  Missouris Republican attorney general, Eric Schmitt, sued China over the coronavirus. He signed on to a failed lawsuit seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Now, as he positions himself for a Senate run, hes turning his attention closer to home and suing to stop mask mandates in the state's liberal cities and Missouri schools.

For state attorneys general hoping to gain greater influence and advance their own political agendas, filing lawsuits has become an increasingly common strategy. The partisan divide over coronavirus restrictions has given GOP politicians an opening to showcase their conservative bona fides to voters and capitalize on the publics exhaustion with COVID-19 protocols a year and a half into a pandemic that shows no signs of waning.

For Schmitt, the fight over mask mandates could bolster his support in a crowded primary for retiring GOP Sen. Roy Blunts seat in next years midterm elections.

Schmitt is taking advantage of what we call the politics of grievance, said retired St. Louis University political scientist Steven Puro. Hes going to play on that as much as he possibly can.

Schmitts spokesperson framed the lawsuits as his way of fighting back against government bureaucrats.

Nothing is off the table in our mission to beat back the encroachment and overreach from local to federal government on the liberties and freedom of the people of Missouri, Chris Nuelle said in a statement.

Schmitt, 46, signed on to a letter Thursday from two dozen Republican state attorney generals warning the White House of impending legal action over President Joe Bidens federal vaccine mandate that all employers with more than 100 workers require them to be vaccinated or be tested for the virus weekly.

Missouri has been a national leader in pushing back against the Biden Administration & Covid related mandates, Schmitt tweeted last week. Bidens historic overreach on vaccine mandates will not stand in Missouri.

While the jobs responsibilities vary by state, most attorneys general are tasked with defending state laws and constitutions and acting as consumer-protection watchdogs.

Theyve long had the power to file headline-grabbing lawsuits with a political edge, but Paul Nolette, an associate professor at Marquette University and an expert on state attorneys general, said theyve traditionally stuck to lower-profile lawsuits against scammers and defending state laws that are challenged in court.

Filing flashy legal challenges became increasingly popular among Republican attorneys general during the Obama era, Nolette said. When Donald Trump became president, Democratic attorneys general took the lead in suing the White House over its policies.

Now Republican (attorneys general) are flexing their muscles during the Biden administration as well, particularly on this issue of suing municipalities and essentially their own constituents," Nolette said. "I would classify that as still unusual, but it's become more common just in the last few years.

GOP attorneys general in red states now are zeroing in on liberal policies adopted by majority Democratic cities, the one place where Democrats have some control, he said.

For example, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has been fighting in court with San Antonio since 2018 over the city's handling of immigrants suspected of being in the United States illegally, accusing city officials of violating a new state law targeting what conservative critics call sanctuary cities."

The practice is less common among Democratic attorneys general. Not because theyre less political, Nolette said, but because fewer people tend to live in rural Republican strongholds, so the impact of blocking conservative policies there is less attention-grabbing.

Even though Schmitt is technically suing his own constituents, University of Central Missouri political scientist Robynn Kuhlmann said Schmitt's lawsuits will resonate in drastically different ways with Republicans and Democrats.

While it may seem as if hes attacking constituents of the liberal perspective, I think its important to note for those who are conservative it is in essence defending rights and liberties, Kuhlmann said.

In fighting mask mandates, Schmitt is acting against the guidance of public health officials, who encourage mask wearing to stop the spread of COVID-19, particularly when it's caused by the more contagious delta variant that has caused a spike in cases, hospitalizations and deaths. Schmitts lawsuit cites the low death rate among school-age children, and he has stressed the importance of letting families make their own health decisions.

A Columbia Public Schools spokesperson said in a statement after Schmitt sued that the district is extremely disappointed to learn that the Missouri Attorney General has chosen to pursue litigation against the school district for providing safety measures for its scholars, teachers, and staff members.

But Republicans might find there are limits to such moves. A recent Republican-fueled effort in California to recall Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, in part over COVID-19 restrictions that he imposed, came up short amid increasing worries over the perniciousness of the delta variant.

Lawsuits can be used as a tool for politically ambitious attorneys general to drum up name recognition, fundraising and votes, Nolette said.

The tactic works, Nolette said, because attorneys general can sue and immediately cash in on the recognition for taking action. The process is more complicated for a state lawmaker, who must work for months and sometimes years to get legislation passed.

Some of these lawsuits, even if the expectation is that theyre not really going to go anywhere, the fact is you can always sue and get a hearing, even if the argument is ridiculous, Nolette said.

Schmitt's lawsuit seeking to hold China responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic is pending in federal court, and the Chinese government has refused to participate. Lawsuits against other countries typically dont go anywhere because U.S. law generally prohibits them.

Schmitt is making more progress on his lawsuits against local masking rules. He secured a win last month when a Missouri judge banned St. Louis County from enforcing its mask mandate while Schmitt's lawsuit plays out in court.

A number of Missouri attorneys general have used the position as a steppingstone to higher political office.

Republican John Ashcroft was attorney general from 1977 to 1985 and later was elected Missouri governor and U.S. senator and then appointed U.S. attorney general under President George W. Bush.

Democrat Jay Nixon served as attorney general from 1993 to 2009, when he was elected governor. And Schmitts predecessor, Republican Josh Hawley, served two years as attorney general before catapulting into the U.S. Senate.

The stakes are high for Schmitt, who faces a slew of other Republican Senate candidates, including former Gov. Eric Greitens, who resigned amid scandal in 2018, and Mark McCloskey, who was recently pardoned along with his wife for waving guns at social justice demonstrators last year. U.S. Reps. Vicky Hartzler and Billy Long also are running.

And even though Missouri now is considered a red state, theres concern among Republicans that the crowded field could give Greitens a path to the GOP nomination and possibly squander what should be an easy win for Republicans.

If Schmitt wants to win, Puro said, he needs to quickly clear the GOP field. Filing lawsuits that garner attention from state voters and wealthy national donors will help, Kuhlmann said.

This allows for name recognition to occur in this crowded field, and also some credit claim in that he has this position as attorney general and is acting on defending Missouris laws, she said.

____

Associated Press writer Meg Kinnard contributed to this report.
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP)  South Dakota is one of four states, along with the District of Columbia, that won't be resettling any of the nearly 37,000 Afghan evacuees who made it to the U.S. during the final days of its chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan last month.

Lutheran Social Services of South Dakota, which is the state's refugee resettlement agency, decided not to accept any Afghans after weighing local conditions and its ability to resettle them.

Rebecca Kiesow-Knudsen, the groups chief operating officer, said Thursday that those arriving from Afghanistan without special immigrant visas are currently not eligible to work or receive federal aid to help them resettle.

We had really significant concerns about our ability to provide the level of support to help make that integration successful, she said.

Kiesow-Knudsen said the agency was facing a rapidly evolving situation that could change depending on whether Congress decides to provide funding and work eligibility for evacuees who have not been granted refugee status.

The Biden administration this week began telling governors and state refugee coordinators how many Afghan evacuees they would receive. The numbers ranged from more than 5,200 people who are headed to California to as few as 10 being resettled in Alabama and 10 in Mississippi. South Dakota, along with Hawaii, West Virginia, Wyoming and the District of Columbia, are not expected to resettle anyone from the first group.

Republican Gov. Kristi Noem last month expressed reservations about accepting evacuees from Afghanistan. She told KSFY-TV, "We do not want them coming here unless we know they are an ally and a friend, and that they dont want to destroy this country.

Noem in 2019 decided to continue allowing refugees to be resettled in the state after former President Donald Trump attempted to allow states to opt out of the program. But refugee numbers in South Dakota have plummeted in recent years. Lutheran Social Services reported resettling 50 people during the last fiscal year  a drop from 439 just four years earlier.

States with large numbers of Afghans who settled in the U.S. over the past 20 years, including California, Maryland, Texas and Virginia, are again welcoming a disproportionate number of evacuees, according to data for the Afghan Placement and Assistance program obtained by The Associated Press.

Kiesow-Knudsen said there isn't much of an Afghan community in South Dakota. The agency has resettled 12 people from the country in the last five years.

She said, We want to make sure that anyone who would arrive in South Dakota would be successful in integrating."
GENEVA (AP)  Experts working with the U.N.s top human rights body say Venezuelas judicial system has played a significant role in state repression in the country, citing widespread allegations of rights violations.

One defendant quoted in a new report released Thursday claimed authorities used against him a tactic employed by the Nazis to exert pressure on detainees by seizing their relatives.

The experts say the country's judicial system has allowed repeated rights violations against opponents of President Nicolas Maduro's government, which have included allegations of enforced disappearance, torture  including sexual violence  and arbitrary killings. The legal system weakened just as a state policy to quash opposition has grown since 2014, the year after Maduro took office, they said.

The three-member team that has led the fact-finding mission, under a mandate from the U.N.-backed Human Rights Council, said it found no evidence of high-level officials being investigated or prosecuted over allegations of some of the most egregious and violent rights violations.

Based on the investigations and analysis conducted, the mission has reasonable grounds to believe that instead of providing protection to victims of human rights violations and crimes, the Venezuelan justice system has played a significant role in the states repression of government opponents, said Marta Valinas, a Portuguese legal and human rights expert who chaired the team.

The team issued its report based on 177 interviews, including of lawyers and former judges, and thousands of pages of case files - including an analysis of 183 detentions of government opponents.

Among the findings: Judges ordered pre-trial detention as a routine measure, and issued arrest warrants retrospectively for illegal arrests. The experts unearthed reasonable grounds to believe that high-level political actors had exerted influence over the judiciary, and said judicial sources had reported that judges regularly receive orders on how to decide cases.

In one case, the report said, a defendant held in custody in April and May last year was allegedly subjected to torture  including being asphyxiated with a bag  while being investigated by members of the General Directorate of Military Intelligence, or DGCIM. On one occasion the defendant was taken to hospital to be revived.

The defendant later told a terrorism court that military intelligence officers had told him they would use Sippenhaft  a collective punishment tactic used by the Nazis  involving imprisonment of his relatives. According to his account, DGCIM members later went to his house and arrested his two sisters and brother-in-law, who were detained for over a month.

The report said there was no sign that the court had taken any action in response to the allegation.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP)  Amid debate over New Mexico's system of releasing felony defendants, University of New Mexico research indicates that just under 5% of Albuquerque-area defendants awaiting trial commit violent crimes while free from jail.

Findings from the university's Institute for Social Research's analysis of more than 10,000 felony cases in Bernalillo County also included that less than 1% of people on pretrial release were arrested for a first-degree felony while on pretrial release, the Albuquerque Journal reported.
WASHINGTON (AP)  The U.S. Treasury Department announced sanctions Thursday against five men in Turkey suspected of providing financial services and travel assistance to al-Qaida.

The five are a mix of Turkish and Egyptian nationals who Treasury said provided various forms of support to senior members of the organization that carried out the 9/11 attacks and other plots against the U.S.
ATLIT, Israel (AP)  Israels navy has stepped up its activities in the Red Sea exponentially in the face of growing Iranian threats to Israeli shipping, the countrys just-retired navy commander said in an interview.

Vice Adm. Eli Sharvit stopped short of confirming a series of attacks and mishaps on Iranian ships that have been attributed to Israel. But he described Iranian activities on the high seas as a top Israeli concern and said the navy is able to strike wherever necessary to protect the countrys economic and security interests.

The state of Israel will protect its freedom of navigation across the globe, Sharvit told The Associated Press, days after completing his five-year term. Thats not related to distance from the country.

Sharvit was a busy man during his tenure  overseeing a small but well-equipped force responsible for safeguarding Israels Mediterranean coast as well as the Red Sea, a vital gateway for imports from Asia.

While the Israeli navy has an overwhelming advantage over its enemies in the region, it nonetheless faces an array of threats. They include the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which possesses an arsenal of guided surface-to-sea missiles, and Gazas Hamas militant group, which has developed a small squad of naval commandos, as well as the challenges posed by Iran's military activity across the region.

One of the navys most important responsibilities is protecting Israels natural gas platforms in the Mediterranean Sea, which now provide some 75% of the countrys electricity.

To the north, Hezbollah has made no secret of its intentions to target those platforms if war breaks out. The Iranian-backed militant group successfully struck an Israeli naval vessel during a 2006 war, killing four soldiers, and is believed to have vastly upgraded its missile stockpile since then. Israel says Iran continues to try to smuggle sophisticated weapons to Hezbollah.

Sharvit confirmed that Israel has intercepted many arms shipments to Hezbollah. We are very vigilant concerning seaborne arms shipments, and every time that a shipment is one of arms, and not something else, we act, he said.

With Lebanons economy in disarray, however, he said Israel has no interest in stopping fuel deliveries meant for civilian use.

Along Israels southern flank, Sharvit said Hamas has a small but formidable unit of well-trained naval commandos.

Hamas frogmen managed to infiltrate an Israeli beach during a 2014 war before they were killed. Since then, the unit has been equipped with state-of-the-art equipment allowing them to travel underwater well up Israels coastline and making them much harder to detect, Sharvit said.

During a recent war in May, Israel says it thwarted an attempt by Hamas to launch a torpedo-like underwater drone at Israeli targets.

Israel has faced criticism over its naval blockade and heavy restrictions on Gaza. Israel says the blockade is needed to prevent a Hamas military buildup. But critics, including human rights groups and U.N. officials, say the policy amounts to collective punishment.

Israels disproportionate and unreasonable restrictions on access to Gazas territorial waters as well as to vital items needed to repair fishing boats harm the livelihoods of thousands, put lives at risk and hinder economic development, said Gisha, an Israeli rights group that has called for the blockade to be eased.

Sharvit, however, said it is difficult to separate the civilian and military spheres because Hamas uses the open waters to test rockets and train its navy commandos. The sea is the biggest test site in Gaza, he said.

But Israels biggest concern, by far, is archenemy Iran. Israel accuses Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons, a charge Iran denies. It also cites Irans military presence in neighboring Syria and Irans support for militant groups like Hezbollah and Hamas.

In recent years, Israel and Iran have been engaged in a shadow war that has seen the killings of Iranian nuclear scientists, mysterious explosions at Iranian nuclear facilities and more recently a series of explosions on cargo ships with Iranian or Israeli connections. In most cases, no one has claimed responsibility.

Sharvit refused to discuss specific operations but said Israeli naval activity in the Red Sea has grown exponentially over the past three years.

Iran for years anchored a ship off Yemen that was believed to be a base for its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. That ship, the MV Saviz, came under a suspected Israeli attack last April.

The Red Sea also has deep strategic significance by hosting key global shipping routes, including the Suez Canal and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. Almost all of Israels imports enter by sea.

We have increased our presence in the Red Sea most significantly, Sharvit said. We are operating there continuously with main ships, that is to say missile frigates and submarines. What in the past was for relatively short periods of time is now done continuously.

He also said that Israel is ready to respond even further away to direct attacks on Israeli shipping. If there were an attack on Israeli shipping lanes or Israeli freedom of navigation, Israel would have to respond, he said.

He said that has not yet happened. The cargo ships believed to have been targeted by Iran in the Persian Gulf had Israeli connections but were owned and operated by businesses based elsewhere. He said such attacks merit an international response.

Yoel Guzansky, a senior fellow and Iran expert at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, described the navy as good but small and cautioned against relying too heavily on it in Israels overall Iran strategy.

I think some operations may be an overstretch, he said, adding that heightened tensions at sea could expose Israels vulnerabilities connected to its heavy reliance on global shipping.

I would put my efforts elsewhere, he said.
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP)  Wyoming will ask the federal government to remove its protections for grizzly bears in the Yellowstone region and permit the region's three states to manage and potentially allow hunting of the big bruins in certain areas, Gov. Mark Gordon said Thursday.

We have proved time and time again that we are experts in wildlife conservation, Gordon, a Republican, said at a news conference.

Wyoming will submit the request in the weeks ahead, Gordon said, after which the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will have 90 days to determine whether delisting under the Endangered Species Act might be warranted in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho.

If the answer is yes, the agency would have a year to make a final decision on the request.

Yellowstone's grizzlies can reach 700 pounds (320 kilograms), not as big as their cousins in Alaska but much bigger than the black bears found across most of North America. Grizzlies wherever they appear are apex predators but also content to feed on berries and even moths.

The Fish and Wildlife Service considers Yellowstones grizzlies biologically recovered." The Yellowstone region's population has rebounded from about 100 in 1975, when they were first listed, to as many as 1,000 today.

As they've recovered in number, the bears have been showing up ever farther and more frequently away from their core habitat in and near Yellowstone National Park.

Even so, in March, the Fish and Wildlife Service as part of a five-year review recommended continuing threatened-species protections for grizzlies. The agency cited insufficient connection between the bears' best areas of habitat and people killing them, among other reasons.

Lack of genetic diversity among the region's bears remains a particular concern but Wyoming is willing to move bears around so that's less of a problem, Gordon said.

Wyoming and Idaho were planning grizzly hunts after President Donald Trumps administration removed protections for the bears. In 2018, a federal judge restored those protections, a decision upheld by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2020.

Any future grizzly bear hunt in Wyoming would have strict limits, Wyoming Game and Fish Department Director Brian Nesvik said at the news conference.

As things stand, the department each year has to kill as many as 35 grizzly bears that kill livestock, raid food on people's property or cause other problems with humans, Nesvik pointed out.

It just seems like a waste of a resource but thats really our only option right now, Nesvik said.

Wyoming will take a first things first approach to the bears and hunting, said Gordon.

Lets make sure they are delisted and then Game and Fish will do whatever it needs to do to follow up on that, Gordon said.

Wyoming, Idaho and Montana can't be trusted to manage grizzly bears, Center for Biological Diversity attorney Andrea Zaccardi said in a statement.

Federal officials should reject this outrageous request, which aims to turn Wyomings imperiled grizzly bears into trophy hunting targets, Zaccardi said.

___

Follow Mead Gruver at https://twitter.com/meadgruver
Jay R. Jordan / Chron staff

As line workers toil to restore power to thousands of Houstonians after Hurricane Nicholas, thieves are using a dirty technique to scam unsuspecting victims over the phone.

According to Houston city council member Abbie Kamin, scam artists are calling people claiming to be a representative of CenterPoint Energy.
San Antonio Congressman Castro is highlighting his hometown in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month.

Castro shared his full statement on the September 15 to October 15 observation of Hispanic American contributions to the country's culture and achievements on Twitter Wednesday. He took the opportunity to tell the internet what his city has given society.

"My hometown of San Antonio is a quintessential example of Latino contributions to the United States," his tweet reads. "Im proud of San Antonios legacy of standing up for civil rights, voting rights, equal opportunity, and the fair representation of Latinos in Texas and nationwide."

Castro and his twin brother, former San Antonio Mayor and U.S. HUD Secretary Julian Castro, are two of the city's more recent contributions to the country in a long line of local leaders who changed the U.S.

The tweet is an excerpt from his full statement, which can be read here. In it, Joaquin Castro points to specific times in history when San Antonio stepped up, like the SAISD v. Rodriguez case. Though unsuccessful at the U.S. Supreme Court level, the lawsuit, fronted by Demetrio Rodriguez, whom the case is named after, and a group of Edgewood Independent School District parents including Alberta Snid, Martin Cantu and Reynaldo Castano, changed how state lawmakers looked at inequities in school finance.

Willie Velasquez, also from the Edgewood community, played a crucial role in Latino voting rights through his nonpartisan group, the Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project (SVREP).

San Antonians also made an impact on labor rights issues. In the 1930s, 21-year-old Emma Tenayuca led a strike of 12,000 shellers against pecan plants after they attempted to cut already dismal wages. Today, the strikes are respected as some of the first and largest actions in the fight for Mexican-American civil rights in U.S. history.

And before Julian Castro sat in the HUD Secretary office, a fellow San Antonian, Henry Cisneros, was there. Cisneros is credited for contributing to the nation's sharp rise in home ownership rates.

These are just a few names in San Antonio's history that worked to improve the lives of Latinos and Americans overall. The Alamo City is home to change makers in art, policy, and activism who are continuing the legacy of elevating the Latino American experience for future generations.
Direct air service from Midland International Airport to Austin will be back starting in March of 2022, according to a report from the Midland-Odessa Transportation Alliance.

The announcement comes as part of a restructuring effort where Southwest Airlines will have 20 new flights per day at Austin Bergstrom International Airport. New flights will provide a total of 46 non-stop destinations for Southwest out of Austin.

We are thrilled, said James Beauchamp, president of the MOTRAN Alliance, in the report. MOTRAN has been providing information to airlines on the areas changing demographics and in conjunction with Nadine Craddick and Lorraine Perryman hosted a luncheon for Southwest executives and Vice President Dave Harvey to see the area and talk to area businesses about their air service needs. Ray Perryman presented an economic model during the luncheon showing the projected growth for the area and its impact on the proposed Midland-Odessa to Austin flight.

Austin is truly becoming a hub for Southwest and being connected to that hub will provide more destinations to Permian Basin travelers. Beauchamp said in the report.

With todays major investment, weve designed a schedule specifically focused on bringing key nonstop routes and adding additional frequencies on already served routes for Austins business and leisure travelers, Harvey said in the report.

Some of the new non-stop flights to Austin being added include Amarillo, Midland, Puerto Vallarta, Panama City, Florida, Sarasota/Bradenton, Florida, and Destin/Fort Walton Beach, Florida, according to MOTRAN.

"I think most people will never understand how many conversations were taking place behind the scenes. We need to thank our partners at the Midland and Odessa Development Corps. for supporting our work to share the data and information needed, Lorraine and Dr. Perryman for helping host Southwest and his economic modeling, and finally, Nadine Craddick who has been been in continued contact even through a pandemic so that Southwest Airlines never forget we are out here!" Beauchamp said in the report.




Gov. Greg Abbott attended Eric Claptons Tuesday concert in Austin, going backstage and meeting mask-less with the guitarist weeks after testing positive for COVID-19.

The Republican leader, who is fully vaccinated, posted a photo with the English guitarist and Austin rocker Jimmie Vaughan following a concert at the Frank Erwin Center on Wednesday night.

More than a few Twitter users were turned off by the governor's photo opp with Clapton, a vocal vaccine skeptic with a track record of unsavory public remarks on race and society.

Clapton has been less than quiet about his anti-vaccination and anti-lockdown views, vowing in July to not perform at any venues requiring proof of vaccination, according to Ethan Shanfeld of Variety. The "Layla" artist was in luck Wednesday, as the Frank Erwin Center, owned and operated by the University of Texas, is prohibited from requiring masks or proof of vaccination thanks to Abbott's recent anti-mask mandates.

Abbott announced in August that he had tested positive for COVID-19. In a video uploaded to Twitter just four days after the announcement, the governor said he tested negative for the virus, crediting the brief and mild case to his vaccination.

Clapton, despite being fully vaccinated, has spent most of the pandemic undermining health experts' advice. In a letter to anti-lockdown architect Robin Monotti, the musician claims he had severe reactions after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine.

"My hands and feet were either frozen, numb or burning, and pretty much useless for two weeks, I feared I would never play again, (I suffer with peripheral neuropathy and should never have gone near the needle.)," he wrote. "But the propaganda said the vaccine was safe for everyone

In December 2020, Clapton released an anti-lockdown song Stand and Deliver in collaboration with fellow anti-vaxxer Van Morrison.

Perhaps Abbott and Clapton can release a song together about their shared opposition of mask mandates.
Voting will look a lot differently in Texas after Governor Greg Abbott inked his signature on Senate Bill 1.

The Texas voting bill tightens voting rules and clamps down on counties freedom to expand alternatives to in-personal ballot casting, though Abbott argues it will help fight voter fraud. The measure, which will take effect in time for the 2022 primary elections, targets voting methods Harris County used in the 2020 elections to boost voter turnout and accessibility, per Alexa Ura of the Texas Tribune.

Here are three things Houstonians need to know after the passage of SB 1:

No more drive-thru voting

Drive-thru voting is over after a brief stint in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. This voting method was introduced in Harris County at 10 locations in order to increase voter participation during the 2020 presidential election. Despite its popularity, with about eight percent of Harris County voters casting ballots from their cars, it was heavily scrutinized by Republicans who questioned the validity of these votes.

Ban on 24-hour voting

The bill limits extended early voting hours. Early voting will only be allowed between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., ultimately outlawing round-the-clock early voting offered in Harris County at some polling elections in the 2020 election. Additionally, the law requires counties with a population of 30,000 or more to allow at least 12 hours of early voting during each weekday of the second week of early voting in state elections, according to the bill.

New limits on mail-in voting

The bill makes it illegal for local election officials to proactively distribute mail-in ballot applications unless voters ask for them, even if they are providing them to voters who automatically qualify to vote by mail or groups helping get out the vote, Ura said. Last year, Harris County tried to send applications to 2.4 million registered voters with instructions on how to determine their eligibility, according to the Texas Tribune. The effort was ultimately blocked by the Texas Supreme Court.
If you spent any time two weeks ago monitoring the destructive march of the Caldor Fire into the Tahoe Basin on social media, you likely noticed the frustrated  sometimes bitterly angry  posts directed at Airbnb.

You may also have noticed that those public messages  either admonishing the San Francisco-based tech giant or asking for its help  were not always well received. While Tahoe residents were evacuating their homes, frightened they wouldnt be able to return, the sight of would-be vacationers pleading for refunds on Twitter rubbed many the wrong way.

Yet for hosts and guests alike, Airbnbs response to the Caldor Fire raises serious questions about its extenuating circumstances policies and how it handles natural disasters like wildfires. As one host, Kaia Crawford, told SFGATE: Airbnb is penalizing both the guest AND the homeowner, which to me is just abhorrent. It's profiting off a very upsetting situation.

In a place with longstanding friction between locals and tourists, its not surprising that some of that simmering anger would resurface during a stressful, painful time for the region. Still, what is often missed in important, big picture discussions about overtourism, Zoom towns and gentrification is the way that individual people are mostly just living their lives in these places  trying to do the right thing, make a living, maybe take a vacation once in a while. But in communities that are being transformed by tourism, residents are pitted against outsiders, homeowners against renters, and everyone, it seems, is at least somewhat at the mercy of Airbnb. And while Airbnb isn't alone in their opaque cancellation policies, they are by far the largest vacation rental website, with more than 6 million listings around the world as of 2019.

At a time when climate change is expected to lead to more frequent and extreme weather events, including wildfires like the one currently threatening Sequoia National Park, its reasonable to expect more communities will find themselves in the situation that Lake Tahoe was in at the end of August and early September.

So as the Caldor Fire was threatening South Lake Tahoe and the region's air quality spiraled into some of the worst in the world, I reached out to several of the people who posted complaints about Airbnbs handling of the disaster. Among them was Ryan Kunselman.

Kunselman, who lives in Colorado, is a few years out of college and hadnt seen his mom on the East Coast in two years when he and his girlfriend booked a trip to Tahoe for late August. Because all three were coming from outside the region, and the fires were not yet the national news they would soon become, the family didnt realize how bad it was until they were driving down to the lake, Kunselman told SFGATE.

When the family stopped for gas, they saw a post warning that hiking trails were closed. Then, as they approached the Airbnb in Stateline, Nevada, the sun turned red and ash began falling from the sky. By the time they reached their rental, the Air Quality Index was 500, according to Kunselmans recollection. They didnt even step inside what had been described as a cozy, quiet condo near the lake theyd reserved several months before. Instead, they fled the smoke for Sacramento and, ultimately, Yosemite.

Kunselman first contacted the rentals Airbnb host. The minute I mentioned a refund, he wrote SFGATE in an email, she would not contact me back and completely ignored me.

Airbnb sided with the host. In a message Kunselman forwarded to SFGATE, the company writes, We understand that this might not be what you'd hoped for, but we came to this outcome because the listing is not in California nor directly impacted by the El Caldor [sic] wildfire." The response seems to suggest that because the house  located in a town named for its location straddling the border  sat on the Nevada, not California, side of Stateline, the companys Extenuating Circumstances policy did not apply.

The policy, as described on Airbnbs website, dictates how cancellations are handled when unforeseen events beyond your control arise after booking and make it impracticable or illegal to complete your reservation.

To Kunselman, a wildfire raging nearby and air quality so unhealthy its considered hazardous for everyone, including healthy adults, had pretty clearly met those guidelines. So Airbnbs decision came as a surprise. Even worse, it seemed final. Our review is complete now, the message continued, and we won't be able to offer additional support on this case at this time.

The owner of Kunselmans rental was not overly forthcoming when contacted for comment. She did share that Kunselmans characterization of his experience is not fully accurate and is incomplete. But, she added, the case was ongoing and it was her understanding that he would receive a full refund. That was news to Kunselman, who had been told his case was closed.

When I asked Airbnb if they could comment on Kunselmans situation, they responded, Without having the opportunity to identify the reservation and look into the details, we can't comment. By the time I followed up with Kunselman for his reservation information, Airbnb had reversed course and agreed to the refund, which he attributed to the company having been contacted by this reporter.

Social media backlash

Kunselmans five-day reservation in Stateline put him out about $2,200. So when it looked increasingly unlikely he would get his money back, he took to Twitter in a since deleted post.

But while Kunselman was successful in getting the attention of both Airbnb and reporters like me, his post, asking Airbnb for help with his refund, also provoked an onslaught of angry responses. Dont use this hashtag to whine, wrote @brightlymargot. [D]o you think youre going to get any sympathy from folks who are looking for information about the fire destroying their homes, their friends homes, their neighborhoods? Another simply read, Cry about it.

While some of the backlash to Kunselmans tweet had to do with his use of the Caldor Fire hashtag  around which evacuees, fire victims and volunteers were organizing to exchange information and help one another  others seemed to blame him for not having booked a rental with a more lenient cancellation policy or shamed him for asking for a refund at all. One read, simply, Waaaah.

While perhaps understandable, this animosity raises the question of whether your average Airbnb user  renters and hosts  are its rightful recipients. Because, as anyone who has spent hours on hold with customer service knows, social media can sometimes seem like the only  or, at least, best  recourse when a seemingly powerless person is wronged by a large, powerful company.

And, for many of us, a vacation is a luxury, yes, but a rare one  one for which we plan and save for months or years. During the pandemic, a lot of us put off seeing friends and family, celebrating milestones, getting married and honoring lost relatives. These long-planned trips are weighted with meaning and represent a real investment  an investment in relationships, in mental health, in joy. These things are, of course, privileged. But they also seem like things most people should have access to.

It seems fair, then, to ask why the average Airbnb user should quietly accept the loss of thousands of dollars while a corporation that had almost $3.4 billion in revenue last year profits during a disaster? In response to a question about whether these policies could cost the company customers, a spokesman defended Airbnb by citing this publication. [A]s per SF Gate's own reporting, Airbnb appears to be the only large short-term rental platform offering extenuating circumstances refunds for this fire.

Heeding the call to stay away

Candace Kim was in a different, but equally frustrating, position. Unlike Kunselman, Kim, who lives in Los Angeles, wasnt caught off guard. With a Tahoe trip planned for the week after Labor Day, she had been closely following the Caldor Fire. And, as her travel date got closer, and the news from the region grew more concerning, she contacted her Airbnb host.

She was less concerned about smoke, she said, than something else: Tahoe area tourism officials were asking visitors to stay away. Shed read the news stories and followed the situation in the Sierra and, while there was conflicting guidance, just didnt feel like she should go. I saw the worsening condition and also the pleas from locals at Lake Tahoe, she wrote in an email to SFGATE, and decided it made sense to pull out.

Gavin Newsom had declared a state of emergency in the region, and though Nevadas governor, Steve Sisolak, took a bit longer, hed done the same days before. But when Kim contacted her Airbnb host, she was told that the rentals strict cancellation policy continued to apply. The host, Kim said, insisted that her North Tahoe Airbnb is safe from the fires, and said she does not offer refunds or cancellations because of wildfire smoke. When Kim responded that her reason for canceling was that travel to the area is heavily advised against, the host said they would refund half of the reservation cost.

Based on the emergency declarations and local tourism boards advising against travel, Kim said she felt Airbnbs Extenuating Circumstances policy should apply. The language seemed clear in referring to Government declared local or national emergencies, epidemics, pandemics, and public health emergencies. But when she contacted the company, she was told her reservation didnt qualify because her Airbnb wasnt in an active evacuation zone. (The evacuation orders in the Tahoe Basin had more to do with county and state lines than any other factor.)

Airbnb responded to Kims concerns by assuring her "the fire is far from the host's place" and "her place is safe." Even after Kim submitted documentation that the Lake Tahoe Visitors Bureau site said "travel to Lake Tahoe is not advised or safe," that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had designated the Caldor Fire a declared disaster, and Gov. Newsom had declared a state of emergency in Placer County, where the Airbnb Kim had reserved is located, the company would not budge.

Kim ultimately decided to cancel her trip anyway and take the financial hit. She doesnt, however, blame her host, who offered a full refund if they were able to fill Kims reservation dates and, when they werent, was nice enough to give a partial refund. She said she understood why the host would feel entitled to some money, since its their livelihood. But she faults Airbnb for not honoring its own policy and for leaving it to the host and guest to sort out between themselves, she told SFGATE. I don't want to be that dramatic person that says I'll never use Airbnb again but I certainly will think twice!

When asked about Kims situation, an Airbnb spokesperson said her reservation did not qualify for a refund because Airbnb activated their extenuating circumstances policy on Aug. 17 and Kim made her reservation Aug. 18. Airbnb also clarified that the explanations Kim was given for why she wouldnt be refunded were simply the ambassador relaying what the host was saying and why [the host] was choosing to uphold her cancellation policy.

The hosts

I messaged each of the hosts with whom Kunselman and Kim had reserved rentals. Kims host, who agreed to speak candidly if she could remain anonymous, said she wished Airbnb would make a blanket announcement, as they did during the COVID-19 shutdown. So then there would be no ambiguity about whether the area is open or not and which set of refund and cancellation rules apply.

The host, who lives in another home on the property, said she understood why guests would be concerned. But the rentals are her income, she said, adding that she uses that money to offset the below-market rent for an older man who has lived on the property for years. She also made one of the larger houses available for evacuees and, she said, installed HEPA air filters in all the cabins.

During the initial stages of the pandemic, she explained, Airbnb credited the hosts some of their losses, which, she said, would be the right thing to do in this case.

The North Tahoe host is wary, she said, of Airbnbs system for determining which reservations meet the extenuating circumstances guidelines. They don't share with the hosts or the guests what the exact criteria is, she said. Airbnb granted a full refund to two of her guests that requested cancellations because of smoke, which meant the host received nothing. But more than a dozen others were rejected, according to the host. I just wonder how they make their decisions, she added. Possibly they don't want to make that public so that people don't manipulate the system?

But the lack of transparency seems to be exacerbating the frustration of both travelers and hosts.

Kaia Crawford, another host, who described herself as a 17-year resident of South Lake Tahoe and a former firefighter, expressed her disappointment with Airbnb  as well as competitors like VRBO, Homeaway and others  for their lack of what she called community support during a difficult time for the region.

Its been tough to reach them and get an actual human being on the phone, she wrote in an email. She also felt that there were mixed signals from the company about who is supposed to cancel the reservation and the consequences of a cancellation. Airbnb is penalizing both the guest AND the homeowner, she wrote, which to me is just abhorrent. It's profiting off a very upsetting situation.

One of Crawfords biggest complaints about Airbnbs policy is something many guests might not be aware of: When a host cancels a reservation, even when requested, the host is not only voluntarily losing rental income but can be penalized in other, more lasting ways. For homeowners like her, who preemptively canceled reservations during the Caldor Fire  in large part to lessen the congestion created by visitors  they are sort of blacklisted, she wrote. Theyre put on a bad child list of canceling too many reservations even though the situation called for it. Even for hosts willing to accept the financial hit of refunding a reservation, the long-term loss of, say, Super Host status is a tougher pill to swallow.

Airbnb disputes Crawfords claim. [A]s it relates to the area where weve implemented our Extenuating Circumstances policy, none of this is accurate. Our policy makes clear that Hosts in the impacted area are allowed to cancel reservations penalty-free, meaning there are no cancellation fees or impacts to their Superhost statuses.

A follow-up question asking what determines the area where the policy is implemented and how either a host or a guest would know if theyre considered impacted by an event covered by this Policy was not immediately returned.

Tahoe fights back

Crawford described Tahoe as a tight community and said that many of the homeowners were actively trying to discourage visitors during the fire so that firefighters would have a smooth path without additional people complicating their work. We live up here, WE know what it's like, and have a much, much better idea of what is happening, she wrote, and for us to be penalized for being pro-active is just ridiculous!

According to Crawford, when the rental companies, including Airbnb, denied requests for refunds  even partial refunds  the guests thought, well, may as well make the best of a bad situation and go up anyway. Crawford pleaded with people on social media to stay away. When that didnt work, I began reaching out and blasting Airbnb and others on social media to try and get their attention.

[T]here was zero communication from the big rental companies and zero attempts at compensation of some sort, she wrote. [Th]e homeowners cant afford to lose money any more than the guest can, however, it would have been nice to at least get their assistance to at least TRY and make a bad situation less so.

When I asked an Airbnb spokesperson to comment on why hazardous smoke isnt considered an extenuating circumstance, he said that air quality has been included in the policys activation and that, Guests can contact our Community Support team if they believe their reservation qualifies due to air quality.





But at least some Airbnb users, both guests and hosts, have been unsatisfied by the companys response. Candace Kims would-be host in North Tahoe said she still doesnt know why some cancellations are approved and refunded and others arent  if those guests were just lucky with the support team person they got. It's unclear to me, she wrote, how they interpret their extenuating circumstances policy.

Crawford was more strident in her criticism of Airbnbs handling of the Caldor Fire. We up here in Lake Tahoe are a COMMUNITY!! We stick together and we would appreciate it if the big companies acted like they are part of our community because lets call it for what it truly is..we are a money-making machine for them.

These companies..especially Airbnb..their motto is community.well, it would be really awesome if they started acting like one.

Fortunately, the Caldor Fire is increasingly contained and the city of South Lake Tahoe was spared, even as many hundreds of homes were lost in El Dorado County. But the story of how Airbnb, and other large rental companies, handle these cases goes beyond one disaster.

Airbnbs extenuating circumstances information page already makes clear that not all disasters fall under its policy. What is covered: Natural disasters, acts of God, large-scale outages of essential utilities, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, and other severe and abnormal weather events. Whats not: weather or natural conditions that are common enough to be foreseeable in that location, which, the website clarifies, includes hurricanes occurring during hurricane season in Florida.

The obvious question then is whether there comes a point when wildfires in the American West are so common as to be foreseeable? And, if so, what does that mean for Airbnbs millions of customers  hosts dependent on rental income for their livelihood and travelers trying to plan an escape during unpredictable times?

When I asked Airbnb whether wildfires might someday be excluded from the companys extenuating circumstances protection, the response was noncommittal. At this time, I cannot comment on future adjustments or changes to this policy.
NEW ORLEANS (AP)  Tropical Depression Nicholas hovered over Louisiana on Wednesday, dumping heavy rain on a region struggling to recover from Hurricane Ida and swamping coastal Mississippi, Alabama and northwest Florida.

The National Weather Service said dangerous flash floods were possible from southeast Louisiana into the Florida Panhandle. In Louisiana, the rainfall complicated an already difficult recovery at homes ripped open by Ida on Aug. 29. Thousands remain without power in Texas and Louisiana.

I'm not sure at this point what it looks like, said Edith Anthony, whose home in LaPlace, a New Orleans suburb between Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River, lost part of its roof while getting about 2 to 3 feet (0.6 to 0.9 meters) of floodwater two weeks ago.

They still don't have electricity, and couldn't arrange for a tarp to cover the roof before Nicholas blew in. Now she and her husband are staying in a Mobile, Alabama, hotel, preparing to return this weekend to what's left of their home.

The storm was forecast to dump as much as 6 inches (15 centimeters) of rain from southeast Louisiana into the Florida Panhandle through Friday, with 10 inches (25 centimeters) possible in isolated areas.

Life-threatening flash flooding impacts, especially in urban areas, remain a possibility in these areas, forecasters said. The Pensacola News Journal reported that as much as 5 inches (13 centimeters) had fallen in parts of Escambia and Baldwin counties in Florida as of Wednesday afternoon.

Nicholas as much as 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain on parts of Texas  and the weather service was checking reports of nearly 14 inches (35 centimeters) of rain in Galveston  after making landfall as a Category 1 hurricane, the 14th named storm of the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season. Houston reported more than 6 inches (15 centimeters). Parts of Louisiana received more than 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain from the storm.

In Louisiana, the flash flood danger was expected to end Thursday, but the rain is forecast to linger for days.

We're going to be in a wet weather pattern well into next week," said meteorologist Christopher Brannan at the National Weather Service. He said Nicholas, now a tropical depression, would likely stall over southwest Louisiana while it dissipates into a a remnant low pressure system.

More than 112,000 electricity customers were still without power in Texas on Wednesday morning, including 75,000 in the Houston area. At its peak, more than half a million homes and businesses were without power in Texas.

In Louisiana on Wednesday, 72,000 were still without power more than two weeks after Ida.

Jerry Nappi, a spokesperson for Entergy Louisiana, said the utility company, which serves much of the state, did not expect Nicholas to lengthen restoration times.

Joe Ticheli, manager and CEO of South Louisiana Electric Cooperative Association, said the rain from Nicholas hadnt affected their operations. The cooperative serves about 21,000 customers across five parishes including parts of the hard-hit Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes.

As of late Tuesday, he said power has been restored to about 80% of its customers with the remaining 20% mostly in the hardest-hit parts of southern Terrebonne parish. However, he noted, that the destruction in those areas is so catastrophic that even when power is restored houses and businesses wont be able to receive it.

The worst of the weather largely spared the city of Lake Charles in southwest Louisiana  hit last year by hurricanes Laura and Delta  where city crews scoured the drainage system to keep it free from debris during Nicholas. Mayor Nic Hunter said he's been worried about how his people are coping.

With what people have gone through over the last 16 months here in Lake Charles, they are very, understandably, despondent, emotional. Any time we have even a hint of a weather event approaching, people get scared, he said.

___

Associated Press reporters Jay Reeves, in Pointe-aux-Chenes, Louisiana, and Juan A. Lozano in Surfside Beach, Texas, contributed to this report.
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This is the second post in a three-part series about data and analytics governance. In case you missed it, read the first post to hear from Tableaus own data governance team.

There's a natural tension in many organizations concerning data governance. While IT recognizes its importance to ensure the responsible use of data, governance can often seem like a hindrance to organizational agility. However, business intelligence models have evolved beyond centralized, linear processesit's time to leave behind historic notions of governance as restrictive and embrace a flexible governance framework that enables enterprise transformation.

This summer, I spoke with Pierre Guillaume Wielezynski, Deputy Director of Digital Transformation Services at the World Food Programme, which has had a longstanding partnership with Tableau, starting in 2015. We talked about the organizations data governance efforts. Five years ago, the IT department in the World Food Programme was very much seen as a team there to keep the lights on," PG told me. "It's been an incremental approach to transform our approach toward data. There were a lot of siloed data efforts, and there was no function in the organization responsible for making data useful and actionable. Because there was that vacuum, we in IT decided that we needed to play a role."

Our customers in every industry and region share these challenges, and the rapid evolution of IT landscapes in the past year and half has only added to the hurdles. However, we're also seeing organizations successfully deliver self-service analytics at scale with a flexible governance framework that creates trust and confidence in their data and analytics.

A holistic, step-by-step approach to governance that enables impactful insights

At Tableau, we define governance as the combination of controls, roles, and repeatable processes that ensure the responsible use of data across an organization. To shift toward self-service analytics in a trusted environment, an organization's governance framework must start with strategy-setting (from change management to KPIs) and iterate through execution and reevaluation (monitoring, tracking, updating).

Our approach, Tableau Blueprint, combines years of expertise and best practices from thousands of customer implementations into a step-by-step methodology that enterprises can adopt and adapt with their changing requirements. This framework helps formalize the questions to ask and clearly outlines the steps you can take to improve your organization's data strategy across governance, agility, proficiency, and community.

Blueprint is successful because it offers a holistic approach to governance that helps businesses transform their Data Culture. A few of our critical beliefs and principles that make this approach unique include:

Governance and self-service are not at odds: When people are empowered to access, analyze, and trust organizational data for decision-making, they drive powerful outcomes.

When people are empowered to access, analyze, and trust organizational data for decision-making, they drive powerful outcomes. IT and business need to work together: With the right people involved in the governance framework, IT can deliver the right systems and processes that help people across the organization make decisions quickly in a secure, trusted environment.

With the right people involved in the governance framework, IT can deliver the right systems and processes that help people across the organization make decisions quickly in a secure, trusted environment. Quick wins and iteration are key: Governance can seem onerous, but it neednt be. Start small, collect quick wins, build executive support, and prove value for your organization. This helps you adapt to evolving needs and creates an impact snowball effect.

Governance is foundational to data leadership

With the right approach, governance establishes organizational goals and norms for IT oversight of trusted data. Governance also empowers people across teams to self-serve their analytics needs securely. Ultimately, when teams can access the data they need, and act with confidence, you create a more resilient organization through an organizational culture fueled by its commitment toand trust indata.

"We have an understanding of the situation around us as expressed through data because we have invested in its availability, reliability, literacy, and quality," PG said. "We have a much better understanding of population movement and our supply chain situation than ever before. Its a very different and much more effective and targeted way of tackling emergency response now that we have invested in these capabilities."

Want to learn more about Tableau Blueprint? Watch on-demand sessions from our Virtual IT Summit, including my discussion with PG at the World Food Programme, plus a customer roundtable on governance. If you're ready to get started with Tableau Blueprint, take our quick Blueprint Assessment today.

Please note: World Food Programme does not endorse any product or service.
Wilkes-Barre, PA (18701)

Today

Partly cloudy this evening, then becoming cloudy after midnight. Low around 65F. Winds light and variable..

Tonight

Partly cloudy this evening, then becoming cloudy after midnight. Low around 65F. Winds light and variable.
BROOKLINE, Mass. (AP)  A former Massachusetts firefighter engaged in a yearslong legal fight with the Boston suburb of Brookline over what he said was a racist work environment has reached an $11 million settlement with the town, officials said.

The settlement with Gerald Alston, who is Black, was announced Tuesday by Brooklines Select Board.

The agreement is poised to end a painful 11-year saga which deeply harmed Mr. Alston and brought discredit to the Town of Brookline, the board said in a statement.

It went on to say: This Select Board extends to Mr. Alston our sincere apologies for the Towns mistakes, and our commitment to seriously address racist and other discriminatory behaviors.

The settlement is contingent upon approval at a special town meeting scheduled for Oct. 5.

Should Town Meeting fail to authorize funding, all parties will return to court where the finances and reputations of the Town and the individual defendants are further at risk, and where the Town will need to expend significant resources at trial, the board wrote.

Alstons attorney, Brooks Ames, declined to comment when reached Wednesday.

The dispute dates to 2010 when Alstons superior mistakenly left a voicemail for Alston in which he referred to a motorist who had cut off his son with a racial epithet. The supervisor apologized but was subsequently promoted.

Alston refused to return to the job and stopped communicating with the department, which he said was due to his fear of working in a racially hostile environment.

Alston, a firefighter since 2002, was placed on leave in 2013 and fired in 2016.

He sued the town in federal court 2015 alleging racial discrimination.

The state Civil Service Commission ordered Alston reinstated with back pay in 2019, and he has technically been on paid leave since.

In April, the highest court in Massachusetts ruled that the town was wrong to terminate Alston.

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Auto body repairs to late-model electric vehicles after minor collisions cost about 3% more than for gasoline cars, even though less time is required for the work.

Customers are also less likely to be satisfied with electric vehicle repairs, while replacement parts are more expensive and will more likely have to be purchased from the original equipment manufacturer. On the other hand, electric cars are more likely to be able to drive away after a collision.

Those were among the findings in CCC Intelligent Solutions first-ever side-by-side analysis of repair costs for electric vehicles compared to repair costs for the gasoline-powered version of the same model. CCC industry analyst Susanna Gotsch examined one year of data from direct repair program appraisals for repairs to non-luxury small cars, each one to three years old, submitted for crashes that the vehicle was able to drive away from.

Gostch said her sample size for the comparison was limited because Tesla manufactured 80% of the cars that produced an appraisal report and does not make gasoline vehicles. She compared reports for electric vehicles that had a gasoline-powered counterpart, such as the Chevrolet Bolt v. Sonic and Nissan Leaf v. Sentra.

Only driveable repairs were used because non-drivable accidents made up only 25 to 30% of all appraisal reports, leaving too small a sample size, she said.

The data revealed:

The non-driveable share of accidents was 21.9% for gasoline cars versus 18.0% for electric vehicles.

The average cost of repairs was almost 3% higher for electric vehicles.

Supplemental reports, which are submitted when a repairer finds additional damage after the original estimate, made up 14% of electrical vehicle cost versus 11% for gasoline cars.

Only 11% of the parts used in repairs of electric vehicles were aftermarket products, compared to 38% for gasoline cars.

Replacement parts made up 40.2% of repair costs for electric vehicles, compared to 37.5% for gasoline cars.

Repairs to electric vehicles required an average of 22 labor hours, compared 25.6 for gasoline cars, but labor was less productive because electric cars more often had to be returned to the shop.

The net-promotor score (a measurement of customer satisfaction) was 86 for electric vehicle compared to 90 for gasoline car repairs.

In many ways EVs are the poster child for growing vehicle complexity, with vehicle repairs requiring more time spent by technicians performing scans and calibrations and researching repair methods, the report says.

Gotsch said in a telephone interview that one purpose of the report is to inform collision repair shops about what to expect as auto manufacturers transition to electric propulsion systems. Shop owners will have to make significant capital investments as technology evolves and will have to train or hire workers with a different set of skills, she said.

As a body shop owner, you are saying when am I going to see these kinds of cars in my shop and when should I make those investments?' she said.

The report gives repair shops a lot to chew on. It says 118,233 electric vehicles were sold in the US during the second quarter of 2021, compared to 33,312 during the second quarter of 2020. Another 248,028 hybrids and plug-in hybrids were sold in the second quarter, compared to 91,677 in the same quarter of last year.

The share of electric vehicles is projected to grow. President Joe Biden signed an executive order calling for 50% of new vehicles to be zero-emission by 2030. Most US auto manufacturers have increased investment in the technology.

For now, the CCC report said that only 0.54% of the repair appraisals in its database involve electric vehicles, but that share will increase as the vehicles gain in popularity. Of the reports received so far, 40% are from California, where electric vehicles accounted for 1.5% of repairable volume. Hawaii, Washington, Oregon and New Jersey also had more electric vehicle repairs than the rest of the nation.

Terry Mostul, owner of Artistic Auto Body in Oregon, noticed the trend long before most his peers. After 35 years in the auto body business, he started repairing electric vehicles at his shops in Tigard and Wilsonville in 2017 after noticing the large number of Teslas driving around the Portland suburbs.

He said he has no regrets. Its definitely where the industry is headed, he said.

Mostul said he was not surprised to learn that CCC found electric cars cost on average 3% more to repair. I wouldnt have been surprised if it had been more than 3%,he said.

Mostul said electric vehicles require more one-time use parts. For example, certain bolts have to be replaced according to the manufacturers specification and cannot be reused. Electric cars are also more likely to be equipped with advanced driver assistance systems, which requires more calibrations and more sophisticated technology.

Mostul says in a sense, electric cars are simpler than gasoline-powered cars because they have fewer systems to work with. However, those systems are more complex and require specific knowledge.

They can be intimidating, he said.

But he says auto body shops have no choice but to learn how to repair electric vehicles.

They are going to start rolling into everybodys shop, he said.

About the photo: Technician Kyle Liddane scans a vehicle at Artistic Auto Body. Photo courtesy of Terry Mostul
U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) company Freeport LNG said on Wednesday that it was still not producing LNG at its export plant in Texas due to a power outage during Tropical Storm Nicholas.

Our production remains off-line until CenterPoint completes repair work on their system, Freeport LNG spokesperson Heather Browne said in an email, referring to the local power company, which is a unit of CenterPoint Energy Inc.

Earlier in the day, the plant was scheduled to take in some natural gas, which energy traders said was a sign the plant was on track to exit the outage.

Refinitiv said Freeport was still scheduled to take in about 0.7 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) on Wednesday, up from 0.1 bcfd on Tuesday.

That, however, is down from the 0.9 bcfd the plant planned to take in on Wednesday earlier in the day and compares with an average of 2.0 bcfd pulled in over the past 30 days.

On Tuesday, Freeport said all three liquefaction trains at the plant shut likely due to power outages from Nicholas.

At its peak Tuesday morning, Nicholas knocked out power to more than 529,000 homes and businesses in Texas, mostly in the Houston area. Freeport is located on the Gulf Coast about 60 miles (97 kilometers) south of Houston.

CenterPoint, the utility with the most outages during Nicholas, had about 68,000 customers still without power in the Houston area Wednesday afternoon, down from a peak of around 454,000 Tuesday morning.

The three other U.S. LNG export plants along the Gulf Coast  Cameron LNGs Cameron in Louisiana and Cheniere Energy Incs Corpus Christi in Texas and Sabine Pass in Louisiana  continued to operate through the storm.
SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP)  A top officers errors in calculating the stability of a cargo ship loaded with nearly 4,200 automobiles likely caused the giant vessel to overturn along the Georgia coast, U.S. investigators said in a report Tuesday.

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board issued a 57-page report on the capsizing of the South Korean freighter Golden Ray, which is still being removed in pieces from the water off St. Simons Island two years later.

The ships crew was rescued safely following the wreck on Sept. 8, 2019. But the ship, measuring 656 feet (199 meters), was deemed a total loss as was its cargo of new automobiles. The NTSB reported the combined losses totaled more than $204 million.

The NTSB reiterated a Coast Guard experts findings from a public hearing last year that the Golden Ray didnt have enough water in its ballast tanks, used to add weight at the bottom of a vessel, to offset that of the vehicles in its cargo decks above. That left the ships center of gravity too high.

The Golden Rays instability caused it to lean sharply during a starboard turn soon after the ship left the Port of Brunswick, about 70 miles (110 kilometers) south of Savannah. A pilots door that had been left open on a lower deck allowed seawater to flood the ship, the NTSB report said, cutting off the escape route for some crew members who later had to be rescued from the engine room.

Investigators concluded the unstable loading likely resulted from errors by the ships chief officer, who reported directly to the captain. The report said the chief officer wasnt properly trained to use the ships computer that uses loading data to calculate its stability.

The chief officer made errors with the ballast tank level data entry into the shipboard stability calculation computer, the NTSB report said, which led to his incorrect determination of the vessels stability.

As a result, the Golden Ray left the Port of Brunswick lacking 1,492 metric tons of ballast that it would have needed to meet international safety standards for stability, the report said.

The NTSB said G-Marine Service Co., the ships operator and a subsidiary of South Korea-based shipping company Hyundai Glovis, has increased training for its officers on calculating ship stability since the Golden Ray capsized.

Demolition of the Golden Ray began in November, with crews using a towering crane to straddle the shipwreck. The cranes winch and pulley system was attached to 400 feet (122 meters) of anchor chain used to tear through the ships hull like a dull sawblade.

That method was used to carve the shipwreck into eight giant chunks. The work was slow and sometimes messy. A large fire engulfed the vessels remains in May as workers used torches to cut into the hull. And oil gushed from the wreck in late July, fouling roughly 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) of beach and marsh grasses.

Roughly half of the wreck has been transported by barge to a scrapyard in Louisiana. Though the heavy lifting is ending, the remaining cleanup work is expected to take months. Cutaway sections of the ship docked in Georgia must be broken down further before they can be carried away by barge.

Meanwhile, mangled cars and other debris that fell from the wreck as it was being cut apart must be fished from the water before a large mesh containment barrier surrounding the site can be removed.

The NTSB investigates highway, railroad, aircraft and maritime crashes, but it has no regulatory authority.

About the photo: In this Monday, April 26, 2021, file photo, a towering crane pulls the engine room section away from the remains of the capsized cargo ship Golden Ray, offshore of St. Simons Island, Ga. A large amount of oil has escaped a barrier after it was released while crews were dismantling the overturned cargo ship along the Georgia coast, the Coast Guard said Thursday, July 1, 2021. (AP Photo/Russ Bynum, File)

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
(CNN)  Instagram says it's looking at new ways to discourage users from focusing on their physical appearance after The Wall Street Journal revealed that Facebook researchers have repeatedly found that the photo-sharing platform is toxic for teen girls.

The newspaper reported on Tuesday that researchers at Facebook, which purchased Instagram in 2012, have been conducting studies for the past three years into how the app affects its millions of young users. The research shows the platform can damage mental health and body image, especially among teen girls. Facebook executives have often played down mental health concerns in public.

"We make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls," said one internal presentation slide obtained by The Journal, summarizing research about teen girls who experience the issues. Among teens who reported suicidal thoughts, 13% of British users and 6% of American users traced the desire to kill themselves to Instagram, one presentation showed, according to The Journal.

Karina Newton, head of public policy at Instagram, wrote in a statement posted on Tuesday that referenced the newspaper article that while Instagram can be a place where people have "negative experiences," the app also gives a voice to marginalized people and helps friends and family stay connected.

Newton said that Facebook's internal research demonstrated the company's commitment to "understanding complex and difficult issues young people may struggle with, and informs all the work we do to help those experiencing these issues."

According to the Wall Street Journal, Facebook researchers concluded that some problems with teen mental health were specific to Instagram, and not social media more broadly, especially when it comes to "social comparison." That's when users focus on how their wealth, appearance or success stacks up against other people on the platform.

The research has been reviewed by top Facebook executives, according to The Journal, and was cited in a 2020 presentation given to CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Newton said in her blog post on Tuesday that Instagram is "increasingly focused on addressing negative social comparison and negative body image." One idea is to prompt users to look at different topics when they repeatedly view content of that kind.

"We're cautiously optimistic that these nudges will help point people towards content that inspires and uplifts them, and to a larger extent, will shift the part of Instagram's culture that focuses on how people look," she said.

That might not be enough to appease critics. Facebook reaffirmed in July in that it was moving forward with plans to build an Instagram for kids under the age of 13 despite significant opposition from parents and lawmakers in Washington.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, said Tuesday that The Journal's report demonstrates that Facebook has known for years of Instagram's "damaging effect on young people," and that its own employees' warnings were "shoved aside in favor of growth."

"I'm appalled and alarmed by Facebook's targeting of teens with dangerous products while hiding the science of its toxic impact," he said on Twitter. "Through hearings and legislation my Commerce subcommittee will act to protect children and support parents."

If you or someone you know might be at risk of suicide, a worldwide directory of resources and international hotlines is provided by the International Association for Suicide Prevention. You can also turn to Befrienders Worldwide.

This story was first published on CNN.com, "Instagram says it's working on body image issue after report details 'toxic' effect on teen girls"
(CNN)  Four people  none of whom are professional astronauts  strapped themselves into a capsule atop a 200-foot-tall SpaceX rocket that will blast them past the speed of sound and up to 17,500 miles per hour.

This mission, dubbed Inspiration4, is the first orbital mission in the history of spaceflight to be staffed entirely by tourists or otherwise non-astronauts. It launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Thursday morning (Philippine time).

The three-day journey will see the quartet free-flying through Earth's orbit, whipping around the planet once every 90 minutes while the passengers float, buoyed by microgravity, and take in panoramic views of our home planet. To cap off the journey, their spacecraft will dive back into the atmosphere for a fiery re-entry and splash down off the coast of Florida. And yes, for all three days in space, the passengers will all have to share a special zero-gravity-friendly toilet located near the top of the capsule. No showering will be available, and crew will all have to sleep in the same reclining seats they will ride in during launch.

This is far from the first time civilians have traveled to space. Though NASA has been averse to signing up non-astronauts for routine missions after the death of Christa McAuliffe, a New Hampshire school teacher who was killed in the Challenger disaster in 1986, a cohort of wealthy thrill-seekers paid their own way to the International Space Station in the 2000s through a company called Space Adventures. American investment management billionaire Dennis Tito became the first to self-fund a trip in 2001 with his eight-day stay on the International Space Station, and six others came after him. They all booked rides alongside professional astronauts on Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

This mission, however, has been billed as the beginning of a new era of space travel in which average people, rather than government-selected astronauts and the occasional deep-pocketed adventurer, carry the mantle of space exploration.

But to be clear, we are still a long way from that reality, and this trip is still far from "average." It's a custom, one-off mission financed by a billionaire founder of a payment processing company, and though pricing details have not been made public, it likely cost upward of $200 million. (According to one government report, SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule costs roughly $55 million per seat.)

Here's a rundown of what's happening and why it matters.

The passengers: A billionaire, a cancer survivor, a geologist and a raffle winner

Jared Isaacman, 38, the billionaire founder of payment processing company Shift4, who is also personally financing this entire mission

Hayley Arceneaux, a 29-year-old cancer survivor who now works as a physician assistant at St. Jude, the hospital where she was treated, in Memphis, Tennessee. She'll be the first person with a prosthetic body part to go to space, and she'll serve as the flight's chief medical officer. St. Jude selected Arceneaux for this mission as Isaacman's request, according to a Netflix documentary, and, at the time, she said she was so unfamiliar with space travel that she asked if she would be traveling to the moon, unaware that humans have not set foot on the moon in 50 years.

Sian Proctor, 51, a geologist and educator who was selected for a seat on this mission through a post on social media in which she highlights her space-related artwork and entrepreneurial spirit. She'll be only the fourth Black woman from the US to travel to orbit.

Chris Sembroski, a 42-year-old Seattle-based Lockheed Martin employee and former camp counselor at Alabama's famed Space Camp. He won his seat through a raffle he entered by donating to St. Jude Children's Hospital, though he wasn't the official winner. His friend snagged the seat and, after deciding not to go, transferred it to him.

Isaacman  who will become the third billionaire to self-fund a trip to space in the past three months and the first to buy a trip to orbit on a SpaceX capsule  is billing this mission as one that he hopes will inspire would-be space adventureres, hence the missions's name, Inspiration4. He's also using it as the centerpiece for a $200 million fundraiser for St. Jude Children's Hospital, $100 million of which he donated personally and the rest he is hoping to raise through online donations and an upcoming auction.

So far, a fundraiser has brought in $30 million of its $100 million goal.

How did all this happen?

Inspiration4 is entirely the brain child of Jared Isaacman and SpaceX.

Isaacman began flying single-engine prop planes recreationally in the mid-2000s and developed an insatiable thirst for going higher and faster, eventually moving into twin-engine planes, then jets, then military-grade aircraft that can zip past the speed of sound.

Each of Isaacman's fellow passengers was selected in a different way: He asked St. Jude to select a cancer-survivor-turned-healthcare-provider, and the organization chose Arceneaux. Proctor won an online contest specifically for people who use Shift4, the payment platform Isaacman runs. And Sembroski was given his seat by a person who won a raffle for people who donated to St. Jude. (Sembroski also entered the raffle but was not the original winner.)

Isaacman told CNN Business that he sat down with SpaceX to hash out the flight profile. He specifically wanted the Crew Dragon to orbit higher than International Space Station, which is why the spacecraft will orbit about 350 miles above Earth  roughly 100 miles above where the space station orbits.

How risky is this?

Any time a spacecraft leaves Earth there are risks, and there are no perfect measurements for predicting them.

But NASA estimates Crew Dragon has a 1 in 270 chance of catastrophic failure, based on one metric the space agency uses. For comparison, NASA's Space Shuttle missions in the 1980s to early 2000s ultimately logged a failure rate of about 1 in every 68 missions.

Because of the inherent risks of blasting a spacecraft more than 17,500 miles per hour  the speed that allows an object to enter Earth's orbit  Inspiration4 is more dangerous than the brief, up-and-down suborbital jaunts made by billionaires Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson.

Apart from the many perils of the launch itself  in which rockets essentially use controlled explosions more powerful than most wartime bombs to drum up enough speed to rip away from gravity  there's also the re-entry process. When returning from orbit, the Crew Dragon's external temperatures can reach up to 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit, and astronauts can experience 4.5 Gs of force pushing them into their seats, all while the ever-thickening atmosphere whips around the capsule.

During a Netflix documentary about the Inspiration4 mission, Musk described a capsule going through reentry as "like a blazing meteor coming in."

"And so it's hard not to get vaporized," he added.

After that the Crew Dragon then has to deploy parachutes to slow its descent and make a safe splashdown in the ocean before rescue ships can whisk the four passengers back to dry land.

Despite the risks, a former NASA chief and career safety officials have said the Crew Dragon is likely the safest crewed vehicle ever flown.

The vehicle: SpaceX's Crew Dragon

All four passengers will spend the entire missions aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, a 13-foot-wide, gumdrop-shaped spacecraft that detaches from SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket after reaching orbital speeds.

The SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule was developed by Elon Musk's rocketry company for the specific purpose of ferrying NASA astronauts to and from the International Space Station, which it did for the first time ever in May 2020.

Since then, SpaceX has launched two additional Crew Dragon missions for NASA.

SpaceX is allowed, however, to sell seats  or entire missions  to whoever the company chooses. Although NASA paid for much of the Crew Dragon's development, under the terms of the deal between the federal agency and the company, SpaceX still technically owns and operates the vehicle and can use it for whatever commercial purposes it wishes.

Crew Dragon's missions in the near future also include a mix of NASA-commissioned flights to the ISS and space tourism missions.

For this mission, the Crew Dragon will be retrofitted with a giant glass dome at the tip of the spacecraft specifically for the crew to soak in panoramic views of the cosmos.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 16) Human rights group Amnesty International welcomed the move of the International Criminal Courts pre-trial chamber to greenlight the investigation on the Dutertes administrations anti-drug campaign.

In a statement on Thursday, Secretary General Agnes Callamard said the chambers decision sends a clear message to the perpetrators and architects of these crimes that they will not escape accountability.

No one is above the law, Callamard said. Dutertes government must immediately end the cycle of killings, remove those involved from the ranks of the police and bring all those suspected of criminal responsibility to trial.

Callamard added that the probe will offer drug war victims a shot at long-awaited justice, as she cited the killings of civilians including lawyers and human rights defenders.

Thousands have been murdered by the police and militias aligned with the government, and the killers have enjoyed almost complete impunity, she stressed.

In a 41-page decision released on Wednesday, the ICCs pre-trial chamber said it has authorized the start of the probe into the administrations flagship war on drugs, which it said had claimed the lives of an estimated 12,000 to 30,000 persons from July 1, 2016 to March 16, 2019.

While the development was welcomed by human rights and lawyers organizations, the Duterte government maintained it will not cooperate with the ICC since the country already withdrew from the Rome Statute in 2019.

The tribunal, however, said it retains jurisdiction over the alleged crimes conducted while the Philippines was still a state party.

RELATED: PH won't cooperate as ICC opens drug war probe, Duterte's counsel says

Despite the ICCs move, local authorities said the anti-illegal drug operations will still continue. The Philippine National Police vowed enforcers will be held accountable should there be any wrongdoing.

Pivotal for 2022

Callamard also believes the ICCs announcement comes at a pivotal time, especially with the 2022 elections drawing near.

Human rights should be at the center of discussions when the Philippines chooses its next leaders, said Callamard, who has also served as the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions.

It is now crucial that the international community steps up. It must reinforce the ICCs investigation and mandate a comprehensive, UN-led investigation into the deeply ominous human rights situation in the country, she added.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 16)  The Commission on Elections (Comelec) will designate isolation polling areas with the capacity to do COVID-19 testing.

Comelec commissioner Rowena Guanzon said these will be manned by health workers who will test voters exhibiting symptoms of the disease.

"Kapag... may fever sila, o kaya inuubo, sinisipon sila, dadalhin sila sa isolating polling place and 'yung health workers dun iswa-swab sila dun," Guanzon said in a virtual briefing Thursday.

[Translation: If they have fever, cough, or colds, they will be taken to an isolating polling place and the health workers will perform swab tests there.]

During an online briefing with CNN Philippines last week, Comelec director and spokesperson James Jimenez said Filipinos do not need to present their COVID-19 vaccination cards or negative RT-PCR test results to cast their votes.

Jimenez also assured the public that every voting center will have health screenings. The poll body will also work with the pandemic task force for contact tracing.

As of July, Jimenez said 60.46 million Filipinos have already registered for the 2022 general elections. He expressed optimism the number will further grow to 62 million by end-September.

READ: Young Filipinos comprise 52% of total registered voters for 2022 polls so far - Comelec

Jimenez also said the poll body is considering adopting the voting system set for persons deprived of liberty for Filipinos in COVID-19 quarantine facilities.

RELATED: Risks flagged as Comelec studies voting for patients in quarantine centers
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 16)  The Department of Health (DOH) has requested an additional 1.23 billion budget for the special risk allowance (SRA) of another batch of healthcare workers, Secretary Francisco Duque III said.

Sa ngayon, mayroon tayong karagdagang request na pondo sa DBM (Department of Budget and Management) upang mabigyan ng SRA ang ikalimang batch o grupo ng atin pong mga mapagsakripisyong health workers, Duque said in a taped Cabinet meeting that aired on Thursday.

[Translation: As of now, we have an additional request, so the fifth batch or group of sacrificial healthcare workers can be given SRA.]

Bayanihan to Recover As One Act, also known as Bayanihan 2, specified that all public and private health workers directly catering to or in contact with COVID-19 patients shall get SRA. This law expired on June 30.

Despite the expiration of the validity of appropriations under Bayanihan 2, many healthcare workers have yet to receive their SRA.

The DOH previosly asked for additional SRA funds a number of times.

The DBM released the supplemental SRA budget to the DOH in tranches  311 million in August and 888 million this month.

Of the funds released this September, 882 million has been transferred to health facilities, Duque said. The DOH is processing the release of the remaining 6 million, he added.

The government has so far disbursed a total of 15.1 billion for the health benefits of medical workers, Duque said.

The benefits include the SRA, hazard duty pay, life insurance; and accommodation, meal, and transportation allowances.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 16)  President Rodrigo Duterte said he will allow Cabinet officials to continue attending the Senate's investigation into the government's alleged misuse of pandemic funds, but he prefers the probe conducted by lawmakers in the House of Representatives which he deems as impartial.

He said Health Secretary Francisco Duque III and National Task Force Against COVID-19 Chief Implementer Carlito Galvez, Jr. can attend the investigation at the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee so they can complete their testimonies.

"Kung may itanong pa sila [If there are more questions], they should go back there. Pero yung iba [But the others] and in the future, I'm sorry I will be the one who will say, go to Congress to testify or do not go to Congress. At sabihin mo kinontempt ka, ako bahala [And if you say you were cited in contempt, Ill take care of it], I will not allow anybody to arrest you, thats a guarantee," he said in a taped address that aired on Thursday.

Earlier in the week, Duterte ordered Cabinet officials to seek his permission first before attending Senate investigations as he continued to criticize the senators' inquiry into the funds of the Department of Health.

Duterte insisted Duque and Galvez are clean and can defend the governments position that there was no corruption in the purchase of medical supplies, despite the findings of senators that it purchased overpriced face masks and face shields in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. He doubted, however, some of the senators integrity, especially Senate Blue Ribbon Committee chairman Sen. Richard Gordon.

"Wala naman talaga kayong makuha even if we continue to hear this until kingdom come," he said. "Cabinet members ko wala iyan, puro malinis iyan. Ang mga senador meron. Gordon is one."

[Translation: You will not find anything there even if you continue the investigation until kingdom come. My Cabinet members are all clean. The senators are not. Gordon is one.]

As he continued to blast senators, he praised the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability which held a separate probe on Wednesday on the same DOH issues.

Duterte said the House panel gave resource persons a "fair chance" to be heard minus the "bullying" and "grandstanding," referring to the investigation led by Gordon in the Senate.

"It is the more sane inquiry kasi ang witnesses nakapagsalita ng kanilang totoong sagot [Witnesses were able to answer truthfully]. (It is) devoid of rudeness, bias, and partiality perpetrated by Gordon. It was an investigation that was not conclusive and based on facts as provided by the resource person," he said.

Some portions of the House hearing were aired during Dutertes address to the nation, including the statement of Commission on Audit chairman Michael Aguinaldo that the audit report on the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management (PS-DBM) did not mention anything about overpricing.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 16)  Another human rights lawyer was gunned down in Surallah, South Cotabato on Wednesday afternoon, lawyers and human rights groups said.

Juan Macababbad, vice chairperson of the Union of Peoples Lawyers in Mindanao (UPLM), was shot dead outside his home. He was the 65th lawyer killed under the Duterte administration.

Human rights group Karapatan said Macababbad served as legal counsel to indigenous peoples, teachers, and political prisoners in Soccskargen. The UPLM said Macababbad received death threats prior to his killing, adding it was clear that the crime was connected to his vocation.

The UPLM called on the government to serve justice for all the jurists killed under the Duterte administration.

"The legal profession is not spared, and our colleagues have become main targets especially those who resist tyranny and defend human rights," UPLM chairman Antonio Azarcon said on Wednesday.

"If they cannot stop the killings, then they should give way to those who have the moral ascendancy to bring back peace and justice to our country," he added.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 16)  Senators on Thursday asked the Presidential Communications Operations Office to provide the records of its 1,479 contract of service employees on the suspicion that they are working as internet trolls.

PCOO officials have repeatedly denied hiring trolls or running "troll farms," but lawmakers want proof.

Syempre, hindi mo aaminin, Usec. [Kris] Ablan na may troll kayo (Of course, you wont admit to having trolls, Usec. Ablan), Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon said in jest during a subcommittees briefing on the proposed PCOO budget for 2022. Numerous times during the hearing, Drilon lightly referred to PCOO's contractual employees as trolls, prompting Undersecretary Kris Ablan to deny it.

Drilon then asked the PCOO to submit the workers' names, addresses, educational attainments, and job descriptions. Senator Nancy Binay also requested their daily time records.

Ablan initially hesitated to disclose the addresses, citing possible legal implications. He eventually committed to do so as Drilon stressed these are public records.

You are asking for appropriation of public funds. We have the right to know how you use these public funds and as part of our right to know is to make sure that these are not fictitious names, that the names are performing their jobs, even if they are trolls, we will accept that as long as they are legitimate and existing, Drilon said.

The veteran lawmaker also quizzed the PCOO on why it opted to hire contractual employees when it has 1,776 vacant plantilla positions. Ablan said they are working towards hiring more regular employees, but added that contract of service employees are necessary for highly technical jobs. Senator Imee Marcos also demanded more information about this.

What are the projects and job descriptions of these employees that are so technical and so specialized that no permanent government employee can possibly perform them? Marcos asked.

Senator Richard Gordon, who presided over the budget briefing, asked the PCOO to formally submit their responses ahead of the next deliberation.

In July, 12 senators or half of the Senate filed a resolution seeking a legislative probe into reports that public funds are being used to operate "troll farms" that spread misinformation and "fake news" on social media, but this has not been tackled.

During Thursday's hearing, Drilon asked PCOO if it would support a bill banning troll farms, being an agency accused of employing trolls. PCOO Secretary Martin Andanar said its a good idea and they will work on a draft bill.

The PCOO is proposing a 2.09 billion budget for next year, including funds needed for its attached government-owned and controlled corporations  People's Television Network, Incorporated and Intercontinental Broadcasting Corporation.

Drilon and Binay, however, said the agency should defer the planned construction and operation of big-ticket projects, including the Visayas Media Hub and the Government Communications Academy, so millions of pesos could go to pandemic response instead.

Andanar said these projects were already deferred in 2020, but they can consider another delay.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 16, 2021)  The Philippines is seeking clarification from the Japanese government after it warned of possible terror attacks in the country and other Southeast Asian nations.

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said they have sent a communication to Japan's defense attache to the Philippines asking for more details regarding its warning. Manila has yet to receive a response.

"Kailangan malaman natin ang details ng sinasabi nilang attack kasi di naman tayo manghuhula kung ano ang ibig sabihin ng sinasabi nilang attack. Kung ano ang basehan niyan, saan galing ang report, kailan nangyari ang report, sino ang kumuha? So yan ang napakaraming tanong na dapat masagot ng Japan na nag-issue ng warning," Lorenzana said.

[Translation: We need to know details of the possible attack because we cannot predict what that means. What is the basis? Where did the report come from? When did the report happen, and who took it? So that's a lot of questions that Japan needs to answer.]

Lorenzana admitted he was surprised by Japan's security advisory since they did not get any alerts from the United States and other ASEAN member countries.

As far as Philippine security agencies are concerned, there is no imminent terror threat.

READ: No monitored terror threat in PH, officials say after Japan's warning

But they are not letting their guards down to stop any attempt to spread terror.

"Ang sabi naman ng security sector, itong Armed Forces, wala naman silng nakikitang indication na imminent ang attack. Parati pa rin nilang pinapaigting ang kanilang monitoring at intelligence gathering sa mga grupo na nandito sa atin. Alam naman natin kung nasaan sila," Lorenzana said.

[Translation: The security sector, the Armed Forces, said there was no indication that an attack was imminent. They are constantly intensifying their monitoring and intelligence gathering against groups that are here. We know where they are.]

Lorenzana added that joint air and sea patrols continue in the country's porous southern border with Malaysia and Indonesia.

He also said thorough screening of individuals entering Tawi-Tawi and Sulu due to the COVID-19 pandemic has somewhat helped in securing those areas to prevent the entry of foreign terrorists.

Security forces are also closely monitoring local armed groups in Mindanao, especially those that have the capacity to launch attacks like suicide bombings.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 16)  Another tropical cyclone will likely enter the country's monitoring area this month, the state weather bureau said on Thursday.

Two typhoons, Jolina and Kiko, hit the country this month, unleashing intense rainfall and damaging winds in many areas.

"Posible pa rin po tayong magkaroon ng isang bagyo pa this September," weather forecaster Ana Clauren of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration told CNN Philippines' New Day.

[Translation: It is possible that we would have one more cyclone this September.]

She also said PAGASA is monitoring a low-pressure area last spotted near Guiuan, Eastern Samar, but the LPA is "less likely" to develop into a tropical depression.

The LPA and the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone are expected to bring rains in Bicol Region, Visayas and Mindanao. The rest of Luzon will have "generally fair weather" with chances of isolated rains in the afternoon or evening, she added.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 16)  San Juan City Mayor Francis Zamora said on Thursday that he will seek re-election in the upcoming elections in May 2022.

He cited San Juan's COVID-19 vaccination rate as one of the positive achievements in the city under his watch. It is one of the first localities in the country that inoculated 100% of the target population.

In the 2019 elections, Zamora won against former San Juan Vice Mayor Janella Estrada by a margin of over 10,000 votes. It was the first time since 1969 that former President Joseph Estradas family did not hold the mayoral post in the business district.
Joey Bunch: "My nephew Josh Morgan died last weekend in Alabama. He was a 38-year-old construction worker with an Alabama Crimson Tide tattoo on his arm. He didnt feel well one day and died in his bed at home the next. ... He is just another of the 135,991 coronavirus deaths to you."
In this file photo, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders was introduced at a Denver rally on Sunday, Feb. 16, 2020, by former state Rep. Joe Salazar, one of the first Colorado politicians to endorse Sanders in 2016 and the director of the anti-fracking organization Colorado Rising.
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The Missourians Opinion section is a public forum for the discussion of ideas. The views presented in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Missourian or the University of Missouri. If you would like to contribute to the Opinion page with a response or an original topic of your own, visit our submission form
09/16/2021

Photo (c) Boonchai Wedmakawand - Getty Images Facing government mandates, automakers have committed to an electric vehicle future, despite the fact that consumers have yet to fully embrace these vehicles. But industry executives remain hopeful that consumers will eventually come around.

The CEO of Pendragon, a major car dealer group, agrees that consumers remain hesitant about EVs but sees signs of increased EV adoption. On CNBC this week Bill Berman said he is a big fan of EVs but understands why some people arent.

Peoples hesitancy ... around electric is multifaceted, Berman said. First off, its unknown  no ones ever driven an electric car so theres a lot of uncertainty that goes along with that. Theres range anxiety which most consumers call out. Even though  most consumers drive less than 50 miles a day, knowing that you cant easily refuel your vehicle creates hesitancy.

Doris, a Nissan Leaf owner from Hastings, Florida, has been living with what she describes as limited range in her EV.

Range is going down

Purchased with 7,000 miles on it December of 2012, Doris wrote in a ConsumerAffairs review. Had about 70 miles range driving in Florida. Now has 80,000 miles, had the battery repaired under warranty in 2016. It has iffy 50 miles range. Really have to observe speed and estimated range.

Its worth noting that Doris review suggests she still likes EVs but would like to have something with more range.

Increased sales since 2011

While car dealers would undoubtedly like to see consumers buy more EVs, the numbers have moved sharply higher since 2011. The Department of Energy reports sales increased from around 17,000 in 2011 to 361,315 in 2018. But sales dipped slightly in 2019.

J.D. Powers 2020 Mobility Confidence Index Study flashed a caution sign to the auto industry. It warned that manufacturers are plowing ahead producing cars that, so far, most car buyers have not asked for.

Despite improvements in technology and expanding charging infrastructure, the survey found that even consumers who have previously owned an electric vehicle arent always interested in buying another one. They cited the limited driving range, the high maintenance cost, and the purchase price as their main objections.

Berman said he believes improvements in charging stations hold a key to overcoming hesitancy among consumers. But he notes there are challenges in getting there because most homes aren't equipped for rapid charging.

Its kind of the proverbial chicken and egg but as more electric vehicles are sold and more infrastructure is put in  whether its in North America, Europe, or the U.K.  I think adoption rates will rise, he said.
09/16/2021

Photo (c) Arhunus - Getty Images Coronavirus (COVID-19) tally as compiled by Johns Hopkins University. (Previous numbers in parentheses.)

Total U.S. confirmed cases: 41,645,545 (41,371,382)

Total U.S. deaths: 666,806 (664,019)

Total global cases: 226,643,823 (225,988,972)

Total global deaths: 4,662,980 (4,652,516)

CDC: Pregnant women more likely to avoid vaccination

Pregnant women appear to be avoiding COVID-19 vaccinations. As a group, they have one of the lowest vaccination rates in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As of Sept. 4, the agency said only about 25% of pregnant women ages 18 to 49 had received at least one vaccine dose.

The CDC says all women in that age group have a 61% vaccination rate. Doctors interviewed by The Texas Tribune say theres no single reason pregnant women have avoided vaccination, although they suggest vaccine hesitancy and misinformation have played a role. Doctors say its a cause for concern.

Were just seeing a lot more of them progress [to serious illness] very quickly, said Dr. Manisha Gandhi, chief of maternal-fetal medicine at Texas Childrens Pavilion for Women and Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. This variant is much more aggressive, [and] pregnant women are getting sicker much faster.

Pfizer makes its case for a booster shot

Scientists are not in agreement whether healthy people need a COVID-19 booster shot, but Pfizer has submitted data to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration making a case for its product. The company said a third shot six months after the second restores the vaccine efficacy to 95%.

Pfizer's report, based on real-world data from Israel, said the two doses of the vaccine become less effective as time passes, with efficacy dropping to around 84% four months after the second shot.

An FDA advisory panel meets tomorrow for what may be a spirited debate about booster shots. Some scientists question the need for healthy people to receive another dose.

Many parents want their young children to get vaccinated ASAP

Many Americans refuse to be vaccinated against COVID-19. But a growing number of parents are so eager to have their children get the shot that they are competing to have them enrolled in clinical trials that are administering the different vaccines to children under age 12.

The Wall Street Journal quotes Rachael DiFransico, mother of 14-month-old daughter Sybil, who was recently enrolling her child in a vaccine trial in Cleveland.

This trial is our best shot at getting the vaccine as quickly as possible, said DiFransico. We want some semblance of normalcy for her.

Around the nation
Attorneydirectorydb.org scored 40 Social Media Impact. Social Media Impact score is a measure of how much a site is popular on social networks. 2/5.0 Stars by Social Team

This CoolSocial report was updated on 14 Mar 2013, you can refresh this analysis whenever you want.

The total number of people who shared the attorneydirectorydb homepage on Delicious. The total number of people who shared the attorneydirectorydb homepage on StumbleUpon. This is the sum of two values: the total number of people who shared the attorneydirectorydb homepage on Twitter + the total number of attorneydirectorydb followers (if attorneydirectorydb has a Twitter account). This is the sum of two values: the total number of people who shared, liked or recommended the attorneydirectorydb homepage on Facebook + the total number of page likes (if attorneydirectorydb has a Facebook fan page). The total number of people who shared the attorneydirectorydb homepage on Google Plus by a google +1 button.

Basic Information

PAGE TITLE Attorney Directory - Search for Attorneys, Lawyers, and Law Firms DESCRIPTION A comprehensive attorney directory with listings of attorneys and law firms in the United States. Find an attorney today with the Attorney Directory Database. KEYWORDS OTHER KEYWORDS attorney, directory, attorneys, attorney directory, suite, firms, law firms



The description meta-tag found in the head section of the homepage. The title found in the head section of the homepage. The keywords meta-tag found in the head section of the homepage. The URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is the address of the site. CoolSocial advanced keyword analysis tool is able to detect and analyze every keyword on each page of a site.

Domain and Server

DOCTYPE HTML 5.0 CHARSET AND LANGUAGE UTF-8 DETECTED LANGUAGE English English SERVER nginx/1.2.6 + Phusion Passenger 3.0.19 (Phusion Passenger (mod_rails/mod_rack) 3.0.19) OPERATIVE SYSTEM

Type of server and offered services. Character set and language of the site. Operative System running on the server. Represents HTML declared type (e.g.: XHTML 1.1, HTML 4.0, the new HTML 5.0) The language of attorneydirectorydb.org as detected by CoolSocial algorithms.

Site Traffic trend during the last year. Only available for sites ranked <= 100000 in the world.

Referring domains for attorneydirectorydb.org by MajesticSeo. High values are a sign of site importance over the web and on web engines.

Facebook link

FACEBOOK PAGE LINK NOT FOUND

The total number of people who tagged or talked about website Facebook page in the last 7-10 days. The description of the Facebook page describes website and its services to the social media users. The total number of people who like website Facebook page. A Facebook page link can be found in the homepage or in the robots.txt file. Facebook Timeline is the new layout of Facebook pages. The type of Facebook page. The URL of the found Facebook page.

Twitter account link

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100%

Website cic-cairo.com uses latest and advanced technologies like: JQuery. It is very popular on the web, it's within the 1 million most visited websites of the world at position 182710 by Alexa. It supports HTTPS and GZIP compression. The main html page has a size of 82430 bytes (80.50 kb uncompressed) and 13003 bytes (12.70 kb compressed).

This CoolSocial report was updated on 2021-09-16, you can refresh this analysis whenever you want.
L'Occitane has named Andre Hoffmann as its new CEO, succeeding Reinold Geiger who will continue to be the chairman of the board and executive director, effective immediately.

Geiger has spent more than 25 years at L'Occitane but has decided to step down as CEO to "focus on his other commitments."

Hoffmann and Geiger have been business partners for 26 years.

Hoffman was appointed as executive director at L'Occitane in 2001 and then became vice-chairman in 2016.

Hoffmann will drive the groups strategic planning to leverage the strengths of its core business in order to scale innovations and create large-scale new businesses, while continuing to build each brands identity.

He will also focus on adapting to changing customer behavior across multiple channels globally, while continuing to embrace sustainability.

Geiger said: "Today's announcement is the natural evolution of the companys needs as it transforms from a mono-brand company with a multi-local presence to a true multinational, multi-brand group. It is a key step to strengthen our governance structure and position ourselves for a sustainable future rooted in our new mission to empower entrepreneurs and communities to cultivate natural beauty and well-being and to regenerate nature. I would like to congratulate Andre on his appointment. Andre was key in growing L'occitane from a small local brand in France to a successful global company. We know each other very well and I have total confidence in Andre. His wide-ranging experience in the retail and distribution of cosmetic products is unique and his personal drive and enthusiasm will help to further accelerate the groups growth."
Daniel Clark was a politician and businessman who died in New Orleans in 1813, leaving behind a bunch of money. He willed it all to his mother, which is just about as simple a will as you can get. But he also might have had a second will, leaving money to his daughter, Myra Clark Gaines. And this daughter might have been illegitimate. Or, she might have been legitimate, depending on the exact nature of the relationship between Clark and her mother. So she might have been owed money, will or no will.

Sorry for being so vague. But to explain everything in more detail, we'd have to tell you all the back-and-forth conclusions from 78 years of wrangling following Clark's death. Myra Gaines sued to inherit Clark's estate, then sued again, then sued again. The case turned into scores of individual cases, against a bunch of people who bought land from the estate, and it went before the US Supreme Court 17 different times.

The case lasted so long that it spanned vast changes in the legal system. At the start, Louisiana had a different system of law from the rest of the country, complicating matters. Some witnesses talked in English, while others talked in French. No juror understood both, each juror had to leave the room when someone spoke in the other language, and they had to come to a verdict having understood just half the testimony.
Detecting compromises by highly skilled attackers is no easy task, requiring advanced network traffic monitoring, behavioral analysis of endpoint logs, and even dedicated threat hunting teams that manually search for signs of compromise by imitating attackers. This is highlighted in a new McAfee report about a long-term compromise discovered on a customer network that started out as a simple malware infection investigation.

McAfee researchers have dubbed the attack campaign Operation Harvest because its goal was the long-term exfiltration of sensitive information that could be used for military strategic purposes and intellectual property that could be used for manufacturing. The group behind the attack was using Winnti, a custom backdoor program that's believed to be shared by multiple Chinese APT groups.

Based on an analysis of the techniques used in the attack, the McAfee researchers found significant overlap with APT27 aka Emissary Panda, which is known for having targeted organizations in the aerospace, government, defense, technology, energy, and manufacturing sectors, and with APT41, also known as Barium and sometimes Winnti after the malware. APT41 is believed to execute cyberespionage campaigns on behalf of the Chinese government but has also been seen performing financially motivated attacks.

Both groups have been operating for many years and are highly skilled at lateral movement, privilege escalation, and persistence. In this particular attack, the hackers broke into the network by compromising one of the victim's web servers.

Map, expand, and exfiltrate

Once they gained this initial foothold, they deployed tools on the server that allowed them to map the network and begin expanding to other systems. Tools the McAfee researchers found included PSexec, a tool that allows the execution of files on other systems over the network, ProcDump, a tool that can be used to extract sensitive information from the RAM memory of processes, and Mimikatz, a tool used for dumping authentication credentials from Windows. All of which are free or open-source and sometimes used by system administrators or penetration testers as well.

Two other open-source tools used by the group and found during the investigation are BadPotato and RottenPotato. These use privilege escalation techniques to execute code with SYSTEM privileges.

For privilege escalation the attackers also deployed a backdoor program called PlugX that uses a technique called DLL sideloading. This abuses the search order for DLLs programmed in some applications, trying the current directory first. So, if an application is designed to load a DLL with a particular name from the same folder, all attackers have to do is to replace that DLL with a malicious one and then execute the legitimate application. The benefit of this technique is that the malicious code is loaded into the memory of an otherwise legitimate process.

"The .exe file is a valid and signed executable and, in this case, an executable from HP (HP Customer participation)," the researchers said. "We also observed other valid executables being used, ranging from AV vendors to video software. When the executable is run, the DLL next to it is loaded. The DLL is valid but contains a small hook towards the payload which, in our case, is the .bin file. The DLL loads the PlugX config and injects it into a process."

The PlugX malware also hides its communication with the command-and-control server inside DNS traffic, by leveraging DNS TXT records. This can be easily missed by network defense tools if they don't also scan for anomalies in DNS requests.

On some systems, the SYSTEM privileges acquired through the Potato tools were used to create a new system service called "SysmainUpdate," which mimicks a legitimate service called SysMain that is associated with the Superfetch service.

"The model uses the persistence technique utilizing svchost.exe with service.dll to install a rogue service," the researchers said. "It appears that the dll employs several mechanisms to fingerprint the targeted system and avoid analysis in the sandbox, making analysis more difficult. The DLL embeds several obfuscated strings decoded when running. Once the fingerprinting has been done, the malware will install the malicious service using the API RegisterServiceHandlerA then SetServiceStatus, and finally CreateEventA."

Ties to past attacks

This technique has also been described in a 2017 report by Trend Micro about malicious activity attributed to the Winnti group. The McAfee researchers also believe the payload deployed in the campaign they investigated belongs to the Winnti malware family.

The hackers also used the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) interface in PowerShell to execute commands on systems, set up scheduled tasks and used valid accounts acquired through their use of Mimikatz.

The PsExec variant used by the attackers was not the original tool that's part of the Windows Sysinternals suite for system administrators, but an open-source reimplementation in Python that seems to have been copied from GitHub.

The data was collected from network shares and compromised systems using batch scripts and then compressed with RAR. The attackers either exfiltrated these archives directly through their backdoors or placed them on the compromised web server from where they could be accessed and downloaded from outside the network. The User-Agent string of the tool used to download these archives had a unique fingerprint that also matches information in a 2015 report from Dell SecureWorks, suggesting these attackers have been operating for many years across different campaigns.

In fact, while investigating this incident, the McAfee researchers uncovered a second targeted attack against another organization from the same country that used a very similar modus operandi and techniques. This suggests the attacks were part of a larger campaign where attackers managed to maintain access into victims' networks for multiple years.

Defending against APT attacks

This plethora of advanced techniques used in this Winnti-related campaign highlights the difficulty of uncovering compromises by skilled APT groups. Catching such attacks early requires a multi-layered approach with significant investments in various types of monitoring and detection technologies.

Unfortunately, the number of organizations that can afford to make such investments or to set up skilled internal threat hunting teams is small compared to the number of APT victims. And with the rise of cyber mercenary groups and with cybercriminal groups also adopting APT techniques in recent years, any organization, regardless of size or industry can become the target of APT-level attacks.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP)  California Gov. Gavin Newsom handily defeated a recall election that could have removed him from office, but his Democratic allies in the Legislature already are seeking changes that could make it harder to mount such a challenge in the future.

Those changes could include raising the standard to require wrongdoing on the part of the officeholder, increasing the number of signatures needed to force a recall election, and changing the process that could permit someone with a small percentage of votes to replace the states top elected official.

I think the recall process has been weaponized, Newsom said Wednesday, a day after his decisive victory.

He added that the recall rules also affect school boards, city councils, county supervisors and district attorneys, notably in Los Angeles and San Francisco, where progressive prosecutors with reform agendas are facing recall efforts.

The governor noted that California has one of the nations lowest thresholds for the number of signatures needed to trigger a recall election. In Newsoms case, recall proponents had to collect nearly 1.5 million signatures out of 22 million registered voters in their bid to oust him, or 12% of the electorate who voted him into office in 2018. By contrast, Kansas requires 40%.

But the efforts faced pushback from those who organized the recall election against Newsom and questions from experts, who said Californias law is better than many others in limiting requirements that make it harder to recall politicians.

Theyre working in opposition of the will of the people when they take action like that to limit our ability to self-govern, said Orrin Heatlie, chief proponent of the recall effort.

There is little benefit for Democrats in pushing changes that could anger voters, said Joshua Spivak, an expert on recalls and senior fellow at the Hugh L. Carey Institute for Government Reform in New York.

From a political point of view, its kind of crazy, and I cant imagine why they would spend political capital on this, Spivak said. Are you going to go to the voters and say, Well, we didnt deal with the homeless problem but yeah, we fixed the recall? It just doesnt seem like a smart move.

State Sen. Josh Newman, who was recalled in 2018 before regaining his seat two years later, said he will propose two constitutional amendments: one to raise the number of required signatures and another to have the lieutenant governor finish the governors term if a recall succeeds.

We need to create a system where a small, small, small minority of Californians cant create, cant initiate a recall that the California taxpayers spent almost $300 million on and that frankly distracts and really has an impact on our ability to govern for nine months, Democratic Assemblyman Marc Berman said.

Newsom on Tuesday became only the second governor in U.S. history to defeat a recall; the other was Wisconsin Republican Scott Walker in 2012. The win cements him as a prominent figure in national Democratic politics and ensures that the nations most populous state remains a laboratory for progressive policies.

With an estimated 74% of ballots counted, the no response to the question of whether to recall Newsom was ahead by a 28-point margin.

At the Capitol, Berman and Sen. Steven Glazer, who head the Legislature's elections panels, promised bipartisan hearings in the coming months, with the goal of proposing constitutional changes sometime after lawmakers reconvene in January. Changes to the recall law must be approved by voters.

GOP Assemblyman Kelly Seyarto, vice chairman of the elections committee, said Republicans will seek to ensure the proposals protect voters ability to hold politicians accountable.

The two elections committees will look at recall laws in other states and hear from experts on Californias process.

Nineteen states have some sort of recall process, Glazer said, but only Colorado has a similar two-stage process. The California system asks voters first whether they want to remove the incumbent. Then, if a majority favors removal, the candidate who gets the most votes on the second question becomes governor. In this weeks race, 46 candidates were on the ballot.

In the majority of other recall states, he said, the only question on the ballot is whether the official should be recalled. If a majority of voters say yes, the office is then declared vacant and filled by appointment or a separate special election.

Changes have the backing of the California Legislatures two leaders, both Democrats, and their party holds two-thirds majorities in both chambers. But the final decision will come down to voters because the recall process was enshrined in the state Constitution in 1911.

This is a system that was set up about a century ago and to the extent to which its still valid in its current form, it needs to be looked at for sure, Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon said.

A Public Policy Institute of California survey in July found that 86% of California likely voters approve of having a way to recall elected officials, a sentiment that transcends political parties, regions, and demographic groups. But two-thirds of likely voters also supported major or minor changes, though Republicans and Democrats split over the extent of the changes.

___

See APs recall coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/california-recall
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP)  Few Democrats were surprised to see Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom swat down a Republican-driven recall campaign in bright-blue California. But they were pleased with how he did it.

By making the race into a referendum on former President Donald Trump and his supporters' extreme resistance to coronavirus precautions, Newsom offered a formula for survival that could translate to dozens of races in next year's midterm elections, Democrats said. A healthy turnout, spurred by some late anxiety, showed Democrats remain eager to vote against the former president, even when he's not on the ballot.

California voters rejected the "Republican brand that is centered around insurrection and denying the pandemic, said Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Republicans said they saw nothing to worry about in the California results. Losing badly in a liberal stronghold isn't much of a prediction of the party's performance in battlegrounds like Florida or Georgia, they said. They argue they were saddled with a flawed candidate  talk radio host Larry Elder, the Republican frontrunner whom Democrats likened to a Trump clone in a state the former president lost by 30 percentage points and did little to appeal to moderate voters in swingy suburbs.

But President Joe Biden and his party wont have it as easy next year as Newsom did, said Ron Nehring, a former chairman of the California Republican Party who was harshly critical of Elder and worked for one of his rivals

Gavin Newsom had one opponent who he was able to define in the minds of enough swing voters, he said. "No. 1, Biden himself is not going to be on the ballot and No. 2, he does not have a singular opponent.

On Wednesday, Biden embraced Newsom's victory and his message. This vote is a resounding win for the approach that he and I share to beating the pandemic: strong vaccine requirements, strong steps to reopen schools safely, and strong plans to distribute real medicines  not fake treatments  to help those who get sick, Biden said in a statement.

But there will be better test cases coming on how these messages play with voters. In November, voters in Virginia will choose between Democrat Terry McAuliffe, a former governor and longtime Democratic operative, and GOP businessman Glenn Youngkin. McAuliffe has been hammering Youngkin as too extreme for a state that has been growing more diverse, more suburban and more Democratic for years.

California has similar demographic trends at play. In Orange County, long a GOP bastion, racial and ethnic diversity and the growing distaste higher-educated, wealthy voters have shown for Trump have opened the door to Democrats in the county  although the GOP won back two House seats there last year.

The recall was failing in Orange County by 5 percentage points on Wednesday, although the vote count in California will go on for weeks and the final margins may change. Newsom and his Republican opponent John Cox essentially tied in the county in 2018.

Even the incomplete the results buoyed Democrats.

Were pretty excited about California, and its not because we thought were going to lose it  its because the margin is better than expected and it shows the Republican message is failing badly in swing districts," Mahoney said.

Still, it's hard to draw too many conclusions from a single election in a state so liberal that Democrats held every statewide office even during Republican wave years of 2010 and 2014.

Its like us boasting about beating a recall in Alabama, quipped Matt Gorman, a former strategist with the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Gorman said Democrats would only get so much mileage out of demonizing Republican nominees and trying to tie them to Trump. Biden is the focus of the midterms, Gorman said, noting how Republicans unsuccessfully tried to tie congressional Democrats to Nancy Pelosi in 2018, when she was only minority leader and didnt control the House of Representatives. It becomes less effective once theyre out of power.

If inflation is high, gas prices are high and COVID is spiking, its going to be much harder for Democrats to talk about Trump and Republican extremism in 2022, Gorman said.

It will also be hard for Republicans not to talk about Trump. GOP primaries for Senate seats in Ohio, Georgia and Pennsylvania already are poised to be a competition for Trump's base. House candidates have been clamoring for Trump's endorsement. The former president hasn't been shy about anointing favorites.

Democrats are certain to use that against those candidates when they face a general election.

I think a sad reality of the modern GOP is that there are going to be a lot of Larry Elders on the ballot in 2022 because theyre going to win Republican primaries, said Addisu Demissie, a Newsom campaign strategist. When the alternative is extreme, you represent not just your base but the middle.
The number of drownings in Connecticut so far this year is slightly higher than the amount at this point last year, according to data provided by the state Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

The data obtained by Hearst Connecticut Media showed there were 38 reported drownings statewide in 2020. At this time last year, 29 of those drownings had occurred. This years numbers indicate a slight increase, with at least 34 drownings, including the most recent incident in Fairfield and one in New Milford.

And this years total so far could be even higher. James Gill, the states chief medical examiner, said there may be some cases in July and August that are still pending and are not included on the list yet.

Of the 38 drowning deaths last year, 24 were ruled accidental, 10 classified as deaths by suicide and four undetermined, the data showed. This years data, which does not include official rulings on the Fairfield and New Milford incidents, indicates there have been 25 accidental drownings, five deaths by suicide, one homicide and one undetermined.

The homicide occurred at a Westport home, where police said Tracy Do, 46, drowned her 7-year-old daughter before taking her own life in June.

This years latest drowning victim was identified by Fairfield officials as 35-year-old Karlis Eltermanis.

The Bridgeport mans body was found about 50 feet from the shore of Lake Hills Beach off Tahmore Drive in Fairfield around 12:45 p.m. Sunday. The swimmer had been first reported missing around 8:40 a.m. when a friend called 911 to report Eltermanis had not surfaced for several minutes.

First responders rushed to the scene and searched the water. Crews recovered Eltermanis in about 5-and-a-half feet of water. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

According to the Lake Hills Association website, the community has five active beaches around the reservoir. Each beach, the website indicates, is private and labeled with an identifying sign. The beaches are located off Tahmore Drive, Samp Mortar Drive, Mountain Laurel Road, Winnepoge Drive and Sasapequan Road. The fifth beach is at an undisclosed location.

The associations president did not return request for comment Tuesday.

Last week, Norwalk resident Victor Garcia, 26, drowned while trying to save his son and another child who were struggling to swim in Candlewood Lake in New Milford.

The Department of Energy and Environmental Protection advises residents who go swimming to drink responsibly as excessive alcohol consumption, and sometimes prescription medication, can impair judgment.

Parents should also always watch their children and keep them at arms length, DEEP states on its website.

It only takes seconds for a child to drown, and this can occur silently, DEEP states on its website.

Swimmers should also beware of underwater hazards such as sudden drop-offs, inshore holes, large rocks or tree roots. Diving and jumping into the water can also be dangerous, according to DEEP.

DEEP also asks swimmers to only stay in designated areas where lifeguards can see them, and follow rules established at the beach.
WASHINGTON (AP)  President Joe Bidens decision to form a strategic Indo-Pacific alliance with Australia and Britain to counter China is angering France and the European Union. Theyre feeling left out and seeing it as a return to the Trump era.

The security initiative, unveiled this week, appears to have brought Bidens summer of love with Europe to an abrupt end. AUKUS, which notably excludes France and the European Union, is just the latest in a series of steps, from Afghanistan to east Asia, that have taken Europe aback.

After promising European leaders that America is back and that multilateral diplomacy would guide U.S. foreign policy, Biden has alienated numerous allies with a go-it-alone approach on key issues. Frances foreign minister expressed total incomprehension at the recent move, which he called a stab in the back, and the EUs foreign policy chief complained that Europe had not been consulted.

France will lose a nearly $100 billion deal to build diesel submarines for Australia under the terms of the initiative, which will see the U.S. and Britain help Canberra construct nuclear-powered ones.

As such, French anger on a purely a commercial level would be understandable, particularly because France, since Britains handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997, is the only European nation to have significant territorial possessions or a permanent military presence in the Pacific.

But French and European Union officials went further, saying the agreement calls into question the entire cooperative effort to blunt Chinas growing influence and underscores the importance of languishing plans to boost Europes own defense and security capabilities.

Some have compared Biden's recent actions to those of his predecessor, Donald Trump, under Trump's America First doctrine. That's surprising for a president steeped in international affairs who ran for the White House vowing to mend shaken ties with allies and restore U.S. credibility on the world stage.

Although it's impossible to predict if any damage will be lasting, the short-term impact seems to have rekindled European suspicions of American intentions  with potential implications for Biden's broader aim to unite democracies against authoritarianism, focused primarily on China and Russia.

Just three months ago, on his first visit to the continent as president, Biden was hailed as a hero by European counterparts eager to move beyond the trans-Atlantic tensions of the Trump years. But that palpable sense of relief has now faded for many, and its one clear winner, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, is on her way out.

Since June, Biden has infuriated America's oldest ally, France, left Poland and Ukraine questioning the U.S. commitment to their security and upset the European Union more broadly with unilateral decisions ranging from Afghanistan to east Asia. And, while Europe cheered when Biden pledged to return to nuclear negotiations with Iran and revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, both efforts remain stalled nine months into his administration.

The seeds of discontent may have been sown in the spring but they began to bloom in July over Biden's acquiescence to a Russia-to-Germany gas pipeline that will bypass Poland and Ukraine, and a month later in August with the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan that left Europe scrambling to keep up after it had expressed reservations about the pullout.

Then just this week, Biden enraged France and the European Union with his announcement that the U.S. would join post-Brexit Britain and Australia in a new Indo-Pacific security initiative aimed at countering China's increasing aggressiveness in the region.

Unsurprisingly, China reacted angrily, accusing the U.S. and its English-speaking partners of embarking on a project that will destabilize the Pacific to the detriment of global security. But, the reactions from Paris and Brussels were equally severe. Both complained they were not only excluded from the deal but not consulted on it.

The White House and Secretary of State Antony Blinken say France had been informed of the decision before it was announced on Wednesday, although it was not exactly clear when. Blinken said Thursday there had been conversations with the French about it within the past 24 to 48 hours, suggesting there had not been an in-depth consultation.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, who in June extolled the excellent news for all of us that America is back, expressed total incomprehension at the announcement of the initiative. It was really a stab in the back," he said. It looks a lot like what Trump did.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki dismissed the comparison. I would say the president doesnt think about it much, she told reporters. The presidents focus is on maintaining and continuing our close relationships with leaders in France, with the United Kingdom, with Australia and to achieving our global objectives, which include security in the Indo-Pacific.

In Brussels, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell echoed the French minister's complaints. I suppose that an agreement of this nature was not cooked up the day before yesterday. It takes a certain amount of time, and despite that, no, we were not consulted, he said. "That obliges us, once again  to reflect on the need to put European strategic autonomy high on the agenda.

Indeed, the 27-member European Union on Thursday unveiled a new strategy for boosting economic, political and defense ties in the Indo-Pacific, just hours after the announcement by the U.S., Britain and Australia. The EU said the aim is to strengthen and expand economic relations while reinforcing respect of international trade rules and improving maritime security. It said it hopes the strategy will result in more European naval deployments to the region.

U.S. officials brushed aside the French and EU complaints on Thursday.

There are a range of partnerships that include the French and some partnerships that dont, and they have partnerships with other countries that dont include us, Psaki said. "That is part of how global diplomacy works.

Speaking alongside Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and the Australian defense and foreign ministers, Blinken said there is no regional divide with Europe over Indo-Pacific strategy. We welcome European countries playing an important role in the Indo-Pacific, he said, calling France a vital partner."

But how closely they will work together remains to be seen.

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AP writers Darlene Superville, Sylvie Corbet in Paris and Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed to this report.
CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP)  Former U.S. Sen. Dean Heller will announce a bid for governor of Nevada on Monday, joining a crowded field of Republican hopefuls vying to unseat Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak in 2022.

His entrance into the race in the battleground state adds a high-profile candidate to what's expected to be among the most competitive of the next year's 36 gubernatorial elections.

The Carson City Republican Party has scheduled Heller to appear for a special announcement at their headquarters. A party official and person close to the campaign not authorized to publicly comment on the special announcement ahead of time confirmed the former senator would declare his candidacy at an event in the state capital.

If he does, hell join a field that includes Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo, North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee, attorney Joey Gilbert, surgeon Fred Simon and businessmen Guy Nohra. The gubernatorial primary is scheduled to take place in June 2022.

Heller, through a representative, declined to comment about his plans for the announcement. At a Basque-themed barbecue hosted by U.S. Senate candidate Adam Laxalt in August, he told The Associated Press he would decide after Labor Day.

Carson City Republican Committee Chair Scott Hoen wouldnt say what Hellers planned announcement entailed. He said he expected 50 to 60 guests to pack into the chapters small space Monday morning.

The unspecified announcement will be followed by an event in Las Vegas, but Hoen said Carson City had special significance to Heller as his hometown.

Heller, 61, mostly withdrew from political life after losing a hard-fought 2018 U.S. Senate race against Democrat Jacky Rosen, during which he weathered attacks from both left and right.

Then-President Donald Trump berated him in 2017 for initially opposing one Republican-led effort to repeal parts of the Affordable Care Act.

Heller and Trump reconciled during the drafting of the federal tax cut passed later that year and the two men campaigned together in the lead-up to November 2018. On a Trump campaign-organized call with reporters in August 2020, he paid tribute to the president and said he had been spending most of his time working on his farm and digging irrigation ditches in northern Nevadas rural Smith Valley. But Heller has not publicly weighed on Trumps false claims of fraud and some of his supporters attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

In a statement after the Carson City GOP announced the event, Mallory Payne, a spokeswoman for the Nevada Democratic Victory group working to reelect Sisolak, previewed Nevada Democrats' line of attack for 2022.

Dean Heller is entering a civil war, but lets be clear  hes going into battle for himself, not Nevadans. Nevadans already rejected Heller once after he prioritized caving to his base to save his career over doing his job," she said, referencing his relationship with Trump and decision to ultimately vote for a pared-down ACA repeal proposal.

If Heller can address for voters his bumpy history with Trump, who remains a standard-bearer for Nevada Republicans, hell likely enjoy widespread name recognition and a rolodex of donors hes collected through five statewide runs  two for U.S. Senate and three for secretary of state.

His entrance into the race comes as other candidates are attempting to consolidate support from top donors.

Last week, a political action committee led by Mark Hutchison, the former lieutenant governor who is now chairing Lombardos campaign, raised eyebrows when it submitted a $2.1 million campaign finance filing months before an end-of-year deadline, reporting contributions from a company incorporated last year that lists Las Vegas real estate developer Robert Bigelow as its sole officer. In Nevada, independent PACs registered through the state are not subject to campaign spending limits.

In recent months, Heller has canvassed GOP clubs throughout Nevada ahead of his expected announcement. He gave a three-minute stump speech alongside fellow candidates Gilbert and Lombardo at a rural county Republican event in June. At the Basque Fry last month, he glad-handed attendees in the general audience and VIP section but did not speak.

Nevada Democrats currently hold three U.S. House seats, two U.S. Senate seats, the governorship and control of both statehouse chambers. But President Joe Biden won the state by 2.4 percentage points  a smaller margin for Democrats than all but four battlegrounds. Sisolak defeated Laxalt by 4.1 percentage points in 2018.

Republicans hope past trends that have swung midterm voters toward the opposition party will allow them to flip governorships and U.S. Senate seats. They hope that the pandemics effect on Nevadas tourism-powered economy and opposition to Sisolaks coronavirus measures will convince voters.

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Sam Metz is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP)  An Indonesian court ruled Thursday that President Joko Widodo and six other top officials have neglected citizens rights to clean air and ordered them to improve the poor air quality in the capital.

A three-judge panel at the Central Jakarta District Court notched a victory for a healthy living environment, siding with 32 residents who filed a lawsuit two years ago against Widodo and the ministers for environment, health and home affairs, as well as the provincial governors of Jakarta, Banten and West Java.

The verdict was initially scheduled for May 20, but had been postponed several times. The judges voted 3-0 in favor of the plaintiffs under the Coalition for the Clean Air Initiative.

Presiding Judge Saifuddin Zuhri ordered the seven officials to tighten national air quality standards so they are sufficient to protect human health, the environment and ecosystems, including the health of sensitive populations, based on science and technology.

They have been negligent in fulfilling the rights of citizens to a good and healthy environment, said Duta Baskara, a member of the panel. The judges dismissed a part of the lawsuit alleging Widodo violated human rights.

The plaintiffs, who included activists, public figures, motorists and pollution disease victims, did not ask for financial compensation and instead demanded a more robust supervision and sanctions for offenders.

We hope the defendants would accept their defeat wisely and choose to focus on making efforts to improve air quality conditions rather than doing useless things, such as legal efforts to fight in appeals,'' said Ayu Eza Tiara, one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs.

It is unclear if the government will appeal. Presidential spokesperson Fadjroel Rachman told The Associated Press that the president and his Cabinet were studying the verdict and the Ministry of Forestry and Environment would respond later.

Irvan Pulungan, an adviser on climate change for Jakarta's governor, said the governor was open to working closely with the plaintiffs to solve the citys pollution problems and improve air quality.

Pulungan said the court decision that granted part of the plaintiffs demand is not a disturbance to the governments work but a vehicle for a collaborative effort to fix the unhealthy air.

He said the city administration has passed new regulations since 2019, including on emission tests and new curbs on private car usage.

Central and local governments needed to integrate actions to maximize the effectiveness of policies, Pulungan said.

Jakarta counts 10 million people and three times more including those living in its greater metropolitan area. The severe air pollution in Jakarta stems mostly from vehicle emission, factories and coal-fired power plants located in the neighboring provinces of Banten and West Java, according to the Center on Energy and Clean Air in its 2020 report. It identified 136 industrial facilities, including power plants, as contributing to pollution.

The Climate Action Tracker, an independent scientific analysis organization, said in its report in April that the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a reduction of air pollution in many countries. However, due to the number of coal-fired power plants in the vicinity of major urban centers, the effect is not observed in Indonesia, where South Tangerang, in Jakartas metropolitan area, was the worlds 25th most polluted city.

Prone to flooding and rapidly sinking due to uncontrolled ground water extraction, Jakarta is the archetypical Asian mega-city. It has been creaking under the weight of its dysfunction, causing massive pollution to rivers and contaminating the ground water that supplies the city. Congestion is estimated to cost the economy $6.5 billion a year.

Yuyun Ismawati, one of the plaintiffs, said in a statement Thursday that if Widodos administration ignored the courts decision, health costs will continue to increase.

The Jakarta administration data released last year showed more than 5.5 million cases of diseases related to air pollution in the city. The data also said the estimated burden of medical care costs from cases of non-communicable diseases due to air pollution in 2020 could reach 60.8 trillion rupiah ($4.2 billion).

In an amicus curiae brief submitted in support of the lawsuit, the U.N. special rapporteur for human rights and the environment, David R. Boyd, said that protecting people from the harmful effects of air pollution is a constitutional and legislative obligation of the Indonesian government, and not an option.

Boyd said air pollution is a major problem in Indonesia, causing hundreds of thousands of premature deaths annually. He said levels of PM 2.5  fine particulate matter smaller than 2.5 millionths of a meter  in Jakarta were well above national and regional standards as well as World Health Organization recommended limits.

Yet air pollution is a problem that is amenable to solutions that are well known, Boyd said.

Thursdays verdict has tarnished Widodos credibility in improving infrastructure and the environment in the Southeast Asias largest economy, which has been his signature policy that helped him win a second term in 2019.

Widodo has announced shortly after being reelected that the capital will be moved outside Java, where 57% of the countrys 270 million people are concentrated. The new site for the capital will be in sparsely populated East Kalimantan province on Borneo island, known for rainforests and orangutans.
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP)  Instead of a suit and tie, lawyer Alex Murdaugh found himself in a jail jumpsuit Thursday in a cramped South Carolina courtroom, struggling to wipe tears from his eyes with handcuffed wrists as his lawyer detailed how his life crumbled over the past three months.

Murdaugh discovered the bodies of his wife and son, shot multiple times at their Colleton County home June 7. His drug addiction got worse and in a deep depression on Sept. 4, he decided he should die, but instead of killing himself, he hired someone to do it, defense attorney Dick Harpootlian said.

The goal was to get his surviving son a $10 million life insurance benefit, state police said. But the shot only grazed his head and Murdaugh, 53, was charged Thursday with insurance fraud, conspiracy and filing a false police report.  all felonies that could bring up to 20 years in prison if convicted of all three charges. There is no minimum sentence.

The killings of Murdaughs wife, Maggie, and son Paul in June remain unsolved. Harpootlian said Murdaugh is adamant he had nothing to do with their deaths

Murdaugh spent about five hours in the Hampton County jail before being issued a $20,000 bond and being released on his own recognizance. Prosecutors had asked for a higher bond and GPS monitoring.

Sometimes those who have everything and who are suffering a possible fall from grace are actually more of a concern than a hardened criminal, said Creighton Waters with the South Carolina Attorney General's Office.

But Magistrate Tonja Alexander noted Murdaugh had no prior criminal record and she didn't think he would be a risk to the community.

Murdaugh's surrender culminated a tumultuous 36 hours for a man whose father, grandfather and great-grandfather were all elected prosecutors in the area. A giant law firm in town was founded by his family more than a century ago.

Murdaugh said almost nothing during the brief bond hearing. At times he bowed his head low, or appeared to struggle to wipe tears from his eyes.

Murdaugh's former client was arrested late Tuesday on an assisted suicide charge, and then state police opened a sixth investigation into him and his family  this time involving a housekeeper and nanny who died in his home in 2018.

Murdaugh told his lawyers on Monday that he had arranged his own shooting, and they then spoke to police.

The only violence he has ever been involved in is this, which was to have himself executed, Harpootlian said. He's not a danger to the community. He's only a danger to himself.

Murdaugh agreed to give up his passport even as Harpootlian said his client's financial condition is ruinous and he couldn't leave the country if he wanted to.

Murdaugh needed to return to his out-of-state rehab center before the end of Thursday to keep his bed, Harpootlian said. His attorney promised to contact prosecutors and investigators when Murdaugh's rehab stint is finished so they can figure out what to do next.

Authorities said Murdaugh asked Curtis Edward Smith to kill him with a shot to the head on Sept. 4 so his surviving son could collect a $10 million life insurance policy, authorities said.

Murdaugh bought drugs from the former client, Harpootlian has said.

Murdaugh's lawyers said he has spent the past 10 days or so in drug rehab after his law firm fired him over missing money that could total millions of dollars. Harpootlian said Murdaugh is fighting a 20-year addiction to painkillers.

If anyone wants to see the face of what opioid addiction does, you're looking at it, Harpootlian said.

The investigations into the the Murdaughs started June 7, when Alex Murdaugh found the bodies of his 52-year-old wife, Maggie, and their 22-year-old son Paul shot multiple times after returning to their Colleton County home after visiting his sick father, who would die days later from cancer.

Those killings remain unsolved, and Murdaugh's lawyers have said he is adamant he had nothing to do with their deaths.

On Sept. 3, Murdaugh was fired by the PMPED law firm founded by his family after the firm determined he took money.

Murdaugh's lawyers said he decided to kill himself the next day, but have someone else shoot him. Murdaugh gave Curtis Edward Smith a gun and they headed to lonely Old Salkehatchie Road. Smith fired one shot that only grazed Murdaugh's head, a State Law Enforcement Division agent said in a sworn statement.

Murdaugh was able to call 911 and his initial story was someone in a passing pickup truck shot at him as he checked a tire that was low on pressure.

Smith, 61, remained jailed Thursday on numerous charges, including assisted suicide, assault and battery of a high aggravated nature and distribution of methamphetamine. He didn't have a lawyer or speak about the charges at a hearing where his bond was set at $55,000. Smith left jail hours later.

Along with the killings of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh and the shooting of Alex Murdaugh, the State Law Enforcement Division is also investigating the missing money, whether anyone tried to obstruct an investigation into a 2019 boat crash for which Paul Murdaugh was eventually charged and a July 2015 hit-and-run death in Hampton County.

The agency also announced Wednesday that they are now investigating Gloria Satterfield's death at the request of Hampton County Coroner Angela Topper, who said her death certificate lists describes natural causes, which is inconsistent with a trip-and-fall accidental death. She said her office did not perform an autopsy because it was not informed.

Satterfield's two sons filed a lawsuit Wednesday saying they haven't seen any of the $505,000 wrongful death settlement that Murdaugh had friends arrange.

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Follow Jeffrey Collins on Twitter at https://twitter.com/JSCollinsAP.
BRIDGEPORT  A man accused of beating a city councilwoman because she wouldnt return his phone calls is facing a suspended sentence.

Sherman Perry, 46, founder of Mens Community Empowerment Group, pleaded guilty Thursday before Superior Court Judge Kevin Russo to reduced charges of second-degree assault and violating a protective order after the victim, East End Councilwoman Eneida Martinez, supported Perry going free.

Under the plea bargain, Perry will receive a sentence of a suspended 10-year term, followed by five years of probation at a Nov. 12 hearing.

Martinez stood before the judge with her lawyer, John Gulash, just a few feet from where Perry sat with his lawyer, Frank Riccio II.

I understand the victim is taking a somewhat benevolent approach, the judge said.

She is supportive of the disposition, Gulash told the judge as Martinez nodded in agreement. She is very comfortable with the proposed disposition.

Gulash, on behalf of Martinez, also asked the judge to remove the GPS anklet Perry has been wearing since his arrest in 2018.

She feels safe, he told Russo as Martinez again nodded in agreement.

Senior Assistant States Attorney David Applegate told the judge he had no objection to the GPS anklet being removed from Perry but asked that the terms of a partial protective order  forbidding Perry from threatening and causing violence to Martinez  remain in place.

Martinez, who earlier in the week lost her reelection bid to keep her council seat, declined comment following the hearing.

Perrys lawyer also declined comment as he and Perry left the Fairfield County Courthouse.

Perry had been charged with first-degree assault, second-degree assault, and first-degree reckless endangerment in connection with the assault on Feb. 22, 2018. He was later arrested again after police said Perry was found working as a bouncer at the club Martinez managed.

Martinez was severely beaten in the face, head and shoulders and spent a week in Bridgeport Hospital.

Police said when Martinez was brought into the hospital her eyes were swollen shut and she had numerous bruises. She suffered a seizure while undergoing an X-ray.

Police said Martinez and Perry had been involved in a relationship but she had stopped taking his calls. They said that on the day of the incident, Perry had gone to Martinezs home to confront her. The two began to argue, police said, and Perry, who is 5 feet, 11 inches tall and weighed 280 pounds, then began punching Martinez.

Police said Perry kept punching Martinez until she fell onto the floor and then may have kicked her while she lay there. Perry has a history of assaulting women, police said, and has been convicted of assault, manslaughter, and drug sales.
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP)  Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Wednesday signed into law a pledge to eliminate the state's climate-damaging carbon emissions within a quarter-century, including money to keep clean-power nuclear plants running while shuttering coal-fired plants.

The legislation invests in the development of renewable solar and wind energy. It also provides incentives for individual action, such as a rebate of up to $4,000 for the purchase of electric vehicles. Pritzker wants 1 million electric cars on roads by 2030.

We cant outrun or hide from climate change," Pritzker said Wednesday, offering examples of its recent devastating impact on Illinois: a polar vortex, floods, record-high heat and lake levels.

The first-term Democrat added: There is no time to lose. But what we can do is to fight to stop and even reverse the damage thats been done to our climate. As of today, Illinois is a force for good, for an environmental future we can be proud of.

To reach its goal of a carbon-free Illinois by 2045, the law props up two nuclear power plants  the Byron power station and the Dresden plant in Morris  that owner Exelon declared unprofitable in announcing last month that they would close without legislative intervention. A $700 million ratepayer-financed subsidy to Exelon saves thousands of jobs associated with the plants and the large amount of clean power they provide, which boosts the states race with the climate from the start.

Power plants that churn out electricity by burning fossil fuels will by 2035 have to cut emissions by 45% and permanently close by 2045. The largest impact will be on municipally owned utilities in the capital city of Springfield and in Marissa, 41 miles (66 kilometers) southeast of St. Louis.

Lawmakers said utility rates will increase under the plan, costing ratepayers about $3.50 more per month, although one interest group calculated a cost as high as $15.

While action around the edges on clean air has continued for decades, Pritzker made the idea a campaign promise and, upon taking office in 2019, found himself among other newly elected Democratic officeholders who embraced the idea. Negotiations over green goals, saving jobs and handling the state's six nuclear power plants, which produce half of Illinois' energy, delayed progress.

Nakhia Crossley, regional director and counsel for the Solar Energy Industries Association, estimated that investment in renewable energy projects will produce 50,000 jobs statewide within the next decade.

During legislative debate, critics derided the coal-plant strictures. Springfield taxpayers have upgraded City Water, Light & Power to clean up its emissions. And the 2012 opening of Marissas Prairie State Generating Co., under existing clean-air laws, reveals the economic and ideological struggle over the severity of the threat of climate change and how best to halt it.

Additionally, the plants' proponents say no amount of wind or solar power will replace the lost production. They argue the state will have to import electricity from other states  likely fossil-fuel electricity.

Others take issue with what they term a bailout for Exelon despite an ongoing federal investigation involving its subsidiary, ComEd. ComEd acknowledged to federal prosecutors last year that it had engaged in a decadelong bribery scheme in Springfield that has implicated and led to the ouster of former House Speaker Michael Madigan and produced indictments of Madigans closest confidante and a former ComEd CEO, among others.

But the law provides oversight for ComEd and counterparts such as Ameren Illinois. It creates an ethics officer at the Illinois Commerce Commission to monitor them and it severely limits previous rate-setting ability.

Sen. Michael Hastings, a Tinley Park Democrat who was a sponsor of the plan, said: Those folks who cast a dark cloud over our great state of Illinois, this bill will hold you accountable."

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Follow Political Writer John OConnor at https://twitter.com/apoconnor
Arterra / Universal Images Group via Getty Images

STONINGTON  Police are warning residents about minks after they said someone was chased by them this week.

Stonington Police Capt. Todd Olson said a complaint was filed Wednesday morning about minks chasing someone. Minks were spotted in Stonington Borough Point, Olson said.
NCUA Board Member Rodney Hood spoke Tuesday at NAFCUs 2021 Congressional Caucus and shared insights on the importance of transparent communication between members, credit unions, and regulators and the impact effective communication has on industry growth. After giving his individual remarks, Hood sat down with NAFCU President and CEO Dan Berger for an impactful fireside chat where they discussed fintech, NCUA budget management, and updates on the agencys Advancing Communities through Credit, Education, Stability and Support (ACCESS) initiative.

In his opening remarks, Hood praised the positive impact that credit unions had on their members and the economy during the pandemic.

I encourage you to especially make a point of letting your elected representatives know about your success stories, Hood requested. Its important to let your legislators know that you were helping them drive the American economy.
Wouldn't you just love to be a fly on the wall when Boris Johnson meets Joe Biden in America next week?

That should be a meeting of minds, Sleepy Uncle Joe with his homespun philosophy and apparent Alzheimer's and BoJo with his classical allusions and labrador-like eagerness to please.

Best if Boris resists the temptation to chuck in some Ancient Greek. If he starts referring to Homer, Joe will probably think he's talking about The Simpsons.

That's always assuming that the President can remember Boris's name, and doesn't start calling him 'Lyndon'.

A few weeks ago, after the fall of Kabul, I commented on the fact that at a Press conference to discuss the devastation caused by Hurricane Ida, Biden forgot the name of the head of America's Federal Emergency Management Agency  someone he'd been speaking to five minutes earlier.

Wouldn't you just love to be a fly on the wall when Boris Johnson meets Joe Biden in America next week? Above: Mr Johnson and Mr Biden with Australian prime minister Scott Morrison at the G7 Summit in Cornwall

He'd previously called his Veep Kamala Harris 'President Harris', and had failed to remember the name of his Secretary of Defence, Lloyd Austin, whom he described as 'the guy who runs that outfit over there'.

This week, Uncle Joe's been at it again. During a joint Press conference to announce a new tripartite nuclear submarine alliance between the U.S., the UK and Australia, the name of the Aussie Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, completely escaped him.

This is despite the fact that Morrison was beaming out of a hi-def widescreen TV alongside the presidential podium.

'I want to thank . . . that fella Down Under. Thank you very much, pal.'

Biden went into Men At Work mode, leading observers to conclude, not for the first time, that the President is a Vegemite sandwich short of a picnic.

It helps explain why, more often than not, Biden rarely ventures out in public without his wife Jill on his arm, like one of Young Mr Grace's nurses in Are You Being Served?

Absent a firm hand on his tiller, Joe has a tendency to go off-piste  as he did recently when he failed to find his way to the Oval Office from his helicopter, Marine One, parked on the White House lawn.

To the obvious alarm of his minders, the President wandered off into the rose bushes.

Boris must hope he catches Biden on a good day. There's bridge-building, or rather bridge reconstruction, to be done after the debacle of the chaotic retreat from Afghanistan.

It was reported that the President didn't bother telephoning the Prime Minister for 36 hours to tell him about the pull-out.

The alliance announced this week will go a long way towards repairing the damage caused to the Anglosphere by the Taliban's recent victory. Under this historic agreement, the US and UK will build Australia's first fleet of nuclear submarines to help counter the growing Chinese menace in the region

This was interpreted as an indication that the special relationship was kaput. To be charitable, maybe Biden was having a senior moment and simply forgot.

In the wake of the Taliban victory, I wrote that what we were seeing was the collapse of the Anglosphere, Churchill's famous alliance of the English-speaking peoples which has done so much until now to keep the world free from tyranny.

The good news is that the alliance announced this week will go a long way towards repairing the damage.

Under this historic agreement, the U.S. and UK will build Australia's first fleet of nuclear submarines to help counter the growing Chinese menace in the region.

It will also create hundreds of highly-skilled, highly-paid jobs here, exactly the sort of post-Brexit, Global Britain bonus we were promised when we voted to leave the EU.

The alliance has been welcomed by Taiwan and Japan, countries alarmed at mounting Chinese aggression, and also has the added advantage of upsetting the French.

The Australians have ripped up a $90 billion contract to buy 12 conventionally powered subs from France in favour of the joint U.S./UK nuclear variety.

The not-so-good news is that Canada and New Zealand, our partners in the 'Five Eyes' intelligence-sharing arrangement, are not joining the new pact, which will be known as AUKUS.

The two Leftist-led nations have long-standing 'no nukes' policies, and are markedly softer on the Chinese than America, Britain or Australia.

Furthermore, under the over-praised PM Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand will not allow Aussie subs into her territorial waters despite the fact that the vessels are merely nuclear-powered, not nuclear armed.

Perhaps Ardern will have a change of heart over AUKUS when the Chinese fleet anchors off Auckland.

Still, anything which strengthens the military links between the U.S., UK and Australia has to be welcomed.

Chinese expansionism is the biggest global threat to Western security, and it is reassuring to learn that America is still determined to help keep the peace beyond her borders.

After Kabul, it was assumed that the U.S. was withdrawing altogether from the world stage. Much ridicule and criticism was levelled against Biden, not least in this column.

But with the Chinese threat, Russia's Vladimir Putin increasingly flexing his muscles, and Afghanistan now in the hands of the maniacs who brought you 9/11 and other terrorist attacks, the world has become a more dangerous place.

We may laugh at Biden's forgetfulness, we may question his mental acuity, but we are going to have to deal with him at least for the next three years.

The free world needs America engaged militarily. AUKUS is a step in the right direction. If Boris ladles on the flattery next week, so much the better. The alternative doesn't bear thinking about.

One of the mysteries of the reshuffle is how Extinction Rebellion poster boy Grant Shapps survived as Transport Secretary.

He has presided over chaos in the airline sector for passengers and staff alike, recently receiving a 98 per cent vote of no-confidence from the pilots' union, BALPA.

Shapps has also blown 200 million on an anti-car campaign, carpeting the country with deserted bike lanes and turning whole neighbourhoods into no-go areas for traffic, in the teeth of fierce opposition from locals, tradesmen and the emergency services.

It was reported this week that plans are well advanced for the launch of a range of flying cars in 2024.

No doubt Shapps is already working on ways of installing LTNs, bike lanes and speed cameras in the ozone layer and the lunatics who blocked the M25 this week are investing in hot air balloons so they can shut down the superhighways in the sky.

One of the mysteries of the reshuffle is how Extinction Rebellion poster boy Grant Shapps survived as Transport Secretary

The Tories are already committed to making us all poorer and colder as part of their 'world-leading' green agenda. Now they want to make the country darker, too.

Climate change fanatic Lord Deben, former minister John Gummer, told a Commons select committee that it is time to scrap street lights in rural areas. He says people should carry torches at night.

Much more of this madness and I can see Hammer Horror-style torchlight processions making a comeback as people wake up to the damage being inflicted by the demented drive to achieve net zero. There's a darkness on the edge of town...

The latest teenage craze is tipping baked beans over people and posting the pictures on the internet.

Sorry to disappoint them, but there's nothing new in the world.

I refer you to the cover of The Who Sell Out in 1967, which featured Roger Daltrey sitting in a bath full of beans.

As Del Boy once observed: You can't whack the 'OOO!

The latest teenage craze is tipping baked beans over people and posting the pictures on the internet. Sorry to disappoint them, but there's nothing new in the world. I refer you to the cover of The Who Sell Out in 1967, which featured Roger Daltrey sitting in a bath full of beans

A new survey reveals that one in ten gym bunnies reports having had an orgasm while working out. Lucky them.

That would explain all the grunting. I can only assume they are all young people.

Never mind an orgasm, at my age you're more likely to have an embolism.

Out go hipster beards. Hooray! Back come mullets. Aaaargh! This is a big mistake, as anyone who remembers Glenn Hoddle and Chris Waddle singing Diamond Lights on Top Of The Pops will testify.

Speaking of New Zealand (see elsewhere), MPs are considering a demand to change the country's name to Aotearoa, the Maori word meaning 'the land of the long white cloud'.

'Racist' place names, such as Wellington and Christchurch, would go, too, if the campaign is successful.

Under the Kiwis' superwoke PM Jacinda Ardern, you can see it happening. Although where that would leave the All Blacks is anybody's guess.

When a previous Tory Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, sacked seven Cabinet ministers in 1962, it was dubbed The Night of the Long Knives.

So what should we call Boris Johnson's post-pandemic purge of his top team?

How about The Night of the Long Covid.
Shortly after 9.30am yesterday, anyone walking along the South Bank may have been startled by a collective groan whistling up the Thames. Fret not, morning strollers.

That noise you heard was simply the sound of London's cultural chin-strokers lamenting Nadine Dorries's debut appearance in the Commons as Culture Secretary.

Dorries's appointment as 'Minister for Fun' was the big surprise of Wednesday's reshuffle. After all, the former I'm A Celebrity contestant is hardly renowned for her cultural insights.

Not for her the lush green lawns of Glyndebourne or Bloomsbury's lavender-scented literary salons. True, she has penned a string of successful novels but her scribblings are unlikely to find their way under the Booker judges' noses any time soon.

Nadine Dorries's appointment as 'Minister for Fun' was the big surprise of Wednesday's reshuffle. After all, the former I'm A Celebrity contestant is hardly renowned for her cultural insights. She is pictured above at the Natural History Museum

So why has the Prime Minister bestowed upon her such a plum position? The clue perhaps lies in Dorries's reputation as a political hip-shooter, unafraid to go into battle against the 'woke' politics which has permeated our arts sector.

Here is someone who in the past has hit out at 'snowflakes' and happily called out the BBC for its left-wing bias, a charge unlikely to dissipate any time soon following the corporation's appointment this week of the Tory-baiting former editor of HuffPost UK, Jess Brammar, as executive news editor.

Over at Broadcasting House, Dorries's arrival at the DCMS already seems to have rattled teacups. Anyone catch ex-Tory MP Anna Soubry ranting about her on Newsnight on Wednesday? When the Beeb's wheeling out extinct volcanoes like Ma Soubry to plunge the knife you know they must be jittery.

What Dorries plans to do about it all we shall have to wait and see. We didn't hear much from her in her first despatch box outing. As she'd only been in the job a matter of hours, she left much of the talking to her deputies.

But having been used to the mild-mannered Oliver Dowden, it was clear Labour's frontbench team are braced for a much gnarlier opponent. They stared at her the way one might contemplate one of Damien Hirst's pickled animals. Any welcoming remarks were distinctly frosty.

Chi Onwurah (Lab, Newcastle C) gave Nadine a patronising lecture on broadband rollout. Tall, elegant Chi, incidentally, once worked as telecoms engineer. Though possibly not the sort who clambered up telegraph polls with a tool belt dangling from her hips.

So why has the Prime Minister bestowed upon her such a plum position? The clue perhaps lies in Dorries's reputation as a political hip-shooter, unafraid to go into battle against the 'woke' politics which has permeated our arts sector

Labour culture spokesman Jo Stevens suggested her opposite number change her computer log-in now she is a minister. This was a reference to Dorries once admitting she let her staff use her computer, though as a jibe it passed by most people. One big issue in Dorries's inbox is the possible sale of Channel 4. John McDonnell (Lab, Stalingrad) was concerned about what this would mean for journalists. Ha! That's a laugh.

Had he and his socialist goons won the last election, most of us hacks would be breaking rocks in a gulag. Not for the first time, Dorries palmed this question off on one of her team. McDonnell scowled.

The Left loathe Dorries because she maintains views they consider unpalatable. She is, for example, very down on abortion. Yet she's never hidden her controversial opinions despite the cost to her career.

The SNP's haughty cultural spokesman John Nicolson patronised his new opponent as best he could. He raised Dorries's opposition to gay marriage. 'Just as well there are no homosexuals in the arts sector,' he deadpanned. To be fair, that was at least funny.

Toward the end of the session, David Davis entered the chamber. 'Basher' Davis and Nadine are kindred spirits. Both sup from the same political fountain, so to speak.

Mr Davis remained standing a while to observe the new minister speaking, his face a mixture of pride and wonderment. He could have been a father watching his daughter hammering out Chopsticks at a school recital as though it were a pitch-perfect rendition of Chopin.

Davis told the House his colleague's appointment proved 'you don't need to be a boring conformist to get on in this world'. Indeed not. Nothing conformist about Dorries. Buckle up, people. La Reine Nadine could get lively.
They chose to bring the girls up together and even moved into the same house

It was only aged three mistake was discovered after DNA test proved

Pair were accidentally swapped by nurses who were welcoming in the New Year

Caterina Alagna and Melissa Fodera, 23, were mixed up at birth in Sicily, Italy

Two women who were accidentally swapped at birth and brought up as sisters by their families have detailed their unique journey in an upcoming book and film.

A hospital mix up in Mazara del Vallo in Sicily meant that Caterina Alagna and Melissa Fodera, both 23, were raised by the wrong mothers.

It was only when they were aged three that the mistake was discovered when Marinella Alagna, 51, was picking up her daughter Melissa from nursery school when she noticed the striking similarity between one of the other children, Caterina, and her two daughters.

The families learned the truth after taking a DNA but because so much time had passed, their biological mothers Marinella and Gisella Fodera, 47, chose to bring them up together.

They even went so far as even moving into the same house in a bid to make everyone feel as comfortable as possible.

Mauro Caporiccio, author of Sisters Forever, the film created by Italy's RAI TV that will be broadcast this week, told The Times: 'Today they are more like twins than sisters and there is a kind of love which binds the two families.'

A hospital mix up in Mazara del Vallo in Sicily meant that Caterina Alagna and Melissa Fodera (pictured, as children), both 23, were raised by the wrong mothers

It was only when the sisters were aged three that the mix up was discovered, but so much time had passed, their biological mothers chose to bring them up together and even went so far as moving into the same house (Pictured, left Caterina Alagna and right, Melissa Fodera)

Caterina and Melissa were born just 15 minutes apart in the same hospital on December 31, 1998, but were accidentally swapped by nurses who were welcoming in the New Year.

Despite their concerned mothers noting to staff that the baby they were holding was wearing clothes that they did not recognise, their doubts were cast aside when nurses reassured them it was just the outfits that had been mixed up.

After three years, Marinella saw Caterina at nursery and saw her incredible likeness to her daughter Melissa.

Marinella said: 'I recognised Caterina's mother, Gisella Fodera, from the maternity ward and got suspicious  15 days later we did DNA tests and my mind went blank.

Caterina was being raised by Gisella Fodera when her biological mother Marinella, 51, spotted her at the school gates (pictured, Caterina now)

'It was too surreal, too impossible.'

Initially, the mothers were against the idea of trading back children, with Gisella highlighting the difficulty of raising a daughter for three years and then being told to hand her back - all because of a 'simple mistake.'

However, both mothers came to an agreement that it was best to gradually make the switch.

To ease the girls in, Melissa and Caterina spent time with both parents. At one point, both families were even living under the same roof.

When both mothers came to an agreement that it was best to gradually make the switch, Melissa (pictured) and Caterina spent time with both parents

But the hardest part was yet to come. Experts recommended that the families both spend a minimum of six months apart to give the girls the opportunity to adjust to their biological families and new lifestyle.

'We two mothers cried on the phone to each other each day and after three months decided we couldn't resist, and we met and promised never to separate,' explained Marinella.

'After that I saw Melissa every day  how could I not? I breastfed her, I taught her her first words. We had to share everything.'

Over time, both families grew closer and the girls began to celebrate big occasions together, as well as sitting next to each other in school.

Caterina (left) and Melissa (right) were born just 15 minutes apart in the same hospital on December 31, 1998, but were accidentally swapped by nurses who were welcoming in the New Year

Melissa (pictured) has no recollection of her life before the age of three - adding that she has and will always see Marinella as a 'second mother'

However, it wasn't until the girls were aged eight and old enough to understand the mix-up that they learned they were actually swapped at birth.

But Melissa went on to say how she has no recollection of her life before the age of three - adding that she has and will always see Marinella as a 'second mother.'

While Gisella also admitted that she and Melissa feel like true mother and daughter today, there was one issue the girls have not yet been able to overcome - their registered names.

To make matters easier, they decided to keep the names they had always used.

The story will feature in book Sisters Forever, by Mauro Caporiccio, and the film created by Italy's RAI TV, which will air later this week.
Multimillion dollar beauty mogul Zoe Foster-Blake has revealed some of the biggest mistakes people make with skincare products.

The 41-year-old multi-millionaire founder of Go-To Skincare said serum should always be applied on damp skin, not dry.

To ensure your serum works better and harder on your complexion every time, the mum-of-two likened the skincare routine to a 'sponge technique'.

'You can't hope to clean a bench with a dry sponge - you have to dampen it first, so things can absorb,' Zoe told Mamamia.

Beauty mogul Zoe Foster-Blake (pictured) has revealed some of the biggest mistakes people make with skincare products

The 41-year-old multi-millionaire founder of Go-To Skincare said serum should always be applied on damp skin, not dry

Zoe's five-minute five-step face regime * STEP ONE: Cleanse with a mousse or foaming cleanser to get rid of debris. Pat the skin dry * STEP TWO: Add a mist to dampen the skin and improve the efficacy of products * STEP THREE: Apply one pump of Much Brighter Skin Vitamin C serum and gently massage into the face, all the way down to the boobs. Let dry * STEP FOUR: Apply a face oil and pat this into the skin, so you don't disturb your serums * STEP FIVE: Finish with SPF, which should be worn every single day Advertisement

'So, I mist my face - I've become a mister. It's always seemed superfluous to me, but you really need to have damp skin before you apply serums.'

If you're layering on more serums, she suggested waiting 60 seconds in between to allow the formula to work on your skin.

Another common mistake people make is using products with harsh ingredients that can lead to 'sensitised, shiny skin'.

'I think that less is more,' she said, adding that your skin should never be 'tingling' and 'red' when applying products.

Zoe said she 'only chemically exfoliates' her skin three times a week using Go-To's Exfoliating Swipeys ($46) and The Removalist clay mask ($48).

'I feel like between those two I get everything I need,' she said.

Last week, Zoe shared the 'five-step five-minute face routine' she follows every morning for glowing skin, and it's easy to replicate at home.

Her morning skincare regime contains just five products and takes less than five minutes.

Last week, Zoe shared the 'five-step five-minute face routine' she follows every morning for glowing skin, and it's easy to replicate at home

Zoe said she religiously starts by cleansing using Go-To's Properly Clean mousse cleanser, as she likes to get rid of the residue from her thick night creams from the night before (pictured)

She said she religiously starts by cleansing using Go-To's Properly Clean ($31) mousse cleanser.

'You don't have to cleanse in the morning if you don't like to, it is optional, but I make sure I do every morning because I wear some pretty thick night creams,' Zoe said in an Instagram video.

'I like to get rid of all that residue and have a really nice cleanse. Some people may prefer to just rinse their skin with water, and others may like how their natural oils feel, and want to apply skincare directly from there.'

When you've applied the cleanser and washed it off, Zoe said you should 'pat your skin dry' with a towel.

Patting is much better than rubbing as it doesn't drag the delicate skin on our faces, particularly around our eyes.

The 41-year-old recommends you pat your skin dry rather than rub it, as this helps to stop you from dragging the delicate skin on your face

'Next, despite the fact that I've just dried my face, I am going to spray on a mist,' Zoe said.

'I used to think using a mist was over the top, but actually I've since found that using a mist dampens the skin, which helps products like your vitamin C to penetrate better and absorb faster and more effectively.'

When your skin is still damp from the mist, Zoe said you should apply just one pump of the Much Brighter Skin Vitamin C serum, taking the time to 'gently massage' the product in your face.

'This serum has been specially designed with an array of ingredients to feel incredible on the skin,' Zoe said.

'It sinks in really fast, it's lightweight, it's beautiful under SPF and makeup and it doesn't pill or gather up.'

She added: 'Make sure you take all of your skincare down as far as your boobs, because that is where your face should stop.'

Once this is done, allow the product to fully absorb for one or two minutes.

'Next, I apply a face oil and my face oil of choice is Face Hero,' Zoe said.

'I will put five or so drops into the palm of my hand, and then, instead of massaging it in, I like to push it into my face, because when you push in products, they won't disturb what you've just applied with the vitamin C as you're not rubbing it.'

Zoe (pictured) also said you should pat in your face oils, rather than massage them, as this means you won't disturb the serum application from underneath

At the end of last month, Zoe Foster-Blake (pictured) sold a controlling stake in her Go-To skincare company for a staggering $89million

What 'Much Brighter Skin' can do for your complexion * Boost facial radiance for 'bright, luminous skin'. * Target hyperpigmentation caused by dark spots, UV damage, hormonal changes or uneven skin tone. * Fights free radicals and environmental damage. * Plump and hydrate the skin to leave it bouncy thanks to the addition of hyaluronic acid and glycerin. * Promotes collagen production. Advertisement

Finally, while you could add a moisturiser, Zoe said all you need is some SPF.

'When you apply vitamin C, you absolutely must make sure you put on SPF too,' she said.

'The combination of free radicals and antioxidants with SPF is just great for your skin.'

At the end of last month, Zoe Foster-Blake sold a controlling stake in her Go-To skincare company for a staggering $89million.

The 41-year-old beauty mogul sold a 50.1 per cent share to BWX.

The ASX-listed company is also behind Aussie skincare brand Sukin, and has a lucrative five-year supplier deal with Chemist Warehouse.

BWX praised Go-To for providing consumers with 'simple, trusted and effective skincare products for the masstige market'.

The skincare company was established by the former magazine journalist in 2014, and generated $36.8million in revenue last year alone.

Despite the new deal, BWX said Go-To 'will remain an independently operated, stand-alone, founder-led brand'.

Zoe will also continue to act as the company's strategic investor, chief creative officer and board director.
A young mum who was 'close to tears' after all of her daughter's friends cancelled on her third birthday has revealed how kind strangers saved the day.

Tiarna Davis, 24, from Toowoomba, Queensland told FEMAIL she was devastated when she realised none of the 20 kids she had invited to her daughter Arabella's third birthday could make it.

'They told me their kids were sick, things had come up and one friend even said their dog had died. I was just so sad for her when I realised no-one was coming,' Ms Davis told Daily Mail Australia.

Tiarna Davis, 24, from Toowoomba, Queensland was devastated when she realised none of her three-year-old daughter's friends could come to her party (pictured with her daughter)

The youngster was so excited for her birthday party that Tiarna knew she had to do something about it

So she made a post on Facebook asking strangers to come with their kids and help the little girl celebrate

The mum had already organised lolly bags, balloons and a Mini Mouse cake for the big day and didn't want it all to go to waste.

So she posted on Facebook, pleading with her community, to help her little girl celebrate her birthday.

'It was definitely outside my comfort zone and I honestly didn't know if anyone would respond,' she said.

'I even deleted the post twice before telling my mum and actually putting it up.'

Tiarna was inundated with messages and comments from mums who couldn't bear to see a little girl sad and alone on her birthday.

'I honestly don't know how many people came, the house and yard was full and Arabella had the best time,' she said.

And she wasn't disappointed with dozens of mums turning up to the house with their kids

There was a distinct Mini Mouse theme about the birthday

'She didn't know any of the kids bust just bounced from group to group making friends.'

The party went from 12.30 to 4pm giving the kids and parents plenty of time to get to know each other.

'We have actually made some pretty good friends and will go on some play dates with the kids in the next few weeks,' Tiarna said.

'Arabella is the kind of kid who will play with anyone so it worked really well.'

The mum had already ordered the cake and party food when her friends cancelled

The little girl was excited by all of the new friends who helped her turn three in style

The mum said she has learned a lot from this experience.

'I am so glad I decided to be brave and go with my gut, now I know that I should listen to it more often,' she said.

And her partner agreed. He was shocked by the incredible turn-out and humbled by his community's kindness and generosity.

'When I told him I had posted it he was shocked and couldn't believe it when the messages started coming in,' she said.

Despite telling the strangers presents weren't necessary many turned up with trinkets and dolls, and told the mum they couldn't go to a birthday without a gift.
A former Woolworths employee has issued a warning about an elaborate gift card scam after a worker fell victim to the crime.

The worker claimed a team member working at the front desk was conned into giving away the gift card numbers and pins to someone over the phone claiming to be from the supermarket's headquarters.

'They said they needed to check a bunch of the gift cards. The worker gave them the card numbers and pins for quite a lot of cards,' the former worker wrote on Reddit.

'Definitely a well thought out trick because it must have been quite convincing. Last I heard they were still investigating it.'

Shoppers have spotted warning signs about the gift card scam around Woolworths stores, with one customer suggesting: 'All supermarkets should have this warning'

Another employee agreed with the sophisticated gift card scam, claiming: 'We got these calls all the time and some people fell for it.

'When the company finally got it through to all the customer service people that it was a scam, they started targeting the night managers,' they claimed.

'When they disabled all sales of gift cards after 10pm, apparently one of the scammers resorted to saying "if you don't activate these gift cards, I'll set off a bomb in your store".'

In a statement to Daily Mail Australia, a Woolworths spokesman said: 'We've heard reports that scam activity is on the rise across Australia.

'We have a range of measures in place to help prevent gift card scams, including team member training on the responsible sale of gift cards and prominent in-store signage to alert customers to these scams.

'We also encourage our team members to remain vigilant of scammers that may call and to immediately hang up the phone and report it if they deem a phone call as suspicious.'

A former Woolworths employee has issued a warning about an elaborate gift card scam after a worker fell victim to the crime (stock image)

The Woolworths spokesman said it was important for customers to 'remain vigilant'.

'To help our customers, we frequently post notices on our website with the different types of scams we see reported to us, how to stay safe from them and where to get help,' he said.

Shoppers have spotted warning signs about the gift card scam around Woolworths stores, with one customer suggesting: 'All supermarkets should have this warning.'

The sign reads: 'If someone asks you to pay with a gift card, it's a scam.

'Government agencies or reputable businesses will never ask for payment with iTunes or other gift cards. If you pay a scammer with a gift card, it may be impossible to get your money back.'
US burger chain Five Guys is set to open its first ever restaurant in Australia - complete with its famous burgers with 15 toppings, fries and shakes.

The franchise - renowned for its fresh, customisable made-to-order burgers and American-style milkshakes - will open its doors in Penrith in Sydney's west on Monday, September 20.

The restaurant will offer diners takeaway only until Covid-19 restrictions ease.

US burger chain Five Guys is set to open its first ever restaurant in Australia - complete with its famous burgers with 15 toppings, fries and shakes (picture of the new Penrith store)

The franchise - renowned for its fresh, customisable made-to-order burgers and American-style milkshakes - will open its doors in Penrith in Sydney's west on Monday, September 20

Revealed: The epic Five Guys menu BURGERS: Five Guys burgers are made with only the highest quality and freshest ingredients. Hand-formed burger patties with no preservatives, no hormones, and no antibiotics. Buns are baked fresh daily with a secret recipe and warmed on a dedicated grill to get the perfect toast. HOT DOGS: All-beef hot dogs, split and grilled lengthwise for a caramelized exterior. With the added option of melted American-style cheese, crispy smoked bacon, or both. FRIES: Fries are hand cut daily, cooked in peanut oil and made boardwalk style, firm on the outside with a creamy, mashed potato filling. Get them the traditional Five Guys way or try them with spicy Cajun seasoning. SHAKES: Five Guys shakes have a creamy, vanilla base. Customise them by adding one or more of the 10 premium mix-ins like crispy bacon, real bananas, fresh strawberries or cold-brewed coffee made daily in store. Advertisement

After years of rumours swirling about Five Guys heading Down Under, Seagrass Boutique Hospitality in Sydney confirmed in mid-2020 it had secured the rights to the brand's master franchisee in Australia.

'It's been an incredibly fun journey to bring the Five Guys opening to this point,' Robby Andronikos, brand manager of Five Guys Australia, said.

'I'm excited to finally be able to open the doors to our first store in Penrith with many more Australian Five Guys restaurants on the horizon already planned.'

Five Guys is a family-run burgers and fries joint that started in America in 1986, offering a craveable menu made from scratch.

Now, decades after Five Guys first opened, there are locations across North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, and soon in Australia, with planned expansion into New Zealand.

A first look inside the new Five Guys store in Penrith in Sydney's west that's set to open

After years of rumours swirling about Five Guys heading Down Under, Seagrass Boutique Hospitality in Sydney confirmed in mid-2020 it had secured the rights to the brand's master franchisee in Australia (picture of the new Penrith restaurant)

Decades after Five Guys first opened, there are locations across North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, and soon in Australia, with planned expansion into New Zealand

During the 1980s and 1990s, the Murrell brothers perfected their simple concept.

Five Guys became the place to get a fresh, juicy burger with all the toppings you could stuff between two fresh-baked buns.

Two more brothers joined the team and as the family grew, so did the business. Early in 2003, Jerry and Janie, together with the 'FIVE GUYS', began offering franchise opportunities. In just less than 18 months, more than 300 units had been sold.

The Murrell brothers redefined the global burger landscape by focusing on freshness and quality. With no freezers and no microwaves, it's built on the premise that all burgers and fries are made fresh every day.

The meat is a perfected 80/20 lean-to-fat ratio. Patties are hand-made seven days a week on site. The bread is baked fresh five days a week in a locally contracted bakery. The same unique recipe is used globally.

Potatoes are cut fresh daily, soaked to remove the starch and double-fried in pure, no cholesterol peanut oil to create the firm exterior and 'mashed-potato' interior that Five Guys fries are known for.

'From the beginning, we wanted our customers to know that we put all our money into the food. That's why the decor is so simple; only red and white tiles. We don't spend money on decor, or guys in chicken suits,' Chad Murrell said.

'We'll go overboard on food. By maintaining a simple ethos, coupled with highest quality ingredients, we continue to follow through on the vision since 1986.'
The two doctors who launched Australia's first prescription-only skincare range for women have revealed how bad skin also has a huge impact on men.

Dr Clara Hurst and Dr Deb Cohen-Jones are passionate about helping people achieve a healthy, glowing complexion and in doing so help them to improve their mental health.

The Perth-based practitioners have both had their fair share of skin issues in the past and understand how dramatically it can affect people's sense of self worth.

Dr Clara Hurst and Dr Deb Cohen-Jones are passionate about helping people achieve a healthy, glowing complexion and in doing so help them to improve their mental health

The impressive before and after images show how effectively the treatments work for skin conditions in men - including acne

The men's range includes the signature night and day range as well as the popular eye serum

Previously their brand, The Secret, was targeted at women but they soon expanded their range to include products for men - after finding their mental health could also be linked to the appearance of their skin.

The difference is women are more likely to talk about the link between their skin's appearance and how it makes them feel, the doctors explained.

'Our survey shows that men are interested in skincare - many of them are raiding their partner's cabinets for products so it's important for them to have access to treatments that actually work for them,' Dr Clara said.

One in eight men will experience depression and one in five men will experience anxiety at some stage of their lives, according to the doctors.

The doctors found that 81 per cent of men were concerned about their skin aging and were actively aware of skin spots, pigmentation and wrinkles.

They also found 64 per cent of men were concerned about looking older while 42 per cent had actively avoided social situations because of their skin.

Jeremy Rimmer, whose wife uses the women's range, was quick to get his own when the new line was released

He said it started working quite quickly for him which made him continue regularly

Acne and blemishes, skin issues such as skin tags, poor texture, spots and beard health are common concerns for men, but remain unaddressed due to a lack of readily available options for treatment.

What are the top concerns for men?  81% of men say ageing skin concerns them, and they are aware of wrinkles, sunspots, and pigmentation.  64% of men surveyed admit they are self-conscious about getting older/ageing skin.  42% of men say that their skin concerns have stopped them from joining in social situations. In addition to universal concerns like ageing, acne and blemishes, skin issues such as skin tags, poor texture, spots and beard health are common concerns for men, but remain unaddressed due to a lack of readily available options for treatment. Advertisement

The doctors have seen an incredible response to their men's range.

Jeremy Rimmer, whose wife uses the women's range, was quick to get his own when the new line was released.

The doctors explained he had seen his wife's complexion improving dramatically and wanted to jump on the bandwagon.

'I basically knew you were supposed to put sun cream on, that's all I knew about skincare,' he said.

'My results were quick, and as soon as I started getting them I thought Okay I will give it more,' the surfer said.

And the before and after photos of other clients are incredible, the doctors said men appear to see faster results than women when they begin treatment.

The doctors are making a $10 donation from every order between now and the end of September to mental health charity, Gotcha4life.

Previously the doctors have revealed you don't need 'bad skin' to benefit from prescription skincare.

The primary benefit is that every pot is made for the customer so the ingredients can be tweaked to suit.

'You don't have to have bad skin  though we do treat a range of conditions  only prescription skincare can give you the secret glow  it is not possible without it,' they said.

The 'glow' is similar to that children have and is reflective of young, healthy skin cells.

Both doctors have been using prescription formula skincare for years, Dr Clara to treat 'awful' acne, and Dr Deb to treat melasma, or pigmentation.

'Our survey shows that men are interested in skincare - many of them are raiding their partner's cabinets for products so it's important for them to have access to treatments that actually work for them,' Dr Clara said

'You don't have to have bad skin  though we do treat a range of conditions  only prescription skincare can give you the secret glow  it is not possible without it,' the doctors said

But they both admit it is more difficult to access than it should be - and many people are turned away because their doctors don't see 'bad skin' as a medical issue in need of attention.

This means many people cycle through GPs or are sent off to a dermatologist before they can get a prescription.

DID THE DOCTORS EVER SUFFER FROM 'BAD SKIN'? The doctors are both so passionate about skincare because they have both suffered from skin conditions and understand the impact it can have on mental health. They have also struggled with getting their conditions under control and know the difficulty most people have trying to get prescription skin creams. DR CLARA Dr Clara has struggled with her skin since she was 27 when she got 'awful acne'. 'My face was like a pizza,' she said. She used Accutane - which worked initially, but once it stopped she wasn't prepared to try it again as it dried her skin out too much. She then went on to use prescription skincare - and noticed the change in her general skin health - and began prescribing it to her patients. She became a top-seller for a rival, international brand, because people would compliment her on her amazing skin. She believes her skin is even nicer now. She also got mild melasma - or pigmentation after she had her child - a condition only improved with prescription skincare. DR DEB Dr Deb also suffered from melasma, she recently shared a picture of herself on holiday where she had a 'melasma moustache' - and her children asked her why she had a moustache, which she admits can be uncomfortable. She also got terrible acne - and now never gets a pimple. Advertisement

'We are different to most doctors because we see bad skin as a condition which needs to be treated - because we know how much it can effect self confidence and even lead to anxiety and depression,' Dr Deb said.

Aside from making getting the formula easier to get - the women have also made the process of applying it less complicated.

'We wanted to simplify skincare, for lazy people like us, we don't have time for four steps, we have kids, businesses and friends to look after.
Could 'maintenance sex' be the answer to people's post-pandemic low libido issues?

Surrey-based GP, Dr Anisha Patel, suggested it could be during a segment on today's Lorraine about people who are suffering from a lower sex drive.

Host Lorraine cited multiple reasons people can lose their libido - for example menopause, or boredom in longterm relationships - but one of the main factors Dr Patel focused on was how the Covid pandemic has caused a lot of people to want less sex.

Not only have patients reported a loss of libido after Covid infection, but the stress of living through the pandemic has also taken its toll on people's sex drives.

If that's the case, Dr Anisha suggested that 'maintenance sex' - where couples schedule time for intimacy - could be the answer, saying that while it might initially not feel very romantic, it's best to take action to address a dwindling sex life.

Dr Anisha said: 'Scheduling in this time, taking away tech from the bedroom, so your bedroom...just should be for sex and sleep, finding new stimulus whether that be lingerie, another room, whatever you want to do to stimulate things in another way.

Dr Anisha Patel, a Surrey-based GP, came onto Lorraine's show to discuss how the Covid pandemic has impacted people's libidos

Host Lorraine said many people feel embarrassed talking about sex - but that it's important to lose the taboo

Explaining how the pandemic has taken its toll in the bedroom, she told Lorraine: 'As we get more knowledge about Covid, we're forever learning. And actually, in a study of 9,000 people, 47 per cent of people said it negatively affected their libido.

'So they had a loss of libido after Covid infection. That's another reason to get your Covid vaccine, I think.

'We also know it can affect libido because Covid can affect multiple cells in the body, it causes more blood clots, affects blood vessels, but also the exhaustion you get after having a Covid infection, it's probably the last thing a lot of people fancy.'

Low libido? Here's where to get help If you're suffering from a low libido, your GP may be able to offer some helpful advice, or refer you to a specialist for an assessment and treatment a psychosexual therapist. A GP may be able to refer you an NHS therapist, or you could pay to see a therapist privately. Find a service offering sexual health information and support. Relate is a relationship support service that has online advice about sex and relationships, telephone and online counselling and local support services, as well as therapists you can pay to see Sexual Advice Association is a sexual health charity that has online factsheets about sex problems Try to not feel embarrassed about getting help. Lots of people experience problems with their sex drive and seeking advice can be the first step towards resolving the issue. Source: NHS Advertisement

And it's not just people who had contracted the virus who have felt these effects.

Dr Patel said: 'We also know that actually the Covid pandemic itself affected people in terms of libido.

'So you didn't necessarily have to have Covid, but just in virtue of actually being in as pandemic, more stress, being with your family and partner all the time, the stress, the depression, some people were drinking more alcohol.

'All these negatively affect libido, so I think people need to bear that in mind.'

She added that

'And also maybe concentrating on doing non-sex related activities together to find that connectivity together and sort of date nights and things like that...you have to put the work in.

'We know that sex has loads of health benefits, so it's not just about that connectivity with your partner, we know oxytocin, a hormone is released in your brain when you have sex and that's a real bonding hormone and it allows a couple to thrive in their relationship.

'But it improves your immune system, your blood pressure, aids with pain relief with the endorphins released, can reduce depression, stress, anxiety, and improve your sleep, so it's a win-win.'

Lorraine noted that while people can feel embarrassed when discussing sex, it's crucial they start to feel more comfortable, and lose the taboo.
The Duchess of Sussex put on a very glamorous display in a pair of $1,690 trousers and a $1,485 polo neck from fellow Californian's Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen's brand The Row for her Time 100 photoshoot.

Meghan Markle, 40, who is currently living in her $14 million mansion in California having stepped back from royal duty, was styled by world renowned fashionista Nina Hallworth and her sister Jane as she appeared in Time's 'world's 100 most influential people'.

The royal posed in a green tonal outfit from the Olsen sister's label The Row, which was a favourite of Meghan's when she was working as an actress.

She opted for the brand's Demme Cashmere & Silk Turtleneck Sweater for the occasion, which she paired with the woolen Igor pleated stretch-wool wide-leg pants.

The Duchess of Sussex put on a very glamorous display in a $1,690 trousers and $1,485 polo neck from fellow Angeleno's Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen's brand The Row for her Time 100 photoshoot

The silk turtle neck is described online as 'refined in a lightweight Italian knit of cashmere-silk yarns'.

Meanwhile the woolen trousers are said to 'look good with nearly anything' and are tailored with 'anthracite stretch-wool in a wide-leg silhouette'.

The Olsens co-founded The Row - named after London's Savile Row - between 2004-2006 while attending New York University's Gallatin School of Individualized Study.

Much like the Duchess, Mary-Kate and Ashley grew up in Los Angeles, and their brand has long been popular among A-listers and stars.

The royal posed in a green tonal outfit from the Olsen sister's label The Row, which was a favourite of Meghan's when she was working as an actress

While Meghan didn't wear by The Row while a working member of the royal family, she was a fan of the label while an actress in Suits.

She wore a pair of black leather pants by the Row for a photoshoot in 2014, before carrying a bag from the label in a second shoot that same year.

Meanwhile she also opted to wear a white cream jumper from the brand in the third season of Suits.

As well as showing her Californian roots with the outfit choice, Meghan sported a staggering $384,000 worth of jewelry during the photoshoot.

As well as showing her Californian roots with the outfit choice, Meghan sported a staggering $384,000 worth of jewelry during the photoshoot

Among the luxury jewelry collection are several of Meghan's favorite pieces - including a $23,000 gold Cartier Tank watch that once belonged to Princess Diana and was gifted to her by her husband in the early years of their relationship, which she paired with a $6,900 Cartier Love bangle.

New pieces on display at the shoot were two $525 diamond pinky rings from New York-based brand Shiffon, which are meant to 'represent one woman supporting another through a pinky promise'.

Stylist Nina and Clare worked with the Duchess on her style for the shoot.

The sister-duo have worked with a whole host of famous faces and have most recently dressed Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston.

While M eghan didn't wear by The Row while a working member of the royal family, she was a fan of the label while an actress in Suits (pictured, in a jumper from the brand)

Working together: Nina Hallworth and Clare Hallworth pictured in May 2017 in Los Angeles

Back in October 2019, the stylist sisters shared a picture of their client Jennifer Aniston apparently posing in her walk-in closet to Instagram, delighting fans.

The image showed the Friends star striking a pose in a black trench coat and strappy sandals.

But not only are the fashionable siblings behind some of Jennifers most iconic looks, they also work with other Hollywood stars - including Patrick Dempsey, Kirsten Dunst, and Jake Gyllenhaal.

The duo choose to steer clear of the spotlight, but often share sneak peaks from behind the scenes of their styling shoots on social media.
Sir Trevor McDonald says the crimes of the Wests are 'beyond any horror he has ever come across' as she shines light on new evidence against Fred in a recent documentary.

Serial killer Fred West murdered at least 12 young women and girls, the majority of them with his wife Rose in their 'House of Horrors', before committing suicide while awaiting trial in 1995.

The pair abducted, tortured and raped the women over a 20 year period - and buried many of them under the floorboards of their home at 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester.

However evidence from a new ITV documentary, featuring Sir Trevor, 82, suggests the killer may have buried as many as 20 other bodies while working across the country.

'It is quite beyond any horror I have come across,' he told the Telegraph.

Sir Trevor McDonald says the crimes of the Wests are 'beyond any horror he has ever come across' as she shines light on new evidence against Fred in a documentary

Fred and Rose West abducted, tortured and raped women over a 20 year period - and buried many of them under the floorboards of their home at 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester

The journalist, who has interviewed the likes of of Colonel Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein and investigated the case of James Bulger, said that while his long spanning career has taken him to some very dark places, the crimes of the Wests have 'stayed with him'.

'Especially if you have family and relatives and friends with young daughters of this age. This could happen to them', he said.

He added: 'These things stay with you a little longer. A husband and wife with their own children? That never leaves you.'

He recalled nearly being sick after discovering that the evil pair used to remove the fingernails of their victims and burn them.

Fred and Rose West are believed to have killed at least 12 woman, although a new documentary suggests the rogue builder had at least 20 additional victims. The pair are pictured after being arrested in 1995

The documentary, Fred and Rose West: Reopened, revealed that witness and work time sheets lodged by the multiple killer suggest he operated far beyond the Gloucester area.

The new evidence suggested he worked in London, Wales, Nottingham, Birmingham, Bristol and Southampton, prompting fears he may have killed a number of other victims and buried their bodies in secret graves.

Evidence uncovered by the series led to police excavating a cafe above a gloomy Gloucester cellar in the hunt for the remains of suspected Fred West victim 15-year-old Mary Bastholm.

Mary, who worked at the site before her death, is feared to have been one of West's first victims after she went missing from a bus stop in 1968. Her body has never been found.

Evidence uncovered by the series led to police excavating a cafe above a gloomy Gloucester cellar in the hunt for the remains of suspected Fred West victim 15-year-old Mary Bastholm (pictured)

Evidence suggested Fred worked in London, Wales, Nottingham, Birmingham, Bristol and Southampton, prompting fears he may have killed a number of other victims and buried their bodies in secret graves (the killers are pictured in 1994)

After two weeks no remains had been found and the investigation was closed. Sir Trevor revealed his pain after interviewing Mary's aunt for the series, saying the relative is 'absolutely traumatised' by the lack of information about her niece.

The broadcaster is keen for police to examine areas the documentary contributors believe could be potential graves following a seven-month investigation led by former Scotland Yard Detective Chief Inspector Colin Sutton.

The crimes of Rose and Fred West The Wests, who lived at the house from 1972 until their arrests in 1994, regularly took on lodgers in the property, which was also home to ten of their children. To supplement their income, Rose would solicit to both men and women in one of the upstairs bedrooms, while Fred would watch through peep holes. Rose West, 65, was convicted of 10 murders and is one of a very three female prisoners serving a whole life tariff. Her husband, Fred, confessed the killings in 1994 and committed suicide while on remand at HMP Birmingham a year later. The victims include Heather West (their daughter), 16, Alison Chambers, 16, Shirley Robinson, 18, Juanita Mott, 18, Shirley Hubbard, 15, Theresa Siegnethaler, 21, Lucy Partington, 21, Carol Ann Cooper, 15, Lynda Gough, 19, Rena Costello (Freds ex-wife), 27, Charmaine West (Freds daughter), 8, and Anne McFall, 18. Fred is believed to have also killed 15-year-old Mary Bastholm, although her remains have never been found. Advertisement

Two such sites are located in Fingerpost Field near Much Marcle, where the killer buried his first known victim, 18-year-old Anne McFall. The area is nearby Letterbox Field where be buried his first wife, Catherine Rena Costello.

The two-part series, which will air again this evening at 9pm, shows Sutton's team using cadaver dogs and ground penetrating radar to search Fingerpost Field.

The cadaver dog, who is trained to identify decomposed flesh, indicated that two locations are worthy of further indications.

Sutton said: 'The handler is of the view that we should excavate those sites as soon as possible and I am absolutely on board with that.

'It's a really significant find, a significant piece of work by the cadaver dog. Because the indications that I saw the dogs make were just so very strong.'

Speaking of the new evidence in the documentary, investigative Psychologist Dr Donna Youngs, who is an expert on the case said: 'For me this rewrites the Fred West story in a way.

'That's what I've not been able to make any sense of, because there has been not enough missing girls in the Gloucester area, but here we have the possible ways he was operating beyond Gloucester.'

Former detective Colin Sutton said: 'It's a scary thought.

'All these locations would have to be looked at for a period in excess of 20 years, missing young women who fit the profile of a Fred West victim.

'To do that, to do all that for a whole police squad, I'm not sure the resourcing is there to do it.'

One witness, Janette Rathbone said she had been followed home by West and had a lucky escape.

She said: 'I wanted people to believe me. Nobody believed me. I mean, that night my mum and dad were laughing with the policeman, they didn't believe me.'

One document uncovered by the documentary team was written by West's 'appropriate adult' Janet Leach, outlines details of two rural locations where two additional victims may be buried.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have given their Archewell website a makeover after being included in Time's 100 Influential People.

In December last year the Duke, 36, and Duchess of Sussex, 39, who are currently living in their $14 million Californian mansion, launched the site of their non-profit organisation, in which they vowed to 'unleash the power of compassion' and Harry described himself as his 'mother's son'.

The couple have since changed the site several times to update it, with the latest transformation coming hours after they were featured in Time magazine.

The Duke and Duchess ditched their tagline of Compassion In Action for a new phrase - 'Shared Purpose, Global Action'.

Meanwhile the homepage also now shows a huge portrait of the couple which was taken at their Santa Barbara home for the Time 100 piece.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have given their Archewell website a makeover after being included in Time's 100 Inspiring People (left, the site earlier this week, and right, the website today)

There is also a kind of mission statement signed by the Duke and Duchess on the site, which reads: 'Each of us can change our communities. All of us can change the world.'

The site still plugs the couple's commercial ventures - Archewell Audio, the brand they have chosen for their 30m podcasting deal with Spotify, and Archewell Productions, their chosen name for their Netflix production tie-up said to be worth as much as 100m.

However the way they have described the organisations has changed slightly.

The Archewell Foundation is now described as 'an impact-driven global nonprofit that puts compassion into action; uplifting and uniting communities locally and globally; online and offline.'

The site still plugs the couple's foundation as well as their commercial ventures although the descriptions have been slightly altered (left, before, and right, after)

Meanwhile the Duke and Duchess have shared a mission statement on the site which they have both signed

Meanwhile the description for Archewell productions has been changed to remove reference to 'harnessing the power of storytelling'.

The couple's original Archewell site featured an emotive letter about Prince Harry, Meghan and their relationship with their mothers.

It made no reference to Harry's father Prince Charles or to his brother William  and royal expert Phil Dampier said at the time that this would not have gone unnoticed by the family.

He told MailOnline at the time: 'I think William will be slightly worried if Harry uses Diana for any of his charitable or commercial ventures without consulting him, and I don't think he would be happy if Harry appears to be exploiting his mother's iconic status.

One of the photographs from the Duke and Duchess' Time 100 shoot is now featured prominently on the website's homepage

'It's also very significant that Harry called himself his 'mother's son' but has made no mention of Prince Charles. William is very much following now in his father's footsteps with his environmental and conservation work.'

Since stepping down as senior royals in March and moving to the US, the couple have been working towards this moment to officially launch, albeit softly, the website and the philosophy behind their organisation Archewell.

Their decision to leave was based as much about financial as personal freedom and the huge sums gives them the capital to pursue their new lifestyle and public goals.

The couple announced they had secured a deal with Spotify last year. It was commercial deals such as this that put the couple at odds with the impartiality required of those in public service and seemingly led to the permanent split with the Firm.

The website update came as it was revealed the couple were on the cover of Time magazine as among the most influential people in the world

Archewell is expected to focus on the issues the couple have been championing during the pandemic and before - racial justice, gender equity, climate change, mental health, online hate speech and empowering diverse voices.

Sussexes ditch letter about Diana for mission statement Letter shared 31 December: A Letter for 2021 I am my mother's son. And I am our son's mother. Together we bring you Archewell. We believe in the best of humanity. Because we have seen the best of humanity. We have experienced compassion and kindness, From our mothers and strangers alike. In the face of fear, struggle and pain, It can be easy to lose sight of this. Together, we can choose courage, healing, and connection. Together, we can choose to put compassion in action. We invite you to join us. As we work to build a better world, One act of compassion at a time. Harry and Meghan February 2021 update: Welcome to Archewell. Through our non-profit work, as well as creative activations, we drive systemic cultural change across all communities, one act of compassion at a time. September 2021 update: Shared Purpose, Global Action. Leading the way with compassion 'Each of us can change our communities. All of us can change the world.' Advertisement

The foundation's partnership with a range of academic and tech organisations will include financial support.

Marketing executives have previously predicted Archewell will become a 'billion-dollar brand'.

The change to the site comes hours after the couple were featured on Time magazine's 2021 100 most influential people on the planet.

Prince Harry and Meghan said they are 'humbled' to be featured in the magazine, which included an 'awkward' photoshoot and a gushing tribute from a friend who praises them for 'giving a voice to the voiceless' and 'running toward the struggle' rather than living a quiet life in their California mansion.

The US publication released a glossy and heavily-airbrushed cover on Harry's 37th birthday showing the Duke of Sussex stood behind his wife with his arms on her right shoulder in the 'icons' section of the annual line-up alongside Naomi Osaka, Dolly Parton, Britney Spears and Alexei Navalny.

One critic claimed the cover photo reflected the power dynamic in the relationship, because Meghan is in front of her husband, tweeting: 'Wow, this photo speaks volumes. There is no hiding who's in control'.

But Time's picture editor, Dilys Ng, who made the final decision on the cover image, said today that the portrait captures the Sussexes' 'powerful dynamic as equal partners'.

The couple responded to being named on the list of the world's most distinguished people with a post on their Archewell website that read: 'Prince Harry and Meghan, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, are not only humbled to be part of this years TIME 100 through the words of friend and partner Jose Andres, but to also write in praise of Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala for the publications annual list of Most Influential People.'

The glossy photos of the Sussexes are accompanied by a profile, branded sycophantic by critics, written by their friend and chef Mr Andres, whose charity World Central Kitchen is loved by the Sussexes and supported financially by their Archewell foundation in India and the Caribbean.

He wrote: 'In a world where everyone has an opinion about people they don't know, the duke and duchess have compassion for the people they don't know.

'They don't just opine. They run toward the struggle.'

Mr Andres said the couple are 'blessed through birth and talent, and burned by fame', adding: 'It would be much safer to enjoy their good fortune and stay silent. That's not what Harry and Meghan do, or who they are'.

The Archewell website had featured this picture of a young Prince Harry sitting on the shoulders of Princess Diana, taken at Highgrove in Gloucestershire in July 1986

At one stage, the site featured a more down to earth snap of the couple as they volunteered in Los Angeles

On the cover Harry is dressed in all black and Meghan in all white on a terrace at their home and then in green smiling at each other and holding hands while walking through their estate in Montecito, California.

In another image they are in matching grey office-style clothes next to a window in outfits chosen by celebrity stylists Clare and Nina Hallwroth, who have recently dressed Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, in pictures taken by Serbian Pari Dukovic. But one critic, a fellow photographer, tweeted: 'Terrible retouching job. They look CGI'.

Others wrote: 'This photo looks photoshopped. Also, the way they are positioned is very revealing: it's the Meghan show and Harry is just the supporting actor'.

One critic said: 'Harry looks completely awkward peering behind his wife like this'.

Actress Kate Winslet, who is often regarded by film critics as one of the preeminent actresses of her generation', and the Ugandan-British actor, Daniel Kaluuya, who portrayed Posh Kenneth in the first two seasons of the British television series Skins, are the two other Britons named on this year's list.
Harry and Meghan say that the ring was obtained from a stylist on the shoot, who in turn received it directly from the brand, but did not confirm the company's ID

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have denied claims that the Duchess wore a $62,000 ring made with diamonds gifted to the couple by a mystery donor in the Middle East for their Time cover shoot.

Meghan Markle sported a staggering $384,000 worth of jewelry while posing for the cover of Time's most influential people issue alongside her husband Prince Harry - including a pinky ring that is estimated to be worth $62,000.

The ring looks identical to a design that the 39-year-old wore for another Time shoot back in October 2020 - when Page Six claimed that it was created for her by 'celebrity jeweler Lorraine Schwartz' who 'fashioned [it] from a gift of diamonds that the couple received from the Middle East.'

However, the couple has now denied this claim, insisting that the ring was obtained from a stylist who worked with them on the Time shoot, who in turn received the piece directly from the designer.

It is unclear whether Meghan was gifted the ring by the brand via the stylist - or whether she re-wore a borrowed design for her most recent Time cover.

MailOnline has contacted Lorraine Schwartz for comment.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were styled for the new Time cover by celebrity stylists Clare and Nina Hallworth, who have recently dressed Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston.

It comes after Meghan was criticized earlier this year when it emerged she wore a pair of dazzling diamond earrings on her tour of Fiji in October 2018 that were a wedding gift from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who's been accused of ordering the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Meghan Markle sported a staggering $384,000 worth of jewelry while posing for the cover of Time's most influential people issue alongside her husband Prince Harry (pictured)

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have denied claims made by Page Six that the Duchess wore a $62,000 ring (pictured) made with diamonds gifted to the couple by a mystery donor in the Middle East for their Time cover shoot

According to Page Six, Meghan 'turned to celebrity jeweler Lorraine Schwartz to fashion the ring from a gift of diamonds that the couple received from the Middle East.' Pictured, the jewelry on the Times magazine cover

The pinky ring modeled by Meghan on her Time cover has been valued at $62,000 - adding another hefty price tag to her already-impressive collection of jewels.

Speaking exclusively to FEMAIL, Alexandra Michell Gemologist Prestige Pawnbrokers of Channel 4s Posh Pawn commented: 'It's a simple emerald cut diamond on band, which is usually high clarity due to the cut. I'm estimating this as 1.50cts high colour (D) high clarity (internally flawless) and to be worth around $62,039 (45,000).'

Anthony French, diamond expert at Austen & Blake commented: 'I would say it is approximately 2ct emerald solitaire. I would suspect it to be worth around $62- $69,000.'

Laura Lambert, Founder of Fenton added: 'Meghan has selected an emerald cut bezel set solitaire, which is a traditional engagement ring style. Wearing it as a pinky ring is Meghan's modern take on a classic style with a diamond, which in this size and scale is usually worn on the engagement or cocktail ring finger.'

Other trinkets worn by the Duchess for the shoot include the Cartier Tank watch that once belonged to Princess Diana and was gifted to her by her husband in the early days of their relationship, which she paired with a $6,900 Cartier Love bangle.

In March this year, the royal was criticized by a lawyer fighting for justice for murdered Jamal Khashoggi over her decision to wear diamond earrings in Fiji in 2018, given to her by the man accused of ordering the brutal killing.

The Duchess of Sussex attends a reception and dinner hosted by the President of Fiji at the Grand Pacific Hotel, Suva, Fiji, October 2018 wearing the earrings

Michael Eisner, who heads a human rights group founded by Mr Khashoggi three months before his death, claimed the stunning chandelier earrings were 'bought with blood money' by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

He said he was 'baffled' that the Duchess did not know the Prince, known as MBS, was linked to the murder when she wore the earrings at a State dinner, or his appalling human rights record.

'Those earrings were bought with blood money and given to her by a murderer,' said Mr Eisner, chief operating officer of Democracy for the Arab World Now (Dawn). 'She has no business wearing them.'

The Chopard earrings were presented to the Queen by the Crown Prince as an official gift for Meghan on her wedding to Prince Harry in 2018.

BRUTAL DEATH: Journalist Jamal Khashoggi

The Duchess wore them on the first night of a visit with her husband to Fiji on October 23, 2018  three weeks after Mr Khashoggi was killed and dismembered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, and when there were prominent media reports linking MBS to the shocking assassination.

The Duchess's lawyers insisted that at the time of the dinner she was unaware of speculation that MBS was involved in Mr Khashoggi's murder.

How was it that the campaigning duchess didn't know Saudi ruler was murder suspect? Fearless dissident Jamal Khashoggi was last seen alive entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on the afternoon of October 2, 2018. Within two hours he was killed by a Saudi hit squad, who dismembered his body using a bone saw. Mr Khashoggi was an outspoken critic of the Saudi regime and suspicion quickly grew that the kingdom's powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, was involved. On October 18, The Times reported how a close circle of officials and security officers around MBS were the focus of the murder probe. A day later, The Sun told how one of MBS's bodyguards was suspected of the brutal killing. Later that day Sir John Sawers, the former head of MI6, told the BBC's World at One radio programme that 'all the evidence points to [the killing] being ordered and carried out by people close to Mohammed bin Salman'. Sir John's damning comments were reported widely. The Duchess of Sussex wore the earrings given to her as a wedding gift by MBS to a state dinner in Fiji on October 23. Ten days later, on November 2, the BBC's respected security correspondent Frank Gardner wrote an article on the BBC News website entitled: 'Khashoggi murder: Is Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed finished?' He wrote: 'Official Saudi denials that he himself had anything to do with the murder  in a plot hatched from right within his inner circle have been met with profound scepticism.' On November 14, the Duchess wore the earrings again at Prince Charles's 70th birthday party at Buckingham Palace. Advertisement

At the time, the Kensington Palace press office told the media that the earrings had been 'borrowed' but did not say from whom. While the Royal Family's guidelines regarding the acceptance and ownership of gifts were adhered to, The Mail on Sunday learned that Palace aides were frustrated that the earrings were worn.

'Nowhere in the gift policy does it say you have to wear them,' one source said.

It is understood the diamond earrings were presented by MBS as a wedding gift for Meghan during his three-day State visit to Britain in March 2018. Court Circular records show he had lunch with the Queen and Prince Andrew at Buckingham Palace on March 7, 2018. There is no suggestion he gave the earrings to the Duchess in person, or indeed has even met her.

It is understood the earrings were logged on an official register of gifts and that Meghan was informed about them in July 2018. They were then selected as part of the jewelery collection to accompany the Duke and Duchess on a 16-day tour of Fiji, Tonga, Australia and New Zealand.

Every detail on such tours is meticulously planned months in advance, including the clothes and jewelery to be worn at each event. The couple were accompanied on the Fiji and Tonga leg of their tour by the hugely experienced Sir David Manning, a former British ambassador to the US and Tony Blair's former foreign policy adviser.

On October 18  five days before Meghan wore the earrings  The Times newspaper reported how a close circle of officials and security officers around MBS had emerged as the focus of the investigation into what had happened to Mr Khashoggi.

Lawyers for Meghan told The Times that although she may have said they were borrowed, every relevant member of staff knew who they were from. They added that she was unaware of the rumours at the time that the Crown Prince was involved in the murder.

Lauren Kiehna, author of royal jewellery blog The Court Jeweller, said: 'What was unusual was the statement the jewels were 'borrowed' without explaining who owned them. When jewels are borrowed from the Queen, the Palace generally says so.'

The Duchess wore the earrings for a second time on November 14, 2018  to Prince Charles's 70th birthday party at Buckingham Palace. This prompted an aide to confront Harry about the earrings, according to The Times. The Prince was reported to have looked 'shocked' that people knew where the earrings came from.

Mr Khashoggi, who wrote for the Washington Post, was killed and dismembered by a Saudi hit squad inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. His body has never been recovered. An explosive CIA report released by US President Joe Biden nine days ago claimed MBS approved Mr Khashoggi's murder.

The Crown Prince, who is Saudi Arabia's Deputy Prime Minister and day-to-day ruler, has said he bears responsibility for the murder 'because it happened under my watch', but has denied prior knowledge of the execution.

The Dawn human rights group and Hatice Cengiz, Mr Khashoggi's fiancee, last year filed a lawsuit against MBS and 20 alleged co-conspirators in a US court.

The Saudi royal family has regularly given jewellery to their British counterparts. Royal jewellery expert Lauren Kiehna said Princess Diana received a suite of diamond and sapphire jewels from Crown Prince Fahd as a wedding present in 1981, and the Duchess of Cornwall received three suites of jewellery during her official visit to Saudi Arabia in May 2006.
A man has shared his 'shock' after discovering what he believes to be 'human hair' poking out of a 100-year-old grave in a California cemetery.

Joel Morrison, 37, came across the morbid discovery during a recent visit to Saint Joseph's Catholic Cemetery in Sacramento - where he spotted the clump of 'hair' while walking past an old gravestone.

The handyman was walking through the graveyard when he saw the disheveled locks protruding from underneath a grave that was positioned flat on the ground. He began filming the scene and later posted the video to TikTok, where his footage quickly went viral, while sending shivers down the spines of hundreds of viewers.

'When I first saw it, I was shocked  I wasn't exactly sure what I was seeing was real,' Joel said of his discovery.

'But upon closer inspection I realized that it was definitely human hair coming out of the grave.'

Terrifying: A man claims that he found a clump of human hair poking out from underneath a tombstone while visiting a cemetery in Sacramento, California

Distressing: Joel Morrison, 37, made the morbid discovery during a visit to Saint Joseph's Catholic Cemetery, where he spotted the 'hair' while walking past a 100-year-old grave

Baffled and horrified by what he had found, Joel began looking around for an explanation - and soon realized that several of the gravestones in the cemetery appeared to have been dislodged and destroyed by tree roots and animals. He believes that these natural disruptions may have caused the body in this particular grave to shift, bringing it closer to the surface.

'After coming to terms with what I had seen I then started to feel bad for the deceased family members and worried about the upkeep of the cemetery, feeling kind of like maybe they were being disrespected or desecrated in some way,' he explained.

Horrified: In a video posted to TikTok, Joel, a handyman, can be heard expressing his shock at seeing the hair

'Upon further inspection I saw that there were many other graves that were being destroyed by squirrels and other animals and overgrown trees damaging the tombs and graves.'

In his video, Joel films the tombstone in question, before zooming in close on the 'hair' that can be seen poking out from under it.

'I was in the cemetery and I've seen something really f***ing gross,' he says in the clip. 'There's the tombstone and there is the person's hair coming out of the crack in the tombstone.

'That is f***ing hair. What in the f***.'

Joel's TikTok viewers were as horrified as he was by the discovery - and were quick to express their upset, while some took the opportunity to make a few cheeky jokes.

One person said: 'Why am I so creeped out?'

'Pull on the hair and if it screams  run,' another user advised, while one said: 'I just shivered.'

Spotted: He returned to the cemetery for a second time to re-examine the grave, only to find that the hair had seemingly been tucked back under the gravestone

Hidden: Joel believes that the hair may have been moved out of sight by a groundskeeper

Theory: He noted that there were several large tree roots growing towards the gravestone, which he believes may have shifted the body around, moving it closer to the surface

'OK, no! That's the scariest thing I've ever seen. No way,' agreed another viewer.

Someone else added: 'This is craaaazzzy freaky!' [sic]

Other viewers had theories on what had happened.

One person said: 'Y'all: this definitely can occur, especially after heavy floods and rain. This can unfortunately bring up the bodies.'

Next up: Joel says he plans to send a sample of the hair to a coroner's office in order to prove that it is in fact human

'Seems like they're buried near a tree. A funeral director once suggested to not be buried near trees as something like this might happen,' another user revealed.

Someone else offered: 'Animal probably found the hole and tried to bring it out to make a bed in its nest.'

'It looks like that grave has been moved, either somebody's grave robbing or vampires,' suggested another person.

The clip was viewed more than 1.5 million times, racking up 290,000 likes.

When Joel went back to investigate on another day, he found the grave in a similar state  albeit with the hair apparently pushed back into the crack, which he believes may be the handiwork on the groundskeeper.

'What looks like happened to me was there was a large tree very close to the tomb/grave and the roots from the tree had grown up into the grave, disrupting the concrete barrier and brick mortar, possibly pushing up the remains,' he said.

'Then once the grave was opened squirrels, rodents and whatever other animals were free to go in and out. It looks like maybe they were trying to nest in the human hair.'

Joel now plans to have a sample of the hair taken to the coroner's office to identify whether or not it is human.
When the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were named by Time Magazine as being among the '100 most influential people in the world', their extraordinary cover photograph came in for much mocking on social media.

Meghan, with a full head of voluminous hair, stood front and centre as Harry crouched behind her, basking in her glow.

One comment that went viral observed that it looked as if Harry was Meghan's hairdresser, looking into the mirror and talking his client through what he'd done. Here, CLAUDIA CONNELL imagines Harry's other life  as personal hairdresser to his glamorous wife . . .

Time mag cover  September 2021

So much volume  my masterpiece!

Time mag cover  September 2021

World's most influential couple or yummy mummy getting a cut and colour at Montecito Mane Attraction, the hottest salon in town?

'So, I've given it the body we talked about without taking any off the length. Look at that volume! It's a lot, it's really a lot. We've gone for a centre parting to frame your face  great for an era of visibility  and I'm just going to finish off now with a holding spray. Don't worry, it's ozone-friendly.'

Dublin, Croke Park, July 2018

Hey, I said 'don't touch'

Dublin, Croke Park, July 2018

'Hey, you're old enough to know that you have oils on your fingers that can transfer to the hair  these casual beach waves don't do themselves you know.

'I was up at 5am heating the big rollers. Loving that choppy fringe and blonde highlights, though  who did those?'

Grenfell cookbook launch, September 2018

Smooth it down

Grenfell cookbook launch, September 2018

'High wind? It didn't say that on my weather app. Have I got time to pop back to the car for hairspray? No? OK, I'll just stand behind you and flatten your hair down.'

New Zealand, October 2018

I won the gong for most promising junior stylist

New Zealand, October 2018

'No ONE told me there was going to be a medal ceremony for wobbly-throwing. Oh, 'welly-throwing'. My mistake. I'd have gone for a French pleat if I'd known  far easier to get the ribbon over.

'Speaking of awards, I won Most Promising Junior Stylist in the Eton and Windsor region in 2001. Look how far I've come.'

Tour of Morocco, February 2019

Honestly, ponytails look fab on you

Tour of Morocco, February 2019

'Don't touch the hair! Don't touch the hair!

'Phew! No harm done. No one rocks a high pony like you, Meg. That Moroccan oil really did the trick holding it in place. I'll pick up some more while I'm here. It's a lot cheaper than back home.'

Cape Town, September 2019

Darling, I've got my comb

Cape Town, September 2019

'Oh my God! I leave you for five minutes. What happened? Were you running towards the struggle again?

I've told you before  just opine, it's much more hair-friendly. Right, where's my comb? Let's get those naughty strays back in place.'

Gender Equality round table, Windsor, October 2019

Yes, the flirty strands really work

Gender Equality round table, Windsor, October 2019

'I've gone for a messy up-do. It says 'serious global leader', but the flirty strands hanging down at the front also say: 'I'm still fun, I'm approachable and I'm just a working mom like you.'

'It elongates your neck as well. I'd have gone for more statement earrings to set it off  but what do I know?'

Sharing an umbrella, 2020

Under my heirdryer

Sharing an umbrella, 2020

'Rai n, the hairdresser's second worst Nemesis that always leads to frizz  the hairdresser's ultimate Nemesis. We need one of those big see-through Fulton umbrellas that Grandma Queenie has. They come right down over your head, but the adoring public can still see you and where the brolly's colour band matches your outfit.'

Cape Town, September 2019

That style's not my cup of tea

Cape Town, September 2019

'I know you like it long, but we've got to chop those dry ends off  look they're nearly dangling in your tea. Too much weight, drags the hair down  I've got my scissors in my pocket, two inches off the ends, what do you say? No? OK . . . you're the boss.'

Cape Town, South Africa, September 2019

Let me flick it a bit

Cape Town, South Africa, September 2019

'Are you ok? Do you need any dry shampoo? I can't stop touching it, it's so soft, not like my Brillo pad do. Those L'Oreal guys will be offering a deal  and you're totally worth it.'

Pregnancy announcement, Feb 2021

Lap up my head massage, it's included in the price

Pregnancy announcement, Feb 2021

'Would you like a head massage today? It's included in the price. How's that pressure for you? I've put a treatment on because it was feeling a bit dry. All the products I've used today are available at the till, Chantelle-Marie has them all bagged up and ready to go  there's no obligation, although we are offering 20 per cent off today.'
A London restaurant has become the first in the UK to be awarded the prestigious 'One To Watch Award' by World 50 Best Restaurants.

African-inspired eatery in Ikoyi, in the West End, picked up the gong sponsored by American Express, making it among the best restaurants in the world.

Ikoyi, which has one Michelin star, is named after a district of Lagos and was co-founded by childhood friends Jeremy Chan and Ire Hassan-Odukale.

The American Express One to Watch Award recognises a restaurant considered to be a rising star on the global dining scene and aims to recognise and celebrate gastronomic excellence and innovation.

A London restaurant has become the first in the UK to be awarded the prestigious 'One To Watch Award' by World 50 Best Restaurants

Since opening in 2017, Ikoyi has distinguished itself for its bold use of flavour, introducing new and original ingredient combinations and presenting them with indefinable style.

Chan and Hassan-Odukale have made it their mission to source superlative local produce and serve it in its optimal state.

They use micro-seasonality and British ingredients to cook West African inspired dishes. Their menu includes the likes of Plantain Caramelised in Ginger & Kelp, Smoked Jollof Rice, and Poppy Seed Waffle, Truffled Aged Beef & N25 Caviar.

The foundation of their dishes is a vast collection of global spices with a focus on sub-Saharan West Africa, which have been meticulously sourced over the past few years, resulting in menus which surprise the senses with a balance of heat and umami.

The restaurant is situated in the heart of St James's Market, two minutes' walk from London's famous Piccadilly Circus.

A chance conversation with friend and now-business partner Hassan-Odukale ignited a spark around the possibilities of African-inspired food.

Ikoyi, which has one Michelin star, is named after a district of Lagos and was co-founded by childhood friends Jeremy Chan and Ire Hassan-Odukale (pictured together)

A period of intensive research ensued and what emerged was a series of new dishes with unique flavour profiles and a desire to forge a fresh culinary narrative.

Nigerian-born Ire Hassan-Odukale left a corporate background in insurance to co-launch Ikoyi. They both liked the abstract quality of the name, as it represented the starting point of a cuisine totally unique to themselves.

William Drew, Director of Content for The World's 50 Best Restaurants says: 'At Ikoyi, Jeremy and Ire have created that rare thing in the restaurant world: an experience that defies characterisation. It is one of the most exciting restaurants to have opened in recent years, with an impressive commitment to flavour and produce. We are delighted to name Ikoyi as the winner of the American Express One to Watch Award 2021.'

Chef Jeremy Chan says: 'We are extremely humbled by the recognition on the global stage and proud of our small, hard-working team. We are also grateful to our producers without whom this success would not be possible.'

The menu includes the likes of Poppy Seed Waffle, Truffled Aged Beef & N25 Caviar (pictured)

'American Express and Resy have been fans of Ikoyi since it opened and are proud to count it as a valued restaurant partner,' Hannah Kelly, Vice President of American Express Dining Access & Benefits told Femail.

'This award underscores its excellence and we join The World's 50 Best Restaurants in recognising Ikoyi as an international culinary destination.'

The award seeks to recognise and celebrate outstanding emerging culinary talent and fresh experiences.

Previous winners have included Lido 84, from Gardone Riviera, Ital, in 2019; SingleThread, California, US in 2018; Disfrutar, Barcelona, Spain in 2017 and Den, Tokyo, Japan in 2016.

50 Best will announce the list of restaurants ranked from 51st to 100th in the annual vote on 23rd September, ahead of The World's 50 Best Restaurants being announced on 5th October.

Presenting the awards this year will be British pastry chef Ravneet Gill, who mastered her craft in the pastry sections of London restaurant kitchens such as St John, Black Axe Mangal and Wild by Tart.

Her bestselling debut baking bible, A Pastry Chef's Guide, was published in 2020. She was a judge on the 2020 series of the British television baking show Junior Bake Off, a spin-off of the wildly popular The Great British Bake Off.
Mass shootings increased during the COVID-19 pandemic starting in May 2020, a new study finds.

Researchers from Harvard Medical School and the University of Chicago looked at mass shootings in 2020 compared to previous years.

They found that 88 shootings occurred in July 2020 in comparison with 42 in July 2019 and 45 in July 2018.

In addition, an average of three more people were injured each day in 2020 mass shootings compared to previous years.

The team says the findings suggest that mass shootings may be influenced by social and economic factors.

Mass shootings rose dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic, a new study finds

The study found that the U.S. saw 88 mass shootings in July 2020 amid the Covid pandemic, twice as many as July 2019 and 2018

The U.S. sees more mass shootings than almost any other country in the world.

According to one analysis by NPR, the U.S. saw four gun violence deaths for every 100,000 people in 2019 - about 100 times higher than the gun violence death rates in South Korea, the UK, and other developed nations.

Experts attribute America's high gun violence rate to limited gun restrictions, little investment in community institutions that may prevent violence and other issues.

Mass shootings in the U.S. often occur in response to heightened social tension - which has been common throughout the pandemic.

A new study shows that, indeed, mass shootings increased nationwide in 2020 after Covid hit the country.

The research, published on Thursday in JAMA Network Open, was conducted by Pablo Pena, economist at the University of Chicago and Anupam Jena, healthcare policy expert at Harvard Medical School.

The researchers utilized public data on mass shootings from Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit that compiles gun violence incidents from thousands of law enforcement, media, and government sources.

Gun Violence Archive specifically defines mass shootings as 'shootings in which 4 or more people are killed or injured, not counting the perpetrator.'

This dataset goes back to 2014, allowing the researchers to compare gun violence in prior years to 2020 and 2021.

The researchers compared shooting numbers month-by-month, going from January 2014 to June 2021. They also compared numbers for 882 U.S. cities included in the dataset.

Mass shootings clearly increased in May 2020, the researchers found.

This increase was particularly intense in summer 2020. In July 2020, the U.S. saw 88 mass shootings - compared to 42 in July 2019 and 45 in July 2018.

In other words, mass shootings doubled from the summers of 2018 and 2019 to summer 2020.

In addition, the researchers' analysis showed that, following mid-April 2020, the U.S. saw an average of 0.78 more mass shootings every day compared to prior years.

The country also saw an average of 0.49 additional people killed each day, and 3.4 additional people injured over this time period.

The researchers found that mass shootings increased in all types of U.S. cities in 2020 - including those with the lowest mass shooting numbers prior to the pandemic.

2020 saw more mass shootings than previous years, with increases in all types of cities included in the researchers' analysis

Overall, the researchers estimated that, from April 2020 to June 2021, there were 343 more mass shootings than previous years' numbers would expect them to anticipate.

These shootings included 217 additional people killed and 1,498 additional people injured.

These findings align with other studies showing increased gun violence and other crimes during the pandemic.

In Buffalo, New York, for example, a January 2021 study found an increase in fatal shootings during spring 2020 lockdowns and a long-term increase in non-fatal shootings.

The pandemic also led to increased drug use, driving increased overdose deaths in 2020.

These tragic increases may be consequences of early pandemic lockdowns, as well as increased economic and social pressures in 2020 and 2021 overall.

'This study found large increases in mass shootings in the US with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic consistent with the notion that mass shootings, an extreme form of violence, may be influenced by social and economic factors,' the researchers wrote.

The study's limitations include its use of a gun violence repository, rather than a comprehensive national database, and its focus on one specific type of gun violence.
Lifestyle changes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic increased the rate of elementary schoolers who developed nearsightedness, a new study finds.

Researchers from Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangdong, China, found that the number of children diagnosed with nearsightedness - also known as myopia - in 2020 was double compared to 2019.

They ascribe the increase to the pandemic and children spending more time using screens due to virtual learning and less time outdoors.

The team notes that this is just another example of the many long-term effects the pandemic had on people around the world, which will exist well beyond 2020.

A new study found that in 2019, 7.5% of children who did not have myopia a year before developed the condition. That figure doubled to 15% in 2020

An increase in screen time for many children during the pandemic due to virtual learning and less outdoors activities had a negative impact on their eye health, the study finds. Pictured: A student in Los Angeles, California, attends virtual classes in February

The research team, whose findings were published on Thursday in JAMA Ophthalmology, had been studying the development of nearsightedness in young children even before the pandemic.

In 2018, they tested a group of more than 1,000 children for the condition.

They tested a group of students in grade 2 and then tested them for myopia once again when they entered grade 3 in 2019.

Another group of other 1,000 grade 2 students were gathered to add to the study in 2019.

The COVID-19 pandemic would begin in Wuhan, China, at the end of 2019, though, and by early 2020 it had shut down most of the nation.

Grade 2 students from 2019 were then tested for nearsightedness again when they were in grade 3 at the end of 2020, after nearly a year of life in the pandemic.

Researchers found that in the pre-pandemic group, 7.5 percent of children who did not have myopia in 2018 had the condition in 2019 .

For the pandemic group, 15 percent of children were found to have developed the condition at some point between the two tests.

This means that the rate of new myopia cases for young children during 2020 was double in comparison with the previous year.

Researchers speculate that the sharp increase in myopia between the two years is because of an increase in screen time.

Children were forced to partake in virtual learning due to Covid, meaning they were staring at a screen for hours a day.

Even outside of the school, young children were more likely to spend free time on screens as well instead of participating in outdoor activities like in years past.

An abundance of screen time, especially in childhood, has been strongly tied to myopia in previous research.

Many even feared at the start of the pandemic that the implication of virtual learning could have negative impact of students' eye health.

This is just one of many potential long term effects people may suffer due to the disruption of day-to-day life during the pandemic.

'The long term impact of environmental changes during the COVID-19 outbreak period warrants further investigations with longer observation,' the authors wrote.

Social isolation caused by Covid school closures have also been tied to an increase in children suffering mental health issues such as depression, anxiety and ADHD.
Doctors have called for more studies into whether or not COVID-19 vaccines cause period changes after thousands of women have reported irregular menstrual cycles following the shots.

Dr Victoria Male, a lecturer in reproductive immunology at Imperial College London, said last year's clinical trials should have looked for abnormal menstruation.

At least 6,000 women in the U.S. report that their periods have come earlier than usual, felt heavier or just appeared irregular post-vaccination.

Additionally, more than 35,000 women in Britain have complained of suffering irregular periods after being jabbed.

Officials have yet to confirm there is a link between the shots and an irregular cycle, but Male said that the uterus has a lining with a high number of immune cells, which are likely activated by the vaccine and lead to irregular bleeding.

She added that investigating such a link could help prepare women for the possibility of irregular cycles and increase confidence in the shots.

'Vaccine hesitancy among young women is largely driven by false claims that COVID-19 vaccines could harm their chances of future pregnancy,' Male wrote in The BMJ..

'Failing to thoroughly investigate reports of menstrual changes after vaccination is likely to fuel these fears.'

More than 6,000 women in the U.S. have reported heavier than normal or abnormal menstrual cycles to the CDC's reporting system post-Covid vaccination

A doctor has called for more studies into the link between irregular periods and COVID-19 vaccines, saying investigations could calm fears that the vaccines are linked to infertility and increase confidence in the shots (file image)

'We're seeing an association but that's not necessarily causation...We have an opportunity here to study a women's health issue,' Dr Cynthia Brincat, chair of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Rush University Medical Center, in Chicago, Illinois, told DailyMail.com.

'We're looking at something that impact women's lives tremendously. We welcome anything opportunity to do that.'

According to a DailyMail.com analysis of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, there have been at least 6,047 reports of U.S. women reporting abnormal menstrual cycles.

However, this is likely a severe undercount because many women who experience abnormal periods will not report it to the CDC.

The most common complaint is heavy menstrual bleeding with 2,571 women reporting this symptom as of Thursday.

Other frequent reports include irregular menstruation, intermenstrual bleeding, menstruation delayed and abnormal uterine bleeding.

However, some women have experienced less common symptoms including an anovulatory cycle, which is when the release of an egg from the ovaries does not occur or superovulation, which occurs when a woman releases more than one egg in a month.

Previously, CDC officials have said that none of the reports warrant concern.

'At this time, CDC is not seeing any safety concerns that warrant additional surveillance of irregular menstrual symptoms reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System,' Martha Sharan, a public affairs officer for the CDC's Vaccine Task Force said in an email to the Chicago Tribune.

She added that the the reports make up 'a very small number' of the more than 300 doses administered in the U.S.

However, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded grants to five universities earlier this month to study whether or not there is a link between having abnormal periods and the COVID-19 vaccine.

The five studies will likely recruit between 400,000 and 500,000 participants, including adolescents, transgender women and nonbinary people.

According to the NIH, there are several factors by which Covid immunizations can cause temporary menstrual cycle changes.

This includes stress related to the pandemic, lifestyle changes and even prior COVID-19 infection.

The NIH also suggests that the immune system's response to the COVID-19 vaccine may briefly affect communication between immune cells and the uterus.

Gynecologists have previously told DailyMail.com that cycle changes post-vaccination can occur - but that they are rare, typically resolve on their own within a month and without medication, and do not affect fertility.

In the UK, more than 35,000 women have reported to the country's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency Yellow Card scheme that they have suffered irregular cycles after getting vaccinated.

Dr Jackie Maybin, a consultant gynecologist and senior clinical researcher fellow a the University of Edinburgh, said other vaccines, such as the HPV vaccine, have been known to disrupt periods with no noticeable impact on fertility.

'At this stage, it is difficult to be certain regarding the mechanisms causing these effects. It may differ from person to person,' she said in a statement to the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.

Maybin also suggested that stress is playing a role - explaining that when the body is stressed, it prevents pregnancy to conserve energy.

Brincat also said that, historically, it's been show that stress impacts women's health with other medications such as chemotherapy

'We're also in a pandemic and there could be other changes such as loss of a job, supply chain issues that cause a change in the stress levels.'

Maybin says the COVID-19 may cause a change in stress levels by stimulating immune cells.

'This brain-level effect may explain some of the changes in menstruation observed during the pandemic, with Covid or with vaccination,' she said.

She added: 'The resulting inflammation may transiently affect the ovaries, altering their hormone production over one or two cycles, resulting in irregular or heavier menstrual bleeding.

'The inflammation may also temporarily alter how the womb lining breaks down and sheds, causing a heavier period.

'These effects could lead to temporary changes in menstrual symptoms that should spontaneously resolve.'

Brincat said that if a menstruating patient came to her telling her about irregular cycles after getting the shot, she would say the following"

'I would say first: "Congratulations on doing the best thing to your overall health by getting vaccinated."

'Second thing I would say is: "Let's look into this and do an investigation. You deserve an investigation."'
Children exposed to high levels of air pollution are up to 50 per cent more likely to self-harm later in life, a study has suggested.

A study of 1.4million kids under 10 in Denmark revealed those exposed to a high level of nitrogen dioxide were more likely to self harm in adulthood than their peers.

And people in the same age group exposed to above average levels of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) were 48 per cent more likely to subsequently self-harm.

Nitrogen dioxide is mainly produces by cars, while PM2.5 is mainly emitted by burning diesel and petrol, which is most commonly used for shipping and heating.

These two pollutants are among those most commonly linked with causing harm to physical health, such as heart and lung diseases, by getting into the bloodstream and causing inflammation.

Researchers are yet to explain the mechanism for how these pollutants can cause mental health problems.

But they suggested high pollution levels could trigger inflammation in the brain, leading to mental health problems.

Childhood is a 'sensitive time for brain development', so youngster may be 'particularly susceptible' to negative effects from toxic particle in the air, they added.

Children exposed to high levels of common air pollutants nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter are up to 50 per cent more likely to self-harm later in life, a study by researchers in the UK and Denmark has found

Researchers at the University of Manchester in England and Aarhus University in Denmark looked at national databases to track 1.4million Danes born between 1979 and 2006.

The study, which was published in Preventive Medicine, used each person's place of residence from birth to their 10th birthday and how long they stayed at that address to measure outdoor levels of particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide.

They then tracked the individuals until December 2016, noting which ones went to hospital for self-harm.

They classified self-harm as overdosing and arm cutting, or any other intentional harm.

What is particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide? Particulate matter (PM) is everything in the air that is not a gas. It consists of a huge variety of chemicals and materials, some of which can be toxic. Due to the small size of many of the particles that form PM some of these toxins can enter the bloodstream and be transported around the body, lodging in the heart, brain and other organs. Therefore, exposure to PM can result in serious impacts to health, especially in vulnerable groups of people such as the young, elderly, and those with respiratory problems. Meanwhile, nitrogen dioxide (NO2) is a gas mainly produced during the combustion of fossil fuels. Short-term exposure to concentrations of NO2 can cause inflammation of the airways and increase susceptibility to respiratory infections and to allergens. NO2 can exacerbate the symptoms of those already suffering from lung or heart conditions. Source: Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs Advertisement

Some 32,984 people (2.3 per cent) harmed themselves in the study period, with cases higher among women, those whose parents had mental illness and individuals from poorer families.

Exposure to an average of 19 g/m3 or more of particulate matter each day was associated with a 48 per cent higher chance of self-harming later in life, compared to children exposed to an average of 13 g/m3 per day or less.

And for every 5 g/m3 increase in exposure above 19 g/m3, the risk of self harm rose by 42 per cent.

The researchers looked at particulate matter that is less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter.

The average daily exposure to particulate matter was 13.5 g/m3 per day.

UK air quality standards require concentrations of this size of particulate matter not to exceed an annual average of 25 g/m3.

Meanwhile, children who were exposed to an average of 25 g/m3 or more of nitrogen dioxide between birth and 10-years-old were were 50 per cent more likely to self-harm than those who were in areas where they came into contact with less than 10 g/m3 or less per day.

And for every 10 g/m3 increase above 25 g/m3, the risk of self-harm rose by 21 per cent.

The average daily exposure to nitrogen dioxide was 18.1 g/m3 per day.

Air quality rules in the UK outline that annual average concentrations of nitrogen dioxide must not exceed 40 g/m3.

Lead author Dr Pearl Mok, a research fellow at Manchester University said the research is the first population-based study to reveal that long-term exposure to two common pollutants during childhood, is associated with higher self-harm risks.

She said: 'Our findings add to the growing evidence-base indicating that higher levels of air pollution exposure are linked with poor mental health outcomes.

'Although air pollution is widespread, it is a modifiable risk factor and we therefore hope our study's findings will inform policymakers who are devising strategies to combat this problem.'

The findings follow a study from China, which discovered that children who attended schools with higher daily concentrations of particulate matter had more cases of self-harm than those who went to schools in areas where the air was less polluted.

But that study didn't spot any links between self-harm and nitrogen oxide.

Professor Roger Webb, a psychology and mental health expert at Manchester University and a co-author on the study said: 'A growing body of evidence in recent years has indicated that exposure to air pollution is also associated with adverse mental health outcomes.

'Children living in neighbourhoods with higher levels of air pollution have been reported to have increased risks of developing a range of psychiatric disorders including schizophrenia, depression, and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

'Though the mechanisms linking air pollution and development and exacerbation of mental disorders or its associated distress have not yet been explained, it has been well-established that it can cause inflammation and oxidative stress.

'This study is the first to provide valuable evidence on the association between childhood exposure to air pollution and subsequently elevated self-harm risk.

'However, further research is needed to investigate to what degree our findings can be generalised to other countries, especially lower- and middle-income countries where levels of ambient air pollution are far higher than they are in Denmark.'
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded nearly $470 million to researchers who will study the long-term impacts of COVID-19 among thousands of patients.

This grant will go to New York University (NYU) Langone Medical Center, which will act as the central hub for long Covid research and provide smaller grants to more than 100 scientists.

The $470 million represents about 40 percent of $1.15 billion that Congress allocated for long Covid research in the American Rescue Plan.

NIH director Dr Francis Collins says the award is a major step for tens of thousands of long Covid patients in the U.S., many of whom 'have had their lives completely upended by the major long-term effects of COVID-19.'

Covid symptoms can last long after an initial infection - or an initial trip to the hospital - for many patients who develop long Covid. A new research grant will enable scientists to discover why. Pictured: A Covid patient in the ICU at a Boise, Idaho hospital, August 2021

Dr Francis Collins, director of the NIH, said that the long Covid research funding is a major step for patients who 'have had their lives completely upended' by the virus. Pictured: Collins holds up a coronavirus model while testifying on Capitol Hill, May 2021

In February 2021, the NIH announced a new initiative to study long Covid, the condition in which patients have prolonged symptoms for weeks or months after their coronavirus infection.

These symptoms can include neurological issues like fatigue and brain fog, shortness of breath, chronic cough, anxiety and depression, gastrointestinal issues, and many others.

According to NIH estimates, between 10 and 30 percent of people infected with the coronavirus will experience long-term symptoms.

Some long Covid patients who originally contracted the virus in spring 2020 are still experiencing symptoms.

The condition may even be possible after vaccination, recent studies have shown - though the risk of long Covid is much lower for vaccinated people who experience a breakthrough case.

The NIH effort to study this condition - called the RECOVER Initiative - has received $1.15 billion in funding over four years from Congress, via the American Rescue Plan.

After months of limited news about the RECOVER Initiative, the NIH announced on Wednesday that it's awarded nearly $470 million in a research grant to study long Covid.

'We know some people have had their lives completely upended by the major long-term effects of COVID-19,' said Collins.

'These studies will aim to determine the cause and find much needed answers to prevent this often-debilitating condition and help those who suffer move toward recovery.'

The hefty award went to NYU Langone Medical Center, which will award smaller grants from that $470 million to over 100 researchers at over 30 institutions, the NIH announced.

These institutions intend to leverage existing long Covid research efforts and recruit new patients into study group encompassing tens of thousands.

Long Covid patients experience a wide range of symptoms ranging from fatigue and fever to muscle aches, diarrhea, and heightened reactions to allergies, a patient survey found

Scientists plan to collect a wealth of data on the RECOVER Cohort. This includes clinical information, lab tests, and analysis of patients' stages of recovery.

'This scientifically rigorous approach puts into place a collaborative and multidisciplinary research community inclusive of diverse research participants that are critical to informing the treatment and prevention of the long-term effects of COVID-19,' said Dr Gary Gibbons, one of the co-chairs of the RECOVER Initiative.

In developing the RECOVER Initiative's protocols, the NIH worked with researchers who have already been studying long COVID as well as patients themselves.

Patient groups like Body Politic have advocated for scientists to include diverse groups of long Covid patients in their research - including those who were not hospitalized or didn't obtain a positive test result.

Many long Covid patients who were infected early in the pandemic were unable to get tested due to limited testing supplies and other access issues, excluding them from some later studies.

The RECOVER Initiative intends to include a diverse group of adults, children, pregnant people, and patients in different stages of their Covid infections.

Patients who would like to volunteer for the initiative can sign up at an NIH website, recovercovid.org.

Many long Covid patients experience symptoms for seven months or more

The NIH initiative also aims to standardize clinical trial designs, ensuring that researchers at different institutions analyze data in the same way.

Researchers will use electronic health records as well as mobile health tech, such as smartphone apps and wearable devices, to track patients.

Through the initiative, NIH scientists aim to determine what exactly causes long Covid - a question that has yet to be definitively answered.

'Is it a misfiring of the immune system that fails to reset after the infection with this coronavirus? Is it a triggering of some metabolic dysfunction? We don't know,' Collins said at a media briefing on Wednesday.

'The diversity of symptoms and presentations leads us to believe that long Covid is not just one condition.

'The only way, therefore, we're going to sort this out is with very large studies that collect lots and lots of data about symptoms, physical findings and laboratory measures.'

NIH scientists also intend to better understand the range of long Covid symptoms, risk factors for the condition, and possible treatments.

'Given the range of symptoms that have been reported, intensive research using all available tools is necessary to understand what happens to stall recovery from this terrible virus,' said Dr Walter Koroshetz, also a RECOVER co-chair.

The NIH also recently awarded smaller long Covid research grants to the NYU Grossman School of Medicine and the Biostatistics Center at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Local health departments around the U.S. are preparing to roll out COVID-19 vaccine boosters next week, but they are still unsure whether or not they will be able to distribute the shots.

The White House announced last month that booster shots would become available for Americans starting on September 20 due to data suggesting waning efficacy of the initial shots.

The announcement was pending approval from regulators, though, and it appears the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) advisory committee may not be able to determine the safety and effectiveness of the third shots by the targeted rollout date.

This has left local health officials in limbo, wanting to be prepared in case the shots do receive approval, but unsure if they will be going into arms starting Monday.

COVID-19 vaccine booster shots are set to roll out as early as Monday, but they are still pending regulatory approval. This has left many local health departments preparing for vaccine distribution they are not sure will occur. Pictured: A man receives a COVID-19 vaccine shot in Carson, California in September

'We don't want to be unprepared,' Lori Tremmel Freeman, chief executive officer of the National Association of County and City Health Officials, told CNN.

The plan laid out by federal officials in August was to offer third vaccine shots to anyone who received the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna jabs - the two most commonly used in the U.S.

Americans would be eligible for the third shot eight months after having received their second.

Those plans have since gone awry, with regulators notifying White House officials they might not be able to approve the vaccine booster by September 20.

Many have also doubted the need for the third vaccine shots.

Earlier this week, 18 FDA officials wrote a report opposing the roll out of boosters, saying the current science does not support the need for more shots.

Other scientists and health experts have also spoke out against vaccine boosters.

They claim that despite an increase in breakthrough cases, because the vaccine still is effective preventing hospitalizations and deaths more shots are not needed at this time.

Turmoil at the federal level has left local health officials, who have little to no say in the matter, unsure of where to turn to seek guidance or clarity.

Counties need to be prepared to get the shots out once they are approved, but it does not appear that there is a clear target date for approval in September 20 falls through.

'No one's going to get boosters until the FDA says they're approved, until the CDC advisory committee makes a recommendation. What we want to do though is be ready as soon as that comes,' Ron Klain, White House chief of staff, told CNN earlier this month.

'A hundred percent we will wait for FDA approval, we will wait for CDC approval.'

Once approval does occur, more than five million Americans will suddenly become eligible to receive the next shot of the vaccine.

Health officials are working to make sure they have the capability to handle a potential surge in vaccine demand.

'We have been hearing from local health departments, without any confirmed information coming their way, they are beginning to assess who on the ground will have the capacity to do boosters, who will remain as a provider of vaccines and who is pulling out -- so that we have a better understanding of how the community will be served and by whom,' Freeman told CNN.

'There's just a lot of some confusion about this.'

The FDA's Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee will meet Friday, two days before September 20, to discuss approval of boosters of the Pfizer shot.

Meanwhile the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will be meeting on September 22 and September 23, two days after the target date.

Currently, 63.5 percent of the population has received at least one shot of a COVID-19 vaccine, and 54 percent of people are fully vaccinated, CDC data show.

Anyone over the age of 12 is eligible for the first two shots of the vaccine.

Around 600,000 Americans are currently getting vaccinated every day, down from the high of over 3.5 million in early April.
Children and teenagers rarely have long-term symptoms of coronavirus that last longer than three months, a new analysis suggests.

Researchers looked at 14 studies that included 20,000 kids from around the world battling so-called 'long Covid.'

They found that almost all children said their symptoms improved between four weeks and 12 weeks.

The team, from the Murdoch Children's Research Institute, in Victoria, Australia, says that the findings suggest the long Covid is not as much of a concern among under-18s as it is among adults.

A new study looked at 248 cases of MIS-C, a condition in which different body parts become inflamed, in pediatric patients with coronavirus out of more than nine million. Pictured: A five- year-old child in a hospital bed at Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, New York, May 2020

Long Covid appears in patients that have recovered from the virus and continue exhibiting symptoms for weeks, or potentially months or years, after clearing the infection.

There are a wide-array of symptoms that can appear, including continued loss of taste and smell, long-term fatigue and long-term sensory issues.

The causes of the condition remain unknown and several studies are being conducted to examine long-term effects.

Some theories of what causes long Covid include patients having persistently low levels of the virus or damage that COVID-19 causes to nerve pathways.

CDC director Dr Rochelle Walensky has previously estimated between two percent and three percent of children suffer from long Covid.

Most children who contract COVID-19 either have mild cases or are asymptomatic, not tending to get seriously ill or to die.

But for the small percentage who develop long Covid, the risks are not well understood, according to Dr Nigel Curtis.

'Current studies lack a clear case definition and age-related data, have variable follow-up times, and rely on self- or parent-reported symptoms without lab confirmation,' he said.

'Another significant problem is that many studies have low response rates meaning they might overestimate the risk of long Covid.'

For the analysis, published in Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal, the team looked at 14 studies from around the world involving 19,426 children and teens who reported having long-term symptoms of the virus.

Among children, most symptoms resolved within four to 12 weeks after they first tested positive.

This is in comparison with long Covid adult patients, who report symptoms sometimes lasting between 24 weeks. and 32 weeks after recovering.

The most common symptoms reported in children were fatigue, headache, difficulty concentrating, sleep disturbance and abdominal pain.

Dr Petra Zimmermann, a pediatrics specialist at MCRI, said long Covid symptoms in children are often difficult to distinguish from symptoms that be linked to the pandemic such as school shutdowns and being able to see friends.

She says the findings suggest long Covid is likely less of a concern among kids and adolescents than it is among adults.

'This highlights why it's critical that future studies involve more rigorous control groups, including children with other infections and those admitted to hospital or intensive care for other reasons,' she said.
THE PROMISE by Damon Galgut

THE PROMISE

by Damon Galgut

(Chatto 16.99, 304 pp)

What our critic said

This outstanding multigenerational saga about racism, set in Galguts native South Africa, starts in 1986 with an Afrikaner mourning his dead wife, who made him promise to give their black maid the deeds to a building on their farm. His failure to honour the pledge falls like a curse on each member of the family. It fully deserves its place on this shortlist  and the prize itself.

Anthony Cummins

Odds: 5/2

THE FORTUNE MEN by Nadifa Mohamed

THE FORTUNE MEN

by Nadifa Mohamed

(Viking 14.99, 384 pp)

What our critic said

Based on the real-life miscarriage of justice suffered by Mahmood Mattan, a Somali sailor hanged for murder in 1952 after settling in Cardiff, this wrenching novel plunges us into the small-scale social panorama of a community quick to point the finger. Mohamed inhabits Mattans view, a bold endeavour pulled off to powerful effect. Passages from the barbaric climax are still echoing in my head.

Anthony Cummins

Odds: 6/1

NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT THIS by Patricia Lockwood

NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT THIS

by Patricia Lockwood

(Bloomsbury Circus 14.99, 224 pp)

What our critic said

Lockwoods protagonist is a woman whose internet posts have gone viral and who now tours the world giving talks to large audiences of Twitter obsessives.

In the second half of the novel, a family tragedy splits this fake existence in two. An intellectual and emotional rollercoaster, its also a first novel  but I found that hard to believe.

Sara Lawrence

Odds: 11/2

GREAT CIRCLE by Maggie Shipstead

GREAT CIRCLE

by Maggie Shipstead

(Doubleday 16.99, 602 pp)

What our critic said

Shipsteads narrative is split between Marian Graves, who disappeared in 1950 while trying to fly a north-south circumnavigation of Earth, and Hollywood star Hadley Baxter, who in 2010s LA has been offered the role of the daring aviatrix in a film. Sweepingly panoramic, its backdrop is the history of aviation itself. At 600 pages it could have been shorter but, really, you wouldnt want it to be.

Stephanie Cross

Odds: 11/2

BEWILDERMENT by Richard Powers

BEWILDERMENT

by Richard Powers

(Hutchinson Heinemann 18.99, 288 pp)

What our critic said

Whats the correct response to our times? As we hurtle towards climate catastrophe, Powerss astrobiologist narrator, Theo, has a hunch that only bewilderment keeps us from civil war. Deftly crafted and packing an emotional punch, this novels urgent environmental message comes through loud and clear. Not published until next week, you can read our full review (left).

Stephanie Cross

Odds: 3/1

A PASSAGE NORTH by Anuk Arudpragasam

A PASSAGE NORTH

by Anuk Arudpragasam

(Granta 14.99, 304 pp)

What our critic said

After Sri Lankas devastating civil war, NGO worker Krishan leaves the city of Colombo to attend a funeral in a formerly Tamil-controlled northern province. His journey unspools a sinuous thread of digressive recollection around the bittersweet memory of an Indian ex-girlfriend. One of the more divisive novels on the shortlist, it offers much to admire.

Anthony Cummins

Odds: 10/1
Millennial favourite Monzo has today launched its own buy now, pay later product called Flex as it looks to profit from the growing popularity of this form of credit.

The digital bank, which currently has over five million customers and is synonymous with its 'hot coral' debit card, will be offering its customers credit limits of up to 3,000 and allow them to spread the cost of purchases over three, six or 12 months.

It is one of the first banks to launch in the sector  one that has been mired in controversy.

The payment type, which allows customers to split the cost of products at the check out, has been popularised largely by Swedish firm Klarna.

Monzo has launched its own buy now, pay later product called, Flex, it was announced today

Others such as Clearpay and LayBuy are also available, with some retailers coming under fire for making it the default payment option at checkout online.

There is also concerns about tempting shoppers into taking on unsustainable levels of debt by kicking the problem further down the line.

Earlier in the year, the Financial Conduct Authority confirmed the industry would be regulated - but this hasn't happened yet.

How does Flex work?

Flex launched today and customers can sign up through the Monzo website. Those who pass eligibility checks first will also get access to Flex today too.

Those signing up will be pre-approved credit at checkout, based on affordability and given up to an approved credit limit of 3,000.

Flex will not charge interest for users who opt to repay over three months, while those spreading costs over 6 or 12 months will be charged 19 per cent annual interest.

It can be used on any transaction over 30 and can be retroactively applied up to two weeks after a purchase is made.

It says customers who miss a repayment will not be charged late fees. They can also pay off items early.

It can be used on online purchases but also in store with the Monzo card and app.

It is also possible to choose to Flex an existing Monzo transaction from the last two weeks.

Kunal Malani, Monzo's head of borrowing, said: 'We know that money stops working for people when debt piles up and becomes a trap - so we've listened to customers and designed a better way for them to pay later, which puts them in control.

'Flex combines Monzo's technology and banking expertise with its core values, ensuring customers always have visibility and control over their financial lives and only borrow money that they can afford to repay.'

Spend: Flex can be used on online purchases but also in store with the Monzo card and app

Is this a positive move?

Some experts believe it is a good move for the industry - and for Monzo.

David M. Brear, chief executive of the challenger consultancy 11:FS, said: 'This makes total sense. We have been waiting for Monzo to get into the bit of banking that makes it all worth doing - and that's lending in all its forms.

'This news regarding BNPL, together with their launch of loans earlier this week, pushes Monzo beyond just discretionary spending to really helping people with many parts of their increasingly complex finances.'

Others believe the news will benefit younger buyers - many of which gravitate towards this sort of payment.

Samantha Palmer, Payl8r's managing director, said: 'We know that millennials don't want credit cards and don't like banks, they prefer to use buy now, pay later as this can help them quickly improve their credit score.

'Young adults find it hard to get finance because they've not had a chance to build their credit rating, despite most of them having the funds to pay back loans in a responsible and timely manner.

'Some say the buy now, pay later market is becoming saturated. I think it's the future of millennial finance and Monzo quite rightly don't want to miss out on a piece of the action.'

Some experts argue BNPL encourages debt, often with younger audiences, who prefer this method of payment

Could this encourage debt?

However, there are also concerns on the impact it will have on those who may find themselves in debt.

The Treasury announced in February that BNPL would be regulated to better protect spenders.

At the time, Christopher Woolard, former interim chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority, said it was 'urgently needed to protect consumers'.

But seven months on, no plans, timelines or proposals have been announced.

Citizens Advice has previously revealed as many as one in ten BNPL customers has been chased by debt collectors after missing payments.

Its research also suggests that shoppers have been charged as much as 39million in late fees over the past year.

Brear said: 'My main question would be how Monzo plans to do it. BNPL can be great for customers, but it can also result in people getting into debt without realising what they're doing.

'Monzo has always been a customer-led bank and it needs to ensure it delivers this in a way that helps customers, including vulnerable customers, to manage and improve their financial well being.

'While these moves are great for customers, they won't hurt Monzo's own finances either. I expect to see much happier shareholders and investors when the next set of results come around.'
Microsoft has announced the biggest ever share buyback scheme, worth over 43billion.

The software giants move comes after another buyback worth 29billion just two years ago.

It is already worth 1.65trillion, making it the worlds second most valuable company after tech firm Apple.

Shares buyback: Microsoft is already worth 1.65trillion, making it the worlds second most valuable company after tech firm Apple

Microsoft also lifted its quarterly dividend by 11pc to 62 cents (45p). It is sitting on a cash pile of more than 90billion and its latest buyback comes after some US politicians proposed a tax raid on payouts.

Democrat members of the Senate have said a 2 per cent tax on stock buybacks could fund President Joe Bidens 2.5trillion infrastructure package.

Microsoft, which was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1975, is best known for its Windows computer operating systems and Office software.

Under its current boss Satya Nadella it has focused on growing businesses such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence and video gaming.

Its cloud services remotely store vast troves of data for multinational companies, while also offering software such as Office over the internet  preventing the need for it to be installed on individual machines.
Plumbing tycoon Charlie Mullins is looking to sell a large chunk of his empire for millions.

The London-born businessman wants to retain some of his 90 per cent stake in Pimlico Plumbers, the Mail understands. His oldest son Scott, who is chief executive, owns the rest.

A deal could value Pimlico at up to 100million, and help fund expansion, with Mullins keen to push into Dubai.

Cashing in: Pimlico Plumbers founder Charlie Mullins (pictured) reportedly has a 90% stake in the firm. His oldest son Scott, who is chief executive, owns the rest

Suitors are believed to include Neigborly, a US home services company owned by private equity firm KKR, with several other private equity firms thought to be in the running. Mullins, 68, founded Pimlico Plumbers in 1978.

The son of a factory worker father and a cleaner mother, he left school with no qualifications, and claims to have been up to his elbows in other peoples lavatories since the age of 12.

His plumbers work for an hourly rate of 120 during the day, but are known for their professionalism.

Pimlicos reputation has been furthered by Mullins personality  he was vocal about leaving the EU, in his Bollocks to Brexit campaign.
An anti-lockdown chef who hosts a cooking show travelling the world and embracing local cuisine has vowed to never serve a politician again in a stance against Covid restrictions.

Nathan Huxham, also known as The Flying Chef, 'discourages discrimination' but openly admitted he hoped other businesses would follow him in icing out politicians.

The international leg of Mr Huxham's business model was decimated when the Covid pandemic closed Australia's borders.

He operates a catering business on the NSW north coast and south east Queensland, regions largely unaffected by repeated lockdowns.

Mr Huxham has joined a growing chorus of 'pro-choice' businesses that have refused to follow mandates that will forbid non-vaccinated customers from dining in at restaurants and cafes when the nation begins to reopen.

Nathan Huxham, also known as The Flying Chef, 'discourages discrimination' but openly admitted he hoped other businesses would follow him in icing out politicians

But he's also gone a step further, issuing a call to arms to businesses to 'band together and refuse service to the dictators that are trying enforce these ridiculous mandates'.

He argues most have clearly 'never owned a business in their lives' and therefore can't understand the pressure lockdowns have placed on small business owners.

Some of his customers and followers have questioned why he's limiting the ban to politicians, who are largely following the advice of health officials and scientists.

But many have pledged their support and thanked him for 'taking a stand' during a time when business owners have 'lost their power'.

'What a gutsy thing to do and its brilliant... bless your heart,' one customer said.

Mr Huxham was filming the first season of his series, The Flying Chef, which documented his travels through remote Indonesian islands, when Covid hit, forcing him to return to his Gold Coast home.

He argues most have clearly 'never owned a business in their lives' and therefore can't understand the pressure lockdowns have placed on small business owners

He is making ends meet by offering a catering service, and has vowed not to 'comply' with government public health directives relating to lockdown.

A growing minority of business owners are expressing concerns over how they will implement government mandates which will demand customers be fully-vaxxed when the Sydney lockdown ends in mid-October.

Businesses which allow unvaccinated customers through their doors or hire staff who are not fully vaccinated will face 'significant fines,' the NSW government warned.

The state is set to emerge from its gruelling lockdown when vaccination rates hit 70 per cent coverage, but the long-awaited freedoms will not be made available to anyone who has not received the jab.

He is making ends meet by offering a catering service, and has vowed not to 'comply' with government public health directives relating to lockdown

Customers and patrons at non-essential venues including pubs, restaurants, cafes, gyms and hair salons, will need to prove their vaccination status via QR code when checking in using the Service NSW app, with anyone who doesn't get the 'green light' refused entry.

Deputy Premier John Barilaro if businesses fail to keep an eye on who is coming in they will cop severe penalties.

'There will be a poster on the front window to say the business is vaccinated and we will make sure it is very visible for the public,' he said.

'There will be significant fines for breaches.'
Soldiers who suffered hearing loss and joint pain in the Army's crisis-hit Ajax vehicles could claim hundreds of thousands of pounds in compensation, lawyers say.

The Ministry of Defence could be forced to pay the huge bills if troops can prove they have lost out on lengthy careers.

A staggering 310 soldiers have been urged to seek medical attention after testing the vehicles.

The injuries were caused by the noise of its engine and vibrations during trials of the 3.5billion scheme.

Ajax also struggled to fire accurately on the move and to reverse over obstacles  although there has been progress in these areas according to defence officials.

Trials of the vehicle, which were paused earlier this year, have resumed with manufacturers General Dynamics providing test drivers.

The programme has already cost the Ministry of Defence well over 3billion in down payments.

Now London-based lawyers Bolt Burdon Kemp said top brass could be forced to fork out more cash in compensation for injured personnel.

MoD's losing battle 2011: MoD signs Ajax deal with General Dynamics 2014: Production agreed with 230 companies and 4,100 workers 2016: Design overhauled amid fears Ajax will be obsolete 2017: Testing crews report vehicles are noisy and dangerous 2018: General Dynamics reports 89.1million profit 2021: Trials are paused and hundreds of troops advised to seek medical help Advertisement

Partner Ahmed Al-Nahhas told MailOnline: 'There is definitely potential for legal action against the MoD for any hearing loss caused by the noise and vibration of the Army's new fleet of tanks.

'When an employer fails to protect employees' safety and exposes them to an unreasonable risk of harm, employees have every right to make a claim, and that includes Service personnel.

'The impact of hearing loss on an individual should not be underestimated. It's a serious injury and isn't something to be trifled with.

'It can have serious repercussions, with the potential of psychological harm. Therapy and rehabilitation for hearing loss can be expensive and long-term, to help them adapt to life on 'civvy-street' as a disabled person.

'Many Service personnel lose their careers over this injury every year. In fact in 2019/20 the Ministry of Defence faced 2,519 new claims for noise-induced hearing loss.

'It faced a compensation bill that year of over 83million pounds for civil claims from service personnel.

'Whilst each case will depend on its own facts, where a Service person can prove that they have lost a lengthy career, then their claim may be worth many hundreds of thousands of pounds.

'It's of paramount importance that all those who may have been affected should be notified of the risks to their health and be medically assessed ASAP.'

Ajax is the biggest project for manufacturer General Dynamics and the UK is its largest client.

The contract was signed in 2011 and the deal was weighted so the firm received more than half the value of the contract before the vehicles entered service.

To date around 26 of a scheduled 589 have been delivered.

General Dynamics produced prototypes in 2016 but the Army sought changes, fearing Ajax could quickly become obsolete.

The agreement was revised to incorporate the latest equipment  a decision that sources described as one of 'the most cardinal of sins in procurement'.

Last week defence minister Jeremy Quin told MPs 3.5billion armoured vehicle programme may be abandoned.

Conservative former defence minister Mark Francois said the Ajax programme showed that MoD procurement was 'completely broken'

He said he could not promise the Ajax would ever be used because troops have suffered hearing loss, back spasms and joint pains.

Mr Quin told the Commons: 'I cannot promise 100 per cent we will find a resolution to these issues, but we are determined to work through with General Dynamics.

'We will not accept an initial operating capability until we have a clear resolution to the issues on noise and vibration.

'We need a vehicle that works and which is fit for purpose and that is what we're determined to deliver.

'I have previously described Ajax as a troubled programme. It is. But that does not mean that the problems are irresolvable.'

Conservative former defence minister Mark Francois said the Ajax programme showed MoD procurement was 'completely broken'.

The backbencher described the vehicle as a 'steaming heap of institutional incompetence'.

How top brass blew 3.5billion on a dud that is a menace to troops: Ajax is the British Army's new tank that's too heavy, makes crew sick and can't fire on the move... all thanks to a mix of cronyism and incompetence

Some of them reported back spasms and joint pain or swollen ankles. Others a constant tingling in their hands and feet. Still more emerged reeling from acute hearing loss and nausea.

The noise and vibrations that members of the British Army trials team endured while trying out the latest high-tech vehicle were insufferable. Had the test-drives not been stopped, the damage they suffered could have become permanent.

There were concerns about Vibration White Finger syndrome, an injury suffered by industrial workers handling vibrating heavy machinery, where fingers and toes suffer blood circulation loss and can go white and numb. As it was, more than 30 of the men required medical treatment, with two dozen given steroid injections.

This is the story of the Ajax light tank that makes its drivers sick. One that cannot fire on the move as vibrations affect the gun stabilisation system, and which, due to this issue should not be driven faster than 20 mph  comparable vehicles reach 45 mph.

An armoured vehicle so unwieldy it can't fit into transport aircraft. A light tank that has cost billions yet could be scrapped before it enters service  and is set to become the most expensive procurement failure in Army history.

The MoD and General Dynamics (UK), the makers of Ajax, seem on course for a legal battle over the eye-watering sums involved

As Conservative MP and Defence Select Committee member Mark Francois says: 'It is heavier than a Sherman tank and as stealthy as a Ford Transit full of spanners. And, if you are giving people steroid injections after having been in the vehicle, that tells you everything.'

The scandal of the armoured vehicle's glaring problems raises concerns about the government's procurement process and why ministers were not alerted to the difficulties, but instead continued to write huge cheques.

Above all, it poses the fundamental question: How on earth is it possible for the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to spend billions on a light tank that does not work?

It is a question to which MPs have demanded urgent answers as they urged the government to seek 'liquidated damages' and salvage whatever it possibly can from the billions of pounds of public money already banked by the arms manufacturer behind the vehicle.

Whatever happens, the MoD and General Dynamics (UK), the makers of Ajax, seem on course for a legal battle over the eye-watering sums involved.

Secretary of State for Defence Ben Wallace, who inherited the Ajax debacle, pulled no punches when he said: 'We paid for a piece of equipment, we expect it to be delivered, and like any consumer we have rights. If it's not up to scratch, we'll take action.'

If only things were so simple. General Dynamics (UK) has received in excess of 3 billion for design and manufacturing work already completed, and these payments were made after the MoD agreed the company had met its production targets. The money will never be seen by the taxpayer again.

So where does responsibility lie?

The answer is complicated but involves an extraordinary 'revolving door' process whereby senior Army staff have ended up working for the firm that makes Ajax, General Dynamics (UK).

How on earth is it possible for the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to spend billions on a light tank that does not work?

It includes decisions to reject a cheaper alternative made by British Aerospace (BAe), and then to change the vehicle's design half-way through the process.

On top of this, there is the hubris of decision makers in the Army with their insistence that only the very best machine, with the latest technology, would do.

To understand where things went wrong, we must examine these issues, starting with the 'revolving door' between the MoD and General Dynamics (UK).

Certainly, for a clique of former British Army generals, the company has proved highly lucrative.

After overseeing procurement projects at the MoD, for which they were handsomely rewarded and given gold-plated pensions, they cashed in by joining the arms manufacturer.

General Dynamics (UK) hires these senior officers and defence officials not only because of their knowledge of securing contracts, but also because of their relationships with their successors at the MoD  the people responsible for deciding what equipment the UK's armed forces should purchase.

The most senior soldier to spin through this revolving door is the former head of the Army, General Sir Peter Wall.

Sir Peter completed his term as Chief of the General Staff (CGS) in January 2015. Around the same time he approached the government's Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (ACOBA) to say he had been offered a non-executive directorship by General Dynamics  a position which came with a substantial salary.

General Dynamics (UK) hires these senior officers and defence officials not only because of their knowledge of securing contracts, but also because of their relationships with their successors at the MoD  the people responsible for deciding what equipment the UK's armed forces should purchase. The most senior soldier to spin through this revolving door is the former head of the Army, General Sir Peter Wall. He is pictured above with Prince Charles

Given Sir Peter's knowledge of army procurement contracts, ACOBA advised his appointment should be subject to strict conditions. These included a waiting period of 18 months from the day he left the Army, stipulations he 'should not draw on information available to him from his time in Government' and that he 'should not be involved with matters relating to' the Ajax contract.

Sir Peter accepted these terms in September 2015 and took up his role with General Dynamics in August 2016. There is no suggestion he breached the ACOBA requirements by getting involved in the Ajax project. Nevertheless, as a board member of the manufacturer's U.S. parent company he is paid more than $300,000, according to U.S. public sources.

Sir Peter was a Royal Engineer. Two years later he was joined at his new firm by another ex 'Sapper'  slang for Royal Engineers  Major General Carew Wilks.

Wilks commanded RE units while in uniform before branching into procurement, eventually becoming 'Director Land Equipment' in September 2011  the year the Army chose General Dynamics (UK) to design and build its new armoured reconnaissance vehicle.

According to Maj Gen Wilks's LinkedIn profile, he was 'responsible for the acquisition of all equipment in the land environment, principally the Army'  so, it is likely, he could have been involved with the Ajax project. Earlier this month the retired Major General enraged MPs on the Commons Defence Select Committee when he stonewalled questions about Ajax's failures.

THE AJAX IN NUMBERS Weapons: 40mm cannon and 7.62mm machine gun Top speed: 45mph Weight: 38 tons Engine: 800bhp V8 Crew: Three plus seven passengers Width: 3.35 m (11 ft) Length: 7.62 m (25 ft) Advertisement

Indeed, former Defence Minister Kevan Jones nearly exploded after repeatedly asking Maj Gen Wilks, now Vice President and General Manager of General Dynamics (UK), why the company was paid so much up front and had taken on little or no risk if the project failed.

Mr Jones snapped: 'Oh forget it, Chair! He is not answering the question!'

But personnel apart, why did the government choose General Dynamics (UK) in the first place?

The firm was chosen to provide 589 armoured vehicles to the Army. Ajax is the company's biggest project and the UK government is its biggest client. In 2018, the company reported a total operating profit of 89.1 million from a turnover of 736 million  of which 509 million was revenue directly generated by Ajax.

The accounts for that year were signed by another former senior Army officer, Lieutenant General Andrew Figgures. He became a director of General Dynamics (UK) after retiring from the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers.

Here we come to the second issue in the decision-making process.

According to defence sources, the Ajax's problems can be traced to the Army's insistence on having the company's armoured vehicle rather than BAe's CV90.

In contrast to the Ajax, the CV90 has been introduced into service with armies across the world.

A source told the Mail the MoD wanted to 'punish' BAe for the failure of the MRA4 Nimrod programme  the ministry ordered 21 'maritime reconnaissance and attack' aircraft from BAe but after delays and hitches the programme was scrapped with losses exceeding 4 billion.

'Anyone but BAe', was the mantra. And when the choice of Ajax was challenged by the MoD's procurement scrutiny committee, the Army 'blustered it through', according to sources.

The initial development contract was signed in 2011 and the deal was stacked so the manufacturer received more than half the value of the contract before the Ajax vehicles entered service. To this day 26 have been received by the Army.

Astonishingly, the Defence Select Committee heard that any compensation claims brought by soldiers suffering injuries due to the noise and vibrations aboard Ajax will come not from the manufacturer but public funds.

And while a 7.7 million grant from the Welsh government to construct the vehicle at a factory in Wales must be repaid, the company only has to do this at a rate of 1 million year.

The scandal of the armoured vehicle's glaring problems raises concerns about the government's procurement process and why ministers were not alerted to the difficulties, but instead continued to write huge cheques (Pictured: Digital image of Ajax tank)

Compounding the problems was the fact that commanders were determined to create the 'perfect vehicle', irrespective of cost  and they could not stop changing the design, long after the project was under way.

Amazingly, senior Army officers were apparently jealous of their Royal Navy and Royal Air Force counterparts as they had new aircraft carriers and next generation stealth jets. According to sources, they were determined to have their own prestigious piece of kit.

Officers were also smarting after procurement minister Lord Drayson scaled back a programme called FRES (Future Rapid Effect System) which involved a suite of sensors, communication systems and high-tech vehicles likened to the gadgetry on 'Thunderbirds'.

All that remained of FRES after this downgrade was the requirement for an 'Armoured Infantry Reconnaissance and Command Vehicle'  which explains why Army officers were determined to make it the best.

They insisted on the 'enhanced lethality' offered by the 40 mm cannon, despite its eye-watering cost  a source recalled that in 2011 the estimated cost of each round was 250, against 20 per round for the smaller cannons on other armoured vehicles.

Publicly available MoD reports written around 2017-2018 do not mention the problems  the 2017-18 accounts claim Ajax armoured vehicles are 'progressing through their final acceptance process before being accepted into service' (Pictured: The Ares variant of the Ajax is put through its paces for the British Army)

By 2016 General Dynamics (UK) had produced working prototypes of Ajax but the Army, seeing how rapidly battlefield technology, in particular communications, was moving on, feared Ajax could be obsolete when it eventually entered service.

So it set about 're-casting' its agreement with the manufacturer for what would be delivered.

This 're-casting' was not just a tweak here and there, it was a transformative overhaul of the vehicle.

The latest high-tech equipment had to be retrofitted into hulls and turrets designed for different communication and intelligence systems and armaments. The process lasted four years and meant the company's 2014 production contract had to be re-drafted as, effectively, the Army was asking for a different vehicle.

It was a move described by one source as 'the most cardinal of sins in procurement'.

Inevitably, the MoD paid a hefty financial price. 'Re-casting was the Army's biggest mistake,' said the source. 'You have to stick to your choices. Otherwise the contractor gets to bury its own mistakes in the changes you want.'

Publicly available MoD reports written around this period do not mention the problems  the 2017-18 accounts claim Ajax armoured vehicles are 'progressing through their final acceptance process before being accepted into service'.

By then, the Army's demands for a 'light tank' with a 40 mm cannon, which was 'globally deployable' and delivered ISTAR (Information, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance) capabilities, was causing headaches.

One option is to replace Ajax with drones. The latest technological developments mean they offer increasing amounts of firepower and there's the bonus that, being unmanned, they do not put friendly lives at stake (Pictured: The Ares variant of the Ajax is put through its paces for the British Army)

What's more, the changes had made the vehicle heavier  so much so that its deployment is now compromised by its weight.

The chair of the Defence Select Committee, Tobias Ellwood MP, said: 'Its weight has ballooned from eight tonnes to 43 tonnes, meaning it is too heavy for the A400 transport aircraft, and only with partial dismantling can it fit into the (much bigger) C-17.'

At the hearing Mr Francois advised the Defence Minister Jeremy Quin to 'rip off the plaster' on Ajax, 'go for your liquidated damages and move on'.

So what happens now? Commanders and ministers are prepared to give General Dynamics (UK) a few months to rectify the noise and vibration issues, but not much longer.

The trouble is the Chief of the Defence Staff, General Sir Nick Carter, who was the head of the Army, has put Ajax at the centre of the new strategic approach to ground warfare known as 'Strike Brigades'. The vehicle was intended to provide covering firepower to troops and provide and relay intelligence and communications across the battlefield.

Equally, there is now little money left in the pot for an alternative.

One option is to replace Ajax with drones. The latest technological developments mean they offer increasing amounts of firepower and there's the bonus that, being unmanned, they do not put friendly lives at stake.

But whatever happens, nothing can now gloss over this ruinous scandal  which could turn out to be the most expensive mistake the MoD has ever made.
An obstetrician on the front line of Australia's battle against coronavirus has debunked theories about the Covid vaccine's effect on pregnant woman.

Liverpool Hospital's birthing unit director Dr Gauthami Bhagwanani on Wednesday appeared at NSW's Covid-19 press conference to warn expectant mothers the virus itself poses a far greater risk to their unborn baby than the Covid-19 jab.

'The vaccine does not increase the risk of miscarriage or structural abnormalities for your baby,' the Sydney doctor said.

'It does not affect your fertility. What poses the greatest risk to women and their babies is not the vaccine - it is the Covid-19 infection itself.'

Victoria's Deputy Chief Health Officer Dr Clare Looker gets her first Pfizer vaccine while pregnant in July. An obstetrician on the front line of Australia's battle against coronavirus has debunked theories about the Covid vaccine's effect on pregnant woman

She also hit out at claims the vaccines had not been tested sufficiently on pregnant women before being rolled out to the public.

'In Australia we have had the added advantage of seeing the effects of the vaccine in pregnant women overseas,' she said.

'Over 100,000 women were included in studies from the US and the UK. These have not demonstrated any adverse outcomes for your baby.'

Dr Bhagwanani said by contrast contracting Covid-19 doubled the risk of pregnant women needing ICU admission and increased the chance of them needing invasive ventilation that could harm their baby.

She spoke of the heartbreak of seeing mothers who are so sick with the virus they had to deliver their baby pre-term.

Liverpool Hospital's birthing unit director Dr Gauthami Bhagwanani on Wednesday warned expectant mothers the virus itself poses a far greater risk to their unborn baby than the Covid-19 jab

Australia's vaccine rollout has seen nearly 70 per cent of the population receive their first dose as the country looks to reopen state and international borders

'By receiving the COVID-19 vaccine in pregnancy or when you are breastfeeding, not only are you protecting yourself but also your baby and the rest of your family,' she said.

'The anti-bodies you produce after having the vaccination can offer some protection to your baby as well.'

NSW on Wednesday hit a vaccination milestone, with 80 per cent of adults having received their first dose.

New South Wales saw an increase in cases on Wednesday with 1259 cases new infections of coronavirus and 12 deaths

Premier Gladys Berejiklian said only vaccinated people will be allowed to attend businesses listed in the state's 70 per cent double dose freedom roadmap, including pubs, restaurants, gyms and non-critical retail.

Unvaccinated residents will be locked out of hospitality and retail venues.

The premier also announced the curfew in the 12 LGAs of concern will end on Thursday morning.

Ms Berejiklian said a decline in cases in the areas of concern led to the decision to lift the lockdown's most hated rule, but urged Sydneysiders to remain vigilant as the state heads toward 'Freedom Day'.
Maryland officials have voted to remove the state's last Confederate statue on public land, just a week after Richmond, Virginia tore down its Robert E. Lee monument.

The Talbot Boys statue, located on the lawn outside the Talbot County Courthouse, commemorates more than 80 soldiers who fought for the Confederacy.

On Tuesday, Talbot County Council voted 3-2 to approve a resolution to move the statue to a Virginia battleground more than 200 miles away.

The statue dedicated in 1916 is thought to be the last Confederate monument still standing on public property in Maryland besides cemeteries and battlefields.

It has been a topic of the debate in the community for years - as other Confederate monuments throughout the country came down, like Richmonds Robert E. Lee statue that was removed last week, Talbot county leaders positions shifted.

The Talbot Boys statue, located on the lawn outside the Talbot County Courthouse, commemorates more than 80 soldiers who fought for the Confederacy

In May, civil rights advocates sued the county seeking the court-ordered removal of the statue depicting a soldier with a Confederate flag draped over one shoulder, calling it a racist symbol of oppression and claiming it is unconstitutional and illegal.

Private funds will cover the cost of relocating the statue to the private Cross Keys Battlefield in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Council member Corey Pack, who previously opposed moving the statue, said the killing of George Floyd changed his mind, but a resolution he co-sponsored last year failed. Frank Divilio, who opposed removal last year, cast the deciding vote Tuesday.

For years, local activists have fought for the removal of the Jim Crow-era statue on the lawn adjacent to a former slave market site in Easton. The statue, they say, celebrates those who fought for the Confederacy while Maryland remained in the union.

Maryland officials have voted to remove the state's last Confederate statue on public land, just a week after Richmond, Virginia tore down its Robert E. Lee monument (pictured)

It has been a topic of the debate in the community for years - as other Confederate monuments throughout the country came down, like Richmonds Robert E. Lee statue that was removed last week (pictured), Talbot county leaders positions shifted.

Many of these advocates were present at the Tuesday meeting in matching yellow shirts, cheering when the deciding vote was delivered, according to the Washington Post.

Other Easton residents characterized the decision as an erasure of history during the meeting's public comment period.

'As I see it, the county council has just said that Talbot County supports the effort of those people who want to erase the history of the United States and replace it with unrelenting hatred of those people who came before, said resident David Montgomery.
Twenty-three-year-old Elijah McClain died of a cardiac arrest after an encounter with Aurora Police in which he was put into a chokehold and injected 500 milligrams of ketamine

A civil rights investigation that was launched amid outrage over the 2019 death of Elijah McClain found a deeply engrained culture of racial bias within the Aurora Police Department.

Attorney General Phil Weiser cited two occasions as a prime example of how the department treats black people differently than white people.

In one instance, police officers pointed their weapons at a black man who claimed he had knife and was going to kill himself, while in a separate incident an officer said 'I'm Joe, you look to be hurting. How can we help you?' to a white man who was 'very drunk and exhibiting mental health issues.'

Twenty-three-year-old massage therapist Elijah McClain died of a cardiac arrest after he was put into a chokehold by Aurora police officers and injected 500 milligrams of ketamine, 1.5 times what his body could resist, by paramedics.

'These actions are unacceptable. They hurt the people that law enforcement is entrusted' to serve, Weiser said.

Sheneen McClain, McClain's mother, said she participated in the state investigation, welcomed its findings and urged the police department to work with Weiser's office.

'It's just terrible that it takes my son's death for Aurora police to change what they've been doing for a long time in this community,' she said.

'Front and center: Elijah would still be here if the system was operating like it should. My son's death was preventable and it's really sad that it took all this to get justice done and make sure it won't happen to someone else,' she added.

Officers Erica Marrero, Kyle Dittrich and Jason Rosenblatt were fired from Aurora police after they shared a pictured of what seemed to be them reenacting the chokehold that killed McClain (pictured)

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said the agency also has a pattern of using unlawful excessive force, frequently escalating encounters with civilians, and failing to properly document police interactions with residents

'It's just terrible that it takes my son's death for Aurora police to change what they've been doing for a long time in this community,' said Elijah McClain's mom, Sheneen McClain

Weiser said the agency also has a pattern of using unlawful excessive force, frequently escalating encounters with civilians, and failing to properly document police interactions with residents.

'These actions are unacceptable. They hurt the people that law enforcement is entrusted to serve,' Weiser said.

On September 1, Weiser's office charged three officers and two paramedics with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in connection with Elijah McClain's death.

On August 24, 2019, police stopped McClain as he walked home from a store after a 911 caller reported a man wearing a ski mask and waving his hands who seemed 'sketchy.'

Officers put McClain in a chokehold and pinned him down.

Paramedics injected him with 500 milligrams of ketamine, an amount appropriate for someone 77 pounds heavier than McClains 143-pound frame, according to an indictment.

McClain fell unconscious, was pronounced brain-dead at a hospital, and was taken off life support several days later.

Officers Erica Marrero, Kyle Dittrich and Jason Rosenblatt were fired from Aurora police after they shared a picture of what seemed to be them reenacting the chokehold that killed McClain.

Dittrich texted the photos to two officers who stopped McClain - Rosenblatt and Nathan Woodyard - in an attempt to try to cheer up Woodyard, authorities said.

Rosenblatt texted back 'ha ha,' while Woodyard didn't reply and deleted the photos.

Woodyard was not disciplined.

Weiser's investigation cites numerous examples of biased policing in addition to McClain's death.

McClain fell unconscious, was pronounced brain-dead at a hospital, and was taken off life support several days later after a confrontation with Aurora Police

Dittrich texted the photos to two officers who stopped McClain - Rosenblatt and Nathan Woodyard - in an attempt to try to cheer up Woodyard, authorities said

A board that oversees officer hiring and discipline turned down a decision by a police chief to fire a lieutenant who used a racial slur to refer to a group of black residents.

The state civil rights investigation, announced in August 2020, was the first of its kind under a sweeping police accountability law passed in Colorado amid protests over the killings of McClain and George Floyd.

Weiser urged the police department to commit to recommended reforms in officer training and stricter standards for police stops and arrests.

He said that if the Aurora police fails to comply, his office will seek a court order but noted that the department had since fully cooperated in the investigation.

Weiser said his office wants a state agreement with Aurora to be submitted to a court. The agreement would have ongoing independent oversight and would specify what the city and department must do to fulfill his investigations recommendations.

Aurora police Chief Vanessa Wilson and City Manager Jim Twombly said in statements that they will cooperate with Weiser's office and already have been working to implement reforms in the department.

'We acknowledge there are changes to be made,' Wilson said.

'We will not broad brush this agency or discount the professionalism and integrity that individual officers bring to our community every day,' she added.

The Colorado police accountability law made it unlawful for police officers or other employees of government agencies to deprive people of their constitutional rights and gave the attorney general the power to enforce it.

Under the law, if the attorney general finds an agency has 'a pattern or practice' of violating peoples rights, the attorney general must notify the agency of the reasons for that belief and give it 60 days to make changes.

If the agency does not make changes, the attorney general can file a lawsuit to force them.

State Rep. Leslie Herod, a Democrat from Denver who helped craft the police accountability legislation, said Weiser's recommendations proved the law is working.

'We have affirmed what the citizens of Aurora and so many folks already knew: That the Aurora Police Department has operated in a way that is racist and that is particularly racist against black people and presents harm to our community,' said Herod, who is black.

Weisers office was in charge of prosecuting the three police officers and two paramedics involved in McClains death.

The attorney general convened a grand jury to decide whether to file criminal charges after being ordered to take another look at the case by Democratic Gov. Jared Polis amid last years protests.

The grand jury indicted all five.

An investigation prompted by outrage over the death of 23-year-old Elijah McClain found deeply rooted racial bias and excessive use of force within the Aurora Police Department. In this June 27, 2020 file photo, demonstrators carry placards as they walk down Sable Boulevard during a rally and march over the death of Elijah McClain in Aurora

In this August 24, 2020, file photo, two people hold posters showing images depicting Elijah McClain during a candlelight vigil for McClain outside the Laugh Factory in Los Angeles

A small display stands next to the retaining wall for Interstate 225 across from where Elijah McClain was stopped by Aurora Police

The Aurora Police Department faced criticism when officers put four black girls on the ground last year and handcuffed two of them next to a car that police suspected was stolen but turned out not to be.

And an officer was charged with assault in July after being captured on body camera video pistol-whipping and choking a Black man during an arrest.

Another officer was charged with not intervening as required under the new police accountability law.

Lorenzo M. Boyd, professor in criminal justice and community policing at the University of New Haven in Connecticut, said Weiser's action is unusual because the federal, not state government generally reaches court-approved agreements with local police departments to ensure changes are made.

'A lot of times the state tries to not ruffle feathers at home.

'Theyll farm things out to the feds to kind of keep their hands clean,'

'But it seems like in this situation, the states attorney general in Colorado decides, you know, we need to fix our own house before outsiders need to come in and do it,' Boyd said.
A federal court of appeals has ruled that pro-Palestinian protestors holding signs reading 'Jewish Power Corrupts' outside a Jewish synagogue in Michigan are protected by the First Amendment.

The protests have been held on a weekly basis since September 2003 and are held during Shabbat morning services outside Beth Israel Congregation in Ann Arbor.

People usually hold signs that say 'Jewish Power Corrupts,' 'Stop Funding Israel' and 'End the Palestinian Holocaust.'

Members of Beth Israel, including some Holocaust survivors, said the protests have interfered with their Saturday worship and caused emotional distress.

Henry Herskovitz leads a protest with anti-Israel and anti-Jewish messages outside the Beth Israel Congregation in Ann Arbor in 2019

'But the congregants have not alleged that the protesters ever blocked them from using their synagogue or that the protests were even audible from inside the building,' Judge Jeffrey Sutton said.

He said a proposed solution, a 1,000ft buffer and limits on signs, would violate the First Amendment and that since no protester had ever attempted to trespass the synagogue, no legal action could be taken.

'The key obstacle is the robust protections that the First Amendment affords to nonviolent protests on matters of public concern,' Sutton said in summarizing the case.

The demonstrations, which have been ongoing for nearly two decades, are organized by anti-Israel activists Henry Herskovitz and Chris Mark, from Jewish Witness for Peace.

The protests have occurred on a weekly basis since September 2003 and are timed to Shabbat morning services outside Beth Israel Congregation in Ann Arbor.

Herskovitz used to be a congregant of Beth Israel and founded Jewish Witnesses for Peace, an anti-Semitic organization that 'exposes Jewish racism, power and influence and dual loyalties,' after he was denied to speak to the congregations upon returning from the Middle East.

Herskovitz has said that he won't stop until Beth Israel compromises to open dialog, and accused the synagogue of dismissing Palestinians 'much as George Bush would refuse to meet with rogue terrorists.'

'This provocative, weekly demonstration of solidarity with the people of occupied Palestine is, apparently, the only one of it's kind in the country.

'It has stirred ire and debate all it's short history and has brought the issue of Israeli military aggression in Palestine to public awareness.

'The on-going vigil is set to end only once the administrators of the Beth Israel Temple agree to a meaningful dialog regarding their organizational support for the state of Israel, and thus support for military occupation of Palestine and the aggression that accompanies it,' read the website for Jewish Witness of Peace.

Herskovitz (pictured) used to be a congregant of Beth Israel and founded Jewish Witnesses for Peace after he was denied to speak to the congregations upon returning from the Middle East

Jewish Witness of Peace members holding signs reading 'Boycott Israel' and 'No More Wars for Israel' in Ann Arbor, Michigan

Congregants of Beth Israel brought up how distressing it was that the protests have been going on for so long, and that children can see the controversial signs, but the court asserted those were not constitutional reasons to stop the protestors.

'The protesters' actions do not lose constitutional protection just because they have been protesting for a long period of time.

'Free-speech protections do not expire over time or come with a rule against perpetuities.

'And the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that an interest in protecting children does not justify censoring speech addressed to adults,' read court documents.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a brief in support of the activists, saying the protests are entitled to protection even if 'offensive, upsetting and distasteful.'

'If public officials and courts have discretion to suppress speech they dont like, then none of us truly enjoys the freedom of speech,' Dan Korobkin of the ACLU said.

Last year, congregants filed a lawsuit stating that the protests impeded their right to peacefully practice their religion. The suit was dismissed.
Potter is expected back in court on November 30 and her trial will not be broadcasted to the public

Activists are unhappy with the first-degree manslaughter charge and believe Potter should be charged with murder

She actually fired a gun at Wright and the bullet hit him in the chest

Wright, 20, was killed in a traffic stop by Potter and her trainee after he resisted arrest and she threatened to taser him

Kim Potter was given the charge on top of her existing second-degree manslaughter earlier this month

Attorneys asked a judge to dismiss a new manslaughter charge against the former suburban Minneapolis police officer who shot and killed Daunte Wright during a traffic stop this spring.

Former Brooklyn Center Officer Kim Potter says she mistakenly drew her firearm instead of her stun gun as Wright was trying to drive away from officers during the stop in April.

Potter is recorded on body-camera video an instant after the shooting saying she drew the wrong weapon. Potter is white. Wright was Black. His death sparked several nights of protests.

Prosecutors charged her with second-degree manslaughter. Attorney General Keith Ellison, whose office later took over the case, added a count of first-degree manslaughter earlier this month.

Kim Potter (pictured), who has already been charged with second-degree manslaughter, was given an additional first-degree manslaughter charge earlier this month for her involvement in the death of Daunte Wright, 20, but she filed a motion to appeal yesterday

Potter is scheduled to stand trial in December. The second-degree manslaughter charge is punishable by up to 10 years in prison; first-degree has a maximum 15-year sentence.

Potter's attorneys, Paul Engh and Earl Gray, filed a motion Wednesday seeking to dismiss the new charge.

They argued that Minnesota statutes define first-degree manslaughter as endangering someone by recklessly handling a gun or other dangerous weapon and Potter didn't consciously realize she was holding a gun or was about to fire it.

They went on to argue that Potter was justified in using reasonable force to stop Wright and protect other officers at the scene, maintaining that at least one officer and possibly two were clinging to Wright's car as he drove off and could have been killed.

Potter (pictured back right in a courtroom sketch) fired the weapon once, striking Wright in the chest and the cartridge hitting Luckey's face, according to bodycam footage

Potter (pictured in a drawing from court) told Wright 'I'll tase ya' as she pointed her gun at him

Engh and Gray acknowledged that argument is based on a version of Minnesota use-of-force statutes that allow officers to use deadly force to protect themselves or to carry out the arrest or prevent the escape of someone suspected of committing a felony.

The attorneys acknowledged those statutes weren't in effect on the day of the Wright stop.

They had been replaced by new standards requiring officers to justify use-of-force in specific terms adopted in the wake of George Floyd's death in Minneapolis.

A Ramsey County judge on Monday suspended the new standards pending a lawsuit by law enforcement lobbying groups. Potter's attorneys said the old standards should apply in her case.

Wright, 20, was killed by Potter during a traffic stop after he resisted arrest and she threatened to taser him.

Potter (pictured) was given the first-degree manslaughter charge after her case was reviewed by a new attorney general and an expert. Activists protested outside the home of the previous attorney general and were disappointed when she was awarded a murder charge

According to the new criminal complaint, Potter was training another officer, Andrew Luckey, when the incident happened.

Luckey told Wright he was being stopped because he had an air freshener hanging from his rearview mirror - it is illegal in Minnesota to have anything suspended between the driver and the windshield, beside rearview mirrors and sun visors - and because his license tags were expired.

Luckey went back to his squad car and found that Wright had an arrest warrant for a gross misdemeanor weapons violation.

Luckey asked Wright to get out of the car, and as Luckey was trying to arrest him, Wright got back into the driver's seat, the complaint said.

As Luckey kept a grip on Wright, Potter said 'I'll tase ya,' and moved a piece of paper that she had taken from Wright from her own right hand into her left hand. One second later, Potter's right hand can be seen in her body camera video, holding her handgun.

In the video, Potter is seen firing her handgun at Wright after shouting 'Taser'

Police body cam footage shows three officers approaching Wright's car in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, on April 11 after he had been pulled over for the traffic stop

Wright (pictured) was pulled over by Potter and her trainee Andrew Luckey for expired license tags and for having an air freshener hanging from his rearview mirror in April. He had an outstanding warrant for his arrest, according to court documents

The complaint told Potter again said, 'I'll tase you' and 'Taser, Taser, Taser' while she pointed her gun at Wright.

She then pulled the trigger, firing a single round that struck Wright in the chest.

The complaint says Potter was outside Wright's car door when she fired, and her handgun was inches below Luckey's arm.

A cartridge casing appeared to hit Luckey in the face.

On the body camera video, Potter is heard saying she grabbed the wrong gun.

The complaint said Potter's duty belt shows her handgun was holstered on the right side in a straight-draw position, which would have required she use her right hand to draw it, and her Taser was holstered on her left, in a position which would have required her to use her left hand to draw it.

The Taser is yellow with a black grip, the handgun is entirely black.

The Taser is located on the left hip, while the gun is positioned on the right

Potter claimed she meant to tase Wright and can be heard in body cam footage yelling about a Taser. A Taser is black and yellow in design compared to a gun, which is all black

The two weapons also have distinct grips and the Taser has a manual safety switch and a laser-sighting feature. The complaint said Potter had substantial training on Tasers and firearms during her 26 years as a police officer. That training included two Taser-specific courses in the six months prior to Wright's death.

Potter is scheduled to go to trial on November 30 and it will not be broadcasted to the public.

Activists had demanded a murder charge during protests in Brooklyn Center and outside a metro-area prosecutor's home before Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison took over the case.

Potter has claimed that she meant to use her taser instead of her handgun when she fatally shot Wright on April 11.

Her first-degree manslaughter charge carries a maximum sentence of 15 years while second-degree manslaughter carries a maximum penalty of 10 years, though state sentencing guidelines call for much less.
Joe Biden is preparing 46 states to receive 65,000 Afghan refugees by the end of September, according to State Department data obtained by the Associated Press.

The administration started notifying governors, state refugee coordinators and other local leaders across the country on how many Afghan evacuees they should expect among the first group of almost 37,000 arrivals.

California is projected to take the most arrivals of any other state with 5,255 people coming their way, according to Afghan Placement and Assistance program data. And Texas will take the second most amount of Afghan refugees at 4,481.

Alabama and Mississippi are both slated to welcome only 10 evacuees while Hawaii, South Dakota, West Virginia, Wyoming and Washington, D.C. are not expected to resettle anyone from the first group.

Oklahoma, which over the course of the 20-year war had resettled a relatively small number of Afghans, is slated to resettle 1,800 new arrivals.

The thousands arriving in the U.S. are among the Afghans who fled during the final days of the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan last month. Many are still waiting in third-party countries on U.S. military bases in places like Rammstein, Germany and Doha, Qatar, which Secretary of State Anthony Blinken visited earlier this month.

The White House started notifying governors of how many Afghan evacuees to expect to resettle in their respective states in the first group of 37,000 arrivals. California and Texas will receive the most while Hawaii, Wyoming, West Virginia, South Dakota and D.C. will not receive any

An Afghan man walks with a child through Fort Bliss' Dona Ana Village in New Mexico last week as the Biden administration provided the first public look inside the U.S. military base where those airlifted out of Afghanistan are screened

The Biden administration is bracing 46 governors for the number of Afghan evacuees who are being resettled in their states. Families evacuated from Kabul walk through Washington Dulles Airport on August 31

The administration has requested funding from Congress to help resettle 65,000 Afghans in the U.S. by the end of this month and a total of 95,000 by September 2022.

Biden tapped the former governor of his home state of Delaware, Jack Markell, to temporarily serve as his point person on resettling Afghan evacuees in the United States.

Earlier this month, the White House insisted there were less than 100 American citizens left to evacuate from Afghanistan  while Republicans and volunteer evacuation groups claim the number could be upwards of 500 and between 1,000-2,000 if family members are included in the tally.

The administration has faced a slew of backlash for ending the troop presence in Afghanistan on the deadline date of August 31 without first ensuring all U.S. citizens were out of the country.

The bungled withdrawal has also been denounced by many regardless of political affiliation  especially after 13 U.S. servicemembers were killed outside the Kabul airport last month in an ISIS-K suicide bombing.

Many polls show somewhere between three and four in 10 Americans do not approve of Biden's handling of the withdrawal.

Each Afghan evacuee is currently slated to receive $1,225 to help with rent, furniture, food and pocket money. Afghan refugees line up for food in a dining hall at Fort Bliss' Dona Ana Village in New Mexico on September 10

An aerial photo shows tents at For Bliss where Afghan refugees are being house. The first round of resettlement in the U.S. will include 37,000 evacuees and by the end of September the goal is to resettle 65,000 arrivals

Now, allies, interpreters and Afghan citizens who fled from Taliban rule in the takeover of Afghanistan are seeking solace in the U.S.

States with a historically large number of Afghans who resettled in the U.S. over the last 20 years - including California, Maryland, Texas and Virginia - are again welcoming a disproportionate number of evacuees, according to the data.

Many asylum-seekers, refugees and evacuees gravitate to northern Virginia, the Maryland suburbs of D.C. and northern California - some of the most expensive housing markets in the country.

Each Afghan evacuee is currently slated to receive $1,225 to help with rent, furniture, food and pocket money.

Many of the new evacuees requested to be resettled in specific states because they already have family and close friends living in those states, two U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity revealed.

Resettlement agencies also have a large presence and capacity in many of those states.

The State Department resettled evacuees based on the advice of local affiliates of nine national resettlement agencies the U.S. government is working with, the officials said.

The officials said Afghan evacuees are advised that other parts of the country -- including areas with plentiful job openings and cheaper housing -- could be good places to begin their new lives in the U.S.

The Afghan evacuees go through a Department of Homeland Security-coordinated process of security vetting before being admitted. And every evacuee who comes into the United States also goes through health screening. Evacuees who are 12 and older are required to get the COVID-19 vaccination as a term of their humanitarian parolee status after entering the country.

Still, there have been unexpected complications.

U.S.-bound flights for evacuees who had been staying temporarily in third-country processing sites were halted last week after measles cases were discovered among several Afghans who had recently arrived in the U.S.

Biden has called on Congress to take action to ensure that the recent arrivals have access to the same benefits as refugees considering some of the Afghan evacuees could face a tough road ahead.

The Afghan evacuees are not currently eligible for food stamps, cash assistance through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program for low income families, Medicaid or other traditional refugee services that are funded through the Department of Health and Human Services.
The stepfather of missing van-life woman Gabby Petito heaved with emotion Wednesday as he stared out onto the vast mountain range in Wyoming where his daughter was last seen, then turned to face the camera and pleaded for help in finding his stepdaughter.

James Schmidt traveled to Wyoming on Wednesday morning to assist authorities in their efforts to locate Petito, 22, just hours after her boyfriend Brian Laundrie was named a person of interest in the investigation.

'We were made aware of that earlier today,' Jim Schmidt, a former fire chief in Blue Point, Long Island, told DailyMail.com in an exclusive video interview at Grand Teton National Park. 'He was with her, so he has to know something.'

Schmidt then made a direct appeal to the boyfriend's family, who released a brief statement through their attorney on Tuesday that they were 'remaining in the background' as the search continued.

Brian, 23, who'd been traveling with Gabby, 22 in a van while filming their adventures out west, returned to Florida without her on September 1.

Her mother reported her missing on September 11. Police opened a missing person's investigation but Brian along with his parents have refused to speak with detectives.

James Schmidt, former fire chief for the Blue Point Fire Department, (pictured) traveled to Wyoming Wednesday to assist authorities in their efforts to locate Petito, 22, who traveled to the state's Grand Teton National Park in late August with her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie.

Police named her boyfriend Brian Laundrie a person of interest on Wednesday. They are pictured together on their trip

'Our family's aware of the statements made by his attorney,' Schmidt said, forcefully. 'It's unacceptable. It is unacceptable to us. We deserve more. Gabby deserves more information out there. She deserves to be found and brought home safe. And we need you to step up and do the right thing.

'I understand a parent's wishes are to always protect their children, no matter what,' he continued. 'I understand that. But it's also about teaching your children the right thing and doing the right thing, no matter what the circumstances are. Whatever may have transpired or didn't transpire, they need to come forward and start speaking to law enforcement agencies and be forthcoming with information.

'The longer they don't, the longer it's going to take to bring her home. And we need her home now. So, they have to. It's not a matter of sit back. They have to come forward, for Gabby, for everyone.'

Utah cops not 'ruling out' possible link between double murder and Gabby Petito case Investigators are not 'ruling out' the possibility that the disappearance of van-life woman Gabby Petito may be linked to a double-homicide that left newlyweds dead at a campground near Moab, Utah, last month. Petito, 22, who was last seen in Wyoming, got into an 'emotional argument' with her boyfriend that prompted police response at the same co-op grocery store where now-deceased newlywed Kylen Schulte, 24, worked. Schulte and her wife, Crystal Beck, 38, were found dead at a campsite in the area less than a week after Petito's dispute. Police believe the newly weds were shot by an outside party. The proximity of time and location of the two incidents has since prompted authorities to speculate that they could share a connection, Fox News reported. 'We're looking at everything, I mean, anything and everything that was suspicious around that time or we're not ruling anything out at this time,' a spokesman for the Grand County Sheriff's Office told the news outlet on Wednesday. 'We're just investigating the information as it comes in.' Petito, (left) was reported missing by her mother on September 11, and was last seen on August 24 checking out of a hotel with her boyfriend in Salt Lake City, Utah. Schulte (pictured on the right with Beck to her left) and Beck were found shot dead four days after going missing while camping in Utah mountains Petito was last seen on Aug. 24 checking out of a hotel with her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie, 23, in Salt Lake City, Utah. However, Moab police responded to a 'domestic incident' involving Petito and Laundrie on Aug. 12. Neither were arrested and no charges were filed in the incident. Just six days later, Schulte and Beck (also known as Crystal Turner) were found shot to death at a campsite in the nearby South Mesa area. Deputies have not identified a suspect in the double-homicide, but have not ruled out the possibility that their deaths may be connected to Petito's disappearance. Petito had been travelling throughout the western United States in a van with her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie, 23. Police named Petito's boyfriend Brian Laundrie a person of interest on Wednesday. They are pictured together on their trip Kylen Schulte (left) and Crystal Beck, who married recently, were found dead in the Moab mountains of Utah after being reported missing four days earlier She was last seen on Aug. 24 checking out of a hotel with Laundrie in Salt Lake City, Utah. He returned to Florida without her on September 1. Gabby, who grew up in Blue Point, New York, was reported missing by her mother on Sept. 11. Police named Laundrie a person of interest in the investigation on Wednesday. Beck and Schulte were last seen at Woodys Tavern in Moab on Aug. 13. They were considered semi-regulars at the tavern. They were found dead on Aug. 18 at a campsite nearby. Surveillance footage captured the final moments of a slain couple before they disappeared. The two women had laughed and joked about the 'weirdo' camping next to them in the Utah wilderness. Investigators believe someone, likely an outside party, killed the women and fled the area Advertisement

Schmidt flew from New York into Jackson Hole, Wyoming on Tuesday night and plans to stay in Grand Teton until Gabby is found.

'This is where she was last known to be going,' he said. 'She was traveling through the west out here, from Colorado to Utah, up through the Grand Teton region. We felt we needed a presence here, to let people know we're here and we want to find Gabby and bring her home.'

'Since we got here, we've been basically working almost around the clock trying to gather information and let it be known that we're out here and that we're looking for her,' he continued. 'I spoke to one law enforcement official. We're really just here to support them in their investigation. We don't want to interfere and hinder anything that they have, but we just want to show that we're here for them and available for them at a moment's notice for any questions or anything they may need.'

Petito's mother Nicole Schmidt (left) and stepfather James Schmidt (right) are desperate for answers. Now, James has set off to Wyoming to track his stepdaughter down

Jim Schmidt (pictured) the stepfather of Gabby Petito, talks to DailyMail.com from the Grand Teton National Park after his stepdaughter disappeared

Petito, (pictured) who grew up in Blue Point, New York, was reported missing by her mother on September 11, and was last seen on August 24 checking out of a hotel with Brian in Salt Lake City, Utah

Asked about his hopes and fears for the investigation and search, he replied, 'I don't want to talk about fears. Our hopes are that she's somewhere out here safe, that someone will see her or find her, and that we'll get her and get her home safe to us, to her family.'

He spoke about Gabby's love of the outdoors, how they used to camp together when she was younger.

'It was nothing like this,' he said. 'Not that long ago, she took a trip like this, more along the West coast, California area, and fell in love with the area. She wanted to come back. She wanted to do all these parks and hit all these beautiful places around here and experience life. That's really what she's about, she's about living in the moment, experiencing life, and just enjoying it.'

He appealed to the public for information on his daughter, especially people who may have been traveling through the region around the time of her disappearance, in late August.

'If you were out in this area, if you been out here in this timeframe and have pictures or video, please go back and see if there's anything in there where you may have seen here,' he said. 'And call the tip line. All that information's going to help us.'

But he kept returning to the subject of Brian and his family.

'We're just pleading with her boyfriend's family to please stop staying in the background and come out and help find Gabby, help give us the information we need, whatever information you have,' he said. 'We need to know, we need to find her.'

Gabby, who grew up in Blue Point, New York, was reported missing by her mother on September 11, and was last seen on August 24 checking out of a hotel with Brian in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The following day she made her final call to her family, telling them that she and Brian had arrived at Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.

The above map illustrates the places Petito and Laundrie visited since the start of the trip leaving New York on July 2 to when she last spoke to her family on August 25 from Grand Teton National Park.

Police opened a missing person's investigation but Brian along with his parents have refused to speak with detectives.

On Wednesday, Brian's attorney Steve Bertolino, issued the statement regarding his client in addition to Gabby's disappearance.

'This is an extremely difficult time for both the Petito family and the Laundrie family. I understand that a search has been organized for Miss Petito in or near Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. On behalf of the Laundrie family, it is our hope that the search for Miss Petito is successful and that Miss Petito is re-united with her family. On the advice of counsel, the Laundrie family is remaining in the background at this juncture and will have no further comment.'

'Our family's aware of the statements made by his attorney,' Schmidt said, forcefully.

Petito and Laundrie had been traveling in a converted van, and were expected to complete their trip at a friend's home in Portland around Halloween.

Instead, Laundrie returned home alone and has refused to tell the cops where his girlfriend is.

Gabby's mother, Nicole, told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview that on September 10 she reached out to Brian and his mother Roberta Laundrie trying to reach her daughter after she had not heard from Gabby since August 25.

'I texted Brian's mom that I was trying to get in touch with Gabby. I also texted Brian. I got no replies,' Schmidt said.

'I knew something was wrong,' she said. 'I felt something was off and I needed to get her reported missing immediately.'

She went to report Gabby missing later that day but police initially blew her off. The next day, she was allowed to file a report with the Suffolk County police department.

'Detective Tracey Barry of the Suffolk County police department has been our angel taking on this case. She was the only one who listened and cared enough to take this on,' Schmidt said.

Petito, who grew up in Blue Point, New York, was reported missing by her mother on September 11, and was last seen on August 24 checking out of a hotel with Brian in Salt Lake City, Utah .

Police said on Wednesday that Brian Laundrie, 23, returned to his parents' North Port, Florida, home without 22-year-old Gabby Peon September 1 in the couple's van they had used to travel the country

According to the incident report, officers were called near the Moonflower Community Co-op in Moab on August 12 around 4:30pm after a witness, identified only as Christopher, reported seeing the pair 'arguing over a phone.'

The bystander told police that when Laundrie got into the couple's van, he saw 'what appeared to him as Gabrielle hitting Brian in the arm and then climbing through the driver's window as if Brian had locked her out and she was trying to find a way in,' responding officer Daniel Scott Robbins wrote.

Robbins later located the couple, who had already left the area by then, driving in their Ford Transit van towards Arches National Park and pulled them over.

He said he noticed Gabby 'crying uncontrollably' in the passenger seat as he approached the vehicle and asked to speak to her outside.

In his report, responding officer Daniel Scott Robbins said he pulled the couple over as they were driving towards Arches National Park and noticed Gabby 'crying uncontrollably' in the passenger seat

The report was redacted to conceal sensitive information but suggests Gabby told police she and Laundrie became embroiled in an altercation that was fueled by mental health issues.

'Gabrielle told me that she suffers from [redacted] with [redacted],' Robbins wrote.

'Because of her [redacted] and [redacted], combined with little arguments she and Brian had been having that day, she was struggling with her mental health, which led to the incident that was reported to law enforcement.'

Brian's family have since refused to let authorities interview their son when the van that the couple had traveled in before she disappeared was seized from their property late on Saturday night.

Schmidt said Brian's sister Cassie is the only member of Brian's family who has spoken to authorities.

She said she can't understand why neither Brian nor his parents have reached out to her in the aftermath of her daughter's disappearance.

'It's a very mysterious situation. We don't understand why he's doing this. Everybody's assuming the worst and thinking he's guilty of this. But I don't want to believe that. I want to believe she's just in need of help out there and that everybody needs to keep searching.'

Schmidt said she received a final text message from Gabby, which suggests she'd made it to Yosemite National Park in northern California  about 800 miles away from Wyoming where she was last seen, DailyMail.com learned exclusively.

'No service in Yosemite,' reads the curious text from Petito's cell phone, sent August 30, DailyMail.com has learned.

Gabby's mother refused to disclose the contents of her daughter's texts, but told the DailyMail.com she believes the test was forged.

'That text was NOT from Gabby I know it!,' Schmidt said.

She suspects Laundrie, who was traveling with the 22-year-old, may have sent the message from her phone, possibly to mislead her family and investigators as to her whereabouts.

This comes as police named Laundrie a 'person of interest' in their investigation into her mystery disappearance.

Cops in North Port, Florida, where Petito and Laundrie resided, said: 'Brian Laundrie is a person of interest in this case. As of now, Brian has not made himself available to be interviewed by investigators or has provided any helpful details.'

A statement also revealed exactly when Laundrie arrived back in North Port alone from the road trip he was taking with Gabby, 22.

It said: 'We know that Brian returned here to North Port on September 1 - 10 days before her (Gabby's) family reported her missing on September 11. '
The hard border between NSW and Victoria could be removed next month under a plan to create an interstate travel bubble before the rest of Australia re-opens.

The Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Business NSW have tabled a joint proposal to allow residents to cross the border once both states are 70 per cent vaccinated.

The hard border, which slammed shut on July 9, would fully open with the return of domestic flights and free travel between the states once 80 per cent are jabbed.

The hard borders between New South Wales and Victoria are set to open in just weeks after pressure mounted from tens of thousands of businesses across the major eastern states

Pubs, gyms and stadiums will open with state and international border closures to end as Australia approaches Freedom Day

NSW had its deadliest day of the pandemic on Wednesday with 12 deaths coming from 1,259 new coronavirus cases, while Victoria's spiking Delta variant outbreak saw 423 recorded, then surging to 514 on Thursday.

Despite almost 2,000 combined new cases every day, businesses in both states are calling for a clear pathway in returning to normal service.

The two lobby groups, who represent 80,000 NSW and Victorian businesses, will sit down with leaders and carve out the plan for re-connecting the states.

'Our businesses in NSW and Victoria need clarity on when they can resume their strong economic and socio-economic connection,' Business NSW chief executive Daniel Hunter told The Australian.

'Business needs certainty so they can re-employ staff and re-engage with their customer base.

'We need to be able to say to NSW and Victoria, "at 80 per cent double dose, our businesses will be open, our state borders will be open and you can plan your Christmas holiday, catch up with family or attend that conference without fear of it being cancelled".'

Based on the current seven-day averages, NSW will hit the 70 per cent vaccination threshold in 26 days, while Victoria remains 63 days away from the same target.

NSW is projected to reach 80 per cent in 38 days from Thursday, while Victoria is 86 days away.

Australia's vaccine rollout has seen nearly 70 per cent of the population receive their first dose as the country looks to reopen state and international borders

The two groups, who represent 80,000 NSW and Victorian businesses, will sit down with leaders and carve out the plan for re-connecting the states

Qantas plans to re-commence international flights from December 18 under a plan to end hotel quarantine for the vaccinated.

Before that, there are calls to restart Sydney to Melbourne flights which is one of the busiest routes in the world before the pandemic.

'Our governments must facilitate a return to that collaboration to get our nation's business heart pumping once again,' Victorian Chamber of Commerce chief executive Paul Guerra told The Australian.

'We know our border communities rely on each other for education, employment and tourism and the NSW and Victorian Covid-19 recovery road maps must address the unique issues they face to ensure their economic survival as we hit vaccination targets,' he said.

There have been numerous reports of companies having to lay workers off because of border restrictions that would see them have to underdog two weeks quarantine if they arrive back into Victoria from NSW.

The new mandate that is being pushed by the bodies will see the ending of the system.
A 29-year-old surgical technician set to be married this summer has died after not taking the COVID-19 vaccination over unfounded fears it would make her infertile.

Samantha Wendell, 29, of Grand Rivers, Kentucky was set to walk down the aisle in late August with her fiance Austin Eskew, a correctional sergeant.





The couple had both refused to get vaccinated after Wendell's co-workers incorrectly told the bride-to-be, who wanted to have three to four children, that the vaccine causes infertility, NBC News reported.





The CDC has confirmed the vaccination is safe for 'people who are trying to get pregnant now or might become pregnant in the future, as well as their partners.'





But still, Wendell was hesitant. While she waited to make up her mind, she caught COVID-19.

She spent her August 21 wedding day on a ventilator and died a short time later.

'Misinformation killed her,' Wendell's cousin Maria Vibandor Hayes told NBC News.

Samantha Wendell, 29, of Grand Rivers, Kentucky was set to walk down the aisle in late August with her fiance Austin Eskew, a correctional sergeant

Wendell, who wanted to have three to four children, was scared off the vaccine due to the ever-growing claim that the COVID-19 vaccine effects fertility

Her cousin said her family is now telling her story in the hopes that it wont happen to someone else.

'If we can save more lives and families' lives, then this is the gift that she left for us to deliver,' Vibandor said.

Tragically, despite her earlier hesitancy Wendell had turned a corner on the vaccine and decided to get the shot after the delta variant surge, NBC News reported.

Wendell and her fiance set an appointment to be vaccinated for the end of July ahead of her honeymoon in Mexico, but it would be too late.

Before her trip she held her bachelorette party in Nashville and when she returned home, just a week before she and her fiance were set to get vaccinated, she began feeling sick, NBC News reported.

'Samantha had a heart of gold and when she set her mind on something, she let nothing stand in her way,' her obituary read.

She spent her August 21 wedding day on a ventilator and died a short time later

'She could not stop coughing,' Eskew said and when she began gasping for air, she was taken to the hospital.

Both Wendell and Eskew, who both had no underlying conditions, tested positive for the virus, but Wendell suffered the more serious symptoms and in a bid to stabilize her, doctors put her on a ventilator on August 16, just five days before she was set to be married.

Wendell's mother told NBC News before being put on the ventilator the 29-year-old asked if she could receive the vaccine.

'It wasn't going to do any good at that point, obviously,' Jeaneen Wendell said. 'It just weighs heavy on my heart that this could have easily been avoided.'

Samantha Wendell, 29, of Kentucky died after she decided to hold off on getting the vaccine after some of her co-workers told her the vaccine causes infertility

Despite hopes the wedding would only be delayed, not cancelled, on September 10 Wendell's family made the choice to take her off life support when doctors told them there was no chance for survival.

Now Wendell's fiance says he feels 'lost' without his future bride, who he had been with since college.

'She had so much influence in everything that I do,' he said. 'We didn't really ever do anything without the other in mind.'

Now instead of a wedding her family is hosting a funeral set for September 18.

Family and friends remember Wendell for her 'heart of gold' and her determinate spirit.

'Samantha loved her job as a surgical technician and she rescued and raised numerous pets, her obituary said. 'She loved Christmas and elaborate decorations for all the holidays, as well as surprises. Samantha loved her time at Lake Maxinkuckee and hanging out with her many friends.'

'Samantha had a heart of gold and when she set her mind on something, she let nothing stand in her way,' the obituary added.
A gun-toting gang invaded a hotel in northern Mexico and kidnapped 39 people - including 23 U.S.-bound migrants - before they decided to released them because they knew authorities would search for them.

The gunmen barged into the Sol y Luna hotel in Matehuala before dawn Tuesday and loaded the migrants into three vehicles, the San Luis Potosi Attorney General's Office said Wednesday.

The suspects initially released 16 Mexicans, but decided to hold the migrants and requested contact information from their relatives living in the United States so that they charge a ransom for their release.

One of the migrants was a Venezuelan woman who is eight months pregnant.

Security forces escort some of the 39 migrants who were kidnapped from a hotel in San Luis Potosi, Mexico on Tuesday. The state prosecutor's office said the suspects released 16 Mexican nationals but held 23 migrants from Haiti, Venezuela and Cuba, and requested the phone numbers of family members in the United States to seek a ransom before they decided to release them and abandoned them on a road

A group of gunmen stormed the Sol y Luna hotel in Matehuala, San Luis Potosi and kidnapped 39 people, including 23 migrants on Tuesday. All of the individuals were released and unharmed

Authorities detected the Mexican nationals in front of a store and were alerted of the asylum-seeking migrants who had been forced out of their rooms at gunpoint.

The National Guard and police found the migrants after they were abandoned on a road connecting Matehuala and Doctor Arroyo, Nuevo Leon, attorney general Arturo Garza Herrera, the attorney general of the state, said in a statement.

Garza Herrera's office said the migrants among those abducted included Cubans, Haitians and Venezuelans.

Cuban migrants have often been kidnapped for ransom by criminal gangs in Mexico, because they frequently have well-established relatives in the United States who can pay thousands of dollars for their family members' release. But the practice may now be extending to other nationalities.

Prosecutors said police are investigating whether the 16 Mexicans who were snatched from the hotel were involved in migrant smuggling.

A police officer in Matehuala, Mexico, escorts some of the U.S.-bound migrants who were abducted from a hotel by gunmen on Tuesday morning. The victims were not harmed

Migrants kidnapped by gunmen from a hotel in Matahuala, Mexico, are loaded into police pickup truck Tuesday after they were found stranded on the side of a road

San Luis Potosi Attorney General Arturo Garza Herrera said in a statement that the kidnapped migrants were from Cuba, Haiti, and Venezuelan

The San Luis Potosi prosecutor's office said that 'the possibility may exist they were informants, or may have been the ones taking them (the migrants) north.'

Costlier migrant smuggling operations often put up their clients in small hotels as they move them north. Organized crime gangs traditionally charge a tax for each migrant moved through their territory. If that tax is not paid or a rival smuggling group sees an opportunity, such abductions can occur.

Rival gangs also sometimes simply hijack groups of migrants from other traffickers.

In June, a human rights group reported that some 3,300 migrants stranded in Mexico since January due to a U.S. border policy have been kidnapped, raped, trafficked or assaulted.
An Oregon man who assumed the identity of a dead child more than 30 years ago so he could receive double social security checks when he retired, was sentenced on Monday to two years of probation.

Robert Lizaragga, of Gresham, 70, learned that the unnamed child had died from news articles printed in 1990, then got the child's birth date from court records, he told an Oregon district court judge.

He worked under his own name until 1990, then obtained a new social security number in the child's name in 1991. From then on, he assumed the identity of the child and worked under that name. It is unclear whether he knew the child.

When both his assumed and real identities reached retirement age, he began collecting double social security checks.

Under the child's name, he collected $12,509.60 in retirement benefits between 2017 through 2020 along with an additional $1,200 check under the CARES Act, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michelle Sweet told The Oregonian.

Under the deceased child's name, Robert Lizarraga, 70, collected $12,509.60 in retirement benefits between 2017 through 2020 along with an additional $1,200 check under the CARES Act

Since he was caught in June, he told the court he had paid back the ill-gotten funds, according to a court filing from September 8.

'Ive done everything I can to get things right,' he told U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut at the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse in Portland. 'I apologize to the courts and to everybody I affected.'

Although he could have faced up to 10 years in prison, his health issues were taken into consideration - during court proceedings, he sat in a wheelchair, and told the judge he had suffered a stroke and is now struggling with blood clots in his leg.

Although she appreciated that he paid back what he owed, Judge Immergut said she was struck by the calculated, long-maintained fraud, the Oregonian reported.
He shot to fame by correctly revealing NSW's Covid-19 case numbers on TikTok

Comedian gave his lawyer instructions from his hospital bed on Wednesday

He is facing three charges for attending anti-lockdown rally in Sydney

TikTok star was admitted to the ICU at St George Hospital in Kogarah.

Jon-Bernard Kairouz, 24, is in a Covid-19 ward along with his father Richard

A social media star who correctly predicted NSW daily Covid-19 case numbers on TikTok and addressed an anti-lockdown rally is fighting for his life after ending up in intensive care with coronavirus.

Jon-Benard Kairouz, 24, is currently in a Covid ward at St George Hospital in Kogarah, in Sydney's south, his lawyer told a court.

He is facing two counts of not complying with Covid-19 directions and one count of encouraging the commission of crimes after he attended a violent protest in Sydney's CBD on July 24.

Mr Kairouz's lawyer, Eidan Havas, revealed his client was forced to give instructions from hospital where his father is also battling the virus, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

He pleaded not guilty to all three counts when the case came before the Bankstown Local Court on Tuesday.

Jon-Bernard Kairouz and his father Richard Kairouz (pictured together) have been hospitalised with Covid-19

Jon-Bernard Kairouz (pictured) shot to fame after he correctly predicted the daily number of NSW case numbers in NSW

'This should highlight to everyone in NSW how serious Covid-19 is and everyone should be getting vaccinated and staying home in order to stop the transmission of this terrible virus,' Mr Havas said.

The case has been adjourned to Sydney's Local Downing Centre Local Court on October 26.

Mr Kairouz was removed from ICU on Wednesday afternoon, but his father continues to battle the deadly disease in hospital.

Richard Kairouz, a gym owner, was admitted to hospital nearly a fortnight ago and has been placed in an induced coma in the intensive care unit.

A source close to the family said last week that they have been hit hard by Covid-19.

'He was symptomatic ... and kept deteriorating,' they said, referring to Mr Kairouz senior.

'(He) decided to go to hospital on the Saturday afternoon. The whole family is at home in isolation.

'After predicting the Covid-19 numbers daily, (Jon-Bernard) couldn't predict that he (his dad) would contract it.'

Mr Kairouz (pictured) became known as 'the TikTok guy' after repeatedly revealing the NSW Covid tally hours before Premier Gladys Berejiklian earlier this year

Mr Kairouz junior became known as 'the TikTok guy' after repeatedly revealing the NSW Covid tally hours before Premier Gladys Berejiklian's 11am daily updates.

He predicted the case numbers for five days in a row in July, leading to speculation NSW Health had set up a 'sting' to catch a possible conspirator leaking the data.

His streak ended on July 19 with a prediction of 109 case numbers when the actual figure was 98.

Mr Kairouz repeatedly insisted his predictions are the result of 'simple maths', but has not released a single video since his suspected leak was outed.

The TikTok star causes further controversy when he fronted a violent anti-lockdown protest in July, disappointing many of his 57,000 followers.

The self-appointed 'people's Premier' spoke to a cheering crowd who gleefully clutched signs condemning lockdowns, masks and vaccines.

'All we want is freedom,' he told about 3,500 protesters on the Town Hall steps.

Jon-Bernard Kairouz fired up anti-lockdown protesters during an illegal rally in Sydney in July (pictured)

'I must say I've crunched the numbers, I don't think the cases are going to go up tomorrow.

'From what I've calculated there's over 50,000 people here today,' he wrongly claimed.

But the stunt quickly backfired, with some of his fans questioning why he joined thousands of protesters and risked extending the city's lockdown.

'Hope you enjoyed the protest, because everyone has lost respect for you,' one woman commented on one of the comedian's TikTok videos.

'You had a big rise and an even bigger fall, how hilarious,' a second wrote.

'Maybe he can predict how many people will be in court to greet him,' a user joked.

NSW Police set up Strike Force Seasoned to track down all attendees at the protest, which health officials feared would become a coronavirus super-spreader event.

Officers arrested 63 attendees at the rally and a further 60 for a variety of offences, including striking a police horse and assaulting a police officer.

Kairouz is seen above when he was charged by officers on the street near his family's home on July 25

Mr Kairouz was nabbed outside his home in Belmore, in Sydney's south-west, on Sunday, July 25 when three detectives arrived to serve him his court attendance notice.

He was rounding the corner wearing a NSW Blues Origin jersey when a detective approached him and explained the criminal charge.

Mr Kairouz interrupts him and motions for officers not shown in the video to move back.

'I'm listening, yeah... can you just take it easy?' He asks one of the other officers as a friend films the encounter.

The comedian appeared unworried when the notice was handed to him, thanking the police and telling them to 'have a good day'.
The devastated family of a young man who died have lashed out at authorities for claiming it was coronavirus that ended his life when they were told it was an unrelated cardiac arrest.

The man, aged in his 20s from Craigieburn in Melbourne's north, was reported as a Covid fatality by Victoria Health, but the coroner told his family a heart attack was the cause of death.

'He was a heavy smoker,' the man's cousin told the Herald Sun.

'Everyone knew that he had lung issues. They're reporting it as a Covid case, when it was because of lung issues.'

The devastated family of a young man who died have lashed out at authorities for claiming he died of coronavirus when they were told it was an unrelated cardiac arrest

The family of the dead Craigieburn man said they were informed by the coroner he had died of a heart attack before receiving 'revised reports' it was from coronavirus

There has been a lack of transparency throughout the pandemic about the reporting of deaths and whether the person died from Covid or died with Covid.

Australian government websites do not differentiate between the two, with anyone dying while infectious with the virus being reported as a Covid-related death.

Sources within the NSW medical system have told Daily Mail Australia there is confusion with frontline workers at some deaths being wrongly classed as 'Covid-related'.

A paper written by a professor at Deakin University suggests it could take years before there is clear data on true causes of death in people with the virus and asked for more clarity from officials.

The family of the dead Craigieburn man said they were informed by the coroner he had died of a heart attack before receiving 'revised reports' it was from coronavirus.

His family say he was a heavy smoker, had a severe lung condition and had previously had a heart attack.

The Department of Health Deputy Secretary responded to the case on Tuesday, confirming he was carrying the virus and there were 'strong indications it was a virus-related death.

'He wasn't a case we were aware of, so we're getting information from the coroner,' Kate Matson said.

The Department of Health Deputy Secretary Kate Matson (pictured) responded to the case on Tuesday, confirming there were 'strong indications it was a virus-related death

Australia's vaccine rollout has seen nearly 70 per cent of the population receive their first dose as the country looks to reopen state and international borders

The reclassification of his death means his family have all been thrown into two-week isolation and as a result are unable to be there for his funeral service and burial.

'It's absolutely not fair for the family for it to be labelled a Covid death where they can't even be there for the burial of their own son,' a close friend told the Herald Sun.

'How can an autopsy come back so quickly? How can they claim a Covid death? It's traumatising for the parents and for his siblings as well.'

Victoria recorded 514 new cases of coronavirus on Thursday, the first time the state had more than 500 new cases in a day since the height of its deadly second wave on August 4 last year.

The 366 mystery cases not linked to the rest of the outbreak are also the most this year, with chief health officer Brett Sutton warning the risk of 1,000 a day is 'very real'.

Based on the current seven-day averages Victoria remains 63 days away from the 70 per cent end of lockdown figure and 86 days from 80 per cent.

The news comes after a Melbourne call centre worker who died from Covid despite having no underlying health conditions made a series of distressing Facebook posts in the weeks before his death.

Martin Blight, 46, contracted the virus last week after his Melbourne office became a Tier 1 exposure site during the city's lockdown.

The father confirmed his diagnosis on social media, warning friends: 'Covid sux guys look after yourselves plz. Do whatever you can to self distance, that's one thing I would say that works.'

Mr Blight died on Monday, two days before he was booked in to get his Pfizer vaccine, but Facebook posts in the lead-up to his death show he had reservations about getting jabbed.

'I've booked in for my Pfizer jab in September... now people who are fully vaccinated in the US are dying,' he wrote last month.

Martin Blight (pictured), a 46-year-old call centre worker from Melbourne, contracted the virus last week after his office became a Tier 1 exposure site. He died in hospital on Monday

The father confirmed his diagnosis on social media, warning friends: 'Covid sux guys look after yourselves plz'

'Also with the new Delta variant you can catch it and pass it on. All being said you can also get blood clots and other side affects.

'Now is it worth getting and secondly is the government happy with the current vaccine or are they trying to improve it?'

Friends reassured Mr Blight the vaccine was safe and the risks of the jab were significantly outweighed by the reality of the virus.

'People get the flu vaccine but still get the flu. Vaccines don't stop you getting a virus, they help the body to recognise the virus and fight against it,' one person replied.

'I've had mine since March, even with it you can still get the virus but you have more chance of not getting it so bad,' another mate commented.

A man told Mr Blight to 'do what you feel is right for you my friend', to which Mr Blight replied: 'That's the problem I'm not sure what to do.'

He eventually commented on his post thanking his friends for the support, saying: 'It's nice to know you all care'.
A famous Sydney restaurant looks set to be rescued from permanently closing during lockdown after creditors voted in favour of a deal to save the iconic eatery.

On Wednesday, the 47 creditors of Golden Century restaurant unanimously voted to green light a deal worth $4.5million that will clear the venue of its debts.

The restaurant, frequented by politicians and business leaders and famous for their late night banquets, slid into administration in August as lockdown kept crowds out and their lease agreement concluded.

Famous Sydney restaurant Golden Century (pictured) is set to be rescued from permanently closing amid lockdown

Restaurant owners Eric Wong (left) Linda Wong (centre) and their son Billy Wong (right) have been running the Chinatown venue since 1990

The new deed of company arrangement will allow the venue to open its doors once lockdown is lifted and is understood to have been funded after a buyer agreed to pay $1.15million for the restaurant's legendary wine collection.

Golden Century was opened in 1989 by Eric and Linda Wong who moved to Sydney from Hong Kong where they ran a successful barbecue restaurant.

In 2012 they opened another venture, The Century at The Star and their son Billy Wong then opened his own restaurant XOPP at Darling Square.

The other two restaurants were not placed into administration and are also set to re-open as normal once lockdown is lifted.

In August, as the Wong family announced on social media they would likely close the doors on the three-floor Sussex Street venue, they were met with a flood of support from diners.

The Golden Century's legendary wine collection (pictured) fetched the $1.15million enough to see the iconic venue saved

Restaurant Supervisor May Su (pictured) stands in the usually crowded award winning Golden Century Seafood Restaurant in Sydney's Chinatown in March 2020

'We are thankful for the many fond memories with our family and friends, customers and supporters. We will treasure them forever,' the Wongs said.

'Love you and everything you have done for the Chinatown, hospitality and dining scene in Australia. Thankyou,' one person replied.

'I'm so appreciative for all the memories, the fun, the amazing food and for providing somewhere to go and eat and drink at 2am after a long day/week . Thank you all so much,' another added.

The eatery, located down the street from Labor party offices, was frequented by politicians, business leaders and an array of colourful characters.

The notice of appointment of an administrator was posted to ASICs published notices in August, with the restaurant manager blaming their lease agreement for the closure, saying they were unprepared to agree to a long term contract with lockdowns still an issue.

Golden Century Seafood (pictured) was considered the place-to-be for Sydney's elite, hosting lavish banquets and was also a haunt of politicians

Golden Century lost $1.1million in the 2019 financial year and $590,000 the following year, but recovered to make $787,905 in the 12 months to June 31 2021 according to the administrator's report, which was filed to ASIC.

The administrators calculated outstanding rent at more then $1.5million to December 2020.

Between July 1 and August 16 2021 the restaurant made just $10,776 from orders.

Restaurant managers at Chinatown precincts across the country said revenue plummeted by up to 90 per cent and some business collapsed almost overnight after lockdowns were brought in.

Over the years, the restaurant has also hosted some of the world's most famous chefs, including Heston Blumenthal, Alain Ducasse, Anthony Bourdain, Ferran Adria and Jamie Oliver.
A grieving wife has been left stranded in New Zealand for months with no support after she crossed the ditch to return her husband's ashes to his parents after his sudden death.

Sally Harrison from Forest Lake, Brisbane, said she waited until July to fulfil her husband Murray's request in his will to make sure the borders wouldn't be closed again after he passed suddenly in November.

However, when it was time for her to return home to Queensland in late July, the trans-Tasman bubble had closed, leaving her stranded in New Zealand.

Sally Harrison (pictured with her late husband Murray) has been left stranded in New Zealand for months after she travelled there to fulfill her late husband's request to have his ashes returned home to his parents

'I went to New Zealand and thought it was reasonably safe, it was going to be a week's trip, if that,' she said to The Courier Mail.

'To actually be a refugee, I can't describe it, it's the most soul-destroying feeling I have ever had in my life and to be grieving for my husband and not be there for his children.'

Ms Harrison says that she has family and support in Queensland and that is where she needs to be during this time.

'We're still very much grieving for my husband and I need to be around the people that can support me.'

Ms Harrison says it is disappointing to see interstate travellers are allowed into QLD but residents are not allowed back into their home state

She remarked that it is disappointing to see that interstate travellers are able to relocate to Queensland but residents of the state are not allowed back into their home.

Ms Harrison has been staying wherever she can, bouncing around locations in New Zealand in temporary accommodation.

After living in a unit below a home in Auckland, she moved up to Christchurch and was living in a caravan, having to pay for both her temporary place and her home back in Queensland on a pension.

Ms Harrison said the main issue is that there were no planes that would take her home after contacting federal and state authorities. She said it is a case of waiting for flights to become available to her.

She commented there has been one flight to Brisbane that went online at 10am that she was so anxious to miss out on she sat up all night and tried to get a ticket on no sleep in the morning.

She was unfortunately unsuccessful.
One of six tree loppers who were fined for blatantly breaching public health orders in NSW has tested positive for Covid-19.

NSW Police said that officers attended a holiday rental property on Yanko Street in Toronto, Lake Macquarie, on July 20.

Police received reports that a group of men had travelled from western Sydney, a Covid hotspot, to find tree lopping work.

One of six tree loppers who were fined for breaching public health orders has tested positive to Covid-19 (stock)

At the property six men aged between 17 and 59 told police they had been in the Lake Macquarie district before stay-at-home orders were put in place by the NSW Government across greater Sydney.

The group said they were not planning to return to Sydney until after restrictions were lifted.

After the oldest member of the group, a 59-year-old, was taken to John Hunter Hospital with Covid symptoms on August 31, police attended an apartment in Charlestown.

After a 59-year-old man tested positive to Covid-19 at John Hunter Hospital (pictured), police attended an apartment in Charlestown, unable to find the rest of the group

The man later tested positive for the virus. The remaining workers had left the residency before police were able to find them.

Five of the men were hit with seven $1000 PINs for failing to comply with public health orders.

Meanwhile, another group of separate tree loppers have allegedly flaunted NSW government regulations in the Hunter region.

Initially the group were issued $33,000 in fines for breaching public health orders on September 1.

Police allegedly issued penalty infringement notices to the group of men aged 41, 57 and 37 from Sydney's west and a 25-year-old from Leumeah in Sydney's south-west.

But on September 9 police received a tip-off that a group of arborists were going door-to-door in the Cardiff area.

The men allegedly returned to the area from Sydney's west under a new business name, removing all company identification from vehicles (pictured, Toronto Local Court)

The group were arrested and charged, after the men allegedly returned to the area under a new business name, removing all company identification from their vehicles and clothes.

All four were issued court attendance notices to appear in Toronto Local Court on November 2.

A fifth member of the group, a 33-year-old from Ropes Crossing was fined $6000 for breaching public health orders and providing inaccurate information in his essential worker application.

Police investigations are continuing into the sixth member of the group.
Police stepped up protection of a synagogue in western Germany on Wednesday after receiving reports of a possible threat, but no injuries were reported.

A police officer on the scene said nobody had been hurt during the operation in Hagen, a town of some 200,000 on the fringes of the Ruhr industrial region.

Police declined to give further details about the threat, which coincided with the Jewish festival of Yom Kippur, when Jews hold overnight vigils in synagogues.

A police officer on the scene said nobody had been hurt during the operation in Hagen, a town of some 200,000 on the fringes of the Ruhr industrial region

Spokesman Timo Schaefer said: 'A very large police operation is underway here in Hagen.

'We had a hint that there was a threat to a Jewish institution. Acting on this information, we increased the security around this institution.'

Mayor Erik Schulz told Westfalenpost: 'As little as we know about the exact situation - our thoughts are with the Jewish community of Hagen.'

A spokesman for North Rhine-Westphalia's Interior Minister Herbert Reul added: 'The minister is fully informed about the possible threat.'

The operation, which began at 7.30pm local time, was still ongoing five hours later, with machine-gun bearing officers standing around the building.

There was no indication of how long the operation was planned to continue and it was unclear if anyone was inside.

Police later added the road passing directly in front of the synagogue was closed and they were escorting passers-by through the closed section on request.

In 2019, a right-wing extremist launched an armed attack on a synagogue in the eastern town of Halle, shooting dead two passers-by.

Then, police faced criticism for being slow to attend the scene, though they eventually arrested the attacker, who is now serving a life sentence for the murders.
South Carolina legal scion Alex Murdaugh plans to surrender to police after a warrant was issued for his arrest, in the latest twist in the ongoing murder mystery surrounding the family.

Murdaugh plans to voluntarily turn himself in in Hampton County on Thursday to face a charge of conspiracy to commit insurance fraud, his attorney Jim Griffin told WCBD-TV.

A bond hearing in the case is set for 4.00pm at the Hampton County Magistrate Court.

It comes a day after police alleged that Murdaugh orchestrated his own shooting in a botched assisted suicide scheme, in the hopes that his surviving son would collect a $10 million life insurance payment

In addition to the hitman suicide plot, South Carolina police are also investigating the misallocation of millions from Murdaugh's law firm, the 'trip-and-fall' death of his housekeeper in 2018, and the murder of his wife and son in June.

Murdaugh's other attorney Dick Hartpoolian earlier admitted his client schemed to have himself killed by a hitman in the botched life insurance plot, and said he expected his client to be charged for embezzling funds from his law firm to fuel an addiction to painkillers.

However, Hartpoolian has insisted that Murdaugh is innocent in the June 7 murder of wife Maggie and son Paul, and claimed that the identity of the true killer could be revealed as soon as this week.

Paul and Maggie (together left) were shot dead on June 7. Police say Alex Murdaugh (center) orchestrated a separate shooting to kill himself with the help of a hitman, in a scheme to deliver a $10 million life insurance payout to his other son Buster (right) as the elder Murdaugh faced investigation over misallocated funds

Murdaugh plans to surrender to police after a warrant was issued for his arrest on insurance fraud charges, according to his attorney. The Hampton County Court is seen above

Defense attorney Dick Hartpoolian, who is also a state senator, admitted his client schemed to have himself killed by a hitman in the botched life insurance plot, and said he expected his client to be charged for embezzling funds

Meanwhile, a new angle in the complicated case opened on Wednesday, when South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) launched a criminal investigation into the 2018 death of Murdaugh's housekeeper Gloria Satterfield and the subsequent handling of her estate.

Satterfield, 57, had been the Murdaugh housekeeper and nanny for around 25 years when she suffered a fatal brain injury following a mystery fall inside the Murdaugh family home. She died several weeks later on February 26, 2018.

Police have launched a criminal investigation into the 2018 'trip-and-fall' death of Alex Murdaugh's housekeeper Gloria Satterfield (pictured)

SLED said that it had opened a criminal investigation into Satterfield's death based on a request from the Hampton County Coroner, as well as 'information gathered during the course of our other ongoing investigations involving Alex Murdaugh.'

Murdaugh settled a wrongful death claim with the housekeepers family for $500,000 in 2018.

However, Satterfield's family sued Murdaugh on Wednesday claiming he had not paid out 'one single dime' of the settlement.

The twisted family saga gained national attention when Murdaugh's wife Maggie and son Paul were shot dead at the family's hunting lodge on June 7.

Three months on, their deaths remain a mystery with no arrests made and no suspects or persons of interest named.

Then, on September 4, Murdaugh was shot in the head and rushed to hospital where he survived, in what his own attorney now admits was a botched assisted suicide scheme.

He checked himself into rehab days later for opioid addiction and resigned from his law firm as it emerged he was being investigated for allegedly misappropriating millions of dollars of funds.

Investigators work the scene where Alex Murdaugh was shot in the head and injured on Sept. 4, 2021 after he had car trouble on a rural road in in Hampton County, S.C.

Exclusive DailyMail.com photos show Richard Alexander 'Buster' Murdaugh Jr. at the family's Edisto Island property in South Carolina on Monday. Buster is Alex Murdaugh's sole surviving heir after the murder of his brother Paul in June

Investigators alleged Tuesday Murdaugh had in fact orchestrated his own shooting, arresting Curtis Edward Smith, 61, on charges of assisted suicide, assault and battery, pointing and presenting a firearm, insurance fraud and conspiracy to commit insurance fraud.

Smith, from Walterboro, South Carolina, is a former client of Murdaugh, 53, who represented him in minor traffic matters as well as a 2015 lawsuit that Smith filed against a forest management company.

According to police, Murdaugh paid him to shoot him in the head and kill him, making it look like a random, drive-by attack.

'Hitman' Curtis Edward Smith, 61, was arrested on Tuesday charges of conspiring in the assisted suicide scheme

His goal was for his surviving son Buster to receive a $10million life insurance payout, according to police.

Murdaugh provided Smith with a gun to carry out the September 4 shooting, SLED said. But Smith appears to have botched the shooting and Murdaugh survived.

Following the incident, Smith allegedly drove to an unknown location and disposed of the gun.

Harpootlian says that the motive for the June 7 murder of Murdaugh's wife, Maggie, 52, and son, Paul, 22, was 'personal' and that the identity of the suspect could be revealed sometime this week.

Harpootlian told NBCs TODAY that Murdaugh, 53, was addicted to opioids and fell into depression after the murder of his wife and son.

The lawyer says that his client hatched the hitman scheme to protect his child - 25-year-old Buster Murdaugh.

'He was in a dark, dark, dark place and he wanted to help his remaining son, Buster, in any way he could,' Harpootlian says.

'He thought this was the only way he could leave him with anything.'

'It was an attempt on his part to do something to protect his child,' Harpootlian says of the suicide-for-hire scheme.

'He didn't want law enforcement spending time on this fake crime instead of focusing on solving the murders of Maggie and Paul.'

Harpootlian acknowledged that Murdaugh is likely to be arrested for allegedly misappropriating millions from his own law firm.

Alex Murdaugh's lawyer, Dick Harpootlian (left), says he knows who killed the South Carolina legal scion's wife and son earlier this year though he does expect his client to be arrested for embezzling funds from a law firm to fuel an addiction to painkillers. Murdaugh is seen right with his late wife, Maggie

Overnight, an arrest was made in the shooting of prominent South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh, an attack authorities now say Murdaugh actually planned himself. @CatieBeckNBC reports. pic.twitter.com/GyvsqCwAY8  TODAY (@TODAYshow) September 15, 2021

Harpootlian told TODAY that he and another lawyer visited Murdaugh at an out-of-state detox facility on Monday.

He said it was the first time he and the other lawyer, Jim Griffin, spoke to Murdaugh when he wasnt on opioids or Oxy (oxycodone).

Harpootlian says that his client used 'the vast majority' of the funds that he is alleged to have embezzled from his law firm 'to buy drugs.'

He clearly knew that what he had done was wrong, Harpootlian told TODAY on Wednesday.

The attorney said that Murdaugh had masterminded the assisted suicide hitman plot out of the mistaken belief that his life insurance police would not pay out for a death by suicide.

'Suicide exclusions are only good for two years, and he didn't realize that. So he arranged to have this guy shoot him.'

It was Alex Murdaugh who discovered his wife and son's bodies near dog kennels on the property and called 911 shortly after 10pm on the evening of June 7.

Alex Murdaugh immediately identified himself on the 911 call and told the operator his 'wife and child have been shot' near dog kennels on his property.

Ive been up to it now. Its bad, Murdaugh said.

During the 911 call, dogs could be heard barking in the background and Murdaugh sounded deeply upset and agitated.

He told the operator several times that neither his son or wife was breathing.

According to investigators mother and son were killed between 9 and 9.30pm.

Paul suffered fatal shotgun wounds to the head and torso. His mother was killed with a semi-automatic rifle.

Murdaugh was visiting his sick father in hospital on the night of the shooting  Randolph Murdaugh III died three days later after a long battle with cancer.

What little information has emerged since, has only served to deepen the mystery surrounding the events on the Islandton estate in June.

At the time of his death, Paul Murdaugh was awaiting trial on a charge of boating under the influence causing death in a February 2019 crash that killed 19-year-old Mallory Beach.

Mallory Beach, 19, was killed in a fatal boating accident in February 2019 when Paul, 'intoxicated' and 'belligerent' ploughed his father's boat into a piling in Archers Creek

Mallory died when Paul, 'intoxicated' and 'belligerent' ploughed his father's boat into a piling in Archers Creek after an afternoon of drinking at an oyster roast.

Paul was one of six teenagers described by police as 'grossly intoxicated' that night.

He was awaiting trial on three felony counts of boating under the influence, including boating under the influence resulting in death, a charge which carries a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison.

He had been released on a $50,000 bond pending his trial. All charges were dismissed two months after his death but the wrongful death suit being brought by Mallory's mother, Renee, is still being pursued.

Buster is named in the suit as it was his license that Paul used to purchase the alcohol that night  a practice which, lawyers for Beach allege, was both common and done with Buster's knowledge.

Buster, 25, refused to answer DailyMail.com's questions when approached but did acknowledge that he had spoken to his father in recent days

Murdaugh is seen with his wife and son Paul, who were shot dead at the family hunting lodge on June 7. Police say Murdaugh orchestrated a separate shooting on September 4, hiring a hitman to kill himself in a plot to get an insurance payout for his surviving son

Whether local law enforcement agencies tried to obstruct the investigation into the boating death is also being reviewed by state officials.

No arrests have been made in the double murder of Paul and Maggie.

Harpootlian said the murder of his wife and son 90 days ago took a tremendous toll on Murdaugh, fueling his spiral into drug addiction and the desperation that led to his botched suicide scheme.

The lawyer denied that Alex Murdaugh had anything to do with the deaths of his wife and son.

'He did not murder them. He is totally distraught about their deaths,' Harpootlian tells NBC's TODAY.

The lawyer says that in the time he has spent with the family, they were 'affectionate' with each other and that there was no indication Alex Murdaugh wanted to do them harm.

On June 7, Alex Murdaugh (right) discovered his son Paul and wife Maggie (center) dead at the dog kennels on the family property

Moselle Hunting Lodge where Maggie and Paul Murdaugh were gunned down June 7. Their bodies were discovered by Murdaugh by the dog kennels

Harpootlian also claims that he and Griffin are pursuing leads and have gathered information that may implicate a suspect in the June killings of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh.

The attorney says that he and Griffin have zeroed in on 'an individual or individuals we believe - may - have some culpability' or had carried out the murder.

'We think we'll know this week whether the one suspect we're looking at bears further scrutiny and we'll make that information available to law enforcement,' Harpootlian says.

When asked what motive this individual may have had in killing Maggie and Paul Murdaugh, Harpootlian says: 'Well, that would reveal who that person is, but it's personal.'

'The motive would be personal.'

Murdaugh's surviving son, 25-year-old Richard Alexander 'Buster' Murdaugh Jr, was spotted by DailyMail.com on Monday at the family's Edisto Island property in South Carolina.

Buster, the sole surviving heir to his father's South Carolina legal dynasty, was apparently supposed to receive the insurance payout from his father's death in the botched assisted suicide scheme alleged by investigators.

Buster refused to answer DailyMail.com's questions when approached but did acknowledge that he had spoken to his father in recent days.

He would not say when he saw his father last, what he thought would happen next or answer any questions about Murdaugh's injuries or recovery.

He said, 'I have no interest in commenting on any of y'all's questions.'
The Greens have warned Australia's historic deal to build nuclear-powered submarines will create 'floating Chernobyls' in the heart of the country's major cities.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison unveiled a landmark agreement on Thursday morning to switch to nuclear-powered submarines with help from his country's two biggest allies.

The UK and the US will give Australia access to top secret nuclear propulsion technology for a fleet of new submarines to be built in Adelaide through new security pact AUKUS.

The tripartite agreement is intended to counter China's rising military threat in the Pacific, but Greens leader Adam Bandt described the deal as one of the 'worst security decisions in decades'.

Pictured: HMAS Rankin conducts helicopter transfers in Cockburn Sound, Western Australia in February. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has unveiled Australia's plan to build its own nuclear-powered submarine fleet alongside US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

'It's a dangerous decision that will make Australia less safe by putting floating Chernobyls in the heart of our major cities,' he told ABC News, referring to the infamous 1986 nuclear reactor disaster.

'The prime minister needs to explain what will happen if there's an accident with a nuclear reactor now in the heart of one of our major cities' he said.

'How many people in Brisbane, Adelaide or Perth, will die as a result of it? What is going to happen if there is a problem with one of the nuclear reactors?'

This is the first time Australia has embraced nuclear power after decades of debate - and the first time the US and UK have shared their nuclear submarine technology with another nation.

Mr Bandt said the deal would escalate tensions between China and Australia and increase the risk of nuclear war.

'This puts Australia right in the firing line,' Mr Bandt said.

'We, as a middle power, should be taking an independent course and doing everything that we can to de-escalate conflict in the region.

'The prime minister has very clearly said that he sees this in Cold War terms. And the Cold War ended up in an arms race that almost ended up in nuclear annihilation. We cannot go back there.'

Australia's relationship with China has become increasingly hostile ever since Mr Morrison demanded an inquiry into the origins of the Covid pandemic, which originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019.

The Greens leader said his party would fight the plans 'tooth and nail' and hoped Labor will do the same.

Chinese soldiers in Jiaxing, Zhejiang province on September 14. The tripartite agreement is intended to counter China's rising military threat in the Pacific

'If Labor opposes it as well as the Greens, it [the submarine construction plans] will be dead in the water,' he said.

The move towards a nuclear Australia has been described as 'China's Worst Nightmare' in a strategic bid to counter its influence in the region - especially in the South China Sea.

'Our world is becoming more complex, especially here in our region  the Indo-Pacific. This affects us all. The future of the Indo-Pacific will impact all our futures,' Mr Morrison said.

Why Australia needed a new deal with the UK and the US: Australia's defence capabilities are dwarfed by those of China

'To meet these challenges, to help deliver the security and stability our region needs, we must now take our partnership to a new level.

'So AUKUS is born  a partnership where our technology, our scientists, our industry, our Defence Forces, are all working together to deliver a safer and more secure region that ultimately benefits all.'

Mr Morrison said the submarines would be developed over the next 18 months and built in Adelaide in co-operation with the US and the UK.

Officials have said the vessels will be quieter and more capable than Australia's existing fleet and will 'deter' China's ambitions in the far East.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Thursday morning unveiled Australia's plan to build its own submarine fleet alongside US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson

Pictured: The Sheean in Tasmania in April. The deal will mean Australia will walk away from its controversial deal to spend up to $90 billion buying French diesel-powered submarines

Mr Morrison made no direct mention of the Chinese government in Thursday's announcement.

He added the deal did not violate Australia's commitment to nuclear non-proliferation treaties.

The announcement came just days before Mr Morrison travels to Washington DC for the first in-person summit of the four 'Quad' nations - Australia, US, Japan and India.

The announcement means Australia will walk away from its controversial deal to spend up to $90billion buying French diesel-powered submarines.
Australia has been forced to pursue nuclear submarines because of China's military build-up in the South China Sea and nearby Papua New Guinea, sparking fears of war.

Little more than five years ago, then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull announced the French shipbuilding Naval Group would be given a contract to build submarines, which weren't scheduled to go into service until the mid-2030s.

Chinese President Xi Jinping's territorial aggression has forced Australia to reconsider that blown-out $90billion contract and instead acquire nuclear-powered subs from the US and the UK for the Royal Australian Navy much sooner.

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Australia has been forced to pursue nuclear submarines because of China's military build-up in the South China Sea and nearby Papua New Guinea, sparking fears of war (pictured is Prime Minister Scott Morrison at Thursday's announcement)

In recent years, Communist China has built military bases in the South China Sea and terrorised smaller Asian nations like the Philippines and Vietnam with a series of naval exercises.

A conflict in this area could jeopardise international shipping, and threaten Australia's ability to export goods and import essentials from Asia in the event of war.

China has also upgraded an airport in Papua New Guinea, which is near an Australian-funded air base and right on the nation's doorstep.

Satellite imagery shows China has made significant progress in upgrading Momote Airport, the nearest airfield to Lombrum Naval Base on Manus Island, jointly owned by Australia and PNG.

Australia last year began work on this Lombrum upgrade, pouring in $175million, so it could host American warships.

The Lowy Institute's director of international security Sam Roggeveen said China's ambitions were behind Australia's decision to join only six nations in the world operating nuclear submarines.

'It is impossible to read this as anything other than a response to China's rise, and a significant escalation of American commitment to that challenge,' he said.

'The United States has only ever shared this technology with the United Kingdom, so the fact that Australia is now joining this club indicates that the United States is prepared to take significant new steps and break with old norms to meet the China challenge.'

Chinese President Xi Jinping's territorial aggression has, politically at least, forced Australia to reconsider that blown-out $90billion contract and instead acquire nuclear-powered subs from the US and the UK for the Royal Australian Navy much sooner

University of Sydney Associate Professor of Northeast Asian Politics, James Reilly, said the arms race between China on one side and Australia and the US on the other in this part of the Pacific could lead to war.

'I personally am deeply concerned about, what we call in international relations, security dilemmas where each two sides to a dispute keep taking more and more measures that they believe are reasonable and defensive but the other side responds in kind,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

'We end up with spirals of increasing army, military build-ups, mistrust and increasing risk of war.

'The risk of war increases the more the countries are arming each other.'

China isn't stopping at rival airbases in PNG, stepping up efforts to turn the tiny island of Daru into an industrial fishing park.

Little more than five years ago, former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull announced the French shipbuilding Naval Group would be given a contract to build submarines, which weren't scheduled to go into service until the mid-2030s

Professor Reilly, an advocate for more diplomacy who has written several books in China's ambitions, said that while China was unlikely to attack Australia, Australia would be at risk if it sided with the US in a dispute over Taiwan.

'There are a variety of scenarios where Australian forces may well find themselves in conflict with China, there are a variety of scenarios where America ends up in war with China and Australia's drawn into that,' he said.

'Taiwan would be high on that list, that should be of grave concern for everybody involved.

'There's a long history of Australia being drawn into wars alongside America, we're in danger of finding ourselves in that situation once again.'

Like 130 nations in the world, Australia has China as its biggest trading partner, with the Asian superpower particularly reliant on iron ore from Western Australia's Pilbara region.

So far, Australia has managed to keep having a trade surplus where exports are worth more than imports, thanks to Chinese iron ore demand, which offset Chinese sanctions against wine, barley, lobster and timber over Australia's call last year for an inquiry into the origins of Covid.

Communist China has built military bases in the South China Sea and terrorised smaller Asian nations like The Philippines and Vietnam with a series of naval exercises

Satellite imagery shows China has made significant progress in upgrading Momote Airport (pictured), the nearest airfield to Lombrum Naval Base on Manus Island, jointly owned by Australia and PNG

But China is cutting back on steel production, which has caused iron ore prices to fall from record highs above $US200 a tonne as recently as July to $US135 in September.

The Westpac bank is expecting iron ore prices to fall below $US100 a metric tonne by March 2023.

The Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney noted Brazil's Vale tailings dam collapse in 2019 had inflated iron ore prices to Australia's benefit.

'This heightened exposure is a temporary phenomenon, reflecting historically high prices for iron ore,' it said in an analysis by Professor James Laurenceson.

The Chinese state-owned aluminum producer Chinalco owns the Simandou mine at Guinea, in west Africa, and in many years could be used as an alternative source of iron ore, the commodity used to make steel.

Like 130 nations in the world, Australia has China as its biggest trading partner, with the Asian superpower particularly reliant on iron ore from Western Australia's Pilbara region (pictured is a Fortescue Metals Group operation)

Professor Laurenceson said a breakdown in diplomatic relations between Australia and China could see Beijing find 'alternative suppliers for big-ticket items like iron ore'.

'There is a recognition, too, that the costs to exports from the political breakdown between Canberra and Beijing is not the only, or the biggest, problem,' he said.

'Australia's strategic, security and other national interest objectives are difficult to achieve in the absence of a productive, working relationship with the region's dominant power.'

Australia's diplomatic ties with China has taken another hit with Prime Minister Scott Morrison announcing a new alliance with the UK and the US, known as AUKUS.

In a joint statement with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and US President Joe Biden, Mr Morrison announced a 'share ambition' for Australia to acquire nuclear-powered submarines

In a joint statement with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and US President Joe Biden, Mr Morrison announced a 'shared ambition' for Australia to acquire nuclear-powered submarines.

'Today, we embark on a trilateral effort of 18 months to seek an optimal pathway to deliver this capability,' the three leaders said.

'We will leverage expertise from the United States and the United Kingdom, building on the two countries' submarine programs to bring an Australian capability into service at the earliest achievable date.'

Mr Roggeveen said Australia's nuclear submarine decision would at least end the overbudget French Naval Group contract.

'The single best piece of news to come out of this announcement is that Australia will cancel the Attack-class submarine program with France's Naval Group,' he said.

'This is unquestionably a good thing. The project was going to deliver submarines too late and at eye-watering cost.'
Charlie Elphicke, 50, was released from Leyhill open prison in Stroud on Tuesday

Charlie Elphicke has walked free from jail after serving half of his two-year prison sentence for sexually assaulting two women nearly a decade apart.

The 50-year-old was discharged from Leyhill open prison in Stroud, Gloucestershire, on Tuesday, reports The Sun.

He was jailed in September last year after being found guilty of three counts of sexual assault following a month-long trial at Southwark Crown Court.

The ex-Dover MP's wife, Natalie, who took over the constituency from her husband in 2019, ended their 25-year marriage upon his conviction.

But she offered her support ahead of Elphicke's Court of Appeal challenge against his two-year jail term, which he lost in March.

The father-of-two won his early release after his wife, who said she was divorcing him when he was found guilty, agreed he could return to their family home.

Charlie Elphicke (pictured arriving at Southwark Crown Court with Natalie in July last year), 50, was discharged from Leyhill open prison in Stroud, Gloucestershire, on Tuesday

During his trial last year, Southwark Crown Court heard how he called himself a 'naughty Tory' as he groped his first victim - a woman known as A who was then in her 30s, and chased her around his family home in 2007 after they shared a bottle of wine.

In 2016, he groped a second woman - known as B - twice in one month when he was MP for Dover.

The court heard how the first sex assault took place after he invited a woman to have a drink with him while his children were asleep and his wife was away on work.

The woman said Elphicke asked her about bondage sex he before kissed her, shoved his hand up her skirt to grope her, and then chased her around the house.

The second victim accused him of kissing her and groping her when the pair met for a drink in Westminster in 2016. But he continued to pester her before molesting her again during a car journey in what was branded a 'campaign of harassment' by a judge.

In September last year, a Southwark Crown Court judge jailed Elphicke and ordered to pay 35,000 in court costs within 12 months.

The father-of-two (pictured outside Southwark Crown Court ahead of his sentencing) was jailed in September last year after being found guilty of three counts of sexual assault following a month-long trial

Lady Justice Carr rejected Elphicke's appeal bid and said the Crown Court judge was entitled to impose the sentence she did (file photo of the Court of Appeal)

Elphicke said in a statement at the time that he would appeal against the conviction - but in March only appealed the sentence - adding he was 'innocent of any criminal wrongdoing'.

Lady Justice Carr rejected Elphicke's appeal bid and said the Crown Court judge was entitled to impose the sentence she did.

Elphicke became a government whip under David Cameron's premiership in 2015 and returned to the back benches when Theresa May came to power the following year.

He had the party whip suspended in 2017 when allegations of sexual assault first emerged, but it was controversially reinstated a year later for a crucial confidence vote in then-prime minister Mrs May.
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Firefighters have ramped up efforts to beat back two expanding wildfires ignited by lightning strikes that threaten to converge at Sequoia National Park.

The Colony and Paradise fires have consumed 7,038 acres of forest in California's Sierra Nevada, according to InciWeb data.

The Colony Fire was a threat to Giant Forest, home to more than 2,000 giant sequoias and the General Sherman Tree - the world's largest tree - but not imminently, said Mark Ruggiero, fire information officer for Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks.

Clay Jordan, superintendent of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, said during a community meeting on Tuesday that crews have had difficulty reaching the blaze due to the area's steep terrain and said that air teams 'literally started painting the mountains red with retardant' to prepare for the fire's potential arrival.

The Colony Fire was a threat to Giant Forest, home to more than 2,000 giant sequoias and the General Sherman Tree - the world's largest tree - but not imminently, said Mark Ruggiero, fire information officer for Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks. With the addition of the Paradise fire, the trees are now at higher risk

The Colony and Paradise fires have consumed 7,038 acres of forest in California's Sierra Nevada, according to InciWeb data

The fires are among the latest in a long summer of blazes that have scorched more than 3,500 square miles in California, destroying hundreds of homes.

Sequoia National Park has been closed and its headquarters and resident employees have been evacuated, along with a portion of the community of Three Rivers outside the entrance amid the latest threat.

The parks historic wooden entrance sign dating to 1935 was covered in fire-resistant wrapping, and hoses were in place at the headquarters area for structure protection.

The fires are among the latest in a long summer of blazes that have scorched more than 3,500 square miles in California, destroying hundreds of homes

Sequoia National Park has been closed and its headquarters and resident employees have been evacuated, along with a portion of the community of Three Rivers outside the entrance amid the latest threat

More than 300 firefighters were on the lines, aided by helicopters and air tankers when smoke conditions allowed

More than 300 firefighters were on the lines, aided by helicopters and air tankers when smoke conditions allowed.

Tomorrow, a national interagency management team will take over the fires, being managed collectively as the KNP complex, Ruggiero said.

A 50-year history of using prescribed burns to remove other types of trees and vegetation in the parks sequoia groves was expected to help the giants survive by lessening the impact if flames reach them, Ruggiero said.

Giant sequoias, some thousands of years old, live on the western flank of the Sierra. They are adapted to fire, which can help them to thrive by releasing seeds from their cones and creating clearings that allow young sequoias to grow.

A dry onshore flow will maintain ideal conditions for the fire to spread throughout the week, according to Inciweb - although highs will be a few degrees hotter than the area's seasonal average, a cooling trend will take place beginning on Thursday, creating good ventilation for fire growth. Afternoon and evening winds of 15 to 25 miles per hour with gusts up to 40 miles per hour will push the fire further over the Sierra Nevada landscape.

Ruggiero noted that the extraordinary intensity of fires in current climate conditions can overwhelm sequoias, a scenario that played out when the 2020 Castle Fire killed many trees in the region.

Studies estimate that 7,500 to 10,600 large sequoias were killed by that fire, along with many of other sizes, according to the National Park Service.

The Colony Fire also poses a broader danger because it is burning at an elevation of the central Sierra where there are 280 million pines and other types of trees that have been killed by drought and bark beetles, Ruggiero said.

A dry onshore flow will maintain ideal conditions for the fire to spread throughout the week, according to Inciweb - although highs will be a few degrees hotter than the area's seasonal average, a cooling trend will take place beginning on Thursday, creating good ventilation for fire growth. Afternoon and evening winds of 15 to 25 miles per hour with gusts up to 40 miles per hour will push the fire further over the Sierra Nevada landscape

Clay Jordan, superintendent of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, said during a community meeting on Tuesday that crews have had difficulty reaching the blaze due to the area's steep terrain and said that air teams 'literally started painting the mountains red with retardant' to prepare for the fire's potential arrival

'The Colony Fire specifically is burning in a really bad spot... where these trees are like jackstraws and its difficult to put fire personnel into some of these areas because of that,' he said.

Elsewhere, two California fires that have caused extensive destruction in the northern Sierra and southern Cascades were not growing.

The states second-largest fire on record, the Dixie Fire, remains 75 per cent contained after burning 1,500 square miles in the northern Sierra and southern Cascades region.

Near Lake Tahoe, containment of the 342-square-mile Caldor Fire increased to 70 per cent.

North of San Francisco, a 20-year-old Ukiah man was arrested Tuesday and jailed on suspicion of starting the Hopkins Fire in Mendocino County, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said in a statement.

The fire that sparked Sunday north of Ukiah charred 257 acres (104 hectares), destroyed homes and forced evacuations.
Thirteen people have been arrested and $1 million worth of drugs seized in a major bust that targeted alleged members of Sydney's criminal underworld.

NSW Police launched a crackdown on an alleged large-scale drug syndicate operating over 80km between the city and the Illawarra.

Officers seized pistols, a money counter, $160,000 in cash and illegal drugs with an estimated street value of $1 million.

Thirteen people have been arrested and $1million worth of illicit substances seized in a major drug bust that targeted members of Sydney's dark criminal underworld

An initial $60,000 in cash was seized from a vehicle in Heathcote in Sydney's south, around 40km from the city's CBD on July 14.

Three days later, officers discovered almost 500g of methamphetamine and almost 40g of heroin in a vehicle in Unanderra, a suburb in Wollongong 90km from Sydney.

Officers then launched 10 raids across Sydney and Illawarra on Monday and Wednesday.

Locations were targeted in Brighton Le Sands, Arncliffe, Banksia, Rockdale, Condell Park, Greenacre, Potts Hill, Chipping Norton, and Coniston.

As a result of the search warrants, five people were charged in addition to eight previously charged as part of the same investigation.

An initial $60,000 in cash was seized from a vehicle in Heathcote in Sydney's south, around 40km from the city's CBD on July 14

As a result of the search warrants, five people have been charged in addition to eight previously charged as part of the same investigation

Officers discovered 1.5kg of meth, 340g of cocaine, heroin, two pistols, and $100,000 in cash.

Two vehicles were also seized, a Toyota Aurion and Mitsubishi Lancer from a residence on the Princes Highway in Arncliffe, a suburb 11km south of Sydney.

Police alleged the meth and a revolver were found in the Toyota, and a money counter was discovered inside the Mitsubishi.

The alleged syndicate members arrested this week include a 29-year-old man from Brighton Le Sands, a 36-year-old Fairfield man, a 53-year-old Berkeley man, a 41-year-old Berkeley woman and a 40-year-old man from Coniston.

The group face 40 charges between them.

Officers from Strike Force Mote have seized pistols, a money counter, $160,000 in cash and illegal drugs with an estimated street value of $1million in the bust

The illicit substances seized during Strike Force Mote operations have an estimated street value of $1million

The 29-year-old from Brighton Le Sands faces charges including drug supply and the possession of an unauthorised weapon.

He appeared in Sutherland Local Court on Tuesday.

The 36-year-old Fairfield man was denied bail in Fairfield Court on Wednesday and will appear in the same court on Thursday.

The 53-year-old Berkeley man and the 41-year-old Berkeley woman were also refused bail and will both appear in the Wollongong Court on Thursday.

The 40-year-old Coniston man - who is alleged to have attempted to dispose of drugs down the toilet - was refused bail to appear in Wollongong Court on Friday.
Fifteen men linked to a 40-person Brisbane brawl where bamboo, swords, axes and knives were used as weapons have been arrested by Queensland Police.

The fight, which took place on the city's southside, erupted on Daw Road, Runcorn, about 10.30pm on Monday, police say.

Police allege the cause of the brawl stems from a 'power struggle' between two groups from the same area of worship.

Their investigations will address the behaviour of the Indian Sikh community and how the situation escalated to all-out conflict.

Officers arriving on the scene found a 36-year-old man with significant hand, neck and head injuries.

He was rushed to Princess Alexandra Hospital in a serious condition. Seven others also attended hospital for treatment.

The location on Daw Road, Runcorn, south of Brisbane, where the alleged 40-person brawl took place on Monday night shortly after 10.30pm

Of the 15 arrested, all have been charged with affray, five with grievous bodily harm, and two for assault occasioning bodily harm.

One man has also been charged with disturbing a lawfully assembled religious assembly after he attempted to take over a service, but police could not confirm whether the service was held on the night of the brawl.

The alleged service disruption occurred at the Brisbane Sikh temple at Eight Mile Plains.

All of the alleged perpetrators are believed to be aged between 29 and 36, and Acting Superintendent Simon Tayler says five men will be facing objections to bail, while all offenders will be bailed with conditions moving forward.

'The 15 that we've put through today, we're very happy with the volume and level of evidence that we have to be able to put them before court,' he told reporters on Thursday.

Those most seriously injured in the wild melee were taken to Brisbane's Princess Alexandra Hospital

A sword police will allege was used in the brawl on Daw Road, in the south Brisbane suburb of Runcorn

Queensland police shared a photo of an axe that was allegedly used in the fight on Monday night

'At no point is it acceptable to meet in an open street with the level of weaponry that they had to solve whatever their issues were,' Act Spt Tayler said.

'We are actively engaging with senior members of that community to ensure that we understand what was behind it, but also to make sure that nothing progresses from this point forward.

'The tensions and the issues that are within that community, we will do our very best to assist (with).

'However, some of those issues are very much for them to resolve. For us it's about ensuring that none of that then escalates to criminal behaviour.'

Witness Craig Merwood said one man appeared to have had his hand almost severed in the wild melee.

'They were here to kill each other,' he told The Courier Mail.

'They had big metal rods or poles, they had crowbars, they had those big swords with hooks on them.

'It was just incredible.'

Another resident, Gurjinder Kaur Sidhu, told the ABC that a metre-long pole which appeared to have blood on it was thrown into her backyard.

Acting Superintendent Tayler said the scene for first responders was 'confronting'.

Queensland Police Acting Superintendent Simon Tayler said on Tuesday that first responders were faced with a 'confronting' scene when they arrived

'I have witnessed the body cam footage of some of the officers that that went there at that initial first stage... it was quite hectic,' he said earlier this week.

'They went straight into their tactical first aid training because it was important, some of the injuries they witnessed required that immediate action.'

A member of the dog squad singlehandedly apprehended five men in a car not far from the scene afterwards, Acting Superintendent Tayler said.

'He was by himself and he took that vehicle in,' he said.

Police have set up Operation Tango Rhubarb based out of Upper Mount Gravatt Police Station.

Investigations into the incident continue.
Adnan Abou Walid al Sahraoui ordered the 2017 ambush

A notorious ISIS leader with a $5million dollar price tag on his head for killing American special forces soldiers has been assassinated by the French military in West Africa, it was announced today.

Adnan Abou Walid al Sahraoui, who was in his late 40s, was 'neutralised' four years after ordering a notorious ambush in Niger which led to the deaths of Army Sgt David Johnson, 25; Staff Sgt Bryan Black, 35; Staff Sgt Jeremiah Johnson, 39; and Staff Sgt Dustin Wright, 29.

Four Nigerien troops were also killed in the attack, and two American soldiers and eight Nigerien soldiers were severely wounded.

In the early hours of Thursday morning, French President Emmanuel confirmed that Al-Sahraoui, who also used the nom de guerre Lehbib Ould, was finally dead.

Mr Macron wrote in a Tweet: 'Adnan Abou Walid al Sahraoui, leader of the terrorist group Islamic State in the Greater Sahara was neutralised by French forces.

'This is another major success in our fight against terrorist groups in the Sahel,' said Mr Macron, referring to a vast area of mainly desert land in Africa where groups such as ISIS and Al-Qaeda operate.

Army Sgt La David Johnson, 25 (left) and Staff Sgt Dustin Wright, 29 (right) were two of the four soldiers killed in ambush in Niger in October 2017. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the deaths in January 2018

There was no initial information as to what was used to kill Al-Sahraoui, or where or when the attack happened, but an Elysee Palace spokesman said the ISIS leader 'was definitely dead'.

In August, Mr Macron said he would be pulling many of his troops out of the Sahel  which covers numerous African countries including Niger and Mali  following anti-terrorist operations codenamed Serval and Barkhane that were leading to mounting French losses.

But the President said special forces supported by airpower including armed drones would continue the hunt for lead terrorists.

Mr Macon wrote in his Al-Sahraoui tweet today: 'The nation is thinking this evening of all its heroes who died for France in the Sahel, in the Serval and Barkhane operations, of the bereaved families, of all of its wounded.

Staff Sgt Bryan Black, 35 (left) and Staff Sgt Jeremiah Johnson, 39 (right) were the other two soldiers killed. Four Nigerien troops were also killed in the ambush and two other American soldiers and eight Nigerien soldiers were severely wounded

'Their sacrifice is not in vain. With our African, European and American partners, we will continue this fight.'

In October 2019, The U.S. State Department offered 'up to $5million' for any information leading to the capture or killing of Al-Sahraoui.

Morocco-born Al-Sahraoui claimed responsibility for the ambush in January 2018, as he built up his reputation within ISIS.

Adnan Abou Walid Al-Sahraoui also admitted to 'personally ordering' the assassination of six French aid workers and their local guide and driver in August 2020.

All were murdered by a team of ISIS gunman on motorbikes as after they set off on a visit to the Koure Giraffe Reserve, in Niger.

In the early hours of Thursday morning, French President Emmanuel confirmed that Al-Sahraoui, who also used the nom de guerre Lehbib Ould, was finally dead

Myeshia Johnson cried over the casket of her husband Army Sgt La David Johnson when it was returned to the US in October 2017

Al-Sahrawi started his adult life fighting a guerrilla war against Moroccan forces in the western Sahara, before joining various jihadi groups that merged with ISIS in 2015.

He was said to have been lightly wounded in a fire fight with Al-Qaeda loyalists a year later, but continued to lead operations, mainly against government forces seen as being pro-west.

Al-Sahrawi, who was married, came close to being killed by the French in February 2018, close to Meneka, in Mali, but 'escaped on foot in the middle of the night with some of his men,' according to intelligence sources in Paris.

Mr Macron's downscaling of anti-terrorist operations in Africa led to accusations that he was abandoning a crucial war, just as the USA did the same in Afghanistan.

But the killing of Al- Sahraoui will be viewed as a major success for French forces as they pursue a new strategy in strategically vital part of the world.
A Facebook commenter has revealed the unusual self-defence weapon every woman should carry in their handbags to keep themselves safe from predators.

A concerned mother took to an eastern Sydney Facebook group this week seeking advice after her daughter was followed by a hooded man while walking home in Coogee around 8.30pm.

She said the largely-built man, whose face was concealed by a black hoodie, trailed behind the 20-year-old through Trenerry Reserve for 'some time' until she ended up running home.

'The same thing happened in the same place with my 15-year-old son in February, but the hooded man had a switch blade,' her post continued.

A Facebook commenter has revealed the hardy self-defence tool every woman should carry in her bag (stock image)

A concerned mother sought advice on Facebook this week after her daughter was followed by a stranger while walking home in Sydney's eastern suburbs

'It was a very frightening experience for both of them.

'Has anyone else experienced this?'

Tough-minded members of the public were quick to suggest her daughter arm-up to fend off potential future attacks, with one recommending she purchase a blow torch-like device.

'Get your daughter one of those wind-proof lighters,' the woman said.

'I was told by a cop this is the most legal effective weapon of retaliation anyone can carry.'

Multiple curious social media users asked her to elaborate on the intriguing tool.

A Facebook commenter suggested the young woman purchase a wind-proof lighter to fend off predators

'What is this? can you send a photo?' One chimed, while another requested: 'Can you explain this a bit more please?'

The woman shared an image of the implement, which she said can be picked up in all sizes at tobacconists.

'If someone was actually attacking you and you had one of these, you could really do some facial damage,' she continued.

While the Facebook commenter shared a picture of a culinary blow torch, wind-proof lighters (one pictured), used to ignite cigarettes, are smaller and more compact

'I used to carry [one] when I was out and about, young and dumb, but maybe I'll restock my handbag.'

Many safety-conscious women were impressed by the novel idea.

'I like this!' One person commented.

Another added: 'I've never heard of that! That's a great idea!'

Another woman suggested other gadgets she keeps handy to stay safe.

'My parents bought me a personal alarm. Also - pepper spray or something similar,' she said.

Although the Facebook commenter suggested a wind-proof lighter, the image she shared pictured a culinary kitchen torch - which have a far more powerful flame.

Despite her advice, it is understood both types of equipment would be considered 'grey areas' in the eyes of the law, both for keeping on hand for the purpose of self-defence in NSW.

While they are not technically considered prohibited weapons, those caught carrying the devices could be penalised depending on the context of the situation.

Similarly, those who use the implements in retaliation attacks could face charges depending on whether or not the incident was deemed self-defence, based on a range of factors, such as excessive force.
A man charged with raping then-Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins in a federal minister's office has pleaded not guilty.

Bruce Lehrmann, currently in Queensland, is charged with sexual intercourse without consent at Parliament House in March 2019.

Acting for Lehrmann, barrister John Korn told the ACT Magistrates Court on Thursday he was instructed to enter a plea of not guilty.

Former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins (pictured) alleged she was raped in Parliament House
This is the moment a 16-year-old was attacked by a shark while surfing off beach in Florida known to be the 'unofficial shark bite capital of the world.'

Doyle Nielson, from Georgia, was paddling his surfboard in New Smyrna Beach before the accident happened around 1.20pm on September 9.

Footage shows a six-foot shark slicing through the waves before taking out a chunk of Nielson's arm which needed nine stitches.

Nielson initially thought another surfer had hit him, and didn't realize that he had been bitten until fellow surfers who saw the attack, warned him to get out of the water.

'It felt like someone on their surfboard had come full speed directly at me and hit me super hard,' Nielson told ABC news.

The clip showing the harrowing attack was recorded by Sam Scribner, a photographer who happened to be filming New Smyrna's waves

'It felt like someone on their surfboard had come full speed directly at me and hit me super hard,' Nielson said. Pictured is Nielson minutes before he was attacked by a shark in New Smyrna Beach

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The teenager made it safely to the shore, where he was treated by Ocean Rescue and only needed nine stitches.

Witnesses said the shark was about six-feet long.

Nielson was among dozens of beachgoers who were surfing the strong wells left behind by Hurricane Larry. He said that his passion for surfing remains intact and he will back surfing soon.

'I'll definitely be surfing again, but I know that it'll affect my mindset. Like, I'll be a little more cautious in the water,' Nielson said.

The clip showing the harrowing attack was recorded by Sam Scribner, a photographer who happened to be filming New Smyrna's waves.

'Larry certainly brought us good waves, but apparently the true locals of Ponce Inlet werent happy about the crowd,' he wrote on an Instagram post, referencing how the beach is infamous for its sharks.

'I certainly dont want to villainize sharks, this is something thats all too common in the waters around New Smyrna Beach.

'We are in their territory and sometimes those little (thankfully he was little) guys like to enact the stand your ground law. (No glocks, just teeth),' he added.

Sixteen-year-old Doyle Nielson was bitten by a shark while he was surfing in New Smyrna Beach on September 9. Nielson was treated by Ocean Rescue once he made it to the shore and only needed nine stitches

Volusia County has an average of nine shark attacks per year, according to the International Shark Attack File. Nielson's is the tenth attack of 2021.

In New Smyrna beach, surfers are ten times more likely to be bitten by sharks than anywhere else in the world, but the attacks do not tend to be severe.

Sharks are attracted to the beach by the high number of baitfish resulting from the strong tidal flow.

'The vast majority of incidents that occur there are very minor bites from juvenile blacktip sharks.'

'In places like New Smyrna, where the water is murky, the blacktip sharks can't see very well. So, they are likely reacting to flashes of movement. This could be a nice mullet or a human's foot,' the manager of the Florida Program for Shark Research, Tyler Bowling told The Daytona News.

The county's first shark attack this year happened in April when a shark bit a 64-year-old woman in the foot while she was sitting on a paddle board. She was treated for lacerations in her foot but did not sustain major injuries.

Nielson said that his passion for surfing remains intact and he will back surfing soon. 'I'll definitely be surfing again, but I know that it'll affect my mindset. Like, I'll be a little more cautious in the water,' he said

Less than a month later, in May, 21-year-old woman was attacked by a shark in while she was wading in 4ft deep water.

In a second attack in May, a 12-year-old girl from Palm Beach was the victim of a shark attack the day before memorial day.

In June alone, a 71-year-old-man, a 12-year-old boy and a 8-year-old boy were attacked. Three more shark attacks followed in July, before a 35-year-old local was bit on his foot in August.

'When people are paddling on their board, the soles of their feet catch the light and very quickly, in exactly the same way the scales on a mullet or a menhaden might catch the light,'

'And when you're a predator, you don't tarry. You have to be quick and make a quick decision,' the International Shark Attack File director Gavin Naylor Spectrum News.
Rapper Nicki Minaj says she was 'invited' to the White House after she posted a flurry of misinformation tweets earlier this week about vaccine side effects.

'The White House has invited me & I think it's a step in the right direction,' Minaj, 38, tweeted Wednesday following an immense amount of controversy on social media.

'Yes, I'm going. I'll be dressed in all pink like Legally Blonde so they know I mean business. I'll ask questions on behalf of the ppl who have been made fun of for simply being human. #BallGate day 3'

However, a White House official told PEOPLE that the administration reached out to Minaj to offer public health education over the phone rather than an in-person visit.

Rapper Nicki Minaj says she was 'invited' to the White House after she posted a flurry of misinformation tweets earlier this week about vaccine side effects.

'As we have with others, we offered a call with Nicki Minaj and one of our doctors to answer questions she has about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine,' the official says.

The phone call invitation comes a few hours after Minaj was supposedly placed in 'Twitter jail' after violating the tech giant's rules on sharing misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine.

'I'm in Twitter jail y'all. They didn't like what I was saying over there on that block,' the Superbass rapper shared an Instagram story on Wednesday.

As of 10pm Wednesday, the rapper's account appears to be active, but she has not tweeted for more than three hours.

Twitter said Minaj's tweets were not in violation to the platform's policy, but did not comment on whether her account had been frozen.

Nicki Minaj says she's in 'Twitter jail' for posting that a 'friend of her cousin' in Trinidad became infertile after taking the COVID-19 vaccine

As of 10pm, the rapper's account appears to be active, but she has not tweeted for more than three hours

Minaj's flurry of tweets about vaccines began with a post regarding the Met Gala in New York on Monday, which she did not attend due to a requirement which stated all attendees must be vaccinated.

'They want you to get vaccinated for the Met. if I get vaccinated it won't for the Met. It'll be once I feel I've done enough research. I'm working on that now. In the meantime my loves, be safe. Wear the mask with 2 strings that grips your head & face. Not that loose one,' wrote Minaj.

While Minaj would have been banned from attending the Met because she is unvaccinated, she said she was also forced to skip it as she had tested positive for COVID-19 while prepping for the MTV VMAs.

Minaj went on to tweet to her 22 million followers that the vaccine had left a cousin's friend in Trinidad 'impotent' and with 'swollen' testicles, causing his fiancee to cancel their wedding.

'My cousin in Trinidad won't get the vaccine cuz his friend got it & became impotent. His testicles became swollen. His friend was weeks away from getting married, now the girl called off the wedding. So just pray on it & make sure you're comfortable with ur decision, not bullied,' the rapper followed up.

Minaj has faced huge backlash for her tweets; from celebrities, doctors, and even world leaders.

She was aggressively responding to her critics on Twitter until shortly before she claimed her account had been suspended.

Dr Anthony Fauci responded to Nicki Minaj's vaccine concerns, saying there's 'no evidence that it happens, nor is there any mechanistic reason to imagine that it would happen.'

'There is a lot of misinformation, mostly on social media. And the only way to counter mis- and disinformation is to provide a lot of correct information and essentially debunk these kinds kinds of claims,' Fauci told CNN on Tuesday when asked whether the vaccines could impact reproductive health. '

Fauci said that Minaj's controversial post 'may be innocent on her part.'

'I'm not blaming her for anything, but she should be thinking twice about propagating information that really has no basis, except for a one-off anecdote. That's not what science is about,' Fauci said.

The CDC has said: 'There is no evidence that vaccines, including COVID-19 vaccines, cause male fertility problems.'

Minaj has not backed down from her controversial tweets, and insists that she does not discourage anyone from getting vaccinated, saying she wants to do her own 'research' and is opposed to forcing vaccines on those who don't want them.'

Even British Prime Minister Boris Johnson weighed in, condemning Minaj's comments and telling reporters he would rather listen to NHS England's top GP Nikki Kanani about the 'wonderful' vaccine than the rapper.

'There's no evidence that it happens,' Fauci said when asked about rapper Nicki Minaj's concern that COVID vaccines could cause testicular swelling
Capitol Police have requested military support in Washington, DC, in preparation for a planned rally on Saturday supporting the people who were charged with crimes related to the Capitol riot.

Government officials are ensuring they won't be blindsided by chaos and violence this weekend like they were on January 6.

When the deadly Capitol riot took place the DC National Guard had just 40 troops on call to help with crowd control.

A source familiar with the request told CNN that this time around the Department of Defense has a 'much more deliberative process'.

At a briefing on Wednesday Pentagon press secretary John Kirby (pictured) said the officers asked the Department of Defense 'for the ability to receive National Guard support should the need arise on September 18'

When asked how many personnel were needed at the rally - dubbed Justice for J6 - Kirby replied that 'it's not a particularly large size or major capability'. He added: 'I think it's really more in the form of some manpower support'

Images from the January 6 violence feature MAGA hats and Trump 2020 flags

The US Capitol Police board has also approved the department's request to reinstall temporary fencing around the Capitol days ahead of the event, as rumors of violence happening at the rally has begun to circulate online.

At a briefing on Wednesday, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said the officers asked the Department of Defense 'for the ability to receive National Guard support should the need arise on September 18'.

He added: 'I'm not going to detail the specific request. We're doing the analysis, we are in receipt of it, we're analyzing it and if it can be validated and supported, we'll do that and we'll look at the sourcing inside the department as to what's most appropriate.'

When asked how many personnel were needed at the rally - dubbed Justice for J6 - Kirby replied that 'it's not a particularly large size or major capability'.

'I think it's really more in the form of some manpower support,' he added.

The Justice For J6 rally is being organized by former Trump campaign staffer Matt Braynard, who has asked attendees not to wear clothing in support of the former or current president.

'Anyone not honoring this request will be assumed to be an infiltrator and we will take your picture, find out who you are, and make you famous,' he wrote.

Justice For J6 is taking place at noon on Saturday, when both chambers of congress will be on recess and far fewer politicians and staff will be in the area than usual.

Based off a prediction by an official at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) roughly 700 people are expected to attend, as reported by Yahoo News.

If 'everything goes well' the fence will be taken down 'very soon after' Saturday's event, Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger said in a briefing on Monday.

The Justice For J6 rally is being organized by former Trump campaign staffer Matt Braynard (pictured), who has asked attendees not to wear clothing in support of the former or current President

Justice For J6 is taking place at noon on Saturday, when both chambers of congress will be on recess and far fewer politicians and staff will be in the area than usual

The Capitol Police told CNN they cannot provide any more specifics about how they plan to prevent another Capitol riot.

'We have have talked to the military and we have multiple agencies assisting. We cannot provide specifics as we do not want to give away security sensitive info,' they added.

Memories of the January 6 violence - when Trump supporters stormed Congress, leaving five people dead and 140 police officers injured - have put Washington, DC, on edge.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also wrote to lawmakers saying security officials would be better prepared this time.

'The leadership of the Congress, on a bipartisan and bicameral basis, has been briefed by the Capitol Police Board on the nature of the threat and the unprecedented preparations to address another attempt to defile our national purpose,' she wrote.

Images from January 6 show rioters wearing MAGA hats and waving Trump flags as they stormed the US Capitol. The events of that triggered President Trump's second impeachment

The rally aims to support the individuals charged in the Capitol riot and demand justice for Ashli Babbitt, who was fatally shot during the riot.

Braynard told DailyMail.com he was also asking participants not to wear Biden-themed merchandise. 'This rally is about protesting the treatment of these political prisoners. That has nothing to do with any candidate, nothing to do with the election,' he said.

'It's not a pro-Trump rally, an anti-Trump rally.

'It's not a pro or anti-Biden rally.

'It's not political in that way and we don't anything to distract from that,' he added.

More than 600 people have been charged for their involvement in the riot, with one rioter, the so-called 'QAnon Shaman' Jacob Anthony Chansley, 33, facing up to five years in prison. His sentencing will take place on November 17.

The Capitol riot took place as Congress certified the 2020 Presidential election results in favor of President Joe Biden.

Babbitt, 36, was shot dead by a Capitol cop as the air-force veteran climbed through a broken window in a door to the Speakers Lobby.
A group of young men have been filmed hunting crocodiles in rivers and mud flats with only a collection of wooden spears for protection.

The footage is part of a series called 'Black As Boys', following three young men from the Yolngu indigenous tribe and their 'white adopted brother' hunting in Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory.

After travelling to a river mouth in a tiny tinnie one of the group members says excitedly 'I'll spear a crocodile first' while another signs 'I've seen some big crocs up here'.

The men are keeping their eyes peeled for crocodiles in the video posted on September 15.

Spears made from tree branches are brandished, ready to strike at any moment, attached to ropes allowing the group to pull their weapon back if needed.

As the boat revs up and down the muddy river, crocodiles get a fright and many scurry back into the water to hide themselves.

Spears are pelted at multiple crocodiles, which get away by ducking under the shallow water, making them invisible to the naked eye.

Three Yolngu men and their 'white adopted brother' have been captured hunting crocodiles for the YouTube series 'Black As Boys' (pictured, one of the crocodiles hunted by the group)

But one two-metre long crocodile wasn't so lucky and becomes a target for the group.

The men exit the boat, wading through mud that covers their feet as they take each step, as one says he will 'jump out and spear it'.

'Boys, boys help,' he exclaimed after successfully spearing the crocodile hiding under a tree.

The group used handmade spears, chasing after the crocodiles hoping to secure meat for their upcoming meal (pictured, one of the men chasing a croc)

Wading through muddy waters and deep sludge, the men chase the crocodiles hoping for the perfect shot (pictured, the group's tinny edges closer to a crocodile)

'Chop it on the head,' another yells, as they finish their kill, ready for a hearty meal.

Taking their fresh meat back to a campsite the men set up a fire before the crocodile was cut into portions ready to be cooked.

'These guys are infinitely fortunate, they don't have a care in the world. I couldn't hack eating crocodile guts,' one user commented.

While another added: It's making me hungry, good catch boys plenty of bush tucker'.
Hundreds of volunteers are combing a region on the Hawaiian island of Oahu in search of a missing six-year-old girl, as it was revealed her adoptive parents pulled her out of school for a week.

Isabella 'Ariel' Kalua's adoptive parents Sonny and Lehua filed paperwork citing homeschooling as the reason for their daughter's withdrawal, a Department of Education representative told Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

Further information on when Kalua was withdrawn have not been shared.

Kalua's biological mother Melanie Joseph was reportedly told by another mother that she hadn't been to school in a week.

Isabella 'Ariel' Kalua, 6, was reported taken out of school by her adoptive parents to be homeschooled a week before her disappearance

A private security camera showed a blurry image of a child and two adults walking down the street, as depicted by the fuzzy white space above the box

Two cars were seen driving up and down the street before turning around and going back the way they came. The incident took place around the same time the girl went missing

A private investigator Steve Lane said the lack of oversight over homeschooled children is problematic.

'There's not requirement to check if the parents are qualified. That's why kids die,' he told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

He cited a different case of another homeschooled Hawaiian girl who was starved to death by her parents and grandmother.

Homeschooled children have lower chances of someone recognizing evidence of abuse or neglect, according to Lane.

This is even more important in Kalua's case whose adopted father has a felony and has been convicted of two second-degree assaults, an attempted second-degree assault, and a first-degree terroristic threatening, according to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

Isabella's adoptive parents reported her missing on Monday, and said that they last saw her when they put her to bed on Sunday night at their Waimanalo home (pictured). The adoptive family told outlets on Monday that they were 'told not to talk to investigators,' and did not proffer further details

Isabella stands at 3-foot-3, weighs 46 pounds and was wearing a black hoodie, leggings, colorful socks and Nike slides with pink bottoms when she was last seen

Sonny has been approved to foster four of Joseph's daughters after she lost her children due to drug abuse.

'How did those kids ever get that house?' Lane said to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. 'You can't put kids in that kind of household.'

Video footage of a small child walked alone outside at 12.45pm, followed by two adults may show Kalua's abduction.

Footage showed cars continuously going around the neighborhood in Kailua.

As of Wednesday, Honolulu Interim Police Chief Rade Vanic said that the department '[doesn't] have sufficient evidence' to show that Isabella 'Ariel' Kalua has been abducted, according to Hawaii News Now.

'We're hoping she's not in immediate danger,' he told the outlet.

Despite hundreds of volunteers searching the community, tying purple ribbons around trees to indicate that those areas have already been covered, the child still has not been found after three days

Isabella's adoptive family reported her missing on Monday morning, Vanic said - an AMBER alert has not yet been issued because the criterion for abduction 'was not met.'

The adoptive family told KHON 2 on Monday that they were 'told not to talk to investigators,' and did not proffer further details.

Despite hundreds of volunteers searching the community, tying purple ribbons around trees to indicate that those areas have already been covered, the child still has not been found after three days.

'Im thankful everyone is here to help,' Melanie Joseph, Isabellas biological mom, told volunteers converging at Waimanalo's District Park after a fruitless day of searching on Wednesday. 'I just want whoever has her to bring my baby back home.'

The FBI announced Wednesday that they would join in search efforts.

'Shes not a wanderer, so this is very surprising me to us, out of character,' Isabella's biological aunt, Jamie Kumai, told KHON 2.

'The truth will come out, and it will come out soon because the heat is hot in Waimanalo, and its hot and were coming.'

Kumai said she flew in from Maui to join the search when she heard her niece had gone missing, according to KHON 2.

'I dont know the family but as a mother I know how Hawaii is, said another parent, Shonna Hammoan, to KHON 2. 'The community always surrounds each other. So I have a 17-year-old and a 21-year-old daughter. I know people would come out and help. So I was compelled to come out and search for her today'

The adoptive family told KHON 2 on Monday that they were 'told not to talk to investigators,' and did not proffer further details. The six-year-old was pulled out of public school to be homeschooled this year, sources told Hawaii News Now

'We're still trying to keep positive and have faith during this time - we're not giving up hope and we don't want to think of the worst,' Kumai said.

Volunteers hung signs throughout the Waimanola community as they searched for the missing six-year-old girl

Other volunteers and family members are less optimistic, but still vigilant in their search.

'Im very candid. I dont sugarcoat nothing,' said Alena Kaeo, one of Isabella's biological aunts, to Hawaii News Now on Wednesday.

'Regardless of what the outcome is, we just want to bring her home for some kind of closure.'

Area police are asking residents to check places small enough for a small child to hide, and their security footage if they have it.

The girl stands at 3-foot-3, weighs 46 pounds and was wearing a black hoodie, leggings, colorful socks and Nike slides with pink bottoms when she was last seen.

Volunteers Blake and Ashley Caporoz of Makaha joined the search party Wednesday, although they don't know Isabella or her family.

'We have a 6-year-old and we would want community help from the other side as well,' Blake Caporoz said to Hawaii News Now.

'I dont know the family but as a mother I know how Hawaii is, said another parent, Shonna Hammoan, to KHON 2.

'The community always surrounds each other. So I have a 17-year-old and a 21-year-old daughter. I know people would come out and help. So I was compelled to come out and search for her today.'
Former prime minister Paul Keating has slammed the new nuclear submarines deal between the US, UK and Australia, arguing the US military can't beat a bunch of Taliban rebels in pick-up trucks.

In a damning assessment of the agreement jointly announced this morning by Prime Minister Scott Morrison, US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Mr Keating said the deal represented a further 'dramatic loss of Australian sovereignty'.

Mr Keating, the famously acid-tongued Labor PM from 1991-1996, released a statement that questioned the wisdom of Australia locking in its military equipment and defence forces with the US to counter the growing power of China.

'If the US military with all its might could not beat a bunch of Taliban rebels with AK-47s rifles in pick-up trucks. what chance would it have in a full-blown war with China, not only the biggest state in the world but the occupant and commander of the biggest land mass in Asia,' Mr Keating wrote.

Paul Keating, who was prime minister of Australia from 1991-1996, released a statement questioning the wisdom of Australia's announcement of a nuclear submarines deal with the US and UK early on Thursday morning

'If the US military with all its might could not beat a bunch of Taliban rebels with AK-47s rifles in pick-up trucks. what chance would it have in a full-blown war with China,' Mr Keating said in the statement

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announces the nuclear submarines agreement with the US and UK this morning

Mr Keating said Australia had experienced difficulty in running 'a bunch of Australian built conventional submarines'. 'Imagine the difficulty in moving to sophisticated nuclear submarines, their maintenance and operational complexity'

Mr Keating said Australia had experienced difficulty in running 'a bunch of Australian built conventional submarines'.

'Imagine the difficulty in moving to sophisticated nuclear submarines, their maintenance and operational complexity,' he noted.

He said Australia would make itself 'hostage' to the US maintaining a supply chain across 'the whole Pacific' to east Asia from the US West Coast.

'I don't share Prime Minister Keating's view and I prefer to be in the company of John Curtin and Robert Menzies when it comes to this issue, and John Howard,' Mr Morrison responded to the statement in a press conference on Thursday afternoon.

'The former Labor prime minister is entitled to his views and to be respected for his views but they are not views my government shares.

'My government is grounded in the decisions of Curtin and Menzies.. our relationship with the United States is a forever relationship.'

In recent years the former prime minister has been a strident critic of Australia's overreliance on its alliance with the US, arguing we should focus more on our relationships in south-east Asia, particularly China.

Prime Minister Paul Keating with US President Bill Clinton during an APEC meeting in Indonesia in 1994

'The foreign policy of Australia is basically we have tag-along rights to the US, and ... certainly since I left public office ... in years since, we've had more or less a tag-along foreign policy,' he told the ABC's 7.30 Report in 2016.

'It's time to cut the tag. It's time to get out of it.'

In a controversial few years as treasurer in the Hawke government, and then prime minister, Mr Keating is often remembered for his 'recession we had to have' remark during the economic recession of 1990.

He also created a diplomatic furore with Malaysia when he described the country's prime minister Mahathir Mohamad as 'recalcitrant in November 1993.
NSW has recorded 1,351 new local cases of coronavirus and 12 deaths, in its equal-deadliest day of the pandemic.

Health Minister Brad Hazzard said at Thursday's Covid briefing that six women and six men, 10 of whom were not vaccinated, died the previous day.

Deputy Premier John Barilo teased Sydney's lockdown could be eased in the next few weeks if the state got to 85 or 90 per cent single-dose before mid-October.

Lockdown is expected to end on October 18, once 70 per cent of the NSW population have received both doses of a vaccine.

Twelve country towns were released from lockdown at 1pm but residents were urged to remain vigilant while enjoying their new-found freedom.

However, Lismore and Albury will be plunged back into a seven-day lockdown from 6pm on Thursday after too many new cases emerged.

New South Wales has recorded 1,351 new local cases of coronavirus and 12 deaths on Thursday in the equal-deadliest day of the pandemic for the state

Albury, on the Victorian-NSW border, recorded two mystery cases with 'possible links to Sydney' but believed to be unrelated to each other.

One case of coronavirus was detected in Lismore in the state's north, again with possible links to Sydney, with health officials concerned about exposure in the area.

'NSW Health has made a decision that the period of lockdown initially will be seven days,' Mr Hazzard said.

What restrictions are in place for Albury and Lismore? From 6pm on Thursday, residents in Albury and Lismore can only leave home for one of six essential reasons: *Shopping for food and supplies *Work or study if it can't be done from home *Medical care *Compassionate needs *Getting vaccinated or tested *Exercise Private household gatherings are not permitted, although fully vaccinated people are permitted to gather outdoors with conditions. Outdoor gatherings are permitted for fully-vaccinated residents in Albury and Lismore, with a five-person limit for exercise or outdoor recreation. Advertisement

'In the normal course, more often than not, health determines it will be 14 days but in this case, looking at the issues, Health has determined that seven days will be appropriate.

'But I'm just warning the community that it may be longer.'

Deputy chief health officer Marianne Gale said health authorities were more concerned about Lismore due to the low level of vaccination in the city.

However, she said the new case and the high level of exposure in a school and the wider community is what triggered the seven-day lockdown.

'We understand there will be a segment of the population who feels very strongly about it, but I feel very confident that the vast majority of the population in the area is really embracing vaccination,' Dr Gale said.

Residents in these areas have been urged to remain vigilant for symptoms and to come forward for testing, with NSW Health to deploy extra pop-up testing sites in Albury and Lismore.

Mr Barilaro said the lockdown in Lismore meant health authorities 'would work around' the newly re-established border bubble with Queensland.

'We will work with the cross-border commissioner. We've opened up the Tweed. We worked hard with Deputy Premier Miles to lift restrictions and put in place a border bubble,' he said.

Queensland later said Lismore would be excluded from the border bubble and its residents banned from the Sunshine State.

Health officials are contemplating the fate of residents in Glen Innes, a Northern Tablelands town, after the area recorded a positive test overnight.

'We'll work with the local health team when we have further information,' Mr Hazzard said.

'We'll do that in a measured way before a knee-jerk reaction about locking down an area. It's no different to cases in Albury that were identified yesterday.'

Mr Barilaro announced another 12 local councils in regional and rural NSW would be freed from lockdown from 1pm on Thursday.

They include Bega Valley, Blayney, Bogan, Cabonne, Dungog, Forbes, Muswellbrook, Narrabri, Parkes, Singleton, snowy Monaro and the Upper Hunter shire LGAs.

Health Minister Brad Hazzard (pictured) announced Lismore and Albury will go back into a seven-day lockdown from 6pm after cases of Covid-19 were detected in both areas

Mr Hazzard said there are now more than 15,000 people with Covid-19 who are being cared for in the state's health system (pictured, members of the public near Qudos Bank Arena)

The country towns coming out of lockdown were deemed low-risk by health officials and have not recorded any cases of the virus for the past two weeks.

Residents in these areas can host up to five visitors in their homes, with 20 people allowed to gather in outdoor settings.

Hospitality venues, retail stores, personal services, gyms, indoor recreation and sporting facilities and schools will reopen with limits on capacity.

Up to 50 guests can attend weddings and funerals while churches and places of worship can resume with one person per 4sqm rule, with no singing.

Masks will remain mandatory in all settings, with hospitality staff to be required to wear a mask while outdoors.

'This is a good news days for regional and rural NSW. You join other communities that have their stay-at-home orders lifted, reminding everybody that it is still a restricted environment,' Mr Barilaro said.

'If you do visit a local government area in lockdown, the reality is those stay-at-home orders come back with you so the reality is minimise mobility.

'Vaccination continues to be the key in regional and rural NSW.'

Deputy Premier John Barilaro announced a further 12 local government areas in regional and rural NSW would be freed from lockdown from 1pm on Thursday (pictured, locals in Sydney)

There are 1,231 Covid-19 cases admitted to hospital, 231 people in intensive care and 108 requiring ventilation (pictured, NSW paramedics in the Sydney suburb of Redfern)

STATE BY STATE FIRST DOSE RATES New South Wales - 79.5 per cent ACT - 75.9 per cent Victoria - 67.6 per cent Tasmania - 67.5 per cent Northern Territory - 60.6 per cent South Australia - 59.9 per cent Advertisement

Dr Gale said health authorities felt 'cautiously optimistic' after a reporter asked if she thought the state's outbreak had peaked.

'I can't hand on heart say we've peaked, I'd like to think we have but we have a conservative approach,' she said, adding a single event could cause case to jump again.

'It's pleasing at the moment for our case numbers to have stabilised. We do know they bounce around a little bit.

'We may yet see an increase but really the key thing for all of us is this is in our collective hands.'

Of the 12 deaths reported on Thursday, one person was in their 40s, one person was in their 50s, four people were in their 60s, two people were in their 70s, three people were in their eighties and one person in their 90s.

Mr Hazzard said there are more than 15,000 people with Covid-19 who are being cared for in the state's health system.

There are 1,231 Covid-19 cases admitted to hospital, 231 in intensive care and 108 requiring ventilation.

As it stands, 80.1 per cent of the over-16 population has received a first dose of Covid vaccine and 48.5 per cent of the entire community over 16 are fully vaccinated.

'I want to thank the community for coming out in such strong numbers to be vaccinated because there are almost 8.5 million people in NSW that have had vaccines administered to them,' Mr Hazzard said.

Deputy Chief Health Officer Marianne Gale said health authorities felt 'cautiously optimistic' after a reporter asked if she thought the state had hit a peak in its current outbreak (pictured, people wait in line at the Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney on Wednesday)

The health minister was asked if he could 'muster much sympathy' for TikTok star Jon-Bernard Kairouz who attended an anti-lockdown rally in July and was hospitalised after testing positive for Covid-19 this week.

'Look I would say I would have sympathy for anyone that gets Covid. Covid can actually kill you,' Mr Hazzard said.

'So even though I might be frustrated with that gentleman's juvenile way of approaching the situation, I think the rest of us in the community would say we still have sympathy with the fact that he's now got it, because obviously, that puts him at risk, it puts close contacts at risk.

'There's a very strong message there and that is don't take this trivially, don't be silly about it, take every aspect of Covid-19 seriously, and that means get vaccinated.'

Kairouz shot to fame when he correctly predicted the number of new coronavirus cases five days in a row, before his appearance at the rally destroyed his credibility.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian lifted the 9pm-5am curfew in Sydney's 12 hotspot local councils on Thursday morning.

She announced on Wednesday the state had hit a vaccination milestone, with 80 per cent of adults having received their first dose.

Albury, a regional town located on the NSW-Victorian border will be plunged into a week-long lockdown from 6pm on Thursday (pictured, shops in the centre of Albury)

Albury residents will only be permitted to leave home for six essential reasons from 6pm on Thursday (pictured, locals on the main street in Albury)

Ms Berejiklian said a decline in cases in those areas led to the decision to lift the lockdown's most hated rule, but urged Sydneysiders to remain vigilant as the state steams toward 'Freedom Day'.

'We've seen a stabilisation in the last few days and we don't want to see that trend go the wrong way,' she said.

'We still have work to do. We can all see the light at the end of the tunnel but we still have work to do and I ask everybody, especially in the local government areas of concern to hold the line and take care you follow all the other rules in place.'

Ms Berejiklian also confirmed only vaccinated people would be allowed to attend the businesses listed in the state's 70 per cent double dose freedom roadmap, including pubs, restaurants, gyms, and non-critical retail.

Unvaccinated residents will be locked out of hospitality and retail. We'll have the vaccination passport in NSW when we hit 70 per cent double dose,' she said.

NSW has hit a vaccination milestone, with 80 per cent of adults having received their first dose across the state (pictured, a pop-up testing clinic in Albury)

'You'll be able to check in with your QR code and see whether or not you're vaccinated and that's really important.'

The premier said there could be exceptions where small businesses that are doing it tough may be allowed to serve unvaccinated customers.

NSW will hit 70 per cent double vaccinate in 27 days on October 11, which will see the lifting of the lockdown that has been in place since June 25.

The state should then hit 80 per cent double vaccinated on October 23, where restrictions will ease further and sport stadiums will reopen.
Jacinda Ardern has made it clear Australia's nuclear-powered submarines will not be welcome in New Zealand waters when they hit the water.

Australia, the US, and Britain on Thursday morning formed a new alliance to beef up security in the Asia Pacific to counter the rising threat of China.

The Kiwi prime minister reiterated her country's strong anti-nuclear stance, but stressed ties with the three countries remained strong

'New Zealand's position in relation to the prohibition of nuclear powered vessels in our waters remains unchanged,' she said just minutes after the announcement.

Kiwi Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says New Zealand wasn't invited to the AUKUS alliance and didn't want to be - because nuclear-powered vessels are not allowed in NZ waters

'The centrepiece of it is nuclear powered submarines and all parties are very well versed in understanding our position on nuclear powered vessels and weapons.'

'They couldn't come into our internal waters our legislation says no vessel wholly or fully powered by nuclear energy can enter our internal waters.'

'That is a position held across parties for a long period of time.'

Ms Ardern insisted New Zealand had no interest in being part of the new 'AUKUS' triumvirate and saw it as less important than the 'Five Eyes' intelligence sharing arrangement, which was formed in 1941.

'[AUKUS] isn't at the level of existing partnership with UK, Canada, the US, Australia and Canada,' she claimed.

Ardern said she was informed about Australia's partnership with the US and Britain at the same time as Scott Morrison's cabinet, but wasn't invited.

'No we weren't approached, nor would I expect us to be,' Ardern said.

Australia's new nuclear submarines, which are to be built in Adelaide as part of the AUKUS alliance with the UK and US will not be welcome in New Zealand

Scott Morrison and Jacinda Ardern say their nations will continues to cooperate on regional security

She said it was 'very clear' New Zealand wouldn't want to belong to the alliance because of its promotion of nuclear-powered submarines.

The New Zealand public has long supported an official anti-nuclear stance.

The American navy's nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser USS Truxtun came under heavy water-based protests from civilians when it visited New Zealand in 1982.

The nation's government made world headlines in the 1980s for denying a visit by US destroyer USS Buchanan in 1985 after the US refused to deny that the warship had nuclear capability.

As part of the AUKUS arrangement, Australia's two most important allies will help it build nuclear-powered submarines for the first time.

'It is the first time this technology has ever been made available to Australia. This is a one-off, as the President in Washington has made very clear. This is a very special arrangement,' Mr Morrison said.

The American navy's nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser USS Truxtun came under heavy water-based protests from civilians when it visited New Zealand in 1982

Jacinda Ardern at Thursday's press briefing where she said New Zealand supports the UK and US being more engaged in the Pacific but that doesn't extend to nuclear vessels

The prime minister was joined virtually for the announcement by US President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in a historic joint press conference.

None of the leaders mentioned China by name but the West is increasingly concerned about Beijing's growing assertiveness and huge military build-up.

Ardern said New Zealand wants 'peace' in the region but does support 'more engagement' by the UK and US.

'We want peace and we want stability in our region and a rules based order preserved and that is position we will come at on all these issues.'

Ms Ardern challenged the Kiwi opposition to come out and support her statements, given it had spoken in support of AUKUS.
Police have caught a man who allegedly escaped Hobart's Risdon Prison and was on the run for about 20 minutes.

The 35-year-old was taken into custody around 9.25am on Thursday on a highway in the suburb of Gagebrook, about 15km north of the jail.

'The man was arrested after a vehicle he was travelling in was successfully spiked by responding police,' Tasmania Police said in a statement.

Pictured: The main guard tower and entrance to Risdon Prison near Hobart

The Westpac Rescue Helicopter was used in the hunt after police received reports of a man escaping the prison.

No one was injured during the incident and investigations are continuing.

Anyone with information or footage of a white Ford Ranger ute with registration E10CV driving erratically on Hobart's eastern shore has been asked to contact police.

Police are expected to provide further information later on Thursday.
Terminally ill Queenslanders will be able to end their lives from next year with the state set to legalise voluntary assisted dying.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk's bill will allow people suffering a disease, illness or medical condition that is advanced, progressive and terminal to access to voluntary-assisted dying (VAD).

Their condition must be expected to cause death within a year, they must have decision-making capacity, and proceed without coercion.

The bill is set to pass into law on Thursday after at least 59 of the state's 93 MPs indicating they will vote in support of it.

Terminally ill Queenslanders will be able to end their lives from next year with the state set to legalise voluntary assisted dying (stock image)

Deputy Premier Steven Miles said the proposed laws won't make people's deaths less tragic, but it will ease their pain and suffering.

'For me, I do not know if the loved ones I have seen suffer at the end of their lives would have wanted access to voluntary assisted dying,' he said on Tuesday.

'I would like them to have known they had a choice.'

Most Labor MPs, the two Greens MPs and independent Sandy Bolton support the VAD bill, while most Liberal National Party MPs, three Katter's Australian Party MPs and One Nation MP Stephen Andrew oppose it.

LNP leader David Crisafulli and his deputy David Janetzki oppose the bill on principle, but submitted 54 amendments, which they said would improve safeguards for conscientious objectors and reporting processes.

Mr Crisafulli, along with other LNP MPs, said more funding was needed for palliative care across the state to give patients a true choice.

'While my heart hurts for people facing great pain and terminal illness, I cannot assist them to die via flawed legislation,' he said.

'I cannot support something that offers the assistance of the state to terminate their life, the same state that does not give them options of specialist palliative care within the same time frame.

'I will not be supporting this bill.'

In an emotional parliamentary debate, Labor MPs Linus Power, Bart Mellish and Joe Kelly will also cross the floor.

Mr Kelly, a qualified nurse, said voting for assisted-dying was against his principles.

'It is my real professional view that we can provide dignified death when we provide good palliative care,' he told parliament on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, at least eight LNP MPs said they would vote in support of the bill, stating their strong belief in individual freedom and agency.

Burdekin MP Dale Last, a former police officer, said his experience attending suicides, particularly those of terminally ill people, had influenced his decision.

'Think about the impact on loved ones, on emergency service personnel, and those people who may have witnessed the event. You can appreciate the difference having that choice of voluntary-assisted dying could have made,' the LNP MP said on Wednesday.

The final vote on the VAD bill is set to be held on Thursday after MPs vote on Mr Janetzki's 54 proposed amendments.

The scheme will operate from January 2023, meaning Queensland will became the fifth jurisdiction in Australia to legalise euthanasia.

Voluntary-assisted dying is legal in Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania.

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Australian researchers believe that mobile phones could significantly impact how pandemics are controlled in the future.

A study conducted by scientists at Bond University in Queensland found that mobile phones are contaminated with hazardous pathogens such as bacteria and viruses that reverse the advantages of hand washing if they aren't properly cleaned.

Associate Professor in Molecular Biology at Bond University Dr Lotti Tajouri examined a selection of mobile phones and surveyed 165 health workers, including doctors and nurses, as part of the study.

Researchers at Bond University in Queensland found that mobile phones can spread bacteria and viruses that reverse the benefits of hand washing if phones aren't properly cleaned

He said he was inspired to analyse devices used by healthcare workers after he watched doctors in a hospital use their phones right after hand washing and before surgery.

'Mobile phones that we did swab are absolutely fully contaminated by bacteria, viruses, fungi and even parasites,' Dr Tajouri told 9NEWS.

'Not very surprisingly, we found bacteria that are associated with fecal contamination.'

Dr Lotti Tajouri from Bond University found that 52% of healthcare workers surveyed use their mobile phones while in the bathroom, and 57% have never cleaned their device (stock image)

The research found that 98 per cent of healthcare workers surveyed believed mobile phones are contaminated.

Dr Tajouri said a staggering 52 per cent use their mobile phones while in the bathroom, and 57 per cent have never cleaned their mobile phones.

He insisted that mobile phones should be viewed as a third hand and need to be sanitised or washed just as regularly as two hands are.

Dr Tajouri insisted that mobile phones should be viewed as a third hand and need to be sanitised or washed just as regular two hands are (stock image)

Dr Tajouri also added that biosecurity and which plans should be in place at airports need to be considered after animal and plant pathogens were found on phones.

'We found animal pathogens, we found plant pathogens, so think about the biosecurity and think about what we should probably do in our airports,' he said.

Dr Tajouri has now asked public health officials to pay attention to the university's research before another outbreak begins.
Canva co-founders Melanie Perkins and Cliff Obrechts extraordinary plan to pass on a 30 per cent stake of their business - worth $16.4billion - has drawn instant comparisons to former US power couple Bill and Melinda Gates.

The Australian duo started a modest business from a Perth living room in 2013, and now their software juggernaut is valued at close to $54 billion.

Incredibly, the down to earth billionaire founders are happy to give away a portion of their wealth to the less fortunate, in the form of a charitable foundation seeking to eradicate extreme poverty.

While remaining tight lipped about when and who they will eventually transfer their shares to, Ms Perkins, 34, said 'billions upon billions of dollars is more than anyone needs in a lifetime.'

'We have this extraordinarily optimistic belief  and yes, I do appreciate it is a little naive  but we believe there is enough money and enough goodwill in the world to solve most of the worlds problems,' she said in the companys media briefing over Zoom, according to the Australian Financial Review.

Despite their success, the glamorous co-founders in their thirties have now pledged to give away 30 per cent of their fortune, with a promise of giving the 'vast majority' of their stakes to their Canva Foundation charity

Melanie Perkins, 34, and Cliff Obrecht, 35, famously started a multi-billion business from a Perth living room a little more than a decade ago, during the earlier days of their long-term relationship

For Ms Perkins, getting rich for the sake of it was a hollow feeling - with the couple happy to help others instead

The eventual share transfer will comfortably exceed the nation's current largest private foundation, the Paul Ramsay Foundation.

Mr Obrecht, 35, said the exceedingly generous donation 'is the very first step in a very long journey.'

He added the aim of the 'pilot donation' is to ultimately assist those living in extreme poverty in third world countries.

Ms Perkins said the decision to pass on personal shares was deliberate, due to the fact that 'what is good for humanity is good for business.'

She went onto reveal after starting the company, the couple - who are now engaged - placed joint focus on three key life principles - being a force for good, empowering others and also striving to be the best people possible.

Canva now has an estimated market capitalisation of AU$54 billion, making it more valuable than telco giant Telstra's AU$47 billion on the Australian share market.

The value of their company - who now have at least 1500 employees - has surged following a successful capital raising from investors that added $273 million to their worth.

To Ms Perkins, getting rich for the sake of it was a hollow feeling.

'If the whole thing was about building wealth that would be the most uninspiring thing I could possible imagine,' she told the American Forbes finance website.

Australia's wealthiest woman under 40 is also uncomfortable with the idea of being ultra-wealthy, even if she created the money rather than inheriting it.

'It has felt strange when people refer to us as 'billionaires' as it has never felt like our money, we've always felt that we're purely custodians of it,' Ms Perkins said in a blog post.

Canva grew after Ms Perkins in 2010 met American billionaire venture capitalist Bill Tai at a conference in her home city of Perth, and he invited her to San Francisco to pitch her idea.

This was three years after she thought about starting a free, online graphic design platform with Mr Obrecht, who was also studying at the University of Western Australia.

The down to earth Aussie couple have drawn comparisons to former US power couple Bill and Melinda Gates (pictured) - Mr Gates is the co-founder of Microsoft

Last year with her fiance, she came second on The Australian Financial Review's Young Rich List with an estimated personal worth of $3.4billion, second only to Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar who only qualified because he was still 40 at the time

Together, they were teaching other students how to do graphic design, with existing Microsoft products challenging to navigate.

Last year, with her fiance, she was ranked second on the Australian Financial Review's Young Rich List with an estimated personal worth of $3.4billion.

They were second only to Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar, who only qualified because he was still 40 at the time.

Canva's founders look set to top the AFR's elite youth list in late 2021 as the pandemic continues to inflate the value of tech companies like hers.

Mr Farquhar and the other Atlassian co-creator, Mike Cannon-Brookes, will also be a little too old to qualify for the who's-who list of uber-wealthy billionaires aged 40 or younger.
As Georgia's children return to the classroom for in person learning, state epidemiologist report that they now make up over half of the COVID-19 cases in the state.

The 240 percent rise in COVID cases among children since July comes as the current delta variant surge sweeps Georgia, where only 45 percent of residents are vaccinated- well below the national average.

Dr. Mohammed Reza, an infectious disease specialist, told , news4jax.com that the rise in cases is mostly due to to students returning to school classrooms.

He expects to see a decline in positive cases when the vaccine is finally approved for younger children.

'It'll totally change how we combat this virus because we know how effective those vaccines are,' he said.

Children are still far less likely to have severe cases of COVID-19.

There have now been over 100 COVID-19 outbreaks in schools statewide since July.

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There have been over 100 outbreaks in schools statewide since July 4, leading multiple school districts to close their schools or require mask in classrooms

Students in Camden County schools, which reported 64 positive cases among students and staff, have been required to wear masks in the classroom since school started last month

'The magnitude of this, of the number of cases here in this age group among school children is very significant,' state epidemiologist Cherie Drenzek told parents during a Board of Public Health meeting.

Multiple school districts in the state have had to close their schools or require mask in classrooms due to recent outbreaks.

After only a week in session Ware County Schools was forced to closed all of its 11 schools because of a 'sharp increase' in COVID-19 cases, news4jax.com reported.

Ware County Schools is currently reporting 23 positive COVID-19 cases.

Most school districts have returned for the fall semester sometime between the last month around the time the spike in cases for school-aged children began.

Glynn County students were required to do two weeks of virtual school following a recent rise in cases. When students finally returned to in-person learning on Monday, students were required to wear mask in classrooms.

Currently, Glynn County schools is reporting 112 positive cases, news4jax.com reported.

Students in Camden County schools, which reported 64 positive cases among students and staff, have been required to wear masks in the classroom since school started last month

In states reporting pediatric cases, children accounted for fewer than one-quarter of 1 percent of all COVID-19 deaths, according to National Public Radio.

But COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are rising among children nationwide.

A new report by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) shows that children accounted for 26.8 percent of new weekly US cases of COVID-19 - an unprecedented number since the start of the pandemic.

As of the week ending on September 2, nearly 252,000 child cases of COVID-19 were reported.

In recent weeks, 0.41 per 100,000 children ages 0 to 17 Have been hospitalized with COVID.

This is a high, with the previous peak set in mid-January at 0.31 per 100,000, according to an August 13 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr. Francis Collins, head of the National Institutes of Health, calls the recent spike in cases among children 'very worrisome. He noted that over 400 US children have died of COVID-19 since the pandemic began.

'After declining in early summer, child cases have increased exponentially, with over 750,000 cases added between August 5 and September 2,' the AAP said.

Gottlieb told Face the Nation that he believes local public school districts will make the COVID-19 vaccine a requirement - as it has done for other shots including inoculation against measles and other infectious diseases.

'I think you're going to see more local school districts and governors make those recommendations,' he said.

'Eventually ACIP (the CDC's Advisory committee on Immunization Practices) is going to make a recommendation about whether this should be included in the childhood immunization schedule.

'My guess is they're waiting for more of the vaccines to be fully licensed to make that kind of a recommendation.

'But I would expect this eventually to be required as part of the childhood immunization schedule.'
Hundreds of Cadbury workers in Melbourne will walk out on strike demanding more secure jobs and sweeter pay and conditions from the international chocolate company.

The Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union said about 360 workers across two sites will strike from Friday until early Saturday over delays in converting them from casual to permanent roles.

Some workers have been in casual roles for 10 years and the chocolate giant, which is owned by Mondelez International, is refusing to make them permanent, the union said.

'Chocolate has been one of our core comforts during lockdowns, but it doesn't taste as sweet when workers aren't being treated fairly,' AMWU national secretary Steve Murphy said.

Cadbury workers across two factories in Melbourne will go on strike from Friday over better pay and condition with some employees complaining they were kept on casual contracts for more than 10 years

'These workers just want certainty and security, but found that working for Cadbury is like a box of chocolates. They never know what they're going to get.'

Some workers will refuse to work any overtime hours until Monday, as part of the industrial action.

Victorian AWU secretary Tony Mavromatis said workers are also striking to demand better pay, after keeping Australians stocked up with chocolate during the pandemic.

'These workers aren't asking for the whole block, they just want their piece,' he said.

AAP has contacted Mondelez International for comment.
Comedian gave his lawyer instructions from his hospital bed on Wednesday

He is facing three charges for attending anti-lockdown rally in Sydney

Mr Kairouz, 24, is in a Covid-19 ward in Sydney along with his father Richard

He called Jon-Bernard Kairouz 'silly' and told everyone to take the virus seriously

Pictured: Jon-Benard Kairouz, 24

A TikTok sensation with a bizarre talent for predicting the daily NSW Covid case numbers has been slammed by the state health minister as 'silly' and 'juvenile' after he was hospitalised with the virus following an anti-lockdown protest.

Jon-Benard Kairouz was moved from the ICU unit at St George Hospital in Kogarah, in Sydney's south, on Wednesday afternoon amid a gruelling battle with coronavirus.

The social media star is also due to face court in October for two counts of not complying with Covid-19 directions and one count of encouraging the commission of crimes after he attended a violent protest in Sydney's CBD on July 24.

When Brad Hazzard was asked whether he could sympathise with the 24-year-old's virus struggle during Thursday's press conference, the health minister did not hold back.

'I have sympathy for anybody who gets Covid. Covid can kill you,' he said.

'So even though I might be frustrated with that gentleman's juvenile way of approaching the situation, I think the rest of us in the community would say we still have sympathy with the fact that he's now got it.'

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard (pictured) called Mr Kairouz as 'juvenile' and 'silly' in a press conference

'Obviously, that puts him at risk, it puts close contacts at risk.'

Mr Hazzard also described Mr Kairouz's behaviour as 'silly' and urged everyone to take the pandemic seriously.

'There's a very strong message there and that is don't take this trivially, don't be silly about it, take every aspect of Covid-19 seriously, and that means get vaccinated,' he said.

The health minister and mr Kairouz have had a tense relationship since the entertainer started sharing his case number predictions on TikTok in July - with Mr Hazzard labelling his videos a 'disappointment'.

'Clearly someone in the system was feeling the need to disclose those figures to somebody who was not an appropriate person to be making commentary about it,' he said at the time.

Jon-Bernard Kairouz refers to himself as the People's Premier after he predicted the state's soaring case numbers for the past five consecutive days

Jon-Bernard Kairouz fired up anti-lockdown protesters during an illegal rally in Sydney in July (pictured)

It is still unclear how Mr Kairouz managed to accurately predict the Covid case numbers.

The feat hasn't been repeated by anyone else except for a handful of well-connected political reporters who have reliably forecast ballpark figures.

Health Minister Brad Hazzard denied that a 'trap' had been set for Mr Kairouz where false information was supplied to his source.

Mr Kairouz's lawyer, Eidan Havas, revealed on Wednesday his client was forced to give instructions from hospital where his father is also battling the virus, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

He pleaded not guilty to all three counts when the case came before the Bankstown Local Court on Tuesday.

Jon-Bernard Kairouz (pictured on the phone),landed in hospital with Covid-19, along with his father

Jon-Bernard Kairouz and his father Richard Kairouz (pictured together) have been hospitalised with Covid-19

'This should highlight to everyone in NSW how serious Covid-19 is and everyone should be getting vaccinated and staying home in order to stop the transmission of this terrible virus,' Mr Havas said.

The case has been adjourned to Sydney's Local Downing Centre Local Court on October 26.

Mr Kairouz was removed from ICU on Wednesday afternoon, but his father continues to battle the deadly disease in hospital.

Richard Kairouz, a gym owner, was admitted to hospital nearly a fortnight ago and has been placed in an induced coma in the intensive care unit.

A source close to the family said last week that they have been hit hard by Covid-19.

'He was symptomatic ... and kept deteriorating,' they said, referring to Mr Kairouz senior.

Jon-Bernard Kairouz (pictured) shot to fame after he correctly predicted the daily number of NSW case numbers in NSW

Mr Kairouz (pictured) became known as 'the TikTok guy' after repeatedly revealing the NSW Covid tally hours before Premier Gladys Berejiklian earlier this year

'(He) decided to go to hospital on the Saturday afternoon. The whole family is at home in isolation.

'After predicting the Covid-19 numbers daily, (Jon-Bernard) couldn't predict that he (his dad) would contract it.'

Mr Kairouz repeatedly insisted his predictions are the result of 'simple maths', but has not released a single video since his suspected leak was outed.

The TikTok star causes further controversy when he fronted a violent anti-lockdown protest in July, disappointing many of his 57,000 followers.

The self-appointed 'people's Premier' spoke to a cheering crowd who gleefully clutched signs condemning lockdowns, masks and vaccines.

'All we want is freedom,' he told about 3,500 protesters on the Town Hall steps.

Mr Kairouz was nabbed outside his home in Belmore, in Sydney's south-west, on Sunday, July 25 when three detectives arrived to serve him his court attendance notice.

Kairouz is seen above when he was charged by officers on the street near his family's home on July 25

'I must say I've crunched the numbers, I don't think the cases are going to go up tomorrow.

'From what I've calculated there's over 50,000 people here today,' he wrongly claimed.

But the stunt quickly backfired, with some of his fans questioning why he joined thousands of protesters and risked extending the city's lockdown.

'Hope you enjoyed the protest, because everyone has lost respect for you,' one woman commented on one of the comedian's TikTok videos.

'You had a big rise and an even bigger fall, how hilarious,' a second wrote.

'Maybe he can predict how many people will be in court to greet him,' a user joked.

NSW Police set up Strike Force Seasoned to track down all attendees at the protest, which health officials feared would become a coronavirus super-spreader event.

Officers arrested 63 attendees at the rally and a further 60 for a variety of offences, including striking a police horse and assaulting a police officer.
Trump's special counsel, who was appointed to investigate the administration's relationship with Russia, has revealed he plans to ask a grand jury to indict a Democratic cybersecurity lawyer for making a false statement to the FBI.

Former federal prosecutor Michael Sussmann, 57, who now works as a partner at the Perkins Coie law firm, represented the Democratic National Committee when Russia hacked its servers back in 2016.

Special counsel John Durham told the Justice Department he is now seeking to indict the lawyer in a case questioning who Sussmann's client was when he initially expressed suspicions to the FBI about Trump's relationship with Russia in September 2016.

The accusation centered around a meeting Sussmann had in Russia on September 19, 2016 with James A Baker, the FBI's top lawyer that year, according to people familiar with the matter. As reported by the New York Times they spoke on condition of anonymity.

At the meeting Sussmann allegedly gave the FBI data and analytics from cybersecurity researchers who thought the numbers might be evidence of hush-hush communications between Trump Organization's computer servers and Alfa Bank - a Kremlin-linked Russian financial institution.

Special counsel John Durham (left) told the Justice Department he is seeking to indict Democratic cybersecurity lawyer Michael Sussmann (right) in a case questioning who Sussmann's client was when he initially expressed suspicions to the FBI about Trump's relationship with Russia in September 2016

The Times reported that the FBI concluded the researchers' concerns had no merit. The special counsel who proceeded Durham, Robert S Mueller III, ignored the matter completely in his final report.

According to The Times investigators are now examining whether Sussmann was secretly working for the Clinton campaign, although he has denied the accusations.

Durham had a deadline of this weekend to bring the accusations to light and set the investigation in motion due to a five-year statute of limitations for such cases.

Sussmann's division at Perkins Coie is separate from the firm's political law group, which represented the Democratic party and the Hillary Clinton campaign, as reported by The Times.

However, an indictment is not guaranteed and on rare occasions grand juries will decline a request such as Durham's.

But Sussmann's lawyers Sean Berkowitz and Michael Bosworth of the firm Latham & Watkins are expecting their client to be indicted, as reported by The Times, and also denied that he made any incorrect statements.

'Mr Sussmann has committed no crime,' they said.

Berkowitz and Bosworth insisted their client was representing the cybersecurity expert he mentioned to the FBI and he was not at the meeting with Baker for anything to do with the Clinton campaign.

The lawyers added: 'Any prosecution would be baseless, unprecedented and an unwarranted deviation from the apolitical and principled way in which the Department of Justice is supposed to do its work.

'We are confident that if Mr Sussmann is charged he will prevail at trial and vindicate his good name.'

Ex-President Donald Trump has long accused the democratic party and Perkins Coie of looking to find unfair suspicions about Trump's supposed ties to Russia. Trump supporters have been notoriously suspicious of Perkins Coie too

Sussmann's lawyers told the Justice Department that he originally organized the 2016 meeting because he and the cybersecurity researchers believed The New York Times was about to publish an article on the Alfa Bank data.

As reported by The Times, Sussmann wanted to give the FBI a heads-up before the paper ran the story which, in fact, they never did. The Times did, however, publish an article mentioning Alfa Bank six weeks later.

Any indictment of the former prosecutor would attract significant political attention, according to The Times, and Durham is using a grand jury to examine Sussmann's data from Alfa Bank.

He has allegedly been on the hunt for any evidence that the numbers were false or skewed but to date there has been no public sign that the data was fabricated.

And while Attorney General Merrick B Garland has the authority to overrule Durham, he did not, according to a spokesman. Garland and his spokesman declined to respond to The Times's request for comment.

The only inconsistency Durham has been able to find to date is that Baker supposedly told investigators he remembered Sussmann telling him he wasn't arranging the meeting on behalf of any client.

Then, in a deposition before Congress in 2017 Sussmann testified otherwise, saying that he sought the meeting on behalf of an unidentified client who was a cybersecurity expert and assisted in data analyzation, as reported by The Times.

Durham later suspiciously acquired internal billing records from Perkins Coie that show Sussmann logged certain hours as working on the Alfa Bank matter and billed the time to Clinton's 2016 campaign. Oddly enough, those working hours did not include the time he spent at the meeting with Baker, according to The Times.

But Sussmann's lawyers argued the billing records were misleading because their client was not charging the cybersecurity expert for work on the Alfa Bank matter. According to The Times he simply needed to show internally that he was working on something.

The Times also noted that Marc Elias, a fellow partner at Perkins Coie who served as the general counsel for the Clinton campaign, did not respond to inquiries and left the firm last month.

Elias allegedly spoke on the Alfa Bank with Sussmann. Elias and the Clinton campaign paid a monthly retainer to Perkins Coie and therefore claimed that Sussmann's logged hours did not result in any additional charges.

When Durham knuckled down on his attempts to indict Sussmann in October 2020, The Times reported that the cybersecurity researcher who originally brought the concerns to Sussmann hired a lawyer - Steven Tyrrell.

Tyrrell told The Times that his client thought Sussmann was representing him at the meeting with Baker. The lawyer didn't reveal the identity of his client for fear of harassment.

'My client is an apolitical cybersecurity expert with a history of public service who felt duty bound to share with law enforcement sensitive information provided to him by DNS (Domain Name System) experts,' Tyrrell told The Times.

He added: 'He sought legal advice from Michael Sussmann who had advised him on unrelated matters in the past and Mr Sussmann shared that information with the FBI on his behalf.

'He did not know Mr Sussmanns law firm had a relationship with the Clinton campaign and was simply doing the right thing.'

Ex-President Donald Trump has long accused the Democratic party and Perkins Coie of looking to find unfair suspicions about Trump's supposed ties to Russia.

Trump supporters have been notoriously suspicious of Perkins Coie too, especially when Elias commissioned a research firm to look into Trump's relationship with Russia on behalf of Democrats.

According to The Times, Durham's team has stirred up more skepticism in recent months after suggesting a theory that the Clinton campaign used Perkins Coie to submit unreliable information to the FBI about Russia and Trump in efforts to hurt his 2016 campaign.
Investigators are probing whether drugs were involved in the murder of four friends from St. Paul whose bodies were found inside an SUV that was dumped in a cornfield about an hour away in Wisconsin.

Dunn County Sheriff Kevin Bygd said investigators believe the victims 'were randomly brought to' the Town of Sheridan and that someone intentionally drove the SUV with the bodies into the tall corn.

The victims were identified as Nitosha Lee Flug-Presley, 30, from the St. Paul suburb of Stillwater; and Matthew Isiah Pettus, 26; Loyace Foreman III, 35, and Jasmine Christine Sturm, 30, all three from Saint Paul, Minnesota.

A farmer discovered the bodies on Sunday afternoon in the field about 65 miles east of St. Paul. All four had been shot dead.

Bygd said that motive in the case remains a mystery, and that all possibilities are under investigation, including the involvement of personal acquaintances, organized crime, or a drug connection.

He said as yet there was no preliminary evidence of drugs as a motive, but that 'it very well could be, and that's going to be discovered through our investigation.'

Victims Jasmine Sturm (left) and Matthew Pettus (right) were half-siblings, and worked together at Shamrocks Irish bar and grill in St. Paul

Victim Loyace Foreman III (left) was Sturm's boyfriend, while Nitosha Lee Flug-Presley (right) was a friend of Sturm

Sturm and Pettus both worked at this Irish bar and restaurant in St Paul, a family member said

The victims, who included two bartenders at the Irish bar Shamrocks, had last been seen out drinking together in St. Paul on Saturday night, before leaving together in an unknown vehicle.

Bygd said that there was no connection between the victims and the area where their bodies were found, and that investigators suspect the killers did not a have a local connection either.

'We can't find any connection to this area, other than possibly randomly driving out of the Twin Cities,' the sheriff said.

Investigators believe the killer or killers brought a second vehicle to the dump site, and used it to escape. Police are seeking information about a possible second dark-colored SUV that may have been involved.

Investigators remain tight-lipped about many aspects of the case, and Bygd refused to answer many key questions, including ownership information for the SUV the bodies were found in, and the position of the bodies in the vehicle.

However, audio from a police scanner obtained by the station KSTP revealed that none of the victims were in the driver's seat.

Deputies are seen walking through the field in search of clues as part of the homicide investigation on Tuesday

The crime scene is located in the town of Sheridan in Dunn County, Wisconsin, located about 65 miles east of Minneapolis

The victims Sturm and Pettus were half-siblings, while Flug-Presley was Sturm's friend and Foreman was Sturm's boyfriend, investigators said.

Sturm was a longtime server at Shamrocks bar and restaurant in St. Paul, where her brother Pettus, the youngest victim, was also a bartender, a family member said.

Autopsies that were performed on Monday by Ramsey County Medical Examiner's Office determined that all four victims died from gunshot wounds.

Plug-Presley's father, Damone Presley Sr., told the St. Paul Pioneer Press that the four victims were at a St. Paul bar on Saturday night and they got in someone's vehicle when they left.

'Why would this happen?' he said on Tuesday. ' It just doesn't make sense.'

Loyace Foreman III was the son of Loyace Foreman Jr, senior pastor at New Vision Faith Center in Saint Paul.

Dunn County Sheriff Kevin Bygd said investigators believe the bodies 'were randomly brought to' the Town of Sheridan and that someone intentionally drove the SUV into the tall corn

'He was stolen from us,' Loyace's mother, Jessica, wrote in a post. 'And we will find the thief. If it takes my very last breath. We will not rest. Loyace PulzeRazr Foreman III was my Prince.'

According to recent social media posts, the 35-year-old Foreman III had two children and was in a romantic relationship with Jessica Sturm.

He worked as a demolition contractor and enjoyed drawing in his free time.

'He was a doting uncle to his four nieces and nephews,' Jessica Foreman told Twin Cities. 'He was the protector of his three sisters. He was not perfect and we loved him unconditionally. He left an unfillable void.'

Sturm, who worked a second job as a paralegal at a law firm, and was raising her two sons, ages 11 and 5. The youngest boy had just celebrated his birthday last month.

Mourners online described Strum and Nitosha Flug-Presley as very close friends.

'There was never a time where i would see 1 without the other,' a mutual friend wrote. 'Y'all were literally inseparable and to think we lost y'all together don't even sit right.'

Bygd said that there was no connection between the victims and the area where their bodies were found, and that investigators suspect the killers did not a have a local connection either

Flug-Presley leaves behind a young son and daughter.

'She was an outgoing person, a very good mother, exceptional daughter,' Presley's father said. 'She was very vibrant, she had a good heart, someone who would lift up your spirits.'

Pettus' brother, Zach Pettus, told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune that he has 'an idea who did it,' referring to the homicides, but he declined to go into further detail.

'This is a freak thing that never should have happened,' Zach Pettus said. 'There is nothing that indicated this would have happened.'

Authorities believe the four Twin Cities-area residents died less than 24 hours from the time they were found and the location 'was a place these victims were randomly brought,' Bygd said.

'Everybody's a suspect at this point,' he said. 'We're looking at everybody and every possibility.'

No arrests have been announced as of Thursday. The investigation continues.
A Florida woman lost $25,000 to a con man on a dating site who posed as US soldier stationed in Afghanistan.

Susan Rizzo, from Fort Lauderdale, said she sent the money because she thought she was developing a connection with a man who claimed to be Nicholas Edwards on Plenty of Fish.

Edwards reportedly told Rizzo that he was on mission in Afghanistan after the US announced its withdrawal from the country.

'I sent the money because after two months of communicating I felt I was developing a relationship that felt real,' Rizzo told NBC.

Rizzo said she is now sharing her story so it can serve as a cautionary tale for people who interact with strangers on the internet.

'For somebody else to get taken like this emotionally and financially, it's embarrassing. It's hurtful,' she said.

Susan Rizzo, from Fort Lauderdale, lost $25,000 to dating app scanner posing as US officer stationed in Afghanistan

The man claimed to be named Nicholas Edwards and said that he needed money to book his own flight from the Middle East to Florida. He appears to have stolen a photo and claimed to be the man pictured

Rizzo said she sent the money because she though she was developing a real connection with Edwards

Rizzo started talking to Edwards in June. They texted and spoke on the phone constantly, with Rizzo voicing her fears for his safety amid the crisis in the Afghan country, where he supposedly was stationed.

He even called Rizzo his 'cherry blossom.'

Soon, Edwards earned Rizzo's trust by telling her about his missions and the fellow soldiers he had lost throughout the years.

'In the eyes of anybody else, this would be an imminent death of me. I'll email you right away with my promissory note which will equally hold us bonded until I am home in your arms,' Edwards wrote to Rizzo, saying that he will pay her back the $25,000.

'He had to go off to Afghanistan more than once when the riots and things were happening,' Rizzo said.

Rizzo said she is now sharing her story so it can serve as a cautionary tale for others

'In the eyes of anybody else, this would be an imminent death of me. I'll email you right away with my promissory note which will equally hold us bonded until I am home in your arms,' Edwards wrote to Rizzo, saying that he will pay her back the $25,000

Soon, Edwards earned Rizzo's trust by telling her about his missions and the fellow soldiers he had lost throughout the years

Edwards claimed to have been on Fallujah and Mosul, and to have been told by the military that he needed to arrange his own flight arrangements to return to the US.

'I feel my life is in limbo while waiting for your safe return,' wrote a concerned Rizzo when chaos unleashed in Afghanistan.

Edwards replied: 'A lot didn't go as planned. A lot of decision making amongst most of the special ops soldiers. Except there's a problem about my return because there's a provision to it that needs me to handle my own private flight arrangement.'

The con man told Rizzo that he had spent all of his life saving escaping Afghanistan and he had made it to the Middle East but needed money to travel to Florida and meet her.

On August 20, Rizzo deposited the $25,000 to his bank account. After Edwards asked for another $3,000, Rizzo grew suspicious and realized she had fallen victim to a scam.

She says that while she hopes to get her money back, the main reason behind sharing her story is for others not to make the same mistake.

Edwards said he had made it to the Middle East but was going to need money to travel to Florida, where he was going to meet Rizzo
A blurry image taken from a police helicopter has given Anthony 'AJ' Elfalak's family all the proof they need that he was being cared for by an angel while lost in the bush.

With her three-year-old nuzzling into her neck and holding onto her tightly, Kelly Elfalak revealed she had no doubt that the 'power of prayer' kept AJ safe.

Little AJ was found on September 6 after three days in inhospitable terrain behind his family home in Putty, 150km northwest of Sydney, with nothing more than some scratches, ant bites and nappy rash.

His devout Coptic Orthodox Christian family believe that an angel can be seen hidden in the rocks to his left when the NSW Police helicopter zeroed in on him.

'If you saw the picture of AJ in the creek, you can see the angel next to him,' Ms Elfalak said.

A blurry image taken from a police helicopter has given Anthony 'AJ' Elfalak's family all the proof they need that he was being cared for by an angel while lost in the bush

With her three-year-old nuzzling into her neck and holding onto her tightly, Kelly Elfalak revealed she had no doubt that the 'power of prayer' kept AJ safe

The photo has been circulating on social media and within paranormal activity groups.

But Ms Elfalak clarified that she and her family are certain the guardian angel stayed with little AJ to keep him alive while rescuers scoured the property for any sign of life.

She says it is a 'miracle' that he was found safe and well, a reflection of the strength of prayer and their faith.

The family, along with friends and thousands of supporters from afar, prayed for his safe return constantly while he was missing.

'AJ is doing really well,' Ms Elfalak revealed. 'He is healthy, happy, he only has a few cuts but nothing serious.'

Little AJ appeared in a Zoom prayer with his mother and Leila Abdallah, the mother of three children who were killed by a drunk driver in 2020

This aerial image shows the distance between AJ's home and the area where he was found - complete with the dense bushland and dangerously steep terrain in between

Mr Cassar queried whether AJ had in fact travelled further from this family home and somehow looped back to the dam where he was found, which is just 500m from his family home and was explored extensively in the days he was missing

A police source told Daily Mail Australia in the days after his rescue that his autism likely helped to keep him alive as he didn't process the imminent threat to his life while in the wilderness.

'The reality is he didn't know he was lost so he wasn't scared, he didn't panic,' an investigator said.

'If he was tired, he slept... he had access to water, which is a big thing for survival in the bush.'

But Ms Elfalak said AJ certainly knew he was lost.

'He was distraught, he knew something was wrong,' she said. 'He was really scared, clinging onto me really tightly.'

The moment they were reunited, Ms Elfalak said she got a sense that AJ finally felt as though he could relax.

Children were overjoyed after AJ was found, playing amongst each other and thanking the volunteers

Friends and family who had gathered at the Putty home celebrated for two days straight after his rescue, but his father says it will be dwarfed by the party when Covid restrictions ease in the coming months

'He looked at me and with his eyes I could see he thought ''oh my God, my mum's here'', and then fell asleep,' she said.

Friends and family who had gathered at the Putty home celebrated for two days straight after his rescue, but his father says it will be dwarfed by the party when Covid restrictions ease in the coming months.

'When Covid is over we're going to have the biggest party for AJ... Everyone's invited,' he said.

The family were joined on a Zoom prayer session by Leila Abdallah - the mother of three children who were tragically killed when a drunk driver ran them over on their way to buy ice cream in 2020.

'Alex and Michael want to come to your farm and play with AJ every single day,' Ms Abdallah told them, referring to her two sons.

AJ Elfalak (pictured) went missing on September 3 and was found three days later, covered in cuts and bruises

'I really want to come but because of Covid, you don't know what to do.'

Mr and Ms Elfalak assured Ms Abdallah she and her family were welcome to the farm once lockdown had ended.

The two families have never met, but feel drawn to one another after bonding over their shared trauma.

Ms Abdallah said she felt Ms Elfalak's emotions when in footage taken the moment she realised AJ was alive.

'It reminded me of the night at the hospital when I saw Alex and Michael... of hugging my children, something you easily take for granted.'
A former cleaner at Melbourne's Adass Israel School says he saw ultra-Orthodox principal Malka Leifer at school on some Sundays with one, two or three girls.

After days of testimony behind closed doors, a former cleaner at a Jewish school has given evidence in open court against Malka Leifer.

The 55-year-old former ultra-Orthodox principal is facing 74 child sexual abuse charges involving three sisters during her time at Melbourne's Adass Israel School between 2004 and 2008.

Israeli-born Australian Malka Leifer, right, is facing trial in Melbourne

A committal hearing in Melbourne Magistrates Court has been closed while two of the three sisters - Dassi Erlich, Nicole Meyer and Elly Sapper - give their evidence.

The court opened briefly on Thursday morning for Mario Toledo to give evidence through a Spanish interpreter.

He worked at the school as a cleaner for 16 years, retiring in 2017.

Mr Toledo told the court he would see Leifer at the school when he worked on Sundays, both in her office and in neighbouring classrooms.

On occasions she would have one, two or three girls with her, but he said he never heard conversations between any of them.

'I never paid any attention,' he said.

Mr Toledo said he never spoke to students at the school, but not because he was told not to.

'They never gave me explicit instructions not to do so, but I understood the religion,' he said.

Occasionally students might ask for his help to move something and he would quickly assist, but said it was only for work things.

Prosecutor Nanette Rogers said no further evidence would be called on Thursday, and court would continue behind closed doors on Friday, when the second of the sisters resumes her evidence.

Leifer was not present in court for Thursday's evidence, having been granted an exemption to allow her to observe the religious day Yom Kippur.

No Jewish witnesses were to be called on Thursday either.

The committal hearing is set to include evidence from nine witnesses.

Clinical psychologist Dr Vicki Gordon, former Adass Israel School teachers Esther Spiegelmen and Sharon Bromberg and former school counsellor Chana Rabinowitz are among them.

Witnesses and Leifer, who is currently at Melbourne's women's prison, the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre, are all appearing by video link.
A US Navy sailor was verbally and physically assaulted by a woman at a pizza parlor who accused him of wearing a fake uniform and lying about his service.

A viral video capturing the scene opens with the woman throwing Sean Notle Jr.'s Navy cover to the ground, calling it 'disgusting' as she slaps the US service member in the face inside the lobby of Central Pizza, in Berlin, Connecticut.

Notle Jr. - who was still in his military camouflage after stepping out for lunch from the Naval Submarine School, in nearby Groton - kept a cool head as his friend video taped the incident.

The woman went on to call the Navy sailor a 'f**king piece of sh*t.'

'You disgrace the U.S. You disgrace the USA,' the woman yelled as she accused Notle Jr., of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, of stolen valor.

The incident took place last weekend inside the lobby of Central Pizza on Mill Street in Berlin, where the woman was videotaped verbally and physically assaulting Sean Nolte Jr

The woman was videotaped verbally and physically assaulting Sean Nolte Jr, who is a student at the submarine school on the Naval SUBASE in Groton

'Ma'am, you're on camera,' Maria Karoni, a friend of Nolte Jr. who videotaped the incident was overheard saying in the video.

'Show his uniform,' the woman continued to yell.

Despite showing her his military ID, the woman did not believe the Nolte Jr. was in the Navy.

After she left the pizzeria several times, Nolte Jr. said the woman returned and started yelling at the staff that she knows Nolte is 'a fake' because her husband is in the Army.

Notle Jr. said he tried his best to keep the situation calm and even told the woman to thank her husband on his behalf for his service.

Jason Bikakis, the owner of Central Pizza, told News 8 he was shocked by what he saw.

'I have never seen something like that,' he said.

Bikakia said he witnessed the woman slap the sailor.

'Slap him, yes, in the face like she knows him for a long time,' Bikakis said.

Police have not yet released the woman's name, but told News 8 she questioned the sailors uniform.

In a Facebook post sharing his account of the incident, Nolte Jr. said he stopped off-base to grab pizza with a friend on Sept. 11 when a woman came in and began staring at him

In a Facebook post sharing his account of the incident, Nolte Jr. said he stopped off-base to grab pizza with a friend on Sept. 11 when a woman came in and began staring at him.

'I proceed to attempt to prove that I am not a fake, even pulled out my VALID Military ID and showed it to her,' Nolte wrote. 'She kept claiming that my Military ID is fake, and proceeds to show me her DEPENDENT MILITARY ID, and screams 'This is what your ID should look like.'

Just two months ago, WHTM, the ABC affiliate from Notle Jr.'s hometown, featured him in a public service announcement, Hartford Courant reported.

'Today we salute Sean Nolte Jr., of Harrisburg, who is a 2017 graduate of Harrisburg High School Sci-Tech Campus. Nolte is serving with the U.S. Navy in Groton, Connecticut,' the station said. 'We salute you, and thank you for your service.'

The incident took place last weekend inside the lobby of Central Pizza on Mill Street in Berlin

After she left the pizzeria several times, Nolte Jr. said the woman returned and started yelling at the staff that she knows Nolte is 'a fake' because her husband is in the Army

Although the video was seen by thousands, it wasn't until police released it to news outlets when tips began rolling in.

'We got a bunch of tips yesterday [Tuesday] that we followed up on,' Acting Berlin Police Chief Chris Ciuci said. 'We were able to identify the suspect. She met with our investigators, and she's cooperating so we anticipate there will be charges forthcoming.'

Police say they have similar videos like ones taken from surveillance cameras in the lobby of the restaurant. While the investigation remains open, police do not want to release those videos.

'She was in a public restaurant and she created alarm by her language and by assaulting someone,' Ciuci said. 'So, there are charges related to breach of peace and assault in the third degree that we're pursuing.'
Daniel Andrews has says police will not be patrolling 'every park' checking everyone having a picnic is fully vaccinated against Covid-19, in a dig at Sydney's heavily policed lockdown.

The Victorian premier on Thursday announced lockdown would be eased in Melbourne and Ballarat the state reached 70 per cent first-dose vaccinated.

Up to five people who have had both doses from a maximum of two households will be allowed to gather outside from 11.59pm on Friday.

However, Mr Andrews said police would not be actively patrolling public areas to make sure everyone taking advantage of the new rule was fully immunised.

Dan Andrews has taken a dig at Sydney's lockdown restrictions by revealing police will not be scoping 'every park' to enforce new public gathering rules for the fully vaccinated. Pictured are locals gathering in Sydney's Centennial Park on September 13

Double-jabbed Sydneysiders in lockdown were given the same freedom on September 13.

But NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said those gathering for what have been dubbed 'freedom picnics' must be able to prove their vaccination status to police.

'We are not going to have police in every park - we are not going to have police out there asking people to prove they have been vaccinated,' Mr Andrews said.

'We can't have a situation where we are going park by park, picnic by picnic. [But] that's not an invitation to break the rules.

'There's a degree of good faith in this. I'm asking people to do the right thing - if they do that we'll be out of lockdown sooner.'

Mr Andrews on Thursday also doubled the travel limit in locked-down parts of Victoria from 5km to 10km and said outdoor gyms and skate parks can now re-open.

Those in lockdown will also be able to exercise outside for four hours per day, an increase on the two hours currently permitted. Two people will be allowed to train outdoors with a personal trainer.

The Victorian premier on Thursday announced a string of changes to social distancing restrictions in Melbourne and Ballarat

MELBOURNE'S NEW RULES FROM FRIDAY Outdoor gatherings of up to five people from a maximum of two households who are all fully vaccinated

Travel radius doubles from 5km to 10km

Exercise time outside doubles from two hours to four hours

Two people can train outdoors with a personal trainer

All construction workers must have their first dose to work on site from next Friday

Child-minding centres will re-open as long as one parent is authorised worker

Real estate inspections open with people viewing from one household and agent must wait outside Advertisement

Mandatory vaccinations will be introduced for anyone working on construction sites with at east one jab required by next Friday as the state looks to send tradies back to work.

Mr Andrews also resisted calls to end the curfew, insisting he was following health advice that they work and distanced himself from NSW ending their curfew.

'Victorians can be very clear about one thing. We act on health advice. And I have no advice to remove the curfew. The curfew works. The curfew means less people are out visiting people in their homes doing things that are against the rules,' he said.

'We're not in NSW. You can speak to NSW about what health advice they get. And you can also speak to them about whether they follow health advice, and all those questions.

'I can't answer for decisions that the NSW government make. I'm here to talk about the advice that's been provided to us.'

The new rules are set to come into play from Friday. Outdoor gatherings in NSW are currently allowed for a maximum of five people and all must be vaccinated.

Real estate inspections will also re-commence under appointments only in Victoria, with only people from the same household allowed to attend and the agent must stand outside during the inspection.

Tour buses can also operate in regional Victoria with up to 10 people.

The limit on exercise is set to increase from two hours to four hours under plans set to be announced by Premier Daniel Andrews (pictured, women exercise in Melbourne's lockdown)

The government said the 'modest easing in restrictions' come despite growing concerns about case numbers in the state.

Tradies must show they have had their first dose of the vaccine by midnight on Thursday September 23 with a number of Covid outbreaks reported on job sites.

'While these changes can go ahead, public health officials have become increasingly concerned about Covid-19 transmission and exposure in construction settings, with evidence that it's emerging as a 'vector' of the virus into regional areas,' Mr Andrews said in a release.

'Changes will be made to limit further spread in this industry, allowing people to keep working safely.'

Those mandates include the mandatory vaccination of workers.

Thursday is the first time the state had more than 500 new cases in a day since the height of its deadly second wave on August 4 last year.

The 366 mystery cases not linked to the rest of the outbreak are also the most this year, with chief health officer Brett Sutton warning the risk of 1,000 a day is 'very real'.

They were diagnosed from 61,961 tests and 41,758 vaccine doses were administered on Wednesday as Victoria approaches 70 per cent first dose coverage.
Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot is taking a new approach to combatting gang violence by proposing a new Victims' Justice Ordinance that would allow the city to sue gang members in civil court and seize their property.

The ordinance, which would hold gangs accountable by suing members for the damage they inflict and allow authorities to size their property, is the latest effort from the mayor to tame the out of control violence in the city that is overrun by gangs.

Lightfoot introduced the ordinance on Tuesday and Chicago police leaders said they supported the measure that could allow judges or court officers to impose up to $10,000 fines per offence and seize 'any property that is directly or indirectly used or intended for use in any manner to facilitate street gang-related activity,' the Chicago Tribune reported.

Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot (pictured) proposed a new 'Victims' Justice Ordinance' that would allow the city to sue gang members in civil court and seize their property

Just this weekend, at least 64 people were shot, including several children, and nine people were killed, the Chicago Sun Times reported

'What we are proposing is a tool in civil courts that gives us the opportunity to go after those gangs that are wreaking havoc and in particular, take away the profit motive from them by seizing assets that they have been able to purchase because of their violent activity in our neighborhoods,' Lightfoot said.

But while Chicago police have shown support for the ordinance, it has faced backlash from civil rights attorneys and social justice organizations who say the measure could lead to Black and Latino residents of being wrongly accused of being involved in gang activity, the Tribune reported.

'Most folks can't afford a lawyer, for example, to represent them in these cases, so they have to go it alone in trying to get their assets back.' Angela Inzano, with the ACLU told WGNTV.com

Mayor Lori Lightfoot's new measure comes as Chicago crime rates continue to skyrocket

But Lightfoot is adamant the only people targeted will be those directly involved in gang activity and it would not go after 'guys on the corner' or small players, the Tribune reported.

'To be very blunt and clear, we are going after their blood money,' Lightfoot said.

The measure comes as Chicago crime rates continue to skyrocket.

Just this weekend, at least 64 people were shot, including several children, and nine people were killed, the Chicago Sun Times reported.

A shocking statistic showed that more children have have been shot in Chicago this year than the number of kids who have died of COVID-19 during the pandemic.

A total of 214 children, under the age of 17, have died from the virus while a total of 261 have been shot in the liberal city this year alone, according to data from police and the Center for Disease Control. Of those 261 minors who were shot, 41 were fatally wounded.

In July, President Joe Biden met with Lightfoot following a particularly violent July Fourth weekend, where 100 people were shot.

Biden had just recently introduced several proposals the month prior, in an effort to fight gun crime in major cities nationwide, specifically illegal guns with assistance from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
A public housing estate has been shut down and hundreds of vulnerable residents ordered to isolate after a new Covid cluster emerged amid fears it is 'riddled' with the virus.

Twelve people from three public housing towers at 43 to 57 Morehead Street, Redfern have tested positive for Covid, New South Wales Health confirmed.

A local health district team swung into action sending nurses from unit to unit to test and vaccinate residents, many of whom are elderly.

It is understood the outbreak began on August 31 and has spread across all three towers on the estate.

The notorious public housing estate at 57 Morehead Street, Redfern, has been shut down and residents ordered to remain inside after a new Covid cluster emerged there sparking fears it is 'riddled' with the virus

A resident from the Kendall block on Morehead Street, Redfern is monitored after receiving a vaccination

Residents of the three public housing towers on Morehead Street Redfern are being told to stay indoors and self-isolate until they get a negative Covid test after a cluster emerged there

The 630 residents of the three 17-storey towers, which are known to be regularly visited by Redfern police, have been instructed to remain inside and avoid lifts, exits and entries.

People identified as close contacts and those with Covid-19 have been moved to nearby 'special health accommodation'.

'Twelve people have been diagnosed with COVID-19 across three social housing buildings on Morehead St, Redfern,' a NSW Health statement provided to Daily Mail Australia said.

NSW Health confirmed a 'mobile vaccination team' is door-knocking to vaccinate residents on Thursday.

NSW Health said the residents, many of whom were 'vulnerable people with complex health and social needs' were being 'supported' by health teams and 'Department of Communities and Justice' workers

'To date, almost two-thirds of residents in the three buildings have been vaccinated.'

There are also concerns that virus could easily spread from Morehead Street a few streets south into the many public housing estates of Waterloo.

These are home to some of the poorest people in the inner Sydney. Many are pensioners and people with chronic public health issues.

The towers on Morehead Street, like the many public housing estates a few streets south at Waterloo are home to some of the poorest people in the inner Sydney and often exposed to crime in the area. Many are pensioners and people with chronic public health issues

Some residents in all three towers were also informed in a letter put under their doors to stay home for 14 days, news.com.au reported.

Others reported being told they were considered casual contacts and must get tested and self-isolate until a negative test is confirmed.

A resident in one of the towers, Tim, 51, said the rumour was the towers are 'riddled' with Covid.

Another, Jason Hutchins, 39, said the outbreak had been poorly handled.

'How can people isolate when they need to go to Centrelink in person or to the shops to get supplies, and then they get told this with no notice except a piece of paper under their doors?

'I can't self isolate. If you can't get your benefits online  and there's be lots of people here who don't even have online  what are they going to do, starve?'

Residents of three public housing towers on Morehead Street, Redfern, have been told to self-isolate after 12 people across three towers tested positive to Covid

Vaccination and testing stations have been set up on the ground level and teams are also going door to door to test and vaccinate residents in the three towers

There are concerns that virus could easily spread from Morehead Street a few streets south into the public housing estates of Waterloo, which are home to many pensioners and people with chronic public health issues

Another elderly woman said she was ordered back inside her home after trying to leave to go and buy a loaf of bread.

NSW Health confirmed the residents had tested positive after mass testing nearby.

'Sydney Local Health District has extensive experience in caring for vulnerable people with complex health and social needs, and is working closely with the Department of Communities and Justice to support residents in the three buildings,' NSW Health said in a statement.
A balcony that collapsed, killing two women during a Melbourne Christmas party, didn't meet safety requirements and was poorly maintained, a coroner has found.

Sarah Kajoba and Cheryl Taylor died after the balcony attached to a Doncaster East home gave way during an end of year Tupperware celebration in December 2017.

In findings released on Thursday, Coroner Paresa Spanos said the case highlighted the risk of complacency by owners and occupiers when it came to timber balconies.

The women had been at Christmas party thrown by their Tupperware sales directors Chris and Yvonne Nunn at their rented home in December 2017.

Cheryl Taylor (pictured right with daughter Melissa left), 59, died when a balcony collapsed at a Christmas party in north-east Melbourne in December 2017

They gathered for a group photo when the timber balcony gave way beneath them, collapsing on to the concrete and paved area below.

There were 17 people rushed to hospital with varying injuries, and 12 more treated at the scene.

Ms Spanos found, after hearing evidence at an inquest last year, that the balcony had not complied with industry standards either at the time or in 1987 when it was first constructed.

She found the main load beam for the balcony, which was home to a stocked fridge, barbecue and pizza oven, was too small. Combined with poor maintenance, it had provided inadequate support.

Police are pictured at the scene of the balcony collapse in December 2017

Ms Spanos said the situation quickly descended from a celebration to a multi-trauma scene.

Ms Taylor, 59, died at the home, while Ms Kajoba, 37, was taken to hospital suffering a severe traumatic brain injury and later died.

Victorian hospitals treated another 34 people who were injured as a result of 15 separate balcony collapses between March 2004 and June 2019, figures Ms Spanos said highlighted the need for increased awareness and safety measures.

She has recommended the Victorian Building Authority consider developing a system for certifying newly constructed balconies, and a requirement that notices be attached to balconies warning building owners and occupiers about not exceeding capacity and of the need for regular inspection and maintenance.

She also recommended continued efforts by VBA to improve public awareness about the need for regular inspections and maintenance, particularly for timber balconies.
A mayor in Ohio has threatened the city's entire school board with criminal charges unless they resign over highly sexual writing prompts that teachers gave to underage students.

Hudson Mayor Craig Schubert delivered the harsh ultimate during a school board meeting on Monday, garnering loud applause from outraged parents who also spoke out on the topic given to children aged 17.

At issue are the highly inappropriate writing prompts distributed to students in the Liberal Arts II writing class at Hudson High School, including 'Write a sex scene you wouldn't show your mom', 'Describe your favorite part of a man's body using only verbs' and 'Write an X-rated Disney scenario'.

'It has come to my attention that your educators are distributing essentially what is child pornography in the classroom,' fumed Mayor Schubert during public comments.

'I've spoken to a judge this evening and she's already confirmed that. So I'm going to give you a simple choice: either choose to resign from this board of education or you will be charged,' the mayor added.

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Hudson Mayor Craig Schubert threatened the city's entire school board with criminal charges unless they resign over highly sexual writing prompts that teachers gave to underage students

Left to right: Hudson School Board President David (Dave) Zuro, Board Vice President Steve DiMauro and member Alisa Wright

Hudson School Board Members James Field (left) and Tom Tobin (right)

Inappropriate prompts included in the book Write a sex scene you wouldn't show your mom.

Rewrite the sex scene from above into one that you'd let your mom read.

You have just been caught in bed by a jealous spouse. How will you talk your way out of this?

Write a sermon for a beloved preacher who has been caught in a sex scandal.

Describe a time when you wanted to orgasm but couldn't.

Ten euphemisms for sex.

You are a brand-new suicide-hotline counselor. Describe how you feel during the course of your first call.

Write a letter from the point of view of a drug addict.

Drink a beer. Write about the taste.

Write an X-rated Disney scenario.

A roomful of people who want to sleep together.

The first time you had sex.

Describe your favorite part of a man's body using only verbs. Advertisement

The mayor then rose from the microphone and stormed out of the meeting, to loud cheers and applause from parents in the audience.

It was unclear whether the inappropriate written material given to schoolchildren truly violates child pornography laws as the mayor claimed, but nevertheless parents in the district were outraged.

Ohio law does prohibit sending 'harmful' or obscene material to, or sharing it with, a minor, though this statute usually refers to sexting or sending obscene images.

The relevant statute exempts obscene material that is presented for 'bona fide' educational purposes, leaving the legal questions around the controversy murky.

The offensive prompts were given to students in the book 642 Things To Write About, which contains many innocuous writing prompts as well as some that are highly sexualized and inappropriate for minors.

The writing class that the book was assigned in is offered in association with Hiram College for college credit, but is taught at the high school, officials said.

Parent Monica Havens told the school board meeting she found out about the inappropriate writing prompts from a friend, the Plain Dealer reported.

'I asked my daughter if she had been reading a book with inappropriate stuff in it and she said yes,' said Havens, who was formerly a public school teacher for 11 years.

'I can't even wrap my brain around as a teacher, I don't care if it's for college credit, these are minors,' Havens said.

'When these topics are encouraged and read by adults, that is pedophilia,' said the outraged mother.

'This is grooming, and all of you need to be replaced,' Havens told the school board, telling the members: 'You have dedicated yourself to woke social justice.'

Parent Monica Havens told the school board: 'You have allowed the sexualization of our youth and grooming material to be approved for classroom content'

Havens claimed that the book had been on the curriculum for six years, accusing the board of 'sleeping on the job.'

The book of writing prompts includes many innocuous creative writing ideas, but also includes a selection of prompts that are inappropriate for children

'You have allowed the sexualization of our youth and grooming material to be approved for classroom content,' Havens said.

'Each and every one of you should be ashamed,' she added.

A police officer from the nearby city of Stow also addressed the board, calling for cameras to be installed in every public school classroom.

'Police officers wear body cameras to monitor their behavior, and they have brief interactions with the public. You guys have our kids all day and we don't know what's going on in the classrooms,' Dirker said.

Administrators at Hudson High School have already issued an apology over the controversy, saying they were unaware of of the inappropriate prompts and are working to collect the books.

Hudson High School Principal Brian Wilch said at Monday's meeting: 'There are times we need to take a step back, reflect and get better.'

'We did not exercise our due diligence when we reviewed this resource and we overlooked several prompts that were not appropriate. We felt terrible. You can't unsee them,' he said.
Terrified New York City diners caught up in a brazen robbery have described hearing a gunshot and screams as fears grow that the trend of holding diners up at gunpoint outside restaurants that started in Los Angeles has spread to the Big Apple.

Two masked, armed men attacked outdoor diners at the high-end Upper East Side restaurant Philippe Chow on Wednesday night. They stole one man's Rolex watch and shot a 28-year-old man on a first date in the leg when he tried to grab the robber's weapon.

Halley Wolowiec and Tamara Behan were eating outside at Le Bilboquet, across the street from Philippe Chow, when they heard a gunshot and glass breaking around 10pm.

'There was no mistaking that sound,' Wolowiec told ABC7.

'It was frightening because it was 20 feet away from us and it got very real, very quickly.'

She added that when she looked up she saw everyone running. She said that the restaurant opened its doors and ushered people inside to safety.

Wednesday night's shooting appears very similar to two other recent New York City robberies where diners leaving high-end restaurants were robbed of millions of dollars worth of jewelry. Both times the victims were approached by two men who escaped in a black Mercedes-Benz.

Last week in Los Angeles, a group of diners were robbed at gunpoint while sitting in the outdoor area of La Creme Cafe on Melrose Avenue, a popular shopping and dining area.

Halley Wolowiec (left) and Tamara Behan (right) were eating outside at Le Bilboquet, across the street from Philippe Chow when the armed robbery occurred

Police said a 28-year-old male victim was sitting outside the swanky establishment on East 60th Street when one of the men stepped up to his table minutes after 10 pm

A 31-year-old man was also approached at the restaurant at the same time when a masked man robbed him of his Rolex Stainless Steel Submariner watch

Police arrived on the scene late Wednesday night to recover the gun and watch surveillance footage of the armed robbery

After Wednesday night's incident, witness Tamara Behan pointed to how quickly her dinner on the Upper East Side turned into her life being threatened. 'It's absolutely scary when you think about how quickly it goes from being a nice night to literally you're saying could I get shot?'

She remembered looking at Wolowiec and thinking, 'Good God that could have gone into either one of us.'

The born and bred New Yorker was shaken up. 'You always hear about this stuff but you never think about it happening right behind you,' she said.

A hostess at the upscale Chinese restaurant who witnessed the altercation said: 'It was public in front of everybody.'

During Wednesday night's incident, the 28-year-old male victim shot in the leg was sitting outside on a first date at the swanky establishment on East 60th Street when one of the masked men stepped up to his table, according to police.

'(The robber) said, 'Hey, it's a stickup.' They wanted our jewelry,' the victim's date told the Daily News. 'My date started to fight him for the gun. He shot him. It was the left leg. It was our first date. I'm still in shock.'

The man refused the masked robber's demand for his watch and wrestled the man for his gun. He was shot in his left leg in the struggle.

Meanwhile, a second masked man approached another table and robbed 31-year-old diner of his Rolex Stainless Steel Submariner watch.

'There were two shots. Everybody came running in, screaming,' a witness told the New York Post. 'It's hard to believe it was a robbery. They were eating dinner out front. It looked like they were targeted. It's crazy.'

The armed robbery at Philippe Chow is the third armed robbery targeting New York City diners and their expensive jewelry in the past month

'(The robber) said, 'Hey, it's a stickup.' They wanted our jewelry,' the victim's date told the Daily News. 'My date started to fight him for the gun. He shot him. It was the left leg. It was our first date. I'm still in shock'

'There was shooting, and everybody screamed,' a maintenance worker told the New York Post. 'They ran and got scared and threw the gun on the floor, over there near the bottle on the sidewalk'

NYPD Lieutenant Lieutenant Thomas Antonetti told MailOnline that, after the 28-year-old was shot and his assailant relinquished the handgun, the victim managed to bring it inside the restaurant where it was recovered by police

NYPD Lieutenant Lieutenant Thomas Antonetti told DailyMail.com that, after the victim was shot the assailant dropped the handgun, and the victim managed to take it inside the restaurant where it was recovered by police.

Antonetti said the robbers, who are assumed to be in their 20s, fled the scene in a dark-colored SUV driven by a third party heading westbound. Police have surveillance video of the suspects and are searching for them.

The Post reported that the victim staggered, bleeding, out onto the sidewalk.

'One of the responding officers acquired a tourniquet to the shooting victim's leg so that when EMS responded, he was already in that elevated state of care,' Antonetti told MailOnline.

The shooting victim was coherent enough to speak with investigators before he was taken to Cornell Hospital, where he is currently in stable condition.

As of now, Antonetti said, there are no suspects or leads in the case.

'It was like a movie,' a maintenance worker who watched the men get out of the SUV from a nearby building told the Post. 'Two of them got out walking.'

Philippe, named after its celebrity executive chef Philippe Chow, is a favorite of Rihanna, Cardi B and Nicki Minaj

'It was like a movie,' a maintenance worker who watched the men get out of the SUV from a nearby building told the Post. 'Two of them got out walking'

A woman dining at Il Mulino next door described the chaos to the Post: 'There were two shots. Everybody came running in, screaming,' she said

This is not the first shooting incident at the upscale establishment: Tekashi69's bodyguard, Faheem Walter tussled with a bouncer at the establishment in 2018 after he and another member of the rapper's posse were turned away

'There was shooting, and everybody screamed,' the maintenance worker told the outlet. 'They ran and got scared and threw the gun on the floor, over there near the bottle on the sidewalk.'

This is not the first shooting incident at the upscale establishment: Tekashi69's bodyguard, Faheem Walter tussled with a bouncer at the establishment in 2018 after he and another member of the rapper's posse were turned away.

In retaliation, Walter hit one security guard over the head with a chair - the guard pulled out a handgun and shot Walter, who ultimately served 62 months in prison for gang violence for the incident, twice in the torso.

Philippe, named after its celebrity executive chef Philippe Chow, is a favorite of Rihanna, Cardi B and Nicki Minaj, according to The Standard.

Cardi B celebrated the release of her album 'Invasion of Privacy' there, according to published reports, over a slurry of margaritas. The swanky eatery, she's said, is her 'favorite restaurant in the world.'

Among popular menu items are the $85 peking duck special and a $16 red velvet fortune cookie.

The armed robbery and shooting on September 15 came a week after New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio bragged that the city experienced one of its safest Augusts on record.

De Blasio released last month's citywide crime statistics at a press conference on Tuesday, where he said crime in August 2021 dropped 5.4 per cent compared to the same time last year.

Crime in the city is also at one of its lowest levels since 1995, according to CompStat with 6,141 violent incidents compared to 1,979 in the year to date. Those incidents include, murder, rape, assault, burglary, larceny and grand theft auto.

But despite overall crime rates being down, New York City continues to see a surge in violent crimes in some areas, with murders up a whopping 60 per cent in the Bronx alone this year, compared to 2020.

New York City residents are becoming worried that these copycat robberies are being inspire by the string of armed robberies targeting diners that began in Los Angeles earlier this year.

On September 7, a group of diners were robbed at gunpoint while sitting in the outdoor area of La Creme Cafe on Melrose Avenue, a popular shopping and dining area.

The three diners were approached by an armed man who took their shopping bags and personal belongings in less than 20 seconds.

In February, there were reports of robberies of Rolex watches taken from people walking along the strip.

In March, three men pulled a gun on a couple walking after lunch and took the man's belongings, including a gold necklace, before fleeing in a car driven by a fourth suspect, according to KABC.

Last month, a store employee at Shoe Palace - just three blocks from the March robbery and seven blocks from Tuesday's robbery - was fatally shot after a dispute over a raffle.

Moment a man leaving a Manhattan nightspot is robbed of $4MILLION worth of jewelry by brazen thieves in a Mercedes-Benz

Police in New York City are hunting thieves who they say have been responsible for a pair of recent high-end jewelry heists in Manhattan, including one where a man leaving a restaurant was robbed of $4million worth of valuables.

According to the NYPD, at around 4.20am on August 14, a 47-year-old man and his 27-year-old companion had just walked out of the trendy TAO Downtown on 9th Avenue when they were accosted by a duo that got out of a Mercedes-Benz parked on the corner of West 30th Street and Broadway.

As seen in surveillance video released by the police, one of the occupants of the black Mercedes pulls a gun on the two men. The victims then remove and hand over various items of jewelry, which investigators said included chains, necklaces, rings, and a luxury Richard Mille watch, which was worn by the 47-year-old man.

One of the men displays a gun and demands the the 47-year-old man and his 27-year-old companion hand over their necklaces, rings and watches

Police in NYC are looking for two robbers who stole $4million worth of jewelry from a 47-year-old man near the trendy TAO Downtown eatery in Manhattan. This images from CCTV video shows the crooks approaching the victim and his companion on August 14

The thieves fled in this black Mercedes-Benz with a lit-up emblem

The August 14 incident took place after the two victims had walked out of TAO Downtown

Timepieces from the luxury Swiss watchmaker range in price from $80,000 to several million dollars.

The thieves got away with $4million worth of baubles belonging to the 47-year-old man, and they also pilfered a $10,000 medallion necklace from his younger companion. Neither victim was harmed.

Laden with their high-priced loot, the crooks climbed back into their getaway car and fled southbound on Broadway toward West 28th Street and turned left toward 5th Avenue, according to police.

Less than a week later, just after 1am on August 19, a 34-year-old man was walking towards Broadway after leaving Pergola restaurant on West 28th Street when, just like during the first heist, a black Mercedes-Benz pulled over, two men exited the vehicle and robbed the late-night reveler at gunpoint.

This time, the bandits plundered a Cuban necklace, a tennis bracelet and a high-end Audemar watch, with a total value of $100,000.

The larcenists were last seen escaping in their black Mercedes-Benz, heading southbound on Broadway and turning right onto West 27th Street en route to 6th Avenue.

Police are asking for the public's help in identifying the two thieves. One of them has been described as a man with a dark complexion, 5 feet tall and weighing 140lbs. His accomplice was said to be a man with a medium complexion, standing at 5 feet, 2 inches in height and weighing 140lbs.

The getaway vehicle seen on surveillance video was a black Mercedes-Benz with an illuminated emblem on the front, five-point star rims and tinted windows. It was being driven by a third unknown person.

Like in the first heist, the thieves got out of the Mercedes-Benz and displayed a gun

On August 19, the same two crooks accosted a 34-year-old man near Pergola restaurant in Manhattan, and stole $100,000 worth of high-end baubles
A newly identified Australian soldier fly species with metallic rainbow colouring and 'legs for days' has been named after international drag queen icon RuPaul.

Opaluma rupaul is among 150 animals named by national science agency, the CSIRO, and its partners during the past year.

It is part of a new genus that derives its name from the Latin words for opal and thorn, reflecting the group's gem-like colours and distinctive abdominal thorn.

he new Opal Thorn Soldier fly named after RuPaul, Opaluma RuPaul. A soldier fly has been named after RuPaul, Opaluma

An Opaluma rupaul specimen was collected more than 100 years ago but it wasn't identified as a species until National Research Collections Australia entomologist Bryan Lessard saw it a few years ago.

'I was watching a lot of drag race while I was describing the species and to me it was a no-brainer,' Dr Lessard told AAP.

'It looked exactly like one of the outfits RuPaul would wear on the runway. It's a shiny, metallic rainbow kind of costume and it has legs for days.'

RuPaul has risen to stardom for producing and hosting reality show RuPaul's Drag Race, which is shown in Australia on Stan.

Other species to be given creative titles include hard-to-find beetles, Binburrum articuno, Binburrum zapdos and Binburrum moltres, named after bird Pokemon from the popular franchise.

A soldier fly has been named after RuPaul (above)

A new plant-boring weevil is named Demyrsus digmon after a fictional insectoid in Japanese anime television series Digimon that drills and manipulates the earth.

Dr Lessard said the names were chosen to give the insects prominence and help ensure their longevity.

He said identifying new species was vital in protecting Australia's biosecurity.

'This year we identified an exotic species of mosquito, Culex tritaeniorhynchus, that can transmit Japanese encephalitis virus and was detected in Australia for the first time,' Dr Lessard said.

'It was initially mistaken for an undescribed native species.'

Thirteen new soldier flies have been identified, with many living in areas affected by the Black Summer bushfires.

Two of those, Opaluma opulens and Antissella puprasina, are considered endangered and are known only to exist in Queensland's Lamington National Park.

Opaluma rupaul, which is about 1cm long and lives close to the forest floor, has only been found in Dalby and Toowoomba in southeast Queensland.

Dr Lessard said soldier flies play an important role in the ecosystem as their larvae recycle nutrients from dead plants and animals.

He said surveys were under way in bushfire-hit areas to determine how soldier fly populations had been affected.
An ex-University of Miami professor, his wife and his sister have are facing federal charges related to purchasing genetic sequencing equipment from US manufacturers and illegally shipping it to Iran, prosecutors said.

Mohammad Faghihi, 52, his wife Farzeneh Modarresi, 53, and his sister Faezeh Faghihi, 50, made their initial court appearances on Tuesday and were charged with conspiring to commit an offense against the United States and conspiring to commit money laundering, along with several other charges.

The family operated a Florida company called Express Gene, which court documents revealed received nearly $3.5million in wire transfers from accounts in Malaysia, the People's Republic of China, Singapore, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.

The transfers were sent between October 2016 and November 2020 and some of that money was used to purchase genetic sequencing equipment from US manufacturers to ship it to Iran without a license, despite sanctions on Iran, investigators said.

Each genetic sequencing machine cost $200,000.

Mohammad Faghihi (left), 52, his wife Farzeneh Modarresi, 53, and his sister Faezeh Faghihi (right), 50, made their initial court appearances on Tuesday and according to court records all three were charged with conspiring to commit an offense against the United States and conspiring to commit money laundering, along with several other charges

The former professor was also allegedly in contact with the Revolutionary Guard Corps - a US-designated terrorist organization which bought several genetic testing machines from Express Gene - but Faghihi's defense attorney downplayed any connection between his client and a terrorist group and said Faghihi was not trying to fuel a conflict with a United States

According to prosecutors, in February, Mohammad Faghihi nearly got away with the crime when he arrived at Miami International Airport from Iran and lied to Customs and Border Protection officers, telling them he didn't practice his profession or conduct any type of research in Iran.

'He was literally about to board a plane on Monday when he was arrested,' federal prosecutor Michael Thakur said at a court hearing, as reported by the Miami Herald.

Thaker sought Faghihis detention on the basis of being a flight risk to his home country, Iran.

According to the Miami Herald the former professor was also allegedly in contact with the Revolutionary Guard Corps, a US-designated terrorist organization which bought several genetic testing machines from Express Gene.

Faghihi's defense attorney downplayed any connection between his client and a terrorist group and said Faghihi was not trying to fuel a conflict with a United States.

Instead, the defense attorney claimed, Faghihi lived in Pinecrest, Florida, and was a world-renowned scientists trying to help save humanity, as reported by the Miami Herald.

While airport officials searched Faghihi's luggage, CBP officers reported finding 17 vials of unknown biological substances (picturedd) covered with ice packs and concealed beneath bread and other food

Although Faghihi told Border Control officials otherwise, he was the director of a laboratory within Shiraz University of Medical Science in Iran, which also bared his name: Dr Faghihis Medical Genetic Center

But officials said Faghihi was the director of a laboratory within Shiraz University of Medical Science in Iran, which also bore his name: Dr Faghihis Medical Genetic Center.

While they searched Faghihi's luggage, CBP officers reported finding 17 vials of unknown biological substances covered with ice packs and concealed beneath bread and other food.

Over the course of the four years Faghihi was also working as an assistant professor in the University of Miami's Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences.

During his time as a professor - from 2013 to 2020 - he was the principal investigator on several National Institute of Health (NIH) grants.

Officials said Express Gene and Faghihi received large deposits from international wires during this period and Faghihi failed to make the required disclosures to the university or the NIH.

Online court records didn't list attorneys for Faghihi or his family.

Judge Jonathan Goodman ordered Faghihis detention before trial, according to the Miami Herald.

Goodman said Faghihi 'was surely aware of the need' for a Treasury Department license to illegally ship the genetic sequencing equipment to Iran. He also declared he had 'multiple connections' to people in the Middle Eastern country and was personally communicating with someone in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Faghihi and his wife both worked at the University of Miami. Faghihi was an assistant professor at the school's Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences (pictured)

Faghihi's wife was also a former employee at the University of Miami and was detained along with her husband on Wednesday for the crime.

Modarresi's defense attorney argued that she should be granted bond before trial because of her close ties to the Miami community but Thakur argued they could flee to Iran before their next court appearance.

As reported by the Miami Herald the judge deemed Modarresi a flight risk although Faghihi's sister was not as she is a naturalized US citizen.

Faezeh was ordered to be confined to her home with an electronic monitor. She also had to surrender her passports and it is not yet known whether the sister will be able to post her bond.

According to the Miami Herald the judge set the terms at a $3million personal guarantor, with a deposit of $300,000, and a $1million corporate guarantor, which requires another deposit of $150,000.

The $150,000 deposit is non-refundable.
A global hotel group is offering incentives to Covid-vaccinated travellers after Qantas confirmed double-jabbed passengers can fly internationally by mid-December.

StayWell Group, which owns the Park Regis and Leisure Inn chains in Australia as well as hotels in Asia, the United States and Europe, launched their 'vaccination perk' campaign on Thursday.

After border closures decimated the travel industry in the last 18 months airlines, hotels, and tour groups are keen to get the ball rolling on travel once restrictions lift.

StayWell which owns the Park Regis and Leisure Inn Hotels in Australia is offering a raft of discounts to fully-vaccinated travelers (pictured: the Park Regis in Cairns, Queensland)

StayWell also operates hotels internationally which Australians are able to travel to from December 18 as Qantas resumes flights to locations such as London and Singapore (pictured: the Park Regis in Singapore)

StayWell said guests at Australian hotels who show their vaccination passport when checking in will get 25 per cent off their room, as well as extra loyalty points for members, and an upgrade to a better room if there is one available.

On top of that those used to a lockdown sleep-in won't be rushed out with complimentary late checkouts and free cancellations.

Vaccination incentives and competitions are growing more common as businesses encourage Aussies to get the jab and shake off gruelling lockdowns.

Virgin Australia is running its VA-X and win promotion while Qantas is offering unlimited free flights, Accor Hotel suites, and BP petrol for a year to one competition winner in each state and territory.

International travellers will also likely be able to get deals and discounts with a vaccine passport as international travel re-opens.

Late checkouts, room discounts and upgrades mean guests will have a little more cash to spend on dining out (pictured: the Park Regis Singapore's restaurant)

Fully vaccinated Australians will be able to book a flight overseas from mid-December (pictured: the Park Regis Singapore)

Qantas has officially confirmed Australians can pack their bags for an overseas holiday from December 18.

The country's flagship airline has provided the exact date holiday-hungry residents can book flights to popular destinations like the US, UK, Canada and Singapore.

Biosecurity laws banning outbound travel without an exception will end on December 17 - the day before flights are set to resume.

Qantas has scheduled flights to London, Los Angeles, Vancouver and Singapore to commence from December 18.

Australians will additionally be able to pack their bags for a highly-anticipated holiday to Tokyo and Fiji from December 19, and Hawaii the following day.

Keen travellers will be expected to fork out around $1600 and $2300 for a one-way ticket to London and Los Angeles, with a return flight costing slightly less.

Qantas has officially confirmed Australians can pack their bags for an overseas holiday from December 18 (pictured, a tourist in Canada)

The country's flagship airline (pictured) has provided the exact date holiday-hungry residents can book flights to popular destinations like the US, UK, Canada and Singapore

The announcement will come as welcome news to holiday-starved Australians who were told by Qantas boss Alan Joyce last month he expected flights to a few selected cities to resume in mid-December.

Last week, the airline announced its plans to gradually bring back overseas flights once 80 per cent of the over 16s are fully vaccinated against Covid-19 in accordance with the national plan.

Qantas said it expected the country to reach that target in December - triggering the re-opening of international borders as part of 'Phase C' of the federal government's path to pandemic normality.

The airline said flights to cities in Asia and South Africa with low vaccination rates and high Covid-19 case numbers would not restart until at least April 2022.

However, Hong Kong could be a viable holiday destination from February 2022.

Where will you be able to jet off overseas this December? December 18 *Sydney-London *Melbourne-London *Sydney-Los Angeles *Sydney-Vancouver *Sydney-Singapore *Melbourne-Singapore

December 19 *Melbourne-Los Angeles *Brisbane-Los Angeles *Sydney-Honolulu *Brisbane-Singapore *Sydney-Tokyo *Sydney-Fiji Advertisement

Qantas has scheduled flights to London, Los Angeles, Vancouver and Singapore to commence from December 18 a spokesperson has revealed (pictured, a tourist in Italy)

Australians can pack their bags for a Qantas flight to the US (pictured) from December 18

Those developing world destinations include Bali, Jakarta, Manila, Bangkok, Phuket, Ho Chi Minh City and Johannesburg.

Qantas said it also plans to restart flights between Australia and New Zealand from mid-December 2021 as long as the trans-Tasman bubble had re-opened by that date.

The airline has predicted Victoria will be the first state to open its borders to NSW from early December, while hardline Western Australia will be the last.

However only vaccinated passengers will be able to book a flight after Qantas confirmed it would ban un-jabbed passengers on international flights.

Chief executive Alan Joyce said last Thursday the mandate was intended to protect those passengers who were fully vaccinated, as the jabs reduce the chances of catching and transmitting the virus.

'Qantas will have a policy that internationally we'll only be carrying vaccinated passengers,' Mr Joyce said.

'Because we think that's going to be one of the requirements to show that you're flying safe and getting into those countries. We're hoping that can happen by Christmas.'

Qantas has plans to restart flights between Australia and New Zealand from mid-December 2021 as long as the trans-Tasman bubble had re-opened by that date (pictured, a tourist in Fiji)

Qantas has confirmed it would ban unvaccinated passengers from travelling on international flights (pictured, a tourist in London)

West Australians may also miss out on international flights after their hardline state premier refused to budge on opening his border until well after Christmas.

Where can I go and how much will it cost on December 18? Los Angeles: Between $1600 and $2300 for a one way flight Auckland: Between $300 and $500 for a one-way flight London: Between $1600 and $2300 for a one-way flight Singapore: Between $1200 and $1500 for a return flight Canada: Between $2700 and $3500 for a return flight Source: Qantas Advertisement

Mark McGowan has since declared the domestic border may remain shut until April 2022, meaning residents could remain isolated for another seven months.

The premier said he will wait until his state reaches between 85 and 90 per cent vaccination rates to open up, but has not said when that target will be reached.

It comes after Flight Centre chief executive Graham Turner optimistically predicted the first flight out of Australia would be destined for London in mid-November.

Australia is considered a 'green list' country by the United Kingdom, meaning visitors do not have to quarantine on arrival.

Instead, tourists are required to have been Covid-tested in the three days before arriving in Britain and again on their second day in the country.

Mr Turner also correctly predicted Australians could pack their bags for a trip to mainland Europe, Fiji, Canada and the United States before Christmas time.

The travel chief also said travellers would likely only be required to quarantine for two to five days on their return to Australia when international travel resumes - and it could even be at home.

The company's CEO Alan Joyce (pictured) said the mandate would be to protect those flying who were vaccinated and ensure those aboard Qantas flights who are vaccinated can fly safely

Australians will be able to book Qantas flights to Japan (pictured) and Fiji from December 19

Qantas has been pushing for vaccination reform throughout the pandemic, instituting mandatory jabs for its 22,000-strong staff.

'Frontline employees - including cabin crew, pilots and airport workers - will need to be fully vaccinated by November 15, 2021 and the remainder of employees by March 31, 2022,' the company said in a statement.

'There will be exemptions for those who are unable for documented medical reasons to be vaccinated, which is expected to be very rare.'

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said self-isolation at home would become the 'primary and viable method' for Australians undergoing quarantine.

Aussies have been banned from leaving the country for holidays since March 2020 and anyone returning must pay up to $2,800 for two weeks of hotel quarantine.

The federal government has also cleared a plan for Covid vaccine passports for launch with international immunisation passports to be rolled out in October (pictured, a woman in Los Angeles)

As it stands, 43.2 per cent of eligible Australians have had two doses of a Covid vaccine (pictured, a woman in Sydney's domestic airport)

Departure exemptions can be granted to people leaving for more than three months or for approved work or compassionate reasons.

It is believed expats may be permitted to home quarantine if they are fully vaccinated with a jab approved by the country's medical regulator.

The federal government has also cleared a plan for Covid vaccine passports for launch with international immunisation passports to be rolled out in October.

Mr Morrison said the passports were key to the next stage of the national plan when Australia's lockdown borders - both internal and external - will finally be re-opened.

The document will be accepted internationally so when Australians are finally allowed to go overseas again, they can travel freely.

As it stands, 43.2 per cent of eligible Australians have had two doses of a Covid vaccine.
Former Channel Seven host Andrew O'Keefe has pleaded not guilty to domestic violence charges, with a court hearing police have 'extensive footage' of the night he allegedly assaulted a woman.

The former face of game show Deal or No Deal will fight charges of assault occasioning bodily harm common assault, contravening an apprehended violence order and resisting police, a court in Sydney's eastern suburbs heard on Thursday.

Prosecutors told Magistrate Carolyn Huntsman that they had a large amount of footage of the incident involving O'Keefe - which occurred at a Point Piper home on Friday night.

'Your honour, I've had an opportunity to look at the matter and there is quite extensive footage,' prosecutor Nicole McMahon told the court.

Former Channel Seven host Andrew O'Keefe has pleaded not guilty to domestic violence charges after police confirmed they have 'extensive footage' of the night

The former face of gameshow Deal or No Deal pleaded not guilty to four charges through an email from his lawyer at Waverley Local Court on Thursday

O'Keefe was charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm, common assault, contravening an AVO, and resist officer in execution of duty

Mr O'Keefe will have to wait a year to fight the charges, with a hearing set down for August 2022.

Police allege the 49-year-old television star visited the woman's home on Friday last week and the pair had an argument.

During the confrontation Mr O'Keefe allegedly became aggressive and then spat at the woman and scratched her arm.

He then felt dizzy and short of breath and was transported to hospital for assessment but was later arrested.

He spent the night at Surry Hills Police Station.

Court documents alleged that he resisted a policewoman doing her duties at around 5pm that evening.

The former TV star and his lawyer did not have to appear in court due to Covid rules.

The defence emailed Magistrate Carolyn Huntsman to inform her O'Keefe was pleading not guilty to the four charges.

O'Keefe was excused from attending the next mention of his case on November 11, and he has strict bail conditions in place that prevent him from going within 200metres of the alleged victim's home or communicating with her.

Two months ago Mr O'Keefe was charged with slapping, kicking and spitting on his doctor girlfriend in a row over an ice pipe she claimed he was carrying at a party (pictured with his lawyer leaving Waverley court in June)

Andrew O'Keefe has pleaded not guilty to domestic violence charges after police confirmed they have 'extensive footage' of the night he allegedly assaulted a woman

Following his arrest last week, O'Keefe told Channel 10: 'I'm just getting back from last time... two strikes and you're out in this country'.

'I spent a night in hospital, I spent a night in jail, despite an agreement with police that would not happen.

'There is a dispute about facts, a significant dispute about the facts (of what happened on Wednesday).'
A Sydney GP behind bars for sexually assaulting 10 female patients has been banned from practising medicine for at least 12 years.

Sharif Mohammad Abdul Fattah grossly breached the standards expected of a medical practitioner, the NSW Civil and Administrative tribunal said on Thursday.

The then 62-year-old, who maintains his innocence, was jailed in 2019 for 16-and-a-half years with a non-parole period of 11 years.

A District Court jury found him guilty of 13 counts of sexual intercourse without consent and five counts of assault with act of indecency.

He was found to have assaulted women who had presented with symptoms including rashes, coughs, bites, back and pelvic pain and vitamin deficiencies at a Sydney clinic during 2016 and 2017.

The sentencing judge noted the exploitation of the doctor/patient relationship, as well as the significant and lasting psychological harm caused by sexual abuse.

'It is evident here that the offender's actions did cause significant psychological harm to at least nine of his victims and for some of those victims the harm was profound,' the judge said.

A Sydney GP behind bars for sexually assaulting 10 female patients has been banned from practising medicine for at least 12 years (stock image)

'They felt violated and at the same time confused as to what the offender had done and later questioned their own behaviour in failing to stop the offender.'

Fattah attended the disciplinary hearing by video link from jail.

'The respondent explained that he was proposing to appeal his convictions and sentences and was concerned that the proceedings now before the tribunal could deny him procedural fairness,' the tribunal said.

'The respondent also acknowledged that he was not proposing to practise medicine again at any time and would submit to any protective measures which the tribunal considered appropriate.'

Fattah was told the disciplinary proceedings were entirely separate from any appeal.

He was the subject of 2014 proceedings in New Zealand, accused of wrongfully interfering with female patients during medical examinations.

The NZ Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal later dismissed all charges.

The NSW Health Care Complaints Commission submitted the NZ case would have clearly made Fattah aware of 'the necessity to observe professional boundaries when engaging in consultations with female patients'.

The tribunal found Fattah guilty of both unsatisfactory professional conduct and professional misconduct.

'The conduct was a gross breach of the trust bestowed upon the practitioner by virtue of his professional status as a medical practitioner.

'The tribunal considers that the convictions of the respondent demonstrate that his improper conduct leads to the conclusion that he is not a fit and proper person to hold registration as a medical practitioner.'

His registration was cancelled and he can't apply to be reinstated until 12 years from Thursday's order.

He's also banned from providing any health service during that time.

If he succeeds in his convictions and sentence appeals, he can apply for a variation of the orders.
A knife-wielding teenager has plunged an entire school and two nearby daycares into a four-hour lockdown, forcing terrified children to urinate in a bucket.

More than 800 petrified students at Labrador State School in Queensland were instructed by police to 'remain in their areas' around 2:40pm on Wednesday.

The Gold Coast school had reportedly received threats from a 17-year-old who was allegedly brandishing a knife in public.

More than 800 petrified students at Labrador State School in Queensland were instructed by police to 'remain in their areas' around 2:40pm on Wednesday

The Gold Coast school (pictured) had reportedly received threats from a 17-year-old who was allegedly brandishing a knife in public

Plans were made to 'safely evacuate children' from the school and two daycares in the surrounding area, the Courier Mail reported.

Labrador State students were moved from their classrooms into the school hall where they remained for more than four hours.

Crowds of parents were seen anxiously waiting their children's return from outside the school gates while others sat helplessly on the curb.

Queensland Police said one frustrated woman was removed from the scene in a police vehicle after getting into a verbal altercation with officers.

The students were eventually released from the school at around 6:20pm.

Gold Coast police caught up with the youth five minutes later at a Brisbane train station and have since charged a 17-year-old with possession of a knife.

Crowds of concerned parents (pictured) were seen anxiously awaiting their children's release from outside the school gates

Queensland Police said one frustrated parent was removed from the scene in a police vehicle after getting into a verbal altercation with attending officers

'A 17-year-old person has been given an NTA for possess knife in a public place. Police investigations are ongoing,' Queensland police said in a statement.

'A parent (43-year-old woman) who caused a disturbance at the school received an infringement notice for public nuisance.'

A Queensland Department of Education spokesperson said Labrador State students and staff were instructed by police not to leave their areas.

'The school is today operating as normal and the principal has thanked everyone involved, including parents and carers, for their patience during the incident,' the spokesperson said.

'Senior Guidance Officers and Guidance Officer support is available to students or staff who require it.'
A small nocturnal marsupial that once roamed the Australian mainland has been brought back from the brink of extinction after a decades-long conservation effort, authorities said Wednesday.

The Eastern Barred Bandicoot populated the grassy plains of Victoria state's southwest until it was all but obliterated by non-native foxes, feral cats and habitat destruction.

By 1989, there were just 150 animals left in the region, mostly scrounging an existence in rusted-out cars at a rubbish dump.

The Eastern Barred Bandicoot (pictured) that once roamed the Australian mainland has been brought back from the brink of extinction

Over the past three decades, multi-million dollar captive breeding and rewilding programmes have revived the mainland Australian population to an estimated 1,500 - bumping it off the state's 'extinct in the wild' list.

'We are excited to announce the change in conservation status for the Eastern Barred Bandicoot from extinct in the wild to endangered -- it is an incredible first for Australia,' Victoria state Environment Minister Lily D'Ambrosio said.

A closely related sub-species can also be found on the southern island of Tasmania, where it is classified as vulnerable.

The announcement is a rare conservation win in Australia, which environmentalists say has the world's worst mammal extinction rate.

Amy Coetsee, threatened species biologist at Zoos Victoria, said it offered 'hope that with persistence, determination and the support of government, volunteers and communities, we can win the fight against extinction'.

Conservation teams created several predator-free sites for the bandicoots -- some fenced and others protected by trained dogs -- as well as moving animals to fox-free islands.

The announcement is a rare conservation win in Australia, which environmentalists say has the world's worst mammal extinction rate

The areas were populated with bandicoots largely bred in captivity by Zoos Victoria, which is now ending that breeding programme on account of the success.

Coetsee said the organisation was '100 percent confident' that the Eastern Barred Bandicoot was now secure in the wild.

There are about 20 known species of bandicoots in Australia and New Guinea, several of which are classified as endangered or extinct.
Close contacts of people with Covid-19 will not have to self-isolate if they are fully vaccinated under plans being worked on in NSW.

The move would prevent huge staff shortages in hospitals and other workplaces where contacts are currently required to isolate for two weeks even if they test negative.

NSW deputy chief health officer Marianne Gale said work was ongoing to relax isolation rules as the state transitions towards living with the virus.

Health workers prepare to get Covid-19 test samples from the residents at a drive through testing site in Sydney

'We're looking at the moment around how we manage instances when people who are vaccinated are involved, particularly in high risk settings like hospitals,' she said on Thursday.

'So we're in the process of looking at the international advice around that and what other jurisdictions are doing currently.'

In August the UK scrapped isolation for fully vaccinated close contacts altogether.

However, unvaccinated Britons must still self-quarantine for 10 days if they are told they are a close contact.

The UK advises close contacts to get tested and legally requires positive patients to isolate for 10 days regardless of vaccination status.

'I think that will be an evolving area and one of the many changes that we're going to make around how we manage people who are exposed to Covid-19 in the weeks and months to come,' Dr Gale said.

NSW deputy chief health officer Marianne Gale said work was ongoing to relax isolation rules as the state transitions towards living with the virus. Pictured: Residents in Sydney this week

NSW has recorded 1,351 new local cases of coronavirus and 12 deaths, in its equal-deadliest day of the pandemic.

Health Minister Brad Hazzard said at Thursday's Covid briefing that six women and six men, 10 of whom were not vaccinated, died the previous day.

Deputy Premier John Barilaro teased Sydney's lockdown could be eased in the next few weeks if the state got to 85 or 90 per cent single-dose before mid-October.

Lockdown is expected to end on October 18, once 70 per cent of the NSW population have received both doses of a vaccine.

Twelve country towns were released from lockdown at 1pm but residents were urged to remain vigilant while enjoying their new-found freedom.

However, Lismore and Albury will be plunged back into a seven-day lockdown from 6pm on Thursday after too many new cases emerged.

New South Wales has recorded 1,351 new local cases of coronavirus and 12 deaths on Thursday in the equal-deadliest day of the pandemic for the state

Albury, on the Victorian-NSW border, recorded two mystery cases with 'possible links to Sydney' but believed to be unrelated to each other.

One case of coronavirus was detected in Lismore in the state's north, again with possible links to Sydney, with health officials concerned about exposure in the area.

'NSW Health has made a decision that the period of lockdown initially will be seven days,' Mr Hazzard said.

What restrictions are in place for Albury and Lismore? From 6pm on Thursday, residents in Albury and Lismore can only leave home for one of six essential reasons: *Shopping for food and supplies *Work or study if it can't be done from home *Medical care *Compassionate needs *Getting vaccinated or tested *Exercise Private household gatherings are not permitted, although fully vaccinated people are permitted to gather outdoors with conditions. Outdoor gatherings are permitted for fully-vaccinated residents in Albury and Lismore, with a five-person limit for exercise or outdoor recreation. Advertisement

'In the normal course, more often than not, health determines it will be 14 days but in this case, looking at the issues, Health has determined that seven days will be appropriate.

'But I'm just warning the community that it may be longer.'

Deputy chief health officer Marianne Gale said health authorities were more concerned about Lismore due to the low level of vaccination in the city.

However, she said the new case and the high level of exposure in a school and the wider community is what triggered the seven-day lockdown.

'We understand there will be a segment of the population who feels very strongly about it, but I feel very confident that the vast majority of the population in the area is really embracing vaccination,' Dr Gale said.

Residents in these areas have been urged to remain vigilant for symptoms and to come forward for testing, with NSW Health to deploy extra pop-up testing sites in Albury and Lismore.

Mr Barilaro said the lockdown in Lismore meant health authorities 'would work around' the newly re-established border bubble with Queensland.

'We will work with the cross-border commissioner. We've opened up the Tweed. We worked hard with Deputy Premier Miles to lift restrictions and put in place a border bubble,' he said.

Queensland later said Lismore would be excluded from the border bubble and its residents banned from the Sunshine State.

Health officials are contemplating the fate of residents in Glen Innes, a Northern Tablelands town, after the area recorded a positive test overnight.

'We'll work with the local health team when we have further information,' Mr Hazzard said.

'We'll do that in a measured way before a knee-jerk reaction about locking down an area. It's no different to cases in Albury that were identified yesterday.'

Mr Barilaro announced another 12 local councils in regional and rural NSW would be freed from lockdown from 1pm on Thursday.

They include Bega Valley, Blayney, Bogan, Cabonne, Dungog, Forbes, Muswellbrook, Narrabri, Parkes, Singleton, snowy Monaro and the Upper Hunter shire LGAs.

Health Minister Brad Hazzard (pictured) announced Lismore and Albury will go back into a seven-day lockdown from 6pm after cases of Covid-19 were detected in both areas

Mr Hazzard said there are now more than 15,000 people with Covid-19 who are being cared for in the state's health system (pictured, members of the public near Qudos Bank Arena)

The country towns coming out of lockdown were deemed low-risk by health officials and have not recorded any cases of the virus for the past two weeks.

Residents in these areas can host up to five visitors in their homes, with 20 people allowed to gather in outdoor settings.

Hospitality venues, retail stores, personal services, gyms, indoor recreation and sporting facilities and schools will reopen with limits on capacity.

Up to 50 guests can attend weddings and funerals while churches and places of worship can resume with one person per 4sqm rule, with no singing.

Masks will remain mandatory in all settings, with hospitality staff to be required to wear a mask while outdoors.

'This is a good news days for regional and rural NSW. You join other communities that have their stay-at-home orders lifted, reminding everybody that it is still a restricted environment,' Mr Barilaro said.

'If you do visit a local government area in lockdown, the reality is those stay-at-home orders come back with you so the reality is minimise mobility.

'Vaccination continues to be the key in regional and rural NSW.'

Deputy Premier John Barilaro announced a further 12 local government areas in regional and rural NSW would be freed from lockdown from 1pm on Thursday (pictured, locals in Sydney)

There are 1,231 Covid-19 cases admitted to hospital, 231 people in intensive care and 108 requiring ventilation (pictured, NSW paramedics in the Sydney suburb of Redfern)

STATE BY STATE FIRST DOSE RATES New South Wales - 79.5 per cent ACT - 75.9 per cent Victoria - 67.6 per cent Tasmania - 67.5 per cent Northern Territory - 60.6 per cent South Australia - 59.9 per cent Advertisement

Dr Gale said health authorities felt 'cautiously optimistic' after a reporter asked if she thought the state's outbreak had peaked.

'I can't hand on heart say we've peaked, I'd like to think we have but we have a conservative approach,' she said, adding a single event could cause case to jump again.

'It's pleasing at the moment for our case numbers to have stabilised. We do know they bounce around a little bit.

'We may yet see an increase but really the key thing for all of us is this is in our collective hands.'

Of the 12 deaths reported on Thursday, one person was in their 40s, one person was in their 50s, four people were in their 60s, two people were in their 70s, three people were in their eighties and one person in their 90s.

Mr Hazzard said there are more than 15,000 people with Covid-19 who are being cared for in the state's health system.

There are 1,231 Covid-19 cases admitted to hospital, 231 in intensive care and 108 requiring ventilation.

As it stands, 80.1 per cent of the over-16 population has received a first dose of Covid vaccine and 48.5 per cent of the entire community over 16 are fully vaccinated.

'I want to thank the community for coming out in such strong numbers to be vaccinated because there are almost 8.5 million people in NSW that have had vaccines administered to them,' Mr Hazzard said.

Deputy Chief Health Officer Marianne Gale said health authorities felt 'cautiously optimistic' after a reporter asked if she thought the state had hit a peak in its current outbreak (pictured, people wait in line at the Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney on Wednesday)

The health minister was asked if he could 'muster much sympathy' for TikTok star Jon-Bernard Kairouz who attended an anti-lockdown rally in July and was hospitalised after testing positive for Covid-19 this week.

'Look I would say I would have sympathy for anyone that gets Covid. Covid can actually kill you,' Mr Hazzard said.

'So even though I might be frustrated with that gentleman's juvenile way of approaching the situation, I think the rest of us in the community would say we still have sympathy with the fact that he's now got it, because obviously, that puts him at risk, it puts close contacts at risk.

'There's a very strong message there and that is don't take this trivially, don't be silly about it, take every aspect of Covid-19 seriously, and that means get vaccinated.'

Kairouz shot to fame when he correctly predicted the number of new coronavirus cases five days in a row, before his appearance at the rally destroyed his credibility.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian lifted the 9pm-5am curfew in Sydney's 12 hotspot local councils on Thursday morning.

She announced on Wednesday the state had hit a vaccination milestone, with 80 per cent of adults having received their first dose.

Albury, a regional town located on the NSW-Victorian border will be plunged into a week-long lockdown from 6pm on Thursday (pictured, shops in the centre of Albury)

Albury residents will only be permitted to leave home for six essential reasons from 6pm on Thursday (pictured, locals on the main street in Albury)

Ms Berejiklian said a decline in cases in those areas led to the decision to lift the lockdown's most hated rule, but urged Sydneysiders to remain vigilant as the state steams toward 'Freedom Day'.

'We've seen a stabilisation in the last few days and we don't want to see that trend go the wrong way,' she said.

'We still have work to do. We can all see the light at the end of the tunnel but we still have work to do and I ask everybody, especially in the local government areas of concern to hold the line and take care you follow all the other rules in place.'

Ms Berejiklian also confirmed only vaccinated people would be allowed to attend the businesses listed in the state's 70 per cent double dose freedom roadmap, including pubs, restaurants, gyms, and non-critical retail.

Unvaccinated residents will be locked out of hospitality and retail. We'll have the vaccination passport in NSW when we hit 70 per cent double dose,' she said.

NSW has hit a vaccination milestone, with 80 per cent of adults having received their first dose across the state (pictured, a pop-up testing clinic in Albury)

'You'll be able to check in with your QR code and see whether or not you're vaccinated and that's really important.'

The premier said there could be exceptions where small businesses that are doing it tough may be allowed to serve unvaccinated customers.

NSW will hit 70 per cent double vaccinate in 27 days on October 11, which will see the lifting of the lockdown that has been in place since June 25.

The state should then hit 80 per cent double vaccinated on October 23, where restrictions will ease further and sport stadiums will reopen.
A young woman accused of murdering Moe man Jarrad Lovison had lured him to his death on the belief he would be bashed, a court has heard.

On Thursday, Samantha Guillerme was granted bail in the Supreme Court of Victoria after Justice Paul Coghlan accepted the expected two year wait to bring her to trial was not in the interests of justice.

He had heard Guillerme believed Mr Lovison would just 'have the sh*t kicked out of him' when she allegedly lured him to a meeting with her boyfriend Jake Brown, 28, and their mate Andrew Price, 47.

Samantha Grace Guillerme (pictured) is accused of murdering a Moe man

The body of Moe man Jarrad Lovison (left) was found in May a month after he went missing

Guillerme was arrested after police searched a property in Moe and was remanded in custody to return to court on January 7

Brown and Price, both from Moe, also face murder charges amid allegations the three planned to kill Mr Lovison by forcing him to overdose on gamma hydroxybutyrate - the lethal drug known as GHB.

Police allege Mr Lovison met his doom amid 'rising tensions' between him and Price.

Seven-foot-tall Mr Lovison was last seen riding his bike near Moe in country Victoria on April 16, 2019.

The next day, Guillerme shared a photo on her social media page of her dog at the Lyrebird Forest Walk about 60km to the south of Moondarra.

Alongside the photo she wrote the caption 'today's adventure', the court heard.

On Thursday, the court heard she had only returned to the area to help her co-accused look for CCTV cameras in case they had been spotted.

Mr Lovison's body was found on May 23 in the same area.

Guillerme's bail application was brought before the Supreme Court of Victoria by her barrister John Desmond, who successfully argued his client was an acceptable risk to be released on bail.

The Instagram post from accused murderer Samantha Grace Guillerme (pictured above)

Samantha Grace Guillerme (pictured above) had been remanded in custody in relation to the murder of Jarrad Lovison

Police had opposed bail on the basis they feared Guillerme would attempt to interfere with a key witness in the trial and commit further crimes.

The court heard Guillerme had prior convictions for dealing drugs and theft in addition to an atrocious driving record.

She had been under police surveillance in the months before her arrest when police allegedly caught her on a bugged phone call telling a mate to watch the witness.

Guillerme allegedly told the man the witness was only alive because of 'the heat' she and her mates were under from police.

She was later caught on a prison phone allegedly making admissions to her role in the alleged crime, telling someone she believed Mr Lovison would only get 'a good kicking', the court heard.

Mr Lovison was last spotted in Moe, Latrobe Valley. He was allegedly murdered over 'rising tensions' with Andrew Price

When police arrested her in October that year, they allege she deleted a series of messages with Mr Lovison.

In July, detectives allegedly intercepted a call where the alleged killer asked her boyfriend to 'burn' an ex-employer.

The court heard Brown suggested she stab her boss in the neck with a ballpoint pen when she went to collect her possessions.

Guillerme allegedly agreed and said she would keep the pen as a 'souvenir' of the kill.

In granting bail, Justice Coghlan suggested police probably had a stronger case against Guillerme for manslaughter than murder.

Samantha Grace Guillermehas been released on bail to live with her parents

Crown prosecutor Andrew Grant argued despite the judge's observations, Guillerme would likely still spend more time behind bars if convicted of manslaughter than her likely period behind bars awaiting trial.

Mr Grant said prosecutors had a 'strong circumstantial case' against Guillerme.

'But not for murder,' Justice Coghlan snapped.

'If she can't be directly connected (to a plot to kill Mr Lovison) then it can't be shown that she was party to an agreement that he would be abducted for the purpose of being killed. As Mr Desmond has rightfully pointed out, it's not a strong case for murder.'

Guillerme was bailed to live with her parents in Moe until her next court appearance in November.
Cringeworthy footage has captured the moment Australia's Defence Minister Peter Dutton forgot how to do a Covid-safe elbow bump while greeting his South Korean counterpart Suh Wook.

Mr Dutton and Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne travelled to Seoul this week to discuss how the two nations could better co-operate militarily, with new defence training exercises announced in the process.

But in amongst the new deals being struck was a sensationally uncomfortable greeting caught on camera between Mr Dutton and Mr Wook, where the former couldn't quite grasp the art of an elbow tap.

Footage shared by the News Fighter Podcast on Twitter on Thursday morning shows Mr Wook leaning into My Dutton in an attempt to touch elbows.

Mr Wook raised his arm, leaning slightly forward but keeping Covid-safe protocols in order.

But Mr Dutton incorrectly raised his fist in some sort of solidarity pose before smiling at the camera.

Australia's Defence Minister Peter Dutton has been caught up in an incredibly awkward encounter with South Korea's Defence Minister Suh Wook (pictured)

Mr Wook attempts to give Mr Dutton a friendly elbow tap, but he raises his fist instead in cringeworthy scenes (pictured)

Mr Wook tries to show Australia's defence minister what to do, but has to swap arms to do so, grabbing Mr Dutton's forearm to bump elbows.

Hundreds of people have reacted to the footage, with many cringing after watching the encounter.

'Dutton thinks it's a UFC weigh in,' one viewer tweeted.

'The most awkward greeting I've seen in almost 10 years,' another added.

But the international gaffe didn't perturb Mr Dutton or his mission, with the meeting between the two nations a huge success.

'The initiatives we have agreed to today will further our joint efforts to maintain peace and security in our region,' Mr Dutton said.

'And while we face an increasingly uncertain and contested strategic environment, we face it together.'
Australians in home quarantine will soon receive timed text messages to ensure they are isolating or face a visit from the cops as part of a compliance crackdown in Queensland.

The texts are part of the state's new Covid-19 laws - which come into effect immediately - that give people in home quarantine a ten minute window to respond as part of a real-time check in system.

Health Minister Yvette D'Ath told parliament on Thursday residents who are isolating at home after returning from to the state will receive daily text messages at random times of the day from Queensland Health.

Residents in home quarantine will receive timed text messages from Queensland Health directing them to a real-time check in system as part of a compliance blitz on Covid breaches (pictured, Queensland police undergo Covid compliance checks)

Queensland Health Minister Yvette D'ath (pictured) made the announcement at parliament on Thursday

Each message will contain a hyperlink which sends their location to authorities as part of the state's commitment to grapple the evolving delta-variant situation.

'This means Queensland Health will be able to ensure individuals in home quarantine are at the residence they're lawfully required to be at,' Ms D'Ath said.

'It specifically allows authorities to identify if anybody is away from their approved residence.'

Anyone caught in breach of Covid health orders will be visited by police with residents at risk of fines or being forced to enter hotel quarantine at their cost.

It is understood the new compliance measures are part of home quarantine trials that will come into place ahead of the school holidays, with families and boarding school students stuck interstate finally allowed to return home.

The trials will also be extended to anyone entering quarantine who is deemed a close contact or returning from Covid-19 hotspots.

Queensland has been left relatively unscathed from the Delta variant outbreak that has ravaged both NSW and Victoria due to its tough stance on border closures.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk (pictured) reopened the application process for those seeking to relocate to Queensland, as well as returning residents last Monday

Queensland has been left relatively unscathed by the Delta Variant outbreak due to its hard border closures (pictured, Queensland police directing motorists at the Coolangatta border checkpoint)

Last Monday, the premier Annastacia Palaszczuk reopened the application process for those seeking to relocate to Queensland, as well as returning Queenslanders.

Those wishing to relocate to Queensland will be required to prove they are genuine with proof of employment or a change of residential address.

It comes as NSW reinstated a border bubble with Queensland on Monday, allowing people in northern NSW who aren't locked down to travel into the Sunshine State.

Vaccinated people with a Queensland border pass can travel north of the border to provide compassionate care or essential shopping if they come from 12 northern NSW local government areas that came out of lockdown on Saturday.

The border pass is not available for social reasons, like attending weddings or funerals or visiting family or friends but for essential work, medical needs or school.

The Sunshine State recorded three new cases of Covid-19 on Thursday, while NSW recorded 1,351 new locally-acquired infections.
The Taliban's deputy prime minister Abdul Ghani Baradar has denied reports he was killed in an alleged fight with a rival terrorist faction as he appeared on camera for the first time after days in hiding.

The Islamist group had descended into bitter in-fighting with so-called 'moderates' thought to be at war with terrorist hardliners as both vie for power in the vacuum left by America's retreat from Afghanistan.

Baradar, a member of the Taliban old-guard who led negotiations with the Americans in Qatar, was thought to have been involved in a fight with Khalil Haqqani, a leader in the terrorist Haqqani Network and one of the FBI's most-wanted, in Kabul's presidential palace.

The rumours reached such intensity that an audio recording and handwritten statement, both purportedly by Baradar himself, denied that he had been killed.

Then on Wednesday, Baradar appeared in an interview with the country's national TV to rubbish the claims.

The Taliban's deputy prime minister Abdul Ghani Baradar has denied reports he was killed in an alleged fight with a rival terrorist faction

He said: 'I was travelling from Kabul so had no access to media in order to reject this news.

'I am OK and healthy. The media says that there is internal disputes. There is nothing between us, it is not true.'

Haibatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban's supreme leader, a close ally of Baradar, and Emir of the new government, has also not been seen in public for days.

The video was posted on Twitter by the Taliban's political office in Doha and showed him next to an interviewer with a state television microphone, apparently reading from a sheet of paper.

Shortly after the Kabul takeover, Baradar had been the first senior Taliban official to hold out the possibility of an inclusive government, but such hopes were disappointed with the formation of an all-male, all-Taliban lineup last week.

In a further sign that the hard-liners had prevailed, the white Taliban flag was raised over the presidential palace, replacing the Afghan national flag.

A Taliban official said the leadership still hasn't made a final decision on the flag, with many leaning toward eventually flying both banners side by side.

The fighting reportedly took place at Kabul's presidential palace, where just weeks ago gun-toting Taliban fighters had promised to restore peace and prosperity (pictured)

Baradar, a member of the Taliban old-guard who led negotiations with the Americans in Qatar, was thought to have been involved in a fight with Khalil Haqqani

He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to discuss internal deliberations with the media.

The two Afghans familiar with the power struggle also spoke on condition of anonymity to protect the confidentiality of those who shared their discontent over the Cabinet lineup.

Afghanistan's power-players: Who's who now the US has withdrawn? Taliban Formed during the Afghan civil war of the 1990s, the Taliban are a religious, political and military group made up of ethnic Pashtuns whose aim is to establish an Islamic nation that adheres to their strict interpretation of Sharia law. Originally trained by the CIA to fight the Soviets, the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 1996 when they seized the capital Kabul. They were then ousted in 2001 in the US invasion in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks. After two decades of guerilla warfare against the US, the Taliban rapidly recaptured Afghanistan as US forces withdrew this year and now control more territory than at the start of the conflict. Haqqani Network Dating back to the 1970s, the Haqqani Network was founded by Jalaluddin Haqqani in order to fight the Soviets and received extensive training from the CIA. The group continued to be a major force within Afghanistan after the Soviets departed, pledging allegiance to the Taliban in 1995 and forming part of their first government. After the Taliban were deposed by the US, the Haqqani Network turned to terror attacks - leveraging connections with Al Qaeda and ISIS to carry out some of the biggest, deadliest and most-sophisticated attacks during the US war. The US designated the Haqqani Network a terror group in 2012 and placed two of its senior leaders - Sirajuddin and Khalil Haqqai - on the FBI's most-wanted list. Sirajuddin has led the group since his father's death in 2018, and is now Afghanistan's interior minister Al Qaeda Another child of the Soviet-Afghan war, the terror group was founded in 1988 by Osama bin Laden with the aim of ending all western influence in Muslim countries and establishing Islamic states based on strict Sharia law. Jihadists trained and equipped by Al Qaeda have been responsible for some of the biggest and deadliest terror attacks of the last two decades, including the September 11 attacks. Al Qaeda's presence in Afghanistan and close ties to the Taliban led to the US invasion in 2001, prompting Bin Laden to flee into northern Pakistan - where he was killed by American special forces in 2011. Senior Al Qaeda figures have been seen heading back into Afghanistan following the Taliban's take-over of the country, but its overall presence there is largely unknown and so-far it appears to have no role within the government. ISIS-K The most-extreme of all terror groups operating in Afghanistan, ISIS-K was established in 2015 as a splinter group of ISIS while it was at the height of its powers in Iraq and Syria. ISIS-K has been blamed for some of the worst atrocities in Afghanistan in recent years, including attacks on schools, hospitals and a maternity ward - during which pregnant women and newborn babies were killed. Ideologically opposed to Al Qaeda, ISIS-K do have links to the Taliban via the Haqqani Network, and have collaborated with them to carry out attacks. ISIS- K draws its members from Taliban ranks by picking off fighters who believe the group is not extreme enough, though its current strength is largely unknown. It was behind the suicide bomb attack on Kabul airport last month that killed 170 including 13 US Marines. Advertisement

They said one Cabinet minister toyed with refusing his post, angered by the all-Taliban government that shunned the country's ethnic and religious minorities.

The fighting is threatening to split the Taliban's fledgling government between Baradar, Akhundzada and their allies - including the likes of Abdul Salam Hanafi and Mohammad Yaqoob - on one side, and the fearsome Haqqanis - including Khalil and his nephews Sirajuddin and Anas - on the other.

Up for grabs is a pot of $1.2billion in foreign aid which the UN has pledged to Afghanistan - $64million of it from the US - as well as a share of power in the new administration.

But the conflicts are also threatening to derail the fragile government even as the country's economy teeters on the brink of economic collapse with millions facing starvation and many of the Taliban's assets held or frozen by the West.

Unsubstantiated reports of Baradar's death began to circulate including claims that the palace fight had ended in a gun battle in which he died, with the Taliban strongly denying that anything untoward had happened.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid has denied rifts in the leadership. On Tuesday, the Taliban foreign minister, Amir Khan Mutaqi, dismissed such reports as 'propaganda.'

Baradar had been noticeably absent from key functions amid rumours of his death.

He was not at the presidential palace earlier this week to receive the deputy prime minister of Qatar, Sheikh Mohammad bin Abdur Rahman Al-Thani, who is also foreign minister and was making the highest-level foreign visit yet since the Taliban takeover.

Baradar's absence was jarring since Qatar had hosted him for years as head of the Taliban political office in Doha.

But in his interview, Baradar said he did not participate in the meeting because he was not aware about the foreign minister's visit to Kabul. 'I had already left and was not able to return back,' Baradar said.

Several officials and Afghans who are familiar and in contact with Baradar told The Associated Press earlier that he was in the southwestern provincial capital of Kandahar for a meeting with Taliban leader Haibatullah Akhundzada.

Another Taliban figure said Baradar was visiting family he had not seen in 20 years of war.

Analysts say the friction may not amount to a serious threat to the Taliban - for now.

'We've seen over the years that despite disputes, the Taliban largely remains a cohesive institution and that major decisions don't get serious pushback after the fact,' said Michael Kugelman, Asia program deputy director at the Washington-based Wilson Center.

'I think the current internal dissension can be managed,' he said. 'Still, the Taliban will be under a lot of pressure as it tries to consolidate its power, gain legitimacy, and address major policy challenges. If these efforts fail, a stressed organisation could well see more and increasingly serious infighting.'

Taliban divisions will be more difficult to resolve without the heavy-handed rule of the group's founder, the late Mullah Omar, who demanded unquestioned loyalty.

In-fighting is deeply unwelcome as Afghanistan faces severe food and cash shortages, with its economy near collapse after international aid dried up.

The UN warned that 4million Afghans are facing 'a food emergency' with $36million urgently needed to ensure the planting of winter wheat and feed for livestock, along with cash assistance for vulnerable families, the elderly and the disabled.

Rein Paulsen, director of the Food and Agriculture Organisation's Office of Emergencies and Resilience, told reporters at U.N. headquarters in a video briefing from Kabul that 70 per cent of Afghans live in rural areas and there is a severe drought affecting 7.3million Afghans in 25 of the country's 34 provinces.

These vulnerable rural communities have also been hit by the Covid pandemic, he said.

Paulsen said 4million Afghans are facing a humanitarian emergency, characterised by 'extreme gaps in food consumption, very high levels of acute malnutrition and excess mortality.'

He said agriculture is 'indispensable' to the Afghan population - accounting for just over 25 per cent of the country's GDP, directly employing some 45 per cent of the work force, 'and most importantly it provides livelihood benefits for fully 80 per cent of the Afghan population.'

Many vulnerable families rely on livestock for food, he said, but 3 million animals are at risk as a result of the drought leaving inadequate pasture.

Paulsen said the winter wheat planting season - the most important in Afghanistan - is threatened by 'challenges of the cash and banking system' as well as challenges to markets and agricultural items.

Rumours that Baradar had been killed began circulating when he was absent from a high-level meeting between the Taliban and Qatar at the weekend (pictured)

Since the Taliban takeover on August 15, fears have grown that Afghanistan could face economic collapse. Many banks have been closed, those that are open have limited cash withdrawals, and prices for staples have increased.

'More than half of Afghans' daily calorific intake comes from wheat,' Paulsen said. 'The crop is simply indispensable in food security terms' and farmers must start to plant now.

'FAO has resources in place to support an extra 1.25 million Afghans but much more is needed,' he said. 'The seeds can't wait, the farmers can't wait. This window is requiring an urgent scale and support for donors now.'

He said the FAO's package of wheat, fertiliser and support for a single farmer costs $150.

'For $150 a family of seven Afghans will produce 1.2 million tons of wheat - they'll produce enough wheat to give them cereal and flour for an entire 12-month period,' Paulsen said. That $150 is 'incredibly impactful, very cost effective - and again, (it) underscores why it's imperative that we don't miss this winter wheat season,' he added.

He also said more than 400,000 Afghans are displaced from their homes, mainly from rural areas, 'and those numbers are rising.' He said keeping farmers in their fields and herders with their flocks is critical to preventing a deepening displacement crisis.

If agriculture collapses further, Paulson warned, it will drive up malnutrition, increase displacement and worsen the humanitarian situation.

FAO in 2021 has supported nearly 2 million Afghans with livelihood and cash assistance, Paulsen said.

He said the $36million that the FAO needs urgently for the winter farming season was part of the U.N.'s emergency appeal for $606 million. At a conference in Geneva on Monday, donors pledged $1.2billion - double the amount sought, which Paulsen called encouraging.

FAO hopes the pledges will fully fund the $36million needed, but Paulsen noted that they are only promises for now and donors need to quickly provide the cash.
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An anti-vaxxer British mother and her daughter have died less than a fortnight apart in hospital after both refused to have the jab before contracting coronavirus, leaving their family 'devastated'.

Sammie-Jo Forde, 32, died in Ulster Hospital near Belfast last Saturday, only 11 days after her mother Heather Maddern, 55, passed away in the same ward on August 31.

Miss Forde's father Kevin McAllister said it will 'haunt me for the rest of my life' that his daughter did not take the vaccine - adding that she leaves behind four children, Max, Ruby, Milo and Daisy.

Both Miss Forde and Ms Maddern - who were only two beds away from each other in hospital - were care workers who looked after elderly people in their own homes.

Miss Forde, who had no underlying health conditions, had been texting her father while she was being treated in hospital and told him: 'Dad, Mummy's passed away.'

Mr McAllister, who also has two sons, said he did not understand why neither his daughter nor Ms Maddern, who is his ex-partner, decided not to have the jab.

Ms Maddern shared a series of Covid-19 conspiracy theories in the weeks before her death, and a post about nurses threatened with the sack if they did not have the jab.

She also shared videos from US conservative commentator and activist Candace Owens on what to do if your employer is forcing you to have the jab, and another from a woman talking about why children should not be getting the vaccine.

Because both Miss Forde and Ms Maddern were care workers, they would have been among the first groups to have been offered the jab when the rollout began.

Some workers are now receiving boosters, ahead of the Government's requirement for all care home staff in England to have had their first vaccine by November 11.

Kevin McAllister is pictured with his daughter Sammie-Jo Forde, who died in Ulster Hospital

Miss Forde (right), 32, died last Saturday, 11 days after her mother Heather Maddern (left), 55

A funeral for Ms Maddern, who lived in Groomsport, was held three days ago on Monday - while a service for Miss Forde is set to take place next Monday.

In an emotional interview, Mr McAllister told BBC Radio Ulster presenter Stephen Nolan yesterday: 'I've had the worst weekend of my life last weekend.

Tragedies of loved ones who refused Covid jab Matthew Keenan told friends that he 'wished he had his jab' A self-confessed vaccine sceptic who said 'if he could turn back time he would' after he was admitted to hospital in July with Covid-19 died with the virus aged 34. Matthew Keenan told friends that he 'wished he had his jab' after he was hospitalised at Bradford Royal Infirmary and placed in an induced coma in a bid to save him. Dr Leanne Cheyne, a respiratory consultant at the hospital, shared a photo of him in an oxygen mask and hooked up to a ventilator as he fought for his life. Glenn Barratt told nurses that he wished he had been jabbed A 51-year-old man who chose not to be jabbed died with Covid-19, with his final words to bedside nurses and doctors being: 'I wish I had.' Glenn Barratt, from Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire, is thought to have caught coronavirus while watching England v Croatia at a venue in June during Euro 2020. All over 50s had been offered a jab by mid-April, but he chose not to have it and died in hospital after fighting the virus for weeks. John Eyers, 42, died from Covid-19 A fit and healthy 42-year-old father with a love of rock climbing and bodybuilding died of Covid-19 after refusing the vaccine because he thought he would be OK if he caught the virus, his twin sister said. John Eyers, a construction expert from Southport, Merseyside, had been climbing the Welsh mountains and wild camping one month before his death last week, which came exactly four weeks after he tested positive. His twin sister Jenny McCann from London said he was the 'fittest, healthiest person I know' and had thought he would only have a 'mild illness' if he contracted coronavirus, adding that he had a 'belief in his own immortality'. Mrs McCann said that Mr Eyers had 'no underlying health conditions' but did also state that he had asthma. Advertisement

'My daughter passed away on Saturday, Covid-19. Her mummy got buried yesterday, she had Covid-19, and both of them never took the Covid-19 injections.

'My daughter was 32 with four kids. To make matters worse was it's her oldest son's birthday today. He will be 13 today.

'So these people who are not taking their Covid-19 injection, they are not thinking of the other people they're leaving behind.

'I've lost my daughter, my best friend, all I have are memories of her, motorbike racing, fishing, driving diggers, that's all the memories I have.

'She's getting buried next Monday - and I can't give her a kiss cheerio. To happen to your own family, I wouldn't wish it on nobody, what I've gone through.

'I've come back to work today to get my mind off it, but next Monday, I have to bury my first born, my best friend, my daughter, and I just never can get out of my mind why she didn't take it. It will haunt me for the rest of my life.

'And don't get me wrong, there's a lot of good friends Sammie-Jo has and raised money to help her kids. They've raised up to 10,000. I can't thank them enough, but I just wish these people sitting out there... injections, corruption... that rubbish on Facebook. If she had took it, she would have been alive today, her and her mummy.

'I wouldn't wish (on) anybody what I'm going through. The rest of my life, it will haunt me. I just wish people out there would just sometimes listen to the experts, because that's what they are.

'I'm devastated. But I don't want nobody to go through what that man has to go through, bringing up his four kids on his own. It's so sad, they'd got the opportunity to take it.

'Loads of people in Northern Ireland and loads of people are sitting out there and not taking it. They don't realise what they're leaving behind. We have to pick up the pieces, so I just take every day as it comes now - nothing bothers me any more.

'I've two sons as well, and they haven't been to work because they've lost a sister. And I just wish to God she took it, it's on my mind every night, thinking why didn't you take it, why didn't you take it?

'I can't bring back the past, it's in the past, but I just wish people out there could just take it because don't go through what I'm going through. Any parent goes through. I've never lost a child. It was something that she could have been living today. I just wish to God somebody could have just given it to them and that was it.

'And they worked for the community, helping old people, and they couldn't even help themselves. I'll just go to work today, and next Monday I'll bury my daughter. I wouldn't wish it on nobody.

'And I can't even say cheerio to her or give her a hug, nothing. I phoned up every day, every morning, every night, the hospital -and the hospital have been fantastic, Dundonald (Ulster) Hospital. I phoned every morning apologising.

'She sent me a few text messages before she died and I'll keep them.

'And I just wish that people who don't want to take it realise what they're leaving behind, as it will kill them. She's a 32-year-old healthy girl and took a heart failure at the end because she just couldn't cope.'

Ulster Unionist Party MLA Alan Chambers, who knows the family, told the Belfast Telegraph: 'It's such shocking news, Sammie-Jo had four kids.

'They are lovely kids, they have such good manners, they're very well-brought up children and Sammie-Jo was such a good mum to them.

Ms Maddern (left) and Miss Forde 55, both died in recent weeks at Ulster Hospital near Belfast

Miss Forde leaves behind four children, the oldest of whom is a boy who turned 13 this week

'She did so much with them, the house was always decorated for Hallowe'en, she made a big deal of Christmas for the children, she was just such a lovely, lovely girl.

'She only came to the village a few years ago but she always had a smile on her face, she was always reaching out and offering to help.'

It comes as the NHS in England officially launched its coronavirus booster campaign today, which will see millions of eligible people offered a Pfizer vaccine, or in some cases a half-dose of Moderna.

They include frontline NHS and social care staff, anyone aged 50 and over, and those under 50 with health conditions that put them at risk of severe Covid.

People are likely to be offered their booster jab in the same order of priority as was set down during the initial vaccination campaign.

In July, Ms Maddern shared a video from US conservative commentator and activist Candace Owens on what to do if your employer is forcing you to have the jab

Ms Maddern shared a series of Covid-19 conspiracy theories in the weeks before her death, and a post about nurses threatened with the sack if they did not have the jab

Health Secretary Sajid Javid said today that the vaccines have saved more than 112,300 lives and prevented 24million cases in England alone.

Just over 900,000 people in England aged 50 and over are currently at least six months on from receiving their second dose of vaccine, meaning they are eligible for a booster.

This number will reach 2.7 million by the start of October and 10.4 million by the start of November.

Yesterday, the Government said a further 201 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19, bringing the UK total to 134,647.

The mother and daughter both died in the same war at Ulster Hospital near Belfast (file image)

Separate figures published by the Office for National Statistics show there have now been 159,000 deaths registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate.

As of 9am on yesterday, there had been a further 30,597 lab-confirmed Covid-19 cases in the UK, the Government said.

Meanwhile, new figures suggested nearly nine in 10 young adults in the UK are now likely to have Covid-19 antibodies.

The estimates, which are for people aged 16 to 24, range from 86.9 per cent in Wales to 88.7 per cent in England and Scotland, with 87.2 per cent in Northern Ireland.

The presence of coronavirus antibodies suggests someone has had the infection in the past or has been vaccinated.

It takes between two and three weeks after infection or vaccination for the body to make enough antibodies to fight the virus.

Yesterday, ten further deaths of patients who had tested positive for Covid-19 were reported in Northern Ireland.

The Department of Health said there had also been 1,304 new confirmed cases in the last 24-hour reporting period.

Yesterday morning, there were 426 Covid-19 inpatients in hospital, 36 of whom were in intensive care. A total of 2,498,979 vaccines have been administered.

Meanwhile, the head of region's vaccination programme said booster Covid-19 jabs will start to be administered within 10 to 12 days in Northern Ireland.
The National Institutes of Health awarded nearly $470million to support studies among tens of thousands of Americans that will investigate the long-term effects of COVID-19.

The initiative, named RECOVER  Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery  aims to better understand a condition known as long COVID, where symptoms of the illness persist long after infection in some cases.

Researchers also hope to understand why some some individuals develop new or returning symptoms after recovering from COVID.

RECOVER initiative was first launched in February and utilizes grant funds provided to scientists from Congress, according to CBS News.

The National Institutes of Health awarded nearly $470million to support studies among tens of thousands of Americans that will investigate the long-term effects of COVID-19

NIH Director Francis Collins (pictured) says the studies aim to determine the cause of long COVID and find ways to prevent the 'often-debilitating condition'

The initiative has given the award to New York University Langone Health which will serve as the core institution for the new research.

NYU will then divvy up the federal money to fund more than 100 researchers located at institutions nationwide.

The studies would include adult, pregnant and pediatric populations and attempt to find the prevalence of long-term effects from the infection, the range of symptoms and potential treatment and prevention strategies, among other things.

'These studies will aim to determine the cause and find much needed answers to prevent this often-debilitating condition and help those who suffer move toward recovery,' said NIH Director Francis Collins in a statement on Wednesday.

RECOVER will allow experts to build a 'meta-cohort' that would include thousands of COVID survivors of various ages and backgrounds who continue to experience symptoms more than a month after their initial infection.

The most common prolonged symptoms include pain, headaches and fatigue, but the condition has been linked to a higher risk of kidney problems as well as smell distortions in other studies.

The NIH announced the grant for RECOVER on Wednesday. The initiative has given the award to New York University Langone Health which will serve as the core institution for the new research

Doctors do not know what causes long COVID. There are several theories already, including one that argues the virus continues to hide in the body and another that suggests long COVID may results from immune system overdrive.

'The only way we're going to sort this out is with very large studies that collect lots and lots of data about symptoms, physical findings, and laboratory measures,' Collins told reporters during a Wednesday press briefing.

Enrollment in RECOVER's new studies is expected to begin in the coming months.

Researchers aim to include 30,000 to 40,000 people in the studies, which is a significantly larger pool than the 5,000 to 8,000 people typically included in these types of cohort studies.

'We're being a lot more ambitious here. And starting this off, kicking it off, trying to hit targets within the next 12 to 18 months after the appropriation. So this is really moving at a rapid pace, relative to most cohorts at scale,' Dr. Gary Gibbons, director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, told the news outlet.

COVID survivor Hannah Davis, who was sickened in the first wave of the virus back in March 2020, has continuously advocated for more long COVID research. She has been suffering with ongoing neurological symptoms since getting first infection

New York University's Dr. Stuart Katz says researchers hope to 'identify therapeutic targets' and 'plan to be able to use some of the same infrastructure that's in place for this observational study for future clinical trials'

COVID survivor Hannah Davis, who was sickened in the first wave of the virus back in March 2020, has continuously advocated for more long COVID research. She has been suffering with ongoing neurological symptoms since getting ill.

'Very early on we had really no answers,' she said.

Davis argues that while her symptoms have been neurological, others have reported a 'wide range of effects' including fevers that have lasted over a year.

'We still see a lot of researchers just focusing on symptoms. What are the symptoms of long COVID? We're past that. We need to start getting into treatment and pathophysiology,' she said

At the current phase, RECOVER will not study specific treatments for long COVID. However, experts say the research could serve as a starting point for future discoveries.

'We hope to identify therapeutic targets, and we plan to be able to use some of the same infrastructure that's in place for this observational study for future clinical trials,' New York University's Dr. Stuart Katz said.

According to the CDC, long COVID frequency varies widely, ranging from being found in about 5 percent to 80 percent of infections. Earlier this month, the health authority reported that two out of three COVID patients had symptoms lasting more than four weeks after initial infection

Meanwhile, according to the CDC, long COVID frequency varies widely, ranging from being found in about 5 percent to 80 percent of infections.

Earlier this month, the health authority reported that two out of three COVID patients had symptoms lasting more than four weeks after their initial infection.

'If it's the case that 10 to 30% of people will have some form of long COVID, we're talking about millions of people,' said Collins.

'One of the really troubling aspects of this terrible pandemic might be the lingering of this long tail of effect on people who are not able to return back to their pre-infection state, and we need to do everything we can to get answers to that.'

Researchers in several other countries, including the United Kingdom, have also increased efforts to study the long-term effects of COVID-19.
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North Korea has unveiled a new train-based missile system which it used to fire missiles at test targets close to Japan on Wednesday.

The missiles were launched from a new 'railway-borne missile system' designed as a potential counter-strike to any forces that threaten the country, state news agency KCNA reported on Thursday.

The missiles flew 497 miles before striking a target in the sea of Japan off North Korea's east coast, KCNA said.

South Korean and Japanese authorities were alerted to the test launch which came just days after North Korea tested another nuclear-capable cruise missile this past weekend.

Meanwhile, on the same day as North Korea tested its train-based launch system, South Korea in kind tested a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), and in doing so became the first country without nuclear weapons to develop such a system.

North Korea has unveiled a new train-based missile system which it used to fire missiles at test targets close to Japan on Wednesday

The cruise missiles, which had been under development for two years according to KCNA, demonstrated an ability to hit targets 932 miles away during flight tests on Saturday and Sunday, threatening Japan, South Korea and Russia

The missiles flew 497 miles before striking a target in the sea off North Korea's east coast, KCNA said

South Korean and Japanese authorities were alerted to the test launch which came just days after North Korea tested another nuclear-capable cruise missile this past weekend

Under Kim Jong Un (pictured), North Korea has been steadily developing its weapons systems amid stalled talks with Western powers aimed at dismantling its nuclear and ballistic missile arsenals in return for US sanctions relief

The two Koreas have been in an increasingly heated arms race, with both sides unveiling more capable missiles and other weapons, but South Korea does not possess nuclear capabilities.

The tests by nuclear-armed North Korea drew international condemnation and concern, however, with the United States saying they violated UN Security Council resolutions and posed a threat to Pyongyang's neighbours.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga strongly condemned the test which came just days after North Korea launched a nuclear-capable missile last weekend, while Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato called the missiles 'a serious threat to the peace and safety of Japan and its surrounding areas'.

North Korean TV has now aired some pretty interesting footage of yesterday's "railway-borne missile regiment" test. Lots of angles covered, particularly thanks to the drone footage. pic.twitter.com/SwEqusQwEx  Shreyas Reddy (@shreyas_k_reddy) September 16, 2021

North Korea has been steadily developing its weapons systems in recent years, raising the stakes for stalled talks aimed at dismantling its nuclear and ballistic missile arsenals in return for US sanctions relief.

The North Korean test was conducted by a railway-borne missile regiment that had been organised earlier this year, the KCNA report said.

'The railway-borne missile system serves as an efficient counter-strike means capable of dealing a harsh multi-concurrent blow to the threat-posing forces,' said Pak Jong Chon, military commander and member of the Presidium of the Politburo of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea, who oversaw the test, according to KCNA.

The two Koreas have been in an increasingly heated arms race, with both sides unveiling more capable missiles and other weapons, but South Korea does not possess nuclear capabilities

South Korea's test of its submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) made it the first country without nuclear weapons to develop such a system

Photos released by state media showed an olive-green missile rising on a column of smoke and flame from the roof of a train parked on tracks in a mountainous area.

South Korea had reported the missiles were fired from the central inland area of Yangdok.

'Rail mobile missiles are a relatively cheap and reliable option for countries seeking to improve the survivability of their nuclear forces,' Adam Mount, a senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists, said on Twitter.

'Russia did it. The US considered it. It makes a ton of sense for North Korea.'

Mount and other analysts said the system is likely constrained by North Korea's relatively limited and sometimes unreliable rail network, but that it could add another layer of complexity for a foreign military seeking to track and destroy the missiles before they are fired.

The North hailed its new missiles as a 'strategic weapon of great significance' that meets leader Kim Jong Un's call to strengthen the country's military might, implying that they were being developed with an intent to arm them with nuclear warheads.

According to KCNA, Pak said there are plans to expand the railway-borne missile regiment to a brigade-size force in the near future, and to conduct training to gain 'operational experience for actual war.'

The army should prepare tactical plans for deploying the system in different parts of the country, Pak said.

North Korea tested two new nuclear capable missiles last weekend which flew 930 miles before hitting their targets. Pictured left: The missile is fired. Pictured right: The missile in flight. The images have been supplied by Reuters who say the images cannot be independently verified

The test is likely just one of many more to come after Kim Jong Un doubled down on his pledge to bolster his nuclear deterrent in the face of US sanctions in January.

During a congress of the ruling Workers' Party, he issued a long wish list of new sophisticated assets, including longer-range intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear-powered submarines, spy satellites and tactical nuclear weapons.

Kim also said then that his national defence scientists were developing 'intermediate-range cruise missiles with the most powerful warheads in the world.'

It is unusual to see the sheer variety in missile delivery systems and launch platforms that North Korea develops, said Ankit Panda, a senior fellow at the US-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

'It's not very cost effective (especially for a sharply resource-constrained state) and far more operationally complex than a leaner, vertically integrated force,' he said on Twitter.

The railway system displayed on Wednesday could possibly set the stage for developing one capable of launching a larger, nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), Panda added.
Detectives investigating a rape in a busy London park have released CCTV images of a man they would like to question as part of their enquiries.

A woman, in her 50s, reported being attacked in Watling Park in Edgware at around 9.30pm on August 28 and is being supported by specialist officers.

The Met police have released images of a man they would like to identify as part of their investigation and are appealing to the public for any information they can provide.

Detectives investigating a rape in a busy London park have released CCTV images of a man they would like to question as part of their enquiries

The CCTV picture, taken in Burnt Oak station, shows a man in a dark green top, with dark trousers and black shoes. He was carrying at least two bags with him

The CCTV picture, taken in Burnt Oak station, shows a man in a dark green top, with dark trousers and black shoes. He was carrying at least two bags and a backpack with him.

Investigating officers would also like to speak with anyone who was in the Watling Park area between 7pm and 10.30pm on Saturday, 28 August.

Detectives from the North West Basic Command Public Protection Unit  which covers Barnet  are investigating.

Police say no arrests have been made and enquiries are ongoing.

Anyone with information is asked to call police via 101 quoting reference CAD 7498/28Aug or by email.

You can remain 100 per cent anonymous by contacting the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
An architect who left the profession to take up black magic was found dead with her one-year-daughter after a 'ritual killing'.

The naked body of Elizaveta Tsarevskaya, 32, was found with her child and a slain cat in Russian city Rostov-on-Don.

Next to the bodies were pictures of her the architect's ex-lover smeared with blood and with pierced eyes.

The naked body of Elizaveta Tsarevskaya, 32, (pictured) was found with her one-year-old baby girl and a slain cat in an apartment in Rostov-on-Don, Russia

'After opening the apartment, even hardened law enforcement officers were shocked,' said a police source.

'Bloody things, objects of magic rituals were scattered everywhere.

'The woman's body was on her dead daughter. For some reason, the mother was naked.

'In addition, another victim was found - a cat.'

All had stab wounds, believed to have been inflicted by the woman, called a 'witch' by local media.

It is believed she killed her daughter and the cat by stabbing them before taking her own life in a 'black magic' ritual killing. Pictured: Husband Artur Rusin (left) and her daughter (right)

Her husband Artur Rusin, 26, (pictured together) said she had graduated with honours as a top architecture student, and was also a talented clothes designer

She had quit architecture when she became obsessed with the occult and got pregnant by a lover named Anton, who was also into black magic

The bodies were found next to pictures of the architect's ex-lover smeared with blood and with pierced eyes with objects of magic rituals scattered everywhere. Pictured: The crime scene

Her husband Artur Rusin, 26, said she had graduated with honours as a top architecture student, and was also a talented clothes designer.

But she became obsessed with the occult and trying to communicate with the dead.

When he went away to work, she became pregnant by a lover named Anton, who was also into black magic.

She gave birth to her lover's child who her husband initially raised as his own, according to reports.

Her flat doors were locked from the inside and it is believed she killed her daughter and the cat before taking her own life in a 'ritual killing', say law enforcement.

Her lover has not been found.

Her flat doors were locked from the inside and opening the apartment, even hardened law enforcement officers were shocked. Pictured: The crime scene
Millions of Britons stopped wearing face masks in public this summer, Government data suggests.

An Office for National Statistics survey found 89 per cent of people wore coverings outside their home in the week ending September 5. For comparison, uptake stood in the region of 98 per cent at the start of May when the second wave was receding.

This equates to around 4.3million people having turned their backs on masks, figures suggest.

Face masks help stop the spread of the coronavirus by catching miniscule droplets exhaled by infected people. But the science on how well they work has been patchy, although experts insist the benefits of wearing coverings are obvious.

Boris Johnson scrapped rules which enforced mask-wearing indoors in England on 'Freedom Day' July 19, despite No10's top scientists calling for people to keep using them.

But unveiling his winter plan this week, the Prime Minister warned they could still be brought back if the virus again spirals out of control.

Some 89 per cent of Britons said they wore face masks outside the home at the end of August. For comparison, in May it was 98 per cent

Fewer Britons are wearing face masks outside the home than at the start of May, official figures suggest (stock)

Face masks don't need to be worn in the Commons because MPs are not 'strangers', says Sajid Javid Sajid Javid today said Tory MPs do not need to wear face masks in the packed House of Commons because they are not 'strangers'. The Health Secretary also defended Cabinet ministers for failing to wear face coverings at a meeting yesterday morning. He said the meeting, which saw ministers sit shoulder to shoulder around the traditional Cabinet table, was 'perfectly consistent' with the Government's guidance on masks. Mr Javid said people 'should consider wearing masks in crowded places when they are with strangers, when they are with people that they are not normally spending time with'. Opposition MPs have accused Tory MPs of being 'cavalier' with the health of other parliamentarians after many stopped wearing masks in the Commons. Advertisement

The ONS coronavirus and social impacts survey highlighted the drop in face mask use across the country.

The survey, of around 3,400 adults, asked people if they had used a face covering when outside their home in the past seven days.

England does not require them to be used at present but they are still required on Transport for London.

Scotland still has rules saying masks must be worn in shops, on public transport and in restaurants and pubs when seated.

In Wales, the coverings are still mandatory on public transport and in public areas indoors.

And in Northern Ireland they must still be worn in shops and hospitality venues.

Throughout the pandemic there has been fierce scientific debate about how well they guard against transmission, despite nearly every country in the world mandating or encouraging their use.

Lab tests and observational studies have shown masks can block infected people from exhaling up to 80 per cent of the virus into the air and also protect wearers from inhaling up to 50 per cent of the particles.

But real-world studies, which involve more scientific rigour, have produced mixed results.

Experts previously told MailOnline that vaccines were doing such a good job there was little reason to wear face masks.

But they said the coverings could still be beneficial in hospitals, care homes and crowded places with poor ventilation such as the tube.

They said high grade FFP3 masks would be the best option, over homemade cloth masks.

It comes as Health Secretary Sajid Javid yesterday said that Mr Johnson and his cabinet did not need to wear masks in close spaces because they were not 'strangers'.

Asked about a photo of a cabinet meeting where no one was wearing face masks, Mr Javid insisted to Sky News yesterday: 'That is perfectly consistent with what the PM said yesterday and what I said yesterday.

'Because what we said is that people should consider wearing masks in crowded places when they are with strangers, when they are with people they are not normally spending time with.'

Government guidance reads: 'We expect and recommend that members of the public continue to wear face coverings in crowded and enclosed spaces where you come into contact with people you dont normally meet.'
A friendly dolphin who spent the summer approaching swimmers in Cornwall has died after being struck by a boat.

The bottlenose dolphin, dubbed 'Nick' by locals, had been filmed playing in the water with delighted children and paddle boarders as other tourists watched on in amazement at Hayle Harbour in Cornwall last month.

Experts warned that the animal - known as a 'social solitary' dolphin due to it choosing to interact with humans over other dolphins - was highly unusual and should be treated with care.

But sadly, Nick has been found dead after being hit by a boat in Ireland.

Nick the friendly dolphin joined in with swimmers and paddle boarders at Hayle Harbour on Sunday, August 23

Experts warned that the animal - known as a 'social solitary' dolphin due to it choosing to interact with humans over other dolphins - was highly unusual and should be treated with care

Nick is seen playing in the water with delighted children and paddle boarders as other tourists watched on in amazement at Hayle Harbour in August

Sadly, on September 12, a bottlenose dolphin carcass was reported to the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group's Strandings Scheme from Roaches Point in Cork Harbour

It was later confirmed to be Nick due to a distinctive scar on his beak and the unique markings on his dorsal fin

Dan Jarvis, from British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR), an international marine animal rescue organisation and charity based in the UK, said: 'Nick's death so soon after he became prolific a few short weeks ago just goes to show that there is still a lot of work to be done in raising awareness to the public of how to act around wildlife.

'Although he will inevitably become just another statistic and case study, we can at least use what has happened to him right now to help get more people to understand why it is important that they listen to the continual messaging organisations like ourselves put out for following a proper code of conduct for wildlife interactions and stop this happening repeatedly, leaving us to pick up the pieces.'

Nick was first identified in the Isles of Scilly in June 2020, and was then sighted in Co. Cork, Waterford and Wexford in Ireland between April and July 2021.

On the 1st of August he was back in Scilly and made occasional trips to Cornwall, visiting the Helford estuary, Mount's Bay and St Ives Bay.

Nick was first identified in the Isles of Scilly in June 2020. He was then sighted in County Cork, Waterford and Wexford in Ireland between April and July 2021. On the 1st of August he was back in Scilly and made occasional trips to Cornwall, visiting the Helford estuary, Mount's Bay and St Ives Bay. He was often spotted interacting closely with boats and swimmers and was last seen alive in Hayle harbour on August 22. On September 12, a bottlenose dolphin carcass was reported to the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group's Strandings Scheme from Roaches Point in Cork Harbour, which was later confirmed to be Nick

Pictured: Nick the friendly dolphin with swimmers in Cornwall

The overfriendly bottlenose dolphin, dubbed Nick, had been filmed playing in the water with delighted children and paddle boarders as other tourists watched on in amazement at Hayle Harbour in Cornwall last month

Nick was first identified in the Isles of Scilly in June 2020, and was then sighted in Co. Cork, Waterford and Wexford in Ireland between April and July 2021.

Nick the friendly dolphin met a tragic end after being hit by a boat off the coast of Ireland

He was often spotted interacting closely with boats and swimmers and was last seen alive in Hayle harbour on August 22.

At the time, marine conservation groups British Divers Marine Life Rescue and Marine Connection warned of the dangers to both the dolphin and humans, as 'solitary social' dolphins have been known to injure people, as well as get injured or killed by boat strikes themselves.

Sadly, on September 12, a bottlenose dolphin carcass was reported to the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group's Strandings Scheme from Roaches Point in Cork Harbour, which was later confirmed to be Nick due to a distinctive scar on his beak and the unique markings on his dorsal fin.

Liz Sandeman, who leads the Marine Connection's social solitary dolphin project said: 'We urge the public to follow strict guidance when in an area that a social solitary dolphin is known to frequent.

'People should not attempt to interact with the marine mammal, as this causes habituation and as we have stressed repeatedly in this type of situation, causes the dolphin to lose its natural wariness around humans and boat traffic and often, as in this case, leads to its demise.'
A down-and-out veteran was fatally stabbed after trying to break up a fight between a quarrelling couple at a Los Angeles-area homeless encampment, police say.

The victim died after being jabbed in the torso at least once Wednesday about 6:40 a.m. on the so-called veterans row, the Los Angeles Sheriffs Department said in a press release.

He was the second person killed by violence in the past six months in a case that's once again prompting calls to declare a state of emergency over the California city's housing crisis.

The latest victim had been attempting to intervene in a domestic dispute on the 11600 block of San Vincent Boulevard in Brentwood, an unincorporated Los Angeles neighborhood.

His suspected killer, also homeless, was arrested although the weapon was not recovered.

Veteran's Row in Los Angeles was the scene of a stabbing Wednesday that killed one veteran

Dozens of tents - many bearing the U.S. flag - line veterans row, which is occupied by displaced former service members.

The commune, which appears neat and orderly, sits on federal land outside the Veterans Affairs campus, a government agency that provides services to honorably-discharged veterans.

There were 38 vets living on the strip as of May, according to Veteran's Affairs.

GemBob Brookhyser, who lives in the encampment with his girlfriend, said hes the one who called for help.

I woke up to the screams, he told The Los Angeles Times.

This is the second homicide to happen in the encampment in the past six months, police say

The stabbing on Wednesday was the second homicide near the encampment this year. A 34-year-old man was arrested in April after running over and killing a man living in a tent.

It prompted Los Angeles city attorney and mayoral candidate Mike Feuer to renew calls for an end to the veterans encampment.

Enough is enough, Feuer said in a press release. It is time for there to be action, it is time for this encampment to end, for its residents to be housed, for the sidewalk to be cleared.

Los Angeles sheriffs say the victim was stabbing after trying to breakup a domestic dispute

No one should live this way particularly when just on the other side of the fence there is shelter,' Feuer, who visited the scene Wednesday, continued. 'Im here today in the wake of this most recent violence to call on County leaders to end this encampment. Its residents should be offered shelter and services and these sidewalks and public spaces must be safe and accessible to everyone.

He also called for the county to declare a state of emergency over the crisis, echoing the previous calls from Los Angels County Sheriff Alex Villanueva.

'Three months ago I asked the to declare a state of emergency on the homelessness crisis. Its good to see other elected leaders like begin to echo my request,' the sheriff said on Twitter. 'This isnt a partisan issue and we can solve it by working together.'

The encampment began 13 years ago by the old Veterans Guard in protest over land use, U.S. army veteran Robert Rosebrock told NBC News.

Los Angeles city mayoral candidate Mike Feuer is calling on the encampment to be shut down

Homeless veterans by state, as of 2020 California: 11,401 Florida: 2,436 Texas: 1,948 Washington: 1,607 Oregon: 1,329 New York: 1,251 Colorado: 1,044 Pennsylvania: 977 Nevada: 924 Arizona: 921 Massachusetts: 836 Source: Statista Advertisement

However, he said the strip of tents has since morphed into something that does not reflect the militarys core principles.

Wherever we go, we are a nation of rules and laws, Rosebrock told the station.

We have to obey them and be considerate of your fellow citizens.

This is not the way veterans conduct themselves. In the military youre taught cleanliness, orderly, discipline. This is anything but that over here.

Violence among Los Angeless homeless population is not unique to veteran's row.

Last week, four people were injured after a Dodge smashed into a Los Angeles homeless encampment in the city's Korea town neighborhood.

A homeless man who had been sleeping on a couch on the sidewalk was left pinned between the car and a tree.

There were 11,401 homeless veterans living in California last year, according to statistics.

The state is occupied by the highest number of homeless veterans in the nation; Florida trails with 2,436 homeless vets.

California is occupied more more homeless veterans than Florida, Texas, Washington, Oregon, New York, Colorado, and Pennsylvania combined.

Governor Gavin Newsom in July committed $12billion to tackling homelessness throughout a two-year period, with $45million earmarked for service and housing for homeless veterans.
China today threatened to send its Navy into Hawaiian waters in the latest round of sabre rattling in the Pacific after Australia, the US and Britain announced a new naval alliance in the region.

Four Chinese vessels have already been spotted sailing off the coast of Alaska this week in a display of naval power amid increasing tensions as a global nuclear submarine pact was signed to take on Beijing.

A Chinese guided-missile cruiser, guided-missile destroyer, general intelligence vessel, and an auxiliary vessel were spotted off the coast of Alaska's Aleutian Islands during surveillance operations in the Bering Sea.

The provocation came as China's state-run newspaper threatened to send warships to Hawaii and Guam in response to US moves in the South China Sea.

The Chinese flotilla sailed 42 miles off the coast of the Aleutian Islands near the coast of Alasksa

Four Chinese vessels have sailed off the coast of Alaska in a display of naval power amid increasing tensions

A guided-missile cruiser, guided-missile destroyer (pictured), general intelligence vessel, and an auxiliary vessel were spotted off the coast of Alaska's Aleutian Islands

The Global Times' editor-in-chief, Hu Xijin, tweeted: 'Hopefully when Chinese warships pass through the Caribbean Sea or show up near Hawaii and Guam one day, the US will uphold the same standard of freedom of navigation. That day will come soon.'

The US Navy responded to the tweet, saying they have 'upheld the standards of freedom of navigation longer than the PLA navy has existed'.

They also pointed out that Chinese spy ships have frequently sailed past Hawaii and Guam in recent years.

They said: 'The US Navy sails around the world in accordance with international law.

'All countries benefit from freedom of navigation in accordance with international law.

'Unfortunately, not all who benefit from freedom of navigation would extend that same freedom to others.'

The four warships, believed to include the 055 Nanchang destroyer were shadowed by the US Coast Guard

While the Chinese ships that sailed in the Bering Sea near Alaska were close to US waters, they followed international laws, US officials said.

The four warships, believed to include the 055 Nanchang destroyer were shadowed by the US Coast Guard cutters Bertholf and Kimball, which were shown in a series of images released on Monday of the incident.

The Bertholf crew made radio contact with the the Chinese flotilla which sailed 46 miles from the coast and said all interactions were consistent with international standards.

Guard Pacific Area commander Vice Adm. Michael McAllister said in a statement: 'Security in the Bering Sea and the Arctic is homeland security.

'The U.S. Coast Guard is continuously present in this important region to uphold American interests and protect US economic prosperity.'

The state-run Global Times cited Chinese analysts saying the move could be a 'countermeasure against US military provocations on China's doorsteps in the name of freedom of navigation'.

US Coast Guard cutters Bertholf (pictured) and Kimball patrolled the seas as the Chinese flotilla came within 46 miles of the coast

The provocation came as China's state-run newspaper threatened to send warships to Hawaii and Guam in response to US moves in the South China Sea

The US Navy responded to the tweet, listing a number of occasions Chinese spy ships have sailed close to US waters

The escalating tensions come amid a war of words over a new nuclear submarine pact between the UK, US and Australia aimed at combatting China - with Beijing denouncing their 'Cold War mentality'.

The new alliance - called AUKUS - will see the US and UK cooperate to build Australia's first ever nuclear submarine fleet which will comprise at least eight vessels. The trio will also share other military technologies such as artificial intelligence, cyber defence, quantum computing and long-range strike capabilities.

Boris Johnson, Joe Biden and Scott Morrison were careful not to mention Beijing as they announced the new deal last night, but there can be little doubt that the alliance's purpose is to counter China's growing aggression - particularly in the South China Sea, which is criss-crossed by valuable trading routes and fertile fishing grounds.

Britain and America are to help Australia build a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines as part of an unprecedented alliance known as the AUKUS pact to combat China's naval dominance and will likely be the similar design as this Astute class submarine HMS Ambush (pictured)

China has inflamed tensions in the South China Sea in recent years by expanding its claimed territory, to the objection of its neighbors in the Asia-Pacific

China wasted little time responding to the deal, with foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian denouncing the 'exclusionary bloc' which he said 'seriously undermines regional peace and stability and intensifies the arms race.'

But Beijing is far from the only upset party. Paris was also quick to react, with foreign minister Yves Le-Drian complaining it is a 'stab in the back' after a $90bn deal for France supply Australia with 12 conventionally-powered submarines was torn up. The French subs were not due for completion until mid-2030, while the new pact aims for a much faster delivery time.

The deal also side-lines New Zealand and Canada - who together with the UK, US and Australia make up the Cold War-era Five Eyes intelligence alliance. While AUKUS is not a straight replacement for Five Eyes, it is almost certain to reduce its importance and isolates Wellington and Ottawa from the group.

It seems the duo have been punished for failing to take a stronger stance against Beijing, just four months after New Zealand refused to sign a joint Five Eyes statement which criticised China's aggression in the South China Sea, its crackdown in Hong Kong, threats to Taiwan and its treatment of Uyghur Muslims.

Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand's left-wing PM, has since admitted that she was not even consulted on the new pact - adding that Australia's new subs will be banned from entering New Zealand waters under the country's long-standing 'nuclear free' policy.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk's Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill was on Thursday passed by 61 of the state's 93 MPs in a conscience vote in Queensland's single legislative chamber.

The laws allow people suffering a disease, illness or medical condition that is advanced, progressive and terminal access to voluntary-assisted dying (VAD).

Their condition must be expected to cause death within a year, they must have decision-making capacity, and proceed without coercion.

Deputy Premier Steven Miles says the law won't make terminally ill Queenslanders' deaths any less tragic, but it will ease their pain and suffering.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk's (pictured during Question Time at Queensland Parliament House in Brisbane Thursday) Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill was on Thursday passed by 61 of the state's 93 MPs in a conscience vote in Queensland 's single legislative chamber

Steven Miles (left) said palliative care and voluntary assisted dying were complimentary policies, which gave more options to terminally ill people

'It has been a very considered debate and, as many members on both sides of the house have said, it's been a very difficult debate,' he told parliament on Thursday.

'But I think our goal in everything is to make sure we get this right.'

Thirty MPs voted against the bill and one abstained. LNP member for Surfers Paradise John-Paul Langbroek missed the vote after being stranded by state border closures.

Many of the objectors were concerned that due to a funding shortfall for palliative care, the bill would put pressure on some patients to end their lives.

'Will this government provide a guarantee that people will get access to quality integrated palliative care services wherever they live in Queensland, when they have a terminal diagnosis, and not just in the last few months of life,' Liberal National Party MP Fiona Simpson said.

But Mr Miles said palliative care and voluntary assisted dying were complimentary policies, which gave more options to terminally ill people.

Deputy Premier Steven Miles (pictured) says the law won't make terminally ill Queenslanders' deaths any less tragic, but it will ease their pain and suffering

The laws allow people suffering a disease, illness or medical condition that is advanced, progressive and terminal access to voluntary-assisted dying (VAD). Pictured: Queensland Parliament on Thursday

'Members do not have to choose between palliative care and voluntary assisted dying, they are not competitive,' he told parliament.

'They, in fact, can and do operate, side by side and by continuing to harp on as though it is a choice you're attempting to demand members make a false choice. And it is indeed a false argument.'

Parliament did not pass any of Deputy Opposition Leader David Janetzki's 54 proposed amendments, which he said would improve safeguards for conscientious objectors and reporting processes.

The scheme will be operating from January 2023, meaning Queensland will become the fifth jurisdiction in Australia to legalise euthanasia.

Voluntary-assisted dying is legal in Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania.

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The first picture of a 'murdered' five-year-old girl was revealed today as her mother appeared in court over her death.

Martina Madarova, 41, is accused of killing the little girl, Alijah Thomas, at the family's home in Ealing, West London on Tuesday.

Madarova appeared in the dock wearing a grey prison-issued tracksuit at Westminster Magistrates' Court in central London.

She spoke only to give her name, date of birth and address during the two-minute hearing before she was remanded in custody.

Chair of the Magistrates William Hammond told her: 'This is an indictable only offence and therefore this must appear at a Crown Court.

'You will appear next on Central Criminal Court on 20 September this year. Meanwhile you will be remanded in custody.'

Police were called to the family's first floor flat in tree-lined Leyborne Avenue, where homes range between 800,000 and 1million, on Tuesday lunchtime.

Alijah was pronounced dead at the scene. A post-mortem to establish her cause of death is due to take place later today.

Five-year-old Alijah Thomas, who was allegedly murdered by her mother in West London

Martina Madarova, 41, allegedly killed Alijah Thomas at an address in Ealing on Tuesday

Despite efforts from paramedics and police, the five-year-old girl was pronounced dead at the scene

The Met Police said earlier today: 'Detectives investigating the death of a five-year-old girl in Ealing have charged her mother with murder.

'Police were called at 12:56hrs on Tuesday, 14 September after concerns were raised for the welfare of the occupants of a residential address on Leyborne Avenue, W13.

'Officers and the London Ambulance Service attended. Despite their efforts, a five-year-old girl was pronounced dead at the scene. She has since been identified as Alijah Thomas.'

A horrified neighbour described the victim as 'a lovely little girl' who was 'always well dressed and looked after'. A witness said she saw a couple being questioned outside the house where the girl's body was found.

The house is located in the Northfields area of Ealing, west London

The area is popular with young families due to being close to Fielding Primary School and Elthorne Park High School, which have both been rated 'outstanding' by the education watchdog Ofsted.

A woman who lives next door, but did not want to be named, said: 'I've known the family for about three years - the mother is from the Czech Republic and he is from Jamaica.

'She was friendly with me and they were always good to me.

'I'm so shocked because she was such a lovely little girl. She was shy and didn't always answer me.

Police were called to the property at 12.56pm on Tuesday after concerns for the occupants inside

'Her mother never had a cross word with her daughter and always spoke to her in a friendly way. She was always well dressed and looked after from what I could see.

'When I saw them last year, they always seemed friendly. Her husband's mother came and stayed with them during lockdown.

'She told me that her husband and her used to argue sometimes, but that was a long time ago.

'Once I was taking the rubbish out and I heard them having a bad argument. I didn't understand what they were saying, but they were speaking very loudly.

'But even though they rowed a lot, they always seemed to make up. You know children don't understand, but they know what's going on. They were good neighbours, but I guess you never know.'

Lorraine Clifford, 48, from Hanwell said: 'I'm a carer and saw four police cars pull up and two ambulances.

'I thought, there must be a body in there because I saw the forensics. It's just so sad because it's a child.

'The police were questioning what I guess was the parents on the wall.

'It didn't seem like the police were angry or anything like that. It just seemed like they were separating them and caring for them.'
A group of men 'acting suspiciously' and 'approaching pupils' outside school's gates in Greater Manchester has sparked a warning for pupils to start traveling in groups.

Concerned staff at Standish Community High School in Wigan sent a text message titled 'Stranger Danger Alert' to parents last week stressing the importance of children not approaching adults they do not know.

Pupils are now also being asked to travel to school 'in groups where possible' using main routes after some children in the Standish area had been 'approached by strangers'.

One parent, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Manchester Evening News the events had been going on 'since July'.

She added: 'As a parent, I'm worried. They are standing at the gates.

'One girl was approached outside Lidl. They surrounded her and a member of the public had to take her home.

Standish Community High School said it received reports of pupils being approached by strangers

A group of men 'acting suspiciously' and 'approaching pupils' outside school gates has sparked a warning for pupils to start traveling in groups

'This has been going on since July. Police are now patrolling near the school now, but that should not even be needed.'

The school said in a further statement: 'Please ask your child to be safe and stay vigilant when travelling to and from school. We have had reports of male members of the public acting suspiciously at the school gates and along the perimeter of the school.

'Students should walk home in groups were possible and stick to well-lit and main routes. This information has been communicated to the police.'

A Greater Manchester Police spokesman said they were investigating two alleged incidents, reported on September 8 and September 13.

Headteacher at Standish Community High School, Lindsay Barker, told the Manchester Evening News: 'The school followed the normal procedures and protocols when we were notified of a potential safeguarding concern.

'As soon as we were made aware, we contacted parents to notify them as well as the appropriate agencies.'
Marks & Spencer will scale back its French business after announcing plans today to close 11 of its stores due to fresh and chilled food supply issues following Brexit.

Britain's biggest high street retailer has suffered over the Channel in recent months after stringent European border restrictions left its Paris shops with empty shelves.

M&S has been holding talks with its French franchise partners after border controls following Brexit delayed lorries and left hundreds of tons of food wasted.

The 11 stores with its partner SFH Invest, which are located mainly on the high streets of Paris, are set to close by the end of the year.

M&S will remain in discussions with partner Lagardere Travel Retail over its other nine French stores at airports and railway stations, which will continue to trade.

The forced retreat will come as a blow to M&S, which relaunched its French business to much fanfare almost exactly a decade ago. At the time its bosses hailed the return with one, ex-chairman Lord Rose, bemoaning a previous retreat in 2001 as 'tragic'.

Empty shelves at a Marks & Spencer store in Paris are pictured in January amid a supply crisis

The 20 M&S stores in France - with those in red closing, and the green ones staying open

A Marks and Spencer store is seen in the covered Jouffroy passage in Paris in December 2018

But the latest plan puts the future of all the remaining nine stores in doubt. The M&S website in France, which mainly sells clothing and home products, is unaffected.

Paul Friston, managing director of M&S International, said: 'M&S has a long history of serving customers in France and this is not a decision we or our partner SFH have taken lightly.

Where are the 20 M&S stores in France? Stores closing M&S Food Ledru Rollin

M&S Food Saint Michel

M&S Food Avenue du General Leclerc

M&S Food Grevin

M&S Food Saint Germain

M&S Food Grand Rex

M&S Food Saint Lazare

M&S Food Palais des Congres

M&S Food Passy

M&S Food Franklin Roosevelt

M&S Food So Ouest Stores remaining open M&S Food Roissy Pole

M&S Food Charles de Gaulle T1

M&S Food Charles de Gaulle T2E

M&S Food Gare de l'Est

M&S Food Chatelet les Halles

M&S Food Lille

M&S Food La Defense

M&S Food Charles De Gaulle T2F

M&S Food Montparnasse Station Advertisement

'However, as things stand today, the supply chain complexities in place following the UK's exit from the European Union, now make it near impossible for us to serve fresh and chilled products to customers to the high standards they expect, resulting in an ongoing impact to the performance of our business.'

A spokesman added: 'The lengthy and complex export processes now in place following the UK's exit from the European Union are significantly constraining the supply of fresh and chilled product from the UK into Europe and continuing to impact product availability for customers and the performance of our business in France.'

Earlier this year, M&S overhauled its Czech operation, removing all its fresh and chilled foods from stores and replacing them with expanded ranges of products that have a long shelf life in order to fill gaps.

Lengthy border delays have meant food arrived on the Continent past its sell-by date or was turned back to British warehouses.

In July, M&S chairman Archie Norman told The Mail on Sunday that 'Byzantine' regulations meant only two-thirds of sandwiches were getting to stores.

Most of them only have a shelf life of 48 hours, so even short delays can make them unsaleable.

The diplomatic row over draconian enforcement of border controls has been branded the 'sausage wars'.

The delays have affected food arriving in Britain from the Continent and consignments shipped to Northern Ireland.

The disruption has also left gaps on the shelves of stores there.

Physical copies of export and import documents are required amid reports that officials are demanding up to 700 pages of certification from drivers.

Some 15 of the 20 Marks & Spencer stores in France are located in the centre of Paris

The stores outside central Paris are at Charles de Gaulle Airport (four), and the other in Lille

M&S chairman Archie Norman said in July that 'Byzantine' regulations meant only two-thirds of sandwiches were getting to stores

An extension to the grace period before full border checks are introduced in Northern Ireland was announced last week.

But continued delays are expected with checks already in force resulting in some goods, particularly chilled food and meats, not reaching stores.

The extension does not apply to goods passing from mainland Europe, which will be subject to even greater documentation demands from October 1.

Last month, M&S upped its profit targets after seeing a 10.8 per cent jump in food sales for the 19 weeks to August and higher online clothing sales.
New rules will come into effect in Victoria which bans religious schools from discriminating against staff who identify as LGBTQIA+.

The schools will no longer be able to sack staff or refuse to hire someone based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Under current laws, 'faith-based' organisations are allowed to discriminate employees based on their sexuality, gender and marital status due to a gap in legislation.

Attorney-General Jaclyn Symes said the state government would now look to close the 'unfair, hurtful' loophole that allows schools to use religion as the basis for its decision.

New social reforms will be introduced at religious school in Victoria preventing institutions from hiring and firing staff based on their sexual orientation (pictured, Midsumma Pride March at St Kilda, Melbourne)

'People shouldn't have to hide who they are to keep their job,' Ms Symes said in a statement.

'We're closing this unfair, hurtful gap in our laws so that Victoria's LGBTIQ+ community won't have to pretend to be someone they're not, just to do the job they love.

'These laws strike the right balance between protecting the LGBTIQ+ community from discrimination and supporting the fundamental rights of religious bodies and schools to practice their faith.'

The new legislation means teachers and staff will be protected from getting the sack from religious institutions when disclosing their sexual orientation.

Foreseeably the move has sparked heated debate amongst the religious community with Lobby group Christian Schools Australia describing the state's proposal as an 'attack on people of faith'.

The group's public policy director Mark Spencer said it would oppose the legislation that he believed could 'change the nature of Christian schools'.

Under current laws 'faith-based' organisations are allowed to discriminate employees based on their sexuality, gender and marital status (pictured, a pride festival in Melbourne)

'Why is the Government trying to dictate to a Christian school who it can employ or in what role?' Mr Spencer said.

'The Attorney-General can choose all her staff on the basis of their political beliefs  why can't Christian schools simply choose all their staff on their religious beliefs?'

Ms Symes told The Age under the new reforms any discrimination against potential employees would need to be 'reasonable' and an important part of the job.

'For example, a school couldn't refuse to hire a gay or transgender person because of their identity but might be able to prevent that person being a religious studies teacher because of their religious belief,' she said.
Care homes are faced with the ultimatum of closing or breaking the law due to the Government's 'no jab, no job' policy, it was claimed today.

Unions and care bosses have warned of a staffing exodus due to the requirement for carers to be vaccinated with two doses by November 11.

Today is the last day for tens of thousands of care home workers who are yet to get their first injection, due to the eight-week gap between doses.

Of the 470,000 care home workers who look after elderly residents in England, 92 per cent had their first dose as of September 5, while 84 per cent are fully-jabbed.

The GMB trade union estimate 70,000 staff who look after elderly residents may not be immunised in time for the November 11 deadline.

Martin Green, chief executive of the country's biggest provider Care England, said homes could be forced to shut, break the law or offer substandard care.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'We all accept we want as many people as possible to be vaccinated.

'But I do feel the Government has gone forward with the social care compulsion without understanding the implications, without having a thought-out plan on how they are going to deal with staff shortages.

'Care homes are now in a difficult position, facing the reality of do they have enough staff to maintain safety and quality of care?

Of the 470,000 care home workers who look after elderly residents in England, 92 per cent had their first dose as of September 5, while 84 per cent are fully-jabbed

'They are in the position of either having to transgress the law or expose people they support to levels of staffing that are not going to deliver the safety you're required to.

'There's the inevitability that in some areas, if you can't get the staff, then there will be care homes that close.'

NHS pushes back against 'unnecessary' compulsory Covid jabs plan Frontline NHS workers in England who haven't had both of their Covid jabs by winter could be sacked or at the very least redeployed. The Government today launched a six-week consultation into plans to make vaccination a legal requirement to work with NHS patients. Under the plans, 1.2million frontline NHS staff will be required by law to be jabbed to reduce transmission in hospitals. Those who refuse the jab could be barred from working with patients, meaning that they will likely be redeployed or risk losing their jobs. Social Care Minister Helen Whately today said staff who reject the vaccine could be moved back to office roles. Figures show 88 per cent of NHS staff are fully vaccinated and around 92 per cent have had a first dose, despite being first offered a jab last December. The numbers are lower in London, where there has been more hesitancy about vaccination, with only 86 per cent have had a first jab. Uptake among health workers is slightly less than the national average for over-18s in England, with 88.5 per cent having taken up the offer of a first dose. But the move to make jabs compulsory despite fears among NHS bosses it could trigger a staffing crisis, hampering efforts to tackle the enormous care backlog. They warned it could be discriminatory. Advertisement

With less than 24 hours before the deadline for first vaccines, the Government announced a temporary self-certification process for medical exemptions.

It will allow carers to exempt themselves without oversight from a doctor, in a move which has been described as a 'loophole'.

Those who do not need to be vaccinated include people with learning disabilities or autism who find vaccination distressing because of their condition.

Also exempt are people with a severe allergy to the vaccines and those who had adverse reactions to their first dose.

Pregnant care home workers and people with short-term medical conditions will also be able to apply for a 'time-limited exemption', which expires in 12 weeks.

Providers said it could be misused by employees who are not prepared to get jabbed and wish to stay in work for longer, and that it kicks the can down the road.

GMB said the Government had 'fudged it' at the eleventh hour.

Mike Padgham, who runs Saint Cecilia's Care Group in Scarborough, said four of his 164 care staff do not want to get vaccinated, one of whom is medically exempt.

He is calling for the Government to postpone the mandatory vaccination deadline or rethink it entirely, allowing carers to work wearing enhanced PPE and after taking daily tests.

In a letter to be sent to Health Secretary Sajid Javid he wrote: 'I cannot redeploy them, as I have nowhere to redeploy them to.

'Even if I did, I would find it extremely hard to find four care workers to replace them in the teeth of the worst staffing crisis in the history of social care provision.

'Am I to sack them or send them home and leave myself four team members down? If I do sack them, do I leave myself open to four industrial tribunals?

'Whatever I do, I run the risk of contravening Care Quality Commission (CQC) regulations and being prevented from operating as a provider.'

The Government has said the temporary system will ensure those with medical exemptions can continue working.

Unvaccinated care worker mother, 55, and daughter, 32, die of Covid within two weeks of each other as 'devastated' father says their decision not to get the jab will 'haunt him for the rest of his life'

An unvaccinated British mother and her daughter have died less than a fortnight apart in hospital after both contracted coronavirus, leaving their family 'devastated'.

Sammie-Jo Forde, 32, died in Ulster Hospital near Belfast last Saturday, only 11 days after her mother Heather Maddern, 55, passed away in the same ward on August 31.

Miss Forde's father Kevin McAllister said it will 'haunt me for the rest of my life' that his daughter did not take the vaccine, adding that she leaves behind four children.

Both Miss Forde and Ms Maddern - who were only two beds away from each other in hospital - were care workers who looked after elderly people in their own homes.

Miss Forde, who had no underlying health conditions, had been texting her father while she was being treated in hospital and told him: 'Dad, Mummy's passed away'

Kevin McAllister is pictured with his daughter Sammie-Jo Forde, who died in Ulster Hospital

A funeral for Ms Maddern, who lived in Groomsport, was held three days ago on Monday - while a service for Miss Forde is set to take place next Monday.

In an emotional interview, Mr McAllister told BBC Radio Five Live presenter Stephen Nolan yesterday: 'I've had the worst weekend of my life last weekend.

'My daughter passed away on Saturday, Covid-19. Her mummy got buried yesterday, she had Covid-19, and both of them never took the Covid-19 injections.

'My daughter was 32 with four kids. To make matters worse was it's her oldest son's birthday today. He will be 13 today.

'So these people who are not taking their Covid-19 injection, they are not thinking of the other people they're leaving behind.

'I've lost my daughter, my best friend, all I have are memories of her, motorbike racing, fishing, driving diggers, that's all the memories I have.

Miss Forde (right), 32, died in Ulster Hospital near Belfast last Saturday, only 11 days after her mother Heather Maddern (left), 55, passed away in the same ward on August 31

'She's getting buried next Monday - and I can't give her a kiss cheerio. To happen to your own family, I wouldn't wish it on nobody, what I've gone through.

'I've come back to work today to get my mind off it, but next Monday, I have to bury my first born, my best friend, my daughter, and I just never can get out of my mind why she didn't take it. It will haunt me for the rest of my life.'

Mr McAllister, who also has two sons, said he did not understand why neither his daughter nor Ms Maddern, who is his ex-partner, decided not to have the jab.

"They helped other people and they couldn't even help themselves," he said, adding of his daughter: I just wish to God shed took it.

Yesterday, ten further deaths of patients who had tested positive for Covid-19 were reported in Northern Ireland.
Statins may treat a debilitating intestinal problem that can leave patients regularly needing to use the toilet, a study suggests.

Stanford University experts have found atorvastatin  sold under the name Lipitor for just 54p a pill  can help ease the symptoms of ulcerative colitis.

Their data showed patients given the drug, normally used to lower cholesterol, were half as likely to need surgery or be hospitalised as patients receiving normal care.

It's unclear exactly why statins improved their condition, but the pills are believed to have some anti-inflammatory benefits.

Colitis occurs when the colon and rectum become inflamed and ulcerated. It is the most common type of bowel disease.

It may lead to symptoms including diarrhoea, stomach pain and regularly needing to use the toilet, and is currently only treated with anti-inflammatory drugs.

One in 400 people in the UK have the condition, which is about the same rate as in the US. About a third of patients end up needing surgery.

Stanford University researchers have found that atorvastatin  sold under the name Lipitor for just 54p a pill  can help ease the symptoms of ulcerative colitis patients.

In the study, the researchers combed through databases containing hundreds of ulcerative colitis patients in the US.

They looked at what treatments patients were being given for other conditions and compared their outcomes.

Those on cholesterol-lowering statins appeared to see the biggest improvements to their ulcerative colitis, as well as patients on two chemotherapy drugs.

Dr Purvesh Khatri, a biomedical expert at Stanford behind the study, argued the two cancer drugs wouldn't be prescribed 'due to serious side effects'.

But he added: 'Statins are generally safe enough that some doctors joke they should be put in the water.'

Ulcerative colitis patients who were taking statins were also prescribed other anti-inflammatory medications at a lower rate.

While its not entirely known how statins reduce symptoms of the disease, Dr Khatri said they are known to have some sort of general anti-inflammatory abilities.

Dr Khatri added: 'At this point, one could argue that this data shows a strong enough connection to start prescribing statins for ulcerative colitis.

'I think were almost there. We need to validate the effects a bit more stringently before moving it into the clinic.'

The research team looked only at drugs that had been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US so that, if they found a drug that worked, it could be rolled out to patients sooner.

The study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.

It comes after the Mail on Sunday reported thousands of bowel disease patients could be spared regular hospital visits and long waits for treatment with a simple test.

Currently, sufferers of ulcerative colitis, an incurable inflammatory condition that affects the colon, must visit an outpatient clinic for two days every few months for check-up.

This involves a sigmoidoscopy, during which a camera on a thin tube is inserted into the back passage.

Sigmoidoscopies can be done only in a hospital and three members of staff are needed to operate the equipment.

Patients then have to return a week later to speak to their doctor about their results.

Now, thanks to a new portable device called the LumenEye, sigmoidoscopies could be a thing of the past for colitis patients.
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Jess Brammar is the former UK editor of HuffPost and now a BBC senior executive who has been accused of sharing biased Left-wing views on social media that she deleted before her appointment

BBC Director General Tim Davie today defended the appointment of Jess Brammar and insisted the corporation would be in 'dangerous territory' if politics made anyone ineligible for a top job - in a nod to her now deleted social media posts branded anti-Brexit, anti-Tory and woke.

The corporation has been accused of creating a new six-figure non-job for Ms Brammar, who has removed all her tweets including ones critics said showed she had 'biased' left-wing views.

Her deleted tweets included comparing Brexit to a bad comedy, demanding a 'fight for a properly funded NHS' and claiming 'black Brits' were 'considering leaving the UK' because of racism and the threat of Boris Johnson winning the 2019 general election. In thousands of deleted posts going back a decade, she also voiced support for Black Lives Matter and described her own 'ignorance as a white woman'.

Tory MP Craig Mackinlay said the BBC was 'ensuring its own destruction' by refusing to take note of the objections to the appointment. 'It is doing itself no favours as it is not reflecting the general populous,' he told MailOnline, adding: 'For all of us who do have concerns about the way the BBC has been going, bring it on. Just get more like her. That will hasten its demise even quicker.'

Asked if Brammar's appointment could appear to the Government to be 'confirmation of (left-wing) group think' at the BBC, Tim Davie told the RTS Cambridge Convention today that all BBC journalists must leave their 'politics at the door'.

'I think we're in dangerous territory if previous political positions, tweets, goodness knows what else, rule you out from BBC jobs', he said.

He added that Ms Brammar is 'a great hire and she'll do a great job', adding: 'I don't want to be in a position where we are not able to hire the best people. We have been clear, when it comes to the BBC you leave that behind and you absolutely deliver impartial coverage and that is what we are here to do.'

Whitehall sources have voiced suspicions the announcement was made during a major Government reshuffle yesterday to sneak out the news that the BBC had made the hugely controversial appointment. The insider said: 'What's the saying about a good day to bury bad news?' Tory MP Andrew Bridgen called the timing of the announcement 'completely cynical'.

The former Newsnight journalist starts this month after being made redundant as editor-in-chief of HuffPost UK, and will run a 'combined team across both BBC TV news channels, providing BBC News around the clock, in the UK and around the world', according to the job description. She will also 'manage and develop the team of presenters, in conjunction with the Editor'.

A BBC spokesman denied to MailOnline that the job had been created for her and said she was not asked or encouraged to apply directly by the BBC or a third party. She said the role was created as part of a wider restructure across BBC News, which will lead to a reduction of around 475 jobs.

A source said that Ms Brammar would not be earning more than 150,000-a-year.

BBC news chief Fran Unsworth (left) will leave next year. Tim Davie (right) made a commitment to diversity of opinion and impartiality when he became director-general last year and said today Ms Brammar will have to leave any of her politics at the door

The description of Jess Brammar's new job insists that she 'guards' the BBC's editorial standards - which includes neutrality

Jess Brammar's now-deleted tweets on Boris Johnson and Brexit Jess Brammar launched a series of left-wing attacks on Twitter in recent years. Everything has now been deleted Dec 2, 2019: 'Whether you watched Boris Johnson's interview yesterday or not, here are five things the Prime Minister said that aren't true' Dec 10, 2019: 'This piece on black Brits genuinely considering leaving the UK because of the level of racism, particularly if Boris Johnson wins, is really shocking it won't be a surprise to people who live this reality every day, and in admitting my shock I show my ignorance as a white woman.' April 23, 2019: 'Brexit: like Better Call Saul but less funny or interesting or enjoyable.' Advertisement

Tim Davie: I can't wait to meet Nadine Dorries Tim Davie also said he has not yet spoken to new Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries. She replaced Oliver Dowden during a cabinet reshuffle on Wednesday, just minutes before he was due to address the convention. Media minister John Whittingdale appeared in his place to read the speech Mr Dowden had been intending to give. Speaking to new ITN chief executive Deborah Turness at the convention, Davie said: 'We are yet to make contact but I'm really looking forward to meeting and getting to know her.' Asked if her appointment tells him anything about the Government's intentions about the future of the licence fee, he said: 'I think it's too early to make too many conclusions. 'We need a really serious, grown-up dialogue with Government to talk about what we want to do with this industry and the BBC's place in it. 'I care desperately about the creative industries, we have got an opportunity, this group, to create up to a million jobs in the creative industry before 2030, it's an incredibly important topic. 'There will always be a bit of theatre around some of the dynamics around appointments but the truth is we will sit down and have a proper dialogue around the BBC, and I look forward to it.' Advertisement

BBC director-general Tim Davie has said the corporation would be in 'dangerous territory' if previous political positions made a journalist ineligible for a job, as he addressed the hiring of Jess Brammar as head of news channels.

He also said the BBC ran a 'completely open process' and denied

Speaking at the Royal Television Society's Cambridge convention, Mr Davie said the corporation is in 'dangerous territory if previous political positions, tweets, goodness knows what else rule you out from BBC jobs - we're hiring from all walks of life'.

He said that, as leader of the corporation, he has an expectation 'for anyone joining our organisation, and that's to leave your politics at the door'.

He added that Brammar, who will oversee the BBC's two 24-hour news channels - BBC World News and the BBC News Channel - is a 'great hire and she'll do a great job'.

Brammar, who is the former editor-in-chief of HuffPost UK and was also previously acting editor of Newsnight, made headlines after historic tweets emerged in which she was critical of Brexit and Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Labour previously called for Theresa May's former communications director Sir Robbie Gibb to be sacked from the board of the BBC after claims he tried to block her hiring on political grounds.

Asked if Brammar's appointment could appear to the Government to be 'confirmation of group think' at the BBC, Davie told the RTS Cambridge Convention: 'No. I think we're in dangerous territory if previous political positions, tweets, goodness knows what else, rule you out from BBC jobs.

'We're hiring people from all walks of life, a wide spectrum of media.

'My expectation as a leader of the organisation for anyone joining the BBC is that you leave your politics at the door.

'But the idea that we not going to be hiring people with political views in their past, or who have been in jobs where they have a position, that is not where I want to get to, and I think that is quite dangerous because you end up in an unmanageable position for the BBC and not great for journalism.'

The hiring was unexpectedly announced by the BBC's new chairman Richard Sharp as he answered questions at the Royal Television Society's Cambridge Convention 2021 yesterday.

He said that 'individual recruiting should be on merit and Jess got there on merit'.

The controversy was prompted by old tweets from Miss Brammar in which she accused Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and Nigel Farage of a 'sleight of hand' by persuading people they represented outsiders.

In another post she claimed there was an 'influential camp' at No.10 which 'doesn't want to reach out to minorities and work with them'.

Sir Robbie Gibb, who was former Tory PM Theresa May's communications chief and now is a member of the BBC board, reportedly tried to block the appointment. He is said to have been concerned that appointing Miss Brammar would damage trust with the Government.

Leader of the house Jacob Rees-Mogg had also previously pointed to the potential hire, saying the BBC employing journalists from left-wing outlets 'damages' the 'whole perception' of independence.

The corporation stressed last night that the appointment was made through a 'fair and open competition'. Miss Brammar will take up her role this month.

But there was scepticism from some within the Government and Tory party about the appointment and the timing of it.

One Government source told the Daily Mail: 'What's the saying about a good day to bury bad news?'

Having deleted every tweet she had ever posted before today, Ms Brammar announced the news of her appointment to BBC as 'executive news editor' to her 87,000 followers at 4pm

Jess Brammar: Black Lives Matter supporter with a Guardian toyboy By Glen Owen and Katie Hind for The Mail on Sunday There are few in the media industry who are not aware of Jess Brammar. One of the most prolific users of Twitter and Instagram over the last decade, she would regularly share her opinions on anything from politics to restaurants with her thousands of followers. She would also regularly share pictures of her partner Jim Waterson, the Guardian's media editor, on their holidays and nights out. That was until the news of Ms Brammar's new executive role at the BBC broke two months ago. Then her tweets were swiftly deleted and her Instagram set to private. The couple, who live in Peckham, South-East London, have been an item since 2017 and were named as one of Westminster's 'power couples' by politics website Politico  much to the amusement of colleagues at the time. Ms Brammar, 38, burnished her Left-wing credentials last year with her vocal support of Marxist campaign group Black Lives Matter which wants to defund the police. Her younger partner Mr Waterson, 31, broke the story that Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds, then his girlfriend, had a blazing row at her South London flat in 2019, after his newspaper was passed a recording of the argument by Carrie's Left-wing neighbour Tom Penn. Ms Brammar has enjoyed a 15-year career in television and online media after graduating with a first-class degree in international history with Russian before researching for BBC Question Time. From there, she went to ITN, where she worked as a producer for ITV News before returning to the BBC as a senior broadcast journalist on Newsnight, going on to become deputy editor. She later left that role in 2018 to become the editor-in-chief of Left-wing news website, the Huffington Post, before she was made redundant in April this year. Ms Brammar gave birth to son Jude last year. Earlier this year, she told Grazia magazine that she and Waterson had undergone rounds of gruelling fertility treatment. Advertisement

Julian Knight, the Tory chair of the digital, culture, media and sport committee, said there would be scrutiny in the weeks ahead over the appointment.

He warned: 'This was long on the cards. I think though there will be many who will be watching the news output with her at the helm with real interest from here on in to ensure that Tim Davie's promise of better impartiality is more than just fine words.'

But the BBC's outgoing news chief, Fran Unsworth, has defended the appointment in an email to staff.

She told them: 'In view of recent public speculation about BBC News appointments, there are a couple of points I want to make.

'BBC News has to be impartial and independent. BBC journalists are hired from a variety of different backgrounds, but while working at the BBC, they leave any personal opinions at the door.

'Any individual should be judged on how they do their job at the BBC, not on what they have done in different organisations with very different objectives.

'It is extremely disappointing that anyone should receive public or personal criticism - or online abuse - simply for applying for a job at the BBC.'

Brammar writing on Twitter after the appointment was confirmed, said: 'Some personal news (a divisive phrase, I know!) - couldn't be more thrilled to be joining such an incredibly talented team, on and off air.

'Very much looking forward to cracking on with the job.'

The BBC yesterday put a formal announcement about the appointment of Miss Brammar and also that of Paul Danahar, who is becoming the executive news editor there, on its website.

BBC Director of News, Fran Unsworth said of the hirings: 'Both Jess and Paul are outstanding journalists with proven track records.

'They'll bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to their new roles and I look forward to welcoming them.'

The BBC said in its announcement that Miss Brammar, formerly an editor of Newsnight, was an award-winning editor with 'wide-ranging experience in broadcasting'.

BBC chairman Richard Sharp had surprised people attending the Royal Television Society event when he revealed the appointment had happened. This followed weeks of speculation about whether it was going ahead.

He was asked about Robbie Gibb's concerns about the appointment. He said 'Everybody has their own opinions. The question is do they have individual objectivity.'

Mr Sharp has spoken during the session about the importance for the BBC to 'fight against the risk of groupthink' and said the media industry had been 'incredibly metropolitan'.

He spoke about the importance in terms of 'different views'.
Lawyers for the British teenager found guilty of lying about being gang-raped in Cyprus have launched an appeal to the country's Supreme Court to overturn the conviction.

The woman, now 21, was given a four-month suspended sentenced for allegedly making up claims that she was abused up to a dozen Israelis during a vacation in Cyprus in 2019.

A legal team argued at a hearing today that the lower court shouldn't have admitted the then 19-year-old's written retraction as evidence because investigators obtained it after she sat in a police station for seven hours without a lawyer or an interpreter.

Lawyers for the British teenager (pictured) found guilty of lying about being gang-raped in Cyprus have launched an appeal to the country's Supreme Court to overturn the conviction

A group of around 30 activists from the Network Fighting Violence Against Women held banners and chanted slogans outside court today

The team headed by British lawyer Lewis Power said that the woman - whose identity hasn't been formally released - was suffering from a stress disorder and had been pressured into making an 'unreliable' retraction.

The team said the 'discourteous' lower court judge failed to provide the woman with a 'fair hearing,' because he didn't give defence lawyers the chance to put forward evidence supporting the woman's claims.

Lewis said in a written statement that the legal team believes that 'ultimately justice will be achieved' so that the woman 'can free herself from the shackles of an unjust conviction which has tarnished her young life.'

Lead prosecutor Adamos Demosthenous told The Associated Press that the state would 'support the correctness of the original ruling' and stands by it.

A group of around 30 activists from the Network Fighting Violence Against Women held banners and chanted slogans in support of the woman, including 'national interests absolve rapists, police and judges are also guilty' and 'rapists are to blame for rape, not short blouses and miniskirts.'

The team headed by British lawyer Lewis Power (pictured) said that the woman - whose identity hasn't been formally released - was suffering from a stress disorder

The woman said she was attacked by up to 12 Israeli tourists pictured entering the Famagusta District Court in Paralimni, Cyprus, 26 July 2019

The woman did not attend the two-hour hearing, conducted in Greek in front of a panel of three judges, including the English-born president of the Supreme Court, Persefoni Panayi.

Demosthenous, representing the Cyprus attorney general, said the appeal should not be heard because the woman had criticised the trial judge in an ITV documentary, but the court ruled against the submission and heard the arguments.

Judge Michalis Papathanasiou said in his original ruling that he would give the woman a 'second chance' and not send her to jail, because she admitted through her lawyers during mitigation that she made a mistake in making the false rape claim.

Papathanasiou said the defendant didn't tell the truth and tried to deceive the court with 'evasive' statements in her testimony.

He said the woman had admitted to investigators that she made up the claims because she was 'ashamed' after finding out that some of the Israelis had videoed her having consensual sex with her Israeli boyfriend on their cellphones.

He had also said her admission was 'the only time the defendant told the truth.'

The team said the 'discourteous' lower court judge failed to provide the woman with a 'fair hearing'

Her Cypriot lawyer Nicoletta Charalambidou, also said the lower court started from the position that there was no rape and had misunderstood the offence of public mischief, which requires a false statement of a make-believe crime.

She said the trial judge, Michalis Papathanasiou, did not allow the defendant to talk about the alleged rape, pointing to the seven times he said: 'This is not a rape trial.'

He was also said to have ignored defence expert evidence and failed to consider police failures in investigating the rape allegations.

Sentencing her last January, the judge said the evidence showed she had 'lied' but added: 'Her psychological state, her youth, that she has been away from her family, her friends and academic studies this year, this has led me to decide to give her a second chance and suspend the sentence for three years.'

The Supreme Court judges reserved judgment on the appeal.

Speaking after the hearing the woman's English barrister, Lewis Power QC, said: 'I think it was a very fruitful hearing where the court asked very poignant questions, considered the legal arguments and identified the points which will ultimately decide this appeal.

The case has attracted widespread publicity and dozens of protesters gathered outside the court building, banging drums, chanting and clapping their hands

'We cannot pre-empt the decision of the court, but we were glad to see the court had given much thought and considerable consideration to a very, very difficult case.'

Another member of the legal team, Michael Polak, added: 'Without wanting to pre-judge the decision of the Supreme Court, we feel we were happy with the way proceedings went today and the way the judges engaged with our arguments.'

If the appeal fails, the lawyers plan to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which the woman's lawyers said found against Cyprus after a teenager was taken to a police station in Limassol and separated from his father before confessing to murder without a lawyer present.

Mr Power added: 'This is the biggest case here in the last decade beyond a shadow of a doubt and the world is watching.

'It is so important for young women across the world. This case is a beacon.'

One banner read 'End rape culture' and another, 'I believe her' outside the courtroom in Cyprus today

He said he had spoken to the woman and her mother, adding: 'She's bearing up really well. She is getting on with her life at university.

'She is very anxious about the result but she is fairly upbeat and determined that this won't ruin her life.

'We spoke to her yesterday and her mother. They are back in the UK watching from afar.'

The case has attracted widespread publicity and dozens of protesters gathered outside the court building, banging drums, chanting and clapping their hands.

One banner read 'End rape culture' and another, 'I believe her'.

Christina Kaili, from the Mediterranean Institute of Gender Studies, said: 'The Cyprus justice system must comply with international conventions and make sure that victims have access to justice, protection and to feel that they are believed.'

All of the Israelis, aged 15-20, were then released and allowed to return home.

The British government said it had raised 'numerous concerns' with Cypriot authorities about the judicial process in the case and the woman's right to a fair trial.
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Billions of pounds could be pumped into Cumbrian industrial town Barrow-in-Furness - once 'England's Chicago' - as part of Britain's nuclear submarine pact with Australia and the United States after Boris Johnson boasted it will create hundreds of jobs in the UK.

The Prime Minister told the Commons today that the new security partnership between London, Washington and Canberra - dubbed 'AUKUS' - is expected to deliver a much-needed jobs boost to British manufacturers in poorer seaside towns such as Barrow.

Once regarded as 'England's Chicago', Barrow became a Victorian powerhouse as it evolved in the 19th Century from a hamlet into the biggest iron and steel producer in the world.

Nearly 9,000 people are employed at the massive shipyard now owned by BAE Systems, where Britain's four Vanguard class submarines - which carry the nation's nuclear deterrent - were built, and where the new Dreadnought class submarine to replace Vanguard is being constructed.

Fleshing out the plans this morning, Mr Johnson suggested that Barrow and Derby, where Rolls Royce has an engineering hub, could benefit from the security deal and it could generate work for 'decades and decades' - although final decision are not expected for years.

However, council leaders have warned that it will take more than just more jobs in shipbuilding to revive the town, which has a declining population and is one of the poorest parts of the country.

The population decrease is partly explained by young people voting with their feet to find work in sectors other than manufacturing. In Barrow, manufacturing accounts for 30 per cent of all jobs - much higher than the eight per cent national average, according to ONS figures.

People may have also wanted to leave Barrow to avoid suffering respiratory illness caused by manufacturing, and which is thought to have been one of the main drivers of high case rates of Covid during the pandemic - causing the town to be branded the 'virus capital of the UK' for a time.

Unable to attract families and young people from other parts of the country, its town centre continues to suffer - with public services run to the ground and the high street vanishing. During the Covid crisis, for instance, Topshop, River Island and Marks & Spencer stores all shut down Portland Walk in the town centre.

Its decline has made Barrow one of the poorest parts of England with food bank usage across the Barrow borough surging by 280 per cent during the first national lockdown while the life expectancy in the council's wealthiest ward is 11 years higher than in its poorest ward.

The situation is so dire that the town elected a Conservative MP - Simon Fell - in the 2019 General Election for the first time in nearly thirty years after the Prime Minister's 'levelling up' campaign helped smash Labour's so-called 'red wall' in northern England to pieces.

Sam Plum, Barrow Borough Council's chief executive, said earlier this year Barrow cannot afford to depend too much on one employer - in this case, BAE Systems - and that it must be remembered that BAE needs a strong town to attract the skilled people required to keep the yard working.

'If Barrow doesn't have a really good town centre, doesn't have a thriving housing market, doesn't have a good education sector they are never going to be able to attract the kind of people they need in the yard,' she warned.

Addressing MPs in the Commons, the PM denied that the alliance was an 'adversarial' move towards China - which has slammed it as evidence of a Cold War mentality'.

BAE Systems Plc's production plant is pictured in Barrow-in-Furness, north west England, on May 18, 2020

Mr Johnson said it was 'great' news for jobs across the UK and would generate work for 'decades and decades'. He suggested that Derby, where Rolls Royce has an engineering hub, and Barrow-in-Furness, where the shipyard has historically been involved in submarine building, could benefit, although final decisions are not expected for years

Britain and America are to help Australia build a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines as part of an unprecedented alliance known as the AUKUS pact to combat China's naval dominance and will likely be the similar design as this Astute class submarine HMS Ambush (pictured)

Boris Johnson (left) hailed the potential for 'hundreds' of jobs being created in the UK, but Ben Wallace (right) admitted it was 'understandable' that France was disappointed

Why Australia needed a new deal with the UK and the US: Australia's defence capabilities are dwarfed by those of China

China has inflamed tensions in the South China Sea in recent years by expanding its claimed territory, to the objection of its neighbors in the Asia-Pacific

Jacinda Ardern will BAN Australia's new nuclear-powered submarines from New Zealand waters Australia's new nuclear submarine fleet won't be welcome in New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has warned. The new submarines are the centrepiece of a new security deal - known as AUKUS - agreed to by Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom and announced on Thursday morning. New Zealand has been left out of the alliance, despite being a member of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network, along with AUKUS members and Canada. The Kiwi leader said the formation of AUKUS 'in no way changes our security and intelligence ties with these three countries'. 'We welcome the increased engagement of the UK and US in the region and reiterate our collective objective needs to be the delivery of peace and stability and the preservation of the international rules based system,' she said. Ms Ardern was briefed on the alliance by Scott Morrison on Wednesday night. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has warned Australia's new nuclear submarine fleet won't be welcome in New Zealand On Thursday morning, she made clear the submarines would not be welcome in New Zealand's waters, in line with a long-held policy. New Zealand has been staunchly nuclear-free for decades, earning the ire of the United States by declining visits from nuclear-powered ships. 'New Zealand is first and foremost a nation of the Pacific and we view foreign policy developments through the lens of what is in the best interest of the region,' she said. 'New Zealand's position in relation to the prohibition of nuclear powered vessels in our waters remains unchanged.' New Zealand's opposition has rung the alarm over the deal, saying they've been cut out of the new defence pact. 'It's disappointing that after many years of New Zealand's co-operation with our traditional allies, the current Government appears to have been unable to participate in discussions for 'AUKUS',' opposition National leader Judith Collins said. 'New Zealand's strong nuclear-free stance shouldn't have been a barrier to us joining such a partnership. We could have been carved out of the nuclear aspect of the partnership,' Ms Collins says. Advertisement

The jubilant comments from Mr Johnson came as ministers admitted it is 'understandable' that France is upset after its $90bn submarine contract with Canberra was torn up.

The new pact - called AUKUS - will see America and Britain cooperate to build Australia's first ever nuclear submarine fleet, comprising at least eight vessels.

The trio will also share other military technologies such as artificial intelligence, cyber defence, quantum computing and long-range strike capabilities.

Mr Johnson, Joe Biden and Scott Morrison were careful not to mention Beijing as they announced the new deal last night, but there can be little doubt that the alliance's purpose is to counter China's growing aggression - particularly in the South China Sea, which is criss-crossed by valuable trading routes, and towards Taiwan.

China wasted little time responding to the deal, with foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian denouncing the 'exclusionary bloc' which he said 'seriously undermines regional peace and stability and intensifies the arms race.'

But Beijing is far from the only upset party. Paris was also quick to react, with foreign minister Yves Le-Drian complaining it is a 'stab in the back' after a $90bn deal for France supply Australia with 12 conventionally-powered submarines was torn up. The French subs were not due for completion until mid-2030, while the new pact aims for a much faster delivery time.

Fleshing out the plans in the Commons this morning, Mr Johnson said it was 'great' news for jobs across the UK and would generate work for 'decades and decades'.

He suggested that Derby, where Rolls Royce has an engineering hub, and Barrow-in-Furness, where the shipyard has historically been involved in submarine building, could benefit, although final decisions are not expected for years.

'What I can say is that there will be an 18-month scoping exercise to establish where the work should go between the three partners. But clearly there are deep pools of expertise throughout the United Kingdom,' he said.

'There is expertise across the United Kingdom and I have no doubt whatever that it will bring hundreds of high-skilled, high-wage jobs of the kind that we want to see in our country, and increasingly are seeing.'

Mr Johnson insisted: 'I think it is important for the House to understand that Aukus is not intended to be adversarial towards any other power.

'But it merely reflects the close relationship that we have with the United States and with Australia, the shared values that we have and the sheer level of trust between us that enables us to go to this extraordinary extent of sharing nuclear technology in the way that we are proposing to do.

'Obviously, we also have a shared interest in promoting democracy, human rights, freedom of navigation and freedom of trade around the world. And I think those are values and perspectives that I hope the whole House will support.'

Mr Johnson also played down the impact on the UK's military relationship with France, saying ties are 'rock solid'.

He told the Commons: 'The House should be in no doubt that this Government's commitment to Nato is absolutely unshakeable and indeed has been strengthened by the massive commitments we have made, the biggest uplift in defence spending since the Cold War.'

He said: 'Our relationship with France, our military relationship with France, again, Mr Speaker, is rock solid.

'And we stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the French, whether in the Sahel where we are running a joint operation against terrorists in Mali, or whether in Estonia where we currently we have the largest Nato operation.'

But Defence Secretary Ben Wallace admitted that he could see why Paris is 'disappointed'.

In a round of interviews, Mr Wallace told BBC Breakfast he spoke to his French counterpart Florence Parly last night.

'I understand France's disappointment,' he said.

'They had a contract with the Australians for diesel-electrics from 2016 and the Australians have taken this decision that they want to make a change.

'We didn't go fishing for that, but as a close ally, when the Australians approached us, of course we would consider it. I understand France's frustration about it.'

Theresa May also raised questions with the PM about how the pact would affect the UK response should China attempt to invade Taiwan.

The former premier said: '(Mr Johnson) said yesterday that this partnership has the aim of working hand-in-glove to preserve security and stability in the Indo-Pacific.

'Can I ask him what are the implications of this pact for the stance that would be taken by the United Kingdom in its response should China attempt to invade Taiwan?'

Mr Johnson replied: 'The United Kingdom remains determined to defend international law and that is the strong advice we would give to our friends across the world, and the strong advice that we would give to the government in Beijing.'

Britain's submarine expertise: Where could new jobs be created? The new security partnership deal between the UK, US and Australia is expected to deliver a jobs boost to British manufacturers who specialise in building submarines. Britain has more than 60 years of experience of fabricating and operating nuclear powered submarines. That expertise will now be deployed to help Australia gain its own fleet, with Boris Johnson promising the deal will 'drive jobs and prosperity'. The Government has highlighted the work of Rolls Royce near Derby and BAE Systems in Barrow - two sites which are crucial in the Royal Navy's submarine programme. Rolls Royce provides the equipment that powers the UK's nuclear submarines in the form of its Nuclear Steam Raising Plants. Its engineers design and make reactor cores, connecting pipework and valves, and the crucial electronic control systems. Rolls Royce Submarines currently employs more than 1,500 engineers on the programme. Meanwhile, the BAE Systems site in Barrow-in-Furness on the edge of the Lake District provides the base for building the UK's submarines. Britain's four Vanguard class submarines - which carry the nation's nuclear deterrent - were built in Barrow, and the Astute class attack submarines continue to be built there. BAE Systems is also constructing the new Dreadnought class submarine which will replace Vanguard to provide the UK's continuous at sea deterrent. The firm's submarine-specific business employs 4,100 people across several UK locations. Advertisement

Downing Street has said there will be 'extensive work carried out in the UK' after a pact was signed with the US and Australia to co-operate on nuclear-powered submarines.

The Prime Minister's official spokesman said: 'You will appreciate this is in the early stages, the Prime Minister set out there is now an 18-month process where we consider the technical and practical issues of the project.

'It's fair to say there will be extensive work carried out in the UK, as well as the United States and Australia. It will create hundreds of jobs over the lifetime of the project and we can expect investment to be in the tens of billions.'

Asked if the alliance was a benefit of Brexit, the spokesman said: 'I wouldn't dispute the fact that we're able to move in this way now we're not a part of the European Union and that is to the benefit of the British people.'

Aside from France, the deal also side-lines New Zealand and Canada - who together with the UK, US and Australia make up the Cold War-era Five Eyes intelligence alliance. While AUKUS is not a straight replacement for Five Eyes, it is almost certain to reduce its importance and isolates Wellington and Ottawa from the group.

It seems the duo have been punished for failing to take a stronger stance against Beijing, just four months after New Zealand refused to sign a joint Five Eyes statement which criticised China's aggression in the South China Sea, its crackdown in Hong Kong, threats to Taiwan and its treatment of Uyghur Muslims.

Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand's left-wing PM, has since admitted that she was not even consulted on the new pact - adding that Australia's new subs will be banned from entering New Zealand waters under the country's long-standing 'nuclear free' policy.

Meanwhile Canada is thought to have angered Washington after refusing to ban Chinese firm Huawei from incorporating its technology into the country's 5G network - something America believes will leave it vulnerable to Beijing's spies.

Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did not immediately react to the deal, suggesting he may also have been left out of the loop - though his Defence Department insisted it had been informed before the announcement was made while stressing the continued importance of Five Eyes.

China's President Xi Jinping currently controls the world's largest Navy, when measured purely by the number of vessels - comprising some 770 vehicles, including large numbers of patrol ships and subs.

He is using the fleet to lay claim to the entire South China Sea - something the West and its allies hotly dispute - while also menacing Taiwan.

Western nations have been pushing back, sailing so-called 'freedom of navigation' missions through the region to test Xi's resolve - with a recent and high-profile mission sailed by Britain's 3bn HMS Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier and her 'strike group', comprised of British and American destroyers alongside support vessels.

The US possesses what is widely regarded as the world's most-powerful navy which includes a huge fleet of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.

Giving Australia nuclear submarines is a significant development because the vessels need to refuel far less-often than traditional subs, allowing them to stay submerged longer and roam further - sailing undetected into waters which Beijing is trying to claim.

Chinese state media has threatened to carry out 'freedom of navigation' operations of its own, with regime mouthpiece Global Times publishing an editorial on Wednesday threatening that warships will 'soon' turn up off the coasts of Hawaii and Guam - where the US has large military bases.

'Hopefully when Chinese warships pass through the Caribbean Sea or show up near Hawaii and Guam one day, the US will uphold the same standard of freedom of navigation,' the article said. 'That day will come soon.'

Under the terms of the new pact, the UK, US and Australia will spend the next 18 months working to construct a framework that will allow Australia to safely take command of a nuclear-powered fleet and other sensitive technologies.

The submarines will then be constructed in South Australia, making use of facilities already in place that were supposed to be used for the now-cancelled French submarines.

The UK's Rolls-Royce plant near Derby and BAE Systems in Barrow-in-Furness are also expected to be involved in the design and build of the submarines, creating hundreds of highly-skilled scientific and engineering roles in Britain.

It is not clear exactly what type of submarines Australia will eventually receive, or what technology will be incorporated in them.

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison (C) and US President Joe Biden attend a joint press conference to announce the AUKUS partnership last night

A man waves a Union flag as the British Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth sails out of Tokyo bay on September 08, in a journey that has inflamed tensions with China

Why is Australia acquiring nuclear-powered subs? Why nuclear submarines? Nuclear submarines are powered by nuclear reactors which produce heat that creates high-pressured steam to spin turbines and power the boat's propeller. They can run for about 20 years before needing to refuel, meaning food supplies are the only limit on time at sea. The boats are also very quiet, making it harder for enemies to detect them and can travel at top speed - about 40kmh - for longer than diesel-powered subs. The first nuclear submarines were put to sea by the United States in the 1950s. They are now also in use by Russia, France, the United Kingdom, China, and India. A senior US defence official told reporters in Washington DC: 'This will give Australia the capability for their submarines to basically deploy for a longer period, they're quieter, they're much more capable. 'They will allow us to sustain and to improve deterrence across the Indo-Pacific.' Zack Cooper, a senior fellow with the American Enterprise Institute, said nuclear submarines would hugely boost Australia's military capability. 'They are going to be much, much more capable in the large, expansive ocean that is Australia has to deal with,' he told the ABC. Will Australia have nuclear weapons? Scott Morrison made it clear that the nuclear-power submarines will not have nuclear missiles on board. Australia has never produced nuclear weapons and signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in 1973 which prevents non-nuclear states which don't already have them from developing nuclear weapons. Mr Morrison also said the Australia has no plans to build nuclear power stations which are widely used around the world. 'But let me be clear, Australia is not seeking to acquire nuclear weapons or establish a civil nuclear capability,' he said. 'And we will continue to meet all our nuclear non-proliferation obligations.' Why now? Australia needs to replace its six ageing Collins-class submarines. In 2016 it signed a deal with French Company Naval Group to build 12 diesel-electric attack subs - but the parties were in dispute over the amount of building that would be done in Australia. That deal has now been torn up in favour of nuclear powered subs aided by the US and UK who will provide the technology to Australia. The West is becoming increasingly concerned about the growing assertiveness of China in the Indo-Pacific region where it has made huge territorial claims in the South and East China seas, clashed with Indian troops and repeatedly flown planes over Taiwan. Mr Morrison wants Australia to have serious defence capability to deter China from encroaching in the Pacific and long-range nuclear submarines are just the ticket. China has vastly built up its military in the past few years and now possesses six Shang-class nuclear powered attack submarines, equipped with torpedoes and cruise missiles. Advertisement

The deal marks the first time in 50 years that the US has shared its submarine technology, and Australia will be only the second country to receive it - after the UK.

Australia will join an elite group of nations operating nuclear-powered subs that includes France, China, India and Russia. The deal will not give Australia nuclear weapons, as the country has a long-standing commitment not to develop them.

Australia already has diesel-electric submarines but the new stealthier fleet will be faster, able to carry more, and can stay underwater for longer - covering greater distances without expelling traceable exhaust gases.

The new submarines, built using UK and US components, will 'protect and defend our shared interests in the Indo- Pacific', Downing Street said.

Britain will also share its cyber capabilities, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies and undersea systems with allies as part of the deal, ushering in a new era of collaboration on security and defence-related science, technology, industrial bases and supply chains.

China already has a substantial number of nuclear-powered submarines. The Pentagon assessed in its 2020 China Military Power report that China has the largest navy in the world, with an overall battle force of approximately 350 ships and submarines, including more than 130 major surface vessels.

China was not mentioned in the cross-continental briefing but there was frequent reference to the changing situation in the region.

Tom Tugendhat, Conservative chairman of the Commons Foreign Committee, said: 'The reason for all this is clear - China.'

He tweeted: 'After years of bullying and trade hostility, and watching regional neighbours like the Philippines see encroachment into their waters, Australia didn't have a choice.'

China's U.S. embassy reacted, however, by saying that countries 'should not build exclusionary blocs targeting or harming the interests of third parties.'

'In particular, they should shake off their Cold-War mentality and ideological prejudice,' it said.

Australia's plea for help to replace its ageing Collins-class subs prompted the new deal agreed by Mr Johnson, US President Joe Biden and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

The last time Britain and the US formally agreed collaborate on nuclear technology to build submarines was in 1958.

Although Britain has operated nuclear-powered submarines for over 60 years, Canberra has never built its own.

Australia is seen as essential to counter China's regional influence, especially in the contested South China Sea.

In recent years, the UK and Australia have increasingly worked together on defence, with joint training exercises.

Last night Mr Johnson said: 'The UK, Australia and US are natural allies.

'While we may be separated geographically, our interests and values are shared. The AUKUS alliance will bring us closer than ever, creating a new defence partnership and driving jobs and prosperity.'

As part of a joint statement with the other two leaders, Mr Johnson added: 'The endeavour we launch today will help sustain peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region.

'For more than 70 years, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, have worked together, along with other important allies and partners, to protect our shared values and promote security and prosperity.

'Today, with the formation of AUKUS, we recommit ourselves to this vision.'

In a live broadcast from Downing Street, the Prime Minister said the partnership would make the world safer.

The three countries already share extensive intelligence through the Five Eyes alliance, which also involves Canada and New Zealand.

It is not known when the vessels will be ready, but officials said the initial scoping phase is expected to take 18 months when it will be determined where they will be built and by whom.

Mr Johnson said Scotland and parts of the north of England and the Midlands would feel the benefit of the work on the nuclear-powered submarines, with the Government keen to exploit the Royal Navy's decades-worth of knowledge of using such machines.

At a later press conference in Canberra, Mr Morrison said it was undecided if Australia would purchase British-built BAE Systems Astute class submarines or the Virginia class vessels constructed in the US.

French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and armed forces minister Florence Parly said in a statement issued by the country's embassy in Canberra that it had taken note of Australia's decision to halt the Future Submarine programme with France.

'This decision is contrary to the letter and spirit of the cooperation that prevailed between France and Australia, based on a relationship of political trust and on the development of a very high-level defence industrial & technological base in Australia,' the statement added.

'The world is a jungle,' ex-ambassador to the US Gerard Araud tweeted on Thursday morning

Earlier this year, in the integrated review of security and foreign policy, the UK Government outlined plans for a 'tilt' in focus to the Indo-Pacific.

Aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth was earlier this year deployed on a voyage East in a decision said to be about sending a message to Beijing and Russia about Britain's military might.

The Indo-Pacific area is of particular concern due to increasing geopolitical tensions such as unresolved territorial disputes and the risk of nuclear proliferation.

France has been 'stabbed in the back' by the Australian nuclear submarine deal, a former top diplomatic official has said.

'The world is a jungle,' ex-ambassador to the US Gerard Araud tweeted on Thursday.

'France has just been reminded this bitter truth by the way the US and the UK have stabbed her in the back in Australia. C'est la vie.'

Australia has for years been planning to build a fleet of 12 diesel-powered submarines in Adelaide via French company Naval Group, with a deal made in 2016 valued at $90billion.

The French government later on Thursday said Australia's decision to ditch the agreement was 'contrary to the spirit of cooperation which prevailed' between the two countries.

Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly said the change in plan 'marks an absence of coherence that France can only observe and regret'.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison reportedly held concerns Naval Group would be unable to deliver submarines until 2030 with deadline and price disputes.

Defence officials have openly discussed abandoning the deal since June and told a Senate estimates hearing in June there were 'challenges' with the agreement.

Australia will instead embrace nuclear power after decades of debate - marking the first time the US and UK have shared their nuclear submarine technology with another nation. orrison
A seven-year-old girl was randomly abducted as she walked along the street with her mother, a court heard.

Darren Colly, 37, allegedly grabbed the child and ran away with her over his shoulder in Camberwell, on October 22 last year.

Colly then put her down and fled on foot, Westminster Magistrates Court heard.

Darren Colly, 37, is accused of grabbing a child in Don Phelan Close, Camberwell last October, which he denies and was remanded in custody until a hearing at the court later this month

Luke Staton, prosecuting, said: Suddenly the defendant approached behind the complainant, a seven-year-old child, he grabbed her, put her over his shoulder then ran around the corner out of sight.

When he got around three quarters of the way down Kimpton Road he then put the child down.

The mother had been following and managed to catch up. She was reunited with child.

The Crown say this was a random abduction of a seven-year-old child in the street, added Mr Staton.

Darren Colly, 37, appeared at Westminster Magistrates Court accused of child abduction which he denies and was remanded in custody until a hearing at the court later this month

After the incident a CCTV still was circulated in the media, allegedly showing Colly following the mother and child, the court heard.

Colly, of Birmingham, denies child abduction.

He was remanded in custody ahead of a further hearing at Westminster Magistrates Court on 29 September.
Paul Chadwick (pictured), 51, of Pontypool, appeared at Newport Magistrates Court charged with two counts of misconduct in public office amounting to an abuse of public trust

A police officer entered into sexual relationships with two women he met while on duty, a court in Wales has heard.

Paul Chadwick, 51, of Churchwood, Pontypool, appeared at Newport Magistrates Court yesterday charged with two counts of misconduct in public office amounting to an abuse of public trust.

The court heard how Mr Chadwick allegedly had affairs with both women after meeting them separately while working with Gwent Police.

The sexual encounters with the first woman are alleged to have taken place between January 14 and April 14 last year.

The officer then had a second sexual relationship with another woman in May, the court was told.

Mr Chadwick has since resigned from the Gwent force.

The court heard how Mr Chadwick (pictured) allegedly had affairs with both women after meeting them separately on the job with Gwent Police

Chadwick offered no plea and was given unconditional bail and ordered to appear at Newport Crown Court on October 13.

The IOPC carried out two investigations following a referral from Gwent Police in May last year and a further referral in November 2020.

An IOPC spokesperson said: 'At the end of our investigations, we referred a file of evidence to the Crown Prosecution Service which has since authorised the charges.'
Two Sydney sisters have built their own DIY Covid hospital ward for their 94-year-old grandfather after he was turned away from his nursing home for catching the virus.

Elderly Ted Cavanagh likely caught the deadly disease in Sydney's Northern Beaches Hospital while he was being treated there after a nasty fall at his nursing home.

Being double vaccinated, he was soon well enough to leave with doctors needing his bed for critically ill Covid patients - but his nursing home said he was too infectious to return.

Now Ted - known as Pop - has moved in with granddaughters Olivia and Brittany Mitchell after they converted an entire floor of their home into a DIY Covid ward.

Sydney sisters Brittany (pictured left) and Olivia (right) Mitchell have built their own DIY Covid hospital ward for their 94 year old grandfather Ted Cavanagh (centre) after he was turned away from his nursing home for catching the virus

Now Ted - known as Pop - has moved in with granddaughters Olivia and Brittany Mitchell (pictured) after they converted an entire floor of their home into a DIY Covid ward

'We're just doing what we can to keep to keep us safe and to keep Pop safe as well,' Brittany told Nine's A Current Affair on Thursday. 'We wouldn't have it any other way.

'I'd do anything for Pop.'

The two sisters lost their 56-year-old mother Jan to cancer four years ago and were determined to do everything they could to help their granddad.

He had already been double-vaccinated when he caught the disease and they're convinced that is why he managed to survive and move in with them.

Elderly Ted Cavanagh caught the deadly disease in Sydney's Northern Beaches Hospital (pictured) while he was being treated there after a nasty fall at his nursing home

But while he's still contagious, the single-dose vaccinated sisters are taking no chances.

They enlisted the help of a nurse friend who works in an ICU on how to set up the home Covid ward and drew up a list of strict protocols to keep everyone safe.

Now dressed from head to toe in PPE, they are providing round the clock care and sustenance to their grandfather as he shrugs off the disease.

And despite his age and still infected with Covid, he's already working out daily in their yard, doing 60 push-ups and planking for 60 seconds at a time.

The two sisters lost their 56-year old mother Jan (pictured centre) to cancer four years ago and were determined to do everything they could to help their granddad

Despite his age and Covid, Ted Cavagh (pictured) is already working out daily in their yard, doing 60 push-ups and planking for 60 seconds at a time

'He look so well, it's hard not to hug him,' said Olivia.

'Our Pop is the most special man. He really is like the light of my life. I always look at him in awe.'

They admit they feared the worst when they first heard about the fall and rushed to the nursing home to take him to hospital themselves.

Those fears increased when he was diagnosed with Covid while he was there.

'It was devastating,' said Olivia. 'It was really upsetting. When Brittany told me, "Pop's been diagnosed with COVID," your mind obviously goes to the worst place.'

The sisters admit they feared the worst when they first heard about Ted's fall and rushed to the nursing home to take him to hospital themselves. (Pictured Brittany Mitchell and grandfather Ted Cavagh at Balmoral Beach on Sydney's lower north shore)

Dressed from head to toe in PPE, as seen here, the sisters are providing round the clock care and sustenance to their grandfather as he shrugs off the disease

Brittany added: 'We were just shocked because we don't know how he got it. It's not really like there are many cases are around here at the moment either.

'Obviously, we were really worried then and we thought, "Oh my gosh, you know, he's 94, having COVID...".'

Since then though he's made an amazing recovery at their Warriewood home on the Northern Beaches.

He lives on the ground floor while the sisters live upstairs, making his meals and tending to his every need, all while wearing full PPE and face shields.

Despite not being trained as nurses or carers, and only having had a single dose of vaccines, the careful sisters have successfully managed to avoid catching Covid themselves. (PIctured, Brittany Mitchell with her grandfather Ted Cavanagh)

Ted Cavanagh lives on the ground floor (pictured) while the sisters live upstairs, making his meals and tending to his every need, all while wearing full PPE and face screens.

'We were just so so happy to see him be home and knowing that we can look after him and keep an eye on him,' said Brittany.

'We've got a sanitising station upstairs and we've essentially divided the house into two.'

Mr Cavanagh credits his double-dose of vaccine for his swift recovery from the worst effects of the killer virus.

'I was double vaxxed four months ago, and I'm sure that helped me to get through this,' he said.

The sisters are also relieved to have managed to care for their grandfather (pictured, together) while only having had one vaccine dose, but continue to test Covid negative

People with double-dose vaccination have a massively reduced chance of serious illness from Covid, and are said to recover much more quickly from the virus.

Even though Ted is 94, his risk of dying from Covid was slashed within days of his second vaccine dose.

But despite the improved outcome for Ted, he is still infectious and potentially a risk to anyone unvaccinated - or even to those with just their first dose like Brittany and Olivia.

The sisters are relieved to have managed to care for their grandfather while only having had their first vaccine dose, and continuing to test Covid negative.

Ted Cavanagh (pictured right) credits his double-dose of vaccine for his swift recovery from the worst effects of the killer virus

The sisters (pictured) admit they feared the worst when they first heard about their grandfather's fall and rushed to the nursing home to take him to hospital themselves

'We just really want people to say that, you know, it can happen to you,' warned Olivia.

'But if you're vaccinated and taking the right steps, just as Brittany and I are, we're still negative so that's good.'

Brittany added: 'He loves where he lives - his nursing home it's fantastic.

'But because we've been giving him such great meals and really looking after him, he said, "Oh girls, I don't want to go home!"

'We don't want him to go home either...'

Olivia added: 'We just can't wait for that all clear and give him a big hug.'
Lorry drivers are being head-hunted in greasy spoon cafes by HGV agents offering them 2,000 signing-on bonuses and day rates that could see them earn up to 70,000-a-year, it has emerged.

Recruiters, believed to be working for employment agencies who supply supermarkets like Sainsbury's and Tesco who can offer the best rates, are approaching drivers at transport stops and offering them 'astronomical' pay deals.

The national shortage of up to 100,000 drivers has led to supply issues at supermarkets, restaurants and pubs, prompting some large chains to temporarily close or remove items from their menus.

A trucker called Barney, a long-distance Class One driver from Milton Keynes with 17 years' experience, revealed on Naga Munchetty's phone-in show on BBC Radio 5 Live that he was approached at a 'well-known transport cafe near Watford' and offered a 2,000 'golden hello' to sign a two-year contract.

He told the host he was offered five night shifts a week paying 27-per-hour, with time-and-a-half for Saturdays and double-time for Sundays (54).

Assuming a Monday to Friday work week with eight-hour days, this would mean yearly earnings of around 56,000, with regular Saturday and Sunday shifts seeing that figure rising up to 70,000.

'In this industry, that is unheard of,' Barney said. 'I mean my boss doesn't even earn that. They are really looking for supermarket delivery drivers to do weekends, and the money is astronomical.'

Last month it was revealed that Waitrose was offering lorry drivers more money than some head office executives - and more than the average salary for solicitors and architects - amid the national shortage.

Recruiters, believed to be working for employment agencies who supply supermarkets like Sainsbury's and Tesco who can offer the best rates, are loitering at transport stops and approaching drivers with 'astronomical' pay deals. Pictured: A Tesco delivery driver outside a supermarket in central London, 9 September

Recruiters, believed to be working for employment agencies who supply supermarkets like Sainsbury's and Tesco who can offer the best rates, are loitering at transport stops and approaching drivers with 'astronomical' pay deals

The supermarket was willing to pay up to 53,780 annually to 'critically important' large goods vehicle (LGV) drivers - dwarfing the salaries being offered for several head office jobs advertised at John Lewis Partnership, Waitrose's parent company.

These include two senior executive roles at 45,000, and a finance analyst job at 46,700. The figure is also more than the average salary for secondary school teachers (40,880), solicitors (43,190) and architects (42,930).

Barney said the unnamed agency that offered him the job would have been working with 'Sainsbury's, Tesco and all the rest of the big supermarkets'.

MailOnline has approached several large supermarket chains for comment.

Ms Munchetty had revealed earlier on the programme that some lorry drivers had seen their salaries 'doubled to around 70,000', but that was said to be 'atypical'.

Naga Munchetty had revealed earlier on the programme that some lorry drivers had seen their salaries 'doubled to around 70,000', but that was said to be 'atypical'. Pictured: A Tesco delivery driver loads a lorry outside a supermarket in central London.

Barney said the unnamed agency that offered him the job would have been working with 'Sainsbury's, Tesco and all the rest of the big supermarkets'

Barney also spoke of his encounter with the recruiter, saying: 'Four days ago I was having my lunch in a well-known transport cafe near Watford and a very very well-dressed guy came in with a briefcase.

'To cut a long story short he offered me 2,000 if I would sign a two-year contract to work for his driver's agency. I was taken aback a bit. 2,000 is a lot of money. The figures he was coming up with are figures I've not heard of before.

'He (the agent) went other tables and I saw him leave with these other drivers, so I know they're signing them up.'

In theory, if demand were to rise to the point where the Sunday rate was applied for each shift, it would bring in 8,640 a month and 103,680 gross per year.

But Barney was not interested in the offer as he loves his current job, despite it paying much less - and he warned that people tempted by the lucrative offers could live to regret it.

This graph from the Department for Transport shows how the number of goods moved and lifted and distance travelled by vehicles has varied, compared to a baseline of 2004 Q4

Naga Munchetty had revealed earlier on the programme that some lorry drivers had seen their salaries 'doubled to around 70,000', but that was said to be 'atypical'

He added: 'Those jobs never last - I've seen people take them and they never last. We do need the industry to the looked at. These Johnny-come-lately figures are going to make a fortune out of it.

'My boss just doesn't understand how they can offer that money and he doesn't understand where that 2k signing on fee is coming from. It's not sustainable and lot of drivers and going to find themselves out of work.'

James Bielby, Chief Executive of the Federation of Wholesale Distributors, acknowledged that offers like this were happening across the logistics industry.

But he warned that the crisis will ultimately lead to higher prices for consumers.

'You've got agencies and logistics specialists making a lot of money out of this crisis,' he told the show.

'It's not sustainable, no. Because it will mean ultimately that the cost of goods is going up.'

Solving Britain's dire shortage of truck drivers needs government intervention, the boss of supermarket group the Co-operative said on Thursday.

'This won't be solved in isolation, this is a global issue where the supply chain has completely broken down,' Chief Executive Steve Murrells told Reuters on Thursday.

'You can't solve (a shortage of) 90,000 HGV drivers in isolation, it needs a structural change,' he said.

Murrells welcomed the announcement on Wednesday that minister Michael Gove will lead the UK government's response to the crisis and joined industry calls for HGV drivers to be added to the shortage occupation list so foreign workers can plug the gap.

Gove, previously the cabinet office minister, was moved to be housing, communities and local government minister in Prime Minister Boris Johnson's cabinet reshuffle.
Gabby Petito's father has said the main priority must be 'to make sure we get my daughter home first' and then 'we'll start worrying about' her boyfriend Brian Laundrie who was named a 'person of interest' in her disappearance.

Joe Petito told Fox & Friends First Thursday he doesn't 'give two craps' about Laundrie and slammed him for 'sitting home in his lazy boy chair' instead of helping in the search for his missing girlfriend.

'I don't care what happens to him right now,' he said.

Petito was last seen on August 24 leaving a hotel with Laundrie in Salt Lake City, Utah, during the couple's cross-country campervan trip which they started early July.

The following day she made her final call to her mom, telling her she and Laundrie had traveled to Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. She was reported missing by her family on September 11 after they hadn't heard from her in 13 days.

Gabby Petito's father has said the focus must be 'to make sure we get my daughter home first' and then 'we'll start worrying about' her boyfriend Brian Laundrie later - after he was named a 'person of interest' in her disappearance and is still refusing to cooperate with police

Gabby set out on a cross-country trip July 2 with boyfriend Brian Laundrie in the couple's 2012 Ford Transit van. Brian posted this photo of the couple on Instagram on July 16

Meanwhile, Laundrie - who was named a person of interest in the case Wednesday - returned to the couple's home in North Port, Florida, on September 1 with the van but without Petito, police said.

He has lawyered up and is refusing to cooperate with the investigation and has repeatedly ignored Petito's family's requests for help.

Laundrie's attorney Steven P. Bertolino addressed his decision to stay silent in a statement earlier this week, saying his client isn't speaking to police or the public 'on the advice of counsel' because 'intimate partners are often the first person law enforcement focus their attention on in cases like this.'

On Thursday, Petito's family issued yet another public plea for the Laundries to work with authorities in their efforts to bring their daughter home.

It came hours after bodycam footage emerged showing police being called to an incident involving the young couple in Moab, Utah, on August 12 - 13 days before Petito was last heard from.

Joe said these new developments in the case had left him feeling everything was 'not what you thought it was.' However, he said he just wants to keep the focus on finding his daughter.

'It's not what you thought it was,' he said.

Attorney Richard Stafford on Thursday read out an emotional letter from Petito's family begging the Laundries to cooperate, saying 'we believe you know the location of where Brian left Gabby'

A map shows the last known movements of Petito and Laundrie along their cross-country road trip which began July 2

'August 12, the person of interest... I get it from a legal side of it but from a family side we don't have Gabby.

'I want to care about finding my daughter first. That's my first objective.'

He then hit out at his daughter's boyfriend for his refusal to cooperate with police.

'That can't be my primary focus if he's going to sit in the comfort of his home, you know, and get home cooked meals, why my daughter's out, you know, God knows where, you know, I don't give two craps about him,' he said.

'I got to be out there to help her, because the one person who is supposed to be leading the charge is sitting home in his lazy boy chair, you know, not talking to anybody.'

He added: 'I want to worry about getting my daughter home first and then we'll start worrying about Brian.'

Joe also hit out at Laundrie's family who have so far shielded him from law enforcement.

Joe Petito told Fox & Friends First Thursday he doesn't 'give two craps' about Laundrie and slammed him for 'sitting home in his lazy boy chair' instead of helping in the search

Laundrie was named a person of interest and is refusing to cooperate with cop. The couple with their campervan

Police said they attempted to speak with Laundrie at his family property at the weekend but his parents refused to allow officers from doing so.

'It must be very difficult for the Laundrie family to have their son home while we're looking for ours so I'm not too concerned with how they're feeling,' said Joe.

In a press conference held in Petito's hometown of Long Island on Thursday, family attorney Richard Stafford released a heartbreaking letter from her parents begging the Laundries to help find their missing daughter.

Stafford read out an emotional letter saying her parents believed the Laundries 'know the location of where Brian left Gabby.'

'We understand you are going through a difficult time and your instinct to protect your son is strong.

'We ask you to put yourselves in our shoes. We haven't been able to sleep or eat and our lives are falling apart,' they added.

'As a parent, how can you let us go through this pain and not help us? As a parent, how could you put Gabby's younger brothers and sisters through this?'

The letter also confirmed reports that the young couple were engaged to be married and suggested the Laundries were 'so happy' that the two were planning to spend their lives together.

During the press conference Stafford would not provide further details about Petito's suspicious final text message to her family and refused to comment on the body camera footage from the August 12 incident.

He revealed the couple's cross country road trip included plans to visit Oregon on October 2, meaning Laundrie's premature return to his family's Florida home on September 1 would have seemed odd or unexpected.

'The family is devastated. Every day that this goes on, they get more and more desperate. They're at the point that this desperation as turned into anger,' Stafford said.

'They know that the Laundries know where their daughter is. And they will not tell them. That's infuriating.'

New bodycam footage emerged Wednesday showing police being called to an incident involving the couple in Moab, Utah, on August 12 - 13 days before Petito was last heard from. A tearful Petito is seen in the back of the police car

Laundrie is seen with scratches on his face which he tells an officer were caused when Petito 'was trying to get the keys from me' and 'hit me with her phone'

Stafford also said the Laundries had already retained legal representation by the time police came knocking on their door a week later.

During his interview Thursday, Petito's father said it was 'heart-wrenching' that he is unable to hug his daughter, saying she 'needs help and she is nowhere to be found.'

'That's my only daughter. Right now I can't give her a hug and she needs it, she needs help and she is nowhere to be found.'

He added: 'I don't know where do you even begin. We're just doing what we can and it's just difficult.

'She needs help and we got to get it to her.'

Joe said he didn't want to speculate on what has happened to his daughter because 'when I put scenarios in my head it doesn't end well.'

'I can't focus on that,' he said, adding that he was hopeful she was 'just stuck somewhere'.

'If I think of any other type of scenario in my head, I'm going to be on the floor so I can't do that,' he said.

'I got to focus that she is hurt and needs our help and we've got to find her as fast as we can.'

In the newly-released bodycam video, an emotional Petito is seen with tears streaming down her face telling officers the couple 'have been fighting all morning' and admitting that she slapped him.

Petito says she suffers from OCD and anxiety, with both her and Laundrie saying she was stressed because of the YouTube blog they were working on to document the doomed cross-country trip.

Laundrie is seen with scratches on his face and arm which he tells an officer were caused when Petito 'was trying to get the keys from me' and 'hit me with her phone'.

When an officer asks Petito if her boyfriend hit her, she replies 'I guess' and makes a grabbing motion on her chin. Laundrie admits he 'pushed her' during the altercation.

The cops determine Petito was 'the primary aggressor' and say they are separating the couple for the night.

The incident report says officers were called near the Moonflower Community Co-op in Moab on August 12 around 4:30pm for a 'possible domestic violence' incident involving the couple.

The report, released by the Moab Police Department on Wednesday, documented that the couple admitted they had been going through 'issues' over the last couple days.
A mother-of-four has been arrested after a police hunt when she failed to appear in court over charges she killed her own children in a brutal motorway crash.

Mary McCann, 35, of Derby, failed to appear before Aylesbury Crown Court on Friday to answer two charges of causing death by dangerous driving and an arrest warrant was issued.

She is set to stand trial over the deaths of her son Smaller, 10, and daughter Lilly, four, after slamming her white Vauxhall Astra into a Scania HGV while driving on the M1 near J14 and J15 on Monday, August 9.

The lorry driver was unhurt, but the motorway was closed for 12 hours.

Police confirmed on Thursday that Ms McCann, who speaks with an Irish accent, had surrendered herself at Aylesbury Police Station overnight and had been arrested.

Mary McCann (pictured), 35, of Derby, failed to appear before Aylesbury Crown Court to answer two charges of causing death by dangerous driving and an arrest warrant was issued

She is set to stand trial over the deaths of her son Smaller (pictured), 10, and daughter Lilly, four, after slamming her Vauxhall Astra into a Scania HGV while driving on the M1 on August 9

Police confirmed on Thursday that Ms McCann, who has an Irish accent, had surrendered herself overnight and had been arrested. Pictured: Ms McCann's children Lilly and Smaller

It was expected that Ms McCann (pictured) would be put before Aylesbury Crown Court where a request for the judge to remand her in custody would be made

A spokesman for Thames Valley Police said: 'A woman who was wanted for failing to appear at court in connection with a fatal road traffic collision has now been arrested.

'The woman, aged 35 years and from Derby, presented herself at Aylesbury police station last night.'

It was expected that Ms McCann would be put before Aylesbury Crown Court where a request for the judge to remand her in custody would be made.

The 35-year-old, of Bamford Avenue, Derby, was driving a white Vauxhall Astra that collided with a Scania HGV at about 11.10pm on Monday August 9.

Her son Smaller, 10, and daughter Lilly, 4, were killed in the crash on the northbound carriageway between junctions 14 and 15, near Milton Keynes.

The children's aunt, Margaret McCann, 26, said the family were on the way back from a party in London when the horror crash occurred.

Their mother's Facebook page showed an image of smaller next to a birthday cake and 10th birthday balloon from earlier on Monday August 9

Her son Smaller (left), 10, and daughter Lilly, four, died after Ms McCann slammed her white Vauxhall Astra into a Scania HGV while driving on the M1 near J14 and J15 on August 9

There was a Facebook post of a birthday cake showing it was Smaller's 10th birthday on the day he died

The HGV driver was not injured in the incident, which happened at about 11.10pm on Monday August 9 (file photo)

Ms McCann was injured and another daughter, two, was strapped into her seat in the car and survived the crash. Her 13-year-old daughter had stayed in London.

Devastated family members paid heartbreaking tributes to the children on social media.

One wrote: 'Life is cruel to take them away from my lovely brother. Best old father in the world, he put them first no matter how hard he hit they were his life please god give him the strength.'

The children's aunt said: 'RIP my perfect little niece and nephew. Aunt Elizabeth's old pet Smaller and me little frilly Lilly.

'Love you always and forever and never in this lifetime will you ever be forgotten, always loved.'

A family friend put: 'Mortal divine RIP beautiful angels. So sorry for your loss, their poor mommy and daddy.'

A cousin wrote: 'Can't believe I'm even writing this but rest in peace to my two beautiful little cousins Smaller and Lilly.

'I love you with all my heart. I love you so much this don't even feel real. What has this world come to, hearts in bits. RIP my babies.'

The court was told on Friday that the funerals of McCann's two children had taken place. Her one-year-old child is with the grandmother and is safe.
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New police bodycam footage has revealed the moment Utah cops asked missing 'van-life' woman Gabby Petito why she slapped her boyfriend Brian Laundrie in a dramatic incident 13 days before she disappeared on their cross-country trip.

The video shows an emotional Petito, 22, with tears streaming down her face telling officers she 'was trying to get him to stop telling me to calm down' and admitting the couple 'have been fighting all morning.'

In the clip, shot near Moab in Utah, Petito says she suffers from OCD and anxiety, with both her and Laundrie saying she was stressed because of the YouTube blog they were working on to document the doomed cross-country trip.

Laundrie is seen with scratches on his face and arm which he tells an officer were caused when Petito 'was trying to get the keys from me' and 'hit me with her phone'.

He later said she was angry with him because of his dirty feet. When an officer asks Petito if her boyfriend hit her, she replies 'I guess' and makes a grabbing motion on her chin.

Laundrie admits he 'pushed her' during the altercation.

The cops determine Petito was 'the primary aggressor' and say they are separating the couple for the night.

The couple had been traveling around the country in their camper van since early July and were visiting Moab, Utah when they got into an altercation, an incident report reveals.

The report says officers received reports of a 'possible domestic violence' incident involving the couple near the Moonflower Community Co-op in Moab on August 12 around 4:30pm.

The report, released by the Moab Police Department on Wednesday, documented that the couple admitted they had been going through 'issues' over the last couple days.

On Thursday, North Port Police Chief Todd Garrison said at a press conference the case was still being treated as a missing person's enquiry, and that there is so far no evidence of criminality in her disappearance.

'Right now, we are investigating a missing person case,' he said.

Garrison, joined by Petito's dad, said police were aware of Laundrie's current location but 'right now, no' they cannot bring him in for questioning.

'Two people went on a trip, one person returned. And that person that returned isn't providing us any information,' he said.

Garrison added that it was Laundrie's 'constitutional right' not to speak with law enforcement but said his lawyer had handed over some property they requested from him.

Scroll down for video

A tearful Petito is seen in the back of the police car. Laundrie admits he 'pushed her' during the altercation and cops determine Petito was 'the primary aggressor'

Emotional new police bodycam footage has revealed the moment Utah cops asked missing 'van-life' woman Gabby Petito why she slapped her boyfriend Brian Laundrie in a dramatic incident 13 days before she disappeared on their cross-country trip

Laundrie is seen with scratches on his face which he tells an officer were caused when Petito 'was trying to get the keys from me' and 'hit me with her phone'

Laundrie shows the officers his hands during the incident on August 12 - two weeks before his girlfriend vanished

The statement from Brian Laundrie's attorney: 'Many people are wondering why Mr. Laundrie would not make a statement or speak with law enforcement in the face of Ms. Petito's absence. 'In my experience, intimate partners are often the first person law enforcement focus their attention on in cases like this and the warning that 'any statement made will be used against you' is true, regardless of whether my client had anything to do with Ms. Petito's disappearance. 'As such, on the advice of counsel Mr. Laundrie is not speaking on the matter. 'I have been informed that the North Port, Florida police have named Brian Laundrie as a 'person of interest' in this matter. 'This formality has not really changed the circumstances of Mr. Laundrie being the focus of attention of law enforcement and Mr. Laundrie will continue to remain silent on the advice of counsel.' Advertisement

Petito was reported missing on September 11 after her family hadn't heard from her in 13 days. She last spoke to her mother on the phone on August 25 and her last known location was Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.

Laundrie returned to their home in North Port, Florida, alone on September 1 in the couple's camper van - which has now been seized by police - 10 days before she was reported missing.

On Wednesday police officially named Laundrie a 'person of interest' in her mystery disappearance and said he is refusing to cooperate with their investigation.

Laundrie's attorney released a statement saying he is not speaking to police or making a statement 'on the advice of counsel' because 'intimate partners are often the first person law enforcement focus their attention on in cases like this.'

Petito's father Joe told Fox & Friends First the focus must be 'to make sure we get my daughter home first' and then 'we'll start worrying about Brian' later.

'I don't care what happens to him right now,' said Petito's father.

'That can't be my primary focus if he's going to sit in the comfort of his home, you know, and get home cooked meals, why my daughter's out, you know, God knows where, you know, I don't give two craps about him.'

'I got to be out there to help her, because the one person who is supposed to be leading the charge is sitting home in his lazy boy chair, you know, not talking to anybody.'

Joe said learning about the August 12 incident and Laundrie being named a person of interest, had left him feeling 'it's not what you thought it was.'

However, he said he just wants to keep the focus on finding his daughter.

'It's not what you thought it was,' he said.

'August 12, the person of interest... I get it from a legal side of it but from a family side we don't have Gabby.

'I want to care about finding my daughter first. That's my first objective.'

The bodycam footage shows an officer reporting that the driver of a vehicle ahead is showing 'obscure driving', driving 45mph in a 15mph road, and is 'possibly intoxicated.'

He says the vehicle has bumped a curb and puts the sirens on.

The officer then gets out the vehicle and approaches the couple's white camper van, which they have pulled over.

Petito, who is crying, is seen sitting in the the passenger seat and Laundrie is driving.

The officer asks them to turn off the vehicle and asks their names and 'What's going on? Why are you crying?'

'We've just been fighting this morning, some personal issues,' says Petito.

Laundrie says it was 'a long day' of camping yesterday.

The officer asks Petito to step out of the vehicle and takes her down the road, separating the couple to ask her what happened.

'I have OCD and I was just cleaning and straightening...,' she says, while sobbing.

'And I was apologizing to him and saying I'm sorry that I am so mean as sometimes I am so mean because I have OCD and get really frustrated.

'Not like mean towards him, I guess my vibe is like in a bad mood, and I said I'm sorry I'm in a bad mood I am stressed I had so much work.'

She tells the officer they are traveling the country and trying to 'build a blog'.

'We have been fighting all morning and he wouldn't let me in the car before,' she says.

When the officer asks why he wouldn't let her in the car, she says 'he told me needed to calm down' adding that he 'really stresses me out' and that it's 'been a rough morning.'

A map shows the last known movements of Petito and Laundrie along their cross-country road trip which began July 2

According to the document, cops were called to a local business in Moab, Utah on August 12, after a witness reported seeing the couple 'arguing over a phone' outside their van

The officer tells Petito she is 'not in any trouble' and escorts her to the back of the cop car so she can 'take a breath' and have 'a few minutes.'

The officer then asks Laundrie to step out the vehicle and asks him what has happened.

'She gets really worked up sometimes and I try to distance myself from it,' Laundrie says.

Laundrie also mentions her work on the blog and that 'she got worked up.'

He goes on to say they had a 'little squabble' which started in the coffee shop 'when I moved our food around' and 'I'm dirty, and I can't change being dirty, I got sand in my flip flops and stuff.'

The officer asks about the scratches on his face, with Laundrie explaining that there was an altercation involving her cellphone and their keys.

'She had her cellphone in her hand, that's why I was pushing her away,' he says.

'Coz I had the keys... I said let's take a breather and let's not go anywhere. Let's calm down a minute.'

He adds: 'And she had her phone, and was trying to get the keys from me.

'I know I shouldn't have pushed her but I was just trying to push her away to say take a minute step back and breathe. And she hit me with her phone.'

A tearful Petito tells cops she has OCD and anxiety and that she was stressed because she was trying to 'build a blog'

When an officer asks Petito if her boyfriend hit her, she replies 'I guess' and gestures to her chin. Petito admits he 'pushed her' during the altercation

Laundrie shows cops his arms which they say note scratches on, before officers determine Petito was the 'primary aggressor'

At one point, officers check Laundrie's hands, arm and torso, noting scratch marks on his arm.

A second officer is then seen talking to Petito who is sitting in the back of the cop car.

'Did he hit you?' the officer asks.

'I guess,' she replies, becoming tearful.

When the officer asks where Laundrie hit her, she clasps her chin in a grabbing motion.

'He like, did that with his hand,' she says.

Much of the audio is unclear at this point.

Petito tells the officers she suffers from 'anxiety' and that Laundrie 'gets frustrated a lot'.

She insists neither of them have been drinking because 'we don't drink'.

Petito admits she was 'yelling at him', then said 'you're an idiot'' and made a punching motion.

She is later seen in the back of the car with a distressed expression on her face and her hands clasped in front of her on her lap.

'Were you attempting to cause him physical pain or impairment? Is that what you were attempting to do to him?' an officer asks.

Petito, who is looking at the officer, replies no.

The cops determine Petito was 'the primary aggressor' and say they are separating the couple (pictured together) for the night

'What were you attempting to do?' the cop asks.

'What was the reason behind the slapping and stuff? What was it you were attempting to accomplish by the slapping?'

'I was trying to get him to stop telling me to calm down,' Petito says, as her face crumples in tears.

The officer replies to her that 'it doesn't sound good.'

Later in the footage, the officer is seen telling Petito he will be keeping her and Laundrie apart for the night.

'I am separating you two tonight, okay?' the officer is heard telling Petito.

The 22-year-old nods through tears in response and mouths 'okay.'

'I want you guys both to be tonight, away from each other,' the officer says.

'Relax, breathe, because there's no need to be crying now,' he tells Petito.

Petito nods and wipes tears from her eyes.

'I understand that this can feel like a nightmare,' the officer says.

'But you have come out as the golden flower on top.'

The cops are also seen talking in the footage about the accounts given by Petito, Laundrie and the witness who reported the incident to police, where they agree she was 'the primary aggressor.'

Laundrie says he doesn't want to pursue any charges but the cops say they have no choice but to separate the pair for the night.

In his report, responding officer Daniel Scott Robbins said he pulled the couple over as they were driving towards Arches National Park and noticed Gabby 'crying uncontrollably' in the passenger seat

According to the police incident report, a witness, identified only as Christopher, had reported seeing the pair 'arguing over a phone.'

In his account, one of the responding officers Eric Pratt, wrote that 'all three individuals' - Gabby, Laundrie, and the witness - gave 'a similar and consistent story, consisting of the basic idea that the driver of the van, a male, had some sort of argument with the female.'

Pratt said no one reported 'that the male struck the female' and that both Gabby and Laundrie said 'they are in love and engaged to be married and desperately didn't wish to see anyone charged with a crime.'

The report reveals Laundrie told officers that he had tried to create distance between the two by telling Gabby 'to go take a walk to calm down', but 'she didn't want to be separated from [him] and began slapping him.'

'He grabbed her face and pushed her back as she pressed upon him and the van, he tried to lock her out and succeeded except for his driver's door, she opened that and forced her way over him and into the vehicle before it drove off,' Pratt states.

The bystander who reported the incident told cops a similar version of events but noted that he saw 'what appeared to him as Gabrielle hitting Brian in the arm and then climbing through the driver's window' after she appeared to be locked out.

A second officer, Daniel Scott Robbins, later located the couple - who had already left the scene by then - driving in their Ford Transit van towards Arches National Park and pulled them over.

He said he noticed Gabby 'crying uncontrollably' in the passenger seat as he approached the vehicle and asked to speak to her outside.

The report was redacted to conceal sensitive information but suggests Gabby told police she and Laundrie became embroiled in an altercation that was fueled by mental health issues.

Cops received reports of a possible domestic violence incident near the Moonflower Community Co-op in Moab on August 12

The above map illustrates the places Petito and Laundrie visited since the start of the trip leaving New York on July 2 to when she last spoke to her family on August 25 from Grand Teton National Park

'Gabrielle told me that she suffers from [redacted] with [redacted],' Robbins wrote.

'Because of her [redacted] and [redacted], combined with little arguments she and Brian had been having that day, she was struggling with her mental health, which led to the incident that was reported to law enforcement.'

He added that at 'no point' in his investigation did Gabby 'stop crying, breathing heavily, or compose a sentence without needing to wipe away tears, wipe her nose, or rub her knees with her hands.'

Robbins said that he had seen Petito and Laundrie's van traveling 45mph in a 15mph zone while he tried to catch up to them earlier and activated his lights to initiate a traffic stop.

But upon doing so, he noticed the vehicle abruptly swerve to the right and the rear right wheels hit the curb before finally coming to a stop.

Robbins said Petito later told him that this was a result of her trying to get Laundrie's 'attention to notice me as I was behind them with my lights on' and that she did not intend to hurt him.

But during his conversation with the cop shortly after, Laundrie said that when he noticed police lights flashing behind them, he thought Gabby 'had grabbed the wheel of the van and pulled it, causing the van to hit the curb.'

The report says Laundrie told the officer both he and Gabby suffer from the same problem and that issues between the two 'had been building over the last few days.'

'This in turn, caused them to argue more than usual,' Robbins wrote. 'Brian explained he and Gabrielle have been traveling together for the last four or five months.

'That time spent created emotional strain between them and increased the number of arguments.'

Police on Tuesday revealed they responded to an 'incident' involving 22-year-old 'van-life woman' Gabby Petito and her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie, two weeks before she was last seen

Gabby's family lashed out at the Laundries in a statement Tuesday. 'Brian is refusing to tell Gabby's family where he last saw her. Brian is also refusing to explain why he left Gabby all alone and drove her van to Florida. These are critical questions that require immediate answers.'

Laundrie went on to describe the events leading up to the altercation, saying he and Gabby had gotten into an argument near Main Street and he tried to create space between them 'so they could calm their emotions.'

He said he then got into their van and that Gabby went into a 'manic state.'

'Brian said Gabrielle, thinking he was going to leave her in Moab without a ride, went to slap him,' the report states.

He then pushed her away in an attempt to dodge the hit, but still sustained minor visible scratches to his face.

When questioned about the scratches to his right arm, Brian told Robbins they must've happened when Gabby was trying to alert him that they were being pulled over by police, the report states.

'This, however, was not consistent with Gabrielle's statement, further suggesting her confused and emotional state,' the officer wrote.

Robbins later concluded that he did not believe the situation 'escalated to the level of a domestic assault as much as that of a mental health crisis.'

According to officer, both expressed a 'desire to remain together and ultimately agreed to be separated' with Brian staying in a hotel room and Gabby in the van until the following day.

A statement provided by a second responding officer, Eric Pratt, said he believed the initial witness reported that it was Laundrie who had 'assaulted' Petito.

'It wasn't clear, but I believe it was reported the male had been observed to have assaulted the female,' he wrote.

Laundrie was then assessed to be 'at low risk of danger or harm as a result of his proximity' to Gabby and no charges were filed, Pratt wrote.

Nicole Schmidt, of Long Island, New York, gave a teary-eyed interview to reporters in Bohemia on Monday afternoon about her daughter Gabby Petitio, who has been missing since August 24. Schmidt tells DailyMail.com that on September 10 she texted Brian and his mother Roberta trying to get in touch with Gabby, but neither replied

Cops investigating the disappearance of Gabby Petito say they are not ruling out a link to the double-murder of a young newlywed couple Police investigating the disappearance of 'van-life' woman Gabby Petito have said they are not ruling out a link to the double-murder of a young newlywed couple. Kylen Schulte, 24, and Crystal Turner, 38, were found shot dead near their campsite in the La Sal Mountains in Moab, Utah, on August 18. Their bodies were discovered by a friend after they told several people about a 'creepy man' around their campsite. They were last seen alive on August 13 at Woody's Tavern in Moab - one day after police were called to a nearby incident involving Petito and boyfriend Brian Laundrie on August 12. There are other bizarre connections between the two cases. Kylen Schulte, 24, and Crystal Turner, 38, were found shot dead in Moab, Utah, on August 18 Schulte and Turner were also living in a camper van after marrying four months ago. Schulte had also worked for the last four years at the Moonflower Community Cooperative. The store was identified in the police report detailing the August 12 incident involving Petito and Laundrie. Officers had been called to near the store around 4:30pm that day for a 'possible domestic violence' incident. Utah police said Wednesday they are not ruling out a possible connection between the couple's murder and Petito's disappearance, reported Fox13. 'We're looking at everything,' said a Grand County Sheriff's Office spokesperson. 'I mean, anything and everything that was suspicious around that time or we're not ruling anything out at this time. So we're just investigating the information as it comes in.' Advertisement

On Tuesday, Moab Chief of Police Bret Edge confirmed that cops had responded to an incident involving the pair but they later 'determined that insufficient evidence existed to justify criminal charges,' Fox News reported.

He did not disclose additional details at the time.

Addressing reports of the incident on Wednesday, Gabby's mother, Nichole Schmidt told DailyMail.com: 'It's irrelevant.

'Two people traveling together with each other 24 hours a day, it's not going to be perfect, it was an argument, and that's all I'm going to say about it.'

The family released a statement Wednesday condemning Laundrie as the 'one person that can help find Gabby refuses to help.'

'The Schmidt and Petito family are going through the worst moments of their lives. Their beautiful twenty-two year old daughter is missing and the one person that can help find Gabby refuses to help. Brian Laundrie was traveling with Gabby in the Grand Teton  Yellowstone area. They were traveling together in Gabby's 2012 Ford Transit van. That is where we believe Gabby was last seen.

'Brian is refusing to tell Gabby's family where he last saw her. Brian is also refusing to explain why he left Gabby all alone and drove her van to Florida. These are critical questions that require immediate answers.

'The Schmidt and Petito family beg the Laundrie family to not 'remain in the background' but to help find who Brian referred to as the love of his life. How does Brian stay in the background when he is the one person that knows where Gabby is located?' they said.

'The Schmidt and Petito family implore Brian to come forward and at least tell us if we are looking in the right area.'

Meanwhile, Laundrie's attorney released a statement saying he is 'not speaking on the matter' and 'will continue to remain silent on the advice of counsel.'

'Many people are wondering why Mr. Laundrie would not make a statement or speak with law enforcement in the face of Ms. Petito's absence,' the statement read.

'In my experience, intimate partners are often the first person law enforcement focus their attention on in cases like this and the warning that 'any statement made will be used against you' is true, regardless of whether my client had anything to do with Ms. Petito's disappearance.

'As such, on the advice of counsel Mr. Laundrie is not speaking on the matter.

'I have been informed that the North Port, Florida police have named Brian Laundrie as a 'person of interest' in this matter.

'This formality has not really changed the circumstances of Mr. Laundrie being the focus of attention of law enforcement and Mr. Laundrie will continue to remain silent on the advice of counsel.'

Laundrie was named a person of interest by police Wednesday, who said he 'has not made himself available to be interviewed by investigators or has provided any helpful details.'

Petito, who had been traveling across the country with Laundrie in their camper van since July 2, was last known to have been visiting Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming on August 25.

She was reported missing by her mother on September 11, two weeks after she had last spoken on to her on the phone, and ten days after Laundrie returned to his home in North Port, Florida without her.

Laundrie, who drove to Florida in the van he shared with Petito, has since hired a lawyer and refused to tell Petito's family where she was last seen.

Schmidt sent her daughter's boyfriend and his family desperate texts looking for her but was ignored.

Schmidt said they'd been a couple for a little over two years, but met growing up in Long Island. 'They went to high school together. They were friends. They got back in touch and started dating'

Gabby set out on a cross-country trip July 2 with boyfriend Brian Laundrie in the couple's 2012 Ford Transit van. Brian posted this photo of the couple on Instagram on July 16 at Zion National Park

Schmidt told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview that on September 10 she reached out to Brian and his mother Roberta Laundrie trying to reach her daughter after she had not heard from her.

The gloves are off: Schmidt and Petito want answers 'The Schmidt and Petito family are going through the worst moments of their lives. Their beautiful twenty-two year old daughter is missing and the one person that can help find Gabby refuses to help. Brian Laundrie was traveling with Gabby in the Grand Teton  Yellowstone area. They were traveling together in Gabby's 2012 Ford Transit van. That is where we believe Gabby was last seen. 'Brian is refusing to tell Gabby's family where he last saw her. Brian is also refusing to explain why he left Gabby all alone and drove her van to Florida. These are critical questions that require immediate answers. 'The Schmidt and Petito family beg the Laundrie family to not 'remain in the background' but to help find who Brian referred to as the love of his life. How does Brian stay in the background when he is the one person that knows where Gabby is located? 'The Schmidt and Petito family implore Brian to come forward and at least tell us if we are looking in the right area.' Advertisement

'I texted Brian's mom that I was trying to get in touch with Gabby. I also texted Brian. I got no replies,' Schmidt said.

'I knew something was wrong,' she said. 'I felt something was off and I needed to get her reported missing immediately.'

She went to report Gabby missing later that day but police initially blew her off. The next day, she was allowed to file a report with the Suffolk County police department.

Brian's family have since refused to let authorities interview their son when the van that the couple had traveled in before she disappeared was seized from their property late on Saturday night.

Schmidt said Brian's sister Cassie is the only member of Brian's family who has spoken to authorities.

She said she can't understand why neither Brian nor his parents have reached out to her in the aftermath of her daughter's disappearance.

'It's a very mysterious situation. We don't understand why he's doing this. Everybody's assuming the worst and thinking he's guilty of this. But I don't want to believe that. I want to believe she's just in need of help out there and that everybody needs to keep searching.'

Schmidt described how Brian's parents had been warm and welcoming to Gabby during their relationship. She recalled a time when his mother even knitted her future daughter-in-law gifts for Christmas.

'She loved her like a daughter,' Schmidt said. 'As far as I knew they were all very caring and treated her like one of the family. His mom was so excited about the engagement.'

The distraught mother also clarified that Gabby and Brian had been engaged, but decided to call it off and go back to just dating because they felt they were too young for marriage.

'I think they kind of put that on hold just because they felt it was a little fast. They were excited at first, but then they were like, let's just wait, we're very young. So they were really just boyfriend and girlfriend,' she said.

She said they'd been a couple for a little over two years, but met growing up in Long Island.

'They went to high school together. They were friends. They got back in touch and started dating,' she said.

Brian Laundrie's parents Christopher and Roberta refused to let police speak with their son. He returned to their home on North Port,Florida on September 1

Above is the Laundrie family home in North Port, Florida, where Brian Laundrie returned in the couple's van without Gabby after their trip

In light of the disappearance, Schmidt says she's now viewing everything under a new lens.

'Maybe the relationship wasn't what I thought,' she said.

Schmidt has recently seen photos in the news of Brian's father performing yard work.

'If they cared about her, they would want to find her,' she said. 'Why aren't you out helping find her?'

'I don't want to seem accusatory,' she said. 'It's confusing, my mind is turning right now.'

She's also questioning Brian's trip back to Florida in August to help his father move their things into a storage unit. She wonders why it was necessary to move Gabby's things during their road trip and what became of her stuff.

'Where are her things?' she asked.

Asked why Brian chose to lawyer up, she replied, 'You know I wish I knew that answer, why.'

'I know that's the reason this story is so sought after is because it's odd. The police have said it's very odd. We don't know what's going on, and where is my daughter. I just want to find her.'

Gabby, who grew up in Blue Point, New York, was last seen on August 24 checking out of a hotel with Brian in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The following day she made her final call to her family, telling them that she and Brian had traveled to Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.

Her last Instagram post on August 25, shows her visiting the Monarch Wall in Ogden, Utah with the caption 'Happy Halloween'. The pair were heading from Ogden to Yellowstone National Park, just north of Grand Teton.

Gabby Petito's father says the main priority is to get her home safely - and then he'll start worrying about why her boyfriend refuses to speak to cops: 'The one person who is supposed to be leading the charge is sitting home in his lazy boy chair'

Gaby Petito's father has said the focus must be 'to make sure we get my daughter home first' and then 'we'll start worrying about' her boyfriend Brian Laundrie later - after he was named a 'person of interest' in her disappearance and is still refusing to cooperate with police.

Joe Petito told Fox & Friends First Thursday he doesn't 'give two craps' about Laundrie and slammed him for 'sitting home in his lazy boy chair' instead of helping in the search for his missing girlfriend.

'I don't care what happens to him right now,' said Petito's father.

'That can't be my primary focus if he's going to sit in the comfort of his home, you know, and get home cooked meals, why my daughter's out, you know, God knows where, you know, I don't give two craps about him.

'I got to be out there to help her, because the one person who is supposed to be leading the charge is sitting home in his lazy boy chair, you know, not talking to anybody.'

He added: 'I want to worry about getting my daughter home first and then we'll start worrying about Brian.'

Gaby Petito's father has said the focus must be 'to make sure we get my daughter home first' and then 'we'll start worrying about' her boyfriend Brian Laundrie later - after he was named a 'person of interest' in her disappearance and is still refusing to cooperate with police

Joe also hit out at Laundrie's family who have so far shielded him from law enforcement.

Police said they attempted to speak with Laundrie at his family property at the weekend but his parents refused to allow officers from doing so.

'It must be very difficult for the Laundrie family to have their son home while we're looking for ours so I'm not too concerned with how they're feeling,' said Joe.

Petito's family issued a statement Wednesday slamming Laundrie for his refusal to cooperate saying the 'one person that can help find Gabby refuses to help' and urging him to break his silence about what happened.

An attorney for Laundrie meanwhile said his client is not speaking 'on the advice of counsel' because it may be used against him as 'intimate partners are often the first person law enforcement focus their attention on in cases like this'.

John said the new developments in the case, including Laundrie being named a person of interest and the release of the police report from the August 12 'domestic incident' involving the couple, had left him feeling 'it's not what you thought it was.'

However, he said he just wants to keep the focus on finding his daughter.

'It's not what you thought it was,' he said.

Joe Petito told Fox & Friends First Thursday he doesn't 'give two craps' about Laundrie and slammed him for 'sitting home in his lazy boy chair' instead of helping in the search for his missing girlfriend

'August 12, the person of interest... I get it from a legal side of it but from a family side we don't have Gabby.

'I want to care about finding my daughter first. That's my first objective.'

Petito's father said it was 'heart-wrenching' that he is unable to hug his daughter, saying she 'needs help and she is nowhere to be found.'

'It's heart-wrenching,' he said.

'That's my only daughter. Right now I can't give her a hug and she needs it, she needs help and she is nowhere to be found.'

He added: 'I don't know where do you even begin. We're just doing what we can and it's just difficult.

'She needs help and we got to get it to her.'

Joe said he didn't want to speculate on what has happened to his daughter because 'when I put scenarios in my head it doesn't end well.'

'I can't focus on that,' he said, adding that he was hopeful she was 'just stuck somewhere'.

'If I think oif any other type of scenario in my head, I'm going to be on the floor so I can't do that,' he said.

'I got to focus that she is hurt and needs our help and we've got to find her as fast as we can.'
Boris Johnson's much-vaunted Cabinet reshuffle will have as much impact on ordinary voters as reshuffling the deckchairs on the Titanic.

Should we be celebrating that two of the four most important jobs in government are now held by women? That there are slightly more people with ethnic backgrounds?

Hardly. Sex and race is irrelevant. If this is promotion of the best talent available, I weep at the calibre of people entering politics and grovelling their way up the greasy pole to ministerial level. Success in politics is still down to networking and being pals with the right people.

This reshuffle wasn't about creating a dream team to level up Britain or Build Back Better - the latest dumb slogan Downing Street has devised to try and rekindle our belief in the government's ability to keep Britain solvent, to get food on supermarket shelves when in reality we need 83,000 lorry drivers, and to keep hospitals running when we're 50,000 doctors short and nurses are set to go on strike.

Tell me a single business with a turnover of billions that would chuck out key executives with no notice and immediately appoint a fresh set of people who will need to start learning their new jobs from scratch.

The Prime Minister has appointed Nadine Dorries - the MP who appeared on I'm a Celebrity without asking permission from her bosses - to be the new Minister for Culture. The woman who will now be deciding the future funding of the BBC, who should run Ofcom, and what power should be wrested from media giants like Facebook and Google, once admitted that her blog for constituents was '70% fiction'

Would you ask men and women who have run pet supplies to take over nursing homes? Or let the top team at Asda decide whether the BBC licence fee should remain?

Politicians bang on about how important education is. We tell kids to go to university, do apprenticeships. We moan they are useless at interviews, lack the social skills and the desire to go out and get jobs.

And now the Prime Minister has appointed Nadine Dorries - the MP who appeared on I'm a Celebrity without asking permission from her bosses - to be the new Minister for Culture.

The woman who will now be deciding the future funding of the BBC, who should run Ofcom, and what power should be wrested from media giants like Facebook and Google, once admitted that her blog for constituents was '70% fiction'. Does that give you confidence in her fitness for the new job? It's like asking me to run the Samaritans.

At least Dorries is not an Old Etonian - she grew up in Liverpool and went to state school. A successful writer, last year she earned over 120,000 in royalties from her novels. She's voted against gay marriage and attacked 'snowflake culture,' consistently accusing the BBC of being left-wing. Has she the ability to make impartial decisions about the future of our National Broadcaster?

And why did Boris remove the previous Culture Secretary  the utterly competent Oliver Dowden - to appoint such a controverisal figure? It smacks of box ticking to keep the feminists happy.

This sham reshuffle demonstrates yet again that running Great Britain PLC isn't about experience or skills, Government ministers are appointed because they are loyal to the biggest ego on the block - BoJo.

If top executives fail at their jobs in the real world. They get the chop before they can impact on profits and morale. Not so in government. Witness the incredible career of Gavin Williamson. A man running schools who once had a business making casseroles.

why did Boris remove the previous Culture Secretary  the utterly competent Oliver Dowden - to appoint such a controversial figure (Nadine Dorries left)? It smacks of box ticking to keep the feminists happy. Boris has put an extremely ambitious female  Liz Truss (right) - at the Foreign Office, meaning she'll be permanently flying around the world instead of plotting against him for the top job back at home.

Boris has cynically swapped around a few posts, chucked out the hopeless (Gavin Williamson), the insolent and supercilious (Dominic 'sunlounger' Raab) listened to Carrie and brought a couple of females to the front of the pack

Or the appointment of Dido Harding to run Test and Trace after she'd presided over the debacle at Talk Talk, voted the worse phone company for customer service.

After the National Audit Office found serious shortcomings in Test and Trace, Dido Harding remained as Head of Improvement at the NHS and will only be leaving her job next month.

Boris has cynically swapped around a few posts, chucked out the hopeless (Gavin Williamson), the insolent and supercilious (Dominic 'sunlounger' Raab) listened to Carrie and brought a couple of females to the front of the pack, all with the aim of showcasing himself at the centre of a team of second raters, ensuring he's more interested in re-election than social justice for all.

Both Raab and Williamson should have been culled weeks ago if delivery and expertise were the key criteria for holding public office.

Boris has put an extremely ambitious female  Liz Truss - at the Foreign Office, meaning she'll be permanently flying around the world instead of plotting against him for the top job back at home.

Tell me a single business with a turnover of billions that would chuck out key executives with no notice and immediately appoint a fresh set of people who will need to start learning their new jobs from scratch

As she's one of the worse public speakers in the Commons, it will be interesting to see how her communication skills flourish when relying on teams of interpreters.

Liz Truss once said her daughters choose her clothes. She's fixated on looking power-ready at all times and hard to miss in those Tory-Tastic power dresses in unflattering royal blue.

This is not a shrinking violet- every bottle of soya sauce, crate of pickled herring and bucket of squid that she's negotiated for the UK in her previous role as Trade Secretary has been documented, and issued with its own press release and tweet so we know how hard she works.

The Foreign Office job has been billed as her reward for signing 63 Trade deals post Brexit- but nearly all were simply replicating the previous terms set by the EU, and where's the evidence Liz Truss ever came up with a new strategy, or developed new alliances and won new agreements that weren't in place before her appointment? Yes, she worked hard, but is toil a substitute for talent?

Now, she must try and get us interested in our 'special relationship' with sleepy Joe Biden to ensure her quota of appearances on social media continue to soar. This might be a challenge for the woman who once said 'I'm not a diplomat'.

The second most powerful female at the top table, Home Secretary Priti Patel must be relieved to hang on to her job after refusing to speak to a conference of police officers face to face this week.

At least that has diverted attention from her continuing failure to stop rubber dinghies full of desperate people landing on the beaches of Kent or giving the French millions to build hostels in the vain hope that migrants might use them.

Or failure to fix the immigration halls fiasco at our airports. Or her failure to persuade the police that demonstrators blocking the M25 should be removed in something under four hours

Meanwhile, Education is now in the hands of the former Vaccine Minister, Nadhim Zahawi. At a time when our poorest children are struggling to get a basic education, with a huge gulf opening up between the haves and the have-nots, it might seem strange to appoint a privately educated man with a property empire worth 100 million to oversee education.

He's done a good job pushing out the vaccination programme, but at education, his biggest challenge will be underfunding. Former teacher and council boss Sir Kevan Collins was asked to write a report for the Government detailing how to level up education post-covid.

Collins wanted 15 billion to fund more teachers and an extended school day but Boris came up with just 1.4 billion- which equates to 22 per child in primary school per year. Collins, unsurprisingly, resigned.

If Zahawi wants to show his mettle, he must get Collins - a highly respected figure - back on board.

Instead of celebrating women in power, it would be more telling to reflect on the team of multimillionaires now running the biggest offices of state; Education, Health, and the Treasury.

In a Tory government, Money, not talent, always talks loudest.
A five-year-old boy and his mother have won a legal case against the regulator of a Staffordshire landfill site accused of emitting noxious gases that risk shortening his life.

Lawyers for Mathew Richards argued there is a 'public health emergency' in the vicinity of Walleys Quarry in Silverdale, Newcastle-under-Lyme, claiming hydrogen sulphide (H2S) emissions are affecting 'hundreds and probably thousands of local people'.

Mr Justice Michael Fordham today found in Mathews favour, ruling that 'real and significant change' was required 'as a matter of urgency'.

It comes after residents said they were forced to tape their windows and doors shut to avoid the smell of 'rotting flesh' or 'faeces' swept into their homes.

In response to today's ruling, the Environment Agency (EA), which is monitoring the site's air-quality levels, said it will continue using its regulatory powers to ensure Walleys Quarry Ltd bring 'hydrogen sulphide emissions under control'.

Residents living in the vicinity of the Walleys Quarry in Silverdale, Newcastle-under-Lyme said they were forced to tape their windows and doors shut to avoid the smell of 'rotting flesh' or 'faeces' swept into their homes

Walleys Quarry in Silverdale, Newcastle-under-Lyme where local residents have complained of a foul stench coming from the site

Mr Justice Michael Fordham today found in Mathews (left) favour, ruling that 'real and significant change' was required 'as a matter of urgency'. Mr Justice Fordham made a declaration that the Environment Agency 'must implement' Public Health England's advice to reduce concentrations of hydrogen sulphide in the local area to one part per billion, less than an eighth of the level that can be smelled, by January 2022

At a two-day hearing in August, the High Court in London heard that Mathew was a vulnerable child, born prematurely at 26 weeks with a chronic lung disease and needed oxygen support for 19 months.

The five-year-old's doctor told the court that as the H2S emissions were preventing his recovery and lung development, he was at risk of developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in the future which would dramatically reduce his life expectancy.

His lawyers accused the EA of 'failing' to take measures and being in breach of Mathew's human rights.

Mr Justice Fordham made a declaration that the EA 'must implement' Public Health England's advice to reduce concentrations of hydrogen sulphide in the local area to one part per billion, less than an eighth of the level that can be smelled, by January 2022.

He said: 'Based on all the evidence, about Mathew, and about the emissions, and about the implications of the emissions for Mathew, I am satisfied that there is a direct effect on Mathew's home, family life and private life from adverse effects of severe environmental pollution.'

Mathew's mother Rebecca Currie described fumes from the site as 'a stomach-wrenching smell like rotten eggs', as other residents said they suffered headaches and nosebleeds which they attributed to the smell from the quarry.

Ms Currie, who lives approximately 400 metres from the landfill, previously said she would have been forced to move away from her home with her son if the legal action failed.

The court heard the EA had taken 'very substantial steps' at the landfill site and 'continues to keep matters under review'.

Public Health England's position is that 'currently any risk to long-term health is likely to be small, but a risk cannot completely be excluded if exposure were to continue at current levels', the court heard.

Justice Fordham added: 'It will require pressing and ongoing action which will, in my judgment, make a very real difference so far as the air which Mathew, and his community, breathes is concerned.

'I accept it is not necessary, nor is it appropriate, for this court to say that there is a current breach by the EA of its legal obligations.

'I have made clear that I am not satisfied, on the evidence, that the EA has yet addressed its legal duties in the way that it must.

'But there is an obvious and pressing public interest imperative that it must do so, as a matter of urgency.

'It is well able to do so.'

Residents, dad Josh Cutler, 30, daughter Isla, 5, Becci Whalley, 29, with her son Tobias Cutler, 2, previously complained about the foul smell coming from the nearby landfill site

After the judgment, Ms Currie said: 'This decision today, it's going to give Mathew and the community fresh air again. Not what we've been breathing in.

'Now I can stay in my own home because I was being forced out. Obviously I couldn't let Mathew live there any longer if the answer hadn't gone in his favour today.

'If you've got a child and you need to fight, fight. Don't back off from it. Do what I've done - fight for it.'

After today's judgement, an Environment Agency spokesperson said: 'We have every sympathy with the local community, who should not have to live with the distress caused by landfill gas being released from Walleys Quarry.

'That's why we are requiring the operator, Walleys Quarry Ltd, to take action.

'The court agreed that we are right to rely on assessments and advice from Public Health England and did not find a present breach by the Environment Agency of its legal obligations.

'We have a dedicated team working closely with our partners through a multi-agency forum to resolve the issues and to improve the situation for local people.

'We will continue to use our regulatory powers to require Walleys Quarry Ltd to bring hydrogen sulphide emissions under control.'

Lawyers for Mathew Richards argued there is a 'public health emergency' in the vicinity of Walleys Quarry in Silverdale, Newcastle-under-Lyme (pictured), claiming hydrogen sulphide (H2S) emissions are affecting 'hundreds and probably thousands of local people'

The EA added that it will seek to appeal some parts of the judgment.

Mathew's solicitor Rebekah Carrier described the case as being 'truly David and Goliath' with a mother coming up against a Government agency.

Afterwards, she added: 'While we are delighted with todays judgment we are very concerned that the Environment Agency do not appear to be taking their duties as seriously as they must.

'We will be keeping a very close eye on the situation to make sure that they do take the urgent action the High Court has said is needed.

'If they do not take the action necessary to protect the human rights of Mathew and others in the community we will have no hesitation in bringing the matter back to court.

'I would also like to pay tribute to Rebecca Currie, who has bravely stood up to the Environment Agency to protect the life of her child.

'This is truly a 'David and Goliath' case where a mother has faced up to the Government agency which is supposed to protect public health and yet has failed so badly to do so.'

However, Ms Currie said she was 'angry' that the EA was able to carry on operating the Staffordshire landfill for as long as it was.

'I really am angry about that because at the end of the day there were thousands of complaints', she said.

'When the first couple of hundred were coming in, they should've acted then but we've just been fobbed off.'

The family's solicitor Ms Carrier added: 'We asked the Environment Agency what they thought "as soon as possible" means, and instead of telling us how they were going to get the levels down and when we could expect them to do that they applied for permission to appeal.

'That's been refused by Mr Justice Fordham, so hopefully now we'll have real action really quickly to make sure the families of Silverdale can have clean air.'

Ms Carrier added that if no steps are taken, the problem risks getting worse in the winter.

She said: 'There's a concern about how that's managed given that the evidence is that hydrogen sulphide emissions are worse in the winter.

'I think the community are going to be delighted that they are hopefully going to have some change before winter, because there was a lot of anxiety there about what was going to happen if it got worse.

'The irony about this case is that I met Mathew off the train this morning and said: "Ok Mathew, welcome to London, breathe our clean air".

'When would you ever say that to anybody else? But that's the reality for Mathew. He doesn't have clean air to breathe at home.'
A fire service has cracked down on its gender pay gap to become one of the few public bodies in Britain to pay women more than men - by 1p an hour.

It comes after the annual pay gap report of the Avon Fire and Rescue Service revealed the average female employee earns 15.66 per hour - just above the average 15.65 earned by their male counterparts.

It means the salaries of female workers at the service are on average 0.07 per cent higher than those of male employees.

The service has seen its pay gap fall from 4.48 per cent the previous year when women earned an hourly wage of 14.68 - 69p less than the 15.37 rate for men.

A 2019 report showed 88.5 per cent of public bodies, on average, paid men more than women.

The Avon report comes less than three years after government inspectors found that female employees were treated 'inappropriately'.

The annual pay gap report of the Avon Fire and Rescue Service revealed the average female employee earns 15.66 per hour - just above the average 15.65 earned by their male counterparts (file photo)

In a statement within the document, authority chairwoman Cllr Brenda Massey and chief fire officer Mick Crennell (pictured) said: 'Avon Fire Authority is committed to developing a culture which puts diversity, inclusion, cohesion and equality at the heart of all our work'

Gender pay gap has been tightening since 2016, figures show The latest Gender Pay Gap in the UK report, released by the ONS last November, shows the gap between women and men's salaries is tightening. The report found: Among full-time employees the gender pay gap in April 2020 was 7.4%, down from 9.0% in April 2019.

The gender pay gap among all employees was 15.5% in 2020, down from 17.4% in 2019.

The gender pay gap remained close to zero for full-time employees aged under 40 years but was over 10% for older age groups.

Compared with lower-paid employees, higher earners experienced a much larger difference in hourly pay between the sexes.

There was a fall in the gender pay gap within the managers, directors and senior officials occupation group in 2020; this group has previously been identified as having a notable impact on the pay gap.

The gender pay gap was higher in every English region than in each of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Since 2016, the gap has reduced among employees working in both smaller and larger (250 or more employees) companies; from 2017, organisations employing 250 or more employees have been required by the UK government to publish and report specific figures about their gender pay gap.

Evidence from the ASHE and the Labour Force Survey (LFS) suggests that coronavirus (COVID-19) factors did not have a notable impact on the gender pay gap in 2020 Source: ONS (Office of National Statistics) Advertisement

The figures, to be discussed by Avon Fire Authority's people and culture committee on Friday, are based on the snapshot date of March 31, 2021.

Those from the previous 12 months which are also going to the committee for approval following long delays because of Covid relate to salaries on the same date in 2020.

The official UK national gender pay gap is 7.4 per cent, the report says.

In a statement within the document, authority chairwoman Cllr Brenda Massey and chief fire officer Mick Crennell said: 'Avon Fire Authority is committed to developing a culture which puts diversity, inclusion, cohesion and equality at the heart of all our work.

'Gender equality and ensuring people are paid fairly for the work they do is a key aspect of this.

'We are encouraged to see that Avon Fire & Rescue Service has a gender pay gap which has reduced from last year and is still lower than the current national average.

'We do however recognise that we have much more to do in order to ensure our organisation is truly inclusive for women.'

The report said the service had made considerable progress to complete its culture change action plan in response to a damning government inspection in 2018.

HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services had found women were treated 'inappropriately' and rated the organisation 'inadequate' at both promoting the right values and culture and ensuring fairness and promoting diversity.

The pay gap report however said there had been an increase of women in the top quarter of earners in the organisation from 17.9 per cent in 2020 to 20..4 per cent this year.

It said: 'Having a gender pay gap is different to equal pay.

'Equal pay deals with the differences between men and women who carry out the same or similar jobs, or work of equal value.

'The gender pay gap shows the difference in the average pay between all men and women in a workforce.

'It compares hourly rates of pay and any bonuses staff may receive by gender, highlighting any areas of imbalance.'

As of March 31 there were 901 employees, of which 744 were men and 157 women.

The service is broadly split into uniformed staff, including full and part time firefighters and control staff, whose pay and conditions are negotiated nationally, and non-uniformed staff such as those in human resources, finance and technical services whose conditions are negotiated locally and salaries determined through an evaluation system.

Legislation introduced in 2017 by Theresa May's government required companies with more than 250 employees to report their gender pay gaps.

Annual reports conducted by the Office of National Statistics have since found the gap to be tightening across the UK.

The latest report, released in November last year, found that among full-time employees the gender pay gap in April 2020 was 7.4%, down from 9.0% in April 2019.
The first booster Covid vaccines were given to NHS and care workers today as the drive to top up immunity in more than 30million Britons got up and running.

Staff at Croydon University Hospital in London gave the 'thumbs up' as they received their injection, just 48 hours after the booster scheme was signed off.

The Government's vaccine advisory panel green-lit the move on Tuesday after weeks of deliberation, with over-50s, frontline workers and vulnerable Britons now eligible.

Its decision was vindicated last night when a major Israeli study on a million over-60s people showed a booster slashed the risk of severe Covid by 20-fold.

Eligible Britons are only being invited to come forward if they had their second jab at least six months ago, which officials said was the 'sweet spot' for boosters.

MailOnline's analysis of official figures suggest only 1.6million Britons currently meet the criteria for top-up jabs, due to the six-month wait.

Third doses will be rolled out to the top nine priority groups during the initial drive, with the elderly, medics and carers first in line again.

Maternity worker Catherine Cargill became the first person in the UK to receive a booster. The rollout comes barely 48 hours after the plans were signed off

Dee Braim gives the thumbs up after receiving her third Covid jab at Croydon University Hospital, south London

MailOnline's analysis of official figures suggests only 1.6million Britons are currently meet the criteria for boosters, due to the six-month wait. And the first 32million people were not fully immunised until June 24. However, this figure will include hundreds of thousands of under-50s, as uptake is no 100 per cent among those who are eligible for third doses. Boosters have to be given at least six months after the second dose, meaning the majority in the group may not be jabbed until November and December

The above groups will be the first to receive doses of the Covid vaccine. Britain's vaccine advisers say the 'sweet spot' for boosters is about six months after the second dose is administered. Booster shots are set to be rolled out in descending order from group one  elderly residents in care homes  to nine

Catherine Cargill, a maternity support worker at Croydon University Hospital, was one of the first people to get a booster today.

She said: ' I have had it ahead of the winter season to make sure I am protected, to make sure I can carry on working, I can carry on spending time with my family, and so I can carry on with my studies.

'I would definitely want to encourage you to get your booster shot when you are invited to do that.'

NHS and care staff are being prioritised because they work with sick or elderly people who are the most susceptible to falling seriously ill with Covid.

Hospital hubs started vaccinating frontline health and care workers today and have began identifying other eligible patients.

GP-led local vaccination services will follow suit in the coming days, with mass vaccination centres and pharmacies to begin dishing out doses next week.

The decision to push ahead with boosters was vindicated last night when a major Israeli study on more than a million elderly people showed a booster slashed the risk of severe Covid by 20-fold. The research, led by the country's health ministry, looked at more than 1.1million Israelis who had been double-jabbed for at least five months. The Y axis shows a reduction in likelihood to test positive for Covid after a booster, with a greater number representing a lower risk. The X axis is the number of days after the booster vaccine

Israel pulled the trigger on a booster vaccine programme in August, which has stabilised the spiralling outbreak. The country recorded 136 hospital admissions in the week to September 12, down from the peak of 165 in the last week of August

Proof Covid booster vaccines work: Israeli data shows rates of severe illness were 20 TIMES lower Over-60s given a booster Covid jab are 20 times less likely to fall severely ill with Covid than those vaccinated with two doses, a major Israeli study has found. A third dose was also found to slash the risk of becoming infected with the virus tenfold, in the firmest piece of evidence yet that the UK was right to go ahead with a mass booster programme. The research, led by the country's health ministry, looked at more than 1.1million Israelis who had been double-jabbed for at least five months. It found that people given a booster jab were 19.5 times less likely to be hospitalised with Covid than those who were still relying on protection from two doses and 11.3 less likely to test positive for the virus. Both findings apply to the Pfizer vaccine, which Israel has relied on solely for its coronavirus immunisation programmes. British experts hailed the findings as 'spectacularly good'. They come just a day after the UK finally signed off on the campaign for 32million over-50s, health and social care staff and Britons with severe health issues. Israel became the first country in the world to roll out third doses in August, initially inviting over-60s but later gradually opening it up to everyone over the age of 12. Nearly 3m Israelis have been 'boosted' so far and the country but officials in the UK believe younger people are still enjoying very high protection. Separate Israeli data also announced today showed a booster dose generates 10 times more antibodies than the second vaccine. Medics at Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, outside Tel Aviv, compared the antibody levels in staff one week after their third and second doses. Advertisement

Eligible people will be contacted by the NHS to arrange an appointment, with 4.5million people in priority groups to be invited over the next month.

People will get a call or text from their local GP surgery, or will be invited by the National Booking Service, which will start issuing invitations from Monday.

Some of those in the original nine priority groups who've already been fully-jabbed will not be eligible for the top-up until December.

And data shows there are hundreds of thousands who are still yet to get their second jab.

Doses of the Pfizer jab, or a half dose of Moderna, will be administered as boosters, regardless of which jab they initially received, because studies showed they were the most effective at topping up immunity.

For those who cannot get either of those two mRNA jabs, such as due to an allergy, they will be given a dose of AstraZeneca's vaccine.

A half dose of Moderna has been chosen because it was found to have fewer side effects but similar efficacy.

Dr Nikki Kanani, GP and deputy lead for the Covid vaccination programme said: 'Alongside one of our busiest summers in the NHS, our hardworking staff have also been gearing up to deliver the autumn booster programme, to give further protection to healthcare and social care workers and those most at risk from the virus.

'Now that the decision has been taken by the JCVI and once the relevant checks are in place, the NHS will invite you for your booster vaccination.

'There is no need to contact the NHS  we will be in touch with you when it is your turn to get your booster vaccine  at least six months on since your last dose.

'The fast preparations of staff to get ready for boosters comes on the back of our biggest vaccination drive in health history which has delivered more than 77 million vaccinations across the country.

'Getting the vaccine remains the best way to protect yourself and those around you from Covid  so please do come forward for this top up of protection when you are invited.'

The booster rollout is the first phase of the Government's winter plan to avoid another lockdown.

If hospitalisations rise quickly, ministers have warned they could be forced to reintroduce face masks and work from home guidance.

The Prime Minister was told it is better to act early, rather than dithering and having to go harder to fight off any surge later this year.

Government statistics show the UK hit 10million second vaccinations on April 18, meaning the third dose rollout will not be open to a third of those eligible until mid-October.

And it took until June 24 to administer 32million second doses, meaning those with waning immunity could be heading into the Christmas season with low levels of protection.

Last night, a study by Israel's health ministry found over-60s given a booster Covid jab are 20 times less likely to fall severely ill with Covid than those vaccinated with two doses.

A third dose was also found to slash the risk of becoming infected with the virus tenfold, in the firmest piece of evidence yet that the UK was right to go ahead with a mass booster programme.

Mel Whiteley receiving a Covid booster jab. Eligible Britons are only being invited to come forward if they had their second jab at least six months ago, which officials said was the 'sweet spot' for boosters

Booster doses of the Pfizer jab, or a half dose of Moderna, are being administered after evidence showed they were the most effective

The research looked at more than 1.1million Israelis who had been double-jabbed for at least five months.

It found that people given a booster jab were 19.5 times less likely to be hospitalised with Covid than those who were still relying on protection from two doses and 11.3 less likely to test positive for the virus.

Both findings apply to the Pfizer vaccine, which Israel has relied on solely for its coronavirus immunisation programmes. British experts hailed the findings as 'spectacularly good'.

Israel became the first country in the world to roll out third doses in August, initially inviting over-60s but later gradually opening it up to everyone over the age of 12.

Nearly 3m Israelis have been 'boosted' so far and the country but officials in the UK believe younger people are still enjoying very high protection.

Separate Israeli data also announced today showed a booster dose generates 10 times more antibodies than the second vaccine.

Medics at Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, outside Tel Aviv, compared the antibody levels in staff one week after their third and second doses.

What is the booster, when will I get mine, and what version will it be? As the over-50s and vulnerable people are set to receive a Covid vaccine top-up before Christmas, we answer the vital questions

What is a booster jab?

It is a third dose of coronavirus vaccine intended to give greater and longer-lasting protection than the first two.

A study by Public Health England found immunity starts to wane around 20 weeks after receiving the second dose, particularly in the elderly.

This means people gradually become more likely to catch the virus, end up in hospital with severe disease or die.

A trial called CovBoost, which explored the impact of giving a third dose, found it increased antibody levels beyond that achieved with two jabs.

A study by Public Health England found immunity starts to wane around 20 weeks after receiving the second dose, particularly in the elderly. This means people gradually become more likely to catch the virus, end up in hospital with severe disease or die (stock image)

Who will get one?

Around 32million people in the UK will initially be offered it.

They include everyone in priority groups one to nine in the initial vaccine rollout.

This includes those aged at least 50, people living and working in elderly care homes, and frontline health and social care workers. All those aged 16 to 49 with underlying health conditions that put them at higher risk of severe Covid also qualify, as will adult household contacts of those with suppressed immune systems.

When will I get mine?

People should wait at least six months after their second dose, according to the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).

The NHS will start inviting people this week  vaccinations begin next week. Health officials hope to have offered a booster jab to all those eligible before Christmas.

The NHS will start inviting people this week  vaccinations begin next week. Health officials hope to have offered a booster jab to all those eligible before Christmas (stock image)

Which version will I get?

The JCVI has recommended the use of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, regardless of the one people received for their first and second doses.

A half dose of Moderna may also be used as a booster but the AstraZeneca/Oxford jab will only be used if patients are allergic to the others.

All three have been approved for use by the medical regulator, the MHRA, and are considered safe and effective.

Some vaccination centres or GP surgeries may only offer one type of jab, meaning people will not get to choose.

Will I still get my flu jab?

The NHS is embarking on its biggest ever flu vaccination programme and wants those eligible to have both jabs.

The MHRA has approved the use of the Covid and flu vaccines at the same time, saying this does not affect their safety or effectiveness.

It is possible one will be given in each arm, but it is likely many people will receive them on different days as they may need the flu jab before its their turn to have the Covid booster.
Hungarian Gabor Berczi-Tomscanyi body was found after it went missing in the Grand Canyon. He was travelling the US when his friends reported him missing. Police found his car near in the Canyon's parking lot

Recovery crews searching the Grand Canyon for a missing Hungarian man discovered another corpse - believed to be that of a Brooklyn man last seen there in 2015.

Crews believe the skeletal remains they found in August belong to Brooklynite Scott Walsh, 56, who was last seen getting off a shuttle bus near South Rim in 2015.

DNA testing is underway to confirm the identity of that body.

Those remains were discovered while recovery teams used a helicopter to look for the body of Hungarian Gabor Berczi-Tomscanyi, who was reported missing to Las Vegas police in late July was traveling in the US. Tomscanyi is still missing.

'It happens every once in a while here during searches that we end up finding people we weren't expecting,' park spokesperson Joelle Baird told NBC.

Berczi-Tomscanyi's car was found in the Canyon's parking lot in mid-August and crews found his body a few days later.

His death was determined to be caused by a traumatic fall near Pipe Creek overlook, roughly three miles from where Walsh's day pack was found six years ago.

It is unclear whether Berczi-Tomscanyi fell to his death by accident, or took his own life.

Berczi-Tomscanyi's was found near the Pipe Creek overlook (pictured) and his death was determined to be from a traumatic fall

Walsh, whose last known address was in Ecuador was found with a New York driver's license with a Brooklyn address inside his jacket, near Yavapai Point, according to NBC.

The circumstances of his death also remain unclear.

Baird called the find 'coincidental,' stating: 'We weren't necessarily looking for him, and he wasn't a person that was really on our radar.'

Rangers during scheduled training have found remains of people who went missing years ago, long after they were reported missing.

Tourists, including those on rafts traveling down the Colorado River, have also found remains over the years, including when a group found the wreckage of an old plane crash suspected of being piloted by Joseph Radford from Glendale, Arizona.

Investigators likely suspect that Radford purposely crashed his home-built plane into the Grand Canyon in March 2011.

There were no signs of the crash until rafters found it in 2015.

There are currently reported eight people listed as missing from the Grand Canyon, which covers 1904 square miles, in the last 10 years, NBC reported.
The son of a fugitive consigliere in Colombo crime family taunted the FBI with a Florida poolside of his father a day after his suspected mob family was arrested in a New York City raid and then hurriedly deleted it.

Ralph DiMatteo, 66, was the only person mentioned in Tuesday's federal indictment to evade arrest, and that's because he was soaking up the Florida rays.

At some point, his son - Angelo DiMatteo - posted a picture of his dad on Wednesday - shirtless and waist-deep in a pool - to his Twitter account and removed by Thursday morning.

The post could now be used by investigators to try and track down the Colombo family's consigliere (adviser) and bring him to justice.

DiMatteo's wife is pictured behind him, with her head at the edge of the pool as she relaxes and enjoys its waters.

He also tweeted a picture of a rat, suggesting the family is unhappy about snitches getting them in trouble, on Tuesday. That too has been removed.

Federal prosecutors are aware of the tweets and sudden deletions.

John Marzulli, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorneys Office in Brooklyn, declined to comment on the snap but said the feds consider the elder DiMatteo to be a fugitive.

Ralph DiMatteo, 66,(pictured) taunts the FBI with a pool picture after federal law enforcement arrested other members of his Colombo crime family

Ralph, who remains on the run as of Thursday afternoon, served as consigliere - or special adviser to the crime boss - and was part of a sweeping indictment against the entire leadership of the Colombo crime family.

The indictment accuses the crime family of running a scheme involving labor union shakedowns, extortion, loansharking, drug trafficking and money laundering.

He's accused of colluding with fellow defendants to devise a scheme to launder money from union healthcare contracts and payments.

Ralph is said to have done this through various channels linked to Joseph Bellantoni, who was named as a co-conspirator in the indictment, and eventually to the Colombo crime family's leaders, according to the federal indictment.

He was also accused of threatening bodily harm to control the management of the labor union that they were targeting and influencing decisions that benefitted the family.

Reputed Colombo street boss Andrew 'Andy Mush' Russo, 87, and his underboss, Benjamin 'The Claw' Castellazzo, 83, were also scooped up by federal agents and New York police, along with seven other members of the Colombo crime family.

Among those charged was 75-year-old capo (captain) Vincent 'Vinny Unions' Ricciardo, who was recorded during a phone call in June threatening to kill a labor union official if he didn't play ball, according to the 19-count indictment.

'I'll put him in the ground right in front of his wife and kids, right in front of his f***ing house,' Ricciardo says in the disturbing recording described in the indictment.

'I'm not afraid to go to jail, let me tell you something, to prove a point? I would f***ing shoot him right in front of his wife and kids, call the police, f*** it, let me go, how long you think I'm gonna last anyway?'

Reputed street boss of the Colombo crime family Andrew 'Mush' Russo, 85, (left) and Capo Vincent 'Vinny Unions' Ricciardo (right) arrested in an early-morning raid Tuesday in NYC

Colombo underboss Benjamin 'The Claw' Castellazzo (left), 83, and high-ranking capo Theodore 'Skinny Teddy' Persico Jr. (right), were among the 13 arrested mobsters, feds said

The other captains, or capos, arrested include Richard Ferrara, 59, and Theodore 'Skinny Teddy' Persico Jr., 58, who is the nephew of the late Colombo boss Carmine 'The Snake' Persico.

Colombo soldier Michael Uvino, 56, and associates Thomas Costa, 52, and Domenick Ricciardo, 56 - Vincent's cousin - were also booked.

The indictment against the crime family members lays out multiple schemes in a long-running campaign to infiltrate and take control of a Queens-based labor union and its affiliated health care benefit program, and a conspiracy to commit fraud in connection with workplace safety certifications.

The feds also arrested a footsoldier for the Bonanno family, 59-year-old John 'Maniac' Ragano, who is charged with loansharking, fraud and drug-trafficking offenses.

Ragano is accused of leading a scheme to issue fraudulent workplace safety training certifications to construction workers, according to the indictment.

Rather than provide candidates the proper training, Ragano and fellow defendant and business partner, John Glover, 62, allegedly falsified federal paperwork, indicating hundreds of workers completed mandatory safety courses that they did not actually complete - or even attend.

The feds also arrested a soldier for the Bonanno family, John 'Maniac' Ragano, who is charged with loansharking, fraud and drug-trafficking offenses

Instead, various defendants used Ragano's pseudo-schools to conduct meetings involving Sicilian mafia members and to store stashes of illegal drugs.

Meanwhile they generated cash using the schools in Franklin Square and Ozone Park as 'certificate mills', charging $500 a pop for construction safety training certificates without providing any training or testing, according to the indictment.

Biggest mafia busts in history November 14, 1957: State troopers raid a national meeting of mafia leaders at the home of mobster Joseph 'Joe the Barber' Barbara in Apalachin, New York. Dozens escape and the 58 taken into custody insisted they were there to deliver well-wishes to an ailing friend, and were eventually released. The incident raised major national awareness of the mafia. February 1985: US Attorney Rudy Giuliani indicted 11 Mafia leaders, including the heads of New York's five dominant crime families. The Mafia Commission Trial delivered a crushing blow to the mob. December 11, 1990: Detectives raid the Ravenite Social Club, arresting Gambino boss John Gotti Jr, his underboss Salvatore 'Sammy the Bull' Gravano and Gambino consigliere Frank 'Frankie Loc' LoCascio. January 20, 2011: Authorities arrested 119 organized crime suspects in what the FBI called the largest single-day operation against the Mafia in history. Advertisement

The final defendant, Vincent Martino, 43, was charged along with Vincent Ricciardo, Ragano, Costa, and Glover with conspiracy to distribute marijuana by transporting large shipments of the drug across state lines in vehicles from New York to Florida.

'Everything we allege in this investigation proves history does indeed repeat itself,' FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge Driscoll said concerning the indictment. 'The underbelly of the crime families in New York City is alive and well.'

'These soldiers, consiglieres, underbosses, and bosses are obviously not students of history, and don't seem to comprehend that we're going to catch them. Regardless of how many times they fill the void we create in their ranks, our FBI Organized Crime Task Force, and our law enforcement partners, are positioned to take them out again, and again.'

According to the indictment, the defendants and their co-conspirators committed and are charged with a wide array of crimes  including extortion, loansharking, fraud and drug trafficking  on behalf of the Colombo organized crime family.

In 2019, the family sought to divert more than $10,000 per month from the union's healthcare system directly to the administration of the Colombo crime family.

The Colombo family is one of five major mafia organizations in the northeastern United States. The others are the Genovese, Lucchese, Gambino and Bonanno families.

The latest indictments leave it unclear who remains to take control of the Colombo syndicate on the street.

The entire administration of the Colombo crime family, including Russo and Castellazzo, already pleaded guilty to a variety of mobster activities in 2012.

The New York mafia has been weakened by several blows in recent years, including arrests, fratricidal struggles and competition from other criminal organizations, but they are still considered active.

The reputed boss of the Gambino clan, 'Frank' Cali, was shot and killed outside his home in the New York borough of Staten Island in March 2019.
A Florida woman who went door-to-door promoting the COVID-19 vaccine lost six unvaccinated relatives to the virus in three weeks, with her uncle urging the rest of the family to get their shots as he struggled to breathe from his deathbed.

'You can't grieve the death of one because then the next day or two, you know, somebody else has passed away,' said Lisa Wilson in an interview Wednesday from a memorial chapel where she was planning yet another service.

All told, she lost her grandmother, uncle and four cousins to the deadly virus that continues to sweep Florida after a record number of deaths in August.

'So it's been really, really hard to comprehend and try to figure this all out.'

There were 100,000 new cases and 353 deaths in Florida from September 3 to 9, according to the latest count from the Florida Department of Health. There are now more people on ICU beds in Palm Beach than there are official ICU beds, according to the county's latest count.

Lisa Wilson, left, says it's been 'really hard to comprehend' the sudden death of six unvaccinated family members from COVID-19 in the past month

Wilson helped spread the word about the vaccine in her job as an aide to Palm Beach County Commissioner Melissa MckInlay, but she wasn't always able to get through some of her own family members. Wilson is also the wife of Belle Glade Mayor Steve Wilson.

'I work side by side with the communities and constantly push the message to get people vaccinated,' Wilson said, 'but I couldn't convince my family members to get vaccinated.'

She got a call that her uncle Tyrone Moreland, 48, was very sick just last month, but there were no ICU beds available for him.

'We were checking other hospitals and there was not a single bed available in Palm Beach County. They had to transport him to a hospital an hour and a half away,' Wilson told WPTV.

Then her grandmother Lillie Mae Dukes Moreland, 89, tested positive for COVID and pneumonia, with doctors calling her prognosis grim, according to the Palm Beach Post.

Wilson's uncle Tyrone Moreland, 48, was the first one to get sick and succumb to the deadly virus last month. He couldn't get an ICU bed because Palm Beach County was all out

Two days after Tyrone's burial, his mother and Wilson's grandmother, Lillie Mae Dukes Moreland, 89, died after she was diagnosed with both COVID and pneumonia

Her uncle Tyrone admitted to Wilson that she was right in a Facetime conversation before his passing.

'Tell all of our family to get vaccinated. It's horrible. It hurts,' he cried as he gasped for air, according to Wilson.

Two days after he was buried, his mother Lillie Mae died - just 24 hours after she was hospitalized.

Family members who had recently visited her grandmother had all tested negative beforehand, but Wilson says she was known to invite neighbors onto her porch and into her house to chat.

'We just don't know,' Wilson said.

'In my grandmother's case, I think some of her children advised her not to do it. They said she was too old, that it wasn't safe, that she never left the house, anyway.'

Florida saw its deadliest month since the pandemic began in August due to the Delta variant, though there are hopes that the worst is in the past as cases slowly descend

Three more cousins died shortly after, including Shatara Dukes, 48, and Lisa Wiggins, 53. The last family member to die from the virus was Trentarian Moreland, 44, who succumbed to the virus on Sunday.

'I was in their ears almost every day. 'You've just got to do this'' Wilson told the Post. 'I'm beating myself up. Should I have pushed harder?'

Wilson says her family's vaccine hesitancy was mostly driven by fear and misinformation.

'I think a lot of them were afraid to take it,' she said.

Adding to the fears, her late grandmother's 93-year-old brother was hospitalized with COVID shortly after he was vaccinated.

Deaths and infections across the US soared after a relative period of calm early in the summer

'I think that secured it,' she said. 'That was a big, big part that was weighing on her.'

None of the COVID-19 vaccines used in the United States contain the live virus that causes the virus, which means they cannot give people COVID, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

More than 56 percent of the population of Palm Beach County is fully vaccinated, slightly ahead of the US average of 54 percent, according to CDC data, but the more aggressive Delta variant continues to spread and target those who are not vaccinated.

There are -3 percent ICU beds available in Palm Beach, according to county data, with 86 ICU patients occupying beds that are not official ICU beds.

Wilson says the compounded tragedies have convinced the rest of her family to reconsider the vaccines.

'My family is going through a hard time, and I wouldn't wish that on any family member anywhere,' she said. 'If my family was vaccinated, they would be here today.

'I think I have now convinced ten members of my family to get a vaccine. If I can just save one person with my story ... We are at a critical time. People are dying.'

Wilson's boss, Palm Beach County Commissioner Melissa MckInlay, says her aide has worked tirelessly to promote vaccine availability.

'She is a boots-on-the-ground person who has gone door-to-door encouraging people to get tested, wear masks and get vaccinated in a district that is a hotspot,' the politician explained.

'I really hope that people are encouraged by her telling her story and encouraged in a way that they won't want their family to go through this and be vaccinated.'
California Governor Gavin Newsom hinted he may not to grant Robert F. Kennedy's assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, freedom despite the parole board's recommendation.

Newsom told reporters on Wednesday that he has not made a decision but noted that RFK was a big inspiration to him saying: 'I think that gives you a sense of where I might be leaning right now.'

He made his comments to the press during a stop at an elementary school following his landslide defeat of the gubernatorial recall.

A state parole board recommended that Sirhan Sirhan, 77, be released on parole last month. The ruling by the two-person panel at Sirhan's 16th parole hearing was then set to be reviewed by the California Parole Board's staff.

The final decision is left to the governor, who will have 30 days to decide whether to grant it, reverse it or modify it.

Sirhan Sirhan, 77, was recommended to be released on parole by a California panel of Friday after 53 years in prison for murder. He is pictured at his parole hearing on August 27

The final decision on Sirhan's release will be made by California Governor Gavin Newsom who hinted on Wednesday that he will not grant the parole

Newsom said he did not want to take a public position which would interfere with the official proceedings putting 'that entire process at risk.' 'I don't want to prejudice any further this process,' he said.

But Newsom did mention that RFK was a personal hero to him. He has a photo of RFK in both his work and home offices.

'This is very raw emotionally,' Newsom said, stirring up 'memories of that time' that some people 'may want to suppress, understandably.'

The governor said that he has been received an influx of messages from people expressing their strong opinions on Sirhan's parole.

Most notably, six of RFK's nine surviving children signed a letter publicly pleading with the Parole Board and Newsom not to grant Sirhan's parole.

'As children of Robert F. Kennedy, we are devastated that the man who murdered our father has been recommended for parole' the letter began.

'We adamantly oppose the parole and release of Sirhan Sirhan and are shocked by a ruling that we believe ignores the standards for parole of a confessed, first-degree murderer in the state of California.' The siblings directly called on Newsom to reject the parole and insisted that they 'intend to challenge' Sirhan's release 'every step of the way.'

It was signed by Joseph P. Kennedy II, Courtney Kennedy Hill, Kerry Kennedy, Christopher G. Kennedy, Maxwell T. Kennedy and Rory Kennedy who write that the decision has 'inflicted enormous additional pain.'

Ethel Kennedy, widow of Robert Kennedy who was assassinated during his 1968 presidential campaign, wrote a letter to the parole board pleading with them to not release Sirhan Sirhan

AGAINST: The statement posted Friday was signed by six of Robert Kennedy's nine surviving children announced that they were 'devastated' by the San Diego panel's ruling. L-R Joseph P. Kennedy II, Maxwell Kennedy and Rory Kennedy

AGAINST: The siblings will continue to fight to keep Sirhan behind bars for their father's murder. L-R Courtney Kennedy Hill, Kerry Kennedy and Christopher Kennedy

He should NOT be paroled': RFK's widow Ethel Kennedy, 93, joins 6 of her nine surviving kids opposing Sirhan Sirhan's parole in opposition to sons

RFK's youngest daughter, Rory, then published an opinion piece in The New York Times brazenly titled 'The Man Who Murdered My Father Doesn't Deserve Parole.'

Robert Kennedy's widow, Ethel Kennedy, 93, released an official statement last week insisting that her husband's killer should not be paroled.

Ethel released an official statement which read: 'Bobby believed we should work to 'tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of the world.'

'He wanted to end the war in Vietnam and bring people together to build a better, stronger country. More than anything, he wanted to be a good father and loving husband.

'Our family and our country suffered an unspeakable loss due to the inhumanity of one man. We believe in the gentleness that spared his life, but in taming his act of violence, he should not have the opportunity to terrorize again.'

At the bottom of the printed statement she signed, 'He should not be paroled,' and her name.

FOR: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (left) and Douglas Kennedy (right) have supported Sirhan's recommendation for parole

Ethel described her husband's death as 'an unspeakable loss to the inhumanity of one man' (Pictured Robert (left) and Ethel Kennedy (right) on their wedding day in Greenwich, Connecticut on June 17, 1950)

But two of RFK's children, Douglas Kennedy, 54, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., 67, have supported Sirhan's parole.

Douglas addressed the two-person panel that recommended that parole be granted during a virtual hearing, according to The Associated Press.

'I'm overwhelmed just by being able to view Mr. Sirhan face to face,' he said moved to tears. 'I've lived my life both in fear of him and his name in one way or another. And I am grateful today to see him as a human being worthy of compassion and love.'

RFK Jr. has spoken in favor of Sirhan's release, and wrote in a letter that he met with his father's killer in prison who 'asked for forgiveness,' the AP reported.

He has previously stated that he does not believe Sirhan killed his father.

The divided family is reportedly 'at war' with each other over Sirhan's recommendation for parole.

The family members who opposed the release had allegedly promised not to make a statement to the parole board at Sirhan's hearing on August 27, but according to the New York Post, they blindsided Robert Jr - also known as Bobby - and Douglas, who were in favor of his release.

The rift has caused the family to accuse each other of 'double-crossing' the others, a source close to the parole hearing told the Post. 'Bobby got backstabbed,' the insider said.

Sirhan's lawyer, Angela Berry, says the family quarrel erupted into a full-blown showdown between differing factions of the Kennedy clan - those that supported Sirhan's release and those who did not.

Sirhan was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death in 1969. He is serving a life sentence at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego County, California

'The night before the hearing I got a letter from the parole board via the LAPD,' Berry told the news outlet.

'It read, 'On behalf of the Kennedy family, we oppose the release of Sirhan.' [Bobby] had been staying out of it specifically on the assumption that his family was going to stay out of it  I got ahold of him right away letting him know what happened.'

Upon learning of the letter, Bobby composed a last-minute statement of his own the night before the hearing in favor of Sirhan's parole, which just barely made it in time to be reviewed at the hearing.

'The parole hearing started at 8:30 am and Robert's letter streamed in at 10:30 am,' Berry said.

'It read in part, 'I have to assure you that the letter you got is not on behalf of the whole Kennedy family.' That was the very last thing the hearing officer read into the record.'

Sen. Robert Kennedy and Ambassador Hotel employee Juan Romero moments after RFK was shot by Sirhan Sirhan, June 1968

A mortally wounded Robert Kennedy on the floor of the kitchen at the Ambassador Hotel, June 1968

RFK was taken to Good Samaritan Hospital and pronounced dead a day later, on June 6, 1968

Sirhan stepped towards RFK with a rolled up campaign poster, hiding his .22 revolver shooting him in the head from only a foot away

Sirhan has attempted to be recommended for parole 15 times before Friday's recommendation. The decision will now move to Governor Gavin Newsom's desk

While Ethel's letter may have blindsided several family members, a longtime Kennedy associate said she understood why Ethel 'weighed in' on the controversial topic.

'It's a disgrace,' she said.

'Six kids oppose Sirhan's release along with the 93-year-old mother who's gone through nothing but pain and loss for years. What is wrong with those two children who want that lying son of a bitch freed from prison? Where is the family unity?'

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, 70, is the only member of RFK's nuclear family that has not publicly announced their opinion of Sirhan's parole recommendation.

Two of Robert and Ethel's 11 children are deceased. David Kennedy died at age 28 in 1984 and Michael Kennedy died at age 39 in 1997.

RFK was the younger brother to slain President John F. Kennedy, serving as his brother's US attorney general. He was then elected as a New York Senator.

RFK was 42 years old when he was pronounced dead on June 6, 1968 at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. The rising politician was shot in the head after giving a victory speech following his win in the South Dakota and California 1968 Democratic presidential primaries.

Sirhan was apprehended at the scene and convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death the next year. He eluded execution when the California Supreme Court briefly outlawed capital punishment in 1972 and lessened his sentence to life in prison with the possibility of parole.

The Palestinian immigrant claimed he had been drinking on the night of the assassination and doesn't remember pulling the trigger.

If Sirhan is released, he may be deported to Jordan. He never obtained US citizenship after immigrating to the country from Israel as a child.
Derek Chauvin, 45, faces an additional 20 years in prison for allegedly violating the civil rights of a 14-year-old black boy

The former Minneapolis cop who murdered George Floyd has denied federal charges violating a black teenagers civil rights by kneeling on the boy's neck - just like he did while killing Floyd.

Derek Chauvin, 45, pleaded not guilty to the charges in Minneapolis on Thursday morning. He appeared via videolink for the brief hearing.

He was sentenced to more than 22 years in prison earlier this year for killing Floyd when he stopped Floyd, 46, from breathing by kneeling on his neck for more than nine minutes on Memorial Day 2020.

Hennepin County prosecutors in Minneapolis claim Chauvin had used the same restraint method that killed Floyd on an unnamed 14-year-old black boy in September 2017, depriving the teen of his right to be free of unreasonable force.

The boy was cuffed during the 17 minute restraint, and is said to have cried out for his mother, with Chauvin's arrest reportedly leaving him bleeding.

Chauvin allegedly held the teen by the throat, hit him in the head multiple times with a flashlight and held his knee on the boy's neck and upper back while the teen was lying on the ground, handcuffed and not resisting, The Star Tribune reports.

The boy was bleeding from the ear and needed two stiches.

Chauvin is pictured at his latest court hearing on Thursday, which saw him deny a civil rights violation charge for kneeling on a 14 year-old black boy's neck in September 2017

Chauvin at his sentencing in June where he was sent to prison for 22 and a half years for George Floyd's murder

Chauvin is accused of using the same restraint that ended in George Floyd's death, pictured, to arrest a handcuffed 14 year-old boy

According to the police record of the incident, Chauvin described the 14-year-old as 6-foot-2 and 240 lbs., and claimed the teen was resisting arrest.

The incident came to light as prosecutors searched through Chauvin's record to prove he had a record of using the controversial restraint tactic before Floyd's death.

Prosecutors found four incidents since 2014 that they said went too far, 'beyond the point when such force was needed under the circumstances.'

Chauvin is charged with two counts over the 2017 incident.

One for injuring the boy with a weapon, and the another for the method in which he arrested the teen that violated his civil rights.

On each of these charges, Chauvin faces up to 10 years in prison and/or a fine.

Chauvin appearing remotely from Minnesota's maximum security prison Oak Park Heights on September 14, on separate federal charges of violating George Floyd's civil rights

Chauvin will face the civil rights violation trial alongside (left to right): J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao

Floyd (pictured) died Memorial Day 2020 when Chauvin knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes during an arrest over a counterfeit bill

Chauvin and fellow fired Minneapolis police officers Tou Thao, 35, J Alexander Kueng, 27, and Thomas Lane, 38, were arraigned Tuesday on charges of willfully violating Floyd's civil rights.

He appeared via videolink for that hearing.

Floyd died Memorial Day 2020 after Chauvin knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes.

Floyd, who was handcuffed, was heard repeatedly saying he couldn't breathe and calling out for his mom before he lost consciousness.

Kueng and Lane helped restrain Floyd, with Kueng kneeling on his back and Lane holding down Floyd's legs, according to evidence in state court.

Thao held back bystanders and stopped them from intervening during the deadly arrest.

All four former cops entered not guilty pleas at Tuesday's hearing and waived their rights to have the charges read out to them in court.

Chauvin was also charged with violating Floyd's right to be free from unreasonable seizure and force by a police officer, while Thao and Kueng were each charged with violating Floyd's right to be free from unreasonable seizure by failing to intervene to stop Chauvin using unreasonable force.

If convicted, all four disgraced officers could face the federal death penalty or life in prison.

Court sketch of the arraignment shows Derek Chauvin, J. Alexander Kueng, Tou Thao and Thomas Lane with their attorneys, the prosecutor and the court judge

Tou Thao leaves the Hennepin County courthouse in Minneapolis on July 21 2020 following a state hearing

Thomas Lane (right) and J. Alexander Kueng (second from right) in September 2020

The federal charges are separate to the state charges against the four cops who were all fired from Minneapolis Police Department the day after Floyd's murder.

Thao, Kueng and Lane are awaiting a state trial in March on charges of aiding and abetting second-degree murder and manslaughter. They have all pleaded not guilty.

The four defendants each appeared via videoconference due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Chauvin was asked to mute his microphone at one point due to background noise from Minnesota's maximum security prison Oak Park Heights where he appeared remotely via video link.

The other three defendants appeared remotely alongside their attorneys.

The judge asked the prosecution and the defense about the number of experts they expect to present to the court at trial.

The prosecution said they will present testimony from medical experts and use of force experts but they were unsure about the number of experts at this time.

The attorneys for the defendants each said they would also call medical and use of force experts.

Chauvin is led away in handcuffs after being convicted of all charges in his criminal case in the state of Minnesota in April

Around 40 pretrial motions were also argued during the hearing.

Thao, Kueng and Lane have asked that they stand trial separately to Chauvin, claiming they would be unfairly prejudiced if they went to trial alongside the convicted murderer.

Attorneys for Kueng and Thao filed a motion in August, saying evidence against Chauvin would confuse the jury and deprive them of their right to a fair trial.

Lane's attorney then filed a motion asking to join their request.

Prosecutors are arguing they should all be tried together because the charges stem from the same event and the evidence is similar.

The defendants have until October 12 to submit their briefings and the government has until October 26 to respond.
Candace Ayers, 66, died from COVID-19 at HSHS St Johns Hospital in Springfield, Illinois despite being fully vaccinated

The family of a fully vaccinated Illinois woman who died from COVID-19 has blamed the millions of unvaccinated Americans for her death.

Candace Ayers, 66, of Springfield, was vaccinated with the Moderna shot in March along with her husband Terry before being infected with the virus. She died six months later, on September 3 at HSHS St. Johns Hospital.

Her family published an obituary which stated: 'She was preceded in death by more than 4,531,799 others infected with Covid-19.

'She was vaccinated but was infected by others who chose not to be. The cost was her life.'

Her son Marc believes that his mother contracted the virus in July after she and his father went to visit a friend, whose husband died of COVID-19, in Mississippi, where the vaccination rate is only 42%, according to the state's health website.

It is incredibly rare for fully vaccinated Americans to contract a severe breakthrough case of COVID-19 and to die from the disease - and those who have had the shot have less than one in 13,000 chance of a severe breakthrough infection, according to a DailyMail.com analysis of data from the CDC.

More than 99 percent of COVID hospitalizations and deaths in the US since January 2021 have occurred in unvaccinated people.

But of the patients with breakthrough infections who do require hospital care, they are likely to be older or to suffer from three or more underlying medical conditions, such as obesity, gastrointestinal diseases and neurological conditions.

It's not clear if Ayers had any of those underlying health conditions, but her son said that family were concerned for his mother's health ahead of her trip to Mississippi because she had severe rheumatoid arthritis - where the body's immune system attacks its own tissue.

Candace and husband Terry Ayers (left) received their first shot of the Moderna vaccine in February

In Ayers' obituary, it stated: 'She was preceded in death by more than 4,531,799 others infected with Covid-19. 'She was vaccinated but was infected by others who chose not to be. The cost was her life.'

Ayers's son Marc (above) was among family members who blamed the unvaccinated in his mother's obituary

'This all could have been avoided,' Marc Ayers told CNN.

'This could have been prevented by a few acts of kindness. They were in a state that had one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country. Getting a vaccine and wearing a mask for others ... had this been done, she would be here today.'

In early August, he had posted on Facebook urging for people to get vaccinated after both of his fully vaccinated parents had contracted COVID.

'If youre able to get vaccinated and/or wear a mask but refuse to, just know that your selfish actions are threating (sic) the lives of others,' he said in the post.

'We were responsible, we wore masks indoors, and were so happy to have received a full vaccine so we could exit this pandemic and move on with our lives. Unfortunately some of you bought into the political nature of this crisis and threatened the lives of my family.'

Ayers told USA Today his mother got tested after feeling fatigued on the way home from the trip.

Following his mother's diagnosis, she was admitted to the hospital and was given antibiotics for her symptoms.

She later returned a few days later and was hospitalized for a month with three weeks on a ventilator and developed sepsis.

After suffering severe lung damage, the ventilator was removed and she passed away.

Ayers died from COVID on September 3 at HSHS St John's Hospital, six months after being fully vaccinated in March

The family of Ayers claims she contracted the virus after traveling to Mississippi with her husband Terry (left center), a state with a low vaccination rate

In a Facebook post, Marc Ayers urged for people to get vaccinated after both his parents contracted COVID-19

The overwhelming majority of Covid hospitalizations and deaths in 2021 have occurred in unvaccinated Americans, a DailyMail.com analysis of federal data shows

In her obituary, statistics of the COVID-19 death toll were used to further encourage the unvaccinated which was met with mixed responses.

'It's been really wonderful to hear from friends and strangers regarding the obituary,' Ayers told CNN.

'Because of our story, people have told us they are getting vaccinated.

'Of course, there are negative comments as well, but the majority has been positive.'

The obituary reads that Ayers was 'born on June 28, 1955 in Mobile, Alabama, the daughter of Thomas and Beverly Kruger. Candy was an Air Force brat and lived a short time in Okinawa, Japan where her father was stationed on a military base with her mother. She married Terry Gene Ayers on October 7, 1978.

'Candy graduated from Pawnee High School in 1973. She was an orthodontic assistant for Drs. Sternstein, Bernardy & Groesch for many years before deciding to be a stay-at-home mom to raise her children. After her children were grown, she went back to work for five years at St. Johns Prairie Heart Institute at the Cardiac Cath Lab.

'Candy enjoyed most importantly: Her cup of morning coffee. It had to be the very first thing that touched her lips in the morning and there was never a day that there wasnt a pot brewing. She loved her soap operas and reality tv and has passed that addiction onto her daughter. She also had a fine knack for speaking her mind, a great eye for detail, an amazing ability to organize, and was quite possibly the best mom, wife, and Gagi in the entire world.

'She is survived by her loving husband of nearly 43 years, Terry of Springfield; her children Marc (Samantha) Ayers of Springfield, and Amanda Foster and her triplet 5-year-old grandchildren Andie, Daniel, and Charlotte Foster of Springfield who were the loves of her life,' the obituary read.

According to the Illinois Department of Public Health, 14,241,348 doses have been administered in the state

180 millions U.S. residents are currently fully vaccinated accounting for 54.7% of the population

According to the Illinois Department of Health, a total of 14,241,348 doses have been administered in the state of Illinois.

In terms of the fully vaccinated, 6,896,869 people in Illinois have been fully vaccinated accounting for 54.13% of the population.

There have been 1,728 hospitalizations of fully vaccinated Illinois residents with 432 deaths related to COVID-19 causes or complications.

According to Our World and Data, 382 million doses have been administered in the U.S.

180 million U.S. residents are currently fully vaccinated accounting for 54.7% of the population.

Approximately 63% of the U.S. population has received at least one dose.

Fully vaccinated Americans have a less than one in 13,000 chance of having a severe breakthrough case of COVID-19 - and 99% of all hospitalizations since January have been among unvaccinated people

It is incredibly rare for fully vaccinated Americans to contract a severe case of COVID-19 and die from the disease, federal figures from last week show.

Americans who have received two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine or one shot of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine have a less than one in 13,000 chance of a severe breakthrough case, according to a DailyMail.com analysis of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

More than 99 percent of Covid hospitalizations and deaths in the U.S. since January 2021 have occurred in unvaccinated people.

Those patients who do require hospital care due to a breakthrough case are likely to be older or to suffer from underlying medical conditions, the CDC data suggest.

The data demonstrate how well vaccines continue to work, even against the Delta variant, at preventing serious illness.

As the Delta surge continues, vaccination remains the best available protection against severe Covid disease. Pictured: A 17-year-old receives his first Pfizer dose at a back-to-school vaccination clinic in Los Angeles, California, August 2021

More than 177 million Americans have been fully vaccinated as of September 9.

This number includes about 63 percent of all eligible Americans (over age 12), 65 percent of adults, and 82 percent of seniors.

The Pfizer, Moderna, and J&J vaccines have all proven incredibly effective at protecting against severe Covid disease - both in clinical trials and in the real world.

As a result, the vast majority of Covid patients filling up emergency rooms and intensive care units across the country are unvaccinated.

New data from the CDC reinforce the vaccines' incredible ability to protect against severe Covid cases.

As of August 30, a total of 12,908 Americans have been hospitalized or died with Covid after being fully vaccinated.

About 173 million Americans had been fully vaccinated by that date - meaning the chance of a severe breakthrough case is less than one in 13,000.

Among those with severe breakthrough cases, 10,471 had been hospitalized - though about 2,400 of those hospitalizations were asymptomatic or not Covid-related.

Similarly, 2,437 Americans have died after contracting a breakthrough infection - but about 500 of those deaths were asymptomatic or not directly caused by COVID-19.

In total, about 1.7 million Americans have been hospitalized with the virus since January 1, 2021 and 281,000 have died, according to federal data.

That means, for both hospitalizations and deaths, more than 99 percent of those impacted by COVID-19 in 2021 have been unvaccinated.

A preprint study by CDC researchers, shared online on August 31, suggests that these severe breakthrough cases tend to occur in older adults.

The CDC researchers utilized data from COVID-NET, the agency's hospitalization surveillance network.

This dataset included Covid hospitalizations from 99 counties in 14 states, covering about ten percent of the U.S. population.

From January 1 to June 30, 2021, 87.6 percent of hospitalized Covid patients in this dataset were entirely unvaccinated while 9.4 percent were partially vaccinated.

Just three percent of the patients were fully vaccinated.

Older adults and those with underlying medical conditions are more at risk of severe breakthrough cases. Pictured: A teenager gets vaccinated at a clinic in Los Angeles, California, August 2021

Among older patients (over age 65), a greater share of hospitalized patients were fully vaccinated: 32 percent.

The median age for these breakthrough case patients was 73 - compared to a median age of 59 for unvaccinated patients.

Breakthrough case patients were also likely to have weakened immune systems - due to an organ transplant or cancer.

These vaccinated patients were likely to suffer from three or more underlying medical conditions, such as obesity, gastrointestinal diseases, and neurological conditions.

While vaccinated and unvaccinated patients had similar likelihoods of requiring intensive care, vaccinated patients tended to have shorter hospital stays - reflecting their immune system's heightened ability to fight off the virus.

These CDC data demonstrate how well the vaccines protect against severe Covid cases.

It's important to note, however, that breakthrough cases have become more frequent during the Delta variant surge.

While the risk of a severe case has not notably increased, Americans are now more likely to get a mild or asymptomatic breakthrough infection.

But when the majority of people in a community are vaccinated, it's harder for the virus to spread - both keeping case numbers lower and alleviating the burden that Covid patients place on local hospitals.

For states and counties with lower vaccination rates, the consequences for hospitals have been dire.

In Idaho, for example, the state public health agency instituted 'crisis standards of care' for some struggling rural hospitals with limited staff and medical equipment.

The 'crisis standards of care' allow these hospitals to prioritize patients who are more likely to survive, while providing less care for others.

In addition, vaccination protects people who are not yet able to get their shots.

The majority of Covid cases in children are currently occurring in states with lower vaccination rates - where parents pass the infection to their kids.
A West African ISIS leader was blown up by a French drone strike while riding on a motorbike four years after masterminding a deadly ambush that killed four US soldiers.

Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi was killed in mid-August after being tracked by French counter-terrorism forces in northern Mali, France's Defence Minister confirmed on Thursday.

The US had offered reward of $5m (3.6m) for information on Sahrawi after a targeted attack in in Niger in 2017 killed four American soldiers as well as four Niger service personnel.

On August 9, 2020, he had personally ordered the killing of six French charity workers and their Nigerian guide and driver, four men and four women aged between 25 to 50, who were on a day trip visiting a giraffe reserve.

ISIS leader Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi (pictured) was killed in mid-August by a French drone strike after being tracked by counter-terrorism forces in northern Mali, French authorities confirmed on Thursday

Sahrawi was the head of Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), a jihadist group that broke away from other militants in Mali in 2015 when it pledged allegiance to Islamic State.

Since then, ISGS militants have spread into neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger, carried out hundreds of deadly attacks on civilians and armed forces, and rendered large areas of West Africa's arid Sahel region ungovernable.

French authorities called the drone strike by military forces a 'decisive blow' against the group, and vowed to continue hunting down jihadist leaders to restore stability in the Sahel.

'The death of Sahrawi is a decisive blow to ISGS and its cohesion,' French Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly told reporters.

Sahrawi had been tracked by French counter-terrorism forces in northern Mali, and then killed by a drone strike while riding a motorbike in mid-August, she said.

French Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly (pictured) called the drone strike a 'decisive blow' against the group, and vowed to continue hunting down jihadist leaders to restore stability in the Sahel

Oon August 9, 2020 Sahrawi had ordered the killing of six French charity workers and their Nigerian guide and driver, who were on a day trip visiting a giraffe reserve in Niger (Pictured: The car in which the French aid workers were travelling)

France estimates the group is responsible for the deaths of 2,000-3,000 people, mostly Muslims, and that it still has hundreds of fighters, although Parly said its leadership was now less international and more from the local Fulani tribe.

French President Emmanual Macron hailed the killing of the terrorist leader 'a major success' in the fight against terrorist groups in the Sahel.

He thanked the 'heroes who died for France' in a Twitter post late on Wednesday that announced Sahrawi's death, and remembered the bereaved families, saying that 'their sacrifice is not in vain'.

Rumours of the ISIS leader's death had been circulating in Mali for weeks but had not been confirmed by authorities.

Paris has started reshaping its 5,000-strong Barkhane mission to include more European partners and earlier this month began redeploying from bases in northern Mali.

France has launched a diplomatic offensive to stop the Malian junta from agreeing a deal to enlist Russian mercenaries, which Paris has said would be incompatible with its presence in Mali.

French President Emmanual Macron hailed the killing of the terrorist leader 'a major success' in the fight against terrorist groups in the Sahel (pictured on September 16)

He thanked the 'heroes who died for France' in a Twitter post late on Wednesday that announced Sahrawi's death, and remembered the bereaved families, saying that 'their sacrifice is not in vain'

The strike on Sahrawi, which comes just two months after the death of Abubakar Shekau, the leader of Nigeria's Boko Haram, follows other hits on ISGS's senior ranks, that have been weakened by recent targeted operations that have killed five of its seven top leaders.

Yet the group remains dangerous and has carried out a series of deadly attacks on civilians, especially in Niger, where casualties have risen sharply this year.

'We have no information on a successor at this stage, but it probably won't be easy to find a leader who has the same weighting than the one who was killed,' Parly said.

Bernard Emie, head of France's external intelligence service, told reporters there would now be increased focus on neutralising Iyad Ag Ghaly, the head of al-Qaeda's north African wing, whose group has carried out sporadic operations around the Ivory Coast and Senegalese border regions.

'The death of Sahrawi will likely disrupt ISGS operations in the short-term,' said Alexandre Raymakers, senior Africa analyst at risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft. 'But it is unlikely to permanently cripple the extremist group.'
Periods which are disrupted by Covid vaccines usually return to normal after one irregular cycle, experts insisted today.

Nearly 35,000 women in Britain have complained of suffering heavier periods  or ones that come earlier or later than usual  after being jabbed.

Officials are yet to accept any link between the jabs and an irregular cycle, despite calls from leading women's health experts for the issue to be investigated further.

Today, doctors lined up to dismiss fears that the jab may hamper fertility, saying the disrupted periods are 'transient' in nature.

Dr Jackie Maybin, a consultant gynaecologist and researcher based at Edinburgh University, said other jabs were known to disrupt periods and that they have had no noticeable impact on fertility.

Covid itself  and other viruses such as HIV  can disrupt the menstrual cycle, too.

But other experts have previously dismissed the theory, saying menstrual problems after jabs were not happening at a higher rate than usual.

Nearly 35,000 women have now come forward to say their periods were disrupted after getting a Covid vaccine, it was revealed today. (stock)

'I had no period for 20 years... then I had the vaccine' A 57-year-old mother claims her periods came back after she received the Covid vaccine. Jacqueline Goldsworthy, a social worker in Barnet, north London, stopped having periods 20 years ago after she got a coil fitted. When she hit the menopause seven years ago, she started having hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to help with the symptoms. But after getting her first dose of the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine, Ms Goldsworthy claims her periods returned. Jacqueline Goldsworthy, 57, from London 'A week after receiving the jab I was bleeding again,' she told MailOnline. 'It must have been the vaccine. I have never bled for 20 years due to the coil and then HRT which I've been on for menopause for seven years.' Ms Goldsworthy said the NHS was 'faultless' and immediately sent her for scans to check whether it was something untoward, such as cancer. But all the results came back negative. 'When I said to them I thought it was due to the vaccine they said "no way",' she added. 'But the fact I still have not had any answers as to why I was bleeding obviously, I am not the happiest.' Advertisement

Dr Maybin said: 'At this stage, it is difficult to be certain regarding the mechanisms causing these effects. It may differ from person to person.

'The brain, ovaries and womb interact to control the menstrual cycle.

'Menstrual disturbance may be due to effects on the part of the brain that controls the reproductive hormones, effects on the ovaries or effects directly on the lining of the womb (which is what is shed during a period).

'In times of stress, the female system is designed to temporarily downregulate to prevent pregnancy and conserve energy.

'This brain-level effect may explain some of the changes in menstruation observed during the pandemic, with Covid or with vaccination.'

Covid vaccines are designed to initiate an immune response in the body to protect against future Covid infection.

This triggers inflammation which may transiently affect the ovaries, Dr Maybin said.

She added that this could alter their hormone production over one or two cycles, resulting in irregular or heavier menstrual bleeding.

'The inflammation may also temporarily alter how the womb lining breaks down and sheds, causing a heavier period,' Dr Maybin said.

'These effects could lead to temporary changes in menstrual symptoms that should spontaneously resolve.

'Similar short-term menstrual effects have been reported following HPV vaccination and Hepatitis B vaccination.

'This suggests that effects are due to either the stress of receiving a vaccination or due to the necessary immune process that occurs to initiate protection.

'Previous reports are of transient effects on menstrual symptoms and there is no evidence of an impact on fertility.'

She added women who experience persistent menstrual changes and irregular bleeding, or who have vaginal bleeding after the menopause, should speak to their doctor to exclude other serious causes.

For women wishing to conceive who were considering getting the vaccine, she pointed to a guide published by the British Fertility Society.

Dr Raj Mathur, a consultant in reproductive medicine and the chair of the British Fertility Society, told MailOnline yesterday that it was possible that the Covid vaccine was triggering changes to periods.

'It does appear that the Covid vaccine can be followed by a transient disturbance in the menstrual cycle in some women,' he said.

'However, the evidence also shows that there is no effect on fertility or on the risk of miscarriage.

'Women (and men) who have the Covid vaccine demonstrate no change in their sperm quality or chance of success with IVF.'

Woman, 31, says her periods were delayed after getting the vaccine A 31-year-old woman claims her periods have been delayed after getting the Covid vaccine. Faye Leadbeater, a creative director in Manchester, got her first dose in early May, ahead of others in her age group because of her asthma. Her periods had been regular for years, and she had not taken contraceptive pills, which can disrupt the frequency of the menstrual cycle. But after getting her first dose of the Pfizer jab she said her periods became 'irregular', heavier and were later than normal. Faye Leadbeater, 31, Manchester 'After the first dose I saw an irregularity,' she told MailOnline. 'After the second vaccine I had the same symptom again. 'Then when my period came it hit me like a brick wall. When I had my period it was much heavier.' Ms Leadbeater claimed she had seen people posting about period changes after getting the vaccine before, but thought nothing of it. But now she wants research to be carried out to establish whether changes to periods are a side effect of the vaccines. She said: 'I just want answers really because none of us are medical professionals. '[But] no one is giving any scientific answers for how it could be affected, but it is clearly having an affect on things.' Advertisement

He added that menstrual changes were a common symptom that women report with any stress or illness.

'Also, the ovaries contain immune cells and these may be affected in the same way as other parts of the body in response to the vaccine,' Dr Mathur added.

'In summary, yes this effect is possible, but it does not indicate an underlying problem.'

Nearly 35,000 British women have already come forward to say their periods were disrupted after getting a Covid vaccine, it was revealed today.

The issues were reported in the UK up to September 2.

Although, the majority of affected women found their menstruation returned to normal after one cycle.

Issues were linked to Pfizer, AstraZeneca or Moderna vaccines.

No fertility problems were uncovered, according to an analysis of the data by Dr Victoria Male, a lecturer in reproductive immunology at Imperial College London.

Writing in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), she argued more research was needed to investigate the links.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA)  Britain's medical regulator  says: 'The rigorous evaluation completed to date does not support a link between changes to menstrual periods and related symptoms and Covid vaccines.'

Data on the number of period problems following vaccination was collected from the MHRA's Yellow Card Scheme, which keeps a record of every case of a potential side effect.

But this data is reliant on women coming forward, meaning nearly 35,000 figure could be just the tip of the iceberg.

The MHRA says online it is investigating reports that the jabs have triggered period problems and unexpected vaginal bleeding.

But it adds: 'The menstrual changes reported are mostly transient in nature.

'While uncomfortable or distressing, period problems are extremely common and stressful life events that can disrupt menstrual periods.

'Changes to the menstrual cycle have also been reported following infection with Covid and in people affected by long Covid.'

The MHRA insists: 'There is no evidence to suggest that Covid vaccines will affect fertility and your ability to have children.'

Guidance published by the Association of Reproductive and Clinical Scientists and the British Fertility Society says there is 'absolutely no evidence, and no theoretical reason, that any of the vaccines can affect the fertility of women or men'.

The MHRA has yet to uncover any pattern between the vaccines and any increased risk of miscarriage or stillbirth.
A Virginia Tech professor is under fire after she allegedly apologized to her students for being a straight, white woman.

Dr. Crystal Duncan Lane, who taught human development and family science, is accused of using her Human Development 1134 course syllabus to push her students into addressing inherent biases and racism, according to Campus Reform.

'I am a Caucasian cisgender female and first-generation college student from Appalachia who is of Scottish, British, and Norwegian heritage,' Duncan Lane, whose Virginia Tech faculty page has been deleted, reportedly wrote.

'I am married to a cisgender male, and we are middle class. While I did not 'ask' for the many privileges in my life: I have benefitted [sic] from them and will continue to benefit from them whether I like it or not.'

Her students said Duncan Lane's commentary was not appropriate or relevant to the course.

Virginia Tech professor Dr. Crystal Duncan Lane is under fire after she allegedly apologized to her students for being a straight, white woman

In the Who I Am section of the syllabus, which was obtained by Campus Reform, Duncan Lane referred to her privilege as 'injustice' and apologized for the way white people have treated people of color throughout history.

'Who I Am': Professor's 'apology' in full 'I am a Caucasian cisgender female and first-generation college student from Appalachia who is of Scottish, British, and Norwegian heritage. I am married to a cisgender male, and we are middle class. While I did not 'ask' for the many privileges in my life: I have benefitted from them and will continue to benefit from them whether I like it or not. This is injustice. I am and will continue to work on a daily basis to be antiracist and confront the innate racism within myself that is the reality and history of white people. I want to be better: Every day. I will transform: Every day. This work terrifies me: Every day. I invite my white students to join me on this journey. And to my students of color: I apologize for the inexcusable horrors within our shared history.' Advertisement

'I am and will continue to work on a daily basis to be antiracist and confront the innate racism within myself that is the reality and history of white people,' Duncan Lane's syllabus read.

She also encouraged students to take initiative to combat racism.

'I want to be better: Every day. I will transform: Every day. This work terrifies me: Every day. I invite my white students to join me on this journey. And to my students of color: I apologize for the inexcusable horrors within our shared history.'

The news outlet spoke with two of Duncan Lane's Human Development 1134 students who both expressed discomfort with the professor's verbiage.

'It is a class about disabilities, not political opinion, affiliation, nor judgment in any sort. If you are discussing disabilities, stick to your course,' student Natalie Rhodes explained.

'It hurts that someone says I was born with "innate racism" because of my skin color. [It] makes me feel like I should hide and worry about everything I say,' shared another student who spoke on the basis of anonymity.

The students' frustrations were echoed by social media users.

'Crystal Duncan Lane? Fire this weak excuse for a human. She is an abomination,' tweeted @kelley_dan.

'I am not apologizing for being born white and neither should any other white. This woman should never be in front of any student, white or black.'

'You should probably help Dr. Crystal Duncan Lane feel better about herself and fire her immediately and replace her with a person of color,' echoed @ChrisW37679955.

Twitter user @donttre78745568 wrote: 'Fire Dr. Crystal Duncan Lane! She is only helping CREATE a generation of racists!'

Students and social media users alike are criticizing the professor over her commentary

Others argued that Duncan Lane's commentary was 'indoctrination of students'.

'I sincerely hope Crystal Duncan Lane is no longer a member of the VA Tech faculty. This indoctrination of students must stop. Are you sending your children to school to be told they are racist or should apologize if they are white?' @Charles52576499 said.

'Get rid of woke professors like Crystal Duncan Lane! Apologizing for being white! BS. Enough already. Stop the indoctrination our or Virginia students!' added @sunsandred70.

MailOnline has contacted Virginia Tech and Duncan Lane for comment.

Duncan Lane's commentary is the latest in the larger push nationwide amongst educators to teach students about critical race theory, which teaches that racism against minorities is embedded in every aspect of life.

The idea of concept of critical race theory became a nationwide debate during the Black Lives Matter protests that occurred last year.

The idea of concept of critical race theory became a nationwide debate during the Black Lives Matter protests that occurred last year (pictured a BLM protest in Chicago on Aug. 9, 2020)

Educational institutions across the country have started implementing the theory in their curriculum and procedures.

Just last month, James Madison University showed a training video to students and staff that described the difference between privileged and oppressed groups.

The video portrayed people who are male, straight, cisgender, or Christian as 'oppressors' and were considered a threat to submissive groups.

Similarly, the University of Kentucky hosted a $5,000 anti-racism workshop where deans and top faculty members were instructed to accept their 'white inferiority' and filled pledges for how they will enhance diversity, equity and inclusion within their departments.

One session at the University of Kentucky anti-racism workshop involved faculty members filling out pledges (such as the one above) with prompts such as 'chosen metric for anti-racism,' to whom they have chosen to be accountable, and the steps they've taken thus far to address it.

The workshop involved faculty members filling out prompts about their 'chosen metric for anti-racism,' to whom they have chosen to be accountable, and the steps they've taken thus far to address it.

At the start of the year, a growing number of academics announced they were refusing to teach Shakespeare in U.S. schools, arguing that the Bard promotes racism, white supremacy and intolerance, and instead are pushing for the teaching of 'modern' alternatives.

However, some educators are condemning the practice of critical race theory in the education system.

Earlier this summer, a group of academics came together to slam the 'Dismantling Racism in Mathematics' program which tells teachers not to push students to find the correct answers to math problems because doing so promotes white supremacy.

The pictured workbook has drawn criticism from educators for claiming that it's racist to expect students to get the right answer to a math problem. The workbook encourages teachers to 'identify and challenge the ways that math is used to uphold capitalist, imperialist, and racist views'

The program is centered around a workbook for teachers entitled 'A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction' which asserts that America's education system  even mathematics instruction  reinforces the dominant power structures of white colonizers.

Grading students, asking them to show their work, requiring participation and even pushing them to get the right answer are depicted in the workbook as harmful to minorities.

Critical race theory has received criticism for it's views on race and defining privilege and oppression based on the color of someone's skin.

However, the theory has also been supported by other for it's way in which the relationship between race and American politics, culture, and law can be further explored and built upon.
A Florida county has been slammed for posting an 'extremely embarrassing' GIF of a dancing taco on its social media pages to celebrate National Hispanic Heritage month.

The one-second GIF, or short video, illustrates a smiling taco holding multicolored maracas in each hand and a swirl of sour cream for hair.

Broward County deleted the gif from its Twitter and Facebook accounts about five hours later after a storm of backlash on social media.

Hallandale Beach City Commissioner Sabrina Javellana said the post was 'extremely embarrassing' on Twitter  whereas other users showed disgust with the county's choice of GIF, calling for the person who made the tweet's resignation.

The Hispanic Heritage Month GIF image (pictured) posted to a Broward County Government official Facebook and Twitter page on Wednesday morning

Hallandale Beach City Commissioner Sabrina Javellana tweeted (pictured) that the GIF was 'extremely embarrassing'

Bernie Debusmann, a journalist, said on Twitter (pictured) that he's 'pretty cool' with Mexico's omission in the Broward County Government given that it's offensive

One user showed disgust with the county's choice of GIF on Twitter (pictured), calling for the person who made the tweet's resignation

Broward County representative Gregory Meyer said the post was never meant to be disrespectful or funny but to serve as a reminder to celebrate Hispanic Heritage month.

'While I'm not Hispanic, I still think it could be perceived as being offensive and so therefore, we removed it,' he said.

Meyer also noted that the employee is being taught to learn sensitivity of all cultures.

'A dancing taco is not representative of the Hispanic community and should not have been associated with the annual celebration,' he added.

Broward County is home to more than 600,00 Hispanics or Latino, representing a third of its population, according to U.S. Census Bureau. It is one of the most diverse counties in Florida.

Broward County Mayor Steve Geller downplayed the incident, instead praising the Hispanic community and recognizing the contributions they have made to the local economy and culture.

'I apologize for the mistake, but it was merely a lack of judgment on the part of a young employee,' he said.

Natascha Otero-Santiago, an organizer in the South Florida Latino community, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel that the tweet was sent by friends in at least three different group text messages.

'It happens on Cinco de Mayo. It happens in so many other situations where Latin culture and Latino heritage is minimized to a one-punch thing, either being tequila or tacos,' Otero-Santiago said. 'And that's not what the Latino culture is about.'

'We are a rich community of different cultures that are not being served right by just showing a taco with maracas,' she added.

Otero-Santiago said she hopes a lesson learned comes from the post.

'In this time of diversity, equity and inclusion that we're trying to see in government... there should be a proactive way from the Broward County government to see how they can learn a lesson from this,' she said.

Above the controversial GIF in the tweet, the caption read that Hispanic Heritage Month starts on September 15 to celebrate the independence of Latin American countries that include Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.

Additionally, the post asked people's monthly celebration plans.

Some Twitters users also question why the post left Mexico out  where the roots of the taco creation come from.

The post has been deleted and replaced with a graphic displaying the name and time frame of the celebration.
A senior computer software engineer tried to sue his aerospace company boss for racism because she had used the word 'other' in an email.

Dr Fazal Ahmad was sacked by Rosemount Aerospace, based in Malvern, Worcestershire, after just four months for failing to develop a prototype artificial intelligence system.

But the developer, who is of Asian background, claimed his dismissal was due to discrimination, a tribunal held in Birmingham heard.

Dr Ahmad, who earned 63,000 a year, claimed that his boss' use of the word 'other' in an email she sent when talking about his colleagues was racist.

But an employment tribunal judge has thrown out his claim, saying his sacking was 'in no sense whatsoever because of race' and the use of the word 'other' was 'entirely commonplace'.

In the email, his boss Claire Knights said one of Dr Ahmad's colleagues had expressed 'frustration' that he got to 'play' with the 'fun machines' without delivering much work, while 'other people have to do the less glamorous programme work'.

Dr Fazal Ahmad was sacked by Rosemount Aerospace (pictured), based in Malvern, after just four months for failing to develop a prototype artificial intelligence system

The tribunal heard that Dr Ahmad was headhunted by Rosemount Aerospace as a machine learning engineer in June 2019.

He was hired to develop prototype artificial intelligence software for a client based in the United Arab Emirates.

Dr Ahmad was responsible for delivering the project, but failed to demonstrate any of his work or progress at the first monthly meeting in August, the tribunal heard.

On that same day, his boss Ms Knights received a complaint about Dr Ahmad from intern Ryanne Binns.

She claimed he was being condescending towards her in meetings, ignoring her, shutting down her suggestions and then, later on, raising her suggestions as his own.

At the next monthly meeting in September, Dr Ahmad again failed to present any of his work and Ms Knights became 'concerned' about his progress, the tribunal heard.

The following day, Ms Knights had a one-to-one meeting with Ms Binns, who complained that she did not know what Dr Ahmad was doing and claimed he would not explain.

These concerns were echoed by two other senior members of Dr Ahmad's team, but Dr Ahmad told the tribunal their concerns were all part of a 'conspiracy' against him.

Another colleague, Dr Gary Smart, complained Dr Ahmad was 'not really delivering much' and 'talked to him as if he was an idiot'.

Ms Knight was on holiday for the next demonstration meeting but emailed other senior colleagues to keep her informed.

She said: 'I had a one-to-one with Gary yesterday where he expressed some frustration about Fazal, specifically Fazal getting to 'play' with all the fun machine learning work and not really delivering much, while other people have to do the less glamorous programme work.'

This email, with Ms Knight's use of the word 'other', was the central point of Dr Ahmad's case that he had been discriminated against.

Employment Judge Hilary Anne Harding said: 'He relied heavily on her use of the word 'other' in the second paragraph of the email to suggest that a distinction was being drawn by her on racial grounds.

'[He] initially invited us to infer from this sentence that Ms Knights (and Dr Smart) were complaining that white people were being given the boring jobs whilst non-white people were being given the fun jobs.

Dr Ahmad claimed his dismissal was due to discrimination and tried to sue his boss for racism for using the word 'other' in an email. But his case was thrown out by a judge (stock image)

'We reject that first interpretation not least because... one of the 'others' carrying out the so-called 'boring' jobs was Ms Binns, who is black.

'[He] then invited us to infer that Ms Knights and Dr Smart were complaining that Asian men were being given the fun work whilst non-Asian people were getting the boring work.

'It is clear that Ms Knights used the word to distinguish between [Dr Ahmad], doing machine learning work, and everyone else on the team doing programming work.

'It is an entirely commonplace use of the word 'other'.

'The complaint... is obvious and straightforward and unrelated to race.

'It was a complaint that [Dr Ahmad] had the best job on the team but was not delivering. That is nothing to do with race and accordingly we draw no adverse inference from this email.'

Dr Ahmad failed to impress his colleagues at the October meeting and one was of the view that the information he presented was 'likely downloaded from an online tutorial'.

He was given another chance at the next meeting, but Dr Smart claimed he had 'simply used other people's work off the internet'.

Another colleague said his work 'could have been done by a student in an afternoon'.

Dr Ahmad was fired in October 2019, but he brought claims of racial discrimination to the employment tribunal due to his boss' use of the word 'other' in the email.

Employment Judge Harding threw out his claim, concluding: '[Dr Ahmad] was not performing well enough in his role, and in particular [he] had not developed the prototype that he was taken on to deliver.

'That is an explanation that is in no sense whatsoever because of race.'
A probe into Kenny's death revealed video footage of the police sergeant buying the drug just outside of his Kingsbridge precinct station house

A Bronx police sergeant was found dead while on-duty last month died from a fentanyl overdose, and was seen on surveillance video buying the drug just across the street from the precinct station house.

Sgt. Ryan Kenny, 40, an 19-year NYPD veteran, was discovered unconscious just after midnight on August 14 in a third-story locker room inside of the 50th Precinct building on Kingsbridge Avenue, the New York Post reported.

EMS rushed Kenny to nearby Allen Pavilion Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, sources told the outlet.

While NYPD Chief Rodney Harrison initially tweeted that Kenny had died from a 'possible heart attack,' the Post says multiple police sources confirmed Wednesday that the cause was in fact a fentanyl overdose.

An NYPD spokesperson told DailMail.com that it is investigating whether or not his death was the result of an accidental overdose, and whether he had purchased and taken tainted drugs or if he was ingesting the deadly powder on his own free will.

'On Saturday, Sergeant Ryan Kenny tragically passed away. Today, NYPD members joined his grieving family to give their final salute to their brother in blue,' an August 19 tweet from the department read alongside a photo of officers carrying Kenny's casket.

Pictured: Sgt. Ryan Kenny, 40, was discovered unconscious just after midnight on August 14 in a third-story locker room inside of the 50th Precinct building

'Well #NeverForget his years of service to all New Yorkers,'

A probe into Kenny's death revealed video footage of the police sergeant buying the drug just outside of his Kingsbridge precinct station house, a high-ranking department source told the outlet.

The Post states that the source also revealed Kenny had received an injury several years ago when working at a different precinct in Queens, before adding that he could have became addicted to the deadly drug through prescription painkillers.

A GoFundMe organized on his family's behalf has already raised over $32,000 as of Thursday morning.

'He was also a beloved husband, father, and son. He worked tirelessly for his cops, always making sure they were well taken care of and prepared for the tasks ahead of them,' the organizer wrote of the father of 11-year-old triplets.

Fellow officers carry Sgt. Kenny's casket following the 19-year NYPD veteran's death. The department initially believed the cause of death to be a heart attack

'He was a man known for his humorous character that left all who encountered him with endless stories of the man he was.'

'Unfortunately, Sergeant Kenny died unexpectedly in the 50th Precinct during his tour.'

'He leaves behind a beautiful wife, Laura, and 3 very strong independent triplets age 11, Charlie, Liam, and Alice. We are asking for donations of all amounts to help his family through this difficult time. Thank you and God Bless,' the fundraiser description read.

It was unclear when he had bought the drugs that killed him.

An NYPD spokesperson said the 'matter was under internal review.'
Ruthie Henshall outside Downing Street

People in care homes are still 'dying of loneliness', actress Ruthie Henshall said as she called for visiting restrictions to be lifted.

The West End star was one of dozens of campaigners from the Rights for Residents group who gathered outside Downing Street calling for an end to the isolation of residents.

Chanting 'rights for residents', and holding up placards with photographs of their loved ones, a crowd of about one hundred demonstrators gathered in Westminster on Thursday.

A small group, including shadow social care minister Liz Kendall, then delivered a petition with more than 267,000 signatures, to Number 10.

Ms Henshall said some care homes are 'making up their own rules' instead of following the Government's visiting guidance, and that she 'cannot bear' hearing the stories of suffering that are still going on.

She said: 'It is still happening in care homes, that people are getting half-hour visits every couple of weeks, they're still dying of loneliness and isolation and I cannot have this, and this is just devastating to think that, you know, all of this time later, this is still going on.

'They have no voice, no voice, because they're behind the door.'

The Government said it is doing 'everything we can' to help providers facilitate safe visits.

Ms Henshall was an essential caregiver for her mother Gloria, a care home resident, who died in May.

She added: 'I got to hold her as she died, I got to play her classical music, I got to tell her everything that I wanted to tell her, they let my sisters in as well.

'If I had been robbed of that experience, I don't know where I would be, because the grief of losing your mother is enormous, but to lose your mother when you have not had the chance to see them, it's unthinkable.'

Ruthie Henshall joins members of Rights For Residents to hand in a petition at 10 Downing Street, London

Prime Minister Boris Johnson talks to resident Kathleen during a visit to Westport Care Home in Stepney Green, on September 7

The campaigners are calling for visiting restrictions to be lifted in line with freedoms for the rest of society.

They also want the Government to pass Gloria's law, named after Ms Henshall's mother, to protect the right of an essential caregiver to continue visiting their loved one even if the care home is in the midst of a coronavirus outbreak.

After helping deliver the petition, Ms Kendall said: 'There are many lessons to be learned from this pandemic, but most people here were absolutely shocked that they could actually be banned from seeing their loved one.

'They think it's wrong, I think it's wrong, so we have to keep pushing for that legal change to happen.'

Current guidance says there is no limit on the number of named visitors a resident can receive, nor how many visits they can receive each day.

All care homes without coronavirus cases should seek to enable indoor visits, and each resident should be able to nominate a loved one to become an essential caregiver, who can visit even if the home is in outbreak, it says.

Visitors should wear protective gear, test negative before the visit and are advised to minimise physical contact.

While the guidance is not underpinned in law, providers are expected to follow it, with breaches investigated by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

But it is not mandatory, and campaign groups say many providers are still taking more restrictive measures.

Ruthie Henshall was an essential caregiver for her mother Gloria, who died in May

The groups said many are still using screens, restricting the number and duration of visits, and refusing residents the chance to nominate an essential caregiver.

They warn that the 'inhumane' visiting policies of the last 18 months have led to a 'growing reluctance' to place a loved one into care, which is having a financial impact on the sector.

They want the Government to introduce 'clear penalties' for homes that do not follow its guidance.

Diane Mayhew, co-founder of Rights for Residents, said residents are paying thousands of pounds 'for the privilege of being held prisoner'.

She said: 'Either lifting restrictions in society is safe, and if it is then they should be lifted for everybody in care, or they're not.

'You cannot have one rule for one group of people and another rule for another.

'Just because they live in care, why should they pay the price for everybody else's freedom?

'It's discriminatory, it smacks of inequality, it's actually an abuse of their human rights, and it absolutely has to stop.'

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: 'We are doing everything we can to support care providers in facilitating visits safely between residents and their friends and family.

'This includes ensuring all residents can nominate an essential care giver, removing limits on named or daily visitors and reducing the period of time visit restrictions apply following an outbreak across the home.

'Our message is clear: all care home residents should be supported to get the care and companionship they need from visitors as this is essential to their health and wellbeing.'
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia reported raising $4.5 million in just the first six months of 2021. More than $3.5 million comes from small donors, her campaign claims

US election officials have asked Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to double check her numbers earlier this month after she reported raising more than $3.5 million in campaign contributions so small that she's not required to itemize them.

A federal election law aimed at protecting the privacy of small-dollar donors states that campaigns don't have to disclose information about people who give less than $200.

The number is known as the 'itemization threshold.'

But the Federal Election Commission (FEC) is questioning how Greene - still in her first term- managed to raise nearly 80 percent of its funding through small donors in six months, the Daily Beast reports.

The Georgia Republican would have to have gotten money from more than 17,500 supporters to hit $3.5 million.

Because they didn't reach the $200 threshold, Greene's campaign isn't required to make their names, locations or employers public nor how much exactly they donated.

Her total donations for the same time period amount to more than $4.5 million.

But she's not the only one. The FEC made similar inquests into 14 other campaigns.

The majority of notices were sent to Republicans.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California was asked last month to explain nearly $800,000 in anonymous cash from late 2020.

Reps. Elise Stefanik, Dan Crenshaw and Kevin McCarthy also got similar notices to Greene asking for an explanation for an influx of un-itemized cash

Officials reached out to Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw in August about non-itemized donations totaling more than $1 million.

According to FEC data from January through June 2021, Crenshaw raised more than $2.8 million that his campaign has not provided information for.

New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, chair of the House Republican Conference, was questioned about nearly $300,000 in unexplained money.

Two other Republicans, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley and Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, were flagged for anonymous donations reported earlier this year, but they weren't asked for an explanation after claiming the numbers were correct.

Democrats were also alerted about their campaign finances by the regulatory agency.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were each sent letters in August demanding an explanation for more than $1 million each.

House Speaker Pelosi and Rep. Ocasio-Cortez were also asked to explain more than $1 million in anonymous donations

Pelosi is consistently one of the top Democratic fundraisers in the country, the Daily Beast noted in its analysis, and Ocasio-Cortez is known for raising significant small-donor dollars from her progressive supporters.

Outside of Congress the FEC pinged Missouri lawyer Mark McCloskey, who plead guilty but was pardoned for charges stemming from waving his gun at Black Lives Matter protesters outside his home in 2020.

Republican McCloskey is running for US Senate in the upcoming election.

Election officials are looking into his first campaign filing and whether he properly reported more than $400,000 in donations less than $200.

The number of small-dollar donations reported has been growing over the years, particularly for Republicans.

GOP candidates have traditionally relied on bigger financial backers, and have faced more reporting issues since embracing a new landscape of eager grassroots donors.

The Federal Election Commission sent 14 campaign notices similar to Greene's since June

The surge in small-dollar Republican donations can be attributed to WinRed, a fundraising platform designed to attract grassroots supporters to Republican causes and candidates

Experts have attributed that at least in part to WinRed, a Republican fundraising platform that has come under scrutiny over a lack of transparency in its operations and fundraising.

The platform has been accused of under-reporting finances. In March the site was embroiled in an elections inquiry into Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, who received several notices from the FEC regarding nearly $3 million in unreported campaign funds.

Jordan Libowitz, an official at DC watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, told the Daily Beast that 'people have raised questions of whether these were truly unitemized donations, or whether some donors gave more than $200 and the campaigns wanted to keep the names off of it, or something else untoward.'

But he gave Republicans the benefit of the doubt, noting they may have trouble adapting to WinRed's platform.

'Now suddenly theres a ton of people giving $20 to candidates, and so maybe they just cant keep up,' he said.
Longtime Donald Trump advisor Roger Stone got served with a lawsuit related to the January 6th Capitol riot while he was conducting an interview on live radio  and made the most of the situation by calling it a 'fraud.'

Stone was in the midst of an interview Wednesday with 'Real Talk' on KRTK in the St. Louis suburbs, a conservative outlet that calls itself the 'Voice of Freedom.'

Stone was answering a question about why he thinks it is 'imperative' that Trump, who pardoned him after he was convicted of lying to Congress, should run for president in 2024.

'Hold on a second, I have a process server at my front door about to serve me in the latest lawsuit,' Stone said, as the scene plays out on air.

Trump confidant and advisor Roger Stone looks at a cell phone next to supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump ahead of the U.S. Congress certification of the November 2020 election results during protests in Washington, U.S., January 5, 2021

'Live on your radio show,' he said, prompting his interviewer to exclaim: 'Holy smokes.'

Stone goes on to have a polite conversation with the process server who tracked him down.

'Yes of course, I'll be happy to accept,' Stone says. 'Yes of course, a civil court in the District of Columbia,' he says, before the server corrects him and says 'federal.'

'It's still a fraud, doesn't matter,' Stone replies.

'Alright, I have just been served in the January 6th lawsuit, live right here on your radio' Stone says. He then riffs that it is a 'big, big stack of papers, which is good because we're out of toilet paper today.'

Lawyer Ron Filipkowski tweeted out the scene.

Stone has already been named in a lawsuit by seven Capitol Police officers, who also name former President Trump, Proud Boys, and other groups.

'Defendants unlawful efforts culminated in the January 6 mass attack on the United States Capitol and the brutal, physical assault of hundreds of law enforcement officers,' they write in their suit.

Roger Stone says he never left his DC hotel with the Proud Boys to attend the Capitol protest that turned into a riot

Stone is named in a civil suit by Capitol Police officers, who also name former President Trump as a defendant

A lawyer tweeted out audio of the moment Stone was served

Stone politely accepted the document on the air as he was served

Stone was not at the January 6th riot where a mob ransacked the Capitol. But he was in Washington the day of the rally and was pictured with members of his security team  members of the Oath Keepers who were subsequently charged in connection with the riot.

. He was also pictured with Proud Boy leaders before the Dec. 12th, 2020 'Stop the Steal' rally in Washington.

He has not been accused of any crime related to January 6th, where about 600 people have been charged.
A mother has saved her two children after a shipwreck by breastfeeding them for four days while she drank her own urine - before she finally died.

Mariely Chacon, 40, kept Jose David and Maria Beatriz Camblor Chacon alive after their boat was destroyed by a wave following a trip to an island in the Atlantic Ocean.

The Venezuelan drank her own urine so she had the energy to breastfeed the six-year-old and two-year-old while they floated on the wreckage 70 miles out to sea.

Rescuers found the children holding their mother's body on the remains of the vessel and they were rushed to hospital with dehydration and first-degree burns.

The mother and her children had been on the boat with their nanny - who also survived by hiding in a fridge to escape the heat.

But five others - including Chacon's husband and the children's father Remis David Camblor - are still missing.

The nine-strong crew had left Higuerote in Venezuela for the uninhabited Caribbean island of La Tortuga on September 3 on the vessel Thor de Higuerote.

She was left adrift with her kids, found clinging to their dead mum, and their 25-year-old nanny Veronica Martinez for four days in baking temperatures after heading out on a boat trip with family and friends that turned to disaster after a huge wave smashed the vessel's hull

The nanny was found in a small fridge where she had reportedly taken refuge to stay out of the sweltering heat. The kids and nanny were rushed to hospital so they could be treated for dehydration and first-degree burns

They were found adrift four days after leaving Higuerote on September 3 for the island La Tortuga around 56 miles off the Venezuelan coast

Mariely Chacon, 40, sacrificed her own life to save those of her six-year-old son and two-year-old daughter by trying to stave off dehydration so they had a fighting chance of surviving the harrowing shipwrec

Officials confirmed Chacon, who died from organ failure caused by dehydration, kept her children alive by drinking her own urine so she could breastfeed them.

A source quoted by newspaper La Republica said the mother's vital organs had collapsed because of electrolyte depletion.

Humberto Chacon, the woman's father, said the boat voyage was 'simply a family trip to entertain the children'.

Her funeral was on Saturday after officials said her children would live despite suffering from PTSD and physical injuries.

The search is understood to be continuing for the missing five people, although hopes of finding them alive are fading fast.

The family left Higuerote in their native Venezuela for the uninhabited Caribbean island of La Tortuga aboard the vessel Thor de Higuerote, an Intermarine 229 leisure boat

Five people including Remis David Camblor, Mariely's husband and the father of the children, are still said to be missing

Venezuela's National Maritime Authority INEA said: 'On September 3 at 9.30am a pleasure boat called Thor left Higuerote for La Tortuga Island with the return scheduled for September 5.

'Port authorities were informed on September 5 around 11pm it had failed to reach its destination or returned to the location it had left from and a search operation was launched.'

It added: 'On September 6 at 6.20pm we were alerted to a small white vessel which was drifting off the island of La Orchila that led to the reorientation of the search operation.

'On September 7 at 2.10pm four people were rescued, two of them children, by coastguard vessel AB Carecare.'

It added in the statement: 'We share the pain of the families of the victims of this terrible tragedy.'

An INEA official was quoted as saying: 'The mother who died kept her children alive by breastfeeding them and drinking her own urine.

'She died three or four hours before the rescue from dehydration after drinking no water for three days.'

He admitted their chances of survival would have been greatly increased if the group had had a radio or GPS or other security devices including flares.

Four of the other five missing people on board the boat are Jose Javier Marcano Narvaez; Alejandro Osorio Graterol; Vianney Carolina Dos Santos Morales and Remis David Camblor, said to have been acting as the boat skipper.
Scott Morrison made his first call on the morning he announced the historic AUKUS deal to Jacinda Ardern, who soon made it clear nuclear submarines would not be welcome in New Zealand waters.

Australia, the US, and Britain on Thursday morning formed a new alliance to beef up security in the Asia Pacific to counter the rising threat of China.

At least eight nuclear-powered submarines are expected to be delivered to Australia under the deal.

Ms Ardern was the first international leader the Australian prime minister called on Wednesday, hoping New Zealand could alleviate concerns from South Pacific countries impacted by previous nuclear testing, The Australian reported.

The New Zealand leader reiterated her country's firm anti-nuclear stance, but stressed ties with the three countries remained strong.

Scott Morrison (pictured, left) called Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern (right) before announcing the historic AUKUS deal - who made it clear nuclear submarines would not be welcome in New Zealand's waters

The pact does not make the design of Australia's new submarines clear, but they will be based on previous US and UK designs (pictured, a cross-section of Britain's Astute-class nuclear attack subs, which is likely to mirror the new vessels)

'New Zealand's position in relation to the prohibition of nuclear powered vessels in our waters remains unchanged,' she said just minutes after the announcement.

'The centrepiece of it is nuclear powered submarines and all parties are very well versed in understanding our position on nuclear powered vessels and weapons.

'They couldn't come into our internal waters our legislation says no vessel wholly or fully powered by nuclear energy can enter our internal waters.

'That is a position held across parties for a long period of time.'

After phoning Ms Ardern, Mr Morrison spoke to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with the leader of Japan Yoshihide Suga.

Meanwhile, Defence Minister Peter Dutton and Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne spoke to Indonesia's corresponding ministers on Wednesday while other ASEAN leaders were addressed on Thursday.

Scott Morrison and Jacinda Ardern (pictured in February 2020) say their nations will continues to cooperate on regional security

Ms Ardern insisted New Zealand had no interest in being part of the new AUKUS triumvirate and saw it as less important than the Five Eyes intelligence sharing arrangement, which was formed in 1941.

'[AUKUS] isn't at the level of existing partnership with UK, Canada, the US, Australia and Canada,' she said.

Ms Ardern said she was informed about Australia's partnership with the US and Britain at the same time as Scott Morrison's cabinet, but wasn't invited.

'No we weren't approached, nor would I expect us to be,' Ms Ardern said.

She said it was 'very clear' New Zealand wouldn't want to belong to the alliance because of its promotion of nuclear-powered submarines.

At least eight nuclear-powered submarines are expected to be delivered to Australia under the deal (pictured, The Royal Australian Navy's HMAS Waller - which is diesel-electric)

Australia's new nuclear submarines, which are to be built in Adelaide as part of the AUKUS alliance with the UK and US, will not be welcome in New Zealand (pictured, a guided-missile submarine in the Strait of Hormuz)

The New Zealand public has long supported an official anti-nuclear stance.

The American navy's nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser USS Truxtun came under heavy water-based protests from civilians when it visited New Zealand in 1982.

The nation's government made world headlines in the 1980s for denying a visit by US destroyer USS Buchanan in 1985 after the US refused to deny that the warship had nuclear capability.

As part of the AUKUS arrangement, Australia's two most important allies will help it build nuclear-powered submarines for the first time.

'It is the first time this technology has ever been made available to Australia. This is a one-off, as the President in Washington has made very clear. This is a very special arrangement,' Mr Morrison said.

The American navy's nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser USS Truxtun (pictured) came under heavy water-based protests from civilians when it visited New Zealand in 1982

The prime minister was joined virtually for the announcement by US President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in a historic joint press conference.

None of the leaders mentioned China by name but the West is increasingly concerned about Beijing's growing assertiveness and huge military build-up.

Ms Ardern said New Zealand wants 'peace' in the region but does support 'more engagement' by the UK and US.

'We want peace and we want stability in our region and a rules based order preserved and that is position we will come at on all these issues.'

Ms Ardern challenged the Kiwi opposition to come out and support her statements, given it had spoken in support of AUKUS.

China has vastly built up its military in the past few years and now possesses six Shang-class nuclear powered attack submarines, equipped with torpedoes and cruise missiles. This graphic shows a comparison of the two militaries
Almost 300 birds died and 30 were injured in less than 24 hours after hitting the World Trade Center's glass towers in New York City.

Hundreds of songbirds died after flying into several of the World Trade Center towers, leaving piles of carcasses lying on the sidewalk.

The collisions were blamed on the skyscrapers' lights being left on and their reflective glass, which confuses the birds into flying into them.

Melissa Breyer, a volunteer bird collision monitor for New York City Audubon, counted 291 dead birds on Tuesday morning within 65 minutes of walking around WTC Three and Four.

I did this for 65 minutes straight doing one loop around @4WTC and @3NYWTC  most of these before sunrise. Please can we turn off lights during migration??? pic.twitter.com/pCXoJkUXo0  Melissa Breyer (@MelissaBreyer) September 14, 2021

Volunteer bird collision monitor Melissa Breyer picked up 291 dead birds (pictured) with her bare hands outside the World Trade Center towers

She told the New York Post that she typically only sees 15 to 20 birds on her trips, but was shocked to find 291 near the bases of One, Three, Four, and Seven World Trade Centers.

'I was totally shocked. It was an overwhelming thing,' she told the New York Post. 'I looked around and it was like a nightmare.'

Similar issues have plagued other skyscrapers in Manhattan during the annual migration season, as well as other cities including Chicago which are famed for their high density of tall buildings.

Breyer posted photos of the carcasses on her Twitter page, writing: 'Counting the dead birds on @_WTCOfficial awnings that I couldnt collect; add another 35, + the 30 who went to @wildbirdfundmaking my documented total 291 between WTC 1, 3, 4, 7.'

The majority of the birds were found outside of the WTC Three (pictured) and Four

Operator for WTC Three, Four,(pictured) and Seven have reportedly told employees to turn off the lights of pull down the blinds at night to reduce bird collisions and deaths. One WTC already has glass fins up to the 200-feet to reduce collision and the other towers are installing special glass

One WTC, pictured, also saw multiple collisions, with its reflective glass blamed for confusing migratory birds

The number excludes the poor birds who were smashed or swept away.

Birds frequently hit the World Trade Center towers due to the reflection on the glass. Glass doesn't look solid to birds, causing the animals to become disoriented by the lights.

Breyer is calling for World Trade Center operators to turn off the lights at night during migration season - late summer through fall - or treat the glass to look solid by installing decals.

Despite the city lighting memorial lights in honor of the 20th Anniversary of 9/11, the Associate Director of Conservation and Science at NYC Audubon Kaitlyn Parkins doesn't think the bird's deaths are associate, but rather with an influx in migration.

Breyer documented the birds she found, excluding the ones that were smashed or swept away. Normally Breyer only finds 15 to 20 birds, but due to migration season, more birds are moving south for winter

''[There is] a big pulse in migration,' she told the New York Post.

The first 200-feet of One World Trade Center is already covered in non-reflective glass fins to help mitigate the situation, as most birds crashed into glass buildings below that.

'This design was chosen because it greatly reduces bird strikes which mostly occur below 200 feet and are frequently caused by reflective glass, said Jordan Barowitz, spokesman for One WTC, told the New York Post.

Only 30 dead birds were found outside One WTC.

Other operators from Three, Four, and Seven World Trade Center operators reported they are taking steps to protects birds by encouraging those who work in the towers to turn off their lights or lower the blinds at night.

'We care deeply for wild birds and protecting their habitat in the five boroughs. Understanding that artificial night-time lighting in general can attract and disorient migrating birds, we are actively encouraging our office tenants to turn off their lights at night and lower their blinds wherever possible, especially during the migratory season,' a spokesperson told the New York Post.

The remaining World Trade Center operated reportedly said they are installing special glass.
Resistance fighters in Afghanistan have a new weapon in their war against the Taliban: A Washington lobbyist.

Representatives of the National Resistance Force are seeking military and financial help as they try to hold out against Afghanistan's new rulers.

They have taken on Robert Stryk, who already represents several foreign clients on a pro bono basis, according to the New York Times.

At the same time, the Taliban is also reportedly seeking representation in Washington, as the Biden administration continues to negotiate its need to help American nationals, green card holders and Afghan allies flee the country with pressure to clamp down hard on movement known for its human rights abuses.

'No entity could receive legitimacy without the support, endorsement of his excellency Ahmad Massoud, because he is the source of legitimacy today,' said Ali Nazary, who represents NRF leader Ahmad Massoud in the United States, told the New York Times.

Afghan resistance fighters, led by Ahmad Massoud (l), have taken on lobbyist Robert Stryk as they seek military and financial support from Washington for their battle against the Taliban

The Taliban claim to have overrun the Panjshir Valley, where Massoud was massing a new resistance movement

Afghan armed men supporting the Afghan security forces against the Taliban stand with their weapons and Humvee vehicles at Parakh area in Bazarak, Panjshir province on August 19, 2021

At the same time, the Taliban has appealed to Washington not to shut off its aid to Afghanistan.

On Tuesday, Amir Khan Muttaqi, the regime's acting foreign minister, told a press conference the hardline Islamist group would spend donor money wisely and use it to alleviate poverty.

'America is a big country, they need to have a big heart,' he said.

Both sides see Washington as a key part of their struggle.

Rebel leader Massoud, is the 32-year-old British educated son of Ahmad Shah Masood, the most venerated of all Afghanistan's resistance fighters, who was particularly skilled at channeling Western aid into his movement.

After leading the struggle against Soviet occupation through the 1980s and then battling the rise of the Taliban, he was assassinated by Al Qaeda days before the 9/11 attacks.

His son built a new rebellion in the Panjshir Valley, about 100 miles north of the capital Kabul as Taliban fighters seized control of the country.

But the rebels' fortunes have ebbed and flowed, and the Taliban claimed last week to have taken control of the area.

Several reports said that Massoud had left for Turkey or another other Central Asian countries but NRF figures said the claims were false.

In a recent interview with DailyMail.com Nazary said the movement needed international help.

'We need arms, munitions to continue the fight against terrorism,' he said.

'This is not only a fight against the Taliban, this is a fight against international terrorism - just as it was in the late 1990s.'

Massoud is the 32-year-old British-educated son of Ahmad Shah Masood, the most venerated of all Afghanistan's resistance fighters

They are pinning their hopes on support from Washington and say they need aid to survive the winter.

'We have thousands of people take shelter here. People who feel threatened have no choice to but to come to Panjshir,' he said.

'For us it is very difficult to sustain a safe zone without humanitarian support. We need the U.S., European Union, United Nations, anyone.'

In a sign of the way the battle is moving to Washington, on Wednesday, GOP senators unveiled a bill that would direct the State Department to list the Taliban as a terrorist organization.

It would impose sanctions and aim to prevent U.S. taxpayers money falling into the hands of terror groups in the country.

Sen. Marco Rubio said: 'There is no doubt that a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan poses a direct threat to our national security interests and that of our allies and partners both in the Middle East and in Central Asia.'
No police statement can be found for the alibis of two main suspects in the unsolved murder of Melbourne woman Maria James, an inquest has been told.

Ms James was stabbed 68 times, including 38 times in her back and 11 in her neck, at her Thornbury home in June 1980.

Two of the six men suspected of murdering the mother-of-two are Peter Keogh, a convicted killer who stabbed his girlfriend to death in 1987, and Peco Macevski, a real estate agent who had been having an affair with Ms James when she died.

No police statement could be found for the alibis of two men suspected of killing Maria James (pictured) in June 1980

Former detective Rowland Legg on Thursday admitted no police statement could be found for the alibis provided for Keogh or Mr Macevski during the original investigation.

But he told the Victorian Coroners Court this did not necessarily mean the police statements were never obtained.

'If no statement was taken from a person who was an alibi, then that would be a significant oversight?' counsel assisting the coroner Sharon Lacy asked Mr Legg.

'Yes', he responded.

Another former detective who worked on Ms James' murder case, Robert Jacobs, revealed that blood-stained bedding stored by police was destroyed in November 1994 after being considered a biological hazard.

Mr Jacobs also said he recalled speaking with former federal MP Phil Cleary, whose sister Vicki was killed by Keogh in 1987, about potential links between the two cases.

But Mr Jacobs said Keogh would have been eliminated as a suspect in the 1980s.

'Phil Cleary's call was based on rumour only,' the former police officer said.

It is believed she was killed with a small knife taken from her own kitchen drawer (pictured)

Ms Lacy later told Mr Jacobs that a woman who drove into a man running across the road outside Ms James' home on the day she was murdered had told police she was '99 per cent sure' it was Keogh.

'I don't recall that,' Mr Jacobs said.

Stratton Langslow, a barrister who is representing Mr Macevski, the only living suspect, then suggested that Ms James' killer may not be one of the six men identified during the inquest.

Ms James was stabbed 68 times in her Thonbury home (pictured) in Melbourne with six men named as suspects

'In the end it may be that you never got pointed toward or discovered the person who actually committed the crime - that you didn't even get a sniff of him?' Mr Langslow asked Mr Jacobs.

'It could have been someone who never came to your attention?'

'That's my belief,' Mr Jacobs responded.

Two of the other six main suspects are now-deceased Catholic priests Father Anthony Bongiorno and Thomas O'Keeffe, both accused of abusing one of Ms James' sons.

The inquest before Deputy State Coroner Caitlin English continues on Friday.
A 'kind and dedicated' University of Portsmouth radiography student took his own life after he was accused of plagiarism for his final dissertation, an inquest has heard.

Alistair Hall, 22, was found dead in his room in his student halls at Unite Chaucer House in Portsmouth, Hampshire, on June 27, 2020.

He had suffered a heart arrhythmia having taken an overdose of a drug that he had ordered on the internet, Portsmouth Coroner's Court heard.

A month before his death, Mr Hall had been told that his dissertation would receive a zero mark because it was considered to have plagiarised an example work given for his course.

Despite this, the inquest heard the 'dedicated' student still would have graduated due to his previous grades. He was posthumously awarded a 2.1 degree in diagnostic radiography.

Alistair Hall, 22, was found dead in his room in his student halls at Unite Chaucer House (pictured) in Portsmouth, Hampshire, after taking an overdose on June 27, 2020

His future employers would also not have been actively informed about the ruling, the hearing was told.

A note that was found on his computer said 'things went wrong one too many times'.

It referred to a previous suicide attempt, when he was having problems with his A-levels, and his birth mother, who died when he was 18 months old.

Recording a verdict of suicide, coroner Christopher Wilkinson said: 'He was a very special young man to his family, a very cherished son, someone who was polite, kind, gentle, sensitive, respectful and dedicated.

'It appears he had applied himself to his studies, he had ambitions in his life which he was looking to develop, both academically, personal and professional.

A month before his death, Mr Hall was told his dissertation would receive a zero mark because it was considered to have been plagiarised, Portsmouth Coroner's Court (pictured) heard

'It's reflected in his posthumous degree the work that he had put into that three-year degree where he was a credit to the university.'

Mr Wilkinson said that he believed the plagiarism accusation had contributed to his personal struggles in 'finding his place in the world'.

He added: 'In the end, those underlying feelings which had never left Alistair came to the fore as well as the more acute pressures of the dissertation.

'While I do not believe that was the sole reason, I can only believe it had an impact on his way of thinking.'

In a statement read to the hearing, his family said: 'Alistair was very special to all of us, a miracle IVF baby, so-wanted, and a beautiful gift to us.

'Tragically his birth mother died when he was 18 months old. He was a happy boy, bright, kind, gentle and respectful.'

For confidential support, call the Samaritans on 116123 or visit a local Samaritans branch. See www.samaritans.org for details.
Japan has staked its claim to the contested Senkaku Islands and will be defending them strongly against China amid escalating tensions in the region, the country's defence minister has warned.

Nobuo Kishi said the territories, known as the Diaoyu Islands in China, unquestionably belong to Japan and warned any provocation from Beijing will be fully matched.

His warnings come as a new three-way nuclear submarine pact between the US, UK and Australia aimed at combatting China was unveiled, to the delight of Japan and Taiwan.

Nobuo Kishi has drawn a red line around the the contested Senkaku Islands and will be defending them strongly against China

Kishi said the territories, known as the Diaoyu Islands in China, unquestionably belong to Japan

Japan fears China's increasingly-assertive navy, which now frequently conducts patrols that skirt its territorial waters including with its new aircraft carriers.

Tokyo has beefed up its military presence around several disputed islands in response, raising fears of an accidental conflict.

It has added state-of-the-art F-35 fighter jets and converted warships to aircraft carriers, while building new destroyers, submarines and missiles.

Kishi told CNN: 'Against Chinese action to Senkaku Islands and other parts of the East China Sea... we have to demonstrate that the government of Japan is resolutely defending our territory with the greater number of Japanese coast guard vessels than that of China.

'There is no territorial dispute relating to the Senkaku Islands between Japan and other countries.'

The uninhabited islets in the East China Sea, controlled by Japan but claimed by China, have been at the centre of a long-standing dispute that has plagued the relations between Beijing and Tokyo for years.

They are located 1,200 miles southwest of Tokyo but only a third of that distance from Shanghai.

A Chinese Coast Guard ship cruises near the Senkaku Islands last month amid escalating tensions

They are considered to have great economic and strategic values because they are close to important shipping lines and offering rich fishing grounds.

China and Japan both claim sovereignty over the islets, which are under Japanese administration, preventing wide-scale exploration and development of oil and natural gas in the East China Sea.

During a row over the territories in 2012, it led to mass protests in China where Japanese cars, shops and restaurants were destroyed and the embassy targeted.

China has been just as ardent in its claims as Japan, saying last year: 'The Diaoyu Island and its affiliated islands are an inherent part of China's territory, and it is our inherent right to carry out patrols and law enforcement activities in these waters.'

Japanese authorities say that this year alone, Chinese Coast Guard vessels have ventured into Japanese waters or 12 nautical miles of Japanese land more than 88 times.

Experts believe China intends to put forces in and around contested areas.

They are also exerting force over Taiwan, which Beijing views as part of China even though it has never been governed by the CCP.

A P-3C patrol plane from the Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force flies over the disputed islets in 2011

China has regularly sent warplanes and ships towards Taiwan, which has in turn alerted its air defences, with US ships often patrolling the contested South China Sea.

Kishi said: 'What could happen in Taiwan could likely be an issue for Japan, and in that case, Japan will have to take the necessary response to that situation.'

As tensions simmer, China is also threatening to send its Navy into Hawaiian waters in the latest round of sabre rattling in the Pacific after Australia, the US and Britain announced a new naval alliance in the region.

Four Chinese vessels have already been spotted sailing off the coast of Alaska this week in a display of naval power amid increasing tensions as a global nuclear submarine pact was signed to take on Beijing.

A Chinese guided-missile cruiser, guided-missile destroyer, general intelligence vessel, and an auxiliary vessel were spotted off the coast of Alaska's Aleutian Islands during surveillance operations in the Bering Sea.

The provocation came as China's state-run newspaper threatened to send warships to Hawaii and Guam in response to US moves in the South China Sea.

The Chinese flotilla sailed 42 miles off the coast of the Aleutian Islands near the coast of Alasksa

Four Chinese vessels have sailed off the coast of Alaska in a display of naval power amid increasing tensions

A guided-missile cruiser, guided-missile destroyer (pictured), general intelligence vessel, and an auxiliary vessel were spotted off the coast of Alaska's Aleutian Islands

The Global Times' editor-in-chief, Hu Xijin, tweeted: 'Hopefully when Chinese warships pass through the Caribbean Sea or show up near Hawaii and Guam one day, the US will uphold the same standard of freedom of navigation. That day will come soon.'

The US Navy responded to the tweet, saying they have 'upheld the standards of freedom of navigation longer than the PLA navy has existed'.

They also pointed out that Chinese spy ships have frequently sailed past Hawaii and Guam in recent years.

They said: 'The US Navy sails around the world in accordance with international law.

'All countries benefit from freedom of navigation in accordance with international law.

'Unfortunately, not all who benefit from freedom of navigation would extend that same freedom to others.'

The four warships, believed to include the 055 Nanchang destroyer were shadowed by the US Coast Guard

While the Chinese ships that sailed in the Bering Sea near Alaska were close to US waters, they followed international laws, US officials said.

The four warships, believed to include the 055 Nanchang destroyer were shadowed by the US Coast Guard cutters Bertholf and Kimball, which were shown in a series of images released on Monday of the incident.

The Bertholf crew made radio contact with the the Chinese flotilla which sailed 46 miles from the coast and said all interactions were consistent with international standards.

Guard Pacific Area commander Vice Adm. Michael McAllister said in a statement: 'Security in the Bering Sea and the Arctic is homeland security.

'The U.S. Coast Guard is continuously present in this important region to uphold American interests and protect US economic prosperity.'

The state-run Global Times cited Chinese analysts saying the move could be a 'countermeasure against US military provocations on China's doorsteps in the name of freedom of navigation'.

US Coast Guard cutters Bertholf (pictured) and Kimball patrolled the seas as the Chinese flotilla came within 46 miles of the coast

The provocation came as China's state-run newspaper threatened to send warships to Hawaii and Guam in response to US moves in the South China Sea

The US Navy responded to the tweet, listing a number of occasions Chinese spy ships have sailed close to US waters

The escalating tensions come amid a war of words over a new nuclear submarine pact between the UK, US and Australia aimed at combatting China - with Beijing denouncing their 'Cold War mentality'.

The new alliance - called AUKUS - will see the US and UK cooperate to build Australia's first ever nuclear submarine fleet which will comprise at least eight vessels. The trio will also share other military technologies such as artificial intelligence, cyber defence, quantum computing and long-range strike capabilities.

Boris Johnson, Joe Biden and Scott Morrison were careful not to mention Beijing as they announced the new deal last night, but there can be little doubt that the alliance's purpose is to counter China's growing aggression - particularly in the South China Sea, which is criss-crossed by valuable trading routes and fertile fishing grounds.

Britain and America are to help Australia build a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines as part of an unprecedented alliance known as the AUKUS pact to combat China's naval dominance and will likely be the similar design as this Astute class submarine HMS Ambush (pictured)

China has inflamed tensions in the South China Sea in recent years by expanding its claimed territory, to the objection of its neighbors in the Asia-Pacific

China wasted little time responding to the deal, with foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian denouncing the 'exclusionary bloc' which he said 'seriously undermines regional peace and stability and intensifies the arms race.'

But Beijing is far from the only upset party. Paris was also quick to react, with foreign minister Yves Le-Drian complaining it is a 'stab in the back' after a $90bn deal for France supply Australia with 12 conventionally-powered submarines was torn up. The French subs were not due for completion until mid-2030, while the new pact aims for a much faster delivery time.

The deal also side-lines New Zealand and Canada - who together with the UK, US and Australia make up the Cold War-era Five Eyes intelligence alliance. While AUKUS is not a straight replacement for Five Eyes, it is almost certain to reduce its importance and isolates Wellington and Ottawa from the group.

It seems the duo have been punished for failing to take a stronger stance against Beijing, just four months after New Zealand refused to sign a joint Five Eyes statement which criticised China's aggression in the South China Sea, its crackdown in Hong Kong, threats to Taiwan and its treatment of Uyghur Muslims.

Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand's left-wing PM, has since admitted that she was not even consulted on the new pact - adding that Australia's new subs will be banned from entering New Zealand waters under the country's long-standing 'nuclear free' policy.
Shops could soon be allowed to sell fruit and vegetables in pounds and ounces as part of a Government plan to hold a bonfire of EU red tape.

Ministers have announced a major review of all the EU laws which were kept on the UK statute book after Brexit.

The legislation made in Brussels will be 'improved or repealed' if it is judged not to benefit the British people.

The shake-up will include a review of EU restrictions on selling goods in pounds and ounces in what could pave the way for a return to using more imperial units.

The Government's Brexit chief, Lord Frost, said 'overbearing regulations were often conceived and agreed in Brussels with little consideration of the UK national interest' and 'we now have the opportunity to do things differently'.

Shops could soon be allowed to sell fruit and vegetables in pounds and ounces as part of a Government plan to hold a bonfire of EU red tape

The shake-up will include a review of EU restrictions on selling goods in pounds and ounces in what could pave the way for a return to using more imperial units

Boris Johnson asked former Cabinet minister Sir Iain Duncan Smith in February to convene a new Taskforce on Innovation, Growth and Regulatory Reform to look at existing EU laws and to identify areas where improvements could be made.

The Government's response to the taskforce's report includes a 'package of proposed individual regulatory reforms to laws inherited while a member of the EU'.

The proposed changes include looking at whether to change the rules on people being allowed to sell goods using imperial units of measurement.

The Government said in its 'Brexit opportunities' document: 'We will review the EU ban on markings and sales in imperial units and legislate in due course.'

The current law states that traders must use metric measurements like grams, kilograms, mililitres and litres when selling packaged or loose goods in England, Scotland or Wales.

The only products which can be sold in imperial units are beer or cider by the pint, milk in a returnable container by the pint, and precious metals by the troy ounce.

The existing rules state that traders 'can display an imperial measurement alongside the metric measurement but it cannot stand out more than the metric measurement'.

The shift from imperial to metric measurements began before the UK joined the EU in 1973.

But the gradual metrication became a rallying point for many anti-EU campaigners.

Regulations were introduced in 1994 requiring goods to be weighed in metric but they were fiercely opposed by some traders, with the Metric Martyrs group campaigning for the right to choose which unit of measurement to use.

Efforts to make the UK fully metric were ultimately abandoned, as units like pints and miles remained in place.

The 'Brexit opportunities' document also includes a pledge to reintroduce the 'Crown Stamp' on pint glasses in pubs.

The Government said: 'We will remove the EU-derived prohibition on printing the Crown Stamp on pint glasses and allowing publicans and restaurants to voluntarily embrace this important symbol on their glassware, should they choose to do so.'

The Crown Stamp, which dates back hundreds of years, was used to show drinkers that a pint or half-pint glass was an accurate unit of the measurement.

It was replaced in 2007 by the EU's 'CE' mark which is used in countries throughout the bloc to prove products comply to Brussels' standards.

The plan to tear up EU laws includes a proposal to set up a new commission through which the public will be able to submit suggestions for cutting or reforming red tape.

The Government's Brexit chief, Lord Frost, said 'overbearing regulations were often conceived and agreed in Brussels with little consideration of the UK national interest' and 'we now have the opportunity to do things differently'

Submissions will then be considered by officials who will make recommendations for change to the Government.

Lord Frost, the Cabinet Office Minister, said: 'From rules on data storage to the ability of businesses to develop new green technologies, overbearing regulations were often conceived and agreed in Brussels with little consideration of the UK national interest.

'We now have the opportunity to do things differently and ensure that Brexit freedoms are used to help businesses and citizens get on and succeed.

'Today's announcement is just the beginning. The Government will go further and faster to create a competitive, high-standards regulatory environment which supports innovation and growth across the UK as we build back better from the pandemic.'

Another of the reforms being pushed forward by ministers is to modernise the UK's driving licence system by rolling out digital documentation.

The 'Brexit opportunities' document said: 'The Government will deliver a more convenient, modernised system for British motorists through digital versions of driving licences, driving test certificates, and MOT testing processes.'

The Government will also 'reconsider' regulations on using drones to spray plant protection chemicals on crops.

This is already allowed but only if it can be proved that it can be 'done in a way that does not harm human health or have unacceptable effects on the environment'.
A Las Vegas man who practices 'African spirituality' was shot by his girlfriend after he allegedly hurled her young daughter from a third-floor balcony because she was 'full of bad spirits,' according to the arrest report.

The bizarre situation unfolded shortly before 5pm Sunday when police found the five-year-old girl face down and unconscious in the Boulder Pines apartment complex - about 10 miles outside the Vegas strip.

While five-year-old was being rushed to the hospital, police spoke to her mom - Angela Matthews - who said her boyfriend of about seven months - Jarick Jermel Willis, 32 - 'believed she was a demon' and said she 'had bad entities,' the arrest report says.

Jarick Willis allegedly threw his girlfriend's daughter, 5, from the third-floor of balcony of their Las Vegas apartment

This is a picture of the scene after police found the girl face down and unconscious

The incident happened shortly before 5pm Sunday when police found the five-year-old girl face down and unconscious in the Boulder Pines apartment complex - about 10 miles outside the Vegas strip

After hearing the commotion, the girl's mother said her son told her that Willis threw the five-year-old from the balcony, and she grabbed a gun to protect her and her son, according to the report.

The confrontation became physical, and Willis was shot in the chest during the struggle and ran off, the report says.

The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police found Willis after following a blood trail, arrested him and brought him to a hospital, where he was listed in critical condition.

'Angela said she and Jarick practice and believe in African Spirituality and on Saturday Jarick started talking about how he believed (the daughter) was full of bad spirits. Matthews told him to stop talking about her daughter in that way, to which she indicated Jarick apologized to her,' the arrest report says.

The young girl is still alive but suffered multiple broken bones, a collapsed lung and lacerated liver.

It's unknown if she or Willis are expected to live. Willis wasn't present during Monday's arraignment, according to court documents.

He was charged with attempted murder, three counts child abuse/neglect and first-degree domestic battery.

An older daughter and a son were in the apartment at the time of the attack.

Matthews has not been charged with a crime.
The drop in infections was also spotted by KCL researchers, who said new daily infections fell below 50,000

The PHE figures mirror that Department of Health daily data, which showed cases fell for seven days in a row

Cases remained the highest among 10 to 19-year-olds and were lowest among those aged over 80

Meanwhile, infections fell in all of England's nine local authorities after rising in all but one last week

Meanwhile, cases have halved in two parts of the country: West Berkshire and Gloucestershire

PHE's weekly surveillance report revealed only 11 of 149 authorities saw outbreaks grow last week

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Covid infection rates fell in nine out of ten council areas in England last week, official statistics revealed today in another sign that return of schools hasn't triggered a huge uptick.

Public Health England's (PHE) weekly surveillance report revealed only 11 of 149 authorities saw outbreaks grow in the week ending September 12.

And the number of positive coronavirus tests registered even halved in two parts of the country: West Berkshire and Gloucestershire.

The figures mirror that of daily official data, which also showed cases continued to fall this week.

This is despite gloomy warnings that the return of millions of pupils to classrooms would trigger a huge surge in cases, after Scotland saw its infections soar to a record-high following children going back.

Meanwhile, separate data looking at a different measure today also claimed cases fell last week.

King's College London researchers behind a symptom-tracking app said daily infections dipped below 50,000 in the UK for first time since mid-August.

This was evident in both England, where cases fell by nine per cent, and Scotland, where infections dropped by 13 per cent, according to the team, who work alongside health-tech firm ZOE.



 Slide me  Public Health England's weekly surveillance report revealed only 11 of 149 authorities saw outbreaks grow in the week ending September 12. The percentage change in the 149 local authorities across England in the week ending September 5 (left) and the most recent week ending September 12 (right)

Vaccines saved more than 100,000 lives and prevented nearly 250,000 hospital admissions, PHE says England's Covid vaccine rollout has saved more than 100,000 lives and stopped nearly quarter of a million hospital admissions, according to official figures. Public Health England estimates the jabs stopped up to 230,800 adults over the age of 45 being hospitalised. Some 178,900 hospitalisations were prevented among those aged over 65, it said. Meanwhile, around 51,900 people aged 45 to 64 did not need hospital care because they were immunised. Estimates for the number of deaths prevented by vaccinations in England stands at 112,300, PHE said. The figures were calculated by PHE and Cambridge University based on data up to September 5. Some 89 per cent of all people aged 16 and over in England have now received one dose of vaccine, while 81 per cent are fully vaccinated. Vaccine take-up continues to be lower among younger age groups, however. Some 83 per cent of 30 to 39-year-olds in England have now had one jab, along with just 73 per cent of people aged 18 to 29. Advertisement

PHE data revealed Covid cases continued to grow in just 11 parts of the country between September 6 and 12.

Newcastle upon Tyne saw the biggest surge in the country, with cases rising by 11.1 per cent. It was followed by Northumberland (10.3 per cent) and Leicester (9.5 per cent).

Local outbreaks also pushed case numbers up in the rest of Leicestershire (5 per cent), Oldham (4.6 per cent), Blackpool (3.1 per cent) and Coventry (1.4 per cent).

Meanwhile, tiny increases in infection rates were spotted in Middlesbrough (0.9 per cent), Redcar and Cleveland (0.8 per cent), Southend-on-Sea (0.8 per cent) and Calderdale (0.4 per cent).

At the other end of the scale, data showed infections more than halved in West Berkshire (down 54.2 per cent) and Gloucestershire (down 52.7 per cent).

Cases also fell in South Gloucestershire (down 49.5 per cent), Bristol (down 49.4 per cent) and Swindon (down 48.9 per cent).

PHE data showed cases fell at a national level and in all nine regions of the country, in a marked change from last week when increased slightly in every area apart from the South West.

The North-East had the highest rate, with 370 cases per 100,000 people in the seven days to September 12.

Meanwhile, they were the lowest in London, where 212 per 100,000 people tested positive last week.

But with large numbers returning to offices last week and Transport for London experiencing its busiest day since before the pandemic, cases in the capital could rise in the coming weeks, experts fear.

Experts had warned cases in England were likely to soar as pupils returned to classrooms last week.

Scotland experienced its highest ever spike in infections after schools resumed last month, according to official figures.

But a similar spike has not yet appeared south of the border.

Cases among five to nine-year-olds were on the rise. But they dropped in all other age groups.

Meanwhile, those aged 80 and over were least likely to have the virus last week, with just 105 per 100,000 testing positive.

So far, 6.2million people have tested positive since the beginning of the pandemic, but the actual figure is thought to be much higher, as not everyone who catches the virus takes a test.

In response to the findings, Dr Yvonne Doyle, medical director of PHE said: 'There are still high levels of infection in the community.

'We are in a much better place today to deal with the virus than we were a year ago, but we must not be complacent.

'The vaccines are the best defence we have against the virus so please make sure to get protected.

'Those over 50 and the clinically vulnerable will be offered a third primary dose six months after their second dose and 12-15-year-olds can have one dose to help protect themselves and their families.

'It is important to keep following the simple steps to help protect yourself and others.

'Wear a face covering in enclosed spaces, stay at home if you feel unwell and get a PCR test as soon as possible if you have any Covid symptoms.'

The Covid Symptom Study estimated 47,276 people in the UK were catching the virus every day in the week to September 11. This was a drop of nine per cent on the same time the previous week

King's College London scientists and experts from health data science company ZOE found cases were rising among 0 to 18-year-olds, but falling in all other age groups

When breaking the country down by regions they found that cases were remaining flat in most areas. Infections fell in the Midlands, South East, London, East of England and South West last week, they said

Separate figures from Test and Trace suggested Covid cases rose nine per cent last week, after it recorded more than 205,000 cases in the week to September 8

The above graph shows Covid cases among people who have received two doses of the Covid vaccine (red line) and the population (blue line). Almost 90 per cent of over-16s have already received one dose of the jab

Almost 90% of 16 to 24-year-olds now have Covid antibodies, data says Nearly nine in 10 people in the UK aged 16 to 24 have Covid antibodies, according to official estimates. The Office for National Statistics, which carried out blood tests on youngsters across the UK's four nations, found between 87 and 89 per cent of them had antibodies that help fight the virus. The presence of coronavirus antibodies suggests someone has been infected in the past or has been vaccinated. However, they are not a perfect measure of whether a person is protected against Covid, as other parts of the immune response are involved in fighting the virus, such a T-cells. The steady increase seen across the UK has coincided with the rollout of Covid vaccine to younger age groups. First doses of vaccine have been available to teenagers aged 16 and 17 for several weeks, while all over-18s have been eligible for a jab since June. And with the first over-12s being given the vaccine from September 22, a similar surge in antibodies could be seen among this age group. But levels are falling among older age groups, who were the first to get the jab when the rollout began last December. Ministers hope its booster programme for over-50s, vulnerable Britons and frontline health workers, will keep immunity high heading into winter. Advertisement

The King's College London study also offered more proof that the country has still yet to suffer a Scotland-style spike in cases following the return of millions of pupils to schools, despite gloomy warnings that a sizeable uptick was inevitable. Children have now been back in classrooms for over a fortnight.

King's researchers, who work alongside health-tech firm ZOE, also estimated cases had fallen by around 13 per cent in Scotland, which saw daily infections spiral to a record-high in the wake of schools returning.

Professor Tim Spector, who runs the study, warned Covid levels remain high in the country, and that face masks and social distancing should be brought back in to help control the spread of the virus.

Boris Johnson is hoping to rely on booster vaccines and jabs for 12 to 15-year-olds to keep the virus in check this winter, but has admitted face masks and WFH guidance could be brought back if Covid hospitalisations spiral out of control.

Professor Spector once again called on health officials to recognise more symptoms of Covid becasue jabs have helped morph the virus into what feels like a bad cold for the majority who get infected.

He said: 'Sticking to the classic three (cough, fever and a loss of sense of taste or smell) ignores the fact that now most people experience symptoms like sore throat, headache and sneezing rather than fever or cough.

'I also don't understand why we are waiting for the situation to get worse and the NHS is pressured further before implementing simple measures that would help to bring down the number of new cases and save lives.

'With such high levels of virus in the population we should also still be wearing masks and keeping our distance in crowded public places, as in major European cities where cases are much lower than ours.'

Experts have previously warned that the symptom study  also run by health data company ZOE  is becoming less reliable because the change in symptoms has meant it is unable to pick out Covid infections from other viruses.

It comes as official estimates suggest today that nearly nine in 10 people in the UK aged 16 to 24 have Covid antibodies.

The Office for National Statistics, which carried out blood tests on youngsters across the UK's four nations, found between 87 and 89 per cent of them had antibodies that help fight the virus.

The presence of coronavirus antibodies suggests someone has been infected in the past or has been vaccinated.

However, they are not a perfect measure of whether a person is protected against Covid, as other parts of the immune response are involved in fighting the virus, such a T-cells.

In England, 88.7 per cent of 16 to 24-year-olds have Covid antibodies, according to estimates from the ONS based on a random sample of the population (green lines). Figures for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are similar. And all four nations are seeing a drop in antibody levels among older people, who were the first to be offered the vaccine earlier this year. The graphs also show that antibodies levels coincide with the different age groups getting the vaccine (light and dark blue lines), with rates among young people rising in recent months, while there was a much sharper increase among older people earlier this year when they were offered Covid vaccines

The graph shows the proportion of over-16s in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland who tested positive for Covid antibodies between December 7 and August 23. Rates were highest in England (93.6 per cent), followed by Scotland (93.3 per cent), Northern Ireland (91.9 per cent) and Wales (91.2 per cent). The graphs also show the proportion of the population who have received at least one vaccine (light blue line) and two jabs (dark blue line)

The ONS modelled the percentage of adults who have Covid antibodies based on blood samples taken across the four UK nations and in different age groups. In England and Scotland, antibody levels were the highest among younger groups who have more recently been given the jabs, while figures for Wales and Northern Ireland were less certain (shown through wider black lines, indicating less confidence around the figures). But lower levels of antibodies was spotted older age groups across each country

The steady increase seen across the UK has coincided with the rollout of Covid vaccine to younger age groups.

First doses of vaccine have been available to teenagers aged 16 and 17 for several weeks, while all over-18s have been eligible for a jab since June.

And with the first over-12s being given the vaccine from September 22, a similar surge in antibodies could be seen among this age group.

But levels are falling among older age groups, who were the first to get the jab when the rollout began last December.

Antibodies are proteins that the immune system makes in response to any virus in order to help the body fight if off in future.

It takes two to three weeks for them to develop after either catching the virus or getting vaccinated.

They then remain in the blood  helping to stop someone getting the same infection again and suppress severe symptoms if they do  but drop over time.

But testing positive for antibodies does not make someone completely immune, and people who have them can still get sick.

Scientists say antibody levels dip naturally after peaking in the weeks following an infection or first vaccine, and people may not have detectable levels of antibodies now  even if they did so earlier in the year.

And people who test negative for antibodies may still be protected  there are other types of ways the immune system can fight off pathogens.

But the dipping levels of antibodies add to a growing body of research that suggests protection from vaccines wanes over time.

This led officials to announce this week that vulnerable Britons will be offered booster vaccines from six months after their second jab.
A mother alleges she was kicked off an American Airlines flight because her 2-year-old son was suffering an asthma attack, and was unable to wear a mask.

Amanda Pendarvis was on American Airlines Flight 1284 from Dallas Fort Worth to Colorado Springs Monday with her mother, and toddler son Waylon, when she says a flight attendant, whose name she said was Carl, told her Waylon needed to wear a mask.

Pendarvis, from Oklahoma, described Carl as 'truly evil,' and 'power-tripping' in her Instagram story where she chronicled the ordeal, which she said was 'humiliating/traumatizing.'

After attempting unsuccessfully to make Waylon put on a face covering, Pendarvis said crew turned the plane around, and that she was escorted off by police officers.

Amanda Pendarvis alleges she was kicked off an American Airlines flight Monday because her 2-year-old asthmatic son Waylon (pictured) was unable to wear a mask properly

'Way is asthmatic. We showed him a negative Covid test Way had yesterday. Told him he has asthma & has never worn [sic] a mask before,' she wrote of Carl on Instagram. 'He did not care that this asthmatic child was literally hyperventilating.'

Photos and video on Pendarvis' Instagram story show her placing a mask over the crying child's face, and administering asthma medicine while onboard the flight.

Later, she is seen waiting in the plane's jet bridge as Waylon, calmer now, walks around with stuffed animal as airport police stand nearby.

American Airlines confirmed the incident, and said that Flight 1284 had returned to the gate before takeoff due to a 'party refusing to comply with crew member instructions.'

'On Sept. 13, American Airlines flight 1284 returned to the gate prior to departure from Dallas-Fort Worth to deplane a party refusing to comply with crew member instructions to remain seated while on an active taxiway and to wear face coverings securely over their nose and mouth,' an airline spokesman told DailyMail.com in a statement.

Pendarvis said she made multiple attempts to have Waylon wear a mask, but he was unable

Pendarvis said she was instructed repeatedly by a flight attendant named Carl to have Waylon wear a mask

'After agreeing to adhere to policies instituted for the safety of our customers and crew, all individuals were rebooked for travel on the next flight to Colorado Springs.'

The spokesman added that the flight crew had seen Waylon laying on the aisle floor and moving between seats as the plane was taxiing to to the runway, and made multiple attempts to have him seated.

While doing that, the spokesperson said, the crew reminded the family that federal requirements mandate that all customers must wear face masks while on board.

Mask exemptions can be made for people with disabilities, he said, but need to be requested 72 hours in advance of the flight, and require a doctor's note and proof of a negative Covid-19 test.

After a delay, Pendarvis said she and her family were escorted off the plane by police

'At no time was it made known to our crew members that a member of the party was experiencing an asthma attack,' the spokesman said.

Pendarvis said that she was not refusing to place a mask on her son. Video, on her story shows her placing a face covering on him, before taking it off as he continues to cry, and him recoiling as she tries to place it on him again.

She said that a majority of passengers did not speak up during the incident except one.

'There was one man behind us who was standing up to him telling him how [insane and irrational] he was being,' she wrote.

She added that the flight attendant had made an announcement over the loudspeaker apologizing for the delay due to a 'non-compliant traveler'

Pendarvis' story gained wider attention after Twitter user Tiger Lily shared screenshots of

American Airlines said it rebooked Pendarvis' flight and she reported that she eventually made it to their destination with her family

'Thank you for your bravery, Carl on Flight AA1284... Really a stance and got this monster off the plane,' Pendarvis added.

The incident gained wider attention when Twitter user Tiger Lily posted screenshots of Pendarvis' story, saying she was a friend.

'Flight attendant Carl thought this suffering baby boy was a threat to his health lmao even after she showed him negative covid test,' she tweeted.

The incident came as the Biden administration last week increased the fines for those not wearing masks on public transportation from $500 to $1,000 for first offenders.

A second offenses can range from a $1,000 to $3,000 penalty.

'If you break the rules, be prepared to pay. And by the way, show some respect!' Biden said last Thursday.
More than a million emergency hospital admissions were 'lost' to the coronavirus pandemic, according to official data.

There were 5.45million emergency procedures carried out across all NHS England services in the 12 months to March, down 16 per cent on the 6.5m the previous year.

The NHS Digital statistics, published today, include admissions for accident and emergency, mental health, maternity and even dental patients.

Figures also show there were 3.2m fewer elective surgeries in the same period, with 5.6m coming in for care during the pandemic compared to 8.8m pre-Covid.

Patients were left struggling to access care through repeated lockdowns as the health service turned its attention to Covid.

Many were also reluctant to come forward for fear of being a burden on the NHS or catching the virus.

There is mounting pressure on the NHS to start chopping down record waiting lists that have amassed during the pandemic, now that Covid vaccines have largely broken the link between infections and severe illness.

Health Secretary Sajid Javid warned today that the UK faces 'two backlogs'  the waiting list for routine operations and 'a social backlog in mental health and public health'.

He said: 'Passing the peak of the pandemic has been a bit like a receding tide, revealing the underlying health of our nation.'

There were 5.45million emergency procedures carried out across all NHS England services in the 12 months to March, down 16 per cent on the 6.5m the previous year

The number of patients waiting for routine hospital treatment hit 5.6million in July, the highest figure since records began in 2007. And health chiefs have warned the backlog is going to get much worse before it gets better, with projections that it could soar up to 13million by the end of the year if no action is taken

Patients forced to wait more than 18 weeks for routine surgery - the maximum time someone should wait under the NHS's own rules - reached 1.7million in July, the highest level in four months

Some 293,000 people had been waiting more than a year for treatment on the NHS by July this year, figures showed. This was down slightly on last month when there were 304,803 people on the list, but still almost three times the same levels last year. The list has surged after the pandemic forced hospitals to turn over whole wards to fighting the virus

An NHS spokesperson said: 'The NHS provided emergency treatment for well over five million people last year, at the same time as caring for 450,000 patients with Covid-19, rolling out a world-leading vaccination programme and continuing routine care as far as possible, including performing millions of diagnostic tests and treating thousands of patients with cancer.

'Some people were reluctant to come forward for help during the pandemic but the NHS message remains clear - anyone who needs care should come forward - contact NHS 111 Online so that staff can help you find the best option for your care, or call 999 in an emergency.'

New estimates today show that Covid vaccinations have directly averted about 230,800 hospital admissions in England.

Some 178,900 admissions have been prevented among those aged 65 years and over, with a further 51,900 among people aged 45 to 64.

The estimates, which have been calculated by Public Health England and Cambridge University, cover the period up to September 5.

A total of 89 per cent of all people aged 16 and over in England have now received one dose of vaccine, while 81 per cent are fully vaccinated.

Lack of face-to-face GP appointments 'caused stillbirths to spike' during pandemic A lack of in-person GP appointments during the pandemic may have led to a surge in stillbirths, a damning report has warned. The Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch said stillbirths were up 88 per cent last year compared to pre-Covid levels. Its investigation into 37 cases found the move to remote appointments 'impeded' medics' ability to carry out vital checks. It comes after a senior coroner last week ruled that a lack of face-to-face GP appointments contributed to the deaths of five people. A third fewer people are seeing their GP in-person now compared to before the pandemic and tens of millions of appointments were 'lost' during the Covid crisis. GPs were urged to conduct all consultations remotely and strongly encouraged not to invite patients for an in-person appointment unless they deemed it an emergency. But trusts have continued to incentivise the practice more than a year after the original lockdown, with doctors being offered bonuses to keep attendances low. Health Secretary Sajid Javid fired a warning shot at GPs in the Commons earlier this week, telling them: 'GPs should be offering face-to-face access.' Advertisement

The figures add to growing pressure for the Government to turn its attention to other health conditions, feared to have got worse during the pandemic.

Mr Javid today promised to do just that, admitting that the Covid crisis had revealed 'some fractures' in the UK's health and social care system.

Speaking at a community centre in Blackpool, the Health Secretary promised to 'level up' public health.

He said: 'I couldn't simply be the 'Minister for Covid', because we had to turn and face all the other challenges too.

'Challenges like the backlog. More than five and a half million people are on the waiting list for elective treatment  that is a record high.

'But the backlog in elective care is only one part of the story. Covid-19 has had many hidden costs.

'Passing the peak of the pandemic has been like a receding tide, revealing the underlying health of our nation.

'It's revealed some fractures within. And in many cases, the pandemic has deepened those fractures.

'It's this government's mission to unite and level up across the whole of the UK, to build back better and to build back fairer.'

Separate NHS figures show one in ten people in England are stuck on the waiting list for routine operations.

A total 5.6million people across the country were waiting for elective surgery in July  the most since records began in 2007  a number which has risen continuously during the pandemic.

Waiting lists spiralled after Covid forced hospitals to cancel routine operations and turn over whole wards to patients suffering from the disease.

Social distancing and extra Covid precautions have made it even harder to start chipping away at the record waiting lists.

Record numbers of patients are now turning to private health rather than waiting for help from the NHS, figures show, with one private provider seeing patient numbers rise by 80 per cent on the back of the pandemic.

The waiting list includes people waiting for operations like knee, hip and joint replacements, as well as cataracts surgery.

The number who've waited more than a year to start treatment stood at 293,000 last month, almost three times as high as the same time last year when 83,000 had been on the list for this long.

And more than 1.7million people have been waiting more than 18 weeks for surgery, outside the period in which the NHS aims to see every patient.

Health Secretary Sajid Javid has warned the NHS waiting list could reach 13million without immediate action as he pledged to tackle growing numbers.

Boris Johnson has promised to pump an extra 10billion a year into the NHS to clear the mammoth backlog, on top of a 5.4billion cash boost announced for the NHS a couple of days ago.

But critics warned the money will simply be 'swallowed up' by the health service, which has been given no firm targets to hit to justify the cash.
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This is the moment that Australia, the UK and the US put pen to paper on their new military alliance as Scott Morrison, Joe Biden and Boris Johnson met on the sidelines of June's G7 summit in Cornwall.

It was the culmination of an 18-month plan devised by Mr Morrison to acquire his country's first nuclear-powered submarines, allowing Australia to push back against an increasingly aggressive China.

The plot is thought to have been hatched in early 2020 when Mr Morrison asked a team of scientists, Navy top brass, engineers and other experts to look again at a deal Australia had signed with with France to buy 12 diesel-powered subs and to see whether better options existed.

Ultimately, the task force concluded that going nuclear - an option that Australia has long-resisted because it lacks a domestic nuclear industry and is committed to nuclear non-proliferation - would be a better option than paying France $90billion for its vessels, after the cost ballooned from the $50billion they first agreed on.

In late 2020, Mr Morrison instructed his defence chiefs to begin 'engaging the systems' by briefing the UK and the US on his plans, according to a source who spoke with the Sydney Morning Herald, leading to a conversation with Boris Johnson in May this year.

Mr Johnson agreed to set up talks with Joe Biden at the G7 a few weeks later, with the trio finally meeting on June 13 - the final day of the summit. It was during this meeting that Biden agreed for the first time in more than 50 years to share the secrets of America's nuclear submarines with a third country. Britain is the only other nation to have acquired such technology.

Australia is now set to get its hands on at least eight nuclear-powered submarines which will likely cost less than the $7.5billion-per vessel that France was offering. While the exact design and costs of Australia's subs have yet to be revealed, US Virginia-class nuclear subs cost around $4.5bn each and UK Astute-class $2.6bn each.

Scott Morrison meeting with Boris Johnson and Joe Biden at the G7 summit in Cornwall back in June, where the trio put pen to paper on a new military alliance that will give Australia its first nuclear-powered submarines

The meeting was the culmination of an 18-month plan to acquire the technology by Mr Morrison (left), who first pitched the idea to Boris Johnson (right, with wife Carrie Symonds) before arranging a three-way sit-down with Biden

Australia is now set to acquire at least eight nuclear-powered submarines to present a counter-balance to Beijing's growing navy, and will also be sharing other advanced military technologies with Washington and London

The pact does not make the design of Australia's new submarines clear, but they will be based on previous US and UK designs. Pictured above is a cross-section of Britain's Astute-class nuclear attack subs, which is likely to mirror the new vessels

The alliance will also be sharing technologies on cyber defence, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, long-rage missiles and 'additional undersea capabilities' such as sensors and drones.

Mr Morrison has said he will spend the next 18 months developing the capacity to safely handle nuclear technology, though has not given a timetable for constructing the subs or when he first one will come online.

He did say that the subs will be built in Adelaide - at least partly - resolving a row that broke out with France about where some of the construction jobs would be located.

The deal could also avoid the politically-difficult issue of Australia having to develop a domestic nuclear industry to support the subs by relying instead on the UK and US - both of whom have such industries.

However, Mr Morrison did not give explicit guarantees on domestic nuclear production - only saying that Australia will not be acquiring nuclear weapons.

France has reacted angrily to the news, which will mean its own deal is now defunct with only $2billion received. Foreign minister Yves Le-Drian called it a 'stab in the back', likening Biden's behaviour to Trump.

Beijing also condemned the news, with foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian denouncing 'Cold War zero-sum thinking' which he said 'seriously undermines regional peace and stability and intensifies the arms race.'

'The export of highly sensitive nuclear submarine technology by the United States and Britain to Australia once again proves that they use nuclear exports as a tool of geopolitical games and adopt double standards, which is extremely irresponsible,' Zhao added.

But Taiwan and Japan reacted joyfully, saying it is necessary to provide 'security' for the South China Sea region.

Taiwan - which considers itself to be an independent nation but is viewed by Beijing as a self-governing Chinese province - fears invasion from the mainland after Xi Jinping committed himself to 'reunifying' the island in a 2019 speech, saying he reserves the right to use force if necessary.

The UK and US have already been conducting increased freedom of navigation patrols through the Strait of Taiwan and around the Spratly and Paracel Islands - which contain Chinese military bases - and the addition of at least eight nuclear submarines to Australia's fleet will bolster these efforts.

The pact also side-lines New Zealand, led by left-wing Jacninda Arden, who was left out after adopting a set of increasingly soft China stances in recent years. She has now vowed to ban the new Australian submarines from its waters under her country's long-standing anti-nuclear policies.

China has inflamed tensions in the South China Sea in recent years by expanding its claimed territory, to the objection of its neighbors in the Asia-Pacific

Britain and America are to help Australia build a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines as part of an unprecedented alliance known as AUKUS to combat China (pictured, a British Astute-class nuclear sub which is likely to mirror the Australian design)

Jacinda Ardern will to BAN Australia's new nuclear-powered submarines from New Zealand waters Australia's new nuclear submarine fleet won't be welcome in New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has warned. The new submarines are the centrepiece of a new security deal - known as AUKUS - agreed to by Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom and announced on Thursday morning. New Zealand has been left out of the alliance, despite being a member of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network, along with AUKUS members and Canada. The Kiwi leader said the formation of AUKUS 'in no way changes our security and intelligence ties with these three countries'. 'We welcome the increased engagement of the UK and US in the region and reiterate our collective objective needs to be the delivery of peace and stability and the preservation of the international rules based system,' she said. Ms Ardern was briefed on the alliance by Scott Morrison on Wednesday night. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has warned Australia's new nuclear submarine fleet won't be welcome in New Zealand On Thursday morning, she made clear the submarines would not be welcome in New Zealand's waters, in line with a long-held policy. New Zealand has been staunchly nuclear-free for decades, earning the ire of the United States by declining visits from nuclear-powered ships. 'New Zealand is first and foremost a nation of the Pacific and we view foreign policy developments through the lens of what is in the best interest of the region,' she said. 'New Zealand's position in relation to the prohibition of nuclear powered vessels in our waters remains unchanged.' New Zealand's opposition has rung the alarm over the deal, saying they've been cut out of the new defence pact. 'It's disappointing that after many years of New Zealand's co-operation with our traditional allies, the current Government appears to have been unable to participate in discussions for 'AUKUS',' opposition National leader Judith Collins said. 'New Zealand's strong nuclear-free stance shouldn't have been a barrier to us joining such a partnership. We could have been carved out of the nuclear aspect of the partnership,' Ms Collins says. Advertisement

The deal also side-lines and Canada - who together with the UK, US, Australia and New Zealand makes up the Cold War-era Five Eyes intelligence alliance. While AUKUS is not a straight replacement for Five Eyes, it is almost certain to reduce its importance.

Eric Miller, a political and business consultant specializing in Canada-U.S. affairs, told The Globe and Mail that the agreement represents an alliance between countries more willing than Canada to take on China.

Canada is thought to have angered Washington after refusing to ban Chinese firm Huawei from incorporating its technology into the country's 5G network - something America believes will leave it vulnerable to Beijing's spies.

'Those who are in the world of "we need to directly confront China, and use all of our assets and resources to do that,"  they are essentially moving forward,' he said.

Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did not immediately react to the deal, suggesting he may also have been left out of the loop - though his Defence Department insisted it had been informed before the announcement was made while stressing the continued importance of Five Eyes.

China's President Xi Jinping currently controls the world's largest Navy, when measured purely by the number of vessels - comprising 250 combat vehicles, including large numbers of corvettes and subs.

He is using the fleet to lay claim to the entire South China Sea - something the West and its allies hotly dispute - while also menacing Taiwan.

Western nations have been pushing back, sailing so-called 'freedom of navigation' missions through the region to test Xi's resolve - with a recent and high-profile mission sailed by Britain's 3bn HMS Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier and her 'strike group', comprised of British and American destroyers alongside support vessels.

The US possesses what is widely regarded as the world's most-powerful navy which includes a huge fleet of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.

Giving Australia nuclear submarines is a significant development because the vessels need to refuel far less-often than traditional subs, allowing them to stay submerged longer and roam further - sailing undetected into waters which Beijing is trying to claim.

Chinese state media has threatened to carry out 'freedom of navigation' operations of its own, with regime mouthpiece Global Times publishing an editorial on Wednesday threatening that warships will 'soon' turn up off the coasts of Hawaii and Guam - where the US has large military bases.

'Hopefully when Chinese warships pass through the Caribbean Sea or show up near Hawaii and Guam one day, the US will uphold the same standard of freedom of navigation,' the article said. 'That day will come soon.'

Under the terms of the new pact, the UK, US and Australia will spend the next 18 months working to construct a framework that will allow Australia to safely take command of a nuclear-powered fleet and other sensitive technologies.

The submarines will then be constructed in South Australia, making use of facilities already in place that were supposed to be used for the now-cancelled French submarines.

The UK's Rolls-Royce plant near Derby and BAE Systems in Barrow-in-Furness are also expected to be involved in the design and build of the submarines, creating hundreds of highly-skilled scientific and engineering roles in Britain.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has hailed the announcement, saying it will increase security in the Indo-Pacific region, strengthen ties with two of Britain's oldest allies, and cement Britain as a technological and scientific superpower while helping to reduce the costs of its own future military projects.

The deal does not make it clear exactly what type of submarines Australia will eventually receive, or what technology will be incorporated in them.

Nevertheless, it marks the first time in 50 years that the US has shared its submarine technology, and Australia will be only the second country to receive it - after the UK.

Australia will join an elite group of nations operating nuclear-powered subs that includes France, China, India and Russia. The deal will not give Australia nuclear weapons, as the country has a long-standing commitment not to develop them.

Australia already has diesel-electric submarines but the new stealthier fleet will be faster, able to carry more, and can stay underwater for longer - covering greater distances without expelling traceable exhaust gases.

The new submarines, built using UK and US components, will 'protect and defend our shared interests in the Indo- Pacific', Downing Street said.

Britain will also share its cyber capabilities, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies and undersea systems with allies as part of the deal, ushering in a new era of collaboration on security and defence-related science, technology, industrial bases and supply chains.

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison (C) and US President Joe Biden attend a joint press conference to announce the AUKUS partnership last night

China has been rapidly expanding its naval capabilities in recent years, and now has two aircraft carriers which it is using to assert its claim over the South China Sea (pictured, Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning patrols with its support vessels)

China has transformed several uninhabited islands in the South China Sea into military bases and has begun warning ships away from them, including threatening rival naval vessels

Why is Australia acquiring nuclear-powered subs? Why nuclear submarines? Nuclear submarines are powered by nuclear reactors which produce heat that creates high-pressured steam to spin turbines and power the boat's propeller. They can run for about 20 years before needing to refuel, meaning food supplies are the only limit on time at sea. The boats are also very quiet, making it harder for enemies to detect them and can travel at top speed - about 40kmh - for longer than diesel-powered subs. The first nuclear submarines were put to sea by the United States in the 1950s. They are now also in use by Russia, France, the United Kingdom, China, and India. A senior US defence official told reporters in Washington DC: 'This will give Australia the capability for their submarines to basically deploy for a longer period, they're quieter, they're much more capable. 'They will allow us to sustain and to improve deterrence across the Indo-Pacific.' Zack Cooper, a senior fellow with the American Enterprise Institute, said nuclear submarines would hugely boost Australia's military capability. 'They are going to be much, much more capable in the large, expansive ocean that is Australia has to deal with,' he told the ABC. Will Australia have nuclear weapons? Scott Morrison made it clear that the nuclear-power submarines will not have nuclear missiles on board. Australia has never produced nuclear weapons and signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in 1973 which prevents non-nuclear states which don't already have them from developing nuclear weapons. Mr Morrison also said the Australia has no plans to build nuclear power stations which are widely used around the world. 'But let me be clear, Australia is not seeking to acquire nuclear weapons or establish a civil nuclear capability,' he said. 'And we will continue to meet all our nuclear non-proliferation obligations.' Why now? Australia needs to replace its six ageing Collins-class submarines. In 2016 it signed a deal with French Company Naval Group to build 12 diesel-electric attack subs - but the parties were in dispute over the amount of building that would be done in Australia. That deal has now been torn up in favour of nuclear powered subs aided by the US and UK who will provide the technology to Australia. The West is becoming increasingly concerned about the growing assertiveness of China in the Indo-Pacific region where it has made huge territorial claims in the South and East China seas, clashed with Indian troops and repeatedly flown planes over Taiwan. Mr Morrison wants Australia to have serious defence capability to deter China from encroaching in the Pacific and long-range nuclear submarines are just the ticket. China has vastly built up its military in the past few years and now possesses six Shang-class nuclear powered attack submarines, equipped with torpedoes and cruise missiles. Advertisement

China already has a substantial number of nuclear-powered submarines. The Pentagon assessed in its 2020 China Military Power report that China has the largest navy in the world, with an overall battle force of approximately 350 ships and submarines, including more than 130 major surface vessels.

China was not mentioned in the cross-continental briefing but there was frequent reference to the changing situation in the region.

Tom Tugendhat, Conservative chairman of the Commons Foreign Committee, said: 'The reason for all this is clear - China.'

He tweeted: 'After years of bullying and trade hostility, and watching regional neighbours like the Philippines see encroachment into their waters, Australia didn't have a choice.'

China's U.S. embassy reacted by saying that countries 'should not build exclusionary blocs targeting or harming the interests of third parties.'

'In particular, they should shake off their Cold-War mentality and ideological prejudice,' it said.

Australia's plea for help to replace its ageing Collins-class subs prompted the new deal agreed by Mr Johnson, US President Joe Biden and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

The last time Britain and the US formally agreed collaborate on nuclear technology to build submarines was in 1958. Although Britain has operated nuclear-powered subs for over 60 years, Canberra has never built its own.

Australia is seen as essential to counter China's regional influence, especially in the contested South China Sea.

In recent years, the UK and Australia have increasingly worked together on defence, with joint training exercises.

Last night Mr Johnson said: 'The UK, Australia and US are natural allies.

'While we may be separated geographically, our interests and values are shared. The AUKUS alliance will bring us closer than ever, creating a new defence partnership and driving jobs and prosperity.'

As part of a joint statement with the other two leaders, Mr Johnson added: 'The endeavour we launch today will help sustain peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region.

'For more than 70 years, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, have worked together, along with other important allies and partners, to protect our shared values and promote security and prosperity.

'Today, with the formation of AUKUS, we recommit ourselves to this vision.'

'We all recognize the imperative of ensuring peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific over the long term,' Biden said Wednesday from the East Room of the White House.

'We need to be able to address both the current strategic environment in the region and how it may evolve because the future of each of our nations, and indeed the world, depends on a free and open Indo-Pacific, enduring and flourishing in the decades ahead.'

The three countries already share extensive intelligence through the Five Eyes alliance, which also involves Canada and New Zealand.

It is not known when the vessels will be ready, but officials said the initial scoping phase is expected to take 18 months when it will be determined where they will be built and by whom.

Mr Johnson said Scotland and parts of the north of England and the Midlands would feel the benefit of the work on the nuclear-powered submarines, with the Government keen to exploit the Royal Navy's decades-worth of knowledge of using such machines.

At a later press conference in Canberra, Mr Morrison said it was undecided if Australia would purchase British-built BAE Systems Astute class submarines or the Virginia class vessels constructed in the US.

French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and armed forces minister Florence Parly said in a statement issued by the country's embassy in Canberra that it had taken note of Australia's decision to halt the Future Submarine programme with France.

'This decision is contrary to the letter and spirit of the cooperation that prevailed between France and Australia, based on a relationship of political trust and on the development of a very high-level defence industrial & technological base in Australia,' the statement added.

A man waves a Union flag as the British Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth sails out of Tokyo bay on September 8, on the final leg of a journey that has inflamed tensions with China

'The world is a jungle,' ex-ambassador to the US Gerard Araud tweeted on Thursday morning

Earlier this year, in the integrated review of security and foreign policy, the UK Government outlined plans for a 'tilt' in focus to the Indo-Pacific.

Aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth was earlier this year deployed on a voyage East in a decision said to be about sending a message to Beijing and Russia about Britain's military might.

The Indo-Pacific area is of particular concern due to increasing geopolitical tensions such as unresolved territorial disputes and the risk of nuclear proliferation.

France has been 'stabbed in the back' by the Australian nuclear submarine deal, a former top diplomatic official has said.

'The world is a jungle,' ex-ambassador to the US Gerard Araud tweeted on Thursday.

'France has just been reminded this bitter truth by the way the US and the UK have stabbed her in the back in Australia. C'est la vie.'

Australia has for years been planning to build a fleet of 12 diesel-powered submarines in Adelaide via French company Naval Group, with a deal made in 2016 valued at $90billion.

The French government later on Thursday said Australia's decision to ditch the agreement was 'contrary to the spirit of cooperation which prevailed' between the two countries.

Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly said the change in plan 'marks an absence of coherence that France can only observe and regret'.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison reportedly held concerns Naval Group would be unable to deliver submarines until 2030 with deadline and price disputes.

Defence officials have openly discussed abandoning the deal since June and told a Senate estimates hearing in June there were 'challenges' with the agreement.

Australia will instead embrace nuclear power after decades of debate - marking the first time the US and UK have shared their nuclear submarine technology with another nation.

China threatens to sail its navy into Hawaiian waters as US and Australia announce defence pact - days after flotilla sailed past Alaska

China today threatened to send its Navy into Hawaiian waters in the latest round of sabre rattling in the Pacific after Australia, the US and Britain announced a new naval alliance in the region.

Four Chinese vessels have already been spotted sailing off the coast of Alaska this week in a display of naval power amid increasing tensions as a global nuclear submarine pact was signed to take on Beijing.

A Chinese guided-missile cruiser, guided-missile destroyer, general intelligence vessel, and an auxiliary vessel were spotted off the coast of Alaska's Aleutian Islands during surveillance operations in the Bering Sea.

The Chinese flotilla sailed 42 miles off the coast of the Aleutian Islands near the coast of Alasksa

The provocation came as China's state-run newspaper threatened to send warships to Hawaii and Guam in response to US moves in the South China Sea.

The Global Times' editor-in-chief, Hu Xijin, tweeted: 'Hopefully when Chinese warships pass through the Caribbean Sea or show up near Hawaii and Guam one day, the US will uphold the same standard of freedom of navigation. That day will come soon.'

The US Navy responded to the tweet, saying they have 'upheld the standards of freedom of navigation longer than the PLA navy has existed'.

They also pointed out that Chinese spy ships have frequently sailed past Hawaii and Guam in recent years.

They said: 'The US Navy sails around the world in accordance with international law.

'All countries benefit from freedom of navigation in accordance with international law.

'Unfortunately, not all who benefit from freedom of navigation would extend that same freedom to others.'

While the Chinese ships that sailed in the Bering Sea near Alaska were close to US waters, they followed international laws, US officials said.

The four warships, believed to include the 055 Nanchang destroyer were shadowed by the US Coast Guard cutters Bertholf and Kimball, which were shown in a series of images released on Monday of the incident.

Four Chinese vessels have sailed off the coast of Alaska in a display of naval power amid increasing tensions

North Korea reveals TRAIN-based missile system that fired two nuclear-capable missiles towards Japan this week

North Korea has unveiled a new train-based missile system which it used to fire missiles at test targets close to Japan on Wednesday.

The missiles were launched from a new 'railway-borne missile system' designed as a potential counter-strike to any forces that threaten the country, state news agency KCNA reported on Thursday.

The missiles flew 497 miles before striking a target in the sea of Japan off North Korea's east coast, KCNA said.

South Korean and Japanese authorities were alerted to the test launch which came just days after North Korea tested another nuclear-capable cruise missile this past weekend.

North Korea has unveiled a new train-based missile system which it used to fire missiles at test targets close to Japan on Wednesday

The missiles flew 497 miles before striking a target in the sea off North Korea's east coast, KCNA said

South Korean and Japanese authorities were alerted to the test launch which came just days after North Korea tested another nuclear-capable cruise missile this past weekend

Meanwhile, on the same day as North Korea tested its train-based launch system, South Korea in kind tested a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), and in doing so became the first country without nuclear weapons to develop such a system.

The two Koreas have been in an increasingly heated arms race, with both sides unveiling more capable missiles and other weapons, but South Korea does not possess nuclear capabilities.

The tests by nuclear-armed North Korea drew international condemnation and concern, however, with the United States saying they violated UN Security Council resolutions and posed a threat to Pyongyang's neighbours.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga strongly condemned the test which came just days after North Korea launched a nuclear-capable missile last weekend, while Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato called the missiles 'a serious threat to the peace and safety of Japan and its surrounding areas'.
It seems that rock 'n' roll is officially dead, according to one conservative podcaster - and Barack Obama is the one holding the smoking gun.

'Barack Obama destroyed rock 'n' roll,' Daily Wire Backstage host Jeremy Boreing griped Tuesday, speaking to panel of four other right-wing media personalities - which included Ben Shapiro - who all seemed to nod in agreement with the strange statement.

'Rock 'n' roll was about white male angst, white male teenage angst,' Boreing, 42, explains in the recording.

'And then Barack Obama came along and said 'young white men aren't allowed to have angst.'

'Barack Obama destroyed rock 'n' roll,' Daily Wire Backstage host Jeremy Boreing said Tuesday

'Rock 'n' roll was about white male angst, white male teenage angst,' Boreing told his fellow four panelists, (from left) Matt Walsh, Michael Knowles, Ben Shapiro, and Andrew Klavan

The bizarre declaration blaming the former president for the demise of the musical genre came towards the end of the 92-minute podcast - which featured a wide array of grievances from the five panelists - when the conversation suddenly shifted to the current state of rock music.

'I think rock 'n' roll is a public health crisis in America,' author and panelist Andrew Klavan, 67, joked, after Boreing had remarked that the head of the CDC considers gun violence a public health crisis in the US.

'You're still talking about rock 'n' roll as though Barack Obama didn't happen,' replies Boreing, with a deadpan demeanor.

'Honestly, Barack Obama destroyed rock 'n' roll,' he then asserts.

At this point, Michael Knowles, 30, another one of the panelists, nods emphatically in agreement.

'There was rock 'n' roll, then there was Barack Obama, now there is no rock 'n' roll.'

Shapiro, by far the most famous of the five panelists, pointed out that 'stealing tropes from better Black music' certainly helped rock 'n' roll develop

'Rock 'n' roll was about white male angst, white male teenage angst,' Boreing adds in the video.

Shapiro, also a conservative, quickly chimed in, 'and stealing tropes from better Black music,' chuckling at the host's assertion.

But Boreing pressed on with his theory.

'And then Barack Obama came along and said "young white men aren't allowed to have angst. They're not allowed to basically express their dissatisfaction because they're so toxic,"' he continued.

'And, so, truly, rock 'n' roll just stopped.'

Sure enough, social media users did not seem to agree with Broeing's take on the matter.

'In 50 years we will be arguing with these white men's grandchildren that Eminem did not invent rap and Justin Timberlake did not invent R&B,' one Twitter user blasted.

'I remember when Barack Obama called me on my cellphone in 2011 and told me I wasn't allowed to have angst anymore,' joked another user. 'Worst day of my life.'

A slew of social media users noted that Black musicians like (clockwise from top left) Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Big Mama Thornton, and Bo Diddley were some of the progenitors of rock

Another Twitter user asserted that young white males don't have the divine right to experience angst, nor do they have exclusive ownership of rock music.

Many pointed out that Elvis Presley, the unofficial 'King of rock 'n' roll,' as well as a host of other incredibly influential artists and bands, based much of their music off of preexisting material belonging to Black musicians.

'Thanks Obama,' tweeted one jokester.
Thousands of health workers across France have been suspended without pay for refusing to take a Covid-19 vaccine ahead of a deadline this week, Health Minister Olivier Veran said Thursday.

It comes just two days after doctors and health workers staged mass protests against mandatory vaccination measures which many view as being an attack on their civil liberties.

France's national public health agency estimated last week that roughly 12 percent of hospital staff and around six percent of doctors in private practices have yet to be vaccinated, leading the ministry to ban 3000 people from their jobs.

President Emmanuel Macron gave staff at hospitals, retirement home workers and the fire service an ultimatum in July to get at least one shot by September 15 or face unpaid suspension.

'Some 3,000 suspensions were notified yesterday to employees at health centres and clinics who have not yet been vaccinated,' Veran told RTL radio.

He added that 'several dozens' had turned in their resignations rather than sign up for the jabs.

Around 3000 French healthcare workers have been suspended without pay just two days after doctors and health workers staged mass protests against mandatory vaccination measures

President Emmanuel Macron gave staff at hospitals, retirement home workers and the fire service an ultimatum in July to get at least one shot by September 15 or face unpaid suspension

Healthcare workers staged mass protests against mandatory vaccination measures earlier this week, as the country has seen weekly protests against France's Covid 'health pass'

A Covid 'health pass' proving vaccination was recently made mandatory for entering cafes, restaurants and many other public places, prompting weekly protests by tens of thousands of people who claim they are being discriminated against

Despite this, the minister added: 'We are talking about 2.7 million employees [within France's national health service]', before insisting that 'the continuity of nationwide care has been ensured,' because 'a large number of these suspensions are only temporary.'

Veran also said that there were 'very few white coats' - a reference to actual medics - among those refusing to be vaccinated, most of whom he declared were 'support staff'.

Based on figures provided by individual hospitals, the actual number of suspended employees could be higher.

The Paris hospital system said Thursday that 340 workers had been suspended, while local press reports have cited large numbers at hospitals in smaller cities - up to 450 in Nice and 100 in Perpignan.

Available figures point to nearly 1,500 suspensions Thursday at just over a dozen hospitals, according to an AFP tally, with dozens more elsewhere across France.

While vaccines have helped France limit a 'fourth wave' of infections, with fewer than 2,000 Covid patients now in intensive care each day, Veran said it is 'too early' to considering lifting the health pass requirement. There are currently around 10,000 new cases in France each day

A man sprays paint on a poster bearing portraits of French health Minister Olivier Veran and French doctor Didier Raoult on the sidelines of a demonstration against the mandatory Covid-19 health pass to access most of the public space, in Nantes

A medical worker wearing a paper reading 'No to QR code, No to Health Pass, the vaccine does not prevent virus transmission, freedom to choose to be vaccinated' during a protest gathering outside the Health Ministry in Paris on Tuesday

It is the latest development in what has become a very strict stance on the importance of vaccines in France.

Compulsory vaccinations against Covid came into force on Wednesday for all of the 2.7 million health professionals in France, including all those working in hospitals, clinics, and retirement homes, as well as firefighters and ambulance staff.

France also recently made a Covid 'health pass' mandatory for entering cafes, restaurants and many other public places, prompting weekly protests by tens of thousands of people who claim they are being discriminated against.

Each Saturday for the last nine weeks, up to 200,000 people have staged street rallies in Paris and other cities to denounce the health pass.

Many healthcare workers are still avoiding jabs, citing safety or efficacy concerns, raising the spectre of disruptions to services in facilities forced to suspend staff without pay.

Critics of the forced vaccination drive for healthcare workers have argued the French government is implicitly making vaccines obligatory and unfairly restricting the rights of the unvaccinated.

Far-right leader Florian Philippot is among those who have accused President Emmanuel Macron of turning France into a dictatorship and likened the 'health pass to apartheid'.

Far-right leader Florian Philippot (centre) is among those who have accused President Emmanuel Macron of turning France into a dictatorship and likened the 'health pass to apartheid'

Political science researcher Antoine Bristielle said that people protesting against the vaccine are more likely to be among the working class, living in cities as they 'consider they've been the most impacted by health restrictions while seeing themselves at least risk'.

Bristielle added that anti-vaccine sentiments are not so much determined by political leanings, but by wealth bracket.

'The split is not so much between left and right as it is between the people and elites,' he said in an interview with French paper Liberation.

Health Ministry data shows that 73 percent of the 115,000 people who have died of Covid in France are 75 and over.

Overall, 70 percent of the French have received both doses required to be fully vaccinated, which are available to everyone over age 12 - one of the highest rates in the world.

But 74 percent have had one dose only, suggesting that many people are holding out against the jabs despite their widespread availability - and as the more contagious Delta variant spreads worldwide.

While vaccines have helped France limit a 'fourth wave' of infections, with fewer than 2,000 Covid patients now in intensive care each day, Veran said it is 'too early' to considering lifting the health pass requirement.

'There are still around 10,000 new cases each day - the pandemic isn't over,' he said.

On Wednesday, the health ministry reported 79 Covid deaths over the previous 24 hours, bringing the French total to 115,829.
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Britain's daily Covid cases and deaths fell again today in another sign that the return of schools has not triggered a fresh wave of the epidemic.

Department of Health statistics showed another 26,911 infections were recorded in the last 24 hours, down from 38,013 last Thursday. It marked the eighth day in a row that cases have fallen week-on-week.

Today's figures do not include data from Scotland because of a 'technical issue', but going by yesterday's figures the general downward trend would be unchanged.

And in another promising sign that the outbreak is shrinking, the number of deaths across the UK dropped by five per cent after 158 fatalities were recorded.

Latest hospitalisations for England showed they had fallen 10 per cent in a week after 701 people were admitted to hospital with the virus on September 14, the latest available. There were no figures for the UK published today.

Separate data revealed 92 per cent of England's local authorities had seen their outbreak shrink in the latest week.

The figures came on the back of warnings from some scientists who feared the return of schools was dangerous and would trigger a huge surge in Covid cases.

Scotland saw its infections spiral to record highs in the wake of pupils returning to the classroom, but its cases are now also dropping week-on-week. Most schools in England, Wales and Northern Ireland went back on September 1.

Professor Paul Hunter, an epidemiologist at the University of East Anglia, said: 'It does look like those strongly expressed views that we would see a surge in infections after schools went back has not turned out to be the case.'

It has been suggested that high antibody levels in youngsters may be keeping the virus at bay. Nearly nine in 10 people in the UK aged 16 to 24 have Covid antibodies, according to official estimate.

Rates will also start rising quickly in 12 to 15-year-olds next week, when the jab rollout opens to them for the first time.

ENGLAND: The above graph shows Covid cases in England by date reported. It reveals that they are still sliding in the country a fortnight after children returned to school

 Slide me  Public Health England's weekly surveillance report revealed only 11 of 149 authorities saw outbreaks grow in the week ending September 12. The percentage change in the 149 local authorities across England in the week ending September 5 (left) and the most recent week ending September 12 (right)

SCOTLAND: The above graph shows Covid cases in Scotland by date reported. The country has not reported its Covid cases today due to a 'technical issue', although going by yesterday's data the downward trend would be unchanged

WALES: The above graph shows Covid cases in Wales by date reported. These have also started to level off in the country amid the return of schools

NORTHERN IRELAND: The above graph shows cases in the UK nation by date reported. It reveals that they have started to dip in Northern Ireland, although they remain at a high level

The Covid Symptom Study estimated 47,276 people in the UK were catching the virus every day in the week to September 11. This was a drop of nine per cent on the same time the previous week

Vaccines saved more than 100,000 lives and prevented nearly 250,000 hospital admissions, PHE says England's Covid vaccine rollout has saved more than 100,000 lives and stopped nearly quarter of a million hospital admissions, according to official figures. Public Health England estimates the jabs stopped up to 230,800 adults over the age of 45 being hospitalised. Some 178,900 hospitalisations were prevented among those aged over 65, it said. Meanwhile, around 51,900 people aged 45 to 64 did not need hospital care because they were immunised. Estimates for the number of deaths prevented by vaccinations in England stands at 112,300, PHE said. The figures were calculated by PHE and Cambridge University based on data up to September 5. Some 89 per cent of all people aged 16 and over in England have now received one dose of vaccine, while 81 per cent are fully vaccinated. Vaccine take-up continues to be lower among younger age groups, however. Some 83 per cent of 30 to 39-year-olds in England have now had one jab, along with just 73 per cent of people aged 18 to 29. Advertisement

The Office for National Statistics, which carried out blood tests on youngsters across the UK's four nations, found between 87 and 89 per cent of them had antibodies that help fight the virus. The presence of coronavirus antibodies suggests someone has been infected in the past or has been vaccinated, and therefore has some immunity.

Experts have said the figures may offer proof that the virus has started to become endemic, with Britain no longer in a fragile state where cases could explode at any point. Instead, Covid will come in waves as immunity gradually fades.

Britain recorded another 26,911 Covid cases today, although this number did not include Scotland because of 'technical issues'.

But looking at yesterday's figures, it suggests that cases would still be trending downwards today if Scotland's were included.

Another 158 deaths were also posted today, nine fewer than the same time last week.

A message from Public Health Scotland posted on their dashboard read: 'Daily data on new cases, tests, ICU admissions and vaccinations will not be refreshed today due to a technical issue affecting the availability of the data.

'Tomorrow's update will include figures for today.'

PHE data revealed Covid cases continued to grow in just 11 parts of the country between September 6 and 12.

Newcastle upon Tyne saw the biggest surge in the country, with cases rising by 11.1 per cent. It was followed by Northumberland (10.3 per cent) and Leicester (9.5 per cent).

Local outbreaks also pushed case numbers up in the rest of Leicestershire (5 per cent), Oldham (4.6 per cent), Blackpool (3.1 per cent) and Coventry (1.4 per cent).

Meanwhile, tiny increases in infection rates were spotted in Middlesbrough (0.9 per cent), Redcar and Cleveland (0.8 per cent), Southend-on-Sea (0.8 per cent) and Calderdale (0.4 per cent).

At the other end of the scale, data showed infections more than halved in West Berkshire (down 54.2 per cent) and Gloucestershire (down 52.7 per cent).

Cases also fell in South Gloucestershire (down 49.5 per cent), Bristol (down 49.4 per cent) and Swindon (down 48.9 per cent).

PHE data showed cases fell at a national level and in all nine regions of the country, in a marked change from last week when increased slightly in every area apart from the South West.

The North-East had the highest rate, with 370 cases per 100,000 people in the seven days to September 12.

Meanwhile, they were the lowest in London, where 212 per 100,000 people tested positive last week.

But with large numbers returning to offices last week and Transport for London experiencing its busiest day since before the pandemic, cases in the capital could rise in the coming weeks, experts fear.

Experts had warned cases in England were likely to soar as pupils returned to classrooms last week.

Scotland experienced its highest ever spike in infections after schools resumed last month, according to official figures.

But a similar spike has not yet appeared south of the border.

Cases among five to nine-year-olds were on the rise. But they dropped in all other age groups.

Meanwhile, those aged 80 and over were least likely to have the virus last week, with just 105 per 100,000 testing positive.

So far, 6.2million people have tested positive since the beginning of the pandemic, but the actual figure is thought to be much higher, as not everyone who catches the virus takes a test.

In response to the findings, Dr Yvonne Doyle, medical director of PHE said: 'There are still high levels of infection in the community.

'We are in a much better place today to deal with the virus than we were a year ago, but we must not be complacent.

'The vaccines are the best defence we have against the virus so please make sure to get protected.

'Those over 50 and the clinically vulnerable will be offered a third primary dose six months after their second dose and 12-15-year-olds can have one dose to help protect themselves and their families.

'It is important to keep following the simple steps to help protect yourself and others.

'Wear a face covering in enclosed spaces, stay at home if you feel unwell and get a PCR test as soon as possible if you have any Covid symptoms.'

King's College London scientists and experts from health data science company ZOE found cases were rising among 0 to 18-year-olds, but falling in all other age groups

When breaking the country down by regions they found that cases were remaining flat in most areas. Infections fell in the Midlands, South East, London, East of England and South West last week, they said

Separate figures from Test and Trace suggested Covid cases rose nine per cent last week, after it recorded more than 205,000 cases in the week to September 8

The above graph shows Covid cases among people who have received two doses of the Covid vaccine (red line) and the population (blue line). Almost 90 per cent of over-16s have already received one dose of the jab

Almost 90% of 16 to 24-year-olds now have Covid antibodies, data says Nearly nine in 10 people in the UK aged 16 to 24 have Covid antibodies, according to official estimates. The Office for National Statistics, which carried out blood tests on youngsters across the UK's four nations, found between 87 and 89 per cent of them had antibodies that help fight the virus. The presence of coronavirus antibodies suggests someone has been infected in the past or has been vaccinated. However, they are not a perfect measure of whether a person is protected against Covid, as other parts of the immune response are involved in fighting the virus, such a T-cells. The steady increase seen across the UK has coincided with the rollout of Covid vaccine to younger age groups. First doses of vaccine have been available to teenagers aged 16 and 17 for several weeks, while all over-18s have been eligible for a jab since June. And with the first over-12s being given the vaccine from September 22, a similar surge in antibodies could be seen among this age group. But levels are falling among older age groups, who were the first to get the jab when the rollout began last December. Ministers hope its booster programme for over-50s, vulnerable Britons and frontline health workers, will keep immunity high heading into winter. Advertisement

The King's College London study also offered more proof that the country has still yet to suffer a Scotland-style spike in cases following the return of millions of pupils to schools, despite gloomy warnings that a sizeable uptick was inevitable. Children have now been back in classrooms for over a fortnight.

King's researchers, who work alongside health-tech firm ZOE, also estimated cases had fallen by around 13 per cent in Scotland, which saw daily infections spiral to a record-high in the wake of schools returning.

Professor Tim Spector, who runs the study, warned Covid levels remain high in the country, and that face masks and social distancing should be brought back in to help control the spread of the virus.

Boris Johnson is hoping to rely on booster vaccines and jabs for 12 to 15-year-olds to keep the virus in check this winter, but has admitted face masks and WFH guidance could be brought back if Covid hospitalisations spiral out of control.

Professor Spector once again called on health officials to recognise more symptoms of Covid becasue jabs have helped morph the virus into what feels like a bad cold for the majority who get infected.

He said: 'Sticking to the classic three (cough, fever and a loss of sense of taste or smell) ignores the fact that now most people experience symptoms like sore throat, headache and sneezing rather than fever or cough.

'I also don't understand why we are waiting for the situation to get worse and the NHS is pressured further before implementing simple measures that would help to bring down the number of new cases and save lives.

'With such high levels of virus in the population we should also still be wearing masks and keeping our distance in crowded public places, as in major European cities where cases are much lower than ours.'

Experts have previously warned that the symptom study  also run by health data company ZOE  is becoming less reliable because the change in symptoms has meant it is unable to pick out Covid infections from other viruses.

It comes as official estimates suggest today that nearly nine in 10 people in the UK aged 16 to 24 have Covid antibodies.

The Office for National Statistics, which carried out blood tests on youngsters across the UK's four nations, found between 87 and 89 per cent of them had antibodies that help fight the virus.

The presence of coronavirus antibodies suggests someone has been infected in the past or has been vaccinated.

However, they are not a perfect measure of whether a person is protected against Covid, as other parts of the immune response are involved in fighting the virus, such a T-cells.

In England, 88.7 per cent of 16 to 24-year-olds have Covid antibodies, according to estimates from the ONS based on a random sample of the population (green lines). Figures for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are similar. And all four nations are seeing a drop in antibody levels among older people, who were the first to be offered the vaccine earlier this year. The graphs also show that antibodies levels coincide with the different age groups getting the vaccine (light and dark blue lines), with rates among young people rising in recent months, while there was a much sharper increase among older people earlier this year when they were offered Covid vaccines

The graph shows the proportion of over-16s in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland who tested positive for Covid antibodies between December 7 and August 23. Rates were highest in England (93.6 per cent), followed by Scotland (93.3 per cent), Northern Ireland (91.9 per cent) and Wales (91.2 per cent). The graphs also show the proportion of the population who have received at least one vaccine (light blue line) and two jabs (dark blue line)

The ONS modelled the percentage of adults who have Covid antibodies based on blood samples taken across the four UK nations and in different age groups. In England and Scotland, antibody levels were the highest among younger groups who have more recently been given the jabs, while figures for Wales and Northern Ireland were less certain (shown through wider black lines, indicating less confidence around the figures). But lower levels of antibodies was spotted older age groups across each country

Life expectancy falls to lowest level in a DECADE due to Covid pandemic Life expectancy in England reached its lowest level in a decade because of the Covid pandemic, official figures have revealed. Public Health England (PHE) claimed the 'very high level' of excess deaths in 2020 caused by the pandemic saw life expectancy in men to drop by 1.3 years to 78.7. For women, the rate dropped 0.9 years to 82.7. This is the lowest since 2011 for both genders, according to the Government agency's Health Profile for England report. And the gap in how long people live based on deprivation reached the highest ever recorded, which it said demonstrated that the pandemic 'exacerbated existing inequalities'. Men living in the least deprived areas can expect to live a decade longer than those in the run-down boroughs, while the difference for women is 8.5 years. And there was differences across the country, with London seeing the biggest fall in life expectancy. The South West and East of England saw the smallest drops. Since the virus hit the UK last year, almost 120,000 people in England have died within 28 days of testing positive for the Covid. Advertisement

It comes as official estimates suggest today that nearly nine in 10 people in the UK aged 16 to 24 have Covid antibodies.

The Office for National Statistics, which carried out blood tests on youngsters across the UK's four nations, found between 87 and 89 per cent of them had antibodies that help fight the virus.

The presence of coronavirus antibodies suggests someone has been infected in the past or has been vaccinated.

However, they are not a perfect measure of whether a person is protected against Covid, as other parts of the immune response are involved in fighting the virus, such a T-cells.

The steady increase seen across the UK has coincided with the rollout of Covid vaccine to younger age groups.

First doses of vaccine have been available to teenagers aged 16 and 17 for several weeks, while all over-18s have been eligible for a jab since June.

And with the first over-12s being given the vaccine from September 22, a similar surge in antibodies could be seen among this age group.

But levels are falling among older age groups, who were the first to get the jab when the rollout began last December.

Antibodies are proteins that the immune system makes in response to any virus in order to help the body fight if off in future.

It takes two to three weeks for them to develop after either catching the virus or getting vaccinated.

They then remain in the blood  helping to stop someone getting the same infection again and suppress severe symptoms if they do  but drop over time.

But testing positive for antibodies does not make someone completely immune, and people who have them can still get sick.

Scientists say antibody levels dip naturally after peaking in the weeks following an infection or first vaccine, and people may not have detectable levels of antibodies now  even if they did so earlier in the year.

And people who test negative for antibodies may still be protected  there are other types of ways the immune system can fight off pathogens.

But the dipping levels of antibodies add to a growing body of research that suggests protection from vaccines wanes over time.

This led officials to announce this week that vulnerable Britons will be offered booster vaccines from six months after their second jab.
A woman was horrified to discover a severed human finger in a hamburger at a fast food restaurant in Bolivia.

Estefany Benitez visited a Hot Burger outlet in Santa Cruz de la Sierra on Sunday, one of her favourite food chains.

But after chewing on something unfamiliar, she was shocked and disgusted when she took out the severed finger.

A woman was horrified to discover a severed human finger in a hamburger at a fast food restaurant in Bolivia

After chewing on something unfamiliar, she was shocked and disgusted when she took out the severed finger

She wrote on Facebook: 'At the moment of eating, I chewed on a FINGER.'

She accompanied images of the rotting finger on Facebook along with videos of her waiting to speak to a company representative who offered: 'Please tell me what you want and we will give it to you.'

In the footage, the Hot Burger representative also explains that the burgers arrive at the store pre-prepared and 'nothing like this has ever happened to us before'.

Benitez says in one video viewed over 60,000 times: 'Here we are at the magnificent Hot Burger where a finger ended up in my burger. I'll post a photo of the finger right away.'

In the photo, the top of a finger is seen on the side of the woman's plate after she had apparently taken a bite of the burger.

Estefany Benitez visited a Hot Burger outlet in Santa Cruz de la Sierra on Sunday, one of her favourite food chains

She accompanied images of the rotting finger on Facebook along with videos of her waiting to speak to a company representative

She said a store representative offered to close the restaurant while she was still there, but then 'carried on serving customers like nothing had happened'.

After the woman's post was widely shared on social media, a company spokesperson called the matter an 'unfortunate incident' and explained that a worker had lost part of his index finger while preparing the meat.

Edson Claure, director of the National Police's Special Crime Fighting Force, confirmed to local media that a company employee lost part of his finger at work.

Meanwhile, the Vice Minister for the Defence of User and Consumer Rights decided to temporarily close the branch and impose a fine on the company.
FEC Republican Commissioner Sean Cooksey

A Republican Federal Election Commission member said Twitter may have been biased when it blocked news outlets' stories about Hunter Biden's laptop - but insisted the social media giant was entitled to do so because it is a private firm.

FEC Republican Commissioner Sean Cooksey and five other FEC commissioners unanimously voted to reject the Republican National Committee's complaint against Twitter, which claimed the social media company had political motives to censor the articles.

The FEC ruled that Twitter's actions fell under the commission's media exemption and did not qualify as a form of contribution to Biden's campaign.

In his ruling, Cooksey wrote that while Twitter was simply enforcing its preexisting policies when it blocked links to a 2020 New York Post article critical of Hunter and his father. But Cooksey also said he was doubtful that there was no bias in their actions.

'In my view, the record doesn't establish whether Twitter was consistently enforcing a politically neutral business policy or using its platform to support one candidate over another. But I also think the answer to that question is ultimately irrelevant.

'I conclude Twitter is a publisher with a First Amendment right to control the content on its platform and to favor or disfavor certain speech and speakers.'

The article had revealed emails indicating attempts in 2015 by his father, then vice-president Joe Biden, right, to protect a Ukrainian energy company on which Hunter sat on the board

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee in November about the platforms decision to block links to a Hunter Biden story before the 2020 election

Fellow Republican Commissioners Allen Dickerson and James Trainor III echoed Cooksey's words and wrote that Twitter's perceived partisan behavior was irrelevant so long as it never actively encouraged 'Americans to vote one way or another.'

The original New York Post story reported that emails on the computer pointed to an effort by Hunter to set up a meeting in 2015 between Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser at a Ukrainian energy firm, and his father, who was vice president at the time.

When the Post attempted to share the article on Twitter, however, the platform said the article violated its terms of service regarding the sharing of 'hacked' materials. Facebook also limited the sharing of the article as well.

Twitter claimed that at the time that the company believed the files may have been part of a Russian disinformation campaign.

'We made a quick interpretation, using no other evidence, that the materials in the article were obtained through hacking, and, according to our policy, we blocked them from being spread. Upon further consideration, we admitted this action was wrong and corrected it within 24 hours,' Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in November.

The Post article in question made mention of a meeting set up by Hunter between Vadym Pozharskyi, an advisor for the Ukrainian energy firm Burisma, and then-Vice President Joe Biden

Vadym Pozharskyi (pictured). Hunter sat on the company's board from 2014 to 2019, and his father successfully lobbied to have a prosecutor investigating the company fired

Biden subsequently and successfully lobbied to have a Ukrainian prosecutor fired as he investigated the firm, Burisma, which Hunter held a position on its board from 2014 to 2019.

The Biden campaign had also dismissed the revelations as a smear and a Russian disinformation campaign during the 2020 presidential campaign.

At the time, liberal media outlets had cast doubt on the authenticity of the files contained in the laptop, which was found at a computer repair shop in Delaware.

That sparked Twitter to block sharing of the article, and their damaging revelations, ahead of the election.

However, a DailyMail.com forensic analysis of the computer's hard drive revealed that the files were genuine, and subsequently published multiple exclusive stories regarding their contents.

Hunter Biden himself has also admitted that the laptop could be his.

Speaking to promote his memoir Beautiful Things on CBS earlier this year, he said: 'Certainly, there could be a laptop out there that was stolen from me. It could be that I was hacked, it could be that it was Russian intelligence. It could be that it was stolen from me.'

The Biden campaign blasted the report, with spokesman Andrew Bates saying, 'We have reviewed Joe Biden's official schedules from the time and no meeting, as alleged by the New York Post, ever took place.'

Joe Biden said the claims made in the article were untrue despite Hunter admitting that the hacked laptop could have been his

Emails on the laptop revealed an effort by Hunter to set up an exclusive dinner in Washington DC in April, 2015. The guest list included '3 seats for our KZ friends. 2 seats for Yelana and husband. 2 you and me. 3 seats for WFPUSA people. Vadym. 3 Ambassadors (MX, ?, ?)' and told guests that 'the reason for the dinner is ostensibly to discuss food security,' adding 'Dad will be there but keep that btw us for now'

Biden's advisors, however, would quietly concede later that it was possible informal meeting between the vice president and Pozharskyi could have taken place, Politico reported.

Dealings of Hunter Biden outlined in the emails include a March 2015 effort to organize am exclusive dinner at Georgetown's Cafe Milano, where the meeting between Pozharskyi and Hunter's father may have taken place, DailyMail.com reported earlier this year.

International figures on the dinner guest list included Pozharskyi, and Michael Karloutsos, the son of the then-head of the Greek Orthodox Church with an email sent to them by Hunter saying, 'Dad will be there but keep that btw us for now.'

After, Pozharskyi sent an email to Hunter thanking him for the opportunity, writing, 'Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together.'

The files on the laptop, which Donald Trump advisor Rudy Giuliani said he obtained from a computer repair shop in Delaware, also contained compromising photos of Hunter, in which he appeared naked and using hard drugs with a number of women.

Both the Democrats, and a number of news outlets claimed the files were part of a Russian disinformation campaign. The Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, however, would say that October that there was no evidence of foreign meddling

'Hunter Biden's laptop is not part of some Russian disinformation campaign,' he told Fox Business.
Britain's daily Covid cases and deaths fell again today in another sign that the return of schools has not triggered a fresh wave of the epidemic.

Department of Health statistics showed another 26,911 infections were recorded in the last 24 hours, down from 38,013 last Thursday. It marked the eighth day in a row that cases have fallen week-on-week.

Today's figures do not include data from Scotland because of a 'technical issue', but going by yesterday's figures the general downward trend would be unchanged.

And in another promising sign that the outbreak is shrinking, the number of deaths across the UK dropped by five per cent after 158 fatalities were recorded.

Latest hospitalisations for England showed they had fallen 10 per cent in a week after 701 people were admitted to hospital with the virus on September 14, the latest available. There were no figures for the UK published today.

Separate data revealed 92 per cent of England's local authorities had seen their outbreak shrink in the latest week.

The figures came on the back of warnings from some scientists who feared the return of schools was dangerous and would trigger a huge surge in Covid cases.

Scotland saw its infections spiral to record highs in the wake of pupils returning to the classroom, but its cases are now also dropping week-on-week. Most schools in England, Wales and Northern Ireland went back on September 1.

Professor Paul Hunter, an epidemiologist at the University of East Anglia, said: 'It does look like those strongly expressed views that we would see a surge in infections after schools went back has not turned out to be the case.'

It has been suggested that high antibody levels in youngsters may be keeping the virus at bay. Nearly nine in 10 people in the UK aged 16 to 24 have Covid antibodies, according to official estimate.

Rates will also start rising quickly in 12 to 15-year-olds next week, when the jab rollout opens to them for the first time.

ENGLAND: The above graph shows Covid cases in England by date reported. It reveals that they are still sliding in the country a fortnight after children returned to school

 Slide me  Public Health England's weekly surveillance report revealed only 11 of 149 authorities saw outbreaks grow in the week ending September 12. The percentage change in the 149 local authorities across England in the week ending September 5 (left) and the most recent week ending September 12 (right)

SCOTLAND: The above graph shows Covid cases in Scotland by date reported. The country has not reported its Covid cases today due to a 'technical issue', although going by yesterday's data the downward trend would be unchanged

WALES: The above graph shows Covid cases in Wales by date reported. These have also started to level off in the country amid the return of schools

NORTHERN IRELAND: The above graph shows cases in the UK nation by date reported. It reveals that they have started to dip in Northern Ireland, although they remain at a high level

The Covid Symptom Study estimated 47,276 people in the UK were catching the virus every day in the week to September 11. This was a drop of nine per cent on the same time the previous week

Vaccines saved more than 100,000 lives and prevented nearly 250,000 hospital admissions, PHE says England's Covid vaccine rollout has saved more than 100,000 lives and stopped nearly quarter of a million hospital admissions, according to official figures. Public Health England estimates the jabs stopped up to 230,800 adults over the age of 45 being hospitalised. Some 178,900 hospitalisations were prevented among those aged over 65, it said. Meanwhile, around 51,900 people aged 45 to 64 did not need hospital care because they were immunised. Estimates for the number of deaths prevented by vaccinations in England stands at 112,300, PHE said. The figures were calculated by PHE and Cambridge University based on data up to September 5. Some 89 per cent of all people aged 16 and over in England have now received one dose of vaccine, while 81 per cent are fully vaccinated. Vaccine take-up continues to be lower among younger age groups, however. Some 83 per cent of 30 to 39-year-olds in England have now had one jab, along with just 73 per cent of people aged 18 to 29. Advertisement

The Office for National Statistics, which carried out blood tests on youngsters across the UK's four nations, found between 87 and 89 per cent of them had antibodies that help fight the virus. The presence of coronavirus antibodies suggests someone has been infected in the past or has been vaccinated, and therefore has some immunity.

Experts have said the figures may offer proof that the virus has started to become endemic, with Britain no longer in a fragile state where cases could explode at any point. Instead, Covid will come in waves as immunity gradually fades.

Britain recorded another 26,911 Covid cases today, although this number did not include Scotland because of 'technical issues'.

But looking at yesterday's figures, it suggests that cases would still be trending downwards today if Scotland's were included.

Another 158 deaths were also posted today, nine fewer than the same time last week.

A message from Public Health Scotland posted on their dashboard read: 'Daily data on new cases, tests, ICU admissions and vaccinations will not be refreshed today due to a technical issue affecting the availability of the data.

'Tomorrow's update will include figures for today.'

PHE data revealed Covid cases continued to grow in just 11 parts of the country between September 6 and 12.

Newcastle upon Tyne saw the biggest surge in the country, with cases rising by 11.1 per cent. It was followed by Northumberland (10.3 per cent) and Leicester (9.5 per cent).

Local outbreaks also pushed case numbers up in the rest of Leicestershire (5 per cent), Oldham (4.6 per cent), Blackpool (3.1 per cent) and Coventry (1.4 per cent).

Meanwhile, tiny increases in infection rates were spotted in Middlesbrough (0.9 per cent), Redcar and Cleveland (0.8 per cent), Southend-on-Sea (0.8 per cent) and Calderdale (0.4 per cent).

At the other end of the scale, data showed infections more than halved in West Berkshire (down 54.2 per cent) and Gloucestershire (down 52.7 per cent).

Cases also fell in South Gloucestershire (down 49.5 per cent), Bristol (down 49.4 per cent) and Swindon (down 48.9 per cent).

PHE data showed cases fell at a national level and in all nine regions of the country, in a marked change from last week when increased slightly in every area apart from the South West.

The North-East had the highest rate, with 370 cases per 100,000 people in the seven days to September 12.

Meanwhile, they were the lowest in London, where 212 per 100,000 people tested positive last week.

But with large numbers returning to offices last week and Transport for London experiencing its busiest day since before the pandemic, cases in the capital could rise in the coming weeks, experts fear.

Experts had warned cases in England were likely to soar as pupils returned to classrooms last week.

Scotland experienced its highest ever spike in infections after schools resumed last month, according to official figures.

But a similar spike has not yet appeared south of the border.

Cases among five to nine-year-olds were on the rise. But they dropped in all other age groups.

Meanwhile, those aged 80 and over were least likely to have the virus last week, with just 105 per 100,000 testing positive.

So far, 6.2million people have tested positive since the beginning of the pandemic, but the actual figure is thought to be much higher, as not everyone who catches the virus takes a test.

In response to the findings, Dr Yvonne Doyle, medical director of PHE said: 'There are still high levels of infection in the community.

'We are in a much better place today to deal with the virus than we were a year ago, but we must not be complacent.

'The vaccines are the best defence we have against the virus so please make sure to get protected.

'Those over 50 and the clinically vulnerable will be offered a third primary dose six months after their second dose and 12-15-year-olds can have one dose to help protect themselves and their families.

'It is important to keep following the simple steps to help protect yourself and others.

'Wear a face covering in enclosed spaces, stay at home if you feel unwell and get a PCR test as soon as possible if you have any Covid symptoms.'

King's College London scientists and experts from health data science company ZOE found cases were rising among 0 to 18-year-olds, but falling in all other age groups

When breaking the country down by regions they found that cases were remaining flat in most areas. Infections fell in the Midlands, South East, London, East of England and South West last week, they said

Separate figures from Test and Trace suggested Covid cases rose nine per cent last week, after it recorded more than 205,000 cases in the week to September 8

The above graph shows Covid cases among people who have received two doses of the Covid vaccine (red line) and the population (blue line). Almost 90 per cent of over-16s have already received one dose of the jab

Almost 90% of 16 to 24-year-olds now have Covid antibodies, data says Nearly nine in 10 people in the UK aged 16 to 24 have Covid antibodies, according to official estimates. The Office for National Statistics, which carried out blood tests on youngsters across the UK's four nations, found between 87 and 89 per cent of them had antibodies that help fight the virus. The presence of coronavirus antibodies suggests someone has been infected in the past or has been vaccinated. However, they are not a perfect measure of whether a person is protected against Covid, as other parts of the immune response are involved in fighting the virus, such a T-cells. The steady increase seen across the UK has coincided with the rollout of Covid vaccine to younger age groups. First doses of vaccine have been available to teenagers aged 16 and 17 for several weeks, while all over-18s have been eligible for a jab since June. And with the first over-12s being given the vaccine from September 22, a similar surge in antibodies could be seen among this age group. But levels are falling among older age groups, who were the first to get the jab when the rollout began last December. Ministers hope its booster programme for over-50s, vulnerable Britons and frontline health workers, will keep immunity high heading into winter. Advertisement

The King's College London study also offered more proof that the country has still yet to suffer a Scotland-style spike in cases following the return of millions of pupils to schools, despite gloomy warnings that a sizeable uptick was inevitable. Children have now been back in classrooms for over a fortnight.

King's researchers, who work alongside health-tech firm ZOE, also estimated cases had fallen by around 13 per cent in Scotland, which saw daily infections spiral to a record-high in the wake of schools returning.

Professor Tim Spector, who runs the study, warned Covid levels remain high in the country, and that face masks and social distancing should be brought back in to help control the spread of the virus.

Boris Johnson is hoping to rely on booster vaccines and jabs for 12 to 15-year-olds to keep the virus in check this winter, but has admitted face masks and WFH guidance could be brought back if Covid hospitalisations spiral out of control.

Professor Spector once again called on health officials to recognise more symptoms of Covid becasue jabs have helped morph the virus into what feels like a bad cold for the majority who get infected.

He said: 'Sticking to the classic three (cough, fever and a loss of sense of taste or smell) ignores the fact that now most people experience symptoms like sore throat, headache and sneezing rather than fever or cough.

'I also don't understand why we are waiting for the situation to get worse and the NHS is pressured further before implementing simple measures that would help to bring down the number of new cases and save lives.

'With such high levels of virus in the population we should also still be wearing masks and keeping our distance in crowded public places, as in major European cities where cases are much lower than ours.'

Experts have previously warned that the symptom study  also run by health data company ZOE  is becoming less reliable because the change in symptoms has meant it is unable to pick out Covid infections from other viruses.

It comes as official estimates suggest today that nearly nine in 10 people in the UK aged 16 to 24 have Covid antibodies.

The Office for National Statistics, which carried out blood tests on youngsters across the UK's four nations, found between 87 and 89 per cent of them had antibodies that help fight the virus.

The presence of coronavirus antibodies suggests someone has been infected in the past or has been vaccinated.

However, they are not a perfect measure of whether a person is protected against Covid, as other parts of the immune response are involved in fighting the virus, such a T-cells.

In England, 88.7 per cent of 16 to 24-year-olds have Covid antibodies, according to estimates from the ONS based on a random sample of the population (green lines). Figures for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are similar. And all four nations are seeing a drop in antibody levels among older people, who were the first to be offered the vaccine earlier this year. The graphs also show that antibodies levels coincide with the different age groups getting the vaccine (light and dark blue lines), with rates among young people rising in recent months, while there was a much sharper increase among older people earlier this year when they were offered Covid vaccines

The graph shows the proportion of over-16s in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland who tested positive for Covid antibodies between December 7 and August 23. Rates were highest in England (93.6 per cent), followed by Scotland (93.3 per cent), Northern Ireland (91.9 per cent) and Wales (91.2 per cent). The graphs also show the proportion of the population who have received at least one vaccine (light blue line) and two jabs (dark blue line)

The ONS modelled the percentage of adults who have Covid antibodies based on blood samples taken across the four UK nations and in different age groups. In England and Scotland, antibody levels were the highest among younger groups who have more recently been given the jabs, while figures for Wales and Northern Ireland were less certain (shown through wider black lines, indicating less confidence around the figures). But lower levels of antibodies was spotted older age groups across each country

Life expectancy falls to lowest level in a DECADE due to Covid pandemic Life expectancy in England reached its lowest level in a decade because of the Covid pandemic, official figures have revealed. Public Health England (PHE) claimed the 'very high level' of excess deaths in 2020 caused by the pandemic saw life expectancy in men to drop by 1.3 years to 78.7. For women, the rate dropped 0.9 years to 82.7. This is the lowest since 2011 for both genders, according to the Government agency's Health Profile for England report. And the gap in how long people live based on deprivation reached the highest ever recorded, which it said demonstrated that the pandemic 'exacerbated existing inequalities'. Men living in the least deprived areas can expect to live a decade longer than those in the run-down boroughs, while the difference for women is 8.5 years. And there was differences across the country, with London seeing the biggest fall in life expectancy. The South West and East of England saw the smallest drops. Since the virus hit the UK last year, almost 120,000 people in England have died within 28 days of testing positive for the Covid. Advertisement

It comes as official estimates suggest today that nearly nine in 10 people in the UK aged 16 to 24 have Covid antibodies.

The Office for National Statistics, which carried out blood tests on youngsters across the UK's four nations, found between 87 and 89 per cent of them had antibodies that help fight the virus.

The presence of coronavirus antibodies suggests someone has been infected in the past or has been vaccinated.

However, they are not a perfect measure of whether a person is protected against Covid, as other parts of the immune response are involved in fighting the virus, such a T-cells.

The steady increase seen across the UK has coincided with the rollout of Covid vaccine to younger age groups.

First doses of vaccine have been available to teenagers aged 16 and 17 for several weeks, while all over-18s have been eligible for a jab since June.

And with the first over-12s being given the vaccine from September 22, a similar surge in antibodies could be seen among this age group.

But levels are falling among older age groups, who were the first to get the jab when the rollout began last December.

Antibodies are proteins that the immune system makes in response to any virus in order to help the body fight if off in future.

It takes two to three weeks for them to develop after either catching the virus or getting vaccinated.

They then remain in the blood  helping to stop someone getting the same infection again and suppress severe symptoms if they do  but drop over time.

But testing positive for antibodies does not make someone completely immune, and people who have them can still get sick.

Scientists say antibody levels dip naturally after peaking in the weeks following an infection or first vaccine, and people may not have detectable levels of antibodies now  even if they did so earlier in the year.

And people who test negative for antibodies may still be protected  there are other types of ways the immune system can fight off pathogens.

But the dipping levels of antibodies add to a growing body of research that suggests protection from vaccines wanes over time.

This led officials to announce this week that vulnerable Britons will be offered booster vaccines from six months after their second jab.
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Border officials said the situation along the US-Mexico frontier is out of control after dramatic drone footage showed more than 8,000 migrants - most of them from Haiti - waiting under the International Bridge in Del Rio, Texas for processing.

The large group of migrants is double the amount from just the previous day, according to Fox News.

Haiti is in the midst of a humanitarian crisis after a magnitude 7.2 earthquake on August 14, which killed more than 2,200 people and damaged or destroyed more than 100,000 homes.

The island is also being wracked by fresh political instability caused by the assassination of its former president Jovenel Moise in June, with the island's prime minister Ariel Henry since named as a suspect in the investigation.

Officials reported that there were more than 4,000 migrants waiting under the bridge to be processed on Wednesday, but by Thursday morning that number surged to some 8,200.

Law enforcement officials told Fox News that most of the migrants who were arriving fled Haiti.

Law enforcement source on the ground at the bridge this morning just sent me this video showing the situation there. Im told a large majority of the migrants are Haitians and more are crossing into the US and arriving at the bridge by the minute. BP w/ limited manpower @FoxNews pic.twitter.com/dHWCrhFikq  Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) September 16, 2021

Officials reported that there were more than 4,000 migrants waiting under the bridge to be processed on Wednesday, but by Thursday morning that number surged to some 8,200

The migrants were seen waiting under the International Bridge in Del Rio, Texas for processing on Thursday

Drone footage from the previous day (above) shows about half the number seen on Thursday

The migrants were seen on Thursday gathered in close quarters under the bridge that spans the Texas-Mexico border

Most of the migrants are from Haiti, a nation that has been ravaged by an earthquake as well as political unrest

The migrants are waiting to be apprehended and processed by Border Patrol, but the agency has been overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of those crossing

The island is also being wracked by fresh political instability caused by the assassination of its former president Jovenel Moise in June, with the island's prime minister Ariel Henry since named as a suspect in the investigation

Earlier this year, it was learned that more than 200,000 migrants again crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in August.

A Department of Homeland Security source previewed the latest numbers for the network, saying that there were 208,887 encounters last month.

That is fewer than the 212,000 encounters in July, but still represents a 317 percent increase in crossing from August 2020, when there were 50,014 encounters.

The August numbers break down to 49 percent single adults - down 7 percent from July.

Forty-four percent were expelled via the Title 42 health order, Fox said.

The U.S. Coast Guard stopped a 35-foot boat with 104 Haitian migrants after the vessel was spotted in Florida waters on Sunday

The 104 migrants - all natives of Haiti - spent five days sailing across the Atlantic and were initially spotted by a Good Samaritan who alerted the U.S. Coast Guard. The individuals were transferred to the Coast Guard Cutter Richard Etheridge and later provided medical treatment

Title 72 was signed by former President Donald Trump in March 2020, in the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing for the rapid removal of border crossers - which was in line with the previous administration's hardline agenda on immigration.

Against the wishes of immigrant rights groups, President Joe Biden's administration extended the order.

Under Biden, the US government has expelled single adults and some families - but not unaccompanied minors and families with young children.

In August, 18,847 unaccompanied children crossed into the United States, down slightly from July, Fox reported.

And also 86,487 family units - up 4 percent from the month before.

The official government release of the new numbers is expected in the upcoming days.

For months, Republicans have seen the border crisis as a political opportunity with former President Donald Trump hammering Biden on it during an call-in interview on Newsmax on Tuesday night.

'We are a laughingstock all over the world,' Trump said, mentioning the migrant surge and Biden's disastrous pull-out from Afghanistan.

Vice President Kamala Harris has been especially criticized, after Biden made her the point person for communicating with the Northern Triangle countries - Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras - where most of the migrants are coming from.

Harris was to handle the root causes of migration.

Haiti is in the midst of a humanitarian crisis after a magnitude 7.2 earthquake on August 14, which killed more than 2,200 people and damaged or destroyed more than 100,000 homes. Earthquake victims in Haiti are seen in the above August 22 file photo

The US Coast Guard intercepted a 35-foot sailboat with 104 Haitian migrants after the boat was spotted in Florida waters on Sunday.

The migrants spent six days sailing from Haiti in hopes of reaching the United States but were intercepted by the Coast Guard, just 18 miles off the coast of Biscayne Bay, south of Miami.

'There were way too many people on board,' U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Ryan Estrada said, according to WPLG television.

The U.S. Coast Guard's 7th District said the migrant were removed from the overcrowded boat and transferred to the Coast Guard Cutter Richard Etheridge.

'Once aboard a cutter, all migrants (received) food, water, shelter and basic medical attention,' the Coast Guard said.

Despite the cross Atlantic voyage, none of the migrants were diagnosed with medical issues.

'Our message is, 'Don't take to the sea in any shape or form. It's always dangerous. Water conditions can change on a moments notice. Weather conditions can change on a moments notice and we advise don't do it,' Estrada said.

The incident came after the Coast Guard stopped a 24-food vessel about three miles of Juno Beach last Tuesday and transferred 12 Haitian migrants to Bahamian authorities.

According to Coast Guard data, 502 Haitian migrants have been interdicted in U.S. waters since October 1, 2020 - the start of fiscal year 2021. In comparison, 418 Haitians were stopped in fiscal year 2020.

Biden administration extends deportation relief for immigrants from 6 countries

The United States will extend deportation relief and work permits for more than 300,000 Salvadorans, Hondurans and other immigrants in the United States and enrolled in a program known as Temporary Protected Status (TPS), according to an announcement last Thursday.

The renewals for El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, and Sudan will last until December 31, 2022, according to US Citizenship and Immigration Services, and were required as part of ongoing litigation over Trump's attempts to end most enrollment in the program.

The 'extension ensures continued compliance with various court orders issued by federal district courts,' the announcement from USCIS said.

Current beneficiaries under the TPS designations do not need to pay a fee or file any application to maintain their TPS and have their TPS-related documentation automatically extended through the designated period.

President Joe Biden, a Democrat, has championed and broadened the TPS program, which gives work permits and deportation relief to immigrants in the United States who come from countries hit by violence or natural disasters

The move will disappoint some Democrats and pro-immigrant activists who had pressed the Biden administration to expand the program to include hundreds of thousands of additional immigrants instead of simply extending the program for those already enrolled.

Biden, a Democrat, has championed and broadened the TPS program, which gives work permits and deportation relief to immigrants in the United States who come from countries hit by violence or natural disasters.

Trump, a Republican tried to end it but was blocked in federal court. Several of the designations have been renewed for decades.

Since Biden took office on January 20, his administration has granted deportation relief to about 500,000 Venezuelans and Haitians through the TPS program.

The administration also has extended protections to thousands of people from Myanmar, Somalia, Syria and Yemen.

Biden announced on August 5 that he would also offer deportation relief to what could be thousands of Hong Kong residents in the United States, citing anti-democratic actions by China in Hong Kong.
The UK's tax gap has risen for the first time in six years to 35billion, it was revealed today.

The difference between the tax expected and what was actually paid was equivalent to 5.3 per cent in 2019-20, official figures showed.

That was up from 5 per cent, or 33billion, in the 2018-19 tax year - the first time the level has gone up since 2013-14.

However, it is still far below the peak of 7.5 per cent recorded in the mid-2000s.

Failure to 'take reasonable care' accounted for a significant chunk of the tax gap last year, at 6.7billion, with avoidance accounting for 1.5billion.

Some 3.7billion of the gap is estimated to be due to error and 3billion due to the 'hidden economy'.

The difference between the tax expected and what was actually paid was equivalent to 5.3 per cent in 2019-20, official figures showed

The tax gap for wealthy individuals fell from 1.6billion in 2018-19 to 1.5billion in 2019-20, HMRC said.

Some 15.1billion of the gap is from small businesses and 6.1billion is attributed to large businesses, with 5billion from medium-sized firms.

The inheritance tax gap fell from an estimated 425million in 2018-19 to 350million in 2019-20.

HMRC said it recorded an increase in the total revenue paid year on year.

Taxpayers paid more than 633.4billion in tax during 2019-20, an increase of more than 100 billion since 2015-16, when the total revenue paid was 532.5billion.

HMRC said that, over the longer term, there has been a reduction in the tax gap, which stood at 7.5 per cent in 2005-06.

Any impact on the tax gap from the coronavirus lockdowns and economic downturn is likely to be first seen in the 2020-21 figures, which will be released next year, HMRC said.

Jim Harra, HMRC's chief executive and first permanent secretary, said: 'It is encouraging to see such a large proportion of businesses and individuals meeting their tax obligations.

The gap for VAT ticked upwards in 2019-20, although it was well still below the peak of a few years ago

'We want to help everyone get their tax right, which will help fund our vital public services like the NHS and emergency services.'

Helen Morrissey, senior pensions and retirement analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: 'Making a mistake leaves you open to being clobbered with large fines from HMRC as well as having to make good the initial under-declared payment.

'As many people start filling out self-assessment tax returns in the coming months, they should do all they can to ensure they have a clear idea of their potential liabilities.

'Make sure you have all relevant paperwork to hand and don't leave it to the last minute as you might leave something out.

'Also, don't be scared to call HMRC if there's something you don't understand as they will be able to help you. It might even make sense to enlist professional help if needed.'
A New York father and his young daughter were spat on and threatened with a knife by a male passenger after asking him to stop smoking marijuana on the train.

A video released by the NYPD revealed the incident which was captured on a cellphone on a Manhattan D-Bound train in the Bronx at around 3.20pm on September 5.

The footage captured the alleged pothead sitting in his seat as he was seen spitting on the 35-year-old father and his four-year-old daughter, who were seated on the other side of the doors a few feet away from the man.

The man then stands up to get something from his backpack as the father and daughter remain sitting.

The man then angrily clicks a knife as he stands in the middle of the subway aisle with a threatening glare as he stares at the cellphone camera.

Video footage captured the moment a Bronx subway passenger threatened a father and daughter with a knife

The father and daughter were spat on by the passenger after he was asked to stop smoking pot

Police said that the father then took his daughter off the train at Fordham Road station in the Bronx, according to The Daily News.

It was reported, however, that the man stayed on the train after the pair left. No injuries were reported as a result of the incident.

The video was released on Thursday by police in an attempt to identify the suspect.

DailyMail.com reached out to the NYPD for a statement.

This incident is just one of many other New York subway crimes reported this year.

The suspect was seen sitting in his seat yelling at the father before spitting on him and then threatening them with a knife he pulled from his backpack

The father and daughter left the subway after the incident at Fordham Road Station

This is the latest violent incident on a New York City subway train. Just days earlier, on September 9, a man brutally kicked a woman down an an escalator at the Atlantic Ave.-Barclays Center station in Brooklyn.

The victim was kicked in the chest by the suspect after she asked him to say 'excuse me' when he rushed past her.

Surveillance cameras captured the chilling moment the victim fell backwards to the bottom of the escalator as the suspect continued up the escalator and out of the station.

Police say the woman suffered cuts and bruises to her back, arms, legs, right knee and right thigh and trauma to her left ankle, noting that she refused medical attention at the scene.

'This was more than stairs. Escalators are spiky and moving. They're bigger and sharp,' the 32-year-old female victim said.

'All over my body. I'm covered [in cuts] like I was clawed by a tiger.'

The suspect has not yet been identified by police.

A woman was attacked at a Brooklyn subway station on September 9 after a man kicked her down the escalator and suffered injuries as a result

According to the NYPD, there were 2.19 felony crimes reported per one million riders for the month of August relating to murder, rape, robbery, grand larceny, felony assault and burglary, according to The New York Post.

The August statistic was an increase as compared to 1.78 in July and 1.77 in June.

Cameras were installed on Monday as an effort to monitor subway crime and keep people on public transportation safe.

'The number of arrests have dramatically increased. Part of that is directly attributable to cameras,' Warren said.

'You are not anonymous in the subway right now if you are out there trying to prey on our riders.'

Security cameras were installed at all 432 subway stations in an attempt to decrease New York crime

The department also reports felony assaults and rape crimes have surged since 2020 with a 5.9% increase for felony assaults and a 3.7% increase for rape.

In terms of declining statistics, a 4.4% decrease was reported for murders, 1.4% for robberies and 0.1% for shooting victims.

A 0.9% decrease was also reported for overall crime in 2021.



De Blasio praised the month of August as being one of the safest despite increasing rates throughout May, June and July that led him to blame the courts for not processing criminals fast enough.

'In fact, the number of overall index crimes reported in the city through the end of August is the lowest tally for the first eight months of any calendar year since the start of the modern CompStat era nearly three decades ago,' the NYPD said last week, referring to current system for tallying crime numbers.

During one of his daily remote press conferences last month, de Blasio revealed that in the first half of 2021, there were only 18 trial verdicts across the five boroughs, compared to 405 during the same time in 2019.

State courts outside New York City have produced 118 trial verdicts during the first eight months of the year.

'That isn't good enough,' the mayor said, after heaping praise on the New York City Police Department for making a record number of gun-related arrests, and highlighting the work of community activists.

DeBlasio praised the month of August as being one of the safest after a high crime rate in May, June and July

A spokesman for the court system accused the mayor of 'gaslighting' the public with his accusation.

'Yet again, the mayor demonstrates his glaring lack of understanding of the criminal justice process in this state,' said Lucian Chaifen, director of communications for the Office of Court Administration, in a statement.

'His gaslighting rhetoric regarding court operations in an attempt to shift the public safety discussion continues.'

The spokesperson argued that the court system has been back at full strength since May, and rebuked prosecutors and defense attorneys for not being prepared to try their cases.

But Chaifen acknowledged that because of social distancing requirements, only three trials can now be held simultaneously in each county, compared to up to a dozen before the pandemic.
The father of a Minnesota woman found shot dead in a Wisconsin cornfield with three friends has said his daughter knew the owner of the black SUV their bodies were dumped in.

Damone Presley, the dad of Nitosha Presley, told CBS Local the vehicle belonged to someone his daughter knew but did not provide any further details.

He insisted his daughter, the mother of a four-year-old and 11-year-old, 'doesn't know nobody in Wisconsin, let alone to be in Wisconsin'.

On Thursday afternoon, police arrested one suspect and are seeking another in connection with the fatal shootings.

Darren Lee McWright, 56, from St. Paul, Minnesota, who also uses the alias last name of Osborne, was arrested on a warrant from Dunn County and is being held in the Ramsey County Jail, according to Sheriff Kevin Bygd.

A warrant is out for the other suspect, Antoine Darnique Suggs, 38, who is believed to be in the Twin Cities area and is considered armed and dangerous, officials said.

Presley, 30, Matthew Pettus, 26, Loyace Foreman III, 35, and Jasmine Christine Sturm, 30, were found murdered inside the car in a field in Sheridan, rural Wisconsin, Sunday afternoon.

Sturm and Pettus were half-siblings and both worked as bartenders in St. Paul's, while Sturm also had a second job as a paralegal.

Foreman, the son of a pastor, was Sturm's boyfriend and Presley was her close friend.

The group of friends from Minnesota were last seen alive on a night out together in St. Paul Saturday night, before leaving together in an unknown vehicle.

A farmer then stumbled across the grisly scene the next day in the field about 65 miles east of St. Paul.

Darren Lee McWright, left, was arrested in connection to the fatal shooting of four friends in Wisconsin. Police are looking for Antoine Darnique Suggs, a possible accomplice

Damone Presley, the dad of Nitosha Presley, told CBS Local the vehicle belonged to someone his daughter knew

Dunn County Sheriff Kevin Bygd said in a press conference Tuesday that investigators are 'not disclosing right now' the identity of the person the SUV was registered to.

Investigators are also seeking information about a possible second dark-colored SUV which they believe may have been driven to the dump site and used as a getaway vehicle by the suspect or suspects.

The public are being urged to contact authorities if they noticed vehicles with Minnesota plates that night.

Bygd said neither the victims nor the suspect or suspects are believed to have any connection to the local area.

'There is no connection to the area so we cannot suspect people locally for killing four people from the Twin Cities,' he said, as he reassured the public that they are not likely at risk.

Instead, he said the victims were 'randomly' left there by the perpetrators.

'I'm confident that this was a place these victims were randomly brought to,' he said.

Victims Jasmine Sturm (left) and Matthew Pettus (right) were half-siblings, and worked together at Shamrocks Irish bar and grill in St. Paul

Victim Loyace Foreman III (left) was Sturm's boyfriend, while Nitosha Lee Flug-Presley (right) was a friend of Sturm

'We believe they went back to their home base' after carrying out the murders,' he added.

'We can't find any connection to this area, other than possibly randomly driving out of the Twin Cities.'

Police are processing highway camera footage and cellphone data as part of their investigation.

Bygd said the motive in the case remains 'a mystery', but said there was no indication of ties to organized crime or drugs.

'Everybody's a suspect at this point,' he said. 'We're looking at everybody and every possibility.'

Damone told CBS Local he was 'numb' after learning of her death and urged anyone with information to 'speak up.'

'Somebody knows something. This doesn't just happen,' Damone said. 'This is not a freak accident. Please somebody say something.'

He added: 'I'm numb. I feel empty.

'She was a beautiful mother, granddaughter, just an inspiration and joy in my life. Good heart, a teddy bear as a person. Well-liked.'

Presley, 30, Matthew Pettus, 26, Loyace Foreman III, 35, and Jasmine Christine Sturm, 30, were found murdered inside the car in a field in Sheridan, rural Wisconsin, Sunday afternoon. Pictured the scene taped off

Pettus' brother, Zach Pettus, told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune that he has 'an idea who did it,' referring to the homicides, but he declined to go into further detail.

'This is a freak thing that never should have happened,' Zach Pettus said. 'There is nothing that indicated this would have happened.'

Investigators remain tight-lipped about many aspects of the case, and Bygd refused to say where the victims were found in the vehicle and how many times they had been shot.

However, audio from a police scanner obtained by the station KSTP revealed none of the victims were in the driver's seat.

Autopsies that were performed on Monday by Ramsey County Medical Examiner's Office determined that all four victims died from gunshot wounds.

All four are believed to have died less than 24 hours from the time they were found.

The victims, who included two bartenders at the Irish bar Shamrocks, had last been seen out drinking together in St. Paul on Saturday night, before leaving together in an unknown vehicle.

Sturm and Pettus both worked at this Irish bar and restaurant in St Paul, a family member said

The victims Sturm and Pettus were half-siblings, while Flug-Presley was Sturm's friend and Foreman was Sturm's boyfriend, investigators said.

Sturm was a longtime server at Shamrocks bar and restaurant in St. Paul, where her brother Pettus, the youngest victim, was also a bartender, a family member said.

Loyace Foreman III was the son of Loyace Foreman Jr, senior pastor at New Vision Faith Center in Saint Paul.

'He was stolen from us,' Loyace's mother, Jessica, wrote in a post. 'And we will find the thief. If it takes my very last breath. We will not rest. Loyace PulzeRazr Foreman III was my Prince.'

According to recent social media posts, the 35-year-old Foreman III had two children and was in a romantic relationship with Jessica Sturm.

He worked as a demolition contractor and enjoyed drawing in his free time.

Dunn County Sheriff Kevin Bygd said investigators believe the bodies 'were randomly brought to' the Town of Sheridan and that someone intentionally drove the SUV into the tall corn

'He was a doting uncle to his four nieces and nephews,' Jessica Foreman told Twin Cities. 'He was the protector of his three sisters. He was not perfect and we loved him unconditionally. He left an unfillable void.'

Sturm, who worked a second job as a paralegal at a law firm, and was raising her two sons, ages 11 and 5. The youngest boy had just celebrated his birthday last month.

Mourners online described Strum and Nitosha Flug-Presley as very close friends.

'There was never a time where i would see 1 without the other,' a mutual friend wrote. 'Y'all were literally inseparable and to think we lost y'all together don't even sit right.'

Flug-Presley leaves behind a young son and daughter.

'She was an outgoing person, a very good mother, exceptional daughter,' Presley's father said. 'She was very vibrant, she had a good heart, someone who would lift up your spirits.'
Furious parents are campaigning to save a secondary school teacher who was suspended after allegedly calling pupils 'retards' and 'cowards'.

The male teacher was accused of making the remarks during an emergency assembly this week to address the poor behaviour of Year 11 students.

A social media post claiming the teacher referred to students as 'chicken sh***, retards and cowards' later went viral, leading to his suspension.

But angry parents have since slammed the children who complained as being 'snowflakes'.

They have written to the school to demand the teacher is allowed to keep his job at Gable Hall School in Corringham, Essex.

Headmaster Ceri Evans is due to publish the outcome of the school's investigation into the teacher's behaviour tomorrow.

They have written to the school to demand the teacher is allowed to keep his job at Gable Hall School in Corringham, Essex (pictured)

Local resident Jayne Louise said she was 'at a loss how this poor fantastic teacher is being suspended'.

She added: 'Over 80 per cent [of parents and pupils] are fed up with those kids in question and are saying what a fantastic teacher he is.'

Tegan Herbing, who claims to be a former pupil at the school, said the suspended teacher was an 'absolutely amazing and supportive teacher'.

She said: 'As a past student from that school can speak from experience that the kids are absolutely awful and can almost guarantee they needed to be put in their places.

'Gable would be at an absolute loss if they lost [the teacher].' Others took to social media to slam the pupils who complained about the teacher.

Samantha Taylor wrote: 'What a bunch of snowflakes. Come on he said a few bad words oh no. Grow up.'

Headmaster Ceri Evans (pictured) is due to publish the outcome of the school's investigation into the teacher's behaviour tomorrow

Moose Dineen said: 'If these kids are offended by a few words from a teacher what hope have they got when they get out in the big wide world.'

Malcolm Lewis said: 'Poor kids... I bet they use much worse language than that, they all must be so traumatised to the point of needing therapy...'

In a statement, headteacher Ceri Evans said the teacher will remain suspended until an internal investigation is completed.

He said: 'It has come to my attention that a member of my teaching staff has made derogatory comments to the cohort of year 11 students.

'As a school we do not tolerate or accept such behaviour. A formal investigation is now underway which has been assigned to a senior leader within the Ortu trust.

'The teacher is suspended pending the outcome of the investigation. The decision of the investigation will be implemented by myself with the support of the governing body.'
This is the moment a 10-weeks pregnant woman attempts to jump from a second-floor window to escape the alleged beating inflicted by her husband before he drags her back into their apartment in Brazil.

The disturbing incident was recorded Saturday by residents in the Rio de Janeiro town of Duque de Caxias.

Video footage shows Maria Jose, 35, placing her left leg over the window, but her spouse Vitor Batista, 32, appears to pull her head and drags her back into the apartment.

A second video shows the pregnant mother-of-one leaning backwards over the window sill. Batista subsequently pulls his wife towards him as couple struggle while he tries to close the window.

Neighbors called the Civil Police who arrested Batista.

Still image from a video that captured the moment a pregnant Maria Jose was pulled back into her Rio de Janeiro second floor apartment moments after she tried to jump out the window and flee from her husband Vitor Batista who had repeatedly beaten her. Authorities were able to arrest Batista

Vitor Batista pulls his wife back into the apartment while she leaned backwards over the window sill of their second floor apartment in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Batista was arrested as a result of the domestic violence incident, which he described to police as 'just a couple's fight'

Batista reportedly became enraged Monday after he discovered that Jose written a note asking for help and thrown it out the window.

According to Brazilian news outlet G1, he told authorities that the quarrel was 'just a couple's fight.'

Jose told the network that her husband of two years had beaten her repeatedly throughout the course of their relationship. Batista allegedly threatened to her and her four-year-old son from a previous relationship.

She jumped out the window to escape his abuse in May.

'He was jealous and very possessive. He wouldn't let me go out on the street, just for work. I even lost my job,' Jose said.

'When he attacked me, I was scarred and couldn't work,' she added. 'I made up excuses because I stayed indoors.'

Vitor Batista holds his wife Maria Jose by the neck while he tries to close the window inside their Rio de Janeiro apartment

Maria Jose told Brazilian news outlet G1 that she had hope her husband Vitor Batista would change despite the fact that he had beaten her for two years

Despite the constant abuse, Jose held out hope that Batista would eventually change.

'We always believed that the person can change, but the aggression continues over time  And it only gets worse,' she said. 'I didn't have the courage. I was ashamed.'

Police superintendent Fernanda Fernandes credited neighbors with saving Jose's life.

'Maybe if the neighbors hadn't (called the police), filmed it, the vicim would not have survived,' Fernandes said.
Nicola Sturgeon called in the army to help with Scottish ambulance chaos today as she issued a grovelling apology after a patient died following a 40-hour wait.

The SNP leader has officially appealed for support from the military to deal with pressure - but still refused to admit that the situation is a 'crisis'.

Grilled on the problems during First Minister's Questions at Holyrood this afternoon, Ms Sturgeon said sorry to those affected, including the family of 65-year-old Gerald Brown, the Glasgow man who died while waiting 40 hours for treatment.

She said asking for aid was 'under active consideration' - but just a few hours later it emerged that the request had been made.

The MoD has said they were asked to support the mobile testing units currently deployed by the Scottish Ambulance Service, which would free up resources within the service.

A spokeswoman said: 'The Ministry of Defence has received a request from Scottish Government under the Military Aid to Civilian Authority process.

Nicola Sturgeon called in the army to help with Scottish ambulance chaos today as she issued a grovelling apology after a patient died following a 40-hour wait

Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross said: 'This shouldn't be happening in Scotland in 2021.'

'We are working hard to identify where we can most effectively assist other government departments and civil authorities.'

Speaking in Holyrood, the First Minister said: 'I apologise unreservedly to anyone that has suffered or is suffering unacceptably long waits.

'A range of actions have already been taken to address these challenges, for example additional funding to support new recruitment.

'A number of additional actions are currently under active consideration and I'm happy to summarise these in further exchanges, but I can confirm now that this includes consideration of seeking targeted military assistance to help deal with short-term pressure points.

'Such military assistance is already being provided to ambulance services in England and of course we have had military assistance for other aspects of the pandemic over the past 18 months.'

Health Secretary Humza Yousaf, who said yesterday that people should 'think twice' before calling for an ambulance, will make a statement to parliament next week, setting out measures being taken by the Scottish Government to ease the crisis.

Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross criticised Mr Yousaf's comments, calling them 'dangerous and reckless', and urged the First Minister to apologise on Mr Yousaf's behalf.

Ms Sturgeon dodged doing that but said people should 'never hesitate in calling an ambulance if that is the intervention they think is required'.

Mr Ross said: 'This shouldn't be happening in Scotland in 2021.'

He added: 'Last week, the First Minister wouldn't accept the ambulance service is in crisis, surely the last seven days will have changed her mind?'

Ms Sturgeon refused to say there was a crisis, instead saying: 'I don't challenge the extent of the pressure that's on our ambulance service and indeed on all parts of our national health service.

'It is incumbent on me as First Minister, with all of my colleagues across government, as it faces up to these challenges.'

Ms Sturgeon said pressure from coronavirus was driving the problems being seen in the sector.

She added: 'These are challenges mirrored in health services across the UK and indeed many parts of the world because of the realities of Covid.

'The fact that anyone in our country waits an unacceptable period of time for an ambulance when they need urgent care is not acceptable to me and it's not acceptable to anyone, and that is why we will work closely and intensively with the ambulance service to support it to meet those challenges, which I would expect to continue for a period as the Covid pressure continues and as we go into the winter months.'

Ms Sturgeon: 'I do not, in any way, underestimate the extent of the challenge facing the ambulance service and by extension people across Scotland.

Speaking in Holyrood, Ms Sturgeon said: 'I apologise unreservedly to anyone that has suffered or is suffering unacceptably long waits.'

'This is the latest in a number of significant challenges posed to us as a result of this pandemic, our responsibility is to take the action to support the service to meet that challenge and that's what I'm focused on, what the Health Secretary is focused on and what the entire Government is focused on.'

Speaking specifically about the case of Mr Brown, a spokeswoman from the Scottish Ambulance Service said: 'We have started an investigation into the circumstances relating to the delay in reaching Mr Brown and will be in contact with Mr Brown's family directly to apologise for the delay in response and pass on our sincere condolences.

'We are really sorry for their loss and our thoughts are with them at this difficult time.

'All findings and lessons learned will be shared with Mr Brown's family as part of the investigation process.'

Mr Brown's death has been reported to the Procurator Fiscal, who said an investigation was 'ongoing'.
A CCTV operator stopped a horrific date rape after seeing it on CCTV and shouting over a Tannoy: 'Get off her, she's drunk.'

Iraqi asylum seeker Turkey Al-Turkey, 26, got the woman unconscious before dragging her off a park bench to rape her on a lawn.

Security guard Richard Arnold noticed she was 'completely motionless' and went on the Tannoy to warn Al-Turkey he had called 999.

Police believe Al-Turkey used a date rape drug on the university graduate who has no memory of the attack in Swansea, South Wales.

Al-Turkey was jailed for eight years and eight months after admitting rape. He will be deported when he is released from jail.

Iraqi asylum seeker Turkey Al-Turkey (pictured), 26, got the woman unconscious before dragging her off a park bench to rape her on a lawn

The woman, 24, said Al-Turkey had 'violated her body and soul' on the night of their first date in July 2021.

The pair bought two bottles of spirits, although the woman was a non-drinker, and walked to the seafront promenade.

Prosecutor Carina Hughes said: 'Security guard Richard Arnold could see them on CCTV and noticed the woman's head was floppy and she was unable to stand.

'The man picked her up from the bench took her 20 steps onto the grass where he raped her.

'Mr Arnold shouted over the Tannoy system: ''Get off her, she's drunk, I've phoned the police''.

'Upon hearing that, the defendant immediately got up and looked around before pulling up his and her trousers and going back to the bench.'

Police found the woman unconscious with her head resting on Al-Turkey's lap. He told officers she was his girlfriend and she had fallen asleep.

Miss Hughes told the court: 'Police and the prosecution believe a date rape drug was used - her level of unconsciousness was over and above what would be expected with alcohol.'

The victim only became aware she had been raped after she was interviewed by police the next day. She refused to view the CCTV for fear of getting flashbacks.

In a victim impact statement she said: 'I was left shocked and could not believe what happened - I have no recollection of the incident.

'The joy of life has left me. What happened to me cannot be erased and will remain with me for the rest of my life. It will be a kind of stigma. He has violated my body and my soul.'

Swansea Crown Court (pictured) heard he 'deeply regretted his heinous crime' and could give no explanation for his behaviour

Education worker Al-Turkey, sat with his head bowed in the dock as the proceedings were translated to Arabic by an interpreter.

Swansea Crown Court heard he 'deeply regretted his heinous crime' and could give no explanation for his behaviour.

Judge Paul Thomas told him: 'I have viewed the CCTV and have severe misgivings as to whether her condition was due to alcohol alone or whether you gave her a date rape drug.

'Whatever caused her to be in that state she was not able to do anything independently, let alone consent to sex.

'You took cruel advantage of the situation for your own sexual needs and she was wholly unaware what happened to her until the police told her.'

Al-Turkey, of Brynhyfryd, Swansea, was ordered to register as a sex offender for life.

Judge Thomas told him: 'That is largely academic because at least you will be back in Iraq in the future.'
Nearly 2,000 troops have been thrown out of the armed forces in the past three years after testing positive for cocaine, new figures reveal.

The data, released after a freedom of information request by The Times, shows that between June 2020 and May this year, 277 soldiers tested positive for the Class A drug.

Of those, 231 were discharged from the military as a result. Ten soldiers were allowed to stay on despite having taken cocaine, whilst the remaining 36 were still being investigated.

That figure is down from the previous year when 476 tested positive. And between June 2018 and May 2019, 551 soldiers tested positive and 535 were discharged, The Times reported.

Nearly 2,000 troops have been thrown out of the armed forces in the past three years after testing positive for cocaine, new figures reveal

Cocaine use was also prevalent in the other services. In the Royal Navy, 84 took the drug and all were kicked out.

However, that figure was down from 134 the previous year, when all but one of the seamen in question were discharged.

In the RAF, 28 personnel tested positive for cocaine last year. All of them were sacked.

The Navy's second in command, Vice Admiral Nicholas Hine insisted that the service had a 'zero tolerance' for drugs.

However, the figures come just three months after ten soldiers serving in the Army's new 120million Experimentation Battlegroup were caught taking cocaine.

In what was one of the biggest cases of cocaine abuse in Army history, the troops failed tests at their base in Cyprus.

The data, released after a freedom of information request by The Times , shows that between June 2020 and May this year, 277 soldiers tested positive for the Class A drug

They binged on the Class A drug during a night out at the holiday resort of Paphos, 30 miles from their base.

In February, ten soldiers who took cocaine and cannabis at an illegal party were kicked out of the Army.

Their commanding officer sent them hundreds of miles to a testing facility to ensure the drugs were detected before vanishing from their system.

Nine members of 3rd Battalion, the Royal Horse Artillery  a formation that dates back to 1793  had taken cocaine in the party at Albemarle Barracks near Newcastle on January 15. One had taken cannabis.

With nearer drug testing facilities closed, they were driven 650 miles to and from Trenchard Lines military base at Upavon in Wiltshire, where they all failed compulsory drug tests (CDTs).

In June 2019, three sailors serving on the submarine HMS Vengeance, which carries 16 nuclear missiles, were caught taking cocaine.

Two months earlier, seven sailors were kicked off another Royal Navy submarine - HMS Talent - after taking the same drug.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to budge on the debt ceiling after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called him on Wednesday to implore the Kentucky Republican to take action before the United States runs out of cash and defaults on its debts.

McConnell demanded that Democrats navigate the federal debt limit without Republican support, deepening the emerging standoff in Congress over how to boost the government's borrowing authority.

During the Wednesday phone call McConnell reiterated the GOP's position that they will not partner with Democrats to lift the cap on federal debt, which now stands at $28.4 trillion.

The total represents both public and private debts.

'The leader repeated to Secretary Yellen what he has said publicly since July: This is a unified Democrat government, engaging in a partisan reckless tax and spending spree,' McConnell spokesman Doug Andres said Thursday.

'They will have to raise the debt ceiling on their own and they have the tools to do it.'

Forced to push through the unpopular debt limit increase with no sign of GOP help, the White House blasted Republicans in a statement Thursday evening following a readout of President Joe Biden's meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer.

'They also discussed plans for moving forward to ensure that the full faith and credit of the United States is not in doubt, and to pass a continuing resolution to fund government operations,' according to the readout of the talks.

'These are bipartisan responsibilities, especially given that a substantial debt was run up during the previous administration in pursuit of COVID relief and other measures, that received bipartisan support. Any suggestion by Republicans that they will shirk their responsibility is indefensible,' it said.

The dueling statements are a sign of the return of tense potential government shutdowns and stand-offs over a potential default, a regular feature of the Obama administration when the GOP seized control of Congress.

The three also reaffirmed that 'it is only fair that we pay for these tax cuts and investments by repealing the Trump tax giveaways to the wealthiest Americans and big corporations, who often pay little to nothing in taxes.'

Pelosi last week shut down the possibility of raising the debt limit through Democrats' $3.5 trillion reconciliation infrastructure package  which would have it move with all Democratic votes.

Congressional leaders are already struggling to find unity among Democrats to get the package through the House and the 50-50 Senate.

McConnell refused to budge on his position regarding the US debt ceiling even after Treasury Secretary Yellen called him on Wednesday

When House lawmakers return next week they're reportedly planning a temporary spending bill to keep the government funded into December.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer privately told Democrats they're looking at a potential extension to keep the government open from September 30 through December 10, Politico reported late last week.

President Joe Biden is speaking with Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer by phone today to try and forge a path forward on both infrastructure and the debt ceiling.

A Treasury Department official said Yellen is resolving to continue talks.

'Secretary Yellen will continue to talk to Republicans and Democrats about the critical need to swiftly address the debt ceiling in a bipartisan manner, to avoid the catastrophic economic consequences of default,' Principal deputy assistant secretary Lily Adams told Punchbowl News.

Pelosi refused to consider adding debt limit measures to Democrats' sweeping $3.5 trillion reconciliationbill

The outlet reports that the federal government will run out of money on September 30.

That means lawmakers only have a few weeks to reach a compromise over the federal government's debt limit before the Treasury is forced to delay or miss payments.

Former President Trump suspended the debt ceiling for two years when he was in the White House, and Congress missed a July 2021 deadline to raise or suspend it again.

The Treasury was forced into what Yellen calls 'extraordinary measures' to keep up payments.

Yellen has sent multiple letters to lawmakers urging them to take action, warning that those measures will likely run out in October.

Should the country run out of money without a new limit in place, the Treasury would be unable to pay for expenses with anything other than tax revenue.

That won't be enough to cover the vast number of national financial obligations - which include paychecks for federal employees, federal pensions for former workers and for veterans, funding government agencies and money for foreign lenders, among others.

In her latest letter to lawmakers on September 8 Yellen highlighted that the US has never in history failed to meet its financial obligations.

'A delay that calls into question the federal government's ability to meet all its obligations would likely cause irreparable damage to the U.S. economy and global financial markets,' Yellen wrote.

'At a time when American families, communities, and businesses are still suffering from the effects of the ongoing global pandemic, it would be particularly irresponsible to put the full faith and credit of the United States at risk.'

Senate Republicans still insist that the majority pass legislation without their help that would include an increase or suspension of the debt limit - but Democrats note that on three occasions during Trumps presidency, they worked with a Republican-controlled Senate and White House to suspend the borrowing limit.

They are insisting that Republicans reciprocate and share in what can be a politically unpopular vote that allows the government to not only promptly pay its bills but also to take on more debt.

'Senators from both parties overwhelmingly voted in support of the many laws that contributed to this obligation,' said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. 'So neither party can wash its hands of responsibility to pay the bills.'

The debt limit caps the amount of money Treasury can borrow to keep the government running. When it was suspended for two years in July 2019, the public debt subject to the limit stood at $22 trillion. It now stands at $28.4 trillion.

An Associated Press analysis of data from the US Treasury shows that nearly 98 percent of the nation's $28.4 trillion debt predates Bidens inauguration in January. That includes about $7.8 trillion heaped onto the pile during Trumps four-year presidency.
The Department of Homeland Security is putting its staff and surrounding communities at risk with lax Covid-19 measures, according to a government watchdog.

'Without stronger COVID-19 prevention measures in place, DHS is putting its workforce, support staff, communities, and migrants at greater risk of contracting the virus,' the DHS Office of Inspector General wrote in a report released Wednesday.

The report specifically investigated a lack of Covid-19 testing at DHS facilities. It found that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) does not have the resources to test migrants who enter their custody and relies on public health systems in surrounding towns to do so.

The report reviewed how law enforcement arrest and detain migrants at the southern border from March through May after being tipped off by a DHS employee complaint about the lack of Covid-19 testing.

The Department of Homeland Security is putting its staff and surrounding communities at risk with lax Covid-19 measures, according to a government watchdog

The report specifically investigated a lack of Covid-19 testing at DHS facilities

The report found that CBP does not have the resources to test migrants who enter their custody and relies on public health systems in surrounding towns to do so

Several officials interviewed by the watchdog said that migrants are constantly reminded of the Covid-19 risk but often do not social distance or wear masks, and even the testing process for families post-CBP custody is not effective because municipalities cannot force families to isolate for the quarantine period.

The officials also said that a breakdown in authority under Title 42, the coronavirus health order that allows DHS to turn away migrants, has 'increased risk' of CBP personnel, migrants in custody and local communities.

The report was released as the situation has worsened since its evaluation in May. In August, over 200,000 were apprehended at the southern border, the second highest in 21 years. DHS is not responsible for testing any of the 1.5 million migrants who have arrived at the southern border since last October.

Mayorkas admitted in leaked audio last month that the migrant crisis is 'unsustainable.'

NEW: Texas DPS Troopers in Eagle Pass found 11 illegal immigrants being smuggled in the back of this U-Haul truck. The female driver claimed she was going to San Antonio and didnt know who her passengers were. She was arrested for human smuggling. @FoxNews pic.twitter.com/eVR8C1BtX3  Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) September 15, 2021

According to a Wednesday order, the US now requires all legal immigrants to be vaccinated against Covid-19 as part of their immigration medical examination but the new rule will not apply to migrants crossing the southern border illegally.

Anyone crossing the border has had the option to get the Johnson & Johnson vaccine at various patrol sites since early August, but it is on a voluntary basis and no one needs to show proof of vaccination to enter the country.

Last month, the city of McAllen, Texas reported that 7,000 Covid-positive migrants had been dropped into the city since February, as city resources were stretched thin trying to build emergency tents.

'The sheer number of immigrants being released into the city has become a crisis: a crisis the City of McAllen did not create and has proactively tried to avoid for seven years,' the city said in a statement.

The report recommended Mayorkas and the DHS chief medical officer 'reassess its COVID-19 response framework to identify areas for improvement' and ensure DHS components are provided resources to fight Covid-19. DHS concurred with both recommendations.
A Muslim doctor on trial for allegedly performing genital mutilation on nine girls, all seven years-old, was also part of a secret network of physicians who traveled across the country performing the brutal procedure, according to federal prosecutors.

Dr. Jumana Nagarwala was cleared of female genital mutilation charges in November 2018 during the nation's first-of-its-kind case, when a federal judge ruled that a law banning the practice was unconstitutional.

But the Michigan doctor still faces an obstruction charge for allegedly hiding information during the trial, and was back in court Thursday. That saw prosecutors reveal that doctors in California and Illinois were also cutting young girls as part of a religious rite in the esoteric Indian Muslim sect, Dawoodi Bohras, according to the Detroit Free Press.

Nagarwala was initially charged with mutilation, conspiracy and obstruction along with Dr. Fakhruddin Attar, who allowed her to perform the surgeries at his clinic in Livonia, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit.

Dr. Jumana Nagarwala was seen at a hearing on Thursday for allegedly lying about performing genital mutilation on nine girls, all seven years old

She was initially charged with mutilation, conspiracy and obstruction along with Dr. Fakhruddin Attar, who allowed her to perform the surgeries at his clinic in Livonia, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit

The same charges were brought against Attar's wife, Farida, and a woman named Tahera Shafiq, who assisted in the procedure, as well as four women who tricked their daughters into going to the suburban clinic to undergo the practice for religious purposes.

US District Judge Bernard Friedman dismissed all but one obstruction charge against Nagarwala, Attar, his wife Farida and Shafiq in November 2018. He declared a 1996 federal law banning the practice unconstitutional and concluded that its up to the states to regulate female genital mutilation.

The obstruction trial was underway until the coronavirus pandemic hit and brought it to a halt. Then, in March, prosecutors issued a superseding indictment with five new charges, including conspiracy to make false statements and witness tampering, the Detroit Free Press reported.

Prosecutors argue that that Nagarwala and her three cohorts lied to the FBI about the mutilations that they were performing and intimidated others in their community to lie if the FBI interviewed them about it.

The four defendants requested Thursdays hearing to dismiss the case altogether, arguing that the prosecutors were only pursuing the new charges out of retaliation.

The government is acting with extreme prosecutorial vindictiveness in issuing yet another superseding indictment nearly half a decade after charges were first issued, the defense argued in court filings, seen by the Detroit Free Press, adding that the new charges are retaliation for the defense successfully decimating the governments case.

Friedman said Thursday that he would take their arguments into consideration, but was still reviewing the new indictment and would make a decision at a later date.

Nagarwala was arrested in April 2017 after two young girls accused her of performing the mutilation procedures on them earlier that year

She denied the allegations and claimed she was performing a religious practice for families in the Muslim sect, Dawoodi Bohras, at the above clinic in Livonia, Michigan

Nagarwala, who is an emergency room doctor at Henry Ford Health System, was arrested in April 2017 after two young girls accused her of performing the mutilation procedures on them earlier that year.

She denied the allegations and claimed she was performing a religious practice for families in the Muslim sect, Dawoodi Bohras, and that it only involved scraping the membrane of the girls' genitalia as part of the religious custom.

But doctors reports obtained by the Detroit Free Press indicate the children suffered more severe injuries including scarring, a small tear, lacerations and what appeared to be the surgical removal of a portion of genitalia.

Authorities claimed she and her cohorts have been part of a female genital mutilation scheme since 2005 and charged her with mutilation of seven other girls from Michigan, Illinois and Minnesota.

Their alleged victims cried, screamed and bled during the procedure, with one drugged with Valium ground in liquid Tylenol to calm her down during the procedure, according to court records.

Prosecutors later argued that Nagarwala completed mutilation procedures on as many as 100 young girls over the course of a decade who were all told to keep the surgeries a secret. Then, on Thursday, prosecutors brought forward more accusations that Nagarwala wasnt the only doctor performing the mass mutilations.

Department of Justice attorney Amy Markopoulos told a judge that such doctors were in demand by the Dawoodi Bohra community, which has a mosque in Detroit and practices female circumcision as a religious rite of passage that supporters claim only involves only a minor nick of the genitals.

US District Judge Bernard Friedman said that as despicable as this practice may be, Congress did not have the authority to pass its criminalization and it is up to the states to decide its legality

This was not a discreet, one time occasion ... It was not arbitrary, Markopoulos said of the mutilation practice. Travel is often necessary to perform the procedure.

In Friedmans 2018 ruling, he said that as despicable as this practice may be, Congress did not have the authority to pass its criminalization and it is up to the states to decide its legality. He wrote in his conclusion that it is a ' "local criminal activity" which, in keeping with long-standing tradition and our federal system of government, is for the states to regulate, not Congress.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Sara Woodward argued that the practice was still deemed illegal by Congress when the defendants performed them, but they did it anyway. She also said that Nargarwala is aware that female genital mutilation has no medical purpose, reported the Detroit Free Press.

Female genital mutilation has been condemned by the United Nations but is common for girls in some parts of Asia, Africa and the Middle East. The World Health Organization estimates that more than 200 million girls and women alive today have undergone FGM.

So far, 27 states have laws that criminalize female genital mutilation. Michigan became the 26th US state to officially ban the practice a few months after Nagarwala's April 2017 arrest, therefore she cant be retroactively charged for performing it. The law applies to both doctors who conduct the procedure and parents who transport a child to have it done.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi went after former President Donald Trump yet again - but refused to say his name - during an event with British university students in the Cambridge Union on Thursday.

She also implored Republicans to 'take back' a party she claims was 'hijacked' by Trump supporters.

During the forum Pelosi was asked about the two impeachment proceedings she initiated against Trump late in 2019 and in January 2021.

Seizing an opportunity to score a political point against the man who continues to be the most powerful force in the Republican Party, Pelosi proclaimed, 'I don't ever talk about him.'

'I reference him from time to time as ''What's-his-name,'" Pelosi said, quickly adding: 'If he wants to run again, he'll be the first president who was impeached twice and defeated twice.'

Her remarks were met with loud applause from the largely British audience.

Pelosi's comments on Trump's chances in the 2024 election earned applause from her largely British audience

When it came to impeaching Trump, Pelosi said, lawmakers 'had no choice.'

'This president had acted in a way that was in violation of the Constitution, undermined our national security and jeopardized the integrity of our elections - and that was just the first time,' she said.

Pelosi then slammed the 'cowardice' of the Senate for not voting to remove him.

At another point Pelosi went after the GOP as a whole, claiming the party is being held hostage by a 'cult'.

'I'd say to my Republican friends - and I do have some - take back your party. You're the Grand Old Party of America, you've done wonderful things for our country,' the California Democrat said.

'You're now being hijacked by a cult, that's just not good for our country.'

She declined to mention Trump by name the entire time, only calling him 'what's-his-name'

She accused those Republicans of wanting to 'suppress the vote,' adding 'that's how they would win.'

Pelosi also said the sentiments they expressed were present long before Trump.

'The former president did not invent them - many of them were there. But he galvanized them.

'That is a force that we have to deal with and we have to deal with it this Saturday as well,' she added, referencing a planned rally in support of those who stormed the Capitol on January 6 and have since been arrested.

The speaker joined the event while she was visiting England for a meeting of parliamentary leaders from G7 countries, set for Friday.

While there she also met with Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday.

In a statement after their meeting Pelosi praised Johnson's response to climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Pelosi and her husband stand outside of 10 Downing Street as she arrives for a meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson

'It was my honor to personally invite the Prime Minister to a bipartisan leadership meeting in the United States Capitol when he travels to the United States later this month,' she also said.

Throughout Trump's four years in the White House, Pelosi tangled with the president over immigration policy, infrastructure investments, the pandemic response and a wide range of other domestic and foreign issues.

She gained a reputation of being eager to skewer the hard-hitting Trump and became one of the biggest thorns in his side as she initiated not one, but two impeachment proceedings against him.

The Republican-controlled Senate acquitted Trump both times.

The former president is already playing a role in the 2022 midterm elections for Congress by recruiting challengers to Republican lawmakers he has tangled with.

Trump has also dropped numerous hints he might seek the presidency for a third time in 2024.
provide at least eight nuclear-powered submarines to Australia

Josep Borrell said union was only made aware of new alliance through the media

The EU has complained that it was 'not consulted' on the AUKUS submarine deal while France has lashed out at Australia for 'stabbing it in the back'.

Josep Borrell, the EUs high representative for foreign affairs, said the union was only made aware of the new alliance through the media.

And French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has accused the Australians of a betrayal because the alliance meant they scrapped a multi-billion deal for France to provide subs.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace insisted Britain did not 'go fishing' for the pact to provide nuclear-powered submarines to Australia with the US after France called it a 'stab in the back'.

The UK, US and Australia agreed to co-operate on the development of the first nuclear-powered fleet for the Australian navy in a ground-breaking agreement dubbed AUKUS.

But this meant that Canberra ripped up a deal worth around 30billion that was struck with Paris in 2016 for France to provide 12 diesel-electric submarines.

Josep Borrell (pictured above), the EUs high representative for foreign affairs, said the union was only made aware of the new alliance through the media and was not part of talks

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace (pictured on September 7) insisted Britain did not 'go fishing' for the pact to provide nuclear-powered submarines to Australia with the US

A diplomatic row broke out, with Mr Le Drian telling France-Info radio: 'It was really a stab in the back.

'We built a relationship of trust with Australia, and this trust was betrayed.'

Meanwhile Mr Borrell, ex-President of the European Parliament, said: 'This alliance we have only just been made aware and we werent even consulted.

'As high representative for security, I was not aware and I assume that an agreement of such a nature wasnt just brought together over night. I think it would have been worked on for quite a while.'

He added: 'We regret not having been informed  not having been part of these talks. We werent included, we werent part and parcel of this.'

Mr Wallace said he recognises the 'frustration' from France after speaking to his French counterpart Florence Parly on Wednesday night.

He told BBC Breakfast: 'I understand France's disappointment.

'They had a contract with the Australians for diesel-electrics from 2016 and the Australians have taken this decision that they want to make a change.

'We didn't go fishing for that, but as a close ally when the Australians approached us of course we would consider it.

'I understand France's frustration about it.'

French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, above, has accused the Australians of a betrayal because the alliance meant they scrapped a multi-billion deal for France to provide subs

Scott Morrison meeting with Boris Johnson and Joe Biden at the G7 summit in Cornwall back in June, where the trio put pen to paper on a new military alliance that will give Australia its first nuclear-powered submarines

Britain and America are to help Australia build a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines as part of an unprecedented alliance known as AUKUS to combat China (pictured: a British Astute-class nuclear sub which is likely to mirror the Australian design)

Boris Johnson told MPs today that the UK's military relationship with France is 'rock solid' and insisted 'we stand shoulder to shoulder with the French' despite the row.

The Prime Minister met with his Australian counterpart, Scott Morrison, and US President Joe Biden at the G7 summit in Cornwall in June.

Downing Street confirmed that the three leaders discussed the subs at the meeting.

The Prime Minister's official spokesman added: 'I wouldn't say there was one single meeting that did it, this has been something that has been an undertaking of several months, it's a culmination of that work.'

Mr Morrison told a press conference it was undecided if Australia would purchase British-built BAE Systems Astute class submarines or the Virginia class vessels constructed in the US.

But Mr Johnson said during a Commons statement on Aukus he expects the deal will bring 'hundreds of high-skilled, high-wage jobs' to the UK.

Mr Johnson, Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison (centre) and US President Joe Biden attend a joint press conference to announce the AUKUS partnership last night

Australia is now set to acquire at least eight nuclear-powered submarines to present a counter-balance to Beijing's growing navy, and will also be sharing other advanced military technologies with Washington and London

A cross-section of Britain's Astute-class nuclear attack subs, which is likely to mirror the new vessels

The row with France comes at a time when relations are already strained over the situation with migrant crossings in the Channel.

The French warned against the UK using 'blackmail' tactics after suggestions from Home Secretary Priti Patel that she could withhold millions of pounds of cash unless there was an improvement in the number of migrants intercepted by the authorities across the Channel.

The Prime Minister's official spokesman sought to smooth relations by stressing that 'we very highly value our relationship with France both in terms of defence and security and more broadly'.

He insisted talks with France would continue over efforts to prevent migrants risking crossings of the Channel, despite the row over the defence deal.

Australia 'as a close ally and friend of this country' had asked for help on the defence scheme and 'it was something we were pleased to be able to assist with, not in the least because it benefits the people of the UK'.

'With regards to the ongoing issues in the Channel, we want to work with our French counterparts, the Home Secretary has had a number of discussions with her counterpart, and we will continue to do so.'
A former Google consultant has blasted Facebook for 'putting people before profit' after damning reports emerged the company ignored warnings that it was causing harm by promoting divisive content and damaging teenage girls' mental health.

Joe Toscano, who appeared in the Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma, which examines the negative effects of Big Tech, told Fox News: 'The reality is Facebook's just doing business as usual, right?

'What's Facebook's product? We always got to keep going back to that. What's their product? The reality is their product is outrage, its scandal, its sex. It's anything that will get you to click.'

Internal documents obtained by The Wall Street Journal indicate that Facebook employees were worried that a 2018 algorithm promoted content that made users angrier and more likely to argue about politics or race instead of what it was aimed at doing - strengthening relationships between family and friends.

The internal memos seen by the Journal also indicated that Facebook officials were made aware that Instagram was toxic for young girls who struggled with body image issues.

It warned that among teens who felt suicidal, 13% of British users and 6% of American users traced their suicidal feelings to Instagram.

Facebook was also found to have been running a secret 'whitelist' which shielded celebrities, politicians, and other VIPs from enforcement of its guidelines even if they spread harmful and malicious content that would get others banned.

Joe Toscano slammed Facebook for putting for 'putting people before profit' following the release of damning internal reports

Toscano said he is not shocked by the internal reports, 'The reality is their product is outrage, its scandal, its sex. It's anything that will get you to click'

The Wall Street Journal obtained memos on Facebook's algorithm overhaul of 2018

The algorithm, which was introduced in 2018 after internal data showed a decline in user engagement, gave people incentive to post negative comments that sparked a reaction and debate.

The report, 'Facebook Says Its Rules Apply to All. Company Documents Reveal a Secret Elite That's Exempt,' mentioned a program called XCheck- or cross check- which allowed prominent users to break the platform's rules. As of last year, there were 5.8 million Facebook users covered by XCheck.

If a VIP is believed to have violated the rules, their posts aren't removed immediately but are instead sent to a separate system staffed by better-trained employees who then further review the content.

'What they're doing here is they're identifying the people who they know to be driving the most eyeballs to their platform and henceforth driving them the most money and they're giving them a pass to say, 'Hey, you know what, what you're doing is not right according to our rules, but you're making us a lot of money and you have the potential to make us a lot more money. So we're going to let it slide, but just let you know this wasn't right,' Toscano said. 'It doesn't shock me at all.'

Although the report has been met with public upset, Toscano doesn't think Facebook will change without pressure from the government.

Who is Joe Toscano? Ex-Google consultant Joe Toscano Joe Toscano is an outspoken critic of big tech companies and appeared in the bombshell documentary The Social Dilemma. The Netflix documentary features a series of top tech experts issuing stark warnings about the addictive qualities of social media, how it is designed to keep users coming back for more and manipulates emotion. Toscano co-founded the Better Ethics and Consumer Outcomes Network (BEACON) organization which works to make 'the internet better for business and society.' He is planning to launch Pule Policy later this year, which aims to help people protect their online data Advertisement

'The best guess for me is they're going to change the name internally and continue to hide things,' he said. 'I just don't think it's going to change.'

Facebook spokesman Andy Stone admitted to having a cross-check process which he described simply as a 'second layer of review.'

'In the end, at the center of this story is Facebook's own analysis that we need to improve the program,' Stone said. 'We know our enforcement is not perfect and there are tradeoffs between speed and accuracy.'

He concluded, 'The WSJ piece repeatedly cites Facebook's own documents pointing to the need for changes that are in fact already underway at the company. We have new teams, new resources and an overhaul of the process that is an existing work-stream at Facebook.'

But Toscano was not dissuaded by his belief of Facebook's 'double-standard' which allows the company to profit.

'I mean, yeah, they have double layers. Obviously, what they're saying right there is that they have double standards. Why does my post as someone who's not famous, who doesn't have money, why does my post not get the double standard there?

'Because I'm not driving them as much money as some of these celebrities or some of these politicians. That's the reality, it's a double standard treat everyone equally. I think it's pretty simple,' Toscano said.

The leaked research also reveals that since at least 2019, Facebook has been warned that Instagram harms young girls' body image.

One message posted on an internal message board in March 2020 said the app revealed that 32 percent of girls said Instagram made them feel worse about their bodies if they were already having insecurities.

Another slide, from a 2019 presentation, said: 'We make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls.

'Teens blame Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiety and depression. This reaction was unprompted and consistent across all groups.'

The research not only reaffirms what has been publicly acknowledged for years - that Instagram can harm a person's body image, especially if that person is young - but it confirms that Facebook management knew as much and was actively researching it.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly resisted making changes to the social networks algorithm ignoring engineers' warnings that it was promoting divisive content and damaging the publics mental health

Facebook has a secret program in place that allows celebrities and powerful people to skirt the social networks own rules, according to a bombshell report

'They're harming us. They're harming our communities. If this was Volvo and their seat belts weren't working, we wouldn't be like, 'Oh, yeah, Volvo. Keep making those cars.' Volvo would have a recall. They wouldn't have those cars on the market until they fixed it,' Toscano said about Facebook's continued harm to public health.

'Why are we allowing this company to do anything differently? Why are they not shut down temporarily until they figure out how to fix this? You know, this is more than just the seatbelt issue,' Toscano insisted.

'This is catastrophic. You're causing depression, suicide, lifelong impacts on these children...how are we allowing this?'

Instagram's head of public policy, Karina Newton, echoed Stone's statement. She said that the internal company documents reveal the company's 'commitment to understanding complex and difficult issues young people may struggle with, and informs all the work' Instagram does 'to help those experiencing these issues.'

'We're proud that our app can give voice to those who have been marginalized, that it can help friends and families stay connected from all corners of the world, that it can prompt societal change; but we also know it can be a place where people have negative experiences, as the Journal called out today.'

Some of the research Facebook was shown last March showing how Instagram is harming young people
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Wednesday issued a memo to DoD employees to report any symptoms of the so-called Havana Syndrome in an effort to get to the bottom of the mysterious illness

The Department of Defense is asking all 2.9million of its employees, including civilians and contractors, to report symptoms of Havana Syndrome.

Their request, signed by Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin Wednesday, is part of a wider government effort to gather more information about the mysterious illness that has so far affected more than 200 Americans across the globe.

Identifying them as 'Anomalous Health Incidents,' or AHIs, Austin described symptoms of headaches, pain, nausea or vertigo brought on by sounds, pressure or heat as the telltale signs of the yet unexplained illness, colloquially named for its first reported case in 2016 at the US Embassy in Havana, Cuba.

Austin advised personnel who believe they have come down with Havana Syndrome to, 'Immediately remove yourself, coworkers, and/or family member from the area, and report the incident,' according to the memo, first reported on by the New York Times.

The request came amid a stepped-up investigation by the US government into the causes of the illness, and to discover who or what might be responsible.

The memo was issued to all 2.9million DoD employees, including service members, civilians and contractors

'Theres a classic intelligence problem, and we are approaching it with the same techniques,' David S. Cohen, deputy CIA director said at the annual Intelligence and National Security Summit this week, the Times reported.

'This is a serious issue. Its real, its affecting our officers, its affecting others around their community and in government.'

Austin's request came as Deputy CIA Director David S. Cohen said the agency was taking the illness seriously

As of August, the illness had reportedly affected American personnel stationed on every continent excluding Antarctica, including a baby in one case.

Most recently, an episode in Vietnam among staff at the US Embassy in Hanoi delayed a visit to the country by Vice President Kamala Harris late last month.

Two staffers there had come down with the symptoms while at their homes in the city.

'We, of course, take any reported incidents of Havana syndrome seriously,' White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters after the incident. 'There was an assessment of the vice president and made that she could continue traveling.'

Scientists and government officials are not yet certain about who might have been behind any attacks, if the symptoms could have been caused inadvertently by surveillance equipment, or if the incidents were caused by a mysterious sonic weapon.

On July 22, CIA Director William Burns assigned an intelligence officer involved in the hunt for Osama bin Laden to lead an investigation into Havana Syndrome.

Although referred to as Anomalous Health Incidents by US government officials, the Havana Syndrome earned its colloquial name from the first reported instance of the illness in 2016 at the US embassy in Havana, Cuba (pictured)

The causes of illness are still unexplained, with one theory that it could be a microwave device of Russian origin such as the one pictured built in the 1980s and operating at a lab at the University of New Mexico

The unnamed officer, a veteran of the Counterterrorism Center, is heading a task force made up of experts from the CIA who specialize in human intelligence, human resources and information-gathering.

He took over after the retirement of Cynthia Rapp, less than a year after taking the role.

Rapp was appointed by Trump CIA chief Gina Haspel.

A day later, the agency reportedly launched a review of how Havana Syndrome cases are handled, and how officers are treated for the illness CNN reported.

Among the over 200 cases reported so far, roughly half involved CIA officers or their relatives, roughly 60 have been linked to Department of Defense workers or relatives, and about 50 involved State Department personnel the outlet reported.

The agency under Haspel had received criticism for dragging their feet on the investigation into Havana Syndrome, and for not adequately caring for officers who reported symptoms.

CIA Director William Burns has been praised for his 'personal commitment' to investigating Havana Syndrome and helping its victims. In July appointed an intelligence officer involved in the hunt for Osama bin Laden to investigate its causes. Trump CIA director Gina Haspel was criticized as dragging her feet on investigating the mysterious illness

DoD personnel account for more than a quarter of all reported cases of Havana Syndrome, with CIA employees making up roughly half

Since taking over the agency Burns told NPR on July 22 that he reduced afflicted officers' wait time for receiving care from Walter Reed from 'more than eight weeks to less than two weeks,' and has also tripled the number of CIA personnel tasked with medical care for victims.

Additionally, the House is considering a Senate-approved bill to expand help for current and former government employees who had come down with the symptoms, with a vote possibly coming by the end of this month, the Times reported.

In addition to the CIA and Pentagon, the State Department also announced in late July that it was stepping up investigation into the illness after more than two-dozen diplomats were reported coming down with symptoms at the US embassy in Vienna, making it the largest hotspot outside of Cuba.

What is 'Havana Syndrome'? The problem has been labeled the 'Havana Syndrome,' because the first cases affected personnel in 2016 at the U.S. Embassy in Cuba. At least 130 cases across the government are now under investigation, up from several dozen last year, according to a U.S. defense official who was not authorized to discuss details publicly. The National Security Council is leading the investigation. People who are believed to have been affected have reported headaches, dizziness and symptoms consistent with concussions, with some requiring months of medical treatment. Some have reported hearing a loud noise before the sudden onset of symptoms. Investigators believe there are at least four cases involving Trump White House officials. Advocates for those affected accuse the U.S. government of long failing to take the problem seriously or provide the necessary medical care and benefits. US senators said last month that the government is investigating an apparent increase in the mysterious directed-energy attacks. Symptoms include; -hearing loss -severe headaches -memory issues -dizziness -brain injury Advertisement

A department spokesperson told DailyMail.com that investigating Havana Syndrome was a chief priority for Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

'We are vigorously investigating reports of possible unexplained health incidents among the U.S. Embassy Vienna community or wherever they are reported,' the spokesperson said.

In May reports emerged that some US officials suspect Russia's infamous foreign intelligence agency - the GRU - could be the culprit.

A U.S. military officer based in a country with a large Russian presence also said he felt like his head was going to explode during one incident when he was near a GRU vehicle.

And Politico reported that government investigators are examining a suspected attack on US personnel in Miami last year.

Earlier in July, former CIA officer and Iraq and Afghanistan veteran Marc Polymeropolous claimed that he was zapped by one of the attacks while visiting a Moscow hotel room in 2017 and blamed it for destroying his career, as well as debilitating headaches that he continues to get.

In October 2020, a story emerged of diplomat Mark Lenzi, 45, who was stationed in Guangzhou, China, in 2017, when he developed unexplained symptoms, including headaches, memory loss and trouble sleeping.

His neighbor Catherine Werner also fell ill and fellow US official Robyn Garfield was evacuated from Shanghai with his family in June 2018.

The incidents in China cast doubt on theories that Russia was behind the attacks, since it is a country where Russian intelligence would have trouble operating.

Austin's memo said instances of the illness were predominantly overseas, although there have been reports of it on the US mainland.

Austin said it was unlikely to have affected the majority of DoD personnel, but that by reporting symptoms, it may help the government get to the bottom of the mystery.

'Your help and vigilance will help our efforts to fully understand the nature of these incidents,' he said.
A four-star wedding venue has come under fire for cancelling a couple's 9,000 wedding by email.

Matfen Hall, near Hexham, Northumberland, informed Chris Marshall, 32, and Laura Davies, 31, that their November 5 wedding was cancelled.

The couple said they were 'horrified' after being hit with 'a 20,000 minimum spend' from the venue.

Mr Marshall said he and his fiancee were enjoying a staycation when they received the upsetting news.

'When we got the letter [via email], we were horrified. We actually happened to be on holiday at the time so it was made even worse.

'We were sat in a restaurant ready to go to the theatre for Laura's birthday present which made it worse.

'When Laura read the letter, it was horrendous.

'She was sat reading this before I saw it and I knew something had happened, but looking across I didn't know if somebody had died or something.

'They're cancelling the wedding because we're paying under 20,000. There's been no other correspondence.

'It's basically "our new minimum is over 20,000. Your contract isn't so we're cancelling it".'

Matfen Hall, near Hexham, Northumberland, informed Chris Marshall, 32, and Laura Davies, 31, that their November 5 wedding was cancelled since they only planned to spend 9,000

Despite the venue stating they would receive a refund, Mr Marshall claims they would still have been out of pocket after forking out cash on a florist and band for the event.

The couple were stunned to see the cancellation even included a note offering to provide a new 'bespoke quotation' for their 'proposed event' should they want one.

The venue has since reversed its decision, saying it would be 'working privately and individually with the couples on a solution, which includes honouring the original booking.'

Maften Hall's email to Chris and Laura Dear Laura and Chris, Following your recent telephone call with Rachel, I can confirm that we are no longer able to host your proposed event booking on Saturday, 5th November 2022 for the cost that has been quoted previously. In-line with clause 5 in our event contract, please accept this letter as written notice of cancellation. All monies paid to Matfen Hall Ltd. will be refunded within 14 days of the date of this letter. Having checked our records, I can see that this refund will total 1,000.00. If you would like to receive a new bespoke quotation for your proposed event, please do let us know and we would be very pleased to provide one separately at your request. Advertisement

But the couple has rejected the offer because they say they cannot trust the venue.

'They rang me this morning and said they were sorry and offered to honour our original contract,' Mr Marshall said.

'We've told them that we won't be getting married there as we don't trust them.'

Chris and Laura had planned to spend around 9,000 on their nuptials, welcoming family from London who would likely spend thousands more on stays at the hotel and bar.

Although they had paid 1,000 to Matfen Hall, which will now be refunded, the pair are set to lose hundreds to other businesses if they can't rebook elsewhere for the same day.

Mr Marshall said: 'So far, we've paid 1,000 to Matfen Hall, but we've for other things we've paid deposits for - flowers, bands etc. That's the main issue.

'At Matfen, we'd probably have spent around 9,000. With everything else, it'd be about 15,000 here or there.

'I roughly worked it out in my email to them that with people coming up from London and staying, eating, drinking, it'd be about 18,000 we'd give them.'

After posting about their stressful experience on social media, Mr Marshall claims the pair have already been contacted by other venues offering their services - revealing social media users are 'mortified' by how they were treated.

'We looked at a venue last night and in fairness, because of my post, a few directors of other venues have got in touch and they're happy to help.

'They're equally horrified.

'The reaction we've had is all the same. You see things on social media and a lot of the times, people are split, but it's 100 per cent people being mortified at what they've done and how they've handled it. The fact it's so blunt.'

On its site, Matfen Hall previously claimed they had 'absorbed the cost' of increasing wedding prices at a cost of 1.2million but could no longer sustain it.

But a new statement released on Thursday saw the venue review its decision and vow to 'put things right'.

The statement said: 'We unreservedly apologise for the hurt this decision has caused. It was never our intention to cause any upset for the couples involved.

'Every wedding is a special occasion - the most precious day in a couple's lives and it has been our privilege to host hundreds of weddings and play a part in those special moments. We will have honoured 119 weddings by the end of the year booked under the previous management.

'We have invested heavily in upgrading the wedding experience at Matfen Hall to make those occasions extra special for our guests and as a result, many people have been booking their weddings for 2022 with us.

'It is clear that we have not explained this to a number of guests and that has caused a lot of hurt. We know it is up to us to put things right and to explain to those guests who had booked under the previous management how their wedding would be vastly enhanced.

'As is always best with matters like this, we are working privately and individually with the couples on a solution, which includes honouring the original booking.'
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi took time out from bashing Donald Trump and warning of the rise of China on Thursday to hop aboard a punt - a flat bottomed boat - for a sightseeing trip through Cambridge, England.

Her day included joking about former President Trump with Cambridge University students before heading to London and a meeting with Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

But she was also spotted floating down the River Cam, propelled gently by a 'punter' wielding a pole, with her husband beside her.

Video shot by a passerby, shows businessman Paul Pelosi snapping photographs with his phone as they drifted under Magdalene Bridge as their hosts from the Cambridge Union keep up a running commentary.

They could have been any other couple on a sightseeing jaunt were it not for the detachment of broad-shouldered men in suits making up her security detail.

A passerby spotted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her husband Paul enjoying a trip on a 'punt' - flat bottomed boat - on the River Cam in Cambridge, England

Pelosi spoke to students at the Cambridge Union on Thursday, discussing former President Trump, the rise of China, and the 'special relationship' between Washington and London

Pelosi travelled to the U.K. a day earlier for a meeting of G7 heads of parliament at the end of the week.

But on Thursday she addressed the Cambridge Union, where she told students that Trump would take his place in American history as a two-time loser if he ran for the White House again in 2024.

'I don't ever talk about him,' she said, before proceeding to talk about him - although without using his name.

'I reference him from time to time as "What's His Name,"' she continued.

'If he wants to run again, he'll be the first president who was impeached twice and defeated twice.'

He comments triggered thunderous applause from the British audience.

Her remarks were met with loud applause from the largely British audience.

She also used the occasion to discuss the January 6 attack on Congress, the broader U.S. political system and the rise of China.

A day after the U.S. announced a new security pact with the U.K. and Australia designed to promote stability in the Indo-Pacific region - diplomatic code for countering China's territorial ambitions - she said Beijing's repressive tendencies were getting worse.

Pelosi arrived at Number 10 Downing Street for a meeting with Prime Minister Boris Johnson in the evening. They were expected to discuss Anglo-American relations

Pelosi is in the UK for a meeting of G7 heads of parliament, but spent Thursday with Cambridge University students and in meetings with British officials

Pelosi was joined by her husband Paul throughout the day

'With their military aggression in the South China Sea, with their continuation of genocide with the Uyghurs in Xinjiang province, with their violation of the cultural, religious priority of Tibet, with their suppression of democracy in Hong Kong and other parts of China as well, theyre just getting worse in terms of suppression and freedom of speech,' she said.

By the evening she was in London, arriving at Number 10 Downing Street for a meeting with Johnson about Anglo-American relations.

She posed on the step outside the famous black door with her husband before entering.

Afterwards she said she told the British prime minister that the Good Friday Accords that ended years of violence in Northern Ireland continued to have the backing of both parties in Congress.

'Respectful of the will of the British people and Brexit, I reiterated the strong bipartisan support that the Good Friday Accords continue to enjoy in the United States Congress and our hope that the ongoing negotiations will yield a positive outcome that recognizes this landmark agreement,' she said in a statement.
January 6 rioters used video sharing app TikTok to recruit participants and even warned them to bring guns to the Stop the Steal rally that preceded it, the Department of Homeland Security says.

DHS's Office of Intelligence and Analysis filed a report this April highlighting concerns that violent content was growing on the Chinese-owned social media platform, from promoting the riot and acts of terrorism to instructing others how to build bombs and sabotage railroad tracks.

The five page report, obtained by the Property of the People transparency watchdog group and shared with Politico Thursday, comes as federal authorities examine the role social media companies like TikTok played in the Capitol riot, which left five people dead and more than 600 people charged with crimes.

Supporters of President Donald Trump used social platforms to organize the Jan 6. Capitol riot, with evidence showing that some had promoted violence using apps like TikTok

The Department of Homeland Security detailed how TikTok was being used to promote violence and extremism on its platform

TikTok, a Chinese-owned social media company, has about 100 million US users

DHS's officials issued a specific alert over TikTok because authorities had initially been unaware of the platform and how it was used.

But now officials understand that the platform has become a popular site for extremist activities, Politico reports.

The social media giant has about 100 million active users in the US, with TikTok generally seen as a place for younger users to upload funny or informative videos complete with sound and visual effects.

The agency cited multiple videos promoting the January 6 riot, including of one user who told others to bring firearms to the Capitol.

DHS also made notice of TikTok videos discussing how to tamper with railroad tracks, interfere with the National Guard during riots and how to access White House tunnels.

They also detailed incidents aboard where terrorists used the platform to promote their plans and ideals. In October 2019, ISIS had used TikTok to show off corpses, guns and their acts of violence.

Seamus Hughes, the deputy director of the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, said TikTok's algorithm makes it easy to bring alt-right conspiracy theories and extremist content to its users.

'The TikTok algorithm is so good that before you know it, you're on a domestic violent extremism spiral,' Hughes told Politico.

The DHS report made a similar point.

'TikTok's application layout and algorithms can unintentionally aid individuals' efforts to promote violent extremist content,' the report says.

'A user's account may have zero followers but could have substantial viewership on some videos, which could aid violent extremist TikTok users in evading TikTok's content moderation efforts,' it continues.

DHS warned that TikTok's algorithm makes it easy to spread extremist content

A graphic from TheDonald.win urges the public to 'be there' in Washington, DC, on January 6 where it 'will be wild.' It was posted on various social media platforms including TikTok

Police clashed with protestors on Capitol Hill on January 6

Hundreds of protesters made their way inside the Capitol, with several making active threats against members of the House

TikTok has said it is working to curb extremism on its platform.

'There is absolutely no place for violent extremism or hate speech on TikTok, and we work aggressively to remove any such content and ban individuals that violate our Community Guidelines,' spokesperson Jamie Favazza said in a statement.

Older social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube have faced similar problems with their algorithms that easily promoted alt-right conspiracies.

Those algorithms are mathematical codes which recommend other content users might like to watch based on what they've viewed recently.

The House select committee investigating the Capitol riot are reviewing internal documents from Facebook, Twitter, Parler and TikTok to see what role they played in the violence.

In the wake of violence, BuzzFeed News reported that supporters of President Donald Trump used social media platforms to organize the Capitol riot.

Far-right backers of Trump had been anonymously posting messages on TheDonald.win, a Reddit-like message board that was created after Reddit banned a subreddit of the same name last year due to its content.

Comments during the occupation of the Capitol on TheDonald included 'WE WANT BLOOD' and 'murder Pelosi,' according to research firm Advance Democracy Inc.

'On TheDonald, more than 50 per cent of the top posts on January 4, 2021, about the January 6th Electoral College certification featured unmoderated calls for violence in the top five responses,' the organization found.

One TheDonald user vowed that he would 'be willing to die' for Trump and that 'we will secure victory on January 6th'

'The only solution is total revolution,' wrote another pro-Trump user on TheDonald

'Bring rope. I had a premonition we'll need it,' wrote another poster on TheDonald.win

'On January 6th the revolution to take back our nation has begun. Give up nothing. Take everything,' wrote another poster on TheDonald

Another graphic posted on the site calls for Trump supporters to 'tar and feather these f*****s'

Parle CEO John Matze insisted that unlike Twitter and Facebook, his platform was a 'neutral town square'

'ARMED WITH RIFLE, HANDGUN, 2 KNIVES AND AS MUCH AMMO AS YOU CAN CARRY,' one post on the website said.

'What if Congress ignores the evidence?' one TheDonald user wrote in a thread.

'Storm the Capitol,' another replied. The reply review more than 500 likes.

'You're f*****g right we do,' another said.

While the violence was going on, one popular thread was titled: 'PATRIOTS STORM THE CAPITOL | WATCH PARTY.'

Parler's CEO, John Matze, denied that his app bears responsibility for any of the violence. He said his service is more akin to a 'neutral town square.'

'If people are breaking the law, violating our terms of service, or doing anything illegal, we would definitely get involved,' he told The New York Times.

'But if people are just trying to assemble or they're trying to put together an event - which is what a lot of people tried to do at this event today - there's nothing particularly wrong about that.'

Matze said that Parler has removed accounts that have engaged in 'doxxing' - or posting personal information about users in an attempt to get others to harass them.

When asked if Parler bears responsibility for Trump supporters using the app to organize the ransacking of the Capitol on Wednesday, he said: 'Organizing an event isn't illegal.'
Priti Patel was seen visiting Dover today, as Border Force Officials rescued around 100 migrants attempting to cross the Channel from France.

The Home Secretary was today given a tour of the Kent port before speaking to immigration officers while on board a Border Force boat.

The Tory minister, who was one of those to keep her job in yesterday's reshuffle, despite speculation that she faced the axe, said she would be prioritising 'tackling illegal migration' after retaining her cabinet role.

The visit came on the same day Border Force catamaran Hurricane dropped off approximately 30 migrants intercepted in the Channel.

And a second boat with around 50 people on board was also intercepted at sea and brought into the harbour at the Port of Dover.

At least one group of six was also thought to have made the crossing in a small dinghy.

The latest arrivals pushes the total number of people who have made the crossing on small boats to 14,400 this year.

The total for 2021 so far is already just over 6,000 higher than the number of people who made the crossing in 2020.

Priti Patel was seen visiting Dover today, as Border Force Officials rescued around 100 migrants attempting to cross the Channel from France

The visit came on the same day Border Force catamaran Hurricane dropped off approximately 30 migrants intercepted in the Channel

A second boat with around 50 people on board was also intercepted at sea and brought into the harbour at the Port of Dover

It is understood that during her visit to Dover today, Ms Patel took part in a private meeting with law enforcement teams who are on the front line.

The Home Secretary was wearing a camel jacket, blue dress and sunglasses in the warm sunshine.

She could be seen being given a guided tour of Dover Marina by Border Force officers who showed her around their cutter Eagle docked in the harbour.

Her trip to Dover came as crossings continued for the fourth consecutive day this week.

A new record was set for the year so far when 1,959 people crossed the Channel from France in the week to September 10 - the highest total for any seven-day period in 2021, according to data compiled and analysed by the PA news agency.

At least 14,400 people have crossed to the UK on board small boats this year.

The total for 2021 so far is already just over 6,000 higher than the number of people who made the crossing in 2020.

It is understood that during her visit to Dover today, Ms Patel took part in a private meeting with law enforcement teams who are on the front line

The Home Secretary was wearing a camel jacket, blue dress and sunglasses in the warm sunshine. She could be seen being given a guided tour of Dover Marina by Border Force officers who showed her around their cutter Eagle docked in the harbour

The Home Secretary's trip to Dover came as crossings continued for the fourth consecutive day this week

Earlier today a group of around 30 men could be seen draped in light blue blankets wearing orange lifejackets as they disembarked a Border Force boat in Dover.

They were escorted up the gangway by Immigration Enforcement for processing.

Unconfirmed reports suggest Border Force cutter Hunter also had to rescue five migrants from the water during one rescue mission.

Dozens of migrants also arrived in small boats today. One of the first small boats to arrive contained six people from Syria and Sudan.

And a second boat with around 50 people on board was also intercepted at sea and brought into the harbour at the Port of Dover.

Around 163 people arrived in the UK on seven boats on Monday.

Around 163 people arrived in the UK on seven boats on Monday. Pictured: Migrants also arrived on Sunday

More migrants are thought to have come throughout Tuesday and Wednesday, but the Home Office is yet to release official figures

More migrants are thought to have come throughout Tuesday and Wednesday, but the Home Office is yet to release official figures.

Warm weather and calmer sea conditions often prompts people smugglers to launch the small boats rammed with migrants - who risk their lives making the dangerous crossing.

French authorities intercepted 91 migrants as they tried to cross the channel yesterday.

The French coast guard rescued 36 people who had gotten into difficulty off the coast of the seaside town of Berck in the Pad-de-Calais region.

A further 22 migrants were brought to safety after their boat got into trouble off Dunkirk.

Another 33 people were rescued after getting into difficulty in a stretch of water off Dunkirk later in the day.

They were taken to Calais port, where they were met by French border police.
President Joe Biden on Thursday attacked big corporations and the 'super wealthy' for not paying their taxes as he coughed his way through a speech to push Congress to pass his economic agenda.

'Pay your fair share,' the president said during remarks in the East Room of the White House. It was the second speech this week where Biden was interrupted by repeated coughing fits. He was the same during a campaign stop in California on Monday after visiting the wildfires on the West Coast.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Thursday said there was no cause for medical concern regarding Biden's cough.

'We have a doctor who travels with him. Obviously he checks in, if there is ever warranted,' she said.

'I don't think it's an issue of concern. I think there are a range of reasons why we may need to clear a throat or we may have a little light cold, and that's certainly something that presidents, elected officials, reporters, spokespeople can confront but it's not an area where we have a medical concern,' she added.

In his speech, Biden centered his economic argument on the principal of fairness, calling out corporations that didn't pay taxes and those that prospered during the COVID pandemic.

He specifically said he wasn't calling for a tax raise but equality in tax payments.

'That isn't about raising their taxes. It is about the super wealthy finally begins to pay what they owe, what the existing tax code calls for. Just like hardworking Americans do all over this country every tax day,' he said.

President Joe Biden attacked big corporations and the 'super wealthy' for not paying their taxes

Biden was interrupted by repeated coughing fits during his remarks

Biden coughed and sputtered as he also placed the blame on Republican governors, saying those who were not supporting his vaccine mandate are prolonging the COVID pandemic that has slowed the American economy.

The president signed an executive order requiring all federal workers to be vaccinated. The Labor Department issued regulations that businesses with more than 100 employees must either have them vaccinated or tested weekly.

Biden argued his new rules 'will help 12 million more Americans get vaccinated which will help more businesses stay open and more Americans back to work.'

He specifically called out the governors of Texas, Florida and Mississippi for not supporting a vaccine mandate, noting their states have strict rules on other vaccines including measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox, hepatitis B, polio, and tetanus.

'This is the worst kind of politics because it is putting the lives of citizens of their states, especially children, at risk,' he said.

The president expressed confidence that Congress will deliver both his $1.1 billion traditional infrastructure plan and a $3.5 trillion spending package for social programs - both of which will inject trillions into the economy.

Biden held separate meetings on Wednesday with moderate Democratic senators Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin as worked to keep his signature proposals from going off the rails, after both Democrats raised complaints about the price tag.

Psaki said on Thursday that the president will speak with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer about moving his agenda through Congress.

Democrats are unable to afford losing a single vote in the 50-50 Senate and little more than that in the almost equally tight House of Representatives. The close margins leave Biden's entire agenda hanging in the balance.
His friend, Jason Kimball, alleges the hospital has been 'intubating people illegally' and called on the city council to launch an investigation into the hospital's procedures

Before he died from COVID-19, Prentice ran the financial software for the Hillsborough GOP, and now the County's Republican Party can't get access to it

Gregg Prentice, 61, of Riverview, and a Fauci critic, died Saturday at Tampa General Hospital 24 hours after contracting COVID-19

A Florida GOP official has died from COVID-19, a year after he said that he wanted to 'end Faucism' and mobilize people to protest school masks mandates.

Before his death, Gregg Prentice, of Riverview, developed and updated software that could track donations to the Hillsborough County GOP electronically.

The 61-year-old was also head of the local Republican party's 'election integrity' committee, which alerted federal election regulators that it can no longer access its campaign finance software.

Now, Prentice's friends and colleagues are spreading wild conspiracy theories about the 'engineered virus,' and alleging he was 'illegally intubated' at a local hospital, according to a report from the Tampa Bay Times.

Prentice was placed on a ventilator and passed away the next day. It's unclear exactly when he was admitted to hospital and when he died.

Last year, former head of the Hillsborough Florida GOP official Gregg Prentice, wanted to 'end Faucism' and mobilized people to protest COVID-19 mandates

Dr. Fauci has been heavily criticized in Florida due to Governor DeSantis' on-going public shaming on his COVID-19 restrictions

Kimball called for an investigation into Tampa General during a Tampa City Council meeting and accused the hospital of 'intubating people illegally,' 48-hours after Prentice's death, the Tampa Bay Times reports.

His remarks were rebuffed from members of the City Council, who defended the hospital and labelled it as a word-class medical facility. John Dingfelder, Tampa City Council District 3's At-Large, said Kimball's comments were 'very dangerous.'

Kimball posted on Facebook: 'Tampa General Hospital ER and ICU doctors are criminals and murderers!!! They intubate everyone and stick them on a ventilator for NO REASON just 'out of precaution' as the doctor told me - WITHOUT consent from the family!!! Tampa General Hospital is evil.'

'We have a genetically engineered virus spreading around Florida,' Kimball said.

'We lost Gregg Prentice, a mentor to many in Hillsborough County, due to the engineered virus.'

Last year, Prentice also took a swipe at Hillsborough County administrator Mike Merrill for probiting gatherings of more than 50 people in the area

Prentice would regularly posts his criticism on Facebook

He praised Governor DeSantis for ignoring CDC guidelines and allowing churches to meet

Prentice heavily criticized local COVID-19 restrictions on his Facebook page last year.

'I am just hearing that our County Administrator Mike Merrill has PROHIBITED gatherings of more than 50 people?!?!?!' Prentice wrote in March 2020. 'What is his problem? How in the world does he take a CDC 'suggestion' and a Presidential 'recommendation' and turn it into a Merrill PROHIBITION?!?!? This kind of stupid isn't limited to a single topic. And what are we going to do about it? He needs to be gone.'

A month later, Prentice wrote, 'We need more socialist distancing than we do social distancing.'

'End Faucism,' he wrote in May 2020.

Hillsborough County Republican Party hosted an anti-mask, anti-vaxx with Georgia Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene at its annual fundraiser -- a maskless indoor event that went against CDC recommendations, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

Georgia Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (pictured) attended a Hillsborough County Republican party indoor event in August. The event did not involve any face masks and it is unsure as to whether Prentice attended

Prentice also recently appeared on a podcast during which he said that the pandemic designed to 'crush small businesses and consolidate power in the multinational corporations.'

Prentice concentrated on Florida's voter databases during his many years of activism within the local party  often making 'severe accusations' at elections supervisors in Democratic counties.

His work drew the attention of national conservative groups and GOP officials, who seeked his consultation when writing legislation.

As head of the election integrity committee, Prentice led efforts to question election results in various counties.

Data shared by doctors, hospitals and DeSantis has strong suggested that the vast majority of deaths in hospitals can be related to unvaccinated patients. Public health officials have blamed the highly transmissible nature of the Delta variant for the summer wave of cases and hospitalizations.

Florida has nearly seen 3.5million total confirmed cases and 50,000 deaths since the start of the pandemic. Hillsborough County has seen 224,720 people test positive since the start of COVID-19

As of September 15, the total confirmed U.S. deaths per day in the U.S. is more than 2,500 people

The surge of the highly transmissible delta variant is still going as the U.S. has reached 41,539,105 cases and 666,627 deaths since the start of the pandemic

Florida's total number of COVID deaths broke 50,000 on Thursday and the seven-day average for number of new deaths was the second highest since the pandemic began, accelerated by the surge of the delta variant.

Florida reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 1,554 additional deaths and 9,760 more COVID-19 cases, according to Miami Herald calculations of CDC data. In all, Florida has recorded at least 3,473,873 confirmed COVID cases and 50,811 deaths.
Yellowstone National Park recorded its highest August visitor numbers ever this year as 921,844 came to see it, just a month after setting the record for most monthly visitors ever in July with over a million.

The Wyoming park, home of the Old Faithful geyser, saw August guest numbers jump 4.5 percent since last year and 12 per cent from 2019.

This year's number eclipsed the previous August record, in 2017, when 916,168 came to watch a solar eclipse.

However, the park did surpass its highest monthly visitor month in July this year with 1.08million people coming to enjoy the beauty of the park, the highest monthly visitor number in the park's history.

Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming saw the largest number of August visitors with more than 920,000 people coming to explore

The park had seen that many visitors since 2017, where more than 915,000 visited in August. The park also saw the highest number of monthly visitors ever in July when over a million people came to the park

National parks have been tourists' favorite as travel restrictions ease and outdoor activities proving the safest.

'National parks have proven to be go-to destinations during the pandemic,' a Yellowstone spokesperson Linda Veress told The New York Times.

Yellowstone has seen extremely low reported COVID-19 cases at their facilities, with only three employees testing positive in August, all of whom have fully recovered.

The park does not track visitor cases.

The park is also mandating all visitors, regardless of vaccination status, wear masks indoors and warn them to bring their own supplies in case the park's are low.

In addition, some facilities and events are closed to visitors for the time being. And all visitors must follow state guidelines, which includes all three states the park residents. State guidelines are linked on their website.

Other national parks are also seeing an increase in visitors.

Many of the parks' camping sites are filled with tourists and campers alike, vying for a space to enjoy the natural beauty.

Yosemite, Glacier, Haleakala, and Rocky Mountain National Parks are using advanced reservations to access popular attractions, according to CNBC.

Yellowstone is known for the Old Faithful geyser, as well as thermal basins (pictured), a volcano, and hiking trails

Many parks are experiencing long wait times and crowded attractions

Yellowstone covers three different states, with most of it situated in Wyoming. It stretches into Idaho and Montana.

The park is a 3,472-square-mile park that houses geysers, thermal basins, a volcano, and many hiking trails.

A woman was recently jailed for seven days for disorderly conduct after crossing a thermal spring in the park with two others.

The woman had left the boardwalk during his visit in July and became to walk across the extremely dangerous, thin ground.

'The ground is fragile and thin, and scalding water just below the surface can cause severe or fatal burns, said a Yellowstone National Park spokesperson said.

The boardwalk is well marked to help tourists safely navigate the dangerous terrain near the thermal areas to prevent people visitors from getting burned.

More than 20 people have died from thermal spring burns.

The woman was ordered to pay $1,000 in fines, $1,000 in community service payment, and $40 in fees, according to The New York Times.
New York City will open all of its vaccination sites across the city, with extended hours, to provide New Yorkers with booster shots as the US awaits FDA approval of COVID-19 booster shots.

While the timeline remains uncertain for when exactly the Food and Drug Administration could authorize booster doses to the general public, Mayor Bill de Blasio revealed the city's Booster Shot Plan on Thursday - adding that NYC will be ready to implement it as soon as the plan receives federal authorization.

FDA regulators are set to meet to discuss authorizing the booster shots on Friday, and approval could take place as early as Monday, September 20, De Blasio said.

'We need to be ready to move immediately,' the mayor said during his Thursday press briefing. 'We are ready.'

The mayor's plan would see all 1,900 COVID-19 vaccination sites utilized in administering the booster shots.

Meanwhile, another 25 city-run locations will remain open with extended hours as the demand for boosters increases citywide.

While the timeline remains uncertain for when exactly the FDA could authorize booster doses to the general public, Mayor Bill de Blasio revealed the city's Booster Shot Plan on Thursday

The mayor added that NYC will be ready to implement it as soon as the plan receives federal authorization, which could be as early as Monday, September 20

Pictured: People stand in line to receive the Covid-19 vaccine at a temporary vaccination site at Grand Central Terminal train station

The city will join in a proactive booster shot outreach campaign in an effort to help residents schedule their shots once the FDA authorizes approval, where workers will be sent out door-to-door.

The mayor added that in needed, the city will hold pop-up weekend booster shoot events to administer an additional 45,000 booster shots per week.

Booster shots will be available to New Yorkers who have already been immunized with the the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines. The one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine has still yet to be approved for booster shots, the New York Daily News reports.

The country's top public health experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci have long said booster shots will likely become be recommended as the more contagious delta variant continues to spike nationwide.

A commuter (pictured) receives a shot of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) during the opening of MTA's public vaccination program

A man enters an observation area after receiving a COVID-19 vaccination at a mobile vaccination center in Brooklyn

De Blasio discussed hospital admissions for positive COVID-19 cases while explaining the city's Booster Shot Plan Thursday

Earlier this month however, officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and FDA said that officials are still in the process of pouring through data while adding that Pfizer will likely be the only booster vaccine cleared in time before October.

And while the immediate rollout of booster shots remains uncertain, vaccination rates are steadily increasing across the city and state, with 80 percent of NYC's adult population receiving at least one vaccine dose as of Thursday, the city's Health Department reports.

Meanwhile, 60 percent of the total population, including eligible children, have been fully vaccinated, with over 11 million doses administered citywide, according to the data.

Nationwide, there have been a total of 382 million doses administered and 180 million people fully vaccinated, or roughly 54.7 percent of the country, according to Our World in Data.

As of Thursday, 41.6 million people in the US have been infected with COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. Of those, 1.06 million cases were in New YorkCity.
Judge Emmett Sullivan has ordered the Biden administration to stop using Title 42, a coronavirus public health order, to expel migrants with children from the country, in a big win for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

The order will take effect in 14 days.

Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia wrote that the near 200-year-old public health law cited by government does not authorize the expulsion of migrants. He wrote that it denies them the 'opportunity to seek humanitarian benefits.'

Title 42, enacted as a coronavirus prevention measure under the Trump administration but left in place under Biden, was the statute used to remove most people who were denied entry into the US.

In August, border officials expelled 19% of those traveling as families with children. The rest were allowed into the US to seek humanitarian protection, with that number decreasing with Mexico's increasing unwillingness to take back young children not from Mexico.

Emmett Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia wrote that the near 200-year-old public health law cited by government does not authorize the expulsion of migrants

Title 42 was enacted as a coronavirus prevention measure under the Trump administration but left in place under President Biden

Asylum-seeking migrants rest under shade near the International Bridge between Mexico and the U.S. where asylum-seeking migrants are waiting to be processed in Del Rio, Texas, U.S., on September 15

BREAKING: A federal court just ordered the Biden administration to stop expelling immigrant families under Title 42.



The policy, initiated under Trump, unlawfully strips people of the right to seek asylum by expelling them without a hearing under the guise of public health.  ACLU (@ACLU) September 16, 2021

Title 42 is not used to expel unaccompanied children.

Meanwhile, 75% of single adults were processed for expulsion under Title 42, making it the key policy hurdle for single adult migrants to enter the country.

In August border crossings reached nearly 209,000, the second-highest number in any month for 21 years.

The Biden administration renewed the public health order as it expired last month, with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) determining there was still a public health justification for it. At the time they argued ending Title 42 could 'exacerbate overcrowding at DHS facilities and create significant public health risks.'

The ACLU has for months pressured Biden officials to stop using Title 42 to expel migrant families, and resumed its lawsuit after the order's renewal in August.

The news comes as Department of Homeland Security (DHS) watchdog report found that erosion of Title 42 authority 'has had a significant negative impact on CBPs COVID-19 mitigation measures and creates increased risk for CBP.'

Thursday's ruling comes after a setback for Biden from the other side, where a federal judge in Texas ordered the administration to reinstate the 'Remain in Mexico' policy, where asylum seekers are required to wait in Mexico while their claims are being litigated, in a win for Republicans. The Supreme Court denied a request from the Biden administration to pause the order, and border officials are working to reinstate the program.
New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been hit with a second ethics complaint after she accepted a free $35,000 ticket for her Met Gala appearance on Monday night.

Ocasio-Cortez, 31, has been accused of possibly violating the House Gift rule for accepting lavish gifts, including her controversial 'Tax the Rich' dress and a stay at the luxury Carlyle Hotel on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

The complaint, which was filed by Paul Kamenar of the National Legal and Policy Center, to the Office of Congressional Ethics on Thursday, was obtained by Daily Caller News Foundation.

'Representative Ocasio-Cortez may have violated the House Gift Rule by accepting free admission for herself and boyfriend to the Met Gala event and receiving related gifts before, during, or after the event, including the use of custom-designed dress, limousine service, the use of the Carlyle Hotel, professional hair and makeup services, and any other related services or goods,' the NLPC complaint stated.

New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had a second complaint filed against her by the National Legal and Policy Center on Thursday

The complaints come after she allegedly broke the House Gift rule as she accepted lavish gifts including a free ticket to the Met Gala and and the controversial 'Tax the Rich' dress she wore to the event

The complaint filed states: 'Representative Ocasio-Cortez may have violated the House Gift Rule by accepting free admission for herself and boyfriend to the Met Gala event and receiving related gifts before, during, or after the event, including the use of custom-designed dress, limousine service, the use of the Carlyle Hotel, professional hair and makeup services, and any other related services or goods'

The complaint criticized her acceptance of a seat at a sponsored table that costs between $200,000 and $300,000.

'In short, it is the table sponsor who is gifting or underwriting a coveted seat to AOC at the Gala,' the complaint states.

'And if the sponsor of the table where AOC sat was one paid for by one of the corporations attending the event, such as Instagram or Facebook, AOC has received a prohibited gift from the corporation that also lobbies Congress.'

The complaint also criticized AOC for bringing boyfriend Riley Roberts to the event as the House states that the second free ticket, if given, must be given to charity, spouse, or child.

'Thus, because her boyfriend is not her 'spouse or dependent,' her acceptance of an 'invite plus one' to the Met Gala would violate the Gift Rule unless AOC or her boyfriend paid for his $35,000 ticket, an unlikely scenario,' the complaint said.

Ocasio-Cortez defended her attendance at the Met Gala after receiving criticism for it as political figures are not routinely invited to the event, as stated in the complaint

The complaint was filed by NLPC Counsel Paul Kamenar, who criticized Ocasio Cortez's acceptance of the free ticket alongside her boyfriend, sitting at a sponsored table, and wearing the controversial 'Tax the Rich' dress

The value of the dress has not been determined as dress designer Aurora Jones told CNN that the she had not calculated the cost but said that lots of salvaged material was used to make it, according to the complaint.

Despite being a personal friend, gifts can only be given in this relationship if it is 'not related to the position of your house.'

In defense of her attendance, AOC tweeted: 'New York elected officials are routinely invited to and attend the Met due to our responsibilities in overseeing and supporting the city's cultural institutions for the public. I was one of several in attendance in this evening.'

It was noted that political figures are not often routinely invited to Met Gala events.

This complaint comes after another one was filed by The American Accountability Foundation for accepting 'an impermissible gift' of free tickets to attend the annual gala.

'Without prompt investigation and enforcement of Congressional Rules, the American people are likely to lose faith in the ability of Congress to police its members,' the complaint said, filed by AAF founder Thomas Jones.

He also wrote: '[W]hile the individual's invitations may bear the name of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum has ceded control over the invitations to a for-profit company, specifically Conde Nast, and to its Chief Content Officer, Anna Wintour.'

He added that 'the New York Times outlines that the Met does not have control over who is invited to the event, but rather the for-profit company, is in control of who gets invited.'

According to House ethics information available online, members of Congress can only accept $100 worth of items per year from a specific source.

In addition, Congress members can also borrow works of art  in this case the 'Tax the Rich' dress AOC wore by Aurora James  as long as there's a written agreement with the owner specifying it will be returned.

'The Met Gala is seen as elite and inaccessible...As a working class woman, [I] wanted to enjoy the event but also break the fourth wall and challenge the industry,' AOC proudly told Vogue at the event.

In an ethics complaint, Thomas Jones, founder of the American Accountability Foundation, (pictured) said he believes Ocasio-Cortez, who represents parts of the Bronx and Queens, broke House rules by accepting 'an impermissible gift' of free tickets to attend the annual gala.

On Tuesday morning, AOC boasted about the surge in Google searches for the words 'tax the rich'.

She wrote on Instagram: 'Surge in people looking up and discussing our f****d up tax code is and how we fix it so we can fund childcare, healthcare, climate action and student loan forgiveness for all? Aurora James understood the assignment.'

AOC has been very vocal in the past about her stance on taxing millionaires.

AOC with her boyfriend Riley Roberts (far right), her dress designer Aurora James and Benjamin Bronfman (far left)

In 2019 she advocated to raising taxes of to 70percent for the wealthy in order to fund measures against climate change.

'As a working class woman, [I] wanted to enjoy the event but also break the fourth wall and challenge the industry, Ocasio-Cortez told Vogue.

'When Aurora and I were first kind of partnered, we started having a conversation about what it means to be working class women of color at the Met,'

'And we said, you know, we can't just play along, but we need to break the fourth wall, and challenge some of the institutions.

'And while the Met is known for its spectacle, we should have a conversation about it,' she added.

In a 2019 Tweet, AOC wrote: When we say 'tax the rich,' we mean nesting-doll yacht rich. For-profit prison rich. Betsy DeVos, student-loan-shark rich.

'Trick-the-country-into-war rich. Subsidizing-workforce-w-food-stamps rich.

'Because THAT kind of rich is simply not good for society, & it's like 10 people.'
French diplomats in Washington on Thursday canceled a gala at their embassy to celebrate ties between the U.S. and France amid mounting fury at the Biden administration's role in scuppering a $90 billion submarine deal with Australia.

The event was supposed to commemorate the 240th anniversary of the Battle of the Capes, when the French Navy fought the Royal Navy of Britain during the Revolutionary War.

But it will not now go ahead on Friday, an official told the AFP news agency, saying the occasion 'has been made more sober.'

A portion of the event was to have been held on a French frigate in Baltimore.

And it means France's top naval officer will return home early.

The decision reflects French anger at the announcement that the U.S. and the U.K. would help Australia acquire a nuclear-powered submarine fleet, upending an existing contract with France for 12 diesel vessels.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian described the deal as a 'unilateral, brutal, unpredictable decision' like those of former President Trump.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian (l) described President Biden's deal as a 'unilateral, brutal, unpredictable decision' amid French fury that it triggered cancelation of an Australian agreement to buy French diesel powered submarines

The French embassy event was supposed to commemorate the 1781 'Battle of the Capes when the French Navy delivered a decisive blow to Britain's Royal Navy in the Revolutionary War. The Battle of Virgina Capes shows British forces on the right and French on the left

America and the UK are to help Australia build a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines as part of an unprecedented alliance known as the AUKUS pact to combat China's naval dominance and will likely be the similar design as this Astute class submarine HMS Ambush (pictured)

Why is Australia building nuclear-powered submarines? Why nuclear submarines? Nuclear submarines are powered by nuclear reactors which produce heat that creates high-pressured steam to spin turbines and power the boat's propeller. They can run for about 20 years before needing to refuel, meaning food supplies are the only limit on time at sea. The boats are also very quiet, making it harder for enemies to detect them and can travel at top speed - about 25mph - for longer than diesel-powered subs. The first nuclear submarines were put to sea by the United States in the 1950s. They are now also in use by Russia, France, the United Kingdom, China, and India. A senior US defense official told reporters in Washington DC: 'This will give Australia the capability for their submarines to basically deploy for a longer period, they're quieter, they're much more capable.' Will Australia have nuclear weapons? Scott Morrison made it clear that the nuclear-power submarines will not have nuclear missiles on board. Australia has never produced nuclear weapons and signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in 1973 which prevents non-nuclear states which don't already have them from developing nuclear weapons. Mr Morrison also said the Australia has no plans to build nuclear power stations which are widely used around the world. 'But let me be clear, Australia is not seeking to acquire nuclear weapons or establish a civil nuclear capability,' he said. Are they safe? The nuclear reactors are shielded from the rest of the submarine in a separate section to protect the crew from dangerous radiation. The US has an excellent safety record with its nuclear-powered fleet although early Russian subs suffered a few accidents which caused 20 servicemen to die from radiation exposure between 1960 and 1985. At the end of their 20-year lifetimes, the contaminated parts of nuclear reactors need to be disposed deep underground in special waste storage cells. Anti-nuclear campaigners say any leaks of radioactive waste could lead to an environmental disaster. Why now? Australia needs to replace its six ageing Collins-class submarines. In 2016 it signed a deal with French Company Naval Group to build 12 diesel-electric attack subs - but the parties were in dispute over the amount of building that would be done in Australia. That deal has now been torn up in favour of nuclear powered subs aided by the US and UK who will provide the technology to Australia. The West is becoming increasingly concerned about the growing assertiveness of China in the Indo-Pacific region where it has made huge territorial claims in the South and East China seas, clashed with Indian troops and repeatedly flown planes over Taiwan. Advertisement

As a result, President Biden finds himself at the center a diplomatic row, accused of failing to consult with crucial allies - much as he was criticized for pushing ahead with the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The new AUKUS pact to share defense technology between the U.S., U.K. and Australia was meant to show that Washington could still be relied on to promote security in places such as the Indo-Pacific region where China is flexing its muscles.

Instead American officials spent much of Thursday trying to patch up the damage.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken insisted officials had been in touch with their French counterparts ahead of the announcement and said the U.S. placed 'fundamental value' on its relationship with France and on its role in the Indo-Pacific.

'We look forward to continue close cooperation with NATO, with the European Union, and others in this endeavor,' he said.

'France in particular is a vital partner on this, and so many other issues.'

He was speaking at a news conference after meetings between the U.S. and Australian foreign and defense ministers in Washington.

He said it was up to Australia to explain its decision about how they made the decision over its submarine fleet.

White House Press Secretary echoed that line minutes later.

'We value our relationship and our partnership with France on a variety of issues facing the global community,' she said.

'I would leave it of course to our Australia partners to describe why they sought this new technology and why they purchased this technology from the U.S.'

Australia selected French shipbuilder Naval Group to build its new submarine fleet, replacing its aging Collins class submarines.

The French vessels were due some time in the mid-2030s.

But the new deal means Australia will use U.S. technology to build a nuclear fleet in Adelaide instead.

Adding to the anger, French officials said they had been given little warning.

'We heard about it yesterday,' Florence Parly, the minister of French Armed Services, told RFI radio on Wednesday.

The level of French outrage recalled the 2003 rift between Washington and Paris over the Iraq War, which sparked a similar amount of diplomatic fury.

In a statement, the French embassy said: 'The American decision, which leads to the exclusion of a European ally and partner like France from a crucial partnership with Australia at a time when we are facing unprecedented challenges in the Indo-Pacific region, be it over our values or respect for a multilateralism based on the rule of law, signals a lack of consistency which France can only notice and regret.'

Diplomats said the deal had been kept under wraps for fear China would launch a counter-messaging campaign if it got wind of the plans.

But the result was that even friends of the U.S. were apparently taken by surprise.

In Brussels, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said pointedly: 'I suppose that an agreement of this nature was not cooked up the day before yesterday.

'It takes a certain amount of time, and despite that, no, we were not consulted.

'That obliges us, once again . to reflect on the need to put European strategic autonomy high on the agenda.

The deal also sidelines New Zealand and Canada - who together with the US, UK and Australia make up the Cold War-era Five Eyes intelligence alliance, but now appear isolated from the group.

Other reactions were more predictable.

China denounced the pact as an 'exclusionary bloc' while accusing the allies of possessing a 'Cold War mentality.'

Beijing has launched frequent broadsides at Washington, furious at the way the Biden administration has called it out over human rights abuses in the Xianjing region, the crackdown on democracy activists in Hong Kong, and cybersecurity breaches.
Police have arrested one suspect and are seeking another in connection with the fatal shootings of four people found in an abandoned SUV in western Wisconsin, Dunn County sheriff's officials said Thursday.

Darren Lee McWright, 56, from St. Paul, Minnesota, who also uses the alias last name of Osborne, was arrested on a warrant from Dunn County and is being held in the Ramsey County Jail, according to Sheriff Kevin Bygd.

A warrant is out for the other suspect, Antoine Darnique Suggs, 38, who is believed to be in the Twin Cities area and is considered armed and dangerous, officials said.

The men are believed to be connected to the quadruple-homicide of Nitosha Lee Flug-Presley, 30, of Stillwater; her longtime friend, Jasmine Christine Sturm, 30, of St. Paul; Sturms brother, Matthew Isiah Pettus, 26, of St. Paul; and Sturms boyfriend, Loyace Foreman III, 35, of St. Paul.

Darren Lee McWright, left, was arrested in connection to the fatal shooting of four friends in Wisconsin. Police are looking for Antoine Darnique Suggs, a possible accomplice

Victims Jasmine Sturm (left) and Matthew Pettus (right) were half-siblings, and worked together at Shamrocks Irish bar and grill in St. Paul

Victim Loyace Foreman III (left) was Sturm's boyfriend, while Nitosha Lee Flug-Presley (right) was a friend of Sturm

Family members say the four victims were together at a bar Saturday night in St. Paul. A farmer discovered their bodies Sunday in his Dunn County cornfield, about 60 miles to the east. All four had suffered gunshot wounds, authorities said.

Presley's father had insisted that the culprits must be someone his daughter and her friends knew because the the mother of a four-year-old and 11-year-old, 'doesn't know nobody in Wisconsin, let alone to be in Wisconsin.'

Police have not yet identified a connection between the victims and McWright and Shuggs, and no motive for the horrific murders has been shared.

Bygd has said investigators believe the victims "were randomly brought to" the area and that someone intentionally drove the SUV off the road and into the tall corn in the Town of Sheridan. He said the victims have no known connection to Dunn County.

Pettus had been working at Shamrocks bar and restaurant in St. Paul, where his sister had also been a longtime server, his brother, Zake Pettus said.

The FBI Minneapolis field office is assisting the sheriffs office in the investigation, an FBI spokesman said.

Dunn County Sheriff Kevin Bygd said investigators believe the bodies 'were randomly brought to' the Town of Sheridan and that someone intentionally drove the SUV into the tall corn

Bygd said investigators believe the victims 'were randomly brought to' the Town of Sheridan and that someone intentionally drove the SUV with the bodies into the tall corn.

He said that motive in the case remains a mystery, and that all possibilities are under investigation, including the involvement of personal acquaintances, organized crime, or a drug connection.

He said as yet there was no preliminary evidence of drugs as a motive, but that 'it very well could be, and that's going to be discovered through our investigation.'

Investigators believe the killer or killers brought a second vehicle to the dump site, and used it to escape. Police are seeking information about a possible second dark-colored SUV that may have been involved.

Investigators remain tight-lipped about many aspects of the case, and Bygd refused to answer many key questions, including ownership information for the SUV the bodies were found in, and the position of the bodies in the vehicle.

However, audio from a police scanner obtained by the station KSTP revealed that none of the victims were in the driver's seat.

Autopsies that were performed on Monday by Ramsey County Medical Examiner's Office determined that all four victims died from gunshot wounds.

Flug-Presley's father, Damone Presley Sr., told the St. Paul Pioneer Press that the four victims were at a St. Paul bar on Saturday night and they got in someone's vehicle when they left.

'Why would this happen?' he said on Tuesday. ' It just doesn't make sense.'

Damone Presley, the dad of Nitosha Presley, told CBS Local the vehicle belonged to someone his daughter knew

Sturm and Pettus both worked at this Irish bar and restaurant in St Paul, a family member said

Deputies are seen walking through the field in search of clues as part of the homicide investigation on Tuesday

Damone told CBS Local he was 'numb' after learning of her death and urged anyone with information to 'speak up.'

'Somebody knows something. This doesn't just happen,' Damone said. 'This is not a freak accident. Please somebody say something.'

He added: 'I'm numb. I feel empty.

'She was a beautiful mother, granddaughter, just an inspiration and joy in my life. Good heart, a teddy bear as a person. Well-liked.'

Pettus' brother, Zach Pettus, told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune that he has 'an idea who did it,' referring to the homicides, but he declined to go into further detail.

'This is a freak thing that never should have happened,' Zach Pettus said. 'There is nothing that indicated this would have happened.'

Loyace Foreman III was the son of Loyace Foreman Jr, senior pastor at New Vision Faith Center in Saint Paul.

'He was stolen from us,' Loyace's mother, Jessica, wrote in a post. 'And we will find the thief. If it takes my very last breath. We will not rest. Loyace PulzeRazr Foreman III was my Prince.'

According to recent social media posts, the 35-year-old Foreman III had two children and was in a romantic relationship with Jessica Sturm.

He worked as a demolition contractor and enjoyed drawing in his free time.

'He was a doting uncle to his four nieces and nephews,' Jessica Foreman told Twin Cities. 'He was the protector of his three sisters. He was not perfect and we loved him unconditionally. He left an unfillable void.'

Presley, 30, Matthew Pettus, 26, Loyace Foreman III, 35, and Jasmine Christine Sturm, 30, were found murdered inside the car in a field in Sheridan, rural Wisconsin, Sunday afternoon. Pictured the scene taped off

Sturm, who worked a second job as a paralegal at a law firm, and was raising her two sons, ages 11 and 5. The youngest boy had just celebrated his birthday last month.

Mourners online described Strum and Nitosha Flug-Presley as very close friends.

'There was never a time where i would see 1 without the other,' a mutual friend wrote. 'Y'all were literally inseparable and to think we lost y'all together don't even sit right.'

Flug-Presley leaves behind a young son and daughter.

'She was an outgoing person, a very good mother, exceptional daughter,' Presley's father said. 'She was very vibrant, she had a good heart, someone who would lift up your spirits.'
California Rep. Darrell Issa announced his office had successfully evacuated an elderly couple trapped in Afghanistan Wednesday

An elderly couple trapped in Afghanistan is returning to San Diego after weeks of being 'harassed and intimidated' by the Taliban, a congressman from California reported.

'This is a cause for celebration and the result of almost countless hours of work under very difficult conditions,' Rep. Darrell Issa announced in a statement Wednesday.

'Our team simply would not give up, and today it paid off and we got them home.'

The couple, who are in their 80s, are among the 33 members of his district he says he has helped escape the country after the Taliban seized control. Their names were withheld to protect Afghan relatives still living in the country.

Further details on how they escaped have not been shared, in an attempt to keep future evacuees safe. Americans and Afghan refugees have managed to flee on charter flights and overland to neighboring countries.

Issa's office reported that the couple had tried for weeks to get through Taliban checkpoints in Kabul and board a plane home, but were 'harassed and intimidated' by the militant group during their attempts.

Their evacuation came after granddaughter Zahul, whose last name was also withheld for security reasons, reached out to Issa's office to report their plight.

The couple, who were in their 80s, had reportedly tried for weeks to board a plane at Kabul's airport, but were stopped an harassed at Taliban checkpoints. Taliban guards can be seen manning a checkpoint outside the airport on Monday

Issa has accused the Biden administration of abandoning Americans in Afghanistan

His office did not say how the couple was able to escape the country.

Roughly 100 Americans are still believed to be trapped in Afghanistan since the chaotic American withdrawal concluded on August 30, and want to leave, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Congress this week.

'While we have made extraordinary progress, but were not stopping until everyone comes home,' Issa, who represents the San Diego area, said in a statement.

He has accused the Biden administration of abandoning Americans, including a number of his constituents in the country.

'I represent two incredibly brave American citizens stranded in Afghanistan,' he tweeted on August 31.

'They are both more than 80 years old. I can guarantee President Biden they did not wish to stay behind. They were left behind.'

Issa has disputed claims by Secretary of State Antony Blinken (right) that there are around 100 Americans still stranded in Afghanistan, saying there are closer to 500

He said earlier this month that in addition to the elderly couple, he was working to evacuate another family with three children who live in his congressional district in California.

The US evacuated about 122,300 people from Afghanistan including 5,500 American citizens since the sudden collapse of the country on August 14 in the face of a Taliban onslaught.

The crush to escape through the Kabul airport turned deadly on August 26, when a suicide bombing outside its gates killed 13 US servicemembers and 169 Afghan civilians.

Issa has disputed the official US figure of about 100 citizens still stranded in Afghanistan, saying he believes the number is closer to 500 and could be as high as 1,000 if family members of U.S. citizens are included in that count.

Issa has said his office has helped evacuated seven families from Afghanistan. Mohammad Faizi (center) was a member of one of them, and spoke on September 2 after they were able to make their escape

He claims many Americans weren't counted just because they expressed to the U.S. concerns over 'leaving behind family members to die.'

In total, eight families from the El Cajon neighborhood of San Diego had been trapped in Afghanistan last month after traveling there over the summer to visit relatives.

Palwasha Faizi, 10, above left, stands behind her sister, Parwana Faizi, 7, and alongside her father, Mohammad

Several of the evacuees joined Issa on September 2 to speak to reporters for the first time since escaping the country.

A father named Yousef, who asked that only his first name be used because he still has relatives in Afghanistan who could be at risk, said that his wife and their four children boarded a July 15 flight in San Diego to attend her brother's wedding in Afghanistan.

Their return ticket was August 15, two days before their children's school year began in El Cajon Unified School district, which has a large refugee population.

But the Afghan-Americans found themselves dodging gunfire and trying to force their way into the crowds of thousands ringing the airport in Kabul after Afghanistan's government collapsed.

One father, who previously worked as a translator for the US military, said he was hit in the back by the Taliban while trying to enter the airport. With the help of a friend, he was able to find a different way into the airport. After waiting for more than 10 hours, the father managed to approach a US Marine and show him his American passport.

'They grabbed my hands and grabbed my family's hands,' he recalled his escape.

Mohammad Faizi, who attended the press conference with two of his five children, said that he also was stopped at a Taliban roadblock and questioned, reported KUSI.

'"Why are you guys leaving Afghanistan?"' Faizi said the Taliban asked him. '"Why are you guys not staying here with US?" I told them that's our country, that's my nation, we're leaving here.'
Rikers Island prison staff accidentally released an inmate who was one day into his 20-month sentence just days before nearly 25 per cent of the New York prison's staff called in sick amid dangerous and chaotic working conditions.

Jason Dauble, 35, walked out of Rikers Island on September 11, a day after being sentenced to two consecutive 10-month sentences for burglarizing three different Staten Island eateries, prison documents state.

The error was not reported until September 13, and Dauble was arrested on September 14 just two blocks away from the businesses he victimized, the New York Post reports.

A jailhouse source told the Post that the staffing issue and current chaos at Rikers was what had led to Dauble being released.

'There's a lot of times the intake staff may not be experienced because of the staff shortages and they're sticking someone there,' said a jailhouse source. 'They don't know what to look for, they don't know the paperwork.'

Staffing problems at New York's Rikers Island prison allegedly caused staffers to accidentally release a serial burglar last Friday

Nearly 2000 of more than 8,000 workers at Rikers took a sick day on Tuesday

Dauble was originally charged with 15 counts of burglary, grand larceny, criminal mischief, petite larceny and possession of stolen property.

He returned to Rikers on the same day nearly 2,000 of more than 8,000 workers took a sick day, leaving dozens of units without officers who monitor and assist inmates, Department of Corrections Chief of Staff Dana Wax said at a New York City Council hearing on Wednesday.

'Of the 8,370 uniformed members of service, 1,789 of them were out sick yesterday. 112 of those were newly out sick, meaning it was their first day out  68 staff members were out on a personal emergency, 93 were AWOL, meaning they did not let us know they were not coming in that day,' she said.

The crackdown took place a day after Mayor Bill de Blasio unveiled a plan to address problems at Rikers Island and punish AWOL corrections officers

DOC Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi said last week that more than 1,400 officers were out sick on average in August, which is more than double compared to the same time last year

At orders of Mayor Bill de Blasio, The DOC handed out suspensions for 20 of the officers who failed to show up on Tuesday.

During the hearing on Wednesday, DOC Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi blamed the deteriorating conditions at Rikers on the skyrocketing officer absences.

'This is the direct driver of more dangerous conditions in Rikers, and that is completely unacceptable,' he said.

The commissioner promised to hand out bonuses to the officers who have been showing up for every shift, and even working extra shifts to make up for a lack of staff.

'They are the heroes who have been holding the line during these challenging times,' he said.

Benny Boscio, President of the Correctional Officers Benevolent Association, hit out at de Blasio over the suspensions, blaming the unfolding crisis on a hiring freeze, even as the inmate population at Rikers has doubled.

'More heavy-handed suspensions will only ensure officers continue to work triple and quadruple shifts with no meals and no rest,' Boscio argued.

Boscio slammed de Blasio as a 'dictator' and called on him to resign for punishing overworked officers who have been pulling double and triple shifts in unsafe working conditions, reported Fox Business.

During his daily press conference on Tuesday, the mayor unveiled a five-point plan to address the dire situation at Rikers Island.

'We understand it's tough work and a tough environment, but folks, not showing up for work is unacceptable,' de Blasio said of the absent corrections officers. 'And when any officer doesn't show up for work, they actually put every other officer in danger, and that's not acceptable.

Under the mayor's Emergency Rikers Relief Plan, any DOC officer who calls out sick for more than a day will have to undergo a medical evaluation and provide a doctor's note, or face a 30-day suspension.

De Blasios relief plan also includes bringing in NYPD cops to work in the courts to lighten the burden on DOC officers; speeding up the intake process at Rikers Island; hiring contractors to clean up the jail and make necessary repairs, and hire additional medical providers 'to make sure every single offices is on duty who should be on duty,' the mayor said.

The mayor rolled out his plan a day after a group of state lawmakers toured Rikers Island and called it a horror house of abuse and neglect, with one politician recounting witnessing an attempted suicide.

New York Senator Jessica Ramos says she witnessed a man try to hang himself during a tour of the state's infamous Rikers Island jail

I cant begin to tell you the deplorable conditions we saw inside OBCC, she told reporters. In one of the intake rooms, there are at least one dozen men  per cell.

The infamous jail is littered with 'guck,' dead cockroaches, fecal matter, and rotting food, she said when describing the 'deplorable' conditions.

Other human rights infractions included a transgender woman locked up with men, an HIV positive man being denied his medication, diabetics being denied insulin, and employees working back-to-back 24-hour shifts, politicians said.

Its inhumane for everyone here, Gonzalez-Rojas told reporters. People were telling me, I feel like a slave. I feel like an animal. Im treated like an animal.

Alice Fontier, managing director of Neighborhood Defender Service, recalled during her most recent tour of the facility seeing people packed in intake cells for weeks, without access to a phone or their attorneys.

A two-by-six foot shower is being used as a segregated intake unit, she said, and prisoners are given a plastic bag to use as a toilet.

A plan was approved in 2019 to shutter Rikers and replace it with several smaller jails, but it won't happen until 2026.
An 83-year old abortion provider in Texas described his experience performing 67 terminations as the clock ticked on the eve of the states ban on abortions after six weeks.

Jasbir Ahluwalia, an ob-gyn at Whole Womans Health Clinic in Forth Worth, recalled the dramatic shift between working at breakneck speed to treat an influx of patients one night to coming back to see an empty office the next morning on September 1, when the law went into effect.

Nobody cared for their own welfare, he said in an interview with Vice. The workersthey want to take care of the patients. That was an amazing, amazing attitude I saw for the first time in all these 50 years of practice of medicine . . . They wanted to take care of every patient, bring them in, move and move and move. I saw tremendous, tremendous teamwork that night.

He added, And it went on by the book. We did not take any shortcuts. Everything was done properly. I was really amazed.

Jasbir Ahluwalia, 83, performed 67 abortions on August 31 at Whole Womans Health Clinic in Forth Worth, pictured above, the night before the states ban on abortions after six weeks. A security guard is pictured at the clinic on September 1

He said they treated every patient that came in on August 31, but the clinic was a ghost town once the law went into effect the next day

Since then, however, Ahluwalia has had to turn down a number of patients who are just over six weeks and is seeing significantly less people as a reported 85 percent of abortions in Texas happen after six weeks.

In the 10 days after the law took effect, Melaney Linton, president of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, said clinics in Houston had 63 patients scheduled for an abortion as opposed to the roughly 250 they would usually perform in 10 days.

The Texas law outlaws abortion at the sign of a heartbeat, or around six weeks into a pregnancy, with no exceptions for rape or incest. The law also deputizes private citizens to report women who get abortions and anyone who helps them to do so, even Uber drivers. Successful plaintiffs are entitled to $10,000 from defendants, though they cannot sue the woman who sought the abortion herself.

Ahluwalia said the patients he does see are coming in during much earlier stages of pregnancy than usual, with some coming in just two days into their pregnancy. But about 40 to 60 percent of his patients are too far along for him to help them.

The very few who do qualify, we are very careful, he said. We are just totally complying with the law. We look at the sonogramand we do a vaginal sonogram, not even abdominal, because theyre so much more sensitive, to make sure we don't miss anything. And we do send patients away. Weve got to stay with the law, whatever it is. So we do reject a lot of patients, and that's very sad.

He added that a lot of patients are young and dont have the money to travel out of state for the procedure. They're not able to go anywhere, he said. These are the people who are going to suffer.

A 15-, 16-year-old is now forced to carry a pregnancy to term, and they dont have any resources to go out of state? Thats sad. That is absolutely sad. To me, that looks like the state is committing child abuse.

The Texas law outlaws abortion at the sign of a heartbeat, or around six weeks into a pregnancy, with no exceptions for rape or incest. Above, women protested at the state Capitol in Austin on September 1

Ahluwalia said it leaves him in disbelief to know this is happening in America. At a young age, he and his family moved from Kenya, where he was born, to Uganda. After Dictator Idi Amin took control of the country in 1972, he forced anyone to flee if they werent black.

Ahluwalia was already a doctor at the time, but abortion wasnt legal in Uganda and he wasnt studying to provide it. One woman was eight weeks pregnant and didnt know if shed be with her husband after they left the country, so she had a back-alley abortion.

She ended up septic and came to Ahluwalias hospital severely ill, but he and his professor at the time couldnt save her. After that happened, Ahluwalia dedicated his career to becoming an ob-gyn and performing safe abortions.

He was expelled from the country and went to London, where he got his ob-gyn board certification at the Royal College of OB-GYN, and moved to Texas in 1977.

If this was Myanmar, Rwanda, or one of those countries, Id understand. I'll just leave those countries, like I did Uganda, he said. But the United States? Countries are supposed to look at us, look at this country, as a leader, as an example to be copied. Is this what's going on here? That's what makes me sad.

He said that hes hearing people in other countries compare supporters of the Texas law to the Taliban. Yes, you can call them the Taliban of Texas, he added. They hate women. Have they ever passed a law saying, Men should not get more than three shots of testosterone per week, or men cannot get more than five Viagra pills per week? Let's control that, thats not good. We should have one pill per month. Thats all. No. Never, ever, ever.

The Department of Justice sought an emergency order Tuesday night to block the Texas law

Ahluwalia said he believed he would continue to provide abortion for another 10 years, until hes 93, and he doesnt plan on stopping now. I will continue to serve and walk through the front door of an abortion clinic and take care of the patients, he said.

Meanwhile, the Department of Justice sought an emergency order Tuesday night to block the Texas law and argued in a filing, submitted in a district court in Austin, that it was enacted 'to prevent women from exercising their constitutional rights.'

'This relief is necessary to protect the constitutional rights of women in Texas and the sovereign interest of the United States,' the statement added.

The new filing furthers one from last week that argued the law is invalid because it unlawfully infringes on the constitutional rights of women and violates the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, which says federal law supersedes state law.

The department said the 'vast majority' of women seeking abortions in Texas are being turned away.

'All the while, clinics in neighboring states are receiving panicked calls from patients in Texas,' the DOJ said.

U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, did not immediately take action Wednesday on the request by the Justice Department.

The DOJ said Tuesday that if the restraining order is granted, not only should the law not be enforced but also anyone who tries to enforce SB 8 must be informed they no longer have the authority the law offered them while the matter is being litigated.

The Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision earlier this month denied an emergency request to block the bill from taking effect while its most controversial provisions get litigated, but did not rule on the constitutionality of it.
Lawyers for the Iraq war veteran who was arrested and charged with attempted murder and assault after he was filmed by surveillance cameras bludgeoning a man with a machete at a Manhattan ATM last month claim he is not fit to stand trial.

Attorneys for Aaron Garcia, 37, of Yonkers asked Manhattan Supreme Court on Thursday to have their client submit to a psychiatric evaluation to determine his fitness to be tried.

Garcia appeared on Thursday at his arraignment in Lower Manhattan after his arrest last month. He entered a plea of not guilty.

The judge then remanded Garcia to jail until his next court appearance.

The vicious August 15 assault left Queens resident Miguel Solorzano, 50, bloodied and hospitalized with slashes to his face and leg.

Aaron Garcia, 37, of Yonkers pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and assault charges at Manhattan Supreme Court on Monday

Attorneys for Garcia asked Manhattan Supreme Court on Thursday to have their client submit to a psychiatric evaluation to determine his fitness to be tried

Garcia is seen on the right in this August 15 surveillance video wielding a hatchet and viciously wounding Miguel Solorzano, 50, of Queens as he was depositing a check at an ATM in Lower Manhattan

At the time of his arrest in mid-August, authorities revealed Garcia was wanted by Yonkers Police, who had arrest warrant out on him for a February 15 assault and four active bench warrants for failure to appear in court.

He had three prior arrests in 2020 stemming from charges of harassment, aggravated harassment, stalking and criminal contempt, Yonkers police said.

A close relative, who asked not to be named, said Garcia had previously served in the Army, and was not the same after his return from deployment to Iraq, the New York Daily News reported.

'He was a little off-center. He was in combat. All he would say is "I saw dead bodies,"' the relative told the outlet.

Garcia was arrested after being held at Bellevue Hospital to undergo psychiatric evaluation.

The horror attack at 5.20pm on August 15 was caught on security camera at the Chase Bank on Broadway in Manhattan's financial district.

The footage shows Solorzano standing at an ATM to deposit a check when a man - identified by police as Garcia - removes a hatchet from a dark bag and walks up behind him.

Garcia then repeatedly hits Solorzano with the hatchet as the victim desperately tries to defend himself.

It begins with the attacker walking into the ATM room with the hatchet in hand

The attacker then suddenly walks up behind Solorzano and begins swinging his weapon in the violent attack

Then Solorzano quickly turns to face his attacker, and tries to fend him off using his backpack

Once he is finished attacking Solorzano, he proceeds to smash the ATM screens before walking away, but not before leaving the hatchet and his backpack behind, police said.

Solorzano, who lives in Corona, suffered three slash wounds to the head and another to his right leg, New York City police officials reported.

He was rushed to Bellevue Hospital, where he underwent two surgeries.

'It scares me. I was asking him not to kill me. I don't know why he wanted to kill me,' Solorzano told WNBC-TV.

Solorzano said that he lives in New York on his own. He works in order to send money home to his wife and children in Mexico.

'He just wanted to hit me. He really wanted to hit me and I don't know why,' Solorzano said.

'I didn't do anything to him.'

Solorazano required two surgeries after the attack, his friend Manny, told the Daily News.

'The whole family is in Mexico,' he said of his friend. 'I didnt ask him about what happened, I just wanted to make sure hes okay.'

Garcia was arrested at around 9.20pm on August 17 in the Chelsea section of Manhattan, where he was reportedly found breaking car and storefront windows with a hammer.

Police said Garcia went on his Chelsea rampage at around 8pm, and began by smashing car windows.

Soon, the backpack is ripped away, as the attacker continues to slash him with the weapon

Terrified and bloodied, the Queens resident desperately tries to grab the weapon away from his attacker

Solorzano, who suffered three slash wounds to the head, falls to the ground several times as he fights for his life

Eventually, Solorazano, severely bloodied, flees, and his attacker does not follow

After Solorzana was driven off, the attacker proceeds to smash the ATM screens one by one before walking away

As he walked past Elmo's restaurant on 7th Avenue near 20th Street, he allegedly ran into a 54-year-old man, and raised the hammer as if to hit him, but ran off, the New York Daily News reported.

Chelsea cops said Garcia then smashed a window at Rebar Chelsea, a gay bar on 7th Avenue and West 19th Street and a nearby bus stop before he was finally apprehended around the corner, according to the outlet.

Garcia is also suspected of another assault in Lower Manhattan, when he allegedly kicked someone on South Street on the evening of August 3, the New York Post reported.

Earlier that day at around noon, he is alleged to have pointed a knife at a bystander on Pine Street, who had yelled at him for urinating in public.

Garcia's relative expressed shock at his arrest.

'This cant be true,' she told the Daily News. 'If you knew what kind of people we are, you would understand why Im reacting this way.'

'I cant imagine hes gone that far. Nobody told us anything . . . I cant imagine that would be linked to us. I dont understand.'

Solorzano has told of his horror at being attacked.

Chase released a statement on the incident, saying it had assisted with the investigation.

'We shared the video of this senseless attack with police and continue to work with them on their investigation,' a spokeswoman said.

'Weve reached out to our customer and his family, and share their hopes for continued recovery.'

The smashed ATMs (pictured) seen in the aftermath of the brutal attack

The image above shows the exterior of the Chase bank branch where the attack took place

The attack comes amid a growing crime wave in the Big Apple.

Two masked, armed men attacked outdoor diners at the high-end Upper East Side restaurant Philippe Chow on Wednesday night. They stole one man's Rolex watch and shot a 28-year-old man on a first date in the leg when he tried to grab the robber's weapon.

Halley Wolowiec and Tamara Behan were eating outside at Le Bilboquet, across the street from Philippe Chow, when they heard a gunshot and glass breaking around 10pm.

'There was no mistaking that sound,' Wolowiec told ABC7.

The attack comes amid a growing crime wave in the Big Apple. Two masked, armed men attacked outdoor diners at the high-end Upper East Side restaurant Philippe Chow on Wednesday night

A 31-year-old man was also approached at the restaurant at the same time when a masked man robbed him of his Rolex Stainless Steel Submariner watch

The armed robbery at Philippe Chow is the third armed robbery targeting New York City diners and their expensive jewelry in the past month

'It was frightening because it was 20 feet away from us and it got very real, very quickly.'

She added that when she looked up she saw everyone running. She said that the restaurant opened its doors and ushered people inside to safety.

Wednesday night's shooting appears very similar to two other recent New York City robberies where diners leaving high-end restaurants were robbed of millions of dollars worth of jewelry. Both times the victims were approached by two men who escaped in a black Mercedes-Benz.

The armed robbery and shooting on September 15 came a week after New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio bragged that the city experienced one of its safest Augusts on record.

De Blasio released last month's citywide crime statistics at a press conference on Tuesday, where he said crime in August 2021 dropped 5.4 per cent compared to the same time last year.

Crime in the city is also at one of its lowest levels since 1995, according to CompStat with 6,141 violent incidents compared to 1,979 in the year to date. Those incidents include, murder, rape, assault, burglary, larceny and grand theft auto.

But despite overall crime rates being down, New York City continues to see a surge in violent crimes in some areas, with murders up a whopping 60 per cent in the Bronx alone this year, compared to 2020.
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The father of missing van-life woman Gabby Petito has made a desperate plea for the family of boyfriend Brian Laundrie to help him get his daughter back.

Struggling to contain his emotions, father Joe Petito he made the appeal at a press conference on Thursday in North Port, Florida, where the young couple were living before their cross-country road trip.

'What I need from everybody here is help. The goal is to bring Gabby home safe. I am asking for help from everyone here. I am asking for help from everyone at home,' the father said, as was wife Tara, Gabbys stepmom, who fought back tears.

'I am asking for help from the parents of Brian. And I am asking for help from the family members and friends of the Laundrie family as well.'

Gabby, 22, was reported missing on Saturday after her family hadn't heard from her in 13 days. She had been traveling with Laundrie since July - and last spoke to relatives on August 25. Her last known location was Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.

'Whatever you can do to make sure my daughter comes home, I'm asking for that help. There is nothing else that matters to me now,' said Joe Petito.

Turning to point at a picture of Gabby behind him, he continued: 'This, this girl right here, this is what matters. That is it. Anything else becomes second to this.'

Laundrie returned alone to Florida on September 1  some 10 days before Gabbys mother Nicole Schmidt raised the alarm with police in Suffolk County, New York, where she lives.

He has refused to speak directly to police investigating her disappearance and his family have hired an attorney.

Tara Petito (L) and Joe Petito react while the City of North Port Chief of Police Todd Garrison speaks during a news conference for their missing daughter Gabby Petito on Thursday in North Port, Florida

Gabby and Brian are seen in police bodycam footage 13 days before her family's last confirmed contact. Cops were called to a domestic disturbance between Gabby and her boyfriend Brian, in which she slapped him during and argument

Gabby's stepmom Tara struggled to contain her emotions as the family made a direct appeal for information from the family of Gabby's boyfriend Brian Laundrie

'I am asking for help from the parents of Brian. And I am asking for help from the family members and friends of the Laundrie family as well,' said Joe Petito at the press conference

Gabby, 22, was reported missing on Saturday after her family hadn't heard from her in 13 days. She had been traveling with Laundrie since July - and last spoke to relatives on August 25

Tara Petito and Joe Petito look on while the City of North Port Chief of Police Todd Garrison (not seen) speaks during a news conference for their missing daughter Gabby Petito on Thursday in North Port, Florida.

North Port police information chief Josh Taylor told DailyMail.com after the conference: We know a fair bit about Brians movements. There is a lot of traveling and its complex.

And he did not discount any possible relevance of the police bodycam footage of the couple on their trip in Moab, Utah  in which Gabby was crying.

Taylor said: That is an incident that happened however many days before something else may have happened. How that plays into it? I certainly think it paints a picture.

North Port police chief Todd Garrison expressed his continued frustration with Laundrie for not coming forward to help solve the mystery of Gabbys disappearance.

He told the press conference: We share the frustration with the world right now. Two people went on a trip. One person returned. And that person that returned isnt providing us any explanation.

The chief reiterated: Right now this is a missing person case and the focus is to find Gabby. My focus isnt to bring Brian in right now. Brian is exercising his constitutional rights and I have to respect that.

Petito's family also sent an emotional letter to the Laundrie family Thursday urging them 'if you have any decency left' they will tell them where their daughter was last seen.

'You know the location of where Brian left Gabby. We beg you to tell us,' they wrote, in the letter signed by Jim Schmidt, Nichole Schmidt, Joe Petito, and Tara Petito and addressed to Laundrie's parents 'Christopher and Roberta Laundrie'.

The City of North Port Chief of Police Todd Garrison speaks during a news conference for missing person Gabby Petito. Gabby went missing while on a cross country trip with her boyfriend Brian Laundrie and has not been seen or heard from

North Port police chief Todd Garrison expressed his continued frustration that Laundrie not coming forward to help solve the mystery of Gabbys disappearance

Petito's family also sent an emotional letter to the Laundrie family Thursday urging them 'if you have any decency left' they will tell them where their daughter was last seen

A map shows the last known movements of Petito and Laundrie along their cross-country road trip which began July 2

An attorney for Petito's family said at the press conference that 'desperation has turned to anger' as Laundrie - the last person to see Petito on their doomed cross-country campervan trip - is refusing to cooperate with the investigation and is now a person of interest in the case.

'The family is devastated. Every day that this goes on, they get more and more desperate. They're at the point that this desperation has turned into anger,' he said.

'They know that the Laundries know where their daughter is. And they will not tell them. That's infuriating.

North Port Police Chief Todd Garrison said at a press conference Thursday morning the case was still being treated as a missing person's enquiry, and there is so far no evidence of criminality in her disappearance.



'Right now, we are investigating a missing person case,' he said.





Garrison, joined by Petito's dad, said police were aware of Laundrie's current location but 'right now, no' they cannot bring him in for questioning.





'Two people went on a trip, one person returned. And that person that returned isn't providing us any information,' he said.





Garrison added that it was Laundrie's 'constitutional right' not to speak with law enforcement but said his lawyer had handed over some property they requested from him.

It comes after bodycam footage revealed the moment Utah cops asked Gabby Petito why she slapped her boyfriend Brian Laundrie in a dramatic incident 13 days before she disappeared on their cross-country trip.

The video shows an emotional Petito, 22, with tears streaming down her face telling officers she 'was trying to get him to stop telling me to calm down' and admitting the couple 'have been fighting all morning.'

A tearful Petito is seen in the back of the police car. Laundrie admits he 'pushed her' during the altercation and cops determine Petito was 'the primary aggressor'

Emotional new police bodycam footage has revealed the moment Utah cops asked missing 'van-life' woman Gabby Petito why she slapped her boyfriend Brian Laundrie in a dramatic incident 13 days before she disappeared on their cross-country trip

In the clip, shot near Moab in Utah, Petito says she suffers from OCD and anxiety, with both her and Laundrie saying she was stressed because of the YouTube blog they were working on to document the doomed cross-country trip.

Laundrie is seen with scratches on his face and arm which he tells an officer were caused when Petito 'was trying to get the keys from me' and 'hit me with her phone'.

He later said she was angry with him because of his dirty feet. When an officer asks Petito if her boyfriend hit her, she replies 'I guess' and makes a grabbing motion on her chin.

Laundrie admits he 'pushed her' during the altercation.

The cops determine Petito was 'the primary aggressor' and say they are separating the couple for the night.

The couple had been traveling around the country in their camper van since early July and were visiting Moab, Utah when they got into an altercation, an incident report reveals.

The report says officers received reports of a 'possible domestic violence' incident involving the couple near the Moonflower Community Co-op in Moab on August 12 around 4:30pm.

The report, released by the Moab Police Department on Wednesday, documented that the couple admitted they had been going through 'issues' over the last couple days.

Laundrie is seen with scratches on his face which he tells an officer were caused when Petito 'was trying to get the keys from me' and 'hit me with her phone'

Laundrie shows the officers his hands during the incident on August 12 - two weeks before his girlfriend vanished

The statement from Brian Laundrie's attorney: 'Many people are wondering why Mr. Laundrie would not make a statement or speak with law enforcement in the face of Ms. Petito's absence. 'In my experience, intimate partners are often the first person law enforcement focus their attention on in cases like this and the warning that 'any statement made will be used against you' is true, regardless of whether my client had anything to do with Ms. Petito's disappearance. 'As such, on the advice of counsel Mr. Laundrie is not speaking on the matter. 'I have been informed that the North Port, Florida police have named Brian Laundrie as a 'person of interest' in this matter. 'This formality has not really changed the circumstances of Mr. Laundrie being the focus of attention of law enforcement and Mr. Laundrie will continue to remain silent on the advice of counsel.' Advertisement

Petito was reported missing on September 11 after her family hadn't heard from her in 13 days. She last spoke to her mother on the phone on August 25 and her last known location was Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.

Laundrie returned to their home in North Port, Florida, alone on September 1 in the couple's camper van - which has now been seized by police - 10 days before she was reported missing.

On Wednesday police officially named Laundrie a 'person of interest' in her mystery disappearance and said he is refusing to cooperate with their investigation.

Laundrie's attorney released a statement saying he is not speaking to police or making a statement 'on the advice of counsel' because 'intimate partners are often the first person law enforcement focus their attention on in cases like this.'

Petito's father Joe told Fox & Friends First the focus must be 'to make sure we get my daughter home first' and then 'we'll start worrying about Brian' later.

'I don't care what happens to him right now,' said Petito's father.

'That can't be my primary focus if he's going to sit in the comfort of his home, you know, and get home cooked meals, why my daughter's out, you know, God knows where, you know, I don't give two craps about him.'

'I got to be out there to help her, because the one person who is supposed to be leading the charge is sitting home in his lazy boy chair, you know, not talking to anybody.'

Joe said learning about the August 12 incident and Laundrie being named a person of interest, had left him feeling 'it's not what you thought it was.'

However, he said he just wants to keep the focus on finding his daughter.

'It's not what you thought it was,' he said.

'August 12, the person of interest... I get it from a legal side of it but from a family side we don't have Gabby.

'I want to care about finding my daughter first. That's my first objective.'

The bodycam footage shows an officer reporting that the driver of a vehicle ahead is showing 'obscure driving', driving 45mph in a 15mph road, and is 'possibly intoxicated.'

He says the vehicle has bumped a curb and puts the sirens on.

The officer then gets out the vehicle and approaches the couple's white camper van, which they have pulled over.

Petito, who is crying, is seen sitting in the the passenger seat and Laundrie is driving.

The officer asks them to turn off the vehicle and asks their names and 'What's going on? Why are you crying?'

'We've just been fighting this morning, some personal issues,' says Petito.

Laundrie says it was 'a long day' of camping yesterday.

The officer asks Petito to step out of the vehicle and takes her down the road, separating the couple to ask her what happened.

'I have OCD and I was just cleaning and straightening...,' she says, while sobbing.

'And I was apologizing to him and saying I'm sorry that I am so mean as sometimes I am so mean because I have OCD and get really frustrated.

'Not like mean towards him, I guess my vibe is like in a bad mood, and I said I'm sorry I'm in a bad mood I am stressed I had so much work.'

She tells the officer they are traveling the country and trying to 'build a blog'.

'We have been fighting all morning and he wouldn't let me in the car before,' she says.

When the officer asks why he wouldn't let her in the car, she says 'he told me needed to calm down' adding that he 'really stresses me out' and that it's 'been a rough morning.'

According to the document, cops were called to a local business in Moab, Utah on August 12, after a witness reported seeing the couple 'arguing over a phone' outside their van

The officer tells Petito she is 'not in any trouble' and escorts her to the back of the cop car so she can 'take a breath' and have 'a few minutes.'

The officer then asks Laundrie to step out the vehicle and asks him what has happened.

'She gets really worked up sometimes and I try to distance myself from it,' Laundrie says.

Laundrie also mentions her work on the blog and that 'she got worked up.'

He goes on to say they had a 'little squabble' which started in the coffee shop 'when I moved our food around' and 'I'm dirty, and I can't change being dirty, I got sand in my flip flops and stuff.'

The officer asks about the scratches on his face, with Laundrie explaining that there was an altercation involving her cellphone and their keys.

'She had her cellphone in her hand, that's why I was pushing her away,' he says.

'Coz I had the keys... I said let's take a breather and let's not go anywhere. Let's calm down a minute.'

He adds: 'And she had her phone, and was trying to get the keys from me.

'I know I shouldn't have pushed her but I was just trying to push her away to say take a minute step back and breathe. And she hit me with her phone.'

A tearful Petito tells cops she has OCD and anxiety and that she was stressed because she was trying to 'build a blog'

When an officer asks Petito if her boyfriend hit her, she replies 'I guess' and gestures to her chin. Petito admits he 'pushed her' during the altercation

Laundrie shows cops his arms which they say note scratches on, before officers determine Petito was the 'primary aggressor'

At one point, officers check Laundrie's hands, arm and torso, noting scratch marks on his arm.

A second officer is then seen talking to Petito who is sitting in the back of the cop car.

'Did he hit you?' the officer asks.

'I guess,' she replies, becoming tearful.

When the officer asks where Laundrie hit her, she clasps her chin in a grabbing motion.

'He like, did that with his hand,' she says.

Much of the audio is unclear at this point.

Petito tells the officers she suffers from 'anxiety' and that Laundrie 'gets frustrated a lot'.

She insists neither of them have been drinking because 'we don't drink'.

Petito admits she was 'yelling at him', then said 'you're an idiot'' and made a punching motion.

She is later seen in the back of the car with a distressed expression on her face and her hands clasped in front of her on her lap.

'Were you attempting to cause him physical pain or impairment? Is that what you were attempting to do to him?' an officer asks.

Petito, who is looking at the officer, replies no.

The cops determine Petito was 'the primary aggressor' and say they are separating the couple (pictured together) for the night

'What were you attempting to do?' the cop asks.

'What was the reason behind the slapping and stuff? What was it you were attempting to accomplish by the slapping?'

'I was trying to get him to stop telling me to calm down,' Petito says, as her face crumples in tears.

The officer replies to her that 'it doesn't sound good.'

Later in the footage, the officer is seen telling Petito he will be keeping her and Laundrie apart for the night.

'I am separating you two tonight, okay?' the officer is heard telling Petito.

The 22-year-old nods through tears in response and mouths 'okay.'

'I want you guys both to be tonight, away from each other,' the officer says.

'Relax, breathe, because there's no need to be crying now,' he tells Petito.

Petito nods and wipes tears from her eyes.

'I understand that this can feel like a nightmare,' the officer says.

'But you have come out as the golden flower on top.'

The cops are also seen talking in the footage about the accounts given by Petito, Laundrie and the witness who reported the incident to police, where they agree she was 'the primary aggressor.'

Laundrie says he doesn't want to pursue any charges but the cops say they have no choice but to separate the pair for the night.

In his report, responding officer Daniel Scott Robbins said he pulled the couple over as they were driving towards Arches National Park and noticed Gabby 'crying uncontrollably' in the passenger seat

According to the police incident report, a witness, identified only as Christopher, had reported seeing the pair 'arguing over a phone.'

In his account, one of the responding officers Eric Pratt, wrote that 'all three individuals' - Gabby, Laundrie, and the witness - gave 'a similar and consistent story, consisting of the basic idea that the driver of the van, a male, had some sort of argument with the female.'

Pratt said no one reported 'that the male struck the female' and that both Gabby and Laundrie said 'they are in love and engaged to be married and desperately didn't wish to see anyone charged with a crime.'

The report reveals Laundrie told officers that he had tried to create distance between the two by telling Gabby 'to go take a walk to calm down', but 'she didn't want to be separated from [him] and began slapping him.'

'He grabbed her face and pushed her back as she pressed upon him and the van, he tried to lock her out and succeeded except for his driver's door, she opened that and forced her way over him and into the vehicle before it drove off,' Pratt states.

The bystander who reported the incident told cops a similar version of events but noted that he saw 'what appeared to him as Gabrielle hitting Brian in the arm and then climbing through the driver's window' after she appeared to be locked out.

A second officer, Daniel Scott Robbins, later located the couple - who had already left the scene by then - driving in their Ford Transit van towards Arches National Park and pulled them over.

He said he noticed Gabby 'crying uncontrollably' in the passenger seat as he approached the vehicle and asked to speak to her outside.

The report was redacted to conceal sensitive information but suggests Gabby told police she and Laundrie became embroiled in an altercation that was fueled by mental health issues.

Cops received reports of a possible domestic violence incident near the Moonflower Community Co-op in Moab on August 12

'Gabrielle told me that she suffers from [redacted] with [redacted],' Robbins wrote.

'Because of her [redacted] and [redacted], combined with little arguments she and Brian had been having that day, she was struggling with her mental health, which led to the incident that was reported to law enforcement.'

He added that at 'no point' in his investigation did Gabby 'stop crying, breathing heavily, or compose a sentence without needing to wipe away tears, wipe her nose, or rub her knees with her hands.'

Robbins said that he had seen Petito and Laundrie's van traveling 45mph in a 15mph zone while he tried to catch up to them earlier and activated his lights to initiate a traffic stop.

But upon doing so, he noticed the vehicle abruptly swerve to the right and the rear right wheels hit the curb before finally coming to a stop.

Robbins said Petito later told him that this was a result of her trying to get Laundrie's 'attention to notice me as I was behind them with my lights on' and that she did not intend to hurt him.

But during his conversation with the cop shortly after, Laundrie said that when he noticed police lights flashing behind them, he thought Gabby 'had grabbed the wheel of the van and pulled it, causing the van to hit the curb.'

The report says Laundrie told the officer both he and Gabby suffer from the same problem and that issues between the two 'had been building over the last few days.'

'This in turn, caused them to argue more than usual,' Robbins wrote. 'Brian explained he and Gabrielle have been traveling together for the last four or five months.

'That time spent created emotional strain between them and increased the number of arguments.'

Police on Tuesday revealed they responded to an 'incident' involving 22-year-old 'van-life woman' Gabby Petito and her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie, two weeks before she was last seen

Gabby's family lashed out at the Laundries in a statement Tuesday. 'Brian is refusing to tell Gabby's family where he last saw her. Brian is also refusing to explain why he left Gabby all alone and drove her van to Florida. These are critical questions that require immediate answers.'

Laundrie went on to describe the events leading up to the altercation, saying he and Gabby had gotten into an argument near Main Street and he tried to create space between them 'so they could calm their emotions.'

He said he then got into their van and that Gabby went into a 'manic state.'

'Brian said Gabrielle, thinking he was going to leave her in Moab without a ride, went to slap him,' the report states.

He then pushed her away in an attempt to dodge the hit, but still sustained minor visible scratches to his face.

When questioned about the scratches to his right arm, Brian told Robbins they must've happened when Gabby was trying to alert him that they were being pulled over by police, the report states.

'This, however, was not consistent with Gabrielle's statement, further suggesting her confused and emotional state,' the officer wrote.

Robbins later concluded that he did not believe the situation 'escalated to the level of a domestic assault as much as that of a mental health crisis.'

According to officer, both expressed a 'desire to remain together and ultimately agreed to be separated' with Brian staying in a hotel room and Gabby in the van until the following day.

A statement provided by a second responding officer, Eric Pratt, said he believed the initial witness reported that it was Laundrie who had 'assaulted' Petito.

'It wasn't clear, but I believe it was reported the male had been observed to have assaulted the female,' he wrote.

Laundrie was then assessed to be 'at low risk of danger or harm as a result of his proximity' to Gabby and no charges were filed, Pratt wrote.

Nicole Schmidt, of Long Island, New York, gave a teary-eyed interview to reporters in Bohemia on Monday afternoon about her daughter Gabby Petitio, who has been missing since August 24. Schmidt tells DailyMail.com that on September 10 she texted Brian and his mother Roberta trying to get in touch with Gabby, but neither replied

Cops investigating the disappearance of Gabby Petito say they are not ruling out a link to the double-murder of a young newlywed couple Police investigating the disappearance of 'van-life' woman Gabby Petito have said they are not ruling out a link to the double-murder of a young newlywed couple. Kylen Schulte, 24, and Crystal Turner, 38, were found shot dead near their campsite in the La Sal Mountains in Moab, Utah, on August 18. Their bodies were discovered by a friend after they told several people about a 'creepy man' around their campsite. They were last seen alive on August 13 at Woody's Tavern in Moab - one day after police were called to a nearby incident involving Petito and boyfriend Brian Laundrie on August 12. There are other bizarre connections between the two cases. Kylen Schulte, 24, and Crystal Turner, 38, were found shot dead in Moab, Utah, on August 18 Schulte and Turner were also living in a camper van after marrying four months ago. Schulte had also worked for the last four years at the Moonflower Community Cooperative. The store was identified in the police report detailing the August 12 incident involving Petito and Laundrie. Officers had been called to near the store around 4:30pm that day for a 'possible domestic violence' incident. Utah police said Wednesday they are not ruling out a possible connection between the couple's murder and Petito's disappearance, reported Fox13. 'We're looking at everything,' said a Grand County Sheriff's Office spokesperson. 'I mean, anything and everything that was suspicious around that time or we're not ruling anything out at this time. So we're just investigating the information as it comes in.' Advertisement

On Tuesday, Moab Chief of Police Bret Edge confirmed that cops had responded to an incident involving the pair but they later 'determined that insufficient evidence existed to justify criminal charges,' Fox News reported.

He did not disclose additional details at the time.

Addressing reports of the incident on Wednesday, Gabby's mother, Nichole Schmidt told DailyMail.com: 'It's irrelevant.

'Two people traveling together with each other 24 hours a day, it's not going to be perfect, it was an argument, and that's all I'm going to say about it.'

The family released a statement Wednesday condemning Laundrie as the 'one person that can help find Gabby refuses to help.'

'The Schmidt and Petito family are going through the worst moments of their lives. Their beautiful twenty-two year old daughter is missing and the one person that can help find Gabby refuses to help. Brian Laundrie was traveling with Gabby in the Grand Teton  Yellowstone area. They were traveling together in Gabby's 2012 Ford Transit van. That is where we believe Gabby was last seen.

'Brian is refusing to tell Gabby's family where he last saw her. Brian is also refusing to explain why he left Gabby all alone and drove her van to Florida. These are critical questions that require immediate answers.

'The Schmidt and Petito family beg the Laundrie family to not 'remain in the background' but to help find who Brian referred to as the love of his life. How does Brian stay in the background when he is the one person that knows where Gabby is located?' they said.

'The Schmidt and Petito family implore Brian to come forward and at least tell us if we are looking in the right area.'

Meanwhile, Laundrie's attorney released a statement saying he is 'not speaking on the matter' and 'will continue to remain silent on the advice of counsel.'

'Many people are wondering why Mr. Laundrie would not make a statement or speak with law enforcement in the face of Ms. Petito's absence,' the statement read.

'In my experience, intimate partners are often the first person law enforcement focus their attention on in cases like this and the warning that 'any statement made will be used against you' is true, regardless of whether my client had anything to do with Ms. Petito's disappearance.

'As such, on the advice of counsel Mr. Laundrie is not speaking on the matter.

'I have been informed that the North Port, Florida police have named Brian Laundrie as a 'person of interest' in this matter.

'This formality has not really changed the circumstances of Mr. Laundrie being the focus of attention of law enforcement and Mr. Laundrie will continue to remain silent on the advice of counsel.'

Laundrie was named a person of interest by police Wednesday, who said he 'has not made himself available to be interviewed by investigators or has provided any helpful details.'

Petito, who had been traveling across the country with Laundrie in their camper van since July 2, was last known to have been visiting Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming on August 25.

She was reported missing by her mother on September 11, two weeks after she had last spoken on to her on the phone, and ten days after Laundrie returned to his home in North Port, Florida without her.

Laundrie, who drove to Florida in the van he shared with Petito, has since hired a lawyer and refused to tell Petito's family where she was last seen.

Schmidt sent her daughter's boyfriend and his family desperate texts looking for her but was ignored.

Schmidt said they'd been a couple for a little over two years, but met growing up in Long Island. 'They went to high school together. They were friends. They got back in touch and started dating'

Gabby set out on a cross-country trip July 2 with boyfriend Brian Laundrie in the couple's 2012 Ford Transit van. Brian posted this photo of the couple on Instagram on July 16 at Zion National Park

Schmidt told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview that on September 10 she reached out to Brian and his mother Roberta Laundrie trying to reach her daughter after she had not heard from her.

The gloves are off: Schmidt and Petito want answers 'The Schmidt and Petito family are going through the worst moments of their lives. Their beautiful twenty-two year old daughter is missing and the one person that can help find Gabby refuses to help. Brian Laundrie was traveling with Gabby in the Grand Teton  Yellowstone area. They were traveling together in Gabby's 2012 Ford Transit van. That is where we believe Gabby was last seen. 'Brian is refusing to tell Gabby's family where he last saw her. Brian is also refusing to explain why he left Gabby all alone and drove her van to Florida. These are critical questions that require immediate answers. 'The Schmidt and Petito family beg the Laundrie family to not 'remain in the background' but to help find who Brian referred to as the love of his life. How does Brian stay in the background when he is the one person that knows where Gabby is located? 'The Schmidt and Petito family implore Brian to come forward and at least tell us if we are looking in the right area.' Advertisement

'I texted Brian's mom that I was trying to get in touch with Gabby. I also texted Brian. I got no replies,' Schmidt said.

'I knew something was wrong,' she said. 'I felt something was off and I needed to get her reported missing immediately.'

She went to report Gabby missing later that day but police initially blew her off. The next day, she was allowed to file a report with the Suffolk County police department.

Brian's family have since refused to let authorities interview their son when the van that the couple had traveled in before she disappeared was seized from their property late on Saturday night.

Schmidt said Brian's sister Cassie is the only member of Brian's family who has spoken to authorities.

She said she can't understand why neither Brian nor his parents have reached out to her in the aftermath of her daughter's disappearance.

'It's a very mysterious situation. We don't understand why he's doing this. Everybody's assuming the worst and thinking he's guilty of this. But I don't want to believe that. I want to believe she's just in need of help out there and that everybody needs to keep searching.'

Schmidt described how Brian's parents had been warm and welcoming to Gabby during their relationship. She recalled a time when his mother even knitted her future daughter-in-law gifts for Christmas.

'She loved her like a daughter,' Schmidt said. 'As far as I knew they were all very caring and treated her like one of the family. His mom was so excited about the engagement.'

The distraught mother also clarified that Gabby and Brian had been engaged, but decided to call it off and go back to just dating because they felt they were too young for marriage.

'I think they kind of put that on hold just because they felt it was a little fast. They were excited at first, but then they were like, let's just wait, we're very young. So they were really just boyfriend and girlfriend,' she said.

She said they'd been a couple for a little over two years, but met growing up in Long Island.

'They went to high school together. They were friends. They got back in touch and started dating,' she said.

Brian Laundrie's parents Christopher and Roberta refused to let police speak with their son. He returned to their home on North Port,Florida on September 1

Above is the Laundrie family home in North Port, Florida, where Brian Laundrie returned in the couple's van without Gabby after their trip

In light of the disappearance, Schmidt says she's now viewing everything under a new lens.

'Maybe the relationship wasn't what I thought,' she said.

Schmidt has recently seen photos in the news of Brian's father performing yard work.

'If they cared about her, they would want to find her,' she said. 'Why aren't you out helping find her?'

'I don't want to seem accusatory,' she said. 'It's confusing, my mind is turning right now.'

She's also questioning Brian's trip back to Florida in August to help his father move their things into a storage unit. She wonders why it was necessary to move Gabby's things during their road trip and what became of her stuff.

'Where are her things?' she asked.

Asked why Brian chose to lawyer up, she replied, 'You know I wish I knew that answer, why.'

'I know that's the reason this story is so sought after is because it's odd. The police have said it's very odd. We don't know what's going on, and where is my daughter. I just want to find her.'

Gabby, who grew up in Blue Point, New York, was last seen on August 24 checking out of a hotel with Brian in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The following day she made her final call to her family, telling them that she and Brian had traveled to Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.

Her last Instagram post on August 25, shows her visiting the Monarch Wall in Ogden, Utah with the caption 'Happy Halloween'. The pair were heading from Ogden to Yellowstone National Park, just north of Grand Teton.
Former President Trump was irate when TikTokers pulled a prank on him that left thousands of empty seats at his rally in Oklahoma, calling the event the 'biggest f***ing mistake', according to a new book.

'I shouldn't have ever done that f***ing, f***ing rally,' Trump said at an Oval Office meeting in July 2020, after the rally, according to 'Peril,' a tell-all from The Washington Post's Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.

The book also claims Trump called Brad Parscale a 'f***ing moron.' One month later he fired the campaign manager. The Oklahoma excerpt was first reported by Business Insider.

The June 8, 2020 rally was supposed to be the former president's post-Covid comeback to the campaign trail, but Trump was left speaking to many empty seats after TikTokers and K-pop fans claimed to have reserved hundreds of tickets with no intention of showing up.

'Landslide' by Michael Wolff previously reported a similar Oval Office tantrum from Trump following the rally, which Parcale denied.

'How can you be so stupid? Answer me!' Trump told Parscale, according to Wolff's book.

'The excerpts from Wolfes Trump book are complete bulls***. No one yelled at me about Tulsa. My company has helped crowd build for Trump rallies for 6 years. We have helped build crowds for 600+ rallies, including the last two rallies,' Parscale wrote on Twitter.

'I shouldn't have ever done that f***ing, f***ing rally,' Trump said at an Oval Office meeting in July 2020, after the rally, according to 'Peril'

The June 8, 2020 rally was supposed to be the former president's post-Covid comeback to the campaign trail, but was filled empty seats

The Trump campaign blamed the 'fake news media' for 'warning people away from the rally' over COVID-19

In the hours before the event, crowds seemed significantly lighter than expected at the 19,000 seat BOK Center, and campaign officials scrapped plans for Trump to first address an overflow space. Only 6,200 people attended, according to Tulsa officials.

Trump's campaign later privately admitted that as many as 300,000 of the people who signed up for event were online tricksters. Anyone from anywhere could request a ticket through the campaign's website.

Parscale had set high expectations, tweeting in the week leading up: 'Over 1M ticket requests for the @realDonaldTrump #MAGA Rally in Tulsa on Saturday.'

The Trump campaign blamed the 'fake news media' for 'warning people away from the rally' over COVID-19 and protests against racial injustice around the country.

Ahead of the rally, Tulsa health officials warned there could be a spike in COVID cases from it - several Trump campaign staff members had to quarantine after it due to possible exposure.

Also, the original date of the rally was changed after organizers planned it for same day as the Tulsa race massacre, the 1921 event when mobs of white Tulsans attacked a prosperous black neighborhood, destroying businesses.

Parscale, after the rally, tweeted: 'Radical protestors, fueled by a week of apocalyptic media coverage, interfered with @realDonaldTrump supporters at the rally.'

'They even blocked access to the metal detectors, preventing people from entering. Thanks to the 1,000s who made it anyway!'

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., praised the Zoomers and K-pop allies involved in reserving tickets.

'Actually you just got ROCKED by teens on TikTok who flooded the Trump campaign w/ fake ticket reservations & tricked you into believing a million people wanted your white supremacist open mic enough to pack an arena during COVID Shout out to Zoomers. Y'all make me so proud,' she replied to Parscale.

She added: 'KPop allies, we see and appreciate your contributions in the fight for justice too.'

Zoomer is a nickname for a member of Generation Z.

Political strategist Steve Schmidt, an outspoken critic of Trump, tweeted after the really: 'My 16 year old daughter and her friends in Park City Utah have hundreds of tickets. You have been rolled by America's teens.

'@realDonaldTrump you have been failed by your team. You have been deserted by your faithful. No one likes to root for the losing team.'

He then added: 'This is what happened tonight. I'm dead serious when I say this. The teens of America have struck a savage blow against @realDonaldTrump. All across America teens ordered tickets to this event. The fools on the campaign bragged about a million tickets. lol.'

Dozens of other parents shared similar stories from their own teens on Twitter.

Roberto Quinlan tweeted on Saturday night: 'So my teen daughter, who has Snapchat and TikTok accounts, walked in and said to me "So did it work? Did the teens get all the tickets to the Trump rally?" She's known about this ALL WEEK and I just learned this an hour ago...'

Political scientist Alyssa R. Williams wrote: 'My 17 yr old daughter & friends did the same. I thought she was kidding me on how many teens were on board. Amazing!'

Teresa Moore replied: 'It wasn't just teenagers. I'm 60 and I've got 300 tickets. And I'm an Oklahoma Democrat.'
Two years into his probe into the Russia investigation, Special Counsel John Durham has charged Michael Sussmann, a lawyer with Democratic ties, with lying when he brought information to the top lawyer at the FBI.

Durham, a US attorney who was brought on during the Trump administration and provided protections by former Attorney General Bill Barr, obtained a grand jury indictment of Sussmann, a lawyer with the major law firm of Perkins Coie.

The indictment stems from when Sussmann brought information to the FBI in the fall of 2016, when Sussmann says computer experts brought him information about a potential link between the Trump Organization and Russian Alfa Bank.

According to the indictment, Sussmann 'lied about the capacity in which he was providing the allegations to the FBI' when he met one-on-one with FBI General Counsel James Baker.

Special counsel John Durham (left) told the Justice Department he is seeking to indict Democratic cybersecurity lawyer Michael Sussmann (right) in a case questioning who Sussmann's client was when he initially expressed suspicions to the FBI about Trump's relationship with Russia in September 2016

That prompted to Baker to assume he was acting merely as a 'good citizen' rather than as a 'paid advocate or political operative.'

He stated falsely that he was not doing the work 'for my client,' according to the indictment. Sussmann had handed over three 'white papers' as well as computer files containing evidence of the reported secret channel.

At issue is whether Sussmann was truthful when he stated to Baker that he was not acting on behalf of a client. Perkins Coie also was representing Trump rival Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

Marc Elias, a former lawyer with the firm, retained the company Fusion GPS, which ultimately hired ex British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, who compiled the infamous dossier on Donald Trump.

The indictment notes media reports on a 'mysterious computer back channel' between the Trump Organization and Russia  at a time when Trump was already under heavy scrutiny for his favorable comments about Russian President Vladimir Putin.

But when the FBI investigated it, the allegations did not pan out.

The indictment calls Sussmann's 'lie' a 'material' one, because it 'deprived the FBI of information that might have permitted it more fully to assess and uncover the origins of the relevant data and technical analysis including the identities and motivations of Sussmann's clients.'

It states that Sussmann, a law firm, and a tech executive 'had coordinated' with 'representatives and agents of the Clinton Campaign' about the data and 'written materials that Sussmann gave to the FBI and the media.'

Sussmann represented the Democratic National Committee in connection with 'the hacking of its email servers by the Russian Government,' according to the indictment, and was 'advising the Clinton Campaign in connection with cybersecurity issues.'

The FBI found there was 'insufficient evidence' of such a back channel, and that an email server at issue was not in fact owned or operated by the Trump Organization.

There were not other people present during the Sussmann-Baker meeting that is the source of the lying charge. After the meeting, Baker met with another FBI official, whose notes on their talk said Sussmann 'said not doing this for any client.'

But the notes also said 'Represents DNC, Clinton Foundation, etc.', indicating Sussman did not shield his ties.

Lawyer Michael Sussman was indicted and charged with lying to the general counsel of the FBI about the 'capacity' in which he was sharing information about potential Trump-Russia ties

Special Counsel John Durham brought the indictment two years after he began his probe of alleged FBI misconduct in the Russia probe

It says when Sussmann testified before Congress in 2017, he said he brought the allegations forward 'on behalf of my client.'

Sussmann, a former federal prosecutor, 57, who now works as a partner at the Perkins Coie, which represented the Democratic National Committee when Russia hacked its servers back in 2016.

The indictment alludes to the dossier, which included salacious and unverified allegations about Donald Trump's conduct in a a Moscow hotel room during the Miss Universe pageant in 2013, noting that 'Law Firm-1' 'retained a particular investigative Firm ... to gather information regarding Trump's purported ties to Russia.'

The indictment cites multiple times when Sussmann wrote down in internal billing records that he was working for the Clinton Campaign, although according to press reports the law firm was on retainer with the campaign.

It says a tech company executive gathered information and worked with Sussmann 'with the goal of creating a "narrative" regarding the candidates ties to Russia. It also cites internal communications of tech company staff expressing doubts about the worth of some of the digital information they were gathering at the executive's behest, with some referring to 'holes' in the argument,

Sussmann's lawyers deny the charges, which they termed 'baseless.'

'Michael Sussmann is a highly respected national security and cyber security lawyer, who served the U.S. Department of Justice during Democratic and Republican administrations alike, lawyers Sean Berkowitz and Michael Bosworth said. Any prosecution here would be baseless, unprecedented, and an unwarranted deviation from the apolitical and principled way in which the Department of Justice is supposed to do its work. We are confident that if Mr. Sussmann is charged, he will prevail at trial and vindicate his good name.'

Earlier, Durham told the Justice Department he was seeking to indict the lawyer in a case questioning who Sussmann's client was when he initially expressed suspicions to the FBI about Trump's relationship with Russia in September 2016.

The accusation centered around a meeting Sussmann on September 19, 2016 with James A Baker, the FBI's top lawyer that year, according to people familiar with the matter. As reported by the New York Times they spoke on condition of anonymity.

At the meeting Sussmann allegedly gave the FBI data and analytics from cybersecurity researchers who thought the numbers might be evidence of hush-hush communications between Trump Organization's computer servers and Alfa Bank - a Kremlin-linked Russian financial institution.

The Times reported that the FBI concluded the researchers' concerns had no merit. The special counsel who proceeded Durham, Robert S Mueller III, ignored the matter completely in his final report.

According to The Times investigators are now examining whether Sussmann was secretly working for the Clinton campaign, although he has denied the accusations.

Durham had a deadline of this weekend to bring the accusations to light and set the investigation in motion due to a five-year statute of limitations for such cases.

Sussmann's division at Perkins Coie is separate from the firm's political law group, which represented the Democratic party and the Hillary Clinton campaign, as reported by The Times.

However, an indictment is not guaranteed and on rare occasions grand juries will decline a request such as Durham's.

But Sussmann's lawyers Sean Berkowitz and Michael Bosworth of the firm Latham & Watkins are expecting their client to be indicted, as reported by The Times, and also denied that he made any incorrect statements.

'Mr Sussmann has committed no crime,' they said.

Berkowitz and Bosworth insisted their client was representing the cybersecurity expert he mentioned to the FBI and he was not at the meeting with Baker for anything to do with the Clinton campaign.

The lawyers added: 'Any prosecution would be baseless, unprecedented and an unwarranted deviation from the apolitical and principled way in which the Department of Justice is supposed to do its work.

'We are confident that if Mr Sussmann is charged he will prevail at trial and vindicate his good name.'

Ex-President Donald Trump has long accused the democratic party and Perkins Coie of looking to find unfair suspicions about Trump's supposed ties to Russia. Trump supporters have been notoriously suspicious of Perkins Coie too

Sussmann's lawyers told the Justice Department that he originally organized the 2016 meeting because he and the cybersecurity researchers believed The New York Times was about to publish an article on the Alfa Bank data.

As reported by The Times, Sussmann wanted to give the FBI a heads-up before the paper ran the story which, in fact, they never did. The Times did, however, publish an article mentioning Alfa Bank six weeks later.

Any indictment of the former prosecutor would attract significant political attention, according to The Times, and Durham is using a grand jury to examine Sussmann's data from Alfa Bank.

He has allegedly been on the hunt for any evidence that the numbers were false or skewed but to date there has been no public sign that the data was fabricated.

And while Attorney General Merrick B Garland has the authority to overrule Durham, he did not, according to a spokesman. Garland and his spokesman declined to respond to The Times's request for comment.

The only inconsistency Durham has been able to find to date is that Baker supposedly told investigators he remembered Sussmann telling him he wasn't arranging the meeting on behalf of any client.

Then, in a deposition before Congress in 2017 Sussmann testified otherwise, saying that he sought the meeting on behalf of an unidentified client who was a cybersecurity expert and assisted in data analyzation, as reported by The Times.

Durham later suspiciously acquired internal billing records from Perkins Coie that show Sussmann logged certain hours as working on the Alfa Bank matter and billed the time to Clinton's 2016 campaign. Oddly enough, those working hours did not include the time he spent at the meeting with Baker, according to The Times.

But Sussmann's lawyers argued the billing records were misleading because their client was not charging the cybersecurity expert for work on the Alfa Bank matter. According to The Times he simply needed to show internally that he was working on something.

The Times also noted that Marc Elias, a fellow partner at Perkins Coie who served as the general counsel for the Clinton campaign, did not respond to inquiries and left the firm last month.

Elias allegedly spoke on the Alfa Bank with Sussmann. Elias and the Clinton campaign paid a monthly retainer to Perkins Coie and therefore claimed that Sussmann's logged hours did not result in any additional charges.

When Durham knuckled down on his attempts to indict Sussmann in October 2020, The Times reported that the cybersecurity researcher who originally brought the concerns to Sussmann hired a lawyer - Steven Tyrrell.

Tyrrell told The Times that his client thought Sussmann was representing him at the meeting with Baker. The lawyer didn't reveal the identity of his client for fear of harassment.

'My client is an apolitical cybersecurity expert with a history of public service who felt duty bound to share with law enforcement sensitive information provided to him by DNS (Domain Name System) experts,' Tyrrell told The Times.

He added: 'He sought legal advice from Michael Sussmann who had advised him on unrelated matters in the past and Mr Sussmann shared that information with the FBI on his behalf.

'He did not know Mr Sussmanns law firm had a relationship with the Clinton campaign and was simply doing the right thing.'

Ex-President Donald Trump has long accused the Democratic party and Perkins Coie of looking to find unfair suspicions about Trump's supposed ties to Russia.

Trump supporters have been notoriously suspicious of Perkins Coie too, especially when Elias commissioned a research firm to look into Trump's relationship with Russia on behalf of Democrats.

According to The Times, Durham's team has stirred up more skepticism in recent months after suggesting a theory that the Clinton campaign used Perkins Coie to submit unreliable information to the FBI about Russia and Trump in efforts to hurt his 2016 campaign.
Care home boss Mike Padgham has endured many sleepless nights since the start of the pandemic, battling what has felt like one crisis after another. He will never forget the devastating loss of ten residents in just two weeks when Covid cases first spiked last year.

Nor will he forget the sacrifices his loyal staff made during the lockdowns to prevent it from happening again.

'It was a terrible blow. Those residents were part of our family,' says Mr Padgham  the owner of St Cecilia's Care Services, which has four care businesses in North Yorkshire. 'We've not had another outbreak since but I'm always touching wood.'

At least 39,000 care home residents died during the two deadly waves between April 10, 2020, and the end of March this year.

But as winter and a possible third wave looms, Mr Padgham is now losing sleep over a new crisis  a ticking time bomb of crippling staff shortages.

On November 11, the Government's 'no jab, no job' rule comes into force for care home staff, who, unless medically exempt, had until yesterday to get their first jab to meet the deadline for their second, or lose their jobs. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, however, do not require compulsory vaccination.

Mr Padgham is all for a fully vaccinated workforce but is dreading the prospect of losing those few valued staff who refuse. And he reveals that he is now considering breaking the new law. 'We are stuck between a rock and a hard place,' he says.

'It's the choice between having vaccinated staff or no staff to replace them, which is just as dangerous for our elderly and vulnerable residents. So yes, I am thinking about breaking the rules, for which I could be fined but I could be fined anyway if I breach regulations by not having enough staff.

'It's a bit like being offered the choice to either shoot or stab yourself.'

On November 11, the Government's 'no jab, no job' rule comes into force for care home staff in England, who, unless medically exempt, had until yesterday to get their first jab to meet the deadline for their second, or lose their jobs

Mr Padgham now plans to write to Health Secretary Sajid Javid, asking him to reconsider and to suggest daily testing and enhanced PPE for unvaccinated staff as a better solution. He argues there is 'no logic' to the rule when the sector is already struggling with unfilled vacancies and when there is, as yet, no compulsion on NHS staff, relatives and visitors to care homes to be double-vaccinated.

The Government estimates that its mandatory vaccination policy will result in around 40,000 out of 570,000 care home workers in England  7 per cent  either quitting or being sacked.

It would cost the sector, which is already struggling to fill 100,000-plus vacancies, an estimated 100million to replace them.

Mandatory Covid jabs could be extended to frontline NHS staff following a six-week consultation, it was announced last week.

'We've done everything we can to try and persuade people but in a democracy people have the right to choose,' says Mr Padgham, who is also chairman of the Independent Care Group for York and North Yorkshire which has 200 members.

'I've had sleepless nights about what I'm going to do. I don't want to have to say, 'Thanks for helping me during the pandemic but you're going to have to lose your job now'.'

Mr Padgham already has ten unfilled vacancies and 164 staff. He is hoping to redeploy the four employees who have so far refused the jab rather than sack them.

In an unprecedented move, he has also sent letters to relatives of the 110 residents in his four care homes, appealing to them to help plug the gap. In it he writes: 'We are asking whether, if the worst comes to the worst, you might be able to spare us a few hours to help at the home. You would be paid for your time. In such an emergency, we would redeploy other staff on to caring duties and might, for example, ask you to help with other duties, like reception, serving meals and so on.'

Mr Padgham told the Mail the response had been 'encouraging', but it is far from an adequate solution. In North Yorkshire, there are around 1,000 care vacancies with applications down by 70 per cent.

Mike Padgham, the owner of Saint Cecilia's Care Services which operates four care businesses in Yorkshire, has endured sleepless nights over staff shortages

The Department of Health, however, stands by its approach. 'The vast majority of care staff are already vaccinated and we are focusing on encouraging even more staff to get jabbed,' a spokesman said. 'Our message is clear: vaccines save lives and it is our responsibility to do everything we can to reduce the risk for vulnerable people.'

Last month, a survey of 1,000 care managers by the Institute of Health and Social Care Management, in partnership with the PA news agency, found nine out of ten were experiencing staff shortages or having difficulty recruiting.

A third said some staff had quit over mandatory jabs, while more than half said they feared having to dismiss employees over their refusal to be vaccinated.

The problem is compounded by vaccine hesitancy among some ethnic minorities, who make up 21 per cent of the health and social care workforce. In London this figure is 48 per cent.

Over in the West Midlands, Boldmere Court nursing home  a 68-bed home for residents with complex dementia  faces losing ten of its 120 permanent staff who have so far refused to be vaccinated.

Manager Kerry Jackson, 45, a former intensive care nurse, agrees with mandatory vaccination for workers but says: 'I'm going to lose staff I've worked with for ten years. They are not refusing the jab because they're anti-vax cranks  they're scared.

'There are very deep-rooted cultural reasons and the Government has failed to get the message through to them. As a manager, it's a scary time. These people will go but what is in place to help us replace them?' At Boldmere, 90 day staff all took up the jab after managers laid on seminars about its safety. But ten of its 30 night staff remain unvaccinated.

Mrs Jackson adds: 'We understand their point of view but we also understand the drastic need for the vaccine.

'We can't force people. At Christmas we had staff sleeping on the floor to protect residents and now they're going to be losing their jobs? The relatives of our residents are mortified because these people have been here for years.'

Care home providers say employees reluctant to be vaccinated have expressed safety concerns, while others have refused on principle, upset at feeling coerced.

One Staffordshire care worker, 30-year-old mum Rebecca Parsons, last week spoke of feeling 'blackmailed' into having the jab.

'I just don't want it. I believe in people's choice,' she told the Birmingham Mail. 'I'm almost being emotionally blackmailed to have it to keep the job that I love.'

Quite apart from the 'no jab, no job' rule, the sector is also facing competition from other employers offering more pay and 'golden hellos'. At Wren Hall care home, in Selston, near Nottingham, two staff handed in their notice after being lured in by Amazon's new warehouse nearby.

One care home boss sent letters to relatives of the 110 residents in his four care homes, appealing to them to help plug the gap caused by staff shortages [Stock image]

An evening housekeeper, who was on 9.30 an hour, is now picking orders for the online giant for 13.50 an hour  on top of a 1,000 welcome bonus.

Six other staff at the home, meanwhile, have left for better-paid jobs in the NHS and four quit after refusing a jab.

Managing director Anita Astle says: 'I have worked in the sector for 32 years and I have never experienced difficulties like this before. There's been no recognition by the Government of the numbers of staff leaving our sector and the difficulties recruiting.' Mrs Astle, a director at the National Care Association (NCA), said staff were 'exhausted' after 18 months of unprecedented pressure, adding: 'They've seen people furloughed, they've seen the NHS praised loudly by politicians. Social care workers have had none of this.'

And of Boris Johnson's social care reforms, she believes it will do little to redress the havoc caused by Covid.

Raj Sehgal, who operates four care homes in Norfolk, predicts the 'no jabs, no jobs' rule will be 'another nail in the coffin' for the sector. 'We're already having to deal with the biggest crisis we have ever faced due to lack of staff and this is going to make things even worse,' says Mr Sehgal, 55, of the NCA which represents around 1,000 care providers.

He adds: 'The NHS recruitment campaign during Covid has also lured away many workers. NHS pay rates are far higher.

'Senior carers are on the shortage occupation list meaning we can recruit overseas, but there is a massive hurdle of red tape, bureaucracy and cost involved which many small providers are unable to navigate or afford.'

Mr Sehgal said that he had 102 permanent staff and 15 agency staff around a year ago. But ongoing recruitment problems have left him with a current figure of just 78 permanent staff and 20 from agencies.

One care home saw two staff handin their notice after being lured in by Amazon's new warehouse nearby [File photo]

Prior to Covid, his homes at King's Lynn, Heacham, Hunstanton and Terrington St Clement were operating at 95 per cent occupancy with more than 100 residents but staffing levels have reduced the figure to 80 per cent occupancy  with the prospect of further reductions to come.

Mr Sehgal has two staff members refusing the jab. He said: 'I agree with vaccinations and I understand the need for people to be protected, but where do you draw the line in dictating to people what they must do?

'As providers, we are being put in the position of having to be enforcers, and will be opening ourselves up for tribunal claims and all sorts of things.

'So do we pay them off, or just sack them? There's no guidance.'

Colin Leckey, a partner at global HR lawyers Lewis Silkin, explains: 'The Government has mandated that it will be unlawful for social care workers in England not to be double-vaccinated which gives employers justified grounds for dismissal, if there are no clinical exemptions. However, they must still follow a fair process issuing warnings and final warnings about taking the vaccine and  if the employee still refuses  trying to find an alternative non-client facing job.'

He added that while in other circumstances an employee with protected characteristics (and two years' service) might claim unfair dismissal on grounds of discrimination, the Government's legal mandate means employers have a justifiable reason for dismissal if they refuse to be jabbed, regardless of an employee's cultural, personal or religious beliefs.

Barbara Korzeniowska, a trustee of a not-for-profit 36-bed care home in greater London, says that she is 'distressed' at the prospect of losing seven of her 50 permanent staff.

She says: 'These are staff we value, who worked throughout the pandemic. All bar one caught Covid and some have had it twice, so they think they have antibodies and they are all tested every day anyway.

'People's gut reaction is to say 'they should be vaccinated' and that's my gut reaction too but you have to respect other people's views.'

And she believes that a better solution would have been to make vaccination a mandatory condition of employment for new recruits only, adding: 'We can take residents without the vaccine, accept their relatives without the vaccine, but [must] sack the valued staff we know are good? I boil over when I think of this.'

Susan Mckinney, of Wellburn Care Homes which owns 14 homes across the North East, says that even without compulsory vaccination, 'people just don't want to work in care in general', adding: 'If they can get an extra 1 an hour working somewhere else like Amazon then they will.'

Berenice Groves, chairman of the board of trustees at the Charlotte Straker Project, a charity which runs a care home in Corbridge, Northumberland, agrees. 'We struggle to keep workers because of the restricted salaries,' she says. 'We all pulled together during the pandemic. At the time, people didn't have an exterior life due to lockdown. Some felt they'd worked really hard and now they have had enough.

'We don't have people queuing up to come and work for us.'
Allison Langdon has clashed with Scott Morrison for 'blindsiding' France with its new nuclear deal with the US and the UK - as he hit back at her claims the alliance was a '$2billion mistake'.

The prime minister announced on Thursday a plan to build nuclear-powered submarines as part of the historic AUKUS security pact with the UK and the US.

The deal means the federal government will scrap a $90billion deal to build 12 conventional submarines with French-based company Naval Group.

The Today show co-host said reports the French only found out about the deal through the media were 'pretty shabby'.

Scott Morrison with French president Emmanuel Macron. The Morrison government has been accused of 'blindsiding' France with its secret nuclear alliance

'We just heard from the French and they claim they were blindsided - that they read about it on an Australian news site,' she said on Friday morning.

'Pretty shabby way to treat an ally.'

The EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell claims he wasn't consulted on plans to terminate the deal, nor was he aware of Australia's new alliance with the UK and the US.

Mr Morrison hit back at Langdon labelling the move a '$2billion' mistake, despite the cost of abandoning the deal with Naval Group being estimated at $2.4billion.

'I don't see it like that Ally,' he responded abruptly. 'The decision that was taken in 2016 was those were the best submarines we could get access to.

'But now we can go further. This has helped us to get to where we are today and it will help us with the project ahead.'

Mr Morrison said reports that the French weren't told about the deal were untrue and that he, Defence Minister Peter Dutton and Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne had all informed their French counterparts about the change of plan.

'There had been an ongoing process for some months and it began with the dinner I had with [French] President Macron back in late June,' the prime minister said.

Allison Langdon said reports the French found out about the change of plan through the media was a 'pretty shabby way' to treat one of Australia's closest allies, but Mr Morrison denied the claims

French contractor Naval Group overnight meanwhile expressed 'major disappointment' over the federal government's decision to abandon the deal to build 12 conventional submarines.

In a statement, Naval Group confirmed the federal government had decided not to continue with the next phase of the Attack Class program which was also based in Adelaide.

'This is a major disappointment for Naval Group, which was offering Australia a regionally superior conventional submarine with exceptional performances,' the company said.

China has vastly built up its military in the past few years and now possesses six Shang-class nuclear powered attack submarines, equipped with torpedoes and cruise missiles. This graphic shows a comparison of the two militaries

'Naval Group was also offering Australia a sovereign submarine capability making unrivalled commitments in terms of technology transfer, jobs and local content.'

The company said its teams in both France and Australia, as well as its partners, had given their best and had delivered on all their commitments over the past five years.

It said analysis of the consequences of the Australian decision would be conducted with the commonwealth in the coming days.

Under the terms of the Naval Group deal, construction work on the first of the Attack Class submarines had been expected to start in the next few years with the first of the subs scheduled to enter service in the early 2030s.
Britain's daily Covid cases and deaths fell again today in another sign that the return of schools has not triggered a fresh wave of the epidemic.

Department of Health statistics showed another 26,911 infections were recorded in the last 24 hours, down from 38,013 last Thursday. It marked the eighth day in a row that cases have fallen week-on-week.

Today's figures do not include data from Scotland because of a 'technical issue', but going by yesterday's figures the general downward trend would be unchanged.

And in another promising sign that the outbreak is shrinking, the number of deaths across the UK dropped by five per cent after 158 fatalities were recorded.

Latest hospitalisations for England showed they had fallen 10 per cent in a week after 701 people were admitted to hospital with the virus on September 14, the latest available. There were no figures for the UK published today.

Separate data revealed 92 per cent of England's local authorities had seen their outbreak shrink in the latest week.

The figures came on the back of warnings from some scientists who feared the return of schools was dangerous and would trigger a huge surge in Covid cases.

Scotland saw its infections spiral to record highs in the wake of pupils returning to the classroom, but its cases are now also dropping week-on-week. Most schools in England, Wales and Northern Ireland went back on September 1.

Professor Paul Hunter, an epidemiologist at the University of East Anglia, said: 'It does look like those strongly expressed views that we would see a surge in infections after schools went back has not turned out to be the case.'

It has been suggested that high antibody levels in youngsters may be keeping the virus at bay. Nearly nine in 10 people in the UK aged 16 to 24 have Covid antibodies, according to official estimate.

Rates will also start rising quickly in 12 to 15-year-olds next week, when the jab rollout opens to them for the first time.

ENGLAND: The above graph shows Covid cases in England by date reported. It reveals that they are still sliding in the country a fortnight after children returned to school

 Slide me  Public Health England's weekly surveillance report revealed only 11 of 149 authorities saw outbreaks grow in the week ending September 12. The percentage change in the 149 local authorities across England in the week ending September 5 (left) and the most recent week ending September 12 (right)

SCOTLAND: The above graph shows Covid cases in Scotland by date reported. The country has not reported its Covid cases today due to a 'technical issue', although going by yesterday's data the downward trend would be unchanged

WALES: The above graph shows Covid cases in Wales by date reported. These have also started to level off in the country amid the return of schools

NORTHERN IRELAND: The above graph shows cases in the UK nation by date reported. It reveals that they have started to dip in Northern Ireland, although they remain at a high level

The Covid Symptom Study estimated 47,276 people in the UK were catching the virus every day in the week to September 11. This was a drop of nine per cent on the same time the previous week

Vaccines saved more than 100,000 lives and prevented nearly 250,000 hospital admissions, PHE says England's Covid vaccine rollout has saved more than 100,000 lives and stopped nearly quarter of a million hospital admissions, according to official figures. Public Health England estimates the jabs stopped up to 230,800 adults over the age of 45 being hospitalised. Some 178,900 hospitalisations were prevented among those aged over 65, it said. Meanwhile, around 51,900 people aged 45 to 64 did not need hospital care because they were immunised. Estimates for the number of deaths prevented by vaccinations in England stands at 112,300, PHE said. The figures were calculated by PHE and Cambridge University based on data up to September 5. Some 89 per cent of all people aged 16 and over in England have now received one dose of vaccine, while 81 per cent are fully vaccinated. Vaccine take-up continues to be lower among younger age groups, however. Some 83 per cent of 30 to 39-year-olds in England have now had one jab, along with just 73 per cent of people aged 18 to 29. Advertisement

The Office for National Statistics, which carried out blood tests on youngsters across the UK's four nations, found between 87 and 89 per cent of them had antibodies that help fight the virus. The presence of coronavirus antibodies suggests someone has been infected in the past or has been vaccinated, and therefore has some immunity.

Experts have said the figures may offer proof that the virus has started to become endemic, with Britain no longer in a fragile state where cases could explode at any point. Instead, Covid will come in waves as immunity gradually fades.

Britain recorded another 26,911 Covid cases today, although this number did not include Scotland because of 'technical issues'.

But looking at yesterday's figures, it suggests that cases would still be trending downwards today if Scotland's were included.

Another 158 deaths were also posted today, nine fewer than the same time last week.

A message from Public Health Scotland posted on their dashboard read: 'Daily data on new cases, tests, ICU admissions and vaccinations will not be refreshed today due to a technical issue affecting the availability of the data.

'Today's update will include figures for today.'

PHE data revealed Covid cases continued to grow in just 11 parts of the country between September 6 and 12.

Newcastle upon Tyne saw the biggest surge in the country, with cases rising by 11.1 per cent. It was followed by Northumberland (10.3 per cent) and Leicester (9.5 per cent).

Local outbreaks also pushed case numbers up in the rest of Leicestershire (5 per cent), Oldham (4.6 per cent), Blackpool (3.1 per cent) and Coventry (1.4 per cent).

Meanwhile, tiny increases in infection rates were spotted in Middlesbrough (0.9 per cent), Redcar and Cleveland (0.8 per cent), Southend-on-Sea (0.8 per cent) and Calderdale (0.4 per cent).

At the other end of the scale, data showed infections more than halved in West Berkshire (down 54.2 per cent) and Gloucestershire (down 52.7 per cent).

Cases also fell in South Gloucestershire (down 49.5 per cent), Bristol (down 49.4 per cent) and Swindon (down 48.9 per cent).

PHE data showed cases fell at a national level and in all nine regions of the country, in a marked change from last week when increased slightly in every area apart from the South West.

The North-East had the highest rate, with 370 cases per 100,000 people in the seven days to September 12.

Meanwhile, they were the lowest in London, where 212 per 100,000 people tested positive last week.

But with large numbers returning to offices last week and Transport for London experiencing its busiest day since before the pandemic, cases in the capital could rise in the coming weeks, experts fear.

Experts had warned cases in England were likely to soar as pupils returned to classrooms last week.

Scotland experienced its highest ever spike in infections after schools resumed last month, according to official figures.

But a similar spike has not yet appeared south of the border.

Cases among five to nine-year-olds were on the rise. But they dropped in all other age groups.

Meanwhile, those aged 80 and over were least likely to have the virus last week, with just 105 per 100,000 testing positive.

So far, 6.2million people have tested positive since the beginning of the pandemic, but the actual figure is thought to be much higher, as not everyone who catches the virus takes a test.

In response to the findings, Dr Yvonne Doyle, medical director of PHE said: 'There are still high levels of infection in the community.

'We are in a much better place today to deal with the virus than we were a year ago, but we must not be complacent.

'The vaccines are the best defence we have against the virus so please make sure to get protected.

'Those over 50 and the clinically vulnerable will be offered a third primary dose six months after their second dose and 12-15-year-olds can have one dose to help protect themselves and their families.

'It is important to keep following the simple steps to help protect yourself and others.

'Wear a face covering in enclosed spaces, stay at home if you feel unwell and get a PCR test as soon as possible if you have any Covid symptoms.'

King's College London scientists and experts from health data science company ZOE found cases were rising among 0 to 18-year-olds, but falling in all other age groups

When breaking the country down by regions they found that cases were remaining flat in most areas. Infections fell in the Midlands, South East, London, East of England and South West last week, they said

Separate figures from Test and Trace suggested Covid cases rose nine per cent last week, after it recorded more than 205,000 cases in the week to September 8

The above graph shows Covid cases among people who have received two doses of the Covid vaccine (red line) and the population (blue line). Almost 90 per cent of over-16s have already received one dose of the jab

Almost 90% of 16 to 24-year-olds now have Covid antibodies, data says Nearly nine in 10 people in the UK aged 16 to 24 have Covid antibodies, according to official estimates. The Office for National Statistics, which carried out blood tests on youngsters across the UK's four nations, found between 87 and 89 per cent of them had antibodies that help fight the virus. The presence of coronavirus antibodies suggests someone has been infected in the past or has been vaccinated. However, they are not a perfect measure of whether a person is protected against Covid, as other parts of the immune response are involved in fighting the virus, such a T-cells. The steady increase seen across the UK has coincided with the rollout of Covid vaccine to younger age groups. First doses of vaccine have been available to teenagers aged 16 and 17 for several weeks, while all over-18s have been eligible for a jab since June. And with the first over-12s being given the vaccine from September 22, a similar surge in antibodies could be seen among this age group. But levels are falling among older age groups, who were the first to get the jab when the rollout began last December. Ministers hope its booster programme for over-50s, vulnerable Britons and frontline health workers, will keep immunity high heading into winter. Advertisement

The King's College London study also offered more proof that the country has still yet to suffer a Scotland-style spike in cases following the return of millions of pupils to schools, despite gloomy warnings that a sizeable uptick was inevitable. Children have now been back in classrooms for over a fortnight.

King's researchers, who work alongside health-tech firm ZOE, also estimated cases had fallen by around 13 per cent in Scotland, which saw daily infections spiral to a record-high in the wake of schools returning.

Professor Tim Spector, who runs the study, warned Covid levels remain high in the country, and that face masks and social distancing should be brought back in to help control the spread of the virus.

Boris Johnson is hoping to rely on booster vaccines and jabs for 12 to 15-year-olds to keep the virus in check this winter, but has admitted face masks and WFH guidance could be brought back if Covid hospitalisations spiral out of control.

Professor Spector once again called on health officials to recognise more symptoms of Covid becasue jabs have helped morph the virus into what feels like a bad cold for the majority who get infected.

He said: 'Sticking to the classic three (cough, fever and a loss of sense of taste or smell) ignores the fact that now most people experience symptoms like sore throat, headache and sneezing rather than fever or cough.

'I also don't understand why we are waiting for the situation to get worse and the NHS is pressured further before implementing simple measures that would help to bring down the number of new cases and save lives.

'With such high levels of virus in the population we should also still be wearing masks and keeping our distance in crowded public places, as in major European cities where cases are much lower than ours.'

Experts have previously warned that the symptom study  also run by health data company ZOE  is becoming less reliable because the change in symptoms has meant it is unable to pick out Covid infections from other viruses.

It comes as official estimates suggest today that nearly nine in 10 people in the UK aged 16 to 24 have Covid antibodies.

The Office for National Statistics, which carried out blood tests on youngsters across the UK's four nations, found between 87 and 89 per cent of them had antibodies that help fight the virus.

The presence of coronavirus antibodies suggests someone has been infected in the past or has been vaccinated.

However, they are not a perfect measure of whether a person is protected against Covid, as other parts of the immune response are involved in fighting the virus, such a T-cells.

In England, 88.7 per cent of 16 to 24-year-olds have Covid antibodies, according to estimates from the ONS based on a random sample of the population (green lines). Figures for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are similar. And all four nations are seeing a drop in antibody levels among older people, who were the first to be offered the vaccine earlier this year. The graphs also show that antibodies levels coincide with the different age groups getting the vaccine (light and dark blue lines), with rates among young people rising in recent months, while there was a much sharper increase among older people earlier this year when they were offered Covid vaccines

The graph shows the proportion of over-16s in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland who tested positive for Covid antibodies between December 7 and August 23. Rates were highest in England (93.6 per cent), followed by Scotland (93.3 per cent), Northern Ireland (91.9 per cent) and Wales (91.2 per cent). The graphs also show the proportion of the population who have received at least one vaccine (light blue line) and two jabs (dark blue line)

The ONS modelled the percentage of adults who have Covid antibodies based on blood samples taken across the four UK nations and in different age groups. In England and Scotland, antibody levels were the highest among younger groups who have more recently been given the jabs, while figures for Wales and Northern Ireland were less certain (shown through wider black lines, indicating less confidence around the figures). But lower levels of antibodies was spotted older age groups across each country

Life expectancy falls to lowest level in a DECADE due to Covid pandemic Life expectancy in England reached its lowest level in a decade because of the Covid pandemic, official figures have revealed. Public Health England (PHE) claimed the 'very high level' of excess deaths in 2020 caused by the pandemic saw life expectancy in men to drop by 1.3 years to 78.7. For women, the rate dropped 0.9 years to 82.7. This is the lowest since 2011 for both genders, according to the Government agency's Health Profile for England report. And the gap in how long people live based on deprivation reached the highest ever recorded, which it said demonstrated that the pandemic 'exacerbated existing inequalities'. Men living in the least deprived areas can expect to live a decade longer than those in the run-down boroughs, while the difference for women is 8.5 years. And there was differences across the country, with London seeing the biggest fall in life expectancy. The South West and East of England saw the smallest drops. Since the virus hit the UK last year, almost 120,000 people in England have died within 28 days of testing positive for the Covid. Advertisement

It comes as official estimates suggest today that nearly nine in 10 people in the UK aged 16 to 24 have Covid antibodies.

The Office for National Statistics, which carried out blood tests on youngsters across the UK's four nations, found between 87 and 89 per cent of them had antibodies that help fight the virus.

The presence of coronavirus antibodies suggests someone has been infected in the past or has been vaccinated.

However, they are not a perfect measure of whether a person is protected against Covid, as other parts of the immune response are involved in fighting the virus, such a T-cells.

The steady increase seen across the UK has coincided with the rollout of Covid vaccine to younger age groups.

First doses of vaccine have been available to teenagers aged 16 and 17 for several weeks, while all over-18s have been eligible for a jab since June.

And with the first over-12s being given the vaccine from September 22, a similar surge in antibodies could be seen among this age group.

But levels are falling among older age groups, who were the first to get the jab when the rollout began last December.

Antibodies are proteins that the immune system makes in response to any virus in order to help the body fight if off in future.

It takes two to three weeks for them to develop after either catching the virus or getting vaccinated.

They then remain in the blood  helping to stop someone getting the same infection again and suppress severe symptoms if they do  but drop over time.

But testing positive for antibodies does not make someone completely immune, and people who have them can still get sick.

Scientists say antibody levels dip naturally after peaking in the weeks following an infection or first vaccine, and people may not have detectable levels of antibodies now  even if they did so earlier in the year.

And people who test negative for antibodies may still be protected  there are other types of ways the immune system can fight off pathogens.

But the dipping levels of antibodies add to a growing body of research that suggests protection from vaccines wanes over time.

This led officials to announce this week that vulnerable Britons will be offered booster vaccines from six months after their second jab.
Four men were arrested and up to 100 mourners were moved on from a Muslim funeral in Sydney's west that breached lockdown restrictions on how many people could attend.

The funeral on Wednesday at Rookwood Cemetery coincided with two other burials in the same part of the facility, with police responding to reports 80 to 100 people had gathered to pay their respects.

Under Sydney's current lockdown laws, only 10 people are permitted at a funeral, whether indoors or outdoors. Additionally, the attendees can only be close family members of the deceased, such as a spouse, partner, parent, child or sibling.

It's understood a number of mourners stayed in parked cars so they could watch the burials from afar.

Police then arrived in 10 vehicles and knocked on car windows, asking mourners to leave, witnesses told The Guardian.

Mourners said police arrived in 10 vehicles and quickly began asking people to move on, including some mourners watching the funeral from parked cars

Sydney's Rookwood Cemetery, where up to 100 mourners at a Muslim funeral were dispersed by NSW Police on Wednesday

One mourner, Anwar Elahmad, told the ABC one of those being buried as his wife's uncle, who had contracted Covid-19 six weeks ago. He said he approached officers to allow the burial to go ahead.

'I informed him  that's it's our religious obligation to give our dead a speedy burial, and I pleaded him to use his discretion and allow the burial to go ahead,' Mr Elahmad said.

'My mother-in-law, the sister of the deceased, was standing in the car park  she was also asked to leave, not even allowed to sit in our car and watch from the car and threatened with being arrested.'

Mr Elahmad said he thought police were treating his community unjustly in comparison with other parts of Sydney.

'I find it extremely unfair considering what happened at the beach the weekend before no masks, no heavy handedness by police,' he said.

'I find it disgusting and I find it un-Australian.

'There's no compassion, no mercy, there's no empathy for us  the majority of people dying are from our areas, why can't they increase it to 15 or 20 [people] because we have very large families.'

Another mourner, Kieran O'Halloran, told The Guardian the police actions were 'disproportionate.

'The way they acted was despicable. They showed no sensitivity to the fact it was a funeral and had no reverence for the cemetery.'

Officers from Auburn, Burwood, Bankstown and Campsie stations, and the riot squad, attended the cemetery, NSW Police said.

Four men were arrested after they refused to leave when directed, police alleging that one man became aggressive and threatened an officer.

The man was charged with intimidation of police, use of offensive language in public and a failure to comply with public health orders. He was refused bail and appeared at Burwood local court yesterday.

Three other were handed fines.

Some mourners said their treatment was 'unfair' and 'un-Australian' compared to how lockdown rules had been enforced in Sydney's beachside suburbs

The Lebanese Muslim Association reacted to the police action with an angry statement on Friday.

'The complete cultural and religious ignorance of local police officers reinforces the division that have played minorities in southwest and western Sydney... it is a complete disgrace,' the statement read.

'For daring to observe the rights of a loved one.... we cannot continue to be treated like everything we do is suspicious or in breach of public health orders or a crime.

'Politicians must take an active role in countering these behaviours and not feeding in narrative division and insuring a fair go is given to everyone.'

NSW Health reaffirmed that the 10-person limit at funerals is designed to prevent people from different households mixing, reducing the chance of spread of the virus.
A mother whose six-year-old daughter died in a buggy crash during a playdate at a family friend's farm has shared the final five words the pair exchanged.

Yana Stevens dropped off her daughter Olivia at the farm at Rosedale, in the Gippsland region, Victoria, on Saturday afternoon.

Ms Stevens waved goodbye before her daughter said the last five words her mother would ever hear: 'Bye mum, I'll be fine'.

The six-year-old and six other children - all aged under 10 - later squeezed onto a four-seater buggy for an off-road joyride before the vehicle flipped and rolled in a paddock.

Olivia sustained critical injuries and was flown by helicopter to hospital but sadly she later died.

A mother whose six-year-old daughter (pictured, Olivia) died in a buggy crash during a playdate at a family friend's farm has shared the final five words the pair exchanged

Yana Stevens dropped off her daughter Olivia at the farm at Rosedale, in the Gippsland region, Victoria, on Saturday afternoon

The driver Damien Gibson, 33, has been charged with culpable driving, dangerous driving causing death, reckless conduct endangering life and recklessly causing injury over the crash.

A shattered Ms Stevens described the incident as a 'nightmare' saying her life 'would never be the same'.

'It just doesn't make sense. In the split of a second, a life can be gone. It is unbelievable. I just don't understand why this was thrown at us,' she told Herald Sun.

Mr Gibson and his partner Abby own the farm and the pair are close friends to the Stevens family.

Their third eldest daughter Emily met Olivia while in kindergarten. The families regularly held barbecues and went on camping and snow trips together.

Mr Gibson bought the off-road buggy to move wood around the property. The children were not wearing helmets during the joyride.

Ms Stevens said she had no idea the children would be going for a ride on the buggy and said she could not understand why they were allowed on the vehicle.

While she still 'loved' the family she admitted it was too difficult to face them at this time.

Ms Gibson said the family was 'heartbroken' and that the incident had taken a devastating toll on them with the

Olivia Stevens (pictured) was tragically killed in a buggy crash in Victoria's Gippsland area

She said her husband had not left the couch and that he was not eating or sleeping.

Ms Stevens described her daughter as sassy and cheeky and said she planned to become a dentist like her mother.

'The whole family is shattered. I don't know if we will ever be the same. The house is quiet without her... I want justice,' Ms Stevens told The Herald Sun.

Ms Stevens, who emigrated to Australia from Eastern Europe, and her husband are a well-known young family in the Gippsland region, running a dental practice Heyfield.

The tragedy has left the community shocked, with Olivia's gymnastics teacher Regan McDonald describing her as outgoing and friendly.

'She was very kind hearted and willing to give everything a go,' Ms McDonald said.

'She had the cutest little laugh and told some really good jokes. It was heartbreaking to hear she didn't make it.'

Olivia had been visiting the farm of family friends (pictured: with her father Scott and her mother Yana)

Mr Gibson appeared in Sale Magistrate's Court on Monday via video with his arm in a sling after he was also injured in the crash.

He is also well-known in the Gippsland region as managing director of fertiliser company Gibson's Groundspread.

Mr Gibson has been charged by Major Collision Investigation Unit detectives with culpable driving, dangerous driving causing death, reckless conduct endangering life and recklessly causing injury over the crash.

Detective Sergeant Roz Wilson said the investigation was still being carried out.

'It's quite tragic in a small community to have families involved in such an incident. These vehicles are not toys and can be a lethal weapon,' she said.

'We'll be looking at what safety measures - in relation to seatbelts and helmets - were put in place, and the manner in which the vehicle was driving.'

'We're still investigating the circumstances as to why so many people were on this vehicle.'

The driver Damien Gibson, 33, has been charged with culpable driving, dangerous driving causing death, reckless conduct endangering life and recklessly causing injury over the crash

Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner Glenn Weir said the crash - one of a number of fatal vehicle collisions over the weekend in the state - would have reverberate through the community.

'Every one of those lives lost could have been avoided,' Asst Comm Weir said.

'All those families are going to be changed forever. Those small communities affected,' he said.

Tributes to the little girl had begun to flow online by Sunday.

'There are no words. Big hugs to you and your family,' one person wrote.

'Precious girl,' added another.

Locals added that in such a close community emergency services officers who attended the scene would have likely known the family involved.

Mr Gibson will next appear in court in January for a committal mention.
The BBC is braced for a battle over the future of the licence fee after Nadine Dorries was made the new Culture Secretary.

The minister, who took over from Oliver Dowden in this week's Cabinet reshuffle, appears likely to play hardball in future negotiations  having once described state-run television as 'more in keeping with a Soviet-style country'.

Her appointment comes at a critical time for the broadcaster amid ongoing talks about what level the licence fee should be set at for the next five years.

There has also been a row over the appointment of Jess Brammar  who has posted tweets critical of Brexit and the Government in the past  to a senior role in BBC News.

The BBC's director-general Tim Davie said yesterday that he was yet to speak to the new minister but hoped they could have a 'grown-up' dialogue.

While Miss Dorries, who will oversee the BBC in her new role, has yet to comment on her appointment, she has been open about her opinions in the past.

The BBC is braced for a battle over the future of the licence fee after Nadine Dorries (pictured) was made the new Culture Secretary

In 2014, she backed a campaign to decriminalise non-payment of the licence fee, writing on her blog that state-run television was 'outdated'. She wrote: 'Such a structure of payment and aggressive persecution would be more in keeping in a Soviet-style country.'

On Twitter, she has accused the BBC of being 'a biased Left-wing organisation' which favours 'often hypocritical and frequently patronising views that turn people away'.

Mr Davie voiced frustration yesterday at the high turnover in culture secretaries, pointing out that there have been ten in the past decade.

The BBC's director-general Tim Davie said yesterday that he was yet to speak to the new minister but hoped they could have a 'grown-up' dialogue [Stock image]

He told a Royal Television Society audience that he wanted 'a really serious dialogue with government' about the BBC's long-term future.

He added: 'There's some good quality people in government and we'll have constructive conversations.'

Miss Dorries, whose first engagement in her new role was to visit the reopened Natural History Museum in London, was backed by fellow Cabinet minister Ben Wallace yesterday.

He said that as a best-selling author  her first novel The Four Streets sold 100,000 ebook copies  she would be a 'solid and capable' minister.

The Defence Secretary added: 'She produces culture people buy and actually want to see, rather than some of the more crackpot schemes we've seen being funded in the past by taxpayers' money.'
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Satellite images show the exact moment a B-2 Spirit stealth bomber, one of the most deadly weapons in the United States' military arsenal and worth $2billion, crash landed at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri yesterday.

Sources said the B-2 experienced a hydraulic failure during a routine training and had its port main landing gear collapse during landing. As a result, the B-2 was sent off the runway with its wing dug into the ground.

While it hasn't been confirmed this was the cause, satellite images seem to coincide with theory of the gear collapse/wing down aspect of the incident.

Satellite images show the exact moment a B2 Spirit stealth bomber, one of the most deadly weapons in the United States' military arsenal and worth $2billion, was damaged after an emergency landing at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri yesterday

Sources said the B-2 experienced a hydraulic failure during a routine training and had its port main landing gear collapse during landing. As a result, the B-2 was sent off the runway with its wing dug into the ground

While it hasn't been confirmed this was the cause, satellite images seem to coincide with theory of the gear collapse/wing down aspect of the incident

Nobody was injured and there was no fire once the bomber landed.

The incident involving the B-2 happened around 12.30am and unfolded in a temporary flight restriction six miles in all directions and 8,000ft from the ground up set by the Federal Aviation Administration.

The FAA said that the the restriction would allow 'to provide a safe environment for an accident investigation' and is set to be lifted September 17 at 8pm.

Only 21 B-2 bombers have ever been manufactured, and there are only 20 remaining after one crashed in Guam in 2008.

It is not know yet to what degree the B2 bomber at Whiteman Base sustained damage. The aircraft has been stationed at the base since 1993, according to KMBC.

Three other B-2s from Whiteman were part of a successfully joined operation with the Norwegian government and deployed to Iceland earlier this year.

A B2 Spirit stealth bomber was damaged after an emergency landing at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri today (File picture)

A temporary flight restriction six miles in all directions and 8,000ft from the ground up has been issued

'A U.S. Air Force B-2 Spirit experienced and [sic] in-flight malfunction during a routine training mission and was damaged on the runway at Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, after an emergency landing,' said Air Force Global Strike Command said to The Drive.

'The incident is under investigation and more information will be provided as it becomes available,' they added.

The B-2 is manufactured with materials that could become highly toxic if exposed to an accident, the outlet reported.

Spanning an imposing 170 feet and capable of unleashing awesome destruction, the B-2 Spirit aircraft are capable of carrying either conventional or nuclear warheads.

The model was developed under the Advanced Technology Bomber during Jimmy Carter's administration.

The only crash reported of a B-2 bomber happened in 2008, when one aircraft of the model was departing from Guam.

The B-2 is manufactured with materials that could become highly toxic if exposed to an accident, the outlet reported. (File picture) A B-2 Spirit bomber deployed from Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, conducts aerial refueling near Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii

At the time of the crash no munitions were on board and the two pilots survived the accident. All remaining 20 B2 were kept from flying for almost two months until an investigation was conducted.

It was found that the crash had been caused by heavy rains that affected sensors in charge of calculating speed and altitude.

In August, two B-2s from Whiteman joined other aircraft flying over the North Sea as part of a Bomber Task Force deployment.

The B-2s landed in the Keflavik Air Base in Iceland and as part of the joined operation with the Norwegian government also deployed to the UK.

'The mission demonstrates the value of our continued presence and relationships,'

'What our collective Airmen accomplish on these missions is vital to our alliance and maintaining agility as we move into the future,' said Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigian, U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa commander.

A B-2 Spirit from the 509th Bomb Wing lifts off of the runway as part of a training mission at Whiteman Air Force Base in 2013

The incident involving the B-2 happened around 12.30am at Whiteman Base's only runway

A B-2 Spirit assigned to @Whiteman_AFB conducts air refueling operations with an @RAFMildenhall KC-135 Stratotanker over the Atlantic. U.S. forces operate across the globe, remaining flexible and agile for rapid response to changes in operational environments.@AFGlobalStrike pic.twitter.com/JRe7L4AoVL  U.S. Air Force (@usairforce) September 12, 2021

An user on Twitter highlighted that if the B2 had sustained irreparable damage during today's accident, it would leave the Air Force with just 19 remaining aircrafts of the model.

'So that takes us down to 19 of them then...I guess we still have 19 more than everyone else so we're probably doing ok,' they wrote.

The B2 Spirit stealth bomber was designed during the Cold War as the world's first ever 'low-observable or 'stealth' strategic bomber.'

It can deliver both conventional and nuclear ammunition, and brings massive firepower to bear anywhere on the globe through previously impenetrable defenses, according to Military.com.

Because of its small size, it's an strategic weapon to filter and penetrate air defenses.

Many details about the B2 design remain classified and have not been revealed to the public, but it is known that the model has a crew of two pilots.
To say the French are furious about being elbowed out of a lucrative contract to supply submarines to Australia is the understatement of the year.

They are incandescent.

Foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said yesterday that he felt he had been 'stabbed in the back' by Washington and London over the 'unacceptable' deal that means the loss of the 48billion order to build 12 diesel-powered submarines for the Royal Australian Navy.

We can only imagine how president Emmanuel Macron  who sees himself as a cross between Napoleon and Jupiter, the supreme Roman god  must be feeling.

After all, it was only in June that Macron hosted Australian prime minister Scott Morrison at the Elysee Palace.

But now Macron finds his country not only billions of pounds short  but also locked out of a key initiative by Western powers to build a bulwark against China.

To say the French are furious about being elbowed out of a lucrative contract to supply submarines to Australia is the understatement of the year. They are incandescent. Above: French president Emmanuel Macron

It is a deeply humiliating development for the leader of the EU's only nuclear state which has one of the biggest military-industrial complexes in the world.

You Britons would not be human, of course, if you didn't feel some smidgeon of schadenfreude at president Macron's predicament.

His loathing of Brexit  he once described the UK's decision to leave the EU as a 'crime'  has turned him into one of your most troublesome 'allies'.

At times, his fits of pique have seen him guilty of outrageous calumny.

Infuriated by Britain's successful Covid vaccine rollout  while France and the rest of the EU were scrabbling to acquire supplies  he wrongly suggested that the UK's AstraZeneca jab was 'quasi-ineffective' among the over-65s.

Foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said yesterday that he felt he had been 'stabbed in the back' by Washington and London over the 'unacceptable' deal that means the loss of the 48billion order to build 12 diesel-powered submarines for the Royal Australian Navy

But after observing the catastrophic effect this had on vaccine confidence in Europe, he performed a spectacular U-turn, announcing he would go to court to prevent AstraZeneca supplies manufactured in the EU being exported to the UK.

Mr Macron has also been one of the most vocal European leaders to insist that the UK must stick to the letter of the Northern Ireland Protocol, despite the obvious difficulties it was creating, not least in terms of peace and stability in the province.

Now it is the French president's standing that has been undermined.

it was only in June that Macron hosted Australian prime minister Scott Morrison at the Elysee Palace

The Australian contract represented not just a huge boost for the French economy but also tallied with how tall Macron felt his country should stand on the world stage.

In 2018, a year after he came to power, Macron used a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos to declare  in English: 'France is back!'

Those words ring rather hollow today.

Nabila Ramdani is a French-Algerian journalist, broadcaster and academic specialising in Anglo-French issues.
Two men have been charged with the murder of Belfast journalist Lyra McKee.

The 29-year-old was shot dead by dissident republicans in Londonderry in April 2019 as she observed rioting in the Creggan area of the city.

The extremist group that styles itself the New IRA claimed responsibility. The two men who have been charged with her murder are aged 21 and 33 years.

They have also been charged with possession of a firearm and ammunition with intent to endanger life, riot, possession of petrol bombs, throwing petrol bombs and arson. The 33-year-old has additionally been charged with robbery.

Ms McKee (pictured), 29, was shot dead by dissident republicans in Londonderry in April 2019 as she watched rioting in the Creggan area

A third man, aged 20, has been charged with riot, possession of petrol bombs and throwing petrol bombs.

All three are expected to appear before Londonderry Magistrates Court via video link on Friday morning.

A 19-year-old man also arrested during the same operation has been released pending a report to the Public Prosecution Service.

The extremist group that styles itself the New IRA was responsible for the killing. Pictured: Ms McKee's funeral

Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis welcomed the development.

'The tragic murder of Lyra McKee was a reminder that a small minority of individuals continue to seek to cause harm to communities,' he said.

'This was an utterly senseless and shocking crime and I applaud the continued work of the PSNI to bring those responsible to justice.

'The fact that serious charges have been brought forward, which includes two individuals being charged with Lyra's murder, is to be strongly welcomed and is testimony to that hard work.

'I would like to thanks the PSNI and security partners for their dedication to keeping the people of Northern Ireland safe.'
Daytime TV host Wendy Williams was reportedly taken to a hospital earlier this week for a psychiatric evaluation after she skipped out on promotional duties for her show and was spotted looking frail in hospital socks outside her Manhattan apartment.

Page Six reported that police sources confirmed an ambulance was called to Williams' apartment on Tuesday morning to transport an unidentified 57-year-old woman for a psychiatric evaluation at Beth Israel Hospital.

The 57-year-old unidentified woman was Williams, The Sun reported.

The talk show host, who recently revealed she's canceled all promotional events for her hit show to deal with 'ongoing health issues' is reportedly struggling with 'loneliness'.

'It has been a very difficult time for Wendy,' a source told Page Six. 'She's a single woman with very few friends. She lost her marriage, her mom, and is living alone.'

'There is a lot on her plate,' the source added.

Williams was spotted looking unwell in NYC last Friday

The star has since revealed that she has tested positive for COVID-19

An ambulance was pictured outside Wendy Williams' Manhattan apartment on Tuesday morning

On Wednesday, Williams revealed that she has tested positive for a breakthrough case of COVID-19 and that she would be continuing health evaluations in order to allow her time to quarantine and recover.

Her COVID-19 diagnosis led to the new season of her hit show 'Wendy Williams Show' to be postponed from September 20 to October 4, according to the show's official Instagram.

The COVID-19 diagnosis came a few days after she was spotted looking frail and dressed in a robe and blue socks as she was led into her Manhattan apartment building.

Exclusive DailyMail.com photos from last Friday showed the TV host stepping out of a black SUV wearing a gold and cream robe and what look to be hospital socks as she walked on the wet New York City pavement.

Her COVID-19 diagnosis led to the new season of her hit show 'Wendy Williams Show' to be postponed from September 20 to October 4, according to the show's official Instagram

The TV host appeared to look sickly as she was led by hand into her apartment by her manager Bernie Young last Friday

Wendy wore what looked to be hospital socks as she walked on the wet pavement of NYC last Friday

Her son Kevin Hunter Jr. was also seen entering her building behind a wheelchair and later caught an Uber to leave the home

Wendy, 57, wore a black mask as she was led by hand from the car to her home by her manager Bernie Young. Her son Kevin Hunter Jr, 21, was also seen entering her building behind a wheelchair and later caught an Uber to leave the home.

Williams' recent trip to the hospital for a mental check is the latest in a series of health issues the TV icon has dealt with in the past few years.

Last year it was announced that she would be taking a break from her daytime talk show while she battled with health issues related to her Graves' disease diagnosis.

Graves' disease is an immune system disorder of the thyroid gland that causes anxiety, tremors, as well as puffy or bulging eyes.

Wendy first gave the public cause for concern in October 2017 when she collapsed on camera during a taping of her talk show.

She told her audience of her Graves' disease diagnosis in early 2018.

'My thyroid has been totally cattywampus. I feel like there are birds swimming around my head  Constantly high. But not high,' she said. 'My doctor has prescribed - are you ready? Three weeks of vacation. I was pissed. Encore performances, really?'

Wendy also revealed she was diagnosed with lymphedema in 2019.

'It's not going to kill me, but I do have a machine -and how dare you talk about the swelling of it all,' she said on her show. 'I've got it under control, and if [the swelling in] my feet and lower things never go all the way down, at least I have this machine.'

In 2018 Wendy spoke to PEOPLE about the immune system disorder.

'I feel a hundred percent better than I was a few months ago. I had a storm going in my body is the best way I can explain it,' she said at the time.

'It came from me neglecting my six-month endocrinology appointment. I have Graves' disease and hyperthyroid. If you have one you don't necessarily have to have the other, but I have both, and I was diagnosed with both 19 years ago,' Wendy said.

It's been a tumultuous few years for Wendy, who has dealt with addiction, a cheating husband and divorce.

Wendy was staying overnight at a private facility run by the Pure Recovery Network in Long Island City, New York after she plunged into an alcohol- and pill-fueled depression when she fractured her shoulder during a confrontation with her cheating husband Kevin Hunter.

She broke down in tears on her show, admitting she had been living at the sober home and was attending meetings around New York City.

Wendy's troubles began in December 2018 when the star hired a private investigator to spy on her husband who she suspected was still carrying on with his mistress Sharina Hudson.

In 2017, Hudson had been at the center of a DailyMail.com expose revealing her ten-year affair with Wendy's husband.

After being told the secret affair was still very much alive, the TV host confronted Hunter demanding to know why he was still seeing the massage therapist. It was then that she injured her shoulder.

And finally in 2020, Wendy finalized her divorce from Hunter and he was seen moving out of their New Jersey home.
An alleged intruder has died after being stabbed in the chest in Melbourne's southeast overnight.

Homicide squad detectives have been told the man forced his way into a home on Dandenong Road West at Frankston about 11.20pm on Thursday and confronted the residents.

A fight broke out and the man was stabbed in the chest. He died at the scene.

The residents of the property are assisting police with their inquiries.
Furious Melburnians have hit out at an 'absurd' rule banning them from drinking at picnics as well as restrictions that prevent them playing tennis or golf - as Victoria recorded 510 new Covid cases and one new death from the virus.

Only 124 of the cases have so far been linked to known outbreaks.

To mark Victoria reaching its 70 per cent first dose vaccination target on Thursday, Premier Daniel Andrews announced a series of 'modest' restriction changes for Melbourne from Saturday including small outdoor gatherings.

As many as five fully-vaccinated residents from two households, plus dependents, can gather outside in Melbourne and Ballarat from 11.59pm on Friday.

But an exemption to the ban on removing masks to drink alcohol outside of the home has not been granted, effectively making it illegal to have a tipple during picnics without using a straw.

Melburnians are still banned from drinking alcohol at picnics despite an easing of public gathering restrictions in the city

Former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett led the criticism of the new Covid-19 restrictions, which allow five fully-vaccinated Melburnians to have a picnic but not play a round of golf

The rule on outside drinking in Melbourne has been criticised by residents desperate to enjoy a drink with their friends.

'This has to be the strangest Covid rule any government has made in the world,' one person wrote on Twitter.

Golf and tennis are also still off limits to Melburnians, with Mr Andrews on Thursday saying those activities were too risky given the rate of transmission in the city.

Former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett led the criticism, saying it made little sense that fully vaccinated residents could have a picnic but four double-jabbed golfers couldn't play a round.

'Two people can meet from different famlies having a picnic. Or 5 adults plus dependents if all fully vaccinated,' he said.

'Up to five people can visit an entertainment venue. But you can't play golf. Max in a group of four. Often only two, spread all over the fairways, or in the bushes.

Skate parks will be allowed to reopen from Friday, a decision labelled 'illogical' by Melburnians who argued golf courses posed a lower risk of transmission.

'Golf courses and tennis courts have QR codes to enter and exit. You can control who comes and goes and actually trace. Skate parks gyms people just come and go. Its illogical and deserves immense criticism for inconsistency,' one said.

Premier Daniel Andrews announced a series of 'modest' restriction changes for Melbourne from Saturday including small outdoor gatherings

'If you walk in the CBD, so many construction workers don't even wear a mask and stand so close and talk to each other,' one social media user wrote.

'Meanwhile golf and tennis are not allowed.'

The premier on Thursday said police will not be going from park to park to check the vaccination status of those gathering for picnics, but he hoped Victorians would 'do the right thing'.

'There's a degree of good faith in this,' Mr Andrews told reporters.

Other rule changes from 11.59pm on Friday include a doubling of the amount of time allowed outdoors to four hours, the expansion of the travel limit from five kilometres to 10, and the reopening of outdoor gym equipment and skate parks.

The government's full roadmap out of lockdown, outlining restrictions through to November, will be released on Sunday.

Meanwhile, the government has mandated Covid-19 vaccinations for construction workers, and banned them from travelling between Melbourne and the regions for work.

As many as five fully-vaccinated residents from two households, plus dependents, can gather outside in Melbourne and Ballarat from 11.59pm on Friday. Pictured are Melbourne residents exercising at Albert Park Lake on September 13

A healthcare worker is pictured at a Covid-19 testing facility in Ballarat in regional Victoria on Thursday

The move follows outbreaks at multiple sites as well as a construction worker triggering a cluster in Ballarat, plunging the regional city into a week-long lockdown and bringing it into line with Melbourne's restrictions.

Of Thursday's 514 new cases - the highest daily total since August 2020 - 10 were detected in regional Victoria, including three in Ballarat.

Two were contacts of the infected construction worker, while the third is a mystery case that has been infectious in the community since last Tuesday.

Some 10,000 additional Pfizer doses will be sent to Ballarat in the next two to three weeks to combat the unfolding outbreak.
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A Missouri cave filled with ancient art recently sold at auction for $2.2 million, but the sale has left leaders of the Osage Nation disappointed, as they hoped to purchase the sacred site once used in ancient rituals.

Although a cave does not sound like a high ticket item, the walls are covered in Native American artwork that was created more than 1,000 years ago.

It features more than 290 prehistoric glyphs, or hieroglyphic symbols used to represent sounds or meanings, 'making it the largest collection of indigenous people's polychrome paintings in Missouri,' according to the Selkirk Auctioneers & Appraisers, the auction company.

There are images of mythical beings, people dancing and hunting, birds and other other animals etched into the stone walls.

The buyer, who has remained anonymous, purchased 43 acres of land in which the cave, also known as 'Picture Cave,' sits - the area is about 60 miles west of St. Louis.

In a statement quoted by the AP, the Osage Nationwhich had hoped to 'protect and preserve' the sitedescribed the auction as 'truly heartbreaking.'

'Our ancestors lived in this area for 1,300 years,' the statement reads. 'This was our land. We have hundreds of thousands of our ancestors buried throughout Missouri and Illinois, including Picture Cave.'

A Missouri cave recently sold at auction for $2.2 million, but the sale has left leaders of the Osage Nation disappointed, as they hoped to purchase the sacred site once used in ancient rituals

Bryan Laughlin, director of Selkirk Auctioneers & Appraisers, the St. Louis-based firm handling the auction, said the winning bidder declined to be named.

And the sale was made by A St. Louis family who has owned the land since 1953 and used it mainly for hunting.

The cave and land it sits on has been privately-owned for decades and will likely not be open to the public.

The cave is 'considered to be one of the most the most significant North American archeological sites, according to Selkirk Auctioneers & Appraisers.

The site is a two cave system that was once used by Native Americans as the site of sacred rituals and burying of the dead, which is why tribe leaders and scholars opposed the sale.

Although a cave does not sound like a high ticket item, the walls are covered in Native American artwork that was created more than 1,000 years ago

It features more than 290 prehistoric glyphs, or hieroglyphic symbols used to represent sounds or meanings, 'making it the largest collection of indigenous people's polychrome paintings in Missouri'

There are images of mythical beings, people dancing and hunting, birds and other other animals etched into the stone walls.

Carol Diaz-Granados, a research associate in the anthropology department at Washington University in St. Louis, said in a statement: 'Auctioning off a sacred American Indian site truly sends the wrong message,' Diaz-Granados said. 'Its like auctioning off the Sistine Chapel.'

Diaz-Granados said various means were used to create the art, such as using charred botanical material.

For one depiction of a mythical being, the artist created a white figure by scraping off the brown sandstone.

Diaz-Granados said the intricate details set the Missouri cave apart from other sites with ancient drawings.

The cave is in Warrenton, which is is about 60 miles west of St. Louis.

The winner, who has remained anonymous, purchased 43 acres of land in which the cave, also known as 'Picture Cave,' sits

Various means were used to create the art, such as using charred botanical material. For one depiction of a mythical being, the artist created a white figure by scraping off the brown sandstone (pictured)

'You get stick figures in other rock art sites, or maybe one little feather on the top of the head, or a figure holding a weapon,' she said.

'But in Picture Cave you get actual clothing details, headdress details, feathers, weapons. Its truly amazing.'

Along with being a sacred site of Native American history, the cave was also visited by European explorers in the 1700s, who wrote the ship captain's name and names of some crew members on the walls.

And it has also become the year-round home to endangered Indiana gray bats.

Laughlin said the auction company vetted the buyer prior to the sale and is sure the the cave will remain both protected and respected.

In a statement quoted by the AP, the Osage Nationwhich had hoped to 'protect and preserve' the sitedescribed the auction as 'truly heartbreaking'

Tribe leaders said: 'Our ancestors lived in this area for 1,300 years,' the statement reads. 'This was our land. We have hundreds of thousands of our ancestors buried throughout Missouri and Illinois, including Picture Cave'

A recent chemical analysis conducted by Texas A&M determined that the drawings are more than 1,000 years old.

Diaz-Granados told St. Louis Public Radio's Sarah Fenske that state archaeologists who first visited the cave decades ago thought the pictures were modern graffiti because of their high level of detail.

However, a recent chemical analysis conducted by Texas A&M determined that the drawings are more than 1,000 years old.

James Duncan, Diaz-Granados' husband and former director of the Missouri State Museum and a scholar of Osage oral history, said: 'The artists who put them on the wall did it with a great deal of ritual, and I'm sure there were prayers, singingand these images are alive.

'And the interesting thing about them as far as artists are concerned is the tremendous amount of detail and the quality of portraiture of the faces. Most of them are peoplehumansbut they're not of this world; they're supernatural.'

Diaz-Granados is holding out hope that the new owner will donate it to the Osage Nation.

'That's their cave,' she said. 'That's their sacred shrine, and it should go back to them.'
A giant, child-sized penguin whose fossilised remains were first discovered by New Zealand school children has been revealed to be a previously-unknown species.

Kairuku waewaeroa lived some 34.627.3 million years ago and stood at 4' 7" tall, and was first unearthed in the Kawhia Harbour, on the North Island, in 2006.

At the time K. waewaeroa was alive, during what geologists call the Oligocene epoch, much of the Waikato region of New Zealand would have been under water.

Researchers from Massey University and Connecticut's Bruce Museum took 3D scans of the fossil and compared it with other birds to confirm it was a novel species.

They also used the scans to 3D print a replica of the K. waewaeroa specimen for the members of the Hamilton Junior Naturalists Club who found the real fossil.

The club had generously donated the authentic specimen to the Waikato Museum (Te Whare Taonga o Waikato) back in 2017.

Penguins have a fossil record going back almost to the age of the dinosaurs  with most having been unearthed in New Zealand, specifically Canterbury and Otago.

A giant, human-sized penguin whose fossilised remains were first discovered by New Zealand school children has been revealed to be a previously-unknown species. Pictured: an artist's impression of how the 4' 7" Kairuku waewaeroa might have looked during life

At the time K. waewaeroa was alive, during what geologists call the Oligocene epoch, much of the Waikato region of New Zealand would have been under water. Pictured: the fossilised remains of K. waewaeroa (right, with an illustration top left) and a size comparison with a modern-day emperor penguin, Aptenodytes forsteri (bottom right)

K. WAEWAEROA STATS Location: Waikato, New Zealand Age: 34.627.3 million years ago Height: 4 feet 7 inches Notable features: Elongated legs Discovered: 2006 Advertisement

The study was conducted by ornithologist Daniel Thomas of Massey University, in Auckland, and colleagues.

'The penguin is similar to the Kairuku giant penguins first described from Otago but has much longer legs, which the researchers used to name the penguin waewaeroa  Te reo Maori for "long legs",' explained Dr Thomas.

'These longer legs would have made the penguin much taller than other Kairuku while it was walking on land  perhaps around 1.4 metres [4 feet 7 inches] tall, and may have influenced how fast it could swim or how deep it could dive.

'Its been a real privilege to contribute to the story of this incredible penguin. We know how important this fossil is to so many people.'

'Kairuku waewaeroa is emblematic for so many reasons. The fossil penguin reminds us that we share Zealandia with incredible animal lineages that reach deep into time, and this sharing gives us an important guardianship role.'

(Zealandia is the name given to the lost continent beneath present-day New Zealand that sank into the sea some 23 million years ago.)

Dr Thomas continued: 'The way the fossil penguin was discovered  by children out discovering nature  reminds us of the importance of encouraging future generations to become kaitiaki [guardians].'

Hamilton Junior Naturalist Club president Mike Safey said that the children who helped discover the K. waewaeroa fossil back in 2006 will remember the experience for the rest of their lives.

'It was a rare privilege for the kids in our club to have the opportunity to discover and rescue this enormous fossil penguin,' he added.

'We always encourage young people to explore and enjoy the great outdoors. There's plenty of cool stuff out there just waiting to be discovered.'

Researchers from Massey University and Connecticut's Bruce Museum took 3D scans of the fossil and compared it with other birds to confirm it was a novel species. Pictured: fossilised femora (upper hindlimb bones) of K. waewaeroa collected from New Zealand

One of the students  Steffan Safey  was present both when the ancient penguin was discovered and during the mission to recover it from the ground.

'It's sort of surreal to know that a discovery we made as kids so many years ago is contributing to academia today. And it's a new species, even!' he said.

'The existence of giant penguins in New Zealand is scarcely known, so it's really great to know that the community is continuing to study and learn more about them.

'Clearly the day spent cutting it out of the sandstone was well spent!' he quipped.

The team used their scans to 3D print a replica of the K. waewaeroa specimen for the members of the Hamilton Junior Naturalists Club who found the real fossil. The club had generously donated the authentic specimen to the Waikato Museum (Te Whare Taonga o Waikato) back in 2017. Pictured: a selection of fossilised bones from the wings of K. waewaeroa

'It was definitely one of those slightly surreal things to look back on  absolute bucket list moment for me,' said Alwyn Dale, who helped recover the fossil.

'After joining the Hamilton Junior Naturalists Club there were some pretty iconic stories of amazing finds and special experiences - and excavating a giant penguin fossil has got to be up there!

'A real testament to all the parents and volunteers who gave their time and resources to make unique and formative memories for the club members,' he concluded.

'It's thrilling enough to be involved with the discovery of such a large and relatively complete fossil, let alone a new species!' agreed plant ecologist Esther Dale, who was also present for the find but now resides in Switzerland.

'I'm excited to see what we can learn from it about the evolution of penguins and life in New Zealand,' she added.

The full findings of the study were published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

Kairuku waewaeroa  which lived some 34.627.3 million years ago and stood at 4' 7" tall  was first unearthed in the Kawhia Harbour, on the North Island, in 2006
Earth's global warming 'danger limit' of 2.7F (1.5) could be breached in just five years, a new report has warned.

The pace of climate change has not been slowed by the global COVID-19 pandemic and the world remains behind in its battle to cut carbon emissions, the United Nations warned.

The pandemic caused only a temporary downturn in CO2 emissions last year and it was not enough to reverse the rising levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said.

Reduction targets are not being met and there is a rising likelihood the world will miss its Paris Agreement target of reducing global warming to 2.7F (1.5C) above pre-industrial levels, the WMO said in its United in Science 2021 Report.

'We have reached a tipping point on the need for climate action,' said UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

'The disruption to our climate and our planet is already worse than we thought, and it is moving faster than predicted. This report shows just how far off course we are.'

Concentrations in the atmosphere of the major greenhouse gases - CO2, methane and nitrous oxide - continued to increase in 2020 and the first half of 2021, the UN said

Climate change could force 216m people out their homes by 2050 Without immediate action to combat climate change, 216 million people could be forced to migrate to other parts of their country by 2050. A new report from the World Bank modeled the impact of rising sea levels, water scarcity and declining crop productivity on six regions, concluding that climate migration 'hotspots' will emerge as soon as 2030. The poorest parts of the world will be hit hardest, researchers said: Sub-Saharan Africa alone would account for 86 million of the internal migrants, with 19 million more in North Africa, the report showed, South Asia would be home to 40 million internal migrants, and another 49 million in East Asia and the Pacific. Such movements will put significant stress on both sending and receiving areas, straining cities and urban centers and jeopardizing development gains, the report said. Advertisement

Concentrations in the atmosphere of the major greenhouse gases - CO2, methane and nitrous oxide - continued to increase in 2020 and the first half of 2021, the UN said.

The average global temperature for the past five years was among the highest on record, estimated at 1.9F (1.06C) to 2.26F (1.26C) above pre-industrial levels.

'Unless there are immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, limiting warming to 1.5C will be impossible, with catastrophic consequences for people and the planet on which we depend,' Mr Guterres said.

Mr Guterres cited several recent extreme weather events, which were spurred on my global warming.

This includes Hurricane Ida, which recently cut power to over a million people in New Orleans and New York City, which was paralysed by record-breaking rain that killed at least 50 people in the region.

'These events would have been impossible without human-caused climate change,' he warned.

'Costly fires, floods and extreme weather events are increasing everywhere.

'These changes are just the beginning of worse to come.'

The report comes before the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP26, which is scheduled to be held in the city of Glasgow between 31 October and 12 November 2021.

The pivotal meeting is expected to set the course of climate action for the next decade.

This includes Hurricane Ida, which recently cut power to over a million people in New Orleans and New York City, which was paralysed by record-breaking rain that killed at least 50 people in the region

The pandemic caused only a temporary downturn in CO2 emissions last year and it was not enough to reverse the rising levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said

Mr Guterres added: 'This report is clear. Time is running out.

'For the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, known as COP26, to be a turning point, we need all countries to commit to net zero emissions by 2050, backed up by concrete long-term strategies, and enhanced Nationally Determined Contributions which collectively cut global emissions by 45 per cent by 2030, compared to 2010 levels.

'We need a breakthrough on protecting people and their livelihoods, with at least half of all public climate finance committed to building resilience and helping people adapt.

'And we need much greater solidarity, including full delivery of the long-standing climate finance pledge to help developing countries take climate action.

'There is no alternative if we are to achieve a safer, more sustainable and prosperous future for all.'
The three astronauts who spent the past 90 days on Chinas Tianhe space station have left the module and are heading back to Earth.

Astronauts Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo boarded the Shenzhou-12 spacecraft and undocked from the space station at 8:56am ET Thursday for the return trip.

The journey back to Earth is expected to last 30 hours and the capsule will land near Dongfeng, in the Gobi Desert in Inner Mongolia on Friday sometime after 1:14am ET.

The trio launched to the station on June 17 and spent their days conducting experiments and space walks, along with setting the nations record for most time spent in space.

State broadcaster CCTV aired footage of the astronauts securing packages inside their spacecraft, but before the undocking, the astronauts downloaded data from their experiments and ensured the station would continue operating without a crew.

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Astronauts Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo boarded the Shenzhou-12 spacecraft and undocked from the space station at 8:56am ET Thursday for the return trip

The module, which launched on April 18, is just the first of four pieces of Chinas complete space station.

China aims to complete its Chinese Space Station, known as Tiangong (Heavenly Palace) by the end of 2022, state media reported, after several further modules are launched.

It is expected to have a mass between 180,000 and 220,000 pounds  roughly one-fifth the mass of the ISS, which is 925,335 pounds.

The 22-tonne module, named 'Tianhe', or 'Harmony of the Heavens', was the living quarters for three crew members who are now making their way home.

The journey back to Earth is expected to last 30 hours and the capsule will land near Dongfeng, in the Gobi Desert in Inner Mongolia on Friday sometime after 1:14am ET. Pictured is the crew inside the return capsule

Four drills have been conducted on the ground at the Dongfeng landing site in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region to ensure the safe return of the crew.

While few details have been made public by China's military, which runs the space program, astronauts are expected to return to the station for other 90-day missions over the next two years to make it fully functional.

The government has not announced the names of the next set of astronauts nor the launch date of Shenzhou-13, but it is known that each group will consist of three members.

When completed with the addition of two more modules, the station will weigh in at about 66 tons, a fraction of the size of the International Space Station, which launched its first module in 1998 and will weigh around 450 tons when completed.

Pictured is astronauts Nie Haisheng (C), Liu Boming (R) and Tang Hongbo waving during a departure ceremony on June 17

In later missions planned for 2021 and 2022, China will launch the two other core modules, four manned spacecraft and four cargo spacecraft.

Work on the space station program began a decade ago with the launch of a space lab Tiangong-1 in 2011, and later, Tiangong-2 in 2016.

Both helped China test the program's space rendezvous and docking capabilities.

China aims to become a major space power by 2030 to keep up with rivals, including the US, Russia and the European Space Agency, and create the most advanced space station orbiting Earth.

China has made waves in space travel over the past years, with its achievement of landing its Zhurong rover on the Red Planet in May

Along with conquering Mars, China is also looking to set up a base in the south pole of the moon, in which it is working with Russia to complete. And China also returned its Chang'e-5 capsule in December 2020 with a precious cargo of rocks and soil from the moon

China has made waves in space travel over the past years, with its achievement of landing its Zhurong rover on the Red Planet in May.

In June, the nation announced plans to send its first crewed mission to Mars in 2033 with the goal of constructing a base and extract resources from the Red Planet, according to a new presentation made by Wang Xiaojun, the head of China Academy of Launch Facilities Technology.

Wang's Mars roadmap consists of three stages for colonizing the Red Planet, with the first using robots to find possible sites for the base on Mars and building systems to source resources.

Along with conquering Mars, China is also looking to set up a base in the south pole of the moon, in which it is working with Russia to complete.

And China also returned its Chang'e-5 capsule in December 2020 with a precious cargo of rocks and soil from the moon.
The search for life beyond Earth may have just taken a huge leap forwards, as scientists have detected rich resevoirs of large organic molecules around young starts in our galaxy.

These organic molecules resulted in life on Earth, and are 100 times more abundant than previously thought, according to research led by the University of Leeds.

Co-principal investigator Dr Catherine Walsh, of Leeds University, said: 'The same ingredients needed for seeding life on our planet are also found around other stars.

'It's possible the molecules needed to kick-start life are readily available in all planet-forming environments.'

The search for life beyond Earth may have just taken a huge leap forwards, as scientists have detected rich resevoirs of large organic molecules around young starts in our galaxy

Organic molecules discovered Data was collected by the ALMA radio telescope in the Atacama desert in Chile, which can pick up the faintest signals from the coldest regions of outer space. Key molecules - cyanoacetylene (HC3N), acetonitrile (CH3CN) and cyclopropenylidene (c-C3H2)  were in four out of five disks observed. They are 'stepping-stones' between the simple carbon-based chemicals abundant in space and more complex cousins. Another 15 - including hydrogen cyanide and nitriles connected to the origins of life - were also present in differing amounts. Advertisement

The Milky Way has around 400 billion stars - each with at least one orbiting planet. Millions are in the 'Goldilocks zone' where water is liquid.

Lead author Dr John Ilee, also from Leeds, said: 'These large complex organic molecules are found in various environments throughout space.'

The chemical 'soup' was identified in 'protoplanetary disks' of gas and dust circling young stars.

Dr Ilee said: 'Laboratory and theoretical studies suggest they are the "raw ingredients" essential in biological chemistry on Earth.

'They create sugars, amino acids and even the components of ribonucleic acid (RNA) - under the right circumstances.'

Biologists believe the first life on Earth was based on RNA - a nucleic acid similar to DNA.

Dr Ilee explained: 'However, many of the environments where we find these complex organic molecules are pretty far removed from where and when we think planets form.

'We wanted to understand more about where exactly, and how much of, these molecules were present in the birthplaces of planets - protoplanetary disks.'

The findings are based on an analysis of unique 'spectral fingerprints' in light emitted from material surrounding the newly formed stars.

Data was collected by the ALMA radio telescope in the Atacama desert in Chile, which can pick up the faintest signals from the coldest regions of outer space.

Key molecules - cyanoacetylene (HC3N), acetonitrile (CH3CN) and cyclopropenylidene (c-C3H2)  were in four out of five protoplanetary disks observed.

They are 'stepping-stones' between the simple carbon-based chemicals abundant in space and more complex cousins.

Four of the protoplanetary discs  GM Aur, AS 209, HD 163296 & MWC 480. The top row shows emission from large dust in the disks. The bottom row shows a three-colour composite image of emission from the large organic molecules HC3N (red), CH3CN (green) and c-C3H2 (blue) in each disk. Dashed circles with a radius of 50 astronomical units indicate the scale of the comet-forming region in our own Solar System

How have scientists previously estimated the likelihood of alien civilisations? Drake Equation Written in 1961 by Frank Drake, this attempts to estimate the number of living and communicative alien civilisations in the Milky Way galaxy. It takes into account factors including rate of star creation, number of these with planets, and fraction of planets that develop life. It was designed not to provide an exact number but rather stimulate debate on how many extraterrestrial civilisations there are. Statistical Drake Equation This model, developed in 2010 by Italian astronomer Claudio Maccone, is considered mathematically more complex and robust. It used values for each factor in the Drake equation accepted by many astronomers to predict there are 4,590 alien civilisations. Fermi Paradox The paradox asks why scientists are predicting so many extraterrestrial civilisations, yet humans are yet to find evidence for any others. Advertisement

Another 15 - including hydrogen cyanide and nitriles connected to the origins of life - were also present in differing amounts.

Earth is thought to have been 'seeded' via impacts between space rocks in the protoplanetary disk around the Sun.

But scientists were uncertain if other protoplanetary disks contain biologically significant molecules.

The study in The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series unexpectedly showed it's a normal phenomenon.

Dr Ilee said: 'ALMA has allowed us to look for these molecules in the innermost regions of these disks, on size scales similar to our Solar System, for the first time.

'Our analysis shows the molecules are primarily located in these inner regions with abundances between 10 and 100 times higher than models had predicted.'

What's more, regions in which the molecules were located are also where asteroids and comets form.

Dr Ilee says a process similar to the initiation of life on Earth could also happen there.

Bombardment by asteroids and comets transfers the large organic molecules to the newly formed planets.

The researchers next plan to want to search for even more complex molecules in the protoplanetary disks.

Dr Ilee said: 'If we are finding molecules like these in such large abundances, our current understanding of interstellar chemistry suggests even more complex molecules should also be observable.

'We're hoping to use ALMA to search for the next stepping stones of chemical complexity in these disks.

'If we detect them, then we'll be even closer to understanding how the raw ingredients of life can be assembled around other stars.'

The 'mixed bag' of molecules, or planetary ingredients, suggest diverse chemical environments.

Project chief Professor Karin Oberg, of Harvard University, added: 'Our maps reveal it matters a great deal where in a disk a planet forms.

'Many of the chemicals in the disks are organic, and the distribution of these organics varies dramatically within a particular disk.

'Two planets can form around the same star and have very different organic inventories, and therefore predispositions to life.'
Facebook quietly changed its algorithm in 2018 to prioritise reshared material, only for it to backfire and cause misinformation, toxicity and violent content to become 'inordinately prevalent' on the platform, leaked internal documents have revealed.

The company's CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the change was made in an attempt to strengthen bonds between users  particularly family and friends  and to improve their wellbeing.

But what happened was the opposite, the documents show, with Facebook becoming an angrier place because the tweaked algorithm was rewarding outrage and sensationalism.

Researchers for the company discovered that publishers and political parties were deliberately posting negative or divisive content because it racked up likes and shares and was spread to more users' news feeds, according to the Wall Street Journal.

It has seen a series of internal documents that reveal Zuckerberg was even warned about the problem in April 2020 but kept it in place regardless.

Facebook quietly changed an algorithm in 2018 to prioritise reshared material, only for it to backfire and cause misinformation, toxicity and violent content to become 'inordinately prevalent' on the platform, leaked internal documents have revealed

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Encouraging more 'meaningful social interactions' was exactly why the 2018 algorithm change had been made, because those within the company were concerned about a decline in user engagement in the form of commenting on or sharing posts.

This is important to Facebook because many inside the tech firm view it as a key barometer for the platform's health  if engagement is down the fear is that people might eventually stop using it.

In 2017, comments, likes and reshares declined throughout the year but by August 2018, following the algorithm change, the free fall had been halted and the metric of 'daily active people' using Facebook had largely improved.

The problem, however, was that when the tech firm's data scientists surveyed users they found that many thought the quality of their feeds had decreased.

Not only that, but in Poland the changes made political debate on the platform more spiteful, the documents show.

One Polish political party, which isn't named, is said to have told the company that its social media management team had shifted the number of its posts from 50/50 positive/negative to 80 per cent negative because of the algorithm change.

'Many parties, including those that have shifted to the negative, worry about the long term effects on democracy,' according to one internal Facebook report, which didn't name those parties.

It affected online publishers, too.

BuzzFeed chief executive Jonah Peretti emailed a top Facebook official to say that the most divisive content produced by publishers was going viral on the platform.

This, he said, was creating an incentive to produce more of it, according to the documents.

Mr Peretti's complaints were highlighted by a team of Facebook data scientists who wrote: 'Our approach has had unhealthy side effects on important slices of public content, such as politics and news.'

One of them added in a later memo: 'This is an increasing liability.'

They surmised that the new algorithm was leading to an increase in angry voices because it was giving more weight to reshared and often divisive material.

'Misinformation, toxicity, and violent content are inordinately prevalent among reshares,' the researchers wrote in internal memos.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the algorithm change was made in a bid to strengthen bonds between users  particularly family and friends  and to improve their wellbeing

Facebook had wanted its users to interact more with their family and friends rather than spending time passively consuming professionally produced content. This is because research suggested it was harmful to their mental health.

To encourage engagement and original posting the company decided its algorithm would reward posts with more comments and emotion emojis, which were viewed as more meaningful than likes, according to the documents.

An internal point system was used to measure its success, with a 'like' worth one point; a reaction worth five points; and a significant comment, reshare or RSVP worth 30 points. Multipliers were also added depending on whether the interaction was between friends or strangers.

But after concerns were raised about potential issues with the algorithm, Zuckerberg was presented with a number of proposed alterations that would counteract the spread of false and divisive content on the platform, an internal memo from April 2020 shows.

One of the suggestions was to remove the boost the algorithm gave to content reshared by long chains of users, but Zuckerberg was allegedly cool on the idea.

'Mark doesn't think we could go broad with the change', an employee wrote to colleagues after the meeting.

Zuckerberg said he was open to testing it, she said, but 'we wouldn't launch if there was a material tradeoff with MSI impact.'

Last month, almost 18 months on, Facebook announced it was 'gradually expanding some tests to put less emphasis on signals such as how likely someone is to comment or share political content.'

A Facebook spokesperson told MailOnline: 'The goal of the Meaningful Social Interactions ranking change is in the name: improve people's experience by prioritizing posts that inspire interactions, particularly conversations, between family and friends.

'Is a ranking change the source of the world's divisions? No.

'Research shows certain partisan divisions in our society have been growing for many decades, long before platforms like Facebook even existed.

'It also shows that meaningful engagement with friends and family on our platform is better for peoples well-being than the alternative.

'We're continuing to make changes consistent with this goal, like new tests to reduce political content on Facebook based on research and feedback.'
Analysis of a series of fossilised footprints in the southwest of Spain has revealed that the site was a nursery for prehistoric elephants some 129,000 years ago.

Researchers led from the University of Lisbon examined 34 sets of tracks on the 'Matalascanas Trampled Surface', which was preserved near the city of Huelva.

By analysing the dimensions of each print, the team were able to assess the height and mass  and, by extension, age  of the elephants that made each track.

The footprints were left by 14 young calves, eight juveniles (aged 27), six adolescents (815) and five adults, hinting at the area's use as a reproductive site.

At the time in the Late Pleistocene when the tracks were made, the dune-covered landscape held a pond, which provided a water supply and vegetation to eat.

Analysis of a series of fossilised footprints (pictured) in the southwest of Spain has revealed that the site was a nursery for prehistoric elephants some 129,000 years ago. Based on the roundedelliptical nature of the tracks, along with other shape features, the team have concluded that the footprints were left by straight-tusked elephants (right)

By analysing the dimensions of each print, the team were able to assess the height and mass  and, by extension, age  of the elephants that made each track. Pictured: some of the prints (top left), shown with annotations (bottom left) and in illustration (right)

The footprints were left by 14 young calves, eight juveniles (aged 27), six adolescents (815) and five adults, hinting at the area's use as a reproductive site

STRAIGHT-TUSKED ELEPHANTS: STATS Species: Palaeoloxodon antiquus Lived: 781,00030,000 years ago Range: Southern Europe & Britain Height: Up to 13.8 feet (4.2 metres) Weight: Up to 15 tonnes Advertisement

The study was undertaken by evolutionary palaeobiologist Carlos Neto de Carvalho of the University of Lisbon and his colleagues.

'Evidence of a snapshot of social behaviour, especially parental care, can be determined from the concentration of elephant tracks and trackways,' the researchers explained in their paper.

'And especially from apparently contemporaneous converging trackways, of small juvenile and larger  presumably young adult female  tracks.

Based on the roundedelliptical nature of the tracks, along with other shape features, the team have concluded that the footprints were left by straight-tusked elephants.

This species  formally known as Palaeoloxodon antiquus  are close relatives of the African forest elephants that we know from the present.

Based on their analysis of the prints, the team concluded that each of the four calves that trod across the site were aged between 02 years, and weighed in at some between 154441 lbs (70200 kg).

Of the adult footprints, three are thought to have been made by female elephants (based on their proximity to the calves' tracks).

The other two set of prints  which were around 20 inches (50 cm) in length  more likely were made by adult males weighing in at some seven tonnes.

According to the researchers, it is likely that male elephants rarely frequented the Matalascanas site.

At the time in the Late Pleistocene when the tracks were made, the dune-covered landscape held a pond, which provided a water supply and vegetation to eat. Pictured: an illustrated photograph of the best-preserved footprint, highlighting the five toe impressions

Based on their analysis of the various prints (some of which are pictured above), the team concluded that each of the four calves that trod across the site were aged between 02 years, and weighed in at some between 154441 lbs (70200 kg)

The other two set of prints  which were around 20 inches (50 cm) in length  more likely were made by adult males weighing in at some seven tonnes. Pictured: a photo of some of the tracks with adult and calf footprints next to each other (left) and in 3D scan (right)

Alongside the elephant's tracks, the team also found the footprints of a Neanderthal.

'This track record across [an ancient soil] surface, although heavily trampled by different animals, including Neanderthals, over a short time frame, permitted an exceptional view into short-term [] interactions,' the researchers wrote.

'It is hypothesized that Neanderthals visited the Matalascanas Trampled Surface for hunting or scavenging on weakened or dead elephants, and more likely calves.'

The full findings of the study were published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Alongside the elephant's tracks, the team also found the footprint of a Neanderthal (shown)

'This track record across [an ancient soil] surface, although heavily trampled by different animals, including Neanderthals, over a short time frame, permitted an exceptional view into short-term [] interactions,' the researchers wrote. Pictured: an elephant track

Researchers led from the University of Lisbon examined 34 sets of tracks on the 'Matalascanas Trampled Surface' (pictured), which was preserved near the city of Huelva
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Kentucky's Mammoth Cave is the longest in the world and an additional eight miles of passages have recently been discovered, bringing the cave to at least 420 miles long.

The additional mileage was mapped and documented by members of the Cave Research Foundation (CFR), a non-profit organization, who trekked through the underground labyrinth of limestone caves.

Members of the CRF spend hours crawling, climbing and rappelling through cave passageways, following leads through sometimes very tight openings to document and map Mammoth Cave, according to the Mammoth Cave National Park.

'When it comes to discoveries in Mammoth Cave, there truly is no end in sight!' the Mammoth Cave National Park shared on Facebook.

The 10-million-year-old cave was first discovered in in the late 1790s by a team of pioneers, but humans have used the massive structure for about 5,000 years.

Kentucky's Mammoth Cave is the longest in the world and an additional eight miles of passages have recently been discovered, bringing the cave to at least 420 miles long

Along with a human footprint, CRF have also uncovered troves of fossils from hundreds of millions of years ago.

The non-profit organization has been exploring Mammoth Cave for the past 60 years.

Dr Rick Toomey, the park's Cave Resource Management Specialist, said in a statement: 'The Cave Research Foundation is fundamentally the reason that Mammoth Cave is recognized as the world's longest cave. Without CRF exploration and mapping, Mammoth Cave would potentially still be a 44-mile-long cave system.'

The additional mileage was mapped and documented by members of the Cave Research Foundation (CFR), a non-profit organization, who trekked through the underground labyrinth of limestone caves

Members of the CRF spend hours crawling, climbing and rappelling through cave passageways, following leads through sometimes very tight openings to document and map Mammoth Cave, according to the Mammoth Cave National Park

The additional eight miles includes windy passageways and caverns, which are home to a range of species of wildlife, like the Eyeless Cave Fish.

Mammoth Cave was created by the natural process of limestone erosion, known as karst topography.

During this process rain and rivers slowly dissolve and shape soft limestone, creating a vast system of caves.

And underground rivers are still carving new passages today.

'When it comes to discoveries in Mammoth Cave, there truly is no end in sight!' the Mammoth Cave National Park shared on Facebook

Mammoth Cave was created by the natural process of limestone erosion, known as karst topography. During this process rain and rivers slowly dissolve and shape soft limestone, creating a vast system of caves. And underground rivers are still carving new passages today

The additional eight miles includes windy passageways and caverns, which are home to a range of species of wildlif

More than 100 ancient shark species have been discovered in the cave to-date, with one of the recent finds uncovered in January 2020 that dates back some 300 million years

Beyond their scientific and recreational value, karst aquifers like Mammoth Cave provide drinking water for approximately 40 percent of the U.S. population.

More than 100 ancient shark species have been discovered in the cave to-date, with one of the recent finds uncovered in January 2020 that dates back some 300 million years.

Experts believe it belonged a Saivodus striatus, which lived between 340 and 330 million years ago during the Late Mississippian geological period.

The well-preserved head shows the creatures skull, lower jaw, cartilage and several teeth.

Based on the dimensions, the team believes the animal was similar in size to our modern-day Great White shark.
Microsoft has announced that all users can now go 'passwordless'  logging in to their accounts using other methods like fingerprints or authenticator apps instead.

The move by the Redmond, Washington-based firm follows an initial rollout of the feature to Microsoft's business customers back in the March of this year.

According to the firm, nearly all of their employees are already taking advantage themselves of the passwordless login features.

The problem with passwords, they argued, is that they can be guessed or stolen  and, when elaborate enough to be secure are generally hard to remember.

In contrast, they said, only the correct users can provide their fingerprint or respond using the authenticator app on their phone.

It is unclear, however, how safe one's account would be in the event that the phone containing the authenticator app was hacked, either remotely or after a theft.

MailOnline has approached Microsoft for comment on this issue.

The passwordless feature will not work with some older devices and platforms, however  including Xbox 360 consoles, Office 2010 and Windows 8.1 or earlier.

Scroll down for video

Microsoft has announced that all users can now go 'passwordless'  logging in to their accounts using other methods like fingerprints or authenticator apps (pictured) instead

HOW TO GO PASSWORDLESS Microsoft had the following instructions for users wishing to go passwordless themselves: First, ensure you have the Microsoft Authenticator app installed and linked to your personal Microsoft account.

Next, visit your Microsoft account , sign in, and choose Advanced Security Options.

Under Additional Security Options, youll see Passwordless Account. Select Turn on.

Follow the on-screen prompts, and then approve the notification from your Authenticator app.

Once youve approved, youre free from your password!

If you decide you prefer using a password, you can always add it back to your account. Source: Microsoft Advertisement

'Nobody likes passwords. Theyre inconvenient. Theyre a prime target for attacks,' Microsoft's corporate vice president for Security, Compliance and Identity, Vasu Jakkal, wrote in a blog post.

'Yet for years theyve been the most important layer of security for everything in our digital lives from email to bank accounts, shopping carts to video games.

'We are expected to create complex and unique passwords, remember them, and change them frequently, but nobody likes doing that either.

'For the past couple of years, weve been saying that the future is passwordless, and today I am excited to announce the next step in that vision.

'Beginning today, you can now completely remove the password from your Microsoft account,' Mr Jakkal continued.

'Use the Microsoft Authenticator app, Windows Hello, a security key, or a verification code sent to your phone or email to sign in to your favourite apps and services, such as Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft OneDrive, Microsoft Family Safety, and more.

'This feature will be rolled out over the coming weeks,' he concluded.

According to Microsoft, users who go passwordless and then lose access to their authenticator app can resort to one of a number of backup login options.

These include facial recognition (where available), a physical security key or using SMS or email codes.

The latter, however, are two of the most common pathways by which cyber-criminals target individuals. Furthermore, users employing two-factor authentication will need to have access to two separate recovery methods to take control of their account.

The move by the Redmond, Washington-based firm follows an initial rollout of the feature to Microsoft's business customers back in the March of this year. Pictured: the Microsoft account settings page that allows users to set up a passwordless account

According to the firm, nearly all of their employees are already taking advantage themselves of the passwordless login features

The move is 'a bold step from Microsoft' University of Surrey security expert Alan Woodward  who is investigating passwordless authentication  told BBC News.

'This isn't just logging into PCs, it's logging into online services as well,' he noted, referencing important online facilities like cloud storage.

However, the researcher noted, Microsoft's claims about the issues with poor password use are largely true.

'The message has been pummelled home about what good password hygiene looks like - but it's easier said than done,' he said.

'Maybe the time is now right to start looking for something different,' he added  noting that one issue comes in how there are no standards for passwordlessness.

'There are a number of different ways this could be done  and it would be good if everybody moved on, really, and tried to find a way of doing this.'

The problem with passwords, Microsoft have argued, is that they can be guessed or stolen  and, when elaborate enough to be secure are generally hard to remember

'This move from Microsoft is a sign of things to come for online security,' said CyberNews' lead cybersecurity researcher, Mantas Sasnauskas.

'The future of personal account logins will undoubtedly be passwordless, as more systems will rely on robust authentication procedures rather than requiring users to use passwords that are often not strong enough, or too complex to remember.

'We have known for some time that multi factor authentication is one of the strongest ways to protect an account, as access to multiple devices and biometric data is required for access.

'With this system in place, it becomes much harder for threat actors to compromise an account,' he added.

'More companies will be moving towards this, as Apple added features in iOS 15 to prepare for a similar moves towards more secure logins and to drop the use of passwords.'
Lucid Motors has stolen the crown from Tesla for longest mile range on a single charge.

The startup automakers Air Dream Edition Range can drive 520 miles on a full battery, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said Thursday, beating the Tesla Model S Long Range, previously the car that could go the farthest on a charge, by more than 100 miles.

The announcement suggests that owners of the Lucid vehicle could travel from Los Angeles to San Francisco without stopping to charge the battery.

Peter Rawlinson, CEO and CTO, Lucid Group, shared in a statement: Im delighted that our Lucid Air Dream Edition Range has been officially accredited with a range of 520 miles by the EPA, a number I believe to be a new record for any EV.

Crucially, this landmark has been achieved by Lucids world-leading, in-house EV technology, not by simply installing an oversize battery pack.

The next generation EV has truly arrived!

Lucid's Air Dream Edition Range can drive 520 miles on a full battery, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said Thursday

Rawlinson, who is a former Tesla engineer, has been boasting over the past few months that the car will eventually travel farther than Teslas.

Lucid explained that the achievement is possible through its 900V battery and battery management system (BMS), which is an electronic system that protects the batter from operating outside a safe zone.

Rawlinson also notes that the firms miniaturized drive units, coupled with our Wunderbox technology endow Lucid Air with ultra-high efficiency, enabling it to travel more miles from less battery energy. 

The Air Dream Edition starts at $169,000 before federal and state incentives, although the company has said it will eventually offer more affordable versions of the Air, including one that will sell for about $77,000.

This beats the Tesla Model S Long Range, previously the car that could go the farthest on a charge, by more than 100 miles

Lucid was set to start production of the Air in the spring of this year, but it has recently been delayed to late 2021.

Tesla received the same honor for its Model S sedan in June 2020, as it clocked in at 402 miles on a single charge.

The Elon Musk-owned firm said the achievement was due to several changes in the cars design such as a reduction in mass using different materials for making the cars' seats, drive units, and battery packs.

The vehicle also added lightweight and aerodynamic wheels that increased range by two percent.

However, Lucid may not hold the title for too long, as Musk has previously stated Tesla is developing a battery cell with a range of 621 miles.

Musk made the announcement during a European Battery Conference in November 2020, saying Tesla's 'longest-range vehicles have over 327 miles of range and there's more we could actually do.'

'We even have some under development long term that could do 600 miles.'
The Vinland Map, which shows a section of North America's coastline southwest of Greenland, is famed for being the earlies imagery of the New World, but a new analysist reveals it 'is awash in 20th-century ink.'

Researchers at Yale University found the map believed to have been made in the 15th-century has a titanium compound used in inks first produced in the 1920s.

'The Vinland Map is a fake,' Raymond Clemens, curator of early books and manuscripts at Yale's Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, which houses the map, said in a statement.

'There is no reasonable doubt here. This new analysis should put the matter to rest.'

Even more, the study found that the map maker intentionally created a fake.

The 20th-century trickster used the modern ink to write out instructions for putting the map together as it would appear on a genuine 15th-century manuscript, which was done so over a Latin inscription.

The team believes the inscription is a bookbinder's note guiding the assembly of the Speculum Historiale  an authentic medieval volume and the likely source of the map's calfskin parchment.

The Vinland Map, which shows a section of North America's coastline southwest of Greenland, is famed for being the earlies imagery of the New World, but a new analysist reveals it 'is awash in 20th-century ink'

'The altered inscription certainly seems like an attempt to make people believe the map was created at the same time as the Speculum Historiale,' Clemens said.

'It's powerful evidence that this is a forgery, not an innocent creation by a third party that was co-opted by someone else, although it doesn't tell us who perpetrated the deception.'

Yale obtained the map in 1965, proudly announcing that it proves the Norsemen, not Christopher Columbus, were the first Europeans to reach the New World.

However, the map has always been questioned by scholars who have found traces of modern ink in previous studies.

Researchers at Yale University found the map believed to have been made in the 15th-century has a titanium compound (blue) used in inks first produced in the 1920s

An inscription on the back of the map (top), possibly a bookbinders note for assembling the medieval volume with which it was originally bound, was overwritten in an apparent attempt to deceive. The bottom image shows the presence of titanium in the ink, which strongly suggests it is of modern origin, while the preceding three false-color images highlight elements that are consistent with medieval iron gall ink

And the latest analysis provides the clearest evidence yet that the map is a fraud.

'The Vinland Map lacks the elaborate ornamentation of other medieval maps, such as the Beinecke Library's collection of portolan nautical charts. Patched wormholes dot its parchment,' the researchers shared in a statement.

'Much of its ink appears faded.'

The team used X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF), a non-destructive technique to analyze the ink.

Medieval scribes typically wrote with iron gall ink, which is composed of iron sulphate, powdered gall nuts and a binder (the first two are primary elemental ingredients of iron gall ink, and the third is often present as an impurity).

The XRF analysis of the Vinland Map showed little to no iron, sulfur, or copper. Instead, the scan revealed the presence of titanium throughout the map's ink.

Yale obtained the map in 1965. Pictured are Yale University curator, Alexander Vietor, at Beinecke Rare Book Library, and Thomas Marston, examining 15th century map of Vinland

A scan of Vinlanda Insula, the portion of North American coastline that made the map famous, revealed high levels of titanium and smaller amounts of barium, which the team says is the strongest evidence against the map's authenticity.

This is because the earliest commercially produced titanium-white pigments in the 1920s contained titanium dioxide and barium sulfate.

However, researchers had to be sure and did so by analyzing 50 manuscript fragments in the Beinecke Library's collection that were produced in Central Europe during the 15th century - the same era the Vinland Map was supposedly drawn.

The results showed the fragments contain much lower levels of titanium than the map and much higher levels of iron.

The map was said to prove the Norsemen, not Christopher Columbus, were the first Europeans to reach the New World

To confirm that the map's ink was of modern origin, and that the anatase wasn't simply unique and naturally occurring, the team performed field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) on samples from the altered text of the Tartar Relation and the map.

Richard Hark, a conservation scientist who works with the Beinecke Librarys collections, said in a statement: 'This process yielded highly magnified images of its ink's components, which showed that the anatase particles closely resemble those found in pigment that was commercially produced in Norway in 1923. Nothing suggested that the anatase was naturally sourced.'

'Having determined that the ink's composition was consistent with an early form of commercially available titanium white, the team spotted evidence that the map is a deliberate forgery,' the team wrote in the press release.
Barcelona wonderkid Pedri has picked up a rare injury, adding to manager Ronald Koeman's woes after his side was well beaten by Bayern Munich in the Champions League.

Bayern beat the Spanish giants 3-0 at the Nou Camp on Tuesday, but it could have been more, with the German champions taking 17 shots with seven on target compared to Barcelona's five and zero, respectively.

And the club has now confirmed teenage star Pedri, 18, is unavailable for selection after receiving a knock in the defeat, which saw Thomas Muller's opener and Robert Lewandowski's double wrap up a comfortable win for Julian Nagelsmann's side.

Pedri has picked up a rare injury, adding to Barcelona's woes after a Champions League defeat

The midfield wonderkid, 18, played the full match as Bayern Munich beat Barca 3-0 on Tuesday

A statement on Barcelona's website read: 'Pedri has a quadriceps muscle injury in his left thigh. The player is unavailable for selection and his recovery will dictate his return.'

Pedri, who played the full match against Bayern, has become a mainstay in Barcelona's midfield despite his tender age, and his absence will be a big blow for Koeman.

He made 52 appearances in all competitions for the Catalan side last campaign, representing Spain at Euro 2020 and playing for his country at the Tokyo Olympics, representing a total of 73 matches across the entire season.

The injury adds to boss Ronald Koeman's injury problems, with several other players crocked

Sergino Dest, Ansu Fati, Ousmane Dembele, Martin Braithwaite and Sergio Aguero were all missing for the European clash, and defender Jordi Alba could be added to the absent list as well as Pedri.

The left-back was taken off in the 74th minute, with the club adding: 'Tests carried out on Wednesday morning on Jordi Alba show he has a hamstring injury in his right thigh. The player is unavailable for selection and his recovery will dictate his return.'

The duo could miss several matches, with Barcelona embarking on four games in nine days starting from Monday, with LaLiga clashes with Granada, Cadiz and Levante before a Champions League match against Benfica.

Jordi Alba (pictured) was substituted off against Bayern after picking up a hamstring injury

And Dutch boss Koeman complained about his lack of options after the match.

He said: 'There were only three strikers available. Tactically there were moments in which we were in control. Bayern's game is in the middle third and you have to fill [the gaps] there. It is what it is for the time being.

'I cannot complain about the attitude, but there is a difference in quality. They are a team that as a group have been together for a long time and also have a bench that has improved.'
Jesse Lingard has triggered a surge of interest from top clubs in the Premier League and Europe since rejecting a new contract at Manchester United.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer said on Thursday that United are still hopeful of keeping Lingard at Old Trafford beyond the end of his current deal in June despite the England international turning down the clubs offer last week.

It is understood that 28-year-old Lingard is open to staying at United  he joined the club at the age of seven  but wants to be sure that he will play enough games.

Jesse Lingard's loose backpass cost Manchester United dearly in their Champions League opener against Young Boys - but Ole Gunnar Solskjaer hopes he signs a new contract

Lingard is consoled by Harry Maguire after his mistake caused a shock result in Switzerland

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's side go up against West Ham - where Lingard spent a successful spell on loan last season - in the Premier League on Sunday

Man United fixtures Premier League unless stated Sunday West Ham (A) September 22 West Ham (H) Carabao Cup third round September 25 Aston Villa (H) September 29 Villarreal (H) Champions League October 2 Everton (H) October 16 Leicester City (A) Advertisement

He did not make a single Premier League appearance for United last season before moving to West Ham for a highly-successful loan spell that brought nine goals in 16 games, and Aprils award for Premier League player of the month.

He is aware that his next move will be the biggest of his career, whether he decides to extend his stay at United or seek a new challenge elsewhere.

There has been no shortage of interest at home and abroad after Lingards camp turned down Uniteds offer, and the next couple of months are seen as crucial.

Solskjaers side face West Ham in the Premier League on Sunday and again in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday. Lingard will return to the London Stadium this weekend having regained his England place and scored three goals in five games for club and country this season. However, he faces stiff competition for a place at Old Trafford after United spent 92.8million this summer on Cristiano Ronaldo and Jadon Sancho to strengthen a forward line that includes Paul Pogba, Bruno Fernandes, Edinson Cavani, Mason Greenwood, Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial.

Lingard had a setback in Bern on Tuesday night when his stray back-pass led to a late goal as United lost 2-1 to Young Boys, but Solskjaer is in no doubt that he wants to keep the player.

Hes got one year left on his contract and the club is talking to him and his dad, said the United boss.

We see him as a United player in the future as well. Jesse has come back to us after a great spell at West Ham. He showed his qualities and got back into the England squad.

Edinson Cavani will resume training with United on Monday as he returns from injury

We really want to see the best of him this season. We support him and we hope to keep him here with us  hes a Red through and through.

Solskjaer confirmed that Cavani will return to training next week after missing the trip to Switzerland through injury.

The Uruguay star, who was caught up in the club versus country row over Covid quarantine before the international break, has played less than half an hour this season.

He also gave up his No 7 to Ronaldo but Solskjaer said: I see Edinson having a massive impact. He cant wait to play and hes working really hard to get back on the pitch.
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Showcasing the deep blue sea and the life within in all its beauty and complexity, photographers swam through shark-infested waters and blooms of jellyfish to get the perfect shot.

The 2021 Ocean Photography Awards winners have been revealed, putting a spotlight on themes of underwater conservation, adventure and exploration.

Taking the top prize, Aimee Jan is the Ocean Photographer of the Year 2021. The Australian photographer's striking image of a green sea turtle was declared the 'unanimous winner' by the judges and trumped 'thousands of submissions'. Meanwhile, Exeter-based photographer Henley Spiers dives into second place with his breathtaking shot of gannets off the coast of Scotland.

The judges say: 'The Ocean Photography Awards has a simple mission: to shine a light on the beauty of the ocean and the threats it faces.'

There are seven categories in the competition, including the debut of the Female Fifty Fathoms Award, which celebrates female ocean photographers. For those hoping to get a closer look at the beautiful collection of photographs, a free outdoor exhibition on the Queens Walk, alongside the River Thames, will be open to the public for one month from September 17.

Scroll down to see MailOnline Travel's pick of the winners - the photographs claiming bronze, silver and gold are placed at the very end.

Say cheese: Introducing 'Snooty' the lemon shark, photographed off the coast of the town of Jupiter, Florida. This snapshot was plucked from French photographer Galice Hoarau's portfolio, which is commended by judges in the Collective Portfolio category

Hoarau is also behind this remarkable photograph, which shows a wolffish father carefully watching over his nest. It was taken in Norway's Saltstraumen strait

A juvenile trevally fish protects itself in a box jellyfish in Lembeh, Indonesia, in this intriguing picture from Hoarau's portfolio

A shoal of fish glide over a green turtle on a reef near Indonesia's Selayar Island in this vibrant snapshot. Again, it was taken by Hoarau

LEFT: In this magnificent black-and-white photograph, Hoarau captured Atlantic spotted dolphins swimming upwards in unison off the coast of Bimini, Bahamas. RIGHT: Nicholas Samaras successfully captured a poignant moment in time with this image. Commended in the Conservation category, it shows a seahorse 'cling' to a disposable face mask near Stratoni, Greece

Taking the lead in the Exploration category is this photograph, snared by New Yorker Martin Broen. During a trip to Mexico, he explored the natural cavern of cenote Dos Pisos in Quintana Roo. There, he documented how the light plays against the speleothems, which are geological formations of mineral deposits

Commended in the Conservation category is this jarring image by Canadian Steven Kovacs. Showing the hazards of littering, it sees a lizardfish try to devour a cigarette filter off the coast of Florida

Kovacs' work is also commended in the Collective Portfolio category. One of the photographs picked out by the judges is above. It depicts a male yellowhead jawfish 'mouthbrooding' its eggs until they are ready to hatch. Mouthbrooding, also known as oral incubation, is when eggs are carried and incubated in the parent's mouth

Kovacs is also behind this image, showing a rare deepwater cusk eel larva swim off the coast of Florida. It wins second place in the Exploration category

Aussie photographer Alex Kydd turned his camera on a shiver of grey reef sharks for this chilling image. Hungry for a feed, the sharks are seen hunting and chasing a huge school of bait fish. The photograph is one of many featured in Kydd's portfolio, which comes third in the Collective Portfolio category

Another bewitching image snapped by Kydd sees a fever of cownose rays displaying 'what is believed to be mating or courtship behaviour', according to the photographer. The image, taken in Coral Bay, Western Australia, is also commended in the Exploration category

A freediver is seen moving through a bloom of moon jellyfish in Raja Ampat, West Papua, in this enchanting image - another gem from Kydd's portfolio

Another impressive shot from Kydd's portfolio is this picture of a whale shark swimming through the depths of the Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia

Look above and you'll see a whale shark feeding on a school of baitfish. Again, Kydd got the shot on the Ningaloo Reef

German snapper Stefan Christmann is the overall champion in the Collective Portfolio category. His portfolio includes this touching image, which shows a lone emperor penguin chick standing on the edge of an ice shelf, gazing down at the water below. It was captured in Atka Bay, Antarctica, and is also commended in the Conservation category

Another striking shot from Christmann's portfolio is this captivating picture of an emperor penguin colony in Atka Bay. According to the photographer, in late spring, the colony mainly consists of chicks

LEFT: This heartwarming image by Christmann shows two emperor penguin parents dutifully shielding their young chick from the drifting snow. It was also captured in Atka Bay. RIGHT: Two grey whales were Mikayla Jones' subjects for this mesmerising photograph. Taken in Baja California, Mexico, the photographer notes that the mammals 'seemingly posed for the camera'. The snap secures third place in the Young Ocean Photographer of the Year category

Cast your eye above and you'll see the winner of the Female Fifty Fathoms Award. The beautiful image was snapped by Renee Capozzola, showing a lone blacktip reef shark lining up its dorsal fin with the setting sun in Moorea, French Polynesia. 'Sharks are plentiful in French Polynesia due to their strong legal protections and are a sign of a healthy marine ecosystem,' the photographer explains

Another image from Capozzola's winning portfolio shows two mating green sea turtles at the water's surface in Maui, Hawaii. 'Just after the sun had set, I noticed a large turtle underneath me swimming very fast, so I quickly slipped under the surface to see what was going on and then saw two turtles come together and flip upside down,' the photographer recalls. 'The turtles then rose to the surface and started mating right in front of me.' According to LA-based photographer and biology teacher Capozzola, the turtles were splashing about and spinning in a circle. She adds: 'This is the only time I have seen turtles mate although there are many turtles in Hawaii thanks to their strong legal protections'

The crown for Young Ocean Photographer of the Year goes to Hannah Le Leu, for this adorable snapshot of a green sea turtle hatchling. According to Le Leu, the turtle 'cautiously surfaced for air, to a sky full of hungry birds' near Heron Island, Australia

A dead gannet hangs from the piece of discarded fishing gear it used to build its nest in this poignant image, which is commended in the Conservation category. Henley Spiers immortalised the moment on the Isle of Noss, Scotland

Another of Spiers' photographs, also commended in the Conservation category, sees an olive ridley turtle ensnared by fishing gear. The unfortunate turtle was paddling far offshore in the Pacific Ocean, near Baja California Sur, Mexico, when the picture was taken

Sebastien Pontoizeau's breathtaking picture of a freediver trying to capture a photo of a humpback whale is third in the adventure category. It was snapped off the coast of Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean

Ben Thouard was behind the camera for this amazing image, which was taken in Tahiti and documents surfer Matahi Drollet move through the barrel of a wave known locally as 'Teahupoo'. The picture reigns supreme in the Adventure category

Another image captured by Thouard wins second place in the Adventure category. In the photograph, the 'Teahupoo' wave in Tahiti is seen crashing from below the water's surface

Matty Smith's incredible body of work comes second in the Collective Portfolio category. Taken in Jervis Bay, Australia, the picture to the left shows 'Sea Sparkle', which is caused by a type of phytoplankton with the ability to produce and emit light, washing ashore. The photographer recalled the Sea Sparkle 'glowing brilliantly in the ebb and flow of the lapping waves'. If you look to the right, you'll see another of Smith's photographs. This one shows a lone freediver exploring the spectacular Swallows Cave in Tonga

Phil de Glanville secured this high-octane shot of a surfer, named Jack Robinson, riding the famous break known as The Right in Denmark, Western Australia. According to the photographer, 'The Right' is home to some of the heaviest waves in the world. The picture wins the Community Choice Award

Drum roll please... this image, taken by Matty Smith, is the overall bronze medal winner in the Ocean Photography Awards. The powerful picture shows a newly hatched hawksbill turtle - measuring just 3.5cm (1.4inches) long - taking its first swim, off the coast of Lissenung Island, Papua New Guinea. Smith reveals: 'It had emerged from an egg just minutes earlier with approximately 100 of its siblings. They quickly made their way into the ocean to disperse as rapidly as they could and avoid predation from birds and fish.' He adds: 'I had to work quickly for this shot'

Second place in Ocean Photography Awards goes to this stunning photograph taken by Henley Spiers near the Isle of Noss, Scotland. 'Diving in amidst the barrage of gannets, I witnessed the violent synchronicity of these impressive seabirds as they embarked on fishing dives,' says the photographer. 'They hit the water at 60mph, an impact they can only withstand thanks to specially evolved air sacs in the head and chest. The birds agility transfers from air to sea where it also swims with incredible speed'
Tourism Australia and The Wiggles have teamed up to encourage families with children to travel domestically in the 'Holiday Here This Year' campaign.

The partnership will see the children's band promote holiday destinations around the country on the family hub of the Tourism Australia website.

A children's book called The Great Australian Wiggly Road Trip has also been released, as well as a new Wiggles song and YouTube series.

Campaign: The Wiggles and Tourism Australia have teamed up to promote domestic travel for families with children in the 'Holiday Here This Year' campaign. Pictured: Emma Watkins

Tourism Australia will also partner with The Wiggles on their nationwide tour in 2022.

Blue Wiggle Anthony Field told Mumbrella: 'We are so incredibly excited to be partnering with Tourism Australia in such a monumental year for The Wiggles and a unique time in history.

'There has never been a more important time to explore Australia than now and who better to do it with than Tourism Australia!'

Fun content: The partnership will see the children's band (pictured clockwise from top left: Emma Watkins, Simon Pryce, Anthony Field and Lachlan Gillespie) promote holiday destinations around the country on the family hub of the Tourism Australia website

Exciting: A children's book called The Great Australian Wiggly Road Trip (pictured) has also been released, as well as a new Wiggles song and YouTube series

'We are so excited to share some of the great locations that Australia offers! There's so much to see and do right here in our own backyard,' he added.

A video on the Tourism Australia website shows The Wiggles inviting fans to go on a 'road trip' with them in their Big Red Car.

The Wiggles' partnership with Tourism Australia comes after A-list couple Hamish and Zoe Foster Blake starred in a series of TV ads for 'Holiday Here This Year'.

Campaign: The Wiggles' partnership with Tourism Australia comes after A-list couple Hamish and Zoe Foster Blake (pictured) starred in a series of TV ads for 'Holiday Here This Year'

Tourism Australia spent $7million on the campaign featuring the TV presenter and beauty mogul to encourage Aussies to take regional holidays.

The Blakes brought their own brand of humour to the ads, which aired earlier this year, as they urged viewers to 'go big' by exploring Down Under.

The local tourism industry has faced several setbacks this year with different states and regions of Australia going in and out of Covid lockdown, before the Delta variant of Covid shut down most of the country.
She's served as a judge on The Block ever since the reality TV staple's fifth season.

But now Shaynna Blaze is about to embark on her own televised renovation project, with the interior designer transforming a dilapidated home for the new Channel 9 series Country Home Rescue.

Blaze will be joined by her children as they turn the 120-year-old rural Victorian house into their 'forever home'.

Fixxer-upper: Shaynna Blaze (pictured) is about to embark on her own televised renovation project, with the interior designer transforming a dilapidated home for the new Channel 9 series Country Home Rescue

In a sneak peek for the six-part series, Blaze and her daughter Carly and son Jess can be seen demolishing the old interior with sledgehammers.

Blaze also revealed she originally bought the Kyneton, Victoria property to flip rather than live in, before falling in love with the place.

Country Home Rescue is expected to premiere in October On Nine and 9Now.

Family project: Blaze will be joined by her children as they turn the 120-year-old rural Victorian house into their 'forever home'

'Forever home': Blaze also revealed she originally bought the Kyneton, Victoria property to flip rather than live in, before falling in love with the place

The new project comes as Shaynna, along with fellow Block judges Darren Palmer and Neale Whitaker, are copping flak for their overly harsh criticism on the show.

In a series of tweets, viewers recently slammed the experts for 'nitpicking' and being 'tedious' with their critiques, with some even urging producers to replace the trio.

'I think it's time to take a leaf out of MasterChef and change up the judges. Refresh required,' one wrote.

Cathartic: In a sneak peek for the six-part series, Blaze and her daughter Carly and son Jess can be seen demolishing the old interior with sledgehammers

Coming soon: Country Home Rescue is expected to premiere in October On Nine and 9Now

'When are these judges being replaced? The wardrobe isn't for having a party - it's for storing clothes and shoes,' tweeted another.

The negative tweets particularly came out in force during Sunday's bathroom reveal, with one posting, 'I mean are the judges correct with who wins at auction? They have terrible odds.'

Fans are not the only ones who have urged for a judge shakeup, with contestants Mitch Edwards and Mark McKie slamming them over their harsh criticism this year.

Critical eye: The new project comes as Shaynna, along with fellow Block judges Darren Palmer and Neale Whitaker, are copping flak for their overly harsh criticism on the show

Speaking to Woman's Day magazine on Monday, the stylish granddads accused the expert panel of being 'disrespectful' by providing 'silly, unfounded' feedback about their rooms, calling for the judges to be replaced.

'For Shaynna to make comments like 'I hate it' and then for Neale to say 'it's better for our room to burn down'... They know that people have worked really, really hard,' Mitch, 58, lamented.

Mark, 59, agreed, arguing that Shaynna, Neale and Darren are 'out of touch' when it comes to the property market and aren't fit to dole out advice.

'The judges aren't real estate agents - they don't sell in the market,' Mark said, adding: It would be good timing for the longevity of The Block to bring in people who have new ideas. Fresh blood would be great.'

Mother hen: In a snippet from the series, Shaynna watches as Jess and Carly jackhammer the yard

'And some talent,' Mitch jeered, before suggesting he and Mitch should take over as judges.

However, a New Idea magazine insider claimed on Monday that Mitch and Mark struggled to accept criticism this season, claiming: 'They felt they knew better and were emotional over any critiques.'

'They like to think they are the judges,' the spy claimed.
Mark Wahlberg and Kevin Hart were pictured on the set of their upcoming Netflix movie Me Time just days before a horrific accident occurred on set.

The duo were seen filming an action sequence in matching tracksuits surrounded by production personnel.

Early September 14, paramedics received a call about a 'long fall' at Sunset Gower Studios, where the person was said to be 'grave' condition, at which point it was revealed that the victim was a crew member on the set of the film.

Full throttle: Mark Wahlberg and Kevin Hart were pictured filming an action sequence on the set of Me Time just days before an on-set accident left a crew member in 'critical condition' after suffering a 'long fall'

The duo were seen filming a nighttime sequence involving a tortoise, as they sprinted back and forth to their car before carrying the animal to the emergency room.

In the film Hart, 42, plays a stay-at-home dad who finds himself having some 'me time' for the first time in ages after his wife and kids go away. He reconnects with his former best friend, played by Wahlberg, and a wild weekend ensues.

Production seemed to kick off on September 7, but just a week later an accident on set nearly put a wrench in things.

Both TMZ and Deadline reported varying details of the major incident that occurred around 7AM on Tuesday.

LAFD spokesperson Brian Humphrey told Deadline that they received a 911 call at 7:04AM where someone reported a man in his 30s had taken a 'long fall' from the grid above Stage 12 which was around 30 feet high.

Tough week: Production was said to have kicked off only one week before the accident occurred but it is unclear if both men were present at the time of the early AM incident

Scene of the incident: A 38-year-old crew member fell from Stage 12 at Sunset Gower Studios around 7AM on Tuesday, September 14 and was in such 'grave' condition that a defibrillator was used to get his heartbeat back; Stage 12 pictured 2012

TMZ then detailed that the victim was a 38-year-old man who was not wearing a safety device when he fell and sustained fractures to his arms and legs.

The publication reported that when paramedics arrived the man was in 'grave' condition as he 'didn't have a pulse and on-set medical workers were performing CPR'.

After emergency responders used a defibrillator to get his heartbeat back, his condition was updated to 'critical,' and he was rushed via ambulance to a regional trauma center.

The details leading up to the accident are unknown as his current condition, and it is unclear if production was halted after the accident.

Wild antics: The duo were seen filming a nighttime sequence involving a tortoise, as they sprinted back and forth to their car before carrying the animal to the emergency room
Skye Wheatley has been forced to apologise after posting an 'insensitive' joke on Instagram about her sex life with boyfriend Lachlan Waugh.

The former Big Brother star, 27, joked during a Q&A with fans on Wednesday that she demands sex from Lachlan even when he isn't in the mood.

When asked who is more dominant in bed, Skye responded: 'Hahahahaha me... but only when he's mad and says he doesn't want to have sex.'

'I am truly, deeply sorry': Skye Wheatley (right) has been forced to apologise after posting an 'insensitive' joke on Instagram about her sex life with boyfriend Lachlan Waugh (left)

'Hahahahaha ain't nobody telling me no... I won't take no for an answer if I want sexy time,' she added.

Skye's comments clearly upset some of her fans, as she returned to the platform less than 24 hours to issue a grovelling apology.

The mother of two apologised for her 'insensitive, triggering' words and promised to think twice before making similar jokes in the future.

'I won't take no for an answer': The former Big Brother star, 27, joked during a Q&A with fans on Wednesday that she demands sex from Lachlan even when he isn't in the mood

Ruffling feathers: Skye's comments clearly upset some of her fans, as she returned to the platform less than 24 hours to issue a grovelling apology

'Hi guys, just wanted to jump on and address one of my comments made on my Q&As last night and my poor choice of phrasing. Lachlan and I have a healthy, balanced sexual life,' she wrote on Instagram Stories.

'I have never been in a situation with Lachlan where he [has] done anything he hasn't wanted to do sexually or vice versa. At no point would I ever do anything to another human being that they don't consent to.'

Skye expressed regret for her 'poor choice of wording' and clarified that neither she nor Lachlan had ever forced or manipulated each other into having sex.

No laughing matter: The mother of two apologised for her 'insensitive, triggering' words and promised to think twice before making similar jokes in the future

'I understand my words were completely insensitive and triggering and I am truly, deeply sorry for that. I am ashamed to have posted that without even considering the effect it could have on my followers,' she said.

The Gold Coast influencer concluded her post by promising not to be so 'impulsive' when communicating with her large audience.

'I take full responsibility and am 100 per cent committed to making sure I take steps forward to make better decisions of what I say in the future,' she wrote.

'Please stop harassing us': Lachlan also responded to the backlash on Thursday by posting a blunt message on Instagram Stories

Lachlan also responded to the backlash on Thursday by posting a blunt message on Instagram Stories.

'I can't believe I have to come on here and address this on my behalf. Don't f**king message me asking if "I'm okay",' the tradie raged.

'Come on guys honestly our sex is always consensual. What Skye posted was worded incorrectly. Please stop harassing us.'

Frustrated: 'I can't believe I have to come on here and address this on my behalf. Don't f**king message me asking if "I'm okay",' the tradie raged

Skye and Lachlan met in 2017 after matching on Tinder.

They welcomed their first child, a son named Forest, in December 2018, and a second son, Bear, was born on April 23.

If you or anyone else is struggling, please contact lifeline on 13 11 14
She was on fire last week as she celebrated New York Fashion Week with her sister Paris.

But Nicky Hilton was ready to slow down on Wednesday when she was spotted looking playful in a pink dress while out with her three-year-old daughter Teddy.

The 37-year-old heiress held hands with the little girl as the arrived at the upscale Italian restaurant Cipriani for lunch together.

Tea for two: Nicky Hilton, 37, held hands with her youngest daughter Teddy on Wednesday as they dropped by Cipriani in New York City for lunch

Nicky looked gorgeous in her pink dress, which was covered in polka dots and featured a short, layered skirt that highlighted her toned legs.

The 5ft7in beautys' low-cut outfit had a bow tied over her chest and featured puffy short sleeves.

She matched her dress with a pink Valentino Roman stud handbag, and she toned down the vibrant colors with a pale pink pair of pumps.

Her voluminous blond locks were styled in thick waves and cascaded down her back.

Pretty in pink: Nicky looked lovely in a plunging pink polka dot dress with a frilly skirt. She matched it with a studded pink Valentino handbag and modest pale pink pumps

Teddy was dressed in a pale lavender dress with her hair tied back in a white bow.

She carried small white flowers in one hand and wore cute silver shoes with little cat faces and ears over the toes.

Prior to her midweek family lunch, Nicky and her older sister Paris had been unmissable at New York Fashion Week events around the city.

Earlier on Wednesday she summed up the fashion extravaganza with a beaming photo of herself taken at night in Times Square.

She was decked out in a lovely pink-and-white Oscar de la Renta dress with a matching short jacket draped over her shoulders, as well as a silver handbag.

'What a whirlwind week in NYC!' she gushed.

Made it to the end: She celebrated the end of New York Fashion week earlier on Wednesday with a photo of herself in a pink-and-white Oscar de la Renta dress taken in Times Square

Stylish sisters: She and her older sister Paris Hilton, 40, were regular fixtures at several NYFW events; pictured together on Thursday

Over the weekend, Nicky helped Paris celebrate her upcoming nuptials to fiance Carter Reum with an engagement party in the city.

Paris and the businessman have been dating since 2019, and they got engaged in February of this year.

The special moment coincided with the Simple Life star's 40th birthday celebration on a private island.

This engagement is the fourth for the socialite, who was previously proposed to by model Jason Shaw in 2002, Greek socialite Paris Latsis in 2005 and actor Chris Zylka in 2018.
Fans of The Apprentice can rest easy as Lord Alan Sugar has hinted he has no plans to stop filming the popular BBC show.

The businessman, 74, has just wrapped filming on the 16th series of the show, which tests the brains of hungry hopefuls as they compete to become his business partner.

The new series of the programme will air next year, however it looks like he has no plans to slow down, as his spokesperson told MailOnline: 'Lord Sugar would be prepared to make it 20 years of The Apprentice!'

Success: Fans of The Apprentice can rest easy as Lord Alan Sugar has hinted he has no plans to stop filming the popular BBC show

The Apprentice first aired in 2005 so it is likely that the entrepreneur can see the programme running until 2025.

While recent reports suggested the next two series would be filmed back-to-back, MailOnline understands that Lord Sugar is still waiting for confirmation from the BBC regarding the next installment of the show.

They said: 'Series 16 will be broadcast early in 2022. Lord Sugar is waiting to hear from the BBC about more series. It is the BBCs decision, however, Lord Sugar would be prepared to make it 20 years of The Apprentice.'

Last year's show was replaced by a compilation of highlights from series past, however viewers can look forward to a brand new series in the coming months.

Show: The businessman, 74, has just wrapped filming on the 16th series of the show, which tests the brains of hungry hopefuls as they compete to become his business partner (pictured with Karren Brady and Claude Littner)

It comes after the businessman received criticism after jetting from the UK to Australia during the pandemic to film the sixth series of Celebrity Apprentice.

Lord Sugar revealed he was quarantining on the 21st floor of The Sheraton in Sydney for two weeks after arriving Down Under.

'Nice view from the 21st floor,' he wrote in a now-deleted Tweet, alongside an accompanying video of his view.

While Channel Nine confirmed to Daily Mail Australia that Lord Sugar's travel and accommodation were all within the guidelines for exemptions which are outside the current international arrival caps, it didn't stop some critics from sharing their opinion on social media.

Backlash: It comes after the businessman received criticism after jetting from the UK to Australia during the pandemic to film the sixth series of Celebrity Apprentice

'How are you allowed in when 10s of thousands of Aussies are still waiting to be allowed home?' one wrote.

'Lucky you - been separated from my daughter and grandsons for almost 2 years and yet here you are bragging that you are there. Its amazing what having money can get you!' a second added.

'Really!? Nice view hey? Do you know how many Australian citizens cant see their family because of flight caps and restrictions and youre up there rubbing it in our faces!' a third chimed in.

However, others were quick to defend the media mogul, praising him for coming over and boosting the Australian economy by working on the popular series.

'When youre bringing money and possibly jobs to a country, they open doors to you, Lord Sugar is there on business I would expect and not a holiday,' one fan wrote.

'Nice view from the 21st floor,' Lord Sugar wrote in a now-deleted Tweet, alongside an accompanying video of his view

'Its called business, when youre helping the economy of a country, they welcome you,' a second chimed in.

'Why do others hate it when others are successful and doing well,' another said.

Australian borders are currently closed to those who are not Australian citizens, permanent residents or immediately family members.

However, there are caps on the number of passengers coming into Australia from overseas to ease pressure on quarantine facilities, which has meant some citizens have been stranded overseas.

Under fire: While many were supportive of his travel, others were left less than impressed that he was able to travel to locked-down Sydney while so many are unable to do so themselves

Defence: Others were quick to defend the media mogul, praising him for coming over and boosting the Australian economy by working on the popular series

Like with other reality shows filmed Down Under, Lord Alan Sugar is on a special visa - meaning he isn't taking a hotel quarantine spot from an Australian.

A spokesperson for Nine told Daily Mail Australia: 'Lord Sugar is back in Australia to film Celebrity Apprentice.

'His travel and accommodation is all within the guidelines for exemptions which are outside the caps.

'The exemptions and quarantine are in accordance with all government protocols and requirements including any payments that are associated with this.'
Fred and Rose West: Reopened

Rating:

The Man Putin Couldn't Kill

Rating:

Just like a traditional television murder mystery, Fred And Rose West: Reopened (ITV) ended on a dramatic cliffhanger: was one of the couples undiscovered victims buried in the basement of a cafe in Gloucester?

Well, it was a cliffhanger if you werent paying attention to the news earlier this year.

The evidence was very suggestive. A witness had seen Fred, who hanged himself in 1995 before he could face trial for mass murder, carrying some suspicious-looking sacks into the basement, where it is claimed he was doing some building work. He was certainly a customer at the cafe, where teenager Mary Bastholm worked as a waitress. She was last seen at a bus stop, just like other West victims.

Sir Trevor McDonald's team managed to get access to the cafe basement

Everything about the Wests is seedy and stomach-churning, but the programmes team of investigators was led by Sir Trevor McDonald, who provided some much-needed dignity, sympathy and gravitas. His team managed to get access to the cafe basement. With the aid of ground radar and a sniffer dog, they found there was indeed something suspicious.

You need to come and see this, said Colin Sutton, a former CID man. And that was supposedly that until next week. In fact, police dug up the cellar earlier this year. It is now suggested that the suspected evidence of human remains was the result of investigators accidentally drilling through a sewage pipe.

Despite that setback, the programme offered a compelling argument that up to 20 victims of the Wests, who officially killed 12 young women, are yet to be discovered.

Psychologist Donna Youngs pointed out that there are big gaps in the couples timeline of murder. Most serial killers work to a pattern, she said. Do those gaps represent murders we dont yet know about?

The team made one real breakthrough. West spoke of a mysterious farm where more bodies may be buried. Using clues suggested by the former labourers work records and a former employer, they tracked down this farm to a location in the Gloucestershire town of Berkeley.

It was quite an evening for programmes about mass murder. The Man Putin Couldnt Kill (C4) made a convincing case, if one were needed, that the Russian state carries out political assassinations.

One opposition activist, who has twice been poisoned and survived, noted dryly: It is a strange statistical model that people who happen to oppose the regime of Vladimir Putin happen to walk into these strange accidents and suffer from bad health.

The Man Putin Couldnt Kill (C4) made a convincing case, if one were needed, that the Russian state carries out political assassinations

The programme followed the career of blogger and opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was poisoned in August 2020. He survived only because doctors were able to treat him quickly.

Theyve tried to poison me at least three times, but Im still alive, he said. What kind of helpless idiots work at the [Russian security service] FSB? We now know the answer because, posing as a Kremlin official, Navalny telephoned one of the men who attacked him. The chemical weapons specialist fell for the deception and told how a hit squad broke into Navalnys hotel room during a trip to Siberia and smeared the inside of his underpants with Novichok.

President Putin cheerily denies it all. With a chilly chuckle, he insisted: If we had tried to poison him, we could certainly have finished the job.

A Navalny supporter predicted that he would become president of Russia and restore democracy. He is currently in a prison camp, where his health is failing. I dont entirely share her optimism.

Christopher Stevens is away.
Jordana Brewster appeared to debut her stunning engagement ring on Tuesday while strolling in Hollywood with her fiance Mason Morfit.

The 41-year-old Fast & Furious series star looked relaxed in casual clothing, but she added plenty of sparkle to her ensemble with the enormous princess-cut diamond ring.

She and the 44-year-old businessman announced their happy news later in the day on her Instagram account.

Sparkler: Jordana Brewster, 41, showed off her enormous princess-cut diamond engagement ring while out in Hollywood with her beau Mason Morfit on Tuesday

Jordana's ring appeared to have two smaller diamonds to the sides and featured what was either a white gold or platinum band.

She contrasted the lovely stone with a relaxed white shirt and a vibrant yellow cardigan, with her sleeve pulled back to show off her silver luxury wristwatch.

The actress and model wore jeans that were blown out at the knees and yellow-and-black flats.

She carried a thick black handbag with a gold clasp and wore her long brunette tresses down to frame her casually made-up face and her chunky dark sunglasses.

Out and about: She and the 44-year-old CEO had been shopping for glasses earlier in the day. She wore a yellow cardigan and blown-out jeans with flats

Taking her time: Jordana was seen wearing the ring, but it wasn't until later in the day that she shared her engagement news on Instagram

Mason looked casual in a charcoal T-shirt and matching loafers with lighter gray jeans.

The lovebirds were heading back to their vehicle after shopping for new glasses at Garret Leight California Optical.

Later on Tuesday, Jordana shared the news of her engagement to the CEO of the investment firm ValueAct Capital on Instagram.

She showed off a winning smile while sitting on a rocky beach and nuzzling her head affectionately against her fiance.

'JB soon to be JBM,' she wrote.

It's official! Later on Tuesday, Jordana shared the news of her engagement to the CEO of the investment firm ValueAct Capital on Instagram

Back in June, Jordana delved into her new romance and the end of her marriage to Andrew Form in an essay for Glamour.

According to her, Mason had peaked her interest when she met him four years ago, prior to the end of her marriage.

'I took note of Mason; he was cute, charming. Shortly after that lunch I started following him on Instagram,' she wrote.

'Four days after I separated from Andrew, I was on a plane to San Francisco to visit this man I had met only once but who had stayed on my mind.'

She claimed to have been separated from her husband for two years at the time.

She and Andrew, who is currently dating White Lotus star Alexandra Daddario, share sons Julian, eight, and Rowan, five.

Ex: Brewster shares two children with ex-husband Andrew Form. They wed in 2007 but separated in 2019; seen together in 2019

The coule were married in 2007 but separated in 2019.

She marked finalizing the divorce in June, around the time her essay was published.

'I sometimes mourn the fact that my boys wont grow up in a home with their mom and dad together, but I remember they are also growing up in a home with a mom who lives authentically,' she mused in her piece.
Jessica Chastain explained her 'carpet chemistry' with co-star Oscar Isaac on Wednesday during an appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.

The 44-year-old actress was promoting her new film The Eyes Of Tammy Faye and Stephen, 57, noted she also was starring in the HBO series Scenes From A Marriage with Oscar, 42.

'I know where you're going,' Jessica said.

Carpet chemistry: Jessica Chastain explained her 'carpet chemistry' with co-star Oscar Isaac on Wednesday during an appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert

'Then why don't you say it for me,' Stephen quipped. 'You guys go way back'.

'Way back,' Jessica confirmed.

'You're old friends. You're old friends. So there's nothing to be made of the footage we are about to roll,' Stephen said.

'We went to college together at Juilliard,' Jessica said.

Tender moment: Stephen asked Jessica about Oscar kissing her arm while they were posing on the carpet at the Venice Film Festival

'Juilliard, exactly. You're both in loving relationships with other people,' Stephen continued.

'We're both married to other people,' Jessica added.

'We have been friends for more than 20 years. If it hasn't happened yet, it's not going to happen. Sorry to tell everybody because I know people got very excited about this,' Jessica said.

Old friends: 'We have been friends for more than 20 years. If it hasn't happened yet, it's not going to happen. Sorry to tell everybody because I know people got very excited about this,' Jessica said

Stephen then showed footage of Jessica and Oscar on the carpet at the Venice Film Festival that showed them seemingly gazing into each other's eyes before he kisses her arm.

'It's a slow-motion, it's a slow-motion. And I'm looking straight ahead. I didn't even realize what he was doing until the photographers laughed,' Jessica said.

'I'm not saying that you're getting lost in Oscar Isaac, I'm saying Oscar Isaac is getting lost in Jessica Chastain,' Stephen said.

Slow motion: 'It's a slow-motion, it's a slow-motion. And I'm looking straight ahead. I didn't even realize what he was doing until the photographers laughed,' Jessica said as Stephen showed a video clip of them on the carpet

'It's my armpits. It's the power of my armpit. It's a very strong force,' Jessica joked.

Scenes From A Marriage starring Jessica and Isaac premiered Monday on HBO.

It is an English-language remake of 1973 Swedish miniseries of the same name by Ingmar Bergman.

Warm welcome: The Oscar nominee received a warm welcome from the live audience

Jessica also explained why she became a producer of The Eyes Of Tammy Faye, which premiered Sunday at the Toronto International Film Festival.

She said she was inspired after watching the 2000 documentary of the same name and felt the televangelist was 'vilified by the media'.

'So I wanted to go back and celebrate her for the things that she did and said rather than than, like, vilify her for how much makeup she wore, which is kind of what the history was,' she said.

New movie: Jessica was promoting her new film The Eyes Of Tammy Faye in which she stars and also serves as an executive producer

Jessica's transformation to portray her was incredible and Stephen asked how long it took.

'Well, the makeup ...the longest it took was seven hours one day. It's a lot,' Jessica said.

The Eyes Of Tammy Faye will be released Friday by Searchlight Pictures.
The Block's Josh Packham has gone rogue and blasted the editing on the Channel Nine reality show in a fiery social media post.

In a series of Instagram videos, the hunk said that he and brother Luke were made to look like they were 'whingeing' without the proper context of what went down - and that it almost left his twin in tears.

The drama started on Wednesday's episode, when the boys were forced to take down 'screens' in their indoor-outdoor bathroom they'd built.

Outspoken: The Block's Josh and Luke Packham have gone rogue and blasted the editing on the Channel Nine reality show in a fiery social media post

They ended up using pony walls in the bathroom instead of privacy screens, which were then deemed non-compliant because the area wasn't waterproof.

However, Josh later claimed on Instagram that their builders had been granted approval to use a different structure than a screen, which the show failed to mention.

Josh filmed the scene on his Instagram Stories and added his own commentary to explain his version of events.

Honesty: In a series of Instagram videos, Josh said that he and brother Luke were made to look like they were 'whingeing' without the proper context of what went down

'Luke was being passive because you just know there's no point going against the story that they're trying to portray,' Josh said as footage of his visibly upset brother played on screen.

'My builders, who have 30 years' experience and are extremely intelligent, asked the question if we could change from a screen to a blueboard and it was approved.

'This is just a massive cover-up; it's not fair to my builders at all. I won't have their name dragged through the mud.'

Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Channel Nine for comment.

'This is just a massive cover-up; it's not fair to my builders at all. I won't have their name dragged through the mud,' Josh said

Luke couldn't contain his emotions after being told he'd have to remove the walls of his outdoor bath area on Wednesday's episode of The Block.

The 28-year-old was left shattered after foreman Dan Reilly told him all three walls around the structure would have to come down after being built 'illegally'.

'There's no real heartfelt saying, "Sorry, guys. This isn't going to work." For them it's just a wall. For us, it's our heart and soul of the home,' said Luke.

He added: 'I'm very upset. I feel like I'm getting punished right now for something that technically wasn't even our fault.'

Upsetting: Luke (pictured) couldn't contain his emotions after being told he'd have to remove the walls of his outdoor bath area on Wednesday's episode of The Block

As he processed having to remove the walls, Luke broke down in tears and confessed he felt like he and his brother Josh, also 26, were being treated unfairly.

'We're just two young blokes. You know, people think they can just throw it at us,' he explained.

'You know, we're going to be okay and happy to cop the hit for it and the blame... It's very upsetting.'

Dropping a bomb: The 28-year-old was left shattered after foreman Dan Reilly (right) told him all three walls around the structure would have to come down after being built 'illegally'

Luke admitted that he and Josh had invested a lot in the outdoor bath area, describing it as 'the hero shot on my real estate page'.

'I care about this place a lot. Me and Josh are doing this for the first time, and we're here to win, and this was one of our ideas,' he said.

He added: 'I'm pulling down the soul of my home.'

The former Love Island star admitted he was devastated at having to take down the walls after putting so much effort into the design.

'I'm overwhelmed. I just want to get off-site. I just want to go for a drive, I just want to get away,' he said.
Less than a week after announcing their controversial reality series The Activist and coming under fire for the concept, CBS is going to rework the show.

The show was announced last Thursday, hosted by Usher, Priyanka Chopra and Julianne Hough, as a five-week reality series where activists from around the world will try to bring about meaningful change.

The premise was immediately criticized online, with CBS revealing on Wednesday the show will be 'retooled' amid the backlash, according to Variety, pared down from a five-episode competition show to a documentary special.

Rework: Less than a week after announcing their controversial reality series The Activist and coming under fire for the concept, CBS is going to rework the show

The original premise of the show would find six activists participating in, 'missions, media stunts, digital campaigns and community events aimed at garnering the attention of the world's most powerful decision-makers, demanding action, now.'

The success of these activities would be determined by, 'online engagement, social metrics and hosts' input,' with the celeb hosts guiding them through the journey, 'with plenty of surprises from high-profile public figures.'

The original five-episode competition series has already been filmed, but this reworked version will be entirely new, filming from scratch.

Host: The show was announced last Thursday, hosted by Usher, Priyanka Chopra and Julianne Hough, as a five-week reality series where activists from around the world will try to bring about meaningful change

New filming: The original five-episode competition series has already been filmed, but this reworked version will be entirely new, filming from scratch

CBS is teaming with Global Citizen and Live Nation for the show, with the network and production entities issuing a joint statement about the show's new direction.

'The Activist was designed to show a wide audience the passion, long hours, and ingenuity that activists put into changing the world, hopefully inspiring others to do the same,' the statement began.

'However, it has become apparent the format of the show as announced distracts from the vital work these incredible activists do in their communities every day. The push for global change is not a competition and requires a global effort,' the statement added.

Statement: CBS is teaming with Global Citizen and Live Nation for the show, with the network and production entities issuing a joint statement about the show's new direction

Passion: 'The Activist was designed to show a wide audience the passion, long hours, and ingenuity that activists put into changing the world, hopefully inspiring others to do the same,' the statement began

'As a result, we are changing the format to remove the competitive element and reimagining the concept into a primetime documentary special (air date to be announced),' the statement continued.

'It will showcase the tireless work of six activists and the impact they have advocating for causes they deeply believe in. Each activist will be awarded a cash grant for the organization of their choice, as was planned for the original show,' the statement added.

The original format would have six activists - whose names have not been announced, representing three causes - health, education and environment.

Format: The original format would have six activists - whose names have not been announced, representing three causes - health, education and environment

They would compete in challenges to raise awareness about these causes throughout the first four episodes.

The fifth and final episode, three of the six activists (one for each cause) were to be chosen to attend the G20 summit in Rome at the end of October, to personally press for their causes.

The retooled version of The Activists will still focus on the same six activists, but without any 'challenges' or 'evaluations.

It hasn't been confirmed if Usher, Priyanka Chopra or Julianne Hough will be 'hosting' now that it's a documentary special, though Hough and Chopra did address the backlash. On Tuesday, Julianne shared a lengthy statement on Instagram.

Not confirmed: It hasn't been confirmed if Usher, Priyanka Chopra or Julianne Hough will be 'hosting' now that it's a documentary special, though Hough and Chopra did address the backlash with statements on Instagram

'After the press release announcing The Activist, I heard you say that the show was performative, promoted pseudo-activism over real activism, felt tone-deaf, like Black Mirror/The Hunger Games, and that the hosts weren't qualified to assess activism because we are celebrities and not activists,' she said.

'I do not claim to be an activist and wholeheartedly agree that the judging aspect of the show missed the mark and furthermore, that I am not qualified to act as a judge,' she continued.

'I do not have all the answers yet. I've shared your concerns as well as my own with the powers that be, who I believe have listened. I have faith and confidence in the beautiful people that I've worked with will make the right choice and do the right thing moving forward. Not just for the show, but for the greater good,' she said.

And on Thursday, Priyanka posted her own statement on Instagram in which she responded to the online criticism.

'I have been moved by the power of your voices over the past week,' Chopra wrote. 'At its core, Activism is fuelled by cause and effect, and when people come together to raise their voice about something, there is always an effect. You were heard.'

The show got it wrong, and I'm sorry that my participation in it disappointed many of you. The intention was always to bring attention to the people behind the ideas and highlight the actions and impact of the causes they support tirelessly. I'm happy to know that in this new format, their stories will be the highlight, and I'm proud to collaborate with partners who have their ear to the ground and know when it's time to hit pause and re-evaluate.'
Miles Teller was in costume as real-life producer Al Ruddy on Wednesday while filming the behind-the-scenes miniseries The Offer.

The 34-year-old actor was joined on set in Los Angeles' Los Feliz neighborhood by his costar Juno Temple, 32, who plays the agent Bettye McCartt.

DailyMail.com exclusively reported earlier this month that production had been shut down in July after Teller tested positive for Covid-19 after previously refusing to get vaccinated.

Behind the scenes: Miles Teller, 34, was seen in costume with his costar Juno Temple, 32, on the set of the Paramount+ miniseries The Offer on Wednesday

Teller's character was dressed to in a tan blazer with brown trousers and matching suede boots to fit the show's early 1970s setting.

He had his dark hair done up in thick curls and wore chunky orange-tinted glasses.

Temple's costume also nailed the time period. She wore a silky orange patterned blouse with a gray dress and black knee-high boots.

The Ted Lasso star had on gleaming gold hoop earrings that were framed by her platinum blond tresses.

Nailed it: Teller was costumed in a tan blazer with brown trousers and suede boots. Temple looked period-appropriate in an orange patterned blouse with gray dress and black boots

The story behind it: Teller stars as film producer Al Ruddy in the series, which gives a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the making of the 1972 Oscar-winning masterpiece The Godfather

The show delves into the making of the Oscar-winning gangster epic The Godfather.

Dan Fogler, who plays legendary director Francis Ford Coppola, was also seen on set in a brown blazer and vest combo with gray trousers.

He sported shaggy hair and a thick beard to approximate the filmmaker's look during that period.

Patrick Gallo, who plays Godfather scribe Mario Puzo, was dressed in a charcoal suit with a white shirt and chomped on a cigar.

True to life: Dan Fogler, who plays director Francis Ford Coppola, was seen with a thick beard and brown blazer and vest, while Patrick Gallo was also seen chomping on a cigar as scribe Mario Puzo

Earlier this month, sources close to the executive team of the series told DailyMail.com that Teller was responsible for a major coronavirus shutdown of the production over the summer.

'Miles Teller is not vaccinated. He wouldn't even get the test,' the source claimed. 'Now he's brought the virus to the set and the whole set had to shut down.'

The actor's publicist, Lauren Hozempa, denied the accusation.

'Your facts are incorrect,' she stated without any further elaboration.

Deadline first reported in late July that someone in Zone A, which includes the main actors and creative team, had tested positive for Covid-19.

'Out of an abundance of caution, we have temporarily halted production on The Offer due to the return of a positive coronavirus test result during routine testing,' a representative for Paramount Television Studios said in a statement at the time. 'We will continue to follow all safety protocols and monitor the situation closely.'

Positive: DailyMail.com exclusively reported earlier this month that Teller had refused to be vaccinated and later tested positive for Covid-19, which temporarily shut the production down in July; Marlon Brando seen in The Godfather (1972)

Teller originally joined the series to replace Armie Hammer, who left the production after he was accused of sexual abuse.

Linked explicit text messages also appeared to show him delving into cannibalistic fantasies.

The series has an astonishingly large cast portraying the people responsible for creating one of the greatest American films ever.

The massive cast also features Giovanni and Colin Hanks, and Matthew Good stars as superproducer Robert Evans, while former Grey's Anatomy actor Justin Chambers is playing Marlon Brando.

Altercation: Teller's latest controversy comes after he was allegedly attacked in a restaurant bathroom in Hawaii in May while vacationing with his wife Kayleigh Sperry Teller and their friends Shailene Woodley and her fiance Aaron Rodgers

Prior to his alleged Covid-19 case, Teller was the victim of an assault that occurred while he and his wife Kayleigh Sperry Teller were vacationing in Hawaii with his former costar Shailene Woodley and her fiance Aaron Rodgers.

According to TMZ, the Top Gun: Maverick actor was attacked and punched in the face in the bathroom of a restaurant he was dining at.

The assailant's wife reportedly planned Teller and Sperry's glamorous 2019 wedding on Maui, but she was still allegedly owed $60,000 by the couple.

Tre Lovell, an attorney for the alleged assailant, told E! News: 'It is my understanding that the altercation was a dispute over money pertaining to the couple's wedding.

Debts: The man who reportedly attacked the actor is the husband of a wedding planner for Teller who is allegedly still owed $60,000 for their nuptials in Maui

'We are currently evaluating my clients' legal claims that may exist surrounding the incident, statements made about the incident and the parties previous business dealings.

'My clients are considering legal action based upon the incident as well as on the parties' previous business dealings.'

The wedding planner and her husband were subsequently identified as Lorrie and Russell Nielson.

Sperry wrote on Instagram after the incident: 'Miles was jumped by 2 men we have never met after they trapped him in a bathroom. It seems these same men have done this to many people and we appreciate your support Maui. This is now a criminal investigation.'

Teller was not seriously injured in the incident, though days after the altercation he was spotted sporting a black eye.
Former Home and Away star Orpheus Pledger is expected to get off with a virtual slap on the wrist over allegations he was sprung with methamphetamine - the deadly drug ice.

In a sign of the times in Covid plagued Melbourne, the buffed actor will be dealt with in the Melbourne Magistrates' Court 'off papers' instead of being hauled into court to face the music.

Daily Mail Australia can reveal Pledger is expected to admit to possessing a little over half a gram of meth and 30 Diazepam tablets.

Pledger's Home and Away character Mason Morgan (left) was killed off in the 2019 season finale. He was caught by uniformed police allegedly in possession of meth.

Home and Away star Orpheus Pledger appeared in Channel 7's The All New Monty: Guys & Gals last year

Pledger quit Home And Away in 2019 after deciding he wanted to pursue a career in music. He is pictured here with his former co-star Olivia Deeble

Police had arrested him on February 19 in Prahran - just outside of Melbourne's CBD - where he was allegedly found with the drugs.

Pledger was scheduled to appear before the Melbourne Magistrates' Court on two counts of drug possession on Thursday, but the matter was adjourned off for 'diversion' next week.

Under the diversion plan, Pledger will not formally plead to the charges and instead simply make admissions to the charged offences.

Under Victorian law, diversion plans are often handed down to first-time offenders and are designed not to impact on a person's life going forward.

In May, MasterChef's Ben Ungermann was placed on an undertaking of good behaviour and told make a $1000 donation to White Ribbon Australia after being placed on a diversion plan over an assault charge.

Unlike Pledger, Ungermann was forced to fly to Melbourne from his home in Queensland to face the magistrate in person.

Under Melbourne's current Covid lockdown, court hearings are held almost entirely via videolink, with many matters being dealt with in chambers by magistrates.

Daily Mail Australia revealed in July Pledger had wound up on the wrong side of the law.

Pledger appeared in court via videolink with his cat

Pledger in Channel 7's The All New Monty: Guys & Gals

LIFE AND TIMES OF HOME AND AWAY HUNK 2002: Aged 8, Pledger starred in short film Lamb. 2004: Appears in science fiction children's series Silversun. 2011: Pledger joined the cast of Neighbours as student Noah Parkin in a recurring role. 2014: Pledger appeared in the Nine Network television film Schapelle - on the life of drug runner Schapelle Corby. 2015: Pledger joins Home and Away as Mason Morgan. 2019: His character is killed off and he announces a new career in music. Advertisement

His life had been on a 'downward spiral' before he was charged with carrying the deadly drug ice.

A chiseled Adonis on the outside, Pledger allegedly set off alarm bells late last year while in Sydney filming Channel 7's The All New Monty: Guys & Gals.

A glorified strip show, Pledger appeared to relish his time getting his gear off on camera for his adoring fans.

His Home And Away character had been killed off in 2019 and Covid had seen Pledger reinvent himself as an Instagram star and part-time music producer.

In October, he made headlines when he announced a new love interest and Pledger was reportedly 'the most happiest' he'd been in a long while.

But in June the 28-year-old raised eyebrows when he revealed a lot more than he bargained for while filming himself in the shower.

Pledger briefly exposed his manhood in the raunchy clip.

Sources claim they have been worried about Pledger's since his character was killed off in 2019

He had been showing off his jacked physique before stepping out naked and preening in front of the bathroom mirror.

While laughed off at the time as a playful mishap, Daily Mail Australia has been told those closest to Pledger held deep concerns for his welfare.

He asked the magistrate to 'be gentle' on him during a bizarre court appearance in July which saw him suck from a vape and stroke a black cat.

A source close to Pledger, who asked to remain anonymous, told Daily Mail Australia the actor had been struggling since leaving Home And Away in 2019.

'Orpheus has been exerting this problematic behaviour for a while, since he relocated back to Melbourne after his character was killed off,' the source said.

This increasingly unpredictable and worrisome behaviour continued with his split from his partner late last year, sources said.

Little has been seen on the actor's Instagram page since the charges went public in July.
She's an Academy Award winner.

And Lady Gaga oozed old Hollywood glamour as she teased her latest duet with singing legend Tony Bennett on Instagram on Wednesday.

The Joanne songstress, 35, looked classic in a black dress with a prim white collar and A-line skirt as she and Bennett, 95, crooned the title track of their Cole Porter tribute album Love For Sale in the studio together.

Glamour: Lady Gaga stunned in old Hollywood attire while she and Tony Bennett teased their recording of Love For Sale on Instagram on Wednesday

Continuing the glamour, she had her hair braided into a chic, blonde up-do while going with dramatic makeup with a retro-feel.

Tony, whose family shared that he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2016 earlier this year, looked dapper as ever as he donned a well-cut suit and pale blue tie beside her.

Gaga was excited to share the song, which will come out Friday September 17th, along with a music video.

The pop star and balladeer first worked together on 2014's Cheek to Cheek, a collection of jazz standards.

Charmer: Love For Sale is a collection of Cole Porter covers and is out October 1st

Duet: It is the pair's second album together, following 2014's Cheek To Cheek

And Gaga had the honor of performing with Bennett during his very last concert.

The pair brought down the house at Radio City Music Hall in early August.

And days later it was announced Tony would be retiring from the stage, per doctor's orders.

Son Danny, who has been his manager for over 40 years, confirmed the news to Variety last month, saying: 'There won't be any additional concerts.'

Legend: Gaga had the honor of performing with Bennett during his very last concert. Bennett was forced to retire from the stage last month on doctor's orders

'This was a hard decision for us to make, as he is a capable performer. This is, however, doctors' orders. It's not the singing aspect... we don't want him to fall on stage  something as simple as that.'

Fans will get a chance to see those final performances when the concert special One Last Time: An Evening With Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga airs Thanksgiving weekend.

Gaga and Bennett's Love For Sale comes out October 1st 2021.
Naomi Watts is known for her incredible acting talent.

But on Wednesday, she revealed her pottery skills in a video shared to Instagram.

The 52-year-old posted a clip of herself enjoying her new hobby in a pottery studio, likely near her home in The Hamptons, New York.

She's got skills! Naomi Watts showed off her pottery skills in an Instagram video on Wednesday

In the footage, she moulded a bowl shape on a wheel before putting a tool through it and unevenly cutting the top part of the piece.

The British-born, Australian-raised star described her attempt as 'amateur'.

She then posted another video of herself carefully shaping an even-looking vase and joked she was a 'show off'.

The second clip was a more accomplished effort and it's likely she'd had more practice at the wheel.

Learning: The 52-year-old posted a clip of herself enjoying her new hobby in a pottery studio, likely near her home in The Hamptons, New York

Getting the hang of it: She then posted another video of herself carefully shaping an even-looking vase and joked she was a 'show off'. The second clip was a more accomplished effort and it's likely she'd had more practice at the wheel

Naomi made reference to the famous pottery scene from 1990 film Ghost by adding Unchained Melody by The Righteous Brothers in the background of her video.

The Ring star also reached out to the film's star Demi Moore for advice, writing in the caption: 'Got any tips? @demimoore.'

Demi replied: 'Damn girl! I am seriously impressed! I know that is no easy feat. Love the new hobby.'

She joked that Naomi was 'inspiring' and added: 'Sequel vibes?'

Famous scene! She made reference to the famous pottery scene from the 1990 film Ghost (pictured) by adding Unchained Melody in the background of her video

Exchange: Naomi also asked the film's star Demi Moore for advice, writing in the caption: 'Got any tips? @demimoore'. Demi replied: 'Damn girl! I am seriously impressed!'

It comes after Naomi stepped out to attend the ceremonial lighting of the Empire State Building in New York City last week.

She stunned in a velvet retro-inspired gold and burgundy lattice-print pantsuit by Oscar De La Renta.

At the event, the actress posed for a photo with New York-based fashion designer LaQuan Smith.
Melbourne WAG Rebecca Judd has revealed she hopes to take her family on a ski trip to Japan when Australia finally emerges from lockdown.

The 38-year-old socialite, who is no stranger to lavish vacations, told her Instagram followers all about her holiday plans on Thursday.

'Hey, snow lovers. I'm thinking of a Japan ski trip next year (Covid dependent),' she wrote, before asking for recommendations.

Holidays on the horizon: Melbourne WAG Rebecca Judd has revealed she hopes to take her family on a ski trip to Japan when Australia finally emerges from lockdown

'Where is the easiest place to take kids and the best hotel to stay? Think access from Tokyo, hotel close to chair lifts, lots of easy green runs for the twins (and me).'

The co-owner of activewear label Jaggad then thanked her fans in advance for their recommendations.

She had excitedly let her followers know Qantas was to resume international flights on December 18 - with London, Los Angeles, Vancouver and Singapore on the list.

It's Japan! The 38-year-old socialite, who is no stranger to lavish vacations, told her Instagram followers all about her holiday plans on Thursday, and also asked for recommendations

The mother of four has lived through more than 200 days of lockdown in Melbourne.

The Victorian capital has faced some of the toughest Covid restrictions in the world thanks to hardline premier Daniel Andrews.

Rebecca certainly makes no secret of the fact her home life has descended into chaos at times during the pandemic.

Tough: The mother of four has lived through more than 200 days of lockdown in Melbourne

She often posts photos from her multimillion-dollar Brighton mansion of the mess left behind by her four lively children, who are all being homeschooled.

Last month, as Melbourne approached its grim 200-day milestone, she documented her mad day in the Judd household.

The wife of AFL great Chris Judd revealed there were blankets strewn all over the floor after her kids had built a fort out of cushions.

So relatable: She often posts photos from her multimillion-dollar Brighton mansion of the mess left behind by her four lively children, who are all being homeschooled
She ditched her career as a V8 Supercars driver to become one of Australia's most successful subscription-based adult stars.

And on Thursday, it was announced that Renee Gracie is taking her clothes off for a good cause this October, with the aim of raising $10,000 for mental health charity The Black Dog Institute.

The 26-year-old has set up a charity fundraising option on her OnlyFans page, with prizes - including downloadable photos, screensavers and signed posters - given to anyone who makes a donation.

A good cause! On Thursday, it was announced that former V8 Supercars driver Renee Gracie will be taking her clothes off for a good cause this October, with the aim of raising $10,000 for mental health charity The Black Dog Institute

The fundraiser is open now, and will run until October 31 2021.

'Ive wanted to raise money for charity for some time. So I asked my social media followers to suggest what sort of cause they wanted to help,' Renee said.

'Most if not all of my followers are male. Many are former soldiers who suffer from PTSD. They chose mental health.

'I suggested a number of mental health charities and the overwhelming winner chosen by my fans was the Black Dog Institute.'

The Black Dog Institute is a not-for-profit organization and focuses on research, early prevention and treatment of mood disorders such as depression and bipolar disorder.

Charity: The 26-year-old has set up a charity fundraising option on her OnlyFans page, with prizes - including downloadable photos, screensavers and signed posters - given to anyone who makes a donation

Serena Williams threw her support behind the Australian mental health charity in March, after praising her friend Meghan Markle for speaking out about her own suicidal thoughts.

While the company helps any person of any age, Renee said she aims to put a spotlight on men's mental health to help reduce the 'stigma in talking about it.'

The charity is a perfect fit, Renee adds, because October is also depression and mental health awareness month.

Career change: Renee was formerly a V8 Supercars driver before she began working in the adult industry

'Its a great cause,' Renee added. 'The Black Dog Institute does so much good work and we should all try to support them whenever we can.

'So often, mens mental health is overlooked because of the perceived stigma in talking about it and coming across as vulnerable, but this is changing and has to change.

'I cant think of a better way to join my fans as well as in thanking them by raising funds, as well as putting a spotlight on mens mental health during Mental Health month.'
Kim Kardashian made it clear just how much she's a fan of her sister Kourtney Kardashian's relationship with Travis Barker while speaking with Ellen DeGeneres.

In the episode, which will air Thursday, the 40-year-old reality star gushed about Kourtney and Travis' PDA-filled relationship in her first sit-down interview since ending her era-defining reality series Keeping Up With The Kardashians.

She also weighed in on whether she was looking for more kids amid her youngest sister Kylie Jenner's pregnancy and opened up about her four children's warring personalities.

Opening up: Kim Kardashian, 40, spoke to Ellen DeGeneres about her sister Kourtney Kardashian's romance with Travis Barker for her first sit-down interview since the end of Keeping Up With The Kardashians

Kim walked out for her interview in a striking V-neck black top with gloves running all the way up her arms and matching black pants, which contrasted considerably with most guests' casual attire.

While speaking about her family dynamics, Ellen quizzed the reality icon on whether her sister Kourtney's beau Travis would be joining the family for their next reality project.

'I honestly haven't talked to them about it, but I'm assuming because he's such a big part of Kourtney's life that they will be on,' she shared.

'I love their relationship,' she continued. 'They've grown so much together...'

Cute couple: 'I love their relationship,' Kim said of Kourtney and Travis. 'They've grown so much together'

Joining the fold: Kim said she hadn't spoken to them about appearing on the family's next reality series, but she hoped they would both be part of it

Kim then marveled that Kourtney and Travis had been neighbors for more than a decade before they fell in love with each other.

'They've been neighbors and friends for almost 15 years  neighbors for like a decade!'

Ellen joked 'All of a sudden they can't keep their hands off each other.

'What's wrong with them? They are at it likes it's the last time they're going to see each other. It's a lot,' she joked, which got a laugh out of Kim.

'It's a lot,' Kim agreed, 'but it's so cute.'

After Ellen added that 'every time you see them they're making out,' Kim replied, 'You know what, that's what they do.'

Loving it: Ellen joked about how the lovebirds were always 'making out.' ''It's a lot,' Kim agreed, 'but it's so cute'

The cut off: Kim sounded unsure when Ellen asked if she wanted to have more children like her sister Kylie Jenner. 'I think [I'm done]. I mean, I think  yeah, I'm done. I have a lot of kids. I'm done,' she said

Ellen also quizzed Kim on whether she would consider having any more children when she remarked that Khloe Kardashian and Kylie Jenner had bother been pregnant at the same time previously, while Kim's surrogate had also been expecting.

'So should Khloe jump in on that,' Ellen wondered.

'She should,' Kim replied. 'We should try for another set of triplets,' though she clarified that it would have to be one of her other sisters or her brother Rob taking care of that.

After Ellen asked if she was 'done' having children, Kim gave an emphatic yes, only to soften a second later.

'I think [I'm done]. I mean, I think  yeah, I'm done. I have a lot of kids. I'm done,' she said more solidly.

Princess: Kim called her daughter Chicago, three, her 'girliest girl' and said she 'loves pink and purple and makeup'

The conversation also turned to Kim's four children  North, eight; Saint, five; Chicago, three; and Psalm, two  whom she shares with her estranged husband Kanye West.

Ellen posted an adorable photo of Chicago in a tie-dye shirt and carrying a pink handbag after she had raided Kim's enormous closet.

'She is my girliest girl that loves pink and purple and makeup,' Kim said.

She added that the little was into anything 'princess' or 'girl girl.'

Her eldest daughter North, on the other hand, is Chicago's polar opposite.

'North is, like, goth. She's into Hot Topic and she puts fake tattoos on her face,' Kim revealed. 'She listens to Black Sabbath. She's just like a full goth girl.'

Edgy: Kim said North was 'goth' and likes to put 'fake tattoos on her face' and listen to 'Black Sabbath'

The fashion star wasn't even sure how her daughter got exposed to the classic heavy metal band.

She went on to describe Saint as a 'video game tech wiz,' and she said that her youngest Psalm is 'really into Paw Patrol and cars.'

Ellen was taken with an adorable photo of Psalm wearing a thick gold chain around his neck, but Kim had to correct her when Ellen assumed it was 'fake.'

'He wears this fake giant chain ' she began before Kim interjected: 'Wait, did you say fake?'

She insisted the massive chain was the real deal to the host's surprise.

Pricy: Ellen got corrected after she assumed Psalm, two, was wearing a fake chain. Kim revealed it was real

Kim added the the children were all fairly well behaved, but North still gave her problems because she hadn't grown out of her '"I want to be an only child" phase.'

The reality star revealed that her oldest daughter sometimes doesn't like to be around her siblings, which includes when they get taken to school.

Kim said she often offers to drive neighboring friends to school, but sometimes she offers to take so many kids that they have to take two vehicles.

When that happens, North makes her put her brothers and sister in the other car so she can just be with her friends.

All eyes on her: Kim's episode will air after she made a show-stopping appearance in an all-black Balenciaga ensemble at the Met Gala on Monday

Kim interview arrives after Ellen confirmed in May that the 19th season of her show  which began in 2003  would be its last.

She announced the end of the series after being accused of fostering a 'toxic environment' in the past.

Kim's episode will air after she made a show-stopping appearance in an all-black Balenciaga ensemble at the Met Gala on Monday.

The look, which featured a mask completely covering her head, was similar to previous edgy designs from the fashion house that she and her ex Kanye West have worn prior to the release of his long-awaited album Donda.
Married At First Sight's Jessika Power has shut down rumours she underwent a secret breast enlargement during the Covid lockdown.

The influencer, 28, who has admitted to gaining weight in recent months, revealed on Thursday she'd been bombarded with questions from fans lately about her bust.

Speaking on Instagram Stories from her beachside apartment on the Gold Coast, a bikini-clad Jessika clarified she hadn't had any recent surgery.

Setting the record straight: Married At First Sight's Jessika Power has shut down rumours she underwent a secret breast enlargement during the Covid lockdown

But she did remind fans she had a fat-transfer boob job two-and-a-half years ago, which many of them seemed to have forgotten.

'You guys have been asking me a lot lately if my boobs are real. I don't know how many times I've said this: it's a fat graft,' she said.

'I basically had the fat removed from the side of my thighs and put into my boobs. There you go, here it is!'

In early 2019, Jessika had fat removed from 'problem areas' on her thighs and transferred to her breasts, taking her from a small C-cup to a large D-cup.

Ample: The influencer, 28, who has admitted to gaining weight in recent months, revealed on Thursday she'd been bombarded with questions from fans lately about her bust

Nothing recent: Speaking on Instagram Stories from her beachside apartment on the Gold Coast, a bikini-clad Jessika clarified she hadn't had any recent surgery

The procedure, which was handled by Double Bay surgeon Dr Anoop Rastogi, produced more natural-looking results compared to traditional silicone implants.

The $13,000 fat transfer isn't the only cosmetic procedure Jessika has undergone, as she has also had cheek and lip fillers and veneers.

It comes after Jessika shared a behind-the-scenes glimpse of Big Brother VIP on Wednesday, posting a video of herself at a promo shoot for the reality show.

She pulled a series of animated facial expressions as she flaunted her curves in a racy black jumpsuit.

Enhancements: However, Jessika did remind fans she had a fat-transfer boob job in early 2019, which many of them seemed to have forgotten. She had fat removed from 'problem areas' on her thighs and transferred to her breasts, taking her from a small C-cup to a large D-cup

Camera ready: It comes after Jessika shared a behind-the-scenes glimpse of Big Brother VIP on Wednesday, posting a video of herself at a promo shoot for the reality show

The jumpsuit featured a cut-out detail across the bust, drawing attention to Jessika's surgically enhanced assets.

She awkwardly laughed in the clip as she pretended to look shocked and struck a variety of lively poses.

'Hahahahaha when you have to deliberately look angry and confused for a shoot wtf,' she captioned the video.

The reaction shots will likely end up in a trailer for the upcoming Seven program.

'When you have to deliberately look angry and confused': Jessika, 28, pulled a series of animated facial expressions as she flaunted her curves in a racy black jumpsuit

Jessika revealed last month she'd gained weight during Big Brother VIP and while spending time in hotel quarantine - but insisted she was happier than ever.

She said her breasts had become 'massive' and her face had puffed up from water retention, but added: 'Like, obviously I know I'm not plus size.

'But this is probably the first time I'm genuinely healthy and happy.'

Curves: Jessika revealed last month she'd gained weight during Big Brother VIP and while spending time in hotel quarantine - but insisted she was happier than ever

'But yeah obviously I've had a weight change, which is good... because your girl is thick now,' she added before bursting into laughter.

The OnlyFans star also admitted she'd lost a lot of weight earlier in the year from being in a toxic relationship.

'I was really depressed and I wasn't eating properly,' she explained.

Big Brother VIP airs on Channel Seven later this year
Karl Stefanovic couldn't resist taking a swipe at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle after the royal couple made it onto Time magazine's '100 Most Influential People' list.

The 47-year-old Today host was announcing an upcoming segment on Thursday's episode of the Channel Nine breakfast show when he faltered.

'Harry and Meghan honoured as... icons,' he began, pausing dramatically before adding the word 'icons' in a questioning tone.

Not a fan: Karl Stefanovic (pictured with Today co-host Allison Langdon) couldn't resist taking a cheeky swipe at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle after the royal couple made it onto Time magazine's '100 most influential people' list

He added: 'Named as one of the most influential couples in the world. It's hard for me to say.'

It comes after Harry, 37, and Meghan appeared on the cover of Time magazine's '100 most influential people' issue.

The publication described Harry and Meghan, 40, as 'icons', praising them for their charity work.

'Harry and Meghan honoured as... icons,' Karl began, pausing dramatically before adding the word 'icons' in a questioning tone. Pictured, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on the cover of Time magazine's '100 most influential people' issue

'In a world where everyone has an opinion about people they don't know, the duke and duchess have compassion for the people they don't know,' reported Time.

'They don't just opine. They run toward the struggle.'

Karl has been openly critical of the royal couple on multiple occasions in the past.

'Named as one of the most influential couples in the world. It's hard for me to say,' joked Karl. Pictured, Harry and Meghan at the Mountbatten Music Festival in London in March 2020

In July, he slammed Prince Harry after it was revealed that he'd signed a $20million tell-all book deal.

'It doesn't serve him well to be anti-media and to go and do exclusive deals and write memoirs that invite only more criticism,' said the TV host on Today.

Meanwhile, Karl's co-host Allison Langdon added: 'I reckon neither of them can live without the media attention. They both thrive on it and they both need it.'
Channel 10's latest new series has failed to fire in Wednesday night's TV ratings.

Making It Australia, a crafting competition hosted by Susie Yousseff and Harley Breen, premiered to figures of just 474,000 viewers.

The underwhelming numbers meant the new series was unable to crack the night's top ten.

Slow start: Making It Australia, a crafting competition hosted by Susie Yousseff and Harley Breen, (pictured) premiered to figures of just 474,000 viewers

Other misses for the night included The Project at 7pm (460,000) and RFDS, with Channel 7's big budget medical drama only attracting 417,000 viewers.

On the other end of the rating spectrum was The Block, which has continued to grow its audience in the wake of the cheating scandal.

The reality TV renovation show lock in number one spot on Wednesday with 810,000 sets of eyeballs.

Swing and a miss: Channel 10's latest new series has failed to fire in Wednesday night's TV ratings

No go: The underwhelming numbers meant the new series was unable to crack the night's top ten

In a trailer for Sunday's episode of the show, accused 'cheater' Tanya Guccione gets into a screaming match with Ronnie and Georgia Caceres after she and husband Vito tried to completely transform one of their challenge pieces rather than just 'tweak' it.

Tempers flare at a group meeting as the other teams say it's unfair the Gucciones got to redo their eyesore challenge piece: a 'fidget planter' made from shipwreck items.

'When is a tweak a tweak and when does a tweak become a transformation?' Mitch Edwards and Mark McKie ask pointedly.

Tanya gets defensive and tells them host Shelley Craft gave her permission to remove a piece from their planter.

Scandal! On the other end of the rating spectrum was The Block, which has continued to grow its audience in the wake of the cheating scandal featuring Tanya Guccione (pictured)

Outrage: Tempers flare at a group meeting as the other teams say it's unfair the Gucciones got to redo their eyesore challenge piece: a 'fidget planter' made from shipwreck items

Eyesore: Tanya and Vito made this ugly ornamental piece for the challenge

'What's the rules? What are the rules?' Georgia says angrily.

As tensions escalate with Georgia, Tanya storms out of the meeting and shouts: 'You're not the friggen boss, dude!'

Tanya and Vito found themselves at the centre of The Block's 'biggest cheating scandal' just weeks ago when they were caught red-handed with a leaked photo of the show's production schedule, which gave them an unfair advantage.

Furious: 'What's the rules? What are the rules?' Georgia asks, prompting Tanya to storm off

Later, Tanya sensationally accused the producers of setting her up.

She claimed the infamous whiteboard that outlined the production schedule was put in a 'really obvious' place that was almost impossible to ignore.

She alleged the schedule was 'right there by the toilet... on a massive board', which made her suspect producers had planned the cheating storyline all along.

'Most of us came by [the schedule] because it was right by the toilet... It was right there in front of us, so I felt very singled out, like I was the only one who saw it, but plenty of others used the toilet that day,' she told News.com.au.

'It felt almost like it could have been set up.'

Making headlines: Tanya and Vito found themselves at the centre of The Block's 'biggest cheating scandal' just weeks ago when they were caught red-handed with a leaked photo of the show's production schedule, which gave them an unfair advantage

The schedule was later moved to host Scott Cam's office, and the official version of events is that someone broke into the office and took a photo of it.

But Tanya rejected the idea she 'snuck in like a commando' and secretly took the photo, arguing that literally anyone on site could have done so when the whiteboard was next to the toilets.

The Gucciones and Love Island twins Josh and Luke Packham were each docked two points for their room reveal in the wake of the scandal.
Tyra Banks is defending Dancing With The Stars' decision to cast Olivia Jade as a contestant on the upcoming season.

The veteran supermodel  who will host the series for a second season in a row  went to bat for the 21-year-old YouTuber after many expressed shock she was cast for the competition amid her family's college admissions scandal.

Calling the daughter of Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli 'brave,' Tyra said that the show was a way for Olivia to 'tell her story' and said she believed that she had 'nothing to do with' the scandal that landed her parents in prison.

Defending the show: Tyra Banks defended DWTS decision to cast Olivia Jade in the upcoming season as she said that the 21-year-old YouTuber deserved to 'tell her story' on the show amid her parents' college admissions scandal

Scandal: The daughter of Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli found herself at the heart of the 'Varsity Blues' college admissions scandal in 2019, after her parents were found guilty of paying $500K in bribes to get her admitted to USC as part of the rowing team

Banks was prompted by ET's Lauren Zima, to discuss the backlash surrounding Olivia's casting, at which point she divulged her thoughts on the matter and spoke to her character.

'I think Olivia is so brave. I think people don't know her, they know what happened to her,' Banks said, as she touched on her association with the Varsity Blues college admissions scandal two years ago.

'She has said that she did not know about what was going on and it's really sad, and it's very hurtful when something publicly happens but you had nothing to do with it. So I trust that she says she didn't know.'

Tyra maintained that the show was a way for Olivia to re-write her own narrative. 'She is having to deal with that and I think she's coming to Dancing With the Stars to be able to tell her story and show her vulnerability.'

Pictured: Olivia has been pictured attending practice over the last few weeks and her casting was officially confirmed on September 8

Famously, Olivia's parents Lori and Mossimo were found guilty of paying $500K in bribes to get she and sister Isabella, 22, admitted to USC as part of the rowing team (despite having no experience). It was called the largest admissions scandal ever prosecuted.

Loughlin was sentenced in August 2020 and ordered to pay an $150,000 fine as well as 150 hours of community service and Mossimo was slammed with a $250,000 fine and 250 hours of service.

Both were also sentenced to prison, and the Full House star served out her two month sentence at a correctional facility near Dublin, California and was released on December 28, 2020.

Mossimo on the other hand served nearly five months at a federal prison in Lompoc, California but completed the last of his sentence under home confinement. He was released from from federal custody on April 17, 2021.

Doing time: The pair were both sentenced to prison with the Full House star serving two months and the fashion designer serving five months; pictured August 2019

In the conversation, Tyra continued to react to criticism that Olivia should also not be on the show because she's not a 'star,' and also said she had nothing to do with the casting process despite being an executive producer as well.

Though the former ANTM host acknowledged that she wasn't a 'celebrity' in the traditional sense per say, she maintained 'if people are talking about you, you're famous.'

When news of the influencer's official casting was revealed on September 8, Olivia also spoke to ET about using the experience as a 'second chance' and opportunity 'to grow.'

'I just want to make it very clear that it is important to learn from the past and I am a big believer in second chances. I am still young and I am still trying to figure it out and I hope that I just continue to grow every day.

Fresh start:' I think because this process is so challenging, you learn so much about yourself, which I am excited for,' she told ET of getting outside her comfort zone; pictured February 2018

'And I think because this process is so challenging, you learn so much about yourself, which I am excited for. [I'm] putting myself outside of my comfort zone,' she continued.

Ahead of the announcement Olivia had been spotted attending practice shielded underneath a reflective visor.

The full cast of male stars includes: Matt James, Brian Austin Green, Cody Rigsby, Iman Shumpert, The Miz, Jimmie Allen and Martin Kove.

The full cast of female stars includes: Jojo Siwa, Kenya Moore, Amanda Kloots, Suni Lee, Melanie C, Christine Chiu, and Melora Hardin.

The show is set to air on September 20 with a panel that includes show vets: Carrie Ann Inaba, Bruno Tonioli, Len Goodman, and former pro Derek Hough.
Home and Away star Tai Hara is set to star in the latest season of Channel Nine's Underbelly franchise, which will focus on the disappearance of Sydney con-artist Melissa Caddick.

Underbelly: Vanishing Act, due to air in 2022, and Tai will have a major role.

Kate Atkinson, of Wentworth fame, will star as the ill-fated Caddick.

Casting coup: Underbelly: Vanishing Act, due to air in 2022, is set to feature former Home and Away star Tai Hara (pictured) in a major role

Tai played Andy Barrett on the long-running soap from 2013 until 2016.

Veteran Australian actor Colin Friels will also play a key role.

Other confirmed actors on board for the Channel Nine production include Maya Stange, Sophie Bloom and Ursula Mills.

Ms Caddick, 49, is missing presumed dead, having last been seen alive in November 2020 and only one of her limbs was ever found.

Inspiration: Ms Caddick, 49, (pictured) is missing presumed dead, having last been seen alive in November 2020 and only one of her limbs was ever found

Actress: Kate Atkinson, (pictured) of Wentworth fame, will star as the ill-fated Caddick

The financial conwoman scammed 60 clients out of at least $23milion, mostly from family and friends over a number of years, before ASIC raided her $6.8 million Dover Heights home, in Sydney's east.

In scenes reminiscent of a Hollywood blockbuster, Ms Caddicks foot was then found by campers at Bournda Beach on February 21, south of Tathra on the NSW south coast, with NSW police then declaring her dead.

The shoe also located was a unique ASICS sneaker - which Ms Caddick had previously been seen wearing - can only be purchased in Israel.

Further bodily remains of Ms Caddick have never been located, and she was farewelled at a private service in April.

Her first known swindle was petty embezzlement in 1998, with her silver tongue often resulting in her talking her way out of trouble - until last year.

Veteran Australian actor Colin Friels has also been cast to feature in the TV series next year

Ms Caddick's crime was a detailed Ponzi scheme involving 60 friends and family, totalling $30 million - only $7 million of which was ever repaid. The rest of the money vanished.

Creating an impression of success became an essential part of Ms Caddick's modus operandi.

Her immaculate presentation was designed to ensure people saw her as professional and overlooked her habitual dishonesty,

From 2012 onwards, after creating her finance company Maliver, it was common for her to tell interested clients who approached her that she was 'too busy' to help them - then later tell them they were in luck, somehow finding time for their business.

Con-woman Melissa Caddick scammed 60 clients out of at least $23milion, mostly from family and friends over a number of years

The brochure she handed out for Maliver lied about her credentials as she was not a certified financial planner and did not have a masters of business.

The business operated using someone else's Australian Financial Services Licence. Once she had their money, she created a fake CommSec share trading account for each client.

Where she needed to, she forged not only clients' signatures but also that of the nearest available justice of the peace - her father-in-law Rodo Koletti.

She emailed clients a fake monthly report claiming stunning returns of up to 30 per cent, which convinced them to invest more with her, and to get her more word-of-mouth business.

Melissa Caddick with her first husband Tony Caddick (pictured right) - they had a child together who was living with Ms Caddick when she disappeared

Ms Caddicks shoe was found by campers at Bournda Beach on February 21, south of Tathra on the NSW south coast, with NSW police then declaring her dead

Her partner Anthony Koletti (pictured left) was believed to be unaware of Ms Caddick's illegal conduct

Many of Caddick's victims lost their life savings.

She stole from childhood friends and their families, her personal trainer, her employees and surgeons in Perth.

When ASIC investigators raided Caddick's home last November, they confiscated dozens of expensive designer label dresses, handbags, and shoes.

Her scams began to unravel when a client did due diligence on documents provided to them and the woman whose Australian Financial Services Licence she used notified ASIC - which is believed to have been November 2019.

ASIC recorded the complaint but took no action at that time.

Another complaint in June 2020 contained more detail and ASIC applied to the Federal Court to freeze her assets and seize her passport.

Soon after ASIC knocked on her door, Ms Caddick promptly disappeared to permanently evade justice.
Less than a week after it was revealed Jennifer Lawrence is expecting her first child with husband Cooke Maroney, sources claim the actress can't wait to be a mother.

The 31-year-old actress' reps confirmed reports that she was expecting, less than two years after she married the 37-year-old art dealer in October 2019.

Sources close to the actress revealed to People on Wednesday that she has wanted to start a family for a long time, and finally found the right partner to have kids with.

Can't wait: Less than a week after it was revealed Jennifer Lawrence is expecting her first child with husband Cooke Maroney, sources claim the actress can't wait to be a mother

Partner: Sources close to the actress revealed to People on Wednesday that she has wanted to start a family for a long time, and finally found the right partner to have kids with

'Jen wanted a family for a long time and found an ideal mate whom she loves, respects and enjoys being around,' the source states.

'She loves married life, and they have a solid foundation for a baby. She is very happy and looking forward to being a mom,' the source added.

The source stressed that Lawrence will continue acting after having her first child, adding, 'She loves her work and that will continue.'

Family: 'Jen wanted a family for a long time and found an ideal mate whom she loves, respects and enjoys being around,' the source states

'Like other actors, she will balance her career and her life as a wife and mom. She will do it well. Jen is grounded and ready to be a parent because she loves family life,' the source added.

The source continued that Lawrence is, 'ambitious and craves her work,' adding she wouldn't give up her career for motherhood.

'She knows a fulfilled mom is better than one who gives up what she loves then regrets it, I doubt that would ever happen with her,' the source said.

Balance: 'Like other actors, she will balance her career and her life as a wife and mom. She will do it well. Jen is grounded and ready to be a parent because she loves family life,' the source added

Lawrence and Maroney were first linked in June 2018, and they were married by October 2019 in a private ceremony in Rhode Island.

The actress returns with her first movie in over two years, Netflix's Don't Look Up, starring alongside Leonardo DiCaprio.

The new film from writer-director Adam McKay follows two astronomers who embark on a worldwide media tour warning of a comet that will destroy the Earth.

Linked: Lawrence and Maroney were first linked in June 2018, and they were married by October 2019 in a private ceremony in Rhode Island

Lawrence and DiCaprio lead an all-star cast including Timothee Chalamet, Jonah Hill, Cate Blanchett, Gina Gershon, Meryl Streep and more, arriving December 24.

She also has Red White and Water in post-production, which is expected in 2022, starring with Brian Tyree Henry and Samira Wiley.

The actress is also attached to star in Mob Girl, based on the true story of a New York woman who became a mafia informant for the FBI.
The radio ratings have been delayed until October due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

According to Radio Today, the results for the latest survey were due to be released on September 28, but have now been pushed back to October 7.

The Commercial Radio Australia CEO Joan Warner said that the ratings provider had specifically requested the delay.

Delayed: The radio ratings have been delayed until October due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic

'Ongoing travel restrictions and lockdowns together with postal and general delivery delays in Sydney and Melbourne directly affect data collection and processing times,' Warner said.

'CRA acknowledges this is a challenging time and has agreed to this short delay to the release of Survey 6 results.'

It comes directly after news broke that the radio industry is finally updating the way it measures ratings.

Tick tock: According to Radio Today, the results for the latest survey were due out on September 28, but have now been pushed back to October 7

Due to the increase in live streaming, ratings will now start to include streaming devices, according to The Australian.

For the past 70 years, ratings were measured by listener surveys, many of which still involved paper diaries that consumers would fill out and submit.

Commercial Radio Australia chair and Southern Cross Austereo chief executive officer Grant Blackley said: 'The consumption of audio has changed demonstrably from where it used to be.

'It's more out of home, digital devices, on the run, at leisure and we are moving away from that recall, in-car and at-home model that is being super enhanced to accurately reflect new consumption of audio.'

Finally! The radio industry is finally getting with the times by updating the way it measures ratings. Due to the increase in live streaming, ratings will now include streaming devices. Pictured: KIIS FM's Jackie 'O' Henderson and Kyle Sandilands, Sydney's most popular FM duo

Breakfast radio royalty Kyle Sandilands and Jackie 'O' Henderson were recently dethroned by Ben Fordham of AM station 2GB in the latest Sydney ratings.

The KIIS FM duo had been named the most popular show across both AM and FM bandwidths in June, but the most recent figures show 2GB has reclaimed its crown.

Fordham, 44, now has the leading share in Sydney's breakfast market with 16.8 per cent, having grown his audience by an impressive 3.5 points since the last survey.

Coming in second was ABC Radio's Wendy Harmer and Robbie Buck with a 14 per cent market share.

Kyle and Jackie O placed third with 12.1 per cent after tumbling by 3.4 points.

Success story: Breakfast radio royalty Kyle Sandilands and Jackie 'O' Henderson were recently dethroned by AM station 2GB's Ben Fordham (pictured) in the latest Sydney ratings

The result is nothing short of a coup for Fordham, who replaced industry titan Alan Jones as host of 2GB's breakfast show a year ago.

Despite the outcome, The Kyle and Jackie O Show still has plenty to celebrate.

The program continues to dominate the FM airwaves, beating their closest rival, WSFM's Jonesy and Amanda, by 3.3 per cent in the latest survey.

The outcome also marks Kyle and Jackie O's twentieth consecutive No. 1 spot on the FM bandwidth.

Nova FM's Fitzy and Wippa, meanwhile, suffered a lacklustre outcome with a 6.1 per cent audience share, and 2Day FM's Morning Crew with Dave Hughes, Ed Kavalee and Erin Molan languished at the bottom of the leaderboard with just 2.4 per cent.
She split from Hollywood heartthrob Zac Efron in April, following a whirlwind romance which started in June last year.

And while she's always maintained her silence on their break-up, Vanessa Valladares, 26, returned to social media on Thursday, five months after the demise of her high-profile relationship.

In the bizarre photo shared to her Instagram stories, Vanessa can be seen with four eyes while doing a Vulcan salute, a hand gesture popularised by the Star Trek series.

She's back! Vanessa Valladares, 26, returned to social media on Thursday, five months after the demise of her high-profile relationship with Hollywood heartthrob Zac Efron

Vanessa donned a bland facial expression and was casually dressed in a plain white T-shirt while wearing a black and yellow necklace.

The post comes after the barista-turned-model split from Zac, 33, earlier this year.

The pair have both been keeping fairly low profiles since the breakup.

Cryptic: While she's always maintained her silence on their break-up, Vanessa returned to social media by sharing a bizarre photo with four eyes while doing a Vulcan salute, a hand gesture popularised by the Star Trek series

According to various reports, Zac was introduced to Vanessa by her boss at Byron Bay's General Store cafe in June last year, and the pair hit it off straight away.

Two months later, in August, Daily Mail Australia revealed Zac had cancelled his scheduled return flight to Los Angeles because he 'didn't really want to go back'.

Within weeks, the genetically blessed couple had moved in together in Byron Bay.

Zac confirmed their relationship in September when they were spotted holding hands in public.

Over: The post comes after the barista-turned-model split from Zac Efron, 33, back in April

Love: Vanessa would accompany her famous boyfriend as he travelled around Australia for various work projects from late 2020 to early 2021 - but it was confirmed in April they had called it quits

Vanessa would accompany her famous boyfriend as he travelled around Australia for various work projects from late 2020 to early 2021.

But it was confirmed in April they had called it quits, with Zac's friend Kyle Sandilands announcing on his KIIS FM radio show: 'I can confirm [the break-up], after speaking with him yesterday.'

He also stated Zac had been dating Vanessa for much longer than reported.

There was speculation at the time Zac and Vanessa had known each other three years before their 'official' first meeting at Byron Bay's General Store cafe last June.

Kyle, 49, who is good pals with Zac, revealed on live radio it wasn't just a rumour.

'They've been together for a lot longer than people realise,' the shock jock said.

'I don't know where they met, but it wasn't recent. It's been going for a little while, but I don't know exactly how long.'
Pete Wicks cosied up to influencer Alisha Lemay on Thursday as they celebrated her 30th birthday at Restaurant Ours in London.

The TOWIE star, 32, cut a dapper figure in a sharp black suit and loafers as he walked arm in arm with the social media personality.

Birthday girl Alisha put on a leggy display in a gold feathered strapless bodycon dress from her latest Misspap range, that launched that night.

Celebrations: Pete Wicks cosied up to influencer Alisha Lemay on Thursday as they celebrated her 30th birthday at Restaurant Ours in London

Pete wore his long brunette locks swept to one side and layered his suit jacket over a scoop neck black T-shirt as he headed into the party with Alisha.

The pair are regularly spotted together and were last seen arriving for TOWIE filming side by side on Friday.

Alisha pulled out all the stops for her special night that saw her celebrate her birthday and the launch on her fashion collection in the skimpy gold dress.

She elongated her legs with a pair of bedazzled clear stilettos and accessorised her bare decolletage with a dainty silver chain necklace.

Stepping out: The TOWIE cut a dapper figure in a sharp black suit as he walked arm in arm with the internet personality who put on a leggy display in a gold strapless bodycon dress

Stylish: Pete wore his long brunette locks swept to one side and layered his suit jacket over a scoop neck black T-shirt as he headed into the party with Alisha

Also in attendance at the birthday bash was Love Island's Ellie Brown who showcased her edgy sense of style in a plunging ripped black halter neck.

Ellie flaunted her assets in the very low cut top as she channeled 90s style in a pair of matching black cargo trousers.

The reality star completed her look with a large pair of gold hoops and toted an enviable Prada shoulder bag as she stepped out for the evening.

Wow: Also in attendance at the birthday bash was Love Island's Ellie Brown who showcased her edgy sense of style in a plunging ripped black halter neck.

Throwback: Ellie flaunted her assets in the very low cut top as she channeled 90s style in a pair of matching black cargo trousers

Gorgeous: The reality star completed her look with a large pair of gold hoops and accentuated her features with lashings of lip gloss and a sweep of bronzer

Pete's outing with Alisha comes after he left the NTAs with his former flame and co-star Chloe Sims last Thursday.

The pair left the star-studded bash arm in arm with Chloe, 39, looking incredible in a figure-hugging white dress.

In an episode of TOWIE that aired in May, Chloe and Pete become embroiled in a heated argument as they addressed the end of their two-year relationship.

Chloe declared Pete made her feel 'like sh**' as she exposed him for playing down the intensity of their former romance.

Just friends? Pete's outing with Alisha comes after he left the NTAs with his former flame and co-star Chloe Sims last Thursday

'Do you know what?' Chloe nervously laughed as she faced Pete at the 30th birthday party of James 'Diags' Bennewith during the final episode of the series. 'I knew this moment would come but now I feel a bit nervous.'

Pete responded: 'Chlo', you've known me for enough time to know never to be nervous around me. You know that.'

The unconvinced star replied: 'I know, but you speak so coldly about me, I hear things. When you bump into people you're quite cut and sharp.'

'I'm cold, really?' a defensive Pete answered, to which Chloe added: 'Yeah, because what you do is when you talk about us, when you talk about what we had, you make out that it was all terrible, that we didn't have any good times.'

Clash: In an episode of TOWIE that aired in May, Chloe and Pete become embroiled in a heated argument as they address the end of their two-year relationship

The usually cool, calm and collected hunk appeared irritated by the comment as he insisted: 'You tell everyone it was terrible.'

'No I don't!' Chloe fired back. 'I've never said anything was terrible, I was really happy in a lot of times with you.

'But you've never ever once, actually validated what we had,' she said before Peter interrupted: 'That's utter b******s'.

She retorted: 'You made out that we just had sex a few times, you made me feel like s**t!'
Kim Kardashian has revealed her eight-year-old daughter's style - and its worlds away from girly pinks and Disney Princesses.

During an appearance on The Ellen Degeneres Show, the Keeping Up With The Kardashians star, 40, revealed North, who she shares with ex Kanye West, is a 'full goth girl' and loves all things rock'n'roll, tattoos and heavy metal.

Speaking about her four kids, North; Saint, five; Chicago, three; and Psalm, two, on the show on Wednesday, she said: ''North is, like, goth. She's into Hot Topic and she puts fake tattoos on her face. She listens to Black Sabbath!'

Rock on! Kim Kardashian has revealed her eight-year-old daughter's style - and its worlds away from girly pinks and Disney Princesses

Kim shed light on her kids' respective styles while appearing on the show, with North's looks most likely to shock fans.

Despite having a rapper father in Kanye, it seems pensioner rockers float North's boat, as Kim revealed her love of the Ozzy Osborne-fronted band, who were founded in 1968 - 45 years before North was born.

She also revealed that North loves shopping in Hot Topic, the high street store 'aimed towards an audience interested in rock music and video gaming'.

Kim said: 'North is, like, goth. She's into Hot Topic and she puts fake tattoos on her face. She listens to Black Sabbath. She's just like a full goth girl.'

Details: . During an appearance on The Ellen Degeneres Show, the Keeping Up With The Kardashians star, 40, revealed North, who she shares with ex Kanye West, is a 'full goth girl' and loves all things rock'n'roll, tattoos and heavy metal

Rock on: Despite having a rapper father in Kanye, it seems pensioner rockers float North's boat, as Kim revealed her love of the Ozzy Osborne-fronted band, who were founded in 1968 - 45 years before North was born (Ozzy pictured in 2001)

She explained that she had no idea how North had founded her love of the band or that particular style, as she had not introduced her to the goth world.

Chicago meanwhile, Kim explained is the polar opposite, as she explained: 'She is my girliest girl that loves pink and purple and makeup'.

She added that the little was into anything 'princess' or 'girl girl.'

She went on to describe Saint as a 'video game tech wiz,' and she said that her youngest Psalm is 'really into Paw Patrol and cars.'

Huh? She explained that she had no idea how North had founded her love of the band or that particular style, as she had not introduced her to the goth world

Shock: She spoke about her four kids, North; Saint, five; Chicago, three; and Psalm, two, on the show on Wednesday

Ellen was taken with an adorable photo of Psalm wearing a thick gold chain around his neck, but Kim had to correct her when Ellen assumed it was 'fake.'

'He wears this fake giant chain ' she began before Kim interjected: 'Wait, did you say fake?'

She insisted the massive chain was the real deal to the host's surprise.

Kim added the children were all fairly well behaved, but North still gave her problems because she hadn't grown out of her '"I want to be an only child" phase.'

Rocker: Kim added the children were all fairly well behaved, but North still gave her problems because she hadn't grown out of her '"I want to be an only child" phase'

The reality star revealed that her oldest daughter sometimes doesn't like to be around her siblings, which includes when they get taken to school.

Kim said she often offers to drive neighboring friends to school, but sometimes she offers to take so many kids that they have to take two vehicles.

When that happens, North makes her put her brothers and sister in the other car so she can just be with her friends.
Amazing Grace is the latest drama series that has been cancelled by Channel Nine.

The network announced on Wednesday that the show would not be renewed for a second season when they unveiled their lineup for 2022, reports TV Blackbox.

The series, produced by Playmaker Media, stars Kate Jenkinson as Grace Cresswell, a midwife working at a birthing centre whose life becomes chaotic once her daughter, who she gave up for adoption 17 years ago, turns up as a patient.

Cancelled: Channel Nine announced drama series Amazing Grace has been axed on Wednesday after only one season as the network unveiled its 2022 programming lineup

'Amazing Grace performed strongly for Channel 9 but we have made the decision that it wont return next year, our sincere thanks to the extremely talented cast and crew who delivered a show that we are very proud of,' a Nine spokesperson said.

'Today we announced two new Australian dramas, Underbelly: Vanishing Act and After The Verdict that will commence production later this year, continuing our commitment to invest in Australian drama.'

Amazing Grace had also featured Sigrid Thornton and Alex Dimitriades.

Story: The series, produced by Playmaker Media, starred Kate Jenkinson as Grace Cresswell, a midwife working at a birthing centre whose life becomes chaotic once her daughter, who she gave up for adoption 17 years ago, turns up as a patient

Its axing marks the third Australian drama series that was not renewed by Nine recently; Seachange and Halifax: Retribution also ended after one season, pending announcements.

Nine has renewed the majority of their reality shows for their 2022 lineup, including the highly popular Married at First Sight.

The new season will see the return of Puerto Rican sexologist Alessandra Rampolla, and veteran experts John Aiken and Mel Schilling.

It's back! Nine confirmed that Married At First Sight will be returning in 2022. Pictured: Experts Mel Schilling, John Aiken and Alessandra Rampolla

After an explosive return to television in 2021, Celebrity Apprentice Australia will also be returning to Nine next year.

Lord Alan Sugar will return as boss as a new selection of celebrities battle it out to avoid the firing line.

On Wednesday, Channel Nine announced author and athlete Turia Pitt will join comedy radio duo Will and Woody as the first three celebrities to appear on the show.

Other programs to feature on Nine's lineup next year include The Block, Love Island Australia, Snackmasters, Lego Masters, The Hundred with Andy Lee, Magda Szubanski's The Weakest Link and Australian Ninja Warrior.
Megan Cusack was taken to hospital for treatment on Wednesday night.

The Call The Midwife star, 25, needed 17 stitches and was ultimately left on crutches after a serious fall at the TRIC Awards, which were held at 8 Northumberland Avenue.

The Cork-born actress, who plays Nancy Corrigan on the hit BBC drama, took to Instagram to share the ordeal with her followers.

Oh no! Megan Cusack, 25, was rushed to hospital on Wednesday night, needing 17 stitches and ultimately being left on crutches after a serious fall at the TRIC Awards in London

Megan was earlier pictured posing on the red carpet in a blue psychedelic print midi dress and pointed block heels.

She was also snapped leaving the red carpet event in a wheelchair having injured her leg and ankle, before making her way to A&E in a taxi.

Taking to her Instagram Stories, Megan could be heard giggling with disbelief as she arrived at the emergency room.

Wearing a blue face mask inside the hospital, her Call The Midwife co-star Fenella Woolgar, who she branded 'Nurse Fenella' pushed her wheelchair through the Urgent Care Centre.

What's happened? Her left shoe was missing and she kept her leg slightly elevated as she was wheeled out of the TRIC Awards

Oh my! Taking to Instagram Stories at around midnight, Megan shared a Boomerang video of herself in a baggy T-shirt, holding up a pair of crutches

Before the fall: Megan was earlier pictured posing on the red carpet in a blue psychedelic print midi dress and pointed block heels

Oh dear: Megan was earlier photographed leaving the red carpet event in a wheelchair having injured her leg and ankle, before making her way to A&E

Crazy night! Taking to her Instagram Stories, Megan could be heard giggling with disbelief as she arrived at the emergency room

At around midnight, having ditched her blue dress and glamorous make-up, Megan shared a Boomerang video of herself.

Clad in a baggy T-shirt and holding up a pair of crutches, she announced: '17 stitches later I'm home. I also finally get to be that kid that has crutches.'

A further video on Instagram, which she titled 'Before it all went downhill', showed the actress laughing while posing for photographers on the red carpet at the TRIC Awards.

MailOnline has contacted Megan Cusack's representatives for comment.

Call The Midwife had been up for Best Drama at the 2021 TRIC Awards on Wednesday, but lost out to The Crown.

What a nightmare! Megan chatted to pals as she waited for transport outside the TRIC Awards

Helpful colleague: Wearing a blue face mask inside the hospital, her Call The Midwife co-star Fenella Woolgar pushed her wheelchair through the Urgent Care Centre

TV star: Megan plays Nancy Corrigan in Call The Midwife

Time to go: The actress was given assistance as she was bundled into a taxi

What a friend: Fenella stayed with Megan throughout her ordeal

Since 1931 TRIC has promoted mutual understanding and goodwill among those in broadcast technology and related industries, across TV, Radio & online platforms and, as a not for profit organisation, it raises money for good causes through social events and the high profile TRIC Awards.

For over 50 years TRIC has been recognising the on air talent across TV, Radio & online which continues to showcase and praise the diverse talent in UK broadcast media.

TRIC brings the industry together to support good causes through its annual events, corporate partners and the sponsorship opportunities.

TRIC involvement extends to all platforms consumers watch, listen and tune into today to reflect the evolution of the UK's brightest and most innovative of industries. You can be part of a broadcasting tradition through attending or sponsoring TRIC events.

Looking back: A further video on Instagram, which Megan titled 'Before it all went downhill', showed her laughing while posing for photographers on the red carpet at the TRIC Awards

Poor thing: With her left shoe missing, Megan was rushed to hospital for 17 stitches

Team effort: It took a small group to help Megan safely into her taxi

Shortlisted: Call The Midwife had been up for Best Drama at the 2021 TRIC Awards on Wednesday, but lost out to The Crown (Pictured Megan and Fenella)
EastEnders actor Dayle Hudson celebrated his one year anniversary with his girlfriend India Hope on Wednesday.

The soap star, who plays Peter Beale on the show, marked the occasion with a romantic dinner at Bocconcino in Mayfair, London, as he cosied up to his girlfriend.

Dayle and India looked more loved up than ever as they posed for a mirror selfie while he kissed her on the cheek.

Cute: EastEnders actor Dayle Hudson celebrated his one year anniversary with his girlfriend India Hope on Wednesday at Bocconcino in Mayfair

India told her Instagram followers: '3 weeks late but we finally got our anni dinner  happy first anniversary my love.'

The model looked stunning as she posed in a puff-sleeved mustard dress alongside Dayle who cut a dapper figure in a black Ralph Lauren shirt.

Dayle took to his own Instagram account to share a series of loved-up selfies with India to mark their special day.

He sweetly wrote to his girlfriend in the caption: 'Happy anniversary my love, its a good job you smile enough for the both of us!'

Sweet: Dayle and India looked more loved up than ever as they posed for a mirror selfie while he kissed her on the cheek

Power couple: The model looked stunning as she posed in a puff-sleeved mustard dress alongside Dayle who cut a dapper figure in a black Ralph Lauren shirt

Dayle smouldered as he posed for the couple pics while India beamed happily next to him.

The actor has played the role of Ian Beale's son Peter in EastEnders since 2019 and was the seventh young actor to take on the character.

He told The Sun at the time: 'I am really grateful and excited to have the opportunity to work on such an institution of British television, alongside some incredible actors.

'Happy anniversary my love': Dayle took to his own Instagram account to share a series of loved-up selfies with India to mark their special day

'Its a good job you smile enough for the both of us!': Dayle smouldered as he posed for the couple pics while India beamed happily next to him

Loved up: Dayle had plenty of cute photos to choose from as he marked their anniversary with the Instagram upload

'Peter has been away for some time so I can't wait to find out what he's been up to and I'm very excited to see what the future holds for him.'

Ben's character Peter, previously played by Ben Hardy, left the Square in 2015 when he was struggling to deal with the revelation that his younger brother Bobby killed their sister Lucy before returning in 2019.

Dayle was quickly heralded as the 'hot' Peter Beale as viewers took to Twitter to gush about his appearance.

'New Peter on EastEnders is like 8 feet tall and hot, thanks,' wrote one fan online.

EastEnders was the young star's big break as prior to the soap he had worked on few projects, including a short film called Sleight in 2017.
Michaela Strachan has strongly criticized the 2250 quarantine hotel where she is staying after flying into the UK from South Africa.

The Springwatch presenter, 55, described the Radisson Hotel in Hounslow, west London, as a 'posh prison', saying she was watched by eight security guards while taking a walk and taking objection to being served white bread.

Michaela - who has been sharing daily updates on her Twitter - has since been branded 'spoilt' after showing pictures of her meals and details on the stay.

Oh dear: Michaela Strachan has strongly criticized the 2250 quarantine hotel where she is staying after flying into the UK from South Africa

Taking to Twitter, she said: 'Day One posh prison. My 15 mins in the exercise yard. 8 of us watched by 8 security guards! Seriously?

'What do they think we're going to do? Dig a tunnel? Have an illegal rave? The world's gone utterly mad. Will I go mad in the process? Reckon there's a good chance this time!'

Sharing a picture from her daily walk, she added: 'Hotel quarantine day 2. Today's walk; car park, Radisson Hotel, Hounslow. Last week's walk; Llandudno shipwreck, Cape Town.

Annoyed: The Springwatch presenter, 55, described the Radisson Hotel in Hounslow, west London as a 'posh prison', saying she was watched by eight security guards while taking a walk

Trapped! Sharing a picture from her daily walk, she added: 'Hotel quarantine day 2. Today's walk; car park, Radisson Hotel, Hounslow. Last week's walk; Llandudno shipwreck, Cape Town'

'Nothing like contrast to make you appreciate the good things in life! 'Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone' Joni Mitchell'

By day three Michaela said she had 'lost the will' as she expressed her distaste over the food being served.

She shared a photo of her breakfast which consisted of two slices of toast, an apple, cereal, and yoghurt with drinks.

Upset: By day three Michaela said she had 'lost the will' as she expressed her distaste over the food being served

The wildlife expert wrote in the caption: 'Day 3 hotel quarantine. I'm losing the will on day 3! 2250 and this is what you get for breakfast!I haven't eaten rice crispies since I was 12 and who eats white bread anymore?

'And I waited an hour and a half for a guard to let me out to the car park. think I need to breathe..'

However the star received some backlash for the comments and later took to social media to explain.

Accommodation: She took to Twitter as she arrived to show the view out of her hotel window

She wrote: 'I feel the urge to clarify. Of course there are disadvantaged people who would find this b/fast a feast. That's not the point.

'My point is about value for money. My tweet was supposed to be tongue in cheek, but I really don't think expecting value for money makes me spoilt?'

One angry person replied to Michaela saying: 'You didn't just come off as spoiled, you came off judgemental with it. Cereal, toast, fruit & yoghurt pretty much are the standard breakfasts of the nation. It wasn't that you wanted more for the money that we heard- it's that you look down on those who consume standard staples.'

Clarification: However the star received some backlash for the comments and later took to social media to explain

Reaction: One angry person replied to Michaela saying: 'You didn't just come off as spoiled, you came off judgemental with it'

Support: However, others defended her opinion saying: 'Dear oh dear oh me !!! What is the world coming to when you can't complain about a lousy breakfast...'

Another said: 'What planet is she on that she moans about her food when disadvantaged children get this (5-7yrs)  of a Bagel plus a cereal of their choice (7-11yrs)  a Bagel plus a cereal of their choice (11-16yrs) 1 full bagel plus a cereal of their choice in a breakfast club'

However, others defended her opinion saying: 'Dear oh dear oh me !!! What is the world coming to when you can't complain about a lousy breakfast... You work B****Y hard and I wish people would STOP JUDGING others by just one comment. You should NOT have to aplologise.'

And one more said: 'Poverty is an issue, of course it is, but people are missing the point and can't see the true 'conspiracy'. How can a company charge an individual 2250 for the privilege of 10 days held in a hotel, without natural ventilation and given crappy food? Who is making the profit here?'

Michaela lives in South Africa and was unable to return to the UK to film Springwatch earlier this year due to the travel chaos.
Coronation Street star Ruxandra Porojnicu has confirmed her departure from the show, two-years after making her debut.

The Romanian actress, 28, was introduced to the long-running soap opera in 2019 as part of a topical human trafficking storyline.

But her character, Alina Pop, will now leave following a string of romances - among them a fling with the doomed Seb Franklin and a complicated love triangle with Tyrone Hobbs and his partner Fiz Stape.

All over: Coronation Street star Ruxandra Porojnicu has confirmed her departure from the show, two-years after making her debut

Confirming the news on Twitter, Ruxandra wrote: 'And thats a wrap on Corrie! Thanks to everyone who encouraged and supported me. It meant so much.

'I worked with some of the finest people who are not only extremely talented but very humble and caring.

'They made me feel welcome and a part of this beautiful family. TA EVERYONE!'

Centre stage: The Romanian actress, 28, was introduced to the long-running soap opera as Alina Pop in 2019 as part of a topical human trafficking storyline

Ruxandra accompanied the tweet with a shot of herself and actor Alan Halsall - who plays the hapless Tyrone - outside the iconic Rovers Return.

On Wednesday viewers watched as a pregnant Alina broke off her relationship with Tyrone after discovering he still had feelings for Fiz, before declaring she was returning to Romania to give birth to their baby.

News of her departure comes just two months after sources claimed soap bosses wanted to keep Ruxandra and her co-star Charlotte Jordan on the show.

Love is in the air! Alina has had a string of romances - among them a fling with the doomed Seb Franklin and a complicated affair with Tyrone Hobbs (pictured)

She's off: Pregnant Alina is returning to Romania to give birth to her baby with Tyrone Hobbs

An insider told The Sun: 'Ruxandra's character Alina Pop is currently involved in her second big storyline where she is having a fling with Tyrone Dobbs  and she is being lined up for plenty more.

'While Charlotte's character Daisy Midgeley has been on and off since she joined five months ago her blossoming popularity has led to her being put forward for more time on screen.

'Having fresh, young blood back on the street has been really exciting.'

MailOnline has contacted representatives for Coronation Street for comment.
Angela Scanlon has reassured fans she is 'absolutely fine' after being in involved in a 'serious crash', when her Addison Lee cab collided with an ambulance on Tuesday.

The One Show guest host, 37, was rushed to hospital following the incident - however she has now told her followers it was only as a 'precaution'.

Witnesses at the scene - on 'billionaire's row' Bishops Avenue in London - said the private hire car had been hit by a van which was originally struck by a BMW.

All good! Angela Scanlon has reassured fans she is 'absolutely fine' after being in involved in a 'serious crash', when her Addison Lee cab collided with an ambulance on Tuesday

Addressing the crash on Instagram on Wednesday, Angela confirmed nobody had been injured and she was discharged from hospital on Tuesday evening.

Hoping to quash her fans' worries, Angela said: 'Quick one to ease some of the panic from my friends and family and anyone else who has messaged thank you so much.

'I am absolutely fine there was a car accident yesterday I was in it nobody was hurt thankfully we crashed into an ambulance.'

Shocking: Angela was treated by medics at the scene and then taken to hospital, where she was released shortly after and was said to be 'doing OK'

Angela added: 'There was a two - anyway - they were amazing everyone was amazing I had to go to hospital as a precaution and was out yesterday evening and um yeah took a day off absolutely fine, both drivers fine yeah don't know what else to say sorry if anyone panicked.'

It was reported earlier this week that the Irish host was in a private car at 9.30am, when it collided with the ambulance in north London's The Bishops Avenue - nicknamed 'billionaires' row' due to its concentration of sprawling mansions.

Angela, who has regularly stood in for permanent host Alex Jones on the BBC show, was said to be 'doing OK' shortly after being taken to hospital.

Scary: It was reported earlier this week that the Irish host was in a private car at 9.30am, when it collided with the ambulance on north London's The Bishops Avenue (stock image)

Location: The accident occurred south of East Finchley

Pictured: The Bishops Avenue which is also called 'billionaires' row'. The road sits off the A1 and is close to Hampstead Heath, one of the city's most expensive neighbourhoods

A local told The Sun: 'It was a serious crash which involved four vehicles. It made a hell of a racket. Quite loud bangs. It was four vehicles in total.

'People looked shocked and shook up. The damage to the Addison Lee was quite bad and the ambulance itself had to be taken away. It was shocking. The ambulance arrived quickly and took Angela away.'

A London ambulance spokesperson told MailOnline on Wednesday: 'We were called at 9:27am on 14 September to reports of a road traffic collision involving a private ambulance on Bishops Avenue, N2.

On the mend: She took to Instagram Stories to share some flowers her team had sent her and was busy promoting her friend's podcast, without mentioning the incident

'We sent an ambulance crew and an incident response officer to the scene. We treated a woman and took her to hospital.'

ANGELA SCANLON'S SHOWBIZ CAREER In 2012, Angela was named as one of the 'top ten Irish Instagrammers you need to follow' by The Irish Times In 2013 Vogue named her 'one to watch' and that same year she fronted a Louis Vuitton campaign In 2014 Angela appeared alongside Brendan O'Connor on The Saturday Night Show That same year her first big documentary, Oi Ginger!, aired and she hosted London Fashion Week for the third time Angela first covered for Alex Jones while she was on maternity leave in 2016 That same year she presented a series of her own titled Angela Scanlon's Close Encounters! In 2017 Angela became an ambassador for Garnier Angela hosted her own BBC Radio 2 show between 2018 and 2021 She started hosted BBC 2's renovation show Your Home Made Perfect in 2019 Advertisement

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: 'Police were called at 09:32hrs on Tuesday, 14 September to reports of a collision involving several vehicles - including a private ambulance - on Bishops Avenue at the junction with Bancroft Avenue, N2.

'Officers attended. One person was taken to hospital by the London Ambulance Service. The road was closed whilst emergency services were at the scene.'

It comes after Angela  who shares three-year-old daughter Ruby with her husband Roy Horgan  spoke about motherhood during a March interview with The Daily Mail.

She candidly said: 'No one can prepare you for becoming a mother. I have a ton of nieces and nephews and genuinely thought I knew what was coming, but it's completely different. There is no manual you get given when leaving the hospital.

'Motherhood is a huge gear change. So much of my identity was tied to my career  having a baby and taking time off work meant I didn't know who the hell I was any more.

'After I gave birth, my returning TV presenting role with Dara O'Briain on Robot Wars fell through. That felt devastating. But I looked down at this little human I had pushed out and I thought, ''OK, you know what, I can survive''.'

Further reflecting on her return to work after 12 weeks, Angela said she was 'like a deer in the headlights, fuelled by caffeine and suffering insomnia.'

She continued: 'Often I would beat myself up if I had to travel for work or if I wasn't around for bedtime.

'But I learned to ask for help  and to take it when it was offered. That isn't being weak, it's human.'
She rose to prominence as outspoken and troubled teenager Maeve Wiley in the comedy-drama.

And, Emma Mackey, 25, detailed the 'bittersweet nature' of moving on from Sex Education as she sizzled on the cover of Hunger magazine.

While gushing that she has made lifelong friends with the cast of the Netflix show, the actress asserted: 'I can't be 17 my whole life!'

Wow! Emma Mackey, 25, detailed the 'bittersweet nature' of moving on from Sex Education as she sizzled on the cover of Hunger magazine

Emma looked flawless in a series of stunning shots taken by famed photographer Rankin, as she looked back at her time on the show.

The actress explained: 'Sex Education is so momentous as a concept, as a show, and the cast are phenomenal.

'I genuinely care about them all a lot and I made lifelong friends. But the bittersweet nature of it is that I also can't be 17 my whole life.'

Speaking about her future, Emma revealed to the publication that she may pivot towards filmmaking.

Moving on: While gushing that she has made lifelong friends with the cast of the Netflix show, the actress asserted: 'I can't be 17 my whole life!'

Sensational: Emma looked flawless in a series of stunning shots taken by famed photographer Rankin, as she looked back at her time on the show

She explained: 'I'm very attracted and seduced by the idea of writing a film and conceiving something, being there at the conception of a story, working at it, seeing it through and then choosing a team.'

Emma's next project is her titular role in Emily Bronte biopic, which will follow the story of the famous author, best known for her iconic novel Wuthering Heights.

Discussing the feminist value of taking on period drama roles, Emma insisted: 'We don't learn enough about women in history.

'And when you read history books the only facts and figures you have about women are who they married and how many children they had or didn't have.'

Visionary: Speaking about her future, Emma revealed to the publication that she may pivot towards filmmaking

The upcoming film will see Emma join the likes of Line Of Duty's Adrian Dunbar, Ammonite star Gemma Jones and The Invisible Man actor Oliver Jackson-Cohen.

Dunkirk's Fionn Whitehead, The Musketeers' Alexandra Dowling and The Spanish Princess star Amelia Gething complete the line-up.

Born in 1818 in West Yorkshire, Emily Bronte was the fifth of six children, and spent most of her short life in the moorland village of Haworth, where her Irish father Patrick was curate.

Where it all started: Emma rose to prominence as outspoken and troubled teenager Maeve Wiley in the comedy-drama (Pictured in season one in 2019)

But life dealt Emily a series of terrible blows as she lost her mother when she was three, then two older sisters when she was seven.

Following her trauma, the novelist retreated into a fantasy world, writing stories and poetry with her siblings.

The writer poured her suffering and passion into Wuthering Heights, a wrenching love story as raw as the Yorkshire Moors on which it's set.

The 21st Edition of Hunger is on newsstands Friday 17th September and available to order online now.
Kendall Jenner played the doting daughter in a candid snap from the night of the Met Gala, shared on Instagram on Wednesday.

Posted by friend-to-the-stars Derek Blasberg, the photo saw Kendall kneeling before her mother Kris Jenner, tying her shoe in her swanky eveningwear.

Kendall, 25, was wearing the barely-there Givenchy gown she turned heads with on the night of the Gala, not worried about getting it dusty as she knelt on the ground to help her mum, 65.

'Whatever Kris needs, she gets!' Kendall Jenner knelt before her martini-sipping mum Kris in her Met Gala gown to tie her shoe in a candid snap from the prestigious event shared to Instagram on Wednesday

Kris was seen laughing and sipping on a martini as her daughter tied her gold shoe.

Derek captioned the image: '@krisjenner asking @kendalljenner to tie her shoes while drinking a martini at the #metgala is peak mom goals (and Im taking notes)'

Kris replied: 'Whatever Kris needs, she gets!'

Kendall seemed more than happy to oblige, laughing for the camera as the snap was taken.

'Look what I spotted!' Kris also took to Instagram herself to pose a snap sat on the bar at Larsen's Steakhouse on her return to West Hollywood

Sheer wonder: During last night's Met Gala, Kendall took her cues from Old Hollywood

Snapped! Kendall was spotted, still in New York, the day before, accosted by fans - one of whom asked her to autograph a bottle of the tequila

Kris also took to Instagram herself to pose a snap sat on the bar at Larsen's Steakhouse on her return to West Hollywood.

Having jetted back to the west coast from the Gala in New York, Kris had clocked Kendall's brand of tequila stocked behind the bar.

'Look what I spotted at @larsens_steakhouse_wh!!! @drink818 @kendalljenner!' she posted, sat atop the bar brandishing two large bottles of the drink.

Kendall was spotted, still in New York, the day before, accosted by fans - one of whom asked her to autograph a bottle of the tequila.
Charlie Brooks and her co-star James Bye shared a tense moment outside the Tric Awards on Wednesday evening following the boozy awards ceremony.

The EastEnders actors looked animated as they chatted outside the Television and Radio Industries Club in West London, while waiting to get a taxi home.

Charlie, 40, recently made a dramatic return to Walford as her iconic character Janine Butcher, alongside Martin Fowler actor James, 37.

Awkward! Charlie Brooks and her co-star James Bye shared a tense moment outside the Tric Awards on Wednesday evening following the boozy awards ceremony

An insider told MailOnline there were no cross words during the chat, they were simply trying to work out travel arrangements to their next venue.

Charlie looked super chic during the outing in a black mini dress, which featured studded detailing across the shoulders.

The Lie With Me star wore her cropped blonde locks in glamorous waves and opted for a full face of make-up for the star-studded occassion.

Meanwhile James wore a navy jacket over a white T-shirt.

Chatting: The EastEnders actors looked animated as they chatted outside the Television and Radio Industries Club in West London, while waiting to get a taxi home

Tense? Charlie, 40, recently made a dramatic return to Walford as her iconic character Janine Butcher, alongside Martin Fowler actor James, 37

After attending the awards, they were seen waiting outside the venue, where James could be seen waving his arms and pointing a finger towards Charlie.

Another pal could be seen stood in the middle, as they appeared to mediate the situation.

Following the heated exchange, Charlie appeared engrossed in her phone as she typed away after the discussion died down.

Glam: Charlie looked super chic during the outing in a black mini dress, which featured studded detailing across the shoulders

Despite the apparent cross words, Charlie and James still hopped into a taxi together before heading elsewhere.

Ahead of her EastEnders return, Charlie revealed that there's already romance on the cards for her villainous character as she confirmed she'll have a fling with resident hunk Zack Hudson (James Farrar).

She also teased that there are 'big fire scenes' to come as her character makes her mark on Albert Square once more.

What's going on? Another pal could be seen stood in the middle, as they appeared to mediate the situation

Animated: After attending the awards, they were seen waiting outside the venue, where James could be seen waving his arms and pointing a finger towards Charlie

Dressed to impress: Meanwhile James wore a navy jacket over a white T-shirt

Speaking to The Sun at the National Television Awards on Thursday, Charlie said: 'Coming up next week we have big fire scenes and there is definitely a love interest with someone who is very easy on the eye, Zack.'

Revealing that she's set to clash with other feisty characters, she continued: 'There are lots of strong female relationships when I rub up against them in the pub. Jessie Wallace who plays Kat (Slater) is an amazing actress, same with Lacey Turner - its been really fantastic.'

While Janine is happily flirting up a storm with Zack or getting into scrapes with Kat, there is set to be danger ahead as she gets caught up in a fire at Phil Mitchell's house after searching for her daughter Scarlett.

Busy: Following the heated exchange, Charlie appeared engrossed in her phone as she typed away after the discussion died down

Home itme? Despite the apparent cross words, Charlie and James still hopped into a taxi together before heading elsewhere.

But amid the dark and dangerous storylines, Charlie told how she's keen to show the lighter side of her character, telling how she wants her to open a drag bar.

She explained: 'I would like to see Janine running a club with load of drag queens and have little Scarlett in there with us. You know, like RuPaul.'

Speaking further of her return to the BBC soap, the actress added that when she got the call from show bosses, she was keen to explore what Janine had been up to in her absence, noting her was interested in the 'evolution of Janine'.

She's back! Charlie revealed that there's already romance on the cards for her villainous character as she confirmed she'll have a fling with resident hunk Zack Hudson (James Farrar)

Villainous: Charlie made her return to Walford last week (pictured)

She added that she tries to share her ideas for her character to the show producers, but the success in whether they listen varies.

It came days after Charlie made her long-awaited comeback to Walford last week.

It quickly became clear the character has not changed her ways while away from Albert Square when she posed as a doctor during Monday's instalment of the soap, tricking the unsuspecting Zack.

Scary scenes: She also teased that there are 'big fire scenes' to come as her character makes her mark on Albert Square once more

EastEnders: James pictured in character as Martin Fowler

Soap gossip: Speaking to The Sun at the National Television Awards on Thursday, Charlie said: 'Coming up next week we have big fire scenes'

Uh oh! Revealing that she's set to clash with other feisty characters, she continued: 'There are lots of strong female relationships when I rub up against them in the pub'

Introducing herself as Judith Bernstein, Janine told Zack: 'Here I am. Meter's running, give me your worst.'

Janine last appeared in the soap in March 2014, when she left for Paris to pick up daughter Scarlett, who is also making a comeback.

Charlie's character was involved in a number of high-profile storylines, perhaps most famously the death of her on-screen husband, Barry Evans, who she pushed down a cliff in Scotland during a 2004 episode.

Janine returned to Albert Square four years later and her most recent spell on the soap ended in 2014.

Rave reviews: 'Jessie Wallace who plays Kat (Slater) is an amazing actress, same with Lacey Turner - its been really fantastic.'

Dramatic: While Janine is happily flirting up a storm with Zack or getting into scrapes with Kat, there is set to be danger ahead as she gets caught up in a fire
It was revealed on Wednesday that Erika Jayne and estranged husband Tom Giradi's property in La Quinta is now on the market to help pay off some of the former couple's creditors and legal debts.

And former Real Housewives of New York City star Bethenny Frankel spoke out the former couple's legal woes, revealing that she is not surprised and that she heard about their financial woes as early as 2017.

The 50-year-old star claimed that her ex fiance Dennis Shields told her that Tom allegedly owes money to everyone and that his financial issues were a 'widely known best-kept secret,' while speaking on her Just B podcast via People.

former Real Housewives of New York City star Bethenny Frankel spoke out the former couple's legal woes, revealing that she is not surprised and that she heard about their financial woes as early as 2017

Dennis died in 2018 at 51 of an apparent drug overdose; Dennis knew Tom, 82, because they both worked in the legal field.

During the podcast, Bethenny said that it all started after she questioned how Erika, 50, could afford her lifestyle - including $40,000 a month on glam.

She learned that the RHOBH star was 'spending a crazy amount of money' that she felt could be 'hard to sustain', which led her to bring it up to Dennis.

Bethenny said: 'Dennis said to me, "He doesn't have it like that. He owes me money. He owes me half a million dollars. I know this other guy he owes a million and a half dollars."'

Doesn't add up: During the podcast, Bethenny said that it all started after she questioned how Erika could afford her lifestyle - including $40,000 a month on glam

'"He doesn't have money. He owes everybody money,"' the star claimed.

'And I go, "What are you talking about? How is she flying around on [private planes]?" And he said, "It's because he's using people's money to support her lifestyle. He's using the company's money to support her lifestyle." Dennis said this. And I said, "What are you talking about?"' she added.

Bethenny continued: 'And Dennis was like, "Yeah, no, he owes me money and it aggravates everybody. " I said, "Why would he do that?" He goes, "He can't say no to her."'

The reality star said that when the news came out, Andy Cohen called me and he reportedly said: 'Holy s**t. You really do know it all. You told me about this years ago."'

She recalled that she told him: 'Yeah, I told you. You know, #IKnowItAll. so I knew about this whole thing. I knew since, yeah, probably 2017 and 2018, I knew about this.'

While she doesn't know Erika well, she did say that 'people flaunting and showing a lot of what they have, very often it's all show and no go.'

'People are just so tempted. They must, they must show a lifestyle. And you cannot create a life out of a lifestyle. You can create a lifestyle out of a life but you can't lifestyle your way into a life. And I think that people just get so tempted to show everything and say everything instead of just keeping quiet. And that's so much stronger.'

Claims: The 50-year-old star claimed that her ex fiance Dennis Shields told her that Tom allegedly owes money to everyone and that his financial issues were a 'widely known best-kept secret,' while speaking on her Just B podcast via People

Tom and estranged wife Erika Jayne, who split in November 2020, are facing claims of allegedly embezzling settlement funds that were meant to help the families of the Lion Air plane crash victims.

In December, Tom and his Girardi Keese law firm were sued for allegedly embezzling funds from families who lost loved ones during the 2018 Boeing plane crash.

That same month, Tom was sued by his business partners, which led to his chapter 7 bankruptcy petition; clients of the law firm are also suing him, alleging that their money was also misappropriated.

In March, the LA Times reported that there had been more than 100 lawsuits filed and multiple complaints made to the California State Bar against Girardi by disgruntled clients who alleged financial wrongdoing and theft between the 1980s and up until last year.

In June, Jayne has been 'ordered to turn over financial records' from her accountant, lawyer and landlord as part of the embezzlement investigation and a bankruptcy trustee is documenting the couple's assets.

Throwback: Tom and estranged wife Erika Jayne, who split in November 2020, are facing claims of allegedly embezzling settlement funds that were meant to help the families of the Lion Air plane crash victims

It's been alleged that the split provided a way for the couple to embezzle funds and that Jayne had received 'tens of millions of dollars' from her husband's firm to fund her projects, Us Weekly reported in June.

An investigator in the bankruptcy trial of Tom and Erika says he wants to take into account 'inconsistent statements' the reality star has made on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

Investigator Ronald Richards told Us Weekly: 'There's a lot of inconsistent statements and admissions made by the non-scripted actors that we're putting together to use in court.'

Asked whether the attorney has seen 'a lot of inconsistencies with the story' being told on RHOBH in regards to Erika and Tom's lawsuit and financial woes, Richards said: 'That's correct.'

Richards added that his team is 'going to take discovery from people that used to work for her.'

He added that Jayne, her former employees, and her costars could be called in for questioning, though it is unclear when.

Interesting: An investigator in the bankruptcy trial of Tom and Erika says he wants to take into account 'inconsistent statements' the reality star has made on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills

'There's a lot of things were still trying to uncover,' he told the outlet. 'We are going to be deposing her (Erika) at some point, but I want to get all the documents first. What's important right now is following the money.'

This could make things tense for Erika, who has been very open on RHOBH about the case, recently telling her housewives co-stars: 'I'd like to know where the money is.'

In a separate interview with the outlet Richards says he has found records that indicate Girardi Keese funds were used to buy jewelry, although has yet to find proof that it is connected to Erika.

'We saw jewelry payments that the firm has bought from a jeweler,' he told the outlet, adding this in his estimation the purchases were in the 'hundreds of thousands of dollars' range.

This month, their home in California's resort city of La Quinta went up for sale.

The $1.25 million home is going on the market to help pay off some of the former couple's creditors and legal debts amid their ongoing divorce and embezzlement scandal.

Erika previously surprised her costars on The Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills when she claimed she had never set foot in the home.
Dame Joan Collins looked sensational as she attended the Drawing on Style Exhibition by Gray MCA at Cromwell Place in London on Wednesday.

Sporting a chic black jacket featuring red-and-green floral embroidery, the actress, 88, oozed elegance as she swept her way through the South Kensington space.

Underneath, the Dynasty star donned a frilly black top, which she combined with a coordinating pair of trousers and silver pumps.

Centre of attention: Dame Joan Collins looked sensational in a black cardigan with floral embroidery as she made a stylish arrival at an art exhibition in London on Wednesday (pictured with dancer, Eric Underwood)

Holding a black leather clutch, she sported a plunging beaded necklace and had styled her brown tresses into a bouncing coiffed hairdo.

Her berry pink lips popped against her pale skin and she donned a pair of silver star-shaped earrings.

The Golden Globe Award winner appeared to be in high spirits as she chatted away to actress Virginia Bates, photographer Ali Mahdavi, illustrator David Downton and dancer Eric Underwood.

On its website, the presentation is described as 'a curated buying exhibition celebrating original fashion illustration by the masters of the genre from the 20th century and today.

Glamorous: The art lover attended the Drawing on Style Exhibition by Gray MCA at Cromwell Place in South Kensington

Wow! The actress, 88, oozed elegance as she swept her way through the South Kensington working space (pictured with actress Virginia Bates, left)

Having a laugh: Joan certainly seemed to be enjoying herself as she struck up conversations with her fellow guests

Show-stopping: Joan sported a plunging beaded necklace and had styled her brown tresses into a bouncing coiffed hairdo

Last month Joan paid tribute to her on-screen Dynasty husband Michael Nader.

The actor died aged 76 on August 23, 10 days after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Joan wrote for the Mail On Sunday: 'The last time I saw Michael, my husband Percy and I were on a New York rooftop celebrating New Year's Eve with friends.

'He looked frail and had lost his hair, but he still had that spark and charm that I remembered only too well from our first meeting.

Happy: Joan beamed as she made eye contact with photographer Ali Mahdavi

Busy bee: The Golden Globe Award winner appeared to be in high spirits as she chatted away to a group of new pals

'Sizing him up as my future co-star all those years ago, I decided he was tall but not too tall.

'He had black hair, but not too much of it, and he had a 'machismo' that I thought would blend well with Alexis's feisty temperament.

'Of all my Dynasty husbands, he was far and away the best looking, the best actor and the most charming, and I was extremely happy to have married him. (Sorry, Percy!)'

Michael starred as Dynasty's Dex from 1983 to 1989, and he later appeared in All My Children from 1991 to 2001, and again in 2013.
She's one of the fashion industry's most iconic figures and never hesitates to take risks with her wardrobe choices.

And Naomi Campell revealed a little too much as she suffered a wardrobe malfunction while arriving at a hotel in London on Thursday.

The supermodel, 51, went braless in a very low cut white button-front shirt and almost revealed her modesty to onlookers as she walked.

Racy: Naomi Campell revealed a little too much as she suffered a wardrobe malfunction while arriving at a hotel in London on Thursday

Naomi looked characteristically stylish in the daring shirt jacket, which she styled with a matching pair of white slacks with a gold stripe up the side.

She completed the ensemble with a pair of edgy Nike high-top trainers with a pale pink and black design.

The supermodel wore her long raven tresses in a sleek straight style and accessorised with a pair of large glamorous sunglasses.

Know for her safety first approach to hygiene, Naomi sported a white protective face mask as she entered the hotel toting an eye-catching gold handbag.

Nip slip: The supermodel, 51, went braless in a very low cut white button-front shirt and flashed her nipple to onlookers as she walked

Naomi announced this past spring that she had welcomed a baby girl, as she became a mother for the first time.

Following the news, she admitted in a new interview that her high-powered jetset lifestyle has meant at least one big sacrifice: finding a long-term romantic partner.

'I'd say the sacrifice is really finding that soul mate who will understand you,' she told The Cut.

'It's really like you feel if they look at you as if you're strong  you know, I'm strong, but I'm also sensitive. I know that in relationships I have to compromise.'

Chic: Naomi looked characteristically stylish in the daring shirt jacket, which she styled with a matching pair of white slacks with a gold stripe up the side

Naomi has has plenty of well-publicized relationships and romances over the years, including with Leonardo DiCaprio, Diddy, Gerard Butler, and recently, according to reports, Liam Payne.

Her longest known relationships were with Vladislav Doronin from 2009 to 2013 and Flavio Briatore from 1998 to 2002.

She was reportedly keen to have children with Russian businessman Doronin, but Doronin was married.

Though she never married herself, she announced in May that she welcomed a daughter.

Stepping out: She completed the ensemble with a pair of edgy Nike high-top trainers with a pale pink and black design

'A beautiful little blessing has chosen me to be her mother,' she wrote on Instagram. 'So honoured to have this gentle soul in my life there are no words to describe the lifelong bond that I now share with you, my angel. There is no greater love.'

Friends said they believe that Naomi used a surrogate, and the supermodel is understood to have a new boyfriend with whom she will raise the child.

'I'm not out here on my own,' she said. 'It's simple, and it's small. To be with your loved ones who just want to enjoy the quality time.

Stunning: The supermodel wore her long raven tresses in a sleek straight style and accessorised with a pair of large glamorous sunglasses

'When I reach out to people, and I need help and understanding and guidance, it's important for me to remember to say 'Thank you.' You never know when you may need that person to help you again or guide you.'

While Naomi's longest romantic relationship may have been just a few years, the star spoke of important friendships that have spanned decades.

'I've had extremely long friendships that are still very present in my life to this day  30, 33, 35 years on. I'm grateful for those people in my life. They know me better than anyone,' she said.

Covid safe: Know for her safety first approach to hygiene, Naomi sported a white protective face mask as she entered the hotel toting an eye-catching gold handbag

And though she said missing out on finding a soul mate was a sacrifice she made, she is not interested in feelings of regret or dwelling on the past.

'I have no time for bitterness,' she said. 'There's a journey. I'm still on it. It's God willing. I'm just still going, and I want to keep going and doing things that I love doing in my life. And that's it!'

'I don't like  what's the word? Stagnation. Yes, that's it. I don't like that. I don't like being stagnant,' she added. 'It's not who I am. It's not the energy I was born with.

'I'm not trying to talk about the past. I'm going to talk about the present  forward.'
Filming for the 2022 season of Married At First Sight is already under way.

And Daily Mail Australia can reveal the identity of one of the grooms set to appear on Channel Nine's social experiment.

Influencer Brent Vitiello will be one of several grooms heading down the aisle after moving back to Australia from Dubai.

Husband-to-be: Influencer Brent Vitiello will be one of several grooms heading down the aisle on the 2022 season of Married At First Sight, after moving back to Australia from Dubai

The tattooed hunk is well-known in the Sydney party scene and until recently was living and working in photography and hospitality in Dubai.

In a telling clue he's joined the cast, his Instagram account with more than 51,000 followers is now private - which is a requirement for upcoming brides and grooms.

Brent briefly appeared in a teaser trailer released by Nine this week, which also included glimpses of other glamorous cast members.

Man about town: The tattooed hunk is well-known in the Sydney party scene and until recently was living and working in photography and hospitality in Dubai

While viewers are yet to be formally introduced to Brent, he looked every inch the alpha male as he arrived at the bucks party sporting a buzz cut.

Nine unveiled a sneak peek of the new brides and grooms looking love on MAFS 2022 at the network's upfronts presentation on Wednesday.

A trailer teased that the forthcoming season features 'the most handsome new grooms and breathtaking new brides the series has ever hitched'.

Looking for love: Brent briefly appeared in a teaser trailer released by Nine this week, which also included glimpses of other glamorous cast members

Four of the glamorous brides-to-be and three of the grooms were shown arriving at their bucks and hens parties.

One chiselled groom with strawberry-blond hair arrived at his pre-wedding party in a white shirt and black blazer.

Another sported reading glasses as he makes his entrance in reading glasses with his hairy chest on display.

He means business: One chiselled groom with strawberry-blond hair arrived at his pre-wedding party in a white shirt and black blazer

Woman on a mission: This yet-to-be-identified bride rocked up for her hens party in a low-cut white dress

All that glitters: Next up was a stunning brunette dressed in a sparkly dress and strappy heels

Will she find her Bryce? Viewers were then introduced to this stunning blonde

Viewers then saw a glamorous brunette arrive for her hens night in a white dress, followed by another dark-haired woman in a sparkly frock, and a stunning blonde.

The new season of MAFS will see the return of Puerto Rican sexologist Alessandra Rampolla, as well as veteran relationship experts John Aiken and Mel Schilling.

Married At First Sight is produced by Endemol Shine Australia, and filming for the new season has already commenced.

If you recognise any of the participants, email tips@dailymail.com

Married At First Sight returns to Channel Nine in 2022
Dani Dyer has given fans a glimpse at her 25th birthday celebrations as she proclaimed she feels like 'the luckiest girl ever'.

The former Love Island star, who shared clips on her Instagram and YouTube, looked sensational as she donned a blue patterned swimsuit while celebrating in Spain with her nearest and dearest.

Dani's family and friends enjoyed an al fresco dinner in the evening where she shared a clip of her father Danny toasting to his 'sweet one'.

Party: Dani Dyer has given fans a glimpse at her 25th birthday celebrations in Spain as she proclaimed she feels like 'the luckiest girl ever'

The EastEnders star said: 'Happy birthday to my sweet one. Twenty five years, no, quarter of a century old. Cheers.'

Dani's mother Jo arranged for balloons to be decorated around the holiday home along with a huge Happy Birthday sign.

The reality star got emotional as she spoke to the camera, saying: 'I feel like the luckiest girl ever. I'm gonna cry.'

She added: 'I've been drinking all day, Prosecco out of my cup that I've now lost.'

Family: Dani's family and friends enjoyed an al fresco dinner in the evening where she shared a clip of her father Danny toasting to his 'sweet one'

Dani revealed her mum got a beautician to come over to give her a facial while she also showed off some of her birthday cards.

Dani's son Santiago, six months, was also with her on the holiday as she shared a clip of him being cradled by his grandmother.

The Love Island winner split from Sammy Kimmence, 24, in July after he was sentenced to three-and-a-half years behind bars for posing as an investor.

According to reports, she will not be taking Santiago to visit his father as she considers jail both a 'toxic environment' and 'scary place'.

Birthday girl: Dani's mother Jo arranged for balloons to be decorated around the holiday home along with a huge Happy Birthday sign

Adorable: Dani's son Santiago, six months, was also with her on the holiday as she shared a clip of him being cradled by his grandmother

Well wishes: Dani also gave her fans a look at some of the birthday cards she received

Thrilled: The reality star got emotional as she spoke to the camera, saying: 'I feel like the luckiest girl ever. I'm gonna cry'

However, Dani has reportedly been speaking to Sammy via phone, but she has told him he won't be seeing his son 'for the foreseeable future'.

A source told The Sun: 'Dani isn't punishing him still further by not visiting him because she knows he's got a right to see his son - even if he is banged up.

'But prison is such a scary place and she really can't bring herself to think about talking Santi into such a toxic environment or allowing someone else to take her child to jail on a visit.'

They added: 'She knows all eyes will be on her once she walks into the visiting hall and needs to think carefully about how she can steel herself to make the visit  if that even happens.'

MailOnline has reached out to Dani's representatives for comment.

Reports: Dani is refusing to take her son Santiago, seven months, to visit his dad Sammy Kimmence, 24, in prison, according to reports

Ex: The Love Island 2018 star split from Sammy (pictured) in July after he was sentenced to three-and-a-half years behind bars for posing as an investor

Her disgraced ex-boyfriend was last month ordered to pay almost 55,000 by handing over clothes, Louis Vuitton bags and designer trainers after he scammed two elderly men out of 34,000.

He will start paying the debt by handing over 5,099-worth of valuables including various fashion items, jewellery and a 699 personal number plate.

Three pairs of valuable trainers made up the 'vast bulk' of the sum, a court was told today.

Kimmence duped Peter Martin, 91, and Peter Haynes, 81, by persuading the vulnerable pensioners to let him invest their money for them and then splashed out on expensive restaurants, hotels and clothes.
She reportedly split with Kanye West in August after dating for five months.

And Irina Shayk declined to comment about her short lived romance with the rapper when asked about him during an interview with Highsnobiety.

The 35-year-old model did say 'tomorrow there is going to be a rumor that I'm dating my doorman, okay? Then after tomorrow, it's going to be someone else.'

The latest: She reportedly split with Kanye West in August after dating for five months. And Irina Shayk declined to comment about her short lived romance with the rapper when asked about him during an interview with Highsnobiety

Adding: 'Look, there's always something there, and I'm just keeping it to myself.'

While she would not speak directly about Kanye, she did briefly mention ex Bradley Cooper, whom she shares daughter Lea de Seine, four, with.

The former couple live just few blocks away from each other and share parental responsibilities.

She said of Bradley: 'He's a full-in, hands-on dad - no nanny. Lea went on holiday with him for almost two weeks - I didn't call them once.'

The latest: Adding: 'Look, there's always something there, and I'm just keeping it to myself'

They also both agree on how to raise her: 'Me and her father are very strict. When she finishes eating, she gets up from the table, takes her plate, says "thank you."'

'Without "please" or "thank you" she's not getting anything. It's hard, because she has so many toys. I had one doll, and I still have this doll. Blonde, blue eyes, big Russian doll. My grandma used to make clothes for her. And I always explain, "Look, this is my doll. I had only one." Or sometimes, "You have this candy. I used to have candy only for Christmas."'

In late August, it was reported that Irina and Kanye called off their romance, after dating for five months.

Kanye, who's in the mist of divorcing estranged wife Kim Kardashian, reportedly began dating in March 2021, according to TMZ.

They spent time together in New York City in late April.

During that time Irina was seen wearing a DMX memorial shirt before it was available to the public.

The project Kanye helmed raised over $1 million for DMX's family with profits.

Power: Back in 2010, the runway maven was a featured player in West's Heaven-inspired Power music video, where she portrayed an angel

Irina and Kanye flew back to the the states via private jet in June after spending time in Provence, France for his 44th birthday.

Kanye and Irina were seen taking a romantic stroll in Provence, France, on Wednesday, June 9, 2021, as seen in exclusive images obtained by DailyMail.com.

The duo stayed at the luxury Villa La Costa boutique hotel together.

The images come after Kanye was first romantically linked to the Russian supermodel, according to DeuxMoi.

'Kanye West is now secretly dating Irina Shayk aka Bradley Cooper's baby mama,' a tipster wrote prior to when they went public with their romance.

Angelic: Specifically, Shayk sported a revealing gold getup and a pair of CGI angel wings

Fashion: Irina has found herself intertwined with Kanye's fashion endeavors over the years, first appearing a fashion show for the rapper in 2012 before rocking his Balenciaga collaboration in April 2021

The anonymous figure behind DeuxMoi replied to the tip with: 'After further looking into this, I don't know if "dating" is the right word, but there is perhaps some interest there.'

Seeming to double down on earlier 'dating claims,' another tipster insisted to DeuxMoi that Irina and Kanye ''Def dating.'

Back in 2010, the runway maven was a featured player in West's Heaven-inspired Power music video, where she portrayed an angel.

Specifically, Shayk sported a revealing gold getup and a pair of CGI angel wings.

Just two years later, the Russian-born beauty put her modeling skills to the test as she graced the runway for West's Fall/Winter fashion collection at Paris Fashion Week.

In May, Irina having sported a DMX shirt designed by West in collaboration with Balenciaga.

In his 2010 song Christian Dior Denim Flow he rapped: 'I wanna see Irina Shayk next to Doutzen.'

Kanye's nearly seven year marriage to Kim Kardashian came to an end in February, with the reality TV sensation filing for divorce.

According to People, the Stronger rapper filed his response for divorce in early April, where he asked for joint legal and physical custody of their children.

The estranged pair share daughters North, seven, Chicago, three, and sons Saint, five, and Psalm, two.
Married At First Sight UK star Alexis Conomou's secret past has been revealed  she's a former Britain's Got Talent Golden Buzzer act who was once arrested for smuggling drugs into prison for her jailbird boyfriend.

The model, 28, was given a three-and-a-half-month suspended sentence and ordered to complete 150 hours of community service at her local Oxfam shop in 2013 after being caught handing over cannabis to Kayode Oshin during one of her visits.

She hid the drug, which had a street value of 10, inside her bra.

Past: Married At First Sight UK star Alexis Conomou's secret past has been revealed - she's a former Britain's Got Talent Golden Buzzer act who was once arrested for smuggling drugs into prison for her jailbird boyfriend

The incident took place the year before she impressed judge Alesha Dixon on Britain's Got Talent in2014 as part of a girlband called REAformed.

Using the show's famed Golden Buzzer, the judge sent them straight through to the semi-finals following their first audition.

Speaking previously about her criminal background, Alexis said: 'I know it sounds bad but being arrested for drugs isn't that unusual where I'm from.

'I had no idea about other things he'd done. I was in love and I just wanted to help him.

Limelight: The incident took place the year before she impressed judge Alesha Dixon on Britain's Got Talent in 2014 as part of a girlband called REAformed

'On my sixth visit I brought drugs with me to prison. I knew it was wrong.

'As I walked up to the prison, my heart was racing, I had a million different things going through my head.

'I was absolutely terrified when I walked into the prison. They did a body search but I'd hidden it in my bra so they didn't find it.'

Alexis began dating Oshin in 2012 after being introduced by mutual pals, but had no idea he was embroiled in a gangland drugs war.

He was jailed for three-and-a-half years for drug offences, but Alexis stuck by him, regularly visiting him behind bars before she was caught smuggling in cannabis by guards.

Sentence: The model, 28, was given a three-and-a-half-month suspended sentence and ordered to complete 150 hours of community service at her local Oxfam shop in 2013 after being caught handing over cannabis to Kayode Oshin during one of her visits

Past: Speaking previously about her criminal background, Alexis said: 'I know it sounds bad but being arrested for drugs isn't that unusual where I'm from' (pictured with Jordon Mundell)

Following her arrest, and subsequent community service, she ended the relationship but later found out the thug had been jailed for 22 years for attempted murder, possession of a firearm and GBH with intent, from an incident dating back to 2011.

Oshin shot the victim in the neck with a machine gun.

Alexis spoke about her brush with the law after entering BGT in a bid to become a pop star.

The girlband, also featuring Ebony Cantwell and Renetta Eagle, impressed the judges with their version of Kiki Dee's I Got The Music I Me, sparking Alesha's comparisons with her own band Mis-Teeq.

Alexis' secret past has come to light as she returned to the E4 series this week with new partner Ant Poole following the pair's disastrous marriages to Jordon Mundell and Nikita Jasmine.

Group: The girlband, also featuring Ebony Cantwell and Renetta Eagle, impressed the judges with their version of Kiki Dee's I Got The Music I Me, sparking Alesha's comparisons with her own band Mis-Teeq

Their comeback shocked fellow newlyweds, particularly Megan Wolfe who had an affair with Alexis' ex Jordon during the early stages of the show.

However, despite striking up a connection on their first meeting  triggering their bid to re-enter the show as a couple - Alexis and Ant have struggled to bond further.

Speaking during the commitment ceremony on Wednesday's show, Alexis said: 'I'm comfortable around him, but we haven't even had our first kiss yet.

'It does make me question myself. Does he fancy me?'

An E4 spokesman declined to comment.
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Twilight actress Ashley Greene, 34, rang in her husband Paul Khoury's 33rd birthday with friends in Mexico last week.

The movie star wore a chic, one-piece, belted bathing suit with a plunging neckline during a loved-up day with her husband by the shore.

The couple was seen holding each other on the beach as they soaked up the sun South Of The Border. The lovebirds, who wed in 2018, were staying at the Garza Blanca Resort & Spa.

Cute! Twilight actress Ashley Greene , 34, rang in her husband Paul Khoury's 33rd birthday with friends in Mexico last week

Getaway: The movie star wore a chic, one-piece, belted bathing suit with a plunging neckline during a loved-up day with her husband by the shore

The Jacksonville, Florida-born star complemented her swimsuit with a sunhat that had a scarf tied around it in the same shade as her swimwear.

Greene's brunette hair was pulled into a low, loose bun underneath the sun-protective accessory.

Her partner donned black Hugo Boss shorts with a thin white stripe on the sides that cropped above the knee. It was paired with a short-sleeve button down shirt that revealed his numerous arm tattoos.

The Australian TV personality topped his look with a hat and dark sunglasses.

The happy pair went without shoes as they walked barefoot in the sand before taking a moment to rest on lounge chairs.

Sandy style: The actress wore a chic one-piece bathing suit with a plunging neckline during a loved-up beach day with her husband

Coordination: The Jacksonville, Florida-born star complemented her swimsuit with a sunhat that had a scarf tied around it in the same shade as her swimwear

Fuss-free: Greene's brunette hair was pulled into a low, loose bun underneath the sun-protective accessory

Beachy look: Her partner donned black Hugo Boss shorts with a thin white stripe on the sides that cropped above the knee

Their end of summer getaway was spent riding horses beachside, sipping cocktails, and relaxing in their suite which featured a private terrace and jacuzzi.

A day after his September 6 birthday the media talent took to Instagram to express gratitude.

'The amount of LOVE I felt on my birthday was overwhelming. I can't tell you how excited I am about life..I wake up everyday positive, happy and ready to take on anything that's thrown my way,' he said to his 36.5k followers.

He made sure to give a special shoutout to his wife: 'Thank you to my beautiful wife for always making my birthday more memorable than the last.'

Grateful: A day after his September 6 birthday the media talent took to Instagram to express gratitude

Shoeless: The pair went without shoes as they walked barefoot in the sand before taking a moment to rest on lounge chairs

She will next star with Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman in The Retirement Plan.

The director is Tim J. Brown, and filming took place in the Cayman Islands.

Ernie Hudson, Jackie Earle Haley, Joel David Moore, Grace Byers, Rick Fox and Lynn Whitfield also feature in the ensemble.

The story centers on Ashley (Greene) and her daughter Sarah (Thalia Campbell) as they get caught up in a criminal enterprise that puts their lives at risk.

She turns to the only person who can help, her estranged father Matt (Cage), currently enjoying retirement on the Cayman Islands. However, they are soon tracked down by crime boss Donnie (Haley) and lieutenant Bobo (Perlman).

Luxurious: Their end of summer getaway was spent riding horses beachside, sipping cocktails, and relaxing in their suite which featured a private terrace and jacuzzi

As the trio become entangled in an increasingly dangerous web, Ashley learns that her father had a secret past that she didn't know anything about and that there is more to him than meets the eye.

William G. Santor is producing the project for Productivity Media along with Nicholas Tabarrok, the President of Darius Films as part of their multi-pictured deal with the Cayman Islands authorities. Jason Jallet and Doug Murray also serve as producers.

Santor said: 'The global reach and legendary appeal of Nicolas, Ashley, Jackie, Joel, Grace, Ernie, Rick and Lynn as well as gifted newcomer Thalia, is spot-on for this exciting action movie.

'I am proud to say that we have managed to have a Ghost Rider, a Hellboy and a Rorschach in the same film together, with a Ghostbuster to keep the Ghost Rider in check! You can't get better than that!

'And we continue to receive incredible support from the Cayman Islands Government as we start production on our third film.'
Sabrina Bartlett has described the exploration of sex in Bridgerton as 'wonderful unbridled, shameless and liberating,' as she prepares for her new role in ITV's Darling Buds Of May reboot alongside actor Tok Stephen.

The actress, 30, who portrayed Siena Rosso in the hit Netflix drama, found the sex scenes to be both empowering and 'hilarious'.

During an interview with Tatler, she also discussed her dynamic with her onscreen lover Anthony Bridgeton, played by Jonathan Bailey.

Wow: Sabrina Bartlett has described the exploration of sex in Bridgerton as 'wonderful and liberating,' as she prepares for new role in ITV's Darling Buds Of May reboot with Tok Stephen (pictured together)

As she posed for the October issue with her new co-star Tok, she said of Bridgerton's attitude towards sex: It felt like this wonderful unbridled, shameless exploration of sex that we havent seen before, which I found so liberating.

She added that she remains really good friends with Bridgerton co-star Jonathan, 33, as their scenes in the bedroom haven't affected their relationship.

Sabrina also hinted that she will be returning to the show in the future as she teased: Maybe not season two, but potentially season three

Rise to fame: The actress, 30, who portrayed Siena Rosso in the hit Netflix drama, found the sex scenes to be both empowering and 'hilarious'

Hunk: During an interview with Tatler , she also discussed her dynamic with her onscreen lover Anthony Bridgeton, played by Jonathan Bailey (pictured)

For the meantime, the actress is focused on The Larkins, ITVs reinvention of the hit 90s comedy-drama, The Darling Buds Of May, set on a Kent farm in the 1950s.

Commenting on the new production, she said: 'If we could provide the warmth and escapism that people so badly need, we would all feel very proud.

Meanwhile her co-star Tok added: Hopefully, people are going to love going to Kent and the Larkins farm every Sunday. Weve just spent the past year dealing with a lot.

Sabrina recently returned from a sun-soaked vacation with fellow Bridgerton actress Phoebe Dynevor who has reportedly split from comedian Pete Davidson.

Candid: She said of Bridgerton's attitude towards sex: It felt like this wonderful unbridled, shameless exploration of sex that we havent seen before, which I found so liberating'

Just pals: She added that she remains really good friends with Bridgerton co-star Jonathan, 33, as their scenes in the bedroom haven't affected their relationship

The pair beamed for a social media photo as the blue ocean stretched out behind them, with Sabrina looking stylish in a pink slip dress and black and white bikini.

Phoebe captioned the glowing snap uploaded to her Instagram: 'Belly full of wine, hair full of salt'.

The holiday came amid reports that Phoebe and Pete, 27, have reportedly called it quits on their romance after five months of dating.

The star and comedian were last seen together in the UK in July, with them putting on a loved-up display at Wimbledon.

Homage: The actress is set to star in The Larkins, ITVs reinvention of the hit 90s comedy-drama, The Darling Buds Of May, set on a Kent farm in the 1950s (pictured original stars Catherine Zeta-Jones and David Jason)

Views: Sabrina recently returned to London following a sun-soaked vacation with fellow Bridgerton actress Phoebe Dynevor who has reportedly split from comedian Pete Davidson

However a source has now claimed that the duo have gone their separate ways after trying to make things work long distance 'put a strain' on their relationship.

A source told The Sun: 'Pete and Phoebe's romance was a real whirlwind and from the start they were both totally committed.

Out now! Read Sabrina's full interview in the October issue of Tatler

'It was pretty telling when Phoebe headed to Croatia with her mates this week rather than going to see Pete in America.

'It was wild while it lasted... But the distance has put a strain on them. They will remain close but unless something drastic changes their relationship won't recover.'

The source continued that both of the stars have very busy schedules at the moment, with Phoebe filming Bridgerton series two in the UK and Pete working on Saturday Night Live in the US as well as filming a movie called Meet Cute.

It is also thought that travel restrictions have added a further pressure to their romance as it isn't easy to just 'jump on a plane' and see each other.

MailOnline have contacted Phoebe and Pete's representatives for further comment.

See the full feature in the October issue of Tatler available via digital download and on newsstands now
As the Editor-in-Chief of Vogue she's known for her high fashion.

And Anna Wintour, 71, looked as stylish as ever as she stepped out to the Conde Nast College BA Fashion Communication Graduate Exhibition as part of London Fashion Week on Thursday.

The journalist wore a beautiful red, white and black floral patterned dress and a pair of brown high-heeled boots for the event.

Fashion focus: Anna Wintour, 71, looked as stylish as ever at the Conde Nast College BA Fashion Communication Graduate Exhibition as part of London Fashion Week on Thursday

The silky garment featured a turtleneck and long sleeves and she could be seen mingling with college students and other members of the fashion set during the evening.

Anna wore her signature large dark sunglasses inside and could be seen with her hair styled into a sharpe bob.

The fashionista was seen perusing the work of pupils as they spoke to her about their efforts.

In style: The journalist wore a beautiful red, white and black floral patterned dress and a pair of brown high-heeled boots for the event

Style queen: The silky garment featured a turtleneck and long sleeves and she could be seen mingling with college students and other members of the fashion set during the evening

Signature style: Anna wore her signature large dark sunglasses inside and could be seen with her hair styled into a sharpe bob

Good effort: The fashionista was seen perusing the work of pupils as they spoke to her about their efforts

Safety first: The magazine editor opted to wear a mask to keep herself and others safe from coronavirus

Out and about: Anna's London outing came after she made a stylish return to the Met Gala in New York on Monday

Flower power: She put on a stylish display at this year's Met Gala in a long, floral gown as the event returned for the first time in two years, just days before her London arrival

The magazine editor cheerfully waved to shutterbugs at the bash and she opted to wear a mask to keep herself and others safe from coronavirus.

Anna's London outing came after she made a stylish return to the Met Gala in New York on Monday.

She put her most fashionable foot forward while stepping out with her pregnant daughter Bee for the glittering event.

On pause: The Met Gala returned on Monday for the first time in more than two years after being canceled and then postponed amid the coronavirus pandemic

Keeping things in check: Strict protocols were in place this year at the Met Gala, requiring all guests to be fully vaccinated and tested in order to attend

Industry powerhouse: However, the stars were able to go mask-free on the Met Gala red carpet and show off their most glamorous looks

Striving for success: The college students on Thursday evening may hope to see their designs at the Met Gala in future years

The Met Gala returned for the first time in more than two years after being canceled and then postponed amid the coronavirus pandemic, with strict protocols in place this year requiring all guests to be fully vaccinated and tested in order to attend.

However, the stars were able to go mask-free on the red carpet and show off their most glamorous looks, with Anna wearing a colorful floor-length gown featuring a ruffled collar and cuffs, as well as several ruffled layers along the bottom.

The Met Gala came just days after Anna enjoyed another cosy dinner at restaurant Pierluigi in Rome with her rumoured beau Bill NIghy, 71 - their second romantic evening together in just three days.

In other news: Anna recently enjoyed another cosy dinner at restaurant Pierluigi in Rome with her rumoured beau Bill NIghy, 71 - their second romantic evening together in just three days

Gifted: Their outing comes two days after Bill gifted Anna roses as they met for another romantic dinner at the up-market restaurant

The pair appeared delighted to be in one another's company and wrapped their arms around each other before sitting down to enjoy an al-fresco meal.

Their outing comes two days after Bill gifted Anna roses as they met for another romantic dinner at the up-market restaurant.

The pair reportedly became close following Anna's split from her 'husband' of 16 years, Shelby Bryan, 75, last year.

New beginnings? The pair reportedly became close following Anna's split from her 'husband' of 16 years, Shelby Bryan, 75, last year

Dating? Rumours have circulated about Anna and Bill since 2015 as the pair have been spotted together at numerous fashion shows, theatres and restaurants in London and New York

Rumours have been circulating about Anna and Bill since 2015 as the pair have been spotted together at numerous fashion shows, theatres and restaurants in London and New York City.

Anna and telecoms tycoon Shelby, 75, were one of America's most powerful couples, a match seemingly made in heaven when it came to bridging the worlds of fashion, business and politics.

But 21 years after their passionate love affair made headline news on both sides of the Atlantic, it was reported by MailOnline in October 2020 that the relationship was said to be over.

There is also a question mark over whether the pair were ever actually married, with a well-placed source indicating they never did tie the knot, and that the relationship had been over for some time.

Anna is mother to daughter Bee and son Charles Schaffer, 36, from her marriage to David.
Drew Barrymore proved she and ex-husband Will Kopelman had no bad blood while out with their two daughters and his new wife Vogue Director Alexandra Michler on Tuesday night.

The duo got together for a night out to the theater, seen enjoying a dinner at the Japanese BBQ Gyu-Kaku before heading to Broadway to catch a performance of Hamilton.

Drew, 46, looked stylish in a long navy coat and crisp white blouse as she lead her daughter Frankie, seven, by the hand.

Amicable exes: Drew Barrymore and ex-husband Will Kopelman enjoyed a night out with their two girls and his new wife onTuesday

Part of the family: Wil's new wife Vogue Director Alexandra Michler was with them

Stiletto-heeled boots and a newsboy cap completed the look.

Meanwhile, Alexandra held Wil and Drew's other daughter Olive, eight, hand while dad walked ahead of the pack.

Flaunting her fashion expertise, Michler sauntered along in an orange maxi dress with cap sleeves, a ruched top and long skirt.

It seemed Will had picked up some style tips from his new wife, looking sharp in a dark jacket worn with jeans and suede boots.

Broadway! The modern family went to dinner at a Japanese BBQ restaurant before catching a performance of Hamilton

Chic mom: Drew, 46, looked stylish in a long navy coat and crisp white blouse as she lead her daughter Frankie, seven, by the hand

Following: Alexandra held Wil and Drew's other daughter Olive, eight, hand while dad walked solo

Style star: Flaunting her fashion expertise, Michler sauntered along in an orange maxi dress with cap sleeves, a ruched top and long skirt

Sharp: It seemed Will had picked up some style tips from his new wife, looking sharp in a dark jacket worn with jeans and suede boots

Art consultant Will, 42, wed the 33-year-old Vogue director in a Nantucket ceremony on August 28, with he and Drew's daughters Olive, eight, and Frankie, six, acting as flower girls.

Barrymore, 46, was married to Will from 2012 to 2016.

While she'd previously called their divorce 'really hard,' she gushed how 'happy' she was for Wil and Alexandra upon their engagement, calling the fashion editor 'wonderful.'

In a carousel of images the two looked the picture of wedded bliss as they enjoyed a luxury vacation on the Amalfi Coast filled with scenic boat rides and seaside meals.

Newlyweds: Art consultant Wil, 42, wed the 33-year-old Vogue director in a Nantucket ceremony on August 28

History: Barrymore, 46, was married to Will from 2012 to 2016

Happy for them: While Barrymore previously called their divorce 'really hard,' she gushed how 'happy' she was for Wil and Alexandra upon their engagement, calling her 'wonderful'

In one snap the pair threw their arms around each other while overlooking the water, and in a second Alexandra flashed her new wedding band while they kissed.

'Luna Di Miele,' Kopelman captioned the series (which means honeymoon in Italian) and his post garnered comments from those including Olivia Munn.

The couple were first confirmed to be dating in December 2020 and got engaged in January, with Will sharing a snap that read: 'Love you love you love you love 1/30/2021.'

Honeymooners: The pair are seen in a snap from their honeymoon above

'Lunda Di Miele': Kopelman shared a series of images of the pair enjoying Italy and in one Alexandra flashed her new wedding band while they kissed

Bottoms up: In another photo Will sipped an Aperol spritz

Seal of approval: Barrymore had gushed that the Vogue director was 'wonderful' after the pair got engaged

Shortly after the news broke, Barrymore threw her support behind the father of her children and his soon-to-be bride at the time.

'I'm happy to say he just got engaged to this wonderful woman named Allie who I am probably president of her fan club,' she told Howard Stern. 'The #NoEvilStepmother is the greatest blessing I could have hoped for. She is just so wonderful. I want him to be happy.'

Will and Alexandra exchanged vows at Sankaty Head Beach Club in Nantucket and were joined by a large group of friends and family.

And Kopelman's sister Jill  who works with Drew on The Drew Barrymore Show  sweetly wrote: 'As soon as I met @alliemichler I knew I'd like her. What I didn't know was that I would love her.'

Wedding bells: The pair wed on August 28 in a beautiful Massachusetts ceremony

Flower girls: Will and Drew's two daughters, Olive, 8, and Frankie, 6 (pictured) were flower girls

Beautiful: Will and Alexandra exchanged vows at Sankaty Head Beach Club and were joined by a large group of friends and family

Photos: Will's sister Jill shared a series of photos of the special day on Instagram on Monday, including two of Olive and Frankie wearing sweet white dresses

Dapper: Will looked dapper in a navy suit while bride Alexandra wowed in a beautiful silk gown

Will and Drew wed in Montecito in 2012 and amicably ended their four-year marriage in 2016, announcing the news with a joint statement.

'Sadly our family is separating legally, although we do not feel this takes away from us being a family,' the couple said.

They continued, 'Divorce might make one feel like a failure, but eventually you start to find grace in the idea that life goes on. Our children are our universe, and we look forward to living the rest of our lives with them as the first priority.'

And years later Drew confessed that divorce was the 'last thing' she wanted for their kids because she did 'not grow up with any family whatsoever.'

Five years ago: They amicably ended their four-year marriage in 2016 and announced the news in a joint statement; pictured 2015

'I really did not take divorce well': Divorce was the 'last thing' Drew wanted for their six-year-old daughter Frankie (L) and eight-year-old daughter Olive (R) because she did 'not grow up with any family whatsoever' (pictured in 2018)

'I really did not take divorce well. I took it really hard,' she admitted in October on Sunday Today with Willie Geist.

'I was, like, ''Oh, the ultimate promise I wanted to make with you and for you was to have this amazing family. And I found them. And there's something not working that isn't livable. How tragic is that?"'

The Never Been Kissed star also dished that she was initially attracted to Will because he was solid in more ways than one.

'Will struck a lot of my pragmatic sides...He was someone who was always reachable on the phone, someone who was a classy human being, someone who has this incredible blueprint of a family that I don't have,' she continued.

Getting back out there: Though she had confessed to Sunday Today that she was 'scared to find love again' she has since joined a dating app; pictured September 2020

And while the former child star said she was 'scared to find love again,' she has since joined a dating app - most likely the exclusive celebrity favourite, Raya.

'It's true. I got back on a dating app [while binge-watching Netflix's] Bridgerton,' Drew confessed on the January 15th episode of her syndicated daytime talk show.

'I was like, ''I'm not dead, I'm not dead!'' For me, that was a big step.'

Barrymore previously divorced Canadian comedian Tom Green in 2002 after 15 months of marriage, and British bar owner Jeremy Thomas in 1995 after less than two months of marriage.
Lila Moss cut a sophisticated figure on Thursday night as she hosted the Miu Miu Select event in London.

The up-and-coming model - who is the daughter of Kate Moss - pulled out all the stops for her hosting stint, stunning in a black bejewelled ensemble.

The blonde beauty, 18, teamed the classy look with small-platformed boots and accessorised with a glamorous necklace.

Gorgeous: Kate Moss' daughter Lila, 18, cut a sophisticated figure in a black bejewelled ensemble as she hosted the Miu Miu Select event in London on Thursday

Wearing her famous blonde tresses loose and applying an effortless face of makeup, the hostess-with-the-mostess looked right at home as she posed with a number of faces from the fashion industry.

Lila grinned from ear-to-ear at the esteemed event, presenting her favourite pieces from the Italian clothing brand's latest collection.

She looked particularly thrilled to stand alongside editor-in-chief of British Vogue, Edward Enninful.

Glowing: The blonde beauty accessorised with a glamorous necklace

Busy bee: The daughter of Kate Moss presented her favourite pieces from the Italian clothing brand's latest collection

Photo opportunity: Lila looked particularly thrilled to stand alongside editor-in-chief of British Vogue, Edward Enninful

Girl gang: Kate Moss Agency models Stella Jones (l) and Ella Richards (r) rocked up to show their support for Lila, coordinating with her by also donning black attire

Kate Moss Agency models Stella Jones and Ella Richards rocked up to show their support for Lila, coordinating with her by also donning black attire.

When supermodel Kate, 47, launched the British talent agency back in 2016, she said: 'I want to focus on managing peoples careers, not just running an agency.'

And her daughter is already showing signs of following in her successful footsteps as she lapped up the opportunity to host the fashion event.

Fashion names: The Vogue cover star was also spotted chatting with Australian fashion model Jordan Barrett

Lila took to her Instagram Story after the event and penned: 'Had so much fun tonight at #miumiuselect !! Thank you to everyone who came!'

The Vogue cover star was also spotted chatting with Australian fashion model Jordan Barrett.

The 24-year-old hunk has a number of accolades to his name, including Model Of The Year (awarded by Models.com) - and he was also labelled Model It Boy of the new Era by Vogue.
In her Nineties heyday of prowling the worlds most exclusive catwalks, she was renowned for being party-loving, demanding  and something of a volatile figure.

But now it appears that Naomi Campbell has been fully embraced by the establishment, after being announced as a Platinum Jubilee Global Ambassador for the Queens Commonwealth Trust (QCT).

The supermodel, 51, who just months ago revealed she had a new baby daughter, said it was a privilege to take on the role.

Jubilee job: Naomi Campbell, 51, at an event in London to announce her role last night. The supermodel said it was a privilege to take on the role

Fab four: Miss Campbell pictured with Linda Evangelista, Cindy Crawford and Christy Turlington at the Versace Autumn Winter Fashion Show in Milan, Italy, in December 1991

She looked stunning in a matching blouse and skirt as she celebrated her new appointment at Hotel Cafe Royal in Soho yesterday evening.

In the past, Miss Campbell has battled drug addiction  going to rehab in 1999  and faced multiple assault charges, including on a police officer.

A decade ago, she was at the centre of the trial of Liberian warlord Charles Taylor after it emerged he had given her blood diamonds  mined to pay for civil war.

Her evidence helped convict Taylor of crimes against humanity.

Miss Campbell taking a runway tumble at the Vivienne Westwood Fashion Show in Paris in 1993 (left) and at the Fashion Charity Gala in New York in 1990 (right)

Naughty nineties: Miss Campbell partying with pals like Kate Moss (both pictured above) at the Hilton Hotel in London in 1993

Miss Campbell, who has spent decades working with international charities supporting young people, particularly in Africa, said: I know how proud my grandmother and my great aunts and uncles were of being part of the Commonwealth and being Jamaican.

'Its an honour for me to take this very grown-up role.

In May, Miss Campbell announced the arrival of her daughter, reportedly via a surrogate, writing online: A beautiful little blessing has chosen me to be her mother.

The QCT was set up in 2018 to invest in young leaders across the Commonwealth through partnerships, training and funding.
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Gwyneth Paltrow and her second husband Brad Falchuk are nearing completion on their 14K-square-foot eco-friendly mansion in the celeb-favorite neighborhood of Montecito, CA.

The 48-year-old Goop founder and the 50-year-old producer originally bought their four-bedroom, four-bathroom home for $4.9M in 2016 before beginning renovations.

Aerial images taken Thursday of their two-acre estate reveal their buildings and Olympic-size pool are complete and surrounded by fresh grass and more trees since July 14.

 Slide me  September versus July: Gwyneth Paltrow and her second husband Brad Falchuk are nearing completion on their 14K-square-foot eco-friendly mansion in the celeb-favorite neighborhood of Montecito, CA

Nesting mode: The 48-year-old Goop founder and the 50-year-old producer originally bought their four-bedroom, four-bathroom home for $4.9M in 2016 before beginning renovations (pictured July 7)

The showbiz couple reportedly purchased the property from Nigerian businessman Kola Aluko after his bank accounts were seized due to his nefarious business practices.

Gwyneth and Brad's compound was spared from the January 2018 mudslides - which left 17 dead, eight missing, and hundreds trapped inside their homes.

In 2017, Paltrow and Falchuk's neighbor Michael MacElhenny complained to Page Six that the extensive renovations 'created an uproar with neighbors on all three sides.'

The neighbors were said to be especially outraged over the property only being 'lowered a foot' rather than 'eight feet' - blocking their views of the ocean and skyline.

60 solar panels! Aerial images taken Thursday of their two-acre estate reveal their buildings and Olympic-size pool are complete and surrounded by fresh grass and more trees since July 14

Too tall? In 2017, Gwyneth and Brad's neighbor Michael MacElhenny complained to Page Six that the extensive renovations 'created an uproar with neighbors on all three sides' due to the height blocking views of the ocean and skyline

'My best older brother': The showbiz couple's A-list neighbors include Rob Lowe (L, pictured March 17), Oprah Winfrey, Ellen DeGeneres, Adam Levine, George Lucas, as well as Prince Harry and Meghan Markle

Gwyneth and Brad's A-list neighbors include Rob Lowe, Oprah Winfrey, Ellen DeGeneres, Adam Levine, George Lucas, as well as Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

Paltrow has two children - daughter Apple, 17; son Moses, 15 - from her decade-long marriage to Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, which ended in 2014.

Falchuk also has two children - daughter Isabella and son Brody - from his 13-year marriage to Suzanne Bukinik, which ended in 2016.

November 26 family pic: Paltrow has two children - daughter Apple, 17; son Moses, 15 - from her decade-long marriage to Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, which ended in 2014

Blended brood: Falchuk also has two children - daughter Isabella and son Brody - from his 13-year marriage to Suzanne Bukinik, which ended in 2016 (pictured in 2018)

Met on set: The 'retired' Oscar winner originally met the two-time Emmy winner when she guest-starred in five episodes of Fox's Glee spanning 2010-2014 (pictured in 2019)

The 'retired' Oscar winner originally met the two-time Emmy winner when she guest-starred in five episodes of Fox's Glee spanning 2010-2014.

Gwyneth reportedly also owns homes in Brentwood, Malibu, Amagansett, and London.

On Thursday, Paltrow shared a snap of herself wearing her $395 G. Label 'Maggie' top and matching $495 'Evie' skirt in an Instagram post captioned: 'Office bound!'
She co-parents four-year-old daughter Lea de Seine with ex partner Bradley Cooper.

And Irina Shayk gushes about Bradley, calling him a 'hands-on dad' with 'no nanny' to their daughter in an interview with Highsnobiety.

The 35-year-old supermodel said of Bradley, 46: 'He's a full-in, hands-on dad - no nanny. Lea went on holiday with him for almost two weeks - I didn't call them once.'

Doting dad: Irina Shayk gushes about Bradley, calling him a 'hands-on dad' with 'no nanny' to their daughter in an interview with Highsnobiety; seen August 7, 2021

They also both agree on how to raise her: 'Me and her father are very strict. When she finishes eating, she gets up from the table, takes her plate, says "thank you."'

'Without "please" or "thank you" she's not getting anything. It's hard, because she has so many toys. I had one doll, and I still have this doll. Blonde, blue eyes, big Russian doll,' she said.

Adding: 'My grandma used to make clothes for her. And I always explain, "Look, this is my doll. I had only one." Or sometimes, "You have this candy. I used to have candy only for Christmas."'

Irina and ex Bradley welcomed Lea on March 21, 2017, after dating for two years.

Candid: Irina and ex Bradley welcomed Lea on March 21, 2017, after dating for two years; Irina seen September 10, 2021 at NYFW

Good dad: The 35-year-old supermodel said of Bradley, 46: 'He's a full-in, hands-on dad - no nanny. Lea went on holiday with him for almost two weeks - I didn't call them once;' seen October 27, 2019

Good terms: The 35-year-old supermodel said of Bradley, 46: 'He's a full-in, hands-on dad - no nanny. Lea went on holiday with him for almost two weeks - I didn't call them once;' seen May 25, 2019 in LA

The supermodel and the actor/director split in June 2019 but remain amicable co-parents.

They decided to split custody and to both remain based in New York City to make it easier to joint parent, per TMZ.

In the same interview, Irina declined to comment about her short lived romance with Kanye West, 44, when asked about him.

The 35-year-old model did say 'tomorrow there is going to be a rumor that I'm dating my doorman, okay? Then after tomorrow, it's going to be someone else.'

Mom and dad: The supermodel and the actor/director split in June 2019 but remain amicable co-parents

Adding: 'Look, there's always something there, and I'm just keeping it to myself.'

In late August, it was reported that Irina and Kanye called off their romance, after dating for five months.

Kanye, who's in the mist of divorcing estranged wife Kim Kardashian, reportedly began dating in March 2021, according to TMZ.

They spent time together in New York City in late April.

During that time Irina was seen wearing a DMX memorial shirt before it was available to the public.

Split: In the same interview, Irina declined to comment about her short lived romance with Kanye West, 44, when asked about him; seen August 30, 2015 in LA

The project Kanye helmed raised over $1 million for DMX's family with profits.

Irina and Kanye flew back to the the states via private jet in June after spending time in Provence, France for his 44th birthday.

Kanye and Irina were seen taking a romantic stroll in Provence, France, on Wednesday, June 9, 2021, as seen in exclusive images obtained by DailyMail.com.

The duo stayed at the luxury Villa La Costa boutique hotel together.

The images come after Kanye was first romantically linked to the Russian supermodel according to DeuxMoi.

Power: Back in 2010, the runway maven was a featured player in West's Heaven-inspired Power music video, where she portrayed an angel

Angelic: Specifically, Shayk sported a revealing gold getup and a pair of CGI angel wings

'Kanye West is now secretly dating Irina Shayk aka Bradley Cooper's baby mama,' a tipster wrote prior to them going public.

The anonymous figure behind DeuxMoi replied to the tip with: 'After further looking into this, I don't know if "dating" is the right word, but there is perhaps some interest there.'

Seeming to double down on earlier 'dating claims,' another tipster insisted to DeuxMoi that Irina and Kanye ''Def dating.'

Back in 2010, the runway maven was a featured player in West's Heaven-inspired Power music video, where she portrayed an angel.

Specifically, Shayk sported a revealing gold getup and a pair of CGI angel wings.

Just two years later, the Russian-born beauty put her modeling skills to the test as she graced the runway for West's Fall/Winter fashion collection at Paris Fashion Week.

Fashion: Irina has found herself intertwined with Kanye's fashion endeavors over the years, first appearing a fashion show for the rapper in 2012 before rocking his Balenciaga collaboration in April 2021

In May, Irina having sported a DMX shirt designed by West in collaboration with Balenciaga.

In his 2010 song Christian Dior Denim Flow he rapped: 'I wanna see Irina Shayk next to Doutzen.'

Kanye's nearly seven year marriage to Kim Kardashian came to an end in February, with the reality TV sensation filing for divorce.

According to People, the Stronger rapper filed his response for divorce in early April, where he asked for joint legal and physical custody of their children.

The estranged pair share daughters North, eight, Chicago, three, and sons Saint, five, and Psalm, two.
He married his boyfriend Fernando Casablancas in an intimate ceremony in Ibiza last month.

And male supermodel Jordan Barrett had that newlywed glow as he celebrated the opening of London Fashion Week on Thursday evening.

The 24-year-old Australian model was beaming as he enjoyed a glass of white wine and chatted away with his fashionable friends - Kate Moss' daughter Lila Moss and fellow Aussie model Ajak Deng - at two different events.

That newlywed glow! Male supermodel Jordan Barrett was glowing as he celebrated the opening of London Fashion Week on Thursday evening with Kate Moss' daughter Lila, 18

Hunky Jordan looked typically edgy for his night out in a ripped cream jumper, black trousers and a plaid shirt tied around his waist.

His signature blond locks were coiffed in a messy style and an application of bronzer enhanced his summer tan.

Jordan was spotted chatting away to Lila at the Miu Miu Select London event, which she hosted.

The teen beauty looked incredibly chic in a studded dress by the designer, a pair of combat boots and a matching studded designer handbag.

The 18-year-old wore her blonde locks out in a straight style and minimal makeup on her youthful complexion.

The hostess-with-the-mostess looked right at home as she posed with a number of faces from the fashion industry.

Edgy: Hunky Jordan looked typically edgy in a ripped cream jumper, black trousers and a plaid shirt, while Lila looked incredibly chic in a studded blazer dress by Miu Miu, a pair of combat boots and a matching studded designer handbag

Cheers to the married life! Jordan later enjoyed a glass of wine as he attended the London Fashion Week opening party at The Windmill in Soho

Jordan then moved on to the London Fashion Week opening party which took place at The Windmill in Soho.

He was spotted enjoying a glass of wine as he spent time with British Vogue beauty editor Tish Weinstock and fellow Aussie model Ajak Deng.

Of course, Lila's famous supermodel mother Kate, 47, attended Jordan's wedding in Ibiza back in August.

Jordan and Fernando's nuptials were attended by no more than 15 of their closet friends including models Kate, Georgia May Jagger and American playwright Jeremy O. Harris.

'It was very spontaneous, but his wedding planner Serena Cook was able to pull some strings to make sure it was very special since his Aussie family couldn't attend,' a source told Daily Mail Australia.

The beautiful people: Jordan cuddled up to Vogue beauty editor Tish Weinstock

'Champagne and cocktail drinks were flowing, it was very relaxed. Kate (Moss) brought out the rings, and really made sure it was special for him,' they added.

Photos from the festivities show that guests enjoyed Casamigos tequila and RUMOR Rose.

Jordan looked suave dressed in a black sleeveless silk top, which he wore unbuttoned paired with a matching pants.

His beau Fernando meanwhile opted for a black mesh sleeveless top with matching pants.

Happy man: Jordan married his boyfriend Fernando Casablancas in an intimate ceremony in Ibiza last month

The handsome model completed his look wearing a gold head chain from Messika by Kate Moss.

Barrett announced his engagement on Instagram on July 20, writing: 'I believe in love not the traditional kind, so I guess I just commit new chapter of my life.

'Also... did I also just get engaged on this date. Yes,' he added, without any reference to his fiance.
Billie Eilish thinks she's become 'less confident' as she's gotten older.

The 19-year-old Grammy-winner admitted how despite her success she's still insecure while talking about her news concert film Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter To Los Angeles on the Drew Barrymore Show on Thursday.

After Drew gushed about how bold the Bad Guy hitmaker was, Billie confessed: 'The funny thing is that the older I've gotten, the less confident I've gotten.'

Insecurities: Billie Eilish told Drew Barrymore she thinks she's become 'less confident' as she's grown up, despite her immense critical and commercial success

Coming clean: After Drew gushed about how bold the Bad Guy hitmaker was, Billie confessed: 'The funny thing is that the older I've gotten, the less confident I've gotten.' She's seen performing in Spain in 2019 above

Asked how she learned to speak up for herself, the LA native said: 'You know I've always been very, very strong-willed and honest, which I think is like a blessing and a curse.

'But the funny thing is that the older I've gotten, the less confident I've gotten and it kind of made me like, because I re-watched the doc a few weeks ago, and it made me cry because I was thinking how free-spirited I was and how open-minded I was and then it's like the media just like tears it away from you.

'And it's like it's not fun right now so I'm trying to, I'm figuring it out,' she went on.

Drew, whose dealt with the pressure of Hollywood since she was a child, said she could definitely relate to the feeling but that she also had 'faith' Billie would figure things out.

'Believe me I get it,' she said, adding: 'I have such faith that you will because even when you are struggling, you are aware of the struggle.'

Strong-willed: Asked how she learned to speak up for herself, the LA native said: 'You know I've always been very, very strong-willed and honest, which I think is like a blessing and a curse'

Admission: 'The funny thing is that the older I've gotten, the less confident I've gotten and it kind of made me like, because I re-watched the doc a few weeks ago, and it made me cry because I was thinking how free-spirited I was and how open-minded I was and then it's like the media just like tears it away from you,' she said

Experience: 'Believe me I get it,' Drew said, adding: 'I have such faith that you will because even when you are struggling, you are aware of the struggle'

Billie admitted in the Autumn issue of i-D Magazine that despite her meteoric rise to stardom, she's 'felt like a failure' growing up in the public eye.

The award-winning artist chatted with rapper Stormzy about defining success and finding 'joy' as she created her second studio album, Happier Than Ever.

'Ive felt like a failure a lot in my life. And its really easy to feel like a failure when so many people are looking at you and telling you you are one,' she said.

'It can be hard not to believe them. I grew up with the internet. I use social media for the same reasons everyone else does, and you come across these videos saying youre ugly and you suck and youre terrible and that makes me feel like a failure.'

Billie  who's full name is Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O'Connell  released her debut single Ocean Eyes in 2016 and an EP the following year, and has earned seven gold and two platinum singles through the Recording Industry Association of America.

Tough spot: Billie admitted in the Autumn issue of i-D Magazine that despite her meteoric rise to stardom, she's 'felt like a failure' growing up in the public eye

'Ive felt like a failure a lot in my life. And its really easy to feel like a failure when so many people are looking at you and telling you you are one,' she said; seen in August

'There are other things too, more concrete things, like when I disappoint myself, when I dont feel how I said I was going to feel, or do the things I said to myself I was going to do but failure is an interesting thing because, like success, its really only in your head,' she noted.

'You can literally physically fail at something but it can still be a success, and vice versa. Success and failure are all only about your perspective.'

Her first studio album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? was released in March 2019 and earned the top spot across global music charts, with idol Justin Bieber even collaborating on a remix of her popular hit Bad Guy.

Eilish received five Grammy Awards, two American Music Awards, three MTV Video Music Awards and One Brit Award for the album which included six top hits.

She recently earned two more Grammys at the 2021 awards show, Record of the Year for Everything I Wanted and Song Written for Visual Media for No Time To Die, to mark seven total trophies.

'I think success, for me, is joy,' she said before adding: 'Success is internal. It has nothing to do with anyone but yourself. Joy and love for yourself.'
Just months after he was accused of harassing a waitress, Grease actor Eddie Deezen has been arrested after an incident at a Maryland restaurant.

The 64-year-old comedic actor, who is best known for playing Eugene Felsnic in the hit musical Grease, was placed under arrest at a restaurant in LaVale, Maryland, according to TMZ.

The actor was allegedly causing a scene at the restaurant and refused to leave when the police arrived, and even threw several items including plates at them.

Mugshot: Just months after he was accused of harassing a waitress, Grease actor Eddie Deezen has been arrested after an incident at a Maryland restaurant

Best known: The 64-year-old comedic actor, who is best known for playing Eugene Felsnic in the hit musical Grease, was placed under arrest at a restaurant in LaVale, Maryland, according to TMZ

The incident started around lunchtime when police were called for Deezen causing a scene at a restaurant.

When the police arrived, Deezen reportedly went to hide behind a woman in a booth and refused multiple orders for him to leave.

He was forcibly removed from the restaurant, with the report claiming he threw numerous items at police officers including plates, bowls and food, with one of the deputies being struck.

Scene: The incident started around lunchtime when police were called for Deezen causing a scene at a restaurant

The actor was shirtless when he was removed from the restaurant, and he was charged with second-degree assault, disorderly conduct and trespassing.

There was also video that surfaced from a Facebook account called Cumberland on Patrol, which showed a shirtless Deezen being lead away in handcuffs and being sat on a bench, as he's heard saying, 'Ow I could have been hurt.'

Another Facebook user named Amanda Lambert offered an account of the arrest, offering new details.

Video: There was also video that surfaced from a Facebook account called Cumberland on Patrol , which showed a shirtless Deezen being lead away in handcuffs and being sat on a bench, as he's heard saying, 'Ow I could have been hurt'

New details: Another Facebook user named Amanda Lambert offered an account of the arrest, offering new details

'So Eddie Deezen was just arrested at the mall. Why couldn't it have been where I could get video,' Lambert began.

'He was in Wasabi asking customers inappropriate questions..such as if they would have foursomes and some ish and he was probably upset over the lack of false lashes!' she added, referring to an incident in July where he went on a rant over a waitress not wearing fake eyelashes.

'Then was yelling at the police and telling them to arrest him and was shirtless. Edit: he was also kicked out of AT&T because he walked in and said "I don't see any African American employees, I will put this in my report,"' she added.

Arrested: 'So Eddie Deezen was just arrested at the mall. Why couldn't it have been where I could get video,' Lambert began

Deezen made headlines in June when he was accused of harassing a waitress named Kara Lashbaugh, and posted a lengthy Facebook message about her.

She took to Twitter stating, 'Eddie Deezen is a f***ing CREEP who comes into my work at least once a week, calls and asks other servers for my schedule, and if he comes in and im not wearing makeup HE LEAVES. And this grown a** old man has the balls to post this on facebook about me im losing my mind.'

It's unclear at this time if Deezen's arrest on Thursday is connected to this previous incident with Lashbaugh.
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Using a modified Volvo FH commercial truck chassis, Swedish truck builder Futuricum, along with partners DPD Switzerland and tiremaker Continental, set a world record for the longest distance traveled (683 miles) by an electric truck. (Futuricum)
Mumbai: Sensex and Nifty-50 staged a breakout rally after trading in a narrow range for more than a week and rose by 0.8 per cent on government relief packages for telecom and auto sectors, positive macro economic data and Covid vaccination progress.

The Nifty-50 closed above 17500 for the first time as it gained 139.45 points or 0.80 per cent to close at 17519.45 while the Sensex closed 476 points or 0.82 per cent up at 58723.20 points.

"The fact that the breadth of the market has improved sharply over the last few days and that Nifty has moved up against negative global headwinds is reassuring. This could mean that India as a market could be less impacted by global turmoil going forward," said Dhiraj Relli, MD & CEO, HDFC Securities.

BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices also gained 0.65 per cent and 0.86 per cent, respectively.

"The measures announ-ced for the telecom and auto industry are sweeping with potential for far-reaching beneficial impact. This is positive for banks, too, since banks' exposure too will decline significantly. 100 per cent FDI in telecom and redefinition of AGR excluding non-core revenue are welcome steps that can stimulate investment in the industry, " V. K. Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist at Geojit Financial Services said.

Telecom stocks rallied led by Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel. The BSE Bankex gained 0.61 per cent. Auto stocks too rallied with the BSE Auto gaining 0.93 per cent.
KADAPA: Officials from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) have expedited their probe into the murder of former minister YS Vivekananda Reddy. Meanwhile, the fourth phase of the case reached its 100th day.

A number of new issues came to light on Wednesday. Another prime suspect Yerra Gangi Reddy was questioned by CBI officials at the guest house in Kadapa Central Prison and later taken to Kadapa General Hospital (RIMs) for medical examination.

The petition came up for hearing on Wednesday and the court dismissed it. Meanwhile, lawyer of the accused filed a counter-petition seeking remand of Umashankar Reddy, another accused. The trial was adjourned on a petition filed by the CBI seeking custody of the accused.

CBI officials had earlier questioned Munna, a suspect in this case. It is learnt that CBI officials have filed a petition seeking permission for Munna to undergo narco-analysis test.

Meanwhile, three more officials, including an IG-rank officer, from CBI Chennai arrived in Kadapa Monday evening. Incidentally, every time a new officer joins the team, there is a reconstruction of the crime scene at the slain leaders home in Pulivendula. It was done yet against on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Chennai: The Department of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption on Thursday held searches at over 20 premises and locations related to former AIADMK Minister K C Veeramani, including at his native Jolarpettai in Thirupatthur district in connection with a disproportionate assets case, police said.

Veeramani, who held the Commercial Taxes portfolio in the 2016-21 AIADMK government in Tamil Nadu, is the third former party minister to come under the DVAC net, the others being MR Vijayabaskar (Transport) and SP Velumani (Municipal Administration).

The opposition party dubbed the action against Veeramani as an attempt by the ruling DMK to "politically" target its rival but asserted it won't be cowed down by such 'raids.'

Earlier, Vigilance sleuths held searches at over 20 locations in Thirupathur and Chennai among others, police said. The charge against Veeramani is that he amassed disproportionate assets during the check period, i.e. 2016-21 to the extent of around Rs 28 crore.

Reacting to the searches, AIADMK senior leader D Jayakumar charged the ruling DMK with trying to politically target such former ministers and "malign the party before the eyes of the public."

"These are DMK's efforts to divert attention from its inability to implement its various (poll) promises. At a time when rural civic polls have been announced, such action is being initiated to prevent (Veeramani) from taking up poll-related works," he told reporters here.

Among the nine districts where the rural local body elections would be held next month are Vellore, Thirupathur and Ranipet, with the last two being carved out from the former.

"The AIADMK won't be cowed down by such raids," Jayakumar asserted, adding even party stalwarts and late Chief Ministers MG Ramachandran and J Jayalalithaa had to weather a lot of challenges.

"We will prove our innocence in the court," Jayakumar, himself a former Minister, said.

"Any efforts to intimidate and malign the AIADMK and its former ministers using police won't fructify," he added.
There has been a clamour from economist as well as political bosses to bring essential fuels under the GST regime to drastically bring down their prices. (Photo: PTI/File)

New Delhi: A proposal to bring petrol and diesel under the GST regime would be placed before the GST Council for discussion on Friday in the light of the Kerala High Court asking the council to do the needful, but a decision in this regard seems highly unlikely, a source privy to development told FC.

The council, which is meeting in Lucknow on September 17, will be debating the most sought-after proposal at a time when fuel prices are at their highest levels, burning a hole the pandemic-hit consumers' pockets. But in Friday's meeting, the move may not find any support from states cutting across party lines. There has been a clamour from economist as well as political bosses to bring essential fuels under the GST regime to drastically bring down their prices.

It is learnt that several states have been opposing the move on fear of losing a chunk of this consumption-based tax. Even the Centre may not be too keen to back the proposal, as this may require huge compromises by the central and state governments on revenue.

Though removing tax inefficiencies could help consumers and businesses, it remains to be seen what kind of political consensus would be there in support for such a move, given the acute fund requirements of the central and state governments, said the source. "The key stakeholders, both Centre and states, are unlikely to support the inclusion at this juncture since Covid has impacted their revenue collections." the source added.

When the national GST subsumed central taxes such as excise duty and state levies like VAT on July 1, 2017, five petroleum goodspetrol, diesel, ATF, natural gas and crude oilwere kept out of its ambit till the time states acquired a revenue-neutral situation. Currently, the five fuels are subjected to central excise, cess and state VAT, which brings in huge revenues for the Centre and the states.

While some of the finished refinery products such as petrol, diesel and jet fuel are outside GST, other by-products like naphtha, light diesel oil, waxes and bitumen come under the GST regime. So, there is a high expectation that inclusion of all petroleum products within GST would simplify the tax structure and make the refinery products more tax-efficient.
Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Thursday said he will personally monitor, in real-time, the progress of implementation of various welfare measures undertaken by his government and urged officials of the state government to expeditiously take up their implementation.

Chairing a review meeting of secretaries of various state government departments, here, Stalin recalled his party DMK's 500-odd promises made for the April 6 Assembly polls and said he will monitor the various initiatives through a "dash board."

Pointing out that a slew of announcements have been made in the Governor's address and the budget, besides district-specific ones and those made in the state Assembly, Stalin sought for the official's "total cooperation" in their implementation.

"... I will monitor the ministers vis-a-vis implementation of the announcements. I have been insisting for the last two days that I will directly monitor them. Not just ministers, my monitoring will be in such a way that it would pertain to the secretary concerned completing the job on time," Stalin said.

For this purpose, there will a "dash board" and he would keep an eye on the developments via a screen at his room, he added.

The dash board shall have information relating to "Physical" and "Financial" target and he will review the progress twice a week based on this dash board, Stalin informed.

He also called for better coordination among departments to ensure there was no delay in implementing projects and schemes.

Meanwhile, in a separate release, Stalin announced setting up a committee to monitor if social justice was being followed in the state properly.

This proposed committee, which will have government authorities, academicians and legal experts, will monitor if social justice is properly followed in education, jobs and promotions, he said.
"We are closely watching the situation and also taking inputs from all the government and private hospitals," Sudhakar said.

Bengaluru: Amid increasing cases of viral fever in Karnataka, the state health minister K Sudhakar on Wednesday said that officials have been instructed to take all the necessary steps to contain the outbreak.

Addressing the media, Sudhakar said that ILI (influenza-like illness) is an infection that is witnessed every year during monsoon. "This year also, we are witnessing the same. We are closely watching the situation and also taking inputs from all the government and private hospitals," he stated.

"There has been a marginal increase in ILI and viral fever cases. But when these patients are tested for Covid-19 according to the protocol, it is a relief that 99.5 per cent of them are reported negative. So, in Covid-19 perspective, we are relieved. But we are watchful and taking all necessary precautions," he added.

The minister also said that the state is planning an aggressive blood donation and vaccination drive on September 17 in view of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's birthday.

"We have also come up with a vision document on complete healthcare that will be handed over to the prime minister on his birthday. This will be a special gesture from Karnataka as no previous prime minister has given such a thrust to the health sector," he added.
Within four minutes of receiving the SOS, we reached the spot and took the accused into custody, said sub-inspector Rammohan. (DC)

TIRUPATI: DISHA application saved two minor girls from clutches of a construction worker in B. Kothakota area of Chittoor district. Police reached the spot within four minutes of the DISHA SOS being pressed.

According to police, accused M. Anil Kumar, 21, is a construction worker and resident of Indiramma colony in B. Kothakota. He lured the two minor girls on Tuesday evening and took them to the terrace of a building under construction. There, he allegedly tried to sexually assault the girls.

One of the girls escaped, ran to her grandmother Savithramma and informed her about the incident. Savithramma immediately pressed the SOS button on DISHA app which, incidentally, had been installed on her mobile just two days ago.

Within four minutes of receiving the SOS, we reached the spot and took the accused into custody. According to residents of the area, Anil Kumar had also misbehaved with some women in the colony on several occasions, said sub-inspector Rammohan.

Based on a complaint lodged by Savithramma, police registered a case under various sections of Nirbhaya and POCSO acts against the accused. Further investigation is on.
To be eligible for the scheme, a consumer should link Aadhaar and have a functional water meter, however, meters are not required for consumers if their locality falls under the slum category. Representational image/AFP

Hyderabad: The Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWS&SB) has decided to refund water bills which were paid by the consumers who availed the 20-kilolitre free drinking water scheme in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) limits.

Authorities said over 3 lakh consumers would receive the refund. The water board did not give any clarity to consumers who failed to avail the scheme within the first cut-off date (April 30) and cleared bills in May and June. The HMWS&SB officials did not even prepare a mechanism nor issued guidelines to consumers who paid the bills and just asked them to continue Aadhaar seeding till August 15 without a mention of rebate.

The HMWS&SB, on July 6, suspended issuing of water-cum-sewerage bills for domestic consumers up to August 15. Under the scheme, 2.5 lakh households with water meters and 2 lakh slum households are supposed to receive free 20,000 litres of water per month. To be eligible for the scheme, a consumer should link Aadhaar and have a functional water meter, however, meters are not required for consumers if their locality falls under the slum category. For people living in apartments, consumers need to link Aadhaar for individual flats against their property tax identification (PTIN) number. Only the flats linked against PTIN number and Consumer Account Number (CAN) number on or before August 15 will be eligible for the scheme. Consumers who registered post-August 15 will be served with the water bill from December 2020 to August 2021. Interest will not be levied on such consumers and they need to pay the bill in September.

A whopping 5.60 lakh consumers out of total 10.8 lakh have already availed the free drinking water scheme. The water board issued five months bills from January to April to about 4.8 lakh consumers who have not seeded the Aadhaar with the CAN. HMWS&SB officials said 41 percent out of the total 4.8 consumers had already cleared their water bills since they did not link Aadhaar with CAN on or before April 30. About 1.5 lakh consumers who have not done Aadhaar seeding during the first cut-off date have availed the scheme during the extension period. The authorities said the government had asked the water board to give rebate/refund to the consumers who availed the scheme prior to the cut-off date (August 15).

A senior water board official on condition of anonymity said the government had asked HMWS&SB to prepare a mechanism prior to the rebate/refund announcement. He said till now, about 2.90 lakh consumers cleared their water bills despite being in the free scheme bracket. The official said most of them had availed the free drinking water during the extension period. He said once the government announced refund or rebate, over three lakh consumers would be benefitted.
Kottayam: Bishop Joseph Kallarangatt of the Pala diocese did not make any statement which was religiously coloured or could cause communal discord, Rajya Sabha MP Suresh Gopi said on Thursday.

The actor-politician, speaking to the media after visiting the Bishop at the diocese at Pala near here, said there was no need to be concerned about anything as Kallarangatt had not referred to any particular religion nor did he make a statement which could cause religious discord.

"He only referred to certain activities," Gopi said, but refused to divulge what was discussed in the meeting with the Bishop.

The BJP MP said that nothing was discussed which should be informed to the media and what was discussed was not meant for general consumption.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Wednesday, had said that the state government has no intention of initiating any legal proceedings against Bishop Joseph Kallarangatt for his controversial "narcotic jihad" remarks

The Chief Minister, at a press conference, had also said that necessary clarifications have come from the Bishop's side that the intent behind his remarks was to caution his community against the evils of drugs and not to create enmity between religions or disrupt communal harmony.

He had further said that mafia organisations should be seen as such -- a mafia -- and they should not be branded with a certain religion.

On Wednesday, the Church of South India (CSI) Central Diocese Bishop, Dr. Malayil Sabu Koshy Cherian and Kerala Muslim Youth Federation state president and Thazhathangadi Juma Masjid Imam, Shamsuddin Mannani Ilavupalam, had issued a joint statement, stating that blaming each other and declaring solidarity with any one community through accusations only gives communal forces a chance to grow.

On Tuesday, in another peace meeting called by Pala DySP Shaju Jose, leaders of various religious communities came together and condemned the protests in Pala over the Bishop's statement.

They had demanded strong action against propaganda that undermines the atmosphere of religious and communal peace through social media.

Even as peace initiatives started at the ground level with meetings of religious leaders in connection with the controversial "narcotic jihad" remarks by the Bishop, senior UDF and LDF leaders continued to accuse the Sangh Parivar of attempting to disrupt communal harmony in Kerala.

The Congress-led coalition UDF also blamed the LDF government and the Chief Minister for allegedly waiting to see the different religious communities clash and collapse instead of taking steps, like holding an all-party meeting, to resolve the issue and prevent communal disharmony in the state.

After meeting the Bishop in Pala on Monday, BJP national executive member P K Krishnadas had alleged that the Congress and the CPI(M) were taking a position in favour of extremist elements creating trouble in society, instead of addressing the issue raised by the senior Catholic priest.

As the Bishop's remarks triggered a political row, the Chief Minister last week had said those who hold responsible positions should refrain from making statements causing division in society.

While the Congress had said the Bishop crossed limits, the BJP supported him by urging society to discuss the statement.

Kallarangatt had said recently that Christian girls were falling prey to the alleged love and narcotic jihad in Kerala and wherever arms cannot be used, extremists were using such methods to destroy the youth.
There are two acts in the BJPs drama of changing chief ministers in Gujarat this year. The first act was played out in Gandhinagar. Vijay Rupani, who was made the chief minister in 2017 when the party fell below 100 seats in the 182-member Assembly, resigned on Saturday, with a year and two months to go before the next election in December 2022. (There is speculation that the election could be brought forward to February next year. There was no perceptible dissidence against Mr Rupani as there was against B.S. Yediyurappa in Karnataka or Trivendra Singh Rawat and Tirath Singh Rawat in Uttarakhand before him. Mr Rupani fell on the sword as it were without a murmur in the manner of a good stoic.

The second act in the drama is the invisible stage instructions from New Delhi. The silent manner in which Mr Rupani resigned and Bhupendra Patel was brought in without any hullabaloo does not speak of a smooth transition as much as it does of the ruthless moves on the chessboard, where one of the chessmen is quietly removed and thrown into the box. Surely, someone from New Delhi must have called up Mr Rupani in Gandhinagar and given instructions, and he promptly did what he was told to do. And it seems New Delhi knew who to replace Mr Rupani with, though there was some mild speculation about chief minister aspirants. It was a predetermined move.

It reminds many people of how leaders were changed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in the pre-glasnost era. Usually, the outgoing leader was shown to have left for a dacha, mostly on health grounds. The Kremlin machine was quiet and smooth. The BJP under Prime Minister Narendra Modi has worked out a similar mechanism, at least in Gujarat. Commentators have used the euphemism of high command in the BJP, which decided on these matters and made the quick moves. The high command is a mystery because party president J.P. Nadda does not seem to have any role to play in the matter, and the central parliamentary board was not involved. The two decision-makers are Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah. If there is a high command, then it comprises the Prime Minister and the home minister. That the two leaders are from Gujarat must have made things so much easier.

There is no need to read conspiracy theories into the chief ministerial reshuffle. As the 2022 election looms large, the high command seems to have realised that it cannot go into the election with Mr Rupani, a Jain. The 2017 Assembly election was a stark reminder that in a post-Modi Gujarat, elections are fought on political issues. The Patidar agitation in the run-up to the election had significantly hurt the BJP. The three leaders who had emerged then  Hardik Patel, Alpesh Thakur and Jignesh Mewani  gave a boost to the Congress challenge to the BJP. The Congress got 77 seats, and the BJP 99. The percentage of votes that the BJP got  49.05  did not matter. The Congress, with 41.44 per cent votes, was quite behind.

But that gave Prime Minister Modi a real scare. When he visited the old BJP office on New Delhis Ashoka Road  the Kremlin-style party headquarters was not yet ready  to be facilitated for the victory in his home state, Mr Modi was not in an exultant mood. He was agitated and sounded the warning that he would not allow Gujarat to slip back into caste wars. As long as he was at the helm in Gujarat, from 2002 to 2014, the BJP was a united Hindutva force. The Congress had of course played the caste card when it got the Hardik Patel-Alpesh Thakur-Jignesh Mewani trio to lead the Opposition battle. The Congress and the other Opposition parties usually resort to caste politics to counter the Hindu card of the BJP.

The choice of Bhupendra Patel as chief minister shows that Mr Modi and Mr Shah clearly saw the writing on the wall. A Jain cannot lead the BJP into the elections because the powerful Patidars will slip away. Whether placing a Patidar at the head of the government in the final lap will help the BJP remains a moot question.

The Prime Minister and the home minister are sure to campaign on all-India issues of national security, especially the challenge posed by the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan and global jihad. The campaign cannot afford to focus on governance achievements in the state because that will raise eyebrows about the change of chief ministers.

But with Mr Modi and Mr Shah away in New Delhi, it might be difficult for them to sway the voter the way they could have when they were there. The 2017 Assembly election result was a clear indication that it is not a cakewalk for the party, and they will have to fight a hard campaign. In 2002, Mr Modi used the barb against then chief election commissioner James Michael Lyngdoh that he had postponed the election after the carnage in Godhra and the riots that followed. This time around, the theme of global jihad might come handy. But the Gujarat electorate may want to weigh the issues differently.

Whatever the rhetorical leitmotif, what is expected to save the BJP is the Patidar vote. And the BJP can harp on the OBC theme with some justification because the Central government had recently passed the constitutional amendment allowing state governments to decide on the OBC list. But that could only open the proverbial Pandoras Box, and further accentuate the differences between the different OBC segments.

Mr Patels choice as chief minister is a nod to the caste factor in the election, and the right-wing party has to work out its strategy at the ground level. In states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, the BJP targeted the non-Yadav OBC sections and cobbled together a successful coalition of the Most Backward Classes. It may not work in Gujarat. In the recent West Bengal Assembly election, the party sought to woo Namashudras, the dominant dalit section. But it did not work. The caste conundrum stumps the BJP strategists as much as it does other political parties. In a way, the caste challenge makes for a level playing field for the political parties, in what can only be called negative politics.
Washington: Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar -- deputy prime minister in the Taliban's newly announced caretaker government and the top figure in the Doha deal -- has been named among the 100 most influential people of 2021 by Time magazine.

Mullah Baradar led the Taliban in negotiations with the US during the peace deal. Baradar is considered to be a quiet, secretive man who rarely gives public statements. He represents a more moderate current within the Taliban.

In February 2020, when the US Special Representative for Afghan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad officially signed the peace deal in Doha, Baradar was the chief face of the Taliban.

Recently, as the Taliban gained power in Afghanistan, it was on the terms Baradar negotiated. He was said to be making all the major decisions, including the amnesty offered to members of the former regime, the lack of bloodshed when the Taliban entered Kabul and the regime's contacts and visits with neighbouring states, especially China and Pakistan, TIME magazine said.

In 2010, Baradar was arrested in Pakistan by the country's security forces and released in 2018 when the US intensified efforts to leave Afghanistan.

However, despite being the co-founder of the Taliban and having played a top role in negotiations with the US, it's believed that Baradar has been given a relatively lower position in the caretaker government.
Apple released a critical software patch to fix a security vulnerability that researchers said could allow hackers to directly infect iPhones and other Apple devices without any user action.

Researchers at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab said the security issue was exploited to plant spyware on a Saudi activist's iPhone. They said they had high confidence that the world's most infamous hacker-for-hire firm, Israel's NSO Group, was behind that attack.

The previously unknown vulnerability affected all major Apple devices  iPhones, Macs and Apple Watches, the researchers said. NSO Group responded with a one-sentence statement saying it will continue providing tools for fighting terror and crime.

It was the first time a so-called zero-click exploit  one that doesn't require users to click on suspect links or open infected files  has been caught and analysed, the researchers said. They found the malicious code on September 7 and immediately alerted Apple. The targeted activist asked to remain anonymous, they said.

Read | Apple issues fix for flaw linked to Pegasus spyware

We're not necessarily attributing this attack to the Saudi government, said researcher Bill Marczak.

Citizen Lab previously found evidence of zero-click exploits being used to hack into the phones of al-Jazeera journalists and other targets, but hasn't previously seen the malicious code itself.

Although security experts say that average iPhone, iPad and Mac user generally need not worry  such attacks tend to be limited to specific targets  the discovery still alarmed security professionals.

Malicious image files were transmitted to the activist's phone via the iMessage instant-messaging app before it was hacked with NSO's Pegasus spyware, which opens a phone to eavesdropping and remote data theft, Marczak said.

It was discovered during a second examination of the phone, which forensics showed had been infected in March. He said the malicious file causes devices to crash.

Citizen Lab says the case reveals, once again, that NSO Group is allowing its spyware to be used against ordinary civilians.

In a blog post, Apple said it was issuing a security update for iPhones and iPads because a maliciously crafted PDF file could lead to them being hacked. It said it was aware that the issue may have been exploited and cited Citizen Lab.

Read | Apple shares rise from Epic ruling-led slide

In a subsequent statement, Apple security chief Ivan Krstic commended Citizen Lab and said such exploits are not a threat to the overwhelming majority of our users.

He noted, as he has in the past, that such exploits typically cost millions of dollars to develop and often have a short shelf life. Apple didn't respond to questions regarding whether this was the first time it had patched a zero-click vulnerability.

Users should get alerts on their iPhones prompting them to update the phone's iOS software. Those who want to jump the gun can go into the phone settings, click General then Software Update, and trigger the patch update directly.

Citizen Lab called the iMessage exploit FORCEDENTRY and said it was effective against Apple iOS, MacOS and WatchOS devices. It urged people to immediately install security updates.

Researcher John Scott-Railton said the news highlights the importance of securing popular messaging apps against such attacks.

Chat apps are increasingly becoming a major way that nation-states and mercenary hackers are gaining access to phones, he said. And it's why it's so important that companies focus on making sure that they are as locked down as possible.

The researchers said it also undermines NSO Group's claims that it only sells its spyware to law enforcement officials for use against criminals and terrorists and audits its customers to ensure it's not abused.

If Pegasus was only being used against criminals and terrorists, we never would have found this stuff, said Marczak.

Facebook's WhatsApp was also allegedly targeted by an NSO zero-click exploit. In October 2019, Facebook sued NSO in US federal court for allegedly targeting some 1,400 users of the encrypted messaging service with spyware.

In July, a global media consortium published a damning report on how clients of NSO Group have been spying for years on journalists, human rights activists, political dissidents, and people close to them, with the hacker-for-hire group directly involved in the targeting.

Amnesty International said it confirmed 37 successful Pegasus infections based on a leaked targeting list whose origin was not disclosed.

One case involved the fiancee of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi just four days after he was killed in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in 2018. The CIA attributed the murder to the Saudi government.

The recent revelations also prompted calls for an investigation into whether Hungary's right-wing government used Pegasus to secretly monitor critical journalists, lawyers and business figures. India's parliament also erupted in protests as opposition lawmakers accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government of using NSO Groups' product to spy on political opponents and others.

France is also trying to get to the bottom of allegations that President Emmanuel Macron and members of his government may have been targeted in 2019 by an unidentified Moroccan security service using Pegasus.

Morocco, a key French ally, denied those reports and is taking legal action to counter allegations implicating the North African kingdom in the spyware scandal.

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US cigarette firm Philip Morris International on Thursday clinched a controversial takeover of British breathing inhaler manufacturer Vectura, despite fierce opposition from health campaigners and medical groups.

The Marlboro-maker agreed in July to pay 1.0 billion ($1.4 billion, 1.2 billion) as part of a broader push into healthcare.

Philip Morris International on Thursday said it had since won the necessary support from investors and secured regulatory approvals.

The acquisition is part of PMI's plans to expand beyond tobacco and nicotine and into a broader healthcare company.

"We have reached an important milestone in our acquisition of Vectura," PMI chief executive Jacek Olczak said in a statement.

The group has identified respiratory drug delivery as a key focus, under broader plans to generate at least $1.0 billion in annual net revenues from nicotine-free products by 2025.

"We are very excited about the critical role Vectura will play in our Beyond Nicotine strategy and look forward to working with Vectura's scientists and providing them with the resources and expertise to grow their business to help us achieve our goal," added Olczak.

Since 2008, the cigarette giant has invested more than $8.0 billion in smoke-free products, such as vaping, which it says is less harmful than smoking.

However, the Vectura takeover has faced heavy criticism from charities and medical groups.

More than 20 organisations, including anti-smoking charities and public health groups, together wrote to Vectura management urging it to reconsider the takeover on ethical and practical grounds.

Sarah Woolnough, chief executive of both Asthma UK and the British Lung Foundation, accused Vectura of seeking a quick profit.

"Vectura has sold out millions of people with lung disease, and instead prioritised short-term financial gain over the long-term viability of Vectura as a business," she said.

"Vectura is now owned by a tobacco company, and this could cause considerable problems, such as the firm being excluded from research and clinical networks."

She added that it "creates perverse incentives for Philip Morris International to sell more of its harmful products so they might then profit again through treating smoking-related diseases".

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After years of an intense price war, telecom czar Sunil Bharti Mittal on Thursday vowed to reach out to rivals, including billionaire Mukesh Ambani, to collaborate on issues such as infrastructure sharing, as he sought to build on the reforms package announced by the government to nurse the bleeding sector back to health.

Mittal said the telecom package offers Vodafone Idea a "lifetime opportunity" to reclaim lost ground and exhorted promoters of the telco to make the most of the "bold" and "gamechanging" reforms by stepping up their contributions, and investments to revive the beleaguered company.

He also said that rather than being fierce competitors, time has come for all the telcos -- Jio and VIL included -- to close ranks and work together as "team India" but vehemently ruled out the possibility of any tariff cartelisation among the players.

Read more: Airtel secures TDSAT stay on DoT's Rs 1,376 crore demand

Tariffs need to go up, and ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) should reach Rs 200 levels by end of the fiscal, he said.

"It is pointless now fighting the battle. Market shares have been reasonably set... people have got to where they had to get to... for our own sake, we need to be responsible. I will play my part, others have to play their part... How long can you have an industry with unsustainable structure," Mittal said in a virtual briefing a day after the blockbuster telecom reforms were announced by the government.

He, however, was quick to add that if others chose not to pay heed and pushed more aggressively to grab market share, "Airtel will fight back".

Mittal said he had reached out to Vodafone's Nick Read after the telecom reforms were announced by the government, and will also speak to RIL's Mukesh Ambani, and expressed his willingness to take the lead in bringing the industry together to fully unleash India's telecom dream.

On whether a "collaboration" in the market bordered on cartelisation, Mittal emphasised that the telecom market has been, and will be competitive.

Conversations will be about the health of the industry and market distribution structure, and not on tariffs.

"How can it be? When you have to have more market share against each other, how can you have tariff discussion. Impossible," Mittal quipped.

Tariff is never an area where industry can sit together and talk "and neither we should", Mittal said but added that on market practices, distribution of margins and dealer margins there can be more discipline.

Striking a conciliatory note, Mittal called on the industry to heal and move past "bloodshed" and "skirmishes", spoke of infrastructure synergies and "sustainable tariffing", and said the government's firm moves would boost manufacturing of telecom infrastructure.

Urging the players to collaborate in areas such as infrastructure sharing to reduce costs, he said sharing common infrastructure, building networks in rural areas, spectrum, fibre, submarine cable, and tower sharing are clear benefits of industry coming together.

Read more: Airtel will opt for moratorium to redirect cash flow to build network: Sunil Mittal

Mittal said ARPU needs to move up and hoped that sensible approach to market will be taken from here on.

"That is where you need to get to an average of Rs 200 and I feel that we are now confident enough to say a lead can be taken in this area in certain packages in certain areas, and we will probably end up doing it," Mittal said.

More needs to be done on GST, licence fee, high levies "but that's a separate chapter", Mittal said, adding that Airtel will actively work with the government on the outstanding issues.

The next generation 5G needs to be seen as a force multiplier, Mittal said and hoped that the regulator will look into the industry's demands for reasonable reserve price for 5G spectrum.

Flagging "defects" in the spectrum policy, Mittal said there have been instances when his company had no choice but to renew its spectrum despite the high prices and "irrational bidding".

Mittal said that he will turn 64 soon and pointed out that big reforms in telecom sector have come at a time when he is looking to script the next chapter of his life.

Airtel is a professionally-run company, with separate roles for Chairman and MD, and will continue to run smoothly, he observed.

He also said that he would take a call on his next course of action after another 1-2 years of furthering the company's vision and growth. Mittal hinted that he may do something new, "pick up a strong big bet", in coming years, probably in India, where lot of conversations are going on in infrastructure pipeline projects.

"... The glorious run that Airtel and Bharti have had in the last over two and a half decades should end with a good closing chapter. I think we are at a point where we can now sense that happening, a little bit more work in the coming quarters and years and I think I would have delivered to my own satisfaction and industry that serves the country very well," Mittal said.

He said his outreach to other industry honchos were aimed at ensuring that industry truly becomes a role model for many other infrastructure sectors in the country.

Airtel's top boss said he had told Nick Read that the Voda Idea has a "lifetime opportunity" to retake what has been a "lost cause", and that it was time for both Vodafone and Kumar Mangalam Birla (Aditya Birla Group Chairman) to step up their own contribution into their company.

"I feel that if I was in their place, this is an opportunity to retrieve a lot of value back into hands of people who have invested large amounts of money. Vodafone has put in $20 billion, am sure Birla would have put in billions of dollars. It is time for them to really take advantage to contribute their own money and resources, to revive the beleaguered company," Mittal said.

According to Mittal, his conversations with Mukesh Ambani will be around telecom and India.

"Let's see what comes out of that conversation," he said.

Airtel will opt for payment moratorium, offered in the telecom relief package, and redirect the cash flow to aggressively build networks.

With regard to interest on payment moratorium, Mittal said that Airtel will weigh, when the offer comes from the government, on whether to go for equity conversion mechanism or pay cash.

The company's board will take a decision at that point, Mittal said, adding that with interest component working out to Rs 7,500-Rs 10,000 crore, the stake involved may work out to 2-3 per cent in case the company opted for it.

The moratorium will free up cash flow to the extent of Rs 40,000 crore, and that amount is sufficient to meet the market's requirements.

Bharti Airtel and Tata Group had announced a strategic partnership for implementing 5G network solutions for India. Mittal said that 5G trials with Tatas may start around April and May next year.

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TVS Motor Company on Thursday launched the TVS Raider motorcycle with features such as reverse LCD digital speedometer, optional five-inch TFT cluster with Voice Assist, multiple ride modes and first-in-segment under-seat storage. The starting is price of Rs 77,500 (ex-showroom, Delhi)

KN Radhakrishnan, Director and CEO, TVS Motor Company, said: TVS Motor Company caters to customers across almost every continent. We are happy to add a new global motorcycle platform to our portfolio with the TVS Raider, which is designed for the young, digitally native Gen Z. True to its target segment, it is equipped with cutting-edge in vehicle and connected technology. I am confident that TVS Raider shall be the preferred choice for our young consumers both in India and globally.

Aniruddha Haldar, Vice President (Marketing)  Commuters, Corporate Brand and Dealer Transformation, TVS Motor Company, said: TVS Motor Company has long recognised Gen Z as a key consumer cohort. We will seize their imagination with the TVS Raider and its naked street styling, best-in-class acceleration with ride modes and mono-shock based ride-handling together with the TVS intelliGO and ETFi led mileage performance. I am sure our customers would appreciate the distinctive ride character of the TVS Raider; its one-of-a-kind animalistic headlight and the first-in-segment reverse LCD cluster. We will also offer a SmartXonnect variant with Bluetooth connectivity, navigation and voice assist. In the words of the Gen Z, TVS Raider is a wicked ride!

TVS Raider is coupled to an advanced 124.8 cc air and oil-cooled 3V engine that churns a maximum power of 8.37 kW at 7,500 rpm and torque of 11.2 Nm at 6,000 rpm. The motorcycle boasts a best-in-class acceleration of 0-60 kmph in 5.9 secs and an impressive top speed of 99 Km/h. It has a a gas-charged five-step adjustable mono-shock suspension, low friction front suspension and split seat, five-speed gearbox and 17 alloy chunky wide tyres.
Gaining global attention due to rapid development in several sectors for over a decade, Bengaluru has also topped the list with the most number of murders among the southern metropolitan cities.

Going by the report Crime in India-2020 released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) on Wednesday, Bengaluru has surpassed all major metropolitan cities in South India with a maximum number of murder cases even though the Bengaluru City Police claimed that the numbers have actually come down compared to previous years.

According to the report Bengaluru, despite witnessing a complete lock-down from March 25 to May 31, 2020, reported a total of 179 murders for various reasons. At the national level among the 19 metropolitan cities listed by the NCRB, Bengaluru is in second place after Delhi which reported 461 murders. In fact, the countrys commercial capital Mumbai witnessed lesser murders than Bengaluru with about 148 murders.

Read | Crimes against women, children drop in 2020; disobedience cases go up drastically: NCRB

Out of the 179 murders, most of the murders were due to personal vendetta or enmity with each other followed by disputes (60), petty quarrels (38) and illicit relationships (15).

Acknowledging the figures, Kamal Pant, commissioner, Bengaluru City Police, attributed the phenomenon to swelling population and unbridled growth of the city.

Population-wise, we have already crossed 1.2 million and the city is expanding with every passing day. Several police stations that were previously part of neighbouring districts have been added to the commissionerate limits which is also a cause for rise in the numbers. But if you look at the overall progress and performance, there has been a slump in the cases compared to last two years due to increased vigilance and effecting policing by our staff, Pant told DH.

Similarly, Bengaluru also reported 19,964 cases of IPC crimes during 2020 second only to Chennai with 88,388 cases. Previously, the same crimes had stood at 30,792 in 2018 and 27,251 in 2019. However, Bengaluru fared poorly in charge sheeting these IPC crimes with a charge sheeting rate of 61.6 and sixth metropolitan city with a poor charge sheeting rate.

Admitting the lapse, Home Minister Araga Jnanedra told DH that he has been personally reviewing this ever since he took over as the home minister. Even before I assumed the office, it was the same. Our officials forget about the case after registering FIR and there is hardly any follow-up. Due to which the conviction rate will also come down. I have already instructed DCPs and SPs at the district level to focus on this and achieve better results in the days to come, he said.

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Police have busted a narcotics laboratory here allegedly being run by an African national and seized synthetic drugs valued at about Rs 2 crore.

The Nigerian residing at Bettadasanapura in Electronic City here, who had reportedly come into the country on a student visa, was arrested by sleuths of the Central Crime Branch's Anti Narcotics Wing.

"Narco Lab detected by CCB...some putting their chemistry knowledge to misuse!!CCB arrest African drug peddler manufacturing MDMA drugs..supplied it by concealing in shoe sole..4 Kgs MDMA worth Rs 2 cr seized..also apparatus, chemicals,reqd for MDMA synthesis seized," Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Sandeep Patil tweeted.

Narco Lab detected by CCB..some putting their chemistry knowledge to misuse!!CCB arrest African drug peddler manufacturing MDMA drugs..supplied it by concealing in Shoe sole..4 Kgs MDMA worth Rs 2 cr seized..also apparatus, chemicals,reqd for MDMA synthesis seized..@CPBlr pic.twitter.com/sxMing8VDw  Sandeep Patil IPS (@ips_patil) September 16, 2021

The man was operating the lab in a rented house along with his accomplices who are now absconding. "They used to ship MDMA crystals (synthetic drugs) concealed in shoe-sole by post/ courier to New Zealand and other countries", CCB officials said.

"We have seized four kg of MDMA crystals from the house which was kept for selling within India and overseas", they said.

"This is a first-of-its-kind case in Bengaluru where such drugs of international standard were manufactured," a CCB official said.

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Cautious about the overall Covid situation across the city, especially after reopening schools and colleges, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has directed all the schools in Bengaluru to report students who develop Covid symptoms for two consecutive days. The civic body resolved to direct all the schools based on recommendations by the paediatric expert committee constituted by the BBMP.

The committee which held a meeting on Wednesday recommended the BBMP to monitor the health of the kids. "Every school will have to appoint a nodal officer who will inform the nearest Primary Healthcare Centre (PHC) about the students who exhibit Covid symptoms for more than two days. Such students shall be discouraged from attending classes and reported to the health officials," BBMP Chief Commissioner Gaurav Gupta told DH. Adding further he said, "Our health team will make sure such kids and their parents are quarantined, tested and treated for the epidemic."

Also Read | Decision-making on school reopening should be decentralised: Paediatrics body

This apart, the BBMP is also focussing on vaccinating all those who interact closely with the children. "All persons who may possibly come in contact with the school-going kids shall be vaccinated on priority including the teaching and non-teaching staff at schools," Gupta pointed out. While the civic body is extremely cautious of the possible outbreak of the third wave of the pandemic, BBMP officials revealed that the infection rate among kids is still low. The infection rate is at 7.21 per cent among children aged between 0 to 12 years and 8.21 per cent in those between 13 to 18 years, a health official revealed.

The paediatric experts have also reportedly reviewed genome sequencing of the Covid positive children during the meeting. No new strains were found in the genome sequencing results of children. Only delta lineages have been observed, said Randeep D, BBMP Special Commissioner (Health).

Amid rising cases of seasonal flu and viral fever across Bengaluru, the experts' committee also expressed that the flu vaccination in children could also be useful during the ongoing pandemic times. The committee recommended that the flu vaccines for children could be helpful and suggested that the government could mandate it. We will convey this to the government for the final decision, said Randeep D.

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About 3,000 Los Angeles Police Department employees are citing religious objections to try to get out of the required Covid-19 vaccination. In Washington state, thousands of state workers are seeking similar exemptions.

And an Arkansas hospital has been swamped with so many such requests from employees that it is apparently calling their bluff.

Religious objections, once used sparingly around the country to get exempted from various required vaccines, are becoming a much more widely used loophole against the Covid-19 shot.

Read | Mu, C.1.2 variants of SARS-CoV2 not found in India so far: INSACOG

And it is only likely to grow following President Joe Biden's sweeping new vaccine mandates covering more than 100 million Americans, including executive branch employees and workers at businesses with more than 100 people on the payroll.

The administration acknowledges that a small minority of Americans will use  and some may seek to exploit  religious exemptions. But it said it believes even marginal improvements in vaccination rates will save lives.

It is not clear how many federal employees have asked for a religious exemption, though union officials say there will be many requests. The Labor Department has said an accommodation can be denied if it causes an undue burden on the employer.

In the states, mask and vaccine requirements vary, but most offer exemptions for certain medical conditions or religious or philosophical objections. The use of such exemptions, particularly by parents on behalf of their schoolchildren, has been growing over the past decade.

The allowance was enshrined in the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, which says employers must make reasonable accommodations for employees who object to work requirements because of sincerely held religious beliefs.

A religious belief does not have to be recognised by an organised religion, and it can be new, unusual or seem illogical or unreasonable to others, according to rules laid out by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. But it can't be founded solely on political or social ideas.

That puts employers in the position of determining what is a legitimate religious belief and what is a dodge.

Read | Philippines eases Covid-19 lockdown in capital despite WHO warning

Many major religious denominations have no objections to the Covid-19 vaccines. But the rollout has prompted heated debates because of the longtime role that cell lines derived from fetal tissue have played, directly or indirectly, in the research and development of various vaccines and medicines.

Roman Catholic leaders in New Orleans and St. Louis went so far as to call Johnson & Johnson's Covid-19 shot morally compromised." J&J has stressed that there is no fetal tissue in its vaccine.

Moreover, the Vatican's doctrine office has said it is morally acceptable for Catholics to receive Covid-19 vaccines that are based on research that used cells derived from aborted fetuses. Pope Francis himself has said it would be suicide not to get the shot, and he has been fully vaccinated with the Pfizer formula.

In New York, state lawmakers have attempted to make the vaccine mandatory for medical workers, with no religious exemptions. On Tuesday, a federal judge blocked the state from enforcing the rule to give a group of workers time to argue that it is illegal because it lacks the opt-out.

An August AP-NORC poll found that 58 per cent of white evangelical Protestants, 72 per cent of white mainline Protestants, 80 per cent of Catholics and 73 per cent of Americans who are religiously unaffiliated say they have been vaccinated. Seventy percent of nonwhite Protestants say they have been, including 70 per cent of Black Protestants.

Across the US, public officials, doctors and community leaders have been trying to help people circumvent Covid-19 mask and vaccine requirements.

In Tulsa, Oklahoma, pastor Jackson Lahmeyer is offering a "religious exemption form on his church's website for download, along with links for suggested donations to the church. The 29-year-old is running for the US Senate as a Republican.

Anyone interested can get the form signed by a religious leader, or Lahmeyer can sign it himself if the person joins the church and donates. He said more than 35,000 people downloaded the form in just three days.

Read | Mu, C.1.2 variants of SARS-CoV2 not found in India so far: INSACOG

We're not anti-vaxxers. We're just pro-freedom, Lahmeyer said. A lot of these people who have signed ... have already taken the vaccine. They just don't think it's right that somebody else should be forced or lose their job.

But obtaining a religious exemption is not as simple as producing a signed form. Measles outbreaks in schools over the past decade prompted some states to change their policies. Some now require an actual signed affidavit from a religious leader, instead of an online form. California got rid of nonmedical exemptions in 2015.

Some employers are taking a hard line. United Airlines told employees last week that those who obtain religious exemptions will be put on unpaid leave until new coronavirus testing procedures are in place.

In Los Angeles, Police Chief Michel Moore said he is waiting for guidance from the city personnel department regarding the exemptions. The city has mandated that municipal employees get vaccinated by Oct. 5 unless they are granted a medical or religious exemption. A group of LAPD employees is suing over the policy.

Let me be absolutely clear: We will not tolerate the abuse of these exemptions by those who simply don't want to get vaccinated, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said. To anyone thinking about filing a disingenuous exemption request, I strongly urge that you reconsider.

In Washington state, approximately 60,000 state employees are subject to a mandate issued by Gov. Jay Inslee that they be fully vaccinated by Oct. 18 or lose their job, unless they obtain a medical or religious exemption and receive an accommodation that allows them to remain employees.

As of Tuesday, more than 3,800 workers had requested religious exemptions. So far, 737 have been approved, but officials stressed that an exemption does not guarantee continued employment.

Once the exemption is approved, each agency has to evaluate whether the employee can still do the job with an accommodation while ensuring a safe workplace. Seven accommodations so far have been granted.

Inslee spokeswoman Tara Lee said the process "may help distinguish between a sincerely held personal belief and a sincerely held religious belief.

In Arkansas, about 5 per cent of the staff at the privately run Conway Regional Health System has requested religious or medical exemptions.

The hospital responded by sending employees a form that lists a multitude of common medicines  including Tylenol, Pepto-Bismol, Preparation H and Tums  that it said were developed or tested using fetal cell lines.

The form asks people to sign it and attest that my sincerely held religious belief is consistent and true and I do not use or will not use any of the listed medications.

In a statement, Conway Regional Health President and CEO Matt Troup said: "Staff who are sincere ... should have no hesitancy with agreeing to the list of medicines listed.

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Poland must change its legal definition of rape to protect women and stop restricting media, European institutions said on Thursday, in the latest challenges to the ruling nationalists over rights and democracy.

Under the eurosceptic, socially-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, Poland has fought with the European Union on issues ranging from treatment of migrants to independence of judges.

Despite protests, PiS has tightened already restrictive anti-abortion laws, introducing a de facto ban on terminating pregnancies.

The Council of Europe - the continent's top rights watchdog - said Warsaw should increase efforts to combat sexual violence and change its definition of rape from a force-based definition to one covering non-consensual sex.

The Council is reviewing how European nations implement the 2014 Istanbul Convention on combating violence against women. Of 17 states analysed so far, only Belgium, Malta and Sweden penalise sexual violence on grounds of lack of consent alone.

"Without a consent-based definition of rape in criminal law, prosecutors will invariably decide against seeking an indictment in cases where the sexual act is undisputed, but consent is not," it said in a statement.

Media freedom

Separately, the EU parliament was voting on a resolution expressing concern over media freedoms in Poland and criticising a draft law targeting a US Discovery-owned TV news channel TVN, which is critical of the government.

The non-binding resolution further laments the erosion of judicial independence, the use of litigation to silence critics, and attempts to block sex education classes.

It criticises Poland for setbacks to women's sexual and reproductive health and rights, as well as discrimination of gays, saying the EU should withhold funds to Warsaw.

Nineteen of the bloc's 27 countries - but not Poland - already won European Commission approval for their national spending plans, unlocking access to tens of billions of euros from the bloc in Covid-19 recovery funds.

The Commission has also criticised Poland over lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender rights following a decision by some Polish communities to declare themselves "LGBT-free".

The Ministry of Family and Social Policy dismissed concerns of discrimination, saying on Wednesday that it did not legally limit the right of all people to live or work there.

Warsaw has said it would plug the gaps in funding should the self-proclaimed "LGBT-free" zones lose EU money.

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SpaceX's first private flight blasted off Wednesday night with two contest winners, a health care worker and their rich sponsor, the most ambitious leap yet in space tourism.

They consist of a billionaire internet commerce executive and jet pilot; a geoscientist and onetime finalist in NASA's astronaut candidate program; a physician's assistant at the childhood cancer hospital where she was once a patient; and an aerospace data engineer and US Air Force veteran.

Following are profiles of the Inspiration4 crew.

Read: SpaceX launches 4 amateurs on private Earth-circling trip

Jared Isaacman, 38, Mission Commander

Originator and billionaire benefactor of the Inspiration4 project, Isaacman paid an undisclosed hefty sum - reported by Time magazine to have run roughly $200 million - for all four seats aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule.

A lifelong aviation enthusiast who flew in the Black Diamond civilian aerobatics jet squad and co-founded a private air force of fighter planes for military training called Draken International, Isaacman earned his fortune in e-commerce.

Isaacman parlayed the business he started as a teenager in the basement of his family's home into one of the leading US financial transaction services, Shift4 Payments Inc

Sian Proctor, 51, Mission Pilot

A geoscience professor at South Mountain Community College in Phoenix with a doctorate in science education, Proctor's lifelong passion for space exploration is rooted in her father's work on Guam, where she was born, for a NASA tracking station during the Apollo lunar missions.

A licensed pilot and major in Arizona's Civil Air Patrol, she has completed four "analog" astronaut projects involving simulated space activities, including a NASA-funded four-month artificial Mars mission to study food strategies for long-duration spaceflights.

Proctor also was a 2009 finalist in NASA's astronaut candidate program, and is now poised to become only the fourth African-American woman ever to fly to space. She was chosen through an online business contest conducted by Shift4 Payments as part of the Inspiration4 crew selection.

Hayley Arceneaux, 29, Chief Medical Officer

A childhood bone cancer survivor, Arceneaux went on to become a physician assistant at St. Jude Children's Research Center in Memphis, Tennessee, the leading pediatric cancer center where she was once a patient. Arceneaux, who lost part of her left thigh and knee to cancer at age 10, boasts that she will become the first person with a prosthetic body part to go into space.

She will also be the youngest American to go to space and the youngest person ever to fly into orbit. According to SpaceX, only 553 humans have ever been to orbit.

St. Jude, where Arceneaux now works with leukemia and lymphoma patients, is the chief beneficiary of the Inspiration4 project, which Isaacman conceived primarily as a fundraising and promotional endeavor for the institute.

Arceneaux has said she was motivated to take part in the spaceflight to show her young patients "what life can look like after cancer."

Chris Sembroski, 42, Mission Specialist

A data engineer at aerospace giant Lockheed Martin Corp in Everett, Washington, Sembroski spent some of his free time in college launching high-powered model rockets and volunteered with ProSpace, a grassroots organization that lobbied on behalf of private space ventures on Capitol Hill.

Sembroski also conducted simulated space shuttle missions as a counselor for US Space Camp, a government-funded science, technology and engineering youth camp in Huntsville, Alabama.

He joined the US Air Force as an electro-mechanical technician, and was deployed to Iraq and also helped maintain a fleet of Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles before leaving active duty in 2007.

Sembroski was selected for the Inspiration4 crew through a sweepstakes that drew 72,000 applicants and raised $113 million in St. Jude donations.
Dozens of people in Vladimir Putin's entourage have tested positive for the coronavirus, the Russian leader said Thursday, as his country struggles with high infection rates and a vaccine-sceptic population.

Earlier this week, 68-year-old Putin cancelled all in-person events and said he was self-isolating after announcing an outbreak in the Kremlin.

"Cases of the coronavirus were detected in my inner circle. Not just one or two but several dozen people," Putin said, speaking via video link at a meeting of a Moscow-led security alliance.

Putin had been due to attend the meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) in Tajikistan's capital Dushanbe in person, but said Tuesday he would instead join remotely.

Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Thursday told reporters that the outbreak was mainly among members of Putin's security detail.

He added that "practically everybody" who works with Putin is vaccinated.

Also Read | Vladimir Putin self-isolating after Covid contact

While it remains unclear how long Putin will be in quarantine, Peskov said he will be self-isolating for "at least" another week.

News of the extent of the outbreak at the Kremlin comes a day before parliamentary elections open Friday in Russia.

They are staggered over three days to limit the spread of the virus.

Authorities have gone to great lengths to protect Putin -- who said he has been vaccinated with Russia's homegrown Sputnik V jab -- since the start of the pandemic.

Foreign leaders, journalists and officials have all had to self-isolate before meeting the longtime Russian leader.

Putin this week met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and athletes returning from the Tokyo Paralympic Games, just before the Kremlin said he was self-isolating.

Russia has the fifth-highest number of recorded Covid cases, according to an AFP tally, and has struggled to rein in infections despite easy access to vaccines.

According to the latest figures, the country has recorded more than seven million cases and 195,835 deaths, the highest death toll in Europe.

Infections have been falling in recent days after a spike this summer, but health officials still reported 19,594 new cases and 794 new deaths on Thursday.

Authorities have struggled with a vaccine-sceptic population, with independent polls showing that a majority of Russians do not plan to be inoculated.

As of Thursday, about 40.2 million of Russia's 146 million people had been fully vaccinated, according to the Gogov website, which tallies Covid data from the regions.

Russia has several homegrown vaccines freely available to the public, but does not distribute any Western-made jabs.

Sputnik V has been approved in dozens of countries, including European nations, but is still pending approval from the World Health Organization (WHO) and Western regulators.

Moscow, the epicentre of Russia's outbreak, and a host of regions have introduced mandatory vaccination measures to speed up the inoculation drive, and Putin has repeatedly called on Russians to get vaccinated.

The Kremlin initially set a goal of fully inoculating 60 per cent of Russia's population by September, but later dropped that target even though free jabs have been available since early December.

Russian authorities have been accused of vastly downplaying the effects of the pandemic and, after a tight first lockdown in 2020, have refrained from introducing new restrictive measures.

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At least 50 rebels and pro-government troops, including a high-ranking officer, have been killed in clashes in Yemen's central province of Al-Bayda, military sources told AFP on Thursday.

"A colonel and 19 other loyalists were killed in the past 24 hours in fighting with the Huthi insurgents in Al-Bayda ditrict," a government military official said.

"Thirty rebels also met their fate in battlefield clashes and air strikes."

The Huthis rarely report casualty numbers but the figures were confirmed by other military sources.

The Iran-backed rebels have made advances in Al-Bayda province in recent weeks as they also fight for control of the strategic city of Marib in the north.

In February, the Huthis escalated their efforts to seize Marib, the government's last toehold in the north, and the fighting has killed hundreds on both sides.

Control of the oil-rich province would strengthen the Huthis' bargaining position in peace talks.

The battle for Marib has also raised fears of a humanitarian catastrophe, as many Yemenis have fled to the area to escape fighting in other parts of the country.

The conflict in Yemen flared in 2014 when the Huthis seized the capital Sanaa, prompting Saudi-led intervention to prop up the internationally recognised government the following year.

Since then, tens of thousands have been killed and millions pushed to the brink of famine in what the United Nations calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

Swedish diplomat Hans Grundberg, the UN's new envoy for Yemen, arrived in Riyadh on Wednesday to meet with Yemeni and Saudi officials, marking his first trip to the kingdom since taking office earlier this month.

While the UN and Washington are pushing for an end to the war, the Huthis have demanded the re-opening of Sanaa airport, closed under a Saudi blockade since 2016, before any ceasefire or negotiations.

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The Biden administration began notifying governors and state refugee coordinators across the country about how many Afghan evacuees from among the first group of nearly 37,000 arrivals are slated to be resettled in their states.

California is projected to take more arrivals than any other  more than 5,200 people, according to State Department data for the Afghan Placement and Assistance program obtained by The Associated Press.

Alabama and Mississippi are each slated to welcome 10, US officials said Wednesday. Hawaii, South Dakota, West Virginia, Wyoming and the District of Columbia are not expected to resettle anyone from the first group of evacuees who fled during the final days of the chaotic US withdrawal last month.

The administration has requested funding from Congress to help resettle 65,000 Afghans in the United States by the end of this month and 95,000 by September 2022. President Joe Biden tapped the former governor of his home state of Delaware, Jack Markell, to temporarily serve as his point person on resettling Afghan evacuees in the United States.

Also Read | $12 million seized from ex-officials as cash crunch hits Afghanistan

States with a historically large number of Afghans who resettled in the US over the last 20 years  including California, Maryland, Texas and Virginia  are again welcoming a disproportionate number of evacuees, according to the data. Many gravitate to northern Virginia, the Maryland suburbs of D.C. and northern California  some of the most expensive housing markets in the country.

Oklahoma, which over the course of the 20-year war had resettled a relatively small number of Afghans, is slated to resettle 1,800 new arrivals.

Many of the new evacuees requested to be resettled in those states because they already have family and close friends living in those states, according to two US officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the calls to state government officials. Resettlement agencies also have a large presence and capacity in many of those states.

The State Department resettled evacuees based on the advice of local affiliates of nine national resettlement agencies the US government is working with, the officials said.

The officials said Afghan evacuees are advised that other parts of the country -- including areas with plentiful job openings and cheaper housing -- could be good places to begin their new lives in the US.

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The Afghan evacuees go through a Department of Homeland Security-coordinated process of security vetting before being admitted. And every evacuee who comes into the United States also goes through health screening. Evacuees who are 12 and older are required to get the COVID-19 vaccination as a term of their humanitarian parolee status after entering the country.

Still, there have been unexpected complications.

US-bound flights for evacuees who had been staying temporarily in third-country processing sites were halted last week after measles cases were discovered among several Afghans who had recently arrived in the US.

Some of the recent Afghan arrivals could also face a tough road ahead if Congress doesn't take action to treat them as refugees arriving in the US.

The Afghan evacuees are not currently eligible for food stamps, cash assistance through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program for low income families, Medicaid or other traditional refugee services that are funded through the Department of Health and Human Services.

Currently, each Afghan evacuee is slated to receive $1,225 to help with rent, furniture and food and provide a small amount of pocket money. Biden has called on Congress to take action to ensure that the recent arrivals have access to the same benefits as refugees.

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"He is a busy man", Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has said curtly about Joe Biden, expressing his disappointment over US President's reluctance to contact him since coming into office in January this year.

During an interview to CNN on Wednesday from his private Bani Gala residence in Islamabad, Khan admitted that he had not spoken to President Biden since the collapse of the Afghan government.

When asked why Biden hadn't called him since coming into office, the premier curtly said: "He is a busy man" and later said Biden should be asked "why he is too busy to call".

Khans remarks came days after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a Congressional hearing indicated that Pakistan was involved in harbouring members of the Taliban, including the militants of the dreaded Haqqani Network.

I think you're very right to point at the role that Pakistan has played throughout the past 20 years and even before it. It is one that has involved hedging its bets constantly about the future of Afghanistan. It's one that's involved harbouring members of the Taliban, including the Haqqanis," Blinken said while responding to a specific question from Democratic Congressman Bill Keating who alleged that Pakistan played an active and by so many accounts a negative role in Afghan affairs for decades.

"It's one that's also involved at different points of cooperation with us on counter-terrorism. And so, there are a number of things that have come into play. It has a multiplicity of interests, some that are in clear conflict with ours. When it comes to Afghanistan, it's focused, of course, as well on India and the role that India is playing in Afghanistan, Blinken said.

This is not the first time that Prime Minister Khan has expressed his disappointment over Bidens reluctance to contact him.

During an interaction with foreign journalists at his residence in August, Prime Minister Khan had said that he was not really "waiting" for a phone call from President Biden.

"I keep hearing that President Biden hasn't called me. It's his business. It's not like I am waiting for any phone call," he had said in response to a question.

Khan, who had congratulated President Biden on his inauguration and expressed his desire to work with the new American administration to deepen bilateral ties, had said that Washington sees Pakistan as "useful" only for clearing the "mess" it has left behind in Afghanistan after 20 years of fighting and prefers India when it comes to forming a strategic partnership.

During his interview with CNN, Khan said Pakistan's relationship with the US is not just dependent on a phone call, it needs to be a multidimensional one.

That's something Khan said he doesn't feel Pakistan enjoyed during the US' 20 year war in Afghanistan.

"We (Pakistan) were like a hired gun," Khan said. "We were supposed to make them (the US) win the war in Afghanistan, which we never could."

Khan also said he repeatedly warned US officials that America could not achieve its objectives militarily, and would "be stuck there."

He said the US should have attempted a political settlement with the Taliban from a "position of strength," at the height of its presence in Afghanistan, not as it was withdrawing.

The US-Pakistan relationship has witnessed ups and downs over the past decade. The ties nose-dived after the US killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden at his hideout in Pakistan in a covert raid in May 2011.

Bidens predecessor Donald Trump had briefly suspended roughly $1 billion in US security aid to Pakistan and publicly accused Pakistani officials of lies and deceit for purportedly providing a base for the Taliban and other militant groups to carry out attacks across the border in Afghanistan.

Islamabad is unhappy that Biden has not spoken to Prime Minister Khan since he assumed the presidency in January.

Pakistan's National Security Adviser Moeed Yusuf has also expressed disappointment over President Bidens reluctance to contact Prime Minister Khan despite considering Islamabad as an important country in some critical issues like Afghanistan.

Yousuf also said that Islamabad has other "options" if the American leader continues to ignore the countrys leadership.

The US State Department, however, had assured Islamabad that Washington recognises Pakistans vital role in restoring peace in Afghanistan and wants Islamabad to play that role.

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President Rodrigo Duterte was swept to power in 2016 on a promise to get rid of narcotics in the Philippines, unleashing an unprecedented campaign against suspected drug users and dealers.

The authoritarian firebrand has defended the brutal crackdown -- his signature policy -- that rights groups estimate has killed tens of thousands of people.

More than five years after the bloody campaign began, the International Criminal Court on Wednesday authorised a full-blown investigation into the killings.

Also Read | Philippines' Duterte will not cooperate with ICC drug war probe: Lawyer

Here is a timeline of key events during the drug war:

Duterte is sworn into office on June 30, 2016, promising a ruthless and deeply controversial war on crime.

Security services are given shoot-to-kill orders and even offered bounties for the bodies of drug dealers.

The former city mayor tells ordinary Filipinos to kill drug users.

"If you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself as getting their parents to do it would be too painful," Duterte says.

Since then, at least 6,181 people die in over 200,000 anti-narcotics operations, official data show.

ICC prosecutors in court papers estimate the figure to be between 12,000 to 30,000.

Duterte orders police to take a step back from the drug war in January, describing them as "corrupt to the core" and instructing the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) to lead after revelations that officers kidnapped and murdered a South Korean businessman.

It's not long before Duterte reinstates the force and re-launches the war under the name "Double Barrel Reloaded" -- so called for the two-pronged police strategy to wipe out drugs.

He demotes the police again in October in the face of mounting public opposition to the drug war -- before ordering them back to the frontlines of the crackdown less than two months later.

Three policemen are sentenced to decades in prison for murdering a teenager during an anti-narcotics sweep, marking the first conviction of officers carrying out Duterte's drug war.

The 2017 killing of Kian delos Santos in a dank Manila alley sparks rare protests against the campaign.

Police say the 17-year-old was a drug courier who fired at them while resisting arrest. However, CCTV footage shows two of the policemen dragging the unarmed boy moments before he was shot dead.

The Philippines officially exits the International Criminal court in March, a year after telling the United Nations that it was quitting the world's only permanent war crimes tribunal.

The move comes after the ICC launches a preliminary examination in 2018 into Duterte's drug crackdown.

The United Nations' human rights office says in June the drug war has unleashed widespread and systematic killing with "near impunity" for offenders.

Calling for an independent probe into human rights abuses, the office says police have been encouraged by the highest levels of government to use lethal force on drug suspects and thousands have been killed by officers and unknown gunmen since 2016.

But the UN Human Rights Council, which had requested the review of the crackdown, later passes a resolution for the UN to provide "technical assistance" to the Philippines to improve human rights in the country.

The International Criminal Court approves a full-blown investigation into the drug war on September 15, after its judges say the crackdown could be a crime against humanity.

Duterte does not immediately respond, but his close advisers insist the tribunal has no jurisdiction in the Philippines and the president will not cooperate.

The announcement comes weeks after Duterte, who is barred under the constitution from seeking a second term, declares he will run for vice president in next year's elections.

Critics say the move is partly driven by fear of criminal charges, though there is debate over whether the vice president enjoys legal immunity.

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A 6.0-magnitude earthquake jolted China's southwestern Sichuan province on Thursday, leaving at least three persons dead and 60 others injured.

The earthquake struck at 4:33 am (local time) in Luxian county at a depth of 10 kilometres, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Three persons were killed and 60 others injured in the quake, the report said.

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According to China Earthquake Networks Centre (CENC), the epicentre was monitored at 29.2 degrees north latitude and 105.34 degrees east longitude.

The earthquake relief headquarters of Sichuan has activated a level-II response, the second-highest in China's four-tier earthquake emergency response system.

After the quake, Luzhou City has launched a level-I emergency response and nearly 3,000 people have been mobilised for rescue efforts. Tents have been set up for the residents' temporary evacuation in a village of the county's Fuji township.

Thousands of people were killed and many others injured when Sichuan province was struck by an earthquake of magnitude 8 in 2008.

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Top American lawmakers paid rich tributes as they remembered Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh American, who was the first victim of hate crime following the 9/11 terror attacks in which nearly 3,000 people from over 90 countries were killed.

Four days after 9/11, Balbir was killed outside the Arizona gas station he owned. He was the first person in the US to be killed in a supposed act of retaliation for the attacks in 2001.

Today marks 20 Years Since Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh man, was killed in a hate crime in retribution for the 9/11 attacks. We honor his memory and the memories of all those lost to hate in the two decades since, Senator Robert Menendez said in a tweet.

Twenty years ago, Sikh American Balbir Singh Sodhi was murdered in the first post 9/11 hate crime. He was shot to death while planting flowers outside his gas station in Mesa, Arizona, by a man who said he wanted to go out and shoot some towel-heads, said Senator Dick Durbin.

Also Read | 9/11: Bengalureans recall day of carnage

Congresswomen Lois Frankel said days after 9/11, Balbir, a Sikh man, was killed in retribution for the attacks.

Today, we honor Balbir's memory--and celebrate 20 years of solidarity and advocacy among the communities that continue to persevere against hate and discrimination, she said.

Senator Sherrod Brown said 20 years ago today, Balbir, a Sikh American, was murdered for his appearance.

His death marked the first deadly post-9/11 hate crime. Today and every day, lets stand united with our Sikh community in Ohio and reject hate and discrimination, he tweeted.

Also Read | How the terrifying evacuations from the twin towers on 9/11 helped make todays skyscrapers safer

Days after 9/11, Sikh American Balbir Singh Sodhi was killed in the apparent first retribution hate crime following the attacks. Today, we honor his memory & remain united in our efforts to fend off all forms of hate & discrimination, tweeted Senator Richard Blumenthal.

Balbir Singh Sodhi, a turbaned Sikh man, was killed in a hate crime in retribution for the 9/11 attacks 20 years ago today. I stand in solidarity with New Jersey's Sikh community as we honor his memory & the memories of all those lost to hate in the two decades since, said Congressman Donald Norcross.

Balbirs killer Frank Roque is serving life in prison.

As the world marked the 20th anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks recently, Balbirs brother Rana Singh Sodhi said: We all humans are equal - colour, creed and gender. To honour my brother, if you love your neighbours, if you respect people with different colour, creed and gender, it will be a big honour to my brother.

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Twelve people were killed in incidents of house and wall collapse in Fatehpur, Pratapgarh, Kaushambi, Jaunpur and Barabanki districts of Uttar Pradesh due to heavy rains, police said on Thursday.

According to meteorological department, Pratapgarh and Ayodhya received 20 cm rainfall in the last 24 hours. The heavy downpour resulted in waterlogging at several places and caused inconvenience to people.

In Fatehpur district, two people were buried under the rubble of their 'kutcha' house after it collapsed in Mohammadpur Gaunti late on Wednesday night, police said.

Read more: Rainfall in Delhi this season so far highest since 1964; more in store

Tiya (18) and her sister Muskaan (3), daughters of Rakesh Lodhi, died on the spot, SHO of Sultanpur Ghosh Police Station Arvind Kumar Gautam said.

In another incident in the district, a couple and their daughter Komal (2) were sleeping when their 'kutcha' house collapsed in Mardaha village on Wednesday night, SHO Kalyanpur Police Station, Amit Kumar Mishra said.

The neighbours rushed to their rescue, but could not save the girl, the SHO said, adding that the couple sustained injuries and was admitted to a government hospital.

In Pratapgarh district's Gode village under Kotwali Police Station area, one person was killed and three others injured when the wall of a house collapsed while they were sleeping.

Inspector-in-charge of the police station, Ravindra Rai said Ramzan (18) died in the incident, while his sister and her two children were injured and admitted to a hospital.

In a similar incident in Gahrichak village under Kandhai Police Station area, Urmila Misra (55) died when her 'kutcha' house collapsed due to rains, Inspector Neeraj Walia said.

In Kaushambi, a woman was killed and her husband injured when their house in Birner village in Sarai Akeel area collapsed due to heavy rains on Wednesday evening. While Murdi Devi (62) died during treatment, condition of her husband Prem Narain (65) was stated to be stable, police said.

In Barabanki, a father-son duo were killed on Wednesday night after wall of their house in Bayasagpur in Asandra area fell on them, police said.

Their bodies were taken out from the debris Thursday morning when the villagers came to know about it.

Those died were identified as Arvind Kumar Yadav (40) and his son Arvind (8), who were sleeping when the incident took place, they said.

In Jaunpur, four people, including three of family, were killed and three others injured in separate incidents of house collapse.

The first incident took place in Sujanganj area, where Bharat Lal Jaiswal (38), his wife Gulaba Devi (34), daughter Sakshi (10) were killed and three others injured when their 'kutcha house' collapsed at around 4 am.

In similar incident in Sikarara area on Wednesday, Urmila Devi (47) were killed.

In the state capital, waterlogging was reported from several places due to heavy rainfall since Wednesday night. Rainwater entered the office of Lucknow Municipal Corporation and trees fell at various places while some roads caved in too.

Taking note of the heavy rainfall, District Magistrate, Lucknow Abhishek Prakash has advised people to remain indoors and avoid going out.

He also asked people to remain cautious about open sewer, electricity wires and poles, and inform integrated control centre in case of waterlogging, felling of trees and power breakdown.

According to the MeT office, in the last 24 hours, Fursatganj received 19 cm rainfall, followed by Kunda (Pratapgarh), Chitrakoot, Basti, and Rae Bareli received (17 cm each), Mirzapur (15 cm), Gauriganj (Amethi), Bindki (Fatehpur), Prayagraj Sadar (13 cm each), Lucknow and Sultanpur (12 cm each), Sant Ravidas Nagar, Musafir Khana (Amethi), Sambhal, and Ayodhya (11 cm each).

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The Union Cabinet on Wednesday cleared a proposal to provide government guarantee to security receipts issued by the National Asset Reconstruction Company (NARCL) as part of resolution of bad loans, sources said.

Indian Banks' Association (IBA), entrusted with the task of setting up a bad bank, has pegged the government guarantee to be around Rs 31,000 crore. The proposed bad bank or NARCL will pay up to 15 per cent of the agreed value for the loans in cash and the remaining 85 per cent would be government-guaranteed security receipts. The government guarantee would be invoked if there is loss against the threshold value.

Last month, the IBA moved an application to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for a licence to set up a Rs 6,000-crore NARCL. According to sources, the Cabinet nod was required as sovereign guarantee would be extended to security receipts issued by NARCL. The Cabinet nod will pave the way for operationalisation of the bad bank announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the Budget this year, the sources added.

Also Read | Bad loans of banks may cross Rs 10 lakh crore by end of this fiscal, says study

The Finance Minister in Budget 2021-22 announced that the high level of provisioning by public sector banks of their stressed assets calls for measures to clean up the bank books. "An Asset Reconstruction Company Limited and Asset Management Company would be set up to consolidate and take over the existing stressed debt," she had said in the Budget speech.

It will then manage and dispose of the assets to alternate investment funds and other potential investors for eventual value realisation, she had said. Last year, the IBA made a proposal for the creation of a bad bank for swift resolution of non-performing assets.

The government accepted the proposal and decided to go for asset reconstruction company and asset management company model in this regard.

Meanwhile, state-owned Canara Bank has expressed its intent to be the lead sponsor of NARCL with a 12 per cent stake. The proposed NARCL would be 51 per cent owned by PSBs and the remaining by private sector lenders. NARCL will take over identified bad loans of lenders.

The lead bank with an offer in hand of NARCL will go for a 'Swiss Challenge' wherein other asset reconstruction players will be invited to better the offer made by a chosen bidder for finding higher valuation of a non-performing asset on sale.

The company has picked up those assets that are 100 per cent provided for by the lenders. Banks have identified around 22 bad loans worth Rs 89,000 crore to be transferred to NARCL in the initial phase.

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Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will address the media at 5 pm on Thursday. While it is not yet known what the FM will be speaking about, speculation is rife that she will announce the cabinet clearance for the bad bank proposal.

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday cleared a proposal to provide government guarantee to security receipts issued by the National Asset Reconstruction Company (NARCL) as part of resolution of bad loans, sources told PTI.

The cabinet on Wednesday announced major relief packages for telecom and auto sectors.

(With PTI inputs)

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The Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile (JAM) trinity has proved to be a game-changer and helped in reaching out to the citizens living in the farthest corners of the country, during the coronavirus pandemic, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Thursday.

She was addressing the Rashtriya Bank Parishad-organised 'Manthan', a one-day meeting in Aurangabad, which she inaugurated virtually.

"The JAM trinity concept of the Narendra Modi government helped to reach the farthest person in the country. There were questions in the mind of people when the Jan Dhan scheme was launched.

"The inclusion of people in Jan Dhan stood by us in the Covid-19 pandemic, and we could help the people directly so that they can live their lives," she said.

Sitharaman also said the Aadhaar linkage also helped in getting KYC-verified accounts.

"It also helped us to get a credible robust structure through which banking, financing facilities could reach people. The last of the trinity, that is mobile, where every information about the deposit, benefits of government schemes (MNREGA) or the subsidies in the account, was sent...even in regional languages," Sitharaman added.

Still, there are parts in the country that need an extra and special push, she said.

The minister said the Rashtriya Bank Parishad would prove to be beneficial for this region of Maharashtra.

Union Minister of State for Finance Bhagwat Karad, who chaired the conclave, said the focus henceforth would be on opening Jan Dhan accounts of those who have reached the age of 18.

The focus will also be on opening accounts in 111 aspirational districts across the country. The agenda of discussion in Aurangabad included difficulties in availing Mudra loans and the agriculture sector, he said.

Punjab National Bank CEO and MD S S Mallikarjun Rao said, "The government has taken timely and impactful measures to bring the economy on track. It helped those who lost their jobs, entrepreneurs, industry and agriculture segment of the country."

Rao added that the contribution of Maharashtra in the country's economy is "lion's share" in terms of industrialisation and developing entrepreneur skills in the state, and it has a healthy deposit ratio.

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Gujarat Assembly Speaker Rajendra Trivedi submited his resignation on Thursday ahead of the the new Cabinet announcement.

New ministers of the Bhupendra Patel-led government in Gujarat will take oath on Thursday at Raj Bhavan in Gandhinagar amid speculation that the BJP may induct new faces into the state cabinet, with just over a year left for the state Assembly polls.

There has been suspense over ministerial faces, whose names have not been declared so far, in the backdrop of the BJP's "no repeat" formula.

(With agency inputs)

More to follow...

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Taking a swipe at Opposition parties for their criticism against the Central Vista project, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said some people are more interested in their "personal agendas" than the condition of key government offices and ministries.

The PM was speaking after inaugurating newly constructed two defence office complexes of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in Delhi as part of the Central Vista redevelopment project at a cost of Rs 775 crore.

"This is all part of Central Vista -- something those with false agendas and spreading misinformation will never acknowledge. You can now see the important work being done under this project," the PM said.

"We all saw how some people tried to sabotage the important Central Vista project... how they ran personal agendas to spread misinformation," the PM said.

He added that those critics of Central Vista did not speak about the conditions of hutments where several offices of the Defence Ministry functions.

Also read: Redeveloped Central Vista Avenue will be ready to host Republic Day parade in 2022: Puri

"It always surprised me that the Defence Ministry, like some others, was run from World War II-era hutments... these were made keeping horses and stables in mind..." he said.

"But not once did they speak about the condition of these hutments... from where our ministries work. Not once did they mention the new Defence Ministry complexes and how crucial they are. If they had done so, their lies and agendas would have been exposed," the PM said.

He questioned why media houses in Delhi had failed to cover "the conditions in which our important ministries were functioning."

He further said, "In the 75th year of Independence, we are taking an important step towards developing the capital of the country according to the needs and aspirations of the new India."

Read: PM Modi inaugurates two new defence office complexes in Delhi

The new Defence Ministry offices -- which will house 7,000 officials across two complexes on Kasturba Gandhi Marg and Africa Avenue in central Delhi -- reflected his government placing "highest priority and honour" to the nation's armed forces.

This new Defence Office Complex is going to further strengthen our efforts to make the work of our forces more convenient and more effective for the nation's security, " he said.

Opposition parties criticised the ambitious Rs 20,000 crore redevelopment of Central Vista project -- which includes building a new Parliament and central government offices, and constructing the PM and Vice President offices and residences.

Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said redevelopment work of the Central Vista Avenue, stretching from Rashtrapati Bhavan to India Gate, will be completed within two-and-a-half months and the project will be ready in time to host the Republic Day parade in 2022.

Puri also said that the winter session of Parliament next year will take place in the new Parliament building.

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West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday asserted that she will not allow the country to turn into Pakistan or the Taliban.

Alleging that the saffron party has claimed the Bhabanipur constituency in south Kolkata will become Pakistan if the TMC wins the bypoll from there, Banerjee accused the BJP of practising divisive politics. The Trinamool Congress supremo is contesting the by-election from Bhabanipur.

"I don't like the policies and politics of the BJP. They only follow the politics of dividing people on religious lines. In Nandigram, they had said it would become Pakistan (if the TMC wins). In Bhabanipur too, they are saying it will turn into Pakistan. This is shameful," Banerjee said while campaigning.

Read more: PM Modi, Mamata, Adar Poonawalla among Time Magazines 100 'most influential people of 2021'

Banerjee lost to Suvendu Adhikari of the BJP from Nandigram during the assembly election held earlier this year. She has to win this bypoll to retain her chief minister's post.

"I want my country to be strong and will protect my motherland with all my might. We don't want India to become another Taliban (ruled state). I will never allow my country to turn into Pakistan," she said while talking to the voters in the area.

Criticising the state BJP leadership for taking exception to her recent visit to a mosque in the area, Banerjee said the saffron camp has a problem with her visiting a Gurudwara too.

"I have visited a mosque; I have visited a Gurudwara also, and the BJP has a problem with both. I don't bring religion into politics, unlike the BJP leaders who only understand the language of divisive politics," she said.

On the sizeable Hindi-speaking population of the Bhabanipur constituency, the TMC boss said she would stand by them through thick and thin.

"I never differentiate among communities. It is the BJP which destroys brotherhood and social fabric among communities," she said.

To woo the area's business community, Banerjee said she was the first politician in the country who had opposed demonetisation in 2016.

"I was the first to oppose demonetisation. I know the kind of harassment the business community has gone through during demonetisation. I used to regularly visit Burrabazar (the business hub of Kolkata) and talk to the business community members," she said.

Hitting out at the saffron camp over its "ploy" to sell off the country's assets, she said those were not the personal property of the BJP.

"The government is trying to sell off the entire country. Railways, airports and ports... They want to sell everything off. Can you sell the soil of the country?" Banerjee said.

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in August announced a Rs 6 lakh crore National Monetisation Pipeline that will look to unlock value in infrastructure assets across sectors ranging from power to road and railways.

Banerjee said Prime Minister Narendra Modi should speak to the World Health Organisation (WHO) to ensure that Covaxin is recognised so that those who availed that vaccine against Covid-19 can travel abroad.

Later, Banerjee visited the Laxmi Narayan Temple in the area and offered puja. She was also seen offering 'Arati'.

A metropolitan constituency, Bhabanipur is home to a large number of Gujaratis and Sikhs, mostly into business, living alongside Bengalis.

Banerjee, who is herself a resident of Bhabanipur constituency, had won the seat twice in 2011 and 2016 but shifted to Nandigram, to dare her former protege and now a BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari in his home turf. Though Banerjee powered the TMC to a resounding win for a third straight term in office, she lost in Nandigram.

Banerjee is required to win a seat in the state assembly by November 5 in conformity with the constitutional provisions to continue as chief minister.

After her defeat in Nandigram, state cabinet minister and TMC MLA from Bhabanipur Sovandeb Chattopadhyay vacated the seat to allow Banerjee to contest from there.

Banerjee is pitted against the BJP's Priyanka Tibrewal and CPI(M)'s Srijib Biswas for the September 30 by-poll. Congress has decided not to field a candidate against her.

The votes will be counted on October 3.

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While terming the Central governments decision to continue restrictions at the Nizamuddin Markaz mosque in Delhi as extreme highhandedness, a former Union minister and senior Congress leader in Kashmir Thursday questioned the BJP over holding of Kumbh Mela and election rallies across India.

The Markaz has been closed since March 31 last year after a Tablighi Jamaat congregation took place at the venue which was blamed for thousands of coronavirus infections around the country. In February this year, the Delhi Waqf Board had filed a petition seeking permission to open the premises

On Monday the Center defended its decision to continue restrictions at the Markaz mosque with the Union home ministry informing the Delhi High Court that it was essential as the case involved cross-border implications and diplomatic relations with other countries.

Questioning the Centers assertions in the Court, Saif-ud-Din Soz, former president of the J&K unit of Congress, suggested to the caretakers of the Markaz to take recourse to the court, immediately.

Closing the Mosque is the extreme highhandedness of the Central as well as the Delhi government. Kindly raise the issue that the Central and Uttar Pradesh government did not take any notice of the fact that 10 million people assembled at Haridwar for Kumbh Mela (in March and April this year), he advised Markaz caretakers in a letter.

Soz, who was Union Water Resource minister in UPA-I, also questioned how the BJP leaders continued to hold huge election rallies throughout India when the second wave of Covid-19 was sweeping the country. Kindly also keep the democratic and secular institutions in India, informed of this development and the necessary action that the Mushawarat (caretakers) may take, in this connection, the letter further reads.

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Police have registered an offence against the young woman, whose video of dancing on a zebra crossing at a busy square in Indore went viral on social media, an official said on Thursday.

The woman, Shreya Kalra, was booked under IPC section 290 (punishment for public nuisance), the police official said.

The 30-second-long video shows that the woman, dressed in black and also wearing a mask and a cap of that colour, starts dancing to the tune of Doja Cats 'Let me be your woman', an English song, as soon as vehicles stop for the red signal at Rasoma square in the city.

Taking serious cognisance of the issue, Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Narottam Mishra had on Wednesday directed the police to take appropriate action against her.

"A case under IPC section 290 was registered against Shreya Kalra, who danced at the traffic signal at Rasoma Square in the city recently," Vijay Nagar police station in-charge Tehzeeb Qazi said.

Under this section, a fine of up to Rs 200 is imposed on the offender, he said.

After her video kicked up a controversy, the woman had posted another video on social media clarifying that her intention was to make people aware of the importance of following traffic rules, like stopping at the designated place at a traffic signal when it turns red, so that pedestrians can easily cross the road using a zebra crossing.

Kalra claimed that she received positive feedback for her act, but added that a few people also tried to project it in a wrong manner. Several netizens and others alleged that the woman posted the video on social media in order to gain publicity.

Home minister Mishra had said that whatever the woman's intention behind shooting the video could be, the method she adopted was wrong.

He had also said that in order to prevent recurrence of such incidents in future, legal action was necessary against her.

Meanwhile, state unit women Congress chief Archana Jaiswal termed the action against Kalra as wrong and said that police should have only warned her instead of filing a case as the offence was not of serious nature.

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The Centre has told the Delhi High Court the decision to appoint Gujarat-cadre IPS officer Rakesh Asthana as Delhi police commissioner was "just, necessary and in the public interest" to "effectively negotiate and handle the peculiar policing needs, and law and order situation in the national capital".

The Ministry of Home Affairs, in an affidavit, said the national capital has a specific and special requirement, as it witnessed certain untoward and extremely challenging public order problems, riots, crimes having an international implication, therefore the appointment of Asthana as Delhi's Commissioner of Police was made in "public interest".

It further said in view of complexities and the sensitivities involved and also considering that no officer of appropriate seniority with balanced experience, was available in the AGMUT cadre, it was felt that an officer belonging to a large state cadre, who had the exposure of complexities of governance and who had the knowledge of nuances of broad canvas policing is given charge of Commissioner of Police Delhi.

During the process of appointment of the Commissioner of Police, Delhi, the Cadre Controlling Authority (CCA) was faced with a precarious situation, as most of the appropriate level officers of AGMUT cadre were not having sufficient balanced experience of policing in a vast law and order sensitive state/central investigating agency/national security/paramilitary force for appointment of Delhi Police chief, it added.

The Centre maintained that no fault can be found in Asthana's appointment which was done in accordance with and after scrupulously following all the applicable rules and regulations.

The response came on a PIL by Sadre Alam which sought quashing of the July 27 order issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs appointing Asthana as the Delhi Police chief and also the order granting inter-cadre deputation and extension of service to him just before his superannuation on July 31.

The affidavit also claimed the PIL, as well as the intervention of NGO Centre for Public Interest Litigation, was an abuse of process of law and manifestly an outcome of some personal vendetta against the incumbent Police Commissioner entertained by the petitioner as well as the intervener.

It also gave a list of eight other IPS officers whose tenures were similarly extended and also provided a list of officers given inter-cadre deputation.

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Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat is arriving in Jammu on October 1 for a two-day visit during which he is likely to meet several prominent personalities from different fields besides addressing Swayamsevaks through online mode.

Notably it will be the first visit of the RSS chief post abrogation of special status of erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir on August 5, 2019. Abrogation of Articles 370 and 35-A was long pending demand of the RSS.

Bhagwat will address the Swayamsevaks through online mode in view of Covid-19 guidelines on October 3 before concluding his visit, sources said. The RSS chief is also expected to have separate meetings with senior RSS functionaries to discuss organizational affairs and further strengthening of the organization in J&K.

Also Read | Pre-emptive strike: Mohan Bhagwat's inexplicable Muslim-love

Security concerns in the country as well as in J&K are likely to figure during discussions Bhagwat will have in the wake of Talibans takeover in Afghanistan and its impact on the Union Territory, sources said and added the RSS stand on restoration of Statehood to J&K could also figure during the RSS chiefs three-day visit.

Sources said some groups raising the demand of separate statehood for the Jammu region may also meet the RSS chief to convince the Sangh Parivar to support their demand.

In 2002, the RSS had adopted a resolution in support of a demand for the re-organisation of Jammu and Kashmir, in its national executive meeting at Kurukshetra. It had demanded statehood for Jammu and union territory (UT) status for the Ladakh region.

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Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari on Thursday said people need to pay if they want better road infrastructure in the country.

Reviewing the progress of Delhi-Mumbai Expressway (DME) in Sohna in Haryana, the Union Minister told reporters, "If you want to use an air-conditioned hall, you have to pay for it. Otherwise, you can arrange a marriage on a field as well."

He was answering a question on the rise in travel costs due to toll charges. The Minister also said the expressway will decrease travel time significantly, which will result in reduction in cost of fuel.

"The Delhi-Mumbai Expressway will decrease travel time to 12 hours. A truck takes 48 hours to reach Mumbai from Delhi. But on the expressway, it will take only 18 hours," he said

"So, a truck will be able to undertake more trips, which would in turn mean more business," Gadkari said.

Developed at Rs 98,000 crore, the Delhi-Mumbai expressway is expected to be completed by March 2023. The first phase from Delhi-Jaipur (Dausa)-Lalsot and Vadodara-Ankleshwar is expected to be open to traffic by March 2022.

The eight-lane access-controlled expressway can be expanded to a 12-lane expressway depending on the volume of traffic in the future.

Gadkari also said that the Road Transport Ministry was exploring options to adopt new technologies for the construction of roads and cut down the use of cement and steel. The government is also exploring options such as the use of steel fibre, which is used abroad, he said.

Gadkari said that in a liberal approach, the ministry had paid 1.5 times more than the market price to farmers for land acquisition. I appeal to farmers to not sell their land to builders and developers, who usually profit when prices increase after road construction. They (farmers) will get more money if they develop the land, he said.

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BJP's attempt to make inroads into the Christian vote banks of Kerala by backing the 'narcotic jihad' and 'love jihad' remarks of a bishop seems to be facing a setback as prominent church leaders are also condemning the bishop's remarks.

BJP leaders from Kerala, including Union Minister of State V Muraleedharan and even Goa Governor P S Sreedharan Pillai, who was a former BJP state president in Kerala, were among those who backed the remarks of Mar Joseph Kallarangatt, bishop of Pala in Kottayam district under the Syro Malabar Church, that jihadis were trying to destroy non-Muslims through 'love jihad' and 'narcotic jihad'.

Even as the controversial remark invited widespread criticism and triggered communally sensitive debates and demonstrations in the state, the BJP leaders backed the bishop and accused the CPM and the Congress of supporting jihadis by flaying the bishop's remarks. A BJP delegation even called on the bishop and extended support and BJP also sought a law to curb 'love jihad' and 'narcotic jihad'.

Many church leaders also backed the bishop citing that he was referring to a social evil.

Also read: Keralite church diocese sparks row with handbook mentioning 'Love Jihad'; expresses regret following protest

But as the row snowballed into a communal debate, those from the Christian community also started condemning the bishop. Senior priest of Syro Malabar Church Paul Thelakkat said that the Pala bishop's statement was contrary to the stand of the Catholic church as well as Pope Francis towards those believing in other religions. It was unfortunate that the bishop used terms like love jihad and narcotic jihad, he said in an article published in a vernacular daily.

On Wednesday Church of South India bishop Malayail Sabu Koshy Cheriyan and Kerala Muslim Youth Federation state president Shamsuddeen Mannani Ilavupalam jointly called for communal harmony. They said that words that hurt any community should not be used.

These developments seem to have sent a message to the BJP that trying to take political advantage of the issue might boomerang. On Thursday actor-turned BJP Rajya Sabha MP called on the bishop and later told the media that the bishop's statement was not against any community, but was trying to highlight social evils.

During the recent Assembly election campaign in Kerala, BJP national leaders had raised the 'love jihad' issue. But it did not yield any result.

Meanwhile, Congress is trying to take political advantage of the issue by accusing the CPM-led Left Front government of not trying to settle the communally sensitive issue from scaling up. On Thursday, Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president K Sudhakaran called on the Pala bishop as well as other church heads.

Being an issue with the Christian and Muslim communities on either side, the Congress and CPM were handling it cautiously as both the communities are crucial vote banks in the state.

Even as Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan initially flayed the 'narcotic jihad' remark of the bishop, on Wednesday he said that there was no reason for registering a case against the bishop as he clarified that he had no intention to create communal enmity.

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Amidst raging controversy over the 'narcotic jihad' remark by Pala Bishop Joseph Kallarangatt, another church diocese has sparked a row by publishing a catechism handbook detailing nine stages of the implementation of the alleged 'Love Jihad' to trap Christian girls.

The Thamarassery Diocese, under the prominent Syro Malabar Church, has published the book with controversial content for the catechism study of students belonging to classes X to XII. When the book triggered a row after various Muslim outfits asked the government to confiscate it, the church authorities expressed regret on Wednesday and clarified that they did not intend to hurt any religion or faith and aimed only to keep the youth rooted in the Christianity.

The Diocese has no discrimination or intolerance towards any faith or religion, the statement said. "This book has been published not out of any hatred or objection towards any religion. It is only aimed at keeping the Christian youth rooted in the faith and to protect the community girls from exploitation," Fr John Pallikkavayalil, Director, Department of Catechesis under the Diocese, said.

Read: Kerala: The Church and Hindutva entente?

As per the over-130-page handbook, brought out by the Department of Catechesis under the Diocese, 'Love Jihad' is a reality and claimed that it is being implemented through nine stages. It also prescribes some precautions for the community girls to be taken to avoid falling into such love traps.

Among the several controversial remarks, the handbook had references about 'kaivisham', a kind of witchcraft allegedly practised through Muslim clerics to lure Christian girls. It alleged that black magic was being carried out by collecting various objects possessed by the girls including their pen, handkerchief or a strand of hair. Though the Diocese, in its press statement, urged to keep a vigil on attempts to destroy communal harmony, it also said that they had been receiving several complaints of "sex terrorism" targeting Christian girls for some time.

During the investigation of the Church, it had been found that over hundred community girls had been victimised for sexual exploitation and other harassment in the name of 'love marriages', it alleged in the statement. Several Muslim outfits including Samstha Rights Protection Council came out against the handbook and demanded its confiscation by the government.

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Former Commercial Taxes Minister K C Veeramani on Thursday became the third AIADMK leader to be raided by sleuths from the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) on charges of acquiring assets disproportionate to his known sources of income.



DVAC sleuths swooped down on 28 premises linked to Veeramani in Tiruppattur and other places across the state on Thursday morning. The raid is being conducted by DVAC after registering an FIR which says Veeramani acquired assets worth Rs 28.78 crore during his tenure as Commercial Taxes minister from 2016-2021.



Veeramani, who lost the 2021 elections from Jolarpet in Tiruppattur district, is a senior AIADMK leader.



The excess works out to be 654 per cent of his total income, the DVAC said in its FIR. Veeramani is the third AIADMK minister after M R Vijayabhaskar and S P Velumani to be raided by DVAC after the DMK government assumed office in May 2021.



The action by the DVAC comes a month after Arappor Iyakkam sent a 43-page complaint to the DVAC alleging that Veeramani and his family have acquired assets worth Rs 76.65 crore that is disproportionate to the known sources of income between 2011 and 2021.



Contending that the former ministers income was around Rs 10 crore in 10 years as declared in his election affidavits, the NGO said he and his family members own assets worth Rs 76.65 crore. However, the FIR filed by DVAC talks only about the disproportionate assets between 2016 and 2021.



The FIR says a case under sections 13 (1) (e), 13 (2) and 13 (1) (b) of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1988 has been filed against Veeramani. It says the DVAC went through various documents, including Veeramanis election affidavit, to conclude that he has acquired assets disproportionate to the known sources of income.



The DMK, while in opposition, had submitted a huge list of corruption charges against half a dozen ministers. The party also promised to constitute a special court to try all such cases.

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Tamil Nadu, the second-largest economy in the country, has received over Rs 4,000 crore of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds between 2014 and 2021 with Chennai and Coimbatore getting the lions share, while the interior and rural districts have been largely ignored.

Of the CSR spending in the last seven years, 39 per cent of the funds have gone towards educations followed by health (20 per cent), and rural development (8 per cent). While Chennai, the state capital, and Coimbatore, the industrial city, received one-third of the CSR funds, Virudhunagar and Ramanathapuram, designated as aspirational districts by the Union Government, got just one per cent of the funds.

A report prepared by Sattva Consulting said Tamil Nadu received over Rs 800 crores of CSR funding in each of the last two financial years  2019-2020 and 2020-2021 -- accounting for 42% of the total CSR funds received over the six years. It was released recently by Finance Minister P T R Palanivel Thiaga Rajan.

The top spenders from their CSR funds are companies that are based out of Tamil Nadu like the Neyveli Lignite Corporation (NLC), MRF, Sun TV Network, and Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL).

Chennai received the bulk of CSR outlays at close to 25 per cent, with Vellore and Coimbatore at little over 6 per cent and 5 per cent, the report said, adding that the aspirational districts which are yet to meet many of the markers as per the Sustainable Development Goals received less than one per cent outlay across the last six years.

The report also found Ariyalur, Tenkasi, and Tiruppattur received no CSR funds. Tenkasi and Tiruppattur were carved out of Tirunelveli and Vellore districts respectively in 2019.

It also said 18 per cent of the total CSR spending was contributed by the top five funding companies, while 45 per cent of the implementation is directly done by companies. While 61 per cent of the CSR spend by companies headquartered in Tamil Nadu is spent in the state, 19 per cent of the funds from the above-mentioned category is spent by the BFSI industry.

As we chart a course to build back better after this pandemic, we need to build in strong principles of sustainability and collaboration in all our re-build efforts. The emergence of multi-faceted partnerships, a strategic outlook towards CSR, solving for scale in line with the development needs of the state will be the hallmark of CSR work in Tamil Nadu in the post-pandemic period, said Srikrishna Sridhar Murthy, co-founder and CEO of Sattva.

Tamil Nadu is the fourth-highest recipient state of CSR funds in India and the corporate sector is emerging as an important player in the states development, the report said.

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Bollywood actor, model and fitness enthusiast Shilpa Shetty, whose husband Raj Kundra has been chargesheeted in the sensational pornography case, told the Mumbai Police that she was not aware of her husbands activities.

Shettys brief statement forms part of the 1,500-page chargesheet that the Crime Branch-CID filed on Wednesday.

Shetty remained too tied up in her work to know the porn apps or other activities of her husband, according to her brief statement as a witness in the case.

Read more: Raj Kundra chargesheeted in pornography case

A total of 11 persons have been arrested so far during the investigations that have been going on since February.

The Mumbai Police had initially chargesheeted nine persons and the supplementary chargesheet has named Kundra, a British-Indian businessman, and his close associate and techie Ryan Thorpe.

Shetty further stated that Kundra had launched Viaan Industries Ltd around April, 2015 and she was on the board till July, 2020 before she quit owing to "personal reasons".

Kundra allegedly used his companys Mumbai offices to manage the daily operations of the sleaze content racket and upload those through HotShots and Bollyfame apps for paid viewers.

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The Income Tax department searches on actor, model and philanthropist Sonu Sood continued for the second day on Thursday even as several political parties came out in his support and targeted the BJP-led Centre.

A day after AAP founder and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal condemned the I-T action and said that millions of Indian families are with Sonu Sood, several political parties backed him.

Also read: Income Tax officials search six places linked to actor Sonu Sood

It is selective targeting and Talibani mindset, Shiv Sena MLC Manisha Kayande was quoted saying.

This is nothing but a witch hunt by an insecure government against a giant philanthropist considered a 'messiah' by millions. His only crime is that he worked for the welfare of the downtrodden when they were orphaned by the state," AAP spokesperson Raghav Chadha tweeted.

The investigation being carried out at his Mumbai home is based on allegations of tax evasion and the property deal coming under the I-T scanner.

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For more than a fortnight, a popular Afghan TV journalist did not step out of the safety of his house after the Taliban walked into a defenceless Kabul. Fearing that his past will bring grief to him, he furiously erased all his social media posts on the Taliban. And then he did what everyone who had worked closely with the Afghan government has done  run to the airport.

At the airport, he sought anonymity in the chaotic crowd that was converging there to escape the Taliban, till August 31, when the Americans made their final evacuation. By now, he had jettisoned his clean-shaven look by growing a beard and wearing a soiled and wrinkled salwar kameez. He failed to find a seat for himself and his family in any of the aircraft that evacuated thousands of foreigners and Afghans out of the country.

Now, he fears the worst.

Unlike in the past, when persecuted Afghans could escape by changing their identities by falsifying their documents or their appearances, now their exposure to the regime is just waiting to happen  its a biometric scan away. This is a widespread fear across Kabul, and elsewhere.

Though the Taliban has announced amnesty to all Afghans, including those who served in the army, reports of Taliban militants armed with biometric scanners linked to a government database knocking on the doors of many residents have begun to swirl around. No one really gives credence to the belief that the Taliban are technology-challenged and so cannot access the database containing the biometric data of millions of ordinary Afghans. What is being slowly realised is that if they need help, the Taliban can get it from Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

Also read: Afghanistan: War on terror was corrupt from the start

Many fear-stricken Afghans are also aware that weeks before Kabul fell, Taliban soldiers kidnapped some 200 people traveling through the town of Kunduz. The bus was stopped and the biometric scans of the occupants were taken. And then, young soldiers of the Afghan National Defence Force (ANDF), returning home on vacation in civilian clothes, were pulled out and shot in cold blood.

Everything that ordinary Afghans wanted to do to escape the hawk-eye of the Taliban failed in Kunduz. Today, Afghanistan presents a doomsday scenario for a society that succumbed to the compelling reasoning of those technology evangelists who claimed that corruption could only be fought by bringing in biometric scans.

Undoubtedly, in Afghanistan, corruption was endemic. Army recruitment presented the worst-case scenario. It is common knowledge that the Afghan defence forces were known as the ghost army  so many soldiers existed only on paper. This is one of the reasons that the Afghan army could not stand up to the Taliban juggernaut. This dubious phenomenon of ghost soldiers allowed the notorious warlords and the local commanders to squirrel away their salaries in their own accounts, apart from huge and organised corruption across the army network and ground operations. In 2019, the US army claimed to have discovered 42,000 ghost servicemen.

The discovery of such fraud may have helped in upholding the usefulness and efficacy of a central biometric database. However, did it occur to its votaries in Afghanistan, and in other countries like India  what happens when this data falls into the wrong hands?

In New Delhi, Attorney-General KK Venugopal fielded these questions in the Supreme Court in March 2018. When the issue of the safety of Aadhaar data was raised, he proudly told the apex court that the theft of data was impossible as it is secured behind walls that are 13 feet high and five feet thick. The good lawyer thought that data theft was similar to burglary. He did not know it could be hacked from a distance. Since 2009, biometric scans of 1.2 billion citizens have been collected.

Ironically, in Afghanistan these days, the fear of data betraying the identities of citizens is playing out in different ways, and with different people. Newspaper reports suggest that 14 BBC journalists and 200 judges are in hiding. There must be many more engineers, businessmen, professionals, doctors, nurses, journalists, interpreters, translators, etc., and people with a wide range of skills, who must be in a similar situation. They must be worried that a Talibani with a hand-held biometric scanner would come knocking.

Technology websites claimed that the secure Afghan databases would have iris, finger and face scans of millions of nationals. Many of these people would be those who helped the US and the Karzai and Ghani governments. By accessing the database, the Taliban authorities would have a clear idea of who fought against them in which theatre of war. The central biometric database is thus the starting point to exacting vengeance for many a Talibani!

There are 40-odd data fields that are included against each name. According to MIT Technology Review, It also contains details on the individuals military specialty and career trajectory, as well as sensitive relational data such as the names of their father, uncles and grandfathers, as well as the names of the two tribal elders per recruit who served as guarantors for their enlistment. This turns what was a simple digital catalogue into something far more dangerous.

In other words, this access to data imperils not just one man but his entire ecosystem, his social network, his professional and personal life, his colleagues, friends, relatives and clan. In these peculiar and sinister circumstances, imagine the fate of the thousands of soldiers of the Afghan army who sought to melt away into the crowds by stepping out of their uniforms!

Now, the Taliban would not just know their location and their family networks, their military and professional capabilities Perhaps they wont have to worry too much about their usual problems  who will fix their grounded Black Hawk helicopters or operate many of the other war machines abandoned by the fleeing US and Afghan army. Within no time, the Taliban may be able to upgrade their military strength.

That is the reason why many Afghans who were cognizant of being badly compromised by giving their biometric scans to the US-backed Afghan government in the belief that they would remain secure, were the ones desperate to fly out of the country. The US evacuated about 1.3 lakh Afghans and US nationals; other countries also lifted about 50,000 people. Millions who remained are crossing into Pakistan, Iran or other countries.

The grave threat that the creation of such a biometric database presents to ordinary Afghans should worry democratic institutions in other countries. They should rethink this unquestioning submission to the seduction of technology to fight petty corruption by asking, What happens when the data falls into the wrong hands?

(The writer is Editor of the Delhi-based magazine, Hardnews)
With the BJP going all out to polarise voters along communal lines ahead of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections six months from now, and its rivals making every effort to counter the same with soft Hindutva, the state is headed for a fierce, no-holds-barred, multi-cornered electoral battle.

For UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, the hardcore Hindutva poster boy, the coming election is a question of political survival, and he has made it clear that his weapon to win it is communal polarisation.

The BJP leaders have been working on a two-pronged electoral strategy. While on the one hand, they have been showcasing the developmental works undertaken to renovate important Hindu religious sites in Chitrakoot, Varanasi, Prayagraj, Mathura as well as the building of the Ram temple in Ayodhya to keep their core vote bank in good humour, they have also been trying to send the message that their rivals had indulged in the politics of minority appeasement and that Muslims were given preferential treatment during previous regimes.

Prime minister Narendra Modis reference, at a rally in Aligarh, to the migration of several Hindu families from Kairana in Shamli district, allegedly following threats by Muslims, and Adityanaths Abba Jaan (father, in Urdu) remark to claim that Muslims got preference over Hindus in the distribution of rations, are only pointers to the kind of election campaign the state is set to witness.

Also read: Is 'abba jaan' an unparliamentary word, asks Yogi Adityanath

The BJP government in the state has also embarked on a name-changing spree in the hope of gaining electoral mileage, and it is expected that the names of around half a dozen districts will be changed, following demands by Hindutva outfits. So, Sultanpur may change to Kush Bhavanpur, Aligarh to Harigarh, Mainpuri to Mayanagar, Firozabad to Chandranagar, Mirzapur to Vindhya Dham, Agra to Agravan, and Muzaffarnagar to Laxminagar in the run-up to the polls.

The BJP is also trying to set its caste equations right before the polls by aligning with Apna Dal (AD), an outfit of the Kurmi community, which is a deciding factor in about 50 Assembly constituencies, especially in the eastern UP region. It is also trying desperately to hold on to Brahmin voters, who showed signs of resentment following allegations of persecution of the community under the Adityanath regime.

The ongoing farmers agitation is a concern for the BJP, which had swept the Jat land in the western UP region in the 2017 Assembly polls as well as in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Jats are angry with the BJP, though the latter is trying to persuade them not to desert the party... It will be interesting to see if the party manages to hold on to them, Gurubachan Singh, a Baghpat-based scribe, said.

The mismanagement of the second wave of Covid-19 is another headache for the BJP.

The Samajwadi Party (SP), which is the main opposition party in the state, has been trying to bring to its fold a section of the non-Yadav OBC voters in the hope that, coupled with the support of its core vote bank comprising Yadavs and Muslims, it will ensure a comfortable win for the party.

The SP has also entered into an electoral alliance with the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), which got a new lease of life from the ongoing farmers agitation against the new farm laws as the Jats, who are at the forefront of the agitation, have signalled that they may return to its fold to defeat the BJP. The BSP supremo Mayawati, whose party was rocked by desertions and expulsions, too is nurturing dreams of winning a large number of seats by once again weaving her social engineering formula -- bringing together Dalits and Brahmins.

The BSP, which had a committed support base of around 10% Dalits, organised a series of Prabuddh Sammelans for Brahmins, with the intention of bringing the community back into the BSP fold as it had done once.

Mayawati has also declared that she would focus on the development of the state instead of building memorials, parks and statues of herself and Dalit icons, as she had done in the past if her party is voted to power this time.

Struggling to remain politically relevant in the state, the Congress, under the leadership of party general secretary and state in-charge Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, has also been trying to strengthen its organisation and take up issues concerning the common people.

The Congress is going all out to make the forthcoming Assembly polls a four-cornered contest. It has also hinted that it may project a Brahmin face for the post of the chief minister, in an apparent bid to cash in on the perceived anger against the BJP in the community.

A few Congress leaders want Priyanka to be declared as the face of the party in the next polls. It is doubtful, however, that Priyanka will agree.

Political analysts also say that the election will be a three-cornered contest between the BJP, SP and BSP, though Congress may make it a four-cornered one in certain pockets.

The contest will be mainly between BJP and SP. The BSP may be better placed on seats with a sizeable Dalit population. Congress will also be in the fray in some pockets, according to political analyst J P Shukla.

AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi might queer the pitch for the opposition parties in Uttar Pradesh by causing a division of Muslim votes, which will only help the BJP.
A link between changes in the menstrual cycle and Covid-19 vaccination is plausible and should be investigated, according to an editorial published in the British Medical Journal on Thursday.

In the editorial, Victoria Male, a reproductive specialist at Imperial College London, UK noted that periods or unexpected vaginal bleeding are not listed as common side effects of Covid-19 vaccination.

Over 30,000 such reports had been made to the UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) surveillance scheme for adverse drug reactions by September 2, she said.

The expert, however, noted most people find that their period returns to normal the following cycle and, importantly, there is no evidence that Covid-19 vaccination adversely affects fertility.

Also read: Get vaccinated after periods: Health workers allegedly told menstruating women in north Karnataka

"One important lesson is that the effects of medical interventions on menstruation should not be an afterthought in future research," Male said.

MHRA states that its surveillance data does not support a link between changes to menstrual periods and Covid-19 vaccines, since the number of reports is low in relation to both the number of people vaccinated and the prevalence of menstrual disorders generally.

However, Male said the way in which data is collected makes firm conclusions difficult.

She argues in the editorial that approaches better equipped to compare rates of menstrual changes in vaccinated versus unvaccinated populations are needed.

Reports of menstrual changes after Covid-19 vaccination have been made for both mRNA and adenovirus-vectored vaccines, she said.

This suggest that, if there is a connection, it is likely to be a result of the immune response to vaccination, rather than to a specific vaccine component, Male said.

The editorial also noted that the menstrual cycle may be affected by the body's immune response to the virus itself, with one study showing menstrual disruption in around a quarter of women infected with SARS-CoV-2.

If a link between vaccination and menstrual changes is confirmed, this will allow individuals seeking vaccination to plan in advance for potentially altered cycles, she explained.

She suggests that doctors should encourage their patients to report any changes to periods or unexpected vaginal bleeding after vaccination to the MHRA's scheme.

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At least 19 workers were injured on Thursday in a blast in the refinery of Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) at Barauni in Bihar, officials said.

The incident took place at the furnace of the refinery's atmospheric vacuum unit at around 10.30 am, they said. Ankita Srivastava, corporate communication manager of IOCL said the injured workers were rushed to Barauni Refinery Hospital and a private hospital.

"All 19 injured workers are out of danger, said Srivastava adding five are employees of the refinery, while the rest are contractual workers.

The accident did not cause any financial loss to the refinery and a team of technical experts has been formed to ascertain the exact cause of the incident, she said.

The plant was shut down for a month. Work on getting it started was underway for the last two days. However, a unit suddenly exploded at around 10.30 am injuring the 19 workers," said Srivastava. Senior officials of the district administration also visited the spot, she said.

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A journalist of an Urdu daily 'The Daily Kausar' Mohammed Safdar Kaiser, was allegedly assaulted by the members of pro-Hindu organisations, during the protest rally staged by the Hindu Jagaran Samiti, near Kote Anjaneyaswamy Temple in Mysuru on Thursday.

The journalist was covering the event and recording the speech of pro-Hindu leader Jagadish Karanth when they suspected his intention and assaulted him, it is said.

Condemning the assault on the journalist, the Mysuru District Journalists Association has lodged a complaint with the Police Commissioner seeking protection to the journalists covering the events.

Members of various Hindu organisations, under the banner of Hindu Jagarana Vedike, took out a huge rally in Mysuru on Thursday condemning the BJP government and the district administration for the demolition of Hindu temples.

They raised slogans against the BJP government, Minister S T Somashekar, MLA S A Ramadass and other BJP leaders for failing to protect the temples.

As permission was not given for the rally, the protesters staged a protest near Kote Anjaneyaswamy Temple. The organisations sought action against all the officials, who were responsible for the demolition of the historic Mahadevamma Temple, that was built centuries ago at Uchagani village in Nanjangud taluk recently.

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Terming price rise as a "continuous process" JD(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy on Thursday urged the Karnataka government to announce a special financial package to those in distress, and announce relief to common man, who is finding it difficult to lead life.

He asked the government to use the revenue that was generated out of levying cess and taxes on petrol, diesel and others items, to come to the rescue of the people. "Price rise, according to me, is a continuous process.

Since independence, on several instances price rise has been inevitable to improve the financial condition of the government and to raise money for implementing programmes. Whichever party may be in power, it is natural," Kumaraswamy said.

Also read: Karnataka CM Bommai calls Subramanian Swamy a 'freelance politician'

Intervening during the debate on price rise in the legislature assembly, he said opposition parties protesting against price rise is also a continuous process in the democracy.

Kumaraswamy, during his speech highlighting the trouble faced by common man, especially the poorer section, said it is a double whammy for them with both price rise and Covid-19 pandemic.

"This is not the issue to be discussed in a partisan manner and to make allegations against one another to score political brownie points. We should rather look at what can be done to get relief to those in distress from the government in power," he said.

Asking Karnataka to become model for the entire country, Kumaraswamy urged the government to announce a special financial package and come to the rescue of poor and weaker sections.

"The government has got revenue from the cess, people have filled your coffers. Now the same people and farmers are in distress. Announce a special financial package for the poorer and weaker sections, who are struggling to lead life. Announce 25,000 each to about 55 lakh such families."

The former Chief Minister also conceded that populist schemes announced by the governments to reach out to the common man with election in mind, without knowing about its financial implications, has led to loss of taxpayers money at several instances.

"It is the duty of the government to rebuild the lives of the common man, the taxpayers who fill the coffers of the government and now are in distress," he said, as he advised the government to postpone the schemes, including the Amrit schemes announced it recently, by a year, and come to their rescue.

"I'm not saying the BJP government has to do it, it is our government, the government of the 6.5 crore Kannadigas, all of us have the responsibility. We are ready to give all the cooperation, kindly come to the rescue of the poor and those in distress," he said, adding that government should also come to the aid of small scale industries that have given jobs to lakhs of people.

Hitting out his old alliance partner and Congress leader Siddaramaiah, who on Wednesday had claimed that the government led by him had given 7 kgs free rice to poor, Kumaraswamy said Siddaramaiah in his last budget had announced 7 kg, but had kept money only for 5kg.

He said, "when I became the CM after the election, Siddaramaiah as the coalition partner of my government put pressure on me to give 7kg that he had promised, despite constraints. As the CM I had to implement it, but he (Siddaramaiah) is claiming credit for it."

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The City of Derry International Choir Festival is calling out to choirs across the world to join them in a Virtual Choral Trail.

Local, national and international choirs can get involved in the festivals line up by submitting a three-to-five minute video of their best performance by 30 September.

The videos will be aired online during the 5-day festival from 20-24 October.

20,000 people viewed the group's Virtual Choral Trail last year.

The virtual line-up has a host of performances including Grammy award-winners and exclusive global premiere performances.



The festival boasts a variety of music from sacred and spiritual to pop, jazz and funk.





There will be a mix of in-person and virtual events across the city.

The festival is also hopeful that choirs throughout the island of Ireland will return for a day of competitions in various categories coming together for the brand-new Choir of the Festival competition.

CoDICF is one of the leading choir festivals globally and the only event of its kind in the United Kingdom.

Introduced in 2020, the Virtual Choral Trail was part of the hugely successful and entirely digital programme of musical and choral events, featuring 40 choirs from 12 countries over six continents.

CoDICF Artistic Director, Donal Doherty, said: The Virtual Choral Trail is open to all choirs of any size, musical style and make-up from anywhere in the world and provides a unique opportunity to be a part of our sensational festival.

Last year we welcomed choirs from as far away as Colombia, Nigeria and Australia and this year we hope to have even more choirs involved from all corners of the globe.

Whether you are part of a professional choir, a workplace choir or community choir anywhere in the world, we encourage you to get involved and to share a performance that will be enjoyed by a global audience.



To submit a video for the 2021 Virtual Choral Trail visit: www.derrychoirfest.com/2021-festival/take-part

For more details on this years programme and events visit www.derrychoirfest.com
Derry City and Strabane District Council are calling for artists and community groups to submit their ideas for creating a piece of artwork or an activity to acknowledge the continued efforts of health workers and other frontline service staff during the pandemic.



Mayor of Derry City and Strabane District Council, Alderman Graham Warke, is eager to show the city and districts support to key service staff after a difficult 18 months.



The theme of the initiative is one of thanks; recognising the contribution and commitments that frontline service staff have made, and continue to make, whilst remembering the hardships and suffering the community has gone through.



Encouraging applications, Mayor Warke said he was looking forward to seeing a diverse range of ideas: We are seeking proposals that will link with the overall theme. It can be anything from an installation, an experience or an animation that will fit the message and also showcase the artist.



This is a hugely exciting project and one which I am really pleased to be involved with. I am looking forward to seeing what type of submissions we receive and to hopefully be in a position to announce details of the successful applicant later this year.



The budget for this initiative is from the mayors budget and is set at 3,000.



For further details of the specification and the selection criteria for the submission and to obtain an application form and more details please email mayor@derrystrabane.com.
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HEGARTY, Joseph James - 15th September 2021 (peacefully) at Altnagelvin Hospital, late of 42 Clonliffe Park, Culmore, Derry, beloved husband of Anne and dearly loved father of Joanne, respected father-in-law of Paul and loving grandfather of Beth, Luke and Mark. Will be deeply missed and fondly remembered by his family circle and his many friends and neighbours. House strictly private please. Family and friends are welcome to pay their respects at W J OBrien & Sons Funeral Home,110 Clooney Road, Eglinton, today (Thursday) from 7.00pm to 9.00pm. Requiem Mass will take place in the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Thornhill tomorrow (Friday) at 11.00am. Interment afterwards in St. Marys Cemetery, Ardmore. Family flowers only, please. Donations in lieu of flowers, if wished, to Cancer Research UK and Kidney Research UK, c/o W J OBrien & Sons Funeral Directors, 110 Clooney Road, Eglinton, BT47 3PU. Cheques should be made payable to W J OBrien & Son.

MILLIKEN, Matilda (Tillie) 15th September 2021(peacefully) at her own home surrounded by her loving family. Much loved wife of James, loving mother of Jim, Andrew and Anne,, dear mother-in-law of Margaret, devoted grandmother and great-grandmother of Claire, Lisa and Jeff, Rebecca, Ryan, Sam and Lauren. Family home private (195 Ballyquin Road, Limavady). Funeral service will be held in her son Andrew's home, 9 East Road, Limavady tomorrow (Friday) at 11.00am followed by burial in Enagh Cemetery, Sadly, due to the current pandemic funeral numbers will be restricted to practice social distancing. Family flowers only please. Donations, if desired, and cheques payable to Carrick Parish Church and forwarded to Brown's Funeral Directors, Limavady, Unit 21 Aghanloo Industrial Estate,, Aghanloo Road, Limavady BT49 0HE. Will be lovingly remembered and sadly missed by her entire family circle.

SINCLAIR, Isobel (Cavanreagh, Draperstown), 15th September 2021 (peacefully) at Antrim Area Hospital, dearly loved eldest daughter of the late Samuel and Violet and much loved sister of Hilary (Black), Anne, Sandra (Totten), Paula (Scott) and Maude (Fulton).. Funeral tomorrow (Friday) at 2.00pm from her late residence, 39

Cavanreagh Road, Draperstown. The cortege will travel along the Owenreagh Road to the Sixtowns Road and on to Draperstown Presbyterian Church for the Funeral Service Interment immediately afterwards in adjoining churchyard. Due to current Covid 19 government guidelines, the house is strictly private and due to social distancing, the Church attendance is by invite only, to family and close friends. Very deeply regretted by her loving sisters, brothers-in-law, nephews, nieces and extended family circle at home and abroad. Family Flowers only. Donations in lieu of Air Ambulance, c/o OKane Funeral Services, 39 Cahore Road, Draperstown.
Mallika Sherawat says directors & actors only cast their girlfriends in sequels, claims it's why she lost out on Welcome Back

Akshay Kumar and Katrina Kaif starrer ensemble comedy Welcome has achieved a cult status in Bollywood and each of its characters if fondly remembered. The film got a sequel in 2015 but many of the actors from the original werent a part of this Anees Bazmee project which starred John Abraham and Shruti Hassan in the lead.

Actress Mallika Sherawat was asked why she didnt sign up for the sequel Welcome Back after the blockbuster original of which she was a part along with Anil Kapoor and Nana Patekar. She pinned the blame of losing out on the project on the makers and said that when sequels of successful films are made, actors and filmmakers insert their girlfriends in the cast.

She told Pinkvilla, Welcome ka sequel banega toh director apni girlfriend ko hi dalega na usmein. Welcome 2 bana toh usmein apni girlfriend ko daal diya batao, ab main kya karun? (If a sequel of Welcome is made, then the director will only cast his girlfriend. When Welcome 2 was made, he cast his girlfriend in the film. What do I do now?)

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Mallika Sherawat (@mallikasherawat)

Mallika further said shes at a loss in such situations as shes never dated any actor or filmmaker in Bollywood and also claimed that it was because of this reason lost out on Welcome Back. When they make a sequel they cast their girlfriend, the hero casts his girlfriend, what do I do then? I dont have any boyfriend in Bollywood, I have never been with any actor, director or producer. With me like this is my work, if you think I am worthy of your project I would love to be a part of it. But if a director, or a producer or an actor - if they want to cast their girlfriends then it's their choice, she was quoted saying by the portal.

Mallika is now focused on her career on OTT and her latest outing on digital is the MX Player series Nakaab. The actress has seen her fair share of ups and downs in her career and has returned to acting only recently after a break.
Khufiya: Tabu to collaborate with director Vishal Bhardwaj again, film to also star Ali Fazal, Wamiqa Gabbi and Ashish Vidyarthi

After 'Haider', actor Tabu is all set to work with ace filmmaker Vishal Bhardwaj again in his new film 'Khufiya', which will release on Netflix. Based on an espionage novel 'Escape to Nowhere' by Amar Bhushan, 'Khufiya', a spy thriller, also stars Ali Fazal, Wamiqa Gabbi and Ashish Vidyarthi in pivotal roles.

Excited to reunite with Bhardwaj, Tabu took to her Instagram account and wrote, "Expect nothing but sheer thrill. Excited to announce my re-uniting with @vishalrbhardwaj for #Khufiya. Coming very soon on @netflix_in.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Tabu (@tabutiful)

"Khufiya is a one of a kind project, extremely close to my heart and I am excited to be a part of this gripping spy thriller. As always, it's a delight working with VB (Vishal Bhardwaj) again, and feels like homecoming," she added.

'Khufiya' is a story about Krishna Mehra, an R&AW operative who is assigned to track down India's defence secrets. With 'Khufiya', Bhardwaj is trying to create an "edgy espionage film that contrasts the slow burn of intelligence & surveillance work with one's deep-rooted emotional conflicts." Tabu and Vishal Bharadwaj had earlier collaborated for Haider. Apart from Khufiya, Tabu will be seen in Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 and would also share screen with an ensemble cast for Vishal Bhadarwaj's son, Aasmaan Bharwaj's debut directorial Kuttey.
Minister Byrne welcomes the publication of Eurofounds report on social factors

Press release

Ireland is more optimistic than any other EU country, and that optimism is a collective mood shared by practically the whole population. This finding was detailed in Eurofounds research report, Towards the future of Europe: Social factors shaping optimism and pessimism among citizens, published today.

Welcoming the publication of the report, Minister for European Affairs, Thomas Byrne T.D., emphasised the importance of this research:

The European Union faces many challenges that threaten the cohesion of the Union. We have seen a rise of populism across many Member States, which could undermine the European project. As a Union, we must be proactive in protecting against this. For that reason, research such as this, which looks at how citizens feel about the future, and what causes some to be pessimistic or optimistic, is so important. With this data we, as a collective union of 27-member states, can work together to address those issues.

I am heartened by the finding that Irish citizens are the most socially optimistic citizens in Europe.

The report concluded that citizens who feel their voice is being heard are more optimistic. Initiatives, such as the Conference on the Future of Europe, are instrumental in protecting and building support for the European Union. This bottom up project aims to give Europeans a greater say on what the EU does and how it works. I very much encourage people to get involved in this debate.

ENDS

Press Office

16 September 2021

Note to Editors

Established in 1975, the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, Eurofound, is a European Union agency with headquarters in Ireland, in Loughlinstown, Co Dublin. Eurofounds aim is to provide information, advice and expertise  on living and working conditions, industrial relations and managing change in Europe - to support the policy making activities of EU institutions, governments, employers and trade unions.

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On July 20, 2021, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard for ten breaches of state labour laws. This came after a two-year inquiry by the DFEH into the company's labour policies. Activision Blizzard "discriminated against female workers in terms and circumstances of employment, including salary, assignment, promotion, termination, constructive dismissal, and retaliation," according to a DFEH report dated June 24, 2021. Following the lawsuit, Activision Blizzard has lost three top designers who worked on Diablo 4 and World of Warcraft.

A workplace hostile to women, stemming from a toxic "frat house" culture.

Luis Barriga, the game director for Diablo 4, Jesse McCree, the lead designer for Diablo 4, and Jonathan LeCraft, the designer for World of Warcraft, are among them. The identities of the three developers have been deleted from Blizzard's internal directory and Slack, according to insiders. Another name included in the DFEH report includes a long time WoW developer, Alex Afrasiabi. Afrasiabi's sexual harassment history was so well-known that his BlizzCon hotel suite was dubbed the "Cosby Suite." It was said to be a booze-filled meeting spot where people, including Afrasiabi, would pose with an actual photo of Bill Cosby while smiling.

The firm could not provide an explanation for the new departures. However, two of the resignees, McCree and LeCraft were purportedly seen in photographs of the famed "Cosby Suite." This was the hotel room specifically cited in the DFEH lawsuit as the location where male workers allegedly harassed women at corporate functions.
RailSpur says first building is done

Once known as the F.X. McRory's building, now dubbed 419 Occidental, the freshly renovated offices and retail/restaurant space on the corner of South King Street is done and ready to lease, says developer Urban Villages, of Denver. That's Phase I of the three-building RailSpur development in Pioneer Square, which is owned by Manchester Capital Management. Urban Villages' Jon Buerge said in a statement, The delivery of 419 Occidental at RailSpur is a significant milestone toward the revitalization of Seattle's first neighborhood. This is an exciting opportunity for retailers and businesses. SHED Architecture & Design and Chinn Construction gut-renovated 419 Occidental, which is targeting LEED Platinum certification, and added a new eighth-floor penthouse. CBRE is brokering the office space, with about 77,000 square feet. The ground floor and basement, with about 15,202 square feet, are being marketed directly by Urban Villages, which had once contemplated a food hall there. Chinn is now underway on Phase II, with a 26-unit addition to the Art Deco-style Fisher Building, plus retail space at grade. Completion is expected late this year. Phase III will be the conversion of the former Westland Building, now offices, into a boutique hotel. All three buildings are connected by the improved mid-block alleys.




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SEATTLE  Blo Blow Dry Bar, the world's largest blow dry bar franchise, announced it has signed an agreement to expand the brand in the Northwest.

The state's first Blo Blow Dry Bar is slated to open at the Mill Creek Plaza at 16036 Bothell-Everett Hwy., Unit 19, by the end of the year.





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News

Natchez Trace paving project nearly completed

Thomas Wells | Daily Journal Motorists pass one of several closed ramp accesses to the Natchez Trace in Tupelo Monday. A 6-mile section of the road closed for repairs since mid-July should re-open before the end of the month. Thomas Wells | Daily Journal Workers can be seen building up the shoulders along the Natchez Trace Parkway earlier this week. The pavement preservation project closed the parkway to not just motor vehicles. Hikers and bicyclists also had to find alternate routes around the construction zone.

TUPELO  The roadwork that has kept a 6-mile stretch of the Natchez Trace Parkway near Tupelo closed for 8 weeks could be finished later this month.

The bad news: Crews will then close a second 6-mile section just to the north for another 10 weeks.

Officials for the parkway say the bulk of the paving and roadwork between Highway 6 and McCullough Boulevard is complete, and that stretch could be open within a couple of weeks, weather permitting. But the second phase of the project will then close the parkway from McCullough north to Highway 145, just past the NTP Visitor's Center.

The parkway closed the first section July 19 to mill and repair dilapidated sections, then to apply a new surface layer of asphalt. The stretch of road was plagued by sections of pavement coming loose and creating potholes. The damage was exacerbated by the two-week ice storm in February. A drought several years ago caused ripples in the road bed and sections of the shoulders to slough off.

Parkway civil engineer Jeremiah Glasz said the work is designed to preserve that current pavement, rather than deal with the major issues.

Instead of milling and overlaying the entire section of road, crews only milled sections that were extremely bad. That included several sections where they were forced to wedge and level. Glasz said that is where a thicker layer of asphalt is applied to an uneven section and then leveled. It sometimes leaves a wedge-shaped cross section of asphalt. Once the road base is leveled, the finish overlay is applied.

"There were a couple of rough areas where we are using wedge and leveling out to the shoulder," Glasz said, "In some places, we had to do some quick base repairs. There were tons of areas where the shoulders just seemed to drop off. In those areas, we are widening two feet to build up the shoulder."

Glasz said the paving on the first section is completed. This week, workers have been building up the shoulders in certain areas to bring it up to level. If that work is not delayed by rain, striping will begin next week,

"It doesn't take much rain to delay shoulder work. If that material gets wet, you have to wait for it to dry before you can resume," Glasz said. "The first section, we hope to be finished in a couple of weeks, weather permitting."

Officials originally estimated the first project would be completed by early October. If the weather cooperated and it can be completed by late September, it would give crews a leg up on the second part of the project.

"The second closed section from McCullough to just north of headquarters is scheduled to take two-and-a-half months," Glasz said. "We're hoping that will happen a little quicker. We hope to get done before the winter weather gets here."

The project will provide a much nicer surface to ride on. The potholes will be gone. The shoulder rutting, where cars have run off the road, will be filled or paved. And the washboard areas will be leveled out.

But this project won't deal with major issues in the roadbed or drainage along the parkway.

"In the future, we'll come back for those," Glasz said. "This project takes the existing surface and preserves it for a good 10-15 years  until a more extensive rehabilitation project can be funded."

In addition to paving the parkway, the project also includes paving all the pull-offs and parking areas along the way. Crews also built concrete ramps to improve the accessibility at the pull-offs, like Chickasaw Village and the Old Town Overlook, Glasz said.
Local Dundalk TD has labelled it madness to sign up to the CETA (Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement) between the EU and Canada, saying that the Investment Court System (ICS) would leave the state open to being sued by corporations.

Sinn Feins Ruairi O Murchu, who is a member of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on European Affairs, has said that the report on CETA compiled by the committee was split 50/50 among the members.

There is a 50/50 split between those who want it to be put to the Oireachtas and those, like myself and my colleague John Brady TD, who believe it would be madness to sign up to it, said Deputy O Murchu.

He said that the ICS would hamstring the state and open it to being sued by corporations.

The fear remains that if the State signs up to CETA, the ICS element would have the chilling effect on the basis that the State has left itself open to being sued because corporations have the legitimate expectation of profit.

If we want to introduce legislation for the public good, for example on climate

change or anything else, we certainly do not want it hampered by this.

Most of the trade related elements of CETA are already in operation but ratification would mean we would have to swallow the whole hog of ICS.

The controversial trade deal has previously been in focus, due to the Green Partys opposition to the deal before entering government, with the party accepting its ratification as part of the Programme for Government.

Deputy O Murchu said that there were deep concerns about the deal within the Oireachtas committee about the trade deal, despite hours of testimony from expert witnesses.

It would be madness to sign up to CETA and the debates in the Joint Committee, coupled with todays report, show there are deep and real concerns that have not been resolved even after hours of testimony from expert witnesses.
A local councillor has called on the government to instruct workplaces to stop using Covid Whatsapp groups as restrictions around office work are set to be eased later this month.

Fianna Fails John Sheridan has written to Tanaiste Leo Varadkar about the issue of workplace boundaries and peoples right to disconnect from work after they finish for the day or weekend.

Cllr Sheridan wrote to the Tanaiste, who has responsibility for businesses as Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, to replace temporary communication measures like Whatsapp groups with better, permanent communication systems.

At the start of the pandemic, many employers and employees set up WhatsApp groups for efficiency for everyone being at home. Obviously, at the time it was a very practical solution to a new problem of everyone working remotely, said Cllr Sheridan.

I believe as Covid restrictions wind down, Government should be saying to employers to end temporary measures like WhatsApp groups and replace them with a more permanent form of contact that isn't so intrusive on an employees' personal devices.

By giving this direction, it would also equally empower employees to raise it an issue with employers or their Unions under the right to switch off post-Covid."

The Right to Disconnect code of practice was published earlier this year by the Tanaistes department, but Cllr Sheridan says more needs to be done.

I have been speaking to some constituents who are concerned about their personal time being infringed by receiving unnecessary messages about both work matters and non-work related matters. In most cases this is on employee's personal phones.

I think employers, and indeed employees, need to seek to disband WhatsApp groups which did serve a purpose but in some cases result in work place boundaries being crossed.

Others have spoken of the frustration of receiving notification of a message into a work WhatsApp group on weekend night only to see it's another meme doing the rounds.

Cllr Sheridan said that the guidelines do have details about personal down time from work, but he believes they should be more detailed and meaningful.

Work/Life balance and mental health is very important, we all have a duty to understand and respect that.

He also called for more funding for eHubs in villages across Louth to allow people to work remotely in more rural areas as Ireland exits the pandemic and adapts to blended working.
An Irish MEP for Midlands North West has welcomed the 1bn in post-Brexit funding for Ireland and that the money should go to the border, where Brexit has hit hardest.

Sinn Feins Chris MacManus welcomed the 5bn Brexit Adjustment Reserve, of which 1bn is set to go to Ireland, and said that the funds should be focused on the border region due to the effect it has had.

The lions share must be directed to helping workers and business decimated by Brexit along the border and agencies such as the Northern and Western Regional Assembly need to have a central role in this regard, said Mr MacManus.

My message to the EU is that while this act of solidarity is appreciated Brexit is not a short-term problem and the structural issues it has created and exposed must also be tackled and that includes partition.

Mr MacManus also said that coastal and fishing communities have been hit particularly hard, due to cuts to the fishing quota caused by Brexit.

The outcome of this Brexit trade deal amounts to another cut to quota and income to our Irish fishing fleet that was already struggling to survive.

He also criticised the government for not providing greater financial supports and that they should be campaigning for burden-sharing around the issue of quota cuts.
New research has shown that around 7 in 10 people (72%) do not fully understand HPV (Human Papillomavirus), with only 4% of those surveyed correctly identifying HPV as extremely common in Ireland.

The new research launched this week was carried out by Behaviour and Attitudes on behalf of MSD Ireland polling a representative sample of over 1,000 people in Ireland to examine awareness and perceptions of HPV.

The survey was conducted ahead of this autumns National HPV Immunisation Programme in Ireland, which is offered to first-year boys and girls.

Even though most people will be infected with a form of HPV in their lifetime, the new research shows that over half (53%) believe that HPV is rare in Ireland.

Year on year, the general publics awareness of HPV highlights the need for information campaigns. A similar survey conducted in 2018 showed 87% of those surveyed said it was unlikely or impossible they have had or ever had HPV, in 2021 this figure stands at 78%. Only 1 in 5 people (22%) are aware that it is quite likely, very likely, or they know for sure that they themselves have contracted HPV in their lifetime.

While the new figures represent gradual growth in the understanding and prevalence of HPV year-on-year, increased awareness and education is still required among the general population. The World Health Organisation (WHO) recently launched a global initiative aimed at eliminating cervical cancer by 2030 by focussing on prevention through HPV vaccination and screening and treatment of pre-cancerous lesions. Greater awareness of HPV and its prevalence in Ireland are key, the Irish Cancer Society says.

The research was carried out ahead of this years HPV Aware campaign launched by MSD Ireland and supported by the Irish Cancer Society, the Marie Keating Foundation and CERVIVA. The campaign takes place every year ahead of parents nationwide receiving letters and information packs from the HSE, informing them of HPV and the schools immunisation programme.

Speaking about the new findings, Rachel Morrogh, Irish Cancer Society Director of Advocacy, said: It highlights that there is no room for complacency when it comes to peoples understanding of HPV and the cancers it can cause. Through amazing scientific breakthroughs and research, we are incredibly fortunate to have a vaccine that can prevent many HPV-related cancers and this is available, free of charge, to first year girls and boys each September.

"The Irish Cancer Society encourages all eligible boys and girls, and their families to become familiar with what HPV is, the cancers HPV can cause, the benefits of this vaccination and to seek out trusted information sources ahead of the vaccination roll-out in schools this month.

"We have it within our grasp to save more than 130 lives each year in Ireland. High vaccination rates is one essential aspect of eliminating HPV-related cancers and we must continue to work together and commit to a detailed roadmap that accelerates progress in eliminating these cancers in Ireland. With a target-based plan, Ireland can lead like other countries across the world in eliminating HPV-related cancers and diseases.

In Ireland, HPV infection caused up to 420 cancer cases in men and women each year between 2010 and 2014, with as many as 130 people dying in Ireland each year from HPV related cancers.

There are more than 100 different types of HPV, and most HPV infections have no symptoms and clear naturally. When HPV infection doesnt clear naturally, it becomes a problem as it could lead to certain HPV-related cancers in both men and women, such as anal cancer in men and cervical and anal cancers in women.

Building on the important role of public awareness campaigns, Bernie Carter, Assistant Director of Nursing Services from the Marie Keating Foundation said: Cervical cancer, which is predominantly caused by HPV, is a cancer that can be eliminated. The World Health Organisations drive to eliminate HPV-related cancers through a three pillar approach which includes prevention, screening and cancer management could reduce more than 40% of new cases of the disease and 5 million related deaths by 2050.

"No one intervention alone will be enough. According to the WHO 20202030 strategy, HPV-related cancers can be eliminated by countries who achieve 90% HPV vaccination coverage, 70% screening coverage, and 90% access to treatment for cervical pre-cancer and cancer, including access to palliative care. Cervical cancer is a preventable disease. It is also curable if detected early and adequately treated. Building awareness and supporting a return to access to healthcare and to routine HPV vaccinations can help support the WHOs ambitions to eradicate a cancer, let alone the fourth most common cancer among women globally.

CERVIVA spokesperson, Dr Cara Martin, assistant Professor in Molecular Pathology, Trinity College Dublin: Our clinical research group continues to develop and expand emerging research topics of interest to cancer screening and HPV associated diseases in Ireland. Whilst we have cervical screening for the early detection of changes in the cervix, there is no screening for other HPV-related cancers. The best chance we have of eliminating these cancers is to prevent the primary infection through vaccination. We would strongly encourage parents to get the facts and be HPV aware.

Dr Phil Kieran, GP, The COVID-19 outbreak has highlighted the significant contribution preventative health measures can have in stopping us from becoming ill with certain illnesses and diseases. The latest research shows that a large number of people still dont fully understand HPV, and this is something that doctors and pharmacists can easily address with parents, providing them with factual information and advice for their son or daughter.

"With children going back to school, first year parents will now receive consent forms relating to the vaccination of their children. As a doctor, a huge part of my role is to ensure the public receives clear and trustworthy information to allow them to better manage their health on a day to day basis. Talk to your Doctor about HPV and how it can impact your son or daughter, or just to find out more and grow your own knowledge of HPV.
A Bandon man accused of attempting to murder his mother had another case against him for allegedly stealing alcohol from a supermarket a week earlier and now a judge has found him mentally unfit to deal with the theft case.

Judge Helen Boyle made an order at Cork Circuit Criminal Court in the theft case to commit Gearoid Coughlan, 31, of Ballycoughlan, Innishannon, County Cork, to the Central Mental Hospital for a period of 14 days.

That committal was made on foot of evidence that the accused man was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and experiencing psychotic episodes.

Judge Boyle was told that the defendant faced two charges of theft of six cans of beer, and of five cans of beer and a bottle of gin, from Aldi in Dunmanway on May 28 and 29.

The judge was told that in respect of an alleged incident one week later on June 4 he was accused of attempting to murder his mother Mary Coughlan at her home in Bandon and that this attempted murder case had been sent forward to the Central Criminal Court.

In respect of the theft charges, defence barrister Jane Hyland submitted that the accused man was mentally unfit to plead guilty or not guilty to the theft charges. She said that he had only recently been sent to the CMH in Dundrum having spent more than two months in Cork Prison.

The matter came before Judge Boyle marked peremptorily against the state and she said she had to deal with the application to find the accused unfit to deal with the matter.

Ms Hyland BL called prison psychiatrist Dr Eugene Morgan who prepared three reports on the accused man while he was in Cork Prison. Gearoid Coughlan was remanded in custody to there on June 6.

Dr Morgan testified, This man appears to have chronic schizophrenia. Unfortunately, he also takes illicit drugs including head shop drugs  he consumes quantities of drugs and then gets quite psychotic.

"He has responded well to medication in the past but is extremely paranoid and has a complex delusionary pattern (about being attacked).

Referring to the defendant being in Cork Prison through the Summer and the failure to have him admitted sooner to the CMH, Dr Morgan said, The extreme delay in getting to the Central Mental Hospital in my opinion means that it will take longer to treat him and affect the prognosis.

Dr Morgan agreed with Ms Hyland that not alone was the accused man not fit to stand trial but he was not even in a fit state to attend court.

Judge Boyle said in the course of her decision to formally commit him to the CMH for 14 days, This man has an elaborate delusional system of being harassed and persecuted There was an extreme delay in getting him into the CMH - His recovery will take longer and it will be more difficult to treat him.

The judge then adjourned the matter for 14 days until September 29 at Cork Circuit Criminal Court.


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The magnitude to which retail stores recover when consumers fully adjust to post-pandemic routines may well hinge on the shopping experiences they offer, whether online or in-person.

Despite U.S. storefronts reopening, e-commerce is still seeing a surge in sales. To maintain retail success in 2021 retailers will need to continue optimizing their digital experience.

A new study of consumers in the U.S. and UK from customer experience management company Sitel Group shows that the majority of shoppers today view customer experience as one of the most important factors when making purchasing decisions.

Findings show that to survive in a post-Covid world retailers will need to make new investments in CX tools that provide instant customer engagement in order to maintain high sales in 2021.

Sitel Group in May announced that most brands recognize the benefits of building customer loyalty. But recognizing and acting on the fundamental drivers of customer loyalty can be a complex task. If not done correctly, it can lead to damaged reputations and negative perceptions among consumers.

The report found that one-third of consumers considered breaking up with a brand, while another 65 percent severed ties with sellers, as a result of a poor customer experience. The Sitel Group white paper, "Driving Customer Loyalty: Perception, Effort and Action" analyzed how product and service providers create loyalty and the key considerations for what consumers value.

Understanding what consumers value may be even more complex in a post-Covid economy as they have been forced to adapt how they interact with brands due to the pandemic.

How To Encourage Loyalty

Despite changes in communication, nearly all respondents (97 percent) believe retailers are working to deliver a positive customer experience. But, only 43 percent of all respondents agree this effort is making a tangible difference, meaning that 57 percent of customers believe brands still need to do more to align with their expectations.

"As we move into a post-pandemic environment, heightened competition for customer loyalty will create a greater emphasis on CX," said Martin Wilkinson-Brown, CMO, Sitel Group.

"The 2021 Driving Customer Loyalty white paper confirms the importance of positive customer experiences and the correlation to customer retention. Although our research found that customers trust that brands are working to deliver positive experiences, unless consumers see this translated into action, the effort to improve CX will fall flat," he explained.

For those curious about how to encourage customer loyalty, the report found that 42 percent of consumers said the perception that the brand offers good value for money is a top driver. This sentiment holds true across all age groups and demographics in the U.S. and UK.

Furthermore, the attributes customers most closely associated with a brand's commitment to the delivery of a positive customer experience are:

Helpful and friendly staff (69 percent)

Fast response to questions (53 percent)

An easy-to-use website (51 percent)

Across industries, geographies and genders, the goals must ensure they commit to a best-in-class CX geared towards driving customer loyalty.

Staunch Consumer Reaction

One of the most surprising takeaways from the Sitel Group's latest report is the voracity of consumer breakups with their former beloved brands. At the very start of this year, over one-third of consumers admitted they considered breaking up with a brand due to poor CX, according to Wilkinson-Brown.

"The majority of this group took action to sever ties with a brand, and many even posted a negative review to deter future customers from doing business with them. These are scary stats for retailers looking to recover in the highly competitive post-Covid-19 market," he told the CRM Buyer.

Interestingly, unfriendly staff (25 percent) and slow service (21 percent) were the top reasons consumers considered breaking up with a brand. Conversely, helpful staff is overwhelmingly the top attribute that consumers feel demonstrates a brand's commitment to a positive CX (69 percent).

"Brand loyalty depends on having knowledgeable and friendly workers -- whether in-store or through various customer support channels -- ready to help shoppers," he offered.

One of the most prevalent demands from consumers is more access to chat features. But e-tailers are often slow to respond or ignore that service completely.

Self-service technologies such as chatbots, messaging, and live chat are not necessarily new concepts for retailers, noted Wilkinson-Brown. Sitel's survey found that these tools a key component of CX, with two in five respondents -- along with nearly half of millennials -- agreeing.

"These tools provide the ability to quickly and effectively resolve issues without needing to move to another channel. Retailers must improve their websites or apps to become a portal to find necessary information and answers, and chat options are now a critical component of doing this effectively," Wilkinson-Brown said.

CX Determines Staying Power

Brands need to consider one of the biggest trends among consumer reactions, suggested Shelly Socol, co-founder and CEO of One Rockwell. That is expanding their overall customer experience when it comes to operations and customer service.

"Users are now expecting live chat on all sites, and free shipping / free returns on all purchases. They want their experience to be streamlined and as easy as possible. That's not to say they absolutely will not make a purchase without it, but if consumers are now expecting it, you do not want your lack of offering it to result in lost revenue," she told the CRM Buyer.

Another part of consumer staying power is "brand purpose." Brands need to stand for something in an honest and transparent way, whether that is donating proceeds to charities or changing their operations to be more sustainable.

"Consumers want to be a part of something 'good' -- and if they can feel they are when they are purchasing online, they are more likely to click that Buy Now button," Socol added.

Adding Perspective

Consumers are no longer doing business with brands solely because they enjoy their products or services, according to Sitel's Wilkinson-Brown.

"Today's shoppers are more intentional and demand customer experience improvements in return for their business and, in the long-term, their loyalty. To maintain success, retailers must invest in building strong customer relationships and this starts with creating top-notch shopper experiences," he told the CRM Buyer.

A clear majority of respondents (90 percent) said they will pay more for an identical product if it comes with a better customer experience. So it is clear that consumers are putting their money where their mouths are. They expect brands to do the same, he added.

In addition to the traditional cravings for friendly staff and simple websites, it is interesting to see some new CX facets bubble up in importance for consumers, he noted. For instance, consumers demand that brands commit to social causes.

More than one in four (27 percent) consumers say they are more likely to purchase from companies that are supporting causes that matter to them, and it is evident that corporate social responsibility efforts will continue to play a big role in consumers' purchasing and brand loyalty decisions, said Wilkinson-Brown.

"Striving for stellar CX should be a no-brainer for merchants in the post-Covid competitive retail space. So why are so many customers giving failing grades to their CX experiences?" he interjected.

What Consumers Want

Based on the survey, customers want brands to hire and train helpful workers, ensure quick responses to customer service questions, and offer an easy-to-navigate website. These must-have attributes lay the foundation for a stellar CX that drives long-term loyalty, he responded.

"However, there are also more technical features that are rising up to the top of CX must-have lists, especially for younger generations of shoppers. From live chat support (40 percent) to technology investments (29 percent) and even strong social media presence (22 percent), shoppers are starting to expect retailers to adopt new tools and take a digital-first approach to CX," advised Wilkinson-Brown.

In a nutshell, customers believe brands still need to do more to align with their expectations. Poor CX is hurting customer loyalty. A significant 65 percent have already severed ties after a bad experience.

Today's consumers want the best value for their money, with 42 percent citing this as the top driver for brand loyalty.

"The pandemic also proved to the retail market that the future of shopping is not just about e-commerce alone. It is about a merging of digital and in-store experiences, as shoppers crave the simple and safe aspects of e-commerce with the instant gratification of brick-and-mortar shops," noted Wilkinson-Brown.

Closing Thoughts

The pandemic forced retailers to innovate at an unprecedented pace, and 2021 promises another year of transition and change. Companies that rise to the challenge and institute organization-wide changes will gain the agility and intelligence to help their brands outlast the uncertainties of the moment, observed Durk Stelter, chief revenue officer of Linc.

"By combining the power of AI with human insights, retailers can guide customers through increasing complexity, fostering strong customer relationships, and winning lasting loyalty while providing a best-in-class customer experience," he told the CRM Buyer.

The overall volume of online customer service interactions has jumped significantly. It is likely to stabilize at higher levels than in the pre-pandemic era, Stelter predicted.

Jack M. Germain has been an ECT News Network reporter since 2003. His main areas of focus are enterprise IT, Linux and open-source technologies. He is an esteemed reviewer of Linux distros and other open-source software. In addition, Jack extensively covers business technology and privacy issues, as well as developments in e-commerce and consumer electronics. Email Jack.




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Intuit on Monday announced an agreement to acquire Mailchimp, a global customer engagement and marketing platform for small and mid-market businesses, for $12 billion in cash and stock advances. The purchase could be the linchpin that thrusts the mostly financial software company into solving more fertile mid-market business challenges for its customers.,

The planned acquisition is part of Intuit's mission to become an AI-driven expert platform. With the acquisition of Mailchimp, Intuit will accelerate two of its previously-shared strategic big bets: to become the center of small business growth and to disrupt the small business mid-market, said the company in its announcement.

Intuit's acquisition of Mailchimp sends a great message to all entrepreneurs around the globe that venture capital is not always necessary, observed Michael Kawula, co-founder of CBA, a marketing agency for YouTube monetization. Mailchimp is a bootstrapped success story that has not raised any outside venture capital.

"This is a very clever growth strategy for Intuit, who wants to get in front of SMBs, which is difficult and expensive. Similar to HubSpot's recent purchase of The Hustle newsletter, a much smaller acquisition, this also is brilliant," he told the E-Commerce Times.

The acquisition marks a significant impact in industry, according to Osiris Parikh, sales marketing manager at Lilius. He also sees the deal as another reminder that email marketing is not dead -- and data is power.

"Intuit has made a strong move to broaden its portfolio and become a leader in catering to the needs of SMBs. It is also a great story of success during Covid-19," he told the E-Commerce Times.

Deal Basics

Intuit provides a global technology platform that makes TurboTax, QuickBooks, Mint, and Credit Karma. Intuit and Mailchimp will offer an innovative, end-to-end customer growth platform that allows customers to get their business online. It will also enable them to manage marketing, customer relationships, payment processes, and access insights and analytics, along with optimizing their cash flow and staying compliant with experts at their fingertips, according to Intuit.

Key to this process is Intuit's ability to enable businesses to combine their customer data from Mailchimp and QuickBooks' purchase data to get the actionable insights they need to grow and run their businesses with confidence.

"We're focused on powering prosperity around the world for consumers and small businesses. Together, Mailchimp and QuickBooks will help solve small and mid-market businesses' biggest barriers to growth, getting and retaining customers," said Sasan Goodarzi, CEO of Intuit.

Mailchimp brings to Intuit technology at scale along with global customer reach.

Founded in Atlanta, in 2001, Mailchimp began by offering email marketing solutions. The company evolved into offering customer engagement and marketing automation processes fueled by an AI-driven technology stack. Mailchimp's data and technology spans 70 billion contacts and more than 250 rich partner integrations. Its AI-powered automation at scale fuels 2.2 million daily predictions.

"Over the past two decades, we have vastly expanded and evolved Mailchimp's platform to help millions of small businesses around the world start and grow," said Ben Chestnut, CEO and co-founder of Mailchimp.

Why Mailchimp's Worth It

While the email marketing sector is pretty crowded, Mailchimp stands out in terms of size and scope. The company reportedly has 13 million total global users, 2.4 million active monthly users, and 800,000 paid customers, noted Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT.

"Plus, half of its customers are outside of the U.S. Additionally, while people tend to focus on the mass/might of large enterprises, small businesses are really the heart and soul of most economies," he told the E-Commerce Times.

The acquisition likely represents a lucrative opportunity for Intuit to integrate Mailchimp data with QuickBooks and provide greater analytical capabilities to customers. The synthesis of financial and marketing data in this case provides valuable and actionable insights about an organization's clients, added Lilus' Parikh.

"It's also a great diversification of offerings to centralize SMB operations through one platform and benefit from Mailchimp's established user base," he said.

Another supporting factor for Intuit's interest in Mailchimp is the renewed stature of email, according to Elice Max, co-owner of EMUCoupon and someone who has been involved in online marketing for eight years.

"Email marketing has made a comeback in recent years. With increased digitization caused by the pandemic, all digital mediums including email have gained a renewed importance," she told the E-Commerce Times.

Email Marketing's Resurgence

Technology giants are looking to build more integrated and holistic solutions. Microsoft recently bought Clipchamp, a video production tool. Both companies are looking to build platforms for the new tech-savvy SMBs, Max Suggested.

"More than anything, it means a renewed confidence in the field. Experts have been talking about the death of email marketing for a while now. But a $12 billion acquisition by a big player like Intuit means email promotion is alive and kicking," she said.

Another factor is Intuit keeping its eye on the ball. It is important to remember the significance of Mailchimp as the pioneer in marketing automation and email marketing in particular.

"Intuit is looking to make a statement that it wants to become more than a financial software company," Max observed.

QuickBooks Synergies

One of the motivations that lies behind Intuit's purchase of Mailchimp is its desire to lead a revolution in the CRM capabilities of SMBs, according to Will Ward, CEO of Translation Equipment HQ . Think about the effect the pandemic has had on the popularity of remote work and the amount of remote SMBs being established.

"You would expect there to be a lot of growth potential here in the next few years. With Mailchimp and QuickBooks, Intuit is providing an end-to-end customer growth platform, and with around $20 billion invested already its belief in SMBs is evident," Ward told the E-Commerce Times.

Like any other system that handles transactions such as orders and payments, you need to work closer to the actual customer channels. With the Intuit e-commerce product, launched about a year ago, this seems like a natural step by adding marketing automation and reaching out with its e-commerce offering to the MailChimp customer base, suggested Johan Liljeros, general manager and senior commerce advisor, North America for Avensia.

"The acquisition has added synergies between the platforms while still being able to operate as independent platforms. Looking at Intuit's offerings, it appears they are moving towards expanding [into] digital transactional experience," he told the E-Commerce Times.

Final Thoughts

Email marketers should be ready for disruption along with other business services providers. Intuit has been both savvy and aggressive in the way it built its business, effectively becoming the 800-pound gorilla of small business accounting and tax solutions, according to Pund-IT's King.

"With that kind of ally behind Mailchimp, life is going to become a whole lot more 'interesting' for other email marketers," he predicted.

The Intuit-Mailchimp deal should offer Intuit customers significant benefits, such as new solutions and services for bolstering their businesses. At the same time, the deal highlights the fact that old technologies can continue to be vital and dynamic.

"For years, many have claimed that email is dead or dying and quickly being replaced by whatever the tech du jour happens to be. Mailchimp -- and now Intuit -- beg to differ," King quipped.

Jack M. Germain has been an ECT News Network reporter since 2003. His main areas of focus are enterprise IT, Linux and open-source technologies. He is an esteemed reviewer of Linux distros and other open-source software. In addition, Jack extensively covers business technology and privacy issues, as well as developments in e-commerce and consumer electronics. Email Jack.


Hugo Boss, Etam among Canopy recruits

VANCOUVER  Environmental non-profit Canopy has announced that a cohort of 14 fashion brands and innovators, including luxury label Hugo Boss and retailer Etam, have joined its CanopyStyle and Pack4Good initiatives.

The signatories commit to protecting ancient and endangered forests while scaling up their use of next generation alternatives.

We are so encouraged and inspired to work with these leading brands and innovators who are doubling down to build supply chains for the 21st century and ensure that the worlds forests remain vibrant, said Canopys executive director, Nicole Rycroft.
Last call for Manx Telecom's It's Our Community applications

Manx Telecom is reminding charities and good causes that the closing date for applications for the annual Its Our Community scheme is midnight on Thursday 30th September.



Now in its 13th year, Its Our Community offers a funding opportunity of between 100 and 1,000 for projects that support or enhance communities on the Isle of Man. Over 100,000 has been donated over the years to a wide range of groups and organisations involved in all aspects of Island life.

A total of 19 grants were awarded last year, from smaller sums for first aid and play equipment for local Scout and Brownie groups up to a 1,000 grant to St Christophers Isle of Man to help young people into employment. Other recipients included The Ramsey & District Beekeepers Association who obtained a grant for repurposing their storage shed and Disability Networks who were able to use the funds towards the purchase of a beach wheelchair.



Commenting on the scheme Manx Telecom CEO Gary Lamb said, As an Island-based company with predominantly Manx customers and Manx employees, we have a firm commitment to improving the lives and well-being of those with whom we live and work. Its Our Community is one important strand of that approach.



We know that the last year has been very tough on charities and good causes, with fewer fundraising opportunities and, in many cases, lots more demand for services and support. We have left the Its Our Community scheme deliberately broad in its scope so that as many different projects as possible can benefit, whether they be grassroots organisations or bigger charitable operations.



Id like to encourage anyone who has a funding need for a community project to apply so that we can offer a really diverse and inclusive reach across society.
FlyDirect to offer flights from the Isle of Man to Majorca

People will be able to fly direct from the Isle of Man to Majorca next summer.

Tour operator FlyDirect will run the service every Saturday between 4 June and 17 September.

Flights will leave the Isle of Man and fly direct to Palma Airport in Majorca. This new service means that islanders will be able to travel abroad without the inconvenience of stopping off at a UK airport.

C. I. Travel Group Managing Director Robert Mackenzie said, We are really excited to announce the expansion of our services to the Isle of Man. Flights and holidays will be available to book online, and were thrilled to be using our near 40 years of experience in the travel industry to offer residents something new. Islanders can feel secure knowing that theyre travelling with a regulated and well-established provider with extensive experience of providing exceptional customer service.

To operate the flights, Fly Direct is partnering with BA CityFlyer, a subsidiary of British Airways. The new route will enhance the islands connectivity and offer customers the opportunity to fly on an Embraer 190 jet aircraft, with flights scheduled to take just under three hours.

Flights will go on sale next month.
Ford's electric F-150 Lightning is clearly in high demand, and the company is determined to keep up. The automaker has paired news of pre-production work with a promise to invest an extra $250 million and create 450 new jobs to increase production capacity. That should help Ford build 80,000 Lightning trucks per year  little comfort when the company now has 150,000 reservations, but the move should reduce wait times.

Most of the jobs will go to workers assembling the electric F-150 at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn, Michigan, while others will build more batteries at the Rawsonville Components Plant and motors at the Van Dyke Electric Powertrain Center. The first trucks should be available in spring 2022.

The production numbers won't compete with conventional trucks for a while. As Autoweek observed, Ford averaged sales of about 900,000 regular F-150 trucks per year before the pandemic and chip shortages came into play. While the Lightning may be more than a niche product, it's not yet at the point where Ford would have to reconsider its conventional truck production.

There's also a certain amount of posturing involved with the news. Ford is clearly eager to please a government promoting made-in-America EVs. However, it's still a recognition of pent-up demand for electric pickups, both from Ford and from the industry as a whole. Not that Ford might have much choice. With Rivian already producing its first trucks, Ford risks losing sales to competitors if it doesn't ramp up manufacturing.
With R1T trucks rolling off the assembly line at its factory in Normal, Illinois, Rivian continues to prepare for the official debut of its first EVs later this month. On Thursday, the automaker introduced a membership program that will grant Rivian owners access to complimentary charging at its soon-to-be-built Adventure Network and Waypoints chargers. It also pledged to match every mile Rivian Membership customers drive with energy from renewable resources such as wind and solar, as well as offer unlimited access to 4G LTE connectivity.

Were introducing Rivian Membership as a way to build our community and encourage a deeper appreciation for the natural world around us. pic.twitter.com/2e0yJjjQ7L  Rivian (@Rivian) September 16, 2021

Additionally, the service includes Rivian off-Roadside Assistance, additional coverage that will see the company send a recovery vehicle to you if you get stuck out on the trail or need an emergency battery recharge. The company also promised to add additional perks in the future, including new drive modes, community meetups and in-cabin content. Each new Rivian vehicle will come with 12 months of free access to the service. After that, youll need to pay to continue enjoying the perks of the membership. The company hasnt said how much it plans to charge for the service, so weve reached out to it for more information.
WhatsApp already allows you to chat with businesses, but you may soon also have the ability to find them through the app as well. This week, the company started testing a directory feature that allows users to scan through local shops and services that have a presence on WhatsApp and contact them. The tool is currently only available in Sao Paulo, Brazil, but a screenshot shared by Will Cathcart, the head of WhatsApp, shows that you can use the feature to sort businesses by category and how close they are to you.

Matt Idema, vice president of business messaging at Facebook, told Reuters the test involves thousands of shops and services. He added the company is likely to make the feature available in India and Indonesia next. Based on feedback from the people who try it over the next few months, well look at expanding this service to other cities and other types of businesses available on WhatsApp, Cathcart said separately on Twitter.

While its best known as an app you use to chat with your friends and family, WhatsApp has increasingly pushed into the e-commerce space. Since 2018, it has offered a separate app for businesses to use to communicate with their customers. More recently, its gone out of its way to make it easier for people to shop directly from WhatsApp. At times, that hasnt always worked out for the company, as was the case when it changed its privacy policy earlier in the year. On that note, Cathcart said WhatsApp wont log the location of a user or the businesses they browse when using the directory feature.
If Kate Middleton feels hurt that her in-laws, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, now living in America oceans away from the palace, are being mocked for landing the cover of Time magazine, it's hard to say.

The Duchess of Cambridge, 39 was seen smiling and laughing while on royal duty, hours after her in-laws were named as two of the 100 most influential people on the planet and for Radar Online, this could mean she's also subtly mocking the two and actually enjoying the backlash against Harry and Meghan.

Middleton appeared to be in a good humor when she arrived at RAF Brize Norton on Tuesday, her first public appearance since detractors mocked Harry and Meghan's most powerful title. If she's in any way pissed that people dare ridicule Harry and Meghan, it's not showing. Her smile was simply too big as she went about her duties in her classy outfit consisting of white shirt, beige blazer, navy blue trousers.

Memes abound the moment Time unveiled the cover on Tuesday, showing the Duke and Duchess of Sussex being front and center, declared as "the most influential."

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Many harped on the idea as being the falsest they have ever read, while others noticed how in this photo, Harry appears to be hiding behind Markle, as reported by Page Six. "Wow, this photo speaks volumes. There is no hiding who's in control," one person wrote.

Rumors have been swirling for years that Markle has Harry wrapped around her finger and that the decision to leave his royal family duties were decided upon by Meghan.

Meanwhile, apart from having some netizens disagree (violently) to the idea that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are influential people, some also took notice of the two's photo and said it was heavily airbrushed.

It was a fair assumption to make because they both have weirdly glowing smooth skin without any hints of pores and blemishes, creepy bright eyes and, in Harry's case, fuller hair. People doubt that they actually look like that in person. Naturally, they did not stop at mere noticing, netizens also flocked to Twitter to share their thoughts on the alleged retouching and mock the two further.

"The airbrush is doing some heavy lifting there," one person tweeted. Others were harsher. "The cover looks so fake... oh wait it's because they are," one even said. "Is Harry wearing a rug? Or just overdone the air brushing?" wondered one user, who focused on the Prince's fuller hair.

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Princess Charlene's stay in South Africa has been extended due to the existence of a mysterious illness.

Multiple reports confirmed earlier this month that Princess Charlene suffered from a medical emergency that caused her to be rushed to a hospital. She was later admitted due to the severity of her condition.

Meanwhile, Express UK said that she was confined to the Netcare Alberlito Hospital under a fake name to protect her privacy.

Although her condition was not disclosed at that time, a statement revealed that the royal princess collapsed due to complications from the severe ear, nose, and throat infection.

"Her medical team is currently evaluating her but have confirmed the princess is stable," the statement went on.

In addition, it has been disclosed since the beginning that the princess underwent surgery last spring and suffered complications from it. It then caused complications to her ear, nose, and throat that most recently required her to undergo a four-hour surgery.

Unfortunately, the sinus infection kept her from home since her ears would not "equalize" during her flight.

She then revealed that she would be staying in South Africa until October, as reported by ET Canada.

The Latest: Is Princess Charlene Really Sick?

Despite those clarifications, rumors about Princess Charlene and Prince Albert II's alleged split continuously swirled.

However, the royal prince debunked the claims and told People that his wife only visited the country to reassess her Foundation's work in the country. He refuted that the travel was supposed to be a weeklong only, not until the princess suffered from medical complications.

There was also a buzz that arose about his wife's alleged voluntary exiled.

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"Misreading events is always detrimental. ... We're an easy target, easily hit, because we're in the public eye a lot," he went on.

Divorce talks also came to the spotlight, alleging that Princess Charlene no longer comes home due to their split. French royal commentator Stephane Bern also wrote that the two are on the verge of separating.

The Mirror noted that it began as the public never saw each other since January - two months before Princess Charlene jetted to South Africa for her conservation trip.

Still, Prince Albert called these reports absurd before assuring she was ready to come home - before the princess suffered from the recent medical emergency.

READ MORE: Princess Diana's BBC Interview NOT Valid For Criminal Investigation, Authorities Explains Why
Madelyn Cline and Chase Stokes' relationship is under the microscope as fans begin to investigate if they've called it quits or not.

The two actors gained attention through their starring roles in the "Outer Banks" hit drama series as Sarah Cameron and John B. The on-screen couple garnered even more fans after developing a real-life romantic relationship.

The transition from their character's chemistry on set to confirming that they're officially dating by posting their date night on the beach over on Madelyn's Instagram has been dubbed as "relationship goals" by many of their supporters.

However, there are rumors currently circulating social media that the pair are no longer together, which resulted in chaos within the "Outer Banks" fandom.

Madelyn and Chase: A Trending Twitter Topic

Speculations about the state of Madelyn and Chase's relationship had begun on Twitter as unidentified users began claiming the two are going through issues in their relationship.

Soon after that, fans started spreading a suspicious screenshot of an email addressing Chase's cheating allegations. According to this article, the letter's content was related to a girl that the actor met and flirted with at a party.

isso aconteceu algumas semanas atras. Meus amigos foram convidados para uma pos festa e nos conhecemos Chase Stokes e o amigo dele. Nao reconhecemos ele de primeira e nao assistimos a serie mas eu presumo que ele nao esteja mais namorando a Madelyn Cline desde que ele ficou + pic.twitter.com/MXrhQv2f9t  gio (@hidalgoswife) September 16, 2021

Another source also claimed that the actress decided to switch lanes and leave Stokes for a "hot," "funny," "amazing," woman. However, the photos and "reliable sources" are not considered evidence to prove if Stokes and Cline did end things.

Additionally, no official statement has been released as the couple has yet to confirm these allegations.

READ ALSO: Gabrielle Union Reveals She Was Forced to Consider Doing THIS or Let Go of Cheating Husband Dwayne Wade

Fans React to the Breakup

There are two kinds of people in the "Outer Banks" fandom. One that plays around saying, "Madelyn and Chase breaking up and it's his bday [tomorrow]" and another who takes the joke too far like this person who tweeted the Kris-Jenner-Gun reaction video saying, "If Chase Stokes broke Madelyn Cline's heart...."

if chase stokes broke madelyn clines heart. pic.twitter.com/mP7uALJj6F   (@NlKLANTSOV) September 16, 2021



"Why is everyone saying Madelyn and Chase broke up WHAT," exclaimed a suspicious fan who attached a meme-worthy photo of a dog seemingly raising an eyebrow at the news.

why is everyone saying madelyn and chase broke up WHAT pic.twitter.com/YbYTt6Qlce   (@htpsoul) September 15, 2021

One fan joked that the actor and actress' chemistry in the series' next season will probably "look like Ian [Somerhalder] and Nina [Dobrev's] chemistry in the last season of [The Vampire Diaries]."

chase and madelyns chemistry in the next season of obx bout to look like ian and ninas chemistry in the last season of tvd pic.twitter.com/LFcfd21qL3  cai de haan (@bonniesdiaries) September 15, 2021



Meanwhile, someone pointed out that no matter what happens, the couple's on-screen relationship still exists, "Chase and Madelyn said that if they broke up they were still [going to] act professional on set so I don't think 'Jarah' is bones."

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On Thursday, a judge ruled that Prince Philip's will be kept secret. There is no other reason than the fact that this is a royal will and therefore, cannot be treated as like any other regular will - to protect the Queen and the other members of the family.

The legal document should be kept secret, according to Judge Andrew McFarlane, in order to safeguard the "dignity" of his widow, Queen Elizabeth II, who is Britain's head of state.

After more than seven decades of marriage to the queen, Philip died in April at the age of 99. Wills are normally open to the public in the United Kingdom, although it has been common for over a century for the wills of senior royals to be sealed on the High Court's order.

Philip's will should be sealed for 90 years, according to Judge McFarlane. After that, it can be read in secret before deciding whether or not it should be released.

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"I have held that, because of the constitutional position of the Sovereign, it is appropriate to have a special practice in relation to royal wills," McFarlane said in a written judgment. "There is a need to enhance the protection afforded to truly private aspects of the lives of this limited group of individuals in order to maintain the dignity of the Sovereign and close members of her family."

While the judge makes it seem that the contents of the will can be disastrous for the dignity of the Queen when made public, the judge stated that he had neither seen the will or been informed of its contents.

McFarlane stated he is the keeper of a safe containing 30 envelopes, each carrying the sealed will of a deceased royal, including the late Queen Mother Elizabeth and the present queen's sister, Princess Margaret, as president of the High Court's family division. Both passed away in 2002.

In the years that followed, Robert Brown, a man who claimed to be Margaret's illegitimate son, tried unsuccessfully in court to get both wills opened so that he could seek evidence for his claim.

While there is "public curiosity" in royal wills, according to the court, "there is no legitimate public interest in the public knowing this completely private material." The decision was made during a closed-door court session in July. The press was not authorized to make a case for the will's publication.

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2021-09-16

Maeci

Italy's extraordinary natural heritage has received two new and prestigious recognitions from UNESCO. This afternoon, the 33rd Session of the International Coordinating Council of UNESCO's 'Man and the Biosphere' Programme (ICC-MAB) decreed the recognition and inclusion of the 'Monte Grappa' site in the World Network of Biosphere Reserves, bringing the number of registered Italian Biosphere Reserves to 20, as well as the extension of the 'Appennino Tosco Emiliano' Reserve, already a part of the Network since 2015.

The Network of Biosphere Reserves includes protected areas of great natural value, in which innovative models of sustainable development are tested, with the aim of promoting a balanced relationship between human activities and the protection of ecosystems and biodiversity, and with the involvement of all the local actors, both public and private. More than 700 sites in 130 countries are currently part of the Network.

The Foreign Ministry expresses its full satisfaction with these important results, the result of decades of work that has rewarded the work of numerous national and local institutions. The recognition of the 'Monte Grappa' Reserve and the extension of the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines Reserve also confirm the need to step up the efforts aimed at combating the effects of climate change and promote an increasingly balanced relationship between man and the environment.
2021-09-16

Maeci

The Italian Consulate General in La Plata, in collaboration with Intercoop Editora Cooperativa, has held a presentation, in virtual format, of the book Learning about Cooperation! A journey into the heart of cooperation.

The book promotes a pathway for cooperation which, beginning from primary school, can help build collaborative projects in the classroom. The presentation was attended by the Consul General of Italy in La Plata, Filippo Romano, and the President of Cooperatives of the Americas (ICA Americas) Graciela Fernandez Quintas, as well as Federazione Trentina della Cooperazione.

For more information and to download the book click here.
2021-09-16

Maeci

In the context of the Italy - UK partnership for the organization of COP26 (Glasgow, 1st -12th November 2021), on 14th September the Embassy of Italy in Pretoria hosted, at the Residence of the Italian Ambassador Paolo Cuculi, the seminar Towards Milan and Glasgow, voices of South African Youths before COP26, organized in collaboration with the British High Commission and the think tank South African Institute of International Affairs.





The event provided for the opportunity to hear, and better understand, the opinions of the three university students (Sandisile Mkhonza, Sibusiso Mazomba and Koaile Monaheng) who will represent South Africa and Lesotho at the Youth4Climate Conference, to be held in Milan from 28th until 30th September, at the end of which 400 young activists will be able to forward concrete proposals to fight climate change to the Ministers participating to the Milan preparatory meeting of COP26, Pre-COP.

Introducing the discussions, Ambassador Cuculi underlined the absolute relevance for Italy of young generations as crucial stakeholders in climate diplomacy, and the very innovative approach of Youth4Climate. In light of the alarming picture provided for in the latest UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, it is necessary for the International Community to undertake ambitious commitments to reach climate neutrality and net zero emission by 2050  continued Ambassador Cuculi  recalling the action put in place by our Country, both domestically and in the multilateral fora, concerning Italian G20 Presidencys priorities: environment, fight against climate change, energetic transition and green finance.

To fully involve young people in climate-change related policy making; to define an African agenda on climate and energy able to combine innovation and local traditions; to raise awareness on local communities that are more vulnerable and exposed to extreme events, such as drought, desertification and floods; to promote renewable sources while outdoing inefficient and polluting systems still based on coal-fired power plants; to support the use of new sustainable finance instruments, such as green bonds: these are some of the most interesting ideas which came up during the young activists presentations and the animated discussion that followed, which ended with the participants common appreciation for Italys choice to put young generations at the core of the international debate and of the process leading to COP26.
RAUBLING, Germany and LYON, France, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- PharmaZell, the German producer of highly resilient and specialty APIs, and France-based Novasep, a leading CDMO focused on complex small molecules and ADCs have entered into exclusive negotiations to create a leading European platform in the attractive API manufacturing and CDMO space with a complementary set of differentiated technologies and highly diversified base of blue-chip pharma and biotech customers.

Novasep is a leading CDMO player developing and manufacturing complex small molecules predominantly for pharma and biotech customers. The company leverages a wide range of differentiated technologies including high energy and cryogenic chemistries and industrial scale chromatography. It is a world leader in ADC and HPAPI, fast-growing targeted cancer therapy segments.

Novasep's capabilities are highly complementary to PharmaZell's expertise in the manufacturing of complex APIs requiring special handling procedures or technologies. Combining the two businesses would create a leading, highly diversified, and highly differentiated API manufacturing and CDMO platform. The combined business would be able to draw from a comprehensive and broad technology suite for complex molecules and a global production footprint to support pharma and biotech customers over the complete lifecycle of a drug. The combined business would generate nearly 500m of revenues and employ close to 2,000 employees across seven production and R&D sites in Europe (Germany, France and Italy), two sites in India and one in the US.

The proposed transaction would be backed by PharmaZell's current majority shareholder Bridgepoint. Bridgepoint Group PLC is the world's leading quoted private assets growth investor focused on the middle-market with 27 billion AUM and a local presence in the US, Europe and China.

The proposed acquisition remains subject to the fulfilment of customary conditions precedent for this type of transaction including the information and consultation of works councils and other regulatory approvals.

The Press release is available in pdf.

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1628012/Novasep_PharmaZell.jpg Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1628011/Novasep_Passion_Smart_Processes_Logo.jpg PDF - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1628027/PharmaZell_Novasep_ENG.pdf

Contact details: press@novasep.com
Since 2010 - when the first hot tub rolled off the production line in Dabas, Hungary - Wellis has been making efforts every day to ensure that its hot tubs meet the highest standards of quality.



The family business turned into a large company

During the past few years, the family business has grown into a large enterprise employing more than 1000 persons, while managing to retain its family-like character. In addition, thanks to its committed team, Wellis has since provided over 50,000 families with Hungarian hot tubs.

Major milestones

The Hungarian company had major milestones every 5 years: its own private brand in 2005, the construction of the first manufacturing hall in 2010, then the second in 2015. Until now over 5,000 tubs rolled off the manufacturing lines every year. Brand recognition has grown significantly from year to year and the production capacity reached 15,000 pieces per year. The construction of a new manufacturing unit has become absolutely necessary.

A new manufacturing area of 29,000 m

October 2020 meant another step in the history of the company. Increasing its capacity in Ozd, Hungary with a manufacturing area of 29,000 m, ensures employment for a further 800 persons! The project had been implemented within the framework of a 24 million EUR investment, with non-refundable financing of 8 million EUR provided by the government.

The new production hall is equipped with high-tech from Western Europe, to ensure the most modern methods of hot tub production.

The new production hall

At the new site opened in 2021, Wellis provides high-quality job opportunities to over 800 new colleagues, which ensures the livelihood of additional 4,000 persons! In this way, the Hungarian company will be working with its 1,500 employees at the manufacturing units in Dabas and Ozd in the future to manufacture -- as one of the top producers in the world -- as many as 70,000 hot tubs annually. Currently (September 2021) 300 of its highly trained colleagues are working with the latest robot technology in the new factory. Beyond the borders of Europe, Wellis already represents the Hungarian brand in the United States -the homeland of hot tubs- and aims to become one of the leader manufacturers in the world.
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As CPS Energy works on a plan to raise its rates, some San Antonio business leaders are saying an increase  the utilitys first in eight years  is probably overdue.

Any kind of rate increase presents a challenge for everyone. But you have to understand we, the city, own this utility, and weve got to operate it at a level that will work for us, said Berto Guerra, CEO of Avanzar Interior Technologies, a manufacturer that supplies parts for Toyotas South Side factory. If you compare us to other cities, were some of the lowest costs. So even with a rate increase, well still be very competitive.

He spoke after hearing top executives of city-owned CPS and the San Antonio Water System discuss rates and their utilities preparedness for the coming winter after Februarys storm devastated their abilities to serve customers. They spoke Wednesday at a downtown forum organized by the North San Antonio Chamber of Commerce.

The storm, which left broad swaths of the city without power and water, was a situation I think we learned a whole lot from, said Robert Puente, president and CEO of SAWS. Every single month, on our board agenda, will be a report to our board and to the community as to what were doing to meet the recommendations to prevent another winter calamity.

On ExpressNews.com: Looking for savings, CPS trustees take aim at utility's STEP energy conservation programs

Paula Gold-Williams, CEO of CPS, said costs stemming from the storm  including about $1 billion in unexpected charges for natural gas and electricity  were only a part of the reason for a rate increase. The utility has cut costs to hold off the move, but CPS is now down to cutting bone, she said.

The utilitys officials have said the drivers of the rate increase request, which would go to City Council for approval later this year, are rising costs to attract and retain employees and for materials such as steel and copper. Beyond the escalating costs of expanding to keep up with city growth, CPS has been hit with roughly $120 million that customers owe the utility in past-due bills since it suspended power disconnections during the pandemic.

Weve built up such a backlog and withstood such pressure in terms of keeping the company going while we dont get as many payments, Gold-Williams said at the luncheon. If we dont get a rate increase, it will have a compounding effect.

Ratepayers will likely see their bills increase by about 10 percent, or $10 to $15 per month for residential customers.

In 2019, residential customers paid CPS 10.7 cents per kilowatt hour of power they consumed, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, which publishes data on every U.S. power company.

Among nearly 300 U.S. utilities with at least 50,000 residential customers, the average household paid 12.9 cents per kilowatt hour in 2019  nearly 19 percent more per unit of power than CPS customers.

Commercial ratepayers in San Antonio, meanwhile, paid 8.8 cents per unit of power in 2019. That was nearly 18 percent less than the average power price among all major U.S. utilities, according to the EIA.

Businesses, theyre not complaining a whole lot, because (the rate increase) really is not huge, said Cristina Alderete, president and CEO of the North San Antonio Chamber. CPS staffers are trying to do whatever they can to make sure that it is small.

On ExpressNews.com: SAWS service disconnections averted as board OK's further COVID relief measures

Higher power bills will likely hit residential residential customers harder than businesses, Alderete said, adding that she thought most small businesses in San Antonio could manage paying higher electric bills.

Theyre realizing this is a necessary part of their business, she said. CPS was already, before (the pandemic and winter storm), looking at a rate increase, since we hadnt had one in so long.

While CPS has not officially requested the increase, the utility will likely present to City Council sometime in the next couple of months. Gold-Williams said CPS would have a firmer grasp on exactly how much the utility needs to raise its rates by the end of this month.

For many business owners, the employer vaccination mandate being implemented by the Biden administration has been in focus more than the rate increase, said Richard Perez, CEO of the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce. He said the Chamber will likely decide next week whether or not to support the rate hike.

Still, Perez said it seemed to make sense.

The initial presentation they made on the need for a rate increase seemed like it was all logical: for cybersecurity, because the cost of goods have gone up, winter storm Uri costs, Perez said. It seemed reasonable.

diego.mendoza-moyers@express-news.net
Heres a look at whats new or notable in home video. Movies and TV series are available on streaming sites such as iTunes, Amazon and Vudu unless otherwise noted.

The Suicide Squad: Warner Bros. handed the keys to its supervillain franchise to Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn, who took it for a joyride. Bizarrely powered characters  Weasel, The Detachable Kid  are treated very badly. John Cena strips down to his tighty-whities. Countless rats go to town on a freaky monster.

Gunn does so much damage to the Suicide Squad that they may not ever work again, but the movies fun while it lasts.

Available to buy or rent Friday on digital platforms after being released in theaters and on HBO Max.

On ExpressNews.com: Black Widow now available to watch at home

Warner Bros.

New  Family

Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog: The Mystery Machine pulls up in the mysterious town of Nowhere, Kan., in this original animated movie, a historic meeting of two scaredy-dogs, Scooby-Doo and Courage.

Scooby you probably know. Courage was the star of a Comedy Central horror series that ran for four seasons starting in 1999. Each week he overcame his fears to save his owners from aliens and other threats.

Together in this movie, they face giant cicadas and carnivorous furniture in an adventure thats closer in spirit to silly Scooby-Doo  though it does get intense and insane for a stretch when Courage takes charge.

Now available to rent and buy on digital platforms; also on DVD.

Also: All four seasons of Courage the Cowardly Dog are streaming on HBO Max.

HBO

Notable  Binge watch

Mare of Easttown: Kate Winslet could win her second Emmy Award on Sunday for the HBO Miniseries Mare of Easttown. Set is a a small Pennsylvania town, she plays a police detective whose investigation of a young womans murder is complicated by the fact that she knows many of the suspects, including her ex-husband and a deacon at the church.

Its a problem. Outside of work, though, everything is also awful, but Mare carries on.

Season one streaming on HBO Max and now available on DVD and Blu-ray.

Also streaming New movie "The Voyeurs": Sydney Sweeney, so good in supporting roles in series such as "Sharp Objects" and "The White Lotus," stars in this steamy thriller that's like Hitchcock's "Rear Window" but with a lot of sex. Streaming now on Amazon Prime. Recent movie "On Chesil Beach": Saoirse Ronan and Billy Howle star in this adaptation of Ian McEwan's novel about anxious honeymooners. Streaming now on Hulu. Vintage movies "The Bride of Frankenstein": Peacock has added more than a dozen Universal monster movies to its lineup ahead of Halloween. The one to start with is this unforgettable "Frankenstein" sequel starring Elsa Lanchester as the monster's intended bride. It's safe to say she is not impressed with her suitor. Streaming now onPeacock. "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly": Clint Eastwood, whose new movie "Cry Macho" is out Friday, stars in Sergio Leone's iconic 1968 spaghetti Western about the search for a cache of stolen gold. Streaming now on HBO Max. Vintage TV "Saved by the Bell": With the well-regarded reboot between seasons on Peacock, why not go back to Bayside High School with Zack, Jessie, Screech and friends? Seasons 1-9 streaming now on Netflix. See More Collapse

jkiest@express-news.net | Twitter: @en_salife
Alison Giese is an interior designer who specializes in kitchens. So when she and her husband Benjamin purchased a 90-year-old Olmos Park home after moving from Virginia last year, that was naturally the room that drew most of her attention.

Built in the early 1930s by H.C. Thorman, an early developer of Olmos Park, the four-bedroom, 3 -bath, stone-fronted home was in good shape.

It had been well-maintained, and other than the kitchen, anything else weve done has been style preferences, she said. That included painting the interiors, refinishing the original red oak floors and, their current project, redoing the bathroom used by their three school-age daughters.

The kitchen, however, became her laboratory, a place where she tested design ideas before offering them to clients.

I also needed to make the kitchen feel more like us, she said. To make it more casual and approachable, less formal and stuffy. Thats our aesthetic.

Recently completed, the two-month, $60,000 kitchen renovation transformed the room into an airy, open and modern space that nonetheless has several Old World design touches. The work would have cost more and taken longer, Giese noted, except they kept the appliance, including a Monogram range, built-in KitchenAid refrigerator and Bosch dishwasher.

On ExpressNews.com: Full renovation of this midcentury ranch home in San Antonios Northwood brought down walls and brought in charm

Still, the changes they did make totally transformed the room. Before, the countertops were dark, and dark absorbs light, she said. But once we changed out the kitchen fixtures, the cabinet hardware and the lighting, I think the room just sort of glows now.

Richard A. Marini /Staff

At the center of that glow is the new 4-by-6-foot island with a white, honed marble countertop shot through with thick veins of gray, gold and rust. She wasnt daunted by marbles reputation for being too porous and scratching and staining easily, so she also used it on the backsplash and to frame all three kitchen windows.

The Italians dont worry about scratches and wine stains, and neither do the French, she said with a smile. Thats how we enjoy life, right? I went into it eyes wide open, knowing that marble is a living stone. My goal is never to have perfection.

She wanted textured, bone-colored subway tile on the wall above the backsplash, but she wanted to try to make it look less new. So she instructed the installers to not use spacers, so that the space between tiles would be slightly irregular  on purpose.

They looked at me like I was a crazy lady, she said. The result is a casual, handmade look, like something youd see in the courtyard of a centuries-old Italian ristorante.

She also tested the idea of highlighting the border between the walls and ceiling by flipping the color palette and painting the walls bone and the crown molding a darker taupe.

Jessica Phelps /Staff photographer

The darker colored molding really stands out against the lighter wall, she said. Its the reverse of what you usually see.

Over the stove theres a large vent hood in a style that Giese refuses to describe as farmhouse. I would call it more Old World, she corrects.

On ExpressNews.com: From cookie-cutter to custom: How a San Antonio couple upgraded their builder-grade tract home

They covered the existing wooden hood with foam formed to create the desired size and shape. Next, they sealed it with a type of stucco cement and then applied a plaster finish.

Using foam this way gives you a lot of options, she said. Especially the way the vent hood curves.

What really makes the kitchen pop, however is the colorful floor. It looks like redondo tile but is actually the original wood floor thats been painted with colors chosen by Giese.

It was painted with a five-part stencil, with each layer a different color, she said. She liked the technique because it gives the room a San Antonio feel without having to tear up the entire floor. And because they used paint, it can easily be sanded off if they ever want a different look.

Because the couple moved to San Antonio in the midst of the pandemic, they havent yet had the opportunity to make many friends, although they do have family in the area. Giese said she likes to cook, and that once things return to normal, she hopes to use the newly renovated kitchen to entertain.

Note: This story has been updated to correct the price of the kitchen renovation. It cost $60,000.

rmarini@express-news.net | Twitter: @RichardMarini
Seven people were arrested after the Bexar County Sheriff's Office on Wednesday raided two illegal gambling operations on the Northeast Side, Sheriff Javier Salazar said during a news conference.

The sheriff said deputies found at least 65 machines operating at the two locations  one at 6367 Montgomery Drive and the other at 6613 Lakeview Drive. Authorities believe the two locations, which are less than 5 miles apart, are linked.

The sheriff's office began an investigation after they received a tip that the businesses had been operating for several months.

On ExpressNews.com: Man arrested in connection with 1993 killing of San Antonio teenager

On Wednesday, BCSO SWAT teams executed search warrants at both locations simultaneously based on the undercover investigators' observations.

Forty machines were found at the Montgomery location and another 25 are believed to be at the Lakeview location, Salazar said. According to the sheriff, there was cash found at the Montgomery location but he did not know the amount.

Salazar said the two locations had a "single-minded purpose" and were solely used as gambling operations with only the machines and a small snack table.

Deputies arrested three people at the Lakeview site and four people at the Montgomery operation, including at least two uniformed security guards who were working at the time. Salazar said they were hired from a private security firm and were both licensed and armed.

The seven arrested are facing misdemeanor charges of promotion of gambling. The patrons found inside the locations were all cited, Salazar said.

Salazar said the Bexar County Fire Marshal's Office is also investigating to determine whether the businesses had any code violations, which would allow authorities to shut them down.

The sheriff said these type of operations finance organize crime and attracts criminals, adding that illegal gambling sites prey on older citizens with fixed incomes conned into hoping they get rich quick.

taylor.pettaway@express-news.net
Texas Department of Public Safety

A 50-year-old Brazoria man accused of killing a San Antonio teenager 28 years ago was arrested last week at his home by a U.S. Marshals Service task force, the Texas Department of Public Safety said.

According to DPS, Thomas Ray Galindo revealed information during a reopening of the investigation that led to his arrest in connection with the death of 15-year-old Emily Jeanette Garcia, who was found dead and naked on Feb. 25, 1993, near Cranes Mill Road and Canyon Lake in Comal County.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands  Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister Sigrid Kaag has resigned after the lower house of parliament passed a motion of censure against the government over its handling of evacuations from Afghanistan amid the Taliban takeover of the country.

In a parliamentary debate on Wednesday night, Kaag acknowledged that the governments slow or muddled response to warnings about the situation in Afghanistan meant some local staff members and people who had worked as translators for Dutch troops during their deployment in the country had not been evacuated before or after the Talibans swift sweep to power.

After parliament passed the motion of censure on Thursday, Kaag immediately said she would tender her resignation, saying that parliament had decided that the Cabinet has acted irresponsibly.

I can only accept the consequences of this judgment as the minister with ultimate responsibility, she added.

___

MORE ON AFGHANISTAN:

 Afghan killed by drone praised by co-workers in US aid group

 Friction among Taliban pragmatists, hard-liners intensifies

 Iran resumes commercial flights to Afghanistan

 Indiana Marine killed in Afghanistan remembered as hero

 AP Interview: UN refugee chief says Afghan stability needed

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HERES WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:

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ISLAMABAD  Pakistans interior minister has assured the U.N. refugee agency that his country will continue to provide humanitarian assistance to Afghan people.

Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told visiting U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi on Thursday that no new Afghan refugees had entered Pakistan since the Taliban took control in neighboring Afghanistan last month.

According to a government statement, Ahmed said Pakistan has sent trucks carrying food for the Afghan people to help try to avoid a humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. It said Grandi thanked Pakistan for hosting 3 million Afghan refugees in recent decades.

Since the Taliban toppled Afghanistans U.S.-backed government Aug. 15, Pakistan has urged the world community to speed up efforts to avoid a humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan.

Pakistan says it cannot host any more Afghan refugees for several reasons, including financial constraints.

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PRISTINA, Kosovo  The British Embassy in Kosovo says a number of Afghans working with NATO and evacuated from their country after the Taliban takeover last month will be relocated to Britain.

A statement from the embassy says: 117 NATO affiliated Afghan evacuees are being relocated to the UK from Kosovo.

Over 800 evacuated Afghans working with NATO in their country have been temporarily sheltered in Kosovo since the end of August.

Around 2,000 former NATO contractors and their families were evacuated from Afghanistan, according to the embassy, adding that the country has committed to relocate around 150 NATO affiliated Afghans.

Kosovo has said it will temporarily house about 2,000 Afghans.

___

BEIJING  China says it will attend a virtual meeting of Central and South Asian state leaders to discuss the situation in Afghanistan.

The meeting of members of the China and Russia dominated Shanghai Cooperation Organization is scheduled for Thursday and hosted by Tajikistan. Afghanistan is an observer member of the grouping, but it wasnt clear if any representatives from the Taliban leadership would be attending.

China hasnt said whether it will recognize the new Afghan authorities who have excluded outside parties and women, although it has courted its leadership and kept its Kabul Embassy open.

The government and state media have accused the United States of destabilizing Afghanistan through what it calls a hasty and chaotic withdrawal of its troops, even as the Taliban swiftly overcame Afghan government forces over recent weeks.

China has used the Shanghai Cooperation to boost its standing in Central Asia through political dialogue and joint military exercises, aimed largely at diminishing U.S. influence in the region.

Beijing has also called on the Taliban to hold to its pledge to restrain militants seeking independence for the traditionally Muslim northwestern region of Xinjiang, Foreign Minister Wang Yi has urged the group to keep border crossings open, while offering $31 million in humanitarian assistance, along with 3 million doses of Chinese-made COVID-19 vaccines.
Thomas Fellows and his team from Colorado came to San Antonio recently looking for pedophiles.

They arent police officers. One is a photographer. Another is a mother with a part-time cleaning job. They and other volunteers help Fellows look for suspected child predators. Theyre driven by a belief that police and districts attorneys either dont take the problem seriously enough or dont have the necessary resources.

The Bexar County District Attorneys Office wasnt pleased to learn of their presence here and said in a statement, We strongly discourage citizens from taking these matters into their own hand.

Fellows and his associates were undeterred, and during a four-day visit to San Antonio, they confronted three men they believe are threats to children, based on undercover operations in which the group used online decoys posing as kids.

Fellows group, the nonprofit Colorado Ped Patrol, encourages its targets to seek counseling before it calls the police. During the groups recent mission in San Antonio, members summoned police to the home of one suspected predator and gave officers evidence they had collected on that man and two others. No arrests were made.

Fellows, 39, who owns a window washing business in Denver, founded the nonprofit in May. He and his volunteers search for child predators online. The group said it doesnt initiate contact; its decoys wait for men to reveal their bad intentions.

Ped Patrol preserves online chat logs as evidence. When it confronts suspected predators, it livestreams the encounters on its YouTube channel. The nonprofit is supported entirely by donations.

We are not about violence, Fellows said. We do not want these guys getting hurt. We want them to get help or go to jail for what theyve done.

Like an intervention

One of the groups stops in San Antonio was an apartment complex on the North Side.

A man who lived there had propositioned a Ped Patrol volunteer posing as a 13-year-old.

While corresponding online with the girl, the man had displayed a stash of guns and counterfeit money. He claimed to have killed before and asked the girl whether she would do anything for him, including killing his wife, according to Ped Patrols chat logs.

The decoy was Celeste Hilton, 34, a Ped Patrol volunteer and stay-at-home mother of four.

Hilton said she was victimized by a predator when she was 12. The man lured, groomed, assaulted and abused her over several years, she said. When confronting predators, she shares aloud memories of her trauma.

I dont mind telling predators my thoughts. They need to know, Hilton said. Its like an intervention.

Robin Jerstad /

The San Antonio man began communicating with her online in May.

After verifying his identity, Hilton arranged to meet him at a downtown hotel for what he apparently believed would be a sexual liaison with a 13-year-old.

The man canceled the rendezvous, however, saying he was out of town. So the Ped Patrol team of four, plus three local supporters, went to his North Side apartment in a two-story complex with a gated pool and canopy-shaded parking with numbered spots.

A woman who identified herself as his wife answered the door. The man was lying on a sectional sofa in the dimly lit apartment. He claimed to be ill and on morphine.

Fellows livestreamed the entire encounter on YouTube, methodically describing the evidence from the chat log. He encouraged the man to seek counseling. The man refused.

Fellows shared jokes with viewers and periodically thanked people who were donating money  mostly in $5 and $10 amounts  via Youtube.

Finally, the team called police.

The responding officers interviewed the man but did not make an arrest.

They told Fellows they had confiscated the mans phone and that the departments vice unit would take it from there.

Fellows was disappointed.

Theres so many kids here. Its a big apartment complex, he said.

The mission begins

For Fellows, Ped Patrols mission is personal. His son was molested almost eight years ago by his former brother-in-law.

Fellows anger grew when he learned that his sons assailant was to receive a six-year prison term. He said he fought for a longer sentence.

The perpetrator, Shaun Gonyea, ultimately was sentenced to 20 years for sexual misconduct with a minor, according to the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry.

It motivated me to do something like this, Fellows said.

Initially, his goal was to get people into therapy, which he proposed to the first 40 or so people he confronted, he said.

I thought, Maybe we can get help and they can be fixed, Fellows said. I did a lot of research and eventually found out that they cant be fixed because a lot of em dont want to be.

Robin Jerstad /

Of that initial group of people, he said, two agreed to seek therapy and send him weekly updates about their recovery  both are on their 12th step. Still, he keeps evidence on them in case they backslide.

Fellows began calling police more often after an officer asked: Who are you to say who goes to jail or not?

I said, I dont know who should be in jail and who should not, Fellows said.

Operation San Antonio

Many of the people Ped Patrol confronts are willing to talk with Fellows and his supporters. Others stay quiet and run.

Both scenarios unfolded during the visit to San Antonio.

One man, who identified himself to Ped Patrol as a private music teacher in Bexar and Wilson counties, had arranged a liaison with a decoy at a downtown hotel. When the four-person crew confronted him near the Bexar County Courthouse, the man talked about bringing his wifes sex toy to his planned meetup, and he revealed that he had child pornography.

He called his wife and told her what he was doing at the hotel before heading home.

In another incident, the team confronted a man who had told a Ped Patrol decoy that he wanted to inject a 13-year-old girl with methamphetamine. The team confronted the man downtown, as he walked to what he thought would be a meetup with a teenage girl.

He refused to answer their questions, ran to his vehicle and drove away.

Robin Jerstad /

Fellows said he gave San Antonio police Ped Patrols evidence on both men.

Authorities take notice

The Bexar County District Attorneys Office visited Fellows hotel while he was in San Antonio, but he wasnt there. Fellows said officials later asked him to stop confronting suspects and said they would handle any further encounters his group had arranged.

Fellows said that when Ped Patrol has tried to work through law enforcement rather than conduct its own investigations, an arrest typically is not made for six to eight months. They worry that the alleged pedophiles will find other victims in the meantime.

That could be 10, 30 people, Fellows said.

The District Attorneys Office said it takes seriously the crimes that Ped Patrol pursues and works closely with legitimate law enforcement agencies.

The office cited a case this month in which it assisted the Texas Attorney Generals Office and Olmos Park Police in an operation that led to seven arrests on suspicion of online solicitation of a minor.

I do want to change the way police do this, Fellows said. It takes time. They watch our cases. They build a little rapport with us.  At least they (SAPD) did spend a lot time out here.

Robin Jerstad /

Charlotte Berry, 25, one of the three local supporters who accompanied Fellows to the North Side apartment complex, said she hoped his brief presence in San Antonio would push law enforcement to focus more on child predators.

I saw some of the live catches that he had already done, and Ive been hooked ever since, her husband, Nathan Berry, said of Fellows. Just to see his mission of what hes really trying to do, Ive been supportive 100 percent.

jbeltran@express-news.net
The City Council passed a $3.1 billion spending plan Thursday for fiscal 2022 after a long, sometimes emotional debate about cuts in spending to provide tax relief for property owners.

The budget, around $141 million more than this years, is the largest in San Antonio history. It goes into effect Oct. 1.

Councilman Mario Bravo abstained from voting on the budget and property tax rate, and Councilman Clayton Perry supported the budget but cast a single dissenting vote against keeping the tax rate at 55.8 cents per $100 of valuation.

Property taxes have soared along with home prices in recent years, putting pressure on the city and county to cut taxes. Bexar County commissioners had voted Tuesday to reduce the countys tax rate from 30.1 cents to 29.99 cents per $100. Although that will only save an average homeowner about $4 in next years tax bill, Perry said it could be a first step toward meaningful relief for people who have limited means and are struggling to pay taxes during the pandemic.

We should be taking the lead on a lot of these issues and working with these other taxing authorities to see about offering more relief through lower tax rates or exemptions, Perry said, adding the city should show the way to everybody else, so that we can make it more meaningful.

On ExpressNews.com: Record $3.1 billion budget awaits council vote

But despite the laments and a heckler who Mayor Ron Nirenberg threatened to have removed from the council chambers, Perry and Bravo praised City Manager Erik Walsh and his staff for a budget with innovations and expanded services, such as a new illegal dumping cleanup crew, 24-hour animal care staffing, resiliency for major weather events and stronger public health initiatives, to name a few.

Some noted the citys designation of a new March 31 holiday to observe the birthday of labor leader Cesar E. Chavez, a champion of farm workers rights, as a sign of progress.

A 3.2 percent increase in the citys police budget has been criticized by some residents and a few council members. But Walsh said the overall public safety budget, at nearly $860 million, is 63.5 percent of the general fund  the lowest its been since the city set a threshold of 66 percent seven years ago.

Nirenberg told reporters after the council vote that the staff did a good job of finding ways to accommodate growth in a city of 1.5 million people, while maintaining services.

We want to achieve a balance so that building a safe community, where people feel safe in our city, is not just dependent on policing services, the mayor said.

Prior to 2015, we had a structurally imbalanced budget that was bleeding, frankly like a stuck pig, with regard to the revenues that were eaten up by public safety, he added. Now, we have a structurally balanced budget that is able to grow at the rate of the growth of the city.

Perry and Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez offered separate proposals to decrease the budget by $5.7 million, to reduce the property tax rate by about a half-cent.

Perry sought elimination of an allocation in the general fund for VIA Metropolitan Transit. McKee-Rodriguez, who has opposed adding more police officers, presented a request to scale back the increase in the police budget. The proposals failed.

Councilwoman Phyllis Viagran, who represents the Southeast Side, cited data on domestic violence in explaining her opposition to the police budget change. If McKee-Rodriguezs proposal had passed, it might have eliminated three downtown bike patrol positions and 12 officers for the citys community policing program, and reduced a $14 million police overtime budget by $3.9 million.

As long as we have tragic murders that make the news in the southern sector, in my district, I cannot support anything that threatens the safety of my residents and of the women of San Antonio, Viagran said during more than three hours of budget discussion.

The council also voted down a proposal by Bravo to use reserves to fund a program to help homeowners apply for homestead, elderly and disability tax exemptions and assist them with property appraisal protests. After his motion failed, he said he regretted there were not more opportunities for changes prior to the budget vote.

I expect a robust public discussion over whether this proposed budget accurately reflects the communitys priorities and whether its a responsible use of taxpayer dollars. And we cant do that in just 15 minutes, Bravo, who took office in June, said during the meeting.

I was asking for good governance. I was asking for us to invest in cost-saving measures, he added. I feel like the process favors a business-as-usual budget, and thats what we got.

The budget has a $1.36 billion general fund to support basic city services; $1.12 billion in restricted funds for airport operations, development services and other uses; and nearly $600 million in capital funds supporting airport projects and 2017 bond projects.

Revenues supporting the general fund will come from $410 million in property taxes, about $360 million from CPS Energy, $336 million from sales taxes, $221 million in other revenues and $30 million from the federal American Rescue Plan Act.

Aside from public safety, general fund expenditures include $104.6 million for streets and infrastructure, $54.2 million for parks and $340.7 million for other city departments.

On ExpressNews.com: Police spending, merit raises debated for fiscal 22 city budget

The city budgeted a nearly 5 percent increase in the general fund over 2021, based on a projected 14 percent increase in sales taxes, a 3 percent rise in property tax revenues and a 2.8 percent increase in income from CPS Energy.

One last-minute change to the budget redirected $50,000 from crime prevention programs to provide separate $25,000 grants to two nonprofits that requested money during a budget town hall meeting for their youth-oriented anti-crime programs on the East Side.

Bennie Price, CEO of Big Mamas Safe House, thanked the council Thursday for awarding one of the grants to his program and encouraged the city to bolster similar efforts citywide.

We stand with the city and its residents of San Antonio, Price said.

shuddleston@express-news.net
The City Council will vote Thursday on a record $3.1 billion city budget for fiscal 2022, including several last-minute adjustments to make up for funding requests and lower-than-expected revenue this summer from CPS Energy.

Some capital projects among $57.6 million in unfunded budget requests could be included in a $1.2 billion bond issue next May. Or the city could pony up money from $326 million in federal stimulus funds to be spent by 2026, City Manager Erik Walsh said.

The city has received 38 requests for increased operating expenses, totaling $50.9 million, and 10 requests for capital projects at $6.7 million. The council will begin discussing the bond issue Sept. 29, and will resume talks on stimulus spending in October.

On ExpressNews.com: Police spending, merit raises debated for $3.1 billion city budget

The new budget goes into effect Oct. 1

We have a lot of things in play right now. Weve got to make sure that we manage it and we put that money into production that best suits both the immediate needs, and what some of the long-term affordable housing needs are in the community, Walsh told the Express-News on Wednesday.

In a work session Wednesday, the four newly elected council members were among the most reluctant to support the proposed budget. Council members Jalen McKee-Rodriguez, Mario Bravo and Teri Castillo questioned a proposed 3 percent increase in the citys police budget, to $540.7 million.

Bravo opposed a planned rate hike for CPS Energy and called for more funding for dog and cat spay and neuter services. He said some of the $110 million in the budget for streets, or other areas of the spending plan, could be deferred to the bond issue to provide more money for housing affordability.

We need to stop taxing people out of their homes. We cannot wait on that, Bravo said.

Council members Clayton Perry and John Courage also reiterated their support for homeowner tax relief.

Walshs recommended budget changes to the council on Wednesday included:

Reduction of $1.3 million in the citys economic development incentives and $700,000 from its inner city incentives to make up for a $2 million dip in estimated revenues, particularly CPS Energy income that came in at $7.3 million below estimates for July and August.

Three zero-cost budget amendments: creation of a holiday honoring labor leader Cesar E. Chavez on March 31; a public green space pilot program in District 7 on the Northwest Side; and redirection of $50,000 from crime prevention programs to provide separate $25,000 grants to Big Mamas Safe House and Rising Stars San Antonio, two nonprofits that requested money for their crime reduction efforts on the East Side.

Reallocation of $3 million for two of the six city tax increment reinvestment zones, Midtown and Inner City, to support a demolition diversion pilot program and the local Under 1 Roof home-repair program.

On ExpressNews.com: City proposes record $3.1 billion budget for 2022

Walsh also recommended deferring any other amendments until discussions of the next phase of stimulus spending. The city already has set aside $97 million from the federal government to shore up its general and hotel-occupancy funds. Walsh also asked the council if it wanted to direct about $4 million in contingencies to some of the 10 requested capital projects. Council members supported keeping the money in a contingency fund.

shuddleston@express-news.net
The Antonian College Preparatory High School community learned by letter that its principal, Tim Petersen, had resigned. Members of the school community believe he was fired.

The letter was from Marti West, the head of Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of San Antonio, who wrote Monday that Petersen had resigned effective immediately. She offered no reason, thanked him for his six years of service and named John Mein, an assistant principal who has been at the school less than a year, as interim principal.

What upsets the parents is that (West) lied to us, said Gerald Flores, a parent of two graduates of the school and one current student there. She said he resigned when in fact she fired him.

Flores blamed it on a perception that Petersen was not pushing the archdioceses newly revised student guidance on sexuality, portions of which had caused a social media debate in recent weeks. Other parents said that was one of several rumors and they didnt know the reason.

The archdiocesan spokesman, Jordan McMurrough, said he could not comment on the departure of Petersen but defended the new policy and said it had been distorted in the debate and media coverage of it.

A couple dozen parents hoped to share their concerns about Petersens departure with the schools council and with West at a meeting Tuesday. It was canceled at the last minute, but they gathered at the school anyway to discuss the situation with some of the council members.

Parents and kids at the campus believe that the reason why he was fired was because he wasnt ultraorthodox right-wing Catholic, like Ms. West is, Flores said. He wasnt pushing her policy enough, that the school was becoming too secular.

At the start of the school year, an Antonian alumna, Gabi Antuna, now a senior at the University of Texas at Austin, brought attention to the new policy, which warns students not to express or celebrate same sex attraction.

Since Atunas initial social media posts, a petition has been circulating asking for the policy to be replaced with more nondiscriminatory policies and work for inclusivity.

McMurrough said the sexuality policy was appropriate.

Ronald Cortes /

When parents send their children to our schools, they expect the faculty and instructors to accurately present and articulate the truths of the Catholic faith, he said in an email. Issues such as Human Sexuality are undoubtedly challenging. That is why the new archdiocesan policy will help our faculties to provide clarity to truly assist people who are in difficult circumstances.

Atuna called it problematic that the policy equates confused notions of sexual ideology with a struggle that Catholic teachings must help students through.

West has recently met with small groups of students to discuss their concerns about the policy. One LGBTQ student in attendance, who asked not to be named, called it a good first step but hadnt heard of any next steps.

Parents will continue to organize, they have requested a meeting with the auxiliary bishop, who is (Wests) immediate boss, Flores said. The problem is it is affecting our kids.

Parents would like to see Petersen reinstated, but they know that is not going to happen, Flores said. The group hopes to have an independent search committee look for a new principal.

Claire.Bryan@express-news.net
Al Rendon had just begun talking about his latest series of portraits in this years Fotoseptiembre lineup when he was interrupted.

It was a representative of the Floresville Peanut Festival, whod dropped by Rendons South Alamo studio and home to pick up photos of a royal court that will reign over its October celebrations.

Rendons photographs may be in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., but the commercial and art photographer has remained firmly on the ground in his hometown, documenting everything from rock concerts to grand openings.

He has captured a great big swath of Texas moments  from small-town life to concert back stages and in studios where album covers are made.

It all started when his mother, the family photographer, started cutting off peoples heads  in photos. Rendon, then a teenager, took the familys Instamatic camera from her. It had a rotating, square bulb that provided a flash.

Now 64, Rendons archive reflects our stars, our shared moments and our sorrows.

His latest project features home-bound patients living with chronic disease and terminal illness and receiving palliative care.

They may be battling cancer, heart disease, strokes, pulmonary-related ailments and Alzheimers disease. Some are dealing with co-morbidities.

They need help managing their symptoms. In this supportive care mode, they may have years before they enter hospice care. Some have survived COVID-19.

Theyre the Faces of Resiliency, a portrait series that was the brainchild of Dr. S. Liliana Oakes, medical director of WellMeds supportive care program, which she calls the largest home-based program in the nation.

It cares for more than 1,000 patients in nine cities, seven in Texas. Next month, WellMed will publish an e-book with more of the portraits than those in the Fotoseptiembre show.

Rendons website features more works than those curated for the show, too.

At some point, post-pandemic perhaps, Oakes hopes the portraits will be exhibited in a physical space.

Before Rendon took aim, the series was called the patient portrait project. As his images began accumulating, they began to tell a counter-intuitive story  one of resiliency among those facing death.

A few of those photographed for the series have died.

Oakes, a native of Colombia who landed in San Antonio for medical training, came up with the photography project early in the pandemic, as her staff made safety adjustments to deliver care.

In geriatrics, Oakes said, caregiving involves listening and storytelling.

Patients are often at a point in their lives in which they must make decisions and resolve business, she said. Theyre counseled to love, forgive and reach out to those they must speak with before its too late.

The photos, which took Rendon to several Texas cities and included interviews with both patients and caregivers, were taken on what Oakes called sacred ground  in patients homes, where they may take their last breaths.

The project was financed by WellMeds charitable foundation, which also provided other services to patients in dire circumstances. In one case, Oakes said the company provided a mobile home to a patient living in untenable conditions.

Some patients live alone, accompanied only by pets. Some dont have air-conditioning. Others worry about the welfare of spouses and caregivers theyll leave behind or about relatives fighting COVID-19.

They talk to us about the most important things, and its not about money, Oakes said. Its about loving their families.

Their last wishes are about hope, she said, even if its (hope) not to die alone or to die without pain. Its very humbling.

She thinks the series will encourage dialogue and be used as a platform for healing.

To me, it was just important to show these people as they are, Rendon said.

Its the kind of assignment I love. Even though I was working for a company in a commercial sense, they were very hands off.

Over the last year, Rendon has been home a lot, too. He has used the time to organize his archives and get them ready to donate to a local institution.

It has him thinking about a retrospective in which he can showcase his half-century of photography.

They document his hometown, South Texas conjunto and Tejano musicians, local artists, charros, street vendors and the rock stars whose tours brought them here, among them Rod Stewart, the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin.

That retrospective will take some time. Hes not in a rush, but 2023 might be the year for it, he said.

eayala@express-news.net
One of the least talked about subjects during National Hispanic Heritage Month, which began Wednesday, is the Arabic contribution.

Not many people know that in 1492, the same year Columbus sailed to what would become known as America, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella purged the Jews and Muslims from Spain. Many contributions made by its Jewish citizenry were in international trade and banking, while Muslims had the blessings of the Ottoman Empire. And Spain wanted to consolidate and strengthen its ties with the Catholic Church.

The influence of Spanish conquistadors in the New World was vast because they named many cities after saints (San Antonio, San Francisco, Santa Fe, San Jose, etc.). In fact, more than 50 American cities are named after Catholic saints. Not widely known is at least 10 cities have Arabic designations, including Palestine in Texas and Bagdad, Fla.

One city with an equally unique name lies between the border of Texas and Mexico  Matamoros, Tamaulipas.

Alan Mikhail, a Yale historian, opens his book Gods Shadow: Sultan Selim, His Ottoman Empire, and the Making of the Modern World with a remarkable story about Matamoros. The author directly translates Matamoros as Kill the Moors instead of the more accurate Death to the Moors, the rallying cry associated with St. James the Moor Slayer.

Moros is a collective noun with Latin derivatives, but for Muslims the term is derogatory and dismissive. The Spanish Muslims included Berbers from North Africa and ethnic Arabs, who did not refer to themselves as Moros. About 4,000 Spanish words (cafe, aceite, azucar, fideo, naranja and ojala, among them) have Arabic roots.

In his zeal to show the Ottoman Empires influence in the New World, Mikhail left out historical information about the renaming of Matamoros in honor of its national hero, Mariano Matamoros. According to historian Denise A. Spellberg, In 1826, Mariano Matamoros would be honored in the dedication of the place name Heroica Matamoros, a testament to the emerging nation-state of Mexico and, ultimately, of the multiple origins of its military ideals. The city of Heroica Matamoros, forty years after the death of its namesake, also became the frontline against the U.S. enemies of Mexican sovereignty.

Four other American cities are closely linked to Matamoros, but only in an imaginary feminine appellation as Matamoras. The awkward attribution is a misunderstanding of Spanish orthography because there is no feminine concept of Death to Female Muslims. This misnomer was recorded in diaries and geographies of American cities between 1846 and 1849 right after the Mexican-American war.

Those cities are Matamoras in Pike County, Pa., and Matamoras in Dauphin County, Pa.; Matamoras, Ohio; and Matamoras, Ind. The framers displayed their imperial hubris by failing to acknowledge Spanish language protocols.

The idea that the New World was connected to the Ottoman Empire is indisputable because the term Moors originated from Christian Europeans to mark Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages, writes Mikhail.

Explorers to the Americas saw the Muslim specter behind every dark-skinned inhabitant. Many of these moriscos were former Muslims who converted to Christianity at the behest of the Catholic Church after Spain outlawed the open practice of Islam. Many Muslims migrated to the Americas and Europe.

In Protestant England, the term also gained currency after William Shakespeares Othello, a cautionary play about a famous Moor. Arabic cultures have long connected linguistically with Hispania, and few people understand that Islam is one of the three connected Abrahamic religions of the world.

National Hispanic Month should mention other ethnic influences as Latinos are comprised of a smorgasbord of cultures, including Native American, Arabic, Jewish, Iberian, African and European.

Rafael Castillo, the author of Distant Journeys (Bilingual Review Press) and Aurora (Floricanto), teaches literature and humanities at Palo Alto College and is a research fellow with Catch the Next Inc.
Most parents want their children to attend school in person this year, and experts agree its critically important.

Learning slowed  or, in some cases, stopped entirely  for many students after March 2020, leaving thousands of young people off track and vulnerable to new limits on their futures. Parents and caregivers struggled to help children learning from home while also working. Mental health issues for children skyrocketed as the pandemic progressed.

We are now on the threshold of a third disrupted school year. That is simply too high a price for our children to pay. We must choose to prioritize the needs of Americas children over political posturing. That means setting a collective American goal: every student safely attending school in person this academic year, with minimal interruptions.

COVID-19 cases will happen. Thats inevitable. But that doesnt mean the virus rapid spread across schools is unavoidable. We have learned a lot over the past 18 months, and just as car safety evolved from speed limits to seat belts to shoulder belts to airbags, we have learned how to layer sensible protections to significantly reduce transmission of the virus.

Require masks indoors for adults and kids on campuses. Many districts that opened in August with mask-optional policies are now grappling with high numbers of students and staff in quarantine. That has forced shutdowns and scrambles to staff classrooms, significantly disrupting student learning.

We all look forward to a day when masks are not needed, but, for now, they are a simple intervention with a track record of success against airborne viruses (this is especially true for the surgical and KN95 masks widely available in child and adult sizes). Importantly, using masks means that quarantines arent required after close contact. North Dakota took this approach last school year. As long as children and teachers were masked indoors, they didnt quarantine exposed kids or adults.

Vaccinate eligible students and teachers. The vaccines significantly reduce the severity of infections and provide protection against infection for most people. They are free and widely available. The more adults and teenagers vaccinated, the stronger the circle of protection for our vulnerable children, including young children who likely will remain ineligible for vaccination through a decent amount of the school year.

Regularly test on campuses to find cases early. Districts are still spending considerable funds on performative cleaning or plastic barriers that do not mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Stop. Use those funds instead for continuous on-site testing of adults and older students to catch cases early, especially those without symptoms.

Federal relief funds can be used by districts for tests, and several districts have experimented with how to do this reasonably and safely. Many universities took this proactive approach and dramatically decreased the spread of the virus among their students and faculty. Finding infections early and isolating those infected significantly reduces onward transmission.

Improve ventilation and get outside. While this isnt possible for every classroom, many schools can improve ventilation by upgrading filters, utilizing safe and effective purification methodologies, opening windows, and using outside spaces for learning where possible.

Create plans to support students learning while in quarantine. Some cases will happen, and it is important that families understand how students will keep up with classes while they are out. Its also important to state clear policies for potential exposures and the requirements to safely return to campus. For example, a policy for impacted family members is crucial. A lack of options for academic support  and a lack of clarity about quarantines  creates disincentives for families to proactively test and quarantine.

Be transparent about cases and measures of success. Report the number of cases on campuses to families and the community. Explain mitigation strategies and the decision-making process. Explain how policies may change as cases decline and more people are vaccinated. People need to see the positive impact of their choices.

The fundamental needs of children are being obscured by adults arguing about mandates and lawsuits, and in school board meetings filled with hecklers. It doesnt have to be this way. The 56 million school-age children in the United States deserve better from us.

Someday, the pandemic will end. Lets make sure that our children can look back to a time when their fellow Americans rallied together to keep them safely in school.

Dr. Deborah Birx is a senior fellow at the George W. Bush Institute and the former White House coronavirus response coordinator and U.S. global AIDS coordinator. Anne Wicks is the Ann Kimball Johnson director of the education reform initiative at the George W. Bush Institute.
One day, 1,000 years from now, when they dig up this era, archaeologists will surely ask how was it that a great power called America set out to make the Middle East more like itself  embracing pluralism and the rule of law  and ended up instead becoming more like the Middle East  mimicking its worst tribal mores and introducing a whole new level of lawlessness into its national politics?

Middle Easterners may call their big tribes Shiites and Sunnis and Americans may call theirs Democrats and Republicans, but they each seem to operate increasingly with a conformist, us-vs.-them mindset, albeit at different intensity levels. Extreme Republican tribalism vastly accelerated as the GOP tribe became dominated by a base of largely white Christians, who feared that their long-held primacy in Americas power structure was being eroded by rapidly changing social norms, expanded immigration and globalization, leaving them feeling no longer at home in their own country.

To signal that, they latched on to Donald Trump, who enthusiastically gave voice to their darkest fears and raw tribal muscle that escalated the rights pursuit of minority rule. That is, not just pushing the usual gerrymandering but also propagating conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, passing ever-harsher voter suppression laws and replacing neutral state voting regulators with tribal hacks ready to break the rules. And because this Trump faction came to dominate the base, even once-principled Republicans mostly went along for the ride, embracing the core philosophy that dominates tribal politics in Afghanistan and the Arab world: The other is the enemy, not a fellow citizen, and the only two choices are rule or die. Either we rule or we delegitimize the results.

Mind you, the archaeologists will also note that Democrats exhibited their own kind of tribal mania, such as the strident groupthink of progressives at 21st-century American universities. In particular, there was evidence of professors, administrators and students being canceled  either silenced or thrown off campus for expressing even mildly nonconformist or conservative views on politics, race, gender or sexual identity. An epidemic of tribal political correctness from the left served only to energize the tribal solidarity on the right.

But what triggered the turn from traditional pluralism to ferocious tribalism in the U.S. and many other democracies? My short answer: Its become a lot harder to maintain democracy today, with social networks constantly polarizing people, and with globalization, climate change, a war on terrorism, widening income gaps and rapid job-shifting technology innovations constantly stressing them. And then a pandemic.

More than a few democratically elected leaders around the world now find it much easier to build support with tribal appeals focused on identity than do the hard work of coalition-building and compromise in pluralistic societies at a complex time.

When that happens, everything gets turned into a tribal identity marker  mask-wearing in the pandemic, COVID-19 vaccinations, gender pronouns, climate change. Your position on each point doubles as a challenge to others: Are you in my tribe or not? So there is less focus on the common good, and ultimately no common ground to pivot off to do big hard things. We once put a man on the moon together. Today, we can barely agree on fixing broken bridges.

Ironically, there is no institution in American life that has worked harder to inoculate America from this virus of tribalism, while enriching and exemplifying an ethic of pluralism, than the military  the very people who were most intimately exposed to the Middle East variant for over 20 years. Its not that some service members didnt commit their own excesses in that war or were not traumatized by the excesses of their enemies. Both happened. But they did not let it change their core identity and the kind of military they wanted to be.

I saw this time and again on trips to Iraq and Afghanistan. The level of diversity in any American military unit you came across just jumped out at you.

On a 2005 trip to Iraq, I wrote a column about spending a night on the USS Chosin, which commanded the U.S. Navy task force off the coast of Iraq. There I interviewed Mustapha Ahansal, a Moroccan American sailor who acted as the Chosins Arabic translator when it stopped ships suspected of carrying pirates or other hostile actors.

The first time I boarded a boat, he told me, we had six or seven people  one Hispanic, one Black person, a white person, maybe a woman in our unit. Their sailors said to me, I thought all Americans were white. Then one of them asked me, Are you in the military? It shocks them actually. Ahansal told me that an Iraqi Coast Guard officer once expressed astonishment to him that people from so many different religions and races could produce such a strong navy, while here we are fighting north and south, and we are all cousins and brothers.

Leadership matters: The American population has diversity similar to the U.S. militarys, but the ethic of pluralism and teamwork shown by many of our men and women in uniform reduces the tribal divisions within the armed forces. Its not perfect but it is real. Ethical leadership based on principled pluralism matters. That is why our military is our last great carrier of pluralism at a time when more and more civilian politicians are opting for cheap tribalism.

What is most frightening to me is how much this virus of tribalism is now infecting some of the most vibrant multisectarian democracies in the world  like India and Israel, as well as Brazil, Hungary and Poland.

India is a particularly sad story for me because, after 9/11, I offered up Indian pluralism as the most important example of why Islam per se was not responsible for motivating terrorists from al-Qaida. Everything depended, I argued, on the political, social and cultural context within which Islam, or any other faith, was embedded  and where Islam is embedded in a pluralistic, democratic society, it thrives like any other religion. Although India had a large Hindu majority, it had had Muslim presidents and a Muslim woman on its Supreme Court. Muslims, including women, had been governors of many Indian states, and Muslims were among the countrys most successful entrepreneurs.

Unfortunately, today, Indian nationalism based on pluralism is being weakened by Hindu supremacists in the ruling BJP party, who seem hellbent on converting a secular India into a Hindu Pakistan, as eminent Indian historian Ramachandra Guha once put it.

That democracies all over the world are being infected by this tribalism virus could not be happening at a worse time  a time when every community, company and country is going to have to adapt to the accelerations in technological change, globalization and climate change. And that can only be done effectively within and between countries by higher degrees of collaboration among business, labor, educators, social entrepreneurs and governments  not rule or die, not my way or the highway.

We need to find the antidote to this tribalism fast  otherwise the future is grim for democracies everywhere.
WASHINGTON  Thousands of asylum seekers, mostly Haitians, have arrived in Del Rio in recent days, the latest in a surge of migration to the southern border that the Biden administration has struggled to handle, prompting the federal government to boost Border Patrol in the region and Gov. Greg Abbott to send in more state troopers and the Texas National Guard.

Masses of migrants have huddled under an international bridge where Border Patrol set up a temporary holding site to protect them from the sun while officials work to take them into custody and process them, to be either expelled immediately or allowed to seek asylum.

Local officials in that stretch of border, which has historically been quieter, are gobsmacked as Del Rio has become one of the busiest sections for crossings in recent months  even more so in the last few days.

Val Verde County Judge Lewis Owens said a crowd of immigrants had been forming under Del Rios border crossing from Ciudad Acuna, Mexico, and had gradually grown from 2,000 on Saturday to about 8,600 by Thursday.

He said Border Patrol and the Mexican Consulate have told him they had reports that about a month and a half ago a caravan of 25,000 immigrants was headed for Texas through Mexico. He believes the crowd at the bridge is part of that group.

Its just unbelievable, Owens, a Democrat, said of the mass of people under the Del Rio border crossing. If we are worried about homeland security, you might just throw that out the window. Ive never seen anything like this.

Journey from Chile

At a Stripes gas station in Del Rio, a line of migrant families boarded a blue Greyhound bus Thursday evening.

Noel Claivensky, 23, stood at the back of the line with his partner and their kids, a 6-month-old and 4-year-old girl. Originally from Haiti, theyve traveled thousands of miles by bus, taxi and on foot from their previous home in Chile to get this far, including the dangerous journey through Central America.

We went through the jungle, Claivensky said in Spanish. We walked about four days on foot from Colombia to Panama. He recalled passing bodies of people who had died along the way.

Theyre on their way to reunite with a cousin in New Jersey, but at the Del Rio bus stop, they didnt make it aboard since they hadnt reserved tickets.

A volunteer showed them where they can stay the night until the next bus comes Friday.

Claivensky said he waited in the camp under the international bridge in Del Rio for four days, where they slept on the ground, though he said treatment there was fine despite the area being filled with tons of people. After that they were brought to a border facility for a night and released.

The family lived in Chile for the past three years, but he said they left because he struggled to secure proper migration documents for his family to live there. Before Chile, they left Haiti for economic reasons.

One cant work there and I have kids to take care of, he said. I didnt have a way to make a living, to eat.

Hes hoping that theyll have better luck in the United States since they have family here.

Abbott responds

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The situation offered Abbott his latest opening as he declared on Fox News he was shutting down six points of entry along the border  at the request of U.S. Customs and Border Protection  and blasted the White House, comparing the situation with President Joe Bidens handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Abbott later backtracked, saying federal authorities had changed their minds and that he was directing National Guard troops and officers with the Texas Department of Public Safety to maintain their presence at and around ports of entry to deter crossings.

Photos: State of the Border Texas Department of Public Safety troopers wait on U.S. Border Patrol agents after helping in the detention of a group of around 40 migrants on Military Road just west of La Joya, Texas, Friday, April 2, 2021. Jerry Lara/San Antonio Express-News Photos show a border in crisis and the plight of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border

Six hours after U.S. Customs and Border Protection requested help from Texas to close ports of entry and secure the border, the Biden administration has now flip-flopped to a different strategy that abandons border security and instead makes it easier for people to cross illegally and for cartels to exploit the border, Abbott said. The Biden administration is in complete disarray and is handling the border crisis as badly as the evacuation from Afghanistan.

The Department of Homeland Security denied that it asked for help, saying in a statement that the agency is not seeking assistance from the State of Texas to shut down ports of entry.

It would be a violation of federal law for the Texas National Guard to unilaterally do so, the statement said.

Its the latest in a six-month battle between Texas Republicans and the White House over record numbers of migrants crossing the border  a fight in which Abbott seeks to lead the GOP on a national level as he prepares to use taxpayer money and crowdsourced funds to finish former President Donald Trumps wall.

Until last year, it was a sleepy sector

Abbott has also empowered state troopers to arrest migrants crossing and jail them for trespassing, though enforcing immigration policy is the responsibility of the federal government.

Biden, meanwhile, has said his administration is working to build a more humane immigration system after Trump. Biden has been especially focused on beefing up the asylum system to more swiftly process the hundreds of thousands of migrants who have arrived at the border seeking shelter this year.

Immigration advocates say the situation in Del Rio is an example of why that work is urgently needed. Most of those who have arrived in recent days are from Haiti, which has been wracked by political upheaval and was hit by a 7.2 magnitude earthquake Aug. 14 that killed more than 2,000.

Images like this should be used to show the ways in which the Border Patrol is systematically unprepared to handle refugee flows in times of global instability, despite years of warnings, Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy counsel at the American Immigration Council, tweeted in response to Fox News reports with pictures of migrants spilling out from under the bridge in Del Rio.

Reichlin-Melnick said the situation is untenable but is partially so bad because the Del Rio sector doesnt have the infrastructure that other, busier sectors have to process migrants.

Until last year, it was a sleepy sector, he tweeted.

Ruling overturns some border expulsions

Complicating matters for the Biden administration, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Thursday ordered Border Patrol to stop expelling migrant families under a public health order issued during the coronavirus pandemic under which the administration has sent back most migrants immediately after they cross the border.

Judge Emmet G. Sullivan gave the administration two weeks to end the practice, siding with a group of migrant families who sued with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union and the Texas Civil Rights Project. Sullivan wrote that order, known as Title 42, is likely unlawful and said he was not convinced that the transmission of COVID-19 during border processing cannot be significantly mitigated through other means.

The administration has continued enforcing the health order, issued by Trump, even as it has moved away from many of the former presidents stricter immigration policies. The White House has said that it is still expelling the vast majority of those seeking to enter under the order, especially single adults. The administration had increasingly begun to let families in, however.

Border Patrol in August reported 16,240 encounters with members of migrant families who were expelled under the order. That was about 20 percent of the total number of migrant families who arrived that month; 70,247 were allowed into the U.S. to pursue asylum.

The agency reported 208,887 encounters with migrants crossing the border in August, a slight decrease from the record 213,534 encounters reported in July.

Wermund reported from Washington; Contreras reported from San Antonio; Troval reported from Del Rio.

ben.wermund@chron.com

gcontreras@express-news.net

elizabeth.trovall@chron.com
Federal District Judge Lee Yeakel said Wednesday morning he intends to fast-track a lawsuit filed on behalf of 14 Texas schoolchildren with disabilities who allege that Gov. Greg Abbotts ban on mask mandates breaks federal law by discriminating against them because they are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19.

In Wednesdays hearing, Yeakel denied a request for a temporary restraining order that would have barred Texas from enforcing Abbotts order until Oct. 6, when the case is scheduled for trial.

Yeakel said he needs more information about the case before he will be ready to make a ruling.

The delay will allow the judge to hear from witnesses and see other evidence in the case. No matter what his decision on the case, Yeakel said he expects it to be appealed to higher courts  possibly as far as the U.S. Supreme Court.

I think the issues in this case are extremely important, Yeakel said.

In legal filings and in court, lawyers for the 14 children argued that Texas mask mandate prevents school districts from making reasonable accommodations for children with disabilities, in violation of the federal Americans with Disabilities Act. They also said it preempts the federal American Rescue Plan, the COVID-19 relief package signed into law by the president earlier this year, which they said provides discretion for school districts to follow federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations.

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The CDC currently recommends that all people 2 or older wear masks while inside schools.

By forcing parents and their children to engage in this Hobson's choice to go to school and get COVID, they are not providing meaningful access to public education, said Tom Melsheimer, the chief attorney for the disabled kids. This is true for all children in a sense, Melsheimer said, but because its particularly true for children with disabilities, it violates federal civil rights law.

The lawsuit is against Attorney General Ken Paxton, Abbott and Abbotts Texas Education Agency. The order was defended in court Wednesday by lawyers from Paxtons office.

The crux of their defense was that the lawsuit was improper because none of the defendants are the right people to sue over Abbotts mask order. They said the proper people to sue would be those who are enforcing the law, but no one is actually enforcing it, so theres no one to sue.

(Abbotts order) doesnt stop the plaintiffs from doing anything. They can say, think, do whatever they want. It does not regulate their conduct, it regulates the conduct of local officials, said Todd Dickerson, an assistant attorney general, adding that there is no credible threat of enforcement from the local district attorneys who are supposed to enforce it.

I dont think the plaintiffs want state troopers enforcing emergency orders, Dickerson said. It has never been enforced.

The plaintiffs pointed out that Paxton has gone to court against 11 school districts seeking injunctions preventing them from establishing mask mandates, and he has also sent a number of letters threatening lawsuits  including one they read in court in which Paxton threatens school district officials, saying they will face legal action from my office to enforce the law.

Dickerson replied that there are different types of enforcement of the law.

edward.mckinley@chron.com
A U.S. magistrate judge this week recommended striking down parts of Texas law that prohibit wearing political apparel within 100 feet of a polling place as unconstitutionally vague  but upholding a narrower provision that specifies that clothing bearing messages related to whats on the ballot can be banned.

The issue first arose in 2018 when Harris County resident Jillian Ostrewich wore a Houston firefighters T-shirt to a polling place and election workers told her to turn it inside out because it related to Prop B, a pay parity measure for firefighters on that ballot that year. Claiming she was unconstitutionally censored and her right to free speech infringed upon, she sued Harris County and state officials.

The case puts to the test a U.S. Supreme Court ruling from June of that year in which the justices struck down a Minnesota law that banned voters from displaying issue-oriented apparel at the polls for being overbroad. The Texas suit was brought by Pacific Legal Foundation, the same California-based libertarian public interest law firm that won the Minnesota case.

Its a win for free speech and for objective standards, said foundation attorney Wen Fa.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Voters in Houston and the Dallas area challenge clothing restrictions at polls

The parties to the suit will now have 14 days to respond to the magistrates recommendation. A U.S. district judge will ultimately make the final ruling.

The Texas Attorney Generals office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

All 50 states restrict political activities near polling places while voting is taking place, but the types of restrictions vary. Texas is one of at least seven states other than Minnesota that ban political apparel near polling places.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew M. Edison in his report on Tuesday said the election judge had a constitutional basis for rejecting Ostrewichs shirt because it had a clear relationship to the ballot measure, even if it did not explicitly say to vote for that measure. Under that law, Edison said, Ostrewich had not been harmed and therefore was not entitled to damages.

NEW PRECEDENT: Supreme Court strikes down law barring political apparel at polling places

Other parts of the law, however, which define electioneering as advocating for or against any candidate, measure, or political party through posting, use, or distribution of political signs or literature leaves room for misunderstanding, he said. Ostrewich would have no way of knowing whether wearing that same shirt in a future election, even if the measure werent on the ballot then, could also be considered illegal electioneering.

Those parts of the law do not give Texas voters notice of what is expected of them in the polling place, and they do not provide election judges with objective, workable standards to rein in their discretion, Edison wrote. This is impermissible under the First Amendment and these statutory provisions should be struck down as unconstitutional.

taylor.goldenstein@chron.com
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul this week sharply criticized a new Texas law that essentially bans most abortions and said that her state intends to assist women who want to leave the Lone Star State to access the procedure.

For women in Texas, we want you to know: We will help you find a way to New York. And right now we are looking intensely to find what resources we can bring to the table to help you have safe transport here, and let you know there are providers who will assist you in this time of your need, Hochul said in a Wednesday night interview on MSNBC.

She went on to attack Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, saying he and Republicans like him claim to be proponents of deregulation and small government, but then seek to control womens bodies.

Im going to help women get elected all over this country who are pro-choice. Im going to use my energy and my resources to make sure that happens as well. Thats the only thing thats going to change this: We have to wipe out men like Governor Abbott, said Hochul, a Democrat who became the states first woman governor last month. Its so appalling whats going on in these Republican states. And their people are suffering, and I cant stand it any longer. We have to take a strong position against this and call it out whenever we see it.

A spokeswoman for Abbott did not respond to a request for comment.

Its unclear from Hochuls remarks whether she means that New York will have a policy to financially assist Texas women seeking to travel to her state for abortions, or whether she simply means that New Yorks existing clinics that perform abortions will be open to Texans.

New York State provides care for people regardless of residency. We will do everything we can to help individuals who are seeking the procedure in New York State, Haley Viccaro, a spokeswoman for Hochul, wrote in an email.

Some nonprofit groups have already announced plans to help women get around the states abortion law. Planned Parenthoods website encourages Texas women who are pregnant to schedule ultrasounds quickly to confirm the pregnancy and to schedule abortion procedures soon afterward if that is their choice. The organization says women can call (210) 736-2262 for help finding a clinic to perform the procedure in Texas before the six-week deadline, or to help them find an out-of-state provider if the pregnancy has progressed beyond six weeks.

If you need to get an abortion out of state, we can help you find a provider and resources to get there, including financial assistance, the website reads.

Texas new abortion law, which went into effect Sept. 1 after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene, bans the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy. The high court has not ruled on the substance of the law. Pregnancy dates are measured from a womans last menstrual period, and most women find out they are pregnant when their periods are late, placing them often at around four weeks of pregnancy. That leaves them less than two weeks to access abortions under the new law.

Hochul said at an abortion rights rally this week that during the pregnancy of one of her children, she went whitewater rafting three months into the pregnancy because she did not know.

The Texas law differs from abortion bans or restrictions passed in other GOP-led states, such as Missouri, Alabama and Georgia, in its enforcement mechanism. Rather than leaving enforcement to the state attorney general or local prosecutors, the law explicitly bans such officials from enforcing it.

Instead, it is to be enforced privately through lawsuits that can be brought by private individuals against anyone who assists a woman getting an abortion in violation of the new state law. Such individuals can be forced to pay up to $10,000 in damages if successfully sued, as well as the court costs of the party that brought the suit. The law does not include a penalty for making a false claim under the law, nor a means for people who are sued to recover legal expenses if the case against them is unsuccessful.

The maneuver has made it more difficult to challenge the laws constitutionality, stymying those seeking to ensure access to abortion rights guaranteed for now by the high courts 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. The U.S. Department of Justice has asked a federal judge to halt enforcement of Texas' new abortion law, which Attorney General Merrick Garland has called an unconstitutional scheme.

An Abbott spokesperson said this week that the law ensures that the life of every child with a heartbeat will be spared from the ravages of abortionWe are confident that the courts will uphold and protect that right to life.

Joe Pojman, executive director of the Texas Alliance for Life, said an important change thats not getting enough attention is the increased funding that the Texas Legislature provided for expecting mothers in the last session, setting aside $100 million over the next two years to promote alternatives to abortion.

Women dont need to go out of state to seek abortions. Texas has the resources to help them successfully give birth to the child, and keep the child if she wishes or place the child for adoption, he said. That is the goal of the state programs, and its also the goal of hundreds of nonprofit organizations.

While the Supreme Court has not yet ruled on the substance of the Texas law, critics say the majority-conservative courts decision has had the effect of banning most abortions in the state  and created a model for other Republican-led states to follow. That is not acceptable, say Hochul and other pro-choice Democrats.

Setting up this whole system of vigilantes, this is just  I cant believe this is even going on in our country, said Hochul, who like Abbott is a lawyer. And whats so disgusting to me is that our own Supreme Court  and we saw this possibly coming, but the reality is hitting us hard  but the Supreme Court will not stand up and protect the women of this country.

Abbott faces two primary challengers next year, and Hochul will seek to be elected governor in her own right after recently succeeding Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who stepped down amid sexual harassment allegations.

edward.mckinley@chron.com
Two years ago, Texas' Republican leaders agreed to boost public education spending by billions of dollars, setting aside most of the incendiary social issues that had derailed similar efforts in the past.

But the GOPs fixation on bread-and-butter issues  seemingly driven, at least in part, by a painful 2018 midterm election  proved to be fleeting. After Democrats fell flat in their lavishly funded attempt to retake the Texas House in 2020, Republicans responded by adopting a parade of conservative priorities this year, including the nation's strictest anti-abortion law and an overhaul of Texas elections that prompted Democrats to leave the state for over a month to stall it.

While Republicans have touted their string of policy wins over the last few months, Democrats are already predicting a reckoning in the 2022 midterms, arguing that the state's hard shift to the right went too far and will fuel Democratic gains at the polls.

There is such a thing as a Republican who publicly  in their social groups, maybe at church  will profess to be hardline about something, but when they finally get it, they realize that is not the world that they want, said state Rep. Diego Bernal, D-San Antonio. They might be pro-Second Amendment, but they may not like permitless carry. They may be pro-life, but they recognize the dangers of having an outright ban on abortion, especially without exceptions for rape and incest.

Democrats don't have to spin those issues. They just have to make sure people are aware of what's happened, because they honestly just speak for themselves.

NEW LAW: Anti-abortion laws used to exempt cases of rape and incest. Not anymore in Texas.

Even if the Republican policies have created some ammunition for Democratic candidates, the party also faces headwinds next year, including the tendency for a president's party to lose seats in midterm elections  the same phenomenon that aided Democrats in 2018.

They will also need a major candidate to oppose Gov. Greg Abbott and his $55 million war chest. And the next round of redistricting, a top priority for the legislative session that begins Monday, gives Republicans a chance to shore up some of the seats Democrats are targeting.

Those factors, combined with national issues like the COVID-19 pandemic and the Biden administrations messy exit from Afghanistan, have muddled the political outlook for Texas heading into 2022, said Renee Cross, senior director of the University of Houstons Hobby School of Public Affairs.

We've seen throughout history the midterms are traditionally very hard on the party in power, Cross said. However, we've got all these other variables that I don't think we've really had to deal with before. In our generation, we haven't had to deal with ending a 20-year war and a pandemic.

State Rep. Jim Murphy, a Houston Republican who chairs the House GOP Caucus, noted that lawmakers also recently approved less controversial measures like a one-time pension bonus for retired teachers, an expansion of virtual learning for public schools and extra foster care funding for the Department of Family and Protective Services.

Still, Murphy said Republican lawmakers adopted a more conservative agenda this session largely due to the results of the 2020 elections. He said Republicans returned to Austin with a mandate after Democrats failed to make a dent in the GOPs statehouse majority.

The zeal with which Democrats pursued incumbent Republicans really made a difference in how people entered the session, Murphy said. Those were tough races, incredibly expensive races. We had never seen that kind of money spent like we saw in the 2020 cycle.

People understood what they were voting for, and when they made that choice, I think that compelled all of us to say, well, if that's what they're expecting, then we better deliver.

Republicans also believe the surge in migrant encounters along the southern border leaves Texas Democrats and President Joe Biden vulnerable on the issue of border security. Abbott has relentlessly criticized the White Houses approach and already blocked two of Bidens major border initiatives in court.

Now Playing: The Justice Department on Thursday sued Texas over a new state law that bans most abortions, arguing that it was enacted "in open defiance of the Constitution." Critics dismissed the DoJ's actions as "audacious." (Sept. 9) Video: Associated Press

Abortion law looms large

On top of the abortion and voting bills, Republicans in the Legislature passed laws this year banning critical race theory, allowing most Texans 21 and up to carry handguns without a license and forbidding large social media companies from blocking users based on their viewpoints. In the special session, they are again set to consider restricting which teams transgender student athletes can join, a priority of Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick that has failed to pass multiple times this year.

Yet no issue has stirred as much controversy as Senate Bill 8, the new abortion law that effectively bans the procedure with its strict time limits. It empowers almost anyone to sue an abortion provider or other person who helps someone access the procedure after about six weeks.

The law, which took effect Sept. 1, makes an exception when a pregnancy is life-threatening, but not for those that result from rape or incest.

Though polling on the law itself is limited, a February University of Texas/Texas Tribune survey found that most Texans do not favor such a sweeping ban on abortions, with 81 percent  including 75 percent of Republicans  saying the procedure should either be always allowed or permitted in cases of rape, incest, when the mothers life is in danger or after the need for the abortion has been clearly established.

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By passing the abortion law, Cross said, Texas Republicans jeopardized the support of moderate women voters, including those in the suburbs who supported President Joe Biden in the 2020 election after voting for Republicans in the past.

I think it goes beyond just energizing Democrats. I think it also will energize a lot of women within the Republican Party that are pro-choice, Cross said. I really think they went too far. I understand that this is very important to the base, particularly the base of Republican primary voters, but I think in the long run, this is going to push those folks away.

Days after the law was enacted on Sept. 1, Abbott was asked why the law would effectively force a rape or incest victim to carry a pregnancy to term.

Abbott responded: It doesnt require that at all, because, obviously, it provides at least six weeks for a person to be able to get an abortion  failing to acknowledge that it takes four to six weeks for most women to realize they are pregnant.

Abbotts comments drew condemnation from Democrats who said it showed a lack of understanding about the law. But he also came under fire from Republicans, including primary opponent Don Huffines, who said Abbott failed to acknowledge the human value of all unborn children.

Luke Macias, a Republican political consultant who is supporting Huffines, said GOP candidates should be prepared to clearly explain why they support the new abortion law during the midterms, instead of ignoring the topic or trying to appease moderate voters.

I think (Abbotts) answer to that is a perfect example of why he's not prepared to actually defend this issue at the ballot box. You need to be a tireless advocate for this, Macias said. When you have a governor who tells Texans, 'don't worry, rape victims have plenty of time to abort their children before they're impacted by this law,' that is literally just dooming more Republicans to having problems down the ballot.

Abbotts spokeswoman has not responded to questions about the governors remarks.

Melissa Phillip, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

Public safety issues

While Democrats believe they have found winning issues on abortion and, perhaps, the Legislatures modest power grid reforms in the wake of Februarys winter storm, Republicans see an advantage on border security and the broader topic of public safety.

Earlier this month, the Legislature roughly tripled the states border security budget, devoting $1.8 billion to the construction of a barrier along the Rio Grande and ramping up the states law enforcement presence in the region. Though the bill mostly passed along party lines, a handful of Democrats who represent border districts broke with their party to support it, citing the massive uptick in migrants crossing the border this year.

In the public safety arena, Republicans also passed bills this year that limit the ability of defendants to be released on cashless bail and punish cities if they reduce their police budgets. Though few elected Democrats have actively embraced calls to defund police, members of both parties say Republicans were able to use the issue to exceed expectations in parts of Texas suburban and border communities in 2020.

Adrienne Pena-Garza, chair of the Hidalgo County Republican Party, said border residents  many of whom work in law enforcement or for U.S. Customs and Border Protection  are embracing Abbotts border plan, which includes arresting migrants on state trespassing charges in an attempt to dissuade them from crossing. Democrats say the funds would be better aimed at the ports of entry where the majority of drugs pass through.

GOP VICTORIES: Texas Republicans adjourn special session celebrating partisan wins

People are relieved, Pena-Garza said. There's people on both sides of the aisle that are seeing that the Biden administration isn't doing enough about it. And it's evident that Texas is going above and beyond with this border spending bill to help remedy what the Biden administration has failed to do.

An August UT/Tribune poll found that 47 percent of Texans approve of Abbotts plan to spend state funds on a barrier along the southern border, while 39 percent oppose it. In the same poll, 37 percent of Texans said the state was not spending enough on border security, compared to 24 percent who said it was spending too much.

Colin Strother, a Democratic strategist who works for numerous lawmakers in border districts, said most border Democrats are likely safe in 2022, noting that many down-ballot candidates outperformed Biden in the border counties where Trump gained ground last year.

Still, Strother said, candidates elsewhere in Texas and in other states could suffer if Republicans control the messaging on border security.

The Biden administration needs to get control of the situation on the southern border, not just for those local communities that are very heavily and seriously impacted by it, but because of the sentiment that the stereotype of open borders has nationally, Strother said. I believe on our current trajectory, we are going to have a really tough time nationally maintaining our (U.S. House) majority unless something pretty dramatic and drastic happens.

jasper.scherer@chron.com
Restaurateurs Constance Connie Andrews and Wai Hung Kenneth Lau have had a partnership of 40-plus years with such ventures as the Golden Wok Chinese restaurants and a fast-food offshoot in San Antonio.

Theyve operated a casino and Chinese cafe in Deadwood, S.D. And theyve done some investing in real estate, buying residential rental properties in San Antonio, Las Vegas-area condominiums and property in California.

The pair have been more than business partners. They slept in the same bed and introduced themselves as husband and wife, Andrews says, even though they never wed.

Now, their longtime ties have unraveled.

Andrews, whose 83rd birthday is Oct. 6, has sued Lau, who turns 70 five days later, and their real estate company for fraud. Her suit, filed last month in state District Court, seeks more than $2 million in damages.

She accuses Lau of secretly misappropriating assets by using her share of partnership distributions to buy real estate solely in his name.

Andrews says shes been fighting to get accounting records and deeds to learn how the money was spent. Real estate and corporate documents bearing her signature were prepared without her knowledge, she adds.

Mike Sutter / Staff file photo

I have been locked out of the business which has been rekeyed and no copy is given to me despite the fact that I am a 50% owner in the total partnership, Andrews says in a sworn statement filed with her lawsuit.

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The last straw, she adds, was when Lau allegedly informed her that hes selling various businesses to friends and family.

Andrews obtained a temporary restraining order preventing him from transferring property and closing or transferring bank accounts.

The order was obtained ex parte, meaning no one challenged the order application on his behalf.

Lau wasnt aware of the lawsuit, a representative said Wednesday. The Express-News emailed him the complaint, but he offered no comment. Andrews lawyer didnt respond to requests for comment.

Golden Wok

Golden Wok has been a San Antonio institution for nearly five decades, routinely garnering positive reviews and ranking in surveys as a top choice among Chinese restaurants for diners.

Yet for all the plaudits heaped on Golden Wok over the decades, its principals have largely remained out of the spotlight.

According to the Golden Woks website, a young Andrews dreamed of owning her own Chinese restaurant.

It didnt matter that she was not Asian, had no cooking experience and had never cooked on a Chinese stove before, the website says. What she had was determination, persistence, faith and the willingness to work 18-hour days.

Andrews opened the first Golden Wok restaurant on Sept. 6, 1972. After struggling to operate on a shoestring budget for its first two years, the restaurant gained in popularity.

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Lau applied for a job at Golden Wok in 1974. He was raised in China and trained as a chef in Hong Kong, according to a 1985 Nations Restaurant News article.

He became partners with Andrews in 1976, the same year they opened a second Golden Wok location. He was quickly promoted to business manager for all of the entities created from, merged with or created by the Golden Wok partners, Andrews lawsuit says.

She designated one-half of the business to Lau and he moved in with her, the complaint adds.

Today, Golden Wok has two locations  its flagship restaurant at 8822 Wurzbach Road, and one at Marbach Road and Loop 410 West. Golden Wok draws crowds, especially for its dim sum offerings during lunch on Saturdays and Sundays.

Quik Wok

Andrews and Lau have had other restaurant successes. In 1980, the couple founded Quik Wok, a Chinese fast-food establishment, in San Antonio.

All its meals were cooked in Chinese woks. The menu featured typical takeout Chinese fare: pepper steak, chop suey, lemon chicken, almond chicken and other entrees, supplemented by egg rolls, egg drop soup, fried rice and fortune cookies, UPI reported.

They expanded Quik Wok to eight locations in San Antonio and one in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., before deciding in 1985 to sell the business to Pillsbury Co., then the parent company of Burger King.

Terms of the deal werent disclosed. The nine Quik Wok locations generated $4 million in sales in 1984.

At the time, Pillsburys CEO told the Chicago Tribune the company could eventually operate as many as 1,000 Quik Wok locations.

We believe were on the ground floor of a real growth opportunity with Quik Wok, the executive said.

Less than three years later, however, Pillsbury shut down Quik Wok and two other restaurant chains  taking a $91 million write-off.

Deadwood

Andrews and Laus entrepreneurial endeavors didnt end there. They rolled the dice on opening their own casino in Deadwood, S.D., in 1990.

The couple was charmed by this quaint little towns ambiance and excited by the new casino gambling laws in Deadwood, according to a 1994 report.

Their establishment was known as Miss Kittys Saloon, perhaps in homage to the long-running television series Gunsmoke. The pair also operated an adjoining Chinese cafe.

They ultimately sold the businesses to a Washington businessman who operated them until his death in 2009. His estate shut down the casino and cafe in 2014, the Rapid City Journal reported.

Property records show Andrews and Lau turned their attention to real estate investing.

Beginning in 2011, they made the first of at least four condo purchases in the Las Vegas area. The four units have a combined taxable value of almost $750,000, according to the Clark County, Nev., appraisers website.

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Theyve also purchased single-family houses in San Antonio. Andrews & Lau Rental Properties owns a roughly 950-square-foot house on Tallahasse Drive, near Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, assessed at $90,000. The company also owns a roughly 2,000-square-foot house on Dover Ridge on the West Side. Its assessed by the Bexar Appraisal District at almost $197,000.

Records show Andrews & Lau Partnership also owns a nearly 2-acre parcel off Southwest Loop 410 near Marbach Road. The vacant land is assessed at almost $650,000.

They also own assets in California, and Andrews suspects there are assets she doesnt know about, she says in her sworn statement.

Individual purchases

In her lawsuit, Andrews says that over the past 30 years she relied more and more on Kenneth Lau to her detriment.

He has failed to make a single partnership disbursement and even placed his name on deeds on her separate property, the complaint says.

She accuses him of spending an enormous amount of funds, far more than a generous salary, to acquire properties that he placed a great part of in his name alone.

The lawsuit doesnt identify the properties Andrews references.

Bexar County property records show Lau has individually made real estate purchases. In 2018, he bought a 2,000-square-foot commercial building at 8940 Wurzbach thats home to the Noor Grocery store. The building is assessed at $362,750.

In October, Lau acquired a 3,750-square-foot house on Morning Green in the Dominion. Its assessed for more than $700,000. He obtained a $490,000 mortgage loan to finance the purchase. (Andrews and Lau share ownership in another home in the Dominion. Its assessed at almost $946,000.)

Then in April, Lau executed a transfer of death deed. In the event of his death, the Morning Green property is slated to be conveyed to David Lau. Their relationship couldnt immediately be determined.

Andrews alleges Kenneth Lau also made substantial gifts to certain employees, agents or representatives of the businesses, a practice forbidden by their partnership agreements. One of the gifts was for as much as $1 million, her suit says.

Power of attorney

On June 14, Andrews revoked a statutory durable power of attorney that she previously executed in favor of Lau. It would have allowed him to handle Andrews financial affairs if she becomes incapacitated.

A week later, the suit says, Andrews attorneys sent Lau a letter demanding she be allowed to inspect all partnership and accounting records for several years. He responded with minimal documents.

What was disclosed revealed or lead (sic) to the discovery of his pattern of purchasing large amount (sic) of real estate without explaining where the funds originate from, the suit says.

Andrews says she relied on Laus false representations, causing her to enter into a partnership agreement to purchase businesses, property and other assets without any accounting as to the monies received.

As a result, Andrews says, she was unable to start or own additional restaurants because her income was restricted to what her business partner/husband would pay her monthly. She adds that she has been denied the rights to half of all yearly partnership profits and half of the community estate.

Her sworn statement says shes now concerned she cant complete a will because she has no inventory of her assets. Lau has not prepared or signed tax returns for several years, though she says they have been filed. Andrews and Lau filed separate tax returns despite living together, the lawsuit says.

Common-law marriage

A court will probably have to determine whether Andrews and Lau have a common law marriage because of the need to figure out ownership of substantial assets, she says in the suit.

In Texas, a common-law marriage is considered a union when two adults consent to being married without the formality of obtaining a marriage license. Its also known as an informal marriage. Only seven other states allow common-law marriages.

In asking the court for an ex parte temporary restraining order, Andrews referenced Lau fleeing to California. That precluded her from giving him notice of the temporary restraining order application.

State District Judge Rosie Alvarado granted the order the same day the lawsuit was filed.

A hearing on a preliminary injunction was scheduled for Aug. 31 but apparently was never held  possibly because Lau has not been served with the complaint.

pdanner@express-news.net
Six years ago today, a large field of Republican presidential contenders met in Southern California for a debate. It was really broken into two debates, owing to the plethora of candidates. The undercard, dubbed the "Happy Hour" debate, featured four men with strong political credentials: Rick Santorum, Bobby Jindal, George Pataki and Lindsey Graham. The main event had some experienced heavyweights, too, as well as some political novices who'd achieved fame in other professions.

In addition to California business executive Carly Fiorina, who matriculated to the top tier since the first debate in Cleveland a month earlier, the aspirants were Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, John Kasich, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and Scott Walker. They were joined on stage by famous brain surgeon Ben Carson and New York real estate tycoon Donald Trump. The debate moderators were Jake Tapper and Dana Bash of CNN, the network sponsoring the debate, and conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt.

Ronald Reagan was there, too, at least in spirit. Not only did the Gipper still cast a large shadow over the Republican Party in 2015, but the event was held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif.

That was fitting. On this date in history, the Mayflower set sail from Plymouth, England. The ship and its 102 passengers were pointed toward Virginia, where they'd been authorized by the crown to start a colony. Fate had other ideas. Beset by rough seas and hindered by dubious navigational decisions, the Mayflower landed on Nov. 21, 1620 -- in Massachusetts. Ten years later, another band of migrants sailed across the Atlantic for New England. Aboard the Arabella, one of the ships in the small fleet, was Puritan lawyer and religious lay leader John Winthrop. During the passage, he penned a sermon for his flock. Its words and imagery would be cited for more than three and a half centuries. They are quoted still. "We must consider that we shall be a city set on a hill," Winthrop proclaimed. "The eyes of all people are upon us."

Hardly anyone knew it in 2015, but six years ago, a new ethos was taking hold in the Party of Reagan.

I've written often about John Winthrop's "city set on a hill," a sermon that borrowed imagery from the New Testament and has broad ecumenical appeal -- Roman Catholic politicians use it as often as Protestants -- as well as secular meaning.

John F. Kennedy liked to quote Winthrop. Reagan did it so often (with occasional embellishment) that many Americans think the words were his. One elaboration was adding the word "shining" to the depiction. I think Winthrop would have approved. He was describing an America he hadn't yet laid eyes on, which underscores the point that America is an idea as much a place. In his farewell address as president, Ronald Wilson Reagan expounded on this idea.

"The past few days when I've been at that window upstairs, I've thought a bit of the shining city upon a hill.' The phrase comes from John Winthrop," Reagan said, "who journeyed here on what today we'd call a little wooden boat  looking for a home that would be free."

"I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it," Reagan continued. "But in my mind, it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still."

That was in January 1989. Twenty-six years later, it would turn out that the Republican base was in a different place. Donald Trump perceived as much, and capitalized on it. The day before the Sept. 16, 2015, GOP debate, Trump whipped up the crowd aboard a retired battleship that would have blown John Winthrop's mind -- the 45,000-ton USS Iowa.

In his 15-minute speech, Trump said that America now treats illegal immigrants "far better" than military veterans. In his telling, immigrants weren't freedom lovers "with the will and the heart to get here." They were criminals and grifters.

"The silent majority, believe me, is back," Trump said. "They're disgusted with our incompetent politicians. They're disgusted with the people who are giving our country away. They're disgusted when a woman, who is nine months pregnant, walks across the border, has a baby. And you have to take care of that baby for the next 85 years."

Trump's solution was to build a barrier along the southern U.S. border with Mexico. He didn't mention any doors. "There's tremendous crime, there's tremendous drugs pouring across the border," Trump said. "We're going to build a wall."

Carl M. Cannon is the Washington bureau chief for RealClearPolitics. Reach him on Twitter @CarlCannon.
The government has unveiled plans to help farmers boost agri-food exports to fast-growing markets following a significant drop in trade to the EU.

Defra's new exports initiative will help farmers access new markets by appointing more dedicated agri-food attaches to act as representatives on the ground.

A new Food and Drink Exports Council will also be established to expand the government's food and drink exports strategy.

The UK agri-food sector contributes around 20bn in exports each year, but Defra said only 20% of companies sold their goods overseas.

It follows new figures which show that overall exports of UK food and drink are down 2bn compared to pre-Covid levels due mainly to the sharp drop in sales to the EU.

Exports to nearly all member states have fallen significantly, including a loss of more than 0.5bn in sales to Ireland, while sales to Germany, Spain and Italy are each down around a half since H1 2019.

Despite this, sales of UK food and drink to non-EU countries are up 13%, accounting for 47% (4.3bn) of all UK food and drink exports in the first half of 2021.

This was driven by a return to growth in China, Singapore, Australia, Japan and the Gulf region, an increase which means that non-EU exports are now almost back to pre-Covid levels.

Access was recently granted for UK exporters to sell pork to Mexico. Other recent deals include UK beef to the United States, UK poultry, beef and lamb to Japan, and pork to Taiwan.

Unveiling the new exports initiative, Defra Secretary George Eustice said the government wanted people at home and abroad to be 'lining up to buy British'.

"The support will enable our farmers and producers to take advantage of new opportunities and fly the flag for UK produce around the world.

The NFU said it had 'long called' for significant government investment which enabled a partnership approach to international trade opportunities for British farmers.

This is a positive step in the right direction and I welcome this new commitment to put people on the ground with the technical expertise to open up new markets," President Minette Batters said.

"We have also always maintained that there needs to be government match-funding of industry investment in trade and export promotion.

In line with other countries like Australia and New Zealand, it is crucial there are farmer representatives as part of the UK agri-food trade delegation."

But while the Food and Drink Federation (FDF) said a return to growth in exports to non-EU markets was 'welcome news', it did not make up for the 'disastrous' loss of 2bn in sales to the EU.

The trade body also warned that the industry was seeing labour shortages across the farm-to-fork supply chain, resulting in empty shelves, disruptions to deliveries and decreased production.

Dominic Goudie, head of international trade at FDF said: The loss of 2bn of exports to the EU is a disaster for our industry, and is a very clear indication of the scale of losses that UK manufacturers face in the longer term due to new trade barriers with the EU.
Weekly pig prices remain stable but further downward pressure should be expected, the AHDB has warned against the backdrop of staff shortages in pork processing plants and soaring feed costs.

There was little change in the EU-spec SPP for the week ending 11 September, with the average standing at 156.37p per kilogram.

This means that, on average, the producer received just 0.02p/kg less for their pigs than the week before. Prices remain similar to levels in June.

It comes as the industry recently saw the biggest weekly decline in five years.

The National Pig Association (NPA) warned that producers across the UK were currently facing a 'major crisis' as worker shortages and high costs continue.

But despite the temporary stability, the AHDB said producers should still expect further downward pressure on pig prices.

"Pig meat is generally oversupplied across Europe and prices on the continent remain much lower than here in Britain," said Bethan Wilkins, AHDB senior analyst.

"With this in mind, imported pig meat is likely to be relatively competitive."

For the week ending 11 September, estimated slaughter in GB stood at 164,300 head, 5% higher than the week before and also 2% higher than the same week in 2020.

There was also little change in carcase weights during the week, which averaged 88.89kg

"This remains over 3kg above last years level, which is a significant increase and does back-up reports of slaughter delays," Ms Wilkins said.

The EU-spec APP also declined in the week ended 4 September, though not to the same extent as the SPP in the same week. The average was 162.73p/kg, down just under a penny on the week.

This meant the gap between the APP and the SPP was 6.34p, the largest difference since the two series began.
Vets have welcomed a new vaccine against Mycoplasma bovis - a bacterial disease found in dairy and beef cattle - with 95% of those surveyed recommending its use.

The vaccine, which has been used in the US for several years, has since 2019 been assessed in a four-farm case study in Scotland by Graeme Fowlie at Meadows Vets.

Since then it has been used by more than 56 UK vet firms under the Veterinary Medicines Directorate's (VMD) special import scheme, with positive results.

The case studies showed big reductions in antibiotic usage and post-weaning mortality in dairy calves, while of the 40 vet practices surveyed, three-quarters rated the vaccines efficacy at 80-100%.

More than 87% of them said they had seen reduced clinical signs and treatment required after using it, with 37.5% seeing improved response to any treatments used.

Some 45% experienced reduced culling and mortality, with 22.5% witnessing improved weight gains or milk yield.

Mycoplasma Bovis is a very difficult infection to treat once it is established, explained Alan Wilson at North Vets, Orkney. The vaccine reduced infection rates and the need for antibiotics.

Alistair Moir from Buchan Vets, Strichen, Aberdeenshire added: M. Bovis is already more widespread than first thought. It causes more underlying health issues than is generally appreciated.

"I suspect it is often behind chronic non-resolving illness in individual animals which is having a welfare and economic impact on farm productivity.

Until the vaccine was approved for UK use, the only option for farmers affected by M. Bovis  which causes pneumonia, mastitis and swelling  was to have an autogenous vaccine created, but they can be expensive and time-consuming to produce.

Compared to autogenous vaccines available in the UK I perceive the efficacy to be far better with fewer side effects, said Ruth Fraser at Strathspey Vets, Grantown-on-Spey, Highlands.

However, it should not be considered a magic bullet; if other respiratory pathogens are implicated these also need to be dealt with in addition to environmental factors.

Most vets were vaccinating beef cows six weeks pre-calving and dairy cows eight weeks pre-calving where possible, and then calves at three to six weeks of age. And 85% were recommending other routine vaccines, mostly against respiratory diseases.

The effect upon the farm I have used it on has been brilliant, said Tom Jackson, Haywood Farm Vets, Market Drayton, Shropshire.

From a situation where a large number of cattle were dying despite good husbandry and treatment protocols, the holding now experiences extremely low rates of clinical pneumonia and mortality, with greatly improved average daily live weight gains too.

Elske Put of North Park Veterinary Group, North Tawton, Devon, successfully used the vaccine in a dairy herd which was suffering from M. Bovis-related morbidity and mortality in milking cows.

It was obvious when the farmer forgot to vaccinate in-calf heifers; a few subsequently got ill after joining the milking herd, she said. This has improved now that heifers also are vaccinated.
The Fauquier Times is honored to serve as your community companion. To say thank you, we are excited to offer 4 weeks FREE Digital & Print access to all subscribers new and returning alike.

We are dedicated to continuing providing reliable, high quality journalism. This is possible with the trust and support of our subscribers in the community we are proud to serve.
2020 was a year marked by hardships and challenges, but the Fauquier community has proven resilient. The Fauquier Times is honored to serve as your community companion. To say thank you for your continued support, wed like to offer all our subscribers -- new or returning --

4 WEEKS FREE DIGITAL AND PRINT ACCESS.

We understand the importance of working to keep our community strong and connected. As we move forward together into 2021, it will take commitment, communication, creativity, and a strong connection with those who are most affected by the stories we cover.

We are dedicated to providing the reliable, local journalism you have come to expect. We are committed to serving you with renewed energy and growing resources. Let the Fauquier Times be your community companion throughout 2021, and for many years to come.
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Dino Morea recently appeared on the OTT web series, The Empire, which was based on the life of Emperor Babur. The show has been heavily criticized for allegedly glorifying Mughals. Now, Dino has said that the story for the show has been "fictionalized". If you read the book, you will understand that there is a lot of fiction mixed with history to dramatize the narrative and make it more fun to read. Likewise, we have fictionalized our story as well, so viewers remain engaged with the story. Yes, it tells the story of the Mughal era, but we are not glorifying anybody. Its not history; its just a lot of fiction," he told a leading daily.

Dino portrays the role of antagonist Muhammad Shaybani Khan in The Empire. On being asked about playing a negative role, he said: "As an actor, Im not really worried about being typecast. I feel it doesnt happen anymore. Every character has its unique trajectory, and I try to do my best for every role I take up. So, yes, if offered another negative role, I will take it. I feel certain negative characters, or the ones with grey shades, provide more scope for acting. These characters help you excel. And such interesting characters allure me."
Though unintentional, superstar Hrithik Roshan has shared one of the most relatable posts on social media today. Hes always kept his Instagram very real and candid and todays post has got netizens pouring in comments and funny compliments for the actor.

Hrithik posted an image of himself with his mother at the breakfast table when fans were quick to notice his damp wall and the scaffoldings in front of his building, in the background. Making no qualms about it, the actor engaged with his fans, responding to several comments and with his wit and sense of humour.

Commenting back to people who pointed out that his house has silan just like everyone in Mumbai, the actor responded responded, Agar silan nahi hoga toh silan ko theekh karne ka mazaa kaise aayega bhai.

Furthermore, he commended that hes currently living on rent and is looking to buy a new house for himself very soon. Take a look.
Montreal, Quebec--(Newsfile Corp. - September 15, 2021) - GOLO Mobile Inc. doing business as Usewalter (TSXV: WLTR) ("Usewalter" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that, further to the press release issued on August 27, 2021, the Company has entered into a binding share purchase and sale agreement dated September 15, 2021 (the "Agreement") with an arm's length party, N. Harris Computer Corporation (the "Purchaser") pursuant to which the Company has agreed to sell 100% of the issued and outstanding shares of GOLO Inc. and Walter Innovations Inc., two wholly owned subsidiaries of the Company (the "Subsidiaries") which sale includes the Company's software platform, customer relationships and the Usewalter brand (the "Transaction").

Under the terms of the Agreement, the Purchaser will pay an aggregate cash purchase price of $500,000 for the Subsidiaries, subject to certain adjustments, and will assume the Company's premises lease obligations of approximately $400,000.

Benefits of the Transaction

The Company has incurred significant operating losses and negative cash flow from operations since inception, and in the current environment, the Company does not believe that it has the ability to successfully market its SaaS-based smart building technology or raise the additional capital required to develop its business on acceptable terms. The Transaction is expected to provide the Company's shareholders with greater value for the assets of the Company than would otherwise have been obtained in connection with the voluntary dissolution and winding up of the Company (the "Dissolution") announced on August 10, 2021.

In the event that the Transaction is completed according to the terms of the Agreement, the Company will not have any active business operations or material assets other than cash. The Company expects to be delisted from the TSX Venture Exchange (the "TSXV") and to proceed with the Dissolution following the completion of the Transaction. The Company intends to distribute the net proceeds of the Transaction and the Company's remaining cash (after payment of Transaction costs, Dissolution costs and payment of all liabilities and obligations of the Company) to shareholders of Usewalter ("Shareholders") in one or more installments. The Corporation will provide shareholders with further updates with respect to the proposed distributions upon completion of the Transaction.

Completion of the Transaction, Shareholder Meeting and Dissolution

The Transaction is subject to customary closing conditions for a transaction of this nature, including: (i) the receipt of resignations and releases from certain officers and directors of the Subsidiaries; (ii) minimum customer revenue billing; (iii) the receipt of the approval of the TSXV; and (iv) the approval of the Transaction by not less than 66 2/3% of votes cast by Shareholders in person or by proxy at a special meeting of shareholders (the "Meeting"). At the Meeting, Shareholders will also vote to approve the Dissolution and proposed delisting (the "Delisting") of the Usewalter shares from the TSXV. The Dissolution must also be approved by not less than 66 2/3% of the votes cast by Shareholders in person or by proxy. In addition, approvals must be received by a majority of the votes cast by the Shareholders, excluding those votes cast by persons who are to be excluded pursuant to Multilateral Instrument 61-101 - Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions, as adopted by Policy 5.9 - Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions of the TSXV. Approval of the Delisting must be received by a majority of the votes cast by the Shareholders, excluding those votes cast by persons whose votes are to be excluded pursuant to Policy 2.9 - Trading Halts, Suspensions and Delisting of the TSXV. The Meeting will be held on October 19, 2021 in Montreal, and it is expected that the closing of the Transaction will occur shortly thereafter. The outside date under the Agreement to satisfy all conditions and close the Transaction is November 15, 2021.

Details of the Transaction and the Dissolution process will be set out in greater detail in the proxy materials, comprised of the notice of meeting, management information circular (the "Circular") and instrument of proxy which will be mailed out on or about September 27, 2021. Shareholders of the Company are encouraged to read the Circular as well as the Agreement. Copies of the Circular and the Agreement will be available under the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

The board of directors of Usewalter (the "Board") has unanimously determined that the Transaction is in the best interests of the Company and fair to Shareholders, and the Board recommends that the Shareholders vote in favour of the Transaction at the Meeting. Shareholders holding approximately 64.7% of the outstanding Usewalter shares have signed voting support agreements in support of the Transaction.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This news release may contain statements which constitute "forward-looking information" under applicable Canadian securities laws, including statements regarding plans, intentions, beliefs and current expectations of the Company, its directors, or its officers with respect to the future business activities of the Company or with respect to the Agreement, the Transaction, the Dissolution, the likelihood that the Transaction will be consummated. The words "may", "would", "could", "will", "intend", "plan", "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "expect" and similar expressions, as they relate to the Company, the Subsidiaries or their management, may identify such forward-looking information. Investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking information is not a guarantee of future business activities and involves risks and uncertainties, and that the Company's future business activities may differ materially from those in the forward-looking information as a result of various factors, including, but not limited to, fluctuations in market prices, risks relating to the terms of the Transaction, the inability of the parties to satisfy the conditions precedent set out Agreement, the ability of the Company to satisfy the Purchaser's closing conditions, success of the operations of the Subsidiaries, continued availability of capital and financing, the ultimate liquidation, Dissolution and delisting of the Company and general economic, market or business conditions. There can be no assurances that such information will prove accurate and, therefore, readers are advised to rely on their own evaluation of such uncertainties. The Company does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking information except as required under the applicable securities laws.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

For Further Information:

Peter Mazoff, Chief Executive Officer

1-855-465-6515

ir@usewalter.com

Cindy Gray

5 Quarters Investor Relations, Inc.

(403) 231-4372

info@5qir.com

No securities regulatory authority has either approved or disapproved of the contents of this news release. This news release is not an offer of securities for sale in the United States. Securities may not be offered or sold in the United States or to or for the account or benefit of U.S. persons (as such terms are defined in Regulation S under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act")), absent registration or an exemption from registration. The securities offered have not been and will not be registered under the U.S. Securities Act or any state securities laws and, therefore, may not be offered for sale in the United States, except in transactions exempt from registration under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws. This news release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of the securities in any state in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) is responsible for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.

NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWS WIRE SERVICES OR DISSEMINATION IN UNITED STATES

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/96741




LOS ANGELES, CA., Sept 16, 2021 - (ACN Newswire) - AppSealing, a leading mobile application security solution provider and a service of INKA ENTWORKS, announced the launch of its data encryption solution for Android applications. With this solution, companies can protect a slew of sensitive data like authentication tokens, unique identifiers, and passwords from unauthorized access and modification. The premium addition of this solution to its mobile application protection suite further reiterates AppSealing's commitment to enabling companies to fend off cyber attackers and prevent illegal application access, theft, deletion, or modification. Companies can now take better control of their data in a much more proactive manner.The solution offers top-notch encryption architectures and supports AES 256 encryption, the strongest encryption standard in the world. It provides industry security standards like PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard), GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), and HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act). Companies can be compliance-ready instantly without any coding or SDK integration.James Ahn, CEO with INKA ENTWORKS, explains the relevance of data encryption for fintech companies: "Fintech industry is booming. The global fintech market, which was worth $128Bn in 2018, is expected to touch a figure of $310Bn in 2022. We have been collaborating with our clients to secure their mobile applications. Our latest offering of end-to-end data encryption further strengthens our mobile application security portfolio and leadership position in the market. We are pleased to make fintech, payments, banking, and gaming apps a lot more secure. We are excited to partner with our customers and help them be compliant, protect sensitive data, take relevant actions against hackers, and build their business and reputation confidently.""Digital banking enables companies to provide fintech and banking services at the touch of a button. It is a great way for companies to serve their customers, but it also means opening Pandora's box since attackers are lurking around. Data localization restrictions also put an additional responsibility. With data encryption, we aim to help Fintech companies focus on customer experience, compliance with localization policies, and revenue generation within the safe walls of security," says Govindraj Basatwar, Global Business Head with INKA ENTWORKS.The key features include:Whitebox AES 256 & FIPS 140-2 encryption for Android mobile devices, software, and operating systemsRuntime protection covering encryption keys, API keys, authentication tokens, etc.End-to-end support system encompassing legacy native file input/output interfaceCompanies can thus leverage AppSealing's data encryption solution to protect sensitive data pertaining to their Android applications. The robust encryption standards ensure 100% coverage of emerging attack vectors, to provide a complete safety net to mobile applications.About AppSealing: AppSealingAppSealing is the only cloud-based pay-as-you-go solution to protect mobile apps without writing a single line of code. Our solution is easy to use and allows you to protect mobile apps from hackers and illegal application modification, thus making them secure in run-time with RASP security features. AppSealing is a new App Security Service from INKA Entworks, a content security company dedicated to helping content developers and publishers protect their content from manipulation and theft.About INKA ENTWORKS:INKA Entworks is trusted by 1000+ customers globally, providing 360-degree, cloud-based end-to-end content security for OTT platforms, such as Multi DRM, Forensic Watermarking, Anti-Piracy services, Anti-screen capture/Recorder, App Security with Quick and Simple integration. It is a ONE-IN-ALL solution for OTT owners. INKA is one of only five companies authorized to provide DRM technology for Hollywood movie studios.For more information, please contact:Rupesh Shinderupesh@inka.co.kr+1-213-550-5473Rachana Chowdharyrachana@mediavalueworks.com+1-847-453-4357Source: INKA EntworksCopyright 2021 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved.
Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
World InsurTech Report 2021: Unprecedented access to capital investment fuels InsurTech and BigTech maturity and customer adoption

For the first time, 50% of insurance customers are willing to consider coverage from new-age digital players, as incumbents seek strategic partnerships to remain competitive.

Paris, September 16, 2021 - Capgemini and Efma 's World InsurTech Report 2021 , published today, reveals that InsurTechs and BigTech players are leveraging significant capital inflows to boost technological development and fuel innovation, turning up the heat on incumbent insurers. New age digital players are offering greater personalization and emphasis on customer experience, thus achieving maturity and customer adoption. In response, incumbents are attempting to strengthen their tech capabilities by partnering with or acquiring InsurTechs and shifting from "doing digital" to "being digital".

According to the report, tech giants and InsurTechs have secured unprecedented access to capital allocation from investors and are bolstering their digital capabilities, increasing their lead as innovation frontrunners. Between 2018-2020, the 5 biggest tech companies and a famous auto manufacturer which offers insurance services added almost 2.5 times the total market capitalization of the 30 largest insurers globally in 20201. By the end of 2020, the total market cap of listed InsurTechs surpassed $22 billion 2. InsurTechs are fast becoming the investment du jour, with a range of investors supporting and enabling the wave of flowing capital. Opportunistic venture capitalists and private equity partners are deploying early-stage capital. While reinsurers are actively playing two critical roles: enabling InsurTechs through investments and providing essential underwriting capacity.

CARE becomes the industry secret sauce

The COVID-19 pandemic catalyzed customer intention to purchase insurance (up by 7%) and increasingly, policyholders are gravitating towards insurers that offer better 'CARE'3, where Convenience, Advice and Reach are at the heart of designing and evaluating the effectiveness of their customer journey. Today, policyholders no longer waver when it comes to dropping a provider in pursuit of more relevant CARE solutions provider. For the first time, 50% of customers today are willing to consider coverage from a new age player.

Digital technologies make the difference for new age players flush with investment capital

InsurTechs are leveraging the inflow of investor capital to further improve their CARE offerings through digital technologies, including AI/predictive modelling, advanced data analytics, API/open insurance and IoT/connected devices. InsurTechs are mindful of customer expectations and, while convenience has been at the center of InsurTech propositions for some time, priorities are now shifting towards reach. Although incumbents are experiencing clear data and analytics challenges (only a quarter of insurers are confident in their data handling abilities) they are not idle. To circumvent and overcome these limitations, many traditional insurers are buying and partnering with new age digital players to enhance their capabilities and value proposition as part of the CARE equation, with a special focus on reach.



"The insurance industry is evolving, the keyword for its future is modularity. Insurers must be prepared to tackle a broad range of future scenarios. Modular offers, systems and organizational structures will be indispensable to creating a robust and responsive value change. In the coming years, industry players will be defined by their strength within a hyper-specialized value chain, and insurers will increasingly become orchestrators," said Anirban Bose, CEO of Capgemini's Financial Services and Group Executive Board Member.

Insurance is moving from product selling to customer CARE and protection, and as the lines between insurance industry participants blur, the report predicts two scenarios emerging enabled by continued access to capital:

Embedded insurance as a value add within third-party ecosystems: Coverage is embedded at the point of sale or point of service, becoming virtually invisible. The business model evolves toward a B2B2C proposition, where ecosystem partners control customer relationships. Added value at the core of complex offerings: Insurers evolve from selling products to CAREing for customers through predict-and-prevent propositions enabled by AI and analytics.

"As traditional insurers expand their ecosystems to remain competitive, they must increasingly consider the value achievable through trusted partners, including BigTechs, InsurTechs and non-traditional players like original equipment manufacturer (OEMs). The numbers clearly suggest that exponential InsurTech growth is here to stay, so delivering superior customer CARE is essential. Future success in the industry will depend on players' existing capabilities across the value chain, willingness to invest, and desire to own the customer relationship," said John Berry, CEO of Efma.

Report methodology

The World InsurTech Report (WITR) 2021 draws on research insights from numerous surveys, roundtable discussions and interviews: World InsurTech Report 2021 Roundtable Discussions, World InsurTech Report 2020-2021 Executive Interviews, 2020 Global Insurance Executive Interviews, 2020-2021 Global Insurance Voice of the Customer Survey, Capgemini COVID-19 Consumer Survey 2021, Capgemini InsurTech Landscape Study 2020-2021, 2021 InsurTech partnership and analytics analysis. The report includes an analysis of more than 900 InsurTechs focused within the United States and Europe, split into three broad categories as full carriers, distributors, and enablers. The analysis draws insights on the InsurTech growth rate between 2020-2021 and the funding obtained for the period 2020-2021.

About Capgemini

Capgemini is a global leader in partnering with companies to transform and manage their business by harnessing the power of technology. The Group is guided everyday by its purpose of unleashing human energy through technology for an inclusive and sustainable future. It is a responsible and diverse organization of 290,000 team members in nearly 50 countries. With its strong 50-year heritage and deep industry expertise, Capgemini is trusted by its clients to address the entire breadth of their business needs, from strategy and design to operations, fuelled by the fast evolving and innovative world of cloud, data, AI, connectivity, software, digital engineering, and platforms. The Group reported in 2020 global revenues of 16 billion.



Get The Future You Want |? www.capgemini.com

About Efma

A global non-profit organization established in 1971 by banks and insurance companies, Efma facilitates networking between decision-makers. It provides quality insights to help banks and insurance companies make the right decisions to foster innovation and drive their transformation. 120 financial groups in 133 countries are Efma members. Headquartered in Paris. Offices in London, Brussels, Andorra, Milan, Stockholm, Bratislava, Warsaw, Moscow, Istanbul, Beirut, Dubai, Tokyo, Singapore, Sydney and Montreal.

To know more: www.efma.com





1 Capgemini financial analysis based on data from Yahoo Finance and CompaniesMarketCap .

2 Capgemini Financial Analysis based on data from CompaniesMarketCap .

3 C: Customers want 24/7 convenience - quick response time and multichannel access to policy information, and account management. A: Customers want personalized advice - products customized to their needs, as well as the ability to manage their risk profile across their policy lifecycle. RE: Customers expect insurers to reach out to them and engage meaningfully according to their preferences - such as via risk-prevention propositions or capabilities to offer unintrusive support during moments of need.





Attachment
DENVER, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- KVS Technologies, leading provider of end-to-end drone inspection services for utility companies, has entered a strategic agreement with Spright, Air Methods' new drone division. Under this agreement, KVS Technologies will launch its services in North America, with Spright exclusively operating all flights for linear infrastructure inspection. This partnership brings together two key players within drone technology and commercial flight operations, with a view to gaining a leading position in the US linear infrastructure inspection market.

The power grid is the world's most important infrastructure, but it is ageing and vulnerable with a large portion in use longer than anticipated. At the same time, increasing electrification is placing enormous demands on these assets. Upgrading the U.S. electrical infrastructure would take decades, while the cost of replacing it is prohibitive. To meet demand with existing resources, utility companies must boost electrical output from their existing grid, while increasing uptime. Traditional methods for inspection, maintenance and repair include the use of low-flying helicopters or having line men work manually on the ground, which are neither efficient nor ideal for health, safety and the environment.

KVS Technologies has developed and commercialized a one-stop-shop answer to help utility companies meet many of the demands of electrification, as well as increase their grid capacity. It comprises a fit-for-purpose unmanned aircraft system (UAS), the Explorer E30, which is built to perform large-scale aerial inspections autonomously with zero emissions. The solution includes Fleet Management, a software suite for flight operations, and Grid Analytics, a software for visualization and data analysis. The KVS Technologies solution is designed to help utility companies find faults and respond to them faster, while providing a smarter, greener, and safer way to monitor and maintain the conditions of the power infrastructure.

At present, KVS Technologies serves more than 10 percent of Norway's utility companies and has conducted more than 3,000 beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) power grid inspections in Europe. This agreement with Spright, a division of Air Methods, the largest and most experienced Part 135 operator in the United States, means that it will now be able to expand and scale its operations in North America. The potential for growth is significant; the United States has around 3.1 million miles of power lines in comparison to Norway's 62,000 miles. The Part 135 certificate makes it possible to conduct BVLOS drone flights without exemption, in full accordance with Federal Aviation Administration regulations.

"We are thrilled to have found a partner in Spright, who shares our drive to create a safer and better future for people everywhere," says Cato Vevatne, co-founder and CEO of KVS Technologies. "Our customers in Europe have seen how using our unmanned systems for large scale power grid inspection has significant operational and environmental benefits, and through Air Methods we will now be able to offer our unique solution in North America."

"Spright was created to help solve many of the toughest challenges facing communities across North America," said Joe Resnik, president of Spright. "Current infrastructure challenges require innovation and technology to find more effective and efficient solutions. This is where our work with KVS Technologies will make a difference. Leveraging emerging technologies, we will be able to more rapidly solve many infrastructure challenges in a more responsible manner, with a clear focus on safety."

About Spright

Spright is the drone division of Air Methods, created to help solve for many of the toughest challenges facing communities across North America. This innovative, drone-based solution is tasked with leveraging emerging aeronautical technology to create operational solutions that can be implemented locally. Based in Gilbert, AZ, Spright as a stand-alone Part 135 Operator with a leadership team that touts more than 70 years of aviation operational experience.

About Air Methods

Air Methods (airmethods.com) is the leading air medical service, delivering lifesaving care to more than 70,000 people every year. With nearly 40 years of air medical experience, Air Methods is the preferred partner for hospitals and one of the largest community-based providers of air medical services. United Rotorcraft is the Company's products division specializing in the design and manufacture of aeromedical and aerospace technology. Air Methods' fleet of owned, leased or maintained aircraft features more than 450 helicopters and fixed wing aircraft.

About KVS Technologies

Founded in 2015, KVS Technologies provides utilities with end-to-end solutions for inspection and digitalization of critical infrastructure. The company leverages its state-of-the-art unmanned systems and analytics software, providing customers with a digital twin of their entire infrastructure. By helping them work in a smarter, greener, and safer way, KVS Technologies ensures a steady and reliable supply of electricity to millions of people. For more information, please visit kvstech.no .

Media Contacts

Angeline Tse

Communications Manager

KVS Technologies

at@kvstech.no

Doug Flanders

Director of Communications

Spright /Air Methods

Doug.Flanders@airmethods.com

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/771667/Air_Methods_Logo.jpg
Regulatory News:

SEGRO plc ('SEGRO') announces the launch and pricing of a ten year, 500 million senior unsecured Green bond issue. The bonds, which were eight times oversubscribed, were priced at 55 basis points above euro mid-swaps and have an annual coupon of 0.5 per cent.

This is SEGRO's first bond in the euro market and its first Green bond, following from the Green bond issued by SEGRO European Logistics Partnership ('SELP') in May 2021.

The proceeds of the issue will principally be used to finance and/or refinance Eligible Green Projects as outlined in the SEGRO Green Finance Framework, including the continued development programme, as well as providing funding for general corporate purposes.

Soumen Das, SEGRO Chief Financial Officer, commented:

"We are delighted with the support for SEGRO's first Green and first euro-denominated bond issue, achieving a 0.5% coupon and 10 year maturity. The level of oversubscription we received for the issuance underlines investors' recognition of the strength of our business and the importance they rightly place on sustainable investment. The proceeds will be invested in line with our Responsible SEGRO framework including the construction of new properties with high sustainability credentials through our very active development programme."

ENDS

About SEGRO

SEGRO is a UK Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT), listed on the London Stock Exchange and Euronext Paris, and is a leading owner, manager and developer of modern warehouses and industrial property. It owns or manages 8.8 million square metres of space (95 million square feet) valued at 17.1 billion serving customers from a wide range of industry sectors. Its properties are located in and around major cities and at key transportation hubs in the UK and in seven other European countries.

For over 100 years SEGRO has been creating the space that enables extraordinary things to happen. From modern big box warehouses, used primarily for regional, national and international distribution hubs, to urban warehousing located close to major population centres and business districts, it provides high-quality assets that allow its customers to thrive.

A commitment to be a force for societal and environmental good is integral to SEGRO's purpose and strategy. Its Responsible SEGRO framework focuses on three long-term priorities where the company believes it can make the greatest impact: Championing Low-Carbon Growth, Investing in Local Communities and Environments and Nurturing Talent.

See www.SEGRO.com for further information.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210915006002/en/

Contacts:

Harry Stokes (Commercial Finance Director)

+44 (0) 20 7451 9124 harry.stokes@segro.com



Gary Gaskarth (External Communications Manager)

+44 (0) 20 7451 9069 gary.gaskarth@segro.com



Richard Sunderland Eve Kirmatzis (FTI Consulting)

Tel: +44 (0) 20 3727 1000
LONDON, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Trust Payments, the global unified payments group, has partnered with Kriptomat to power the payments engine behind Kriptomat's cryptocurrency exchange.

Operating from Estonia since 2018, Kriptomat describes itself as "the most user-friendly government-regulated European cryptocurrency exchange." Targeting cryptocurrency beginners, Kriptomat empowers everyday people to purchase, store, send, and receive cryptocurrencies without mastering the technical jargon and arcane details required at conventional crypto exchanges. Kriptomat's mission is to give everyone online tools to manage and grow their digital assets and to make these tools available wherever users are. Kriptomat services and tools are currently available to users in more than 20 languages.

Kriptomat offers a full suite of portfolio management tools for beginning and experienced investors. Kriptomat allows customers to purchase, convert, track, store, and manage crypto funds via a web-based dashboard that provides comprehensive data on cryptocurrency prices, technical details, and market trends. All data can be accessed from Kriptomat's free applications for iOS and Android mobile devices as well.

Trust Payments is a key payments player in the crypto space, offering crypto merchants the opportunity to minimise risk and break new ground. The exclusive agreement with Trust Payments ensures that Kriptomat's customers will have access to Trust Payments' best-of-breed payment platform for debit and credit cards, fraud screening, and multi-currency processing - plus a recurring-payments engine that will power the launch of a new subscription model for Kriptomat. The subscription model will allow consumers to set up recurring purchases of their chosen cryptocurrencies. Users can set up automated weekly and monthly purchases to automate savings, save time, sidestep the risks of day trading, and build their investment portfolios painlessly.

"We are excited to support Kriptomat with their expansion plans," said Craig Brightly, Trust Payments head of sales. "Our dedicated cryptocurrency team understands the unique challenges crypto businesses face when searching for a payments partner. We believe it is critical to support crypto exchanges with simple terms, expertise in navigating new markets, fast settlement, and an easy application process."

"The partnership with Trust Payments allows us to offer secure, reliable transactions to our customers," said Dejan Davidovic, COO of Kriptomat. "Trust Payments is able to cater to all of our requirements, which will help us launch new products and features such as recurring buy. We are looking forward to expanding our partnership and offering even more features that will empower users to manage their portfolios more conveniently and profitably."



Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1624395/trustpayments_kriptomat.jpg

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1503077/TRUST_Payments_Black_Logo.jpg
More ambitious targets and a well-to-wake approach for calculating emissions will be vital to accelerate the global transition to clean shipping

WOLLERAU, Switzerland, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Proman has welcomed the UK Government's commitment to push for a world-leading absolute zero target for international shipping emissions by 2050, as announced by Transport Secretary Grant Shapps on 13thSeptember 2021.

This target, which would need to be agreed through the International Maritime Organization (IMO), recognises that reducing shipping emissions is not just about cutting carbon dioxide (CO2).

Of the ~3% of global greenhouse gas emissions generated by the sector, a significant proportion of this estimated 1 billion tonnes1 each year comes in the form of sulphur oxides (SOx), nitrous oxides (NOx) and particulate matter, all of which have a proven impact on air quality and public health.2

The global shipping sector and regulators must take decisions now regarding the fuels and technology required to meet existing IMO 2030 and 2050 targets.

Some of the world's largest shipping companies have this year backed methanol as the leading alternative marine fuel for the future, including Maersk's recent order of eight new methanol-fueled vessels and the significant investments by leading engine manufacturers MAN and Wartsila in methanol fleets and technology.

As a marine fuel, methanol's major advantage is that it can drastically - and in some instances immediately - reduce all shipping emissions. It therefore has a major role to play in meeting the UK Government's 2050 absolute zero emissions target.

With its clean-burning qualities, ship owners switching to methanol fuel can immediately eliminate SOx and particulate matter and cut NOx emissions by over 60%. Methanol produced from natural gas offers an initial 10-15% CO2 saving, rising to over 90% when using renewable methanol. Methanol is also safe to handle, globally available and benefits from proven engine technology.

Speaking at this year's Argus Methanol Forum, David Cassidy, Chief Executive of Proman said:

"While only smaller amounts of renewable methanol are currently produced, as demand grows the level of renewable methanol production can be rapidly ramped up. As more plants get built and more capital is committed to renewable methanol production, the underlying technologies and equipment will become more cost effective and the price of renewable methanol will become more competitive. The whole process can be a massive stimulus for our global economy, creating new future-proof jobs while driving down emissions and reducing environmental harm. That surely, is a win-win situation."

Welcoming the UK Government's commitment to push for absolute zero shipping emissions by 2050, David Cassidy called for further regulatory and government actions to create a level playing field for cleaner alternative fuels:

"The global energy transition has opened the door for alternatives to conventional fuels. There is no single solution or silver bullet, and we need to keep the door open for an open fuel standard for every solution to work in concert. But investing in methanol now means a smoother and faster transition to a lower carbon future."

"As an industry, we need legislative action to help level the playing field and foster methanol's adoption. Pricing challenges will need to be confronted, and carbon taxes on fossil-based fuels should be part of the solution. Calculating emissions on a well-to-wake basis are critical to allowing like-for-like comparisons between future fuels, rather than pushing emissions further upstream. We need the development of international certificates to allow for a true "book and claim" system, because that will be crucial to the acceptance of methanol as a fuel more broadly. And we absolutely need to standardise how we all report ESG metrics."

NOTES TO EDITORS

About Proman:

Proman is an integrated energy company and the world's second largest methanol producer.

Headquartered in Switzerland, with assets in the United States, Trinidad and Oman, and ongoing expansion into Mexico, Proman is a global leader in methanol, fertilizer and other products such as melamine and has extensive experience in petrochemical plant operations, petrochemical and power plant construction, marketing and logistics, and project management.

Proman is committed to developing sustainable methanol and ammonia as cleaner alternatives to fossil fuels, offering a pathway to drastically cutting emissions in power generation, overland transportation, shipping and industry.

In June 2021, Proman finalised an agreement to build two additional 49,900 dwt methanol dual-fuel MR tankers, bringing its total investment in methanol-powered vessels to six newbuildings.

Learn more about our work along the clean shipping supply chain here: https://www.proman.org/methanol-as-a-marine-fuel/

1 https://wwwcdn.imo.org/localresources/en/OurWork/Environment/Documents/Fourth IMO GHG Study 2020 - Full report and annexes.pdf

2 According to the UK Department of Transport's Clean Maritime Plan, published July 2019, domestic shipping accounted for 11% of the UK's total NOx emissions, 2% of the primary PM2.5 emissions, and 7% of SO2 emissions. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/815664/clean-maritime-plan.pdf
Clean Invest Africa Plc

("CIA" or the "Company")

Fundraising Via CLN and update on Audited Accounts

16 September 2021

The Company is pleased to announce that it has agreed to enter into a convertible loan note of 60,000 ("CLN"), for a period of 6 months, with three of the Company directors, Mr Noel Lyons, Mr Filippo Fantechi and Mr Paul Ryan, in equal parts, of 20,000 each.

The CLN is convertible into ordinary shares of the Company at the request of the CLN holders, at 0.25p per share (the current share price at the time of this announcement is in the range 0.3p/0.5p) with an interest coupon of 8% payable in ordinary shares at 0.25p, upon redemption or conversion. Both the CLN and the coupon carry equivalent of 2 warrants for every one ordinary share resulting from the conversions. Therefore, the Company will immediately grant a total of 49,920,000 warrants, each with an exercise price of 0.25p and valid for a period of 5 years. The warrants are made up as follows:

Table 1

Warrant Holder Warrants (CLN) Warrants (Coupon) Total Warrants Noel Lyons 16,000,000 640,000 16,640,000 Paul Ryan 16,000,000 640,000 16,640,000 Filippo Fantechi 16,000,000 640,000 16,640,000 49,920,000

Should the above warrants be exercised in full in Table 1, further warrants on an equivalent of two warrants for every one warrant exercised in Table 1 will be granted as follows for a further 5 year period and with an exercise price of 0.4 pence per share. This also assumes the CLN will convert after 6 months:

Table 2

Warrant Holder Warrants (CLN) Warrants (Coupon) Total Warrants Noel Lyons 32,000,000 1,280,000 33,280,000 Paul Ryan 32,000,000 1,280,000 33,380,000 Filippo Fantechi 32,000,000 1,280,000 33,280,000 99,840,000

In addition each of the 3 Directors have also agreed to convert all outstanding professional fees being 42,000 each for Mr Lyons and Mr Fantechi and 50,820 for Mr Ryan (who services are provided through a private company), to ordinary shares in the Company at a price of 0.25p each, comprising 16,800,000 shares each for Mr Lyons and Mr Fantechi and 20,328,000 shares for Mr Ryan. Each share shall carry two Warrants on the same terms as set out for the convertible loan above. Subject to approval of resolutions at the next general meeting, the outstanding professional fees will convert into the stated ordinary shares.

Total Voting Rights

In accordance with the Financial Conduct Authority's Disclosure and Transparency Rules, the Board of CIA confirms that the Company has [XX] ordinary shares of 0.25 pence each in issue, each share carrying the right to one vote. The Company does not hold any Ordinary Shares in treasury.

The figure of 1,179,755,301 may be used by shareholders in the Company as the denominator for the calculations by which they will determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change to their interest in, the share capital of the Company under the Financial Conduct Authority's Disclosure and Transparency Rules.

Strategic Review and Pivot from Coal

The Board is undertaking a strategic review of its business. Whilst cleaning up legacy coal which is at the core of the Company and has a clear and obvious demand, investors globally have a significant and hardening reluctance to invest in any part of the value chain that might involve the eventual burning of coal. The Company continues to explore opportunities along and with others beyond this narrow application of its technology and believes that the broader opportunities might be more lucrative. A further update will be provided in due course.

Current Options

Current options held by Directors/management are acknowledged to be effectively worthless and particularly with the passage of time including due to Covid-19 and the significant fall in the Company share price since this reverse takeover transaction. The Company has therefore agreed subject to approval at the next general meeting (expected to be held to approve the Company's audited accounts), to re-rate all existing options to a strike price 0.25p per option and valid for 5 years from date of this announcement. Each option also will have 2 follow on warrants, valid for 5 years at 0.25p per warrant, granted only upon exercise of the option.

2021 Incentive Scheme

Further the Company shall propose at the next general meeting of the Company, Director and management warrants for 2021 and beyond to incentivise Directors and management to achieve significant progress with the business. This will include its renewed strategy currently under discussion by the Board. It has agreed in principle that these management warrants should be 125m warrants in total, comprising 25m each for the Directors and 25m for management, and at the current share price of 0.25p each with a further 2 follow on warrants as with the Warrants, granted only if original warrants are exercised in full.

His Excellency Shaikh Mohamed AlKhalifa AlKhalifa, being a director and considered independent of this process has considered the arrangements and following consultation with the Company advisers believes that the arrangements set out herein are fair and reasonable.

Audited Accounts

The Company shall publish its audited accounts, previously expected in September, at end of October 2021 and recognises that the Exchange might temporarily suspend its shares from trading pending such publication.

The Directors of the Company accept responsibility for the contents of this announcement.

ENQUIRIES :

Clean Invest Africa plc

Filippo Fantechi (Executive Director) +973 3969 6273

Shaikh Mohamed Abdulla Khalifa AlKhalifa (Non-Executive Chairman) +973 3969 2299

Peterhouse Capital Limited

Corporate Adviser +44 20 7469 0930

Guy Miller/Mark Anwyl
As an official partner, HUBUC will help new Fintech and B2B SaaS products to emerge in Spain, Germany, France and other European countries

HUBUC, an embedded financial services powerhouse backed by Y-Combinator, is pleased to announce that it is now an official partner of Mastercard through the Fintech Express program. Mastercard works with fintech companies through all stages of growth and transformation market entry, expansion, product development, diversification and innovation and connects them with partners like HUBUC to find new ways to innovate. These partnerships will help new Fintech and B2B SaaS products to emerge in Spain, Germany, France and other European countries.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210915005994/en/

HUBUC joins Mastercard Fintech Express program (Photo: Unsplash)

Through this partnership, HUBUC can provide a single component or the integration of a full set of embedded finance components to support each step of the digital end-consumer journey all the way from card usage to management, and engagement of customers.

A next generation embedded financial services company with a keen focus on B2B Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), HUBUC's innovative platform with Mastercard as the partner of choice, can help improving new customer's existing product offering with secure and programmable virtual and physical cards to:

Improve business spending management

Offer unique employee benefits

Facilitate flexible salary payouts

For HUBUC, teaming with Mastercard through the Fintech Express program is an ideal fit, particularly as it relates to HUBUC's desire to support innovative companies in Spain, Germany, France as well as throughout Europe that are interested in having a payment product as a part of their core business and are looking for accelerated time-to-market.

This will benefit companies looking to integrate payment products for uses such as:

Digital payments

Corporate expense management

Benefit/loyalty programs

Additionally, HUBUC's exposure to clients in the European Union and the UK makes it a potential partner for any Fintech and B2B SaaS company located in this region. By partnering with such essential companies like Mastercard, HUBUC is staying close to the core of the payment industry.

"Partnering with Mastercard through the Fintech Express program is the latest milestone for HUBUC, a move that allows us to further expand our footprint in Spain and throughout the European Union and the United Kingdom," said HUBUC CEO Hasan Nawaz. "Through this partnership with Mastercard, HUBUC is working with a global leader, allowing us to work within world's epicenter for financial services and payments overall."

"Mastercard is thrilled to welcome HUBUC to our program as we work together to transform the future of commerce and expand new innovative payment solutions across Europe. This is a great partnership since we both support innovation, better payment experiences and new possibilities for other players in the ecosystem", said Jason Lane, Executive Vice President, Market Development for Mastercard Europe.

About HUBUC

HUBUC is an embedded financial services provider that allows businesses to access all services through one platform, with the ability to go live within weeks. HUBUC enables clients to embed the financial services they need to grow their business, including card issuance, bank account opening and KYC processes in 54 countries, IBAN VAN issuance, money transfer, FX services, dynamic spending controls and real-time notifications. HUBUC also manages full regulatory compliance and on-boarding complexities on behalf of its business partners. It can onboard customers within days significantly reducing additional time and cost investments required and enabling them to bring payment capabilities to market faster.

For more information see https://www.hubuc.com/ or follow us on social LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube.

HUBUC is working with card issuers, to provide physical cards to its business clients.

About Mastercard (NYSE: MA), www.mastercard.com Mastercard is a global technology company in the payments industry. Our mission is to connect and power an inclusive, digital economy that benefits everyone, everywhere by making transactions safe, simple, smart and accessible. Using secure data and networks, partnerships and passion, our innovations and solutions help individuals, financial institutions, governments and businesses realize their greatest potential. Our decency quotient, or DQ, drives our culture and everything we do inside and outside of our company. With connections across more than 210 countries and territories, we are building a sustainable world that unlocks priceless possibilities for all. Follow us on Twitter @MastercardEU @MastercardNews, join the discussion on the Beyond the Transaction Blog and subscribe for the latest news on the Engagement Bureau.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210915005994/en/

Contacts:

To learn more please contact Polina Medvedeva at polina@hubuc.com.
CANBERA (dpa-AFX) - Australian Securities and Investments Commission or ASIC announced Thursday that it has filed criminal charges against the Commonwealth Bank of Australia or CBA (CBA.AX) in the Federal Court, Sydney for the mis-selling of consumer credit insurance. The 30 criminal charges relate to CBA's promotion and sale of CreditCard Plus and Loan Protection policies as an add-on insurance product in branches, by telephone and online. Australia's corporate, markets and financial services regulator noted that the charges relate to allegations that between 2011 and 2015, CBA made false or misleading representations to customers that the insurance policies had uses or benefits to those customers when part or all the benefits were not available. The matter is being prosecuted by the CDPP after an investigation and referral by ASIC. ASIC said the company has cooperated in the investigation to date. The matter is to be listed for first mention in the Federal Court, Sydney, on a date to be fixed. In April 2021, ASIC also filed separate civil penalty proceedings against Westpac Banking Corp. for its selling practices regarding consumer credit insurance products. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
STOCKHOLM, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The members of the Nomination Committee for Electrolux Annual General Meeting in 2022 have now been appointed.

In accordance with decision by the Annual General Meeting, Electrolux Nomination Committee shall consist of six members. The Nomination Committee shall include members selected by each of the four largest shareholders in terms of voting rights that wish to participate in the committee, together with the Chairman of the Electrolux Board and one additional Board member.

The members of the Nomination Committee have now been appointed based on the ownership structure as of August 31, 2021. Johan Forssell, Investor AB, is the Chairman of the committee. The other members are Carina Silberg, Alecta, Tomas Risbecker, AMF - Forsakring och Fonder, and Marianne Nilsson, Swedbank Robur Funds. The committee will also include Staffan Bohman and Fredrik Persson, Chairman and Director, respectively, of Electrolux.

The Nomination Committee will prepare proposals for the Annual General Meeting in 2022 regarding Chairman of the Annual General Meeting, Board members, Chairman of the Board, remuneration for Board members, Auditor, Auditor's fees and, to the extent deemed necessary, proposal regarding amendments of the current instruction for the Nomination Committee.

The Annual General Meeting will be held on March 30, 2022, in Stockholm, Sweden.

Shareholders who wish to submit proposals to the Nomination Committee should send an email to nominationcommittee@electrolux.com.

For further information, please contact Electrolux Press Hotline, +46 8 657 65 07.

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

https://news.cision.com/electrolux/r/nomination-committee-appointed-for-electrolux-annual-general-meeting-2022,c3415883

The following files are available for download:
DGAP-News: Majorel Group Luxembourg S.A. / Key word(s): IPO/IPO

Majorel Group Luxembourg S.A.: Majorel sets indicative price range and starts the offer period for planned private placement ahead of envisaged listing on Euronext Amsterdam



16.09.2021 / 08:49

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.





NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION OR RELEASE, DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY, IN OR INTO THE UNITED STATES, CANADA, AUSTRALIA OR JAPAN OR ANY OTHER JURISDICTION IN WHICH THE DISTRIBUTION OR RELEASE WOULD BE UNLAWFUL. OTHER RESTRICTIONS ARE APPLICABLE. PLEASE SEE THE IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER AT THE END OF THIS RELEASE.

Press release

Majorel sets indicative price range and starts the offer period for planned private placement ahead of envisaged listing on Euronext Amsterdam

Luxembourg, 16 September 2021: Majorel Group Luxembourg S.A. ("Majorel", the "Company" and, together with its consolidated subsidiaries, "Majorel Group"), a leading global provider of next-generation end-to-end customer experience ("CX") solutions for digital-native and vertical leading brands, today announced the price range for the proposed private placement (the "Private Placement") and envisaged listing and trading of its registered shares (the "Shares") on Euronext Amsterdam.

Highlights:

The indicative price range for the Private Placement is set at EUR 32 to EUR 39 per placement share.

The Private Placement consists of a private placement of existing Shares to institutional investors in various jurisdictions.

The selling shareholders are offering an aggregate of 20,000,000 placement shares.

In addition, the selling shareholders have granted the Stabilization Manager an option to allocate additional Shares to cover potential over allotments, provided that such additional Shares will not exceed 15 percent of the final number of placement shares.

Majorel is currently a 50-50 venture between Bertelsmann and the Saham Group who will remain major shareholders in the Company, with Bertelsmann envisaged to continue consolidation post listing.

The Company and the selling shareholders have agreed with the underwriters that they will not sell any Shares from the date of the Underwriting Agreement until 180 days after the first day of trading (subject to customary exemptions such as with the prior written consent of the Joint Global Coordinators).

BNP Paribas, Citigroup and J.P. Morgan are acting as Joint Global Coordinators and Joint Bookrunners, with Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and UBS Investment Bank also acting as Joint Bookrunners.

The offer period is expected to commence on 16 September 2021 and is expected to end on 23 September 2021, subject to acceleration or extension of the timetable for the Private Placement. As of today there is no public market for the Shares. Application has been made to list and admit the Shares to trading on Euronext Amsterdam under the symbol "MAJ".

Pricing of the Private Placement is expected on 23 September 2021, first day of trading on 24 September 2021 and settlement on 28 September 2021.

The listing prospectus is expected to be approved by the Luxembourg Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (the "CSSF") on 23 September 2021.

Thomas Mackenbrock, CEO of Majorel Group said: "We are hugely encouraged by the initial response we have received from investors. A listing is the next logical step in Majorel's development and will further enhance our position as a leading player in the global CX industry. We look forward to welcoming new shareholders in the Company."



Risk Factors

Investing in Majorel involves certain risks. A description of these risks, which include risks relating to Majorel as well as risks relating to the Private Placement and its Shares, will be included in the prospectus to be published in connection with the listing.



About Majorel

We design, build and deliver next-generation end-to-end CX solutions for many of the world's most respected digital-native and vertical leading brands. Our comprehensive east-to-west global footprint in 31 countries across five continents, with more than 63,000 team members and 60 languages, allows us to deliver flexible solutions that leverage our expertise in cultural nuance, which we believe to be essential for true excellence in CX. We have deep domain expertise in tech-augmented front to-back-office CX. Additionally, we offer Digital Consumer Engagement, CX Consulting, and an innovative suite of Proprietary Digital Solutions for industry verticals. We are a global leader in Content Services, Trust & Safety. We believe the 'Majorel difference' to be our culture of entrepreneurship.

About Bertelsmann

Bertelsmann is a media, services and education company that operates in about 50 countries around the world. It includes the broadcaster RTL Group, the trade book publisher Penguin Random House, the magazine publisher Gruner + Jahr, the music company BMG, the service provider Arvato, the Bertelsmann Printing Group, the Bertelsmann Education Group and Bertelsmann Investments, an international network of funds. The company has around 130,000 employees and generated revenues of 17.3 billion in the financial year 2020. Bertelsmann stands for creativity and entrepreneurship. This combination promotes first-class media content and innovative service solutions that inspire customers around the world. Bertelsmann aspires to achieve climate neutrality by 2030. In 2021, Bertelsmann commemorates the 100th birthday of Reinhard Mohn, the Group's late post-war founder and longtime Chairman and CEO.

About Saham

Saham Group is a Moroccan based international investment company that operates in a variety of industries. Driven by a strong entrepreneurial approach, Saham first began in the insurance sector, eventually becoming Africa's industry leader with a presence in 30 countries. After selling its insurance business in 2018, the Group has invested further in strategic targeted partnerships in sectors such as customer experience services/BPO, real estate, education, and agriculture.

Contact

Investor Relations

Insa Calsow

EVP, Investor Relations

ir@majorel.com



Media Relations

Andrew Slater

SVP, Global Marketing & Communications

media@majorel.com



DISCLAIMER



These materials may not be published, distributed or transmitted in the United States, Canada, Australia or Japan. These materials do not constitute an offer of securities for sale or a solicitation of an offer to purchase securities (the "Securities") of Majorel Group Luxembourg S.A. ("Majorel") in the United States, Australia, Canada, Japan or any other jurisdiction in which such offer or solicitation is unlawful. The Securities of the Company may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an exemption from registration under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act"). There will be no public offering of the securities in the United States. The Securities have not been, and will not be, registered under the Securities Act. The securities referred to herein may not be offered or sold in Australia, Canada or Japan or to, or for the account or benefit of, any national, resident or citizen of Australia, Canada or Japan subject to certain exceptions.



This publication constitutes neither an offer to sell nor a solicitation to buy securities. No public offer will be made. An investment decision regarding securities of Majorel should only be made on the basis of the securities prospectus which will be published promptly upon approval by the Luxembourg Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) and will be available free of charge on the website of Majorel.

In member states of the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom, any offering mentioned in this publication will only be addressed to and directed at persons who are "qualified investors" within the meaning of Article 2(e) of Regulation (EU) 2017/1129, in the case of the United Kingdom, as it forms part of domestic law by virtue of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. In addition, in the United Kingdom, this document is only being distributed to and is only directed at persons who (i) are investment professionals falling within Article 19(5) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) Order 2005, as amended (the "Order"), (ii) are persons falling within Article 49(2)(a) to (d) of the Order (high net worth companies, unincorporated associations, etc.), or (iii) are persons to whom an invitation or inducement to engage in investment activity (within the meaning of section 21 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000) in connection with the issue or sale of any securities may otherwise lawfully be communicated or caused to be communicated (all such persons together being referred to as "Relevant Persons"). This document is directed only at Relevant Persons and must not be acted on or relied on by persons who are not Relevant Persons. Any investment or investment activity to which this document relates is available only to Relevant Persons and will be engaged in only with Relevant Persons.

Certain statements contained in this release may constitute "forward-looking statements" that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements are generally identifiable by the use of the words "may", "will", "should", "plan", "expect", "anticipate", "estimate", "believe", "intend", "project", "goal" or "target" or the negative of these words or other variations on these words or comparable terminology. Forward-looking statements are based on assumptions, forecasts, estimates, projections, opinions or plans that are inherently subject to significant risks, as well as uncertainties and contingencies that are subject to change. No representation is made or will be made by Majorel that any forward-looking statement will be achieved or will prove to be correct. The actual future business, financial position, results of operations and prospects may differ materially from those projected or forecast in the forward-looking statements. Neither Majorel nor BNP Paribas, Citigroup Global Markets Limited, J.P. Morgan AG, BofA Securities Europe SA, Goldman Sachs Bank Europe SE and UBS AG, London Branch (together, the "Underwriters") nor any of their respective affiliates assume any obligation to update, and do not expect to publicly update, or publicly revise, any forward-looking statements or other information contained in this release, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as otherwise required by law.



This announcement also contains certain financial measures that are not recognized under International Financial Reporting Standards ("IFRS"). These non-IFRS measures are presented because Majorel believes that they and similar measures are widely used in the markets in which it operates as a means of evaluating Majorel's operating performance and financing structure. They may not be comparable to other similarly titled measures of other companies and are not measurements under IFRS or other generally accepted accounting principles.

The Underwriters are acting exclusively for Majorel and the selling shareholders and no-one else in connection with the planned Private Placement. They will not regard any other person as their respective clients in relation to the planned Private Placement and will not be responsible to anyone other than Majorel and the selling shareholders for providing the protections afforded to its clients, nor for providing advice in relation to the offering, the contents of this announcement or any transaction, arrangement or other matter referred to herein.

In connection with the planned Private Placement, the Underwriters and their respective affiliates may take up a portion of the shares offered in the Private Placement as a principal position and in that capacity may retain, purchase, sell, offer to sell for their own accounts such shares and other securities of Majorel or related investments in connection with the planned Private Placement or otherwise. In addition, the Underwriters and their respective affiliates may enter into financing arrangements (including swaps or contracts for differences) with investors in connection with which the Underwriters and their respective affiliates may from time to time acquire, hold or dispose of shares of Majorel. The Underwriters do not intend to disclose the extent of any such investment or transactions, other than in accordance with any legal or regulatory obligations to do so.

None of the Underwriters or any of their respective directors, officers, employees, advisers or agents accepts any responsibility or liability whatsoever for or makes any representation or warranty, express or implied, as to the truth, accuracy or completeness of the information in this release (or whether any information has been omitted from the release) or any other information relating to Majorel, whether written, oral or in a visual or electronic form, and howsoever transmitted or made available, or for any loss howsoever arising from any use of this release or its contents or otherwise arising in connection therewith.

In connection with the placement of the shares in the Company, BNP Paribas, acting for the account of the underwriters, will act as stabilization manager (the "Stabilization Manager") and may, as Stabilization Manager, make overallotments and take stabilization measures in accordance with Article 5(4) and (5) of the Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of April 16, 2014 on market abuse, as amended, in conjunction with Articles 5 through 8 of Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2016/1052) of March 8, 2016. Stabilization measures aim at supporting the market price of the shares of the Company during the stabilization period, such period starting on the date the Company's shares commence trading on the regulated market operated by Euronext Amsterdam, expected to be September 24, 2021, and ending no later than 30 calendar days thereafter (the "Stabilization Period"). Stabilization transactions may result in a market price that is higher than would otherwise prevail. However, the Stabilization Manager is under no obligation to take any stabilization measures. Stabilization transactions may be effected on Euronext Amsterdam, in the over-the-counter market or otherwise.

In connection with such stabilization measures, investors may be allocated additional shares of the Company of up to 15% of the new and existing shares actually placed in the private placement (the "Over-Allotment Shares"). The selling shareholders granted the Stabilization Manager, acting for the account of the underwriters, an option to acquire a number of shares in the Company equal to the number of Over-Allotment Shares at the offer price, less agreed commissions.

THIS DOCUMENT IS NOT A PROSPECTUS BUT AN ADVERTISEMENT AND INVESTORS SHOULD NOT SUBSCRIBE FOR OR PURCHASE ANY SHARES REFERRED TO IN THIS ADVERTISEMENT EXCEPT ON THE BASIS OF THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THE PROSPECTUS.
Crescendo Biologics Ltd (Crescendo), a clinical stage immuno-oncology company developing novel, targeted T cell enhancing therapeutics, today announces that senior members of the executive team will be participating at the following events. They also look forward to meeting investors to discuss the Company's business strategy, technology, discovery platform and development programmes.

Oppenheimer Fall Healthcare Life Sciences Med Tech Summit, 23 September 2021

Presentation at 9:05 am EDT, 2:05 pm BST

Presentation at 9:05 am EDT, 2:05 pm BST SVB Leerink Biopharma Private Company Connect, 27-29 October 2021

If you would like to meet the team at these events, please contact the Company via email at investors@crescendobiologics.com.

Please refer to the conference websites for further information and any updated schedules.

-Ends-

About Crescendo Biologics

Crescendo Biologics is a private, clinical stage immuno-oncology company developing novel, targeted T cell enhancing Humabody therapeutics.

Leading its proprietary pipeline, Crescendo Biologics has developed CB307, a novel half-life extended CD137 x PSMA Humabody for the selective activation of tumour-specific T cells exclusively within the tumour microenvironment. CB307 is designed to achieve a longer lasting anti-cancer effect whilst avoiding systemic toxicity, and the clinical programme for CB307 is underway in patients with PSMA positive solid tumours.

The Company's ability to develop multi-functional Humabody therapeutics is based on its unique, patent protected, transgenic mouse platform generating 100% human VH domain building blocks (Humabody VH). These robust molecules can be configured to engage therapeutic targets in such a way that they deliver novel biology and superior bio-distribution. This results in larger therapeutic windows compared to conventional IgG approaches. Humabody-based formats can also be applied across a range of non-cancer indications.

Beyond Crescendo's proprietary pipeline, the Company has a global, multi-target discovery and development collaboration with Takeda; a clinical development partnership with Cancer Research UK; and an exclusive, worldwide licensing agreement with Zai Lab, the product candidate of which is in a Phase 1 clinical trial.

Crescendo Biologics is located in Cambridge, UK, and is backed by blue-chip investors including Sofinnova Partners, Andera Partners, IP Group, Takeda Ventures, Quan Capital and Astellas.

For more information, please visit www.crescendobiologics.com and follow @HUMABODY.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005077/en/

Contacts:

Crescendo Biologics

Michael Booth, CFO

+ 44 (0)1223 497140

investors@crescendobiologics.com

media@crescendobiologics.com

Instinctif Partners

Melanie Toyne-Sewell, Siobhan Sanford,

Nathan Billis

+ 44 (0)20 7457 2020

crescendo@instinctif.com
Former Regulators and Big Four Alumni Join Growing Global Advisory Firm in Austria and Germany, Strengthening its Investigations and Anti-Fraud Offerings

FRANKFURT, Germany, Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Global advisory firm StoneTurn is expanding its footprint in DACH with the addition of Kristof Wabl, previously a Big Four Partner, and Steffen Salvenmoser, CFE, a former judge, German public prosecutor and founding member of a Big Four firm's German Forensic Services practice. Together, Kristof and Steffen bring nearly 50 years of on-the-ground experience in compliance, financial crime, and forensic investigations to StoneTurn's rapidly expanding DACH team. They have advised regulatory agencies such as BaFin and FMA, among others, and assisted financial institutions on compliance, anti-money laundering and sanctions matters. Kristof and Steffen join the firm's Frankfurt-based team led by Partner Julia Arbery, LL.M who previously worked as part of the team supporting the Department of Justice (DOJ)-appointed Independent Compliance and Business Ethics Monitor to Deutsche Bank and also, on the Forensic Adviser team supporting the DOJ-Appointed Independent Compliance Monitor and Auditor of Volkswagen AG.



"The pandemic has created and sustained an environment in which fraudulent activity and corporate misconduct are on the rise," said Christopher Martinez, StoneTurn's Co-Founder and Managing Partner. "At the same time, businesses in Germany, Austria and Switzerland are struggling to navigate heightened regulatory scrutiny, an evolving political landscape and an uptick in whistleblower activity overall. As companies find their activities called into question by government agencies locally and in the EU, as well as the public at large, Kristof's and Steffen's significant experience overseeing and mitigating high-profile investigations will be an asset to clients."

Kristof has overseen large-scale, sensitive internal investigations and gained significant experience working alongside international law firms, regulators and law enforcement agencies. While with a Big Four firm for 14 years, he built and led the firm's Forensics & Crisis practice in Vienna, led internal control review engagements, and also assisted clients in improving compliance processes. With his law background as well as experience in leading cross-border assignments throughout Europe and the U.S., Kristof serves as a trusted adviser to businesses across a range of industries. Particularly, he advises on internal controls and governance frameworks, designs and implements whistleblower programs, and recommends remedial actions. In addition to his work with StoneTurn DACH, Kristof currently leads the task force focused on Whistleblowing for the Austrian Chapter of Transparency International.

Steffen Salvenmoser, a former judge and German public prosecutor, brings more than 30 years of compliance and regulatory experience to advise clients on all aspects of risk, including the design, implementation and review of compliance management systems. With a focus on financial crime and forensics, Steffen helps clients strengthen aspects of their compliance processes, performs risk assessments, implements whistleblower programs and designs policies and procedures. In addition, Steffen has led a number of complex internal investigations in Germany and abroad. He is a lecturer at the Fresenius University of Applied Science in Wiesbaden and a member of the German Business Ethics Network's board of trustees.

StoneTurn, a global advisory firm, assists companies, their counsel and government agencies on regulatory, risk and compliance issues, investigations and business disputes. We serve our clients from offices across the U.S., U.K. and in Germany, Brazil and South Africa, assisted by a network of senior advisers around the world. To learn more, visit StoneTurn.com.

Contact:

Melanie Keenan

Director of Marketing at StoneTurn

mrener@stoneturn.com
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / September 16, 2021 / Blue Lagoon Resources Inc. (the "Company") (CSE:BLLG; FSE:7BL; OTCQB:BLAGF) is pleased to report that the Company's toll milling partner, Nicola Mining ("Nicola"), has now sent a second shipment of concentrate made from the mineralized material from the Dome Mountain underground mine. The shipment, sent to Ocean Partners UK Limited, a leading European based commodities trading company with offices in six countries around the world, contained 96.7 dry tonnes of gold and silver concentrate grading 93 g/t Au and 468 g/t Ag. All concentrate assays were completed at Base Met Labs, an accredited metallurgical testing facility located in Kamloops, BC.

"Combined with the first 40 tonnes of concentrate that were shipped (see news release September 1, 2021), Nicola has now sent a total of 136.8 dry metric tonnes of concentrate having a total value of approximately CDN $823,000," said Rana Vig, President and CEO of Blue Lagoon Resources. "With an already healthy treasury of nearly $9 million, plus more than $4 million in-the-money warrants and no debt, the additional cash that we will receive from the sale of this concentrate will continue to ensure that we have a significant runway to execute on our aggressive exploration plans on a project that's been relatively unexplored and under the radar," he added.

Bags full of gold and silver concentrate made from Dome Mountain mineralized material are readied and await shipping at Nicola's milling facility in Merritt, B.C.

Trucking of the Dome Mountain mineralized material, which began on June 14, 2021, continues with 10 to 15 trucks leaving the mine site on a weekly basis. To date more than 110 - forty ton trucks - have been dispatched to Nicola, delivering over 4000 tonnes of the Dome Mountain high-grade mineralized material. Weekly shipments are expected to continue until all 6,000 plus tonnes of material have been removed from the underground mine and processed at the Nicola Mining mill (see news release July 7, 2021).

The scientific and technical data contained in this news release was approved by William Cronk, P.Geo., a qualified person as defined in NI 43-101 and a consultant to the Company.

For furtherinformation, please contact:

Rana Vig

President and Chief Executive Officer

Telephone: 604-218-4766

Email: rana@ranavig.com

The CSE has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacyor accuracy of this release.

This release includes certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements". All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts, that address events or developments that Blue Lagoon Resources Inc. (the "Company") expects to occur, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "potential" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "could" or "should" occur. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include results of exploration activities that may not show quality and quantity necessary for upgrading mineralization classification or for further exploration and exploitation of minerals deposits, market prices, and continued availability of capital and financing, permitting and other approvals, and general economic, market or business conditions. Investors are cautioned that any such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made. Except as required by applicable securities laws, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements in the event that management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change.

SOURCE: Blue Lagoon Resources Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/664331/Blue-Lagoons-Toll-Mill-Partner-Sends-Out-Second-Shipment-of-Gold-Silver-Concentrate
DUBAI, Arab Emirates, Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Lineal Services, a global AI-enabled legal data services organization, announced today the continued growth of its global operations by opening its Middle Eastern headquarters in Dubai, UAE.

Lineal will provide AI-enabled eDiscovery services for law firms and corporations digital forensics and regulatory needs. Located in Dubai, the new office expansion further enables Lineal to meet the round-the-clock needs of global clients with litigation and regulatory matters.

"The Middle East is an underserved legal tech market and I'm happy our client base has pulled us there," said Damon Goduto, Partner at Lineal. "In typical Lineal fashion we will work hard to understand the local culture and demand. We look forward to solving our clients' challenges. Data knows no geographic boundaries."

"We have had our sights on the UAE for some time and are excited to announce the launch of the Dubai office," said Martin Pollard, Managing Director at Lineal. "This location gives Lineal a gateway to the Middle East and Africa, where we can host our clients' data and comply with the local data protection laws. A significant step forward in our strategic global footprint."

Lineal has continued to expand its legal data services across the globe, offering true follow-the-sun client support. Lineal looks forward to growing the team in Dubai and expanding their global technology capabilities in 2022 and beyond.

For more information, please visit: https://www.linealservices.com

About Lineal - Lineal Services), is a global legal data services organization leveraging AI and process-driven workflows to solve information governance, discovery, privacy, compliance, DSAR, conversion, and cyber issues for law firms and corporations. Headquartered in London, and with offices throughout North and South America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, Lineal has been delivering pioneering solutions since 2009.

For media inquiries, please contact:

marketing@linealservices.com

Connect with us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

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TOKYO, Sept 16, 2021 - (JCN Newswire) - Three MHI Group companies have concluded an agreement with Applus+ IDIADA (IDIADA), a Spain-based multinational company that performs engineering, testing and homologation for the automotive industry, on joint development of a testing and verification system for highly automated vehicles. IDIADA has an abundant track record in vehicle development, testing and homologation for automakers in Europe, and is contributing to the formulation of international standards in these areas.Today, development of automated driving systems is vigorously underway worldwide, and in the years ahead, dramatic capability improvements and increasing adoption of such systems are anticipated. To ensure their safe and secure operation, it must be verified that sensors and systems will function normally under the diverse natural environments that highly automated vehicles will encounter; moreover, needs are expected to increase in the coming years for testing under all possible weather conditions. In response, three MHI Group companies and IDIADA will jointly develop an indoor integrated environmental testing facility enabling high-precision testing of highly automated vehicles under any freely chosen combination of natural environments (snow, fog, rain, glare, etc.) and driving conditions, plus a system that enables comprehensive verification in virtual environments. The aim is to contribute to shortening the development time and reducing development costs of automated driving systems for automotive OEMs and sensor manufacturers.In developing the targeted integrated environmental testing facility, the three MHI Group companies will each contribute their proprietary technologies: MHI, its radar wave reflection and dispersion control technologies; MHI Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration, its environmental testing technologies for air-conditioning and refrigeration units; and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Machinery Systems, its system integration technologies relating to automotive testing systems.MHI Group, as part of its growth promotion strategy delineated in its 2021 Medium-Term Business Plan, is currently taking steps to develop its solutions business in mobility and other new areas. The new project is one of an array of initiatives being taken focused on infrastructure to support "CASE" era automobiles. Going forward, working in collaboration with IDIADA, IDIADA and MHI Group will pursue establishment of a global standard in automated vehicle testing and verification systems as a way of contributing to the broad adoption of safe and secure automated driving systems."CASE" is an acronym derived from the words "connected," "autonomous/automated," "shared" and "electric." It refers to the current technological trend in the automotive industry to create next-generation mobility services offering outstanding safety and convenience.About Applus+ IDIADAWith over 25 years of history, Applus+ IDIADA is a leading engineering company providing design, testing, engineering and homologation services to the automotive industry worldwide. Applus+ IDIADA counts on more than 2,500 engineers from over 25 countries specialised in vehicle development. The headquarters, composed of a 360-hectares technical center with its own proving ground and a comprehensive set of laboratories, is located near Barcelona, Spain. The company also has an international network of subsidiaries and branch offices in 24 countries, which ensures that their clients receive fast and customised services.IDIADA A.T. (80% owned by Applus+ and 20% by the Government of Catalonia) has been operating under an exclusive contract from the 351-hectare technology centre near Barcelona (owned by the Government of Catalonia) since 1999. The contract to operate the business and use the assets runs until September 2024 and although it is renewable in five-year periods until 2049, it has been decided that there will be no further extensions but a tender for a new 20 or 25 year concession.About MHI GroupMitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) Group is one of the world's leading industrial groups, spanning energy, logistics & infrastructure, industrial machinery, aerospace and defense. MHI Group combines cutting-edge technology with deep experience to deliver innovative, integrated solutions that help to realize a carbon neutral world, improve the quality of life and ensure a safer world. For more information, please visit www.mhi.com or follow our insights and stories on www.spectra.mhi.com.Source: Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.Copyright 2021 JCN Newswire . All rights reserved.
At its last meeting, the Board of Directors of AlgoTrader elected Martin Wiedmann, former global Head FX Sales at both UBS and Credit Suisse, who brings 30 years of experience in investment banking. He replaces Luzius Meisser.

ZURICH, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- AlgoTrader, the global institutional leader in trading infrastructure for digital and traditional assets, has announced the appointment of global financial investment expert Martin Wiedmann to the board.

Wiedmann has 30 years of international investment banking experience with major global financial institutions in Frankfurt, Luxembourg, New York and Zurich, including heading the global FX sales departments at both UBS and Credit Suisse. He holds various board positions, as well as being a member of the Standing Committee of the FX Committee of the Bank of England and of the European Economic Senate. Wiedmann will support the ongoing global expansion of AlgoTrader, especially regarding digital asset banking clients.

"Martin will be an excellent addition to our board and brings in extensive experience. He was the person who drove UBS to number one in the institutional FX space, and with his banking network he will be able to open many doors for us," said AlgoTrader founder and CEO Andy Flury.

New challenges and innovation have always been part of his professional career, said Wiedmann: "Digital assets have brought new opportunities for currency trading experts and AlgoTrader provides them with the best trading infrastructure. That is why I am excited to join AlgoTrader in driving a sector that I know very well and that will be fundamentally changed by blockchain technology. I look forward to being part of this change in asset trading."

Wiedmann replaces Luzius Meisser, who is leaving the Board of Directors at his own request. Flury emphasized: "I would like to thank Luzius Meisser for his dedication and always very goal-directed cooperation in the Board of Directors over the past three years. Now we are greatly looking forward to the expertise of Martin, whom I warmly welcome to the Board on behalf of the company."

Andy Flury (founder and CEO), Roger Altorfer, Martin Trepp and Theo Woik remain on the Board of Directors of AlgoTrader.

About AlgoTrader: www.algotrader.com/

Media Inquiries:

Felix Saible

media@algotrader.com

+41 44 291 14 85

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1624443/AlgoTrader_Wiedmann.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1624442/AlgoTrader_Logo.jpg
HELSINKI, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Caverion has signed a contract with Fingrid Oyj, Finland's transmission system operator, for the construction of a 400/110 kV substation in Valkeus, Pyhajoki. The substation will support the growth of wind power production and enable the connection of more than 600 MW of wind power to the grid. Caverion will act as EPC contractor (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) for the substation main project.

Most of Finland's wind power is located in North Ostrobothnia and, thanks to the region's excellent wind conditions, more and more wind power capacity is being planned and built in the area. There are currently more than 80 wind power projects at different stages of planning in North Ostrobothnia area. The construction of the new substation will contribute to the realisation of these investments. "There is a significant amount of wind power generation under construction in the vicinity of the new substation, and sufficiently strong transmission connections are needed to transmit electricity. The Valkeus substation will be one of our most significant substation investments in the coming years as we develop the national grid to meet the needs of growing wind power production," says Jari Tiusanen, Project Manager at Fingrid.

In addition to enabling the connection of new wind turbines to the grid, the new substation will improve the operating conditions for existing wind power production in the surrounding area.

"We are delighted to be working with Fingrid on a project that will play an important role in enabling the growth of wind power generation and achieving Finland's climate goals. Caverion's professionals are building performance in the energy sector in many ways: in significant investments and in maintenance of production plants," says Elina Engman, Head of Caverion Industry division.

The project will be completed in autumn 2023. The total value of the investment is approximately EUR 30 million.

Caverion has decades of experience in electricity transmission and distribution systems, as well as in substations. Read more about our services

For further information, please contact: Paivi Pyotsia, Communications and Marketing Manager, Caverion Industry, tel. +358 40 5468 071, paivi.pyotsia@caverion.com

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

https://news.cision.com/caverion/r/wind-power-production-continues-to-grow--caverion-enabling-the-connection-of-significant-wind-power-,c3416220

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CANBERA (dpa-AFX) - The Japanese yen climbed against its major counterparts in the Asian session on Thursday, as concerns over the debt crisis at China Evergrande Group and Beijing's latest push to rein in private industries dampened risk sentiment.



As investors bet on an economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, the United Nations has warned about deepening inequities between advanced and developing nations.



The progress of U.S. President Joe Biden's economic agenda also remains in focus after the House of Representative's Ways and Means Committee approved the biggest tax hikes in a generation on Wednesday.



The committee approved $2.1 trillion in new levies that mostly focused on corporations and the wealthy.



Data from the Ministry of Finance showed that Japan posted a merchandise trade deficit of 635.4 billion yen in August.



That was well shy of expectations for a shortfall of 47.7 billion yen following the downwardly revised 439.4 billion yen surplus in July (originally 441 billion yen).



The yen edged up to 109.21 against the greenback and 151.00 against the pound, off its early low of 109.46 and a 2-day low of 151.58, respectively. If the yen continues its rise, 106.00 and 149.00 are possibly seen as its next resistance levels against the greenback and the pound, respectively.



The yen approached near a 5-month high of 118.63 against the franc and a fresh 3-week high of 128.92 against the euro, up from its prior lows of 118.97 and 129.36, respectively. The yen is poised to target resistance around 114.00 against the franc and 126.00 against the euro.



Reversing from its early 2-day lows of 86.74 against the loonie, 80.37 against the aussie and 78.06 against the kiwi, the yen rose to 86.37, 79.90 and 77.60, respectively. The yen is seen finding resistance around 85 against the loonie, 78.00 against the aussie and 75.00 against the kiwi.



Looking ahead, Eurozone trade data for July is due in the European session.



Canada housing starts for August will be released at 8:15 am ET.



Canada wholesale sales for July, U.S. retail sales for August, business inventories data for July and weekly jobless claims for the week ended September 11 will be featured in the New York session.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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Varicent, an industry-leader in sales performance management, is hosting its inaugural in-person European event, Varicent Elevate. The thought-provoking and entertaining event will be held on October 20, 2021 at The Langham hotel in London, a luxury, five-star hotel with a rich history and top-of-the-line service.

"This will be the first time the Varicent team can meet our European clients face-to-face and show first-hand how Varicent can help organisations streamline sales to drive growth," says Matt Blanchard, General Manager of EMEA, Varicent. "I'm looking forward to hearing about our customers' successful use of our solutions, but also the opportunities they face and how Varicent can help meet those head-on. We've got a great day planned and I can't wait to see everyone at Varicent Elevate!"

Throughout the day, the Varicent team will cover topics including territory and quota planning (TQP), incentive compensation management (ICM), and revenue intelligence. Select Varicent customers will share their stories and detail their experience with Varicent. There will be networking opportunities, chef-curated food, and refreshments to enjoy.

"The European market is one of great importance to Varicent, and I value every customer we have there and am excited to be showing it," saysMarc Altshuller, President CEO, Varicent. "Once we determined that an in-person event was possible, while maintaining COVID-19 safety protocols, we knew we had to do it. We are committed to developing our products to best serve all our customers, and I'm looking forward to sharing our latest updates at an event that we plan to be the first of many."

Varicent will be joined by special guests and have exciting surprises to share for Varicent Elevate, announced at a later date. Registrants are encouraged to check back to find out more.

For more information on Varicent Elevate, please visit https://elevate.varicent.com/

About Varicent

Varicent is the leading provider of innovative Sales Performance Management software focused on helping organizations Plan, Operate and Pay to drive sales performance and growth. With a full suite of solutions to assist in smarter territory and quota planning, efficient lead-to-revenue operations, and the fastest and most flexible way to pay sellers accurately and on-time, Varicent is the trusted SPM solution for customers worldwide. Varicent combines powerful SPM technology with its augmented intelligence-powered platform to enable customers to quickly and easily see and address sales trends, problem areas, and opportunities by predicting outcomes and prescribing actions to optimize revenue. To learn more about Varicent, visit www.Varicent.com.

Varicent, Varicent Software and Symon.AI are trademarks or registered trademarks of Varicent in the USA, Canada, and other countries.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005048/en/

Contacts:

Jamie Witmeyer

jwitmeyer@varicent.com
SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The global powder compacting pressers market size is expected to reach USD 408.9 million by 2028, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. It is expected to expand at a CAGR of 3.7% from 2020 to 2028. The rising adoption of powder compacting pressers in the end-use industries, including automobile, military, machining, and aerospace, is anticipated to have a positive impact on the market growth.

Key Insights & Findings:

By product, hydraulic powder compacting pressers are expected to witness considerable growth from 2020 to 2028 owing to their ability to provide versatility in stroke length, die space, and pressure

In terms of application, the ceramic and cement segment is expected to witness the fastest growth from 2020 to 2028. This is credited to the increasing adoption of powder compacting pressers in the production of ceramic cutting tools due to the high heat resistance and extensive usage in metalworking for extremely hard parts

The automotive end-use segment held the largest share in 2020 on account of the rising advent of electric vehicles, coupled with the adoption of the equipment to manufacture gears, seals, and magnets

In 2020, France accounted for a 13.8% share in the European market owing to the increasing production of complex parts with high dimensional accuracy and quality in the aerospace industry in the country

Manufacturers are engaged in collaborations to expand their geographical presence, increase production capacity, and launch new powder compacting pressers using advanced technology

Read 167 page market research report, "Powder Compacting Pressers Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report By Product (Mechanical, Electric), By Application (Powder Metallurgy, Ceramic & Cement), By End Use, By Region, And Segment Forecasts, 2020 - 2028," by Grand View Research

Increasing automotive production, mainly in the emerging economies of Asia Pacific, the Middle East, and South America, is projected to aid the market growth. Furthermore, governments across the globe are providing tax incentives to vehicle manufacturers switching to electric standards, in turn, augmenting the demand for powder compacting pressers.

The aerospace and military sectors are the early adopters of powder compacting pressers, thus, lightweight parts made from aluminum, titanium, and steel, are witnessing growth. Products manufactured by these machinery aids in reducing material wastage as compared to the conventional methods, in turn, complementing the equipment demand.

Companies are collaborating with educational institutions to develop processes and technologies offering a sustainable advantage in the future. Rising investments in R&D for the incorporation of advanced technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT), in powder compacting pressers are expected to complement market growth.

Grand View Research has segmented the global powder compacting pressers market on the basis of product, application, end use, and region:

Powder Compacting Pressers Product Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2017 - 2028)

Hydraulic



Electric



Hybrid



Mechanical



Servo-hydraulic

Powder Compacting Pressers Application Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2017 - 2028)

Powder Metallurgy



Ceramic & Cement



Carbon & Carbide



Others

Powder Compacting Pressers End-use Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2017 - 2028)

Automotive



Machining



Energy & Electricity



Equipment



Medical



Military



Construction



Others

Powder Compacting Pressers Regional Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2017 - 2028)

North America



U.S.





Canada





Mexico



Europe



Austria





Belgium





Denmark





France





Germany





Italy





Poland





Russia





Spain





Sweden





Netherlands





U.K.



Asia Pacific



China





India





Japan





South Korea





Australia



Latin America



Brazil





Central & South America





Argentina





Brazil





Colombia





Chile





Peru



Middle East & Africa

&

Saudi Arabia





South Africa

List of Key Players of Powder Compacting Pressers Market

KomageGellnerMaschinenfabrik KG

SMS group GmbH

Osterwalder AG

MaschinenfabrikLauffer GmbH & Co.KG

Gasbarre Products, Inc.

Ajax CECO Erie Press

Beckwood Press

Digital Press

DORST Technologies GmbH & Co. KG

Cincinnati Incorporated

Nanjing East Precision Machinery CO., LTD.

Dongguan Yihui Hydraulic Machinery Co., Ltd.

Santec Exim Pvt. Ltd.

Quintus Technologies AB

SACMI IMOLA S.C.

Browse through Grand View Research's coverage of theGlobal Advanced Interior Materials Industry:

Powder Metallurgy Market- The global powder metallurgy market size is expected to reach USD 5.2 billion by 2027 registering a CAGR of 11.6%, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc.

by 2027 registering a CAGR of 11.6%, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. Metal Powder Market- The global metal powder market size is anticipated to reach USD 9.7 billion by 2027, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc., expanding at a CAGR of 6.9% from 2020 to 2027.

by 2027, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc., expanding at a CAGR of 6.9% from 2020 to 2027. Ceramics Market- The global ceramics market size is expected to reach USD 407.72 billion by 2025, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc.

Gain access to Grand View Compass, our BI enabled intuitive market research database of 10,000+ reports

About Grand View Research

Grand View Research, U.S.-based market research and consulting company, provides syndicated as well as customized research reports and consulting services. Registered in California and headquartered in San Francisco, the company comprises over 425 analysts and consultants, adding more than 1200 market research reports to its vast database each year. These reports offer in-depth analysis on 46 industries across 25 major countries worldwide. With the help of an interactive market intelligence platform, Grand View Research helps Fortune 500 companies and renowned academic institutes understand the global and regional business environment and gauge the opportunities that lie ahead.

Contact:



Sherry James

Corporate Sales Specialist, USA

Grand View Research, Inc.

Phone: +1-415-349-0058

Toll Free: 1-888-202-9519

Email: sales@grandviewresearch.com

Web: https://www.grandviewresearch.com

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Company demonstrates Climate Action; Pledges to Reach Net-Zero Carbon Emissions by 2040

ALISO VIEJO, Calif. and LONDON, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- UST, a leading digital transformation solutions company, today announced that it has achieved CarbonNeutral company certification in accordance with The CarbonNeutral Protocol, the leading global framework for carbon neutrality. Aligned with the company's longstanding commitment to act responsibly and minimize the impact of its activities on the environment, this latest accreditation underscores UST's unwavering pledge to climate action.

The first set of clear guidelines for businesses to achieve carbon neutrality, the CarbonNeutral Protocol, was created by Natural Capital Partners in 2002. Since then, the Protocol has been continually updated with input from an Advisory Council of external experts to ensure it reflects the latest industry and scientific best practices.

The CarbonNeutral company certification is the latest in UST's ongoing ESG and social responsibility initiatives, including joining the Amazon-led The Climate Pledge, a cross-sector business community working together to crack the climate crisis and solve the challenges of decarbonizing the economy. As a signatory, UST is taking science-based, high-impact actions to tackle climate change by innovating in supply chain efficiency, sustainable transportation, circular economy, and clean energy solutions.

Eco-Friendly Actions

From its humble beginnings in 1999, UST has always invested in improving society through corporate sustainability and social responsibility actions positively impacting the world.

Some of the current and upcoming initiatives include:

Plans to install a 1.2 MW on-grid solar power system in UST's Trivandrum campus which will reduce the dependency on traditional power sources for the campus by 35%.

Creating a large waterbody at the UST Trivandrum campus with 174,240 Sq. Ft. of surface area, where rainwater is harvested. 80% of UST Trivandrum's water consumption is from this waterbody, which has helped the company reduce their dependency on the urban water supply system.

Utilizing battery-operated vehicles for traversing across UST campus leads to a cleaner and healthier working environment and reduces carbon emissions.

Working with suppliers that use zero or low emission vehicles.

Measure and report greenhouse gas emissions on a regular basis.

Switching to renewable energy for 25% of power needs by 2025 and 50% by 2030.

Undertaking several afforestation projects by planting tree saplings in the form of dense foresting.

Take actions to neutralize any remaining emissions with additional, quantifiable, real, permanent, and socially beneficial offsets to achieve net-zero annual carbon emissions by 2040.

"We are extremely honored to be recognized as a certified CarbonNeutral company as we further our commitment to decrease UST's carbon footprint and support additional carbon-reduction projects," said Krishna Sudheendra, Chief Executive Officer, UST. "I am tremendously proud of our entire team's passionate efforts to make a positive impact and look forward to seeing these programs continue to grow and build a better world."

Saskia Feast, Managing Director, Global Client Solutions, Natural Capital Partners, said: "We are delighted to work with UST as they continue their commitment to positively impact the world through their CSR initiatives. In this critical decade of climate action, we need to use all the solutions available to deliver the change we need. UST's CarbonNeutral company certification and commitment to environmental stewardship demonstrate how business can deliver meaningful action on climate change."

"With this step, UST is making it crystal clear that we are taking action today to protect the planet and commit to transforming the communities we impact every day," added Nandagopal Ramachandran, General Manager - Operations, UST. "At the same time, we are committing to further emissions reductions, with a target for Net Zero by 2040. We believe that sustainability is everyone's responsibility and actions from everyone, however small they are, will bring large impact to life on the planet."

For more information about UST's social commitment, please visit https://www.ust.com/en/who-we-are/ust-social-commitment.

About UST

For more than 20 years, UST has worked side by side with the world's best companies to make a real impact through transformation. Powered by technology, inspired by people, and led by our purpose, we partner with our clients from design to operation. We identify their core challenges and craft disruptive solutions that bring their vision to life through our agile approach. With deep domain expertise and a future-proof philosophy, we embed innovation and agility into our clients' organizations-delivering measurable value and lasting change across industries and worldwide. Together, with over 26,000 employees in 25 countries, we build for boundless impact-touching billions of lives in the process. Visit us at ust.com.

Media Contacts, UST:

Tinu Cherian Abraham

+1 (949) 415-9857

Neha Misri

+91-9972631264

media.relations@ust.com

Media Contacts, U.S.:

S&C PR

+1-646.941.9139

media@scprgroup.com

Media Contacts, U.K.:

FTI Consulting

UST@fticonsulting.com

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1422658/UST_Logo.jpg
DGAP-News: Multitude SE / Announcement of the Results of the General Meeting

Multitude SE: Transfer of Registered Office Approved by the Extraordinary General Meeting of Shareholders of Multitude SE



16.09.2021 / 11:00

Announcement of the Results of the General Meeting, transmitted by DGAP - a service of EQS Group AG.

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.





Transfer of Registered Office Approved by the Extraordinary General Meeting of Shareholders of Multitude SE

Helsinki, 16 September 2021 - Multitude SE (ISIN: FI4000106299, WKN: A1W9NS) (\"Multitude\" or \"Company\").

DECISIONS OF MULTITUDE SE'S EXTRAORDINARY GENERAL MEETING

Multitude SE held its Extraordinary General Meeting today under special arrangements and the meeting made the following resolutions.

TRANSFER OF THE REGISTERED OFFICE OF MULTITUDE SE FROM HELSINKI, FINLAND TO HAMBURG, GERMANY

Multitude SE has on 9 July 2021 announced that the Board of Directors had decided to approve a transfer proposal for the transfer of the registered office of Multitude SE from Helsinki, Finland to Hamburg, Germany (\"Transfer\") in accordance with the Council Regulation (EC) No 2157/2001 of 8 October 2001 on the Statute for a European Company (SE) (\"Transfer Proposal\") and a related report (\"Report\") explaining and justifying the legal and economic aspects of the Transfer and explaining the implications of the Transfer for the shareholders, creditors and employees.

The Transfer Proposal has been registered in the Finnish Trade Register on 14 July 2021.

The Extraordinary General Meeting approved the Transfer Proposal (including, without limitation, the proposed new Articles of Association (\"New Articles\") which will replace the current Articles of Association of the Company upon the registration of Multitude SE with the commercial register of the local court of Hamburg) and resolved on the Transfer in accordance with the Transfer Proposal.

The reasons for the Transfer are strategic. While the Company was incorporated in Finland, its operations have since expanded across Europe and the world, and currently the Company is a multinational company having operative actions in several countries. In addition, the Company has strong ties to Germany. The Company is listed on the Prime Standard of Frankfurt Stock Exchange since 6 February 2015 and has several German subsidiaries. The Transfer will unite the Company's head office with the country of the exchange listing of the Company's shares.

The Transfer and the New Articles will become effective upon the registration of the Company in the commercial register of the local court of Hamburg. The registration is expected to take place on or about 31 December 2021.

TRANSFER OF COMPANY SHARES TO GERMAN CENTRAL SECURITIES DEPOSITORY SYSTEM

The Extraordinary General Meeting also decided to transfer the Company shares to the securities depository system maintained by the German central securities depository Clearstream Banking Aktiengesellschaft and, consequently, remove the Company shares from the book-entry securities system maintained by Euroclear Finland Oy. The transfer and removal enter into force on the date when the Company will be registered in the commercial register in Germany, or on another date as decided by the Board of Directors.

OTHER DECISIONS

The Extraordinary General Meeting made also certain other decisions related to the Transfer which are conditional on the registration of the Company in the commercial register in Germany. Those decisions include a decision to authorise the Board of Directors to increase the registered share capital of the Company until 30 June 2025 in one or several occasions by up to EUR 6,020,034 by issuing up to 3,258,594 new registered non-par-value shares against contribution in cash and / or non-cash contributions and to amend the New Articles accordingly, a decision to amend the New Articles to include a provision stating that the German version of the New Articles will prevail as well as a decision to elect PricewaterhouseCoopers GmbH Wirtschaftsprufungsgesellschaft as the auditor of the Company and Multitude Group for the financial year 2021.

About Multitude SE:

Multitude is an international provider of mobile banking and digital consumer and small business loans, distributed and managed by mobile devices. Founded in 2005 and headquartered in Helsinki, Finland, Multitude has expanded to operate across Europe, South and North America, Australia and Asia.

As a pioneer in digital and mobile financial services technology, Multitude is at the forefront of the digital banking revolution. The Group has approximately 467,000 active customers that have an open Mobile Bank or Wallet account or an active loan balance in the last 12 months (as at 30 June 2021).

Multitude SE is listed on the Prime Standard of Frankfurt Stock Exchange under symbol 'FRU.' For more information, visit www.multitude.com.

Contacts:

ir@multitude.com

https://www.multitude.com/investors/ir-contact
Argenta, the only combined global contract research organization (CRO) and contract development manufacturing organization (CDMO) dedicated to animal health, announced today that it has acquired Klifovet, the leading CRO and Regulatory Affairs consultancy organization in Europe. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed. Klifovet founder and CEO Dr. Klaus Hellmann will continue to lead Klifovet and will join Argenta's senior leadership team.

Founded in 1997 by Dr. Klaus Hellmann and located in Munich, Germany, Klifovet has built a leading reputation in the animal health industry, providing extensive expertise in clinical research and regulatory affairs. Its ~50 employees have had successful involvement in hundreds of studies, and their expertise and knowledge has been critical to numerous marketing authorizations for pharmaceutical, biological, immunological, and novel therapies. Its client base comprises the world's top animal health and nutrition companies as well as many promising startups.

"The acquisition of Klifovet, and the expansion into the EU, is part of Argenta's growth strategy and provides our customers the opportunity for a seamless, global Molecule to Market product development experience," said Ben Russell, CEO of Argenta. "Importantly, Argenta and Klifovet share strategic and cultural values built around customer excellence, teamwork, partnership, and innovation. I am very pleased to welcome Klifovet as a valued member of the Argenta Group and collectively work to continue to advance animal health to the benefit of our clients."

The combined business will be a global, full-value strategic partner, stimulating innovation and supporting large and small animal health and nutrition companies. Klifovet will particularly complement Argenta's Clinical Regulatory Services team based in the United States, offering an unparalleled level of expertise, and access to the largest transatlantic CRO capability in animal health.

"Joining forces with the Argenta Group is 100% in line with Klifovet's vision of becoming the leading international full-service provider for the development and maintenance of products for animal health, nutrition and wellbeing. The two leading CROs, with a presence in the EU and US, combined with the know-how and capabilities in manufacturing, regulatory services, project management, and product development, create the world's leading animal health CDMO and CRO. It provides unique and excellent opportunities for both our clients and employees. I am truly convinced this to be a perfect fit and look forward to a great future within the Argenta Group," said Klaus Hellmann, CEO of Klifovet.

Argenta was advised on the transaction by Stonehaven Consulting AG, a global consulting firm focused on animal health.

About Argenta

Founded in 2006 in New Zealand, Argenta's talented, diverse and committed employees work on a daily basis to deliver excellence in animal health to customers around the world. With research and GMP manufacturing operations in New Zealand, the United States and the United Kingdom, Argenta holds a unique position as the only combined global contract research organization (CRO) and contract development manufacturing organization (CDMO) dedicated to animal health. Argenta operates from "Molecule to Market" in partnership with customers of all sizes from all corners of the world, supporting their Research Development, clinical research, regulatory, scale up and manufacturing needs along their veterinary product development journey. For more information about Argenta, please visit www.argentaglobal.com

About Klifovet

Klifovet AG, based in Munich, Germany, was founded in 1997 and is a full-service Contract Research and Development Organization (CRO), offering regulatory affairs, pre-clinical and clinical studies, GMP compliant manufacturing including clinical supplies, quality assurance, data management and statistical analyses for the animal health and nutrition industry. Where relevant, the organization assures that services comply with VICH GCP, GLP, GCP, GMP, GPhVP and ISO 9001 requirements. Klifovet supports its clients in all aspects of the development and maintenance of products for the animal health and nutrition market. For more information about Klifovet, please visit www.klifovet.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005309/en/

Contacts:

Media:

Annemieke de Keijzer

+1 732-439-3446

globalcommunications@argentaglobal.com
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - September 16, 2021) - Provenance Gold Corp. (CSE: PAU) (FSE: 3PG) (OTCQB: PVGDF) (the "Company" or "Provenance") is pleased to announce that a major step-out hole, drilled 800 meters southeast of Provenance's initial drilling area on its White Rock property in Elko County, Nevada, intersected 117 meters (385 feet) of gold mineralization starting at the surface. The gold system extends another kilometer further to the southeast.

The White Rock property was originally optioned from Ely Gold Royalties Inc., which was recently acquired by Gold Royalty Corp. (NYSE: GROY), combining to create a leading growth and Americas-focused precious metals royalty company.

Jerry Baughman of Gold Royalty Corp. states that "We optioned all the original claims at White Rock to Provenance because we recognized that the exploration team consisting of Rauno Perttu, and Steve Craig are the best in Nevada for developing the Project. We count on them to move the project to completion so that Gold Royalty Corp. will benefit from development through our royalty interests."

The assays from this first major step-out hole support the Company's belief the property hosts a large shallow gold system. Drill hole WR-23, sited 800 meters southeast of the Company's initial confirmation drilling area, appears to be near the center of the initially recognized mineral system, which extends at least another kilometer further southeast from hole 23.

Hole 23 was drilled to a depth of 146 meters (480 feet), with strong mineralization beginning at the surface and continuing to 117 meters (385 feet). The hole intersected 85 meters (280 feet) averaging 0.369 g/t (0.012 opt) gold to a depth of 94 meters (310 feet). Within that hole were higher grade intervals such as 0.778 g/t (.025 opt) from 38 meters (125 feet) to 46 meters (150 feet).

Provenance CEO Rauno Perttu stated, "This hole is significant because it helps to verify our belief that this is a very extensive open-pit grade gold deposit, with grades typical for a Nevada open pit mine. This hole is near the center of the currently identified mineral system and the strongest historic surface soil and rock samples still extend to the south for another kilometer. Additionally, our continuing field work suggests the gold system extends northwestward through White Rock Mountain for a total of 3 km and with a general width of 1.3 km. As field work continues, we find that the mineralization potential keeps growing."

Project Manager Steve Craig said, "Based on my 46 years of experience in successful exploration in Nevada, what we are learning from our drilling and site work tells me we are starting to put together a major open pit gold system. Our drill holes and assays will continue to fill in and expand the mineralization in this 4 square kilometer area of alteration and gold mineralization."

Quality Assurance and Quality Control : The reverse-circulation drilling program utilized by Provenance completed a quality assurance / quality control program (QA/QC) with control samples consisting of standards, blanks and duplicates inserted approximately every 100 feet. Control samples were randomly inserted into the sample stream prior to being sent to the laboratory. The RC drill sampling was in five-foot sample intervals. Drill samples were taken to Paragon Geochemical, an ISO 9001 compliant company in Sparks, Nevada for fire assaying for gold and silver. The rejects and pulps remain with Paragon in Sparks, Nevada. The QA/QC program was implemented as part of the sampling procedures for the exploration program.

Rauno Perttu, P. Geo., a Qualified Person (as defined by National Instrument 43-101), and the Chief Executive Officer of the Company, has reviewed and approved the technical contents of this News Release.

About Provenance Gold Corp.

Provenance Gold Corp. is a precious metals exploration company with a focus on gold and silver resources within North America. The Company currently holds interests in three properties in Nevada, USA. For further information please visit the Company's website at https://provenancegold.com or contact rclark@provenancegold.com.

On behalf of the Board,

Provenance Gold Corp.

Rauno Perttu, Chief Executive Officer

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange, nor its regulation services provider, accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.

This news release may contain certain "Forward-Looking Statements" within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and applicable Canadian securities laws. When or if used in this news release, the words "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "expect", "target, "plan", "forecast", "may", "schedule" and similar words or expressions identify forward-looking statements or information. Such statements represent the Company's current views with respect to future events and are necessarily based upon a number of assumptions and estimates that, while considered reasonable by the Company, are inherently subject to significant business, economic, competitive, political and social risks, contingencies and uncertainties. Many factors, both known and unknown, could cause results, performance or achievements to be materially different from the results, performance or achievements that are or may be expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The Company does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update these forward-looking statements or information to reflect changes in assumptions or changes in circumstances or any other events affecting such statements and information other than as required by applicable laws, rules and regulations.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/96766
BRUSSELS/FRANKFURT/PARIS (dpa-AFX) - French stocks were moving higher on Thursday amid signs of consolidation in the media sector. Investors await Eurozone trade balance figures as well as U.S. retail sales and jobless claims data later in the day for further direction. Meanwhile, European Central Bank head Christine Lagarde is due to speak at 1200 GMT. The benchmark CAC 40 climbed 49 points, or 0.7 percent, to 6,632 after losing 1 percent the previous day. Lagardere jumped more than 20 percent after Vivendi reached an agreement to buy activist investor Amber Capital's 17.9 percent stake in the French media and retail group. Vivendi shares were down about half a percent. Defense company Thales advanced 1.3 percent after keeping its 2021 financial goals. Medical devices maker BIOCORP gained 1.3 percent as it announced an agreement with drug major Merck & Co Inc. (MRK) for the development and supply of a specific version of Mallya device to monitor treatment adherence in the field of Human Growth Hormone. Automaker Renault rose about half a percent even as industry data showed Europe's passenger car registrations declined in August and July after four months of accelerated growth. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
PMI has acquired or received valid acceptances for 74.77% shares in Vectura, and all other conditions have been satisfied or waived, making PMI's offer unconditional in all respects

PMI reaffirms commitment to using its resources and expertise to help Vectura grow its business and help PMI achieve its Beyond Nicotine ambitions

PMI Global Services Inc. (PMI) (NYSE: PM) today announced that its offer for Vectura Group plc (Vectura) (LSE: VEC) has become unconditional, having received valid acceptances for or acquired 74.77 of Vectura shares, in excess of the 50% required under the acceptance condition, as well as confirming that all other conditions to the offer have been satisfied or waived. PMI has extended the offer to allow for the tender of further shares.

"We have reached an important milestone in our acquisition of Vectura and are pleased to have secured over 74% of the company's shares, in excess of the 50% required to make our offer unconditional and PMI the majority shareholder," said PMI's Chief Executive Officer, Jacek Olczak. "We are very excited about the critical role Vectura will play in our Beyond Nicotine strategy and look forward to working with Vectura's scientists and providing them with the resources and expertise to grow their business to help us achieve our goal of generating at least $1 billion in net revenues from Beyond Nicotine products by 2025."

PMI's proposed acquisition of Vectura is part of its long-term strategy to move Beyond Nicotine and will provide support for Vectura's continued growth.

PMI will build on its leading scientific capabilities to develop products and services that go Beyond Nicotine. PMI aims to achieve at least $1 billion in annual net revenues from Beyond Nicotine sources by 2025.

PMI's business model and strategy are driven by a long-term commitment to the transformation of its business. Since 2008, PMI has invested $8.1 billion in the research, development, and commercialization of new smoke-free products for adults who would otherwise continue to smoke. PMI's track record of investing in innovation exemplifies its commitment to invest the time and resources it takes to allow for scientific innovation of better products. In its Statement of Purpose released in 2020, PMI reaffirmed its commitment to transformation and serving stakeholders.

PMI's commitment to transform itself requires an evolution into adjacent business areas while applying its significant expertise in inhalation science to address unmet medical and consumer needs by delivering medical and wellness products that improve people's lives. This is a change that, like for so many other companies, reflects the need to transform to address the impacts of business on society and to move towards a net positive future, taking ESG as a key input into a sustainable strategy.

PMI's Beyond Nicotine strategy is built on two key growth areas: (1) inhaled therapeutics, where it has already committed resources to its development pipeline of inhaled over-the-counter and prescription drugs; and (2) developing and commercializing scientifically substantiated consumer health products and solutions that improve people's lives in areas like energy, sleep, calm, and focus.

PMI has the resources, commitment, and patience to advance Vectura's existing strategy, further it geographically, and extend into the development of proprietary inhaled therapeutic products, alongside the existing contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) business. The market for inhaled therapeutics is growing rapidly, with significant potential to expand into new application areas beyond the current market offering. With PMI's support, Vectura is well-positioned to address this market growth.

PMI intends to ensure Vectura remains a trusted partner in the pharmaceutical industry for the development of inhaled therapeutic products, providing the best possible treatments for providers, prescribers, and their patients. PMI strongly supports and is aligned with Vectura's strategy of delivering drugs through inhalation using innovative technologies that can effectively address many of today's unmet medical needs recognizing that the inhalation mode of administration allows for fast systemic absorption, potential fast onset of effect, and a better safety profile due to the lower dose needed compared to the standard of care today.

PMI intends to increase the total level of expenditure on research and development and believes that this will further benefit Vectura's differentiated technologies and development expertise for the delivery of complex inhaled therapeutics, helping to bring the initial pipeline of Beyond Nicotine concepts that PMI has developed or acquired to market. This will exemplify PMI's strategy and give increased confidence in its transformation to the scientific community and to the public. Beyond supporting Vectura's growth, PMI believes these investments will support the scientific ecosystem in the U.K. for the longer term, in line with the U.K.'s life sciences strategy and in keeping with the U.K.'s position as a major scientific innovator.

Operating Vectura as an autonomous business unit forming the backbone of its inhaled therapeutics business, PMI believes Vectura will have the opportunity and tools to undertake the end-to-end development of inhalable drug-device combinations and will provide access to PMI's capabilities in areas such as pre-clinical safety, clinical development, regulatory affairs, drug safety, market access, and global reach.

We look forward to working with Vectura's scientists to establish a governance structure that supports its ongoing scientific efforts.

Vectura is a provider of innovative inhaled drug delivery solutions that enable partners to bring their medicines to patients. The company has 13 key inhaled products and 11 non-inhaled products marketed by major global pharmaceutical partners, as well as a diverse portfolio of partnerships for drugs in clinical development. In 2020, Vectura generated net revenues of GBP 191 million (approximately $245 million). The transaction value represents a multiple of around 15 times Vectura's 2020 EBITDA.

PMI expects the impact of the acquisition on its full-year 2021 adjusted diluted EPS to be immaterial.

Forward-Looking and Cautionary Statements

Statements in this press release that are not strictly historical, including statements regarding the acquisition of Vectura, the expected timetable for completing the transaction, future financial and operating results, benefits and synergies of the transaction, future opportunities for the combined businesses, and any other statements regarding events or developments that we believe or anticipate will or may occur in the future, may be "forward- looking" statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and involve a number of risks and uncertainties.

There are a number of important factors that could cause actual events to differ materially from those suggested or indicated by such forward-looking statements, and you should not place undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements. These factors include risks and uncertainties related to, among other things: (1) the possibility that the integration of Vectura and its operations with those of PMI may be more difficult and/or take longer than anticipated, and may not accelerate PMI's desired entry into additional smoke-free and Beyond Nicotine platforms as quickly as anticipated; (2) the possibility that Vectura's integration into PMI may be more costly than anticipated and may have unanticipated adverse results relating to Vectura or PMI's existing businesses; (3) the inability to consummate the acquisition in a timely manner; (4) the inability to complete the acquisition of 100% of the shares in Vectura; (5) the inability to gain access to differentiated proprietary technology and pharmaceutical development expertise as anticipated by the acquisition of Vectura; (6) the effect of the announcement of PMI's acquisition of Vectura on PMI's, Vectura's, or the combined company's respective business relationships, operating results, and business generally; (7) risks associated with third-party contracts containing consent and/or other provisions that may be triggered by the proposed acquisition; (8) negative effects of the announcement or the consummation of the acquisition on the market price of PMI's common stock; (9) the ability of PMI to hire and/or retain key personnel of Vectura; and (10) other factors that may affect future results of the combined company described in the section entitled "Risk Factors" in PMI's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2020, PMI's Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2021, and other filings of PMI with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The forward-looking statements made herein speak only as of the date hereof, and PMI does not assume any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events and developments, or otherwise, except as required by law.

Philip Morris International: Delivering a Smoke-Free Future

Philip Morris International (PMI) is leading a transformation in the tobacco industry to create a smoke-free future and ultimately replace cigarettes with smoke-free products to the benefit of adults who would otherwise continue to smoke, society, the company, its shareholders and its other stakeholders. PMI is a leading international tobacco company engaged in the manufacture and sale of cigarettes, as well as smoke-free products, associated electronic devices and accessories, and other nicotine-containing products in markets outside the U.S. In addition, PMI ships versions of its IQOS Platform 1 device and consumables to Altria Group, Inc. for sale under license in the U.S., where these products have received marketing authorizations from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under the premarket tobacco product application (PMTA) pathway; the FDA has also authorized the marketing of a version of IQOS and its consumables as a Modified Risk Tobacco Product (MRTP), finding that an exposure modification order for these products is appropriate to promote the public health. PMI is building a future on a new category of smoke-free products that, while not risk-free, are a much better choice than continuing to smoke. Through multidisciplinary capabilities in product development, state-of-the-art facilities and scientific substantiation, PMI aims to ensure that its smoke-free products meet adult consumer preferences and rigorous regulatory requirements. PMI's smoke-free product portfolio includes heat-not-burn and nicotine-containing vapor products. As of June 30, 2021, PMI's smoke-free products are available for sale in 67 markets in key cities or nationwide, and PMI estimates that approximately 14.7 million adults around the world have already switched to IQOS and stopped smoking. For more information, please visit www.pmi.com and www.pmiscience.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005394/en/

Contacts:

Philip Morris International

David Fraser

Philip Morris International

T. +41 (0)79 843 8603

E. david.fraser@pmi.com


BRUSSELS/FRANKFURT/PARIS (dpa-AFX) - European stocks opened higher on Thursday despite a weak handover from Asia, where the debt crisis at China Evergrande Group and Beijing's latest push to rein in private industries hurt sentiment.



Sentiment was boosted after data showed the euro area trade surplus increased in July on higher shipments.



According to the first estimate from Eurostat, the trade surplus increased to a seasonally adjusted EUR 13.4 billion from EUR 11.9 billion in June. Exports increased 1 percent month-on-month, while imports grew only 0.3 percent.



On an unadjusted basis, exports of goods registered an annual growth of 11.4 percent and imports posted 17.1 percent expansion.



Investors await U.S. retail sales and jobless claims data later in the session for more clues on when the Federal Reserve will tighten its monetary policy.



European Central Bank head Christine Lagarde is due to speak at 1200 GMT.



The pan European Stoxx 600 climbed 0.7 percent to 467.20 after losing 0.8 percent on Wednesday.



The German DAX rose 0.6 percent, France's CAC 40 index jumped over 1 percent and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 was up half a percent.



Lagardere shares soared 20 percent in Paris after Vivendi reached an agreement to buy activist investor Amber Capital's 17.9 percent stake in the French media and retail group.



Defense company Thales added 1.3 percent after keeping its 2021 financial goals.



Regional automakers were seeing modest losses as industry data showed Europe's passenger car registrations declined in August and July after four months of accelerated growth.



German chemicals giant BASF rose 1.1 percent after it announced a strategic partnership with Chinese energy technology company Contemporary Amperex Technology Co.



Wacker Chemie AG gained 1 percent. The chemicals company once again raised its full-year guidance for sales and EBITDA, citing the sustained positive performance of its business.



Food and beverages company GEA Group AG rose nearly 2 percent as it bagged an order from Denmark-based biotechnology customer Novozymes for a new functional protein plant in Nebraska, USA.



Ryanair Holdings jumped 6.3 percent in London after the discount airline raised its traffic forecast over the next five years. EasyJet rallied 3.8 percent and British Airways owner IAG advanced 3.2 percent.



Rio Tinto fell nearly 2 percent as the mining giant issued a statement on penalty assessment by the Australian Taxation Office in connection with an isolated borrowing used to pay an intragroup dividend in 2015.



Wickes rallied 2 percent. The home improvement retailer raised its annual profit forecast after a strong first-half performance.



Rental equipment provider Ashtead Group climbed 3.6 percent after lifting its outlook for full-year performance.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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Details from Metallurgical test works supports gold recoveries of 98.5%

Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - September 16, 2021) - CERRADO GOLD (TSXV: CERT) (OTCQX: CRDOF) ("Cerrado" or the "Company") is pleased to announce latest metallurgical test work results that outlines the processes and results for the metallurgical test work for process route definition and determination of process parameters for the Serra Alta deposit at its Monte Do Carmo project in Tocantins State Brasil. Results support an expected gold recovery rate of 98.5% as used in the PEA. The process reviewed the expected global gold recovery using gravity concentration followed by floatation and leaching of the gravity concentrate tailings.

Mark Brennan, CEO of Cerrado Gold commented, "We are extremely pleased to release further details of the metallurgical test results that support the robust results presented in the recent PEA for the Serra Alta deposit which showed an NPV5% of $617 MM at a gold price of $1,600/oz. The results further demonstrate the tremendous economic advantage offered by the mineral characteristics at the Serra Alta deposit. We will continue to explore Serra Alta and regional analogue deposits to determine the full potential of the Monte do Carmo gold district."

The latest metallurgical test work results were part of Cerrado's recently released NI 43-101 Preliminary Economic Assessment ("PEA") based upon the recently expanded 43-101 resources defined at the Serra Alta deposit at its Monte do Carmo gold project in Tocantins State, Brazil (see press release dated August 23, 2021). The test work was completed by Testwork Process Development Ltda and was incorporated into the recent PEA completed by GE21 Consultoria Mineral Ltda ("GE21"). The full report is expected on our website www.cerradogold.com imminently.

Test procedures incorporated four samples totaling 300 kilograms (kg), which were collected from drill holes representing the two main areas (East Zone, Pit South+ North Zone) plus a cut-off/low grade sample of all zones and a blend of the three previously mentioned. ICP assays of samples did not identify any metals that could potentially be cyanicides indicating a low cyanide consumption and lower residence time of the leach operations. Samples were assayed by SGS Brazil and returned the following grades:

Table 1: Sample grade assays

Orebody Grade (g/t) CUT - CUT OFF 0.27 EAC - EAST ZONE 2.19 SNC - SUL NORTE 2.04 BLC - BLEND. 1.68

Samples were then ground to various particles sizes to determine the the distribution of gold for each particle size fraction and its recovery by leaching with cyanide. It shows that gold is released for leaching from the coarsest fractions, however, to optimize the recovery of gold the ore should be ground below 106 m. The various samples followed the metallurgical testing program as shown in the flowsheet below.





Chart 1: Process Flowsheet

To view an enhanced version of Chart 1please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/7487/96745_929db251b471cbf6_003full.jpg

Table 2: Gold Recoveries

Gold Recovery Related to Feed Mesh Tyler Size (m) Au Grade by

Fraction

(g/t) Au Tailing

by Fraction

(g/t) Reocv. Au

per Fraction

(%) (%) Au

Simple (%) Au

Accumulated 100# 150 12.85 0.08 99.4% 9.6% 9.6% 150# 106 3.31 0.05 98.5% 19.2% 28.7% 200# 75 1.16 0.04 96.6% 20.1% 48.8% 325# 45 1.13 0.02 98.2% 13.0% 61.8% <325# <45 1.09 0.04 96.3% 13.5% 97.3% 1.43 0.04

Gravimetric concentration tests were also performed. Gravity concentrations were made in the laboratory using an MD3 concentrator from FLSmidth (Knelson) before leaching/CIL and Flotation tests. Direct leaching (without carbon) and CIL tests were performed with the tailings of gravity concentrations. As shown in the table below gravity concentration recovered as much as 85% of the gold.

Table 3: Gravity Concentration Recoveries

Gravity Concentration - Recoveries (%) Ore body Leaching/CIL Flotation P 80 =106 m P 80 =75 m P 80 =106 m P 80 =75 m CUT - CUT OFF 68.0% 62.8% 70.1% 73.8% EAC - EAST ZONE 82.5% 79.7% 85.0% 83.0% SNC - SUL NORTE 75.1% 79.4% 78.3% 82.9% BLC - BLEND. 71.1% 74.7% 76.2% 80.2%

The Rejects from gravimetric processing then reported to a flotation circuit, followed by CIL leach of the concentrate derived from flotation The first Table shows the average recoveries in direct leaching and CIL and the second Table shows the Global recoveries that includes the gravimetric concentration plus leaching and CIL. The residence times of leaching do not exceed 12 hours to obtain maximum recovery and with the use of activated carbon this time may be even shorter. Cyanide consumption was in the order of 0.2kg/t for the BLC sample.

Table 4: Gold Recoveries Direct Leaching & CIL

Average Au Recoveries by Direct Leaching and CIL (%) Ore body Direct Leaching Flotation P 80 =106 m P 80 =75 m P 80 =106 m P 80 =75 m CUT - CUT OFF 84.6% 82.0% 90.5% 87.3% EAC - EAST ZONE 96.0% 96.1% 96.0% 96.7% SNC - SUL NORTE 92.3% 96.8% 94.7% 97.5% BLC - BLEND. 95.4% 96.1% 96.2% 96.8%

Average GLOBAL Au Recoveries by Direct Leaching and CIL (%) Ore body Direct Leaching Flotation P 80 =106 m P 80 =75 m P 80 =106 m P 80 =75 m CUT - CUT OFF 95.8% 93.7% 96.3% 94.9% EAC - EAST ZONE 99.3% 99.3% 99.3% 99.3% SNC - SUL NORTE 98.2% 99.4% 98.6% 99.4% BLC - BLEND. 98.8% 99.2% 98.6% 99.1%

Flotation tests were performed that showed excellent results as well. The Table below has a summary of the results of rougher flotations.

Average Au Recoveries by Flotation (%) Ore body Flotation Flotation + Gravity Concentrate P 80 =106 m P 80 =75 m P 80 =106 m P 80 =75 m CUT - CUT OFF 77.5% 79.4% 93.6% 94.7% EAC - EAST ZONE 88.7% 90.7% 98.3% 98.4% SNC - SUL NORTE 91.6% 94.5% 98.1% 99.1% BLC - BLEND. 95.3% 92.9% 98.4% 98.6%

In summary the testwork confirmed excellent recovery of gold is anticipated at Serra Alta with overall metallurgical recovery as high as 98.6 % in line with recovery assumptions on the recently completed PEA.

Technical Disclosure

The reader is advised that the PEA summarized in this press release is intended to provide only an initial, high-level review of the project potential and design options. The PEA mine plan and economic model include numerous assumptions and the use of Inferred Mineral Resources. Inferred Mineral Resources are considered to be too speculative to be used in an economic analysis except as allowed for by Canadian Securities Administrators' National Instrument 43-101 in PEA studies. There is no guarantee the project economics described herein will be achieved.

Cerrado Gold Inc. will publish no later than September 17th a Technical Report on SEDAR prepared in accordance with NI 43-101 that documents the PEA study and supports the current disclosure.

Independent Qualified Persons

Porfirio Cabaleiro Rodriguez, Mining Engineer, BSc (Mine Eng), MAIG, director of GE21 Consultoria Mineral Ltda and B. Terrence Hennessey, P.Geo., Vice President of MICON International Limited, are the Qualified Persons as defined in NI 43-101 responsible for the Technical Report and are all independent of the Company.

Quality Assurance Quality Control:

The scientific and technical information in this press release has been reviewed and approved by Porfirio Cabaleiro Rodriguez, Mining Engineer, BSc (Mine Eng), MAIG, director of GE21 Consultoria Mineral Ltda, and B. Terrence Hennessey, P.Geo., Vice President of MICON International Limited, all of whom are Qualified Persons as defined in NI 43-101.

About GE21

GE21 is a specialized and independent mineral consulting firm based on a multi-disciplinary technical team, which offers services covering most project development stages in the mining sector.

The senior staff and Board of Directors have extensive technical and operational experience, based on collaboration with relevant companies in the fields of exploration and mineral consulting in Brazil going back to the 1980's.

GE21's services cover the entire mining cycle, from business strategies and target generation and investments to mine closure. GE21 routinely provides services for mineral exploration, project development, geological valuations, and resource and reserve estimation and certification according to international standards, including JORC and NI 43- 101. In addition, GE21 also serves the mining industry by working with operators in connection with mine planning and mine optimization, technical and economic studies as well as technical audits and the application of best market practices advocated by various international codes.

For further information please contact

Mark Brennan

CEO and Co Chairman

Tel: +1-647-796-0023

mbrennan@cerradogold.com

Nicholas Campbell, CFA

Director, Corporate Development

Tel: +1-905-630-0148

ncampbell@cerradogold.com

About Cerrado Gold

Cerrado Gold is a public gold producer and exploration company with gold production derived from its 100% owned Minera Don Nicolas mine in Santa Cruz province, Argentina. It also owns 100% of the assets of Minera Mariana in Santa Cruz province, Argentina. The company is also undertaking exploration at its 100% owned Monte Do Carmo project located in Tocantins, Brazil. For more information about Cerrado Gold please visit our website at: www.cerradogold.com.

Disclaimer

NEITHER TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE.

This press release contains statements that constitute "forward-looking information" (collectively, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of the applicable Canadian securities legislation, all statements, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements and are based on expectations, estimates and projections as at the date of this news release. Any statement that discusses predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions, future events or performance (often but not always using phrases such as "expects", or "does not expect", "is expected", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", "plans", "budget", "scheduled", "forecasts", "estimates", "believes" or "intends" or variations of such words and phrases or stating that certain actions, events or results "may" or "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken to occur or be achieved) are not statements of historical fact and may be forward-looking statements.

Forward-looking statements contained in this press release include, without limitation, statements regarding the business and operations of Cerrado Gold. In making the forward- looking statements contained in this press release, Cerrado Gold has made certain assumptions, including, but not limited to ability of Cerrado to expand its drilling program at its Minera Don Nicolas Project and increase its resources. Although Cerrado Gold believes that the expectations reflected in forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that the expectations of any forward-looking statements will prove to be correct. Known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors which may cause the actual results and future events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, but are not limited to general business, economic, competitive, political, and social uncertainties. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements and information contained in this press release. Except as required by law, Cerrado Gold disclaims any intention and assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect actual results, whether as a result of new information, future events, changes in assumptions, changes in factors affecting such forward-looking statements or otherwise.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/96745
Ad hoc announcement pursuant to Art. 53 SIX Listing Rules

Newron Pharmaceuticals S.p.A. ("Newron") (SIX: NWRN, XETRA: NP5), a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of novel therapies for patients with diseases of the central and peripheral nervous system, today announced its operational highlights and financial results for the half-year ended June 30, 2021.

Highlights:

Evenamide (Schizophrenia)

The primary objective of two short-term explanatory studies of evenamide was met on all safety variables: study 010, in healthy volunteers, and study 008, in patients with schizophrenia

Post-period, Newron initiated study 008A, the first potentially pivotal study with evenamide in patients with schizophrenia, results from which are expected by Q4 2022

Newron continues to evaluate strategic commercial and development partnering options for evenamide

Xadago/safinamide (Parkinson's disease)

Newron signed an agreement with its partner Zambon to commence a potentially pivotal study with safinamide in Parkinson's disease patients with levodopa-induced dyskinesia (PD LID)

Newron is currently working on finalizing the design of the study with international clinical experts and regulatory authorities and intends to initiate the study in Q1 2022

Newron and its partners Zambon and Supernus are responding appropriately to protect the intellectual property rights relating to Xadago/safinamide in the US, following some Paragraph IV Notice Letters regarding Abbreviated New Drug Applications that have been submitted by generic manufacturers

Corporate

Newron is in the process of conducting value assessments on several potential opportunities to broaden its pipeline of treatments for central and peripheral nervous system diseases

Post-period, Newron received a fourth tranche of EUR 7.5 million under its financing agreement with the European Investment Bank (EIB)

Stefan Weber, CEO of Newron, commented:

"As we move forward into the remainder of 2021, we are pleased with the progress we are making with our innovative products. In particular, we look forward to advancing our potentially pivotal studies with evenamide in patients with schizophrenia and with safinamide in PD LID. We are evaluating opportunities to broaden our pipeline of treatments for central and peripheral nervous system diseases, as well as exploring opportunities to partner, where appropriate. Newron's total available cash resources, including the EIB funds not yet drawn down, in addition to its royalty income and Italian R&D tax credits, will fund our planned development programs and operations well into 2023."

Evenamide

In April, Newron announced encouraging results from two short-term explanatory studies in evenamide: study 010 in 56 healthy volunteers, and study 008 in 138 outpatients with chronic schizophrenia, receiving treatment with a second-generation atypical antipsychotic.These promising results showed that evenamide is devoid of any arrhythmic effect, a risk generally associated with antipsychotics, even at twice the therapeutic dose, and can be safely added to any other antipsychotic. The results also demonstrated that the drug is safe at all doses investigated, due to the lack of any systemic pattern of adverse effects relating to the central nervous system.

Based on this encouraging data and supported by the pre-clinical results published last year confirming the absence of toxicity, Newron, on September 6, 2021, initiated study 008A, the first potentially pivotal study with evenamide in patients with chronic schizophrenia. Study 008A, a four-week, randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled international study, is designed to evaluate the efficacy, tolerability, and safety including electroencephalography (EEG) effects of the 30mg BID therapeutic dose of evenamide in patients with chronic schizophrenia, currently being treated with a second-generation antipsychotic.

Results from the study are expected by Q4 2022. Newron believes that positive results from this study would qualify the trial as the first adequate and well-controlled (pivotal) study with evenamide in patients with schizophrenia who are inadequate responders to antipsychotics.

Xadago/safinamide

For the continued clinical development of its marketed product Xadago/safinamide, Newron has signed an agreement with its partner Zambon to commence a potentially pivotal study with safinamide in PD LID. This double-blind, placebo-controlled study is intended to be performed in the US, Europe and Asia/Australia, with a potential label extension for safinamide in key markets. Newron currently expects to initiate the study in Q1 2022.

In May, Newron received some Paragraph IV Notice Letters regarding the submission by generic manufacturers of an Abbreviated New Drug Application to the US FDA, seeking approval to engage in the commercial manufacture, use or sale of safinamide mesylate drug product in the US before the expiration of certain US patents. Newron and its partners Zambon and Supernus have responded in filing an infringement suit against the generic manufacturers to secure a 30-month stay of the ANDAs approval, and thus to protect its intellectual property rights relating to Xadago/safinamide tablets. The compound is currently protected by three patents listed in the FDA's Approved Drugs Product List (Orange Book) that expire no earlier than 2027.

Financial Key Takeaways:

For the first six months of 2021, Newron reported a net loss of EUR 9.1 million, compared to EUR 10.5 million in the same period in 2020

Cash used in operating activities has increased to EUR 8.8 million from EUR 7.0 million in H1 2020

Xadago revenues received from Zambon slightly increased from EUR 2.5 million in H1 2020 to EUR 2.7 million in the reporting period

revenues received from Zambon slightly increased from EUR 2.5 million in H1 2020 to EUR 2.7 million in the reporting period Newron's R&D expenses have fallen to EUR 6.8 million from EUR 7.8 million in H1 2020

G&A expenses were EUR 3.7 million in the first six months of 2021 versus EUR 4.4 million in the same period in 2020

Cash and Other current financial assets at June 30, 2021 were at EUR 21.9 million, compared to EUR 31.3 million at the beginning of the year

Post-period, on September 6, Newron received the fourth tranche of funds under its financing agreement with the EIB that was announced in 2018 and comprised of funding up to EUR 40 million. Tranche 4 consisted of EUR 7.5 million and will primarily be used to support the Company's development programs in CNS diseases

Financial Summary (IFRS):

In thousand EUR (except per share information)

H1 2021 H1 2020 Licence income/Royalties 2,671 2,509 Research and development expenses (6,783) (7,777) General and administrative expenses (3,747) (4,374) Net profit/loss (9,063) (10,503) Profit/loss per share (0.51) (0.59) Cash used in operating activities (8,750) (7,039) As of June 30, 2021 As of Dec. 31, 2020 Cash and Other current financial assets 21,906 31,250 Total assets 39,886 51,198

Newron's Half-Year Report 2021 is available for download on the Company's website:

https://www.newron.com/investors/reports-and-presentation/year/2021

About Newron Pharmaceuticals

Newron (SIX: NWRN, XETRA: NP5) is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of novel therapies for patients with diseases of the central and peripheral nervous system. The Company is headquartered in Bresso near Milan, Italy. Xadago/safinamide has received marketing authorization for the treatment of Parkinson's disease in the European Union, Switzerland, the UK, the USA, Australia, Canada, Brazil, Colombia, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Japan and South Korea, and is commercialized by Newron's Partner Zambon. Supernus Pharmaceuticals holds the commercialization rights in the USA. Meiji Seika has the rights to develop and commercialize the compound in Japan and other key Asian territories. Newron is developing evenamide as the potential first add-on therapy for the treatment of patients with positive symptoms of schizophrenia. For more information, please visit: www.newron.com

Important Notices

This document contains forward-looking statements, including (without limitation) about (1) Newron's ability to develop and expand its business, successfully complete development of its current product candidates, the timing of commencement of various clinical trials and receipt of data and current and future collaborations for the development and commercialization of its product candidates, (2) the market for drugs to treat CNS diseases and pain conditions, (3) Newron's financial resources, and (4) assumptions underlying any such statements. In some cases, these statements and assumptions can be identified by the fact that they use words such as "will", "anticipate", "estimate", "expect", "project", "intend", "plan", "believe", "target", and other words and terms of similar meaning. All statements, other than historical facts, contained herein regarding Newron's strategy, goals, plans, future financial position, projected revenues and costs and prospects are forward-looking statements. By their very nature, such statements and assumptions involve inherent risks and uncertainties, both general and specific, and risks exist that predictions, forecasts, projections and other outcomes described, assumed or implied therein will not be achieved. Future events and actual results could differ materially from those set out in, contemplated by or underlying the forward-looking statements due to a number of important factors. These factors include (without limitation) (1) uncertainties in the discovery, development or marketing of products, including without limitation difficulties in enrolling clinical trials, negative results of clinical trials or research projects or unexpected side effects, (2) delay or inability in obtaining regulatory approvals or bringing products to market, (3) future market acceptance of products, (4) loss of or inability to obtain adequate protection for intellectual property rights, (5) inability to raise additional funds, (6) success of existing and entry into future collaborations and licensing agreements, (7) litigation, (8) loss of key executive or other employees, (9) adverse publicity and news coverage, and (10) competition, regulatory, legislative and judicial developments or changes in market and/or overall economic conditions. Newron may not actually achieve the plans, intentions or expectations disclosed in forward-looking statements and assumptions underlying any such statements may prove wrong. Investors should therefore not place undue reliance on them. There can be no assurance that actual results of Newron's research programs, development activities, commercialization plans, collaborations and operations will not differ materially from the expectations set out in such forward-looking statements or underlying assumptions. Newron does not undertake any obligation to publicly up-date or revise forward looking statements except as may be required by applicable regulations of the SIX Swiss Exchange where the shares of Newron are listed. This document does not contain or constitute an offer or invitation to purchase or subscribe for any securities of Newron and no part of it shall form the basis of or be relied upon in connection with any contract or commitment whatsoever.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005413/en/

Contacts:

Newron

Stefan Weber CEO, +39 02 6103 46 26, pr@newron.com

UK/Europe

Simon Conway/ Natalie Garland-Collins, FTI Consulting, +44 (0)20 3727 1000, SCnewron@fticonsulting.com

Switzerland

Valentin Handschin, IRF Reputation, +41 43 244 81 54, handschin@irf-reputation.ch

Germany/Europe

Anne Hennecke/Caroline Bergmann, MC Services, +49 211 52925220, newron@mc-services.eu

USA

Paul Sagan, LaVoieHealthScience, +1 617 374 8800, Ext. 112, psagan@lavoiehealthscience.com
Wunderman Thompson Launches 'Into The Metaverse' - a Metaverse Road Map for Brands

New report defines the metaverse, how it's changing people's lives and why brands need to pay attention.

NEW YORK, Sept. 16, 2021/PRNewswire/ -- Wunderman Thompson Intelligence announces "Into the Metaverse" - a unique global report which serves as a playbook for brands and agencies, defining the metaverse and explaining its implications for brands.

Interest in the metaverse - a world in which digital and physical spaces are blurred - has grown significantly over the past year. As the world emerges from COVID-19, many are assessing the lasting impact of an increasingly screen-based existence and the impact of an accelerated convergence of the virtual and physical worlds.

The report is based on quantitative research with 3,000+ consumers including analysis of people's understanding of and attitudes towards the metaverse and views of 15 industry experts on the metaverse's impact on business.

The findings reveal global drivers such as the rise of gaming and the battle between companies such as Facebook, Roblox Corporation and Epic Games for dominance in this space.

Meta-trend highlights:

MetaLives - the rise of virtual possessions, close connection between digital access and health and wellbeing, and technology's role in creativity and lifestyles.

the rise of virtual possessions, close connection between digital access and health and wellbeing, and technology's role in creativity and lifestyles. MetaSpaces - the emergence and growing popularity of new virtual venues and blended virtual/real world spaces, redefining home, events and vacations.

the emergence and growing popularity of new virtual venues and blended virtual/real world spaces, redefining home, events and vacations. MetaBusiness - the uplift in "gamevertising" and emergence of new retail frontiers.

Key findings:

 Global consumers' growing reliance on tech: 76% of all consumers surveyed say their everyday lives and activities now depend on technology

 Technology dependence now informs every aspect of daily life: 64% of global consumers say their social lives depend on it; 50% that their wellbeing depends on it

 Digital is redefining consumer/brand relationships: 62% of consumers say they feel closer when interacting with a brand digitally; 66% prefer it. 81% of global consumers agree that a brand's digital presence is as important as its in-store presence.

Naomi Troni, Global Chief Marketing and Growth Officer, Wunderman Thompson, says: "The time has come to stop thinking of the metaverse as solely a domain for gaming. Increasingly, it is a new social place that's here to stay."

Emma Chiu , Wunderman Thompson Intelligence Global Director says: "We're entering the era of the metaverse, where our virtual and physical realities converge. Our report offers a glimpse into how this is shaping our future and lessons for brands on entering this space."

Download the report here: https://www.wundermanthompson.com/insight/new-trend-report-into-the-metaverse

About Wunderman Thompson

At Wunderman Thompson we exist to inspire growth for ambitious brands. Part creative agency, part consultancy and part technology company, our experts provide end-to-end capabilities at a global scale to deliver inspiration across the entire brand and customer experience.

For more information, visit us at? www.wundermanthompson.com

Contact: Alie Griffiths, +44 7780-513411, alie@peruasioncomms.com

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1626946/SuperReal_at_Cipriani.jpg
Phase 2a Tolerability and Efficacy Data Supports Further Clinical Development of Samuraciclib in Combination with Fulvestrant in HR+, HER2- Breast Cancer Previously Treated with a CDK4/6 Inhibitor



DUBLIN, Ireland and BOSTON, Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Carrick Therapeutics, an oncology-focused biopharmaceutical company discovering and developing highly differentiated therapies, today presented encouraging initial clinical data on samuraciclib (CT-7001), an oral and first-in-class inhibitor of CDK7, at the 2021 European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress.

Data presented from a Phase 2a study of samuraciclib in combination with fulvestrant in women with hormone receptor positive (HR+), HER2- advanced breast cancer (BC) previously treated with a CDK4/6 inhibitor (abstract: 1346 (265P)) demonstrated clinical activity and tolerability that supports further clinical development of the combination.

"Today, for the first time, we presented data from a clinical trial of our oral CDK7 inhibitor, samuraciclib. Results of the Phase 2a study in combination with fulvestrant demonstrated clinical activity and tolerability in patients with HR+, HER2- advanced breast cancer, reinforcing our conviction that samuraciclib has potential to be a first and best-in-class treatment," said Tim Pearson, Chief Executive Officer of Carrick Therapeutics. "As a reminder, the FDA recently granted Fast Track designation to samuraciclib in combination with fulvestrant for CDK4/6 inhibitor resistant patients. This patient population is particularly difficult to treat, with a recent trial showing only 8 weeks mPFS benefit when women are treated with fulvestrant alone. Based on this initial data, we believe samuraciclib has the potential to provide a clinically meaningful benefit for all patients, most notably in those women that are TP53 wildtype. In addition to fulvestrant, we are exploring additional samuraciclib combinations, including with giredestrant, a next-generation oral SERD, through our recently announced clinical collaboration with Roche in metastatic breast cancer. We thank the women that participated in this Phase 2a trial and look forward to continuing the fight against this and other types of cancer."

As part of the Phase 2a study of samuraciclib in combination with fulvestrant in patients with advanced HR+, HER2- BC, 31 patients were enrolled with difficult-to-treat disease. 81% of these patients had visceral disease, including 45% with liver metastasis. All patients enrolled previously progressed following treatment with a CDK4/6 inhibitor. Of the 31 patients enrolled in the study, 24 patients were evaluable for response at the time of data cut-off:

17 (71%) had tumour shrinkage, with a best RECIST response of partial response (PR) in two (8%) patients and stable disease (SD) in 13 (54%) patients.

Median progression-free survival (mPFS) of the intent-to-treat (ITT) population was 16.1 weeks (n=31). Notably, patients with no mutation in the TP53 gene had a mPFS of 32.0 weeks (n=18). Prolonged disease control was also apparent in patients with no liver metastases at baseline (n=17), with mPFS having not yet been reached. At the point of this data cut-off, mPFS would be at least 28 weeks.

Adverse events were predominantly low-grade gastrointestinal (GI) events that were reversible and manageable using standard prophylactic treatment. No significant neutropenia or myelosuppression associated with other CDK inhibitors were observed.

This data supports the further development of samuraciclib in HR+ advanced BC.

"The data from this study show excellent preliminary evidence of activity of samuraciclib in combination with fulvestrant," said Dr. Sacha Howell, The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester, UK and a primary investigator in the Phase 2a study. "This population of patients, previously treated with CDK4/6 inhibitors, are known to have previously demonstrated short PFS benefit from fulvestrant alone. The efficacy data, particularly in participants with wildtype TP53, exceeded my expectations and offers the potential for durable endocrine disease control, further delaying the need for chemotherapy. Those participants remained on therapy for prolonged durations demonstrates tolerability and the main GI toxicity was manageable with supportive medication."

"Following the positive initial Phase 2a data, we are preparing to advance the randomized Phase 2b study of HR+, HER2-, post-CDK4/6 inhibitor breast cancer patients," said Dr. Stuart McIntosh, Chief Medical Officer of Carrick Therapeutics. "A key distinction from the Phase 2a will be the inclusion of patients with RECIST non-measurable disease in addition to those with visceral disease in the Phase 2b, in-line with the real-world population. Given the success noticed in the sub-group of patients with no mutation in the TP53 gene population, we will prospectively evaluate and stratify by mutation status as well. This success aligns with the known biological function of TP53 since its activation has been shown to sensitize cancer cells to CDK7 inhibition. Approximately 75% of breast cancer patients are TP53 wild-type, and we believe this may be an important potential biomarker for future studies."

In addition to the Phase 2a data presented today, data from the first-in-human study of samuraciclib in patients with advanced solid malignancies (abstract: 943 (230MO)) will be shared during an oral presentation at ESMO from 17:10 BST (12:10pm ET) on September 18, 2021. As part of the study, 44 patients were treated with escalating doses of samuraciclib monotherapy, which demonstrated evidence of antitumor activity with a manageable safety profile.

About Samuraciclib (CT7001)

Samuraciclib is the most advanced oral CDK7 inhibitor in clinical development. Inhibiting CDK7 is a promising therapeutic strategy in cancer as CDK7 regulates the transcription of cancer-causing genes, promotes uncontrolled cell cycle progression and resistance to anti-hormone therapy. Samuraciclib has demonstrated a favorable safety profile and encouraging efficacy in early clinical studies. In addition to the above study, it is currently being evaluated in triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) and prostate cancer with further potential in pancreatic, ovarian and colorectal cancers. Samuraciclib has been granted Fast Track designations from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in combination with fulvestrant for the treatment of CDK4/6i resistant HR+, HER2- advanced breast cancer and in combination with chemotherapy for the treatment of locally advanced or metastatic TNBC.

About Carrick Therapeutics

Carrick Therapeutics is an oncology-focused biopharmaceutical company leveraging its deep expertise to identify and develop highly differentiated novel therapies that address significant unmet needs. In addition to samuraciclib, Carrick is also developing a novel CDK12/13 inhibitor / Cyclin-K glue-degrader which has advanced into IND enabling toxicology studies.

For more information about Carrick Therapeutics, please visit www.carricktherapeutics.com

Contact

Carrick Therapeutics

Jenny Horsfield, Senior Vice President Business Development

jenny.horsfield@carricktherapeutics.com

Investors and Media

William Slattery, Jr., Real Chemistry

wslattery@realchemistry.com




GENOA, Italy, Sept 16, 2021 - (JCN Newswire) - Honda Motor Europe Ltd. today exhibited the world premiere of the all-new BF150, BF135 and BF115 large-size outboard engines at the Genoa International Boat Show 2021 which began today in Genoa, Liguria Region in Italy. The Show is held from September 16 to 21, 2021.All three models unveiled today feature Honda's new "dynamic motion" design, which expresses high-quality and the innovative nature of these outboards. Moreover, usability was improved through the adoption of an electronic remote control system (DBW*) which realizes smooth and secure shift operations and quick and accurate throttle operations, enabling these outboard engines to support comfortable cruising.Ever since Honda entered into the outboard engine market in 1964, it has been offering products which accommodate a broad range of customer needs from commercial to recreational needs on the water while remaining focused on people-friendly and environmentally-responsible high-quality 4-stroke outboard engines based on the belief of Soichiro Honda, the founder of Honda, that "Watercraft should not pollute the waters they ply." Including the three all-new models unveiled today, Honda will offer a full lineup of clean and high-performance outboard engines to fulfill the needs of a growing boat market and continue offering our customers the joy of cruising.*DBW: Drive-by-wireSource: HondaCopyright 2021 JCN Newswire . All rights reserved.

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / September 16, 2021 / Sativa Wellness Group Inc. (CSE:SWEL) ("Sativa Wellness" or the "Company") is pleased to announce today that it has launched a full membership scheme through its website and new product range to include larger 30ml bottles.

For members, 20% CBD Oil in 30ml bottles will be 20% cheaper and 20% stronger than the cheapest CBD on the market. The new price of a 30ml 20% CBD product will also offer members 50% more CBD or 50% less cost than the average prices of 20% CBD found on a recent review of well-known brands in the market. The other products within the newly launched range also offer significant discounts on competitors' prices.

The Goodbody brand also guarantees Best Quality & Best Price on the market. Goodbody will guarantee your money back if a CBD oil of the same quality and strength as Goodbody CBD is found for a cheaper price.

Geremy Thomas, Executive Chairman, says; "CBD is a great product but is too expensive for consumers. Today Goodbody branded products will be offered to members at major discounts to competitor offerings. Following falling prices of raw materials in the CBD market and improved efficiencies, we are delighted that due to our ability to manage and test the whole process we are able to lead the way in offering consumers the best quality at the best price, and, as a trusted brand we are prepared to put a guarantee behind that"

The Directors of the Company accept responsibility for the contents of this announcement.

On behalf of the Board of Directors,

Marc Howells

Chief Executive Officer

Sativa Wellness Group Inc.

+44 (0) 20 7971 1255

enquiries@sativawellnessgroup.com

www.sativawellnessgroup.com Anne Tew

Chief Financial Officer

Sativa Wellness Group Inc.

+44 (0) 20 7971 1255

enquiries@sativawellnessgroup.com

www.sativawellnessgroup.com

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Market Regulator (as defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release contains certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation and may also contain statements that may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking information and forward-looking statements are not representative of historical facts or information or current condition, but instead represent only the Company's beliefs regarding future events, plans or objectives, many of which, by their nature, are inherently uncertain and outside of Sativa's control. Generally, such forward-looking information or forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes" "plan is" or variations of such words and phrases or may contain statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "will continue", "will occur", "will be achieved" or "shortly". The forward-looking information and forward-looking statements contained herein include, but are not limited to 20% CBD Oil in 30ml bottles will be 20% cheaper and 20% stronger than the cheapest CBD on the market. The new price of a 30ml 20% CBD product will also offer members 50% more CBD or 50% less cost than the average prices of 20% and other products within the newly launched range also offer significant discounts on competitors' prices. Goodbody branded products will be offered to members at major discounts to competitor offerings. Sativa is able to lead the way in offering consumers the best quality at the best price, and, as a trusted brand.

Although Sativa believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing, and the expectations contained in, the forward-looking information and statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information and statements, and no assurance or guarantee can be given that such forward-looking information and statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information and statements. The forward-looking information and forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this press release, and include but are not limited to 20% CBD Oil in 30ml bottles will be 20% cheaper and 20% stronger than the cheapest CBD on the market. The new price of a 30ml 20% CBD product will also offer members 50% more CBD or 50% less cost than the average prices of 20% CBD and other products within the newly launched range also offer significant discounts on competitors' prices. Goodbody branded products will be offered to members at major discounts to competitor offerings. Sativa is able to lead the way in offering consumers the best quality at the best price, and, as a trusted brand.

Sativa does not undertake to update any forward-looking information and/or forward-looking statements that are contained or referenced herein, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

SOURCE: Sativa Wellness Group Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/664339/Sativa-Wellness-Group-Announces-Launch-of-Its-Best-Price-Best-Quality-CBD-Oil-With-Guarantee
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / September 16, 2021 / Komo Plant Based Foods Inc. (CSE:YUM) (OTC PINK:KOMOF) (FSE:9HB) ("Komo"), a fast growing plant-based food start-up, is pleased to announce that within 6 months of the launch of its direct to consumer eCommerce platform, it has received over 100 reviews from verified purchasers through the Yotpo app, of which over 90 reviews have included a five out of five star consumer rating.

"Our plant-based comfort foods blend the right amount of real, wholesome cooking with the science and technology of developing innovative plant-based recipes to deliver hearty, satisfying food experiences," says Komo CEO William White. "We put each of our meals through multiple tests to make sure each one meets our standards for taste, nutrients, food satisfaction, and scalability. Our eCommerce platform provides us a direct relationship with consumers and allows us to carefully monitor every touchpoint of the consumer journey, giving Komo a competitive advantage over retail-only brands."

Komo's consumer reviews, featured at https://komocomfortfoods.com/pages/reviews, consistently speak to the great taste and convenience of Komo's frozen plant-based meals. Consumers also comment positively on their customer experience of ordering products and receiving home delivery.

In March 2021, Komo launched its Shopify platform using apps to enhance digital marketing and support a great online shopping experience. Post-launch, Komo added applications Privy, Klaviyo and ReCharge to enable site pop-ups, email marketing, and subscription packages. The launch of Yotpo enabled automatic review generation where emails are sent out to customers automatically 7 days after their initial purchase, along with a text message. The YoPo application collected over 100 consumer reviews within six months, allowing Komo to assess consumer pain points and discover promising product development opportunities. In the summer of 2021, Komo used feedback from consumers and other data to support the launch a new line of frozen products - Komo Plant-Based Meal HelpersTM - versatile meal starters to allow the creation of plant-based dishes at home.

In addition to being sold through eCommerce, Komo products are sold through a distribution network of online and brick-and-mortar grocery, convenience, and natural retailer channels.

About Komo

Komo Plant Based Foods Inc. is a premium plant-based food company that develops, manufactures and sells a variety of plant-based frozen meals that are always hearty, satisfying, and made with wholesome ingredients. At Komo, our mission is to help make plant-based meals a staple on every dinner table by sharing our love for feel-good food that connects the people to the planet. We believe plant-based eating is the future and - Change can start with a single biteTM. Our experienced plant-based innovation and development team recreates vegan versions of traditionally cheesy and meaty classics, with 100% plants. Komo's products are sold direct-to-consumer through our eCommerce website and a distribution network of online and brick and mortar grocery, convenience and natural retailer channels. Our operating subsidiary Komo Comfort Foods launched in 2021 with our flagship products: plant-based Lasagna, Shepherd's Pie and Chick'n Pot Pie and has recently launched a new line - Komo Plant-Based Meal HelpersTM - versatile meal starters to allow the creation of many dishes at home.

Learn more at: www.komocomfortfoods.com and follow on Instagram: @komocomfortfoods

For further information, please contact:

William White, President & CEO, Komo Plant Based Foods Inc.

will@komoeats.com

1-866-969-0882

The Canadian Securities Exchange has not reviewed, approved or disapproved the contents of this news release.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements contained in this press release constitute forward-looking information. These statements relate to future events or Komo's future performance. The use of any of the words "could", "expect", "believe", "will", "projected", "estimated" and similar expressions and statements relating to matters that are not historical facts are intended to identify forward-looking information and are based on Komo's current belief or assumptions as to the outcome and timing of such future events. Actual future results may differ materially. In particular, Komo's product development plans, its ability to retain key personnel, and its expectation as to the acceptance of its products by consumers constitute forward-looking information. Actual results and developments may differ materially from those contemplated by forward-looking information. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The statements made in this press release are made as of the date hereof. Komo disclaims any intention or obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be expressly required by applicable securities laws.

SOURCE: KOMO Plant Based Foods Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/664332/Komo-Plant-Based-Foods-Receives-Over-90-Five-Star-Customer-Reviews-Through-Yotpo-App-on-its-eCommerce-Platform
TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / September 16, 2021 / Talisker Resources Ltd. (" Talisker " or the " Company ") (TSX:TSK)(OTCQX:TSKFF) is pleased to announce results from drill hole SB-2021-025 at its 100% owned flagship Bralorne Gold Project. Hole SB-2021-025 is the first stepout hole located 200m to the southeast of previously released holes targeting newly discovered bulk-tonnage mineralization at Pioneer.

Key Points:

Hole SB-2021-025 intersected 1.36 g/t over 68.9m with a larger envelope of 0.8 g/t over 220m.

The hole is located 200 metres along strike to the southeast from previously released holes SB-2021-026 (1.17 g/t Au over 106.75m), SB-2021-040 (1.02 g/t over 114.15m), SB-2021-048 (1 g/t over 116.25m) and SB-2021-055 (0.68 g/t over 51.50m and 0.87 g/t over 34.55m) which together confirmed a 1.1 kilometre vertical panel of mineralization from surface.

Pervasive microfracturing hosting a dark matrix of fine-grained pyrite, arsenopyrite and silica is seen frequently within mineralized zones.

Bulk tonnage mineralization is also observed uphole within the basalt.

Additional intercepts from hole SB-2021-025 include 2.83 g/t over 14.50m, 1.04 g/t over 17.05m and 0.6 g/t over 12.45m situated up-hole from the targeted zone.

Stepout hole SB-2021-063, drilled 400 metres to the northwest of hole SB-2021-025 is expected to be released to market shortly.

Stepout hole SB-2020-69 drilled 600 metres to the northwest of hole SB-2021-025 completed and at the laboratory awaiting assay.

"As our initial stepout from the successful first section containing holes 26, 40 and 48 we are very pleased to see the continuation of grade and intervals previously confirmed for over a kilometre vertically", commented Terry Harbort, Chief Executive Officer of Talisker who added, "We are eagerly awaiting holes 63 and 69 where we also observed high vein density (see table below) and visible gold occurrences in the core logging to confirm mineralization for 600 metres along strike."

A total of 56,703 metres consisting of 98 holes have been drilled this year out of a planned and fully funded 100,000 metre diamond drill program. Since acquiring the Bralorne Gold Project and commencing drilling in February 2020, Talisker has completed 78,883 metres of drilling consisting of 134 holes. Five drill rigs are currently active at the Bralorne Gold Project. There are currently 28 holes consisting of 11,579 samples at the assay laboratory and are expected to be received by the Company shortly.

Table 1: Received and Pending Intercepts with Visible Gold Count and Vein Count Drill Hole Intrusive Intercept Thickness (m) Visible Gold Count Major Veins Minor Veins Count Assay Results Gram-metres Section Line Closest to Collar SB-2021-025 77 0 5 138 1.36g/t over 68.9 104.72 515,800 E SB-2021-026 108 3 14 172 1.17g/t over 106.75m 124.90 515,600 E SB-2021-030 130 3 9 97 0.80g/t over 130.9m 104.72 515,600 E SB-2021-040 440 12 22 626 1.02g/t over 114.15m 116.43 515,600 E SB-2021-048 790 8 76 1378 1.0g/t over 116.25m 116.25 515,650 E SB-2021-055 38 0 4 90 0.68g/t over 51.50 35.02 515,600 E SB-2021-060 101 0 7 208 Results Pending 515,550 E SB-2021-063 120 4 4 385 Results Pending 515,550 E SB-2021-066 177 0 9 389 Results Pending 515,450 E SB-2021-069 427 8 11 873 Results Pending 515,300 E SB-2021-070 200 1 10 624 Results Pending 515,250 E SB-2021-072 237 3 25 1263 Results Pending 515,200 E SB-2021-075 340 4 22 644 Results Pending SB-2021-076 225 3 16 420 Results Pending SB-2021-078 Drilling Now 0* 19* 422* Drilling Now

SB-2021-025A

Pioneer Block

Drilled on an azimuth of 227 at a dip of -45.

Complete results have been received from this hole.

This hole was drilled to a final depth of 395m on April 9, 2021.

Table 2: Bralorne Gold Project - Drill Hole SB-2021-25 Diamond Drill Hole Name From (m) To (m) Interval (m) Au (g/t) Zone Method Reported SB-2021-025 157 158 1 0.98 New Bulk Zone GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 158 159 1 2.64 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 159 160 1 0.78 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 160 161 1 0.17 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 161 162 1 0.77 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 162 163.15 1.15 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 163.15 163.85 0.7 0.50 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 163.85 164.9 1.05 1.12 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 164.9 166.05 1.15 0.28 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 166.05 167.35 1.3 0.04 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 167.35 168.4 1.05 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 168.4 169.45 1.05 0.22 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 169.45 170.75 1.3 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 170.75 172.05 1.3 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 172.05 173.15 1.1 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 173.15 174.6 1.45 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 174.6 176 1.4 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 176 177.5 1.5 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 177.5 178.75 1.25 0.05 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 178.75 180 1.25 0.10 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 180 181.25 1.25 0.03 New Bulk Zone GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 181.25 182 0.75 0.06 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 182 183.25 1.25 0.02 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 183.25 184.15 0.9 0.08 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 184.15 185.6 1.45 0.03 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 185.6 186.95 1.35 0.02 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 186.95 188 1.05 0.14 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 188 189 1 0.55 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 189 189.7 0.7 2.07 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 189.7 191 1.3 0.45 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 191 191.9 0.9 0.27 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 191.9 192.6 0.7 0.13 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 192.6 193.5 0.9 0.14 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 193.5 194.7 1.2 0.14 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 194.7 195.6 0.9 3.35 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 195.6 196.6 1 1.51 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 196.6 197.6 1 3.60 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 197.6 198.45 0.85 1.64 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 198.45 199.6 1.15 0.60 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 199.6 201 1.4 0.74 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 201 202.45 1.45 1.49 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 202.45 203.85 1.4 0.30 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 203.85 204.4 0.55 0.33 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 204.4 205.05 0.65 0.68 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 205.05 206 0.95 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 206 207.5 1.5 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 207.5 209 1.5 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 209 210.05 1.05 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 210.05 210.6 0.55 0.70 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 210.6 212 1.4 0.02 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 212 213.5 1.5 0.05 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 213.5 215 1.5 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 215 216.5 1.5 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 216.5 217.5 1 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 217.5 218.5 1 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 218.5 219.1 0.6 0.33 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 219.1 219.85 0.75 1.27 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 219.85 220.85 1 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 220.85 222 1.15 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 222 223 1 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 223 224.25 1.25 0.03 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 224.25 225 0.75 0.58 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 225 226.05 1.05 1.26 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 226.05 227.3 1.25 0.08 New Bulk Zone GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 227.3 228.6 1.3 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 228.6 229.7 1.1 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 229.7 231.15 1.45 0.50 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 231.15 232.65 1.5 0.44 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 232.65 234.15 1.5 0.15 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 234.15 235.45 1.3 0.03 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 235.45 236.75 1.3 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 236.75 237.9 1.15 0.04 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 237.9 239 1.1 0.28 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 239 239.8 0.8 0.22 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 239.8 240.45 0.65 3.72 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 240.45 241.45 1 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 241.45 242.75 1.3 0.19 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 242.75 244.1 1.35 0.03 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 244.1 245.35 1.25 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 245.35 246.7 1.35 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 246.7 247.3 0.6 0.64 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 247.3 248.35 1.05 0.03 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 248.35 249.25 0.9 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 249.25 250.65 1.4 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 250.65 252 1.35 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 252 253.45 1.45 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 253.45 254.75 1.3 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 254.75 255.5 0.75 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 255.5 256.25 0.75 2.30 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 256.25 257 0.75 0.02 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 257 257.95 0.95 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 257.95 258.8 0.85 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 258.8 259.8 1 0.02 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 259.8 260.75 0.95 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 260.75 261.5 0.75 0.17 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 261.5 262.25 0.75 2.77 Main Vein GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 262.25 263 0.75 32.50 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 263 263.5 0.5 3.79 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 263.5 264.25 0.75 1.67 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 264.25 264.95 0.7 0.94 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 264.95 266 1.05 2.80 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 266 267.3 1.3 0.16 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 267.3 268.4 1.1 0.29 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 268.4 269.15 0.75 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 269.15 269.9 0.75 0.64 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 269.9 271.1 1.2 0.62 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 271.1 271.65 0.55 2.73 Main Vein GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 271.65 272.45 0.8 0.13 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 272.45 273.4 0.95 0.02 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 273.4 274.2 0.8 0.02 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 274.2 274.7 0.5 8.50 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 274.7 275.25 0.55 0.19 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 275.25 276.1 0.85 0.04 Main Vein GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 276.1 277.35 1.25 0.02 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 277.35 278.3 0.95 0.10 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 278.3 279.25 0.95 0.09 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 279.25 280.65 1.4 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 280.65 282 1.35 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 282 283.15 1.15 0.02 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 283.15 284.15 1 0.12 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 284.15 285 0.85 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 285 286 1 0.02 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 286 287 1 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 287 288.5 1.5 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 288.5 290 1.5 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 290 291.5 1.5 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 291.5 293 1.5 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 293 294.45 1.45 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 294.45 295.5 1.05 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 295.5 296 0.5 0.16 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 296 296.5 0.5 0.93 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 296.5 297.1 0.6 0.32 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 297.1 298 0.9 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 298 298.5 0.5 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 298.5 299 0.5 0.14 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 299 300 1 1.49 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 300 301.2 1.2 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 301.2 302.45 1.25 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 302.45 303.9 1.45 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 303.9 305.3 1.4 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 305.3 306.65 1.35 0.03 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 306.65 308 1.35 0.07 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 308 309.35 1.35 0.12 CGFI Bulk GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 309.35 310.7 1.35 0.35 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 310.7 312.05 1.35 0.55 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 312.05 313.4 1.35 0.27 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 313.4 314.7 1.3 0.06 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 314.7 315.9 1.2 0.04 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 315.9 317 1.1 0.16 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 317 318 1 0.32 CGFI Bulk GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 318 319 1 0.04 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 319 319.9 0.9 0.25 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 319.9 320.9 1 0.68 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 320.9 322.2 1.3 0.01 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 322.2 323.4 1.2 0.08 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 323.4 324.1 0.7 0.03 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 324.1 324.6 0.5 0.02 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 324.6 325.55 0.95 0.51 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 325.55 326.75 1.2 0.65 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 326.75 327.8 1.05 0.41 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 327.8 328.8 1 0.49 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 328.8 330 1.2 0.71 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 330 331 1 0.03 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 331 331.5 0.5 0.82 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 331.5 332.45 0.95 0.39 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 332.45 333.45 1 0.58 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 333.45 334.3 0.85 1.23 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 334.3 335.2 0.9 0.75 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 335.2 336.5 1.3 0.44 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 336.5 337.8 1.3 0.26 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 337.8 339 1.2 1.09 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 339 340.4 1.4 26.14 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 340.4 341.7 1.3 0.87 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 341.7 343.05 1.35 0.37 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 343.05 344.35 1.3 1.02 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 344.35 345.3 0.95 0.48 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 345.3 345.95 0.65 0.22 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 345.95 346.6 0.65 0.61 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 346.6 347.6 1 0.76 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 347.6 348.75 1.15 0.22 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 348.75 349.25 0.5 1.02 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 349.25 349.9 0.65 4.17 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 349.9 350.55 0.65 0.45 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 350.55 351.65 1.1 0.35 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 351.65 352.75 1.1 5.85 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 352.75 353.9 1.15 0.50 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 353.9 355 1.1 14.99 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 355 356.2 1.2 0.77 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 356.2 357.4 1.2 0.53 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 357.4 358.55 1.15 0.59 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 358.55 359.45 0.9 0.06 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 359.45 360.4 0.95 0.67 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 360.4 361.6 1.2 0.03 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 361.6 362.75 1.15 0.22 CGFI Bulk GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 362.75 363.95 1.2 0.27 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 363.95 365.25 1.3 0.30 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 365.25 366.3 1.05 0.75 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 366.3 367.5 1.2 1.48 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 367.5 368.75 1.25 0.11 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 368.75 369.75 1 0.08 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 369.75 370.75 1 2.47 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 370.75 371.55 0.8 1.55 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 371.55 372.55 1 1.64 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 372.55 374 1.45 0.24 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 374 375.5 1.5 0.07 GO_FAA50V10 SB-2021-025 375.5 376.9 1.4 0.43 GO_FAA50V10 Notes: Diamond drill hole SB-2021-025 has collar orientation of Azimuth 227; Dip -45. True widths are estimated at 40 - 90% of intercept lengths and are based on oriented core measurements where available. Method Reported includes the most up to date information as of the date of this press release.

Qualified Person

The technical information contained in this news release relating to the drill results at the Bralorne Gold Project has been approved by Leonardo de Souza (BSc, AusIMM (CP) Membership 224827), Talisker's Vice President, Exploration and Resource Development, who is a "qualified person" within the meaning of National Instrument 43-101, Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.

About Talisker Resources Ltd.

Talisker is a junior resource company involved in the exploration of gold projects in British Columbia, Canada. Talisker's projects include the Bralorne Gold Complex, an advanced stage project with significant exploration potential from a historical high-grade producing gold mine as well as its Spences Bridge Project where the Company holds ~85% of the emerging Spences Bridge Gold Belt and several other early-stage Greenfields projects. With its properties comprising 282,403 hectares over 258 claims, three leases and 198 crown grant claims, Talisker is a dominant exploration player in the south-central British Columbia. The Company is well funded to advance its aggressive systematic exploration program at its projects.

For further information please contact Terry Harbort, Chief Executive Officer of Talisker, at terry.harbort@taliskerresources.com .

Related Links

https://taliskerresources.com/

Sample Preparation and QAQC

Drill core at the Bralorne project is drilled in HQ to NQ size ranges (63.5mm and 47.6mm respectively). Drill core samples are minimum 50 cm and maximum 160 cm long along the core axis. Samples are focused on an interval of interest such as a vein or zone of mineralization. Shoulder samples bracket the interval of interest such that a total sampled core length of not less than 3m both above and below the interval of interest must be assigned. Sample QAQC measures of unmarked certified reference materials (CRMs), blanks, and duplicates are inserted into the sample sequence and make up 9% of the samples submitted to the lab for holes reported in this release. Sample preparation and analyses is carried out by ALS Global in North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and SGS Canada in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. Drill core sample preparation includes drying in an oven at a maximum temperature of 60C, fine crushing of the sample to at least 70% passing less than 2 mm, sample splitting using a riffle splitter, and pulverizing a 250 g split to at least 85% passing 75 microns (ALS code PREP-31 / SGS code PRP89). Gold in diamond drill core is analysed by fire assay and atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS) of a 50g sample (ALS code Au-AA26 / SGS code GO_FAA50V10), while multi-element chemistry is analysed by 4- Acid digestion of a 0.25 g sample split with detection by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP-MS) for 48 elements (Ag, Al, As, Ba, Be, Bi, Ca, Cd, Ce, Co, Cr, Cs, Cu, Fe, Ga, Ge, Hf, In, K, La, Li, Mg, Mn, Mo, Na, Nb, Ni, P, Pb, Rb, Re, S, Sb, Sc, Se, Sn, Sr, Ta, Te, Th, Ti, Tl, U, V, W, Y, Zn, Zr). Gold assay technique (ALS code Au-AA26 / SGS code FAA50V10) has an upper detection limit of 100 ppm. Any sample that produces an over-limit gold value via the gold assay technique is sent for gravimetric finish (ALS method Au-GRA22 / SGS method GO_FAG50V) which has an upper detection limit of 1,000 ppm Au. Samples where visible gold was observed are sent directly to screen metallics analysis and all samples that fire assay above 1 ppm Au are re-analysed with method (ALS code Au-SCR24 / SGS code - 6 - GO_FAS50M) which employs a 1kg pulp screened to 100 microns with assay of the entire oversize fraction and duplicate 50g assays on the undersize fraction. Where possible all samples initially sent to screen metallics processing will also be re-run through the fire assay with gravimetric finish provided there is enough material left for further processing.

Caution Regarding Forward-Looking Information

Certain statements contained in this press release constitute forward-looking information. These statements relate to future events or future performance. The use of any of the words "could", "intend", "expect", "believe", "will", "projected", "estimated" and similar expressions and statements relating to matters that are not historical facts are intended to identify forward-looking information and are based on Talisker's current belief or assumptions as to the outcome and timing of such future events. Actual future results may differ materially. In particular, this release contains forward-looking information relating to, among other things, effective time of the rights provided to New Gold under the Investor Rights Agreement, the completion of New Gold's strategic investment; the completion of the Offering, the use of proceeds, the operations of the Company and the timing which could be affected by the current global COVID-19 pandemic. Those assumptions and factors are based on information currently available to Talisker. Although such statements are based on reasonable assumptions of Talisker's management, there can be no assurance that any conclusions or forecasts will prove to be accurate.

While Talisker considers these statements to be reasonable based on information currently available, they may prove to be incorrect. Forward-looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. Such factors include market risks and the demand for securities of the Company, risks inherent in the exploration and development of mineral deposits, including risks relating to changes in project parameters as plans continue to be redefined, risks relating to variations in grade or recovery rates, risks relating to changes in mineral prices and the worldwide demand for and supply of minerals, risks related to increased competition and current global financial conditions and the COVID-19 pandemic, access and supply risks, reliance on key personnel, operational risks, and regulatory risks, including risks relating to the acquisition of the necessary licenses and permits, financing, capitalization and liquidity risks.

The forward-looking information contained in this news release is made as of the date hereof, and Talisker is not obligated to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities laws. Because of the risks, uncertainties and assumptions contained herein, investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The foregoing statements expressly qualify any forward-looking information contained herein.

Figure 1: Pioneer zone with drill traces of completed drill hole SB-2021-025

Figure 2: Plan view map showing drill hole collar and traces within the Pioneer Zone.

Figure 3: Example of bulk tonnage mineralization within the Granite. Strong Major and Minor veining with pervasive Silica alteration between 349m-358.25m in hole SB-2021-025.

SOURCE: Talisker Resources Ltd.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/664323/Talisker-Intercepts-136-GT-Over-689-Metres-Within-08-GT-Over-220-Metres-With-200-Metre-Stepout-at-Pioneer
Victoria, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - September 16, 2021) - Plurilock Security Inc. (TSXV: PLUR) (OTCQB: PLCKF) and related subsidiaries ("Plurilock" or the "Company"), an identity-centric cybersecurity solutions provider for workforces, has received a US$394,000 order from the California State Teachers' Retirement System (CalSTRS).

All contracts and orders announced by Plurilock since April 2021, including the latest order, represent a combined total of roughly US$11.09 million in sales.

The order comes as part of a new contract between Plurilock and CalSTRS. The contract was secured as a result of the parties' long-standing business relationship and the Company's track record for quality customer service and a variety of IT support offerings.

For state government organizations, being selective in the procurement of IT and cybersecurity vendors is more critical than ever, with reports that since 2017, cyber attacks on state and local government entities have risen an average of nearly 50%.1

Aligned with Plurilock's stated goal to expand within the government and financial verticals, this order is one of several recently announced orders with state and local government organizations including a California state healthcare agency, a California state retirement fund manager, a California state utility resource organization, a California healthcare organization, and a California state taxation agency.

According to the purchase order, Plurilock will provide CalSTRS with a renewal of their project and portfolio management software.

About Plurilock

Plurilock provides identity-centric cybersecurity for today's workforces. The Plurilock family of companies enables organizations to operate safely and securely while reducing cybersecurity friction. Plurilock offers world-class IT and cybersecurity solutions through its Solutions Division, paired with proprietary, AI-driven and cloud-friendly security through its Technology Division. Together, the Plurilock family of companies delivers persistent identity assurance with unmatched ease of use.

For more information, visit https://www.plurilock.com or contact:

Ian L. Paterson

Chief Executive Officer

ian@plurilock.com

416.800.1566

Roland Sartorius

Chief Financial Officer

roland.sartorius@plurilock.com

Prit Singh

Investor Relations

prit.singh@plurilock.com

905.510.7636

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release may contain certain forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (collectively, "forward-looking statements") related to future events or Plurilock's future business, operations, and financial performance and condition. Forward-looking statements normally contain words like "will", "intend", "anticipate", "could", "should", "may", "might", "expect", "estimate", "forecast", "plan", "potential", "project", "assume", "contemplate", "believe", "shall", "scheduled", and similar terms. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, actions, or developments and are based on expectations, assumptions, and other factors that management currently believes are relevant, reasonable, and appropriate in the circumstances. Although management believes that the forward-looking statements herein are reasonable, actual results could be substantially different due to the risks and uncertainties associated with and inherent to Plurilock's business. Additional material risks and uncertainties applicable to the forward-looking statements herein include, without limitation, the impact of general economic conditions, the success of the Company in obtaining new or extended contracts or orders; the Company's ability to maintain existing customers or develop new customers; the Company's ability to successfully integrate acquisitions of other businesses and/or companies or to realize on the anticipated benefits thereof; and unforeseen events, developments, or factors causing any of the aforesaid expectations, assumptions, and other factors ultimately being inaccurate or irrelevant. This list is not exhaustive of the factors that may affect the Company's forward-looking statements. Many of these factors are beyond the control of Plurilock. All forward-looking statements included in this press release are expressly qualified in their entirety by these cautionary statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as at the date hereof, and Plurilock undertakes no obligation to update publicly or to revise any of the included forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as may be required by applicable securities laws. Risks and uncertainties about the Company's business are more fully discussed under the heading "Risk Factors" in its most recent Annual Information Form. They are otherwise disclosed in its filings with securities regulatory authorities available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

https://gcn.com/articles/2020/09/04/cyberattacks-state-local-government-climbing.aspx

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/96687


BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - The Swiss franc weakened against its major opponents in the European session on Thursday amid risk appetite, as investors await U.S. retail sales data for more clues on stimulus outlook.



Retail sales are forecast to decline 0.8 percent on month in August, following a 1.1 percent drop in July.



A weak data could back hopes for a delay in tapering of the Fed's bond buying program.



The Fed meeting is in focus as markets seek clues on the central bank's next policy moves amid weak data and virus concerns.



The United Nations said that the global economy is expected to grow at the fastest in nearly five decades this year.



The report highlighted a 'possibility of a renewal of multilateralism', pointing to the United States support of a new special drawing rights allocation, global minimum corporate taxation, and a waiver of vaccine-related intellectual property rights.



The franc slipped to 0.9246 against the greenback, its lowest level since July 8. Against the yen, it touched nearly a 5-month low of 118.28. The currency is likely to find support around 0.95 against the greenback and 114.00 against the yen.



The franc depreciated to 2-day lows of 1.0880 versus the euro and 1.2781 versus the pound, off its early highs of 1.0853 and 1.2707, respectively. If the franc slides further, 1.10 and 1.30 are possibly seen as its next support levels versus the euro and the pound, respectively.



Looking ahead, U.S. retail sales for August, business inventories data for July and weekly jobless claims for the week ended September 11 will be featured in the New York session.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - September 16, 2021) - ScreenPro Security Inc. (CSE: SCRN) ("ScreenPro" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it is providing COVID-19 testing for productions who are attending the 46th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival ("TIFF").

The 46th edition of the TIFF features 10 days of exceptional international and Canadian cinema with close to 200 films in its Official Selection, unparalleled events featuring acclaimed industry guests, and TIFF's Industry Conference. Recognized as the world's largest public film festival, TIFF is bringing the theatrical experience back to life and continues its reputation as both a leader in amplifying under-represented cinematic voices and a bellwether for programming award-winning films from around the globe.

Lena Kozovski, CEO of ScreenPro Security commented, "The COVID-19 testing market is an important business sector for ScreenPro, and we look to continue supporting the film and production industry where it is critical to test, track and protect staff, audience members, and visitors."

Experience TIFF in person with single tickets to in-cinema, drive-in, and open-air cinema screenings and from home with tickets for TIFF's digital film screenings, available across Canada. All details are available at tiff.net/tickets.

Information about Industry registration for this year's Festival (September 9-18) and Industry Conference (September 9-13) can be found at tiff.net/industry-accreditation.

TIFF is generously supported by Lead Sponsor Bell, Major Sponsors RBC, L'Oreal Paris, and Visa, and Major Supporters the Government of Ontario, Telefilm Canada, and the City of Toronto. TIFF Film Circuit is presented in partnership with Telefilm Canada and supported by Ontario Creates.

TIFF COVID-19 Protocols

Beginning on September 9, 2021, Festival staff, audience members or visitors entering TIFF Festival venues from September 9 to 18 will be required to either show proof they have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or proof that they have tested negative for COVID-19 within 48 hours prior to entering any TIFF venue.

In addition to proof of COVID-19 vaccination or negative COVID test, masks are required at all TIFF Festival venues. Audience members and visitors will not be permitted entry into the venue without a mask. Where an audience member or visitor is unable to wear a mask due to health reasons, TIFF will provide them with a face shield as an alternative. If the audience member or visitor does not wish to wear a face shield, they will be denied entry into the venue and will be given a refund for their ticket. At drive-ins and the open-air theatre, audience members will be required to wear masks when outside of their vehicle or seating pod.

About ScreenPro

ScreenPro is a Screening and Medical Technology company. ScreenPro provides turnkey screening solutions with alerting software, GoStop. ScreenPro's unique access to multiple manufacturers of high quality test kits and its strategic partnership with Labs in Vancouver and Ontario allows ScreenPro to be a nationwide provider of a full-service testing solutions across Canada. In addition, ScreenPro has its own nursing professionals, and access to high quality PPEs to ensure that its clients are protected in all aspects of their testing needs. GoStop's passport was developed with a privacy preserving approach that will enable individuals to use the alerting software and downloadable app with authentication certificates. The alerts can be scheduled on an on-demand, daily, weekly, or monthly basis and can be used also for vaccine scheduling.

For additional information on ScreenPro and other corporate information, please visit the Company's website at www.screenprosecurity.com.

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange (the "CSE") nor it's Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

For further information please contact:

Jamie Hyland, Director

Email: info@screenprosecurity.com

P. (604) 442-2425

Forward-Looking Statements:

Certain statements contained in this news release may constitute forward-looking information, including statements relating to expectations regarding the future development of ScreenPro's business. Forward-looking information is often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as "anticipate", "plan", "estimate", "expect", "may", "will", "intend", "should", and similar expressions. Forward-looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking information. The actual results of ScreenPro could differ materially from those anticipated in this forward-looking information as a result of regulatory decisions, competitive factors in the industries in which ScreenPro operates, prevailing economic conditions, changes to ScreenPro's strategic growth plans, and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of ScreenPro. Management of ScreenPro believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking information herein are reasonable, but no assurance can be given that these expectations will prove to be correct and such forward-looking information should not be unduly relied upon. Any forward-looking information contained in this news release represents ScreenPro's expectations as of the date hereof and is subject to change after such date. ScreenPro disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities legislation.

###

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/96672
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - September 16, 2021) - Zonetail Inc. (TSXV: ZONE) (OTCQB: ZTLLF) ("Zonetail" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has granted 500,000 stock options to a director of the Company at a price of $0.065. The stock options vest over 18 months and expire on September 15, 2026.

About Zonetail

Zonetail Inc. (TSXV: ZONE) (OTCQB: ZTLLF) is a mobile platform for hotels and high-rise residential buildings providing guests and residents access and interaction with building amenities and services, as well as neighbouring restaurants, stores, services, and other businesses. Zonetail has a partnership with AAHOA, the largest association of hoteliers in the world, representing over 25,000 hotels and 50% of the US market. Zonetail is also partnered with Shiftsuite, one of the largest property management system software providers to the condo industry in Canada. The residential platform is now live in over 80,000 condominium households. Zonetail recently has signed an integration agreement with Yardi, the largest property management software company in North America.

Please visit https://www.zonetail.com.

For more information, please contact:

Mark Holmes, President and CEO

Zonetail Inc.

Telephone: (416) 994-5399

mark@zonetail.com

Legal Disclaimer and Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements that relate to Zonetail's current expectations and views of future events. In some cases, these forward-looking statements can be identified by words or phrases such as "may", "will", "expect", "anticipate", "aim", "estimate", "intend", "plan", "seek", "believe", "potential", "continue", "is/are likely to" or the negative of these terms, or other similar expressions intended to identify forward-looking statements. Certain matters discussed in this announcement contain statements, estimates and projections about the growth of Zonetail's business, potential distribution partnerships and/or clients, and related business strategy. Such statements, estimates and projections may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Factors or events that could cause our actual results to differ may emerge from time-to-time. Zonetail undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. The recipient of this information is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on certain assumptions and analysis made by Zonetail in light of its experience and perception of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments and other factors Zonetail believes are appropriate, and, are subject to risks and uncertainties. Although Zonetail believes that the assumptions underlying these statements are reasonable, they may prove to be incorrect. Given these risks, uncertainties and assumptions, prospective purchasers should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/96757
TOKYO (dpa-AFX) - Japan's government downgraded its economic assessment amid rising downside risks from the current domestic and overseas infections and negative effects through the supply chains. 'The Japanese economy remains in picking up, although the pace has weakened in a severe situation due to the Novel Coronavirus,' the Cabinet Office said in its September report. The government lowered its assessment of both private spending and industrial production. The Cabinet Office said private consumption shows weakness further and industrial production is picking up, although some weakness is seen recently. Further, the government repeated that business investment is picking up and exports continue to increase moderately. The government reiterated that corporate profits are picking up, although some weaknesses remain in non-manufacturers due to the influence of the infectious disease. On labor market, the government repeated that employment situation shows steady movements in some components such as job offers, while weakness remains, due to the influence of the infectious disease. Regarding short-term prospects, the government said the economy is expected to show movements of picking up, supported by the effects of the policies and improvement in overseas economies while taking measures to prevent the spread of infectious diseases, and accelerating vaccinations. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
HELSINKI, Sept. 16, 2021/PRNewswire/ -- The material technology company Betolar raised EUR 5 million from Finnish and international investors in its first round of funding to speed up its product development work and strengthen its market position. The largest investors in the financing round were Nidoco, Kiilto Ventures, Ahti Invest, and Kilo Invest.

"With this significant capital injection, we will be able to further increase our strong product development and industrial market openings in Betolar's current development phase. It is great that professional, value-added investors have recognised our potential and are involved in supporting this very important work to reduce CO2emissions from construction," says Matti Lopponen, CEO of Betolar Oy.

Betolar offers low-carbon construction solutions that do not increase costs compared to current alternatives.

He continues, "This year, we have already agreed and are currently agreeing on several cooperation projects with companies related to construction materials."

Betolar's sustainable development is supported by identifiable capital

The main investor in the investment round was Nidoco AB from Sweden. Nidoco is an independent part of the Virala Group, which is owned by Alexanderand Albert Ehrnrooth. Nidoco has also expressed an interest in participating in future funding rounds.

"Betolar is a very interesting investment, as the global market for construction materials is hundreds of billions of euros, a fraction of which creates room for massive growth. Betolar's Geoprime technology solution will change the environmental impact of construction materials in a positive way. We want our capital to support the journey of such companies to the international market," says Patrick Castren, CEO of Nidoco, justifying Nidoco's participation in the investment round.



Kiilto Ventures is part of Kiilto, owned by the Solja family. Kiilto Ventures' goal is to find innovations and enter into partnerships that support Kiilto's strategic goal to be the environmental leader in its field.



"Kiilto is a family-owned company with a hundred years of history and a vision looking ahead to 2080. We are very competitive at the moment, but the world is changing fast. We need to have tomorrow's perspective and that is why we do innovation work on many levels. Developing the environmental responsibility of the construction industry is one of the most important trends for the future," says Ville Solja, Chief Business Development Officer at Kiilto.



Solja also sees opportunities for business cooperation with Betolar. In addition to construction, the solutions range from industrial adhesives and fire protection to professional hygiene and consumer products.

"We have complementary know-how and a common value base in our environmental thinking, on which it is good to build together. In addition to an attractive capital investment, we find the opportunity to develop low-carbon solutions together very interesting," Solja says.

Betolar's low-carbon solution replaces cement

Betolar has developed a low-carbon Geoprime solution to replace cement in cement-based construction materials. The solution utilises material side streams from various industries as binders and aggregates for construction materials.

Geoprime solutions utilise extensive research data from different side streams. Betolar's business is to produce a new type of recipe for the needs of the construction materials industry, which does not require significant changes to existing production processes. In the production process, binders and aggregates are replaced by materials from industrial side streams.

Betolar has implemented successful material technology solutions for the concrete industry, for example, for the production of environmentally friendly paving stones. The selection of possible product groups ranges from fine chemistry products to large mass product groups.

"Significant environmental benefits arise in two ways. Firstly, replacing cement with materials from industrial side streams will drastically cut CO2emissions from the raw material, to as much as one-fifth of current levels. Secondly, the use of side streams in the production of construction materials significantly reduces the use of virgin natural resources," says Juha Leppanen, the Founder of Betolar, who is responsible for Betolar's technological development.



Betolar Ltd

Communications

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Jo Hooke, Gong Communications, Jo.Hooke@gongcommunications.com, +44 20 7935 4800

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TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / September 16, 2021 / PJX Resources Inc. (TSXV:PJX) ("PJX" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the potential of 2 large areas containing gold, copper, zinc, lead, and/or silver mineralization in soils along a 10 km trend. The geological environment has potential to host a variety of deposit types, such as the Telfer gold-copper deposit in Australia, Sukoi-Log gold deposit in Russia, Pebble gold-copper deposit in Alaska, and the Sullivan zinc-lead-silver deposit. The Dewdney Trail Property is located in the Vulcan Gold Belt of the Sullivan Mining District near Cranbrook, southeastern British Columbia, Canada.

Highlights

Gold locally occurs in sediments with stockwork quartz veining and sericite-carbonate alteration (see photo A below).

Gold grades in rock grab samples can range from anomalous to over 30 g/t.

Multiple target areas have been identified along a 10 km trend.

Two of the most advanced exploration targets are the Tackle Basin area (approximately 2 km x 2 km) and the Lewis Ridge area (approximately 3 km x 2 km).

Gold is the dominant element in soils in the Tackle Basin area.

The Lewis Ridge area has a multi-element signature of gold, copper, zinc, lead, bismuth, molybdenum, arsenic and silver in soil (see Figures 1 to 8 below).

Mineralization occurs in sediments similar in age (Proterozoic) and/or type (turbidites, quartzites) to other deposits such as Telfer, Sukoi-log and Sullivan.

Sediments have been intruded by felsic intrusives (alkalic, calc-alkalic) similar in age (Cretaceous to possibly Eocene) to deposits such as Pebble or the Butte district in Montana.

Gold and/or copper mineralization can also be associated with felsic intrusives.

Both target areas occur within the hinge and/or limb of a large regional anticline fold structure.

Next steps include the assessment of airborne magnetotelluric and magnetic surveys along the 10 km trend to help define drill targets.

"The Lewis Ridge and Tackle Basin are two of a number of highly prospective targets that we have identified on our large land package in the Sullivan Mining District" states John Keating, President and CEO of PJX Resources. "We recently announced the Gar granitic intrusive target with grab samples of sheeted veins ranging from anomalous to 28,841 ppb (28.84 g/t) gold on our Zinger Property (see August 17, 2021 press release). We also have the high grade David Gold Zone on the Gold Shear Property. Drilling has commenced to test on strike and down plunge of the David Gold Zone. Results of this 1,100 m drill program will be announced in the coming months along with results of mapping, prospecting, geochem and geophysics on other target areas. We believe the Sullivan Mining District has potential to host multiple gold and base metal deposits. We invite you to watch our 3 minute video explaining why". ( https://youtu.be/iCbzQDi6ANo or www.pjxresources.com )

Figure 1 - Gold in soil samples

Figure 2 - Copper in soil samples

Figure 3 - Zinc in soil samples

Figure 4 - Lead in soil samples

Figure 5 - Bismuth in soil

Figure 6 - Molybdenum in soil samples

Figure 7 - Arsenic in soil samples

Figure 8 - Silver in soil samples

Photo A - Gold host rock - quartz stockwork veining in sericite-carbonate altered quartzite/turbidite sedimentary rocks.

Stock Option Grant

The Company's board of directors has authorized granting stock purchase options to certain directors, employees and consultants to acquire an aggregate of 2,685,000 common shares at an exercise price of $0.20, expiring September 12, 2026. The foregoing is subject to regulatory acceptance.

Qualified Persons

The foregoing geological disclosure has been reviewed and approved by John Keating P.Geo. (qualified persons for the purpose of National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects). Mr. Keating is the President, Chief Executive Officer and a Director of PJX.

About PJX Resources Inc.

PJX is a mineral exploration company focused on building shareholder value and community opportunity through the exploration and development of mineral resources with a focus on gold, silver and base metals (zinc, lead, copper, nickel). PJX's primary properties are located in the historical Sullivan Mine District and Vulcan Gold Belt near Cranbrook and Kimberley, British Columbia.

Please refer to our web site http://www.pjxresources.com for additional information.

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

Linda Brennan, Chief Financial Officer

(416) 799-9205

info@pjxresources.com

Forward-Looking Information

This News Release contains forward-looking statements. Forward looking statements are statements which relate to future events. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to exploration results, the success of exploration activities, mine development prospects, completion of economic assessments, and future gold production. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as "may", "should", "expects", "plans", "anticipates", believes", "estimates", "predicts", "potential", or "continue" or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. These statements are only predictions and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, levels of activity, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking-statements.

Although PJX has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE: PJX Resources Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/664203/PJX-Resources--Sullivan-Mining-District--Intrusive-Related-Gold-Copper-and-Sullivan-Type-Zinc-Lead-Silver-Target-Areas-Identified-on-the-Dewdney-Trail-Property
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / September 16, 2021 / Golden Lake Exploration Inc. (CSE:GLM) (GOLXF-OTCQB) ("GLM" or the "Company") reports today a summary and detailed assay results from six additional diamond drill holes of the ongoing Phase 2 program on the "Eureka Target" on the company's keystone Jewel Ridge gold property located near the town of Eureka, Nevada. All six holes have intersected a robust zone of "Carlin-style", oxide, significant gold mineralization in carbonates with the best intercept (based gold grade x thickness in meters) in hole JR-21-21DD which returned 39 meters from the collar averaging 1.07 g/t Au and 2.2 g/t Ag and the average over the six holes being 36 meters in thickness grading 0.81 grams gold per tonne (g/t Au) and 2.1 grams silver per tonne (g/t Au). To date, all intercepts of the Eureka Target start at surface, or at shallow depths and are targets for open-pit, heap-leachable gold operations. Hole JR-21-17DD intersected the thickest zone of gold mineralization at 47.9 meters averaging 0.42 g/t Au and 1.2 g/t Ag and returned anomalous gold values (+0.30 g/t Au) for a plus 110-meter interval.

Table 1 SUMMARY OF DRILL RESULTS - EUREKA TARGET, JEWEL RIDGE PROPERTY, EUREKA COUNTY, NV

Mike England, Golden Lake CEO, states, "We have followed up our initial drill results with very strong numbers demonstrating that we have hardly gotten started. Drilling on the Eureka Target on the Jewel Ridge Property continues to deliver significant intervals of oxide gold mineralization, with six impressive intercepts in all six holes reported. Our team at Jewel Ridge continues to expand the footprint of the near-surface Carlin-style mineralization. Drilling and geological mapping also continues on the property directed at the high-grade bonanza CRD mineralization. The large gold halo (+100 meter thickness) in hole JR-21-17DD, open to the north and north-east, represents an exploration target with significant tonnage potential. Activity, including drilling, will continue on the property throughout the fall."

Highlights

Diamond drilling continues on the Eureka Target on the north-central portion of the Jewel Ridge property, with drilling currently active on hole JR-21-28 DD. All holes have been core drilled. To date, 14 holes have been drilled as part of the Phase 2 program, comprising 2,710 meters (8,890 ft).

Hole JR-21-17DD is the most northern located hole with assays received and although lower in grade, it exhibits a much thicker zone (+110 meters) of anomalous gold mineralization than previously indicated on the Jewel Ridge property. From the collar at surface, to a depth of 110.3 meters, the Upper Mineralized one ("UMZ") averaged 0.32 g/t Au and 1.1 g/t Ag. Higher grade intervals included 25.5 meters averaging 0.54 g/t Au and 1.6 g/t Ag from a depth of 39.0 meters, and 7.0 meters averaging 0.54 g/t Au and 0.9 g/t Ag from a depth of 79.9 meters. In addition, hole JR021-17DD intersected the Lower Mineralized Zone ("LMZ") returning 0.55 g/t AU and 3.2 g/t Ag over 5.1 meters from a depth of 255.1 meters.

Based on drilling to date, the disseminated, "Carlin-style", oxide mineralization appears as a tabular zone, varying from 25 to 45 meters in thickness (with potential for +100 meters thickness), dipping shallowly to the east, and north-east. The Carbonate Replacement Deposit ("CRD") bonanza mineralization intersected in hole JR-20-12DD occurs within the disseminated oxide gold mineralized zone, and in places below it. Hole JR-21-22DD intersected a narrow (0.7 meter) CRD intercept approximately 7.2 meters below the UMZ which returned 0.94 g/t Au, 14.5 g/t Ag and 0.24% lead (Pb) and 0.78 % zinc (Zn). The delineation of the CRD targets are complicated by more extensive underground workings in the Eureka Target area than was previously known, with several holes terminated by encountering these underground workings.

SUMMARY OF DRILL HOLES JR-21-DD17 DD to JR-21-225DD (detailed assays on the Company website)

Drilling Quality assurance and quality control statement

Procedures have been implemented to assure QA/QC of drill hole assaying being done at an ISO accredited assay laboratory. All intervals of drill holes are being assayed and samples have been securely shipped and received by Paragon Geochemical in Sparks, Nevada, with chain-of-custody documentation through delivery. Mineralized commercial reference standards and coarse blank standards are inserted every 20th sample in sequence. All results will be analyzed for consistency.

About the Jewel Ridge Property

The Jewel Ridge property is located on the south end of Nevada's prolific Battle Mountain - Eureka trend, along strike and contiguous to Barrick Gold's Archimedes/Ruby Hill gold mine to the north and Timberline Resources' advanced-stage Lookout Mountain project to the south.

The property comprises 96 unpatented lode mining claims and 30 patented claims covering approximately 728 hectares (1,800 acres). The Jewel Ridge property contains several historic small gold mines. The Company's focus is on Carlin-style disseminated gold deposits, the primary focus in the area since the late 1970s.

Nevada Carlin-type gold deposits (CTGD) have a combined endowment of more than 250 million ounces, which are concentrated (85 per cent) in only four trends or camps of deposits: Carlin, Cortez (Battle Mountain-Eureka), Getchell and Jerritt Canyon. The Company cautions that results on adjacent and/or nearby projects are not necessarily indicative of results on the Company's property.

Qualified person

Golden Lake Exploration's disclosure of a technical or scientific nature in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Garry Clark, P.Geo., who serves as a qualified person under the definition of National Instrument 43-101.

About Golden Lake Exploration Inc.

Golden Lake Exploration is a junior public mining exploration company engaged in the business of mineral exploration and the acquisition of mineral property assets. Its objective is to acquire, explore and develop economic precious and base metal properties of merit and to aggressively advance its exploration program on the Jewel Ridge property.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

"Mike England"

Mike England, CEO & DIRECTOR

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE

CONTACT: Telephone: 1-604-683-3995

TollFree:1-888-945-4770

Neither the Canadian Stock Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS: This news release contains forward-looking statements, which relate to future events or future performance and reflect management's current expectations and assumptions. Such forward-looking statements reflect management's current beliefs and are based on assumptions made by and information currently available to the Company. Investors are cautioned that these forward looking statements are neither promises nor guarantees, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause future results to differ materially from those expected. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and, except as required under applicable securities legislation, the Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances. All of the forward-looking statements made in this press release are qualified by these cautionary statements and by those made in our filings with SEDAR in Canada (available at WWW.SEDAR.COM).

SOURCE: Golden Lake Exploration Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/664334/Golden-Lake-Hits-Significant-Mineralization-in-Six-Of-Six-Drill-Holes-at-The-Jewel-Ridge-Property-Nevada
The drill program of 15 to 20 drill holes for a total of approximately 2,000 m of NQ size coring

VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / September 16, 2021 / Patriot Battery Metals Inc. (the "Company" or "Patriot") (CSE:PMET) (OTCQB:RGDCF) (FSE:R9GA) is pleased to announce it has mobilized the drill rig to commence the inaugural drill program at the Company's Corvette-FCI Property (the "Property"), located in the James Bay Region of Quebec. (announced Aug 24, 2021). The program is focused on the CV5-6 Spodumene Pegmatites, part of the more than 25 km long CV Lithium Trend, as well as the core area of the more than 10 km long Maven Copper-Gold-Silver Trend.

This drill program marks the first drill testing to date along these two highly prospective trends as well as the first drill program by the Company on the Property to date. This drill program will be comprised of 15 to 20 drill holes for a total of approximately 2,000 m of NQ size coring. Approximately 1/3rd of the drill meterage is expected to target the CV Lithium Trend and the remaining 2/3rd focused on the Maven Cu-Au-Ag Trend. The Company has engaged Forage Fusion Drilling Ltd. of Hawkesbury, ON, to carry out the diamond drilling with the program being managed by Dahrouge Geological Consulting Ltd. of Edmonton, AB.

Blair Way, Company President and Director, comments: "With the drill rig mobilization, we are hitting our next milestone to advance the Property and gain a deeper understanding of these two important lithium and copper trends. This work also takes us one step closer to gaining 50% ownership of the FCI claim groups under the Option Agreement with O3 Mining Inc."

The Maven-Cu-Au-Ag Trend hosts numerous mineralized showings and prospects over a more than 10 km long corridor across the Property. Surface sample assay highlights (and corresponding showing/prospect) include: 3.63% Cu, 0.64 g/t Au, and 52.3 g/t Ag (Elsass); 8.15% Cu, 1.33 g/t Au, and 171 g/t Ag (Lorraine); 3.28% Cu, 0.78 g/t Au, and 30.1 g/t Ag (Hund); 3.36% Cu, 0.82 g/t Au, 38.4 g/t Ag (Tyrone-T9) and 1.75% Cu, 1.47 g/t Au, and 40.5 g/t Ag (Lac Smokycat-SO). The Company recently completed an IP-resistivity geophysical survey over the core area of the Maven Trend as a final exploration tool to refine initial drill hole targets. A final reporting and interpretation of this data is anticipated shortly.The dominant rock type along the Maven Trend is amphibolite with a chalcopyrite - quartz  pyrrhotite accessory mineral assemblage. The chalcopyrite is often associated with quartz and is present as disseminations within quartz veins, or as semi-massive veinlets. The Maven Trend has never been drill tested.

The CV Lithium Trend is an emerging spodumene pegmatite district discovered by the Company in 2017 and spans the FCI West, FCI East, and Corvette claim blocks. The core area includes an approximate 2 km long corridor of numerous spodumene pegmatite occurrences, highlighted by the CV5 Pegmatite - a large (~220 m long and 20-40 m wide), well-mineralized outcrop where eight samples collected average 3.00% Li2O and 154 ppm Ta2O5, including a peak assay of 4.06% Li2O and 564 ppm Ta2O5. The high number of well-mineralized pegmatites in this core area of the trend indicates a strong potential for a series of relatively closely spaced/stacked, sub-parallel, and sizable spodumene-bearing pegmatite bodies, with significant lateral and depth extent, to be present. The CV Lithium Trend, including the CV5 pegmatite, has never been drill tested.

Upon completion of the planned 2021 work programs, the Company expects to have earned a 50% interest in the FCI East and West claim blocks from O3 Mining Inc., having exceeded the minimum $2.25M in exploration expenditures. Under the terms of the Option Agreement, the Company may acquire an additional 25% interest in the FCI East and West claim blocks, for a collective 75% interest, by funding the next $2M in exploration expenditures.

The Company notes that it has developed a COVID Management Plan for the program and will carry out its field programs while adhering to all federal, provincial, and regional restrictions in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Mineral exploration has been recognized as an essential service in Canada and the Province of Quebec.

Qualified Person

Darren L. Smith, M.Sc., P. Geo., Vice President of Exploration for the Company and Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, supervised the preparation of the technical information in this news release.

About Patriot Battery Metals Inc.

Patriot Battery Metals Inc. is a mineral exploration company focused on the acquisition and development of mineral projects containing battery, base and precious metals.

The Company's flagship assets are the wholly owned Corvette Property and the FCI Property (held under Option from O3 Mining Inc.) located in the James Bay Region of Quebec, and the 100% owned Freeman Creek Gold Property, located in Idaho, USA.

The Corvette-FCI Property includes the wholly owned Corvette claim block, and the FCI East and West claim blocks held under Option from O3 Mining Inc. The claim blocks are contiguous, and host significant gold-silver-copper-PGE-lithium potential highlighted by the Golden Gap Prospect with grab samples of 3.1 to 108.9 g/t Au from outcrop and 10.5 g/t Au over 7 m in drill hole, the Elsass and Lorraine prospects with 8.15% Cu, 1.33 g/t Au, and 171 g/t Ag in outcrop, and the CV1 Pegmatite Prospect with 2.28% Li2O over 6 m in channel.

The 100% owned Freeman Creek Gold Property hosts two major advanced targets - the Gold Dyke Prospect with a 2020 drill hole intersection of 4.11 g/t Au and 33.0 g/t Ag over 12 m, and the Carmen Creek Prospect with surface sample results including 25.5 g/t Au, 159 g/t Ag, and 9.75% Cu.

In addition, the Company holds the Pontax Lithium-Gold Property, QC; the Golden Silica Property, BC; and the Hidden Lake Lithium Property, NWT, where the Company maintains a 40% interest, as well as several other assets in Canada.

For further information, please contact us at info@patriotbatterymetals.com, Tel: +1 (778) 945-2950, or visit www.patriotbatterymetals.com.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors,

"BLAIR WAY"

Blair Way, President & Director

"ADRIAN LAMOUREUX"

Adrian Lamoureux, CEO & Director

Disclaimer for Forward-Looking Information

Statements included in this announcement, including statements concerning our plans, intentions, and expectations, which are not historical in nature are intended to be, and are hereby identified as, "forward-looking statements". Forward-looking statements may be identified by words including "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "expects" and similar expressions. The Company cautions readers that forward-looking statements, including without limitation those relating to the Company's future operations and business prospects, are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements.

The Canadian Securities Exchange has not approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release.

SOURCE: Patriot Battery Metals Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/664208/Patriot-Battery-Metals-Announces-Mobilization-of-Drill-Rig-to-the-Corvette-FCI-Property-James-Bay-Region-Quebec-Canada
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - September 16, 2021) - InZinc Mining Ltd. (TSXV: IZN) (the "Company") is pleased to announce further results and plans for fall programs at the Indy Sedex project in central British Columbia where near surface, high-grade Sedex-type zinc mineralization was discovered by soil geochemistry and follow-up diamond drilling in 2018.

New Silver Targets Discovered - Combined 1.7 km in Length

Further to a news release on September 14th (see NR2021-09), additional geochemical results1 have outlined strong silver-in-soil responses in the area located between the new 1.9 km long Echo zinc target and the 1.5 km long Delta Horizon zinc target (outlined in 2019).

Main Trend - New Silver Targets Silver (Ag) in Soil



To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/6480/96689_figure1.jpg

Relative to Anomalies B and C, the soils in the area between the Delta horizon and Echo zinc targets are strongly enriched with silver. Two extensive, sub-parallel zones returning from 2.0 ppm to 24.8 ppm (or 24.8 g/t) silver are now outlined. Named Fox (1.0 km length) and Hat (700 m length) the zones are roughly parallel with the nearby large zinc targets and stratigraphy. Of particular interest is a 400 - 500 m trend of multi-station soil samples returning greater than 10 ppm (or 10 g/t) silver in the upper Fox target. Preliminary mapping of sparse outcrops suggests these new silver zones are hosted in shales.

"This phase of exploration has been tremendously successful at Indy, and we look forward to the follow-up programs commencing shortly. Including these extensive new silver targets and the 1.9 km long Echo zinc target, also discovered in 2021, we now have 8.2 km of high-quality, base and precious metal targets at Indy - possibly the largest accumulation of untested targets in such an accessible part of Canada," commented Wayne Hubert, CEO of InZinc. "We see years ahead of exploration and drilling programs, self-funded through the significant cash payments to be received as a result of the West Desert option agreement and the planned IPO of American West Metals (see NR2021-05)."

Follow-up Programs

Field crews plan to return to Indy in early October to follow-up these results and commence initial preparations in the northern Main Trend area (Delta, Echo, Fox and Hat) for drilling. A pre-existing trail will be rehabilitated to provide road access to the Delta Horizon and possibly the Hat target. In addition, soil sampling will detail another potential silver target located between Anomaly B and Anomaly C. Further prospecting and sampling are also planned over the Fox and Hat silver targets to better understand the geology and distribution of silver at these new precious metal targets.

About InZinc

InZinc is focused on growth through exploration and advancement of its interest in multiple North American base metals projects. The road accessible Indy project (100% earn-in), located in central British Columbia, comprises discoveries of near surface mineralization and large untested exploration targets along a 25km long trend with potential for the discovery of a new regional scale zinc belt. The West Desert option (100% option to American West Metals) provides significant cash payments and continuing leverage through ownership in American West Metals as it funds the advancement of the West Desert project to prefeasibility (planned in Q3 2023) and the Storm Copper and Copper Warrior projects in North America. In addition, upon exercise of the West Desert option, InZinc will receive 50% of the revenue from the sale of indium mined from West Desert.

InZinc Mining Ltd.

Wayne Hubert

____________

Chief Executive Officer

Phone: 604.687.721

Website: www.inzincmining.com

For further information contact :

Joyce Musial

Vice President, Corporate Affairs

Phone: 604.317.2728

Email: joyce@inzincmining.com

1Dave Heberlein, M.Sc., P.Geo. of Heberlein Geoconsultants has reviewed, validated and provided interpretive summaries for the results of the Phase 1 2021 geochemical program.

Qualified Person

Brian McGrath, B.Sc., P.Geo. a Qualified Person as defined in NI43-101, has approved the technical content of this news release.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (collectively, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein are forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes that such statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by words such as: "believe", "expect", "anticipate", "intend", "estimate", "plan", "design", "postulate" and similar expressions, or are those, which, by their nature, refer to future events. The Company cautions investors that any forward-looking statements by the Company are not guarantees of future results, performance, or actions and that actual results and actions may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements as a result of various factors, including, but not limited to, those risks and uncertainties disclosed in the Company's Management Discussion and Analysis for the year ended December 31, 2020 and for the three months ended March 31, 2021 filed with certain securities commissions in Canada and other information released by the Company and filed with the appropriate regulatory agencies. All of the Company's Canadian public disclosure filings may be accessed via www.sedar.com.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/96689


CANBERA (dpa-AFX) - Australia, United Kingdom, and the United States have announced the formation of an enhanced trilateral security partnership in the Indo- Pacific region.



The White House said this new architecture is aimed 'to build stronger partnerships to sustain peace and stability across the entire Indo-Pacific region', and about 'deepening cooperation on a range of defense capabilities for the 21st century'.



The partnership, named AUKUS, will see the United States and Britain provide Australia with the technology and capability to acquire and deploy a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.



U.S. President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the launch of a trilateral effort involving technical, strategic and navy teams from their countries to identify the optimal pathway of delivery of this capability in 18 months.



The only other country that the United States has shared this kind of nuclear technology for propulsion is Britain, which dates back to 1958.



Announcing the Creation of AUKUS, Morrison made it clear that Australia has no intention of pursuing nuclear weapons or establishing a civil nuclear capability.



The submarines, powered by nuclear reactors, will be built in Adelaide.



'Our world is becoming more complex, especially here in our region, the Indo-Pacific,' the Australian leader said in apparent reference to China. 'This affects us all. The future of the Indo-Pacific will impact all our futures,' he added.



Bide said, 'This initiative is about making sure that each of us has a modern capability - the most modern capabilities we need - to maneuver and defend against rapidly evolving threats.'



'This will be one of the most complex and technically demanding projects in the world, lasting for decades and requiring the most advanced technology,' according to Johnson.



A joint statement issued by the leaders said, 'Australia is committed to adhering to the highest standards for safeguards, transparency, verification, and accountancy measures to ensure the non-proliferation, safety, and security of nuclear material and technology.'



Under the pact, the allies will collaborate with focus on cyber capabilities, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, and additional undersea capabilities.



The historic pact, seen as a move to counter China's supremacy in the region, met with instant protest by Beijing. Condemning it as an 'extremely irresponsible' agreement, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said it 'seriously undermines regional peace and stability and intensifies the arms race.'



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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SEATTLE (dpa-AFX) - Amazon (AMZN) said it estimates to provide 25,000 permanent jobs in Spain before the end of 2025. It also plans to train 50,000 small and medium businesses and entrepreneurs to sell online, over the period. The company is currently celebrating its tenth anniversary in Spain. Amazon has a workforce of more than 12,000 people in Spain. It plans to add 3,000 more permanent workers by the end of 2021. The number of logistics centres in the country will be increased to 40 by the end of 2021. Also, Amazon noted that it is globally committed to operating 100% with renewable energy by 2030, although it is on the way to be able to achieve it before 2025. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - September 16, 2021) - Getchell Gold Corp. (CSE: GTCH) (OTCQB: GGLDF) ("Getchell" or the "Company") is pleased to provide an exploration update on the ongoing drill program at the Fondaway Canyon Gold project and the forthcoming drill program at the prospective high-grade Copper-Gold-Silver Star project.

Key Highlights

Fondaway Canyon Gold Project

Hole FCG21-11 has commenced and is a down-dip step-out of the outstanding Colorado SW and Juniper gold intercepts recently announced from hole FCG21-08;

Two drill holes, FCG21-09 and FCG21-10, that targeted the North Fork Zone discovery, have been completed and sent to the lab for assay; and

Two new drill pads have been constructed to allow further targeting and expansion of the Colorado SW and the North Fork gold zones.

Star Copper-Gold-Silver Project

The maiden drill program is scheduled to commence by early October;

The drill program will target geophysical anomalies associated with the Star Point and Star South highly mineralized surface occurrences; and

Drill pad construction has now been completed.

Fondaway Canyon 2021 Drill Program Update

Four drill holes, FCG21-07 through FCG21-10, totaling 1,752.5 metres have been drilled this year at the Fondaway Canyon Gold Project. All four holes are in the Central Area and are following up on the discovery of the Colorado SW, the Juniper, and the North Fork gold zones during the 2020 drill program.

The first two holes drilled in 2021, FCG21-07 and FCG21-08, stationed at the Colorado Pit and drilled to the southwest, returned highly remarkable gold intercepts (see Table 1 below and Company news releases dated Aug. 10 and Aug. 25, 2021).

Hole FCG21-08 intersected the Colorado SW Zone for over 200 metres and the high-grade Juniper Zone returned 4.7 g/t Au over 25.9m, that included 11.4 g/t Au over 5.5m, within 100 metres of the surface. The highly successful drill hole FCG21-08 represents the seventh consecutive hole in the Central Area that has intersected substantive gold mineralization by the Company.

Table 1: Fondaway Canyon Central Area - Select 2021 Drill Hole Gold Intervals





Cannot view Table 1? Visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/3941/96726_table1.jpg

In 2020, drill hole FCG20-04 stationed 300 metres to the southeast discovered a thick mineralized body, newly identified as the North Fork Gold Zone, that extended to the bottom of the hole. Figure 1 highlights the notable gold intercepts within the North Fork broad zone of mineralization (see Company news release dated Feb. 10, 2021).





Figure 1: North Fork Gold Zone (NE-SW) 3D Section Highlighting 2020 and 2021 Drilling.

To view an enhanced version of Figure 1, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/3941/96726_01c4e4b174b81adb_002full.jpg

Two 2021 drill holes, FCG21-09 and FCG21-10, that targeted the North Fork Zone above and below FCG20-04's gold intercepts (Figure 1), have been completed and sent to the analytical lab for assay. Due to drilling issues, hole FCG21-09 was stopped prior to reaching planned depth.

The drill has relocated back to the Colorado Pit with the objective of hole FCG21-11 to expand upon the Colorado SW and Juniper gold zones. To assist with further definition along strike and down dip of the Colorado SW and North Fork discoveries, two additional pads have been constructed. These two pads, in conjunction with the existing drill pads, provide ample angles of attack for the foreseeable future.

Star Copper-Gold-Silver 2021 Drill Program Update

In preparation of the maiden drill program at the Star Copper-Gold-Silver project located 60 km to the north of Fondaway Canyon, three drill pads have been constructed.

Two drill pads have been constructed to target geophysical anomalies associated with the Star Point and Star South highly mineralized surface occurrences, located 4 km distant from one another. One additional pad has been constructed 1.5 km to the west of Star South to target a strong geophysical anomaly not directly related to a surface showing due a continuous blanket of sediments covering the target area.

It is anticipated that the drill program at Star will commence at the start of October. It is likely that two of the three geophysical targets will be drilled during this campaign to allow the drill sufficient time to return to Fondaway Canyon and complete additional holes before the end of the 2021 drill season.

Scott Frostad, P.Geo., is the Qualified Person (as defined in NI 43-101) who reviewed and approved the content and scientific and technical information in the news release.

The 2021 drill core is being processed using the same methods as the 2020 drill program. The core is cut at Bureau Veritas Laboratories' ("BVL") facilities in Sparks, Nevada, with the samples analyzed for gold and multi-element analysis in BVL's Sparks, Nevada and Vancouver, BC laboratories respectively. Gold values are produced by fire assay with an Atomic Absorption finish on a 30-gram sample (BV code FA430) with over limits re-analyzed using method FA530 (30g Fire Assay with gravimetric finish). The multi-element analyses are performed by ICP-MS following aqua regia digestion on a 30g sample (BV code AQ250). Quality control measures in the field include the systematic insertion of standards and blanks.

Corporate News

The Company is hosting an online Shareholder Update on September 17, 2021, at 11am PDT (2pm Eastern time). President Mike Sieb will provide an update on the 2021 Fondaway Canyon and Star projects drill programs, to be followed by a live Question and Answer session. All interested investors and media are invited to register at:

https://app.livestorm.co/getchell-gold/getchell-gold-shareholder-update-sept-17-2021?type=detailed.

About Getchell Gold Corp.

The Company is a Nevada focused gold and copper exploration company trading on the CSE: GTCH and OTCQB: GGLDF. Getchell Gold is primarily directing its efforts on its most advanced stage asset, Fondaway Canyon, a past gold producer with a significant in-the-ground historic resource estimate. Complementing Getchell's asset portfolio is Dixie Comstock, a past gold producer with a historic resource and two earlier stage exploration projects, Star and Hot Springs Peak. Getchell has the option to acquire 100% of the Fondaway Canyon and Dixie Comstock properties, Churchill County, Nevada.

The Company reiterates that its near-term strategy to advance its assets is not impacted by the COVID-19 Corona virus. The Company continues to monitor the situation and is in compliance with all government guidelines.

For further information please visit the Company's website at www.getchellgold.com or contact the Company at info@getchellgold.com.

Mr. William Wagener, Chairman & CEO

Getchell Gold Corp.

1-647-249-4798

info@getchellgold.com

The Canadian Securities Exchange has not reviewed this press release and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.



Certain information contained herein constitutes "forward-looking information" under Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking information includes, but is not limited to, statements with respect to the private placement and the completion thereof and the use of proceeds. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "will" or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "will" occur. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management as of the date such statements are made and they are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements or forward-looking information, including: the receipt of all necessary regulatory approvals, capital expenditures and other costs, and financing and additional capital requirements. Although management of Getchell have attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements or forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. The Company will not update any forward-looking statements or forward-looking information that are incorporated by reference herein, except as required by applicable securities laws.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/96726
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - September 16, 2021) - Mountain Boy Minerals Ltd (TSXV: MTB) (OTCQB: MBYMF) (FSE: M9UA) ("Mountain Boy" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the appointment of Fraser Ruth as Manager of Investor Relations and the engagement of Kirsti Mattson as a media relations consultant. Fraser and Kirsti are key components in Mountain Boy's strategy to raise its profile with current and potential investors and the media as the Company moves forward with the exploration programs in the Golden Triangle of British Columbia.

Lawrence Roulston, President and CEO, stated, "We are very pleased to welcome Fraser and Kirsti to our team. Fraser will give Mountain Boy a strong presence in the market and amongst investors. Kirsti's extensive experience and contacts will help raise the profile of the Company within the mining and financial communities. These moves are important as we continue our exploration programs on multiple properties in the Golden Triangle of British Columbia."

Prior to joining Mountain Boy, Fraser worked for a Toronto-based investor relations and corporate communications consulting firm. Fraser focused on helping junior mining and resource companies engage new, existing and prospective shareholders to increase awareness, gain access to capital and create shareholder value. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce in Accounting and Marketing. With a diversified background in investor relations and communications, Fraser will be focusing on raising the Company's visibility within the investment community.

Kirsti Mattson has over 30 years of experience in media and corporate communications with a focus on junior precious metal exploration and development companies.

Fraser has been granted 200,000 stock options and Kirsti has been granted 350,000 stock options, all exercisable at C$0.21 per share for a period of 5 years, subject to the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange and the Company's stock option plan.

All of us at Mountain Boy offer a huge thank you to Nancy Curry for the exceptional service she provided to the Company as Vice President, Investor Relations and wish her well in her new position.

About Mountain Boy Minerals

Mountain Boy has six active projects spanning 604 square kilometres (60,398 hectares) in the prolific Golden Triangle of northern British Columbia.

The flagship American Creek project is centered on the historic Mountain Boy silver mine and is just north of the past producing Red Cliff gold and copper mine (in which the Company holds an interest). The American Creek project is road accessible and 20 km from the deep-water port of Stewart. On the BA property, 178 drill holes have outlined a substantial zone of silver-lead-zinc mineralization located 4 km from the highway. Work this year is aimed at extending that zone with drilling due to begin in August. Surprise Creek is interpreted to be hosted by the same prospective stratigraphy as the BA property and hosts multiple occurrences of silver, gold and base metals. On the Theia project, work by Mountain Boy and previous explorers has outlined a silver bearing mineralized trend 500 meters long, highlighted by a 2020 grab sample that returned 39 kg per tonne silver (1,100 ounces per ton). Southmore is located in the midst of some of the largest deposits in the Golden Triangle. It was explored in the 1980s through the early 1990s, and largely overlooked until Mountain Boy consolidated the property and confirmed the presence of multiple occurrences of gold, copper, lead and zinc. A property wide Skytem survey has been completed. The Telegraph project, acquired in May 2021, has a similar geological setting to major gold and copper-gold deposits in the Golden Triangle. Exploration this season has been organized in two phases. Phase one is now complete and phase two is set to begin in September.

On behalf of the Board of Directors:

Lawrence Roulston

President & CEO

For further information, contact:

Lawrence Roulston

President & CEO

(604) 618-4756

Fraser Ruth

Manager of Investor Relations

(416) 274-3195

Kirsti Mattson

Corporate Communications/Media Relations

(778) 434-2241

NEITHER TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE.

This news release may contain certain "forward looking statements". Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date of this news release and, except as may be required by applicable securities laws, the Company disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/96729
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - September 16, 2021) - Battery Mineral Resources Corp. (TSXV: BMR) ("Battery" or "BMR" or the "Company") is pleased to announce further drill core assay results from the on-going 2021 exploration and in-fill drill program at the Punitaqui mine complex ("Punitaqui") in Chile. Punitaqui is a recently producing copper mining complex which is being developed for a potential resumption of copper-gold production in mid-2022.

Highlights

Assay results from drillholes SAS-21-03, 04, 06, 07, and 08 totaling 199 samples (see Table 1) have been returned with encouraging results as follows: Drillhole SAS-21-03: 11 meters ("m") at 1.39% ("Cu") copper including 8m at 1.63% Cu Drillhole SAS-21-04: 16.7m at 1.37% Cu including 11.7m at 1.64% Cu and a second interval of 9m at 1.75% Cu Drillhole SAS-21-07: 3.4m at 2.10% Cu and a second interval of 4m at 1.56% Cu Drillhole SAS-21-08: 5.25m at 1.39% Cu and a second interval of 3.75m at 1.85% Cu

Currently, three drills are operating on-site with a fourth drill expected shortly

are operating on-site with a fourth drill expected shortly Previously announced results from the current program (see Table 2) included: Drillhole SAS-21-05: 9m at 2.06% Cu and 20.5 grams per tonne silver ("g/t Ag"). Drillhole SAS-21-01: 3m grading 1.52% Cu and 2.0g/t Ag

The San Andres target is one of several historic zones within BMR's Punitaqui project area with partially delineated copper mineralization and established underground access.

San Andres is the "normal" fault-displaced upper portion of the adjacent Cinabrio copper deposit that is part of Punitaqui. Cinabrio was operated for nine plus years by Glencore and Xiana Mining.

Sample results have been received for the first eight drill holes. One hundred and twelve samples from an additional four drill holes have been submitted to ALS for geochemical analysis and more are being prepared for shipment.

The San Andres drill program is designed to confirm resources identified by previous drilling programs and expand these resources north and south along strike, and also extend mineralization at depth.

Battery CEO Martin Kostuik states; "We are pleased to announce this continuation of encouraging copper intercepts from our Punitaqui drilling program. Earlier wide-spaced historic drilling has identified an 800m long zone that is open at depth and in both directions along strike at the San Andres target. Encouraging assays like the newly reported SAS-21-04 of 16.7 meters of 1.37 percent copper provide early confidence in the potential of Punitaqui and the impetus we need to not just continue, but also expand the scope and budget of our current drilling program. We look forward to providing further exciting updates for the drill program in the coming weeks."

San Andres Drill Program

Sample assay results, reported herein, are from five drill holes and are in addition to the results reported previously from the first three drillholes completed at San Andres (see Table 1 below).

Drillhole SAS-21-03: was designed to test the San Andres targeted stratigraphic unit ("TSU") 90m below, down-dip and south of drillhole SAS-20-07 which intersected 16 meters of 2.69% Cu. The hole intersected the mineralized horizon between 183.2m to 209.3m consisting of dark shales, volcanoclastic sandstones- conglomerates and tuff breccias. Weak to strong sulphide mineralization was encountered between 178m to 210m. The downhole core interval from 198m to 209m yielded an 11m section grading 1.39% Cu including a high-grade subinterval, at a depth of 210m, yielding 8m of 1.63% Cu.

Drillhole SAS-21-04: targeted the TSU 60m down-dip from historic drillhole SAS-17-06 which intersected 8m of 2.30% Cu and a second intercept of 7m grading 1.87%. The drillhole intersected a thick section of the mineralized horizon consisting of interbedded shales, sandstones, and tuff breccia. Two sulphide intercepts were reported between 185m to 232m downhole. The upper intercept between 185m and 201.7m produced 16.7m grading 1.37% Cu including 11.7m at 1.64% Cu starting at 190m downhole. The lower intercept included an interval between 223m and 232m of 9m grading 1.75% Cu. This successful down-dip exploration drill hole or "step-out" hole, demonstrates the positive vertical continuity and grade of the mineralized zone proximal to SAS-21-04 and SAS-17-06.

Drillhole SAS-21-06: was planned to test the TSU 60m up-dip from the SAS-21-05 intercept of 9m grading 2.06% Cu. This hole is a 60m step-out along strike and to the north of historic hole SAS-20-08 that intercepted 15.2m at 1.74% Cu. The targeted stratigraphic unit was intersected between 181.3m and 199.5m downhole and returned a section consisting of dark shales, volcanoclastic sandstones, and conglomerate with abundant syngenetic pyrite and traces of chalcopyrite.

Drillhole SAS-21-07: was designed to test the TSU 90m south and down-dip of historic hole SAS-17-06 which intersected 8m of 2.30% Cu and a second intercept returning 7m grading 1.87% Cu. The drillhole intersected two mineralized shale-sandstone separated by a tuff breccia from 244.65m to 261.0m. The upper shale-sandstone horizon yielded 3.4m at 2.10% Cu from 244.65m and lower shale -sandstone zone produced a 4m interval of 1.56% Cu starting at 257m.

Drillhole SAS-21-08: tested the TSU 150m south of drillhole SAS-17-06. The TSU was intercepted shale-sandstone with variable chalcopyrite and bornite as disseminated sulphides and copper bearing veinlets from 221.7m to 236.7m downhole. The mineralized horizon produced two significant results; 5.25m at 1.39% Cu from 221.75m and a second interval of 3.75m at 1.85% Cu from 232.9m downhole.

Table 1: San Andres Significant Drillhole Intercepts

Drillhole

Number From

(m) To

(m) Sample

Interval

(m) Copper

Cu (%) SAS-21-03

198.0 209.0 11.00 1.39 Including

201.0 209.0 8.00 1.63 SAS-21-04

185.0 201.7 16.70 1.37 Including 190.0 201.7 11.70 1.64 and 223.0 232.0] 9.00 1.75 SAS-21-07

244.65 248.05 3.40 2.10 and

257.0 261.0 4.00 1.56 SAS-21-08

221.75 227.00 5.25 1.39 and

232.90 236.65 3.75 1.85

Note: All Intercepts reported as downhole core intervals

Table 2: San Andres Drilling Initial Significant Assays Previously Reported

Drillhole

Number From

(m) To

(m) Sample

Interval

(m) Copper

Cu (%) Silver

Ag (g/t) SAS-21-01 180.2 183.2 3.0 1.52 2.00 SAS-21-05

200.0 210.0 10.0 0.52 8.70 including 203.0 207.0 4.0 0.87 4.00 and 220.0 229.0 9.0 2.06 20.50

Note: All Intercepts reported as downhole core intervals







Figure 1: Punitaqui Geology with Deposits and Drill Targets

To view an enhanced version of Figure 1, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/6076/96749_b9f9629f64b3b92f_002full.jpg







Figure 2: San Andres Drillhole Location Map

To view an enhanced version of Figure 2, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/6076/96749_b9f9629f64b3b92f_003full.jpg

Background - San Andres Target

The San Andres target is part of the Punitaqui project which is situated within a 25-kilometre mineralized district that is a classic iron-oxide, copper-gold deposit ("IOCG") and mantos style copper belt. This belt is comprised of mantos and structural controlled copper-gold-silver veins. San Andres is a zone of copper mineralization located 500m southwest of the high-grade Cinabrio deposit mined primarily by Glencore and produced an average of 25 million pounds of copper over nine plus years.

Prior to 1998, only limited extraction of high-grade copper oxides was undertaken at San Andres by small groups of local miners. In 2000, a Chilean national company La Empressa Nacional de Mineria ("ENAMI") developed two underground exploration drives targeting copper sulphides. In 2005, via an option process, San Andres became part of the Punitaqui mine complex.

In 2007, a ground geophysical induced polarization ("IP") survey was completed on 250m and 500m spaced lines across the San Andres-Cinabrio area. The results of the IP survey line across the southern end of the San Andres zone identified a strong chargeability anomaly interpreted to represent potential extensions of the copper sulphide mineralization at depth and along strike. Historic wide-spaced drilling completed by the previous operators between 2011-2017 totaled 58 holes for 5,927m.

San Andres is a tabular sedimentary horizon within a volcanic sequence. This sedimentary horizon is variably mineralized and has a variable width ranging from 5m - 30m. It consists of an interlayered volcano-sedimentary sequence composed of dark colored laminated and unlaminated shales, volcanoclastic sandstone, conglomerates and breccias and tuff breccias. There is a variable component of syngenetic pyrite. The horizon dips 40 to 50 degrees to the east and is cut-off at depth by the moderately west dipping San Andres fault.

Mineralization consists of veinlets and irregular disseminations in both the fine and coarse-grained clastic rocks and locally within the volcanic rocks above and below the host unit. The host horizon is also cut and offset by other faults with a wide range of orientations. The fundamental orientations identified to date include:

moderately west dipping splays of the San Andres fault, generally with downward and westward movement

steep dipping northeast to northwest trending faults with both sinistral and dextral offsets

Faults parallel and sub-parallel to stratigraphy

Quality Control

Sample preparation, analysis and security procedures applied on the BMR exploration projects is aligned with industry best practice. BMR has implemented protocols and procedures to ensure high quality collection and management of samples resulting in reliable exploration assay data. BMR has implemented formal analytical quality control monitoring for all field sampling and drilling programs by inserting blanks and certified reference materials into every sample sequence dispatched.

Sample preparation is performed ALS Global - Geochemistry Analytical Lab in La Serana, Chile and sample analyses by ALS in Lima, Peru. ALS analytical facilities are commercial laboratories and are independent from BMR. All BMR samples are collected and packaged by BMR staff and delivered upon receipt at the ALS Laboratory. Samples are logged in a sophisticated laboratory information management system for sample tracking, scheduling, quality control, and electronic reporting. Samples are dried then crushed to 70% < -2 millimeters and a riffle split of 250 grams is then pulverized to 85% of the material achieving a size of <75 microns. These prepared samples are then shipped to the ALS Laboratory in North Vancouver for analyses by the following methods:

ME-MS61: A high precision, multi-acid digest including Hydrofluoric, Nitric, Perchloric and Hydrochloric acids. Analysed by inductively coupled plasma ("ICP") mass spectrometry that produces results for 48 elements.

ME-OG62: Aqua-Regia digest: Analysed by ICP-AES (Atomic Emission Spectrometry) or sometimes called optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) for high levels of Co, Cu, Ni and Ag.

Certified standards are inserted into sample batches by ALS. Blanks and duplicates are inserted within each analytical run. The blank is inserted at the beginning, certified standards are inserted at random intervals, and duplicates are analysed at the end of the batch.

Additional Information

Michael Schuler, Battery Mineral Resources Corp. Chile Exploration Manager, supervised the preparation of and approved the scientific and technical information in this press release pertaining to the Punitaqui Exploration Drill Program. Mr. Schuler is a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. Scientific and technical information pertaining to the cobalt resource at McAra was extracted from the Company's NI 43-101 "Technical report on Cobalt Exploration Assets in Canada" dated as of May 26, 2020 with an effective date of March 31, 2020, prepared by Glen Cole (P. Geo) of SRK Consulting (Canada) Inc.

About Battery Mineral Resources Corp.

A battery mineral company with high-quality assets providing shareholders exposure to the global mega-trend of electrification and focused on growth through cash-flow, exploration and acquisitions in the world's top mining jurisdictions. Battery is currently developing the Punitaqui Mining Complex, and pursuing the potential near term resumption of operations at the prior producing Punitaqui copper-gold mine. The Punitaqui copper-gold mine most recently produced approximately 21,000 tonnes of copper concentrate in 2019 and is located in the Coquimbo region of Chile. Battery is engaged in the discovery, acquisition, and development of battery metals (cobalt, lithium, graphite, nickel & copper), in North and South America and South Korea with the intention of becoming a premier and sustainable supplier of battery minerals to the electrification marketplace. Battery is the largest mineral claim holder in the historic Gowganda Cobalt-Silver Camp, Canada and continues to pursue a focused program to build on the recently announced, +1-million-pound cobalt resource at McAra by testing over 50 high-grade primary cobalt silver-nickel-copper targets. In addition, Battery owns 100% of ESI Energy Services, Inc., also known as Ozzie's, a pipeline equipment rental and sales company with operations in Leduc, Alberta and Phoenix, Arizona.

For further information, please contact:

Battery Mineral Resources Corp.

Martin Kostuik

Phone: +1 (604) 229 3830

Email: info@bmrcorp.com

Forward Looking Statements

This news release includes certain "forward-looking statements" under applicable Canadian securities legislation. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Forward-looking statements reflect the beliefs, opinions and projections of the Company on the date the statements are made and are based upon a number of assumptions and estimates that, while considered reasonable by the Company, are inherently subject to significant business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties and contingencies. Many factors, both known and unknown, could cause actual results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from the results, performance or achievements that are or may be expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements and the parties have made assumptions and estimates based on or related to many of these factors. Such factors include, without limitation, the ability of the Company to obtain sufficient financing to complete exploration and development activities, risks related to share price and market conditions, the inherent risks involved in the mining, exploration and development of mineral properties, government regulation and fluctuating metal prices. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Battery undertakes no obligation to update publicly or otherwise revise any forward-looking statements contained herein whether as a result of new information or future events or otherwise, except as may be required by law.

NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWS WIRE SERVICES OR FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION, DISTRIBUTION OR DISSEMINATION DIRECTLY, OR INDIRECTLY, IN WHOLE OR IN PART, IN OR INTO THE UNITED STATES

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/96749
Cranbrook, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - September 16, 2021) - DLP Resources Inc. (TSXV: DLP) (the "Company") is pleased to announce that following the completion of the two drill holes on the Hungry Creek project an additional 45,491.02 Ha have been staked. An additional 34,361.28 Ha's have been added to the original Hungry Creek land package and 11,129.74 Ha's staked north of Kimberley, BC now called the Copper Creek Project (Figure 1).

Hungry Creek

Drill holes HC21-01 and 02 did not intersect copper-cobalt mineralization identified previously in boulders during prospecting along Hungry Creek (Figure 2 and DLP press release of January 09, 2020). The drill hole information did however assist with the understanding of the Middle Creston Formation and further prospecting to the west and south of the area drilled was successful in identifying a significant package of visible copper mineralized middle Creston quartzites within the Belt-Purcell Basin (Figures 3, 4 and 5). These are the Revett equivalent quartzites which host the copper-silver deposits such as Montanore, Rock Creek and Spar Lake in Montana, USA (Figure 5).

There appears to have been very little, if any, recent prospecting along the middle Creston package on this western margin of the Purcell Basin. Interpretation of the Hungry Creek geology, followed by additional prospecting by DLP on Hungry Creek has identified copper mineralization in the form of chalcopyrite and bornite with associated manganese oxides and carbonate alteration within the C2-Middle Creston quartzite package (Figures 3 and 4). This mineralized package has now been traced southwards over approximately 10km.

Copper Creek

In addition to claims held along the western limb of the Purcell Basin, DLP has also staked 11,129.74 Ha's to the north of Kimberly which were previously held by Kootenay Silver Inc. and explored by Antofagasta Minerals S.A. No drilling was conducted on any of the copper targets which were written-up in a publicly available assessment report in March, 2019. Significant copper targets identified by prospecting and surface sampling in 2018 will now be evaluated further (Figure 6).

Ian Gendall, President of DLP commented: "Sediment-hosted stratiform copper deposits are important sources of copper, cobalt, and silver and have accounted for approximately 20% of global copper production in recent years. DLP has now acquired a significant land package along the most favourable stratigraphic horizon within the Creston Formation which is very much underexplored along the northern and western margins of the Purcell Basin. We are extremely encouraged to have identified the mineralized quartzite package within Hungry Creek which is a Revett-type look-alike and host to the Montanore, Rock Creek and Spar Lake copper deposits in the USA. Further prospecting and sampling will now begin so we can be drill ready by next year."

Sullivan-type Zn-Pb-Ag Program

Drill permits are still awaited for targets identified and reported in the DLP press release of June 28, 2021. Drilling will commence as soon as the permits are obtained.

David L. Pighin, consulting geologist and co-founder of DLP Resources, is the qualified person ("QP") of the Corporation as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Mr. Pighin has reviewed and approved the technical contents of this news release.

Figures





Figure 1: DLP Project areas with recently acquired Copper Creek and extensions to the original Hungry Creek property.

To view an enhanced version of Figure 1, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/6456/96761_09032cb054f38a45_001full.jpg





Figure 2: Hungry Creek 2021 drilling on interpreted geology and section.

To view an enhanced version of Figure 2, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/6456/96761_09032cb054f38a45_002full.jpg





Figure 3: Copper mineralization along fracture parting within thick bedded middle Creston quartzites.

To view an enhanced version of Figure 3, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/6456/96761_09032cb054f38a45_003full.jpg





Figure 4: Copper mineralization and manganese oxides within thick bedded middle Creston quartzites.

To view an enhanced version of Figure 4, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/6456/96761_09032cb054f38a45_004full.jpg





Figure 5: The Belt Purcell across Canada and northern USA with stratigraphic column showing equivalent correlations across the border with sediment hosted stratiform copper-silver occurrences.

To view an enhanced version of Figure 5, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/6456/96761_09032cb054f38a45_005full.jpg





Figure 6: Compilation of historic 2017 and 2018 rock sampling on simplified geology with copper in grab samples shown and DLP Claims in shaded area (modified from BC Geological Survey Assessment Report 38395).

To view an enhanced version of Figure 6, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/6456/96761_09032cb054f38a45_006full.jpg

About DLP Resources Inc.

DLP Resources Inc. is a mineral exploration company operating in Southeastern British Columbia, exploring for Base Metals and Cobalt. DLP is listed on the TSX-V, trading symbol DLP. Please refer to our web site www.dlpresourcesinc.com for additional information.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT: DLP Resources Inc.

Ian Gendall, President

Jim Stypula, Chief Executive Officer

Robin Sudo, Chief Financial Officer and Corporate Secretary

Telephone: 250-426-7808

Email: iangendall@dlpresourcesinc.com

Email: jimstypula@dlpresourcesinc.com

Email: robinsudo@dlpresourcesinc.com

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This release includes certain statements and information that may constitute forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking statements relate to future events or future performance and reflect the expectations or beliefs of management of the Company regarding future events. Generally, forward-looking statements and information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "intends" or "anticipates", or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "should", "would" or "occur". This information and these statements, referred to herein as "forward-looking statements", are not historical facts, are made as of the date of this news release and include without limitation, statements regarding discussions of future plans, estimates and forecasts and statements as to management's expectations and intentions with respect to, among other things: the anticipated proceeds to be raised under the Private Placement; the use of any proceeds raised under the Private Placement; and finder's fees to be paid in connection with the Private Placement.

These forward-looking statements involve numerous risks and uncertainties, and actual results might differ materially from results suggested in any forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, among other things: delays in obtaining or failure to obtain required regulatory approvals for the Private Placement; market uncertainty; and the inability of the Company to raise the anticipated proceeds under the Private Placement.

In making the forward looking statements in this news release, the Company has applied several material assumptions, including without limitation, that: the Company will obtain the required regulatory approvals for the Private Placement; the Company will be able to raise the anticipated proceeds under the Private Placement; and the Company will use the proceeds of the Private Placement as currently anticipated.

Although management of the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements or forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. Readers are cautioned that reliance on such information may not be appropriate for other purposes. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statement, forward-looking information or financial out-look that are incorporated by reference herein, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. We seek safe harbor.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/96761
BEIJING (dpa-AFX) - Chinese hotel Group Huazhu Group Ltd. (HTHT) announced Thursday that Qi Ji will step down as chief executive officer of the Company for personal reasons, effective October 1, 2021. Ji will continue to serve as the chairman of the board of directors of the Company. Hui Jin, currently the president of the Company, will succeed Ji as chief executive officer of the Company, effective October 1, 2021. Jin joined the Company in 2005 and has successively served as the Company's director of the Development Department, vice president, executive vice president and president, respectively. Prior to joining Huazhu, Jin worked at Shanghai Home Inns Hotels Management Limited as regional development manager from March 2004 to December 2004. Further, Xinxin Liu, currently the chief digital officer of the Company, will be appointed as the president of the Company. Liu joined the Company in 2012 and has successively served as the Company's chief information officer and chief digital officer, respectively. She was the founder and chief executive officer of H-World Information and Technology Co., Ltd., an IT company incubated by the Company in November 2013. Prior to joining Huazhu, Liu worked at Alcatel-Lucent Shanghai Bell from July 1999 to September 2012. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.


ATLANTA (dpa-AFX) - Molson Coors Beverage Co. is bringing Topo Chico Hard Seltzer across the United States starting January 2022.



The company will officially expand the distribution of the product, which was launched last spring in nine states and seven metro areas, to all 50 states.



Molson Coors is manufacturing, marketing and distributing Topo Chico Hard Seltzer in the U.S. as per an agreement with beverages giant Coca-Cola Co., which bought the brand in 2017. The brand was originally popular in northern Mexico and Texas.



Topo Chico Hard Seltzer is inspired by the taste of Topo Chico Mineral Water. It is produced with minerals and natural flavors for a crisp, refreshing taste.



Topo Chico Hard Seltzer is available in a four-flavor variety pack, which includes Strawberry Guava, Tangy Lemon Lime, Exotic Pineapple, and Tropical Mango. The product also comes in 24 oz singles including Strawberry Guava and Tangy Lemon Lime, and one, 16oz single can in Strawberry Guava.



Dan White, Chief of New Revenue Streams, Coca-Cola North America Operating Unit, said, 'We have loved to see the positive response from fans to the regional launch of Topo Chico Hard Seltzer from Molson Coors over the past several months. We are excited that Molson Coors will make Topo Chico Hard Seltzer and other new innovations be made available across the country next year...'



Hard seltzer is low-alcohol, low-calorie water-based drink. Once among the fast-growing categories in the beverage segment, market for hard seltzer in the U.S. is now in a downward trend, Bloomberg reported. As per a recent Nielsen data, the category turned negative in August after a period of sustained growth.



Molson Coors recently discontinued its Coors seltzer line in the U.S. reportedly to focus on brands with better consumer traction such as Topo Chico and Vizzy.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

MOLSON COORS-Aktie komplett kostenlos handeln - auf Smartbroker.de
E-Jet to Further Support the Lessor's Fleet and Market Expansion Strategy

ACIA Aero Leasing ("ACIA"), a leading provider of regional aircraft leasing and lease management services, announced today the acquisition of its first Embraer E190. The E-Jet is joining the lessor's growing fleet as the company evaluates new investment opportunities as part of a planned expansion into new markets.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005072/en/

The first Embraer E190 to join ACIA Aero Leasing's fleet of more than 50 regional passenger and freighter aircraft will further support the evolution of the lessor's portfolio and its aggressive market expansion strategy. (Photo: Business Wire)

The aircraft, configured with 12 business and 88 economy seats, will undergo a period of maintenance before being offered to prospective airline customers.

Sameer Adam, ACIA Aero Leasing's Senior Vice President, Commercial, commented that this acquisition represents "a significant milestone in progressing our fleet growth strategy. It is a launching point for engaging airlines interested in the E190/E195 aircraft specifically designed to crossover regional and mainline operations. It also opens up further opportunities to evaluate other portfolio enhancements, including the prospect of adding the next-generation E-Jet E2 family aircraft."

"As a lessor with an established customer base in regional markets, we have already seen the tremendous impact of regional aircraft in facilitating the recovery of networks on all continents. We are confident that E-Jets will play a key role in the recovery, particularly in the European and North American markets," asserted Adam. "The E-Jet provides the right blend of operational versatility and efficiency to meet the demands of certain mainline routes and is a good network development tool for airlines striving to adapt to the post-pandemic environment."

The pandemic has triggered fundamental changes that are reshaping air travel patterns and demand for aircraft. Among those implications are the early retirement of older and less efficient aircraft, a preference for more profitable smaller airplanes to match weaker demand, and the growing importance of domestic and regional airline networks in the restoration of air service.

"We congratulate ACIA on adding the first E-Jet to their fleet," said Martyn Holmes, CCO, Embraer Commercial Aviation. "This is a significant milestone, building on ACIA's successful experience with their ERJ145 fleet, enhancing their portfolio with the in-demand, world-beating E-Jet family. ACIA's first E190 represents just the start of their planned expansion into E-Jets to take advantage of new opportunities emerging in regional aviation."

Combining an optimized design with the lowest possible aircraft operating rate for carrying the highest revenue-generating payload, the E-Jet is the undisputed leader in the 70-130+ seat segment. E-Jets deliver excellent performance with smaller or similar capacity to the narrow-bodied aircraft. Moreover, with the industry's accelerating focus on more efficient, greener aircraft, these first-generation jets enable operators to achieve notable improvements in environmental emissions and operational efficiencies, both in the air and on the ground.

Mick Mooney, ACIA Aero Leasing Chief Executive Officer, said: "The introduction of the E190 is a stepping-stone in the evolution of our portfolio, with the goal of incorporating select in-demand and diverse aircraft types that best capture the operating characteristics sought after by airlines whose requirements are continually shaped by market conditions."

Since the early 2000s, ACIA has grown its fleet to more than 50 regional passenger and freighter aircraft, both owned and managed, which includes the ATR42/72 family, Beechcraft 1900, and Embraer 145 aircraft.

"We continue to leverage our team's expertise and deep familiarity with the industry to provide the most responsive fleet and financing options that effectively address our existing and prospective customers' needs. Our commercial team is committed to building long-term relationships with airlines across all markets, steadfastly growing our global customer base, which now consists of 16 operators in 20 countries worldwide," concluded Mooney.

About ACIA Aero Leasing

ACIA Aero Leasing ("ACIA"), a subsidiary of ACIA Aero Capital, is a leading regional aircraft lessor with offices in Ireland, Mauritius, France, Canada, and South Africa. ACIA manages a current aircraft portfolio of more than 50 regional passenger and freighter aircraft on lease to operators in 20 countries globally. Through our strategic partnerships, ACIA provides airlines with turn-key leasing solutions from dry leasing through to charter operations. www.aciaaeroleasing.com

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005072/en/

Contacts:

Sophie McAuley, Zeevo Group

+1 334 373 4611 // +44 7921 188870 // smcauley@zeevogroup.com
FIUME VENETO, Italy, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- OverIT today announced that, starting from October, the company will be spun off from the Engineering Group becoming an independent entity controlled by Bain Capital and Neuberger Berman.

In addition, Paolo Bergamo has been appointed as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of OverIT. Prior to joining OverIT, Bergamo was Senior Vice President Product Management at Salesforce in San Francisco, California.

In his new role, Bergamo will lead OverIT's global team, growth strategy and vision.

Bergamo has a deep knowledge of Field Service Management, with over two decades of proven global experience in the software sector. Given his track record, Bergamo is ideally placed to lead OverIT in its next phase of growth as innovator and visionary.

"The spin-off is the result of a strategic partnership between Neuberger Berman and Bain Capital, that has the goal to accelerate OverIT's internationalisation and build the global Field Service Management software leader through increased investments" said Piero Galli from Neuberger Berman.

"When searching for a new CEO to lead OverIT growth journey and reach the ambitious goals we set, we wanted someone who deeply understood not only the industry OverIT operates in, but also the ambition of our funds and the culture of a global company. Paolo has proven leadership capabilities and a track record of scaling technology businesses; we are pleased to have him join to lead the company in the next phase of growth" said Giovanni Camera from Bain Capital.

"I'm thrilled to join OverIT at such an exciting period" said Bergamo, "When Bain Capital and Neuberger Berman proposed to me the ambitious project to bring OverIT, one of the flagships of Made in Italy technology, to the forefront internationally, I felt I couldn't miss this great opportunity. I have the ambition to make OverIT an international hub for young technology talent to grow and unleash their potential".

OverIT, backed by US capital with development headquarters in Italy and main US office in Miami, is a multinational company with more than 20 years of international and cross-industry experience in Field Service Management. The firm is recognized by premier global advisory and consulting organizations as a leading vendor in FSM, Mobile Workforce Management and AR industries. providing more than 300 international customers and 150,000 Field Service users with process knowledge, innovative functionalities and cutting-edge technologies.

Bain Capital, LP is one of the world's leading private multi-asset alternative investment firms that creates lasting impact for our investors, teams, businesses, and the communities in which we live. Since our founding in 1984, we've applied our insight and experience to organically expand into numerous asset classes including private equity, credit, public equity, venture capital, real estate and other strategic areas of focus. The firm has offices on four continents, more than 1,200 employees and approximately $140 billion in assets under management. To learn more, visit www.baincapital.com.

Neuberger Berman, founded in 1939, is a private, independent, employee-owned investment manager. The firm manages a range of strategies-including equity, fixed income, quantitative and multi-asset class, private equity, real estate, and hedge funds-on behalf of institutions, advisors, and individual investors globally. The firm manages $433 billion in client assets as of June 30, 2021. NB Renaissance supports ambitious entrepreneurs and management teams with a goal to create market leading businesses. Part of Neuberger Berman since 2015, today NB Renaissance manages 2.0 billion of commitments from a pool of high-quality Italian and international investors. NB Renaissance is currently invested in 12 companies, which include some of the excellence of the Italian corporates. NB Renaissance can count on a team of 20 private equity professionals of Neuberger Berman in Italy, supported by the broader Neuberger Berman private equity platform of 245+ professionals.

Carly Kroll, carly.kroll@overit.us, +1 847 867 2232

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Validic's best-in-class strategy is supported by its deep integration into clinical workflows and care pathways and its simple application design for consumer engagement

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Based on its recent analysis of the North American remote patient monitoring (RPM) market, Frost & Sullivan recognizes Validic, Inc. with the 2021 North America Company of the Year Award. Its scalable, secure solutions help improve operational efficiencies and health outcomes by seamlessly delivering data and real-time insights from hundreds of home health devices into existing clinical workflows, such as electronic health records (EHRs) and patient applications. The company ensures its solutions provide continuous high value, with over 530 disparate health source integrations, proprietary data standardization, and unmatched scalability. With flexible settings that allow physicians to customize alerts and view at the individual patient level to prioritize interventions, Validic enables increased data visibility and faster clinician response times.

"Validic's advanced platform goes beyond the traditional care models, allowing physicians to view patient-captured data in real time. Furthermore, the platform applies analytics to orchestrate intelligent health interactions across care teams and strategies, including clinical workflows, care pathways, and consumer engagement," said Kaustubh Savant, Senior Industry Analyst at Frost & Sullivan. "The company's solutions reduce the need for physicians to analyze data and eliminate inefficient and redundant manual tasks within care management. Its proprietary data standardization process is highly scalable and customizable. It can be seamlessly integrated with any system, expanding to millions of connected users and processing innumerable data transactions every month."

Validic created the first clinical workflow integration and intelligent healthcare orchestration platform for personal health data. The solution addresses the unmet needs of RPM and care event monitoring by creating a single entry point platform for different stakeholders like providers, insurers, and employers to access important patient data. Validic supports multiple workflow options, including an end-to-end, standalone solution for organizations to launch RPM programs rapidly and sophisticated integrations with existing systems like EHRs and care management solutions. Its RPM solution helps manage chronic and acute health conditions by exception using near real-time analytics and alerting to sort signal from noise.

"We're honored to be named the 2021 North America Company of the Year for remote patient monitoring. As a company that enables remote care, the past year has been an opportunity for our team to drive further toward our mission with renewed passion and purpose. Our team is laser-focused on providing best in class capabilities for our clients and the people who trust us with their health, and it's a privilege to see that hard work recognized," said Drew Schiller, CEO and Co-Founder at Validic.

Validic can enable a flexible, hybrid device model that allows organizations to launch bring-your-own-device (BYOD) programs, complete managed device kit models, or hybrid deployment models. This full-spectrum approach provides health systems and plans the ability to address the varying needs of different patient populations and use cases, even within the same program. Its advanced streaming capabilities provide an efficient means to integrate personal health data continuously, such as blood pressure, blood oxygen saturation, heart rate, and blood glucose levels, from personal health devices in near real time.

"Validic's standardized endpoints ensure the data is actionable and meaningful, driving personalized, timely, and relevant interventions. The standardization process safeguards data integrity and security in storage and transit," noted Savant. "Overall, Validic's advanced platform provides high value to physicians and patients alike, enabling proactive and prioritized care interventions to reduce readmissions, thereby improving operational efficiency and clinical outcomes."

Each year, Frost & Sullivan presents a Company of the Year award to the organization that demonstrates excellence in terms of growth strategy and implementation in its field. The award recognizes a high degree of innovation with products and technologies and the resulting leadership in customer value and market penetration.

Frost & Sullivan Best Practices awards recognize companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analyses, and extensive secondary research to identify best practices in the industry.

About Frost & Sullivan

For six decades, Frost & Sullivan has been world-renowned for its role in helping investors, corporate leaders, and governments navigate economic changes and identify disruptive technologies, Mega Trends, new business models, and companies to action, resulting in a continuous flow of growth opportunities to drive future success. Contact us: Start the discussion. Contact us: Start the discussion.

Contact:

Claudia Toscano

P: 210.477.8417

E: claudia.toscano@frost.com

About Validic, Inc.

Founded in 2010, Validic improves the quality of human life by building technology that makes personal data actionable. Validic provides the scalable digital health solutions used by leading health plans and providers, such as Kaiser Permanente, Partners Healthcare, Cleveland Clinic, and Humana, to deliver personalized member experiences for condition management, remote monitoring, and wellness promotion. With a platform-first approach, Validic creates operational efficiency through seamless workflow integrations at enterprise scale - with more than 5 million active users and 530 supported devices. Validic has recently been named the Best Overall Connected Healthcare Solution by MedTech Breakthrough and North American RPM Company of the Year by Frost and Sullivan. Validic is HIPAA-compliant, HITRUST CSF Certified, and ISO-27001 certified for Information Security Management.

Visit validic.com and follow @validic on Twitter to learn more.

Contact:

Evan Swerdfeger

P: 919.879.2324

E: Evan.Swerdfeger@validic.com
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / September 16, 2021 / Fort St. James Nickel Corp. (TSXV:FTJ)(OTC PINK:OARFF) ("FTJ" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it is currently planning it 2021 work program for its 100% owned Nickel Project. Located 30 KM away from FPX Nickel Corps (FPX) - dxxx Project. Recent changes in the Nickel market and in Awaruite which is a Naturally Occurring Alloy of Nickel needed in the EV market and other have instigated significant interest in the company's project.

"Market demand simply is not reflected in our current market cap and does not justify the asset we own 100%. Our neighbor FPX Nickel Corp 30 Km away is making significant head way and has a market cap 10 times our own, management decided its time to refocus our efforts on our 100% owned asset enlight of the renewed market interest and demand for Nickel," states Steve Mynott, President.

Area Map showing location and Current Market Cap

Key Points:

The Previous drilling completed by FTJ all intersected Nickel Mineralization.

Drill holes spaced extending 1700 Meters North/ South and 500 Meters east /west.

Drilling tested a Geophysical target that was more than Seven Kilometers in Length.

All holes ended in Mineralization Project is Open to depth and Strike

New Drilling program bring permitted following previous recommendations.

Over a $1,000,000 has been spent by the company on this project to date.

Kilometre 26 is interpreted to contain a nickel mineralized ultramafic assemblage similar to the nearby Decar Project being explored by FPX Nickel Corp.

The predominate target of interest on the Kilometre 26 property is ophiolite hosted disseminated nickel. Motherlode style (ophiolite gold) mineralization constitutes a secondary objective. The Kilometre 26 property covers the juncture of two geologic terranes. Most of the property (from near the eastern boundary through to the western boundary) is underlain by Paleozoic Cache Creek Group rocks which are oceanic in origin while the extreme eastern region of the claims is underlain by Mesozoic rocks of the Quesnel Terrane which are predominantly island arc in derivation. The suture which marks this boundary is the Pinchi Fault Zone, which in the region of the claims is predominantly north-south in orientation. Cache Creek Group rocks in the vicinity of the Kilometre 26 property are dominated by ultramafic serpentinites, basalt and limestone. These rocks are interpreted to form a collage which resulted from a series of accretions and obductions of oceanic rock (directed west to east) extending tens of kilometers in the east west direction and several times this in the north south direction. It is the mantle derived (now serpentinized) ultramafic units which are of interest for nickel mineralization. It is believed that these units, which replicate in at least two distinct areas, were thrust up and over (obducted) shallower oceanic sediments. Takla Group (Quesnel Terrane) rocks which occupy the eastern region of the claim group are predominantly volcanic rocks.

The Kilometre 26 Project encompasses 5830.25 hectares (14,406.9 acres), located in the Omineca Mining Division of British Colombia near the community of Fort St. James approximately two and a half hours by highway from the city of Prince George. Due to the relatively low elevation of the Kilometre 26 property and its excellent access, exploration programs can be carried out year-round. Kilometre 26 is accessed by an all-season arterial logging road.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

"Steve Mynott"

President

Fort St James Nickel Corp.

604-488-3900

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains certain forward-looking statements, which relate to future events or future performance and reflect management's current expectations and assumptions. Such forward-looking statements reflect management's current beliefs and are based on assumptions made by and information currently available to the Company. Readers are cautioned that these forward-looking statements are neither promises nor guarantees, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause future results to differ materially from those expected including, but not limited to, market conditions, availability of financing, actual results of the Company's exploration and other activities, environmental risks, future metal prices, operating risks, accidents, labor issues, delays in obtaining governmental approvals and permits, and other risks in the mining industry. All the forward-looking statements made in this news release are qualified by these cautionary statements and those in our continuous disclosure filings available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and the Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances save as required by applicable law.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE: Fort St. James Nickel Corp.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/664311/Fort-St-James-Plans-Work-Program-On-100-Owned-Nickel-Project-30-KM-From-FPX-Nickel-Corp
Edmonton, Alberta--(Newsfile Corp. - September 16, 2021) - Benchmark Metals Inc. (TSXV: BNCH) (OTCQX: BNCHF) (WKN: A2JM2X) (the "Company" or "Benchmark") is pleased to provide an update for ongoing engineering and technical work to support a feasibility level design for the Lawyers Gold-Silver Project. The flagship project is located within a road accessible region of the prolific Golden Horseshoe area of north-central British Columbia, Canada.

Benchmark is currently drilling seven (7) PQ and HQ sized multipurpose holes in the Cliffs Creek Deposit and the AGB Deposit, totaling 2,415 metres for hydrogeological, geotechnical, resource, and metallurgical test-work. Work includes in-situ permeability (packer) test work, geotechnical logging, down-hole televiewer mapping, sampling for geotechnical test work such as unconfined compressive strength, sampling for comminution test work, piezometer installation for groundwater baseline towards engineering design and environmental baseline, and resource definition. The work is being led by a world-class team from Benchmark, APEX Geoscience Ltd, JDS Mining Inc., Knight Piesold Ltd (KP), F. Wright Consulting Inc, and DGI Geoscience Inc. This work is in parallel to additional feasibility level testing for detailed metallurgical modeling such as gravity recovery by FLSmidth (Knelson), bottle-roll leach recovery, bond index, liquid-solid separation, petrography, and detox by SGS (Lakewood) and Bureau Veritas (BV). All work is supporting the preliminary mine schedule and plant and infrastructure design based on the Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) with an effective date at May 11, 2021.

Ian Harris, Vice President Engineering commented, "The Company is focused on completing all necessary engineering work to establish Canada's next gold-silver mine. Because there has been such a heavy focus on fast tracking to a construction decision and defined exploration windows the company has been steadfast in maintaining a detailed overall project schedule. Not only has this allowed us to maintain a fast-track pace but added to the cost effectiveness by executing multipurpose drilling and data collection. While logistically difficult in one of the busiest seasons ever in the Golden Horseshoe, the team has executed above expectations. The project continues to be on track for potential construction readiness in 2024."





Figure 1: High Level Project Development Schedule

To view an enhanced version of Figure 1, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/6169/96728_bf507a59244b58ee_001full.jpg

Quality Assurance and Control

The technical content of this news release has been reviewed and approved by Michael Dufresne, M.Sc, P.Geol., P.Geo., a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101.

About Benchmark Metals

Benchmark Metals Inc. is a Canadian based gold and silver company advancing its 100% owned Lawyer's Gold-Silver Project located in the prolific Golden Horseshoe of northern British Columbia, Canada. The Project consists of three mineralized deposits that remain open for expansion, in addition to +20 new target areas along the 20 kilometre trend. The Company trades on the TSX Venture Exchange in Canada, the OTCQX Best Market in the United States, and the Tradegate Exchange in Europe. Benchmark is managed by proven resource sector professionals, who have a track record of advancing exploration projects from grassroots scenarios through to production.

www.metalsgroup.com

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

s/ "John Williamson"

John Williamson, Chief Executive Officer

For further information, please contact:

Jim Greig

Email: jimg@BNCHmetals.com

Telephone: +1 604 260 6977

NEITHER TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE.

This news release may contain certain "forward-looking statements". Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date of this news release and, except as may be required by applicable securities laws, the Company disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/96728
Edmonton, Alberta--(Newsfile Corp. - September 16, 2021) - Peruvian Metals Corp. (TSXV: PER) (OTC: DUVNF) ("Peruvian Metals" or the "Company") is pleased to provide an update regarding the mineral processing at its 80-per-cent-owned fully permitted Aguila Norte processing plant ("Aguila Norte" or the "Plant") located in Northern Peru.

During the second quarter of 2021, the Company is also pleased to report second quarterly positive adjusted-EBITDA (see table below), representing a second quarterly positive EBITDA in 2021. During the second quarter, the Company invested $85,675 US into the Palta Dorada Au-Ag-Cu project completing our 50% earn-in with Rio Silver Inc. Furthermore, the yearly holding costs due June 30th of $53,180 US were paid to keep many of the Company's concessions in good standing. Due to the complicated social conditions in the Mansa Musa project area the Company and its partner GEXEG S.A.C decided not to renew the concessions. Third quarter EBITDA performance is expected to reflect similar performance with continued investments into the Company's wholly owned projects.

During the month of August, Peruvian Metals processed 2,190 metric tonnes ("mt") of material for third parties. As of August 31st, the Plant has processed 16,560 tonnes in 2021 exceeding total tonnes processed in 2020 of 13,185 tonnes. The Company expects a record year for 2021 and is on track to exceed 2019's total processing record of 18,510 tonnes.

Jeffrey Reeder, Chief Executive Officer of Peruvian Metals, commented: "We are pleased that we are on track for a record processing year in 2021 at Aguila Norte. We are continuing to report positive adjusted-EBITDA and we have started to deploy our income to advance our other projects in Northern Peru. Investment in our properties is intended to provide further feed for the Plant which will result in increased profit margins on each tonne processed at Aguila Norte."

The Company also intends to re-start exploration at Minas Maria Norte located in the Huachocolpa Mining District. New recent developments on Silver X Mining's prospective Tangana property have created a renewed interest in the area. The Minas Maria Norte project is located less than three kilometres from Tangana. Previous sampling and mapping showed a gold rich polymetallic vein system and is summarized in the Company's press release dated July 21st, 2020. A field crew is scheduled to be mobilized to the area at the end of the month to conduct further sampling and commence community introductions.

The Aguila Norte processing plant has an environmental permit ("IGAC") from the Peruvian government which provides the Plant with the ability to expand operations past the current 100 tonnes per day level. Jeffrey Reeder, P Geo, a qualified person as defined in National Instrument 43-101, has prepared, supervised the preparation, or approved the scientific and technical disclosure contained in this news release.





Adjusted EBITDA - UNAUDITED Three Months Ended June 30, 2021 2020 2019 Net (loss) income $ (267,582) $ (191,515) $ (142,758) Add Interest expense $ 3,782 $ 3,838 $ 6,706 Share-based compensation $ - $ - $ - Non-operating loss (gain) on investments $ 220,573 $ 2,370 $ 21,100 Gain on disposal of exploration subsidiary $ - $ - $ - Non-operating property impairment charge $ - $ - $ - Amortization $ 59,574 $ 58,118 $ 57,885 Accretion expense $ 3,093 $ 2,945 $ 2,058

Adjusted EBITDA* $ 19,440 $ (124,244) $ (55,009) Six Months Ended June 30, 2021 2020 2019 Net (loss) income $ (330,759) $ 577,598 $ (917,000) Add Interest expense $ 7,495 $ 7,765 $ 13,338 Share-based compensation $ 28,541 $ 28,961 $ - Non-operating loss (gain) on investments $ 303,982 $ - $ 37,630 Gain on disposal of exploration subsidiary $ - $ (1,033,689) $ - Non-operating property impairment charge $ - $ - $ 582,051 Amortization $ 118,374 $ 116,236 $ 117,106 Accretion expense $ 6,186 $ 5,890 $ 4,116 Adjusted EBITDA* $ 133,819 $ (297,239) $ (162,759)



* adjusted to also include non-cash share-based compensation and non-cash loss/(gain) on investments and exploration subsidiary





About Peruvian Metals Corp.

Peruvian Metals Corp. is a Canadian Exploration and Mineral Processing company. Our business model is to provide toll milling services for clients and to produce high grade concentrates from mineral purchases. The Company continues to acquire and develop precious and base metal properties in Peru.

For further information on Peruvian Metals Corp. please visit www.peruvianmetals.com .

Peruvian Metals Corp. is a Canadian resource company listed on the

TSX Venture Exchange: Symbol "PER"

For additional information, contact: Jeffrey Reeder Tel: (647) 302-3290

Website: www.peruvianmetals.com Email: jeffrey.reeder@peruvianmetals.com

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Disclosure Regarding Forward-Looking Statements: This press release contains certain "Forward-Looking Statements" within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. We use words such as "might", "will", "should", "anticipate", "plan", "expect", "believe", "estimate", "forecast" and similar terminology to identify forward looking statements and forward-looking information. Such statements and information are based on assumptions, estimates, opinions and analysis made by management in light of its experience, current conditions and its expectations of future developments as well as other factors which it believes to be reasonable and relevant. Forward-looking statements and information involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements and information and accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on such statements and information. Risks and uncertainties are more fully described in our annual and quarterly Management's Discussion and Analysis and in other filings made by us with Canadian securities regulatory authorities and available at www.sedar.com.While the Company believes that the expectations expressed by such forward-looking statements and forward-looking information and the assumptions, estimates, opinions and analysis underlying such expectations are reasonable, there can be no assurance that they will prove to be correct. In evaluating forward-looking statements and information, readers should carefully consider the various factors which could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements and forward-looking information.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/96683
Edmonton, Alberta--(Newsfile Corp. - September 16, 2021) - Altiplano Metals Inc. (TSXV: APN) (WKN: A2JNFG) ("Altiplano" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that the Exploitation Permit Application for the Maria Luisa historical Gold-Copper mine has been approved by the Chilean mining authority Servicio Nacional de Geologia y Mineria (SERNAGEOMIN). The Maria Luisa project is located within the Atacama Region 100 km north of La Serena in Incahuasi, Chile.

This approval provides the Company the authorization to begin underground exploration and development work at Maria Luisa. With the approval in place, the Company plans to establish an underground decline system designed to reach gold-copper mineralized veins through multiple access points on multiple levels. The initial decline system will enter at the southwest corner of the property and advance in a southeast direction for approximately 350 metres to intersect the mineralized zone beneath the historical workings (Figure 1.).

CEO Alastair McIntyre commented "I am pleased the approval process for the Maria Luisa gold - copper project has been completed and we can now focus on the development phase. Historical work at Maria Luisa has yielded very good results including areas of past production where approximately 6.89 grams per tonne (g/t) gold and 1.89% copper were recovered. In addition, the relatively under-explored area to the NW, where a separate NS vein structure occurs has yielded underground chip samples of 8.73 grams per tonne gold over 5.74 m, provides us with an exciting new area to explore and develop."

Figure 1. Plan Map of Maria Luisa





To view an enhanced version of Figure 1, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/4303/96760_ab97686fb4e9c8cc_001full.jpg

*Estimation of quantity and grade is conceptual in nature with insufficient work to define a mineral resource, and further exploration may or may not define a resource at Maria Luisa (M. Dufresne, NI 43-101 Technical Report, February 2017). In addition, a decision to commence underground exploration and development at the Maria Luisa site is not based on a feasibility study of mineral reserves demonstrating economic and technical viability and there is increased uncertainty and economic and technical risks of failure associated with this decision.

The design process involves accessing the northwest-southeast trending mineralized Au-Cu veins through crosscuts on 4 separate levels designed to create up to 8 mining faces (Figure 2.). The company plans to initially extract up to 3,000 tonnes of mineralized gold-copper material in Phase I with future opportunity to expand to 5,000 tonnes (see news release 14 June 2021). The development work will also be guided by a surface and underground drill program to assist with future grade control. The construction time is expected to be approximately 6 months with fully funded Phase 1 costs anticipated at US$600,000. During the construction/development phase, the company will have opportunity to extract Au-Cu mineralized bulk samples that can be sold to nearby processing plants to offset some of the development costs in advance of a full ramp up.

Figure 2. Underground Mine Model





To view an enhanced version of Figure 2, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/4303/96760_ab97686fb4e9c8cc_002full.jpg

The Company is currently finalizing a review process to select a contract miner for the construction and development of the decline. This process is expected to be completed in the next few weeks where work can begin immediately.

About Altiplano

Altiplano Metals Inc. (APN: TSX-V) is a Canadian mining company focused on the acquisition and development of near-term cash flowing assets and exploration projects of significant scale. Altiplano's goal is to grow into a mid-tier producer of copper, gold and silver with immediate plans of generating profits from three cash flowing projects in 2021. Management has a substantial record of success in capitalizing on opportunity, overcoming challenges and building shareholder value.

John Williamson, B.Sc., P.Geol., a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101, has reviewed and approved the technical contents of this document.

Altiplano is part of the Metals Group of companies, managed by an award-winning team of professionals who stand for technical excellence, painstaking project selection and uncompromising corporate governance, with a proven ability to capitalize on investment opportunities and deliver shareholder returns.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

/s/ "John Williamson"

Chairman

For further information, please contact:

Alastair McIntyre, CEO

alastairm@apnmentals.com

Tel: (416) 434 3799

Jeremy Yaseniuk, Director

jeremyy@apnmetals.com

Tel: (604) 773-1467

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the (TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This release includes certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements". All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts, that address exploration drilling, exploitation activities and events or developments that the Company expects are forward-looking statements. A qualified person has not done sufficient work to classify any historical estimates as current mineral resources or mineral reserves and the issuer is not treating the historical estimates as current mineral resources or mineral reserves. Any decision to commence production or begin underground development is not based on a feasibility study of mineral reserves demonstrating economic and technical viability and there is increased uncertainty and economic and technical risks of failure associated with any production decision. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include market prices, exploitation and exploration successes, continuity of mineralization, uncertainties related to the ability to obtain necessary permits, licenses and title and delays due to third party opposition, changes in government policies regarding mining and natural resource exploration and exploitation, and continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. Investors are cautioned that any such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. For more information on the Company, investors should review the Company's continuous disclosure filings that are available at www.sedar.com.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/96760


WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Willard, Ohio-based Buurma Farms Inc. is recalling 320 boxes of its Plain Parsley citing possible contamination with Shiga-toxin producing E.coli, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said.



The recall involves Buurma Plain (flat leaf) Parsley with a harvest date of August 30, 2021 from their Gregory, Michigan location.



The product was sold and shipped in 30 count cartons to retailers in Ohio and Michigan between 8/31/21 and 9/3/21. It was also sold in 60 count crates to wholesalers in Illinois, Pennsylvania, New York, and South Carolina between 9/2/21 and 9/4/21.



Only plain flat leaf parsley with a lot code of '2A242A6' and a PTI lot code of '2B243A6' is included in the recall.



Individual bunches of flat parsley sold to retailers for purchase by consumers would likely have a 'BUURMA FARMS Plain Parsley' twist-tie with a price look-up number of 4901 and a UPC code of 33383 80125.



Meanwhile, the wholesale distribution channels involved in the recall do not have the twist-tie and instead have only a plain red rubber band on the bunch.



According to the agency, a random, routine regulatory sample collected on 9/7/21 at a customer's distribution center by the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development tested positive for non-O157 STEC (Shiga-toxin producing E. Coli) and reported 9/13/21.



The sample is currently being genome sequenced to determine if it is pathogenic. Production of the product involved has been suspended until FDA and other regulatory agencies have completed their investigation.



Shiga-toxin-producing E. coli is an organism that can cause foodborne illness in a person who eats a food item contaminated with it. Symptoms of infection may include stomach cramps, diarrhea, and vomiting.



The company has not received any reports of illnesses related to the recalled product to date.



In similar recalls, Monterey, California-based Dole Fresh Vegetables, Inc. recently called back a limited number of cases of conventional Curly Leaf Parsley citing possible contamination with non-O157 Shiga-Toxin producing E. coli.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / September 16, 2021 / Metrospaces, Inc. (OTC:MSPC), a PropTech company powered by Shokworks , has initiated the construction of an additional 3 villas at Infinity View Villas and will establish fractional ownership as sales strategy for Phase III.

Phase III of the Infinity View Villas project has begun, initially with the ground movements and excavations. The construction forecast is to deliver the villas to buyers in approximately 12 months.

The company will take a different marketing approach on the villas of Phase III from the one established in Phase I. The company will sell the Phase III villas by offering them under fractional ownership, with the option to either enjoy the villas and stay during their respective fraction or rent them out to tourists to generate outsized return. Additionally, the company will allow for payment of the fractional ownership acquisition via several crypto coins.

"Selling these villas under fractional ownership will allow for smaller investors to invest in high-yielding hospitality properties in the Dominican Republic. Also, allowing payment with crypto currencies will expand our buyer's market. As an additional benefit to buyers, we will allow buyers to exchange their fractional property into stable tokens once our platform is up-and-running and fully compliant to allow for investment liquidity. We are very excited about this project, since not only will it be very profitable, but it will also serve as inventory for our MetroHouse and MetroCrowd platform. To get the project finalized quicker, the company has implemented a new plan to accelerate construction that will allow Phase I to be completely finalized and deliverable by end of 2021, a good 4 months ahead of schedule," explained Brito.

Complete sales information and details, including size and pricing will be announced in the coming days.

Safe Harbor Statement: Statements in this news release may be "forward-looking statements". Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements that express our intentions, beliefs, expectations, strategies, predictions or any other statements relating to our future activities or other future events or conditions. These statements are based on current expectations, estimates and projections about our business based, in part, on assumptions made by management. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Therefore, actual outcomes and results may, and are likely to, differ materially from what is expressed or forecasted in forward-looking statements due to numerous factors. Any forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this news release and Metrospaces Inc. undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this news release.

Metrospaces Inc.

For more information:

https://metrospaces.com

http://inarchiarchitects.com

Contacts:

Kelly Hunter

khunter@sunwestpr.com

(972) 489-4361

SOURCE: Metrospaces, Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/664344/Metrospaces-Initiates-Construction-of-Phase-III-of-Infinity-View-Villas-and-Sets-Fractional-Ownership-as-Sales-Strategy
- Demand in Construction Sector Will Drive Silicone Adhesives Sales in China and India

- The latest report by Fact.MR on global silicone adhesives market presents in-depth analysis of various factors such as drivers and restrains that are expected to determine the future of the market. The report also divulges into compelling insights about regional outlook and trends prevalent globally that will shape consumer demand through the assessment period.

NEW YORK, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The global silicone adhesives market is expected to witness surge in demand in the coming years owing to rising production of electric vehicles in Europe, China, and the U.S. Glass bonding, exterior trim, interior trim, structural metal bonding, and structural fiber reinforced plastic bonding are a few applications of silicone adhesives in the automotive industry.

Construction industry also will continue exhibiting high demand for silicone adhesives through the assessment period, from 2021 to 2031. Silicone adhesives are popular due to their excellent conductive properties, which paves scope for increasing application in the electronics sector.

Despite consistently rising demand from diverse industries, sales of silicone adhesives plummeted amidst restrictions imposed to contain COVID-19 outbreak. Suspension of operation across construction and automotive industries, besides various manufacturing units had adverse impact on silicone adhesives market.

However, the market is expected to recover post COVID-19, driven by increasing production of electric vehicles. According to the International Energy Agency, sales of electric car reached 2.1 million in 2019, which showcased a 6% hike as compared to the year before.

China is expected to offer substantial growth opportunities for silicone adhesives market during the forecast period as home to one of the largest manufacturing sectors in the world. Also, surging vehicle production is expected to seal China's dominance in the East Asia silicone adhesives market.

The country also is investing significantly in construction activities to steer infrastructural expansion. This is another factor supporting sales of silicone adhesives in the country.

"Some developed markets are inching closer to saturation. Consequently, leading silicone adhesives manufacturers are focusing on uncovering growth prospects across emerging economies. The booming construction sector of these countries offer lucrative prospects for sales of silicone adhesives," says the Fact.MR analyst.

For More Information On How To Improve Your Silicone Adhesives Market Footprint, Request A Sample Here

https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=S&rep_id=5465

Key Takeaways

Government stimulus towards construction projects will spur silicone adhesives sales in the U.S.

Sustainable Innovation Fund launched by the U.K. to support innovative small enterprises during pandemic crisis, also will steer growth prospects for silicone adhesives market.

Germany is expected to lead the Europe market for silicone adhesives, backed by the presence of a mature automotive industry.

is expected to lead the market for silicone adhesives, backed by the presence of a mature automotive industry. China exhibit high demand for silicone adhesives, driven by consistently rising demand in the automotive manufacturing industry.

exhibit high demand for silicone adhesives, driven by consistently rising demand in the automotive manufacturing industry. Based on type, demand for one-component silicone adhesives is expected to remain considerably high through the forecast period.

Growth Drivers

Focus on improving the efficiency of automotive components will create scope for application of silicone adhesives in the automotive sector.

Efforts undertaken by various manufacturers to develop low-cost advanced silicone technologies is bolstering the sales in the global market.

Ask Your Silicone Adhesives Market Related Questions & Get Customized Reports https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=RC&rep_id=5465

Competitive Landscape

The global silicone adhesive market is partially consolidated in nature. Companies operating in the market are focusing on expanding their geographic footprint by developing innovative products and penetrating into emerging economies.

For instance, H.B. Fuller added Advantra Warrior to its profile and turn its adhesive line versatile with its unique polymer technology that exhibits unparalleled resistance for extreme temperature. The company is aiming to offer Advantra Warrior as a solution for packaging industry.

Similarly, Dow launched a silicone adhesive solution named as DOWSIL EA-4700 CV that has the ability to cure in temperature room at a substantial speed. These adhesives are known to offer remarkable adhesion for metals and plastics in electronics assembly.

Some of the key layers operating in the global silicone adhesive market as profiled by Fact.MR are:

3M

Avery Dennison Corporation

Delo Industrial Adhesives LLC

Dow

H.B. Fuller Company

Henkel AG & Co. KGaA

Illinois Tool Works Inc.

Momentive Performance Materials

Shin-Etsu Chemical Co., Ltd.

Sika AG

Wacker Chemie AG

More Insights on the Silicone Adhesive Market

Fact.MR provides an unbiased analysis of the silicone adhesive market presenting historical period demand data (2016-2020) and forecast period from 2021 to 2031. The study divulges into compelling insights on the silicone adhesive market with detailed segmentation on the basis of:

Type

One-component

Two-component

Technology

PSA

Non-PSA

End User

Construction

Automotive & Transportation

Medical

Electrical & Electronics

Others

Region

North America

Latin America

Europe

East Asia

South Asia

Oceania Middle East & Africa (MEA)

Key questions Covered in the Silicone Adhesive Market Report

The report offers detailed insights into silicone adhesive demand outlook for 2021-2031

The market study also highlights projected sales growth for silicone adhesive market between 2021 and 2031

Silicone adhesive market survey identifies key growth drivers, restraints, and other forces impacting prevailing trends, evaluation of current market size, and technological advancements within the industry

Silicone adhesive market share analysis of the key companies within the industry and coverage of strategies such as mergers & acquisitions, joint ventures, collaborations or partnerships, and others

Explore Fact.MR's Coverage on the Chemicals & Materials Domain

UV Cured Adhesives Market - The electronics and medical sectors, which account for the lion's share of the UV cured adhesives market, are driving growth. In the short term, medical applications will drive the market, owing to the demand for UV cured adhesives for rapid ventilator assembly lines and swab manufacturing. During the short-term forecast period, the gradual adoption of electronics and optical products is expected to have a domino effect on the growth of the UV cured adhesives market size.

Fumed Silica Market - The growing cosmetics and personal care market in the East and South Asian regions has boosted demand for fumed silica, which is commonly used in cosmetic formulations to prevent light reflection. The threat of numerous health hazards to workers in various end-use industries, as well as to people who use products containing fumed silica, is limiting the growth of fumed silica demand.

Textile Adhesives Market - Textile adhesives are used in the textile industry to bond different fabric components instead of sewing garments, resulting in consistent dimension and performance. The diverse range of textile adhesives available for a wide range of applications meets almost all practical requirements and has global market access. As compared to hot melt textile Adhesives, water-based textile adhesives are an environment-friendly solution.

About Fact.MR

Market research and consulting agency with a difference! That's why 80% of Fortune 1,000 companies trust us for making their most critical decisions. We have offices in US and Dublin, whereas our global headquarter is in Dubai. While our experienced consultants employ the latest technologies to extract hard-to-find insights, we believe our USP is the trust clients have on our expertise. Spanning a wide range - from automotive & industry 4.0 to chemical & materials and retail, our coverage is expansive, but we ensure even the most niche categories are analyzed. Reach out to us with your goals, and we'll be an able research partner.

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WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Nucor Corp. (NUE) said it expects third-quarter earnings to be the highest quarterly earnings in the company's history, surpassing the previous record set in the second quarter of 2021. For the fourth-quarter, the internal business units' forecasts suggest that results are likely to continue the trend of exceptional performance, the company said. For the third-quarter, Nucor projects earnings to be in the range of $7.30 to $7.40 per share. The company noted that all three operating segments continue to generate robust profitability as overall demand remains strong across most end-use markets. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
A recent study conducted on the paint cans market by FMI offers captivating insights into key drivers and restrains impacting the growth of the market. The report discloses hidden prospects across various segments in terms of product type, material type, and capacity. It also uncovers market size and potential scope for expansion from 2021 to 2031

DUBAI, UAE, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- As per a research analysis conducted by FMI, the global paint cans market is anticipated to exhibit growth at a CAGR of 4.1% during the forecast period 2021-2031. Backed by the rising demand for paints across various industries such as construction, furniture, marine and others, the sales of paint cans is projected to total 10,086 million units, surpassing a valuation of 4.7 billion by 2021.

The market is largely driven by increasing constructions activities and infrastructural spending along with the surging consumption of exterior paints. The rising demand for wall decor to enhance the aesthetic beauty of homes is further propelling the demand for paints. Driven by this, the sales of pain cans are estimated to increase at year-on-year (YoY) growth of 4% in 2021.

Paints also are gaining traction as protective coatings against sun and water for metal fixtures, walls, and wooden structures. Also, the increasing demand for spray paints in the automotive industry for maintenance and customization purposes is expected to creating attractive sales opportunities.

Over the past decade, packaging has evolved from just adding aesthetic values to a product to a method of value creation, offering convenience of transportation and storage and ease of use. As paint cans fit all features of these executions, they have emerged as sought-after packing solutions for paints. The demand for metal cans will remain exceptionally high due to their rigid structure, recyclability, and impact resistant features.

"With growing environmental concerns along with implementation of stringent regulations, leading manufactures are aiming at developing eco-friendly paint cans, using sustainable material. This will bode well for the market," says the FMI analyst.

Request a report sample to gain comprehensive insights at https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-6677

Key Takeaways from Paint Cans Market Study

The U.S. is estimated to contribute maximum sales in the North America , driving the regional market at a CAGR of 2.7% during the assessment period.

, driving the regional market at a CAGR of 2.7% during the assessment period. Germany is forecast to lead the paint can market in Europe , owing to increasing demand from automotive industry.

is forecast to lead the paint can market in , owing to increasing demand from automotive industry. Japan is expected to account for 23% of revenue share in the East Asia market, on the back of increasing number of single-person households in the country.

is expected to account for 23% of revenue share in the market, on the back of increasing number of single-person households in the country. Favored by rapid growth of the building and construction industry, the market in China is anticipated project a robust growth between 2021 and 2031.

is anticipated project a robust growth between 2021 and 2031. Based on material type, metal is anticipated to dominate the segment due to its recyclable and reusable features.

Key Drivers

Suring demand for paints across industries such as automotive and construction sectors is bolstering the sales of paint cans.

Increasing sales of paints from e-commerce portals is propelling the demand for transportation-friendly packaging solution such as metal cans.

Key Restraints

Implementation of strict regulations against the use of plastic is hampering the growth of plastic paint cans segment.

Availability of lower cost substitutes such as refillable spray bottles is hindering the sales of paint cans.

Discover more about the paint cans market analysis with figures and data tables, along with the table of contents. Ask an Analyst@ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/ask-question/rep-gb-6677

Competitive Landscape

As per the FMI, the top five players in the global paint cans market is expected to hold a combine share of 15% to 20% in 2021. The intensity of competition is estimated to be high due to presence of few significant players in the landscape.

Leading manufacturer are emphasizing of adopting various organic and inorganic expansion strategies such as new product launch, collaboration, merger, acquisition, and product approvals to expand their market share. For instance,

In October 2018 Brittpac, a can manufacturing company based in U.K. announced launching a comprehensive range of PET paint cans using rPET. These cans are available in two options with handle and without handle.

Brittpac, a can manufacturing company based in U.K. announced launching a comprehensive range of PET paint cans using rPET. These cans are available in two options with handle and without handle. In April 2021 , Mauser Packaging Solutions, a leading company in solutions and services across the packaging, announced acquiring a company based in Italy , Global Tank Srl. The acquisition will assist the company to widen its offering of industrial packaging products and services in the Italy .

Some of the key players in the paint cans market profiled by FMI are:

Ball Corporation

RPC Group Plc.

Silgan Containers LLC

Kian Joo Can Factory Berhad

Colep Portugal, S.A.

BWAY Corporation (MAUSER Packaging Solutions)

National Can Industries Pty. Ltd.

Allied Cans Limited

Aaron Packaging, Inc.

Allstate Can Corporation

Lancaster Container, Inc.

Baltic Packaging A/S

Envases Universales Group

P. Wilkinson Containers Ltd.

Sarten Ambalaj Sanayi Ve Ticaret A.S.

Ambalaj Sanayi Ve Ticaret A.S. KW Plastic Inc.

More Insights on the Paint Cans Market Survey

The latest study on the paint cans market by Future Market Insights gives a detailed outlook on key segments for the forecast period of 2021-2031. In order to gain a better perspective of the global paint cans market potential, its growth, trends, and opportunities, the market is segmented on the basis of:

By Product Type:

Metal Cans

Plastic Cans

Hybrid Cans

By Material Type:

Plastic

High Density Polyethylene (HDPE)



Polypropylene (PP)

Metal

Tin



Steel

By Capacity:

1000 ml and below

1001 - 2000 ml

2001 - 3000 ml

3001 - 4000 ml

4001 ml and above

By Regional Analysis:

North America

U.S.



Canada



Latin America



Brazil



Mexico



Argentina



Rest of Latin America

Europe

Germany



Italy



France



U.K.



Spain



Benelux



Russia



Rest of Europe

South & East Asia

India



Thailand



Indonesia



Malaysia



China



Japan



South Korea



Rest of South & East Asia

Oceania

Australia



New Zealand

Middle East and Africa (MEA)

and (MEA) GCC Countries



Turkey



Israel



Northern Africa



South Africa



Rest of MEA

Emerging Countries

China



India

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Key Questions Covered in Paint Cans Market Report

The report offers detailed insights into paint cans market demand outlook for 2021-2031

The market study also highlights projected sales growth for paint cans market between 2021 and 2031

Paint cans market survey identifies key growth drivers, restraints, and other forces impacting prevailing trends and evaluation of current market size and forecast and technological advancements within the industry

Paint cans market share analysis of the key companies within the industry and coverage of strategies such as mergers & acquisitions, joint ventures, collaborations or partnerships, and others.

Explore FMI's Extensive Coverage on the Packaging Domain

Metal Aerosol Packaging Market: Future Market Insights (FMI) provides a deeper insights on the new trends of global metal aerosol packaging market while incorporating the impact of ongoing trends, and growth & restraining factors during the forecast period of 2021 to 2031. Market dynamics have been presented on the basis of prominent drivers, trends and opportunities prevailing across key geographies for the aforementioned decade.

Aerosol Sprayers Market: ESOMAR-certified market analysis and consulting company Future Market Insights (FMI) provides incisive coverage on the global aerosol sprayers market over the forecast period of 2021 and 2031. Additionally, to find the effect of COVID-19 on the aerosol sprayers market in general, the study monitor global aerosol sprayers' sales in 20+ high-growth markets and addresses their end-user in particular.

Aerosol dispensing systems Market: ESOMAR-certified market research and consulting firm Future Market Insights (FMI) offers in-depth insights on key factors of global aerosol dispensing systems market. The study offers detailed study on key trends that influence the demand for aerosol dispensing systems. The report covers global demand in more than 20 high potential markets, in addition to an in-depth analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on the global shell and heat exchangers market.

About Future Market Insights (FMI)

Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading provider of market intelligence and consulting services, serving clients in over 150 countries. FMI is headquartered in Dubai, and has delivery centers in the UK, U.S. and India. FMI's latest market research reports and industry analysis help businesses navigate challenges and make critical decisions with confidence and clarity amidst breakneck competition. Our customized and syndicated market research reports deliver actionable insights that drive sustainable growth. A team of expert-led analysts at FMI continuously tracks emerging trends and events in a broad range of industries to ensure that our clients prepare for the evolving needs of their consumers.

Contact:

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Future Market Insights,

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Jumeirah Lakes Towers, Dubai,

United Arab Emirates

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MURCIA, Spain, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Medical device company Voptica S.L announces the first and only inverted meniscus intraocular lens (ArtIOLs) to improve peripheral vision at 2021 ESCRS Satellite Symposium in Amsterdam.

ArtIOLs mimic the optics of the natural crystalline lens providing optimized field curvature and peripheral astigmatism leading to an improved peripheral vision.

"Current intraocular lenses are designed to optimize image quality at the eye's central retina, with not much attention to their off-axis performance," Pablo Artal, PhD, CEO and Co-founder of Voptica, said. "IOLs are very thin in comparison with our natural lens. The reason is obvious, because we favor surgery through a small incision, but from the point of view of the optics in the periphery, the impact can be important since standard lenses provide a wrong field curvature and elevated astigmatism."

More than 1000 ArtIOLs have been already implanted with excellent results for the patients. "Once again, Prof. Artal has impressed us with a novel solution for cataract patients" Pedro Tana, MD and Medical Director at Oftalvist clinics in Spain, and one of the leading surgeons implanting the lenses, said.

The ESCRS satellite symposia panel will count on with KOL such as Jose Luis Guell, MD (Spain), Oliver Findl, MD (Austria), Ines Yago, MD (Spain) and with Pablo Artal PhD (Spain) himself.

In addition of the benefits for patients in the periphery, ArtIOLs are customizable EDOF lenses that can be combined to achieve good vision at all distances without compromises.

The lens is currently available for physicians in the European market. Voptica aims to have FDA approval in the future. For further enquiries regarding market availability please contact Voptica.

Reference:

P. Artal, J.M. Marin, H. S Ginis, C. Robles, E. Alcon, E.Angel Villegas, P. Prieto, P. Tana-Rivero; Less astigmatism and better contrast sensitivity in the periphery of pseudophakic patients implanted with a new intraocular lens. Invest. Ophthalmol. Vis. Sci. 2021;62(8):2012.

Disclosure: Artal is one of the inventors of the IOL holding several patents.

Contact:

luis.artal@voptica.com

Luis Artal

Marketing Manager at Voptica S.L.

+34 868 954 817

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Company Previously Announced A Completed Survey For First Two Locations, $33 Million And $31 Million, Respectively, With Expected Total Project Revenues In Excess Of $64 Million Over Life Of The Projects

NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / September 16, 2021 / Green Stream Holdings Inc. (OTC PINK:GSFI) ("the Company") (https://greensolarutility.com), an emerging leader in the solar utility and finance space, today, announced the survey for a 5th feasibility study site at 565 Blossom Road in Rochester, NY. The property owner of this fifth host site has signed an agreement. This new community solar host site encompasses a 350 thousand square foot roof array.

As previously announced, Green Stream Holdings engaged with KMB, a nationally known, full service engineering solutions provider with extensive international expertise in the solar renewable energy field providing photovoltaic design and engineering services, to assist the Company in installing three ground-mount solar farms.

KMB was hired to conduct solar feasibility studies for locations in the State of New York. Their studies will determine the most efficient configuration for the arrays, estimated production matters, utility interconnect feasibility & process, as well as to identify any potential incentive programs.

About KMB Design Group

KMB Design Group, LLC was founded by a team of seasoned professionals who have been working together for over 15 years. We are a service engineering solutions provider licensed in all 50 states of the United States and in Europe. We take a systematic approach to developing comprehensive solutions for our clients; guiding projects from conception through site acquisition, engineering and construction. Our extensive experience in the engineering and telecommunications industries provide a great foundation for a successful design firm. KMB's focus on technology and continuous improvement enables the firm to keep up with the latest innovations and provide state-of-the-art design solutions for our clients. KMB currently provides designs and engineering services for over 1,000 projects and 1,500 MW nationwide for a wide ranging size of solar installations. For more information, please visit: https://www.kmbdg.com or https://www.kmbdg.com/services/solar-engineering/

?About Green Stream Finance, Inc.

Green Stream Finance, Inc., a solar utility and finance company with satellite offices in Malibu, CA and New York, NY, is focused on exploiting currently unmet markets in the solar energy space, and is currently licensed in California, Nevada, Arizona, Washington, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Colorado, Hawaii, and Canada. The Company's next-generation solar greenhouses constructed and managed by Green Rain Solar, LLC, a Nevada-based division, utilize proprietary greenhouse technology and trademarked design developed by world-renowned architect Mr. Antony Morali. The Company is currently targeting high-growth solar market segments for its advanced solar greenhouse and advanced solar battery products. The Company has a growing footprint in the significantly underserved solar market in New York City where it is targeting 50,000 to 100,000 square feet of rooftop space for the installation of its solar panels. Green Stream is looking to forge key partnership with major investment groups, brokers, and private investors in order to capitalize on a variety of unique investment opportunities in the commercial solar energy markets. The Company is dedicated to becoming a major player in this critical space. Through its innovative solar product offerings and industry partnerships, the Company is well-positioned to become a significant player in the solar space.

Forward-Looking Statements:

This press release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and is subject to the safe harbor created by those sections. This material contains statements about expected future events and/or financial results that are forward-looking in nature and subject to risks and uncertainties. That includes the possibility that the business outlined in this press release cannot be concluded for some reason. That could be as a result of technical, installation, permitting or other problems that were not anticipated. Such forward-looking statements by definition involve risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Green Stream Finance, Inc. to be materially different from the statements made herein. Except for any obligation under the U.S. federal securities laws, Green Stream Finance, Inc. undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

For All Inquiries Contact:

+1 (424) 280-4096

president@greenstreamfinance.com

Website: greensolarutility.com

Phone number: (646) 669-7007

SOURCE: Green Stream Holdings Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/664368/Green-Stream-Holdings-Contracts-Nationally-Recognized-Solar-Engineer-KMB-Design-Group-To-Expand-Its-Footprint-With-An-Additional-Solar-Feasibility-Study-For-A-Fifth-Multi-Mega-Solar-Farm-Rochester-New-York
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Tetra Tech, Inc. (TTEK), a provider of consulting and engineering services, announced Thursday that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) awarded Tetra Tech a multiple-award contract to provide global infrastructure services with a shared capacity of $800 million. Tetra Tech has provided engineering support services to USAID for more than 15 years. Under the new five-year contract, Tetra Tech will provide global architect-engineer services to USAID to drive sustainable economic growth, expand educational opportunities, enhance food security, protect the environment, and address global health challenges. Tetra Tech's engineers, scientists, and architects will provide comprehensive engineering design services to support the development of climate- and seismic-resilient infrastructure programs including water supply and sanitation, transportation, solid waste, electrical grids, and master planning of urban and commercial zones. The U.S. Agency for International Development administers the U.S. foreign assistance program providing economic and humanitarian assistance in more than 100 countries worldwide. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
- Characteristic of an interdisciplinary approach for end-to-end assistance from IED incidents spurs demand

- Availability of a range of solutions to be deployed in various vehicles used in the armed forces and other vulnerable areas stirs growth of the counter-IED market

ALBANY, N.Y., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ --

Counter-IED Market - Overview

The growing incidence of modern warfare that is related with massive destruction has necessitated law enforcement and military agencies to be equipped with effective counter acting capabilities, which is in the scope of the counter-IED market.

Large budgets of governments around the world to improve national security has led to equipping their respective defense sector with data-driven intelligence. The extensive processes deployed for automated data collection are combined with data integration methods for a single interface of intelligence that helps to reliably assess threat of improvised explosive device (IED) attacks. This magnitude of threat and its associated damage necessitates the deployment of counter-IED solutions as a preventive measure, particularly for the law enforcement and military sectors.

The characteristic of counter-IED solutions wherein several programs are bundled to suit various vulnerable areas is creating opportunities in the counter-IED market. At the back of these factors, the counter-IED market is estimated to cross US$ 2.9 Bn by 2030.

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Counter-IED Market: Key Findings of Report

Key Role Played by Governments to Equip Armed Forces Creates Demand; Changing Mode of IED Attacks to Drive Research for Innovative Solutions

The surge in the number terrorist activities in various parts of the world, particularly in conflicted zones is a concern for governments for national and civilian security. This has led to dedicated research and data collection to assess vulnerabilities and adopt solid measures to prevent damage and human loss as much as possible. Thus, law enforcement departments and military agencies collaborate with behavioral and computational scientists to gauge potential attacks and their severity, if possible.

The compelling need to mitigate IED threats for the armed forces is leading to the deployment of an array of preventive solutions that comprise detection, protection, and neutralization measures categorized as counter-IED solutions. This has led to the evolution of military vehicles for armored personnel carriers (APCs) and modified infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) from the traditional ones. Counter-IED measures are adopted at various vulnerable areas such as anti-tanking, anti-personnel mining, and IED detection systems.

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The emergence of new types of IED attacks has necessitated innovative and effective counter-IED solutions. The deployment of new type of IED detection kit and ground-piercing radar systems in vehicles in Afghanistan to detect metallic buried objects is an example of this. This has accelerated the development of models that help assess nearly failsafe information for action against potential threats.

Massive Destruction Caused Due to Territorial, Economic Conflicts in Parts of Asia Pacific Drives Adoption

The incidence of terrorist activities and political and economic disputes in some parts of Asia Pacific over the past three decades have caused massive destruction leading to long-term impact experienced till date. Some countries in the region used modern warfare that depend on next-gen communication and information systems. The use of IEDs is an extension of information-age systems that are deployed based on accurate intelligence obtained from these systems. Moreover, IEDs can be placed anywhere on animals, planted on roads, or strapped on individuals. This has led to the increasing demand for counter-IED solutions in several parts of Asia Pacific.

The U.S. accounts for leading revenue contribution for North America to dominate the counter-IED market. Military vehicles in the country in large numbers are mounted with counter-IEDs to evaluate and adjust measures to discover, prevent, alleviate, and recover from IED attacks and their consequences.

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Counter-IED Market - Growth Drivers

Rising need to equip armed forces with advanced combat solutions to counter border threats and modern warfare fuels the counter-IED market

Risk of massive damage associated with IED that is characteristic of multiple technologies and new-age information systems propels demand for counter-IED systems

Counter-IED Market - Key Players

Some of the key players operating in the counter-IED market are Lockheed Martin Corporation, Raytheon Company, Allen-Vanguard, Harris Corporation, Thales Group, Chemring Technology Solutions, Northrop Grumman Corporation, Sierra Nevada Corporation, General Dynamics Corporation, L3 Technologies Inc., Parnisari Arms, and Elbit Systems Ltd.

Global Counter-IED Market: Segmentation

Counter-IED Market, by Solution

Detection

Ads-Above-Surface Detection System



Mids-Underground Mine and IED Detection System



Stand-Off IED Detector



Remote IED Detection Equipment

Countermeasure

Jammers



Neutralization

NIED

EOD

Counter-IED Market, by Deployment

Vehicle Mounted

Manned



Unmanned

Ship Mounted

Airborne Mounted

Aircraft



Aerostat



UAV

Handheld

Counter-IED Market, by End User

Military

Law Enforcement

Counter-IED Market, by Region

North America

South America

Europe

Asia Pacific (APAC)

(APAC) Middle East & Africa (MEA)

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WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - The United States on Wednesday recorded one of the highest daily death tolls in the country this year due to COVID.



With 2678 additional casualties reporting, the total number of the pandemic victims in the country reached 666,618, as per the latest data from Johns Hopkins University.



17135 new cases of coronavirus infections on the same day took the national total to 41,536,687.



The weekly average of coronavirus deaths has increased to 1,943, marking 37 percent rise in a fortnight, according to data compiled by New York Times.



Texas reported the most number of cases - 22,741 - and most COVID-related deaths - 417.



The number of people hospitalized due to coronavirus infection in the country has come down to 98,449, while 32,271,084 people have so far recovered from the disease.



As per the latest data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a total of 179,695,287 people, or 54.1 percent of the total population, have been fully vaccinated in the United States. This includes 82.6 percent of people above 65.



210,361,099 people, or 63.4 percent of the population, have received at least one dose.



A total of 382,294,795 vaccine doses have been administered so far nationally.



Meanwhile, in a meeting with U.S. Travel and Tourism Advisory Board, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo emphasized the importance of employers requiring proof of vaccination for employees. She urged the industry to think creatively about how to incentivize customers to get vaccinated in order to further accelerate the sector's recovery.



The Secretary charged TTAB with developing additional recommendations to inform a new National Travel and Tourism Strategy, including new visitors arriving to the U.S. and industry spending goals.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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- Automotive Applications to Account for More than One-Third of the Window Films Sales through 2031

- The latest study on the window films market conducted by Fact.MR provides insights into market size, dynamics, and taxonomy for the assessment period, from 2021 to 2031. The report reveals key factors fuelling the demand for window films across key market segments in terms of product type and application

NEW YORK, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- As per the latest insights from Fact.MR, the global window films market is estimated to expand at a CAGR of more than 5% during the forecast period, from 2021 to 2031.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the usage of window films improves the average energy consumption by preventing more than 30% of heat loss that takes place through doors and windows at offices and homes.

Window films assist in blocking ultraviolet (UV) rays, reducing glare, increasing energy efficiency of cooling systems and enhancing the aesthetic appeal of any building. Thus, several commercial property owners and homeowners are increasingly adopting window films, which is in turn is driving the market sales.

Recent advancements in window films technologies such as the launch of spectrally selective films and dual reflective are propelling the demand for window films across commercial and residential applications. Driven by this, the sales of window films are expected to rise by over 1.5X during the assessment period between 2021 and 2031.

Automotive applications are anticipated to account for over 1/3rd of the overall market share by the end of 2031, as per Fact.MR. Rapidly surging automotive production and increasing use of window films for preventing damages caused by flying shards are bolstering the demand across the segment.

"Window film associations such as the European Window Film Association (EWFA) and International Film Association (IFA) are creating a conducive environment for manufacturers by assisting them with knowledge transfer regarding the latest technology and government policies. Besides this, rising number of green building development projects and the construction of net-zero energy buildings will fuel opportunities for the growth of the market in the coming years," says a Fact.MR analyst.

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Key Takeaways from Window Film Market Study

North America market is projected to account for over 30% of the global sales, driven by increasing demand for window films from automotive applications.

market is projected to account for over 30% of the global sales, driven by increasing demand for window films from automotive applications. Favored by increasing number of green building development projects in China , Asia Pacific (APAC) market is expected to project rapid growth, expanding at a CAGR of 6% through 2031.

, (APAC) market is expected to project rapid growth, expanding at a CAGR of 6% through 2031. The market in Europe is forecast to hold more than 1/4 th of the total value share, owing to the presence of supportive association such as the European Window Film Association (EWFA).

is forecast to hold more than 1/4 of the total value share, owing to the presence of supportive association such as the European Window Film Association (EWFA). Sun control window films is predicted to account for over 2/5 th of market share, on the back of increasing use across automotive and commercial sectors.

of market share, on the back of increasing use across automotive and commercial sectors. Based on application, residential and commercial applications are estimated to collectively hold around 3/5th of the window films sales by 2031.

Key Drivers

Growing importance of energy consumption and conservation across the world is expected to spur the sales of window films.

Increasing investment towards construction of green and energy-efficient building across the U.S., China , and the U.K. will propel growth in the window films market.

, and the U.K. will propel growth in the window films market. Rising application of sun control and decorative window films across automotive and construction sector is driving the market.

Key Restraints

Implementation of stringent regulations regarding the use of sun tinted films across automotive sector is hampering sales of window films.

Constantly changing consumer preference due to adoption of new technologies and implementation of different rules and policies by different countries are posing challenges for market players.

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Competitive Landscape

As per Fact.MR, leading players in the landscape are 3M, Eastman Chemical Company, American Standard Window Film, Solar Gard Performance Plastics, Madico Inc, and Toray Plastics Inc. Key players in the market are focusing on adopting organic expansion strategies such as products developed and innovation. For instance,

In November 2021 , Suntuitive Dynamic Glass, an American company, announced introducing its new product, Suntuitive MonoLite, a dynamic glass, laced with intelligent window films. It is can be deployed in new and old infrastructures due to versatile in its applications.

, Suntuitive Dynamic Glass, an American company, announced introducing its new product, Suntuitive MonoLite, a dynamic glass, laced with intelligent window films. It is can be deployed in new and old infrastructures due to versatile in its applications. Glassware Suncontrol Ltd., Window Film Manufacturer & Window Security Film Suppliers in India, runs pilot plants for manufacturing UV curing films, Environmental Test Chambers, and Differential Scanning Calorimetry to enhance and develop new products.

Some of the key players in the window films market profiled by Fact.MR are:

3M

Eastman Chemical Company

American Standard Window Film

Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corporation (Solar Gard)

Madico, Inc.

Toray Plastics (America), Inc.

Hanita Coatings RCA Ltd. (Avery Dennison Israel Ltd.)

Johnson Window Films, Inc.

Armolan Window Films

Garware Suncontrol

Reflectiv Window Films

More Valuable Insights on Window Films Market

Fact.MR, in its new report, offers an unbiased analysis of the global window films market, analyzing forecast statistics through 2021 and beyond. The survey reveals growth projections on in window films market with detailed segmentation:

Product Type

Sun Control



Decorative



Security & Safety



Privacy



Polyurethane

Application

Automotive



Residential



Commercial



Marine



Others

Region

North America



Latin America



Europe



East Asia



South Asia & Oceania

& Oceania

Middle East & Africa

Key Questions Covered in the Window Films Market Report

The market survey also highlights projected sales growth for window films market between 2021 and 2031

The report offers insight into window films demand outlook for 2021-2031

Window films market share analysis of the key companies within the industry and coverage of strategies such as mergers & acquisitions, collaborations or partnerships, and others

Window films market analysis identifies key growth drivers, restraints, and other forces impacting prevailing trends and evaluation of current market size and forecast and technological advancements within the industry

Explore Fact.MR's Coverage on the Chemicals & Materials Domain

Polymer Seals Market - The expansion of the marine industry is expected to have a knock-on effect on demand for polymer seals. The combined growth of the aforementioned industries will drive significant growth in demand for polymer seals in the coming years. Following the initial setbacks of COVID-19, transportation and logistics, particularly the marine industry, have gained traction as a result of the extensive use of sea routes for the transportation of LNG, crude, and other materials.

Silyl Modified Polymers Market - The automotive and transportation industries are expected to increase demand for silyl modified polymers as manufacturers shift to plastics, composites, and nonferrous materials to reduce weight and build fuel-efficient vehicles. The effectiveness of sustainable bonding solutions across a variety of substrate materials will drive demand for silyl modified polymers (SMP) in complex industrial and consumer goods designs.

Container Glass Coatings Market - Rising demand for container glass coatings with high dry filling resistance is encouraging manufacturers to diversify their product portfolios in similar lines. Manufacturers are heavily investing in research and development in order to facilitate product development and innovation in response to changing customer needs and specifications. As the population grows, so will the demand for foods and beverages, which will have a direct impact on the growth of the glass containers and container glass coatings market.

About Fact.MR

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Cathay Africinvest Innovation leads round as company expands precision medicine capabilities across the African continent

WASHINGTON, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- 54gene , the health technology company advancing African genomics research for improved global health outcomes, has secured $25M in a Series B round, led by Cathay AfricInvest Innovation Fund . The round also included participation from Adjuvant Capital , KdT Ventures , Plexo Capital , Endeavor Capital , Ingressive Capital and others. This round brings the company's total investment to date to more than $45M since being founded in 2019.

The new capital raised will be deployed to expand 54gene's capabilities in sequencing, target identification and validation, and precision medicine clinical trials enabling drug discovery in Africa for both Africans and the global population. The new capital will also enable the company to begin its expansion across the African continent.

To help with this new expansion of its life science business, 54gene has made several strategic senior appointments:

Colm O'Dushlaine , Vice President - Genomics and Data Science, joins with over 18 years' experience in statistical genetics of large-scale datasets and was formerly at Regeneron Genetic Center and the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT.

, Vice President - Genomics and Data Science, joins with over 18 years' experience in statistical genetics of large-scale datasets and was formerly at Regeneron Genetic Center and the Broad Institute of and MIT. Peter Fekkes , Vice President - Drug Discovery, developed and led drug discovery programs at Novartis, FogPharma and H3 Biosciences.

, Vice President - Drug Discovery, developed and led drug discovery programs at Novartis, FogPharma and H3 Biosciences. Teresia Bost , General Counsel, joins with over 20 years' experience in healthcare where she's held various senior counsel roles at Celgene, was VP & Associate General Counsel at Jazz Pharmaceuticals, and General Counsel at Quartet Health.

General Counsel, joins with over 20 years' experience in healthcare where she's held various senior counsel roles at Celgene, was VP & Associate General Counsel at Jazz Pharmaceuticals, and General Counsel at Quartet Health. Jude Uzonwanne, Chief Business Officer, was formerly a partner at IQVIA, ZS Associates and held multiple roles at the Monitor Group, Bain and Company, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Dr. Abasi Ene-Obong, CEO, 54gene, commented: "It's truly incredible to witness the impact of African scientists in global research and it is critical to global health that this continues. We want to scale our contribution to global drug discovery by extensively developing life science capabilities on the continent and this additional capital will catalyse our endeavors."

Dr Ene-Obong continued: "In this round we have brought in partners that keep us true to our mission of equalizing healthcare and who can help us replicate our success throughout Africa. We believe the world will benefit from an African global drug discovery company that leverages the deep insights found in genomics research in diverse populations and ensures true equity for the African population. It's exciting to see our company shift into the next gear as it targets becoming one of the top global companies in genomics research."

54gene will also be expanding its genomics and molecular diagnostics division across Africa, ensuring that African patients get access to accurate diagnostics and enabling the application of precision medicine in the clinical setting throughout the continent. To lead this new business unit, the company has brought in Michelle Ephraim, as General Manager Diagnostics Pan-Africa. Michelle has held various sales leadership roles across Africa for Leica Biosystems, PerkinElmer, and Merck Millipore.

Yassine Oussaifi, Partner at Cathay AfricInvest, commented: "As a pioneer in genomic and precision medicine in Nigeria, 54gene has built a unique health technology platform leveraging African resources to unlock scientific discoveries for the benefit of African and global communities. At Cathay AfricInvest Innovation, we're dedicated to backing innovative, inclusive solutions that connect African technology and research with global innovation ecosystems to help them scale. 54gene works across drug discovery, molecular diagnostics and clinical trials, boosting access and affordability of various healthcare solutions that will have a positive impact worldwide. We look forward to working with the 54gene team on their development on the continent and beyond."

About 54gene:

54gene is a health technology company centered on advancing the field of African genomics to unlock scientific discoveries as well as improve diagnostic and treatment outcomes within Africa and the global community. Founded in 2019, the company generates genetic insights from research cohorts in the world's most diverse populations to improve the development, availability and efficacy of therapeutics and diagnostics that will prove beneficial to all populations.

About Cathay AfricInvest Innovation Fund:

Cathay AfricInvest Innovation Fund is the first early to growth-stage Pan-African Innovation fund connecting Africa with the world's leading innovation ecosystems. The Fund, a joint initiative between Cathay Innovation and AfricInvest, targets investments in start-ups or ventures (either local, regional or global) that leverage technology and innovative business models to respond to African socio-economic challenges, offering innovative products and services to the growing African population. AfricInvest is among the leading asset management firms for PE, VC and Private Credit in Africa having raised US$2bn since inception. Founded 27 years ago, AfricInvest has made over 170 investments in almost 30 countries across the African continent in a variety of sectors, contributing to significant socio-economic development thanks to revenue and profitability growth across its portfolio companies. Cathay Innovation is a global venture capital partnership, created in affiliation with Cathay Capital, investing in start-ups at the center of digital revolution across North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa. As a multistage fund with over $1.5bn in assets under management and offices across San Francisco, New York, Paris, Shanghai, Beijing and Singapore, Cathay Innovation partners with visionary entrepreneurs and start-ups positively impacting the world through technology. Visit: www.africinvest.com and www.cathayinnovation.com

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TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / September 16, 2021 / Nuinsco Resources Limited ("Nuinsco" or the "Company") (CSE:NWI) today announced that a ninth consecutive drill hole has produced an intersection of 100m or more of Critical Elements and phosphate mineralization at its 100%-owned Prairie Lake project near Terrace Bay, Ontario with the receipt of analyses producing a 118.7m intersection in DDH NP0808.

"The continued exceptional mineralized widths of rare earth elements, niobium, tantalum and phosphate encountered at the Prairie Lake project is more remarkable considering that the intersections commence at surface, with obvious positive implications for potential exploitation," said Paul Jones, Nuinsco's CEO. "The Prairie Lake project is exceptionally located from a logistical perspective further enhancing its value to the Company and shareholders; we will continue to aggressively evaluate the potential."

The mineralization of economic interest contained within the Prairie Lake intrusion occurs at surface and extends to unknown depths below the deepest drilling conducted to date (circa 500m vertically). There is no indication that mineralization diminishes with depth and the nine intersections from the program reported to date occur over an interval of 530m, oriented southeast-northwest, in the Southwest ("SW") Area (see map below). The Prairie Lake complex hosts a suite of elements of economic interest identified as Critical Elements defined under the Canadian Minerals and Metals Plan ("CMMP") contained within the very large domain of mineralized rock that is extremely favourably located from a logistical perspective with rail, road, shipping, and power infrastructure already established. Prairie Lake hosts a number of elements and compounds of economic interest including those for which demand is projected to substantially increase and for which secure supply chains are sought.

Analytical results from the 118.7 metres of continuous mineralization (from 6.3-125m) of niobium (Nb), tantalum (Ta), phosphate (P2O5), and rare earth elements (REE) including lanthanum (La), cerium (Ce), samarium (Sm), neodymium (Nd) and yttrium (Y) - analytical results are tabulated below. Eighteen drill-holes have been sampled to date as part of the program, focussing on drill-holes collared to intercept the SW area which measures 1km in length and is between 150m and 750m wide at surface. The SW area alone hosts 435-530 million tonnes of the total 515-630 million tonne ET, with grades as tabulated in the "Prairie Lake ET" table below.

Hole ID From

(m) To

(m) Width

(m) Rock

Type* P2O5

(%) Nb2O5

(%) Ta2O5

(%) Y

(g/t) La

(g/t) Ce

(g/t) Nd

(g/t) Sm

(g/t) REE

(g/t) New intersections: NP0808 27.27 44 16.73 CRBT 4.25 0.053 0.003 113 404 979 534 95 2125 48.06 59 10.94 CRBT 4.92 0.023 0.002 118 415 1015 566 103 2217 65 75 10 CRBT 3.20 0.055 0.002 88 312 671 330 59 1460 88.2 103.18 14.98 PYX 1.25 0.086 0.005 44 203 475 246 46 1014 116.67 125 8.33 CRBT 3.25 0.025 0.002 72 294 613 290 49 1317 Combined extended intersection: NP0808 6.3 125 118.7 3.70 0.073 0.0031 94 345 832 397 75 1743

Principal rock type: CRBT=carbonatite; IJ-PYX BX = breccia with crbt matrix & ijolite or pyroxenite clasts; MEL-IJ = melano-ijolite.

REE = Sum of Y, La, Ce, Nd, Sm; Y - yttrium, La - lanthanum, Ce - cerium, Nd - neodymium, Sm - samarium.

P2O5 - phosphate, Nb2O5 - niobium oxide, Ta2O5 - tantalum oxide, 1g/t = 1 ppm

The Prairie Lake project consists of 46 mineral claims covering an area of ~630 ha. Prairie Lake is superbly located, easily accessed by an all-weather road from the TransCanada Highway located 28 kilometres to the south. The ET is defined by 59 diamond drill holes.

All samples were analysed by Activation Laboratories (ActLabs) in Ancaster, Ontario. Samples were analysed for a whole rock and trace element ICP analytical package as well as for niobium, tantalum, and zirconium oxides using a fusion XRF method. An internal Quality Control Quality Assurance (QAQC) program was implemented with four QAQC samples (blanks and reference standards) added into the sampling stream.

Prairie Lake Drilling & Trenching by Target Area1:

SW Jim's Showing East NE Other Areas Total Historic Drill Holes (1969-1983) Drill Holes 16 11 1 0 17 45 Metres 1351.7 938.4 34.1 0 1528.5 3852.7 Drill Holes (2007-2010) Drill Holes 21 10 0 0 1 32 Metres 6632 1692.4 0 0 101 8425.4 Trenches (2010) Trenching 1 0 2 2 0 5 Metres 377.7 0 433.0 754.55 0 1562.2

1 Trench lengths are calculated as cumulative length of samples along trench.

Prairie Lake ET2:

SW Jim's Showing East NE Total REEs La (ppm) Lanthanum 275 - 340 295 - 360 305 - 370 200 - 250 280 - 340 Ce (ppm) Cerium 650 - 790 670 - 820 670 - 820 450 - 550 650 - 790 Sm (ppm) Samarium 55 - 70 55 - 70 55 - 70 50 - 60 55 - 70 Nd (ppm) Neodymium 295 - 360 290 - 360 320 - 390 235 - 290 300 - 360 Y (ppm) Yttrium 85 - 100 90 - 110 80 - 100 135 - 170 85 - 100 La+Ce+Sm+Nd+Y (ppm) 1360 - 1660 1400 - 1720 1430 - 1750 1070 - 1320 1370 - 1660 Additional Elements (as oxides) P2O5 (%) Phosphate 3.0 - 4.0 3.5 - 4.5 2.5 - 3.0 2.5 - 3.5 3.0 - 4.0 Nb2O5 (%) Niobium 0.095 - 0.115 0.100 - 0.120 0.040 - 0.050 0.085 - 0.105 0.090 - 0.110 Ta2O5 (ppm) Tantalum 18 - 25 25 - 30 5 - 7 10 - 12 18 - 21 Volume - m3 (million) 140 - 175 12 - 14 13 - 16 2 - 3 170 - 210 Tonnes (million) 435 - 530 35 - 45 40 - 50 7 - 8 515 - 630

2 A full description of methodology used to estimate the Prairie Lake Project Exploration Target is contained in the Technical Report dated 30 November 2018 prepared by P&E Mining Consultants Inc. that is filed on SEDAR. The potential quantity and grade of the ET is conceptual in nature and there has been insufficient exploration to define a mineral resource. It is uncertain if further exploration will result in the discovery of a mineral resource. There is no National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects preliminary economic assessment in respect of the Prairie Lake ET.

Laura Giroux, P.Geo, Chief Geologist, acts as Nuinsco's Qualified Person under National Instrument 43-101. Ms. Giroux has reviewed and approved the technical contents of this news release.

About Nuinsco Resources Limited

Nuinsco Resources has over 50 years of exploration success and is a growth-oriented, multi-commodity mineral exploration and development company focused on prospective opportunities in Canada and internationally. Currently the Company has four properties in Ontario - the high-grade Sunbeam gold property near Atikokan, the Dash Lake gold property near Terrace Bay, the large multi-commodity (rare-earths, niobium, tantalum, phosphate) Prairie Lake project near Terrace Bay, and the Zig Zag Lake property (lithium, tantalum) near Armstrong. In addition, Nuinsco has an agreement for gold exploitation at the El Sid project in the Eastern Desert of Egypt.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains certain "forward-looking statements." All statements, other than statements of historic fact, that address activities, events or developments that Nuinsco believes, expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as "seek," "anticipate," "believe," "plan," "estimate, "expect," and "intend" and statements that an event or result "may," "will," "can," "should," "could," or "might" occur or be achieved and other similar expressions. These forward-looking statements reflect the current expectations or beliefs of Nuinsco based on information currently available to Nuinsco. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that may cause the actual results of Nuinsco to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements, and even if such actual results are realized or substantially realized, there can be no assurance that they will have the expected consequences to, or effects on Nuinsco. Factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations include, among other things, failure to successfully complete financings, capital and other costs varying significantly from estimates, production rates varying from estimates, changes in world copper and/or gold markets, changes in equity markets, uncertainties relating to the availability and costs of financing needed in the future, equipment failure, unexpected geological conditions, imprecision in resource estimates, success of future development initiatives, competition, operating performance of facilities, environmental and safety risks, delays in obtaining or failure to obtain tenure to properties and/or necessary permits and approvals, and other development and operating risks. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it is made and, except as may be required by applicable securities laws, Nuinsco disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise. Although Nuinsco believes that the assumptions inherent in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and accordingly undue reliance should not be put on such statements due to the inherent uncertainty therein.

To learn more, please visit www.nuinsco.ca or contact:

Paul Jones, CEO

paul.jones@nuinsco.ca

Sean Stokes, Executive VP

sean.stokes@nuinsco.ca

Cathy Hume, Consultant

cathy@chfir.com

Instagram: @nuinscoresources

Twitter: @NWIResources

SOURCE: Nuinsco Resources Limited

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/664373/Nuinsco-Announces-the-Ninth-Consecutive-Intersection-of-More-than-100m-of-Continuous-Critical-Elements-Phosphate-Mineralization-at-Prairie-Lake
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Ottawa, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - September 16, 2021) - KWESST Micro Systems Inc. (TSXV: KWE) (OTCQB: KWEMF) ("KWESST" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the closing of a non-brokered private placement of 750,000 units at a price of $2.00 per unit, for aggregate gross proceeds to KWESST of $1.5 million.

"The financing was provided by two investors namely a financial institution which is already a shareholder of KWESST and sought to increase its position and one new strategic investor," said Executive Chairman David Luxton. "This comes at a time when we are ramping up go-to market efforts on all fronts, especially for our non-lethal cartridge-based firing platform called the Low Energy Cartridge system. The Low Energy Cartridge system's official commercial launch will take place at the January 2022 SHOT Show in Las Vegas."

Each of the 750,000 units is comprised of one common share and one common share purchase warrant (the "Warrants"). Each Warrant entitles its holder to acquire one additional common share of KWESST at a price of $2.35 for a period of 24 months from the closing date. In the event that the closing price of the common shares of KWESST on the TSX Venture Exchange ("TSXV") is at least $4.60 for a period of not less than 3 consecutive trading days, the Warrants will expire, at the sole discretion of KWESST, on the 30th day after the date on which KWESST sends a notice in prescribed form to the holders of the Warrants.

In connection with the private placement, KWESST paid cash commissions to Haywood Securities Inc. in an amount of $90,000. In addition, KWESST granted finders' options to Haywood Securities Inc. entitling them to acquire up to an aggregate of 45,000 additional common shares of KWESST at a price of $2.00 per share for a period of 24 months.

As a result of the closing of the private placement, there are 48,635,013 common shares of KWESST issued and outstanding. Under applicable securities legislation, the securities issued in the private placement are subject to a four-month hold period, expiring on January 16, 2022.

The securities described herein have not been, and will not be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"), or any state securities laws, and accordingly, may not be offered or sold within the United States except in compliance with the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities requirements or pursuant to exemptions therefrom. This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy any securities in any jurisdiction.

About KWESST

KWESST develops and commercializes breakthrough next-generation tactical systems that meet the requirements of security forces and personal defense for overmatch capability against adversaries. The company's current portfolio of unique proprietary offerings include its unique non-lethal Low Energy Cartridge (LEC) system with application across all segments of the non-lethal market, including law enforcement and personal defence. KWESST is also involved in the digitization of tactical forces for shared situational awareness and targeting with its signature TASCSTM (Tactical Awareness and Situational Control System) for real-time awareness and targeting information from any source (including drones) streamed directly to users' smart devices and weapons. Other KWESST products include counter-measures against threats such as drones, lasers and electronic detection. These include the autonomous GreyGhostTM soldier-portable micro drone missile system that defends against small hostile drones including swarms using high-speed kinetic impact; a Ground Laser Defence system to counter the emerging threat of weaponized lasers against personnel and the PhantomTM electronic battlefield decoy system to mask the electromagnetic signature of friendly forces with decoy signatures at false locations to deceive and confuse adversaries. These systems can operate stand-alone or integrate seamlessly with OEM products and battlefield management systems. The Company is headquartered in Ottawa, Canada, with representative offices in Washington, DC, London, UK and Abu Dhabi, UAE. KWESST trades on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol KWE and on the U.S. OTCQB under the symbol KWEMF.

Contact: Jason Frame, Investor Relations: frame@kwesst.com

For more information, please visit https://kwesst.com/

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This news release includes certain "forward-looking statements" under applicable Canadian securities legislation for the purpose of providing information about management's current expectations and plans relating to the future. Forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable, are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results and future events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, but are not limited to: general business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. KWESST disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/96731
Flight Demonstrates Safety of UAS Flights in Civil Airspace

LOSSIEMOUTH, Scotland, Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The UK's Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) for the first time approved a point-to-point domestic flight of an unmanned aircraft that utilized the UK's airways structure when General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) flew its MQ-9B SeaGuardian Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) from Lincolnshire, England, to Moray, Scotland, on Sept. 12, 2021. The GA-ASI-owned RPA flew from Royal Air Force (RAF) Waddington to RAF Lossiemouth and the SeaGuardian flight was controlled by NATS, the UK's civilian Air Navigation Service Provider.

"The Airspace Coordination Notice issued by the CAA for this series of demonstration flights in UK airspace is the largest and most meticulous we have ever produced so that the airspace integration of SeaGuardian is at the highest level of safety," said Tom Gratton, CAA Airspace Regulator.

"We appreciate the cooperation and collaboration with the CAA and NATS in helping to move the industry forward," said GA-ASI Vice President of International Strategic Development Robert Schoeffling. "This successful flight paves the way not only for future operations of Protector in UK airspace, but also for other civil and commercial UAS flights."

Protector RG Mk1 is the RAF's designation for the RPA they have ordered from GA-ASI that is based on the MQ-9B. The GA-ASI-owned, civil-registered aircraft that made this groundbreaking flight is operating from RAF airfields as part of an ongoing set of demonstrations being conducted by GA-ASI for the RAF.

According to NATS, the flight was controlled through more complex airspace than any previous UAS flights in the UK. "This flight required that we transfer control between multiple civil airspace sectors," said Mark Watson, Head of Unmanned Aircraft Systems Traffic Management (UTM) Service Integration for NATS. "The procedures for this flight were close to what we do already with conventional crewed aircraft. This helped us validate that our existing methods of control are equally applicable to controlling remotely crewed aircraft - when the aircraft performs like SeaGuardian."

Among the capabilities on display is GA-ASI's revolutionary Detect and Avoid (DAA) system, a safety and situational awareness enhancement designed to support Protector's flight in non-segregated UK airspace, as well as the platform's capability to integrate into broader European airspace. DAA will enable Protector to operate amongst normal aviation traffic in the UK's national airspace, unlike any other aircraft in its class. The demonstration flights are also assisting RAF Waddington, the future home of the RAF Protector Force, to prepare and integrate the new aircraft into its daily operations.

The demos continue until the end of September with the completion of Exercise Joint Warrior. The goal of the flight series has been to showcase the many operational capabilities of the MQ-9B, including the platform's advanced maritime Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR), industry-leading endurance, and interoperability with NATO partners.

SeaGuardian is the maritime version of the MQ-9B SkyGuardian. The RAF has ordered 16 Protector RG Mk1 RPA systems (https://www.ga-asi.com/ga-asi-and-uk-mod-exercise-contract-for-additional-13-protector-rpas) as part of its Protector program.

About GA-ASI

General Atomics-Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI), an affiliate of General Atomics, is a leading designer and manufacturer of proven, reliable remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) systems, radars, and electro-optic and related mission systems, including the Predator RPA series and the Lynx Multi-mode Radar. With more than six million flight hours, GA-ASI provides long-endurance, mission-capable aircraft with integrated sensor and data link systems required to deliver persistent flight that enables situational awareness and rapid strike. The company also produces a variety of ground control stations and sensor control/image analysis software, offers pilot training and support services, and develops meta-material antennas. For more information, visit www.ga-asi.com (http://www.ga-asi.com/).

Avenger, Lynx, Predator, SeaGuardian and SkyGuardian are registered trademarks of General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc.

# # #

GA-ASI Media Relations

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc.

+1 (858) 524-8101

ASI-MediaRelations@ga-asi.com (mailto:ASI-MediaRelations@ga-asi.com)

Related Images





(https://cdn.newswire.com/files/x/a3/90/b434ad7314a66dbe8a42d02e7209.jpg)





Image 1: MQ-9B SeaGuardian at Lossiemouth (https://cdn.newswire.com/files/x/a3/90/b434ad7314a66dbe8a42d02e7209.jpg)





SeaGuardian flew from Royal Air Force (RAF) Waddington to RAF Lossiemouth and the SeaGuardian flight was controlled by NATS, the UK's civilian Air Navigation Service Provider.









This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com (https://www.newswire.com/).

Attachment
PHOENIX, AZ / ACCESSWIRE / September 16, 2021 / Hiru Corp. (the "Company" or "HIRU") (OTC PINK:HIRU) - HIRU would like to announce that is has again become "Pink Sheet Current" with OTC Markets, Inc. ("OTC Markets"). The Company was required to file an amended 2nd Quarter Disclosure Statement for June 30, 2021 ("Amended Filing") which was filed on September 1, 2021.

Kathryn Gavin (HIRU Sole Officer and Director) stated: "We are pleased to current with OTC Markets again. As stated before, the sole item that started this amendment process was a date change in the issued and outstanding disclosed on the initial page. Moving forward, our team will be very careful to make sure each mandatory quarterly filing with OTC Markets is perfect."

The Company's next required quarterly filing is for 3rd Quarter ended September 30, 2021, which is not due until on or before November 14, 2021, which will be followed by the Company's fiscal year end, December 31, 2021, disclosure statement filing (e.g., and financial statements and notes thereto) due on or before March 31, 2022.

Kathryn Gavin (HIRU Sole Officer and Director) further stated: "Now that we no longer have to deal with the Amended Filing with OTC Markets, we are ready to start announcing to the public the full completion of our new state of the art facility and as more importantly, the new clients we have brought on board to drive revenue that were the main reason for the required expansion. Over the coming weeks, we will be announcing the names of these new clients, the types of products we will be producing for them, the size of current purchase orders with these clients, and our expectations with regards to how these items will affect revenues on a quarterly basis moving forward. We are definitely excited for the future of the Company and its shareholders. As I have stated before, all of our corporate actions and decision making is done with an eye to maximizing shareholder value."

Disclaimer Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements that we make may constitute "forward-looking statements" under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements include information concerning future?strategic objectives, business prospects, anticipated savings, financial results (including expenses, earnings, liquidity, cash flow and capital expenditures), industry or market conditions, demand for and pricing of our products, acquisitions and divestitures, anticipated results of litigation and regulatory developments or general economic conditions.? In addition, words such as "believes," "expects," "anticipates," "intends," "plans," "estimates," "projects," "forecasts," and future or conditional verbs such as "will," "may," "could," "should," and "would," as well as any other statement that necessarily depends on future events, are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees, and they involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. ?Although we make such statements based on assumptions that we believe to be reasonable, there can be no assurance that actual results will not differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements.? We caution investors not to rely unduly on any forward-looking?statements.

ABOUT US

Hiru Corp. is a Georgia corporation, is a public quoted Pink Sheet issuer under the ticker symbol "HIRU" (the "Company"). The Company reports as an alternative reporting issuer with OTC Markets Group, Inc. and is current in its mandatory required filings (e.g., Pink Sheet Current). Currently, the Company has one wholly owned, operational subsidiary, AZ Custom Bottled Water, Inc., a Nevada corporation ("AZ Water"), which owns and operates a commercial water bottling and labeling facility based in Phoenix, Arizona. AZ Water operates a B2C website at https://azcustombottledwater.com/.

CONTACT:

3331 North 35th Avenue

Phoenix, Arizona 95107

Web Site: www.waterandiceshop.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/hirucorp

Phone: 928-408-4486

Email: info@waterandiceshop.com

Contact: Kathryn Gavin, CEO

SOURCE: Hiru Corp.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/664382/Hiru-Corp--OTC-Market-Current
Regulatory News:

AKKA Technologies (Paris:AKA) (BSE:AKA) (ISIN:FR0004180537), European leader in engineering consultancy and R&D services in the mobility sector, expands its presence in Leipzig with the establishment of a new 'Digital Center of Excellence' (DCE). Creating 250 new jobs for highly qualified local professionals, the center will respond to the rapidly increasing demand for digital expertise in the region.

With this Digital Center of Excellence AKKA accelerates digital innovation projects and actively drives the digital transformation of its customers, offering highly innovative solutions in the areas of cloud architecture, software development and testing, embedded software development, AI, machine learning and data analytics.

The German AKKAdemy, based in Leipzig since 2019, which offers top talents and experienced engineers the latest training programs, will also be moving to the same newly created location. This spatial unification creates a competence center that is unique in Germany. With this significant investment, AKKA underlines the high strategic importance of Leipzig as a business location and supports the city's development into the "Digital Hub of the East", strengthening the digital research and development landscape in Saxony. The Free State of Saxony is funding the Digital Center of Excellence with 2.6 million as part of "GRW" (Gemeinschaftsaufgabe "Verbesserung der regionalen Wirtschaftsstruktur") geared towards the improvement of regional economic structure.

The new 1000m2 location, boasting its own atrium, workshop and relaxation rooms as well as state-of-the-art IT equipment, will offer top graduates and engineers a modern office space and flexible workplace concepts. This attractive working environment at Alte Messe Leipzig constitutes an ideal setting for collaborative development projects.

"We are responding to the current pressure to innovate from our customers in the field of digitalization by creating a unique Center of Excellence in Leipzig. We clearly see a growing need for expertise and advice. We offer our customers precisely the expertise they need to scale their digital transformation. With this Digital Center of Excellence, we aim to capitalize on the steadily growing demand in the region. This expertise will be available to all teams within the AKKA Group, in Germany as well as internationally", emphasizes Dr. Peter Mehrle, AKKA CEO BU Germany.

"To drive digitization forward in Germany, we need qualified specialists. Young engineers in particular must be prepared for processes of digital transformation. With its Digital Center of Excellence, AKKA contributes to the Smart Industry, supports the recruitment and training of skilled workers and ensures know-how and knowledge transfer", says Thomas Jarzombek, Commissioner for the Digital Industry and Start-ups and Federal Government Coordinator of German Aerospace Policy.

Ines Frohlich, State Secretary of the Saxon Ministry of Economy, Labour and Transport states: "I warmly welcome AKKA to the Free State of Saxony. The decision to open a new location in Leipzig proves once again how attractive Saxony is for innovative companies dedicated to digital transformation and the development of future-proof innovative technologies in the immediate environment of renowned customers. AKKA will find excellent conditions, corresponding cooperation opportunities and the necessary business exchange in one of the most dynamic cities in Germany. This new settlement will further advance the business and science location and in particular its digital ecosystem, which is now recognized nationwide

"Leipzig attracts highly qualified people from Central Germany and beyond because Leipzig is a city worth living in: green, with affordable rents and short distances. This is a significant location factor for high-tech companies. I am delighted that AKKA has chosen Leipzig as the location for its Center of Excellence and will thus become an important player in the "Alte Messe" Leipzig research and development environment", says Clemens Schulke, acting head of the Leipzig City Department of Economics, Labor and Digital Affairs.

ABOUT AKKA

AKKA is a European leader in engineering consulting and R&D services. Our comprehensive portfolio of digital solutions combined with our expertise in engineering, uniquely positions us to support our clients by leveraging the power of connected data to accelerate innovation and drive the future of smart industry. AKKA accompanies leading industry players across a wide range of sectors throughout the life cycle of their products with cutting edge digital technologies (AI, ADAS, IoT, Big Data, robotics, embedded computing, machine learning, etc.) to help them rethink their products and business processes. Founded in 1984, AKKA has a strong entrepreneurial culture and a wide global footprint. Our 20,000 employees around the world are all passionate about technology and share the AKKA values of respect, courage and ambition. The Group recorded revenues of 1.5 billion in 2020. AKKA Technologies (AKA) is listed on Euronext Paris and Brussels segment B ISIN code: FR0004180537.

For more information, please visit: https://www.akka-technologies.com/

Follow us on: https://twitter.com/AKKA_Tech

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005686/en/

Contacts:

Stephanie Bia

Group Communications Investor Relations Director

Tel: +33(0) 6 47 85 98 78

stephanie.bia@akka.eu
RAUBLING, Germany and LYON, France, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- PharmaZell, the German producer of highly resilient and specialty APIs, and France-based Novasep, a leading CDMO focused on complex small molecules and ADCs have entered into exclusive negotiations to create a leading European platform in the attractive API manufacturing and CDMO space with a complementary set of differentiated technologies and highly diversified base of blue-chip pharma and biotech customers.

Novasep is a leading CDMO player developing and manufacturing complex small molecules predominantly for pharma and biotech customers. The company leverages a wide range of differentiated technologies including high energy and cryogenic chemistries and industrial scale chromatography. It is a world leader in ADC and HPAPI, fast-growing targeted cancer therapy segments.

Novasep's capabilities are highly complementary to PharmaZell's expertise in the manufacturing of complex APIs requiring special handling procedures or technologies. Combining the two businesses would create a leading, highly diversified, and highly differentiated API manufacturing and CDMO platform. The combined business would be able to draw from a comprehensive and broad technology suite for complex molecules and a global production footprint to support pharma and biotech customers over the complete lifecycle of a drug. The combined business would generate nearly 500m of revenues and employ close to 2,000 employees across seven production and R&D sites in Europe (Germany, France and Italy), two sites in India and one in the US.

The proposed transaction would be backed by PharmaZell's current majority shareholder Bridgepoint. Bridgepoint Group PLC is the world's leading quoted private assets growth investor focused on the middle-market with 27 billion AUM and a local presence in the US, Europe and China.

The proposed acquisition remains subject to the fulfilment of customary conditions precedent for this type of transaction including the information and consultation of works councils and other regulatory approvals.

The Press release is available in pdf.

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1628012/Novasep_PharmaZell.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1628011/Novasep_Passion_Smart_Processes_Logo.jpg

PDF - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1628027/PharmaZell_Novasep_ENG.pdf

Contact details:

press@novasep.com
BOULDER, Colo., BERLIN, DELHI, India and LAGOS, Nigeria, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- US-headquartered Odyssey Energy Solutions, Inc is today announcing its acquisition of the German remote monitoring and control technology company, Ferntech GmbH.

This cements Odyssey's position as the distributed infrastructure sector's leading end-to-end investment and asset management platform. It is now supporting investors, developers, operators, and governments across the complete project lifecycle by adding new capabilities for project operations.

Emily McAteer, CEO and Co-Founder, Odyssey, says, "We're delighted about the acquisition of Ferntech and the opportunity it presents to expand the toolkit we offer our clients and users. We've successfully worked with the Ferntech team and their technology for several years. The acquisition significantly advances our mission to enable streamlined development, financing, and operations of distributed infrastructure projects at scale."

Odyssey has become the go to platform for investors and governments making investments in the distributed renewable energy market and is currently facilitating flow of funds totalling over US$900 million.

McAteer says, "Odyssey has proven the value of its platform to catalyse investment into the distributed energy sector. We are excited to now offer an integrated and industry-leading product for efficient operations and maintenance."

Ferntech's remote monitoring and control solution includes hardware and software technologies to collect, analyse, and act on granular system data. Operators need fewer trips to site and can reduce operational and maintenance costs by 30%. Standardised control algorithms also make systems smarter, improving productivity and reducing downtime by up to 10%.

Ferntech, founded in Berlin in 2016, has deployed its solutions in over 15 countries across five continents. It is recognised as an innovator in monitoring hardware and analytics, due to its ability to work across nearly any technology.

Patrick Cousins, VP Customer Success, Odyssey and former CEO, Ferntech, says, "Joining the Odyssey family is a fantastic development for us. We know we work well together and have a shared ambition to transform how we can use data to scale low carbon infrastructure at a lower cost."

Global net zero emissions targets are driving a rush into low carbon infrastructure. OECD calculates that USD 6.3 trillion of annual investment in infrastructure is needed until 2030 in energy, transport, water, and telecommunications infrastructure, to sustain growth. Decentralised assets are increasingly seen as solutions to the cost and resilience issues that affect large, centralised projects.

McAteer concludes, "We are seeing a rapid increase in investment in distributed infrastructure projects, and the sector has enormous potential. We have built the team and technologies required to make Odyssey's end-to-end investment and asset management platform exactly what the sector needs to achieve this potential."

www.odysseyenergysolutions.com

Commercial enquiries: Piyush Mathur, Chief Business Officer, piyush@odysseyenergysolutions.com

Media enquiries: Donald Ouma, Levanter Africa, +254 783 481 975, douma@levanterafrica.com

About Odyssey

Odyssey provides software, hardware and data tools to finance, build and operate distributed infrastructure projects at scale. It is the distributed energy sector's only end-to-end investment and asset management platform, used by over 1,000 governments, financiers, developers and operators. It is headquartered in Boulder, Colorado and has offices in Delhi, Lagos and Berlin.
Composite grab sampling returns 2.37% Li2O

Thunder Bay, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - September 16, 2021) - Benton Resources Inc. (TSXV: BEX) ("Benton") and Sokoman Minerals Corp. (TSXV: SIC) (OTCQB: SICNF) ("Sokoman") (together, "the Alliance") are pleased to announce analyses for 35 of 58 follow-up samples from the recently discovered swarm of Lithium-bearing pegmatite dikes on the Golden Hope Joint Venture Project in southwestern Newfoundland. The 35 grab and chip samples were collected over a 1 km2 area over the swarm of poorly-exposed pegmatite and aplite dykes. The follow-up sampling has confirmed that the pegmatites carry significant Lithium values, the first significant occurrence of Lithium documented in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.

31.4% of the samples gave values >1% Li 2 O

O The Lithium-bearing samples were taken over a poorly-exposed pegmatite swarm covering 1 km 2

Additional results are pending (23 samples) along a 1 km strike of pegmatites

Lithium, Beryllium, Cesium, Rubidium and Tantalum values were located 2 km to the west of the initial discovery

Of the 35 samples, 11 gave values greater than 1% Li 2 O with three greater than 2% Li 2 O, and a high of 2.37% Li 2 O. The dominant Lithium-bearing mineral appears to be spodumene (LiAl(SiO 3 ) 2 ) which occurs as clusters of elongated prismatic crystals up to 5-cm-long in a grey-white matrix of glassy quartz and feldspar and a pale-green to white mica (see photo of sample 361716). Multiple samples from the aplite dikes give highly-anomalous Cesium (17 ppm to 508 ppm Cs), Rubidium (226 ppm to 1310 ppm Rb) and Tantalum (5 ppm to 179 ppm Ta), typical of evolved pegmatite swarms. Samples 361715-718 were a series of 0.5 m2 composite samples from the discovery outcrop that measures 10m x 3m and is 100% pegmatite. The dike margins are overburden covered and actual width of the dike is not known. All other samples were taken over the broader mineralized area. The following table gives the results for the composite samples and other higher-grade Li values from the area.

Summary of Significant Results (>500 ppm Li) Sample Li ppm* Conversion % Li 2 O 361715 1.10% 2.153 2.37 361716 8450 2.153 1.82 361717 7030 2.153 1.51 361718 5550 2.153 1.19 361725 9950 2.153 2.14 361726 4080 2.153 0.88 717102 3240 2.153 0.70 717103 1.01% 2.153 2.17 717104 5290 2.153 1.14 717105 7190 2.153 1.55 717106 6450 2.153 1.39 717107 3390 2.153 0.73 717110 734 2.153 0.16 717111 1080 2.153 0.23 717112 7240 2.153 1.56 717113 8410 2.153 1.81



* Li shown as ppm except where noted as %









Spodumene crystals in Sample 361716 (1.82% Li 2 O)

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/3657/96784_a898e1efb4b52bc8_003full.jpg

The Alliance also discovered high-grade Beryllium values with 2 grab samples grading >5000 ppm Be, with others ranging from 6 ppm to >5000 ppm Be, with associated anomalous Lithium, Cesium, Rubidium and Tantalum values. These samples, mineralogy unknown, are located approximately 2 km to the west of the Li discovery, providing further evidence that it is an evolved pegmatite system. Additional samples, taken up to 1,000 m along strike, have been submitted for analysis and are pending.





Map outlining Golden Hope Project Pegmatite Sampling

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/3657/96784_a898e1efb4b52bc8_004full.jpg

Samples were submitted to Actlabs in Ancaster, Ontario for analysis by Sodium Peroxide Fusion ICPOES + ICPMS.

Benton's President and CEO Stephen Stares states: "The discovery of this new Lithium, Beryllium, Cesium, Tantalum and Rubidium mineralization in Newfoundland continues to show the Island's vast potential. Although this is the first discovery of Lithium in Newfoundland, the geological environment and setting to discover these types of large systems have already been proven and discovered in the Appalachian belt. This includes the important deposits held by Piedmont Lithium Inc in the Carolinas, eastern US, as well as the geologically equivalent Avalonia Project being advanced by Ganfeng Lithium in the Caledonides of Ireland. Benton and Sokoman will use these deposits for synergies and modeling as we advance this new discovery towards drilling."

Sokoman's President and CEO Tim Froude adds: "We are very pleased to have unequivocally verified high-grade Lithium mineralization at Golden Hope, the first such significant occurrence in Newfoundland. While still early days, significant Lithium mineralization in similar geological settings, elsewhere in the greater Appalachian belt, bodes well for the potential of this discovery to be of significance to our shareholders. While continuing to explore the pegmatites for Li and associated elements, the claims were originally staked for gold and we are presently processing and merging our recently-flown airborne data with pre-existing data to highlight gold targets on the 750 sq km property."

The Alliance has completed a 5,709 line-km Heliborne, High-Resolution, Aeromagnetic & Matrix Digital VLF-EM Survey, flown by Terraquest Ltd. The survey will provide the structural/ lithological setting to help identify gold-bearing structure extensions, as well as any unrecognized structures including those potentially related to the Lithium-bearing pegmatites.

QP

This news release has been reviewed and approved by Timothy Froude, P.Geo., President and CEO of Sokoman Minerals Corp., and Nathan Sims, P.Geo., Senior Exploration Manager for Benton Resources Inc., both the 'Qualified Person' under National Instrument 43-101.

COVID-19 Protocols

To ensure a working environment that protects the health and safety of the staff and contractors, Sokoman and Benton are operating under federally and provincially mandated and recommended guidelines during the current COVID-19 alert level.

About Sokoman Minerals Corp.

Sokoman Minerals Corp. is a discovery-oriented company with projects in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The Company's primary focus is its portfolio of gold projects: flagship, 100%-owned Moosehead, Crippleback Lake (optioned to Trans Canada Gold Corp.) and East Alder (optioned to Canterra Minerals Corporation) along the Central Newfoundland Gold Belt, and the district-scale Fleur de Lys project in northwestern Newfoundland, that is targeting Dalradian-type orogenic gold mineralization similar to the Curraghinalt and Cavanacaw deposits in Northern Ireland, and Cononish in Scotland. The company also recently entered into a strategic alliance with Benton Resources Inc. through three large-scale joint-venture properties including Grey River Gold, Golden Hope and Kepenkeck in Newfoundland. Sokoman now controls independently and through the Benton alliance over 150,000 hectares (>6,000 claims - 1,500 sq. km), making it one of the largest landholders in Newfoundland, Canada's newest and rapidly-emerging gold districts. The company also retains an interest in an early-stage antimony/gold project (Startrek) in Newfoundland, optioned to White Metal Resources Inc., and in Labrador, the Company has a 100%-interest in the Iron Horse (Fe) project that has Direct Shipping Ore (DSO) potential.

About Benton Resources Inc.

Benton Resources Inc. is a well-funded mineral exploration company listed on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol BEX. Following a project generation business model, Benton has a diversified, highly-prospective property portfolio in Gold, Silver, Nickel, Copper, and Platinum Group Elements and currently holds large equity positions in other mining companies that are advancing high-quality assets. Whenever possible, BEX retains Net Smelter Return (NSR) royalties for potential long-term cash flow. Benton has also recently entered into a 50/50 strategic alliance with Sokoman Minerals Corp. (TSXV: SIC) through three large-scale joint venture properties including Grey River, Golden Hope and Kepenkeck in Newfoundland that are now being explored.

For further information, please contact:

CHF Capital Markets

Cathy Hume, CEO

Phone: 416-868-1079 x251

Email: cathy@chfir.com

Sokoman Minerals Corp.

Timothy Froude, P.Geo., President & CEO

Phone: 709-765-1726

Email: tim@sokomanmineralscorp.com

Benton Resources Inc.

Stephen Stares, President & CEO

Phone: 807-475-7474

Email: sstares@bentonresources.ca

Website: www.bentonresources.ca, www.sokomanmineralscorp.com

Twitter: @BentonResources, @SokomanMinerals

Facebook: @BentonResourcesBEX, @SokomanMinerals

LinkedIn: @BentonResources, @SokomanMinerals

THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE HAS NOT REVIEWED AND DOES NOT ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE.

The information contained herein contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. Forward-looking statements relate to information that is based on assumptions of management, forecasts of future results, and estimates of amounts not yet determinable. Any statements that express predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions or future events or performance are not statements of historical fact and may be "forward-looking statements."

Forward-looking statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties which could cause actual events or results to differ from those reflected in the forward-looking statements, including, without limitation: risks related to failure to obtain adequate financing on a timely basis and on acceptable terms; risks related to the outcome of legal proceedings; political and regulatory risks associated with mining and exploration; risks related to the maintenance of stock exchange listings; risks related to environmental regulation and liability; the potential for delays in exploration or development activities or the completion of feasibility studies; the uncertainty of profitability; risks and uncertainties relating to the interpretation of drill results, the geology, grade and continuity of mineral deposits; risks related to the inherent uncertainty of production and cost estimates and the potential for unexpected costs and expenses; results of prefeasibility and feasibility studies, and the possibility that future exploration, development or mining results will not be consistent with the Companies' expectations; risks related to gold price and other commodity price fluctuations; and other risks and uncertainties related to the Companies prospects, properties and business detailed elsewhere in the Companies' disclosure record. Should one or more of these risks and uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described in forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and the Companies do not assume any obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances. Actual events or results could differ materially from the Companies' expectations or projections.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/96784
IRVINE, CA / ACCESSWIRE / September 16, 2021 / Industry pioneering e-liquid and cannabinoid-infused products manufacturer Savage Enterprises ("Savage") (www.SavageEnterprises.com) is proud to announce the launch of its newest collection, The Hydro Collection, featuring the novel hemp-derived cannabinoid hexahydrocannabinol ("HHC"). This new collection has been released through Savage's flagship brand, Delta Extrax, and the initial launch consists of one gram HHC cartridges, in two flavors, available for sale at www.DeltaExtax.com and through distributors nationwide. HHC is a newly emerging hemp-derived cannabinoid that is expected to rise quickly to mainstream popularity.

Savage Enterprises' revolutionary new HHC cartridges are specifically designed to incorporate the hemp-derived HHC, all while producing a similar, but slightly different experience to their previously existing, best-selling hemp-derived cartridges. Savage Enterprises' new HHC cartridges from The Hydro Collection are available in two flavors, Cherry Pie and Blue Widow, and retail at $48.99 each. The HHC cartridges are available for sale individually, and in a pack of 10 encased in a pop display. Similar to Savage's other products, the HHC cartridges are lab-tested and batch codes are printed on each box. In two weeks, The Hydro Collection is expected be expanded to include two HHC disposable pens.

Christopher G. Wheeler, CEO of Savage Enterprises, commented, "We're extremely excited about the potential of HHC and even more excited to be able to showcase its appeal with our popular, best-selling cartridges. We expect consumers to fall in love with our formula, along with the experience that HHC provides."

Matt Winters, CFO of Savage Enterprises, further explained, "This is what makes Savage special. We pride ourselves on our ingenuity when navigating the cannabinoid space, and our talent of introducing high potential products to market. We truly think this will be another extension of the high-quality products that we offer, and consumers will love this newly emerging cannabinoid. I'm really looking forward to the success of this launch!"

The launch of Savage Enterprises' HHC cartridges follows Savage's press release that it has signed a letter of intent to merge with publicly traded LFTD Partners Inc. (ticker symbol LSFP) for aggregate merger consideration of $44 million, consisting of $15,840,000 in cash plus 8,691,358 shares of LSFP's unregistered common stock. Closing of the transaction is subject to a number of conditions, including but not limited to completion of an acceptable due diligence investigation and audit of Savage, Premier Greens and MKRC, completion of a significant financing by LSFP that it may be unable to complete, execution of definitive acquisition documents, receipt of a tax opinion on the Savage merger, obtaining all necessary approvals, and the completion of all necessary securities filings.

About Savage Enterprises

Based in Irvine, California, Savage Enterprises was founded in 2014 by co-owners Christopher G. Wheeler and Matt Winters with the vision of bringing innovation to the counter-culture space. Savage has been committed to improving the community it serves by providing superior, consumer-centered and cost-effective products that are third-party lab tested with quality assurance, consistency, and traceability. Savage's goal is to create the benchmark for quality and assurance in the industry. Under its Delta Extrax brand (www.DeltaExtrax.com ), Savage Enterprises sells delta-10-THC cartridges, disposables and tinctures, delta-8-THC-infused shots, cartridges, concentrates, disposables, edibles, delta-8-THC-infused hemp flower, pods and tinctures. Under Savage CBD (www.SavageCBD.com), Savage sells CBD cartridges, disposables, edibles, tinctures, topicals, vape juice and CBD for pets. Under its Vape 100 brand, Savage produces nicotine-infused e-liquids. Under its Zen Panda brand, Savage sells various kratom and kava-based products. Savage also sells disposable nicotine vapes. The team at Savage is currently developing at least three other products in the supplement arena, as well as innovative apparatuses for marijuana consumption.

Savage Enterprises also owns 46% of MKRC, 51% of RJMC Brands, LLC, 6% of AAA, LLC, and 33% of Remediez. For more information about Savage Enterprises, please visit www.SavageEnterprises.com.

About LFTD Partners Inc.

LFTD Partners Inc., formerly known as Acquired Sales Corp. (OTCQB ticker symbol LSFP), is focused upon acquiring rapidly growing companies that manufacture and sell branded products containing hemp-derived cannabinoids (e.g. delta-8-THC, delta-9-THC, delta-10-THC, THCV, THCO, CBDA, CBC, CBG, CBN, CBD), e-liquid, disposable nicotine vapes, kratom and kava products. In February 2020, LSFP acquired 100% of Warrender Enterprise Inc. d/b/a Lifted Made (formerly d/b/a Lifted Liquids) (www.LiftedMade.com), Kenosha, Wisconsin. Lifted Made has a 50% membership interest in SmplyLifted LLC, which sells tobacco-free nicotine pouches under the brand name FR3SH (www.GETFR3SH.com). LSFP also owns 4.99% of CBD-infused beverage and products maker Ablis Holding Company (www.AblisBev.com), and of craft distillers Bendistillery Inc. d/b/a Crater Lake Spirits (www.CraterLakeSpirits.com) and Bend Spirits, Inc. (www.Bendistillery.com), all located in Bend, Oregon.

LSFP has also signed a letter of intent to acquire Savage Enterprises, owner of award-winning hemp-derived products brand Delta Extrax (www.DeltaExtrax.com) and CBD brand Savage CBD (www.SavageCBD.com), and to enter the California marijuana industry by purchasing Premier Greens LLC and MKRC Holdings, LLC, the closing of which transactions are subject to a number of contingencies.

LSFP has also signed a letter of intent to acquire Fresh Farms E-Liquid, LLC (www.FreshFarmsELiquid.com), whose portfolio includes the premium vapor products Fresh Farms and Fruitia, JUS tobacco-free nicotine vapor products, and HAPPI premium delta-8-THC and delta-10-THC products, the closing of which transaction is subject to a number of contingencies.

Please read LSFP's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission which fully describe our business and the Risk Factors associated therewith. Learn more by subscribing to our newsletters at www.LiftedMade.com and www.LFTDPartners.com.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements in this document are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such information includes the acquisition, financing, revenue growth, profitability, and product strategies, plans and expectations of: LFTD Partners Inc. and related entities including Lifted Made; Savage Enterprises, Premier Greens LLC and MKRC Holdings, LLC and related entities; and Fresh Farms E-Liquid, LLC and related entities. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause or contribute to the actual results of these companies' merger plans, financing plans, operations, or the performance or achievements of these companies differing materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. These companies undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Actual results, performance or achievements could differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements as a result of certain other factors, including the risk factors set forth in LFTD Partners Inc.'s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. This press release does not constitute an offer to sell common stock or any other securities of LFTD Partners Inc.

CONTACTS:

Savage Enterprises

Attn: Brittany Warner

Phone: 714-612-1091

Email: Bwarner@savageenterprises.com

Website: www.SavageEnterprises.com

LFTD Partners Inc.

Attn: William C. "Jake" Jacobs, President and CFO

Phone: 847-400-7660

Email: JakeJacobs@AcquiredSalesCorp.com

Website: www.LFTDPartners.com

SOURCE: Savage Enterprises

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/664397/Savage-Enterprises-Launches-Hemp-Derived-HHC-Cartridges-Under-Its-Delta-Extrax-Brand


WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Popular social media platform TikTok announced on Monday that the platform is going to roll out a gamut of new features that will help the teenagers who use the platform to vent their suicidal thoughts and other psychological issues.



A blog by the Director of Policy of the company, Tara Wadhwa, read that the platform feels responsible to contribute to the mental well-being of the users. Any user who looks up the word 'suicide' will get an option to connect to the local Crisis Text Line. The users will also be able to reach the 'well-being guides' through the app's Safety Center.



According to the blog, the guides have been developed with the help of multiple associations such as the International Association for Suicide Prevention, Crisis Text Line, Live For Tomorrow, Samaritans of Singapore, and Samaritans (UK). The users will be directed to the guides if they look up 'Suicide'. Apart from suicide, for those who suffer from eating disorders, looking up words related to eating disorders will guide them to resources related to the problem. The National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA) CEO, Elizabeth Thomson said, 'In the United States, 30 million Americans will experience an eating disorder at some point in their lives.'



While we don't allow content that promotes, glorifies, or normalizes suicide, self-harm, or eating disorders, we do support people who choose to share their experiences to raise awareness, help others who might be struggling and find support among our community,' said Wadhwa in the blog.



TikTok's announcement has made it difficult for its direct rivals Facebook, INC (FB) who were blasted by the lawmakers for directly contributing to the depression of the teenagers.



In a letter to Facebook in April, the lawmakers cited that, 'separate research shows that more than one in five young Instagram users are victims of bullying on the platform.' Asking Zuckerberg to abandon his plan to introduce Instagram for the youth, the lawmakers referred to some scholarly studies and cited the platform's inability to protect the well-being of the users.



The letter said, 'Children and teens are uniquely vulnerable populations online, and these findings paint a clear and devastating picture of Instagram as an app that poses significant threats to young people's well-being. We are deeply concerned that your company continues to fail in its obligation to protect young users and has yet to commit to halt its plans to launch new platforms targeting children and teens.'



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

BYTEDANCE-Aktie komplett kostenlos handeln - auf Smartbroker.de
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Crude oil futures settled flat on Thursday, giving up early gains, on concerns over China's decision to release some crude oil from its strategic petroleum reserve. China said last week that it plans to release oil from its strategic reserve in order to 'better stabilize domestic market supply and demand, and effectively guarantee the country's energy security.' However, recent data showing a drop in U.S. crude inventories supported oil prices. Also, disruptions in crude output in the Gulf of Mexico due to the impact of Hurricane Ida prevented oil's decline. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for October settled at $72.61 a barrel, unchanged from the previous close. The contract dropped to a low of 71.53 around mid morning before regaining lost ground. Brent crude futures were up $0.25 at $75.70 a little while ago. WTI crude futures had ended more than 3% up on Wednesday after data from U.S. Energy Information Administration showed U.S. crude stockpiles dropped by 6.42 million barrels last week to 417.4 million barrels. The drop in the week was much larger than an estimate declined of 3.5 million barrels. Distillate stockpiles, which include diesel and heating oil, fell by 1.688 million barrels in the week, the EIA data showed. Meanwhile, gasoline inventories declined by 1.848 million barrels last week, compared with expectations for a draw of 1.957 million barrels. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
NAGA has decided on a 10% capital increase with total proceeds of approximately EUR 22.7 million.

Apeiron with Elevat3 venture strategy will acquire shares from Fosun and other existing shareholders to hold approx. 22% in NAGA

NAGA on track for 100% revenue growth in 2021

Growth to be accelerated by additional financing

NAGA Group AG (XETRA: N4G, ISIN: DE000A161NR7), provider of the social network for trading, cryptocurrencies and payments NAGA.com, announces its largest equity financing round to date and welcomes Apeiron Investment Group Ltd, the private investment company of entrepreneur and investor Christian Angermayer, and Igor Lychagov, founder of Exness (one of the world's largest brokerage firms with a monthly trading volume of USD 1 trillion) as new strategic and long-term investors. Hauck Aufhauser acted as sole bookrunner in the transaction.

In addition to participating in the capital increase, Apeiron has entered into a share purchase agreement with its Elevat3 strategy, operating in partnership with Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, to purchase a block of shares from FOSUN Group and is in negotiations to acquire additional shares from other shareholders. These transactions are subject to regulatory approvals. In total and upon full completion, Apeiron is targeting a stake of approximately 22% in NAGA.

Following the strategic investment, the Supervisory Board is to be increased from four to five members at the upcoming Annual General Meeting. The company will propose to elect Christian Angermayer as a new member of the Supervisory Board. In order to be able to add this agenda item to the upcoming Annual General Meeting, the date of the Annual General Meeting was postponed from September 23, 2021 to October 11, 2021.

Benjamin Bilski, Founder and CEO says: "We are delighted to welcome Apeiron with its Elevat3 strategy as a new strategic partner. We have worked very hard over the last few years and this partnership is an absolute milestone for us. Already, NAGA has more than 1 million registered accounts, operates in more than 100 countries and is on track to grow revenue by more than 100% in 2021 compared to 2020. And that's just the beginning. I believe that NAGA's growth can be accelerated with the proceeds of the current capital increase and with the strategic input of our new shareholders.

Christian Angermayer comments: "NAGA is one of the fastest growing neo-brokers in the world. The company has impressively proven that combining social media, investments, cryptocurrencies and payments on one platform attracts a new generation of investors who are used to a simple user experience and all services just a tap away. This retail investment market is growing rapidly and offers tremendous potential. I am very much looking forward to working with the founders, the board, Igor and Fosun."

Alan Liu, global partner of Fosun and board member NAGA said, "We are delighted to be working with Christian, who has a proven track record of building global technology champions. We are also honored to welcome Igor Lychagov to our investor table, his retail brokerage experience is truly second to none."

NAGA also announces its new investor relations website. At https://www.group.naga.com, the company will provide investors with detailed information about the company and its performance, as well as regular company presentations, trading updates and videos.

About NAGA

NAGA is an innovative fintech company that seamlessly connects personal finance transactions and investments through its social trading platform. The company's proprietary platform offers a range of products from stock trading, investments and cryptocurrencies to a physical Mastercard. Additionally, the platform allows for exchanges with other traders, provides relevant information in the feed, and autocopy features for successful members' trades. NAGA is a synergistic total solution that is easily accessible and inclusive. It provides an enhanced foundation to trade, invest, network, earn and pay. This applies to both fiat and crypto products.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005857/en/

Contacts:

Benjamin Bilski

+49 (0)40 5247 79153

ben@naga.com

ingo.janssen@ubj.de
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - September 16, 2021) - FALCON GOLD CORP. (TSXV: FG) (FSE: 3FA) (OTCQB: FGLDF) ("Falcon" or the "Company") is pleased to report it has received conditional approval from TSX Venture Exchange to proceed with the Warrant Incentive Program (the "Program"). The Program will commence as of today's date and terminate Monday, October 18th 2021.

Under the proposed Incentive, if the Placement Warrants are exercised prior to 4:00 p.m. (Vancouver Time) on the 30th day after TSX Venture approval (the "Incentive Period"), the Placement Warrant holders would receive one (1) additional warrant (an "Incentive Warrant") in consideration of the early exercise of each Placement Warrant. Each Incentive Warrant will be exercisable to acquire one (1) common share of the Company at a price of $0.18 per share for a period of one (1) year from the date of issuance. The Company believes this will give existing Placement Warrant holders the right incentive to exercise their existing Warrants. The Incentive Warrant will be subject to a hold period of four months plus one day after the date of distribution.

In the event the Placement Warrant holder decides not to participate in the Incentive program, then following the expiry of the Incentive Period, the Placement Warrant holder may exercise the Placement Warrants under there original terms.

The Company feels this fairly advantageous program to reward our placement holders for their patience during this volatile year, allowing us to keep our float with our current shareholder base.

No Directors or Officers of the Company owns or control any of the Placement Warrants. The Company is not aware of any potential new insider position that would be created upon the exercise of the Placement Warrants nor the Incentive Warrants.

The Company would receive gross proceeds of $ 690,000 from the incentive program if all the warrants from the July 13, 2020 placement are exercised. Funds will be used for further exploration expenditures and working capital.

These securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from registration is available. This announcement does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities in this Warrant Incentive Program within the United States or to, or for the account or benefit of, U.S. Persons (as defined under Regulation S under the U.S. Securities Act).

About Falcon Gold Corp.

Falcon is a Canadian mineral exploration company focused on generating, acquiring, and exploring opportunities in the Americas. Falcon's flagship project, the Central Canada Gold Mine, is approximately 20 km southeast of Agnico Eagle's Hammond Reef Gold Deposit which has currently estimated 3.32 million ounces of gold (123.5 million tonnes grading 0.84 g/t gold) mineral reserves, and 2.3 million ounces of measured and indicated mineral resources (133.4 million tonnes grading 0.54 g/t gold). The Hammond Reef gold property lies on the Hammond shear zone, which is a northeast-trending splay off of the Quetico Fault Zone ("QFZ") and may be the control for the gold deposit. The Central Gold property lies on a similar major northeast-trending splay of the QFZ.

The Company holds 7 additional projects. The Springpole West Property in the world-renowned Red Lake mining camp; a 49% interest in the Burton Gold property with Iamgold near Sudbury Ontario; and in B.C., the Spitfire-Sunny Boy, Gaspard Gold claims; and most recently the Great Burnt, Hope Brook, and Baie Verte acquisitions adjacent to First Mining, Sokoman-Benton's JV, and Marvel Discovery in Central Newfoundland.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

Falcon Gold Corp.

"Karim Rayani"

Karim Rayani

Chief Executive Officer, Director

Telephone: (604) 716-0551

Email: info@falcongold.ca

Cautionary Language and Forward-Looking Statements

This news release may contain forward looking statements including but not limited to comments regarding the timing and content of upcoming work programs, geological interpretations, receipt of property titles, etc. Forward looking statements address future events and conditions and therefore, involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements.

This news release may contain forward looking statements including but not limited to comments regarding the timing and content of upcoming work programs, geological interpretations, receipt of property titles, etc. Forward looking statements address future events and conditions and therefore, involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/96803
accuRx, a London, UK-based healthcare platform, raised 27.5M in Series B funding.

The round was led by Lakestar with participation from British Patient Capital, Latitude VS (sister fund to London-based seed investor LocalGlobe), Atomico, Trusted Insight and Encore Capital.

The newly raised funds will facilitate the growth of the team, enhancing its offering to GP practices and building products that will enable expansion into secondary care.

Led by Jacob Haddad, CEO, and Laurence Bargery, CTO, accuRx offers a collaborative communications platform that brings patients and their healthcare teams together. It allows existing health and care systems to deliver technology-enabled care, beginning with the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK. The software is currently used by 98% of GP practices in England and a growing number of hospitals and community trusts to communicate with their patients and one another.

FinSMEs

15/09/2021
Brunt Workwear, a Boston WA-based workwear brand, raised $8.4M in Series A funding.

The round was led by TF Cornerstone with participation from Andrew Rosen and Ben Fischman.

The company intends to use the funds to increase production, grow its leadership team, and expand into new categories and classifications.

Led by Eric Girouard, Founder and CEO, Brunt Workwear is a modern work boot and apparel brand that serves workers across the construction, installation, maintenance, and repair industries.

Initially starting with work boots, the company has expanded into clothing and accessories. In the past year, Brunt has grown 63% month-over-month and achieved a 44% repeat purchase rate from its original customer cohort. The company expects to see 150% growth in 2022.

Prior to launching Brunt, Girouard spent more than a decade working in the e-commerce and direct-to-consumer space at startups including Rue La La, M.Gemi, and Trade Coffee.

FinSMEs

16/09/2021
Coinfirm, a London, UK-based global leader in RegTech for digital currencies and the blockchain-based financial ecosystem, closed an USD8m Series A funding.

The round was co-led by Six Fintech Ventures, the corporate venture arm of SIX, and FiveT Fintech, followed by MiddleGame Ventures. Mission Gate and CoinShares also participated in this round.

The company intends to use the funds to continue its growth trajectory in the EU, expand its offering to the Asian and US markets, and strengthen the enterprise and financial institution offering, to complement its offering for crypto market participants.

Led by newly appointed CEO Dr. Mircea Mihaescu, Coinfirm provides a risk management platform for crypto assets. It is powering the mass adoption of blockchain by protecting the next generation of FinTechs from ransomware hacks, human trafficking, sanctions evasion and terrorist financing by risk scoring entities, addresses and transactions.

Coinfirm is used by governments, financial institutions, custodians, payment providers, investment funds and exchanges. The 1,500+ protocol-supporting AML Platform utilizes 330+ proprietary risk algorithms to provide a seamless, scalable solution to stringent regulatory requirements for both CeFi and DeFi.

Founded in 2016, the company is headquartered in London, UK, with the company retaining Warsaw and Torun offices in Poland, and Tokyo, Japan.

Pawel Kuskowski will hand over to Dr. Mircea Mihaescu as Coinfirms Chief Executive Officer. Dr. Mihaescu joined the company earlier this year as Executive Chairman, and now steps into the CEO role. In conjunction with the funding, Alexander Christen, CEO of FiveT Fintech, will join Pascal Bouvier, General Partner at MiddleGame Ventures, and Dr. Mircea Mihaescu on Coinfirms Board of Directors. Maximilian Spelmeyer of SIX Fintech Ventures and Daniel OBrien of Bird Capital join Coinfirm as non-director members.

FinSMEs

16/09/2021
Outer, a Los Angeles, CA-based outdoor living brand, raised $50M in Series B funding.

The round was was led by Kathy Xu of Capital Today along with Tribe Capital, C Ventures, TRAC VC, and Upfront Ventures. Existing investors, including Sequoia Capital China, Mucker Capital, Mantis VC, Unpopular Ventures, and Reimagined Ventures also participated in the round.

The company, which has raised $65m in total funding to date, intends to use the funds to accelerate product expansion and materials development.

Led by CEO Jiake Liu and Chief Design Officer Terry Lin, Outer is a direct-to-consumer outdoor living brand whose Neighborhood Showroom program allows shoppers to visit the homes of nearby Outer customers to experience Outer products firsthand. It has grown from 50 locations in 13 states in 2019 to more than 1,000 locations in 49 states today.

The company intends to develop new sustainable materials, build an eco-friendly supply chain, and expand their product offering and community. Outer plans to expand internationally before the end of the year and is currently hiring across a variety of teams and roles.

Its most recent launches include the Teak Collection, Aluminum Collection, and Bug Shield Blankets.

FinSMEs

16/09/2021
TomoCredit, a San Francisco, CA-based fintech company offering a credit card focused on building a credit history for first-time borrowers, raised $10m in Series A funding.

The round, which brought total funding raised to date to $17m, was led by Kapor Capital and KB Investment Inc., a subsidiary of South Koreas leading consumer bank, with participation from Lewis & Clark Ventures.

The company intends to use the funds to hire additional staff and enhance key features like weekly AutoPay and High Credit Limits to boost credit scores faster.

Led by Kristy Kim, TomoCredit provides a credit card, catering to students, working professionals, and immigrants looking to build their financial future in the U.S. Through a no credit-pull method with no fees, the company can provide credit to everyone, especially to the ones neglected by major lenders due to their lack of FICO scores.

Powered by Finicity  a Mastercard company and leveraging their secure data network and open banking technology, applicants permit TomoCredit to securely access their bank accounts to access financial data for underwriting purposes. Once approved, applicants receive the TomoCredit Mastercard, a no-fee credit card with 0% APR. The company has already pre-approved more than 300,000 customers and expects to issue a total of 500,000 cards by years end.

TomoCredit also appointed Ash Gupta, former CRO at American Express, to the board.

FinSMEs

15/09/2021
Vahan, a Bangalore, India-based jobs & livelihood platform for blue-collar workers, raised USD 8m in series A funding.

Madhav Krishna, Co-founder and CEO, Vahan

The round was led by Khosla Ventures with participation from Airtel, SHAKTI VC (led by former Google exec Keval Desai with Eric Schmidt and Michael Dell as LPs), Pioneer Fund (Y Combinator alumni fund), Spike Ventures (Stanford University alumni fund), Vijay Shekhar Sharma (CEO, Paytm), Guru Gowrappan (Group CEO, Verizon Media and former Global MD, Alibaba), Kevin Shannon (former CFO, Harvard Management Company) and others.

The company intends to use the funds to further scale its recruitment business and build new product offerings for its customer base which comprises gig-economy companies and blue-collar workers.

Led by Madhav Krishna, Founder and CEO, Vahan provides a technology-driven platform for blue-collar workers to find jobs while helping employers find the right candidate. The startup has built tools, including an AI-driven bot on WhatsApp, that are used to recruit workers at large scale and at speed and save blue-collar workers from middlemens exploitation.

Vahan currently places 7000+ blue-collar workers across 200 cities every month in gig-economy jobs. Customers include leading gig-economy companies such as Zomato, Uber, Flipkart, Swiggy, Rapido, Grofers, Dunzo and Shadowfax.

FinSMEs

15/09/2021
Xiaomi has announced Xiaomi Pad 5, the companys latest tablet for the global market after it was introduced in China last month. It has an 11-inch 2.5K / WQXA LCD screen with 120Hz refresh rate, Dolby Vision and HDR10. It is powered by Snapdragon 860 with 27067 cooling area, comes with quad speakers, has Dolby Atmos and features a 6.85mm sleek body.

The tablet supports Xiaomi Smart Pen that comes with 4096 pressure sensitivity and 240Hz touch sampling rate and weighs just 12.2g. Xiaomi Smart Pen also includes convenient features such as Smart Pen function keys to quickly jot down notes, taking screenshots or easily switching between pen and eraser.

Xiaomi Pad 5 specifications

11-inch (2560 x 1600) WQXGA 16:10 display with 120Hz refresh rate, 240Hz touch sampling rate, HDR 10, Dolby Vision, TrueTone True color display, Hardware-level blue light reduction, TUV Rheinland low blue light hardware scheme certification

Up to 2.96GHz Octa-Core Snapdragon 860 7nm Mobile Platform with Adreno 640 GPU

6GB LPDDR4X RAM with 128GB / 256GB UFS 3.1 storage

Android 11 with MIUI for Pad

13MP rear camera, 4K video recording

8MP front-facing camera with 1080p video recording

Dimensions: 254.69x 166.25mmx6.85mm; Weight: 511g

USB Type-C audio, Dolby Atmos, 4 Speakers

Wi-Fi 802.11 ac (2.4GHz + 5GHz), Bluetooth 5.0, GPS / GLONASS / BeiDou / GALILEO / QZSS, USB Type-C

8,720mAh battery with 22.5W fast charging

The Xiaomi Pad 5 comes in Cosmic Gray and Pearl White colorus and is priced at 349 Euros (US$ 412 / Rs. 30,300 approx.) for the 6GB + 128GB version, while the 6GB + 256GB version costs 399 Euros (US$ 471 / Rs. 34,640 approx.). As a part of early bird offer, it will be available for 299 Euros (US$ 353 / Rs. 25,965 approx.) for the first 24 hours when it goes on sale in Europe including Spain, Italy, France and Germany soon.
Paxton, IL (60957)

Today

Steady light rain this evening. Showers continuing overnight. Low 54F. Winds N at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 70%..

Tonight

Steady light rain this evening. Showers continuing overnight. Low 54F. Winds N at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 70%.
New From Astrophil & Stella: A Night at the Opera

Niche Perfumery

September stands for novelty and also for the Italian niche house of Astrophil & Stella ; at the end of the month, the brand will indeed launch their latest creation, A Night at the Opera

The fragrance is being officially presented at the upcoming artistic perfumery exhibition, Fragranze in Florence, and continues the series of collaborations between the Turin-based brand and world-renowned Master Perfumers. It is a work of Luca Maffei , who already created the recent The Iris Way , as well as one of the first Extraits de Parfum by Astrophil & Stella: the gorgeous ambery-woody Amberlievable , launched at the end of 2020. Additionally, the brand's Export Manager, Alessandro Castagno, told us that in November the collection will be joined by two other creations: an amber fragrance by Christian Provenzano and a vanilla gourmand by Nathalie Feisthauer . Both perfumes will be premiered at the Florentine perfume show, and we will tell you more about them later.

But for now let's focus on A Night at the Opera , an Extrait de Parfum promising a refined, slightly retro and very charming composition with a powerful character but also profound, mysterious and stately in its soul, as we might expect from a fragrance inspired by a theater's atmosphere.

"The bright lights of the theater were illuminating the stage with a silver glow reflected by the elegant dresses and jewels of the guests in the hall. In the charm of the stars twirling in the spotlight, a refined perfume arose like a song, celebrating the passion and the timeless joy that flowed from that sweet and infinite show called 'Bel Vivere.'

"A charming and refined perfume, delicately citrusy, with lively notes of bergamot and Virginia Cedarwood enhanced by the strong character of the scents of tobacco and leather. The unmistakable aromas of patchouli and Cashmeran complete the bouquet by weaving an olfactory harmony that arouses a feeling of serenity and tranquillity."

- official info from the brand.

Edition 2021

Opening notes: Bergamot, Artemisia, Flouve, Labdanum

Middle notes: Tobacco, Leather

Base notes: Patchouli, Cashmeran, Virginian Cedar, Guaiac Wood, Amber, Musk

A Night at the Opera will be available by the end of September 2021 as a 50 ml Extrait de Parfum. will be available by the end of September 2021 as a 50 ml Extrait de Parfum.

Source: Astrophil & Stella Press Release.




[This unedited press release is made available courtesy of Gamasutra and its partnership with notable game PR-related resource Games Press.]

Available in both full-sized and tenkeyless layouts, with near-zero input latency, best-in-class acoustics and unparalleled key feel, the new Huntsman V2 range delivers Razers most responsive, high-performance keyboards to date. For Release on September 16, 2021, at 4pm BST / 8am PDT / 5pm CEST / 11pm SGT:

HAMBURG, Germany  Razer, the leading global lifestyle brand for gamers (Hong Kong Stock Code: 1337), today announced the Razer Huntsman V2 line, with a suite of upgrades and enhancements to create the fastest, most advanced optical gaming keyboards in the world. The new features include Razers 2nd generation Optical Switches, Razer 8k HyperPolling Technology, and Doubleshot PBT keycaps, as well as improved acoustics, made in response to player and community feedback.

Since its launch in 2018, the Huntsman family of keyboards has grown in popularity to become the best-selling gaming keyboard in the U.S., setting new standards for innovative, high-speed, gaming-grade keyboards. The new Huntsman V2 range is set to continue that legacy with a range of upgrades and refinements focused on the fundamentals of a great gaming keyboard; performance, feel, and acoustics.

We broke new ground with the original Huntsman, bringing Optical Switches to mainstream gaming for the first time, said Chris Mitchell, Head of Sales & Marketing of Razers Peripherals Business Unit. The improvements and refinements in the new Huntsman V2 range now give players a high-performance, gaming-focused keyboard that feels even smoother, responds even quicker, and sounds quieter than before." 2nd Generation Optical Switches

The Huntsman V2 is available with Razer 2nd Generation Linear Optical Switches, which have been refined and tweaked based on player and user feedback. Foremost in these refinements is the addition of a silicon sound dampener, to reduce the clack of the key bottoming out during use, which greatly improves the typing experience. The switches also feature more generous lubrication on the switches and stabilizers, for even smoother operation and increased noise reduction.

The Razer 2nd Generation Linear Optical Switches use an infra-red beam of light to activate the switch signal, which completely eliminates debounce delay, the delay traditionally built into mechanical switch keyboards to ensure a contact signal is a true keypress. With no debounce delay, Razer 2nd Generation Linear Optical Switches can take advantage of Razer HyperPolling Technology, surpassing the 1000Hz polling rate of standard keyboards and ramping up to a blistering true polling rate of 8000Hz. These two high-speed, high-performance technologies combined give the Huntsman V2 near-zero latency for the fastest, most responsive gaming keyboard in the world. Upgrades, Upgrades, Upgrades

In response to feedback from the community and esports athletes, the Huntsman V2 has also been upgraded in other areas. Doubleshot PBT keycaps, for extra durability and resistance to wear, come as standard on the Huntsman V2. The two-stage molding process used in creating the keycaps results in fadeproof legends, even after hundreds of hours of use, with a textured finish for a secure fingertip grip and positive typing action.

To improve keyboard acoustics, a series of sound dampening features have been added through the chassis, to absorb pings and thunks as the keys bottom out during use. A sturdy matte aluminum top plate keeps the keyboard rigid with minimal flex, even under the most intense key pounding, and a sculpted, ergonomic wrist rest fits perfectly to the front of the Huntsman V2 for added support and pressure relief during long sessions.

The Huntsman V2 is equipped with a Multi-function Digital Dial and 4 dedicated, customizable media keys for extended usability outside of gaming. Fully programmable through Razer Synapse 3, the Huntsman V2 features 7 preset Razer Chroma lighting effects, with a selection of up to 16.8 million colors, for complete personalization. The hybrid on-board memory can be used to save settings, macros and color schemes for access anywhere, anytime, even without access to cloud storage. The Huntsman V2 Tenkeyless Also announced today is the Huntsman V2 Tenkeyless keyboard, the leaner, lighter little brother to the Huntsman V2. Mirroring many of the features of the full-sized Huntsman V2, the Huntsman V2 Tenkeyless eschews the number pad, dial, and media keys in favor of portability, but retains the new features and upgrades seen in the Huntsman V2 including the new Razer Linear Optical Switches Gen-2, Razer HyperPolling Technology for true 8000Hz polling, Doubleshot PBT keycaps, sound dampening measures and ergonomic wrist rest. The Huntsman V2 Tenkeyless also features a detachable USB-C cable for ease of transport for players on the go and is fully compatible with Razer Synapse 3 for up to 16.8 million color customization and on-board hybrid memory for macro and settings storage.  Source: The NPD Group, Inc., U.S. Retail Tracking Service, Keyboards, Mechanical Keyboard, Gaming Designed, Based on dollar sales, Jan.- June 2019 ABOUT THE RAZER HUNTSMAN V2 Razer Optical Switches

100 million keystroke lifespan

Razer HyperPolling Technology with up to true 8000 Hz polling rate

Multi-functional digital dial with 4 media keys

Razer Chroma RGB customizable backlighting with 16.8 million color options

Razer Doubleshot PBT Keycaps

Plush leatherette wrist rest

Hybrid onboard storage  up to 5 keybinding profiles

Fully programmable keys with on-the-fly macro recording

N-key roll-over with anti-ghosting

Gaming mode option

Braided fiber cable

Aluminum matte top plate For more information on the Razer Huntsman V2, please see here ABOUT THE RAZER HUNTSMAN V2 TKL Razer Optical Switches 100 million keystroke lifespan

Razer HyperPolling Technology with up to true 8000 Hz polling rate

Razer Chroma RGB customizable backlighting with 16.8 million color options

Razer Doubleshot PBT Keycaps

Plush leatherette wrist rest

Hybrid onboard storage  up to 5 keybinding profiles

Fully programmable keys with on-the-fly macro recording

N-key roll-over with anti-ghosting

Gaming mode option

Detachable USB-C braided fiber cable

Aluminum matte top plate For more information on the Razer Huntsman V2 Tenkeyless, please see here PRICE & AVAILABILITY Razer Huntsman V2: 189.99 GBP / $189.99 USD / 199.99 MSRP  Clicky Purple Switch 199.99 GBP / $199.99 USD / 209.99 MSRP  Linear Red Switch Razer.com: September 16, 2021 Authorized resellers: September 16, 2021 Razer Huntsman V2 Tenkeyless: 149.99 GBP / $149.99 USD /159.99 MSRP  Clicky Purple Switch 159.99 GBP / $159.99USD /169.99 MSRP  Linear Red Switch Razer.com: September 16, 2021 Authorized resellers: September 16, 2021 ABOUT RAZER Razer is the worlds leading lifestyle brand for gamers. The triple-headed snake trademark of Razer is one of the most recognized logos in the global gaming and esports communities. With a fan base that spans every continent, the company has designed and built the worlds largest gamer-focused ecosystem of hardware, software and services. Razers award-winning hardware includes high-performance gaming peripherals and Blade gaming laptops. Razers software platform, with over 150 million users, includes Razer Synapse (an Internet of Things platform), Razer Chroma RGB (a proprietary RGB lighting technology system supporting thousands of devices and hundreds of games/apps), and Razer Cortex (a game optimizer and launcher). Razer also offers payment services for gamers, youth, millennials and Gen Z. Razer Gold is one of the worlds largest game payment services, and Razer Fintech provides fintech services in emerging markets. Founded in 2005, Razer is headquartered in Irvine (California) with regional headquarters in Hamburg, Shanghai and Singapore. Razer has 18 offices worldwide and is recognized as the leading brand for gamers in the USA, Europe and China. Razer is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (Stock Code: 1337). PRESS CONTACTS United Kingdom Nick Haywood [email protected]



Americas Danny Cristofaro [email protected]

EMEA Maren Epping [email protected]

China Evita Zhang [email protected]

Asia Pacific Vanessa Li [email protected]

Global Jan Horak [email protected] Razer - For Gamers. By Gamers. # # #
Welcome to my genealogy blog. Genea-Musings features genealogy research tips and techniques, genealogy news items and commentary, genealogy humor, San Diego genealogy society news, family history research and some family history stories from the keyboard of Randy Seaver (of Chula Vista CA), who thinks that Genealogy Research Is really FUN! Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2006-2021.
English French

BEAMSVILLE, Ontario, Sept. 15, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Canadian Vaping Association and many health organizations around the world have relentlessly shared the Royal College of Physicians finding that vaping is 95% less harmful smoking. This conclusion was drawn more than 6 years ago and has undergone annual independent reviews. Today, Public Health England maintains that vaping does not exceed 5% of the harm caused by smoking. 95% less harmful is a percentage expression of vaping's comparative toxicity relative to combustible tobacco, based on a comprehensive review of a broad range of research and studies. Its a significant and bold finding that has the potential to play a large role in developing the national relative risk statements. If toxicity is reduced by 95%, it is only logical that the relative harm is reduced by the same amount.



The considerable differences between vaping and smoking begin with the absence of toxic chemicals that are found in cigarettes. It is the tar, not the nicotine, that increases a smokers likelihood of cardiovascular disease, cancer, and pulmonary diseases. Nicotine itself does not cause cancer and there is little evidence that nicotine causes any of these other harmful effects when isolated. When an adult uses a vaping device, the excessively toxic elements of smoking are nonexistent, leading to a less harmful product that can be used as an alternative to smoking.

Smokers that use vaping products will see several physical improvements. The stagnant smell of cigarettes no longer lingers on their clothes or in their hair. There is a subsiding of yellow fingers and teeth that can increase a persons sense of wellbeing and self-confidence. Studies also find that smokers who have transitioned to vaping experience improved lung function, less frequent asthma events, and various other physiological improvements.

This statement of relative risk doesnt mean that a former smokers risk of tobacco-related illness or premature death is eliminated. Its important to consider several factors, including the length of time a person has smoked and the quantity of cigarettes they consumed during that period. Previous smoking will continue to play a role in individual health outcomes, at least in the short term, but vaping reduces further exposure to many of the toxic chemicals and tar found in cigarettes.

Non-smokers should not vape, but for smokers, the risks are substantially reduced by vaping instead of smoking and can lead to a better quality of life than that of a smoker. When taken together, these facts demonstrate why fully understanding the 95% less harmful finding is so crucial. Research has proven that nicotine itself is relatively safe when isolated for the purpose of smoking cessation.

With complete disregard for the science, Canada has proposed restrictions on flavoured vape products. Canada still has close to 5 million smokers, most of which indicate they would like to quit. On average smokers attempt to quit 11 times. Vaping is most often pursued by smokers after all other quit aids have failed. Reducing the appeal of vape products will limit adoption by smokers and greatly impact vapings efficacy as a harm reduction tool.

Contact Info:

Darryl Tempest

Executive Director

dtempest@thecva.org

647-274-1867
DELHI, India, Sept. 15, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Leverage Edu, an ed-tech platform based in India, has assembled a primer that helps students interested in engineering find the right college and figure out their career path. With services including application guidance, personalized mentor matching, and education loan assistance, Leverage Edu gives students education and career opportunities and allows them to discover their full potential.

A branch of science and technology, engineering deals with the designing and building of machines, engines, structures, etc. It also includes various other specializations that are emerging with the advancement of technology. In India and abroad, engineering is one of the most preferred degree courses by students. The career prospects in this field are also immense. From IITs to popular engineering colleges, students can choose from a plethora of colleges to pursue their education. Along with the traditional engineering courses, such as electronics, civil, computer science, electrical, mechanical, etc., there is an array of emerging courses that can offer good job opportunities for students.

With advancements in technology and fields, such as IoT, data science, machine learning, app development, artificial learning, gaming and graphics technology, Big Data analytics, etc., there is a high demand for talent. With the right engineering college and engineering course, students can equip themselves with the required skills and knowledge so that they can be a suitable fit for the industry.

In addition to the required eligibility criteria, to secure admission into an engineering course, there are three types of engineering entrance exams, namely national-level entrance exams, state-level entrance exams and university-level entrance exams, that are conducted every year.

Here are some of the top engineering courses that offer numerous opportunities to students:

List of All Engineering Courses

With globalization and liberalization of the economy, students have found themselves with many career options. Every branch of engineering leads to a specific job role, hence, it is imperative for students to choose the right engineering stream according to their interests and career plan. There are several Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.) and Bachelor of Technology (B. Tech) courses that students can choose from, such as:

Aeronautical Engineering (deals with the design and development of aircraft, spacecraft, and other related equipment) Aerospace Engineering (deals with the manufacture, design and maintenance of aircraft, spacecraft, helicopters, and missiles). Automobile Engineering (deals with the design, manufacture, and operation of automobiles) Biochemical Engineering (deals with the design and construction of unit processes that involve biological organisms or molecules) Biotechnology Engineering (deals with applied biology and chemical engineering principles that involve the use of living organisms) Chemical Engineering (deals with the design and maintenance of chemical plants and the development of chemical processes) Civil Engineering (deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built structures) Computer Science Engineering (deals with the basics of computer programming and networking) Electrical Engineering (deals with the study, design and application of equipment, devices and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism) Electronics and Communication Engineering (deals with electronic devices, circuits, communication equipment, etc.) Environmental Engineering (deals with the issues related to the adverse environmental effects due to pollution of water, soil, and air) Industrial Engineering (deals with the design, improvement, and installation of integrated systems) Information Technology Engineering (deals with the application of computer systems for storing, studying, transmitting, and manipulating data or information) Marine Engineering (deals with the design, development, production, and maintenance of the equipment used at sea and sea vessels, such as ships, boats, etc.) Mechanical Engineering (deals with the design, manufacture, maintenance and testing of machines) Telecommunication Engineering (deals with the design and overseeing of the installation of telecommunications equipment and facilities)

Along with the above-mentioned engineering courses, there are several other courses as well that students can pursue based on their passion and interest.

Most Popular Engineering Courses

For anyone looking for the most popular and sought-after engineering courses, the below list might help. The list of top five branches of engineering that are currently trending are:

Computer Science Engineering Electronics and Communication Engineering Mechanical Engineering Information Technology Engineering Civil Engineering

Top Engineering Courses for Better Career

Choosing the right engineering course helps students build a secure and fulfilling career. Engineering courses offer great career scope along with a good salary package. Some of the engineering courses that can be opted for are:

Computer Science Engineering Aeronautical Engineering Petroleum Engineering Aerospace Engineering Biotechnology Engineering Chemical Engineering

The Best and Most Demanding Engineering Jobs for the Future

Anyone looking for the best and most demanding engineering jobs that can help build a great career should consider choosing engineering courses such as:

Machine Learning and Data Science Full-stack Developer Biomedical Engineer Automation and Robotics Engineer Petroleum Engineer Agriculture Engineer Civil Engineer Environmental Engineer Petroleum Engineer

Traditional engineering fields, like electronics, civil, mechanical and petroleum engineering, are still high in demand, but if students are looking at pursuing a career in some of the fastest-growing fields, then the IT sector will be a great choice. Depending on the future trend of the industry and technology advancements, aspiring engineering students need to choose the engineering courses that will help shape their future.

Bottom Line

India is a hub for top engineering colleges with excellent academic curriculum, high-quality education, and a variety of engineering courses. Most of these colleges offer great employment opportunities and salary packages. If students want to choose engineering as their career path, then, before finalizing the college, they need to check out the placement and internship options, specialization courses offered, etc. Choosing the right course and college can help students shape a better future.

Additional Information

All the engineering branches take students on a road of opportunities and it depends on students to choose an engineering branch that they are passionate about.

Picking the right engineering stream is one of the most essential parts of the engineering admission process. Students seeking the best engineering courses will have to clear engineering entrance exams such as JEE Main, MHT CET, KCET, AP EAMCET, TS EAMCET, WBJEE, etc.

Securing a seat in one of the top engineering branches requires hard work and good scores in the respective engineering entrance exam as these courses get filled in the primary rounds of counseling. The job opportunities after pursuing these courses are very bright and some of the most reputed organizations recruit fresh graduates as well as experienced engineers from the above field.

Contact: carolina.darbellesv@iquanti.com

This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com.
SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 15, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Hagens Berman urges Waterdrop Inc. (NYSE: WDH) investors with significant losses to submit your losses now.



Class Period: May 4, 2021  Sept. 14, 2021

Lead Plaintiff Deadline: Nov. 15, 2021

Visit: www.hbsslaw.com/investor-fraud/WDH

Contact An Attorney Now: WDH@hbsslaw.com

844-916-0895

Waterdrop Inc. (WDH) Securities Class Action:

The complaint alleges that Defendants made misrepresentations and omissions in Waterdrops May 2021 initial public offering documents, which enabled Waterdrop to raise $360 million in gross proceeds.

Specifically, Defendants failed to disclose that: (i) Waterdrop had revenue growth through illicit methods; (ii) PRC regulators had ordered Waterdrop to shut down its mutual aid platform; (iii) Waterdrops operating losses had increased significantly as a result of the cessation of its mutual aid business and rapidly growing customer acquisition costs; and (iv) Waterdrop was under investigation for continued violations of Chinese law.

The truth began to emerge on June 17, 2021, when Waterdrop announced disappointing Q1 2021 financial results (i.e., the quarter before the IPO). The Company revealed that its operating expenses ballooned 75%, due largely to the cessation of its mutual aid business and growing customer acquisition costs.

Then, on Aug. 11, 2021, multiple news outlets reported that the PRC regulators had ordered insurance companies to cease improper marketing and pricing practices. Bloomberg reported [r]egulators have since moved to shutter some operations including mutual aid healthcare platforms operated by Waterdrop.

Finally, on Sept. 8, 2021, Waterdrop reported its operating losses for Q2 2021 continued to accelerate, again blaming the dismal results on a whopping 160% increase in operating costs and expenses compared to Q2 2020.

By Sept. 13, 2021, the price of Waterdrop ADSs closed at $3.01, or roughly 75% below the $12.00 IPO price.

Were focused on investors losses and proving Waterdrops IPO documents concealed known regulatory risks and adverse business trends, said Reed Kathrein, the Hagens Berman partner leading the investigation.

If you invested in Waterdrop, or have knowledge that may assist the firms investigation, click here to discuss your legal rights with Hagens Berman.

Whistleblowers: Persons with non-public information regarding Waterdrop should consider their options to help in the investigation or take advantage of the SEC Whistleblower program. Under the new program, whistleblowers who provide original information may receive rewards totaling up to 30 percent of any successful recovery made by the SEC. For more information, call Reed Kathrein at 844-916-0895 or email WDH@hbsslaw.com.

About Hagens Berman

Hagens Berman is a national law firm with eight offices in eight cities around the country and over eighty attorneys. The firm represents investors, whistleblowers, workers and consumers in complex litigation. More about the firm and its successes is located at hbsslaw.com. For the latest news visit our newsroom or follow us on Twitter at @classactionlaw .
TORONTO, Sept. 15, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Mountain Valley MD Holdings Inc. (the Company or MVMD) (CSE: MVMD) (FRA: 20MP) announces an immediate voluntary retraction of the data contained in its news release dated December 10, 2020 with respect to its Ivectosol pre-clinical canine trial data, which was also referenced in a subsequent news release dated January 14, 2021.



The Company has discovered errors in the results disclosed in the December 10, 2020 and January 14, 2021 news releases that were based on an erroneous analysis as well as the incorrect use of comparator data that should not have been applied to the pharmacokinetic analysis. The Company has immediately implemented corrective internal processes and has initiated steps to re-run the trial and will provide an update regarding the Ivectosol data package with the appropriate analyses as soon as possible.

Based on current information, the Company remains confident in the key benefits of its patented solubility technology in its Ivectosol product, including improved pharmacokinetic parameters compared to standard ivermectin.

The Company is continuing with the previously disclosed business direction for its Ivectosol applications and related research and development activities in the areas of animal and human health, including husbandry, oncology, and other disease areas, with no material change anticipated as a result of the retraction.

ABOUT MOUNTAIN VALLEY MD HOLDINGS INC.

Mountain Valley MD is building a world-class organization centered around the implementation and licensing of its key technologies to global pharmaceutical, vaccine and nutraceutical third parties:

patented Quicksome oral drug formulation and delivery technologies,

patented Quicksol solubility formulation technology

Consistent with its vision towards Helping People Live Their Best Life, MVMD applies its Quicksome and Quicksol technologies to its work for advanced delivery of vaccines and pharmaceutical drugs as well as the development of products for pain management, weight loss, energy, focus, sleep, anxiety, and more.

MVMDs patented Quicksome desiccation technology utilizes advanced liposomes and other stabilizing molecules to encapsulate and formulate active ingredients into highly efficient product formats that are consumed orally. The result is a new generation of product formulations that could be capable of delivering vaccines, drugs and nutraceuticals into the body faster, with greater impact, efficiency and accuracy.

MVMDs patented Quicksol technology covers all highly solubilized macrocyclic lactones that could be effectively applied in multiple viral applications that could positively impact human and animal health globally. When Quicksol technology is applied to the ivermectin drug in its Ivectosol format, it uses excipients that are currently approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), making it a leading candidate for human injection and sublingual applications as well as significantly broader husbandry and companion animal treatments.

For more Company information and contact details, visit www.mountainvalleymd.com.

SOURCE: Mountain Valley MD Holdings Inc.



CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION

Certain statements contained in this news release may constitute forward-looking information. Forward-looking information is often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as "anticipate", "plan", "estimate", "expect", "may", "will", "intend", "should", and similar expressions. Forward-looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking information.

The Company's actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in this forward-looking information as a result of regulatory decisions, competitive factors in the industries in which the Company operates, prevailing economic conditions, and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of the Company.

The Company is making forward-looking statements, including but not limited to with respect to: the intention to repeat a trial with respect to its Ivectosol pre-clinical canine trial data and resulting disclosure; its continued research and development, and anticipated results in the areas of animal and human health, including husbandry, oncology, and other disease areas; no anticipated material change to current business plan.

The Company believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking information are reasonable, but no assurance can be given that these expectations will prove to be correct and such forward-looking information should not be unduly relied upon. Any forward-looking information contained in this news release represents the Company's expectations as of the date hereof and is subject to change after such date. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities legislation.
Los Angeles, USA, Sept. 15, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- DelveInsight Estimates a Promising Picture of Pompe Disease Pipeline Landscape in the Coming Years as Key Pharma Companies Bolster Rare Disease Pipeline

The Pompe Disease Pipeline is evolving with novel mechanisms of action (MoAs) that will bring positive changes in the disease pipeline landscape.

DelveInsights Pompe Disease Pipeline Insights report offers comprehensive coverage of the emerging Pompe Disease therapeutics landscape in different stages of clinical development from pre-clinical till a late-end stage, along with dormant, inactive and abandoned drugs agents.

The Pompe Disease Pipeline report provides a complete outlook of the clinical trials, colloborations happening in the domain, recent breakthroughs and growth prospects across the Pompe Disease domain.

Some of the key highlights from the Pompe Disease Pipeline report:

The Pompe Disease Pipeline report offers a rich analysis of 17+ key players and 17+ key therapies.

key players and key therapies. Pompe Disease pipeline comprises therapies in different stages of the clinical phase such as include Cipaglucosidase alfa, SPK-3006, ACTUS 101, AT845, RP A501, AOC-Pompe disease, AVR RD 03, GYS1 Program, ETV-GAA, and many others expected to enter the Pompe Disease market in the coming years.

and many others expected to enter the Pompe Disease market in the coming years. Key companies strengthening the Pompe Disease Pipeline are Spark Therapeutics, Amicus Therapeutics, Asklepios Biopharmaceutical, Audentes Therapeutics, Rocket Pharmaceuticals, Avidity Biosciences, AVROBIO, Maze Therapeutics, Denali Therapeutics among others.

among others. In May 2021, Amicus Therapeutics announced the completion of a successful Type B Pre-Biologics License Application (BLA) meeting with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for AT-GAA (cipaglucosidase alfa co-administered with miglustat), for the treatment of Pompe disease.

In March 2021, Maze Therapeutics revealed its first three lead therapeutic candidates in the companys wholly owned pipeline. One of the candidates includes an oral therapy targeting GYS1 for the treatment of Pompe disease, enabled by Mazes COMPASS platform. The company expects to start clinical trials in the first half of 2022.

Request for Sample @ Pompe Disease Emerging Therapies and Forecast

Pompe Disease: Overview

Pompe Disease is a rare genetic disease that is a result of a build-up of a complex sugar, glycogen in the cells of the body. It exhibits variable rates of progression and different ages of onset. The cause of the disease is a deficiency of an enzyme called acid alfa glucosidase (GAA), which breaks downs complex sugars in the body.

For more information on emerging drugs, visit Pompe Disease Pipeline Analysis

Pompe Disease Pipeline Drugs

Drug Company Phase MoA RoA Cipaglucosidase alfa Amicus Therapeutics Preregistration Alpha-glucosidase replacements Intravenous SPK-3006 Spark Therapeutics Phase I/II Alpha-glucosidase expression stimulants Intravenous AT845 Audentes

Therapeutics Phase I/II Gene transference Intravenous ACTUS 101 Asklepios Biopharmaceutical Phase I/II Gene transference Intravenous RP A501 Rocket Pharmaceuticals Phase I Gene transference NA AVR-RD-03 AVROBIO Preclinical Alpha-glucosidase stimulants NA AOC-Pompe disease Avidity Biosciences Discovery Glycogen synthase kinase modulators Parenteral

Request for Sample to know more @ Pompe Disease Pipeline Analysis, Key Companies, and Futuristic Trends

Pompe Disease Therapeutic Assessment

The Pompe Disease Pipeline report lays down complete insights into active Pompe Disease pipeline therapies segmented by Stage, Product Type, Route of Administration, Molecule Type, Target, and Mechanism of Action.

By Product Type

Mono

Combination

By Stage

Discovery

Pre-clinical

IND

Phase I

Phase II

Phase III

Pre-registration

By Molecule Type

Gene therapies

Recombinant fusion proteins

Small interfering RNA

Cell therapies

Monoclonal antibodies

By Route of Administration

Intravenous

Parenteral

By Mechanism of Action

Alpha-glucosidase replacements

Glycogen synthase kinase modulators

RNA interference

Gene transference

By Targets

Alpha-glucosidase

Gene replacement

Glycogen synthase kinase

Get in touch with our Business executive for Informative Business Decisions, Licensing Services and Consulting Solutions

Scope of the Pompe Disease Pipeline Report

Coverage: Global

Key Players: Spark Therapeutics, Amicus Therapeutics, Asklepios Biopharmaceutical, Audentes Therapeutics, Rocket Pharmaceuticals, Abeona Therapeutics, AVROBIO, Maze Therapeutic, Denali Therapeutics, Immusoft, Avidity Biosciences, and others.

Key Pompe Disease Pipeline Therapies: Cipaglucosidase alfa, SPK-3006, ACTUS 101, AT845, RP A501, AIM vectors, AVR RD 03, GYS1 Program, ETV-GAA, Research programme: glycogen storage disease type II therapy, AOC-Pompe disease, and others.

Reach out @ Pompe Disease Pipeline: Novel therapies and Emerging technologies

Table of Contents

1 Report Introduction 2 Pompe Disease Disease Overview 3 Pompe Disease Pipeline Outlook 4 Comparative Analysis 5 Pompe Disease Therapeutic Products in Clinical Stage 6 Pompe Disease Late Stage Products (Phase III) 7 Pompe Disease Mid Stage Products (Phase II) 8 Pompe Disease Early Stage Products (Phase I) 9 Pompe Disease Therapeutic Products in Non-clinical Stage 10 Pompe Disease Preclinical and Discovery Stage Products 11 Pompe Disease  DelveInsights Analytical Perspective 12 In-depth Commercial Assessment 13 Pompe Disease Collaboration Deals 14 Pompe Disease Therapeutics Pipeline Analysis 15 Inactive Pompe Disease Pipeline Products 16 Pompe Disease Key Companies 17 Pompe Disease- Unmet Needs 18 Pompe Disease Market Drivers and Barriers 19 Pompe Disease- Future Perspectives and Conclusion 20 Appendix 21 Report Methodology 22 Consulting Services 23 Disclaimer 24 About DelveInsight

Visit to know more of whats covered @ Pompe Disease Emerging Therapies, Treatments and Ongoing Clinical Trials

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About DelveInsight

DelveInsight is a leading Business Consultant and Market Research firm focused exclusively on life sciences. It supports Pharma companies by providing comprehensive end-to-end solutions to improve their performance. Get hassle-free access to all the healthcare and pharma market research reports through our subscription-based platform PharmDelve.

For more insights, visit Pharma, Healthcare, and Biotech News
HOUSTON, Sept. 15, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kayne Anderson Energy Infrastructure Fund, Inc. (the Company) (NYSE: KYN) announced today that the Company has entered into a merger agreement with Fiduciary/Claymore Energy Infrastructure Fund (NYSE: FMO). Pursuant to this agreement, FMO will be acquired by KYN, with FMOs shareholders being issued shares of KYN common stock in exchange for their shares of FMO common stock (as described below). The merger is expected to qualify as a tax-free reorganization for federal income tax purposes, and as a result, the transaction is not expected to be taxable to KYNs stockholders or FMOs shareholders.



This transaction has been unanimously approved by KYNs Board of Directors and FMOs Board of Trustees. Closing, which is expected in the first quarter of fiscal 2022, is subject to FMO shareholder approval, compliance with all regulatory requirements, and satisfaction of customary closing conditions.

As a result of the merger, the outstanding common stock of FMO will be exchanged for newly issued common stock of KYN. The exchange ratio will be based on the relative per share net asset values of FMO and KYN immediately prior to the transactions closing date. Based on each funds current per share net asset values, KYN expects to issue approximately 9.3 million shares of common stock to FMOs shareholders.

Jim Baker, President, CEO, and Chairman of KYN said, We are pleased to announce this transaction, which we believe is in the best interest of our stockholders. We believe the merger is a tax-efficient way for FMOs stockholders to continue investing in the energy infrastructure sector through KYNs large and diversified portfolio. As the largest closed-end fund focused on energy infrastructure investments, we believe KYN is a natural consolidator. Our investors should benefit from the potential cost savings that come with increased size and scale, enhanced trading liquidity, best in class access to the capital markets, and additional investment opportunities as we look to capitalize on the energy transition.

KYNs investment focus  equity investments in North American energy infrastructure companies  and its investment objective  to provide a high after tax total return with an emphasis on making cash distributions to stockholders  remain unchanged. We continue to be optimistic about the outlook for energy infrastructure companies over the next few years. Further, we believe KYNs portfolio is well-positioned to benefit from a continuation in the economic recovery as more progress is made containing the COVID-19 pandemic as well as capitalize on opportunities related to the transition away from traditional carbon-based fuels to a more sustainable mix of lower carbon and renewable energy sources, continued Mr. Baker.

KYNs distribution policy, which considers net distributable income as well as realized and unrealized gains from KYNs portfolio investments when determining KYNs distribution, will remain in place after completion of this transaction. We recognize that distributions are a significant part of the value proposition that KYN provides to its investors, and one of managements most important long-term goals is to provide the Companys investors an attractive distribution, concluded Mr. Baker.

KYN plans to file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) a registration statement/proxy statement on Form N-14 that will be provided to FMO shareholders as of the record date for the meeting. When available, the registration statement/proxy statement will describe in detail the terms of the proposed merger and the proposals being submitted to shareholders, as applicable. When it becomes effective, FMO shareholders are encouraged to review the registration statement/proxy statement on the SEC website at www.sec.gov.

The investment adviser to KYN is KA Fund Advisors, LLC. The investment adviser to FMO is Guggenheim Funds Investment Advisors, LLC.

Kayne Anderson Energy Infrastructure Fund, Inc. (NYSE: KYN) is a non-diversified, closed-end management investment company registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended, whose common stock is traded on the NYSE. The company's investment objective is to provide a high after-tax total return with an emphasis on making cash distributions to stockholders. KYN intends to achieve this objective by investing at least 80% of its total assets in securities of Energy Infrastructure Companies. See Glossary of Key Terms in the Companys most recent quarterly report for a description of these investment categories and the meaning of capitalized terms.

This press release is not intended to, and does not, constitute an offer to purchase or sell shares of KYN or FMO; nor is this press release intended to solicit a proxy from any shareholder of FMO. The solicitation of proxies to effect the merger will be made only by a final, effective registration statement/proxy statement on Form N-14, after it is declared effective by the SEC. This registration statement/proxy statement has yet to be filed with the SEC. After the registration statement/proxy statement is filed with the SEC, it may be amended or withdrawn and the registration statement/proxy statement will not be distributed to shareholders unless and until it is declared effective by the SEC. Nothing contained in this press release is intended to recommend any investment policy or investment strategy or take into account the specific objectives or circumstances of any investor. Please consult with your investment, tax, or legal adviser regarding your individual circumstances prior to investing.

CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS: This communication contains statements reflecting assumptions, expectations, projections, intentions, or beliefs about future events. These and other statements not relating strictly to historical or current facts constitute forward-looking statements as defined under the U.S. federal securities laws. Forward-looking statements involve a variety of risks and uncertainties. These risks include, but are not limited to, changes in economic and political conditions; regulatory and legal changes; energy industry risk; leverage risk; valuation risk; interest rate risk; tax risk; and other risks discussed in detail in the Companys filings with the SEC, available at www.kaynefunds.com or www.sec.gov. Actual events could differ materially from these statements or from our present expectations or projections. You should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date they are made. Kayne Anderson undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements made herein. There is no assurance that the Companys investment objectives will be attained.




VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Sept. 15, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Nabis Holdings Inc. (CSE: NAB) (OTC: NABIF) (FRA: A2PL) (Nabis or the Company) announces that the Company received an interim order issued by the Supreme Court of British Columbia (BCSC) pursuant to the British Columbia Business Corporations Act (the BCBCA) providing for the calling and holding of the meeting of the registered holders of the $23,000,000 principal amount of 5.3% promissory notes due January 25, 2023 (the Notes) being held virtually on Monday, September 27, 2021 at 8:00 a.m. (the Noteholders Meeting) and other procedural matters. Caravel CAD Fund Ltd. (Caravel) opposed the grant of the Interim Order, and in particular, the date proposed to be set for the Noteholders Meeting. However, on the application for the Interim Order, the Court rejected the objection of Caravel to the date set for the Noteholders Meeting and held that Caravel was not prejudiced as a result of the Noteholders Meeting being held on this date. The Company further announces that it has filed and mailed its management information circular (the Information Circular) and related meeting and proxy materials (collectively, the Meeting Materials) for the Noteholder Meeting today.

At the Noteholder Meeting, noteholders will be asked to: (i) approve the proposed plan of arrangement (the Arrangement) between the Company and the persons entered in the register for the Notes as registered holders of Notes, to approve the repurchase of all of the Notes by the Company under Division 5 of Part 9 of the BCBCA; and (ii) to approve the delisting of the Notes from the Canadian Securities Exchange. The Company has also commenced the mailing of the notices and management information circular (the Circular) with respect to the Noteholders Meeting.

As previously announced on July 27, 2021, holders of the Notes (the Noteholders) representing more than 75% of the Notes entered into binding, irrevocable commitments to support the Arrangement (the Support Agreements). The Arrangement if completed, will substantially de-risk the Company by discharging its remaining indebtedness and eliminating the Companys exposure to the market price of the Class A Subordinate Voting Shares of Verano Holdings Corp. (Verano) on favourable terms.

To implement the Arrangement, and subject to and in accordance with a share purchase agreement dated August 23, 2021 (the Share Purchase Agreement) between the Company and Caravel, the Company intends to sell 892,638 Verano Class A subordinate voting shares (the Verano Shares) to Caravel in consideration of CAD$17,495,705 (the Asset Sale). In accordance with the Arrangement and following the completion of the sale of the Verano Shares pursuant to the terms of the Share Purchase Agreement, the Company will acquire all of the outstanding Notes for an amount equal to $73.75 for each $100 principal amount of Notes outstanding, which shall, and shall be deemed to, be received in full and final settlement of all Notes.

The Asset Sale and the Share Purchase Agreement, provides that Caravel will purchase the Verano Shares from the Company. As of the date hereof, Caravel beneficially owns and controls, directly or indirectly, 967,067 common shares in the capital of the Company (each, a Common Share), representing approximately 18.96% of the issued and outstanding Common Shares on a non-diluted and a partially diluted basis. As a result, Caravel is considered a related person of the Company and the Asset Sale contemplated by the Share Purchase Agreement constitutes a related party transaction, as such term is defined in Multilateral Instrument 61-101  Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions (MI 61-101) and the closing of the Share Purchase Agreement is subject to the Companys satisfaction of the requirements set out in MI 61-101.

On August 25, 2021, StephenAvenue Securities Inc. (StephenAvenue) delivered a fairness opinion (the Fairness Opinion) to the Company. In the Fairness Opinion, StephenAvenue stated that it considered, inter alia, the following in reaching its conclusion that the Arrangement is fair, from a financial point of view, to the Noteholders:

(a) liquidation of the Companys sole material asset by way of incremental sale of the Verano Shares (as defined below) on the CSE would likely result in materially less proceeds for the satisfaction of the Notes;

(b) if the Arrangement is not approved, the Company may be required to consider bankruptcy or CCAA proceedings;

(c) the Arrangement would permit continued participation by shareholders of the Company in the Companys growth and/or strategic initiatives while improving the Companys solvency and liquidity; and

(d) StephenAvenue and the Company are not aware of any other feasible alternatives that are superior to the Arrangement.

Pursuant to the Arrangement, all of the Notes, including those currently held by Caravel, are to be acquired by the Company from the Noteholders for an amount equal to $73.75 cash for each $100 principal amount of Notes outstanding in full and final settlement of the Notes, and any and all accrued and unpaid interest owing to the Noteholders shall be forgiven, settled and extinguished for no consideration. As of the date hereof, Caravel beneficially owns $10,602,689 of the Notes, representing 46.1% of the outstanding Notes. As a result, Caravel is considered a related person of the Company and the Arrangement constitutes a related party transaction, as such term is defined in MI 61-101 and the completion of the Arrangement is subject to the Companys satisfaction of the requirements set out in MI 61-101.

Accordingly, pursuant to MI 61-101, the Asset Sale and the Arrangement are subject to the minority shareholder approval and the formal valuation requirements of MI 61-101. The Company has not received any valuations with respect to the Asset Sale or the Arrangement and is relying on the exemption from the valuation requirement set out in Section 5.5(b) of MI 61-101, due to the fact that that the Company is not listed on one of the specified markets set out in Section 5.5(b) of MI 61-101. At the Companys upcoming annual and special shareholder meeting to be held on September 28, 2021 (the Shareholder Meeting), the Company will be seeking the approval of the disinterested shareholders to authorize the Asset Sale and the Arrangement. Pursuant to the minority shareholder approval requirements of MI 61-101, the votes attached to Common Shares held by Caravel will be excluded from voting on the Asset Sale and the Arrangement. Pursuant to MI 61-101, the resolution approving the Arrangement must be approved by a simple majority of affirmative votes cast by the shareholders, other than votes attaching to Common Shares held by Caravel. In order to be effective, the Asset Sale must be approved by: (i) at least two-thirds of the votes cast on the resolution approving the Asset Sale by the shareholders present in person or represented by proxy at the Shareholder Meeting, and (ii) a simple majority of the votes cast by the minority shareholders present in person or represented by Proxy and entitled to vote at the Shareholder Meeting, in accordance with the "minority approval" requirements of 61-101 (excluding, for these purposes, Common Shares held by Caravel).

Caravel executed a Support Agreement effective July 2, 2021 pursuant to which it agreed to support the Arrangement including, among other things, to vote in favour of the Arrangement and act in good faith and take all commercially reasonable actions that are reasonably necessary or appropriate to promptly consummate the Arrangement. Caravel now takes the position that in obtaining the Interim Order the Company is in breach of the Support Agreement and further alleges that it has been relieved of its obligations under the Support Agreement and is also not required to complete the Asset Sale as described below. The Company disputes that there is any legitimate legal basis for Caravel to seek to avoid its obligations under either the Support Agreement or the Share Purchase Agreement. The Company will be taking such steps as may be necessary and advisable to compel Caravel to fulfil its contractual obligations under all agreements relevant to the Arrangement. However, as of the date of the Information Circular, Caravel has indicated that it will vote its shares against the Arrangement.

Your vote is important regardless of the numbers of securities you own.

Nabis encourages securityholders to read the materials for the Noteholder Meeting, which have been filed on the Companys SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com and will be uploaded to the Companys website at: www.nabisholdings.com.

The Board of Directors unanimously recommends that all Noteholders vote in favour of the Plan of Arrangement.

Voting Deadlines

The deadline for the Noteholders to submit their respective proxies or voting instructions in order to vote on the Plan of Arrangement is 8:00 a.m. (Vancouver time), on September 23, 2021. Banks, brokers or other intermediaries that hold the Notes on a securityholders behalf may have internal deadlines that require securityholders to submit their votes by an earlier date. Securityholders are encouraged to contact their intermediaries directly to confirm any such internal deadline.

Attendance at the Meetings

To proactively deal with the public health impact of the novel coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, and to mitigate risks to health and safety, the Company will be holding the Meetings in a virtual-only format, which will be conducted via live audio webcast available online using the LUMI meeting platform. During the live audio webcasts, Noteholders will be able to hear the Noteholders Meeting and such registered securityholders and duly appointed and registered proxyholders will be able to submit questions and vote at the Noteholder Meeting. The Circular provides important and detailed instructions about how to participate at the Meeting.

Further details on the Shareholder Meeting, the Noteholder Meeting, and the Arrangement can be found in the Companys SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com.

About Nabis Holdings Inc.

Nabis Holdings is a Canadian investment issuer that invests in assets across multiple industries, including real property and the U.S. and international cannabis sector. For more information, please visit https://www.nabisholdings.com/.

Cautionary Statements

Certain statements included herein are forward-looking statements. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements can be identified by words such as: "anticipate, "intend, "plan, "goal, "seek, "believe, "expect, "future, likely, "may", "should", "will" and similar references to future periods. Examples of forward-looking statements include, among others, statements regarding the approvals sought at the Noteholder Meeting and Shareholder Meeting and the closing of the Asset Sale. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ, materially from the Companys expectations are disclosed in the Companys documents filed from time to time with the CSE, the British Columbia Securities Commission, the Ontario Securities Commission and the Alberta Securities Commission. The Company has no obligation to update such forward-looking statements except as required by applicable law.

The Canadian Securities Exchange has neither reviewed nor approved the contents of this news release and accepts no responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Beverly Hills, California, Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Gary Lavoie says his offerings are poised at the forefront of technology optimization, aiming to create a workers comp process that values everyone.

Listen to the full interview of Gary Lavoie with Adam Torres on Mission Matters Money Podcast.

Workers Compensation - The Current Scenario

Theres a lot of distrust and bias in the system, Lavoie says of the employer/employee dynamic with regard to workers compensation. No ones actually winning and from the carrier perspective, theres an internal push and pull thats happening between the necessity of data utility and automation versus the other side of the equation, which is a staff that believes in simplicity.

The kicker, Lavoie says, is that both sides have valid complaints. They're both correct, he explains. We need to build a new system driven by useful information that brings simplicity back into the administration of worker health risk and injury management.

Taking into account the industrys growth and performance over the last two decades, workers compensation is currently a $58 billion dollar industry, but Lavoie says its seeing a decline in lost time claims over those same two decades. Theres also the issue of heavy administration and wastefulness: the things that injured workers distrust, and the bias that results from it, which makes working in the system far less enjoyable for everyone.

This isn't about creating worker centricity (exclusively), but building for the worker and the employer dynamic as well, Lavoie says. It's about all of the stakeholders that are in the system. We need to recreate purpose in jobs that administrate risk; we don't want them to become paper pushers and billers in the system.

How does TruNorth.Tech help?

TruNorth.Tech, Lavoie says, is the result of technology born at Tempus Work Environment and Risk Solutions. Its solutions have evolved alongside the expertise that exists at Tempus in the realms of workers comp, occupational safety, and medical case management. Its tech team is aligned with an advisory group with expertise in orthopedic surgery and behavioral health elements relevant to the workplace. Once launched, TruNorth.Tech will work with small and mid-sized businesses via carrier partnerships. It also strategically aims to connect with enterprise-level businesses that have already made the shift into the self-insurance realm, with supporting administrators for workers compensation risk management.

We are bringing a new data set to the table, shares Lavoie. We engage in partnerships surrounding injury management and advocacy, which is a spend item that most carriers and administrators in the system are already experiencing. So, with Tempus, we can deploy data that has meaningful utility right into the operation itself to make culture change and a technology transformation growing from within.

The Road Ahead

We went to a couple of the partners that were engaged with Tempus right at the onset, and pitched the idea, and it lit a fire in our community that led to a $825,000 seed round raise. Lavoie notes that the company is closing this seed round at this very moment.. We're going to be launching within the next week, he says.

TruNorth Tech plans to integrate corporate partnerships with Tempus and aims to change how medical case management, injury management, and advocacy can change the way the system is administered and measured holistically.

To learn more about Tempus and TruNorth Tech, visit https://www.tempusrisk.com/

Media Communications

Inquiries: adamtorres@missionmatters.com

Publicist for Adam Torres and Mission Matters Media KISS PR Brand Story PressWire

Brand Publicity Partners KissPR.com

For more details, visit Kisspr.com Content Marketing Experts. KISS PR Digital PR & Marketing powers the Mission Matters Business podcast with brand storytelling. T: 972.437.8942

Attachment
Pune, India, Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The global battery energy storage market size is expected to reach USD 26.81 billion in 2028, exhibiting a CAGR of 16.5% during the forecast period. The introduction of innovative technologies due to the rapidly growing energy demand can have a tremendous impact on the market growth in the foreseeable future, states Fortune Business Insights in a report titled, Battery Energy Storage Market, 2021-2028. The market size stood at USD 7.81 billion in 2020.

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The Report Lists the Key Companies in the Battery Energy Storage Market:

ABB (Switzerland)

Kokam (South Korea)

Samsung SDI (South Korea)

Total (France)

Hitachi ABB Power Grids (Switzerland)

Siemens Energy (Germany)

Black & Veatch (U.S.)

EVE Energy Co., Ltd. (China)

VRB Energy (Canada)

Narada (China)

Fluence (U.S.)

LG Chem (South Korea)

Hitachi Chemical Co., Ltd. (Japan)

GE (U.S.)

Report Scope & Segmentation

Report Coverage Details Forecast Period 2021 to 2028 Forecast Period 2021 to 2028 CAGR 16.5 % 2028 Value Projection USD 26.81 Billion Base Year 2020 Market Size in 2021 USD 9.21 Billion Historical Data for 2017 to 2019 No. of Pages 309 Segments covered Size, Share, Battery Type, Connectivity, Geography Growth Drivers Growing Integration of Renewable Energy Technologies to Boost BESS Demand Stringent Carbon Reduction Norms and Rising Peak Energy Demand to Propel Market Size Continuously Expanding Grid Infrastructure to Unveil New Opportunities for Industry Growth Pitfalls & Challenges Significant Initial Investment May Hinder the Market Pace

COVID-19 Impact :

The rapid outbreak of COVID-19, or coronavirus viral illness, has had an extraordinary impact on many countries across the world. The sudden surge in the number of cases of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 has had a significant impact on the economics of many countries (SARS-CoV-2). Furthermore, limited worldwide interactions to prevent the fatal virus from spreading across the population have hampered global supply chain logistics, thus hurting the global battery energy storage industry.

However, the demand for BESS units is expected to be counterbalanced by supporting economic stimulus packages proposed by a number of governments, as well as ongoing efforts by industry participants. In August 2020, for example, ABB announced a partnership with Zenob Energy Limited, a BESS producer, to deliver an advanced traction power solution for UK railways.

Click here to get the short-term and long-term impact of COVID-19 on this Market.

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Market Segments :

Based on battery type, the market is categorized into lithium-ion battery, lead-acid battery, flow battery, and others. Based on connectivity, the market is divided into off-grid and on-grid. Based on application, residential, non-residential, utility, and others are the four key segments present across this industry. Based on ownership, the market can be primarily separated into customer-owned, third-party-owned, and utility-owned.

Geographically, the market is classified into North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, and the rest of the world.

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What Does the Report Highlights?

The study provides a detailed analysis of the industry, focusing on the variables that drive, repel, obstruct, and provide market possibilities. It also clarifies the segmentation table, the list of leading categories with statistics, and the variables that influence them. The competitive landscape of the market, the list of prominent players, and the major steps are also included in the study. Besides this, the report highlights the major industry developments of the market, current market trends, and other interesting insights into the market.

Driving Factor :

Rising Emphasis on Renewable Energy Technologies to Aid Market Expansion

Different governments have set significant goals to increase the use of sustainable energy technologies, which is expected to boost the market. To ensure peak power use supply, BESS devices may be easily incorporated into residential, commercial, and industrial-scale solar and wind energy generating techniques. Global renewable power generation was predicted at 2,805.5 Terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2019, up 13.7 percent from 2,468.0 TWh in 2018, according to the Statistical Review of World Energy 2020 published by BP in June 2020.

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Regional Insights :

Increasing Carbon Reduction Targets to Favor Growth in Europe

In 2020, the Asia Pacific market for battery energy storage was expected to be worth USD 3.29 billion, accounting for the lion's share in terms of both value and volume. Rapidly expanding renewable energy generating capacity, continued urbanization and industrialization, increased electrification objectives, and the presence of diverse industry participants are some of the variables that are complementing the growth in the region. Furthermore, the huge carbon reduction targets set out by regional organizations such as the European Commission and national governments support the expansion of the European market. A wide range of encouraging renewable deployment goals and energy security regulations are also helping to boost demand for BESS devices in the region.

Competitive Landscape :

Prominent Companies Focus on Novel Offerings to Consolidate their Market Positions

The global battery energy storage industry is very fragmented, with various companies offering a wide range of goods, services, and solutions to retain their battery energy storage market share. In addition, the sector has seen significant global and regional players, as well as a large number of small and medium-sized system integrators, introduce new tactics.

Key Development :

January 2021: Siemens announced that it had signed a contract with Britishvolt to establish the first lithium-ion battery Gigafactory in the UK. Siemens will offer its automation, electrification, and digital twin solutions to Britishvolt to boost the lithium-ion output from the facility.

Major Table of Contents:

Introduction Research Scope Market Segmentation Research Methodology Definitions and Assumptions

Executive Summary

Market Dynamics Market Drivers Market Restraints Market Opportunities

Key Insights Key Emerging Trends  For Major Countries Latest Technological Advancement Insights on Regulatory Scenario Industry SWOT Analysis Porters Five Forces Analysis Value Chain Analysis

Qualitative Analysis  Impact of COVID-19 Impact of COVID-19 on the Battery Energy Storage Market Steps Taken by the Government to Overcome the Impact Key Developments by the Industry Players in Response to COVID-19 Potential Opportunities and Challenges due to COVID-19 Outbreak

Global Battery Energy Storage Market Analysis (MW, USD Billion), Insights and Forecast, 2017-2028 Key Findings / Summary Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By Battery Type Lithium-Ion Battery Lead Acid Battery Flow Battery Others Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By Connectivity Off-Grid On-Grid Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By Application Residential Non-Residential Utility Others Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By Ownership Customer-Owned Third-Party Owned Utility-Owned Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By Region North America Europe Asia Pacific Rest of the World

North America Battery Energy Storage Market Analysis (MW, USD Billion), Insights and Forecast, 2017-2028 Key Findings / Summary Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By Battery Type Lithium-Ion Battery Lead Acid Battery Flow Battery Others Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By Connectivity Off-Grid On-Grid Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By Application Residential Non-Residential Utility Others Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By Ownership Customer-Owned Third-Party Owned Utility-Owned Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By Country



United Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By Battery Type Lithium-Ion Battery Lead Acid Battery Flow Battery Others Canada Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By Battery Type Lithium-Ion Battery Lead Acid Battery Flow Battery Others



TOC Continued!

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Have a Look at Related Research Insights:

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Fuel Cell Market Size , Share & COVID-19 Impact Analysis, By Type (Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC), Phosphoric Acid Fuel Cell (PAFC), Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC), Others), By Application (Portable, Stationary, Transport), and Regional Forecast, 2021-2028

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About Us:

Fortune Business Insights offers expert corporate analysis and accurate data, helping organizations of all sizes make timely decisions. We tailor innovative solutions for our clients, assisting them to address challenges distinct to their businesses. Our goal is to empower our clients with holistic market intelligence, giving a granular overview of the market they are operating in.

Our reports contain a unique mix of tangible insights and qualitative analysis to help companies achieve sustainable growth. Our team of experienced analysts and consultants use industry-leading research tools and techniques to compile comprehensive market studies, interspersed with relevant data.

At Fortune Business Insights, we aim at highlighting the most lucrative growth opportunities for our clients. We, therefore, offer recommendations, making it easier for them to navigate through technological and market-related changes. Our consulting services are designed to help organizations identify hidden opportunities and understand prevailing competitive challenges.

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Pune, India, Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Disposable Medical Gloves Market will hit USD 14.03 billion by the end of 2027 from USD 5.95 billion in the year 2019. The forecast period is set between 2020 to 2027, and the market is expected to rise at a CAGR of 10.6%

Global Disposable Medical Gloves Market Highlights:

The Disposable Medical Gloves Market report offers an in-depth analysis of the Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient industry and the demand drivers by highlighting information on several aspects of the market. Prudent Markets addresses all these aspects and provides the latest scoop and detailed eye-opening study on all major & emerging business segments. In addition to this, the report sheds light on the industry developments by key players, which are contributing to the expansion of this industry. The development scope, feasibility study, Disposable Medical Gloves Industry concentration, and maturity analysis is elaborated in this report.

Information given in the research report pertains to different technological advancements introduced in recent years, which allows for a meticulous analysis of the industry and offers a more comprehensive understanding to the readers.





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This report focuses on Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient Global Market, especially in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and Africa. This report categorizes the market based on manufacturers, regions, type and application. Regional analysis is another highly comprehensive part of the research and analysis study of the global market presented in the report. This section sheds light on the sales growth of different regional and country-level markets. For the historical and forecast period to 2026, it provides detailed and accurate country-wise volume analysis and region-wise market size analysis of the global market.

Companies Focusing on Launch of Allergy-free Gloves to Compete for Top Position

The global market for disposable medical gloves is consolidated on account of a few players holding major shares. The worldwide demand for rubber gloves is rising at a CAGR of 8 to 10% per year. Most of the Malaysian suppliers have a firm grip on the rubber gloves demand and supply chain. Companies such as Hartlega Holdings Bhd., Top Glove Corporation, and others are holding about 63% or more of the rubber gloves supply chain on account of the availability of natural rubber latex in the Malaysian region. On the other side, Molnlycke Health Care AB, Cardinal Health, and Ansell are the leading players dealing in surgical gloves. The other players are engaging in product expansion activities. They are therefore investing heavily on the development of allergy-free gloves and the alternative to powdered latex gloves for gaining a competitive position in the market.





Click here to get the short-term and long-term impact of COVID-19 on this Market.

Please visit: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/industry-reports/disposable-medical-gloves-market-101484





North America Held Largest Share Owing to Stringent Health Regulations Imposed by Government on Personal Health and Safety

Geographically, North America earned USD 2.26 billion and emerged as the region with the highest disposable medical gloves market share in 2019, followed by Europe. This is attributable to the growing awareness about prevention of healthcare-related infections. The increasing demand for better quality polyisoprene medical gloves for surgical purpose is also adding a boost to the regional market growth.

On the other side, Asia Pacific market will emerge as the fastest-growing region on account of the increasing adoption of nitrile gloves for medical examination procedures. This is further attributable to the decline in the cost of nitrile gloves and their puncture resistance features. Furthermore, the market in the Middle East and Africa is expected to rise significantly in the coming years on account of the rising medical awareness and expenditure on infrastructural development.

COVID-19 has a significant impact on both the healthcare sector and the world economy. Most of the industries are temporarily shut, and the ones that are operating from homes are barely trying to generate meagre income. We hope to soon overcome this difficult time with government support. Fortune Business Insights is offering special reports on various markets impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. These reports provide insights into the current scenario of the specific markets so that key developers and investors can accordingly chalk out plans for better revenue generation in the years to come.





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Some of the Key Players of this Market include:

Kossan Rubber Industries Bhd (Selangor, Malaysia)

Halyard Health (Georgia, United States)

Ansell Ltd (Richmond, Australia)

KANAM LATEX INDUSTRIES PVT LTD (Kerala, India)

Top Glove Corporation Bhd (Shah Alam, Malaysia)

Elite Surgical

Hartalega Holdings Bhd (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)

Dynarex Corporation (New York, United States)

Molnlycke Health Care AB (Gothenburg, Sweden)

Cardinal Health (Ohio, United States)

Others





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Some major points from Table of Content:

Introduction Research Scope Market Segmentation Research Methodology Definitions and Assumptions

Executive Summary

Market Dynamics Market Drivers Market Restraints Market Opportunities

Key Insights Overview of Latex Allergy- Key Country/Region Healthcare Industry Overview-Key Country/Region- Key Industry Developments (Mergers, Acquisitions, Partnerships, New Product Launches, etc.)

Global Disposable Medical Gloves Industry Analysis, Insights and Forecast, 2016-2027 Key Findings / Summary Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By Application Surgical Examination Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By Material Latex Synthetic



Nitrile Vinyl Others



North America Disposable Medical Gloves Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast, 2016-2027 Key Findings / Summary Market Analysis  By Application Surgical Examination Market Analysis  By Material Latex Synthetic

Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By Category Powdered Powder-free Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By End-user Hospitals & Clinics Diagnostic/Pathology Labs Dental Clinics Others Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By Region North America Europe Asia Pacific Latin America Middle East & Africa



Nitrile Vinyl Others



Europe Disposable Medical Gloves Industry Analysis, Insights and Forecast, 2016-2027 Key Findings / Summary Market Analysis  By Application Surgical Examination Market Analysis  By Material Latex Synthetic

Market Analysis  By Category Powdered Powder-free Market Analysis  By End-user Hospitals & Clinics Diagnostic/Pathology Labs Dental Clinics Others Market Analysis  By Country U.S. Canada



Nitrile Vinyl Others



Market Analysis  By Category Powdered Powder-free Market Analysis  By End-user Hospitals & Clinics Diagnostic/Pathology Labs Dental Clinics Others Market Analysis  By Country/Sub-region U.K. Germany France Spain Italy Scandinavia Rest of Europe



Continued...





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About Us:



Fortune Business Insights offers expert corporate analysis and accurate data, helping organizations of all sizes make timely decisions. We tailor innovative solutions for our clients, assisting them to address challenges distinct to their businesses. Our goal is to empower our clients with holistic market intelligence, giving a granular overview of the market they are operating in.

Our reports contain a unique mix of tangible insights and qualitative analysis to help companies achieve sustainable growth. Our team of experienced analysts and consultants use industry-leading research tools and techniques to compile comprehensive market studies, interspersed with relevant data.

At Fortune Business Insights we aim at highlighting the most lucrative growth opportunities for our clients. We, therefore, offer recommendations, making it easier for them to navigate through technological and market-related changes. Our consulting services are designed to help organizations identify hidden opportunities and understand prevailing competitive challenges.





Contact Us:

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FRANKFURT, Germany, Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Global advisory firm StoneTurn is expanding its footprint in DACH with the addition of Kristof Wabl, previously a Big Four Partner, and Steffen Salvenmoser, CFE, a former judge, German public prosecutor and founding member of a Big Four firms German Forensic Services practice. Together, Kristof and Steffen bring nearly 50 years of on-the-ground experience in compliance, financial crime, and forensic investigations to StoneTurns rapidly expanding DACH team. They have advised regulatory agencies such as BaFin and FMA, among others, and assisted financial institutions on compliance, anti-money laundering and sanctions matters. Kristof and Steffen join the firms Frankfurt-based team led by Partner Julia Arbery, LL.M who previously worked as part of the team supporting the Department of Justice (DOJ)-appointed Independent Compliance and Business Ethics Monitor to Deutsche Bank and also, on the Forensic Adviser team supporting the DOJ-Appointed Independent Compliance Monitor and Auditor of Volkswagen AG.



The pandemic has created and sustained an environment in which fraudulent activity and corporate misconduct are on the rise, said Christopher Martinez, StoneTurns Co-Founder and Managing Partner. At the same time, businesses in Germany, Austria and Switzerland are struggling to navigate heightened regulatory scrutiny, an evolving political landscape and an uptick in whistleblower activity overall. As companies find their activities called into question by government agencies locally and in the EU, as well as the public at large, Kristofs and Steffens significant experience overseeing and mitigating high-profile investigations will be an asset to clients.

Kristof has overseen large-scale, sensitive internal investigations and gained significant experience working alongside international law firms, regulators and law enforcement agencies. While with a Big Four firm for 14 years, he built and led the firms Forensics & Crisis practice in Vienna, led internal control review engagements, and also assisted clients in improving compliance processes. With his law background as well as experience in leading cross-border assignments throughout Europe and the U.S., Kristof serves as a trusted adviser to businesses across a range of industries. Particularly, he advises on internal controls and governance frameworks, designs and implements whistleblower programs, and recommends remedial actions. In addition to his work with StoneTurn DACH, Kristof currently leads the task force focused on Whistleblowing for the Austrian Chapter of Transparency International.

Steffen Salvenmoser, a former judge and German public prosecutor, brings more than 30 years of compliance and regulatory experience to advise clients on all aspects of risk, including the design, implementation and review of compliance management systems. With a focus on financial crime and forensics, Steffen helps clients strengthen aspects of their compliance processes, performs risk assessments, implements whistleblower programs and designs policies and procedures. In addition, Steffen has led a number of complex internal investigations in Germany and abroad. He is a lecturer at the Fresenius University of Applied Science in Wiesbaden and a member of the German Business Ethics Networks board of trustees.

StoneTurn, a global advisory firm, assists companies, their counsel and government agencies on regulatory, risk and compliance issues, investigations and business disputes. We serve our clients from offices across the U.S., U.K. and in Germany, Brazil and South Africa, assisted by a network of senior advisers around the world. To learn more, visit StoneTurn.com.

Contact:

Melanie Keenan

Director of Marketing at StoneTurn

mrener@stoneturn.com
New benchmark measures efficiency of datacenter virtualization solutions and their management environments

GAINESVILLE, Va., Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Standard Performance Evaluation Corporations (SPEC) Virtualization Committee today released the SPECvirt Datacenter 2021 benchmark, a new multi-host benchmark for measuring the performance of a scaled-out datacenter. The SPECvirt Datacenter 2021 benchmark uses real-world and simulated workloads to measure the overall efficiency of virtualization solutions and their management environments. The new benchmark complements the existing SPECvirt_sc 2013 server consolidation benchmark, which is designed for a single-host environment.

Todays datacenters use clusters of servers to ensure reliability, availability, serviceability, and security. Adding virtualization to a clustered solution enhances server optimization, flexibility, and application availability while reducing costs through server and datacenter consolidation. While the SPECvirt Datacenter 2021 benchmark enables analysis of these more complex multi-host environments, it is much easier to use than the SPECvirt_sc 2013 benchmark, providing a single virtual machine (VM) template to set up its harness and workloads. The SPECvirt Datacenter 2021 benchmark supports multiple hypervisor vendor solutions and ships with support for RHV 4.x and vSphere 6.x and 7.x.

The ongoing evolution of virtualized environments has made it imperative that suppliers and buyers have a fair, vendor-agnostic tool for measuring the performance of solutions that power virtualized multi-host infrastructures, said David Schmidt, Chair of the SPEC Virtualization Committee. The SPECvirt Datacenter 2021 benchmark is easy to use and creates an excellent foundation for examining and comparing performance in these complex environments that are increasingly becoming the norm.

The SPECvirt Datacenter 2021 benchmark provides a methodical way to measure a virtualization platforms performance in a dynamic virtualized datacenter environment. It models typical, modern-day usage of virtualized infrastructure, such as VM resource provisioning, cross-node load balancing (including management operations such as VM migrations), and VM power on/off. The benchmark exercises datacenter operations under load and dynamically provisions new workload VMs from a preconfigured template or powers on existing VMs. As the load reaches maximum capacity of the cluster, hosts are added to the cluster to measure scheduler efficiency and maximize throughput.

The SPECvirt Datacenter 2021 benchmark feature overview:

Multi-host benchmark  Minimum of four hosts required, scales in increments of four.

Datacenter operations model  Multi-workload benchmark measures performance of hypervisor infrastructure, including how the hypervisor manager controls resources.

Five real-world and simulated workloads  OLTP database, based on HammerDB benchmark Hadoop/Big Data cluster, based on BigBench benchmark Simulated departmental mail server Simulated departmental web server Simulated departmental collaboration server

VM resource management  Handled by the hypervisor manager, including scheduling policies. Workload VMs powered on or deployed during benchmark.

Ease of use  Single preconfigured template VM to set up harness and workloads. No tuning of guest OS/software necessary.

Available for immediate download

The SPECvirt Datacenter 2021 benchmark is available for immediate download from SPEC for $2,500. There is a $500 discount for those who already have a copy of the SPECvirt_sc 2013 benchmark until March 2, 2022. Discounts are also available for qualifying non-profit research and academic organizations. Visit the SPEC website for more information.

About SPEC

SPEC is a non-profit organization that establishes, maintains, and endorses standardized benchmarks and tools to evaluate performance for the newest generation of computing systems. Its membership comprises more than 120 leading computer hardware and software vendors, educational institutions, research organizations, and government agencies worldwide.

Media contact:

Brigit Valencia

360.597.4516

brigit@compel-pr.com

Images available upon request.

SPECvirt, SPECvirt_sc and SPEC are trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. All other product and company names herein may be trademarks of their registered owners.

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/3f194b2b-0545-4f39-a159-2a8489f7d2db
Dublin, Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Aircraft Seals Market by Type (Dynamic and Static), Application (Engine, Airframe, Avionics, Flight Control System, Landing Gear), Material (Composites, Polymers, Metals), End Use (OEM, Aftermarket), Platform, and Region - Forecast to 2026" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The aircraft seals market size is projected to grow from USD 1.9 billion in 2021 to USD 2.4 billion by 2026, at a CAGR of 5.1% from 2021 to 2026.

The market is driven by factors such as increase in global aircraft fleet size, and short replacement cycle of aircraft seals SKF (Sweden), Saint-Gobain (France), Trelleborg Sealing Solutions (Sweden), Meggitt PLC (UK), and Parker Hannifin Corporation (US) among others, are some of the leading players operating in the aircraft seals market. These players have spread their business across various countries includes North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. COVID-19 has impacted their businesses as well. Industry experts believe that COVID-19 has affected aircraft seals production and services by 7-10% globally in 2020.

Engine System: The largest segment of the aircraft seals market, by application.

Based on application, the engine system segment is expected to be the largest market by value. The growth of the engine system segment of the aircraft seals market can be attributed to the many sub-systems it comprises of such as air supply, thermal control, cabin pressurization, avionics cooling, smoke detection and fire suppression. Aircraft seals are also used in other important systems such as airframe, flight control & hydraulics system, avionics & electrical system, and landing gear system. Aircraft seals used in these aircraft systems to prevent the spread of fire or flames in the engine system of the aircraft, avoid air leakage, water or dust intrusion, prevent corrosion, or to prevent any aircraft fluid leakage.

Dynamic Seals: The highest revenue segment of the aircraft seals market, by type.

Based on type, the dynamic seals segment is projected to have a higher share in the aircraft seals market during the forecast period. The growth of the dynamic seals segment of the aircraft seals market can be attributed to the extensive usage in various applications, and majority of aircraft components are in motion than being stationary. These are used commonly in engine system, and flight control and hydraulics system of aircrafts.

Composites: The highest revenue segment of the aircraft seals market, by material.

Based on material, the composites segment is projected to have the highest share of revenue in the aircraft seals market. The extensive use of various types of composites for manufacturing aircraft seals, and their proven benefits such as resistance to heat and good strength, good chemical properties, low weight, etc can be attributed to its high market share. These are used in applications where there is a higher chance of corrosion, and high operating temperature.

Fixed Wing Aircraft: The highest revenue segment of the aircraft seals market, by aircraft type.

Based on platform, the fixed-wing aircraft segment is projected to have the highest revenue in the aircraft seals market during the forecast period. Fixed-wing aircraft segment consists of commercial aviation, business and general aviation and military aviation. The fixed-wing segment consists of the greatest number of aircrafts in terms of absolute numbers. However, the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles segment is projected to have the highest CAGR in the aircraft seals market.

OEM: The fastest-growing segment of the aircraft seals market, by end use.

Based on the end use, the OEM segment is projected to grow at a higher CAGR for the aircraft seals market during the forecast period. OEMs are responsible for the installation of aircraft seals in an aircraft during the assembly stage and are then made available for delivery to aircraft manufacturers. However, the Aftermarket segment is projected to have a higher market share in the aircraft seals market. Over the years, there has been a significant rise in the demand for different aircraft types across regions. According to Airbus, it delivered 863 commercial aircraft to 99 customers in 2019. The aftermarket segment is projected to have more revenue in the aircraft seals market.

North America: The largest contributing region in the aircraft seals market.

North America is projected to be the largest regional share of the aircraft seals market during the forecast period. The key factor responsible for North America, leading the aircraft seals market owing to the presence of large number of aircraft seals manufacturers in the region. Also, the region has been witnessing a rise in the newer aircrafts getting delivered. In North America, the rise in aircraft orders and supplies is encouraging manufacturers of aircraft seals to increase their sales year on year. The increasing demand for commercial aircraft and the presence of some of the leading players operating in the market, such as Parker Hannifin Corporation, Kirkhill, Inc., Brown Aircraft Supply are expected to drive the aircraft seals market in North America. These players are focusing on R&D to increase their product lines and using technologically advanced systems, subsystems, and other components for manufacturing aircraft seals. The European region is projected to have the highest growth rate in the aircraft seals market.

Key Topics Covered:

1 Introduction

2 Research Methodology

3 Executive Summary

4 Premium Insights

4.1 Attractive Growth Opportunities in Aircraft Seals Market

4.2 Aircraft Seals Market, by Platform

4.3 Aircraft Seals Market, by Type

4.4 Aircraft Seals Market, by Country

5 Market Overview

5.1 Introduction

5.2 Market Dynamics

5.2.1 Drivers

5.2.1.1 Increase in Global Aircraft Fleet Size to Increase Demand for Seals from Oem & Aftermarket

5.2.1.2 Frequent Replacement of Aircraft Seals

5.2.2 Restraints

5.2.2.1 High Manufacturing Costs of Aircraft Seals

5.2.3 Opportunities

5.2.3.1 Rising Adoption of Lightweight and Durable Seals

5.2.3.2 Developments in Additive Manufacturing Technology

5.2.4 Challenges

5.2.4.1 Issues Associated with Quality Accreditations

5.3 COVID-19 Impact: Range and Scenarios

5.4 Value Chain Analysis

5.5 Volume Analysis

5.6 Market Ecosystem Map

5.6.1 Prominent Companies

5.6.2 Private and Small Enterprises

5.6.3 End-users

5.7 Trends/Disruptions Impacting Customers

5.8 Porter's Five Forces Analysis

5.9 Trade Data Analysis

5.10 Tariff and Regulatory Landscape

5.11 Case Studies

5.12 Technology Analysis

6 Industry Trends

6.1 Introduction

6.2 Supply Chain Analysis

6.2.1 Major Companies

6.2.2 Small and Medium Enterprises

6.2.3 Aftermarket Service Providers

6.2.4 End-users/Customers

6.3 Emerging Industry Trends

6.3.1 Use of IoT in Aircraft Seals

6.3.2 Additive Manufacturing of Seals

6.3.3 Use of New Materials

6.4 Innovation & Patent Analysis

6.5 Impact of Megatrends

7 Aircraft Seals Market, by Platform

7.1 Introduction

7.1.1 Impact of COVID-19 on Platform Segment

7.1.1.1 Most Impacted Segment

7.1.1.2 Least Impacted Segment

7.2 Fixed Wing

7.2.1 Commercial Aviation

7.2.1.1 Narrow-Body Aircraft

7.2.1.2 Wide-Body Aircraft

7.2.1.3 Regional Transport Aircraft

7.2.2 Business & General Aviation

7.2.2.1 Business Jets

7.2.2.2 Light Aircraft

7.2.3 Military Aviation

7.2.3.1 Fighter Aircraft

7.2.3.2 Transport Aircraft

7.2.3.3 Special Mission Aircraft

7.3 Rotary Wing

7.3.1 Commercial Helicopters

7.3.2 Military Helicopters

7.4 Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

7.4.1 Fixed-Wing UAVs

7.4.2 Fixed-Wing Hybrid Vtol UAVs

7.4.3 Rotary-Wing UAVs

8 Aircraft Seals Market, by Type

8.1 Introduction

8.2 Dynamic Seals

8.2.1 Contact Seals

8.2.2 Clearance Seals

8.3 Static Seals

8.3.1 O-Rings & Gaskets

8.3.2 Other Seals

9 Aircraft Seals Market, by Application

9.1 Introduction

9.2 Engine System

9.3 Airframe

9.4 Avionics & Electrical System

9.5 Flight Control & Hydraulic System

9.6 Landing Gear System

10 Aircraft Seals Market, by End Use

10.1 Introduction

10.1.1 Impact of COVID-19 on End Use Segment

10.1.1.1 Most Impacted Segment

10.1.1.2 Least Impacted Segment

10.2 Original Equipment Manufacturers (Oem)

10.2.1 Increase in Global Aircraft Fleet Size Drives Segment

10.3 Aftermarket

10.3.1 Short Replacement Cycle of Aerospace Valves Boosts Segment

11 Aircraft Seals Market, by Material

11.1 Introduction

11.2 Composites

11.3 Polymer

11.4 Metals

12 Regional Analysis

13 Competitive Landscape

13.1 Introduction

13.2 Market Share Analysis, 2020

13.3 Revenue Analysis of Top 5 Market Players, 2020

13.4 Competitive Leadership Mapping

13.4.1 Star

13.4.2 Emerging Leader

13.4.3 Pervasive

13.4.4 Participant

13.5 Competitive Scenario

13.5.1 New Product Launches/Developments

13.5.2 Deals

13.5.3 Contracts

14 Company Profiles

14.1 Key Players

14.1.1 Skf

14.1.2 Parker Hannifin Corporation

14.1.3 Trelleborg Sealing Solutions

14.1.4 Meggitt plc

14.2 Other Players

14.2.1 Eaton Corporation plc

14.2.2 Dp Seals

14.2.3 Rexnord Corporation

14.2.4 W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc.

14.2.5 Performance Sealing Inc.

14.2.6 Ppg Aerospace

14.2.7 Precision Polymer Engineering Ltd.

14.2.8 Stacem

14.2.9 Nicholsons Sealing Technologies Ltd.

14.2.10 Icon Aerospace Technology

14.2.11 Brown Aircraft Supply

14.2.12 Hutchinson

14.2.13 Kirkhill, Inc.

14.2.14 Freudenberg Sealing Technologies

14.2.15 Dupont

14.2.16 Jacottet Industrie

15 Appendix

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/rc6mmm
Silicon Valley, California, Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Top real estate brokers Terri Kerwin and Peter Cowperthwaite have joined forces as a powerhouse team, the Kerwin Cowperthwaite Group, at Golden Gate Sothebys International Realty. With over 55 years of combined experience from their well-respected independent brokerages, the newly formed team joins the firms Menlo Park and Woodside offices.

We are thrilled to join forces with a brand that is one of the most trusted names in the world. We are excited to offer our clients the added depth and breadth that Golden Gate Sothebys International Realty offers, both locally and around the globe, says the Kerwin Cowperthwaite Group.



Cowperthwaite founded Cowperthwaite & Company in 1989, a boutique real estate firm well known in the higher-end markets on the Peninsula. With a background in finance and economics, Cowperthwaite left an early career as a Certified Public Accountant after realizing he preferred working closely with people about numbers more than just numbers themselves. A natural competitor, he is renowned for his negotiating skills and subsequent client satisfaction.



Kerwin became Managing Broker at Kerwin + Associates in 1997, after a sales career at Xerox. She has continued to hone her sales and negotiation expertise, giving clients a decided advantage in competitive situations. Having built close to a dozen custom homes over the years, Kerwin is an invaluable guide on construction and design for her clients.



Both Terri and Peter are focused, high-energy agents with deep local knowledge. Coupling Peters financial background, negotiation expertise and broad outlook with Terris attention to detail, eye for design and vast building expertise, we are excited to watch the Kerwin Cowperthwaite Groups next chapter and their business thrive at our brokerage, says Ashley Banks, Senior Vice President and Regional Manager, Silicon Valley at Golden Gate Sothebys International Realty.

For more information, visit: KerwinCowperthwaite.com

Kerwin Cowperthwaite Group

Peter Cowperthwaite

Phone: 650.207.4101

Email: P.Cowperthwaite@ggsir.com

Lic.# 01012887

Terri Kerwin

Phone: 650.868.0272

Email: T.Kerwin@ggsir.com

Lic #: 01181550

For media inquiries, please email MediaInquiries@ggsir.com

About Golden Gate Sotheby's International Realty:

Golden Gate Sotheby's International Realty has over 485 agents in 25 offices throughout the San Francisco Bay Area serving the counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, Sonoma and San Francisco. For more information, please visit www.GoldenGateSIR.com

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WADENA, Minn., Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Wadena County Auditor-Treasurer's Office will host its first-ever online tax-defaulted properties sale with auction site Bid4Assets.com. Transitioning the sale online will allow the county to conduct it safely, removing all COVID-19-associated concerns by allowing participants to bid from their laptops, cell phones and desktops.

"We decided to try a new approach for our tax sale this year," said Wadena County Auditor-Treasurer Heather Olson. "Our hope is that the impending auction will encourage delinquent property owners to pay off their outstanding taxes so that we can remove their property from the sale. For the properties where that doesn't happen, Bid4Assets brings a large database of real estate bidders to help sell those properties and return them to the tax rolls."

Online bidding will take place October 4 beginning at 10:00 AM CT. Auctions will close October 6 at staggered times starting at 12:00 PM CT. All auctions will have no reserve price, meaning the highest bid at or above the minimum will win the property. Minimum bids will vary greatly ranging from $300 to $34,825.

"We are honored to work with Wadena County to conduct their first virtual tax sale," said Bid4Assets CEO Jesse Loomis. "This new format will be more convenient for bidders and will benefit the county both by reducing costs associated with conducting the sale and increasing revenues generated from the sale."

Bidders must register a free Bid4Assets account and fund a refundable deposit of $100 in order to participate in the sale. Deposits are due by September 28. To view a list of available properties and additional sale details visit www.bid4assets.com/wadenasales.

About Bid4Assets

Bid4Assets (http://www.bid4assets.com) is an online auction site based in Silver Spring, Md. The privately held company auctions distressed real estate for the federal government, county tax-collectors, county sheriff's offices, financial institutions and real estate funds. Bid4Assets has conducted online public auctions for over 100 counties nationwide. Since its inception in 1999, the company has sold more than 125,000 properties nationwide and grossed over a billion dollars in auction sales.

Media Contact:

Teresa M. Lundy

TML Communications

E: Teresa@TMLFirm.com

P: 215-500-8749

Related Images











Image 1: Wadena County, MN, Seal





A $100 refundable deposit due September 28 is required to participate in this tax sale.









This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com.

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Radisson Collection launches new global art series with emerging artists to create art inspired by each hotels iconic location

Radisson Collection, Radisson Hotel Groups premium lifestyle brand, is proud to announce a new series of global art collaborations working with local emerging artists to create a curated selection of immersive artwork and creative lifestyle experiences for guests to enjoy as the brand continues to expand its luxury portfolio with key flagship openings in an innovative and creative manner.

The new global art series will see individual artists create new works of art at a selection of Radisson Collection hotels, providing not only an exclusive experience for guests to virtually discover these destinations from a unique angle, but also bring beautiful new artwork to life through a combination of art and avant-garde mediums. Stemming from the design heritage of the first Radisson Collection hotel designed by Arne Jacobsen  Radisson Collection Royal Hotel, Copenhagen - these creative partnerships will continue the artistic thread of the brand into the future. These new collaborations will showcase Radisson Collection hotels from a unique perspective and support the art sector by raising awareness of these artists on a global scale, and tapping into new audiences across the world with their exclusive creations.





The first collaborations will launch in the United Kingdom with two artists who have achieved worldwide recognition and attracted large communities to their social media channels thanks to their highly imaginative work. These artists include the photographer Rich McCor, better known as Paperboyo, and Fei Wang, contemporary artist and Chinese illustrator known under the pseudonym of Mr.Slowboy.

Paperboyo (his Instagram account name) is an English photographer who has turned what once was a hobby into a full-time profession playing with perspective, history, and architecture. His travels have taken him to some of the worlds most stunning locations including New York, Rio de Janeiro, Dubai, and the moais of Easter Island. At The Edwardian Manchester, A Radisson Collection Hotel, McCor was inspired by the landscape, designs, and scenery around him, including the hotels mix of modern and Victorian architecture which he brought to life and captured from a new perspective with his signature brand of illustrative photographic art and humor. Go behind the scenes here on YouTube.



"Six years of travelling the globe with my photography has unintentionally provided me with a lot of experience in hotels. As a visual artist, when I step into a lobby I can't help but notice if a brand has gone the extra mile with their attention to detail, and in Radisson Collection hotels it's certainly noticeable. To be aligned with Radisson made me want to step up my own game and create something special to celebrate their passion for detail and for noticing the small things other hotel brands don't." says Rich McCor.

Mr.Slowboy is highly respected in the art and fashion worlds for his pencil illustrations having worked with global luxury fashion brands such as Alfred Dunhill, and British heritage brands like Barbour and Fortnum & Mason. Through his creative networks and large community of social media followers, Mr.Slowboy shares his unique vintage and retro style creations with a modern touch. Inspired by The May Fair, A Radisson Collection Hotel, Mayfair Londons strong fashion heritage as the official hotel for London Fashion Week, Mr.Slowboy has created detailed illustrations that depict characters in everyday situations wearing different outfits to fit the occasion, whether a special evening dinner, or relaxing in one of the hotels award-winning suites.

"After witnessing and experiencing the awfully strange world without travel for two years, I certainly enjoyed every moment when I was working on the project collaborating with Radisson Collection as I could keep daydreaming those good old days when we were still able to jump on a plane for a city break." comments Fei Wang.





Following on from the successful collaborations this year, additional partnerships will continue to be revealed into 2022 where artists will visit and share their inspiration from flagship Radisson Collection hotels in the UK, Spain, Belgium, Italy, as well as other key locations across Europe, the Middle East and Asia including the brands upcoming openings in destinations like Milan and Seville. The works of art will be showcased across both Radisson Collections and the artists social media platforms, as well as displayed within the hotels after each artists tenure.

The art collection by Paperboyo and Mr.Slowboy will be on display with further details to be revealed on the @radissoncollection Instagram page. A showcase event displaying the original artworks will be scheduled in one of the Radisson Collection destinations for guests and preferred Radisson Rewards members to enjoy a combined collection of all the artworks and explore Radisson Collection through the lens of art.

We are delighted to launch this new creative offering across our premium luxury lifestyle Radisson Collection hotels. Our discerning guests have a passion for discovering new art and are looking for creative ways to elevate their guest experience and fill their travels with memories worthy of their own art collection. Paperboyo and Mr.Slowboys unique approach to art fits perfectly with our commitment to offering guests exceptional contemporary experiences in some of the worlds most iconic locations. We look forward to launching the next collaborations as we continue to showcase Radisson Collection hotels from new, creative perspectives and support emerging artists across the globe. says Cristina Serra, Senior Vice President Global Branding & Guest Experience.

###



MEDIA CONTACT:

SOPHIE CLARKE, Director Social Media & Consumer PR EMEA, Radisson Hotel Group

sophie.clarke@radissonhotels.com



###



ABOUT RADISSON COLLECTION:

Radisson Collection is a premium lifestyle collection of iconic properties located in unique locations, providing immediate access to the local culture. While the character of each Radisson Collection hotel feels authentic to its location, all of them offer the ultimate template for contemporary living  united by bespoke design and exceptional experiences across dining, fitness, wellness and sustainability. Designed for guests and locals alike, each Radisson Collection hotel is defined by the guests who visit them and the teams personalized service hospitality. Guests and professional business partners can enhance their experience with Radisson Collection by participating in Radisson Rewards, a global loyalty program offering exceptional benefits and rewards.

Radisson Collection is part of Radisson Hotel Group, which also includes Radisson Blu, Radisson, Radisson RED, Radisson Individuals, Park Plaza, Park Inn by Radisson, Country Inn & Suites by Radisson, and prizeotel brought together under one commercial umbrella brand Radisson Hotels.

For reservations and more information, visit our website. Or connect with Radisson Collection on:

LinkedIn | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube

ABOUT RADISSON HOTEL GROUP :

Radisson Hotel Group is one of the world's largest hotel groups with nine distinctive hotel brands, and more than 1,500 hotels in operation and under development in 120 countries. The Groups overarching brand promise is Every Moment Matters with a signature Yes I Can! service ethos.

The Radisson Hotel Group portfolio includes Radisson Collection, Radisson Blu, Radisson, Radisson RED, Radisson Individuals, Park Plaza, Park Inn by Radisson, Country Inn & Suites by Radisson, and prizeotel brought together under one commercial umbrella brand Radisson Hotels.

Radisson Rewards is our global rewards program that delivers unique and personalized ways to create memorable moments that matter to our guests. Radisson Rewards offers exceptional loyalty benefits for our guests, meeting planners, travel agents and business partners.



Radisson Meetings provides tailored solutions for any event or meeting, including hybrid solutions placing guests and their needs at the heart of its offer. Radisson Meetings is built around three strong service commitments: Personal, Professional and Memorable, while delivering on the brilliant basics and being uniquely 100% Carbon Neutral.

The health and safety of guests and team members remain a top priority for Radisson Hotel Group. All properties across the Groups portfolio are subject to stringent health and safety requirements, as outlined in the Radisson Hotels Safety Protocol.



More than 100,000 team members work at Radisson Hotel Group and at the hotels licensed to operate in its systems. For more information, visit our corporate website. Or connect with Radisson Hotels on:

LinkedIn | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube



ABOUT EDWARDIAN HOTELS LONDON :

Edwardian Hotels London is one of the UKs largest privately owned hotel groups, which has been operating and developing its hospitality portfolio, including upscale five- and four-star luxury hotels, since Jasminder Singh OBE began his career within the hospitality industry in 1977; forming the beginnings of what would become Edwardian Hotels London.

Today, Edwardian Hotels London owns and operates The May Fair, The Edwardian Manchester, both part of premium lifestyle brand Radisson Collection, 10 Radisson Blu Edwardian hotels across London and a range of luxury restaurant and bar brands, including the award-winning Kitchen concept restaurants; May Fair Kitchen, Bloomsbury Street Kitchen, Peter Street Kitchen, Leicester Square Kitchen, Monmouth Kitchen and May Fair Bar, as well as Steak & Lobster and Scoff & Banter.

The Londoner, Edwardian Hotels Londons latest opening, is the worlds first super boutique hotel in Londons Leicester Square and incorporates 350 bedrooms and suites, six concept eateries and bars, The Residence, The Retreat, private screening rooms, seven inspiring meeting spaces and a stunning ballroom for 850 guests. It is a member of Preferred Hotels & Resorts prestigious Legend Collection.

For more information, visit www.edwardian.com

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New York, Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Colombia Crawler Excavator Market - Strategic Assessment & Forecast 2021-2027" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06150811/?utm_source=GNW

39% by volume during 2021-2027.



COLOMBIA CRAWLER EXCAVATOR MARKET INSIGHTS



 Increasing investments in road construction, housing projects, and development projects in the pipeline will fuel the growth of the Colombia crawler excavator industry.

 Due to intense competition in technology and design, excavator makers are marketing their devices vigorously, focused on technologically innovative features and a wide variety of attachments.

 Medium Excavators accounted for the largest market share of 29.6% because of their growing popularity.

 The growing market for mini excavators is driving OEMs to develop and release more sophisticated models as they are capable of landscaping, excavating, demolishing, and material handling in cities and farms.

 By switching to intelligent systems driven by IoT and data analysis for service, networking, and sustainability, the Colombia crawler excavator industry is transitioning to become a more innovative industry.



KEY HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE REPORT



 Investments from developed nations, favorable government policies and FDIs, a shift in focus toward local production, and anticipated industrial advancements in the mining, agriculture, and construction machines industries contribute to the increased demand for crawler excavators across Colombia.

 Colombia is planning to invest aggressively to strengthen its infrastructure. The government is planning to invest USD 9.3 billion in developing transport infrastructure, which will accelerate the countrys heavy equipment demand.

 The emergence of new technology and the use of automation in excavators will increase the growth of mining industries.



The report considers the present scenario of the Colombia crawler excavator market and its market dynamics for the forecast period 2021?2027. It covers a detailed overview of several growth enablers, restraints, and trends in the market. The study includes the volume and value sales with segment analysis of the Colombia crawler excavator market.



COLOMBIA CRAWLER EXCAVATOR MARKET - SEGMENTAL ANALYSIS



 The mini excavator is expected to grow in the long term, owing to the increasing demand for compact excavators that are technologically advanced. Colombias mini crawler excavator industry is expected to reach 539 units by 2027.

 Government infrastructure development plans will be the driving force for the increase in construction in the country. Colombias crawler excavator market by construction is expected to reach 877 units by 2027.

 Colombias gross Power >201 HP crawler excavator industry is expected to reach 716 units by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 4.56%.



Segmentation by Excavator Type and Operating Weight

 Mini (

 Small (7-24 tons)

 Medium (25-40 tons)

 Large (above >40 tons)



Segmentation by Application

 Mining

 Construction

 Agriculture

 Forestry

 Others



Segmentation by Gross Power Output

 61-101 HP

 102-200 HP

 >201 HP



COLOMBIA CRAWLER EXCAVATOR MARKET - VENDOR LANDSCAPE



Caterpillar, Komatsu, Hitachi, Hyundai Construction Equipment, SANY, Volvo Construction Equipment, Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction, Kobelco, and JCB are the top players in the crawler excavator market in Colombia. John Deere has introduced Smart Grade technology in 10G LC and 350G LC excavators. Hydraulic excavators are Hitachis primary product range and offer several models ranging from medium and micro excavators. The company provides a range of grade management solutions: Smart Grade, Smart Grade- Ready with 2D, 3D Grade Guidance.



Major Vendors



 Caterpillar

 Komatsu

 Hitachi

 Hyundai Construction Equipment

 SANY

 Volvo Construction Equipment

 Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction

 Kobelco

 JCB



Other Prominent Vendors



 Kubota

 Sumitomo

 Ingersoll Rand

 XCMG

 LeeBoy

 LIEBHERR



Distributor Profiles



 Central S.A.S

 Rentandes

 Alquima

 Mecoltec

 IMPORTADORA CASA Colombia S.A.S



WHY SHOULD YOU BUY THIS REPORT?



This report is among the few in the market that offers outlook and opportunity analysis forecast in terms of-

 Volume (Unit sales)

o Type

o Excavator Type and Operating Weight

o Application

o Gross Power Output

 Value (USD)

o Type

o Excavator Type and Operating Weight

o Application

o Gross Power Output

 Gain competitive intelligence about the economic scenario, advantages in Colombia, major projects and investments, dynamics, and market share

 Examples of latest technologies

 Get presentation-ready format and easy-to-interpret data.

 Enable decision-makers to make informed and profitable choices

 Gain expert quantitative and qualitative analysis on value/volume growth projections of the Colombia crawler excavator market share

 Complete supply chain analysis

 Get COVID-19 impact analysis of the market

 Company Profile of 13 major vendors



KEY QUESTIONS ANSWERED:



1. What is the market size of the Colombia crawler excavator market during 2021-2027?

2. At what CAGR is the Colombia crawler excavator market projected to grow in the forecast period (2021-2027)?

3. What are the segments covered in the Colombia crawler excavator market report?

4. Who are the top players in the crawler excavator market in Colombia?

5. What are the recent technologies for the crawler excavator market in Colombia?

6. What are the key factors driving the Colombia crawler excavator growth?

Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06150811/?utm_source=GNW



About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.



__________________________
Melbourne, Australia, Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- According to official sources, Melbourne-based zkTube Labs, an Ethereum Cross-Rollup Layer 2 protocol, announced the completion of a $15 million round of funding which was led by the Singapore DASH Foundation. Canada OneUni Capital, Amplio Capital (Bitmart), Chainfir Capital, YFund, July Capital and other institutions participated in the investment as well.



zkTube is a network protocol based on Ethereum Layer 2 technology ZK-Rollup. Among other things, the protocol aims to solve Ethereums growing problems of congestion, delays when processing transactions, and high gas fees, all while maintaining Layer 1 security. In all rounds, zkTube has raised $15 million to provide Ethereum with Layer 2 network services, reduce gas fees, improve security and work efficiency.

The funds raised will be used for the comprehensive operation of the Mainnet after its launch on September 10th including Mainnet mining, PayTube Wallet, and the Layer 2 ecosystem construction. The funds will also help strengthen brand promotion globally, community building, and expansion of the team in several geographies.

To date, zkTube has achieved several notable technical and operational milestones, including the optimization of the PLONK algorithm, a successful testnet iteration, the completion of the beta version of PayTube, and its Mainnet launch, among others. Their efforts have been met with enthusiasm by the community, which has over 200,000 followers on multiple social media platforms, such as Telegram, Discord, Twitter and Reddit.

zkTubes next goals include listing its coin ZKT on different exchanges. They are also expanding their global presence with a growing team in Canada and Dubai. zkTube has been dubbed the First Layer-2 Unicorn, and given its achievements to date and future plans, it is easy to see why.

To know more about zkTube, please visit their website at https://zktube.io/

Social links

Twitter: https://twitter.com/zktubeofficial

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/zkTube.official/

Telegram: https://t.me/zkTubeProtocol

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrEy7BBc9SbwpQ-a0Ix1oFw

Media contact

Company: zkTube Insight

Contact Name: Suzana King

E-mail: business@zktube.io

Website: https://zktube.io/
Abu Dhabi, UAE, Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The conference will gather crypto thought leaders, innovators, developers, and Fantom enthusiasts for information sharing and discussion about research and development on the Fantom platform, regulatory policy, innovation with Fantom on the Internet of Things, and more. FantomDC follows the Fantom Foundations recent announcement that it has reserved 370M $FTM to reward developers building on the Fantom network. A key area of focus will therefore be on enabling developers of all levels to realize their projects on Fantom - one of the fastest, most affordable, and efficient smart contract platforms in the world.







The most impressive blockchain projects are the ones that havent been invented yet, said Moe Levin, CEO of Keynote Limited. We are providing the stage for the greatest minds to converge and create the future, it will be a revolutionary week.



The conference agenda includes presentations by hand-picked experts in the blockchain industry, roundtable discussions, networking events, and workshops focused on Fantom use-case studies, developer education, the future of Web 3.0, and best practices for project founders. The conference will offer a Developers Track, DevOps Track, Security/Safety Track, and a few surprises for those who love Hackathons and break-out sessions.

In-person and virtual attendees will also have the chance to Master Blockchain in a boot-camp style format, to become more proficient in designing, testing, and securing distributed blockchain-based projects related to decentralised finance (DeFI) protocols, nonfungible tokens (NFT), gaming, and more.

There is nothing more exciting than watching the Fantom ecosystem grow over the past 18 months. Its only fitting that a special conference be dedicated to this unique platform. Im so proud and grateful to be able to showcase the Fantom Foundation and the ecosystem of developers to the world. I am also grateful to the city of Abu Dhabi and the Country of UAE (United Arab Emirates). We can now showcase to the world how wonderful Abu Dhabi is. Abu Dhabi and the Fantom Developer Conference is where we are building the future and what better place to do it than in a place I am proud to call home: Abu Dhabi, UAE. - Harry Yeh, Managing Director, Quantum Fintech Group

Fantoms mission is to help build a digital ecosystem that will inspire innovation and meaningfully impact peoples lives. This year alone, we have seen tremendous growth with the many amazing projects that have grown across the ecosystem. For example, artists are creating NFTs and directly reaching their audiences, founders are building innovative DeFi projects to shape the future of money, and much more. But our mission has no end-point. We announced the developer reward program to sustain work across the network, and with this conference, we want to create a space for further, continued innovation. We cant wait to see what these exciting four days will produce. - Michael Kong, CEO Fantom

Speakers include:



Andre Cronje , DeFi Architect & Creator, Ethereum & Fantom

, DeFi Architect & Creator, Roger Ver , Founder, Bitcoin.com

, Founder, Harry Yeh , Managing Director, Binary Fintech Group

, Managing Director, Gabriel Abed , Managing Director, BITT Inc.

, Managing Director, John Morris , Head of US Operations, Fantom Foundation

, Head of US Operations, Michael Kong , CEO, Fantom Foundation

, CEO, Moe Levin , CEO & Founder, Keynote ADGM

, CEO & Founder, Quan Nguyen , CTO, Fantom Foundation

, CTO, Simone Pomposi, Head of Marketing, Fantom Foundation

Sponsors include:



Quantum Fintech Group

Binary Fintech Group

Protocol Ventures Quant

Atari Chain

Yoshi Labs

Jaser.ae

SpiritSwap

Overdrive Labs

Tomb Finance

Popsicle Finance

Zoocoin

Waka Studios

Cyberscan.io

Anyswap

Grimm.Finance Labs

Scream Finance

FantomDC is hosted by Keynote, organizers of The North American Bitcoin Conference (Miami) and the World Blockchain Forum (Dubai/London/New York), and the Fantom Foundation, developers of the scalable, secure, and decentralized Fantom Blockchain. Working together, Keynote and the Fantom Foundation seek to inspire and enable developers of all skill levels who seek to join the ranks of the innovative builders on the Fantom platform.

Limited tickets are now available. Visit www.FantomDC.com for event registration and more details.



Media Contact:

Chantel Elloway

Press@FantomDC.com

www.FantomDC.com




APPLETON, Wis., Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pierce Manufacturing Inc., an Oshkosh Corporation (NYSE:OSK) company, announced today that it has completed the purchase of an ownership interest in Boise Mobile Equipment (BME). This investment will facilitate greater collaboration between Pierce and BME within the wildland fire market. Furthermore, Pierce will support BME as the business moves from a factory-direct model to an independent dealer distribution model, with a focus on the West Coast, which will provide new and existing BME customers with comprehensive service, parts inventory, and support.

This is an important day for both Pierce and BME customers, said Jim Johnson, Oshkosh Corporation executive vice president and president, Fire & Emergency. We understand that fire and rescue departments face special challenges related to wildland environments. With this investment, Pierce will work with BME to provide the best possible wildland offerings to meet these unique challenges. And of equal importance is our ability to create an unmatched network of highly trained dealer organizations who are prepared to provide best-in-class service and support for the wildland customers.

BME has served fire and emergency professionals for over thirty years and is considered a premier fire apparatus manufacturer with wildland products including the Model 34, Tactical Tender, and Type 6 Xtreme. BMEs quality fabrication and service align closely with Pierces manufacturing and aftermarket standards, featuring individualized design options, exceptional craftsmanship, and rugged durability.

Boise Mobile Equipment opened its doors in 1990 and has been manufacturing and serving firefighters since then, said Chad Moffat, president of Boise Mobile Equipment. We believe the fire service will benefit from the high-quality wildland products that Pierce and BME will be working together to market and develop. We look forward to leveraging Pierces expertise as we transition from a direct sales model to a dealer distribution model.

BME wildland products are renowned for equipping firefighters with a high-quality apparatus providing durability, serviceability, and longevity. Pierce Manufacturing and its parent company, Oshkosh Corporation, complement BMEs reputation with a rich history of innovation and advanced mobility solutions, ideal for addressing the harsh wildland environments.

For those departments who respond to wildland situations, the BME product line is well-known for its versatility in the most challenging environments, added Johnson. Moreover, Boise Mobile Equipment is a highly reputable and proven brand. When combined with our experience in developing a market-leading dealer support network and unmatched innovation track record, fire departments and those they protect will be the biggest beneficiaries of this new relationship.

To learn more about Pierce Manufacturing and the companys ownership interest in BME, visit www.piercemfg.com.

About Pierce Manufacturing

Pierce Manufacturing Inc., an Oshkosh Corporation [NYSE: OSK] company, is the leading North American manufacturer of custom fire apparatus. Products include custom and commercial pumpers, aerials, rescue trucks, wildland trucks, mini pumpers, elliptical tankers, and homeland security apparatus. In addition, Pierce designs its own foam systems and was the first company to introduce frontal airbags and the Side Roll Protection system to fire apparatus. To learn more about Pierce, visit www.piercemfg.com.

About Oshkosh Corporation

At Oshkosh (NYSE: OSK), we make innovative, mission-critical equipment to help everyday heroes advance communities around the world. Headquartered in Wisconsin, Oshkosh Corporation employs more than 14,000 team members worldwide, all united behind a common cause: to make a difference in peoples lives. Oshkosh products can be found in more than 150 countries under the brands of JLG, Pierce, Oshkosh Defense, McNeilus, IMT, Jerr-Dan, Frontline, Oshkosh Airport Products, London and Pratt Miller. For more information, visit oshkoshcorp.com.

,  All brand names referred to in this news release are trademarks of Oshkosh Corporation or its subsidiary companies.

Forward Looking Statements

This news release contains statements that the Company believes to be forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements other than statements of historical fact, including, without limitation, statements regarding the Companys future financial position, business strategy, targets, projected sales, costs, earnings, capital expenditures, debt levels and cash flows, and plans and objectives of management for future operations, are forward-looking statements. When used in this news release, words such as may, will, expect, intend, estimate, anticipate, believe, should, project or plan or the negative thereof or variations thereon or similar terminology are generally intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors, some of which are beyond the Companys control, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These factors include the overall impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Companys business, results of operations and financial condition; the duration and severity of the COVID-19 pandemic; actions that may be taken by governmental authorities and others to address or otherwise mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic; the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on global economies and the Companys customers, suppliers and employees; and the cyclical nature of the Companys Access Equipment, Commercial and Fire & Emergency markets, which are particularly impacted by the strength of U.S. and European economies and construction seasons.

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TORONTO, Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- When Melissa Maker, the founder of Maker's Clean, host of the YouTube channel Clean My Space (1.75M subscribers), and resident cleaning expert, started complaining about her cotton terry face cloths, the team at Maker's Clean took this as a challenge.

"As with our mop, towels, and famous microfiber cloths, we took a seemingly simple product and put some serious thought into it," says Maker. "As someone who has sensitive skin, we developed the Maker's face cloth to be an ultra-soft and gentle treat for your face and a great way to keep your skin feeling fresh and clean without irritation."

"This issue we found is that most face cloths are made from cotton terry. Alternatively, a number of the leading makeup remover cloths are made from 100% polyester, both of which have their problems," says Chad Reynolds, co-founder of Maker's Clean and head of product development. "Cotton terry can feel rough on your skin and is prone to developing odors over time, and while softer, a 100% polyester fabric is not as absorbent as our alternative."

With their experience in the synthetic fabric space, Maker's Clean put together a unique fabric blend which is soft on the face, ultra-absorbent, and does not hold on to odors because of the nature of the material and how quickly it dries.

One of the stated goals of the company is to replace disposable products with high-quality reusable ones. Just as their industry-leading microfiber cloths replace paper towels and disposable cleaning wipes, the Luxury Face Cloth is said to replace disposable cotton rounds, cotton balls, and single-use makeup remover wipes. The Luxury Face Cloths are designed to be washed thousands of times.

The additional feature that makes this cloth unique is that it is double-sided. According to their website, makersclean.com , the shorter weave side deep cleans to remove oils, dirt, and makeup, while the longer weave side rinses and dries, leaving your face feeling fresh and clean.

The intended use for these cloths ranges from everyday face cleansing to makeup removal and also removing at-home skin treatments. A video demonstrating how to use the Luxury Face Cloth is available at YouTube.com/makersclean .

At a whopping 350 GSM, the ultra-plush Luxury Face Cloths are sold in a convenient 5-pack which retails for $39 at makersclean.com .

Maker's Clean Inc. has been in operation since 2015 and is known for its top-quality microfiber cleaning products. They have sold over 300,000 premium microfiber cloths and bath towels and have just come off the successful launch of their now award-winning mop.

For more information, to book an interview with cleaning expert Melissa Maker, or to request hi-res images of the Luxury Face Cloth, contact Ronit Pottins: ronit@cleanmyspace.com.

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Portland, OR, Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- According to the report published by Allied Market Research, the Asia E-learning/online Learning market was estimated at $38.25 billion in 2020 and is expected to hit $162.15 billion by 2030, registering a CAGR of 15.7% from 2021 to 2030. The report provides an in-depth analysis of the top investment pockets, top winning strategies, drivers & opportunities, market size & estimations, competitive scenario, and varying market trends.

Remote learning trends enforced by the pandemic and rise in adoption of smartphone and cellular technology are the major factors that drive the growth of the Asia E-learning market. On the other hand, lower interaction with fellow learners and peers and need for higher self-motivation and proper time management skills among learners impede the growth to some extent. However, time and cost-effective of e-learning and more personalized learning prospects are anticipated to offer lucrative opportunities in the industry.

Download Sample Report- https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-sample/13458

Impact of COVID-19 on online Learning Market in Asia (Pre and Post Analysis)

In wake of COVID-19 pandemic, the Asia e-learning market has established a positive correlation strongly supported by four major factors including technology, government initiatives, blended learning, and penetration rate.

The shutdown of colleges, schools, and other learning mediums during COVID-19 pandemic created multiple opportunities for e-learning, thereby increasing its adoption among the people.

Get detailed COVID-19 impact analysis on the Asia E-learning Market- https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-for-customization/13458?reqfor=covid

The Asia E-learning market is analyzed across provider, mode, courses, and end user. Based on provider, the content segment accounted for more than three-fourths of the total market share in 2020, and is expected to rule the roost by 2030. The services segment, however, would garner the fastest CAGR of 17.1% throughout the forecast period.

Based on mode, the cloud segment contributed to around three-fourths of the total market revenue in 2020, and is projected to lead the trail by 2030. In addition, the same segment would exhibit the fastest CAGR of 16.0% during the forecast period. The report also studies on-premise segment.

Based on country, the market across China held the major share in 2020, garnering more than three-fifths of the market. Simultaneously, the market across India would manifest the fastest CAGR of 23.2% throughout the forecast period. The other provinces discussed in the report include Japan, South Korea, and Sri Lanka.

Like it? Want to Purchase? https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/purchase-enquiry/13458

The key market players analyzed in the Asia E-learning market report include Adobe Systems Inc., Aptra Inc., Articulate Global Inc.,Certpoint systems Inc,. Cisco systems Inc, Citrix Education Inc., D2L Corporation, Microsoft Corporate, Oracle Corporation, and SAP SE.These market players have adhered to several strategies including partnership, expansion, collaboration, joint ventures, and others to prove their flair in the industry.

Official Press Release- https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/press-release/asia-e-learning-market.html

AVENUE- A Subscription-Based Library (Premium on-demand, subscription-based pricing model) Offered by Allied Market Research:

AMR introduces its online premium subscription-based library Avenue, designed specifically to offer cost-effective, one-stop solution for enterprises, investors, and universities. With Avenue, subscribers can avail an entire repository of reports on more than 2,000 niche industries and more than 12,000 company profiles. Moreover, users can get an online access to quantitative and qualitative data in PDF and Excel formats along with analyst support, customization, and updated versions of reports.

Get an access to the library of reports at any time from any device and anywhere. For more details, follow the link: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/library-access

About Allied Market Research:

Allied Market Research (AMR) is a full-service market research and business-consulting wing of Allied Analytics LLP based in Portland, Oregon. Allied Market Research provides global enterprises as well as medium and small businesses with unmatched quality of "Market Research Reports" and "Business Intelligence Solutions." AMR has a targeted view to provide business insights and consulting to assist its clients to make strategic business decisions and achieve sustainable growth in their respective market domains. AMR offers its services across 11 industry verticals including Life Sciences, Consumer Goods, Materials & Chemicals, Construction & Manufacturing, Food & Beverages, Energy & Power, Semiconductor & Electronics, Automotive & Transportation, ICT & Media , Aerospace & Defense, and BFSI.

We are in professional corporate relations with various companies and this helps us in digging out market data that helps us generate accurate research data tables and confirms utmost accuracy in our market forecasting. Allied Market Research CEO Pawan Kumar is instrumental in inspiring and encouraging everyone associated with the company to maintain high quality of data and help clients in every way possible to achieve success. Each and every data presented in the reports published by us is extracted through primary interviews with top officials from leading companies of domain concerned. Our secondary data procurement methodology includes deep online and offline research and discussion with knowledgeable professionals and analysts in the industry.
Sydney, Sept. 17, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Proactive, provider of real-time news and video interviews on growth companies listed in Australia, has covered the following companies:

White Rock Minerals Ltd (ASX:WRM, OTCQX:WRMCF) is encouraged by the high-grade zinc returned from a step-out hole at the Hunter West prospect of its wholly-owned Red Mountain Volcanogenic Massive Sulphide (VMS) Project in Alaska. Click here

Calima Energy Ltd (ASX:CE1) has initiated a process to identify, examine and consider potential alternatives to maximize the value of its Montney assets in Northeast British Columbia (NEBC), Canada. Click here

Predictive Discovery Ltd (ASX:PDI) has announced a swathe of impressive new high-grade gold intercepts at its flagship Bankan project in Guinea, extending the NE Bankan deposit at depth. Click here

Blackstone Minerals Ltd (ASX:BSX, OTCQX:BLSTF, FRA:B9S) has intersected 8.5 metres of massive sulphide vein (MSV), semi-massive sulphide vein (SMSV) and net textured sulphide (NTS) from infill drill hole KS21-34 at the King Snake prospect within Ta Khoa Nickel-Copper-PGE Project in Northern Vietnam. Click here

Lotus Resources Ltd (ASX:LOT) has begun exploration activities, including reverse circulation (RC) drilling, at its Milenje Hills Rare Earth Prospect about 2 kilometres north of the Kayelekera open pit in Malawi. Click here

Antipa Minerals Ltd (ASX:AZY) has made changes to its Board of Directors to ensure it has the necessary executive capabilities in place for the next stage of growth following a transformative period over the past 18 months. Click here

Emyria Ltd (ASX:EMD) has appointed consultant general and pain psychiatrist Dr Jeremy Tannebaum to its advisory team in a bid to advance its psychedelic-assisted research and drug development programs. Click here

Alkane Resources Limited (ASX:ALK) has released an impressive new set of gold mineralisation intercepts around its Tomingley Gold Operations processing facility in Central West NSW, boosting the operations gold potential to new highs. Click here

Strickland Metals Ltd (ASX:STK) is poised to expedite mineral resource expansion at the historic Millrose Gold Project within the companys consolidated tenement package on the northeast flank of the prodigious Yandal Greenstone Belt, WA. Click here

Twenty Seven Co Ltd (ASX:TSC) has pinpointed a series of new lithium and tin targets within its wholly-owned Trident Project in New South Wales. Click here

Cobalt Blue Holdings Ltd (ASX:COB, OTC:CBBHF) has further de-risked the Broken Hill Cobalt Project (BHCP) in Far West New South Wales with an updated mineral resource estimate that incorporates nickel. Click here

ioneer Ltd (ASX:INR OTC:GSCCF) has struck up a joint venture agreement with dual-listed miner Sibanye Stillwater Ltd in a bid to advance the Rhyolite Ridge Lithium-Boron Project in Nevada. Click here

Antipa Minerals Ltd (ASX:AZY) made strong progress during the financial year ended June 30, 2021, and is well-funded with A$30.6 million in cash to pursue its strategy of identifying and potentially developing mineral resources across its highly prospective holdings in Western Australia. Click here

About Proactive

With six offices on three continents and a team of experienced business journalists and broadcasters, Proactive works with innovative growth companies quoted on the worlds major stock exchanges, helping executives engage intelligently with investors.

Proactive s platform delivers the right message to the right audience, digitally and in real time, leveraging a range of media, investment research, digital investor targeting and website development services to support over 1,000 fast-growing companies globally.

Proactives network reaches over 12 million engaged private, professional and institutional investors looking for opportunities.

Our written and video content is published on Proactive sites that collectively attract up to 10 million views per month.

We syndicate our content to hundreds of mainstream and specialist news sites that expand our reach into networks that can be difficult for press releases to penetrate.

We custom build corporate websites from the ground up, empowering clients and their brands with a modern online presence and the latest insight on effective SEO strategy.

Our news coverage ranks high on the worlds most popular search platforms, and we can further amplify online presence and outreach with sophisticated digital investor targeting.

We help the world understand what makes companies stand out from the crowd with in-depth investment research from a team of experienced analysts.

For more information on how Proactive can help you make a difference, email us at action@proactiveinvestors.com
Washington, D.C., Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Yesterday, a group of early-stage life science investors and biotech CEOs joined together with a prominent patient advocate to speak out against H.R.3, known as the Lower Drug Costs Now Act.

The panel was hosted by life sciences venture capital coalition Incubate and held at the National Press Club. The panelists warned that if lawmakers impose price controls in the pharmaceutical market, investment in biomedical research will plummet to near zero.

"If price controls are enacted, the life sciences investment equation will no longer justify

investment in R&D" opened John Stanford, Incubate's executive director. "Investment won't just be reduced. It will drop off a cliff."

Panelists expanded on Stanford's sentiments, highlighting the critical role of venture capital in the development of life-saving drugs and how rapidly that funding would evaporate in the presence of price controls.

"If the government can pick any arbitrarily low price it wants, and prevent a company from saying 'no' by threatening it with a ruinous 95% tax, then I could not justify any biomedical R&D investment to my investors,' said Peter Kolchinsky, Ph.D., founder and managing partner at RA Capital. "In other words, we should expect a near total collapse of R&D funding."

"More than 50% of FDA-approved medicines now have their start in venture-backed private biotech companies in the United States. These are the groundbreaking treatments for cancer, genetic diseases, and other scourges," said Arjun Goyal, M.D., co-founder and managing director at Vida Ventures. "But they'll disappear if Congress passes these price controls. Ultimately patients will lose out, both here in the United States and globally."

"Price controls would upend these critical incentives and make it fundamentally impossible for investors to secure a return, causing them to flee the sector," said Axel Hoos, M.D., CEO of Scorpion Therapeutics.

"I spearhead a group of in-house counsel at life sciences investment firms, numbering about 80 members," said Sarah Reed, general counsel at RA Capital. "And we are discussing the drafting of what will have to be an escape hatch, allowing firms like ours to cease investing more money and to pull back the money they have already funded, if H.R.3 is passed in anything close to its current form."

Speakers also noted how the policy would impact the country's economy, global standing, and the patient experience.

"This will affect private and public companies of all sizes, jobs will be lost, and U.S. biopharmaceutical leadership will be impaired," said Jean-Francois Formela, M.D., partner at Atlas Ventures. "Patients will ultimately suffer the most when potential breakthrough therapies and cures are no longer invented."

"If H.R.3 passes, our critical funding from venture capitalists will dry up, along with our potential to develop urgently needed new treatment options," said Joanne Kotz, Ph.D., co-founder, president, and CEO of Jnana Therapeutics. "We will all lose hope of having better medicines tomorrow than we have today. We'll face suffering that our research could have averted. That's just senseless."

Finally, attendees heard from a speaker with a deeply personal stake in the policy debate.

"I'm alive today precisely because of the market opportunity present in drug discovery and development," said Gunnar Esiason, a cystic fibrosis and rare disease patient advocate. "For the better part of my early twenties, I was teetering on the brink of end stage illness. The thing that got me through my worst days -- when I was bouncing in and out of the hospital -- was the idea that somebody, somewhere, was working on something for me. The idea that there could be innovations we have not even thought of yet, affords patients like myself a great deal of hope. But if H.R.3 is passed, we will sacrifice the structure that makes future cures a reality."

###

About Incubate

Incubate is a 501(c)(4) organization of venture capital organizations representing the patient, corporate, and investment communities. Our primary aim is to educate policymakers on the role of venture in bringing promising ideas to patients in need.
TORONTO, Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- (TSX: PFIA, PFSS) Picton Mahoney Asset Management announced today that it has declared the September 2021 monthly cash distribution of $0.0468 per unit for the ETF units (ETF Units) of the Picton Mahoney Fortified Income Alternative Fund.



Picton Mahoney Asset Management announced today that it has declared the September 2021 monthly cash distribution of $0.0354 per unit for the ETF Units of the Picton Mahoney Fortified Special Situations Alternative Fund.

Unitholders of record of the ETF Units, at the close of business on September 23, 2021, will receive a per-unit cash distribution payable on September 30, 2021.

About Picton Mahoney Asset Management

Picton Mahoney Asset Management specializes in differentiated investment solutions and rules-based volatility management. Picton Mahoney helps its clients fortify their portfolios based on experience honed over the years through different market cycles and investing environments.

Founded in 2004 and 100% employee-owned, Picton Mahoney is a portfolio management boutique entrusted with over $9.7 billion (as at July 31, 2021) in assets under management. Pioneers of Authentic Hedge investment principles and practices in Canada, the firm offers a full suite of investment solutions, including mutual and alternative funds, to institutional and retail investors across the country.

Commissions, trailing commissions, management fees, performance fees and expenses all may be associated with mutual fund investments. Please read the prospectus before investing. Mutual funds are not guaranteed, their values change frequently, and past performance may not be repeated. Alternative funds can only be purchased through a registered dealer and are available only in those jurisdictions where they may be lawfully offered for sale.

For further information please contact:

Arthur Galloway

Picton Mahoney Asset Management

Tel: (416) 955-4108

Web site: www.pictonmahoney.com

Email: service@pictonmahoney.com
Resiliency, off-island availability, feature set and capabilities for privacy and eDiscovery compliance primary drivers for product selection





RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC, Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Data443 Risk Mitigation, Inc. (Data443 or the Company) (OTCPK: ATDS), a leading data security and privacy software company, has announced that an education system based across several islands in the Caribbean has selected Data443s Data Archive Manager to provide for on-island and off-island email and data archiving, retention, privacy and eDiscovery capabilities.

These islands provide unique challenges, both in volumes and environments  frequently disconnected from the outside world due to hurricanes and other natural events. Data443s solutions continue to provide access to services and data on- and off-island  fulfilling a vital requirement for the organization.

Jason Remillard, founder and CEO of Data443, commented, Our hosted offering for data archiving and privacy compliance and eDiscovery continues to expand at a rapid pace. As data usage continues to grow, so do the requirements for redundancy and resiliency. Customers come to Data443 to meet these challenges, which is why we partner with HPE for our equipment, Nvidia for our network infrastructure, and CyrusOne for our data centers. Data Archive Manager continues to evolve as well  with our FileFacets acquisition last year, new capabililies such as a Google-like search experience for virtually any data set size is the norm for us now, along with the ability to scan, classify, ingest and tag over 1,900 file types. Additionally, our solutions guarantee ransomware-free data execution on search capabilities  even in these hostile environments  which make our solutions a strong win in almost any customer scenario.

Data443s Data Archive Manager is an industry-leading and award-winning data archive solution used by hundreds of organizations that consume over 1,900 file types and includes integration to almost any enterprise content management system such as SharePoint, OpenText, M-Files. Additionally, it connects to any filesystem on-premises and in the cloud  such as OneDrive, Google Drive, Box, Dropbox, and others. Data Archive Manager is also available in a recently announced product bundle, including the award-winning Data Identification Manager, Sensitive Content Manager, and Ransomware Recovery Manager.

For more information on Data Archive Managers capabilities, please visit us at:https://data443.com/products/data-archive-manager/

About Data443 Risk Mitigation, Inc.

Data443 Risk Mitigation, Inc. (OTCPK: ATDS), is an industry leader in All Things Data Security, providing software and services to enable secure data across local devices, network, cloud, and databases, at rest and in flight. Its suite of products and services is highlighted by:

(i) Data443 Ransomware Recovery Manager, built for the modern enterprise, its capabilities are designed to recover a workstation immediately upon infection to the last known business-operable state, without any end user or IT Administrator efforts;

(ii) Data Identification Manager (previously marketed as ClassiDocs and FileFacets), the Companys award-winning data classification and governance technology, which supports CCPA, LGPD and GDPR compliance in a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform that performs sophisticated data discovery and content search of structured and unstructured data within corporate networks, servers, content management systems, email, desktops and laptops;

(iii) Data Archive Manager (previously marketed as ArcMail), a leading provider of simple, secure and cost-effective enterprise data retention management, archiving and management solutions;

(iv) Sensitive Content Manager ( previously marketed as ARALOC), a market leading secure, cloud-based platform for the management, protection and distribution of digital content to the desktop and mobile devices, which protects an organizations confidential content and intellectual property assets from leakage  malicious or accidental  without impacting collaboration between all stakeholders;

(v) Data Placement Manager (previously marketed as DATAEXPRESS), the leading data transport, transformation and delivery product trusted by leading financial organizations worldwide;

(vi) Access Control Manager (previously marketed as Resilient Access), enables fine-grained access controls across myriad platforms at scale for internal client systems and commercial public cloud platforms like Salesforce, Box.Net, Google G Suite, Microsoft OneDrive and others;

(vii) Data Identification Manager (previously marketed as ClassiDocs) for Blockchain, provides an active implementation for the Ripple XRP that protects blockchain transactions from inadvertent disclosure and data leaks;

(viii) Data443 Global Privacy Manager, the privacy compliance and consumer loss mitigation platform which is integrated with Data Identification Manager to do the delivery portions of GDPR and CCPA as well as process Data Privacy Access Requests  removal request  with inventory enables the full lifecycle of Data Privacy Access Requests, Remediation, Monitoring and Reporting;

(ix) IntellyWP, a leading purveyor of user experience enhancement products for webmasters for the worlds largest content management platform, WordPress;

(x) Data443 Chat History Scanner, which scans chat messages for Compliance, Security, PII, PI, PCI & custom keywords; and

(xi) GDPR Framework, CCPA Framework and LGPD Framework WordPress plugins, with over 30,000 active site owners combined, enables organizations of all sizes to comply with European, California and Brazilian privacy rules and regulations.

For more information, please visit http://www.data443.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

The statements contained in this release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as may, will, could, should, expect, plan, project, intend, anticipate, believe, estimate, predict, potential, pursuant, target, continue, and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. The statements in this press release that are not historical statements, including statements regarding Data443s plans, objectives, future opportunities for Data443s services, future financial performance and operating results and any other statements regarding Data443s future expectations, beliefs, plans, objectives, financial conditions, assumptions or future events or performance that are not historical facts, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to numerous risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, many of which are beyond Data443s control, and which could cause actual results to differ materially from the results expressed or implied by the statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict, and include, without limitation, results of litigation, settlements and investigations; actions by third parties, including governmental agencies; volatility in customer spending; global economic conditions; ability to hire and retain personnel; loss of, or reduction in business with, key customers; difficulty with growth and integration of acquisitions; product liability; cybersecurity risk; anti-takeover measures in our charter documents; and, the uncertainties created by the ongoing outbreak of a respiratory illness caused by the 2019 novel coronavirus that was recently named by the World Health Organization as COVID-19. These and other important risk factors are described more fully in our reports and other documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC), including under (i) Part I, Item 1A. Risk Factors, in our Registration Statement on Form 10 filed with the SEC on January 11, 2019 and amended on April 24, 2019; (ii) Part I, Item 1A. Risk Factors, in our Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC on March 23, 2021; and, (iii) subsequent filings. Undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements in this press release, which are based on information available to us on the date hereof. Except as otherwise required by applicable law, we undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether because of new information, future events, or otherwise.

The Data443 logo, ClassiDocs logo, ARALOC logo, ARCMAIL, DATAEXPRESS and FILEFACETS are all registered trademarks of Data443 Risk Mitigation, Inc.

All product names, trademarks and registered trademarks are property of their respective owners. All company, product and service names used in this website are for identification purposes only. Use of these names, trademarks and brands does not imply endorsement.

All other trademarks cited herein are the property of their respective owners.

For Further Information:

Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/data443Risk

Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/data443/

Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/data443-risk-mitigation-inc/

Signup for our Investor Newsletter: https://www.data443.com/investor-relations/

Investor Relations Contact:

Matthew Abenante

ir@data443.com

919.858.6542
Oakland, Calif., Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Citing massive understaffing, difficult working conditions, and a series of unfair labor practices, more than 500 healthcare workers at two facilities in the East Bay have voted to strike in October.

Employees at Sutter Delta Medical Center in Antioch and John Muir Behavioral Health Center in Concord say conditions are dire inside their facilities as management ignores their concerns about understaffing. Workers at both locations are worried about client and staff safety as they say they are feeling pushed to the limit by their employer.

Were drowning. Theres just not enough staff, said Jennifer Stone, an emergency room technician at Sutter Delta Medical Center. Were wearing too many hats  were talking down angry COVID patients then were rushing to a code then were talking to family members who just lost a loved one. We cant give adequate care. Were being neglected and left to fend for ourselves, and we cant do it all anymore.

Workers at each facility say staffing shortages predate the COVID-19 pandemic and, as a result of years of staffing and management decisions, many hospitals already didnt meet adequate staffing for average patient levels. Caregivers in the East Bay say COVID exacerbated this already strained infrastructure, and some health systems responses to the pandemic have only worsened the preexisting crisis.

Were so short-staffed that someones being asked to work overtime after every single shift, said Bertha Lopez, a unit secretary at John Muir Behavioral Health Center. Were burnt out, were exhausted, and we cant go on like this. John Muir needs to address the understaffing issues that have made working conditions impossible here.

The strike votes apply to a variety of job classes across two different facilities in the East Bay, including emergency room technicians, mental health counselors, respiratory therapists, environmental services technicians, phlebotomists, transporters, psychiatric technicians, licensed vocational nurses, and unit secretaries. The strikes are set to take place in October.

MEDIA CONTACT: Renee Saldana, 213-479-5137, rsaldana@seiu-uhw.org

# # # # # # #

SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW) is a healthcare justice union of more than 100,000 healthcare workers, patients, and healthcare activists united to ensure affordable, accessible, high-quality care for all Californians, provided by valued and respected healthcare workers. Learn more at www.seiu-uhw.org.
New York , Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Proactive, provider of real-time news and video interviews on growth companies listed in the US and Canada, has covered the following companies:

About Proactive 

With six offices on three continents and a team of experienced business journalists and broadcasters, Proactive works with innovative growth companies quoted on the worlds major stock exchanges, helping executives engage intelligently with investors.

Proactives platform delivers the right message to the right audience, digitally and in real time, leveraging a range of media, investment research, digital investor targeting and website development services to support over 1,000 fast-growing companies globally.

Proactives network reaches over 12 million engaged private, professional and institutional investors looking for opportunities.

 Our written and video content is published on Proactive sites that collectively attract up to 10 million views per month.

 We syndicate our content to hundreds of mainstream and specialist news sites that expand our reach into networks that can be difficult for press releases to penetrate.

 We custom build corporate websites from the ground up, empowering clients and their brands with a modern online presence and the latest insight on effective SEO strategy

 Our news coverage ranks high on the worlds most popular search platforms, and we can further amplify online presence and outreach with sophisticated digital investor targeting.

 We help the world understand what makes companies stand out from the crowd with in-depth investment research from a team of experienced analysts.

For more information on how Proactive can help you make a difference, email us at action@proactiveinvestors.com
SAN ANTONIO, Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Wounded Warriors Family Support will present U.S. Army veteran Scott Adams of San Antonio with a 2021 Ford F-150 truck as part of the 2021 Drive the Journey Powered by Microsoft Employee Giving.



Adams joined the Army in 1986 at age 17 right out of high school. He served in six deployments to Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan.



Adams was injured Jan. 26, 2007, by an improvised explosive device that blew up under a vehicle. He recovered for 18 months at Brooke Army Medical Center in Fort Sam Houston, Texas.



Adams and his wife recently moved to San Antonio from Minnesota. During the trip, Adams truck blew its engine. Then, his wife became paralyzed shortly after the move.



She was my caregiver, Adams said. Now, Im having to take on the role of her caregiver. Its been a struggle.



Adams and Maggie Bilyeu, a fellow Army veteran from San Antonio, will receive Drive the Journey trucks Oct. 27 in Irving, Texas. These vehicles will be modified at a later date to meet their needs.



You dont know how much this really changes the lives of not only myself, but my wife, Adams said. You learn not to take life for granted. You cant thank people and organizations enough who put others before them and give back. Were so thankful and blessed to be a part of this.



This is the fourth time Wounded Warriors Family Support has collaborated with Microsoft Employee Giving. In addition to the vehicles, this partnership also will award 10 $4,000 scholarships to high school student Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps candidates.



Our collaboration with Microsoft Employee Giving is focused on giving back to our wounded veterans who have sacrificed so much, Wounded Warriors Family Support CEO and President Kate McCauley said. We are honored to present this vehicle to Scott, so he can more easily move through life.



About Wounded Warriors Family Support

Wounded Warriors Family Support is an independent nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide support to the families of those who have been wounded, injured, or killed during combat operations. This organization is run by combat veterans for combat veterans. Rated a four-star nonprofit by Charity Navigator, Wounded Warriors Family Support aids veterans and their families in healing the wounds that medicine cannot. For more information about Wounded Warriors Family Support, visit www.wwfs.org .
CONCORD, Ohio, Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Single Path Coding is a consolidation of facility and professional fee coding to streamline processes, maximize coder output, and reduce costs by minimizing duplicated efforts.

Some Dolbey Fusion CAC customers were looking for a way to combine the effort of two teams while others were looking for ways to take on additional coding workloads without adding coding resources.

In response, Dolbey enhanced the Fusion CAC workflow to accommodate code assignments for both facility and professional fee by a single coder, in a single instance. The engine-suggested codes can be utilized simultaneously in the single path coding mode. The Fusion CAC platform can be configured for those clients who want to use a single path for certain patient encounters. Recognizing and offering flexibility in workflows is one of the many reasons Dolbey's Fusion CAC has earned the title of Best in KLAS for the last five years. Having one platform to support all workflows eliminates the need to buy, implement, and manage multiple solutions.

"With this enhanced workflow, Dolbey Fusion CAC customers should experience improved coding accuracy and consistency between facility and professional fee while simultaneously enhancing productivity and timely billing," says Dee Lang, RHIT, CCDS, RCM Product Domain Expert at Dolbey.

Computer-assisted coding software reads medical charts documenting patient care and suggests medical billing codes to increase productivity and improve accuracy. Dolbey's Fusion CAC uses advanced Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to make these code suggestions as well as to highlight other data toward the goal of the highest quality documentation of patient care.

About Dolbey

Dolbey's award-winning healthcare suite of solutions improve productivity while delivering better documentation, improving patient care. Since 1914, Dolbey has consistently evolved its products incorporating the latest technologies available to meet the demands of the healthcare community. Today, our suite of products includes CAC, CDI, CAPD, Speech Recognition, Transcription and Dictation.

For further information, please contact:

Traci Miller, Marketing Director

800-878-7828 x119/tmiller@dolbey.com

www.dolbey.com

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Chicago IL, Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- FOMO CORP. (https://www.fomoworldwide.com/ - US OTC: FOMC) is pleased to announce the Companys subsidiaries, the Energy Intelligence Center LLC (EIC - https://energyintelligencecenter.com/) and Purge Virus, LLC (PV - https://purgevirus.com/) sales for the period June 1  September 10, 2021 show a sales increase of over 40% when compared to the previous 5-months period dated January 1  May 31, 2021.



Sales for the June 1st  September 10th period is valued at over $330,000, representing over 40% increase in sales when compared to the January 1st  May 31st period. These record sales were achieved in a shorter period of time and exceeds our prior period sales by more than 15%; we are delighted with our operations and sales success stated Vik Grover, CEO, FOMO CORP. Total proposals in September alone are over $1.4 million. We are once again raising our sales bar while working on achieving profitability and growth

Customers for the record sales period include:

Designing and installing Lighting for a new commercial manufacturing facility;

Replacement lighting at several commercial businesses;

Installation of Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning Controls for improved energy efficiency at major east coast US beverage distributors; and

Providing air disinfection and mold remediation devices for private and public schools, and law enforcement agencies.

The Company continues to respond to requests for quotations and confirms the continuation of sales goals and objectives favoring growth and profitability.

About Purge Virus, LLC: Purge Virus, LLC focuses on the air quality within and around buildings and structures, especially as it relates to the health and comfort of building occupants.

Purge Virus, LLC is being rebranded as IAQ Technologies, LLC (IAQ Tech). IAQ Tech will focus on the air quality within and around buildings and structures, especially as it relates to the health and comfort of building occupants. At the core of our IAQ services continues to provide proven and cost effective germicidal disinfection of air and surfaces across commercial and residential landscapes.

The IAQ Tech website www.iaqtech.com is coming soon.

With IAQ Techs and EICs expanded focus on total building indoor air quality by assessing the concentration of contaminates and thermal conditions that may negatively affect the health, comfort and performance of the buildings occupants.

About the Energy Intelligence Center, LLC.: The Energy Intelligence Center, LLC. (EIC; https://energyintelligencecenter.com/) is an energy services company uniquely positioned to provide energy efficiency, optimization, operations, and economic incentives for the optimization of building equipment, and management and automation systems. Our mission is to create client focused energy efficient building portfolios. The Independence LED lighting (iLED) facet of the EIC is a professional lighting solutions company with Made in America LED lighting products, manufacturing experience, and insight.

About FOMO CORP.

FOMO CORP. (https://www.fomoworldwide.com) is a publicly traded company focused on business incubation and acceleration. The Company invests in and advises emerging companies aligned with a growth mandate. FOMO is developing direct investment and affiliations - majority- and minority-owned as well as in joint venture formats - that afford targets access to the public markets for expansion capital as well as spin-out options to become their own stand-alone public companies.

Forward Looking Statements:

Statements in this press release about our future expectations, including without limitation, the likelihood that FOMO CORP. will be able to meet minimum sales expectations, be successful and profitable in the market, bring significant value to FOMO CORP.s stockholders, and leverage capital markets to execute its growth strategy, constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and as that term is defined in the Private Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties and are subject to change at any time, and our actual results could differ materially from expected results. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or release any revisions to these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this statement or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as required by law. FOMOs business strategy described in this press release is subject to innumerable risks, most significantly, whether the Company is successful in securing adequate financing. No information in this press release should be construed in any form shape or manner as an indication of the Companys future revenues, financial condition, or stock price.

Investor Contact:
ORLANDO, Fla., Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Avanze , an innovative leader in title services and software, including AI and ML for the industry, will be in attendance at the upcoming Pennsylvania Land Title Association (PLTA) Annual Convention in Philadelphia, September 19-22.

Hundreds will attend to hear leaders in the title industry discuss topics such as fraud detection, a presentation by the City of Philadelphia Commissioner of Records, James Leonard, and how diversity and inclusion can improve revenue and business development.

Several of Avanze's members will attend, including Pittsburgh-based Lisa Donahue, VP, National Sales and Client Success.

"It's exciting to get back to PLTA after the hiatus. I can't wait to connect with everyone from my home state and get back to why we are here, to serve people and our industry," Donahue said. "I love to help title companies with streamlining and automating their process. This way they can focus on their customers' needs and take on more business while Avanze assists in the day-to-day process behind the scenes. Coming from operations myself, I completely understand their pain, especially at the end of the month."

Avanze's search and post-closing solutions and services allow title companies to scale and automate a once cumbersome process. The in-house team of experts takes on everything from title production and typing, search, pre-closing and post-closing services, assisted by the proprietary technology STACX that Avanze created for its own use and recently brought the software to market for title company adoption.

Avanze's proprietary technology allows organizations to scale with ease, creating a solution that serves the entire title process.

Avazne will also be hosting its next Title Talk webinar on Friday, September 17 at 11:00 a.m. EDT, which is a Pennsylvania Industry Exclusive. Attendees will receive insights from some of the best- and next- practices on title search, operations and how the leading title agencies are leveraging technology to scale and increase efficiencies. There will also be a live Q&A session at the end of the presentation.

The Pennsylvania-focused Title Talk webinar features Donahue and her colleagues from Avanze:

Lisa Donahue, VP, National Sales and Client Success

Rich King, EVP

Amy Kauffman, Director of Marketing

Register for the webinar at the following link .

About Avanze

Avanze offers "comprehensive" and "customized component" solutions for the title and mortgage industry with analytics and compliance; supported by domestic and hybrid delivery models. The Avanze team provides intelligent digital products and services for origination, title and settlement, post-closing, valuation, and servicing business.Avanze's domain experts simplify the complexities of the mortgage loan cycle by delivering systematic solutions that help reduce operational costs, improve efficiency, maintain high quality and achieve greater customer satisfaction, thereby enabling clients to retain and expand their respective customer bases. Avanze complies with industry-best information security practices and is a SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001 and ISO 9001 certified organization. Learn more at avanzegroup.com.

Media Contact

Mike Albanese

Mike.albanese@newswire.com

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Kalispell, Montana, Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- With the departure of summer visitors from Montana and the arrival of crisp weather and fall foliage, Kalispell, Montana, is one of the best destinations for travelers to visit this autumn.

Fall might be Montanas most stunning season, said Diane Medler, Executive Director of Discover Kalispell. Its the time of year when visitors and residents alike can experience Montanas wide-open spaces and iconic destinations against the backdrop of colorful fall foliage, with plenty of room to breathe.

This year, perhaps more than ever, its important to know how to travel and do so responsibly, whether youre setting out on a weekend road trip or planning a weeklong stay. No matter what kind of trip youre looking for, here are five tips for visiting Kalispell, Montana, this fall.

1. Visit Glacier National Park. Located 32 miles from Kalispell, Glacier National Park is at its most spectacular in autumn. And with this summers entry ticket system no longer in place, travelers can easily access the Going-to-the-Sun Road with their park pass. The iconic road is open through mid- to late-October, weather dependent, and fall shows visitors an entirely different perspective of the park.

2. Watch wildlife. This time of year, wildlife  including grizzly bears, black bears and elk  are very active and you have a good chance of seeing Montanas furry residents when youre out and about soaking up the outdoors. When youre recreating, be aware of your surroundings, hike with a friend and carry bear spray. Prime wildlife-watching locations include Glacier National Park, Jewel Basin and the National Bison Range, which is a scenic drive south of Kalispell.

3. Stay for three nights, get a free park pass. As the gateway to one of Americans last frontiers, Kalispell is a prime location for exploring northwest Montana. This fall, you can book a three-night stay at a Kalispell hotel and receive a free America the Beautiful, National Park Annual Pass, that makes it easy to road trip through the U.S. and gives access to 2,000 federal recreation sites.

4. Explore downtown. The heart of Kalispell is found in its charming downtown, with historic buildings, wide streets and tree-lined avenues that are particularly stunning in September and October. Downtown welcomes visitors with local breweries (and their seasonal beers), restaurants, stores, art galleries and coffee shops.

5. Be flexible. No matter when you visit, its important to be flexible with your plans, follow posted signage and travel responsibly. Kalispell and its surrounding terrain have been home to wildlife and humans for thousands of years, and today efforts are being made to protect outdoor places and public lands. When you visit, be sure to give others around you space, avoid crowded places and be kind.

For more fall travel inspiration, visit DiscoverKalispell.com.

# # #

About Discover Kalispell

Discover Kalispell, the Kalispell Convention & Visitor Bureau, is the designated marketing organization for the city of Kalispell and is a division of the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce. The organization is funded by the state accommodations tax and the Tourism Business Improvement District (TBID) fee. Anchoring the Flathead Valley, Kalispell is a destination that combines accessible amenities, touchable history and a charming downtown with Montanas wide-open spaces and endless outdoor recreation. Its also located within minutes of Glacier National Park, Flathead Lake, the Jewel Basin and many public parks and trail systems. More information can be found at DiscoverKalispell.com or on social media at Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, as well as #DiscoverKalispell.

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WESTPORT, Conn., Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- HMG Strategy, the Worlds #1 digital platform for enabling technology executives to reimagine the enterprise and reshape the business world, is excited to be hosting its 2021 HMG Live! New Jersey CIO Executive Leadership Summit on September 30. HMG Strategys highly interactive events bring together the worlds most distinguished and innovative security and business technology leaders to discuss the most pressing leadership, strategic, cultural, technology and career challenges and opportunities that they face today  and into the future.



The 2021 HMG Live! New Jersey CIO Executive Leadership Summit will include insights on how CIOs and business technology executives can help drive innovation, grow the business and identify and execute on new business models and go-to-market strategies.

Theres no longer a separation between IT and the business  IT is the business and its the combination of technology, processes, people and a dash of creativity that are creating new opportunities for businesses today, said Hunter Muller President and CEO at HMG Strategy.

World-class CIOs and industry executives speaking at the 2021 HMG Live! New Jersey CIO Executive Leadership Summit on September 30 will include:

Roota Almeida , CISO, Delta Dental of NJ and CT

, CISO, Delta Dental of NJ and CT Judith Apshago , Vice President, Information Technology, Amtrak

, Vice President, Information Technology, Amtrak Christopher Callahan , CISO, The Weichert Companies

, CISO, The Weichert Companies William Compton , SVP & CIO, Integra Life Sciences

, SVP & CIO, Integra Life Sciences Jerry Flasz , EVP, Technology and Global Services and Chief Information Officer, Becton, Dickinson and Company

, EVP, Technology and Global Services and Chief Information Officer, Becton, Dickinson and Company Patrick Ford , CISO, Americas Region, Schneider Electric

, CISO, Americas Region, Schneider Electric Robert Galvin , CTO, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey

, CTO, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Rocco Grillo , Managing Director  Global Cyber Risk Services & Incident Response Investigation, Alvarez & Marsal

, Managing Director  Global Cyber Risk Services & Incident Response Investigation, Alvarez & Marsal Jon Harding , Global CIO, Conair LLC

, Global CIO, Conair LLC Dutt Kalluri , SVP, Global Digital & Technology Transformation, Broadridge

, SVP, Global Digital & Technology Transformation, Broadridge Wafaa Mimilli , EVP, Chief Information & Digital Officer, Zoetis

, EVP, Chief Information & Digital Officer, Zoetis Anne Plese , Senior Director, Product Marketing, Rimini Street

, Senior Director, Product Marketing, Rimini Street Joseph Puglisi , Former VP IT, Nice-Pak Products, Inc.

, Former VP IT, Nice-Pak Products, Inc. Scott Strickland , EVP & CIO, Wyndham Hotels and Resorts

, EVP & CIO, Wyndham Hotels and Resorts Muddu Sudhakar , CEO, Aisera

, CEO, Aisera Gabrielle Wolfson, CIO & CDO, Quest Diagnostics

Valued Partners for the 2021 HMG Live! New Jersey CIO Executive Leadership Summit include Aisera, Akamai, Auth0, BetterCloud, Darktrace, Forescout Technologies, Globant, Horizon3.ai, Nutanix, Rimini Street, Inc., RingCentral, SafeGuard Cyber, SIM New Jersey, Skybox Security, Zoom and Zscaler.

To learn more about the 2021 HMG Live! New Jersey CIO Executive Leadership Summit and to register for the event, click here.

HMG Strategy will be hosting its 2021 HMG Live! Minneapolis CIO Executive Leadership Summit on Sept. 28. Timely topics to be discussed at this event will include insights on what's needed for CIOs, CISOs and business technology executives to become boardroom-ready, along with the impacts that diversity, equity and inclusion criteria are having on board searches.

World-class CIOs and business technology executives speaking at the 2021 HMG Live! Minneapolis CIO Executive Leadership Summit will include:

Teddy Bekele , SVP & CTO, Land O'Lakes

, SVP & CTO, Land O'Lakes Shaun Braun , SVP of Digital Transformation, 3M

, SVP of Digital Transformation, 3M Sarah Engstrom , CISO and VP IT Security, Productivity & Privacy, CHS Inc.

, CISO and VP IT Security, Productivity & Privacy, CHS Inc. Tony Leng , Managing Director, Digital Transformation and CIO Practice Lead, Diversified Search

, Managing Director, Digital Transformation and CIO Practice Lead, Diversified Search Brian Lillie , Chief Product & Technology Officer and (acting) CIO, Zayo

, Chief Product & Technology Officer and (acting) CIO, Zayo John McKennell , VP, CISO, ECMC Group

, VP, CISO, ECMC Group Anne Plese , Senior Director, Product Marketing, Rimini Street

, Senior Director, Product Marketing, Rimini Street Kacey Sensenich , CTO, Rockingham County Schools

, CTO, Rockingham County Schools Gary Sorrentino , Chairman of the Zoom CISO Council, Global Deputy CIO, Zoom

, Chairman of the Zoom CISO Council, Global Deputy CIO, Zoom Muddu Sudhakar , CEO, Aisera

, CEO, Aisera Kirsten Wolberg, Former CTO and COO, DocuSign



Valued Partners for the 2021 HMG Live! Minneapolis CIO Executive Leadership Summit include Aisera, Akamai, Auth0, BetterCloud, Darktrace, Forescout Technologies, Genesys Works, Globant, Horizon3.ai, Nutanix, Rimini Street, Inc., RingCentral, Rubrik, SafeGuard Cyber, SIM Minnesota, Skybox Security, Zoom and Zscaler.

To learn more about the 2021 HMG Live! Minneapolis CIO Executive Leadership Summit and to register for the event, click here.

To learn about all of HMG Strategys Upcoming CIO & CISO Summits, click here.

HMG STRATEGYS UPCOMING WEBINARS AND DIGITAL ROUNDTABLES

On September 22 and 23, HMG Strategy will be hosting a set of custom roundtable discussions, Powered by Code42, which will be focused on Applying a Broader Lens to Insider Risk Without Slowing Down the Business. These highly interactive roundtable discussions with CISOs, CIOs and other executives who have a stake in insider risk, will feature Ananth Appathurai, SVP, Strategic Partnerships & Ecosystem, Code42; Ann Madea, Advisory Board Member and Former CIO, HSBC; Jeff Miller, CIO, Honeywell Quantum Solutions; and Anahi Santiago, CISO, ChristianaCare. Core topics to be explored at these events will include how the definition of insider risk has changed over the past year; the impact that The Great Resignation is having on insider risk; as well as an exploration on the efficacy of data loss prevention tools in addressing insider risk.

To learn more about the Sept. 22 roundtable and to register for the event, click here. To learn more about the Sept. 23 roundtable discussion and to register, click here.

To learn more about HMG Strategys archived and upcoming webinars, click here.

HMG STRATEGYS 2021 GLOBAL LEADERSHIP INSTITUTE AWARDS

The HMG Strategy 2021 Global Leadership Institute Awards honor exemplary technology leaders and leadership teams who are delivering exceptional value to their organizations. This award recognizes those who have reimagined and reinvented themselves to place their organizations on the fast track to groundbreaking transformation in dynamic times. Technology executives and their teams who receive these awards are being recognized for accomplishments in the following areas: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion; Leading into the C-suite; Creating New Go-to-Market Business Models; Modernizing Enterprise Architecture; and Building a Culture of Trust.

To learn more about HMG Strategys 2021 Global Leadership Institute Awards and to nominate a deserving executive, click here.

About HMG Strategy

HMG Strategy is the world's leading digital platform for connecting technology executives to reimagine the enterprise and reshape the business world. The HMG Strategy global network consists of more than 400,000 CIOs, CTOs, CISOs, CDOs, senior business technology executives, search industry executives, venture capitalists, industry experts and world-class thought leaders. HMG Strategys global media model generates more than 1 million impressions per week, providing vast opportunities for business technology leaders and sponsor partners to promote themselves and their brands.

HMG Strategy was founded in 2008 by Hunter Muller, a leadership expert who has worked side-by-side with Fortune 2000 executives with strategic planning and career ascent for the past 30+ years. HMG Strategys regional and virtual CIO and CISO Executive Leadership Series, authored books and Digital Resource Center deliver unique, peer-driven guidance from CIOs, CISOs, CTOs, CDOs and technology executives on leadership, innovation, transformation and career ascent. HMG Strategy offers a range of peer-led research services such as its CIO & CISO Executive Leadership Alliance (CELA) program which bring together the worlds top CIOs, CISOs and technology executives to brainstorm on the top opportunities and challenges facing them in their roles.

HMG Strategys Research Stack is a unique set of research services that are designed to keep business technology executives up to speed on the latest and global geo-economic trends that are impacting businesses and industries.

HMG Ventures is a venture capital unit thats designed to connect CIOs, CTOs, CISOs and other technology executives with innovative early-stage technology companies from Silicon Valley to Tel Aviv. HMG Ventures provides technology executives with a window into hot emerging technology companies that can help move the needle for their businesses while also offering these executives unparalleled personal investment opportunities. One early-stage investment in an enterprise-level AI-powered service management provider has generated a 100X return.

HMG Strategy also produces the HMG Security Innovation Accelerator Panel, a new webinar series thats designed to connect enterprise technology and security leaders with the most innovative technology and cybersecurity companies from across the world.

To learn more about the 7 Pillars of Trust for HMG Strategy's unique business model, click here.

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/1a8ac754-25b6-42a8-9a92-040c95b26f60
Ottawa, Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The global electric vehicle supply equipment market size was valued at USD 25.7 billion in 2020. Electric vehicle supply equipment is used for charging EVs in various commercial and residential locations that includes homes, highways, corporate offices, hotels, parks, and bus depots. The market growth of electric vehicle supply equipment is mainly favored by the initiatives taken by private and public sector to spur the rate of adoption of electric vehicles across the world. In accordance to the same, government bodies of various nations have also started offering different types of benefits such as subsidies &tax benefits and financial incentives to encourage people for buying electric vehicles. This in turn contributes significantly for the market growth of electric vehicle supply equipment.



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Countries that are the largest producers of electricity such as USA and China charge lower tariffs for the electricity consumed by electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE), this again drives the EVSE market. Further, increasing initiatives by the government of different countries for signing contracts with the EVSE market participants for the development of charging infrastructure in their region again thrives the market growth for EVSE. Apart from government bodies, private companies are taking keen interest in signing contract with the EVSE players to deploy EV charging station for their customers and employees. For instance, General Motors Company and the Coca-Cola Company have signed a partnership agreement for the development of charging stations for Coca-Cola employees.

With the prolonged effect of coronavirus several industries have witnessed a decline in their sales and production due to broken supply chain, automotive industry is among them. Market players for electric vehicle supply equipment have also witnessed slow growth in the sale of electric vehicles and thus slow growth of EVSE market. However, rising concern for environment protection is likely to propel the demand for electric vehicle supply equipment over the upcoming years.

DC power type segment led the global electric vehicle supply equipment market in the year 2020 and anticipated to grow at a rapid rate during the forecast period. The prominent growth of the segment is majorly attributed to the significant rise in the amount of Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) primarily for the advancement of level-1as well as level-2 DC charging stations mostly in the commercial locations. Further, DC charging stations help to charge electric vehicles faster compared to AC chargers.

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However, AC power segment also witness prominent growth over the analysis period because of increasing emphasis by leading EV manufacturers such as General Motors, BMW of America, Tesla to provide AC-powered portable chargers as a complimentary feature in electric vehicles. Further, various contractors that include Joju Solar has increased their emphasis on the installation, operation, and maintenance of electric vehicle charging stations prominently in the residential areas, this results in the accelerating growth of the AC power segment in the global EVSE market.

By geography, the Asia Pacific emerged as the front-runner in the global electric vehicle supply equipment market accounting for a revenue share of more than 50% in the year 2020 and estimated to project the fastest growth over the upcoming years. The accelerating growth of the region is primarily attributed to the increasing emphasis of governments of various countries towards the adoption of electric vehicles as well as supporting infrastructure in order to encourage various globally established players along with startups companies to develop new charging infrastructure in collaboration with the government bodies.

Related Reports

Electric Vehicle Market - The global market surpassed $165 billion in 2020, and is expected to hit around $802.81 billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 40.7% over forecast period 2020 to 2027.

- The global market surpassed $165 billion in 2020, and is expected to hit around $802.81 billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 40.7% over forecast period 2020 to 2027. Electric Vehicle Charging Station Market - The global market size is expected to surpass over USD 39.2 billion by the end of 2027 and witness a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40.7% from 2020 to 2027.

- The global market size is expected to surpass over USD 39.2 billion by the end of 2027 and witness a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40.7% from 2020 to 2027. Vehicle-to-grid Technology Market - The global market is expected to be worth around US$ 17.43 billion by 2027, recording a CAGR of 48% over forecast period 2020 to 2027.





Market players in the global electric vehicle supply equipment are witnessing high degree of competition owing to rapidly increasing investments for the research & development of new, attractive, and innovative products. This has also triggered the race for gaining higher benefit from untapped market in the developing or under developed regions. For the same, industry participants are adopting various growth strategies such as merger & acquisition, regional expansion, partnerships & collaboration, and many others in order to gain maximum competitive advantage as well as to maintain its competitive edge across the globe.

Some of the prominent players covered under the global electric vehicle supply equipment market report include ABB Ltd., AeroVironment Inc., ChargePoint Inc., Chargemaster PLC, ClipperCreekInc., Eaton Corporation, SemaConnect Inc., Leviton Manufacturing Co. Inc., Schneider Electric SE, Tesla Inc., Siemens AG, Webasto SE, EVOTEC AG, Delta Electronics Inc., Ecotap BV, Heliox, and COMECA Group among others.

The global electric vehicle supply equipment market research report classifies the market as follows:

Market Segmentation

By Power Type

DC Power Level 1 Level 2 Level 3

AC Power Level 1 Level 2 Level 3



By Product

EV Charging Kiosk

Portable Charger

Onboard Charging Station

Others

By Charging Station Type

Super Charging

Normal Charging

Inductive Charging





By Application

Residential

Commercial Highway Charging Station Destination Charging Station Fleet Charging Station Bus Charging Station Others







By Regional Outlook

North America US Rest of North America

Europe UK Germany France Rest of Europe

Asia Pacific China Japan India Rest of Asia Pacific

Latin America Brazil Rest of Latin America

Middle East & Africa (MEA) GCC North Africa South Africa Rest of the Middle East & Africa







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New quality of life data for 177 Lu-PSMA-617 plus standard of care shows delay in worsening of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and pain in heavily pre-treated patients with PSMA-positive metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) compared to standard of care alone1



Lu-PSMA-617 plus standard of care shows delay in worsening of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and pain in heavily pre-treated patients with PSMA-positive metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) compared to standard of care alone1 US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Breakthrough Therapy designation to 177 Lu-PSMA-617; Submission to FDA and European Medicines Agency on track for 2H21



Lu-PSMA-617; Submission to FDA and European Medicines Agency on track for 2H21 Novartis committed to reimagining prostate cancer with targeted radioligand therapy; two Phase III studies with 177Lu-PSMA-617 in earlier lines of treatment ongoing with goal to investigate earlier stages of disease

Basel, September 17, 2021  Novartis today announced positive health-related quality of life (HRQoL) data from its Phase III VISION study evaluating 177Lu-PSMA-617, an investigational targeted radioligand therapy, plus standard of care for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) versus standard of care alone. Many patients with mCRPC live with reduced physical functioning as well as significant pain2,3. This data from a quality of life assessment of the VISION trial, referred to as HRQoL, showed delayed worsening of these difficult to bear symptoms in the 177Lu-PSMA-617 plus standard of care arm compared to standard of care alone arm. No new or unexpected safety concerns, including changes in creatinine clearance, were noted1. These results will be presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress, 17-21 September 2021.

HRQoL ad hoc analysis showed that the 177Lu-PSMA-617 plus standard of care arm resulted in an estimated 54% risk reduction in the worsening of HRQoL (measured by Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy  Prostate (FACT-P) scale) from baseline (hazard ratio: 0.46 with 95% confidence interval (CI): (0.35, 0.61)) compared to the standard of care only arm1. In addition, 177Lu-PSMA-617 plus standard of care also resulted in an estimated 55% risk reduction of worsening of pain intensity (measured by Brief Pain Inventory  Short Form (BPI-SF) scale) from baseline (hazard ratio: 0.45 with 95% (CI): (0.33, 0.60)) compared to the standard of care only arm1.

Patients with mCRPC suffer from many complications associated with advanced disease that can impact their quality of life2,3, said Jeff Legos, Executive Vice President, Global Head of Oncology & Hematology Development, Novartis. These new data emphasize the potential impact on quality of life that investigational 177Lu-PSMA-617 may provide as a potential new treatment option, beyond previously reported improvements in overall survival and radiographic progression-free survival4.

Two additional studies with 177Lu-PSMA-617 radioligand therapy in earlier lines of treatment for metastatic prostate cancer are ongoing, investigating potential clinical utility in the mCRPC pre-taxane setting (PSMAfore) and in the metastatic hormone-sensitive setting (PSMAddition). Novartis is also evaluating opportunities to investigate 177Lu-PSMA-617 radioligand therapy in earlier stages of prostate cancer.

About Advanced Prostate Cancer

Prostate cancer is a form of cancer that develops in the prostate gland, a small walnut shaped gland in the pelvis of men. In castration resistant prostate cancer (CRPC), the tumor shows signs of growth, such as rising Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) levels, despite the use of hormone treatments that lower testosterone5. In metastatic CRPC (mCRPC), the tumor spreads to other parts of the body, such as neighboring organs or bones and remains unresponsive to hormone treatment5. The five-year survival rate for patients with metastatic prostate cancer is approximately 30%6.

About Phenotypic Precision Medicine in Advanced Prostate Cancer

Despite advances in prostate cancer care, there is a high unmet need for new targeted treatment options to improve outcomes for patients with mCRPC. More than 80% of prostate cancer tumors highly express a phenotypic biomarker7 called Prostate Specific Membrane Antigen (PSMA) 8-10,11,12, making it a promising diagnostic (through positron emission tomography (PET) scan imaging) and potential therapeutic target for radioligand therapy13. This differs from genotypic precision medicine which targets specific genetic alterations in cancer cells7.

About 177Lu-PSMA-617

177Lu-PSMA-617 is an investigational PSMA-targeted radioligand therapy for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. It is a type of precision cancer treatment combining a targeting compound (ligand) with a therapeutic radioisotope (a radioactive particle)14-16. After administration into the bloodstream, 177Lu-PSMA-617 binds to prostate cancer cells that express PSMA17, a transmembrane protein, with high tumor-to-normal tissue uptake14,18,19. Once bound, emissions from the radioisotope damage tumor cells, disrupting their ability to replicate and/or triggering cell death20-22. The radiation from the radioisotope works over very short distances to limit damage to surrounding cells13,14,18.

About VISION

VISION is an international, prospective, randomized, open-label, multicenter, phase III study to assess the efficacy and safety of 177Lu-PSMA-617 (7.4 GBq administered by intravenous infusion every 6 weeks for a maximum of 6 cycles) plus investigator-chosen standard of care in the investigational arm, versus standard of care in the control arm4. Patients with PSMA PET-scan positive mCRPC, and progression after prior taxane and androgen receptor pathway inhibitors, were randomized in a 2:1 ratio in favor of the investigational arm4. The study met both alternate primary endpoints of radiographic progression free survival and overall survival; secondary endpoints were also met4. The study enrolled 831 patients4.

Disclaimer

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements can generally be identified by words such as potential, can, will, plan, may, could, would, expect, anticipate, seek, look forward, believe, committed, investigational, pipeline, launch, or similar terms, or by express or implied discussions regarding potential marketing approvals, new indications or labeling for the investigational or approved products described in this press release, or regarding potential future revenues from such products. You should not place undue reliance on these statements. Such forward-looking statements are based on our current beliefs and expectations regarding future events, and are subject to significant known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. There can be no guarantee that the investigational or approved products described in this press release will be submitted or approved for sale or for any additional indications or labeling in any market, or at any particular time. Nor can there be any guarantee that such products will be commercially successful in the future. In particular, our expectations regarding such products could be affected by, among other things, the uncertainties inherent in research and development, including clinical trial results and additional analysis of existing clinical data; regulatory actions or delays or government regulation generally; global trends toward health care cost containment, including government, payor and general public pricing and reimbursement pressures and requirements for increased pricing transparency; our ability to obtain or maintain proprietary intellectual property protection; the particular prescribing preferences of physicians and patients; general political, economic and business conditions, including the effects of and efforts to mitigate pandemic diseases such as COVID-19; safety, quality, data integrity or manufacturing issues; potential or actual data security and data privacy breaches, or disruptions of our information technology systems, and other risks and factors referred to in Novartis AGs current Form 20-F on file with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Novartis is providing the information in this press release as of this date and does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this press release as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

About Novartis

Novartis is reimagining medicine to improve and extend peoples lives. As a leading global medicines company, we use innovative science and digital technologies to create transformative treatments in areas of great medical need. In our quest to find new medicines, we consistently rank among the worlds top companies investing in research and development. Novartis products reach nearly 800 million people globally and we are finding innovative ways to expand access to our latest treatments. About 109,000 people of more than 140 nationalities work at Novartis around the world. Find out more at https://www.novartis.com.

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References

1. Novartis data on File

2. Kuppen MCP, Westgeest HM, van den Eertwegh AJM et al. Health-related Quality of Life and Pain in a Real-world Castration-resistant Prostate Cancer Population: Results From the PRO-CAPRI Study in the Netherlands. Clin Genitourin Cancer 2020;18(3):e233e253

3. Sullivan PW, Mulani PM, Fishman M et al. Quality of life findings from a multicenter, multinational, observational study of patients with metastatic hormone-refractory prostate cancer Qual Life Res. 2007;16:571575

4. Sartor O, J. de Bono KN, Chi K, et al Lutetium-177PSMA-617 for Metastatic Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer. NEJM 2021; doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa2107322

5. Kirby M, Hirst C, Crawford ED. Characterising the castration-resistant prostate cancer population: a systematic review. Int J Clin Pract 2011;65(11):118092

6. SEER. Cancer stat facts: prostate cancer July 2021. [https://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/prost.html]

7. Sant GR, Knopf KB, Albala DM. Live-single-cell phenotypic cancer biomarkers-future role in precision oncology? NPJ Precision Oncology 2017;1(1):21

8. Hupe MC, Philippi C, Roth D, et al. Expression of prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) on biopsies is an independent risk stratifier of prostate cancer patients at time of initial diagnosis. Front Oncol 2018;8:623

9. Bostwick DG, Pacelli A, Blute M, et al. Prostate specific membrane antigen expression in prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia and adenocarcinoma: a study of 184 cases. Cancer 1998;82(11):225661

10. Pomykala KL, Czernin J, Grogan TR, et al. Total-body 68Ga-PSMA-11 PET/CT for bone metastasis detection in prostate cancer patients: potential impact on bone scan guidelines. J Nucl Med 2020;61(3):40511

11. Minner S, Wittmer C, Graefen M, et al. High level PSMA expression is associated with early PSA recurrence in surgically treated prostate cancer. Prostate 2011;71(3):2818

12. Hope TA, Aggarwal R, Chee B, et al. Impact of 68Ga-PSMA-11 PET on management in patients with biochemically recurrent prostate cancer. J Nucl Med 2017;58(12):195661

13. Hofman MS, Violet J, Hicks RJ et al. [177Lu]-PSMA-617 radionuclide treatment in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (LuPSMA trial): a single-centre, single-arm, phase 2 study. Lancet Oncol 2018;19(6):82533

14. Kratochwil C, Giesel FL, Stefanova M, et al. PSMA-targeted radionuclide therapy of metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer with 177Lu-labeled PSMA-617. J Nucl Med 2016;57(8):11706

15. Eder M, Schafer M, Bauder-Wust U, et al. 68Ga-complex lipophilicity and the targeting property of a urea-based PSMA inhibitor for PET imaging. Bioconjug Chem 2012;23(4):68897.

16. Benesova M, Schafer M, Bauder-Wust U, et al. Preclinical evaluation of a tailor-made DOTA-conjugated PSMA inhibitor with optimized linker moiety for imaging and endoradiotherapy of prostate cancer. J Nucl Med 2015;56(6):91420

17. Haberkorn U, Eder M, Kopka K, et al. New Strategies in Prostate Cancer: Prostate-Specific Membrane Antigen (PSMA) Ligands for Diagnosis and Therapy. Clin Cancer Res 22(1):9-15.2016

18. Violet J, Jackson P, Ferdinandus J et al. Dosimetry of (177)Lu-PSMA-617 in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer: correlations between pretherapeutic imaging and whole-body tumor dosimetry with treatment outcomes. J Nucl Med 2019;60(4):51723

19. Current K, Meyer C, Magyar CE et al. Investigating PSMA-targeted radioligand therapy efficacy as a function of cellular PSMA levels and intra-tumoral PSMA heterogeneity. Clin Cancer Res 2020;26(12):294655.

20. Kassis A. Therapeutic Radionuclides: Biophysical and Radiobiologic Principles. Semin Nucl Med. 2008; 38(5): 358366

21. Fendler W, Stuparu A, et al. Establishing 177Lu-PSMA-617 Radioligand Therapy in a Syngeneic Model of Murine Prostate Cancer. J Nucl Med 2017; 58: 17861792

22. Ruigrok E, van Vliet N, et al. Extensive preclinical evaluation of lutetium-177-labeled PSMA-specific tracers for prostate cancer radionuclide therapy. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging. 2020; 48: 1339-1350

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RICHMONDGovernor Ralph Northam today proclaimed September 15 to October 15 as Hispanic and Latino Heritage Month.

As we mark 53 years of commemorating National Hispanic and Latino Heritage Month, Pam and I encourage all Virginians to join us in celebrating the important history and enduring contributions of the Hispanic and Latino community throughout Virginia and our country. They enrich our communities by sharing their vibrant culture and heritage.

Throughout this month, we honor and celebrate the hard work and dedication of our Hispanic and Latino men and women who have contributed greatly to the success of our Commonwealth. Hispanic and Latino Virginians continue to make great strides in public office and civil rights issues, supporting the fight for justice and equality for all, and successfully advocating for the historic passage of language access and of protections for all immigrants regardless of citizenship status.

We acknowledge their deep-rooted history and foundation in our country and in our Commonwealth. We highlight their leadership in business and education, and their service in the fight against COVID-19 as healthcare and frontline workers. We recognize the dedication of our public servants as teachers and government employees. We commend the service of Hispanic and Latino men and women in the military protecting our democracy and freedom.

The stories of Hispanic and Latino people are woven into the fabric of our communities. I invite all Virginians to participate in virtual and other safe celebrations of Hispanic and Latino heritage taking place in communities around the Commonwealth. Hispanic and Latino history is Virginias history.
MR BENY ATERDIT BOL Medal of the Order of Australia in the General Division For service to youth, including in leadership and program development positions with Youth Off The Streets, as a member and senior office-holder in multiple African community organisations and multicultural community organisations in Queensland, as a member of State, national and multilateral reference and advisory groups in multicultural-related fields, and as an author and researcher.

PROFESSOR NARELLE LORRAINE HAWORTH Member of the Order of Australia in the General Division For significant service to the road transport industry, and to accident research, through professorial and research roles with Queensland University of Technology, membership of national and state committees and advisory groups on road safety, and a range of book chapters, conference presentations, articles and academic papers in peer reviewed journals.

CAPTAIN PHILLIPA HAY CSC RAN The Bar to the Conspicuous Service Cross For outstanding achievement in the field of Maritime Planning and Operational Command, demonstrating strong leadership during Regional Presence Deployment 2020 which directly enhanced Australia's international reputation as a reliable regional security partner dedicated to the International Rules Based Global Order.

WARRANT OFFICER CLASS TWO LEIGH GARY HEDGER Conspicuous Service Medal For meritorious achievement as the Regimental Technical Adjutant of the 3rd Battalion, the Royal Australian Regiment, and Mechanised Warrant Officer of the 6th Battalion, the Royal Australian Regiment, demonstrating exceptional professionalism and unwavering dedication to duty which drove structural reform and contributed to the cultural optimisation of mechanised infantry battalions.

MR MATTHEW THOMAS HICKEY Medal of the Order of Australia in the General Division For service to music, through positions with The Ten Tenors and the Ipswich Arts Foundation, and through advisory and committee positions with the Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University, and to the law, as a course presenter for the Australian Bar Association, and as a presenter, advisory group member and mentor at Queensland University of Technology.

MRS RITA HILLIER Medal of the Order of Australia in the General Division For service to the community through the Anglican Church of Australia, and in particular All Saints Anglican Parish, Chermside, as manager of the Community Refugee Settlement Scheme, as Chair and Coordinator of WOMBAT, as a volunteer for the Grange Bookshop and as a volunteer for the Anglican Refugee Migrant Ministry.

MR JOHN CLELLAND HOCKNULL Medal of the Order of Australia in the General Division For service to the community, through volunteer roles in fundraising, development and corporate engagement in the Northern Territory, Papua New Guinea and Queensland, including for the Somerville House Foundation and Newstead House Trust, through advocacy for recognition of Patrol Officers in Papua New Guinea, and through founding the Clan Cleland Society.

MR JAMES HUGGETT Public Service Medal For outstanding public service to maritime safety in Queensland, as a senior manager with Maritime Safety Queensland, making a significant contribution to maritime safety and the environment through decisive leadership, innovation and insight in project, program and policy development in many areas of Maritime Safety Queenslands business, including responses to maritime emergencies.

COLONEL JAMES GUTHRIE HUNTER Conspicuous Service Cross For outstanding achievement as the inaugural Director Force Structure Plan Directorate, orchestrating the delivery of the first quadrennial Defence capability assessment process, and demonstrating deep professional understanding and professionalism of the highest order.
Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona (TMB), the public transport operator for the Barcelona metropolitan area has ordered 24 Solaris Urbino 12 electric buses, which will arrive by the end of 2022. The value of the contract, concluded as a result of a tender, stands at more than 12 million.

The public already has 19 articulated Urbino 18 electric buses; this bus family will grow by 24 standard-length units,i.e., the Urbino 12 electric buses.





The vehicles to be delivered to the capital city of Catalonia will be powered by Solaris High Energy batteries with a total capacity of more than 400 kWh. They will be recharged both by means of a pantograph and plug-in technology. The buses will be powered by an electric central motor.

Their additional equipment will include automatic driver assistance systems such as the Mobileye Shield+ and the MirrorEye systems. The former allows risks related to the vehicles blind spot to be eliminated. With cameras placed on both sides, the driver receives warnings of pedestrians and cyclists located nearby.

The MirrorEye is, in turn, a system of cameras that replace the rear- and side-view mirrors. Apart from ensuring optimal visibility regardless of weather conditions, as well as at night, they also reduce the total width of the bus, which is particularly important on narrow streets or with increased road traffic. Moreover, the buses will feature a passenger counting device that will allow the carrier to collect data on passenger flows in buses.

Solaris vehicles first made their way to the fleet of the operator TMB in 2015. All of the Solaris vehicles the carrier has ordered feature hybrid or electric drives. The last order carried out for the client was the delivery of 14 Urbino 18 electric buses in 2020 and 2021.
GREENWICH  Another proposal for a large apartment complex, with an affordable housing component, has been submitted to town planning and zoning authorities for approval.

Eagleview Holdings is putting forward a preliminary plan to convert the Greenwich Woods Rehabilitation and Health Care Center at 1165 King St. into a new housing development that would add three stories to accommodate a total of 162 apartments.

Earlier this month, another developer submitted a preliminary application to the Planning and Zoning Commission for 192 apartments off East Putnam Avenue at Church Street and Sherwood Place in central Greenwich.

Like that application, the King Street proposal would also designate 30 percent of the units as affordable under section 8-30g of the Connecticut General Statutes. The law encourages the construction of affordable housing by lessening local zoning restrictions that other market-rate projects are required to meet.

Under the proposal, the parking at the location would go from 119 spaces to 248 spaces, plus ADA-accessible parking. The apartments would be a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom units. The development team said senior housing would continue at the site with this plan.

At the Planning and Zoning Commission meeting Tuesday, where a brief introductory discussion was held, commissioners expressed concerns about the scale of the project and its traffic impacts, as well as how a septic system could accommodate a large new construction. The facility currently uses a regional sewer system operated just over the border in Westchester County, N.Y.

The proposal will be scrutinized closely in terms of traffic and environmental impact, P&Z Chair Margarita Alban said.

Here you have a high-density development, in an area that does not have such development, she said. What are the implications? Is it safe traffic-wise and environmentally?

She also questioned whether a smaller building would work better at the site. Alban said it was not an ideal location for the proposed housing

Sam Romeo, chairman of Greenwich Communities, the towns public housing authority, struck a critical note about the plan during the teleconferenced hearing.

This application troubles me, Romeo said. This is out of character for the town of Greenwich.

Romeo said he believed private developers were using the states affordable-housing laws in ways that were not necessarily conducive to creating significant amounts of affordable housing in communities such as Greenwich, while reaping rewards for private investors.

Greenwich Woods now accommodates 217 senior residents, and it also has a unit for people coping with memory loss. The rehabilitation and health care center was constructed in the 1980s on the 16-acre site in northern Greenwich along the border with New York.

It is also located near the Gimbel Audubon Sanctuary, the former Gimbel estate, an 80-acre wooded site now preserved by the Greenwich Audubon Center, according to Greenwich Woods.

The states 8-30g statute was established more than three decades ago to promote the development of affordable housing in towns and cities. Under the statue, 10 percent of the housing in a municipality must be affordable, under a formula. In Greenwich, the number has been at about 5 percent for years.

The preliminary application for a 192-unit apartment building in central Greenwich was filed by SJP Properties, based in New York City. The units would be a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom layouts in a seven-story building, according to the developers.

Were committed to bringing a world-class residential development to downtown Greenwich, said a statement from the development team, which includes Eagle Ventures. It would help Greenwich make significant progress on its state-mandated affordable housing requirement.

In the past year, the issue of affordable housing has gained ground in Greenwich. Under a proposal set to go before the Representative Town Meeting, the town has proposed forming a trust fund of privately raised money, with an 11-member board to oversee it and allocate funds to private developers to build new units or renovate existing units of affordable housing in Greenwich.

rmarchant@greenwichtime.com
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP)  A month after the fall of Kabul, the world is still wrestling with how to help Afghanistans impoverished people without propping up their Taliban leaders  a question that grows more urgent by the day.

With the Afghan government severed from the international banking system, aid groups both inside Afghanistan and abroad say they are struggling to get emergency relief, basic services and funds to a population at risk of starvation, unemployment and the coronavirus after 20 years of war.

Among the groups struggling to function is a public health nonprofit that paid salaries and purchased food and fuel for hospitals with contributions from the World Bank, the European Union and the U.S. Agency for International Development. The $600 million in funds, which were funneled through the Afghan Health Ministry, dried up overnight after the Taliban took over the capital.

Now, clinics in Afghanistan's eastern Khost Province no longer can afford to clean even as they are beset with COVID-19 patients, and the region's hospitals have asked patients to purchase their own syringes, according to Organization for Health Promotion and Management's local chapter head Abdul Wali.

All we do is wait and pray for cash to come, Wali said. We face disaster, if this continues.

Donor countries pledged during a United Nations appeal this week to open their purse strings to the tune of $1.2 billion in humanitarian aid. But attempts by Western governments and international financial institutions to deprive the Taliban-controlled government of other funding sources until its intentions are clearer also has Afghan's most vulnerable citizens hurting.

The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the European Union suspended financing for projects in Afghanistan, and the United States froze $7 billion in Afghan foreign reserves held in New York. Foreign aid to Afghanistan previously ran some $8.5 billion a year  nearly half of the country's gross domestic product.

Without access to its own or foreign funds, the interim government in Kabul cant even pay the import taxes needed to bring containers of badly needed food from a port in Pakistan, the country's Chamber of Commerce and Industry Vice Chairman Yonus Momand said.

The West's strategy is to strangle the Talibans finances to induce Afghanistan's new leaders to respect the rights of women and religious minorities. The all-male, hard-line Cabinet appointed last week includes several ministers subject to U.N. sanctions and one with a $5 million FBI bounty on his head.

While it's unclear how long Afghan central bank reserves will remain out of reach, American officials insist that humanitarian groups can sidestep Taliban authorities to deliver directly to the needy Afghans fearing for their lives and futures in the wake of the chaotic U.S. pullout.

It's definitely still possible to meet the basic needs of Afghans without rewarding the government with broader economic assistance and diplomatic recognition, said Lisa Curtis, former South and Central Asia director of the U.S. National Security Council.

But the situation on the ground shows the limits of that approach. Fighting over the years has displaced over 3.5 million people  including over half a million since the start of the year. The price of basic goods has soared. Bank lines snake down streets as people wait hours, even days, to withdraw money so they can feed their families.

While individuals are allowed to withdraw a maximum of $200 per week from Afghanistans banks, organizations are unable to get any funds. The paralysis has hampered the work of local authorities who used World Bank development funds to pay for health services and clean water, as well as international charitable groups trying to run vast aid operations.

The cash remains the main issue, said Stefan Recker, Afghanistan director for Catholic relief organization Caritas. We cannot pay our own staff, run our aid projects or implement badly needed new programs.

Cut off from their bank accounts, groups dependent on international donors are using stop-gap methods to stay afloat. They are getting their hands on operating cash through a mixture of mobile payment service M-PESA, Western Union transfers and hawala  the informal money transfer system that helped power the economy when Taliban ruled Afghanistan in the 1990s.

The ancient system, which existed in the country before banks, relies on the principle that if there are two people who want to send equal amounts of money between two locations, cash doesnt need to change hands. International anti-poverty organization CARE is among the relief providers that rely on hawala dealers to transfer funds and record loans across provinces.

It's probably not a long-term solution, but the hawala system has been helpful for a long time, Marianne OGrady, CARE's deputy Afghanistan director, said. People trust in it, so it's what we're using."

Meanwhile, some countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Uzbekistan, have avoided the messy debate over financial aid by dispatching planeloads of food and medicine to Kabul, betting that bags of rice will get distributed to the needy and not line the pockets of Taliban ministers who are on terrorism watch lists.

But many insist that informal money transfers and rice shipments are hardly the way to prevent Afghanistans financial and social collapse at a time when the stakes are so high: along with drought and the threat of famine, potential Taliban brutality and a collapsing health care system, Afghans face more desperate times as winter approaches.

Although the $1.2 billion raised at the U.N. this week exceeded expectations, uncertainty surrounds the outpouring of international sympathy. Aid workers want to know where exactly the money is going and when, as well as how the needs of cash-strapped local nongovernmental organizations will be addressed while Afghanistan's banking system remains crippled.

The U.N. had a lot to say about food delivery, but I heard nothing about plans to reestablish a system of public services, said Vicki Aken, Afghanistan director for the International Rescue Committee. What about paying the salaries of teachers and doctors?

Those salaries now run through financial plumbing controlled by former insurgents with a brutal reputation. In maintaining its grip on the Afghan state's foreign reserves, the U.S. hopes to pressure the Taliban to honor their promises to create a moderate and inclusive government.

Although Afghanistan's new rulers vowed as recently as Tuesday to ensure the U.N. aid is distributed fairly, reports have emerged in recent days of Taliban fighters cracking down on journalists and peaceful protests.

It's a gray zone, said Daniel Runde at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. We spent a ton of money building up state capacity. Do we now want a broken-down banking system so doctors can't administer vaccines? Do we care enough about womens education to work with this regime?

As the international community ponders the answer, doctors at a government-run pediatric hospital in Kabul say they have run out of antibiotics and gauze and are bracing for a harsh winter without heating as they treat a growing number of malnourished children.

The economic conditions are getting worse, so the (cases) of malnutrition are increasing, warned Noorulhaq Yousufzai, the doctor in charge of the clinic.

___

Associated Press writers Tameem Akghar in Istanbul and Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.
Xiaomi first announced the Redmi 10 in mid-August, and it's since made it to India as the Redmi 10 Prime (with a bigger battery). Now the original, non-Prime Redmi 10 is finally landing in Europe. That is, you will be able to purchase it from European stores - before you needed to go to Chinese storefronts like AliExpress and order from there.

Multiple Mi.com regional sites in Europe have listed the Redmi 10, and pricing varies. There are two models on offer, the one with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage goes for 179.90 in Spain and Germany, and 199.90 in Italy. The 4/128GB version is 199.90 in Spain and Germany, and 229.90 in Italy. Sales start on September 16.

As a refresher, the Redmi 10 ships with a 6.5-inch 1080x2400 90 Hz LCD screen, the MediaTek Helio G88 chipset at the helm, a quad rear camera setup (50 MP main + 8 MP ultrawide + 2 MP macro + 2 MP depth), an 8 MP selfie camera, and a 5,000 mAh battery with 18W charging. It runs Android 11 with MIUI 12.5 on top.

If you're interested in the Redmi 10, don't forget to read our in-depth review to get truly acquainted with it and its particularities.
On Tuesday, Samsung launched its beta program for Android 12 and One UI 4. Along with the list of many new features and updates for the Samsung Galaxy S21, S21+, and S21 Ultra is support for eSIM in the US. eSIM allows a smartphone to be registered to a network without needing a SIM card. You'd only need to provide a unique eSIM number to your carrier to activate service.

Galaxy S21 variants outside of the US come fitted with dualSIM trays while the US variant's supports a single nanoSIM at a time. Android 12 will enable eSIM support for the Galaxy S21 lineup with the option to use dualSIM modes.

Samsung Galaxy S21 and its dualSIM card tray (EU)

As of this writing, the beta program has reached its capacity from the US. Other markets where the One UI 4/ Android12 beta is live include South Korea, UK, China, Germany, and Poland.

One UI 4 brings updated configuration options for the home screen, new icons, wallpapers, and updated AR emojis. There are also new notification indicators that will let you know when an app is using the phone's camera or microphones.

The Galaxy S21 series will receive the stable release of Android 12 at the end of its beta phase, sometime in the next few months. Google may officially release Android 12 source code AOSP (Android Open Source Project) on October 4 and the general public release is expected to coincide, though no date has yet been confirmed by Google.

Via




Haiti - FLASH : 3 orders, 2 new appointments to the Government (official)





On Wednesday September 15, 2021, in the Official Journal "Le Moniteur" Special #44, an order confirms the appointment of Liszt Quitel (currently Minister of the Interior) as Minister a.i of Justice and Public Security. He replaces in this post Me Rockefeller VINCENT whose revocation which had been announced Monday but not confirmed, is now confirmed.



Reacting, the outgoing Minister Vincent declared "The confidence that His Excellency Jovenel Moise placed in me allowed me to serve my country as Director General of the Unit for the Fight against Corruption (ULCC), then as Minister of Justice and Public Security with dignity, competence, loyalty and a sense of public service, after my long career in the judiciary. Haiti has an obligation to bring justice to its villainously murdered President... It is a matter of national dignity. I am counting on the independence of the justice system in my country to shed light on this emblematic case and all the other pending cases."



A second decree appoints the citizen Josue Pierre Louis Secretary General of the Council of Ministers, with the rank of Minister. He replaces Renald Luberice in this position who resigned on the same day of publication of this decree.



In his resignation letter dated September 15, addressed to members of the Council of Ministers, he wrote :



"[...] A bundle of clues supports the thesis of an active participation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry in the villainous assassination of the President of the Republic, His Excellency Mr. Jovenel Moise [...] Therefore, the Commissioner of the Government ai Me Bed-Ford Claude [revoked since https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-34750-haiti-justice-installation-of-a-new-government-commissioner.html ] requires the judge of instruction, Me Garry Orelien, September 14, 2021, to instruct on the information confirming the telephone calls between Mr. Ariel Henry and the fugitive Joseph Felix Badio in the morning of the sordid attack https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-34746-haiti-flash-the-prime-minister-threatened-with-indictment-and-forbidden-to-leave-the-territory.html



You will understand well [...] that I could not remain in the General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers under the direction of a person named by Jovenel Moise, accused in his assassination, and who does not intend to cooperate with justice, seeking, in contrary, by all means, to obstruct it.



I am therefore grateful to the members of the Council of Ministers to consider my resignation, in accordance with Articles 133 and 149 of the Constitution conferring the exercise of the powers of the President of the Republic on the Council of Ministers, upon receipt of this letter. May each minister put himself at the height of his mission at this historic crossroads."



Finally, a third and final decree, published in the same issue of "Moniteur" declares a state of emergency for a further period of one month in the departments of Sud, Nippes and Grand-Anse.



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-34750-haiti-justice-installation-of-a-new-government-commissioner.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-34748-haiti-politic-oral-dismissal-of-the-minister-of-justice.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-34746-haiti-flash-the-prime-minister-threatened-with-indictment-and-forbidden-to-leave-the-territory.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-34739-haiti-flash-the-pm-dismisses-the-minister-of-justice-the-government-commissioner-and-the-sg-of-the-council-of-ministers.html



SL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - Diplomacy : The Core Group encourages all the vital forces of the Nation





Wednesday September 15, 2021, the Core Group (made up of Ambassadors from Germany, Brazil, Spain, the United States of America, France, the European Union, as well as Cristobal Dupouy, Special Representative of the (Organization of American States and Helen La Lime, Special Representative of the Secretary General of the United Nations) encouraged the efforts undertaken by the Prime Minister, political actors and Haitian civil society to find a consensual agreement allowing the establishment of a inclusive government and accelerate the return to normal functioning of democratic institutions through the holding of elections.



The members of the Group encourage all the vital forces of the Nation to embark on the path of a constructive dialogue, based on the principles of democracy, in order to preserve national cohesion and allow the country to resume its route towards political stability.



They also reiterate their call for full light to be shed on the assassination of the President of the Republic, Jovenel Moise, and for its perpetrators to be sought and brought to justice, while respecting the principles of the rule of law.



In addition, the same day in the afternoon, the Prime Minister ai Ariel Henry met with the diplomats of the Group "Together, we discussed, among other things, the general situation of the country, the recovery and the reconstruction of the Southern Peninsula devastated by the 14th earthquake," said Henry.



HL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - News : Zapping...





Taiwan : 20 Haitian scholarship holders

This Friday, September 17, 2021, the Embassy of the Republic of China (Taiwan) in Haiti will hold a ceremony to award scholarship certificates to Taiwan to 24 young Haitians.



Chancellor Claude Joseph in Mexico

At the invitation of the Mexican Government, Haitian Chancellor Claude Joseph left Haiti on Tuesday September 14 for Mexico to participate in the 6th Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the independence of Mexico which will be held in Mexico City on September 16 and 18, 2021. Wednesday 15, on the sidelines of the Summit, Claude Joseph signed on behalf of the Haitian Government the "Constitutive Agreement of the Latin American and Caribbean Space Agency" intended to facilitate the development of technology transfer between member countries for the realization of exploration activities and use of outer space for peaceful purposes.



Hostage releases

Tuesday evening, the daughter-in-law of Prime Minister Ariel Henry, Dr. Lara Theard Nazon, kidnapped on September 10 in Petion-ville, was released by her captors. The conditions of her release are unknown. At the same time, the young Verno Fulgence, kidnapped on September 4 in Gressier, was released against ransom the same day.



South : D-18 before the start of the school year

Wednesday, September 15 Sofia Loreus, the Minister for the Status of Women also coordinator of Government action in the south met the Departmental Directors of Public Works, Finance, National Education, the National Police of Haiti, Civil Protection and the Departmental Delegate in order to define a strategy that can facilitate the start of the school year scheduled for October 4, 2021 in this department, according to the wishes of the Government.



Justice : Chancellor Joseph calls for international support

"Two months since the assassination of President Jovenel Moise, the intellectual authors and financial of this crime continue to circulate freely with impunity. The Haitian people continue to demand justice for their President. I reiterate my request to the UN for a special international tribunal to be established https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-34412-haiti-justice-the-chancellery-asks-the-un-for-help-in-the-investigation-into-the-assassination-of-president-moise.html , in support of the Haitian justice, in order to judge and condemn the guilty of this heinous assassination whose preparation and execution have an international scope," Claude Joseph, Minister of Foreign Affairs.



Almost 5,500 disabled people affected by the earthquake

The number of people with disabilities who were affected by the earthquake of August 14, 2021 in the departments of Sud and Grand'Anse stands at nearly 5,500, according to the latest Civil Protection report. Of this number with needs for drinking water, food, tarpaulins and sanitary protection material, such as masks and medicine, are 2,150 women and 445 elderly people. The Office of the Secretary of State for the Integration of People with Disabilities recommends targeting this category of the population through massive humanitarian aid.



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Published on 2021/09/15 | Source

New stills added for the upcoming Korean documentary "A Man Who Paints Water Drops" (2020)

Advertisement

Directed by Kim Oan

Synopsis

Letter and Repetition: Echo of the Water Drop Painter, Kim Chang-yeol's Work

-Water

Water is a recurring element in this movie and appears repeatedly in various forms, including rain, sea, glass of water, and puddles. Such a humorous way of healing is not only literal reflection and refraction of Kim's fundamental main theme, but also the way he exists in the world. Such an object is to immerse the audience in the obsession and microscopic detail associated with the writer's daily life.

-Repetition

This work focuses on the radical character of Kim Chang-yeol's minimal and repetitive atmosphere through scenes, sounds, and repetition of words. One of the ways we use for this purpose is the repetitive phosphorus accumulation method. For example, a woman bends and gets up and bows again 10 or 15 times. You can experience this tremendous accumulation of gestures in your daily life.

-Separation

In his work, as in his life, Kim Chang-yeol has a special relationship with the world of separation and patience, which he observes, expresses and sometimes tries to imitate. Therefore, the work expresses the world around him with patience through the separation of the streets of Seoul and Paris, the nature around his home, the kind of news he hears on the radio, and the kind of desire he has.

Release date in Korea : 2021/10/19
Polson business wins retailer of the year

Staff and wire report

A businesswoman from Rocky Boys Indian Reservation earned some top honors at the Made in Montana Tradeshow last week.

Rebekah Carries Sweet Grass Woman Jarvey earned the Best in Show New Exhibitor Award at the tradeshow, held Friday and Saturday in Helena with the exhibits open to the public Saturday.

The awards were presented to the winners Friday, with Montana Lt. Gov. Kristen Juras, Department of Agriculture Director Christy Clark and Commerce Director Scott Osterman presenting the awards.

Jarvey describes herself on her business website at https://rebekahjarvey.com as a Chippewa Cree and Blackfeet self-proclaimed Indigenous fashionista from Rocky Boy.

She is a fourth-generation beader and sewer with a foundation of her traditional tribal heritage and todays fashion, the website says. She combines Indigenous style with a modern urban touch to authentic handmade masks and ribbon skirts.

She believes its her responsibility to make sure the collector is looking stylish with culture, the site says.

Her website includes #nativewoke merchanside, to inspire Native Americans to wear masks, social distance and keep people safe.

Native Woke is a movement on raising awareness to our newest enemy, the COVID-19 virus, the site says. Its crucial we act now and fight together.

The sale portion of the website says proceeds from the Native Woke merchandise will go to families of respected tribal elders who died in 2020.

Her other merchandise includes the Being Indigenous is so Beautiful Collection, Designer Face Mask Collection, Indgenous Maks Cellection, Kokumystic Collection, Rebekah Jarvey Gift Cards, Ribbon Drib, Ribbon Masks and RJ Beadwork.

Polson business handMADE Montana and owner Carol Lynn Lapotka was awarded the 2021 Retailer of the Year.

Each year, Montana retailers are nominated by their communities and across the state to receive the prestigious award. This year, there was overwhelming support for handMADE Montana.

Its small business owners like Carol at handMADE Montana who highlight the very best of Montana-made handcrafted goods while providing a supportive platform for local artisans, said Montana Department of Commerce Director Scott Osterman.

Located on Main Street in Polson, the handMADE Montana store sells more than 80 local and regional modern handcrafted goods, includes 65 artists and has a fully visible and functioning production studio in the back for REcreate Designs. In addition, handMADE is an event and community resource organization for artisans, provides selling opportunities for artists and offers workshops in small business development.

Lapotka is also known for organizing the award-winning MADE fairs, Montanas largest art and handcrafted markets.

Other award winners included:

Best in Show Overall  Farver Farms, a Scobey-area business that sells products made from produce raised on the Farver family farm.

Best in Show Honorable Mention  Martikarli.com, the childrens willdlife picture books shop of Montana wildlife artist Karla Martinson.
COVID CARE BURNOUT: 'I can't do it anymore. I'm leaving.'

Henderson County Commissioner Daniel Andreotta wants people to appreciate and thank the nurses, CNAs and other caregivers who are suffering burnout from the physical and emotional hardship of the Covid-19 response that has now endured for 18 months.

"They've been stretched thin," Andreotta said last week during the commissioners' comments at the tail end of the board's regular meeting. "They're drained, they've worked overtime, they've lost patients. I'm hearing more and more that a lot of them are reaching their mental and emotional limit. Keep those folks in your prayers. If you don't have anything else to do find one of those folks and send them a card or a fruit basket or something, a thank you and encourage them. Sometimes those little gestures mean a lot.

"I heard this past week, a young lady who was in a particular set of circumstances as a nurse and if she gave 10 years in a particular field of nursing then her student debt would be forgiven tax free, which in her case was about $200,000. She lacks 30 months; she's seven plus years in.

She said, 'I can't do it anymore. I'm leaving.' So you gotta be pretty worn out to not be able to turn 30 months into an extra two-hundred thousand tax-free dollars. But the human spirit has got its limits. So let's remember these folks. You see somebody out and about in scrubs, just like law enforcement, go up to them and thank them. We wouldn't want to have had their role for almost the last two years now. Just encourage those folks, because we sure are glad they're there when we need them."

Evidence is growing statewide and nationally that coronavirus care is leading to burnout at hospitals, clinics, schools and other facilities.

The late summer surge of Covid-19 hospitalizations  driven by the delta variant and a state population that remains nearly 50 percent unvaccinated  has severely taxed an already burdened health care system, Carolina Public Press reported. Thats according to a survey of North Carolina hospitals by the NC Watchdog Reporting Network, which found that facilities are diverting patients, converting areas to Covid wards and delaying procedures to cope. Hospitals say patients are getting sick faster and staying sick longer, extending inpatient and intensive care unit stays across the state.

A survey conducted by the N.C. Nurses Association and released in late August showed nurses are burned out and reeling from the impacts of a staffing shortage that existed before the pandemic, which has only worsened since.

Im really concerned about nurses out there right now and Im even more concerned about the long-term impact this will have on individuals and the profession, association CEO Tina Gordon said in a statement. Roughly 77 percent of the nurses the association surveyed said their facilities have a severe or moderate shortage of nursing staff.

AdventHealth Hendersonville spokeswoman Victoria Dunkle said the Fletcher hospital is currently seeing younger and sicker patients. Although the average length of stay for patients with respiratory infections and inflammation, which includes COVID-19 patients, is 5.66 days, Dunkle said sicker COVID-19 patients are staying an average of 13 days, with some being in the hospitals care for a month or more.

At a meeting of the Henderson County School Board on Monday, Aaron Fishler, a respiratory therapist at Mission HCA in Asheville, urged the School Board to continue the mask mandate in the county schools.

"It has not been getting better," he said of the Covid patient load and pressure on the medical staff. "Our pediatric ICU is now half full of Covid patients and all of our adult ICUs are full to the brim. We are tired and I am asking you guys to continue with the mask mandate."




A NEW councillor has been co-opted on to Henley Town Council.

Tom Buckley has filled the vacancy created by the resignation of Paula Isaac, who represented the north ward for the ruling Henley Residents Group.

He will sit as an independent and will be on the recreation and amenities and planning committees.

Originally from Northern Ireland, Mr Buckley moved to Henley with his wife four years ago and works as a retail IT consultant.

He said: Two councillors mentioned that there was an opportunity to get involved and I thought it would be nice to see it for myself and put myself forward.

If it hadnt been for the Lovibonds Tap Room, wed have struggled to settle here and I know quite a few of the regulars have said similar things. I was sorry to see it go. The more places there are to help small groups of people come together and thrive, the stronger a town like Henley can become.

My own experience means that I am able to support those new to Henley to integrate into the community and really make it their home.

Deputy town clerk Cath Adams said: We would like to thank Paula Isaac for her great contribution to Henley during her tenure on the town council... and we are delighted to welcome Tom to the fold.
2.8 Million People Have Gained Affordable Health Coverage During

the Special Enrollment Period

American Rescue Plan Saved Existing Consumers a Total of $537 Million Per Month

A new report released today by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) shows that more than 2.8 million people newly gained access to affordable health care under the Biden-Harris Administration through the 2021 Special Enrollment Period (SEP) on HealthCare.gov and State-based Marketplaces.. With the gains made during the SEP, there are now a record-breaking 12.2 million people enrolled in the federal and state marketplaces. Additionally, there is historic enrollment today through Medicaid and the Childrens Health Insurance Program (CHIP) with over 82.3 million people relying on these programs as of April 2021.

The American Rescue Plans (ARP) expanded premium tax credits reduced premiums, increased savings, and provided consumers access to quality, affordable health care coverage through the Marketplaces:

Over 90% of consumers who enrolled during the SEP saw their premiums reduced due to these tax credits.

due to these tax credits. Existing consumers saved an average of $67 per consumer, per month , in premium savings.

, in premium savings. 48% of new HealthCare.gov consumers received a monthly premium of $10 or less after tax credits.

after tax credits. The median deductible for new HealthCare.gov consumers fell by over 90%.

There has never been a more critical time to ensure quality health coverage for all Americans. said Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra. Thanks to the Special Enrollment Period, we were able to help a record-breaking number of people across the country get covered, including those in rural and underserved communities. No one should have to lose their life savings to gain life-saving care.

CMS also reports historic Medicaid and CHIP enrollment. The April 2021 Medicaid and CHIP Enrollment Trends Snapshot report shows that over 82.3 million individuals were enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP in April 2021, an increase of 580,591 individuals, compared to March 2021. Since February 2020, the month before the COVID-19 public health emergency was declared, enrollment in Medicaid and CHIP increased by more than 11.6 million individuals or 16.4%.

Its clear that when health coverage is accessible and affordable, people sign up. Peace of mind is especially needed during the COVID-19 pandemic and thanks to the Special Enrollment Period millions more can now rest easy knowing they are covered. The American Rescue Plan made health coverage more affordable than ever and CMS urges Congress to make those savings permanent, said CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure. If you didnt sign up before August 15th, you should know there are still opportunities to enroll this year for those who experienced recent life events or have been impacted by Hurricane Ida. Apply today on HealthCare.Gov to find out if you can still enroll this year. The next Open Enrollment Period starts on November 1 for coverage in 2022.

Consumers who still dont have 2021 coverage can find out if they are eligible at healthcare.gov to enroll through SEPs that cover individuals who have experienced life-changing events, such as a loss of other coverage, marriage, having a baby, or moving to a new location. Throughout the year, consumers can also apply for Medicaid and CHIP coverage online in all 50 states and DC, and the majority of states complete real-time determinations and automated renewals.

For more information on the Final SEP Marketplace enrollment report, visit: https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/2021-sep-final-enrollment-report.pdf

For an infographic on Health Insurance Marketplace Enrollment and Savings, visit: https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/2021-sep-enrollment-savings.pdf

For the effectuated enrollment report, visit: https://www.cms.gov/files/document/2019-2021-Aug-Effectuated-Enrollment.xlsx

For the April 2021 Medicaid and CHIP Enrollment Trends Snapshot, visit: https://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/program-information/medicaid-chip-enrollment-data/medicaid-and-chip-enrollment-trend-snapshot/index.html

For more information about the Health Insurance Marketplace, visit: https://www.healthcare.gov/quick-guide/getting-marketplace-health-insurance/

For more information about the American Rescue Plan and the Health Insurance Marketplace, visit: https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/fact-sheets/american-rescue-plan-and-marketplace

Health Insurance Marketplace is a registered service mark of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.

This communication was printed, published, or produced and disseminated at U.S. taxpayer expense.
Delhi Police on Tuesday busted a multi-state Pakistan-organised terror module and arrested 6 terrorists, 2 of whom had received training in Pakistan. The terror module was reportedly linked to dreaded gangster Dawood Ibrahim, who is accused of carrying out the 1993 bombs blasts in Mumbai and is reportedly living in Pakistan.

Delhi Police Special Cell has busted a Pak-organised terror module, arrested 6 people including two terrorists who received training in Pakistan pic.twitter.com/ShadqybnKU  ANI (@ANI) September 14, 2021

Delhi Police addressed a press conference to make the announcement about the arrest. The Police said the terrorists were radicalised and ideologically motivated and had received training in Pakistan for 15 days. One of the arrested, the police official said, was tasked to identify potential targets and carry out reconnaissance of places to orchestrate attacks during the upcoming festival season.

The special cell of the Delhi Police reportedly made the arrests from Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. One Sameer was arrested from Kota, Rajasthan, two persons were arrested from Delhi and three were apprehended from Uttar Pradesh.

One of those arrested was tasked to identify locations in India to orchestrate attacks during festive seasons: Delhi Police on multi-state terror crackdown. Watch here https://t.co/NWgtMkjnrK pic.twitter.com/HM9Z7eDCbx  Republic (@republic) September 14, 2021

Deputy Commissioner of Police(Special Cell) Pramod Singh Kushwah said, Pakistan-organised terror module has been busted. Two Pakistan-trained terrorists have also been nabbed.

He further added that explosives and firearms have been recovered from the terrorists in a multi-state operation.

Spilling details about the arrested terrorists travel to Pakistan, the Delhi Police Special Cell said two out of the 6 were taken to Pakistan via Muscat, where they were trained in explosives and firearms for 15 days.

Neeraj Thakur, Special CP, Delhi Police Special Cell, said the arrested terrorists have stated that there were 14-15 Bangla speaking persons in their group who might have been taken to a similar training to Pakistan. He added that the terror module was being handled from across the border in Pakistan.

The terrorists had formed 2 teams, one of them being coordinated by Dawood Ibrahims brother, Anees Ibrahim, the Delhi Police Special Cell said in the press conference. The responsibility of this group was to get the arms and ammunition into India from across the border and conceal it here. The other team was tasked to facilitate funding through Hawala.

Source : OpIndia
The results of the investigation into the death of a local human being will soon be made pub
Pipeline

16 September 2021

Six Senses to Add Second Branded Property in the Maldives - Kanuhura - on the Private Island Hideaway of Lhaviyani Atoll

Encompassing three private islands - two deserted neighboring islands and Kanuhura itself - this laid-back retreat is the epitome of white sands, turquoise lagoons, lush tropical greenery and gently swaying palm trees to doze under. This second collaboration with Singapore-based Hotel Properties Limited (HPL) will adopt the Six Senses brand in late 2022 as a northerly sister to the popular Six Senses Laamu. Until then, it is available for bookings through www.kanuhura-maldives.com and www.ihg.com, and guests can earn and spend IHG Rewards points and experience exclusive benefits as the resort joins the award-winning loyalty program.

When it adopts the Six Senses brand, the resort will offer 80 private overwater, beach and spacious family villas offering sunset or sunrise views. A 40-minute seaplane flight from the main international airport on Male, the untouched paradise vibe is rivaled only by two completely deserted islands, Jehunuhura and Masleggihuraa. This is about as far away from it all as is possible without forgoing Instagram or uninterrupted sleep.

The mesmerizing natural beauty of the Maldives demands high design standards and Kanuhura has already been recognized as the Best Luxury Resort in the Maldives at the Luxury Lifestyle Awards and Best of the Best in the TripAdvisor Travelers' Choice. Sensitive enhancements are planned over the coming months including an upgrade of the overwater villas to include private pools, new family suites, new dining concepts and a pioneering wellness offering - all with the Six Senses brand's sustainability ethos in mind.

The boutique will also provide a new space dedicated to sustainable fashion. Everything has arrived at the door as mindfully and consciously as possible with a focus on creativity, forward-thinking design, and attention to detail. In short, Six Senses Kanuhura will provide the romantic setting, discreet wining and dining, star-filled skies, deserted beaches, and pioneering wellness for a restful and restorative stay.
Pipeline

16 September 2021

Fortune Hotels, a member of ITC's hotel group has inked an operating agreement for a resort in Benaulim, South of Goa. Poised to open in October, this attractive resort is the third alliance of the chain in Goa. With this latest addition, Fortune Hotels now has 50 alliances across 43 cities of India.

Located just 800 meters from the pristine Benaulim beach, this quaint and picturesque resort, is an existing property. It would be speedily refreshed and styled to the Fortune brand standards and readied to welcome guests in its new avatar as Fortune Resort Benaulim Goa by the early part of the festive season.

Together with 96-rooms including plush suites and chalets, a relaxing spa, a stunning swimming pool, multiple food & beverage offerings and unique experiences, this tranquil property is sure to charm the mixed bag of leisure travellers headed to Goa.

Fortune Resort Benaulim Goa, with its unique setting and ample banquet rooms, open spaces and a lawn, can also convert into a perfect venue for dreamy weddings. Mainly catering to leisure, MICE, Charter & wedding business, the resort is expected to continue to capitalize on MICE related opportunities that seem to be steadily growing in the state.
Now Open

16 September 2021

Citadines Eurometropole Strasbourg has opened its doors in the Alsatian capital of Strasbourg. Operated by the AEGIDE Group, the new 4-star apart'hotel, within easy reach of the European Entreprise Centre, welcomes business and leisure travellers alike.

Citadines Eurometropole Strasbourg's state-of-the-art conference area includes facilities for seminars, meetings and congresses for up to 300 people. The design of the new 166-apartment property incorporates the theme of nature, which can be found in the studios and apartments as well as the public areas and the green roof terrace. For guests' well-being, the Spa by Sothys boasts a swimming pool, sauna, hammam and fitness room. In addition, the property has a 100-seat restaurant with a menu designed by Chef Valerian Privat, one of the talents of the Eclore Group.

Business travellers can access the 'Smart Meeting' service, which allows meetings to be organised with the help of artificial intelligence. The audiovisual equipment is integrated and can be controlled at the click of a mouse (with touch screens, a document sharing system and clickshare display, integrated video conferencing system, BOSE sound system, and connected lighting system).

Citadines Eurometropole, the second Citadines Apart'hotel in Strasbourg, is located near the European Enterprise Centre and about ten minutes' from the city centre, making it an ideal location for business and leisure travellers.

The apart'hotel offers 166 comfortable and bright apartments with fully equipped kitchens and 50" smart TV with Chromecast. The 137 studios are generously proportioned at over 30 square meters each. The 29 one-bedroom apartments can accommodate two to four people, but can also be connected to a studio for group or family travel, providing space for up to six people.

The new property also offers numerous digital options. For example, guests can check in themselves with the 'LoungeUP' app, communicate with the apart'hotel team via WhatsApp or Messenger and access the door to their room via smartphone to reduce unnecessary contact points.
Appointment

16 September 2021

BENCHMARK, a global hospitality company, announces the appointment of Bryan Drackett to the position of director of talent acquisition. Karen DiFulgo, Benchmark's chief people officer, made the announcement.

Bryan Drackett brings two decades of senior leadership experience to his new role with Benchmark, including twelve years serving in talent acquisition. He was previously corporate director of recruiting for McKibbon Hospitality where he led the development and implementation of the company's talent management strategy.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Drackett held positions of leadership for Salamander Hospitality, KForce and Specialty Search International. He began his career with Marriott Hotels. Bryan Drackett is a graduate of the University of Central Florida where he earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration with a major in Hospitality Management. He resides in Tampa with his family.
Appointment

16 September 2021

Leading global hospitality company Hilton has appointed industry veteran Cedric Nubul as General Manager for the upcoming hotel Hilton Singapore Orchard. The announcement comes ahead of the highly anticipated January 2022 opening of Hilton's largest hotel in Asia Pacific.

Nubul brings over 20 years of experience with Hilton hotels, including strong experience in conversion of hotels. He served in the role of General Manager across the Caribbean and Colombia over the past eight years, and previously worked across France, Spain, Italy, Maldives, and Malaysia. During his accomplished hospitality career, Nubul has won notable accolades in the Americas region, including General Manager of the Year and President's Excellence in Leadership Award. Nubul was also included on the Hotel

Management Magazine "GMs to Watch" list in 2018.
Appointment

16 September 2021

Concord Hospitality Enterprises, an award-winning hotel development and management company, is pleased to announce that Sunny Finnell has been promoted to Vice President of Digital Content. In her newly appointed role, Finnell will be responsible for overseeing the digital functions and strategy for hotel openings and acquisitions. She will also lead the development and deployment of a digital webinar and training series that will be built from the ground up to enrich the digital knowledge base of Concord sales leaders across the company.

Over the last several years, Finnell has led the extensive digital on-boarding process for all new hotels and made meaningful enhancements to Concord's digital workflow, as well as represented the hospitality company across several brand digital franchise committees. She will continue to work toward ensuring a seamless digital experience for guests, providing industry-leading digital support for stakeholders and driving crucial topline e-commerce revenue to all hotels and restaurants.

In addition to her contributions at Concord, Finnell leads social marketing initiatives as an advisory board member for The Ohio State University Hospitality Management Degree program. As a Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI) member, she also helps lead social media for the North Carolina HSMAI Chapter as an advisory board member. In addition, Finnell is passionate about serving others both inside and outside Concord, often volunteering for local food drives in her community.
Event

ONCE AGAIN, WE HAVE MADE IT THROUGH AS AN INDUSTRY AND REACHED A NEW FRONTIER. YET THERE IS A BIG JOURNEY AHEAD OF US, AND AS AN AFRICAN PROVERB SUGGESTS - IF YOU WANT TO GO FAR, GO TOGETHER.

To navigate this new era shaped by the Great Reset, we are bringing together the active and close-knit communities of the Arabian Hospitality Investment Conference (AHIC), Saudi Arabia Hospitality Investment Conference (SHIC), Africa Hotel Investment Forum (AHIF) and the Global Restaurant Investment Forum (GRIF).



Under the new banner of the Arabian & African Hospitality Investment Conference (AHIC), these communities will bring a larger group of investors, and leading stakeholders, creating a robust buyer and seller platform with more opportunities under one roof. With their presence, we can have the much-needed conversations to rise from this pandemic together, enhancing the value of market insights, networking, time spent, and the potential of partnerships and opportunities.

Arabian & African Hospitality Investment Conference (AHIC) is organized by Bench Digital
Press Release

16 September 2021

Accor, the leading hotel operator in Southeast Asia, is calling on industry leaders to join in celebrating the very first International Hospitality Womens Day on 23rd September 2021. Launched by weekly travel show, Hospitality Today Live, the event sets out to celebrate the achievements of women in hospitality and encourage more people to enter the dynamic industry.

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Deborah Gardner, a 30 year hospitality veteran and founder of the Hospitality Today Live podcast, will welcome a panel of female leaders from around the world to discuss leadership, trends, challenges and predictions. Accors Chief Commercial Officer for Southeast Asia, Japan & South Korea, Kerry Healy, will join the broadcast to talk about her life experiences as a business leader and mother, as well as issues impacting women in the hospitality industry.

Kerry Healy oversees a network of 400 hotels in Southeast Asia, Japan & South Korea, and leads a team of 70 specialists across sales, marketing, distribution, revenue management, digital marketing, guest experience, loyalty, and communications functions.

When asked about the future of the industry, Kerry describes what impact she wishes to make: I want to encourage all the young women of today to take their seat at the table and make their voice heard. Every leadership team should ultimately reflect the clients which they serve. I have the privilege of being in a C-suite role so I want to create a working environment for my team which celebrates diversity and offers the flexibility that people need to succeed in their personal lives. I want to ensure to that there is no ceiling for women  everybody deserves equal access to opportunities and career progression. Ultimately, I want everyone to feel comfortable to be themselves, to respect each other, and feel confident to follow their values. Perhaps in doing so, we will each play a part in transforming this industry to be one that truly reflects the guests who walk through the doors of each of our hotels.

Since 2012, Accor has put in place a womens support and mentoring network, now called RiiSE, which promotes diversity as a means of driving collective performance. RiiSE engages both women and men in the group to work together, using mentoring, training, education and conferences to fight stereotypes and violence against women and promote diversity and inclusion.

The live broadcast of Hospitality Today Live for International Hospitality Womens Day will take place from 5PM EDT (UTC -4) on Thursday 23rd September 2021 (5AM SGT on Friday 24th September 2021), with a recording made available following the podcast.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HospitalityTodayLive

You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVpBipUCRJDhX61NYENMmMQ/videos
Los Angeles-based Lowe has acquired a trio of hotels in The Woodlands from the Howard Hughes Corp. as part of Hughes previously announced plan to sell off $2 billion in non-core assets.

The deal, announced by Hughes, adds 909 rooms to the Lowe portfolio. The $252 million purchase was made in joint venture with an institutional investor and equates to about $277,000 per room.

The properties consist of The Woodlands Resort, a 402-room property developed as part of The Woodlands master-planned community in 1974; The Westin at The Woodlands, a 302-room contemporary style hotel built in 2016 along the Waterway Square public plaza; and Embassy Suites by Hilton, The Woodlands at Hughes Landing, a 205-room hotel overlooking Lake Woodlands built in 2015.

Lowe plans a $25 million capital investment program at the three hotels. At The Woodlands Resort, which has a lazy river and expansive meeting facilities, plans include redeveloping the 10,000-square-foot spa and pool with renovated indoor and outdoor spaces, expanding and modernizing the fitness facility and transforming the dining and bar options.

Planned renovations also include upgrades to the guest rooms, the meeting and conference space and public areas at The Westin at The Woodlands and refreshing the guest rooms at the Embassy Suites by Hilton.

Lowes CoralTree Hospitality subsidiary, which took over management of the properties in September, will continue to manage the hotels.

RELATED: Howard Hughes Corp. opens apartments in The Woodlands

The Woodlands hotel portfolio acquisition is consistent with our broader hospitality investment strategy that targets quality, full-service hotels and resorts that draw significant leisure travel, but also cater to corporate and group business, Mike Lowe, co-CEO of Lowe said in an announcement. Business has grown steadily over the past five years and the hotels have weathered the downturn and are rebounding strongly.

As leisure travel has returned, occupancy at all three hotels rose in the second quarter since the end of 2020, reaching 68 percent at the Embassy Suites, 49 percent at the Westin at The Woodlands and 31 percent at The Woodlands Resort, according to Hughes Corp. The hotels were closed for two to three months at the onset of the pandemic last year.

The hospitality industry has been dealt a blow by COVID-19. Business travel revenue is projected to decline by 68 percent in 2021 compared to 2019, according to a report by the American Hotel Lodging Association and Kalibri Labs.

The divestiture is part of Hughes 2019 plan targeting $600 million in net proceeds from the sale of $2 billion in non-core assets, the company said. So far, it has netted $376 million.

Hughes Corp. owns, manages and develops commercial, residential and mixed-use real estate throughout the U.S. Its developments include The Woodlands, Bridgeland and The Woodlands Hills in the Houston area.

Greenberg Traurig represented the Lowe venture in the purchase, while K&L Gates provided legal counsel to Hughes Corp. CBRE and JLL represented the seller.

Founded by Robert J. Lowe in 1972, Lowe has acquired, developed or managed over $32 billion of real estate assets.
The history of Texas barbecue, like most complex topics nowadays, has been shortened and simplified for easy understanding by consumers conditioned by soundbites and tweets.

With regard to the two most prominent types of Texas barbecue, the Central Texas style originated in meat markets opened by Czech, German and Polish immigrants in the area around Austin in the mid-1800s. East Texas style originated in the mid-1700s in the southern United States by enslaved Africans who adopted techniques learned from Indigenous peoples of the Americas.

As far as compressed histories go, these narratives give a solid accounting of Texas barbecue history. But what happens when you scratch below the surface?

Much has been written about the history of Central Texas-style barbecue. So much so that Texas barbecue is now most often associated with this style.

J.C. Reid / Contributor

East Texas style and its Southern U.S. origins are often missing from barbecue history, although that changed this year with the publication of Adrian Millers magisterial book Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue.

East Texas style is still alive and well in Houston, and reflects the evolution it has gone through over the decades, ironically adopting Central Texas-style brisket as a main menu item.

NEWSLETTERS Join the conversation with HouWeAre We want to foster conversation and highlight the intersection of race, identity and culture in one of America's most diverse cities. Sign up for the HouWeAre newsletter here.

But what if you want to actually taste the origins of barbecue as it existed in states like Virginia and North Carolina of the 1700s? Until recently, this wasnt possible in Texas, where brisket and beef ribs dominate barbecue menus.

Distant Relatives barbecue trailer At Meanwhile Brewing, 3901 Promontory Point Dr., Austin Open Wed.-Sun.; distantrelativesatx.com See More Collapse

This changed in February when chef Damien Brockway opened the Distant Relatives barbecue trailer in East Austin, featuring ingredients and techniques adopted from genealogical and historical research into his own African American heritage.

Brockway is a classically-trained chef with stints at fine-dining restaurants in San Francisco, New York and Boston. He landed in Austin in 2012 and most recently held the executive chef position at Jester King Brewery.

Like many hospitality workers, the COVID lock down of 2020 allowed for time to engage in more personal pursuits, and Brockways research into his own genealogy revealed that his mothers side of the family came from enslaved people of Virginia, who ultimately came from West Africa.

This resulted in a deep-dive into the cuisines of countries like Nigeria, Cameroon and Mali.

This area of West Africa is known as the Pepper Coast, says Brockway. We decided to use a type of pepper called Grains of Paradise.

J.C. Reid / Contributor

Its a clever transformation of the traditional black-pepper-encrusted Central Texas-style with a more fragrant, floral spice with a flavor-profile closer to cardamom and ginger.

With regard to the meats, Brockway only recently added brisket due to customer demand  this is Austin after all  but the real magic happens in his other proteins, such as pulled pork. The pork shoulder was moist and superbly cooked, with a more fragrant and complex rub than the typical salt-and-pepper version you find at many Texas barbecue joints. Its paired with a molasses-based sauce.

Side dishes are also a focus here, based around Southern U.S. staples including beans, rice and corn. The burnt ends and black-eyed peas is one of the best barbecue side dishes Ive tasted all year  it could almost be a whole meal. Black-eyed peas cooked in fragrant spices (think allspice and nutmeg) are combined with smoky ends of lean brisket.

Brockway, along with junior sous chef Wesley Robinson and assistant pitmaster Omari Mackey, have created something unique in Texas barbecue that goes beyond the classic trinity of brisket, pork ribs and sausage. They are serving up a delicious window into African American origins of the Lone Star States favorite cuisine.

jcreid@jcreidtx.com

twitter.com/jcreidtx
Christopher Clements, of Pearland, has claimed a top prize-winning ticket worth $1,000 a week for 20 years in the Texas Lottery scratch ticket game Weekly Grand.

Clements chose the cash value option and will receive one lump sum payment of $907,603. The ticket was purchased at Fuel Wise No. 1, 5752 Bailey Road.

T-shirt sales benefit education foundation

The Pearland Independent School District Education Foundation has launched its annual spirit campaign with a new logo and additional T-shirt styles in youth and adult sizes.

Students and supporters are encouraged to wear their I am Pearland ISD shirts on spirit days: Oct. 20, Nov. 18, Dec. 13, Jan. 18, Feb. 22, March 9, April 14 and May 16. District faculty and staff members may wear the shirt with jeans.

The fundraising initiative is in its fourth year and has collectively raised more than $40,000 for the foundation.

There is so much community pride for our school district, said andy Cavazos, the foundations president. We love having the opportunity to show that support while also raising funds towards our mission.

To purchase I am Pearland ISD merchandise, visit bonfire.com/iampearlandisd2021.

New Hampshire college recognizes area students academic accomplishments

Southern New Hampshire Universitys most recent honor roll includes several local students.

Three students earned placement on the summer 2021 presidents list: Gina Gallio, of Rosharon; Kentrell Edwards, of Pearland; and Jennifer Ybarra, of Pearland. Full-time students who have earned a minimum GPA of 3.7 are eligible for the presidents list.

Additionally, Katrina Mueller, of Pearland, was named to the summer 2021deans list. Eligibility for the deans list requires a GPA of 3.5 to 3.699 and 12 credits earned for the term. Learn more at www.snhu.edu.
Courtesy of Fort Bend County Sheriff's Office

The cold case of a man found dead in 2007 has found a little bit of closure for the mans family.

According to a news release, the Fort Bend County Sheriffs Office reopened the case late in 2020 after a tip led to additional DNA testing. The man was subsequently identified as 40-year-old Patrick Thomas Harris, who was reportedly last seen heading for a store around his Denver, Colorado, home just days prior to his death.
LEBANON, Ind. (AP)  Three people who were found dead inside a central Indiana apartment each died of a single gunshot wound, police said Wednesday, citing autopsies.

Grace Bishop, 19; Brannon Martin, 20; and Larry Stogsdill Jr., 42, were found dead Sept. 8 in Lebanon, the Lebanon Police Department said. The ages of Bishop and Martin have changed from the information initially provided by authorities.
BRISBANE, Australia (AP)  Voluntary euthanasia became legal in a fifth Australian state on Thursday, more than 20 years after the country repealed the worlds first mercy killing law for the terminally ill.

Queenslands Parliament passed the law with 61 of the states 93 lawmakers voting in favor.

New South Wales, the nations most populous state, is now the only state that doesnt allow assisted suicide.

The Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory do not have the same rights as states and the Federal Parliament has barred them from making such laws.

Queenslands law, which takes effect in January 2023, allows people suffering from a disease or medical condition that is advanced, progressive and terminal to have access to so-called voluntary assisted dying.

Their condition must be expected to cause death within a year, they must have decision-making capacity, and proceed without coercion.

Deputy Premier Steven Miles said the law would ease pain and suffering.

It has been a very considered debate and ... its been a very difficult debate, Miles told Parliament.

Opponents argued that due to a funding shortfall for palliative care, the law would put pressure on some patients to end their lives.

Will this government provide a guarantee that people will get access to quality integrated palliative care services wherever they live in Queensland, when they have a terminal diagnosis, and not just in the last few months of life? opposition lawmaker Fiona Simpson said.

But Miles said palliative care and voluntary assisted dying are complementary policies which give more options to terminally ill people.

The sparsely populated Northern Territory in 1995 became the first jurisdiction in the world to legalize doctor-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients. But the Australian Parliament overturned that law in 1997 after four people had been helped to die.

The Federal Parliament does not have the same power over the six states, and Victoria became the first to legalize assisted suicide in June 2019.

New South Wales' Parliament rejected a doctor-assisted suicide bill by a single vote two weeks before the Victorian law was passed.
WASHINGTON (AP)  President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that the United States is forming a new Indo-Pacific security alliance with Britain and Australia that will allow for greater sharing of defense capabilities  including helping equip Australia with nuclear-powered submarines. It's a move that could deepen a growing chasm in U.S.-China relations.

Biden made the announcement alongside British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who joined him by video to unveil the new alliance, which will be called AUKUS (pronounced AWK-us). The three announced they would quickly turn their attention to developing nuclear-powered submarines for Australia.

"We all recognize the imperative of ensuring peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific over the long term," said Biden, who said the new alliance reflects a broader trend of key European partners playing a role in the Indo-Pacific. We need to be able to address both the current strategic environment in the region and how it may evolve.

None of the leaders mentioned China in their remarks. But the new security alliance is likely to be seen as a provocative move by Beijing, which has repeatedly lashed out at Biden as hes sought to refocus U.S. foreign policy on the Pacific in the early going of his presidency.

Before the announcement, a senior administration official sought to play down the idea that the alliance was meant to serve as a deterrent against China in the region. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preview the announcement, said the alliances creation was not aimed at any one country, and is about a larger effort to sustain engagement and deterrence in the Indo-Pacific by the three nations.

Johnson said the alliance would allow the three English-speaking maritime democracies to strengthen their bonds and sharpen their focus on an increasingly complicated part of the world.

We will have a new opportunity to reinforce Britains place at the leading edge of science and technology, strengthening our national expertise, and perhaps most significant, the U.K., Australia and the U.S. will be joined even more closely together, " Johnson said.

The three countries have agreed to share information in areas including artificial intelligence, cyber and underwater defense capabilities.

But plans to support Australia acquiring nuclear-powered submarines are certain to catch Beijing's attention. To date, the only country that the United States has shared nuclear propulsion technology with is Britain. Morrison said Australia is not seeking to develop a nuclear weapons program and information sharing would be limited to helping it develop a submarine fleet.

The Australian prime minister said plans for the nuclear-powered submarines would be developed over the next 18 months and the vessels would be built in Adelaide, Australia.

Australia had announced in 2016 that French company DCNS had beat out bidders from Japan and Germany to build the next generation of submarines in Australias largest-ever defense contract.

Top French officials made clear they were unhappy with the deal, which undercuts the DCNS deal.

The American choice to exclude a European ally and partner such as France from a structuring partnership with Australia, at a time when we are facing unprecedented challenges in the Indo-Pacific region, whether in terms of our values or in terms of respect for multilateralism based on the rule of law, shows a lack of coherence that France can only note and regret, French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and defense minister Florence Parly said in a joint statement.

Morrison said the three countries had always seen through a similar lens, but, as the world becomes more complex, to meet these new challenges, to help deliver the security and stability our region needs, we must now take our partnership to a new level.

Matt Pottinger, who served as deputy national security adviser in the Trump administration, said that equipping Australia with nuclear-powered submarines was a significant step that would help the U.S. and its allies on the military and diplomatic fronts.

Underwater warfare capabilities have been Beijings "Achilles' heel, Pottinger said. A nuclear-powered submarine fleet would allow Australia to conduct longer patrols, giving the new alliance a stronger presence in the region.

When you have a strong military, it provides a backdrop of deterrence that gives countries the confidence to resist bullying, said Pottinger, who is now a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Part of the problem right now is that Beijing has gotten rather arrogant and its been less willing to engage productively in diplomacy.

The announcement of the new security alliance comes as the U.S.-China relationship has deteriorated. Beijing has taken exception to Biden administration officials repeatedly calling out China over human rights abuses in Xianjing province, the crackdown on democracy activists in Hong Kong, and cybersecurity breaches originating from China, as well as Beijings handling of the coronavirus pandemic and what the White House has labeled as coercive and unfair trade practices.

Even as White House officials have repeatedly spoken out about China, administration officials say they want to work with Beijing on areas of common interest, including curbing the pandemic and climate change.

Biden spoke by phone with Chinas President Xi Jinping last week amid growing frustration on the American side that high-level engagement between the two leaders top advisers has been largely unfruitful.

After the 90-minute phone call, official Xinhua News Agency reported that Xi expressed concerns that U.S. government policy toward China has caused serious difficulties in relations.

Asked Tuesday about media reports that Xi had declined to commit to meet with him in person, the U.S. president said it was untrue. Biden did not speak in specific terms about the new AUKUS alliance during last week's call with the Chinese leader, according to the senior administration official.

The U.S. and Australia, along with India and Japan, are members of a strategic dialogue known as the Quad. Biden is set to host fellow Quad leaders at the White House next week.

Biden has sought to rally allies to speak with a more unified voice on China and has tried to send the message that he would take a radically different approach to China than former President Donald Trump, who placed trade and economic issues above all else in the U.S.-China relationship.

In June, at Biden's urging, Group of Seven nations called on China to respect human rights in Hong Kong and Xinjiang province and to permit a full probe into the origins of COVID-19. While the allies broadly agreed to work toward competing against China, there was less unity on how adversarial a public position the group should take.
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP)  One of three people shot in separate incidents in a North Carolina city has died, police said Wednesday.

Winston-Salem police said Charles Edward Anderson Jr., 27, died at a local hospital after he was shot on Tuesday, the Winston-Salem Journal reported.
UNITED NATIONS (AP)  The Security Council is divided over the mandate of the U.N. political mission in Libya, less than four months before the country is scheduled to hold critical presidential and parliamentary elections. The vote seeks to reunite the divided oil-rich North African nation after a decade of turmoil.

The dispute, voiced by the United States and Russia, led the council to adopt an extension of the current mandate, which was due to expire on Wednesday, until Sept. 30 to try to resolve the differences.

At issue is a dispute over recommendations in a strategic review of the mission, known as UNSMIL, including to have its chief relocate from Geneva to Libyas capital, Tripoli.

Diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity because discussions have been private, said that Russia was also concerned about proposed language calling for the withdrawal of mercenaries, foreign fighters and foreign forces as demanded in the October 2020 cease-fire agreement between rival Libyan governments in the countrys east and west.

Libya has been wracked by chaos since a NATO-backed uprising toppled longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011 and split the country between a U.N.-supported government in the capital, Tripoli, and rival authorities loyal to commander Khalifa Hifter in the east. Each have been backed by different armed groups and foreign governments.

Hifter launched a military offensive in 2019 to capture the capital, a campaign backed by Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Russia and France. But his march on Tripoli ultimately failed in June 2020, after Turkey sent troops to support the Libyan government, which also had the backing of Qatar and Italy. This paved the way for the October cease-fire agreement and a transitional government charged with leading the country to elections on Dec. 24.

Last week, the U.N. special representative for Libya, Jan Kubis, warned that failure to hold the December vote could renew division and conflict and thwart efforts to unite the country. Aborting the drive for elections will for many be a signal that violence is the only path to power in the country, he said.

The country and its people need a full clarity that the elections are going to happen on Dec. 24, Kubis said. The existing uncertainty creates a fertile ground for spoilers and skeptics to manipulate the situation against the political transition, feeding in the existing tensions in relations between diverse Libyan institutions and authorities.

Russias U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the council after the vote that Moscow supports the U.N.s central role in restoring peace to Libya and we are focused on finding mutually acceptable solutions to the remaining outstanding questions for the future functioning of the mission.

He said the resolution gives the 15-member council the opportunity to find a common denominator over the work of the U.N.'s mission in Libya, saying its main aim now must be to help the Libyan people" stick to the timetable for the elections.

Richard Mills, the U.S. deputy ambassador, expressed disappointment at the councils inability to agree on a new mandate for the mission, which he said has a vitally important role in helping Libya achieve peace and stability."
Chronicle file

In 1991, it was a three-way race for Houston mayor. One of the big issues of the time was whether to follow through on a Metro plan to build a monorail that went along the Southwest Freeway and into the Alief area.

Seems it wasn't a very popular plan, according to this poll by KHOU (Channel 11) and the Houston Post. Sixty-six percent of respondents opposed it. And 68 percent believed that money that would have gone toward the monorail plan should instead be spent hiring more police officers.
OnScene TV

A man who police said they believe was homeless was found stabbed to death in southeast Houston late Wednesday, authorities said.

Officials responded to the area of 10910 Gulf Freeway, south of Clearwood Drive, before midnight Wednesday. A man had been stabbed several times and was dead, said Lt. R. Willkens of the Houston Police Department.
COVID-19 hospitalizations are declining across Texas and the Houston region, but ICUs remain stubbornly full, as the sickest patients require care for a longer period of time.

Last week, the number of available adult ICU beds in Texas sunk below 300 for the first time in the pandemic, with 270 beds available on Sept. 8 and 279 available on Sept. 9, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. There were 326 beds available this Wednesday, including 65 in the nine-county region surrounding Houston, the data show.

Texas Medical Center ICUs for weeks have been hovering around 90 percent full with Phase 2 surge plans  which add 373 ICU beds to the 1,330 available in Phase 1  activated.

COVID HELP DESK: Are we past the peak of the delta variant surge in Houston?

Overall, the situation in hospitals appears to be improving, said Dr. James McDeavitt, executive vice president and dean of clinical affairs at Baylor College of Medicine. He said Houston-area ICU numbers likely peaked at the end of August, when COVID patients took up 49 percent of all critical care beds. As of Wednesday, that number dropped to 45 percent.

That may not seem like much, but its a lot, he said. Were still at high levels, but no longer peak levels  not the worst its ever been.

He added that some people are starting to see theres a light at the end at least of this particular tunnel.

Statewide hospitalizations have been steadily declining since Sept. 7, from 13,520 patients to 12,597 on Wednesday, according to DSHS. The weekly average of daily new hospitalizations in the medical center has been dropping from a peak of 390 in mid-August to 328 last week.

ICU data typically lags behind hospitalization data, said McDeavitt, due to the length of time patients in these units remain in treatment. He is cautiously optimistic that Texas Medical Center ICU usage will decline in the coming days.

Still, the high number of ICU patients forces doctors to delay much-needed procedures that take up bed space. At many hospitals, doctors have daily meetings in which they rank patients based on the level of care needed.

Cosmetic surgeries are usually among the first to be delayed, but more urgent surgeries also have to be considered.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Houston's medical experts aren't worried after Nicholas halts COVID tests for a day

What about the person out there who has a significant blockage in their heart arteries and they cannot come in to have their bypass? asked Dr. Syed Raza, vice president of medical operations at CHI St. Lukes Health-The Woodlands Hospital. Its a discussion we have every day. We try to get the patients that have a possible cancer diagnosis  or who have cardiac lesions  in as much as we can. That takes a lot collaboration, a lot of energy and a lot of shifting of schedules, trying to figure out where we can get more nurses.

In some cases, full ICUs can lead to life-threatening delays. In late August, U.S. Army veteran Daniel Wilkinson was admitted to Bellville Medical Center with gallstone pancreatitis, a treatable condition in which a gallstone blocks the pancreatic duct and causes inflammation. The Bellville hospital could not provide that level of treatment, and doctors could not find him an open ICU bed for about seven hours, said his mother Michelle Puget.

His condition had dramatically deteriorated by the time doctors found him a bed at the Houston VA Medical Center, where he died on a Sunday afternoon surrounded by his family.

Im just hoping that somebody else doesnt have to go through this, Puget told the Houston Chronicle this week. Im not angry. Im hurt. Im heartbroken.

Right now, regional ICU figures remain at the same level since late August, according to state data.ICU capacity has remained steady at Harris Health System hospitals but is beginning to come down, said Dr. Esmaeil Porsa, president and CEO of Harris Health System.

He said he could not immediately provide specific data but said the system is still exceeding baseline capacity. While an infusion of nurses from the state and Harris County considerably helped earlier staffing issues, fatigue is the biggest issue among his ICU staff, he said.

Its really that more than anything else, he said. ICU nurses are worn out.

He also noted a 30 percent decrease in the number of patients compared to last month.

Despite the improved outlook, this is not the time to relax, he said.

The message hasnt changed, he said. Please, please for Gods sake get yourself vaccinated.

julian.gill@chron.com
Former Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo may have thought moving to Miami would be sun and fun, but he appears to have landed himself in some hot water recently.

Readers may recall that Acevedo abruptly announced in March that he was moving to the Magic City.

At the time, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez touted the surprise hire -- Acevedo never formally applied for the job -- by saying We got the Michael Jordan of police chiefs.

But almost immediately, Acevedo's hire prompted controversy. One city commissioner complained that Suarez and City Manager art Noriega "came out of nowhere and picked a police chief that wasn't vetted."

In Houston, Acevedo quickly established himself as an outgoing leader who wanted his department to be in touch with the community it protected, and became a fixture at community meetings -- neighborhood associations, schools, civic clubs and public hearings on a variety of issues  and for his friendly relations with local media. He was no stranger to controversy here, engaging in high-profile spats with fellow Republicans such as Attorney General Ken Paxton and Texas senior Sen. John Cornyn and drawing the wrath of rank-and-file police officers for a discipline style some said was too harsh. As Houstonians doubtless recall, Acevedo was no stranger to the camera, frequently marching in protests alongside criminal justice reform advocates. But over the last years of his tenure in Houston he was dogged by the Harding Street drug raid scandal.

In Miami, his tenure has come under fire far more quickly than his time here in Houston.

The Miami Herald reported that Acevedo has come under criticism for a string of disciplinary decisions, including firing the highest-ranking police couple in the department for not properly reporting a patrol vehicle accident, relieving a popular sergeant-at-arms and abruptly demoting several supervisors -- including a high-ranking Black female officer.

Acevedo, who once joined Alex Jones on InfoWars to discuss guns and cop shootings, caught additional flak after posing for a selfie with a leading member of the Proud Boys, a racist far-right group that frequently attends civil rights protests to inflict violence and chaos. (Acevedo said he was unaware the man was a member of the Proud Boys).

But Acevedo appears to have particularly angered the city's elected leaders after they'd learned he'd told some officers at a morning roll call in early August "Its like the Cuban Mafia runs Miami PD.

The term is offensive to many in Cubans in Miami because it is the term with which the Castro regime sometimes labeled the Miami's exile community.

In a tweet, Acevedo said he'd been joking, and hadn't realized how offensive the term was to Cubans living in Miami. (He grew up in Los Angeles.)

Now, the Miami Herald reports, the city's commissioners have called for a special meeting on Sept. 27 to discuss the matter with Acevedo.

The Herald quoted one city commissioner saying "Ill be damned if Im going to let a new transplant come here and do whatever he wants, while the local police union president also called for Acevedo to receive a dressing down from city leaders.

"Hes put his foot in his mouth enough times," Fraternal Order of Police President Tommy Reyes told the Herald, "and made enough bad decisions that he needs to be called to the table.
The Harris County district attorneys office has agreed that a man convicted of murdering a 50-year-old woman at a dry cleaner in 1986 is intellectually disabled and should be removed from death row.

Attorneys for Steven Butler, 59, have argued since 2003 that their client has intellectual disabilities that preclude him from a death sentence, but have had their requests denied on multiple occasions.

On Tuesday, however, prosecutors accepted their own experts opinion that Butler is unfit for execution and recommended that he be removed from death row. The decision will lie in the hands of the Criminal Court of Appeals if District Court Judge Jason Luong signs off on the recommendation.

Prosecutors brought in a new expert, Dr. Timothy Proctor, to re-examine Butler in 2019 after the Texas Court of Criminal Court of Appeals agreed to have his case reconsidered in light of the 2017 U.S. Supreme Court case Moore v. Texas, which ruled that the state had been incorrectly measuring intellectual disability for years.

The expert who evaluated Butler the first time, Dr. George Denkowski, has since been discredited by the state Board of Examiners and Psychologists. The new stipulations require that intellectual disability now be determined using standards set by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM-5.

Butler was sentenced to death in 1988 for killing 50-year-old Velma Clemons at a dry cleaning store after he tried to pick up clothes under a false name. When she refused to hand over clothes or money, Butler fatally shot her in the abdomen.

Butler admitted to that crime and others after he was arrested in Chambers County, but blamed a made-up person for his actions and accused his lawyer of being a demon.

In subsequent mental health evaluations, experts found a history of limited intellectual functioning, including an IQ score around 70 and difficulty with everyday activities such as reading and obeying signs, as well as an inability to effectively engage in most kinds of social interactions. All are thresholds for intellectual disability in the DSM-5.

After Proctor found that Butler meets those thresholds, he agreed with the defenses assessment that Butler has an intellectual disability, court records show.

Once that happened, it became clear this was not a person who deserves to be on death row, and we need to get him off, said Assistant District Attorney Joshua Reiss.

In agreed findings submitted to the district court Tuesday, prosecutors argued that Butler should be taken off death row, and instead serve an automatic life sentence in prison. Though he will be eligible for parole, because a life sentence without parole did not exist as a sentence when Butler was convicted, Reiss said prosecutors will argue against his release at parole board hearings.

Sometimes when you follow the law, it leads you to results you might not necessarily like, but you do what the law is required and in this case its clear, Reiss said, noting Butler also committed another murder, as well as multiple sexual assaults and robberies, the same year he killed Clemons.

Lisa Clemons, Velma Clemonss youngest daughter, said she doesnt believe Butler is intellectualy disabled .

To me, hes a coward, and the fact that hes possibly being given another opportunity, I dont think he deserves that, Clemons said. I think its very sad that he can do a play on the criminal justice system like that and say hes not of the right mind. Its just a disgrace the way the criminal justice system is overturning something like this.

For Jacqueline Lifshutz Boggs, sister of Jefferson Johnson, a store clerk who was killed by Butler during a robbery that same year, the development brings back painful memories.

We felt like justice had been served 35 years ago and now to learn about this intellectual disability and the possibility of parole, its stirred up a lot of emotions and feelings and memories that are once again hard to deal with, Boggs said.

Butlers attorneys declined to comment Wednesday, and Judge Luong did not respond to questions on whether he would pass the recommendation to the appeals court.

sam.kelly@chron.com
Southwest Airlines joined other U.S. carriers in using incentives to encourage their employees to get vaccinated on Wednesday.

Southwest employees will get extra pay if they can show proof that they have received both doses of the COVID vaccine before mid-November, according to a company memo, CNBC reported.

People who work for the Dallas-based airliner will get 16 hours of pay when they upload their vaccination card by Nov. 15. However, flight attendants and pilots will get paid for 13 trip segments.

ENERGY: Why did more than 400K people lose power during the seemingly minor Tropical Storm Nicholas

The decision comes a week after the Biden administration announced a plan to adopt rules mandating that companies with more than 100 employees require workers to get vaccinated. However, in the memo, Southwest officials said the new pay incentives are unrelated to the planned vaccine mandate, CNBC reported.

If you have not been vaccinated and choose to do so, this timeline gives you enough time to receive both rounds of a two-series vaccine or the single-dose vaccine, Southwest wrote to staff, CNBC reported.

The vaccine incentive will go into effect as major corporations are finding ways to encourage their employees to get the shot.

In August, United Airlines announced that it would require all of its 67,000 employees to get inoculated for COVID. Employees will receive an extra day of pay after providing proof of the shot by Sept. 20 to United officials. Meanwhile Delta is charging increased healthcare premiums for employees who refuse to get vaccinated.
Four refugee resettlement organizations in Houston are teaming up to raise $8.5 million that will go to Afghans who have recently been evacuated after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.

Donations will go towards the new Houston Afghan Refugee Fund (HARF), which will be available to the participating resettlement agencies.

The new fundraising effort comes as Afghan families are arriving in Houston under humanitarian parole, an emergency designation that lets them swiftly enter to the country, but means they will not be eligible for the usual federally funded benefits and support that traditional refugees receive.

To make up for shortcomings in federal funding, and ensure robust services for incoming Afghan parolees, four Houston-based refugee agencies  Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, Interfaith Ministries for Greater Houston, YMCA of Greater Houston and The Alliance  have created the special fund to help foot the bill for whatever the federal government wont cover.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Afghan family of seven arrives with newborn

Houston leads the nation in diversity and we are a welcoming city, said Cynthia Colbert, CEO of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, on behalf of the Houston Afghan Resettlement Collaborative. Our four agencies are engaging in this unique collaboration in order to best coordinate our efforts and the resources of the community to provide effective and efficient service delivery to the many Afghan families who are coming to Houston in the coming months. Collectively, we have many decades of experience in working with refugees and other newcomers to our community. A multi-agency collaboration gives funders and philanthropists the opportunity to welcome our new neighbors and provide them with critically needed services as they begin their new lives in the Houston region.

The four agencies are asking Houston area foundations, philanthropists, businesses and individual donors to help cover the costs of housing, medical care, English classes, legal support and other services for Afghan parolees. These services are seen as critical to the resettlement process, as they help families become quickly self-sufficient and integrated into the community.

Though organizations are receiving some funding from the State Department to offset resettlement costs  $1,225 per Afghan parolee  refugee agency Interfaith Ministries estimates additional costs to their organization are around $2,780 per individual to provide services for a period of six months. To resettle a family of four, the bill for agencies would be more than $11,000.

The anticipated costs add up, considering Houston area refugee agencies are expecting to welcome some 3,000 Afghan parolees by end-March, which is more than triple the total number of refugees, from all countries, resettled in the state of Texas in 2020.

Separate from the Houston Afghan Refugee Fund, each agency is also asking for individual donations of items to get families set up in their new homes.

Interfaith Ministries has an ongoing drive for TVs and radios which helps expose families to American culture, news and the English language.

The Alliance has requested gently used furniture and bed frames, kitchen appliances, laptops, diapers, cleaning supplies among other items.

YMCA has set up an Amazon Wishlist where people can donate in-demand items. Their number one need currently is brand new mattresses, according to their website.

Catholic Charities is asking for cash donations that will pay for the clothing and other household needs of Afghans. You can help Afghan families build a new life.

elizabeth.trovall@chron.com
A group of amateurs are circling the Earth.

Theyre professionals in their own careers  Jared Isaacman is a billionaire entrepreneur, Hayley Arceneaux is a physician assistant, Sian Proctor is a geoscientist and Chris Sembroski is an aerospace industry employee  but not one of them is a professional astronaut.

Their mission, Inspiration4, is the first time a group of people have entered Earths orbit without a NASA astronaut, Russian cosmonaut or other government-trained astronaut.

Civilians in space will become the norm, and this is the first step toward that inevitable future, Mason Peck, a professor of astronautical engineering at Cornell University, said in a statement. NASA has established a firm foundation for us and will continue to tackle new challenges, but it is ultimately commercial practices that will take us to space affordably and sustainably.

TERMINOLOGY: If NASA didn't train you, are you an astronaut or a space tourist?

The crews SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule launched Wednesday at 7:02 p.m. CDT from NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Their autonomous spacecraft will circle the planet for about three days in an orbit higher than the International Space Station and Hubble Space Telescope.

The crew members will perform somersaults and look out the cupola, a massive dome-shaped window. Sembroski will play a ukulele and Proctor will paint. They will also conduct research on human health and performance in microgravity, including an experiment led by a scientist in Houston.

Inspiration4 is the fourth human spaceflight mission for SpaceX and the companys first privately funded mission. This crew underwent months of training and team-building activities, including climbing to Camp Muir on Mount Rainier in Washington, prior to liftoff.

And while this mission is a first for SpaceX, it wont be the last. There is already a growing backlog of commercial astronaut missions, Benji Reed, the companys senior director for Human Spaceflight Programs, said during a pre-launch news conference.

How Inspiration4 was born

Isaacman, 38, is funding the Inspiration4 mission and will be its commander. Isaacman became a billionaire last year when Shift4 Payments, a company he started at 16, became publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange. It handles payments for a third of Americas restaurants and hotels, according to Forbes.

The entrepreneur and pilot also co-founded Draken International, which would become the worlds largest private air force, to train pilots for the U.S. Armed Forces. He sold a majority stake in this company for a nine-figure sum, Forbes said.

Isaacman was initially interested in investing in SpaceX. But when talking to people at the company, he casually mentioned that he would like to become a customer.

It was like two weeks later Inspiration4 was born, Isaacman told Axios reporter Miriam Kramer in a podcast. It was that fast from just a casual comment.

Isaacman wanted the mission to be more than just a thrill ride, so he set a goal of raising $200 million for St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital.

The missions second seat was offered to Arceneaux, 29, who is a physician assistant at St. Jude and was previously a patient. Arceneaux was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a type of bone cancer, at 10. She will be the first person to travel into space with a titanium prosthesis in her leg.

The third seat was given to Sembroski, 42, who won a sweepstakes that raised money for St. Jude. Sembroski entered the sweepstakes after seeing a Super Bowl advertisement, but it was his friend who won the sweepstakes and later gifted the flight to Sembroski.

The final seat was given to Proctor, 51, the winner of a contest promoting Shift4 Payments e-commerce platform called Shift4Shop. Proctor is a geoscientist and community college professor. She has always dreamed of going into space and was previously a NASA astronaut finalist.

Their mission has raised more than $130 million for St. Jude, including a $100 million donation from Isaacman, and the crew is bringing a variety of items into space that will be auctioned off.

Houston-coordinated research

The crew is also designating time to participate in research that will measure how their bodies react to microgravity. Houston-based Translational Research Institute for Space Health, a NASA-funded organization at the Baylor College of Medicine, coordinated the experiments.

One of the experiments will have crew members use a hand-held Butterfly iQ+ ultrasound device to look at their neck veins, eyes and urinary bladder.

Three days is a precious opportunity to see the first response of the body to zero-g, Dr. Ashot Sargsyan, the experiments principal investigator and a physician scientist at KBR, said during an event at Space Center Houston.

On Earth, gravity pulls blood toward the legs and feet. In space, blood tends to gather in the head and upper body. This causes an astronauts face to look puffy. The issue is reversible after six months on the International Space Station, but researchers dont know what will happen on longer missions.

SPACE STATION: An orbiting home and lab for two decades

So the ultrasound will be used to monitor blood flow in neck veins. Crew members will then breathe air in through a one-way valve to see if that helps drain blood from their veins. This might be a countermeasure that can help offset blood gathering in the head. If the one-way valve works, Sargsyan said he might want to test it on the International Space Station.

The ultrasound will also be used to see if the crew members bladders are completely empty after using the bathroom  having leftover urine can cause infections  and it will be tested as a device that crew members could use to scan their own eyes.

This data, and that collected from the other experiments, will be stored in a new public database that will hopefully collect information from spaceflight customers across multiple companies. One day, this database might help identify spaceflight risks based on a persons age or pre-existing conditions. It could also help researchers find ways to mitigate these risks and enable humans to travel deeper into space.

The most important insights come when youre sharing data from different experiments, said Dorit Donoviel, director of the Translational Research Institute for Space Health, which is funding the creation of the database.

A crew more representative of humanity

Data collected from commercial spaceflight passengers should better represent the worlds population than data from NASA astronauts, who have superb physical and mental health.

Arceneaux, a cancer survivor with a prosthesis, would not have been able to fly with NASA.

No astronaut like that has been to space, Donoviel said. We have all these other individuals  who are going to be representative of people like you and me.

Arceneaux said she is excited to share her experience with patients at St. Jude and to spread hope to anyone who is struggling.

Inspiration is a message each crew member spoke about. They also hope their mission will improve life on Earth and usher in a new era of human spaceflight.

As we move to the moon and Mars and beyond, were writing the narrative of human spaceflight right now, Proctor said. So when we do that, we need to think about J.E.D.I. space. A Just, Equitable, Diverse and Inclusive space for all of humanity. Because were on Starship Earth and we want to bring everybody along with us.

andrea.leinfelder@chron.com

twitter.com/a_leinfelder
Our nation paused on Saturday to remember and grieve the nearly 3,000 victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, and to reflect on how we have changed in the 20 years since.

President George W. Bush, speaking Saturday at the Flight 93 memorial service in Pennsylvania along with Vice President Kamala Harris, said it was our continuing duty to confront terror threats and extremist violence both within and beyond our borders.

There is little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home, Bush said. But in their disdain for pluralism, in their disregard for human life, in their determination to defile national symbols, they are children of the same foul spirit.

Bushs words sparked widespread praise, and also criticism from those who said the former president described this countrys descent into war and division over the past two decades as though he were a passive observer and not a key player.

Whats undeniable is that this countrys leading counterterrorism experts agree with him. Whats undeniable is that a Republican former president and the current Democratic vice president shared a stage to remember Americans bravery and call on us to continue their fight against bigotry, at home and abroad.

In October 2019, FBI Director Christopher Wray told a U.S. House committee that his bureaus analysts identified homegrown violent extremists  people born and raised in the U.S. and radicalized here, without direction from foreign terror organizations  as the greatest, most immediate terrorism threat to the homeland.

In recent years, Wray said, more deaths can be attributed to domestic extremists, primarily via shootings, than to foreign terror groups.

Twenty-six years after the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, Oklahoma City continues to remember each spring the 168 souls taken by a homegrown terrorist. Attorney General Merrick Garland said at the OKC bombing memorial in April that his Department of Justice is pouring its resources into stopping domestic violent extremists before they can attack, prosecuting those who do, and battling the spread of the kind of hate that leads to tragedies like the one we mark here today.

Texas is home to 20 anti-government groups, including six paramilitary groups, Western States Center program director Lindsay Schubiner told Houston Public Media earlier this year.

About a tenth of the more than 500 people arrested and federally charged for their involvement in the Jan. 6 attack are Texans.

For many in America, the biggest threat is a white nationalist with a gun and a xenophobic worldview. The people of El Paso and Charleston can bear solemn witness to the devastating power of homegrown hate.

Jason M. Blazakis, a former director of the State Departments Counterterrorism Finance and Designations Office, recommended in a recent Washington Post op-ed that the U.S. treat far-right extremism as a transnational issue, taking into account the links between stateside nationalists and neo-Nazi organizations abroad, and that we enlist the help of non-government entities with experience decoupling people from hate groups.

The answer doesnt have to be a surveillance state in which our civil liberties are further trampled upon.

We need a unified, bipartisan front against violent domestic extremism  just as we have against violent foreign extremism that threatens the U.S.

Instead, we have a Republican Party that appears largely unwilling to fully disavow and address the ideology that sparked this winters attempted coup. Several national party leaders initially called the attack an insurrection and blamed President Trump, then apparently changed their mind. As long as leaders are more threatened by use of the word racism than they are about combating racist ideology itself, we will remain vulnerable, with political ambition and cowardice in the way of progress.

In D.C., Capitol Police are preparing for the hundreds expected to gather on Saturday for a Justice for J6 rally in support of those charged in Januarys insurrection.

Imagine a country full of leaders, in both major parties, hustling to any and every microphone to unequivocally reject the upcoming rallys purpose.

Imagine a nation united this weekend behind Sgt. Aquilino Gonell of the U.S. Capitol Police, and a U.S. Army Iraq War veteran. Gonell, who was injured in the riot, told us all in July: It was an attempted coup  We were all fighting for our lives.

Gonells fellow officers are tasked this weekend with protecting the protesters freedom to assemble and our halls of government, from harm.

For weeks and months after Sept. 11, we as Americans united against foreign enemies who wished to attack and diminish our way of life. Though our leaders used that unity and manipulated our fear to some degree, it showed the power of our collective spirit.

We dream of an America that doesnt fear our history, that bravely challenges white supremacy and xenophobia, that stands up against a culture of violence and hate. We dream of a country that can robustly debate tax increases in the morning and unite against terror  in all its forms  in the afternoon.

May our elected officials cease enabling white supremacists and stand on the right side of history  against bigotry.
While I was hoping to hear the deep blasts of the shofar in person, yet another year of virtual High Holiday services has given me the opportunity to catch up on some paperwork that my Jewish guilt had been urging me to begin for some time. I started applying for my kids passports.

The annals of Jewish history stretch back for millennia, yet all those chronicles point to a single indispensable lesson: Be prepared to leave. Whether its Israelites escaping Pharoah before they had time to let bread rise or my own great-grandfather fleeing his hometown after his mother was murdered by Cossacks, the perpetual narrative of the Jewish people is one of exodus. After the passage of Senate Bill 8, I have started to worry that Texas will be part of that narrative for my own family.

SB 8 was nominally crafted to prohibit abortions after the sixth week of pregnancy, but thats not the part that concerns me. Rather, its the provision that delegates enforcement to individual Texans. Anyone in the state can take private civil action not only against those who seek or provide an abortion, but also those who merely assist in pursuit of one. Youll find the leadership of my own synagogue in that latter category.

Like most American Jews, I belong to a denomination that believes life begins at birth and places the utmost value on that life  especially when carrying a future child. Thats why, for example, rabbis have developed a specific process for accommodating a womans pregnancy cravings if she happens to hanker for a slice of honey-glazed ham. Her wellbeing, and that of the fetus, matters far more than Kosher law.

Thats also why Danny Horwitz, a rabbi at Congregation Beth Yeshurun, once explicitly instructed a woman to get an abortion after hearing about how another child would put undue stress on her preexisting health issues.

Thus, when this woman came to me for direction, I told her not that she could have an abortion, but that she must have an abortion, that the God of my understanding would want her to do it, he wrote.

That advice alone would likely be in violation of SB 8.

I have to wonder how long until a self-proclaimed baby-murder bounty hunter like state Rep. Briscoe Cain, one of the bills sponsors, fixes his metaphorical crosshairs on my synagogue.

I also have to wonder how long until someone drops the metaphor.

Synagogues have already become targets in our nations increasingly violent culture war. In 2018, a white supremacist terrorist murdered 11 Jews at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh because they supported refugees. The anti-abortion movement hasnt hesitated to shed blood in pursuit of its own crusade, killing doctors, clinic employees, and security and law enforcement. In 2015, three people were murdered and nine injured in a mass shooting at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood. Anti-abortion extremists are considered a domestic terrorist threat by the Department of Justice.

Now Texas has explicitly put the authority to enforce SB 8 in these extremists trigger-happy hands. Frustrated by the bounds of the Constitution, with his signature, Gov. Greg Abbott effectively deputized untrained and unregulated vigilantes to pursue its public goals, and it is hard not to see how things can get worse  much worse  very quickly. In fact, the predictable violence inspired by SB 8 has already begun.

Last week in El Paso, an anti-abortion madman was arrested after taking the life of one lawyer and assaulting another because he believed they were pro-choice Jewish Satan worshippers.

Yes, this is a slippery slope. But so far the U.S. Supreme Court seems uninterested in stopping the slide, and Texas Democrats seem bizarrely incapable of pushing back; they dont even have a candidate for governor.

I dont plan on moving my family out of Texas anytime soon. This state has allowed us to thrive, and we have given back. Besides, I simply cant survive without good Tex-Mex. But a Molinas margarita offers cold comfort when I contemplate how quickly the situation can devolve  and how urgently I may need to move my family to keep us safe.

Maybe this is just an overreaction. I certainly hope so. Still, the grand lesson of Jewish history is that you must remain wary of a once-welcoming people suddenly crying blood libel.

Texas has put a bounty on our heads. Dont act surprised when someone decides to collect.

Mintz is the former deputy opinion editor and 2017 Pulitzer finalist for editorial writing.
WASHINGTON  Thousands of asylum seekers, mostly Haitians, have arrived in Del Rio in recent days, the latest in a surge of migration to the southern border that the Biden administration has struggled to handle, prompting the federal government to boost Border Patrol in the region and Gov. Greg Abbott to send in more state troopers and the Texas National Guard.

Masses of migrants have huddled under an international bridge where Border Patrol set up a temporary holding site to protect them from the sun while officials work to take them into custody and process them, to be either expelled immediately or allowed to seek asylum.

Local officials in that stretch of border, which has historically been quieter, are gobsmacked as Del Rio has become one of the busiest sections for crossings in recent months  even more so in the last few days.

Val Verde County Judge Lewis Owens said a crowd of immigrants had been forming under Del Rios border crossing from Ciudad Acuna, Mexico, and had gradually grown from 2,000 on Saturday to about 8,600 by Thursday.

He said Border Patrol and the Mexican Consulate have told him they had reports that about a month and a half ago a caravan of 25,000 immigrants was headed for Texas through Mexico. He believes the crowd at the bridge is part of that group.

Its just unbelievable, Owens, a Democrat, said of the mass of people under the Del Rio border crossing. If we are worried about homeland security, you might just throw that out the window. Ive never seen anything like this.

Journey from Chile

At a Stripes gas station in Del Rio, a line of migrant families boarded a blue Greyhound bus Thursday evening.

Noel Claivensky, 23, stood at the back of the line with his partner and their kids, a 6-month-old and 4-year-old girl. Originally from Haiti, theyve traveled thousands of miles by bus, taxi and on foot from their previous home in Chile to get this far, including the dangerous journey through Central America.

We went through the jungle, Claivensky said in Spanish. We walked about four days on foot from Colombia to Panama. He recalled passing bodies of people who had died along the way.

Theyre on their way to reunite with a cousin in New Jersey, but at the Del Rio bus stop, they didnt make it aboard since they hadnt reserved tickets.

A volunteer showed them where they can stay the night until the next bus comes Friday.

Claivensky said he waited in the camp under the international bridge in Del Rio for four days, where they slept on the ground, though he said treatment there was fine despite the area being filled with tons of people. After that they were brought to a border facility for a night and released.

The family lived in Chile for the past three years, but he said they left because he struggled to secure proper migration documents for his family to live there. Before Chile, they left Haiti for economic reasons.

One cant work there and I have kids to take care of, he said. I didnt have a way to make a living, to eat.

Hes hoping that theyll have better luck in the United States since they have family here.

Abbott responds

TEXAS TAKE: Get political headlines from across the state sent directly to your inbox

The situation offered Abbott his latest opening as he declared on Fox News he was shutting down six points of entry along the border  at the request of U.S. Customs and Border Protection  and blasted the White House, comparing the situation with President Joe Bidens handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Abbott later backtracked, saying federal authorities had changed their minds and that he was directing National Guard troops and officers with the Texas Department of Public Safety to maintain their presence at and around ports of entry to deter crossings.

Six hours after U.S. Customs and Border Protection requested help from Texas to close ports of entry and secure the border, the Biden administration has now flip-flopped to a different strategy that abandons border security and instead makes it easier for people to cross illegally and for cartels to exploit the border, Abbott said. The Biden administration is in complete disarray and is handling the border crisis as badly as the evacuation from Afghanistan.

The Department of Homeland Security denied that it asked for help, saying in a statement that the agency is not seeking assistance from the State of Texas to shut down ports of entry.

It would be a violation of federal law for the Texas National Guard to unilaterally do so, the statement said.

Its the latest in a six-month battle between Texas Republicans and the White House over record numbers of migrants crossing the border  a fight in which Abbott seeks to lead the GOP on a national level as he prepares to use taxpayer money and crowdsourced funds to finish former President Donald Trumps wall.

Until last year, it was a sleepy sector

Abbott has also empowered state troopers to arrest migrants crossing and jail them for trespassing, though enforcing immigration policy is the responsibility of the federal government.

Biden, meanwhile, has said his administration is working to build a more humane immigration system after Trump. Biden has been especially focused on beefing up the asylum system to more swiftly process the hundreds of thousands of migrants who have arrived at the border seeking shelter this year.

Immigration advocates say the situation in Del Rio is an example of why that work is urgently needed. Most of those who have arrived in recent days are from Haiti, which has been wracked by political upheaval and was hit by a 7.2 magnitude earthquake Aug. 14 that killed more than 2,000.

Images like this should be used to show the ways in which the Border Patrol is systematically unprepared to handle refugee flows in times of global instability, despite years of warnings, Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy counsel at the American Immigration Council, tweeted in response to Fox News reports with pictures of migrants spilling out from under the bridge in Del Rio.

Reichlin-Melnick said the situation is untenable but is partially so bad because the Del Rio sector doesnt have the infrastructure that other, busier sectors have to process migrants.

Until last year, it was a sleepy sector, he tweeted.

Ruling overturns some border expulsions

Complicating matters for the Biden administration, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Thursday ordered Border Patrol to stop expelling migrant families under a public health order issued during the coronavirus pandemic under which the administration has sent back most migrants immediately after they cross the border.

Judge Emmet G. Sullivan gave the administration two weeks to end the practice, siding with a group of migrant families who sued with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union and the Texas Civil Rights Project. Sullivan wrote that order, known as Title 42, is likely unlawful and said he was not convinced that the transmission of COVID-19 during border processing cannot be significantly mitigated through other means.

The administration has continued enforcing the health order, issued by Trump, even as it has moved away from many of the former presidents stricter immigration policies. The White House has said that it is still expelling the vast majority of those seeking to enter under the order, especially single adults. The administration had increasingly begun to let families in, however.

Border Patrol in August reported 16,240 encounters with members of migrant families who were expelled under the order. That was about 20 percent of the total number of migrant families who arrived that month; 70,247 were allowed into the U.S. to pursue asylum.

The agency reported 208,887 encounters with migrants crossing the border in August, a slight decrease from the record 213,534 encounters reported in July.

Wermund reported from Washington; Contreras reported from San Antonio; Troval reported from Del Rio.

ben.wermund@chron.com

gcontreras@express-news.net

elizabeth.trovall@chron.com
State Rep. Matt Krause, a Fort Worth Republican and founding member of the Texas House Freedom Caucus, is jumping into a crowded primary race for Attorney General Ken Paxton's seat, pitching himself as the staunchest conservative of the three challengers.

Our campaign is going to be focused on being that faithful conservative fighter that Texans can be proud of, Krause said. What Texas primary voters in particular are looking for is a proven record of conservative principles, of conservative values, and fighting for the issues they're most concerned about  Over the last five sessions, I think folks have seen that I'm about as conservative as you get in the Texas House.

The fifth-term state representative and constitutional attorney joins Land Commissioner George P. Bush and former Texas Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman in taking on the incumbent, whom all have described as unfit for the job because of the legal issues swirling around him.

Krause, 41, was first elected in 2012 and has continually edged out Democratic opponents over the last three elections, even as his district becomes more competitive. In 2020, his Tarrant County District 93 was a target of Texas Democrats, but Krause won by a 9 percentage point margin.

The Tyler-born and San Antonio-raised Republican is secretary and treasurer and one of the original members of the House Freedom Caucus, a group that describes its aim as amplifying the voices of liberty-minded, grassroots Texans. He also serves as chair of the Houses General Investigating Committee.

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Paxton has been under indictment since 2015 for felony securities fraud charges and last year became the subject of an FBI investigation after a handful of his top aides accused him of bribery and abuse of office.

While hes denied all wrongdoing, the foundation of widespread Republican support that once made the idea of even one primary challenger inconceivable is starting to show cracks. A Hearst Newspapers analysis in July found that more than two dozen of Paxtons previous donors cut checks for Bush win the weeks after he announced his campaign.

Krause and Paxton have shared a close relationship over their political careers. Krause endorsed Paxton both in his initial 2014 campaign and again in 2018.

In 2015, Krause downplayed the felony securities fraud indictment, telling the Texas Tribune people ought to have just a little bit of caution with it. The latest allegations, however, have given him pause, he said.

If information had come out that eight top lieutenants had resigned, alleging some pretty serious violations of Texas law and having the FBI look into that, that would have certainly changed my view on the race, Krause said about his previous endorsements of Paxton. As you get new information, that kind of changes things.

Krause said that he reached out to Paxton as a friend this week to let him know he would be announcing.

Former President Donald Trump, who won the state by 6 percent in 2020 and holds considerable sway with Republican primary voters, in July endorsed Paxton.

BOOST FROM TRUMP: Trump endorses Texas AG Ken Paxton over George P. Bush in Republican primary

Krause helped usher a raft of Republican priority bills through the statehouse this year, including permitless carry of handguns, a measure limiting how public school teachers can talk about systemic racism in the classroom, and limits on when social media companies may block or censor users, all of which he co-authored.

He also authored a failed bill this year, one of several similar bills that incensed Democrats, that would have prevented doctors from performing gender reassignment surgeries and prescribing medications to help transgender children transition, though the surgeries are uncommon for minors.

In 2019, Krause sponsored the so-called Save Chick-fil-A bill that barred Texas government agencies from punishing people and companies for affiliating with or donating to a religious organization. The bill, which Gov. Greg Abbott signed, was a reaction to the San Antonio city councils decision to ban Chick-Fil-A from its airport.

The Texas House has kept him busy and hes enjoyed the work, but Krause said the FBI investigation of Paxton raised red flags for him that we may have an issue here. He held back as Bush, then Guzman waded into the race.

But as more challengers got in, nobody really seemed to get any kind of traction, Krause said. Talking to various stakeholders, grassroots activists, donors, even other elected officials, (we) kind of came to that consensus that there was a need for a fourth person to get in, and I think with my record and background I was a good fit for that.

Two candidates for attorney general are in the running on the Democratic primary ticket: Dallas-area civil rights lawyer Lee Merritt and former Galveston Mayor Joe Jaworski.

taylor.goldenstein@chron.com

Editor's Note: A previous version of this story misstated Krause's opponents in two previous elections. Krause faced Democrat Lydia Bean in 2020, but in 2016 and 2018, he went head-to-head with Democrat Nancy Bean.
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For several years and counting, coastal tech workers have been flocking to Texas cities like Austin and Houston in search of jobs and a lower cost of living. Now their employers are giving them the green light to leave.

After the Texas legislature earlier this month passed a new statewide abortion law, banning the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy, companies large and small have been offering to come to the aid of employees who reside on the state. Among other things, they're springing for their legal fees and offering to pay their relocation expenses should they wish to leave the state.

One such employer is Chris Boehlke, principal at Bospar, a San Francisco-based public relations firm. She says she saw too many professional women who, upon giving birth, had to decide between being a hands-on PR professional or a hands-on mother, and feels strongly that women should have the option of choice.

"We're appalled by what has happened in Texas," says Boehlke. "It's a giant step backward for everyone." So, the company recently announced it would cover the relocation expenses for any employee wishing to move from the state. Six of its employees--or roughly 10 percent of the company's staff--currently live in Texas, and the company is looking to increase its workforce by 20 to 30 percent in the coming months.

Bospar joins a chorus of other companies launching similar policies. On September 10, Salesforce informed its Texas-based employees that the San Francisco-based software company would help relocate those who may be concerned about their ability to access reproductive care. Taking a different tack, ridesharing companies Uber and Lyft both announced that they would pay legal costs for any drivers who are sued for transporting women to get abortions, and dating company Bumble reportedly announced a fund to help women in the state get safe abortions.

While these policies may sound reactive, it's hard to understate the deleterious effect of measures like this law and other missteps on the business climate in the state, say business owners. Solugen, a chemicals company in Houston, said it plans to open a new research and development facility outside of the state because its social policies are making it difficult to recruit employees.

"We've come to the conclusion after talking to lots of candidates that they want to join Solugen but they don't feel comfortable coming to Texas, so for us it's become a no-brainer to have R&D facilities elsewhere," CEO Gaurab Chakrabarti told Axios.

The Texas law, which went into effect September 1, bans most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, well before most women know they're pregnant. The law does not make exceptions for rape or incest. It also establishes a first-of-its-kind bounty system that allows plaintiffs to collect cash judgments of $10,000, and legal fees, from those they accuse of having illegal abortions. A day after the law passed, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to block it.

Other states, including Georgia, Mississippi, Kentucky, and Ohio, have also passed similar legislation that bans abortion once cardiac activity can be detected, but those state laws have been held up by legal challenges and have not yet been implemented. Boehlke notes that if other states follow suit and impose similar abortion policy that takes effect, the company will cover expenses for those relocation reasons as well.
Jessica Chastain has opened up about being attacked by someone on social media.

The actor shared her experience during a red carpet interview a the premiere of The Eyes of Tammy Faye in New York City on Tuesday (14 September).

Social media can be a negative place, she says in a video clip shared on Twitter by the account @FilmUpdates.

There was one moment where I was getting attacked by someone who was being quite mean to me.

Chastain explained she wondered where the comments were coming from, clicked on the platform and started to get to know the person.

I saw some sadness and some difficult things they were going through in their life, and I thought, This is where it comes from, she added.

I hope you watch a film like [The Eyes of Tammy Faye] and understand that you can reach across and try to heal someone. I hope anyone who feels unloved and unseen and unworthy will see the film and hope they are absolutely deserving of Gods grace.

Chastain portrays the titular televangelist in The Eyes of Tammy Faye. Andrew Garfield stars as Fayes former husband Jim Bakker.

The Eyes of Tammy Faye will be released on 17 September in the US, with a UK release date yet to be announced.
Christine Chiu is one of the 15 celebrities who will compete on season 30 of Dancing With The Stars.

Chiu stars in Netflixs reality series Bling Empire, which the streaming platform has described as [following] a wildly wealthy group of Asian and Asian American friends (and frenemies) in Los Angeles.

A graduate of Pepperdine University with a degree in international business and philosophy, Chiu is the co-owner and founder of a plastic surgery centre in Los Angeles with her husband, Dr Gabriel Chiu.

She has worked as a chief creative officer, brand developer, spokesperson, and beauty expert.

Prior to developing a career in the field of cosmetic surgery, Chiu worked in marketing and public relations for more than a decade.

Christine Chiu attends the 2021 MTV Movie & TV Awards on 17 May 2021 in Los Angeles (Amy Sussman/Getty Images)

She and her husband live in Beverly Hills and Malibu, California.

In May this year, Chiu opened up to Harpers Bazaar about her persona on Bling Empire, telling the magazine: The ostentatious display of fashion, thats not who I normally am. I mean, I dont walk around town in high jewelry and couture. Im in sweats and UGGs, which Im addicted to.

But I knew it was a necessary component to make the show a hit. So I was willing to take that bullet and to kind of participate in the overly showy side of me.
Several Gogglebox stars whose loved ones recently died have quit the Channel 4 show.

Three regulars on the reality series died this year. Pete McGarry died aged 71 in June after a short illness. Andrew Michael died aged 61 in August after also being unwell, and Mary Cook died last month aged 92. Her cause of death has not been disclosed.

According to Metro, McGarrys wife Linda will not be returning to the show, nor will Michaels wife or children, or Cooks best friend Marina Wingrove.

We have had people from the show pass away recently, Goggleboxs executive producer Victoria Ray told the Daily Star. We lost Mary and Andy. And a little while ago we lost Pete.

Their loved ones wont be taking part in the show for the moment. Understandably, they want their privacy.

She added: Its a massive loss in every way. We feel it too. We are still in touch with all the loved ones. We talk to them all the time. They are still part of the Gogglebox family.

Gogglebox has been a hugely popular series in the UK since it began in 2013, and it is now on its 18th season. It features a number of families and groups of friends from different places around the UK who react to television programmes from their own homes. The stars on the show have become celebrities in their own right over the years.

The series airs on Fridays at 9pm on Channel 4.
China on Wednesday said countries should shake off their Cold War mentality as it opposed the creation of a pact between the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia.

The security partnership will involve wide-ranging projects on cyber warfare, artificial intelligence and quantum computing, and is expected to counter Chinas influence in global politics.

Liu Pengyu, the spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy in Washington DC, said countries should not build exclusionary blocs targeting or harming the interests of third parties and added that they should shake off their Cold-War mentality and ideological prejudice.

US president Joe Biden announced the AUKUS alliance through a joint virtual event with Australian prime minister Scott Morrison and the UKs Boris Johnson on Wednesday. The pact will be formally signed at the White House next week during the Quad summit.

China had last week criticised the Quad summit and said that exclusive regional cooperation cliques formed to target a third country wont be popular and has no future. The first-ever in-person meeting of the Quad countries  US, Australia, India and Japan  is scheduled on 24 September.

The AUKUS alliance will also enable Australia to acquire nuclear-powered submarines, in a bid to counter Chinas growing aggression ranging from the South China Sea to the Indian Ocean. With this agreement, Australia would become the seventh country, after the US, Russia, Britain, China, France and India, to acquire nuclear submarines.

The Scott Morrison government abandoned a $90bn submarine deal with France and entered into this new deal with the US and UK to boost its underwater defence capabilities.

Mr Morrison said plans for the submarines would be developed over the next 18 months and the vessels would be built in Adelaide but Australia will not field nuclear weapons. We will continue to meet all our nuclear non-proliferation obligations, he said.

Mr Biden said this initiative is about making sure that each of us has the most modern capabilities we need to manoeuvre and defend against rapidly evolving threats.

Today were taking another historic step to deepen and formalise cooperation among all three of our nations because we all recognise the imperative of ensuring peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region over the long term, Mr Biden added.

Mr Johnson said: This partnership will become increasingly vital for defending our interests in the Indo-Pacific region and, by extension, protecting our people back at home.

This alliance comes amid Chinas counter provocation to the Biden administration after he sought to rebuild security policies for the Indio-Pacific region. Since the beginning of his presidency, Mr Biden has sought a more unified voice from regional allies against the Asian giant. Beijing has been flexing its muscles in the Indian Ocean since early January, prompting a response from the other big players in the region such as India.

According to a Pentagon report, China has the largest navy in the world, with an overall battle force of approximately 350 ships and submarines, including over 130 major surface combatants.

Mr Biden reportedly spoke with the Chinese president Xi Jinping over the phone last week after unfruitful high-level engagement between the two leaders top advisers. During the 90-minute long call, Mr Xi expressed concerns that US policy towards China has caused serious difficulties in relations, Chinas Xinhua news agency reported.

Additional inputs from agencies
Philippines president Rodrigo Dutertes administration has strongly opposed the International Criminal Courts authorisation to investigate allegations of crime against humanity in his violent war on drugs.

Mr Dutertes spokesman, Harry Roque, on Thursday said that the president was unfazed by the courts decision to open a probe, but said he would prefer to die first if investigations are pursued.

"The president didnt have any reaction, because from the get go, he has said that hell die first before he faces any international courts," Mr Roque told reporters.

"If there are any complaints, they should file it here in the Philippines."

The presidents chief legal adviser Salvador Panelo condemned the decision of ICC in scathing remarks and denied cooperating with a formal investigation.

Mr Panelo alleged the courts are "being utilized as a political and propaganda apparatus by those usual suspects who will do anything to dethrone the president from his seat."

"While we expect that more theatrics will be employed by the detractors of the president as election season draws near, this blatant and brazen interference and assault on our sovereignty as an independent country by the ICC is condemnable," he said in a written statement.

(AFP via Getty Images)

The pushback came after the judges at the ICC authorised investigations against Mr Duterte for ordering what hes called "a war on drugs," a campaign that rights group estimate has killed tens of thousands of people, committing systematic attacks on civilians.

According to the government, more than 6,000 drug suspects were killed by police in the first six months of his presidency. But the rights group says the death toll is a conservative figure and it could be higher if they included many unsolved killings by motorcycle-riding gunmen who may have been deployed by police.

The judges in the ICCs pre-trial chamber said that so-called war on drugs campaign cannot be seen as a legitimate law enforcement operation, and the killings neither as legitimate nor as mere excesses in an otherwise legitimate operation.

Mr Panelo told local radio DZBB that the government will not allow the ICC to conduct the investigation as the Philippines is no longer a member of the ICC and it has no jurisdiction over its matters.

"The government will not let in any ICC member to collect information and evidence here in the Philippines, they will be barred entry," Mr Panelo added.

Mr Duterte withdrew the countrys membership from ICC after a prosecutor of the ICC applied to open a full investigation into the alleged war killing. Manila pulled the membership in 2018 which came into effect after 12 months under the court rules.

But the ICC and observers have argued that it had jurisdiction as the crimes were committed during the period when the Philippines was still a member.

Carlos Conde, senior Philippine researcher for Human Rights Watch, said the ICC is well within its rights to investigate Mr Dutertes actions.

Mr Duterte announced earlier this month that he will run as vice president after he was constitutionally prohibited from running for another term as president in the next election. It was, however, viewed as a tactic by critics to insulate him from investigations and retain power.

Mr Conde said that Mr Dutertes run for vice president does "not in any way afford him immunity from suit or investigation by the ICC."

The president is infamously known to have cheered many of the deaths of mostly poor drug suspects but denied condoning their extrajudicial killings.

Throughout his tenure as mayor, a central force of his efforts was fighting crime and drug use, earning him the nicknames The Punisher and Duterte Harry for the violent manner in which he sought to combat crime, former prosecutor Fatou Bensouda wrote in a court filing previously.

On multiple occasions, Duterte publicly supported and encouraged the killing of petty criminals and drug dealers in Davao City.

Previously, the ICC decided not to pursue investigations into alleged crimes committed by China against Uyghur muslims and other minorities as it is a non-member . The US and Russia are also notable non-members of the ICC.
A key electricity cable between Britain and France has been shut down after a fire, sending wholesale prices soaring.

The fire will reduce imports from France until the end of March 2022, the National Grid has warned.

It said the blaze broke out on Wednesday while planned maintenance was taking place at the site near Ashford in Kent.

Prices of natural gas, which have already been at record highs in recent weeks, soared more than 18 per cent at the news.

British electricity prices meanwhile jumped by 19 per cent to 475 per megawatt hour on Wednesday.

The IFA1 interconnector had been used to import electricity, generated largely by nuclear power, from France.

Interconnectors are subsea high-voltage cables, through which Britain imports and exports electricity with countries such as Belgium, France, Denmark and Ireland. They have helped to balance the electricity system in recent years as countries move away from fossil fuels to more weather-dependent sources of energy.

Our investigation is ongoing, a spokesperson for the National Grid said. We will update the market with any changes as necessary. It is as yet unknown what started the fire.

Kent Fire and Rescue Service said that more than 10 fire engines were called out to tackle the blaze in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

Glenn Rickson, head of European power analysis at S&P Global Platts Analytics, said the fire couldnt come at a worse time for the UK.

Rajiv Gogna, a partner at LCP Energy Analytics, said: Unfortunately we are going to see more high and volatile prices which is going to feed through to consumers.

Charities have warned that many households will be forced to ration their heating this winter as multiple factors continue to push up energy prices across Europe.

UK prices have hit new highs in recent months due to a global gas shortage, a surge in demand following coronavirus restrictions, and a slump in wind farm generation in the North Sea.

Gas stocks in Europe have also taken longer to replenish this year after a curb in supplies from Russia.

Gas production has also been 28 per cent lower in the UK so far this year because companies have been carrying out maintenance that was delayed due to the pandemic.

Ruth London, of the campaign group Fuel Poverty Action, told the Financial Times that higher bills for families would be devastating especially when you get people who are already counting pennies and who are already rationing their heating.

The IFA2 interconnector, a second link between Britain and France, is still operating at full capacity and was not affected by the problem.
Dozens of climate protesters have been arrested after blocking parts of the M25 for a second time in three days.

Insulate Britain activists halted traffic on three sections of the countrys biggest motorway on Wednesday morning causing queues along the road.

Three people have also been arrested on suspicion of organising the event.

The protesters targeted Junctions 1a and 1b for Dartford, Kent, the main carriageway between Junction 8 at Reigate and Junction 9 at Leatherhead, Surrey, and Junction 23 for South Mimms, Hertfordshire.

Insulate Britain said it was demanding credible action from the government to target climate change, by insulating all homes across the UK.

Its statement read: It is a total no-brainer and yet this government refuses to get on with the job. This is criminal negligence.

However, the government argued that the protest was counterproductive. Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, said: These actions are not only highly disruptive to those going to work and transporting vital goods, but are putting lives at risks on a busy motorway.

Not to mention the resulting traffic delays will only add to vehicle emissions.

The Metropolitan Police said it cleared Junction 25 of protesters, arresting 14 for obstructing the public highway, including three who had glued themselves to the road or each other.

It said: We cannot remove protesters who are glued to the road without specialist equipment and trained officers. This was happening at multiple locations around the M25 and it took time to resolve  time which could have been spent policing our communities in London.

A further three people have been arrested across the country on suspicion of orchestrating the protest.

Surrey Police said it had helped the Metropolitan Police in dealing with the protesters, adding it had made 32 arrests.

It added there had also been a crash involving multiple vehicles in Leatherhead though it was too early to determine whether it had been linked to the protests.

Hertfordshire Police said its officers were at the scene within minutes of being alerted of the protest, and had attempted to engage with the group before arresting 18 people.

Superintendent Adam Willmot, said: Protesters ignored repeated requests from officers to move to a safer and less disruptive location, and alleged that they had glued themselves to the Tarmac, making it clear that their aim was to cause as much disruption as possible.

Kent Police said it had arrested 21 people for obstructing the highway.
Californias Dixie fire has now burned through nearly a million acres of land, making it the second biggest wildfire in the states history.

Spanning five counties and more than 1,500 square miles in Californias heavily forested north-eastern wilderness, the blaze has razed whole neighbourhoods, cost taxpayers about $540 million so far to contain, and remains only 75 per cent surrounded by fire defences or natural barriers.

It is second only to last years August Complex, a rare gigafire that covered more than 1 million acres, destroyed 935 structures, and killed one person, according to the state firefighting agency Cal Fire.

Both are part of a wave of record-breaking infernos that has seen all but two of Californias top 20 biggest wildfires break out within the last 20 years, and nine of them in either 2020 or 2021.

What made Dixie such a monster? One spotlight has fallen on the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), a publicly traded utility company with a monopoly over Northern California, which last year pleaded guilty to 84 counts of manslaughter stemming from the horrifically destructive 2018 Camp Fire.

Dixie was sparked on 13 July by a fir tree that had fallen against a PG&E power line near Dixie Mountain in Butte County, but PG&E did not cut off the power until nearly 10 hours after the first signs of trouble.

By the next morning, Dixie had exploded from one acre to 1,200 acres, making it impossible to quickly contain. A US federal judge is now investigating PG&Es role, as well as an unauthorised drone that impeded early firefighting efforts. PG&E has denied any involvement with the latter.

Mansions burn in California wildfires Show all 7 1 /7 Mansions burn in California wildfires Mansions burn in California wildfires 171174.bin Getty Images Mansions burn in California wildfires 171219.bin MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images Mansions burn in California wildfires 171227.bin MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images Mansions burn in California wildfires 171228.bin MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images Mansions burn in California wildfires 171213.bin AFP Mark Ralston Mansions burn in California wildfires 171230.bin MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images Mansions burn in California wildfires 171229.bin MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images

Your company is a convicted felon that poses a safety hazard to the state of California, Judge William Alsup told company lawyers on Monday. A former criminology professor named Gary Maynard is also accused of mounting an arson spree behind the lines of first responders, potentially risking their lives. Maynard denies setting any fires.

But the stage was set for these incidents by years of drought and rising heat in California, driven by the climate crisis, that have made its ancient forests a tinderbox and extended wildfire season by two months.

Average temperatures in the state have risen by about 1C over the past century, with the last seven years the warmest ever. This year was particularly bad, with the hottest summer in state history and a world record 24-hour temperature reading in Death Valley on 11 July.

Meanwhile, California has suffered so many droughts that some experts combine them into one 20-year megadrought. A study of tree ring records suggests that 2000 to 2018 was the driest period since the 16th century, attributing about 40 per cent of the deficit to climate change.

The rising heat has led to early snow melts in the Sierra Nevada mountains, which have historically acted as a gigantic reservoir that stores up water during the winter and slowly releases it throughout spring and summer.

Smoke plumes rise from the Paradise Fire in Sequoia National Park in the southern Sierra Nevada (KNP Complex Fire Incident Command via AP)

Now much of that snow is melting all at once, and some of it is falling as rain, drying out the forests ahead of schedule. At high altitudes, some woods that were previously cloaked in white until June or July are now going naked by April.

According to Jay Lund, co-director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at the University of California, Davis, about 1 per cent of the Sierra Nevada water runoff has migrated from spring to winter every year for the past 50 years.

And although the less frequent rainy seasons are now more intense when they do arrive, plant life often needs multiple wet years in a row to recover from sustained dehydration. It is these two factors  heat and drought  that have together made Californias forests dry and brittle for longer each summer, creating the perfect conditions for wildfires.

These trends are exacerbated by the way the USA historically managed its forests. Whereas many native American tribes set controlled fires to rejuvenate the ecosystem, the US has tended to suppress as many as possible, allowing fuel-rich undergrowth to accumulate.

Meanwhile, Californias housing shortage and exorbitant prices have led to more people settling on the edge of wilderness, putting a larger number of homes in the path of ruin.

So far, Dixie has been less destructive to property than other major fires, wrecking about 1,329 structures. The worst ever was the Cedar Fire near San Diego in 2003, accidentally started by a lost hunter who was trying to signal for a rescue.
The Biden administration is reviewing whether to put American gray wolves back on the endangered species list after originally sticking with a Trump-era policy which led to hundreds of the species being killed in the last year.

Last November former President Trump removed gray wolves protections under the Endangered Species Act after population numbers rebounded following decades of conservation work.

Environmental groups, EarthJustice and the Center for Biological Diversity, sued the government to have the wolf protections reinstated.

The Biden administration declined to reverse course on the Trump decision last month.

Since federal wolf protections were dropped, Wisconsin hunters have killed 218 wolves, or a third of the population, in the state.

In Idaho, a bill was introduced at state level allowing for up to 90 per cent of the 1,500-strong wolf population to be killed in order to protect livestock.

US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) received several petitions over the summer calling for the wolves to be relisted as an endangered species.

Collectively, we represent millions of Americans who seek to see gray wolves fully recovered and protected across the western United States, and who believe that current management of the species is insufficient to prevent a second wild extinction, one petition said.

On Wednesday, FWS said that the petitions present substantial, credible information indicating that a listing action may be warranted".

FWS also said that Idaho and Montanas loose regulatory measures threaten the gray wolf population.

With no federal protections in place, states have taken to modifying hunting policies. For example, Idaho lets hunters shoot wolves from parachutes ATVs or snowmobiles.

Montana now allows for hunters to snare and bait wolves.

Despite the expanded hunting methods, Montana Governor Greg Gianforte said the state is ensuring that the gray wolf population will not reach low levels.

We dont need Washington coming in and second-guessing our science-based approach, Gov. Gianforte said in a statement.

Some evidence says that the rate of hunting will outpace the populations ability to breed future generations.

While Idaho and Montana are required to maintain at least 15 breeding pairs and 150 wolves according to their state management plans, the USFWS should hold states to a higher standard than intentionally reducing a species population levels to an arbitrary bare minimum that could lead to total collapse, Amy McNamara, director of the Northern Rockies at Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a blog post.

Environmentalists said that they were hopeful that the federal government would reverse the position on protecting wolves.

Im hopeful that wolves will eventually get the protection they deserve, but the Fish and Wildlife Service should have stopped the wolf-killing now, Andrea Zaccardi, senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement.

However Ms. Zaccardi noted that while the Biden administration is reviewing wolves endangered status, it is not addressing the more aggressive hunting policies in some states.

The FWS review is expected to last a year. Wildlife advocates fear that hundreds of more wolves will be killed in that time.
Jemima Kirke has defended herself after she sparked backlash for her critical ratings of celebrity Met Gala dresses following the annual fashion event.

On Tuesday, a day after the Met Gala returned to New York Citys Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Girls star shared her thoughts on the outfits worn by everyone from Megan Fox to Hailey Baldwin.

According to Kirke, who described her opinions as Met Gala musings, Baldwins dress was better suited for a second date, with the actor captioning a photo of the model in her black Saint Laurent gown: Date night dress. On a Tuesday. Second date dress. Impromptu dinner round the corner dress.

Kirkes candid opinions also extended to Irina Shayks floral gown by Moschino, which she gave a P for pass and to Foxs red Dundas gown with cut-out details, which she said could have worked if it had been worn at a different event.

Truly a good look for a porn award ceremony, Kirke claimed on her Instagram Stories, where she also argued that both Lorde and Grimes should have made more of an effort with their red carpet choices for the exclusive event.

When it came to Emily Blunts Met Gala look, which consisted of a custom Miu Miu dress and a glittering star crown, Kirke was also critical, with the 36-year-old declaring the headpiece too immature.

No star crowns past age 24, she wrote, before amending her review to read: Changed my mind. No star crowns past seven.

The ruthless reviews, which are no longer on Kirkes Instagram Stories, prompted mixed reactions from her fans, with some applauding her for the honesty while others have accused her of taking the reviews of her fellow celebrities too far.

Absolutely screaming at Jemima Kirke just boldly dragging peoples Met Gala looks, one person tweeted, while another said: Jemima Kirke roasting peoples Met Gala outfits on her Instagram is the best thing.

However, others were unimpressed with the actors critiques, with someone else tweeting: Smells like internalised misogyny to me, while another person accused Kirke of trashing the other women.

On Thursday, the Sex Education star defended herself from the backlash on the basis that her comments were acceptable because they were talking about fashion.

Jemima Kirke defends herself after Met Gala critiques (Instagram)

Were talking about fashion here. Whatever I said on my Stories Id say to my best friend. And Id expect my best friend to say to me. Because its funny and not personal, she wrote on her Instagram Stories.

In additional posts, Kirke then shared some of the negative comments shed received since sharing her Met Gala opinions, including from one individual who described the actor as a self-absorbed hypocritical a**hole.

In a caption posted on the screenshot, Kirke wrote: Im legitimately concerned about this person. I hope someone does something kind for her today.

Kirke last attended the Met Gala in 2019, when she and her Girls co-star Lena Dunham wore matching Christopher Kane dresses for the events theme: Camp: Notes on Fashion.
Microsoft will let people go entirely without passwords.

The company is letting consumers get rid of the system entirely.

Instead, they will log in to their accounts using a variety of alternatives, which the company says are both safer and easier. Options include its special app, its biometric features or verification codes that can be sent to your phone.

The changes will come to a variety of Microsoft services such as Outlook and OneDrive, and will be rolled out in the coming weeks.

Microsoft noted in its announcement that it has been saying that the future is passwordless for years, drawing attention to the variety of security issues that they bring, as well as the fact they are inconvenient for the people who are forced to use and remember them.

It pointed to the fact that there are 579 password attacks every second, or 18 billion per year. And it said there was a central flaw with the system, in that anything unusual enough to be secure is probably going to be difficult to remember, and anything memorable will probably be easy to guess.

But it has now announced that consumers will be able to remove their password completely, finally letting people enjoy that long-promised password-free future.

To go passwordless, users must first install and setup the Microsoft Authenticator app. Then, visit the Microsoft account page and click on Additional Security Options, where there will be the option to turn on Passwordless Account, which does exactly what its name suggest.

Microsoft gives users the options of adding a password back onto an account. But Vasu Jakkal, its corporate vice president for security, compliance and identity, said in a blog post that she did not expect people to go back.

In Microsoft, for instance, almost every employee has gone passwordless, she said
A new feature rolling out with a new WhatsApp update will allow some users to use the message app as a business directory.

A pilot program to test the service will launch in Sao Paulo, Brazil, giving thousands of local shops and services a presence on the Facebook-owned app.

Im excited were starting to pilot a local business directory within WhatsApp, said Will Cathcart, the head of WhatsApp.

This will help you find and contact local businesses, like your neighbourhood coffee shop, florist, clothing store and more.

The Yellow Pages-style service will expand to other countries in the coming months if it proves to be a success, with India and Indonesia the most likely markets to follow.

With more than 2 billion users worldwide, the worlds most popular messaging app typically does local pilots of new features before rolling them out on a global scale.

Based on feedback from the people who try it over the next few months, well look at expanding this service to other cities and other types of businesses on WhatsApp, Mr Cathcart said.

How WhatsApps new in-app business directory feature will look to users in Brazil (WhatsApp)

It is the latest ploy by Facebook to monetise the apps vast userbase by courting business users with the promise of new revenue streams and more direct access to customers.

In-app shopping features have also been pushed out across other Facebook apps, though WhatsApp remains unique in that it has so far avoided submitting to Facebooks ad-led business model.

Theres definitely a route on ads, which is Facebooks core business model, that over the long term I think in some form or another will be part of the business model for WhatsApp, Matt Idema, Facebooks vice president of business messaging, told Reuters.

Any new feature is likely to face intense scrutiny, particularly when it comes to user privacy. This was always a key focus of WhatsApps founders before they sold the app to Facebook in 2014 for $19 billion, however an enforced update earlier this year proved controversial after the app said it wanted to share specific information with its parent company.

WhatsApp said the data would only be used for commerce features, however the backlash caused the company to pause the rollout and alter the terms.

For the latest update, WhatsApp claims to have built it in a private way and will not log users location or what businesses they browse.
The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggests that more than four million people have ditched wearing face coverings in public over the summer.

According to this months data, 89 per cent of people said they had worn a face covering outside their home in the past week, down from a high of 98 per cent at the start of May.

While the proportion of people sticking to the wearing of face masks is high, the drop is equivalent to around 4.3 million people who have stopped wearing them since the government lifted most coronavirus restrictions in July.

The ONS noted that a high proportion of UK adults still feel that measures to slow the spread of Covid-19 were either very important or important, including wearing face masks (87 per cent) and social distancing (87 per cent).

It comes after the health secretary Sajid Javid it was the governments advice that people should consider wearing face coverings when they are gathered in a crowded space with people they did not normally mix with.

However, he said that Tory MPs do not need to wear face masks in the Commons because they are not strangers.

His comments were in response to a photograph of the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, which showed ministers around a table without face masks.

Conservative backbenchers, whether they are in Parliament, in the chamber itself or other meeting rooms, you have to take measures that are appropriate for the prevalence of Covid at the time, Javid told Sky News.

The British Medical Association (BMA) warned that Javids remarks send a message that the pandemic is over, adding that ministers should be leading by example.

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, chair council at the BMA, said: As the governments own health advisers recognise, we are at a critical moment in the development of the pandemic.

For a government which has extolled the importance of personal responsibility to show so little personal responsibility themselves is quite shocking.

Covid-19 is no less likely to pass between loved ones and friends than it is between strangers; it doesnt discriminate, he added.

On Tuesday, prime minister Boris Johnson announced that vaccine passports, mandatory face masks and work-from-home orders will be reintroduced in England if the NHS becomes overwhelmed with Covid-19 cases this winter.

Announcing the governments plan for dealing with coronavirus and the flu during the colder months, Johnson said that implementing the measures would be Plan B if there is a sharp rise in hospitalisations.

Plan A focuses on handing out booster vaccinations and vaccinating teenagers.

Covid is still out there, the disease sadly still remains a risk but Im confident we can keep going with our plan and protect the gains that we have made together, said Johnson.

Additional reporting by PA
Sadie Frost has revealed she had serious post-natal depression after having two babies less than two years apart.

The 56-year-old fashion designer and actor Jude Law, 48, had two children together  Iris, born in 2000, and Rudy, born in 2002  before they divorced in 2003.

Because I had had two children very close together and my life was going a hundred miles an hour, I got very serious post-natal depression, Frost said on The Moments That Made Me podcast.

That is when my whole world came caving in and it was scary for quite a few years on a daily basis.

The Floozie by Frost and French entrepreneur said she believes her battle with post-natal depression moulded her into the person she is now.

It made me more determined to be a strong mother, more career-orientated and help other people, she explained. Take out but pack in, and make other peoples lives better and anyone who is in pain, try and help as much as possible.

For me, it has moulded me into the person I am today.

Describing how it still affects her today, Frost added: Therell always be that post-[trauma] or something that can trigger the fact that youre on the edge. Youre a slightly broken, damaged person and youll never completely mend it.

I take everything, my mental health seriously.

The NHS reports that post-natal depression affects more than one in every 10 women within a year of giving birth, but that many women do not realise they have it because it can develop gradually.

While feeling a bit down, tearful or anxious during the first two weeks after giving birth is normal, guidelines suggest seeking help if mental health symptoms continue for longer than this.

Find more information and guidance on the NHS website or contact mental health charity Mind to seek help.
The Duke of Cambridge has said he wants his Earthshot Prize to recapture the human ingenuity, purpose and optimism associated with John F Kennedys Moonshot challenge.

The Earthshot Prize is an environmental award inspired by the Apollo Moon landings, nicknamed Moonshot, which helped advance mankinds technological achievements.

Every year from 2021 until the end of the decade, winners in five categories will receive 1 million prize money to support their environmental and conservation projects.

They will be recognised for new ideas, technologies, policies or solutions which tackle one of the five Earthshots: Protect and restore nature; Clean our air, Revive our oceans; Build a waste-free world; and Fix our climate.

Organisers say that if all the projects are achieved by 2030, they would improve life for all.

Prince William will announce the awards inaugural 15 finalists and their innovative solutions to repair the planet this Friday, with the five winners unveiled at a ceremony on 17 October.

In his introduction for the official book, Earthshot: How To Save Our Planet, the duke describes in detail the thoughts that led him to establish the ambitious initiative, which has a 50 million prize pot.

I wanted to recapture Kennedys Moonshot spirit of human ingenuity, purpose and optimism, and turn it with laser-sharp focus and urgency on to the most pressing challenge of our time  repairing our planet, he writes.

The prize is likely to be seen as Williams career-defining project, like his fathers Princes Trust or grandfathers Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme.

William spent two years working on the project with his Royal Foundation, and the seeds of the idea were sown during a visit to Namibia, Tanzania and Kenya in autumn 2018, when he met frontline conservation workers and those from local communities.
Co-op has faced criticism after announcing a new partnership with Amazon and extending robot deliveries as part of plans to double its online sales by the end of the year.

The alliance allows Amazon Prime customers to do their full Co-op grocery shop on the Amazon website with same-day delivery and two-hour scheduled slots.

The partnership launched in Glasgow and surrounding areas on Thursday, but will be rolled out to other parts of the UK before the end of the year, with the aim of it becoming a nationwide service at an unconfirmed date. All orders over 40 will be delivered for free by Amazons Flex service.

Co-op, which prides itself on its ethical image and sustainability, has faced criticism from the GMB trade union over the move. Amazon has been accused of not paying its fair share of tax in the UK and poorly treating the drivers who deliver its goods.

Andy Prendergast, national officer of the GMB, said: Its really disappointing to see a company with a proud ethical heritage like Co-op teaming up with Amazon.

Amazon has made billions throughout the pandemic. Bosses wont even recognise a union to improve the health and safety of their beleaguered workforce.

Steve Murrells, the Co-ops chief executive, said he wasnt here to defend Amazon but added: We have been working with Amazon for many years. From our point of view, it allows us to get more ethically sourced products to more homes. It is a good joining of bedfellows.

Meanwhile, Co-op is also extending its partnership with Starship Technologies, the robot company launched by the co-founders of Skype, which allows the delivery of groceries in as little as 20 minutes.

The convenience retailer will increase the number of autonomous vehicles operating and delivering Co-op groceries from 200 to 500 by the end of this year, extending them from Milton Keynes and Northampton to Cambridgeshire and then into the north of England.

A Co-op spokesperson said: We arent compromising our ethics and principles and the extension of the partnership is about getting our ethically sourced products into the hands of more people.

It reflects the support Co-op members have shown for Amazons products by using its lockers and click and collect services through hundreds of our stores for a number of years.

The news comes as Mr Murrells warned of food price increases and pressure on its annual profits from the growing supply chain crisis. He said the company will look to offset the cost pressures as best we can, but that some of that will filter down to customers.

Co-op reported underlying pre-tax operating losses of 15m for the six months to 3 July, compared with profits of 56m a year ago, as it was hit by product availability issues and the continuing impact of the pandemic.

John Boumphrey, Amazon UK country manager, said: Our partnership with Co-op is another way for us to provide our Amazon Prime customers with more choice, value and convenience to shop for their everyday groceries.

A spokesperson for the firm said they offered excellent pay, benefits and opportunities for career growth in a safe, modern work environment.
Philip Morris International (PMI), the company which produces Marlboro cigarettes, has confirmed that its bid for inhaler maker Vectura has become unconditional after a majority of the target companys shareholders agreed to sell their stock.

PMI said that it has received support from 74 per cent of shareholders in Vectura, pushing the number above the 50 per cent threshold required for the deal to go through. It is now urging the remaining shareholders to accept the deal.

The fact that the offer has become unconditional, means that remaining shareholders are unable to prevent it from happening and can be compelled to sell. While a deadline of 15 September has been set for Vectura investors to decide whether to sell to PMI.

The company said: All remaining conditions to the offer have been satisfied or, where applicable, waived.

Accordingly... the offer has become unconditional in all respects.

The deal has been particularly controversial, with both medical groups and charities warning the board against selling to a cigarette business. However, the Marlboro maker has pointed out that it already has some expertise in fields such as respiratory medicine.

There have also been concerns that while the company claims to have ambitions for a smoke-free future, it still generates a majority of its revenue from cigarettes.

Jacek Olczak, PMIs chief executive, argued that Vectura would play a critical role in the companys Beyond Nicotine strategy.

He explained: We have reached an important milestone in our acquisition of Vectura and are pleased to have secured over 74 per cent of the companys shares, in excess of the 50 per cent required to make our offer unconditional and PMI the majority shareholder.

We are very excited about the critical role Vectura will play in our Beyond Nicotine strategy and look forward to working with Vecturas scientists and providing them with the resources and expertise to grow their business to help us achieve our goal of generating at least one billion dollars (720 million) in net revenues from Beyond Nicotine products by 2025.

The inhaler makers board unanimously suggested that shareholders approve PMIs 1.1 billion takeover and following this, PMI started buying shares on the open market, securing a stake of 29.9 per cent.

Any remaining shareholders were then asked to approve the deal and to sell their shares in principle. A threshold of 50 per cent was needed for the deal to complete and this has now been reached, with remaining shareholders expected to fall in line.

Market rules governing takeovers meant that PMI was not allowed to build its stake by buying shares from US based investors. It was however able to buy stock from other international investors to reach its 50 per cent target.

As well as being controversial, the takeover could also impact research for the firm, as several universities have rules that block them from taking funding from cigarette businesses and their subsidiaries.

Sarah Woolnough, chief executive of Asthma UK and the British Lung Foundation, criticised Vecturas decision to sell, suggesting that the inhaler maker has prioritised short-term financial gain over the long-term viability of Vectura as a business.

Ms Woolnough said: Vectura has sold out millions of people with lung disease, and instead prioritised short-term financial gain over the long-term viability of Vectura as a business.

Vectura is now owned by a tobacco company, and this could cause considerable problems, such as the firm being excluded from research and clinical networks.

It creates perverse incentives for Philip Morris International to sell more of its harmful products so they might then profit again through treating smoking-related diseases.

Theres now a very real risk that Vecturas deal with big tobacco will lead to the cigarette industry wielding undue influence on UK health policy.

She added: We call on the government to stand by its commitment to the World Health Organisation framework convention on tobacco control to prevent this happening.

Additional reporting by PA
Provocative pro-Palestinian protests outside a Jewish synagogue in Michigan are protected by the Constitution's First Amendment, a federal court appeals said Wednesday.

The court declined to stop the demonstrations or set restrictions in Ann Arbor The protests have occurred on a weekly basis since 2003, with people holding signs that say Jewish Power Corrupts, Stop Funding Israel and End the Palestinian Holocaust.

Members of Beth Israel Congregation, including some Holocaust survivors, said the protests have interfered with their Saturday worship and caused emotional distress.

But the congregants have not alleged that the protesters ever blocked them from using their synagogue or that the protests were even audible from inside the building, Judge Jeffrey Sutton said.

He said a proposed remedy  a 1,000-foot (305-meter) buffer and limits on signs  would likely violate the First Amendment.

The key obstacle is the robust protections that the First Amendment affords to nonviolent protests on matters of public concern, Sutton said in summarizing the case.

He was joined by Judge David McKeague. Judge Eric Clay agreed with the result but on different grounds.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a brief in support of the activists, saying the protests are entitled to protection even if offensive, upsetting and distasteful.

If public officials and courts have discretion to suppress speech they dont like, then none of us truly enjoys the freedom of speech, Dan Korobkin of the ACLU said.

___

Follow Ed White at http://twitter.com/edwritez
Navid Hamidi spent seven years working as a translator for US special forces in Afghanistan.

The work, dangerous and frequently disturbing, took him to every corner of his country. He spent a lot of time in Helmand province, which at the time was considered one of the most perilous places on the planet.

Yet, when he arrived in Seattle as a refugee, he found himself engaged in a series of new battles; he struggled to figure out how even the most basic things worked, there was a huge culture shock, and what was it with all that rain?
Serial killer Fred West may have operated further afield than Gloucester, raising questions over the true number of victims.

A new witness has come forward for the first time as she believed she was approached by West in a car park in Bristol in 1987, as part of a new documentary.

ITVs Fred And Rose West: Reopened explores new leads in the case to try and shed new light on the true number of victims of West, who is known to have killed 12 girls and women between 1967 and 1987.

The team - headed by former detective chief inspector Colin Sutton, investigative psychologist Dr Donna Young, author Howard Sounes and reporter Sir Trevor McDonald - speak to witness Linda who tells them of an encounter with a man believed to be the killer.

 Fred West survivor reveals close encounter with serial killer

She recalled a man, with dark curly hair and a leather jacket, made a beeline for her in the car park, although veered off after another man entered.

"I was really scared. I thought I wont run, I wont meet his gaze. My last thoughts were, Im not going to make it. And then all of a sudden he veered off, she explained.

That young man, hell never know it, but I think he saved my life that day.

The documentary also hears new testimony from Janette Rathbone who says she encountered West in Gloucester when he followed her home.

Previously unseen employment timesheets are discovered by the team which show West worked further afield than Gloucester, travelling to London, Nottingham, Birmingham and Southampton on building contracts.

The team say the documents rewrites Wests story as, had the knowledge been obtained earlier, police could have looked for missing women in the areas who fit the profile of his victims.

Evidence from Janet Leach - who sat as Wests appropriate adult - is further explored, particularly in regards to the location of the infamous farm where its been suggested up to 20 more victims could have been buried.

The team also re-investigates potential burial site Fingerpost Field in Kempley, close to where the bodies of Wests first victim Anna McFall and first wife Rena West were found 27 years ago.

They take cadaver dogs and a ground penetrating radar to the field, with the radar able to identify six potential sites with anomalies, and the dogs two.

The dog handlers says whilst they cannot be sure what exactly the scent is, the dogs are drawn to decomposed flesh, and so the sites are worth investigating prompting the team to pass their evidence onto police.

 Witness who escaped Fred West speaks of terrifying ordeal.mp4

The documentary also looks at newly-revealed records of conversation between West and his former lawyer, in which the killer talks about further crimes involving himself, his wife and brother John West.

The lawyer admits discussions with West led him to believe there were others who had been killed, adding: Sadly, this is something of a tip of an iceberg, and inevitably there are others who are yet to be found.

West committed suicide in 1995 before he was brought to trial, though his wife was convicted of 10 murders.

However, its suspected there were dozens more victims of the couple including Mary Bastholm, who has long been suspected to have been killed by West.

The documentary speaks about the rumours to Chris Roberts, who says he remembers Bastholm from a cafe in Gloucester that West was known to frequent, and also fulfil building work in the basement.

He explains: "Mary went missing in January 1968. In the week following that, on two occasions I walked down the road, 50 yards from where I worked and saw Fred removing what I would say, looked like concrete bags or sand bags from his van, putting them over his shoulder and carrying them into the cafe It wasnt until latterly that I realised what could have happened."

After conducting their own search in the basement of the cafe, the team unearth blue material which they then pass on to Gloucester Police, making headlines in May this year.

They handed the findings of three months of intensive investigation to the police who launched a new operating into the new evidence.

Fred and Rose West: Reopened is on ITV at 9pm on Wednesday and Thursday.
A man has been jailed for more than eight years after a CCTV operator witnessed him raping a woman in Swansea.

Turkey Al-Turkey, 26, of Cwm Level Road in Brynhyfryd, Swansea, had been drinking alcohol with his victim at the citys promenade before the attack on July 18.

Al-Turkey, an Iraqi asylum seeker, pleaded guilty to rape and has been handed a sentence of eight years and eight months, as reported by the BBC.

Swansea Crown Court heard that a CCTV operator in the city saw that the woman was intoxicated and was laying motionless during the assault.

The operator used the public address system to say Get off her. Shes drunk. Im calling the police.

When police arrived they were unable to rouse the woman and she later told them at the police station she could be recall anything from the incident.

In a victim impact statement read out in court, she said: Whats happened to me cannot be erased and will remain with me for the rest of my life.

He has killed the spontaneous, joyful, carefree version of myself and only time will tell whether these traits return in full.

The court heard that GHB was not found in the victims urine, however as it leaves the body quickly, could not be discounted completely.

Prosecutor Carina Hughes said: Due to to her level of unconsciousness on CCTV, the prosecution felt it went over and above what we expected and anticipated from intoxication.

As well as his prison sentence, Al-Turkey will also be placed on the sex offenders register for life.

The 26-year-old arrived in the UK in November 2018, the court heard. However Judge Paul Thomas said he expects Al-Turkey to be deported upon his release from prison.
A young man had his hand cut off after being attacked with his own machete by vigilantes in east London, according to reports.

The 19-year-old was found with life-changing injuries on Golding Street, in the Whitechapel area, the Metropolitan Police said.

Officers were called to the residential area, in the borough of Tower Hamlets, at about 5.45pm on Sunday.

In footage posted on social media, the man is sitting on the kerb of a pavement holding a tea towel to his arm while surrounded by splatters of his blood.

He was rushed to a major trauma unit at a hospital for the injury that police described as a significant knife wound to the arm. His condition was assessed as not life-threatening but likely life-changing.

A second man in his 20s was found in nearby Christian Street with a knife wound. He was taken to hospital, before he was arrested and held in custody  the Met said.

Police have launched an investigation into separate footage from a vehicles dashcam, that shows part of the incident.

The Met said in a statement: We are aware of a video on social media showing a male who is visibly injured on a street in Tower Hamlets.

The first half of the video appears to have been filmed following an incident in Golding Street, E1 that is under investigation.

According to the Standard, a local councillor said that a group of young men armed with machetes have allegedly targeted innocent people in that area a few times.

The councillor added, according to the report: Locals decided to take matters into their own hands.

Nobody should ever condone vigilantism like this but it should also be a lesson for people who carry knives: your weapon can easily be turned against you.

Anyone who witnessed the incident or who has information about what took place should call 101 or tweet @MetCC, giving the reference 5643/12SEP.

Information can also be provided to Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.
Hundreds of thousands of EU nationals and their family members are still waiting for an outcome on their settled status outcomes 10 weeks after the scheme was due to end, new figures show.

European citizens are being forced to delay plans to move to the UK to be with their loved ones, and are facing barriers to employment, due to long delays in the processing of EU settlement applications.

Following Brexit, EEA nationals and their family members who wished to stay in Britain have had to apply to the EU settlement scheme, which opened in March 2019, by 30 June 2021 or face becoming undocumented and therefore unable to work, rent and access other services.

New government data published on Thursday reveals 450,600 applicants are yet to receive a decision - one in 14 applications made since the scheme opened - the majority of whom applied before the deadline.

Shadow immigration minister Bambos Charalambous said it was deeply concerning that the government had not put in sufficient support to process the applications.

People are being denied their rights and their lives are being put on hold as a result of these delays. The government must act swiftly to eliminate the backlog, he told The Independent .

The Home Office claims that anyone who applied for the scheme by the 30 June deadline will have their rights protected until their application is decided.

But organisations supporting EU nationals say some people have been dismissed or rejected from employment because their applications were pending.

On applying to the scheme, applicants are supposed to receive a certificate of application (CoA) while they wait for a decision, which they can use as evidence of their status  but experts say it is sometimes taking months for people to receive this.

Dr Dora-Olivia Vicol, chief executive of the Work Rights Centre, said She was deeply worried by the fact that so many people were still awaiting an outcome, warning that everyone stuck in the backlog risks being disadvantaged in employment.

We have already heard from several EU nationals who have been dismissed or rejected from employment because their applications were pending, and their employers struggled to verify their status, she said.

Not everyone is issued a CoA. Some people just got their confirmation via a letter or email; and in some cases no confirmation at all. We had a case like this in July, which resulted in the worker being dismissed.

These people have lost their income, and have gone through an incredibly stressful time. Given the size of the backlog, I fear that they are just the tip of the iceberg.

The delays are also forcing EU nationals who do not yet live in the UK to delay plans to move closer to their loved ones, as they are not permitted to move to Britain until they have their status confirmed.

German national Natalie Schuetz, 38, who has lived in the UK for 12 years, said she felt mentally exhausted after her mothers plans to move to the UK to be closer to her had to be put on hold due to delays in the processing of her EU settlement application.

The marketing manager applied to the scheme on behalf of her mother, Angelica Schuetz, 65, who currently lives in Berlin, on 29 June after they decided that it would be best for her to move to the UK so that she could care for her as she gets older.

They had hoped to receive a decision within six weeks to then begin the process of selling her mothers property, but they are still waiting  and her mother is yet to be issued with even a CoA to prove that she has applied.

Its impossible to make any plans. Theres no point in her putting her property on the market for potentially no reason. She doesnt want to be left homeless. The not knowing is putting pressure on both of us  were in complete limbo, she told The Independent.

When I applied for settled status back in 2019 it took three and a half hours to get a decision. I understand that it might be taking a bit longer because we left it quite late and theyve got the backlog, but to not even have received the CoA is a worry.

Experts say that at the current rate of processing, it will take around 14 months for the Home Office to get through the backlog.

Luke Piper, head of policy at the3million, said the large number of people in the backlog could be put down to the Home Offices refusal to extend the deadline on the basis that the coronavirus pandemic made it difficult for people to obtain the relevant documents to apply.

Other countries extended the deadline to account for these problems - the UK didnt. We are now seeing the consequences of this as incomplete applications take longer to decide. This is reflected in the data with a high backlog and slow decision rate, he said.

Immigration minister Kevin Foster said: We continue to work as quickly as possible to conclude applications, as well as supporting people with their late applications.

Our message remains clear. The Home Office is looking for reasons to grant status rather than refuse. I would encourage anyone eligible who is yet to apply to get in touch and join the millions who have already secured their rights.
More than 3,000 Afghan asylum seekers in the UK are in limbo as a freeze on processing applications continues a month after the Taliban takeover.

The Home Office deleted official guidance that its officials use to decide on applications on 16 August, saying it was no longer relevant to the current situation.

Until that date, documents said there was no general risk of harm in Afghanistan and the proportion of the population affected by indiscriminate violence is small.

The guidance has not yet been replaced and the consideration of at least 3,213 asylum applications by Afghans who have reached the UK has been paused as a result.

Nick Thomas-Symonds, Labours shadow home secretary, said: In the month since Kabul fell to the Taliban we have seen the extraordinary efforts of our armed forces and embassy staff to evacuate people.

However, in the same period ministers have stood by and left those from Afghanistan already in the asylum system in a state of limbo not knowing what their future holds. The government needs to set out its plans on this urgently.

The government has paused deportations to Afghanistan and started a new resettlement scheme for up to 20,000 people over several years and started Operation Warm Welcome for new arrivals and those evacuated from the country.

But it has not committed to granting refugee status to all Afghan asylum seekers who are already in the UK - many of whom have been waiting months or years for a decision - and said that when decision-making restarts it will be on their individual merits.

Tim Naor Hilton, the chief executive of Refugee Action, said: Far from a warm welcome, the treatment of Afghan refugees stuck in our asylum system is a cold, hard slap in the face.

Waiting times for decisions on asylum claims are already at record levels, so unnecessary delays issuing country guidance simply compounds the misery of people who simply want to rebuild their lives here.

 Home Office refuses to provide clarity for 3,000 Afghans in UK asylum system

Ministers need to understand that how you arrive in the UK should not determine how much humanity youre shown.

It comes as the government continues to press ahead with a suite of laws that would criminalise all refugees arriving in the UK without official permission, such as on boats over the English Channel.

Bella Sankey, the director of Detention Action, said: There is no reason to pause Afghan asylum processing but every reason to speed it up and ensure all Afghans in the UK receive leave to remain.

Anyone who has read a newspaper in the past month can see that the UK cannot safely return anybody to the country while the Taliban continue their murderous rule. Leaving Afghans in limbo fuels insecurity, self-harm and suicide attempts and trashes the UK's proud record of providing sanctuary to those who face persecution and death.

The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants said the government was shirking their responsibility by leaving thousands of Afghans in limbo.

Campaigns director Minnie Rahman said: There is no feasible way that people can safely return to Afghanistan for the indefinite future, and many have already spent months, even years, unable to work and with the threat of removal hanging over them.

The only logical step is to grant them protection in the UK now, so they can start to rebuild their lives.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 17 September 2021 Hugo, 7, from London rides past a 4x7 metre rainbow arch, made entirely of recycled aluminium cans, which has been installed by recycling initiative 'Every Can Counts', in partnership with The City of London Corporation in front of St Paul's Cathedral in London, to encourage members of the public to recycle their drinks cans ahead of recycling week, which starts on 20 September PA UK news in pictures 16 September 2021 Sheikeh MOhammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, leader of Abu Dhabi, leaves Downing Street after meeting with Boris Johnson PA UK news in pictures 15 September 2021 Children pose by ice sculptures depicting people collecting water by charity Water Aid to show the fragility of water and the threat posed by climate change in London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 14 September 2021 Heavy rain covers the A149 near Kings Lynn in Norfolk PA UK news in pictures 13 September 2021 Luke Jerram's 'Museum of the Moon' at Durham Cathedral PA UK news in pictures 12 September 2021 Inspirational young fundraiser Tobias Weller crosses the finish line, near his home in Sheffield, as he completes his latest epic feat where he swam and triked his way to the end of his awesome year-long Ironman Challenge. This is the third challenge Tobias, who has cerebral palsy and autism, has completed, raising more than 150,000 for his school and Sheffield Children Hospitals charity PA UK news in pictures 11 September 2021 British player Emma Raducanu, holds up the US Open championship trophy winning the women's singles final of the US Open in New York AP UK news in pictures 10 September 2021 People paddle board during a misty morning in Ullswater, the second largest lake in the Lake District, Cumbria PA UK news in pictures 9 September 2021 Troops from Wiltshire based 4 Armoured Close Support Battalion Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers during final inspection at Wellington Barracks in London, ahead of providing troops for the Queens Guard PA UK news in pictures 8 September 2021 Workers cross London Bridge during the morning rush hour in London Reuters UK news in pictures Mixing it up: Painting it up press view in London A gallery employee poses for photographers next to a painting entitled Prairie by British artist, Louise Giovanelli during the exhibition 'Mixing it up: Painting it up' at the Hayward Gallery in London EPA UK news in pictures 6 September 2021 Traders in the Ring at the London Metal Exchange, in the City of London, after open-outcry trading returned for the first time since March 2020, when the Ring was temporarily closed due to the pandemic PA UK news in pictures 5 September 2021 People enjoy the warm weather on Sandbanks beach, Poole PA UK news in pictures 4 September 2021 Demonstrators from Animal Rebellion and Nature Rebellion protest in Trafalgar Square in London. PA UK news in pictures 3 September 2021 South Africa's Ntando Mahlangu (centre) wins the Men's 200 metres T61 Final ahead of second placed Great Britain's Richard Whitehead at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games PA UK news in pictures 2 September 2021 A young common seal on the beach at Horsey Gap in Norfolk, as hundreds of pregnant grey seals come ashore ready for the start of the pupping season. PA UK news in pictures 1 September 2021 Goldfinches fighting over food in a garden in Strensham, Worcestershire PA UK news in pictures 31 August 2021 Gold Medallist Sarah Storey of Britain celebrates on the podium Reuters UK news in pictures 30 August 2021 Extinction Rebellion protesters hold a a tea party on Tower Bridge in London EPA UK news in pictures 29 August 2021 A police office tussles with a demonstrator on Cromwell Road outside the Natural History Museum during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion in London PA UK news in pictures 28 August 2021 Members of the British armed forces 16 Air Assault Brigade walk to the air terminal after disembarking a Royal Airforce Voyager aircraft at Brize Norton, Oxfordshire POOL/AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 27 August 2021 Fabio Quartararo crashes during a MotoGP practice session at the British Grand Prix, Silverstone Circuit Action Images via Reuters UK news in pictures 26 August 2021 An Extinction Rebellion activist holds a placard in a fountain surrounded by police officers, during a protest next to Buckingham Palace in London Reuters UK news in pictures 25 August 2021 Gold Medallist Great Britains cyclist, Sarah Storey, celebrates after winning the Womens C5 3000m Individual Pursuit Final at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. It was her 15th Paralympic gold Reuters UK news in pictures 24 August 2021 A demonstrator dressed as bee during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion on Whitehall, in central London PA UK news in pictures 23 August 2021 Former interpreters for the British forces in Afghanistan demonstrate outside the Home Office in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 22 August 2021 Police officers form a line in front of the entrance to the Guildhall, London, where protesters have climbed onto a ledge above the entrance during an Extinction Rebellion stage a protest PA UK news in pictures 21 August 2021 People take part in a demonstration in solidarity with people of Afghanistan, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 20 August 2021 People zip wire across the sea from Bournemouth pier towards the beach. PA UK news in pictures 19 August 2021 Supporters of Geronimo the alpaca gather outside Shepherds Close Farm in Wooton Under Edge, Gloucestershire PA UK news in pictures 18 August 2021 Former Afghan interpreters and veterans hold a demonstration outside Downing Street, calling for support and protection for Afghan interpreters and their families PA UK news in pictures 17 August 2021 Military personnel board the RAF Airbus A400M at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, where evacuation flights from Afghanistan have been landing Reuters UK news in pictures 16 August 2021 Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer takes part in a minute's silence at Wolverhampton police station for the victims of the Plymouth mass shooting last week PA UK news in pictures 15 August 2021 2Storm, a ten-metre tall puppet of a mythical goddess of the sea created by Edinburgh-based visual theatre company Vision Mechanics, makes its way alongside the seafront at North Berwick, East Lothian, during a performance at the Fringe By The Sea festival PA UK news in pictures 14 August 2021 A woman and two young girls look at floral tributes in Plymouth where six people, including the offender, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident PA UK news in pictures 13 August 2021 Forensic officers in the Keyham area of Plymouth where six people, including the shooter, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident on Thursday evening PA UK news in pictures 12 August 2021 Children ride horses in the River Eden in Appleby, Cumbria, during the annual gathering of travellers for the Appleby Horse Fair PA UK news in pictures 11 August 2021 Stella Moris (left) reacts after talking to the media outside the High Court in London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal, n London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal. The US government has won the latest round in its High Court bid to appeal against the decision not to extradite Julian Assange on espionage charges PA UK news in pictures 10 August 2021 Students react after they receive their A-Level results at the Ark Academy, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 9 August 2021 The final athletes from Great Britain arrive home including Jason Kenny, Laura Kenny and Katie Archibald (front left-right) at Heathrow Airport, London following the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games PA UK news in pictures 8 August 2021 Great Britain's Laura Kenny during the closing ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at the Olympic stadium in Japan PA UK news in pictures 7 August 2021 People from the Glasgow Southside community take part in the Govanhill Carnival, an anti-racist celebration of pride, unity and the contributions immigrants have made to the community in Govanhill, at Queen's Park, Glasgow PA UK news in pictures 6 August 2021 Chijindu Ujah of Britain, Zharnel Hughes of Britain, Richard Kilty of Britain and Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake of Britain celebrate winning silver as they pose with Asha Philip of Britain, Imani Lansiquot of Britain, Dina Asher-Smith of Britain and Daryll Neita of Britain after they won bronze in the women's 4 x 100m relay during Olympic Games Day 14 Getty UK news in pictures 5 August 2021 A protester places flowers on a photograph of an executed man during a demonstration organised by supporters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) to protest against the inauguration of Iran's new president Ebrahim Raisi in central London AFP via Getty UK news in pictures 4 August 2021 England's Joe Root looks on as India's KL Rahul doesn't make it to a catch during day one of Cinch First Test match at Trent Bridge, Nottingham PA UK news in pictures 3 August 2021 Great Britain's Laura Kenny and Jason Kenny with their silver medals for the Women's Team Pursuit and Mens Team Sprint during the Track Cycling at the Izu Velodrome on the eleventh day of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan PA UK news in pictures 2 August 2021 Great Britains Charlotte Worthington competes during the Womens BMX Freestyle Final at the Tokyo Olympics PA UK news in pictures 1 August 2021 EPA UK news in pictures 31 July 2021 James Guy, Adam Peaty and Kathleen Dawson celebrate winning the gold medal in the mixed 4x100m medley relay final at the Tokyo Olympics AP UK news in pictures 30 July 2021 Great Britain's Bethany Shriever and Kye Whyte celebrate their Gold and Silver medals respectively for the Cycling BMX Racing at the Ariake Urban Sports Park on the seventh day of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan PA

Several MPs called for action on Afghans trapped inside the UKs asylum system in a parliamentary debate on Monday, where Scottish National Party MP Stuart McDonald asked if the government really needs [official] guidance to tell us that people from Afghanistan should be recognised as refugees.

Victoria Atkins, a Home Office minister responsible for Afghan resettlement, said new guidance would be published shortly.

There is no change in the UKs position that people can only claim asylum from within the UK, she added.

There are a number of claims already in the asylum system, and they will be considered in line with new country guidance.

No date has been given for its publication, but the Home Office said updated documents would reflect revised assessments of the risk of persecution in Afghanistan.

A spokesperson added: No one who is at risk of persecution or serious harm in Afghanistan will be expected to return there and all asylum and human rights claims, including those from Afghan nationals, will be carefully considered on their individual merits.
A British teenager convicted of lying about being gang-raped in Cyprus was forced by police to retract her original statement outlining the attack, according to a lawyer supporting the young woman.

The 21-year-old from Derbyshire, whose identity cannot revealed, filed an appeal to the Cypriot Supreme Court on Thursday morning in an attempt to clear her name.

She spent four-and-a-half weeks in a prison in Nicosia during the summer of 2019 after alleging she was sexually assaulted by up to 12 young Israeli tourists in a hotel room in the party resort of Ayia Napa.

The complaint was revoked days later, after which she was arrested and charged with public mischief and 12 Israeli men aged between 15 and 22, who had had been detained for questioning, were allowed to walk free.

A judge at Famagusta District Court in Paralimni in eastern Cyprus ruled the woman had lied to police about the alleged assault on 17 July 2019.

The woman, who has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder since the ordeal, was handed a four-month prison term suspended for three years.

Michael Pollak, a British human rights lawyer and director of Justice Abroad, a legal aid group providing help to the teens family, said the court will rule on the appeal within six months.

He told The Independent the only evidence for convicting the woman of lying was the retraction of her statement claiming she was gang raped, but he warned police pressured her into withdrawing her allegations.

That statement was taken after she had been in a police station for over six hours and there was evidence of coercion from the police to write that statement, he said.

Police threatened to arrest her friends if she did not retract the statement. Police told her she could be released from the police station back to her mother if she retracted the statement.

The police officer who gave evidence stated the retraction statement was the teenagers statement in her own words. However, when we had that statement examined by Dr Andrea Nini, who is an expert forensic linguist based at Manchester University, he said it was highly unlikely the words used in that reaction statement were the words of the teenager.

Mr Pollak said the retraction statement was taken without a lawyer present  explaining the girl sent a text message to her friends saying she had informed the police she has the right to a lawyer but the police falsely claimed while she has this right in the UK, she does not in Cyprus.

The young woman maintains she was forced by officers to sign a confession withdrawing the rape complaint, and that lead investigating officer, Sergeant Marios Christou, pressured her into saying she had lied and also threatened to have both her and her friends arrested.

She said that, after being in custody for more than six hours, she agreed to write a statement saying she had lied about the gang rape.

He gave me word for word what he wanted me to write out and naturally in my brain, I would correct what hes trying to say, she said of Christou in an ITV documentary last year.

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The police in Cyprus and Sergeant Christou have vehemently denied all allegations of misconduct.

Mr Pollak said a 150-page argument explaining grounds for the appeal had been submitted, including the judges behaviour in the 2020 trial.

The lawyer added: During the trial process, he kept shouting at the female lawyers representing her. Every time we showed evidence DNA evidence and witness evidence, which showed the rape took place, he would shout and say: This is not a rape case.

Public mischief requires a false report of a make-believe offence under the Cypriot criminal code, which means the question of whether or not the victim was raped is instrumental to the outcome of the case. If the rape took place she is not guilty of public mischief.

He should have heard all the evidence on the offence of public mischief and then come to a conclusion rather than shouting evidence down. By refusing to hear that evidence, it showed bias against the defence.

Mr Pollak argued the judge appeared to have already made a decision before the trial came to an end. The lawyer, who is a barrister at Church Court Chambers in London, said the judge should approach the case with an open mind.

We were pleased with the way things went today, he added. We dont want to prejudge the decision of the Supreme Court, but we were pleased with the way the Supreme Court engaged with our arguments. We are hoping to get justice in Cyprus.

He said if they do not find justice in Cyprus, they will take the case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Lawyers for the defendant and prosecutors put forward their arguments to three Supreme Court judges in the Cypriot capital of Nicosia on Thursday.

The victim in this case has been very brave and determined to clear her name, Mr Pollak added. If she applies for a job or to join an association, she has to declare her conviction and then relive what she has faced throughout this ordeal. That is why this appeal is so important for her. The ordeal has been very difficult for her but she remains determined.

The teenage girls experience has attracted criticism and consternation around the world  with around 40 campaigners gathering outside the court on Thursday to support the teenager.
A senior police chief has been appointed to lead the fight against violence towards women and girls across England and Wales.

The appointment of Deputy Chief Constable of Hampshire Police, Maggie Blyth, follows a recommendation from a report conducted after the murder of 33-year-old Sarah Everard in March.

The role will involve agreeing and delivering new police strategy that will focus on interventions to prevent violence, target perpetrators and help victims achieve justice.

Ms Blyth, whose law enforcement career spans 30 years, saideveryone has the right to feel safe, wherever they are, but as a mother, daughter, and sister I know this often isnt the reality for women and girls.

She said she is committed to reducing harm and vulnerability and improving the lives of women and girls.

Deputy Chief Constable Maggie Blyth has been appointed as the National Police Lead for Violence Against Women and Girls (NPCC)

The new police lead has previously worked on the leadership of the Youth Justice Board as well as working in local government child protection for a decade including high profile child sexual exploitation and domestic homicide operations, the NPCC said.

She joined Hampshire Constabulary as a superintendent in 2016, being promoted to Assistant Chief Constable in May 2019.

Jamie Klingler, co-founder of Reclaim These Streets, a campaign group to end harassment against women and girls and also organisers of Sarah Everards Clapham Common vigil, wished the police chief success in the new role and hoped the appointment would come with authority to adequately tackle issues of misogyny and racism toward women.

We hope the role comes with the decision making power and budgets needed to make the necessary crucial changes to make women and girls safer, she said.

Ms Klingler, whose team was not involved in the selection process, also said her team would contact the new police chief to offer help and share ideas.

Rose Caldwell, CEO of Plan UK, a charity promoting equality for girls, told The Independent that whilst efforts to tackle violence against women and girls are welcome, the police cannot enforce laws that do not exist.

Ms Caldwell is urging the government to conduct a review of the law.

Public sexual harassment is a form of violence against women and girls that is having a daily impact on their lives. Yet current legislation is piecemeal and completely inadequate to protect them, she said.

The 33-year-old marketing executive disappeared in South London on 3 March as she was walking home from Clapham Common after seeing a friend in the area. Former Metropolitan Police officer, Wayne Couzens pleaded guilty to the rape, murder and kidnap of Ms Everard.

A vigil held for the 33-year-old victim resulted in a controversial police response that led to several mourners being arrested for breaching coronavirus restrictions.

Home Secretary, Priti Patel, said part of the strategy to tackle violence against women and girls is ensuring the police have the powers and resources to bring offenders to justice.

Deputy Chief Constable Maggie Blyth will bring together the incredible work of police officers around the country and help drive real and lasting change as we work to stamp out these abhorrent crimes.
The government has been accused of shirking its responsibility towards Shamima Begum and other former Isis members from the UK.

Conservative MP Andrew Mitchell, who co-chairs the All Party Parliamentary Group on Trafficked Britons in Syria, said the continued refusal to repatriate them for trial was also making us all less safe.

As part of our leadership and example as one of the permanent five members of the UN Security Council we really should not leave these people swilling around in ungoverned spaces, but follow the advice and example of the Americans and many other countries in repatriating our own nationals, he told The Independent.

Mr Mitchell said there was a strong case that Begum and other girls and women who travelled to Isis territory were trafficked for sex and are victims of modern slavery.

He added: Since when was a schoolgirl too much for the British justice system? Not only is the UK out of step with our allies who are repatriating their citizens, it is also beneath us as a nation to shirk our responsibility for British nationals and, as security experts have warned, it makes us all less safe.

A recent court case has heard how Isis supporters around the world have been raising money for smugglers to spring jihadis out of camps such as the one holding Begum.

They are operated by the Syrian Democratic Forces, who have repeatedly appealed for the UK and other countries to repatriate detainees and warned that they may not be able to secure the camps in the event of incursions by Turkey or regime forces.

Maya Foa, the director of legal charity Reprieve, said that detainees could face torture and the death penalty if transferred to Iraq or parts of Syria controlled by Bashar al-Assad.

Britain stands in contrast to now a majority of other countries who had nationals in north-east Syria by not repatriating them, she added. The majority of the British people held there are children, followed by women and then men. Every other country has developed some kind of an approach. The US, our closest security ally, has said we should repatriate people in the interests of security.

Ms Foa accused the government of having a do nothing approach and putting a political agenda above the interests of security and justice.

The argument that Begum may have been trafficked to Syria as a child to be sexually exploited has been advanced by her lawyers in a protracted legal battle to return to Britain.

(PA)

The former Bethnal Green schoolgirl, who left London for Syria aged 15, is among an unknown number of suspected Isis members to be stripped of their British citizenship as part of efforts to keep them out of the UK.

In a new interview from a Syrian detention camp, she claimed she could be an asset in the fight against terror and wanted to help the government.

Begum, now 22, told ITV's Good Morning Britain: I regret every, every decision I've made since I stepped into Syria and I will live with it for the rest of my life ... all I can say is I'm sorry and just give me a second chance.

The government has repeatedly suggested it is unable to successfully prosecute Begum and other former Isis members detained in Syria, but she said she was willing to stand trial and added: The only crime I committed was being dumb enough to join IS.

Membership of a proscribed terrorist organisation is a terror offence punishable by up to 14 years imprisonment.

In February, the Supreme Court ruled that Begum could not return to the UK to fight her case, which sits with the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC).

In June, her lawyers argued the Home Office had a legal duty to investigate whether Begum was a victim of trafficking when her citizenship was revoked on security grounds in 2019.

Begum also wants to challenge the removal of her British citizenship on the grounds that it made her de-facto stateless and that the decision was procedurally unfair.

Of around 900 people who left Britain to engage in the conflict in Syria and Iraq since 2014, around a fifth had been killed and 40 per cent have returned.A Home Office spokesperson said: The government's top priority remains maintaining our national security and keeping the public safe. We do not routinely comment on individual cases.
The maximum sentence for stealing pets is longer than the jail sentence handed to a man who choked his lover to death while having sex, MPs have said.

Politicians and campaigners told The Independent the decision to sentence Sam Pybus, a married 32-year-old, to less than five years in prison is a travesty of justice which tells women their lives do not matter.

Last week, the government revealed a new criminal offence of pet abduction will be rolled out after a surge in thefts during the pandemic, but a maximum jail term for the offence has not yet been unveiled. Pet theft presently falls under the Theft Act 1968 with a maximum jail sentence of seven years.

Pybus was sentenced on Tuesday to four years and eight months for killing Sophie Moss, a vulnerable 33-year-old who has two young children, at her home in Darlington in County Durham.

Teeside crown court heard Pybus, who will only have to serve half his sentence in prison, employed prolonged pressure to Moss neck for tens of seconds or minutes while having consensual sex in the early hours of 7 February. Pybus, who had been seeing Moss for three years, had consumed 24 bottles of Amstel lager over the course of 10 hours that day.

Sam Pybus has been jailed for four years and eight months (PA)

Harriet Harman, the Labour MP who chairs parliaments joint committee on human rights, has now written to the attorney general, Michael Ellis QC, to object to the unduly lenient sentence - urging him to refer the case to the Court of Appeal.

The maximum sentence for pet theft is higher than what this man got for killing Sophie Moss, Ms Harman, the MP for Camberwell and Peckham, told The Independent. The fact he can stand in court and characterise himself as an upstanding citizen rubs salt in the wound for relatives.

Ms Moss death comes after the so-called rough sex defence was outlawed in the UK at the end of April via the domestic abuse act - with campaigners celebrating the decision to tackle the rising number of killers claiming women died during rough sex in court proceedings.

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Increasing numbers of women are being seriously injured and killed in incidents dubbed sex games gone wrong. In 1996, two women per year were killed or injured during what the defendants referred to as consensual rough sex, but this figure had soared to 20 women by 2016.

Ms Harman argued the sentencing of Pybus shows parliament must relook at the issue.

The politician added: If they killed a stranger, it would be life, but if it is their girlfriend and someone who she ought to be able to trust, he will be out in two years.

For decades, for centuries, mens violence against women has been accepted as just one of those things. There is now a modern twist on this which uses womens sexual empowerment as a precept by exploitative men who are exercising control over women.

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It is a cruel irony womens sexual empowerment is used against them by their killers.

Ms Harman argued Pybus sentencing is symptomatic of a long-standing culture of impunity for men, as she explained he was initially charged with murder, before a manslaughter plea was accepted.

Although he admitted that he intended to put his hands around her neck to put pressure to stop her breathing, the politician added. The intention was there and he takes no responsibility for the result of his actions.

She said parliament is in agreement that they are opposed to men arguing in court that it is not their fault they killed a woman but she is instead to blame because she wanted rough sex.

She added: The judge is too ready to allow his mitigation of I didnt intend to kill her, but I did intend to stop her breathing. That is just an abdication of responsibility. And shifting the blame onto her.

Pybus killed the only other person able to speak about it. He is the sole purveyor of the story because he silenced Sophie by killing her. Everybody who knows anything about this case thinks it is a travesty of justice.

The court heard after Pybus woke up and found her naked and unresponsive, he chose not to dial 999 or give Moss first aid, but instead waited in his car for 15 minutes before driving to a police station to hand himself in.

Caroline Nokes, chair of the Women and Equalities Select Committee in the Commons, urged the Attorney General to look at the sentencing handed down again.

Suella Braverman, the attorney general, is due to return to her role on Monday after able to taking time off for maternity leave. A spokesperson for the attorney generals office issued a statement saying law officers have 28 days from sentencing to look at the case and decide whether to hand the sentence to the Court of Appeal.

This sentence is in no way reflective of the fact a woman has lost her life and it feels as if the perpetrator has in fact got away with it, Ms Nokes told The Independent. It sends a message to women that your lives are not worth very much and a message to male perpetrators that you will get away with it. With the new legislation on pet theft, you can get more for stealing someones dog.

In 45 per cent of cases where a man kills a woman during sex and alleges she gave her consent, the rough sex defence succeeds, which leads to the killing being prosecuted under manslaughter or not even regarded as a crime.

Christopher Atkinson, a senior district crown prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in the North East, said: While the defendant has always acknowledged the fatal consequences of his actions, he also claimed that it was never his intent to cause Sophie serious harm or, as was tragically the case, her death.

He said the CPS has not simply accepted the account put forward by the defendant, but that we have proactively determined that there was insufficient evidence capable of establishing beyond reasonable doubt that he intended the serious harm or death of Moss.

Fiona Mackenzie, spokesperson for We Cant Consent To This, an organisation that has done extensive research into the rough sex defence and campaigned to change the law on this, said the sentencing is an absolute outrage for the loved ones of Moss.

The question is do we believe the law change in April was enough. It is not yet clear whether the lenient sentencing here would be fixed by the law change in April, Ms Mackenzie told The Independent.

The CPS chickened out of prosecuting for murder even though Pybus killed Sophie in prolonged serious violence which left his hands hurting afterwards. The reference to hands hurting is a direct quote from Pybus.
Australia could become the target of a nuclear strike by China following the security agreement with the US and UK which will lead to it acquiring a nuclear-powered submarine fleet.

According to the Global Times, a newspaper viewed as a mouthpiece of the Communist Party in Beijing, Chinese military experts fear the vessels could be upgraded with a nuclear arsenal, despite assurances that they will only carry conventional weapons.

Chinese military experts have supposedly warned of a potential strike on Australia, this was because, claims the Global Times, it would be relatively easy for Washington and London to equip the vessels with ballistic missiles carrying nuclear warheads.

In the report an unnamed senior military expert says that only nuclear armed states have nuclear-powered submarines and their role is to launch nuclear missiles in the event of war.

The sources said assurances by Joe Biden and the Australian prime minister Scott Morrison on nuclear weaponry were meaningless.

It would be easy for the US and UK to deploy nuclear weapons and submarine-launched ballistic missiles on the Australian submarines, says the unnamed military figure.

In another story the state-backed publication, which often uses colourful invectives and is used for sabre rattling against perceived enemies, warned that Australia could be targetted as a warning to others if it acted with bravado in allegiance to the US, or by being militarily assertive.

Thus, Australian troops are also most likely to be the first batch of western soldiers to waste their lives in the South China Sea, it said.

In its official reaction, the Chinese government stated the proposal to introduce the nuclear-powered submarines was a dangerous development. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said it seriously damages regional peace and stability, intensifies the arms race and undermines the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

In reality, there is no likelihood of the Chinese government launching a pre-emptive nuclear strike against Australia because it is acquiring a nuclear-powered submarine fleet. India, a country which has been recently in armed clashes with China, has long operated nuclear-powered submarines in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

The agreement between Australia, UK and US has, however drawn criticism from allies as well as China. The deal, put together swiftly and largely in secrecy, means that France will lose a $90bn (65bn) contract to build diesel-powered submarines for Australia.

Jean-Yves Le Drian, the French foreign minister, decried a stab in the back from Australia, saying we had established a trusting relationship with Australia, and this trust was betrayed.

Mr Le Drian said what has happened showed that Mr Biden was behaving no better than Donald Trump: The brutal, unilateral and unpredictable decision reminds me a lot of what Mr Trump used to do. I am angry and I am angry and bitter. This isnt done between allies.

Gerard Araud, the former French ambassador to Washington, tweeted : France has just been reminded this bitter truth by the way the US and the UK have stabbed her in the back in Australia.

Other officials said relations with America were the worst since 2003, the times when the French were called cheese eating surrender monkeys for refusing to join the US and UK in the disastrous Iraq invasion.

Joseph Borrell, foreign affairs and security policy chief for the European Union, which had just unveiled its own Indo-Pacific strategy, concluded that we must survive on our own as others do. I understand the extent to which the French government must be disappointed.

Theresa May asked how the Aukus pact will cause the UK to respond should China attempt to invade Taiwan. Can I ask him what are the implications of this pact for the stance that would be taken by the United Kingdom in its response should China attempt to invade Taiwan?

Boris Johnson replied: The United Kingdom remains determined to defend international law and that is the strong advice we would give to our friends across the world, and the strong advice that we would give to the government in Beijing.

The reactions were partly due to shock at what had unfolded. Just a fortnight ago the Australian defence and foreign ministers had reconfirmed the French agreement. Emmanuel Macron had looked forward to future cooperation when hosting Mr Morrison in June.

Yet now we know, firstly privately from British officials, then publicly from defence secretary Ben Wallace and national security advisor Sir Stephen Lovegrove, that the Australians had first approached over switching to the agreement with the UK and US back in March.

This has been a project in gestation for some months  right through the Afghanistan drawdown  and is a powerful illustration of how we are building new long-term partnerships rooted in Britains values, its scientific and engineering excellence, and in our alliances said Sir Stephen.

What happened in Afghanistan was already a sign for European states that Americas position had not changed that much since the departure of Mr Trump. President Biden had carried on with his predecessors policy of hastily pulling out forces, with all the consequences that ensued. There was little consultation with Nato partners, who had no choice but to withdraw their troops as well.

The Biden administration was turning its focus on the Indo-Pacific. It is not the first to seek to do so. Barack Obama had also attempted the move to the east but was held back to the Middle East by the rise of Isis.

The Aukus agreement formalises the attempt to check Chinese expansionism.

Defence secretary Ben Wallace said: China is embarking on one of the biggest military spends and military investments in history. Its growing its navy and air force at a huge rate, extremely fast. Obviously its engaged in some controversial and disputed areas.

That is what China is doing at the moment and its right that the UK alongside other allies such as Australia stands up for the rules-based system and international law.
A health minister is facing demands to release thousands of electronic messages potentially relating to coronavirus testing contracts, after it emerged that a mobile phone previously said to have been lost or broken had in fact been given to a family member.

Labours deputy leader Angela Rayner called on Boris Johnson to sack Lord Bethell over what she said amounted to a breach of security rules, and demanded that all of the messages should be secured for scrutiny by the promised public inquiry into the handling of the coronavirus outbreak.

As part of a legal challenge relating to controversial 87.5m testing contracts with Abingdon Health, the government revealed in July that some of Lord Bethells communications had been conducted via WhatsApp and text messages held only on his private mobile.

But when lawyers from the Good Law Project demanded that the messages should be retrieved and preserved, they were told initially that the phone had been lost and then that it was broken, making the records inaccessible.

Now the campaign group has received a letter from government lawyers stating that the phone was in fact handed over to a family member when the health minister upgraded to a new one.

And an initial trawl through messages held on the device found 36,000 containing key words which the GLP argues could indicate they are linked to procurement contracts.

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This is the third challenge Tobias, who has cerebral palsy and autism, has completed, raising more than 150,000 for his school and Sheffield Children Hospitals charity PA UK news in pictures 11 September 2021 British player Emma Raducanu, holds up the US Open championship trophy winning the women's singles final of the US Open in New York AP UK news in pictures 10 September 2021 People paddle board during a misty morning in Ullswater, the second largest lake in the Lake District, Cumbria PA UK news in pictures 9 September 2021 Troops from Wiltshire based 4 Armoured Close Support Battalion Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers during final inspection at Wellington Barracks in London, ahead of providing troops for the Queens Guard PA UK news in pictures 8 September 2021 Workers cross London Bridge during the morning rush hour in London Reuters UK news in pictures Mixing it up: Painting it up press view in London A gallery employee poses for photographers next to a painting entitled Prairie by British artist, Louise Giovanelli during the exhibition 'Mixing it up: Painting it up' at the Hayward Gallery in London EPA UK news in pictures 6 September 2021 Traders in the Ring at the London Metal Exchange, in the City of London, after open-outcry trading returned for the first time since March 2020, when the Ring was temporarily closed due to the pandemic PA UK news in pictures 5 September 2021 People enjoy the warm weather on Sandbanks beach, Poole PA UK news in pictures 4 September 2021 Demonstrators from Animal Rebellion and Nature Rebellion protest in Trafalgar Square in London. PA UK news in pictures 3 September 2021 South Africa's Ntando Mahlangu (centre) wins the Men's 200 metres T61 Final ahead of second placed Great Britain's Richard Whitehead at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games PA UK news in pictures 2 September 2021 A young common seal on the beach at Horsey Gap in Norfolk, as hundreds of pregnant grey seals come ashore ready for the start of the pupping season. 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It was her 15th Paralympic gold Reuters UK news in pictures 24 August 2021 A demonstrator dressed as bee during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion on Whitehall, in central London PA UK news in pictures 23 August 2021 Former interpreters for the British forces in Afghanistan demonstrate outside the Home Office in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 22 August 2021 Police officers form a line in front of the entrance to the Guildhall, London, where protesters have climbed onto a ledge above the entrance during an Extinction Rebellion stage a protest PA UK news in pictures 21 August 2021 People take part in a demonstration in solidarity with people of Afghanistan, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 20 August 2021 People zip wire across the sea from Bournemouth pier towards the beach. PA UK news in pictures 19 August 2021 Supporters of Geronimo the alpaca gather outside Shepherds Close Farm in Wooton Under Edge, Gloucestershire PA UK news in pictures 18 August 2021 Former Afghan interpreters and veterans hold a demonstration outside Downing Street, calling for support and protection for Afghan interpreters and their families PA UK news in pictures 17 August 2021 Military personnel board the RAF Airbus A400M at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, where evacuation flights from Afghanistan have been landing Reuters UK news in pictures 16 August 2021 Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer takes part in a minute's silence at Wolverhampton police station for the victims of the Plymouth mass shooting last week PA UK news in pictures 15 August 2021 2Storm, a ten-metre tall puppet of a mythical goddess of the sea created by Edinburgh-based visual theatre company Vision Mechanics, makes its way alongside the seafront at North Berwick, East Lothian, during a performance at the Fringe By The Sea festival PA UK news in pictures 14 August 2021 A woman and two young girls look at floral tributes in Plymouth where six people, including the offender, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident PA UK news in pictures 13 August 2021 Forensic officers in the Keyham area of Plymouth where six people, including the shooter, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident on Thursday evening PA UK news in pictures 12 August 2021 Children ride horses in the River Eden in Appleby, Cumbria, during the annual gathering of travellers for the Appleby Horse Fair PA UK news in pictures 11 August 2021 Stella Moris (left) reacts after talking to the media outside the High Court in London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal, n London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal. The US government has won the latest round in its High Court bid to appeal against the decision not to extradite Julian Assange on espionage charges PA UK news in pictures 10 August 2021 Students react after they receive their A-Level results at the Ark Academy, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 9 August 2021 The final athletes from Great Britain arrive home including Jason Kenny, Laura Kenny and Katie Archibald (front left-right) at Heathrow Airport, London following the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games PA UK news in pictures 8 August 2021 Great Britain's Laura Kenny during the closing ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at the Olympic stadium in Japan PA UK news in pictures 7 August 2021 People from the Glasgow Southside community take part in the Govanhill Carnival, an anti-racist celebration of pride, unity and the contributions immigrants have made to the community in Govanhill, at Queen's Park, Glasgow PA UK news in pictures 6 August 2021 Chijindu Ujah of Britain, Zharnel Hughes of Britain, Richard Kilty of Britain and Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake of Britain celebrate winning silver as they pose with Asha Philip of Britain, Imani Lansiquot of Britain, Dina Asher-Smith of Britain and Daryll Neita of Britain after they won bronze in the women's 4 x 100m relay during Olympic Games Day 14 Getty UK news in pictures 5 August 2021 A protester places flowers on a photograph of an executed man during a demonstration organised by supporters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) to protest against the inauguration of Iran's new president Ebrahim Raisi in central London AFP via Getty UK news in pictures 4 August 2021 England's Joe Root looks on as India's KL Rahul doesn't make it to a catch during day one of Cinch First Test match at Trent Bridge, Nottingham PA UK news in pictures 3 August 2021 Great Britain's Laura Kenny and Jason Kenny with their silver medals for the Women's Team Pursuit and Mens Team Sprint during the Track Cycling at the Izu Velodrome on the eleventh day of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan PA UK news in pictures 2 August 2021 Great Britains Charlotte Worthington competes during the Womens BMX Freestyle Final at the Tokyo Olympics PA UK news in pictures 1 August 2021 EPA UK news in pictures 31 July 2021 James Guy, Adam Peaty and Kathleen Dawson celebrate winning the gold medal in the mixed 4x100m medley relay final at the Tokyo Olympics AP UK news in pictures 30 July 2021 Great Britain's Bethany Shriever and Kye Whyte celebrate their Gold and Silver medals respectively for the Cycling BMX Racing at the Ariake Urban Sports Park on the seventh day of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan PA

However, Lord Bethells lawyers said they expected a large majority of these messages to be unrelated to the contract discussions and said that they would not anticipate there being a substantial amount of documents to disclose arising from the current review by the time it has concluded.

Jolyon Maugham of the GLP said: Back in June, No 10 issued a blanket denial that ministers ever used private email accounts for government business. But now their own lawyers have confirmed searches of Lord Bethells three private email addresses using keywords relating to Covid contracts turned up hits of between 18,000 and 36,000 separate documents that may be relevant to the case.

How on earth do we move from a blanket denial by No 10 that ministers were using private email accounts for government business, to an admission that a single minister may in fact have used his private email for tens of thousands of official emails?

And he added: Its far from clear that personal phones used extensively for government business can safely be handed over to family members  one assumes children. What steps did Lord Bethell take, for example, to ensure that highly sensitive material couldnt be retrieved by a specialist? And if he did delete it, did he ensure hed passed on all the relevant information to the Department of Health before doing so?

Ms Rayner said: Lord Bethell has shown contempt for the British people by dishing out taxpayers money to his mates in private and then trying to cover it up. At the height of the pandemic the first priority for ministers should have been saving lives, not enriching their mates.

It is vital that the information commissioners investigation gets to the bottom of this racket, and this investigation must be extended to other government departments and other ministers. These emails must be secured for the public inquiry so we know exactly what has been going on in secret.

After he has handed over these emails, Lord Bethell should clear his desk. He has breached security rules, broken the ministerial code and ignored basic standards of integrity and transparency in public office. If he had any shame he would resign and if the prime minister had a backbone he would sack him.

A UK government spokesperson said: Ministers will use a range of modern forms of communication for discussions, in line with legislative requirements, and taking into account government guidance.

The Covid pandemic has necessarily required remote working and fast-paced communications.
Health secretary Sajid Javid today confirmed that the Covid-19 booster campaign has started and pledged to level-up health in England.

Speaking at a think tank event in Blackpool on Thursday afternoon, Mr Javid confirmed that the first person had received a jab under the scheme that will see millions of eligible people offered a Pfizer vaccine.

Catherine Cargill, who works at Croydon University Hospital in south London, was one of the first to get a vaccine under the new campaign that targets frontline key workers, anyone aged 50 and over, and those with severe health conditions.

She said: Ive just had my booster vaccine, my Pfizer vaccine, and I have had it ahead of the winter season to make sure I am protected, to make sure I can carry on working, I can carry on spending time with my family, and so I can carry on with my studies.

I would definitely want to encourage you to get your booster shot when you are invited to do that.

Hospital hubs have now started inoculating key workers and GP-led vaccination services are set to follow in the coming days, followed by vaccination centres and pharmacy-led sites who will join the campaign next week.

As well as announcing the start of the NHS booster campaign, Mr Javid was keen to emphasise the two backlogs the country faces as a consequence of the coronavirus pandemic.

He told attendees at The Centre for Social Justice event that the first and priority is the 5.5million people on NHS waiting lists, but that the other issue was dealing with a social backlog in mental health and public health

Mr Javid said: Passing the peak of the pandemic has been a bit like a receding tide, revealing the underlying health of our nation. Its revealed some fractures within and in many cases the pandemic has deepened those fractures.

He pointed to disparities in Covid admissions between the most and least deprived parts of the country, and the difference in mortality rates between white people and people from black, Asian and ethnic minority groups.

He added: These are symptoms of a different disease, the disease of disparity.

The health secretary said as part of efforts to level-up health in the country and fix inequalities in health outcomes he was launching the new Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID).

He said it had a mission to level-up health and ensure everyone has a chance to live happy and healthy lives.

Mr Javid said it would focus on preventable health conditions such as obesity, drugs, alcohol and tobacco, but would also look at health inequalities and access to health services, as well as probing wider factors that impact poor health, such as education, housing and environment.

He added: While I said we cant level up economically without levelling up in health, its equally true that we cant tackle health disparities without tackling wider disparities too.

Mr Javid also addressed mental health, saying too many people had experienced loneliness and isolation over the pandemic, while numbers waiting for routine mental health treatment have soared.

Additional reporting by PA
Once covered in bugs on on Im A Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Here, Tory MP Nadine Dorries is now in charge of Britains arts and media having been Culture Secretary in Boris Johnsons reshuffle.

The former nurse and mother-of-three proved unpopular with viewers and was the first to be voted off, before promptly being suspended by the Tory hierarchy for not getting permission for her stint on the programme.

But the 64-year-old, who is also a best-selling author, has not been shy is offering her opinion on everything from the BBC to comedy and the state of the Conservative Party.

The Independent has compiled some of the key moment of Ms Dorries career so far.

What has she said about the BBC?

The new Culture Secretary has been a long-time critic of the BBC and in 2012 said that the Government should withhold the licence fee payout to the corporation, unless they did more to address alleged sexist discrimination against its women television and radio presenters.

She also demanded a parliamentary committee be set up to look at why the BBC had so few female executives, as well as presenters, particularly in primetime slots.

More recently she said the BBC favour strident, very left wing, often hypocritical and frequently patronising views that turn people away.

What has she said about comedy?

In December 2017 Ms Dorries said that left wing snowflakes are killing comedy and dumbing down panto.

In the full tweet, she said: Left wing snowflakes are killing comedy, tearing down historic statues, removing books from universities, dumbing down panto, removing Christ from Christmas and suppressing free speech. Sadly, it must be true, history does repeat itself. It will be music next.

What has she said about Brexit and Boris?

Ms Dorries is an ardent supporter of Brexit, has been critical of Remainers and has repeatedly shown public support for Boris Johnson.

In November 2019, she tweeted: Parliament is gridlocked. We cannot get #Brexit done until we return a Parliament with a majority of MPs who support the deal @BorisJohnson secured, against the odds. Lets get this done. #BackBoris Back the deal. Vote #Conservative @Conservatives.

Prior to the 2019 General Election she described Mr Johnson as the change the country needs and used the #BackBoris hashtag in a number of tweets.

What does she think of Winston Churchill?

The MP for Mid Bedfordshire bragged on Twitter that she had a bust of the former prime minister in her home and in a separate tweet described him and Disraeli as great novelists.

In a tweet from 2017 she said: Big fan of Churchill - statue of him on my desk, but it was about more than a man. America is, was and always will be our greatest friend.

What does she think about gay marriage?

The new cabinet secretary strongly opposed gay marriage and voted against the legislation when it was put forward by David Camerons government in 2013.

In May 2013, she tweeted: If gay marriage bill takes sex out of marriage could a sister marry a sister to avoid inheritance tax?

However years later she said that voting against gay marriage was her biggest regret as an MP and that she hopes all same sex marriages live happily ever after.

What does she think about the Conservative Party?

Ms Dorries, who grew up on a council estate, has frequently been at odds with what she thought of as her partys image.

She once referred to David Cameron and George Osborne as arrogant posh boys, while describing herself as a normal mother who comes from a poor background and who didnt go to a posh school.

Was she embroiled in the MP expenses scandal?

In short, yes. In 2009, when MPs expenses claims were revealed by the Daily Telegraph, she admitted she had got taxpayers to foot the bill for a lost 2,190 deposit on a rented flat.

And in 2010, she was rebuked by parliamentary standards commissioner John Lyon for misleading her constituents on her blog about how much time she spent in mid-Bedfordshire, admitting that it was 70% fiction.

What has she said about her writing career?

Ms Dorries is an accomplished novelist and has written 19 works, including two trilogies and a six-part series.

She told The Sunday Telegraph: I still write 1,000 words every day, and I always will. Writing is very good for my mental health. Im a happier person on the days I write.

Ms Dorries work hasnt always been met with stellar reviews.

One critic wrote of her first book: Dorries is just not very good at making things up. Things in the novel appear to happen purely because they seem like a good idea at the time to the author. Characters potter in and then out again as soon as their service to the plot is done.
The decision to cut universal credit by 20 a week is unconscionable and could plunge hundreds of thousands of households into poverty, a top United Nations official has warned.

Ministers have come under continued pressure to reverse the decision to end the 20-a-week uplift introduced to support families during the Covid-19 pandemic, with recipients expected to lose out on 1,040 annually if the cut goes ahead.

Olivier De Schutter, the UNs special rapporteur on extreme poverty, has warned the move breaches international human rights law and could cause half a million low-income households, including 200,000 children, to fall below the poverty line.

In a letter to the UK government, he urged ministers to reconsider the proposed cut since it is prima facie doubtful whether the removal of the 20 uplift conforms to international human rights law and standards.

Mr De Schutter told the Guardian it was unconscionable at this point in time to remove this benefit.

He also warned 20 a week makes a huge difference and could be the difference between falling into extreme poverty or remaining just above that poverty line for many of those receiving universal credit.

Labour urged Conservative MPs who oppose the welfare cut to do the right thing and back a vote calling for the government to scrap the plans on Wednesday.

MPs supported the motion by 253 votes to zero, but it is non-binding and does not force the government to act.

Boris Johnson refused to explain how claimants can make up the lost 20 a week, after cabinet minister Therese Coffey on Monday got her sums wrong and claimed recipients would only need to work an extra two hours a week.

The prime minister declined to say whether the true figure was higher or lower after experts concluded the answer was up to nine hours.

Ministers plan to begin phasing out the uplift from the end of September, based on individual claimants payment dates.
The Capitol Police have requested the support of the National Guard on Saturday if events get violent at a rally of demonstrators supporting those arrested over the 6 January Capitol riot.

The USCP has asked the Department of Defense for the ability to receive National Guard support should the need arise on September 18, Capitol Police wrote in a statement. The agency declined to answer follow-up questions, citing security precautions.

Leading up to the 6 January riot, the army initially pushed to reject the District of Columbia governments request for National Guard presence ahead of that rally.

The National Guard was unable to immediately send troops when needed that day, wasting time during a riot where hundreds entered the white-pillared building, ransacked it and forced the evacuation of lawmakers in the worst attack on the Capitol since the War of 1812.

The re-installation of the perimeter fence around the Capitol will also begin Wednesday night, according to an email sent to Senate staff on 15 September and obtained by The Washington Post. The fencing was erected after the failed security response to the 6 January storming of the building and stayed until two months ago.

The new temporary fencing will take about 24 hours to complete and will encompass Independence and Constitution avenues from First Street NE to First Street NW. Barring any unforeseen issues, the email states, the fence will begin to come down on Sunday. The Supreme Court will also have a temporary fence around its perimeter, according to the email.

District police activated all of its force for 17-18 September, and lawmakers have been briefed on security concerns, suggesting that law enforcement is taking a more assertive approach to Saturdays rally after the security failures during the insurrection.

Organisers of the Saturday rally are embracing a revisionist history of the insurrection, when a violent mob stormed the seat of the US government and disrupted Congress during the certification of President Joe Bidens election victory. The riot resulted in the deaths of five people, including a police officer.

Matt Braynard, a former Trump campaign operative and founder of Look Ahead America, an organisation that has planned protests in support of people arrested in the riot, has blamed a few bad actors for violence on 6 January. He estimated in his permit application that his rally, at Union Square, a public park near the Capitol Reflecting Pool, will have 700 attendees.

Also on Saturday, about one mile away, organisers are promoting an event at Freedom Plaza as a celebratory rally with food and music to denounce the presence of 6 January insurrectionists, Nazis, and white supremacists in Washington. Those organisers have not provided a crowd estimate but encouraged families to bring children.

Marc Ginsberg, president of Coalition for a Safer Web, a nonpartisan group that advocates for technologies and policies to remove extremist content from social media, worries that opposing sides at the Capitol and Freedom Plaza could create an environment for clashes, similar to the 12 December, 2020, brawls that resulted in multiple arrests and left at least four people stabbed. However, Ginsberg and others said, they are not seeing the kind of mass mobilization for the Justice for J6 rally in Washington that they saw ahead of 6 January.

In fact, much of the far-right chatter about this rally, including from the Proud Boys, a group with a history of violence, and prominent conspiracy theorists, has discouraged people from attending. They have labelled it a trap and false flag event aimed to lure them to Washington, where federal officials will arrest them.

Either way, law enforcement and officials appear to be preparing for all possibilities.

Capitol Police said they recently arrested a man with a bayonet and a machete near the Democratic National Committee headquarters. Last month, police said a man who claimed he had a bomb parked a truck near the Capitol and demanded to speak to President Biden, and in April, a man rammed his car into a barricade outside the building, killing a Capitol Police officer.

Although District officials have said they expect the far-right rally on Saturday to be a small gathering with no more than a few hundred people, they are taking extra steps to ensure the safety of residents who may be out at the annual H Street festival in Northeast that typically attracts thousands; a Howard University football game at Audi Field in Southwest; a baseball game at Nationals Park; or a Harry Styles concert at Capital One Arena downtown.

Several House Democratic offices are also closing on Friday in anticipation of the rally, an indicator that many who survived the insurrection are taking steps to avoid a similar situation in case the rally is larger than anticipated. Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein said in a statement Wednesday that travellers will notice increased law enforcement this weekend during a period of high awareness.

FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate said on Tuesday at the Intelligence and National Security Summit that although there is online chatter about the upcoming rally, the bureau did not have any specific, credible information about possible violence.

Ron Watkins, longtime administrator of the message board 8kun, formerly known as 8chan, the home of the extremist ideology QAnon, told his followers on his Telegram channel to avoid the District.

DONT GO TO FBI RALLIES, he wrote. Users echoed this paranoia, which has increased after Jan. 6 as hundreds have been arrested, with charges against alleged supporters of extremist right-wing groups including the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys and boogaloo boys movement.

Wont be any patriots there, one user wrote. Not after the setup on Jan 6th.

The Washington Post
A lawyer who allegedly organised a botched assassination on his own life after the deaths of his wife and son, will again be the focus of an investigation in South Carolina for the 2018 death of a former housekeeper, authorities have said.

In a statement on Wednesday, South Carolinas investigative agency said that it was opening an investigation into 53-year-old Alex Murdaugh, a well known attorney, for the death of Gloria Satterfield, a longtime housekeeper for his family in Hampton.

Coroner Angela Topper said she felt it was prudent to pursue an investigation into Gloria Satterfield's death because it was not reported to the coroner at the time, nor was an autopsy performed.

It was also alleged that the 57-year-olds death certificate was inconsistent with her death, from a fall, reported Fox News.

The announcement of an investigation followed a lawsuit filed by Ms Satterfields sons, Tony Satterfield and Brian Harriott, on Wednesday against Mr Murdaugh for his failure to pay $500,000 (362,000) in damages for the death of her mother.

The sons also allege that Mr Murdaugh was at fault for Ms Satterfield's death, which happened inside the family home of Mr Murdaugh, according to the report.

Citing an attorney, Richard Harpootlian, NBC News said Mr Murdaugh was due to hand himself into authorities on Thursday in Hampton after admitting to the attempted assassination on himself on 4 September.

It was allegedly carried out in the belief that his death would release a $10 million (7.2 million) life insurance policy to a surviving son.

Mr Harpootlian said Mr Murdaugh organised the botched assassination after falling into depression and an opioid addiction following the deaths of his wife and son in June, who were killed in a shooting that remains largely unsolved.

He is listed as a co-defendant with Curtis Edward Smith, aged 61, who faces charges including assisted suicide, assault and battery of a high aggravated nature and conspiracy to commit insurance fraud, police said.

The two investigations follow a third inquiry into Mr Murdaugh in connection to alleged fraud at his work, it was reported.

Mr Harpootlian told NBCs Today show on Wednesday that he expected his client to be charged and that clearly knew what he had done was wrong.

He was in a dark, dark, dark place and wanted to help his remaining son Buster in any way he could and he thought this was the only way he could leave him with anything, Mr Harpootlian said.

Additional reporting by Reuters.
A man who had more than 8.5 million images of child abuse on computer servers on the dark web has been sentenced to 27 years and life supervision by a judge in Maryland.

Eric Eoin Marques, aged 36, was arrested in Ireland in 2013 and extradited to the US in 2019 to face charges for conspiracy to advertise child pornography on the dark web. He is a dual nation of both countries.

Marques, according to prosecutors, created and operated computer servers on the dark web from 2008 to 2013 that enabled users to anonymously access millions of illicit images and videos, many depicting the rape and torture of infants and toddlers.

The US justice department said in an announcement that nearly 2 million of those images and videos involved victims that were not previously known by law enforcement.

Many of these images involved sadistic abuse of infants and toddlers to include bondage, bestiality and humiliation to include urination, defecation and vomit, the department explained.

He was sentenced in a Maryland court by US District Judge Theodore Chuang, who told Marques that his conduct was no different to that of a drug lord.

In addition to a 27 year sentence, he was ordered to pay $87,000 (63,000) to victims of the child abuse images that he helped distribute.

Judge Chuang rejected a request from Marquess attorneys to sentence him to 21 years, considering that he has served eight years between Ireland the US already. He will be able to return to Dublin, his home, after he serves his sentence at a federal prison.

A court filing in April revealed that investigators had identified Marques as the largest purveyor of child abuse images in the world, and that he earned $3.6 million (2.6 million) from his activities.

Lawyers for Marques, who pleaded guilty in February 2020, said his earnings were from his legitimate web-hosting services, and not those on the dark web.

"This is the first case that I'm aware of where we went to the seeds of the trade, the main engine driving so much of the illegal child pornography trade globally," said acting US attorney Jonathan Lenzner after the sentencing.

He added that Marques caused "unspeakable damage" to children, some of whom were physically assaulted for the purposes of image sharing on the dark web servers by members of an online community, it was claimed.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press
Police in Utah have released body camera footage of missing YouTube personality Gabby Petito and her fiance Brian Laundrie, almost a month before a search got underway for the 22-year-old.

The almost hour-long video shows officers from Moab City Police Department separating Ms Petito and Mr Laundrie, who returned from a road trip without the Long Island native about a week ago, prompting an investigation.

He has since been named as a person of interest by police in North Port, Florida, where the pair lived together, and from where their road trip started.

The body camera footage shows officers interviewing Ms Petito and Mr Laundrie, who reportedly fought before a witness called 911 with concerns for the pair. No charges were filed.

It was alleged that she slapped her fiance because she feared he was going to drive off without her following an argument. The incident was classed as a mental/emotional health break and not a domestic assault, according to police.

As ABC7 News reported, Ms Petito told officers that arguments between the pair had become more frequent in the days before 12 August, and that she suffers from serious anxiety.

The pair were thought to have separated that night, and continued travelling together the following day.

Ms Petito stopped communicating with her family somewhere in Wyoming, with her mother receiving a final text from the 22-year-old on 30 August, it was reported. A search has been ongoing since 11 September.

Ms Laundrie, who returned without his fiance and has so far refused to cooperate with authorities, was named as a person of interest on Wednesday. He has since faced calls from Ms Petitos family to help with the search.

Police in North Port are expected to hold a press conference on Thursday to provide an update on its investigation and search for Ms Petito.
Gabby Petito, a 22-year-old YouTuber and Instagram star, has been missing since late August, having embarked on a cross-country road trip with her fiance Brian Laundrie, 23, that she was documenting on social media.

The couple grew up in Blue Point on Long Island in New York but lived together in North Port, Florida, setting out on a dream road trip from the Big Apple on 2 July in Ms Petitos Ford Transit van and hoping to reach a friends house in Portland, Oregon, by Halloween.

However, Ms Petitos family have not heard from their daughter since receiving text messages towards the end of last month that they have suggested may not have been written by her.

Mr Laundrie returned to North Port alone on 1 September.

Concerned for her daughter, Nicole Schmidt contacted police and a missing persons investigation commenced on 11 September.

On September 14, Mr Laundrie also went missing, although his family did not report his absence to the police for several days.

He was believed to have headed to Floridas Carlton Reserve with just a backpack, and an intense manhunt began for him in this area.

Heres a timeline of everything we know about Gabby Petitos disappearance so far:

2 July - Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie set out from New York in her converted white 2012 Ford Transit van. She uploads regular social media posts over the course of the next six weeks on Instagram and YouTube from such beauty spots as Kansass Monument Rocks, Colorado Springs, Great Sand Dunes National Park, Zion National Park and Bryce National Park in Utah and Canyonlands National Park.

12 August - The pair are seen bitterly arguing in Moab City, Utah. Concerned bystanders eventually call 911 to intervene. Attending officer Daniel Robbins notes the pair appeared to be in midst of a mental health crisis and that Mr Laundrie had locked Ms Petito out of the van but she had climbed back in through a window to continue remonstrating with him.

13 August - Kylen Schulte and wife Crystal Turner are last seen at Woodys Tavern in Moab City, Utah. Ms Schulte worked at Moonflower Co-op, near where Ms Petito and Mr Laundrie had their fight. She worked the day of their fight, but left her shift an hour and a half before the fight is reported to have occurred.

18 August - The bodies of Kylen Schulte and wife Crystal Turner are found by authorities at a campsite in the mountains near Moab City, Utah. The women told other campers a creeper dude had been near their campsite. No suspect has been identified in their murders.

24 August - Ms Petito spotted with Mr Laundrie checking out of a hotel in Salt Lake City, Utah.

25 August - Last video call to her mother. This is the last time Ms Petito is known to have been seen.

26-27 August - Last text messages sent from Ms Petitos phone, reporting poor mobile signal, which family have since expressed doubt were actually sent by her.

29 August - Miranda Baker says on TikTok, she and her boyfriend, picked up Mr Laundrie, who was hitchhiking by himself on 29 August at Colter Bay in Grand Teton . North Port police in Florida confirm to The Independent they have spoken to Ms Baker but decline to provide further details.

1 September - Mr Laudire returns to North Port in Ms Petitos van without her, according to police reports.

10 September - Ms Schmidt says she texted Mr Laudrie and his mother, Roberta Laundrie, making inquiries about her daughter but received no reply.

11 September - Missing persons investigation opened after Ms Schmidt reports Ms Petitos disappearance to Suffolk County Police in New York. Search begins near Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, her last known intended destination.

13 September - Laundrie family refuses to allow North Port police to speak to their son and issues statement via their lawyer, Steve Bertolino, saying they will be remaining in the background. Ms Petitos parents Nicole Schmidt and Joe Petito host press conference, appealing for information.

14 September - Police declare Brian Laundrie person of interest. James Schmidt, Ms Petitos stepfather, flies out to join search in Wyoming. Mr Petito appears on Fox News to berate the Laundries for declining to co-operate with detectives.

15 September - Police release body camera footage of Moab City encounter with officer. Gabby Petitos stepfather, James Schmidt, flies to Wyoming to search for Ms Petito and hang missing person fliers.

16 September - Petito family issues statement through their lawyer begging the Laundrie family to help them with the search for Ms Petito.

17 September - Mr Laundries family call investigators to their home and admit that Brian has been missing since Tuesday.

18 September - FBI and Florida police launch a major manhunt to find Brian Laundrie, focusing their search on Floridas Carlton Reserve

19 September - Footage is released by a couple on YouTube that appears to confirm the van that Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie were travelling in was in the Grand Teton National Park on August 27.

FBI later announce that a body is found in the forest that they believe to be Gabby Petitos.

20 September - Condolences pour in for the family of Ms Petito, as her father posts a moving tribute to his daughter on Twitter. The North Port Police announce they are suspending the search for Mr Laundrie in the Carlton Reserve as the FBI swarms the Laundrie home to execute a search warrant. The Laundrie home is now considered a crime scene.

21 September - Petito family attorney Richard Stafford confirms to The Independent that the body found in Wyoming is Gabbys. The FBI announce preliminary results of an autopsy conducted by Teton County Coroner Dr. Brent Blue confirms her death is a homicide. The exact cause of death has not yet been released.

FBI special agent in charge Michael Schneider asked for help from the public in finding Mr Laundrie. The FBI and our partners remain dedicated to ensuring anyone responsible for or complicit in Ms Petitos death is held accountable for their actions.

The police search for Mr Laundrie resumes at the 25,000-acre Carlton Reserve near his house, as law enforcement investigate a possible sighting captured on a deer camera in the Florida Panhandle.
The father of missing YouTuber Gabby Petito has issued a fresh plea for help from the family of Brian Laundrie to find his daughter.

Appearing at a press conference with law enforcement officials in Florida, Joe Petito said his sole focus was on finding his daughter and encouraged friends and family of the Laundrie family to call an anonymous tipline set up by the FBI.

What I need from everybody here is help, because the goal is still not met, and that goal is to bring Gabby home safely.

Im asking for help from everyone here. Im asking for help from everyone at home.

Im asking for help from the parents of Brian. And Im asking for help of the family members and friends of the Laundrie family as well.

There is a tipline that you can call anonymously. Whatever you can do to make sure my daughter comes home, Im asking for that help.

There is nothing else that matters to me now.

This girl is what matters right now, he said, pointing to a photo of Ms Petito.

This is what matters.

The North Port Police Department and FBI agents also attended the press conference.

Anyone with information on Gabby Petitos whereabouts is encouraged to call the FBI tip line at 1-800-CALLFBI (225-5324).
A heartwarming photo of gymnasts Aly Raisman and Simone Biles holding hands in a show of empathy during a US Senate hearing on Wednesday has been widely shared on social media.

Biles, Raisman and two other gymnasts, McKayla Maroney and Maggie Nichols, appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify about the FBI's investigation into former Team USA doctor Larry Nassar, who was jailed for sexual wrongdoing.

Nassar was found guilty on multiple counts of criminal sexual conduct in 2018 and sentenced to up to 175 years in prison. He was accused by at least 150 women and girls of sexual abuse over the years under the guise of medical treatment. He was arrested in 2016 on charges of possessing sexually explicit images of children, and jailed the following year.

United States gymnasts from left, Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney, Aly Raisman and Maggie Nichols, testify during a Senate Judiciary (AP)

Biles, a decorated Olympic gymnast, tore into USA Gymnastics and the FBI for failing to do their jobs. The organisations created by Congress to oversee and protect me as an athlete, USA Gymnastics, and the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee, failed to do their jobs, said Biles in her opening statement.

The scars of this horrific abuse continue, Biles testified, adding that the impact of this mans abuse will never be over.

Several Twitter users hailed the sisterhood among the elite athletes during the Senate hearing.

These women showed such bravery and courage today in detailing the traumatic sexual assault they experienced at the hands of Larry Nassar, one user said. Many others said the gymnasts were amazing, praising their courage.

Your courage, eloquence, and fierce grace are inspiring. Bystanders, enablers conspirators must be held accountable. The system must be reformed. Be gentle with yourselves as you do the excruciating work of healing, one user wrote on Twitter.

Another user wrote, Bawling in my car this morning. Aly Raisman, Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney, Maggie Nichols  the courage, grace and strength you have shown, not just this week but always, is an honour to witness.

Maroney told the hearing: Not only did the FBI not report my abuse, but when they eventually documented my report 17 months later, they made entirely false claims about what I said.

Raisman told the panel that the gymnasts have been victim-shamed online over and over again. She added that all they asked for was that when a child goes to gymnastics or goes to school or does anything that they can be spared abuse.
Alex Murdaugh, the prominent South Carolina lawyer whose wife and son were gunned down at their home, has admitted trying to orchestrate his own death to secure a $10 million insurance payout for his surviving son, law enforcement officers say.

The sensational twist is the latest in a series of scarcely believable developments that have gripped the states southern counties where three generations of the Murdaugh family reigned as solicitors for 87 years.

Mr Murdaugh, 53, allegedly paid former client Curtis Edward Smith, 61, to shoot him on September 4, South Carolina Law Enforcement Division announced late on Tuesday.

Mr Murdaugh survived the shooting on a rural road near his property, suffering a superficial wound to his head, and told 911 he had been targeted while changing a flat tire.

Mr Murdaughs attorney Richard Harpootlian told NBC News that the botched suicide attempt was unrelated to the June 7 murders of his wife Maggie, 52, and son Paul, 22, and his client remains in the dark about who carried them out.

Mr Harpootlian said his client had become addicted to opioids after the double murder, and concocted the scheme to help his surviving son Buster.

Alex Murdaugh has admitted hiring a man to kill him in order for his son to collect a $10m insurance payout (Provided)

Maggie and Paul Murdaugh were killed at their farm in Islandton, South Carolina, on June 7 (Handout)

Curtis Edward Smith has admitted shooting Mr Murdaugh in an insurance fraud scheme, authorities say (Colleton County Detention Center)

In a statement, Mr Harpootlian said Mr Murdaugh believed that ending his life was his only option.

Today, he knows thats not true, the statement said.

For the last 20 years, there have been many people feeding his addiction to opioids. During that time, these individuals took advantage of his addiction and his ability to pay substantial funds for illegal drugs, the statement said.

One of those individuals took advantage of his mental illness and agreed to take Alexs life, by shooting him in the head.

Mr Smith, 61, of Walterboro, South Carolina, was arrested and charged with assisted suicide, aggravated assault and battery, and insurance fraud in connection with the shooting on September 4.

Mr Murdaugh has not yet been charged with a crime, but state law enforcement agents said more charges were likely.

According to a sworn statement from an agent, Mr Murdaugh provided the weapon used in the shooting and told Mr Smith to follow him along Old Salkehatchie Rd, in Hampton County, on September 4.

Mr Smith allegedly fired one shot at the lawyer as he stood in the road before driving off and disposing of the gun, authorities said.

After surviving the shooting, Mr Murdaugh said through a family spokesman that he pulled over after his Mercedes SUVs low tire pressure light came on. He said a man passing by in a pickup truck asked if he was having car trouble and then shot at him.

Agents said Mr Smith, 61, confessed Tuesday and was charged with crimes relating to the shooting, as well as distribution of methamphetamine and possession of marijuana.

Mr Murdaugh announced two days after the shooting he was going into rehab for an opioid addiction. He apologised to his family and said he was leaving his law firm.

The murders of my wife and son have caused an incredibly difficult time in my life. I have made a lot of decisions that I truly regret," Mr Murdaugh said at the time.

A few hours later, the PMPED law firm where he had been a partner revealed Mr Murdaugh had taken money from the business and had been fired from the firm. The amount of money has not been announced.

Before his death in June, Paul Murdaugh was charged over the death of a young woman in a boating crash in 2019.

Paul was allegedly boating under the influence, causing the death of 19-year-old woman Mallory Beach.

State Law Enforcement Division later began an investigation into whether anyone had obstructed the investigation.

Investigators also reopened an investigation into the 2015 hit-and-run death of Stephen Smith, believing the case may be tied to the Murdaugh family.

Alex Murdaughs father, grandfather and great-grandfather all held the office of solicitor in the five counties comprising the Lowcountry area of South Carolina, and other family members were prominent civil attorneys in the region.

Alex Murdaughs profile has been removed from the PMPED law firms website, where his father Randolph Murdaugh III worked for decades and grandfather co-founded.

Two other members of the Murdaugh family still work for PMPED.
A Canadian fitness influencer and bodybuilder has been accused of receiving illegal steroids in the mail, according to police in Florida.

Melissa Kate Bumstead, 30, was arrested in Palm City by police officers from The Martin County Sheriffs Office and was indicted on six felony charges of possession of a controlled substance without a prescription.

According to the arrest affidavit, Customs and Border Protection agents in Memphis confiscated a package being sent from Canada to Palm City on 1 September. According to the package documents, the box contained vitamins, massage oil and a T-shirt.

However, when authorities searched the box, they found several vials and packages of steroids and medication, the document stated.

Local law enforcement began collaborating with Homeland Security Investigations, according to the affidavit. Following this, they sought out a tracking warrant and added a device to the package to alert them when it had reached Ms Bumsteads house, the document stated.

According to local police, Ms Bumstead received and opened the package after it was covertly delivered by an agent on 10 September.

Law enforcement said they seized the substances, which ranged from Testosterone Propionate, Drostanolone, Trenbolone Acetate and so on.

In addition to the tracking device, a powder was added to the box and authorities said that Ms Bumstead had powder on her hands, which suggested she had opened the package. After this, Ms Bumstead was arrested and taken into police custody.

According to Insider, she was let out of police custody on 11 September on $30,000 bail. It is not yet known when Ms Bumstead will appear in court.
A mother from Alabama allegedly got into a physical fight with her childs bully on a school bus, local police say.

Nannatt Waldrop, 37, was arrested in Center Point after she got on a a bus and started a fight with an 11-year-old child, who she believed was picking on her own child, according to the Jefferson County Sheriff Office.

Ms Waldrop faces a number of charges in relation to the incident, including third-degree simple assault, trespassing on a school bus and disorderly conduct, a police statement read.

According to Sergeant Joni Money, the altercation allegedly involving Ms Waldrop and an 11-year old happened at roughly 7.18am on 14 September on Martinique Drive.

Ms Waldrop was taken into custody by deputies, was released on a $10,500 bail later the same day, the statement said.

Walter Gonsoulin, the superintendent of Jefferson County Schools, condemned any act of violence happening on his school systems transportation services. Non-school staff adults are not permitted on school buses.

While this is now a law enforcement matter, let me just say what I saw on that video deeply disturbs me, he said in a statement, according to AL.com. At no point is any type of violence acceptable, especially violence against students. We have been and will continue to cooperate fully with law enforcement.

Ms Waldrops court date has not been public by authorities or if she has any legal representation, according to NBC News.
Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer convicted of murdering George Floyd, has pleaded not guilty to using excessive force against another Black person in an unrelated case from 2017. The incident has striking similarities to the killing of Mr Floyd  only this case involves a teenager.

On Thursday, the former officer, who is currently being held in the Minnesota Correctional Facility at Oak Park Heights after being convicted on multiple charges in the Floyd case in April, denied hed gone overboard during the 2017 arrest of the youth.

The incident began when two officers were called to respond to a domestic incident, where a mother claimed her children had hit her, while her children, including the 14-year-old Black boy at the centre of the case, claimed she was drunk and had assaulted them.

According to a police report Mr Chauvin filed after the arrest, the boy, described as 6-foot-2 and 240 pounds, displayed active resistance to efforts to take him into custody" by "flailing his arms around, causing the officer to deliver a few strikes to [the juvenile male] to impact his shoulders and hopefully allow control to be obtained.

During the Floyd trial, state prosecutors attempted to have this 2017 incident brought into the case as evidence of Chauvins past alleged misconduct, but a judge denied their request.

In their filings, the prosecutors said that body camera videos of the 2017 arrest, which havent been released, "show a far more violent and forceful treatment of this child than Chauvin describes in his report. The videos show Chauvins use of unreasonable force towards this child and complete disdain for his well-being."

They said officers began beating the child seconds after they commanded him to stand up and leave his room.

"Two seconds later, Chauvin grabbed the childs throat and hit him again in the head with his flashlight," they wrote in court filings. "The child cried out that they were hurting him, and to stop, and called out mom."George Floyd famously called out for his mother when Chauvin and three other Minneapolis police officers pinned him to the ground by his neck and chest for more than nine minutes as he cried he couldnt breathe.

In another similarity with the Floyd case, the indictment against Chauvin says he pinned the boy to the ground, using his body weight to press his knee on the neck and upper back of Juvenile 1 even after Juvenile 1 was lying prone, handcuffed, and unresisting, according to court documents, which dont name the child involved in the incident.

The Independent has reached out to Mr Chauvins attorney for comment

On Wednesday, Chauvin, as well as his three fellow former officers the day of George Floyds arrest, were arraigned in a separate federal civil rights case, where all four pleaded not guilty to denying Mr Floyds civil rights during the arrest that killed him.

Though it was largely kept out of the first George Floyd murder trial, Chauvin himself had a long record of using force , often against people of colour , which continued through the days just before he arrested George Floyd and resulted in 22 complaints or internal investigations over his 19 years on the force, but only one formal instance of discipline . His conviction is believed to be just the second time an on-duty Minnesota police officer has been convicted of murder in the states history, and the first time for a white officer.

Many in the city celebrated his conviction in April, but argued more needed to be done to reform the policing system in Minneapolis that allowed Chauvin to rise through the ranks for years and train other officers.
France has cancelled an upcoming event highlighting its long naval alliance with the United States, after Joe Biden on Wednesday announced a deal to help Australia deploy nuclear submarines.

The French had previously had their own submarine agreement with the Australians, and bristled at their close ally seeming to go behind their back to develop a new partnership.

French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian slammed the decision as a knife in the back and a unilateral, brutal, unpredictable decision that would be expected from a Trump administration in an interview with Franceinfo radio.

Paris had been planning a series of events honouring the 240th anniversary of the Battle of the Capes, where the French navy helped the US during its war of independence against Great Britain, including functions at their Washington DC embassy and aboard a French frigate docked in Baltimore, Maryland.

Instead, Frances top naval officer, who was set to attend, was sent home to Paris early, the New York Times reported.

On Wednesday, the formation of the new AUKUS alliance was announced, between Britain, the US, and Australia. The pact will involve building a nuclear-powered submarine fleet and wide-ranging projects on cyber warfare, artificial intelligence and quantum computing, in whats seen as a clear attempt to counter Chinas growing influence in the region.

The first programme of the AUKUS alliance will be the construction of a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines for the Australian navy, with American and British companies taking part in the manufacturing process, as The Independent reported yesterday.

The AUKUS deal effectively ends a previous agreement between France and Australia, nicknamed the contract of the century, to build submarines that was signed in 2016 and worth tens of billions of dollars over the course of decades. It also, according to Mr Le Drian, the French foreign minister, undermines attempts to counter Chinas massive Belt and Road infrastructure investment initiative.

We established a relation of confidence with Australia. This confidence is betrayed, he told The Wall Street Journal.

Though world leaders greeted Joe Bidens arrival on the world stage with enthusiasm after four stormy years of Donald Trump, so far he has struggled with a number of international incidents, including the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.
A friend of Gabby Petito, the 22-year-old woman who vanished after taking a cross-country road trip with her fiance, said the couple seemed happy and excited before they left.

Ms Petito's fiance, Brian Laundrie, reportedly returned from the trip without Ms Petito. Her mother, Nichole Schmidt, became suspicious after her daughter failed to check in with her for several days, prompting her to file a missing person report on 11 September.

Mr Laundrie has been named a person of interest. But a friend of the couple said the two exemplified "couple goals" and described them as "always smiling."

Nicole Kalanich, Ms Petito's friend, described the pair to NBC 2.

According to her, they never argued or fought in front of people. Their social media accounts frequently show them laughing, smiling and kissing on their adventures.

That image of the pair stands in contrast to an incident on 12 August in which the couple physically fought, prompting a witness to call the police.

While the couple was visiting Moab City, Utah, an argument over the keys to their van escalated to Ms Petito climbing through the van's window and slapping Mr Laundrie. In police body camera footage, he admits to pushing her away. Ms Petito told officers that she was afraid he was going to abandon her.

Mr Laundrie has refused to speak to police since the missing person report was filed. His lawyer, Steven Bertolino, said he has advised Mr Laundrie to stay silent over fears his cooperation with the investigation will result in him being treated as a suspect.

Police in North Port, Florida  where the couple lived with Mr Laundrie's parents  have named him a person of interest in the case.

Ms Kalanich said when she learned that Ms Petito was missing she could not help but cry.

On Thursday, North Port Police Chief Todd Garrison called on Mr Laundrie to cooperate with police. Ms Petito's father, Joe Petito, also called on the friends and relatives of the Laundrie family to pressure them to help.

During a press conference, Mr Garrison said the case was still being treated as a missing person case, and said no criminality has been alleged on the part of Mr Laundrie at this time.

When asked why Mr Laundrie had not been taken in for questioning, he told reporters that his 5th Amendment rights allow him to refuse to cooperate with the police in order to protect himself from self-incrimination.

Ms Petito's stepfather and a family friend have flown out to Wyoming to search for Ms Petito. Mr Schmidt, Ms Petito's stepfather, was seen in Jackson, Wyoming on Wednesday handing out missing person flyers.
Isabella Ariel Kalua, 6, was last seen when her adoptive family put her to bed on Sunday, in Waimanalo, Oahu. She was reported missing on Monday.

Police and the FBI, plus hundreds of volunteers, have been combing the local area for days in search of the girl but there is no sign of her yet. The search has included ATVs, patrol vehicles, dogs, drones and people on foot.

We cannot thank them enough for their support, said biological aunt Jamie Kumai of the hundreds of people who have helped in the search. If you see something, if you know something, say something, she pleaded.

Investigators have not yet deemed the case suspicious, due to a lack of evidence. We are hoping she isnt in immediate danger, said interim Honolulu Police Police Chief Rade Vanic, on 15 September. He asked local residents to check their home video footage and their properties for anywhere a young child might go to or be able to hide.

Police have dismissed a video being shared on social media, which shows a small person walking in the dark Kailua on Monday, stating that it is not related to the missing persons case.

Isabella Ariel Kalua was last seen in her Puha Street home at 9pm on Sunday, she is described as caucasian and mixed race, with brown hair and brown eyes. She is 3ft 3 inches tall, and 46 pounds. Police believe she would have been wearing a black hoodie, black leggings, colourful socks, and Nike sliders with a pink sole.

Its obvious that she comes from a caring family and community, and we are hopeful that we will find her soon and find her safe, said Chief Vanic. The Independent has contacted Honolulu Police for updates on the case.

This is the second high-profile missing female in recent weeks. Police in Florida are also searching for 22-year-old New Yorker Gabby Petito, who was travelling across the US in a van with her partner Brian Laundrie and was last seen checking out of a Salt Lake City hotel.

Mr Laundrie returned home to Florida without Ms Petito, and has so far not helped with investigations into her whereabouts. As of now, Brian Laundrie has not made himself available to be interviewed by investigators or has provided any helpful details, said North Port Police in Florida.

We know Brian returned here to North Port on 1 September  10 days before her family reported her missing on 11 September.
A drug cartel safehouse where the Mexican crime lord known as El Chapo once escaped down a secret tunnel has been raffled off to a mystery winner.

Joaquin Guzman, then leader of the powerful Sinaloa Cartel, is said to have slipped away via a ladder hidden under his bathtub while Mexican marines battered down his steel-reinforced door in 2014.

But the lucky holder of raffle ticket number 1,438,619 will need to do some significant remodelling if they want to repeat that trick, after the Mexican government covered the tunnel with a concrete slab and new tiles.

The former safehouse, having previously failed to sell at auction with a starting bid of $130,000, was one of 20 impounded properties up for grabs in Mexicos independence day lottery on Wednesday. The proceeds will go to athletes who participated in the Tokyo Olympics.

Ernesto Prieto, director general of Mexicos Institute to Return Stolen Goods to the People (Indep), said the raffles purpose was to turn onerous properties with heavy maintenance costs into a tangible benefit for society.

Photos released on Tuesday show that this was no luxurious gangsters paradise. It is a far cry from the $3.8-million Mexico City mansion also given away, let alone drug lord Pablo Escobars palatial Naples Estate in Colombia, with its now-wild hippopotamuses.

Instead, Guzmans old bolthole is an unassuming 2,800 sq ft home in the quiet neighbourhood of Culiacan, the Sinaloa Cartels hometown, which had stood empty for years after the marines damaged it in February 2014.

It is a bare-walled bungalow with low ceilings and bars on the windows, across the road from a school and surrounded by a tall metal fence. Indep has torn out the security cameras that used to watch its every corner and given it a fresh coat of white paint.

After his previous prison break Guzman was re-caputured in 2014 (Getty)

Officials told the Associated Press that they were surprised it had got any attention, and neighbours said they hadnt known who owned it. Indeps website simply listed it as Casa en Culiacan.

It does, however, have one important amenity: a storm drain right next door that allowed Guzman to build his tunnel under the bathtub, linking it to six other homes.

The 64-year-old gangster, whose nickname means Shorty in Spanish, was famed for his use of underground tunnels, not only to evade arrest but also to move drugs underneath the US border, earning him the sobriquet lord of the tunnels.

Six days after the raid in 2014, he was arrested in the city of Mazatlan. Yet the following year he escaped from a maximum security prison via another tunnel, carefully dug from inside a cinderblock house on a recently-bought scrap of land into a specific shower stall.

Guzman is now serving a life sentence in the US for drug trafficking, murder, kidnapping and various other crimes.
On the eve of municipal elections, the Minnesota Supreme Court may strike down Minneapolis plan to have residents vote on replacing its police force with a new, holistic public safety agency.

Its yet another blow to the long-running campaign to reform the citys policing after the murder of George Floyd by former Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin, and one of the nations most high-profile efforts to abolish or defund the police.

The Minneapolis city council asked the court for an appeal, after a county judge rejected the language of a proposed ballot measure which, if approved, would strike the requirement for a Minneapolis police force from the city constitution.

On Tuesday, Hennepin County Judge Jaime Anderson held that the ballot language was an insufficiently identified and misleading question on the ballot, the third time she has rejected the proposed measure.

Activists and police reform campaigners, who have spent months gathering the 20,000 signatures to put the question before Minneapolis voters, were outraged by the decision.

"For them, that group of people, to snatch away something that 22,000 people fought for, that 100,000 more said they are ready for, that is heinous! That is completely undemocratic!" Rev Janae Bates, one of the leaders of the Yes 4 Minneapolis coalition pushing the measure, said after the decision. "The reality is Judge Anderson took something that shouldve been legal and procedural and made it political."

The county has already printed 350,000 ballots with the language that has been invalidated, and absentee voting in city elections begins on Friday.

The individuals challenging the language in the ballot measure include real estate developer Bruce Dachis; Don Samuels, a former city council member; and his wife Sondra, head of the Northside Achievement Zone non-profit, for which Minneapolis mayor Jacob Freys wife is a lobbyist .

"I am a Black mother! Thats why I wanted the ballot to speak fairly about what it was doing," Sondra Samuels told reporters on Wednesday, arguing she still wants police reform, which is possible under the current police governing structure and Minneapolis police chief Medaria Arradondo. "Because we believe that we want reform, but it has to be in participation with Police Chief Arradondo. And with the police who are not all Chauvin."

The contested ballot language contained an explanatory note, detailing how under the proposed charter amendment, the city constitution of Minneapolis would no longer be required to have a police department with a minimum funding level. Instead, the department would be replace with a public safety agency, with the the city council exercising greater control over its policies and leadership.

"This amendment would create a Department of Public Safety combining public safety functions through a comprehensive public health approach to be determined by the Mayor and Council, it read. The Department would be led by a Commissioner nominated by the Mayor and appointed by the Council. The Police Department, and its chief, would be removed from the City Charter. The Public Safety Department could include police officers, but the minimum funding requirement would be eliminated."

After the lower court ruling, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, who has made police reform a major priority but has a contentious relationship with the council and justice activists, said he still  adamantly opposed  to the charter amendment but still wanted voters to be able to have their say on it.

The decision to imperil the ballot question came in for condemnation from national leaders as well. US Congresswoman Illhan Omar, who represents parts of Minneapolis, slammed the decision at a town hall meeting on Tuesday.

"We have people pouring in so much money to make us enslaved to a charter that the majority of us [oppose]," she said . "This is the opposite of what democracy should produce. The people had a vision for what they wanted, and theres a judge, theres a mayor, there is a police chief, and their monied friends who are telling us we cant have a city that is flexible to our needs and to our demands. How else are we supposed to make progress if we cant do that?"

Not long after George Floyd was murdered, touching off a nationwide civil rights uprising, activists began pushing to entirely replace the Minneapolis Police Department with a more holistic, less violent police agency.

At a rally last June, the city council created national shockwaves, vowing to end its toxic relationship with the MPD.

"Our commitment is to end our citys toxic relationship with the Minneapolis Police Department, to end policing as we know it, and to re-create systems of public safety that actually keep us safe," Minneapolis City Council President Lisa Bender said at the time .
A tentative contract agreement reached between snack company Mondelez and striking union workers could end a walkout that began last month.

The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union and Mondelez issued separate statements Wednesday announcing a tentative deal, but neither would discuss the terms, The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.

The tentative agreement has been fully recommended by both parties, Mondelez spokesperson Laurie M. Guzzinati said.

Local officers on the committee will present the tentative agreement to workers in coming days and they will then vote on the agreement, Anthony Shelton, the unions international president, said in a statement. It was uncertain when a vote will take place.

Mondelez, one of the worlds largest snack companies, and the union have been negotiating a new four-year contract since the old one expired at the end of May. The contract covers union employees at six Mondelez sites.

More than 1,000 hourly employees at a Virginia plant, bakeries in Portland Oregon and in Chicago and three distribution centers across the country have been on strike since last month. The workers are seeking increased pay, improved benefits and better working conditions.

Liz Shuler, the new president of the AFL-CIO union federation, met last week with about two dozen workers from the plant in Henrico, Virginia.

Theyre taking tremendous courage to walk out and walk these picket lines because they know if they dont take a stand, then wages and conditions continue to erode and that has an effect on everyone in this country, Shuler said. We are fed up with the way you have been treated.

About 400 workers at the plant that makes foods like Oreo cookies, Ritz crackers and Chips Ahoy! cookies started striking Aug. 16. The plant had been owned by Nabisco and later by Kraft Foods Inc. It now is part of Mondelez, which was created when Kraft Foods split into two companies in 2012.
Television host Joy Reid launched into a humorous and damming speech on her Wednesday ReidOut show, about how Republicans love Covid, and stating they are in a creepy little Covid-loving death cult.

OK, we get it! Covid is the precious and you love it, said Ms Reid. You love Covid so much you want it to spread into schools, at the office, in the Walmart, on the cruise ships and in the club. That great spongy ball with the red spikes, you want it pumping through your veins with an Ivermectin chaser. Why do you love it do dadgum so much? We have absolutely no b****y idea.

She continued by calling Republicans weirdos and saying everyone else hates Covid. It is ravaging classrooms and hospitals across the nation, like in southern Illinois where there are zero ICU beds available.

The host went on to list Covid-related atrocities in the US and accounted people who had died of the disease.

Even the Pope hates Covid too, continued Ms Reid, and he loves everybody. He also says get vaccinated.

In Californias recent recall vote, in which Governor Newsom prevailed in a historic referendum on his coronavirus leadership, exit polls showed the majority of the electorate regarded Covid policy their number one priority. Around 65 per cent said the governors response to the crisis was about right or not strict enough.

Governor Newsom defeated Trumpist Republican challenger Larry Elder, who towed the GOPs libertarian line on coronavirus, by resisting mask and vaccine mandates for Californias state workers and debating the value of vaccines for younger generations.

I dont believe the science suggests that young people should be vaccinated. I dont believe the science suggests that young people should have to wear masks at school, Mr Elder told CNN in August.

After playing a clip of Mr Elders interview Ms Reid continued. Its tangible proof that your creepy little Covid-loving death cult ways are not going to work for you at the ballot box next year. In fact, its political suicide and apparently talk radio suicide, because your brilliant little plan is killing your hosts.

Dr Anthony Fauci critic Dick Farrel, who claimed the vaccine was bogus bull is one of the conservative radio hosts who has passed away after contracting coronavirus. Anti-masker Marc Bernier, plus conservative presenters Phil Valentine and Dick Farrel, have also died as a result of Covid.
The union representing hundreds of striking Nabisco workers has reached a tentative agreement with the snack giants parent company as work stoppages in several states, nationwide boycotts and protests entered a second month.

Workers behind Oreo and Chips Ahoy! cookies and Ritz crackers initiated a strike in August after failing to reach a deal on a new contract with Mondelez International, the brands parent company.

The strike spread to Nabisco facilities in five states, as workers reached a breaking point amid factory closures, concerns over outsourcing to Mexico, and changes to pay, schedules and healthcare coverage that workers and unions say have undermined their labour, all during the coronavirus pandemic that has seen a snack boom with record profits.

Workers called for a product boycott, drawing widespread public attention, including from actor Danny DeVito, who called his Twitter followers to support workers striking for humane working hours, fair pay, outsourcing jobs.

NO CONTRACTS NO SNACKS, he wrote.

US Senator Bernie Sanders also announced his support for striking workers.

If Nabisco can rake in billions of dollars in corporate profits, they can afford to treat their workers with dignity and respect, he said on 18 August.

Mondelez briefly threatened legal action against the union, which was hit with a cease-and-desist notice for interrupting the companys operations.

The union reached a tentative agreement on a new contract on 14 September, according to Anthony Shelton, president of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union.

Local union chapters will vote on the contract after it is presented to members in the coming days, he said.

I want to thank and commend all of the members of the bargaining committee for their many, many hours of extremely hard work to reach this tentative agreement, Mr Shelton said in a statement. As always in our Union, the members will have the final say on the contract.

This year, Mondelez closed Nabisco facilities in Georgia and New Jersey, where the companys decades-old bakeries employed roughly 1,000 workers combined.

Those shutdowns triggered concerns among workers that the company could eliminate their union jobs and move production to Mexico, after closures at a Chicago plant and a shift to production in Mexico in 2016 made headlines during that years presidential race.

The 2021 strike kicked off in Portland, Oregon, where more than 200 workers at a Nabisco bakery ignited a strike that spread to Illinois, Virginia, and distribution centres in Colorado and Georgia.

Workers have objected to company proposals to roll back healthcare coverage and work shifts that include 12-hour days without overtime pay.

In an offer released publicly on 31 August, Mondelez modified a work schedule proposal and offered a bonus of $5,000 per employee, annual wage increases, and a boost to the companys matching contributions to workers 401k plans.

It also offered alternative work schedules of 12-hour shifts which would alternative three to four days a week only on select, high-demand lines in bakeries.

That offer expired on 7 September, and the company and union resumed in-person bargaining this week.

Mondelez said the latest agreement for new contracts has been fully recommended by both parties.

Union employees at the Portland, Richmond and Chicago bakeries and at distribution facilities in Aurora, Colorado, Addison, Illinois and Norcross, Georgia will have the opportunity to vote on ratifying the new contracts in the coming days, the company said in a statement.
Nicki Minajs claim that her cousins friend was rendered impotent and suffered swollen testicles after receiving a Covid-19 vaccine was dismissed as false by Trinidad and Tobagos health minister.

Government officials wasted their time running down this false claim, said Terrence Deyalsingh at a press conference on Wednesday, expressing his frustration over Minajs claims.

One of the reasons we could not respond yesterday in real time to Ms Minaj was because we had to check and make sure what she was claiming was either true or false, Mr Deyalsingh told reporters.

On Monday, the Trinidad-born star caused an uproar on social media that reverberated across the political spectrum and her own fanbase, known as the Barbz, when she shared the reason why she did not attend the 2021 Met Gala.

The event required its guests to be vaccinated, something Minaj expressed her apprehensions against, as she said she wanted to do enough research on her own.

Minaj claimed in a tweet that her cousin in Trinidad wont get the vaccine cuz his friend got it & became impotent. His testicles became swollen.

Unfortunately we wasted so much time yesterday running down this false claim. It is  as far as we know, at this point in time  there has been no such reported either, side effect or adverse event (sic), Mr Deyalsingh said, adding that the countrys ministry took such allegations seriously, whether it is on social media or mainstream media.

Minajs tweet has been roundly criticised, not just because it was perceived by many to fuel vaccine hesitancy, but also because of the unverified and speculative nature of the comments that were spread to her large global fanbase, according to many commentators.

Her comments come at a time of widespread global vaccine hesitancy and when the Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago has been struggling to fight the phenomenon amid protests by a section of its people.

Last week, dozens of people protested against Covid vaccines at Queens Park Savannah, Trinidad, forcing police to take action, reported news website West Indies and Caribbean News.

At least two people were detained following the protests.

The island nation, which is inhabited by a little over a million people, has fully vaccinated 441,000.

The country has reported just over 47,000 total Covid cases since the beginning of the pandemic and has almost 3,900 positive active cases as of 16 September, according to official data.

Minaj, who has since defended herself over the criticism levelled against her, is yet to respond to the remarks made by Mr Deyalsingh.

The rappers comments have also elicited responses from the White House and the British government.

UK prime minister Boris Johnson said he was not familiar with Minajs work, but was acquainted with Nikki Kanani, the medical director of primary care at NHS England  as she favours vaccinations, unlike the Grammy-nominated rapper.

In the same conference, Mr Johnsons chief medical officer Chris Whitty said Minaj should be ashamed for peddling untruths.

Responding to the criticism, Minaj posted an audio message mocking the British prime minister using a fake British accent.

Anthony Fauci, one of the USs top infectious diseases expert, also weighed in, saying she should be thinking twice about propagating information based on a one-off anecdote and not science.
The Covid death of a fully vaccinated 66-year-old Illinois woman was caused by those who chose not to get inoculated, her family has said in an obituary.

Candace Cay Ayers, who was from Springfield, Illinois, was the mother of two and the grandmother of three children. She had been fully vaccinated with the Moderna vaccine in March, but died on 3 September after contracting a breakthrough infection.

She was preceded in death by more than 4,531,799 others infected with Covid-19, said the obituary, referring to the worldwide Covid death toll.

Sending a strong message to those who remain unvaccinated, the family levelled blame for Ayerss death on vaccine hesitancy.

Candace Ayers (Dignity Memorial)

She was vaccinated but was infected by others who chose not to be. The cost was her life, it added.

Ayerss family said she caught Covid in July when she went to visit an unvaccinated friend, whose husband had died from Covid.

She was hospitalised as her condition deteriorated and moved to the intensive care unit, where she spent her final days on a ventilator before dying from the infection.

Mom was a fighter and mom was so angry at people for not getting vaccinated and not wearing a mask, her son, Marc Ayers, 36, told USA Today.

In a Facebook post almost a month before his mothers death, Mr Ayers said their family believes in science and urged people to get vaccinated and follow mask mandates.

If youre able to get vaccinated and/or wear a mask but refuse to, just know that your selfish actions are threating (sic) the lives of others, he said.

We were responsible, we wore masks indoors, and were so happy to have received a full vaccine so we could exit this pandemic and move on with our lives. Unfortunately some of you bought into the political nature of this crisis and threatened the lives of my family, he added.

He said both his parents got Covid during the trip. While his fully-vaccinated father recovered, his mothers condition deteriorated as she had pre-existing rheumatoid arthritis, making her immunocompromised.

Breakthrough infections occur when a person catches Covid at least 14 days after the second dose of vaccination, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

There is evidence that vaccinations make illness less severe for those who are vaccinated and still get sick, while others might not have any symptoms. The risk of infection, hospitalisation and death has been found to be much lower in vaccinated people compared to those unvaccinated.

A recent CDC study, conducted amid the spread of the Delta variant in the US and published earlier this month, found that around 46,312 cases, or 8 per cent of the total Covid cases between 4 April and 17 July in 13 jurisdictions were breakthrough infections.

I would just wish (unvaccinated people) would read the story of my mom, what we as a family went through and see if thats something they want to put their loved ones through, because I can probably assure you that its not, Mr Ayers said.
Old news footage of Americans grumbling about seatbelt mandates in the 1980s has found new resonance in the age of Covid.

Theres no freedom no more, one Florida driver declares in a decades-old TV clip. If you dont want to wear it, thats your choice!

In another scene, a Highway Patrol officer lists all the excuses he gets from seatbelt refusers.

I hear its uncomfortable, it wrinkles my clothes, its not cool, he says.

Such arguments sound eerily familiar in 2021, as many Americans refuse to wear masks or get vaccinated to stop the spread of Covid-19. Then as now, those opposed to the safety measures see them as violating their personal freedom.

That clash has intensified in recent weeks, as President Joe Biden has unveiled new vaccine mandates affecting tens of millions of American workers. Republican politicians, including many governors, have vowed to resist the orders.

It was in that context that MSNBC host Chris Hayes recently aired an old NBC Nightly News segment from 1984, in which locals in a Michigan town grouse about a new seatbelt ordinance.

I wouldnt wear my seatbelt, one local says. If I get caught, I get caught, I guess.

Ill have to detour the town to get to Kalamazoo, if they passed a seatbelt ordinance, another says. I dont use a seatbelt.

Hayes quickly drew the obvious comparison.

Doesnt all that sound familiar? he asked. I feel like Ive heard that same interview, but about masks and vaccines, maybe even in the state of Michigan  How dare you tell me what to do?

On Twitter, where someone reposted the footage , viewers made the same point.

This rings so true about the vaccine, one wrote. Seatbelts save lives and vaccines do too. Why would anyone be against something that saves lives?

Others disagreed, and found themselves using the exact same arguments as the seatbelt refusers.

It should be peoples choice, one person wrote. If they want to be unvaccinated and die thats their choice, if they dont want to wear a seatbelt thats their choice. [It] isnt the governments business.
Most Americans dont believe their personal information is secure online and aren't satisfied with the federal government's efforts to protect it, according to a poll.

The poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and MeriTalk shows that 64% of Americans say their social media activity is not very or not at all secure. About as many have the same security doubts about online information revealing their physical location. Half of Americans believe their private text conversations lack security.

And they're not just concerned. They want something done about it. Nearly three-quarters of Americans say they support establishing national standards for how companies can collect, process and share personal data.

What is surprising to me is that there is a great deal of support for more government action to protect data privacy, said Jennifer Benz, deputy director of the AP-NORC Center. And it's bipartisan support."

But after years of stalled efforts toward stricter data privacy laws that could hold big companies accountable for all the personal data they collect and share, the poll also indicates that Americans dont have much trust in the government to fix it.

A majority, 56%, puts more faith in the private sector than the federal government to handle security and privacy improvements, despite years of highly publicized privacy scandals and hacks of U.S. corporations from Target to Equifax that exposed the personal information of millions of people around the world.

Indeed, companies such as Apple have made a big push to pitch themselves as attuned to consumer privacy preferences and committed to protect them.

I feel there is little to no security whatsoever," said Sarah Blick, a professor of medieval art history at Kenyon College in Ohio. The college's human resources department told Blick earlier this year that someone fraudulently applied for unemployment insurance benefits in her name.

Such fraud has spiked since the pandemic as perpetrators buy stolen personal identifying information on the dark web and use it to flood state unemployment systems with bogus claims.

I believe my information was stolen when one of the credit bureaus was hacked, but it also could have been when Target was hacked or any other of the several successful hacks into major corporations," Blick said.

About 71% of Americans believe that individuals data privacy should be treated as a national security issue, with a similar level of support among Democrats and Republicans But only 23% are very or somewhat satisfied in the federal governments current efforts to protect Americans privacy and secure their personal data online.

This is not a partisan issue, said Colorado state Rep. Terri Carver, a Republican who co-sponsored a consumer data privacy bill signed into law by Democratic Gov. Jared Polis in July. It takes effect in 2023.

The legislation, which met opposition from Facebook and other companies, follows similar measures enacted in California and Virginia that give people the right to access and delete personal information. Colorado's also enables people to opt out of having their data tracked, profiled and sold.

That was certainly one of the pieces where we got the strongest pushback but we felt it was so important, Carver said. Theres great frustration that individuals have that they dont have the tools and the legal support to establish any kind of effective control over their personal data.

Carver said it took several years to get the law passed, and advocates had to abandon some priorities, such as the idea of enabling people to opt in if they want to allow processing of their personal data  instead of making them opt out. She hopes the efforts by Colorado and other states push Congress to set nationwide protections.

We need a strong federal data privacy bill," she said. "It would just make sense, given interstate commerce.

The poll also found broad agreement in how Americans look at technology: 81% of Democrats and 78% of Republicans say they view technology as playing a major role in the country's ability to compete globally. Seventy-nine percent of Democrats and 56% of Republicans see value in the government's technology investments.

At least 6 in 10 adults support the federal government taking measures such as spending more on technology, expanding access to broadband internet and strengthening copyright protections to improve U.S. competitiveness.

There are some generational variations in support for government policies to safeguard data privacy and security, though majorities across age groups are in favor. While 85% of adults age 40 and older are in favor of stronger punishments for cyber criminals, 70% of younger adults say the same.

The underlying current is that this is an area where people do see a direct role in government," Benz said. This is something pretty tangible for people."

____

The AP-NORC poll of 1,004 adults was conducted June 24-28 using a sample drawn from NORCs probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.3 percentage points.
A federal judge has directed President Joe Bidens administration to stop using a public health rule that has blocked thousands of migrant families from entering the US during the coronavirus pandemic.

US District Judge Emmet Sullivan has barred the federal government from expelling migrants under Title 42, a provision under the Public Health Service Act and initially invoked during Donald Trumps presidency but kept in place under the Biden administration.

The order takes effect in 14 days.

Title 42 provisions were challenged by a group of civil rights and immigration advocacy groups including the ACLU, Texas Civil Rights Project, RAICES, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies and Oxfam.

Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLUs Immigrants Rights Project, said in a statement that Mr Biden should have ended this cruel and lawless policy long ago, and the court was correct to reject it today.

Judge Sullivans 58-page ruling issued on 16 September finds that Title 42 does not authorize the expulsion of people seeking asylum, who are denied the opportunity to seek humanitarian benefits provided in US law as well as international accords.

Federal law enforcement expelled 16,200 families under Title 42 in August alone, according to government reports.

US law provides that anyone entering the country is eligible to apply for asylum, a form of humanitarian protection for those fleeing violence and persecution from their home countries.

But the former presidents invocation of Title 42 effectively suspended asylum laws, leading to the immediate expulsions of thousands of asylum seekers since the onset of the public health crisis.

Within the first six months of Mr Bidens presidency, US border enforcement agencies recorded more than 400,000 expulsions under Title 42, according to data from US Customs and Border Protection.

Within that time, human rights groups and immigration advocates recorded more than 3,000 attacks against asylum-seekers expelled from the US at its southern border with Mexico.

By the end of August, that figure surged to more than 6,000 incidents of kidnappings, rape, human trafficking and violent armed assaults, based on interviews and surveys with asylum seekers and information from humanitarian relief groups and immigration attorneys.

Kennji Kizuka, associate director for research on refugee protection at Human Rights First, said in a statement last month that the administration isexpelling asylum-seeking families and adults to the very same dangers that asylum seekers were forced to endure under the Trump administrations illegal expulsion and Remain in Mexico.

Seven months into this administration, President Biden cannot continue to ignore the exploding human rights travesty his expulsion policy is causing, he said.

The ruling marks the latest legal shift to the administrations immigration agenda, following a US Supreme Court ruling that ordered the reinstatement of the so-called Remain in Mexico policy that denied people from staying in the US while their asylum cases were pending, forcing thousands of vulnerable migrants into dangerous encampments on the other side of the US-Mexico border.
The county government in Broward, Florida has come under fire after posting a dancing taco gif on its Twitter and Facebook accounts to mark the first day of National Hispanic Heritage Month.

The gif of the dancing taco topped with what appears to be sour or whipped cream and holding a pair of maracas was removed after four hours and replaced with a new post noting that the heritage month lasts from 15 September to 15 October, but without the image of the taco.

A dancing taco is not representative of the Hispanic community and should not have been associated with the annual celebration. It was not our intention to offend anyone with our previous post, but rather acknowledge National Hispanic Heritage Month in a celebratory way, the assistant director for Broward Countys Office of Public Communications, Gregory Meyer, told The Maimi New Times in an email.

We are proud of the Countys Hispanic community and everything theyve accomplished. The employee has been counselled regarding sensitivity to all cultures.

Out of the almost two million people who live in Broward County, around 31 per cent are Hispanic, according to the US Census Bureau.

Figures from 2017 show that within the Hispanic community in the county, seven per cent are of Mexican descent, with 36 per cent having South American ancestry  the county doesnt show specific countries for this group. Cubans make up 19 per cent of the group, 17 per cent have Puerto Rican heritage.

Twitter users were quick to mock the insensitive misstep after a screenshot of the Facebook post was shared on the platform on Wednesday.

The most offensive thing about this is that its a hard shell taco, Jose Alonso Munoz tweeted.

Besides the obvious racist cringe factor here, I have questions about the contents of this illustrated taco, Miami Herald reporter Ben Conarck wrote.

Evelyn Perez-Verdia, an adviser on Latino issues for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Nikki Fried, told The Miami New Times: Theres so much to highlight and to see a taco with maracas being what they think of is really shocking.

The Communications Director for the Florida Immigrant Coalition, Adriana Rivera, told the paper: My reaction was, WTF. Are you serious, Broward County? I was trying to figure out if this was real or photoshopped. Why would anyone publish this?

Broward has a lot of Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Central Americans, and Colombians, and for those groups, a taco is just as foreign as any other food from another country. Plus, this isnt Mexican Heritage month, she added.

Ms Rivera compared the posts to former President Donald Trumps Cinco de Mayo post in 2016, in which he eats a taco bowl.

Happy #CincoDeMayo! The best taco bowls are made in Trump Tower Grill. I love Hispanics! he wrote at the time, prompting many to note that Cinco de Mayo is a celebration of Mexican independence and not Hispanic heritage, and that taco bowls arent Mexican.

It is so sad that its funny. It is really so completely disconnected that I honestly would be glad to give them the first advice, Ms Perez-Verdia told The Miami New Times.
U.S. Rep. Cindy Axne of Iowa was slow to get behind a $1 trillion infrastructure bill after the Senate passed it last month. It wasn't the price tag that tripped up the Democrat from a swing House district. It was that none of the money was targeted for a home state industry  ethanol and biodiesel.

Axne set out to fix that. In the weeks since, she won assurances from congressional leaders that a separate multitrillion-dollar budget blueprint would include money for the renewable fuels. She's now on board.

Her biofuels bargain underscores the political strategy embedded in the negotiations over massive new federal spending.

While Democrats have set out to pass ambitious bills with historic expansions of the social safety net and long-sought new programs, that's not how many politically vulnerable Democrats such as Axne are selling them at home. For them, Washington's spending boom has become a chance to deliver the goods  and win headlines and perhaps bipartisan support in their districts.

If she wants to get elected next time, this is her political bread and butter, Ray Gaesser, a Republican farmer in Axnes district and past candidate for Iowa secretary of agriculture, said about her work to secure money for biofuels. For my part, I appreciate her approach."

Rep. Angie Craig of Minnesota has taken a similar tack.

Craig, whose district includes vast tracts of farmland southeast of the Twin Cities, is promoting her role securing $2.5 billion for farmers and rural small businesses to convert to renewable energy sources and high efficiency equipment as a financial incentive to meet higher environmental standards.

She tweeted on Friday that she was thrilled that this long-time priority of mine would be supporting family farmers and driving investment across rural America.

In Virginia, Rep. Abigail Spanberger said she is chiefly focused on a measure to exempt her districts small-scale farmers and foresters from an increase in the estate tax which President Joe Biden has proposed to help pay for the $3.5 trillion bill.

Though Spanbergers constituents are concentrated in suburban Richmond, the district stretches north and south across the rolling, agricultural Piedmont and its many dairy, vegetable and cattle farms and private forestland.

Ive been very focused on making sure were protecting small family farmers and foresters, certainly across central Virginia, Spanberger told The Associated Press.

The lawmakers' efforts are aimed at assisting rural America, where Democrats have steadily lost votes over the past decade. The party is clear-eyed about needing to at least trim its losses in those areas, if they are to hold the congressional seats  and control of the House in 2022.

Democrats currently have a mere eight-seat majority. Republicans are targeting roughly 30 House seats where Democrats won by fewer than 10 percentage points. Axne, Spanberger and Craig each won by no more than 2 percentage points.

Theres been a very deliberate effort to think about those provisions in ways that would be beneficial to rural communities, said Democratic pollster Geoff Garin who is advising the party on the budget package.

Republicans argue that the size of the spending bill will turn off rural voters in key districts, not attract support.

Rural voters are incredibly concerned about the reckless spending and massive tax hikes that will be included in Democrats reconciliation bill," said Mike Berg, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee. "If Democrats think these voters concerns will be mollified by a few kickbacks from the federal government, they are sorely mistaken.

The trillion-dollar infrastructure bill  a plan for roads, bridges, public transit and broadband internet  passed the Democratic-controlled Senate with bipartisan support last month. The House is expected the pass the bill, but its success is tied to progress on the $3.5 trillion budget bill that includes extended child tax credits, expanded Medicare coverage, tuition-free community college, and other social and environmental programs.

Pelosi has set the ambitious goal of passing it by Oct. 1.

Axne announced on Wednesday that the draft of the House budget bill would include $1 billion to expand retail availability of ethanol and biodiesel around the country. Iowa leads the nation producing ethanol, a corn-based fuel additive, and biodiesel, commonly made from soybeans. The amount is double what Axne sought in a bill she had introduced in the House Agriculture Committee this year.

The grants are expected to increase demand for the fuels nationally, spur output in Iowa's 42 ethanol plants and biodiesel refineries, as well as boost the price of corn and soybeans for the farmers who supply them, according to Iowa renewable fuels advocates.

It impacts the price of soybeans by more than a dollar a bushel. Thats a lot of money," said Monte Shaw, executive director of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association and a past Republican candidate for Congress. For ethanol youre looking at an extra $400 to $500 million for farmers in Iowa, because the price of corn is higher."

On top of that, for the fraction of the cost of the overall bill, the measure would immediately accelerate cutting carbon emissions, a priority of Biden's plan, Axne said.

There's no way that were going to have everybody driving electric vehicles overnight," Axne said in a recent AP interview. So why the heck are we not, if our goal is to impact climate in a positive way, blending more biofuels now so we can automatically lower greenhouse gases?"

It's also a relatively small price for a House seat critical to Democrats' chances at holding the majority.

Axne holds the distinction of winning by the smallest margin  1.4 percentage points  of any Democrat in a district carried by Republican Donald Trump last year.

Last year, the former state government administrator and small business owner from suburban Des Moines won Polk County, home to Des Moines and most of its suburbs, but lost the district's other 15 counties.

Like Spanbergers advocacy for rural Virginians, Axnes emphasis on an economic priority in the GOP-leaning geographic majority of her district could trim her losses in rural Iowa next year.

There will be other factors, of course. Biden's overall approval rating, now down after criticism for the chaotic recent U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and surging COVID-19 cases, is likely to play a major role. And any number of factors will emerge before an election still almost 17 months away.

Still, Axne's first-step success is a good sign for her, said Shaw, the Republican renewable fuels advocate.

I hate to ever say one thing makes or breaks somebody. But there are times when you have a chance to make a difference and thats where the rubber meets the road," he said. Ultimately, we need folks who can deliver."
First, some blamed the deadly Jan. 6 attack at the U.S. Capitol on left-wing antifa antagonists, a theory quickly debunked. Then came comparisons of the rioters to peaceful protesters or even tourists.

Now, allies of former President Donald Trump are calling those charged in the Capitol riot political prisoners," a stunning effort to revise the narrative of that deadly day.

The brazen rhetoric ahead of a rally planned for Saturday at the Capitol is the latest attempt to explain away the horrific assault and obscure what played out for all the world to see: rioters loyal to the then-president storming the building, battling police and trying to stop Congress from certifying the election of Democrat Joe Biden.

Some people are calling it Jan. 6 trutherism  theyre rewriting the narrative to make it seem like Jan. 6 was no big deal, and it was a damn big deal, and an attack on our democracy, said Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, who studies extremist movements.

All told, the attempted whitewashing of the Jan. 6 attack threatens to further divide an already polarized nation that finds itself drifting from what had been common facts and a shared commitment to civic order toward an unsettling new normal.

Rather than a nation healing eight months after the deadly assault, it is at risk of tearing itself further apart, as the next election approaches.

The anticipated crowd size and the intensity of the Saturday rally are unclear, but law enforcement appears to be taking no chances. Security fencing has been requested around the Capitol and reinforcements are being summoned to back up the Capitol Police, whose leadership was criticized and summarily dismissed for its handling of Jan. 6.

While authorities have been bracing for a repeat appearance by right-wing extremist groups and other Trump loyalists who mobbed the Capitol, its unclear if those actors will participate in the new event. The extremist groups are concerning because, while members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers made up a small portion of the Jan. 6 rioters, they are accused of some of the more serious crimes in the attack.

Rally organizer Matt Braynard, a former Trump campaign strategist, has been promoting the event and others like it in cities nationwide, focusing attention on what he calls the prisoners being unfairly prosecuted for their involvement in the Jan. 6 riot.

I am so proud of all of the brave patriots who participated in these rallies under the same threat to their rights of so many who are being held in prison now for a non-violent expression of their First Amendment rights, he said in a July news release.

Braynard declined to respond to additional questions by email, and The Associated Press declined to accept the conditions he made for an interview.

As Trump openly considers another run for the White House, many of the Republican lawmakers who joined his effort to challenge Bidens victory are staying away from the Saturday rally, even though many still echo his false claims that the election was rigged  despite numerous court cases by Trumps allies that have failed to confirm those allegations.

Rep. Mo Brooks R-Ala., who joined rally-goers near the White House on Jan. 6 where Trump encouraged the crowd to go to the Capitol, declined to comment, his spokesman said by email. Brooks is now running for the Senate.

Another Republican, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who voted to challenge some Electoral College tallies, was unavailable for an interview, his office said.

Also declining an interview was Sen. Josh Hawley R-Mo., who was captured in a photo raising a fist in salute to the mob as he entered the Capitol that day.

Yet, even in their absence, some of the Republicans are telegraphing their views. When asked whether he would be attending, Hawleys office issued a comment on the senators behalf.

Joe Biden should resign, Hawley said in a statement.

More than 600 people are facing federal charges in the riot that injured dozens of officers and sent lawmakers into hiding. Five people eventually died, including Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt, who was shot and killed by police as she tried to break into a lobby off the House chamber. Several police officers later took their own lives.

Hundreds of people were charged with misdemeanors for entering the Capitol illegally, but hundreds of others are facing more serious felony charges including assault, obstruction of an official proceeding or conspiracy.

The most serious cases have been brought against members of two far-right extremist groups  the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers  as authorities probe to what extent the attack was planned. No Jan. 6 defendant has been charged with sedition, though it was initially considered by authorities.

More than 60 people have pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanor charges of demonstrating in the Capitol.

Only a fraction of the defendants remain locked up while they await trial. Lawyers have complained of overly harsh conditions for the Jan. 6 defendants in the D.C. jail, saying they are being held in what has been dubbed the Patriot Unit.

Defenders of the alleged Capitol attackers claim they are facing harsher prosecutions because of their political views than others, including Black Lives Matter protesters, but a review of court cases by the AP refutes that claim.

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a member of the select panel investigating the Jan. 6 attack, said those who broke the law need to be prosecuted, otherwise, we just rationalize, excuse and encourage more of the same.

Schiff laments that the nation had a chance to move on from the attack of Jan. 6, but instead chose a different path.

There was really an opportunity to repudiate everything that led up to Jan. 6, and instead, Republican leadership has continued to embrace it, he said. So that is discouraging. It means that the recovery is going to take much longer than it should.

The Capitols leafy grounds, a park-like favorite spot for people to snap photos in front of the iconic dome, would typically see few lawmakers or staff on a Saturday. While the Senate returns to session Monday, the House doesn't resume until after the Monday following the rally.

When the fence first went up around the Capitol after the January attack, it drew heavy criticism from those worried about the message being sent as a symbol of democracy was closed off. Now, it's increasingly seen as necessary precaution.

___

Associated Press writers Alanna Durkin in Boston and Michael Balsamo, Eric Tucker and Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington contributed to this report.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaros reluctance to get a COVID-19 vaccine is a rarity in his country  and may complicate his plans to attend the U.N.s General Assembly next week.

The assemblys leader, Abdulla Shahid, announced Wednesday that all attendees must be vaccinated to speak at the gathering, citing a New York City policy. That could bar Bolsonaro, a beleaguered right-wing leader seeking to rehabilitate his image abroad.

Bolsonaro plans to travel to New York for the assembly, his press office told The Associated Press, but the president's representatives did not respond to questions about his vaccination status. The president told supporters as recently as Tuesday that he remains unvaccinated.

It was not immediately clear how the rule would be enforced. Spokespersons for Shahid and for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Thursday that discussions were ongoing, and Guterres spokesperson Stephane Dujarric suggested there could ultimately be "a solution acceptable to all.

Whether Bolsonaro will eventually get vaccinated  or already has, quietly  remains a matter of speculation in Brazil, where COVID-19 has killed more than 585,000 people. Thats the worlds second-highest death toll, and the eighth highest on a per-capita basis. Most Brazilians are eager to get their shots. The country's vaccination program even has a beloved mascot, Joe Droplet.

When vaccines were about to roll out at the end of last year, the president was intransigent, repeatedly saying he wouldnt receive a shot nor force anyone else to do so.

Im not going to take the vaccine, period, he said in a television interview in December. You think my life is at risk? Thats my problem. Period.

Invoking personal freedom jibed with his staunch opposition to restrictions aimed at limiting the virus spread. He said no one should be kept from coming and going as they please. He touted the supposed healing powers of the anti-malarial chloroquine long after scientists around the world had dismissed it as ineffective. He has routinely presented himself as willing to stand up against experts.

In his debut General Assembly appearance in 2019, Bolsonaro struck a defiant tone, railing against socialism and what he described as media sensationalism regarding fires in the Amazon rainforest. The next year, in a recorded video, he said Brazil was the victim of an environmental smear and stressed the economic harm caused by pandemic stay-at-home recommendations.

This year, more than 100 heads of state and 23 cabinet ministers plan to deliver speeches at the U.N. in person. Other leaders are speaking by video  the only option available last year.

Per tradition, the Brazilian leader speaks first and is followed by the U.S. president. That provides an opportunity to at least swap pleasantries backstage. Bolsonaros administration has been working to demonstrate to Joe Biden its heightened commitment to stemming Amazon deforestation, and he may herald recent preliminary results pointing in the right direction.

Although a Brazilian foreign minister has spoken at the General Assembly in lieu of the president dozens of times, that isn't in Bolsonaros interest, given global scorn for his environmental track record, his authoritarian impulses and his alleged mismanagement of the pandemic, said Mauricio Santoro, a professor of political science and international relations.

Bolsonaro's international image is so bad that addressing the assembly "could be an opportunity for him to try to deliver a better message about himself to the world, said Santoro, who teaches at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. Its important for him to go there.

Bolsonaro spent months sowing doubt about vaccines, especially the one produced by Chinese firm Sinovac He also warned that there would be no legal recourse against Pfizer for anyone suffering side effects. Women might grow beards and mens voices turn high-pitched, he joked. People could even transform into alligators.

The presidents skepticism initially resonated among his base and in some of Brazils less-educated communities, but ultimately it did little to dampen Brazilians desire for vaccines. Recent polls show about 9 of 10 people have either been vaccinated for plan to do so. Some have mocked Bolsonaros far-fetched claims by rolling up their sleeves while dressed in alligator costumes.

The government changed tack and began promoting vaccines, and the effort paid off. A greater share of Brazil's population has now received first shots than in the U.S.

Many are doubtful that Bolsonaro is unvaccinated, including Santoro.

Perhaps he received a vaccine, but doesnt want to tell his supporters, because he spoke against vaccines for so many months, Santoro said.

___ Associated Press writers Diane Jeantet in Rio de Janeiro and Jennifer Peltz at the United Nations contributed to this report.

___ Follow David Biller on Twitter at https://www.twitter.com/DLBiller
Former President Donald Trumps decision to honour the tradition of outgoing presidents leaving notes for their incoming successors came only at the urging of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, according to a forthcoming book by Washington Post writers Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.

In Peril, Mr Woodwards third book on the Trump presidency, he and Mr Costa describe how Mr Trump honoured Mr McCarthys request that he leave a note for Mr Biden in the iconic 19th Century desk made from timbers of HMS Resolute. However, Mr Trump repeatedly rebuffed the California Republicans pleas for him to call the President-elect Biden before the 20 January inauguration, according to the book.

According to a copy of the book obtained by The Independent, Mr McCarthy pushed the then-President to write the traditional letter for weeks leading up to the end of Mr Trumps term, but the outgoing chief executive put the task off until roughly 7pm on his last night in the White House.

When the two men spoke at 10pm that evening, there were exactly 14 hours left in Mr Trumps presidency. The House minority leader urged the soon-to-be ex-president to burnish his legacy by placing a conciliatory call to Mr Biden.

When Mr Trump dismissed the idea out of hand, Mr McCarthy reportedly told him it would be important for the country for the incoming and outgoing presidents to speak to make the transition real.

At the time, Mr Trump had hardly acknowledged that he had lost the 2020 election, and had for weeks after the election prevented administration officials from cooperating with Mr Bidens transition team  long after it was clear that the election was over.

But Mr McCarthy pressed the president once more to call Mr Biden.

Do it for me, he implored him. Youve got to call him. Call Joe Biden.

Mr Trump replied: No.

Mr McCarthy would ask two more times, and twice more would the twice-impeached chief executive refuse to do so.

The next day, Mr Trump departed the White House by helicopter, becoming the first president in over a century  not counting those who resigned or died in office  to not attend the inauguration of his successor.

Mr Biden was sworn in at the Capitol shortly after. According to a source close to him who spoke with The Independent, he has still not spoken with Mr Trump.
Senator Lindsey Graham reportedly told former President Donald Trump that the defeated, one-term chief executives volatile nature had f*****up his time in office, a forthcoming book by the Washington Posts Bob Woodward and Robert Costa reveals.

In Peril, Mr Woodward and Mr Costa report that Mr Graham admonished Mr Trump during one of the myriad phone calls between the South Carolina Republican and the ex-president this past summer.

Your problem is too much drama, too much volatility, Mr Graham said while advising Mr Trump that he could fix [his] problems more easily than President Biden could correct his own flaws, according to the book. He also reportedly criticised his close ally for perpetuating lies about the 2020 election, which Mr Trump lost.

You keep saying the election was rigged and you were cheated  you lost a close election, the senator continued.

After he told Mr Trump: You f***** your presidency up, the twice-impeached former president reportedly hung up the phone.

Mr Trump, who became the first sitting president in more than two decades to lose his re-election bid last November, has continuously lied about the existence of fraud in the multiple swing states that he lost. He began making false allegations of fraud months before the election took place and stuck to those lies after it became clear that he had lost.

His repetition of them incited his followers to riot at the Capitol in hopes of disrupting Congress certification of Mr Bidens victory on 6 January, according to court documents in many of the hundreds of criminal cases brought against Trump supporters who breached the Capitol that day. To this day, Mr Trump continues to claim that his loss was due to fraud and falsely allege that Mr Biden was not legitimately elected.

Although Peril describes Mr Graham as having accepted the legitimacy of Mr Trumps loss, he was an active proponent of the idea that Mr Bidens victory may have been in part reversible.

According to multiple news outlets, the South Carolina Republican is the subject of an investigation by Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis, who is looking into a post-election phone call between Mr Graham and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
Roger Stone, an ally of former president Donald Trump, was served legal papers during a live radio interview for his alleged role in the 6 January Capitol riots.

Mr Stone was speaking on the Real Talk 93.3 radio show in St Louis, Missouri on Wednesday when he was interrupted while answering a question on why it was imperative that Mr Trump run for the next presidential election.

Hold on a second, I have a process server at my front door about to serve me in the latest lawsuit, he could be heard saying. Mr Stone added that he was served a lawsuit filed at the civil court in the District of Columbia.

Alright, I have just been served in the 6 January lawsuit. Live, right here on your radio show, he said. This is a big, big stack of papers, which is good, because were out of toilet paper today.

Former federal prosecutor Ron Filipkowski, who had originally shared a clip from the radio show, also tweeted an unverified statement from Mr Stone. I was served with this baseless, groundless, unsubstantiated harassment lawsuit filed against [former] President Trump and me this morning.

The purported statement posted by Filipkowski also urged Mr Stones supporters to fight these left-wing vultures by donating to his legal defence fund, set up to crowdfund a series of litigations brought against him for his alleged role in the Capitol riots.

The development is yet to be referred to on Stones blog Stone Cold Truth, where Mr Stone regularly releases statements after being banned from most major social media platforms. The last entry on his blog is from 14 September, where he took a swing at Senator Cory Booker documenting his stunning personal corruption.

More recently, at least seven US Capitol police officers filed a federal lawsuit against Mr Stone, Mr Trump and far-right violent extremist groups, accusing them of conspiring to stop the Congress from confirming Joe Bidens victory through the use of force, intimidation, and threats.

Releasing a statement on the litigation, Mr Stone at the time said this lawsuit, filed by nasty leftist lawyers with political, not legal motives, is an effective form of political harassment because it requires those targeted to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend themselves in court.

I never instructed anyone to hurt people at the Capitol, let alone a police officer, on 6 January or at any other time, nor did I conspire to deprive anyone of their civil rights. The lawsuit is therefore without merit and lacks the factual basis to include me, he said.
Lawyers representing a British woman found guilty of lying about being gang-raped in Cyprus have said they hope the conviction could be overturned within a month ahead of an appeal at the countrys Supreme Court.

The woman, aged 19 at the time of her arrest, was given a suspended four-month jail term last year by a judge who found her guilty of public mischief following a trial.

In a case closely followed by rights groups, she told authorities that she had been gang-raped by up to 12 Israeli tourists in her hotel room at the holiday resort of Ayia Napa in July 2020. However, she was charged after signing a retraction statement 10 days later.

At the time, the Foreign Office said it was seriously concerned that she was coerced into signing the confession, after which the Israeli suspects were released.

She was imprisoned for nearly two months in a prison in the Mediterranean islands capital of Nicosia, but was released on bail at the end of August 2020.

Now a 21-year-old university student, the woman has maintained she was pressured by officers to withdraw the rape allegation and has vowed to clear her name.

An appeal will be heard at the Supreme Court in Nicosia on Thursday afternoon, with her team of English and Cypriot lawyers set to argue that the conviction is unsafe and should be set aside. The woman is not expected to attend the hearing.

Barrister Michael Polak, from the Justice Abroad group, said: Decisions in the Supreme Court tend to come within six months but we hope for it to come sooner.

The best-case scenario is they listen to all our arguments, come back soon, within a month or so, and overturn the conviction. It is very important for the young lady in terms of future prospects, jobs and associations.

Mr Polak said that if the appeal is rejected, he will take the case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). With the precedent for us, we are confident in European human rights law, he added.

The womans lawyers will also argue trial Judge Michalis Papathanasiou failed to consider all the elements of the offence of public mischief before finding her guilty. They will also claim that he ignored defence expert evidence and failed to consider police failures in investigating the rape allegations.

Her English barrister, Lewis Power QC, said she was bearing up really well ahead of the appeal. She is getting on with her life at university, he said.

She is very anxious about the result but she is fairly upbeat and determined that this wont ruin her life. We spoke to her yesterday and her mother. They are back in the UK watching from afar.

Mr Power added: This is the biggest case here in the last decade beyond a shadow of a doubt and the world is watching. It is so important for young women across the world. This case is a beacon.

The 12 Israeli young men and boys, aged between 15 and 20 at the time, arrested over the incident denied any wrongdoing, were freed and returned home.

The Independent has contacted The Law Office of Cyprus for comment.
France says it has killed the leader of Isis in the Sahara in what it called a decisive blow against the terror group.

President Emmanuel Macron tweeted that Abu al-Walid al-Sahrawi had "was neutralized by French forces" but gave no further details.

Rumors of the militant leaders death had circulated for weeks in Mali, though there had been no confirmation by authorities in the region.

"This is a decisive blow against this terrorist group," French Defense Minister Florence Parly tweeted. "Our fight continues."

It was not announced where al-Sahrawi was killed, though the Isis affiliate has been blamed for dozens of attacks along the border between Mali and Niger.

Al-Sahrawi had claimed responsibility for a 2017 attack in Niger that killed four U.S. military personnel and four people with Nigers military.

He has long been active with Islamic extremists in Mali, at one time serving as the spokesman of the Mali-based group known as MUJAO that controlled the major northern town of Gao during the jihadist occupation in 2012.

France has been fighting Islamic extremists in the Sahel region where it was once the colonial power after intervening in northern Mali in 2013. It recently announced, though, that it would be drawing down its military presence in the region, with plans to withdraw 2,000 troops by early next year.

AP contributed to this report
France has hit out at Australias decision to abandon a 43bn deal for French submarines in favour of a new security pact.

The French government reacted angrily to news Australia, the UK and the US have entered an alliance that will involve building a nuclear-powered submarine fleet and wide-ranging projects on cyber warfare, artificial intelligence and quantum computing.

Jean-Yves Le Drian, Frances foreign affairs minister, claimed the move was a stab in the back from Australia, telling Franceinfo: We had established a trusting relationship with Australia, and this trust was betrayed.

The EUs high representative, Josep Borrell said the bloc had not been consulted on the security pact, even as Brussels unveiled its own Indo-Pacific strategy.

He said the decision by the Australian government to abandon the submarine deal with France meant that it was important for the EU to build its own approach to the region.

We must survive on our own, as others do, Borrell said as he presented the strategy, talking of the importance of strategic autonomy I understand the extent to which the French government must be disappointed.

However, British prime minister Boris Johnson insisted the UKs relationship with France was rock solid when asked in parliament on Thursday.

The so-called Aukus deal has also angered China, which accused the trio of severely damaging regional peace and stability, intensifying an arms race, and damaging international nuclear non-proliferation efforts.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said countries should not build partnerships that target third countries and that China would closely watch the situations development.

The move has been widely interpreted as an attempt to check Chinas growing military assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific.

However, the prime minister insisted Britains new defence pact was not intended as an adversarial move against China.

He told the House of Commons: It merely reflects the close relationship that we have with the United States and with Australia, the shared values that we have and the sheer level of trust between us that enables us to go to this extraordinary extent of sharing nuclear technology in the way that we are proposing to do.

It is true that that this is a huge increase in the levels of trust between the UK, the US and Australia.

It is a fantastic defence technology partnership that we are building  but it is not actually revolutionary.

Downing Street declined to comment on the collapsed Australian contract for conventional subs, saying this was a matter between Paris and Canberra.

The prime ministers official spokesperson added: We continue to have a very close relationship with France, we have long standing security and defence relationships with France.

We have members of the armed forces working side by side right now and that will continue to be the case.

UK news in pictures Show all 49 1 /49 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 18 September 2021 Children take part in the Settrington Cup Pedal Car Race as motoring enthusiasts attend the Goodwood Revival, a three-day historic car racing festival in Goodwood, Chichester, Reuters UK news in pictures 17 September 2021 Hugo, 7, from London rides past a 4x7 metre rainbow arch, made entirely of recycled aluminium cans, which has been installed by recycling initiative 'Every Can Counts', in partnership with The City of London Corporation in front of St Paul's Cathedral in London, to encourage members of the public to recycle their drinks cans ahead of recycling week, which starts on 20 September PA UK news in pictures 16 September 2021 Sheikeh MOhammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, leader of Abu Dhabi, leaves Downing Street after meeting with Boris Johnson PA UK news in pictures 15 September 2021 Children pose by ice sculptures depicting people collecting water by charity Water Aid to show the fragility of water and the threat posed by climate change in London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 14 September 2021 Heavy rain covers the A149 near Kings Lynn in Norfolk PA UK news in pictures 13 September 2021 Luke Jerram's 'Museum of the Moon' at Durham Cathedral PA UK news in pictures 12 September 2021 Inspirational young fundraiser Tobias Weller crosses the finish line, near his home in Sheffield, as he completes his latest epic feat where he swam and triked his way to the end of his awesome year-long Ironman Challenge. This is the third challenge Tobias, who has cerebral palsy and autism, has completed, raising more than 150,000 for his school and Sheffield Children Hospitals charity PA UK news in pictures 11 September 2021 British player Emma Raducanu, holds up the US Open championship trophy winning the women's singles final of the US Open in New York AP UK news in pictures 10 September 2021 People paddle board during a misty morning in Ullswater, the second largest lake in the Lake District, Cumbria PA UK news in pictures 9 September 2021 Troops from Wiltshire based 4 Armoured Close Support Battalion Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers during final inspection at Wellington Barracks in London, ahead of providing troops for the Queens Guard PA UK news in pictures 8 September 2021 Workers cross London Bridge during the morning rush hour in London Reuters UK news in pictures Mixing it up: Painting it up press view in London A gallery employee poses for photographers next to a painting entitled Prairie by British artist, Louise Giovanelli during the exhibition 'Mixing it up: Painting it up' at the Hayward Gallery in London EPA UK news in pictures 6 September 2021 Traders in the Ring at the London Metal Exchange, in the City of London, after open-outcry trading returned for the first time since March 2020, when the Ring was temporarily closed due to the pandemic PA UK news in pictures 5 September 2021 People enjoy the warm weather on Sandbanks beach, Poole PA UK news in pictures 4 September 2021 Demonstrators from Animal Rebellion and Nature Rebellion protest in Trafalgar Square in London. 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PA UK news in pictures 1 September 2021 Goldfinches fighting over food in a garden in Strensham, Worcestershire PA UK news in pictures 31 August 2021 Gold Medallist Sarah Storey of Britain celebrates on the podium Reuters UK news in pictures 30 August 2021 Extinction Rebellion protesters hold a a tea party on Tower Bridge in London EPA UK news in pictures 29 August 2021 A police office tussles with a demonstrator on Cromwell Road outside the Natural History Museum during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion in London PA UK news in pictures 28 August 2021 Members of the British armed forces 16 Air Assault Brigade walk to the air terminal after disembarking a Royal Airforce Voyager aircraft at Brize Norton, Oxfordshire POOL/AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 27 August 2021 Fabio Quartararo crashes during a MotoGP practice session at the British Grand Prix, Silverstone Circuit Action Images via Reuters UK news in pictures 26 August 2021 An Extinction Rebellion activist holds a placard in a fountain surrounded by police officers, during a protest next to Buckingham Palace in London Reuters UK news in pictures 25 August 2021 Gold Medallist Great Britains cyclist, Sarah Storey, celebrates after winning the Womens C5 3000m Individual Pursuit Final at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. It was her 15th Paralympic gold Reuters UK news in pictures 24 August 2021 A demonstrator dressed as bee during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion on Whitehall, in central London PA UK news in pictures 23 August 2021 Former interpreters for the British forces in Afghanistan demonstrate outside the Home Office in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 22 August 2021 Police officers form a line in front of the entrance to the Guildhall, London, where protesters have climbed onto a ledge above the entrance during an Extinction Rebellion stage a protest PA UK news in pictures 21 August 2021 People take part in a demonstration in solidarity with people of Afghanistan, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 20 August 2021 People zip wire across the sea from Bournemouth pier towards the beach. PA UK news in pictures 19 August 2021 Supporters of Geronimo the alpaca gather outside Shepherds Close Farm in Wooton Under Edge, Gloucestershire PA UK news in pictures 18 August 2021 Former Afghan interpreters and veterans hold a demonstration outside Downing Street, calling for support and protection for Afghan interpreters and their families PA UK news in pictures 17 August 2021 Military personnel board the RAF Airbus A400M at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, where evacuation flights from Afghanistan have been landing Reuters UK news in pictures 16 August 2021 Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer takes part in a minute's silence at Wolverhampton police station for the victims of the Plymouth mass shooting last week PA UK news in pictures 15 August 2021 2Storm, a ten-metre tall puppet of a mythical goddess of the sea created by Edinburgh-based visual theatre company Vision Mechanics, makes its way alongside the seafront at North Berwick, East Lothian, during a performance at the Fringe By The Sea festival PA UK news in pictures 14 August 2021 A woman and two young girls look at floral tributes in Plymouth where six people, including the offender, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident PA UK news in pictures 13 August 2021 Forensic officers in the Keyham area of Plymouth where six people, including the shooter, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident on Thursday evening PA UK news in pictures 12 August 2021 Children ride horses in the River Eden in Appleby, Cumbria, during the annual gathering of travellers for the Appleby Horse Fair PA UK news in pictures 11 August 2021 Stella Moris (left) reacts after talking to the media outside the High Court in London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal, n London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal. The US government has won the latest round in its High Court bid to appeal against the decision not to extradite Julian Assange on espionage charges PA UK news in pictures 10 August 2021 Students react after they receive their A-Level results at the Ark Academy, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 9 August 2021 The final athletes from Great Britain arrive home including Jason Kenny, Laura Kenny and Katie Archibald (front left-right) at Heathrow Airport, London following the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games PA UK news in pictures 8 August 2021 Great Britain's Laura Kenny during the closing ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at the Olympic stadium in Japan PA UK news in pictures 7 August 2021 People from the Glasgow Southside community take part in the Govanhill Carnival, an anti-racist celebration of pride, unity and the contributions immigrants have made to the community in Govanhill, at Queen's Park, Glasgow PA UK news in pictures 6 August 2021 Chijindu Ujah of Britain, Zharnel Hughes of Britain, Richard Kilty of Britain and Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake of Britain celebrate winning silver as they pose with Asha Philip of Britain, Imani Lansiquot of Britain, Dina Asher-Smith of Britain and Daryll Neita of Britain after they won bronze in the women's 4 x 100m relay during Olympic Games Day 14 Getty UK news in pictures 5 August 2021 A protester places flowers on a photograph of an executed man during a demonstration organised by supporters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) to protest against the inauguration of Iran's new president Ebrahim Raisi in central London AFP via Getty UK news in pictures 4 August 2021 England's Joe Root looks on as India's KL Rahul doesn't make it to a catch during day one of Cinch First Test match at Trent Bridge, Nottingham PA UK news in pictures 3 August 2021 Great Britain's Laura Kenny and Jason Kenny with their silver medals for the Women's Team Pursuit and Mens Team Sprint during the Track Cycling at the Izu Velodrome on the eleventh day of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan PA UK news in pictures 2 August 2021 Great Britains Charlotte Worthington competes during the Womens BMX Freestyle Final at the Tokyo Olympics PA UK news in pictures 1 August 2021 EPA

The spokesperson said defence secretary Ben Wallace had been in contact with his French counterpart, but there were no plans for a phone call between Boris Johnson and French president Emmanuel Macron.

He confirmed the Aukus deal was discussed by Mr Johnson with US president Joe Biden and Australian prime minister Scott Morrison in a three-way meeting at the G7 summit in Cornwall in June, but played down suggestions this was the decisive moment in the agreement, which he said had been an undertaking of several months.

Mr Johnsons spokesperson suggested the UKs ability to seal the deal could be regarded as a benefit from Brexit.

We are able to move in this in this way now that were not part of the European Union, and that is to the benefit of the British people, he said.

The UKs commitment to Nato remained unchanged by the Aukus deal, he said.

And he rejected suggestions it might undermine the Five Eyes intelligence relationship by creating an inner circle of three members while excluding Canada and New Zealand.

The EUs strategy will focus on trade, greater digital cooperation with Japan, South Korea and Singapore, support for climate change initiatives and a greater diplomatic presence to uphold the United Nations Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). It also plans to collaborate with Japan, India and Australia on transport links, in particular in the aviation and maritime industry, to link the bloc more closely to Asia.

This comes after the EU on Wednesday launched a new plan to rival Chinas Belt and Road infrastructure strategy, which it calls Global Gateway

An 18-month process will now take place to consider technical and practical aspects of the AUKUS plan, and work out precise details of where work will be undertaken and jobs created, said the spokesperson.

But he said there would be extensive work in the UK, creating hundreds and hundreds of jobs and generating tens of billions of investment over the lifetime of the project.

Additional reporting by agencies
Nine people died in a single day after drowning in choppy Mediterranean seas in the south of France, say authorities.

The victims were all swept out to sea whilst swimming in waters which had been stirred up by a combination of storms and high winds.

The incidents occurred at five beaches in Herault, two beaches in the Bouches-du-Rhone area, in the south west of France and at two beaches in the Aude region.

A total of five individuals, in their 60s and 70s died at Herault, while two men aged 58 and 71 drowned in Bouches-du-Rhone. A further two men between 65 and 80 drowned at Leucate, in the Aude.

Heraults emergency services attempted to rescue 12 people who were drowning off beaches at Agde, La Grande-Motte, Marseillan, Serignan and Vias. Seven of these people were rescued but five died.

People were urged to avoid swimming due to the rough waters, with Heraults fire and rescue service tweeting: Choppy seas are making water activities dangerous, in a bid to discourage swimmers from entering the sea. In a later tweet, they also called on people to avoid swimming on Thursday.

A further two swimmers were dragged out to sea and drowned off beaches at Cassis and La Ciotat in the Bouches-du-Rhone, reported local media.

Meanwhile, an 80-year-old man was dragged out to sea by the swell at Leucate beach and a 64 year old man drowned at Franqui beach, according to France Bleu.

Local newspaperMidi Libre called the day a black day, writing: Wednesday 15 September will remain a black day for the Herault coast.

By late Wednesday afternoon, police officers in Herault evacuated any beaches without lifeguards present.

Local fire chief Aurelien Manenc told broadcaster TF1that people did not understand the dangers of underwater currents.

He explained: The water is warm, you think you are going to have fun, and quickly you are pulled towards the open sea and towards the bottom, and you get exhausted trying to come back - this is what causes drowning or the beginning of drowning.

An orange weather alert is currently active in the region, warning of storms and flooding.
Four people, including a 16-year-old boy, have been detained in Germany in connection with a suspected plan for an Islamist extremist attack on a synagogue, authorities have said.

Police cordoned off a synagogue in the city of Hagen on Wednesday and a worship service planned for the evening was called off after officials received reports about a potential attack.

It came on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur and two years after a deadly attack on a synagogue in another German city.

Herbert Reul, interior minister for North Rhine-Westphalia state, where Hagen is located, said officials had received very serious and concrete information that there could be an attack on the location during Yom Kippur.

He said that the tip pointed to an Islamist-motivated threat situation, and named the possible timing and suspect.

However, Mr Ruel added that police officers using sniffer dogs found no dangerous objects in or around the synagogue.

The 16-year-old, a Syrian national who lives in Hagen, was detained on Thursday morning, while three other people were detained in a raid on an apartment, according to the minister.

Although he gave no further details and took no questions from reporters on the matter, Mr Reul also said that searches were ongoing in the city.

The German newspaper Der Spiegel has reported that the tip came from a foreign intelligence service, but did not identify its sources for this information.

It said that the teenager told someone in an online chat that he was planning an attack with explosives on a synagogue, prompting a probe which led investigators to the 16-year-old, who lived with his father in Hagen.

It is intolerable that Jews are again exposed to such a horrible threat and that they cannot celebrate the start of their highest holiday, Yom Kippur, together, German justice minister Christine Lambrecht said in response to the suspected plot.

In 2019, two people were killed when a right-wing extremist attacked a synagogue in the eastern German city of Halle on Yom Kippur, in what was considered to be one of the worst antisemitic assaults in the countrys post-war history.

The attacker, a 27-year-old neo-Nazi, unsuccessfully attempted to force his way into the synagogue with 52 worshippers inside before shooting dead a 40-year-old woman in the street outside and a 20-year-old man at a nearby kebab shop.

The gunman, who shared antisemitic posts online before carrying out the attack, was sentenced to life in prison last year after he was convicted of two counts of murder and multiple counts of attempted murder.

Additional reporting by AP
Liverpool ground past AC Milan Manchester United slipped to a damaging defeat in Switzerland, City hit Leipzig for six and Chelsea flexed new muscle.

Here, the PA news agency looks at the big lessons from the weeks Champions League action.

Henderson proves his point

Jordan Henderson put his hand to his ear and wheeled away in celebrating his first Champions League goal in seven years, to seal Liverpools slender 3-2 win over AC Milan. The stalwart Reds midfielders gesture could be interpreted in a number of ways but no doubt underscores his desire to stay at the centre of all things Anfield. His recent four-year contract extension shows Liverpools confidence in their former Sunderland star. But the 31-year-old slipped out of Englands starting XI in the summers Euros and will be itching to force his way back into Gareth Southgates side. Boosting his goals tally will be one way to stay on the England radar, while also extending his efficacy with Jurgen Klopps men.

City fire ominous warning

Manchester City wasted no time in venting any lingering frustrations over losing last seasons final to Chelsea. Pep Guardiolas men hit RB Leipzig for six, with Jack Grealish firing a fine first goal in the competition. City were at their fluent best, albeit against modest opposition for the scale of the tournament. But the only top Premier League side searching a summer striker who failed to bring one in continue to rack up the goals. Citys 6-3 triumph proved facile enough, but the match ball still belonged to Leipzig striker Christopher Nkunku who conjured a hat-trick in among the most trying of circumstances.

Romelu Lukaku has already justified his transfer fee

Lukaku has wasted no time in making his mark (John Walton/PA) (PA Wire)

It might have cost a cool 98million for Chelsea to bring Lukaku back for a second Stamford Bridge stint, but the 28-year-old has quickly proven his goalscoring prowess. The former Anderlecht youngster claimed his fourth goal in as many matches for the Blues since leaving Inter Milan, with a powerful header to settle a tetchy west London clash with Zenit St Petersburg. The Blues started their Champions League defence with a slender 1-0 win over the stubborn Russians, with Lukaku burying the only genuine chance of the night.

History threatens to repeat itself for United

Last term a shock defeat to Istanbul Basaksehir thwarted Uniteds Champions League aspirations. This time around a trip to Swiss outfit Young Boys first up ought to have offered a comfortable easing back into the tournament. Instead United slipped to a damaging defeat, where not even Cristiano Ronaldo could save the day. The evergreen Portugal stars opener should have had United in control, but Aaron Wan-Bissakas red card halted the momentum and Jesse Lingards errant back-pass gifted the hosts the 2-1 win at the death. Immediate, unwanted proof that Ronaldos homecoming alone will not be enough to catapult United to a period of dominance.

Bayern coast through an alarming culture clash at Barca

Barcelonas great heritage stands on the brink of ruin amid another chastening defeat, this time a 3-0 home drubbing by Bayern Munich. The Lionel Messi years are over and his departure to Paris St Germain only serves to underscore the genuine trials at the falling Catalan giants. Boss Ronald Koeman said Barcelonas squad could not compare to that of Bayern. Financial mismanagement remains at the heart of Barcas problems. The men from Munich could teach the overreaching Spaniards a thing or two about prudence, but the lesson would be too little, too late.
A toddler was removed from a flight for not wearing his mask properly despite suffering an asthma attack.

Amanda Pendarvis, the mother of two-year-old Waylon, was on American Airlines Flight 1284 from Dallas to Colorado on 13 September, when she said that a truly evil, power-tripping member of the flight crew asked the pilot to turn around the plane to remove the mother and son from the aircraft.

He got on the intercom and to say to the entire plane, Im sorry for the delay but we are dealing with a non-compliant traveller Ms Pendarvis said.

Thank you for your bravery, she wrote sarcastically on her Instagram story, adding that the member of the flight crew really took a stance and got this monster off the plane, referring to her son.

I was not refusing a mask, nor did I even say I wouldnt try to keep a mask on my son. We were escorted off the plane as I was holding a mask over his little face. I genuinely dont have words, the mother said.

This was the first time that Waylon, who has asthma, was wearing a mask. American Airlines does offer exemptions to the mask mandate, but passengers have to obtain an exemption in advance, and Waylons family had not done so, Live and Lets Fly reported.

On September 13, American Airlines flight 1284 returned to the gate prior to departure from Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) to deplane a party refusing to comply with crew member instructions to remain seated while on an active taxiway and to wear face coverings securely over their nose and mouth, American Airlines told The Independent in a statement. After agreeing to adhere to policies instituted for the safety of our customers and crew, all individuals were rebooked for travel on the next flight to Colorado Springs (COS).

The mother described the episode as the most humiliating/traumatising experience.

(Instagram / manasaywhaa)

Ms Pendarvis said the intervening flight attendant had the plane turned around and had us escorted off to be met by police officers. Why? Wait for it  because my two-year-old was not properly wearing a mask.

Mind you, Way is asthmatic. We had [shown] [the flight attendant] a negative Covid test Way had yesterday. Told him he has asthma and has never worn a mask before. He did not care that this asthmatic child was literally hyperventilating, she added.

The mask mandate under the Biden administration requires that all passengers on public transport over the age of two wear a mask unless they are currently eating, drinking, or have a medical reason not to wear a face covering.

The president and co-founder of the consumer advocacy group Travelers Unite, Charles Leocha, told Business Insider: Airlines that insist on having 2- and 3-year-old children wear masks at all times will always face problems. Treating a 2-year-old like a 30-year-old is foolish and unnatural.

Mr Leocha added that parents should help younger children practice wearing masks so kids are comfortable wearing them during flight.

But he also said airlines should allow common sense to prevail.

Other families have reported similar experiences with being kicked off flights because their young children didnt keep their masks on.

In April, all of the passengers on a flight from Orlando to Atlantic City had to get off the plane before being allowed back on board after a family of four were told that they were in non-compliance with the mask policy because their two-year-old didnt wear a mask.

We just got kicked off a flight because our two-year-old would not put on a mask, mother Eliz Orban said in December 2020 after her family were asked to leave a plane flying from Colorado to New Jersey.

Speaking to Fox News, she said the experience was humiliating and traumatising.

The Independent has reached out to Ms Pendarvis for comment.
The introduction of mandatory PCR Covid tests for travel has been a bone of contention for both travellers and the travel sector.

The government reduced the cost of mandatory Covid testing for travel in August following widespread criticism and complaints from consumers, the travel industry and even the UK Competition and Markets Authority, that tests were exceptionally costly.

Many trips, even to amber and green list countries, still require multiple tests to be taken at present - even by fully vaccinated travellers.

Follow travel update LIVE: Latest updates from todays announcement

In a statement, Health Secretary Sajid Javid said the government would urgently review the list of government approved test providers to ensure pricing is clear and transparent.

He said: Too many providers are acting like cowboys and that needs to stop. The public should be allowed to enjoy their summer holidays without having to face excessive costs or anxiety.

But with the governments latest travel rules update expected imminently, will the requirement for travel tests be reduced, or even scrapped?

Heres everything we know so far.

Will travel tests be scrapped this month?

Mr Javid hinted on Tuesday that PCR testing for double vaccinated travellers may be scrapped.

Tory MP Huw Merriman, who chairs the Transport Select Committee, asked the health secretary if he would entertain the idea of moving to lateral flow tests, which are cheaper, and then only the small proportion of positive cases will then need to take up a PCR test.

Mr Javid replied: I don't want to pre-empt the statement by the transport secretary but I believe that when he makes that statement, he will be pleased.

He added: It is important that we have a system of surveillance, especially around variants across the world.

There are different ways to do that. We have chosen a particular path at the moment, but it is important to have that surveillance.

As I have alluded to earlier, we are planning to make some changes around the travel regime and the Transport Secretary will come to the House as soon as he is ready.

Transport secretary Grant Shapps is expected to make an announcement on major changes to international travel on Friday 17 September.

What has the travel industry said?

Abta, the leading organisation for travel agents and tour operators in the UK, has called on the government to abandon Covid testing for most holidaymakers.

In a statement released on Tuesday, the travel organisation said that fully vaccinated travellers should not be subject to testing on their return from lower-risk countries.

It also called for a significant overhaul of the traffic light system for travel, adding that government policies had choked the summers travel trade.

Elsewhere, the boss of Heathrow called on the government to scrap all testing for double vaccinated travellers and the amber list.

The UKs largest airport reported on Wednesday that passenger numbers remain 71 per cent down in August compared with the same month pre-pandemic with every-changing restrictions, expensive and unnecessary testing requirements and lack of a common approach across borders continue to hinder the UKs economic recovery.

In a statement, it describes the current traffic light system as an outlier that is delaying the governments Global Britain ambitions and handing rivals a competitive advantage while the UK loses market share.

Heathrow chief executive John Holland-Kaye said: 'The government has the tools to protect the UK's international competitiveness which will boost the economic recovery and achieve its 'global Britain' ambitions.

If ministers fail to take this opportunity to streamline the travel rules then the UK will fall further behind as trade and tourists will increasingly bypass the UK.

The CEO of Gatwick Airport echoed this call, describing existing travel restrictions out of step.

Stewart Wingate said: With vaccination rates across Europe comparable, if not better than the UK's, the time has come for testing to be removed altogether for travellers who have been double jabbed.

Our continued travel restrictions are out of step with much of Europe and continue to have a real impact on jobs and livelihoods, business and growth opportunities while also keeping friends and family apart.

When will we know more?

Three weeks after the last update to the UKs traffic light travel lists, the government is expected to announce the latest changes to the green, amber and red lists this week.

There is no clarity on the exact timing of the announcement by the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, but it is looking likely to be today or tomorrow, 16 or 17 September.
Government briefings indicate that the current traffic light system that restricts travel to the UK is likely to be dismantled soon.

The UK has by far the highest infection rates for any major country in Europe, yet it also imposes the strictest rules on arrivals.

A total of 62 nations and territories are on the UKs red list, representing a total population of well over one billion people.

Appearing on the red list is effectively a travel ban, with arrivals from those countries required to go into 11 nights of hotel quarantine once in the UK  at a cost, for a solo traveller, of 2,285.

So which countries might leave the club  and which nations should join? Tim White, the Covid data analyst who tweets as @TWMCLtd, has given his expertise to The Independent.

He has trawled through the genomic sequencing records held by Gisaid, the worldwide database, with a focus on variants of concern.

Staying on red

Fourteen nations, says Mr White, are likely to remain on red: Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Egypt, French Guiana, Montenegro, Philippines, Seychelles, Suriname, Thailand, Trinidad & Tobago, Tunisia.

Mr White offered this commentary: Brazil uploaded many hundreds of samples, but 41 per cent were Gamma.

Chile reported 37 per cent of its sequenced positive cases were Gamma, while almost 10 per cent were Lambda and another 16 per cent were the most recent variant, Mu.

Colombia will be kept red because of lack of quality data.

Costa Rica uploaded only four samples, two of which were variants.

Suriname and French Guiana are likely to stay red with Gamma variant circulating widely.

But, he added: Most scientists believe most of the variants circulating in South America are not more likely to evade vaccines so there is an argument to allow them all off red.

Elsewhere in the world, he said: Montenegro is Europes most infected country.

The Philippines registered an all-time record recently

Seychelles has still quite high rates.

Tanzania has never bothered reporting any samples to the collective, so it is almost certain to stay on red, more so considering the governments attitude to the virus has been to pretty much deny its existence and punish people for posting things about it.

Thailand submitted very little data. Given the fear over mutant strains and Beta in particular, I think Thailand will stay red until it can do more genomic sequencing.

Tunisia had awful figures for number of travellers arriving into UK infected with Covid-19.

Added to red

Tim White picked another 10 nations not currently on the red list which, he said, have high case rates or were fibbing about figures, meaning they should probably be added to the red list.

These were Azerbaijan, Belarus, Cote dIvoire, Fiji, Grenada, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Russia and Venezuela.

All of these are currently amber, except Grenada  currently on the low-risk green list.

Mr White speculates that Iran, Iraq and Russia have avoided the red list up to now for political reasons and will probably continue to do so.

Possible contenders for red

Many Caribbean nations are at high infection levels right now with no genomic testing, including Jamaica, St Lucia and St Kitts & Nevis, says Mr White, making them strong candidates for a move to the red list.

Should be removed from red

A dozen high-profile countries  all with either a big population or very popular with British travellers, or both  should be removed, thinks White.

These are: Argentina, Bangladesh, Dominican Republic, Indonesia, Kenya, Maldives, Mexico, Pakistan, Peru, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Turkey.

He notes, though: If cautious, Mexico may need to stay a while longer, and Dominican Republic needs help to conduct genomic sequencing.

Some scientists will say its a risk taking South American countries [including Argentina and Peru] off the red list with Gamma, Lambda and the latest Mu variant all in circulation to some degree.

But most scientists believe most of the variants circulating in South America are not more likely to evade vaccines so there is an argument to allow them all off red.

It is not yet known when any changes will be made to the green, red and amber lists, but going on the last three-weekly update on 26 August, the next one should take place around 16 September.
The traffic light system that governs international travel to the UK could be scrapped in the next month, according to reports. Travel industry figures are also calling for the onerous and expensive testing regime to be eased.

The UK is in the odd and counter-intuitive position of having both the highest Covid infection rates of any major European country and also the most draconian restrictions on arrivals from abroad. It means vaccinated British travellers to Germany need neither tests nor quarantine, but German visitors to the UK must take multiple tests.

So what could change? These are the key questions and answers.

A reminder of the present rules...

Nations (or sometime individual regions) are placed into one of five categories that decide how travellers are treated on arrival to the UK.

Ireland has been in a super green category of its own since the coronavirus pandemic began, with neither testing nor quarantine required for arrivals from the republic.

From the green list  including Canada, Denmark, Germany, Hong Kong, Singapore and a scattering of remote British Overseas Territories  there is no need to self-isolate, but a test before flying to the UK and another after arrival are still required.

Croatia, Israel, Taiwan and a number of islands including Antigua, Barbados and Madeira are on the green watchlist. They enjoy quarantine-free status but with the caveat that they could be downgraded at short notice to the 

Amber list  with the vast majority of popular holiday destinations, including Spain, France, Italy and Greece.

The red list is where no one wants to be  arrivals must go into 11 nights of hotel quarantine at their expense. Unwilling members include Turkey, Egypt, South Africa and every country in South America.

Whats expected to change?

This week  likely on Thursday or Friday, 16 or 17 September  another routine traffic light review is expected.

Some reports have suggested that the broader changes to the UKs travel system could also be announced on 16 or 17 September, with changes coming into effect slightly later.

To make matters more confusing, there is a separate and strategic review ahead: a checkpoint date of 1 October when the government has long said it will evaluate the system.

Leaks to the media suggest that when the major change to the travel system is announced, the red list will continue, but green and amber categories will be combined into one safe for travel list, with the 62-strong red list significantly reduced in the process.

Some rumours also indicate that the requirement for a PCR test on arrival in the UK for fully vaccinated travellers could be dropped, saving money and hassle. But the health minister, Lord Bethell, recently indicated that post-arrival testing was a long-term plan.

The Telegraph has suggested that, under the new system, double-jabbed travellers will be able to take cheaper lateral flow tests instead of PCR tests before and after travel back to the UK, though no source was revealed.

What difference would combining green and amber make?

Very little. For vaccinated travellers that would make no difference at all, since both categories require two tests but no quarantine.

For the relatively small minority of unvaccinated adults, there could be a more significant change  perhaps removing self-isolation but retaining testing.

What does the travel industry think about the rumours?

Airlines, holiday companies and travel agents are underwhelmed. The leaks suggest merely tinkering with the travel restrictions, rather than aligning the rules more closely with other countries  which seek to balance the protection of public health with supporting their travel and tourism industries.

Some senior figures are calling for the pre-departure test to be scrapped for vaccinated arrivals from lower risk locations. They say that concern about testing positive for Covid abroad is a key concern among prospective travellers.

What do you think should be done?

To avoid further destruction of the UKs previously world-leading travel industry  and to revive the near-moribund inbound tourism sector  fundamental changes are needed to end the complex, expensive, incoherent and constantly changing rules.

Testing needs to be eased  ideally with most European countries moved to super green, alongside Ireland. In other words, no testing or quarantine for arrivals, at least for vaccinated travellers.

At the very least, for vaccinated travellers from lower-risk countries (which includes almost all our holiday favourites), the day two PCR test  which must be taken on the day of arrival or one of the two following days  should be scrapped.

The 60-plus countries on the red list, requiring mandatory hotel quarantine, should shrink to a relatively small number of nations with very high infection rates, unreliable data and/or fears about variants.

Every day that the current system persists means jobs, hopes and opportunities are being crushed.
Travellers, airlines and holiday companies are waiting anxiously for the latest round of changes to international travel restrictions to be announced.

The update from the Department for Transport is expected later today.

All the indications are that, instead of the usual traffic light reshuffle of destinations on the green, amber and red lists, a more wide-ranging announcement will be made by the transport secretary, Grant Shapps.

Follow travel update LIVE: Latest updates from todays announcement

The UKs current rules are making holidaymakers jumpy about committing to a trip, and are slowly destroying the outbound and inbound travel industry  along with millions of jobs.

With furlough ending on 30 September, ministers now appear to want to limit further damage to the travel industry.

Leaks from government sources suggest that big changes will be announced on Friday, with the testing regime for arrivals to the UK potentially eased for vaccinated travellers, and the number of countries on the high-risk red list drastically reduced.

What are the current rules for travellers to the UK?

At present the four nations of the UK have some of the highest infection rates in Europe, yet simultaneously the strictest rules on arrivals from abroad.

The UK has no fewer than 62 nations on the red list: travellers from those countries must spend 11 nights of hotel quarantine on arrival in the UK, at their own expense.

From amber list nations, which covers most parts of the world, vaccinated arrivals escape self-isolation, but unjabbed travellers must quarantine at home for 10 days.

Even vaccinated travellers from low-risk green list countries must take multiple tests: one before departure and another (which must be a PCR) after arrival.

Such a tough regime is hard to justify: if someone is safe in Italy, with one-sixth of the UKs Covid cases, why should they pay a small fortune for multiple tests in order to fly home?

No other European nation has anything like those restrictions; Germany, which has low case rates, has a red list but no countries currently appear on it.

Will the traffic lights disappear?

Briefings indicate that the current complicated system of five separate traffic light categories (including the green watchlist and super green rules for Ireland) is likely to be reduced to just three.

At one end of the spectrum, Ireland is expected to retain its special super green status, with no restrictions on travel to the UK. At the other extreme, a red list of high-risk locations will continue.

In between, all the other countries will be treated the same. The new category, for which the name gramber has unfortunately been suggested, would cover almost everywhere in Europe, including our most popular destinations: Spain, France, Portugal, Italy and Greece.

In practice that will make no difference at all for vaccinated travellers  from their perspective, the rules for the current amber list, green list and green watchlists are identical.

So why all the fuss about changes?

Because the dismantling of traffic lights is expected to be accompanied by a significant easing of testing. While unjabbed arrivals are likely to continue to need to take multiple tests, vaccinated travellers can expect an easier ride.

Were the test to fly before returning to the UK abolished, as one source suggests, then many holidaymakers would feel more comfortable about travelling.

It would reassure travellers that they are not at risk of being denied boarding the flight home and having to spend a couple of weeks in isolation abroad  though, of course, anyone experiencing Covid symptoms abroad should take a test and, if positive, alert the local health authorities.

Ministers have also been talking up the prospects of replacing the so-called day two PCR test. This is an expensive hassle  typically adding 50-70 to the cost of a trip.

The suggestion is that it could be replaced by a cheap and rapid lateral flow test, which would cut the cost but not the red tape: a test would still need to be booked and paid for in advance.

Some experts say diminishing the standard of post-arrival tests is a mistake; if such a test has medical value, it should be the most effective version.

What could the new red list look like?

The red list, requiring hotel quarantine on arrival in the UK, is way too long.

Expert analysts concur that the Maldives, Pakistan, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, South Africa and Turkey should be taken off the red list  with some support also for Mexico. Of these, the stand-out is the Maldives. Leaks to The Times suggest that Turkey is likely to leave the red list.

There could also be some additions to the red list, with concerns about dodgy data in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Venezuela  none of them high in the tourism popularity stakes for British travellers.

A trio of lovely tropical island destinations  Grenada, Jamaica and Fiji  could also be added to the red list due to high infection rates.

But as the UK government has shown many times before, it can deliver wildly different conclusions to those indicated by the data.

When will the changes take effect?

It is traditional for four or five days notice to be given of changes  particularly to allow travellers in new red list locations time to return home without incurring hotel quarantine. That would suggest 4am (the preferred time) on Tuesday or Wednesday, 21 or 22 September.

But given the scale of the changes, it may be that the chosen date is as late as the weekend of Friday 1 to Monday 4 October.

Note that the rule that applies is the status of the country at the moment you arrive back in the UK. So if Turkey does get taken off the red list, you could head there tomorrow for a week and not need to go into hotel quarantine on your return to the UK.

Any other possible changes?

Some reports suggest that hotel quarantine  currently costing a solo traveller coming from a red list nation 2,285  could be replaced by self-isolation at home. This would ease the burden on travellers who are visiting red list countries for essential reasons.

In addition, it would reduce the number of people who are  from a rational personal perspective  travelling more widely in order to stay in a third country, where they can launder their Covid status.

The final piece of the jigsaw in aligning the UK with the rest of the world would be to recognise vaccinations administered in places other than Europe and the US.

At present, people who have had Covid jabs in nations from Canada to Dubai to Singapore are being treated as unvaccinated in the UK  typifying what is widely seen as a keep out attitude that is demolishing inbound tourism and making life unjustifiably complicated for travellers.

All these changes are focused on coming back to the UK  but how do foreign countries feel about us?

Even if dozens of countries are added to a safe or gramber list, created from the green and amber lists combined, that does not necessarily mean those nations are open to UK travellers.

Ever since the first green list was published in May, many countries on the UKs low-risk list have made it clear they do not want British visitors due to our high infection rates.

Yet most European locations are remarkably open, at least to vaccinated travellers, considering the Covid case rates in the UK. Earlier this month I went to Germany, for which I only had to fill out a simple online form and show my vaccination status. Returning to the UK was much more onerous.

The Netherlands, which currently has the highest barriers to British visitors, is opening up from next Wednesday for UK travellers who can demonstrate they are fully jabbed.

But on the other side of the world, Australia and New Zealand show little interest in welcoming us, or anyone else, back.
Mozambiques President Filipe Nyusi made a bold global commitment to protecting wildlife by joining The Giants Club, an international forum of political leaders, businesspeople, financiers, philanthropists, conservationists, and scientists all committed to the preservation of biodiversity.

In a signing ceremony in Niassa Special Reserve, held as part of Mozambiques celebrations of World Ranger Day on 31 July, President Nyusi said: Thanking the founder of the Giants Club for an initiative aimed at elephant conservation, with the Africa headquarters in Nairobi, which gives me the honour of joining my peers, the Presidents of Botswana, Gabon, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda to display our commitment to the conservation of flora and fauna, especially of endangered species.

Let it be known that on behalf of the Mozambican people I represent, we will honour this recognition and will prioritise the global interest of protecting the elephant.

Mozambique will continue to become an elephant nature reserve and we extend our genuine love to all other animals, in particular, the lion that is being persecuted a lot in Mozambique We will do everything to defend these animals because they are part of us, without these animals we are no longer Mozambique.

Mozambique is rich in biodiversity, with over 5,500 plant species of which 250 are endemic, and more than 740 species of birds.

President Nyusi became the seventh African Head of State to join the Giants Club, alongside President Mokgweetsi Masisi of Botswana, President Ali Bongo Ondimba of Gabon, President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya, President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, and President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, who are all joint leaders of The Giants Club. Botswanas Former President Ian Khama acts as President Emeritus.

The Giants Club is an initiative of the international conservation organisation Space for Giants which, with partner organisations, implements the programmes that The Giants Clubs Heads of State choose as their conservation priorities. Space for Giants is headquartered in Kenya and operates in 10 countries across Africa, including Mozambique.

Stuart Slabbert, Managing Director of Conservation at Space for Giants, said: Space for Giants and The Giants Club are very honoured that President Nyusi is joining to become our latest Head of State member.

His commitment to conservation is clear, and partnering with organisations like Space for Giants supports Mozambique to meet challenges such as human-elephant conflict while also bringing in fresh expertise and experience to promote domestic and international investment in responsible conservation and tourism enterprises. Partnerships between the public and private sectors will generate new revenue from a wildlife economy for the benefit of Mozambiques citizens, and this collaboration can support efforts to deter the illegal wildlife trade.
At Wednesdays Senate hearing on the FBIs failure to act on reports of sexual abuse against Larry Nassar, several high-profile gymnasts and survivors, including Maggie Nichols, McKayla Maroney, Simone Biles, and Aly Raisman, made an appearance. And what an appearance it was. The sportswomen delivered searing indictments on how the justice system, as well as national gymnastics and Olympics organizations, not only failed to protect them but took deliberate steps to protect their abuser. It was not just a question of inaction, they said: it was a question of intent. The testimony is a window into how institutions at every level do not just enable abuse, they empower it.

Rhetorically, we align rapists and pedophiles with murderers as the worst of criminals. Yet nearly every institution of power has mechanisms to protect abusers and perpetrators of sexual assault. And for all FBI Director Christopher Wrays insistence that the FBIs actions in this case are an aberration, and not reflective of the ferocious dedication he sees from other FBI agents every day, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee pressed him on the FBIs many failures to adequately pursue sexual assault cases, or even take them seriously. One question repeated by the gymnasts as well as Senators was why the FBI agents responsible had not been held to account.

In their opening statements, Nichols, Maroney, Biles, and Raisman each emphasized how it was not just Nassar who failed them. It was many powerful institutions who were supposed to protect them  the FBI, USA Gymnastics (USAG), and the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC)  instead worked together to protect each other at their expense. Victims had reported Nassars abuse to the FBI in 2015, yet it took over a year for them to act on these reports. The Inspector Generals investigation into the FBI found that the agent in charge of the case, Jay Abbott, had been angling for a job within USAG.

Just as it is naive to assume the problem only lies with Nassar, it is unrealistic to think we can grasp the full extent of culpability without understanding how and why USAG and USOCP chose to ignore abuse for decades and why the interplay among these three organizations led the FBI to willingly disregard our reports of abuse, Raisman said in her opening statement. Biles also questioned why neither USAG nor USOPC have been subjected to the kind of thorough and independent investigation the FBI was subject to: These are the entities entrusted with the protection of our sport and our athletes. And yet it feels like questions of responsibility and organizational failures remain unanswered.

USA Gymnastics and the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee and the FBI have all betrayed me and those who were abused after I reported, said Nichols. And Maroney put it even more bluntly: USA Gymnastics, in concert with the FBI and the Olympic Committee, were working together to conceal that Larry Nassar was a predator.

This case, in which several institutions in tandem knowingly allowed one man to sexually abuse hundreds of children, is hardly an aberration. We can find examples of systems working to protect abusers at the expense of sexual assault victims in practically every institution in the country, from Hollywood to college campuses to religious institutions. In questioning Wray, Senator Whitehouse brought up one particularly salient example of the FBIs mishandling another case of sexual assault  Dr Christine Blasey Ford. It appeared to me then, and it appears to me now, that her testimony was swept under the rug in a confirmation stampede, Whitehouse stated. It is very possible that the FBI investigation of her allegations was just as flawed, just as constrained, just as inappropriate, as the investigation in this case. We dont know because we dont have answers.

But this problem is hardly confined to the FBI. The Catholic church, a self-governing body with its own hierarchies and political power, was dogged in its efforts to conceal generations of sexual abuse of children, abuse and coverups we have every reason to believe still occur today. And as Senator Mazie Hirano noted in Wednesdays hearing, the US military is another venerated institution that has historically refused to take sexual assault seriously or hold the accused to account.

Why would the FBI lie to OIG investigators? Why would the FBI not properly document evidence that was received? Why would the FBI agent be interested in the USAG presidency? Nichols asked. These questions remain unanswered. And the survivors of Larry Nassar have a right to know why their wellbeing was placed in jeopardy by these individuals who chose not to do their jobs.

Perhaps it is simply because these institutions, and the powerful men (and some women) who operate within them, are trying to protect their own hides. Perhaps, even more simply, it is because they do not consider sexual assault as serious a crime as they say. Raisman testified, The agent diminished the significance of my abuse, and made me feel my criminal case wasnt worth pursuing. Likewise Maroney, after detailing the harrowing testimony she gave to FBI agents about the abuse she endured, recalled the agent simply asking, Is that all? in response. To have my abuse be minimized and disregarded by the people that were supposed to protect me just to feel like my abuse was not enough. But the truth is my abuse was enough, and they wanted to cover it up, she stated.

Victims of sexual assault who do report their abusers are regularly subjected to this kind of scrutiny. Rapes become misunderstandings and rapists become promising young men. Im reminded of the original prosecutor in the case against Bill Cosby, who told his victim that the evidence she gave just wasnt enough.

We are deluding ourselves if we think other children can be spared the institutionalized tolerance and normalization of abuse that I and so many others had to endure, Raisman said. Biles summed up the essential question nicely when she asked: What is a little girl worth?
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Tsun Sheng Neil Ku, a doctor in Billings, Montana, shares his experience battling both the virus and online misinformation.

Dr. Tsun Sheng Neil Ku doesnt have much time for fly fishing these days. The epidemiologist, who works at Billings Clinic in Billings, Montana, is too busy acting as a point person on all things COVID-19 not only for his hospital, but also for Yellowstone County officials and medical providers in the broader region. On top of that, hes taken to social media - and appeared at public meetings - to combat misinformation about masking, vaccinations and testing.

As of Monday, the Billings Clinic had 70 inpatients with COVID-19, most of whom are unvaccinated; 25 of those were in the ICU and 13 were on ventilators. The hospitals ICU is also overcapacity, with 28 beds but 45 patients total. More than half of the hospitalized coronavirus patients there are under the age of 60; some are in their early 20s. Tomorrow, National Guard soldiers will deploy to assist at the Billings Clinic, which is so full its now diverting patients to other hospitals. (More broadly, Montanas 14-day COVID-19 case count was up 61% and hospitalizations were up 42% on Tuesday.)

In the face of an overcrowded and understaffed hospital, Ku spoke with High Country News about navigating misinformation and burnout during the Delta variant surge.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

You really dont learn that much until you get thrown into this. How do you deal with a huge population who believes in this misinformation? Or thinks this is politically motivated? Oh gosh, all I want to do is just help people get over this pandemic. For me, thats the biggest challenge.

I see a lot of the public get frustrated. We want to give the right answer, but we cant really give you the confidence that it is the right answer. Until we get through the pandemic and look back and say what we did was right or not, we dont have that luxury. Unfortunately, theyre kind of using that against public health because they say Well, you clearly dont know what youre doing.

One thing that Ive never experienced is the number of voices with so many different views and interpretations of scientific data - what they consider valid, what they consider invalid. It becomes a real struggle as were trying to educate the public about what is the right thing to do. Earlier today, someone [sent me] a viral video on YouTube that had someone with a Ph.D. in molecular biology and biochemistry who was totally against the vaccine. Now youre not just dealing with someone who went to Google University, youre dealing with someone who is very educated but has a completely different view about what is the right thing to do and what should be done.

Its very challenging from my standpoint, trying to coordinate public health efforts and trying to get us over the pandemic. And now it becomes a lot more serious, because were seeing more cases, patients being hospitalized for COVID-19, overwhelming our current system. Now, were in the thick of it, and were trying to muddle our way through. How do we maintain the best standard of care we can ever provide to all our community, and yet, with fewer people and a lot more patients?

Im doing a bit more on Twitter and Facebook. For me, it was in response to some of the frustration I was getting, especially in Montana, where no one has really spoken up, at least on social media, to try and counteract some of the misinformation. So many people hear about science. We use that term so loosely. You can make any claims you want, but you better be able to back it up. Thats what Ive been trying to do, [saying] these are the studies. Its not just showing the paper but actually showing the papers meet certain standards. Thats a lot of work because thats really critically looking, almost line by line, at what theyre trying to say. It boils down to the details. Thats the problem, we read the headlines, but we dont read whats in them.

I had to really sit down and think about how were going to approach this, because I already knew that about six months ago, this is not going to go away any time soon. I do meditation; I try doing about 15 minutes. I bought a Peloton bike; I try to do that four to five times a week. One of my passions is traveling and fly fishing, and not doing that has been difficult for me. Physicians are terrible about figuring out how to balance things; right now, its even harder to break off because theres so much more expected of us because of being short staffed. Same thing with the nurses and everyone else in the hospital. Thats where Im really concerned.

This pandemic has really tested a lot of things about ourselves. And I think one of the biggest things is that we want to come across as being unified. But this pandemic, Ive never seen how divided we are. As Ive said, now the virus doesnt care if youre a Republican or Democrat or Independent. Its an equal opportunity pathogen.

We have a common foe. What we really want is just everyone to be cohesive. Lets just get over this.

Kylie Mohr is an editorial intern for High Country News writing from Montana. Email her at kylie.mohr@hcn.org or submit a letter to the editor.
Among the most anticipated OTT releases of the month has to be Mallika Sherawat and Esha Gupta starrer Nakaab. The investigative-thriller marks Mallikas comeback after a two year-long sabbatical and gives us a sneak-peek into the dark underbelly of showbiz.

This MX Exclusive Series investigates the high-profile death of TV actress Vibha Dutta (essayed by Ankita Chakraborty). While the mystery unravels several suspects, we see how complex and anxiety-ridden the world of showbiz actually is. Its more than what meets the eye.





Boy did that trailer wake the Sherlock in me!

Aditi Amre (played by Esha Gupta) is investigating the high-profile murder case in the maximum city. Her monotonous life turns upside down when she starts unfolding intricate details about the case.

MX Player

The 26-year-old victim was very close to television czarina Zohra Mehra (played Mallika Sherawat). And thanks to the trailer, Zohra Mehra looks like one of the most twisted characters out there. Could she possibly have something to do with Vibha Duttas death?

MX Player

Speaking about her character, Mallika Sherawat said, This series investigates the hidden nuances of a glamorous industry. I play Zohra who is an inspiring single woman at the apex of the media industry, but her character is mysterious. Its the kind of part I have never explored before and honestly, I feel its the role of a lifetime. Nakaab has crime, drama, secrets, scandals and is a complete entertainer. However, it was the fantastic mysteriously layered character written by Soumik Sen made me immediately take up the part.

MX Player

Playing the role of Sub Inspector Aditi Amre, Esha Gupta said, What pulled me towards playing this character is that it has immense depth. Investigative dramas or thrillers have been a personal favorite for me, and I found the backdrop of this story really interesting.Aditi and her senior Pawan Bisht (Gautam Rode) team up for this nerve-wracking case and end up discovering things they never imagined. Despicable politics, twisting facts, threats, and a slew of other obstacles make this murder-mystery even more gripping.



MX Player

Elaborating on his role as a cop, Gautam Rode said, My character, Pawan Bisht is a senior inspector whose moral compass keeps oscillating between good and bad. He doesnt see the world as black and white; he does what needs to be done. Pawan is a very layered character, and has been a great inspiration for me since is it so varied and diverse from the characters that I have played in the past. I am elated to have got the opportunity to play Pawan Bisht.

Peppered with drama, scandals, dirty secrets, and truckloads of mystery, the show promises to be binge-worthy enough to be consumed in one sitting. No kidding!

Directed by Soumik Sen, Nakaab is now streaming only on MX Player, for free.
A man wanted in the case of the rape and murder of a six-year old girl was found dead on a railway track in Jangaon district on Thursday.

Telangana Director General of Police M Mahendar Reddy confirmed that the accused was identified after the verification of identification marks on his body. This comes amid a massive manhunt launched to nab him.

Just been informed by @TelanganaDGP Garu that the beast who raped the child has been traced & found dead on a railway track at station Ghanpur#JusticeForChaithra https://t.co/TCx2BHvVhG  KTR (@KTRTRS) September 16, 2021





Absconding since neighbours found girl's body

The suspect, Pallakonda Raju (30), has been absconding since the night neighbours found the six-year-old girls body wrapped in a bedsheet in his house. Telangana police have been looking for him for the last five days and have even offered Rs 10 lakh reward for information leading to his arrest, amid protests by the opposition demanding speedy justice and an encounter threat by the state Labour Minister Malla Reddy.



Reuters

Minister's encounter threat

Labour Minister Ch Malla Reddy had told reporters on Tuesday that the suspect should be killed in an encounter as he didnt deserve to live. Incidentally, in Hyderabad, a Supreme Court-appointed inquiry commission is currently looking into the circumstances that led to the death of four suspects in the rape and murder of a 27-year-old veterinarian on the outskirts of Hyderabad on December 6, 2019.

PTI

Manhunt to nab accused

In their efforts to trace the suspect, Hyderabad police Wednesday released multiple photographs of the suspects with possible disguises he could have adopted to evade police. Not withstanding possibilities of perpetrator causing change in his attributes such as Hairstyle, beard etcCertain computer-generated most probable disguised images of the accused are being shared, police tweeted.





A senior police official from Janagaon said the body with head injuries was found on the track in Station Ghanpur and the police reached the spot after some locals noticed a body on the track at around 9:45 am.



Suicide suspected

The police suspect that the accused must have committed suicide by jumping before a running train, the official said. The girl was raped and murdered allegedly by a man in a neighbouring house at Saidabad in Hyderabad on the evening of September 9.

The incident triggered protests by residents of the locality who had raised slogans and demanded justice and quick arrest of the culprit.


Bank accounts of two children in Bihar received a hefty amount of money that took the whole village by surprise.

According to a report by Livehindustan, the amount credited in the accounts of Guruchandra Vishwas and Asit Kumar is more than Rs 900 crore. Both the boys live in Pastiya village in Bagaura panchayat in Katihar district.

PTI

The boys visited the local Centralised Processing Centre (CPC) of State Bank of India (SBI) to find out about the amount deposited by the state government for school uniforms, but received the shock of their lives after learning about the huge sum of money, the Livehindustan report said.

Both hold an account in Uttar Bihar Gramin Bank.

While Vishwas' account had Rs 60 crore, Kumar's account suddenly had 900 crore, the report added.

Not the first Branch manager Manoj Gupta was taken by surprise and stopped the withdrawal of money.

iStock

Not the first similar incident

Earlier, a Bihar man received Rs 5.5 lakh wrongfully credited to his account.



However, he refused to return the money claiming PM Narendra Modi sent him the amount. Gramin Bank by mistake sent the cash by mistake to Ranjit Das who hails from Bakhtiyarpur village under Mansi police station.

"I was very happy when I received the money in March this year. I thought as Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised everyone of depositing Rs 15 lakh in their bank account, I thought that it could be the first installment of it. I have spent all the money. Now, I did not have money in my bank account," he said.

Das is in police custody at the moment.
SpaceX made history on Wednesday as its Falcon 9 rocket took off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, marking the first all-civilian crew mission to orbit Earth.

Meet the Inspiration 4's diverse crew

The civilians aboard Inspiration 4 include billionaire businessman Jared Isaacman who footed the trip's hefty bill. "A few have gone before and many are about to follow," the 38-year-old billionaire said. Isacmaan is a high school dropout who founded Shift4 Payments, a payment processing service.

SpaceX

Also on the aircraft is Hayley Arceneaux, who is raising money for St Jude's Children's Research Hospital and is a cancer survivor herself as well as a physician assistant. The 29-year-old is the youngest American to be in Earth's orbit and the first person with a prosthesis (which is part of her femur) in space.

The spaceflight also saw the first Black woman to pilot a spacecraft in geoscientist Dr. Sian Proctor. Proctor is the fourth African-American woman to go to space. The 51-year-old almost became a NASA astronaut in 2009.

42-year-old US Air Force veteran and aerospace data engineer Chris Sembroki is also aboard the flight.

What is the Inspiration 4 mission?

The spaceflight will touch an altitude of 575 kilometres (357 miles) up in space - which is deeper than the International Space Station itself. The four space travellers will be aboard the spaceship for the next three days, after which they will return to Earth; technically Florida.

NASA

The four "non-astronaut" civilians are part of NASA's commercial crew programme, which was founded in 2011. "Congratulations #Inspiration4! Low-Earth orbit is now more accessible for more people to experience the wonders of space," NASA's Nelson tweeted after the launch.

Congratulations #Inspiration4! Low-Earth orbit is now more accessible for more people to experience the wonders of space. We look forward to the future  one where @NASA is one of many customers in the commercial space market. Onward and upward!  Bill Nelson (@SenBillNelson) September 16, 2021

It's still unclear how much the mission cost and the expense hasn't been declared by SpaceX founder Elon Musk. But the expected cost is to be tens of millions of dollars. The billionaire's three crewmates were selected through a competition with their stories being recorded for a Netflix documentary simultaneously.

Reuters

What will Inspiration 4 achieve in space?

With this historic achievement, the four civilian space travellers are hoping to raise $200 million for St Jude's Children's Research Hospital - a facility in Tennessee. As a child, Arceneaux received treatment there and currently works there.

Liftoff of our amazing #Inspiration4 crew  Jared, Hayley, Sian, and Chris  seen through the lens of @johnkrausphotos  pic.twitter.com/COctvQ0EaD  Inspiration4 (@inspiration4x) September 16, 2021

It appears that the crew have taken with a fascinating set of objects including the musical instrument ukulele, hops that may be used to brew beer in space as well as a few NFTs (non-fungible tokens) - digital assets that will be auctioned off once they return to Earth.

SpaceX

With this mission, space researchers also hope to understand the impact of space on human health by recording the heart rate, sleep cycle as well as their cognitive well-being over the next three days. With the largest ever space dome meant for space viewing, the four civilians are set for the world's most breathtaking view from space.

With this mission, SpaceX's Elon Musk is sending a message to the world - that one need not be an astronaut to be a spacefarer. For this purpose, the flight is fully automated and the crew has been trained for emergency situations.

Are you excited by SpaceX's phenomenal feat in space? Let us know in the comments below. And for the latest in the world of science and tech, keep reading Indiatimes.com.
Films and shows have sold us the idea of romanticising travel. You board a train or book a flight, most likely you would anticipate sitting next to a friendly and non-intrusive person. But in reality, it rarely happens.



Most often you would either find yourself sitting next to an over-enthusiastic uncle, or a snoring man, or worse a crying baby. At least this happens with me 90 per cent of the time. And if bad luck decided to hit you, the journey could last for over several hours.

Reuters

Something similar was about to happen with a man who travelled on Japan Airlines but was saved when the airline warned him of the places where the babies plan to scream".

The man shared about the incident in a tweet.

Thank you, @JAL_Official_jp for warnings me about where babies plan to scream and yell during a 13 hour trip. This really ought to be mandatory across the board.



Please take note, @qatarairways: I had 3 screaming babies next to me on my JFK-DOH flight two weeks ago. pic.twitter.com/kQYQFIqqCD  Rahat Ahmed (@dequinix) September 24, 2019

He said that on his 13 hours journey, Japan Airlines warned him of babies screams and yelling and thus saved his day. He said this warning system should be made mandatory across all carriers.

According to the Japan Airlines website, Passengers travelling with children between 8 days and 2 years old who select their seats on the JAL website will have a child icon displayed on their seats on the seat selection screen. This lets other passengers know a child may be sitting there.

Getty Images (Pic for representation purpose only)

As his tweet went viral, there were many who took offence.

The man then clarified saying, Adults can be just as bad as babies, empathy is important and every situation is different, and where babies sit can be one of many indicators that help travellers plan flights.
Would you hand in a lost wallet or would you keep it? According to the results of a new experiment by Reader's Digest, more people are likely to hand in a wallet in Helsinki, Finland than in any other city in the world. Eleven out of 12 wallets were returned to their owners in the Scandinavian city.

India's Maximum City Mumbai is the world's second-most honest city, according to a survey conducted by Reader's Digest magazine. The magazine tested the honesty of hundreds of people in 16 countries by dropping wallets and recording how many were returned. It discovered that people in Helsinki are the most likely to return a found wallet, and Lisbon residents are the most likely to pocket the cash.

Around 200 pocket wallets with coupons, business cards and local currency worth around Rs 4,000 ($50) in different public locations like parks and shopping malls on the pavement in 16 cities: New York, Amsterdam, Berlin, Bucharest, Budapest, Helsinki, Lisbon, Ljubljana, London, Madrid, Moscow, Mumbai, Prague, Rio De Janeiro, Warsaw and Zurich.

Here is the list of the most honest cities in the world:

1. Helsinki, Finland

Most Honest Cities in The World | Unsplash

Helsinki delights travellers with its sea-facing landscape, diverse architecture, world-famous design, and Nordic cuisine. But Finland's capital is also the world's most honest city in the world by returning eleven out of twelve lost wallets, an experiment conducted by Reader's Digest.

2. Mumbai, India

Most Honest Cities in The World | Unsplash

For India's maximum city it is a pleasant surprise where around 60% of the population struggling to live in the city's slums, a lot of them begging on the street, it doesn't seem to much of a negative assumption to think that more than nine lost wallets return by Mumbai residents and grab the second spot.

3. Budapest, Hungary

Most Honest Cities in The World | Unsplash

Budapest is not just a gorgeous city on the outside but it also has a big, clean heart on the inside. Eight out of twelve lost wallets were returned back in the wallet test that was randomly conducted here.

4. New York City, USA

Most Honest Cities in The World | Unsplash

The city that never sleeps may be busy and bustling but it also has a big, honest conscience. Eight out of twelve wallets were honestly returned in the survey done by Readers Digest in New York.

5. Moscow, Russia

Most Honest Cities in The World | Unsplash

Today Moscow is not only the political centre of Russia but also the country's most populous city and its industrial, cultural, scientific, and educational capital. Despite being big, hectic cities, citizens of Moscow found time to return the wallets to their rightful owners. Moscow honours the returning seven out of twelve wallets that were randomly placed on busy streets.

6. Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Most Honest Cities in The World | Unsplash

The capital of Netherlands Amsterdam is known for its artistic heritage, elaborate canal system and narrow houses with gabled facades, legacies of the citys 17th-century Golden Age. Amsterdam, despite being big, hectic cities, citizens of Amsterdam and Moscow found time to return the wallets to their rightful owners.

Surveys like these give us a ray of hope in the chaos, humdrum and daily struggles of living in a big metropolis. They prove that mankind, by nature, is essentially honest.
Punjab Police seized a huge cache of foreign-made pistols and arrested a weapon smuggler allegedly linked with Pakistan-based terror outfits and anti-India pro-Khalistani elements based in the U.S., Canada and the UK, and operating allegedly on directions of a U.S.-based handler, in Chandigarh on June 11, 2021. (ANI photo)
The industrial action lasted over a month. 135 members of the Albemarle Salar Workers Union, maintaining the Salar de Atacama facility in the north of Chile, began industrial action on August 11.

Operations resumed on Wednesday, "with special emphasis on the safety of...
A Newtown, Connecticut, woman was arrested and charged with illegally collecting workers compensation benefits while being employed as a supervisor of Pupil Personnel Services for the Town of New Fairfield Board of Education.

Ann Marie Cordisco was arrested by inspectors from the Workers Compensation Fraud Control Unit in the Office of the Chief States Attorney on a warrant charging her with one count of fraudulent claim or receipt of benefits, one count of larceny in The first degree by defrauding a public community and one count of perjury.

According to the arrest warrant affidavit, in September 2018, while working for the Town of New Fairfield Board of Education, Cordisco was injured while exiting a school bus. Cordisco claimed she sustained injuries to her left foot, ankle and knee.

She was placed on temporary total disability (TTD) and began receiving TTD benefits from her employer through Connecticut Interlocal Risk Management Agency (CIRMA), a nonprofit claims administration and risk management service that manages workers compensation claims for Connecticut municipalities, school districts and local public agencies.

TTD benefits are wage replacement monies for those who qualify under the program. During that period of benefits, the recipient is considered to have zero work capacity and must inform their employer of any improvements in their injuries. They also are required to report any income beyond the benefits provided.

From September 26, 2018, through April 29, 2019, Cordisco received workers compensation benefits in the amount of $57,903.00. Surveillance videos and documentation showed activities that were not consistent with Cordiscos claimed injuries.

Cordisco was released on a $10,000 non-surety bond and is scheduled to appear in Danbury Superior Court, G.A. No. 3, on September 23, 2021.

The case will be prosecuted by the Workers Compensation Fraud Control Unit of the Office of the Chief States Attorney in Rocky Hill. The charges are merely accusations and she is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

Source: Connecticut State Division of Criminal Justice

Topics Workers' Compensation Fraud Connecticut
Two decades after the collapse of the World Trade Center, people are still coming forward to report illnesses that might be related to dust that billowed over the city after the terror attack.

To date, the U.S. has spent $11.7 billion on care and compensation for those exposed to the toxic dust and fires that burned at ground zero for weeks after the attacks. More than 40,000 people have gotten payments from a government fund for people with illnesses potentially linked to the attacks.

More than 111,000 people have signed up for the World Trade Center Health Program, which gives free medical care to people with medical problems potentially linked to the dust.

Enrollees include people like Barbara Burnette, a retired police detective still suffering from severe respiratory problems two decades after she spat soot from her mouth for weeks as she worked on the burning rubble pile without a protective mask. She credits the intensive health monitoring she got through the health program with helping to spot lung cancer.

Had I not been in the program  I dont know that they would have found it, Burnette says. Since then she has had two rounds of chemotherapy to keep the cancer at bay.

Scientists still cant say for certain how many people developed health problems as a result of exposure to the tons of pulverized concrete, glass, asbestos, gypsum released when the towers fell.

Many people enrolled in the health program have conditions common in the general public, like skin cancer, acid reflux or sleep apnea. In most situations, there is no test that can tell whether someones illness is related to the Trade Center dust, or a result of other factors, like smoking, genetics or obesity.

Over the years, that has led to some friction between patients who are absolutely sure they have an illness connected to 9/11, and doctors who have doubts.

Mariama James, who had to clean up copious amounts of the gray powder that billowed through the open windows of her Manhattan apartment, says she initially had a hard time persuading doctors that the chronic ear infections, sinus issues and asthma afflicting her children, or her own shortness of breath, had anything to do with 9/11.

Most people thought I was crazy back then, she says.

Years of research have produced partial answers about 9/11 health problems like hers. The largest number of people enrolled in the federal health program suffer from chronic inflammation of their sinus or nasal cavities or from reflux disease, a condition that can cause symptoms including heartburn, sore throat and a chronic cough.

Post-traumatic stress disorder has emerged as one of the most common, persistent health conditions. Nearly 19,000 enrollees have a mental health problem believed to be linked to the attacks, according to health program statistics. More than 4,000 patients have some type of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a family of potentially debilitating breathing problems.

Many first responders who developed a chronic cough later had it fade, or disappear entirely, but others have shown little improvement.

About 9% of firefighters exposed to the dust still report a persistent cough, according to Fire Department research. About 22% report experiencing shortness of breath. About 40% still have chronic sinus problems or acid reflux.

On the encouraging side, doctors say their worst fears about a possible wave of deadly 9/11 cancers havent come true. Not yet, at least.

Nearly 24,000 people exposed to trade center dust have gotten cancer, but for the most part it has been at rates in line with the general public. Rates of a few specific types of cancer have been found to be modestly elevated, but researchers say that could be due to more cases being caught in medical monitoring programs.

We really dont have the tremendous elevations in cancer I was afraid of, says Dr. Michael Crane, director of the World Trade Center health clinic at Mount Sinai.

One study showed that cancer mortality rates have actually been lower among city firefighters and paramedics exposed to Trade Center dust than for most Americans, possibly because frequent medical screenings.

In the federal health programs early years, many people enrolling were police officers, firefighters and others who worked on the debris pile. More recently, though, a majority of applications have been from people who worked or lived in Lower Manhattan  folks like Carl Sadler, who was enveloped by the dust cloud after escaping from his office at the World Trade Center.

Initially, Sadlers health seemed fine. But years later he started to get winded while exercising.

I just had breathing problems, he says, but I never knew what they were.

Now 80, he has been diagnosed over the years with acid reflux disease, asthma, and also thyroid cancer and skin melanoma, for which he was successfully treated.

Last year another 6,800 people joined the health program, which has grown so much it might run out of money. Members of Congress have introduced a bill that would provide an additional $2.6 billion over 10 years to cover an expected funding gap starting in 2025.

The average age of enrollees in the federal health program is now around 60, and Dr. Jacqueline Moline, director of the World Trade Center health clinic at the Northwell Health medical system, is concerned that peoples health problems will worsen as they age. Cancer caused by asbestos, she noted, can take as long as 40 years to develop after exposure.

We are just getting to the point where we might start seeing stuff, Moline says.

Crane, who has been treating ground zero responders since the beginning, says one thing is clear based on the continuing stream of new patients: The issue isnt going away.

They keep on coming, he says. They keep on coming in the door.

David Caruso, New York City news editor for The Associated Press, has covered the aftermath of 9/11 for more than a decade.

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Trends
This edition of International People Moves focuses on claims appointments at three insurance underwriters: Generali Global Corporate & Commercial, D&O MGA Rising Edge and Hamilton Insurance Group.

A summary of these promotions and new hires follows here.

Generali GC&C Creates New Insurance Function, Led by Seach, with Ruano as Head of Claims

Generali Global Corporate & Commercial (GC&C) has promoted Pedro Ruano as new head of Claims. In his new capacity, Ruano is responsible for steering the claims processes at global level.

Ruano, who previously was head of GC&C Iberia & LatAm, reports to Hayden Seach, the head of GC&Cs newly created insurance function (formerly its Underwriting function). Seach oversees the activities related to the entire insurance process: corporate portfolio management, leveraging the interdependencies of the underwriting lines of business as well as pricing, loss prevention and claims processes.

Ruano has more than 30 years of experience in the corporate insurance industry, specifically in claims practices. He joined Generali in 1992 and gained a wealth of diverse experiences and expertise in international claims within liability, financial lines, property, engineering, marine and aviation lines of business.

He holds a degree in law and a postgraduate degree in international foreign affairs from Barcelonas University.

Seach has three decades of underwriting experience in the commercial general insurance sector. He is a corporate market Insurance specialist with a wealth of diverse experience and expertise matured in many markets across the Middle East, Africa, Asia and most recently Europe. He has also held senior positions with a number of leading international insurance and reinsurance companies. Seach studied business and holds a masters degree in leading innovation and change through York St. John University in the UK.

The newly created insurance function will guarantee a further straightforward management direction amongst the entire insurance processes, improving synergies, efficiency and delivery, commented GC&C CEO Manlio Lostuzzi.

***

D&O MGA Rising Edge Hires AXA XLs Dacey as Head of Claims

Rising Edge, a London-based directors and officers (D&O) managing general agent (MGA), has announced the appointment of Owen Dacey as head of Claims.

Daceys appointment was first announced when the company launched in May. Based in London, Dacey brings with him more than 10 years of experience managing high value complex D&O claims across the globe.

Dacey will work as part of the senior management of Rising Edge with responsibility for all claims-related matters. This will include handling claims (at the outset), reporting to Rising Edges stakeholders on claims data, developments and trends, working with underwriters on wordings and product development, and thought leadership. More generally Dacey will be responsible for devising and implementing a market-leading claims proposition for Rising Edges clients and brokers.

Dacey joins from AXA XL where he served as claims manager and regional practice leader, Management Liability. Between 2014 and 2019 he held the position of senior claims adjuster, International Financial Lines, UKI, at AXA XL. Prior to joining AXA XL, he served as team manager, Complex Financial Lines Claims, UKI, at AIG.

Dacey is a qualified solicitor and has extensive experience of handling claims in the U.S., most notably with respect to U.S. securities litigation.

Rising Edge serves wholesale London market and European brokers.

***

Hamilton Names Sompos Tomas as Head of Claims for Bermuda Operations

Bermuda-based Hamilton Insurance Group Ltd. announced the appointment of Kylie Tomas as senior vice president, claims counsel and head of Claims at Hamilton Re Ltd.

In this role, Tomas will manage the insurance and reinsurance claims teams and oversee all claims matters for Hamilton Re Ltd. She joins Hamilton later in September and will be based in Bermuda, reporting to Megan Thomas, CEO, Hamilton Re.

Tomas joins Hamilton most recently from Sompo International where she spent nearly 12 years, most recently as vice president, claims counsel, head of U.S. Financial Institutions Claims. For the initial seven years she was based in Bermuda as vice president, claims counsel, Professional Lines & Bermuda Insurance Claims Administrative Manager.

Prior to Sompo, she was with Liberty International Underwriters (now Liberty Specialty Markets) in Australia, where she served as claims counsel, and New York, in the role of senior claims specialist. She started her career as a solicitor in the insurance and risk management group at Phillips Fox Lawyers (now DLA Piper) in Australia.

Topics Trends Claims Leadership Directors Officers Generali Life Assurance (Thailand) Plc.
Fort Wayne, Indiana-based DOXA Insurance Holdings LLC (DOXA) acquired Caitlin Morgan Insurance Services, a managing general underwriter (MGU) and wholesale brokerage in Indianapolis that helps independent agents place business and develop package programs for select industry niches.

Caitlin Morgan will continue operations under the leadership of President Christopher S. Murray, and Dustin Partlow will lead the captive management division.

MarshBerry served as Caitlin Morgans exclusive financial advisor for this transaction.

Doxa Insurance Holdings is a Midwest-domiciled holding company that acquires specialty niche-focused insurance distribution companies such as managing general agencies, wholesale brokers, and program administrators.

Topics Mergers
A plastics company will pay $2.85 million in civil penalties to resolve alleged Clean Air Act violations at its petrochemical manufacturing plant in Point Comfort, Texas, federal environmental protection officials said.

Formosa Plastics Corporation, Texas, also agreed improve its risk management program to resolve the alleged violations of the Chemical Accident Prevention Provisions of the Clean Air Act (CAA) brought by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The complaint, filed with a proposed consent decree, alleges 20 violations of the CAA. Formosas Point Comfort plant is subject to Section 112(r) of the CAA regulations, known as the Risk Management Program, which are designed to prevent the accidental release of hazardous substances.

The EPAs investigation of Formosa was spurred by a series of fires, explosions and accidental releases at the Point Comfort plant spanning from May 2013 through October 2016. These accidents caused injuries to workers, including second- and third-degree burns and chlorine inhalation requiring hospitalization, as well as property damage and the release of extremely hazardous substances to the environment.

Formosas failure to implement safe work practices and failure to design and maintain a safe facility put public health and the environment at risk, Acting Assistant Administrator Larry Starfield for EPAs Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance said in a media release.

Formosa will be required to update its response and personal protection plans to prevent employee injury, conduct a third-party audit of its risk management practices, perform corrective actions based on audit results and develop key performance indicators to evaluate future compliance.

In addition, the company agreed to conduct a service compatibility evaluation to identify incompatible equipment and implement a mechanical integrity reporting program.

The cost of the injunctive relief is estimated to be at least $1.4 million and will greatly improve the safe management of hazardous substances at the facility, the EPA said.

The proposed consent decree is subject to a 30-day public comment period and court review and approval. A copy of the consent decree is available on the Department of Justice website at www.justice.gov/enrd/Consent_Decrees.html.

Source: EPA

Topics Texas
Federal authorities have sued a Louisiana restaurant for allegedly violating federal law against pregnancy discrimination in hiring.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit that Bournes House LLC, doing business as Bournes House Restaurant, violated federal law when it fired and then later refused to rehire a worker because she was pregnant.

According to the EEOCs lawsuit, a manager at the companys Franklinton, Louisiana, restaurant fired the newly hired worker after sending her a social media message saying, Im not gonna be able to hire you. I didnt realize that you were expecting a baby.

When the worker reapplied for work several months later, Bournes House wrote pregnant on her application and did not rehire her.

Such alleged conduct violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits pregnancy-related discrimination. The EEOC filed suit in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana (Civil Action No. 21-01665) after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its voluntary conciliation process.

Malcolm Medley, the EEOCs director of the New Orleans Field Office, said in a media release, It is unlawful for an employer to fire an employee simply because she is pregnant. An employer cannot make assumptions about what a pregnant worker can or cannot do.

The EEOCs New Orleans Field Office is part of its Houston District Office, which has jurisdiction over Louisiana and parts of Texas.

Source: EEOC

Topics Lawsuits Louisiana Restaurant
Georgia Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner John F. King announced that Russell Leon Warner, 49, of Fulton County, is wanted in connection with a Pierce County fire that occurred on Sunday, September 12, just after 5:00 a.m. on Pomeroy Street in Blackshear.

The Blackshear Fire Department arrived on scene to find fire coming from one of the apartments in the six-unit complex. Upon extinguishment, Commissioner Kings Fire Investigations Unit examined the scene and determined the fire was intentionally set.

Our investigators determined the fire originated on a couch in the living room due to a deliberate human act, said Commissioner King. Previous interactions between the occupant and the suspect lead Law Enforcement to believe Mr. Warner is the culprit.

The suspect is currently being charged with Terroristic Threats and Stalking.

Source: Georgia Office of Commissioner of Insurance and Fire Safety

Topics Georgia Arson
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Columns are hyper-specific to opinion and are written by only columnists employed by the Iowa State Daily. Columnists are unique because they have a specific writing day and only publish on those writing days. Each column undergoes a thorough editing process ensuring the integrity of the writer, and their claim is maintained while remaining research-based and respectful. Columns may be submitted from community members. These are labelled as Guest Columns. These contain similar research-based content and need to be at least 400 words in length. The following requirements should be met: first and last name, email and relation or position to Iowa State. Emails must be tied to the submitted guest column or it will not be accepted or published. Pseudonyms are prohibited and the writer will be banned from submissions.

Read our full Opinion Policies here. Updated on 10/7/2020
A young man who allegedly carried a machete at lunchtime in Cork City has been refused in his application to be released on bail.

Garda Karen OSullivan arrested Dean Ahern, 25, of Churchfield Green, Churchfield, Cork, and brought him be before Cork District Court. Ahern said he was no longer living at Churchfield Green and was living at Lissarda, Mayfield, Cork.

Ahern was charged with carrying a weapon  namely a machete  at Silversprings Road, Cork, on September 13.

Sergeant Pat Lyons told Judge Olann Kelleher that gardai were opposed to bail being granted to the accused on grounds that included the seriousness of the charge.

Gda OSullivan testified that Dean Ahern told her he was in a feud with someone but did not go on to name that person.

Defendant's evidence

Diarmuid Kelleher, solicitor, called the defendant to the witness box to give evidence in his own bail application. Ahern denied saying he was in a feud and said he would have said that he was paranoid.

I am not feuding with someone. Having a machete was the stupidest mistake of my life. I swear on the bible I am not in a feud. I know I shouldnt have had it on me. It is the biggest regret of my life. I am disgusted. I swear on the bible I am not a risk to anyone, he said.

He said he would not carry any kind of weapon if granted bail. I will not carry anything  down to a butter knife, he said.

Sgt Lyons said gardai had a role to protect the public. We cannot have people wandering around the northside of the city with a machete at two oclock in the afternoon.

Sgt Lyons told the court that Ahern had said that while he had the machete he was not waving it around or anything like that, adding, I wasnt going around like a head case with it. I am not going to carry a knife outside the house again. The only knife I will have is a knife for my dinner.

Judge Kelleher said the allegation is that the defendant had a machete on Silversprings Road at 2pm on Monday. He refused bail and remanded the accused in custody for one week.
Burma Boy, 13, Among Three Villagers Killed by Myanmar Junta Troops in Raid in Magwe

Caption: Smoke from burning houses and burnt motorbikes are seen after a junta raid in Sanpya Village. / CJ

Three civilians including a teenager were killed during junta raids on villages in Myaing Township, Magwe Region, according to local sources.

Maung Nay Htet Oo, 13, and Ko Tun Myint, 18, were gunned down by junta soldiers as they fled a raid in Sanpya Village in Myaing Township on Tuesday.

They fled out of fear when they heard gunshots. The younger [boy] fled to the dam and was shot dead there. The older one was shot dead while fleeing in the village, said a local resident. Ko Tun Myints body showed signs that he was beaten before his death, he added.

The third victim, 26, was burned alive along with a house, the villager said. Junta troops looted houses, and torched motorbikes and an ambulance in the village.

The juntas military columns marched to the area on Monday, clashing with members of the Peoples Defense Force along the way. Locals from several villages on the border of Myaing and Sagaing Regions Pale Township have fled their homes following the junta raids.

We ambush junta troops as they march from village to village. They arrive in villages and torch houses. As we cant hold them in a place, we can only ambush and withdraw. As they have powerful weapons, they eventually reach their destination, said the leader of the Pale Township Peoples Defense Force.

The ongoing junta attack is the second in September. Three civilians died in fighting on Sept. 11.

Shame on those wicked enough to call themselves the government while bullying the people. Their unscrupulous acts are quite rare in this world. Even terrorists are not as despicable as they are. It is a shame for our country that such an organization wants to rule the country, said the Pale PDF leader.

A total of 1,093 people have been killed by the junta since Feb. 1 with 6,533 people under detention and 1,984 people fleeing arrest warrants, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.



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Burma Over 20 Myanmar Military Soldiers Killed in Clashes

A resident tries to put out a fire after junta forces torched Htei Hlaw Village in Gangaw Township, Magwe Region on Sunday. / CJ

At least 21 junta soldiers were reportedly killed over the last two days after being ambushed by civilian resistance fighters in Chin State and Sagaing and Magwe regions.

On Wednesday evening, at least three regime troops were killed by landmines planted by the Peoples Defense Force-Kalay (PDF-K) in Kale Township, Sagaing Region, according to the PDF-K.

A military convoy using some civilian vehicles triggered the landmines near the Government Technology University in Kale.

The Yaw-Peoples Defense Force (Y-PDF) claims to have killed four junta troops on Wednesday morning in an ambush near the border of Kale Township and Gangaw Township in Magwe Region.

Two regime soldiers were also wounded in the attack. The Y-PDF said that two of the dead soldiers were members of a Pyu-Saw-Htee group, a militia trained and armed by the military regime.

Junta troops have been raiding villages along the Gangaw-Kale Highway over the past few weeks in their operations against civilian resistance forces. Over 20 civilians, including several teenagers, were slain and many homes torched by the regime troops. Thousands of people have been forced to flee their villages in Gangaw Township.

On Wednesday morning, another intense firefight occurred in the east of Kanpetlet Township, Chin State when junta troops and ethnic Chin resistance fighters clashed.

During the shootout, four junta soldiers were killed and many others injured, according to the Chinland Defense Force-Kanpetlet (CDF-K).

After the firefight, angry junta soldiers entered Kanpetlet Town and opened fire randomly with heavy weapons and explosives, said CDF-K.

CDF-K has warned locals to be on the alert as more fighting is expected in the township.

On Tuesday morning, 10 junta soldiers were killed and many were injured during an ambush by the CDF-K in the east of Kanpetlet Township. After the clash, junta forces opened fire randomly with artillery, said CDF-K.

There has been an uptick in clashes between junta forces and civilian resistance fighters since last week, when the parallel National Unity Government declared a peoples defensive war against the military regime.

As of Wednesday, over 1,090 people have been killed by junta forces during their raids, crackdowns, arrests, interrogation and random shootings, said the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which is compiling lists of deaths and arrests since the February 1 coup.

Another 8,184 people, including elected government leaders, have been detained by the junta or face arrest warrants.



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Burma Youth Killed, Several Detained as Myanmar Junta Forces Raid Yangon Neighborhoods

Around 11 civilians were arrested during a violent night raid by junta soldiers in Kamayut Township in Yangon. / Kamayut Information

One youth was reportedly killed and several were arrested by junta forces in violent raids on Wednesday in the countrys largest city of Yangon as the regime beefed up its hunt for guerrilla fighters.

The regime has stepped up raids on homes across the city, targeting young people in particular, after suffering an increasing number of attacks by Peoples Defense Forces (PDFs) since the shadow National Unity Government (NUG) declared war against the military junta.

The junta forces raided an apartment on 22nd Street in Latha Township on Wednesday afternoon and opened fire on three youths, according to locals. One was reportedly killed and two were injured in the shooting.

Four other youths were also reportedly arrested in Lanmadaw Township after the incident, locals said.

At night, the forces continued their violent raids in several townships across the city. During a raid, a convoy consisting of a military truck, police van and double cab trucks carrying junta soldiers usually appears, with personnel fully armed. The forces break into apartments and nearby buildings and raid homes.

Locals from Kamayut Township reported that troops raided two wards in the township from 10 p.m. until the pre-dawn hours. During the operation, 11 people including women were arrested, locals said.

One was first dragged from their apartment and forced to kneel down with their hands up as the troops continued their raid on a ward in Kamayut.

The Kamayut Information Community Page quoted residents as saying junta soldiers inflicted non-stop beatings on the arrested people to get information, despite the detainees begging them to stop. Two female residents in another area of the township who were taken were also beaten during questioning, the community page stated.

One also quoted a resident as saying that the belongings of the arrested people including TVs, refrigerators, laptops and bags were taken from their homes.

Since the coup on Feb. 1, junta forces have killed 1,093 people and more than 8,100 people have been arrested. Of them, 6,533 are still detained, including elected leaders, youths, protesters, politicians and civil servants who joined the civil disobedience movement. The junta has also issued arrest warrants for 1,984 people.



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Analysis UN Envoy Joins Her Predecessors in Myanmars Graveyard of Diplomats

Christine Schraner Burgener, UN Special Envoy on Myanmar (left) with Secretary-General Antonio Guterres / UN Photo

Under the previous military regime, Myanmar was known as a diplomatic graveyard, chiefly for the UNs failed missions to the country on issues ranging from humanitarian assistance to national reconciliation between the juntas old boys and their democratic opponentsprimarily the now ousted and detained leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

That bad reputation persists for the country, which has been undergoing a new bout of military rule since February. Just ask Christine Schraner Burgener!

On Tuesday, the 58-year-old, who has been the UNs special envoy for Myanmar since 2018, acknowledged that she is the latest diplomat to be consigned to the graveyard, tweeting that her efforts to facilitate an all-inclusive dialogue in the interest of the people were not welcomed by the military, confessing that her months-long attempts, in the wake of the takeover, to persuade the coup leaders in Naypytaw to engage in dialogue to settle the ongoing political and social turmoil caused by the coup had failed. Her term will end soon.

I regret this clear lack of will for a peaceful solution which could have prevented other stakeholders from feeling they have no choice but to seek violent means, the Swiss diplomat wrote.

She is right to feel regretful, especially after her several talks and long conversation over the phone with the regimes second in charge in Naypyitaw, in which she urged him to engage in dialogue, bore no fruit.

Another blow to her efforts was dealt by Myanmars shadow National Unity Government (NUG) with its recent declaration of revolt against the regime. The parallel government largely made up of elected lawmakers from the Daw Aung San Suu Kyi-led ousted National League for Democracy (NLD) government and its ethnic allies reasoned that it had no option but to resort to armed resistance due to the diplomatic failure to pressure the regime to stop its arbitrary killings and arrests of civilians, among other atrocities, and restore to the NLD the political power it seized through the coup. For someone who lobbied for a peaceful solution in Myanmar, nothing could be more depressing than learning that a majority of Myanmars people heartily embraced the NUGs call to arms.

Myanmar people have good reason to support the NUGs declaration. By the time Schraner Burgener pressed Tweet on her apologetic post about her failed Myanmar mission on Tuesday, 1,089 people had been killed by the regime since February. Another 6,477 had been detained. As they have had firsthand experience of successive regimes brutality following coups in 1962, 1988 and now in 2021, many in Myanmar are skeptical of the nonviolent or peaceful approaches favored by the international community, because those means have historically proved ineffective in taming the rogue soldiers who hold power in Myanmar.

As the UN special envoy to Myanmar, Schraner Burgener first talked to the regimes No. 2 leader three days after the takeover. During her phone call to Vice Senior General Soe Win, she warned him that the worlds nations and the UN Security Council might take huge strong measures against the regime and that Myanmar would become isolated.

We are used to sanctions and we survived those sanctions in the past. We have to learn to walk with only a few friends, the special envoy quoted him as saying, during a press conference in March.

Since then, the diplomat said, she has spoken several times with the deputy commander-in-chief, whom she described as always open for my request for meeting to have frank and open discussions. She tried to get the regimes permission to visit the country, but in vain. At the same time, the regimes killing spree continued. Despite its condemnation of the coup and subsequent atrocities, the UN proved to be toothless on the Myanmar issue, as China and Russia stood against any resolutions proposed at the Security Council that were critical of the regime.

In her effort to find a peaceful solution to the political crisis in Myanmar through dialogue, Schraner Burgener reached out to every stakeholder. She said the countrys ethnic armed organizations were in the majority very positive of this idea while the NUG members were interested in the idea but clearly would have pre-conditions to start such a dialogue. When she presented her idea of an inclusive dialogue during her long conversation with the regimes second leader Soe Win in July, I didnt receive an answer: not a positive, not a negative, she recalled during a briefing to journalists in August.

Despite the regimes rebuffs, she refrained from making harsh criticisms of it until now, apart from condemning its crackdowns on protesters. When the junta said no to her request to visit Myanmar, she never took it as a message that they didnt want to talk to her anymore.

But I assumed that people on the ground would be very encouraged by my presence in the country and thats something the army doesnt want to see, she said, as if she knew the thinking of the regime. Probably her several talks with Soe Win over the months made her think so. It would be interesting to see what she thought of the second-most-powerful person in the Myanmar regimea moderate or a hardliner?as the meetings must have left her with some impression of him.

With Tuesdays tweet, Schraner Burgener has made public her view that the Myanmar regime clearly lacks the will to find a peaceful solution to the countrys crisis through dialogue. But she must have seen the writing on the wall before that. She said in August when Senior General Min Aung Hlaing appointed himself prime minister that he would seek to maintain his grip on power. The juntas annulment of the results of the November 2020 election, which was won by Daw Aung San Suu Kyis party, prompted the UN diplomat to express her fear that the NLD would soon be disbanded.

Bertil Lintner, a Swedish journalist who has covered Myanmar for decades, said the call for daialogue was doomed to fail from the beginning because the junta is interested only in maintaining power, not in engaging in talks or to compromise with its adversaries.

So its hardly surprising that people in Myanmar have resorted to armed struggle against the junta, he said.

As recently as last month, the Swiss diplomat was still hoping that the recent appointment of an ASEAN special envoy on Myanmar would bring an all-inclusive dialogue, as the regime approved the appointment. The ASEAN envoy called for a truce in Myanmar. But, with the NUGs declaration of war and the regimes ongoing attacks on civilians in the country, Erywan Yusofs call for a truce was thrown out of the window.

It took Schraner Burgener nearly seven months to see the Myanmar military rulers true colors. Coming to her senses, she finds herself in the diplomatic graveyard. Never Waste Your Time With the Generals in Naypyitaw! would make a perfect epitaph for her. Yusof will no doubt be her neighbor soon.



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GUEST RESEARCH: Threats against the manufacturing sector continue to persistfrom ransomware groups that steal victims data before encrypting it to nation-state attackers seeking technology secrets and to company insiders looking for information to grab and sell to the highest bidder. Crippling ransomware attacks can even halt assembly lines and disrupt supply chains.

To understand the extent to which the manufacturing sector is protecting its sensitive information from these evolving threats, software company Varonis developed the 2021 Manufacturing Data Risk Report.

It examines the state of data securityon-premises, cloud, and hybrid environmentsfor industrial manufacturers and engineering firms by analysing a random sample of data risk assessments in 50 companiesand a total of 4 billion filesto determine how data is exposed and at risk.

This report aims to help manufacturing organisations assess the current cybersecurity landscape objectively and provide advice that companies can leverage to decrease their attack surface.

Manufacturing was the fifth most targeted industry in 2020, with the average data breach costing $4.99 million. The average breach in the manufacturing sector takes 220 days to containone of the longest threat lifecycles out of any industry. Overexposed informationespecially sensitive dataexponentially increases risk.

This exposure is your blast radiusthe damage an attacker can do once inside your environment.

If just one employee clicks on a phishing email, an attacker can potentially access every file an employee can touch.

The reports key findings include:

Every employee can access, on average, six million files on their first day on the job.

Four in 10 organisations have 1,000+ sensitive files open to every employee.

44% of companies have more than 1,000 active ghost user accounts enabled.

More than half of companies have 500+ accounts with passwords that never expire.

Larger companies are twice more exposed

On average, every employee has access to over six million files  nearly one out of every five files  on their first day on the job. For large companies, that number doubles. At firms with more than 1,500 workers, employees can access over 12 million files.

One out of every ten files open to everyone in the company is sensitive. These files may include intellectual property, employee data, manufacturing and supply chain information, product development documentation, and marketing plans.

Protecting manufacturing data

Global access groups (e.g., everyone, domain users, authenticated users) are helpful for internal collaboration, but they also make it much easier for cybercriminals to infiltrate your environment.

The study points if a bad actor compromises one end user, they can gain a foothold that enables them to copy, share, delete, and change unprotected sensitive information.

44% of manufacturing companies average 1,000+ files open to every employee  and more than one in five have 10,000 files open to every employee.

Companies with overexposed sensitive data can limit open access by enforcing a least privilege model to reduce risk.

Manufacturing companies store above-average amounts of stale sensitive data, which may expose flaws and inflates storage costs unnecessarily. On average, 78% of an organisations sensitive files are stale and could be deleted or archived.

Vulnerabilities in active directory

Inactive user and service accounts that remain enabled long after employees leave (ghost users) provide attackers with plenty of time to brute-force their way into your environment and, once inside, move through your data stores.

From there, they can quietly steal data and avoid detection before encrypting it. Inactive, but enabled, privileged admin accounts with passwords that never expire are one of the best gifts you can give cybercriminals. These often overlooked vulnerabilities are difficult to detect and root out without proper visibility into your environment.

The study found out that 56% of companies have over 500 accounts with passwords that never expire and 44% of companies have more than 1,000 active ghost user accounts enabled.

Manufacturers hold sensitive, and incredibly valuable data that put them at risk. And as we saw with WannaCry and DarkSide. All too often, information is overexposed and under protected. To limit the damage attackers can do, you must reduce your blast radius, suggests Varonis technical director Matt Lock.

Companies need to ask themselves three questions to better prepare for an attack: Do you know where your important data is stored? Do you know that only the right people have access to it? Do you know that theyre using data correctly? If you dont know the answers to these three questions, you wont be able to identity the early stages of a cyberattack, Lock explains.

The report concludes:

1. The manufacturing industrys cybersecurity maturity lags behind other industries such as finance, with nearly half of all companies still underprepared for a disruptive attack.

2. Manufacturers cybersecurity preparedness is more likely to vary when compared to regulated sectors like healthcare and finance. While some companies have mature data security policies and incident response procedures, others have taken few mitigative steps.

3. Manufacturing companies can position themselves for success by deploying solutions to their full potential, removing data security blind spots by adding visibility, and reducing access to data on a least-privilege basis using automation. Reducing your blast radius will help minimise the damage attackers can do whennot ifthey land on your network.
Every manual process performed by human employees leaves the business open to the possibility of productivity bottlenecks. While things are getting done, they may not be getting done as quickly as they should be. This also creates the potential for miscommunication if multiple people are involved in the same process and are not on the same page. Organisations can suffer a major setback because of it. The mishandling of information, low employee morale, and loss of productivity are all hidden costs of tedious manual processes. However, it is possible to make sure that important work gets done in a way that lets organisations avoid every one of these issues. This is done by using workflow automation.



At its core, workflow automation involves both the digitisation and automation of business processes, all to reduce the amount of manual labour required by employees as much as possible. There are a wide range of different types of workflows that are prime candidates for automation. These include, but are certainly not limited, to:

filing or making changes to documents with a consistent structure

reviewing and approving changes that have been made to documents

notifying people when a change to a document has been made by an employee

processing accounts payable or similar administrative functions

the management of records retention and document storage

executing process management reports.



With an intelligent document management solution, for example, organisations can make sure that documents are routed to the correct person when they are created or when certain status changes have been made. If there is a single document that needs to be approved by ten team leaders before it can make its way to a client, the employee who created that document should not have to spend time chasing down every single one of them to keep things moving. With workflow automation, each person can be instantly notified that there is a document that needs to be signed off and, once they do, it continues to move further down the line until each person has completed their assigned task in line with the workflow.



Many workflow automation solutions let organisations monitor, report on, and even analyse current business processes to help them capitalise on opportunities for improvement on an ongoing basis. Many also provide reporting dashboards that let process managers view each step of a particular business workflow in fine detail. This puts them in a better position to eliminate the types of performance bottlenecks that cost time and money, thus improving those processes in meaningful ways.



They can even offer the ability to show users a full history of all business process steps, confirming beyond the shadow of a doubt that automation software is getting the job done in a way far more efficient than humans could on their own.



In a larger sense, workflow automation also makes it easier for employees to communicate with one another, which is a great way to empower their ability to collaborate. Comprehensive workflow automation solutions use built-in communication tools that make sharing documents and other important project-related data easier than ever. When businesses make it easier for employees to work together, it increases the chances that they do, improving employee morale and the quality of work.



Workflow automation is more than just another IT trend or passing fad. It is an opportunity to optimise processes across all departments in a way that eliminates human error, reduces performance bottlenecks, and improves the quality of work and client experience. It speeds up how fast an organisation can move because it frees up valuable employee time so that they can focus on the core tasks that really matter to the business. It also improves both internal and external transparency, which for many businesses may very well be the most important benefit.
A software management agent silently installed by Microsoft's cloud platform Azure on Linux VMs has a number of remote code execution and local privilege escalation flaws, security firm Wiz.io has revealed.

As the presence of the agent is unknown to the owner of the VM, and Microsoft has no auto update mechanism for these agents, it has to be manually upgraded, British security expert Kevin Beaumont said in a tweet.

"...so now you need to manually upgrade the agents you didnt know existed as you didnt install them," Beaumont, who formerly worked as a threat researcher for the Redmond giant, added, with a touch of sarcasm.

As the agent is known as Open Management Infrastructure or OMI, Nir Ohfeld of Wiz gave the vulnerability the catchy name OMIGOD. The agent runs as root, with the maximum privileges.

What's going on at Microsoft? pic.twitter.com/UMCYrdga2S  Ryan Naraine (@ryanaraine) September 15, 2021

Microsoft appeared to be uncertain about having fixed the flaw, though it listed four CVEs in its, judging from messages that were cited by Ohfeld in the blog post about the flaw.

Ohfeld said the OMI agent was embedded in many popular Azure services.

"When customers set up a Linux virtual machine in their cloud, the OMI agent is automatically deployed without their knowledge when they enable certain Azure services," he explained.

"Unless a patch is applied, attackers can easily exploit these four vulnerabilities to escalate to root privileges and remotely execute malicious code (for instance, encrypting files for ransom).

"We named this quartet of zero-days 'OMIGOD' because that was our reaction when we discovered them. We conservatively estimate that thousands of Azure customers and millions of endpoints are affected. In a small sample of Azure tenants we analyzed, over 65% were unknowingly at risk."

This is even more severe. The RCE is the simplest RCE you can ever imagine. Simply remove the auth header and you are root. remotely. on all machines. Is this really 2021? pic.twitter.com/iIHNyqgew4  Ami Luttwak (@amiluttwak) September 14, 2021

More than half of all Azure instances run Linux as a VM, according to Microsoft.

Ohfeld said these VMs were at risk if they were running any of the following services or tools:

Azure Automation

Azure Automatic Update

Azure Operations Management Suite

Azure Log Analytics

Azure Configuration Management

Azure Diagnostics

He hastened to add that this was just a partial list, and invited Azure users to contact him if they were aware of other services running OMI.

But Linux VMs were not the only source of worry. "In addition to Azure cloud customers, other Microsoft customers are affected since OMI can be independently installed on any Linux machine and is frequently used on-premise," Ohfeld pointed out.

"For example, OMI is built in System Center for Linux, Microsofts server management solution."

Azure broke the shared responsibility model with OMI and the #omigod vulnerabilities expose these cracks. Customers have to patch a CVSS 9.8 vulnerability in a software they don't even know that's installed in their environment pic.twitter.com/peOpE8GNTS  Al (@41thexplorer) September 15, 2021

Ami Luttwak, the chief technology officer of Wiz.io, said: "The RCE is the simplest RCE you can ever imagine. Simply remove the auth header and you are root. remotely. on all machines.

And he added, sarcastically, "Is this really 2021?"

In his post, Ohfeld wrote: "This is a textbook RCE vulnerability that you would expect to see in the 90s  its highly unusual to have one crop up in 2021 that can expose millions of endpoints. With a single packet, an attacker can become root on a remote machine by simply removing the authentication header. Its that simple.

Microsoft also need to fix this one. The OMSagent (Sentinel etc) has an LPE to root. pic.twitter.com/9qJfWo5EYj  Kevin Beaumont (@GossiTheDog) September 14, 2021

"Thanks to the combination of a simple conditional statement coding mistake and an uninitialised auth struct, any request without an Authorisation header has its privileges default to uid=0, gid=0, which is root."

He said the company had reported the four vulnerabilities to Microsoft and they had been patched effective September 14 US time.

"Upgrading OMI happens through the parent Azure service that installed it. However, we urge customers to verify that their environment is indeed patched and they are running the latest version of OMI (Version 1.6.8.1)," Ohfeld added.
FILE- In this April 8, 2019 file photo, actor Allison Mack leaves Brooklyn federal court in New York after pleading guilty to racketeering charges in a case involving a cult-like group based in upstate New York called NXIVM. Mack, who played a key role in the cultlike group NXIVM, has surrendered to a California prison to serve her sentence in a New York case against the groups spiritual leader.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte will not cooperate with the International Criminal Courts probe into the drug war, his lawyer said Thursday, insisting the tribunal does not have jurisdiction in the country.

ICC judges authorised Wednesday a full-blown investigation into Dutertes anti-narcotics campaign  that rights group estimate has killed tens of thousands of people  saying it resembled an illegitimate and systematic attack on civilians.

Duterte will not cooperate since first of all, the Philippines has left the Rome statute, so the ICC no longer has jurisdiction over the country, chief presidential legal counsel Salvador Panelo told local radio DZBB.

The government will not let in any ICC member to collect information and evidence here in the Philippines, they will be barred entry.

Duterte has repeatedly attacked the worlds only permanent war crimes court, calling it bullshit and vowing not to cooperate with its probe.

The firebrand leader drew international censure when he pulled the Philippines from the court after it launched a preliminary investigation into his drugs crackdown.

At least 6,181 people have been killed in over 200,000 anti-drug operations conducted since July 2016, according to the latest official data released by the Philippines.
The mystery how the hugely courageous UN secretary general Dag Hammarskjold died 60 years ago has only thickened since his plane crashed in the African bush, killing all on board.

Was the Swede, who was posthumously awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, murdered by rebels and mercenaries working in cahoots with Western intelligence agencies and mining companies, or was pilot error to blame?

A long-running investigation by the British newspaper The Observer found that London and Washington had much to answer for.

And an award-winning 2019 documentary Cold Case Hammarskjold pointed the finger at a Belgian mercenary pilot with links to British intelligence.

 Tensions in Congo 

The tragedy happened on the night of September 17-18, 1961 as the UNs DC-6 Albertina aircraft took Hammarskjold and his team to Ndola in what was then the British colony of Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia).

He was headed there to negotiate a ceasefire with Moise Tshombe, leader of the secessionist Katanga state that was seeking to break from the former Belgian Congo after independence that June.

The Cold War was at its height and the dashing and dynamic Hammarskjold, the youngest person ever to lead the UN, was determined to defend the international bodys independence from Washington and Moscow as well as the old colonial powers.

The trip was being closely monitored by the big powers all of whom had an eye on Katangas vast mineral riches of copper, cobalt and uranium.

Mining consortiums fearing Congos independence were bankrolling Tshombes government which was also backed by Belgian colonists and European mercenaries.

 Human error? 

Hammarskjolds aircraft never arrived at its destination. At dawn calls to neighbouring airports all came back with the same answer: no radio contact had been made with the missing plane.

After several hours searching, the debris of the Albertina along with 16 bodies, including Hammarskjold and one sole survivor, were found in a forest about 12 km (7.5 miles) from Ndola airport.

Sergeant Harold Julian, an American serving as a UN security officer, was in a critical condition and he died days later, but he said there had been a strong explosion on board, followed by smaller blasts.

Rumours of sabotage were quickly denied and the initial investigations pointed to a pilot error as the cause.

 Plot to kill? 

The case was revived in the 1990s.

Two former UN representatives in Katanga said in 1992 they were convinced the crash had been caused by shots fired by two planes chartered by European industrialists who controlled Katanga.

A fresh development came in 1998 when the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was set up in South Africa to try the abuses committed under the apartheid regime.

It found documents implicating Pretoria, London and Washington in a plot to kill Hammarskjold code-named Hows Celeste?.

But the original documents unearthed by the commission have since disappeared and Britains Foreign Office has denied the accusations.

 Whats in the files? 

In 2015 after a report carried out by independent experts, the UN accepted the theory that the plane was shot down and said the investigation should continue.

Then-UN chief Ban Ki-moon urged member states to disclose any information they may have had.

This was an allusion to cockpit recordings and radio messages the US intelligence agency NSA is said to have had in 1961.

But in 2019 Moon said no further information had been received.

Heel-dragging by the US and UK has also been at the heart of the investigation carried out over several years by The Observer.

In 2019 the paper cited a report from Mohamed Chande Othman, a former chief justice of Tanzania appointed by the UN to review the case.

Britain and the US, Othman suggested, were dragging their heels despite likely holding important undisclosed information.

The paper said the Belgian pilot suspected of shooting the plane down was not aware Hammarskjold was on board. He later confessed his part to a friend, who recorded the conservation.

French journalist Maurin Picard meanwhile concluded in his 2019 book that pro-Katangese foreign mercenaries were responsible.

The UN has extended its investigation and hopes for new leads are now pinned on the declassification of archives related to the case.

With Hammarskjolds family holding a ceremony in Sweden to mark the anniversary, his son Peder called on governments to finally come clean.

Some countries in the UN investigation have not been forthcoming, such as Belgium and the US.

We would welcome more openness, it has been a long time since his death.
President Rodrigo Duterte was swept to power in 2016 on a promise to get rid of narcotics in the Philippines, unleashing an unprecedented campaign against suspected drug users and dealers.

The authoritarian firebrand has defended the brutal crackdown  his signature policy  that rights groups estimate has killed tens of thousands of people.

More than five years after the bloody campaign began, the International Criminal Court on Wednesday authorised a full-blown investigation into the killings.

Here is a timeline of key events during the drug war:

2016: Crackdown begins

Duterte is sworn into office on June 30, 2016, promising a ruthless and deeply controversial war on crime.

Security services are given shoot-to-kill orders and even offered bounties for the bodies of drug dealers.

The former city mayor tells ordinary Filipinos to kill drug users.

If you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself as getting their parents to do it would be too painful, Duterte says.

Since then, at least 6,181 people die in over 200,000 anti-narcotics operations, official data show.

ICC prosecutors in court papers estimate the figure to be between 12,000 to 30,000.

2017: Corrupt police demoted

Duterte orders police to take a step back from the drug war in January, describing them as corrupt to the core and instructing the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) to lead after revelations that officers kidnapped and murdered a South Korean businessman.

Its not long before Duterte reinstates the force and re-launches the war under the name Double Barrel Reloaded  so called for the two-pronged police strategy to wipe out drugs.

He demotes the police again in October in the face of mounting public opposition to the drug war  before ordering them back to the frontlines of the crackdown less than two months later.

2018: First police convictions

Three policemen are sentenced to decades in prison for murdering a teenager during an anti-narcotics sweep, marking the first conviction of officers carrying out Dutertes drug war.

The 2017 killing of Kian delos Santos in a dank Manila alley sparks rare protests against the campaign.

Police say the 17-year-old was a drug courier who fired at them while resisting arrest. However, CCTV footage shows two of the policemen dragging the unarmed boy moments before he was shot dead.

2019: Philippines exits ICC

The Philippines officially exits the International Criminal court in March, a year after telling the United Nations that it was quitting the worlds only permanent war crimes tribunal.

The move comes after the ICC launches a preliminary examination in 2018 into Dutertes drug crackdown.

2020: UN reports near impunity

The United Nations human rights office says in June the drug war has unleashed widespread and systematic killing with near impunity for offenders.

Calling for an independent probe into human rights abuses, the office says police have been encouraged by the highest levels of government to use lethal force on drug suspects and thousands have been killed by officers and unknown gunmen since 2016.

But the UN Human Rights Council, which had requested the review of the crackdown, later passes a resolution for the UN to provide technical assistance to the Philippines to improve human rights in the country.

2021: ICC investigates

The International Criminal Court approves a full-blown investigation into the drug war on September 15, after its judges say the crackdown could be a crime against humanity.

Duterte does not immediately respond, but his close advisers insist the tribunal has no jurisdiction in the Philippines and the president will not cooperate.

The announcement comes weeks after Duterte, who is barred under the constitution from seeking a second term, declares he will run for vice president in next years elections.

Critics say the move is partly driven by fear of criminal charges, though there is debate over whether the vice president enjoys legal immunity.
The Afghanistan case has been riddled with roadblocks for The Hague court, which started to look at the war-torn country 15 years ago. It has faced fierce U.S. opposition with even last year sanctions brought against the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutors examining alleged crimes by the Taliban, Afghan government troops and U.S. forces between 2003 and 2014. These were lifted earlier this year but now, after the Taliban takeover of most of the country, court observers and Afghan victims advocates fear any hopes of an investigation that could lead to a trial in The Hague have been dashed.

The Taliban have always been against the involvement of other international bodies in Afghanistan, Afghan human rights activist Horia Mosadiq told Justice Info. If there were any hopes of the office of the [ICC] prosecutor getting access to Afghanistan during the previous government those, hopes have been dashed completely, international law expert Owiso Owiso from the University of Luxembourg added.

The impracticable road to a full investigation

It was only in 2020 that the ICC judges granted the prosecution request to open a full investigation on Afghanistan, for alleged war crimes committed between 2003 and 2014. The prosecutor was initially turned down by a lower trial chamber who believed an investigation would not be in the interest of justice because there was so little chance of cooperation by the parties.

However, as soon as the prosecutor got the judges go-ahead, the Afghan government submitted a deferral request to pause the case for a year arguing that some of the crimes were investigated domestically. This means the probe has been on hold for over a year, pending a decision from the prosecutor who is the only one designated by the courts founding Rome Statute who can assess that request.

Contacted by Justice Info, the office of the prosecutor would not answer questions about the status of this assessment. Lawyers representing victims in the Afghanistan case have filed a request in April to ask the ICC judges to order the prosecution to give more information about it, and to give it a deadline for a decision. But earlier this month, the judges rejected the application, saying the Chamber must respect the fact that the Rome Statute confers upon the prosecution alone the power to review the deferral request, also in light of all relevant developments on the ground.

Start the investigation, urge activists

Last month ICC prosecutor Karim Khan issued a brief statement calling on all sides in Afghanistan to respect humanitarian law and reminding the parties his office had jurisdiction over any war crimes and crimes against humanity committed on Afghan territory since 2003. He gave no indication of the status of the investigation. Activists called on Khan to seize the opportunity to deny the deferral request and start the investigation in earnest.

Its pure fantasy to entertain the notion that the Taliban would have the capacity and willingness to continue any investigations that were being carried out by the previous government, Raquel Vazquez Llorente, ICC observer for the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) said.

Opposition from powerful states

Even if Khan, who is only three months into his nine-year tenure, quickly decides to move forward with an Afghanistan investigation, experts warn it will be an uphill battle to secure a case because of the powerful states involved who do not want the investigation.

After the court announced a probe was opened last year the U.S. response was quick. The then president Donald Trump imposed sanctions on the ICC prosecutor and a close collaborator. While the sanctions have since been lifted, the Joe Biden administration has also made it clear they do not support the ICCs Afghanistan probe.

Owiso says it is unlikely the prosecutor would ever be able to get enough evidence to secure a conviction in that context. It is clear the U.S. would not cooperate with the investigation; and the former Afghan government, which at least went through the motions of cooperating minimal engagement with the court, is no longer in power. Generally speaking, you cannot make a winning case without access to evidence, Owiso said. Where governments were reluctant or hostile to the court, ICC cases have collapsed or stalled, he recalled.

Evidence and witnesses at risk

Many activist fear that the Taliban will not only not cooperate but also actively destroy evidence or target potential witnesses for an ICC case. They may put the life of victims who testified and came forward at grave risk, Mosadiq warned.

Watchdog organisations including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have also called on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, often used to post footage of alleged abuses, to properly archive the material even if it is removed so it can potentially be used in later legal cases.

In the meantime, Llorente points out that the refugees coming out of Afghanistan could provide an opportunity for the ICC. I think you can expect that in the past few weeks many of the victims and witnesses are now in safe locations outside of Afghanistan, which in many ways may make easier the work of the investigators, she said. In the past years, it was considered to be too dangerous for ICC personnel to be present on the ground in Afghanistan.

Mosadiq is more pessimistic, while she holds out some hope for a future case, she is unsure if new refugee testimony will make the difference for the ICC case. Members of Afghan civil society inside and outside of the country did submit cases to the ICC, they provided information and testimony to the court. It was the failure of the court not to take that seriously, she said, pointing out that the case already dragged on for 15 years despite their testimony.

Bensouda left no choice to his successor. Khan cannot undo her request for an investigation in Afghanistan, even if the context has dramatically changed. The new prosecutor can only either accept the Afghan deferral, which is more than unlikely after the Taliban takeover, or reject it and start an investigation.
A man in his seventies was charged in France on Thursday in connection with the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, the anti-terrorist prosecutor in Paris said.

Rwandan-born Isaak Kamali, a naturalised French citizen who has been on Frances judicial radar since 2009, was charged with genocide and crimes against humanity.

The prosecutor, in a statement, said Kamali is accused of involvement in the genocide of Tutsis committed in 1994 in Rwanda.

Contacted by AFP, the accused lawyer did not wish to comment.

Kamali, who hails from central Rwanda, was employed at the ministry of transport during the genocide, which the United Nations says left some 800,000 people dead, mainly from the ethnic Tutsi minority, between April and July of 1994

The anti-terrorist prosecutor said that the suspect disputed the charges against him during his first appearance before a French judge.

Kamali was condemned to death, in absentia, by a court in Rwanda in 2003, but this sentenced was later annulled due to changes in Rwandan law, according to a French-based victims association, the Collective of Civil Plaintiffs for Rwanda (CPCR).

He is still wanted by Rwandan justice but France has so far refused to extradite him.
The father of Gabby Petito, who was reported missing over the weekend, made a public plea Thursday for information on the disappearance of the Florida woman.

Petito, 22, was reported missing by her family on Saturday, after they had not heard from her since late August, according to police in North Port, Florida.

"Finding this girl is what matters," her father, Joe Petito, said Thursday during a news briefing with North Port police, pointing to a photo of the missing woman. "Anything else ... comes second to this."

Petito is believed to have been in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming before her last contact with family, police said. She was traveling with her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie, who has returned to Florida, hired a lawyer and, along with his family, has refused to speak with investigators.

"I'm asking for help from everyone here. I'm asking for help from everyone at home. I'm asking for help from the parents of Brian," said Petito's father, urging anyone with information to call the FBI hotline at 1-800-CALLFBI (225-5324).

Laundrie was traveling with Petito in her white 2012 Ford Transit van with Florida plates, according to a police statement. The van was recovered on Sunday at the North Port home she shared with Laundrie and his parents, the statement said. Laundrie reportedly returned to North Port on September 1.

An attorney for the Laundrie family said in a statement Tuesday that his clients were "remaining in the background ... and will have no further comment" on the advice of counsel.

"It is our understanding that a search has been organized for Miss Petito in or near Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming," Laundrie family attorney Steven Bertolino said in the statement.

North Port Police Chief Todd Garrison said Thursday that a missing persons investigation is being conducted and no criminal charges were forthcoming at this time.

"Brian is exercising his constitutional rights, and I have to respect them," Garrison said of Laundrie and his family. The focus of the investigation, he added, "isn't to bring Brian in right now."

Police describe Petito as White, about 5 feet, 5 inches tall and 110 pounds, with blonde hair, blue eyes and several tattoos, including one on her finger and one on her forearm that reads "Let it be."

North Port police are leading the investigation, with assistance from the FBI. Petito's family lives in New York and reported her missing to the police department in Suffolk County, New York.

Petito and boyfriend had 'altercation' in Utah

In August, police in Moab, Utah, encountered Petito and her boyfriend as they were "engaged in some sort of altercation," according to a report released by the Moab City Police Department.

Moab City police responded to reports of disorderly conduct on August 12 and encountered Laundrie and Petito, along with a witness whose full name was redacted from the report.

Laundrie and Petito were described as having a physical fight following an argument but "both the male and female reported they are in love and engaged to be married and desperately didn't wish to see anyone charged with a crime," according to the report from Officer Eric Pratt.

At the officers' suggestion, Laundrie and Petito separated for the night, the report said. Petito was described by an officer as "confused and emotional."

"After evaluating the totality of the circumstances, I do not believe the situation escalated to the level of a domestic assault as much as that of a mental health crisis," Officer Daniel Robbins wrote in the police report. No arrests were filed.

Robbins wrote that Laundrie said the couple had been traveling for "4 or 5 months."

The-CNN-Wire

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LAFAYETTE, LA (KADN) - Doctors say the number of kids under 18-years-old testing positive for covid-19 jumped from 4% percent at the end of June to now 24%. Hospitals see big jump in covid cases.

Dr. Tina Stefanski, Regional Medical Director for the Office of Public Health in Acadiana says "we're starting to see our covid numbers start to slowly decline but were still at a higher level than we have been at any point in this pandemic".

Studies show children make up more than two thousand of the new Covid-19 cases reported in Louisiana. Dr. Tina Stefanski says our most vulnerable population is now at risk.

Dr. Stefanski says it is a lot of concern with back to school we're seeing a lot of transmission in that k through 12 age group not necessary in school on the school campus but in that age group in general.

The CDC recommends everyone 12 years and older get a covid-19 vaccine and many believe those under 12 are just too young.

Sara, a lafayette resident says she feels the kids that's under 12-years-old should not get vaccinated just yet because we still don't know what's in the shot and some kids have allergies bad allergies they allergic to peanuts and seafood and I feel that would probably mess them up because we don't know what's really in the shot.

Pfizer expects to release clinical trial data on how well its Covid-19 vaccine works in 6-month to 5-year-old children as early as the end of October. One lafayette resident says while he believes children should get vaccinated he doesn't fully trust it.

Karim Baisey says he thinks kids should get vaccinated however he doesn't trust the vaccine itself because it hasn't been around that long but he does think it's important for kids to get vaccinated.
ALEXANDRIA, La. -Acting United States Attorney Alexander C. Van Hook announced that Dondrea Joseph, 28, of New Iberia, Louisiana,has been sentenced by United States District Judge Dee D. Drell to 37 months in prison,followed by 2 years of supervised release,on firearms charges.

According to information presented in court, on April 12, 2017, Joseph was charged with possession with intent to distribute cocaine. In February 2019, while this felony charge was pending against Joseph, a Breaux Bridge police officer reported that her Glock pistol had been stolen.

On September 29, 2019, Joseph was stopped for speeding on I-49 in Rapides Parish. Joseph did not have a valid drivers license, and the vehicle he was driving was a rental. Officers were given consent to search the vehicle from Josephs girlfriend, whom the car was rented to, and they found a loaded Glock pistol with a 33-round extended magazine and a Glock switch attached to it, which converted it from a semi-automatic to an automatic firearm. This firearm was later determined to be the same one stolen from the police officer in February 2019. At the time of the traffic stop, Joseph knew that he was under indictment for a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year and therefore, was prohibited from possessing a firearm or ammunition. Joseph was arrested and charged with receiving a firearm and ammunition by a person under indictment.
"The Devil Judge" actress Park Gyu Young returns to the small screen with KBS2's newest romantic comedy "Dal Li and Gamjatang" with "Do You Like Brahms?" actor Kim Min Jae.

In an interview held on September 15, the actress revealed her reasons for choosing "Dal Li and Gamjatang" as her new drama project after appearing in "The Devil Judge".

She also shared her thoughts on her chemistry with fellow lead actor Kim Min Jae.

Park Gyu Young To Lead New Drama 'Dal Li and Gamjatang' Alongside Kim Min Jae

Lead actor Park Gyu Young shared her thoughts on the drama "Dal Li and Gamjatang" as well as her working experience with her co-stars in an exclusive interview held days before its much-awaited premiere.

Park Gyu Young takes on the role of Kim Dal Li, an art museum director who was born to a well-off family. She possesses the ability to speak seven different languages including English, Japanese, Chinese, and French. However, she lives as a worm who doesn't know much, even the simplest things, about the world.

When asked about her thoughts and the reason why she chose the new drama, she shared that she found the script fun and colorful, and there was no reason not to appear in it.

She also described her character, Kim Dal Li, with delight and adoration. The actress said, "She is fascinating. She looks soft on the outside but inside, she is a strong woman who is not easily shaken."

Park Gyu Young is highly praised for her looks in the new drama. She commented, "Dal Li's hairstyle started with the production team's idea. We wanted to express Dal Li's unique personality, so we put much effort in her hairstyle and clothes."

Her transformation and fashion attracted great attention among avid Korean drama viewers.

Park Gyu Young Shares Thoughts on Chemistry With Kim Min Jae

One of the reasons why "Dal Li and Gamjatang" raises expectations is because of the unique and new combination of two experienced actors Park Gyu Young and Kim Min Jae.

The two will prove that opposites do attract through their new drama project together.

Park Gyu Young praises her co-star Kim Min Jae for his amazing acting ability. She said, "He showed a completely different charisma from his role in "Do You Like Brahms?". It's really nice to work with him because he sets the mood during filming. Though he is full of energy, he is still soft and warm."

In addition to that, the actress revealed the nickname of their on-screen relationship, "I like the name "The Truth Couple". It's simple and good."

Park Gyu Young Reveals The New Drama's Charms

According to the actress, the art that is incorporated in the drama is the charm of "Dal Li and Gamjatang".

Park Gyu Young also encouraged potential viewers to anticipate the new drama. She said with a warm smile, ""Dal Li and Gamjatang" will give you a healing time to laugh without worry. The director and production staff all worked together to create this masterpiece so please give us and the new drama lots of love and support."

'Dal Li and Gamjatang' Production and Further Details

KBS2's newest drama "Dal Li and Gamjatang" is helmed by scriptwriters Son Eun Hye and Park Se Eun and director Lee Jung Seob.

Kwon Yul, Hwang Hee, MOMOLAND Yeonwoo, Hwang Bo Ra will join the two as the main cast of the show.

Jang Gwang, Woo Hee Jin, Ahn Gil Kang, and more will also appear in the drama, strengthening the cast.

"Dal Li and Gamjatang" is slated to premiere on September 22 on KBS2 at 9:30 p.m. KST.

ICYMI, here's the fun-filled teaser of "Dal Li and Gamjatang":

Follow KDramastars for more Kdrama, KMovie, and celebrity news updates!

KDramastars owns this article.

Written by Elijah Mully.
By Maegan Vazquez, CNN

(CNN) -- President Joe Biden on Wednesday called the results of California's recall vote "a resounding win" for Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom's approach to the Covid-19 pandemic, specifically citing the state's strong vaccine requirements.

Newsom faced a partisan recall effort that had grown out of frustration over his response to the pandemic and the state's strict Covid restrictions. But the results of Tuesday's recall -- which weighed whether to oust Newsom from office before the end of his term -- turned out to be a vote of confidence by California voters in his approach, Biden said.

"This vote is a resounding win for the approach that he and I share to beating the pandemic: strong vaccine requirements, strong steps to reopen schools safely, and strong plans to distribute real medicines  not fake treatments  to help those who get sick," Biden said in a statement.

"The fact that voters in both traditionally Democratic and traditionally Republican parts of the state rejected the recall shows that Americans are unifying behind taking these steps to get the pandemic behind us," he continued.

In July, it was announced that California will require all state employees and health care workers to provide proof of vaccination status or get regular testing. Last month, Newsom announced that teachers and other school employees must either be vaccinated against Covid-19 or submit to regular testing. A similar order is in effect for the state's health care workers.

And last week, a board voted to require all eligible students attending Los Angeles Unified public schools -- the nation's second largest school district -- to be vaccinated against Covid-19 by the end of the calendar year.

California's efforts to implement vaccine requirements come as the Biden administration has explored how to establish federal mandates for Americans, including for US air travel.

Biden recently issued new vaccine requirements, which include a still-undrafted rule that all employers with more than 100 workers must require either the vaccine or regular testing. Newsom said last week that he supports Biden's requirement.

Biden campaigned for Newsom on the eve of the election, calling the governor's most prominent opponent -- conservative radio host Larry Elder -- "a clone" of former President Donald Trump.

The President told supporters that voting against the recall would protect "California from Trump Republicans trying to block us from beating this pandemic."

A Newsom adviser told CNN that Biden's eleventh-hour visit "buoyed" the governor, and the President's aides believed a strong showing could give Democrats and independents a stronger sense of confidence as the administration fights over mask-wearing, vaccines and more.

As a candidate, Elder pledged to roll back the majority of Newsom's Covid restrictions, telling CNN in an interview last month that if elected he "certainly will not" require California state workers to get vaccinated or be tested once a week, or to wear masks at work, as Newsom has mandated.

Biden also sought to illustrate what would happen if Elder were elected by pulling from the actions of existing Republican governors during the pandemic.

"People are doing everything they can to block or undermine the lifesaving mandates we proposed, putting their people at risk, putting their children at risk, putting their states at risk," Biden said. "And here's the worst thing. For these Republican governors, it isn't about public health, about the health of the people. It's about politics."

Newsom's message to voters underscored that the recall amounted to a "life or death" choice and promised that his top priority was to keep them safe.

That message, especially late in the race, when fears of the Delta variant emerged, helped him shift the trajectory of the contest late this summer as he painted a sharp contrast between his own response to the resurgent virus and what Elder might have done as governor.

Exit polling on Tuesday night suggested that message may have broken through with voters, who listed the coronavirus as the most pressing issue facing the state.

About 45% of the electorate says Newsom's policies on the pandemic have been about right, with about one-third calling his policies too strict and the remainder saying they're not strict enough, according to a California exit poll conducted for CNN and other news networks by Edison Research.

Newsom was also bolstered by a robust turnout among Democrats, who outnumber Republicans nearly 2 to 1 in the state but had initially appeared uninterested in the race.
SALEM, Ore.  A new Oregon license plate design being released October 1 is intended to celebrate the state's diversity of culture, coincident with the 20th anniversary of the Oregon Cultural Trust.

Once October begins, the new plate will be available on the Oregon DMV website, at DMV field offices, and at Lithia Motors' 32 franchise dealerships throughout the state.

The "Celebrate Oregon!" artwork was created by Liza Burns of Eugene, and will also be installed as full-scale murals at the Eugene, Medford, Portland, and Redmond airports through a partnership with GreenCars.com. A 38-foot outdoor banner will also be installed at the Northwest Film Center in the Portland Art Museum.

The new design, built on a panorama of Oregon geography, reflects and respects the diversity of our culture at a time we need it most, said Cultural Trust Board Chair Niki Price. Cultural expression is how our communities define themselves  how they live their everyday lives, their traditions, their heritage, their creativity, their celebrations, their values and how they connect with one another. Our culture is the glue that can bind us together as Oregonians.

Celebrate Oregon! includes 127 symbols representing different aspects of the state's arts, heritage, history, and culture  the result of a year-long process. A total of 36 artists submitted work samples and statements of interests, narrowed down to 20 who submitted concepts for the piece. Burns's design received unanimous approval from the jury.

We knew that reflecting the breadth of Oregon culture, and how it brings us together, in one design was an extremely ambitious goal, said Cultural Trust Executive Director Brian Rogers. Lizas creation does that and so much more. It captures the spirit of Oregon and also serves as an educational tool for exploring our diversity. We are incredibly proud and excited to share it with Oregonians.

Events celebrating the unveiling of the murals are scheduled for Sept. 21 at Rogue Valley International-Medford Airport in partnership with the Medford Arts Commission; Oct. 15 at FlyRedmond; Oct. 28 at Eugene Airport; and mid-November at Portland International Airport.

"Oregonians value sustainability and embrace green energy, said Tina Miller, Chief Financial Officer of Lithia Motors and GreenCars spokesperson. Our partnership with the Oregon Cultural Trust, and sponsorship of these magnificent murals, is our way of bringing this important part of Oregon culture into the picture.
KLAMATH FALLS, Ore.  School administrators evacuated Henley High School near Klamath Falls on Thursday due to a "perceived threat," according to the Klamath County School District.

The school was evacuated around 1 p.m. on Thursday. Officials said that as soon as the school became aware of the potential threat, all students and staff were evacuated. Authorities have also been notified and an investigation is underway.

KCSD gave assurances that students were not in danger and classes would resume shortly.

Shortly after 3 p.m., KCSD said that the investigation determined there was no threat. Students and staff were allowed to return to the building, and school was set to be dismissed at its regular time.
A section of Forest Service Road 201, which connects Penticton and Kelowna on the east side of Okanagan Lake, is shown in this image from Google Maps. If elected, a Conservative federal government would upgrade the road to provide a reliable alternative to Highway 97, candidate Dan Albas said Wednesday.
Homeless activists gather outside the residence of Toronto Mayor John Tory in Toronto on Thursday September 16, 2021. Activists are calling for an end to the evictions of the unhoused from encampments. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young
JUNCTION CITY, Ore.  A year after allegations surfaced regarding a caregiver at a Junction City retirement home, a guilty plea has been entered in the case.

Noelle Renee Jendraszek, 26, will be sentenced Thursday morning.



Junction City Retirement and Assisted Living Junction City Retirement and Assisted Living

Authorities said she stole money, jewelry and drugs from residents at Junction City Retirement and Assisted Living, 500 E. 6th St.

MORE: FORMER CAREGIVER ACCUSED OF MISTREATMENT, THEFT ARRAIGNED MONTHS LATER

Of the 21 total counts she was charged with, she pleaded guilty to six, including first-degree criminal mistreatment, third-degree theft and tampering with drug records.

The investigation into Jendraszeks conduct began on Sept. 10, 2020, after a residents son reported that cash had been stolen from his elderly father. The claims were confirmed, and Jendraszek was fired the next day, according to Caitlin VanDerSchaff with Frontier Management, which oversees the Junction City facility.

Authorities said within hours of talking with Jendraszek, she surrendered about 275 pieces of jewelry she said shed stolen from residents at multiple facilities and she admitted to withholding vital and medically necessary medications from many residents in her care.

Jendraszek was taken to the Lane County Jail on a laundry list of charges and was later released from jail without being formally charged. At the time, prosecutors said more evidence was needed in the case.

RELATED: NO CHARGES AT THIS TIME FOR CAREGIVER ACCUSED OF MISTREATMENT, THEFT

In June this year, she was arraigned in Lane County Circuit Court.

In a notarized affidavit, Jendraszek said: I am very apologetic for any harm I have done and/or any sadness I have caused. It is my intent to correct my wrongs and do the right thing by taking responsibility for my actions. I hope someday that all the families and persons I have harmed can find it within themselves to forgive me because I know what I have done is wrong and I am seeking the help I need to recover and become a better person.

Jendraszek has been employed at the following facilities in the past five or so years, including:
LANE COUNTY, Ore. -- With the new school year underway for many districts, parents are expressing concerns as COVID-19 cases have already started to pop up in schools.

Eugene School District 4J officials told KEZI as of Sep. 14, they've had 11 positive COVID-19 cases in the district. Kerry Delf with 4J said when the district is notified of a positive case, they immediately start contact tracing. She said this might lead to everyone in the individual's cohort staying home for a day or two until the tracing is done.

Delf wants families to be aware of this possibility and be prepared for their student to stay home -- just in case. She encourages families to do their part at home as well to reduce the spread.

"We know that COVID is in our community. We know that there will be cases at school," Delf said. "What we need to do is work to ensure that we are using the multi-layered prevention strategies, so that we have not just one measure, not just two measures but many measures that together work to reduce the risk."

Overall, she said they're happy with how students have been following the guidelines.

4J parent Mel Bradshaw told KEZI she's concerned because when her kids get sick with even a common cold, they tend to end up in the hospital.

All three of her kids are attending school in person.

Bradshaw said when case numbers in the community started rising towards the end of the summer, she requested online learning, but they were waitlisted.

She said it's tough because her kids are really enjoying in-person learning, but she's worried they will be the next to get the virus.

"Their happiness counts for something too," Bradshaw said. "If we do get that call, I would personally want to take them out, but it would have to be a family choice, and it would also depend on how COVID cases are doing."

She said it's a day-by-day journey, and she tries to do her part in stopping the spread by sanitizing all of her kid's school supplies as soon as they get home.

4J officials said many families are interested in online learning, but the vast majority of students are back in school. They said if space becomes available to increase staffing or someone switches from remote to in-person learning, the next name on the online waiting list will get a call.

For families who are interested in knowing more, there will be a parent webinar this coming Monday at 5 p.m.

You can submit questions for that now by going to the district's website.

Across town, Brett Yancey -- the chief operations officer for the Springfield School District, said they've seen a few positive cases come into the school.

"There are large events outside of school that could be contributing to that -- whether those be family gatherings, concerts, or games -- so we are seeing an increase," Yancy said.

Yancey told KEZI they've seen a lot of kids come back. Right now, they have 10,000 students throughout their district learning in person. Last year, they only had 7,000.

Overall, Yancey said he is encouraged. He went into a kindergarten classroom, and they were all following the guidelines. He believes it's going to be a great year.
CHARLES CITY, Iowa  A 100 mile per hour chase that ended in drug charges is sending a woman to prison.

Amber Marie Sheppard, 37 of Cedar Rapids, pleaded guilty to possession of methamphetamine with intent to deliver, eluding, and driving while barred. Shes been sentenced to 10 years behind bars.

Law enforcement says Sheppard was driving on Highway 27 in Floyd County around 9:45 pm on New Years Eve and sped away from an attempted traffic stop. Court documents state Sheppard led authorities on a 100 mph chase north on Highway 28 and then south on Shadow Avenue before being apprehended.

Investigators say about 7.5 grams of methamphetamine and five needles were found in Sheppards vehicle.
CHICKASAW COUNTY, Iowa  One person is dead after a semi collided with a car Wednesday afternoon at a northeast Iowa highway intersection.

The Iowa State Patrol says it happened around 2:48 pm where Highway 63 exits onto Highway 18. The State Patrol says Thomas J, Kolodziej, 68 of Nashua, was exiting Highway 63 and failed to stop at the stop sign, continuing onto Highway 18 where his car was hit broadside by an eastbound semi.

The State Patrol says Kolodziej was killed in the collision. The driver of the semi, Jason J. Woodring, 50 of Fredericksburg, was not hurt.

The Chickasaw County Sheriffs Office, Chickasaw County Rescue Squad, Fredericksburg Fire Department, and the Iowa Department of Transportation assisted at the scene.
MENOMONIE, Wis. (AP)  Investigators are reviewing bridge and highway cameras as they try to figure out who killed four Minnesota residents whose bodies were found in an SUV abandoned in Wisconsin.

Family members say the two men and two women had been together at a St. Paul, Minnesota, bar on Saturday night. A farmer discovered the bodies in the SUV in his Dunn County field Sunday. The field is about 60 miles east of St. Paul. Authorities say all four had suffered gunshot wounds.

Dunn County Sheriff Kevin Bygd says there are no preliminary indications that the homicides involved drugs or organized criminal activity.
HAMPTON, Iowa  A Franklin County man is pleading not guilty to meth and pot charges.

Britt Elmer Pleggenkuhle, 55 of Hampton, was accused in August of possession of methamphetamine with intent to deliver, possession of marijuana with intent to deliver, and failure to use a drug tax stamp.

The Hampton Police Department says it searched Pleggenkuhles home in the 400 block of 1st Street SW on August 3 and found 85 grams of meth, 43 grams of marijuana, two scales, numerous baggies, and other drug paraphernalia.

A trial is now set to begin on November 2.
WASHINGTON (AP)  President Joe Bidens decision to form a strategic Indo-Pacific alliance with Australia and Britain to counter China is angering France and the European Union. Theyre feeling left out and seeing it as a return to the Trump era.

The security initiative, unveiled this week, appears to have brought Bidens summer of love with Europe to an abrupt end. AUKUS, which notably excludes France and the European Union, is just the latest in a series of steps, from Afghanistan to east Asia, that have taken Europe aback.

After promising European leaders that America is back and that multilateral diplomacy would guide U.S. foreign policy, Biden has alienated numerous allies with a go-it-alone approach on key issues. Frances foreign minister expressed total incomprehension at the recent move, which he called a stab in the back, and the EUs foreign policy chief complained that Europe had not been consulted.

France will lose a nearly $100 billion deal to build diesel submarines for Australia under the terms of the initiative, which will see the U.S. and Britain help Canberra construct nuclear-powered ones.

As such, French anger on a purely a commercial level would be understandable, particularly because France, since Britains handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997, is the only European nation to have significant territorial possessions or a permanent military presence in the Pacific.

But French and European Union officials went further, saying the agreement calls into question the entire cooperative effort to blunt Chinas growing influence and underscores the importance of languishing plans to boost Europes own defense and security capabilities.

Some have compared Biden's recent actions to those of his predecessor, Donald Trump, under Trump's America First doctrine. That's surprising for a president steeped in international affairs who ran for the White House vowing to mend shaken ties with allies and restore U.S. credibility on the world stage.

Although it's impossible to predict if any damage will be lasting, the short-term impact seems to have rekindled European suspicions of American intentions  with potential implications for Biden's broader aim to unite democracies against authoritarianism, focused primarily on China and Russia.

Just three months ago, on his first visit to the continent as president, Biden was hailed as a hero by European counterparts eager to move beyond the trans-Atlantic tensions of the Trump years. But that palpable sense of relief has now faded for many, and its one clear winner, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, is on her way out.

Since June, Biden has infuriated America's oldest ally, France, left Poland and Ukraine questioning the U.S. commitment to their security and upset the European Union more broadly with unilateral decisions ranging from Afghanistan to east Asia. And, while Europe cheered when Biden pledged to return to nuclear negotiations with Iran and revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, both efforts remain stalled nine months into his administration.

The seeds of discontent may have been sown in the spring but they began to bloom in July over Biden's acquiescence to a Russia-to-Germany gas pipeline that will bypass Poland and Ukraine, and a month later in August with the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan that left Europe scrambling to keep up after it had expressed reservations about the pullout.

Then just this week, Biden enraged France and the European Union with his announcement that the U.S. would join post-Brexit Britain and Australia in a new Indo-Pacific security initiative aimed at countering China's increasing aggressiveness in the region.

Unsurprisingly, China reacted angrily, accusing the U.S. and its English-speaking partners of embarking on a project that will destabilize the Pacific to the detriment of global security. But, the reactions from Paris and Brussels were equally severe. Both complained they were not only excluded from the deal but not consulted on it.

The White House and Secretary of State Antony Blinken say France had been informed of the decision before it was announced on Wednesday, although it was not exactly clear when. Blinken said Thursday there had been conversations with the French about it within the past 24 to 48 hours, suggesting there had not been an in-depth consultation.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, who in June extolled the excellent news for all of us that America is back, expressed total incomprehension at the announcement of the initiative. It was really a stab in the back," he said. It looks a lot like what Trump did.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki dismissed the comparison. I would say the president doesnt think about it much, she told reporters. The presidents focus is on maintaining and continuing our close relationships with leaders in France, with the United Kingdom, with Australia and to achieving our global objectives, which include security in the Indo-Pacific.

In Brussels, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell echoed the French minister's complaints. I suppose that an agreement of this nature was not cooked up the day before yesterday. It takes a certain amount of time, and despite that, no, we were not consulted, he said. "That obliges us, once again  to reflect on the need to put European strategic autonomy high on the agenda.

Indeed, the 27-member European Union on Thursday unveiled a new strategy for boosting economic, political and defense ties in the Indo-Pacific, just hours after the announcement by the U.S., Britain and Australia. The EU said the aim is to strengthen and expand economic relations while reinforcing respect of international trade rules and improving maritime security. It said it hopes the strategy will result in more European naval deployments to the region.

U.S. officials brushed aside the French and EU complaints on Thursday.

There are a range of partnerships that include the French and some partnerships that dont, and they have partnerships with other countries that dont include us, Psaki said. "That is part of how global diplomacy works.

Speaking alongside Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and the Australian defense and foreign ministers, Blinken said there is no regional divide with Europe over Indo-Pacific strategy. We welcome European countries playing an important role in the Indo-Pacific, he said, calling France a vital partner."

But how closely they will work together remains to be seen.
ROCHESTER, Minn. - As we're getting closer to a COVID-19 vaccine for children under the age of 12, we're taking a deeper look into the timeline of when we can expect it.

In Olmsted County, 53% of 12 to 15-year-olds have received at least one dose of the vaccine. For older teens, that number is 59%. Public health director, Graham Briggs, said transmission will continue happening in schools until more students get the shot and that includes those younger ones.

Briggs explained there's a goal date set for when they want 5 to 11-year-olds to be eligible. "I think we've been talking about Halloween as a potential start date," he said. "Because in general as we've gone through this vaccination campaign, the federal government has been conservative in their goals and has often beaten their goals"

The president of the American Academy of Pediatrics Dr. Lee Beers said it's taking longer to approve the vaccine for kids younger than 12 because their immune systems are different. But on the other hand, she knows it has to come soon if we want students to stay in the classroom.

Dr. Beers said as for vaccine hesitancy, that should be a thing of the past by now. "You know, the process that we go through and the process that the FDA goes through to approve vaccines is really, very careful and cautious and very focused on safety and efficacy," she explained. "So, if there's a vaccine approved for the little ones, I think you can feel incredibly comfortable that it is a safe and effective vaccine for your children."

Once the vaccine is approved for younger kids, the next question we have is how would they get it? Nowadays, those who are eligible have access to the vaccine in a variety of ways. And if we look at the flu shot, students can get those right at school.

Briggs said making sure it's equitably available will be their focus. "That doesn't mean just make an appointment with your pediatrician," he explained. "Some people work long hours or off-hours and making an appointment with the pediatrician and taking your child in is a whole different thing than going to the grocery store on Saturday and knowing that you can get a shot there or sign something so that your child can get a shot at school."

Pfizer is planning to submit the vaccine data for 5 to 11-year-olds to the FDA by the end of this month. After that, it'll be up to the FDA whether to approve it or not. The company is also gathering data for its vaccine in babies as young as six months old and hopes to submit that in the future as well.
Northern Iowa - A Mason City actress has found her way home again and the showing of her film Two Ways Home is helping community members know they are not alone.

Tanna Frederick was born in Mason City and has been a part of theatre productions since she was a kid.

After 20 years in L.A., Frederick has found herself back in Iowa while the coronavirus pandemic sweeps the world.

Back to her Midwest roots, Frederick produced and starred in a film that follows a woman diagnosed with Bipolar disorder returning to her country home in Iowa to reconnect with her family and with herself.

Frederick could not express how grateful she felt to be back home.

"I wanted to come back here because I grew up watching movies come through but nobody locally being cast except as extras," said Frederick. "think that Iowa produces terrific artists - I wanted to come back and film here. I wanted to just use all cast and crew from here. Being able to film here meant not having to get rushed because people were angry because there's an over filtration of films being made. Everyone wanted to pitch in."

In the Iowa-based film, Frederick plays a character diagnosed with Bipolar disorder.

She said she wanted to depict the role in a truthful and raw way.

"When I moved out to Los Angeles, what I was really hoping for was to create a film that gave an accurate, hopeful portrayal of somebody with mental adversity," said Frederick. "Where people walked out of the theatre saying, 'This is not something that I am afflicted with and I can never be 'normal' in society. This is something that I can have agency to help myself heal from.'"

Two Ways Home is endorsed by the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

This Friday at 7 p.m., North Iowa Area Community College is hosting a showing of the film for five dollars a ticket. All of the proceeds are going right back to the community members who may need it most.

"All of our proceeds are going to NIACC on-campus health facilities," said Frederick. "All of the students this year who may have been knocked about a bit trying to keep going to classes and need any help on campus. The money from the showing on Friday at seven, all the proceeds are going to on-campus NIACC facilities."
ROCHESTER, Minn. - A local memorial to honor the lives of law enforcement officers who gave the ultimate sacrifice is reaching another milestone.

Concrete is being poured and the 15-foot frame will be eventually installed around an obelisk monument.

The memorial will honor 34 officers from southeast Minnesota who gave their lives to protect their communities.

Olmsted County Sheriff Kevin Torgerson says it will be a place for the community to come so those sacrifices are never forgotten.

He explained, It's really good for us to not forget our past. We want to remember the good past and we want to remember the difficult past and that's what this is about, to do that.

Donations are still needed as the memorial is seeking $150,000 to put in flowers and landscaping during the spring when the memorial is scheduled to be completed.

The funds would also cover maintenance costs in the coming years.

If youre interested in donating you can do so by clicking here.
WASHINGTON (AP)  The prosecutor tasked with examining the U.S. government's investigation into Russian election interference charged a prominent cybersecurity lawyer on Thursday with making a false statement to the FBI.

The case against the attorney, Michael Sussmann of the Perkins Coie law firm, is just the second prosecution brought by special counsel John Durham in two-and-a-half years of work.

It lays bare the wide-ranging and evolving nature of Durham's investigation. In addition to having scrutinized the activities of FBI and CIA officials during the early days of the Russia probe, it has also looked at the behavior of private individuals like Sussman who provided the U.S. government with information as it scrambled to determine whether Trump associates were coordinating with Russia to tip the election's outcome.

The indictment accuses Sussmann of lying to the FBI when he was questioned about a September 2016 conversation he had with the FBI's general counsel when he relayed concerns from cybersecurity researchers about potentially suspicious contacts between Russia-based Alfa Bank and a Trump organization server. The FBI looked into the matter but found no connections. Sussmann is a former federal prosecutor who specializes in cybersecurity.

Sussmanns lawyers, Sean Berkowitz and Michael Bosworth, said their client is a highly-respected national security lawyer who had previously worked in the Justice Department under both Republican and Democratic administrations and said they were confident he would prevail at trial and vindicate his good name.

Mr. Sussmann has committed no crime, they said in a statement. Any prosecution here would be baseless, unprecedented, and an unwarranted deviation from the apolitical and principled way in which the Department of Justice is supposed to do its work.

The Alfa Bank matter was not a pivotal element of the Russia probe and was not even mentioned in Muellers 448-page report in 2019. Still, the indictment may give fodder to Russia investigation critics who regard it as politically tainted and engineered by Democrats.

Sussmanns firm, Perkins Coie, has deep Democratic connections. A then-partner at the firm, Marc Elias, brokered a deal with the Fusion GPS research firm to study Trumps business ties to Russia. That work, by former British spy Christopher Steele, produced a dossier of research that helped form the basis of flawed surveillance applications targeting a former Trump campaign official, Carter Page.

The Durham investigation has already spanned months longer than the earlier special counsel probe into Russian election interference conducted by Mueller, the former FBI director, and his team. The investigation was slowed by the coronavirus pandemic and experienced leadership tumult following the abrupt departure last fall of a top deputy on Durham's team.

Though Trump had eagerly anticipated Durhams findings in hopes that theyd be a boon to his reelection campaign, any political impact the conclusion may have once had has been dimmed by the fact that Trump is no longer in office.

The Durham appointment by then-Attorney General William Barr in 2019 was designed to examine potential errors or misconduct in the U.S. governments investigation into whether Trumps 2016 presidential campaign was conspiring with Russia to sway the outcome of the election.

A two-year investigation by Mueller did not find enough evidence to charge any campaign official with having conspired with Russia, though a half-dozen Trump aides were charged with various offenses, including false statements.

Until now, Durham had brought only one criminal case  a false statement charge against an FBI lawyer who altered an email related to the surveillance of Page to obscure the nature of Pages preexisting relationship with the CIA. That lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to probation.
ROCHESTER, Minn. - The Med City's Labor Temple Building is being backed for landmark status, despite the advice of experts and staff.

Rochester's Heritage Preservation Commission recommended the two adjoined buildings on the property, recently home to Legends Bar and Grill, be deemed local historic landmarks in a 6-1 vote Wednesday night. Ahead of the decision, city staff advised members of the HPC to end the structure's consideration for landmark status.

The HPC's recommendation follows a January decision by the City of Rochester, which owns the property, to terminate its lease with Legends. At the time, local leaders hoped to demolish the Labor Temple to make way for a future downtown development.

The city's plan was put on hold a few months later after Rochester resident Kevin Lund uncovered a forgotten chapter of the property's history, revealing it was home to one of the first Red Owl Grocery stores and the depression-era Time Theatre in the 1930's.

"Their historic significance is multi-layered and represents, in essence, an archeological, architectural, above ground discovery, and a genealogical study in progress with ties to the Mayo Clinic, General Mills, theater architectural geniuses, an accomplished local contractor, and hardworking construction crews," Lund said. "These two buildings were constructed of the finest materials, intended to stand the test of time. They embody a level of style and craftsmanship that simply does not exist today and will never be duplicated."

Lund continued, "I've advocated for a long time that while the soul of our community is more than simply bricks and mortar, the bricks and mortar tend to connect us with each other and with past generations. Rochester's best hope for the future lies not in rejecting and destroying its historic past, but rather in embracing and building upon it."

Subsequent studies, however, found the buildings are historically significant, but no longer have enough historic integrity to be deemed historic landmarks.

"Due to alterations to the facade of the building, the Red Owl Grocery Store has lost its integrity and is therefore not a suitable candidate for local designation," wrote Michael Koop of Minnesota's State Historic Preservation Office. Sharing similar analysis of its close neighbor, Koop commented, "due to alterations to the facade, the east elevation, and the interior of the building, the Time Theater has lost its integrity and is therefore not a suitable candidate for local designation."

Despite the findings and a recommendation by city staff to nix the property's landmark consideration, the HPC sided with overwhelmingly sided with Lund, deciding the connected buildings are worth saving for a multitude of reasons.

"Each brick that I looked at in this facade is inspired, is balanced, and choreographed in this blended and extraordinary work of art. So if you're looking at this building, you can see that it's another jewel in this city that seems to be overlooked," said Commissioner Barbara Hudson.

Multiple HPC members believe it wouldn't take much to restore some of the property's historic look and charm, which is one of a handful of depression-era buildings still standing in the downtown area. However, during Wednesday's meeting, city staff revealed multiple organizations have already submitted bids to develop the property, though details have yet to be released to the public.

The building's future is now in the hands of the Rochester City Council, which is set to have the final say on the Labor Temple's landmark status in the weeks ahead.
MASON CITY, Iowa - The Mason City Police Department is asking for the public's help to identify a person who may be connected to vehicle vandalism.

Police said it happened earlier this month in downtown Mason City. The owner of the vehicle reported it had been vandalized shortly after he parked it.

"We are asking the public for their help in making identification. If you have information about the identity of the persons in the video clips you can reach out to the Mason City Police Department via social media, by calling MCPD at 641-421-3636, or by contacting the North Iowa Crime Stoppers," police said.
MASON CITY, Iowa  The Board of Education is considering mandating masks in Mason City schools.

A mask mandate is scheduled to be on the agenda for the September 20 meeting of the Mason City School District Board of Education. The District says thats in response to the federal judge granting a temporary restraining order against the state ban on mask mandates in schools. The District says its current COVID-19 mitigation plan recommends the wearing of masks in school buildings.

Because of limitations of space and time during the September 20 meeting, the Mason City Board of Education is asking the public to submit written comments on whether masks should be required in school. Students, staff, parents, and the public may share their thoughts and opinions on the requirement of masks by visiting the school district website, www.masoncityschools.org and clicking on the link in the article Request for Comment Submission on Mandating Masks in School.

Submitted comments will be shared with the board directors prior to the meeting and included as a supporting document on the agenda and recorded in the minutes of the meeting the same as comments made during Open Forum. Comments must be submitted by noon on Friday, September 17.
MASON CITY, Iowa - A Mason City woman was arrested Wednesday after she allegedly stole a check from a church.

Clarissa Krominga, 34, is facing a felony burglary charge after authorities said she went into Prince of Peace Lutheran Church and stole a check from an office.

The check was in the amount of $235.00. Court documents state Krominga said she went to the bathroom and when she returned the check was in her notebook.

She's being held in the Cerro Gordo County Jail on $5,000 bond.
ST. PAUL, Minn.  The State of Minnesota is offering another round of $100 incentives for people who get a COVID-19 vaccination.

This time $100 gift cards will be available for those who get vaccinated at a community clinic around the state. Governor Tim Walz says nearly 50 COVID-19 Community Coordinators, community clinics and Federally Qualified Health Centers will be participating in the program.

We are taking every opportunity we can to meet Minnesotans where they are  especially in communities hit hardest by COVID-19, says Governor Walz. Every shot in the arm is a critical step in stopping the spread of this virus, and local organizations around Minnesota know how to best encourage the communities they serve to get their vaccine. I am grateful for all of our COVID-19 Community Coordinators, community clinics and Federally Qualified Health Centers who are working to encourage vaccinations and serve Minnesotas communities hit hardest by COVID-19.

Almost 80,000 Minnesotans who received their first dose between July 30 and August 22 signed up for a $100 Visa gift card as part of a statewide giveaway. At the Minnesota State Fair, more than 3,110 Fairgoers received their vaccine and claimed a $100 Visa gift card on site.

Our administration is deeply committed to ensuring equity within all aspects of our COVID-19 response, says Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan. By providing funds directly to our COVID-19 Community Coordinators, community clinics and Federally Qualified Health Centers for culturally-relevant and on-site incentives, we will be able to better serve communities disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. I am grateful for the leadership of Dr. Nathan Chomilo as he directs our vaccine equity response.

The incentive program is receiving $4 million in American Rescue Plan funding, as well as $400,000 in private foundation funds raised by the Minnesota Council on Foundations and its members as part of their ongoing philanthropic support for vaccine outreach and incentives.

As the delta variant continues to spread across our communities and children return to school it is more important than ever that our neighbors in communities already hit hardest by COVID-19 have access to reliable information, vaccination, and support to make the best decision for themselves, their family and community, says Minnesota Department of Health Vaccine Equity Director Dr. Nathan Chomilo. We have seen throughout this pandemic that when we are able to give communities the ability to steward resources in response to COVID-19, they know best how to use them. Our COVID-19 Community Coordinators, community clinics and FQHCs have consistently reached Minnesotans who are hardly reached, and this program recognizes and reinforces their critical role.
DES MOINES, Iowa - Iowa is expected to receive 695 Afghan evacuees from the first group of arrivals to be resettled in the United States.

The Biden administration on Wednesday began notifying governors and state refugee coordinators across the country about how many of the nearly 37,000 arrivals from that first wave are slated to be resettled in their states.

A spokesman for the Iowa Department of Human Services says the evacuees coming to Iowa will be going to the major populated area such as the Des Moines and Cedar Rapids metro areas where there are resources and jobs and support systems for them.
WASHINGTON (AP)  Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles told Congress in forceful testimony Wednesday that federal law enforcement and gymnastics officials turned a blind eye to USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassars sexual abuse of her and hundreds of other women.

Biles told the Senate Judiciary Committee that enough is enough as she and three other U.S. gymnasts spoke in stark emotional terms about the lasting toll Nassars crimes have taken on their lives. In response, FBI Director Christopher Wray said he was deeply and profoundly sorry for delays in Nassars prosecution and the pain it caused.

The four-time Olympic gold medalist and five-time world champion  widely considered to be the greatest gymnast of all time  said that she can imagine no place that I would be less comfortable right now than sitting here in front of you." She declared herself a survivor of sexual abuse.

I blame Larry Nassar and I also blame an entire system that enabled and perpetrated his abuse, Biles said through tears. In addition to failures of the FBI, she said USA Gymnastics and the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee knew that I was abused by their official team doctor long before I was ever made aware of their knowledge.

Biles said a message needs to be sent: "If you allow a predator to harm children, the consequences will be swift and severe. Enough is enough.

The hearing is part of a congressional effort to hold the FBI accountable after multiple missteps in investigating the case, including the delays that allowed the now-imprisoned Nassar to abuse other young gymnasts. At least 40 girls and women said they were molested after the FBI had been made aware of allegations against Nassar in 2015.

An internal investigation by the Justice Department released in July said that the FBI made fundamental errors in the probe and did not treat the case with the utmost seriousness after USA Gymnastics first reported the allegations to the FBIs field office in Indianapolis in 2015. The FBI has acknowledged its own conduct was inexcusable.

Wray blasted his own agents who failed to appropriately respond to the complaints and made a promise to the victims that he was committed to make damn sure everybody at the FBI remembers what happened here" and that it never happens again.

A supervisory FBI agent who had failed to properly investigate the Nassar case, and later lied about it, has been fired by the agency, Wray said.

McKayla Maroney, a member of the gold-medal winning U.S. Olympic gymnastics team in 2012, recounted to senators a night when, at age 15, she found the doctor on top of her while she was naked  one of many times she was abused. She said she thought she was going to die that evening. But she said that when she recalled those memories in a call with FBI agents, crying, there was dead silence.

Maroney said the FBI minimized and disregarded her and the other gymnasts as they delayed the probe.

I think for so long all of us questioned, just because someone else wasnt fully validating us, that we doubted what happened to us," Maroney said. "And I think that makes the healing process take longer.

Biles and Maroney were joined by Aly Raisman, who won gold medals alongside them on the 2012 and 2016 Olympic teams, and gymnast Maggie Nichols. Raisman told the senators that it disgusts" her that they are still looking for answers six years after the original allegations against Nassar were reported.

Raisman noted the traumatic effect the abuse has had on all of them.

Being here today is taking everything I have," she said. "My main concern is I hope I have the energy to just walk out of here. I dont think people realize how much it affects us.

Biles acknowledged in January 2018 that she was among the hundreds of athletes who were abused by Nassar. She is the only one of the witnesses who competed in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics  held this year after a one-year delay due to the coronavirus pandemic  where she removed herself from the team finals to focus on her mental health.

She returned to earn a bronze medal on beam but told the committee the lingering trauma from her abuse at the hands of Nassar played a factor in her decision to opt out of several competitions. At the hearing, she said she had wanted her presence in Tokyo to help maintain a connection between the failures of officials and the Olympic competition, but that has proven to be an exceptionally difficult burden for me to carry.

Democratic and Republican senators expressed disgust over the case and said they would continue to investigate. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said it was among the most compelling and heartbreaking testimony he had ever heard.

We have a job to do and we know it, Durbin said.

Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said Congress must demand real change, and real accountability, and we will not be satisfied by platitudes and vague promises about improved performance" from federal law enforcement. Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, called Nassar a monster and wondered how many other abusers have escaped justice, considering that even world-class athletes were ignored in this case.

The internal probe by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who testified alongside Wray, was spurred by allegations that the FBI failed to promptly address complaints made in 2015 against Nassar. USA Gymnastics had conducted its own internal investigation and the organizations then-president, Stephen Penny, reported the allegations to the FBIs field office in Indianapolis. But it was months before the bureau opened a formal investigation.

The watchdog investigation found that when the FBIs Indianapolis field offices handling of the matter came under scrutiny, officials there did not take any responsibility for the missteps and gave incomplete and inaccurate information to internal FBI inquiries to make it look like they had been diligent in their investigation.

The report also detailed that while the FBI was investigating the Nassar allegations, the head of the FBIs field office in Indianapolis, W. Jay Abbott, was talking to Penny about getting a job with the Olympic Committee. He applied for the job but didnt get it and later retired from the FBI, the report said.

Nassar pleaded guilty in 2017 to federal child pornography offenses and sexual abuse charges in Michigan. He is now serving decades in prison after hundreds of girls and women said he sexually abused them under the guise of medical treatment when he worked for Michigan State and Indiana-based USA Gymnastics, which trains Olympians.

Litigation over the abuse may soon be coming to an end after USA Gymnastics and hundreds of Nassar's victims filed a joint $425 million settlement proposal in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Indianapolis last month.
AUSTIN, Minn . - It's welcoming America week - a nationwide initiative to create welcoming and inclusive cities all across America.

To celebrate Riverland Community College in Austin is holding community events all week.

Tuesday was a discussion featuring immigrant voices sharing their stories.

Among those speakers was Marylary Apolo from Myanmar.

Apolo was born in Myanmar, Asia, and grew up in a refugee camp.

Two months after arriving in the US, she started working at a fast-food chain - not understanding English well. Now she's living in Minnesota with her 5 children. Her husband is disabled and it's been hard for them to find work. That's what prompted them to open their own Asian grocery store.

I think that is really hard to start a business with no business background. it is hard but later I think that it is very helpful for my community also, she expresses.

Apolo's Asian grocery store is one of six Asian grocery stores in Austin. Apolo tells KIMT she wants her fellow mothers to encourage their children to get their education.

Life never runs smooth. But never give up. If you have the opportunity, do your best, and one day you will be helpful to your community, your country, and your backcountry, she encourages.

Riverland Community College will hold welcome week events throughout the week.
ROCHESTER, Minn. - The Olmsted County District Attorneys office is proving more information about a Rochester man accused of murder in northwestern Minnesota.

Idris Haji-Mohamed, 26, is facing a charge of second-degree murder. It comes five years after he was arrested in Rochester and charged with attempted murder.

Court documents show Haji-Mohamed showed an ID at a gas station in Moorhead to buy cigarettes just prior to the murder and dropped his wallet on the ground while he was running away after shooting the victim.

County Attorney Mark Ostrem explained, The suspect, Mr. Hadji-Mohamed, went into a convenience store, purchased some cigarettes, and had to provide his identification. That identification was observed by the clerk, it matched to that person in front of him or her, and then that identification was found at the scene of the shooting.

Documents go on to say Haji-Mohamed followed the victims vehicle before he got out and started chasing him while shooting a 9mm pistol.

He shot the victim five more times from point-blank range.

Haji-Mohamed was arrested in 2017 in Rochester and charged with attempted murder. The case ended in a plea deal where he was sentenced to one year in jail.

Ostrem says the reason for the lighter sentence was likely due to the fact there were several more people involved at the time and it was a chaotic scene.

Ostrem says this case has more concrete evidence connecting Haji-Mohamed to the shooting.

He explained, I would expect the outcome to be significantly different than what we had here based on what we've seen. Again, very, very strong identification and that was a huge deficit in our case here.

Regarding the case in 2017 Ostrem says it was ultimately determined Haji-Mohamed may have been more of a victim in the case than a suspect.
Shenandoah, IA (51601)

Today

Clear skies. Low 42F. N winds at 10 to 15 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph..

Tonight

Clear skies. Low 42F. N winds at 10 to 15 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph.
JEFFERSON CITY  Missouri's House Judiciary Committee hosted a public hearing Wednesday morning at the Capitol regarding the federal vaccine mandate issued last week by President Biden.

The new requirements could apply to as many as 100 million Americans, including 17 million health care workers at facilities receiving funds from Medicare and Medicaid to be fully vaccinated.

There is a special session today at the State Capitol with the House Judiciary Committee. @PeytonHeadlee and I will have updates. The meeting starts at 10:00 am. @KOMUnews pic.twitter.com/9tSTqXy9la  Grayson Rainey (@GraysonRainey12) September 15, 2021

Representative David Evans led the discussion with several witnesses expressing their support for the mandate or frustrations against it.

Ray McCarty was one of the people who gave comment to the committee. He is the president of Associated Industries of Missouri and stated he is against any federal mandate.

Nikki Strong from the Missouri Health Care Association also spoke at the stand. She mentioned at the hearing that 40% of Missouri's health care staff have been vaccinated against COVID-19.

Strong said when the testing mandate came, some employees left the job over the mandate. She said the health care industry cannot shut down and that there needs to be enough staff to help around the clock.

"The state cannot afford to lose more facilities," Strong said.

Before the committee, protestors held signs outside the Capitol against the new federal vaccine mandate. The protestors held signs that read Stop COVID mandates and Free speech not free shots.

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Several Missouri lawmakers spoke at the hearing, including Rep. Nick Schroer who is against the new mandate. I believe we must take action now. This order is frightening, Schroer said.

As we have seen this past week from the Biden administration is anti-liberty, anti-American, and in my belief unconstitutional, Schroer said.

Senator Rick Brattin, along with 15 other senators, signed a letter just a few days ago explaining the reasons why the new mandate wont work, including that there is nowhere in the Constitution is the President given the authority to unilaterally force private businesses and private citizens to get vaccinated.

Rep. John Wiemann from St. Charles County also spoke at the hearing. He stated his disproval in the Bidens administration vaccine mandate. I support the Governor with opposing this mandate, Wiemann said.

The special session came after Missouri's Republican House leaders submitted a letter to President Biden, asking him to provide legal justification for the proposed mandate for private businesses.

House Speaker Rob Vescovo wrote the letter, which was signed by more than 50 Republicans, including Speaker Pro Tem John Wiemann and Majority Floor Leader Dean Plocher.

The letter describes the proposed mandate as "blatantly unconstitutional," citing the U.S. Constitution's limit of federal power to enact laws to provide for the public health. The Constitution grants this authority to the states.

If President Biden is unable to provide legal justification for the mandate, Vescovo demands in the letter that the mandate be rescinded immediately.

The hearing lasted for an hour and a half before it was adjourned. Only one person spoke during the public comment section.
People watch a TV screen showing a news program reporting about North Korea's missiles with file image, in Seoul, Sept. 15. AP-Yonhap



The United States condemns North Korea's ballistic missiles but continues to stand ready to engage with the North in dialogue, a State Department spokesman said Wednesday.



North Korea launched two short-range ballistic missiles into the East Sea on Wednesday (Seoul time).



Ned Price noted the missile launches violated a "multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions."



"We do condemn the DPRK's missile launches. These missile launches are in violation of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions. We know that they pose a threat to DPRK's neighbors and other members of the international community," the spokesman told a press briefing.



DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the North's official name.



A Pentagon spokesman highlighted the "destabilizing impact" of North Korea's missile launches.



"The launches are in violation of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions, and these activities highlight the destabilizing impact of the DPRK's illicit weapons program," Department of Defense spokesman John Kirby said in a press briefing.



He also reiterated the U.S.' defense commitment to its allies in the region, while pointing to U.S. missile defense system capabilities there that he said stand ready and capable.



"It's about making sure that our missile defense system, wherever it's deployed, is effective and capable, and we routinely test and experiment and try to improve that system on a daily basis," he said.



"Our commitment to the defense of the Republic of Korea and Japan remains ironclad," added Kirby, referring to South Korea by its official name.






Indonesian Ambassador to Korea Umar Hadi, second from right, poses with Kim Chang-beom, second from left, former Korean Ambassador to Indonesia and Hyundai Motor's advisor; Hyundai Motor Vice President Kim Kyoung-soo, left, and Vice Ambassador Zelda Wulan Kartika during Hyundai's electric car delivery ceremony at the embassy's headquarters in Seoul, Wednesday. Courtesy of Hyundai Motor



By Baek Byung-yeul



The Embassy of Indonesia in Korea purchased Hyundai Motor's electric vehicle (EV), the IONIQ 5, as part of the Southeast Asian nation's effort to boost EV-related businesses as its next economic growth engine, Hyundai Motor said Thursday.



The Korean automotive giant said that it held a ceremony at the Indonesian embassy in Seoul, Wednesday, to deliver the EV to Indonesian Ambassador to Korea Umar Hadi.



Indonesia has recently been pushing forward with the development of EV-related industries, as well as expanding the availability of EVs there. In line with these initiatives, the Embassy of Indonesia in Korea has decided to replace its official vehicles with Hyundai's EV.



The purchase is also part of the embassy's "Green Transformation" goal, which it set earlier this year to help make a more sustainable society. Among Indonesian embassies across the world, the Korean office is the first one to use an EV as its official car.



Hyundai's IONIQ 5 is based on the carmaker's Electric-Global Modular Platform (E-GMP) developed for EVs. With a distinctive exterior design and spacious interior, the IONIQ 5 has improved the utilization of space for driver and passengers and can travel up to 429 kilometers on a single charge.



Kim Chang-beom, the former Korean Ambassador to Indonesia and Hyundai Motor's advisor, said, "I am happy that the IONIQ 5 will be able to contribute to the Indonesian Embassy's goal of building a sustainable society."



"We hope that the IONIQ 5 and other EVs will be used in more places, including foreign embassies," he added.



"The green transition is an important goal of the Indonesian Embassy in Korea," Ambassador Hadi said. "I am happy to be with Hyundai Motor in making new changes for climate change issues."





Indonesian President Joko Widodo, left, gives a congratulatory speech at the joint Hyundai Motor GroupLG Energy Solution battery plant groundbreaking ceremony held in Karawang New Industry City, Wednesday. Upper right, Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Chung Euisun, bottom right LGES CEO Kim Jong-hyun. Courtesy of Hyundai Motor Group
By Nancy Qian





CHICAGO  The United States' withdrawal from Afghanistan has captured the world's attention. The chaos, distress, and general sadness of those left behind by America and its allies have drawn significant criticism. It seems inconceivable that 20 years of war, tens of thousands of lives, and $2 trillion were not enough to build a new Afghanistan.



Many fingers have been pointed and many culprits suggested in connection with the West's debacle. But there is great reluctance to talk about the most fundamental problem: the absence of a common Afghan national identity and the U.S.-led coalition's diffidence about nurturing one.



All functional states have some degree of common national identity. This is most often delineated along religious, linguistic, or ethnic lines, which are sometimes created explicitly for the purpose of nation-building. During the nineteenth century, for example, Prussians created the Germanic ethnic identity and promoted it throughout their expanding territory.



The new German language was related to old high German, but did not really exist before the Prussians tried to build a new German nation. Nation-building in France and Italy in the 18th and 19th centuries, respectively, proceeded along similar lines.



National identities evolve organically but are usually also fostered by proactive government measures, centered mainly on basic public education. That is because schools can influence young and impressionable people by instructing them in a common language, teaching a common history, and encouraging a common culture.



Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century U.S. leaders thought public schools would help meet the challenge of integrating immigrants from around the world and making them feel American. President George Washington and the educational reformer Horace Mann, for example, argued that schools were essential for building common civic values and unity.



But establishing a national identity is a long process. Public schools take time to build, curricula take time to develop, and teachers take time to train. It then takes many years to educate children, and more before they assume leadership roles in society.



The U.S. needed generations to achieve enough unity to resolve domestic political disagreements without armed conflict. And even then, English-only instruction did not become standard in U.S. elementary schools until the 1930s.



No country in recent times is more in need of a common identity than Afghanistan, which has 14 officially recognized ethnic groups that, broadly speaking, live in four separate geographic regions, and between 40 and 59 mother-tongue languages. The country was divided by civil conflict for decades, if not centuries, when the U.S.-led coalition invaded it in 2001, and this history had made trust and cooperation even more difficult to establish.



An element of shared identity failed to materialize by the time the West withdrew. The endless civil war and recent events in the country have shown that its ethnically and linguistically driven political divisions are just as deep today as they were when the U.S. began its occupation 20 years ago.



Although the U.S. invested huge amounts of money and effort to increase overall education levels, it left Afghan schools without a common curriculum. And while the country has two official languages, Dari and Pashto, and media publish and broadcast in both, many Afghans still speak only one or neither of them.



Instead of promoting a common national identity, the U.S. and its Western allies shied away from any action or language that might leave them open to accusations of cultural insensitivity. Their fear was not unreasonable in view of the terrible cultural assimilation and eradication policies that Western countries have historically carried out domestically and overseas.



But national identities need not be discriminatory or built coercively. European countries such as Switzerland have shown that forging a common national identity with multiple languages is possible. The key is to teach all children several of them so that language is not a divisive factor. Similarly, a country's common history can include all the peoples that have lived there.



Moreover, educational incentives can be gentle. There is no need to repeat horrific past mistakes by forcing children from ethnic-minority groups to attend boarding schools, as the U.S., Canada, and Australia did in the nineteenth and early 20th centuries. A large body of evidence shows that monetary and in-kind incentives can significantly increase school attendance in developing countries.



The difficulty in such policies partly lies in the amount of time they require. First, countries need enough teachers who can teach a common curriculum in multiple common languages. In the U.S., even in the 1920s, many schools carried out instruction in immigrants' native languages, because those were the languages that the teachers spoke.



Moreover, even if a first generation teaches a second, more nationally unified generation that subsequently participates in a country's political and economic life once it reaches adulthood, one cannot expect to see the effects on national identity for at least 40 years or so. And the U.S. and its allies never wanted to be in Afghanistan that long.



Twenty years is far too long for a war, but far too short to build a stable national identity. It is thus not surprising that the West failed the Afghan people, because it was never willing to foster national unity in a meaningful way. Whenever the withdrawal occurred, it would have left Afghans just as fragmented as before, and with the same unhappy choice between a repressive government and civil war.





Nancy Qian, a professor at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, is founding director of China Econ Lab and Northwestern's China Lab. Her article was distributed Project Syndicate (www.project-syndicate.org).


By James M. Dorsey





The Taliban's record in recent weeks of making good on promises to respect human and women's rights, as well as to uphold freedom of the press, is mixed at best.



Afghanistan's neighbors and near-neighbors are not holding their breath, even if some are willing to give the war-torn country's new rulers the benefit of the doubt.



A litmus test of Taliban willingness to compromise may come sooner than later.



It's most likely that it will only be a matter of time before China knocks on newly appointed Afghan acting Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani's door, demanding the extradition of Uighur fighters.



China's demand will be challenging because of the Taliban's inconsistent policy on the expulsion of certain Uighurs from China who have helped them in their battles, many times rejecting China's request for their extradition and at other times enabling it.



The Taliban already rejected the U.S.'s extradition requests two decades ago when they accepted the risk of a U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11 by refusing for the umpteenth time to hand over al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.



If Haneef Atamar, the foreign minister in the U.S.-backed Afghan government of former President Ashraf Ghani, is to be believed, Uighurs, including one-time fighters in Syria, contributed significantly to the Taliban's most recent battlefield successes in northern Afghanistan.



A demand to extradite Uighurs to China would also be challenging because Haqqani himself, the Afghan official in charge of internal security, is a wanted man with a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head. Moreover, the United Nations has sanctioned Haqqani's prime minister, Mullah Hasan Akhund, and several other members of the caretaker government.



"It's hard to see a wanted man turning over someone who is wanted for similar reasons," said a Western diplomat.



Moreover, honoring extradition requests could threaten unity within the Taliban's ranks. "Taliban actions against foreign jihadist groups to appease neighboring countries would be especially controversial, because there is quite a widespread sense of solidarity and comradeship with those who fought alongside the Taliban for so long," said Afghanistan scholar Antonio Giustozzi.



Unanswered is the question of whether China will go along with what seems to be an unspoken international consensus that it may be best not to seek extraditions if the Taliban keep their word and prevent militants from striking at targets beyond Afghanistan.



Counterterrorism experts and diplomats argue that if forced, the Taliban will quietly let foreign militants leave their country rather than hand them over. That will make it difficult to monitor these individuals.



China has in recent years successfully demanded the extradition of its Turkish Muslim citizens from countries like Egypt, Malaysia, and Thailand and has pressured many more to do so even though they were not suspected of being foreign fighters and/or members of the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP).



The United Nations Security Council has designated TIP's predecessor, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), as a terrorist organization.



There is little reason to assume that China would make Afghanistan, a refuge for Uighur fighters, the exception.



Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi made that clear when he hinted at possible extradition requests during talks in July in China with Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a co-founder of the Taliban and the new government's first deputy prime minister. Wang demanded that the Taliban break relations with all militant groups and take resolute action against the TIP.



Moreover, the Taliban may have destroyed any chance of China's reliance on them by demonstrating early on that they and the international community may be speaking different languages even if they use the same words.



The Taliban made clear that their definition of inclusivity, a term the group and the international community, including China, Russia and India, appeared to agree on, was very different. The Taliban formed an overwhelming ethnically Pashtun, all-male government that was anything but inclusive by the universally agreed meaning of the word.



Similarly, Haqqani and his colleagues, including Qari Fasihuddin Badakhshani, the Afghan military's new Taliban chief of staff, a Tajik and one of only three non-Pashtuns in the new 33-member government structure, are believed to have close ties to Uyghur, Pakistani and other militants.



As a result, they are likely to be equally reticent about entertaining Chinese-backed Pakistan requests for the transfer of members of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), more commonly known as the Pakistani Taliban.



The TTP is a coalition of Pashtun Islamist groups with close ties to the Afghan Taliban that last year joined forces with several other militant Pakistani groups, including Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a violently anti-Shiite Sunni Muslim supremacist organization.



Hazara Shiites, who account for 20 percent of the Afghan population, were not included in the newly appointed Afghan government, even though the Taliban made a point of last month protecting Shiite religious celebrations.



Nonetheless, the Taliban's notion of inclusivity has already troubled relations with Iran and could persuade the Islamic republic to support resistance to the group's rule covertly.



China fears that the fallout of the Taliban's sweep across Afghanistan could affect China beyond Afghanistan's borders, perhaps no more so than in Pakistan, a major focus of the People's Republic's single largest Belt and Road (BRI)-related investment.



The killing in July of nine mainland Chinese nationals in an attack on a bus transporting Chinese workers to the construction site of a dam in the northern mountains of Pakistan raised the specter of Afghanistan-based religious militant jihadists targeting China. Until now, it was mainly Baloch nationalists who targeted the Chinese in Pakistan.



The attack occurred amid fears that the Taliban victory would bolster ultra-conservative religious sentiment in Pakistan, where many celebrated the group's success, in the hope that it would boost chances for austere religious rule in the world's second-most populous Muslim-majority state.



"Our jihadis will be emboldened. They will say that 'if America can be beaten, what is the Pakistan army to stand in our way?'" said a senior Pakistani official.



Indicating concern in Beijing, China has delayed the signing of a framework agreement on industrial cooperation that would have accelerated the implementation of projects that are part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a crown jewel of the People's Republic's transportation, telecommunications and energy-driven BRI.



Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid recently kept the Taliban's relationship with the TTP ambiguous.



"The issue of the TTP is one that Pakistan will have to deal with, not Afghanistan. It is up to Pakistan, and Pakistani Islamic scholars and religious figures, not the Taliban, to decide on the legitimacy or illegitimacy of their war, and to formulate a strategy in response," Mujahid said during an interview on a Pakistani television program. The spokesperson stopped short of saying that the Taliban would abide by a decision of the scholars.



Afghan sources suggest that the Taliban advised the TTP to restrict their fight to Pakistani soil and have offered to negotiate with the Pakistan government an amnesty and the return of the Pakistani militants to their home country.



Uncertainty about where the Taliban may be taking Afghanistan has also cast a shadow over Indian hopes that the Iranian port of Chabahar would facilitate trade with Afghanistan and Central Asia, as well as counterbalance the Chinese-supported Pakistani port of Gwadar.



Eager to maintain leverage in its relations with Pakistan as well as China, Taliban official Sher Mohammed Abbas Stanekzai chose his words carefully by stressing that economics should be at the center of Afghan-Indian relations. "We give due importance to our political, economic and trade ties with India and we want these ties to continue. We are looking forward to working with India in this regard," Stanekzai said.



Stanekzai's business-focused approach, coupled with the pressure on the Taliban to police militants on Afghan soil, some of whom have attacked India in the past, dovetails with the beliefs of Islamic scholars at the alma mater of the Deobandi Islamic revivalist movement, in the Uttar Pradesh town of Deoband, which stress the divide between themselves and their Afghan and Pakistani brethren.



The Indian Deobandi posture created an opportunity that the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has yet to grasp to involve them in India's backchannel and direct contacts with the Taliban. India invested $3 billion over the last 20 years in building Afghan roads, girls' schools and health clinics. Stanekzai's remarks indicate that the Taliban would like India to continue its investments in the country.



The Taliban, as well as a significant number of Pakistani ultra-conservatives, root their worldview in Deobandism, a strand of Islam that emerged in India in the mid-19th century to oppose British colonial rule by propagating an austere interpretation of the faith.



Deobandism became prevalent among Pashtuns even if Deobandis in Pakistan, Afghanistan and India went their separate ways after the 1947 partition of the subcontinent.



Arshad Madani, the principal of the Darul Uloom Deoband, the original Deobandi madrassa established in 1886, recently welcomed a decision by India's Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) to set up a training center in Deoband.



"There is nothing wrong with what we teach, and we welcome the ATS staff to be a part of our classes whenever they like," Madani said. A spokesperson for the madrassa added that "we are a religious school, but we are also Indians. To doubt our integrity every time the Taliban spread terror is shameful."



Madani's posture should serve as an incentive for the Modi government to work with Indian Deobandis in the hope that the Taliban may be more willing to listen to religious figures with whom they share a history.



Madani has never had contact with the Taliban, nor has he ever visited Afghanistan. "I'm weak and old," says the 80-year-old cleric. "But if given the chance, I would go to Afghanistan."





Dr. James M. Dorsey (jamesmdorsey@substack.com) is an award-winning journalist and scholar and a senior fellow at the National University of Singapore's Middle East Institute. The views expressed in the above article are the author's own and do not reflect the editorial direction of The Korea Times.


Kendallville, IN (46755)

Today

Periods of rain. Potential for heavy rainfall. Low 51F. Winds N at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall near a half an inch..

Tonight

Periods of rain. Potential for heavy rainfall. Low 51F. Winds N at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall near a half an inch.
Angola, IN (46703)

Today

Showers this evening, becoming a steady rain overnight. Potential for heavy rainfall. Low 52F. Winds N at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall possibly over one inch..

Tonight

Showers this evening, becoming a steady rain overnight. Potential for heavy rainfall. Low 52F. Winds N at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall possibly over one inch.
Auburn, IN (46706)

Today

Cloudy with periods of rain. Potential for heavy rainfall. Low 52F. Winds N at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall near an inch..

Tonight

Cloudy with periods of rain. Potential for heavy rainfall. Low 52F. Winds N at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall near an inch.
(KANSAS CITY, Ks.) A Kansas City area health system lost more than a dozen workers in less than a month.

Citing "exhaustion and frustration" 15 respiratory therapists have left the University of Kansas Health System in the past few weeks.

A lot of the health care community is feeling burnout and feeling pressure because people don't think it's real and it's very real, Julie Rojas a Respiratory Therapist said.

That's about 10 percent of the respiratory workforce in the health system.

One of the therapists, Julie Rojas, said it's affecting the whole hospital during a news briefing Tuesday.

"There are some weeks that I'm here at the hospital more than I'm at home and your coworkers become like your family. They understand the things that you see and deal with and so it's hard for us to lose them, Rojas said.

The burnout is widespread.

According to the American Hospital Association, about 30 percent of healthcare workers across the country are considering leaving their jobs.

With 60 percent reporting impacts to their mental health over the last 18 months.

The work feels heavy. As she mentioned the house has been full, Jace Knutson, an ICU Pharmacist said.

Knutson says the hope many healthcare workers felt when the vaccine was greenlit is now gone.

"I think seeing where our vaccination rates are, and where our hospitalization rates are, and the complications and the death that are coming with that. It's really frustrating to know that a lot of this mortality and morbidity is completely preventable, Knutson said.

Rojas says she carries each death with her.

"Back in the winter family members couldn't come up and so it would be just me and nurse in there with the family on an iPad and I would be holding the patient's hand until the very end so that someone was in there with them and it stays with you." Rojas said.

She says she thinks many in her field are getting out because they are sick of continuing to see so much needless death.

Just to know right now that we could possibly prevent that just from a shot, is what really I think affects a lot of us emotionally, Rojas said.

Rojas also said during the briefing that KU Health System's vaccine mandate hasn't really affected the people she works with because most of her coworkers support it.
ROME, SEP 16 - On Thursday Premier Mario Draghi's cabinet looks set to approve a decree further extending the scope of the Green Pass by making the COVID-19 vaccine passport obligatory for public and private sector workers from the middle of October,. There had been talk of the government making the Green Pass obligatory for the public sector first and then extending it to the private sector further down the line. But Regional Affairs Minister Mariastella Gelmini said Wednesday that the government was set to make the Green Pass obligatory for both groups at the same time. "Immunizing the overwhelming majority of the population is the only way to contain contagion," Gelmini added. The government's 'control room' taskforce is gathering to discuss the issue on Thursday and Gelmini will present the executive's measures to Italy's regional government's before a cabinet meeting. Draghi had talks with the nation's trade unions on Wednesday about the Green Pass. The unions asked for workers to be able to have free COVID tests if the Green Pass becomes obligatory for them. League leader Matteo Salvini has made the same request as has Giorgio Meloni, the leader of the opposition, right-wing Brothers of Italy (FdI) party. The government, however, is reportedly reluctant to do this on the grounds that making COVID tests free would lessen the incentive to get vaccinated. The green certificate shows that someone is vaccinated for the coronavirus, has recovered from it or has recently tested negative. So it is possible for unvaccinated people to get a short-term Green Pass but they need to keep having COVID tests to renew it. The vaccine passport is already necessary to do many things in Italy, such travel abroad or on high-speed trains and on domestic flights, attend certain events and to be able to sit at a table inside bars and restaurants. Any adult that enters a school, including a parent, must have it and so must all higher education staff and students. (ANSA).
ROME, SEP 16 - The United Nations has said in a new report that 87% of the $570 billion worth of support producers in the agricultural sector get each year worldwide, approximately $470 billion, is price distorting and environmentally and socially harmful. The report by the Rome-based the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and fellow UN agencies UNDP and the UNEP called for this money to be repurposed to help achieve the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). It said that the current support to agricultural producers mostly consists of price incentives, such as import tariffs and export subsidies, and fiscal subsidies, which are tied to the production of a specific commodity or input. These are inefficient, distort food prices, hurt people's health, degrade the environment, and are often inequitable, putting big agri-business ahead of smallholder farmers, a large share of whom are women, said the report entitled 'A multi-billion-dollar opportunity: Repurposing agricultural support to transform food systems'. "This report, released on the eve of the UN Food Systems Summit, is a wake-up call for governments around the world to rethink agricultural support schemes to make them fit for purpose to transform our agri-food systems and contribute to the Four Betters: better nutrition, better production, better environment and a better life," said FAO Director-General QU Dongyu. While the majority of agricultural support today has negative effects, the report said about $110 billion supports infrastructure, research and development, and benefits the general food and agriculture sector. Reconfiguring agricultural producer support, rather than eliminating it, could help end poverty, eradicate hunger, achieve food security, improve nutrition, promote sustainable agriculture, foster sustainable consumption and production, mitigate the climate crisis, restore nature, limit pollution, and reduce inequalities, it said. (ANSA).
ROME, SEP 16 - Italian rail network Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane (FS) will present its model of sustainable transport to support a country's economy and tourism sector at Expo 2020 Dubai. The company is a 'Gold Sponsor' of the Italian pavilion at the Universal Exposition, which kicks off on October 1 and runs until the end of March. FS has set up a remarkable installation at the pavilion that showcases the company's infrastructure, its innovative technology and the wonders of the Italian landscape. It is also celebrating Expo by having a Frecciarossa 1000 high-speed train in Italy run with the colours of the Italian pavilion in the period of the event. "The Universal Exposition has always been a moment in which a country shows the best of its ideas, innovations and projects," said FS CEO Luigi Ferraris at the presentation of the company's involvement at Expo Dubai at Rome's Ostiense station. "That's why our group decided to be part of it, to proudly show Italian excellence in technology and innovation applied to sustainable mobility". (ANSA).
Actor Vicky Kaushal left for the Maldives on Thursday to shoot for an episode of the adventure show Into The Wild With Bear Grylls. According to the Disney Channel, Vicky will be joining actor Ajay Devgn on the show, hosted by renowned survivalist Bear Grylls. Into The Wild With Bear Grylls: Vicky Kaushal to Unleash His Adventurous Side in Discoverys Popular Show.

The audience gave a phenomenal response to the show when earlier actor Akshay Kumar and later superstar Rajinikanth appeared on the show. In 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also appeared on the show, with skyrocketing interest from the audience. Into the Wild With Bear Grylls: Ajay Devgn To Feature on an Episode of Discoverys Adventure Show.

While the date for the show going on-air hasn't been announced yet, it is confirmed that it will premiere on the discovery+ app first.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 16, 2021 05:26 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
Border Patrol agents saved two migrant children - who are siblings - on Tuesday, after they were abandoned on the banks of the Rio Grande in Texas.

The said children that were rescued by the border agents were reported to be a two-year-old girl and her three-month-old baby brother.

READ NEXT: Colombian Migrant, 11-Year-Old Daughter, Found Dead in Arizona Desert After Smugglers Abandoned Them

Abandoned Migrant Children Rescued by Border Patrol Agents

The rescue operation for the said children stemmed out when border agents on Tuesday were performing a boat operation.

In the middle of their assignment, the patrol agents spotted an unusual color and when they looked closer, a toddler and a baby in a carrier were discovered alone on the banks of the Rio Grande, ABC 30 reported.

A note in the baby carrier was also discovered by the authorities, indicating that the migrant children were both from Honduras.

"The attention to detail our agents demonstrate while performing their duties can be the difference between life and death," Chief Patrol Agent Robert Garcia said in a statement. Garcia furthered that he was frustrated, and his heart was broken to discover children were being abandoned "without remorse or concerns for their lives and well[-]being."

The attention to detail our agents demonstrate while preforming their duties can be the difference between life and death. It is heartbreaking and frustrating to know that there are children being abandoned without remorse or concern for their lives and wellbeing.  Chief Garcia https://t.co/k8FXzoX9OQ pic.twitter.com/0lTc8hlUHk  Chief Patrol Agent Del Rio Texas (@USBPChiefDRT) September 14, 2021

Custom and Border Protection (CBP) photographed the location where the border agents discovered the children and posted it online. The two-year-old girl and the three-month-old baby in the crate were seen seeking shelter underneath the tall grasses.

Despite locating the rescued migrant children, the border agents were also reported to search for the area, but they found no other individuals.

Despite the horrifying experience, both migrant children from Honduras did not need any medical attention. The children were brought to Uvalde, Texas for processing.

Thousands of Migrants Gather Under Bridge in Del Rio, Texas

The rescued abandoned children from Honduras were not the only ones who were seeking asylum in the United States. On Wednesday, thousands of migrants were seen gathered under an international bridge in Del Rio, Texas.

Over 4,200 migrants were reported waiting under the bridge, Fox News mentioned, citing Border Patrol and law enforcement sources.

The migrants were reported to be kept under the bridge, as they wait to be apprehended after crossing illegally into the United States while local facilities were greatly overwhelmed by the influx of immigrants into the borders.

The migrants were seen under the bridge in Texas as the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced a new rule on Tuesday, that would require asylum seekers to be fully vaccinated and present COVID vaccine proof as they seek citizenship into the U.S.

Migrant Encounters

In August, at least 208,887 migrant encounters were recorded by the Department of Homeland and Security, marking the first decrease of migrant encounters under the Biden administration. However, the said number only equates to a two percent drop over the more than 212,000 apprehensions in July.

Furthermore, the encounters in August also represented a 317 percent increase over the previous year's apprehensions in the same month. It can be recalled that at least 50,014 migrant encounters were recorded in August 2020.

READ NEXT: Mexico Blocks Migrant Caravan Headed to U.S. Border

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WATCH: Thousands of Migrants Crowded Under Bridge in Del Rio - From KENS 5: Your San Antonio News Source
Vaccine maker Pfizer aims to file an emergency authorization to Food and Drug Administration in November for its vaccine to be used by children under five. Pfizer Chief Financial Officer Frank D'Amelio had announced the recent plan of the company, according to The Hill report.

Earlier, the company announced that it expects to file in early October for emergency authorization in children ages five to 11.

D'Amelio said that they forecasted that the data for the said age group will be ready by the end of September, while data for the even younger group is seen to be prepared later in October.

READ NEXT: Dr. Anthony Fauci Supports COVID Vaccine Mandates for School Children, Says It's a 'Good Idea'

FDA on COVID Vaccines for Children

Meanwhile, FDA vaccine chief Dr. Peter Marks said that the agency will evaluate the COVID vaccines for younger children as soon as it gets its hands on the required data.

Marks said that he is very hopeful that COVID vaccines for age group five to 11 will be underway at the end of the year, according to an Associated Press News report.

Pfizer's German partner BioNTech noted that it was on track in the coming weeks to seek approval of the companies' COVID vaccine for five to 11-year-olds.

Former FDA chief Scott Gottlieb on Sunday also said that children aged five to 11 could be eligible for the Pfizer vaccine by the end of October. Gottlieb serves as one of Pfizer's board of directors.

He also noted that he has confidence in terms of the data that the company has collected. However, he acknowledged that it is still FDA's decision to make "an objective determination."

Vaccinating Children

The European Medicines Agency has approved the Pfizer COVID vaccine for 12 to 15-year-olds in May. European countries have since then moved to vaccinate children, according to a BBC News report.

Meanwhile, U.S. and Canadian regulators had started giving injections immediately after it approved the Pfizer vaccine for children 12 and older.

Forty-two percent of 12- to 17-year-olds had already received their first dose, while 32 percent had already gotten their second dose of either Pfizer or Moderna by the end of July.

The U.S. started moving to vaccinate children after infections started to jump brought by the highly transmissible Delta variant.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that everyone 12 years and older should get the COVID vaccine to help protect against the virus.

Children and COVID Cases

The American Academy of Pediatrics noted that children account for more than one-quarter of new weekly U.S. COVID cases.

According to a Centers for Infectious Disease Research and Policy report, around 252,000 child COVID cases were reported for the week ending September 2, which is the largest count reported for children during the pandemic.

Children accounted for 26.8 percent of reported weekly COVID cases in the U.S.

The AAP said that child cases had increased exponentially after declining in early summer. Over 750,000 cases were added between August 5 and September 2.

It also noted that hospitalization and death are still rare results of the virus in children.

READ MORE: More Than 5,000 Students in a Single Florida School District Quarantined or Isolated Due to COVID

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WATCH: Pfizer announces timeline for child vaccinations - from ABC News






President Joe Biden on Wednesday showed his support to General Mark Milley amid the China secret phone calls allegations the chairman of the Joints Chief of Staff is facing following the upcoming release of the book entitled "Peril."

During a briefing outside the White House on Wednesday, Biden said that he has a "great confidence" with General Milley after he was asked by a reporter following his closing remarks.

Footage of Biden's comments also showed that an official present in the gathering tried to stop the reporter who was asking the president about his stand on the allegations against General Milley.

BIDEN: "I have great confidence in General Milley" pic.twitter.com/WAj4vIKrtM  Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) September 15, 2021

Biden's comments came as Republican Senator Marco Rubio wrote a letter addressed to the president, urging him to fire Milley over the secret calls the official made with his Chinese counterpart.

READ NEXT: Ex-Obama CIA Director Calls on Biden Administration to Investigate the Afghanistan Drone Strike

Officials Show Support to General Mark Milley Amid China Secret Phone Calls Issue

Apart from the president, other officials under the Biden administration also showed their support to General Miley.

On Wednesday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki underscored that Biden stands by Milley's side amid the scandal.

"The president has complete confidence in his leadership, his patriotism, and his fidelity to our constitution," Psaki underscored. The White House press secretary further noted that Biden's work alongside Milley in the past eight months made the president confident on the general.

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby also highlighted that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also has "full trust and confidence" in the chairman of the Joints Chief of Staff." Kirby added that it is not unusual for a U.S. general to communicate with foreign military leaders, including those from China and Russia.

"It is expected that the chairman of the joint chief of staff would continue to have counterpart conversations," Kirby emphasized.

Despite the support Mark Milley received, officials called on him to leave his post, including Senator Rand Paul, who asked for a prompt investigation against the chairman of the Joints chief of staff.

On Wednesday, Paul pointed out in an interview that General Milley was not elected to be president, adding that he can't share how "incredibly dangerous" the issue is.

On Tuesday, former President Donald Trump dismissed the notion that he considered attacking China, adding that the statement was "treasonous" and a "disgrace."

General Mark Milley Denies Wrongdoing on his Calls with China

As Milley faces criticism among Republicans, the chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff on Wednesday denied any wrongdoing with the calls on his Chinese counterpart.

Milley's spokesperson, Colonel Dave Butler, defended the general's action through a statement to reporters, contending that the reported calls were a part of regular communication with the defense chiefs globally.

It can be recalled that the book Peril alleged that Milley called General Li Zuocheng from the People's Liberation Army to reassure that the United States was stable and will not attack China and call the Chinese general ahead of time if the U.S. will launch an attack against them.

Butler underscored that the calls Milley made were done to maintain "strategic stability" and was coordinated, staffed, and communicated with the Department of Defense and the interagency.

READ NEXT: Arizona AG Sues Biden Administration Over Hardline Vaccine Mandates

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WATCH: Biden Stands Behind General Milley - From CNBC Television
Democratic lawmakers are urging Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to leave his plans of launching an "Instagram for Kids" after internal research by the firm found that the social media app can take a toll on young people's mental health.

The internal research particularly cited suicidal ideation among teenage users, especially to some young girls, Gizmodo reported.

Lawmakers said that children and teens are particularly vulnerable populations online, adding that the findings paint a clear picture of Instagram as a platform that threatens young people's wellbeing.

Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Reps. Kathy Castor of Florida and Lori Trahan of Massachusetts sent a letter on Wednesday to Mark Zuckerberg to express concerns about the company's plans to introduce a version of Instagram for users under 13.

Markey, Castor, and Trahan said in their letter that the internal research of Zuckerberg's company found disturbing relationships between Instagram use and young people's mental health.

READ NEXT: Selena Gomez Shares a TikTok About 'Red Flags' in a Relationship and Fans Think It's About Justin Bieber

Instagram for Kids

Lawmakers, regulators, and parents have expressed their opposition to Facebook's plans to launch Instagram Youth since being first revealed in March, NPR reported. Child safety groups and 44 state attorneys general have also urged Facebook to leave the project.

Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Marsha Blackburn also accused the company of providing evasive answers that were "misleading and covered up clear evidence" of threats.

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers said that she and her fellow Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee had requested Facebook internal's research in March. Rodgers added that Facebook had refused to comply with their request, adding that now they know why.

Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg and other company officials have defended Instagram Youth, saying it would be better to make a version that specifically caters to a particular age group with parental control.

Instagram and Mental Health Problems on Users

Top Facebook officials know that Instagram can negatively impact mental health, body image, particularly teenage girls.

Researchers noted that 32 percent of teenage girls said that Instagram had made them feel worse by making them feel bad about their bodies, USA Today reported.

Facebook also found that more than 40 percent of Instagram users reported feeling "unattractive" and linked it back to the social media platform. In addition, teens blame Instagram for the increases in the rate of anxiety and depression.

Teenage boys were not exempted from this. Researchers found that 14 percent of boys in the U.S. said Instagram, the photo-sharing app Facebook also owns, made them feel more negatively about themselves.

The company has publicly downplayed Instagram's impacts despite taking some steps to possibly reduce the negative effects on teens, such as removing counts of "likes."

Head of public policy at Instagram, Karina Newton, said that they stand by this research despite the story "focuses on a limited set of findings" and putting it in a negative light.

Newton further noted that social media is not "inherently good or bad for people." She said that the research on the effects of social media is mixed.

READ MORE: 'Friends' Reunion Special: First Full 2-Minute Trailer Released by HBO Max

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WATCH: Report: Internal Research Found Instagram Can Harm Young Users' Mental Health - From CBS New York






Utah Police Investigators on Wednesday underscored that they will not rule out the possible link between the double murder and Gabby Petito's case, that both happened in the scenic campgrounds of Moab.

The double murder that was reported involved a married couple who was last seen on August 13, and discovered shot to death in the South Mesa Area of the LA Sal Loop Road five days later. The murder victims were identified as Crystal Turner and Kylen Schulte, who were 38 and 24 years old respectively.

READ NEXT: Shrouded in Mystery: 4 Minnesota Residents Found Dead in Abandoned SUV Hidden in Wisconsin Cornfield

The newlywed couple was discovered dead by their friend. A police warrant revealed that the victims' friend found them partially undressed and riddled with bullet wounds. Meanwhile, Bridget Calvert, Schult's aunt, said that her niece and Turner told their friends about a man who was creeping them out around the campground.

"We're looking at everything, I mean, anything and everything suspicious around that time," a spokesman for the Grand County Sheriff's Office said, pointing out that they are not "ruling anything out at this time."

To date, police officers have not yet identified a suspect for the murder, and they were still examining all possible leads.

Connection Between the Double Murder and Gabby Petito Case

The connection between the double murder and Gabby Petito's case was established, when Utah authorities identified that Schulte worked at a nearby co-op grocery store called Moonflower.

Officials emphasized that the said store was the location where Gabby Petito and her boyfriend Brian Laundrie got into an emotional argument that prompted police response on August 12.

Fox News underscored that the location and proximity of Petito's argument with her boyfriend also prompted speculation that the double murder case may have a connection to the YouTuber's case.

Officers from the Moab City Police Department in Utah pointed out in a released report on Wednesday that Petito slapped Laundrie after their emotional altercation, NBC News reported.

The police report furthered that Laundrie tried to make distance by telling Petito to take a walk and calm down. However, Petito was reported that she did not want to be separated from her boyfriend and began slapping him. Laundrie then grabbed Petito's face then pushed her back as the YouTuber pressed upon her boyfriend and the van.

During an exchange of words with the Utah police officers, Laundrie and Petito revealed that they both struggle with their mental health, adding that they are not taking any medications.

Gabby Petito's Boyfriend, Now a Person of Interest

As the report of Petito and her boyfriend's argument in the store where one of the double murder victims worked, Laundrie was made a person of interest in Petito's missing case on Wednesday.

It can be recalled that Petito was reported missing on September 11, after she did not contact her family for more than a week. Laundrie and Petito were reported to go on a cross-country road trip, but Laundrie returned to his home in Florida alone in the van he shared with his girlfriend during the trip.

As the hunt for Petito goes desperate, Chief Todd Garrison called out Laundrie's lawyer on Wednesday to ask for a conversation with Brian Laundrie.

Mr. Steven Bertolino, esq. the @NorthPortPolice needs your help in finding Gabby Petito. Please call us to arrange a conversation with Brian Laundrie. Two people left on a trip and one person returned! #wheresgabby #FindGabby #fbitampa #gabbypetito https://t.co/4OaCk5eCjU  Chief Todd Garrison (@NPPDPoliceChief) September 15, 2021

Meanwhile, the attorney of Gabby Petito's family also declined to comment on the said police report, contending that the YouTuber's camp was instructed by the authorities to not discuss the relationship between Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie.

READ NEXT: Sentencing of El Chapo's Wife Emma Coronel Aispuro Delayed; Could Avoid Life Sentence for Drug Dealing

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WATCH: Gabby Petito's Boyfriend Named a 'Person of Interest' - From CNBC Television
The first entry of SpaceX founder Elon Musk in the competition for space tourism blasted off Wednesday night from NASA's Kennedy Space Center pad in Florida.

SpaceX's first private flight was joined by two contest winners, a health care worker, and their wealthy sponsor.

SpaceX was considered the most ambitious leap yet in space tourism because it was the first time that a rocket streaked toward orbit with an all-amateur crew, which means there were no professional astronauts among them.

SpaceX Joins Commercial Space Tourism

According to Associated Press, the four individuals inside the dragon capsule, composed of two men and two women, would be circling the Earth at an orbit higher than the International Space Station before they were expected to splash down off the Florida coast this weekend.

The all-amateur crew would be spending three days circling the Earth from a high orbit of 100 miles or 160 kilometers.

The flight leader of the all-amateur crew is 38-year-old Jared Isaacman. The billionaire made his fortune after he established a payment processing company. Isaacman started venturing into this business in his teens, The Guardian reported.

So far, Isaacman is the third billionaire to launch this season, next to Richard Branson of Virgin Galactic and Jeff Bezos of Blue Origin.

Isaacman, who is an accomplished pilot, persuaded SpaceX to push its limits. The company of Elon Musk was reluctant at first because of the increased radiation exposure and other risks that they have projected. However, after a safety review, SpaceX agreed on the space flight.

READ NEXT: Apple Releases Security Updates Fixing Flaw Over Israeli Spyware

All-Amateur Space Flight for SpaceX

The space trip, also known as the "Inspiration4," was joined by 29-year-old Hayley Arceneaux, a childhood bone cancer survivor.

Arceneaux is currently working as a physician assistant at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, where she was initially treated.

The mission's central goal is to raise funds and awareness for St. Jude. Isaacman has pledged $100 million out of his own pocket to the medical facility, and they are seeking another $100 million in donations.

Aside from the record of being the youngest American in space, Arceneaux is set to become the first individual with a prosthesis in space, as she wears a titanium rod in her left leg. Arceneaux considers the space flight as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, The USA Today reported.

Also along for the ride were sweepstakes winners, 42-year-old Chris Sembroski, a data engineer in Everett, Washington, and 51-year-old community college educator in Tempe, Arizona, Sian Proctor.

Even though the capsule is automated, the four individuals spent at least six months of training before the space flight. They trained for months to cope with any emergency during the space flight since they were all amateurs.

The Dragon capsule aimed for an altitude of 357 miles or 575 kilometers, a distance beyond the Hubble Space Telescope. The fully automated capsule has already been to orbit. Before the latest trip to space, it was used for SpaceX's second astronaut flight for NASA to the space station.

SpaceX's next private trip will see a retired NASA astronaut escorting three wealthy businessmen to the space station for a weeklong visit early next year. Once opposed to space tourism, NASA is now a supporter of private space flight.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, a congressman who hitched a ride on a space shuttle decades ago, earlier tweeted that "low-Earth orbit is now more accessible for more people to experience the wonders of space."

READ MORE: Retired Army Official Alexander Vindman Says Gen. Milley Should Resign Over China Secret Calls

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WATCH: SpaceX Launches 4 Amateurs Into Earth Orbit - From Associated Press
Conservative group American Accountability Foundation has filed an ethics complaint against Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez after she attended New York's Met Gala.

The group claimed that she had accepted a "lavish gift" of admission to the event without a permissible exemption, according to The Hill report. The watchdog group also claimed Ocasio-Cortez could have broken the Federal Election Commission rules if she purchased a ticket using campaign funds.

Meanwhile, Ocasio-Cortez's office released a statement, saying that they are confident that they complied with all ethics rules.

The conservative group further noted that the rules exist for a run as, without strict compliance, they will run the risk of corruption in the halls of Congress and public officials.

READ NEXT: AOC Slams Democrats Who Oppose $15 Minimum Wage Hike, Says It Should Actually Be $24

AOC at The Met Gala

The New York Democrat had donned herself with a floor-length white gown, with red text on her gown reading "Tax the Rich" on the back of the dress.

AOC's gown was designed by Aurora James, according to an NBC News report.

Ocasio-Cortez said that she and James started to talk about the meaning of being a working-class woman of color at the event.

She noted that they can't just play along, adding that they need to break the fourth wall and "challenge some of the institutions."

The event features Hollywood celebrities and influencers annually, with tickets reportedly costing $35,000, while tables range between $200,000 and $300,000.

The American Accountability Foundation argued that Ocasio-Cortez's attendance counts as an illegal gift as attendees were handpicked by Vogue editor Anna Wintour.

AOC Drawing Flak

Many New York officials were invited as "guests of the museum" who did not pay to attend the event. However, Ocasio-Cortez's presence had drawn scrutiny from critics.

Donald Trump Jr. took on Twitter and tagged AOC as a fraud for sending about taxing the rich while being with the presence of wealthy "leftwing elites," according to The New York Times report.

Indiana Rep. Jim Banks also took a jab and tweeted that Ocasio-Cortez is the "gift that keeps on giving."

Progressives and self-adorned socialists were also disappointed by her gesture. They noted that it mocks the progressive cause. They also highlighted that Ocasio-Cortez is not maximizing her ability to fight for working people from Congress.

Briahna Gray said that people are disappointed in her behavior outside the context, adding that it seems to show a lack of commitment. Gray is the former national press secretary for Sen. Bernie Sander's 2020 campaign. She also co-hosts the "Bad Faith" podcast.

Gray noted that Ocasio-Cortez is held to a unique standard as people expected more of her.

Ocasio-Cortez was previously invited to the Met Ball in 2019, which she did not attend, and the next year's gala was canceled due to the COVID pandemic.

A columnist and who described himself as a supporter, John Ganz, said that the Met Gala is an event that is being rejected by sincere socialists.

READ MORE: Next COVID-19 Relief Package: Immigrants Must Be Included

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WATCH: AOC Stuns in 'Tax The Rich' Dress a the Met Gala - from NBC News New York






Police in northern Mexico have found 38 people, including 22 foreigners, who were kidnapped at a hotel in San Luis Potosi state.

The chief prosecutor of San Luis Potosi noted that the victims were found alive on a roadside on late Tuesday, seemingly abandoned by their captors, Aljazeera reported.

The victims, which include 16 Mexicans and 22 Haitians and Cubans, were kidnapped when gunmen stormed the Sol y Luna hotel in the city of Matehuala before dawn Tuesday.

Prosecutor Federico Garza Herrera said among the victims were three children and a pregnant woman. Authorities were uncertain whether the foreigners were asylum seekers or migrants, but initial reports suggested that there were also some Venezuelans, Reuters reported.

In a statement, the attorney general of the state said the Mexicans were released sooner, while the foreigners were found by police officers beside a road in a remote area outside Matehuala after a caller said a group of people was asking for help.

The foreigners were reportedly brought to the city of San Luis Potosi, where they were fed and received medical assistance. Herrera said he's going to notify the migration institute to determine the migratory status of the victims.

A local media reported that officials found some of the victims' ID cards in their rooms, but the hotel's logbook of guests was missing since the armed men took it.

READ NEXT: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Wants Pres. Joe Biden to Stop Sending Illegal Immigrants to the State

Migrants in Mexico

Around 3,300 migrants were stranded in Mexico since January due to a U.S. border policy, according to another Reuters report in June. A human rights group reported that these migrants have been kidnapped, raped, assaulted or trafficked.

New York-based Human Rights First released the report on cases of migrants and asylum seekers stuck in Mexico since President Joe Biden took office. From around 500 incidents in April, it increased to 3,300 by mid-June.

Ana Ortega Villegas, a lawyer and researcher at Human Rights First, said most people do not make complaints to the authorities, making the figures inexact.

The human rights group noted that almost 83 percent of asylum-seekers who were returned to Mexico had suffered attacks or threats, NBC News reported.

The U.S. Supreme Court earlier denied the Biden administration's request to pause the implementation of the "Remain in Mexico" policy, which was initially implemented by former President Donald Trump's administration.

This means that U.S. authorities will have to continue the practice of returning asylum-seekers to Mexico, while they wait for their cases to be processed in U.S. immigration courts.

Biden had earlier suspended the implementation of the policy, while the Department of Homeland Security assured that it would be finalized in June.

Migrant Kidnappings

More than 70 organizations from Mexico and the U.S. had written a letter to Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, asking him to oppose the reinstatement of the policy.

More than 70,000 migrants were returned to Mexico by the Trump administration in 2019. Most of the migrants were Central Americans, Cubans, and Venezuelans, among other nationalities.

Kennji Kizuka, associate director of research and analysis at Human Rights First, said the "Remain in Mexico" program cannot be carried out legally or humanely.

Kizuka noted that it will only increase the danger to those seeking safety in the U.S. He added that it will also cause more kidnappings, assaults, and torture.

READ MORE: Immigrant Children at Border Have High Chance of Staying in the U.S.

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WATCH: Kidnapping in Mexico - From BBC Newsnight






An anonymous tip has led to the discovery of 10 bodies at a mass grave in an abandoned rural property in Mexico on Tuesday.

According to Mexico News Daily, police searched the property at the town of Gonzalez Ortega, also known as Machines, in Zacatecas state after receiving a tip about criminal activities in the area. The area is located 18 kilometers from Zacatecas city.

The property is reportedly near a ranch owned by former Zacatecas governor Miguel Alonso Reyes. Authorities said the bodies discovered in the mass grave bore signs of torture.

Anonymous Tip Leads to Discovery of 10 Bodies in Mexico

Milenio reported that the intelligence department of the Ministry of Public Security implemented the operation after receiving an anonymous complaint of alleged criminal activities at the farm.

In a statement, the Ministry of Public Security said that "once requested by the State Attorney General's Office and authorized by a judge," authorities conducted the investigation, "revealing the unfortunate location of 10 people without life inside."

The Mexican state government confirmed that it is investigating the multiple homicides to find those responsible for "this atrocious act."

The State Attorney General's Office is reportedly carrying out "expert and investigative procedures" to identify the bodies and determine the victims' sex and cause of death.

READ NEXT: 3 Gulf Cartel Gunmen Burned Alive Inside Vehicle After Being Struck Head on by Police Car in Mexico

Homicides in Mexico

Mexico recorded the two most violent years in its history, with 34,682 homicides in 2019 and 34,557 in 2020. Based on the National Public Security System (SENSP) data, the state of Zacatecas recorded the highest rate of intentional homicides in the country.

Zacatecas recorded a homicide rate at 52.21 per 100,000 people in the first half of the year. Next on the SENSP list is the state of Baja California with 51.3, followed by Colima with 40.89.

States of Chihuahua and Guanajuato are next, with 38.73 and 35.40, respectively. Based on the federal government's daily homicide report, the state of Zacatecas recorded 323 murders from August 1 to September 10.

The state of Zacatecas is in the midst of a territorial battle between the Mexican drug cartels - the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG). However, Mexican authorities have not yet implicated organized crime groups in this case.

Security officials reported Tuesday that they had found and destroyed six encampments and eight surveillance points placed by the Mexican drug cartels in strategic areas at the nearby municipality of Jerez.

Meanwhile, David Monreal, the newly inaugurated governor, addressed the wave of violence when he was sworn in on Sunday. Monreal noted that the violence had surged and that the state's finances were in peril.

"Public security is in its worst moment... The finances of municipalities are in disorder. Our state is dying," Monreal said as reported by Mexico Daily News.

Bloody Turf War Between Rival Mexican Drug Cartels Resulted to 6 Men Hanged From Bridge

Last month, six male bodies were discovered hanging off a bridge in the city of Zacatecas. It happened amid the Mexican drug cartels' fight over lucrative drug trafficking routes.

A source at the local prosecutor's office said the bodies discovered were half-naked. The city of Zacatecas, which is the capital of the state with a similar name, has been heavily damaged by the intense violence between rival Mexican drug cartels.

READ MORE: Juarez Cartel Boss Vicente Carrillo Fuentes Sentenced to 28 Years in Prison by Mexico Judge

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WATCH: Clandestine Graves With Many Dead Found in Mexico - From AP Archive
A woman foolishly procured a false driving licence, Portlaoise District Court heard last week.

Vanessa Norton, 30, of Apartment 107, Reubens Square, Dolphins Barn, Dublin 8 was charged with using a false instrument - a full Irish driving licence - at the Ridge Road, Portlaoise on December 11, 2020.

She pleaded guilty to the charge.

Sgt JJ Kirby told the court that on the date in question at 4pm at a checkpoint on the Ridge Road a black Ford Focus has been stopped. The driver was asked for and produced a driving licence.

The Garda involved seized the licence which was subsequently found to be false.

On June 23 this year Ms Norton had attended Portlaoise Garda Station where she cooperated.

Appearing for Ms Norton, solicitor Barry Fitzgerald said she had two boys. The father of one lived in Portlaoise and he did not have a driving licence. She was a regular driver.

She had a provisional licence and took the foolish decision to procure a false licence, as she was concerned she was driving unaccompanied on a provisional licence.

She was very contrite and apologetic and had pleaded guilty early.

Judge Bernadette Owens said she had noted the fact and was dealing with the matter by fine only. She fined her 250.
A spokesperson for Minister for Further and Higher Education Simon Harris has denied claims made in the Dail that he leaked the appointment of Katherine Zappone to a special envoy position within the UN from a Cabinet meeting.

The claim was sensationally made under Dail privilege by Sinn Fein deputy Matt Carthy.

He was speaking on Wednesday evening on the Confidence Motion laid down by his party in Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence Simon Coveney over his handling of the Zappone appointment.

Deputy Carthy said: "Rather than deal with the debacle, Fine Gael ran a sting operation to expose that the Minister, Deputy Harris, had leaked the appointment from the Cabinet meeting because that is how business is done."

He also blasted the Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, Green government for "cronyism," adding that under their government, "appointments to public bodies, right up to the Supreme Court, are decided not by what you know but who you know."

He urged the house to vote no confidence in Simon Coveney as a result. Minister Coveney later won the confidence motion by 92 votes to 59 despite the resignation of Fianna Fail TD Marc MacSharry from the parliamentary party.

According to the Irish Times, a spokesperson for Simon Harris later denied the leak claims made by Deputy Carthy, saying it was simply untrue and that Deputy Carthy's actions were "a clear misuse of Dail privilege."

Defending himself before the vote, Minister Coveney said: "I never thought I would find myself in the middle of a debate like this one. Given the magnitude of the issues this House needs to deal with, including the removal of Covid restrictions, the pressures on healthcare delivery across the country, the launching of the most ambitious new housing plan in history, Ireland's chairing of the UN Security Council at a crucial time, and the ongoing pressures in Northern Ireland relating to the Brexit protocol, the legacy of the past, the threat to the very existence of the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement and the possible early collapse of the Executive and the assembly, it seems scarcely credible that a short-lived Government appointment of a part-time special envoy should be dominating our focus on the first day back after the summer break, but here we are.

"I take my share of blame for this debate. For six weeks now, the appointment of Katherine Zappone and the issues related to it have been the focus of media and political commentary. In truth, I should have and could have dealt with this issue much more comprehensively in early August, after it became controversial following a Government decision.

"I want to say to every one of my colleagues in this House but, in particular, to my partners in government, that I regret that this issue has distracted from the important work we have been trying to do and I regret the mistakes made by me in advance of the Cabinet decision and subsequently in terms of not clearing these issues up earlier. I have apologised to the Taoiseach and to my colleagues, and I do so again this evening to everybody in this House," he continued.

He then took a swipe at the party bringing the motion, Sinn Fein.

"Sinn Fein is not attempting to hold the Government or me to account tonight, or even to establish truth. Deputy McDonald is not trying to get answers in this debate or achieve anything positive as regards what really happened here and how we can improve things for the future," he said.

"This is a political tactic to try to extend a political controversy and to reinforce a false narrative of cronyism to damage relations in this Government. Sinn Fein is doing what it does so often, North and South - stoking tension with an exaggerated narrative in an effort to create anger, resentment and division, not just in this House or in the Government, but across society more generally."

Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald retorted from across the chamber: "The Minister has learned nothing, absolutely nothing."

She also said, "no lesson learned" as Simon Coveney continued speaking, to which the embattled Fine Gael Minister replied, "the Deputy is a hypocrite."

A rollcall vote was then held with the Ceann Comhairle later announcing the result.
WhatsApp has issued legal proceedings challenging the 225m fine it was hit with by Irelands data watchdog for breaching privacy regulations.

The penalty, which was announced earlier this month, was the largest ever handed down by the Data Protection Commissioner of Ireland and the second highest under EU GDPR rules.

Representatives at WhatsApp say they disagree with the DPCs decision and the severity of the fine, while a spokesperson for the company confirmed judicial review proceedings were being pursued.

The case was initiated in the High Court on Wednesday however, court filings are not yet available, but it is understood one of the grounds set to be argued is that the fine is disproportionate and out of step with previous GDPR fines.

WhatsApp said it also intended to appeal the European Data Protection Board instruction to the Court of Justice for the European Union.

The fine, announced on September 2, relates to an investigation launched three years ago into whether WhatsApp was being transparent enough about how it handled information.

The issues including whether WhatsApp supplied enough information to users about how their data was processed and if its privacy policies were sufficiently clear.

The penalty is the second largest imposed in the EU, behind a 746m fine Amazon was hit with by Luxembourgs regulator for non-compliance with data-processing laws.

In a statement earlier this month, WhatsApp said: We disagree with the decision regarding the transparency we provided to people in 2018 and the penalties are entirely disproportionate. We will appeal this decision.

The company said it was committed to providing a secure and private service.

We have worked to ensure the information we provide is transparent and comprehensive and will continue to do so, it said.
A Dublin grandfather whose son was murdered over a drug feud offered his home as an overnight safe-house to a Kinahan Cartel assassin, the Special Criminal Court has heard.

Stephen Fowler (62) pleaded guilty on Tuesday at the non-jury court to his participation in the attempted murder of Kinahan Cartel target James 'Mago' Gately, a member of the rival Hutch gang, when Gately was living in Belfast in April 2017.

Less than a month later, in May 2017, Gately survived a second assassination attempt on his life when he was parked at the Topaz petrol station in Clonshaugh in north Dublin, where he was shot five times.

On Thursday, September 16, Detective Garda Sergeant David Carolan told Dominic McGinn SC, prosecuting, that a conspiracy to murder Gately was underway as gardai monitored Estonian hitman Imre Arakas upon his arrival at Dublin Airport in April 2017.

Det Sgt Carolan said that gardai monitored Arakas taking a bus from the airport to Dublin city centre, where he bought a wig, before he was collected by Fowler and another male and taken to Fowler's home at Blakestown Cottages, Clonsilla, Dublin 15.

Mr McGinn said that at around 8.20pm on April 3, 2016, Fowler picked up Arakas in his van, which was branded 'Blakestown Tyres', at Barry's Hotel in Dublin city centre. He then brought him to Blakestown Cottages because Fowler had "owed" another unnamed male.

The next day, April 4, 2016, gardai, on foot of a search warrant, went to the Blakestown Cottages address and arrested Fowler and Arakas.

In interviews with gardai, Fowler said he would not name whom he took instruction from because it would amount to a threat to his life.

Mr McGinn said that a visible open thread on the Blackberry phone device used by Arakas led to gardai piecing together the plot to murder Gately. Garda investigators took photos of the information on the Blackberry, as that information could be remotely deleted, said Mr McGinn.

Det Sgt Carolan agreed with Mr McGinn that tracking devices were in place and were monitoring Gately, Gately's sister's vehicle and, mistakenly, another unrelated male's car.

Mr McGinn said that a tracking device had later been put in place on Gately's car and that the PSNI had been informed of the matter on April 4, 2017, which led to the thwarting of the assassination.

Det Sgt Carolan agreed with Mr McGinn that the movements of the tracker devices coincided with the information gained from Arakas' Blackberry device and that both the trackers' movements and the tracker monitors coincided with the activities of an organised crime gang.

On Tuesday, Fowler pleaded guilty to the single charge of having knowledge of a criminal organisation and "with the intention of enhancing the ability of the said criminal organisation or any of its members to commit a serious offence, namely the murder of James Gately, participated in or contributed to activities with the said offence".

The offence relates to dates between December 7, 2016, and April 4, 2017, at a location or locations within the State, when Gately was in Northern Ireland.

In 2012, Fowler pleaded guilty to possession of cannabis worth 450k and served six years of an eight-year sentence.

The courts will now review the matter of the 2017 offence, as Fowler was on a two-year suspended sentence at the time from his release of June 7, 2016.

Defending counsel, Michael Bowman SC, said that his client had "engaged fully" with gardai in interviews and that Fowler had made "substantial admissions".

Mr Bowman said that Fowler knew that Arakas was in the country for "a criminal act" but that Fowler was unaware of the plot to kill Gately.

Mr Bowman said that Fowler admitted that he was part of facilitating a criminal act and that he acknowledged that what he did was "wrong".

Counsel said that Mr Fowler's son, Eric (34), was in Poland at the time of the offence and that Fowler had taken responsibility for a debt associated with his deceased son.

Father-of-two Eric was gunned down in front of his home at Blakestown Cottages on December 22, 2018.

Mr Bowman said that, with regards to Fowler's previous drug conviction, it was Eric who was "the person of interest" and that his client's incarceration cost him a marriage of 36 years.

Mr Bowman said that Fowler was "taking directions" and not "giving them out" at the time of the 2017 conspiracy to end Gately's life.

Counsel said that Fowler was "at the sharp end of a criminal circle" when his client committed the offence and that Fowler had four grandchildren and was "very close" with his daughter.

Mr Justice Tony Hunt, presiding at the three-judge court, said the court would finalise sentencing in the matter, which carries a maximum jail term of 15 years, on October 4.
The Portlaoise College school community has warmly welcomed Mary Marum, who was recently appointed Deputy Principal at Portlaoise College.

Mary was a Science and Biology in Portlaoise College and part of the middle management team in the school. She joins the current dynamic senior management team of Noel Daly (Principal) and Patricia Cullen and Keith McClearn (Deputy Principals).

This additional Deputy Principal position arose as enrolment at Portlaoise College including Portlaoise Institute has been steadily increasing over the last few years and is in excess of 1000 students for September 2021.

Portlaoise College principal Noel Daly says that they have become the school of choice in the Portlaoise area for 6th class students and their families.

"Under the current school leadership the school has encouraged all of the pupils to embody the school mission statement to achieve their maximum potential in an engaging, challenging and student centred environment that celebrates diversity in partnership with all stakeholders," he said.

In 2020 The Department of Education and Skills approved grant funding for extension works at Portlaoise College. The project will include the construction of a multi-storey extension to the existing school building. The substantial programme of work will deliver a purpose-built special needs unit for the post primary school along with additional classrooms.

We have a dedicated, hardworking, professional staff and a wonderful cohort of students and were delighted that they will get to work and learn in an ever expanding and improved environment. We are especially proud to be promoting the inclusive ethos of our school with the addition of a purpose built ASD unit. With a wide range of subjects on offer and extracurricular activities for all to enjoy and we are here to meet every students needs. 

"I am delighted to have the support of such a strong management team of the three Deputy Principals. Also with our Virtual Open Night scheduled the 30th September, it will be a great opportunity for prospective students and parents to meet the schools staff, hear testimonials from parents and students along with meeting the management team, Mr Daly said.
The death has occurred of Catherine Boylan

Celbridge, Kildare



BOYLAN, Catherine of Celbridge, Co. Kildare. September 12th 2021, in the wonderful care of staff at the Marymount care centre and with family by her side. Catherine will be sadly missed by her loving husband Brian, sons Cormac, Tadhg, daughter Michelle and brother Turlough. A memorial service will take place a year from now to remember Catherine.

Due to current Covid 19 restrictions there will only be a private ceremony held for family. Those who would like to leave a personal message for Catherines family can do so by emailing catherineboylanmemorial@gmail.com (these will be collected together for a website sharing memories of Catherine).

The death has occurred of Martin DONOHOE

Tally-Ho Stud, Corduff, Coolcarrigan, Kildare / Garryhill, Carlow / Enniscorthy, Wexford



Formerly London, UK and Carlow.

Beloved husband of the late Kathleen and loving father of Liam, Martin, Donal and the late Patricia. Sadly missed by his loving sons, daughters-in-law Fiona, Helen & Fiona, grandchildren Martin, Eve, Erin & Caitlin, sister Anna, brothers Tom & Hughie, nephews, nieces, extended family, relatives and friends.

May he rest in peace.





Funeral Arrangements Later

The death has occurred of Michael Farrell

Mylerstown, Robertstown, Kildare / Ballymount, Dublin



Farrell, Michael, Mylerstown, Robertstown, Co. Kildare and late of Ballymount, Clondalkin, Dublin 22, September 14th 2021, suddenly at home. Beloved son of the late Henry and Phyllis and brother of the late Martin, Henry and Madeline. Deeply regretted by his loving sisters, brothers-in-law, nieces, nephews, relatives and friends.

Rest In Peace

Michael will be reposing at Oliver Reilly's Funeral Home, Prosperous on Sunday from 2pm with prayers at 7pm. Please respect HSE and Government guidelines at all times whilst in the Funeral Home.

Due to current government guidelines regarding religious ceremonies, Michael's Funeral Mass will take place on Monday at 11am in the Church of Our Lady and St. Joseph, Prosperous. Family and friends are welcome to attend the funeral, but are reminded to be mindful of hand and cough etiquette and social distancing. Those who would have liked to attend the funeral, but due to the current restrictions cannot, please leave a personal message for the family in the condolences section below.

The church will be limited in capacity to 50%, but people are welcome to view Michael's Funeral Mass on Monday at 11am by clicking on the following link : https://prosperousparish.net/webcam.

Oliver Reilly Funeral Directors accept no responsibility for any live webcam interruptions or issues.

Michael's Funeral Cortege will be leaving Oliver Reilly's Funeral Home, Prosperous on Monday at approx. 10:30am to arrive at the Church of Our Lady and St. Joseph, Prosperous for 11am Funeral Mass, followed by burial in Esker Cemetery, Lucan. Those who would like to line the route, may do so in a safe and socially distanced manner.

For all enquiries, please contact Oliver Reilly Ltd. Funeral Directors on (045) 868230.

The death has occurred of Richard Snr FARRELL

Bishopscourt Demense, Kill, Kildare / Gowran, Kilkenny



Farrell (Bishopscourt Demesne, Kill, Co. Kildare and formerly of Gowran, Co. Kilkenny) - Sept 15, 2021, (peacefully), in his 94th year, surrounded by his loving family, at St. Brigids Hospice The Curragh, Richard Snr, beloved husband of Aileen and dear father of Patricia, Helen, Richard, Carmel, Charlie, Nuala, Agnes and Peter; Sadly missed by his loving wife, sons, daughters, brothers, sister, sons-in-law, daughters-in-law, grandchildren, nephews, nieces, relatives and friends.

Removal on Friday to St. Brigids Church, Kill arriving for 10am Mass followed by burial afterwards at the Church of the Assumption Parish Cemetery, Gowran, Co. Kilkenny arriving at approximately 1pm.

Due to current Government Guidelines the capacity of the Church is limited to 50%. Those who would like to join the private funeral service remotely by webcam can do so by clicking on https://churchmedia.tv/camera/test or those who would have liked to attend the Funeral, but due to current restrictions cannot, please feel free to leave a message in the Condolence Book below. Family flowers only please. Donations, if desired, to St. Brigid's Hospice The Curragh. House private please. Enquiries to Murphy Brothers Funeral Directors, Church Lane, Naas Ph: 045 897397.

Ar dheis De go raibh a anam dilis

The death has occurred of William Henry Hendy

Davidstown, Clonalvy, Meath / Dublin / Athy, Kildare



(9th April 1944 - 15th September 2021)

Peacefully in the care of St. Francis Hospice, Blanchardstown. Much loved and very sadly missed by his family, wife, daughters, grandsons and extended family and friends.

A private family funeral service will take place at 3pm on Friday (17th September) in The Church of Ireland Church, Kilberry, limited to 50% capacity. Burial afterwards in the adjoining graveyard.

Family flowers only please.

Special thanks to the dedicated staff of The Mater Hospital and St. Francis Hospice.

May he Rest in Peace

Those who would have liked to attend the funeral service but cannot due to current restrictions may leave a message in the 'Condolences' section below.

The death has occurred of Johanna (Joan) Mackey (nee O'Keeffe)

Mount Carmel, Newbridge, Kildare / Bagenalstown, Carlow



Formerly of Bagenalstown, Co. Carlow and The Curragh Camp, Co. Kildare. Peacefully at Beechpark Nursing Home surrounded by her loving family. Wife of the late Paddy. Sadly missed by her loving children Patsy, Fran, Tommy, Patrick, Ger, Mick and Jody, sons and daughters in law, grandchildren, great grandchildren, sisters Frances and Breda, brothers-in-law, nephews, nieces, relatives, neighbours and friends.

Near Johanna Rest in Peace

Due to current restrictions on public gatherings, a private family funeral will take place. Removal from her family home on Friday at 6.30pm to arrive at The Dominican College Church, Newbridge, at 7pm. Funeral Mass on Saturday morning at 11am with burial afterwards in St. Conleths Cemetery. Johanna's funeral will be live-streamed on www.dominicansnewbridge.ie.
Naoise O Cearuil, the Mayor of Kildare, recently attended a fundraiser event for the Organisation of National Ex-Service Personnel (ONE).

The announcement was made by the official Twitter account of Kildare County Council, who said: "Cathaoirleach

attended the raising of the Fuchsia flag for the ONE's annual Fuchsia Appeal at Aras Chill Dara with former members of the defence forces."

Today Cathaoirleach @naoiseoc attended the raising of the Fuchsia flag for the ONE's annual Fuchsia Appeal at Aras Chill Dara with former members of the defence forces.



ONE is the national charity for homeless veterans of the Defence Forces #Veterans #Homeless #ONE pic.twitter.com/76mjlF42Qu  Kildare County Council (@KildareCoCo) September 15, 2021

Speaking on the event, Mayor O Cearuil said: "I was delighted to welcome seven retired members of the Defence Forces to Aras Chill Dara to raise the Fuchsia Flag as part of the Fuchsia Appeal."

"This appeal is designed to assist ex service personnel and I was delighted to lend my support to it. Kildare is proud of the role it has played and continues to play in our Defence Forces, many Kildare people have served with dignity and honour."

He added: "I encourage all Kildare people to help and support the Fuchsia Appeal and thank Joe Kelly, Philip Coy, Michael Carroll, Peter Origan, Joe Carroll, John Fogarty, Kevin Carton, John Roche and all ex service personnel for their service."

According to ONE, the Fuchsia flower was chosen as it is widely grown throughout Ireland and is commonly known as Deora De or "Gods Tears" in the West of Ireland, and is seen as a badge of remembrance and a symbol to honour those currently serving in the Defence Forces.

Founded in 1951, ONE advocates for of Irish veterans by the provision of accommodation to homeless and other veterans in need of such domestic accommodation in its Veterans Homes and the provision of other assistance to veterans through its nationwide network of Branches and Veterans Support Centres.

Its Head Office is located in the ONE flagship Homeless Hostel, Bru na Bhfiann, in Smithfield Market, North King Street, Dublin 7.

For further information about The Fuchsia appeal and ONE, visit one-veterans.org.
A new bus service between Caragh and Naas may be added to the Local Link timetable.

Kildare Co Council said that a proposed bus route between the destination "remains at the planning stages" and added that it is envisaged that this service "will be considered under the Connecting Ireland - Rural Mobility Plan."

Cllr Fiona McLoughlin Healy had requested an update on the issue at the local Kildare-Newbridge municipal district meeting on September 15 and asked for "a ballpark timeline" for its introduction.

Last month, a new regular Local Link bus service was launched between Naas and Blessington.

The service has stops in Ballymore Eustace, Punchestown Racecourse, Naas Hospital and Naas Town Centre.

The service operates Monday to Friday with four trips per day in each direction.

Manager of TFI Local Link Kildare South Dublin, Alan Kerry said at the launch: We are delighted to provide a sustainable transport option for people living along this route. We are hopeful that this service will provide a real alternative to private car usage, while ensuring that those that dont drive have a new travel option between Blessington and Naas.

"We are confident that the timetable for this service should cater for the needs of those who may wish to travel for employment, education, training, retail or recreational purposes.
The Consumers Association of Ireland has criticised the display of Christmas related goods in some Kildare supermarkets with over three months to go to the festive season.

Products such as Santa selection boxes as well as tins of chocolates and sweets are piled high in some shopping aisles since the start of September.

Dermott Jewell, Policy & Council Advisor at the Consumers Association of Ireland said there is annoyance among shoppers on this issue.

Mr Jewell told the Leader: This has been a growing matter of annoyance for some and frustration for others who see the push for sales coming earlier every year.

It is, for many, distressing to have to continually explain, especially to young children, that there are months and weeks before Christmas and that the next cause for celebration would be Halloween.

Senator Fiona O'Loughlin said: Its shocking  children are barely back in school, and Christmas goods are appearing two months before Halloween!

I can completely understand that it is putting pressure on parents. If Christmas celebrations are normalised for four months of the year, the uniqueness and charm of Christmas itself wears off.

Many parents have no choice but to bring their children shopping because of childcare, it is far too early in the year for Christmas stock to be displayed.
A woman, who claimed she'd been sexually assaulted and held against her will opened an apartment door to arriving gardai and ran past them.

A man facing sexual assault and false imprisonment allegations appeared before Naas District Court on September 1.

The man, who can't be named for legal reasons, allegedly committed the offences on dates in June and August 2021 at an apartment.

Garda Andrew Kelly told Naas District Court on September 8 that the woman claimed she had been kept against her will on June 11 last.

He said when the gardai arrived the alleged injured party opened the door and ran past him.

He claimed defendant was in the hall wearing boxer shorts and a jersey.

The court heard that the woman had accompanied the defendant from Dublin to Maynooth and they were socialising.

Gda Kelly added that 1.15am she sought to call a taxi but had no internet or credit.

He said it would be alleged the defendant indicated he would get a taxi and he tried to kiss her but she said no and she withdrew when he tried to use his tongue.

The defendant allegedly made contact with her breast outside her clothing and when he tried to open her jeans, she pulled his hand away

He placed her hand on his penis outside his clothing.

The defendant locked herself in a toilet and dialled 999.

The court also heard a male could be telling her to get off the phone.

Gda Kelly said the woman was afraid and shaken by the experience and he said no bail conditions would satisfy him that the defendant will not reoffend.

The Director of Public Prosecutions has directed that the defendant be prosecuted.

The defendant has a girlfriend in Northern Ireland and he was deemed a flight risk.

The garda said he believes he is a serious risk to females.

Defending solicitor David Powderly said it is likely to take 18 months or two years for the case to come up in court.

He said the defendant has already been signing on and has never missed a day.

His passport has been handed in and he has not applied for another.Mr Powderly said the defendant has not tried to contact witnesses and says he is innocent of the allegations.

It was also pointed out that there is no forensic evidence and it is one persons word against another.

Mr Powderly said it would be unfair to hold him in custody when no hearing is likely for years rather than months.

The defendant told the court he is from Africa and has been in Ireland since 2018 and he would accept any bail conditions.

I dont know why I have been charged for a crime I didnt commit. I want to find out why, he said. Sgt Kelly said that this incident followed another allegation and amounted to breach of previous bail conditions.

Judge Desmond Zaidan said the court did not believe the defendant and the States objections to bail are well founded.

Refusing bail, he adjourned the matter to September 22 for a book of evidence.

Judge Zaidan also said the defendant is entitled to consular assistance.

He also said if the defendant secures bail elsewhere he must turn up in person for the next hearing. Otherwise the defendant is likely to appear via video link.
The Dock in Carrick-on-Shannon are delighted to be able to fully participate in the 2021 Culture Night celebrations with a film and free gallery tours this Friday.



For this, the sixteenth edition of Culture Night The Dock will present a free screening of Kiarostamis The Wind Will Carry Us (Bad Ma Ra Khahad Bord) at 6pm. The film is a gentle comic fable that contemplates the unpredictability of life through the observation of a communitys simplest existence.

The film will be shown in The Dock's outdoor performance space which can be found at the rear of the building. There is no need to book in advance.



Directed by Abbas Kiarostami and starring Behzad Dourani and Noghre Asadi the film relates the story of a group of workers, including an engineer from Tehran (Behzad Dourani), who arrive in a remote Kurdish village on undisclosed business.

While some of the villagers assume the engineer is there to search for archaeological treasures, the man instead seems fascinated by a local 100-year-old woman who is on her deathbed. It gradually emerges that the co-workers may actually be interested in the traditional village ceremony that will follow the old lady's death.

The film was an award winner of the Grand Special Jury Prize, Venice International Film Festival 1999, the FIPRESCI Prize, Venice International Film Festival 1999 and winner of the Estonian Film Critics Award, Tallin Black Nights Film Festival 2000.

As well as the film The Dock are also inviting you to join free gallery tours which will be available on demand from 5- 7pm.

Full details are available on The Dock website www.thedock.ie
THE Health Service Executive has confirmed another series of walk-in vaccination clinics for adults and children aged 12 and over will take place at Limerick Racecourse over the coming days.

The clinics, the first of which begins on Friday afternoon, form part of the nationwide effort to maximise uptake of the Pfizer vaccine and to provide easy access for those who have received AstraZeneca Dose 1 and who now, as per national guidance, can receive the Pfizer vaccine as their second dose.

Clinics will take place at Limerick Racecourse, Patrickswell between 2pm and 7pm on Friday (Pfizer dose 1 & 2, Moderna dose 2) and on Sunday, between 9am and 6pm (Pfizer dose 1 & 2).

Anyone attending for second doses of Pfizer or Moderna should bring their vaccine record card with them and those who wish to attend the clinics do not require an appointment, and do not need to register in advance.

New figures from the UL Hospitals Group shows that in the week up to close of business last Sunday, a total of 6,291 doses of vaccine were administered in the Mid-West Covid-19 Vaccination Centres bringing to 353,804 the total number of vaccines administered under the UL Hospitals Group vaccination programme.

Last weeks regional total of 6,291 doses was composed of 3,594 at Limerick Racecourse; 1,671 at the West County Hotel, Ennis; and 1,026 at the Abbey Court, Nenagh.

A spokesperson for UL Hospitals said: "While uptake for Covid-19 vaccination in the Mid-West has been very satisfactory, UL Hospitals Groups remains mindful of the transmissibility of Covid-19, particularly the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, and we urge anyone who has yet to receive a first or second dose of vaccine to attend this weeks walk-in clinics, including anyone aged 16 and over, parents of children aged 12-15, and those who have received an AstraZeneca Dose 1 and can now receive Pfizer vaccine for their second dose.

See hse.ie/coronavirus for more.
THE violence in Kilmallock last weekend was raised at the Cappamore-Kilmallock Municipal District meeting this Thursday afternoon.

At the end of the agenda, under AOB, Cllr Mike Donegan said the incidents on Sunday night, which have been widely reported, have caused a lot of concern and negative publicity for Kilmallock town.

He said he has been in 'constant contact' Superintendent John Ryan and that matters will be discussed in full at next month's meeting of the local Joint Policing Committee.

In relation to one of the videos that have been widely shared on social media, Cllr Donegan said there was damage done to a house.

"Can you confirm it was council property that was damaged? Has there been a report done on cost of the damage? Who is going to pay for it?" he asked.

In reply, a council employee told the meeting that information would be available for the next meeting.

"Normally a housing maintenance engineer would prepare a report and it would go through the insurance department," they said.

Cllr PJ Carey said the "infamous incidents" referred to by Cllr Donegan "obviously couldn't be commented on as a garda investigation is ongoing."

"The guards have done their job. They dispersed the crowd, are doing patrols and I'm sure arrests will follow. The gardai are getting quite a lot of blame for some reason," said Cllr Carey.

The independent councillor said what occurred at the weekend deflects from all the good work that is being done to promote Kilmallock as a heritage town and a walled town and the great work of Tidy Towns and volunteers.

"It is the principal town in our municipal district. I don't know what can be done. Liam Galvin (Abbeyfeale-based councillor) has been very vocal on his suggestions. Our TDs should pay heed," said Cllr Carey.

Cllr Galvin has called for legislation to put the onus on parents of children engaging in antisocial behaviour to be fined and the money recovered from earnings.

Cllr Carey said if he talks about what happened on Sunday evening he will be accused of "talking down" Kilmallock.

"And if I don't talk about it I am accused of 'going to ground'. I have spoken to eye witnesses. One said it was blown out of all proportion. Another said it was very bad. I read in the Leader that the families have met. Let's hope that older heads have prevailed, that there is a truce and and hopefully it's all over," said Cllr Carey.

Cathaoirleach Martin Ryan said the biggest thing that was out of all proportion was the minority involved in this behaviour, compared to the majority of people in Kilmallock doing great work.

"Everybody in Kilmallock should hold their heads up high as Kilmallock is a fantastic town. The guards will do their job," said Cllr Ryan.
THE Mayor of Limerick city and county has paid tribute to the late artist and freeman of Limerick, Dr Thomas Ryan, RHA who has died.

Born in St Josephs Street, Limerick in 1929, Dr Ryan grew up in Davis Street in the city. He was educated in the former Limerick School of Art and what is now the National College of Art and Design in Dublin.

Paying tribute following his passing, Cllr Daniel Butler described the late Dr Ryan as an extraordinary talent and one of Irelands most significant artists who had a long association with the Mid-West and was extremely proud of where he came from.

As a young boy he played in the Peoples Park and in the heart of Georgian Limerick and despite his success and talent, he was a man with a lifelong attachment to this city, Mayor Butler said.

Although Ashbourne and County Meath became his home, he was always a proud Limerickman and was very touched when he received the Honorary Freedom of Limerick city along with broadcaster Terry Wogan 14 years ago - pictured below with former Mayor Cllr Joe Leddin.

Dr Ryan reached the highest level in his career but never forgot his roots and celebrated his 90th birthday in his home in the city.

From his medallic work designing the old Irish pound coin and millennium fifty pence piece to his stunning art pieces working across a variety of media including oil paints, watercolours, chalks, charcoal and pencil, he painted some of the countrys most familiar faces including former Taoisigh, Presidents and some of Irelands most important historical works.

We were honoured that one of his last exhibitions of 40 of his paintings from his long working life spanning over 70 years went on display at the People's Museum of Limerick in 2019, just across from the park where he spent so much time as a young boy. I would like to extend my condolences to Dr Ryans wife Mary, children, Pearse, John, Ann, Myles, Eavan, Aengus, 16 grandchildren, extended family and his many friends, said Mayor Butler.

Thomas Ryan's Funeral Mass will take place on Friday morning in The Church of The Immaculate Conception, Ashbourne at 11.30am.
A BREACH of planning guidelines pushed under the carpet or a political sham was the outcome of a special council meeting, according to different councillors.

It was called to receive an update in relation to planning enforcement issues in Bruree. This all dates back to the summer of 2019 when hundreds of signatures were collected, opposing road and street works.

A high concrete kerb was installed by the council that narrows the road at the Kilmallock side of Bruree. In conjunction, a homeowner constructed a long railing on his land outside his property. This space had been used for decades for parking, especially at Mass times.

Cllr Mike Donegan, then cathaoirleach of the Cappamore-Kilmallock municipal district, confirmed the council was taking enforcement action against the landowner in relation to the railings, which were constructed by then councillor and now TD, Richard ODonoghue who has a construction company.

Fast forward to April 2021 and a number of Bruree residents received correspondence from the council to say that the proceedings have been withdrawn following legal advice from the councils legal agents. Therefore, the council will be taking no further action on this matter.

Cllr Martin Ryan, cathaoirleach, said the purpose of the special meeting this month was to ask the council  on behalf of the residents of Bruree  to explain why the matter was withdrawn. This was supported by Cllrs Mike Donegan and Ger Mitchell.

Cllr Eddie Ryan, who had the backing of Cllrs Brigid Teefy and PJ Carey, didnt agree with the special meeting being called.

We could have a meeting five days a week on planning enforcement. Our roads and area engineers have discretionary powers. This is an insult to them, said Cllr Eddie Ryan, who added that it was nothing short of a political witch hunt. Cllr Martin Ryan said they were entitled to ask why proceedings were withdrawn.

Dara McGuigan, of the council, said the case had been listed before Kilmallock Court but was adjourned due to Covid. He said information was received by enforcement.

It would appear that there may have been a difference of interpretation between council staff and the landowner. Im not sure whether heights (of the railings) were agreed. On foot of that information one of the inspectors spoke to the solicitors and the advice was that the contradiction in evidence may cause reasonable doubt and the case was unlikely to be successful, said Mr McGuigan.

Cllr Donegan said railings up to 1.2ms dont need planning but the ones in Bruree are 1.8ms in height so they require planning.

You have confirmed that it is still an unauthorised development. Residents have to look at them. It is not satisfactory they are not being dealt with. If the council are going to push this under the carpet then somebody else is going to put up railings 1.8m in height.

They are going to be told theyre unauthorised. They can challenge that now and say you are allowing them in Bruree. This is double standards, said Cllr Donegan.

Cllr Ger Mitchell said it is a breach of planning guidelines.

That structure is unauthorised development, he said.

Either we abide by planning or we dont. This is going to bring the ire and the wrath of the public. If you create ambiguity you get planning  that is the message being given to the public. You either have guidelines or not. Thats some message  ambiguity gets you planning. You are questioning the whole planning process. Im so annoyed with what is going on, said Cllr Mitchell.

Cllr Eddie Ryan said the conclusion of this is there is a bit of ambiguity around the height of the railing.

The landowner works with Tidy Towns and has the best interests of Bruree at heart. He gave the width required by engineers. it looks well. If railings were cut down tomorrow it could make them a hazard, said Cllr Eddie Ryan. He concluded by saying it is a political sham.

Cllr Donegan said: It is a breach of planning.

______________________________

ODonoghue responds to meeting

DEPUTY Richard ODonoghue (pictured) has issued a statement to the Limerick Leader to put the record straight after the special council meeting on Bruree.

He described it as a waste of taxpayers money by Fine Gael and Fianna Fail councillors on a political witch hunt. The then councillor and now TD constructed the railings which has drawn the ire of some councillors and bemusement of others.

In 2019, Deputy ODonoghue said the council contacted Austin Leahy (owner of the Railway House, Bruree) and Bruree Tidy Towns about running a footpath to and through his property and concreting the area at the railway bridge where the bottle bank is located on Mr Leahys property.

The council produced a map of the proposed works to Tidy Towns and Mr Leahy. On further discussion the map was altered at the councils request to widen the road which meant realigning the entrance to and the kerb line into the entrance at Mr Leahys property. This was agreed by Mr Leahy and myself before the works commenced.

I met on site a council engineer and Mr Leahy on June 6, 2019. We discussed the fence and the fence line. The fence line was agreed and even the colour of the fence was agreed. The kerb line was also agreed, said Mr ODonoghue, who added that the council requested a further metre of ground from Mr Leahy which was also agreed.

The council laid a precast concrete kerb. This kerb was continued into the agreed entrance to Mr Leahys property. When the council completed kerb works they gave time to Mr Leahy to put up the agreed fence on the agreed fence line and erect steel poles and gates to the entrance to his property where the council kerb ended. At no time did Mr Leahy carry out any unauthorised works outside of the agreement with the council, said Mr ODonoghue.

The councils enforcement section sent a letter to Mr Leahy that he must cease work on the fence and to reply to the letter within 10 days.

Mr Leahy, through Power Solicitors, replied to the letter by email and by post. Through interaction with the councils enforcement and by providing proof that all works carried out were agreed with the council and backed up with copies of dated agreements, the council withdrew the enforcement notice and sent a letter to Mr Leahy and his solicitors that they were no longer pursuing the legal action, said Deputy ODonoghue.

The Independent TD said he is very disappointed in the Fine Gael and Fianna Fail councillors in Cappamore-Kilmallock.

They have wasted taxpayers money on two special meetings, legal expenses, valuable engineer and council staff time on what seems to be a political witch hunt  using the media to tarnish community people that work with Tidy Towns, voluntary groups and county councils for the betterment of Limerick. The money and time that has been wasted would have gone a long way in getting a much needed playground and car park for the people of Bruree and surrounding areas, said Deputy ODonoghue.
A PUBLIC consultation has been launched over multi-million euro proposals which could bring up to 2,800 homes to Limerick.

In what is being described as a "major urban development and rejuvenation project", the Land Development Agency (LDA) plans to create eight distinct districts across the city, delivering affordable houses, in addition to commercial space, alongside public spaces and sustainable transport options.

It's being hailed as the largest ever transfer of State land for housing, and includes strategic sites in Limerick's Colbert station encompassing lands owned by CIE and the HSE.

It supports the aims to transform parts of the underutilised public lands in the area to deliver mixed tenure homes, including affordable and social homes.

An early priority with potential for housing development by the LDA is on part of the HSE lands to the rear of St. Josephs which has been identified for transfer under the government's Housing for All Strategy.

As well as the new homes, other features include a proposed new raised pedestrian walkway, cycleway and public realm space.

Codenamed 'the Limerick Link, this proposed walkway will give an opportunity to connect schools to new recreational areas south of the station while also connecting the various neighbourhoods together in a sustainable pedestrian/cycle friendly way.

The Limerick Link has the potential to be a landmark feature, connecting the Colbert area, to the wider City and beyond.

Housing Minister Darragh OBrien, pictured here with LDA chief executive John Coleman, was in Limerick to launch the programme today.

He said: "I am delighted that just weeks after the launch of the most significant housing strategy in the history of the State, that we see immediate progress from one of the key actors in that Plan  the Land Development Agency. The Housing for All Plan outlines plans for the activation of underused public lands to deliver much needed homes. The Land Development Agency will not just develop land banks and build homes, it will also create sustainable communities and drive transformational change. Todays announcement is a perfect example of the kind of partnership which lies at the heart of the LDA approach. I would like to congratulate Limerick City and County Council and the HSE and CIE for their effort and dedication to this approach.

Mr Coleman added: "The LDAs objective is to ensure the delivery of housing and supporting development on underused state land. While many of our projects are based on significant but single scheme infill sites, the LDAs other main objective is to create partnerships to unlock larger, strategic areas, which can truly transform a city. Colbert Station Quarter has the potential to deliver up to 2,800 homes in the heart of Limerick to create an attractive and sustainable focal point for future development. This is a key part of the vision for the LDA outlined in the recently published Housing for All strategy, which highlights major additional lands to be driven forward by the LDA, including those at Colbert."

The eight new districts to be created and integrated with the existing community are - provisionally named, Station District, Sexton District, Roxboro District, Ballysimon District, Careys District, Calidonian District, Kennedy District and Janesboro District - each have their own distinct character.

Published today, the framework plan will be open for consultation between now and November 11.

Members of the public can access the information and have their say on a dedicated website www.colbertquarter.ie

A copy of the document will also be available in Limerick City and County Council offices at Merchants Quay, Limerick and Dooradoyle.

The LDA is seeking the views of local stakeholders on the vision for the area. This phase of consultation will run from September to 11th November.

Following this, comments and submissions will be collated and considered and will help to inform the finalisation of the Spatial Framework which will then be published.

The Framework will be used as a basis to inform more detailed proposals and planning applications, particularly related to state lands which are being transferred to the LDA.

The aim is to catalyse and unlock the potential and progress delivery of a new sustainable and mixed-use vibrant quarter for this strategically significant gateway to Limerick.
MUMBAI : Commenting on the recent spate on shareholder activism in the Indian stock markets, which has seen many shareholders vote against resolutions proposed by companies as well as moves by shareholders to replace existing board members, Sebi chief Ajay Tyagi on Thursday said that such shareholder activism is good for everyone, especially minority investors.

Tyagi also defended the regulators proposal to reduce the stock trading settlement cycle to T+1 days from the existing T+2 days, which has drawn flak from foreign institutional investors as well as domestic brokers.

I would say that's (shareholder activism) good for everyone, especially minority shareholders. If shareholders are getting cautious as to if they are holding shares in a company, what is their role while voting on a resolution, no one can dispute that should not be there," said Tyagi, speaking at the CII Financial Markets Summit.

There could be argument that whether they are rightly advised or not, but then that is up to them. If we say that investors have a right to invest in F&O market, they can invest in risky trades, they are adults, so they definitely have their own mind. It is something which no one should find fault with or should have any problem. So it is something which is very good, I would say for the shareholders actually applying their mind and not going by the herd mentality and deciding on their feet as to what should be done in each of the resolutions," he added.

On Sebis proposal to move towards a T+1 settlement cycle, Tyagi said that early settlement is beneficial for investors and one should try to move towards it.

It is something which one should wish to go forward to. And if your systems need improvement, you should improve those systems. No one can argue that early settlement is always good. And in today's day, there is a technology, so to say that it is not at all doable, or it is not possible, it's not correct. There is no harm in taking initiative in something and you can't just say it has not happened elsewhere," he said, adding that investors need to do some introspection.

Apart from foreign investors, the Association of National Exchanges Members of India (Anmi), a group of over 900 stockbrokers across the country, has also raised concerns on issues related to the implementation of the T+1 settlement system.

Speaking on the activity in the IPO market, the Sebi chief said that the regulator is looking into reforming IPO price bands, since the narrow price bands seen in many IPOs defeats the purpose of price discovery through the book building process.

If price discovery has to happen through book building then there should be some band.

If the band is just one rupee, then where is the book building. We are examining this," said Tyagi.

He also added that while retail market participation has increased both in primary and secondary markets, the regulator is not contemplating to increase the quota for retail investors in IPOs.

IPO market price discovery is not as transparent as compared to the secondary market. While there are many disclosures, it is difficult for retail investors to study them as the documents are bulky and technical, and then then it just becomes a herd mentality to chase IPOs. While we encourage retail participation in IPOs, instead of increasing the retail quota we would rather see their participation in secondary markets where there is more information about the company and more liquidity," said Tyagi.

Tyagi also added that the regulator is working on various initiatives to deepen the corporate bond markets.

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Stating that a control mechanism would rob the media of its independence and democratic principles, the Madras High Court on Thursday stayed the operation of certain sub-clauses of the recently enacted Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.

The first bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice PD Audikesavalu said that there was prima facie substance in the petitioners' contention. Incidentally, the Bombay High Court had last month pronounced similar order on a related case.

The sub-clauses -- (1) and (3) of Rule 9, which were stayed, stipulated the adherence to the Code of Ethics. They were inserted into the original IT Rules in February.

The court granted the stay while passing interim orders on a batch of PILs from Carnatic musician TM Krishna and Digital News Publishers Association, consisting of 13 media outlets and another individual, challenging the constitutional validity of the new rules.

Prima facie, there is substance in the contention of the petitioners that the mechanism to control the media by government may rob the media, both print and electronic, of their independence and the democratic principles," the bench said.

The court adjourned the matter to the last week of October when it was informed that similar cases are pending before the Supreme Court are scheduled to come up for hearing in the first week of next month.

The Bombay High Court, while granting the interim stay in August, had held that "dissent" was vital for democracy.

Sub-clauses 1 and 3 of clause 9 of the new Rules were, on the face of it, "manifestly unreasonable", and "the indeterminate and wide terms of the Rules bring about a chilling effect qua (regarding) the right of freedom of speech and expression of writers/editors/publishers" as they can be hauled up for anything if the authorities so wish, it had then said.

With inputs from agencies.

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Amid the surge in Covid-19 Delta variant cases in the US, the Biden administration is considering requiring vaccinations against Covid-19 and contact tracing of international visitors.

Jeffrey Zients, the White House coronavirus response coordinator yesterday said that the current Covid-19 travel restrictions will remain in place until the US government rolls out a "new system" for regulating international travel.

At present, the US bars most non-Americans who have travelled to India, China the United Kingdom, most of Europe, Brazil, and other countries in the previous 14 days.

Last month, the US eased travel restrictions for India, issuing a Level 2 rating (Moderate) for the country. Prior to this, India was kept under the Level-4 category, means 'Do Not Travel advisory'.

However, airlines and other travel companies have pushed the administration to ease the restrictions, particularly on UK visitors.

Zients said that the system will include a prominent role for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

We will also be putting in place contact tracing to enable CDC to follow up with inbound international travelers and those around them if someone has potentially been exposed to COVID-19," Zients said, and we are exploring vaccination requirements for foreign nationals traveling to the US".

Separately, Anthony Fauci, an American physician-scientist and immunologist said he would support a proposal to require vaccination for people on domestic flights.

The airline industry is adamantly opposed to such a requirement, saying it would be difficult to enforce and could lead to long lines at airports. Industry officials say it would be unfair to single out air travellers with a mandate that would not affect people who travel by train, bus, or car.

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WASHINGTON : President Biden is expected to meet Wednesday with executives from companies including Walt Disney Co., Microsoft Corp. and Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. to advance his Covid-19 vaccination requirements for the private sector.

The White House meeting comes after a plan Mr. Biden announced last week designed to bring the pandemic under control, which includes vaccine requirements affecting roughly 100 million workers. Attendees are expected to discuss how they are expanding requirements at their companies and institutions and how mandates have driven up vaccinations among employees, a White House official said.

In order for us to get back to any kind of a normal business and life experience, people have to get vaccinated," said Columbia Sportswear Co. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Tim Boyle, who is attending the meeting.

The White House official said other participants include Microsoft President Brad Smith, Disney CEO Bob Chapek, Walgreens CEO Roz Brewer and Greg Adams, chairman and CEO of Kaiser Permanente. Also expected to attend are Louisiana State University President William Tate; Madeline Bell, the president and CEO of Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia; Business Roundtable President and CEO Josh Bolten; and Molly Moon Neitzel, the founder and CEO of Molly Moons Homemade Ice Cream.

Mr. Biden has defended a more robust approach to Covid-19 that includes an anticipated rule under which all employers with 100 or more employees would have to require that their workers be vaccinated or undergo at least weekly Covid-19 testing. Under Mr. Bidens new plan, the administration will also require vaccinations for workers in most healthcare settings that receive Medicare or Medicaid reimbursement, as well as federal employees in the executive branch and government contractors.

Mr. Boyle said Columbia Sportswear, which employs roughly 4,000 people in the U.S., had encouraged employees to be vaccinated but until now stopped short of tougher requirements in part out of concern that people might seek jobs elsewhere. Mr. Boyle said the Biden administrations requirements, which the company plans to implement, will help create a standard.

This is actually quite a good thing for leveling the playing field," he said. Companies like ourselves that want to have employees encouraged to the highest degree to get vaccinatedthis is going to give us the ability to do that and not put our business at risk."

Many companies including United Airlines Holdings Inc. and Tyson Foods Inc. are requiring all employees to be vaccinated. Walmart Inc., Disney and McDonalds Corp. have said some employees including managers or white-collar workers need to be vaccinated. Walgreens has said workers in its U.S. support offices must be fully vaccinated by Sept. 30. The company also has contracts with some companies for on-site vaccinations and testing. Some companies told The Wall Street Journal that they are waiting to take further action until the Biden administrations rule is released, which is expected in the coming weeks.

More hospital groups and colleges and universities are requiring vaccinations.

Mr. Bidens plans have drawn opposition from many Republican governors, who have threatened to sue the administration. On Tuesday, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich filed a lawsuit against the requirements for businesses with more than 100 employees, arguing they are unconstitutional.

A number of Republican-led states have already moved to ban or restrict vaccine mandates by employers and schools.

The reaction among labor unions has been mixed. The AFL-CIO has supported Mr. Bidens move. Other groups including the American Federation of Government Employees said vaccination requirements should be negotiated with unions.

Some recent polls have shown that a majority of Americans support requiring vaccinations for those returning to the workplace and students attending in-person classes.

While the Biden administration was initially reluctant to pursue vaccine mandates, officials have said the highly transmissible Delta variant has threatened to undermine progress in containing the pandemic. Just over half of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated, and most hospitalizations and deaths in recent months have occurred among the unvaccinated.

Early this week, the seven-day average for new Covid-19 cases was more than 170,000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The seven-day average for newly reported Covid-19 deaths was more than 1,800.

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Reactions, memes and teases over the new iPhone launch flood the internet every year, and this year, it was no different. Close rival of Cupertino-based electronics manufacturer Apple, whose new iPhone 13 just dropped, Google sent out a secret message.

Why secret? Well, Google tweeted about its upcoming flagship smartphone Pixel 6 through its almost dead Nexus Twitter account.

According to a report by 9to5Google, soon after the iPhone 13 launch on 14 September, a tweet was sent from Google's Nexus account: I'd wait for #Pixel6.

Before that, the @GoogleNexus account sent its last tweet on October 16, 2017, about trading in your old phone for a Pixel 2. A more substantial post on August 31 announced the launch of Android Oreo. However, it kept replying to customer support @mentions until July 14, 2019. No longer in use, the verified account was made private later that year and has a banner directing users to @madebygoogle, the report added.

Googles Pixel 6 smartphone is set to arrive later this year, as per reports and will directly compete with iPhone 13 features in the flagship section of the smartphone market.

Further, Google recently released the first Pixel 6 teaser. With a 'For All You Are' tagline, the 30-second video provides the viewers with the first real, non-rendered glimpse of the hardware.

The teaser showcases the design of the handsets, some Android 12 elements, and the new Tensor chipset. The video has been posted on Made by Google's official YouTube account.

It starts by turning up the volume (using Android 12's new slider UI), and asking, "What if smartphones weren't just smart?" Spliced in between is a shot of somebody picking up a face-down Pixel 6 Pro in gold.

"What if your phone saw you for who you are?" is accompanied by four clips of people holding the Pixel 6 in different colour variants: gold 6 Pro (again), white 6 Pro, green/teal 6, and orange 6.

The upcoming series will comprise two models: Google Pixel 6 and Google Pixel 6 Pro. Both the smartphones will have a punch-hole design, a dual-tone rear panel, and an in-display fingerprint sensor.

Pixel 6 will bear a 90Hz, 6.4-inch Full-HD AMOLED display, while the latter will have a 120Hz, 6.7-inch QHD AMOLED screen.

The Google Pixel 6 and 6 Pro will feature a Tensor chipset, combined with up to 12GB of RAM and up to 512GB of storage.

Pixel 6 will pack a 4,614mAh battery, whereas the Pixel 6 Pro will house a 5,000mAh battery. The duo will support 33W fast-charging, Android 12 OS, and will have Wi-Fi 6 as well as 5G connectivity.

While Google hasn't yet confirmed the launch date of the Pixel 6 series, some of the clock widgets in the teaser suggest that the launch will take place on October 19, as per a report by 9to5Google.

So far, the company has only stated that the phones will arrive "later this fall." The rumour mill suggests that the new Pixel phones will be available for purchase starting October 28.

With inputs from agencies

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Below is an excerpt of "Pump: A Natural History of the Heart" by Bill Schutt, published by Workman Publishing on Sept. 21.

Watch a Live Science conversation with the author on our Facebook or YouTube pages.

A Small Town with a Big Heart

In mid-April 2014, a sharp-eyed resident of Trout River, Newfoundland, looked out into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and saw something peculiar. What had first appeared as a small dot on the horizon was growing larger and larger. By the time the giant thing washed ashore, the media had descended, and so, too, had the ungodly stink, which someone described to me as a sickly perfume smell combined with the reek of decaying flesh. And, indeed, this was more decaying flesh than anyone had ever seen beforearound a hundred tons of it.

Soon the tiny fishing village was buzzing with reporters and gawkers as word of mouth gave rise to sensational headlines. The chatter between locals turned from bewilderment and disgust to health concerns, the potential for lost income, and even the threat of a horrific explosion. Stranger yet, something almost identical was taking place just up the coast, in the small town of Rocky Harbour.

Canadian winters are often frigid, but the winter of 2014 had been the coldest in memory. For the first time in decades, the Great Lakes had frozen over and their outlet to the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, had a heavy buildup of sea ice. The high winds and currents had also piled up ice in the Cabot Strait, turning the gulfs widest channel to the sea into a bottleneck. But if the inhabitants of Trout River and Rocky Harbour were struggling through the harsh weather conditions, a far more desperate struggle was taking place roughly two hundred miles to the southin the Cabot Strait itself.

In the late winter and early spring, blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus) typically begin to leave the Atlantic Ocean and enter the Gulf of Saint Lawrence to feed on tiny crustaceans called krill. The largest animal known to have lived on Earth, a blue whale can reach one hundred feet in length can weigh up to 163 tons. By way of comparison, this is equivalent to twenty African bull elephants or about sixteen hundred average-sized adult human males. Despite their enormous size, blue whales were not hunted for their oil-rich blubber until 1864. The reasons for this were related to the great speeds they can attainup to thirty-one miles per hourand their tendency to sink when slain. Whalers preferred the three species of Eubalaena, since their bodies have a higher blubber content and tend to float after death. Thus, they were christened right whales; they were the right whales to throw harpoons at. Things went horribly wrong for blue whale populations after faster, steam-driven whaling ships began using the newly invented harpoon cannon, and more than 380,000 blue whales were slain between 1866 and 1978. Most countries dont allow whale hunting anymore, but the blue whales propensity to sink after death remains an inconvenience to those attempting to study its anatomy.

In March 2014, Mark Engstrom, senior curator and deputy director of collections and research at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Toronto, received a call from his friend Lois Harwood. Harwood, who worked for Canadas Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), wondered if Engstrom had heard the news that nine blue whales feeding in the Cabot Strait had died. Apparently, she said, they were unable to escape a massive ice floe, had gotten trapped in the ice, and perished. This was tragic, especially because blue whales were critically endangered, and the loss of nine individuals meant the loss of something like 3 to 5 percent of the total North Atlantic population.

Harwood knew, though, that Engstrom was looking to obtain specimens of every whale species found in Canadian waters. She told him that three of the whales hadnt sunk, possibly because they had been buoyed by the thick ice. Engstrom became even more interested after Harwood put him in touch with Jack Lawson, a researcher with DFO who had been tracking the dead whales by helicopter for the past month. He told Engstrom that he expected the trio of whales to wash up on the shore sooner or laterand in April, they did.

The thing is, the whales drifted ashore in these three tiny villages, Engstrom told me during my visit to the ROM in 2018. Trout River doesnt really get the normal tourist traffic. Its sort of a struggling community. The mayor told me one day he looked out and he could see the whale in the water and he said, Oh, please, God, dont let that thing come ashore here. He said the next morning there it was, on the only stretch of beach they have, and right underneath their only restaurantthis giant dead blue whale, stinking to high heaven.

I asked Engstrom what happened next.

Engstrom laughed. Then it started to bloat.

That must have lightened things up, I offered.

Not really, he said. By then, theyd all seen YouTube videos of whales exploding.

Videos of whales detonating from an accumulation of gases have been making the rounds on the internet for years. At last count, they numbered over two hundred and included one pitching The Exploded Whale Song. My personal favorite, though, depicts a fifty-six-foot, sixty-ton sperm whale that beached in Taiwan in 2004. Local university-scientist types quickly decided to take advantage of the unexpected opportunity by carrying out an autopsy on the megacorpse. They also decided that it would be best to do this at their labs, and so a massive effort was undertaken to move the thing. Three cranes, fifty workers, and thirteen hours later, the whale was driven off, strapped to the open bed of a tractor-trailer. But on the way through the busy streets of Tainan City, the putrefying giant exploded spontaneously. The blast spewed thousands of pounds of rotten blood, blubber, and entrails onto cars, motor scooters, and shops. It even soaked some unfortunate onlookers.

But blue whales dont do that, Engstrom assured me, just as he had previously tried to assure the freaked-out and unconvinced residents of Trout River. He told the townsfolk that unless people decided to jump up and down on the dead behemoth or cut it open, the tissue breakdown would likely allow the accumulating gases to escape slowly, like from an old balloon. Which is what eventually happened, he said.

Engstrom explained that most of the questions he got from the reporters on the scene in Newfoundland were related to one of two topics: smell and size. How big is the heart? We hear its as big as a car. He and his team heard the heart-size question so many times that, finally, one of his technicians responded with a question of his own. Why dont we try to save the sucker?

From PUMP: A Natural History of the Heart  2021 by Bill Schutt. Reprinted by permission of Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. All rights reserved.

Originally published on Live Science.
Chinese e-commerce giant adds its first regular freighter offering to Europe, further expanding its international logistics network following the addition of flights to the US and Thailand earlier this year

Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com last week launched an air cargo service between China and the UK, its first regular freighter offering to Europe, further expanding its international transportation logistics network following the addition of flights to the US and Thailand earlier this year.

The new service operates between Hefei, in China's eastern province of Anhui and London Heathrow with three weekly frequencies using a B747-400F operated by Air Moldova. Currently, cargo mainly includes e-commerce and general trade products.

Stard Huang, president of JDs international logistics division, commented: We are committed to leveraging JDs global supply chain, logistics and other infrastructure services to help boost the development of cross-border e-commerce and trade around the globe. We will also take the launch of this charter route as the opportunity to continuously upgrade our global logistics layout.

By connecting supply from warehouses in Shanghai and Shenzhen, JD said the freight route will be able to deliver products from Chinas major manufacturing regions in the north, east and south of the country. The flight will enable transportation to European clients in as fast as 48 hours.

2 US air cargo route

As to whether JD is planning the launch of cargo flights from China to other destinations in Europe and elsewhere, a company spokesperson said: We are constantly looking for the opportunities to build cargo flights in the worldwide.

Last month, JD launched twice-weekly flights between Shanghai Pudong and New York JFK, the companys second China-US air cargo service following its Nanjing-Los Angeles route which commenced in June. It is operated by a China Eastern Airlines' B777F.

The Nanjing and Los Angeles service is operated three times a week, also by China Eastern. JD also launched a China-Thailand flight in May this year.

UK warehouse

In another development, JD opened a self-operated warehouse in the UK recently, enriching its warehouse layout in the Europe in addition to its warehouses in Poland and Germany, it said. The combination of the freight route and local warehouse in the UK will enable an end-to-end transportation to facilitate the fast growing cross-border trade. The warehouse will also be open to local merchants in UK.

The 12,000 sqm warehouse is located in Lutterworth, in Leicestershire and handles both domestic and cross-border distribution for B2C and B2B shipments, the spokesperson added.

IPO for logistics arm

In May this year, JD.com floated its logistics subsidiary, JD Logistics, on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange - raising about US$3.1 billion through an IPO and plans to use the funds to finance international expansion, upgrading its logistics networks and developing advanced technologies.

JD Logistics increased its revenue by nearly 54% to RMB48.5 billion (US$7.5 billion) for the six months ended June 30, 2021.

However, the company also dropped into the red with an operating loss of RMB1.8 billion (US$283 million) and a heavy net loss of RMB 15.2 billion. This was mainly due to changes in share valuations along with lower government financial support for COVID-19 related costs and sizeable increases in personnel costs, operational investments and other spending.

The interim results also showed that JD Logistics had approximately 50 bonded warehouses (in China) and overseas warehouses, covering an aggregated gross floor area of over 500,000 sqm.

The focus of JDs international logistics business has been working with enterprises to help them shorten cross-border delivery time and build up their global distribution capabilities. The e-commerce and logistics powerhouse targets to build a double 48 network to deliver from China to the destination country within 48 hours and deliver to end customers within 48 hours.
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As the end of the first decade of the Finnish Film Affair nears, the industry events director, Maria Pirkkalainen, who also heads Nordic Flair, notes its phenomenal growth, with more than 200 Finnish film projects showcased, more than 500 international guests brought to Helsinki, and the establishment of a major platform and networking forum for locals.

And things keep evolving, she says: We are thrilled to now branch out to offer this to filmmakers from our neighboring Nordic countries as well. Not to mention weve curated over 2,000 meetings between our guests during all these years. And introduced hundreds of people to the art of sauna.

The traditional sweat-soaked industry mixer, just one of the signature events of Finnish Film Affair, is typical of the creative approaches Pirkkalainen and her team have embraced in her three years leading the event.

The key driver, she says, is a focus on learning and a keenness to explore whats new in the local industry and to distill the key topics that meetings need to take on.

2021 has been an amazing year for Finnish films, Pirkkalainen says, with awards both in Cannes and Venice and some very interesting international co-productions currently in discussions about filming in Finland. Its quite the different landscape to when we started in 2012!

Some of the films that have launched into the international sphere from Finnish Film Affair include The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki by Juho Kuosmanen, The Euthanizer by Teemu Nikki as well as Stupid Young Heart by Selma Vilhunen.

In trying to track the most telling metrics of the event, Pirkkalainen says, organizers gauge quality first. Finnish Film Affair started with only 40 international guests but they were all decision makers. Through great word-of-mouth ahead of these 10 editions our event has grown to welcome around 400 delegates each year.

Another important indicator is the number of meetings, she says, noting it takes real time and work for both the buyers and producers to prepare for the showcase day. We want to make sure theyll get the results they wanted.

In terms of lessons learned from last years hybrid online/in-person event, forced by COVID precautions, Pirkkalainen notes the experience proved useful in surprising ways.

We received really encouraging feedback from all of our delegates and had a record number of new international guests in attendance. It was a given that wed continue on that path. I do think that online events bring a lot of great opportunities but in 2021 weve also seen that its clear that industry delegates miss the in-person events as well.

In 2020, of course, delegates could easily attend two online events simultaneously, something that will now be a challenge short of cloning yourself. And choices on what to attend will be tough: We have fantastic online attendees this year, which were really excited about.

The Fiction in Development series screens feature follow-ups from Ulla Heikkila (Viva la Vida) and Annika Grof (Jose), which are sure to draw crowds, Pirkkalainen says.

Finnish Film Affair has never been afraid to showcase films that could be seen as pushing the genre boundaries as well, she adds, citing two examples. Last year the winner of our Best Fiction Project award was The Twin by Taneli Mustonen and at this years Fiction in Development series you can hear about The Beast Friend by Lauri-Matti Parppei.

In documentary projects a strong current of music can be heard this year, Pirkkalainen says, in such projects as the musician-focused Alma  Who Am I? by Pamela Tola and Michael Monroe  The Best Kept Secret in RocknRoll, directed by Pete Eklund and Jussi Lehtomaki, as well as The Cello by Kira Jaaskelainen, a film which follows the remarkable life story of a fine instrument.

One new event, the best Nordic project award, indicates promising growth in the region, Pirkkalainen notes. Finnish Film Affair has always been about highlighting new talent and the Helsinki International Film Festival  Love & Anarchy has a history of showcasing up-and-coming Nordic filmmakers as well. Branching out to a Nordic direction felt like a very natural move for us as well as for the Finnish film industry.

The new award highlights an emerging voice from the North in a film by a first- or second-time feature director.

The five films in the Nordic Selection include buzzy titles such as Denmarks The Great Silence, directed by Katrine Brocks and Swedens Locals by Mans Nyman.

Panels, another key element to Finnish Film Affair, often focus on how to develop representation both on and off screen in Finland with speakers from Netflix, the BBC and the Swedish Film Institute taking the stage to address the issue Sept. 24.

Weve also launched a new industry residency program in partnership with the Academy of Moving People and Images here in Finland, which gives a filmmaker an opportunity to network and showcase their talent during FFA. We are dedicated to making access to the film industry easier.

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Hillary Clinton and Chelsea Clinton have outlined the strategy behind their nascent film and TV company HiddenLight Productions, revealing that they have optioned a number of books, including Jacqueline Winspears Maisie Dobbs series.

Speaking at the Royal Television Society conference in Cambridge on Wednesday, the Clintons appeared via a virtual live-link, in conversation with British historian and presenter Mary Beard.

Hillary Clinton appeared to be very much in her element while discussing her production companys goals within the content landscape, and what she and daughter Chelsea hoped to accomplish.

Its exciting because we believe passionately in bringing these stories to light, said Hillary Clinton. For too long, attention has been paid to the loudest voices in the room, but generations of tastemakers around the globe are making a difference. Today particularly, theres a hunger for people to figure out how to make sense of our world. We want to make a big contribution to that.

The Maisie Dobbs books mark HiddenLights inaugural fiction option. The series covers 16 books and follows Dobbs, a psychologist and investigator, on a series of missions that span both World Wars and the Spanish Civil War.

The company is also in the early stages of adapting PBS reporter Gayle Tzemach Lemmons The Daughters of Kobani, which tells the story of the female soldiers of the Kurdish militia who are fighting to stop ISIS in Syria.

We are working closely with the Kurdish creative community to write a [film] that brings that story to life in the most authentic way possible, said Hillary Clinton.

Also on the slate is the previously announced Apple TV Plus docuseries Gutsy Women, which is based on the duos book The Book of Gutsy Women: Favorite Stories of Courage and Resilience.

Set up in December 2020, the Clintons describe Hidden Light as a U.S.-U.K. outfit  set up in collaboration with British producer Sam Branson  thats looking for broad-appeal, cross-generational content with a mission of bringing untold stories to light.

When I was young, I watched a number of documentaries and movies with my mum and grandmother, said Chelsea Clinton, before noting that not enough current programming was accessible to multi-generational audiences.

Things are just for mature audiences or just for kids. We want to break down those silos. We want to have common conversations, she said.

Added Hillary Clinton: I think the pandemic has really brought this home for people. When everyone was at home, it was a struggle to find content that was interesting to everyone and would capture the attention of teens, kids and adults. This may have run a bit against the current of what was seen as bankable and producible over the past 10 to 20 years, but theres a growing desire and interest to have more platforms with content that can cross generations.

The former U.S. presidential candidate and Secretary of State highlighted, as well, that not only [does the] U.K. have great production expertise, but its a great jumping-off point to reach Africa and the Middle East.

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The Activist, a CBS series that had itself become the target of online activism in recent days, is being reconfigured in response to the firestorm of criticism, and will now become a one-time documentary special instead of a five-episode competition series, Variety has learned.

Although footage for the original incarnation of the series had already been shot, this version of The Activist will be entirely new, with filming expected to begin from scratch.

The show, originally set to premiere as a series on Oct. 22, had faced serious heat since Usher, Julianne Hough and Priyanka Chopra Jonas were announced as hosts late last week. Social media users, bloggers and opinion writers had laid into the competitive nature of a show meant to celebrate and encourage activism, among other concerns.

In a joint statement, CBS and producing partners Global Citizen and Live Nation announced the format switch, saying: The Activist was designed to show a wide audience the passion, long hours, and ingenuity that activists put into changing the world, hopefully inspiring others to do the same. However, it has become apparent the format of the show as announced distracts from the vital work these incredible activists do in their communities every day. The push for global change is not a competition and requires a global effort.

As a result, we are changing the format to remove the competitive element and reimagining the concept into a primetime documentary special (air date to be announced), the CBS/Global Citizen/Live Nation statement continues. t will showcase the tireless work of six activists and the impact they have advocating for causes they deeply believe in. Each activist will be awarded a cash grant for the organization of their choice, as was planned for the original show.

The joint statement concludes by saying: Activists and community leaders around the world work every day, often without fanfare, to advance protections for people, communities, and our planet. We hope that by showcasing their work we will inspire more people to become more involved in addressing the worlds most pressing issues. We look forward to highlighting the mission and lives of each of these incredible people.

Global Citizen released its own separate statement that included an apology. Global activism centers on collaboration and cooperation, not competition. We apologize to the activists, hosts, and the larger activist community  we got it wrong, the philanthropic org said. It is our responsibility to use this platform in the most effective way to realize change and elevate the incredible activists dedicating their lives to progress all around the world.

The concept for The Activist had been announced in May but, with no celebrity names attached, drew almost no notice at the time. The info about the show hadnt changed when the hosts were announced last week, but this time, it got attention  the wrong kind, with the competitive aspect provoking ire and accusations that the use of social media metrics in judging the winners amounted to a celebration of click-tivism.

A considerable outcry was being directed not just at the three hosts but the activists participating in the show, who havent been announced by the network but are known to some in the community of activists after having used social media to promote their causes during the filming of the show. Sources involved with the series say the participants are not beginning or junior activists but figures who are already well-known in their fields.

The now-abandoned format for the series had six activists representing three causes  health, education and environment  completing challenges to raise awareness about those issues during the initial four episodes. For the fifth and final episode, three of the six activists were to have been chosen (one representing each area) to go to the G20 summit in Rome at the end of October and meet with world leaders to personally press their causes. Performances from well-known musicians also would have figured into the climactic episode.

The documentary version is expected to focus on the same activists but without the challenges or evaluations.

Representatives for the network and producing entities declined to address creative aspects of the shows reconfiguration, indicating that practical matters of restarting production with a more straightforward documentary concept would be addressed after the initial word gets out that critics of The Activist have been heard.

Hough had already addressed the shows growing legion of detractors, posting a four-part message to her Instagram account Tuesday that said in part: After the press release announcing The Activist, I heard you say that the show was performative, promoted pseudo-activism over real activism, felt tone-deaf, like Black Mirror/The Hunger Games, and that the hosts werent qualified to assess activism because we are celebrities and not activists.

She continued, I do not claim to be an activist and wholeheartedly agree that the judging aspect of the show missed the mark and furthermore, that I am not qualified to act as a judge.  I do not have all the answers yet. Ive shared your concerns as well as my own with the powers that be, who I believe have listened. I have faith and confidence in the beautiful people that Ive worked with will make the right choice and do the right thing moving forward. Not just for the show, but for the greater good.

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Randy Pullen was in dire need of a lawyer. A former chairman of the states Republican Party, Pullen was helping run the sham election audit underway in Arizonas largest county. The state Democratic Party had just filed a lawsuit to block the self-styled audit, and so Pullen contacted Reince Priebus, the former Republican National Committee chairman who was Trumps first White House chief of staff. If anyone knew the best lawyer to hire, surely it was Priebus.

Please call when you can, Pullen texted Priebus on April 22nd. Legal fight started. Need a strong legal firm to be co-counsel.

OK, Priebus replied, adding a thumbs-up for good measure. A few days later, Priebus reached out to Pullen again: Lets talk tomorrow when u get time. Text me when u are available.

For most of this year, Maricopa County, Arizona, has been the scene of one of the more absurd and destructive election stunts in recent memory. An army of untrained volunteers, led by a cadre of Republican activists and advised by a pro-Trump forensics firm, with funding from Trump allies, has operated what it claims is an audit of the 2020 election result in Maricopa, where Joe Biden won by a narrow margin. In reality, the so-called Arizona audit  or fraudit, as state Democrats call it  is anything but, ignoring auditing standards, allowing for serious security lapses, and indulging conspiracy theories about unproven voter fraud.

As Arizonas phony audit has devolved into a farce and a laughingstock, many state and national Republicans have distanced themselves from it, preferring the audit be described as the work of a bumbling crew of local party figures and fringe activists. In reality, the paper trail connected to the sham audit leads back to some of the most senior figures in the GOP.

Newly obtained documents from Arizona state lawmakers and leaders of the phony audit show that top Republican officials, Trump advisers, and other senior party figures were pushing for the audit in late 2020 and went on to aid its progress in the months that followed, offering legal advice, making connections, and raising millions in funding. The documents include a trove of emails and text messages to audit leaders sent by Reince Priebus, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Trump 2020 campaign chief operating officer Jeff DeWit, and Trump campaign legal adviser Cleta Mitchell. That outreach from GOP high-ups, combined with angry constituents whod bought into Trumps Big Lie about a stolen election, goaded Arizona Republican lawmakers into launching the audit in early 2021. (Priebus, Giuliani, and Mitchell didnt respond to requests for comment.)

Republican legislators faced pressure from above and pressure from below to carry out their phony audit, says Rick Hasen, an election-law expert and professor at the University of CaliforniaIrvine law school. This is just another example of how the effort to push the big lie is becoming more widespread.

By now, the myth of a stolen election has infected every level of the post-Trump Republican Party. Either we win or we got cheated is fast turning into the party line  look no further than California Republican Larry Elders recent voter-fraud antics  but in the process this Big Lie is undermining trust in democratic elections while at the same time being used by Republican state legislators as justification for making it harder for non-Republicans to vote.

And, yes, the Big Lie is a lie. Despite Attorney General Bill Barrs conclusion that there was no widespread fraud in the 2020 election, and despite the Arizona state governments own vetting of the vote tally, Trump and his followers view Maricopa County as an epicenter of election fraud in 2020 that cost Trump the presidency. It was one of two states that Republican members of Congress voted to overturn in the hours after the January 6th insurrection. To keep that Big Lie alive, Fann and Republicans in the Arizona Senate pressed ahead with their plan to recount all 2.1 million votes cast in Maricopa even if they had to find private funders to underwrite the effort.

Arizonas sham audit of Maricopa County has produced one embarrassing headline after another, from wildly inaccurate claims of fraud tossed around to confidential materials handled with disregard for security and privacy. At one point, a leader of the audit told a reporter that volunteers had begun to scrutinize ballots for bamboo fibers as evidence of possible Chinese election interference. (There is no evidence of Chinese interference.) In August, the office of Arizona secretary of state Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, released a 122-page report that concluded the audit was riddled with security lapses, delays, disorganization, and lack of transparency.

The audit, which was ordered by the GOP-led Arizona state senate, was meant to last a few months but instead has dragged on for most of 2021. Arizona officials initially estimated the audit would cost $150,000. Theyve long since blown past that figure and have raised millions of dollars in private funds, emails and texts show, provided by nonprofit groups that dont disclose their donors. The new trove of documents, first obtained by Washington, D.C.-based transparency group American Oversight as part of a public-records lawsuit, shines some light on an effort that has otherwise been cloaked in secrecy.

One name that appears often in the trove of new records is Karen Fann. Fann is the president of the Republican-led Arizona state senate. In the aftermath of Trumps 2020 defeat, Fann was a driving force behind the push to launch an audit into the vote count in Maricopa County.

In Arizona, Fann was the public face of the successful push for a review of the 2020 election, first calling for an independent review only a week after the election took place. But in private, as the new documents reveal, Fann had the ear of the Trump campaign.

A few weeks after the election, a constituent emailed Fann about 2020 General Election fraud and asked Fann to do everything she could to reverse this travesty of corruption. Fann replied on November 28, 2020, that she had been in contact with the Trump legal team many times this week. As for what to do about that supposed fraud, Fann said it was difficult for our legislative body to move forward without clear legal advise [sic].

The Trump campaign, however, was happy to provide Fann with all the ammunition she and Arizona Republicans needed to make their case for challenging the vote count. About a week after her email exchange that mentioned her interactions with the Trump legal team, Fann wrote to another person that she had spoken with Rudy Giuliani, one of the presidents lawyers, six times in the past two weeks as she tried to find a legal path forward to resolve these allegations.

Two days later, Fann received an email from Christina Bobb, a TV host for One America News network, a fringe far-right channel with a history of amplifying political conspiracy theories. Mayor Giuliani asked me to send you these declarations, Bobb wrote. Attached was a document titled Arizona Election Anomalies and Concerns. The documents cover page said it was Provided by: Donald J. Trump for President and was To be Presented by: Attorney for President Trump, Rudy Giuliani.

In December 2020, Fann and her Republican counterparts settled on their audit scheme. On December 28th, in response to an angry email from a voter, Fann wrote: I have been in numerous conversations with Rudy Giuliani over the past weeks trying to get this done. I have the full support of him and a personal call from President Trump thanking us for pushing us to prove any fraud.

A few weeks after that, Fann announced that she had hired CyberNinjas, a digital forensics firm with no election-related experience whose CEO said he voiced support for the Stop the Steal efforts by Trump supporters. The audit was underway, and eventually Randy Pullen, a former state GOP chairman and longtime activist, was named as a co-chairman of the audit.

Pullen, like Fann, looked to influential Republicans outside of Arizona for help. In early December, before the audit had gotten underway, he texted Reince Priebus, the former RNC national chairman, to keep him updated about what was going on in Arizona. On the day the audit was given the go-ahead, Pullen texted Priebus, We won. Doing forensic audit in AZ.

What? Call u tomorrow am?? Priebus wrote back.

The two men kept in touch in the months that followed. On March 2nd, Pullen asked Priebus if he could recommend an election audit firm. Priebus said he would check but later added he couldnt come up with any names. Pullen also asked Priebus if he personally wanted to help out with any of the legal work related to Arizonas audit. Priebus didnt write back.

Pullen had the ear of Jeff DeWit, a Republican operative who worked as the Trump campaigns chief operating officer in 2020. At one point, DeWit sent Pullen the name of one of the many groups raising money supposedly for the audit and asked: So are they ok to donate to? Trump asking. (DeWit later clarified to the Arizona Capitol Times that he meant the Trump orbit, not Trump specifically.) Yes, Pullen replied that the group was a 501(c)(4) nonprofit group with ties to Patrick Byrne, the founder of Overstock.com who has promoted baseless theories about the 2020 election. The group had already raised $1.2 million, Pullen claimed.

Its unclear if Trump ever made a donation. However, DeWit and Pullen also exchanged texts about where DeWit should send $175,000 to support the audit; Pullen suggested Guardian Defense Fund, another nonprofit that was originally created to raise legal defense money for Jan. 6th insurrectionists in trouble with the law.

Cleta Mitchell, a legal adviser to Trump long predating his presidency, also appears in the new batch of documents. Mitchell, who joined the infamous phone call during which Trump asked Georgias secretary of state to find votes so Trump would win the state, has apparently played a role in raising money for the audit.

In a July 28th email, Mitchell acts as a conduit for more than $1 million to be paid to people and firms working on the audit. Just heard that the bank President wanted to review the release of funds, Mitchell wrote. So he held up the wires until tomorrowHopefully they will go out first thing in the morning. Or we will find a new bank.

Mitchell wasnt the only Trump adviser rustling up cash for the audit. On Wednesday, Politico reported on text messages sent by Stephanie Grisham, the former White House press secretary and aide to First Lady Melania Trump, which showed Grisham trying to help raise money for the audit.

Despite the shoddiness of Arizonas audit, Republican legislators in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are following suit with audits of their own. Indeed, the new Arizona documents show Karen Fann, the Arizona senate president, asking for the phone number of former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, who previously said the presidency was stolen and is now leading his states audit. Reince Priebus has also given interviews about details involving Wisconsins audit.

Rick Hasen, the election-law expert, says that while these sham audits may be partisan schemes, they can still have a real effect on access to the ballot box and on trust in fair elections going forward. This is the most dangerous moment for democracy in our lifetime, he says.
Mexico turns 211 years old on Sept. 16, 2021, but the Consul General of Mexico in Laredo celebrated the occasion one day earlier per its tradition as the Mexican President gives the famous Grito at the Zocalo in Mexico City at night to commemorate the 16th.

Just like last year, as the pandemic continued to cause lockdowns and lead to many people remaining at home, the ceremony was done again this year in a small and virtual setting. The majority of the ceremony focused on a nine-minute video that showcased how Laredoans feel about Mexican Independence and what it means to be a Mexican or Mexican-American.

We commemorate the 211th anniversary of the beginning of the Mexican Independence Movement, said Juan Carlos Mendoza Sanchez, Consul General of Mexico in Laredo. I congratulate all Mexicans and Mexican-Americans on this very special day in their lives.

The Consul General made it clear that the event had to be done virtually as the pandemic continues to be something that is affecting the local population and elsewhere, with cases continuing to climb and hospitalizations and deaths on the rise as vaccination efforts continue to be pushed both in the U.S. and Mexico.

Due to the pandemic, we canceled the popular celebration that we had planned on the banks of the Rio Grande, so we held a civic ceremony of El Grito, which we broadcasted live, Mendoza Sanchez said. Those who have not seen it can enjoy it on our social networks where you can find the link to the nine-minute video.

The video was showcased Wednesday morning as several members of the military also hosted a flag ceremony in honor of Mexican Independence Day. The video was then played for those watching along live on social media.

During the morning ceremony, the Mexican Consulate in Laredo showcased a video of various Laredoans stating what the famous Grito, or the scream of Viva Mexico, means for them, as they are Mexican citizens or those with a Mexican background.

One of these individuals who spoke was former Laredo Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Miguel A. Conchas.

It brings us memories of what our parents taught us about our culture, our traditions and about the beauty of what is Mexico, he said.

Other people in the video presentation voiced that the Grito and Mexican Independence Day meant for them what it is like being Mexican, to recall the rich food and tradition of the country, while others stated the Grito is simply a sign of their identity.

With the Grito of Independence in Dolores Hidalgo, it marked the beginning of the independence of all Mexicans. And with it also was the beginning of the mix of cultures of Spanish and the new Mexico, and today we have our own identity, said Uni-Trade Group owner Eduardo Garza.

The Consul General stated that the expressions of Mexicans living in Laredo reaffirms the fact that the Mexican Independence is not just a holiday but one of expressing the Mexican culture for those that live all over the world.

Mexico is not only a country, it is also a feeling, Mendoza Sanchez said. From that feeling of Mexicanness, we find that the Mexican Nation extends beyond its geographical borders. To celebrate The Cry of Independence anywhere in the world is to reaffirm that Mexicanness, that sense of belonging to the Mexican Nation.

The Consul General also stated that the celebration of Mexican Independence is essential to showcase how Mexico is not all about just one country or one identity but rather the collective call of people who want to seek freedoms after being under colonial rule for so long.

We remember that we are a people that, unlike others, did not have a beginning but an origin, the indigenous people who are a symbol of Mexican greatness and of our culture, Mendoza Sanchez said. This indigenous origin is embodied in the national shield that adorns the white color of our flag and represents the founding of Greater Tenochtitlan, capital of the Aztec Empire. Remembering the call of Priest Miguel Hidalgo to rebellion against the bad viceregal government after 300 years of colonial rule, it is the reaffirmation of our independence, our democracy and our freedom  values that we share with the people of the United States.

As the pandemic was the main reason why the ceremony was virtual and smaller this year as opposed to previous ones, Mendoza Sanchez stated that the celebration should also honor those Mexicans who have lost their lives because of the COVID-19 virus, which has shaken Mexico and the world entirely.

We very much regret the thousands and thousands of deaths of Mexicans due to COVID-19, but at the same time, the celebration of our Mexicanness and our independence ensure that our traditions do not also die due to the pandemic, he said.

In Nuevo Laredo, the municipal government hosted their Grito ceremony online with some live music acts but no audience in efforts to control COVID-19 infections in the city.

jorge.vela@lmtonline.com
Early Wednesday morning, SCAN received a check totaling $5,975,000 through five grants targeting multiple programs and services provided for the community. These include help for adolescents struggling with substance abuse, opioid recovery, mental health care and community partner trainings.

According to SCAN CEO Isela Dabdoub, the mental health situation is serious and it is the responsibility of local agencies to address these issues and create more help. SCAN has approximately 40 different programs and services that serve nine counties, with most of the programs situated in Webb.

First, the Las Familias Unidas program will receive $2,725,000 and will be used to prevent children and teens from consuming tobacco, alcohol and drugs. This focus will be placed on children between ages 12-24 as well as their family. Tobacco addiction, mental health problems and substance abuse screenings are provided for the children and their families to monitor them and find the best treatment.

According to SCAN Vice President Luis Flores, it is a comprehensive program that also has an outreach component to project its existence to the community. This includes peer recovery services, prevention services and medication assistance treatment for those who reach out for help.

As for the South Texas Medication Assistance Treatment program, it helps those addicted to opioids with medication to stabilize them and avoid the need for opioids. This program also includes peer recovery services that can help bring a cooperation to difficult situations.

Lastly, the Mental Health Awareness Training will receive $625,000 and focus on key agencies across the community to train them to identify mental illnesses at the initial point of contact. Rep. Henry Cuellar said that Webb Countys goal is to train 2,250 individuals from the Webb County Sheriffs Office, the Veteran Service Office and more to help and/or refer individuals to the help they need.

Its not only to help the families, individuals or the givers of help, but to also get the community involved on drug abuse and mental illness, and because of that, I want to say congratulations to SCAN. Their success rate has been excellent, Cuellar said.

From early prevention to residential treatment, Flores said that SCAN continues to provide help and tries to fill the gaps in the community. He explained that often times underlying mental health conditions, substance abuse and addiction results from adversity children face at young age. This results in a developmental route that may result in unfortunate habits such as addiction to alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, cocaine, opioids or even pornography, he said.

Ultimately, those mental health conditions and adversity leads to strong and sometimes overwhelming emotion that the use of drugs is seen to be the only way to mitigate the pain they feel. This is why Flores believes that developing individuals and their families to address those unresolved issues and prevent further adversity.

The grant approval was a fortunate result for SCAN and the participants in the community, Dabdoub said.

Flores elaborated by saying that the grant applications are highly competitive as SCAN competes with agencies across the nation. Its important to show the need of the community and explaining the situation, and with Laredo being medically underserved and its community having a high rate of uninsured individuals, the need is said to be clear.

Multiple programs are offered that may be tailored to the different demographics including babies and veterans. Project HOPES, or Healthy Outcomes through Prevention and Early Support, focused on providing services for caregivers with children between 0-5 years of age and caregivers expecting a child that show at least two risk factors for child abuse and/or neglect.

Prevention of child abuse reduces the risk of adversity that may lead to substance abuse in the future for the child, Flores explained.

Dr. Susana Rivera, Project HOPES director, said that alongside all the other programs, training for mental health first aid trainings are also available for adults and children. The addition of adolescents will also be available. She added that anyone can participate in the trainings.

We want people to know what depression and anxiety looks like. We want them to know what the symptom of serious emotional disturbance looks like, so that we can see the signs and also learn how to intervene in a way to deescalate the situation and make sure that those individuals that are at risk are being linked with the appropriate services, Rivera said.

This may be a boon for first responders who may not know what to expect at every scene they report to, she added.

Another at-risk and prioritized population are veterans.

According to David Garza, Veteran Service Officer, he has seen a prevalence of PTSD due to combat trauma, military sexual trauma or just trauma in general. Furthermore, 80% of those with PTSD are also followed with depression and anxiety. And despite the veteran clinic employing two psychologists and two psychiatrists, the wait time may be a week or two due to the need by the veteran population.

Compounding PTSD with the COVID-19 pandemic, numbers of affected have increased amid the past two years. Overall, veterans are struggling, and Garza said that it is important that friends, families and the individuals themselves understand that there are services available to help.

This is where the SCAN partnerships help with their needs, especially in times of an individuals emergency.

cocampo@lmtonline.com
U.S. Border Patrol agents rendered aid to an injured migrant, authorities said.

Laredo South Station agents responded to a report of an injured person early Tuesday near the Sacred Heart Childrens Home on U.S. 83.

First agents on scene said they encountered a migrant woman suffering from an injury to her ankle.

A Border Patrol EMT provided first aid and requested further medical assistance. Laredo Fire Department crews took the woman to a local hospital for further care.

Incidents like these serve as a reminder of the dangers that migrants may face while attempting to illegally enter the (United States). For anyone who is thinking of entering the United States illegally, the message is simple: Dont do it, Border Patrol said in a statement.
The beginning of the school year when you got to show off your new duds, new cars, new looks!

Sports! Playing, cheering, watching high school athletics.

The arts: Dramatic arts, musical groups and shows, graphic arts groups, debate, etc.

The prom! No dancing the night away or punch bowl antics.

The daily interactions. Just being with the group, hanging with friends and classmates.

Access to college recruiters and advisors  its harder to line up higher education.

Walking onstage to get a diploma while all the family is watching with everyone elses family.

Vote

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A Cavan man has spoken of his delight at snapping up the Longford Leader's 1916 Easter Rising front page for just 25 at auction.

Father of one Danny Plunkett expressed his satisfaction over the impromptu purchase which was made two weeks ago at an event in Dundalk.

Going to State auctions was a hobby I recently got into, said Danny when contacted by the Leader this week.

It (front page) came up for auction and I actually went into view it.

It just stood out and so I decided to buy it.

Danny, who lives in Mullagh, Co Cavan and works for leading workwear and cleanroom clothing CWS, revealed how his decision had set him back by just 25.

There is a lot of interesting things on the page itself and I am very happy with it, he said.

It's not the first time the 52-year-old has acquired historical newspaper archives from yesteryear.

I actually picked up something similar from the Irish Independent and sent it onto them too, he said.
Solicitor Patricia Cronin, who is a partner at John J. Quinn and Company Solicitors, Longford and Mullingar, is set to become a district court judge.

The Government yesterday evening agreed to nominate Patricia Cronin for appointment as an Ordinary Judge to the District Court by the President of Ireland.

The vacancy arises following the retirement of Judge Flannan Brennan on 18 August 2021.

Meanwhile, district court Judge Alan Mitchell has been appointed to the Special Criminal Court.

The Government has taken the necessary steps to formally advise President Higgins of the nomination in accordance with constitutional practice.

Front page of Easter Rising in Longford snapped up for just 25 A Cavan man has spoken of his delight at snapping up the Longford Leader's 1916 Easter Rising front page for just 25 at auction.

New traffic calming measures to be rolled out in Longford housing estates Newly enforced traffic calming measures are to be rolled out across housing estates across Co Longford, it was confirmed this week.

Longford man fined after late night brawl A man has been fined 300 for a public order offence, following an appearance at last weeks sitting of Longford District Court.

Patricia attended Our Ladys School in Templeogue for her primary and secondary education.

Having worked in a number of industries she went back to college in DIT Aungier Street and Griffith College to study Law ultimately qualifying as a Solicitor in January 2005.

Prior to qualification she worked for eight years as a Legal Executive, initially in an in-house insurance role and thereafter in private practice dealing with litigation both civil and criminal. During this time she decided to specialise in Criminal Law.

She joined John J Quinn and Company in 2008 and became a Partner in 2016.

From 2002 she has lectured in Property Law and Family Law in Griffith College, Independent Colleges and currently with City Colleges Dublin.

Patricia covers the midland District and Circuit Courts for criminal and family matters and is on the legal aid panel for both criminal and civil / family matters.

Patricia has expertise in the Criminal area and attends Garda Stations for advice and interviews when a person is detained in custody. Patricia has appeared in the District, Circuit, Special Criminal, Court of Appeal, Central Criminal Court and Supreme Court.

She has experience in defending all level of cases from minor Public Order Matters, Road Traffic Matters to Sexual Assault, Rape and Murder. She also regularly deals with European Arrest Warrant / Extradition Cases.
The Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) has found that there has been an increase in the number of incidents whereby patients in hospitals are accidentally exposed to radiation.

The report provides an overview of the findings from these notifications throughout 2020 and shares learnings from the investigations of these incidents.

In 2020, HIQA received notifications of 76 significant events, an increase of 11% when compared with numbers for 2019. This is a small percentage of significant incidents relative to the total number of procedures taking place which can be conservatively estimated at over three million exposures a year.

The most common error reported to HIQA involved medical exposures to the wrong service user, which accounted for 34% of all notifications reported. Notifications from the modalities of interventional cardiology, mammography, and fluoroscopy were also received for the first time.

Human error was identified as the main cause in 58% of notifications received, however it was found that undertakings looked beyond the human factor and determined that other factors contributed to these errors in the vast majority of incidents.

John Tuffy, Regional Manager for Ionising Radiation, said: In 2020, our inspections of medical exposure to ionising radiation found that the management of accidental and unintended exposures to ionising radiation was generally good; however, there is room for improvement in local incident management systems. We welcome the increase in reporting in 2020, as it potentially suggests a more open and positive patient safety culture. The increase in reporting is a positive indicator, particularly in the context of the unprecedented additional challenges faced by undertakings during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sean Egan, Head of Healthcare Regulation said The overall findings of our report show medical exposures in the Irish setting may be considered safe for service users. HIQA will continue to build upon its programme to date to promote patient safety in relation to radiation protection and to improve the quality and safety of services for all. We hope that the areas for learning identified in this report, particularly around safety measures to enhance patient identification, will aid service providers in protecting patients against future preventable incidents of accidental or unintended exposure.
A teenager who alleges she was raped by a man who invited her to his home one night has told a jury that she felt dead after the attack.

The 41-year-old man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to a charge of rape, sexual assault and false imprisonment in a Dublin suburb on August 21, 2017. The complainant was 15 years old at the time of the alleged rape.

The now 19-year-old, who gave evidence via video link, told Patrick McGrath SC, prosecuting that she had snook out of her home that night after she had been grounded by her mother.

She said it was about 3.45am when she left her home with the help of a male friend. She and her friend later separated and she was alone in an suburban area when the accused approached her a number of times.

The complainant said the man asked her did she need money for food or a taxi but she said she didnt need it. He asked her how old she was and she told him she was 15 years old.

She said the man later asked her if she would like to go to his apartment. I was scared to go back home because I thought Mam would know that I had left.

He said he didnt want me to stay out on the street, he wanted to make sure I was OK. He said he would sleep on the couch and I could take his room, the teenager told the jury.

It was freezing cold and I just wanted to get warm so I gave in and said yeah, the complainant continued before she described walking back to an apartment with the man.

When they arrived at the apartment, she said the man offered her a whiskey but she said she was too young and told him again that she was 15 years old.

The teenager said she then went to the bedroom after the man showed her where it was. The bedroom window was closed and locked. She said she knew it was locked because she had tried to open it and could not.

She lay down on the bed, on top of the covers, fully clothed and fell asleep.

She said the next thing she remembered was feeling heavy breathing. She thought she was dreaming but she was not.

I felt something on top of me. I opened my eyes and he was just there on top of me, the teenager said.

She said the man was touching her breasts and she told him to stop. She tried to push him off her.

She said the accused didnt stop. He put his hand over his mouth and put his other hand under her hoodie, while grabbing at her breasts. He pulled at her bra and the back of it broke.

I was trying to stop it but he was stronger, I couldnt, the teenager replied.

She said the man pulled down her leggings as far as her ankles, before he ripped her underwear, pulled down the zipper of his jeans and raped her.

When asked by counsel how long the incident lasted, the teenager replied, it felt like forever. She said she was a virgin and she started bleeding. She later saw blood on the mattress.

She said afterwards the accused told her If I was older, he would keep me there forever.

The accused left the room and closed the door. She said there was no handle on her side of the door.

When asked by counsel how she felt, the teenager replied I felt dead.

The man came in later with fruit and asked her if anyone would be looking for her. She said a while later she could hear her brother shouting her name out on the street.

She said at one point the accused left the room to have a shower but he didnt close the door properly and she took her chance and left.

When you were in the house that day, were you free to leave? Mr McGrath asked.

No, replied the complainant.

The following November she spoke to a teacher about it. She said she couldnt get the words out so she wrote down that she had been raped.

When asked by Mr McGrath why she told her teacher at that point, the teenager replied If I had kept it any longer, Id be in the grave.

The trial continues before Mr Justice Paul McDermott and a jury.
School & Education, Local News, Business & Finance

By Chris Boyle Published: September 16 2021

Hunter is a technical trade school that offers a number of programs that will help students to find gainful employment in a variety of different fields.

Hunter Business School opened their first location in Levittown in 1972, they later followed up with a second location in Medford in 2006. And while many things have changed over the many years theyve been in business, one thing certainly has not- a dedication to providing their students with the tools they need to set on a successful new career path in life.

Hunter is a technical trade school that offers a number of programs that give students expert, comprehensive training that will enable them to find gainful employment in a variety of different fields.

Among the programs that Hunter offers are Medical Assistant, Medical Office Administration, Medical Billing, Computer Technician Networking Specialist and Diagnostic Medical Stenography. In addition, Hunter's Levittown location also offers Practical Nursing, Radiologic Technologist, and Web Application Development and Design.

However, Hunter is much more than a trade school; as opposed to simply handing you your diploma and turning you out on your own, Hunter actually will assist you in numerous aspects of finding employment in the field in which you've been trained, according to Director of Admissions Janette Chiofalo.

If our student has a resume, we'll help them update it so their training is incorporated, and if they don't have a resume we'll help them create one, she said. We do thank you letters, cover letters, and even mock job interviews, because the end result is that they have to be ready willing and able to find employment in these fields once they've finished their training.

We also have career service representatives who meet with our students and get to know them personally and their individual backgrounds, because again, the push is to help them to become employed in the field in which they have trained, Chiofalo added.

The courses that Hunter offers are based on industry demand and the ability to get a graduating student employed, according to Chiofalo.

We started with just a few programs, and as the years progressed and the needs of the world changed, so did Hunter, she said. We've added programs that we've seen great success rates in."

Affordability is another major consideration when it comes to attending school, and Hunter has gone to great lengths to ensure that their programs are within financial reach for most anyone who wants to attend.

We have financial aid available for those who qualify, and we work various county and state agencies as well." Chiofalo said. So we can definitely help prospective students explore their financial options that would help them be able to afford attending school and furthering their career goals.

The shortest program Hunter has is three months, and the longest 23 months; on average, a student at Hunter will probably see approximately seven-and-a-half months of class time before receiving their diploma. Some programs may also have optional certification opportunities as well. To someone wishing to embark on a new career path  but not wanting to sacrifice years and years of schooling to do so  Hunter offers a viable alternative that can get someone trained and into the workforce in a fraction of the time.

While Hunter Business Schools students would normally take classes on campus, Hunters upcoming classes are being taught in either a hybrid model or an online platform, depending upon the program. This is due to the pandemic, Chiofalo said.

The goal is to just keep everyone as safe as possible, and do the right thing for everyone, she said.

Between their Levittown and Medford locations, Hunter typically has a combined student body annually of about 700, and class sizes are often smaller than average in order to allow for more individualized attention. Interested students are even invited to join a virtual class to get a feel for a day in the life of a Hunter student prior to enrolling.

To date, students who have graduated from Hunter Business school have enjoyed a very high rate of employment, due in part to the reputation that Hunter has developed over the years for graduating qualified applicants for in-demand jobs.

We definitely have a large network of employers that hire from Hunter because they know the training our students receive is top-notch and at the forefront of industry standards, Chiofalo said.

But at the end of the day, Chiofalo said that the instructors and staff at Hunter Business School feel a great deal of pride at being able to offer individuals who are trying to make a new start in life the opportunity to have an affordable and comprehensive education and go on to a satisfying and life-changing career.

It's incredibly rewarding to be able to help someone to change their life, reach a goal, or realize a dream. Our students are the heart of Hunter and we are so proud of them," Chiofalo said.
(Alliance News) - BT Group PLC said Thursday it is looking to add about 1,000 new jobs as it opens it new regional Birmingham office.

The new jobs will be added to the already 225 roles at the new "flagship" office at Three Snowhill in the city centre.

The new office will eventually host about 3,500 staff from across BT, including its arms-length broadband network operator Openreach.

Chief Executive Philip Jansen said: "This is our first major regional hub site to open outside London and is a marker of how BT is transforming to meet the needs of our colleagues and our customers.

"It's also a statement that we're serious about the 'levelling up' agenda. While our head office remains in London, we are committed to creating more opportunities and basing key operations in other areas of the UK too. A number of our senior leaders are now based here in Birmingham, as well as colleagues from across the business in a wide variety of roles, including exciting new technology research and digital product development functions."

The office is one of several new hubs that BT is planning to open in the future, including others in Manchester and Bristol, together with a new London headquarters, which will cut the firm's footprint from 300 locations to 30.

Under the company's Better Workplace Programme, BT is hoping moves to new office buildings and the refurbishment of existing commercial space will increase productivity.

Elaine Bergin, BT director for colleague experience, who is based at Three Snowhill, said that shared workplaces were "central to BT's future", despite the shift to work-from-home as companies adapted to the Covid pandemic.

She said: "We recognise colleagues need the opportunity to work flexibly, and we can enable that through hybrid working.

"However, particularly for younger individuals and those joining BT for the first time, the opportunity to learn those soft skills and form positive relationships by working together in the office is invaluable."

BT employs about 6,000 people directly and a further 600 contractors in the West Midlands.

Shares in BT were 0.1% higher in London on Thursday at 155.00 pence each.

By Paul McGowan; paulmcgowan@alliancenews.com

Copyright 2021 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
NetScientific PLC - London-based investor in life sciences companies - Invests GBP1 million into Martlet Capital Ltd, which is looking to raise a total of GBP22 million over the next six months to fund the acquisition of a portfolio of minority interests in the Cambridge high-tech cluster.

Investment leads to initial equity interest of 6.8% in Martlet. Looking ahead, NetScientific expects to establish a follow-on funding vehicle Cambridge Marquity Investments Ltd with Martlet and Saranac Partners. Group will invest GBP100,000 into vehicle for 40% stake.

Current stock price: 115.30 pence

Year-to-date change: up sharply from 46.50p

By Dayo Laniyan; dayolaniyan@alliancenews.com

Copyright 2021 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
(Alliance News) - The following is a round-up of updates by London-listed companies, issued on Thursday and not separately reported by Alliance News:







Schroder Asian Total Return Investment Co PLC - invests in equities and equity-related securities of companies trading in the Asia Pacific region, excluding Japan - For the six months ended June 30, net asset value total return is 5.8%, ahead of the reference index, the MSCI AC Asia Pacific ex Japan index which returned 5.7%. At the end of June, net asset value per share rose 31% to 499.72 pence from 380.43p the same date a year prior.







AVI Japan Opportunity Trust PLC - Japan-focused investor - For the six months ended June 30, net asset value total return was 2.7%, outperforming the 1.4% return from the MSCI Japan Small Cap Total Return index. Net asset value per share at the end of June rose 9.0% to 111.08 pence from 101.95p the same date a year before.







GENinCode PLC - Oxford-based cardiovascular disease detection and prevention company - For the first half of 2021, pretax loss widens to GBP1.0 million from GBP379,599 a year prior, due to higher administrative costs from staffing and preparations for the company's IPO. Revenue grew 45% year-on-year to GBP599,793 from GBP414,050 on higher sales in Europe.







Mobeus Income & Growth 4 VCT PLC - investor in UK unquoted companies - As at June 30, net asset value per share was 104.76 pence, up 62% from 64.59p the same date a year before, as the portfolio nearly doubled in size to GBP60.0 million from GBP33.3 million, driven by a recovery from the low point of the pandemic. Declares interim dividend of 5.00 pence per share.







Dunedin Enterprise Investment Trust PLC - Edinburgh-based management buyout and buy-in equity financier - For the six months ended June 30, net asset total return is 20.5%, underperforming against the FTSE Small Cap excluding Investment Companies Index, which returned 28.5%. As at June 30, net asset value per share was 496.5 pence, up 20% from 413.9p at the end of December, reflecting the realisation of the U-POL investment.







Income & Growth VCT PLC - venture capital trust - As at June 30, net asset value per share rises 7.9% over the third quarter to 102.19 pence from 94.71p at the end of March, due to a rise in unrealised portfolio valuations.







Cora Gold Ltd - West African focused gold company - For the six months ended June 30, pretax loss widens to USD716,000 from USD623,000, due to higher overhead costs. Described period as one of "intense activity" with the launch of an expanded 40,000 metre drilling programme at the Sanankoro project, which brought forward encouraging results. Looking ahead, will seek to update mineral resource estimate in the second half of 2021 and finish a definitive feasibility study in the first half of 2022.







Regional REIT Ltd - real estate investment trust focused on UK offices outside London - At the end of June 30, net asset value per share declined 2.9% to 98.5 pence from 101.4p the same date a year before, as the portfolio's fair value dips to GBP729.1 million from GBP732.4 million. For the six month period, pretax profit is GBP18.0 million, swinging from a loss of GBP27.0 million due to a gain of GBP2.0 million in the revaluation of investment properties compared to a loss of GBP33.2 million. Declares interim dividend of 3.2 pence per share, down from 3.4p a year prior, and is targeting an annual payout of 6.5p.







Conduity Capital PLC - cash shell - For the six months ended June 30, pretax loss widens to GBP157,000 from GBP53,000 a year before, on higher administrative expenses. Is currently still seeking to make an acquisition, and is working towards the potential acquisition of Smarttech247 for GBP33.5 million in shares.







Checkit PLC - Cambridge-based workflow management software provider - For the six months ended July 31, pretax loss remains flat at GBP2.7 million, as a rise in operating expenses offset growth in revenue by 13% to GBP7.9 million from GBP7.0 million. Looking ahead, remains confident on its outlook for its financial year as a whole.







ECO Animal Health Group PLC - Surrey-based pet and livestock pharmaceuticals - For the five months ended August 31, group revenue was 6% lower year-on-year, due to a sharp fall in revenue from China driven by an easing in the Chinese market. "The commodity price reduction seen in China since our year end has put additional pressure on the pork production industry. Many producers are trading at or below breakeven point, and this has resulted in significant headwinds in our sales efforts. We expect ongoing improvements in the prospects for sales in China, as the current imbalance of supply and demand is rectified and the typical seasonal increase in the demand for Aivlosin in the winter months develops," said CEO Marc Loomes.







RTW Venture Fund Ltd - New York-based investment company which invests in life sciences, biopharmaceutical, and medical technology companies - As at June 30, net asset value per share drops 3% year-on-year to USD1.91 from USD1.34, despite the size of its portfolio rising to 34 companies from 13.







Keystone Law Group PLC - London-headquartered law firm - For the six months ended July 31, pretax profit more than doubles to GBP4.3 million from GBP2.0 million the year before, on revenue which rises 38% year-on-year to GBP33.7 million, due to high activity from all practice areas , with the total amount of principals rising to 386 for the period. Declares interim dividend of 4.5 pence per share.







Chamberlin PLC - West Midlands-based castings and engineering company - For the 14 months ended May 31, expects to post loss of no less than GBP4.0 million, along with GBP26 million in revenue, in line with management expectations. First quarter of current financial year is in line with expectations, and Chamberlin expects stronger sales in the second quarter as well as profitability. For the year ending May 31, 2022, earnings per share is set to be no less than 1.0 pence.







Aseana Properties Ltd - property developer in Malaysia and Vietnam - For the six months ended June 30, pretax loss narrows to USD3.2 million from USD8.3 million a year before, due to a foreign exchange gain of USD852,000, lower expenses and the generation of USD516,000 in revenue from projects in Malaysia.







North Atlantic Smaller Cos Investment Trust PLC - investor in smaller companies based in countries bordering North Atlantic Ocean - As at July 31, net asset value per share rises 19% to 6,280 pence from 5,292p at the end of January. Leads to outperformance of S&P Composite Index, which returned 16.7%. Share price at end of July is 4,800p, reflecting a 24% discount to NAV.







Mobeus Income & Growth VCT PLC - London-based investment firm - As at June 30, net asset value per share rises 45% year-on-year to 85.56 pence from 58.86p the same date a year prior.







CEPS PLC - Bath, England-based investment company focussed on the industrial sector - For the six months ended June, swings to pretax profit of GBP477,000 from loss of GBP18,000 the same period a year before, on revenue which rose 67% year-on-year to GBP9.0 million from GBP5.4 million. Also plans to raise GBP1.6 million via placing, which will go towards making a GBP100,000 loan to Aford Awards, as well as fund future acquisitions.







By Dayo Laniyan; dayolaniyan@alliancenews.com

Copyright 2021 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
* Vettel stays in unchanged Aston Martin lineup

* German looking forward to new rules challenge (Adds details)

By Alan Baldwin

LONDON, Sept 16 (Reuters) - Four-times world champion Sebastian Vettel and Canadian Lance Stroll, son of the owner, will race for Aston Martin next season in an unchanged driver line-up, the Formula One team said on Thursday.

Vettel, who won his titles with Red Bull between 2010-13, joined at the end of last year from Ferrari. Executive chairman Lawrence Stroll had assured reporters this week that the German was set to stay after media speculation he might not.

Stroll senior said also that he saw Lance, 22, as a potential champion.

The Mercedes-powered team are building a new factory at Silverstone and hiring staff with the aim of positioning themselves as title contenders within three to five years.

Stroll will be starting his sixth season in Formula One next year after making his debut with former champions Williams in 2017.

Lawrence Stroll said the line-up blended youth and experience while team principal Otmar Szafnauer hailed Lance as "one of the most gifted drivers in modern Formula One" and Vettel as "a massive asset".

"Next year we expect both of them to race well in what will be a very different formula from the current one," added Szafnauer.

Formula One faces a major shake-up in 2022, with new aerodynamic rules aimed at making racing more competitive.

Aston Martin, the renamed Racing Point team that was previously Force India and started out as Jordan in 1991, are currently seventh of 10 in the constructors' standings.

They finished fourth last year, despite being docked 15 points that would have put them ahead of McLaren, but have been less competitive this year due to regulation changes over the winter.

Vettel, disqualified from second place in Hungary in August for not having enough fuel left in his car, has scored 35 points from 14 races and Stroll 24 although the Canadian has had more top 10 finishes.

"I am really looking forward to racing the new generation of Formula One cars. Their look is very different and the new technical regulations should give us cars that can race much more closely than recently," said Vettel. (Reporting by Alan Baldwin; Editing by Toby Chopra and Pritha Sarkar)
Rita Ora in 'great place' with Taika Waititi

Rita Ora is in a "great place" with Taika Waititi but doesn't want to say much about their relationship.
Mallorcas caper harvest started in July and will finish at the end of this month. As capers are ready for picking at different times, the harvest is split into a maximum of 12 weekly sessions.

The tiny caper grows in bushes close to the ground and getting it to our tables takes a huge amount of back-breaking work. As they have to be picked one by one, its one of the countrysides most laborious jobs.

The caper, called alcaparra in Spanish, is the bud of a small shrub called Caparis spinosa and it grows wild all over the island. It is also cultivated and those from Llubi and Campos are considered to be the islands best.

Capers are also grown in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Turkey and Greece but all connoisseurs (excepting those in these five countries) agree that Mallorcas capers are the worlds finest. The island was exporting capers to Germany in the 17th century, so their international fame goes back a long way.

A caper straight from the bush is like a freshly picked olive: it is not a pleasant taste. As with olives, it is the pickling process that brings out the characteristic flavour for which the caper is renowned.

Capers can be pickled in salt and water or in straight vinegar. For the traditional water version, salt is dissolved in water until a fresh egg floats on top. The capers are put into sterilised jars, covered with this brine and kept for three or four weeks. When capers are needed they are extracted, put into a small bowl and covered with vinegar for an hour before using them.

Some Mallorcans prefer to pickle the capers in neat vinegar, with the addition of salt to taste. Only the best wine vinegar is used and it must be a strong one. The capers need a minimum of of two weeks in the vinegar before they can be eaten.

Capers come in several commercial sizes and the smallest are the most expensive. The bigger they are, the cheaper they become.

Mallorcan growers divide capers into six types and each has its own name: nonpareilles (measuring 7mm or less), surfines (7-8mm), capucines (8-9mm), capotes (9-11mm), fines (11-13mm) and gruesas (over 13mm).

The tiniest capers are the best  and and you will always pay a good deal more for them. But you get a great deal in 100 grs and as they are used mainly as a garnish they go a long way.

The gruesas, the largest of the lot, cost less than the others, but they lack the sharp flavour of the smaller ones. But when a recipe calls for capers to be chopped or mashed and mixed with ingredients such as anchovies and black olives, it makes economic sense to use the large gruesa variety.

You should buy your capers loose at stalls in the Mercat dOlivar and Santa Catalina market as well as at specialist shops and the olives counter at El Corte Ingles in the Avenidas. Do as the Majorcan housewife does: take an empty jar to the market, get it three-quarters filled and ask the stall assistant to top up the jar with some pickling liquid.

As long as they are kept submerged in this liquid the capers will last indefinitely. They must never be allowed to dry out and you mustnt top up the jar withy fresh vinegar as this spoils the taste. If the capers are removed carefully with a slotted wooden spoon, there will always be enough liquid in the jar.

At market stalls selling loose capers you will almost certainly see alcaparrones: the fruit of the caper bush. They are larger than the biggest olives and usually come with a good bit of the stalk attached. They are soft, have a kind of seedy centre and a caper-like taste. Majorcans serve them at table as they would olives and they are frequently one of the side dishes with an elaborate pa amb oli.

You can use them to good effect as part of a French-style hors doeuvres, perhaps with thin slices of slightly piquant chorizo or Iberian cured ham (if the budget runs to it), the best green and black Mallorcan olives, some very good ripe tomatoes cut into wedges, canned tuna or sardines (the expensive brands) and some slices of Mallorcan pan moreno and with a virgen extra olive oil on the table  preferably a Mallorcan one.

Its a good idea to have capers in the pantry throughout the year. They have a very long shelf life and their sour-salty taste will perk up many of the dishes in your daily repertoire.

Ideally, you should always have some of the smallest capers and some of the larger ones at hand. And when you finish a jar, dont throw out the liquid  it is useful for adding a touch of piquancy to sauces and vinaigrettes.

Mallorcan housewives sprinkle a few capers on a salad of lettuce, tomatoes and onions and the difference they make is amazing. The tart salty tingle as you bite into a small caper is a memorable taste sensation.

Capers go well with fish and many Mediterranean recipes feature them in sauces. Salmonetes (red mullet) are sometimes grilled and served with a generous sprinkle of capers.

Most offal dishes are enhanced if you add a few capers. Try them with liver, either fried or braised, or with lamb kidneys. You wont find many lambs kidneys at the markets but the meat section of El Corte Ingles in Jaime II usually has a tray or two on offer, with 4-8 kidneys cleaned and ready for use. And, of course, you can always order them.

This is one simple recipe thats worth thinking about. Butterfly 10 cleaned lambs kidneys, securing them with cocktail sticks so they lie as flat as possible. Beat 100 grs of softened butter with two teaspoons of Meaux or Dijon whole grain mustard until well blended, stir in a tablespoon of sherry a few drops at a time. Add a tablespoon of finely minced shallots and two of chopped capers (the large gruesas kind will do) plus freshly ground black pepper to taste.

Spread this mixture on the cut side of the kidneys and grill them for about five minutes until they stiffen slightly but are still pinkish inside. Remove the cocktail sticks and arrange the kidneys on a suitable hot serving dish. Pour over the pan juices and sprinkle generously with finely chopped parsley. These kidneys dont need any kind of garnish except, perhaps, a slice of good bread of your choice.

The most famous Mallorcan dish with capers is lengua con alcaparras, or tongue with capers. You will find it in most restaurants that specialise in Mallorcan cooking, but it is easy to do at home and it is a good way of using the ox tongues that are readily available at the Mercat dOlivar and El Corte Ingles.

You need an ox tongue (lengua de ternera) that has been well cleaned  get it from El Corte Ingles and ask them to clean and prepare it for cooking. Majorcan cooks I know prefer to bake it in the oven because it is always tastier that way. Tongue can be boiled but it always loses a good deal of its taste to the water.

The prepared ox tongue is rubbed generously with lemon juice and salt, coated with flour and quickly fried in virgen extra olive oil in a greixonera just big enough to hold it. When the tongue has browned on all sides, take it out and in the same oil saute three chopped onions, the white of two leeks, three chopped medium carrots and two large tomatoes.

Season this mixture with chopped garlic, bay leaves, paprika and fresh herbs of your choice.

Put the tongue back into the greixonera and add two glasses of white wine or sherry and a glass of brandy.

Cover the greixonera and bake in a low oven for two to three hours, until the tongue is tender. The actual cooking time will depend on the size of the tongue. Test it with a darning needle after two hours.

Take the tongue and the bay leaves out and blitz the contents of the greixonera in a blender. If the sauce is too thick, stir in a little stock to thin it. At this stage you can also add grated nutmeg to taste and extra chopped fresh herbs.

Slice the tongue about one centimetre thick, arrange the slices on an ovenproof serving dish, pour over the sauce and sprinkle small capers to taste over the surface. Pop it into the hot oven for 10 minutes.

Most Mallorcans I know serve lengua con alcaparras on its own with pan moreno, but its also rather nice with deep-fried Mallorcan patato or some creamy mashed potatoes.
Manchester Center, VT (05254)

Today

Partly cloudy this evening with more clouds for overnight. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low 57F. Winds light and variable..

Tonight

Partly cloudy this evening with more clouds for overnight. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low 57F. Winds light and variable.
While Charles Darwins Theory Of Evolution might apply to the common man, there is no stopping the Midas Touch of veteran actor Anil Kapoor who seems to have the magic of sorcerers stone with him.



We might be surviving life in our 20s with the backache of a 70-year-old but this 60 plus actor is actually the coolest dude in Bollywood. He is aging in reverse, is super fit, looks extremely wonderful on the screen and his off-camera activities just made him cooler than we thought he was! Anil Kapoor shared pictures of his legendary night of partying with none other than the fastest guy on this planet, Usain Bolt.

The actor is currently in Munich and has been sharing posts of his life from there. After his pictures with Usain Bolt and Moh Farrah have gone viral on the internet, people cannot stop commenting on the actors post, including his industry friends whore cheering him on.

 Instagram

Even Usain Bolt shared a few videos from their crazy night and it's only giving fans major FOMO, not that anyone was invited in the first place anyway.



On the work front, his last outing was with Anurag Kashyap in AK Vs AK and now he will be seen in Jug Jug Jeeyo with Kiara Advani and Neetu Kapoor.
The new agreement will be valid for 36 months. According to Codelco, 61% of the unions members voted in favor of taking no wage rise but having a settlement bonus of 4,065,951 Chilean pesos ($5,197) per worker.

A similar negotiation for other Salvador division employees was expected to take place in October, this time with the No2 union, according to data from Chiles mining...
Ambassador of Belarus V.Goshin meets the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Vietnam

On September 15, 2021, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Belarus to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam Vladimir Goshin met with Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Vietnam To Anh Dung.

The parties discussed a wide range of issues of Belarusian-Vietnamese relations, including cooperation between the two countries within the framework of international organizations. The interlocutors noted the mutual intention to strengthen interaction between the foreign ministries of Belarus and Vietnam.

During the conversation, a special attention was paid to the exchange of visits, as well as the organization of bilateral political consultations and meeting of the Belarusian-Vietnamese intergovernmental commission on trade, economic, scientific and technical cooperation.

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Michigan has been named the top U.S. state for overall digital government experience

Michigan has been named the top U.S. state for overall digital government experience

Award recognizes Michigan government for IT innovation, service delivery, and user experience

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 15, 2021

Caleb Buhs, buhsc@michigan.gov or 517-303-4038

LANSING, Mich. - The state of Michigan has taken the top spot in the national Government Experience Awards, announced today by the Center for Digital Government. The first-place finish recognizes Michigan's long-standing work of enhancing online government services and improving overall user experience for Michiganders by utilizing mobile applications, websites, and social media.

"The state of Michigan is honored to be named a leader for overall government experience," stated, Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II. "This recognition is a testament to the hard work and professionalism of our state workforce and service providers, as well as our commitment to make government more accessible for our residents, businesses, and visitors."

"Our work to provide friendly, easy-to-use websites, applications, and digital services is helping Michiganders find the information they need, when they need it the most," added Brom Stibitz, DTMB director and state chief information officer. "Creating the best digital experience in the country has been a top priority for us, so our entire team is ecstatic to be recognized with the highest honor this year. The recognition from such a respected organization really solidifies Michigan's standing in providing innovative digital government services."

In recent years, DTMB has undertaken a monumental effort to align experiences and branding for state websites, applications, and social media under a unified, 'One State, One Brand' initiative. By aligning user experiences, Michigan is creating seamless interactions as citizens engage with government across multiple digital platforms and services.

"Understanding user needs and designing services that meet those needs are at the heart of our work," stated Suzanne Pauley, eMichigan director with DTMB. "Our efforts around digital accessibility, designing content as a service, and strengthening Michigan's One State, One Brand initiative challenge and push us to design better and more effective experiences for our users."

Using human centered design, DTMB and state agencies have been working to implement the branding modernization project, update outdated technology through a website replacement project, expand Michigan's MiLogin single sign on services, and strengthen the state's centralized social media strategy and digital accessibility best practices.

With over 38 million users visiting state websites each month and a social media program reaching over 7 million users per day, Michigan government is committed to connect with and meet the needs of the people who live, work, visit, and do business in Michigan.

"Our work centers around customer service and serving users where they are," Pauley added. "Through our responsive cloud and mobile-first digital strategies we are making content and services more accessible on the go. Users can interact with their government on the device of their preference, anywhere, at any time."

Noting Michigan's focus on customer service, last year, for the sixth straight time, the Center for Digital Government recognized Michigan with a grade of "A" for its utilization of technology to enhance customer service. The announcement was part of the center's sixth biennial Digital States Survey, an evaluation of technology practices of all 50 states.

You can learn more about the state of Michigan by visiting www.Michigan.gov and by following Michigan government on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube.



Learn more about the Center for Digital Government and the 2021 Government Experience Award winners.

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USDA Grants Gov. Whitmer's Request for Disaster Designation

USDA Grants Gov. Whitmer's Request for Disaster Designation

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 3, 2021

Contact: Press@Michigan.gov

USDA Grants Gov. Whitmer's Request for Disaster Designation

LANSING, Mich. - Today Governor Gretchen Whitmer applauded the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for granting a primary disaster designation to Sanilac County, which experienced severe drought conditions during the growing season. This designation makes farm operators in Sanilac County - as well as the contiguous counties of Huron, Lapeer, St. Clair and Tuscola, eligible for assistance from the USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA). This action follows the Governor's request to USDA for a disaster designation for all Michigan counties impacted by adverse weather this year as well a request that USDA make available any other possible assistance under the Federal Crop Insurance Program or other USDA programs to help Michigan's hardworking farmers recover.

"From freezing temperatures and drought to flooding and high winds, many of our producers are finding themselves in the midst of yet another difficult growing season. I am pleased the USDA responded to our request and I'm looking forward to the further assessment of those counties not included in this designation. This relief can't come soon enough for our farmers who endured tremendous hardship as a result of the adverse weather we've seen this year," said Governor Whitmer. "I am grateful to USDA and our Michigan delegation, especially Sen. Debbie Stabenow, for their ongoing leadership and partnership to ensure our farmers receive the assistance and supports they need."

In July, the governor sent a letter to Secretary Tom Vilsack requesting a disaster designation for counties impacted by severe weather to help provide relief for Michigan's farmers.

"Our farmers and producers continue to face unpredictable and extreme weather conditions," said Gary McDowell, director, Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. "This disaster designation and emergency loan opportunity provides a helping hand to our farmers ensuring they have ready access to the resources they need to keep feeding Michiganders and the world."

This spring, Michigan experienced a significant period of freezing temperatures after many warm days, which negatively impacted several crops at a key time in their development. In addition, parts of Michigan's croplands have experienced both drought and flooding, in some cases within days of each other. The storms from June also brought high winds and large amounts of rain in multiple areas of the state, causing damage to barns and agriculture infrastructure, as well as to standing crops.

"Areas of the Thumb experienced difficult weather conditions this spring, including ongoing drought and late frost that had a detrimental impact on the ability of farmers to produce a crop," said Jim Zook, executive director of the Michigan Corn Growers Association. "We appreciate the Governor's actions to secure a disaster declaration, which will give farmers access to much-needed USDA resources and assistance."

"The value of soybeans grown in Michigan is $614 million dollars annually. Sanilac County is the second largest soybean-growing county in the state per the National Agricultural Statistic Service, producing over 6.4 million bushels of soybeans in 2020 alone. This designation as a disaster area not only brings awareness to the impacts drought can have on agriculture, but also offers financial support for farmers struggling due to these weather implications," said Janna Fritz, CEO of the Michigan Soybean Committee. "Soybeans from Michigan are used in a multitude of ways, including many value-added soy-based products such as tires, lubricants and biodiesel fuel. Our soybean growers appreciate the efforts of our ag leaders including Senator Stabenow, Governor Whitmer and Congresswoman McClain to secure this declaration, which will help our industry recover from this disaster and allow Michigan farmers to continue growing a crop that supports the Michigan economy."

This Secretarial Disaster Designation makes farm operators eligible to be considered for certain types of assistance from the Farm Service Agency (FSA), including emergency loans. Producers should contact their local FSA office for additional information.

To view the governor's request and to view the USDA's designation notice click the links below:

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Governor Whitmer Applauds School Districts and Local Health Departments Implementing Smart Mask Policies

Governor Whitmer Applauds School Districts and Local Health Departments Implementing Smart Mask Policies

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 8, 2021

Contact: press@michigan.gov

Governor Whitmer Applauds School Districts and Local Health Departments Implementing Smart Mask Policies

More than 60% of Michigan students covered by a mask requirement, ensuring safe, in-person learning

LANSING, Mich.-Governor Gretchen Whitmer issued the following statement after more Michigan public school districts, including Mount Pleasant Public Schools just recently, and local health departments continue to implement smart mask policies, bringing the total number of school districts in Michigan opting for face coverings to 229, protecting more than 757,904 students, or 60.5% of students in Michigan.

"After 19 months of COVID, the science is clear: vaccines and masks keep kids safe and help them continue learning in person.

"On vaccines, the message is simple: every eligible Michigander 12 and older should get their safe, effective, and FDA-approved, vaccine to protect themselves, their loved ones, and their community.

"On masks, both the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and the CDC have provided strong guidance to encourage school districts and local health departments to make the choice to put in place smart mask policies for students, teachers, and staff in schools regardless of vaccination status because it will allow everyone to stay safe while continuing to learn and grow in-person. I agree with our top health experts.

"As of today, 229 districts totaling over 60.5% of Michigan students, are covered by smart mask policies implemented by their school district or local county health department. That number continues to increase, and we expect to see that trend continue.

"In other states, school and local authorities have been pressured, threatened, or outright banned from taking action to protect their students, teachers, and staff. Instead, in Michigan, we are working closely with local health departments and supporting school districts to make sure schools are prepared to protect students this academic year. With 60.5% of our students and counting protected by smart mask policies, Michigan's local leaders are taking COVID seriously and their actions are helping to control the spread of the virus while allowing kids to continue learning in class.

"Districts and local public health leaders should keep working together to implement mask guidelines and create buy-in at the community level, which leads to better outcomes and better adherence to policies that keep kids, teachers, staff, and parents safe.

"Together, we can protect ourselves from COVID and ensure kids keep learning in-person."

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September 18, 2008 offered a spectacularly beautiful sunrise, although at that moment I was tucked down in the brush while patiently waiting out the intense scrutiny of a large doe nearby.

I had bumped into the doe and her pair of fawns in the predawn darkness, right next to the ladder-stand I was planning to be in. Such can happen in the deer woods, and as the darkness paled away into light, I watched the doe stomping her foot on the ground as she bobbed her head in an effort to make out what had almost tripped over her. Fortunately, the wind was in my favor, and due to the thick brush, the suspicious doe couldnt ascertain matters.

Finally, the doe snorted and departed with her fawns in tow, and I was able to quietly climb the ladder just a few feet away. Once I was in position, I broke open the vintage single-shot shotgun in my lap and slipped in a maroon, sausage-sized deer slug.

The 12-gauge shotgun I was using is an Ithaca Model 66 Super Single that my mother and I had purchased together for my fathers birthday many years earlier. It is nothing fancy, but it is a durable and dependably accurate piece which features a lever like those found on lever-action repeaters, for breaking the gun open.

Designed specifically for shooting deer slugs, the Model 66's front sight is a highly visible orange plastic affair that has a fine chisel point for acute shot placement. The buckhorn rear sight is affixed right next to the very back of the 22-inch barrel, offering a marvelous sight-radius.

Even though it is a smoothbore, the old Ithaca can readily keep all of its shots near the center of an 8-inch paper plate at 100 yards, which aint bad for a punkin-ball-slinger and open sights.

I harvested one of my largest whitetail bucks using that old Ithaca way back when, so it has some additional history which speaks for itself.

Shotguns, whether rifled or smoothbore, can be quite fickle about what flavor (brand) of slugs they prefer to digest. This becomes readily apparent at the 100-yard mark, and the notable difference is usually related more to the elevation factor. The slug groups will also become tighter at longer range as well, when the shotgun finds a particular brand of slugs it likes.

Smoothbore shotguns readily showed a strong presence in the deer hunting arena in the former shotgun-only zone. This was primarily due to the fact most whitetail deer are harvested at ranges rarely exceeding the 100-yard mark. There was also the price factor to consider, as you can buy a 5-pack of foster-type slugs for smoothbores for the cost of only a single, sabot-type slug for the rifled-barreled versions.

A 12-gauge smoothbore, for instance, using a full-bore-sized, one-ounce lead slug, can deliver enough energy out to 50 yards, as well as create a large wound channel that would make an elephant gun blush. I know professional bear hunting guides who prefer a smoothbore, 12-gauge shotgun stoked with heavy, foster-type slugs for following up wounded bears in heavy, up-close and personal cover (been there and done that myself).

Deer slugs for smoothbore shotguns today are also vastly improved over what we had to deal with years back. An example of this is Federals Truball foster-type slug that features a small plastic ball that snugly fits in the hollow base of the slug and keeps everything centered as it exits the barrel. This means more consistent accuracy at the longer ranges.

In the old, non-finicky Ithaca, the Federal Truball proved to be my favorite flavor, and needless to say, this is the combination I was using for that opening morning of the first-ever, early doe-season in the Thumb area.

An important tool for this type of doe hunting is a good binocular for carefully assessing the deer before shooting. The first thing in order when glassing a deer is to be sure no antlers are sprouting from the head during an antlerless-only season, as well as to be sure the deer is indeed a doe and not a button-buck.

Although button-bucks are legal per antlerless regulations, and also very tender to eat, they sure dont offer much venison, and obtaining some substantial prime venison was my primary objective.

About an hour after daybreak, I spotted several deer headed my way, all of them bucks, and the darkest one was a real standout mature brute. The big one eventually separated from the rest and bedded down about 60 yards from my position. Glassing him over with my binocular was a pure delight, and that is when I picked up motion coming towards me from an opposite angle to the bedded buck.

This was a single deer that, according to my glassing efforts, had no antlers or bumps on its head, and the long-nose profile and large size clued me in that it was a full-grown doe, even though no fawns were with it.

I watched as it approached an apple tree nearby, and it began plucking and eating apples from the branches. This allowed me to further assess the deer, and I decided it was a keeper provided it offered me an on-the-platter shot. I didnt want a blood-tracking job involving the immense cornfield nearby.

A flock of low-flying geese passed overhead singing that very special chorus which always accents an outdoor experience. A fox squirrel was also investigating my presence in its tree, and I could hear its toenails digging into the bark as it eased down ever closer to the top of my head. Then, the full-grown doe decided it had had enough apples and ambled out from under the tree on an angle that would bring it to within 35 yards from my ladder-stand. I slowly eased the old Ithaca into my shoulder and quietly cocked its hammer back.

I prefer a high shoulder shot to anchor a deer on the spot. A hit there not only breaks the top of the shoulder, it also causes trauma to the upper portion of the lungs and impacts the spine to a degree as well. When this shot is properly accomplished, the deer automatically drops and death is near instantaneous. I refer to this as surgical shot placement, and I knew from long experience that the old Ithaca was up to the task.

The doe eased in front of me and came to a stop fully broadside to nibble at the ground. When the pinpoint of the orange sight rested on the exact spot, I touched the trigger, and the doe dropped straight down as she emitted a loud blat, and hardly twitched a bit. The loud blast from a 12-gauge from only a couple feet away wasnt the squirrels cup of tea, either, as it took up flying by leaping from tree to tree after launching itself from just above my hat.

The large buck had jumped up from his bed, and instead of departing, actually stalked in closer to see what all of the ruckus was about. He literally kept me treed for half an hour because I didnt want him wising up to my whereabouts, especially the ladder-stand location per future use.

Eventually, the buck moved off and I was able to climb down and tag and admire my prize. She turned out to be a very plump year-and-a-half-old doe that hadnt had any fawns and offered prime venison. For a fact, folks, using an old shotgun with some family history made that new experience all the better.

A few years ago, I gave the old Ithaca to my youngest son, Joe, and despite now being in the Limited Firearms Zone, he still prefers to use his grandfathers shotgun for deer hunting. Im sure some nostalgia is involved, but Joe knows for a fact that the old Ithaca offers a very dependable and profound nature in being a deer-getter.

In my opinion, a sad fact with todays Michigan deer hunters is that a majority dont even purchase an antlerless deer tag. It relates to a holdover sacred cow concept placed on does in the early to mid-20th century to increase deer numbers, with a bucks only rule, which certainly isnt needed today.

Only 41% of deer hunters purchased an antlerless license in 2019, and only 35% did so in 2020 (probably because combo tags could be used for does). Only 2% of deer hunters purchase three or more doe tags a year.

Personally, I am truly looking forward to the September 18 and 19 early antlerless deer season, and it is an outdoor pastime that I much enjoy.

And yep, folks, putting prime venison in the freezer is definitely a bonus!

Email Tom Lounsbury at tlounsburyoutdoors@gmail.com
3 1 of 3 Courtesy photo/Michigan State Police Show More Show Less 2 of 3 File photo Show More Show Less 3 of 3





MANISTEE  A 19-year-old Muskegon Heights man was arrested in Manistee late yesterday afternoon after he was reported by police to have an outstanding warrant.

According to a news release from Michigan State Police issued Thursday morning, there was an ongoing investigation by the State, Sheriff, Chiefs, Enforcement Narcotics Team, Muskegon Major Case Team and West Michigan Enforcement Team that led to the arrest.
CANBERRA, Australia (AP)  Australia has canceled a contract with France for conventional submarines and instead will build nuclear-powered submarines using U.S. technology because of changing strategic conditions in the region, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Thursday.

President Joe Biden announced on Wednesday a new U.S. security alliance with Australia and Britain that will help equip Australia with a nuclear submarine fleet.

The agreement would make Australia the first country without nuclear weapons to obtain nuclear-powered submarines.

Morrison said U.S. nuclear submarine technology wasnt available to Australia in 2016 when it entered a 56 billion Australian dollar ($43 billion) deal with France to build 12 of the world's largest conventional diesel-electric submarines. The United States has previously only shared the technology with Britain.

Biden did not mention China by name in announcing the new security alliance, but it is likely to be seen as a provocative move by Beijing, whose military strength and influence have grown rapidly.

Peter Jennings, head of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute think tank, said Australia's decision to acquire nuclear submarines was a response to Chinas increasing military might, aggressive bullying of Australia and intimidation of Japan and Taiwan.

We should call the first submarine in this new category the Xi Jinping, because no person is more responsible for Australia going down this track than the current leader of the Chinese Communist Party, Jennings said.

Australia notified France that it will end its contract with DCNS, a majority state-owned company, to build the conventional submarines. Australia has spent AU$2.4 billion ($1.8 billion) on the project since 2016. The first of the French-designed submarines was to have been delivered in 2027.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian expressed total incomprehension at the decision and criticized both Australia and the United States.

It was really a stab in the back. We built a relationship of trust with Australia, and this trust was betrayed, Le Drian said Thursday on France-Info radio.

Morrison said he told French President Emanuel Macron in June that there were very real issues about whether a conventional submarine capability would address Australias strategic security needs in the Indo-Pacific.

Of course theyre disappointed, Morrison said. Theyve been good partners. This is about our strategic interest, our strategic capability requirements and a changed strategic environment and weve had to take that decision.

Unlike nuclear-powered submarines, conventional subs that are traveling long distances must spend time on the surface, where they are most vulnerable, using their diesel engines while they recharge their batteries. The batteries propel them underwater.

Morrison said he expects the first of the nuclear subs, which are to be constructed in the Australian city of Adelaide, will be built by 2040.

He said Australia hasn't decided which class of nuclear submarines it will select and does not know how much the fleet of at least eight submarines will cost. But the country's defense budget will grow above the current 2.2% of gross domestic product, he said.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told Parliament on Thursday that the alliance with Australia and the U.S. is a new pillar of a strategy demonstrating Britains generational commitment to the security of the Indo-Pacific.

Stressing Britains long-standing close relationship with Australia, he said the alliance also shows how we can help one of our oldest friends to preserve regional stability.

Paul Keating, a former Australian prime minister from the opposition Labor Party and an adviser to the state-owned China Development Bank, slammed the new nuclear alliance, saying materiel dependency on the United States robbed Australia of any freedom or choice in any engagement Australia may deem appropriate.

Left out of the new alliance is Australia's South Pacific neighbor New Zealand, which enacted policies in the 1980s to ensure it remains nuclear-free. That includes a ban on nuclear-powered ships entering New Zealand ports, a stance which has seen it clash at times with the U.S.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Thursday that New Zealand wasnt asked to be part of the alliance and wouldnt have expected an invitation.

The centerpiece, the anchor of this arrangement are nuclear-powered submarines, Ardern said. And it will be very clear to all New Zealanders, and to Australia, why New Zealand would not wish to be a part of that project.

Ardern said the new alliance doesn't diminish its close ties to the U.S., Britain and Australia.

Morrison said Ardern was the first foreign leader he called to explain the new alliance. He later called the leaders of Japan and India, which together with the United States and Australia form the Quad security dialogue.

She was my first call because of the strength of our relationship and the relationship between our countries, Morrison said. All in the region will benefit from the peace and the stability and security that this partnership will add to our region.

The Chinese government has long suspended minister-to-minister contact with Australia because of soured bilateral relations. But Morrison said he was willing to discuss the new alliance with President Xi Jinping.

Theres an open invitation for President Xi to discuss these and many other matters, Morrison said.

I believe and hope we would both share the same objective of a peaceful Indo-Pacific where the sovereignty and independence of nations is understood and respected and that enables their own citizens to flourish, he said.

Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Zhao Lijian said it was highly irresponsible for the U.S. and Britain to export the nuclear technology, and that Australia was to blame for a breakdown in bilateral relations.

The most urgent task is for Australia to correctly recognize the reasons for the setbacks in the relations between the two countries, and think carefully whether to treat China as a partner or a threat, Zhao said.

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Associated Press journalists Nick Perry in Wellington, New Zealand, Angela Charlton in Paris and Sylvia Hui in London contributed to this report.

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A previous version of this story has been corrected to show that the first submarine will be built by 2040, not within a decade.
NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP)  Austrias minister for the European Union on Thursday accused Turkey of using migrant flows as a means to pressure the 27-member bloc for its own purposes and warned that the EU wont be blackmailed by any country.

Karoline Edtstadler said countries on the EUs external borders like Cyprus wont be left alone to fend for themselves amid an influx of new migrants.

Turkey, which uses migration and migrants as a tool to pressure the European Union, we will not accept that," Edtstadler said after talks with Cypriot Foreign Minister Nikos Christodoulides. We as a European Union won't be blackmailed  not by Turkey, not by Belarus, not by any other country in the world."

She urged collective EU action in what she termed as mandatory solidarity to deal with migrant inflows at their source  in countries from which people are fleeing and those that are used as transit points to reach the bloc.

But Edtstadler said relocating migrants to Austria from frontline EU countries is off the table for her country because its already dealing with a big burden after having hosted more than 120,000 asylum-seekers since 2015.

The red line in Austria is relocation, because we accepted already a huge amount of asylum-seekers," said Edtstadler. And it is also a question of integration, where we face a lot of challenges still today."

Christodoulides repeated that Cyprus has received the most first-time asylum applications relative to its population than any other EU member country for the fourth straight year. He said close to 80% of those asylum-seekers come from Turkey directly or through ethnically split Cyprus' breakaway north.

Cyprus was divided in 1974 when Turkey invaded following a coup aimed at union with Greece. Only Turkey recognizes a Turkish Cypriot state in the north.

Cyprus has accused Turkey of deliberately channeling asylum-seekers to Cyprus. Christodoulides said it's Ankara's deplorable" policy to instrumentalize human lives" in order to score political gains from the European Union."

The Cypriot foreign minister suggested that the EU could cut off funding to Turkey for failing to live up to its obligations under a 2016 to stem the flow of migrants heading toward Europe, in return for visa-free travel for Turkish citizens and substantial EU financial support.

Turkey, which already hosts the worlds largest refugee population, including 3.7 million Syrians, is concerned about a potential influx of refugees fleeing the Taliban.

So as a European Union, we need to react and send a clear message to Turkey," Christodoulides said.

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Follow APs global migration coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/migration
The Bad Axe Public Schools Board of Education has chosen library Director Briynne McCrea to serve as a trustee for a term lasting through December 2022.

McCreas appointment came during a special meeting held Sept. 13 to fill the vacancy left by the resignation of former board President Zachary Eskau, who stepped down from his position Aug. 24.

McCrea took over as director of the Bad Axe Area District Library in June for retiring former director Mimi Herrington. McCrea had worked as a clerk at the Bad Axe library before eventually becoming director of the Columbia Township Library in Unionville.

A 2002 graduate of Bad Axe High School, McCrea currently has two children enrolled in Bad Axe Public Schools. She was one of eight candidates who interviewed for the seat on the school board. McCrea said she is invested in the community and the school district.

My kids are fifth-generation Hatchets, she said. My interest would be in promoting the long-term stability and financial health of the district. Im interested in the districts future because its my childrens future.

McCrea said she will be an advocate for issues surrounding literacy and school libraries and will take a particular interest in the curriculum.

Overwhelmingly, both my husband and I have been very pleased with how things have gone with our kids, she said. My daughter just moved into the middle school, and the elementary was such a positive experience for her and for our family. You know, great teachers, great programs. I didn't join the school board to correct any problems. I'm interested in supporting the district and seeing what I could do to help.

The one thing she will bring to the table, McCrea said, is her experience in dealing with board-director relationships.

I understand what makes for a well-functioning board, she said.

McCrea said she has not decided if she will seek a full term in November 2022.

Bad Axe Public Schools Superintendent Greg Newland said the decision to choose a new trustee was a difficult one because of the large number of candidates, adding he and the board were excited that McCrea stepped up to serve.

Were happy to have her here, he said.

In other business during the Sept. 13 meeting, Nick Checkley was named board vice president.

The Michigan State Police confirmed earlier this month that Eskau is under investigation. MSP Public Information Officer Lt. Kimberly Vetter told the Tribune that the MSP is working an "open investigation involving him with inappropriate behavior with students."

Newland told the Tribune earlier this month that because of the pending investigation by the school, he is unable to comment on any specifics.

Newland did say a former board member is under internal investigation, but it is unclear at this time if that former board member is Eskau.

The board authorized an internal investigation at the advice of legal counsel based on the actions of a former board member, Newland said.

The next meeting of the Bad Axe Public Schools Board of Education is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Sept. 27 in the high school media room.
Jocelyn Augustino/AP

BOULDER, Colo. (AP)  Colorado's Jared Polis, who became the first openly gay man in the United States to be elected governor in 2018, has married his longtime partner and first gentleman Marlon Reis, a writer and animal welfare advocate.

Polis, 46, and Reis, 40, were married in a traditional Jewish ceremony attended by family and friends in Boulder on Wednesday, the governor's office said. Rabbi Tirzah Firestone officiated.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP)  Environmentalists in Sri Lanka are challenging a court order issued earlier this month that would allow the return of 14 illegally captured wild elephants to people accused of buying them from traffickers.

Rights groups and lawyers say the Sept. 6 court order is based on a government decree that violates Sri Lankan environmental laws. They fear the order could encourage a resurgence of trafficking of wild elephants, putting them at risk.

On Thursday, the same magistrate court in the capital Colombo refused to reverse the order to release the elephants, said lawyer Ravindranath Dabare, who filed the motion. He said they would now go to higher courts.

Elephants are revered because they have been an essential part of religious and cultural festivals in Sri Lanka for many centuries. They are especially sacred for Buddhists, who account for 70% of the countrys 22 million people, because they are believed to be servants of Buddha and a previous incarnation of Buddha himself.

An elephant in the backyard has also long been a sign of wealth, power and privilege. Though capturing wild elephants has been banned for decades, government records indicate there are 219 elephants in captivity  132 held by private owners and the rest under the care of the government.

The illegal capture of baby elephants dates to at least 2007. But things boiled over in 2015, when wildlife officials seized 38 baby elephants that were allegedly caught in the wild and sold to affluent people, including a Buddhist monk and a judge.

Six years later, the issue is back in the news after a court in Colombo ordered the return of 14 of the elephants to their alleged owners. The order is based on a government decree in August that provides guidelines on how to register elephants as pets, deploy them for work and religious festivals, and provide food and safety for the animals. Activists fear it threatens the elephants' well-being, and experts have said the decree weakens legal recourse in the event of animal abuse.

The court ruling last week came after lawyer Ajith Pathirana, who represented the elephant owners, requested the court to release them. He said the government  through the decree  allows the owners to register their animals within three months.

Rukshan Jayawardene, a conservationist, said the order will lead to a revival of trafficking. Elephants are going to be captured again, the same way they were captured previously, he said.

Environment activist Sajeewa Chamikara said the decree came on the heels of years of pressure on the government by elephant owners to implement a method to register the animals that were captured illegally.

Under the previous regulations, owners had to submit the pedigree of the elephant in order to register it with the wildlife department, said Chamikara. But the new regulations bypass this, allowing owners to register elephants without proof of pedigree, which will allow them to give legal status even to those that may have been captured illegally, he added.

Authorities have rejected the criticism, saying the regulations follow the law.

If anyone thinks these (the court order and decree) are illegal, they can go to higher courts. If its illegal, they must prove it, State Minister of Wildlife Protection Wimalaweera Dissanayake said.

Out of the 38 elephants, the court has ordered the release of 14 to their alleged owners. Another 21 are in state custody because their supposed owners are in the middle of legal proceedings after being accused of submitting false permits to prove ownership. Two elephants were released previously and one died earlier.

According to the wildlife department, some owners paid as much as $200,000 for captured animals.

One alleged owner, Niraj Roshan Samarakkody, was accused of elephant smuggling and kidnapping and was detained for months over allegations related to permits before being released on bail. He denies the accusations. Officials seized five elephants from him during the larger crackdown in 2015.

In an interview, Samarakkody welcomed the August decree, calling it a positive move that would return elephants to their owners. The five elephants are yet to be released to him.

Critics of the decree say they will continue their fight. We are now preparing to go before the highest courts, said Dabare, the lawyer.

Elephants are considered endangered in Sri Lanka, with experts saying they are extremely vulnerable to habitat loss and degradation. In the 19th century, Sri Lanka is believed to have been home to up to 14,000 elephants. In 2011, the countrys first elephant census found the population to be about 6,000.
MIDDLETOWN  Despite abnormal learning conditions during the pandemic, new data reveals that literacy skills among Middletown Public Schools students increased drastically over the last year.

Based on results from the standardized Achievement Improvement Monitoring System, known as AIMSweb, assessment and data compiled by the application Footsteps2Brilliance, city students increased their literacy skills by 175 percent between the fall of 2020 and this spring.

The results indicate large increases for historically marginalized students in particular. Students who qualify for free and reduced school meals saw an increase in capabilities of 224 percent. Students receiving special education services saw a 141 percent rise, and Black and Latinex students saw increases of 184 and 145 percent, respectively.

Literacy skills include phonics, phonemic awareness, reading, writing, vocabulary, comprehension and grammar.

Superintendent Michael Conner is very pleased with the results. We are exceedingly proud of our students, their families, and our teachers for having achieved this phenomenal increase, he said.

Conner and other school officials credit this increase largely to the literacy initiatives that began in 2018 and continued throughout the pandemic. All students up to third grade were provided with access to Footsteps2Brilliance, a comprehensive, bilingual literacy app. It is accessible on any smartphone, tablet and computer, so learning was not interrupted when schools moved to a hybrid model.

Since the literacy program began, almost 250 million words have been read by Middletown students, according to the data released by Footsteps2Brilliance. The average reading comprehension score has risen to 82 percent.

These sharp increases came despite an environment that otherwise caused learning loss throughout the country. The loss was so significant that Connecticut formed the AccelerateCT Education Task Force, made up of more than 80 teachers, school administrators and staff, students, families and advocates, to combat this learning loss.

Schools Director of Communications Jessica B. Lavorgna said the period of learning loss makes the numbers even more impressive. Its definitely shocking data especially during COVID, she said.

In fact, the district suggested that the pandemic may be a reason literacy rates have risen, since the learning program was available online.

While we cannot say for certain, COVID has brought increased academic use of electronic devices for students and their families, Lavorgna said. This could be a contributing factor.

Despite the substantial improvement, Conner said the job is not finished.

No matter how impressive an increase is, there is always more work to be done, he said. We look forward to continuing the upward trajectory.
FAIRFIELD  Another affordable housing development may be in motion as officials review a residential development proposal at at 888-898 Oldfield Rd.

The project includes 10 two-bedroom units, along with 11 parking spaces  10 in the garages and 11 outside.

The new proposal is scaled down from the original submitted in November 2020, which called for 17 units. That plan has gone through a series of changes, including submitting the application under the state law Section 8-30g, which states the only way the commission could deny the plan is to prove it poses a threat to public health, welfare and safety that outweighs Fairfields need for affordable housing.

There has been significant evolution here in regards to the development of this project, said Attorney John Fallon, who represents the developer, 888 Oldfield Rd LLC.

As the plans for the site came together, the number of units became the main issue for residents who live in the area of Oldfield Road. Sixteen neighbors represented by Attorney Joel Green and several other individual residents voiced their concern of the impact that a 17-unit development would have on the neighborhood.

After numerous conversations, the developer reduced the plan to only include 13-units, a number that still didnt sit right with neighbors.

With the reduction in units, the amount of affordable units was also modified. Three units instead of the previous four are now set aside as affordable housing for the required 40-year period. In this case, two of the units will be reserved for people earning less than 60 percent of the statewide medium income and one unit will be reserved for people earning less than 80 percent, according to the application.

I like to thank the applicant and Attorney Fallon for their generous cooperation,  Green said. You know were all resistant to change. For my clients this isnt perfect and its not perfect for all involved. I know the developer would like to have a larger development the one they started with and we would like to have a smaller development, but we engaged in dialogue. We shared our concerns and objectives and we were able to reach this common ground.

He said these kinds of conversations were needed to address the housing crisis in Connecticut.

Fallon echoed Greens sentiments by saying that while 8-30g is controversial, it can be used in a way where developers can collaborate and work constructively with their neighbors.

Were glad we were able to reach this consensus with the neighbors, Fallon said. We think we have a development that will inure to not only the benefit of Fairfield with regards to its need for affordable housing, but also to this fine neighborhood.

The only other major concern involved landscaping. In order to satisfy this concern, the developer plans to add additional landscaping which will include a screening buffer of evergreen trees. The trees will run down the southern portion of the property and parallel to Oldfield Road.

The public hearing closed Tuesday. The commission is now expected to make a decision in the coming weeks.
Meriden Police Department / Contributed Photo

MERIDEN  Police say an 18-year-old man was arrested Thursday for wounding two people a drive-by shooting earlier this year.

On April 24, Joshua Betancourt, 18, was riding in a car with two other people when he shot them, the Meriden Police Department said Thursday.
HENRICO, Va. (AP)  A tentative contract agreement reached between snack company Mondelez and striking union workers could end a walkout that began last month.

The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union and Mondelez issued separate statements Wednesday announcing a tentative deal, but neither would discuss the terms, The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.

The tentative agreement has been fully recommended by both parties, Mondelez spokesperson Laurie M. Guzzinati said.

Local officers on the committee will present the tentative agreement to workers in coming days and they will then vote on the agreement, Anthony Shelton, the unions international president, said in a statement. It was uncertain when a vote will take place.

Mondelez, one of the worlds largest snack companies, and the union have been negotiating a new four-year contract since the old one expired at the end of May. The contract covers union employees at six Mondelez sites.

More than 1,000 hourly employees at a Virginia plant, bakeries in Portland, Oregon, and in Chicago, and three distribution centers across the country have been on strike since last month. The workers are seeking increased pay, improved benefits and better working conditions.

Liz Shuler, the new president of the AFL-CIO union federation, met last week with about two dozen workers from the plant in Henrico, Virginia.

Theyre taking tremendous courage to walk out and walk these picket lines because they know if they dont take a stand, then wages and conditions continue to erode and that has an effect on everyone in this country, Shuler said. We are fed up with the way you have been treated.

About 400 workers at the plant that makes foods like Oreo cookies, Ritz crackers and Chips Ahoy! cookies started striking Aug. 16. The plant had been owned by Nabisco and later by Kraft Foods Inc. It now is part of Mondelez, which was created when Kraft Foods split into two companies in 2012.
A Massachusetts storage company accused of selling an airman's belongings while he was deployed overseas must pay thousands of dollars in fines and compensation, the Justice Department announced Thursday.

In February 2019, Tech. Sgt. Charles Cornacchio, who is based at Hanscom Air Force Base, Massachusetts, deployed to Qatar. In July of that year, PRTaylor Enterprises LLC, a company doing business as Father & Son Moving & Storage, auctioned off all his stored belongings, according to a federal lawsuit.

Cornacchio did not find out about the sale for another month, while he was still deployed.

The items included military gear; mementos that belonged to a cousin who had been killed in action while also serving in the military; his grandfather's military medals; a dresser handmade by his great-grandfather; and family photographs.

Read Next: B-2 Rolled Off Runway at Whiteman in Emergency Landing

The Justice Department said the auction was a violation of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, a broad set of legal protections for both active-duty and reserve troops. According to the SCRA, anyone storing a service member's property must obtain a court order before selling or disposing of it. Father & Son Moving & Storage, based in Billerica, Massachusetts, did not do so, violating federal law, prosecutors say.

The Justice Department has aggressively enforced the SCRA, going after several companies who sold off service members' property in recent years. In 2020, the department sued a Florida towing company, Target Recovery Towing Inc., alleging they auctioned off a Marine's car while she was deployed. The company settled and was ordered to pay the Marine $17,500 and a $2,500 federal fine.

Later that year, federal prosecutors went after another Florida towing company, ASAP Towing and Storage, alleging it auctioned off dozens of service members' vehicles. The company was ordered to pay out compensations totaling up to $99,500 and a $20,000 fine. The city of San Antonio, Texas, also agreed to pay $47,000 to two service members after they complained the city unlawfully auctioned off their vehicles.

Prosecutors say Father & Son Moving & Storage knew Cornacchio was in the military and deployed abroad, adding that he was even in uniform at the time company movers came to pack up his belongings.

The company settled the suit and will pay Cornacchio $60,000 in compensation, as well as a $5,000 federal fine. It also was ordered to create policies to prevent further SCRA violations.

"This settlement should send a clear message to all storage facility operators that federal law prohibits them from auctioning off a servicemember's possessions without a court order," Assistant U.S. Attorney General Kristen Clarke said in a statement.

-- Steve Beynon can be reached at Steve.Beynon@military.com. Follow him on Twitter @StevenBeynon.

Related: Army Planned to Delay Moves for Thousands of Soldiers, Families During Holidays, But Changes Order
A seasonal job could be a perfect fit for any military veteran or spouse in need of a little extra cash, either to prepare for the holidays, to gain some work experience or to begin climbing their way to the top of a company.

Consumer spending ramps up in the last few months of the year, and that means retail outlets, distributors and other companies need to beef up their workforce. Even before the United States experienced a labor shortage due to the COVID-19 pandemic, retailers, wholesalers, restaurants and everything in between hired new, short-term employees to help serve the surge of consumers headed to stores.

Best of all, seasonal jobs can provide the work experience and connections necessary to get a permanent job with a seasonal employer or elsewhere. Many companies retain their best seasonal workers if they have open positions at the end of the holidays. If that doesn't happen, you'll at the very least walk away with several months of work experience and a reference for future positions.

Amazon

In the wake of the pandemic, the internet sales giant created some 400,000 jobs at its warehouses and even trained veterans to start their own transportation companies to help get its trademark smile boxes onto porches everywhere. With the holidays coming around, Amazon looks to hire short-term help in its warehouses for a starting wage of $15 per hour and up to $3,000 as a sign-on bonus.

Check out Amazons application page here.

FedEx

Even if they arent delivering Amazon packages, FedEx is still one of the biggest names in shipping, and it also needs help getting packages to porches. If a warehouse isnt the place for you, FedEx also is looking for seasonal employees to work as drivers and in administrative positions.

To apply, visit the FedEx hiring website.

Target

Target needs thousands of seasonal employees to fill positions in stocking, general merchandise, distribution centers, and more. The best part of seasonal employment at Target is not just its $15 per hour starting wage, but its perks. These are things like flexible scheduling, Target store discounts and free virtual doctors visits through the end of the year.

Go to Targets website to apply.

Macy's

Macy's will be adding roughly seasonal positions to its workforce to cope with the holidays but also is looking for long-term part-timers. Aside from extra support at registers on the sales floor, Macys also tends to hire extra people for stock work to handle the upswing in product being shipped in.

Take the first step toward a seasonal job by applying at MacysJobs.com.

Kohl's

The retailer is opening up thousands of jobs for the holidays, Kohl's offers many of the usual positions for retail, including store greeters. Some stores, Kohl's included, hire individuals just to stand at the entrances and say hi to people as they walk in. It sounds like an easy job, but it requires you to interact with people on a consistent basis and stand in one place for hours. It even can help lighten the holiday price tag with a 15% discount.

Check out open positions here.

U.S. Postal Service

If working in retail isnt your thing and you think you might want to get a toehold on one of the federal governments best jobs, visit the Postal Services career website to see whether you could be one of the thousands of seasonal (and potentially long-term) employees the USPS will take on this year.

1-800-Flowers

The floral delivery service is looking to hire some 10,000 seasonal employees, just in time to get ready for the holidays, birthdays and any other occasion that needs a little beautification. The company has on-site jobs in Illinois, Ohio and Oregon but also has remote positions available.

Check out those opportunities at the 1-800-Flowers careers page.

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The Indian government has decided to set up National Asset Reconstruction Co Ltd (NARCL) to aggregate non-performing assets (NPAs) in banks balance sheets and manage and dispose them professionally. "Along with NARCL, we are also setting up an India Debt Resolution Co Ltd (IDRCL)," says Union minister for finance Nirmala Sitharaman.

The Union Cabinet had approved a guarantee of Rs30,600 crore to back security receipts (SRs) issued by NARCL for acquiring stressed loan assets. NARCL proposes to acquire stressed assets of about Rs2 lakh crore in phases within extant regulations of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). It intends to acquire these through 15% cash and 85% in security receipts.

According to the minister, NARCL is intended to resolve stressed loan assets above Rs500 crore, each amounting to about Rs2 lakh crore. In the first phase, fully provisioned assets of about Rs90,000 crore are expected to be transferred to NARCL, while the remaining assets with lower provisions would be transferred in the second phase, she added.

Explaining the rationale for adopting the route of NARCL for the resolution of stressed assets of banks, the finance minister (FM) says, NPAs has been sitting in banks for which they have repeatedly been provisioning. Once you take them out, manage, re-evaluate, give them for people to buy, they will fetch a higher value.

Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), strengthening of Securitization and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Securities Interest (SARFAESI Act) and Debt Recovery Tribunals (DRTs), as well as setting up of dedicated Stressed Asset Management Verticals (SAMVs) in banks for large-value NPA accounts have brought a sharper focus on recovery.

In spite of these efforts, a substantial amount of NPAs continue on balance sheets of banks primarily because the stock of bad loans as revealed by the asset quality review (AQR) is not only large but fragmented across various lenders. High levels of provisioning by banks against legacy NPAs has presented a unique opportunity for faster resolution, the minister says.

One reason for the legacy NPAs has been that bank professionals don't have specialization in dealing with NPA disposals, valuation and cannot deal with asset reconstruction; now, bank staff will be free to do their original tasks within their core competency



- FM @nsitharaman pic.twitter.com/WgUfyeTB7z  PIB in Maharashtra ???? (@PIBMumbai) September 16, 2021

Addressing the media, Ms Sitharaman also shared information on banks written-off debt and recovery. She says, Out of the amount of Rs5.01 lakh crore recovered by banks during last six years, Rs99,996 crore comprises amount recovered from written off assets.

As we go with the 4Rs strategy of Recognition, Resolution, Re-capitalization and Reforms, banks are today able to come out of the prompt corrective action. Banks are also making profit and raising money from the markets: Finance Minister @nsitharaman pic.twitter.com/aDZgB9x6rR  PIB India (@PIB_India) September 16, 2021

NARCL has been set up by banks to aggregate and consolidate stressed assets for their subsequent resolution. Public sector banks (PSBs) will maintain 51% ownership in NARCL.

IDRCL, on the other hand, is being floated as a service company or operational entity, which will manage the asset and engage market professionals and turnaround experts. PSBs and public financial institutions (PFIs) will hold a maximum of 49% stake in IDRCL, with private-sector lenders holding the balance.

A government guarantee will be invoked to cover the shortfall between the amount realised from the underlying assets and the face value of SRs issued for that asset, subject to an overall ceiling of Rs30,600 crore, valid for five years.

The government guarantee will be valid for five years, and the condition precedent for invocation of guarantee will be resolution or liquidation. Further, to disincentivise resolution delays, NARCL has to pay a guarantee fee, which increases over time.

Since there shall be a pool of assets, it is reasonable to expect that realisation in many of them will be more than the acquisition cost, FM Ms Sitharaman says.
The enforcement directorate (ED) on Thursday raided the home and office of Harsh Mander, a retired officer from the Indian Administrative Services (IAS) and human rights and peace worker. Interestingly the raids were carried out hours after the social activist and his wife left for Germany for a nine-month fellowship.

Harsh Mander has been invited to Berlin by the Robert Bosch Academy to join them for the prestigious Richard Von Weizsacker Fellowship to foster dialogue, debate and cooperation. Within a few hours of his leaving, his home and office in Delhi are raided by ED.

Mr Mander is also chairperson of the Centre for Equity Studies (CES). The ED carried out raids on the office of CES.

As many as 29 activists and intellectuals have condemned the ED raids on premises connected with Mr Mander. In a statement, they say, We condemn these raids to harass and intimidate leading human rights and peace activist who has done nothing but work for peace and harmony, consistently upholding the highest moral standards of honesty and probity. Over the past year, Harsh Mander and the CES have been subjected to continued harassment by multiple state agencies.

Activists who have signed the statement include Aruna Roy, Jean Dreze, Syeda Hameed, senior counsel Indira Jaising, Prof Apoorvanand, Kavita Krishnan, and Annie Raja.

According to the statement, the Income Tax (I-T) department has simultaneously raided one of the childrens shelter homes run by an allied institution  Ummeed Aman Ghar in Mehrauli.
The High Courts have a poor record of proactive disclosures under section 4 of the Right to Information (RTI) Act in terms of implementation and quality of dissemination of such information on their respective websites. This can be gauged from the fact that only 15 of the 24 High Courts have made disclosures with varying degrees of content, while the remaining nine of them have not even bothered to publish these mandatory suo motu disclosures.

It is, indeed, distressing to note that while all the High Courts are efficiently and promptly putting up their orders and judgements on their websites, free of cost, they are found wanting when it comes to compliance under Section 4 of the RTI Act on their websites.

The comprehensive research on Ranking the High Courts on their Compliance with the RTI Act by the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, an independent think tank engaged in legal research to make better laws and improve governance for the public good, observes that even though 15 of the 24 High Courts have complied, the quality of disclosures made by these 15 under section 4 demonstrates a 'great degree of variance'.

Of all the 24 High Courts, it was found that those of Kerala and Punjab & Haryana had made the best quality disclosures under the RTI Act. In contrast, those of Orissa, Karnataka and Chhattisgarh were of the poorest quality. The High Courts of Bombay, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand had the best disclosures regarding the budget statements. They provided the updated budget and surrender statements for the High Court and the district courts that fall under them.

As for updating information from time to time, the High Courts of Delhi, Kerala and Punjab & Haryana made available updated disclosures with the latest information, while the High Courts of Gauhati and Jharkhand displayed entirely outdated disclosures. The Allahabad High Court provided a hyperlink to the body of the rules and the Delhi High Court reproduced the text of the rules within its disclosure, which is easily accessible to people.

In the category of lack of information on rules that the High Courts must mandatorily put up for the convenience of lawyers, litigants, and interested citizens, the High Courts of Bombay and Punjab & Haryana provide a comprehensive list of rules.

These include rules on (1) High Court procedures (2) recruitment, conditions of service of the state judiciary and its employees (3) financial management and the financial powers of the High Court (4) RTI (5) administration of district judiciary and subordinate judiciary under the jurisdiction of the High Court and (6) other rules.

The report additionally observes: We found that High Courts of Bombay and Punjab & Haryana provide a comprehensive list of rules and hence they received the highest score under this head. These are good practices which improve the ease of access to this information.

Bombay High Court had the best disclosure of information regarding categories of documents held by the High Court under Section 4(1)(b)(vi). Public authorities are required to disclose a statement of the categories of documents that are held by it or under its control. For disclosures under this head, the Courts were examined for disclosing the type of documents they maintain regarding personnel, recruitment, financial and other administrative functions.

Regarding lack of information on the respective district courts that fall under each High Court, the Allahabad, Bombay, Himachal Pradesh and Kerala High Courts have disclosed information regarding subordinate courts.

On the other hand, the High Courts of Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Karnataka and Orissa do not make disclosures at all. This category was measured by the heads of disclosure under Section 4(1)(b), that is, rules and regulations under its control (Section 4(1)(v)), budget statements of its agencies (Section 4(1)(b)(xi)) and details of PIO (Section 4(1)(b)(xvi)) which require the High Court to provide details of the subordinate courts within its administrative control.

As for the ease of accessing the disclosure, of all the High Courts, only those at Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh publish their disclosures in Hindi exclusively, which is the states official language. All other High Courts have the disclosures available only in English. Ideally, disclosures should be published in both English and the states local language, which is spoken by citizens residing in the jurisdiction of the High Court.

The survey evaluated the High Courts on the following six criteria:

1. the rules, regulations, instructions, manuals and records, held by it or under its control or used by its employees for discharging its functions;

2. a statement of the categories of documents that are held by it or under its control;

3. a statement of the boards, councils, committees and other bodies consisting of two or more persons constituted as its part or for its advice, and as to whether meetings of those boards, councils, committees and other bodies are open to the public, or the minutes of such meetings are accessible for public;

4. a directory of its officers and employees;

5. the budget allocated to each of its agency, indicating the particulars of all plans, proposed expenditures and reports on disbursements made and ;

6. the names, designations and other particulars of the public information officers.

The report observes that compliance under Section 4 of the RTI Act is usually fulfilled by publishing the information on the website of the public authority. The intention behind this provision, as explained by the CIC in one of its orders, is to minimise the need for citizens to use the RTI Act to request information.

In the pertinent part, the CIC held the following, The importance of suo-moto disclosures under Section 4(1)(b) can hardly be over-emphasised as maximisation of such disclosures would result in minimisation of recourse to the provisions of section 6(1) of the Act and thereby save valuable time, energy and resources of the stakeholders viz, the public authorities and the information seekers.

Over the years, there have been several judicial pronouncements and administrative orders, reminding public authorities of the importance of proactive disclosure under Section 4(1)(b) of the RTI Act. In one such judgment from 201158, the Supreme Court stated the following: The provisions of RTI Act should be enforced strictly and all efforts should be made to bring to light the necessary information under clause (b) of Section 4(1) of the Act.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday said that one of the principal objects of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) is providing for revival of the corporate debtor, and liquidation should be the last resort.

A bench of Justices L. Nageswara Rao, B.R. Gavai and B.V. Nagarathna said: "It could thus be seen that one of the principal objects of the IBC is providing for revival of the corporate debtor and to make it a going concern. Every attempt has to be first made to revive the concern and make it a going concern, liquidation being the last resort."

Referring to Section 12A of the IBC, the bench observed that under the provision, the adjudicating authority, the National Company Law Tribunal, is entitled to withdraw the application admitted under Section 7 or Section 9 or Section 10, on an application made by the applicant with the approval of 90 per cent voting share of the Committee of Creditors (CoC).

The court's stand came as it dismissed an appeal filed by a Chennai hotel's ex-employee, aggrieved by the resolution passed by the CoC for withdrawal of corporate insolvency resolution proceedings (CIRP) and challenging the order of the NCLT permitting withdrawal of such CIRP in respect of the corporate debtor (hotel).

In the judgment, the bench said: "It is not in dispute that the resolution of the CoC approving withdrawal of CIRP proceedings was supported by the requisite voting majority. The NCLT, after considering the resolution passed by the CoC in its 8th meeting held on May 25, 2021, has allowed the application filed by K.N. Rajakumar vide order dated June 4, 2021."

Citing the NCLT's June 4 order, the bench said it could be seen that the corporate debtor has already settled the issue with the erstwhile financial creditors, who have resolved to withdraw the CIRP proceedings, and by virtue of withdrawal of CIRP proceedings, the corporate debtor now is a going concern.

The bench noted in pursuance of the assurance given before the NCLAT, an amount of Rs 18,50,000 was also paid to the ex-employee D. Ramjee towards arrears of salary by the corporate debtor.

In conclusion, the bench said: "We find that NCLT, vide order dated July 6, 2021, passed in the application filed by D. Ramjee, has rightly held that from the date of the order dated June 4, 2021, after the withdrawal of CIRP proceedings, the powers and management of the corporate debtor were handed over to the directors of the corporate debtor and from that date, resolution professional and CoC in relation to the corporate debtor had become functus officio."

Disclaimer: Information, facts or opinions expressed in this news article are presented as sourced from IANS and do not reflect views of Moneylife and hence Moneylife is not responsible or liable for the same. As a source and news provider, IANS is responsible for accuracy, completeness, suitability and validity of any information in this article.
Abhay Bhutada, managing director (MD) and chief executive officer (CEO) of Poonawalla Fincorp Ltd (erstwhile Magma Fincorp) has resigned soon after market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) barred him and seven others for insider trading in Magma Fincorp just before the Poonawalla group acquired it. SEBI has also impounded ill-gotten gains worth Rs13.6 crore from the bank accounts of these eight persons to the extent of their respective liability in an insider trading case. Magma Fincorp was renamed Poonawalla Fincorp after the Cyrus Poonawalla group, which owns the top vaccine maker Serum Institute of India (SII), bought it.



In a regulatory filing, Poonawalla Fincorp says, "Abhay Bhutada, MD of the company has resigned from the board of the company with immediate effect from 16 September 2021, and the board of directors of the company has accepted Mr Bhutada's resignation. Consequently, Mr Bhutada ceases to be a director and key managerial personnel of the company."

The seven other individuals named by SEBI in its order are Saumil Shah, Surabhi Kishore Shah, Amit Agrawal, Murlidhar Bagranglal Agrawal, Rakesh Rajendra Bhojgadhiya, Rakesh Rajendra Bhojgadhiya and Abhijit Pawar.

In February 2021, SEBIs surveillance alert system detected suspicious trading patterns in the shares of Magma Fincorp ahead of the acquisition of a controlling stake by Adar Poonawalla-led Rising Sun Holding (RSHPL). The Poonawallas of Serum Institute group acquired Magna Fincorp and renamed the company.

An analysis done by the market regulator showed that a group of connected entities had taken long positions in Magma Fincorp and later squared off their positions, generating substantial profits. After Magma Fincorp made a preferential allotment of Rs3,456 crore to Poonawalla group, its scrip hit the upper circuit for seven straight trading sessions.

SEBI conducted a detailed investigation. The examination of call data records revealed that Abhay Bhutada, MD and CEO of Poonawalla Fincorp, a private subsidiary company of RSHPL, was involved in the deal-making process and had allegedly passed on unpublished price sensitive information (UPSI) to some connected entities.

The investigation found that Abhay Bhutada, who possessed the unpublished price-sensitive information regarding the acquisition, shared it with Saumil Shah, Rakesh Bhojgadhiya and Rakesh Bhojgadhiya Hindu undivided family (HUF).

This information was used by Saumil Shah, Rakesh Bhojgadhiya, Rakesh Bhojgadhiya HUF, Surabhi Shah, Anil Agrawal, Murlidhar Agrawal and Abhijit Pawar to trade in the stock of Magma Fincorp before Rising Sun Holdings acquisition of Magma Fincorp was announced to the stock exchanges.

It can now be prima facie held that the entities, by pursuing a modus operandi, have carried out insider trading activities in the scrip of Magma Fincorp, wherein each entity has played his or her respective part in pursuance of the said modus operandi, SEBI says in its order.

It is noticed that there were phone calls among the eight entities during the relevant period and the phones calls were followed by transfer of funds  persons enjoying connection through phone calls . traded in the scrip of Magma Fincorp in advance of the event, SEBI said.

Further, analysis of bank statements revealed that the wrongful gains were shared between the connected entities. SEBI also found that individuals who took large positions in the Magma Fincorp stock ahead of the deal announcement had not traded in the scrip before.

The preventive directions are warranted since Mr Bhutada has now been elevated to the position of MD of Magma Fincorp (now Poonawalla Fincorp) and has access to ongoing UPSIs of the company, the regulator said in an ex-parte interim order.

The regulator said urgent action was taken against the eight entities to protect the interest of investors and ensure market integrity.

If the entities have any open position in any exchange-traded derivative contracts, as on the date of the order, they can close out/square off such open positions within three months from the date of order or at the expiry of such contracts, whichever is earlier, SEBI says.

The involved individuals have been ordered to submit the impounded money into an escrow account within the next 15 days.

Adar Poonawalla, CEO of Serum Institute of India, is also the chairman of Poonawalla Finance, a non-deposit taking non-banking finance company (NBFC).

Shares of the company have risen nearly 400% in the past one year. Poonawalla Fincorp has reported a 72% year-on-year jump in profit before tax of Rs81 crore for the quarter ended June on consolidated basis, while its assets under management (AUM) stood at Rs14,424 crore.
With the Supreme Court mentioning (SC) the removal order as awkward, the Union government agreed to allow justice Ashok Iqbal Singh (AIS) Cheema to continue as acting chairperson of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) until 20 September 2021. Justice Cheema had approached the apex court against the governments decision to curtail his tenure 10 days before it was slated to end.

After taking instructions, attorney general (AG) KK Venugopal informed the bench led by chief justice NV Ramana that justice Cheema would be allowed to go to the office and pronounce judgements and the current acting chairperson, justice M Venugopal will be sent on leave.

Chief justice Mr Ramana replied saying, The submission is accepted, and consequential orders will be passed. The current chairperson will be on leave till 20 September 2021. This order is in terms of facts and circumstances.

On 11 September 2017, justice Cheema, a former judge of the Bombay High Court, was appointed judicial member of NCLAT. From 19 April 2021, he worked as acting chairperson of NCLAT and was expected to retire on 20 September 2021 when he turned 67. On 16 July 2021, the Union government communicated that he would continue on his post until 20 September 2021.



However, suddenly, on 10 September 2021, he received a communication informing him that his tenure had ended since he had completed four years in NCLAT. On 14 September 2021, the Union government appointed justice M Venugopal as acting chairperson of NCLAT. Since the retirement of justice SJ Mukhopadhaya on 14 March 2020, this is the third appointment of an acting chairperson for NCLAT.

Justice Cheema then approached the Supreme Court. In his plea, he contended that in anticipation that his tenure would be lasting till 20th September, he had taken leave from 31st August till 10th September with the object of ensuring that pending judgements are completed to pronounce them in the week starting from 13 September 2021.

As a judge, when one has been imparting justice to others for the past almost 39 years, it is very hurting and disheartening to see that injustice has been done to ones own self. Such authoritarian action, which is against the independence of the judiciary, can be taken even against others similarly placed, he contended in his plea.

During the hearing, AG Mr Venugopal proposed allowing justice Cheema to retire as acting chairperson on 20th September. When chief justice Mr Ramana asked if the government is allowing justice Cheema to retire on 20th September, the AG replied, Only on paper.

Chief justice Mr Ramana then mentioned that justice Cheema has judgements that need to be pronounced at NCLAT, and the AG should know this.

When Mr Venugopal stated, This will become awkward for the current chairperson, chief justice Mr Ramana snapped, saying, Your orders are also awkward, we have to say. You are responsible for this situation!

Before being appointed as judge of the Bombay HC in 2013, Justice Cheema had served as registrar and then as secretary-general of the Supreme Court.

Over the past few weeks, the appointments and service conditions of members of tribunals under the Tribunal Reforms Act have been a contentious issue between the apex court and the Union government.

On 14 July 2021, the SC struck down the newly-inserted Section 184 of the Finance Act, 2017 as amended by the Tribunal Reforms (Rationalisation and Conditions of Service) Ordinance, 2021 to the extent that it fixed the tenure of members and chairpersons of tribunals at four years.

Earlier this month, a special bench headed by chief justice Mr Ramana told the Union government that the Supreme Court is not keen on having a confrontation, but its patience was running out on delay in filling up vacancies at critical tribunals. Around 250 posts are lying vacant at various key tribunals, such as National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), Debt Recovery Tribunal (DRT), Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) and Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT).

The bench, also comprising justice DY Chandrachud and justice L Nageswara Rao, had said tribunals across the country are on the verge of collapse, and some are only working with one member, and cases are being adjourned by as much as a year.

The matter had remained unresolved since 2017 when the ministry of finance notified rules regarding qualifications, duration of tenure and composition of the search-cum-selection committees. The apex court struck this down in 2019.

The Union government made several attempts to introduce these rules, which were thwarted by the apex court, including the Tribunal Reforms (Rationalisation and Conditions of Service) Ordinance. Despite this, on 13 August 2021, the Tribunal Reforms Bill was passed in Parliament. On 16th August, the apex court termed the passing of the Bill as serious.

The Tribunal Reforms Act has provisions similar to the ones struck down by the Supreme Court. Justice Chandrachud even mentioned that the Tribunal Act is virtually a replica of the provisions struck down by the court in the Madras Bar Association case.

In August, the SC took cognisance at the behest of public interest litigation (PIL) filed by Congress leader Jairam Ramesh that alleged that the enactment was ultra vires of the governments constitutional prerogatives.

The Tribunal Reforms Act dissolves eight tribunals, conferring their jurisdiction on high courts and civil courts. It also changes the procedure of the constitution of tribunals, granting the power of appointment and removal upon the search-cum-selection committee (SCSC). Further, a person below the age of 50 is ineligible for an appointment as chairperson or tribunal member. The selection committee is expected to recommend three names to the panel, a four-year term of members, and salary and terms of appointment the same as bureaucrats.
September 16, 2021 To Protect Itself From U.S. Hostility Australia Decides To Buy U.S. Submarines Yesterday the U.S., the UK and Australia announced that the later one will buy nuclear powered submarines to do the U.S.' bidding against China: Australia's next submarine fleet will be nuclear-powered under an audacious plan that will see a controversial $90 billion program to build up to 12 French-designed submarines scrapped. The ABC understands Australia will use American and British technology to configure its next submarine fleet in a bid to replace its existing Collins class subs with a boat more suitable to the deteriorating strategic environment. This is a huge but short term win for the U.S. with an also-ran booby price for Britain and a strategic loss of sovereignty and budget control for Australia. It is another U.S. slap into the face of France and the European Union. The deal will piss off New Zealand, Indonesia and of course China. It will upset the international nuclear non proliferation regime and may lead to the further military nuclearization of South Korea and Japan. Australia currently has 6 Collins class submarines. These are diesel driven boats based on Swedish designs but partially build in Australia. These boats are relatively slow and have a medium range and endurance. They were built between 1990 and 2003 and are mostly for defensive use. There were lots of trouble during the building of the boats as Australia lacks the technical capabilities and industrial depth to make such complicate products. The operational history of boats is also rather mixed with several scandals following each other. The boats are supposed to be upgraded to be in use for another decade. In the 2010s Australia began to look for a new generation of submarines. After a long discussion it decided to stick to conventionally powered boats. The new subs were again to be build in Australia after a foreign design. Germany, Japan and France were asked for proposals. The French state owned ship builder Naval Group (DCNS) won the race for 12 new boats and the 50 billion contract. Ironically the French conventionally driven Shortfin Barracuda design France offered is based on its own nuclear driven Barracuda class design. For Australia France had therefore to design a conventional power plant for a submarine that was originally designed, as all French subs are, to run on a nuclear reactor with low enriched uranium (LEU). It was quite obvious that this unusual conversion would run into difficulties and time delays. Back in June Peter Lee, aka Chinahand, wrote about the delayed program: The program is officially troubled and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison held a confab with French president Macron to try to get the project back on track. Although the contract was signed in 2016, construction hasnt begun yet, and the first submarine under the program wont be launched for another decade. At least. This does not fit well with the Australian navys declared ambition to fling its armed might against a PRC invasion of Taiwan that might happen in the next few years, so theres all sorts of flailing go on, including talk of spending a few billion dollars to upgrade the current Collins class fleet of submarines as a stopgap, or even rush-procuring some German subs. Theres also some talk of canceling, threatening to cancel, and/or modifying the attack submarine contract to do better. And maybe steer the project toward Germany or back to Americas choice, Japan. Well - it turns out that 'America's choice' builder for Australia's submarines was not Japan but the U.S. itself. We now learn that talks about ditching the contract with French in favor of U.S. build nuclear driven boats already started in April 2020 and were finalized during a U.S., Australian, British summit in early June 2021. This was before Prime Minister Scott Morrison met with the French President Macron to get the French-Australian project back on track! What the PM didn't tell Macron over that long dinner in Paris  and perhaps why the French President might be particularly miffed  is that Morrison had, just a day or so before, already reached an informal agreement with United States President Joe Biden and British PM Boris Johnson for an extension of a nuclear technology sharing agreement. This revelation brings a new complexion to the tripartite meeting in Carbis Bay in Cornwall on June 12 between the two PMs and the US President.

...

The ABC understands the federal government began exploring the nuclear-powered submarine option about 18 months ago when Linda Reynolds was still defence minister. Moreover on August 30 the French and Australian Foreign and Defense Ministers had met and issued a common declaration on bilateral cooperation in a number of policy fields. This included defense cooperation: Both sides committed to deepen defence industry cooperation and enhance their capability edge in the region. Ministers underlined the importance of the Future Submarine program. They agreed to strengthen military scientific research cooperation through a strategic partnership between the Defence Science and Technology Group and the Directorate General for Armaments. Just sixteen days later France learned that it lost a huge defense contract due a 180 degree turn around by its Australian 'partner'. It is no wonder than that the French are fuming: The French government has hit out Australia's decision to tear up a submarine deal with France worth more than 50 billion to instead acquire American-made nuclear-powered submarines. "It's a stab in the back. We had established a trusting relationship with Australia, and this trust was betrayed," French Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said in a Franceinfo interview Thursday morning. Le Drian added he was "angry and very bitter about this break up," adding that he had spoken to his Australian counterpart days ago and received no serious indication of the move. Under a deal announced Wednesday by U.S. President Joe Biden, Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. will form a new alliance to be known as AUKUS, which will see the three countries share advanced technologies with one another. As part of the new pact, Canberra will abandon its submarine deal with France. The French, correctly, blame the U.S. for this decision: In a statement released before the interview, Le Drian and Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly said: This decision is contrary to the letter and spirit of the cooperation that prevailed between France and Australia." The statement continued: "The American choice to push aside an ally and European partner like France from a structuring partnership with Australia, at a time when we are facing unprecedented challenges in the Indo-Pacific region ... shows a lack of consistency France can only note and regret." The French ambassador to the U.S. was a bit more subtle with this zinger: Philippe Etienne @Ph_Etienne - 2:43 UTC  Sep 16, 2021 Interestingly, exactly 240 years ago the French Navy defeated the British Navy in Chesapeake Bay, paving the way for the victory at Yorktown and the independence of the United States. There are some military reasons to prefer nuclear submarines over diesel driven ones if one plans to lay siege on a foreign coast far away from ones own one. Nuclear submarines (SSN) are faster and can stay on station much longer than diesel driven boats (SSK).

bigger But there are also many negative issues with nuclear boats. They are larger and more expensive than conventional ones. The cost nearly 50% more. They also require dedicated infrastructure and very specialized nuclear training for the crews. Australia has neither nor can it supply the necessary fuel for the nuclear reactors. The price for the new submarines Australia will have to pay will be much higher that for the French ones. Some $3 billion have already been sunk into the French contract. France will rightfully demand additional compensation for cancelling it. The new contract with the U.S. or UK will cost more than the French one but will only include 8 instead of 12 boats. As three boats are needed to keep one at sea (while the other two are training or in refit), the actual patrolling capacity for Australia's navy will sink from 4 to 2-3 concurrent submarines at sea. The much higher price of the fewer more complicate boats will upset Australia's defense budget for decades to come. If going to nuclear propulsion were Australia's sole reason for changing the horse it could have stuck to the original French Barracuda design. This has the advantage of using low enriched uranium which is commercially available. There would be no Australian dependency on France for new fuel supplies. The British and U.S. boats use nuclear reactors with highly enriched uranium (HEU >60%). As Australia now decided to buy those boats it will forever be dependent on those suppliers. The non-proliferation crowd and the IAEA will be up in arms over the deal. How much supervision will there be over the HEU? Who will have access to it? Nuclear driven submarines are also perceived as offensive weapons, not as reasonable defensive ones. There are more countries on this map than just China.

bigger That Australia, with just 25 million inhabitants, is buying nuclear driven attack subs will not be welcome by its ten times larger northern neighbor Indonesia. Other neighboring countries, like New Zealand, reject any use of nuclear fuel and will not allow ships or boats using it into their harbors. The new contract will also upset the Australian plans for manufacturing the boats on its own soil. While the French design was ready to start the actual building phase at the beginning of next year the whole submarine project will now go into a new 18 month long definition phase after which actual contracts will have to be negotiated and signed. Meanwhile the hundreds of Australian engineers who moved to France to help with the design and specialists who were hired by Naval Group in Australia will have to be cared for. Australia does not have many people with such knowledge. What are they going to do until the new project actually starts? The UK will offer Australia to buy British made Astute class submarines while the U.S. is likely to offer the smaller version of its Virginia class submarines. As both countries have active production lines for these it will not make any economic sense to build more than some small parts for these in Australia itself. The U.S. will use all pressure that is necessary to make sure that its offer will win the race. A hint of that is that Australia also announced that it will acquire long-range US Tomahawk missiles to be used with the subs. The first of the French boats for Australia was expected to be ready in the early 2030s. There will now be a long delay of perhaps a decade for Australia to get new boats. Its current Collins class will require more than an ordinary refit to be sustained that long. That is going to be expensive. The Germans may want to jump into that gap by offering their Type 214 submarines with hydrogen driven propulsion. While these boats are much smaller they offer a long endurance, can be supplied reasonably fast and come for a much cheaper price than the nuclear driven ones. Altogether I do not see any advantage for Australia in this move. What then is the reason to take that step? It is called blackmail. China is by far Australia's largest trading partner. U.S. and Australian 'strategist' claim that the submarines are need to protect Australia's maritime trade routes with its largest trading partner ... from China. That makes, as this sketch provides, zero sense. The only reason Australia has turned politically and militarily against China is U.S. blackmail. Two years ago the U.S. 'realist' political scientist John Mearsheimer came to Australia to explained to Australians (vid see at 33min) how that works. As Caitlin Johnstone summarizes: Now some people say theres an alternative: you can go with China, said Mearsheimer. Right you have a choice here: you can go with China rather the United States. Theres two things Ill say about that. Number one, if you go with China you want to understand you are our enemy. You are then deciding to become an enemy of the United States. Because again, were talking about an intense security competition. Youre either with us or against us, he continued. And if youre trading extensively with China, and youre friendly with China, youre undermining the United States in this security competition. Youre feeding the beast, from our perspective. And that is not going to make us happy. And when we are not happy you do not want to underestimate how nasty we can be. Just ask Fidel Castro. Nervous laughter from the Australian think tank audience punctuated Mearsheimers more incendiary observations. The CIA is known to have made numerous attempts to assassinate Castro. So there you have it. Australia is not aligned with the US to protect itself from China. Australia is aligned with the US to protect itself from the US. Joe Biden may have forgotten the name of the Australian Prime Minister. But Scott Morrison knows who he is expected to work for. In 1975 the U.S. and the UK launched a coup against the Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam who was moving his country towards independence. Few in the U.S. will remember that but Australian politicians do. Their country has since always done as it was told to do. And that is what all the above is about. Posted by b on September 16, 2021 at 17:27 UTC | Permalink Comments next page  next page 
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP)  Police video shows a Florida woman who disappeared during a cross-country journey in a converted camper van had an emotional fight with her boyfriend in a Utah tourist town before she vanished.

The video released by the Moab Police Department shows that an officer pulled over the van on Aug. 12 after it was seen speeding and hit a curb near the entrance to Arches National Park.

Inside was Brian Laundrie, 23, and his 22-year-old girlfriend, Gabrielle Gabby Petito, who was reported missing by her family a month later and is now the subject of a nationwide search joined by the FBI.

Police in North Port, Florida, where the couple lived, say Laundrie is a person of interest" in her case. He's not been charged, but he's also not cooperating.

North Port Police Chief Todd Garrison publicly vented his frustration over his lack of help on Wednesday, pleading for Laundrie's lawyer to arrange a conversation. Two people left on a trip and one person returned! the chief's tweet said.

The body camera video shows Petito visibly upset when an officer approached them.

Weve just been fighting this morning. Some personal issues, she tells him, adding that she suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder that affects her behavior.

Some days, I have really bad OCD, and I was just cleaning and straightening up and I was apologizing to him saying that Im so mean because sometimes I have OCD and get frustrated, she said.

Laundrie says on the video the couple got into a minor scuffle that began when he climbed into the van with dirty feet, and said he didn't want to pursue a domestic violence charge against Petito, who officers decided was the aggressor.

Im not going to pursue anything because she is my fiancee and I love her. It was just a squabble. Sorry it had to get so public, Laundrie says.

Ultimately Moab police decided not file any charges and instead separated the couple for the night, with Laundrie checking into a motel and Petito remaining with the converted sleeper van.

Petito and Laundrie started their drive across the U.S. in July from New York's Long Island, where both grew up. They intended to reach Oregon by Halloween according to their social media accounts, but Petito vanished after her last known contact with family in late August from Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, authorities said.

Laundrie drove the Ford Transit van back to Florida on Sept. 1 alone, police said. Petito's family filed a missing persons report last Saturday with police in Suffolk County, New York.

Petito's parents released a letter through their attorney on Thursday to Laundrie's parents, asking them to help investigators locate Petito, despite their instinct to protect their son.

We believe you know the location of where Brian left Gabby, the letter said. We beg you to tell us. As a parent, how could you let us go through this pain and not help us? As a parent, how could you put Gabbys younger brothers and sisters through this?

Laundrie's attorney, Steven Bertolino, said the Laundrie family is hoping for Petito's safe return, but he's asked them not to speak with investigators.

"I cant speculate as to why hes not talking, but he has the pieces to the puzzle that we need to find Gabby, Garrison said Thursday on ABCs Good Morning America.

Laundries sister, Cassie Laundrie, told Good Morning America in an excerpt of an interview released in advance of its airing on Friday's program that she was concerned. Obviously me and my family want Gabby to be found safe, Laundrie said. Shes like a sister and my children love her, and all I want is for her to come home safe and found and this to be just a big misunderstanding.

Garrison said at a news conference Thursday that the investigation remains a missing persons case, not a murder probe, and that no intensive searches have begun because it's unclear exactly where authorities might look.

We're still trying to nail down geographic areas, the chief said. There's a lot of information we are going through. Our focus is to find Gabby.

The missing woman's father, Joe Petito, also appeared at the news conference to urge anyone with knowledge about his daughter to come forward.

What I want from everybody here is help. Whatever you can do to make sure my daughter comes home, Im asking you to help. Nothing else matters right now, Joe Petito said.

Authorities are also looking for any possible connection between Petito's disappearance and the still-unsolved slaying of two women who were fatally shot at a campsite near Moab.

Their bodies were found Aug. 18, six days after the incident between Laundrie and Petito. The two women, Kylen Schulte, 24, and Crystal Turner, 38, had told friends they feared a creepy man they had seen nearby might harm them.

They're looking into that potential connection, said Joshua Taylor, public information officer for North Port police. I have not heard of any information that links these two cases together. I understand the timing is suspicious. You never know. I'm not going to say we've ruled it out.

Petito and Laundrie were childhood sweethearts on Long Island before moving in 2019 to live with his parents in North Port, about 34 miles (54 kilometers) south of Sarasota.

An eight-minute YouTube video titled Van Life: Beginning our Van Life Journey features happy and romantic scenes from the couples trip.

Petito is white, 5-foot-5 (1.6 meters) and about 110 pounds (50 kilograms), with blonde hair and blue eyes, police said. She has several tattoos including one on a forearm that reads, let it be.

_____

Associated Press writer Sophia Eppolito in Salt Lake City contributed to this story.
Mandated masks may muffle the words, but the message from dozens of superintendents is clear: The state is undermining what should be the local control of schools.

Forcing the use of masks in schools and requiring teachers to be vaccinated against COVID-19 are just the latest examples of directives without dollars, according to a letter signed by more than 80 Illinois school superintendents.

The states mandates regarding masks and vaccinations are merely the headlines and excuses of the moment in an incremental dismantling of local control in public education  and other arenas  that began decades ago, with the pace only picking up since, they said.

The letter decried what the superintendents said was a continuation of the pattern of higher officials substituting their judgments for those of local school boards on both the state and federal levels.

They pointed to changes being pushed onto them in such areas as discipline, curriculum, testing and athletes.

It is fair to ask: What is the point of electing local school boards at all? the letter said.

While a tug-of-war over local control has been a long-simmering matter, it has been exacerbated since pandemic restrictions began last year.

Within the past few months, Gov. J.B. Pritzker has gone from allowing school districts to determine how best to handle pandemic restrictions to mandating they follow guidance from the the Illinois Department of Public Health and Illinois State Board of Education requiring masks be worn.

The state has been aggressively enforcing that rule. It has put at least 47 public school districts on probation  putting their state funding at risk  and has pulled state recognition for at least 15 non-public schools, according to an analysis by Capitol News Illinois.

Some school districts and state lawmakers are challenging the enforcement as an overreach. The legislative Joint Committee on Administrative Rules has been meeting this week to consider some of the concerns.

Critics point to more than 80 executive orders issued by Pritzker since March 2020 without input from the Legislature.

We would grant that public safety is of the utmost importance  we want to protect our kids, employees and ourselves, too  and that people of good intention may differ on the approaches to this pandemic and how best to protect the short- and long-term health and interests of our students. What we would not concede is that we must abandon our principles as a nation in order to preserve and protect the nation and its citizens. Among those principles is the rule of law, according to the letter from superintendents.

More school leaders than the governor would care to admit have serious misgivings about how decisions are being made in Springfield, they said.

Too many of our state leaders mistake compliance with agreement and consent, according to the letter. As for the science, it  or at least the communication of it from the (U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and others  has been inconsistent at best.

The students are the ones bearing the brunt of the punitive actions of the state becoming less of a partner and more of an adversary, the superintendents said.

To say this is a challenging and unprecedented time understates it, but the zig-zag nature of decision-making out of Springfield has made it far more difficult to manage our classrooms, our schools, and our districts, creating unnecessary conflict in our communities. None of that serves our students  our reason for being  well, they wrote. Its not just about the pandemic. Its about all of the decisions that have been taken out of local hands by those who are all too distant from the resulting fallout. Enough is enough. Absolutely, it is the principle of the thing. Please, restore local control and accountability to our communities and those of us who know them best.

Among west-central Illinois school officials putting their signature on the letter were superintendents Jill Larson of New Berlin and Kevin Blankenship of Scott-Morgan and Winchester school districts.

It isnt the first time school administrators have made their opinions known. School superintendents across Illinois in May urged the state to avoid what it said was a cookie-cutter approach to pandemic-related restrictions when classes resumed this year.

Some parents and teachers have been pushing school boards to challenge the mandates. This week, about 90 staff and community members urged Jacksonville School District 117s board to reject requirements that all teachers and school employees be vaccinated or be tested at least once a week.

Superintendent Steve Ptacek said Thursday that, while some of the mandates are frustrating, there isnt any wiggle room on this issue as argued in the letter. The reality is that if we do not follow this executive order, we risk the very real possibility of having our recognition status removed.

Among those signing the letter were 26 staff members  fewer than 4% of the more than 630 district employees.

Given that  and that over 83% of our staff are vaccinated, this letter does not represent the voice of our staff. Also, the governors executive order has the support of both the Illinois Education Association and the Illinois Federation of Teachers unions. Many, if not most, teachers see this as a way to make their work environment safer, he said.

Ptacek said the vaccination requirement is different from the mask mandate and not one he would have initiated.

The letter argues that  JSD117 has the moral obligation to protect the rights of its colleagues. Others would argue that we have a moral obligation to keep our staff and students safe. This is not a clearly defined moral issue. It is entirely clouded in shades of gray because, on this issue, moral obligation is an abstract term that alters based on each individuals beliefs and perceptions, he said.

The superintendent said the school district will remain politically neutral and continue to follow expected guidelines and protocols, regardless of personal opinions.
BRIGHTON  Authorities have arrested a Brighton man on charges of possession of child pornography.

Robert C. Owens, 38, of Brighton is facing five felony counts of possession of child pornography. A conviction could bring from three to seven years in prison on each count, according to Attorney General Kwame Raoul.

Owens was arrested Tuesday after being served with a search warrant.

The arrest was through a partnership with the states Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, Brighton Police and Macoupin County Sheriffs Department. The attorney generals office will prosecute the case with Macoupin County States Attorney Jordan J. Garrison.

Investigating these cases can be a difficult and time-consuming process, so I would like to thank the attorney generals office for their assistance, Macoupin County Sheriff Shawn Kahl said. Im proud of the work that we do to stop these offenders and keep our communities safe.

Bail for Owens has been set at $75,000.
Google Maps

A new TikTok trend has students "licking," or attempting to get away with acts that usually include vandalism or theft. Across the country, videos show teens doing things like taking drills to school and ripping toilets, sinks and lockers out of walls. Those videos on TikTok have garnered millions of views, according to the Kansas City Star.

Jacksonville-area schools have not been spared from the newest trend, as Jeff Waggener, the superintendent of Franklin schools, put out a statement on Wednesday addressing an incident that happened in South County High School.
BERLIN (AP)  Germany's biggest rail operator, Deutsche Bahn, and a labor union representing train drivers said Thursday they have agreed on a pay raise to end a series of strikes that had caused chaos for commuters and vacationers over the summer.

The GDL union said it secured assurances over pensions, a raise of about 3.3% over 32 months and plus two bonus payments of 800 to 1,000 euros ($940-1,180) for each member during the period
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP)  A top Republican lawmaker in Kansas said Wednesday that he's concerned about President Joe Biden's plan to resettle almost 500 Afghan evacuees in the state because he doesn't know how well they're being vetted.

Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson said he's worried both that the evacuees could come to Kansas with COVID-19 infections and that vetting by Biden's administration won't keep terrorists or terrorist sympathizers out.
Illinois College on Wednesday reported record fall enrollment for the third consecutive year.

There are 1,107 students enrolled on campus and online. This is the second year in a row the college has enrolled more than 1,100 students.

Although Illinois College has not been immune to the new challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, students and their families recognize the power of an Illinois College education. They trust IC to prepare students for success after graduation while keeping the campus safe and healthy, said Stephanie Elpers Chipman, vice president of external relations.

Record enrollment in recent years and the continued growth of Illinois College Online, which offers eight degree programs fully online, have contributed to the increase. The college also welcomed more international students this fall  the most in the past five years. Ten countries are represented among these students  Canada, Columbia, the Bahamas, Northern Ireland, Italy, Germany, Nepal, Myanmar, Spain and Taiwan.

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Updated Sept. 17, 2021, to clarify that 10 countries are represented by the new international students.
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP)  The leader of an Illinois anti-government militia group who authorities say masterminded the 2017 bombing of a Minnesota mosque was sentenced Monday to 53 years in prison for an attack that terrified the mosque's community.

Emily Claire Hari, who was charged, tried and convicted as Michael Hari and recently said she is transgender, faced a mandatory minimum of 30 years for the attack on Dar al-Farooq Islamic Center in Bloomington. Defense attorneys asked for the minimum, but prosecutors sought life, saying Hari hasnt taken responsibility for the attack.

No one was hurt in the bombing, but more than a dozen members of the mosque community gave victim impact statements Monday about the trauma it left behind. U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank said evidence clearly showed Hari's intent was to scare, intimidate and terrorize individuals of Muslim faith."

Diversity is the strength of this country, Frank said. Anyone who doesnt understand that doesnt understand the constitutional promise of this country that brings a lot of people here.

Anything less than 636 months would (be) disrespect to the law," the judge added.

Hari made a brief statement before she was sentenced, saying, For how blessed my first 47 years of life were, I cant complain about what the last three have looked like ... considering my blessed and fortunate and happy life, I cant ask the judge for anything further.

She also said the victims who testified during Monday's hearing have been through a traumatic ordeal and she wished them God's richest blessings in Christ Jesus.

Frank said he was prepared to recommend Hari go to a women's prison, but said the Bureau of Prisons would decide.

Hari was convicted in December on five counts, including damaging property because of its religious character and obstructing the free exercise of religious beliefs.

Members of the mosque asked the judge on Monday to impose a life sentence, describing their shock and terror at the attack. Some were afraid to pray there afterward and have not returned. Mothers were scared to bring their kids to the mosque, which also serves as a charter school and community center.

I felt really scared because I was going to start school in the same building soon and we lived like six blocks away from the mosque, said Idris Yusuf, who was 9 when the bombing happened. I was scared because if these people could do this to our mosque, whats stopping them from coming to Muslim peoples homes too?

Afterward, community members said they saw 53 years as justice for an attack that has rattled worshippers for more than four years.

We were looking for life (in prison), but this is something we can settle for today, said Khalid Omar, a community organizer and Dar Al Farooq worshipper.

Several men were gathered at Dar al-Farooq for early morning prayers on Aug. 5, 2017, when a pipe bomb was thrown through the window of an imams office. A seven-month investigation led authorities to Clarence, Illinois, a rural community about 120 miles (190 kilometers) south of Chicago, where Hari and co-defendants Michael McWhorter and Joe Morris lived.

Authorities say Hari, 50, led a group called the White Rabbits that included McWhorter, Morris and others and that Hari came up with the plan to attack the mosque. Prosecutors said at trial that she was motivated by hatred for Muslims, citing excerpts from Haris manifesto known as The White Rabbit Handbook.

McWhorter and Morris, who portrayed Hari as a father figure, each pleaded guilty to five counts and testified against her. They are awaiting sentencing.

It wasn't initially clear how the White Rabbits became aware of Dar al-Farooq, but the mosque was in headlines in the years before the attack: Some young people from Minnesota who traveled to Syria to join the Islamic State group had worshipped there. Mosque leaders were never accused of any wrongdoing. Haris attorneys wrote in court filings that she was a victim of online misinformation about the mosque.

Assistant federal defender Shannon Elkins also said gender dysphoria fueled Hari's inner conflict, saying she wanted to transition but knew she would be ostracized, so she formed a rag-tag group of freedom fighters or militia men and secretly looked up sex change, transgender surgery, and post-op transgender on the internet.

Prosecutors said gender dysphoria is not an excuse and said using it to deflect guilt is offensive.

Prosecutors asked for several sentencing enhancements, arguing the bombing was a hate crime led by Hari. They also say Hari committed obstruction when she tried to escape from custody during her transfer from Illinois to Minnesota for trial in February 2019. Hari denied trying to flee.

Hari, a former sheriffs deputy and self-described entrepreneur and watermelon farmer, self-published books including essays on religion, and has floated ideas for a border wall with Mexico. She gained attention on the Dr. Phil talk show after she fled to the Central American nation of Belize in the early 2000s during a custody dispute. She was convicted of child abduction and sentenced to probation.

Before her 2018 arrest in the mosque bombing, she used the screen name Illinois Patriot to post more than a dozen videos to YouTube, most of them anti-government monologues.

Hari, McWhorter and Morris were also charged in a failed November 2017 attack on an abortion clinic in Champaign, Illinois. Plea agreements for McWhorter and Morris say the men participated in an armed home invasion in Indiana, and the armed robberies or attempted armed robberies of two Walmart stores in Illinois.

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This story was first published on Sept. 13. It was updated on Sept. 16 to correct that Belize is in Central America, not South America.
On Wednesday, Illinois Gov. J.B, Pritzker joined the Aviation Institute of Maintenance, Congresswoman Marie Newman, City of Chicago officials, and members of the community in announcing a first-of-its-kind aviation training facility opening in Chicagos McKinley Park neighborhood.

With support from the State of Illinois, the new AIM campus will expand access to industry-standard aviation training programs, increase the talent pipeline for Illinois growing aviation industry, and unlock a long-term investment of 75 permanent jobs for the community.

At 137,000 square feet, the Chicago facility will be AIMs largest training program in the nation, and its 14th campus overall. Working with longstanding industry partners and a range of educational partners in Chicago, the new campus plans to begin enrolling for classes set to begin on Sept. 27.

"Our long-term economic success as a state depends on our investment in the next generation of leaders, who will soon take on the task of steering our most important industries to meet the demands of the next decades," Pritzker said. "As governor, Im committed to building on Illinoiss transportation leadership by working to educate and empower new talent and bring historically underrepresented populations into the field.

"Today, we have a new partner in that work: with the support of an EDGE agreement from the state, the Aviation Institute of Maintenance, or AIM, is set to open its largest aviation training facility in Chicago," Pritzker continued. "I look forward to watching the AIM campus take the talent, diversity, and strength of our workforce to new heights."



Construction on the training facility is now complete at 3711 S. Ashland Ave. AIM converted a former warehouse into a modern training facility with a large hangar, 17 classrooms, an avionics lab, and 31 administrative offices to support students. The Chicago campus will be 30% larger than AIMs two current largest campuses, which will allow them to bring aviation maintenance training currently lacking in the area. AIM is a leading provider of training for students pursuing certification in aviation maintenance.

"AIM is thrilled to bring our proven industry training programs to Illinois as we work to prepare the next generation for exciting roles in the aviation industry," said AIM Executive Vice President, Dr. Joel English. "Thanks to support from the State of Illinois, City Colleges of Chicago, and numerous industry partners, we will launch our latest program in the country, with an emphasis on delivering training programs to match the needs of local employers and to increase diversity in the workforce.

"We look forward to launching classes this fall, partnering with Olive-Harvey College and with colleges and universities statewide to bring students access to training that will allow them to compete for well-paying jobs in this fast-growing field," English continued.

AIM received an Illinois Economic Development for a Growing Economy Tax Credit based on its plans to deliver a $10 million capital investment in the McKinley Park community and 75 jobs by the end of 2022.

"Under Governor Pritzkers leadership, Illinois continues to make significant investments in workforce training opportunities for high-growth industries, like transportation," said DCEO Acting Director Sylvia Garcia. "The launch of the new Aviation Institute of Maintenance Campus in Chicago is a win-win for Illinoisans as we work to bring in-demand job training programs to all of our communities, help Illinois employers meet their future talent needs, and continue our efforts to boost investment and economic opportunity across the state."

AIM will deliver FAA-certified aviation maintenance training for students, with an initial 40 students to be enrolled in 2021 and plans to serve 200 students next year. Following approval by the Illinois Board of Higher Education and other industry accreditation approvals, AIM has established a credit sharing agreement with the City Colleges of Chicago, allowing it to offer coursework this fall.

AIM has also partnered with Southern Illinois Universitys School of Aviation to provide opportunities for AIM students to receive a bachelors degree post-graduation and will also pursue articulated agreements with additional Illinois universities and colleges to spur the recruitment of minority students. With the Olive-Harvey College partnership, students will have the opportunity to take four General courses while in high school and those General courses will transfer into AIMs A&P program and beyond.

Graduates focusing on the field of aviation maintenance in the Chicago metropolitan area will have the potential to earn an annual wage of $72,000 per year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In addition to higher-than-average wages, the job outlook for aircraft mechanics shows faster than average growth  with jobs in the aerospace industry in Illinois projected to grow 9% over the next 10 years, compared to just 3% for the U.S.

AIM considers a number of factors when establishing a new campus, including the needs of employers. Recruitment efforts are now underway for the Chicago campus and will focus on the local demographic and underserved populations within a 50-mile radius of the campus.

Training programs will prepare students with certifications needed to work for any number of airline or aviation industry partners based in Chicago and Illinois. Industry partners will receive discounted tuition rates for employees to encourage more diverse recruitment and solidify a consistent pipeline of industry professionals.

"Over the next five years, United plans to adds hundreds of brand-new aircraft to our fleet which creates an opportunity to hire 25,000 new team members across every department, including up to 3,000 in Illinois alone," said Tom Doxey, Uniteds senior vice president of technical operations. "Because of the specialized training our maintenance teams require, its imperative that we have access to state-of-the-art facilities and programs like this one to help ensure we are pulling from a pipeline of quality talent. This is an exciting step forward and were proud to work alongside the State of Illinois and the City of Chicago as the vision for the new AIM campus now becomes a reality."
Arron Ohnemus of Jacksonville has been named to the summer semester presidents list at Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester, New Hampshire.

To earn president list honors, a student must have a 3.7 or higher grade point average.
Cuba opens door to more private business, but red tape looms View Photo

HAVANA (AP)  Opening a small business is a bureaucratic headache in many parts of the world. In Cuba, its an adventure in largely unknown territory.

Most sorts of private businesses have been banned for more than 50 years, even if hundreds of thousands of Cubans in recent years have taken advantage of reforms that opened up cracks for small private enterprise in the once-solid wall of the state-dominated socialist economy.

Now, after five years of waiting, a new legal system takes effect on Sept. 20 that could greatly expand the scope of private businesses, and give them greater legal certainty in efforts to help an economy in crisis.

Cautious or enthusiastic, business executives are concerned about an inefficient credit system, the requirement to have U.S. dollars that the state itself does not sell and limitations on hiring professional services.

Knowing that I can have a company, a business in Cuba, in my country, invest, take risks in the markets and that this is supported by law  is peace of mind for me, said Carlos Gomez, the 35-year-old owner of the audiovisual production company Wajiros Films.

The company has made at least 35 films since its opening in 2017, short, long and international co-productions, all under the label of artistic creation collective but without a legal status. That carries negative consequences such as the impossibility of having bank accounts, the lack of distinction between business and family assets, and the impossibility of importing equipment.

At the end of August, Cuban authorities published in the Official Gazette about 20 norms that allow and regulate small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which were eliminated in 1968 in a revolutionary offensive against the last vestiges of private property.

At that time, warehouses, bars or repair shops were closed or absorbed by the state, which struggled to manage those businesses efficiently.

But the government legalized a tightly limited  but legal  form of self-employment in the early 1990s to cope with the crisis caused by the collapse of Soviet aid. It taxed and squeezed, but never eliminated the sector.

Cuban leaders had always been uneasy with private economic activity, previously describing it as an evil that was necessary to provide jobs and services that the state could not during hard times. The government had also complained about inequality associated with self-employment, since a private worker could earn much more than a state worker.

But as of 2010, former President Raul Castro recognized the lack of productivity and slightly opened the economy to individual initiative. Some businesses ended up having more than 50 employees despite the fact that they were officially self-employed.

In 2019, before the pandemic and the effects of the US sanctions that suffocated the economy, there were about 600,000 self-employed workers, most of them linked to the tourism market.

One was tied to a self-employment license that had many limitations. With the legalization (of SMEs), new possibilities and perspectives are opened. Among these is the recognition of several partners in a business and legal status, said Lauren Fajardo, designer and co-owner of Dador, a clothing workshop created by her and two friends that employed about 10 people. Like hundreds of other initiatives, the business has been paralyzed by the pandemic.

The new regulations establish that SMEs  a mandatory status for companies with more than three workers  will be established as limited liability companies that must be approved by the Ministry of the Economy.

They may have up to 100 employees and they will be allowed all activities except those that the State reserves as strategic  education, health, defense, waste management and mining, among others.

There will be limitations on professional services. The establishment of companies of this type or their independent exercise is not allowed, so architects, engineers or lawyers are not authorized to set up law firms but they can be employed as staff of SMEs.

The positive thing about these rules is that they arrived I think it is time to think about how to take advantage of it and that these really contribute to the growth of the country,  economist Omar Everleny Perez said.

Experts and businessmen had asked for the laws for more than five years. They were published in the midst of a crisis with an 11% drop in GDP in 2020, a shortage of basic goods and a growth of the black market. Social tension reached such a point that in July there were unusual and massive protest demonstrations on the island.

Now that they have laws, entrepreneurs have begun to evaluate their impact. The AP spoke with more than a dozen of them and some chose not to give their names to fully analyze their concerns.

One of the questions among those who have established businesses, for example, is how the capital or machinery will be certified, since many were acquired irregularly or rescued from abandoned state workshops.

Many wonder how the credit system in Cuban pesos will operate if raw materials are acquired in dollars, or how goods such as vehicles that the state does not offer or allow to bring from abroad will be obtained, or whether employees will be able to have unions.

One aspect that causes concern is that the law allows for Cuban citizens and permanent residents in the country to open limited liability companies, or LLCs. But it excludes emigrants who in many cases are the true owners of enterprises that are already operating, or owners of the capital necessary to form an SME.

In addition, the authorities reported that what will open on Sept. 20 is a call to register LLCs and cooperatives but by sectors, starting with those in food production or with a technological base. Many entrepreneurs wonder how long they will have to wait for an appointment if they are outside the areas considered key by the government, despite the fact that their initiatives will generate jobs.

People are seeking to understand, understand the context and above all to find opportunities to promote projects, said Oniel Diaz, co-founder of the Auge consultancy.

Diaz held advisory talks with business people to discuss the law. During the meetings, he noted a change that could show the future of SMEs in Cuba: given that tourism is paralyzed and the only thing that can supply customers is the national market, there could be a reconfiguration of the sector after the pandemic.

And the businesses that are coming to us today are no longer restaurants, they are no longer cafeterias, they are no longer small restaurants or rental companies. They are people who want a construction business, to produce food, flower shops  with added value, Diaz said.

By ANDREA RODRIGUEZ

Associated Press
Tuolumne Public Health reports 33 new COVID-19 cases since yesterday report and 210 active cases including 16 who are hospitalized. The total current case rate, a 14-day average for Tuolumne County is down to 50.9 per 100,000 population from 52.7 yesterday. A total of 4,235 have been released from isolation after testing positive for COVID-19, 210 cases are currently active, there have been 99 deaths and 1,619 inmate cases for a total of 6,163 total cases.

Todays newly reported cases include 5 cases age 17 or under and 14 cases are age 60 and older. The gender and age breakdown is; 2 girls and 1 boy age 0-11, 3 girls and 1 boy age 12-17, 3 women and 3 men age 18-29, 1 woman and 2 men age 30-39, 1 woman and 2 men age 40 to 49, 1 man age 50-59, 2 women and 4 men age 60 -69, 2 women and 2 men age 70 to 79, and 2 women and 2 men age 80 to 89.

Of the 33 new community cases, 25 were unvaccinated and 8 were vaccinated. There are no new Sierra Conservation Center (SCC) inmate cases, the California Department of Corrections reports 12 active inmate cases, there are two correctional facilities in the state with more active Covid cases.

Tuolumne Public Health will be holding flu clinic events that will be available September 29th on myturn.ca.gov or call 209-533-7401 to make an appointment. Health officials say walk-ins at drive thru clinics are welcomed but may experience longer wait times. The upcoming clinics are

Wednesday, October 6, 2021 9am to 12 pm, 1pm to 4pm

Sierra Bible Church  15171 Tuolumne Rd, Sonora, CA 95370

Wednesday, October 13, 2021 1pm-4pm

Groveland Library/Youth Center  1890 Main St. Groveland, CA 95321

Tuesdays at the Public Health Department 8:30-11:30 a.m. by appointment only

20111 Cedar Rd N, Sonora, CA 95370

Dr. Tony Conte, a local pediatrician shared his thoughts on school starting and common sense information for 2021 in his blog here.

Calaveras County Public Health reports 52 new Covid cases since yesterdays report and 95 active cases up from 83 yesterday. The active cases includes 3 current Covid hospitalizations. There are 9 new cases age 0-17 and 2 new cases in individuals age 65 years old or older. Since the pandemic began Calaveras has had 470 Covid-19 positive people who are 17 and under and 573 Covid-19 positive people 65 and over.

COVID-19 Testing If you believe you have been exposed to COVID, schedule an appointment to get tested 5 days after exposure. If you are having any symptoms, please get tested right away. The State testing site is open 7 days a week beginning from 7 AM to 7 PM at the Mother Lode Fairgrounds. Appointments should be made rather than walking in. Appointments can be scheduled at www.lhi.care/covidtesting or by calling 888-634-1123. Testing is also available through, some pharmacies, at Rapid Care or the hospital emergency department if you are experiencing any symptoms, or contact your healthcare provider.

COVID-19 Vaccines Vaccine appointments can be made at local pharmacies and through myturn.ca.gov or by calling 833-422-4255. Anyone 12 and older is eligible for a COVID vaccine, Pfizer is approved for anyone age 12 or over. As detailed here healthcare workers are required to be vaccinated by September 30. The Pfizer vaccine requires 3 weeks between doses and the Moderna requires 4 weeks. The J&J vaccine requires only one dose. Call or email with any questions you may have Tuolumne is available at (209) 533-7440 Health@tuolumnecounty.ca.gov, Mariposa at (209) 259-1332 or mariposacovid19@gmail.com more numbers are available on our COVID-19 vaccine page here.

Public Health continues to strongly encourage everyone who is eligible to get vaccinated, as the most important step to reduce the spread of disease and prevent serious illness and death, as well as to reduce the impact on the healthcare system. In addition, the continued practice of other preventive actions like wearing a mask in public, keeping your distance, avoiding crowds, washing hands, and staying home when sick will help slow the spread of the virus. The vaccination rate for Tuolumne county is 54% of eligible people.

Health Officials detail, Choosing to help the Public Health Department slow the spread of COVID-19 helps protect you, your family, and your community. We all need to work together to slow the spread of COVID-19. We strongly encourage everyone to be part of the solution and answer the phoneit may be the health department calling to let you know your test result came back positive for COVID-19, or that you have been in close contact with someone who has it. For more information on contact tracing click here, for isolation and quarantine information go here.

Mariposa County Public Health says We have had a lot of questions around Vaccine Immunity vs. Natural Immunity, here are some quick facts  Both can provide some protection from infection (or reinfection with natural immunity), but the risks of relying on a natural infection for immunity are significant. Learn more about long-term risk of infections here. Also regarding Long COVID they state, this resource helps to address all post-COVID conditions, including long COVID. Its important to know that each person will experience and cope with long-term illness differently, so its a good idea to follow up with your primary care provider. There is a common misunderstanding that recovered means someone is completely well. This is not the case. In fact, in some medical sense, being deceased could qualify as recovered. The CDC definition of recovered for COVID-19 means 24 hours have passed since the fever break without fever-reducing medications, and symptoms have improved, and at least 10 days have passed since the onset of symptoms.

County/Date

Tier Color Active

Cases New Cases

Total Cases COVID

Deaths Amador 9/14 141 56 2,879 49 Calaveras 9/15 95 52 3,197 67 Mariposa 9/15 67 9 942 12 Mono 9/15 47 7 1,242 5 Stanislaus 9/15 2,360 143 71,278 1,210 Tuolumne 9/15 210 33 6,163 99
Cyprus recovers looted 18th century church doors from Japan View Photo

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP)  Cyprus Orthodox Church formally took charge Thursday of two ornately decorated 18th century doors stolen from a church in the ethnically divided islands breakaway north and reclaimed from a Japanese art college after a long legal battle.

Communications and Works Minister Yiannis Karousos said the wooden doors  painted with religious scenes, carved and gilded  were discovered at the Kanazawa Art College more than 20 years ago and their return followed long and intensive efforts.

No information was provided on how the college acquired them.

The artifacts originally stood in the central gateway of the iconostasis  the ornately decorated screen that separates the sanctuary from the rest of an Orthodox church  of Saint Anastasios in Peristeronopigi village.

Built in 1775, the church sits atop a cave where the saints grave is preserved.

The doors were stolen after the islands ethnic split in 1974, when Turkey invaded in response to a coup aimed at union with Greece. Turkish Cypriots declared independence in the north, thats recognized only by Turkey.

In what Karousos called cultural genocide, hundreds of frescoes, mosaics and other religious works of art were looted from churches in the north after the invasion.

Since 1974, Cypriot government and church authorities have fought long legal battles in the United States, Europe and elsewhere to reclaim them.

Karousos said the doors repatriation sends the message to antiquities smugglers and the international ring of crooks that however many years go by, (Cyprus) will hunt them down, because cultural genocide cannot be tolerated anywhere in the world.
US faith leaders recall Sikhs bias killing post Sept. 11 View Photo

MESA, Ariz. (AP)  Sikh businessman Balbir Singh Sodhi was helping plant a flower bed at his Arizona gas station when he was shot dead by a man seeking to avenge 9/11. Mistaken for an Arab Muslim because of his turban and beard, Sodhi was the first person to die in a wave of bias crimes unleashed by the attacks.

Five shots rang out and Balbir uncle fell and died right there, he bled to death not knowing who shot him or why, Sikh activist Valarie Kaur told scores of people gathered Wednesday night at the Chevron station for the 20th anniversary of Sodhis murder. His killer, when arrested, said: I am a patriot.

9/11 released a dangerous wave of white supremacy and Islamophobia that, two decades later, continues to manifest in attacks on members of a variety of belief traditions. But religious leaders say Sept. 11 also broadened, diversified and solidified interfaith movements as more Muslims and members of other lesser-known groups increasingly were pulled in.

Sept. 11 opened a spigot for hate and bigotry in the United States, but it also opened a space for groups to come together and know each other better, said Tony Kireopoulos, who oversees interfaith relations for the National Council of Churches in New York the largest Christian ecumenical organization in the U.S.

One example is his groups ongoing dialogue efforts with Sikhs, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and Jews, said Kireopoulos, a Greek Orthodox theologian and associate general secretary for the council.

The council of Christian denominations was involved in the early efforts of the Shoulder to Shoulder Campaign, a national coalition formed a decade after Sept. 11 to counter anti-Muslim sentiment amid an uproar over efforts to build an Islamic center near ground zero.

Increased anti-Islam rhetoric also prompted the council to deepen its Muslim-Christian dialogue to not only create understanding, but help people from different faiths form true friendships, said Kireopoulos.

Weve always had contact with the Muslim groups, but after 9/11 it became more intentional, he said. When you meet frequently you get to know each other, so you can respond as neighbors and friends.

Maggie Siddiqi, senior director of faith initiatives at the Center for American Progress, a Washington policy institute, said those kinds of interfaith efforts were broadly welcomed by Muslims in the U.S., who were targeted more aggressively than ever before.

Hate crimes against Muslims surged from 28 in 2000 to 481 in 2001, according to FBI statistics. There were 176 hate crimes against Muslims and 49 against Sikhs in 2019. Such crimes against Sikhs were not recorded in a separate category until 2015.

Its hard sometimes to see the silver lining, but there has been a lot of learning going on over the last 20 years, said Siddiqi, who was trained as a Muslim chaplain.

In the leadup to this months Sept. 11 memorial events, she noted, Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt apologized to Muslims for his organizations opposition a decade ago to the opening of an Islamic Center blocks from the World Trade Center site, calling it wrong, plain and simple. The leagues opposition came several years before Greenblatt joined the civil rights organization. The center was never built.

Suspicion of Muslims didnt start with Sept. 11, but the terror attacks amplified the mistrust.

A poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research conducted ahead of the 9/11 anniversary found that 53% of Americans have unfavorable views toward Islam, compared with 42% who have favorable ones. Thats in contrast to mostly favorable opinions about Christianity and Judaism.

The Sikh Coalition was formed in the wake of 9/11 to advocate for the rights of Sikh Americans and educate people about the faith, even working to include Sikh history in school curriculum standards. It also has documented more than 300 cases of violence and discrimination against Sikh Americans in just the first few months after the attacks.

Such attacks and others against people of different faiths cause religious leaders to warn that countering bias remains an urgent task.

I still dont think we are in a good place, said Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz, president and dean of Valley Beit Midrash, a Phoenix-based global center for learning and action rooted in Jewish teachings. I really worry for minority groups in general and especially for Muslims, Sikhs and refugees seeking asylum.

Yanklowitz was unable to join this years memorial honoring Sodhi because it coincided with Yom Kippur, the holiest night on the Jewish calendar. But more than 100 people attended, including local and national politicians and Sikh, Christian and Muslim leaders.

There was hardly a mention of Frank Roque, who is serving a life sentence in the Sept. 15, 2001 killing. He also was accused of drive-by shootings that same day at an Afghan familys home and a Lebanese mans convenience store, although no one was injured in those attacks.

Rana Singh Sodhi has since forgiven the killer and works to keep his brothers legacy alive, sharing his story with schoolchildren, faith groups and government officials.

We celebrate not only my brothers life but all the victims of 9/11 and all the victims of hate crimes, Sodhi said from a stage in front of the gas pumps as cars whooshed by in the dark. To show unity and love to each other  thats the only way we can combat the hate.

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support from the Lilly Endowment through The Conversation U.S. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

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Follow Anita Snow at twitter.com/asnowreports

By ANITA SNOW

Associated Press
EXPLAINER: The Texas abortion laws swift impact, and future View Photo

AUSTIN, Texas (AP)  A federal judge in October will hear the Biden administrations efforts to block Texas new law banning most abortions, which is already putting a strain on clinics and patients in the two weeks since it took effect.

U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman, an appointee of President Barack Obama, will decide whether to grant a temporary hold that could allow Texas clinics to resume performing abortions on most patients. Currently under the new law, abortions in Texas are now prohibited once medical professionals can detect cardiac activity, usually around six weeks.

Supporters of the law known as Senate Bill 8 are preparing for a ruling that favors the Justice Departments challenge but believe the measure  the strictest abortion law in the nation  will ultimately be upheld.

Here are some questions and answers about whats next and the impact so far:

___

WHAT HAS BEEN THE IMPACT?

Abortion providers say the ramifications have been punishing and exactly what we feared.

More than 100 pages of new court filings this week offered the most comprehensive glimpse at how the near-total ban on abortion in Texas has played out. Physicians and executives at Texas nearly two dozen abortion clinics described turning away hundreds of patients, and some who show up for appointments cannot proceed because cardiac activity has been detected.

One Planned Parenthood location in Houston normally performed about two dozen abortions daily, but in the 10 days after the law took effect, the clinic had done a total of 52. Clinics in nearby states, meanwhile, say they are struggling to meet surging demand and care for their own residents is being delayed to accommodate women making long trips from Texas.

At a Planned Parenthood clinic in Oklahoma City, more than 60% of the 219 appointments over the next two weeks are for women from Texas. Doctors say recent patients from Texas have included rape victims, as SB8 makes no exceptions in cases of rape or incest.

Texas abortion providers say they are complying with SB8, and there are no reports of lawsuits accusing clinics of violations.

____

WHAT WAS THE LANDSCAPE IN TEXAS BEFORE?

More than 55,000 abortions were performed last year in Texas, which already had some of the nations strictest abortion laws, including a ban after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

____

IF A JUDGE SIDES WITH CLINICS, HOW SOON COULD THEY REOPEN?

If the new Texas law is put on hold by a court, abortion providers say it could be done quickly, but how soon is likely to depend on several factors.

Abortion providers in Texas have experience when it comes to abruptly ramping up operations again. In the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, abortions in Texas were all but banned for weeks under orders by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott that postponed surgeries not immediately medically necessary.

But providers are already reporting staffing issues and worry some clinics will permanently shutter the longer SB8 is in effect. A decade ago, Texas had more than 40 abortion clinics, but more than half of them closed for good during a protracted legal battle over a 2013 law that was ultimately overturned by the Supreme Court.

I believe that, without court-ordered relief in the next couple of weeks, SB8 will shutter most if not all of the remaining abortion clinics in Texas, Amy Hagstrom Miller, president of the abortion provider Whole Womans Health, told the court this week.

Seth Chandler, a professor of law at the University of Houston, said he believes the judge will act within two weeks. But he said even if Pitman temporarily stops the law from being enforced, abortion clinics may still be reticent to quickly resume normal operations over concerns of a swift appeal.

If I were an abortion clinic, I would still be concerned, Chandler said.

____

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

The Biden administration filed its lawsuit a week ago and this week asked for a temporary restraining order that would put SB8 on hold while the lawsuit proceeds.

Texas Right to Life, the states largest anti-abortion group and a driver of the new law, has cheered the fact that it has stopped abortions everyday that it has been in effect.

A ruling to grant a temporary hold wouldnt decide the constitutionality of the law, though whether the administrations lawsuit  which calls it clearly unconstitutional  is likely to succeed is a factor in putting the law on hold. At the hearing, Pitman will hear from both sides, and a written ruling would likely follow.

In the short term, that means SB8 is in effect unless and until Pitman says differently. Supporters of the law are already anticipating Pitman will rule against the law and are preparing their next move. If theyre right and Pitman puts the laws enforcement on hold, abortion providers could theoretically resume their previous practices. But Texas could also quickly ask a federal appeals court to reinstate the law, and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that oversees Texas is a conservative-leaning panel with a track record of staying lower-court rulings from Austin.

The law has already made one trip to the Supreme Court. The justices voted 5-4 not to intervene to prevent it from taking effect, but they said further challenges were possible. With the Biden administrations challenge underway, the law could return to the justices quickly.

__

HOW ARE OTHER STATES RESPONDING?

After Texas law went into effect Republican lawmakers in at least half a dozen states said they would consider introducing bills using the Texas law as a model, hoping it provides a pathway to enacting the kind of abortion crackdown they have sought for years. Those states include Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Mississippi, North Dakota and South Dakota.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, two dozen state attorneys general, all Democrats, submitted a brief in the Biden administrations lawsuit saying a substantial reduction of abortion access in one state would result in health care systems being burdened elsewhere. They asked Pitman to block enforcement of the law.

The City Council in Portland, Oregon, briefly considered a boycott of Texas businesses because of the new law but instead decided to set aside $200,000 to fund reproductive care.

__

Gresko reported from Washington.

By PAUL J. WEBER and JESSICA GRESKO

Associated Press
Florida surpasses 50K COVID deaths after battling delta wave View Photo

MIAMI (AP)  Florida surpassed 50,000 coronavirus deaths since the pandemic began, health officials reported Thursday, with more than one fourth of those succumbing this summer as the state battled a fierce surge in infections fueled by the delta variant.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tallied 50,811 deaths after adding more than 1,500 COVID-19 deaths provided Thursday by the states health department. Those reported deaths occurred over various dates in recent weeks.

Florida has the 11th worst per-capita death rate among the 50 states, the CDC says. New Jersey, Mississippi and New York have had the worst, but Florida has risen from the 17th spot in the past two weeks.

Overall, about one in every 400 Florida residents who were alive in March 2020 has since died of COVID-19. Only cancer and heart disease have killed more Floridians during that period, according to state health department statistics. Those have each killed about 70,000 Floridians.

Gov. Ron DeSantis spoke somberly when asked about surpassing 50,000 COVID-19 deaths during a Fort Lauderdale news conference promoting the use of monoclonal antibodies, a treatment for people infected with the disease that reduces death and hospitalization if given early.

It has been a really tough year and a half, DeSantis said.

The Republican governor, who has advocated against mask and vaccine mandates, said the most recent wave, which began in June, has struck younger and healthier people. Numerous police officers and firefighters have died from the disease.

It is affecting families in ways that we are not used to, so it has been really, really rough, DeSantis said. Out of about 50 people present at the news conference, DeSantis was the only one who did not wear a mask when not speaking. He has promoted vaccination and has been inoculated, but did not receive his shot publicly as many elected officials did.

Epidemiologists say the states rates of vaccination outpaced the national average, but it was not enough to keep the highly contagious variant at bay because of its outsized population of elderly people and low vaccination rates among younger groups they interact with.

On a per-capita basis, rural and semi-rural counties in central and north Florida were hit the hardest. Most of those counties have vaccination rates that are at or below the statewide average of 63% of residents 12 and older. Florida counts someone as vaccinated if they have received at least one dose, even though both the Pfizer and Moderna versions both require two doses to be fully effective.

Monroe County, which consists mostly of the Florida Keys, has seen the fewest deaths per capita  one for every 1,115 residents and one of the highest vaccination rates. Another tourist mecca, Orange County, home to Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando, had the third-lowest per capita death count.

Alachua County, home to the University of Florida, and Leon County, home to the state capital Tallahassee and Florida State University, have been the second- and fourth-least deadly places.

Now, weeks since infections peaked, the state has seen steep drops in hospitalizations and infections. The number of COVID-19 patients in hospitals finally dropped below the 10,000 mark on Thursday with 9,917 patients, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. That number reached more than 17,000 COVID-19 people on Aug. 23.

The number of new cases per day is now averaging 12,200, down from 21,700 in mid August.

Deaths are expected to continue to climb for late August and early September because of the way they are logged in Florida and the lags in reporting.

By TERRY SPENCER and ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON
Dean Heller to enter governors race in battleground Nevada View Photo

CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP)  Former U.S. Sen. Dean Heller will announce a bid for governor of Nevada on Monday, joining a crowded field of Republican hopefuls vying to unseat Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak in 2022.

His entrance into the race in the battleground state adds a high-profile candidate to whats expected to be among the most competitive of the next years 36 gubernatorial elections.

The Carson City Republican Party has scheduled Heller to appear for a special announcement at their headquarters. A party official and person close to the campaign not authorized to publicly comment on the special announcement ahead of time confirmed the former senator would declare his candidacy at an event in the state capital.

If he does, hell join a field that includes Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo, North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee, attorney Joey Gilbert, surgeon Fred Simon and businessmen Guy Nohra. The gubernatorial primary is scheduled to take place in June 2022.

Heller, through a representative, declined to comment about his plans for the announcement. At a Basque-themed barbecue hosted by U.S. Senate candidate Adam Laxalt in August, he told The Associated Press he would decide after Labor Day.

Carson City Republican Committee Chair Scott Hoen wouldnt say what Hellers planned announcement entailed. He said he expected 50 to 60 guests to pack into the chapters small space Monday morning.

The unspecified announcement will be followed by an event in Las Vegas, but Hoen said Carson City had special significance to Heller as his hometown.

Heller, 61, mostly withdrew from political life after losing a hard-fought 2018 U.S. Senate race against Democrat Jacky Rosen, during which he weathered attacks from both left and right.

Then-President Donald Trump berated him in 2017 for initially opposing one Republican-led effort to repeal parts of the Affordable Care Act.

Heller and Trump reconciled during the drafting of the federal tax cut passed later that year and the two men campaigned together in the lead-up to November 2018. On a Trump campaign-organized call with reporters in August 2020, he paid tribute to the president and said he had been spending most of his time working on his farm and digging irrigation ditches in northern Nevadas rural Smith Valley. But Heller has not publicly weighed on Trumps false claims of fraud and some of his supporters attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

In a statement after the Carson City GOP announced the event, Mallory Payne, a spokeswoman for the Nevada Democratic Victory group working to reelect Sisolak, previewed Nevada Democrats line of attack for 2022.

Dean Heller is entering a civil war, but lets be clear  hes going into battle for himself, not Nevadans. Nevadans already rejected Heller once after he prioritized caving to his base to save his career over doing his job, she said, referencing his relationship with Trump and decision to ultimately vote for a pared-down ACA repeal proposal.

If Heller can address for voters his bumpy history with Trump, who remains a standard-bearer for Nevada Republicans, hell likely enjoy widespread name recognition and a rolodex of donors hes collected through five statewide runs  two for U.S. Senate and three for secretary of state.

His entrance into the race comes as other candidates are attempting to consolidate support from top donors.

Last week, a political action committee led by Mark Hutchison, the former lieutenant governor who is now chairing Lombardos campaign, raised eyebrows when it submitted a $2.1 million campaign finance filing months before an end-of-year deadline, reporting contributions from a company incorporated last year that lists Las Vegas real estate developer Robert Bigelow as its sole officer. In Nevada, independent PACs registered through the state are not subject to campaign spending limits.

In recent months, Heller has canvassed GOP clubs throughout Nevada ahead of his expected announcement. He gave a three-minute stump speech alongside fellow candidates Gilbert and Lombardo at a rural county Republican event in June. At the Basque Fry last month, he glad-handed attendees in the general audience and VIP section but did not speak.

Nevada Democrats currently hold three U.S. House seats, two U.S. Senate seats, the governorship and control of both statehouse chambers. But President Joe Biden won the state by 2.4 percentage points  a smaller margin for Democrats than all but four battlegrounds. Sisolak defeated Laxalt by 4.1 percentage points in 2018.

Republicans hope past trends that have swung midterm voters toward the opposition party will allow them to flip governorships and U.S. Senate seats. They hope that the pandemics effect on Nevadas tourism-powered economy and opposition to Sisolaks coronavirus measures will convince voters.

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Sam Metz is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

By SAM METZ

AP / Report for America
Lawyer charged in probe of Trump-Russia investigation View Photo

WASHINGTON (AP)  The prosecutor tasked with examining the U.S. governments investigation into Russian election interference charged a prominent cybersecurity lawyer on Thursday with making a false statement to the FBI five years ago.

The indictment accuses Michael Sussmann of hiding that he was working with Hillary Clintons presidential campaign during a September 2016 conversation he had with the FBIs general counsel, when he relayed concerns from cybersecurity researchers about potentially suspicious contacts between a Russian bank and a Trump Organization server. The FBI looked into the matter but ultimately found no evidence of a secret back channel.

That deception mattered because it deprived the FBI of information that might have permitted it to more fully assess and uncover the origins of the relevant data and technical analysis, including the identities and motivations of Sussmanns clients, according to the indictment filed by special counsel John Durham and his team of prosecutors.

Sussmanns lawyers said their client was charged because of politics, not facts.

The Special Counsel appears to be using this indictment to advance a conspiracy theory he has chosen not to actually charge. This case represents the opposite of everything the Department of Justice is supposed to stand for. Mr. Sussmann will fight this baseless and politically-inspired prosecution, attorneys Sean Berkowitz and Michael Bosworth said in a statement.

The case against Sussmann is just the second prosecution brought by Durham in two and a half years of work. Both involve false statements, yet neither undoes the core finding of an earlier investigation by Robert Mueller that Russia had interfered in sweeping fashion on behalf of Donald Trumps 2016 presidential campaign and that the Trump campaign welcomed that aid.

The indictment also lays bare the wide-ranging and evolving nature of Durhams investigation. In addition to having scrutinized the activities of FBI and CIA officials during the early days of the Russia probe, it has also looked at the behavior of private individuals like Sussman who provided the U.S. government with information as it scrambled to determine whether Trump associates were coordinating with Russia to tip the elections outcome.

The indictment concerns a Sept. 19, 2016, meeting at FBI headquarters between Sussmann and the FBIs then-general counsel, James Baker. During the meeting, prosecutors say, Sussmann provided Baker with three white papers and data files that purported to show a potential connection between Russia-based Alfa Bank and a Trump Organization server.

The indictment notes that the FBI investigation determined that the email server was not actually owned or operated by the Trump Organization but was instead administered by a mass marketing email company that sent advertisements for Trump hotels.

According to the indictment, Sussmann said he was not presenting the materials on behalf of any particular client, which prosecutors say led Baker to believe that Sussmann was acting as a good citizen rather than a paid advocate or political operative.

Sussmanns attorneys say he met with Baker because a major news organization was about to publish a story about Alfa Bank, and he wanted to give Baker a copy of the material on which the story would be based. Besides, they say, it didnt matter who Sussmanns clients were because the FBI would presumably have looked into the issue whether there was a political connection or not.

The Alfa Bank matter was not a pivotal element of the Russia probe and was not even mentioned in Muellers 448-page report in 2019. Still, the indictment may give fodder to Russia investigation critics who regard the probe as politically tainted and engineered by Democrats.

Sussmanns former firm, Perkins Coie, has deep Democratic connections. Sussmann represented the Democratic National Committee in connection with a Russian government hack of its email servers. A then-partner at the firm, Marc Elias, brokered a deal with the Fusion GPS research firm to study Trumps business ties to Russia.

That work yielded a dossier of research from former British spy Christopher Steele that helped form the basis of flawed surveillance applications targeting a former Trump campaign official, Carter Page.

A spokesman for Perkins Coie said Sussmann, who has been on leave from the firm, offered his resignation from the firm in order to focus on his legal defense, and the firm accepted it.

The Durham investigation has already lasted months longer than the earlier special counsel probe into Russian election interference conducted by Mueller, the former FBI director, and his team. The investigation was slowed by the coronavirus pandemic and experienced leadership tumult following the abrupt departure last fall of a top deputy on Durhams team.

Though Trump had eagerly anticipated Durhams findings in hopes that theyd be a boon to his reelection campaign, any political impact the conclusion may have once had has been dimmed by the fact that Trump is no longer in office.

The Durham appointment by then-Attorney General William Barr in 2019 was designed to examine potential errors or misconduct in the U.S. governments investigation into whether Trumps 2016 presidential campaign was conspiring with Russia to sway the election.

A two-year investigation by Mueller established that the Trump campaign was eager to receive and benefit from Kremlin aid, and documented multiple interactions between Russians and Trump associates. Investigators said they did not find enough evidence to charge any campaign official with having conspired with Russia, though a half-dozen Trump aides were charged with various offenses, including false statements.

Until now, Durham had brought only one criminal case  a false statement charge against an FBI lawyer who altered an email related to the surveillance of Page to obscure the nature of Pages preexisting relationship with the CIA. That lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to probation.

By ERIC TUCKER

Associated Press
Covered California director to step down in February View Photo

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP)  The director of Covered California said Thursday he will step down early next year, prompting a national search for a new leader of the nations largest state-based health insurance marketplace.

Peter Lee has been Covered Californias only executive director in its nine-year history, launching the marketplace in 2012 at a time when the Affordable Care Act was a polarizing force in U.S. politics.

During his tenure, Covered California dramatically expanded the number of people eligible for discounts in their monthly health insurance premiums. A record high 1.6 million people in the state with a population of about 40 million people now buy their health insurance through Covered California. That helped to reduce the states uninsured rate to 7.7% in 2019 from 18.5% in 2010, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Lee, 62, said the recent deaths of his mother and uncle caused him to pause and reflect on what he wants to do with the next phase of his life. He does not have another job lined up.

Covered California has been in many ways the beacon of showing how the Affordable Care Act can work, Lee told The Associated Press in an interview. The organization is in great shape and I want to look at something new.

Health insurance marketplaces are a key component of the federal Affordable Care Act, former President Barack Obamas health care law.

The marketplace is for people who dont have  or cant get  health insurance through their jobs and make too much money to qualify for government-funded health care. It was designed to make it easier for those people to get health insurance and offers discounts to some people who make below a certain income level.

Most states chose to let the federal government run their marketplaces for them. But California is one of 15 states that runs its own marketplace. Lee has been the public face of Californias marketplace for the past decade, traveling throughout the state to promote it with the fervor of an evangelist.

He insisted on negotiating with health insurance companies on prices and standardizing benefits across plans so consumers could more easily compare plans when deciding which to purchase.

Hes willing to negotiate and to say no to insurers that were not providing value and to hold the plans accountable for higher standards on quality and equity, said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, a consumer advocacy group. I think its a testament to his work that weve had less than a 2% average increase in premiums for the last three years.

When Republican President Donald Trump was in office, the federal government slashed its marketing budget for the federal marketplace. But Lee spent about $100 million per year  money that comes from small fees assessed on premiums  on marketing in California, including TV and radio ads in multiple languages and paying social media influencers to encourage people to buy health insurance.

He has definitely made his mark in making the point that health insurance doesnt necessarily sell itself, that you have to market it like any other product, said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy with the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit group focusing on health care issues.

Dr. Mark Ghaly, Californias health and human services secretary and chair of Covered Californias Board of Directors, said the agency will launch a national search for Lees replacement.

Today, Covered California is an indispensable part of our states drive toward universal coverage and is in a great position to continue its mission of service and innovation as a state and national leader, Ghaly said.

By ADAM BEAM

Associated Press
HELENA, Mont. (AP)  A hospital in Helena was forced to implement crisis standards of care amid amid a surge in COVID-19 patients, hospital officials said Thursday.

Critical care resources are at maximum capacity at St. Peter's Health hospital. Crisis standards of care are implemented when hospital resources are not sufficient to provide full care to all patients in the facility. Under such conditions, care providers must sometimes choose how to allocate scarce resources including medications and beds.

St. Peter's Health chief medical officer Dr. Shelly Harkins said the constraints in the hospital are worse than what was seen earlier in the pandemic.

For the first time in my career, we are at the point where not every patient in need will get the care that we might wish we could give, Harkins said. By almost every single measure we are in a far worse position than we ever were in the winter of 2020, during our first surge.

The hospitals intensive care unit, advanced medical unit and morgue are full. A freezer truck in the parking lot of the hospital will be used because the morgue remains full.

Crisis standards of care can impact everyone, not just COVID-19 patients, Harkins said.

Harkins issued a plea on Thursday for more people in the community get vaccinated and take precautions to limit the spread of the virus such as wearing a mask in closed spaces, as hospitals across Montana and in neighboring states are facing similar stress.

Hospitals in Utah, Idaho, Washington and Texas have reached out to St. Peter's Health looking for beds for patients who cannot be served in their home state. The news comes as facilities in Bozeman and Billings said this week that they are nearing the point of having to implement crisis standards of care. And in nearby Idaho and Washington, hospitals reported they are rationing care amid the COVID-19 surge.

The hospital in Helena is forced to provide a higher level of care than before because they are unable to transfer sicker patients to larger hospitals as they would typically.

St. Peter's is also contending with a staffing shortage, with 200 out of the hospitals 1,700 positions unfilled in the 99-bed facility.

What is full capacity for us is related to staffing, not so much bed space, Harkins said.

The facility has submitted a request to the state for support from the National Guard in addressing the COVID-19 surge, Harkins said.

Gov. Greg Gianforte said earlier this week that 17 National Guard soldiers will help address the pandemic in the state, with 10 helping at Billings Clinic and seven helping at the state lab and warehouse in Helena.

Gianforte said Thursday he is reviewing requests for Guard resources from the Helena hospital and St. James hospital in Butte.

Montana health officials reported 355 patients were hospitalized with COVID-19 on Thursday. The state has reported an average of over 800 new cases of the respiratory virus per day in the last seven days, a level last seen in early December.

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Samuels is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
A Missouri officer who graduated from the police academy two months ago was shot and killed by a man being sought on burglary and theft charges, authorities said. The suspect also died in a shootout with officers.

Independence Officer Blaize Madrid-Evans, 22, was hospitalized with critical injuries following the Wednesday morning shooting and later died, the Independence Police Department said late Wednesday.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol said two officers went to a residence in Independence about 11:30 a.m. in response to a call to dispatch and were met by a man who fired a handgun at the officers.

Madrid-Evans was shot and the other officer returned fire, police said. The man who fired at the officers, later identified by the highway patrol as Cody L. Harrison, 33, of Gladstone, was pronounced dead at the scene.

Patrol Sgt. Andrew Bell said Wednesday that officers had received a tip that someone was wanted when they responded. An absconder warrant was issued for Harrison on Tuesday, said Karen Pojmann, a spokeswoman for the Missouri Department of Corrections.

Court records show he was sentenced to 15 years in prison after pleading guilty in 2011 to firing at a motor vehicle. The victim in that case told police that gunfire erupted as he was driving his pickup truck. Police found bullet holes in the truck's windshield, as well as the rear window, a tire and the drivers side mirror, according to the probable cause statement.

One witness told police that Harrison said that he had shot at someone because the victim was continuously driving by the home where Harrison was living.

Harrison was released in July 2018 but then returned to prison in November 2020 after committing a parole violation, Pojmann said.

She said he was released on parole again on May 24 but was facing reincarceration after he was charged with burglary and stealing. Those charges, which were pending, stem from allegations that he stole items including cash from his former boss in the Kansas City suburb of Grain Valley the previous year while Harrison was free on parole.

The Jackson County prosecutors office said in a statement that the office had requested that Harrison be held on $10,000 bond in the case, but the court ordered that he be released on his own recognizance. At issue was a 2019 Missouri Supreme Court ruling limiting when judges can impose bail, a move that was aimed at reducing court costs that can derail the lives of low-income defendants.

Prosecutors sought an arrest warrant after he didnt appear for a hearing in late August, leading him to be deemed an absconder. The prosecutors office also said it was reviewing a case that police had submitted accusing Harrison of carrying a firearm despite being a convicted felon.

Harrison also had a past convictions for marijuana possession and tampering with a motor vehicle, court records show.

Patrol Sgt. Bill Lowe said early Thursday that the investigation was ongoing and he had no other information to release.

Madrid-Evans began his career with the department at the Kansas City Regional Police Academy in January and graduated in July. He had entered the departments Field Training Officer program, the department said.

Officer Jack Taylor, a police spokesman, said Madrid-Evans was engaged.

It is pretty somber right now, just kind of a state of shock really," Taylor said Thursday. Just trying to process what happened yesterday and figure out what the next steps are."

He said the last time the department lost an officer in the line of duty was in 2001, when Terry Foster was killed at the scene of a domestic disturbance. Foster, who was just weeks away from retiring, was shot four times by a man police believe died in a subsequent fire that he started.

In a statement, Independence Mayor Eileen Weir thanked officers and other first responders for their service.

We are ever hopeful that their daily interactions with the public will be peaceful so that they might return home to their families safely at the end of their shift. Today, that was not the case, the statement said.

Gov. Mike Parson expressed his condolences in a Facebook post, writing that officers deserve support and respect.

If there was ever a time to stand up for law enforcement, now is the time. They remain the front-line response for Missourians, and we must support them and give them the respect they deserve, Parson said.
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP)  Within his first week back at school after a year and a half, 7-year-old Ben Medlin was exposed to a classmate with COVID-19, and he was sent home, along with 7,000 other students in the district, for 14 days of quarantine.

Not much learning went on in Ben's home.

On some days last week, the second-grader was given no work by his teachers. On others, he was done by 9:30 a.m., his daily assignments consisting of solving 10 math problems or punctuating four sentences, according to his mother.

It was very much just thrown together and very, very, very easy work, Kenan Medlin said.

As coronavirus outbreaks driven by the delta variant lead districts around the U.S. to abruptly shut down or send large numbers of children into quarantine at home, some students are getting minimal schooling.

Despite billions of dollars in federal money at their disposal to prepare for new outbreaks and develop contingency plans, some governors, education departments and local school boards have been caught flat-footed.

Also, some school systems have been handcuffed by state laws or policies aimed at keeping students in classrooms and strongly discouraging or restricting a return to remote learning.

The disruptions  and the risk that youngsters will fall further behind academically  have been unsettling for parents and educators alike.

The school board in Ben's district in Union County, outside Charlotte, relented on Monday and voted to allow most of its quarantining students to return to the classroom as long as they arent known to be infected or have no symptoms. On Wednesday, the states top health official threatened legal action against the district unless it returns to stricter quarantine procedures.

Union County school officials said they are not offering virtual instruction but are contacting parents of affected children to help them line up tutors or other help for their youngsters. One in 6 students in the mask-optional district were quarantined last week.

In the rural district of Wellington, Kansas, students got a week off from schoolwork when a COVID-19 outbreak struck. Instead of going online, the district decided to add 10 minutes to each day to make up for the lost time when it reopened on Tuesday. Masks also are required now.

Districts in Kansas risk losing funding if they offer online or hybrid learning for more than 40 hours per student per year.

In Georgia, Ware County's 6,000-student district halted schooling altogether for three weeks in mid-August. The district said it was unreasonable for teachers to have to offer virtual and in-person instruction at the same time. It also cited a lack of internet service in some rural areas.

In Missouri, the Board of Education rescinded a rule in July that allowed school districts to offer hybrid and remote instruction for months at a time. Districts that close entirely because of COVID-19 outbreaks, as eight small rural school systems have done this year, now are limited to 36 hours of alternative instruction, such as Zoom classes. After that, they have to make up the time later.

The U.S. Education Department said Tuesday that states and school districts should have policies to ensure continued access to high-quality and rigorous learning in the event COVID-19 cases keep students from attending school.

The Illinois State Board of Education recently passed a resolution forcing districts to make remote instruction available to quarantined students.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said laws restricting virtual instruction are short-sighted. She noted that some of these states have no mask or vaccine requirements either.

It is just crazy because this is a pandemic still, and as much as we had all hoped that it would be over, delta has made clear that it is not over," she said.

In North Carolina, state health officials in July eliminated the requirement that districts provide remote learning for quarantining students, saying virtual options are not supported by current evidence or are no longer needed due to the lower rates of community transmission and increased rates of vaccination.

In the meantime, parents are left with some difficult decisions to make.

Medlin on Thursday pulled her two children out of school and plans to home-school them as she did last year.

Emily Goss, another Union County parent, said she likewise is planning to home-school her 5-year-old kindergartener after he was put under quarantine six days into the school year with no remote learning option in place.

Hes supposed to be playing outside, riding bikes and learning how to make new friends, and hes wondering whats going to happen to him. Thats not how childhood is supposed to be, and its just heartbreaking," she said. "We cant do this all year.

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Follow AP coverage of the virus outbreak at https://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak.

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Follow Anderson on Twitter at https://twitter.com/BryanRAnderson.

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Hollingsworth reported from Mission, Kansas. Associated Press writers Jeff Amy in Atlanta and Collin Binkley in Boston also contributed. Anderson is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
Howard Castleberry/Houston Chronicle

POINT COMFORT, Texas (AP)  A Texas plastics company has agreed to pay nearly $3 million in civil penalties for violating the Clean Air Act, the U.S. Department of Justice announced.

Formosa Plastics Corp. also agreed to improve its risk management program at its petrochemical plant in Point Comfort.
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Julianne Hough has released a lengthy statement addressing the backlash that has surrounded her recently announced CBS competition show The Activist, which pits teams of activists against each other in challenges and uses their online engagement and celebrity judges to determine an overall winner.

Hough, a former dancer and judge on Dancing With the Stars, was announced as a co-host of The Activist alongside Usher and Priyanka Chopra, though Hough now admits shes not qualified to be judging a show about activism, the premise of which has been widely panned online.

I do not claim to be an activist and wholeheartedly agree that the judging aspect of the show missed the mark and furthermore, that I am not qualified to act as a judge, Hough said in a statement posted to her Instagram on Tuesday.

Hough acknowledged that shes listened to the criticism that The Activist has received and said she brought it up to the powers that be. The show is produced by Global Citizen, CBS and Deviant Media, and its set to premiere on Oct. 22. on CBS and Paramount Plus.

Ive shared your concerns as well as my own with the powers that be, who I believe have listened. I have faith and confidence in the beautiful people that Ive worked with will make the right choice and do the right thing moving forward. Not just for the show, but for the greater good, she wrote.

Hough also addressed her controversial 2013 Halloween costume, for which she wore blackface to dress up as Suzanne Crazy Eyes Warren, played by Uzo Aduba on Orange Is the New Black. She apologized for the costume back in 2013, but responded once again after it resurfaced online recently.

Wearing blackface was a poor choice based on my own white privilege and white body bias that hurt people and is something that I regret doing to this day. However, the regret that I live with pales in comparison to the lived experiences of so many. My commitment has been to reflect and act differently. Not perfectly, but hopefully with a more developed understanding that racism and white supremacy is harmful to ALL people, Hough wrote.

Read Houghs full statement below.

The last few days have been a powerful demonstration of real-time activism.

Thank you for using your voices, calling me in, your accountability and your candor. I am deeply listening with an open heart and mind.

After the press release announcing The Activist, I heard you say that the show was performative, promoted pseudo-activism over real activism, felt tone-deaf, like Black Mirror, The Hunger Games, and that the hosts werent qualified to assess activism because we are celebrities and not activists.

I heard you say that there was hypocrisy in the show because at the root of activism is a fight against capitalism and the trauma that it causes so many people and that the show itself felt like a shiny capitalistic endeavor.

I also heard you say that trying to value one cause over another felt like the Oppression Olympics and totally missed and disrespected the many activists who have been killed, assaulted and faced various abuses fighting for their causes.

And because of all of this, there is a feeling of insult, dehumanization, insensitivity and hurt that is being rightfully felt.

I do not claim to be an activist and wholeheartedly agree that the judging aspect of the show missed the mark and furthermore, that I am not qualified to act as a judge.

On top of all of this, many people are just becoming aware that I wore blackface in 2013, which only further added insult to injury.

Wearing blackface was a poor choice based on my own white privilege and white body bias that hurt people and is something that I regret doing to this day. However, the regret that I live with pales in comparison to the lived experiences of so many. My commitment has been to reflect and act differently. Not perfectly, but hopefully with a more developed understanding that racism and white supremacy is harmful to ALL people.

Ive definitely not addressed all the different, valuable feedback about what the show missed and my missteps. I want you to know that I am still listening, because this is a messy and uncomfortable conversation, and Im committed to being here for all of it.

It feels important for me to share that the original reason I signed on to this show was because I was really excited to be a part of something that highlights, and is centered around sharing activists work on a larger platform. In doing so, I felt it would help educate, mobilize and inspire people around the world to get involved in activism because many worthy causes need attention, funding, and most importantly, the power to effect real change.

I do not have all the answers yet, Ive shared your concerns as well as my own with the powers that be, who I believe have listened. I have faith and confidence in the beautiful people that Ive worked with will make the right choice and do the right thing moving forward. Not just for the show, but for the greater good.

Im going to continue to listen, unlearn, learn and take the time to be fully present with everything that you have all shared because I dont want to just react, I want to digest, understand and respond in a way that is authentic and aligned with the woman I am becoming.

I also understand that there is no response that I could share that would make everyone happy, however, I want you to know that this is a conversation and Im still listening.

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There was a lot to like in Austin when Kevin Longley moved there a month and a half ago from Maryland's Montgomery County. His wife had gotten a promotion at her tech company, and their new city already had a solid reputation as a less expensive, more chill Silicon Valley. They bought a 3,000-square foot, five-bedroom house, far bigger than what they could afford outside of D.C. There were breakfast tacos, and amazing barbecue, and weekend day trips to nearby lakes with their 5-year-old daughter.

And then. In July, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order banning government entities, including public schools, from requiring masks or vaccination (the Texas Supreme Court denied his request last month), despite the state's rising death toll: more than 6,000 Texans have died of covid-19 in the past month. On Sept. 1, legislation allowing Texans to carry a handgun in public without a permit or the background check and training the state previously required went into effect. The same day, the Supreme Court declined to block a Texas law that banned abortions beginning at six weeks of pregnancy, one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country. (The Justice Department has sued Texas to challenge the law.) On Sept. 7, Abbott signed into law a bill that creates strict new voting rules in the state.

For newly minted Texans who had emigrated from bluer pastures, even just one of these laws would be a lot to take. And now, all of them, within two months?

"It's hard to believe that some of these laws actually exist," says Longley. "And then you look around and you're like, 'Oh. Wait. That's our state. That's where we live.'"

From the depths of the pandemic Texas beckoned, with its spacious, affordable four-bedroom homes with yards and swimming pools, big-city amenities, quirky charm and excellent food scene. The 2021 Texas Relocation Report from Texas Realtors found that more than half a million people relocated to Texas from other states in 2019, the latest year for which data was available. Many Texans have noticed an influx from California in particular - some are even commuting between the two states - and William Fulton, the director of the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University, broke it down further in a blog post: In 2018 and 2019, a little over 80,000 Californians became Texans.

Many of them followed their tech jobs. Apple, Facebook and Google have satellite offices in Austin. Oracle announced in December that it was moving to Austin, too (though founder Larry Ellison would not: He moved to Hawaii). Hewlett-Packard announced last year that it would move its headquarters from San Jose to Spring, Texas, a suburb of Houston. Tesla and its chief executive, Elon Musk, moved to Austin last year, and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott told CNBC that he talks "frequently" with the tech billionaire.

"Elon consistently tells me that he likes the social policies in the state of Texas," said Abbott.

"In general, I believe government should rarely impose its will upon the people, and, when doing so, should aspire to maximize their cumulative happiness. That said, I would prefer to stay out of politics," Musk tweeted in response. (A representative for SpaceX, one of Musk's companies, did not respond to an inquiry about which social policies in Texas Musk does or does not support.)

The celebrities have come too, in droves, mostly to Austin: "Westworld" star James Marsden, "Girl, Wash Your Face" author and motivational speaker Rachel Hollis, controversy-courting podcaster Joe Rogan, who recently fell ill with covid-19. "Dawson's Creek" star James Van Der Beek, his wife, and five children posed for a spread in Austin Life magazine on their new ranch ("I felt an energy to Austin," the star said). Actresses Haylie Duff, Becca Tobin and Jamie-Lynn Sigler, who had formed a pandemic pod together, moved their families to Austin as a unit. ("You don't pay for parking anywhere," Tobin marveled to the New York Times.) "Queer Eye" star Jonathan Van Ness was filming a season of his show in Austin, and liked it so much that he and his husband decided to stay. ("I had my four cats and was on this lake at an Airbnb, and I was like, Do I love Austin? Is this a liberal bastion in Texas? And it kind of is," he told Self Magazine.)

Really, the state solved problems for expats from both political poles. For conservatives, it was a place where they could put their kids back in schools without mask mandates, and own guns and not have to pay state income taxes. For liberals, it - well, Austin, specifically - was a city of abundant tech jobs, relief from the Bay Area housing market and brimming with like-minded voters. The blueberry in a cherry pie, as an apocryphal Texas adage goes.

"The pandemic lockdown put a lot into perspective for me," says Lexx Miller, 27, who moved from Brooklyn to Austin. "I was getting older and wanted a change in scenery, people and quality of life, but I still wanted to feel like I was in a major city."

For Brian Harden, 47, of Seattle, it was the taxes that made him consider moving to Texas. "They don't have a state income tax," he noted. Besides, "My wife and I are both gun owners, and we're big Second Amendment advocates."

But everything's bigger in Texas, including the regrets. They set in immediately for Tanny Martin, 66, a retired nurse who moved from Massachusetts to Austin last year to be closer to her son and enjoy a lower cost of living. A self-described "blue-state person," and "aging hippie," she had rationalized it by reminding herself that she would be moving to a liberal city.

It's "the part of the state where people have purple hair, and that's comforting," she says. "But there's also three-percenters here and, you know, secessionists, and I mean, it's still Texas."

The new gun law is the most terrifying part of her new home to her. Between that and the threat of covid, "I'm not going out very much because I don't really feel safe," she says.

That makes it hard for newcomers to make friends, too.

"It definitely feels very isolating when you just move here. You want to go see all the sights and meet new people and nobody's going anywhere," says Kyle Miller, 27, who moved to Austin from the Dayton, Ohio, area (and isn't related to Lexx Miller). Seeing all the maskless people out and about, he says, was "very weird."

And yet the state exerts a powerful lure, packed with its own outsize mythology, swaggering style and the promise that life will be a little different there.

That's what Bill Ross, 63, loves about it. When Ross moved from California, "I got nine-milimeters for each member of the family," he says. "I went out and bought an AR-15, and I think it's a very healthy thing."

Guns weren't the primary reason for his move. He took his family to Boerne, Texas - pronounced "Bernie," it's one of the Hill Country's towns with German heritage - after he became dissatisfied with his son's middle school in his Los Gatos, Calif., community, as well as the state's fiscal and political trajectory. His one regret in leaving California, he says, was that he would not be able to vote to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom. He says Abbott is doing a fine job. He supports the state's new voting laws.

"I don't think they're extreme. I think they make a lot of sense," he says. "I think that if you can't control voting, you can't control the protection of the Constitution."

The abortion law gives him pause, though: "I don't know if six weeks is the right thing," he says. "I'm pro-choice. I'm not happy with how abortion is used as a method of birth control."

But Ross is thrilled with his new life in Texas. He no longer has to worry about California wildfires. He sold his house for well over its asking price over the summer and was able to buy one outside of San Antonio nearly three times its size, at about a third of the cost. Plus, it has a pool. He loves his neighbors, who have been "very welcoming."

"Whenever people would ask, 'Well, where are you from?' we'd cower and say, 'California,'" he says, "And then immediately say, 'But you picked up conservative voters!' "

The liberal-leaning new Texans have felt welcomed by their new neighbors, too. It's the people they left behind that have been giving them guff.

"I chose just the worst possible time to move down here," says Kyle Miller. In the wake of the abortion law, his friends have been posting anti-Texas memes.

"My friend took it down already, it seems, but there was one (meme) which was like, an outline of Texas, and it was just labeled 'Dumba**istan," says Kyle Miller. Another, tweeted by @sundae_gurl2 and several others: "The single star on Texas' flag is actually a review."

The culture shocks haven't all been political, though. Miller, who delivers food for DoorDash, had to adjust to the city traffic and the abundance of scooter riders, who can be reckless around cars. Lexx Miller was taken aback the first time she saw employees in stores wearing buttons that said "mask-exempt." Ross was impressed by how much better the roads were than in California. And Longley was pleasantly surprised that people in Texas talk about things other than politics.

"When you're in that D.C. bubble, it seems like just everything's on high alert in terms of political news all the time," he says. "It weighs down my psyche." But maybe not talking about politics enough is part of what got the state to where it is now.

The left-leaning voters see a silver lining to the latest political turmoil: Now that they live here, they can work to correct its course.

"I definitely see myself going out and voting and trying to reverse a lot of these laws that just got passed," says Kyle Miller. "I don't know how long that fight is going to be or how successful it's going to be."

In Maryland, "Your vote is kind of like a drop in the bucket," says Longley. "Out here, you know that your vote really matters."

Still, as much as they might lament their timing, the new Texans are mostly glad they made their moves. Lexx Miller doesn't see herself as a lifelong Texas resident, but she doesn't have any regrets: "As a minority, there are few places where I can feel completely safe in America anyway," she says. "My quality of life here is better."

Not for everyone. Abbott's handling of covid gave Harden, the Seattle gun owner, a pause. But he finally abandoned his plans to move to Texas after the abortion law came out and his wife vetoed the move: "That was the nail in the coffin."

Now, he says, "We're toying with possibly Tennessee."
NEW YORK (AP)  A Florida businessman who admitted that his fraud-busting business was a fraud is citing the coronavirus threat in prisons as he asks a judge to release him early from his one-year prison term.

David Correia, 46, made the request in court papers filed publicly Wednesday in Manhattan federal court.

The West Palm Beach resident was sentenced in February after pleading guilty to making false statements to the Federal Election Commission and conspiring to commit wire fraud. Prosecutors said Rudy Giuliani was hired as a consultant to the business, Fraud Guarantee, which purportedly protected investors from being fraud victims.

Correia said in a handwritten filing that an incurable auto-immune disease makes him particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 in prison, where inmates cannot avoid close proximity. He is scheduled to be released in December from a federal prison camp in Butner, North Carolina. Prosecutors declined through a spokesperson to comment.

In a letter to a warden included in the court filing, Correia wrote in early September he was worried after his wife, a physician assistant, reported that four fully vaccinated individuals had died from the Delta variant of the coronavirus.

My sentence ... was just, for the crime I pled guilty to. However, I was not given a death sentence, Correia wrote. Having a wife and two children under 11 years old makes this a very scary situation to be in.

He asked to complete his sentence in home confinement.

Correia was originally arrested in 2019 along with three others, including two men who worked with Giuliani to try to get Ukrainian officials to investigate the son of then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. Giuliani has said he knew nothing about the crimes the men were charged with but has acknowledged working closely with the men as he sought communications with Ukrainian figures.

Giuliani was never charged. But he is under investigation by Manhattan federal authorities who are deciding whether the former New York City mayor was required to register as a foreign agent as he gathered information in Ukraine that he has insisted was part of his duties as then-President Donald Trump's personal lawyer.
LANSING, Mich. (AP)  A Michigan lawmaker was stripped of his committee assignments after a female legislator said they had a volatile personal relationship that included domestic abuse and threats.

Rep. Mari Manoogian, a Birmingham Democrat in her second term, issued a statement Wednesday, a day after third-term Republican Rep. Steve Marino of Macomb County's Harrison Township was removed from two panels, including one he chaired, for unknown reasons.

"The unfortunate reality is that many people in our society have experienced domestic abuse, which often comes from someone we would never expect, Manoogian, 29, said. None of us are immune to a volatile relationship, regardless of our career. It can happen right here in our legislature, where abuse of power and threats to ruin a colleagues reputation, as well as threats of public shaming, can be used to intimidate fellow members of the legislature. I am asking for privacy as I take steps to ensure my safety while I continue to represent my district and do the work of the people.

She did not specify what Marino, 32, allegedly did, nor whether the alleged abuse and threats were physical, verbal or written. A message seeking comment was left for Marino.

Republican House Speaker Jason Wentworth, who disciplined Marino, said state police were investigating.

I will always prioritize the safety of state legislators and those who are serving their community at the state Capitol. Once I learned of this situation, I took immediate action. Going forward, the House is honoring Rep. Manoogians request for privacy while others look into the allegations," he said.

State police spokeswoman Shanon Banner said the agency received a complaint late Tuesday. She declined further comment because the investigation was in the very early stages.

House Democratic Leader Donna Lasinski backed Manoogian and said her caucus will not tolerate any threats of abuse, retribution and public embarrassment that are used to intimidate women.

___

Follow David Eggert at https://twitter.com/DavidEggert00
CONCORD, N.H. (AP)  New Hampshire plans to join other states in challenging the Biden administrations new vaccine mandate in court, Republican Gov. Chris Sununu said Wednesday.

President Joe Biden announced a sweeping vaccine mandate last week that covers more than 100 million Americans, including executive branch employees and workers at businesses with more than 100 people on the payroll. Sununu said no lawsuits have been drafted yet, but hes ready to sign on when that happens.

I can promise you this: We will be ready for the legal challenges that are likely to come, and New Hampshire will participate one way or another, he said. We need folks to get vaccinated, theres just no question about that. But this whole, with a sweep of a pen, were going to force it on 100 million Americans. ... This was not the right approach.

In other coronavirus-related developments:

___

HOSPITAL STAFFING

New Hampshire is working to bolster its health care work force to meet the latest surge in COVID-19 patients.

State officials recently traveled to Kentucky to learn from overwhelmed hospitals there. Lori Shibinette, commissioner of the Department of Health and Human Services, said staffing shortages were a significant factor.

Health care workers were not leaving their employers; they were leaving the industry, she said. Were seeing the same thing in New Hampshire; our health care workforce is getting burned out.

Hospital capacity isnt just about available beds, she said. Currently, about 85% of New Hampshires hospital beds are considered fully staffed, and that number has been steadily moving downward, Sununu said.

In response, the state will continue issuing 120-day temporary licenses for out of state health care workers who come to New Hampshire. It also will begin issuing student nursing licenses to those in the final year of their programs and to retirees whose licenses have lapsed in the past three years.

Other solutions will require legislation, Sununu said, including extending the length of temporary licenses beyond 120 days and broadening the scope of work that can be performed by other health care professionals.

___

THE NUMBERS

More than 113,000 people have tested positive for the virus in New Hampshire, including 549 cases announced Wednesday. The seven-day rolling average of daily new cases in New Hampshire has risen over the past two weeks from 300 on Aug. 30 to 433 on Sept. 13.

Four new deaths were announced, bringing the total to 1,452.

Since the end of January, only 3% of the total infections have been among fully vaccinated people, said Dr. Benjamin Chan, state epidemiologist.

Among the 756,000 residents who are fully vaccinated, fewer than 2,000 have tested positive, Sununu said. About 140 have been hospitalized, and 20 have died, he said.

The state announced 13 new outbreaks Wednesday at nursing homes, assisted living facilities and correctional facilities. Unlike last year, the new outbreaks generally have spread to 10 or fewer people, Shibinette said.
The San Antonio ISD teachers union looks forward to a new superintendent after what they call a legacy of "authoritarianism."

Shortly after the Chicago Public Schools publicly hired outgoing SAISD Superintendent Pedro Martinez as its new CEO Wednesday, the San Antonio Alliance of Teachers and Support Personnel released a letter voicing its hopes for a new leader.

In the letter, the union writes that it looks forward to a future where educators are "treated with dignity and respect," and the needs of students and parents are put first.

The group says its stands in solidarity with Chicago Teachers' Union as Martinez takes over, writing that he led a "superficial" transformation of the district that now leaves it "hollowed out" by a pro-charter school agenda.

"But in the Chicago Teachers' Union he has more than met his match," the letter says.

Though lauded for his mask mandate stance as of late, Martinez's tenure was not without controversy.

In 2018, a New York-based charter school Democracy Prep took over Stewart Elementary School, a program initiated by SAISD under Martinez leadership. The controversial takeover was put forward with the promise to make schools better. It was supported by Senate Bill 1882, which gives school districts incentives to contract with charter organizations.

Democracy Prep was heavily criticized for its initial plans to cut the dual-language program for English and Spanish-speaking students. It later reversed the decision.

The program also caught flak from educators because it required teachers to take on at-will contracts. In 2019, Stewart Elementary received a grade of D before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, according to Texas Education Agency records.

SAATSP later sued the district, but it was dismissed by the Texas Supreme Court in 2018.

The SAISD union also publicly criticized Martinez unwillingness to reopen campuses amid the pandemic, and not provide remote learning options.

The letter goes on to say that the union looks forward to a collaborative community process to select a new superintendent. An SAISD spokesperson says the board will convene on September 20 to discuss interviewing candidates for an interim superintendent.

Martinez on Wednesday says he expects to start with Chicago Public Schools on the week of September 29. Read the full teachers union letter here.

MySA has reached out to Martinez for comment.
Texas officials arrested a Brazoria man for a 28-year-old cold case murder of San Antonio teenager Emily Jeanette Garcia.

On Friday, September 10, Thomas Ray Galindo, 50, was arrested in his home by the U.S. Marshals Gulf Coast Violent Offenders and Fugitive Task Force.

Authorities charged Galindo with the killing of Garcia, who was 15 years old when she was found nude, strangled, and sexually assaulted on February 25, 1993, in Comal County.

The Texas Department of Public Safety stated in a news release Wednesday, September 15, Galindo was 21-years-old at the time and an acquaintance of Garcia. The teenager lived away from her mother and sister at the time. She stayed with friends in the Northeast part of San Antonio.

She was last seen alive a few days before her body was found near Carnes Mill Road and Canyon Lake in Comal County.

Officials didn't identify her body until 1994 after a family member saw a local news report and contacted law enforcement, the release stated. Despite a lengthy investigation, progress stalled and the case went cold.

In 2017, the Comal County Sheriff's Office renewed the case. The Texas Rangers Unsolved Crimes Investigation Program began reviewing the case in early 2021 at the request of the sheriff's office.

The Ranger and sheriff's detective working on the investigation reevaluated the entire case and re-interviewed numerous people, revealing new information which ultimately led to Galindo's arrest. It is unclear what the new information was to lead to Galindo's arrest.

Galindo is being held in the Comal County Jail under a $100,000 bond.
International

Jaishankar meets Tajikistans top leadership, discusses Afghan crisis

DUSHANBE, SEP 16 (PTI) | Publish Date: 9/16/2021 1:02:35 PM IST

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Thursday met Tajikistans top leadership and exchanged views on the recent developments in Afghanistan and their impact on regional security.

Jaishankar, who is in the Tajik capital to attend a key meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) on the situation in Afghanistan after its takeover by the Taliban, called on Tajikistan President Emomali Rahmon.

Thank Tajik President Emomali Rahmon for receiving me. Conveyed greetings of PM Modi. Exchanged views on recent developments in Afghanistan and their impact on regional security, Jaishankar tweeted. He said that India and Tajikistan are strong partners in fighting terrorism, fundamentalism and radicalism.

A good discussion on arrival with Tajik FM Sirojiddin Muhriddin. Look forward to continuing it tomorrow, he tweeted after meeting his Tajik counterpart.

Jaishankar also met his Kyrgyz counterpart Ruslan Kazakbaev and the two leaders agreed to strengthen traditional cooperation on regional and multilateral issues.

Delighted to meet Kyrgyz Republic FM Ruslan Kazakbaev. Noted our growing development partnership. Agreed to strengthen our traditional cooperation on regional and multilateral issues, the minister tweeted. Jaishankar is also likely to hold bilateral meetings with his counterparts from Russia and Iran among others.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to virtually participate in the annual SCO summit on September 17 that is expected to deliberate extensively on the developments in Afghanistan as well as the overall regional security scenario.

Jaishankar will attend a meeting on Afghanistan of the heads of state of SCO and the Collective Security Treaty Organisation.

The SCO, seen as a counterweight to NATO, is an eight-member economic and security bloc and has emerged as one of the largest transregional international organisations.

India and Pakistan became its permanent members in 2017.

The SCO was founded at a summit in Shanghai in 2001 by the presidents of Russia, China, the Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

India has shown keen interest in deepening its security-related cooperation with the SCO and its Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure (RATS), which specifically deals with issues relating to security and defence.

India was made an observer at the SCO in 2005 and has generally participated in the ministerial-level meetings of the grouping which focus mainly on security and economic cooperation in the Eurasian region.
By Wolf Richter, editor of Wolf Street. Originally published at Wolf Street.

Even as American leisure travelers have been out in force, for US hotels, the all-important and lucrative business travel revenues  corporate, group, government, and other commercial travel  are expected to be down by $59 billion in 2021 from 2019, according to the American Hotel and Lodging Association (AHLA) and Kalibri Labs today.

For the 20 largest destinations in the US, hotel business travel revenues are expected to collapse by 80% from $38 billion in 2019 to $7.6 billion in 2021, according to AHLA data.

The largest destination, the New York City metro, is expected to see an 88% collapse in annual hotel business travel revenues, from $4.6 billion in 2019 to a projected $531 million in 2021.

In Orlando, the second largest destination in 2019, annual hotel business travel revenues are expected to collapse by 81%, from $2.8 billion in 2019 to a projected $518 million in 2021.

The third largest destination, the Washington D.C. metro, is expected to see an 86% collapse in hotel business travel revenues, from $2.7 billion in 2019 to $371 million in 2021.

These are the largest 20 destinations by business travel hotel revenues in 2019, the projected year-total revenues for 2021, and the percentage difference:

20 Largest Business Travel Destinations Business Travel Hotel Revenue, Million $ % Plunge 2019 2021 projected New York 4,560 531 -88% Orlando 2,796 518 -81% Washington, DC metro 2,741 371 -86% Los Angeles 2,683 752 -72% San Francisco 2,531 178 -93% Chicago 2,528 346 -86% Las Vegas 2,326 670 -71% Boston 1,672 191 -89% Atlanta 1,671 491 -71% Dallas 1,611 460 -71% San Diego 1,611 395 -76% Hawaiian Islands 1,530 346 -77% Phoenix 1,349 380 -72% Miami 1,327 497 -63% Houston 1,291 412 -68% Seattle 1,241 193 -84% San Jose 1,227 176 -86% Anaheim 1,155 256 -78% Denver 1,087 237 -78% Nashville 981 238 -76% Total 37,919 7,640 -80%

This analysis follows AHLAs survey of business travelers, released two weeks ago, which found that, amid rising COVID-19 cases, 67% of business travelers were planning to take fewer trips, 52% were likely to cancel existing travel plans without rescheduling, and 60% were planning to postpone existing travel plans.

The fifth largest destination in the table above, San Francisco, is expected to see a 93% collapse in hotel business travel revenues, from $2.5 billion in 2019 to $178 million in 2021, according to AHLA.

At the Moscone Center, San Franciscos convention center, there was hardly anything scheduled for the rest of the year to begin with  just four events. At least one of them, the 64th Annual International Auto Show in November, has already been cancelled.

Another, the 76th Annual Meeting of the ASSH (American Society for Surgery of the Head) is still scheduled for September 30 through October 2, but with a stream-lined schedule and an online attendance option.

The Cannabis Business Summit & Expo 2021 was supposed to take place in early August but was rescheduled for mid-December, and everyone is keeping their fingers crossed.

The SEMICON WEST conference and the Design Automation Conference (DAC) were supposed to take place jointly in February this year but were rescheduled for December.

So some conferences are starting to show up, and it appears theyre going to take place, but potential attendees are reluctant and organizers are leery.

This is the situation everywhere. Conference organizers are trying to get people together and put some souls into the vast convention centers, and theyre doing it, but its hard and slow.

The reluctance among businesses about sending employees to conferences and about even holding conferences is also reflected in still dismally low office attendance.

Across the US, companies had sill not returned in large numbers to the office, and official return-to-the-office dates announced by big companies  whatever format that return to the office would have taken, from 1 day a week to 5 days a week bell-to-bell  keeps getting pushed out.

Office occupancy, as measured by workers actually showing up at the office, struggled to recover from dreadfully low levels, but over the past two months has relapsed. According to Kastle Systems, the 10-city average has dropped to 31% of where it had been before the pandemic, meaning its down 69% from the Good Times:

The longer business travel and office occupancy are getting replaced by video calls and working from home, and the more people figure out how to make it work and be productive, and the more they adjust their lives around it, the harder it will be to ever return to the Old Normal.

Some of this business travel and some of this office occupancy will certainly return, but it is becoming increasingly doubtful that the Old Normal was even such a great idea to begin with, and there are now initiatives underway all around to figure out what some kind of new normal might look like.
In celebration of Nashville Pride, we check out the festival and hear from some of Music Citys LGBTQ voices

Pride has come to Nashville at last, and in this issue, we celebrate the visibility of our LGBTQ community. We dive into Middle Tennessee State Universitys archives to explore what a groundbreaking local publication looked like. Queer Nashvillians continue to find innovative ways to be seen authentically, including in a photography series that aims to chronicle the expansiveness of bisexuality. Meanwhile, our resident drag expert takes us on a tour of drag brunches in town, and we talk to the recently crowned Mr. and Miss Nashville Pride.

Plus, weve got everything you need to party this weekend. The two-day Nashville Pride Festival begins Saturday at 10 a.m. with the Nashville Pride Parade, kicking off from the Woodland Street Bridge. Marchers will move west on Union Street and then north on Sixth Avenue North to Charlotte, looping around the Tennessee State Capitol to Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park. In addition to music, scores of vendors will be on site, and you can peruse all of our citys LGBTQ-friendly organizations that show up. When you get hungry, youll have plenty of options, among them the Banh Mi & Roll Factory, The Grilled Cheeserie, Daddys Dogs and Nashville Cotton Candy Co.

From noon to 4 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, the Kids & Family Zone will host the Country Music Hall of Fames Musical Petting Zoo, Turnip Green Creative Reuse, Mr. Bonds Science Guys and other kid-friendly activities. Get the full schedule of events and other info at nashvillepride.org, or download the festivals app. A note: Nashville Pride will require attendees to show proof of vaccination or a negative PCR test (taken within 72 hours of the festival) upon entry. So have your info ready and prepare to party.
(Natural News) The Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) is exploding with vaccine injuries, at a rate never seen before. The number of injuries and deaths from these vaccines is so immense, all prior vaccine injury data over the past two decades pales in comparison to the carnage observed in 2021.

The governments passive vaccine injury surveillance system has logged over 675,000 adverse reactions from the vaccines in just eight short months. If these medical issues were divvied up among the roughly 17,000 hospitals in the United States, there have been roughly 40 COVID vaccine injuries for every hospital in the nation.

Over the past forty-seven days of reporting, there have also been 3,296 deaths reported to VAERS. This is equivalent to SEVENTY deaths per day  a sacrificial routine of medical malpractice and wrongful death that must be stopped.

When will the genocidal vaccine program be stopped?

To date, there have been a total of 14,701 deaths reported as a result of the COVID vaccines in the US, and a vast majority of these fatalities are occurring within a week after vaccination. The young and the old are dying needlessly, as the vaccine protocol is forced on people like rape and advertised as the only way to stop COVID. This is most certainly a lie, a grand deception that is being used to humiliate families and strip individuals of their due process rights and their dignity. Historically, vaccines are removed from the market and stripped of their licensure when there are just a handful of deaths.

There are so many deaths from this vaccine, almost every hospital in the US can represent one dead patient who was sacrificed for the greater good. If the genocidal routine continues with booster shots, these death by vaccine figures will continue to skyrocket  an apocalypse that is already being witnessed in heavily vaccinated nations like Israel. The mainstream media refuses to pick up on these stories and lies about vaccine side effects, normalizing week-long illnesses, Bells Palsy, blood clots, headaches, severe pain and heart inflammation in children. The mainstream media lies through their teeth, saying that post vaccination COVID is mild and is proof the vaccine is working. Every day, seventy people are fatally victimized by this deception, as they are intubated then sent to the morgue.

Rampant medical malpractice and wrongful death is destroying the credibility of hospitals

As the medical malpractice continues, hospital systems around the country are purging healthy unvaccinated employees from their ranks, creating an artificial bed shortage. Nurses who were once lauded as superheroes are now being discriminated against, rapidly and superficially. As hundreds of thousands of medical issues are reported in the vaccinated test subjects, there just arent enough nurses and doctors to deal with all the issues caused by the COVID vaccines. As a result, rampant medical malpractice and wrongful death, caused by COVID vaccines, is destroying the credibility of hospitals.

The current 675,000 adverse events reported to VAERS does NOT include all the other adverse events that are misdiagnosed as something else, not reported, normalized or ignored. Many patients and doctors cannot connect their vaccine injuries back to the vaccines because they are either too prideful to admit the fact; they are oblivious to the VAERS reporting system; they are vaccine fanatics and simply dont see or believe the facts; or they are so accustomed to having reoccurring medical issues, nagging health problems, vaccine injuries, doctor visits and prescription dependency, that all this pain and misery is just normal to them.

Also, these reported adverse events do not factor in the tens of thousands of severe cases of illness that occur post vaccination, COVID cases that have been covered up by the CDCs PCR rule change, which artificially lowers COVID cases in the vaccinated and deliberately under-reports them. Whether these illnesses are called COVID, DELTA, Mu, pneumonia, tuberculosis or the flu, the illness continues post vaccination. Lastly, the reported number of adverse events does not include all the vaccinated and unvaccinated people who were harmed by mutating strains of the virus, an epidemiological consequence of the selective pressure, non-neutralizing design of the COVID vaccines.

Sources include:

VAERS.gov

AHA.org

CDC.gov

NYTimes.com

NaturalNews.com

NewsTarget.com

NewsTarget.com

NaturalNews.com

JournalofInfection.com
(Natural News) Winds in the stormy North Sea stopped blowing, and Europe, which already lacks natural gas, found electricity markets surging. This sudden slowdown in wind-driven electricity production in the U.K. caused a sudden switch in the direction of regional energy markets as gas and coal-fired electricity plants were called to make up for the shortfalls.

Natural gas prices hit all-time highs and thermal coal, which had been shunned for its carbon emissions, has emerged from its long price slump as utilities are forced to use it to turn on their backup power sources.

This showed the precarious state that the regions energy markets face, heading into the long European winter. The price increase was seen mostly in the U.K., which relied on wind farms to eradicate net carbon emissions by 2050.

Stefan Konstantinov, a senior energy economist at data firm ICIS said that the leap in power prices took a lot of people by surprise. If this happened in the winter where there is a significantly higher demand, then it will present as a real issue for system stability.

UK electricity prices more than doubled in September alone

At their peak, the U.K. electricity prices more than doubled in September, and is already almost seven times as high compared to the same point in 2020. France, the Netherlands, and Germany power markets also jumped significantly. (Related: Power With Nature: Solar and Wind Energy Demystified.)

Prices for next-day power dispatch rocketed to 285 a megawatt-hour in the U.K. when wind speeds dropped.

Electricity prices usually see the cost of generation at the most expensive supplier to determine the prices for everyone. This means that when countries derive power from thermal plants with high running costs, it boosts prices for the whole market. This resulted in a climb in prices for gas, coal, and carbon as well.

Further, energy prices could shoot even higher if the cool temperatures stop gas stores from replenishing before the peak winter demand.

Electricity, gas, coal and carbon markets feed on one another; thus, high gas prices can prompt utilities to burn more coal, and they will have to buy more emissions allowances.

Wind accounted for a quarter of Great Britains power in the last year. After the winds dropped, system operator National Grid asked Electricite de France SA to restart its coal power station in Nottinghamshire. This is a band-aid solution though: the government said all coal plants must close by late 2024.

Abundant wind power has lead to periods of cheap electricity; however, U.K. wind farms produced less than one gigawatt on some days, and the farms have a full capacity at 24 gigawatts. Maintenance work on cables also restricted electricity imports from France.

The price surge showed the need for backup power supplies for times when winds dont blow, or if the sun doesnt shine. Alternative options include reserve thermal power plants, battery storage, or cables for importing electricity.

Europes electricity prices a preview of whats in store for global markets

The price crunches could become more widespread. European energy pricing dynamics offer a glimpse of what is in store for commodity markets, analysts suggest. The noted that the combination of falling inventories and reopening of the global economy is likely to boost prices as markets continue to struggle to balance strong demand with little supply.

The S&P GSCI commodities index is expected to return 11 percent over the next 12 months. This index is dominated by oil, gold and agricultural products.

Analysts also said that inventories in nearly all physical goods are declining sharply as pandemic restrictions lift, and people spend. Limits of how much commodities can be supplied due to labor shortages or bad weather could mean that demand will have to drop so that markets can balance themselves out.

Get more updates at Power.news.

Sources include:

WSJ.com

Markets.BusinessInsider.com
(Natural News) A series of antiracism training sessions at Google taught employees of the tech giant that children as young as three months old are racist, and that listening to Ben Shapiro is a step on the ladder to committing acts of racial violence. Googles ultra-progressive vision of antiracism is influenced by the notorious author and professor Ibram X. Kendi.

(Article by Allum Bokhari republished from Breitbart.com)

The documents were published by Critical Race Theory researcher Christopher Rufo yesterday on Twitter and in City Journal.

Via City Journal:

Next, Sherice Torres, Googles then-global inclusion director (now a vice president of marketing at Facebook Financial), hosted a video discussion with Boston University professor Ibram X. Kendi about racism in American life. Kendi argues that all Americans, including children as young as three months old, are fundamentally racist. To be raised in the United States, is to be raised to be racist, and to be raised to be racist is to be raised to almost be addicted to racist ideas, he said. The youngest of people are not colorblindbetween three and six months, our toddlers are beginning to understand race and see race. The solution, Kendi claimed, is for all Americans to admit their complicity in racism and respond in the same way that they respond when they are diagnosed with a serious illness. Denying ones complicity in racism, Kendi argued, is only further proof of a persons racism. For me, the heartbeat of racism is denial and the sound of that denial is Im not racist,' he says. Ultimately, Kendi argued that policymakers should deem any racial disparities the result of racist policiesand work to undo the deep-seated racism that permeates every institution in our society. Certainly, its a critically important step for Americans to no longer be in denial about their own racism or the racism of this country, he said. Finally, employees at Google created an internal document called Anti-racism resources, which contains reading lists, graphics, and racial-consciousness exercises. The document contains a disclaimer that it was not legally reviewed and, therefore, not to be considered official company policybut it was created by Google diversity, equity, and inclusion lead Beth Foster, hosted on Googles internal-resources server, and made available across the company. One graphic in the document claims that colorblindness, [American] exceptionalism, Columbus Day, weaponized whiteness, and Make America Great Again are all expressions of covert white supremacy. Another graphic, titled The White Supremacy Pyramid, advances the idea that conservative commentator Ben Shapiro represents a foundation of white supremacy and that Donald Trump is moving society on a path toward mass murder and genocide.

As Breitbart News previously revealed, Google has been indoctrinating its employees in the racist ideology of Critical Race Theory for some time. Even before the George Floyd riots, Google hosted a talk from White Fragility author Robin DiAngelo and taught company managers that values such as individual achievement and objectivity were examples of white dominant culture.

Read more at: Breitbart.com and EvilGoogle.news.
(Natural News) The media is constantly railing on about the latest surge in new cases of the Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) that supposedly require hospitalization. Well, do not believe it because a new study found that at least half of all so-called covid hospitalizations are completely fake.

Researchers discovered that about 50 percent of them are just asymptomatic positive test results that the establishment has repackaged as hospitalizations for the purpose of pushing the latest plandemic agenda item.

At the current time, the push is on to coerce as many people as possible to roll up their sleeves for an Operation Warp Speed injection, so naturally it is in the medical deep states best interests to try to scare the public with made-up nonsense about hospitalizations.

None other than The Atlantic, of all places, blew the lid on the study, which debunks an earlier claim made by The Atlantic that covid hospitalization data is the most reliable pandemic number.

It turns out that this data is not so reliable after all as Chinese Virus numbers continue to be exposed as fraudulent. It is almost as if the Cult of Covidism has some kind of vested interest in padding the numbers amid waning vaccine compliance.

Covid is a cult that has left many with mental illnesses

For their study, researchers from Harvard Medical School, Tufts Medical Center and the Veterans Affairs Healthcare System looked at nearly 50,000 electronic medical records on covid hospital admissions.

The scientists looked at the nature of each hospitalization, how serious it was and various other factors. They also checked to see whether each patient admitted required any kind of supplemental oxygen or had a blood oxygen level below 94 percent.

Based on these data points, they determined that very few of these covid hospitalizations fell into the severe category. In fact, many of the admitted patients did not even show symptoms and probably just showed up there because a positive test result scared them into panicking.

This often happens when people are traumatized by the media or whomever into believing that they have something that could kill them, prompting them to respond in extreme fear.

Because the government continues to lie about Chinese Germs and all of its latest variants, some people are unfortunately buying in to the propaganda. At the first sign of a possible infection, in other words, these people are admitting themselves to the emergency room.

This hysterical, over-the-top response by the propagandized covid disciples is clogging up hospital systems and consuming all available beds, leaving none for those with real emergencies.

The mainstream media is largely to blame for this, as is the White House. Both of these institutions are lying to the public about delta bugs, miracle injections and other snake oil nonsense, which is causing some people to believe that they might be sick and require hospitalization.

Perhaps the safest and most effective remedy for covid is to simply turn off social media and the television and commit to no longer exposing yourself to the infective brainwashing they push.

Immunize yourself against the lies by combatting or refusing to listen to them  and warn others to protect themselves by doing the same. Mass media brainwashing is a major pandemic right now, and it is best to stay more than six feet away from anything broadcasting it for your own protection.

Hospitals are incentivized to admit covid patients and preferably get them into ICU and on ventilators to maximize revenues, wrote one commenter at Zero Hedge about how the scam works.

Patients dont understand enough or care because someone else is paying, so they are incentivized to take full advantage of the care available to err on the side of caution.

The latest news about Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) mass hysteria can be found at Twisted.news.

Sources for this article include:

ZeroHedge.com

Archive.is

NaturalNews.com
(Natural News) Following a spike in Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) cases, Israel now plans to implement COVID-19 genetic scanning for inbound passengers. According to Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, travelers at the Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv will be the first ones to undergo this genetic screening. The move comes as Israel sees more COVID-19 cases among its vaccinated population because of the B16172 delta strain.

Bennett says during a Sept. 12 cabinet meeting: We are working on a scanning system for everyone who comes into Israel. Israel will thus become the radar for the virus. His remarks follow a warning by Israeli Minister for Social Equality Meirav Cohen: The next variant will come to Israel through Ben Gurion [airport]. No information about the new genetic scanning system is available as of writing despite Bennetts confirmation.

According to the Times of Israel , Bennetts decision comes after a cabinet review of the Israeli governments COVID-19 response  following a recent wave of infections due to the delta variant. Officials say travelers who fail to quarantine properly after they arrive are responsible for this recent wave.

The Israeli government also centers on vaccination as an important strategy to curb the spread of the B16172 delta variant. It now offers third booster shots for all Israelis 12 years old and above.

Bennett also says during the Sept. 12 meeting: We have run out of patience for people who are not vaccinated. Israeli Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz agrees, saying that the coronavirus has become a matter for those who are not vaccinated and refraining from vaccination simply causes death.

Current figures by the Israeli Ministry of Health show more than 6 million citizens have had at least one dose of the vaccine and 5.5 million have had two doses. The ministrys figures also indicate that 2.8 million out of Israels 9.3 million population have availed of a third booster shot.

Despite vaccinating its citizens, Israel still has a lot of COVID-19 cases

The genetic scanning to be implemented at Ben Gurion airport proves to be a huge step in tracking potential COVID-19 variants. However, the concept could possibly attract controversy due to privacy concerns. Aside from the scanning method, the particular genetic material to be scanned and kept by the Israeli government remains unclear. Nevertheless, genetic scanning is among Israels many steps to combat the spread of COVID-19 in the country.

Back in August 2021, Bennett dismissed the possibility of another lockdown and said vaccination was the best option to address COVID-19 in Israel. If Israeli citizens continue to be vaccinated on a large scale, we can overcome the delta variant, he said during an Aug. 18 televised press conference.

Bennett continued: A lockdown is the easiest step for the government. [But in] doing so, we are destroying the future of the country. A lockdown is the last line of defense, only when all other options were exhausted. The Israeli leader argued that lockdowns would leave Israel with huge debts to pay and not enough money for military supplies and advanced medical gear. (Related: PRISON STATE: Israel warns of more lockdowns if vaccination rates dont increase .)

Interestingly, an Infowars report says neighboring Palestine has lower COVID-19 case numbers in spite of its citizens not receiving vaccines. While Israel exclusively vaccinates its population with the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccine, Palestine relies on vaccine donations courtesy of the World Health Organizations COVAX Initiative.

According to naturopathic physician Dr. Suneil Jain, only 8.2 percent of Palestines population is fully vaccinated. On the other hand, more than half of Israels population  62 percent  is fully vaccinated. Despite Palestines low vaccination rate, figures from OurWorldInData.org show that it has a small number of COVID-19 cases. (Related: Coronavirus cases spike in highly vaccinated Israel but drop in unvaccinated Palestine .)

The same graphs, meanwhile, show Israel injecting more shots into peoples arms, alongside skyrocketing COVID-19 case counts. Jains observation and the accompanying graphs appear to suggest that COVID-19 vaccines themselves may be responsible for the increase in infections among vaccinated people.

MedicalTyranny.com has more articles about Israels response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sources include:

Infowars.com 1

TimesOfIsrael.com 1

TimesOfIsrael.com 2
(Natural News) As pharmaceutical companies and some health agencies continue their push for COVID-19 vaccine booster shots, a group of leading American and international scientists have concluded that boosters are not necessary for the general public at this time.

This conclusion was published in the peer-reviewed journal The Lancet. Among the scientists are senior officials with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the World Health Organization (WHO). Two of the scientists who participated in the review were the FDAs Office of Vaccines Research and Review Director Marion Gruber and Deputy Director Philip Krause, who recently announced they would be leaving the FDA due to frustrations over the agencys move to support booster shots.

The scientists said that although the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines against mild disease wanes with time, the protection they provide against severe disease could persist due to certain complexities of the bodys immune system and other defenses the body has besides antibodies that could protect people from getting seriously ill.

They concluded that widely distributing booster shots is not appropriate at this stage in the pandemic.

However, they did concede that booster shots could be needed for the general population should vaccine-induced immunity decline even further or new variants emerge that are capable of evading the protection afforded by the shots.

If two doses are causing so many side effects, what could happen after three?

Not only is the third/booster shot unnecessary, but the scientists expressed concerns about the potential for side effects like the heart inflammation condition myocarditis, which tends to be more common after people have received their second dose of an mRNA vaccine.

They wrote: If unnecessary boosting causes significant adverse reactions, there could be implications for vaccine acceptance that go beyond COVID-19 vaccines.

The scientists warning comes a week before the Biden administration plans to start offering COVID-19 vaccine boosters to the general public in the U.S. An advisory group from the FDA will be holding a meeting to discuss data supporting the widespread use of boosters.

Last month, the administration cited a trio of studies released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention demonstrating that the protection offered by the vaccines against COVID-19 decreased over a period of several months. The administrations plan is calling for people to get a third dose just eight months after receiving their second shot of either the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine.

Meanwhile, data submitted by Pfizer to the FDA as it seeks to gain approval for distributing its booster shots across the U.S. shows that the side effects of COVID-19 vaccine boosters are similar to those experienced following the second dose. These effects are more likely to affect younger people.

This is based on a phase three study of boosters that involved around 300 participants aged 18 to 55. Their studies have also found adverse events among 306 people who received booster shots. Forty-four of these people developed at least one unexpected side effect; swelling of the lymph nodes was found in 16 of the participants.

Other health experts and scientists have been heavily criticizing booster plans on the grounds that the data cited was not very compelling. In the UK, a government advisory panel plans to recommend whether or not a third dose should be widely administered soon; the country is already offering people with severely weakened immune systems a third dose. The European Medicines Agency is also reportedly reviewing booster data provided by the makers of the Pfizer and Moderna jabs.

Sources for this article include:

CNBC.com

CNBC.com
(Natural News) Healthcare workers in New York have been given a reprieve from the states Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) mandate. This comes after a group of 17 healthcare professionals sued the state of New York to enjoin the enforcement of its unconstitutional vaccine mandate.

The state issued its COVID-19 vaccine mandate on Aug. 28. This required all healthcare workers at hospitals and nursing homes to get at least one dose of the vaccine by Sept. 27. This mandate does not recognize religious exemptions to vaccinations.

The healthcare workers who sued the state believe the lack of an exemption is an attempt to nullify the protections for sincerely held religious beliefs granted under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The same frontline healthcare workers hailed as heroes by the media for treating COVID patients before vaccines were available, including the plaintiffs herein, are now vilified by the same media as pariahs who must be excluded from society until they are vaccinated against their will, reads the lawsuit.

The lack of an exemption for people with deeply held religious beliefs against vaccinations also stands in stark contrast to an earlier mandate pushed by the state that did have those protections. (Related: Bidens federal vaccine mandate doesnt really apply to everyone: Members of Congress, staff, postal workers are EXEMPT.)

What New York is attempting to do is slam shut an escape hatch from an unconstitutional mandate, said Christopher Ferrara, a lawyer for the pro-religious liberty Thomas More Society. And they are doing this while knowing that many people have sincere religious objections to vaccines that were tested, developed or produced with cell lines derived from aborted children.

Ferrara is also one of the attorneys representing the New York healthcare workers in their case against the vaccine mandate.

In his case, Ferrara pointed out that New York has no right to nullify a federal law that protects people with sincerely held religious beliefs against discrimination.

This is a brazen power grab by people who think they can get away with anything, he said.

Along with citing violations to the Constitution, the lawsuit alleges that the lack of exemptions for people with sincerely held religious beliefs is also a violation of the New York State Human Rights Law and the New York City Human Rights Law.

Further legal battles over New Yorks vaccine mandate expected

Judge David N. Hurd of the District Court for the Northern District of New York ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and issued an order temporarily blocking the state from enforcing its vaccine mandate.

Hurd then gave the state until Sept. 22 to respond to the lawsuit in federal court. If the state opposes the request of the plaintiffs for a preliminary court order blocking the vaccine mandate, an oral hearing will be held on Sept. 28 to decide the matter.

The 17 plaintiffs are all Christians and they include practicing doctors, nurses, a nuclear medical technologist, a cognitive rehabilitation therapist and a physicians liaison. The lawsuit made it clear that they all want to proceed with the case anonymously because they run the risk of ostracization, threats of harm, immediate firing and other retaliatory consequences if their names become known.

Without court intervention, these health professionals face loss of occupation, professional status and employability anywhere in the state of New York, said Ferrara.

All of them oppose the COVID-19 vaccines as a matter of religious conviction, and they do not want to cooperate in any medical procedure that relates to abortion or the use of matter from aborted children.

In a statement, Ferrara made it clear that his clients are not against vaccines.

They are in fact in favor of voluntary vaccination with informed consent, but they oppose jack-booted coercion by the state to take a vaccine their religion forbids them to take. This is America, not Red China, he said.

Learn more about all the groups that are fighting against COVID-19 vaccine mandates by reading the latest articles at Vaccines.news.

Sources include:

LifeSiteNews.com

Newsweek.com
(Natural News) Sarah Green was a healthy 16-year-old  until she developed neurological problems after getting Pfizers COVID vaccine. But doctors said her new tremors, tics and debilitating migraines couldnt possibly be caused by the vaccine.

(Article by Megan Redshaw republished from ChildrensHealthDefense.org)

In an exclusive interview with The Defender, Sarah and her mother, Marie Green, said they feel helpless because nobody will acknowledge Sarahs vaccine injury and nobody can help them.

Sarah received her second dose of Pfizer on May 4, and immediately experienced a headache at the base of her neck that radiated to her temples. She said it felt like she got hit by a bus. She took a nap in hopes she could sleep it off.

The headaches never went away and slowly, over the course of three weeks, Sarah developed small facial twitches.

The night of May 23, I went to my dad because my neck had started twitching every 15 seconds, Sarah said.

Green said Sarah would start a word and it was as if her brain would reset. It wasnt like she was trying to get a word out  it would just start over.

After Sarahs symptoms worsened, her parents took her to Johnston Health in Smithfield, North Carolina. Upon arrival the physicians noticed Sarah had constant tremors. Green said the doctor looked down and noticed Sarahs right foot also had a tremor, but they didnt have a pediatric neurologist, so she was transferred to WakeMed in Raleigh once she stabilized.

Sarahs EEG, MRI with and without contrast and CT scans were normal. After two days the doctor came in and said Sarah had a nervous twitch and needed to see a mental health professional.

During the MRI with contrast, Sarahs mother said she stopped breathing and had to be pulled out of the machine and intubated. Two hours later the doctor came in and said they were going to send Sarah home.

They werent even going to refer her to a neurologist, Green said. They said it was just a nervous tick and she needed to see a therapist.

Green said the vaccine was not the first thing she thought of when her daughters symptoms initially started, but the hospital had her fill out a form of things that might have changed and when it came down to it, the only thing that changed was the vaccine.

When Green asked the doctor if the vaccine could have caused her daughters condition, he got very defensive and said, We cant blame everything on the vaccine.

Green said the physicians response was frustrating. How can you say you dont know what it is but say the vaccine isnt the cause? she asked.

Green said, As soon as we said it was the vaccine, it was like they couldnt get us out of there fast enough.

When Sarah finally got into a neurologist on June 6, Green asked if Sarahs condition was vaccine-related.

The doctor said Sarah had functional movement disorder and it was not related to the vaccine  although she said she has seen more cases since COVID vaccines were approved because people stress themselves out over the vaccine and its psychosomatic.

According to the National Organization of Rare Disorders, functional movement disorder is a type of functional neurological disorder that occurs when there is a problem with the functioning of the nervous system and how the brain and body send and/or receive signals  rather than a structural disease process, such as multiple sclerosis or stroke.

The condition can encompass a wide variety of neurological symptoms, such as tremors, dystonia, jerky movements (myoclonus) and problems walking (gait disorder).

Green didnt agree with the doctors assessment that Sarahs reaction was psychosomatic.

Sarah is 16. She was nervous about getting a needle in her arm, but once she got the vaccine she slapped a bandaid on it and went off to starbucks, Green said.

When I tried to explain that to her neurologist, she said that I needed to stop focusing on what caused it and focus on getting my daughter well, Green explained. But I felt like if we didnt know why, we wouldnt be able to treat her the right way.

Green said Sarah got the vaccine on her own because in North Carolina, she could get the vaccine without parental consent.

She works in fast food and on the frontline and they were told the vaccine would be mandated, Green said. Krispy Kreme was giving out a dozen donuts, so the kids went and got their shots.

Green said neither she nor her husband got a COVID vaccine. When Sarah said she wanted to get it, Green explained her and her husbands reservations and why they werent getting the vaccine.

Green said:

We have been asked many times why she got it and we didnt. She did come to us and tell us she wanted to, but we did not know she had made up her mind. We had a discussion about it, but her job and the free incentives that I feel were targeted towards young people  Krispy Kreme offered them a dozen free donuts  really swayed her decision.

Sarah was told the risks of getting a vaccine included having a sore arm for a few days, but now it has been months and shes not fine.

Sarah had to drop two college classes this semester because of her symptoms. She had just started driving but she cannot drive anymore because she cant look up or turn her head to the right without it causing spastic tremors. She also cant write, Green said. She has constant tremors like someone who has Parkinsons disease.

Sarahs symptoms have progressively worsened over time, but the only treatment option recommended to her was a medication similar to Benadryl.

Green said:

Its so frustrating. We tried to get her into a hospital in Florida but there is a six-month waiting list. We called Cleveland but they have a three-month waiting list. We have called the Shriners hospital and they wont even see her. We had an appointment at Duke but it was going to be on a video conference. We just keep getting doors slammed in our faces and the minute you mention a vaccine they dont want to deal with you anymore.

Green said she and Sarah are not anti-vaxxers. Sarah has had all of her vaccines, but there are too many people having problems for them not to know theres no problem with these mRNAs. If they would just acknowledge the potential side effects  but theyre acting like its not even happening, and its not fair to her and for her entire life to be put on hold, she added.

Green said she reported Sarahs vaccine injury to the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions (CDC) Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (I.D. 1354500) and Pfizer.

When I called Pfizer they just had me answer some questions and said if there were new symptoms to call back and they could update their report, Green said. When I called back a second time they said they lost the report. When I asked if anyone else had called with the same symptoms they said no.'

As The Defender reported Sept. 8, a 30-year-old woman suffered severe neurological complications after receiving Pfizers COVID vaccine, and she also reported her injury to Pfizer.

Dominique is still searching for answers from doctors after developing a long list of debilitating conditions, including severe neurological complications, pain and at times, an inability to walk, following her first dose of Pfizers COVID vaccine.https://t.co/pl06mjTjdP  Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) September 9, 2021

On June 29, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson held a news conference with families who experienced neurological injuries from COVID vaccines, including Pfizers.

Among them was Maddie de Garay from Ohio, who volunteered for the Pfizer vaccine trial when she was 12. She is now in a wheelchair after experiencing severe adverse reactions to the vaccine.

Green, who said Sarah was healthy and living her best life prior to being vaccinated, is very concerned about children 12 and under getting the vaccine. Just acknowledge the problem and fix it, but at least inform people what to look for, she said.

I just want my life back, Sarah said. Everything has just been put on hold. I had to drop my college classes because I cant write and I have doctor appointments. I was going out with my friends, but now its exhausting. My migraines are so bad I have to sit in a dark room with no light or device and sit for hours.

Sarahs mother said she feels guilty for not looking into the vaccine more before her daughter went and got it. Now she feels helpless because you feel like theres nothing you can do and nobody who can help you.

Childrens Health Defense asks anyone who has experienced an adverse reaction, to any vaccine, to file a report following these three steps.

Read more at: ChildrensHealthDefense.org and VaccineInjuryNews.com.
(Natural News) Dr. Steven Hotze slams Canadian authorities who arrested a pastor and his brother for holding a service recently in Calgary, the most populous city in Alberta, Canada.

This should infuriate every Christian in the world, particularly those of us living in the United States and living in Canada where were supposed to have religious freedom, says Hotze during his program The Dr. Hotze Report Monday, Sept. 13, on Brighteon.TV.

Pastor Artur Pawlowski and his brother David have been dragged on the streets for inciting people to come to church and for opening the church and preaching to the people.

Appearing on The Dr. Hotze Report on Brighteon.TV, Pawlowski related that another pastor has been arrested recently just because he opened his church. Another one has spent six weeks in Edmonton prison for opening his church.

We are the most liberal communistic government in this country right now under the leadership of Premier Jason Kenney, who is cracking on Christianity left and right, says Pawlowski.

While many churches have shut down their services, a handful of pastors are standing up against the government.

More are joining a spiritual revolution, an uprising, a solidarity movement. More and more people are realizing that this is not going away, that those people are not stopping, says Pawlowski. We have thousands of people joining our rallies, protests, marches and different other things that were trying to do to awaken the population.

Pawlowski says they feed thousands of people on the streets of Calgary under the umbrella of a ministry that he started in 2005.

Its called Street Church. We have 40 churches like this in different countries, different continents, he says. When we go on a gospel, we also go with food and music. We are the church for the poor and the homeless.

US senator pushes to place Canada on religious freedoms watch list

The series of arrests catches the attention of Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley. He asks the Commission on International Religious Freedom to place Canada on its religious freedoms watch list due to the arrests of Alberta pastors accused of breaking the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) public health restrictions.

Hawley writes a letter to the chair of the commission, asking them to consider adding Canada to the watch list after the arrests of Alberta pastors for holding worship services.

One of the most fundamental human rights is the freedom to practice ones faith, writes Hawley. I am writing to express my deep concern that this freedom is in peril across our nations northern border.

Pastor Tim Stephens of Fairview Baptist Church in Calgary has been arrested twice by police for organizing a church service violating public health orders, and for allegedly violating a court order and hosting an outdoor church service.

Pastor James Coates of GraceLife Church, which is located west of Edmonton, has been arrested and spent a more than a month in jail at the Edmonton Remand Center after getting charged with violating COVID-19 restrictions as church services without masks or physical distancing continued to be organized.

Hawley mentions Stephens and Coates in his letter and says that there are numerous other instances when Canadian pastors have been jailed for not complying with restrictions in place during the pandemic.

Canadian authorities arrest of faith leaders and seizure of church property, among other enforcement actions, appear to constitute systematic, ongoing and egregious violations of religious freedoms, says Hawley.

The senator compares the enforcement actions taken by law enforcement and Canadian public health authorities to actions officials in China would undertake. I would expect this sort of religious crackdown in Communist China, not in a prominent Western nation like Canada, he says.

Hawley sends a copy of the letter to Kirsten Hillman, the Canadian ambassador to the U.S.

The U.S. commission has three requirements to declare that a country oppresses religious freedom. It says the oppression must be systematic, ongoing and egregious. Any two of those factors is enough to be placed on the special watch list. Countries already on the list include Afghanistan, Egypt, Cuba and Turkey.

A commission spokesperson says the agency is aware of Hawleys letter and is looking into it.

Christians targeted by hate crimes in Canada

Hate crimes targeting Christians have also become normal in Canada. There have been several attacks on Christian congregations in the country since June, including a number of cases in which churches are completely burned down.

The fires and vandalism span six provinces and the Northwest Territories, some of which have been in the heartland of First Nations territory. Christians are being forced to defend themselves or hire private security just to protect their places of worship.

The anti-Christian assault in Canada has started soon after the unveiling of a residential school burial site in Kamloops, British Columbia which is then followed by more unmarked grave discoveries at a former residential school site in Saskatchewan.

The Tkemlups te Secwepemc First Nation has discovered the remains of 215 children at a school in British Columbia while the Cowessess First Nation has found 751 unmarked graves on the grounds of the former Marieval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan.

Watch the Sept. 13 episode of The Dr. Hotze Report here.

You can catch The Dr. Hotze Report live every Monday at 5-6 p.m. on Brighteon.TV.

Follow AntiChrist.news for more news related to attacks on Christians.

Sources include:

Brighteon.TV

Edmonton.CTVNews.ca

TheCounterSignal.com
(Natural News) In the most recent episode of B-alert News, Bishop Leon Benjamin and guest General Flynn talk about election fraud and how COVID-19 helped bury the issue.

In recent reports, several people hired to lead a controversial audit of Arizonas 2020 election results were found to have contracted COVID-19, delaying a widely panned ballot review process.

The president of the Arizona State Senate, Senator Karen Fann, said in a statement that three people of the five-member team were quite sick, including Doug Logan, who is in charge of the review.

Logans company, Cyber Ninjas, started reviewing 2.1 million ballots and election equipment from Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, in April, following orders of the Republican majority in the State Senate. The review was conducted to address claims of voter fraud by the supporters of former President Donald Trump.

It is not clear when the final report for the fraudulent claims will be made public, but Fann said that the Senate team will meet again once the full draft of the report is submitted. Once completed, the final report will be presented to the Arizona Senate Judiciary Committee, and the findings will be made public.

There are people who believe that the COVID-19 pandemic was planned, and issues have been raised since 2020. A five-minute clip posted on Facebook in November claiming that COVID-19 was planned to remove U.S. President Donald Trump from office circulated online. Posted on Facebook in November last year, the five-minute clip showed The Four Year Plan To Overthrow An Elected President.

The video expressed numerous claims and opinions but mostly addressed some of the primary allegations.

Moreover, in the episode of B-alert News, Bishop Leon Benjamin and guest General Flynn also speak about the notion of vaccine mandates being unconstitutional. They discuss, in particular, how the vaccine mandates are sweeping the issue of election fraud under the rug.

Right after the elections, former President Trump offered a new explanation for his claims of voter fraud, saying that his political opponents used COVID to change the outcome of the presidential elections.

The former president has made frequent claims of widespread voter fraud despite federal and state election officials, assuring him that the votes were secure. He noted that the pandemic allowed his competitors the opportunity to cheat.

They used COVID in order to cheat. They used COVID in order to rig the election and in order to steal the election. They used COVID. Thats as simple as it gets, he said. (Related: SHAFFER: Heres the evidence of widespread election fraud.)

USPS exempted from vaccination mandate

Benjamin and Flynn also speak about how the lockdowns and mandates are restricting peoples rights; however, it is interesting to note that of all the vaccination mandates that the current administration is coming up with, among the exemption include U.S. postal service, which handles parcels on a daily basis.

The USPS is not subject to Bidens previous mandate for the federal workforce to either be vaccinated or receive regular tests, so the mailing agency would start from scratch in implementing its testing infrastructure. Moreover, the USPS does not even know who among its workforce, spread across 34,000 facilities, are already vaccinated.

The American Postal Workers Union (APWU), which represents over 200,000 USPS employees, previously denounced vaccine mandates and said issues related to inoculations or testing must be negotiated with them. Maintaining the health and safety of our members is of paramount importance. While the APWU leadership continues to encourage postal workers to voluntarily get vaccinated, it is not the role of the federal government to mandate vaccinations for the employees we represent.

Catch more of Bishop Leon Benjamins commentaries at B-alert News, Mondays at 10 a.m. on Brighteon.TV.

Read more news and updates on VoteFraud.news.

Sources include:

MediaMarg.com

NewsYahoo.com

GovExec.com
(Natural News) Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren wants to abolish the First Amendment because the right to free speech, she says, is allowing misinformation about the Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) to spread online.

Warren is calling on the Amazon retail monopoly to start burning all books and other related materials about the Chinese Virus that tell a different story from the one being peddled by Tony Fauci.

In a letter to current Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, Warren complained about medical experts like Dr. Joseph Mercola whom she claims are spreading dangerous fake news about how to naturally prevent a Wuhan Infection without a mask or a vaccine.

During the week of August 22, 2021, my staff conducted sample searches on Amazon.com of pandemic-related terms such as COVID-19, COVID, vaccine, COVID 19 vaccine, and pandemic,' Warren revealed about what she and her minions have been doing lately on the taxpayers dime.

The top results consistently included highly-ranked and favorably-tagged books based on falsehoods about COVID-19 vaccines and cures.

According to Warren, who is not a doctor, Dr. Mercola, who is a doctor, is just wrong about everything he is saying concerning the Fauci Flu because it disagrees with her own personal beliefs about Chinese Germs.

[Dr. Mercola] has posted over 600 articles on Facebook casting doubt on COVID-19 vaccines and been subject to multiple federal investigations (with one false-advertising investigation leading to a $2.95 million consumer settlement), Warren went on to whine.

But Amazons algorithms promoted The Truth About COVID-19 as a best seller and top result in response to common pandemic-related search terms.

Elizabeth Warren says vitamins C and D are a dangerous conspiracy

Rather than serve her constituents as she was hired by them to do, Warren has launched a witch hunt that aims to silence Dr. Mercola and others who are trying to help people stay safe and protected against the Chinese Bioweapon.

It would appear as though Warren actually read some of Dr. Mercolas book because she specifically called him out for recommending high-dose vitamin C and vitamin D to help boost immunity.

Warren, a fake Native American, personally believes that natural vitamins are a dangerous conspiracy, and should thus not be allowed to be promoted in any reading or visual materials available to the general public through Amazon.

Warren went on in the letter to scold Amazon for allowing these materials that offend her to ever be sold on its platform at all, calling it a pattern and practice of misbehavior by the retail giant.

 Amazon is either unwilling or unable to modify its business practices to prevent the spread of falsehoods or the sale of inappropriate products  an unethical, unacceptable, and potentially unlawful course of action from one of the nations largest retailers, bleated Warren.

At a time when every step towards ending the pandemic could save countless lives, misinformation poses a substantial debacle.

At her command, Warren is demanding that Jassy drop whatever he is doing and perform an immediate review of all Amazon algorithms and provide her with a full report in 14 days explaining what he plans to do to make her happy.

In a statement, Amazon responded to Warren that it is already trying to calm her down by encouraging its employees to get vaccinated. The company will not, however, be silencing Dr. Mercola simply because she wants it to.

As a retailer, we respect that our customers want access to a wide variety of viewpoints on the matter, which is why we continue to list the books in question, the company stated plainly.

To keep up with the latest news about Elizabeth Warren and the other medical fascists, visit LizWarren.news

Sources for this article include:

Infowars.com

NaturalNews.com

FoxBusiness.com
(Natural News) White House chief medical adviser Antony Fauci said over the weekend that the Biden regime is going to mandate everyone including children take Big Pharmas experimental shots if theyre not persuaded to take them and called for banning Americans from flying, going to work, college and school if they refuse to submit.

(Article by Chris Menahan republished from InformationLiberation.com)

The move comes just days after Fauci said Americans will need to take a third booster shot to be considered fully vaccinated.

We have a pretty hardcore group of people that were trying to persuade them  or mandate them if theyre not persuaded  to get vaccinated, Fauci told the Association of LGBTQ Journalists on Sunday.

Fauci went on to claim that vaccinating this recalcitrant group would be the key to ending this [pandemic] before immediately walking back his sweeping claim and saying it would only cut down the overall number of infections.

So we have about 75 million people who are eligible to be vaccinated who have not yet gotten vaccinated, thats the key to ending this, Fauci said. I mean that would be the key, um, you would cut down dramatically the number of infections if we got the overwhelming majority of that recalcitrant group vaccinated.



[Embed starts at 1:06]

Fauci also said over the weekend that unvaxxed Americans should be banned from flying and children should be forced to take the shot to go to school (even though studies show boys are more at risk from the shot than the virus itself).

NEW  Dr. Fauci calls for unvaccinated Americans to be banned from air travel and to mandate #COVID19 vaccines for school children.pic.twitter.com/AyYL0F8xkM  Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) September 13, 2021

Fauci claimed that if we got 70% of Americans vaccinated wed achieve herd immunity but ultra-vaxxed Israel where over 84% of adults are vaccinated reported the highest number of cases per capita in the world just two weeks ago and their government is rolling out booster shots already and telling everyone to prepare for a fourth shot in the near future.

Ireland, where nearly 90% of the adult population is vaxxed, reported Friday that 54% of patients in their hospitals with covid were fully vaccinated.

Fauci on Friday said he would personally order everyone to take Big Pharmas experimental injections in order to have a job.

Dr. Fauci on Biden's vaccine mandates: "I think the president is being somewhat moderate in his demand, if you want to call it that." pic.twitter.com/493tzKfvSF  The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) September 10, 2021

Last year, Fauci brushed off the notion of mandatory vaccines and said the government would never mandate them for any element of the general public.

VIDEO: Mandatory Vaccine.  Dr. Fauci once said, 'mandatory' vaccine injections are not necessary and will not happen. pic.twitter.com/PG8PTPJouj  New Granada (@NewGranada1979) July 5, 2021

I dont see [a vaccine mandate] on a national level merely because of all the situations you have upon encroaching upon a persons freedom to make their own choice of their own health, Fauci said during another interview.

Anthony Fauci, July 2020: I dont see [a vaccine mandate] on a national level merely because of all the situations you have upon encroaching upon a persons freedom to make their own choice of their own health pic.twitter.com/iHHr2TwIUj  RNC Research (@RNCResearch) September 10, 2021

Read more at: InformationLiberation.com and MedicalTyranny.com.
(Natural News) A job board for Americans who believe in self-responsibility and choice lists a variety of jobs that do not require employees to get the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine.

As of this writing, the Freedom Job Network has 1,308 jobs listed at TheFreedomJobNetwork.com, giving every American a fair chance to build a career regardless of vaccination status. It also gives an opportunity for displaced unvaccinated workers to continue their careers, bring food to the table and provide their families with a better future.

The job board is a breath of fresh air in the current job market that largely seeks fully vaccinated workers. That reality has been made worse by President Joe Bidens series of vaccine mandates that will force two-thirds of American workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

The president has reached into the private sector to mandate that all companies with more than 100 workers require vaccination or weekly testing. Biden has also moved to mandate vaccination for healthcare workers, federal contractors and the vast majority of federal workers, who could face disciplinary measures if they refuse. (Related: Bidens federal vaccine mandate doesnt really apply to everyone: Members of Congress, staff, postal workers are EXEMPT.)

The sweeping actions are easily the most expansive he has taken to control the pandemic and will affect almost every aspect of society. They also reflect Bidens frustrations with the roughly 80 million eligible Americans who refuse to get vaccinated.

Weve been patient, Biden says in a sharp message to those who refuse to be vaccinated. But our patience is wearing thin. And your refusal has cost all of us.

Biden is acting through a combination of executive orders and new federal rules. Under his plan, roughly 17 million healthcare workers employed by hospitals and other institutions that accept Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement will face strict new vaccination requirements.

Some healthcare facilities look ready to face the consequences.

Nebraskas state-run facilities hire unvaccinated health workers

Job ads for open positions in Nebraskas state-run facilities highlight COVID-19 vaccines as optional, a move that contradicts federal mandates for health workers and could cost the state some of its insurance reimbursements. The job ads  46 in all  tout vaccine-optional positions in state-run veterans homes, youth detention facilities, psychiatric hospitals and prisons.

They directly contradict an earlier announcement from the Department of Veterans Affairs that all medical personnel working in its health facilities across the country would be required to receive the vaccine, as well as a similar mandate from the Biden administration for workers in long-term care facilities. The ads have been posted before Bidens new and more comprehensive vaccine mandate for healthcare workers.

The Biden administrations policy for long-term care workers stipulates that the COVID-19 vaccination is a condition of participating in the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Meaning, the facilities that dont comply could be at risk of losing federal reimbursements for the care they give to patients covered under those plans.

Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts of Nebraska has approved the ads.

Taylor Gage, a spokesman for the governor, says: The state has been pursuing a variety of strategies to address workforce challenges. At the governors direction, the State Personnel Division consulted with state agencies to develop this recruitment effort.

At a press conference, Ricketts says the ads provide an extra recruiting push to shore up the states long-standing nursing shortage and are not meant to target unvaccinated nurses specifically.

We have a number of positions open at the state of Nebraska. We need nurses just like everybody else does, Ricketts says. We want to recruit them. We also heard from a lot of people when the hospitals made that announcement that they were very unhappy with their employers interfering with their personal health decisions. We want nurses to not leave the workforce, because we need them all.

The governor says he is open to further measures to shore up staffing at hospitals, but will not approve a mandate for either face coverings or vaccines.

If you go look at our advertisement, for example, we say, while vaccines are encouraged, theyre not required,' says the governor. We need people to do this because its part of personal responsibility for themselves.

Ricketts is one of the most vocal critics of Bidens vaccine mandates. He criticizes Biden for lack of communication with states, noting that since taking office, Biden has not participated in any of the weekly phone calls the White House has with the nations governors.

The president should look at the data, and maybe the president should attend one of the weekly calls his administration has with all the governors  hes not been on one yet since hes been president  and maybe talk to some of the governors and ask them about whats going on in their states because he appears to be pretty ignorant of whats going on in places like Nebraska, Ricketts tells Fox News Sunday.

Republican governors set to challenge Bidens vaccine mandates in court

Ricketts has threatened a legal challenge against Bidens vaccine mandates, saying that State Attorney General Doug Peterson is exploring options along with his counterparts in other states. (Related: Republicans vow to sue Biden over COVID-19 vaccine mandate.)

Hes coordinating with the other attorneys general across the country who share similar views about the overreach, says Ricketts. This is an egregious overreach of federal authority. And as we see what these rules are we will be able to know exactly how we will be able to challenge them in court. Im also talking with my colleagues around the country as well the other governors who feel the way I do, and well be working on other strategies.

Several other Republican governors across the country describe Bidens aggressive moves to require vaccinations as an unconstitutional attack on personal freedoms and vow to sue the administration to block the requirements.

They argue that Bidens plan is a big-government attack on states rights, private business and personal choice, and promise swift legal action to challenge it.

Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota tweets: South Dakota will stand up to defend freedom. Joe Biden, see you in court.

Gov. Mark Gordon of Wyoming says the new rule has no place in America. He has asked the states attorney general to be ready to take legal action.

Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas calls the actions an assault on private businesses. He says that he has issued an executive order protecting Texans right to choose whether or not they would be vaccinated. Texas is already working to halt this power grab.

Follow Immunization.news for more news and information related to vaccine mandates and coronavirus vaccines.

Sources include:

TheFreedomJobNetwork.com

NYTimes.com 1

FoxNews.com

NYTimes.com 2
(Natural News) Throughout our history, there has been no greater traitor to his people than American Gen. Benedict Arnold, whos lust for power, riches and glory drove him to betray his fellow colonials and throw in with the British during the Revolutionary War.

But that appears to have now changed.

Benedict Arnold in the modern era is the countrys top general, Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, based on excerpts of a forthcoming book by a couple of Washington Post vets, Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.

According to the authors of the book Peril, Milley told the Pentagons top commanders to ignore the then-sitting commander-in-chief, Donald Trump, after the Jan. 6 breach, according to CNN:

Two days after the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, President Donald Trumps top military adviser, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, single-handedly took secret action to limit Trump from potentially ordering a dangerous military strike or launching nuclear weapons

Woodward and Costa write that Milley, deeply shaken by the assault, was certain that Trump had gone into a serious mental decline in the aftermath of the election, with Trump now all but manic, screaming at officials and constructing his own alternate reality about endless election conspiracies.

Milley worried that Trump could go rogue, the authors write.

You never know what a presidents trigger point is, Milley reportedly said.

As such, Milley went on to take extraordinary action, calling a secret confab in his office in the Pentagon on Jan. 8 to go over processes for military action including launching nuclear weapons, CNN continued. In meeting with senior military officials who ran the National Military Command Center, which is the Defense Departments war room, the Joint Chiefs chairman told his subordinates they were not to take any orders from anyone unless he was looped in.

No matter what you are told, you do the procedure. You do the process. And Im part of that procedure, Milley told the assembled officers, the book claims. He then looked each of the meeting participants in the eye and told them to verbally tell him they understood what it was he was saying: Dont listen to Trump; listen to me.

On Wednesday amid the fallout, the Pentagon put out a statement that actually defended Milleys actions, if you can believe that.

What I can tell you is that it is not uncommon at all for the Department to continue to review security protocols particularly when it comes to our strategic deterrence capabilities to make sure that they are still relevant, said Pentagon spokesman John Kirby, who claimed he was not speaking to the accusation that Milley took steps to prevent the sitting president from launching a nuclear strike  which he would have to do in response to an incoming strike, keep in mind  while assuring his Chinese counterpart he planned to warn of any incoming attack.

Its also completely appropriate  and again Im not speaking to the validity of things that are in the book  but it is completely appropriate for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to want to see those protocols reviewed on whatever frequent basis that he wants to do that.

Flat out, that is treason, and Sen. Rand Paul is well aware of what needs to happen.

Couple that with his inept handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and it is clear General Milley is no longer fit to serve as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and should be removed immediately.  Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) September 15, 2021

I dont care what you think of President Trump, the Chairman of the JCOS working to subvert the military chain of command and collude with China is exactly what we do not accept from military leaders in our country, Paul, a Kentucky Republican, tweeted. He should be court martialed if true.

Couple that with his inept handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and it is clear General Milley is no longer fit to serve as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and should be removed immediately, he wrote.

If we had a functional government, Milley would have already been arrested by military officials ahead of a court martial.

Sources include:

CNN.com
(Natural News) Jeff Peterson and Shannon Shady Grove claim hospitals are killing Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) patients by refusing to treat them with ivermectin. They make this revelation during the Sept. 13 edition of The Matrixxx Grooove Show on Brighteon.tv. Peterson and Grove also commemorate Chicago resident Veronica Wolski, who died after the hospital where she was confined in refused to treat her with the drug.

Wolski is known for her Peoples Bridge initiative that involves her dropping leaflets and hanging banners from a bridge in her hometown. Peterson describes her as a fierce patriot  [who] will be truly missed. Meanwile, Grove describes Wolski as a person who is trying to show people the truth, telling Americans to look here, not there in her own way.

She fought all the way to the point where she  [got] sick and ended up in a hospital, Grove adds. According to a report by Chicago news channel Fox 23, Wolski demands ivermectin as soon as she arrives in the hospital. However, doctors at the Amita Resurrection Health Medical Center refuse to administer the drug to her.

Wolski then takes to social media and complains about the hospital refusing to give her the life-saving treatment. Her supporters also take up her cause, with Amita officials confirming numerous calls and emails well into the hundreds regarding Wolskis demand.

Peterson then shows a video of South Carolina attorney Lin Wood calling the hospital on behalf of Wolski. In the footage, Wood introduces himself to a hospital staff member over the phone. He demands, under a medical power of attorney, that Wolski be released immediately. Wood continues that an ambulance and a medical doctor are waiting for Wolski outside the hospital to treat her.

The lawyer then issues a threat to the hospital staffer if the facility refuses to release Wolski. Wood says: If you do not release her, youre going to be guilty of murder. Do you understand what murder is? (Related: Australias murder regime government bans ivermectin prescriptions for covid in order to maximize covid casualties.)

The Matrixxx Grooove hosts acknowledge plot to discredit ivermectin

Peterson acknowledges that there are therapeutics, such as ivermectin, that help people get better from the flu. He adds that the Amita hospitals refusal to treat Wolski with the drug really makes [him] angry. Meanwhile, Grove proceeds to condemn doctors in charge of Wolski for their lack of compassion, empathy and understanding.

Grove says: The idea that someone is in a hospital  asking for something and these people [are] withholding it from her, that is murder. [That] is what theyre doing to  thousands and thousands. Its disturbing on a level that I cant even quite comprehend right now.

Peterson then cites a Fox News report about podcast host and stand-up comedian Joe Rogans use of ivermectin during his bout with COVID-19. The host of The Joe Rogan Experience claims he took several medications  including monoclonal antibodies, prednisone, azithromycin and ivermectin. He adds that using the medications for three days contributes to his recovery.

Peterson then shows a video presentation about ivermectin and how mainstream media outlets conduct a coordinated effort to discredit its use for COVID-19. It starts by mentioning how Japanese scientist Dr. Satoshi Omura isolated ivermectin from soil bacteria four decades ago. Omuras work on ivermectin merits him the Nobel Prize for the drug in 2015.

The video adds that since its discovery, ivermectin has been prescribed nearly 4 billion times as a treatment for parasitic and viral infections. It also mentions a 2017 article published in Nature espousing ivermectin as a multifaceted wonder drug with unexpected potential as an antibacterial, antiviral and anti-cancer agent.

Even the World Health Organization attests to ivermectins effectivity, including it in its List of Essential Medicines. The global health body also stands by the drugs unparalleled safety profile and primarily minor and transient side effects. The Tokyo Medical Association also joins the entities standing behind ivermectin, recently advocating for its use against COVID-19. (Related: FACT CHECK: Ivermectin is on WHO list of essential medicines.)

Some doctors and scientists have taken issue with the methodology and some of the trials of ivermectin  this is expected in scientific debate. [While] one can take issue with the methods and conclusions of the peer-reviewed science, to claim that there is no science to support the use of ivermectin for [COVID-19] is patently false. [To] characterize this Nobel-Prize winning drug prescribed for humans as horse dewormer  that is a lie, the video says.

Grove then proceeds to slam the bald-faced liars attacking ivermectin as a potential COVID-19 treatment in favor of vaccines. We all understand that theyve got a narrative to protect. But do you really recognize whats going on? These are licensed professionals who are literally disregarding the Hippocratic Oath  [and] the Constitution, he says. He then calls on these medical professionals to have some courage and stand up for America.

Click here to watch the full episode of The Matrixxx Grooove Show.

MedicalCensorship.com has more articles about the medical establishments opposition to ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment.

Sources include:

Brighteon.com

Fox32Chicago.com

FoxNews.com
(Natural News) Western leftists, the real tyrants, have been waiting for an opportunity to assert full control over their respective countries, and they found that opportunity in a virus.

Left-wing governments throughout the Western world have used the COVID-19 pandemic to impose mandates, lockdowns, and even steal elections in the United States, all in a bid to gain complete control over their people.

Australia is turning into a giant COVID gulag. The Biden regime is using the pandemic to impose unheard of requirements on Americans, tens of millions of whom are now at risk of becoming second-class citizens in their own country. And in Europe, opposition to vaccine mandates is threatening to destabilize the healthcare industry, especially in France, where some 300,000 medical workers havent taken the jab and are resisting President Emanuel Macrons mandate to do so.

The Epoch Times reports:

French people working in the medical sector are required to be vaccinated against the CCP virus or risk a suspension from their jobs without pay under President Emmanuel Macrons new vaccine mandate that went into effect on Sept. 15.

Two months ago, Macron ordered hospital staff, ambulance technicians, nursing home workers, doctors, fire brigade members, and people caring for the elderly or infirm in their homessome 2.6 million employees in total, to get a COVID-19 vaccine by Sept. 15, though hundreds of thousands havent yet complied with the new rule.

The countrys health authority said that 300,000 French medical field employees have not gotten the jab and so now, some hospitals are in fear they will suffer massive personnel shortages, according to The Associated Press.

Vaccines are now compulsory for medical care, home care and emergency workers in France, and Wednesday is the deadline for such staff to have had at least one shot. Failing that, they face having pay suspended or not being able to work. But a top court has forbidden staff to be fired outright, AP reported on the deadline date.

Meanwhile, healthcare workers who have only gotten a single dose of the vaccine will be required to take a COVID test every three days until they receive their second dose; Oct. 15 is the deadline for workers to have gotten both.

The French government noted that as of Sept. 7, about 84 percent of the countrys health care staffers were vaccinated, but that leaves a lot of workers who, potentially, wont be able to work and fill shifts if they dont comply by the deadlines.

And its very likely that the employers will comply; under Macrons order, companies and hospitals who dont will be fined $160 (130 euros) per violation but those can climb to $4,430 (3,750 euros) if they are fined three times in a month, French media reported.

Oh, and there is prison time involved as well; six months behind bars, potentially.

Its insanity  all of this over a virus with a 99.7 percent recovery and survival rate.

We feel like were living through a third wave, but this time its a human resources wave, Emmanuel Chignon, who owns a nursing home in Western France, told The Epoch Times. Though he managed to remain open throughout the pandemic, now he and other healthcare providers face closure because of a large number of French healthcare workers who would rather quit their jobs than get the vaccine.

Vanessa Perotti, a health care worker at Hopital Beaujon in Clichy, a working-class suburb in Paris, said shes angry.

Im disgusted. In any case, theres nothing I can do. I just have to accept it, she said after quitting her healthcare industry position for refusing to get the jab.

Im not going to force myself to get injected with something just to work, said Perotti. Maybe its harmful, maybe its not, but I dont want anyone to impose it on me. Its not ethical, were free to do what we want with our bodies.

Not anymore  at least, not with the COVID-19 vaccine. Abortions, yes; this vaccine, no.

Sources include:

TheEpochTimes.com

APNews.com

NaturalNews.com
(Natural News) A coalition of medical practitioners is calling for hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), ivermectin and other prohibited remedies for the Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) to be made readily available to anyone who wants to use them.

Drs. Robert Malone, Heather Gessling, Ryan Cole and others converged in Puerto Rico recently to discuss their plans under a newly formed Pandemic Health Alliance (PHA) which seeks to help patients afflicted with Chinese Germs to find relief without masks or vaccines.

Appearing on a recent episode of Steve Bannons War Room: Pandemic program, the trio explained how PHA wrote a manifesto full of reasons as to why HCQ and ivermectin need to become part of the treatment arsenal for the Wuhan Flu.

We are here not to discuss the vaccine, stated Malone, who invented mRNA (messenger RNA) technology, during the segment.

Instead, Malone went on to explain, the goal is to defend the freedom of physicians to practice medicine how they see fit. And since many have seen incredible success using HCQ and ivermectin, these two pharmaceutical drugs should be easily accessible to the public.

We are in a situation where the government has seized control of the medical profession and this is causing death, Malone further explained, indicating that doctors are currently being prevented from providing early treatments.

Theres a pandemic of censorship concerning hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin

Gessling added his own positive experience using early treatment protocols to treat his covid patients. He says the drugs have proven to be an incredible success, and that they have already been tried and have [been] found to work very well.

In Gesslings view, the real pandemic is the pandemic of censorship that seeks to prevent sick people from getting the treatments they need to recover and get back to normal, all because these treatments are politically incorrect.

We are being shut down, Gessling says about the muzzle that has been placed on him and his fellow practitioners. We cannot even tell people what has worked.

Part of the PHAs mission statement is to strengthen the doctor-patient relationship, which is under attack by the mainstream media and the White House.

This relationship is supposed to be private, for one  meaning whatever remedies a doctor and his patient decides are best has the final say. Instead, the government and its media parrots insist that such information should be public, and that all patients should be forced to use only masks or vaccines to treat covid.

The profession of medicine as we know it is at a crossroad, the manifesto explains.

There has been an unprecedented and intentional assault on our ability to care for our patients. Physicians, and all health care providers, must have the freedom to practice the art and science of medicine without fear of retribution, censorship, slander, and disciplinary action to include possible loss of licensure and hospital privileges, loss of insurance contracts and interference from government entities and organizations  all further preventing us from caring for patients in need.

The situation is even worse in some parts of Europe where patients are no longer even allowed to see a doctor unless they first take one of the Operation Warp Speed injections they are calling vaccines.

Even if a patient has already acquired natural immunity from an infection, the medical profession has decided that they should still be forced to get jabbed in order to receive care.

Things are rapidly moving in that direction here in the United States as well, which is why the PHA is doing what it can to take a stand for health freedom.

Preventing people from accessing the medicines they need is medical fascism. To keep up with the latest, visit MedicalFascism.news.

Sources for this article include:

LifeSiteNews.com

NaturalNews.com
(Natural News) A recent poll showed that the vast majority of Americans oppose vaccination mandates, regardless of their party or affiliation.

The national poll produced by the Trafalgar Group in conjunction with the Convention of States Action demonstrates an overwhelming rejection of vaccine mandates. Conducted between July 12 and 13 with 1,077 respondents, 71.4 percent said that taking a COVID vaccine should be a matter of choice.

Trafalgar revealed that those who voted  Democrat and Republican alike  both lean against vaccine mandates. Out of these numbers, 58.7 percent of Democrats favored personal choice, while 87.3 percent of Republican voters rejected vaccine requirements altogether.

About 33 percent of Democrat voters said they would see vaccines mandated, but only 7.2 percent of Republicans shared the same view. Around 67.2 percent of those who stated no party affiliation voted in favor of the freedom to choose to be vaccinated, while 62.5 percent said that they should be mandatory. The rest remain unsure of where they fall on the issue.

President of Convention of States Action Mark Meckler said that the results reveal that hundreds of millions of social media messages, the constant stream of propaganda for the press, paid TV and radio ad campaigns, and daily hammering from the Biden Administration officials and cajoling from influencers and celebrities on communication platforms are backfiring.

Meckler said, Americans have never taken kindly to being told what to do, and they are not going to start now. After being told my body, my choice for nearly five decades by the same crowd now hypocritically pushing mandates, is it any wonder the public isnt on board?

President Joe Biden announced a sweeping vaccine mandate in July, ordering government agencies and private businesses with over 100 employees to require COVID-19 vaccination of their staff or face penalties. (Related: NYC restaurants REFUSE to enforce vaccine passport mandate and become vaccination police.)

However, the majority of Americans do not believe that the president holds this power. Of those polled regarding this issue, 27 percent of Democrats and 83.5 percent of Republicans believe that Biden does not hold the constitutional authority to force private businesses to require vaccination mandates for employees.

Those with no party affiliations also voted strongly against the notion of the president imposing authority regarding vaccine mandates on businesses, with 68.2 percent saying that he is constitutionally unable to push such mandate.

Many Republican state governors and attorneys general voiced their opposition to the presidents edict following his announcement, declaring the move to be unconstitutional and a power-grab.

Biden takes aim at vaccine resistance

The president took aim at those still resisting the vaccine. He told tens of millions of Americans who refused to get the COVID-19 shots, Weve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin, and your refusal has cost all of us, he said

Taken together, the policies and Bidens speech represent the most aggressive steps to prod Americans to get shots as the fast-spreading Delta variant sparks a new wave of sickness.

This surge posed an increased risk to the health of Americans, but it also dampened Bidens approval ratings since he promised to get control of the pandemic in July. Further, Bidens latest moves may be subjected to political and legal challenges.

Infectious disease and health policy experts noted that the mandates are unlikely to change infection rates quickly, and critics said that the Biden Administration has not done enough testing during its time in the office.

The SARS-CoV-2 virus has killed over 654,000 people in the United States alone. Deaths and hospitalizations have also risen sharply as the transmissible delta variant continues to spread.

Learn more about COVID-related mandates and policies at Pandemic.news.

Sources include:

LifeSiteNews.com

Reuters.com
(Natural News) Did you or someone you know ever get tested for the Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) at a Walgreens pharmacy location? If so, you should probably know that your personal information, including test results, may have been stolen by hackers.

Your name, birthday, gender identity, phone number, address and email could have been one of the millions that were leaked in a massive data breach that even Walgreens admits probably also set loose peoples covid test results.

Numerous vulnerabilities on the Walgreens website make it relatively easy for hackers to pry into peoples pharmaceutical habits, security experts have warned. Walgreens should know better and update its site, but that has not happened yet.

As a result, anyone who does business with Walgreens could be standing out there naked in cyberspace somewhere, at least as far as their personal information and covid status is concerned.

A report about the breach explains that active unique patient IDs can easily be guessed, or a hacker could create a bot to rapidly generate new URLs in the hopes of striking gold.

In a statement, Walgreens insisted that it routinely evaluates the security protocols on its website to ensure that personal patient data is protected at all times  but not everyone agrees.

Any company that made such basic errors in an app that handles health care data is one that does not take security seriously, says Alejandro Ruiz, a consultant with a company called Interstitial Technology PBC, as quoted by a news source that reported on the vulnerabilities at Walgreens.

Rather than fix the problems after being notified about them, Walgreens reportedly ignored Ruizs warnings and continued on as normal. The company also issued a canned statement about how we regularly review and incorporate additional security enhancements when deemed either necessary or appropriate.

Walgreens knows about security vulnerabilities but is failing to address them

Not only do hackers have potential access to private Walgreens customer records but so do unscrupulous advertising and data-mining companies that might go in there and steal it all in order to sell it.

Since Walgreens refuses to do anything to try to protect this data, it is critical for people to know this about the pharmacy chain before they decide, or undecide, to do business there.

Why would anyone who wants to keep their covid status private ever choose to go to Walgreens for a test, for instance? Do people even know that their medical data is so easily siphoned from the Walgreens website?

Chances are that most people do not know about any of this, which is why we wanted to make you aware of it. These data vulnerabilities have been present at the Walgreens website for years, and yet the company refuses to do anything about it.

The technical process that Walgreens deployed to protect peoples sensitive information was nearly nonexistent, warns Zach Edwards, a privacy researcher and founder of the analytics firm Victory Medium, as quoted by another media source.

Security by obscurity is an awful model for health records, added Sean OBrien, the founder of Yales Privacy Lab.

As it turns out, there is a ton more data stored on the Walgreens website that is likewise vulnerable to hacking or some other kind of breach. While only the patients name and type of test are available on the public-facing side of the pages, there is a private-facing side that is just as susceptible to being leaked, experts warn.

With just a few clicks in a browsers developer tools panel, the sky is the limit in terms of what could be extracted from the Walgreens website. Patients beware.

The latest Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) news can be found at Pandemic.news.

Sources for this article include:

Vox.com

Reuters.com

NaturalNews.com
A poll in ten countries revealed that four out of ten young people worldwide are hesitant to have children due to the climate issue and believe governments are doing too little to avoid global catastrophe.

According to the largest scientific study on climate anxiety and young people yet published on Tuesday, nearly six out of ten young people aged 16 to 25 were very or highly concerned about climate change. But, unfortunately, a comparable amount felt deceived by the older generation and governments, who claimed they were not safeguarding them, the earth, or future generations.

More than half believed they would have fewer chances than their parents, and three-quarters agreed that "the future is bleak." In addition, nearly half of those polled said the environment made them unhappy or nervous and impacted their everyday lives and functioning.

Asking Gen-Zers Around the World

Around 10,000 young people were polled in Australia, Brazil, Finland, France, India, Nigeria, the Philippines, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Avaaz, a campaigning organization, paid for it.

Luisa Neubauer, a 25-year-old climate activist co-organizer of the German school strike campaign, helped secure the court victory that compelled the German government to re-evaluate its climate policy. It is increasingly normal for young people to be concerned about having children.

Related Article: Environmental Justice: How and Why Environmental Activism Became Mainstream



Working for Solutions

"I encounter a lot of young females who wonder if it's still okay to have children," she added. It's a simple question, but it reveals a lot about the current climatic situation. We young people realized that simply being concerned about the climate issue would not be enough to prevent it. As a result, we channeled our fear into collective action. And now we're battling on the streets, in the courts, and within and outside of institutions all across the world. Despite this, governments continue to fail us as emissions reach new highs. The most acceptable response to this report would be for governments to begin doing as they promised."

According to Unicef, youngsters and young people throughout the globe are facing the brunt of the climate catastrophe, with 1 billion children at "extreme risk" from the effects of climate collapse.

The report, titled Young People's Voices on Climate Anxiety, Government Betrayal, and Moral Injury: A Global Phenomenon, was distributed on a pre-publication basis by the scientific journal Lancet Planetary Health still peer-reviewed. Seven academic institutions in the UK, Europe, and the United States, including the University of Bath, the University of East Anglia, and the Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, performed and analyzed the poll.

Climate Crisis Anxiety

The poll adds to earlier studies that have revealed widespread anxiety over the global climate problem, including concerns about having children.

"This study portrays a horrible picture of pervasive climate anxiety among our children and young people," said Caroline Hickman of the University of Bath's Climate Psychology Alliance and co-lead author on the study. For the first time, it indicates a relationship between high levels of psychological distress in adolescents and government inactivity. Our children's worry is a perfectly reasonable reaction in light of governments' ineffective solutions to climate change. What else does a government need to hear to act?"

Francois Hollande, who was president of France when the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015, urged nations to take notice at the Cop26 UN climate summit in Glasgow in November. "Six years after the Paris Agreement, we must confront the brutality of climate change, not only in terms of its impact on our planet but also in terms of our youth's mental health, as this disturbing study demonstrates. We must act quickly and do everything we can to ensure the future of future generations," he added.

Also Read: Creating Socially Just Population Policies Advances Global Equity AND Mitigates Climate Change

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In the Earth's atmosphere, there is a persistent, heat-absorbing particle that does not like water at first, absorbs light, and takes its time going on called 'black carbon.'

Numerous studies show reducing black carbon emissions reduces near-term global warming, increases agricultural yields, and reduces premature mortality.

The Heat-Absorbing Particles in The Earth's Atmosphere

Black carbon, often known as soot, is a tiny particle of air pollution (PM2.5) that contributes to global warming. It is Incomplete combustion of fossil fuels, wood, and other fuels that produce black carbon.

Soot is a complicated combination of particulate matter that forms because of incomplete combustion. It is also a short-lived climate pollutant, lasting only a few days to weeks after being released into the atmosphere.

Black carbon can have major direct and indirect effects on the climate, the cryosphere (snow and ice), agriculture, and human health over this brief period.

In the atmosphere, black carbon prefers to stay until it absorbs enough water to fall from the sky. At the same time, black carbon absorbs sunlight and warms the air around it, generating a radiative effect.

Younger black carbon is more resistant to water than older black carbon. The particles grow increasingly hygroscopic, or able to absorb water from the air, as they age.

Researchers looked at the hygroscopic conditions of black carbon in the lab before, but only with restricted chemical sources and water vapor circumstances. The cloud nucleation values in all these investigations were the same.

Tafeng Hu et al. assessed the concentration of cloud condensation nuclei and black carbon particles at the same time in a recent study. In Wuhan, China, an urban megacity in the country's central region, the sample site was near heavily traveled highways and industrial hubs.

They detected cloud condensation nuclei and individual black carbon particles in different degrees of water supersaturation in the atmosphere after correcting for particle size. At 0.2 percent supersaturation, the activation diameter, or the size of the black carbon particle where half of the particles will nucleate and precipitate out, was determined to be 144 21 nanometers.

Since black carbon is so efficient at absorbing light and heating its surroundings, it is a major contributor to global warming. Black carbon has a 460-1,500 times greater warming effect on the climate than CO2 per unit of mass.

By converting incoming solar energy to heat while hanging in the atmosphere, black carbon contributes to global warming. It also has an impact on cloud formation, regional circulation, and precipitation patterns.

Black carbon and co-emitted particles diminish albedo (the ability to reflect sunlight) and heat the surface when formed on ice and snow. As a result of this melting, the Arctic and glaciated regions such as the Himalayas are highly vulnerable.

Also read: Global Analysis Reveals Increased Mortality Rate Linked to Wildfire Pollution

Primary Sources of Black Carbon

Many wealthy nations' black carbon emissions have decreased in recent decades because of stronger air quality laws. In many developing nations, however, where air quality is not controlled, emissions are quickly growing.

Asia, Africa, and Latin America account for around 88 percent of worldwide black carbon emissions because of open biomass burning and domestic solid fuel combustion.

Other particles and gases, some of which have a cooling impact on the climate, are always co-emitted with black carbon. Depending on the source, the kind and quantity of co-pollutants varies. The most promising sources are those that emit a high ratio of warming to cooling pollutants.

Also read: Melting Ice Sheet in Greenland May Trigger Tsunamis and Underwater Landslides, Expert Warn
St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office said an alligator weighing 504-pound believed to have taken the life of a 71-year-old man from Louisiana in Hurricane Ida floodwaters has been caught with what looks like human remnants in its stomach.

Alligator Caught by Hunters

The capturing of the 12-foot alligator ended a search of two weeks by local and state agencies for Timothy Satterlee Sr, who was seen last on the 30th of August observing the storm ruins outside his house in Slidell which is about 55 km (35 miles) northeast of New Orleans.

The incident took place the day following Ida, one of the most potent hurricanes that have ever impacted the U.S. Gulf Coast, slammed Louisiana, bringing about disastrous flooding in some regions outside a new embankment and floodgate system safeguarding New Orleans.

On Monday, an alligator that surprisingly weighs 504 pounds was captured in a trap that two Louisiana Department of Wildlife licensed nuisance hunters set, as per a statement from St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office.

The sheriff's office said: "Once the alligator was searched, it was discovered to have what appears to be human remains inside its stomach. Investigators will work with the St. Tammany Parish Coroner's Office to verify those remains belong to Timothy Satterlee."

Also Read: [VIDEO] Alligator Handler Survives Terrifying Attack During Child's Birthday Party

Sighting the Alligator

On Saturday, Wildlife agents were cleaning the section in air boats when a deployed drone sighted a very large alligator close to Satterlee's home, said a spokesperson for the sheriff's office named Captain Lance Vitter.

The agents placed traps, which proved victorious on Monday. The agents euthanized the alligator and then cut it open, "that's when they discovered the body parts. It was the upper parts of a human body," Vitter said.

Satterlee home is close to an area often visited by tourists who comes to the place for swamp tours promising alligators sightings with other wildlife, Vitter said. Alligators hardly maul humans except the food they have stored is no longer in its former position and this can happen during severe storms, he said.

How it Happened

The wife of Satterlee sighted a large alligator maul her husband after he went outside their raised house to examine the contents of their ground-level shed.

The alligator had the man in a "death roll" and had separated one of his arms from his body, Vitter said, narrating the statement of the victim's wife to authorities. The alligator vanished into the water after the victim's 68-year-old wife got involved.

When blood gushed out and he started to black out, Satterlee told her to use their small boat and search for help, Vitter said. It would have not been easy for the wife to carry the victim into the boat if he didn't help and without the boat tipping over, Vitter added. She left the man on their stairs to search for help.

About one mile away, the wife got help and went back when she saw her husband was not on the stairs any longer, Vitter said. "She just never thought in her wildest nightmares that she would get back and he'd be gone."

Related Article: Louisiana Man Still Missing After Gruesome Alligator Attack in Flooded Waters

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Wildfire with increasing intensity, prompted by lightning is spreading through the dense, arid, forested Sierra Nevada, presenting threats to the ancient sequoia trees in sequoia national park.

(Photo : Getty Images)

KNP Complex Fire

The Paradise fire and the Colony fire, which combined their strength together to become the KNP Complex fire, suddenly grew through over 5,860 acres of steep and terrain that is hard to reach since it started on the 9th of September in Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks. It was 0% contained by Tuesday evening.

The fires are burning so seriously, making the park officials fear that the largest trees in the world could be in danger.

Fire information officer for the Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks, Mark Ruggiero said: "There is a threat to the groves. It is a serious threat."

The fire is incited by dried brush and dried ponderosa pine tinder - lifeless trees that had already given in to extreme drought conditions and large number of destructive insects - on Tuesday the size of the fire increased, gaining over 1,000 acres of ground.

Also Read: Giant Sequoias Under Pressure from Climate Change

Mandatory Evacuations in the Park

Officials issued mandatory evacuations in every part of the park and into portions of the Three Rivers community. The flame has found its way within a mile of the park's Ash Mountain headquarters.

A specialized emergency management team has been sent to assist the 350 firefighters already combating the fire and they will arrive in the region Wednesday, officials said, giving a signal of the development of a possible major incident. They added that with a lot of massive blazes already active across the west, resources are exhausted.

The superintendent of Sequoia and Kings Canyon national park named Clay Jordan said: "Some of those trees are more important than our buildings, noting that the General Sherman tree - the world's largest, and one that's believed to be roughly 2,700 years old - is among them. "We want people to come 200, 300 years from now to enjoy those trees."

He said, they are going to be tested as a community, adding that it will possibly get worse before getting better.

(Photo : Getty Images)

Sequoias

Sequoias, which extends hundreds of feet upwards and have begun to thrive in fire, are extremely resilient.

The enormous trees have developed to resist the heat, having a bark that safeguards them and seed-carrying cones that depent on fires to open. Normally, flames are said to be healthy for the forests, assisting in clearing the undergrowth so space will be created for seedlings.

But fires burning hotter and with growing intensity have presented new threats for the trees that have stayed alive there for thousands of years. In 2020, over 10% died because of the flames.

The National Park Service (NPS) scientists called the previous extreme drought between 2012 and 2016, which was combined with higher temperatures, a "tipping point for giant sequoias and other Sierra Nevada mixed-conifer forests".

Related Article: Why Should We Start Planting More Sequoia Trees?

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About 2.1 million Kenyans are suffering from starvation as a result of drought in half the country, which is making farmers yield insufficient harvests.

Food Shortage

People inhabiting 23 counties across the arid north, coastal and northeastern parts of the country will urgently be in need of food aid over the next six months, following infrequent rains between this year's March and May, the National Drought Management Authority (NDMA) said.

Covid-19 and previous poor rains have worsened the crisis, it said, projecting that the condition of things will become worst by the end of the year since October to December rains are anticipated to be less than their normal levels.

In Kenya, the worst-hit regions are usually the most food-insecure because of the high rate of poverty.

President Uhuru Kenyatta announced that the drought is a national disaster last week, making promises of "comprehensive drought mitigation measures".

In July, Kenya's UN Food and Agriculture Organization said the country is in need of 62m (9.4bn Kenyan shillings) to alleviate the impact of the drought between July and November.

Also Read: Food Shortages Could become Critical by 2050, Study Says

Drought

Secretary-general of the Kenya Red Cross named Asha Mohammed said most counties that are affected had already had to cope with flash floods, invasions of desert locusts, and tribal conflicts prompted by low resources.

Mohammed said: "You have two seasons of depressed rains, desert locusts ravaging farmlands in the same counties and people fighting over the few resources available. That is the making of a disaster."

She said the drought did not just affect farmers, but also people in urban regions who had been compelled to pay a higher amount for the small food that is available. She said: "There is some food reaching the urban areas within these counties but there is little purchasing power because many have lost their jobs as a result of the pandemic."

The Covid-19 pandemic is worsening food insecurity by decreasing the available employees in a country whose subsistence farming totally depends on communal labour.

Effect of Drought

Due to social distancing measures shared performance of agricultural activities has been limited and also the availability of casual labour opportunities, decreasing the acre of land cultivated and predicted crop production, the NDMA said. It added that the disturbance of supplies of food staple items and livestock has brought about increased price volatility.

Production of a staple food in Kenya - maize - is predicted to drop by 50% in the affected places because of low area of land under cultivation, while some regions will experience total crop failure. People farming crops with not too long maturity cycles, like vegetables have been affected by poor harvests.

Thomas Waita, from eastern Kenya, Kathatu village to be precise does not anticipate reaping many tomatoes from his half area of land this year.

Related Article: Seattle Experiences Driest Spring and Summer Ever Recorded in 77 Years

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A recent study that hangs rhinos upside-down by tying their ankles to a helicopter must have been a sure thing for the judges that chose the winner, earning the 2021 Ig Nobel Transportation Prize. Suspending rhinos produce impressively absurd pictures, behind the prize and the study lies a very serious affair.

Why are Rhinos Translocated?

Rhinos should be worried. There are five species of rhino, and five of them are endangered. The least endangered is the white rhino weighing three-ton, yet there are still just roughly 20,000 of them remaining in the wild.

The 1.5 tons black rhino is the species suspended upside-down in the study, with a population of roughly 5,000.

In order to protect rhino populations, conservationists have attempted dehorning - so that the rhinos won't be desirable to poachers, translocation - transporting rhinos, including upside-down with the use of a helicopter, and also resurrection - making embryos from the sperm and eggs, or even lifeless individuals' the DNA.

The reason scientists translocate rhinos is that they live within safeguarded, enclosed areas so they can be monitored and protected, in theory, from the illegal hunt for rhino horn which is their major threat.

Also Read: Researchers Plan To Use Stem Cells To Rescue Northern White Rhinos

Upside-down Transportation

So conservationists have decided to lend their help or helicopter to move rhinos into new regions. But scientists weren't totally sure whether this upside-down movement was really safe for the rhinos involved until the Ig Nobel Prize-winning study.

The capture and changing of large mammals' locations can be risky and tend to disrupt the welfare of the animals involved.

Large African mammals like giraffes, elephants, and rhinos, are physiologically sensitive. The whole capture and change of location process can lead to physiological and psychological stress. For several years, African rhinos have been transported by suspending them upside-down from a helicopter, with their eyes tied and under tranquilization.

No researcher had ever confirmed whether hanging rhinos upside-down can be dangerous. Of course, rhinos usually look fine when they wake up after getting to their final destination - but are they actually OK after that time?

The Discovery

This is where science plays a role. It might seem funny hanging 12 black rhinos upside-down intentionally for about 10 minutes just to keep an eye on their physiology. But if the research isn't done, it won't be known if it's a safe way to relocate an endangered animal.

The Ig Noble Prize-winning study made a comparison of rhinos' respiratory function and metabolic effects when the animals were hung by their ankles to when the same rhinos were lying down on their sides.

The researchers discovered that when rhinos are hung upside-down their respiratory efficiency if anything, is a little bit better than when rhinos are laid on their side when tranquilised. So, the process is declared as at least as safe as the traditional way of transport.

Related Articles: Tinder Helps Save Sudan, the World's Last Male Northern White Rhino

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The dead bird issue in New York City has reached new heights.

According to reports, hundreds of migrating birds were killed when they collided with the World Trade Center buildings earlier this week, creating a cemetery of winged bodies on the streets below.

Bird-Skyscraper Collisions

In metropolitan places, bird-skyscraper collisions are a concern. Several large cities, including Toronto, Canada, and New York City, New York, have initiatives to combat this, such as Toronto's Fatal Light Awareness Program (FLAP) and New York City's Lights Out New York, a program of the New York City Audubon, an environmental group.

According to FLAP, one to nine million birds perish in the city each year due to mistaking reflecting windows for the open sky or being lured to lights at night.

According to a 2014 research published in the ornithological journal Condor, an estimated 365 million to 988 million birds die each year in the United States due to collisions with structures.

Related Article: How to Protect Bats and Birds from Wind Turbines, High Rise Infrastructures



Bird Collisions in New York

According to Melissa Breyer, a volunteer bird collision monitor for the bird conservation group New York City Audubon, at least 291 songbirds, including black-and-white warblers, American redstarts, and ovenbirds, were disoriented by lights and reflective glass while flying south on Monday night or Tuesday morning.

Breyer, who usually discovers 15 to 20 feathered carcasses every trip, was taken aback when he found 300 near the base of the World Trade Centers One, Three, Four, and Seven on Tuesday morning.

"I was completely taken aback. She told The Washington Post, "It was an overpowering thing." "It seemed like a nightmare as I looked around."

Breyer took a snapshot of the devastation, which occurred during a strong migratory time and a moderate storm, and shared it on Twitter.

She tweeted, "Counting the dead birds on @ WTCOfficial awnings that I couldn't collect; add another 35, plus the 30 who went to @wildbirdfund, making my recorded total 291." "The swept and shattered ones aren't included in that number."

Counting the dead birds on @_WTCOfficial awnings that I couldn't collect; add another 35, + the 30 who went to @wildbirdfund making my documented total 291 between WTC 1, 3, 4, 7. That number excludes the swept & smashed ones. I understand they continued coming thru the morning.  Melissa Breyer (@MelissaBreyer) September 15, 2021

"Windows can be treated, and lights can be turned off. "Please," she implored, "do something."

"Lights Out"

To help keep the city's feathery companions alive, she and other wildlife enthusiasts urge WTC operators to turn down lights at night or put decals.

"They can turn down the lights at night to assist prevent light collisions," said Kaitlyn Parkins, associate director of conservation and research at NYC Audubon.

"Alternatively, you can treat reflective glass to make it appear solid to birds."

Hundreds of songbirds were killed last spring when they collided with a see-through barrier in Manhattan's Liberty Park, leading the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to put bird-friendly stickers on the glass.

This week, the bird fatalities were most likely caused by a "huge pulse in migration" on Monday, Parkins said, rather than the buildings' Sept. 11 commemorative light displays over the weekend.

The managers of the Four, Three, and Seven World Trade Centers, according to a representative, are taking precautions to preserve flying animals.

"In the five boroughs, we are passionate about wild birds and safeguarding their habitat. Therefore, we are actively urging our office tenants to turn off their lights at night and lower their blinds whenever feasible, especially during the migratory season," said a spokesperson for Silverstein Properties, which owns the skyscrapers.

Also Read: Research Shows Turning Off Building Lights at Night Reduces Bird Collision Cases

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The sea indeed offers a wide range of unique marine lives, wherein millions provide very odd opportunity to be seen on shore.

One bizarre encounter was the appearance of a pig-faced shark in an Italian island of Elba in the Mediterranean Sea, not far from Tuscany. Unfortunately, the animal that resembled a 'real-life pig emoji' was already without life when found.

On a post of Isola d'Elba app Facebook page in early September, they wrote "On Isola d ' Elba, a specimen of Oxynotus Centrina commonly called Porco Fish was recovered, it is a rare fish that lives between 100 and 700 meters deep."

"Come on, it's a fish that stands 400 meters deep and has very different pressures than ours. He was already dead," they added. Naval officers confirmed that the shark was floating dead in the water before they hauled it onto the pier.

Angular roughshark (Oxynotus centrina) a.k.a the 'Pig Fish'

The angular roughshark of the family Oxynotidae and specimen of the shark family known as hogfish, is commonly known in most harbors as the 'pig fish', basically because of its flat head, wide-set eyes, and blunt, pinkish snout.

More importantly, it fairly earned its nickname from the way it utters. Although you might be seeing this fish for the first time, it is certainly not new in the island.

"This fish is quite frequent in our waters: it is commonly called 'pig fish' because when it comes out of the water emits a kind of grunt," Tiberto said in statement for Toscana Media News. "It's capture certainly cannot be said to be exceptional. In fact, in recent years several other specimens have been caught; the strange thing is that it ended up in a fish shop, since it is a fish that normally does not is being marketed."

Also read: Dolphins Rescue a Stranded Swimmer Stuck in Icy Water for 12 Hours

Angular roughshark' Conservation Status

"In the sea of the Tuscan archipelago, so rich in biodiversity," Tiberto said. "It is not uncommon to find this fish, and I can safely say that I often receive reports that tell me of pig fish that have ended up in local fishermen's nets. I also tried for a period to host it in one of the tanks of the aquarium but soon I gave up because I had to see that it is a species that does not adapt to captivity."

The International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species has deemed the fish as endangered due to consistent landings by fishermen and bycatch by deepsea fisheries.

According to UICN, "the shark also lives throughout the East Atlantic Ocean, from Norway to South Africa. They have been spotted between 200 and 2,200 feet (60 to 670 meters) below the ocean's surface, and they usually grow to be about 3.3 feet (1 m) in length."

Unsurprisingly, the Mediterranean Sea is rich in strange sharks, including the 2019 discovery of a 'naked' shark, seemingly born with no skin or teeth.

Also read: Zoo Atlanta Gorillas Tested Positive for COVID-19
A new fly species has been named after LGBT icon RuPual, the insect was named after him by an Australian scientist, and the "Drag Race" host seemed to approve.

Opaluma rupaul

Opaluma rupaul is an iridescent species of soldier fly (the "opaluma" portion comes from the Latin words for "opal" and "thorn"). Soldier flies are essential insects that are sometimes overlooked by the general population.

In a statement, Bryan Lessard, an entomologist from Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, stated, "Soldier flies are vital in the environment." "The larvae recycle nutrients from dead plants and animals, and the adults pollinate some Australian flora," says the author.

Related Article: 4-Year-Old Insect Lover Found Super Rare Stinglees Bees in her Secret Place



A Particularly Fierce Yet Colorful Fly

Lessard believed the new species merited a name that suited its colorful appearance.

He told The Guardian, "Naming a species is the first step to understanding and conserving it since they are otherwise invisible to scientists."

After learning that the bug is "quite fierce," Lessard assumed RuPaul would like the moniker.

"It wears a beautiful metallic rainbow-colored outfit and has legs for days," he explained.

RuPaul tweeted about the beautiful fly on Wednesday, indicating that his prediction was accurate.

Lessard, dubbed "Bry the Fly Guy," identified 13 new soldier fly species, including Opaluma rupaul. He claims that nine people live in areas that have been destroyed by the roaring flames of 2019 and 2020.

Lessard's Personal Sentiments

Lessard hopes that Opaluma rupaul will serve as a good role model for future LGBTQ scientists.

"As a gay scientist in a very conservative discipline of study like entomology, it took me a long time to feel comfortable in my skin," Lessard told CNN. "I believe it is critical for the next generation of LGBTQ+ scientists to know that they are being represented in the workplace, especially because we name species after community legends."

Lessard made news in 2012 when he named a different bug after a celebrity, the Scaptia beyonceae, a horsefly named after Beyonce.

Why are flies important?

While many may dislike flies, they are an essential source of food for many creatures. Flies are enjoyed by birds, lizards, and frogs alike (as does my dog). We already know that insects play an essential part in the chain of life, but a recent study suggests that they may be able to do considerably more.

Flies serve as scavengers, eating rotting organic debris so that we don't have to, which is an essential function in the ecosystem. There would be garbage and dead animal corpses everywhere if it weren't for the flies. While you're grilling, ponder this fantastic notion. Flies convert feces and decomposing corpses into free stock feed and live bird, frog, and reptile food. When you think about it, it's fantastic.

They may eat garbage and prevent it from filling up landfills. The larvae of the black soldier fly, for example, can reach up to 600 and consume half a gram of organic matter every day. Thus, every year, one tiny family may consume an entire home green trash container.

Also Read: Mosquito Tornado Invades Russia as Swarms of the Mate Craved Insect Flies Around in Swarms

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An earthquake struck southwest China's Sichuan province Thursday, damaging homes, killing not less than three people and leaving dozens injured.

Magnitude 6.0 Earthquake

Rescue team began work after the magnitude-6.0 earthquake. The official Xinhua News Agency said the quake struck at 4:33 a.m. at a depth of 6 miles (10 kilometers) in a county in the city of Luzhou called Luxian.

The quake left 88 people injured, three sustained severe injuries, and 35 houses collapsed, State broadcaster CCTV said. The epicenter was around 120 miles (200 kilometers) southeast of the provincial capital, Chengdu.

Fallen walls and houses could be noticed on the way to the epicenter. There has also been a suspension of electricity in a greater part of Jiaming town. People inhabiting the region could be seen tidying their surroundings, Xinhua reported.

Also Read: Shaanxi Earthquake: How the Deadliest Day in Human History Took Lives of 830,000 People

The Evacuation

Rescue workers were going from one house to the other in torrential rain in search of people in destroyed houses in Fuji town so they can be evacuated to temporary shelters, Xinhua said. Workers shared mooncakes, a traditional food for the Mid-Autumn Festival taking place next week, and other edible at one shelter.

A Fuji resident named Lai Jianrong told Xinhua that she noticed a less intense tremor around 4 a.m. and she rushed out with a barefoot putting on her nightgown when the tremors became very serious.

"Some bricks fell off the wall and I didn't dare to go in again," the agency quoted what she said.

CCTV said over 3,200 people have been evacuated to 79 shelters.

Earthquakes often occur in Western China. A magnitude-7.9 quake that took place in May 2008 took the lives of almost 90,000 people in Sichuan, many of the victims died from collapsed schools and other buildings that were poorly constructed.

Sichuan Earthquake of 2008

Sichuan earthquake of 2008, also referred to as Great Wenchuan Earthquake, or Wenchuan earthquake, Chinese Wenchuan dizhen or Wenchuan Da Dizhen is a massive and very devastating earthquake that took place on May 12, 2008, in southwestern China in the mountainous central region of Sichuan province.

The epicentre of the magnitude-7.9 quake which the Chinese measured as magnitude 8.0 was situated close to the city of Dujiangyan, about 80 km (50 miles) west-northwest of the provincial capital, Chengdu, at a depth of 19 km (11.8 miles) beneath the surface.

The Wenchuan earthquake made some four-fifths of the building in the impacted region flat. The quake destroyed the entire villages and towns in the mountains, and most schools collapsed.

Close to 90,000 people were reported dead or missing and in the final formal Chinese government assessment, some were presumed dead. The officially reported that the total number dead included over 5,300 children with majority being students attending classes.

Falling debris and building collapses injured close to 375,000 people.

Related Article: 6.4-Magnitude Earthquake in China's Yunnan Province Kills Three, Leaves 28 Injured

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Opinion column

The Seven Real Reasons for Unbelief

Regular columnist James Knight believes that understanding the reasons why many people choose not to believe in God will assist Christians in reaching out to them.

If Christians are to make a significant evangelical difference in the lives of atheists, it will help to understand more about the real reasons that people are not Christians. Don't assume the plausibility of what you hear superficially, because things on the surface are rarely everything they seem. Atheists like to give us a multitude of so-called intellectual reasons why they claim to not believe in God - but I think this needs exploring further, because I believe it is built on self-deception.



Even a reasonably competent thinker can discover with a little effort that there are no scientific or reason-based arguments against God. Even though most atheists claim their position to be based on philosophical and empirical grounds, the reality is, there is nothing in these categories that provides reasonable ground for disbelief in God. To think otherwise is to fool oneself with a cheat. Believing that you're an atheist because of rational persuasion and a well thought out set of views merely provides a cushion to the psychology that drives the beliefs.



I believe that if we could drill down right into the heart of why unbelievers are not Christian - the real reasons apart from what people claim on the surface - we would find that they are based on a combination of the following seven reasons:



1) Inadequate knowledge or consideration of the propositions

This is far and away the biggest reason why people are not Christians; for them, the Christian faith is simply not something they have ever explored properly or learned about, and its central tenets have never been deeply contemplated. All of us not born into a Christian household can recall a time when we were significantly unapprised of the basics so as to have only a trivial regard for what Christianity offers us. But although this is the biggest cause of unbelief, there are many who have a fair understanding of Christianity and still claim not to believe. For those people, numbers 2-7 are more prominent.



2) Unwilling to become the person Christ wants us to become

This one applies to those who understand enough of the faith to fear it and be apprehensive about it, but who have done a fair job of suppressing those realisations, so they don't have to undergo any radical transformations. I know this feeling as well - to begin to realise that becoming a Christian is going to involve life-changing standards and improvements we've not yet attempted, and accountability and responsibility of which we've never felt the full force - it's pretty unnerving - and it's little wonder that so many people stay in the comfort zone of their own much less challenging moral system. To use an analogy; Christ wants to take our house and help us refurbish it, and eventually turn it into a palace, whereas left to our devices, we think we are quite happy with just a light spring clean every now and then.



3) Pride, ego, and narcissism: the need for status over substance

People love being lord of their life, they love to court status, seek prestige, covet admiration, behave as they want, make rules that suit themselves, and find comfort in superficial approval - this stuff really matters to people, and it's not easy for them to give it over to pursuits with more meaning and substance. I've known people who have admitted that they think Christianity is probably true, but they are not willing to sacrifice their idols for religious discipline just yet. Giving up things that are going to be futile in the end is not an easy thing to do when the pleasures are so immediately satisfying.



4) Too many other priorities in life

This is linked to number 3, and often number 1 - but for a great many people, the everyday priorities of life (relationship, family, home, job, career, hobbies, health) are just so consuming on their time, energy, and resources that religious considerations just don't get a look in.



5) The PR problem of Christianity

There are those who have a reasonable understanding of Christianity, and regard for its core strengths, but make an easy excuse not to explore further on the basis of some of the whacky, extreme, nonsensical, and sectarian elements of the faith. There will be elements of 2, 3 and 4 in this too. Sometimes the church makes it too easy for potential members of the ecclesia to disregard it.



6) A personal psychological barrier

For this group, there is some underlying issue - to do with guilt, past traumatic legacies, sexuality, parental upbringing, disability, and so forth - that acts (either consciously or subconsciously) as a barrier to further exploration of the faith.



7) They've never been asked or invited

This is a very interesting group. Think about it - there are lots of potential Christians out there that no one is reaching out to - people who would accept what Christ is offering if only they were exposed to some good hearted Christians.



(Note: To some extent numbers 2-7 are also likely to contain elements of number 1 too)



I think it would do both Christians and non-Christians a lot of good to contemplate those human factors that act as barriers to belief. People are forever telling us why they don't believe, and they usually try to justify their unbelief with a suite of argumentation around science or philosophy or rational viewpoints. But these arguments are not why they don't believe; they are a mask used to conceal the real causalities listed above.



It is for this reason as well that you can never talk an atheist out of their unbelief using the same language they use to defend it. There is no argument that will ever persuade them, because arguments are not the cause of their unbelief.



I hope this is a useful tool for helping Christians to be a witness to others, and aid us in understanding the real root causes of unbelief. I also hope that the identification of these states of mind can help bring about helpful dialogue about what people are really thinking - because it can do a lot of good for progress if folk who are predominated by these positions can learn to identify the deception and stultification those standpoints prolong.



Understanding these seven principal factors gives us a route into the heart and the psychology of a person; into fears, insecurities, and barriers - and can hopefully help prepare us for how we can empathise and persuade with the good news of the gospel.



The image is courtesy of Tumisu on pixabay.com



James Knight is a local government officer based in Norwich, and is a regular columnist for Christian community websites Network Norfolk and Network Ipswich. He also blogs regularly as The Philosophical Muser, and contributes articles to UK think tanks The Adam Smith Institute and The Institute of Economic Affairs, as well as the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity (LICC).

The views carried here are those of the author, not necessarily those of Network Norfolk, and are intended to stimulate constructive debate between website users.

j.knight423@btinternet.com
Palo Alto Networks has bolted together its SD-WAN and security technologies to offer an integrated, cloud-based, secure-access service edge (SASE) offering aimed at simplifying distributed enterprises.

Called Prisma SASE, the package brings together the companys core Prisma Access package of cloud-based, next-generation security gateways with its Prisma SD-WAN technology it got when it bought CloudGenix for $420 million last year.

Prisma SASE gives customers an integrated bundle that supports everything from secure access control, advanced threat protection, and user-behavior monitoring to zero-trust network access support, a secure web gateway, a cloud-access security broker, firewall-as-a-service (FWaaS), and SD-WAN technology.

The idea is to offer a single cloud-based solution to secure all applications used by customers employees regardless of locationremote, mobile, or in the office, said Anand Oswal, senior vice president of products, Firewall as a Platform at Palo Alto Networks.

In addition to the core features of Prisma SASE, Palo Alto is adding a new Prisma SD-WAN appliancethe ION 1200that can use 5G networks to link branch offices for networking and backup communications as well as connect ATM kiosks. It can utilize any carriers 5G network, and can fall back to 4G/LTE if 5G is unavailable, Oswal said.

The device can employ two SIM cards for active-active 5G interfaces that provide carrier redundancy for business-critical use cases. We are seeing increased interest in using 5G as a primary WAN connection as a result of this new capability, Oswal said.

Prisma SASE also supports Palo Altos Autonomous Digital Experience Management (ADEM) monitoring and management platform that gives visibility into endpoints, WAN links, cloud resources, applications, and traffic levels to help troubleshoot performance issues. This lets organizations gain end-to-end visibility from a single management console without the need to deploy additional agents or appliances, Oswal said.

ADEM is also integrated into all Prisma SD-WAN appliances to help provide the best digital experience for branch users by providing observability in the cloud and across the entire service delivery path, including all WAN links, Oswal said. In addition, you can leverage real and synthetic traffic analysis for both user endpoints and IoT devices to pinpoint issues easily, Oswal said.

Another new feature is integrated support for additional CloudBlades, which provide Prisma SASE with pre-integrated support for various cloud services. The company has some 20 CloudBlades including support for AWS, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure. It has now added ServiceNow, Microsoft Teams and Zoom support.
WASHINGTON (AP)  The top U.S. military officer on Wednesday defended the phone calls he made to his Chinese counterpart in the turbulent final months of Donald Trump's presidency, saying the conversations were intended to convey reassurance to the Chinese military and were in line with his responsibilities as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Some in Congress accused Gen. Mark Milley of having overstepped his authority and urged President Joe Biden to fire him, but Biden indicated Wednesday he stands behind Milley.

I have great confidence in Gen. Milley, Biden said when asked by a reporter whether Milley had done the right thing.

In a written statement, Milley's spokesman, Col. Dave Butler, said Milley acted within his authority as the most senior uniformed adviser to the president and to the secretary of defense.

His calls with the Chinese and others in October and January were in keeping with these duties and responsibilities conveying reassurance in order to maintain strategic stability, Butler said. All calls from the chairman to his counterparts, including those reported, are staffed, coordinated and communicated with the Department of Defense and the interagency.

The Milley phone calls were described in excerpts from the forthcoming book Peril by Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. The book says Milley told Gen. Li Zuocheng of the Peoples Liberation Army that he would warn his counterpart in the event of a U.S. attack.

Milley was appointed chairman of the Joint Chiefs in 2019 by Trump and kept on by Biden. In that position Milley does not command any troops but rather is an adviser to the president and to the secretary of defense. John Kirby, spokesman for Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, said Austin has complete and utter trust and confidence in Gen. Milley.

The book by Woodward and Costa reported that Milley, fearful of Trump's actions in his final weeks as president, twice called his Chinese counterpart to assure him that the United States was not going to attack China. One call took place on Oct. 30, 2020, four days before the election that Trump lost. The second call was on Jan. 8, 2021, less than two weeks before Biden's inauguration and just two days after the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by supporters of Trump.

The Associated Press obtained a copy of the book. Details from the book, which is set to be released next week, were first reported by The Washington Post on Tuesday.

General Li, I want to assure you that the American government is stable and everything is going to be okay, Milley told him in the first call, according to the book. We are not going to attack or conduct any kinetic operations against you.

If were going to attack, Im going to call you ahead of time. Its not going to be a surprise," Milley reportedly said.

In his statement Wednesday, Milley's spokesman did not directly address this aspect of the call but said Milley regularly communicates with his counterparts across the globe, including in China and Russia, to reduce tensions, provide clarity and avoid unintended consequences or conflict.

Milley spoke with a number of other military leaders around the world after the Jan. 6 riot, including from the United Kingdom, Russia and Pakistan. A readout of those calls in January referred to several other counterparts that he spoke to with similar messages of reassurance that the U.S. government was strong and in control.

The second call was meant to placate Chinese fears about the events of Jan. 6. But the book reports that Li wasnt as easily assuaged, even after Milley promised him: We are 100 percent steady. Everythings fine. But democracy can be sloppy sometimes.

On Tuesday, Trump said Milley should be tried for treason if it was true that he had promised Li that he would warn him in the event of a U.S. attack. In a follow-up statement Wednesday, Trump called Milley a complete nutjob and said he never told me about calls being made to China.

He put our Country in a very dangerous position but President Xi knows better, and wouldve called me, Trump added.

Milley believed the president suffered a mental decline after the election, agreeing with a view shared by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a phone call they had Jan. 8, according to officials. Milley also asked senior officers to swear an oath that Milley had to be involved if Trump gave an order to launch nuclear weapons, according to the book.

In the statement Wednesday, Milley's spokesman said Milley had conferred with the senior officers about nuclear weapons protocols to remind uniformed leaders in the Pentagon of the long-established and robust procedures in light of media reporting on the subject. Butler, the spokesman, appeared to be referring to news reports of the Jan. 8 Milley-Pelosi phone call. Butler did not address whether Milley had insisted he be part of the nuclear weapons procedures.

Pelosi had previously said she spoke to Milley that day about available precautions to prevent Trump from initiating military action or ordering a nuclear launch, and she told colleagues she was given unspecified assurances that there were longstanding safeguards in place.

Milley, according to the book, called the admiral overseeing the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, the military unit responsible for Asia and the Pacific region, and recommended postponing upcoming military exercises.

It's not clear what, if any, military exercises were actually postponed. But defense officials said it is more likely that the military postponed a planned operation, such as a freedom of navigation transit by a U.S. Navy ship in the Pacific region. The defense officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

In response to the book, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., sent Biden a letter Tuesday urging him to fire Milley, saying the general worked to actively undermine the sitting Commander in Chief.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, called the report deeply concerning, telling reporters at the Capitol, I think the first step is for General Milley to answer the question as to what exactly he said.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said he had no concerns that Milley might have exceeded his authority, telling reporters that Democratic lawmakers were circumspect in our language but many of us made it clear that we were counting on him to avoid the disaster which we knew could happen at any moment.

___

Associated Press writers Hillel Italie in New York and Lisa Mascaro and Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON (AP)  A federal judge ruled Thursday that the U.S. government must stop using a Trump-era public health order to quickly expel migrants with children who are apprehended along the U.S.-Mexico border.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan gave the government two weeks to halt a practice that opponents say is unnecessary and improperly relies on the threat posed by COVID-19 to deprive people of their right to seek asylum in the United States.

Sullivan granted a preliminary injunction in response to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and others on behalf of migrant families, saying they were likely to succeed in their challenge to the use of the public health law known as Title 42.

President Biden should have ended this cruel and lawless policy long ago, and the court was correct to reject it today, said Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLUs Immigrants Rights Project.

The Biden administration was evaluating the ruling and had no immediate comment on whether it plans to appeal.

The organization Human Rights First, which has documented cases of kidnapping and sexual assault among families and individuals sent to Mexico under the policy, urged the Biden administration to stop the use of Title 42 before the injunction takes effect in 14 days.

In the wake of this decision, the Biden administration must choose to uphold the refugee laws enacted by Congress rather than permanently stain the presidents legacy by continuing to perpetuate and escalate this illegal and inhumane Trump policy, said Eleanor Acer, the senior director for refugee protection with Human Rights First.

Title 42 was invoked early in the pandemic, under President Donald Trump, ostensibly to help control the spread of COVID-19 in detention facilities by turning back migrants encountered by the Border Patrol without giving them a chance to seek to stay in the U.S. by asking for asylum or for some other reason.

Opponents say there is no legitimate public health basis, and no legal authority, to deprive people of their right to seek protection in the United States from persecution in their homeland and that it is essentially a cover for a restrictive immigration policy.

The judge said in his ruling that the use of Title 42 in this case is likely unlawful and also unnecessary in view of the wide availability of testing, vaccines, and other minimization measures to address the potential spread of COVID-19.

President Joe Biden halted the practice of expelling children crossing by themselves, following reports that they were being sent alone into dangerous Mexican border cities, but continued turning away most other migrants.

In recent months, Mexico has begun accepting fewer migrant families with children and the U.S. has been allowing some to remain in the country as they seek to stay.

In August, the U.S. invoked Title 42 to expel 16,240 people traveling in family groups who were encountered along the southwest border, according to the most recent statistics from Customs and Border Protection.

In the same month, there were more than 86,000 migrants with minor children encountered along the border. Those who aren't immediately expelled are subject to U.S. regulations that allow them to pursue legal residency under asylum through the immigration court system.

The total number of migrants encountered along the U.S.-Mexico border in August was nearly 209,000, which was down 2% from the previous month but still exceeded recent periods of higher activity in 2019 and 2014, and was at levels not seen since 2000.

One outcome of the rapid expulsions is that people are making repeated attempts to illegally enter the country. Customs and Border Protection said 25% of those it encountered in August had been stopped at least once over the previous year, compared with 14% in earlier years. The Biden administration said in July that it would begin seeking to prosecute repeat offenders.
Reporter

Mary Schenk is a reporter covering police, courts and breaking news at The News-Gazette. Her email is mschenk@news-gazette.com, and you can follow her on Twitter (@schenk).
Champaign, IL (61820)

Today

Cloudy with occasional showers this afternoon. High 68F. Winds N at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 50%. Locally heavy rainfall possible..

Tonight

Cloudy this evening with showers after midnight. Low around 55F. Winds N at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 40%.
Police are asking for the public's help in identifying this man, who they believe was involved in Wednesday's shooting outside Centennial High School.
Champaign, IL (61820)

Today

Light rain early...then remaining cloudy with showers overnight. Low near 55F. Winds N at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 80%..

Tonight

Light rain early...then remaining cloudy with showers overnight. Low near 55F. Winds N at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 80%.
Wrapping up a five-part N-G series: For her work at the New American Welcome Center, helping locals navigate the legal work of the immigration process, Daniella Di Stefano will be honored with the Student Leadership Award from the C-U Immigration Forum on Saturday.
Nearly half of New York City mothers who had been trying to become pregnant before the coronavirus pandemic began stopped in the first few months of the outbreak, a new study shows.

Led by researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, the survey of 1,179 mothers in New York City also found that one-third of people who had been thinking about becoming pregnant before the pandemic but had not yet begun trying said they were no longer considering it.

Our findings show that the initial COVID-19 outbreak appears to have made women think twice about expanding their families and in some cases reduce the number of children they ultimately intend to have. This is yet another example of the potential long-lasting consequences of the pandemic beyond the more obvious health and economic effects." Linda G. Kahn, PhD, MPH, study lead author and epidemiologist

Pregnancy becomes riskier and more difficult to achieve as women age, so the delays prompted by the pandemic may lead to increased health risks for both mother and child, as well as the need for costly fertility treatments to overcome age-related infertility, she adds.

Dr. Kahn, an assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics and Department of Population Health at NYU Langone Health, notes that all of the people in the study already had at least one child age 3 or younger. As a result, it is possible that the challenges of caring for a young child during the peak of New York City's outbreak may have played a role in their hesitancy to have another baby.

Early evidence has already identified a birthrate decline in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic. Recent data showed that the country saw roughly 300,000 fewer births in 2020 than experts had expected based on annual fertility trends, with a particular drop in the last 2 months of the year, which corresponds with fewer conceptions at the beginning of the outbreak in March. However, until now, few investigations have explored the root causes behind individual parents' decisions to delay pregnancy.

The new study, published online September 15 in the journal JAMA Network Open, is the first to examine pregnancy plans among mothers during the first wave of COVID-19 in New York City.

For the investigation, the researchers analyzed data from an ongoing pregnancy and child health study. In the survey, which collected data beginning in mid-April 2020, the mothers were asked to recall their pregnancy plans before the pandemic as well as whether they were still going forward with their plans at the time of the survey.

Among the findings, the study revealed that fewer than half of mothers who had stopped trying to become pregnant were certain they would resume trying to become pregnant once the pandemic ended, suggesting that they may abandon rather than just delay their plans to expand their families, Dr. Kahn says.

In addition, those with higher stress levels and greater financial insecurity were especially likely to postpone or end their plans for an additional child. According to the study authors, this finding highlights the importance of financial health in parents' decisions around pregnancy and suggests that additional financial support for families may be needed to address the nation's ongoing fertility decline, which began in 2008.

"These results emphasize the toll the coronavirus has taken not only on individual parents, but perhaps on fertility rates overall," says study senior author and epidemiologist Melanie Jacobson, PhD, MPH.

Dr. Jacobson, a research scientist in the Division of Environmental Pediatrics at NYU Langone, cautions that the investigation only included people who were planning to have children and did not account for unplanned pregnancies.

She says the study authors next plan to repeat the survey with the same group of mothers and explore the potential impact of COVID-19 vaccination, an option not available at the time of the survey.
As we age, our bones become thinner, we suffer fractures more often, and bone-diseases such as osteoporosis are more likely to occur. One responsible mechanism involves the impaired function of the bone-marrow stem cells, which are required for the maintenance of bone integrity. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing and CECAD Cluster of Excellence for Ageing Research at the University of Cologne have now shown that the reduced stem cell function upon aging is due to changes in their epigenome. They were able to reverse these changes in isolated stem cells by adding acetate. This fountain of youth for the epigenome could become important for the treatment of diseases such as osteoporosis.

Ageing Researchers have been looking at epigenetics as a cause of aging processes for some time. Epigenetics looks at changes in genetic information and chromosomes that do not alter the sequence of the genes themselves, but do affect their activity. One possibility is changes in proteins called histones, which package the DNA in our cells and thus control access to DNA. The Cologne research group of Peter Tessarz has now studied the epigenome of mesenchymal stem cells. These stem cells are found in bone marrow and can give rise to different types of cells such as cartilage, bone and fat cells.

We wanted to know why these stem cells produce less material for the development and maintenance of bones as we age, causing more and more fat to accumulate in the bone marrow. To do this, we compared the epigenome of stem cells from young and old mice. We could see that the epigenome changes significantly with age. Genes that are important for bone production are particularly affected." Andromachi Pouikli, first author of the study

Rejuvenation of the epigenome

The researchers then investigated whether the epigenome of stem cells could be rejuvenated. To do this, they treated isolated stem cells from mouse bone marrow with a nutrient solution which contained sodium acetate. The cell converts the acetate into a building block that enzymes can attach to histones to increase access to genes, thereby boosting their activity. "This treatment impressively caused the epigenome to rejuvenate, improving stem cell activity and leading to higher production of bone cells," Pouikli said.

To clarify whether this change in the epigenome could also be the cause of the increased risk in old age for bone fractures or osteoporosis in humans, the researchers studied human mesenchymal stem cells from patients after hip surgery. The cells from elderly patients who also suffered from osteoporosis showed the same epigenetic changes as previously observed in the mice.

A new therapeutic approach against osteoporosis?

"Sodium acetate is also available as a food additive, however, it is not advisable to use it in this form against osteoporosis, as our observed effect is very specific to certain cells. However, there are already first experiences with stem cell therapies for osteoporosis. Such a treatment with acetate could also work in such a case. However, we still need to investigate in more detail the effects on the whole organism in order to exclude possible risks and side effects," explains Peter Tessarz, who led the study.
Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge along with 20 other hospitals from across the world and healthcare technology leader, NVIDIA, have used artificial intelligence (AI) to predict Covid patients' oxygen needs on a global scale.

The research was sparked by the pandemic and set out to build an AI tool to predict how much extra oxygen a Covid-19 patient may need in the first days of hospital care, using data from across four continents.

The technique, known as federated learning, used an algorithm to analyse chest x-rays and electronic health data from hospital patients with Covid symptoms.

To maintain strict patient confidentiality, the patient data was fully anonymised and an algorithm was sent to each hospital so no data was shared or left its location.

Once the algorithm had 'learned' from the data, the analysis was brought together to build an AI tool which could predict the oxygen needs of hospital Covid patients anywhere in the world.

Published today in Nature Medicine, the study dubbed EXAM (for EMR CXR AI Model), is one of the largest, most diverse clinical federated learning studies to date.

To check the accuracy of EXAM, it was tested out in a number of hospitals across five continents, including Addenbrooke's Hospital. The results showed it predicted the oxygen needed within 24 hours of a patient's arrival in the emergency department, with a sensitivity of 95 per cent and a specificity of over 88 per cent.

"Federated learning has transformative power to bring AI innovation to the clinical workflow," said Professor Fiona Gilbert, who led the study in Cambridge and is honorary consultant radiologist at Addenbrooke's Hospital and chair of radiology at the University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine.

"Our continued work with EXAM demonstrates that these kinds of global collaborations are repeatable and more efficient, so that we can meet clinicians' needs to tackle complex health challenges and future epidemics."

First author on the study, Dr Ittai Dayan, from Mass General Bingham in the US, where the EXAM algorithm was developed, said:

"Usually in AI development, when you create an algorithm on one hospital's data, it doesn't work well at any other hospital. By developing the EXAM model using federated learning and objective, multimodal data from different continents, we were able to build a generalizable model that can help frontline physicians worldwide."

Bringing together collaborators across North and South America, Europe and Asia, the EXAM study took just two weeks of AI 'learning' to achieve high-quality predictions.

Federated Learning allowed researchers to collaborate and set a new standard for what we can do globally, using the power of AI. This will advance AI not just for healthcare but across all industries looking to build robust models without sacrificing privacy." Dr Mona G Flores, Global Head for Medical AI at NVIDIA

The outcomes of around 10,000 COVID patients from across the world were analysed in the study, including 250 who came to Addenbrooke's Hospital in the first wave of the pandemic in March/April 2020.

The research was supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre (BRC).

Work on the EXAM model has continued. Mass General Brigham and the NIHR Cambridge BRC are working with NVIDIA Inception startup Rhino Health, cofounded by Dr Dayan, to run prospective studies using EXAM.

Professor Gilbert added: "Creating software to match the performance of our best radiologists is complex, but a truly transformative aspiration. The more we can securely integrate data from different sources using federated learning and collaboration, and have the space needed to innovate, the faster academics can make those transformative goals a reality."
The Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine (ABM) has released its new recommendations on supporting breastfeeding during maternal or child hospitalization. Whenever possible, the lactating mother and breastfeeding infant or child should be kept together, according to the new guidelines, published in the peer-reviewed journal Breastfeeding Medicine.

The ABM recommends using evidence-based guidelines for milk expression and storage. However, whenever possible, direct breastfeeding is preferred to pump use or hand expression of milk. Other recommendations include to consider that fluid needs may differ for the lactating mother and to consider infection control and prevention. Each facility should create a policy to support the lactating mother and breastfeeding child.
NYU Langone Health, as the Clinical Science Core (CSC) for the National Institutes of Health's RECOVER initiative, has, since the announcement of the beginning of its operations on June 10, convened more than 100 researchers from 35 institutions as well as patients to finalize the main study protocols for the adult, pediatric, and autopsy patient groups (cohorts). These protocols will now shape the research in the massive effort to better understand the long-term impact of COVID-19 on patients and the U.S. population, and to develop new approaches to diagnosis and treatment.

Congress provided $1.15 billion in funding over 4 years for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support research into the prolonged health consequences of infection with the pandemic virus, SARS-CoV-2, in December of 2020. As the CSC for the NIH grant, NYU Langone is charged with integrating the research activities of clinical sites around the country. The CSC is now in the process of making sub-awards to many of the research teams that helped to develop the protocols so they can start enrollment into the studies.

As of August 25, more than 39 million Americans had been infected with COVID-19, resulting in 648,000 deaths. For those that recovered from the initial illness, many continue to experience symptomsincluding fatigue, shortness of breath, "brain fog," sleep disorders, fevers, gastrointestinal symptoms, abnormal blood clotting, loss of taste or smell, anxiety, and depression. The condition is referred to as "post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2" (PASC) or as "long COVID."

The goal of the newly funded RECOVER studies, in adults, children, and in pregnant women, is to fully understand the long-term consequences of COVID-19 and the pace and extent of recovery over time. We recognize the need to urgently begin nationwide enrollment for collection of the information needed to better understand and improve treatment for long COVID-19." Stuart D. Katz, MD, director of NYU Langone's heart failure program and principal investigator for the RECOVER CSC

A central part of the RECOVER initiative, which stands for Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery, will be the creation of the SARS-CoV-2 Recovery Cohort, comprising multiple patient groups to be followed over time to track the long-term effects of infection in diverse groups of people. The RECOVER initiative is anticipated to enroll tens of thousands of patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection from all 50 states, including adults, children and their caregivers, and pregnant women and their newborn infants. The study will also seek to enroll participants without SARS-CoV-2 infection to serve as a comparison group.

As of July 9, the NYU Langone CSC-led team finished the design of the main protocols. Enrolled patients will be observed for clinical signs and symptoms of PASC after acute COVID-19, and will be assessed for risk factors that may predict the severity and progression of their condition. Recruitment will be monitored to ensure that the people enrolled in the RECOVER study population match the diversity of the U.S. population with COVID-19.

The study team expects to use the information collected from questionnaires, laboratory tests, and other specialized testing to define subtypes of PASC patients that will help clinicians in the future to tailor treatments for individual patients. The study will also evaluate the effect of pandemic-related stressors on long-term symptoms to better understand both the direct and indirect effects of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Pediatric study

An important aspect of the RECOVER initiative is the development of the pediatric main protocol for study of long COVID-19 in children. The pediatric study will enroll up to 20,000 "dyads," in which the impact of SARS-CoV-2 is tracked for both children and their parents or caregivers. PASC is less well studied in children than in adults because nearly half of the initial pediatric infections with SARS-CoV-2 may be without symptoms.

"Prospective, longitudinal studies in the pediatric population are urgently needed to finally define the prevalence, risks, and etiology of the disease in children, and to give the field opportunities for better prevention and treatment," says Dr. Katz.

Thus, the pediatric study is designed to characterize the clinical course of long COVID-19 symptoms in children, adolescents, and young adults less than 25 years of age with previous SARS-CoV-2 infections with and without a history of long COVID-19, along with infants born in the context of maternal SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Designed to follow children over time, the long-term (longitudinal) design of the pediatric study will be especially important because the impact of SARS-CoV-2 infection on child development may be slow to appear in children, potentially only becoming clear as they mature.
The Pew Charitable Trusts announced today the six pairs of researchers who will make up its 2021 class of Innovation Fund investigators.

These scientists-;alumni of Pew's biomedical programs in the United States and Latin America-;will partner on interdisciplinary research to tackle some of the most pressing questions in human biology and disease. By combining their expertise in subjects ranging from microbiology to genetics and from immunology to developmental biology, these researchers will work to advance scientific discovery and improve human health.

The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the critical role innovative biomedical research plays in addressing global health problems. Pew is proud to support the 2021 class of Innovation Fund investigators, who together will seek to answer some of the most pressing questions in health and science." Molly Irwin, vice president for research and science at The Pew Charitable Trusts

For more than 35 years, Pew has encouraged collaboration among its diverse community of biomedical scientists, culminating in the launch of the Innovation Fund in 2017. The fund's award criteria were developed to promote synergy among program alumni, motivating researchers to collaborate on new proposals. All alumni holding assistant professor positions or higher are eligible to apply for the award, which is supported by the Kathryn W. Davis Peace by Pieces Fund.

This year's Innovation Fund teams and research projects are:

Paola A. Haeger Soto, Ph.D., 2010 Pew Latin American fellow; Catholic University of the North, Chile

Adrian R. Krainer, Ph.D., 1992 Pew biomedical scholar; Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

Haeger Soto and Krainer will examine the mechanisms through which alcohol consumption during pregnancy leads to neurodevelopmental disabilities, such as fetal alcohol syndrome.

Deborah J. Lenschow, M.D., Ph.D., 2008 Pew biomedical scholar; Washington University in St. Louis

Gabrielle Kardon, Ph.D., 2006 Pew biomedical scholar; University of Utah

Lenschow and Kardon will study how the chikungunya virus, a mosquito-borne pathogen that causes fever, rash, and arthritis in humans, leads to chronic and persistent symptoms even after infection subsides.

Coleen T. Murphy, Ph.D., 2006 Pew biomedical scholar; Princeton University

Roberto Ricardo Grau, Ph.D., 1994 Pew Latin American fellow; National University of Rosario, Argentina

Murphy and Grau will explore how beneficial bacteria in the gut influence age-related genes.

David R. Sherwood, Ph.D., 2007 Pew biomedical scholar; Duke University

Kenneth D. Poss, Ph.D., 2006 Pew biomedical scholar; Duke University

Sherwood and Poss will investigate the coordinated signaling events that take place within the body during tissue repair and regeneration.

Juan E. Ugalde, Ph.D., 2004 Pew Latin American fellow; University of San Martin, Argentina

Carlos O. Arregui, Ph.D., 1991 Pew Latin American fellow; University of San Martin, Argentina

Ugalde and Arregui will explore the role of bacterial outer membrane vesicles-;spherical buds of the bacterial membrane that are enriched with enzymes and toxins-;in delivering and introducing virulent factors to host cells.

Elcin Unal, Ph.D., 2014 Pew biomedical scholar; University of California, Berkeley

Gloria A. Brar, Ph.D., 2016 Pew biomedical scholar; University of California, Berkeley

Unal and Brar will investigate the stress response pathways in regulating cellular aging and longevity.
A saliva test taken by parents to screen for the leading infectious cause of hearing loss in babies was feasible and well-received, according to a new study.

The research led by the Murdoch Children's Research Institute (MCRI) and published in the Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health, could pave the way for testing of congenital cytomegalovirus (cCMV) to be added to infant hearing screening programs across Australia.

cCMV can be harmless, but in some babies it leads to hearing loss and neurodevelopmental disorders such as cerebral palsy or vision loss. About 1 in every 200 babies is born with cCMV.

MCRI researcher Emma Webb said this was the first study to show that saliva swabs taken by parents to check for cCMV in their babies was achievable and acceptable to Australian families, even when the swabs were taken at home after discharge from hospital.

The study involved 96 families across four maternity hospitals in Melbourne whose babies did not pass their second Victorian Infant Hearing Screening Program (VIHSP) tests. Accurate diagnosis of cCMV requires a saliva test from an infant in the first 21 days after birth, with antiviral treatment recommended, if clinically indicated, within the first month of life.

During the study, 26 per cent of parents did the saliva test at home, 60 per cent at the hospital and 10 per cent as outpatients. The research found a high uptake by parents with 76 per cent agreeing to do the screen and 100 per cent of infant saliva swabs taken within the required timeframe. One baby was found to have cCMV and was immediately treated.

The findings also showed more than 90 per cent of parents thought the screening was easy to do, was a good idea, and were glad their baby had the test.

Ms Webb said CMV was present in 80 per cent of Australian adults and while it's mostly harmless, it could affect a developing fetus.

"Once a person becomes infected, the virus remains present but usually dormant for life," she said. "Infection or reactivation can occur during pregnancy, with the small risk that the unborn baby may contract the virus."

International guidelines recommend targeted cCMV screening of newborns who do not pass their hearing checks.

MCRI Associate Professor Valerie Sung said because cCMV was not routinely screened for in Australia, detecting affected infants in time to offer potential antiviral treatment was less likely.

"Given this test allows for an early and accurate cCMV diagnosis, could reduce unnecessary parental guilt, and help prevent lifelong disabilities it should be rolled out nation-wide through newborn hearing screening programs," she said.

Associate Professor Sung said timely screening for cCMV became more difficult after women and babies were discharged.

"Early discharge, as we're seeing more now of during COVID-19, can be a big problem because it means we might miss cases of cCMV," she said. "But our study has shown parents can do the swab themselves even at home after leaving the hospital."

Associate Professor Sung said training of hearing screeners, midwives and nurses to complete swabs in hospital would likely reduce false positive rates and further improve the uptake and turnaround time for results.

Victoria Cottrell, whose son Teddy was the only one to test positive for cCMV in the trial, said the test was quick and simple and taking part was the best decision she had ever made.

"I had never heard of cCMV before and thought the cause of the hearing loss most likely was genetic," she said. "During my pregnancy check-ups many infant conditions and foods to steer clear from were mentioned but cCMV was never talked about. The diagnosis came as a shock and was a lot for our family to process."

Profoundly deaf, Teddy, now aged 2 and wears cochlear implants, underwent six months of antiviral treatments and currently has physiotherapy to help with walking.

If his cCMV diagnosis wasn't picked up so soon he would be further behind in his gross motor skills. Having the awareness early we have received support quickly and our specialists have been on top everything." Victoria Cottrell

Victoria said she would like to see a test for cCMV added to infant hearing screening programs across Australia.

"If the trial hadn't happened, we would never have known Teddy had cCMV," she said. "I'm just so thankful and relieved that this trial existed to get the best outcomes for Teddy."

Associate Professor Sung has also recently received a grant from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) to trial a new technology, which can be turned into a rapid bedside test, to detect cCMV and determine how common it's in newborns without hearing loss. The results will be used to determine whether universal newborn cCMV screening was warranted. The trial intends to use data from the Gen V research project, one of the world's largest-ever birth and parent cohort studies.
AD, the most frequent cause of dementia, affects an estimated 24 million people worldwide. With very limited treatment options, scientists are looking for ways to understand the disease better. One hallmark of AD is the emergence of so-called beta-amyloid plaques, clumps of beta-amyloid protein accumulating in the brain and thought to be toxic to adjacent neurons. The causes for Alzheimer's disease and the formation of beta-amyloid plaques are still largely unknown but genetic studies found that a gene called APOE, which is involved in cholesterol metabolism and transport, is linked to AD in the elderly. The APOE gene exists in different versions in people, APOE2, APOE3 and APOE4, but the APO4 gene comes with a relatively higher risk of developing AD.

Curiously, in the brain, it's mostly the supporting cells called astrocytes rather than the neurons that make ApoE protein. To find out if the APOE4 gene in astrocytes relates to AD, Jinsoo Seo and colleagues with the Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST), South Korea, used human-induced stem cells carrying different versions of the APOE gene to make neurons and astrocytes in the lab, and to study their interaction. The researchers found that astrocytes carrying the AD-associated APOE4 gene released more cholesterol than astrocytes with APOE3.

The scientists noticed that the neurons exposed to higher cholesterol had distinct changes to their cell membranes, the outer layers of the cell which normally contain cholesterol. Further, this high cholesterol content in cell membranes was directly related to the increased production and secretion of beta-amyloid by the neurons. This work illustrates how different versions of the APOE gene in astrocytes can influence beta-amyloid production in neurons, and how cholesterol oversupply from ApoE4 astrocytes might promote the formation of toxic beta-amyloid plaques in AD patients.
Viruses accumulate mutations as they replicate in infected cells. Repeated replication can lead to viral strains that show attenuated virulence. Such strains may act as vaccines if the attenuated virus can produce immunity without serious disease.

This approach is not new. Albert Sabin developed an attenuated poliovirus vaccine in the mid-20th century that helped eradicate naturally occurring polio in the Western Hemisphere. Attenuated viral vaccines for rubella, measles, yellow fever and other diseases are widely used.

Can a similar vaccine be developed for COVID-19?

Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham have published a foundational study for that possibility in the Journal of Virology. They asked a simple question: Which mutations predominate when the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 is grown in successive generations -; called passages by virologists -; in tissue culture?

The UAB researchers found that SARS-CoV-2 isolates rapidly adapted as they grew in repeated passages in Vero E6 cells, a strain of kidney cells that is commonly used for virus propagation. The evolved viruses gained higher infectivity, demonstrated more rapid infection spread and made dramatically larger plaques on Vero cells. A plaque is a visible fragment of the cell layer where cells are destroyed by viral multiplication and release.

For one of the SARS-CoV-2 strains tested by UAB researchers -; a strain from Washington state that was the first COVID-19 virus detected in the United States at the start of 2020 -; the average number of infectious virus particles released from the cells was 100-fold less than the number of infectious particles released after four passages.

The researchers, led by Ilya Frolov, Ph.D., professor in the UAB Department of Microbiology, found that viral evolution developed by two major mechanisms. The first was an insertion of seven amino acids, including two positively charged amino acids, into the spike protein of the Washington SARS-CoV-2 isolate. The virus uses its spike proteins to attach to ACE2 receptors on cells, triggering its entry into the cell. Thus, the spike protein is a major determinant of pathogenesis.

The second mechanism was a change of one amino acid from serine to glycine, a mutation called S686G, in the spike protein near its cleavage site. Both mechanisms increased the ability of the mutant to bind to heparan sulfate, which is abundantly present on the surface of cells. The two changes also increased plaque size and rate of infection spread. That binding to heparan sulfate on the cellular membrane appears to be the mechanism of primary attachment of the virus before the high affinity interaction of the spike with the cellular ACE2 receptor. As a test of biological significance, solutions of heparin -; a related polysaccharide -; inhibited the infectivity of the mutant viruses that show increased binding to heparan sulfate, while heparin did not reduce the infectivity of non-mutant viruses.

To test the independent effects of the two major mechanisms, the UAB researchers cloned each change into DNA that was a copy of the genome of the first Wuhan, China, SARS-CoV-2 isolate sequenced in January 2020. RNA copies produced from these DNA constructs were delivered into cells, and the cells then produced the virus. Researchers found that each single mechanism increased the binding of the constructs to heparan sulfate, and a double-mutant construct with both changes had significantly higher infection rates than either single mutant.

An important characteristic of the double mutant is that its further evolution in cultured cells appears to be unlikely." Ilya Frolov, Ph.D., Professor, UAB Department of Microbiology

He says the recombinant single mutants continued to accumulate various second-site mutations in further passages, while the double mutant that contained both the amino acid insertion and S686G was stable and did not acquire additional changes.

Intriguingly, SARS-CoV-2 is a positive-strand RNA coronavirus. Alphaviruses are also positive-strand RNA viruses. Others have shown that the alphaviruses chikungunya, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, Ross River and Sindbis showed similar rapid evolution during growth in cell culture, including increased plaque size, a stronger interaction with heparan sulfate and a stimulated spread of infection.

Importantly, these evolved alphaviruses were usually dramatically less pathogenic in mice and humans.

"As with the heparan sulfate-binding mutants of other RNA+ viruses, the evolved SARS-CoV-2 may also be attenuated in vivo, particularly the double mutant that demonstrates the most adapted phenotype," Frolov said. "Thus, they may also be used as a basis for development of stable live attenuated vaccines for COVID-19."
Researchers in the UK have assessed data from around the world to better understand the frequency and risk factors for myocarditis and pericarditis following immunization with messenger RNA (mRNA)-based vaccines designed to protect against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

A signal of myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) and pericarditis (inflammation of the sac surrounding the heart) following mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccination first emerged in Israel in May 2021 and further cases have since been reported in numerous other countries.

Now, Samantha Lane and Saad Shakir from the Drug Safety Research Unit in Southampton and have used spontaneous reporting systems from the UK, the United States, and the European Economic Area to estimate the frequency of these events following exposure to the mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.

The reporting rates suggested that both events are very rare and that the typical clinical course is mild, with full recovery reached in most cases.

However, the reports also suggested that the events were more common amongst males, occurred more frequently following a second vaccine dose and mostly affected younger vaccinees.

Samantha Lane and Saad Shakir say that the results were consistent across the three data sources used.

This is an important finding, because as vaccination programs around the world progress, rates of myocarditis and pericarditis are likely to increase, they write. Regulatory authorities should continue to monitor the effect that mRNA vaccination might have on the heart in the populations for which they are responsible.

A pre-print version of the research paper is available on the medRxiv* server while the article undergoes peer review.

More about the emerging reports of myocarditis and pericarditis

Myocarditis and pericarditis have recently been recognized as very rare adverse events following vaccination with the COVID-19 vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.

A signal of these events following mRNA-based vaccination was first identified in Israel in May 2021, where 148 cases of myocarditis were reported within 30 days of immunization, usually following a second dose.

This prompted the Israeli Ministry of Health to issue an investigation into any possible link between these cases of myocarditis and vaccination.

The results pointed to a possible link between the second vaccine dose and the onset of myocarditis among young men aged 16 to 30, with a stronger link identified among those aged 16 to 19.

Following the initial signal in Israel, further cases of myocarditis and pericarditis following mRNA-based vaccination were reported in numerous other countries.

The product information for both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines was then updated to include myocarditis and pericarditis as an adverse event of unknown frequency in the UK, Europe, and the US.

Although most cases appear to have mild severity, further follow-up of cases is ongoing to determine the long-term outcomes of myocarditis and pericarditis following mRNA vaccines, say the researchers. Individual regulatory authorities continue to monitor the events of myocarditis and pericarditis in their own spontaneous reporting systems.

Assessing spontaneous reports from around the world

Lane and Shakir used spontaneous reporting outputs from the UK (Yellow Card scheme), the US (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System [VAERS]), and the European Economic Area (EudraVigilance) to estimate the frequency of reported cases of myocarditis and pericarditis following immunization with either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine.

The data lock points were August 6th, 2021, for VAERS and EudraVigilance, and August 4th, 2021, for the Yellow Card scheme.

According to the reporting rates of spontaneous adverse reactions, myocarditis and pericarditis were very rare events across all three data sources.

Results for the UK

In the UK, 7.93 cases of myocarditis and 6.73 cases of pericarditis occurred per million recipients of at least one dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. For the Moderna product, the corresponding figures were 2.07 and 1.79 cases per million.

No data were available regarding the age or sex of those reporting the events, or on which vaccine dose either of the events occurred.

The US findings

In the US, 6.47 cases of myocarditis and 3.53 cases of pericarditis were reported per million individuals who had received two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. For the Moderna product, the corresponding figures were 3.65 and 2.69 cases per million.

Of the 968 myocarditis events reported following Pfizer-BioNTech vaccination, 759 (78.4%) occurred in males. Reports of myocarditis were also more frequent in younger age groups, irrespective of gender. Similarly, while pericarditis was more frequently reported among males, this pattern was less pronounced among those older than 40 years.

Similar trends were observed for the Moderna vaccine.

Overall, the majority of both myocarditis and pericarditis events occurred following the second dose of either vaccine.

The European Economic Area

In the European Economic Area, 4.23 cases of myocarditis and 2.87 cases of pericarditis were reported per million individuals who had received at least one dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. For the Moderna product, the corresponding figures were 6.15 cases and 3.84 cases per million.

For both mRNA vaccines, 71.56% of the myocarditis events and 53.46% of the pericarditis events were reported to have affected males.

Authorities must continue to monitor the effects on the heart

This study adds to existing evidence that younger vaccinees more frequently report myocarditis and pericarditis following mRNA COVID-19 vaccines compared with older vaccinees, and reports are more frequent following the second dose, said the researchers.

These very rare events with a typically mild disease course occur more frequently among males, they add.

Lane and Shakir say that the consistencies in the reporting rates and the trends within the three data sources suggest that the results may be generalizable to other populations.

It is important that regulatory authorities continue to monitor the effects of mRNA vaccines on the heart, particularly as vaccine programs progress to include younger vaccinees in many parts of the world, they write. Myocarditis and pericarditis following mRNA COVID-19 vaccines is an area which requires further research, concludes the team.

*Important Notice

medRxiv publishes preliminary scientific reports that are not peer-reviewed and, therefore, should not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health-related behavior, or treated as established information.
The ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused an economic and healthcare crisis. COVID-19 is caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), a positive-stranded and RNA virus belonging to the family Coronaviridae. This virus is highly virulent and has already claimed more than 4.66 million live worldwide.

Study: Neutralizing Monoclonal Antibodies That Target the Spike Receptor Binding Domain Confer Fc Receptor-Independent Protection against SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Syrian Hamsters. Image Credit: Design_Cells/ Shutterstock

Scientists believe that global vaccination is the key to contain the pandemic. Several COVID-19 vaccines have received Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from various regulatory bodies worldwide. To date, the available vaccines target the spike (S) protein of SARS-CoV-2. The S protein is primarily responsible for the virus and host interaction and mediates COVID-19 infection. Vaccines induce neutralizing antibodies that target the S protein of SARS-CoV-2.

Neutralizing and non-neutralizing antibodies

The role of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 is to target the S protein's receptor-binding domain (RBD) or N-terminal domain (NTD). These antibodies prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection via various mechanisms, such as blocking the binding of the RBD of the virus with the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptors of the human host. As RBD is immunodominant, it is targeted by the neutralizing antibodies in SARS-CoV-2 infected patients.

Scientists explained that both neutralizing and non-neutralizing antibodies confer protection via Fc-mediated effector functions. These antibodies interact with Fc receptors (FcR) on natural killer cells and stimulate antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC). Also, they interact with phagocytes to trigger antibody-dependent cellular phagocytosis (ADCP).

Previous studies of influenza viruses revealed that strain-specific neutralizing monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) target the head domain of the hemagglutinin (HA) and provide protection through the Fc-independent mechanism. MAbs obtained from COVID-19 recovered patients have shown promising therapeutic effects in non-human primates, mice, and hamsters. Also, currently, many MAbs are being assessed for their potential as treatment options for COVID-19.

Every vaccinated or COVID-19 recovered individual possesses a spectrum of antibodies, but their neutralizing power varies. The reason for such a difference in the in vivo protective capacity is not well understood. Also, there is a lack of research that explains the significance of the functions of Fc-mediated effector protein.

Monoclonal antibodies and COVID-19

An earlier study revealed the neutralizing ability of MAbs in a murine model of SARS-CoV-2. It developed a panel of RBD-targeting murine MAbs with differential binding affinities and neutralizing activities. A new study by the same group of researchers described the roles of neutralizing and non-neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2. The current study, published in the journal mBio, analyzes the capacity of the neutralizing MAb 2B04 to protect different antibody titers.

Researchers revealed that MAb 2B04 protects hamsters against COVID-19 infection in a prophylactic and therapeutic infection model at 50% inhibitory concentration [IC50] of 0.04 g/ml. They explained that this protection is connected with a reduction in viral loads in the nasal turbinates and lungs of the infected hamsters. Also, researchers found that MAb 2B04 protected the hamsters from a reduction in weight loss owing to SARS-CoV-2 infection. Interestingly, scientists found that MAb 2B04 could block aerosol transmission of the virus to naive contacts. This study has reported that MAb 2B04 can reduce the viral load and disease severity when administered during pre- or postexposure therapy.

The authors of this study have also evaluated three other MAbs, namely, 2C02, 2C03, and 2E06. They found that these MAbs could identify distinct epitopes within the RBD of the S protein and offered minimal (2C02 and 2E06) or weak (2C03) virus-neutralizing ability in vitro. However, only 2C03 protected Syrian hamsters. MAb 2C03 protected the infected Syrian hamsters from weight loss and reduced the lungs' viral load. Importantly, scientists revealed that when 2B04 and 2C03 were administered prophylactically, Fc-Fc receptor interactions were not required to elicit protection.

Conclusions

The current study has shown that monoclonal antibodies can prevent or treat SARS-CoV-2 infection in Syrian hamsters. The authors revealed that MAbs that target the RBD of the S protein could protect against SARS-CoV-2 in vivo. Interestingly, MAbs can effectively protect a host from SARS-CoV-2 under a wide range of neutralizing titers. Also, MAbs 2B04 not only has therapeutic properties but could also reduce aerosol transmission.
Ginseng, a widely popular superfood, has long been used in traditional medicine. The health benefits of ginseng are largely attributed to compounds called ginsenosides, which are present in the roots, stems, and leaves of the plant. Ginsenosides are known to prevent inflammation, diabetes, and cancer, and can also help control blood cholesterol levels and reduce aging.

Although there are 13 known species of ginseng, Korean ginseng-;which contains the highest number of ginsenosides-;is not commonly found in nature. Moreover, of the two types of ginsenosides, the more effective variety-;the minor ginsenosides-;accounts for only 20% of the total ginsenoside content in ginseng. As a result, the supply of ginsenosides is insufficient to meet the high demand in the nutraceutical and pharmaceutical industries. In order to improve ginsenoside production, a one-stop resource with consolidated information from previous ginsenoside studies is required, but such a resource is currently unavailable.

A team of researchers led by Dr. Ravi Gupta from Kookmin University and Dr. Sun Tae Kim from Pusan National University, Korea, embarked on a journey to address this gap. In their recent review published in Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, they compiled a vast amount of data from a large number of ginsenoside studies across multiple fields, including botany, biochemistry, genetics, and drug research.

In addition to providing an overview of the different types and sources of ginsenosides, this review highlights several opportunities for improving ginsenoside production, both in the natural sources, as well as in synthetic biosystems. First, it discusses how major ginsenosides can be converted to the more effective minor type using chemical and enzymatic treatments as well as microbial action. Subsequently, it focuses on how treatments such as water restriction, light stress, gamma radiation, and the administration of plant hormones like jasmonic acid can enhance the ginsenoside content of ginseng.

Finally, the review provides a detailed summary of the biochemistry underlying ginsenoside synthesis in plants as well as its regulation at the gene level. "Understanding and identifying the genes and pathways involved in ginsenoside production can help us develop plants containing high levels of ginsenosides. The identified genes can also be inserted into other organisms that do not make ginsenosides to create artificial systems like ginsenoside-producing yeasts," explains Dr. Gupta, adding that such strategies would be essential for large-scale ginsenoside production.

This review is the first of its kind to focus on ginsenosides on a wide scale.

This was a mammoth challenge, but we strongly believe that our efforts will bear fruit. Our work cements together all the research that has been conducted in the past, and we hope that in the future, scientists will capitalize on it and develop new ways to meet the global demand for ginsenosides." Dr Sun Tae Kim, Pusan National University

This work by Dr. Gupta, Dr. Kim, and their team is an important tool in further improving the industrial potential of a natural food that is a trove of nutrients necessary for healthy living. This is indeed great news for health enthusiasts the world over!
Desperation led Jose Luis Hernandez to ride atop a speeding train through northern Mexico with hopes of reaching the United States 13 years ago. But he didn't make it. Slipping off a step above a train coupling, he slid under the steel wheels. In the aftermath, he lost his right arm and leg, and all but one finger on his left hand.

He had left his home village in Honduras for the U.S. "to help my family, because there were no jobs, no opportunities," he said. Instead, he ended up undergoing a series of surgeries in Mexico before heading home "to the same miserable conditions in my country, but worse off."

It would be years before he finally made it to the United States. Now, as a 35-year-old living in Los Angeles, Hernandez has begun organizing fellow disabled immigrants to fight for the right to health care and other services.

No statistics are available on the number of undocumented disabled immigrants in the United States. But whether in detention, working without papers in the U.S. or awaiting asylum hearings on the Mexican side of the border, undocumented immigrants with disabling conditions are "left without any right to services," said Monica Espinoza, the coordinator of Hernandez's group, Immigrants With Disabilities.

People granted political or other types of asylum can buy private health insurance through the Affordable Care Act or get public assistance if they qualify. In addition, Medi-Cal, California's Medicaid program, provides services to people under 26, regardless of immigration status. Those benefits will expand next spring to include income-eligible undocumented people age 50 and up.

"That's a small victory for us," said Blanca Angulo, a 60-year-old undocumented immigrant from Mexico now living in Riverside, California. She was a professional dancer and sketch comedian in Mexico City before emigrating to the United States in 1993. At age 46, Angulo was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a rare genetic disorder that gradually left her blind.

"I was depressed for two years after my diagnosis," she said  nearly sightless and unemployed, without documents, and struggling to pay for medical visits and expensive eye medication.

The situation is particularly grim for undocumented immigrants with disabilities held in detention centers, said Pilar Gonzalez Morales, a lawyer for the Civil Rights Education and Enforcement Center in Los Angeles.

"They always suffer more because of the lack of care and the lack of accommodations," she said. Furthermore, "covid has made it harder to get the medical attention that they need."

Gonzalez Morales is one of the attorneys working on a nationwide class action lawsuit filed by people with disabilities who have been held in U.S. immigration detention facilities. The complaint accuses U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security of discriminating against the detainees by failing to provide them with adequate mental and physical health care. The 15 plaintiffs named in the lawsuit, which is set for trial in April, have conditions ranging from bipolar disorder to paralysis, as well as deafness or blindness. They are not seeking monetary damages but demand the U.S. government improve care for those in its custody, such as by providing wheelchairs or American Sign Language interpreters, and refraining from prolonged segregation of people with disabilities.

Most of the plaintiffs have been released or deported. Jose Baca Hernandez, now living in Santa Ana, California, is one of them.

Brought to Orange County as a toddler, Baca has no memory of Cuernavaca, the Mexican city where he was born. But his lack of legal status in the U.S. has overshadowed his efforts to get the care he needs since being blinded by a gunshot six years ago. Baca declined to describe the circumstances of his injury but has filed for a special visa provided to crime victims.

ICE detained Baca shortly after his injury, and he spent five years in detention. An eye doctor saw Baca once during that time, he says; he relied on other detainees to read him information on his medical care and immigration case. Mostly, he was alone in a cell with little to do.

"I had a book on tape," said Baca. "That was pretty much it."

According to the lawsuit, treatment and care for disabilities are practically nil in government detention centers, said Rosa Lee Bichell, a fellow with Disability Rights Advocates, one of the groups that filed the case.

Her clients say that "unless you are writhing or fainted on the floor, it's nearly impossible to get any kind of medical care related to disabilities," she said.

"There is kind of a void in the immigration advocacy landscape that doesnt directly focus on addressing the needs of people with disabilities," said Munmeeth Soni, litigation and advocacy director at the Immigrant Defenders Law Center in Los Angeles. "It's a population that I think has really gone overlooked."

ICE and Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment on the lawsuit.

Covid-19 poses a particular threat to people with disabilities who are detained by ICE. On Aug. 25, for example, 1,089 of the 25,000-plus people in ICE facilities were under isolation or observation for the virus.

In an interim ruling, the federal judge hearing Baca's class action lawsuit this summer ordered ICE to offer vaccination to all detained immigrants who have chronic medical conditions or disabilities or are 55 or older. The Biden administration appealed the order on Aug. 23.

Hernandez, who lost his limbs in the train accident, was among the hundreds of thousands of Central American immigrants who annually ride north through Mexico atop the trains, known collectively as "La Bestia," or "the Beast," according to the Migration Policy Institute. Injuries are common on La Bestia. And more than 500 deaths have been reported in Mexico since 2014 among people seeking to enter the U.S.

Hernandez, who finally made it to the U.S. in 2015, was granted humanitarian asylum after spending two months in a detention center in Texas but quickly realized there was little support for people with his disadvantages.

In 2019, with the help of a local church, he formed the Immigrants With Disabilities group, which tries to hold regular gatherings for its 40-plus members, though the pandemic has made meetups difficult. Hernandez is the only person in the group with legal papers and health benefits, he said.

Angulo has found solace in connecting with others in the group. "We encourage each other," she said. "We feel less alone."

She volunteers as a guide for people recently diagnosed with blindness at the Braille Institute, teaching them how to cook, shower and groom themselves in pursuit of self-sufficiency. Angulo would like to have a job but said she lacks opportunities.

"I want to work. I'm capable," she said. "But people don't want to take a chance on me. They see me as a risk."

She's also wary of any organization that offers medical or financial assistance to undocumented immigrants. "They ask for all my information and, in the end, they say I don't qualify," she said. "Being blind and without papers makes me feel especially vulnerable."

This story was produced by KHN, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.
Researchers in the United States and Germany have conducted a study showing that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine designed to protect against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is effective against recently emerged variants of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-Cov-2).

The team  from the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Pfizer Vaccine Research and Development in New York and BioNTech in Mainz  showed that sera drawn from individuals who had received two doses of the BNT162b2 vaccine efficiently neutralized chimeric SARS-CoV-2 viruses bearing the spike proteins of the delta plus (delta-AY.1, delta-AY.2, delta-144), lambda (C.37), and B.1.1.519 variants of SARS-CoV-2.

The spike protein is the primary surface structure the virus uses to bind to and infect host cells and is the main target of neutralizing antibodies following vaccination or natural infection.

Pei-Yong Shi and colleagues say the findings support the ongoing BNT162b2 mass immunization strategy, together with the implementation of public health measures, to control currently circulating variants, minimize the emergence of new variants and bring an end to the COVID-19 pandemic.

A pre-print version of the research paper is available on the bioRxiv* server, while the article undergoes peer review.

Concerns surrounding the emergence of new variants

Since the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak first began in Wuhan, China, in late December 2019, the virus has accumulated mutations that increase transmissibility, replication, and escape from vaccine- or infection-induced immunity.

Many of the mutations have arisen in the viral spike protein, which mediates the initial stage of infection when it binds to the host cell receptor angiotensin-converting enzyme 2.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, it is critical to closely monitor recently emerged variants for their transmissibility, ability to cause severe disease, and potential to escape host immunity.

The BNT162b2 vaccine developed by Pfizer-BioNTech is a messenger RNA (mRNA)-based vaccine expressing the full-length SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. The vaccine has recently been approved for vaccination of individuals aged 16 years or older and has been authorized for emergency use among those aged 12 to 15 years.

Although BNT162b2 mRNA encodes the original spike protein from the Wuhan isolate, the sera of those immunized with BNT162b2 can neutralize all tested variants, including the currently circulating delta variant, writes Shi and colleagues. However, some variants are less efficiently neutralized than others, they add.

What did the current study involve?

Shi and the team generated chimeric SARS-CoV-2 viruses bearing the spike proteins of distinct variants and tested their neutralization by the same panel of 20 sera samples drawn from trial participants 2 to 4 weeks after receiving the second dose of BNT162b2.

The SARS-CoV-2 panel included the spike from a wildtype viral strain (USA-WA1/2020) that was isolated in January 2020 and spikes from the following recently emerged variants.

Strains referred to as delta plus that are closely related to the original delta variant. These included delta-AY.1 (first detected in India and spread to 32 countries); delta-AY.2 (first detected in the US and spread to 7 countries) and delta-144 (first detected in Vietnam and spread to 17 countries).

The lambda (C.37) variant that was first detected in Peru and has spread to 46 countries, with high prevalence in South America.

The B.1.1.519 lineage that emerged and became dominant in Mexico during the first months of 2021.

Each serum sample was tested simultaneously for its neutralizing activity against the wildtype and chimeric viral variants.

BNT162b2 vaccine-elicited neutralization of SARS-CoV-2 variants. The plot presents the PRNT 50 titers of 20 human sera (drawn 2 or 4 weeks after two 30-g doses of BNT162b2, spaced three weeks apart) against USA-WA1/2020 isolate and its chimeric viruses bearing distinct variant spikes. Serum samples obtained at 2 weeks or 4 weeks are represented by circles and triangles, respectively. Individual PRNT 50 values are presented in Extended Data Table 1. Each data point represents the geometric mean PRNT 50 against the indicated virus obtained with a serum specimen. The PRNT 50 values were determined in duplicate assays, and the geometric means were calculated (n=20, pooled from two independent experiments). The bars and the numbers above the bars indicate geometric mean titers. The horizontal bars indicate 95% confidence intervals. The limit of detection (LOD) of the PRNT assay is 1:40 and indicated by a dashed line. Statistical analysis was performed using the two-tailed Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-rank test. The statistical significances of the differences between geometric mean titers in the USA-WA1/2020 neutralization assay and in each variant virus neutralization assay with the same serum samples are as follows: P = 0.0264 for Delta-AY.1- spike; P < 0.030 for Delta-AY.2-spike; P = 0.255 for Delta-144-spike; P = 0.193 for Lambdaspike and P = 0.007 for B.1.1.519-spike.

All sera neutralized all of the viruses

All sera neutralized both the wildtype and the mutant viruses with titers of 80 or higher.

Geometric mean neutralization titers against the wildtype, delta-AY.1, delta-AY.2, delta-144, lambda, and B.1.1.519 viruses were 520, 355, 394, 453, 597, and 640, respectively.

The results, therefore, indicate that compared with the wild-type virus, neutralization of the delta plus variants was only slightly reduced and neutralization of the lambda and B.1.1.519 variants was not reduced at all.

Thus, BNT162b2 immune sera efficiently neutralized all tested viruses, writes Shi and colleagues.

The data in this paper support the ongoing BNT162b2 mass immunization strategy

The researchers say that the susceptibility of the variants to neutralization indicates that antigenic change has not led to viral escape from vaccine-elicited neutralizing antibodies.

The data in this paper support the ongoing BNT162b2 mass immunization strategy to control the variants and to minimize the emergence of new variants, they write. Increasing the vaccination rate in the population, together with implementing public health measures, remains the primary means to end the COVID-19 pandemic, concludes the team.

*Important Notice

bioRxiv publishes preliminary scientific reports that are not peer-reviewed and, therefore, should not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health-related behavior, or treated as established information.
Mei is a mid-career woman looking for a job. She worked at an international hotel chain after junior college for 14 years and climbed through the ranks to become a housekeeping supervisor. A year ago, her 60-year-old mother got pneumonia and was unable to look after her two kids. Mei resigned from her job to look after all three of them as she and her husband were unable to afford a maid.

Moreover, there was no place to accommodate one in their three-room HDB flat. Now that her mother has recovered fully, Mei is ready to go back to work. She is hoping to return to a similar job which she is familiar with and good at. As she scans the job sites daily, she realizes that with her skills and experience, she could be eligible for jobs in other industries as well as senior positions. However, she is diffident about venturing into unfamiliar territory and taking risks.

Job transitions represent an important opportunity for employees to progress in their careers. SMU Associate Professor Marko Pitesa and his colleagues are working on a study titled "Understanding and Improving Job Search Skills among Mid-Career Workers from Families of Lower-Socioeconomic Status" to understand and improve job search skills among mid-career workers from families of lower socioeconomic status (SES) such as Mei's.

"Some types of workers face greater challenges than others. Lower-income women are particularly at risk of falling out of the workforce and having a difficult time getting meaningfully reemployed and set on a positive developmental career path," Professor Pitesa told the Office of Research and Tech Transfer. "The idea behind this project is to better understand why this is the case and design scientifically informed interventions to attenuate the problem."

The Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour & Human Resources examines workplaces from the perspective of inclusion and ethics. His research informs how organizational policies and individual strategies can be applied to promote equal opportunity and ethical conduct.

The basis of the study

The study, which is funded by the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) Social and Family Research Fund, is built on the theory that individuals from different SES backgrounds have different job preferences and interdependence-independence tendencies.

Sociological studies find that individuals from lower-SES backgrounds are socialised in a manner that emphasises hard interdependence, whereas individuals from higher-class backgrounds are socialised in a manner that emphasises expressive independence." Marko Pitesa, Associate Professor, Singapore Management University

This implies that individuals in the former group tend to stay in occupations that promote high levels of interdependence with others. In contrast, individuals born into higher-SES families tend to self-select into occupations that promote high levels of independence from others and involve high degrees of autonomy and personal freedom to decide how and in what manner to pursue career goals.

The study also draws on research on mid-career individuals and work-family conflict to argue that mid-career individuals, being sandwiched between the older and younger generations, often experience high levels of stress trying to cope with both work and family demands. This is particularly so for those from lower-SES backgrounds.

"With high levels of stress, these individuals are likely to emphasise security and display high levels of risk aversion," says Professor Pitesa. "As such, job seeking or leveraging of job opportunities may not be fully utilised as effectively by individuals from these backgrounds and strongly impacts career trajectories and mobility over time."

Preliminary insights

The study is ongoing and focuses on mid-career workers, tracking them over time to understand their personal situations, preferences, and labor market behavior in order to understand differences between those who are stuck versus those who remain agile.

"Online surveys are administered at regular intervals and validated measures are used from research on life circumstances, vocational behaviour, as well as research on implicit and explicit preferences," says Professor Pitesa.

One insight Professor Pitesa has found thus far is that differences in living conditions between workers from wealthier versus poorer backgrounds, are likely to play an important role.

"In economics, this is sometimes referred to as 'sticky relationships,' a constellation of life circumstances at first unrelated to one's economic choices but with potentially far-reaching circumstances," he explains. "For example, declining property value may impose extreme constraints on mortgaged workers to capitalise on job opportunities. In our case, we identify social factors that are relevant, including greater social obligations and constraints that lower-SES workers face."

The insight is preliminary, and the researchers are mapping these problems in detail. However, it illustrates how this knowledge may uncover areas for intervention at different levels (personal, community, policy) that would not be salient otherwise.

Applications and interventions

Professor Pitesa says that while the main focus of the study is on Singapore, the problem is likely universal, with varying degrees of severity. "Our focus on this career stage and these populations is informed by our work on issues lower-SES workers generally face, and hints of this problem have emerged in studies in other countries as well, including the U.S. (think Detroit), India, and other places."

Thus, while some of the specifics of the problem are likely to be context-dependent, the overall attempt to better understand mid-career challenges and address them contributes to a broader effort to address career issues certain groups of workers predictably face.

The application of the intervention is likely to take different forms. "Evidence of its utility in its initial form means it can be readily applied to produce similar benefits in the future," says Professor Pitesa. "However, our emphasis is also on the scientific component, including making the intervention precise and streamlined so that we understand which aspect of the intervention is producing most benefits."

This allows the researchers to refine the intervention going forward. The intervention can also be refined to adjust to the local context and problems. They hope to engage in this translational work in the future, with a particular focus on Southeast and South Asia.

The study also feeds directly into Professor Pitesa's overall program of research and social impact efforts.

"I have been fortunate to receive an MSF grant before based on a similarly-themed project, so even the relationship with MSF has been going on for a while given the complementarity between MSF's goals and my research interests."
As more people return to indoor settings for work and school, new research shows stricter policy restrictions on business operations and indoor mask-wearing reduced COVID-19 cases in Ontario during the first and second waves.

A new study led by researchers from the University of Waterloo found that stricter non-pharmaceutical interventions, such as policy restrictions on business operations and social gatherings, and indoor mask mandates, are associated with COVID-19 case reductions. Further, estimates based on publicly available Google mobility data suggest that increases in workplace attendance are correlated with higher case counts.

Public health measures such as mandatory mask use have become increasingly unpopular and divisive in society. However, our study offers evidence that these measures do work in reducing the incidence of disease. The results of the forecasting exercises should also be useful to policymakers from a planning perspective." Anindya Sen, Professor, University of Waterloo's Department of Economics

In undertaking the study, the researchers used the Google data to assess the effects of public mobility to destinations commonly frequented, such as grocery and retail stores and workplaces. The researchers found that relatively simple forecasting models-; known as "time-series models"-;can predict one week ahead trends in daily COVID-19 cases in Ontario with some accuracy and are more precise than Ontario government forecasts.

"Our models also offer more accurate daily forecasts than the susceptible-infected-removed model that epidemiologists typically employ," Sen said. "Matching these mobility measures to corresponding trends in COVID-19 cases should be useful to policymakers in deciding specific types of economic and social lockdowns, as there are still gaps in knowledge on which types of population mobility are the most responsible for the spread of COVID-19 cases."
Looking to understand why some brain tumors with a specific mutation can start to reject drugs commonly used to treat them, CU Cancer Center member Jean Mulcahy Levy, MD, led researchers from institutions around the country -; including several from the University of Colorado School of Medicine -; to study samples of brain tumors before and after being treated with the drug.

The study looked specifically at brain tumors called gliomas that have the BRAF mutation, which occur in children and young adults. The same mutation happens in adult melanoma, and researchers several years ago developed a medication to treat the mutation in melanoma that also can be used to treat BRAF-mutated gliomas.

It's a rare mutation, but it's one of the first mutations that had a targeted medicine we could use. They had a large population and developed the targeted therapies, and that allowed us to use those therapies in our brain tumor patients." Jean Mulcahy Levy, MD, CU Cancer Center Member

The targeted therapy eliminates the need for chemotherapy in many patients with BRAF-mutated gliomas -; not to mention it can help eliminate seizures that can occur in patients with the mutation. However, the new challenge is that some patients develop a resistance to the medicine, eventually causing their tumors to come back. Levy and her team set out to find out what was causing the resistance, and how they could stop it from occurring.

"We collected samples of patient brain tumors that were before treatment with the targeted medicine and after treatment with the targeted medicine, which is much more difficult in brain tumors," Levy says of the research that was published in August in Clinical Cancer Research. "If you think about melanoma, they can do serial biopsies because the lesions are on the skin and easy to get to. But getting the samples from the brain are much harder. So, we developed a collaboration that started here at CU School of Medicine, in my lab, and then we incorporated researchers from the University of California San Francisco, New York University and Johns Hopkins, and that allowed us to create a collaboration and collect 14 patient samples of pre-treatment and post-treatment. We were able to reach out to other institutions, like Valley Children's and Oregon Health Science University, to get their samples as well."

Through deep genetic analysis of the tumors, including RNA sequencing and whole genome sequencing, the researchers found additional mutations that can create resistance to the targeted therapies. Some have been described in other diseases, such as melanoma, but other mutations had never been discovered in either type of tumor before.

"It just goes to show that brain tumors may develop different resistance mechanisms from other kinds of cancers that are treated with these drugs," Levy says. "We can't just rely on, 'Well, melanoma does this, so brain tumors probably do too.' We need to be sure that we're specifically studying brain tumors, because they're a very different kind of disease."

Levy and her fellow researchers are now in the process of following up on their findings, investigating new potential treatments or combination therapies that could help combat drug resistance in BRAF-mutated gliomas. Levy already is conducting a pediatric clinical trial looking for ways to reverse the resistance.

"The work we're doing now to follow up on our genetic findings will hopefully find other additional medicines or combinations that can be used," she says. "Cancer, at its baseline, is very smart. And it's very rare to have any kind of tumor that you can treat with a single medication. The ultimate goal is to find the right combination of medicines that can treat this cancer and then either prevent resistance or reverse resistance, with the least amount of complications."

Once that combination is found, Levy says, researchers will run more clinical trials -; adult and pediatric -; to test its effectiveness. Her hope is that eventually, patients with this specific type of glioma won't have to worry about recurrence or resistance.

"If we're not focused on developing the next step in therapy, these patients will develop resistance, and then they'll come back to us and we won't have anything to offer them," she says. "We need to be forward-thinking and be ready for the next therapy that has to happen for these patients."
Since the emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in Wuhan, China, the virus has led to a global pandemic.

There has been much concern due to the emergence of multiple variants of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that have reduced vaccine efficacy and evaded neutralizing antibody therapeutics. Thus, it is imperative to develop strategies to inhibit all known and future variants of SARS-CoV-2.

According to new research by an international team of scientists, all SARS-CoV-2 variants, including variants of concern (VOC) Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta, exhibit enhanced affinity toward recombinant human soluble ACE2.

Further, a significant finding was that soluble ACE2 neutralized infection of VeroE6 cells and human lung epithelial cells by multiple VOC strains with markedly enhanced potency when compared to reference SARS-CoV-2 isolates.

Two independent laboratories confirmed the inhibitor's effectiveness in inhibiting SARS-CoV-2 infections. Data show that SARS-CoV-2 variants that have emerged worldwide, including the current VOC and several variants of interest, are inhibited by soluble ACE2. This provides proof of principle of a pan-SARS-CoV-2 therapeutic.

A preprint version of this in vitro study, which is yet to undergo peer review, is available on the bioRxiv* server.

Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2)

When SARS-CoV-2 infects host cells, the viral Spike protein binds to the main human cell-entry receptor, angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2). This leads to the subsequent infection of host cells.

Current COVID-19 vaccines induce the production of neutralizing antibodies that inhibit the Spike/ACE2 interaction. One therapeutic approach for COVID-19 treatment is the use of approved monoclonal antibodies that block the Spike/ACE2 interaction. Due to the importance of this interaction, there is a substantial focus on the research of its molecular details.

Consequently, it is also one of the best-validated drug targets for COVID-19 treatment. In this study, the scientists used a clinical-grade recombinant human soluble ACE2 (APN01) which is already in phase 2 clinical trials.

SARS-CoV-2 variants

Throughout the pandemic, several variants of SARS-CoV-2 have emerged. The World Health Organization has labeled some of the variants as VOCs because they are highly infectious and transmissible.

Many of these variants harbor mutations in the viral Spike protein that do not appear to affect the infectivity and transmissibility of the virus, but rather reduce the potency of vaccines and monoclonal antibodies therapies.

They are also responsible for breakthrough infections. For example, the Delta variant can cause infections even in doubly vaccinated individuals.

This situation presents a need for universal strategies to prevent and treat current and future VOCs. With this aim, the scientists explored the therapeutic potential of APN01.

Testing APN01

Clinical grade recombinant human ACE2 was produced and used for this study. Spike protein receptor-binding domain (RBD) and ACE2 binding studies were performed using ELISA and surface plasmon resonance analysis.

To test the neutralization of VOCs by APN01, neutralization assays were performed in VeroE6 cells and human lung epithelial cells. These neutralization assays were conducted at NIAID Integrated Research Facility at Fort Detrick, Frederick, MD, USA. To ensure reproducibility of the data, the neutralization assays were repeated at the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

Increased affinity of APN01 interactions with SARS-CoV-2-RBD variants. (a) Schematic depicts structure of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein S1 domain. Indicated is the amino-terminal domain (NTD), the receptor-binding domain (RBD) in blue and within the RBD the receptor binding motif (RBM) in purple. Numbers above depict domain boundaries. Mutations within the RBD/RBM are indicated below with observed amino acid exchanges. Shown in red are mutations observed in Variants of Concern (VOC). (b) PyMOL rendered visualization of the SARS-CoV-2 RBD. Rendering depicts the SARS-CoV-2 RBD with mutation sites shown in green. (c) ELISA analysis showing the binding strength of SARS-CoV-2 RBD carrying the indicated mutations to APN01. Axis labels indicate the SARS-CoV-2 RBD variant substitutions tested. (d) Surface Plasmon Resonance analysis to derive kinetic constants (ka, kd) and affinity values (KD) of SARS-CoV-2 RBD/APN01 interaction. The table lists both the tested variants and the introduced amino acid substitution as well as the designation of the respective Variants of Concern mutations tested in this study. Reference strain RBD sequence corresponds to the Wuhan SARS-CoV-2 isolate (e) Representative SPR sensorgram images for the SARS-CoV-2 RBD/APN01 interaction.

Blocks SARS-CoV-2 variants

SARS-CoV-2 evolution is focused on the Spike protein, especially the RBD. RBD mutations affect ACE2 binding. Clinical grade ACE2 showed higher affinity to the Spike RBDs of SARS-CoV-2 variants when compared to the Spike RBD of the original Wuhan SARS-CoV-2 isolate.

This increased binding affinity may be the reason for the enhanced infectivity of the VOCs. Moreover, this increased affinity was also observed with full-length Spike proteins.

Neutralization assays in VeroE6 cells with APN01 showed that APN01 neutralized all the SARS-CoV-2 isolates tested. More importantly, this inhibition was enhanced against all VOCs.

Equivalent results were obtained from a physiologically relevant cell system, the lung epithelial cells. Interestingly, the scientists observed that the neutralization potency correlated with the Spike protein/APN01 binding affinity.

In conclusion, ACE2/APN01 showed strong binding to VOC RBDs or VOC full-length Spike protein and potently inhibited viral infection by the SARS-CoV-2 isolates.

The neutralization assays were independently validated at the Karolinska Institutet. These confirmatory experiments also showed that APN01 inhibited viral infection. Significantly, APN01 inhibited infection by the VOCs with increased potency.

Limitations of this study

The scientists agree that this study has two limitations:

This study used two different cells types. Other cell types also should be studied to observe the same effect. If ACE2 is to be considered a universal agent, additional variants should be tested.

Universal agent

The current VOCs include Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta variants and the variants of interest include Iota, Kappa, Eta, Mu, and Lambda variants.

Novel variants are to be expected due to large-scale vaccination programs. Some of these variants may lead to breakthrough infections and rapid spread of the virus. Therefore, the design of universal therapeutic strategies is of paramount importance.

APN01 has undergone a phase 2 trial in severe COVID-19 patients using intravenous infusions. This testing is now being extended to a larger patient population.

The scientists propose that the data from this study in conjunction with clinical data will pave the way for the development of a universal and pan-SARS-CoV-2 therapy.

*Important notice

bioRxiv publishes preliminary scientific reports that are not peer-reviewed and, therefore, should not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health-related behavior, or treated as established information.
The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the pathogen behind the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, continues to wreak havoc across the globe. To date, worldwide, infections have reached over 226 million, with over 4.65 million people having lost their lives.

For scientists to deal with the outbreak, they need to learn more about SARS-CoV-2's structure and how it infects the body.

Now, researchers at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, Darlinghurst in Australia, CSIRO Data61, and the School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences (UNSW) demonstrated the most comprehensive analysis of the three-dimensional structure of SARS-CoV-2, providing a new insight into how the virus infects cells and replicates.

This Aquaria page summarises and maps all available 3D structural information for all proteins comprising the COVID-19 virus (SARS-CoV-2).

3D structures of all SARS-CoV-2 proteins

In the study, published in the Molecular Systems Biology journal, the team modeled 3D structures of all SARS-CoV-2 proteins, producing over 2,000 models that span 69 percent of the viral proteome. These models provide details not found anywhere else.

3D spike glycoprotein structure on the Aquaria platform.

The different structures involved the coronavirus's 27 proteins. In addition, the analysis identified viral proteins that copy and hijack human proteins, allowing the virus to evade cell defenses and replicate to trigger an infection.

The SARS-CoV-2 envelope modeled in Aquaria. Image Credit: Garvan Institute of Medical Research

The study findings showed that about 6 percent of the proteome imitated human proteins, while approximately 7 percent was implicated in taking over human proteins, hence, reversing post-translational modifications, turning off host defenses, and blocking host translation.

The team made the structural models freely available at the Aquaria-COVID resource, a website designed to help researchers discover new potential targets on the virus to develop treatments or vaccines. The models can also help scientists study new emerging variants.

Switching focus on SARS-CoV-2

Amid the pandemic, many scientists have shifted their focus to SARS-CoV-2, including its structures like viral proteins. Specifically, they focused on the spike glycoprotein, the one responsible for binding to the human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (hACE2) receptor.

SARS-CoV-2 RNA synthesis complex modeled in Aquaria. Image Credit: Garvan Institute of Medical Research

Some modeling studies predicted 3D structures for the entire SARS-CoV-2 proteome, using technologies like AlphaFold, I-TASSER, Rosetta, SWISS-MODEL, and MODELLER. However, some of these models provided varying predictions, raising concerns about accuracy.

The scientists aimed to address such limitations through the use of a depth-based strategy that models all states with related 3D structures. The 3D structures of proteins provide atomic-resolution data on SARS-CoV-2's composition. This is essential to develop treatments and vaccines that target specific structures of the virus.

The study's findings showed three coronavirus proteins, NSP3, NSP16, and NSP13, mimicked human proteins. These proteins, called mimics, allow the virus to escape the immune system, affecting COVID-19 outcomes.

Further, the team also identified five other proteins, namely NSP1, NSP3, spike glycoprotein, ORF9b protein, and the envelope protein, collectively called hijackers, which invade and disrupt cell processes. As a result, the virus takes over to complete its life cycle and invade other cells.

The team also determined eight coronavirus proteins that can self-assemble called teams, providing new insights into how the virus replicates its genome.

"We found structural evidence of interaction between viral proteins for 29% of the viral proteome, comprising eight SARS-CoV-2 proteins," the team explained.

This leaves 14 of the 27 viral proteins in a category called suspects. These proteins are believed to play key roles in infection but have no structural evidence of interaction with other proteins.

In a nutshell, the study assembled information about the viral proteome's structure that was not available from other resources.

"Our analysis of these data has provided insight into how viral proteins self-assemble, how NSP3 and NSP13 may mimic human proteins, and how viral hijacking reverses post-translational modifications, blocks host translation, and disables host defenses," the researchers concluded in the study.

The study can help scientists develop effective treatment options and vaccines to fight off the pandemic.
Months after Kyle Dixon died, his old house in Lanse, Pennsylvania, is full of reminders of a life cut short.

His tent and hiking boots sit on the porch where he last put them. The grass he used to mow has grown tall in his absence. And on the kitchen counter, there are still bottles of the over-the-counter cough medicine he took to try to ease his symptoms at home as covid-19 began to destroy his lungs.

Dixon was a guard at a nearby state prison in rural, conservative Clearfield County, Pennsylvania. He died of the virus in January at age 27. His older sister Stephanie Rimel was overwhelmed with emotion as she walked through Dixons home and talked about him.

Ill never get to be at his wedding, Rimel said. Ill never see him old."

Her expressions of grief, however, quickly turned to anger. Rimel recounted the misinformation that proliferated last year: Masks dont work. The virus is a Democratic hoax to win the election. Only old people or people who are already sick are at risk.

Rimel said her brother believed some of that. He heard it from other prison guards, from family and friends on Facebook, she said, and from the former president, whom he voted for twice.

Falsehoods and conspiracies have fostered a dismissive attitude about the coronavirus among many people in rural Pennsylvania, where she and her siblings grew up, Rimel said. And, because of the misinformation, her brother didnt always wear a mask or practice physical distancing.

When family members expressed dismissive beliefs about covid, Rimels grief became even more painful and isolating. Rimel recalled a particularly tough time right after her brother had to be hospitalized. Even then, family members were repeating conspiracy theories on social media and bragging about not wearing masks, Rimel said.

Some of the people who attended Dixons funeral are still sharing covid misinformation online, said another sister, Jennifer Dixon.

I wish that they could have been there his last days and watched him suffer, she said. Watch his heart still be able to beat. His kidneys still producing urine because [they were] so strong. His liver still working. Everything. It was his lungs that were gone. His lungs. And that was only due to covid.

Both sisters wanted their brothers death notice to be unambiguous about what had killed him. It reads, Kyle had so much more of life to live and COVID-19 stopped his bright future.

While these sisters have chosen to be outspoken about what happened, other families have opted to keep quiet about deaths from covid, according to Mike Kuhn, a funeral director in Reading, Pennsylvania.

Kuhns business did not handle Kyle Dixons funeral, but his chain of three funeral homes has helped bury hundreds of people who died from the coronavirus. He said about half of those families asked that covid not be mentioned in obituaries or death notices.

You know, Ive had people say, My mother or my father was going to die, probably in the next year or two anyway, and they were in a nursing home, and then they got covid, and you know, I dont really want to give a lot of credence to covid,' Kuhn said.

Some families wanted to have their loved ones official death certificate changed so that covid was not listed as the cause of death, Kuhn added. Death certificates are official state documents, so Kuhn could not make that change even if he wanted to. But the request shows how badly some people want to minimize the role of the coronavirus in a loved ones death.

Refusing to face the truth about what killed a family or community member can make the grieving process much harder, said Ken Doka, who works as an expert in end-of-life care for the Hospice Foundation of America and has written books about aging, dying, grief and end-of-life care.

When a person dies from something controversial, Doka said, thats called a disenfranchising death. The term refers to a death that people dont feel comfortable talking about openly because of social norms.

So, for instance, if I say my brother died of lung cancer, what's the first question you're going to ask  was he a smoker? And somehow, if he was a smoker, he's responsible." Ken Doka, an expert in end-of-life care for the Hospice Foundation of America

Doka first explored the concept in the 1980s, along with a related concept: disenfranchised grief. This occurs when mourners feel they dont have the right to express their loss openly or fully because of the cultural stigma about how the person died. For example, deaths from drug overdoses or suicide are frequently viewed as stemming from a supposed moral failure, and those left behind to mourn often fear others are judging them or the dead persons choices and behaviors, Doka said.

So, for instance, if I say my brother died of lung cancer, whats the first question youre going to ask  was he a smoker? Doka said. And somehow, if he was a smoker, hes responsible.

Doka predicts that Americans who have lost loved ones to covid in communities where the disease isnt taken seriously may also encounter similar efforts to shift responsibility  from the virus to the person who died.

Dixons sisters said that's the attitude they often perceive in people's responses to the news of their brother's death  asking whether he had preexisting conditions or if he was overweight, as if he were to blame.

Those who criticize or dismiss victims of the pandemic are unlikely to change their minds easily, said Holly Prigerson, a sociologist specializing in grief. She said judgmental comments stem from a psychological concept known as cognitive dissonance.

If people believe the pandemic is a hoax, or that the dangers of the virus are overblown, then anything, including the death of a loved one from this disease  they compartmentalize it, Prigerson said. Theyre not going to process it. It gives them too much of a headache to try to reconcile.

She advises that people whose families or friends arent willing to acknowledge the reality of covid might have to set new boundaries for those relationships.

As Rimel continues to mourn her brothers death, she has found relief by joining bereavement support groups with others who agree on the facts about covid. In August, she and her mother attended a remembrance march for covid victims in downtown Pittsburgh, organized by the group Covid Survivors for Change.

And in June, a headstone was placed on Dixons grave.

Near the bottom is a blunt message for the public, and for posterity: F COVID-19.

Long after they are gone, the family wants the truth to endure.

We want to make sure that people know Kyles story, and that he passed away from the virus, Rimel said.

This story is from a partnership that includes NPR, WITF and KHN.
(Newser)  Dr. Anthony Fauci has weighed in on the controversy Nicki Minaj is calling #BallGate. The nation's top infectious disease expert, asked during a CNN interview Tuesday whether COVID vaccines could cause infertility, said the answer is a "resounding no," CBS reports. Minaj caused an uproar this week when she tweeted to her 22.6 million followers that her cousin in Trinidad wasn't getting vaccinated because it had made his friend impotent. "His testicles became swollen," the rapper said. "His friend was weeks away from getting married, now the girl called off the wedding."

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Fauci said there is no evidence that COVID vaccines cause impotence, "nor is there any mechanistic reason to imagine that it would happen." He said there's "a lot of misinformation, mostly on social media" and the only way to counter it "is to provide a lot of correct information," Fauci said. "To essentially debunk these kinds of claims, which may be innocent on her part. I'm not blaming her for anything, but she should be thinking twice about propagating information that really has no basis except a one-off anecdote." In other tweets Monday, Minaj said she isn't against vaccines but won't get the COVID shot until she feels she has "done enough research."

At a press conference Tuesday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Dr. Chris Whitty, the UK's chief medical officer, addressed Minaj's claims, with Whitty saying people who spread "ridiculous" untruths should be ashamed. Minaj responded with a message to Johnson, using what Politico calls the "worst British accent since Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins."

The health minister of Trinidad and Tobago also spoke out on the testicles tweet, NBC reports. At a press briefing Wednesday, Terrence Deyalsingh said officials had expended "a lot of time and energy" trying to track down the cousin's friend to see if her claim was true. "So far, it has not proven to be true in Trinidad or ... anywhere else in the world," he said. (Read more Anthony Fauci stories.)
(Newser)  President Biden was joined via videolink by the leaders of Australia and the UK on Wednesday to announce AUKUSa new security alliance between the three countries in the Indo-Pacific region. The pact, which includes a deal to equip Australia with its first nuclear-powered submarines, is widely seen as an effort to counter China's influence, though officials argued it is not aimed at any one country, reports the Wall Street Journal. More:



The deal. The plan to make Australia the seventh country to operate nuclear-powered subs is the "jewel in the crown" of the pact and could be one of the biggest international defense collaborations in decades, reports the Economist. The pact also includes cooperation in other undersea capabilities, along with security cooperation in cyberspace. The subs will be built in Adelaide.

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China's reaction . Chinese officials angrily slammed the deal as part of a "Cold War" mentality, the Guardian reports. Foreign ministry spokesperson, Zhao Lijian accused the three countries of "extremely irresponsible" double standards on nuclear non-proliferation, though leaders stressed that the subs will be nuclear-powered but not nuclear-armed. An editorial in China's state-run Global Times warned that if Australia acts with "bravado," its "troops are also most likely to be the first batch of western soldiers to waste their lives in the South China Sea."

. Chinese officials angrily slammed the deal as part of a "Cold War" mentality, the Guardian reports. Foreign ministry spokesperson, Zhao Lijian accused the three countries of "extremely irresponsible" double standards on nuclear non-proliferation, though leaders stressed that the subs will be nuclear-powered but not nuclear-armed. An editorial in China's state-run Global Times warned that if Australia acts with "bravado," its "troops are also most likely to be the first batch of western soldiers to waste their lives in the South China Sea." France isn't happy, either. Australia has now canceled a diesel-electric submarine deal with France worth tens of billions of dollars, the AP reports. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian described the move as a "stab in the back." French officials also complained about the country being left out of the security pact.

Countering China's military spend . While Biden, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson didn't mention China during the announcement, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace says Beijing has embarked on one of the biggest military spends in its history. "Obviously it is engaged in some disputed areas," he tells the BBC. "Our partners in those regions want to be able to stand their own ground."

. While Biden, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson didn't mention China during the announcement, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace says Beijing has embarked on one of the biggest military spends in its history. "Obviously it is engaged in some disputed areas," he tells the BBC. "Our partners in those regions want to be able to stand their own ground." Australia a "regional foil" to China. The pact cements Australia's role " as a regional foil against Beijing's assertiveness," writes Andrew Probyn at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. "Not that China would have had any doubt about where Australia's security allegiance lies," he writes. "But this is a formal declaration by way of technological embrace."

(Read more Australia stories.)
(Newser)  SpaceXs first private flight blasted off Wednesday night with two contest winners, a health care worker, and their rich sponsor, the most ambitious leap yet in space tourism. It was the first time a rocket streaked toward orbit with an all-amateur crewno professional astronauts. The Dragon capsules two men and two women are looking to spend three days circling the world from an unusually high orbit100 miles higher than the International Space Stationbefore splashing down off the Florida coast this weekend, the AP reports. The mission, dubbed Inspiration4, is SpaceX founder Elon Musks first entry in the competition for space tourism dollars. Unlike NASA missions, the public wont be able to listen in, let alone watch events unfold in real time.

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Leading the flight is Jared Isaacman, 38, who made his fortune with a payment-processing company he started in his teens. Isaacman is the third billionaire to launch this summer, following the brief space-skimming flights by Virgin Galactics Richard Branson and Blue Origins Jeff Bezos in July. Joining Isaacman on the trip is Hayley Arceneaux, 29, a childhood cancer survivor who works as a physician assistant where she was treatedSt. Jude Childrens Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn. Isaacman has pledged $100 million out of his own pocket to the hospital and is seeking another $100 million in donations. Arceneaux is set to become the youngest American in space and the first person in space with a prosthesis, a titanium rod in her left leg.

Also along for the ride: sweepstakes winners Chris Sembroski, 42, a data engineer in Everett, Wash., and Sian Proctor, 51, a community college educator in Tempe, Ariz. The recycled Falcon rocket soared from the same Kennedy Space Center pad used by the companys three previous astronaut flights for NASA. Isaacman, whose Shift4 Payments company is based in Allentown, Pa., is picking up the entire tab for the flight but wont say how many millions he paid. SpaceXs next private trip, early next year, will see a retired NASA astronaut escorting three wealthy businessmen to the space station for a weeklong visit. The Russians are launching an actress, film director, and a Japanese tycoon to the space station in the next few months. (Read more SpaceX stories.)
(Newser)  Update: A South Carolina attorney surrendered to authorities on Thursday in a convoluted case involving multiple deaths and alleged insurance fraud, reports CNN. Prosecutors say Alex Murdaugh arranged his own hit but survived, and that's only a small part of the story. Our original report, with timeline, follows:

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Alex Murdaugh will surrender to authorities Thursday, his attorney says, to face charges that he conspired with another man to fatally shoot him so that his surviving son could collect $10 million in insurance money. Meanwhile, the strange case continues to get stranger, with the New York Times reporting that an inquiry has now been opened into the death of a housekeeper for the prominent South Carolina legal family. The timeline, including more on Gloria Satterfield's death:



July 8, 2015: A 19-year-old man was found dead near the Murdaughs' property in a case that remains unsolved.

A 19-year-old man was found dead near the Murdaughs' property in a case that remains unsolved. Feb. 2018: Satterfield, the Murdaughs' longtime housekeeper, died at their home, and police on Wednesday reopened that investigation. Her death certificate lists cause of death as "natural," but the local coroner says the death wasn't reported to her office and no autopsy took place. In a settlement reached between Alex Murdaugh and the lawyer for Satterfield's family, however, it's referred to as a "trip and fall" accident. Lawyers for Satterfield's two sons say neither one has received any of the settlement money.

Satterfield, the Murdaughs' longtime housekeeper, died at their home, and police on Wednesday reopened that investigation. Her death certificate lists cause of death as "natural," but the local coroner says the death wasn't reported to her office and no autopsy took place. In a settlement reached between Alex Murdaugh and the lawyer for Satterfield's family, however, it's referred to as a "trip and fall" accident. Lawyers for Satterfield's two sons say neither one has received any of the settlement money. Feb. 24, 2019: Paul Murdaugh, Alex's college-aged son, was implicated in a boat accident that killed a 19-year-old woman. Alex Murdaugh and his father were accused of blocking the boat passengers from cooperating with authorities. Paul was awaiting trial on charges including boating under the influence causing death at the time he was killed.

June 7, 2021: Paul Murdaugh and his mother, Alex's wife Maggie Murdaugh, were found fatally shot on the family's property. Their murders remain unsolved. Police opened an investigation into the 2015 death after the Murdaugh deaths, leading to some speculation that Paul may be suspected in that death as well and that his family may have been involved in a cover-up.

Paul Murdaugh and his mother, Alex's wife Maggie Murdaugh, were found fatally shot on the family's property. Their murders remain unsolved. Police opened an investigation into the 2015 death after the Murdaugh deaths, leading to some speculation that Paul may be suspected in that death as well and that his family may have been involved in a cover-up. Sept. 4, 2021: Alex Murdaugh was shot in the head as he changed a tire.

Alex Murdaugh was shot in the head as he changed a tire. Sept. 6, 2021: Alex Murdaugh resigned from his law firm, which on the same day accused him of misappropriating funds from the company, and said he was entering rehab.

Alex Murdaugh resigned from his law firm, which on the same day accused him of misappropriating funds from the company, and said he was entering rehab. Sept. 14, 2021: Police arrested a man accused of shooting Murdaugh in the aforementioned suicide scheme.

Police arrested a man accused of shooting Murdaugh in the aforementioned suicide scheme. Sept. 15, 2021: Murdaugh's lawyer said his client stole money from the law firm to feed his decades-long oxycodone addiction, and the attempt to wean himself off the drugs left him depressed and drove him to the suicide plot (as well as rehab after the plot failed).

Murdaugh's attorney says an arrest warrant has been issued for his client on charges of conspiracy to commit insurance fraud, CNN reports. Murdaugh denies any involvement in the deaths of his wife and son. For more, CNN has a who's who of the case . (Read more Murdaugh family stories.)
(Newser)  France killed the leader of Islamic State in the Greater Sahara because the group attacked French aid workers, African civilians, and US troops, French officials said Thursday, calling him "enemy No. 1" in protracted anti-terrorism efforts in the Sahel. French President Emmanuel Macron announced the death of Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi overnight. According to Macron's office, al-Sahrawi personally ordered the killing of six French aid workers and their Nigerien colleagues last year, and his group was behind a 2017 attack that killed US and Niger military personnel, the AP reports.

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He was killed in a strike by Frances Barkhane military operation a few weeks ago, but authorities waited to be sure of his identity before making the announcement, French Defense Minister Florence Parly told RFI radio Thursday. She did not disclose details of the operation or where al-Sahrawi was killed, though the group is active along the border between Mali and Niger. "He was at the origin of massacres and terror, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Thursday on France-Info radio. He urged African governments to fill the void and seize back ground taken by the Islamic State extremists.

Rumors of the militant leaders death had circulated for weeks in Mali, though authorities in the region had not confirmed it. Al-Sahrawi had claimed responsibility for a 2017 attack in Niger that killed four US military personnel and four people with Nigers military. His group also has abducted foreigners in the Sahel and is believed to still be holding American Jeffrey Woodke, who was abducted from his home in Niger in 2016. (Read more Islamic State stories.)
(Newser)  A Canadian police officer who fired at least 10 shots at a fellow officer during a 2018 altercation says, "It was either me or him." Though Niagara Regional Police Det. Sgt. Shane Donovan was the one to open fire, it's Constable Nathan Parker who's on trial this week in Hamilton, Ont., on charges of assaulting a police officer, assault with a weapon, and resisting arrest. Donovan began his testimony Tuesday, saying Parker attacked him at the scene of a car accident on the first day they met, Nov. 29, 2018, per the CBC. Parker had been monitoring a road barricade but left to use the restroom.

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When he returned, Donovan said he told Parker not to leave again. Parker became "loud" and "aggressive" before exiting his vehicle and shoving Donovan with both hands, according to testimony. He "pushed me back quite a few stepsand I was shocked," Donovan said. He said he told Parker he was under arrest for assault, but the larger man threw a "haymaker" punch. Donovan said he retreated to his own cruiser but was followed by Parker, who kept swinging, then pulled out his baton.

"My belief was that my life was in danger," Donovan said, noting he then pulled out his service weapon and Parker responded likewise. "I knew if he got the firearm up on me, then he would kill meand it was either me or him," he said. "So I fired my gun until he dropped his gun." It was the first time he'd ever drawn his weapon, he said, per the Guardian. Parker, some 10 feet away, suffered 10 gunshot wounds, including one through his cheek and nose, per the CBC. Donovan then called for an ambulance.

Donovan initially faced charges including attempted murder, but they were later dropped. Defense attorney Joseph Markson on Wednesday suggested Donovan was prejudiced against Parker from the start. He read statements in which Donovan described Parker as a "bully" and "aggressor" with a "violent past with the Niagara Regional Police," per the CBC. Donovan said he wasn't prejudiced but confirmed he'd heard from other officers that Parker was associated with bodybuilding and steroids, per Global News. The judge-only trial continues. Parker has pleaded not guilty. He and Donovan remain employed. (Read more police shooting stories.)
(Newser)  Peter Madsen, the Danish man serving a life sentence for torturing, killing, and dismembering journalist Kim Wall on his submarine in 2017, apparently has a busier love life than many people on the outsideand the country's lawmakers want to put an end to it. A new bill introduced in response to concerns about prison "groupies" would ban prisoners serving life sentences from entering new romantic relationships during the first 10 years of their sentences, the BBC reports. It follows reports that a 17-year-old girl fell in love with Madsen and communicated with him for two years until he married a 39-year-old Russian woman in 2020. Denmark permits conjugal visits, and sources told Denmark's BT tabloid in 2018 that Madsen received visits from four women in the months after his conviction.

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The teen later said she felt she had been manipulated by Madsen and the relationship had ruined her life. "Recent years have seen distasteful examples of inmates who have committed vile crimes gaining contact with very young people to get their sympathy and attention," said Justice Minister Nick Haekkerup, per the Local. He said prisoners serving life sentences should not be allowed to use prisons as a dating center or a "media platform to boast about their crimes."

The bill would limit long-term prisoners to contacting only people they were close to before they were incarcerated. It would also ban lifers from posting about their offenses on social media or discussing them in podcasts. The bill has solid support in the country's parliament and the new law is expected to come into force early next year. (Madsen briefly escaped from prison last year.)
(Newser)  A 15-year-old girl took her godmother's vehicle out for a joyride without permission, then decided to "scare" a runner by hitting and ultimately killing him, according to prosecutors in Washington state, who've filed criminal charges of second-degree felony murder and felony hit-and-run. Charging documents allege the 15-year-old and a 14-year-old passenger laughed about the way 53-year-old Greg Moore "flew over the car" when recounting the horrifying act to a friend, per the Seattle Times.

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A passerby found Moore dead in a ditch along a rural road outside Maple Valley around 11am on July 18, more than five hours after King County prosecutors allege he was struck. There were pieces of a broken headlight cover near his body, which had suffered multiple blunt force injuries, according to prosecutors. They say there were also abrasions on the back of Moore's calves, consistent with being struck by a bumper, per the Times.

Surveillance video showed Moore running less than a mile from where he was hit at 6:10am. Six minutes later, a gray Toyota Camry was seen traveling in the same direction, closely followed by a silver Ford Escape. The vehicles were also seen running a stop sign. After a plea for information, the owner of the Camry came forward on Sept. 7, implicating her 15-year-old goddaughter, who allegedly claimed a person wielding a bat had caused damage to the car's headlight, lower right bumper, and windshield, per the Kent Reporter.

The passenger and the 15-year-old driver of the Escape confirmed the teen tried to "bump" the jogger, but struck him at 50mph in a 35mph zone, the documents read, per the Times and Reporter. She was arrested Sept. 9 after her father took her to a police station and is held at a facility in Seattle. Moore's widow is calling for her to be charged as an adult given "the brutality of her crime and blatant disregard for human life," per KING5. Otherwise she could be released in six years if convicted. But prosecutors say the case is likely to remain in juvenile court as the teen has no prior criminal history. (Read more hit and run stories.)
(Newser)  Piers Morgan has found a new job following his explosive departure from Good Morning Britain. The political pundit is joining News Corp. and Fox News Media in a partnership that will see him host a new weeknight show to air in the US, UK, and Australia in 2022. He'll also write two weekly columns for the New York Post and the Sun, and a follow-up to his 2020 book Wake Up for HarperColllins, per Fox News.

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"I'm thrilled to be returning to News Corp., which is where I began my media career more than 30 years ago," Morgan said, per the Hill, touting Executive Chairman Rupert Murdoch as "a constant and fearless champion of free speech." He added, per Fox: "I'm going home." This comes weeks after Morgan touted a "victory for free speech" in response to a media watchdog report that found the former Good Morning Britain host hadn't violated broadcast standards when he spoke out on ITV against Meghan Markle's comments to Oprah Winfrey.

He specifically doubted her claim that she was suicidal. His comments triggered some 57,000 complaints, including one from the Duchess of Sussex herself. Morgan parted ways with ITV almost immediately after the March comments. Since then, he's made headlines for his criticism of US gymnast Simone Biles. More recently, he accused Nicki Minaj, "one of the rudest little madams I've ever met," of "peddling lies" about COVID-19 vaccines, prompting the rapper to label him a "clown" and a "stupid piece of s---," reports the Independent.

"Piers is the broadcaster every channel wants but is too afraid to hire," Murdoch said, per Fox. He "says what people are thinking and feeling." Morgan said he hopes his new London-based show will be "a place that celebrates the right of everyone to have an opinion, and for those opinions to be vigorously examined and challenged." It will air on Fox Nation in the US, on talkTV in the UK, and on Sky News in Australia. (Fox Nation will first revive an "iconic" brand.)
(Newser)  Republicans in one Florida county are up against a deadline to submit campaign finance reports, but they've hit a somber snag unique to our times. The only person who knows how to use the software has died of COVID, reports the Tampa Bay Times. The Hillsborough County Republican Party informed the Federal Election Commission in a letter that 61-year-old Gregg Prentice died suddenly of the disease on Saturday. Prentice had previously handled all the pertinent numbers, but he did not "share the software and instructions with our officers," party officials wrote in the letter. The officials added they will try to make the Sept. 20 deadline to submit paperwork, but acknowledged they were struggling.

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In addition to his role as bookkeeper, Prentice led the organization's "election integrity" committee and had become something of a go-to person on the subject for national conservative groups, per Florida Politics, which adds that the Hillsborough County GOP has "leaned into the more conservative, conspiratorial realm of the party" in recent years. The organization has urged its Facebook followers to oppose mandates on masks and vaccines, as well as lockdowns, per Forbes. Last month, the group hosted firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, and photos showed a large indoor gathering with few masks in sight. The Tampa newspaper notes that Prentice appeared on a podcast last year in which the host called the pandemic a "plandemic" hoax. (Read more Florida stories.)
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A Lowe's delivery truck, which crashed into the Break Room pool hall on Sept. 1, 2021, is still lodged in the building, two weeks later.
A new overpass will replace a divided, four lane highway that follows a slight S-curve and enters a straight section before crossing tracks owned by the Alaska Railroad Corp. About a mile of highway will be reconstructed to create a twin single-span grade separation between the Richardson Highway and the railroad tracks, as seen in this artist rendering. News-Miner screenshot
Agencies | Rome

The Daily Tribune  www.newsofbahrain.com

Justice, Islamic Affairs and Endowments Minister Shaikh Khalid bin Ali Al Khalifa met with Miguel Angel Moratinos, the High Representative for the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC).

The meeting, held on the sidelines of the 2021 G20 Interfaith Forum in Bologna, explored ways to bolster cooperation to support dialogue among civilizations and cultures and to enhance the partnership between Bahrain and the United Nations in the dialogue among civilizations globally.

Shaikh Khalid stressed the importance of boosting action with the Alliance of Civilizations to promote understanding between religions and cultures and confront the challenges facing the globe, mainly combating extremism and violence.

Moratinos commended Bahrain's endeavours in reinforcing dialogue of civilizations and peaceful coexistence and stressed that the Kingdom offers a distinguished model of coexistence, openness and respect for the other.
LOS ANGELES (AP)  As busy as Cedric the Entertainer is with his sitcom The Neighborhood and other projects, he quickly said yes when asked to host his first major awards show.

Then he sought advice on how to handle Sunday's Emmy ceremony, airing on CBS (8 p.m. EDT).

Steve Harvey, my good friend whos hosted a lot of these big nights, he had some great tidbits for me, said the actor-comedian. Others on his call list for trade secrets: Billy Crystal, Anthony Anderson and Chris Rock, all veterans at emceeing Hollywood bashes.

And if you have a line on Tina Fey, I dont have her number, but I would love to talk to her, Cedric said.

He was already aware of one modern pitfall of hosting: Offensive old jokes, like the ones on Twitter that cost Kevin Hart the Oscar emcee gig in 2018.

Just try not to get canceled beforehand, thats the biggest thing," Cedric said, tongue firmly in cheek. It's the kind of puckish observation that a man with a three-decade-plus career and at the top of his game is comfortable making.

He stars in and produces The Neighborhood, the CBS sitcom returning Monday for its fourth season. He's a producer for the male-bonding TV dramedy Johnson" and has voiced roles for animated projects including the Madagascar and Ice Age films and The Proud Family" series.

His on-screen film credits range from the Barbershop franchise to dramas including Cadillac Records and Son of the South and the Spike Lee documentary The Original Kings of Comedy. Cedric appeared on Broadway in a 2008 revival of David Mamet's American Buffalo.

He's got a production company that's developing comedies, dramas and a superhero story, with a long-envisioned project nestled in his back pocket: A biopic of early 20th century Black nationalist leader Marcus Garvey. Cedric has his eye on playing him.

Cedric is also a doting granddad to a brand-new kindergartner he's dubbed #GrandCookie.

The Neighborhood" is his immediate career focus. He plays a family man in a largely Black neighborhood near Los Angeles who's struggling to adjust to the chipper white Midwesterner who's moved next door.

The show's intent is to address the merging of cultures.... and what happens when people do figure out how to live together, how to be in harmony, without necessarily changing the identity of the other person, he said. That's what we try to do with the show, and have a good time. Not preach, but teach.

Born Cedric Antonio Kyles, the Jefferson City, Missouri, native takes a grounded view of his success. Or as he put it: I'm very blue-collar about it."

He was a claims adjustor for State Farm insurance in St. Louis and playing comedy clubs at night when he realized he could win over audiences. That's when he decided to go for it as a performer.

I feel really blessed to have such a long career and one that has mainly just been kind of gradual and steady, Cedric said. I laugh a lot on my job. I make people laugh. It's a good time.

As expert as he is, awards show audiences can be tough. Those waiting to hear if they've won or lost are tense, and viewers at home may shrug over unfamiliar nominees plucked from among an ever-expanding world of streaming and cable shows.

Sunday's ceremony also faces the challenge of ongoing COVID-19 precautions, which have forced it from a theater into a glammed-up tent and limited the number of stars in attendance. That's a step up from last year's event, which was nearly all virtual and audience-less.

Cedric said his goal is a show that avoids stuffiness and brings the TV audience "behind the velvet rope.

The ceremony's executive producers, writer-director Reginald Hudlin and Ian Stewart, said they're confident the event is in good hands. Hudlin and Cedric are friends, and Stewart was convinced in their first Zoom meeting.

His smiling face beamed out, and he said, Lets party. Lets celebrate," Stewart recalled. And it was just this breath of fresh air coming through the doom and gloom period that weve all been through.

Cedric's versatility will be showcased, Hudlin said, adding, He's literally a king of comedy, and you'll see why he wears the crown.

One element that's out of Cedric's control involves his pal Anderson, the black-ish star who's had six previous best comedy actor bids without a win and is competing again.

'Now that you're the host, take care of that for me,' Anderson told him, jokingly refusing to accept rejection.

So he's going to win something, Cedric said with a smile. I don't know what it's going to be, but something."
As officials weigh the future of the mask mandate in schools, the state reported Thursday there have been 877 COVID cases among students and staff during the first weeks of school.

Cases have largely been spread among the hundreds of schools in Connecticut, the data from the last week shows. Six schools had a half-dozen or more cases among students and staff, including 12 cases at Manchester High School, according to the data.

While 751 students in grades K-12 have tested positive for COVID since the start of the school year, 87 percent of the cases have been found in students who are not vaccinated  some of whom are still ineligible. The state has also reported 126 cases among teachers and staff, about 22 percent of whom were not vaccinated.

The risks of COVID-19, exacerbated by the spread of the highly transmissible delta variant, remain a concern among state leaders. This week, Gov. Ned Lamonts administration said it was considering extending the mask mandate for students and staff in schools, which is set to expire on Sept. 30.

I just think it should continue a little bit longer. Weve got not just delta, but mu (variants). Weve got flu season. The flu is coming up from the southern states. I think well know a lot more in six weeks, Lamont said this week.

The rise in cases in schools comes when statewide COVID metrics have leveled off. On Thursday, the state reported a daily positivity rate of 2.95 percent for new COVID tests. Hospitalizations saw a small drop of a net of three patients for a total of 325 statewide. There were 31 COVID-19 deaths in the last week for a total of 8,447.

Going into the school year, Connecticut saw a small bump in the number of new vaccines administered each week. But the most recent figure, for the week ending Sept. 11, dropped to about 36,000 new doses, the lowest since July.

However, Connecticut remains among the most vaccinated states in the country. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 77 percent of all eligible Connecticut residents were fully vaccinated as of Thursday.

For school-aged children eligible for the vaccine, 67 percent of those age 12 to 15 were fully vaccinated, and 77 percent of those 16 and 17 had received their shots.

Despite widespread vaccination, community transmission of COVID-19 remains high across six of eight Connecticut counties.

As of Thursday, all of Connecticut except Tolland and Fairfield counties was designated as having high community transmission by the CDC. This means the areas have more than 100 cases per 100,000 people.

In Tolland and Fairfield counties, the community transmission is considered to be substantial, with a case rate of more than 50 per 100,000 people.

These designations have been significant in recent weeks after the CDC shifted its guidance to recommend all people, regardless of whether they have been vaccinated, wear masks indoors when they are in areas of substantial and high community transmission.

While Lamont has not reinstated a broad indoor mask mandate, the state Department of Public Health echoed the guidance of CDC and recommended people wear masks indoors in Connecticut counties under these designations.

Lamont gave authority to municipal leaders to issue mask mandates within their borders. Often, leaders have elected to institute these orders based on whether the municipality was designated a red zone alert level by DPH.

On Thursday, 84 towns and cities  about half of Connecticuts municipalities  had this designation, which means there are 15 or more cases per 100,000 people.
DETROIT (AP)  Provocative pro-Palestinian protests outside a Jewish synagogue in Michigan are protected by the Constitution's First Amendment, a federal court appeals said Wednesday.

The court declined to stop the demonstrations or set restrictions in Ann Arbor. The protests have occurred on a weekly basis since 2003, with people holding signs that say Jewish Power Corrupts, Stop Funding Israel and End the Palestinian Holocaust.

Members of Beth Israel Congregation, including some Holocaust survivors, said the protests have interfered with their Saturday worship and caused emotional distress.

But the congregants have not alleged that the protesters ever blocked them from using their synagogue or that the protests were even audible from inside the building, Judge Jeffrey Sutton said.

He said a proposed remedy  a 1,000-foot (305-meter) buffer and limits on signs  would likely violate the First Amendment.

The key obstacle is the robust protections that the First Amendment affords to nonviolent protests on matters of public concern, Sutton said in summarizing the case.

He was joined by Judge David McKeague. Judge Eric Clay agreed with the result but on different grounds.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a brief in support of the activists, saying the protests are entitled to protection even if offensive, upsetting and distasteful.

If public officials and courts have discretion to suppress speech they dont like, then none of us truly enjoys the freedom of speech, Dan Korobkin of the ACLU said.

___

Follow Ed White at http://twitter.com/edwritez
MIAMI (AP)  A federal judge declined Wednesday to block a ban imposed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis to prevent mandating masks for Florida school students amid the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.

Judge K. Michael Moore in Miami denied a request by parents of disabled children for a preliminary injunction against an executive order that DeSantis issued in July that served as the basis for the Florida Department of Health issuing a rule that required school districts to allow parents to opt out of any student mask mandates.

Moore wrote in his ruling that parents should have pursued administrative claims before filing a lawsuit.

Plaintiffs attorney Matthew Dietz said in an email that he believed the judge misconstrued a U.S. Supreme Court decision about the exhaustion of administrative remedies in cases involving children with disabilities. He pointed out that it takes at least 75 days for administrative preconditions to be exhausted in Florida, meaning children with disabilities who would be seriously injured or killed by a COVID-19 infection would be unable to return safely to their school.

In a separate case filed in state court, the 1st District Court of Appeal ruled last week that a Tallahassee judge should not have lifted an automatic stay two days ago that halted enforcement of the mask mandate ban. That lawsuit contends that DeSantis does not have authority to order local school boards to ban mask mandates. Leon County Circuit Judge John C. Cooper agreed last month, but the state continues to appeal that decision.

The rulings mean the state can resume its efforts to impose financial penalties on the 12 school boards currently defying the mask mandate ban. Those have included docking salaries of local school board members who voted to impose student mask mandates.

The U.S. Department of Education has announced a new grant program to provide funding for school districts in Florida and elsewhere that lose money for implementing anti-coronavirus practices such as mandatory masks. The federal agency has informed state officials that it would also be investigating whether the states ban on mask mandates violates federal civil rights laws that protect students with disabilities.

DeSantis has argued that the new Parents Bill of Rights law reserves solely for parents the authority to determine whether their children should wear a mask to school. School districts with mandatory mask rules allow an opt-out only for medical reasons, not parental discretion.
NEW YORK (AP)  Prince Andrew can request the unsealing of a 2009 settlement agreement that his lawyer claims protects him from a lawsuit alleging he sexually assaulted a girl two decades ago, a U.S. judge said Thursday.

Judge Loretta A. Preska in Manhattan said in a written order that the prince can seek the information to support arguments that the agreement between Virginia Giuffre and the late financier Jeffrey Epstein disallow her lawsuit against the prince.

Epstein, 66, was found dead in his cell at a Manhattan federal jail in August 2019 while he awaited a sex trafficking trial. The death was ruled a suicide.

On Monday, attorney Andrew Brettler, representing the prince, told a Manhattan federal judge that he believes the settlement agreement absolves our client from any and all liability.

Brettler spoke at the first court hearing to result from the August lawsuit, in which Giuffre alleged that Andrew abused her on multiple occasions in 2001 when she was under 18. Andrew has said the abuse never happened.

Brettler had no immediate comment in response to an email Thursday.

Brettler's comment Monday was referenced in court papers submitted Thursday by lawyers for Giuffre as they asked a judge to rule that the prince was properly notified of Giuffre's lawsuit. They said the prince was actively evading formal efforts to serve him with Giuffre's lawsuit.

The lawyers noted that Brettler planned to raise a defense based on the 2009 settlement between Giuffre and Epstein of a Florida state case to which Andrew was not a party.

Preska has presided over requests to unseal large portions of court filings related to a lawsuit Giuffre brought against Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell in 2015. The defamation lawsuit, which alleged Maxwell subjected Giuffre to public ridicule, contempt and disgrace by calling her a liar, was settled and the case dismissed in May 2017.

The judge referenced the prince in an order rejecting attorney Alan Dershowitz's attempt to unseal a settlement agreement that was designated confidential and sealed as part of records in the lawsuit Giuffre brought against Maxwell.

The judge said Dershowitz, who claimed he was seeking the unsealing as a matter of professional ethics because he believes Giuffre's claims in the lawsuit against the prince are barred by the settlement, cannot seek the records because he is not a party to the lawsuit against Andrew.

To the Courts knowledge, Mr. Dershowitz has not been commissioned as a roving ethics monitor, Preska wrote.

The Court notes, however, that parties who have standing ... and perhaps Prince Andrew, who has not been heard from ... may seek to lift the protective order for valid reasons, she added.

A lawyer for Dershowitz did not immediately return a message seeking comment Thursday.

Giuffre's lawyers said the prince was working with Dershowitz to get a copy of the settlement papers unsealed so he can share it with Prince Andrew.

Maxwell, 59, is awaiting a November trial on sex trafficking charges that allege she procured girls for Epstein to sexually abuse for at least a decade beginning in 1994. She has pleaded not guilty.

The Associated Press does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they choose to come forward publicly, as Giuffre has.
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP)  Louisiana State University has begun the process of ejecting dozens of students for not following COVID-19 vaccination rules, according to a spokesman.

LSU spokesman Ernie Ballard said Wednesday that the university is contacting 78 students to let them know they are being unenrolled for not following the COVID-19 vaccination requirements, WAFB-TV reported.
PARIS (AP)  French President Emmanuel Macron met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Paris Thursday to discuss international crises and European issues, days before elections that will determine who succeeds her after 16 years in office.

Key topics include the diplomatic and humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, the fight against Islamic extremists in Africas Sahel region and European Union affairs, both leaders said before their meeting, to be followed by a working dinner.

The meeting comes ahead of Germanys parliamentary elections on Sept. 26. Merkel has announced she wont seek a fifth term.

Although Germany will be putting together a new government after the election, we want to make everything possible on the German side so that there is no standstill on the necessary decisions that need to be made, Merkel said. In Germany, the outgoing chancellor stays on until a new coalition government is formed, which can take weeks or months.

Macron said he was closely monitoring the political developments in Germany. Until a new government is formed, dear Angela Merkel and myself will continue to work hand in hand on the big issues on which we seek to bring Franco-German solutions, he said.

On Afghanistan, Macron and Merkel said they would discuss how to extract remaining European citizens and Afghans who are under threat, and how to support neighboring nations hosting Afghan refugees.

We will of course also have to consider what the end of the NATO deployment in Afghanistan means for us and our future missions in connection with the fight against terrorism, and what lessons we draw from its unsuccessful end, if you look at the aims we had imagined, Merkel said.

Macron pushed for greater European autonomy regarding the worlds crises, citing the fight against terrorism in Libya and in Africa's Sahel region.

French authorities announced overnight the death of the leader of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, killed in southern Mali in a French-led operation.

France has over 5,000 troops deployed in the Sahel to fight Islamic extremists. Paris announced plans to nearly halve that force in the coming years. Germany has several hundred soldiers in United Nations stabilization and European Union training missions in Mali.

Both governments expressed concern this week at reports on the possible deployment of Russian mercenaries in Mali.

German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer tweeted on Wednesday that, if confirmed, that puts into question the basis of the mandate for German soldiers in Mali.

A French top official, speaking anonymously in accordance with the Elysee's customary practices, said Merkel will be back in Paris in the coming weeks for a goodbye visit.

Macron met last week with two candidates to succeed her, Armin Laschet of Merkels Christian Democratic Union and Olaf Scholz, running for the Social Democrats.

The meetings, at the request of the two candidates, allowed Macron to get the most precise information possible about the political situation in Germany, and different hypothesis for the future coalition government, the official said.

Macron didn't meet with Greens contender Annalena Baerbock.

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AP Writer Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to the story.
Digital identity verification now available for both international and domestic clients

TORONTO, Sept. 16, 2021 /CNW/ - In a Canadian first, today Simplii Financial announced digital identity verification enabling both international and domestic clients to open accounts completely digitally. Soon-to-be Canadian residents can use their international ID to conveniently set up their banking with Simplii Financial in a matter of minutes, prior to their arrival in the country.

With digital identity verification, international students and newcomers to Canada can receive real-time authentication and will no longer need a manual review of their documentation, which can take up to three days. The majority of these clients will be able to open their deposit accounts while still overseas, enabling them to transfer funds before their move, for a smoother transition to Canada.

"Moving to a new country is a significant undertaking, and by choosing Simplii Financial for their banking needs, new clients can check off an important task on their to-do list, ahead of their arrival," said Vineet Malhotra, Head, Simplii Financial. "Simplii's new digital identity verification offering is yet another way we're living up to our promise of simplifying the banking experience for all Canadians, international students, and newcomers to Canada."

How it works

Using AI-based document verification and biometric technology, Simplii Financial can now set up and remotely verify the identity of all international and domestic clients, meaning new clients can digitally open an account with no requirement to go into a physical location, such as a banking centre or Canada Post location.

To set up an account using digital identity verification or manual review, new clients will need:

Passport or Canadian driver's licence for domestic clients Passport or another approved identity document, for international clients Photo selfie

The latest updates for Simplii clients

As a direct financial services brand, Simplii continues to build and develop innovative digital, and product and service offerings. Recent updates include:

The Simplii Financial Cash Back Visa Card, offering premium rewards with no fees, is now available to non-Simplii account holders;

Simplii clients can now transfer USD to 62 countries, with recent Global Money Transfer enhancements;

And Simplii's International Student Banking Offer, in collaboration with the Government of Canada , now offers seamless bank account opening and documentation to support student permit applications prior to arrival in Canada .

Simplii Financial also offers credit card applications with a limit of up to $10,000 with no Canadian credit history, to further support newcomers through its New to Canada Program.

About Simplii Financial 

Simplii Financial is committed to delivering simple, straightforward banking. With a fully mobile experience, nearly 1.8 million clients enjoy no-fee daily banking with no minimum balance and high interest savings rates. In the 2020 Ipsos Financial Service Excellence study, Simplii was an award winner for Online and Mobile Banking Excellence among all financial institutions in Canada. Simplii delivers a simple and easy way to bank with 24/7 access to online, mobile and telephone banking as well as access to one of the largest national ATM networks through CIBC. For more information about Simplii Financial please visit www.simplii.com or by following on Twitter @SimpliiFin, Instagram @SimpliiFin or on Facebook.

SOURCE Simplii Financial

For further information: Davina Ramnarine [email protected] or 416-309-7956.
This mission is the first orbital mission in the history of spaceflight to be staffed entirely by non-astronauts. This journey will see the quartet free-flying through Earth's orbit.

American aerospace manufacturer SpaceX on Thursday launched the Falcon 9 carrier rocket that placed the Crew Dragon spaceship into orbit. This was the first-ever fully civilian crew mission dubbed as Inspiration4. The launch took place at 00:03 GMT from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Dragon and the @inspiration4x astronauts are now officially in space! Dragon will conduct two phasing burns to reach its cruising orbit of 575km where the crew will spend the next three days orbiting planet Earth, SpaceX tweeted later.

This mission is the first orbital mission in the history of spaceflight to be staffed entirely by non-astronauts. This journey will see the quartet free-flying through Earths orbit.

SpaceX is working on making its satellite internet network Starlink a provider of that coveted fast in-flight internet connectivity. According to The Verge, SpaceXs VP of Starlink and commercial Sales Jonathan Hofeller said the company is already in talks with several airlines.

We have our own aviation product in developmentweve already done some demonstrations to date, and looking to get that product finalized to be put on aircraft in the very near future, Hofeller said at a panel at the Connected Aviation Intelligence Summit on Wednesday,

Starlink is currently offered as a beta service in select areas, mostly in the U.S. and Canada, for USD 99 per month, after a one-time SUD 499 equipment fee. The company currently has about 1,800 satellites in orbit and is steadily launching new batches, with the goal of reaching near-global coverage in 2021.

However, airline connectivity is a bit of a different beast, as it cannot always rely on ground stations, for example, when the airplane is flying over the ocean. To provide connectivity there, Starlinks satellites will have to be able to connect to each other using laser links.

Hofeller said this will be possible on the next generation of Starlinks constellation, which is currently being developed. In-flight Wi-Fi is notoriously pricy, and typically quite slow. Hofeller said that Starlink will be able to provide a great experience, something which current, geostationary systems cannot do. However, he did not say when, exactly, this could launch. To be determined [] Hopefully sooner rather than later, he said.

As per The Verge, notably, Ben Griffin, VP of mobility services for Starlinks competitor OneWeb, was also there at the panel, and he said the company is targeting a similar service in the middle part of next year, maybe sooner.
The report investigates the conduct of Khalistani groups within the United States in order to investigate Pakistan's support, their ties to militant and terrorist groups in India, and the potential negative effects of their activities on US foreign policy in South Asia.

Terry Milewskis report for the MacDonald Laurier Institute details recent Khalistani group activities in Canada. The Hudson Institutes South and Central Asia Program assembled a group of South Asia experts to evaluate the fifty-five interconnected Kashmiri and Khalistani groups currently operating in the United States in order to produce a similar report for the United States.

Rather, the following report simply investigates the conduct of Khalistan and Kashmir separatist groups within the United States in order to investigate Pakistans support, their ties to militant and terrorist groups in India, and the potential negative effects of their activities on US foreign policy in South Asia.

Prime Minister Indira Gandhi dispatched the Indian army to evict militants and their leaders from the holiest of Sikh shrines, the sprawling Golden Temple, which they had occupied and fortified with weapons brought from Pakistan. Gandhis action, like the anti-Sikh pogroms that followed the 1984 assassination of Prime Minister Gandhi by Sikh militants in retaliation for the Golden Temple military operation, galvanised Sikhs living abroad.

Approximately 25,000 people were killed during the fifteen-year campaign of violence that lasted until the early 1990s, the majority of whom were Sikhs. Despite the long period of dormancy that followed, Khalistani militancy has increased in recent years, and curtailing diaspora-based efforts to re-energise it may prevent a return to the 1980s violence. For years, the US and the majority of the international community have condemned Pakistans tolerance and support for terrorism. Furthermore, according to the United States Department of States Country Report on Terrorism 2019: Pakistan, Pakistan continued to serve as a safe haven for certain regionally focused terrorist groups.
Protests against Taliban rule and for civil rights have been violently suppressed, with reports of journalists being arrested and severely beaten.

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan is batting for the Taliban to develop a consensus that would lead to recognition of the new caretaker government of the Islamic Emirate in Afghanistan. Speaking to CNN, in the first interview with an international news organization since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan last month, Khan said that the best way forward for peace and stability in Afghanistan is to engage with the Taliban and incentivize them on issues such as womens rights and inclusive government.

The Taliban hold all of Afghanistan and if they can sort of now work towards an inclusive government, get all the factions together, Afghanistan could have peace after 40 years. But if it goes wrong and which is what we are really worried about, it could go to chaos. The biggest humanitarian crisis, a huge refugee problem, Khan said.

Its a mistake to think that someone from outside will give Afghan women rights. Afghan women are strong. Give them time. They will get their rights, said Khan. Women should have the ability in a society to fulfil their potential in life, said Khan.

Since assuming power, the group has attempted to paint a new picture with promises to uphold human rights, particularly regarding women and girls, and allow journalists to continue with their work. However, women have been omitted from the Talibans hard-line interim government, have been ordered to stay at home in some areas, and their education restricted.

Protests against Taliban rule and for civil rights have been violently suppressed, with reports of journalists being arrested and severely beaten.

Many in the international community are not hopeful the Taliban will make any progress on upholding womens rights. The Taliban, who ruled over Afghanistan from 1996 until 2001 have historically treated women as second-class citizens, subjecting them to violence, forced marriages and a near-invisible presence in the country, reported CNN.

The group banned women from the workplace, stopped them from leaving the home unaccompanied and forced them to cover their entire bodies. In recent days the Taliban has mandated the segregation of genders in classrooms and said female students, lecturers and employees must wear hijabs in accordance with the groups interpretation of Sharia law. And Taliban fighters have used whips and sticks against women protesters, who have taken to the streets in sporadic protests across the country demanding equal rights.

Khan also said that the world should give Taliban time on human rights but fears chaos without aid, reported CNN. Khan claimed that the Taliban are looking for international aid to avoid a crisis, which could be used to push the group in the right direction towards legitimacy. However, he warned that Afghanistan could not be controlled by outside forces.

No puppet government in Afghanistan is supported by the people, he said. So rather than sitting here and thinking that we can control them, we should incentivize them. Because Afghanistan, this current government, clearly feels that without international aid and help, they will not be able to stop this crisis. So we should push them in the right direction.

Meanwhile, Khan also commented on the terrible relationship with the United States that has been disastrous for Pakistan and how he is now seeking a more pragmatic approach in dealing with Afghanistans new leaders. We (Pakistan) were like a hired gun, Khan said. We were supposed to make them (the US) win the war in Afghanistan, which we never could.

Khan said he repeatedly warned US officials that America could not achieve its objectives militarily, and would be stuck there. He said the US should have attempted a political settlement with the Taliban from a position of strength, at the height of its presence in Afghanistan, not as it was withdrawing.

Khan has previously criticized the US exit from Afghanistan and said he has not spoken with President Joe Biden since the Taliban takeover, despite Pakistan being a major non-NATO ally. I would imagine hes very busy, but our relationship with the US is not just dependent on a phone call, it needs to be a multidimensional relationship, said Khan.

On Monday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US would reassess its ties with Pakistan following the withdrawal. He told Congress during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing that Pakistan has a multiplicity of interests some that are in conflict with ours. Khan called such comments ignorant, telling CNN that I have never heard such ignorance.

According to Khan, thousands of Pakistanis lost their lives in terrorist attacks by militant groups owing to his countrys support for the US. Just because we sided with the US, we became an ally of the US after 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan. The suffering this country went through with at one point there were 50 militant groups attacking our government on top of it, they must also know there were 480 drone attacks by the US in Pakistan, he added.

Only time a country has been attacked by its ally, he said of the US strikes. The US has repeatedly accused Pakistan of harbouring terrorists and given them safe haven, a claim Khan denied. What are these safe havens? Khan asked. The area of Pakistan along the border of Afghanistan had the heaviest surveillance by the United States drones  surely they would have known if there were any safe havens?

Khan said he cannot destroy his country to fight someone elses war.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be leading the Indian delegation in a virtual format, while External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar will participate in person. Chinese president Xi Jinping and Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan are also set to attend the meet.

India is all geared up to attend the SCO summit in Dushanbe, scheduled to be held in a hybrid format. The Council of the SCO Heads of State (CHS) is the highest decision-making body in the SCO, which meets for annual summits in member countries by rotation.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be leading the Indian delegation in a virtual format, while External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar will participate in person. Chinese president Xi Jinping and Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan are also set to attend the meet. Indias emphasis at the meet is to discuss counter-terrorism; economic cooperation; regional developments, especially Afghanistan, according to informed sources.

In June this year at the meeting of National Security Advisors of the SCO, Indias National Security Advisor Ajit Doval had proposed an action plan against Pakistan-based terror groups Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM).

Afghanistan is also expected to dominate deliberations at SCO meet. While China and Pakistan have been supporting the Taliban regime, India is on a wait and watch mode. India has demanded that there should be an inclusive government that represents all sections of society, the safety of minorities, rights of women and children need to be protected.

In the context of Afghanistan, India is also expected to highlight the imminent threat from the potential use of Afghan land by anti-India terror groups.

Informed sources told ANI that agenda items on the SCO table are the current politico-security situation in the region, especially Afghanistan; the fallout of the pandemic; expansion of membership of the organisation (full member/dialogue partner/observer status); multilateral economic cooperation; people-to-people exchanges; and also other topical issues of regional and international importance.

This is the 4th Summit in which India will participate as a full-fledged Member State. This Summit is significant as SCO celebrates the 20th anniversary of its foundation in 2021 and Tajikistan marks 30 years of its independence.

Central Asia is pivotal to Indias interest in the region with millennia-old historic and civilization ties. Our areas of interest in the SCO: counter-terrorism; economic cooperation; regional developments, especially Afghanistan, said sources.

Earlier, India chaired the 19th Meeting of the SCO Council of Heads of Government (CHG) in the virtual format in November 2020. A new SCO Program of Multilateral Trade- Economic Cooperation (2020-2035), was approved under Indias chairship that outlines the main areas of cooperation such as trade and investment, banking and financial cooperation, transport and logistics, industry, digitalisation, agriculture, energy, innovation, spatial development, education, tourism and environment.

As a part of its Chairship, India took initiatives in the areas of Start-ups and Innovation, Science and Technology and Traditional Medicine, and also organised SCO Young Scientists Conclave, the first-ever Consortium of SCO Economic Think Tanks, the first-ever SCO Start-up Forum, the first-ever SCO Digital Exhibition on Shared Buddhist Heritage by the National Museum, and the translation of 10 classics of Indian regional literature into Russian and Chinese languages.
Mullah Baradar led the Taliban in negotiations with the US during the peace deal. Baradar is considered to be a quiet, secretive man who rarely gives public statements.

Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar  deputy prime minister in the Talibans newly announced caretaker government and the top figure in the Doha deal  has been named among the 100 most influential people of 2021 by Time magazine. Mullah Baradar led the Taliban in negotiations with the US during the peace deal. Baradar is considered to be a quiet, secretive man who rarely gives public statements. He represents a more moderate current within the Taliban.

In February 2020, when the US Special Representative for Afghan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad officially signed the peace deal in Doha, Baradar was the chief face of the Taliban.

Recently, as the Taliban gained power in Afghanistan, it was on the terms Baradar negotiated. He was said to be making all the major decisions, including the amnesty offered to members of the former regime, the lack of bloodshed when the Taliban entered Kabul and the regimes contacts and visits with neighbouring states, especially China and Pakistan, TIME magazine said.

In 2010, Baradar was arrested in Pakistan by the countrys security forces and released in 2018 when the US intensified efforts to leave Afghanistan. However, despite being the co-founder of the Taliban and having played a top role in negotiations with the US, its believed that Baradar has been given a relatively lower position in the caretaker government.
Australia, the UK and the US on Wednesday (local time) announced an enhanced trilateral security partnership called AUKUS to deepen diplomatic, security, and defence cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region. The endeavour we launch today will help sustain peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region, said a joint statement on the formation of a trilateral defence partnership.

The new trilateral security partnership was announced in a virtual meeting between the US President Joe Biden, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison. As leaders of Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, guided by our enduring ideals and shared commitment to the international rules-based order, we resolve to deepen diplomatic, security, and defence cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region, including by working with partners, to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century, added the statement.

US President Joe Biden, during Wednesdays announcement, also maintained that the establishment of AUKUS is necessary because we need to be able to address both the current strategic environment in the region and how it may evolve. Because the future of each of our nations and indeed the world depends on a free and open Indo-Pacific, enduring and flourishing in the decades ahead. This is about investing in our greatest strength, our alliances, and updating them to better meet the threats of today and tomorrow, Biden added.

AUKUS is a new enhanced security partnership between Australia, UK, and the US. AUKUS is a partnership where our technology, our scientists, our industry, and defence force all working together to deliver a safer and more secure region, said Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

The UK, Australia and US are natural allies  while we may be separated geographically, our interests and values are shared. The AUKUS alliance will bring us closer than ever, creating a new defence partnership and driving jobs and prosperity, said UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

This partnership will become increasingly vital for defending our interests in the Indo-Pacific region and, by extension, protecting our people back at home, added Johnson.

Through AUKUS, the trilateral partnership will strengthen the ability of each to support our security and defence interests, building on our longstanding and ongoing bilateral ties. It will promote deeper information and technology sharing, foster deeper integration of security and defence-related science, technology, industrial bases, and supply chains and in particular, will significantly deepen cooperation on a range of security and defence capabilities, said the statement.

As the first initiative under AUKUS Australia in acquiring nuclear-powered submarines for the Royal Australian Navy, added the statement. First major initiative of AUKUS will be an 18-month effort to deliver a nuclear-powered submarine fleet for Australia. We will seek to determine the best way forward to achieve this. We intend to build these submarines in Australia in close cooperation with the UK and the US, said Morrison.

The development of Australias nuclear-powered submarines would be a joint endeavour between the three nations, with a focus on interoperability, commonality, and mutual benefit. As per ABC News, Australias next submarine fleet will be nuclear-powered under an audacious plan that will see a USD 90 billion programs to build up to 12 French-designed submarines scrapped.

France, in particular, has already substantial Indo-Pacific presence as a key partner and ally in strengthening security and prosperity of the region. The US looks forward to working closely with France & other key countries as we go forward, said Biden.

Australia is committed to adhering to the highest standards for safeguards, transparency, verification, and accountancy measures to ensure the non-proliferation, safety, and security of nuclear material and technology. Australia remains committed to fulfilling all of its obligations as non-nuclear weapons state, including with the International Atomic Energy Agency. Our three nations are deeply committed to upholding our leadership on global non-proliferation, read the statement.

AUKUS will enhance joint capabilities and interoperability. The initial efforts will focus on cyber capabilities, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, and additional undersea capabilities.

For more than 70 years, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States have worked together, along with other important allies and partners, to protect shared values and promote security and prosperity.

Australia remains committed to fulfilling all of its obligations as non-nuclear weapons state, including with the International Atomic Energy Agency. Our three nations are deeply committed to upholding our leadership on global non-proliferation, read a joint statement on AUKUS.
BOSTON (AP)  The Board of Health in West Springfield has approved an indoor mask mandate that takes effect the same day as the opening, for the first time in two years, of what's billed as the largest agricultural fair on the East Coast.

The mask mandate starts Friday, the first day of The Big E, a more than 100-year-old multistate fair that typically attracts about 1.6 million visitors over its 17-day run.

Last year's fair was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic.

While I understand that there are many viewpoints on this, as a physician, I do feel that the science on this is fairly clear, board member Dr. Nathan Somers said at Wednesday's virtual meeting. Vaccines, social distancing, contact tracing and masking are effective at slowing the progress and the spread of this virus.

The mandate requires face coverings in all indoor public places, as well as private places open to the public, regardless of vaccination status, for everyone ages 2 and older.

Board Chair Dr. Heather Sankey stressed that the fair was not being targeted, but that the masking rules apply to all businesses and events.

West Springfield is in Hampden County, which is last in the state for COVID-19 vaccinations, according to state data.

Several people at the meeting spoke against a mask mandate, saying it would hurt their businesses.

The Big E, which features agricultural exhibitions, a midway, concerts, food vendors and more, has both indoor and outdoor spaces.

Fair organizers had been anticipating a mask mandate, Big E President and CEO Eugene Cassidy told The Associated Press on Thursday.

We actually had started preparing for this a couple of weeks ago," he said.

The fair is putting up more signage reminding people about the mask requirement and staff will be giving "gentle reminders" to people not complying, he said.

He's also counting on the goodwill of attendees.

Hopefully, the fair-going public is used to these mandates and protocols and will respond in a positive way," he said.

___

BAKER-BIDEN VACCINE PLAN

Gov. Charlie Baker said Thursday that hes waiting to hear more details about President Joe Bidens proposed rule that would require employers with at least 100 workers to force employees to get vaccinated or produce weekly test results showing they are virus free.

Im obviously a big fan of people getting vaccinated and Im obviously comfortable with employers creating programming for their own people to get vaccinated, the Republican said during an appearance on GBH News.

But Baker said hes not ready to comment on Bidens proposal until he can see more details.

The proposal the feds have made at this point was you either get vaccinated or you get tested on a regular basis, but we have not seen yet any details on what this looks like, Baker said.

Biden has directed the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration to write the proposed rule

Baker said he's waiting to see what they come up with.

I hesitate to comment on it until we actually see something, Baker said. For something thats as significant, widespread and complicated as this I would really to see like how this would work, who qualifies, who doesnt, what the rules are and all the rest.

Baker also said his administration has been talking to other states about how to create a universal system for residents to prove theyve been vaccinated.

Baker said its already possible for an individual to check their vaccination status through their health provider.

But obviously there are states and municipalities that have done something more universal than that, he said. And weve been talking to those folks and working through how that would work here in the commonwealth.

More than 4.5 million Massachusetts residents have been fully vaccinated.

___

VIRUS BY THE NUMBERS

The number of new daily cases of COVID-19 increased by nearly 2,000 Thursday while the number of newly confirmed coronavirus deaths in Massachusetts rose by 16.

The new numbers pushed the states confirmed COVID-19 death toll to 18,046 since the start of the pandemic, while its confirmed caseload rose to more than 736,000.

There were about 675 people reported hospitalized Thursday because of confirmed cases of COVID-19, with more than 170 in intensive care units.

The average age of those who have died from COVID-19 was 75.

The true number of cases is likely higher because studies suggest some people can be infected and not feel sick.

More than 4.5 million people in Massachusetts have been fully immunized against COVID-19.

___

TEACHERS AND VACCINES

Two major Massachusetts teachers unions are criticizing Gov. Charlie Baker over the states lack of a statewide coronavirus vaccination policy for schools.

A statewide mandate requiring educators to be vaccinated, in accordance with what President Biden is calling for, would best protect our communities  including communities of color, which have been hit the hardest by the pandemic, Massachusetts Teachers Association President Merrie Najimy said in a statement Wednesday, according to the Boston Herald.

Educators and our students cross town lines every day, and the virus isnt contained by municipal boundaries, American Federation of Teachers Massachusetts President Beth Kontos said. Public health decisions during a deadly pandemic are too important to be left to politicized local decision-making. On masking, testing and vaccination policy, we need statewide leadership guided by public health experts.

Baker, a Republican, is letting each school district make its own decisions.

The accountability, authority and responsibility rests with the municipal governments and they therefore need to figure that one out, Baker said this week.
Arizona health officials are reporting 2,855 new confirmed COVID-19 cases and another 27 related deaths.

The state Department of Health Services dashboard released the new figures Thursday morning. This brings the totals for Arizona since the pandemic's onset to 1,058,774 cases and 19,360 deaths.

Since Aug. 30, hospitalizations due to the virus have hovered just above 2,000. As of Wednesday, 2,050 patients were hospitalized.

Hospital systems throughout the state say unvaccinated individuals continue to make up the majority of their caseload.

Currently, 4.1 million people in Arizona  or 57.1% of the eligible population  have received at least one dose of a vaccine. More than 3.6 million have been fully vaccinated.

Meanwhile, Banner Health, the biggest hospital chain serving Arizona, warned against using the anti-parasitic medicine ivermectin to ward off the virus. Last month Banner's poison center dealt with 10 cases of people using the medicine, which does not have FDA approval. Some of the cases were serious enough to require hospitalization, said Dr. Marjorie Bessel, Banner's chief clinical officer.

Ivermectin is being tested in drug trials as a COVID-19 treatment. It is typically sometimes prescribed for worms, scabies and head lice. It's more popular as a treatment for parasitic infections and infestations in livestock.

Please speak with your primary care provider about treatment options for COVID, and do not attempt to purchase drugs like Ivermectin through unauthorized sources, Bessel said.
WEST HARTFORD  A bear high in a tree in the backyard of a North Quaker Lane house on Thursday is a reminder of the increasing frequency of the animal sightings in town, officials said.

Though this was the first time Gordon Binkhorst had actually seen a bear in his neighborhood, hes heard tales from neighbors who have witnessed them many times.

Ive heard stories from neighbors all the time, Binkhorst said. This is the closest Ive gotten. While this might seem like a busy area now, in the middle of the night, theyre uninhibited.

Binkhorst said he isnt too concerned about the bear impacting the neighborhoods safety based on what animal control has told him.

Animal control said theyre generally friendly and more interested in eating peoples garbage and what have you, Binkhorst said. But Im not going to bring children or small dogs out here.

The bear had been in the tree since the previous night, neighbors said, and had even climbed higher than it was earlier that day. The police suspected the bear may be sick.

Capt. Eric Rocheleau said the police departments job is to monitor the bear, while decisions on what to do with the animal are made by the states Department of Energy and Environmental Protection

We started monitoring it (Thursday), recognizing it was sick and watched it for hours and hours, Rocheleau said. We had animal control check back in on it several times. Weve been in constant contact with DEEP. The last I knew is that theyll let it stay up overnight.

Animal control Office Helen Lee, who was on the scene monitoring the bear Thursday afternoon, said the department had been in contact with DEEP.

Were advising them every step of the way and asking them for help, Lee said. Were checking on it in the meantime just to make sure its not getting any worse.

Lee said the North Quaker Lane area has had multiple calls for bears over the last few weeks.

We have so many bear sightings all the time, Lee said. We have nonstop bear sightings in town. This one, it has been [reported for] a couple weeks if its the same one in the area, which it probably is. But theres so many its hard to say.

Rocheleau said they receive multiple calls every single day about bear sightings in West Hartford.

We do get a lot of bear calls. It seems to have picked up, Rocheleau said. Its going to be a busy season, theyre getting ready to rest for the winter, so they are bulking up and will be more active eating and getting stored up.

The main attraction for these bears, Rocheleau said, are garbage cans left outside. He said anyone who can should store their garbage cans inside. If not, there are some preventative measures that can be taken.

The big one here ... its difficult but people leave their trash cans out and thats what they are attracted to, the smells, he said. We had one attracted to the hamburgers cooking on the barbecue and wouldnt leave it alone. Its difficult, I understand, but the DEEP recommends spraying ammonia or bleach.
SAN DIEGO (AP)  Kevin Faulconer said his failed campaign to replace California Gov. Gavin Newsom was only his first round and that he would discuss next steps with family and supporters, but his drubbing in the recall contest casts serious doubt on the appeal of a moderate Republican in an overwhelmingly Democratic state.

The former San Diego mayor was among 46 candidates seeking to replace Newsom if a majority of voters opted to retire the Democratic governor a year before his term was up. Voters overwhelmingly backed Newsom while incomplete results show Faulconer getting only about 9% support.

Conservative Republican talk radio host Larry Elder was the runaway leader among potential replacements with nearly 50%. Faulconer even finished far back of Elder in San Diego County.

Elder served as a life preserver" for Newsom because he gave the governor a target and shifted attention from his own performance, said Ron Nehring, former chairman of the California Republican Party and a Faulconer supporter. Without naming Elder, Faulconer, 54, said as much to reporters Tuesday night, flanked by his wife, Katherine, and about 20 supporters on a short, somber night at his campaign headquarters.

I believe it is incredibly obvious that this recall showed that if you keep the focus on Gavin Newsom, he can be beat, but what we clearly saw in this election that the focus of this election turned into national politics and personalities, said Faulconer, whose prescriptions for homelessness, housing affordability, wildfire prevention and drought management never gained traction.

Despite having difficulty increasing his name recognition beyond his home turf, Faulconer had said prior to Tuesday that he was would run for governor in 2022 regardless of what happened in the recall. But those plans may be dashed by the twin realities that Newsom is in a stronger position to win a second term next year and Faulconer will have monumental challenges raising money off such a poor performance.

There are still millions of mail-in votes left to count and Brian Adams, a political science professor at San Diego State University, said Faulconer needs to finish with at least double-digit support to have any shot at being taken seriously.

His big claim that he made to Republicans prior to the recall was, Yes, I may be more moderate than you want but Im electable, Adams said. This recall has taken his main argument and proven it false.

Faulconer rose to prominence in California's Democratic-leaning, second-largest city by seizing on moments of turmoil, portraying himself as a bridge-builder who works across party lines and a steady, if somewhat dull, hand at the wheel.

The self-described vanilla candidate lost his first bid for City Council in 2004 but beat labor organizer Lorena Gonzalez, now a state assemblywoman and one of California's most prominent Democrats, in a special election the following year after a jury convicted the sitting councilman of corruption charges that a judge later overturned.

Three of nine council members had been charged with corruption in federal court and the Republican mayor, Dick Murphy, resigned in disgrace, mired in crisis over the city's underfunded pension system.

Faulconer, a former public relations executive and student body president at San Diego State University, handily won a special election for mayor in 2014 when scandal struck again. Bob Filner, the city's first Democratic mayor in 20 years, resigned amid a flurry of sexual harassment allegations that left party leaders shell-shocked.

Faulconer coasted to a second term in 2016, even as San Diego voters favored Democrat Hillary Clinton by 38 percentage points over Republican Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential race. San Diego's status as the largest U.S. city with a Republican mayor in a state where Democrats held all statewide elected offices fueled his prospects for governor.

In mayoral campaigns, Faulconer enjoyed solid backing from Republicans, which clearly eluded him in his first run for statewide office. He found himself in awkward spots, saying he voted for Trump in 2020 but not in 2016 and demanding border security after years fashioning himself as a friend of Mexico and champion of cross-border trade.

John Nienstedt, Faulconer's pollster in his successful campaigns for City Council and mayor, said Faulconer felt outmaneuvered by last-minute labor spending in his failed bid for City Council in 2004 and vowed that he would never take a knife to a gunfight.

Despite that pragmatic bent, that appears to be exactly what happened this year after Elder entered the race in July. The reality that he was soundly rejected by voters despite a significantly longer campaign than Elder has Faulconer reevaluating his next political move.

As for whats next for myself,'' Faulconer said Tuesday night, Im going to take the time to talk not only to my family but my supporters and figure out the best steps here in the coming weeks to continue to be a fighter, to continue to serve our great state because Californias worth fighting for, dont you think?
A half-century after it started, Tyco Printing remains a family affair.

The copying business Michael P. Iannuzzi started as a college junior while studying at Southern Connecticut State University has changed its location, added a Branford shop and shifted the focus of its operations.

But the close-knit family operation has stayed close to its roots by bringing in family members to the business whenever possible and treating non-family employees the way they would treat their own kin.

Our core group has not changed dramatically in all these years, Iannuzzi said.

Contributed photo

Tyco Printing truly became a family business when his wife, Ellie, joined the company in1995. The Iannuzzis married in 1971, the same year he opened Tyco Printing.

His son Michael C. Iannuzzi joined Tyco in 2006. The elder Iannuzzi said having his son join the businesses was easier for him than when his wife became part of Tyco.

Having a husband and wife working together was a challenge, a huge challenge, but were still happily married, Michael P. Iannuzzi said. With my son, it was different, because we dont work side-by-side. Do we agree about everything? No, but it works.

Michael P. Iannuzzis son-in-law also works in the business as Tycos sales manager.

Arnold Gold / Hearst Connecticut Media file photo

Michael C. Iannuzzi got his undergraduate degree from Boston College in 2000 and then went to the University of Connecticut to study law, getting his degree in 2003.

After getting his law degree, the younger Iannuzzi was part of a business law practice for three years before joining Tyco.

Its a career route his father could relate to: Michael P. Iannuzzi was studying to be a teacher when he started the business while still at SCSU. After graduating, he briefly worked as a middle school teacher while still operating his printing business.

The business was growing, so I didnt stay in teaching long, he said.

Turn and face the change

When Tyco Printing started, initially we were mainly doing academic copying, the elder Iannuzzi said. The New Haven store was near the heart of Yale Universitys campus and the business operated satellite locations at SCSU and the University of New Haven in West Haven, he said.

Tyco opened its Branford location in 2017, according to Michael P. Iannuzzi.

We just saw more of an opportunity to get more business along the Shoreline, the elder Iannuzzi said.

Tyco further solidified its position acquiring a pair of rival commercial printers, Royal Printing in Guilford and Branford-based K&G Graphics, in 2018 and 2019, respectively, to expand its customer base in the suburbs east of New Haven.

The elder Iannuzzi said when his son joined Tyco, he brought in a whole new background, a whole new way of thinking.

Arnold Gold / Hearst Connecticut Media

Im old school and he is new school, he said of his son.

The younger Iannuzzi agrees with his father  to a degree.

My goal has always been to grow and change the business, but maintain the old values, Michael C. Iannuzzi said. Its a service business: Were not just selling signs or copying.

Over the years, the commercial printing and copying businesses have changed, a shift driven to a significant extent by advances in technology, according to Michael C. Iannuzzi.

With the technology, Ive tried not to fight it, but embrace it, he said. Weve gone into signage and promotional products to offer to businesses.

And as a result, Michael C. Iannuzzi said Tyco has a customer base that includes some clients who have been with us for decades.

Although traditional copying and commercial printing remain a significant part of Tycos business, making signs has grown to 30 percent to 40 percent of total business, he said.

Weve been very fortunate, the younger Iannuzzi said. New revenue streams have opened up.

/ Hearst Connecticut Media file photo

Making it through the pandemic

Those new lines of business have helped Tyco survive through the pandemic, Michael P. Iannuzzi said.

Weve definitely had some challenges over the past 18 months, he said. The biggest impact, according to the elder Iannuzzi, was colleges and universities taking their classes online.

Tyco Printings experience during the pandemic is similar to what other family businesses around the state have seen, according to Robin Ann Bienemann, entrepreneur in residence with the University of Connecticuts Family Business program.

While data regarding the failure rate of family-owned businesses is not readily available, Bienemann said, My anecdotal information is that family businesses have done better then other types of businesses because they have stronger balance sheets, stronger financials.

I havent heard of any that have closed in Connecticut, she said. If you have been around from generation to generation, you learn to think outside the box and adapt quickly. Anyone thats been around for more than 30 years has had to do that.

Family-owned businesses play an important role in the national economy. Family Enterprise USA, a group that promotes businesses in the sector, reports that nationally, family firms generate 54 percent of gross domestic product in the United States.

That translates into $7.7 trillion as well as 88 million jobs, which represents 59 percent of domestic employment. In terms of new job creation, 78 percent of it comes from family-owned firms, according to Family Enterprise USA.

Family firms have higher employee retention rates than non-family firms, something that makes family-owned businesses important to local economies, Bienemann said.

I like to say that family businesses are stickier: Theyre not going to pick up and move, she said. These are business that have a lot of pluck, and from a state and local perspective, that makes them worth investing in.

Bienemann said having a higher employee retention rate than non-family firms also means family businesses provide a higher level of job security for employees.

luther.turmelle@hearstmediact.com
NEW HAVEN  A New Haven public school social studies teachers commitment to anti-racist teaching helped propel her to the 2020 National History Teacher of the Year award.

Nataliya Braginsky, who teaches at Metropolitan Business Academy, rose to the top of a 8,510 teachers and will be presented the award and a $10,000 prize from author and documentarian Henry Louis Gates Jr. at a virtual ceremony Oct. 6.

This year was said to be the most competitive nomination pool ever, according to officials at the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, a nonprofit that has sponsored the award since 2004.

In a year when how and what history is taught has come under fire, a spokesman for the committee selecting the winner said the panel was extremely impressed with Braginskys commitment to anti-racist teaching and curriculum, including a restorative justice group she formed at her school.

Nataliya brings passion and commitment to her teaching, along with an intellectual and moral seriousness that benefits all the students she has taught over the past fifteen years, James Basker, president of Gilder Lehrman, said in a statement. She is a tribute to the profession.

In her role, Braginsky will serve as an ambassador for the teaching community and a spokesperson and a thought leader on the importance of high-quality American history education for all, particularly students from underserved communities, according to Basker.

Against the backdrop of so much devastation, this recognition is all the more meaningful, and I receive it with gratitude, reverence, and hope, Braginsky said of the honor.

By devastation she means the pandemic, climate change and other world problems.

Braginsky added that she was humbled by the gravity of the honor and said it is not hers alone.

Whenever teaching goes well its a collective effort, Braginsky said in an interview. Its success does not belong to an individual.

She said she shares the honor with many, including the teachers who are committed to teaching the truth, the city of New Haven and its histories, and those across the state who fought for and won a legislative mandate that requires high schools in Connecticut to offer an African-American and Latino history course.

Most importantly, this honor belongs to my students, who unearth untold histories, who educate their peers and communities, and who in their vision for what is possible, point us toward a more just future, Braginsky said.

Although humbled by the award, Braginsky said the validation that she is teaching the right way comes from her students and their feedback.

One of her student projects encouraged students to look into local history using primary sources both online and in local libraries. The students worked to create a walking tour map of untold stories of New Haven, particularly New Havens Black, Indigenous and Latino history.

New Haven Superintendent of Schools Iline Tracey said she was delighted Braginsky was recognized by the Gilder Lehrman Institute.

Her colleagues know her remarkable dedication to teaching and her students know her skill at engaging them with the many narratives that are part of our history, Tracey said. She inspires all of us.

Colleague Leslie Blatteau called Braginsky one of the most patient and creative teachers and facilitators with whom she has worked.

She holds herself to the highest standard to ensure her work is anti-racist, student-centered and relevant for all participants, Blatteau said. Her ability to listen and respond in a way that moves people forward along their individual paths is a gift to students and teachers alike.

In addition to teaching, Braginsky formed a restorative justice working group at Metropolitan that led to the creation of a Youth Justice Panel, an alternative to punitive discipline policies.

Metropolitan Principal Sequella H. Coleman said Braginsky communicates well with students by being respectful of their differences and maintaining high expectations as they research topics to present evidence-based thesis projects.

Her commitment to the curriculum development in this area is to be commended and rewarded, Coleman said.

In addition to classroom work, Braginsky has co-organized national conferences, including the Allied Media Conferences Education for Freedom track, the Education for Liberation Curriculum Fair held in Philadelphia by the Teacher Action Group, and New Havens Culturally Relevant Pedagogy conference.

Braginsky was named the 2021 State History Teacher of the Year in July, representing the first leg of her journey to the national title. One American history teacher from each state, the District of Columbia, Department of Defense schools and U.S. territories gets the nod each year.

The 53 winners were pared down to 10 national finalists with the national winner announced Wednesday.
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP)  New York Gov. Kathy Hochul vowed this week to fight a lawsuit launched by a group of Christian health care practitioners who argue that New Yorks COVID-19 vaccine mandate for many health care workers is unconstitutional because it lacks a religious exemption.

A federal judge temporarily blocked the state Tuesday from enforcing any part of its mandate that prohibits religious exemptions for healthcare workers. The court will hold arguments in coming weeks.

The judge's order means healthcare workers must still get vaccinated before Sept. 27  but for now, they can ask for religious exemptions.

Hochul said Wednesday shes not aware of any major religious group that has prohibited adherents from receiving the COVID-19 vaccine.

Everyone from the Pope on down is encouraging people to get vaccinated," she said, referring to Pope Francis, the head of the Roman Catholic Church.

The nurses, doctors and other New York health care workers in the lawsuit say they dont want to be forced to take any vaccine that employs aborted fetus cell lines in their testing, development or production.

Fetal cell lines were used during research and development of the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines, and during production of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

Thomas More Society senior counsel Stephen Crampton, who's representing the anonymous group of nurses, doctors and other health care workers, said hes confident the courts will find that people have a right to refuse the vaccine on religious grounds, even if they are part of a religious group that is endorsing the shots.

My sincere religious convictions may not be 100% the same as the leader of my church or my denomination, Crampton said. And the law respects that and it should.

New York has a long history of requiring health care workers to be immunized against diseases that pose a major public health threat, including measles, mumps and rubella. Schoolchildren are required to be vaccinated against many diseases, too.

The state doesnt offer religious exemptions for vaccination requirements for schoolchildren or health care workers and has argued it isn't obligated to do so for the COVID-19 vaccine, either. Courts have agreed states dont have to offer a religious exemption for childhood immunization.

Students at colleges and universities, however, can be exempt from New York's vaccine mandates if they hold genuine and sincere religious beliefs which are contrary to the practices herein required. New York also has a religious exemption for a requirement to vaccinate infants born to a mother with Hepatitis B.

The use of human cell lines is commonplace in the manufacture of vaccines including rubella, chickenpox, shingles and Hepatitis A. For decades, researchers have multiplied cells from a handful of legally aborted fetuses from the 1960s to produce human cell lines that provide cell cultures used to grow vaccines. Those cell lines are also used to make drugs treating rheumatoid arthritis and cystic fibrosis.

Religious leaders have disagreed over the issue: the Vatican issued guidance saying its morally acceptable to receive COVID-19 vaccines developed or tested using cell lines originating from aborted fetuses when alternative vaccines arent available.

When asked whether the health care practitioners have received other vaccines, Crampton said the group isnt anti-vax in general.

Hochul, a Democrat, said getting vaccinated is the most beautiful way for individuals in healing professions to demonstrate their passion and concern for others.

Seven other states besides New York don't offer a religious exemption for school and childcare immunization requirements, according to the Immunization Action Coalition. Some have removed exemptions in recent years over concern about outbreaks of once-contained diseases: Maines sweeping law removed both religious and personal belief exemptions.

The Thomas More Society is a national not-for-profit law firm that describes its mission as restoring respect in law for life, family and religious liberty. Last year, the law firm represented two Catholic priests and three Orthodox Jews who successfully overturned then-Gov. Andrew Cuomos attendance limits for houses of worship during the pandemic.

New York is now averaging around 5,200 new cases of COVID-19 per day, up from a low of around 300 per day in late June.

On Sunday, a federal judge in New York City rejected a similar lawsuit lodged by Long Island nurses who argued the lack of a religious exemption violated their constitutional rights.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP)  Nebraskas prisons face a persistent staffing crisis that has created dangerous conditions, including maximum-security units that are going unstaffed for hours at a time and one incident where an employee fell asleep on the job and woke up to inmates holding his keys, according to a new watchdog report.

The Inspector General of the Nebraska Correctional System warned in its annual report that the long-standing prison workforce shortage has become a "mass exodus" as burned-out employees leave their jobs. The independent watchdog agency was created six years ago and reports problems in the prison system to the Legislature.

With great frustration, six years in, we can only conclude that this crisis has grown alarmingly worse, Inspector General Doug Koebernick said in the report. A system which was already struggling to recruit and retain staff is now grappling with a mass exodus.

The report said the problems stem from correctional staff working remarkable hours  sometimes 24 hours straight, or back-to-back 16-hour days for multiple weeks. It said some staff members suffered emotional breakdowns on their drive home.

The report said the corrections department reported a record-high 391 job vacancies in March, and the number skyrocketed to a new record of 527 in June, out of roughly 2,300 total positions. It cited examples where one employee fell asleep on the job and awoke to find inmates holding his keys. In other cases, longtime employees said they had started to feel unsafe at work.

Nebraska's three largest prison complexes are also under declared staffing emergencies, requiring longer shifts to compensate for the fewer available workers. According to the report, staff members continue to express concerns about their safety, family lives, and mental and physical health given the extensive overtime and stressful work environment.

I'm running out of words to describe the problem," said Sen. Steve Lathrop, the chairman of the Legislature's Judiciary who has worked for years on prison issues. It's very concerning. The first job of government is to keep people safe. We need to keep people safe inside the Department of Corrections. And as the inspector general's report indicates, there are safety ramifications to being short staffed.

The staffing shortage has persisted for so long that the inspector general suggested using Nebraska National Guard members to fulfill some prison duties.

Danielle Conrad, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska, urged lawmakers to make prison changes a top priority in next year's legislative session.

It's time for historic action to ensure adequate staffing, diversion, rehabilitation and reentry, she said.

A corrections department spokeswoman responded to the report with a statement from Taylor Gage, the communications director for Gov. Pete Ricketts. The statement noted Nebraska's record-low unemployment rate, which has contributed to a workforce shortage throughout state and made it more difficult for businesses and governments to find employees.

The state has made significant increases to corrections officer compensation in recent years, and we recognize more needs to be done, Gage said in the statement. We are preparing to sit down with (the correctional officers' union) to negotiate on additional steps we can take to help ensure we recruit and retain the workforce we need.

Lathrop said the core issue appears to be pay, which he said would help reduce employee turnover and ease the staffing problems. He said that, in turn, would create a safer environment and allow inmates to get easier access to rehabilitative programming and various perks designed to promote good behavior.

The report credited prison officials for some of the steps it has taken to try to attract more workers, including hiring and retention bonuses, but said more can be done.

___

Follow Grant Schulte on Twitter: https://twitter.com/GrantSchulte
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP)  Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt said Thursday that he has requested an audit of the state Department of Education.

The request came after an audit last year of Epic Charter Schools revealed that tens of millions of dollars were diverted into a for-profit business controlled by the school system's two founders and its chief financial officer, Stitt said.

Epic officials have denied wrongdoing.

I promised Oklahomans that as governor I would clean up state government to make it more transparent and accountable, and I am keeping that promise, Stitt said.

Stitt said he was requesting an audit of all revenue received by the department, including state and federal funds, taxes and fees.

In a statement, state school Superintendent Joy Hofmeister described Stitt's request as yet another attack on Oklahoma's public education system.

At a time during which there are serious audits we have requested which potentially involve criminal activity, and while 541 school districts are struggling to find normalcy during a pandemic, the Governors attack on public education couldnt be worse timing for students, families, teachers and taxpayers, she said.

Following the audit's release, the state Board of Education demanded that the school repay $11.2 million in state funds that auditors said were used illegally and falsely classified in financial reports.

In November, 22 state lawmakers asked Stitt to seek a full investigative audit of the education department.

Epic Charter Schools has more students than any other school system in the state, with more than 60,000 of them. From 2015 to 2020, it received more than $458 million in state and federal funds.
Big Brother Naija Shine Ya Eye housemate, Saga, has stated that if his love interest, Nini, is issued a strike in the house, hell take it...

Big Brother Naija Shine Ya Eye housemate, Saga, has stated that if his love interest, Nini, is issued a strike in the house, hell take it on her behalf.

He stated this on Wednesday night, day 53 of the show, as the duo was having their night conversations.

A strike, in BBNaija, is a punishment given to a housemate who breaks the rules of the house.

Once a housemate has up to three strikes, he/she will be disqualified from the show.

During their discussion, Nini reflected on the argument she had with Cross and felt bad because her anger got the better part of her.

Nini then told Saga that he shouldnt have tried to stop her from speaking her mind because she likes expressing herself.

Saga stated that if Nini tries to get violent while arguing, hell carry her out from the scene.

Reacting to this, Nini said that she may hit him if he tries to carry her and may earn a strike for that.

She said, Dont try it. So that I wont get a strike because of you.

He answered, If Biggie gives you a strike, Ill take it. Ill say that you were helping me to clean my hands.

This comes few hours after Saga told Nini about Biggies secret task, which involved a fight between them.
Big Brother Naija housemate, Saga has given reasons why he failed his secret task. The housemate had been instructed to avoid his lo...

Big Brother Naija housemate, Saga has given reasons why he failed his secret task.

The housemate had been instructed to avoid his love interest, Nini and pick a fight with her.

Biggie had promised a reward of Abeg Naira and BB tokens if he performed his task well.

But Saga confessed that he failed the task because of Ninis altercation with Cross.

Recall that Cross and Nini had gotten into a fight on Wednesday over house chores.

But Saga claims he abandoned his task because he had to intervene to douse the disagreement.

He said Nini was emotional after the fight with Cross and he felt it was best if he was there for her.

Saga claimed Nini would not have lashed out at Cross if he was close to her at the time of the altercation.

Nini is very smart so I didnt start immediately. I took my time. When I started the task in the evening and it got to her until she said I should not talk to her again.

At this point, I knew that I had done the task but I didnt know for how long the task should go.

She got into a fight with Cross and I had to leave my character and intervene. If the fight didnt happen I would have continued the task.

I passed the task up to a point but I think I failed the task. I suspect liquorose is also on the same task and shes doing a good job, I am quite attached to Nini so it was a bit harder.

Saga added that he doesnt deserve the reward for the task because he failed.

Big Brother, however, informed that Saga would be receiving a review of his performance in the secret task assigned to him.
Femi Fani-Kayode, the former minister of aviation, has joined the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). He was, on Thursday, presented t...

Femi Fani-Kayode, the former minister of aviation, has joined the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

He was, on Thursday, presented to President Muhammadu Buhari by Mai Mala Buni, chairman, caretaker committee of the APC and governor of Yobe state, at the presidential villa, Abuja.

Fani-Kayode said he was led by the spirit of God in his decision to join the APC.

The former minister said he is committed to the unity of the country and that he is against anything that would cause the disintegration of Nigeria.

According to Fani-Kayode, he was instrumental in the defection of three Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governors to the APC.

He listed Dave Umahi of Ebonyi state, Ben Ayade of Cross River, and Bello Matawale of Zamfara as the governors he helped facilitate their defection to APC.

Fani-Kayode said he has friends across party lines and that he is presently wooing Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, the governor of Enugu state, Seyi Makinde, the governor of Oyo state, and Bala Mohammed of Bauchi to join the ruling party.

The former ministers defection comes several months after he vehemently denied dumping the PDP.

Yahaya Bello, governor of Kogi, had in February claimed that Fani-Kayode had crossed over to the APC.

But Fani-Kayode debunked Bellos claim, insisting that he was still a member of PDP.
House of Representatives Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, has denied comparing the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and Yoruba Nation agitato...

House of Representatives Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, has denied comparing the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and Yoruba Nation agitators to Boko Haram and Islamic States West Africa Province (ISWAP).

The representative of the Surulere area of Lagos is under fire for his comments at Wednesdays plenary.

A statement Wednesday night by his spokesman, Lanre Fasasi insisted there was no mention of any group during Gbajas address.

He noted that the Speaker condemned miscreants and criminals for taking advantage of the separatist agitations to carry out unscrupulous acts.

Fasasi said his principal expressed concern about emerging threats that present the clear and present danger.

He quoted Gbajabiamila as saying: In the South of Nigeria, East and West, miscreants and criminals masquerading as separatist activists have emerged to wreak havoc, take lives and commit economic sabotage against fellow Nigerians and the state.

These people, in their inclination for devastating violence against fellow citizens, their appetite for the destruction of private property, their disruption of academic activities, commerce, and industry, their propensity for defiling institutions of the state, society and community, their refusal to engage in debate, or to consider the possibility of dissenting opinions and alternative viewpoints, are no different from Boko Haram and ISWAP.

Fasasi said what was conspicuous in the speech was the focus on the activities of miscreants, criminals and effects on the country.

The aide stressed that the Speaker never condemned secessionists or compared them to terrorists.

The Speaker is not alone on the concern about an apparent emergence of a band of miscreants and criminals as different patriotic Nigerians have expressed similar concerns, the statement added.
Governor David Umahi of Ebonyi State says he has no apologies for describing President Muhammadu Buhari as a man with a good heart and fat...

Governor David Umahi of Ebonyi State says he has no apologies for describing President Muhammadu Buhari as a man with a good heart and father to him.

Umahi said this on Wednesday while receiving the former Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Alhaji Ali Modu Sheriff, at the Government House, Abakiliki.

Shariff was in the state to consult with the governor over his ambition to run for the National Chairmanship of the All Progressives Congress.

He said he had no regret for his comment, notwithstanding the backlash from the public.

When one person has a good heart and the rest of us do not and are not patriotic, no development can take place.

You can see that my executive council members melted their hearts into mine, which made us have good hearts and achieve a lot, the governor said.

He appealed to Nigerians to continue to support Buhari, saying that he is conscious of his integrity, which stands him out.

I thank you (Sheriff) for informing us of your decision to contest the APC national chairmanship but the president, who is the leader of the party, has a role to play.

He is the only one that can take a decision but if it is thrown open, you are my choice.

The president can say in the interest of the party, let another person be there, we will obey him, Umahi said.

He commended Sheriff for his role in stabilising PDP, adding that his mind left the party the moment Sheriff was unceremoniously removed.

In a speech, Sheriff said he decided to inform Umahi of his decision to contest the APC national chairmanship because he is a political Iroko in the South-East.

You are very influential in APC and your fellow governors and leaders across the country rate you highly for your infrastructure strides, among other achievements, he said.

He called on Nigerians to stop zoning the presidential seat, saying the best candidate that would deliver the good should be considered and supported.

It is, however, not the time to talk about the next president because an incumbent is still in office and should be supported to accomplish his goals, Sheriff, a former governor of Borno, said.

(NAN)
After initial denial, the Nigerian Air Force on Thursday admitted that one of its fighter jets on a mission against terrorists unfortunat...

After initial denial, the Nigerian Air Force on Thursday admitted that one of its fighter jets on a mission against terrorists unfortunately bombed civilians in Yobe State on Wednesday.

NAF Director of Public Relations and Information, Edward Gabkwet, disclosed this in a statement made available to journalists today, adding that investigation had commenced into the incident.

Recall that residents of Buhari community, in the Yunusari Local Government Area of Yobe State on Wednesday claimed that a NAF fighter jet rained bullets from the skies and killed nine people in the area, while several other villagers sustained injuries.

Air Force spokesman had, on Wednesday, denied reports linking one of its fighter jets to the bombing.

Gabkwet had explained that the mission last conducted by NAF in Yobe was earlier in the month.

NAF last conducted a mission into Yobe State (not Yunusari LGA) on 5 September 2021 and it was an armed recce [an informal term for reconnaissance, being a military observation of a region to locate an enemy or ascertain strategic features].

No bomb or missile was even expended, he had said.

But in a statement on Thursday, the NAF spokesman said that the initial (Press) release denying the involvement of NAF aircraft was based on the first report available at the time.

In the statement titled, Investigation commences on alleged aircraft firing of civilian settlements, Gabkwet said that the location of the incident was a notorious lair for terrorists and well known for continuous Boko Haram/ISWAP activities.

The statement read, Following intelligence on Boko Haram/ISWAP movements along the Kamadougou Yobe River line, an aircraft from the Air Component of Operation Hadin Kai was detailed to respond to the suspected terrorist activities in the area along the Nigeria/Niger border at about 0600hrs on 15 September 2021.

The aircraft, while operating South of Kanama, observed suspicious movement consistent with Boko Haram terrorist behaviour whenever a jet aircraft is overhead. Accordingly, the pilot fired some probing shots. It is important to state that the area is well known for continuous Boko Haram/ISWAP activities.

Unfortunately, reports reaching Nigerian Air Force Headquarters alleged that some civilians were erroneously killed while others were injured.

Initial release denying the involvement of NAF aircraft was based on the first report available to the Air Component, which was subsequently forwarded to NAF headquarters that civilians were bombed as the aircraft detailed for the mission was not carrying bombs.

Therefore, a Board of Inquiry has been set up to thoroughly investigate the circumstances of the incident.

Of recent, fighters in Nigerian Military jets on missions against terrorists and other criminals have been alleged to have bombed innocent Nigerians, including soldiers, due to alleged miscalculations.

In April 2021, over 20 soldiers on ground were allegedly slain in Mainok, Borno State, when a NAF fighter jet responding to attacks on a military camp by Boko Haram insurgents bombed the military camp based on a wrong coordinate.

Gabkwet had said that the incident was under investigation.

In August 2021, despite pictorial evidence that a military chopper opened fire on boat passengers carrying foodstuffs while travelling from Port Harcourt to Bonny Island in Rivers State, injuring them in the process, the Defence Headquarters had said those shot were illegal oil bunkerers.
Watertown, NY (13601)

Today

Cloudy skies this evening. A few showers developing late. Low near 65F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 30%..

Tonight

Cloudy skies this evening. A few showers developing late. Low near 65F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 30%.
Watertown, NY (13601)

Today

Cloudy skies this evening. A few showers developing late. Low around 65F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 30%..

Tonight

Cloudy skies this evening. A few showers developing late. Low around 65F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 30%.
John Heald used a personal anecdote to sum up the risks to area homeowners desperate for repairs post-Hurricane Ida. Heald, president of the Greater New Orleans Homebuilders Association, recounted being at a site where his company was doing roofing work. A carpetbagger from Tennessee drove up in his Taurus and said, Ill put a whole new roof on it for you, and Ill do it for this.

The man held out a torn-edged slip of paper with 7000 written on it  not even a dollar sign. I asked him, is this your contract? Heard said. And people will end up hiring him.

But knowledge is power. A contract should spell out specifically what work is to be done, including materials. If youre filing with an insurance company, let them approve it first, Heald advised. There also should also be a timeline for payments and for completion of the work. (See the list of other specific advice below.)

'Don't be intimidated': You can't lose insurance coverage for filing Ida claims, official says Filing an insurance claim in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida or Tropical Storm Nicholas will not increase your premium or cause you to lose cov

Also, read everything carefully. While licensed contractors are required to use standard contracts, others "have honed the profession of conning people" and might slip in notations such as stipulating that the consumer has to pay them even if the job isnt finished, Heald said.

Heald also had a potentially important addition to the typical admonitions that consumers check for liability and workers compensation insurance. (Liability insurance gives the consumer recourse if problems arise. And without workmens comp, the homeowner could end up being sued over workmen's injuries.)

He suggested that for about $100, a homeowner can have his name added to the contractors liability insurance as additionally insured, allowing the homeowner to file claims on the insurance himself. Otherwise, the policy belongs to contractors, Heald said. The contractor would have to request the change. You pay (the fee) and they add (your name). The company will send the consumer a copy of the certificate of insurance with their name on it as additionally insured.

Heald advises never giving any workmen money upfront. They should be able to carry costs of materials upfront. They should have credit or the money for materials. If remodeling for $75,000 or up, you do a detailed contract with a pay schedule.

+9 Need a new roof after Ida? Here's what to know before you sign the contract If your home is one of the estimated 80,000 across the state whose roofs were shredded by Hurricane Ida, Claudette Reichel has some advice on 

With a handyman whos qualified but might not have the capital, go get the materials yourself and have them delivered. Dont just hand someone a check, he said.

A last note: Although its a trying time, be sensitive to pressure tactics to rush approval of an agreement. A worker's statement that I could start today, isnt a reason for shortcuts on doing due diligence.

Prerequisites

Use local contractors when possible.

Get the contractors full name and business address. Check the business name via the Louisiana Secretary of State website, www.sos.la.gov.

Ask to see the contractors license. There are three ways to check licensure through the Louisiana State Licensing Board for Contractors:

Download the free La Contractor mobile app by visiting the LSLBC website at lacontractor.org. Use the contractor search function on the LSLBC website. Call LSLBC at (800) 256-1392. Complaints of unlicensed activity should be reported to the LSLBC Compliance Section by emailing complaints@lslbc.louisiana.gov or calling (800) 256-1392.

Ask for proof of liability and workers' compensation insurance. Call the company to make sure the insurance is still valid.

Get references from previous clients; check their reviews via internet and social media.

Always get at least three estimates for the repairs, as this may be required by your insurance provider.

Keep a detailed log of all conversations. Use email communication as much as possible so you have a record.

The contract

Be sure you are supplied a detailed estimate and contract, signed by the contractor in your presence; be sure the contract has estimated dates of start and completion.

Ask that each task be itemized with a cost and a total sum.

Be sure all necessary permits are filed by the contractor, and the permits are present and posted on the property prior to the start of the project.

Never pay for projects not yet completed

+7 Demand for roofers, repair work soars after Hurricane Ida strikes Louisiana: 'Its sunup to sundown' Yusuf Hasan leaned against his truck and wrung the sweat out of a red handkerchief on Monday during a break from nailing shingles into a damag

General safety

Several local law enforcement agencies added these notes from a personal safety perspective.

Take note of the vehicle the person is driving; record the license plate number.

Take note of a physical description.

Get the persons phone number and call it in their presence to ensure they are the phone account holder.

Never allow anyone that you do not know or trust to walk freely inside your home out of your sight; do not allow multiple individuals to distract you while others roam freely.

Use your smartphones camera to photograph or video your interaction with the contractor.

TO REPORT FRAUD: (800) 256-1392.

CHECK BUSINESS LICENSES: www.bbb.org
Prisoners of war during World War II have proved to be a rich source for producers of popular culture, inspiring novels, memoirs, movies and even a situation comedy. (Remember Hogans Heroes?)

Theyve even inspired a special day  the third Friday in September  to honor them and all troops missing in action.

Now theyve moved into academia as the subjects of a noncredit online course  Captured: American POWs in World War II  offered by the National WWII Museum and Arizona State University. In addition to prerecorded lectures, students can listen to podcasts and oral histories and interact with fellow scholars via online discussion boards.

The course is the brainchild of Kimberly Guise, the museums assistant director for curatorial services, whose interests include prisoners of war. (The Hogans Heroes theme is her cellphones ringtone.)

Unlike the people who have signed up for the museums other WWII courses, Guise said that about half the students took this course because it represented something personal.

They had some interpersonal relationship to the topic, she said. They either had fathers, grandfathers, uncles or friends who were POWs.  (This dimension) could add to the body of knowledge of the POW experience.

According to the Congressional Research Service, about 130,000 Americans were prisoners of war; 14,472 of them died.

Conditions were worse in Japanese camps, Guise said, not only because they were remote  German camps were often near cities and towns  but also because Germany and the United States were among the nations that had signed the Geneva Conventions, which guaranteed, among other provisions, access by representatives of organizations such as the Red Cross and the YMCA, as well as packages from those establishments and soldiers families.

There was, Guise said, a practical reason, too, for the Germans to comply: Americans held many German POWs.

That document also said that officers cannot be forced to work, although they could volunteer if they chose to do so.

Japan hadnt signed the Geneva Conventions; consequently, Guise said, officers were compelled to work with their fellow inmates. (This issue was a key plot point in The Bridge on the River Kwai.)

Forced labor was a very large contributor to POW deaths and suffering in those camps, she said.

Even though conditions in German POW camps might have been marginally better, you kind of went berserk, said Chester Chet Strunk, of Houston, in an oral history for the museum. You were inside the wire.

Strunk, who was in Stalag Luft 3, was one of about 94,000 POWs in nearly 100 camps around Germany. To keep from developing what Strunk called barbed-wire fever, Guise said inmates relied on humor and creativity.

The humor, while hardly as rollicking as that seen on Hogans Heroes, was more of the gallows variety, she said. For instance, inmates sometimes referred to themselves as Guests of the Third Reich or Victims of German Hospitality.

Much of the creativity arose from what inmates could scrounge, either from materials around their camps or from components of packages from the Red Cross or the YMCA.

For instance, Guise said, inmates tore apart Red Cross crates to make chairs from the lumber scraps. Clair Cline, a cabinet maker from Minnesota, used odd bits of lumber to make a violin, and he held the pieces together with glue scraped from the undersides of mess-hall tables that were then melted down.

Strings came from the YMCA. Clines violin, which was ready in time for Christmas Eve 1944, is on display in Soldier | Artist: Trench Art in World War II, which will be on view at the museum through Jan. 2.

At several camps, inmates fashioned crystal radios they used to pick up  clandestinely  BBC broadcasts. One on display at the museum, by A. Wesley Wright, used a crystal and headphones he got from French POWs in exchange for American cigarettes. The radio, which was built and hidden in a soap dish, included a thimble, a sewing needle, a broom handle, a toothbrush handle and salvaged wire.

In a Japanese camp, inmates fashioned a Thermos from a motley mix of substances, including cans from aid packages, wood and  for insulation  cardboard. This, too, is among the museums holdings.

During WWII, soldiers fought in racially segregated units. Reports differ on their treatment if they were captured, Guise said, because one POW she interviewed said he and the other White POWs drew straws to determine where the new arrival would go because nobody wanted him.

However, she said, other POWs welcomed them, especially if the new inmates had been one of the elite Tuskegee Airmen who were escorting Allied flights.

Tuition for the four-part course is $299. More information is available at (844) 353-7856. Monday (Sept. 20) is the deadline to register.
Harvey the two-headed gopher snake, a gift to the Audubon Zoo from actor Nicolas Cage, has died at age 14.

One-time New Orleans property owner Cage presented the rare black and tan serpent to the zoo in 2008. The zoo announced the snake's demise Wednesday on its Facebook page.

The curious critter was named for "Batman" villain Harvey Two-Face Dent. Audubon Zoo Curator of Herpetology Robert Mendyk said he doesn't know how Cage acquired the juvenile two-headed gopher snake.

We do not know the origins of this animal, Mendyk wrote via email, but with tens, or even hundreds of thousands of snakes hatched or born in captivity each year, two-headed snakes occasionally pop up and are made available by snake hobbyists and breeders.

The Hollywood leading man has not been informed of the death because Audubon no longer has a contact for Mr. Cage or his team, Mendyk wrote.

Audubon Zoo and Aquarium to reopen, give Louisana residents 50% off admission fees After shuttering due to Hurricane Ida, Audubon Nature Institute facilities are reopening this week and will offer Louisiana residents 50% off 

Twin snakes occasionally occur in nature, and two-headed snakes are the result of the incomplete division of twins during their embryological development, according to Mendyk. In Harveys case, each head had its own brain and one was clearly more dominant than the other, Mendyk wrote.

Because of the dual brains and other hurdles, two-headed snakes have a better chance of survival in captivity than in the wild.

Feeding Harvey was an ongoing challenge because, left to their own devices, the two heads would compete for the dead rodents that they considered delicacies. So zoo keepers would have to take turns feeding the heads, and would use a spatula between the heads to prevent the one not eating from trying to eat the mouse the other head was in the process of eating, Mendyk wrote.

Considering the independence of the two heads, a NOLA.com reporter asked why each was not given its own name.

Believe it or not, Mendyk wrote, for most of its time here at the zoo, Harvey did not have an official name. It was only in the last two years that the creature acquired its comic book nickname.

Because of the scarcity of two-headed snakes, the late Harvey will not be buried or cremated. Instead, the creature will be preserved for educational use and-or display, Mendyk wrote.

The announcement on the zoos Facebook page concluded with sentimentality befitting the beloved reptile.

Harvey will be missed dearly, the notice reads. Please keep our Herpetology team and the many others who loved Harvey in your thoughts.

+10 Theres a big dead alligator sticking out of a pink dumpster on Perrier Street -- No lie The tail of a rather large, dead alligator protruded from a pink dumpster at the corner of Perrier and Upperline streets at 5 p.m. Tuesday. Th
The National WWII Museum reopened to the public this week, with free admission to thank those who got the city back on its feet after Hurricane Ida.

Electrical employees, first responders, members of the National Guard and emergency personnel will be admitted free to the museum, 945 Magazine St., through the end of September.

The museum is also offering half-off admission to Louisiana residents through the end of October.

The newest permanent exhibit at the museum is called "The Arsenal of Democracy: The Herman and George R. Brown Salute to the Home Front." That exhibit explores the evolution of debate and commitment, both political and practical, in the United States before and during World War II.

Staff members monitored the collections and prepared the museum to reopen after Hurricane Ida buffeted the city.

The National World War II Museum encourages visitors to reserve their tickets in advance here.
If your home is one of the estimated 80,000 across the state whose roofs were shredded by Hurricane Ida, Claudette Reichel has some advice on choosing a new one. The best roofing option here, she says, is using architectural shingles that are rated as resistant to winds of up to 150 mph  the speed at which Ida blasted in on Aug. 29 as a Category 4 storm.

Reichel is the director of the LaHouse Resource Center at LSU in Baton Rouge, a project developed after Hurricane Katrina to study and educate the public on best practices in building to suit southeast Louisiana's climate.

Shingles resistant to winds of up to 150 mph receive an H rating from from ASTM International. Other designations are Class D (90 mph), F (110 mph), and G (120 mph).

But heres a note for consumers: Buying wind-resistant shingles is just the first step. Ensuring proper installation is crucial for the roof system to hold fast during devastating winds.

The manufacturers will have specific installation instructions, maybe even two sets: one for high wind and one for regular, said Reichel.

The high-wind instructions will require the use of a special starter strip. Typical practice is to turn a shingle upside down and put another over it, then start the shingles. You need that special starter strip, she said.

Make sure to specify use of that strip in the written contract with your roofer, along with any other manufacturers requirements for achieving maximum wind resistance.

To get the most out of your roof, Reichel had some other suggestions as well. When she reroofed a few years ago, she stipulated that the roofer use six nails per shingle, in specific locations, rather than the typical three or four nails. That can be written into a contract as well.

So can the way the nails are hammered down.

Nails should not be overdriven. That means theyre pushed too far into the shingle, essentially tearing it. Sometimes when roofers have several workers using a hydraulic nail gun, they (the guns) are harder to control  they fluctuate with how many people may be using it at once.

Reichel recommends specifying that they be nailed by hand, so the worker has more control over the nail penetration.

You want them flush, not indented into the shingle.

For even more protection, the LSU AgCenter suggests combining the ASTM-rated shingles with a higher performance, No. 30 synthetic underlayment thats much more tear resistant than normal felt. For the highest level of water protection, invest in an adhesive-backed roof membrane underlayment.

These days, most manufacturers tend to have regular (asphalt) shingles, or the ones that meet F and H, she said.

Marty Scoggins, CEO of Suburban Roofing in Harahan, agreed. "Most of what we handle now are the higher wind-rated architectural shingles," he said. "That's what people want."

Because roofers tend to use particular brands, Reichel advised, consumers should look up the products online to verify that what their roofer is using is wind tested.

One thing to watch for: Upscale architectural shingles are not necessarily wind resistant. Architectural shingles composition is thicker, for a better look, Reichel said. The longer warranty  they may be a 40-year roof  is an indicator of quality but not of wind resistance. It means longevity, outside of a hurricane, to normal elements of sun and weather."

The wind-rated shingles will be architectural shingles, however, and will have a longer warranty.

(An average asphalt-shingle roof might last 20 years.)

Metal roofs are also a great choice to withstand high winds, and with the availability of metal that looks like shingles, they can look good with any type of home. The downside is that they're several times more expensive than more typical roofs.

After both Ida and the COVID-19 pandemic, and with roofers so busy some aren't even answering their phones, costs and availability are a question mark. Even before Ida, the U.S. Labor Department reported that combined prices for windows, doors, roofing and other building products jumped 13% in the first six months of this year. Before 2020, aggregate prices would typically rise about 1% annually.

Locally, Scoggins said materials are tight, adding that his costs have gone up about 20% since the storm. Doing business in hard-hit areas like Luling, Destrehan and metro New Orleans, "We're not even fooling with repairs."

Even with higher costs, it may be a case of pay now or pay even more later.

If you dont go with wind resistant shingles, you could have to pay that deductible again because storms are increasing," Reichel said.

"Think of saving your home. When you lose a lot of shingles, you get water, the roof can collapse, and you get major water damage inside the home. Having a wind-hardy roof is the most important investment in a home.

FEMA deadline for applications and critical needs after Hurricane Ida extended The deadline for residents who suffered damage or need emergency assistance after Hurricane Ida to apply for FEMA aid has been extended, accor

More suggestions

Here are some other suggestions from the LSU AgCenter to help your new roof stand up to a storm.

DECKING: After removing the old shingles and underlayment, roofers should inspect the decking, the layer of boards that the shingles and other roofing components are installed on. Make sure it is at least 7/16-inch thick. If replacing the entire deck (also called sheathing), consider upgrading to 5/8-inch plywood for a stronger roof. Roof decking is usually nailed or stapled sparingly to the rafters. Add ring shank nails so the decking is secured every 6 inches and, if possible, install hurricane hardware that connects rafters and trusses to side walls for added stability.

SEAL: Finish seams of roof decking with 4-inch-wide roofing tape as a secondary defense against water damage. Add a secondary moisture barrier to prevent water leaks at decking seams if roofing is ever lost or damaged. Do not use window flashing tape.

FLASHING: Properly install new, durable flashing at all penetrations, roof and wall intersections, and valleys. Proper installation methods layer materials shingle-fashion to prevent water seepage under flashings.

FASTEN: Brace gable end walls to roofing members to prevent collapse from very high wind.

ATTIC: For a vented attic, use only TAS 100(A)-tested ridge or roof vents. Securely fasten strong panels and soffit vents to the framing under roof overhangs. Perforated fiber cement soffits are a sturdy, one-step, low-maintenance option.

For roof repairs

Unless the rest of the roof is new, try to make a case (to your insurance company) for doing the whole thing, advised Reichel. If you lost shingles with this storm, the roof might be vulnerable to lose more the next time.

If you're not replacing the whole roof, ask the contractor to do a thorough inspection for loose or damaged shingles. If the other shingles are well-adhered and the nails are not overdriven (which would weaken them), its reasonable to just replace the ones that came off," she said.

While workmen are on site, there's another fairly easy way to help head off future damage: Adding an extra dot of roofing cement to the first course of shingles, which are the most vulnerable. Each shingle should get three 1-inch dots of cement, one in the middle and one on each side, a few inches from the shingle's edge.

BLUE TARPS

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Blue Roofs program provides free tarps until permanent repairs can be made. The tarps are more durable than standard tarps and should last at least a month. Sign-up for the program lasts until Sept. 30. Go to blueroof.us or call (888) 766-3258.
On a wet morning this week  as rain from the remnants of Hurricane Nicholas flooded some New Orleans streets  public school students across the city were out with their families hoping to obtain what are now the most critical back-to-school supplies: negative COVID-19 tests.

Following an extended school closure after Hurricane Ida, many New Orleans schools are requiring students to be COVID-free in order to start class again.

A powerful Category 4 hurricane, Ida roared ashore Aug. 29 and battered Louisianas Bayou and River Parishes. New Orleans saw less damage, but hurricane-force winds caused a citywide blackout. The storm and its aftermath closed schools  which had just started the 2021-2022 school year in August  for more than two weeks.

New Orleans public schools are starting to reopen this week and NOLA Public Schools Superintendent Henderson Lewis Jr. has said the majority of schools should reopen by Sept. 22. A few schools with significant storm damage will reopen remotely.

NOLA Public Schools officials are strongly encouraging a test before returning. But some of the district's charters are requiring a negative test before students come back. Theres no central list, but one of the citys largest networks  Firstline Schools, which oversees five schools  is requiring negative tests.

International School of Louisiana is also requiring negative tests, and this week, it was offering on-campus testing for its students. The line to get tested wrapped around the block Tuesday afternoon as students and their parents waited in the rain. One parent said it took about an hour to get to the testing area.

Epidemiologists are concerned that evacuations to hotels and with extended families, as well as emergency post-storm gatherings  at cooling centers, shelters and food kitchens  could result in higher COVID transmission. Infectious disease epidemiologist Susan Hassig, who works at Tulane University, said Tuesday that getting testing back online is crucial to understand case spread.

Case counts are probably not the best marker because of how much infection is in a community because there is so little testing post storm, Hassig said.

She pointed out many National Guard testing sites had shifted into supply sites, giving away water, meals and ice during Hurricane Ida relief.

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We are once again going to have a relatively limited view on where infection really is and looking at people presenting with symptoms is probably going to be our best information.

Lee Lemond, an environmental scientist who started the Louisiana Coronavirus Data Twitter account and has a 17-year-old daughter at Benjamin Franklin Charter High School, said he was happy to see the increased focus on testing students before returning to the classroom.

I deal with a lot of data so I guess my coping mechanism was to fall into a spreadsheet and look at it in numbers, said Lemond, whose vaccinated daughter was tested at a city site on Tuesday.

Franklin is not requiring students to get a negative test before returning. But the school offered testing on Monday in advance of a planned in-person restart to classes on Tuesday. The in-person school start was delayed due to problems with the schools air-conditioning system, but the testing event went forward.

Along with knowing whether they are infected with COVID, students are also being given a $25 cash incentive for getting a test. The money comes from a federal program through the Louisiana Department of Health.

We were excited to see so many kids come out, Franklin spokesperson Eve Peyton said, noting they tested over 600 students on Monday. I think a lot of the kids were enjoying a chance to socialize post-storm.

Franklin will continue offering weekly tests, like many other city schools, this school year.

Remote instruction will begin for Franklin students on Thursday. They will return to in-person classes on Sept. 22.

During virtual learning, Franklins campus will be open to students. They can work from the schools cafeteria if you have internet issues at home or simply want a change of scenery, an email to families stated.


Louisiana Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon said Wednesday that policyholders who were affected by Hurricane Ida and Tropical Storm Nicholas - and who might have to weather more storms before this year's hurricane season ends - should file claims early and be prepared to fight for them.

Already there are signs that some insurers are pushing back on Ida claims. State Farm, the largest home insurer in Louisiana with a market share of about 26%, has refused to waive its policy clause that limits evacuation cost claims to people who were subject to an evacuation order.

Donelon said that Allstate, followed by others with large Louisiana market shares, including USAA, Progressive and Liberty Mutual, have all indicated they would waive the clause. So far, State Farm is the only major insurer explicitly refusing.

"Frankly, I expected and thought they would all do it," said Donelon. "I was shocked when [State Farm officials] told me they would not and would stick to the language in polices. I pushed hard, and they have not backed off."

State Farm did not immediately respond to requests for comment for this story.

Did your FEMA claim after Hurricane Ida get denied? Here's what to know before you appeal. If you applied for FEMA assistance following Hurricane Ida but received a letter saying you don't qualify or your application was still under 

The insurance costs for Hurricane Ida will not be tallied for some months to come. But catastrophe modelling firms such as AIR Worldwide and Karen Clark & Co. estimate them at $18 billion to $30 billion. Louisiana will still bear 90% of those costs, Donelon said.

A $30 billion storm would be the eighth most expensive in U.S. history.

Already, the Insurance Department has fielded more than 200 complaints from policyholders about Ida claims. That is a fairly typical rate; for hurricanes Laura, Delta and Zeta in 2020 storms, there were 1,700 complaints out of a total of 315,000 insurance claims. As a result of complaints to the Insurance Department, policyholders gained about $50 million, an average of $29,212 per complaint, Donelon said.

Donelon will be fielding insurance questions on Thursday from Peter Kovacs, editor of The Times-Picayune | The Advocate, starting at 10 a.m. The interview will be shown live on NOLA.com and theadvocate.com

Pushback from insurance companies is part of a familiar dance after hurricanes and other major natural disasters, said Suzette Bagneris, a New Orleans lawyer who specializes in insurance claims.

"We're seeing the same type of behavior play out this time in terms of insurance companies and how things are being adjusted," she said. Insurers sometimes send multiple adjusters to a property, with the wind specialist attributing damage to water and vice versa, as one tactic to minimize the damage assessment.

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Bagneris, who will be participating in an insurance question-and-answer session hosted by the New Orleans Regional Black Chamber of Commerce on Thursday at noon, advises policyholders to be proactive. She suggests hiring an independent local assessor firm, which typically charges about $75 an hour for a two-hour visit, and get a contractor's estimate for repairs. Keep receipts or value estimates of items that need to be replaced.

"You don't have to accept the damages assessed by the insurance company," Bagneris said. "I've seen private damage assessments elevate a claim by as much as $50,000."

Donelon said most of the complaints that the Insurance Department has received are about lack of communication from insurers and slow payment.

The Insurance Department has begun to track complaints by company and score them against their market share to see if they attract an outsized number. Last year, State Farm racked up the most complaints, at 163, but that was about in line with its market share. Allstate and USAA were among the larger insurers that had far fewer complaints than would be expected given their market share.

On the other hand, Allied Trust Insurance, which has just under 1% of the market, had more than six times the number of complaints expected given its share.

+6 Tropical Storm Nicholas throws wrench into Hurricane Ida recovery: 'and then this happens' After Hurricane Ida, Bridget McDowell tarped the damaged roof of her raised brick house in the University City neighborhood of Kenner, emptied

Donelon said Louisiana policyholders should be reminded of recent insurance laws that have been enacted to combat abuse by insurance companies. A 2009 law, means that a homeowner's deductible covers an entire hurricane season - not just one storm.

"If you've got evacuation costs or damages of, say, $4,000 and your deductible is $5,000, file it anyway," said Donelon. "It means that if you're unfortunate enough to be hit by another storm in the same season, your deductible will then only be $1,000."

Another law enacted after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 means that any "act of God" claims - hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and the like - cannot be used to increase your premiums or to cancel your insurance. "That means that if you are in doubt, you should file it anyway," Donelon said. "You could benefit, and it can't hurt."

Heres what to know about FEMA assistance South Louisianans are going to be cleaning up from Hurricane Ida for a while  and its going to cost money.

One thing policyholders should avoid, however, is artificially inflating claims to overcome insurers that might try to lowball the damage assessments, Bagneris said.

"You need to be a savvy policyholder, but resist that temptation," she said. "You don't want to end up in an orange jumpsuit."
A former priest and two professional dominatrices who were charged with institutional vandalism after an alleged sexual tryst on a Pearl River church altar now face a new charge: obscenity.

Travis Clark, 37, was the priest at Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Pearl River on Sept. 30, 2020, when he and two women, Mindy Dixon and Melissa Cheng, were arrested. According to court documents in St. Tammany Parish, police said a passerby saw the women, dressed in corsets and high heels, performing sexual acts on a partly dressed Clark, while a phone and camera were recording them.

Pearl River Police arrested them and confiscated sex toys, stage lights and two recording devices that were in church as evidence.

Pearl River police initially booked all three with obscenity, but when 22nd Judicial District Attorney Warren Montgomery charged them in a bill of information last March, it was for one count each of institutional vandalism, not obscenity.

That changed on Aug. 27 when the DA filed a superseding bill of information adding one count of obscenity to each. That charge carries a heavier potential penalty of up to three years in prison. Institutional vandalism, also a felony, carries a potential sentence of up to two years in prison, with or without hard labor, and up to a $1,000 fine.

All three pleaded not guilty to the initial charge of institutional vandalism. They will be re-arraigned on Oct. 13 before 22nd Judicial District Judge Ellen Creel.

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Montgomery declined comment on the new charge Wednesday, as did attorney Bradley Phillips, who is representing Dixon, 42, a resident of Kent, Washington, and Cheng, 29, of Alpharetta, Georgia.

Shortly after the arrest, Phillips argued that his clients' conduct was private and legal because it didn't take place in public. After they were charged with vandalism, he said that the state "went out its way to contort the facts of this case in order to fit their own narrative."

He called the vandalism charge a "thinly-veiled attempt to regulate the morality of private individuals."

Among the obsceniy charge's definitions in Louisiana law are having sex in any place open to the public view. According to the documents that Pearl River police filed in 22nd Judicial District Court, the altar could be seen through the church's windows and glass doors.

The lurid case rocked a north shore Catholic community that was already dealing with the dismissal of another priest, Pat Wattigny, who has since been charged with molesting a juvenile.

Archbishop Gregory Aymond came to two vigil Masses in a row at the Pearl River church, the second to consecrate a new altar after the old one had been removed and ritually burned.

The institutional vandalism charge accuses the three of "knowingly vandalizing, defacing, or otherwise damaging property and causing damage valued at over $500 and under $50,000."
The St. Bernard Sheriffs Office arrested one of its own deputies earlier this week on accusations of domestic violence.

Keith St. Germain, 32, faces two counts each of domestic abuse battery by strangulation and domestic abuse battery with child endangerment, the Sheriffs Office said in a statement Wednesday.

The statement doesnt say exactly when or where the alleged battery took place, but it said St. Germain has been suspended pending an internal review of his case.

St. Germain was working at the 34th Judicial District Courthouse in Chalmette at the time of his arrest. The counts against him are felonies punishable by up to three years in prison, and  though specifics havent been released  they imply that a child younger than 14 was present at the scene of the alleged battery.
New Orleans officials said Wednesday they selected a winning bidder for one of two emergency trash-hauling contracts to deal with the citys sanitation crisis, while also unveiling a new garbage-disposal option for fed-up residents: doing it themselves.

Mayor LaToya Cantrells administration said that as of Wednesday morning, residents could drive bags of trash to a city-run transfer station at 2829 Elysian Fields Avenue near the Interstate-610 overpass. The drop-off center, which is free of charge, will be open from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. every day and will take bagged household garbage, a news release said.

The self-service garbage dump represented the latest attempt by the Cantrell administration to help remove the nauseating piles of rotting trash across the city that have lingered since Hurricane Idas landfall.

+3 Late trash pickup complaints hit a new high in July; these neighborhoods have the most Despite hiring seven more truck drivers, pulling drivers from Mississippi routes and enlisting the help of reality star and IV Waste garbage m

The announcement quickly generated a small line of cars even as it brought mockery from some critics who said it was further evidence that the city and its two main garbage contractors had fallen down on the job.

Lakeview resident Paul Miller, who stopped on the facilitys exit road to speak through an open window of his pickup truck, said it felt wonderful to have any disposal option at all.

At lunch time somebody told me this was open, so I went home and grabbed it, Miller said Wednesday afternoon. The stench is in your neighborhood and you cant get it emptied, so I got mine and I got my neighbors.

Miller said he hoped to make another trip before the facility closed.

+4 New Orleans trash pickups still running late; hauler granted new deadline to fix problem New Orleans residents have seen more frequent garbage pickups in recent weeks as additional crews have been hired to do the job, but collectio

But J.P. Morrell, the former state senator running for an at-large City Council seat, echoed the complaints of many residents when he tweeted that the depot amounted to do-it-yourself government.

This is not a solution, said Morrell. There was no urgency in putting out the emergency contract for trash pick up.

NO.transfer.091621.03.jpg People arrive with trash they wish to dispose of at the Recycling Drop-Off Center in New Orleans, Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021. The Recycling Dro

Cantrell spokesperson Beau Tidwell said Wednesday afternoon that Kenner-based Ramelli Waste had won an emergency hauling contract for the service area handled by Richards Disposal, which covers Algiers, Uptown and parts of Mid-City. Ramelli planned to start with four trucks, which will stabilize solid waste collection for more than 3,000 households.

A winner for the area handled by Metro Service Group, which includes neighborhoods on the Lake Pontchartrain side of City Park Avenue and Esplanade Avenue, as well as areas east of the Industrial Canal, wasnt selected as of Wednesday afternoon, Tidwell said in a prepared statement.

Tidwell said the city was continuing to vet the response to the procurement. He added that pandemic-related staffing problems in the solid-waste industry were to blame for the small number of bidders, but did not disclose how many bidders had responded.

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Another hauler, IV Waste, is collecting trash on some Metro routes through a subcontractor agreement, and had picked up waste on several streets in Lakeview Tuesday and Wednesday.

Trash has been piling up since at least Aug. 29, when Ida slammed into Louisiana, knocked out power and forced a halt to most city services. But critics have raised questions about why it took City Hall until Sept. 8 to put out bid invitations.

Two days before the storm, Cantrell said that the city was "absolutely prepared to activate trash collections with our independent contractor based on emergency response. She added that residents wouldnt have to rely on Metro Service, which struggled with labor shortages before the storm and has faced some of the harshest criticism in its aftermath.

"Residents you will be able to get collections happening post-storm that will not be dependent at all upon Metro, she said on Aug. 27.

The initial bid deadline of Friday, Sept. 10 was extended to Monday, Sept. 13. Nearly 48 hours passed from the bid deadline to the citys announcement Wednesday of a relatively modest number of trucks in one area.

"We have got to get that emergency trash company contract in place ASAP, said District E Councilmember Cyndi Nguyen, who noted that some of her constituents east of the Industrial Canal have gone nearly a month without garbage collections.

NO.transfer.091621.03.jpg People arrive with trash they wish to dispose of at the Recycling Drop-Off Center in New Orleans, Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021. The Recycling Dro

City sanitation officials said earlier this week that two thirds of the city's residents had received a "first pass" collection since the storm, but Tidwell acknowledged on Monday that some carts have been missed in areas that have seen initial collections.

Still, a Metro spokesperson, Greg Beuerman, said all 72,000 of Metros customers would get their first post-storm pickup by the end of the day on Wednesday, and that a vast majority had received a second pickup. Richards Disposal owner Alvin Richard has not issued any updates on his service or responded to multiple calls and text messages seeking information on his service area.

At the citys self-service location on Elysian Fields Wednesday afternoon, a half dozen pickup trucks and sport-utility vehicles waited in line for city workers to dispose of their loads. The wait time was between five and 10 minutes.

Nguyen said she had "mixed feelings about the drop-off location. While it might be a workable temporary solution for some, senior citizens and people with disabilities could find it difficult to load heavy garbage bags into private vehicles, and many people lack the necessary transportation, she said.

And even those who are able to take advantage of the transfer station may not be able to transport bags that are ripped or can't be secured after weeks sitting outside, she said.

These Hefty trash bags that have been sitting out there for over a week, the sun has been beating and the dog has been chewing on it," said Nguyen.
U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge plans to visit Kenner and New Orleans on Friday to see damage caused by Hurricane Ida.

Fudge will tour the Westminster Tower senior apartments in Kenner at 11 a.m. followed by the Guste Senior Apartments in Central City an hour later. She will end her tour at New Orleans East Hospital at 2:25 p.m., a HUD spokesperson said Thursday.

Orleans Parish coroner says 7 deaths at senior apartments likely due to excessive heat The Orleans Parish Coroner's Office confirmed that seven residents of apartment complexes for seniors who died in the aftermath of Hurricane I

She is expected to speak with residents and municipal officials on her tour. She will be joined by Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, U.S. Reps. Steve Scalise of Old Jefferson and Troy Carter of New Orleans, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell and parish presidents.

Fudge plans to highlight disaster aid that HUD has provided to local communities in recent weeks. That includes 27 regulatory and administrative waivers of federal rules to help speed Louisiana's recovery from the Category 4 storm, one of the largest collections of waivers issued by the department at once.

The waivers grant flexibility to governments that must rebuild affordable housing to replace housing lost in Ida, and let municipalities use federal money for emergency shelters or food giveaways, officials said. HUD is also providing immediate foreclosure relief and other assistance.

Many senior living centers in the region are financed in whole or in part by HUD money. Their tenants were among some of the most vulnerable after Ida, as many could not cool their apartments, refrigerate some medications or use elevators after the power grid was damaged by the storm.

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Seven seniors in New Orleans died of excessive heat, according to the coroner's office: Myron Jones, 65; Reginald Logan and Deborah Anderson, both 74; Clarence Washington, 79; David Sneed, 65; Corinne Labat-Hingle, 70; and Illey Joseph, 73.

Their deaths have raised questions about whether city officials should have done more after the storm to provide resources to elderly and disabled residents, or whether their apartment managers had done enough to ensure their buildings had adequate backup power. The New Orleans City Council is weighing whether to force those managers to have backup generators and submit to routine inspections of their buildings.

Confirmed by the Senate in March, Fudge is the first Black woman to lead HUD in more than four decades. Previously, she served as the U.S. representative for Ohio's 11th District from 2008 to 2021 and before that was the first Black and first woman mayor of Warrensville Heights, Ohio, from 2000 to 2008.
As some New Orleans households enter their third week without garbage collection and curbside trash bags multiply, so do the bottle caps, plastic bag creases and fast-food containers that harbor pockets of water -- and mosquito larvae.

"Debris creates habitat," said LSU environmental sciences professor Rebeca de Jesus Crespo. "It doesnt take much to fill those containers enough to provide habitats for certain types of mosquitoes."

Hurricane Ida and Tropical Depression Nicholas both dropped significant rainfall on New Orleans. In addition to interfering with some mosquito abatement strategies, that rain created mosquito breeding grounds at a time when Orleans Parish was largely empty and without power. Pool water went uncirculated, and the locals who remained in the city became a mosquito buffet as they opened windows in search of a breeze and cleaned storm debris from their backyards.

Mosquito hunters are patrolling and treating problems throughout St. Tammany Due to the large amount of rainfall the region recently received with Hurricane Ida, areas across St. Tammany Parish are experiencing explosiv

Mosquito reproduction cycles take seven to 12 days, so now is the time south Louisiana residents would experience a post-Hurricane Ida mosquito boom.

Last week, St. Tammany Parish Mosquito Abatement reported a 300% surge in Aedes atlanticus and Psorophora ferox mosquito populations. These floodwater species don't carry diseases like West Nile or Zika viruses, but they do have large, painful bites, and they bite during the day. The Southern House species carries these viruses, but officials did not find diseased mosquitos in their 46 citywide traps post Hurricane Ida.

New Orleans officials report more mosquito species than normal for this time of year, but did not say how many of these mosquitoes are in the area.

In New Orleans, calls to 311 reporting mosquito issues are mounting. Last September, 17 people called 311 with mosquito-related complaints. So far this September, 51 people have called 311 with mosquito issues  and the month is only half over.

"(Higher numbers and higher mosquito diversity than normal) is driving part of those calls, as well as requests for mosquito fish to be placed in pools," said director of the New Orleans Mosquito, Termite and Rodent Control Board Claudia Riegel, who has a Ph.D. in entomology.

Mosquito fish are one of the city's mosquito abatement strategies. In January 2006, Mosquito Control introduced around 20,000 mosquito fish to 1,278 pools that were unmaintained due to Hurricane Katrina.

"Eighty percent of the city flooded (after Hurricane Katrina), and it was so devastating," Riegel said. "By mid October (2005), we were inspecting properties and finding many pools had so many mosquito larvae. What do you do with a relatively small staff who didnt know where the pools all were and mosquitoes that were breeding like crazy?"

One answer then and nowas a subset of hurricane-damaged pools stagnateis mosquito fish.

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Mosquito fish are very effective, very cool and tiny, 2 to 2.5 inches, Riegel said. They are voracious eaters of larvae. We introduce about 24-30. Thats all you need in a pool.

Riegel said a number of 311 calls about mosquito issues come from homeowners requesting mosquito fish. The Mosquito Control board welcomes those calls.

We deliver the fish ourselves, because we like to look at the yard and make sure it doesn't need more abatement," Riegel said.

In addition to mapping Orleans Parish pools, monitoring the areas mosquito populations, testing mosquitoes for disease, conducting adult mosquito abatement by truck and hand-larviciding at-risk neighborhoods, Mosquito Control augmented their 35-person staff with a group of 20 parking attendants after Hurricane Ida.

We ... sent them up and down every street to larvicide (apply larva-killing insecticide) and cover greater areas, Riegel said.

This container full of rainwater is prime mosquito breeding habitat! Those gray spots by the arrow are female mosquitoes, laying eggs that can become adults in as little as 7 days. Prevent this by dumping out anything holding water + store upside-down. Inspect weekly. #TipnToss pic.twitter.com/xSdqb4o4T0  New Orleans Mosquito, Termite, and Rodent Control (@NolaMosquito) September 15, 2021

Crespo emphasized that the city cant control mosquitoes alone. Residents should inspect their property for standing water and limit opportunities for mosquitoes to bite by wearing insect repellant and long sleeves and pants. Shes hopeful that by following these mitigation strategies, Orleans Parish can prevent a mosquito boom.

Im from Puerto Rico, and my colleagues monitored mosquitoes after Hurricane Maria. Contrary to predictions, we didnt see increases in mosquito abundance after the hurricane, Crespo said.

Orleans Parish residents who wish to report a mosquito issue or request mosquito fish can call 311 or 504-658-2400 to speak with a mosquito specialist.
Days before Hurricane Ida struck, Thomas J. Adams related an old adage to the urban studies class he was teaching at Tulane University: You can tell a lot about who has power in a city based on who gets their garbage collected.

Now in the wake of the storm, the near-complete collapse of garbage service in New Orleans might give his students a chance to put that to the test.

Adams, a visiting professor at Tulane's New Orleans Center for the Gulf South, and Sue Mobley, director of research at Monument Lab, took steps to determine who was getting the mountains of garbage left behind after Ida hauled away and who was not. The result was an online survey pushed out through a variety of social media to ask a series of simple questions that all centered on the same theme: When was the last time your garbage was collected?

Of the 807 responses since Monday evening, about 58% had not had a pickup since Ida, which hit Aug. 29. In some cases, respondents said they hadn't seen a garbage truck for weeks before the Category 4 storm blew through the region.

Garbage piled up across New Orleans for 10 days after Ida before Mayor LaToya Cantrell's administration put out an emergency call for companies that could help haul away the bags of rotting food, soiled diapers and other refuse lining the streets. On Wednesday, city officials announced they had selected Ramelli Waste to help Richard's Disposal Inc. with collections in the areas it covers.

+5 City inks emergency trash contract as residents told they can haul waste themselves New Orleans officials said Wednesday they selected a winning bidder for one of two emergency trash-hauling contracts to deal with the citys s

The administration has not yet selected a company to assist Metro Service Group, which has seen far more serious problems with collections that include weeks of missed pickups before Ida.

In the near future, Adams said, he hopes to use the survey in his class to examine whether race, income or homeownership were a factor in which areas got priority as the trucks started rolling. Residents may still provide input at https://0o6d66u6i6x.typeform.com/to/AX32y7ew.

As with any survey of this type, there are limitations and caveats to what the data shows.

The survey was circulated primarily through social media and as a result might over-represent people whose socioeconomic status and networks made it more likely they'd see it. And within that subset, people upset at the putrid piles in front of their homes would be more likely to click on the survey form and complete it, potentially weighting the results toward those still waiting for service.

And in many neighborhoods, there simply were not enough responses to assess the situation with confidence.

Still, the broad strokes that the survey paints provide some refutation of assertions by Cantrell administration officials and point to at least a handful of conclusions.

New Orleans nears deal for emergency trash hauler as City Council calls for answers on garbage woes New Orleans moved closer Tuesday to bringing in outside help to aid its overwhelmed trash haulers, as complaints about rotting garbage soared 

First, the large areas that were untouched by garbage haulers earlier this week contradict statements by the Cantrell administration on Monday that two thirds of residents had received a "first pass" pickup.

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"This seems very clearly not to be two thirds of the city," Adams said.

The responses also show a stark divide between the areas served by Metro and Richard's.

Richard's services the southwestern corner of the city, with its turf running from Mid-City toward the Mississippi River and including everything from the Metairie line to the Warehouse District, plus Algiers. Here the responses were mixed: It appears there were at least some pickups in most neighborhoods, with a checkerboard pattern of people saying the garbage truck had stopped by.

The main exception appeared to be the neighborhoods upriver of Tulane University, an area with numerous student renters. That, Adams said, might point to a pattern that his college class will explore further.

Things were far different in Metro's territory. The company had blamed a shortage of drivers for being unable to make its normal routes before Ida and had faced a work stoppage from drivers over pay and conditions early in the coronavirus pandemic. Metro still appears to be struggling to meet its obligations, even after bringing on IV Waste to help.

+2 Trash and debris pile up ahead of potential flooding from Tropical Storm Nicholas It looks like getting all the trash and debris picked up post Ida is going to continue to be a slow  and stinky  process for the foreseeable

Almost all the areas served by Metro yielded a wave of negative responses from those who took the survey. Of the 467 people who said they hadn't had their garbage picked up, 73% were in Metro's part of the city. Exceptions appear to be largely clustered along major roads in most of the neighborhoods between the French Quarter and Bywater.

"Metro in particular has a history the last few years ranging from using prison labor to break a strike to really not being responsive" to complaints, Adams said. He added that the issues should raise questions about how contractors are picked and whether their labor practices are likely to create future problems.

"One might have easily predicted they would fall short," he said.

Residents sound off on citys temporary DIY trash haul service: This is ludicrous Facing a mounting waste disposal crisis in the wake of Hurricane Ida, city officials threw a hail Mary pass by opening up a drop-off site Wedn

But areas near Lake Pontchartrain, where IV Waste has concentrated its efforts, appeared to be doing slightly better. A smattering of yeses were reported in Lakeview, and the areas along City Park appeared to have had substantial pickups. Elsewhere, numerous households in the Holy Cross neighborhood reported they had their bins emptied.

Only a handful of people in New Orleans East reported their status, with a mix of positive and negative answers.

The survey results also seem to raise new questions about post-Ida garbage collection. In several cases, respondents said their bins were full and untouched since the storm even as others on the same block reported service had resumed days before. It's not clear what would explain that capriciousness, which exists in both Metro and Richard's territory.

On Tuesday, Cantrell's communications director, Beau Tidwell, said the administration understands residents' frustrations with the hop-scotch approach. He urged residents to report missed pick-ups to 3-1-1.

In some cases, places are getting missed. That's not deliberate, that's not a slight on anybody, Tidwell said.
Supposedly, the Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra will launch alongside the Galaxy S22 series, which is expected to arrive in January 2022. Specifics about BRS technology remain unknown at this stage, although Samsung may only using it sparingly in its next flagship tablet. Reportedly, Samsung will utilise BRS technology at various points on the Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra's display, so it is not a holistic solution.

Samsung is not ready to use BRS technology across all flagship devices, though. Apparently, the Galaxy S22, Galaxy S22+ and Galaxy S22 Ultra will benefit from it, even though they will be ready at the same time as the Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra. Instead, BRS technology will not arrive on smartphones until late 2022 or early 2023, probably in time for the Galaxy S23 series. Hopefully by that point, Samsung will have improved its Under Panel Camera technology too, because it is not as mature as the one that Xiaomi showcased with the Mix 4.
President Biden Makes Historic Visit to NREL's Flatirons Campus

Energy Secretary Granholm, Colorado Governor Polis Join the President on Tour of Cutting-Edge Renewable Energy Research

Sept. 15, 2021

President Joe Biden speaks during a visit the NREL Flatirons Campus in Arvada, Colorado. Photo by Werner Slocum, NREL

President Joe Biden visited the National Renewable Energy Laboratorys (NRELs) Flatirons Campus on Tuesday afternoon to speak with NREL leadership and to learn about the laboratorys research facilities, capabilities, and critical initiatives housed on the Flatirons Campus. During the visit, the president spoke to a livestream audience and attending news media about his plans on infrastructure, environmental justice, and how to tackle the climate crisis.

Since his inauguration in January, the Biden administration has focused on making the United States a global leader in clean energy. NREL has positioned itself as a national leader in cutting-edge, renewable energy research, and Tuesdays visit was a hand-in-glove stop during the presidents tour of Western states affected by climate change.

Standing at a podium on the Flatirons Campus with a field full of solar panels and wind turbines behind him, and a backdrop of the Front Range framing him, President Biden thanked NREL Director Martin Keller, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, and other political dignitaries for attending his first visit to NREL since his vice-presidential days in 2011. He toured part of the Flatirons Campus before delivering an impassioned message about our climate and the increasing need for renewable energy investment.

Extreme weather is only going to come more frequently and with more ferocity. Were blinking code red as a nation, the president said. You saw the vicious cycle this summer [in Colorado] when heavy rains combined with the burn scar of the 2020 Grizzly Creek fire. The result was the mudslides that washed out an entire section of Interstate 70, adding hours to peoples drives and cutting off a vital commercial artery. Its everywhere, he said.

We know what the driver is: climate change. We know whats causing climate change: human activity. This is no longer subject to debate, the president said. And, I might add, windmills do not cause cancer.

President Biden (left) listens as Daniel Laird, center director of the National Wind Technology Center (NWTC), discusses advancements in wind technology in the Structural Technical Laboratory at NREL's Flatirons Campus. Photo by Werner Slocum, NREL

President Biden said the country needs to look no further than what was surrounding himan increasing investment into clean energy research and technologiesfor the answers. Something that is caused by humans can be solved by humans, he said.

He pointed out how NREL is helping lead the charge. Well be making one of those breakthroughs in solar, wind, and storage out of these facilities. [Well] out-innovate the rest of the world  drive down the cost of renewable energy. Of course, we have to invest in the future, we need to deploy cutting-edge technologies, and we have to deploy them today, not tomorrow.

I had a chance today to see wind-turbine testing and new battery technologies. Because of the years of work that have taken place here, these technologies arent science fiction. Theyre ready to be installed across the country right now, President Biden said.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, who toured NREL in a virtual capacity earlier this summer, accompanied the president to Flatirons, seeing the facility firsthand after her online meeting with NREL leadership and staff on July 15, 2021.

The president lauded the work of Energy Secretary Granholm in his speech, saying, Were she born in America and not Canada, shed be standing here as president. Shes doing a heck of a job for me, and for the country. And a proud electric car driver as well.

President Biden (center) walks with NREL Director Martin Keller (right) and Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm (second from left) in front of a wind turbine blade during a tour of NREL's Flatirons Campus. Photo by Werner Slocum, NREL

Joining President Biden and Secretary Granholm was Acting Assistant Secretary and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) Kelly Speakes-Backman, as well as other White House, Department of Energy (DOE), and local elected officials. The Flatirons Campus was closed to staff on Tuesday to accommodate the highly secured visit.

EERE Deputy Assistant Secretary Kelly Speakes-Backman is scheduled to tour NRELs South Table Mountain campus on Wednesday.

President Biden became the third U.S. president to visit NRELs campuses, and this was his second visit to an NREL location, after touring the South Table Mountain campus in 2011 as vice president. President Jimmy Carter paid a visit to NREL in 1978, known then as the Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI), after establishing SERI in 1977 to focus on solar energy technologies. President George W. Bush led an energy panel discussion at NREL in 2006.

During Tuesdays visit, President Biden and the VIP guests received insight into NRELs long-term research mission, vision, and critical objectives, which directly align with the administration and DOEs decarbonization goals and national energy priorities.

The president said renewable energy research continues to show dividends on our investments. Today, renewables are now cheaper than fossil fuels in many parts of the country, he said, adding a reminder that to reach our countrys clean-energy goals, the time is now, and will take a concerted effort.

Whether youre an engineer at a lab bench, the president said, or work on a turbine, at a power company, or a small construction business, everyone has a role to play.

NREL's Flatirons Campus, nestled along Colorado's Front Range, is the nation's premier wind energy, water power, and grid integration research facility. Photo by Joshua Bauer, NREL

I was honored to welcome President Joe Biden to NRELs Flatirons campus today and show him some of the ways that our national laboratory is at work to achieve our countrys clean energy goals, NREL Director Keller said. We will continue to accelerate our research and collaboration hand-in-hand with DOE and Secretary Jennifer Granholm to address our urgent climate challenges.

Learn more about NRELs mission and programs and the research conducted at its Flatirons Campus.

Sean Marchant
Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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Working with a counselor, she realized that for most of her life she had struggled with coming to terms with her identity. She came out as a transgender woman soon afterward. Her wife accepted her. Her family accepted her.

Ms. Steel said the urge to explore a new calling was already building. And though many of her school colleagues and students supported her, she said she felt backlash from some quarters in the school district, especially over her use of student-designated bathrooms. A spokesman for the Madison Metropolitan School District, Tim LeMonds, said the issue was Ms. Steels use of a student bathroom, not gender. Ms. Steel said that it was a common practice among faculty, adding that the adult bathrooms were too far away from her classroom.

Despite all of this, there was always one place dear to her that she believed would never accept her. Until now.

At 56, Ms. Steel retired in June from her career as a public-school teacher for nearly 24 years. This month, she began studying at Wartburg Theological Seminary, in Dubuque, Iowa, on a scholarship with the purpose of becoming a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (or E.L.C.A.), a major denomination of the Lutheran church that allows L.G.B.T.Q. clergy members. (The following interview has been edited and condensed.)
Canadian Pacific has emerged as the winner in a long-running battle to acquire Kansas City Southern, putting it in position to become the first railroad operator whose network extends from Canada to Mexico.

Its rival in the bidding, Canadian National, said on Wednesday that it had received notice from Kansas City Southern that it was terminating a merger agreement they signed in May.

The decision not to pursue our proposed merger with KCS any further is the right decision for CN as responsible fiduciaries of our shareholders interests, Jean-Jacques Ruest, the chief executive of Canadian National, said in a statement.

At stake was possibly the last major acquisition of a major railroad; mergers have consolidated the industry to seven railways from more than 100. The key component of the deal is access to Mexico, as railroads look to capitalize on trade flows across North America on the heels of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which was signed into law last year.
As the four amateur astronauts head into space, the voice of Sarah Gillis will guide them into orbit.

Ms. Gillis is the lead space operations engineer for SpaceX, and her job includes training the astronauts on all safety aspects and operations of the flight.

Before takeoff, Ms. Gillis wished the crew good luck and a godspeed.

It has been an absolute honor to prepare you for this historic flight, she said.

In the Netflix documentary Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission to Space, Jared Isaacman, the mission's commander paying for the trip, described her role as the equivalent of the CapCom on a NASA mission. Thats short for Capsule Communication, traditionally an astronaut on the ground who speaks with the crew in the spacecraft.
That is because Mr. Isaacman decided not to just bring along his friends on this trip to space. Instead, he opened opportunities to three people he did not know.

We set out from the start to deliver a very inspiring message, Mr. Isaacman said during a news conference on Tuesday, and chose to do that through an interesting crew selection process.

The result is a mission that carries a crew that is more representative of wider society  Hayley Arceneaux, a 29-year-old physician assistant at St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital in Memphis; Sian Proctor, a 51-year-old community college professor who would be the first Black woman to pilot a spacecraft; and Christopher Sembroski, a 42-year-old data engineer.

Mr. Isaacman has declined to say how much he is paying for this orbital trip, only that it was less than the $200 million that he hopes to raise for St. Jude with an accompanying fund-raising drive, one of the stated purposes of the trip.

During a news conference the day before the launch, the crew members expressed their excitement and said they were not feeling jitters.

Ms. Arceneauxs Instagram profile included images from Kennedy Space Center. In one post, she posed before the Falcon 9 rocket with her mother, brother and sister-in-law. Another, which was taken from the launch tower, included the caption, Shes ready, were ready.

Dr. Proctor posted a portrait of herself in her custom SpaceX spacesuit, proclaiming herself Flight Ready!
We ask you to put yourselves in our shoes, they said in the letter, which was read by their lawyer, Richard Stafford. We havent been able to sleep or eat. And our lives are falling apart.

Mr. Laundries sister, Cassie Laundrie, became the first member of his family to speak publicly about the case on Thursday.

Obviously, me and my family want Gabby to be found safe, Ms. Laundrie told ABC News. Shes like a sister and my children love her, and all I want is for her to come home safe and found, and this to be just a big misunderstanding.

The case has drawn widespread attention as details of the couples trip emerged  and for their Instagram photos depicting a seemingly carefree, nomadic Van Life  leading reporters to gather outside Mr. Laundries house and many in the public to scour the couples social media posts.

Ms. Petito and Mr. Laundrie left New York on July 2 for what was supposed to be a four-month cross-country trip visiting national parks, said Ms. Petitos stepfather, Jim Schmidt.

Mr. Laundrie posted on Instagram that they were downsizing our life into this itty bitty van. Ms. Petito posted that converting a Ford Transit into a camper was an adventure in itself. The van, decorated with plants, small pieces of art and photos, was outfitted with a bed, tiny bookcases and a small wooden counter to prepare food.

But something apparently went wrong after a stop in Utah, her family said.

On Aug. 12, the police in Moab, Utah, responded to a report of a domestic problem after Mr. Laundrie had some sort of argument with Ms. Petito and told her to take a walk and calm down, according to a police report.
WASHINGTON  A leading figure in the Afghan resistance has retained a Washington lobbyist to seek military and financial support in the United States for a fight against the Taliban, according to a lobbying contract and a representative of the resistance leader.

Ahmad Massoud, the leader of one of the most prominent groups of fighters seeking to oust the Taliban from power, signed the contract this week with Robert Stryk, who built a lobbying practice during the Trump administration working with clients that others on K Street were wary of representing.

The contract, which was filed with the Justice Department on Wednesday evening and indicates that the work will be pro bono, comes as an array of Afghan constituencies are seeking lobbying help as they jockey for recognition in Washington and the international community.

While Afghan opposition groups have support from some Republicans in Washington, the Biden administration has made clear that it has no interest in playing any further role in a civil war in Afghanistan.
WASHINGTON  Almost a month ago, President Biden announced a plan to make coronavirus booster shots available to most adults in the United States eight months after they received their second dose. But a week before the plan is to roll out, its contours are up in the air amid a chorus of dissent inside and outside the government.

The White House has already been forced to delay offering boosters to recipients of the Moderna vaccine, and for now it is planning third shots only for those who received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Depending on what two public health agencies decide in the coming days, the administration may have to change course again, perhaps restricting extra shots to older Americans and others who are particularly vulnerable to serious illness.

A series of dueling reviews this week illustrated the fierce argument among scientists about whether boosters are needed, and if so, for whom. A study released on Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine appears to bolster the case made by the White House and its senior health advisers, stating that those who received a third shot of the Pfizer vaccine in Israel were far less likely to develop severe Covid than those who received two injections.

But a review by regulators at the Food and Drug Administration, also made public on Wednesday, looked at broader evidence on third doses of the Pfizer vaccine and raised caveats.
Senators introduced a bipartisan bill on Wednesday that would create a pathway to citizenship for some children and young adults who were raised in the United States but face deportation at age 21.

The legislation, called the Americas Children Act, was introduced after the House this week advanced the text of a sweeping $3.5 trillion spending plan that would also write into law a pathway to citizenship for the same group, known as documented Dreamers. They are young people who lived in the country legally until age 21 as the dependents of parents who hold nonimmigrant visas. But many never qualify for permanent residency. And some that are eligible for green cards as children get stuck in the vast green card backlog and are unable to gain residency before they turn 21 and are kicked out of line.

The moves indicate broad bipartisan support in both chambers for documented Dreamers following a yearslong push for them to be included in an immigration overhaul.

For too long, young immigrants like us, who have been raised and educated here as Americans, have been forced to leave the country we call home, said Dip Patel, the founder of Improve the Dream, an organization that advocates for documented Dreamers. The introduction of Americas Children Act means so much to thousands of us who have only known America as their home.
Final passage remains far from guaranteed. Democrats in both chambers need to reconcile competing plans for financing the package and divisions over how to structure key components, most likely before the legislation reaches the House floor. It is possible that additional provisions will be added, including a push from some lawmakers to address the cap on the deduction for state and local taxes.

Ms. Pelosi has pledged to iron out differences with the Senate before holding a floor vote, and the drug provision remains one of the thorniest issues for leaders to resolve. While the Ways and Means Committee vote kept it in the package for now, the defections on the Energy and Commerce panel signaled that it would most likely need to change in order for the entire bill to become law.

There is no excuse for every Democrat not supporting it, Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who is the chairman of the Budget Committee, said in a statement. Now is the time for Congress to show courage and stand up to the greed of the pharmaceutical industry. The American people will not accept surrender.

The drug pricing provision is a major policy priority for congressional leaders and the White House. High drug prices are a major consumer issue and a top voter concern. All three of the holdouts voted for nearly identical legislation when it passed the House in 2019.

Polling consistently shows immense bipartisan support for Democrats drug price negotiation legislation, Henry Connelly, a spokesman for Ms. Pelosi, said in a statement after the vote. Delivering lower drug costs is a top priority of the American people and will remain a cornerstone of the Build Back Better Act as work continues between the House, Senate and White House on the final bill.

During the hearing on Wednesday, Representative Frank Pallone Jr. of New Jersey urged his colleagues to vote to advance the bill, pledging that your voices will be heard either with a seat at the table or through me.

The moderates were unmoved, though they refrained from forcing a vote on their own drug pricing alternative. Mr. Schrader said he hoped this is genuinely the beginning of a conversation on drug pricing policy that can actually be signed into law.
At the meeting, Mr. Sussmann relayed data and analysis from cybersecurity researchers who thought that odd internet data might be evidence of a covert communications channel between computer servers associated with the Trump Organization and with Alfa Bank, a Kremlin-linked Russian financial institution.

The F.B.I. eventually decided those concerns had no merit. The special counsel who later took over the Russia investigation, Robert S. Mueller III, ignored the matter in his final report.

Mr. Sussmanns lawyers have told the Justice Department that he sought the meeting because he and the cybersecurity researchers believed that The New York Times was on the verge of publishing an article about the Alfa Bank data and he wanted to give the F.B.I. a heads-up. (In fact, The Times was not ready to run that article, but published one mentioning Alfa Bank six weeks later.)

Mr. Durham has been using a grand jury to examine the Alfa Bank episode and appeared to be hunting for any evidence that the data had been cherry-picked or the analysis of it knowingly skewed, The New Yorker and other outlets have reported. To date, there has been no public sign that he has found any such evidence.

But Mr. Durham did apparently find an inconsistency: Mr. Baker, the former F.B.I. lawyer, is said to have told investigators that he recalled Mr. Sussmann saying that he was not meeting him on behalf of any client. But in a deposition before Congress in 2017, Mr. Sussmann testified that he sought the meeting on behalf of an unnamed client who was a cybersecurity expert and had helped analyze the data.

Moreover, internal billing records Mr. Durham is said to have obtained from Perkins Coie are said to show that when Mr. Sussmann logged certain hours as working on the Alfa Bank matter  though not the meeting with Mr. Baker  he billed the time to Mrs. Clintons 2016 campaign.

Another partner at Perkins Coie, Marc Elias, was then serving as the general counsel for the Clinton campaign. Mr. Elias, who did not respond to inquiries, left Perkins Coie last month.
The Brazil Senate and Supreme Court have nullified rules that President Jair Bolsonaro issued last week banning social networks from removing what they judge to be disinformation about the coming presidential election.

The dual moves by the court and by Congress late Tuesday quickly killed one of the most restrictive and intrusive internet laws imposed in a democratic country. It was a sharp rebuke to a president already struggling with a series of political crises.

When Mr. Bolsonaro issued the policy, it was the first time a national government had moved to stop social media companies from taking down content that violates their rules.

The move alarmed technology companies and Mr. Bolsonaros political opponents because it appeared intended to enable the president and his allies to undermine confidence in next years presidential election.
Covid News: F.D.A. Publishes First Analysis of Pfizer Booster Shot Application Israeli researchers report that a third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine can prevent infections and severe illness in adults over 60, at least for a short time. The pope urges even the hesitant to get vaccinated.

Federal regulators publish the first analysis of Pfizers booster shot application. Image Preparing a syringe with the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine at a clinic at the Reading Area Community College in Reading, Pa., this week. Credit... Matt Rourke/Associated Press The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday offered the first public look at Pfizers application for a booster coronavirus shot, two days before an outside advisory committee of experts is scheduled to meet to recommend whether or not the agency should approve the companys request. It also comes amid significant disagreement about the need for boosters between career scientists at the agency and top Biden health officials, who have already started planning a broad booster campaign for this fall. In a 23-page document reviewing the companys application, regulators examined safety and immune response data on roughly 300 adults who received a booster shot of Pfizer-BioNTechs vaccine six months after their second dose, finding an increased immune response in study participants, even as they said that coronavirus vaccines were holding up powerfully against severe forms of Covid-19. There were no serious safety concerns associated with the booster injection, the regulators reported. Pfizer said in a separate filing that one month after a third injection, levels of neutralizing antibodies against the Delta variant in a subgroup of trial volunteers were between five and seven times higher, roughly, than they were a month after the second dose. The company also reiterated its findings that the effectiveness of its vaccine against symptomatic disease fell from about 96 percent to about 84 percent by six months after the second shot, although it held steady against severe disease. Pfizer argued in its filing that ebbing of the vaccines potency was the dominant reason for breakthrough infections among vaccinated people in Israel, which has relied almost exclusively on the Pfizer vaccine and has vaccinated its population faster than the United States. But the F.D.A. regulators wrote that while waning immunity is one potential factor in breakthrough infections, other variables, including the Delta variant, may also have contributed to the cases. In an interview, Pfizer officials acknowledged that the companys booster study was quite small. But they said that the data they have delivered meets the F.D.A.s criteria for justifying third shots for people 16 and up. Pfizer has another, much bigger booster study underway, with results expected this fall. The F.D.A.s analysis noted that Pfizer provided data on immune response against the Delta variant, by far the dominant variant in the U.S., in only two dozen people. Understanding the effectiveness of boosters against variants would likely be critical to the F.D.A.s review, the document suggested. Available data should support the effectiveness of the booster dose, particularly against currently circulating variants, regulators wrote. The analysis also suggested that regulators are cautiously weighing studies from Israel, which top Biden administration officials have said were key to their decision to recommend starting a booster campaign this month. Israel is already providing booster shots to most of its population. While observational studies can enable understanding of real-world effectiveness, there are known and unknown biases that can affect their reliability, the regulators wrote. Studies in the United States may most accurately represent vaccine effectiveness in the U.S. population, they added. Noah Weiland and

New study of booster shots fans a debate over extra doses. Image Getting a booster shot of the coronavirus vaccine last month in Jerusalem. Data from an Israeli study showed that a booster can enhance protection for a few weeks in older adults. Credit... Maya Alleruzzo/Associated Press Wading into an acrimonious debate over booster doses, researchers in Israel reported on Wednesday that a third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine can prevent both infections and severe illness in adults older than 60 for at least 12 days. The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, is the latest salvo in the conflict over whether booster doses are needed for healthy adults and whether they should be given out, as the Biden administration plans to do, when so much of the world remains unvaccinated. Several independent scientists said the cumulative data so far suggest that only older adults will need boosters  and maybe not even them. Vaccination remains powerfully protective against severe illness and hospitalization in the vast majority of people in all of the studies published so far, experts said. But the vaccines do seem less potent against infections in people of all ages, particularly those exposed to the highly contagious Delta variant. What the Israeli data show is that a booster can enhance protection for a few weeks in older adults  a result that is unsurprising, experts said, and does not indicate long-term benefit. What I would predict will happen is that the immune response to that booster will go up, and then it will contract again, said Marion Pepper, an immunologist at the University of Washington in Seattle. But is that three- to four-month window what were trying to accomplish? Federal health officials  including Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, President Bidens top medical adviser on the pandemic  have justified plans to distribute booster shots by pointing to emerging evidence from Israel and other countries suggesting that immunity from vaccination wanes over time. The idea has sent some Americans trying to get booster shots before they are formally authorized, a step the F.D.A. may take as soon as Friday. But even among government scientists, the idea has been met with skepticism and anger. Two scientists who lead the F.D.A.s vaccine branch said they would leave the agency this fall, in part because of their unhappiness over the administrations push for booster doses before federal researchers could review the evidence.

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Officials connect 16 Covid cases to New Yorks Electric Zoo music festival. Image The crowd at Randalls Island for the group Borgeous at the Electric Zoo music festival on Sept. 5. Credit... Krista Schlueter for The New York Times Health officials are investigating a cluster of at least 16 Covid cases linked to an electronic music festival earlier this month on Randalls Island in New York City and urging everyone who attended the event to get tested. The citys Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said in a statement on Wednesday that the cases were connected to Electric Zoo, a three-day music festival that started Sept. 3. The department also identified eight people who may have attended the event while they were contagious. Anyone who attended this festival should get tested immediately, regardless of whether or not they have been vaccinated, Dr. Dave A. Chokshi, New York Citys health commissioner, said in the statement. Electric Zoos organizers did not immediately respond to a request for comment. On Aug. 19, the festival announced that attendees would need to show proof of at least one vaccination or a negative Covid-19 test taken within 72 hours of the event. Masks were encouraged but not required. New York City is grappling with a late-summer surge fueled by the Delta variant. The city reported a seven-day average of 1,489 new cases daily on Tuesday, despite the fact that 61 percent of its eligible residents are fully vaccinated. News of the cluster comes as the concert industry faces a reckoning over how to rebound safely amid the highly contagious Delta variant. After being shut down for more than a year, the industrys comeback started promisingly. Restrictions were being eased and fans were snapping up tickets to events. But as the spread of the Delta variant accelerated, concerns mounted over safety. Artists including Stevie Nicks and Fall Out Boy canceled shows. For those moving forward with concerts or festivals, a loose consensus took shape that fans should be required to provide proof of vaccination, or at least a negative test. But anecdotal reports suggest that the rigor of vaccine checks can be lacking, and the question of who bears responsibility for setting and enforcing those rules  especially when governments in major markets like Texas and Florida oppose such mandates  remains a matter of debate.

The White House offers a call to Nicki Minaj to discuss vaccine safety. Video transcript Back bars 0:00 / 1:36 - 0:00 transcript White House Offers to Call Nicki Minaj to Discuss Covid Vaccine The White House offered Nicki Minaj a call with a doctor to answer questions about the safety of the Covid-19 vaccine, Jen Psaki, the press secretary said, after the rapper questioned its efficacy on Twitter this week. We engage all the time with people who have big public platforms or profiles, some of them we talk about, some of them are here. Some of them you dont even know about because theyre just looking for questions to be answered. We offered a call with Nicki Minaj and one of our doctors to answer questions she had about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine. This is pretty standard, and something we do all the time. It was a very early-stage call at a staff level, staff to staff, and we werent even at the point of discussing or were not even at the point of discussing, I should say at this point, the mechanisms or the format or anything along those lines. It was simply an offer to have a conversation. Reporter: What kind of responsibility. do you think someone like Nicki Minaj has, someone with a really big platform when it comes to talking about the vaccine? Well, our hope is that anyone who has a big platform is going to project accurate information about the effectiveness of the vaccine, the safety of the vaccine and the availability of the vaccine  at the same time  and both can be true. We also recognize that people have questions out there. They have questions they want to have answered by their doctors. We have doctors who can answer questions. I would say that if we believed that everybody who had skepticism about the vaccine wasnt someone we should engage with or talk to, we wouldnt have made the progress weve made. I mean, remember, back in December, only 33 percent of the American people were open to getting vaccinated. Now, more than 75 percent have had at least one shot. So part of our strategy and our objective from the beginning has been engaging with people who have questions to help answer their questions. The White House offered Nicki Minaj a call with a doctor to answer questions about the safety of the Covid-19 vaccine, Jen Psaki, the press secretary said, after the rapper questioned its efficacy on Twitter this week. Credit Credit... Jamie Mccarthy/Getty Images After the rapper Nicki Minaj questioned the efficacy of the Covid-19 vaccine in a Twitter post this week, the White House confirmed on Wednesday that it had offered her a call with a doctor to answer questions about the safety of the vaccine. Ms. Minajs comments drew widespread attention after she said she would not attend the Met Gala on Monday because she had yet to receive the vaccine, which was required for attendees. As we have with others, we offered a call with Nicki Minaj and one of our doctors to answer questions she has about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine, a White House official said in a statement on Wednesday night. Ms. Minaj appeared to believe that she was going to visit the White House. She said on Twitter on Wednesday that she would be dressed in all pink like Legally Blonde so they know I mean business. Ill ask questions on behalf of the ppl who have been made fun of for simply being human, she added. Asked about the possibility of dialogue between Ms. Minaj and the White House, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, told reporters on Thursday that officials had proposed a very early stage call that amounted to an offer to have a conversation about the safety of the vaccine. If we believed that everybody who had skepticism about the vaccine wasnt someone we should engage with or talk to, we wouldnt have made the progress weve made, Ms. Psaki said. Ms. Psaki said she was unsure whether the call would take place. On Monday, Ms. Minaj asserted that her cousins friend in Trinidad and Tobago became impotent after receiving the vaccine, a claim that nations minister of health, Terrence Deyalsingh, rejected. There has been no such reported either side effect or adverse event, he said in a news conference online. And what was sad about this is that it wasted our time yesterday, trying to track down, because we take all these claims seriously, whether its on social media or mainstream media. Alyssa Lukpat, Zolan Kanno-Youngs and

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The pope urges everyone to get a Covid vaccine. Video The pope said that he didnt know how to explain why people dont trust the vaccines, adding that it was ironic that a cardinal who was not vaccinated had been hospitalized with the virus. Credit Credit... Pool photo by Tiziana Fabi Pope Francis on Wednesday urged people to get vaccinated against Covid-19, adding that it was ironic that a cardinal who was not vaccinated had been hospitalized with the virus. The pope, who has said that getting the vaccine is an act of love, made the comments to reporters on his plane. He seemed to be referring to an American cardinal, Raymond Burke, who spread vaccine misinformation and then was treated for Covid-19 at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. Even in the College of Cardinals, Francis said, there are some anti-vaxxers, and one of them, poor man, is in hospital with the virus. But life is ironic. He said he didnt know how to explain why people dont trust the vaccines. Humanity has a history of friendship with vaccines, he said. As children, we got them for measles, for other things, for polio. All the children were vaccinated, and no one said anything. Then this happened. Francis added that everyone in the Vatican, except for a small group, was inoculated against the virus.

L.A. County will require proof of vaccination at drinking establishments. Image Patrons in the Tiki-Ti bar when it reopened on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, in July. Beginning next month, Los Angeles County is going to require proof of vaccination in bars, clubs and other establishments that serve alcohol. Credit... Damian Dovarganes/Associated Press Los Angeles County next month will require proof of coronavirus vaccination to enter bars, nightclubs and other drinking establishments, as it joins the list of places putting pressure on people to get vaccinated, the county authorities said. The county will require customers and employees at such establishments, which also include wineries, breweries and lounges, to show proof that they have at least one dose of the vaccine starting on Oct. 7 and both doses by Nov. 4. The move was announced on Wednesday by Dr. Barbara Ferrer, the director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, at a meeting of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. This is a reasonable path forward that could position us to be better able to break the cycle of the surges, Dr. Ferrer said. The requirement also extends to outdoor mega events, where attendees and employees starting on Oct. 7 must show either proof of a vaccine or of a negative Covid test within the past three days, the authorities said. Restaurants will not be included in this mandate, although the county recommends that restaurants follow it anyway. It wasnt clear why restaurants were omitted. The county already requires people to wear masks indoors, regardless of vaccination status. County authorities did not specify how they would ask people to prove they were vaccinated. In New York, which last month became the first U.S. city to require proof of at least one dose for a variety of activities, workers and customers can either show their paper vaccination card or present evidence using one of two apps: NYC Covid Safe, issued by the city, or Excelsior Pass, issued by New York State. In France, as of Aug. 1, anyone without a health pass showing they have been vaccinated or recently tested negative will not be admitted to restaurants, cafes or movie theaters, and they will not be able to travel long distances by train. The Italian government announced in July that it would require people to show proof of vaccination or a recent negative test in order to participate in certain public activities, including indoor dining, visiting museums and attending shows. The move in Los Angeles County comes as debate is heating up over how far governments should  or can  go in circumscribing the life of the unvaccinated. That debate has intensified after many areas, including Los Angeles County, saw a wave of new coronavirus infections fueled by the Delta variant. The seven-day average of new cases in the county has decreased slightly after reaching a peak of 3,477 on Aug. 18, according to a New York Times database. Of the county residents eligible for a vaccine, 58 percent are fully vaccinated. How Frances Vaccine Pass Is Working So Far Leontine Gallois Reporting from Paris How Frances Vaccine Pass Is Working So Far Leontine Gallois Reporting from Paris Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times France this summer began requiring patrons to show proof of vaccination to eat at restaurants or visit other public spaces  similar to rules that New York City started to enforce on Monday. Heres a look at the French system  How Frances Vaccine Pass Is Working So Far Leontine Gallois Reporting from Paris Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times There have been weekly protests, some quite large, but many people have decided that showing the pass sanitaire is worth it to return to Frances famed cafe life. Diners need to show the pass even if they are eating outside; in New York, showing proof is only for indoors. How Frances Vaccine Pass Is Working So Far Leontine Gallois Reporting from Paris Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times Entering restaurants takes longer, but many people dont mind. Showing that Im vaccinated doesnt bother me at all, said Camila Chaves, drinking wine on a Paris terrace. I dont go to bars any less. On the contrary, I waited too long for them not to go and enjoy. How Frances Vaccine Pass Is Working So Far Leontine Gallois Reporting from Paris Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times Scanning passes means more work. It takes time, on top of everything else we have to do, said Kyllian Borie, 25, a waiter. Still he said he takes the rules seriously; authorities have carried out spot checks, with the threat of fines and closures for non-compliance. How Frances Vaccine Pass Is Working So Far Leontine Gallois Reporting from Paris Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times Fears that the health passes could deeply affect the economy have so far not materialized. Government figures suggest household consumption in August  including spending at restaurants  is just 1.5 percent lower than the end of 2019. How Frances Vaccine Pass Is Working So Far Leontine Gallois Reporting from Paris Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times In France, virus cases rose this summer as lockdowns lifted and the Delta variant spread, but Arnaud Fontanet, an epidemiologist who advises the government, said measures like the pass sanitaire helped contain the virus. Cases declined in recent weeks. Catch up on the latest coronavirus news: Schools in New York City fully reopen after 18 months of pandemic restrictions.

The likelihood of disruptions tempers the elation of the first day back in N.Y.C. public schools. Copy story link Sep. 13, 2021











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FEMA agrees to cover Covid-19 costs for New York City public hospitals. Image Behind Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan, refrigeration units being used as makeshift morgues in March 2020 during the initial Covid-19 surge in New York City. Credit... Eduardo Munoz/Reuters After months of delay, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has agreed to reimburse New York Citys public hospital system almost $1 billion for its expenses treating patients during the citys brutal first wave of Covid-19 in 2020. Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, and Representative Ritchie Torres, both of whom represent New York, announced the news Wednesday outside of Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx, one of the citys 11 public hospitals. The hospital is in Mr. Torress congressional district. Mayor Bill de Blasio, also in attendance, praised the work the public hospital system has done during the pandemic, calling the system the tip of the spear. Nearly 3,000 patients died of Covid-19 in the systems hospitals between March and September of 2020, according to state data. He added, What I saw from all of you was extraordinary courage, strength, resiliency, incredible commitment. In October 2020, the system, known as NYC Health + Hospitals, requested roughly $900 million from FEMA to cover costs related to hiring extra staff and expanding its capacity to treat coronavirus patients. FEMA had initially agreed to reimburse only $260 million, less than one-third of the request, arguing that the remainder consisted of costs that were not necessarily related to the virus. But the public hospital system, backed by the lawmakers, maintained that it was impossible to separate specific Covid-related expenses at a time when the system was swamped by the disease. Mr. Torress office said Wednesday that after the lawmakers got involved, FEMA relented and agreed to send the system an additional $620 million. In a June letter to FEMA, the head of NYC Health + Hospitals, Dr. Mitchell Katz, wrote that the system had spent about $2 billion in its response to Covid-19, and that it needed more reimbursement immediately to provide critically needed cash flow to our safety net system. The reimbursement will cover staffing, equipment and patient care efforts that were necessary during the surge of Covid-19 cases, according to Mr. Torress office. FEMA did not immediately respond to a request for comment. At the Wednesday announcement, Dr. Katz thanked Mr. Schumer and Mr. Torres for proving that the federal government can work. We were short on supplies, he said, recalling the worst days of the first Covid wave. We were short on staffing, and the mayor never questioned whether or not we would get fully reimbursed. He always said, Mitch, do what you need to do.

North and Central America are driving a hemispheric coronavirus surge, the W.H.O. says. Image A Covid-19 patient being prepared for a hospital transfer in Pointe-a-Pitre, Guadeloupe. Credit... Carla Bernhardt/Agence France-Presse  Getty Images While the spread of new coronavirus cases is steady or slowing in much of the world, it is accelerating in the Western Hemisphere, where new case reports rose by 20 percent in the past week, the World Health Organization warned on Wednesday. North America, where new case reports are up by one-third, is the chief driver of the new infections. New cases doubled in the Canadian province of Alberta, where hospitals are experiencing a critical staffing shortage, Dr. Carissa F. Etienne, the director of the Pan American Health Organization, a division of the W.H.O., said at a news conference. And with new cases in the United States reaching levels not seen since January, Dr. Etienne said, hospital capacity in many Southern U.S. states remains worryingly low. Several Central American countries are also experiencing infection surges, including Costa Rica, Guatemala and Belize. The spread of the virus has slowed somewhat in the Caribbean, but there are exceptions, including Jamaica, where new case reports are at their highest of the pandemic. By contrast, in most of South America, which was very hard hit earlier in the year, reports of new infections and Covid-19 deaths are declining. The organizations experts are not sure why, though they dismissed speculation that a decline in testing might be responsible. Its important to note that this drop in South America is not an effect of laboratory testing, said Dr. Sylvain Aldighieri, P.A.H.O.s incident manager for Covid-19. Laboratory vigilance has been maintained. Dr. Aldighieri said a number of factors could be at work in South America, including strict social distancing measures and reduced mobility in some countries. The change of season may also play a role, he added, noting that the epidemiological curves for influenza between 2014 and 2019 in South America have a similar behavior to Covid-19 between 2020 and 2021. Although the highly infectious Delta variant is becoming predominant in the Caribbean, it has yet to make significant inroads in South America, Dr. Aldighieri said. W.H.O. officials called on national governments to pay more attention to how the pandemic affects children, both directly and indirectly. At the beginning of the pandemic, the virus was having a disproportionate impact on our elderly, Dr. Etienne said, and as a result, too many children and young people still dont think theyre at risk. We must change that. The strains that the pandemic has placed on health services also mean that many young people are not getting annual checkups, routine vaccinations and other services, including reproductive health services. That is helping to fuel one of the largest jumps in teenage pregnancy that weve seen in more than a decade, Dr. Etienne said. And the closing of schools because of the pandemic has triggered the worst educational crisis we have ever seen in this region, she added.

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Biden meets with executives to push vaccine mandates. Image Its about saving lives  thats what this is all about, President Biden said of vaccine mandates at a meeting with business leaders on Wednesday. Credit... Doug Mills/The New York Times President Biden met on Wednesday with top executives from Microsoft, the Walt Disney Company, Kaiser Permanente and other companies that have endorsed vaccine mandates, days after he announced a federal effort to require employees of large companies to be vaccinated against the coronavirus or be tested regularly. The administration sought to use the meeting to show that vaccine mandates are good for the economy while spotlighting employers that have mandates for workers or have praised Mr. Bidens order. The meeting was meant to rally more business support for mandates. Its about saving lives  thats what this is all about, said Mr. Biden, who was flanked by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Jeffrey D. Zients, the White House pandemic coordinator. Vaccinations mean fewer infections, hospitalizations and deaths, and in turn it means a stronger economy, he added. One of the invitees to the meeting, Tim Boyle, the chief executive of Columbia Sportswear, said in an interview on Wednesday that his company had drafted a policy mandating vaccines months ago. But it had held off carrying it out until Mr. Biden announced last week that he was directing the Labor Department to issue an emergency safety declaration that would effectively function as a vaccine mandate for tens of millions of workers. Columbia Sportswear told its workers that it will put a vaccine requirement in place next week. Mr. Boyle said Columbia was concerned that by acting alone it would risk losing as many as half of its workers in distribution centers and retail stores. Mr. Bidens order, he said, reduced the risk that workers who dont want to get vaccinated would quit to work elsewhere. Theres much less opportunity for people to go somewhere they dont need to be vaccinated, he said. Mr. Boyle said vaccinations had divided Columbias work force. Managers in its Portland, Ore., headquarters have largely embraced the shots, he said, but retail and warehouse workers throughout the country have been more reluctant. He said that hesitancy had hurt the company, with infections and the threat of infection forcing closures and cleanings of locations. Those operations are predicated on people working together closely, he said. Having unvaccinated workers is highly disruptive. Several of the business leaders who met with Mr. Biden have installed mandates already, for at least part of their work force, including Disney, Walgreens and Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia. Jim Tankersley and

The U.S. makes coronavirus vaccinations mandatory for new immigrants. Image A vaccination center in New York in April. Credit... Brittainy Newman for The New York Times Beginning Oct. 1, new immigrants to the United States must be fully vaccinated against Covid-19, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said in a news release on Tuesday. People seeking to become lawful permanent residents  or green card holders  have permission to live in the United States and eventually seek citizenship. Applicants for permanent residency must undergo a medical examination. The Covid vaccine joins a list of others that applicants must have, including inoculations against measles, mumps, rubella, polio, and hepatitis A and B, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Some people may be exempt from the new rules, including those who are too young to be vaccinated and those who have medical conditions that make the shots dangerous for them. About 54 percent of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated against Covid-19, and some people have begun to get booster shots. The new requirement for those seeking permanent U.S. residency is in line with President Bidens new vaccine mandates for federal workers and contractors. The Pentagon has announced that active-duty military personnel also must be vaccinated. Mr. Biden has rolled back several Trump-era immigration rules, including a ban on legal immigration that Donald J. Trump implemented at the beginning of the pandemic.

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The E.U. adopts a new strategy to counter future pandemics. Video transcript Back bars 0:00 / 0:57 - 0:00 transcript E.U. Promises 200 Million Vaccine Doses to Low-Income Nations Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, pledged to donate 200 million extra doses of the coronavirus vaccine to middle- and low-income countries by mid-2022. When I stood here in front of you 12 months ago, I did not know when or even if we could have a safe and effective vaccine against Covid-19. But today, against all critics, Europe is among the world leaders. More than 70 percent of our adult population is fully vaccinated. This is one of the great geopolitical issues in our time. Team Europe is investing $1 billion euro to ramp up mRNA production capacity with Africa. We have already committed to share 250 million doses of vaccine. I can announce today that the commission will add a new donation of another 200 million doses until the middle of next year. This is an investment in solidarity, and it is an investment also in global health. Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, pledged to donate 200 million extra doses of the coronavirus vaccine to middle- and low-income countries by mid-2022. Credit Credit... Julien Warnand/EPA, via Shutterstock The European Union announced on Wednesday the creation of a new biomedical authority designed to better respond to future pandemics, as it seeks to avoid repeating the mistakes that plagued its early response to the coronavirus. Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, the blocs executive arm, also pledged to donate 200 million extra coronavirus vaccine doses to middle- and low-income countries by mid-2022, in addition to 250 million already promised by the end of the year. In her annual speech on the state of the union, Ms. von der Leyen described vaccination discrepancies as one of the greatest geopolitical issues facing nations. The scale of injustice and the level of urgency are obvious, Ms. von der Leyen told lawmakers at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, in eastern France, acknowledging that the bloc and other rich nations had fallen short on their promises. But the blocs pledges on vaccine donations have so far rung hollow: E.U. member countries had only donated 18 million doses as of early September, a fraction of the 200 million promised. Covax, the global vaccine-sharing program, of which the European Union is a part, last week slashed its forecast for doses available this year, in part because rich countries continued to hold most of the worlds doses. Still, Ms. von der Leyens speech served as a reset for the European Commission after early missteps in vaccine procurement that took a more positive turn in recent months. While most developing countries have yet to administer a single dose of a coronavirus vaccine, including in the European Unions immediate neighborhood, more than 70 percent of adults across the bloc have been fully vaccinated. We delivered, she said, although she conceded that the bloc faced wide discrepancies domestically, as several Eastern European countries have been lagging behind. Ms. von der Leyens confident tone on Wednesday came in great contrast with her speech last year, when new Covid-19 cases were picking up across the bloc and coronavirus vaccines were months away. When I stood here in front of you a year ago, I didnt know when and if we could have a safe and effective vaccine against the pandemic, she said. The European Commission, which negotiated for vaccines on behalf of member countries, was heavily criticized for the sluggish beginning of its vaccination program. The commission signed its first deal on behalf of member nations months after the United States, hampering vaccine deliveries and, later, inoculation campaigns. Yet the rollout gained speed in recent months, and many E.U. countries have now overtaken other rich nations like the Britain, Israel and the United States. Some have started administering booster shots to millions of older and vulnerable residents, even though the World Health Organization has called on the richest nations to delay boosters until the end of the year, to allow more doses to go to poorer countries. To help the bloc be better prepared for future health crises, Ms. von der Leyen said that the new agency  known as the Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority, or HERA  would aim to make sure that no virus will ever turn a local epidemic again into a global pandemic. It is set to receive 50 billion euros (about $59 billion) in funding by 2027 and will function alongside the E.U.s existing health agencies, the European Center for Disease Control and the European Medicines Agency. But its exact role remains unclear, as E.U. members each run their own health policies. The pandemic brought to light the limits of the European Center for Disease Control, which is in charge of coordinating individual nations pandemic response plans but has had limited powers in enforcing or modifying states actions. Still, many welcomed the creation of the new agency, highlighting a need for more coordination at an E.U. level. Veronique Trillet-Lenoir, an oncologist and a lawmaker in the European Parliament, said the agency could reinforce solidarity among the blocs member countries, something it lacked in the early stages of the pandemic. What the coronavirus pandemic has shown is that the 27 member states have fared much better all together, Ms. Trillet-Lenoir said, and that no European country would have done better on its own. Elian Peltier and

Back to school in the Bronx: How one principal welcomed her students back. Image Hundreds of children and parents showed up in August for a back-to-school carnival at Public School 5 in the South Bronx, part of an effort to welcome students back to in-person learning. Credit... James Estrin/The New York Times The last 18 months have been exceptionally difficult for Public School 5 in the South Bronx, which serves low-income Black and Latino elementary- and middle-school students in a neighborhood that has been ravaged by the coronavirus. Last year, about 80 percent of the schools roughly 600 students chose to learn remotely. But Danielle Keane, the schools principal, believed her students needed to be back in classrooms this fall. And she knew she couldnt just hope that her families would suddenly feel comfortable sending their children back. So over the summer, she set out to make P.S. 5 a place that people wanted to be. There were comedy nights for families, along with literacy classes for parents still learning English, an outdoor movie night in the park adjacent to the school and a carnival that was wildly successful. On Monday, nearly 90 percent of students on Ms. Keanes register returned to classrooms, a higher percentage than the citywide average of just over 82 percent. The school felt as vibrant as Ms. Keane hoped it would. What a beautiful day, she said. But its only a first step toward achieving something like a normal school year. Ms. Keanes work is being put to the test this week, as New Yorks school system, the nations largest, fully reopens for the first time since March 2020  with no remote learning option. Theres so much the schools teachers dont know about what the hundreds of children who were remote last year have been through. The academic and mental health challenges that will reveal themselves in the coming days and weeks may be enormous.

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To shore up his standing, Britains prime minister doubles down on vaccination. Image Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain spoke to reporters in London on Tuesday about his governments coronavirus plans. Credit... Pool photo by Dan Kitwood When Prime Minister Boris Johnson fumbled his initial response to the coronavirus pandemic, his political fortunes faltered. Then when Britains vaccine rollout proved surprisingly effective, his standing rebounded. Now, with his popularity waning again  this time over tax policy  Mr. Johnson is hoping that the shots will turn things around for him a second time. He is placing his faith in a redoubled vaccine campaign, including initial shots for children 12 to 15 and boosters for anyone over 50, to protect Britains health service from being overwhelmed by a winter surge, and to spare him from having to order lockdowns that would depress the economy and infuriate a noisy caucus of his own lawmakers. If a major winter surge does develop, Mr. Johnson could reinstitute a mask mandate, introduce vaccine passports, and urge workers to stay home if possible, under what the government calls its Plan B. Full lockdowns would be a last resort. Were now in a situation where so many of the population have some degree of immunity, smaller changes in the way were asking people to behave can have a bigger impact, Mr. Johnson said at a news conference on Tuesday. For a leader who often seems to defy political gravity, the risks are high. Poll ratings are slipping for Mr. Johnsons Conservative Party, and some of the new voters he attracted in the 2019 election might be drifting away. His premiership currently doesnt seem to have delivered on the things that these voters want, said Matthew Goodwin, professor of politics at Kent University. The vaccine bounce helped him the first time around, Mr. Goodwin said, and if the booster plan  which will be a massive story in British politics  goes well and hes able to say the rollout is going to plan, that will potentially help him. Stephen Castle and

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Alvaro Barrington

Through Oct. 23. Nicola Vassell Gallery, 138 10th Avenue, Manhattan. 212-463-5160; nicolavassell.com.

Alvaro Barringtons Manhattan debut of big, bright, sometimes object-laden paintings on burlap is portentously titled Garvey 1: Birth  The Quiet Storm and should be taken as a statement of intent, wide-ranging talent and exuberant ambition. Ignore the overreaching news release at the front desk which ties the artists life to that of Marcus Garvey, because of similarities in their migratory paths, and consider the work, which is by turn beautiful, awkward and slightly laughable.

Barrington was in born in 1983 in Venezuela, where his parents (one Grenadian, one Haitian) were migrant workers; he grew up between New York and the Caribbean. He had an excellent solo American debut at MoMA PS1 in Long Island City in 2017, and, since then, seems to have taken London and Paris by storm.

The paintings here suggest an artist who may be stretching himself too thin; in images of the artists eight or so shows in European galleries, archived online, they look tighter, his materials denser. But he is also scaling up his figures and customizing his narrative.
PARIS  Ahead of rehearsals for his staging of George Enescus Oedipe at the Paris Opera, the playwright and director Wajdi Mouawad did something unusual. He put together a glossary of all the obscure references in the libretto  like the water of Castalia, a sacred spring in Delphi  and sent it to the chorus.

Mouawad, 52, who runs the Theatre National de la Colline in Paris, was taken aback to find the choristers had never received anything like it. When he approached the companys technical crew to explain to them the story of Oedipe, a rarity from the 1930s based on the Greek myth, their reaction was similar, he said in an interview  few directors ever bothered to pay them much mind.

Its odd, because I hear, Its wonderful, you say hello, Mouawad added. I feel like Im stepping into a traumatized world that now believes its trauma is the norm.

Trauma is not a bad way of describing the past few years at the fractious Paris Opera. In late 2019 and early 2020, labor strikes over a pension policy overhaul resulted in a 45 million euro deficit in a budget hovering around 230 million euros. And that was before the pandemic forced the cancellation of over a years worth of performances. (While some performances took place in September and October last year, the company didnt resume its regular schedule until late May.)
In addition, there are individual scenes here, and interviewees that were absent from The Lost Leonardo, which add spice to the narrative of how an ostensibly lost painting by a Renaissance master was restored, kicked around various markets of the mega-rich, and subsequently bought, it seems, by a Saudi royal.

One spicy new element is Loic Gouzer, the former co-chairman of postwar and contemporary art at Christies who put together the paintings final auction. He is portrayed as a brash and repellent character. Gouzers own social media accounts provide no small assist here; posts include a boastful video of him proclaiming, Well do an auction that will make the market great again.

Vitkine, however, can be sloppy; he names individual sections after certain power players (The Curator, The Expert) and deems two different people The Merchant. He then plays some dirty pool by showing a headline from The New York Times about the buyer of the painting, cropping out the byline of the correspondent David D. Kirkpatrick.

Scott Reyburn, a London-based freelance journalist who writes for the Times and is featured onscreen, allows that Kirkpatricks article was quite a scoop. You bet!

Savior for Sale: Da Vincis Lost Masterpiece?

Not rated. In English and French, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. Rent or buy on Amazon, Apple TV and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators.
At St. Marks Church in-the-Bowery, there hangs a shadowbox  a square, three-dimensional display case  containing a black and white photograph of Charlie Parker. His lips are pursed, his fingers are poised and hes playing his saxophone with deep concentration.

In the top right corner is an orange QR code. Scan it, and the voice of the actor and comedian John Leguizamo begins, crisp and clear.

A blazing jazz virtuoso and developer of bebop, Charlie Parker, or Bird, as he was nicknamed, changed the course of music, Leguizamo says. He was a saxophonist, pioneering composer, an improvisational genius who ushered in a new era of jazz.

Leguizamo tells the tale of bebop, the fast tempo jazz style that Parker pioneered. At the height of his career, the saxophonist moved to the East Village, where the shadowbox now hangs.
LONDON  Crime shows have been a popular British export for decades, but a recent batch of big budget, critically acclaimed BBC thrillers have drawn record weekly viewing figures here, keeping viewers transfixed in a state of constant, existential dread.

This attention partly comes from the knowledge that a shows main characters could die at any moment. Earlier this year, 15 million viewers watched the series finale of Line of Duty, a police procedural that killed off a central character early in its first season, and then another in the first episode of the second. This made it the most watched episode of British television drama of the 21st century so far, based on ratings for the first seven days of a shows availability.

In 2018, 14 million people watched the finale of Bodyguard, a political thriller which unexpectedly lost a key character, according to data from PA, a news agency.

And the BBCs latest offering, Vigil, a drama investigating a mysterious death on a nuclear submarine looks set to continue this trend, attracted double-digit-millions of viewers to its first episode, according to the BBC. Set to air on the U.S. streaming service Peacock later this year, its fair to say Vigil is also full of unexpected twists and turns.
Both shows have a style and a prevailing mood that incorporate true-crime documentary conventions, podcast fussiness and generational perspective. Neyfakhs narration and interpretation, while sparing, lend a trace of self-consciousness. And if you lived through the events being depicted, the 30-something Neyfakhs presentation of them can have a slightly irritating flavor of nostalgia and condescension, emphasizing the quaintness of the not-that-distant past.

But in a way, that nostalgia is the message: There is a quaintness in Richard Nixons comeuppance in Slow Burn, in a time when there was still a generally shared sense of right and wrong. A decade later, in Fiasco, we see a transitional period, as the minimal fallout for Reagan from Iran-contra begins to normalize the White Houses trampling of the Constitution.

Neyfakh aims for a mixture of surprise and sentiment rather than outrage, and in service of that hes a deft storyteller, moving back and forth in time and homing in on sometimes obscure events to make sense of the unwieldy, stranger-than-fiction Iran-contra saga: two separate and scandalous instances of government malfeasance  a secret swap of arms for prisoners in the Middle East and an illegal prosecution of war in Central America  that became intertwined when both were put in Norths hands.

Keeping that narrative coherent and lively is an engaging and largely unfamiliar battery of talking heads. Among the principal chroniclers are the reporter Doyle McManus; the refreshingly casual Howard Teicher, a National Security Council staff member at the time; and the former national security adviser Robert McFarlane, who is heard but not seen, a ghostly logistical hitch that actually seems appropriate given his mournful, repentant testimony.

The shows keep their gaze firmly on the past, and Neyfakh avoids editorializing in his occasional conjectures about motives and outcomes. But the resonance of Slow Burn and Fiasco, both made during the term of Donald Trump, with current American rancor is inescapable. McManus gets something like the last word in Fiasco, saying that the lesson of Iran-contra lies in the immense difficulty of putting limits on a modern president.
In the final episode of The Queens Gambit, the wildly popular Netflix series, an announcer delivers chess play-by-play and commentary while the shows fictional heroine, portrayed by Anya Taylor-Joy, competes in a climactic tournament in Moscow.

The only unusual thing about her, really, is her sex, and even thats not unique in Russia, the announcer intones, as a woman watching the match comes into focus. Theres Nona Gaprindashvili, but shes the female world champion and has never faced men.

The series is fiction, but there is a real pioneering chess champion named Nona Gaprindashvili, the first woman to be named a grandmaster. Now 80 years old and living in Tbilisi, Georgia, she was pained to learn that the television show had erased her many successes against male opponents. (A 1968 headline in The New York Times, for instance, reads, Chess: Miss Gaprindashvili Beats 7 Men in a Strong Tourney.)

So on Thursday, Ms. Gaprindashvili filed a lawsuit against Netflix in Federal District Court in Los Angeles, seeking millions of dollars in damages for what the suit claims is a devastating falsehood, undermining and degrading her accomplishments before an audience of many millions and calling for the line about her not facing men to be removed.
If youre looking for escapist reading, this weeks recommended books wont help. But if you want a cleareyed and sometimes rousing look at the state of the world today, settle right in: Weve got books about the Mexican drug trade and Americas efforts to combat it (The Dope, by Benjamin T. Smith), along with an argument that modern warfare is too easy (Samuel Moyns Humane) and a memoir by a key figure in Donald Trumps first impeachment (Alexander Vindmans Here, Right Matters). Weve got a hardscrabble immigration memoir from Qian Julie Wang, Beautiful Country, and two books exploring aspects of technology: Meghan OGieblyns God, Human, Animal, Machine and Tom Standages A Brief History of Motion. And in fiction, we recommend three debut novels about characters trying to make the best of sometimes dire circumstances: Paris Is a Party, Paris Is a Ghost, by David Hoon Kim, Three Rooms, by Jo Hamya, and The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois, by the accomplished poet Honoree Fanonne Jeffers.

Gregory Cowles

Senior Editor, Books

HUMANE: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War, by Samuel Moyn. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $30.) In his smart and provocative new book, Moyn suggests that making war less cruel diverts Americans from pursuing the more radical goal of genuine peace. Spectacular technological advances have reduced casualties  at least when compared with conventional warfare  but they have also opened up new ethical conundrums. Our critic Jennifer Szalai writes: Arriving 20 years after 9/11, as the United States has withdrawn its troops from Afghanistan, Humane encourages readers to ask central questions too often lost amid the chatter of the foreign policy establishment.

GOD, HUMAN, ANIMAL, MACHINE: Technology, Metaphor, and the Search for Meaning, by Meghan OGieblyn. (Doubleday, $28.) In brainy, loosely linked chapters, OGieblyn eloquently dissects our tech-obsessed cultures elevation of data and quantification over qualitative experience, detecting in our relentless turn toward machines the remnants of a more humane, even spiritual reality. The book is a hybrid beast, a remarkably erudite work of history, criticism and philosophy, but it is also, crucially, a memoir, Becca Rothfeld writes in her review, applauding OGieblyn for speaking from a frankly personal point of view: For all our posturing, beings like us could scarcely hope to speak from anywhere else.

THE LOVE SONGS OF W.E.B. DU BOIS, by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers. (HarperCollins, $28.99.) This triumphant debut novel follows a young Black woman figuring out how to live with joy in the modern American South. The novel switches between the past and the present, alternating the heroines story with those of her ancestors. The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois is quite simply the best book that I have read in a very, very long time, Veronica Chambers writes in her review. I will avoid the cliche of calling it a great American novel. Maybe the truest thing I could say is that this is an epic tale of adventure that brings to mind characters you never forget: Meg Murry in A Wrinkle in Time, Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird, Huckleberry Finn.
Lately Ive found that audiobooks are keeping me up at night. Its not because Im devouring them in nocturnal binges, unable to tear myself away. No, Im losing sleep because Im thinking about certain audiobooks too much. Like a movie watched just before bed, or a video game played too many times, a good audiobook peppered throughout the day can reverberate long after you have pressed pause. Whos the murderer? What would I do if I came face to face with a leopard? What must it have been like to be floating in the middle of the Pacific in the 16th century, scurvy-ridden and months from home? These three new audiobooks may provide some answers  but expect a fair share of mental somersaults along the way.

Something noteworthy happened about two hours into Paula Hawkinss A SLOW FIRE BURNING (Penguin Audio, 9 hours, 19 minutes). I realized I no longer needed to hear the attribution after quotes: I could tell who was talking without being told. Yes, this is testament to the writing of Hawkins, of The Girl on the Train fame. But it also speaks to the preternatural skills of the audiobooks narrator, the award-winning actor Rosamund Pike. Her evocative, precise delivery brings a smart whodunit to life in a way my imagination alone could never do. Virtually every character is a suspect and every suspect is fully formed, well beyond the cliches that this genre is prone to. The mystery surrounds the murder of a young man living on a houseboat on a London canal. From there Hawkins unravels a dense web of troubled familial relationships, a meta narrative in the form of another best-selling thriller within the plot, and a relentless series of mounting tragedies. Along the way are flashes of beautiful writing (walls the yellow of nicotine) and, in sum, a thought-provoking meditation on envy, love, hatred, vengeance and other feelings that slowly burn.

The science writer Mary Roach has a similar interest in the human condition; though in her books  about death, sex, the digestive system and more  she takes a decidedly less emotional view on who we are and why we do what we do. In FUZZ: When Nature Breaks the Law (Brilliance Audio, 9 hours, 17 minutes), Roach turns her obsessive eye and cheeky humor toward one age-old question: What is the proper course when nature breaks laws intended for people? Roach travels the world, from Colorado ski towns to tea farms in India to a landfill employing robotic falcons, in an effort to understand how we handle the ever-increasing incidents of human-animal interaction. There are thieving monkeys, elusive cougars (How do you count what you cant see?) and murderous trees, all of which point to the real culprit behind the so-called crimes: us.

As a narrator, Roach is no Rosamund Pike. I cringed at her ill-advised attempts to impersonate the intonations of the Indian bureaucrats and conservationists she meets on her travels. (Her inclination to put on a Yogi-esque drawl when giving a theoretical voice to a bear is far more charming.) But she delivers her funniest one-liners in a deadpan that will make you snort out loud (the future of turd science is bright). And the moments of travelogue that interrupt the zoological deep dives offer a personal authenticity to an account that otherwise could have easily been detached and dry.
Tensions over Australias submarine deal

Beijing and Paris responded with anger after Australia announced a military partnership with the U.S. and Britain that allows it to send submarines to monitor Chinas actions in the South China Sea.

French officials accused President Biden of acting like his predecessor, saying they were not consulted about the deal and describing the decision as a knife in the back. France also canceled a gala that was meant to celebrate its relations with the U.S.

Australia bet the house on U.S. power in Asia, our correspondents write in a news analysis. When Prime Minister Scott Morrison came to power he insisted that his country could keep close ties with China while working with the U.S. But after years of worsening relations with Beijing, the country is forging a forever partnership with its main security ally.

Quotable: It really is a watershed moment  a defining moment for Australia and the way it thinks about its future in the Indo-Pacific region, said Richard Maude, a former Australian security official who is now a senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute.
These often contradictory comments were a perfect encapsulation of Californians mood: They are universally unhappy with the states cost of living and the tent cities that have appeared along freeways, in parks and on beaches. But homeowners remain fiercely protective of their power to say what gets built near them. Kevin Faulconer, a former San Diego mayor and a Republican candidate in the recall election, all but ran away from his own pro-density policies in Californias second-largest city by saying, When we see some of these pieces of legislation that want to eliminate single-family zoning in California, thats wrong.

Mr. Newsom has tried to walk this same line. In 2018, he campaigned on a Marshall Plan for housing that had a goal of delivering 3.5 million new housing units by 2025. He came to regret the figure once he was in the governors chair, and it became fodder for his leading recall opponent, the talk show host Larry Elder, who seized on it as an example of broken promises. Mr. Elder did not need sophisticated research to find fault with the number: In a state that permits around 100,000 housing units a year, delivering 3.5 million  35 years of housing at the current pace  is close to a physical impossibility.

Mr. Newsom has been mostly quiet about big zoning legislation ever since. He did not take a position on Senate Bill 50, a contentious measure that would have allowed apartment buildings in neighborhoods across the state. And he was largely quiet about Senate Bill 9 as it passed through both houses of the State Legislature and lingered on his desk.
A long and winding journey

One of the most compelling dealmaking sagas this year hasnt been in tech, pharma or another industry that often dominates the news. It is a bidding war among railroads  what century is this again?  that has generated high drama. At stake was possibly the last major acquisition of a railroad, ending a long period of consolidation in the industry.

Canadian Pacific has emerged as the victor in a long-running battle to acquire Kansas City Southern, putting it in position to become the first railroad operator whose network spans the U.S., Canada and Mexico, allowing it to capitalize on trade flows across North America. Most notably, it won with a lower offer than rival bidder Canadian National, which announced yesterday that Kansas City Southern was terminating the merger agreement the companies signed in May.

The key was to avoid a bidding war, Canadian Pacifics C.E.O., Keith Creel, told DealBook. So how did it prevail with a lower price? Hop aboard for a quick recap:

March 21: Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern announce plans to combine in a $29 billion deal.

April 20: Canadian National barges in and submits a higher bid worth $33.7 billion. Canadian Pacifics Creel calls the offer illusory and said it would face regulatory resistance. Kansas City Southern acknowledges the bid, saying it will respond in due course.

May 6: The Surface Transportation Board, which oversees rail deals in the U.S., approves Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southerns use of a voting trust. This is a common structure in rail deals, but is controversial because it allows companies to proceed with integration before obtaining full clearance.
The Federal Reserve is poised to overhaul the rules regarding what its officials are allowed to invest in and trade after disclosures last week showed that two of the central banks officials were active in markets in 2020, drawing an outcry.

Robert S. Kaplan, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, and Eric Rosengren, the president of the Boston Fed, bought and sold stocks and real estate-tied assets last year.

Those transactions complied with Fed guidelines, but they involved securities that could have been affected by Fed decisions and communications during a year in which it was actively supporting a broad swathe of financial markets amid the pandemic. Policy researchers and even some former Fed employees were upset by the disclosures.

In response to the scrutiny, both regional presidents announced that they would sell their holdings and move them to cash and broad-based funds. Still, the episode highlighted that the Feds rules governing its officials financial activity  although in line with what much of the government uses, and in some cases stricter  allow for considerable individual discretion. The central bank said on Thursday that it would re-examine those policies at the direction of Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair.
After a summer of blistering heat across much of the country, the hotter-than-normal conditions that have contributed to severe drought across the West are forecast to continue into the fall, scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday.

Five states had their warmest June through August in 127 years of record-keeping. Not coincidentally, two of those states  California and Oregon  experienced some of the largest fires in their history, as the high temperatures contributed to extra-dry soils and vegetation that helped fires spread quickly.

Scott Handel, a meteorologist with NOAAs Climate Prediction Center, said during a news conference that the forecast for October called for above-normal temperatures across much of the country, with only the Pacific Northwest and the Gulf States likely to have near-average temperatures.

If that holds, the withering drought that currently ranges from the West Coast through the Southwest, the Rockies, the Northern Plains and into Central Minnesota will likely expand eastward. Eastern New Mexico and Eastern Colorado and nearly all of Texas, Oklahoma and Nebraska are likely to begin experiencing drought conditions.
Nursing home aides  the staff members who provide the most direct care to residents  were the least likely to be fully vaccinated against the coronavirus by mid-July, according to a new analysis of U.S. facilities.

The study underscores the influence that President Bidens new federal mandate for all health care workers may have on populations like the elderly in nursing homes who are vulnerable to coronavirus infections, experts say.

The findings are alarming and reason for pause, said Brian McGarry, a health researcher at the University of Rochester and one of the authors of the analysis, which appeared in a research letter in JAMA Internal Medicine on Thursday.

Low vaccination rates among nursing home workers in some areas have fueled concern about fresh outbreaks among staff and residents in these facilities, even with high numbers of vaccinated residents. Covid deaths among nursing home staff and residents accounted for nearly one third of the nations pandemic fatalities as of June 1, and vaccination rates among staff average around 63 percent, according to the latest federal data.
These graphs, which are data maps called choropleths, show the 30-year precipitation levels compared to the 20th century precipitation average for the time periods 1901-1930, 1931-1960, 1961-1990 and 1991-2020. The data was gathered from 15,000 weather stations from around the country, including more than 8,000 stations operated by volunteers. Started in 1890, this volunteer effort is one of the oldest and largest citizen-science projects anywhere. The graphs appeared elsewhere in the NYTimes.com.

On Wednesday, Sept. 22, we will live-moderate your responses online. On Friday, Sept. 24, we will reveal the graphs free online link, shout-outs for student headlines and Stat Nuggets.

After looking closely at the maps above (or at this full-size image), answer these four questions:

What do you notice?

What do you wonder?

How does this relate to you and your community?

Whats going on in this graph? Create a catchy headline that captures the graphs main idea.

The questions are intended to build on one another, so try to answer them in order.

2. Next, join the conversation online by clicking on the comment button and posting in the box. (Teachers of students younger than 13 are welcome to post their students responses.)

3. Below the response box, there is an option to click on Email me when my comment is published. This sends the link to your response which you can share with your teacher.
Can a mop of curly hair, a backpack and an outfit that looks like a mothers choice for school picture day send a 27-year-old actor back to his senior year of high school?

That will be the question facing filmgoers when Ben Platt reprises his performance as the titular awkward teenager in the film adaptation of the heartbreaking Broadway musical Dear Evan Hansen, due Sept. 24 in theaters.

When the first trailer was released in May, initial reactions to Platts attempt to shave off a decade were, well, less than rosy.

Raise your hand if you felt personally victimized by Ben Platts wig this morning, the writer Jorge Molina tweeted, prompting comparisons to the scene-stealing wig Sarah Paulson wore in The People v. O.J. Simpson.
This macho thing is overrated, Mike says. You think you have all the answers, but then you get older and realize you dont have any. By the time you figure it out, its too late. What that amounts to is a benign form of fatalism, a humility that the rest of the movie upholds. The button-pushing and liberal-baiting that flared in The Mule and Richard Jewell arent much in evidence here, and the canonical Eastwood persona  the avenger of innocence who dwells in legal and moral gray zones  is in a state of semiretirement. There is evil in the universe, but it might not be entirely his problem.

The opening scenes suggest otherwise. Rafos father, Howard (Dwight Yoakam), a big shot Texas rancher and Mikes former boss, dispatches Mike to Mexico to collect the boy. Though Mike doesnt much like Howard, he feels a sense of obligation, since Howard helped him get back on his feet after a series of personal tragedies.

Once across the Rio Grande, Mike finds Howards nutcase ex-wife in her bedroom, and their son at a cockfighting ring. Its 1980, by the way. The existence of GPS, cellphones and heavy security on the United States-Mexican border would spoil the atmosphere. Mike, Rafo and Macho light out in a series of Detroit junkers  mostly stolen, though nobody seems to mind  pursued by moms nasty boyfriend and the occasional federales.

Now and then, Mike calls Howard from a pay phone. The whole project turns out to be more complicated than it seemed at first. Dont trust anyone is Rafos mantra. That may be too sweeping, but dont trust anyone played by Dwight Yoakam is a pretty good rule of thumb. As the old man, the boy and the chicken make their way down the highway, you can anticipate the turns the story will take.
Two years ago, Max Harwood made a video in his bedroom.

A second-year student at a musical theater school in London, he introduced himself and said where he was from. He talked about how, as a child, he would don a bouffant wig and perform Rizzos songs from Grease, making his grandmother laugh so hard that she nearly wet herself.

That minute-long video was Harwoods first audition for the movie Everybodys Talking About Jamie, an adaptation of the sparkly West End musical about a teenager in the north of England with dreams of being a drag queen. Seeking new talent, the producers held an open call, which yielded thousands of tapes. Jonathan Butterell, the films director, watched nearly all of them, and Harwoods stood out immediately.

He had this kind of magic about him, Butterell recalled. He is fabulous without being arrogant. He called Harwood back six more times, for dance calls, for recording sessions, for chemistry reads, for drag challenges. The magic didnt fade.

So now Harwood  who had no professional credits, couldnt get into a first-class drama school and had been told that he should aim for ensemble parts  is filling some very high-heeled shoes. His ice-blonde crop and princeling looks occupy nearly every frame of Everybodys Talking About Jamie, which premiered on Amazon Prime Video on Sept. 17.
There are a lot of commonplace story elements in Wife of a Spy. Childhood friends divided by the beating of war drums. A glib, secretive husband and a distrustful wife. And so on. Combined with its period setting  the movie begins in 1940, at a silk inspection center in Kobe where a British fellow is picked up for questioning  viewers might therefore expect a fairly conventional dramatic thriller.

But the director and co-writer here is Kiyoshi Kurosawa, whose approaches to story and genre are always unusual. Soon into its machinations, Wife of a Spy begins to thrum with unusual intensity.

The husband, Yusaku (Issey Takahashi), who is in the import-export business and had dealings with the Briton, gets a visit from the military as a result. As it happens, the officer, Taiji (Masahiro Higashide), was a childhood friend of both Yusaku and his wife. While Taiji is initially friendly, at a time when Japanese nationalism is swelling, he is also suspicious and disapproving, telling his old friend that hes too familiar with Westerners, and is rather suspiciously westernized himself.
That decision by Ben & Jerrys led to intense criticism in Israel, with the nations ambassador to the United States, Gilad Erdan, going so far as to accuse the company of being antisemitic. The founders of Ben & Jerrys, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, said in an essay in The New York Times that, As Jewish supporters of the State of Israel, we fundamentally reject the notion that it is anti-Semitic to question the policies of the State of Israel.

The founders said that they had expected a swift and powerful reaction. And they got one.

Israels prime minister, Naftali Bennett, vowed to act aggressively against the decision and Mr. Erdan urged dozens of governors to punish the company under anti-boycott laws like the one New Jersey invoked this week. Last week, the state of Arizona announced that it would pull its $143 million in public funds out of Unilever.

The director of New Jerseys Division of Investment, Shoaib Khan, said it had determined after a review that Ben & Jerrys actions constituted a boycott of Israel or companies operating in Israel or Israeli-controlled territory.

The state then sent the letter to Unilever, a British company whose United States headquarters are in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., to notify the company about the decision.

Several other states, including New York and Illinois, have warned Unilever that they are considering divestment. In late July, Thomas P. DiNapoli, New Yorks state comptroller, sent a letter to Unilevers chief executive, Alan Jope, saying that he was troubled and concerned by reports of Ben & Jerrys actions. He gave the company 90 days to dissuade him.
The Met might as well have been 14 million miles away. Marie Mandarino, the owner of the City Island Lobster House, was asked if anyone had mentioned the white mermaid dress or the message that was spelled out in bright red lettering.

Not to my knowledge, she said. I honestly think it was disgusting, but thats just my point of view. Tax the rich at a $30,000-a-plate fund-raiser, which is totally ridiculous? But I dont talk politics or religion with anyone here. Its a good way to lose friends. (Actually, tickets were priced at $35,000.)

But the dress  by Aurora James, founder of Brother Vellies and the 15 Percent Pledge  remained a topic of discussion among fashion critics and on social media. GQ said it was precision-engineered Met Gala messaging, adding that Ocasio-Cortez took advantage of the events viral-making context. Other fashion types said the dress was more interesting than the words on it  words executed ironically in the finest haute craft.

Along with Fashion Week and the reopening of Broadway, the Met Gala was another milestone in what Vanessa Friedman, The Timess fashion critic, called the vaccine-required re-emergence of New York. (And, she added, you know something has changed when the biggest celebrity at a fashion show is not Gina Gershon or Nicky Hilton, but Kathy Hochul, the new governor of New York.)

As my colleague Annie Karni noted, Ocasio-Cortezs attendance at the gala and her dress were easy targets for her usual critics. On Twitter, Donald Trump Jr., the former presidents eldest son, tagged her as a fraud for sending a message about taxing the rich while shes hanging out with a bunch of wealthy leftwing elites.

The image of Ocasio-Cortez rubbing elbows with those people on Monday night irked some on the left, said Briahna Gray, the former national press secretary for Senator Bernie Sanderss 2020 campaign and the co-host of the Bad Faith podcast.

Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Instagram that she had anticipated criticism. Ultimately the haters hated and the people who are thoughtful were thoughtful, she wrote. But we all had a conversation about taxing the rich in front of the very people who lobby against it, and punctured the 4th wall of excess and spectacle. She also said that elected officials attended events like the Met Gala due to our responsibilities in keeping cultural institutions accessible to the public.
Presidential decisions about Afghanistan were often framed in terms of their accordance with military advice. For example, debate over President Barack Obamas troop surge in 2009 was shaped in part by the leak of a grim review of the situation in Afghanistan by Gen. Stanley McChrystal. And many observers believe that in 2017, Trumps generals persuaded him to send more troops to Afghanistan.

There is some evidence that military leaders and veterans are less willing than civilians to initiate use of force but, once it is engaged, prefer higher levels of it. It is not surprising that military leaders would be reluctant to give up on a mission their organization had invested so much in. But the issue is not the content of the military advice itself  there were certainly plenty of voices in civilian policy circles supporting a continued effort in Afghanistan.

The bigger concern is that in the context of the trust gap, this framing suggests that the public should be concerned not with evaluating the policy itself but rather with whether the military gets its way. Military expertise has an important place in sound policymaking. But in a democracy, it cannot be substituted for value judgments made on behalf of society by their elected leaders.

In addition, service members and veterans have a perceived moral competence. There is a perception that their service and sacrifice mean they have earned the right to weigh in on conflicts in a way civilians have not. But this impulse risks downplaying the importance of other forms of public service and civic engagement.

These troubling trust gap trends may have far-reaching effects. When the military is seen as the most competent, trustworthy government institution, it becomes tempting to invite the military to undermine civilian control and democratic governance. This was evident in public speculation about the role the military might play in adjudicating or enforcing the 2020 presidential election and in recent reports that largely portray Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as a check on an out-of-control president in the final days of the Trump administration.

So what can be done? We would benefit from efforts to demystify the military and re-emphasize the role of civilian policymakers. Making military bases less isolated from their surrounding communities and more accessible to civilians  as the congressionally mandated National Commission on Military, National and Public Service recommends  could be part of a strong foundation for such a change. The Defense Department could also do more to publicize the role of civilians in the conduct of the nations wars and emphasize the degree to which the day-to-day experience of many military jobs is relatable to civilians.

In the long term, as difficult a challenge as it may be, we should make every effort to shore up confidence in civilian democratic institutions and to elevate other forms of public service, which can be done without denigrating military service.
To the Editor:

Re False Diagnoses Conceal Drugging of Frail Seniors (front page, Sept. 12):

The deeper and more disturbing story underlying possible misdiagnosis and mishandling of medications for nursing home populations is the blame our country must take for the worsening situation of nursing home care.

Deinstitutionalization put thousands into the community who were mentally ill and unable to care for themselves decades ago; they are aging. Increasing numbers of individuals with opioid use disorder join the homeless without resources and recourse in todays nursing homes. No longer are these institutions inhabited only by the frail elderly, frequently with dementia, though they are still there.

Add Covid, vaccine hesitancy among staff, and the flight of staff from these positions now that mandates are ordered and the situation is more dire than ever. Try caring for these populations given this situation.

We abdicated our responsibility for those in nursing homes long ago when as a society, we chose to pay these tireless workers a wage they cant live on, saddled them with a high number of individuals to care for, and burdened them with increasingly punitive rules. Nursing assistants, nurses and administrators are leaving in droves, and who can blame them?
Outer space got a little more crowded on Wednesday night.

The four-person crew of SpaceXs Inspiration4 raised the number of people in space to 14, edging out a record set in 2009 when 13 people lived on the International Space Station after the space shuttle Endeavour docked there.

This year, though, the 14 humans in space were on three separate missions.

There is a team of seven aboard the space station at this time.

And the Shenzhou-12 spacecraft carried three astronauts who were completing a 90-day stay on Chinas space station, which is still under construction. On Friday, the crew returned safely to Earth, according to a state media report.

The Commander & Benefactor of the Inspiration4 is Jared Isaacman, a high school dropout who became a billionaire founder of a payments processing company. He follows fellow billionaires Richard Branson, the entrepreneur behind the Virgin companies, and Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, who went this year.
Like Ms. Blum, Adrienne Rolon, owner of Hearts Content Events & Design in Chesapeake, Va., decided not to offer all-virtual packages. Instead, she helped clients plan smaller weddings with a virtual component. The pandemic has definitely caused us to be light on our feet, innovative and flexible, Ms. Rolon said. She and her staff have their phones set to send alerts each time a statewide mandate changes, and most of her events have included masks and Sanitation Stations  and Zoom. Despite the uptick in Covid cases, shes seen a resurgence of couples planning in-person weddings for 2021 and 2022, and she predicts that most of those events will include professional livestreaming services.

At the start of the pandemic, Zoom weddings were often thought of as a sad alternative to throwing a live event where you can celebrate your union in the same space as family and friends. Now that weve gotten used to the idea of gathering via screen (and the Covid variants are harder to contain)  maybe virtual weddings are here to stay.

Hanel Choi, owner of Tristate Livestream in Westbury, N.Y., says that hes not seeing as many micro weddings as he was in 2020, but that the beauty of including technology like Zoom at weddings means that couples can give guests a choice (other than Yes/No) when they R.S.V.P. You dont have to pressure people to attend in person, said Mr. Choi, who averaged about five virtual events per month in 2020. He recently helped with hybrid weddings at the Oheka Castle in Huntington, N.Y., and at Sea Cliff Manor in Sea Cliff, N.Y., both scenic venues that in the past have been all about the on-site experience. Now, though, some vendors said its becoming almost inconsiderate for couples not to include a Zoom component as an option.

With the pandemic still very much in our lives, maybe a grandparent doesnt feel safe flying across the country, or a friend feels pressure to attend a wedding in person. Those are pretty good reasons to keep Zoom packages as an option.

By doing a Zoom wedding, we were trying to be inclusive and do what we thought was the safest thing, said Mr. Tinaglia of his intimate hotel room wedding. Its really an expression of love.
When the American-born artist Basil Kincaid began researching his St. Louis roots after a 2015 residency in Ghana (where he now lives), he discovered he came from a long line of quilt makers. Though already an established photographer and collagist by that point, Kincaid, now 34, had never sewn before, but around the same time he had a dream in which his grandmother urged him to try, and afterwards, it was like I had always known how to do it, he says. Fast-forward to the present, and Kincaids quilts have earned him not only a United States Artists Fellowship but a solo show at Galleria Poggiali in Milan. Theyre often made from emotionally charged materials such as the cast-off clothes of loved ones, and involve a time-intensive collage technique in which he first makes a palette of individual quilts and then cuts and reassembles them to make new, larger compositions. His show, entitled The Rolling Fields to My House, will be on view through Nov. 20. galleriapoggiali.com.

shop This

Exquisite Vessels
Jeff Green, the chief executive of the Trade Desk, an ad-technology company in Ventura, Calif., that works with major ad agencies, said the behind-the-scenes fight was fundamental to the nature of the web.

The internet is answering a question that its been wrestling with for decades, which is: How is the internet going to pay for itself? he said.

The fallout may hurt brands that relied on targeted ads to get people to buy their goods. It may also initially hurt tech giants like Facebook  but not for long. Instead, businesses that can no longer track people but still need to advertise are likely to spend more with the largest tech platforms, which still have the most data on consumers.

David Cohen, chief executive of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, a trade group, said the changes would continue to drive money and attention to Google, Facebook, Twitter.

The shifts are complicated by Googles and Apples opposing views on how much ad tracking should be dialed back. Apple wants its customers, who pay a premium for its iPhones, to have the right to block tracking entirely. But Google executives have suggested that Apple has turned privacy into a privilege for those who can afford its products.

For many people, that means the internet may start looking different depending on the products they use. On Apple gadgets, ads may be only somewhat relevant to a persons interests, compared with highly targeted promotions inside Googles web. Website creators may eventually choose sides, so some sites that work well in Googles browser might not even load in Apples browser, said Brendan Eich, a founder of Brave, the private web browser.

It will be a tale of two internets, he said.

Businesses that do not keep up with the changes risk getting run over. Increasingly, media publishers and even apps that show the weather are charging subscription fees, in the same way that Netflix levies a monthly fee for video streaming. Some e-commerce sites are considering raising product prices to keep their revenues up.
BOSTON  Two white-coated lab technicians, seated at work stations in a corner, are vastly outnumbered by the machines. Robotic arms calibrate liquids in microdrops. Small trays, with 96 tiny wells each, shuttle around the lab on magnetic tracks. Centrifuges whir. Gene sequencers hum.

The highly mechanized lab  operated by Ginkgo Bioworks, a fast-growing start-up in Boston  is an engine room of synthetic biology, an emerging field that applies the tools of engineering and computing to make entirely new organisms or genetically turbocharge existing ones.

Proponents of synthetic biology say the field could reprogram biology to increase food production, fight disease, generate energy and purify water. The realization of that potential lies decades in the future, if at all. But it is no longer the stuff of pure science fiction because of advances in recent years in biology, computing, automation and artificial intelligence.

Money is pouring into the field. Research universities, government agencies and major chemical and pharmaceutical corporations like Bayer and Merck are pursuing projects in the area. Yet so are smaller companies like Ginkgo.
Hamilton canceled a performance in Atlanta Wednesday night after some members of a touring company tested positive for the coronavirus, and the show was unable to get test results for other company members before curtain.

The cancellation, of a touring production at the Fox Theater in Atlanta, is a reminder that the coronavirus pandemic is likely to remain a disruptive factor as large-scale theater resumes performances across the country this fall. Throughout the pandemic, returning performing arts events around the world have been canceled or postponed because of health concerns; now, as Broadway shows reopen in New York and on tour, producers say they expect occasional incidents like this.

A Hamilton spokesman said he expected the Atlanta production to resume performances Thursday night. The show is adding a performance next week for those patrons who held tickets to the Wednesday night performance and are willing to be rescheduled; refunds or exchanges are also available.

We received some positive cases last night in the company, and needed to confirm that everyone else was negative, said Shane Marshall Brown, the Hamilton spokesman. The turnaround time for the P.C.R. tests were unexpectedly delayed and we were unable to get them back in time to continue with the show.
For at least three years, Lori Ann Talens worked at her home computer mixing, matching and perfecting an art that prosecutors say became one of the largest fraud schemes of its kind ever, worth more than $31 million to its victims.

When federal agents raided her home in Virginia Beach, Va., they found evidence everywhere, prosecutors said: nearly $1 million in counterfeit coupons scattered around the house and more than 13,000 coupon designs on her computer, the material for Frankenstein coupons that scammed people around the country.

Ms. Talens, 41, was sentenced to 12 years in prison on Tuesday for operating what prosecutors called one of the largest coupon fraud schemes in U.S. history, saying it cost retailers and manufacturers more than $31 million in losses.

Ms. Talens and her husband, Pacifico Talens, 43, pleaded guilty to mail fraud in April. Mr. Talens was sentenced last month to seven years and three months for his role in the operation.
With its hospitals struggling to cope with a flood of patients, Idaho officials activated crisis standards of care across the state on Thursday, allowing overwhelmed facilities to ration treatment if needed.

The situation is dire  we dont have enough resources to adequately treat the patients in our hospitals, whether you are there for Covid-19 or a heart attack or because of a car accident, Dave Jeppesen, the director of the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, said in a statement.

Crisis standards of care lay out guidelines for hospitals to follow when they cannot meet demand and must ration services. Idaho officials noted that patients may find themselves being treated in repurposed rooms, or that needed equipment is not available. Some patients may have to wait for beds to become available.

If the situation worsens, rationing could get more drastic, with hospitals having to decide which patients will get priority for limited supplies of oxygen or ventilators, potentially sending some patients with a low likelihood of survival to palliative care.
It was really heartbreaking going through this process, Dr. Hunter said in an interview on Wednesday. Weve been trying to work with the landowners for many months. It was just unfortunate that they decided to take this to auction and try to get as much money for it as they could.

Bryan Laughlin, executive director at Selkirk, said that all the bidders had been vetted to participate in the auction. No conditions were set to be able to purchase the site, but a Missouri statute threatening a felony charge to anyone who knowingly disturbs, destroys, vandalizes or damages a marked or unmarked human burial site was read aloud before the bidding began, he said.

The previous owners were concerned with the protection and preservation of the cave, and they wanted to ensure that the next steward was someone with the financial means to establish further research of the site, Mr. Laughlin said. He added that although he could not share the buyers identity, he knew that the person was a cave conservator who owned a vast collection of caves and actively worked to preserve them.

According to Dr. Hunter, the family that owned the land since 1953 had been in negotiations with the tribe in the months before the auction and originally asked for $1 million  quite a bit of money for the Osage Nation, even after it received additional support from the Conservation Fund and Native Land Conservancy.

For the Osage Nation, the Picture Cave  whose array of glyphs constitutes one of the largest and most detailed depictions of Native American life of its kind in the United States  is a place of genesis. It is where Osage ancestors performed sacred rituals to make and memorialize crucial decisions for the tribe. It is also a sacred burial ground, Dr. Hunter said.
Its nice here, said Mr. Darwesh, a former military translator who has been waiting for two years to have his visa processed. We now have our own room.

Zainullah Zaki, who is traveling with his family, landed in Qatar on Aug. 18 and traveled on to Germany, where he has been told over and over again that he might be on a flight in days.

Because of measles, all the flights are paused right now, John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, said on Wednesday about those still on military installations overseas. So nobody is going anywhere. But our goal has been to try and move them as quickly as possible. We know that these men and women and their families want to get on with their lives.

Seven measles cases were discovered among Afghans at the domestic military bases. Very few evacuees have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to a Sept. 10 internal government update. Afghan nationals settling in the United States are required to have a series of vaccinations, which are being given at military bases in the United States and will soon be administered overseas as well.

Many evacuees have arrived at Dulles International Airport in Virginia, and hospitals in the state have complained to the federal government that they have been overwhelmed by Afghans in need of medical treatment. Health care providers have asked for financial assistance, and Virginias two senators, Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine, both Democrats, sent a letter to Biden administration officials pushing for better coordination.

Virginia ambulances and hospitals, already occupied with regular patient needs and dealing with the additional stress of Covid, have done superb work to partner with federal agencies managing this processing effort and make sure that emergency health needs of our Afghan partners are met, Katie Stuntz, a spokeswoman for Mr. Kaine, said. The health providers deserve reimbursement for this work, and Senator Kaine is working with all stakeholders to make sure that happens.

Refugee groups have scrambled for weeks to prepare for large numbers of Afghan refugees but so far have seen only a trickle of people ready to be resettled.
President Biden spoke with Democratic leaders on Thursday as lawmakers raced to iron out deep divisions over how to structure and finance his $3.5 trillion economic package and stave off a government shutdown at the end of the month.

The joint conversation with Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, was the latest outreach by the president to congressional Democrats this week, with the success of many of Mr. Bidens policy priorities hinging on passage of the $3.5 trillion package.

The discussion focused on advancing Mr. Bidens economic agenda, largely the social safety net package and the $1 trillion infrastructure package, which has already been approved by the Senate. On Wednesday, Mr. Biden met separately with two key moderates, Senators Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who have both expressed reservations about the price tag of the larger plan.

Were in the middle of the process so the president knows that hes going to need to be  hes eager to be  very engaged directly with senators, directly with leadership to move this forward, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said before the conversation.
WASHINGTON  The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, an influential Washington-based think tank, has appointed Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuellar of Californias Supreme Court as its new president.

Mr. Cuellar, who goes by Tino, specialized in international relations during a decade on the faculty of Stanford University before becoming a judge in January 2015. He also served as a special assistant in the Obama White House.

In an interview, he said he planned to focus on complex emerging global challenges, including climate change and cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence.

He also said he would bring a fresh perspective to the position: Born in Mexico, Mr. Cuellar, 49, immigrated to the United States at the age of 14 and became a U.S. citizen when he was 21. He earned an undergraduate degree from Harvard University before attending Yale Law School, and then earning a Ph.D. in political science from Stanford.
The gala was to commemorate the 240th Anniversary of the Battle of the Capes, celebrating the French navys help in a 1781 battle during Americas fight for independence.

Philippe Etienne, the French ambassador to the United States and the host of the party, said on Thursday that he learned about the deal from news reports, followed by a call from Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser to Mr. Biden.

A senior American official said that the Biden administration had made efforts to inform the French government about the presidents announcement earlier Wednesday morning, but had been unable to schedule the discussions with their French counterparts before the news reports appeared online.

The indignation from Mr. Etienne and Mr. Le Drian reflected the fact that France had its own deal with Australia, concluded in 2016, for conventional, less technologically sophisticated submarines. That $66 billion deal is now defunct, but a harsh legal battle over the contract appears inevitable.

A knife in the back, Mr. Le Drian said of the Australian decision, noting that Australia was rejecting a deal for a strategic partnership that involved a lot of technological transfers and a contract for a 50-year period.

French officials in Washington accused top American officials of hiding information about the deal despite repeated attempts by French diplomats, who suspected that something was in the works, to learn more.

Mr. Etienne, one of Frances most experienced diplomats, acknowledged in an interview on Thursday that there had been discussions with the Australians over the rising price tag of the submarines that France was supposed to deliver to Australia  which were not nuclear-powered, even though France has its own fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.
The laws are critical tools in achieving the governments obligation to ensure that public funds are not being used to finance illegal discrimination, Ms. Gupta wrote in her memo, which was distributed to the head of the departments Civil Rights Division, as well as the leaders of the Office of Justice Programs, the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services and the Office of Violence Against Women.

Those offices are responsible for distributing most of the grants overseen by the Justice Department.

Enforcement of Title VI, which requires that taxpayer money not be spent in ways that result in or support racial discrimination, falls entirely to the Justice Department. The Supreme Court has ruled that only the department can bring legal action under the statute.

Title VI is a powerful tool, yet we do not see it fully utilized, said Sherrilyn Ifill, the president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc. Ms. Ifill has pushed the Justice Department to evaluate how it enforced Title VI in its funding programs.

For years, civil rights advocates have pressed the Justice Department to do more to ensure that the federal government withholds funds from law enforcement organizations deemed discriminatory, particularly after the 2014 killings of Black men by police officers in Ferguson, Mo., and on Staten Island, when Eric H. Holder Jr. was attorney general.

We raised this with Attorney General Holder as a systemic issue that was evidenced in any number of other cases that had not received the kind of attention that those deaths did, Ms. Ifill said.

She and others continued to press the Trump Justice Department and then the Biden administration in an April letter to Attorney General Merrick B. Garland.
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Republicans are jockeying for a structural advantage in next years elections and beyond, Democrats are trying to squeeze everything they can out of their limited leverage, marginalized groups are lobbying state officials to maximize their voting power and lawsuits are looming inescapably on the far side of it all.

Yes, the decennial redistricting process is well underway. And with draft maps starting to trickle out of legislatures and redistricting commissions, its a good time to check in on where things stand.

Redistricting is happening in every state, even those with only one congressional district, because state legislative maps have to be redrawn, too. But well focus here on congressional maps in some of the states whose choices will shape the battle for control of the House next year. (Some other states  including Texas, which is gaining two seats and could be a gold mine for Republicans  are too early in the process to report anything meaningful, but watch this space.)

Under each state, weve indicated the possible shift in partisan power. But remember, theres still plenty of time for proposals to change.
School districts have been able to underpay employees for a long time, and theyre discovering that they cant do it anymore because of a serious decline in labor force participation now, she said.

According to Ms. Groshen, increased unemployment benefits during the pandemic have given workers the leeway to pass up jobs with abysmal working conditions while they look for better employment opportunities.

Because people have gotten relief payments, they dont have to take the very first job that comes along, she said. They get to be selective, and hope that something better comes.

In Santa Fe, N.M., Randy Mondragon has worked as a bus driver for 20 years, and his pay is slightly higher than the average, which is about $16.40 an hour, according to the district.

He works six days a week, usually topping out at 70 hours.

Theres been only one day in the 22 years Ive worked that they didnt need me to drive a route, Mr. Mondragon said. We are the first and last ones that students see in the morning, so our job is very important and, sometimes, we dont get that acknowledgment.

Many of these workers are older; they often take on these jobs to supplement their Social Security checks. But with the rise of the Covid-19 pandemic, many are choosing to retire early to reduce the risk of exposure.

Because of the substitute teacher shortage, Angie Graham, a 51-year-old high school teacher in Fleming County, Ky., has been covering shifts for other colleagues. Shes worried that if she gets sick, no one will be able to cover for her.
As world leaders prepared to gather at the United Nations General Assembly, African public health experts called on Thursday for action to speed up delivery of Covid-19 vaccines to their continent, where according to the World Health Organization, only 3.6 percent of people have been fully inoculated against the disease so far.

Shortfalls in supplies from Covax, the global vaccine-sharing initiative, have left African countries with just half the doses they need to meet the global target of fully vaccinating 40 percent of their populations by the end of 2021. Inequities in the distribution of vaccines remain stark: Africa is home to about 17 percent of the worlds people, but only 2 percent of the nearly six billion shots administered so far have been given in Africa, according to the W.H.O.

As the U.N. General Assembly meets next week, I urge African leaders to call on them to ensure equitable access to vaccines, Dr. Ayoade Olatunbosun-Alakija, chairwoman of the African Vaccine Delivery Alliance, said in an online news conference on Thursday. Ask the rich countries: Where are Africas vaccines? Where are the vaccines for the low- and middle-income countries of the world?

Wealthy countries globally have supplied only a fraction of the doses they promised to Covax. That shortfall is one of the main reasons Covax slashed its forecast last week for the number of doses it would have available this year. Worldwide, 80 percent of shots that have been administered have been in high- and upper-middle-income countries, according to the Our World in Data project at the University of Oxford. Only 0.4 percent of doses have been administered in low-income countries.
Its unclear to what extent the leadership structure is irrevocably damaged, said Hannah Armstrong, senior analyst for the Sahel region at the International Crisis Group. Theyve definitely cut off the head and the chest.

Image Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahraoui Credit... U.S. State Department

Mr. al-Sahraoui created I.S.G.S. with a band of followers in 2015, pledging allegiance to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. The militants carried out many deadly raids on security forces in the border between Mali and Niger, two vast countries of the Sahel, as the arid band south of the Sahara is known.

But the outfit recently lost much of its power in the face of French airstrikes, as well as from clashes with rival jihadist groups. In January, French and Malian forces killed about 100 jihadists in central Mali, though it was not clear from which group or groups. Several terrorist groups operate in the region.

Some experts cautioned against broad pronouncements of victory.

Its not the first time a key leader is killed and yet the group continues to exist and continues to expand, said Rida Lyammouri, a senior fellow at the Policy Center for the New South, a Moroccan think tank. Success should be measured by the group not being able to terrorize civilians  not only the military  and by the displaced population returning to their villages. Its premature to call it a success.
Ms. Valinas said the panel is continuing to investigate the crimes identified in that report, but added that the second report, which it will present to the Human Rights Council next week, focused on the workings of Venezuelas judicial system and conducted a detailed analysis of 183 detentions.

Venezuelan authorities did not allow panel members into the country and did not reply to any of the 17 letters they sent to the government over the past year asking for information. The panel based its conclusions on 177 interviews with current and former judges, prosecutors and others within the judicial system, as well as with lawyers for the victims of abuse. They also read thousands of pages of legal case files, including arrest and search warrants.

Of the 86 judges, prosecutors and defense lawyers the panel interviewed, virtually all  98.2 percent of them, the panel said  reported that political cases were not investigated or prosecuted in accordance with the law.

Judges and prosecutors received instructions on how they were to proceed, the panel said, and often appeared to have played key roles in covering wrongdoing  for example, enabling arbitrary detention by resorting to unjustified arrest warrants, lengthy pretrial detentions, and criminal charges based on illegally obtained or falsified evidence, including evidence obtained by torture.

Many of the defendants in the 183 prosecutions analyzed by the panel said they had been tortured or subjected to brutal treatment, including sexual violence, and 67 of the defendants had appeared in court exhibiting clear marks of mistreatment.

The actions and omissions of judges hearing torture allegations had devastating consequences on victims, including continued torture and deteriorating health, the panel said. One detainee had suffered a miscarriage from torture inflicted after a judge returned her to the custody of the military counterintelligence agency, which she claimed was abusing her.

But resistance by judges, prosecutors and lawyers to political interference is also risky, the panel concluded. More than half the defense lawyers who responded to a questionnaire said they had faced threats and harassment, and nearly half the former judges and prosecutors the panel contacted had fled the country out of safety concerns.
MANILA  A lawyer for President Rodrigo Duterte said on Thursday that International Criminal Court representatives would be denied entry to the Philippines, a day after the Hague-based tribunal authorized a full investigation into Mr. Dutertes bloody war on drugs.

A three-judge panel at the court said on Wednesday that the antidrug campaign, which has left thousands dead, appeared to have been a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population. It based that assessment on evidence presented by prosecutors, who have been carrying out a preliminary investigation since 2018.

Salvador Panelo, a lawyer for Mr. Duterte, reiterated on Thursday the presidents stance that the court had no authority to investigate him. Mr. Duterte pulled the Philippines out of the treaty that established the tribunal after it began its preliminary investigation.

They will violate our rights if they persist with the investigation, because that would mean meddling in the domestic affairs of our country, said Mr. Panelo, who added that the Philippine justice system was adequately dealing with any crimes committed during the drug war.
SYDNEY, Australia  When Scott Morrison became Australias prime minister three years ago, he insisted that the country could maintain close ties with China, its largest trading partner, while working with the United States, its main security ally.

Australia doesnt have to choose, he said in one of his first foreign policy speeches.

On Thursday, Australia effectively chose. Following years of sharply deteriorating relations with Beijing, Australia announced a new defense agreement in which the United States and Britain would help it deploy nuclear-powered submarines, a major advance in Australian military strength.

With its move to acquire heavy weaponry and top-secret technology, Australia has thrown in its lot with the United States for generations to come  a forever partnership, in Mr. Morrisons words. The agreement will open the way to deeper military ties and higher expectations that Australia would join any military conflict with Beijing.

Its a big strategic bet that America will prevail in its great-power competition with China and continue to be a dominant and stabilizing force in the Pacific even as the costs increase.
Rather, Mr. Macron wants France to lead the European Union toward a middle course between the two great powers, demonstrating the European strategic autonomy at the core of his vision. He has spoken about an autonomous Europe operating beside America and China.

Such comments have been an irritant  if no more than that, given how far Europe stands militarily from such autonomy  to the Biden administration. Mr. Biden is particularly sensitive on the question of American 20th-century sacrifice for France in two world wars and Frances prickliness over its independence within the NATO alliance. Mr. Macron has not visited the White House since Mr. Biden took office, nor is there any sign that he will soon.

The E.U. statement on Indo-Pacific strategy committed European nations to deeper involvement at all levels in the region.

Its wording, combining broad engagement with dissent on human rights, broadly reflected Mr. Macrons quest for a policy that does not risk rupture with China but also avoids bowing to Beijing. France said the strategy confirmed its desire for very ambitious action in this region aimed at preserving the freedom of sovereignty of all.

The document did not anticipate Australian nuclear submarines, potentially armed with cruise missiles, becoming a potent player in the Pacific in a way that may alter the naval balance of power in an area where China has been extending its influence.

Presenting Europes strategy, Josep Borrell Fontelles, the E.U. foreign policy chief, said in Brussels that the submarine deal reinforced the blocs need for more strategic autonomy.

I suppose that a deal like that wasnt cooked the day before yesterday, Mr. Borrell said. Despite that, we werent informed. The American-British-Australian agreement, he argued, was more proof that the bloc needs to exist for ourselves, since the others exist for themselves.
PARIS  At least nine people have been swept out to sea and drowned off the southern coast of France after high seas stirred up by strong winds created dangerous swells that caught the swimmers by surprise.

This toll is tragic, Eric Brocardi, a spokesman for the French National Federation of Firefighters, told the radio station Franceinfo on Thursday. Mr. Brocardi said that the local authorities had expected rough seas, prompting advisories against or even banning swimming at certain beaches.

Unfortunately, some people defied the ban, he said.

Officials said that the deaths, all on Wednesday, reflected the dangers of the Mediterranean Sea, considered to be generally calm but whose underwater currents can be treacherous.

Every year, hundreds of migrants drown trying to make the journey across the sea from Africa to Europe. In 2019, nearly 1,300 people died trying to make the crossing, according to the International Organization for Migration.
Italy will require its residents to show a health pass to go to work, the government announced Thursday. It is the first country in Europe to require coronavirus vaccination certificates so widely.

Its an extraordinary endeavor, Italys public administration minister, Renato Brunetta, said Thursday night. Its all the human capital in the country.

Starting in mid-October, a requirement that already applies to some essential workers will expand to cover anyone working in factories, public offices, shops, restaurants and other settings. That is 23 million people, Mr. Brunetta said.

Individuals will have to be able to show that they have received at least one dose of vaccine, or have recently recovered from Covid-19, or else take a swab virus test every two days. Those who test positive must stay home on sick leave. Employers will be in charge of checking certificates, and workers who do not comply with the health pass requirement can be suspended from their jobs and fined up to 1,500 euros ($1,760).
CAIRO  Within days of each other, the United States and Egypt announced moves this week that, for the first time in years, would put human rights on the agenda in Egypt, a country that has become notorious for jailing activists, targeting journalists and squashing free speech.

On Tuesday, the State Department notified Congress that it was withholding $130 million in military aid until Egypt meets specific human rights benchmarks. Biden administration officials said it was the first time that a secretary of state had refused to issue a formal national security waiver to provide the aid.

Three days earlier, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt announced a new human rights strategy, laying out a plan to protect human rights for the first time in his seven years in power, apparently in response to international pressure.
Ida Nudel, who personified the Cold War struggle of Jews to immigrate from the Soviet Union to Israel, died on Tuesday in Israel, where she had lived since 1987. She was 90.

Her death was announced by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who said in a statement that Ms. Nudel had been an exemplar of Jewish heroism for us all, who embodied the yearning for Zion at any cost.

Ms. Nudel, an economist, became known as the Guardian Angel for mounting a one-woman campaign to maintain communication and monitor the condition of her fellow Prisoners of Zion  Soviet Jews, known informally as refuseniks, who, like her, had been imprisoned or persecuted for seeking permission to emigrate. She was banished to Siberia in 1978 after unfurling a banner from her Moscow apartment that read, K.G.B., Give Me My Visa to Israel.

President Isaac Herzog of Israel, whose father, President Chaim Herzog, greeted Ms. Nudel when she arrived in Israel to a heros welcome in 1987, said in a tribute to her on Twitter, Its important to remember and commemorate the stories of the Prisoners of Zion who with spirit and bravery changed the world.
BEIRUT, Lebanon  The Hezbollah militant group said it trucked more than a million gallons of Iranian diesel fuel into Lebanon from Syria on Thursday, celebrating the move as a way of spiting the United States while bringing much-needed aid to a country nearly paralyzed by fuel shortages.

With Lebanon suffering one of the worst economic collapses in modern history, Hezbollah portrayed itself as a national savior, stepping in where the Lebanese government and its Western backers had failed.

Hezbollah supporters lined roads in northeastern Lebanon as dozens of tanker trucks arrived. They waved Hezbollah flags, distributed sweets, blasted heroic anthems and fired rocket-propelled grenades into the air in celebration.

The fuel delivery  which a Hezbollah official said was the first installment of more than 13 million gallons  underscored the severity of Lebanons crisis, as well as the governments failure to address it. Unable to secure help from elsewhere, it has turned to war-torn Syria and economically damaged Iran.
National Hispanic Heritage Month, a celebration that runs from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15, captures a period covering seven different independence days across Latin America. In recent years, however, the celebration has prompted Latinos in the United States to look inward, grappling with issues of representation, colorism and sexuality. To better understand these perspectives, here are 11 recent books that provide a glimpse into distinct corners of contemporary Latino life in the United States:

Latinx: The New Force in American Politics and Culture, by Ed Morales (Verso, 2019)

The recent debate over the term Latinx, which has grabbed the attention of countless op-ed pages and Twitter threads, is just the latest iteration of a long reckoning over this single, shared identity. So argues Morales, a lecturer at Columbia and CUNY, whose book of politics and social history explains how our current understanding of the Latino identity is rooted in the Latin American concept of mestizaje, or hybridity, and how that troubled history is shaping American politics today.

Read our review

The Undocumented Americans, by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio (One World, 2020)

This collection falls somewhere between reportage, fiction and memoir in its storytelling, rendering an intimate portrait of the undocumented condition in the United States. Villavicencio chronicles the lives of ground zero cleanup workers, a Haitian priestess in Miami and a former housekeeper battling breast cancer in Flint, Mich., richly describing a population that, as Caitlin Dickerson notes in her review, remains largely absent from modern journalism and literature.

Read our review | Read our interview with Cornejo Villavicencio

The Poet X, by Elizabeth Acevedo (Quill Tree, 2018)

In this National Book Award-winning verse novel, 15-year-old Xiomara Batistas life in Harlem has changed seemingly overnight: Her body, now larger and curvier, is newly subject to catcalls and insults; her Dominican mother has become a stern disciplinarian; and her church no longer feels like the haven it once was. As Xiomara contends with these changes, she turns to slam poetry, where she finds freedom and discovers a distinctive voice.

Read our interview with Acevedo

Lovato unearths the family secrets his father kept guarded to tell a story of trauma and violence from El Salvador to San Franciscos Mission District. As he reckons with this multigenerational history, Lovato blends this memoir with exhaustive reporting that sheds light on a cycle of bloodshed that spans El Salvadors civil war, the birth of MS-13 in California and the exportation of gangs to Central America.

Read our review
The first time Kelsey Parsons and Matt Latessa shared an apartment, it was for a week.

Ms. Parsons was living in an East Harlem rental with three roommates when Mr. Latessa, a college friend of one roommate, slept on their sofa during a trip to the city from Lancaster, Pa. As the two had already met in passing, he was aware of the cute roommate, and happy to crash there.

That option was more interesting than going to Hampton Inn, Ms. Parsons said.

Their relationship blossomed, and Mr. Latessa soon moved to New York, where the couple lived in a fifth-floor walk-up in Harlem, while he attended graduate school. A few years later they married and headed to London for Ms. Parsonss graduate degree.

When they returned to New York last year, they landed in an Airbnb in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, while they looked for a place to buy. They were ready to stay put.

We wanted to put down roots in New York, said Ms. Parsons, 31, who is from Toronto and works remotely for a communications company focused on immigration and refugee issues. Mr. Latessa, 32, a college counselor at a charter high school in East Harlem, is from the Cincinnati suburbs.

[Are you looking to buy or rent a new apartment or house in the New York City metro area? We want to hear from you for a new television series. If interested, contact us at: thehunttv@nytimes.com.]

The couple had saved money, and had also received an inheritance from Mr. Latessas mother, who died last year after a long illness. It was her wish that the inheritance be used to buy a home.

I am honoring her legacy, he said. It was with her good graces that we were able to get this investment for ourselves.

With a budget of up to $500,000  although they preferred to spend less than $400,000  the couple couldnt quite afford what they wanted in the neighborhoods they knew and liked, Harlem and Bed-Stuy. But they discovered that they could in Riverdale, in the northwest corner of the Bronx.

Some friends had recently bought a place there, and Mr. Latessa was familiar with the area through his college admissions work, thanks to the areas many high schools.

I thought Riverdale was this wonderful, hidden gem, he said. Its this great balance between affordability, accessibility and fun things to do. The value proposition is so much better in Riverdale.

The couple searched Zillow, hoping to find a two-bedroom co-op unit with about 1,000 square feet, natural light and a view. The apartments they saw typically had a dining alcove, a second bathroom and plenty of closet space.

They contacted Scott Kriger, an associate broker at Brown Harris Stevens, showing him listings of interest. They wanted to stay within walking distance of the 1 train, so they stuck to the southernmost part of Riverdale, Spuyten Duyvil.

Among their options:
16/09/2021 - Governments should boost their investment in education in order to tackle the sources of inequality of opportunity. This would help create a more level playing field for people of all ages to acquire the skills that power better jobs and better lives, according to a new OECD report.





Education at a Glance 2021 says that one in five adults across the OECD has not attained upper secondary education and in some countries, a significant share of children leave school early. In 2019, at least one in ten school-aged youth were not in school in about a quarter of OECD countries. But some countries have made progress: between 2005 and 2019, the out-of-school rate at upper secondary level dropped by more than 15 percentage points in Mexico, Portugal and the Russian Federation.





Socio-economic status has a greater impact on the literacy skills of 15-year-olds than gender or country of origin, but some education systems are far more resilient to social disadvantage than others, says the report. Socio-economic status also tends to influence the programme orientation students pursue, with those without tertiary-educated parents more likely to pursue vocational tracks at upper secondary level. Those without upper secondary education face disadvantages in the labour market. In 2020, the unemployment rate of young adults that had not completed upper secondary education was almost twice as high as those with higher qualifications.





The COVID-19 pandemic has hit our health, economic, and social sectors hard and exposed some systemic weaknesses hampering genuine social mobility, said OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann, launching the report in Paris. Equality of opportunity is a key ingredient for a strong and cohesive democratic society. Unlike policies that address the consequences, education can tackle the sources of inequality of opportunity. Boosting investment in better and more relevant education will be key to helping countries deliver long-term economic and social prosperity.





Immigrant background tends to influence learning trajectories while employment prospects of foreign-born adults vary greatly across countries, finds the report. In almost all countries with available data, the upper secondary completion rate of first or second generation immigrants was lower than that for students without an immigrant background. Labour market outcomes vary greatly for foreign-born adults with different levels of education, reflecting the supply and demand for different skills, the difficulties tertiary-educated foreign-born adults face in gaining recognition for their education and experience earned abroad, and lower wage expectations of foreign workers in some countries.





Gender disparities also persist. Boys are more likely than girls to repeat a grade and underperform in reading, and less likely to complete upper secondary education. Boys are usually overrepresented in vocational paths and less likely to enter and graduate from tertiary education. Women also outnumber men in participation rates to formal adult learning. Yet they remain less likely to be employed and earn less than men across all levels of educational attainment and OECD countries, even among those having graduated from the same field of study.





Investment in education is key, but rising educational spending has not generally led to improved outcomes, suggesting that countries need to look harder at how to invest resources most effectively, and to match resources with needs. On average across countries, expenditure on educational institutions amounted to approximately USD 9 300 per student at pre-primary level in 2018; USD 10 500 at primary, secondary and post-secondary non tertiary level; and USD 17 100 at tertiary level. The public sector funds 90% of total expenditure on primary and secondary institutions on average, often compulsory in most OECD countries, and 66% at tertiary level.





Two-thirds of countries reported increasing public expenditure to education in 2020 to support the educational response to COVID-19 and about three quarters reported increasing it in 2021. Sustaining these investments will be critical to reverse learning losses, develop teachers capacity to tailor learning strategies to individual students needs, and leverage investments made to integrate technology in education.





Lifelong learning has become more critical for adults to upskill and reskill in a changing world. Yet, more than half of adults did not participate in adult learning in 2016, and the pandemic further reduced opportunities to do so. Educators need to work more closely with other government sectors and business to help promote flexible pathways in and out of education that evolve alongside labour market demands, according to the report.





Education at a Glance 2021 includes a special spotlight report: The State of Global Education  18 months into the pandemic. The reportreveals that the extent of lost learning opportunities in the classroom has been significant in many countries. The higher the education level, the longer schools were fully closed on average. The number of days of full school closure represents roughly 28% of total instruction days over a typical academic year at pre-primary and more than 56% at upper secondary level on average across OECD countries. This has consequences on equitable learning: while the majority of education systems around the world shifted to remote learning, students from disadvantaged backgrounds may find it more difficult to study effectively from home.





Education at a Glance provides comparable national statistics measuring the state of education worldwide. The report analyses the education systems of the OECDs 38 member countries, as well as of Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, the Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia and South Africa.





Further information on Education at a Glance, including country notes and key data, is available at: http://www.oecd.org/education/education-at-a-glance/.

Journalists are invited to contact OECD Director for Education and Skills Andreas Schleicher (tel. + 33 1 45 24 18 97) or the OECDs Media Office (tel. + 33 1 45 24 97 00).

Working with over 100 countries, the OECD is a global policy forum that promotes policies to preserve individual liberty and improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world.
OFFALY could soon be considered as the location for a major data centre because of increasing pressure on the electricity grid in Dublin.

Data centres, which are crucial in maintaining the ever growing information technology sector, consume vast amounts of power and have been cited as a threat to Ireland's energy security.

A senior official of Offaly County Council hinted last week that Offaly will probably be targeted by the data centre industry for a new facility.

For that to happen, a local power supply will have to be in place and in Offaly's case, that will partly depend on the availability of renewable generation.

During a debate on renewable energy targets, Andrew Murray, senior planner, indicated that Offaly can be an attractive location for industry.

Big energy users - and I'm not going to say what they are or what types of development they are - are soon going to be told they cannot locate in Dublin because the grid is constrained, said Mr Murray.

Mr Murray made two points about the importance of strengthening Offaly's contribution to the national grid.

One, the grid is less constrained in Offaly, and two, big companies, corporate entities, more and more now, want to locate beside renewable energy because it's part of their image and their corporate investment.

He cautioned against getting a negative narrative out about having too much renewable energy.

Reasonable balance is the most important. If each individual wind farm is not part of this reasonable balance we will not be afraid to say we don't recommend it.

He said the county was now at a critical point on renewable energy and the proposal for a green energy park in Rhode had been included in the county development plan.

The proposal for that park was due to the county's positive moves on renewable energy.

The same will go for Shannonbridge where we're trying to put a lot of work now into seeing if there is a reuse for Shannonbridge.

The peat-fired ESB generation stations in Rhode, Ferbane (Lumcloon) and Shannobridge have been closed in line with the transition from fossil fuels.

Rhode is already the location of alternative generation and battery storage is being developed there and in Lumcloon.
There was a good turnout of people and horses on Banagher's main thoroughfare for the town's annual Horse Fair on Sunday.

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With the recent lifting of restrictions, said someone who attended, an impressive number of people came to our famous fair from all over Ireland.

They were eager to attend because it was in fact the first horse fair of the year in the whole country.

Banagher Horse Fair has a very long history, dating back to the 1600s and, perhaps, King Charles II or King Charles I. The Fair was probably founded by a Royal Charter from Charles II and it has been run every year since. It was an important fair for the British Army to purchase horses for their cavalry regiments.

There have been times when people thought it was under threat and would cease to be but it has kept on going. People who attend are very conscious of the event's proud history. They love it and it has considerable prestige among horsey folk.

After all these years it's a remarkable feat that it still continues to attract crowds and horses.

He said a good number of quality cobs and ponies were in evidence on Sunday.

Business was reported as being brisk with some animals making good prices.

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Offaly TD Barry Cowen didn't leave his own party of the Fianna Fail/Fine Gael/Green government unscathed as he made a statement to the Dail during the confidence motion debate over Simon Coveney on Wednesday evening.

14 months on from his own sacking from Cabinet by Taoiseach Micheal Martin, the Clara deputy rose to his feet in the Dail to outline his position on the motion brought forward by Sinn Fein in the wake of the Katherine Zappone UN Envoy debacle.

His statement followed the resignation of his party colleague Marc MacSharry who said, "I was elected to serve a democratic republic - not one which applies different rules and sanctions depending on the identity or the position of people involved."

Barry Cowen has also been critical of the leadership within Fianna Fail and the current government but he stated that he would vote confidence in Simon Coveney, not before he made some pointed comments towards those involved in the controversy.

Speaking in the chamber, he said: "The appointment by the Cabinet and the subsequent withdrawal of Katherine Zappone as an envoy has been an unseemly controversy. The fact that the Taoiseach, the Tanaiste and the Cabinet approved the appointment, some of whom, yes, were blindsided but, apparently, oblivious to the political implications, is, to say the very least of it, strange.

"The envoy appointment fiasco represented a failure of leadership and collective responsibility at the heart of the coalition. What has made the whole business such a sorry tale is that there was absolutely no public appetite, no demand, for any such envoy to be appointed. It was easy then for the public to conclude or to perceive that this was a set of insiders looking after one of their own.

"I told the Taoiseach directly at our party meeting recently that, notwithstanding his present authority, it would be presumptuous for anyone to believe or presume they have majority support. The same should be said for the entire coalition. The people expect, wish and deserve to see good governance, not sideshows or ineptitude. The Minister, Deputy Coveney, has apologised and so too has the Tanaiste. Let us be fair, there is not unanimous absolute or wholesome confidence in the Minister, especially, unfortunately, in the way he handled this issue within Fianna Fail, but I expect that the whole sorry episode may well represent the last chance moment for all concerned," he continued.

"The parliamentary democratic system provides potential for Government stability up to five years. It affords time, space and opportunity to implement its programme for Government. I represented Fianna Fail, among others, in negotiating, agreeing and selling that programme. It has much potential specifically, for example, to address the greatest need in our time at present, which, of course, is housing. We remain committed to this Government delivering from that programme of Government to our constituents. Not to vote with the Government today would seriously curtail our ability to best serve our constituents.

"My membership of the Fianna Fail Parliamentary Party and my commitment to modernise its aims and goals from within are an example that will not be compromised or undermined by the obvious yet understandable political gamesmanship we see here this evening from Sinn Fein. For that reason, I will be voting support for the said Minister and for this Government to hurry up and implement those very agreements we sought and got among ourselves when putting forward a programme for Government that has the ability to deliver according to the people's wishes at the last election."
The National Inpatient Experience Survey, which takes place throughout the month of September, will give patients of the Midland Regional Hospital Tullamore the opportunity to express what they believe is working well in the hospital as well as areas they feel are in need of improvement.

The Midland Regional Hospital Tullamore is one of over 40 hospitals participating in the 2021 National Inpatient Experience Survey, a joint initiative of the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA), the Health Service Executive (HSE) and the Department of Health.

All patients aged over 16 years of age who spend 24 hours or more in a public acute hospital, have a postal address in the Republic of Ireland and are discharged during the month of September are eligible to participate.

This year, patients will be asked about admission to hospital, the ward environment, care and treatment, discharge from hospital, as well as additional questions about their experiences in hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as staff communication while wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) and contact with family and friends given visitor restrictions.

Caitriona McDonald, General Manager Midland Regional Hospital Tullamore says. This has been another very challenging year for staff as well as for patients and their families. Despite these challenges, staff are continuing to develop and enhance our services for patients.

"The 2019 survey found that 87% of our inpatients reported a good or very good overall experience in our Hospital. We are committed to listening and responding to patient experience and substantial progress has been made to address patient feedback. These include the appointment of a medication safety pharmacist focused on building a robust medication safety programme; Liaison between community and acute services which promotes more seamless transfer for patients and contributes to their overall experience; Improved meal time options for patients and new training for staff as part of the HSE Patient Safety Complaints Advocacy.

"The person receiving care and support should be at the core of everything and services should work together to achieve the best possible outcomes for them. It is through this survey we can hear from patients and assess how person-centred hospital care is.

Since 2017, over 40,000 patients have completed the National Inpatient Experience Survey nationally. An estimated 25,000 patients of hospitals all across Ireland will be eligible to participate in this years survey.

To find out more about National Inpatient Experience Survey, visit www.yourexperience.ie
The guests have been revealed for this week's Late Late Show on RTE One.

Ciaran Hinds & Clare Dunne, Miriam Mullins, Jack Woolley, Catherine & Aidan Corless, Wallis Bird and The Three Amigos are among guests for The Late Late Show on Friday night.

Stars of the new hit TV drama KIN, Ciaran Hinds and Clare Dunne will join Ryan on the show where Ciaran will share about the joy of filming in Dublin again and his childhood spent dancing in Belfast. Clare will chat about why she could never be a crime boss and the real stories that inspire her.

Irish TikTok sensation with over 1.6 million followers, Miriam Mullins will be speaking to Ryan about living her life online, her now famous Irish mammy and will be giving Ryan tips on how to make it on TikTok!

Coming up this week on the #LateLate...#RTEKin's Ciaran Hinds and @ClareEmmadunne

TikTok star Miriam Mullins@jackwoolley_tkd

Catherine and Aidan Corless@irelandincolour

with music from @wallisbird and The 3 Amigos pic.twitter.com/EOmsZJ7aPJ  The Late Late Show (@RTELateLateShow) September 16, 2021

After his assault in Dublin City last month attracted global media attention, Ireland's Olympic Taekwondo star Jack Woolley will join Ryan to discuss how he's coped with being thrust into the spotlight over the last six weeks. Hell talk about his road to recovery, why he wants to inspire Ireland's next generation of athletes and why he can't wait to get back into the ring as Tokyo slips away from view.

Tuam historian Catherine Corless and her supportive husband, Aidan will join Ryan in a special in-depth interview like no other to discuss Catherines new book Belonging: A Memoir, her quest for the truth about Tuam Mother and Baby Home in Galway and how her early childhood life events shaped her to the person we know today.

The show will also look at some incredible photographs from Old Ireland in Colour 2, the much-anticipated sequel to last years bestselling book. One of its authors, Dr Sarah-Anne Buckley will talk us through some of the superb images brought to life through cutting-edge technology, historical research and expert colourisation.



Plus, Wallis Bird will be performing her classic song To My Bones while The Three Amigos be giving the nation a Garth treat with a special medley of his hits.

Catch The Late Late Show on RTE One, Friday, September 17th at 9.35pm.
Laxman Pai, Opalesque Asia:

Europe-based alternative asset fund managers now hold 2.06tn ($2.43bn) in assets under management (AUM) as of December 2020, up from 1.81tn a year ago-an increase of over 13%-and are on track to make 2021 a record year for fundraising.

According to Preqin's 2021 Alternative Assets in Europe Report produced with leading European asset manager Amundi, AUM had grown by 59% over the five years from December 2016 to December 2020, and Europe now accounts for 24% of the global alternative assets industry.

Fundraising, investment, and performance have accelerated in H1 2021. Fundraising by Europe-based private capital GPs in H1 2021 reached 59% of 2020's full-year total, which, despite the practical challenges caused by travel and meeting restrictions, was the second-highest on record.

Investment teams have been busy, with the value of private capital transactions closed in H1 2021 already at 83% of 2020's full-year total, with venture capital, infrastructure, and private equity the most active sectors.

Strong equity and debt capital markets since Q2 2020 have translated into a buoyant exit market, not just for IPOs, but also for trade sales and refinancing.

While return data in the early years of limited partnership funds is only an indicator of future performance, median net IRRs for 2018 vintage private equity and venture capital (PEVC) funds stand at 22.0%, while vintages 2011-2017 have been lifted to between 14.0% and 1......................

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Laxman Pai, Opalesque Asia:

New York-based HPS Investment Partners has clinched its fifth specialty loan vehicle, Specialty Loan Fund V (SLF V), with about $15.4 billion in investable capital.

According to a press release from the credit investment firm with approximately $75 billion in assets under management, it has raised roughly $11.7 billion from investors for the new fund, and together with parallel investment funds and accounts, it closed with about $15.4 billion of investable capital.

The new fund has already deployed almost 60% of its investable capital to 58 investments, the news release said. The manager's direct lending platform has a total of $9.3 billion in deployable dry powder including leverage.

Scott Kapnick, Chief Executive Officer of HPS, said: "The incredibly strong reception SLF V has received from a diverse group of institutions around the world reinforces the leadership position we have forged within the global private credit marketplace. We are grateful for our investors' support and consider ourselves privileged to have the opportunity to partner with them in pursuit of their investment objectives."

Investors in the new fund include the Rhode Island State Investment Commission, Providence, which oversees the $10.3 billion Rhode Island Employees' Retirement System, and the $10.1 billion Alameda County Employees' Retirement Association, Oakland, Calif.

HPS's direct lending platform has invested more than $5......................

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Opalesque Industry Update - JTC has acquired Segue Partners (Segue), an innovative fund services business head-quartered in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. Founded in 2010, Segue provides a range of sophisticated fund solutions to meet the needs of private equity, venture capital, debt funds and family offices. Segue also delivers accounting services specifically designed to meet the needs of entrepreneurs, portfolio companies and start-ups. Segue will enhance JTC's fund services presence in the US, providing an additional scalable platform that is well positioned for growth and complements the Group's existing US footprint, including its focus on world- class technology. Concurrently, JTC's more than 30 years of experience in serving listed funds and international clients in a global market that is increasingly complex and highly regulated will confer huge benefits to Segue's existing and future clients. Segue's Midwest location facilitates expansion throughout North America and the company has strong and long-lasting relationships with a diverse range of clients across 10 US States and Canada. The acquisition brings with it a depth of asset class expertise, particularly within the venture capital space. Michelle Murray, Managing Director and Founder of Segue, will continue to lead the business, becoming a member of JTC's Institutional Client Services (ICS) US regional management board. All 12 other Segue employees will also join JTC, becoming part of the Group's Institutional Client Services (ICS) Division. The transaction is not subject to any regulatory approvals and completes with immediate effect. Nigel Le Quesne, CEO of JTC, said: "We are very pleased to announce the acquisition of Segue, which is a high quality addition to our strategically important and fast-growing US business. Michelle and her team have built a reputation for delivering first-class service and strong growth year on year and we look forward to supporting and accelerating that as they become part of the Group. The cultural alignment with JTC is superb and we offer a warm welcome to Michelle, her team and all Segue's clients and partners." Michelle Murray, CPA, Founder and Managing Director of Segue Partners, said: "I founded Segue with the strong belief that there was a better way to meet the needs of clients based on delivering the perfect blend of experience, service quality and a results-orientated culture. As we seek to expand our business materially and capture opportunities that exists in the US market and beyond, JTC is the perfect partner to help us achieve our goals. Like Segue, JTC has the highest of standards and constantly strives to exceed client expectations. We are excited to become part of a dynamic Group, with such a deep-rooted culture and track record of success."
Opalesque Industry Update - Geneva-based Multi-Family Office Key Family Partners has appointed Emanuele Zanon di Valgiurata as Partner and Board Member. Prior to joining Key Family Partners, he was Head of Private Banking at Banque Morval in Geneva. Additionally, Key Family Partners has nominated Simon Minder as Board Member. Both appointments are effective as of 7 September 2021. Since its inception two years ago, Key Family Partners has established a blueprint for a new generation of multi-family offices offering the highest standards of governance and sophisticated investment solutions. Before joining Key Family Partners, Emanuele Zanon di Valgiurata was Head of Private Banking at Banque Morval in Geneva, a subsidiary of the Zanon di Valgiurata family-owned Morval Vonwiller Group until its sale to Italian banking group lntesa San Paolo. Having started his banking career in 1990 in Paris, he joined Banque Morval in 1993, later becoming a member of the Investment Committee and the Executive Committee in 2002. Within the Morval Vonwiller group, he covered different roles as an equity portfolio and fund manager. He also was Managing Director of Vonwiller SA and Chairman of Morval Vonwiller Advisors SA Uruguay. Emanuele Zanon di Valgiurata holds a Law degree from Universita degli Studi di Torino and an OPM of Harvard Business School. An experienced independent Family Office Advisor, Simon Minder was previously Chief Operating Officer, Managing Partner and Director of Marcuard Family Office in Zurich. He has an MBA from the University of Southern Queensland, Australia, as well as a Master of Advanced Studies (MAS) in Management and Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) from HWZ Zurich University. Thierry de Loriol, Executive Chairman, declared: "We are delighted to have Emanuele Zanon di Valgiurata join our exclusive circle of member families. His rich experience and vast network as a private banker will allow us to bring our unique concept to a wider audience. For his part, thanks to his strong technical expertise, Simon Minder will be extremely useful in keeping our edge in operational infrastructure. Their combined experience in wealth management will not only contribute to further strengthen Key Family Partners' footprint in Switzerland, but also continue to establish us as a new generation independent multi-family office with the highest standards of governance." A private investment club for selected families Founded by Hugues d'Annoux and Morten H. Kielland, Key Family Partners is designed as a sophisticated private investment club, which provides high net worth families with a professional structure offering state-of-the-art solutions in asset allocation, investment, reporting and administrative services. Key Family Partners offers clients advisory or discretionary mandates in equities and fixed income. Participating families have the opportunity to become equity partners and thus share the success of their multi-family office. This close relationship further strengthens the idea of a 'club' approach to deals, with families happy to share their deal flow, and expand their network and investment reach. Two years of success Since its inception two years ago, Key Family Partners has successfully built a full wealth management offering, encompassing traditional and alternative investments. Thanks to its high allocation weighting in alternatives, in particular private equity, its families portfolios have achieved strong returns. The 'club deals' continue to expand and flourish, with 24 investments into private equity and real estate, and 4 successful exits so far. The strong interest from client families and partners into this deal flow has spurred the firm to open co-investments to other family offices and professional investors that share the same entrepreneurial mindset.
The global industry averaged a 0.8% gain on a non-weighted basis. Relative value/arbitrage funds (up 2%) and eventdriven (1.4%) drove the gains across all fund sizes. Fixed income and credit lagged, edging forward just 0.2%.

None of the broad strategy groupings declined in a generally very strong month for the industry. Sub-BDC funds are ahead of larger peers on both a year-to-date and 12-month basis.

Event-driven is the top BDC strategy year-to-date, up 13.5% (long-short equity is next, up 12.4%). They returned to form in August after a July wobble sparked by the collapse of the Aon/Willis Towers Watson deal.

The outlook for merger arbitrage improved again in August due to heightened deal activity and welcome regulatory news, according to Man Group.

Long/short equity is the top-performing sub-billiondollar sector so far this year, up 12.5%. Managers in the strategy cut net and gross exposures amid an unsettled market picture last month.

Continuing fears over the Delta variant, central bank policy and Afghanistan fuelled risk sentiment, even as equity indices reached another high. There have also been some strong 12-month numbers among sub-BDC long/short funds, which has boosted the strategy.
As a virtual parting gift to the state, the outgoing governor said he has tried to set up a 100 room patients hostel facility in Dimapur.

New Delhi: In his last message, just before departing for Chennai, where he will take charge as the new Governor of Tamil Nadu, R. N. Ravi urged the youths on Wednesday (September 15) "to embrace truth and peace as against deceit and violence."

"The future of this state is in your hands. Please build the Nagaland of your dreams," he said in a message also shared on Twitter. In more ways than one, only a sincere man can say these words!

Truly, a very powerful message from a sincere man, who could have been misunderstood, but none can question his sincerity to resolve the Naga political problem. With all the limited powers, he did his best. Every neutral observer would feel the Naga youth must embrace peace and truth. Time to be pragmatic!

CM Rio at a farewell dinner party called R. N. Ravi a 'genuine' man.

A former Intelligence Bureau sleuth, Ravi has now been appointed as the new governor of Tamil Nadu. Ravi took charge as Nagaland Governor on August 1, 2019, and was also functioning as the peace Interlocutor to the two-decade-old Naga peace parley since 2014. During his stint came the August 3, 2015 Framework Agreement with NSCN (IM) and the Preamble pact with NNPGs on November 17, 2017. However, lately, Ravi has developed differences with NSCN (IM) and chief minister Neiphiu Rio over several issues, including the "extortion" issue and corruption.

The NSCN (IM) has been demanding the replacement of Ravi as the peace Interlocutor.

The central government and key stakeholders feel the move to relieve from Nagaland reflects 'the maturity' manner of handling by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who has been given almost a free hand to handle the Nagaland affairs. Sources said that both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and NSA Ajit Doval, who was instrumental in getting Ravi as Interlocutor in 2014, would be busy with Afghan affairs.

"Jingoism never worked in the past, nor can it do so in the future. Thus, the decision to move Ravi as Governor was a right step," said a source suggesting henceforth all other stakeholders would henceforth be also 'expected to' come forward to push the 24-year-old peace parleys that had started in 1997.

On September 14, as a virtual parting gift to the state, the outgoing governor said he has tried to set up a 100 room patients hostel facility in Dimapur.

A Raj Bhavan statement said, Union Power Minister R. K. Singh, a friend of Ravi, has also agreed to meet "the cost of this project".

The central government sources feel it is high time, the NSCN (IM) gives up its twin demands of the separate Flag and a Constitution. Both the demands were unacceptable to any government in Delhi.

NPF leader and opposition leader TR Zeliang said Ravi's name is synonymous with the Indo-Naga political issue. He expressed hope that Ravi will continue to support the Naga people for an amicable solution to the Naga political issue.

The incumbent Assam Governor and Delhi-based politician Jagdish Mukhi has been given the additional charge of Nagaland. The Modi government has shown keenness to ensure the signing of a peace pact to resolve the long-pending Naga political problem. Besides the NSCN (IM), the centre would be heading towards inking a final peace pact with all these groups.
May Day is famously known as a commemoration of the agitation for 8 hour work which occurred in Chicago, US on May 1, 1886. But due to untoward handling of the issue, it ended in clash with Police and became known as a total failure in the history of labour struggle. Even before the incident, the Government had accepted the same demand and US Congress had passed a resolution on the same in 1868. The strike on May 1 was very peaceful and did not have anything special to be mentioned in labour history. The untoward violent incidents in Chicago happened not on May 1, but on 3rd and 4th which had no connection with the protest on May 1. The violence happened as a result of unhealthy competition between rival Trade Unions. On May 3, the labourers of McCormick Harvesting Factory under the leadership of a weak Anarchist Communist group held strike and clashed with Police in which 4 labourers died. Next day they held a protest meet in the Haymarket Square which had to be dispersed because of heavy rain. Those who did not leave the place, threw a bomb on police and police fired back. In the fight, 4 labourers and 7 policemen died. Consequently, several leaders were in Jail and four leaders were hanged to death. Thus the Trade Union movement which was fast growing in US met with a sudden fall. The struggle could not achieve anything. US labour movement rejected the violent Chicago incident. The US Trade Unions celebrated first Monday in every September as Labour Day. May Day was later celebrated in US as Childrens Day! Chicago is more known today for the historic speech of Swami Vivekananda on September 13, 1893. This was the first stage of May Day. Haymarket Square incident can be compared to the violent Chauri Chaura incident in India which strengthened our freedom struggle when Gandhiji took strong non compromising disciplinary stand against violence. Great Communist Betrayal The second stage reminds us of a great Communist betrayal of its followers. In 1889, the second Communist International that met in Paris decided to celebrate May 1 as Labour Day. But May Day became a contentious issue even in Communist International and finally in 1904 they dropped the idea of celebrating May Day anymore as Labour Day. It was celebrated for other political demands even though in Russia, Lenin urged people to celebrate May Day. But when Hitler rose as an autocrat, Communists all over the world started celebrating May Day as Anti Fascist day from 1929 till 1940. Later, Russian Communist leader Stalin, when he had alliance with Hitler, the greatest dictator in History and who was responsible for World War II, had no other go but to stop celebrating it as Anti Fascist Day. So he betrayed Communists all over the world and asked them to start celebrating it as Labour Day. Thus the present way of celebrating May Day as Labour Day came into existence. It is being celebrated not only by Communists but also by non-Communists like INTUC, the Congress Trade Union not knowing the real story and falling in the Communist propaganda. Unlike many of the Indian Trade Unions, most of the Trade Unions in the world consider it as a matter of Communist betrayal and do not celebrate May Day as Labour Day. That is why BMS has chosen not to celebrate May Day as Labour Day. Instead it celebrates Vishwakarma Jayanti day as National Labour Day. Many States in India also have officially declared Vishwakarma Jayanti as Labour Day. Work is a Yajna Vishwakarma symbolises the dignity of labour which was given maximum respect by ancient India. Indias history of great personalities starts from the sacrifice of Vishwakarma who is believed to have created the Universe. He himself chose to be the Havis in a Yajna held to create the Universe (Rigveda 10.81.6). Thus he was raised to the status of a Deva. Rigveda (10.121) says he created earth, water, living creations etc. He was known as the great architect of Gods. He is also believed to be not merely a person. Those respectable personalities who served the society by their skilled work were all called Vishwakarma. Invention of many items mentioned in our ancient literature is attributed to him. The Sudarsan Chakra of Vishnu, Thrisula of Shiva, Spear of Kumara, the Chariot of Indra, Hastinapuri for Pandavas, Dwaraka of Sri Krishna, Indraloka, Vrindavan, Lanka, Pushpak Vimana etc. were all the creations of the genius of Vishwakarma. Vastu Architecture and all the Arts were his inventions. He was the first labourer in the world and was the Acharya of labour. Many people belonging to different caste divisions of labour, consider that they are the successors of Vishwakarma. He is a model for all the labourers. His son Vritra was greedy and demonic in character and was the General of Hiranyakashipu. Vishwakarma himself created the special weapon to kill his son. Vritra was known to have been killed due to the great sacrifice of both Vishwakarma and Dadhichi. Another son Nala became a devotee of Sri Rama and he constructed the Sethu Bridge to go to Lanka. Vishwakarma symbolises the paradigm shift in the present day thought process. Work is considered as a Yajna. Indian Industrial relations are traditionally based on family like relationship. BMS has accepted family as a model for industrial relations and put forward the great concept of Industrial family. This is in contrast with the master-servant relationship of the west or the class enemy concept of the Communists. We have imbibed the slogans Tyag-Tapasya-Balidan, work is worship Nationalise the Labour etc. from the life of great personalities like Vishwakarma. To bring uniformity, Vishwakarma Jayanti is celebrated on Septemeber 17 every year, since in many places it is celebrated both on Bhadrapada Shukla Panchami as well as on Magha Shukla Thrayodasi. May Day, imported from the west, fails to motivate labour positively where as Vishwakarma Jayanti can.
Bishop Kallarangatt alleged that young girls were largely falling prey to "love and narcotic jihad" in Kerala and said that these tactics are being used to destroy non-Muslims.

Kottayam: Actor turned politician and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Suresh Gopi visited Pala Bishop Mar Joseph Kallarangatt at Bishop House on Thursday (September 16) morning and held discussions about 'Love Jihad and Narcotic Jihad' with Bishop.

After Pala Bishop made the controversial 'Love Jihad and Narcotic Jihad' remarks, BJP had extended support to him after he faced attacks from various quarters.

While addressing devotees at a church in Pala, Bishop Kallarangatt alleged that young girls were largely falling prey to "love and narcotic jihad" in Kerala and said that these tactics are being used to destroy non-Muslims.

It is learnt that Suresh Gopi would appraise the BJP's national leadership about the developments.

Earlier, the BJP delegation led by A. N. Radhakrishnan and PK Krishnadas had met Mar Joseph Kallarangatt.

Courtesy: ANI
Poachers in Assam killed hundreds of one horn rhinos, mainly in the Kaziranga National Park, during the tenure of the previous Congress government.

Guwahati: The Assam cabinet chaired by chief minister Dr. Himanta Biswa Sarma on Thursday (September 16) decided to destroy almost 2,500 rhino horns. The rhino horns have been preserved in government treasuries across the state during the past four decades.

The horns, which were seized from poachers and traders of animal parts or recovered from dead rhinos in the state's national parks and wildlife sanctuaries since 1979 till now, are stored in 12 district treasuries at present.

After the cabinet meeting, Forest minister Parimal Suklabaidya said, "There are 2,623 such horns in various treasury offices of the state. 50 these horns are associated with pending court cases and can't be destroyed due to legal process. 94 others will be preserved in the natural history museum to be set up in Kaziranga for exhibition or educational purposes. The cabinet today decided that the remaining 2,479 horns will be destroyed,"

It should be mentioned that the Assam government had engaged an expert committee to examine the status of the preserved rhino horns. The committee also held various public hearings on the issue. The committee submitted its report to the government last month. Forest minister Suklabaidya said, "The expert committee, after examining the horns in a scientific way, observed the opinion that ninety-four horns will be kept in a natural history museum to be set up near Kaziranga National Park. The museum will also have other wildlife exhibits like ivory tusks, deer horns, etc., from Assam," he said.

The cabinet didn't announce any date for destroying the horns.

Though there is no scientific basis, rhino horns are part of traditional medicine in some Asian countries, such as China and Vietnam. Experts say that the price of the horns in international markets goes up to crores in Indian currency because of the superstition variable.

Assam is home to the world's largest population of one-horned rhinos. According to a 2018 census, there are nearly 2,650 rhinos in the state, with around 2,400 of them concentrated in Kaziranga National Park. Poachers in Assam killed hundreds of one horn rhinos, mainly in the Kaziranga National Park, during the tenure of the previous Congress government. The poaching of rhinos has come down almost 90% since the BJP came into power in Assam in 2016.

Wildlife experts have welcomed the government's move to destroy the horns, as they believe it will send a signal that these horns are just body parts of a wild animal and it doesn't have any medicinal value to buy at a high price.
District force personnel, Special Operations Group and BSF jawans nabbed Shankar, a member of the State Military Commission (SMC) of the banned CPI (Maoist), from the forests near Guda Tilhar in a joint search operation.

The security forces got a major success during a search operation in the Koraput district of Odisha. Odisha Police and BSF have arrested a top Maoist leader, Dubashi Shankar, from the Baipariguda block of the Koraput district. Police have also recovered cash and weapons from his possession.

Briefing the media about the arrest, Odisha DGP Abhay said, "We have arrested the senior Maoist leader from Koraput. There was no casualty from our side in the firing during this arrest. However, the area will be assessed for injuries or casualties of the Maoists who fled, leaving behind arms and ammunition."

Dubashi Shankar alias Mahendra alias Arun is an Andhra-Odisha Border Special Zonal Committee (AOBSZC) member. He had a cash reward of Rs 20 lakh on his head. District force personnel, Special Operations Group and BSF jawans nabbed Shankar, a member of the State Military Commission (SMC) of the banned CPI (Maoist), from the forests near Guda Tilhar in a joint search operation. Left-wing extremist Shankar has been a member of the banned Maoist organization, CPI (Maoist) since 1987. In 2003, he was made a member of the Special Zonal Committee (SZCM). In 2010, seeing his ability, he was included in the State Military Commission (SMC) of the CPI (Maoist).

Many named offences are registered against Shankar in different districts of Odisha. There are 18 cases against him in Malkangiri district, 32 in Visakhapatnam, 24 in Telangana and two in Koraput. Shankar was being sought by the Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Telangana police for several heinous crimes, including murder, robbery, extortion and sedition.

The dreaded Maoist Shankar is accused of killing dozens of people. He was also involved in the Govindpally landmine blast in Koraput in 2010, in which 11 police personnel were martyred. He was also involved in the Janiguda ambush in which three senior BSF officials were killed. It should be noted that this is the first time in the last 20 years that a high-ranking Left-wing terrorist has been arrested in Odisha. Police have also recovered an INSAS rifle, ten rounds of ammunition, Rs 35,500 in cash, a radio, a mobile phone and other items from his possession.
Whether the crackers cause pollution or not, and if they do, then what is the extent of it  is the crux of the case against crackers and the most contentious issue in public debates.

We shall take a two-pronged approach to this. First, we shall give details of the data presented before the Honble Supreme Court. Then we shall present an analysis of five years data for Delhi which is publicly available through CPCB (Central Pollution Control Board) portal- and trust the readers to draw their own conclusions.

The following data sources have been relied upon by the Supreme Court to reach its conclusions:

An NGT (National Green Tribunal) order passed on 10.11.2016 on causes of pollution in Delhi. A report submitted by IIT Kanpur in January 2016 titled Comprehensive Study on Air Pollution and Green House Gases in Delhi submitted to govt. of NCT Delhi. Affidavits filed by CPCB Report of Supreme Court appointed Committee headed by chairperson of CPCB. Affidavit of one Dr. Arvind Kumar filed onon August 14, 2018 Affidavit of an animal rights activist, Gauri Maulekhi. News reports; and Direct experience of the Honble judges with Delhi air.

Summarised below are the major findings of the above.

Causes for pollution in Delhi as listed by NGT

Given below is an extract of a table from para 10 from SC judgment of 12.09.2017

As can be seen  Fireworks is not even mentioned as a cause in this.

Causes of Pollution as given by IIT Kanpur

Bursting of Fireworks does not find a mention as a cause for pollution, even in this report!

Besides the above, there are several other critical aspects of this study that need to be highlighted. These are:

The study extended over two full seasons - both winter and summer- in Delhi.

The study lists out not only the severity of the pollution but also scientifically lists out the main contributors or sources of this pollution.

The source of the pollutant isidentified by a chemical analysis of the pollutants captured in the equipment. For example: presence of Si (Silica), among others, points towards soil and road dust as the pollutants. Likewise,fly-ash towards power plants and so on.

Thus, this report may be treated as most scientific, comprehensive and credible as far as pollution in Delhi is concerned.

Affidavits filed by CPCB

CPCB made three significant points:

That oxides of Sulphur and Nitrogen (SO2 and NO2)remained within limits during Diwali. That the levels of PM 10 (Particulate Matter less than 10 Microns) and PM 2.5 (Particulate Matter less than 2.5 Microns) did see a significant increase during Diwali period and were the main reasons for pollution. That these enhanced levels of Particulate Matter, dissipated within two or three days (leaving no scope for long term impact).

Report of Supreme Court appointed committee to study impact on health of citizens

Findings of this committeeare summarised in this extract of para 21 from the 2018 judgment:

By saying that the relationship between pollution on Diwali and impact on health was not significant statistically, the committee was basically saying that there was no causal relationship between the two or in simpler terms that Pollution did not have any adverse impact the health of people during Diwali.(Statistical significance is a technical term/concept in statistics, used to differentiate a mere correlation from a causal relationship).

Findings of all others, Dr. Arvind Kumar, Gauri Maulekhi, news reports and direct experience of SC judges

You would note that

This section of people reported great increase in pollution, increased inflow of patients in their clinics with various breathing ailments (Dr. Arvind) and extreme stress caused to animals (Gauri Maulekhi) in personal affidavits filed with the court.

However, the findings reported by these individualsare more a narration of personal experience and not the findings of any scientific study with verifiable data as is the case with the findings of NGT, IIT and CPCB.

Having read through each of the above reports and submissions, the author felt a need to further check the levels of pollution all through the year and not just around Diwali.Data of past five years from 2015 to 2020 (publicly available on CPCB website) was thus analysed.The findings are surprising, if not shocking!

There emerged two critical points that did not find much consideration in the court proceedings.

While its true, as CPCB says, that Diwali days did see enhanced levels of pollution, what the CPCB missed pointing out is that other Non-Diwali days saw pollution levels much higher than those seen during Diwali - in some cases even double of that seen during Diwali. (See Table below of PM 10 levels from 2015 to 2020 at RK Puram, Delhi monitoring station).

Pollution Levels on next day of Diwali is marked in red whereas pollution levels on other Non-Diwali days is marked in blue.

The levels like 825 seen on 7-Nov-2017 or 933 seen on 12-Jun-2018, can by no stretch of imagination be attributed to Diwali. But what can they be attributed to then? Unfortunately, there has been no discussion on this.

Can anyone say with any degree of certainty that factors responsible for increase in pollution on 12-Jun-2018 and other such similar days, were not in play during Diwali?

The other aspect missed is that:

Everyone is focussing on just 2-3 days of the year while ignoring the remaining 362 odd days!

The two tables given below - summarisingthe number of healthy and unhealthy days in Delhi for the period 2015 to 2020 - can perhaps help underscore this point.

The Table of PM 2.5 levels above, shows that Delhi had a total of 1255 unhealthy to hazardous days (632 + 469 + 154) in the past five years.

Table of PM 10 levels, similarly shows Delhi having had a total of 854 (326 +340+188) unhealthy to hazardous days in this period.

Sadly, however, everyone from public and media to government, courts and pollution control agencies- concentrated only on 10 out of these 1255 days  that too without much success and after spoiling the entire joy and fun of one of the biggest festivals of this nation!

With the above discussion arises a more important question which all of us need to ask:

Why are all those, with an avowed agenda of fighting for the right to clean air, almost singularly, if not obsessively, focussed on just 10 out of the 1255 polluted days that weve had in the past five years? That too when many of 1245 days,which they do not even seek to address, have pollution levels much higher than the 10 days which they, at least, make a pretence of addressing.

***

Coming up next  Analysis of the Supreme court judgment.
Last two months data interestingly shows that most of these women drug peddlers are Muslims and Guwahati city police arrested several Muslim women drug peddlers in the last two months.

Guwahati: Ever since the new BJP government headed by chief minister Dr. Himanta Biswa Sarma has taken charge in Dispur, the Assam police have continuously hunted the deep-rooted drug rackets in the state. Police so far arrested almost 2000 drug peddlers, kingpins and seized drugs worth rupees over 350 crores. Because of the continuous pressure from the police, drug rackets have changed their modus operandi. Additional DGP and Guwahati police commissioner Harmeet Singh told media that "the drug rackets now use women drug peddlers and transport a small amount of drugs to the consumers".

Last two months data interestingly shows that most of these women drug peddlers are Muslims. Guwahati city police have arrested several Muslim women drug peddlers in the last two months. On August 11, Guwahati police arrested one Muslim woman, drug peddler Rongmola Begum. The police Team recovered - heroin in 2 soap boxes & 99 vials, 300 empty vials, rupees, 1,01,000 Cash and three mobile handsets. Upon investigation, the city police found that dozens of such women drug peddlers are active in Guwahati. On August 16, city police arrested another Muslim drug peddler, Rona Begum, with 10 Gm of Heroin.

A Nexon vehicle and 40,000 cash has also been seized from her possession. Police sources told 'Organiser' that these female drug peddlers transport in a sophisticated way in a luxury vehicle. Without proper tipoff, it is almost impossible to nab them.

Nearby Nagaon district police have arrested more than a dozen Muslim women drug peddlers in the last three months. In July, Nagaon police arrested Muslim women drug peddlers, Jasmina Begum and Shahida Begum, and 14 other drug peddlers from various parts of the district with a huge quantity of drugs and contrabands. The antinarcotics team of Nagaon police, in their investigation, found that these lady drug peddlers do end to end supplies to escape from police operation.

On August 11, Nagaon police nabbed three Muslim drug peddlers, Namely Hazra Begum, Nazima Khatun, Afsana Begum, with a large amount of drugs. On July 6, police arrested two most wanted Muslim drug peddlers Jamina Khatun and Joshnara Begum, from Samaguri area and seized a substantial amount of drugs from their possession along with the Kingpin Zakir Hussain. On the same day, Nagaon police arrested other Muslim women, drug peddler Taslima Begum from the Sialmari area and seized 400 grams of heroin worth rupees 28 lakhs.

Nagaon police in July also arrested one Muslim drug peddler Sahida Begum of the Juria area, Saddam Hussain and Md Jalaluddin of Hatipara, as they tried to carry Ganja on their journey to Kerala. Top officials of Nagaon Police told 'Organiser' that after the tremendous pressure from police drug racket engaged these women drug peddlers acting smartly to cheat the police. But police are also acting smartly to nab hundred of women peddlers active in the district.
Over 64.5 Lakh doses administered in last 24 hours, Weekly Positivity Rate (1.93%) is less than 3% for last 83 days with Recovery Rate at 97.64%. 30,570 New Cases reported in the last 24 hours, and the Active Caseload (3,42,923) is 1.03% of Total Cases.

With the administration of 64,51,423 vaccine doses in the last 24 hours, the country's COVID-19 vaccination coverage surpassed the cumulative figure of 76.57 Cr (76,57,17,137) as per provisional reports till 7 am today (September 16). This has been achieved through 77,22,914 sessions.

The Union Government is committed to accelerating the pace and expanding the scope of COVID-19 vaccination throughout the country. The recovery of 38,303 patients in the last 24 hours has increased the cumulative tally of recovered patients (since the pandemic's beginning) to 3,25,60,474. Consequently, India's recovery rate stands at 97.64%.

Sustained and collaborative efforts by the Centre and the States/UTs continue the trend of less than 50,000 Daily New Cases are being reported for 81 consecutive days now. 30,570 new cases were reported in the last 24 hours. The Active Caseload is presently 3,42,923. Active cases presently constitute 1.03% of the country's total Positive Cases.

The testing capacity across the country continues to be expanded. The last 24 hours saw a total of 15,79,761tests being conducted. India has so far conducted over 54.77 Cr (54,77,01,729) cumulative tests. While testing capacity has been enhanced across the country, Weekly Positivity Rate at 1.93% remains less than 3% for the last 83 days. The Daily Positivity rate reported to be 1.94%. The daily Positivity rate has remained below 3% for the last 17 days and below 5% for 100 consecutive days.

Courtesy: PIB
D K Aruna said Union Minister Amit Shah would be visiting Nirmal on September 17 and slammed the Telangana Cabinet Minister KT Rama Rao for not fulfilling his electoral promises



Hyderabad: DK Aruna, the National Vice-President of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday, (September 16) demanded that September 17 be officially celebrated as Telangana Liberation Day.

"It is BJP's demand that September 17 be celebrated as Telangana Liberation Day.

This date is extremely important for the state. While the rest of India got its independence on August 15, 1947, Telangana got its liberation on September 17, 1948. The Chief Minister KCR used this date to ignite the emotions of people during the Telangana movement. He talked about celebrating the Liberation Day of Telangana officially, but now, he does not even talk about it," Aruna told ANI.

She said that Union Home Minister Amit Shah was going to be in Nirmal for a meeting on September 17. Anyone willing to celebrate the Liberation Day of Telangana could participate in the meeting.

"This time, we will organise various events from September 17 to October 7. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is completing his 20 years of his political career as a Chief Minister and Prime Minister. We are doing sewa programmes for the occasion, like blood donation, health camps, distribution of clothing to poor. It will be carried out on a Pan-India basis," added Aruna.

She slammed the Telangana Cabinet Minister KT Rama Rao for not fulfilling his electoral promises, saying, "KTR told a lot of lies during his visit to Gadwal yesterday. He does not know anything besides lying. It was promised that Valmikis will be included in the list of Scheduled Tribes (ST) community, but nothing has been done yet. I challenge him to speak about the development works and progress in Gadwal for the last 7 years. Even as an opposition leader, I fulfilled my promise of providing a status of the district of Gadwal."

Courtesy: ANI








China's activities in the Middle East have mainly been about economic and trade development, such as energy supply, industrialization, and the Belt and Road Initiative's promotion in the region.

Is communist China trying to solve the long-standing conflict between Israel and Palestine? Knowledgeable sources say that ever since the "Arab Spring," the US commitment to the Middle East has dwindled. The Quartet, consisting of the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States, has almost been paralyzed in facilitating the peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine. China has of late sought to intervene in the matter for a lasting solution to the problem.

On May 17 this year, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi put forth a four-point proposal for peace to solve the current Israel-Palestine conflict. During his Middle East tour at the end of March this year, Wang announced the idea of inviting Israelis and Palestinians for talks in Beijing. Earlier, in 2013, China made a proposal to create a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders and East Jerusalem as its capital.

China today may be calculating it can play a constructive role. Its activities in the Middle East have mainly been about economic and trade development, such as energy supply, industrialization, and the Belt and Road Initiative's promotion in the region.

Besides, China has established friendly relations with many Arab countries, including establishing an "innovative and comprehensive partnership" with Israel and a long-standing friendship with Palestine. Recently, China has donated a lot to aid Palestine's fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. All this might enable Beijing to speak to both Israel and Palestine and prevail over them.

However, the chances of any Chinese breakthrough in the matter are bleak. The United States made serious efforts, including those by former American President Bill Clinton, to solve the Israel- Palestine conflict. It failed. The same fate may be awaiting China's efforts.

The West Bank-based Fatah party of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Gaza Strip-based Hamas continue to queer the pitch of the peace process in the region. The UN Resolution 242 (1967) acknowledges the claim of sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every state in the region. This alone can be the basis for settling the Israel-Palestine conflict. But neither Fatah nor Hamas really accepts this resolution. Both parties continue to incite violence against the Jews and aspire to the eventual creation of an Islamic state, replacing all of Israel.

The PA controls the West Bank. At a news conference, then Palestine Liberation Organization chairperson Yasser Arafat said, "We accept two states, the Palestinian state and the Jewish state of Israel." The Palestinian leadership recognized Israel also in the famous 1994 Oslo accord between the PLO and Israel. But it never really practised it. As for Hamas, it is a declared terror outfit. It does not recognize this right of Israel at all. It continues to engage in terror activities and launches rockets against Israel.

The sources suggest that, for peace to prevail in the region, ordinary Palestinians must take self-introspection, discard their current corrupt political leadership and chose genuine representatives to serve people's interests. Such leaders may get closer to Israel and derive all economic and technological benefits from it. Israel today is already helping Palestinian control the current pandemic. Israel also meets a great deal of Gaza's demand for energy.

The ordinary Palestinians ought to remember that Israel has never been an occupied nation. The Jews are indigenous to the Middle East and the Holy Land, not foreign interlopers or colonialist. Both the Bible and archaeology reveal that Jews have had a historical connection with Israel for over 3000 years.

The Jewish state has made various proposals to the Palestinians from time to time for peace. For the sake of peace, Israel has already control of the Gaza Strip. Today it allows Muslim worshippers to visit the Temple Mount, known to Muslims as the Haram Esh-Sharif, and pray at their third most sacred mosque, Al Aqsa, in the Old City of Jerusalem.

(The author is a Delhi-based journalist)
Education Ministry has approved to include "Xi Thought" as a curriculum influencer for students from primary school to graduate courses.

Beijing: At the tender age when students as young as seven are supposed to learn education basics, the Communist Party of China has decided to include "Xi Thought" in the curriculum to put leader, party and the nation first to "cultivate the builders and successors of socialism", a media report said.

In a statement, the education ministry said that the new curriculum is aimed "to cultivate the builders and successors of socialism with an all-round moral, intellectual, physical and aesthetic grounding". The foreign powers analyse the Chinese effort as an attempt by Xi Jinping to "consolidate" the CCP's role in different areas of society, news website The Hong Kong Post reported on Wednesday (September 15).

The CCP has instructed school teachers to plant the seeds in young children of loving the party and looking up to the leadership of President Xi Jinping and what his idea of patriotism is. The move appears that the party is attempting to shape the generation of 'patriots'. The party aims to put the leader, party and nation, in that order, before themselves and their families, The Hong Kong Post said.

Sceptics are wondering that what kind of patriotism or personality cult the communist regime is promoting.

The "Xi Thought" is believed to be a modern Chinese political treatise assembled by Xi. His ideas of patriotism, national duty, political ideology and leadership are in the "Xi Thought." It has been approved by the Education Ministry to include in as a curriculum influencer for students from primary school to graduate courses from now on.

Millions of school and university books have been printed. The books carry the smiling face of Xi Jinping all over, and the text is interspersed with his quotes. Teachers are instructed to inform the students that how the quotes and the text are linked.

Rather than having original facts, the book carries lesson plans more about interpreting Xi's statements and anecdotal stories.

Take, for instance, this unidentified lesson in a school textbook where the only meaningful portion, the government decrees, is this: "Xi Jinping is very busy with work, but no matter how busy he is, he still joins our activities and cares about our growth." How does this explain a chapter in moral science or physics, no one knows," according to The Hong Kong Post.

The Chinese President's "Xi Thought" -- a 14 point policy -- describes how he proposes to steer China and where during his tenure.

The primary objective is to "ensure CCP leadership over all forms of work in China". Secondary, it's for the CCP to have "absolute leadership" over the PLA. Thirdly, it is about improving "discipline" in the CCP. Others things are about promoting scientific temperament, comprehensive reforms, practice socialist core values, and adopt the one country, two systems format for Hong Kong and Macau and One-China policy for Taiwan.

However, most of the given description is vague, with no definitions of Xi's ambitious plans and objectives.

A section of parents is believed to be unhappy with the indoctrination. Some of the Chinese academics have also anonymously contended that people are most likely to "simply not take it very seriously".

Courtesy: ANI








The Taliban takeover of Kabul and declaration of Government comprised of designated terrorists has put a decisive dent in the United States as a perceived super-power

In the end, all the intellectual gymnastics could not hide the real deal. The Taliban 2.0 narrative crashed at the altar of the ambitions of the old Taliban. It shouldnt have been a surprise to anyone but the West, particularly the US, who has now got in the habit of getting surprised. The unveiling of a hard-line interim government led by Mullah Mohammad Hasan Akhund, with key roles being shared by high-profile members of the Taliban, is the latest in a series of setbacks the US has faced when it comes to Afghanistan. The 33-member interim Government is a veritable of whos who of the global terror leadership. The Taliban had supposedly promised an inclusive government and it was supposedly accepted in good faith by Washington only to realise now that forget women and minorities, Sirajuddin Haqqani, son of Jalalauddin Haqqani, the founder of the Haqqani network, designated a foreign terrorist organisation by the US, has been appointed acting Interior minister. The humiliation is total as a new terrorist regime is taking charge in Kabul just days before the 20th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

There was never any doubt about what the Taliban would do but hope springs eternal in the labyrinthine maze of American bureaucracy whereof the idea that the US would be able to work with the Taliban to conduct counterterrorism operations against ISIS-K is actually taken seriously. When asked whether the Taliban is an enemy, Bidens national security adviser Jake Sullivan has suggested thatits hard to put a label on it, because the US isyet to see what they are going to be now that theyre in controlphysical control of Afghanistan. Clearly, the last two decades of fighting against the Taliban has not been enough to understand what they are likely to do in Afghanistan once in control.

The Taliban are busy doing what they do best  oppress their people. Protests are growing across the country as ordinary Afghans push back against the brutality of the Taliban. From Herat to Kabul rallies have been held as a show of defiance with chants of freedom in the air. Women are coming out in big numbers to underscore their growing vulnerability under a regime that sees no place for them in society or politics. Taliban Supreme Leader Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhundzada has asked the Government to uphold Sharia law. The Taliban have warned the public against protesting until all the government offices have opened, and the laws for protests have been explained, making it clear that they would brook no dissent against their rule.

The Biden Administration is facing flak at home for its disastrous Afghanistan policy that will likely hang across Joe Bidens neck like an albatross. With hundreds of would-be evacuees desperate to board waiting charter flights out of Afghanistan, there is an immediacy to the challenges Washington is facing. But the long term challenge is a more substantive one with the announcement of the new Government by the Taliban. The Haqqani network was designated a foreign terrorist organisation when Biden was the Vice President. It had targeted US forces and has continued to work in close coordination with Al Qaeda. Now its leader is the interior minister. The Taliban itself has been closely coordinating its actions with Al Qaeda and the Haqqanis, so the assumption that the extremist group will provide a broad-based government or that it is even interested in governance says more about those making such assertions than about the Taliban.

For the US, the fall of Afghanistan is the most consequential foreign policy crisis, and Biden owns it. For a nation that saw unprecedented unity at home and support abroad after the attacks of September 11, 2001, today, two decades after, finds divisions all around as its leadership struggles to contain the damage unleashed by its incompetence and short-sightedness

The US has been left to issue a statement that underscores the dilemmas it faces. It has expressed concerns about the affiliations and track records of some of the individuals, adding that America would judge the Taliban by its actions, not words. But the Taliban are making it clear with their actions that they have won a military victory which is being encashed as they move towards politics. Theres to be no negotiated settlement; the barrel of the gun will decide the political spoils. The decimation of resistance in Panjshir valley makes it amply clear.

The US can still salvage some of its credibility. But does it have the political will to build a global coalition that refuses to recognise the terrorist Government that the Taliban intends to unleash in Afghanistan? Washington still hopes to hold the Taliban to their commitments to allow safe passage for foreign nationals and Afghans with travel documents, including permitting flights currently ready to fly out of Afghanistan.

That violent extremism would gain momentum worldwide as a result of this perceived victory of jihadist ideology is a given. Whatever the gloss, this is no victory of a nationalist movement. The Taliban leadership and its foot soldiers retain an extremist ideology at its very core and unless the world comes to terms with this basic reality, there is no possibility of an adequate policy response to a challenge that is only growing to go bigger with time. American follies may have generated the present chaos, but its consequences will be felt far and wide.

Washingtons inability to withdraw with even a semblance of dignity intact will have a great bearing on Americas future conduct in global politics and it is not readily evident that the Biden administration is up to the task of moving ahead purposefully. For the US, the fall of Afghanistan is the most consequential foreign policy crisis, and Biden owns it. For a nation that saw unprecedented unity at home and support abroad after the attacks of September 11, 2001, today, two decades after, finds divisions all around as its leadership struggles to contain the damage unleashed by its incompetence and short-sightedness. Pax Americana may or may not end in Kabul, but Washington will have to set new terms of engagement with the world after its disastrous retreat in the face of terror onslaught in South Asia.
Looking for something to do? Heres a list of local community and nonprofit events. Please check with your club or organization to be certain of meetings, outings and classes, as they may be canceled because of bad weather or other reason. If any listing is inaccurate or to submit an event, contact Julie Norwood at 231-592-8358 or julie.norwood@pioneergroup.com.

 Free Concert and Dinner: 5:30 p.m. (dinner), 6:30 p.m. (concert) Thursday, Sept. 16, at Trinity Lutheran Church and School, 19778 U.S.-10, Reed City. AriSon recording artist Jennie Williamson will perform a free family concert. A freewill offering will be gratefully accepted.

 Artworks Gala: 6-9 p.m. Friday, Sept. 17, at Artworks, 106 N. Michigan Ave., Big Rapids. Cost: $60. Contact: 231-796-2420, www.artworksinbigrapids.org/gala.

 Shred Event: 9 a.m. to noon Saturday, Sept. 18, at Lerner Csernai Fath Financial, 15505 Waldron Way, Big Rapids. Bring your shred in non-returnable bags/boxes. Donations to benefit Manna Pantry of Big Rapids. For more information, visit mannapantry.org/programs-2.

 Basket Weaving  Scarecrow Basket: 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 18, at Artworks 106 N. Michigan Ave., Big Rapids. Cost: $55. Contact: 231-796-2420

 Glass Fusion  Glass Heart: 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 18, at Artworks, 106 N. Michigan Ave., Big Rapids. Cost: $75. Contact: 231-796-2420.

 Animal Tales  Australian Kangaroo: 10-11 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 18, at Card/Riley Conservation & Wildlife Education Center, 820 Campus Drive, Big Rapids. Learn about Australian Kangaroo with a story and a craft. Cost: Free. Contact: Carrie Weis at weisc@ferris.edu, 231-591-2536.

 Tuba Bach Festival: 4 p.m. Saturdays, Sept. 11-Oct. 17, outside at Immanuel Lutheran Church, 726 Fuller Ave., Big Rapids. A separate concert will be livestreamed online only, as well as on Sunny 97.3 FM at 4 p.m. Sundays. Visit www.tubabach.org. for links.

 Cub Scout Pack 174 Registration Night: 6:30-7:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 23, 223 E. 5th Ave., Reed City. Reed City Cub Scout Pack 174 will kick off its 2021-22 season with a Pack Meeting. All new and returning Scouts are invited to attend, and new Scouts can register to join the Pack during the meeting. Open to boys in grades 1-5.

 Wolfy Memorial Tournament: Friday, Sept. 24, and Saturday, Sept. 25. Contact: Cody Wyman at cwyman@cityofbr.org, 231-349-2060. For more information or to register a team, visit wolfymemorialtournament.com.

 Mosaic Mirror: 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 25, at Artworks 106 N. Michigan Ave., Big Rapids. Cost: $80 for Sept. 25 and Oct. 2 sessions; $60 for Sept. 25 session only. Contact: 231-796-2420

 Little Women: 7 p.m. Sept. 24, Sept. 25, Oct. 8, Oct. 9; and 2 p.m. Sept. 26, Oct. 2, Oct. 3 and Oct. 10; at CrossRoads Theatre, 249 W. Upton Ave., Reed City. Tickets are $10 each and can be reserved by calling 231-465-4044.

 Swiss Steak Dinner: 4-6:30 p.m. the last Friday of every month, April-October, at the Barryton Senior Center, 71 Northern Ave., Barryton. Includes dinner and dessert. Everyones welcome.

 Tai Chi: Noon on Wednesdays at Hemlock Park. Improve muscle tone, flexibility, balance and coordination. Newcomers welcome. brpr.org.

 Mecosta Co. Genealogical Society: Open 5-7 p.m. Wednesdays and 10 a.m.-2 p.m. every second Saturday, at 424 N. Fourth Ave., Big Rapids, next to Recycle. Thousands of obits and hundreds of books with history and genealogy for the Mecosta Co. area. Stop by or call Maureen Nelson at 231-250-5555 to set up an appointment.

 Mecosta County Sheriff Posse: 7 p.m. the second Thursday of each month at the Mecosta County Jail basement training room, 225 S. Stewart Ave., Big Rapids. This volunteer group is always looking for more members. For more info call 231-250-9241

 Lords Table Food Pantry: 3-5 p.m. Wednesdays at Faith Community Church, 610 Green St., Big Rapids. Everyone is welcome.

 Reed City Food Pantry: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesdays, beginning Sept. 7, at St. Philip Neri Catholic Church, 831 S. Chestnut St., Reed City.

 Morley Community Center: The center, at 151 7th St., Morley, hosts weekly pickleball, open gym, indoor garage sales and outdoor market, in addition to monthly ancestry class, craft night and blood drive. For a list of activities, visit morleycenter.org/events or call 231-856-4496.

ARTWORKS ONGOING CLASSES, EXHIBITS

106 N. Michigan Ave. in Big Rapids / 231-796-2420 / artworksinbigrapids.org

 After School Arts: 3:45-5:15 p.m. Wednesdays, Sept. 1-29. Drop-ins welcome on a first come, first serve basis, but registration recommended. Register at Artworks gift shop or by calling 231-796-2420 the Monday before each session.

 Open Pottery: 5-8 p.m. Tuesdays. Cost: $10 per session, $60 for an eight-session punch card. (Additional firing fees apply. Clay may be purchased in bulk for $20 per 25 lbs.) Call 231-796-2420 to schedule your session.

 Hand Built Pottery Fall Session: 6-8 p.m. Mondays, Sept. 13, 20, 27, and Oct. 4, 18, 25. Cost: $150. Register by calling 231-796-2420 or online at www.artworksinbigrapids.org/pottery.

 Beginning Wheel Fall Session: 6-8 p.m. Wednesdays, Sept. 15, 22, 29, and Oct. 5, 12, 26. Cost: $150. Register by calling 231-796-2420 or online at www.artworksinbigrapids.org/pottery.

 Fundamentals of Photography Beginner Course: 5:30-7:30 p.m. Tuesdays, Sept. 15-Oct. 19. Cost: $75. Register by calling 231-796-2420 or online at www.artworksinbigrapids.org/photography.

 Exhibit  Joyful Journey: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Saturday, Aug. 30-Sept. 18. Exhibit features artwork Hope Network and MOISD students.
The following list includes recent reports from the Midland County Sheriffs Office and the Midland Police Department. Compiled by reporter Andrew Mullin.

Thursday, Sept. 9:

10:29 p.m.  A deputy conducted a traffic stop on an Edenville Township roadway. The 37-year-old Twining male was subsequently issued a citation for having no insurance on his vehicle.

9:08 p.m.  A deputy was dispatched to a Midland residence reference a trespassing complaint. A 41-year-old Midland male advised that a 69-year-old male was trespassing on his Lincoln Township vacant property. The male advised that he would handle the issue but wanted it documented.

5:25 p.m.  A deputy was dispatched to a Warren Township residence for a female screaming and dogs barking. The deputy contacted a 36-year-old female, who stated her dogs got into a fight and she broke it up. No one was injured and no further assistance from Law Enforcement was needed.

2:59 p.m.  A 62-year-old Lincoln Township man came to the Law Enforcement Center to report a fraud. The man reported an unknown suspect(s) attempted to open a bank account in his name and applied for a mortgage. Neither went through and the man was not out any money. The man was working with the institutions as well as contacting the credit bureaus and Social Security Administration.

12:52 p.m.  Deputy was dispatched to a Mills Township location reference a two-vehicle crash. A 62-year-old male was written a failure to yield citation. A 31-year-old female was issued a citation for driving with no license. A report is being sent to the Midland County Prosecuting Attorneys Office reference the driving with no license charge.

11:41 a.m.  A deputy stopped a 27-year-old Gladwin County male for speeding. During the traffic stop, it was discovered the driver's license was suspended. The driver was cited for speeding and driving with a suspended license, and the vehicle was turned over to a licensed driver.

10:44 a.m.  Deputies responded to Mills Township reference a fight between a 28-year-old Mills Township male and his 25-year-old brother. Both subjects had apparent minor injuries. The 25-year-old was arrested on a felony warrant out of Midland County and was transported to the Midland County Jail without incident. A report is being sent to the prosecutor's office.

9:36 a.m.  A deputy was dispatched to a Gladwin City location to pick up a 40-year-old male who was arrested in Roscommon County on a Midland County probation warrant. The male was transported to the Midland County Jail without incident.

8:59 a.m.  A 29-year-old Lee Township female called 911 because her 36-year-old boyfriend arrived at her home and took her vehicle. This was a violation of a domestic violence conditional bond. She did not wish to pursue charges related to the taking of her vehicle. The male fled the area, and a report has been sent to the prosecutor's office for review.

8:56 a.m.  Animal control deputy dispatched to a report of a loose cow in the area of North Coleman and Fike roads. The deputy checked the area and was unable to locate any loose cattle.

4:45 a.m.  A 27-year-old Saginaw female was cited for driving with a suspended license following a traffic stop conducted on a Greendale Township roadway. A report was forwarded to the prosecutor's office.

12:53 a.m.  A 29-year-old Mills Township male was arrested at his Mills Township trailer on several warrants out of the Midland County courts. The male was transported to the Midland County Jail without incident.
MEXICO CITY (AP)  The big highlight of Mexicos Independence Day Thursday was a visit by Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador welcomed the Cuban leader on the reviewing platform for Mexicos annual Sept. 16 military parade.

Lopez Obrador called on the United States to end the economic blockade of Cuba. The Mexican leader also called on Cuban-Americans to leave aside partisan or electoral interests and seek reconciliation.

Hopefully President (Joe) Biden has enough political sensitivity to act with greatness and put an end to the political attacks on Cuba," Lopez Obrador said. He should also help the Cuban-American community put aside political or electoral interests, they have to leave behind resentment and understand the new circumstances and seek reconciliation.

The pandemic, the effects of the U.S. sanctions and Cuba's economic mismanagement have suffocated Cubas economy. Thousands of Cubans took part in protests on July 11 and 12, angered by shortages of food and medicine and by power outages, as well as some demanding more political freedom.

Lopez Obrador said It looks bad that the U.S. government is using the blockade to prevent the wellbeing of the Cuban people, with the goal of obliging people through necessity to confront their own government.

If this perverse strategy is successful, Lopez Obrador said, it would become a pyrrhic victory, vile and perverse.

Some felt the showcasing of the Cuban leader on independence day was inappropriate.

I think they should have invited some outstanding Mexican, some scientist, but not somebody who comes from a regime because I don't support any regime, said vendor Victor Carabez, 60. For me, long live democracy.

Former Mexican President Felipe Calderon wrote in his Twitter account that it is unacceptable to give such a prominent place at the countrys bicentennial independence celebration to a dictator who has imprisoned dozens of Cubans.

2021 marks 200 years since Mexicos formal 1821 declaration of independence from Spain.

Mexico is set to host a summit of leaders Friday of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, known by its initials in Spanish as CELAC. Some analysts say Mexico may seek to use the opportunity to weaken or leave the Organization of American States, or OAS.

Mexican officials have criticized the OAS as too U.S.-oriented and too interventionist, and have said a new body is needed to represent the region's countries. Lopez Obrador has previously said the OAS should be replaced by a truly autonomous body, one that is nobody's lackey.

Cuba is part of the CELAC, but does not belong to the OAS.

After essentially agreeing with the United States to help prevent migrants from reaching the U.S. border, and receive those sent back, Lopez Obrador needs some way to signal that Mexico has not abandoned its traditionally independent foreign policy.

Mexico has already sent shipments of aid to Cuba, and Diaz-Canel thanked Mexico for its support.

However, Lopez Obrador has also made it a priority to maintain good relations with the United States. Mexico may be betting that a U.S. administration so concerned about surges of migrants at the border may be willing to overlook divergence on foreign policy issues.

On Thursday, Biden issued a statement congratulating Mexico on the anniversary, noting Mexico is one of our most valued partners. Together, we are able to promote our many mutual interests and cooperate to address shared challenges.
As the pandemic continues to evolve, Midland Public Schools and the Midland County Health Department are learning from past experiences, utilizing current data and modifying their approaches to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.

Both the current situation with COVID and the methods of combating local spread has changed over the past year and a half. In 2020, Midland Public Schools (MPS) had the option of providing virtual learning. Schools which provided in-person classes heavily relied on quarantining and isolating cases, as those were the most powerful tools available to mitigate spread. This year, all classes are held in-person, and students ages 12 and older can receive the vaccine. Also, there is the presence of the Delta variant, which is more transmissible than the original strain which was prevalent last year.

Its really difficult to compare because theyre really apples and oranges. All of this is evolving and changing, said Midland County Department of Public Health Director Fred Yanoski.

The main focus now is to keep students in schools, which is aided by a new testing protocol provided by the Midland County Health Department and MPS. The two organizations are focused on finding cases of COVID-19 so they can properly quarantine those who are exposed and limiting individuals who test positive while keeping as many students in class as safely possible.

Under the new protocol, vaccinated individuals who have had close contact with a case of COVID-19 are recommended to mask for 14 days and get tested between Day 3-5 from the time of exposure.

One of the benefits of being vaccinated is that you dont have to quarantine, said Catherine Bodnar, medical director for the Midland County Department of Public Health.

For those who are unvaccinated and are in close contact and have no symptoms, they must undergo serial testing. The health department is providing testing on certain days before the school day begins; if an individual is negative, they can continue to attend school. If they test positive, they must follow up with a diagnostic, lab-confirmed test within 48 hours.

Its designed to keep them in class and monitor them to make sure that they dont come down with the disease, Yanoski stated.

MPS role in mitigating the spread of the virus has been invaluable. Bodnar explained the schools have been dedicated to doing the best they can.

This is a lot of extra work placed on them and theyre doing a wonderful job, said Nicole Swanton, clinical services director.

Theyre rising to the occasion, Bodnar added.

According to the states School-Related Outbreak webpage, which is updated every week, there are three new outbreaks in Midland schools, two of which are in the Midland Public Schools system. As of Monday, Sept. 13, Central Park Elementary has an outbreak of three students, Jefferson Middle School has an outbreak of six students. Northwood University's outbreak is still listed as 25 students.

Ongoing school outbreaks recorded by the state on Monday in Midland include Adams Elementary, which has an outbreak of 30 staff and students, Chestnut Hill Elementary has six students and Woodcrest Elementary has three students.

On Wednesday, Midland Public Schools reported outbreaks (two or more cases) at the following schools: Dow High (two students), Midland High (one student, one staff), Jefferson Middle (two students), Northeast Middle School (three students), Adams Elementary (four students) and Plymouth Elementary (two students).

Bodnar explained that what is going on in schools regarding to the pandemic parallels what is going on in the community; as COVID cases rise in the community, as they have been doing in the past few weeks, so do cases in the schools. The situation is compounded as large numbers of residents arent masked and nearly half of Midland County remains unvaccinated.

I dont know how we keep COVID out of the school when the community isnt doing the things they should be doing, Bodnar said.

For kids under the age of 12 and who cant receive the vaccine, Bodnar suggests cohorting, as having interactions with a smaller number of constant contacts can decrease the possibility of contracting the virus. Wearing masks is helpful as well, she said, as they not only help slow the spread, but also is a visual reminder to social distancing.

Vaccines are available to everyone ages 12 and up. Yanoski explained that vaccinations decrease chances of having a bad case of COVID, hospitalization and death. The Midland County Health Department continues to provide all three vaccine brands: Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson. Walk-in vaccination clinics are available from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. every Tuesday at 220 W. Ellsworth St. Starting in October, additional walk-in clinics will be offered from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. every Friday.
Teens are apparently stealing soap dispensers and other bathroom items from school to participate in the latest harmful TikTok challenge.

Students are calling the thefts "devious licks" as part of a trend going viral on the platform. The destructive stunt  dubbed both the bathroom challenge and the devious lick challenge as slang for the stealthy actions  has seen kids steal water fountains, hand sanitizer and soap dispensers, fire alarms, bathroom stall doors, hot air dryers and many other major utilities, seemingly just for the thrill of it, according to the New York Post.

This has prompted schools to warn students to stop stealing school equipment, cautioning arrest as a possible consequence, and TikTok said it will remove videos associated with the trend, as they are against community guidelines.

Mount Pleasant Middle School administration issued the following statement to parents this week.

"Dear MPMS Parents, there is a current TikTok challenge that our students are participating in that includes tearing soap dispensers off of the walls in the bathrooms. Dispensers are getting broken and additional messes are being made. Please remind your student that this could be considered vandalism and it is important to be respectful of school property. Thank you for helping to share the message."

Additionally, Midland Public School System is aware of the videos, according to Superintendent Michael Sharrow. Northeast Middle School faculty, with their student body, is addressing any vandalism issues and bathrooms have been temporarily closed in some locations for repairs.

The trend started when TikTok user jugg4elias posted a video on Sept. 1 showing off a box of disposable face masks they claimed to have stolen from school, according to Know Your Meme. The video gained over 239,000 views in a week, and has since been taken down by the platform.

Over the following weeks, TikTokers from around the country in both middle school and high school began posting similar videos showing off items they allegedly stole from school.

A song by Lil B called "Ski Ski BasedGod" provides the backing track to these alleged school supply thefts.

"Only 2 weeks into school and got this absolute devious lickk," TikTok user @jadenflick wrote in an onscreen caption of a since-deleted video showing them pulling what appears to be a Georgia-Pacific hands-free paper towel dispenser from their backpack and setting it on a couch.

The video, which had 2.3 million likes in under a week before it was taken down, was accompanied by a single hashtag: #devious. A subsequent video on the account appears to show the paper towel dispenser attached to a wall, according to Insider.

As of Monday, Sept.13, there were more than 76,000 videos using the sped-up version of "Ski Ski BasedGod" as background music, and 24,500 videos using an identical sound posted by a different TikTok user. The tag #deviouslick had 175.2 million views, according to Mashable. But, the tag has since been removed from the platform in an effort to squash the trend, for being "associated with behavior or content that violates our guidelines," according to TikTok.

Other students don't like the challenge. Some TikTok users complained that school bathrooms are closed because of missing toilets and stolen bathroom stall dividers. One user joked about being scared to use public restrooms, lest their shoes be stolen from under the stall door in the name of a devious lick, according to Mashable.

The trend is harmful because it damages necessary items in already underfunded schools. And, the only reward students gain from participating is TikTok engagement. There haven't been any lick-related arrests made public yet.
RENO, Nev. (AP)  Nevada's hospital association urged residents Wednesday to stay out of emergency rooms except in true emergencies, especially in northern Nevada where a resurgence in COVID-19 cases continues at a rate twice as high as the Las Vegas area.

Many hospital emergency departments in northern Nevada are at capacity with patients, said Pat Kelly, president and CEO of the Nevada Hospital Association.

The 30-day average number of daily new cases per 100,000 residents has increased five-fold in the Reno-Sparks area over the past six weeks, from 354 at the beginning of August to 1,621 now, Washoe County Health District Officer Kevin Dick said.

The statewide rate is 951. In Clark County including Las Vegas its 720, and 1,501 across the rest of state outside Carson City, Washoe and Clark counties.

Confirmed or suspected COVID-19 related hospitalizations statewide stood at 1,090 on Monday, state health officials reported Wednesday. They remained below 500 from March through June before topping 1,000 at the end of July after peaking at 2,636 last Dec. 15.

In Washoe County, they peaked at 349 in December and dropped as low as 29 on July 26 before climbing ever since to the current 199, the state reported Wednesday.

Dick said it reminds him of last fall when we were climbing to the peak of our surge at the end of November. Hospital staffing may be even worse now than it was then, he said.

"Theres just so much burnout, he told reporters Wednesday.

I can tell you in the health department and in our health care community, this has just been relentless. We are overwhelmed here. We can't keep up with the disease investigations and the contact tracing, he said.

Test positivity, a measure of the number of people tested who are positive for COVID-19, has decreased to 11.5% statewide after surging to 16.4% in mid-August, and to 8.9% in the Las Vegas area.

The rate remained high, at 20% on Wednesday in and around Reno and nearly 26% in Elko County. The World Health Organization goal is 5% or less to relax coronavirus restrictions.

Dick repeated his weekly plea for the more than one-third of Nevadans who have resisted getting vaccinated against the virus to do so for the good of everyone.

About 63.5% of eligible Nevada residents have received at least one shot of vaccine, and 53.7% are fully vaccinated.

The hospital association urged Nevadans on Wednesday to get vaccinated, wear a mask, avoid getting a COVID-19 test in an emergency room and to use urgent care or their primary care provider as alternatives to emergency rooms. Residents should only use emergency departments if they are critically ill, Kelly said.

Dick said that despite increasing evidence the COVID-19 vaccines are safe he's seeing more and more false information in social media about potential harm. He's heard preposterous stories about death and other harm from the vaccines.

I can assure you hospitals are not filling up because people are having reactions from the COVID-19 vaccination. The hospitals are filling up because people arent getting vaccinated and they are getting COVID-19 and they are spreading COVID-19 in our community, Dick said.

He said the Nevada Hospital Association asking residents "to do their part to help avoid with hospital overcrowding is a sign of how dire the situation is.

In other virus developments, former Republican governor Brian Sandoval  now the president of the University of Nevada, Reno  announced in a campus email that he tested positive Wednesday for COVID-19. Sandoval said he was previously vaccinated and had mild symptoms of illness. He said he will work from home for 10 days.

Gov. Steve Sisolak signed the mandate he endorsed last week to require state employees at health care facilities and prisons to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by Nov. 1 or face administrative leave or reassignment.

Nevada has about 12,000 inmates at 17 prison facilities, where more than 4,500 prisoners have tested positive for COVID-19 and 49 have died. The vaccination rate among prison employees, meanwhile, has lagged the overall state vaccination rate by about 10%. In July, prison officials said about 42% of staff members had received vaccines  a percentage the governor called atrocious.

Corrections officers warned the Board of Health last week that requiring vaccinations would cause mass resignations and staff shortages.

___

Associated Press writer Ken Ritter contributed to this report from Las Vegas.
Jamestown Container Companies Acquires Cattaraugus Container in New York

The acquisition of Cattaraugus Container provides Jamestown Container Companies with an immediate growth opportunity in Western New York. The acquisition of Cattaraugus Container provides Jamestown Container Companies with an immediate growth opportunity in Western New York.

Sept. 15, 2021 - Jamestown Container Companies on August 30 announced an agreement to acquire Cattaraugus Container, Inc., a converted paper product manufacturing company in Franklinville, New York, effective immediately.

Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

"This purchase provides Jamestown Container Companies with an immediate growth opportunity in Western New York," explained Joseph R. Palmeri, Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. "We constantly look for ways to strengthen our companys position in the markets we serve, opportunities that support our long-term growth strategy to focus on core competencies, minimize the impact of rising costs, and maximize customer, employee and shareholder value."

With the acquisition complete, Cattaraugus Container will operate as a division of Jamestown Container Companies in their current Franklinville, NY location.

In addition, Jamestown Container plans to retain the entire Cattaraugus Container workforce.

"We believe this acquisition will enable us to enhance our products and services to our customers, support our leadership position in our markets, and strengthen our capability for future growth and expansion as opportunities arise," Palmeri said. "Weve always continued to look for ways to empower and serve our customers in the Great Lakes region, and this acquisition follows through on that promise."

Jamestown Container Companies, headquartered in Falconer, New York, currently operates six manufacturing facilities, including locations in Falconer, Rochester, Lyons and Buffalo, New York, as well as Cleveland, Ohio. To learn more, visit: www.jamestowncontainer.com.

SOURCE: Jamestown Container Companies
Metsa Group Planning to Invest EUR 200 Million in Construction of Kerto LVL Mill in Aanekoski

The market outlook is excellent for lightweight, environmentally friendly Kerto LVL products that speed up construction, especially in industrial prefabrication, modular construction and traditional project construction. The market outlook is excellent for lightweight, environmentally friendly Kerto LVL products that speed up construction, especially in industrial prefabrication, modular construction and traditional project construction.

Sept. 16, 2021 - Metsa Group is planning to construct a new Kerto LVL (laminated veneer lumber) mill on its expanding mill area in Aanekoski, Finland. The final decision on the investment, the value of which is approximately EUR 200 million, is pending the completion of a local detailed plan for the area. The new Kerto LVL mill is expected to use around 375,000 cubic metres of log procured from Finland.

According to plans, the production of the new mill will be mainly sold to customers in Europe and Asia. The market outlook is excellent for lightweight, environmentally friendly Kerto LVL products that speed up construction, especially in industrial prefabrication, modular construction and traditional project construction. The development of a hybrid element structure combining concrete and Kerto LVL products has also made good progress and will further boost demand.

The annual Kerto LVL production capacity of the new mill, to be constructed in phases between 2022 and 2026, will be approximately 150,000 cubic metres. This means an increase of some 50 per cent in Metsa Group's current Kerto LVL production. The mill will be a global forerunner in its field in terms of its technology and efficiency.

The new mill would have a direct employment impact of around 140 new jobs.

"We create profitable growth by processing Finnish wood, and our operations are guided by the principles of sustainability," said Ilkka Hamala, President and CEO of Metsa Group. In the next few years, we will be increasing our production of products that store carbon over a longer period of time, and the new Kerto LVL mill is the next step in this process.

"As wood is the most environmentally friendly construction material, we believe that the demand for resource-efficient and high-quality Kerto LVL will continue to be strong. Finland needs more investments and a strong belief in the future," Hamala added.

Metsa Group has together with the city of Aanekoski initiated a local planning process with the target to expand the production of mechanical wood products at the Aanekoski integrated mill. A local detailed plan is under preparation for the approximately 150-hectare area that is located to the south of Metsa Group's current mill site and is slated for industrial operations. There is a valid local master plan for the area, most of which is owned by Metsa Fibre, part of Metsa Group. The planning process is expected to run until early 2022.

The area for which the plan is being prepared will enable a significant expansion of mechanical forest industry production activities  also after the completion of the new Kerto LVL mill.

Metsa Group is a forerunner in sustainable bioeconomy utilising renewable wood from sustainably managed northern forests. Metsa Group focuses on wood supply and forest services, wood products, pulp, fresh fibre paperboards and tissue and greaseproof papers. For further information, visit: www.metsagroup.com.

SOURCE: Metsa Group
Photo: (Photo : Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for ParentsTogether)

Families in the U.S. are expecting another cash infusion following the third child tax credit payment release on September 15. Taxpayers with children below 17 years old could automatically get $250 to $300 per child as the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) distributes the monthly benefit via direct deposit on their nominated bank accounts.

The IRS has three more monthly child tax credit payments to disburse in October, November, and December, while the rest of the expanded benefit will be given in lump sum during tax season in April 2022.

Heads of households who make $112,500 a year or joint filers who earn a combined income of $150,000 or more may qualify for child tax credit payments. However, more low-income parents became eligible to receive the fully refundable benefit this year as part of the pandemic's $1.9 trillion relief package.

Read Also: Democrats Deliberate on Extending New Child Tax Credit Until 2024

Before the pandemic, the Treasury Department estimated that 26 million children, especially in Black and Latino families, were excluded from full credit due to their parents' low income. According to CNN, lawmakers ensured that low-income parents would be protected from overpayments as those who earn $50,000 or $60,000 (joint filers) will not have to repay the excess of the benefits.

Democrats are working out an extension of the child tax credit payments until 2025. Experts believe that this initiative will help cut child poverty in the U.S. by 50 percent.

First Lady Jill Biden Pushes for Extension

On Wednesday, during her visit to Iowa, First Lady Jill Biden discussed her support for the child tax credit extension until 2025 as she believes this will "keep families afloat." Speaking to a crowd in Des Moines, the first lady said that school supplies alone are very expensive, and the extra $300 cash infusion from the government will allow parents to pay and purchase what their kids need.

"If you have to take a trip to urgent care or when you get that bill for your kid's braces, you know that extra $300 means that you can stop holding your breath," Biden said.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 47 percent of American families spent their previous payments on food, while 26 percent said they used the money for school expenses.

West Des Moines Rep. Cindy Axne said that the extension is a top priority for mothers in the House of Congress. While there are not many of them in the group, they are working hard to ensure that this will be tabled at the deliberations.

However, critics of the plan said the extension would prevent people from joining the workforce, which will impact businesses. However, the mothers in politics argued that workers are not seeking out jobs because of their problems with childcare and the general risk of the coronavirus.

Democrats Make their Move

On Monday, House Democrats released its plan for the Expanded Affordable Care Act subsidies for 2025 that covered child care tax credit payments. According to NBC, the extension now included "technical changes," allowing more taxpayers to file for a claim even if they still do not have a Social Security number.

Amendments to the bill are expected to be undertaken in the coming months before the House goes into a vote. For Democrats to succeed with the extension, they will need 50 supporters in the House.

On the other hand, the Senate is negotiating a different extension of the Expanded Affordable Care Act subsidies. Lawmakers are still negotiating where to get the funding for this proposal.

Related Article: Child Tax Credit: Important Dates Parents Need To Remember
Photo: (Photo : KHALED DESOUKI/AFP via Getty Images)

Facebook officials have been aware that Instagram, its photo-sharing app, has had a negative mental health impact for its female teenage users for at least two years, leaked internal research has revealed.

In 2019, the company did a study on the state of mind of its users, following criticisms that Instagram's environment is toxic but addictive. According to The Wall Street Journal, the survey informed Facebook officials that many of its users, particularly impressionable teenage girls, had worsened body image issues.

The research presentation within Facebook showed that 32 percent of the teenage girls on the app said that Instagram made them feel worse about their bodies. One slide stated that the teens blame the app for their increased anxiety and depression because they felt worse about their appearance since they started using the app.

Read Also: Instagram Launches New Safety Settings To Protect Kids Below 16

Teens who participated in the study also said they were addicted to Instagram and desired to check in less but could not control their usage. The researchers concluded that Instagram had been engineered for "social comparison" of faces, bodies, and lifestyles compared to other apps like TikTok or Snapchat.

Lawmakers Address Facebook

Following the research's leak, Sen. Ed Markey, Rep. Lori Trahan, and Rep. Kathy Castor wrote a letter to Facebook to say they are "deeply concerned" over its continued failure to protect its users. The lawmakers also said that Facebook should reconsider its plans to launch an Instagram app for children under 13 years old.

Other senators and congressmen told Wall Street Journal that they plan on launching a probe on Facebook to see how much the officials knew of Instagram's negative impact on teenagers. The lawmakers said that this probe would allow Facebook to come clean, but they have kept in touch with the whistleblower, who leaked the research presented, just in case they would need more documentation.

But Facebook, which has owned Instagram since 2012, said that its research has helped the companies understand the minds and the experiences of younger people active on the photo-sharing app. Karina Newton, Instagram's head of public policy, said that the research highlighted the app's benefits and made them see the risks so that they could do something about it.

Newton also said that they have taken strides and acted on bullying, suicide, and eating disorder issues to ensure that the app remains safe. On the social comparison issue, Newton said that their developers are working out ways to help users curb their usage if they start to dwell on specific content.

Studies Supporting Internal Research

In 2017, an independent study from YoungMinds and the Royal Society for Public Health named Instagram as the app with the most negative effect on its young users. The study cited that the constant barrage of the "perfect life" on Instagram puts added pressure to compete and compare.

Mental Health advocates have called out Facebook for its commercial optimization of Instagram without regard for the wellbeing of its users. One advocate said that its carelessness had indicted the company with this research leak.

Related Article: Today's Kids Spend an Average of 9 Hours of Screen Time Every Day, Study Reveals
Photo: (Photo : THOMAS COEX/AFP via Getty Images)

The adoptive parents of a 3-year-old child have filed an appeal with the courts in Michigan after the child's birth dad, Peter Kruithoff, reclaimed his parental rights.

Attorney Lisa Speaker, representing the unnamed adoptive parents, stated in the appeal that Baby Boy Doe has only known one family -- his adoptive parents -- ever since his birth. Speaker also said that the court's earlier ruling, which gave back Kruithoff his right to the baby, should be considered a court error.

Baby Boy Doe was born on Aug. 9, 2018, but his mother turned him over for adoption before leaving the hospital. Kruithoff claimed in his lawsuit against a Catholic charity that handled the baby's adoption that he was never contacted about his son, even as the law required the agency to look for the other parent within 28 days.

Read Also: DNA Test Reveals New York Woman, Adopted as a Baby, Has Long-Lost Siblings Living Blocks From Her

No Contact with the Mother

Kruithoff divorced the baby's mother days before the birth and didn't have any contact with her after he was arrested for domestic violence. His attorneys claimed that the mother did not inform of the child's birth since she used her maiden name at the hospital. She also did not put the father's name in the baby's documents because she had never told her ex-husband that she would give up the child.

Meanwhile, the Catholic Charities West Michigan placed Baby Boy Doe with his new parents after completing his adoption process with the Kalamazoo County Circuit Court, which didn't recognize Kruithoff's paternal rights. Catholic Charities told the court that they were not aware of the identities of the biological dad and did not question the mother about him. The unnamed couple officially adopted Baby Boy Doe in February 2019.

However, in another court, in Ottawa County, Kruithoff was awarded custody of his baby after he sued Catholic Charities. The father's lawyers accused the charity of a cover-up when they knew that the adoption process would be completed. In August, the Court of Appeals sided with Ottawa County Circuit Court and overruled the Kalamazoo County Circuit Court's ruling over the birth father's rights to his baby in a 2-1 decision.

On the other hand, the adoptive parents protested that Kruithoff and his lawyers were able to unseal the baby's adoption records. They found out that Kruithoff was able to reclaim his rights after seeing a published notice. The Court of Appeals has yet to decide on the adoptive parent's plea.

"It's a disaster for everyone involved," the father's lawyer said in an interview. "All could have been avoided by Catholic Charities by just doing the righteous thing."

Catholic Charities: 80 Years

For 80 years, Catholic Charities has been helping families and children by providing foster care and adoption services. The agency also runs a soup kitchen that serves four million meals a year and food relief in times of calamities and tragedies.

In 2019, Catholic Charities sued Michigan for preventing faith-based agencies from refusing adoptions for LGBTQ parents because of religious reasons. Its lawyers alleged that it's a violation of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The American Civil Liberties of Michigan, on the other hand, sued for discrimination after two lesbian couples were not entertained when they wanted to adopt.

Related Article: Heartbroken Childless Couple Return Adopted Daughter as Birth Parents Changed Minds
Photo: (Photo : TAUSEEF MUSTAFA/AFP via Getty Images)

A grieving father from Chicago has spoken up and defended his estranged wife after she shot and killed their 12-year-old son over a missing memory card. Lavell Ingram said that Kaden was the joy of his life, and while the pain of his tragic death was hard to describe, he still defended Fallon Harris, 37, the boy's mother.

Ingram said that his estranged wife is a loving mom to Kaden. She loved her son "more than anything in the world." However, Ingram and the rest of the family knew that Harris was suffering from a mental health illness, which might have driven her to pick up a gun and shoot Kaden two times on the head.

The whole incident between Harris, who works for the Chicago Department of Transportation, and her 12-year-old boy was caught on the home camera that Saturday morning.

Read Also: Florida Toddler Accidentally Kills Mom With a Gun While She Was on Zoom

Two Shots Fired

Harris asked Kaden about a memory card she took from their car, but her son did not know what his mother was looking for. When he couldn't provide the card, Harris pointed a revolver to her son's head and fired one shot that left the child "conscious and crying."

While Kaden was down on the floor, his mother briefly answered a phone call and then returned to demand the memory card again. Kaden once again told his mom that he didn't know where the card was, and that's when she fired the second shot that killed her son.

Realizing what she did, Harris called two family members to say that she shot her son, and they called the police and Ingram. Harris was cooperative when the cops came and showed her licensed gun to the officials who arrested her.

According to reports, Harris was in tears when she was brought to court, where the judge denied bail and ordered a health care assessment. Family members told the investigators that they had concerns about Harris' mental health, and they encouraged her to seek a therapist. The day before the incident with her son, Harris had therapy for the very first time.

Ingram said that no one knew what would transpire, and while they told his ex-wife to get help for her mental health illness, Harris might have reached her boiling point that tragic day. The father said he was still close and in contact with his ex-wife because they co-parented Kaden. Their son was his ex-wife's best friend.

Ingram feared that Harris would be a danger to herself if what happened to their son sank in.

'Not Like Herself'

The father told Chicago-Sun Times that they recently separated after 16 years of marriage. While Harris' increasing paranoia and distrust wasn't the main problem in their marriage, Ingram said it contributed to their estrangement. Her mental health illness got so bad that it affected her eating and sleeping routine, and she lost a great deal of weight.

Mia Harris, Kaden's grandmother, said that she knew something was wrong with her daughter, so she flew in from Arizona days before the incident. The grandmother said she had to see her daughter because she "didn't sound like herself" in their phone conversations.

Even her co-workers wanted the mother to get help for mental health issues. Kaden and her older sister, Brianna, 18, were also aware of their mom's struggles but didn't know why her behavior changed.

Mia said that her daughter opened up to her one time and said she wanted to be her old self again. No one in their very large family believes that she can be a violent person.

Related Article: Illinois Students to Get 5 Mental Health Days off From School in 2022
Photo: (Photo : Johannes Simon/Getty Images)

A famous farm in Massachusetts has apologized to a Black family after they were racially profiled and falsely accused of stealing six apples at a farm during an apple picking event for Labor Day.

Rev. Manikka Bowman, a Cambridge School Committee member, visited Connors Farm in Danvers, Massachusetts, with her husband, Jeff Myers, and their children for a fun family day out. As they started to wrap the apples they picked from the orchard, a farm employee walked over to them and said that they had taken "too many apples."

Bowman, Myers, and their kids were then escorted to a building, where they were interrogated about stealing fruit. One of the farm employees allegedly asked to check what was inside Bowman's bag.

The mother said that she didn't realize one of her kids picked six more apples than the allotted number of pieces by the farm until they were heading out, so she placed these in her purse. She thought that they would be able to pay for everything at the checkout. Instead, the workers accosted the family and accused them of stealing six extra pieces.

Read Also: Grieving Father Defends Estranged Wife Who Has Mental Illness for Allegedly Shooting Their Son to Death

Police Called on the Black Family

During the "interrogation," Bowman and Myers asked to speak to the manager, but he was already part of the staff who detained the family. So, they asked to talk to the owner, but the manager called a police officer.

The officer, however, sided with the staff and viewed them as thieves. He also said that the family was "playing the race card" to get out of their fix.

Bowman said the manager didn't even acknowledge that they were paying visitors despite seeing that they had the usual farm-issued bands on their wrists. They also had other items that were paid for before they started apple picking.

"We told them repeatedly, we were coming here to buy more stuff," Myers said, but he was rebuffed by the manager who told him that it was his job to prevent stealing.

Following the incident, however, Connors Farm wrote an apology on their Facebook page and stated that they regret the incident. The statement also indicated that the farm would take steps to let their staff "undergo diversity, equity, and inclusion training," which was one of the family's requests.

The town also issued an apology for the comment made by the police officer. According to Boston.com, the council received a letter from the couple who detailed what happened to them at the farm. Danvers Town Manager Steve Bartha, Danvers Police Chief James Lovell, and Dutrochet Djoko, the town's Human Rights and Inclusion Committee Chair, jointly signed the apology statement.

Black Family Accepts Apology

Meanwhile, Bowman and Myers wrote on their blog site that they are grateful for the support from families, friends, and the public. They hope that this will be a "learning opportunity" for many people, especially those involved.

The family was also refunded the donation they made to the farm, which was supposed to be the education fund they provided for the community. The money will now go to the Essex County Community Foundation, a racial equity advocacy.

Related Article: Missouri Teacher Quits, Files for Discrimination After Being Told to Remove LGBTQ Flag in the Classroom
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Glorious Word Power Ministries International (GWPMI) has apologised to all affected Journalists, Media Houses and the Ghana Journalist Association (GJA) who were reportedly attacked by some people believed to be sympathizers of Apostle Dr Isaac Owusu Bempah at the premises of the Circuit Court, Accra on 13th September 2021.



According to the leadership of the church, the act was not sanctioned by the church and as such condemn it in no uncertain terms, reiterating that the church does not support any form of violence.



In a press release copied to Peacefmonline.com, the Glorious Word Power Ministries International (GWPMI) has rendered an unqualified apology to the media as they acknowledge the key role of the media in the society, pledging their full cooperation and support in ensuring that this incident does not repeat.



Below Is The Full Press Statement From GWPMI:



Glorious Word Power Ministries International has learnt with regret an attack on some journalists reportedly meted out by some people believed to be sympathizers of Apostle Dr Isaac Owusu Bempah at the premises of the Circuit Court, Accra on 13th September 2021.



We humbly wish to indicate that as a church, we do not support any form of violence. We reiterate that this act was not sanctioned by us and as such we condemn it in no uncertain terms.



The church would like to render an unqualified apology to all affected Journalists, Media Houses, and the Ghana Journalist Association. We acknowledge the key role the media plays in our society and as such we pledge our full cooperation and support in ensuring that this incident does not repeat.



We plead with the affected media organizations and journalists to kindly accept our apology. Thank you and God bless you all!



Signed



Glorious Word Power Ministries International (GWPMI)

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Featured Video
Kumasi-based private legal practitioner Yaw Acheampong Boafo has been elected as the new national president of Ghana Bar Association (GBA).



He beat all the other contestants for the position at the bar conference in Bolgatanga on Wednesday (September 15, 2021).



Graphic Online's Vincent Amenuveve who was at the conference in Bolgatanga reports that Mr Yaw Boafo, aged 50, polled 605 votes to beat Mrs Efua Ghartey, aged 55, who polled 540 votes.



The elections was held both virtually and in person at Bolgatanga on Wednesday (September 15).



For the post of National Vice President, Mr Kwasi Amoako Adjei got 656 votes to defeat Mrs Yaa Onyameye Gyakobo who got 486 votes.



Nana Serwaa Acheampong polled 694 votes to get the nod for the position of National Treasurer while Dr Adu Anane Antwi had 438 votes.



The National Secretary and Public Relations Officer positions went unopposed.



The officers are Kwaku Gyau Baffour and Saviour Quarcoo Kudze respectively.



The total votes cast was 1,149 representing 89.84 percent of total valid votes cast.



The new leaders are expected to steer the affairs of the GBA for the next three years.



A handing over ceremony is scheduled to take place in November this year.



The President-elect, Mr Yaw Boafo, is a son of Mr Samuel Kwaku Boafo, a lawyer himself and former Member of Parliament for Subin in the Ashanti Region as well as Minister of Ashanti Region and Chieftaincy under the President J.A. Kufuor regime.



Mr Yaw Boafo thanked delegates for the confidence reposed in him and assured them of an open door administration to help further strengthen the GBA.



He said he is prepared to bring everyone on board particularly women in the association.



A member of the Local Organizing Committee of the GBA Conference, Mr Nicholas Soyiri, and a member of the GBA, Mr Rockson Akugre in separate interviews both hoped the new leaders will bring in fresh ideas to make the association more vibrant.



Who is Yaw Boafo?



Mr Yaw Acheampong Boafo, a Kumasi-based legal practitioner from the S.K. Boafo Partners and Associates (Gye Nyame Chambers) has a wealth of experience as the current National Secretary of the Association as well as former President, Vice President, Secretary and Social Secretary of the Ashanti Regional Bar at various periods, spanning a total of about 15 years.



As National Secretary, he played a key role in the establishment of a customised ICT platform that has enhanced access to Continuing Legal Education seminars for lawyers, simplified payment of members' dues and reduced the processing time for renewal of the license for lawyers and Bar Registration certificates.



Mr Boafo's goal is to among others enhance ICT for more efficient administration of the Bar, expansion of the Bar Centre to incorporate leisure facilities and welfare improvement for all lawyers, including young and female lawyers.













Source: graphiconline.com









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Featured Video
The Ghana Integrated Aluminium Development Corporation (GIADEC) has partnered with Rocksure International Company as part of efforts to develop Ghana's Integrated Aluminum Industry (IAI).

GIADEC successfully selected Rocksure International as its strategic partner to develop one of four projects being executed under the IAI value chain.



President Akufo-Addo who witnessed the signing of the agreements between the two parties at a brief event held in Accra said that the IAI remains an integral part of his governments industrialization agenda.



He stressed that his government would ensure the implementation of the IAI, which would involve mining, refining and smelting are carried out in a responsible manner.



President Akufo-Addo, who also launched GIADECs four-project agenda for the Integrated Aluminium Industry, further commended the Corporation for working assiduously to select Rocksure International as its partner after a transparent, competitive and rigorous investor engagement process.



He said that his government will continue to create the enabling environment needed to attract more investors to venture into the industry.



President Akufo-Addo was particularly excited that Rocksure International is a wholly-owned Ghanaian company and stressed that the decision further demonstrates his commitment to the promotion of local content and local participation.



The Minister of Lands and Natural Resources Mr. Samuel Abu Jinapor speaking at the event pledged the support of the Ministry in ensuring that governments vision of a fully operational and globally competitive IAI is realized.



The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Integrated Aluminium Development Corporation, Mr. Michael Ansah for his part emphasized that the agreement would culminate in a joint venture partnership between GIADEC and its new partner Rocksure International to build a mine at Nyinahin-Mpasaaso and a refinery solution.



The project, also referred to as Project 2, according to him is one of the four (4) projects GIADEC is currently executing.



He touched on the other three projects which include; the expansion of the existing mine at Awaso and building of a refinery as Project 1; the development of a mine at Kyebi, a second mine at Nyinahin-Mpasaaso and building of a refinery as Project 3 and the modernization and expansion of the VALCO smelter as Project 4.



Mr. Ansah stressed that Rocksure International will, first, undertake a Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) to validate and define the bauxite reserves leading to the construction of a mine and a refinery solution.



According to him, the lifetime of the mine is estimated to span over six decades and create over 1,000 direct and indirect jobs.



He reiterated that the four projects will be private sector-led and will be executed in partnership with key strategic investors and will require a six-billion-dollar investment.



The real impact of an Integrated Aluminium Industry, will be felt at the downstream sector where demand for aluminium and aluminium related products are expected to rise especially with the establishment of various car manufacturing plants in the country.



This value-addition drive will not only result in a thriving local economy but will significantly cut down on the importation of aluminium and aluminium products, he added.



Also, present at the event were Members of Parliament for the proposed mining areas and representatives of some government institutions, board members of GIADEC, traditional leaders from communities where the mines and refineries will be situated and other stakeholders.



ABOUT GIADEC



GIADEC is a state-owned company responsible for the development of an integrated aluminium industry in Ghana. The companys portfolio of assets includes mining rights to all of Ghanas 900 million tonnes of bauxite reserves, 100% shares in Valco - Ghanas smelting company and interest in Ghana Bauxite Company Limited, a producing mine that has been operating for over 70 years.



Through strategic partnerships, GIADEC, will hold equity stakes in new mines and refineries to be established, and drive integration of the bauxite  aluminium value chain to create value.



GIADEC is guided by its core values of Integrity, Respect and Execution excellence. The company believes in shared prosperity, sustainability and adherence to responsible environmental and operational practices.



For more information visit www.giadec.com , follow @officialgiadec on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube.



ABOUT ROCKSURE INTERNATIONAL



Rocksure International is a wholly-owned Ghanaian mining services company that operates across Ghana and the West African sub-region with expertise in mining services, drilling services, load and haulage. The company has considerable capacity and flexibility in planning, equipping, staffing and managing mines; having supported several mines including Anglogold Ashanti, African Underground Mining Services, Gold Fields, Ghana Manganese, Asanko Gold, Bumi Mine and many more.



Rocksure recognises that local content is an important platform for economic development and strives to engage key stakeholders to deliver developmental partnerships in the areas that it operates in. Health and environmental considerations and resultant policies are key considerations for the company carefully mapped out and are implemented to ensure a sustainable and safe environment for all.

Source: graphiconline.com









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Two suspected serial robbers are standing trial at the Accra Circuit Court in Accra for stealing a black unregistered Toyota Corolla and a cash sum of GH 40,000.



According to the prosecution, the police, during the arrest of the accused persons, Felix Addo, aka Cool Jay- a film producer and actor, and Azimah Mensah- a driver, retrieved six other vehicles, all proceeds of crime under investigations from the accused persons.



The two have been charged with conspiracy and robbery.



Also in the dock with the two accused persons was a businessman, Charles Frimpong, who has also been charged with conspiracy and for dishonestly receiving the unregistered Toyota Corolla.



Not guilty



They all pleaded not guilty to the charges when they appeared before the court, presided over by her Honour Evelyn Asamoah.



They were subsequently granted bail following a bail application by their lawyers.



Each of the accused persons was granted bail of GH 250,000 with three sureties, two of whom would be justified with land documents.



As part of the bail conditions, the accused persons are to report to the police station every Monday.



They are to re-appear next Wednesday.



Facts



The facts as presented by the prosecutor, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Fuseini Yakubu, were that on July 5 this year, the Intelligence Unit and the Anti-Armed Robbery Unit of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) headquarters gathered intelligence that a group of young men were engaged in a series of robberies and car snatching within the Accra Metropolis.



The prosecutor said following the intelligence, the joint unit mounted surveillance on Addo and Mensah.



ASP Yakubu said the identification and bank cards of a complainant and a witness in the case were retrieved from Addos room following a thorough search.



He added that upon interrogation, Addo and Mensah admitted engaging in a series of robberies, including a black unregistered Toyota Corolla S which was handed over to Frimpong, who allegedly knew that the vehicle was stolen.



Black vehicle



On July 17 this year, the prosecutor said Frimpong was arrested in connection with the offence and upon interrogation, he admitted receiving the black unregistered vehicle, adding that he parked the car at a spraying shop in order to swap the engine.



He further told the court that the police proceeded to the spraying shop and retrieved the vehicle together with one other Toyota Corolla.







Source: Graphiconline.com









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The Coalition of Aggrieved Customers of Menzgold has expressed dissatisfaction about the inability of state prosecution to proffer charges against the Chief Executive Officer of the defunct gold dealership firm, Nana Appiah Mensah, aka NAM 1, three years after the collapse of the firm.



As a result, the group has called on Parliament, to as a matter of urgency, set up a commission to investigate the closure of the defunct firm, the role played by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Economic and Organised Crime Office since its collapse.



That, the group said, would help expedite processes to retrieve its locked up funds following a recommendation by the committee.



Press Conference



The Public Relations Officer of the Group, Mr Fred Forson, who addressed journalists at a press conference held in Accra, said the rampant adjournment of the criminal case, coupled with the state prosecutions inability to proffer charges against the CEO was an indication that the government lacked the commitment to prosecute NAM 1.



The press conference was on the theme: Three years of Menzgold collapse: Customers dying in silence amidst incessant court adjournment.



We call on the government in the spirit and within the wind of cooperation blowing in Parliament to work closely with the august House of Parliament to find an amicable solution to this conundrum that customers find themselves in.



Finding a solution will end the near extinction of over a million Ghanaians whose lives and very existence have been shut with the shutdown of Menzgold, the PRO said.



No action



Mr Forson noted that since 2018, over 120 customers of the firm had passed on, adding that despite petitions to some institutions including the President, Attorney-General, SEC, National Peace Council, Manyhia Palace and the National Security, nothing had been done about their situation.



Our hopelessness as customers of the defunct Menzgold continues to deepen with no future assistance from government or its agencies in sight and many customers continue to take ill and face the stark reality of having no money to seek medical care, he added.



Additionally, the PRO said customers would continue to pursue legitimate means to retrieve their locked up investment.



He further pleaded with Parliament to investigate the whereabouts of some seized assets and the 400 kilogrammes of gold assets in order to sell them to pay the aggrieved customers.



In 2017, Menzgold came under fire from two regulators, the Bank of Ghana (BoG) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which intensified in 2018.



The SEC, in a notice published in the Monday, October 2, 2018 edition of the Daily Graphic, informed the public that Menzgold Ghana Limited had "neither been licensed nor its adverts sanctioned by the Securities and Exchange Commission to carry out any activity in the capital market".



According to the notice, Menzgold was not a SEC-regulated entity because its operations contravened Section 3 (c) of the Securities Industries Act, 2016 (Act 929), which dealt with the registration, licensing, authorisation and regulation of entities in the securities market.



The BoG also cautioned the public against depositing money with Menzgold because it had not been licensed to take deposits.



However, Nana Mensah called the bluff of the BoG, describing the statement as a joke and a diversionary tactic.







Source: graphiconline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The government through the Interior Ministry has reminded Ghanaians that Tuesday, 21 September 2021 which marks Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Day, is a Statutory Public Holiday and should be observed as such throughout the country.



This was contained in a statement signed by Minister for the Interior Ambrose Dery. This holiday commemorates the birthday of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana's first President.



The day is marked with lectures and events to commemorate the achievements and legacy of Dr. Nkrumah.



History of Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Day



In 1874, Britain took control over parts of Ghana, naming them the British Gold Coast. Britain was weakened by the efforts of World War II and following a rising desire for independence, Ghana was the first sub-Saharan African country to achieve independence, on March 6th 1957.



Dr. Nkrumah was the driving force behind the independence of Ghana from British rule and founded the Convention Peoples Party (CPP)..



In 1960, Prime Minister Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah was sworn into office as the first President of the country and the republic was proclaimed on July 1st 1960.



In February 1966, while Nkrumah was on a state visit to Vietnam and China, his government was overthrown in a military coup. Dr Nkrumah never returned to Ghana and died in April 1972.



In September 2009, the late President John Evans Atta Mills declared September 21st (the centenary of Kwame Nkrumah's birth in 1909) to be Founder's Day, a statutory holiday in Ghana.













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Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.
The Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) is set to train taxi and Uber drivers at the Kotoka International Airport to serve as tourism brand ambassadors, Mr. Akwesi Agyeman, Chief Executive Officer of the Authority, has said.



He said, In some few weeks, we are going to engage taxi and Uber drivers at the airport because they are also in the frontline in the tourism value chain and we want them not just to be able to carry passengers and move them but be worthy brand ambassadors for the country.



Mr. Agyeman said this at the opening of a training programme for Tourism Inspectorate Officers across the country as part of efforts to build their capacity in driving the tourism industry.



He said the training of taxi and Uber drivers had become necessary because they were the first point of contact for tourists, both local and foreign.



Mr. Agyeman said the training of the inspectors was also crucial so they could monitor facilities and ensure they operated with the laid down regulations that had been passed under the Ghana Tourism Act, Act 817 of 2013.



He said the five-day training had all inspectors across the 16 regions, who would be taken through the basic rudiments of inspecting tourism establishments and other topics by officials from the National Security, COVID-19 Taskforce, and the Ghana Health Service.



He said, Some of the common defects experienced over the years in some tourism facilities are disability-friendly facilities, issues of customer service, standards of facilities, among others and we want to equip the inspectors to be able to understand what to look out for when they visit the facilities.



Mr. Agyeman said apart from the training, the Authority was focusing on four key areas of product knowledge for frontline operators, customer service training that cut across all sectors, digital skills training for middle-level operators, and sales training within the hospitality sector.



He said plans were also advanced to introduce basic French lessons for frontline hotel staff to equip them with basic conversational French, adding that signages would also be provided at the facilities to make francophone clients comfortable.

Source: Daily Guide









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Both North and South Korea fired ballistic missiles on Wednesday, September 15, increasing tensions in an already hostile Korean peninsula.



North Korea fired the first missiles on Wednesday, sending two into waters off the east coast of the Korean Peninsula five minutes apart, at 12:38 p.m. and 12:43 p.m. local time (11:38 p.m. and 11:43 p.m. ET), according to Japan, who labeled the action as 'dangerous'



South Korea, the North's neighbor that houses tens of thousands of US troops, replied less than three hours later with their own submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM)



The South Korean missiles were fired, from a new submerged 3,700-ton submarine ROKS Dosan Ahn Changho, South Korea's Defense Ministry said, also revealing that South Korean President Moon Jae-in was present for the test.



The missile hit its target accurately, the ministry said without giving more details.



South Korea's weapons development, and its missile capabilities has been on an upward trend as they become more wary of the growing missile program in North Korea.



Wednesday's missile tests from both Koreas came just a few hours after Moon met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Seoul.



China exerts some influence over North Korea, and during the meeting, Moon said Pyongyang has not been responding to efforts by Seoul and Washington to engage in dialogue concerning the situation on the peninsula



In May, South Korea's Moon and US President Joe Biden agreed to end a 40-year-old bilateral agreement that limited the range and payload of South Korean missiles



With the missile launch, South Korea becomes the seventh military in the world to successfully test an SLBM



The other SLBM nations have nuclear weapons, although South Korea does not have nuclear weapons.













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Peacefmonline.com can confirm that Leader and Founder of the Glorious Word And Power Ministries International, Prophet Isaac Owusu Bempah, has been granted bail by an Accra High Court.



He was granted bail in the sum of Ghc200,000 with two sureties, on health grounds.



He is, however, expected to return to court on Monday for the continuation of the case. This was after the court upheld an appeal by his lawyer, Gary Nimako Marfo, against an earlier decision of an Accra Circuit Court not to grant him bail.



The controversial preacher was said to have been hospitalized at the Police Hospital in Accra, a few hours after he and four others were denied bail and remanded for a week by a Circuit Court in Accra.



The renowned preacher was charged with offensive conduct conducive to breach of peace, the threat of death, and assault of office public officers.



He and four others were remanded into police custody to reappear on Monday, September 20, 2021, after they spent a day in cells on Sunday.



The Judge, Afia Owusuaa Appiah, said this will allow the police more time to carry out further investigations.





More soon......

Source: Isaac Kwame Owusu/Peacefmonline/[email protected]









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The National Dean of Presiding Members of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies, Mr Joseph Korto, has called on assembly members not to delay the confirmation of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) when the names finally come out.



Mr Korto, who is also the Presiding Member, Tema Metropolitan Assembly (TMA), noted that even though the nominations of the MMDCEs had seemingly been delayed, assembly members should not delay the confirmation of nominees to the assemblies.



He was speaking at a meeting with staff of the Tema office of the Ghana News Agency (GNA).



Fast track



Mr Korto also advised metropolitan, municipal and district coordinating directors to fast track the processes as soon as the nominations come out and get the district Electoral Commission to conduct the confirmation elections within 21 days, as stipulated by the 1992 Constitution.



He explained that residents were faced with developmental challenges within the various electoral areas, saying any further delay in confirming MMDCEs would only have a dire replication on the electorate.



Mr Korto noted, however, that some of the MMDCEs had not exhausted their four-year tenure in office, arguing that new Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) were created about two years ago and as such, MMDCEs should be allowed to work effectively until the President reappoints them or otherwise.



The law said MMDCEs, after their confirmation, have a four-year mandate unless the President or assembly members decide to remove such person from the office where necessary, he said.



Vacuum



Responding to the question of whether there was any power vacuum to the delay in the nomination of the MMDCEs; Mr Korto said the assemblies were working.



He stressed that the various subcommittees within the assemblies meet to deliberate and take decisions to effectively run the assemblies, so there is not vacuum, we are working.









Source: graphiconline.com









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Astute Ghanaian media personality, Nana Aba Anamoah, has expressed her heartfelt gratitude to the vice president, Dr. Bawumia for coming to the aid of distressed veteran actor, Psalm Adjeteyfio of Taxi Driver popularly known as TT.



Nana Aba Anamoah, who was offended by these remarks, expressed her thoughts on her Twitter page, stating she was delighted the Vice President could help because many people were aware of TTs condition but did nothing to help.



She went ahead and shared a screenshot of what she posted on Twitter on her Instagram page, saying that theres nothing like a small gesture and that every gesture has an unending ripple effect.



Sharing the screenshot she captioned;

Theres no such thing as a small act of kindness.

Every gesture has a ripple effect with no logical end.

Be kind.







Source: Eugene Osafo-Nkansah/Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The Globe and Mail newspapers are seen Friday December 1, 2017 in Ottawa. Employees at The Globe and Mail launched a strike after negotiations between unionized employees and the national newspaper reached an impasse.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld
There was a tense encounter in the doorway of the Kelly O'Bryans restaurant on Monday afternoon when an irate customer refused to produce a COVID-19 vaccine card and the restaurant manager called Kelowna RCMP after the woman refused to leave.
Another minority looks likely but it could be very different from the last one
A man enters an advance polling station in Ottawa, Friday, Sept. 10, 2021. Political strategists say campaigns must pull out all the stops to get supporters to cast their ballots on Monday if they hope to pull ahead and win this pandemic election. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld
PokerNews Podcast: Remembering Norm Macdonald, Raise It Up Day & Women in Poker

September 16, 2021 Chad Holloway

On the latest episode of the PokerNews Podcast, Jeff Platt and Chad Holloway discuss the upcoming 2021 World Series of Poker (WSOP) including the announcement that masks will not be required when playing, the PokerGO live stream schedule, and what events they might play!

They also recap recent winners from various major online events, talk about The Card Counter film starring Oscar Isaac and Tiffany Haddish, and remember comedian Norm Macdonald, who passed away this week after a private battle with cancer.

Finally, Chad chats with Tara Windsor-Smith of the Women's Poker Association (WPA) and Erin Lydon of Poker Power about the Raise It Up Movement, which is their global challenge to support a zero-tolerance of abuse policy in the industry. To sustain and expand the player base, the culture and environment in poker rooms need to elevate. Together, poker players, industry partners, and poker rooms become the driving force for growth in poker. Learn more about it in this week's episode of the PokerNews Podcast.

Big thanks to the special sponsor this week in Elite Chip Care, which you can learn more about here.

Time Stamps

Plan for the WSOP

Remember, during the 2021 World Series of Poker (WSOP), which runs Thursday, September 30 through Tuesday, November 23, 2021 at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, we'll be bringing you three episodes of the PokerNews Podcast each week!

New episodes are slated to be released every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday bringing you all the latest from the 2021 WSOP along with interviews straight from the tournament floor!

Check out our 2021 WSOP Hub here!

Tell us who you want to hear from. Let us know what you think of the show  tweet about the podcast using #PNPod, and be sure to follow Sarah Herring, Jeff Platt and Chad Holloway on Twitter.

Subscribe to the PokerNews Podcast on Apple Podcasts here!

Check Out Past Episodes of the PN Podcast Here!
Bellagio Poker Room

Name Bellagio Poker Room Address 3600 Las Vegas Blvd., Las Vegas, NV 89109 City Las Vegas Country United States of America

The Bellagio is a luxury resort, hotel and casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. Built in 1998, the property houses 3,950 rooms and over 115,000 square feet of gaming space.

Bellagio Las Vegas Poker Room Contact Information

Bellagio Las Vegas Poker Room Cash Games

With 40 tables, the Bellagio Las Vegas Poker Room is one of the largest on the Las Vegas strip. The poker room was run by Poker Hall of Famer Jack McClelland from 2002-13.

Offering a wide selection of games and stakes, there's something for everyone at the Bellagio poker room.

Game Stakes No-Limit Hold'em $1/$3, $2/$5, $5/$10 and $10/$20 Limit Hold'em $4/$8, $10/$20, $20/$20, $40/$80 and $80/$160 Pot Limit Omaha $1/$3, $2/$5 and $10/$20 7 Card Stud $20/$40 and $40/$80 Mixed Games $4/$8, $30/$60 and $40/$80

Higher limits are available

Bobby's Room

The Bellagio poker room is perhaps best-known for Bobby's Room. Opened in 2004 and named after Bellagio owner Bobby Baldwin, the room has gained mythical status within the poker community as the home for some of the biggest cash games in the world.

Related: Take a Look Inside Bobby's Room

Several big stories have come out of the four walls of Bobby's Room in the past. In 2018, Gus Hansen logged 652 hours in 70 days at Bobby's Room while Patrik Antonius allegedly lost $500,000 playing $6/$12k Omaha Hi-Lo in 2019.

Bellagio Las Vegas Poker Room Tournaments

The Bellagio usually runs a 5pm daily tournament with a $125 buy-in tournament, however this is currently cancelled until further notice.

Aside from the daily tournaments, the Bellagio regularly hosts Bellagio Cup and Bellagio Mixed Game High Roller tournaments.

Bellagio Robberies

In 2012, two men wearing black wigs and sunglasses attempted to rob a high-stakes blackjack table. One of the men, Michael Belton, was tackled by casino employees shortly after the attempted heist.

Five years later, a masked man robbed the Bellagio poker cashier at gunpoint. The robbery was witnessed by numerous poker players, including Doyle Brunson, James Woods and Randy Ohel.

Eventually, in 2019, a man named Michael Charles Cohen attempted to rob the casino but was unsuccessful. Cohen was shot dead while trying to flee with a reported $35,000. It later transpired that he was the same masked man who robbed the property in 2017.

The Bellagio Bandit

The most high-profile robbery came in December 2010 when the Bellagio was robbed for cash and chips worth up to $1.5 million. The haul included a large amount of $25,000 Bellagio chips, called Cranberries due to their distinctive red shape.

As a result of the robbery, the Bellagio even took the stop to discontinue its $25,000 chips in order to thwart the robber from cashing in one of the high-value chips.

It took until February 2011 for the robber to get unmasked. Anthony Michael Carleo, nicknamed the Bellagio Bandit, was arrested after trying to sell stolen $25,000 Bellagio chips to an unmasked police officer.

Years later, Carleo recounted his story in an article for Rolling Stone.

"Look, I know I should have thrown those $25,000 chips away," he told Rolling Stone. "But who can throw away a million dollars?"

Bellagio WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic

The Bellagio has had a very close relationship with the World Poker Tour (WPT) ever since its inception in 2002. In fact, the very first WPT event was the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic, held at the Bellagio. Since then, and allowing for the coronavirus pandemic, it has been held every single year and continues to attract some of the biggest names in poker.

In 2012, the event attracted controversy after it announced that it would allow unlimited entries for the first eight entries.

Year Entries Winner Country Payout 2002 146 Gus Hansen Denmark $556,460 2003 314 Paul Phillips United States $1,101,908 2004 376 Daniel Negreanu Canada $1,770,218 2005 555 Rehne Pedersen Denmark $2,078,185 2006 583 Joe Hachem Australia $2,207,575 2007 664 Eugene Katchalov Ukraine $2,482,605 2008 497 Chino Rheem United States $1,538,730 2009 329 Daniel Alaei United States $1,428,430 2010 438 Antonio Esfandiari United States $870,124 2011 413 James Dempsey United Kingdom $821,612 2012 503 Ravi Raghavan United States $1,268,571 2013 449 Dan Smith United States $1,161,135 2014 586 Mohsin Charania United States $1,177,890 2015 639 Kevin Eyster United States $1,587,382 2016 791 James Romero United States $1,938,118 2017 812 Ryan Tosoc United States $1,958,065 2018 1,001 Dylan Linde United States $1,631,468 2019 1,035 Alex Foxen United States $1,694,995

Related: Retrospective of the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic

Bellagio All-Time Money List

Thomas Marchese sits atop the Bellagio all-time money list, thanks in part to his runner-up finish in the 2016 WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic, as well as numerous Super High Roller results at the Bellagio.

Rank Player Country Cashes 1 Thomas Marchese United States $ 6,377,008 2 Dan Smith United States $ 5,363,739 3 Carlos Mortensen Spain $ 5,197,451 4 Daniel Negreanu Canada $ 5,135,744 5 Jake Schindler United States $ 3,882,378 6 Joe Bartholdi Jr. United States $ 3,819,016 7 William Alex Foxen United States $ 3,752,918 8 David Chiu United States $ 3,546,996 9 Erik Seidel United States $ 3,536,750 10 Jason Koon United States $ 3,236,412
Acting United States Attorney M. Rhett DeHart announced Thursday that his office has resolved claims that Alpha Genomix Laboratories Inc. paid unlawful kickbacks to Aiken Counseling Group LLC to induce genetic testing referrals, from April 2015 through December 2016.

"The United States alleges that during this time period, Alpha Genomix disguised its kickbacks by paying the salary of an individual who primarily worked for Aiken Counseling Group," according to a release from the U.S. Attorneys Office.

The United States alleged most of the referrals were not legitimately ordered by a physician and were medically unnecessary.

"Medicare and South Carolina Medicaid paid for these fraudulent claims, which violated the Anti-Kickback Statute and the False Claims Act," according to the release.

Alpha Genomix Laboratories Inc. will pay a $35,000 settlement upfront and a percentage of gross annual revenues up to a total of $200,000 to resolve the claims.

"The allegations settled arose from a lawsuit filed by a psychiatrist formerly employed by Aiken Counseling Group, under the whistleblower provisions of the False Claims Act," according to the release. "Under the act, private citizens can bring suit on behalf of the government for false claims and share between 15% and 30% of the recovery."

The owner of the Aiken Counseling Group, Lain Bradford, was sentenced in February 2020 to three years of probation and ordered to pay restitution, after pleading guilty to health care fraud and drug offenses in a related case.

Aiken Counseling Group filed for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy in January 2018 and is no longer in business.

Since the allegations, Alpha Genomix Laboratories was sold to new ownership.

The Alpha Genomix Laboratories Inc. matter was investigated by the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services, the South Carolina Attorney Generals Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, and Assistant United States Attorney Beth Warren.

Providers participating in Medicare and Medicaid are expected to uphold the integrity of the programs, said Derrick L. Jackson, special agent in charge with the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG). Companies that seek unmerited payment for unnecessary and illegitimate services abuse the programs and divert funds meant to improve the health and prolong the lives of beneficiaries. HHS-OIG and our partners will actively pursue those who commit health care fraud.

"The litigation and settlement of this matter illustrates the governments emphasis on combating health care fraud," the U.S. Attorneys Office said. "One of the most powerful tools in this effort is the False Claims Act."

Tips and complaints from all sources about potential fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement can be reported to the Department of Health and Human Services, at 800-HHS-TIPS (800-447-8477).

"The claims resolved by this settlement are allegations only," the U.S. Attorneys Office said. "Alpha Genomix Laboratories Inc. does not admit wrongdoing or liability."
The Lowcountry and the Lone Star State capital will soon be connected with daily nonstop air service for the first time ever.

Southwest Airlines announced Sept. 16 it will launch daily flights between Charleston and the high-tech mecca of Austin on March 10.

Flights are on now on sale through the Dallas-based carrier's website.

The new route will help the airport grow and recover from the constraints of the pandemic, said Elliott Summey, CEO of the Charleston County Aviation Authority.

"Southwest is an incredible partner, and its a real vote of confidence for the airport and this region that theyve decided to expand their route map again from Charleston International," Summey said.

The roughly three-hour outbound flight leaves Charleston at 10:30 a.m. local time and arrives at 12:35 p.m. Central time. The return trip arrives in CHS at 5:40 p.m.

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Helen Hill, the Charleston region's chief tourism official, called the new flights "a significant step forward for the travel industry and our community as we navigate the pandemic recovery."

The new service makes it more affordable and convenient to travel between the growing Texas city and and the coastal Lowcountry, said Hill, who chairs the aviation authority and is CEO of Explore Charleston.

According to the 2020 Census, the Austin metro area boasts about 2.3 million residents and is one of the fastest-growing regions in the U.S. The Charleston metro area, meanwhile, has a total population of about 820,000.

Nonstop service between Charleston and Austin has been offered before but never before on a daily basis.

Southwest first began providing air service from the Lowcountry in 2011. It now operates daily flights from Charleston to Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston and Nashville, as well as seasonal service to Kansas City and St. Louis.
COLUMBIA  Two Richland County parents are suing their school district along with county and city of Columbia officials over mask mandates they say violate the state constitution by not allowing their children to attend classes.

The lawsuit, filed Sept. 15 by Lizabeth Curlin and Kelli Powell, asks a judge to find Richland One School District and local governments in contempt of court and allow their children to go back to school without a face covering.

Plaintiffs children have not been permitted to attend school in-person because they refuse to enter the building wearing a mask," Charleston-based attorney Joshua Hooser wrote in the suit. "Defendant Richland One has not provided these children with a minimally adequate education and Defendants have acted to usurp their parents constitutional rights to make fundamental decisions."

Richland One officials did not respond for comment. The district has had a mandatory mask policy in place since March 23. Students can't attend in-person classes without face coverings.

The contempt accusation stems from a state Supreme Court ruling on Sept. 2 that found Columbia and Richland County mask requirements ran against South Carolina law by using public dollars for enforcement  in violation of a budget amendment approved by the General Assembly.

On Sept. 8, the City Council voted again to mandate masks, saying fire officials will exclusively enforce it and that school employees won't have to administer or announce the requirement. Then on Sept. 14, the Richland County Council voted to again require masks throughout businesses, restaurants, schools and day cares, joining Columbia and the Lexington County cities of Cayce and West Columbia in re-imposing them.

The 22,000-student Richland One, which spans 52 schools, has required face coverings on all its properties since Aug. 16. Superintendent Craig Witherspoon said in a statement the district would continue its policy despite the Supreme Court ruling.

We hoped that the court would have rendered a ruling that is more protective of our youngest and most vulnerable students who are not vaccine-protected at this time, he said in a Sept. 2 statement.

A second case pending before the states highest court, filed by the Richland Two School District, is asking judges to allow for mask mandates until the Constitutionality of the state law is decided.

We believe it is our God-given right to parent and raise our children without government interference, Curlin said in a statement issued by Hoosers law firm.

As of Sept. 14, Richland One had 149 confirmed COVID cases among students, with 1,220 in quarantine, according to its dashboard.
COLUMBIA  Masks are again required to be worn across Richland County as two more towns passed new rules.

The city of Forest Acres and town of Blythewood are the latest municipalities to pass emergency measures requiring face coverings.

Forest Acres passed its 30-day ordinance Sept. 14, while Blythewood approved a 60-day mandate Sept. 16.

Both require masks in businesses and other buildings open to the public, though neither ordinance includes schools. Businesses must also require employees to wear a mask when interacting with the public. They took effect immediately.

"It signals that we still have a growing issue and a problem, not just in our community but across the world," Blythewood Councilman Sloan Griffin said.

The Forest Acres rule applies to children age 5 and older, while the Blythewood ordinance exempts those younger than 10. Both include a $25 fine for individuals and a $100 fine for businesses that don't require employees to wear masks.

Masks are also required in the city of Columbia, unincorporated Richland County and the Lexington County cities of West Columbia and Cayce.

Richland One School District, which covers schools in the capital city, continues to require masks while waiting on a ruling by the S.C. Supreme Court in a mask case involving Richland Two in suburban northeast Columbia.

Last month, the state's highest court overturned Columbia's school mask mandate, ruling it conflicts with a law legislators inserted in the budget that bars public K-12 schools from using state money to implement or enforce a mask mandate.

Both the city and county responded with new, reworded mandates that say school employees have no role in the mandates.

Forest Acres' new mask rules specify they won't include schools unless the Legislature repeals the budget ban, or the Supreme Court overturns it. Most schools located in the city bordering Columbia are in Richland One, though two are in Richland Two: Forest Lake Elementary and Dent Middle.
COLUMBIA  South Carolina needs to increase access to antibody treatments for COVID-19 as well as allow for wider use of several other drugs to treat the deadly disease, some of which are discouraged by top health officials, GOP lawmakers say.

A Senate panel heard from 22 people advocating for treatments that include monoclonal antibodies and a pair of drugs commonly used to treat conditions like malaria, lupus and parasitic infections.

They did not take any testimony during the four-hour hearing from medical professionals who question the treatments.

The committee did hear from two Republican lawmakers.

Rep. Ashley Trantham, R-Greenville, told senators during a special hearing called Sept. 15 by the Medical Affairs Committee, that when her mother fell ill with COVID-19 symptoms she received azithromycin, an antibiotic used to treat a wide variety of bacterial infections. Her father, also sick, struggled to get a prescription for the same antibiotic, an inhaler and steroids.

And when her brother-in-law contracted the disease, she said he asked for monoclonal antibodies but was told by his doctor that they hadnt heard of the treatment, and then, that they could not give him a referral.

We are not utilizing all our resources, she said. We are ignoring the therapeutic options because we are so focused on the vaccine.

Rep. Stewart Jones, R-Laurens, stood to say he thinks that doctors, when requested, should prescribe drugs like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, even though health officials from the top down have said ivermectin is not approved for use in preventing or treating COVID-19 and reports have emerged nationwide from patients experiencing life-threatening complications after self-medicating with larger doses used for livestock.

Jones said he has several doctors in his district who wish to use these drugs to treat patients but say they have been pressured by hospitals and medical licensing boards not to do so.

"We don't have a law in South Carolina stopping doctors from doing this, but I think what we're seeing is a top-down approach that is causing people to die, it's causing people not to get treatment early on," Jones said. "Why is the CDC, why is DHEC deterring doctors from helping patients every possible way that they can?"

He then asked the Senate subcommittee for an investigation into the agencies.

Several members of the public also shared stories about how they were denied or struggled to gain access to the treatments they wanted.

Sonya Posey said she requested a monoclonal antibody infusion from her primary care provider on multiple occasions but did not receive a response until she was outside the 10-day treatment window and fell ill with pneumonia in her lungs.

And the Greenville County GOP stood to call for free antibody treatment centers statewide, five days after Gov. Henry McMaster announced his office was working to expand access.

Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the most effective way to protect ourselves and our loved ones from COVID-19 is to make the decision to get vaccinated, McMaster said in a statement Sept. 10. Weve also seen that the use of these antibody treatments can greatly reduce the risk of hospitalization and severe illness in those who test positive."

The infusion of these antibodies, which work by blocking the effect of COVID-19 in patients who are already infected, is currently available from more than 50 health care providers across the state for at-risk individuals ages 12 and older with mild to moderate symptoms that began within the last 10 days.

As of Sept. 1, more than 16,000 COVID-19 patients in South Carolina have been treated with monoclonal antibodies.

Sen. Danny Verdin, R-Laurens, who chairs the Medical Affairs Committee was unclear about the purpose of the hearing or whether it would result in any legislative action, simply calling it a "pulpit."

"I was just floored," said Sen. Mia McLeod, a Richland County democrat who is running for governor. "All we heard from were people who have been staunchly opposed to masks and vaccinations and science and the advice of public health experts. Those are the ones we gave four hours of our time today. To give the minority an audience like we did today, we just should have heard from the medical experts first."

Another hearing will be held next week to hear from medical organizations and professionals. Two nurses, including a former traveling pulmonary nurse who spent time working in COVID units, were the only ones with health care backgrounds to speak Sept. 15.

Dr. Annie Andrews, a pediatrician who had signed up to speak but was reassigned to next week's agenda, said she had hoped to tell lawmakers about the importance of staying the course with precautions, such as masking and social distancing, as the children she treats are not yet able to be vaccinated.

What happened instead, was a bashing of those providing care within the state's hospitals, McLeod said.

"I'm really worried about the direction we're headed," Andrews said. "I'm worried the public is losing trust in the medical community."

If she can get off work, Andrews plans to testify next week. She said she thinks it's important for the medical community to come together "to combat the misinformation we heard today."
GREENVILLE  The fees to do business in Greenville will change in the coming year, with most businesses seeing lower costs.

Like other cities across South Carolina, the city of Greenville is required to repeal the structure of its business license fees and replace it with a standard model required by the state legislature. The S.C. Business License Standardization Act has been negotiated for years between businesses seeking uniform standards and cities trying to maintain a vital source of revenue.

State lawmakers passed the act last year, which requires cities and counties who impose business license fees to implement changes by the end of this year.

In Greenville, about 9,500 businesses operate with licenses. Of those, about 8,100 will see a decrease next spring in how much they paid compared to 2020, city budget director Matt Efird said in an presentation preparing the City Council to establish a new rate structure in October.

Among the 85 percent who will see a decrease, the average drop in fees is $205, Efird said.

Predominant among those who will see smaller bills are retailers, restaurants, manufacturers and professional services. Restaurants will see the largest annual decrease at $110.

The remaining 1,400 businesses will see an average increase of $1,270 per business, though the vast majority will see increases no more than 10 percent, he said. Those seeing increases include auto dealerships and professional services that gross $5 million or more annually, he said.

The varying changes are a result of an aspect of the new law that requires local governments to receive no more in business license revenue than they received in 2020.

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Were working on establishing a new rate structure that keeps our revenue at or below what we collected in 2020 while completely changing the nature of how weve done business licenses in the past," Efird said.

The impact of business license fees is substantial as 25 percent of the city's general revenue comes from the source. If the city were to do away with fees, which are designed to charge businesses for the benefit of public services like police, fire and public works, it would have to increase property taxes by 40 percent, he said.

In the past, businesses have complained that local governments across the state employed different classifications for their operations and required different deadlines throughout the year. It created challenges for businesses operating in multiple counties.

The new law requires every locality to have an Apr. 30 payment deadline and to use a federal standard for new classification. In Greenville, the classes are reduced from 15 to 9, with some businesses allowed flexibility in classification because of unique circumstances. The city previously used a Feb. 28 deadline.

All local governments will use a standard online application portal though Greenville can still offer its portal, which Efird said allows it to better collect data on businesses operating in the city.

Alongside the restructuring, the city is proposing a companion ordinance that would create business license fee incentives for economic development purposes.

In general, the incentives would target new businesses such as artists in the Central Business District, West End and Village of West Greenville, retail in the CBD and West End, manufacturing, corporate headquarters and any commercial annexation.

The incentive would be a five-year rebate on the fees. The same class of businesses already operating in the city would receive a 50 percent rebate over five years.
GREENVILLE  An ophthalmologist, a vice president for a financial consulting firm and a public works official were nominated to serve on the Greenville Health Authority board, pending legislative approval.

The GHA's 15-member Board of Trustees convened on Sept. 15 to approve the nominees to replace three retiring members.

Those who were interested in replacing the former board members applied. The GHA Chair Stacey Mills shared at the board's July meeting that the applications were made public on the organization's website. By that meeting, seven applications had been received.

The board's governance committee convened in early August to vet the applications. At the meeting on Sept. 15 the board voted for the three nominees:

Dr. Bradley B. Williams, an ophthalmologist for Southern Eye Associates

Tracy Hardaway, vice president for UBS Financial Services Inc.

John Young, general manager for Laurens Commission of Public Works

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The state delegation in Columbia will have the final vote on the nominees during its quarterly meeting on Oct. 11. The GHA is tasked with improving health care in the Upstate, administering health grant initiatives, and overseeing the facility lease agreement with Prisma Health.
Kingstree, SC (29556)

Today

Scattered thunderstorms, especially late. Potential for heavy rainfall. Low 69F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 50%..

Tonight

Scattered thunderstorms, especially late. Potential for heavy rainfall. Low 69F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 50%.
HAMPTON  Alex Murdaugh's precipitous fall from grace continued unabated Sept. 16 as the prominent attorney sat weeping and shackled in a Hampton County courtroom, facing new charges in a botched suicide plot that followed decades of drug abuse.

Less than a dozen miles from the hunting lodge where his wife and son were mysteriously slain this summer, Murdaugh surrendered to authorities and donned a khaki jail jumpsuit and black rubber shoes. He stands accused of trying to orchestrate his own murder over Labor Day weekend as part of a $10 million insurance fraud scheme.

The 53-year-old attorney hails from a Lowcountry family synonymous with wealth, power and prestige. But Murdaughs lawyer said his client had been crippled by the unsolved June killings of his wife and son, a 20-year opioid habit and cratering finances that left him unable to post bail.

His financial condition is ruinous, his lawyer, Dick Harpootlian, told a judge as Murdaugh sobbed and bounced his chained legs.

Magistrate Tonja Alexander brushed aside a prosecutors request to set bail at $100,000. She instead granted Murdaugh a $20,000 personal recognizance bond on charges of insurance fraud, conspiracy to commit insurance fraud and filing a false police report.

Murdaugh will be allowed to return to the out-of-state rehab facility where he is recovering from his drug addiction. He must surrender his passport and agree to be extradited, but Harpootlian said that wouldn't be a problem.

All his connections are to this community, he said. He has nowhere to go.

As they left the courtroom, six state criminal investigations continued into incidents connected to the Murdaughs, including the June double homicide, allegations that Alex Murdaugh embezzled funds from his family's law firm and the cloudy circumstances surrounding his housekeeper's death in 2018.

Meanwhile, the Walterboro man accused of shooting Murdaugh as part of the failed suicide plot posted $55,000 bail and left jail in the morning. Curtis Edward Smith, 61, faces charges of assisted suicide, assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature, pointing and presenting a firearm, insurance fraud and conspiracy to commit insurance fraud.

Murdaugh admitted in a statement to state investigators Sept. 13 that he asked Smith to kill him so he could collect a life insurance policy to help his remaining son, according to arrest warrant affidavits.

On Sept. 4, Smith followed Murdaugh to rural Old Salkehatchie Road, where he shot the attorney as he stood in the roadway, the affidavits state. Smith then drove to an unknown location and ditched the gun, the documents state.

Murdaugh survived and was airlifted to a Savannah hospital for treatment. It was there that he announced he was quitting the law firm and entering rehab, saying he was struggling with issues made worse by the killings of his wife Maggie, 52, and son Paul, 22.

The State Law Enforcement Division has described the gunshot wound as "superficial," but Murdaugh's legal team has maintained the bullet fractured his skull, caused hemorrhaging and left entry and exit wounds.

Murdaugh wore no bandages during his Sept. 16 court appearance, and no visible injuries were observed by reporters.

Swarm of attention

Though the hearing was brief, it attracted a swarm of media to the tiny town of Varnville. TV stations from Charleston, Columbia and Savannah set up tents and cameras in front of the law enforcement center. And photographers dealt with bursts of rain while waiting for some sighting of Murdaugh or his co-defendant.

One man in a Hampton County sheriffs uniform seemed mesmerized as he returned from his lunch break, counting the number of television trucks parked outside the detention center. It was an unusual sight in this rural community, where crime is low and high-profile cases like this are even more rare.

Nothing like this ever happened in Hampton County before, to my knowledge, with a public figure, said the Rev. Willie Rakes, a pastor at St. James Baptist Church.

Murdaugh was Rakes attorney, and the two had last spoken just two weeks ago. Rakes said he was baffled by this turn of events and the allegations that Murdaugh had siphoned money from the Peters, Murdaugh, Parker, Eltzroth and Detrick (PMPED) law firm.

Why would he do something like that? Rakes pondered.

For its part, the PMPED law firm had no comment on his arrest, saying that those questions should be directed to the appropriate law enforcement agencies.

"PMPED is focused on representing our valued clients," the firm said. "Alex Murdaugh is no longer associated with our firm in any manner."

Harpootlian said Murdaugh has been struggling to come off opioids in the treatment program, which is being paid for by his insurance company. Still, he is trying to make amends by being truthful and cooperating with investigators, he said.

SLED Chief Mark Keel didn't address Murdaugh's cooperation in a written statement on Sept. 16, but he indicated his agents were hard at work on the six cases related to the family.

I can assure you that SLED agents will continue working to bring justice to anyone involved with any criminal act associated with these ongoing investigations, he said. The arrests in this case are only the first step in that process.

The story behind Smith

Murdaugh and his family have been prominent figures in the region for generations. Three generations of Murdaughs served as the regions top prosecutor, an office they collectively held for more than eight decades. Alex Murdaugh previously worked part time for the 14th Circuit Solicitors Office, which was once run by his father, grandfather and great-grandfather.

Smith, his co-defendant, is a much lesser-known commodity. Murdaugh's legal team has described him as a former law client of Murdaugh's who later became his personal drug dealer.

But Smith provided many more details about his past in a deposition for a 2010 personal injury lawsuit filed against American Forest Management, which was settled in 2012. Alex Murdaugh represented Smith in the lawsuit.

Here is how Smith portrayed his life:

Smith, the oldest of three brothers, was born on Parris Island in Beaufort County. His father was a Marine.

The family bounced around when Smith was growing up. They lived in North Carolina and Mississippi before settling in Walterboro in 1983. Smith said he attended high school in Walterboro and Mississippi, completing the 12th grade.

Smith married and had one daughter. The couple divorced.

After high school, Smith first worked for a manufacturer making forklifts, and then worked on oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico and Mississippi.

During a slow period, he moved back to South Carolina and began logging. He bought a logging truck and was an over-the-road freight hauler for approximately 10 years.

He supervised a crew contracted by the government to do cleanup after Hurricane Hugo devastated the coast in 1989, and then continued trucking from 1991 until 1995, when he was arrested for driving under the influence.

Smith filed for bankruptcy in Colleton County in 1997. His debt was discharged in 1999.

In the 2000s, Smith worked as a supervisor for several logging companies between stints driving trucks.

Smith was approached by Buster Harrison in 2004, who wanted to start his own logging business. Smith worked for Harrison as a supervisor while also operating his own logging trucks at the business.

The work was stressful and the days were long. Smith sold all but one of his logging trucks in the mid-2000s to focus more on his role as a supervisor.

In September 2007, Smith injured his back attempting to cross a ditch while marking a logging area. He tried to continue his normal work duties, but I was hurting, you know, he said.

He continued to work for Harrison as a supervisor for another year until his workers' compensation claim was approved. He underwent two surgeries for the injury.

He told the attorneys he could not run or lift as a result of the injury. He took prescribed medication on a regular basis, including oxycodone, an opioid, and diazepam, also known by the trade name Valium.

Harrison said in an interview Sept. 16 that he hardly recognized Smith from his mugshot. Harrison said Smith was a "big old strappin' fella" when they worked together.

"He wasn't hunched over, and his face wasn't as bad," Harrison said. "He just didn't look like the same person."

Harrison said Smith was a "great employee," who did not have any addiction issues he was aware of.

Harrison said he lost touch with Smith after he went on disability.

"When he worked for me, he was a whole different person from what I'm seeing," Harrison said.

Glenn Smith contributed from Charleston, and Avery Wilks from Columbia.
Constitution Day honors our founding charter, as amended. It celebrates an enduring commitment to freedom and a democracy where all of us are supposed to have an equal voice in the decisions that affect our country, no matter our ZIP code, what we look like or how much money we have in the bank.

But from its inception, the Constitution denied democracy  at times violently  to whole swaths of people: indigenous people, enslaved people, black people, women, the unhoused, immigrants, those who do not own property. The list goes on, as does the dishonorable legacy of excluding so many for so long.

Yet with vision matched by struggle, the Constitutions dynamism  how we understand who and what it protects  has expanded. For more than two centuries, people have worked and even died for their constitutional rights.

This includes heroes such as Diane Nash, who led the Freedom Riders, and civil rights litigators such as Justice Thurgood Marshall. New generations of leaders continue to labor, including in the wake of deadly police violence against black Americans, attacks on reproductive freedom and a gutted Voting Rights Act. And it includes the late Congressman John Lewis, who was beaten by police as he marched for the freedom to vote, and who said in his final words that, Democracy is not a state. It is an act.

That act includes the freedom to vote. The Supreme Court said more than a century ago that voting rights are preservative of all rights. In November, a record number of Americans exercised this freedom. Voters showed up in record numbers despite a deadly pandemic.

But then came the backlash. Incited by then-President Donald Trumps big lie about a stolen election, a mob ransacked the Capitol on Jan. 6 in a bid to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power.

Afterward, 147 Republican members of Congress shamefully voted to reject the election results. Some Republican state legislators took the baton and quickly proposed new voting laws that make it harder to vote, especially for black and brown Americans. Eighteen states enacted 30 laws to restrict our access to vote, and more than 400 such bills were introduced throughout the country, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

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These new laws include reducing the time to vote by mail, making it easier to kick people off voter lists, reducing the number of mail drop boxes, erecting new barriers for voters with disabilities, cutting early voting and even banning giving water to voters waiting in hours-long lines.

Congress has the power to override these laws and set fair, national standards for all Americans to vote in federal elections. It says so in the Constitution's elections clause (Article I, Section 4).

One proposal is the For the People Act. Pursuant to Congress constitutional power to set the time, place and manner of our elections, it provides such basic standards as 15 days of early voting, vote-by-mail for all who want it, restored voting rights for all with past felony convictions who are no longer incarcerated and automatic voter registration to ensure voting lists are accurate. It creates a new way to finance campaigns so that our representatives rely on donations from their small donor constituents rather than wealthy special interests. It creates and upholds high ethical standards. And, critically, the bill bans partisan gerrymandering.

Of equal importance is the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. This bill would repair and strengthen the Voting Rights Act  gutted by Supreme Court decisions starting with Shelby County in 2013 through Brnovich in 2021  to stop voting practices that discriminate against voters on account of race or language-minority status. The Voting Rights Act has always been supported, reauthorized and amended on a bipartisan basis, and there is no excuse for that not to happen again this year.

These bills have already passed the U.S. House of Representatives and are pending in the Senate. They have the strong support of many Americans  Republicans, Democrats and independents. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer has committed to voting rights being a first order of business as Congress returns this month. The filibuster  which is not in the Constitution  must not block these bills.

Democracy is resilient, but all of us working together must do what it takes to make real its promise.

Karen Hobert Flynn is the president of Common Cause. She wrote this for InsideSources.com.
The ownership of a Hagatna landmark building has changed hands.

Bank of Hawaii sold its Hagatna building to the property investment subsidiary of Citadel Pacific Ltd., the bank announced Thursday in a press release.

Citadel Pacific is owned by the Delgado family of the Philippines and by the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan of Canada, one of the largest and most successful pension plans in the world, with assets over $160 billion, according to Citadel. Some of the holding company's subsidiaries are invested in Shell gas stations on Guam, telecom provider IT&E and real estate investments.

Bank of Hawaii did not disclose the amount of the sale.

The sale of the building aligns with the banks plans to build a new West Pacific regional headquarters in Tamuning.

The Tamuning regional location will include a new branch, the Guam Commercial Banking Center, Guam Residential Loan Center, Guam Auto Finance, an expanded call center operation and its administrative offices, the bank stated in the press release.

The construction of the bank's regional office on Guam is scheduled to start in late 2022, Bank of Hawaii stated.

Bank of Hawaii has been serving the Guam market since 1961, and its two existing branches in Hagatna and Harmon will continue to serve the community, the bank stated.

Its new West Pacific regional headquarters will be located at Chalan San Antonio between the Personal Finance Center and the Shell gas station in Tamuning.

The new Tamuning Banking Center will be a Branch of Tomorrow and provide customers the conveniences of its more modern locations, such as easy-deposit ATMs, Wi-Fi and private meeting rooms, the bank stated in its release.

Citadel Pacific's holdings range from controlling stakes in companies engaged in telecommunications, retail, petroleum and gas distribution, commercial and industrial property, in-flight catering and manpower services.

As a private holding company, Citadel Pacific also has operations in the Philippines, the Republic of Palau, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.
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A federal judge ordered the Archdiocese of Agana to file by Nov. 29 a reorganization plan, which includes how it intends to compensate nearly 300 clergy sex abuse claimants and other creditors.

It's been 32 months since the archdiocese sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection so it can reorganize its finances amid abuse claims exceeding $1 billion, while keeping its Catholic parishes, schools and programs running.

District Court of Guam Chief Judge Frances Tydingco-Gatewood, in her order, said the Nov. 29, 2021 deadline for the archdiocese to file the reorganization plan is subject to extension "only upon showing of good cause requested prior to the expiration of the deadline."

"The debtor's failure to comply with this deadline will provide cause to dismiss this case," the judge wrote in her order.

The filing of the bankruptcy case halted litigation of the civil cases involving alleged rape and sexual abuses by priests and other members of the clergy.

Parties in the bankruptcy case have gone through mediations but the archdiocese has yet to present a plan agreeable to the creditors.

In January 2020, or a year after the bankruptcy filing, the archdiocese released a $21 million plan to pay sex abuse claimants, using proceeds from the sale of real estate properties, payments from insurance firms, and contributions.

The survivors and other creditors described the proposal as unreasonable, fundamentally flawed and has little hope of confirmation. No formal vote was taken to approve or disapprove the proposal at the time.

$5M legal fees

While legal and other professional billing meters continue to tick, abuse survivors have yet to get any restitution from the archdiocese.

The archdiocese has paid or has been ordered to pay more than $5 million in professional fees, mostly to law firms representing the archdiocese, clergy sex abuse claimants and other creditors.

The judge approved five law firms' billings for work performed from April 1 to July 31:

 $192,144.52 in fees and $8,663.02 in expenses: Stinson LLP, the Minnesota-based counsel for the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors, including clergy sex abuse claimants and other creditors;

 $69,666.47 in professional fees and $31.47 in expenses: Elsaesser Anderson, the Idaho-based counsel for the archdiocese;

 $41,755 in fees: Patterson Buchanan Fobes & Leitch, special counsel for the archdiocese;

 $11,575 in fees: Guam-based Attorney John Terlaje, counsel for the archdiocese; and

 $6,934 in fees: Blank Rome LLP, archdiocese special insurance.

Boy Scouts bankruptcy

Besides the archdiocese, the Boy Scouts of America also filed for bankruptcy under the weight of sex abuse claims.

There are about 85,000 survivors of child sexual abuse who filed timely claims in the Boy Scouts bankruptcy case, including more than 80 from Guam.

The Boy Scouts on Wednesday filed a fifth version of a proposed bankruptcy plan, which contains settlements described as "grossly unfair" by the committee representing tens of thousands of alleged victims of child sex abuse.

The committee asked a Delaware federal court to end the Boy Scouts' exclusive rights to file a reorganization plan, so that the committee can file its own.

"As insurance companies for the Boy Scouts of America haggle over who has to pay what, the real losers in this scenario are the victims of childhood sex abuse," according to attorney Christopher Hurley, one of the attorneys representing thousands of those who filed claims for damages in the Boy Scout bankruptcy.
Bob Woodward alleges in a forthcoming book that General Mark Milley conspired with senior military officers of the Chinese Communist Party against his boss, President Donald Trump. Yesterday I expressed skepticism that any American military officer would do such a dishonorable thing, while noting that Milley had not yet disputed Woodwards charges.

Now, based on this statement by Joint Staff Spokesperson Col. Dave Butler, it appears that Woodwards reporting is, shockingly, accurate. Col. Butlers statement was issued in response to Woodwards report and the firestorm of controversy that it ignited. Thus, the most significant fact about the statement is that it does not deny the truth of any part of Woodwards account. Rather, Col. Butler tries to put Woodwards reporting in a sympathetic light:

His calls with the Chinese and others in October and January were in keeping with these duties and responsibilities conveying reassurance in order to maintain strategic stability.

So Milley did talk with his Chinese counterparts at the time alleged by Woodward. His only defense is that those conversations were normal. They convey[ed] reassurance. Well, that is what Woodward wrote: Milley told the Communist Chinese that if President Trump intended to launch an attack against them, he, General Milley, would betray his country by giving them advance warning. No doubt that was reassuring to the CCP.

The Joint Chiefs spokesmans statement also confirms Woodwards claim that Milley met with other senior military officers to instruct them not to obey certain possible orders from President Trump:

Also in keeping with his responsibilities as senior military advisor to the President and Secretary of Defense, General Milley frequently conducts meetings with uniformed leaders across the Services to ensure all leaders are aware of current issues. The meeting regarding nuclear weapons protocols was to remind uniformed leaders in the Pentagon of the long-established and robust procedures in light of media reporting on the subject.

So what Woodward wrote is correct. The idea that President Trump was likely to order a nuclear strike on China is fanciful, to put it politely. That the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs took such a fantasy seriously demonstrates how out of touch he was, and is. Trump, for better or worse, was the least warlike of presidents. Did he ever order American servicemen into a new conflict? Unlike just about every president since Eisenhower? No, he did not.

General Milley is obviously a slave to left-wing ideology, which is why he has inflicted Critical Race Theory on Americas fighting men and women. This far-left ideology is also reflected in his view that President Trump, against all evidence, was some kind of warmongering loose cannon, and his even more sinister view that the leaders of Chinas armed forces were his peers and his allies in undermining the foreign policy of the United States.

I never would have imagined that the U.S. military could sink to the level represented by Milley. He should be fired, cashiered, court-martialed, drummed out of the Army, criminally prosecuted if possible. And we need a thorough investigation into how the leadership of our armed forces could possibly have sunk so low.
The Family Resource Centres new executive director Laura Beddome speaks during the award presentation, Sept. 9. The centres retired executive director Anne Ford is standing behind her.
Yes, no matter what

Yes, but it depends on variety

No, for medical reasons, uncertainty

No, principle

Vote

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The announcement of Usman Alkali as the 21st Inspector General of Police in Nigeria in April was greeted with mixed feelings in the hierarchy of the force.

Eyes had been fixed on the pools of Assistant Inspectors-General of Police (AIGs) and Commissioners of Police, which were placed in the selection scheme, going by precedent. The Deputy Inspectors-General usually depart with the IGP.

Instead, on April 6, the Minister of Police Affairs, Maigari Dingyadi, announced Mr Alkali, a DIG, as the acting IGP following his appointment by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Two months later, on June 4, the Police Council under the chairmanship of the President confirmed him as the substantive IGP.

Mr Alkali, 58, was appointed to head an institution suffering from a battered image and confronted with a daunting level of insecurity.

Last Friday, the IGP marked his 150th day in the office. PREMIUM TIMES in this report examines how he has fared so far.

First round of tour

Barely an hour after he was decorated in an acting capacity at the State House, Abuja, by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, the new IGP began a tour of agencies under the force. He first visited the Police Finance House temporarily accommodating the Nigeria Police Trust Fund (NPTF) in an unscheduled visit.

The Police Trust Fund is my first port of call after being decorated as the new acting IGP to let you and members of the Nigeria Police know that the intervention of NPTF is highly needed and expected at this crucial time. The mission of the Trust Fund targeted at having a well-trained, well-equipped and highly-motivated Police Force will be supported by my administration with unwavering cooperation, the new police boss said during the visit.

The IGP would eventually move to the Louis Edet Headquarters of the force where he was welcomed by a contingent of officers from the police formations.

The new police chief continued his tour the following days. He met with top officers from all the formations in the country. He also met with his former colleagues who had served as DIGs, AIGs and police commissioners.

150 days of fighting insecurity

From his first steps upon assumption office, Mr Alkali appeared determined to address familiar challenges. His earliest strategic policy direction was to find a solution to the complex nature of the security situation in the country.

Insecurity in Nigeria is worsening with all parts of the country battling one form of violent crime or the other, largely unabated.

Apart from insurgency, the current spate of banditry, kidnapping and secessionist violence is pushing Nigeria to the edge.

Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka has described the country as a war zone and the Sultan of Sokoto recently said northern Nigeria is the worst place in Nigeria to live.

But the new IGP said he has a clear understanding of the issues and pledged to join efforts with other security forces to tackle them.

Three days after his confirmation as the substantive IGP, Mr Alkali, at the second conference with strategic commanders of the police held June 7 in Abuja, gave a self-appraisal of himself in the two months he held sway in acting capacity.

In a statement addressed to the top hierarchy of the police, the police boss said between April and May, 686 high-profile suspects were arrested in various police operations across the country under his watch.

The arrested suspects comprise mainly bandits, kidnappers, and armed robbers. They also include the principal suspects involved in the attack on his Excellency, Governor Samuel Ortom on 20th March, 2021, he said.

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Similarly, a total of 152 kidnapped victims, including the students kidnapped at the Federal College of Forestry Mechanization, Kaduna have also been safely rescued by the Police during this period. Furthermore, 231 assorted firearms and 6,616 rounds of assorted ammunition were also recovered by the police during various operations nationwide over the past two months.

In relation to our anti-banditry operations, the Police in collaboration with the Military, DSS, and local communities have successfully arrested 173 suspected bandits, while 68 others died during encounters with the Police in the course of search and rescue operations within the past two months.

Despite the IGPs award of a pass mark to himself, violent crime has not reduced in the country. Many Nigerians still experience and live in fear of kidnapping and other crimes.

Tackling South-east secessionist crisis

Another major challenge Mr Alkali met on his desk upon assumption of office was the violence in the South-east believed to be engineered by a secessionist group, Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).

Security forces have for several months engaged in battles with gunmen believed to be members of the ESN, the armed wing of IPOB.

According to government officials, the ESN killed dozens of security operatives and attacked at least 10 public facilities, including prisons and police stations, between January and June. The police said ESN fighters killed 21 officers in Imo State alone.

The IGP at the June event spoke on how the police were handling the situation in the South-east.

He said special intelligence by the police led to the killing of the operational commander of IPOB/ESN in the South-east, popularly known as Ikonson Commander, and his deputy, during joint operations with the army and operatives of the State Security Service (SSS).

The South-east and parts of South-south, with the launch of the special operation code named Operation Restore Peace, was heavily guarded.

On April 18, we put together our capacity to repel attacks by the secessionists as well as to undertake proactive operations aimed at disrupting their destabilising armed campaigns and with a view to restoring constitutional order, he said.

The official said the intelligence gathered led to the arrest of dismissed soldiers that were providing military training and tactics to IPOB/ESN fighters.

He narrated how the police repelled several attacks in the region by suspected IPOB members, adding that several arms and ammunition were recovered.

Violence in the region has notably reduced to pockets of attacks though this was attributed to the re-arrest of Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of IPOB.

Tackling proliferation of firearms

Upon his confirmation as substantive IGP, Mr Alkali drew a roadmap for checking the trafficking in and proliferation of small arms and light weapons (SALW) in the country. Most of these weapons are in the possession of non-state actors who use them to perpetrate violent crimes.

Nigerias last military head of state, Abdulsalami Abubakar, recently said that more than three million illegal firearms were in the hands of non-state actors in the country.

Mr Alkali said he would reinvigorate the Police Intelligence Response Team (IRT) and the Special Tactical Squad (STS) through the deployment of experts and specialists to crack down on gun traffickers and local fabricators of firearms.

One month after the plan was launched, the base of a local gun fabricating syndicate was uncovered in Jos South Local Government Area of Plateau State, an official said.

The syndicate was fabricating AK47 rifles, the Force Public Relations Officer, Frank Mba, said in a statement, adding that even experts could hardly tell the difference between AK47 rifles fabricated by the gang and the original ones.

Mr Alkali also launched an innovative mechanism with which security personnel can identify locally manufactured firearms.

Inter-agency rivalry

Addressing a yearly ministerial retreat in June, Mr Alkali lamented that inter-agency rivalry was limiting the capacity of the police to effectively tackle insecurity.

The retreat themed, Strengthening Inter-Agency Collaboration and Organisation Efficiency was held in Abuja. There, the IGP maintained that the friction constitutes a major threat to internal security and national cohesion.

According to him, the menace has been of concern to the majority of Nigerians over the years, adding, however, that the problem is not peculiar to Nigeria.

It is a phenomenon noticeable among security agencies even in advanced democracies, Mr Alkali said.

The police chief said the development accounts for budgetary wastage, duplication of functions, mutual suspicion and encroachment on legal and operational space by competing agencies.

He noted that the hostility was also exposing security agencies to public ridicule and confidence deficit in the discharge of their statutory duties. Mr Alkali regretted that misunderstanding between the Police Service Commission (PSC) and the forces management over the yearly recruitment of 10,000 constables, saying it was affecting the vision of the leadership for an effective policing system.

The development, he added, had slowed down the attainment of the polices strategic manpower projection plans.

One important issue the new police chief is yet to address is the poor remuneration of police officers which has been of concern over the years and has been blamed for some of the vices of the force.
For the fifth year running, the University of Ilorin ranked as Nigerias most preferred university by admission seekers in the country, data published by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, has shown.

This year, the university had 78,466, which is about 6 per cent of 2021 admission seekers, jostling for admission into it, according to JAMB.

This perhaps explains why the university prides itself as the university of first choice, and the continuous preference of the university may not be unconnected to the schools relatively stable academic calendar over the years as the schools staff did not embark on strike for years unlike other public Nigerian universities.

However, that streak may be on the line now. Last March, after about two decades, the UNILORIN academic staff joined their colleagues in the Academic Staff of Nigerian Universities (ASUU) in an industrial action that lasted months.

Most preferred universities

From last years admission record released by JAMB, as of August, only 19 per cent (13,634, the highest number of admission by any institution in the country in 2020) of applicants to UNILORIN had gained admission.

With 59,190 applicants, University of Lagos recorded the second highest admission request this year. This is a move by one place from third in last years admission request, even though this year, fewer number of students sought admission from the school.

The 2020 admission record showed that UNILAG admitted 7,815, some 17 per cent of its admission seekers, as of August.

The University of Benin, with 49,763, placed third with 49,361 admission seekers. Save 2020, this means UNIBEN has maintained third place since 2017. As of August, from last year, about a quarter of its admission seekers had been offered admission.

The University of Nigeria had 47,239 applicants last year. The Federal University, Oye-Ekiti had 45,920 applicants, the first time it would record such demand and the first time it would break into the top ten most sought-after universities in four years. The university was established in 2011.

Ahmadu Bello University slipped from second place, for the first time in four years, with 44,509 applicants, about half of the admission seekers last year.

Bayero University had 44,352 applicants; Nnamdi Azikiwe University, 43,542; Obafemi Awolowo University, 42,614; and for the fifth year running, the University of Jos placed tenth most preferred university in the country with 38,309 applicants.

2020 applications to admission rate

The data released by JAMB showed that 2,110,815 students (including 171,660 direct entry (DE) students) applied for tertiary education into 962 institutions in 2020.

Of them, 1,112,057 had five Olevel credits (including mathematics and English) and, for non-DE students, scored 140+ in the UTME.

As of August, 551,553 of the students had gained admission, which is nearly half of those with the least prerequisite for a tertiary institution admission. The figure also represents 26 per cent, or about three in ten, JAMB admission rate.

In 2019, about two-thirds of the about two million admission seekers were not admitted, JAMBs data showed.

But ten universities accounted for about one-fifth of all the admissions last year, analysis by this paper showed. In 2019, the top ten admitting universities accounted for one-sixth of admissions in the year.

University of Ilorin led the list of schools with 13,634 students admitted. It was followed by the University of Benin (UNIBEN) with 12,336 admission figures. The University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID) admitted 11,416 students.

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The trio were trailed by the University of Calabar (UNICAL), 10,888; Nnamdi Azikiwe University (NAU), 10,736; the University of Port Harcourt (UNIPORT), 9,509; the University of Uyo (UNIUYO), 8,502; Federal University Oye-Ekiti (FUOYE), 8,110; Ekiti State University (EKSU), 8,088; and University of Lagos (UNILAG), 7,815.

Most preferred Colleges of Education

With 2,318, Kaduna State College of Education had the most applicants seeking entry into it.

Breaking out of first place for the first time in four years, Federal College of Education, Zaria, had 2,213 applicants. The Federal College of Education, Kano had 1,037 applicants.

The College of Education, Waka-Biu, broke into the top ten most-coveted colleges of education with 915.

The Federal College of Education (Tech.), Gombe had 797 applicants; the College of Education, Akwanga, 685; Saadatu Rimi College of Education, Kano State, 649; the FCT College of Education, 598; the Federal College of Education (Tech.), Potiskum, 522; the Federal College of Education, Katsina, 498.

Most preferred Polytechnics and Monotechnics

The Kaduna Polytechnic, Kaduna, recorded 3,277 applicants, while Kwara State Polytechnic had 3,237.

Likewise, the Federal Polytechnic, Ilaro, had 3,140; Yaba College Of Technology, 2,794; the Federal Polytechnic, Offa, 2,628.

For the first time in four years, four institutions broke into the top ten most preferred polytechnics this year.

They include Lagos State Polytechnic, Ikorodu, which had 1,695 applicants; the Federal Polytechnic, Nasarawa, 1,662; School of Nursing and Midwifery, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi, 1,271; the Federal Polytechnic, Ado-Ekiti, 1,213.

Placing ninth with 1,250 applicants, The Polytechnic, Ibadan, completes the the top ten ranked polytechnics most preferred by the nations admission seekers.
Residents of District Centre Layout Extension Phase IV, in Kubwa, a satellite town in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, are groaning over humongous tenement rates imposed by the local government.

Their lawyer, Olufunsho Isaac, has sent a letter to the Chairman of Bwari Area Council, John Gabaya, a copy of which was shared with PREMIUM TIMES, expressing the residents pains and disappointment.

How does one justify an average bill of N140,000 on mere two-bedroom flats and other higher billings? the lawyer wrote.

Some residents who spoke with our reporter said the charges were arbitrarily levied without valuation of property as provided for in the tenement law of the council area.

Other complaints

Some of them also complained about among other issues, imposition of retrospective charges for 2019 to 2020, with demand notices backdated to 2019, even on those who were not living in the area at the time.

As a follow-up to the demand notices, officials of the area council have also served residents with civil defaulters civil summonses issued by the FCT magistrates revenue court at the instance of the area council.

Served on residents as far back as August, the summonses seek an order of the court to seal off the premises of defaulters pending the payment of their debts to the area council.

They wondered why they should be burdened with such exorbitant fees despite their efforts at improving dilapidated infrastructure in their locality through community efforts without support from the area council.

They lamented that they were just recovering from the hardships occasioned by the coronavirus pandemic, only to be slammed with arbitrary, humongous and outrageous amounts.

The residents of the estate are perturbed, disappointed and saddened about the development despite your area councils refusal to attend to the needs, yearnings and longings of the people.

You chose or decided to impose an exorbitant, and unbearable burden of tenement charges on all occupants without considering the harsh economic realities of our times.

It is important to reiterate the work singlehandedly handled by the estate which includes but are not limited to: Road mapping, landscaping, drainage system, sand filling of roads, purchase of electricity poles, purchase of recline wires/other cables, and contribution for transformer purchase, the above were done without the input of the area council, the letter read in part.

Demands

Among other demands, the residents, through their lawyer, requested a meeting with the Director of Revenue of the Bwari Area Council with a view to having a harmonious relationship and forestall frictions in the exercise of their duties.

That you (Bwari Area Council boss) direct the said Director of Revenue and his staff to negotiate with our client so as to arrive at an affordable rate per building instead of splitting the payment into parts, thereby causing rifts between landlords and their tenants.

That you direct the said director to desist from further instituting actions against members of our clients forthwith.

That you cause the said director to refrain from retrospective charges  (from 2019-2020). The demand notices were issued this year though backdated to 2019, such is totally unacceptable.

That you also make efforts to fulfil your promises to work on their road so as to boost the confidence of the residents in your leadership, the estate residents lawyer wrote.

Residents pick holes in council areas levies

The aggrieved residents appealed to the council chairman to review the collection of tenement charges in line with statutory provisions.

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The chairman, Landlords Association of the estate, Uwaje Ifeanyi, said the Bwari Area Council neglected a crucial statutory provision, which says it must first carry out a valuation exercise of properties before tenement charges are sent to residents.

Since this estate was built, there has never been a valuation of properties exercise by the Bwari Area Council as required by law.

We are not opposed to the payment of tenement charges, but the rates have to as stipulated in the Area Council bye-law, Mr Ifeanyi said.

Residents cited the provision of the Tenement Rate Collection Bye-Law (No. 20) 2016, which stipulates that valuation office shall carry out assessment of all rateable properties in the Area Council.

This, the residents say, has never happened.

Another issue in contention said to be in breach of the law is the levying of individual occupants of a property instead of imposing only one charge on a property.

Eze Chinyere, who is the Assistant Estate Secretary, said some residents only moved into the estate this year, but were asked to pay tenement charges for 2019 and 2020.

In a defaulters civil summons dated August 11, 2021, a resident was asked to pay N178,000 as tenement charge.

Some residents were charged as much as N200, 000 as tenement rates for apartments that are being rented at the cost of 600, 000. This is clearly above the four per cent provision in the bye-law, Mr Chinyere explained.

He also lamented the deplorable state of the roads in the estate, adding that residents were responsible for the basic amenities like water and installation of electricity poles and transformers.

Local council area keeps mum

For two days, this reporter made efforts to reach the Bwari Area Council Chairman, but to no avail.

Several phone calls and a text message sent to Mr Gabayas via his telephone line went unanswered as of the time of filing this report.

The Revenue Director of the Council, Olu Kenneth, contacted by our reporter, declined to respond to specific issues raised by the residents.

He, however, advised owner occupiers of the estate to visit the revenue office for a resolution of all pending matters.
A professor of Physiology and former acting vice-chancellor of the Lagos State University (LASU), Ojo, Ibiyemi Olatunji-Bello, has been appointed the institutions 9th substantive vice-chancellor.

Mrs Olatunji-Bello is the wife of the Lagos State commissioner for environment and water resources, Olatunji Bello.

The announcement was made on Thursday by the states commissioner for information and strategy, Gbenga Omotoso.

A highly placed source among the states cabinet members had also confirmed the development to PREMIUM TIMES earlier on Thursday.

The new development perhaps puts an end to controversies that have trailed the processes of appointing a substantive vice-chancellor for the university following the completion of a five-year single term of office by the 8th substantive vice-chancellor, Olanrewaju Fagbohun.

But some persons including academic and non-academic staffers on the campus believe the withdrawal of other strong contenders from the race, especially, Olumuyiwa Odusanya, a professor of public health, may signal an impending crisis.

According to Mr Omotoso, the appointment followed the recommendation of the joint committee of the governing council and the Senate of the university in accordance with the LASU Law, Cap 169 Vol 7, Laws of Lagos State.

Lagos State Governor, Mr Babajide Olusola-Sanwo-Olu has approved the appointment of Professor Ibiyemi Olatunji-Bello as the 9th substantive Vice-Chancellor of the Lagos State University (LASU), the statement reads in part.

Backstory

The university had been embroiled in controversies surrounding the appointment of Mr Fagbohuns successor leading to the cancellation of two selection processes earlier conducted by the universitys former governing council.

As a result of allegations of manipulation and inconsistencies levelled against the then Adebayo Ninalowo-led governing council, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, who doubles as the institutions visitor, set up a visitation panel which recommended the dissolution of the governing council.

The panel also recommended the reconstitution of another council. It added that the then registrar of the university, Olayinka Amuni, should embark on leave pending the conclusion of the selection process.

Mr Amuni was accused of not properly guiding the governing council on the laid down procedures to be followed by the selection committee.

But critics had accused the governor of supporting Mrs Olatunji-Bellos emergence. They cited her husbands influence on the governor, especially in connection with his second term bid.

Mr Olatunji Bello, a close ally of the former governor of the state and political godfather of the incumbent, Bola Tinubu, has been a regular cabinet member in the state since he served during the tenure of Mr Tinubu.

Controversies, resolution

The results of the two earlier selection processes which were cancelled by the governor had Mr Odusanya, who is the universitys director of research, taking the first position.

The result also had a former deputy vice-chancellor, Senapon Bakre, and a former dean of students affairs on the campus, Kabiru Akinyemi, ranking second and third respectively.

Following petitions against the process, the governor ordered that a new process be conducted.

At the end of the second process, while Mr Odusanya ranked first again, a professor of public health from Usman Danfodio University, Sokoto (UDUS), Mohammed Ibrahim, ranked second and the then provost of LASUs college of medicine, Abiodun Adewuya, came third.

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In both the first and second selection processes, Mrs Olatunji-Bello ranked fourth and seventh respectively.

However, while other members of the former council were returned, Mr Ninalowo was replaced with a former auditor general of the state, David Sunmoni, as the chairman.

A new seven-member joint council and Senate selection committee under the leadership of Mr Sunmoni was reconstituted with three other council members- Hakeem Adetugbobo, Moronke Williams and Oluwakemi Kalesanwo.

The universitys Senate had earlier elected Fidelis Njokanma, Adenike Boye and Joseph Olagunju, all professors, as members.

But following what concerned individuals and groups such as the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) described as an attempt to exempt medical doctors from the process, especially with the criteria of provision of PhD degree, and for clinical lecturers, a newly introduced Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree, Mr Njokanma, a holder of medical fellowship resigned his membership.

The criteria was reportedly set against Mr Odusanya, who is said to be the favourite candidate of the former council chairman and the immediate past vice-chancellor, Mr Fagbohun.

Mr Njokanma was on 10 August replaced by Rafiu Okuneye, a professor of physical and health education, who was elected by the Senate.

But as a result of pressure mounted on the governing council and the governor, the university readjusted the criteria for the office and permitted holders of medical fellowship to be part of the contest.

However, the medical practitioners who had consistently taken part in the contest, refused to participate in the new process.

Both Messrs Odusanya and Adewuya rebuffed all entreaties to take part in the process.

Three high ranking traditional rulers in the state pleaded with them to rescind their decision but they said they did not trust the process, and so opted out, a source told PREMIUM TIMES.

About Olatunji-Bello

Born in Lagos on 23 April, 1964, Mrs Olatunji-Bello graduated from University of Ibadan where she bagged a BSc (Hons) in Physiology in 1985.

She bagged her MSc in Physiology in 1987 at the University of Lagos and a PhD in the same field at the same university in 1998.

She had attended Anglican Girls Primary School in Surulere from 1970 to 1974 and then Lagos Anglican Girls Grammar School, also in Surulere, between 1974 and 1979.

She proceeded to Methodist Girls High School in Yaba, and Lagos State College of Science and Technology, Ikosi Campus, where she did her A levels, in 1982.

The new vice-chancellor also has a Post-graduate Diploma in Theology from the Bible College of the Redeemed Christian Church of God in the year 2001 and a Post-graduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) at the Lagos State University in 2018.

She rose through the ranks from an Assistant Lecturer (1988-1991), Lecturer II between 1991 and 1996, Lecturer 1 between 1996 to 1999 at the College of Medicine of the University of Lagos, (CMUL) Idi Araba.

Between 1999 and 2005, she was a senior lecturer and became an associate professor in 2005 at the CMUL before she was appointed the pioneer professor of Physiology at the Lagos State University College of Medicine (LASUCOM).

Mrs Olatunji-Bello has held various positions at the university including serving as an acting vice-chancellor, and deputy deputy vice-chancellor in charge of academic matters.

She was awarded a fellowship by the Physiological Society in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2017 and followed by the fellowship of the Physiological Society of Nigeria. She was also appointed a Fellow of the society for Environmental Toxicology and Pollution Mitigation in 2019.

She served under the administration of her predecessor, Mr Fagbohun, as the pioneer director of LASU directorate of advancement.
The Rivers and Lagos state governments on Thursday failed to convince the Court of Appeal in Abuja to stop the Federal Inland Revenue Service from further collecting Value Added Tax (VAT).

The court refused oral applications for a restraining order against the FIRS made by the legal team of the two states.

Refusing to grant the requests, a three-man panel of the court, led by Haruna Tsanami, directed the lawyers representing the two states to file formal applications instead of oral applications.

The FIRS had appealed the judgement of the Federal High Court in Port Harcourt empowering the Rivers State government to collect VAT.

The Mr Tsanami-led panel had last Friday ordered parties to the case to maintain status quo, a decision Rivers and Lagos tried to overturn on Thursday.

The court had also adjourned till Thursday (today) for the hearing of an application by Lagos State, not yet officially a party to the suit, to be joined as a respondent to the FIRS appeal.

Lawyers clash

Emotion ran high after the legal teams for Rivers and Lagos states asked for a restraining order against the FIRS at Thursdays proceedings.

The lawyers on the two sides of the divide had tense back-and-forth arguments over the prayer.

The legal teams of Rivers and Lagos, led by Ifedayo Adedipe and Moyosore Onigbanjo respectively, prayed for what they described as preservative order restraining the FIRS from collecting VAT and sharing the proceeds to states pending the determination of the substantive appeal.

My Lords, the appellant (FIRS) collects VAT and shares amongst states of the federation.

Therefore, if it is not stopped from doing so, and the court finds its action unconstitutional, it will be difficult to recover the VAT proceeds that must have been shared to the States, Mr Adedipe, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), said.

Mr Onigbanjo, the Attorney-General of Lagos State, and SAN, canvassed the same line of argument.

According to him, if FIRS is not restrained from collecting VAT and sharing it among the states of the federation, in the event the court finds its action inappropriate at the end of the day, then it will be difficult to recover the VAT proceeds that must have been shared to the states.

Reacting to the oral request by Rivers and Lagos lawyers, FIRS lawyer, Mahmud Magaji, also a SAN, faulted the arguments of his opponents in a combative tone.

My Lords, I think my learned colleagues are testing the patience of the court, when it is clear that their application has no basis, Mr Magaji said, adding that the Lagos government lacked the right to make such a request when it was yet to be joined as an interested party.

This submission drew Mr Onigbanjos ire who wanted to reply Mr Magaji, but for the intervention of a member of the Appeal Court panel, cautioning the FIRS lawyer to exhibit higher sense of decorum in addressing his colleagues.

In their responses to the request, the head of the appellate panel, Justice Tsammani, advised the respondents lawyers to file a formal request in respect of their concerns.

Lagos joinder application

Earlier, Mr Onigbanjo, while moving the joinder application for Lagos State to be joined as a respondent to the FIRS appeal, told the court that the state would be impacted by the outcome of the appeal.

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The Attorney-General urged the court to join the Lagos State government.

Lagos State needed to apply to be joined as a party to the appeal because it was not part of the case at the Federal High Court which led to the judgment being contested by the FIRS.

Similarly, Mr Adedipe, counsel for the Rivers State government, did not object to the Lagos State joinder request.

However, the FIRS lawyer, Mr Magaji, vehemently opposed Mr Onigbanjos request.

The joinder application of the applicant (Lagos State government) is faulty from the word go.

Section 243 (1A & B) of the Constitution does not support a joinder application in a suit like this, Mr Magaji said.

READ ALSO: Rivers State govt takes VAT collection battle to Supreme Court

He further argued that the Lagos State government was not a party at the trial court in Port Harcourt, adding, The judgement of the Federal High Court in Port Harcourt never mentioned the applicant.

Also, in objection to the Lagos governments request to be joined as a party, the FIRS lawyer contended that the state already filed an appeal at the Supreme Court concerning the VAT dispute, a claim that was swiftly denied by Mr Onigbanjo.

The Lagos Attorney-General told the appellate court that the suit Mr Magaji referenced in his argument concerned stamp duty collection rather than VAT, which he clarified involves all the 36 states of the federation.

Mr Onigbanjo further countered appellants (FIRS) claim that the Lagos State government was never mentioned in the trial court judgement.

The Federal High Court in Port Harcourt in its judgement held that it was unconstitutional for the FIRS to collect VAT, thereby authorising the 36 states of the federation, among which is Lagos, Mr Onigbanjo argued.

Court of Appeal reserves ruling

The court reserved its ruling on the Lagos State governments joinder application.

A date is to be communicated to lawyers to the parties as soon as the ruling is ready.
Governors of the southern states of Nigeria have expressed their support for the collection of Value Added Tax (VAT) by state governments.

Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State disclosed this while reading a communique at the end of a meeting of the governors on Thursday in Enugu.

Mr Akeredolu said the governors resolved and affirmed the position that the collection of VAT fell within the powers of state governments.

We resolved to support the position that the collection of VAT falls within the powers of the state.

The meeting reaffirmed its earlier commitments to fiscal federalism and emphasised the need to pursue its inclusion in the Nigerian Constitution through the on-going constitutional amendment, he said.

Some southern states such as Rivers and Lagos have already enacted laws to collect VAT while others are in the process of doing so.

Mr Akeredolu urged states in the south to leverage the competence of their houses of assembly and representation at the National Assembly to pursue the goal.

He said the meeting reviewed the state of the nation and the progress made in the implementation of the ban on open grazing of cattle in the south of Nigeria.

The meeting expressed satisfaction with the rate at which states in the south of Nigeria are amending or enacting the anti-open grazing law.

This aligns with the uniform template and aspiration of governors in the south and we encourage the states that have yet to enact the law to do so expeditiously.

The meeting agreed to encourage the full operationalisation of the already agreed regional security which will share intelligence and collaborate toward the safety and security of the region, he said.

Mr Akeredolu said the governors were satisfied with the handling of issues surrounding the Petroleum Industry Act and ownership of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation by the larger Nigerian Governors Forum.

The meeting reiterated its earlier position that the next president of Nigeria will come from the south of Nigeria in line with the politics of equity, justice and fairness, he said.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that nine governors and seven deputy governors out of the 17 states in the southern Nigeria attended the meeting.

Governors present were Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State, Nyesom Wike of Rivers, Emmanuel Udom of Akwa Ibom, Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State and Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta.

Others were Govs Rotimi Akeredolu (Ondo State), Adegboyega Oyetola (Osun State), Douye Diri (Bayelsa) and Dapo Abiodun (Ogun State).

The deputy governors in attendance were Bisi Egbeyemi (Ekiti State), Rauf Olaniyan (Oyo State), Kelechi Igwe (Ebonyi), Ude Oko-Chukwu (Abia),r Philip Shuaibu (Edo), Ivara Esu (Cross River) and Placid Njoku (Imo).

Anambra State was not represented at the meeting.

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NAN also reports that the next meeting of the governors will hold in Rivers in November.

The givernors had previously held meetings in Asaba, Delta State and Lagos.

At the meetings, they called for ban on open grazing and the shift of presidential power to the south in 2023, among ither issues.

(NAN)
Governors of the states in Southern Nigeria Thursday said they believe states should be responsible for the collection of Value Added Tax, VAT. The governors also said they were satisfied with the efforts of each of the 17 states to pass the anti-open grazing laws to prevent open grazing of cattle.

At least 10 of the 17 southern states have passed anti-open grazing laws including Ekiti, Lagos, Enugu, Osun and Ondo states.

The two decisions were part of the resolutions the governors reached in their meeting held in Enugu, South-east Nigeria.

the meeting resolved to support the position that the collection of VAT falls within the powers of the States, one of the seven items in the communique signed by the governors, states.

The meeting expressed satisfaction with the rate at which the States in Southern Nigeria are enacting or amending the Anti-Open Grazing Laws which align with the uniform template and aspiration of Southern Governors and encouraged the States that are yet to enact this law to do so expeditiously.

The communique was shared with PREMIUM TIMES by the spokesperson to the Enugu State governor.

There has been controversy over the collection of VAT after a federal high court ruled that it was not the duty of the federal government to collect it. The tax had been collected by the federal government since the military era although the money is shared by the three tiers of government.

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Following the court ruling, Lagos and Rivers states passed laws that allowed them to collect VAT in their states.

The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), which used to collect the VAT on behalf of the federal government, has, however, challenged the court ruling at the appellate court.

Read the full communique of the southern governors below.

COMMUNIQUE ISSUED AT THE CONCLUSION OF THE MEETING OF THE GOVERNORS OF SOUTHERN NIGERIA IN THE GOVERNMENT HOUSE, ENUGU, ENUGU STATE, ON THURSDAY, 16TH SEPTEMBER 2021.

The Nigerian Southern Governors Forum at its meeting of today, Thursday, 16th September 2021 held in the Government House, Enugu, Enugu State reviewed the state of the nation and the progress of implementation of the decisions reached in her previous meetings and further resolved as follows:

1. Expressed satisfaction with the rate at which the States in the Southern Nigeria are enacting or amending the Anti- Open Grazing Laws which align with the uniform template and aspiration of Southern Governors and encouraged the States that are yet to enact this law to do so expeditiously.

2. Encouraged the full operationalization of already agreed regional security outfits; which would meet, share intelligence and collaborate, to ensure the security and safety of the region.

3. Reaffirmed its earlier commitment to fiscal federalism as resolved at the inaugural meeting of the Forum held on Tuesday, 11th May 2021 at Asaba, Delta State and emphasized the need for the Southern States to leverage the legislative competence of their respective State Houses of Assembly as well as representation in the National assembly to pursue its inclusion in the Nigerian Constitution through the ongoing constitutional amendment.

4. Following from paragraph 3 above, the meeting resolved to support the position that the collection of VAT falls within the powers of the States.

5. Expressed satisfaction with the handling of issues around the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) and ownership of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) by the larger Nigerian Governors Forum.

6. Reiterated their earlier position that the next President of Nigeria must come from the Southern part of Nigeria in line with politics of equity, justice and fairness.

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7. The Forum thanked the host Governor, Rt. Hon. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, and chose Rivers State as the next host for the Southern Governors Forum meeting in November 2021.

Arakunrin Oluwarotimi O. Akeredolu, SAN

Governor, Ondo State and Chairman, Southern Governors Forum
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The Nigerian Airforce has finally admitted to carrying out Wednesday bombing of Buhari village in Yunusari Local Government Area of Yobe State where 10 people were killed and over 20 wounded.

Local sources and vigilante had Wednesday said the air force of neighbouring Niger Republic carried out the airstrike.

The Nigerian Airforce had also initially denied carrying out the attack.

This tweet is false in its entirety. The NAF last conducted a mission into Yobe State (Not Yunusari LGA) on 5 September 2021 and it was an armed recce. No bomb or missile was even expended. Thanks, Nigerian Airforce spokesperson, Edward Gabkwet, had tweted on Wednesday to deny a tweet linking the force with the incident.

But 24 hours lster, the Airforce has now taken responsibility through a statement sighed by Mr Gabkwet.

Following intelligence on Boko Haram/ISWAP movements along the Kamadougou Yobe River line, an aircraft from the Air Component of Operation Hadin Kai was detailed to respond to the suspected terrorists activities in the area along the Nigeria/Niger border at about 0600hrs on 15 September 2021.

The aircraft, while operating South of Kanama observed suspicious movement consistent with Boko Haram terrorists behaviour whenever a Jet aircraft is overhead.

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Accordingly, the pilot fired some probing shots. It is important to state that the area is well known for continuous Boko Haram /ISWAP activities. Unfortunately reports reaching Nigerian Air Force (NAF) Headquarters alleged that some civilians were erroneously killed while others were injured.

Initial release denying the involvement of NAF aircraft was based on the first report available to the Air Component, which was subsequently forwarded to NAF headquarters, that civilians were bombed as the aircraft detailed for the mission was not carrying bombs. Therefore, a Board of Inquiry has been set up to thoroughly investigate the circumstances of the incident, the statement explained.

PREMIUM TIMES recalls how the Airforce bombed civilians in Rann, Kalabage, Borno State and an IDP camp in Adamawa State in the last three years.
Armed bandits are reportedly continuing attacks on communities in Zurmi and Shinkafi Local Government Areas of Zamfara State, killing residents and burning houses.

This development comes despite an ongoing military offensive against the bandits in the troubled North-west state.

The bandits recently razed down the family house of the speaker of the state House of Assembly, Nasiru Magarya, at Magarya community in Zurmi local government area, an official said.

Fleeing residents told PREMIUM TIMES that at least seven people were killed in Shinkafi council area in the last seven days by the bandits

Among the dead is a former councillor for Jangeru ward in Shinkafi, Abubakar Mai-sallah, who was killed last week at his residence in Jangeru town.

On Tuesday at about 8 a.m., they blocked the Shinkafi-Gusau highway and killed Sunusi Bala, a businessman traveling to Gusau, his relative, Hamdan Alhazai, told PREMIUM TIMES.

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The relative said Mr Bala was driving his vehicle when he was gunned down around Moriki town, 20 kilometres from Shinkafi.

Mr Alhazai said the bandits also attacked Tungar Kado and Katuru communities, killing five persons.

The bandits also on Tuesday burnt down a vehicle taking grains from Shinkafi to Gusau. The vehicle had run into a blockade by the bandits on the highway, but many of its passengers escaped with gunshot injuries, sources said.

Residents said while the military offensive against the armed bandits may be successful in other areas, the impact has not been felt in the Zurmi and Shinkafi axis.

Zurmi and Shinkafi council areas and Dansadausu district in Maru LGA are among the worst hit by banditry in Zamfara.

Burning of speakers residence, others in Zurmi

The chairperson, Committee on Security and Prosecution of Bandits in Zamfara, Abdullahi Shinkafi, confirmed that bandits set ablaze the speakers residence in Magarya town.

Mr Shinkafi said many other residents were also affected as the bandits burnt down houses in Zurmi.

Mr Shinkafi, who said he had visited the affected communities to assess the security situation, said the government also wanted to provide support for victims and deploy more security operatives to protect the people, according to a report by Tribune newspaper.

Successes?

Meanwhile, Governor Bello Matawalle told BBC Hausa Service that at least 100 bandits informants were arrested following the network ban and the military offensive in the state.

Mr Matatwalle said following the security operations, residents were again conducting their daily businesses without fear of being kidnapped.

The governor said the shutdown of telecommunications services across the state has drastically reduced kidnap incidents as most of the bandits relied on informants.

Mr Matawalle also said many armed bandits had also been killed in the forests. He, however, said the security forces are yet to clear many bandits enclaves in the state.

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The governor added that more security forces were being deployed to the state to comb the forests.
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The National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) said it has identified 1.7 million out of 1.9 million Nigerians living with HIV.

NACAs Director of Community Prevention, Care and Support Services, Alex Ogundipe told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Calabar on Wednesday that 1.7 million afflicted had been enrolled for treatment.

Our mandate is to identify people living with the virus; there are supposed to be about 1.9 million Nigerians.

It is our responsibility to identify and enroll all of them for care and I believe we are doing well because we have identified 1.7 million of them.

NACA is on the right path in terms of its mandate to coordinate activities on HIV response.

You must be objective on how you rate or assess yourself. You must ask: is the assessment from the eyes of those who give you money, those of beneficiaries of your services or those other partners?

These are the criteria we check once in a while to help fine-tune our services, he said.

On the moribund nature of State Agencies for the control of AIDS (SACA), Mr Ogundipe said SACA was not a branch of NACA as they belonged to states.

He said it was the responsibility of NACA to train, guide and give policy direction to SACA officials, but that it was left for the state governments to fund them and ensure they carried out HIV response services.

(NAN)
More than 10 villagers have been killed in an air strike by Nigerien Airforce during a pursuit of Boko Haram insurgents into Buhari village, a Yobe community, hospital and security sources said.

The sources informed PREMIUM TIMES that the Nigerien Air Force launched the airstrike on Buhari village in Yunusari Local Government, north of Yobe from Damaturu, the state capital, while chasing Boko Haram fighters into the village.

Yunusari, which shares an international border with Niger Republic, has an area of 3,790 km2 and a population of 125,821, according to the 2006 census.

A source at Geidam General Hospital told our correspondent that over 20 wounded villages had been brought to the hospital.

The source added that about 10 people were feared killed in the attack.

We have admitted over 20 people at the Geidam General Hospital as at the time I am talking to you now. As for the number of deaths, no death was brought to the hospital but we learnt that over ten people were killed in the village, the source revealed.

A vigilante source informed that the jet that dropped bombs on the village belongs to the Nigerien Airforce.

From what we heard, it is the Nigerien Airforce that were pursuing Boko Haram into that village. The casualty is high but no one is sure of the figure, the source informed.

The Chairman of Yunusari Local Government, Bukar Gaji, confirmed the incident but could not give details of the casualty figure.

He said his people were in pains and grief over the unfortunate incident.

Yobe State Police spokesperson, Dungus Abdulkareem, said, It is a military affair and the police in Yobe do not have details concerning the incident..

PREMIUM TIMES gathered that Nigerian troops have already cordoned off the area, denying any other security agents, including the Nigerian police, access to the village.

PREMIUM TIMES obtained gory pictures of wounded women, children and aged people at the Geidam General Hospital, some of the victims lying lifeless.

Yobe governor orders free medical services for victims

Meanwhile, Governor Mai Mala-Buni of Yobe has directed government hospitals in Geidam and Damaturu to offer free medical services to those who sustained injuries in the disaster.

This is contained in a statement by Mr Bunis spokesperson, Mamman Mohammed, in Damaturu on Thursday.

Mr Buni also directed the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) to provide relief materials to cater for the immediate needs of the families of the deceased persons and other members of the community.

The governor commiserated with the families of those who lost their lives in the air strike.

Mr Buni also directed his Special Adviser on Security Affairs, Dahiru Abdulsalan, to liaise with the Nigeria Air force and the Multi-National Joint Task Force to identify the root cause of the strike.

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Government will work closely with the security forces, especially the Nigeria Airforce, to establish what actually happened.

This is very important and necessary for us to guard against future occurrence and to safeguard the lives of our people, the governor said.

Mr Buni said the state government would always cooperate with security agencies to ensure the safety of the people.
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President Emmanuel Macron of France has announced the death of Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi, the jihadist leader of the Islamic State group in the Greater Sahara region of Africa.

Mr Macron, who made the announcement via his Twitter handle, described his death as a major success in the fight against terrorist groups in the Sahel.

The late Al-Sahrawi has been on the most wanted list of the French forces. He was also the mastermind of the killing of French aid workers in 2020 in Niger Republic.

He had often claimed responsibility for the terror attacks in the region.

In 2015, Al Sahrawi pledged allegiance to IS in Iraq and Syria.

In 2017, he was declared wanted by the United States over a deadly attack that killed US and Niger troops. A $5 million bounty was placed on him.

Just like in the Lake Chad region, Islamist insurgent groups have spread across the Sahel region of Africa.

The region is made up of parts of Mali, Niger, Chad and Burkina Faso.

Major success

In a tweet in French language, Mr Macron stated that the terrorist was killed by French forces.

He added that they will continue to collaborate with other regions to continue the fight against insurgency.

Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi, leader of the terrorist group Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, was neutralized by French forces. This is another major success in our fight against terrorist groups in the Sahel.

The Nation is thinking tonight of all its heroes who died for France in the Sahel in Operations Serval and Barkhane, bereaved families, all its wounded.

Their sacrifice is not in vain. Together with our African, European and American partners, we will continue this fight, he tweeted in French.
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The Inspector General of Police, Usman Baba, said, on Thursday, that testing of suspects for COVID-19 in police detention has helped to reduce congestion at correctional centres.

Mr Baba, who was represented by the Lagos police commissioner, Hakeem Odumosu, said this during a conference on decongestion of Nigerian correctional centres held in Victoria Island, Lagos.

He said suspects who test positive for COVID-19 are being treated by the police, rather than being taken to court, which reduces the number of inmates in correctional centres.

The Nigeria Police taking over the burden of carrying out COVID-19 tests on suspects in police custody before being taken to courts and Correctional Centres has assisted greatly in reducing congestion of inmates in the correctional centres facilities, as many of them who tested positive are being treated by the police.

This window of treatment period often provides opportunities for those already sent for trials and granted bail but cannot meet their bail condition to meet their conditions, released on bail by court. This ultimately reduces the number of those being taken to Correctional Centres facilities, Mr Odumosu said.

Although he did not say how many police commands and formations in Nigeria conduct COVID-19 tests for suspects, the police boss said the initiative has yielded results.

Mr Odumosu in his address said the police force has identified causes of prolonged trials and congestion of correctional facilities on the part of the police, and is taking steps to curb them.

He said one of such steps is to ensure that the police do not criminalise minor offences, which will eliminate the time being wasted on such cases.

The Inspector General of Police has directed all police formations to ensure that the Criminal Justice System is not further over-laboured with minor cases by granting administrative bails. This is aimed at reducing the number of inmates in the correctional centres, he said.

Mr Odumosu said another problem that has been identified is the inconsistence in the appearance of police officers who are to give evidence at trials.

In order to address this, the Inspector General of Police has mandated that officers must attend court sessions as at when due, to give evidence. Disciplinary actions are being taken against Officers who contravene these directives. This has increased the appearances of police officers in court, thereby enhancing speedy criminal trials and by extension, decongestion of correctional centres facilities, Mr Odumosu said.

He added that to enhance speedy trial, the police have adopted the use of technology at interrogation rooms as well as modern facilities to obtain statements. Mr Odumosu said this will assist in gathering incontrovertible evidence to facilitate quick dispensation of justice thereby reducing the period of awaiting trials.

The Police has also adopted the strategy of keeping tabs on witnesses, particularly the prosecution witness, in order to compel their appearances to give evidence at trials. This is with the view to ensuring that unnecessary delay at trials due to non-appearance of witnesses are curbed, thereby enhancing quick dispensation of justice and ultimately decongestion of correctional centres, Mr Odumosu added.

The Lagos police boss added that the IGP, Mr Usman, seeks to establish a pool of police prosecutors, who are well-trained, as this will increase professional and more speedy representation of the police at trials, and remove delays.

Other approaches being taken by the police to decongest correctional facilities are scientific documentation and technological exhibits keeping; out of court settlement and peaceful resolution of conflict or crisis, known as Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) mechanism; professional procedure of investigation of criminal cases; diligent prosecution; and the adoption of community policing strategy to minimise crime in its entirety.

He added that the police authority is addressing alleged prolonged trials arising from poor investigation by the police, adding that many underlying factors create bottlenecks for speedy dispensation of justice, but the police will continue to do its best.
The House of Representatives has directed the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) to extend the shutdown of telecommunications to some local governments in Sokoto State.

The local governments are Bodinga, Dange Shuni and Tureta. These local governments are bordering Zamfara State.

The lawmakers directed that the local governments in Sokoto that are bordering Zamfara State should be denied access to telecoms as part of stringent measures against insecurity.

The directive followed a motion of urgent public importance moved by Shehu Kakale (APC, Sokoto) on Thursday.

NCC had ordered network operators to suspend telecommunications-networks in Zamfara State to disrupt communication by bandits.

The policy has been condemned by some, including the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) which, last week, urged President Muhammadu Buhari to reverse the policy.

SERAP had in an open letter described the policy as inconsistent with the principles of necessity and proportionality.

However, the policy, it is believed, largely accounts for the recent successes recorded by the military against the insurgents in the North-east and North-west.

Last week, the Governor of Zamfara, Bello Matawalle, said the government will not be negotiating with armed men. This is a radical departure from his earlier decision to dialogue with the dreaded groups.

The motion.

Mr Kakale said there has been renewed attack against the three local governments, noting that there were coordinated attacks in Galma, Dutse, Buolere and Hausare villages in Wababe district between first and third of September.

He stated that other coordinated attacks have happened in some villages within those local governments.

Mr Kakale added that the bandits have new tactics of sending horror advance threat letters to communities announcing their Imminent brutal attacks with impunity.

He said the new tactic is causing panic, adding that the people are alarmed by the amassing numbers of bandits and terrorists In their hundreds flooding the forests of the aforementioned local governments from Zamfara State. More than 100 households with over 500 people and families are currently displaced from Tureta and Dange-Shuni local governments Into towns and urban areas of the local government with growing and worsening exodus of women, children and the vulnerable into the state capital of Sokoto city resulting in acute additional humanitarian crises in the state.

Consequently, the House resolved as follow:

Urge the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) to immediately come to the aid of the displaced victims and their bereaved families with food and non-food items especially in this raining season where the risk of spreading Cholera epidemic and COVID 19 could be worsened with the waves of IDPs created by these crises.

Also urge the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons (NCRMI) to also support the victims in their relocation, resettlement and sustainable durable solutions for them to return to their homes, livelihoods and communities as part of the the non-kinetic humanitarian interventions of the federal government in solving the insecurity challenges of this nation.

Urge the National Communication Commission (NCC) to also impose Telecom shut down in these adjourning local government to Zamfara state.

Urge the Military and other security agencies to re-enforce the Forward Operation Bases in Dange-Shuni and Tureta local governments with more personnel and equipment to neutralize the bandits and criminals and secure the region.

The motion was taken without debate by the House.

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A former Minister of Aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode, has explained why he returned to the All Progressives Congress (APC) from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Mr Fani-Kayode dumped the PDP on Thursday and also visited President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

He was a member of the PDP until 2013 when he defected to the APC. He, however, returned to the PDP in June 2014.

There had been speculations in the last few months that Mr Fani-Kayode was planning to return to APC but he repeatedly denied the moves.

Speaking with journalists after he was presented to President Buhari by the caretaker chairman of the APC, Governor Mala Buni of Yobe State on Thursday, Mr Fani-Kayode, said he believed that it was time for him to cross over to join hands with the president in moving Nigeria forward.

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The point is that I felt it was time to do the right thing, to put Nigeria first and appreciate the efforts that have been made, particularly in the last couple of years in terms of security; fighting insurgency and terrorism, the former minister said.

It is not always negative and when the time is right, we change direction to join forces and join hands to move the country forward.

Doing this doesnt mean we are enemies to anybody. Even if we are in another party, the PDP or any other party or group, we can still work together across party, regional, ethnic or religious lines.

Mr Fani-Kayode added that Nigerians must remain united to salvage the country from those bent on destroying the progress of the nation.

He advised Nigerians not to allow any person or group to divide them or make the country disintegrate.

He said, Most importantly is the appreciation of the fact that we must remain one as a nation, and build bridges, work together to move the country forward.

The most important thing is for us to understand the fact that Nigeria must not disintegrate and those that want us to end up fighting one another in a war, will be put to shame.

There are people that think like that and that is what informed me to come here and meet the President.

He was very gracious and it is an honour to me, and we will move the country forward together.

How Buhari received Fani-Kayode  Gov. Buni

Mr Buni said President Muhammadu Buhari warmly welcomed Fani- Kayode to the APC during the visit to the president.

The Yobe governor, who was accompanied by Governor Bello Matawalle of Zamfara State, said Mr Buhari was pleased that the former minister joined the ruling party.

He said: We are here to present our newest member of the party, Chief Femi Fani- Kayode to the President and leader of the party.

He is the newest member of APC and we just received him in appreciation and understanding of the Presidents vision and magnanimity.

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The President received him very well. The President is a leader who shares his vision and looks toward greater Nigeria, so he received him very well and commended his courage.

(NAN)
The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mahmood Yakubu, says the Commission will address the challenges experienced with its new technology during last Saturdays by-election in Delta State before the Anambra governorship election.

Mr Yakubu disclosed this at the commissions meeting to welcome its three new national commissioners and to swear-in a Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) at its headquarters in Abuja on Wednesday.

INEC deployed the new technology, Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), at the Isoko South 1 State Constituency bye-election in Delta State held on Saturday.

Mr Yakubu said that while the result of the new technology piloted in the 84 polling units was very encouraging, there were few challenges that would be addressed before the 6 November Anambra governorship election.

He recalled that the commission made history on August 8, by successfully conducting the first election in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Nasarawa Central State Constituency by-election.

He stated that in that election, INEC also piloted the first real-time uploading of polling unit results to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV).

He added that since then, results of 26 more elections had been uploaded to the portal.

Only last weekend, we piloted yet another innovation in the Isoko South 1 state constituency bye-election in Delta.

We introduced the BVAS for efficient human recognition through a biometric verification mechanism, using both fingerprint and facial recognition of voters.

The result of the pilot in the 84 polling units was very encouraging indeed. It took an average of just one minute for the device to correctly locate the voter in the system and another two minutes to authenticate a voter.

In terms of the ruggedness of the device and its battery life, no single BVAS was replaced due to discharge of battery throughout the voting period.

Most importantly, the device was able to guarantee the credibility of voter accreditation by preventing the incidents of multiple voting or the use of stolen PVCs to vote.

All voters were accredited electronically using the BVAS. The use of the incident form was eliminated. The Isoko South 1 state constituency bye-election was historic in this respect, Mr Yakubu said.

The INEC chairman, however, said there were a few challenges experienced with the technology in the election.

Those challenges, according to him, include the difficulty of the BVAS matching the voters live image against the image on the register in a few instances, due to the quality of pictures of some voters arising from previous voter registration.

Secondly, some polling units were not bright enough when taking the photo for the facial authentication.

Thirdly, there was the age-old problem of thuggery during elections. Our officials were attacked and five BVAS devices snatched by hoodlums.

Although this did not affect the elections because we deployed extra devices as part of our contingency measures, the incident is being investigated by the Police.

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Nevertheless, we wish to assure Nigerians that the commission will address these challenges, including the installation of a mechanism to disable and track the device in the event of theft.

This mechanism will be activated ahead of the forthcoming Anambra governorship election.

Mr Yakubu, while speaking on Anambra governorship election scheduled for 6 November, said the preparations for the election were at an advanced stage with many of the activities outlined in the timetable and schedule of activities for the election, already implemented.

He said that INECs intention was to keep deepening the credibility of the electoral process by improving on all planning, management, implementation and support processes through the deployment of appropriate technology.

The three new national commissioners welcomed by INEC were Abdullahi Zuru, a Chemist and former Vice Chancellor of Kebbi State University and Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto.

Others were Sani Adam, a lawyer and former Deputy Vice Chancellor of the University of Abuja; and Dr Baba Bila, a Chartered Accountant and former Bursar of the University of Benin.

President Muhammadu Buhari had earlier sworn in the three commissioners at the Presidential Villa before the commencement of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting.

NAN also reports that the newly sworn-in REC is Saidu Ahmad, a Professor of English Literature from Bayero University Kano.

Mr Ahmad, who had been deployed to Zamafara, filled the vacancy for Jigawa, being the only state without a REC, following the completion of tenure of Abdullahi Kaugama, who had earlier served as Secretary to the commission.

While welcoming the three new national commissioners and the REC, Mr Yakubu urged them to join the commission in raising the bar of conducting credible elections in the country.

The task ahead is challenging but it is also a national call to service. It is important to quickly settle in and familiarise yourselves with the rules, procedures and responsibilities of your office.

Let me reiterate once again that you should always bear in mind that a credible election draws heavily from the integrity of the election managers. I urge you to join us in raising the bar even higher, Mr Yakubu said.

He expressed confidence that the four new appointees would bring to the commission, their vast knowledge and experience as scholars and administrators, in further extending the frontiers of free and fair elections in Nigeria.

Mr Yakubu advised them to uphold the integrity of INEC and adhere to rules and regulations in the discharge of their duties.

In addition to adherence to the provisions of the law, our success in this arduous task also draws from our integrity as election managers.

We must be strict in the application of the law firm in handling the public trust bestowed on us and fair in our dealings with political parties and candidates.

We must remember that in discharging our responsibilities, Nigeria and Nigerians must always come first.

We must abide by our oaths of office to defend the choice made by Nigerians at the polls in all elections, and continue to protect the sanctity of the vote without which democratic election is meaningless, Mr Yakubu said.

Mr Zuru, speaking on behalf of the appointees, commended President Muhammadu Buhari and leadership of the National Assembly for counting them worthy for the critical national assignment.

He pledged to abide by the oath they took to operate with honesty without fear or favour, in carrying out their assignments.

He added that with the leadership of Mr Yakubu, the new appointees would make INEC and Nigerians proud in advancing the course of democracy in Nigeria.

I want to assure Nigerians that our objective will be the conduct of free, fair and credible elections at all times, at all levels.

That is the assurance we are giving before Nigerians and our Lord, Mr Zuru said.

Highlight of the occasion was the swearing in of Mr Ahmed as REC.

(NAN)
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There are plans by the South-east caucus in the National Assembly to help secure the release of detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu.

To achieve this, the lawmakers have set up a committee to work out modalities of releasing Mr Kanu from detention.

This was made known in a comunique issued at the end of a closed-door meeting of the caucus on Wednesday.

The meeting took place at the residence of the former Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, where the lawmakers made the decision to intervene in Mr Kanus case, Punch newspaper reports.

Leader of the caucus, Mr Ekweremadu, told journalists that they had resolved to set up a committee that will interface with the federal government and its relevant agencies to find a political solution in exchange for Mr Kanus freedom.

To this end we resolved to set up a committee to constructively interface with relevant stakeholders, the federal government and its relevant agencies towards finding a political solution. We will keep Ndigbo abreast of developments in that regard.

We appeal to our people not to allow anyone to destroy the South-east region. The post-war South-east was not built through government patronage, but largely by the sheer determination and sacrifices of our people, who refused to resign to fate or bow their heads in defeat, part of the statement read.

The group expressed solidarity with residents in the South-east over alleged marginalisation within Nigeria and also resolved to seek better ways to guarantee that Igbos thrive and actualise their potential in any part of Nigeria.

They, however, condemned the destruction of lives and livelihoods as well as the disruption of the ongoing examinations in some schools in the South-east under the guise of enforcing a sit-at-home order by the group.

Reviewing the sit-at-home order by IPOB, the lawmakers decried the economic losses and hardship the directive has caused the people. They worried that some criminal elements have taken advantage of the situation to unleash mayhem on the people.

They also welcomed the decision by IPOB to call off its Monday sit-at-home order and appealed to residents to eschew violence and join hands with other patriotic citizens in the search for a federal system that guarantees for them a glorious future.

Present at the meeting were the Senate Minority Leader, Enyinnaya Abaribe, Senators Uche Ekwenife, Ifeanyin Ubah, Chukwuka Utazi and Theodore Orji, Deputy Minority leader.

Others are, Deputy Minority Leader of the House, Tobi Okechukwu, House of Representatives spokesman, Benjamin Kalu, Deputy Chief Whip, Nkeiruka Onyejeocha, Obinna Chidioka, Chinedu Ogar and Igariwe Iduma.

Mr Kanu was rearrested in June by Interpol and handed over to Nigerian authorities after jumping bail in 2017 and fleeing abroad. His country home had earlier been raided by Nigerian soldiers who had sought to arrest him.

PREMIUM TIMES had reported Mr Kanus antecedents as well as continuous IPOB-linked killings and attacks in the South-east despite his incarceration.
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The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, has denied comparing the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and the Yoruba nation separatists movements to the terror groups, Boko Haram and ISWAP.

In a statement on Wednesday by his spokesperson, Lanre Lasisi, Mr Gbajabiamila said he meant some miscreants and criminals are taking advantage of the separationist agitations to carry their activities.

PREMIUM TIMES had reported that Mr Gbajabimaila compared separatists in the South (West and East) with the Islamist insurgents due to the latters intolerance to debate and dissenting views.

Mr Gbajabiamila had in his speech while welcoming back members of the House from their nine weeks holiday, said, Thus far, we have rightly focused our national security concerns on the machinations of extremist insurgents who seek to remake our world in the image of their discredited theocracy and bandits who maraud and terrorise whole regions for profit.

We must now add to these concerns an emerging threat that presents the same clear and present danger. In the South of Nigeria, East and West, miscreants and criminals masquerading as separationist activists have emerged to wreak havoc, take lives and commit economic sabotage against fellow Nigerians and the state.

These people, in their inclination for devastating violence against fellow citizens, their appetite for the destruction of private property, their disruption of academic activities, commerce, and industry, their propensity for defiling institutions of the state, society and community, their refusal to engage in debate, or to consider the possibility of dissenting opinions and alternative viewpoints, are no different from Boko Haram and ISWAP. Given space and time, they will take our nation down the same path of destruction.

The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) advocates the secession of the Igbo-populated South-east zone while in the South-west zone, Sunday Adeyemo aka Sunday Igboho, is leading the agitation for a Yoruba nation.

Denial

Mr Lasisi, in the statement, said the Speaker did not mention any group or organisation.

The Speaker never condemned secessionists or compared them to terrorists.

As a matter of fact, the Speaker is not alone on the concern about an apparent emergence of a band of miscreants and criminals as different patriotic Nigerians have expressed similar concerns and even condemned the act of maiming, killing, destruction of property and other criminalities perpetrated by the masqueraders.

The leader of IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu, is currently in the custody of the Nigerian government after he was forcefully extradited to the country from an undisclosed location, while Mr Adeyemo is presently in Prison detention in Benin Republic after he was caught in that country fleeing to Germany.
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Nigerias ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) says it will be delightful to have the countrys immediate past president, Goodluck Jonathan, its fold.

The partys interim national secretary, John Akpanudoedehe, said this on Politics Today a Channels Television programme, aired on Wednesday.

He spoke in reaction to lingering speculations that the former president was planning to defect to APC from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Mr Jonathan was president of the country between 2010 and 2015 on the platform of the PDP.

Before then, he was deputy governor of Bayelsa State and later the governor of the state. He was also vice president in the late Umaru YarAdua administration, all on the ticket of the PDP.

He lost the 2015 presidential election to the incumbent, Muhammadu Buhari.

Until Wednesday when the ex-presidents spokesperson, Ikechukwu Eze, dismissed the speculation as fake news, the Bayelsa born president had indeed been off political radar even as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) struggled to overcome its deteriorating leadership crisis.

PREMIUM TIMES had reported Mr Jonathan announcing his decision to step away from active political activities to focus on humanitarian services.

However, the APC official, Mr Akpanudoedehe, on the programme, said Mr Jonathan will be given a founding member status if he decides to join the party and jostle for the 2023 presidential ticket of the ruling party like others.

I am hearing that for the first time that we are expecting the former President. That will be great news. We will welcome him; that will also strengthen the party.

The last National Executive Council of the party actually gave a blanket approval to any individual that if you join APC today, it is as if you are a founding member of the party, he clarified.

With the constitutionally allowed eight years tenure of President Muhammadu Buhari approaching its end, the hunt for a candidate with similar popular appeal to replace him in 2023 continues.

Although the APC has not announced where it will zone its 2023 Presidential ticket to, there has been a clamour by many leaders within the party to zone the ticket to the southern part of the country.

Mr Jonathan is from the south-south geopolitical zone.

There are, however, demands by some members of the ruling party to micro-zone the ticket to either south-west or south-east.

The PDP has not zoned the presidential slot either.
The presidency on Thursday said it was shocking to see Yoruba Nation advocates yesterday unequivocally throw their lot in with Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).

Garba Shehu, President Muhammadu Buharis spokesperson, said this in a statement sent to PREMIUM TIMES.

Mr Shehu also accused the Yoruba Nation agitators of organising increasingly violent rallies in Nigeria.

Both Yoruba Nation agitators and IPOB was separate countries to be excised from Nigeria. While the Yoruba Nation agitators want an Oduduwa country for the Yorubas of south-west Nigeria, IPOB wants a Biafra country for Igbos. Both organisations claim to want peaceful separation from Nigeria.

IPOB has however been designated a terrorist organisation by the Nigerian government which accuses it of carrying out violent attacks against officials of the state.

More details later

Read the full statement by Mr Shehu below.

APPEAL TO MEDIA TO FOCUS ON CORE ISSUES AS PRESIDENT BUHARI GOES TO THE UNITED NATIONS

For Nigerian diaspora groups to use the worlds largest platform  the United Nations General Assembly  to garner attention to their causes is not unexpected.

It was, however shocking, to see Yoruba Nation advocates yesterday unequivocally throw their lot in with Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).

IPOB is a designated terrorist organisation. It has now publicly revealed a 50,000 strong paramilitary organisation.

It regularly murders security services and innocent civilians, with a significant uptick of violent attacks this year. And it is currently attempting to hold Nigerian states hostage with orders to stay at home under threat of terror.

Without doubt, Nigerians and the entire world will judge Yoruba Nation by the company it keeps.

No one can take seriously this organisation if it continues its IPOB association. When their allies systematically trample human rights, it raises sober questions about their claims to uphold the values of the UN.

The cooperation is a worrying development, once parsed with Yoruba Nations increasingly violent rallies in Nigeria.

Actions and associations speak louder than words. Yoruba Nations talk of human rights promotion must therefore be ignored.

Meanwhile, the Nigerian government will continue its work at the UN- to fight against corruption and illicit financial flows, and international cooperation.

If we want to see stolen funds returned to their rightful home in Nigeria, the government must continue to campaign for and coordinate global action on asset recovery.

The government will remain the leading regional actor in the fight against global terror  particularly against threats emanating from the Sahel. Through the Nigerian Technical Aid Corps programme, the country also shares technical expertise with countries from the Caribbean, Africa and the Pacific.

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At the same time, the administration is implementing a programme of environmental sustainability to combat developments which destroys Nigerian communities in vulnerable regions.

Only through the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development can we secure a prosperous future for Nigeria.

As the largest country in Africa, the government takes seriously its leadership role and will continue to strive for continental unity, cooperation, and shared prosperity.

Our expectation is therefore for the media to work with the government to focus attention on the core issues the President, the leader of the country has on his programme.

Garba Shehu

Senior Special Assistant to the President

(Media & Publicity)

September 15, 2021
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Chisom Dike, the lawmaker representing Eleme/Tai and/Oyigbo federal constituency of Rivers State, has dumped the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for All Progressives Congress (APC).

The defection was announced by the Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, on Thursday during plenary.

In his letter, Mr Dike cited section 68(1b) of the 1999 Constitution, noting that the crisis in the PDP prompted his decision to decamp.

Mr Dike is the second member of the House from Rivers State to decamp from the PDP. Ephraim Nwuzi, in 2020, also decamped from the PDP, citing crisis in the party.

Raising a constitution point of order, Nicholas Ossai (PDP, Delta), cited section 68(1b) of the constitution, which was ruled out of order by the speaker.

The Minority Leader, Ndudi Elumelu (PDP, Delta) said until the APC can provide security for Nigerians, the party should not be celebrating defection.

Crisis in PDP

Recently, the PDP has been enmeshed in crisis over the tenure of the embattled Chairman, Uche Secondus.

Mr Secondus, who is from Rivers State, has allegedly been at loggerheads with the Governor of Rivers State, Nyesome Wike.

The PDP chairman was suspended by his primary ward , Ward 5 of Andoni Local Government Area of the state.

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On August 24, a Rivers State High Court in Port Harcourt restrained Uche Secondus from parading himself as PDP national chairman.

However, in another twist, a Kebbi State High Court in Birnin-Kebbi restored Mr Secondus mandate as the national chairman of the opposition PDP on August 27.

A day after Mr Secondus reinstatement, another High Court in Calabar, Cross River State, issued an interim order restraining him from resuming office as PDP chairman.

The crisis has led to series of contradictory court pronouncements, which prompted the Chief Justice of the Federation, Muhammad Tanko, to issue warning to Chief Judges of six states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) against frivolous judgments.
The rate of borrowings by the federal government is increasing and worrisome, Borno senator, Ali Ndume, has said.

He said it is even more worrisome when there is little or nothing to show what the loans have been used for. This is even as he faulted the Senate for rushing to approve these loan requests.

The lawmaker made these comments during a press briefing at the National Assembly on Thursday.

Mr Ndume, who represents Borno South, on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), was reacting to the recent loan request sent by President Muhammadu Buhari to the Senate for consideration and approval.

The president, who is also of the APC, in a letter on Tuesday, sought the approval of the Senate to borrow another $4 billion (4,054,476,863) and 710 million loan from bilateral and multilateral organisations to fund the deficit in the 2021 budget.

While he said the loan request is an addendum to the 2018-2020 borrowing plan, he also asked the lawmakers to approve grant components of $125 million.

He told the lawmakers that the need to borrow more funds is to meet emerging needs for some critical projects.

Tuesdays request generated criticisms from Nigerians including the opposition party, PDP. While the party cautioned the NASS against approving the request, saying it could set the countrys debt profile skyrocketing without a feasible repayment plan, the APC said the loans are for the good of the country and well-being of the citizenry.

Mr Buharis latest request comes barely two months after the National Assembly approved his earlier request to borrow $8.3 billion and 490 million loans contained in the initial 2018-2020 borrowing plan.

Rate of borrowing worrisome

For Mr Ndume, it is one thing to borrow funds and it is another thing to properly invest and manage the funds.

Im not an expert in debt analysis. Honestly, the rate of our borrowing is increasing and is worrisome. But it is not the borrowing that is the problem as I always say, it is what you do with what you borrow.

It is not the borrowing. And this request for loan that the president sent to the National Assembly is part of the approved external borrowing

You guys should look at what the borrowing is for in the first place. Is it necessary? Are the terms good? Borrowing is not a crime but when the rate of debt servicing increases..and I understand it is getting to 80, 90 per cent.. You have to be cautious. You have to look at alternatives, he said.

The lawmaker said while some borrowings are necessary, others are totally not necessary. And similarly, the terms of some borrowings should be negotiated or renegotiated.

This is what we should analyse and see if it is necessary. Let us look at the implications and what the money is meant for.

For example, we have infrastructural deficit in this country and with what we hear when people come to Abuja or when allocations are made, you cant tell what is done with it.

Mr Ndume also frowned at the Senates attitude of speedily approving the presidents loan requests without thoroughly scrutinizing the requests or even rejecting the requests.

Another thing Im worried about is the way the Senate is handling it. The Senate, by definition, is House of deliberation.

When things like this (loan request) comes, you dont just say, because you want to be good, you approve it. No.

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Youre supposed to look at it critically. Cross the Ts, dot the Is, ask questions, carry the people you are representing along, ask if they agree. Not that we just sit down and just approve it.

We thought it might be good but the way we do it make the people we represent look at us suspiciously. There are situations where the time is short and we need to act fast, then well have to carry the people along. I feel pain when they say you people again. This is the last one, I wont dont again. You call us rubber stamp and all that

Mr Ndume disclosed that some loan requests hurriedly approved by the Senate, have not been released till date.

He , however, did not state the particular loan.

We rushed to approve certain borrowings. Up till now, we didnt get the money. So why did we rush? These are the questions that comes to my head most of the time, he said.

Growing deficit

Nigerias deficit has been on the rise in the last years. Already, the 2021 budget has a deficit of N5.6 trillion.

The president , in 2020, had acknowledged the fact that the deficit in the 2020 budget was more than the three per cent threshold as established by the Fiscal Responsibility Act, 2007.

The Act provides that the deficit should not be more than three per cent of GDP.

The measure, he said, was necessary due to the existential challenge of coronavirus pandemic and its aftermath; I believe that this provides a justification to exceed the threshold as provided for by this law.
At least N15.3 billion paid to contractors to execute some high priority projects for the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) cannot be accounted for, a new report by the Civil Society Coalition on Audit in Nigeria (CSCAN) has said.

The group said the controversial contracts were awarded from 2008 to 2018.

According to the coalition, the discovery was made after it conducted physical verification of 115 of 176 NDDC contracts highlighted in the Compliance Audit Reports on NCDC published by the Office of the Auditor-General for the Federation.

The coalition, which presented the 293-page report Wednesday in Abuja, comprises other civil society organisations, including BudgIT Foundation, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), Dataphyte, Step Up Nigeria, Accountability Lab Nigeria, Centre for Health, Equity and Justice (CEHEJ), Basic Rights Watch, Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), and others.

Earlier in February, CSCAN analysed the Compliance Audit Reports on NCDC projects between 2008 and 2018 as published by the Auditor-Generals office.

The coalitions assessment at the time revealed how some contractors were paid for jobs not executed without the money being recovered from them, the fraudulent contractors being blacklisted or referred to an anti-corruption agency.

It also noted misappropriations in the utilisation of the N90.9 billion meant to execute 176 projects under the NCDC.

New report

The 293-page report released Wednesday by CSCAN found that most of the projects were either completely abandoned or poorly implemented after the physical verification process.

Within the last six months (March-August 2021), our coalition monitored 115 priority projects out of 176 contracts highlighted in our review and analysis of Compliance Audit Reports of the Auditor-General for the Federation on NDDC, Olusegun Elemo, Executive Director at Paradigm Leadership Support Initiative (PLSI) who spoke on behalf of CSCAN during the presentation of the report, said.

Fiscal performance of the 115 projects shows that contracts awarded amounted to N98.5 billion, payments to contractors totalled N61.8 billion while the sum of N15.3 billion is yet to be accounted for, the report stated.

It also stated that six of these projects are on education, one related to health, four on water, seventy-four (74) on road infrastructure while twenty-nine (29) of the projects fell within other categories.

However, our independent findings on these 115 projects revealed that 46 of the projects had been executed, 12 of them executed with irregularities, 2 were partially executed, 4 projects were executed by other agencies, 3 projects not executed at all, 19 of the projects were poorly implemented, 11 are still abandoned while 18 of the projects had no trackable location, said Mr Elemo.

Also speaking, the Principal Lead of BudgIT Foundation, Gabriel Okeowo, said, With the forensic audit ordered by President Buhari now concluded and summary report indicating over 13,700 poorly executed and unverified projects by NDDC despite N6 trillion allocation it received from 2001 to 2019.

It will be in the interest of the people of Niger Delta and by extension Nigeria for the federal government led by President Buhari to make the full report of the forensic audit exercise public and religiously implement recommended sanctions and reforms to reposition the Niger-Delta Development Commission for improved performance.

Zainab Haruna, programme director for Step Up Nigeria, in her remarks, urged the National Assembly through its Committees on Public Accounts and Anti-corruption agencies to look at the findings contained in the two Compliance Audit Reports published by the AFG.

She added that the Independent Findings report being presented by our Coalition to ensure that those responsible for abusing extant laws that set up NDDC to mismanage public funds allocated to the Commission are made to account for all the monies.

Also speaking, the Country Director Accountability Lab, Odeh Friday, reiterated that Nigeria is in a complicated financial corner, hence the need for the federal government to re-consider a new audit bill.

The bill, according to Mr Odey, is very key to good public governance and strengthening accountability mechanisms in government MDAs.

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He added that this can drastically reduce the mismanagement of Nigerias lean resources and improve the trust level between citizens and the government in open governance and transparency.

Financial abuse

President Muhammadu Buhari had in 2019 ordered a forensic audit of the operations of the NDDC, an interventionist agency established in 2000 to see to the development of the oil-rich Niger Delta region.

The presidential order for audit came as the commission increasingly became enmeshed in criticisms and accusations of misappropriation of funds.

The audit was to cover the operations of the organisation from 2001 to 2019.

On 2 September, 2021, the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio, submitted the forensic audit report on the NDDC to President Buhari, through the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) Abubakar Malami, in Abuja.

According to the report, over 13,000 projects were either abandoned or poorly executed despite about N6 trillion allocated to the agency since inception.

The Auditor-General of the Federations office had submitted two separate reports of its periodic checks on activities and programmes of the NCDC reviewed by CSCAN.

CSCANs physical verifications are based on details of audit reports made available to the public.

The coalition called on the National Assembly through its committee on public accounts and the various anti-corruption agencies to ensure that those involved in misusing the agencys funds be brought to book.
New data has shown that the efficacy of Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines wanes over time and that a booster dose is needed at warding off the virus, a report by Financial Times revealed.

The Pfizer and Moderna pharmaceutical companies disclosed this information ahead of their presentation to a panel of advisers to the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday.

The panel is expected to make recommendations for whether more Americans should receive booster shots against the coronavirus or not.

Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines

Pfizer said data from the U.S. and Israel suggest that the protection of its COVID-19 vaccine wanes over time.

Real-world data from Israel and the United States suggest that rates of breakthrough infections are rising faster in individuals who were vaccinated earlier, Pfizer said in its presentation, which was posted on the FDA website.

The drug giant is partnering with Germanys BioNTech SE to make the shots.

The decrease in effectiveness is primarily due to waning of vaccine immune responses over time, rather than the delta variant, Pfizer researchers said in the presentation.

Pfizer noted that data from Israel and elsewhere suggest that a reduction in efficacy against infection may be followed by reduced effectiveness against severe disease, especially among vulnerable elderly people.

It, however, said the vaccine continues to provide strong protection against hospitalisations and severe disease in the U.S.

Moderna COVID-19 vaccines

Moderna is also supporting the case for booster doses against the coronavirus as its vaccine fails to provide full time immunity.

This is only one estimate, but we do believe this means as you look toward the fall and winter, at minimum we expect the estimated impact of waning immunity would be 600,000 additional cases of COVID-19, Moderna President Stephen Hoge said on a conference call with investors.

According to Reuters, Hoge did not project how many of the cases would be severe, but said some would require hospitalization.

The new data stands in stark contrast with data from several recent studies that suggested Modernas vaccine protection lasts longer than a similar shot from Pfizer Inc and its German partner BioNTech SE .

Experts said the difference is likely due to Modernas higher dose of messenger RNA (mRNA) and the slightly longer interval between the first and second shots.

Both vaccines proved to be exceedingly effective at preventing illness in their large Phase III studies.

However, the analysis showed higher rates of infection among people vaccinated roughly 13 months ago compared with those vaccinated roughly Eight months ago.

The study period was from July-August when the Delta variant was the predominant strain.

Booster shots

Moderna on September 1 submitted its application to the US Food and Drug Administration seeking authorisation for a booster shot.

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Hoge said data from its booster studies show the vaccine could increase neutralizing antibodies to levels even higher than were seen after the second dose.

We believe this will reduce COVID-19 cases, he said. We also believe that a third dose of mRNA-1273 has a chance of significantly extending immunity throughout much of next year as we attempt to end the pandemic.
The federal government has accused the media of dismissively reporting its efforts in fighting the security challenges in the country.

The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, said the media is the reason Nigerians in diaspora, investors and the international community at large are wary of visiting the country.

The minister said this at a ceremony to rename the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, Headquarters building after the late Wada Maida in Abuja on Thursday.

He said whatever image problem Nigeria is suffering from today mostly due to the unflattering portrayal of the country by the countrys media.

If one picks up most newspapers, watches most television stations or listens to most radio stations in Nigeria today, he or she will be right to think Nigeria is a country at war. Yes, we have challenges, especially in the area of security, he said.

But this Administration has not only acknowledged these challenges, it is earnestly tackling the challenges.

He referenced efforts of the military in tackling terrorism in the North-West and North-East.

Our security agencies have also successfully tackled the separatists in the South-East and South-West and the militants in the South-South. Unfortunately, these efforts have only been perfunctorily reflected in the reportage of the security challenges that we face, he claimed.

This is not only unfair, especially to those who are sacrificing their lives to keep us safe, it is unpatriotic.

He used the instance of Nigerians in Diaspora Organization (NIDO) UK Chapter, who visited him in Abuja to describe how the country is being seen on the outside.

They said some of their colleagues who would have come to Nigeria for their programme, tagged A Week in & For Nigeria, during the month of July, did not come out of fear of the security situation in Nigeria.

However, those who made the trip said they

travelled to their hometowns across the country and returned to Abuja safely. If Nigerians in diaspora can be afraid to come to their country, imagine how foreigners, including investors and tourists,

will feel about coming to the country, Mr Mohammed said.

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He accused some media organisations of reporting fake news, and said they never have the decency to retract such stories and apologise.

They simply move on as if nothing has happened.

We are not saying the media should not report on the security challenges we face. All we are saying is: be fair and report accurately the efforts being made by the state and federal governments to tackle the challenges.

Even if you dont want to encourage the men and women in uniform fighting to keep us safe, please dont discourage them with negative reporting.

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Politician and businessman, Alani Bankole, has hailed former President Olusegun Obasanjo as Nigerias best democratically-elected president.

Mr Bankole spoke to journalists Thursday at his residence in Abeokuta, Ogun State, ahead of his 80th birthday on 17 September

He said Mr Obasanjos success was as a result of his age while in government.

Intelligence and ability have nothing to do with age, he said.

Having said so, I do not think anyone who is above the age of 60 has any business in politics at the presidential, governorship, or local government level.

Yes, because I was very close to the former president Olusegun Obasanjo. He became president at the age of 60 and I know that in those days, he doesnt stop working until 2:00 a.m. and by 7:00 a.m., he will be up again in his pajamas, and until now he is the best president during this their new dispensation and that has to do largely with age.

Mr Obasanjo was sworn in as a democratic president on 29 May, 1999, at the age of 62.

Mr Bankole, the Oluwo of Iporo Ake and governorship candidate of the National Party of Nigeria(NPN) in 1982, is the father of Dimeji Bankole, a former speaker of the House of Representatives.

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Mr Obasanjo was largely instrumental to the election of the younger Bankole, who represented Abeokuta South federal constituency, as House speaker between 2007 and 2011.

Dimeji, a better politician

Speaking of his ordeals in politics, the elder Bankole recalled that he lost the governorship elections in 1983 because he told the party of his unwillingness to appoint anyone older than him.

This, he said, infuriated the party leaders and led to many legal battles that left the party in disarray ahead of the gubernatorial election then.

He noted that his son, Dimeji, was able to achieve success in politics because he was not as naive as he was in 1983.

What I have seen is that Dimeji is a better politician than I am because he will not have told any leader what he will do when he comes to power. I believe he achieved all he was able to achieve because he is a better politician than me.

Agitators are charlatans

Mr Bankole also described agitators calling for the disintegration of Nigeria as charlatans.

Who are those calling for break away? Who are they? Sunday Igboho? Can he wait to fight you (pointing to a reporter) physically? Why did he run away? Who are the people leading the Yoruba nation or the said breakaway group?

They are the same people who have openly said they did not support restructuring where there will be different authorities to take care of their resources which is different from breaking away.

As far as I am concerned, I do not know of any group calling for break away except for a group of charlatans. I dont have any advice for them because they can not be advised.

It is like talking about some Pastors and some Imams using the Bible and Quran to defraud people. What do you want to tell them? Nothing! Because they know what they are doing; they are using what they are doing to exploit people.

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The World Bank Group on Thursday announced it has decided to discontinue the publication of its doing business rankings of countries after a review of data irregularities in the 2018 and 2020 reports.

The bank disclosed in a statement on Thursday that the internal reports raised ethical matters regarding the two reports.

Trust in the research of the World Bank Group is vital. World Bank Group research informs the actions of policymakers, helps countries make better-informed decisions, and allows stakeholders to measure economic and social improvements more accurately, the statement said.

It said such research has also been a valuable tool for the private sector, civil society, academia, journalists, and others, broadening understanding of global issues.

After data irregularities on Doing Business 2018 and 2020 were reported internally in June 2020, World Bank management paused the next Doing Business report and initiated a series of reviews and audits of the report and its methodology.

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In addition, because the internal reports raised ethical matters, including the conduct of former Board officials as well as current and/or former Bank staff, management reported the allegations to the Banks appropriate internal accountability mechanisms, the statement read.

After reviewing all the information available to date on Doing Business, including the findings of past reviews, audits, and the report the Bank released today on behalf of the Board of Executive Directors, World Bank Group management has taken the decision to discontinue the Doing Business report, it said.

The statement noted that the World Bank Group remains firmly committed to advancing the role of the private sector in development and providing support to governments to design the regulatory environment that supports this.

Going forward, we will be working on a new approach to assessing the business and investment climate.

We are deeply grateful to the efforts of the many staff members who have worked diligently to advance the business climate agenda, and we look forward to harnessing their energies and abilities in new ways, it added.
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Armed bandits have rejected a ransom offered by the Speaker of Zamfara State House of Assembly, Nasir Magarya, for the release of his father.

Premium Times reported that Mr Magaryas father was kidnapped alongside five others in August during an evening attack on Magarya village of Zurmi local government area.

State government officials reportedly reached out to bandits kingpin, Halilu Kachalla, to help in negotiating with the gang holding the speakers father.

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An aide of the speaker told PREMIUM TIMES that Mr Kachalla was invited into the negotiation by a local government official in Shinkafi.

He said the speakers followers in Zurmi and Shinkafi local government areas had reached out to Mr Kachalla immediately after the abduction.

Bandits reject ransom

A top aide of the Speaker, who pleaded anonymity, confirmed to Premium Times that the speakers aides decided to go ahead and provide the money as requested by the bandits.

A former Commissioner, who is from Zurmi, has been in the forefront of the negotiations with the bandits. Halilu Kachalla tried his best but you know they are having problem with most of the bandits leaders in the state because they believe he is now inching closer to the state government.

So, the former Commissioner told the Speaker that they should go ahead and pay the ransom because Kachalla had failed in the negotiation, he said.

The source, however, said he did not know the amount provided.

All I know is that some of our people in Shinkafi and Zurmi took the money to the Turji camp but they didnt even meet him (Turji). They discussed with one of his top commanders, Dan Bukkolo, who told them that the order was that they should go back with the money, he said.

This is coming a few days after bandits burnt down houses belonging to the speaker, his father and uncle in Magarya village.

The media aide of the speaker, Mustafa Kaura, could not be immediately reached due to the absence of mobile telecommunications network in the state.
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We should thank God for elders like Obiozor, who is leading Ndigbo now, a governor as sensible as Uzodinma, and more so the disposition of President Muhammadu Buhari, which are all making for a genuine opportunity for peace building in the East. I guess one condition for peace will be for the youths to renounce violence, as every self-respecting government will make that a condition of negotiation. This is the route we need to take.

On Thursday September 9, three Nigerians emerged on top at the occasion of the visit of the President of the Federal Republic to Owerri, Imo State: President Muhammadu Buhari (GCFR); the host, Governor Hope Uzodinma; and the President of Ohaneze Ndigbo, Ambassador George Obiozor. The visit was a risky bet for the trio.

For President Buhari (PMB), I am not sure he expected everyone to roll out the drums for him, but still he received a vast crowd of party supporters, who are his political troops in the South-East. He made the right statement, clad in Igbo attire, and not cutting the picture of the conqueror of the Igbos that some had painted him as. He delivered it straight and simple: the Igbos have no reason to be out of Nigeria and Nigeria needs the enterprising input of Ndigbo.

Governor Uzodinma did the good work of a facilitator to set the stage and has won for himself a huge seat as a peacemaker. George Obiozor, an experienced diplomat, who had once headed the Nigerian Institute for International Affairs (NIIA) and was Nigerias representative to United Nations after a distinguished diplomatic career, lived to his billing. He spoke the way elders should speak, making demands without being rude. We cannot take it away from the critics of the All Progressives Congress (APC) government that they will have their own interpretation of the speeches, but the impact of this visit cannot be diminished. It has presented the opportunity for peace in the South-East, and opened a true window for rapprochement between belligerent forces and the sovereign representatives of a federal state. This has set the stage for the re-setting of relationships.

The elders of Igbo land know what war means better than the young ones, who have only read about it in books and watched it in movies. They know that is not a direction to face. I have been to testy spots in the world, such as the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) demarcation line at Pan Mun Jom, between North and South Korea, in a solidarity March with Lim Su-kyung in July 1989.

The elders of Igbo land know what war means better than the young ones, who have only read about it in books and watched it in movies. They know that is not a direction to face. I have been to testy spots in the world, such as the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) demarcation line at Pan Mun Jom, between North and South Korea, in a solidarity March with Lim Su-kyung in July 1989. She was a South Korean student leader then, who was known as a flower for reunification at the 13th World Festival of Youth and Students, held in Pyongyang, North Korea. I attended as one of the delegates of All-Africa Students Union (AASU). On our way down, we saw first-hand evidence of the carnage of the Korean war and the aftermath: Nuclear arsenals pointing towards the two Koreas and the dividing army of a superpower United States. At any mistake, hundreds of thousands of people could simply evaporate in seconds, including the solidarity marchers.

The second time I visited a similar spot was in Syria, before the war broke out, and it was for the funeral of Hafez al-Assad, the lion of the dessert, who was the father of the current Syrian president. I was on the delegation of the Federal Government, led by the then Foreign Affairs Minister, Sule Lamido. From the airport where we were picked up to the hotel, we saw mourners crying in the streets, in their thousands, in unison, mourning their departed hero. In the evening, the Nigerian Ambassador to Syria, Ambassador Abdul Ganiyu, came to give us some briefing that the wailing should not sway us on the streets. He added that Damascus was tense as several things had happened which were capable of leading to war. In the morning, they gathered all foreign visitors in a hall to pay our respects to Hafez al-Assad. To my left was Robin Cook, former British Foreign Secretary, and to my right was Benazir Bhutto, former Prime Minister of Pakistan. The rest is history. How I wish there was a power on earth capable of acting on Ambassador Abdul Ganiyus warning, as it would have spared Syria millions of deaths.

In one of my term papers in my Masters class in Global Affairs in the University of Buckingham, in the United Kingdom, I examined the military factors in the rise and fall of empires, from antiquity to the modern era, showing there have been widespread distributions of weapons of war and tactics of warfare that makes total victory almost impossible, and diplomacy and peace building inevitable in world affairs.

Peace building and prompt conflict resolution are proving to be fundamental parts of modern state building and management. President Muhammadu Buharis initiative is a realism of this genre, and one should not expect less, with the inclusion of Professor Ibrahim Gambari in his kitchen cabinet as Chief of Staff

This is truer in the era of globalisation, given that many of the combatants are non-state actors, and given that modern warfare has moved from kinetic sphere to include the cyber realm. Peace building and prompt conflict resolution are proving to be fundamental parts of modern state building and management. President Muhammadu Buharis initiative is a realism of this genre, and one should not expect less, with the inclusion of Professor Ibrahim Gambari in his kitchen cabinet as Chief of Staff; a man who has made a career of diplomacy and peace building for almost five decades.

We should thank God for elders like Obiozor, who is leading Ndigbo now, a governor as sensible as Uzodinma, and more so the disposition of President Muhammadu Buhari, which are all making for a genuine opportunity for peace building in the East. We can expect the mechanism already created by the facilitators to include an agenda for the discussion of all items that may lead to the release of the unidentified arrested youths from detention, which I believe includes Nnamdi Kanu. The state, through the Attorney General, has the power of nolle prosequi for crimes, in the drive for peace and stability. I guess one condition for peace will be for the youths to renounce violence, as every self-respecting government will make that a condition of negotiation. This is the route we need to take.

Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim, a 2008 Lord Max Bellof prize winner in Global Affairs, is a former presidential candidate and currently a chieftain of the APC.
The point is not whether states will gain or lose more if they got 100 per cent of the VAT. It is whether in a democracy, we are ready to do what the law says, however inconvenient. Until the law is amended  and the Federal Governments desperation indicates that it knows its on a wrong footing  the government of President Muhammadu Buhari should obey and stop the authority stealing.

The guns of Nigerias three-year civil war were silenced 51 years ago, but in the battle for a truly federal state, the echoes of warfare have never been more resonant.

On August 10, Rivers State, which at an average monthly federal receipt of N12 billion, is the third richest by dole amongst Nigerias poor 36 states, started a war with the Federal Government over the collection of Value Added Tax (VAT).

The state governor, Nyesom Wike, a lawyer by training and leading member of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), found a loophole in the tax law. He got a ruling of the Federal High Court in Port Harcourt, which affirmed that states, and not the Federal Government, are supposed to collect 100 per cent of VAT.

The ruling, which could cost an already cash-strapped Federal Government significant revenues, also set off a chain of reactions from Lagos  and at least five other states  eager to cash in and reverse decades of lopsidedness in the countrys fiscal landscape. Only Kogi State pleaded for charity and brotherly love, instead of law or economics  a plea that should have been directed elsewhere.

The current row may have been sparked by the nearly 60 per cent drop in state revenues in a season when COVID-19 and the crash in oil prices have brought Nigerias prodigal government to its knees.

But the war between states and the Federal Government has a long, chequered history, dating back to the civil war era. Carving out the oil-rich Rivers State from the Eastern region was, perhaps, the first significant move to redraw the federal map at the onset of the war. It was an emergency, a strategic move by the federal authorities to cut off supply, especially oil supply, to Biafra. It proved decisive.

It would turn out to be not the last, but the beginning of a series of brazen encroachments that has left states which were mostly created by the military without a thought for their viability, as mere receptacles of federal benevolence and brutality. The long spell of military rule after the civil war made matters worse. In contrast to the pre-civil war era, it reduced the states to zombies of Lagos (and later Abuja from 1991).

Victor Attah, former governor of the Southern Nigerian State, Akwa Ibom, said in a paper on the onshore/offshore dichotomy, for example, that up till 1970, derivation (revenue from minerals derived in the regions), stood at 50 per cent.

After the civil war, Attah said, Decree 113 of 1970, put forward by the late sage Chief Obafemi Awolowo and promulgated by General Yakubu Gowon, reduced derivation to 45 percent and at the same time appropriated the entire offshore oil revenue to the Federal Government.

The states endured. There was not much resistance that could reasonably be expected under the unitarist military rule. Also, it was thought that after the civil war, the Federal Government required considerable resources to rebuild the country.

Theres nothing that Wike has done in respect of the current VAT controversy that is outside what the Constitution provided for. The tax items under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Federal Government, such as stamp duties, taxation of incomes, profits and capital gains are listed in the exclusive legislative list. No one is quarrelling with that.

But soon, like in most emergencies, understanding became indulgence and indulgence turned into abuse.

In his first coming, General Olusegun Obasanjo extracted another 20 per cent to the centre, and his successor, President Shehu Shagari, took yet another 20, reducing onshore derivation to five per cent.

By the time Obasanjo returned to office as civilian president 20 years later, the restiveness in the Niger Delta had boiled over. It had become so dangerous that the ad hoc measures, such as the creation of special funds and agencies by the governments before his, could barely contain the negative impact of the crisis on the countrys oil receipts.

Again, the perennially extravagant Federal Government, hooked on cheap oil money, needed more fixes to shore up its falling income.

Instead of risking any legal landmines, however, Obansanjo settled for a political solution, in the now infamous onshore/offshore dichotomy, a fiscal gerrymandering which left at least 20 states worse off and the Federal Government twice as crookedly rich.

Nigeria is back at the same spot. Only this time the dispute is not about oil or derivation, but about VAT, the crown jewel of the top seven taxes in the country. Its politically convenient to demonise Wike or to treat the current dispute as some sort of abhorrent beggar thy neighbour politics.

But the trouble is not with Wike. It is with those whose thinking has been so jaded by years of military rule they just cant get over themselves. This VAT crisis should be a welcome lobotomy.

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Theres nothing that Wike has done in respect of the current VAT controversy that is outside what the Constitution provided for. The tax items under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Federal Government, such as stamp duties, taxation of incomes, profits and capital gains are listed in the exclusive legislative list. No one is quarrelling with that.

Its shocking that those who have spent years clamouring for the restructuring of the country have conveniently lost their tongue or yielded to be taken hostage by cowardice in the current VAT debate.

Its not about Wike. In a viral video, the Chairman of the modified VAT committee, Emmanuel Ijewere, told Channels TV in an interview apparently even before the increase in the VAT rate to 7.5 per cent, that the original plan when VAT replaced sales tax in 1994, was for states to keep 100 per cent of VAT income. The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) was supposed to receive five per cent of the proceeds as administrative cost, for easing the confusion brought on by multiple sales taxes in the states.

Status quo ante, in this case, cannot be a return to the illegality of the Federal Government stealing VAT that does not belong to it. Status quo can only mean a return to what the Constitution provides explicitly  which means states, and not the Federal Government, are entitled to 100 per cent of VAT.

That plan was discarded, in spite of the original intention of the military government and in total disregard of the clear provisions in section 162 (1) of the Constitution which excludes VAT or taxes on sales and consumption from the schedule of Federal Government taxes. Abuja grabbed more than its legitimate share.

This is not a one-off transgression. Its a consistent pattern of wide-ranging impunity, which began with appropriating minerals to prosecute the civil war and later expanded to cover swathes of economic and social activities from policing to prisons, copyright to trade and waterways, among others.

Lagos State, especially under Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu, reclaimed acres of federal wasteland through judicial intervention and brought relief to the states in areas such as betting, town planning laws, creation of administrative councils, and taxes in the hospitality sector.

Ive heard the argument that in the end, Rivers State and the six other states challenging the VAT law may not benefit from it as much as they thought; that the VAT on alcohol, which is the favourite trope of opponents of the current system, is only three per cent; and that on account of the considerable receipt from the VAT element of import tax, the Federal Government may, in fact, be better off in the end.

Nonsense. Its the same warped argument that has kept the federal police a monstrous shambles that it has been all these years, because some say that whereas its OK for the federal police to brutalise and exploit innocents, police in the hands of states would be turned loose on the enemies of governors. We love federal oppression so much were happy to be sacrificed for it.

The point is not whether states will gain or lose more if they got 100 per cent of the VAT. It is whether in a democracy, we are ready to do what the law says, however inconvenient. Until the law is amended  and the Federal Governments desperation indicates that it knows its on a wrong footing  the government of President Muhammadu Buhari should obey and stop the authority stealing.

The matter of efficiency of modes of collection can be discussed by all parties, and hopefully they can reach a common ground. But the unilateral decision of the Federal Government to appropriate VAT beyond its residual administrative fees for the past 27 years must be condemned by all and called out for the fraud that it is.

The benefit of not being a lawyer is that I enjoy the freedom to not think in blinkers. Those hiding under the ruling of the Court of Appeal that the parties should maintain the status quo ante as excuse for delaying the enforcement of the ruling of the lower court are mistaken.

Status quo ante, in this case, cannot be a return to the illegality of the Federal Government stealing VAT that does not belong to it. Status quo can only mean a return to what the Constitution provides explicitly  which means states, and not the Federal Government, are entitled to 100 per cent of VAT.

Buharis government must end the shameful avarice and illegality and do what the law says  until it is amended.

Azu Ishiekwene is Editor-in-Chief of LEADERSHIP.
Granting credit sales is particularly difficult in a diminishing market situation because the incidence of non-payment is more prevalent. However, on the other side of the coin, granting credit sales is one of the surest ways of remaining in business when there is gloom. To balance the equation, the creditor company must mitigate against the incidence of losses

In everyday business environments, goods and services are exchanged, of which payments are not immediately received. Such sales are what are referred to as credit sales. To understand this, let us cast our minds to various small outlets that hung on their walls, NO CREDIT TODAY, COME TOMORROW, in the belief that tomorrow is endlessly deferred. They are simply saying you are to pay for whatever goods or services you receive.

As much as we know that Nigeria mainly operates a cash economy, this has not entirely gotten rid of the aspiration for a consume now and pay later system. Having said this, we can reasonably assert that allowing credit sales is a culture in business relations that cannot be wished away.

The thrust of this article, therefore, is an examination of how the system can flourish or otherwise in diminishing market situations, i.e., in situations where there is a continuous erosion in the purchasing power of the people.

How do you sell on credit in a market where the future of participants, in economic terms, is, at best, very shaky? Or should there be no credit sales in a diminishing market condition since the uncertainty of the future becomes more significant than usual? We will consider certain factors that follow credit sales to answer these questions and others that may crop up in this discourse. Afterwards, we shall also endeavour to see how we can minimise the incidents of losses (bad debts) that may be attendant upon a diminishing market.

Why Are Credit Sales Made At All?

If we concede that Nigeria is a cash economy, then the natural question is why granting credit sales is still prevalent. The business environment has become so competitive that businesses make all efforts to have a fair share of the market. One of such attractions that are often offered is credit sales to potential customers to make them buy. In this regard, credit sales become an incentive for continuous patronage. However, it is also imperative to note that it is even more common when goods are bought for resale to a third party. It is hardly possible for an organisation to insist on total cash sales, except at the retail level. Even then, only a few products will meet such stringent conditions without a drastic reduction in turnover. I have had course to offer a free consultancy service to a small business started with N5,000 (five thousand naira) a few years back and cautioned against credit sales. From a follow-up, the caution only reduced the incidence of credit sales; it did not completely eliminate it. We can then say that credit sales are an essential ingredient in business life. Nevertheless, expectedly some conditions must be prevalent before credit sales are made at whatever level of operation.

Conditions for Granting Credit Sales

(1) The Performance of Customers

Credit facilities are granted usually after a thorough analysis of the past performance of existing customers or a reasonably determined future performance of a potential customer. In assessing the performance of a customer, the issue of the mode of payment is taken into consideration in terms of like, say, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or periodically.

Apart from performance is the issue of reliability, which is measured in the conformity with agreed terms of payment. For existing customers, it is easy to determine, but not so for potential customers. In the case of potential customers, a trial period is usually given by which reliability is thoroughly assessed.

(2) The Status of the Company

The status of the company being granted credit facilities is also vital and strategic to determining the limit of credit granted to it. There is usually an assumption that some well-positioned companies are less risky to grant credit sales, depending on certain indices. Therefore, such companies have access to credit sales quickly. Besides this, a companys area of coverage may make it attractive to receive credit sales very easily. A customer with a widespread network can make a case for the rapid turnover of goods and services in his area, as a bride for enjoying credit facilities.

In addition to this, some companies are strategically placed that doing business with them is seen as an easy way of penetrating the market.

(3) Traceability

Ordinarily, a business should be transacted with utmost reliability and trust. The concept of utmost trust and faith must exist at all times, but this is scarcely the case. A customer who cannot be easily traced is a risk if such is granted credit sales. Customers that are itinerant without a stable address may not be considered for credit sales. The reason for this is that in the event of default, the possibility of recovery becomes nil. For a customer to enjoy credit sales, the creditor company must be able to trace him at all reasonable times. That is why an on-the-spot assessment of a customer is usually carried out before final approval is given for credit sales.

(4) Length of Credit

Another thing that is considered before granting credit sales is the length of credit, i.e., the timing the credit will be due for payment. A relatively short time is typically preferred to that which extends into the distant future.

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(5) Relationship With the Company

The relationship the customer has with the company is also a determinant for approving credit sales. It could be an already established relationship or a developed one as a result of past patronage. In this wise, the track records are looked into, and decisions are based on the fairness of the record.

Limitations of Conditions

The conditions listed above and any other the company may wish to consider also have their limitations. As cautious as the condition may be guiding the company to make the decision, these limitations can undermine the decisions efficacy.

(1) Uncertainty About the Future of the Company Being Granted Credit

It is difficult to predict the future with absolute exactitude. This does not rest within the confines of mortal beings, and therefore we are all prone to the error of uncertainty. A customer that has performed creditably in the past may suddenly slump into crises that it cannot overcome. It is even more pronounced in a business managed by a central figure whose death may mean an eventual business collapse.

(2) Lumpiness: Inconsistency In Accounts

Usually, the credit transactions in Nigeria suffer inconsistency in accounts occasioned by both parties weak and even nonexistent reconciliation. It is prevalent to find arguments between both parties regarding the correct amount of credit that is granted and outstanding. It is even said that most customers may not have any form of proper accounting, thereby making credit sales a cumbersome affair that should not have been. However, this can be solved by training the handlers of credit-related matters in the proper accounting system.

(3) Default Information Systems

In Nigeria, our Management Information System is still at its lowest ebb. Sometimes the information is not given at all, and when given, they are scanty, making rumours thrive uncontrollably. The effect of this on credit is that it makes the adequate monitoring of a debtors performance very difficult. A customer may have received cash for goods sold to a third party but refused to return the same to the creditor. Those in the newspapers industry often experience this, both from the vendors and the advertising agents.

Mitigating Factors

If we agree that we cannot eliminate the incidence of credit sales, how do we mitigate against the limitations discussed above, especially in a diminishing market situation? The issue is more critical under this situation in that a blanket ban on credit sales may spell doom and cause the eventual folding up of businesses that are merely surviving.

(1) Constant Reconciliation

Periodic and up-to-date reconciliation of accounts is an instrument that is only neglected at the peril of the creditors. The creditor must make a deliberate credit policy to reconcile its accounts with all the customers constantly. This will enable the business to monitor the performance of customers, and it will assist in determining when to discontinue credit to a particular customer.

(2) Shorter Credit Period

It is essential that in a diminishing market condition, a shorter credit is granted. The longer the credit period, the greater the possibility of default. A shorter credit period also helps mitigate colossal loss if the credit is allowed to pile up. A credit facility of 30 days simply means you have to pay up before further credit is extended to you. A shorter credit period is also easy to monitor than a quarterly or half-yearly facility. The degree of uncertainty in one month is less than that of a quarter or half a year. A shorter period is a mitigating factor against future uncertainty.

(3) Constant On the Spot Evaluation To Receive Any Danger Signal

There is the need for the creditor to constantly monitor the debtors condition using the on-the-spot assessment, especially in circumstances of inefficient information systems. The on-the-spot assessment will readily enable the creditor to read any danger signal and therefore take precautionary action, both at recovery and halting of further credit. Some smart customers may hide crises and even apply for bigger credit, knowing full well the possibility of not paying back. The creditor should not wait for the house to collapse on its head but detect the structural defect, even before the building collapses.

(4) Attractive Discounts To Encourage Prompt Payments

A creditor may use the instrument of generous discounts to abate the incidence of substantial bad debt. This is done by offering a percentage discount if debts are settled before the due date. Even a long-overdue debt can still qualify for a percentage discount if there is any fear that it may be lost. A partial recovery is still much better than a total loss.

Conclusion

Granting credit sales is particularly difficult in a diminishing market situation because the incidence of non-payment is more prevalent. However, on the other side of the coin, granting credit sales is one of the surest ways of remaining in business when there is gloom. To balance the equation, the creditor company must mitigate against the incidence of losses by applying the helpful tips offered above.

Bolutife Oluwadele, a chartered accountant and a public policy and administration scholar, writes from Canada. He is the author of Thoughts of A Village Boy andcan be reached through: bolutife.oluwadele@gmail.com
Cracking the core North is actually not as difficult as is being bandied. Stake social, as well as political interests. Highlight the fact that the people of North-West and North-East are the worst victims of Buharis policies. Target the Fulani elites, whose brand has been badly damaged worldwide because of the foolishness of one man. Follow with the fact that Buharis reign of terror has become the biggest threat to the very idea of one Nigeria

Fellow countrymen and womenYou are all living witnesses to the great economic predicament and uncertainty, which an inept and corrupt leadership has imposed on our beloved nation for the past four years. I am referring to the harsh, intolerable conditions under which we are now living. Our economy has been hopelessly mismanaged. We have become a debtor and beggar nation.

Fellow Nigerians, the above quotation is culled from the coup speech, which Major-General Muhammadu Buhari and his military colleagues at the overthrow of a democratically elected government in 1984.

Today, the current situation in our country is far worse than what was referred to as intolerable condition in 1984. We are no longer talking about the condition of the economy, which has since gone comatose under President Buhari. The battle cry is no longer about corruption, where many surveys find Nigeria as the worst offender. The current situation is so intolerable that no one is talking about the condition whereby a sitting president and his family brandish ostentatious wealth looted from the public treasury, while the moping masses continue wallow in abject poverty and despair. Nobody is even talking about the fact that the country has become the poverty capital of the world under the same man.

Today, the intolerable condition is about something far more consequential: Insecurity. It is about human life. It is about the fact that nobody and nowhere is safe.

Today, foreign Fulani herdsmen are maiming and killing the people of the Middle Belt and Southern Nigeria with impunity. The situation in Buharis region of the core North is even worse: While Boko Haram terrorism reigns in the North-East, bandits and brigands have continued to terrorise the North-West with reckless abandon, as citizens flee to neighbouring countries in fear fOR their dear lives. What is more? The president and commander-in-chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces is known to be aiding and abetting these terrorist acts against his own people. Worse still, critics with mass appeal are commonly hounded and incarcerated.

Fellow countrymen and women, enough is enough! We must not wait forever before woring against the serious consequences of Buharis history of treasonable felony, including his ongoing reign of terror. Where there are no consequences for bad behaviour, it is bound to worsen. The gist is that President Muhammadu Buhari has ruined Nigeria down to its lowest ebb and any failure to dethrone him before 2023 is to set a very dangerous precedent for the country.

The delay in dethroning the dictator is because the Nigerian legislature has failed to act in line with the Constitution. The reason for this failure is plain: The federal lawmakers and the president are partners in crime. They are united by a common bond of state corruption anchored on pagan impunity. These leaders also assume immunity to the incessant terrorism, as their families and estates are fully guarded by the states security network.

Yet, a common excuse being bandied in the land is that the lawmakers from Northern Nigeria will not be in haste to impeach Buhari since his deputy, Yemi Osinbajo, a Southerner, would automatically inherit the presidency. The proponents claim it is better to allow the president to serve out his two terms so that the process of power rotation can be preserved.

An objective approach is a combination of geographic and political incrementalism, where broad support at the National Assembly is attained in segments, staking both political and regional interests. Importantly, the names of the lawmakers who oppose the impeachment must be made public.

But such reasons are pure baloney. In fact, common sense is clear on this matter: Dictators who commit the level of atrocities being witnessed under General Muhammadu Buhari would never hand over power through a true democratic process. Even if such dictators would entertain any form of transition, they are bound to handpick clones of themselves who can deepen their evil policies.

Moreover, the Buhari leadership crisis knows no boundaries. Thus, the Nigerian masses  north and south  now care less about the tribe, religion, or the political shade of Buharis successor, insofar Nigerias worst president in history becomes history. Put it this way: The dethronement of Muhammadu Buhari is no longer a question of WHY; it is now a question of HOW.

The first order of business is for the suffering masses to recognise their true enemies. Instead of Muhammadu Buhari, who is shamelessly irredeemable, the resentment should be directed towards the legislators who have the constitutional obligation to remove the dreadful leader from office.

This is where a sincere opposition matters most. The opposition leaders are making efforts at vocalising the crisis, quite alright, but they are not leading. Effective leadership demands uniting the people towards a common purpose.

As the Minority Leader in the Senate, Senator Eyinnaya Abaribe should  without further delay  craft step-by-step action plans for the dethronement of Muhammadu Buhari, including any of the regimes henchmen, who may constitute an impediment to the success of the post-impeachment power play.

An objective approach is a combination of geographic and political incrementalism, where broad support at the National Assembly is attained in segments, staking both political and regional interests. Importantly, the names of the lawmakers who oppose the impeachment must be made public.

The lobbying should start from the caucuses of the South-East and South-South zones in the National Assembly. Impeaching Buhari is a Christmas in June for the people of this region. This is the stronghold of the opposition by virtue of political affiliation. Further, the region is the ground zero of Buharis vendetta politics.

The next is the South-West caucus. Any motion seeking the dethronement of a dictator will always sail through in this zone. Besides being the natural bastion of opposition movement in the country, Western Nigeria boasts of the creme de la creme of pro-democracy activists, the media, and a balanced civil society.

The orderis futile without sustained pressure by the masses. Nigerians can take a page from the various revolutionary scripts General Buhari promoted before he gained power in 2015. Of particular attention is when he challenged fellow citizens to emulate the Arab Spring, where a series of anti-government protests, uprisings, and armed rebellions were used to dethrone corrupt regimes in North Africa.

In short, the whole South is certain. The bipartisan unity among the Southern governors to oppose Buharis open grazing policy is a profound testimony.

Enter the North. Demonstrate that the region is not monolithic, after all.

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The Middle Belt is a huge opening. This zone is the epicentre of the state-sponsored terrorism. There is no better opportunity to test the much-touted Southern Nigeria-Middle Belt alliance than through the impeachment of the terrorist leader.

Cracking the core North is actually not as difficult as is being bandied. Stake social, as well as political interests. Highlight the fact that the people of North-West and North-East are the worst victims of Buharis policies. Target the Fulani elites, whose brand has been badly damaged worldwide because of the foolishness of one man. Follow with the fact that Buharis reign of terror has become the biggest threat to the very idea of one Nigeria, which the North now holds so dear.

The order above is futile without sustained pressure by the masses. Nigerians can take a page from the various revolutionary scripts General Buhari promoted before he gained power in 2015. Of particular attention is when he challenged fellow citizens to emulate the Arab Spring, where a series of anti-government protests, uprisings, and armed rebellions were used to dethrone corrupt regimes in North Africa. However, instead of armed rebellions, as then advanced by citizen Buhari, it is imperative that the Nigerian model is peaceful.

Yet, a major factor in the success of the Arab Spring is that it embodied serious consequences against politicians opposed to the sweeping changes. The Nigerian legislators cannot continue to hide behind the Buhari baggage to absolve blame. Therefore, rather than gathering at public squares, where armed security can easily disperse them, the protesters should target the various country homes in the different constituencies of the specific legislators who oppose the impeachment of Buhari.

Again, the protests should be non-violent, but it must be sufficiently far-reaching to alert these legislators that it is no longer business as usual. This thinking mirrors an admonition from Buharis Minister of Transport, Chubuike Amaechi, that Nigerian politicians have continued to misbehave because the followers do not stone them. The Nigerian armed forces should equally refuse to be used to attack the forces of change, in line with Buharis directive as stated in one of his various calls for revolution during the Jonathan era.

To reclaim our country from the terrorist regime requires active participation of every patriot, no matter the religion, political party, ethnicity, or the location in the globe. The Nigerians in the Diaspora, most of whom are victims of the gross injustice at home, have an important role to play. They have every reason to harken to Buharis very idea of an Arab Spring by maximising their influence at every opportunity, including the ongoing protests at the United Nations in New York, to garner the desired support from foreign governments. There is also the need to heighten the current efforts to ensure that the foreign land is no longer a safe haven for the corrupt leaders from the homeland.

SKC Ogbonnia, a 2019 APC presidential aspirant, writes from New York, New York.
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Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State has approved the appointment of Yahuza Adamu as the new Head of Civil Service (HOS), and 22 permanent secretaries to rejig his administration.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the appointment of Mr Adamu as the state HOS is sequel to the retirement from active service of his predecessor, Aliyu Jibo, after serving for the mandatory 35 years.

This is contained in a statement signed by the media adviser to the governor, Mukhtar Gidado, on Thursday in Bauchi.

According to the statement, all the appointments take immediate effect.

Mr Adamu, a graduate of economics from Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria and a master degree holder in Agricultural Economics from the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ATBU), Bauchi, was charged with repositioning and rejuvenating the civil service.

The statement said the governor has also approved the appointment and elevation of 22 directors to the position of permanent secretaries.

He said their appointments were based on merit, adding that all of them went through competency tests as part of the governments effort to determine their capability and trustworthiness.

The governor charged the appointees to discharge their duties with commitment, dedication and fear of God, stressing that the government will continue to reward merit and sanction indolence and laxity.

NAN recalls that Governor Mohammed recently appointed 22 commissioners, secretary to the state government and his chief of staff, following the dissolution of the state executive council in June 2021.

The dissolution and reconstitution of the state executive council and topmost civil service are designed to improve service delivery.

(NAN)
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The Edo State Government has confirmed the death of a 60-year-old male admitted into the Stella Obasanjo Hospital of COVID-19 and whose vaccination status could not be ascertained as at the time of his death.

The head of the states Coronavirus Case Management, Ebomwonyi Osagie, disclosed this on Wednesday in Benin, at the daily press briefing on the pandemic.

Mr Osagie, a medical doctor, said the state recorded 63 new cases of the virus, one death and 54 patients were discharged within the last 24 hours.

According to him, So far, a total of 342 samples were collected, we have 286 people in home care and 267 discharged since the outbreak of the third wave of the pandemic.

For now, we have a total of 1,098 confirmed cases, 547 active cases and 13,388 samples were collected so far in this third wave.

Across our facilities, we have 40 patients on admission, 114 discharged and we have now lost 54 patients to the third wave, he said.

The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health, Osamwonyi Irowa, while reacting to the state governments enforcement of the no vaccination card, no access to its facilities order, said that some government top officials working within the system had not been vaccinated.

Mr Irowa, a medical doctor, said that this set of people were posing risks to the entire team and the state, adding that the government had no choice, but to shut them out and ensure they dont infect others.

He said there were no fake COVID-19 vaccination cards out there, as the numbers of cards given correspond with the number of vaccines given, as well as the Quick Response (QR) codes issued.

(NAN)
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The Cross River State Government has expressed worry over rising cases of violence against women in the state.

The Director, Women Development, Ministry of Women Affairs in the state, Nancy Nsor, said this when she spoke with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Calabar on Wednesday.

Ms Nsor said the ministry was deeply concerned about the pervasive violence against women in the state.

Gender Based Violence (GBV) which is assuming a geometric increase in recent times is hindering national productivity, as it is occurring among people in the productive age group.

Its persistence has become more glaring amid COVID-19 pandemic.

The Inspector General of Police reported that 717 rape cases were reported within the first five months of 2021, this excludes other forms of violence and harmful practices women and girls faced daily.

Without the effective and efficient collaboration with religious and traditional institutions, we cannot see survivors in those areas where this is happening and then target the end to violence against women and girls, she said.

Ms Nsor added: GBV in Nigeria is almost accepted as a fact of life in some cultures that perceive women as the property of their husbands.

Many women die annually or have their reproductive organs permanently damaged through genital mutilation practice.

Some cultures encourage denying women and girls access to education, land or inheritance, she said.

Ms Nsor said women must seek knowledge to maximally unleash their potential as gender equality would guarantee a level playing field devoid of all forms discrimination.

She said while the Cross River State Government would create institutions to address the root cause of GBV, there should be a stronger national response that can support survivors of violence.

Those who turn a blind eye to violence against women, saying it is a private matter, should know that they are accomplices, she said.

Forty-six out of every 100 women, between the age of 15 and 49 in Nigerias South-south, have experienced physical violence at the age of 15, according to the 2018 Nigerian Demographic and Health Survey.

This is higher than the national average of 31 out of 100 women.

(NAN)
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Nineteen bullets were extracted from the corpse of a police officer who was shot dead in June by gunmen in Akwa Ibom State, the father of the deceased officer has said.

The man, Nsima Christian, said his sons life would have probably been saved if he had received prompt medical attention.

He said the medical facility, Ibom Multi-Specialty Hospital, Uyo, which he was taken to, had refused to treat him because he was unable to pay N2 million to the hospital.

The 27-year-old police Corporal, Odudu Christian, died eight days after he was taken to the hospital, the dad said.

He was serving in the Counter-Terrorism Unit of the police in Akwa Ibom.

I deposited N500, 000 and the commander of Counter Terrorism Unit added N1 million but they refused to treat my son, Mr Christian told PREMIUM TIMES.

Mr Christian said he later paid the remaining N500,000, but that his son was still unattended to by the hospital.

The hospital killed my son, not the people who shot him, he said.

Allegations are false  Hospital

Ibom Multi-Specialty Hospital, however, dismissed Mr Christians allegations as false.

The patient was given the best of services. We didnt look at whether he had paid money or not, Sunday Udoh, the director of clinical services in the hospital, told PREMIUM TIMES.

Mr Udoh said the patient was examined by many consultants. He refused to say more than, claiming that the hospital would not want to divulge patient information to a third-party.

Whatever we do to a patient remains confidential to the patient even when the patient has died, except compelled by the court, Mr Udoh said, while declining to respond to a question if an operation was done to remove the bullets before the patient died.

The hospitals head of legal services, Ifreke Ekanem, a lawyer, was present during PREMIUM TIMES interview with Mr Udoh.

Mr Odudu was shot at close range on June 1 by some gunmen who stormed a hotel in Uyo where he was posted for security duties. Another police officer, who was also shot in the hotel, had died instantly.

The gunmen, who had dressed in military uniform, were later apprehended by the police, the police spokesperson in Akwa Ibom, Odiko MacDon said.
The Premium Motor Spirit, otherwise called petrol, now sells for between N200 and N220 per liter at the independent marketers service stations in Nsukka.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported that the hike in the price against the official pump price of N162 per liter started about a fortnight ago due to the scarcity of the commodity in the town and its environs.

Some residents of the town expressed deep worry over the development in separate interviews with NAN on Wednesday.

A civil servant, Stephen Ozioko, said the situation had further compounded the economic difficulties in the area.

Mr Ozioko said many private car owners had been compelled to park their vehicles at home and move around in public transport.

Since the scarcity started, I decided to park my car and take public transport to the office and back home.

N220 per liter is exorbitant and I cannot afford it, considering my salary as a civil servant.

I shall continue to use public transport until the situation returns to normal, he said.

A building material dealer, Timothy Ngwu, said the development had also led to an increase in transport fare in the area.

Some people now trek from Nsukka Old Park to Odenigbo Roundabout because of the 100 per cent hike in fares from N50 to N100 by tricycle.

Before now, the transport fare from Nsukka to Enugu was N500 but transporters now charge between N800 and N1000.

Also, a commuter-bus driver, Victor Ogbonna, described the scarcity and hike in price of petrol as unfortunate and an ugly development.

Today, only a few filling stations are selling the commodity in Nsukka town, while others are shut, Mr Ogbonna said.

He alleged that some filling stations, which claimed to be out-of-stock, were selling to black marketers at night.

This is why black marketers have sprung up everywhere in the town, selling the commodity for about N300 per liter.

NAN reported that virtually all the major marketers in the area have stopped the sale of petrol, claiming to be out-of-stock.

The people called on the government to urgently intervene in order to bring the situation under control and also put an end to its harsh economic effects on the masses.

(NAN)

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Anambra Primary Healthcare Development Agency has inaugurated Crisis Communication Centres on COVID-19 vaccination across the state.

The head of the coordinating agency, Chioma Ezenyimulu, disclosed this in Awka on Wednesday.

Ms Ezenyimulu, a medical doctor, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that the centres would provide speedy medical attention to members of the public in a manner that would control the spread of the virus.

She said the agency involved schools management, traditional rulers, and religious leaders, the Rotary Club, the National Orientation Agency, the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency and the Ministry of Information before establishing the centres.

We got this crop of stakeholders involved to help enlighten the public on the need to use the centres to control the spread of COVID-19.

We will take the initiative seriously to spread factual information on efficacy and safety of COVID-19 vaccines to all strata of the society, she said.

Ms Ezenyimulu said while the elderly were mainly at risk, the COVID-19 vaccine was also useful for those that were 18 years old and above.

Ms Ezenyimulu said a lot of resources had been expended in the fight against the pandemic at the national, state and local government areas and at community levels and urged the public to appreciate the governments efforts to save lives.

There are 2,173 confirmed cases of Coronavirus in Anambra as of September 15, according to data from the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.

Nineteen people have so far died of COVID-19 in the state.

(NAN)
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The federal government is collaborating with Ogun Government to secure the Right of Way (RoW) for the construction of three bridges and an interchange on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway.

The Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, said this during an inspection of the highway on Wednesday.

Mr Fashola, who was joined by Governor Dapo Abiodun at the Lotto Bridge under construction, said the highway accommodates over 40,000 vehicles daily, hence the urgent need for additional flyovers and interchanges for decongestion.

The bridges are under construction at Makun, MFM, and Lotto (Mowe) areas on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway.

We are trying to execute an interchange that will separate the main carriageway and give commuters choice, especially those going to religious places to worship, those going to universities, and so on and so forth.

So that what used to cause the congestion is limited to the barest minimum if not totally eradicated when the road is finished.

So, we now require additional land to build the interchange, that is why I called the governor (Dapo Abiodun), he said.

He said the Buhari administration inherited several stalled projects which he was committed to completing by adequately funding the projects.

Mr Fashola expressed satisfaction with the progress of work on the ongoing reconstruction/rehabilitation of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.

On his part, Governor Abiodun assured that the state government would give all the land and support needed.

Earlier, the Federal Controller of Works in Lagos, Olukayode Popoola, gave the measurements and dimensions needed for the bridges and interchange.

Mr Popoola also gave details on the number of buildings and services on the Right of Way of the bridges which, without paying compensations, would stall the project.

He said that section one of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway project, which spans from Ojota in Lagos to Sagamu Interchange has achieved 56 per cent completion.

Also, during inspection of section two of the project, which spans from the Sagamu Interchange to Ojoo in Ibadan, the Federal Controller of Works in Ogun, Umar Bakare, said the section was 63 per cent completed.

Conducting the minister through the site, Mr Bakare assured that all the challenges slowing down the project around the Ogere axis had been dealt with, helping construction get to the final layer on several portions.

He also showed the minister the Ajebo flyover destroyed by an articulated vehicle carrying an excavator higher than the headroom of the bridge.

(NAN)
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The Lagos State Ministry of Health has said it had arrested a fake nurse, Olufunke Adegbenro, employed by the state three months ago.

Tunbosun Ogunbanwo, the states ministry of health spokesperson, said in a statement Thursday that the fake nurse was caught during one of the audit and verification exercises carried out by the Health Service Commission in partnership with the National Association of Nigerian Nurses and Midwives.

The Permanent Secretary, Lagos State Health Service Commission, Muyiwa Eniayewun, said the verification exercise was to curb quackery and malpractice within the health sector.

Adegbenro has been practicing with fake certificates and professional license. She forged a Bachelor of Nursing degree from Ladoke Akintola University Ogbomosho, a National Youth Service discharge certificate, a registered Nurse Certificate and practicing license of Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria.

Her appointment has been terminated and she has been handed over to the Nigeria Police Force for further investigation and prosecution. We hope this will serve as a deterrent to other quacks, Mr Eniayewun said.

Mrs Adegbenro was employed by the Lagos State government during a recruitment exercise to cater for the shortage of manpower within the health sector.

Following her employment by the government, Mrs Adegbenro was deployed to Isolo General Hospital by the HSC where she discharged her duties before her arrest.

Mr Eniayewun said the verification exercise has been largely successful with reassuring results that will boost confidence in the public health sector.

There is no hiding place for quacks and unqualified health workers in Lagos State, we are more determined now more than ever to fish and flush them out, he said.

Meanwhile, the state has continued another phase of the recruitment exercise with successful candidates shortlisted to take a computer based test.

Mr Eniayewun, who addressed the shortlisted candidates on Thursday, said due diligence and investigation would be conducted on the application and credentials of all applicants at every stage of the exercise stressing that only qualified candidates would be employed.

The health sector is a sensitive sector where we cater for lives, as such, we have no tolerance for quackery and malpractices where human lives are involved.

Any candidates who applied for any of the advertised positions and hoping to get employed to the State public service with fake, forged or doctored credentials should rethink their decision and opt out now while they can or risk being caught and made to face the law.

Even after this exercise, we will continue with our due diligence for shortlisted and employed candidates; this, we have been doing in collaboration with all the health professionals bodies and associations including through our regulatory agencies, he said.

He warned that anyone caught with fake credentials risks arrest and possible jail term.

The official assured that the Health Service Commission will continue to ensure that only qualified human resources are employed and deployed to state-owned health facilities.
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The Lagos State Waste Management Agency (LAWMA) on Thursday said it has arrested 17 suspects over indiscriminate dumping of refuse and other environmental offences.

According to Hakeem Akinleye, the spokesperson of the agency, the offenders were arrested by LAWMA enforcement team at different locations in the state such as Oyingbo, Ayobo, Abule Egba, Agege Isokoko, Ikeja, and Ekoro Agbeleka, while committing the various offences.

He said most of the suspects were arrested dumping refuse indiscriminately at unapproved places, while one was arrested for open defecation.

Carts being used for refuse dumping were also impounded by the agency.

Mr Akinleye said the suspects were arraigned before the Lagos Magistrate Court at Oshodi, Isolo Local Government, and were sentenced for various offences.

The official said the magistrate sentenced 16 out of the 17 environmental offenders to one week imprisonment or a fine of N5,000 for illegal dumping of waste and defacing of the environment.

One of the offenders was sentenced to three months imprisonment or a fine of N100,000 for open defecation.

The agency said it is ready to stamp out all forms of indiscriminate dumping of refuse in the metropolis, urging residents to imbibe the tenets of cleaner environment and proper waste disposal, as there would be no hiding place for defaulters.

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Mr Akinyele said LAWMA will commence a special clean up exercise within its four operational districts, over the next one month, to clear pockets of illegal dumpsites.

PREMIUM TIMES had reported one of such dumpsites at Gengere community, Mile 12 area of the state, where cart pushers dump wastes indiscriminately.

Reacting to the report, the Managing Director of LAWMA, Ibrahim Odumboni, said the agency would continue to arrest and prosecute as many of the cart pushers as possible and also clear pockets of illegal dumpsites.

The proposed special cleanup exercise would start with the Lagos West District, followed by East, Central and Lekki Free Trade Zone (LFTZ) respectively, where two black spots will be identified in each district and diligently cleaned up, Mr Akinleye explained.

Also, in commemoration of the World Cleanup Day on 18 September, the agency urged Lagosians come out en masse to clean the state.

Our PSP operators, market men and women; environmental sanitation officers; civil societies; traders; Local Government and Local Council Development Areas; CDAs and CDCs; Members of FIBRA; Recyclers; Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs); and all lovers of the environment are all enjoined to rise up to the occasion and clean up the whole state as a collective responsibility, in order to have a cleaner environment and a city of our dream, the agency said.

Mr Odumboni said LAWMA will continue in its efforts to rid the state of all forms of indiscriminate dumping of refuse and also prosecute offenders.
BASEL, Switzerland, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Luye Pharma Switzerland AG ("Luye Switzerland"), a fully owned subsidiary of Luye Pharma Group (Luye Pharma), and Esteve Pharmaceuticals, S.A. (ESTEVE) announced today that they have entered into an agreement under which ESTEVE receives exclusive rights to commercialize the Rivastigmine Multi-Day Transdermal Patch in Spain. Developed by Luye Pharma, this new drug is used to treat mild to moderate dementia associated with Alzheimer's disease and has recently been granted marketing authorization in Spain.1 This product represents an important strategic addition to ESTEVE's central nervous system (CNS) portfolio, building on its depth of knowledge in this therapeutic area.

Xavier Valera, Managing Director Spain at ESTEVE commented: "This agreement allows ESTEVE to bring this innovative treatment to Spain and to complement our neurology-based portfolio in order to improve the quality of life of our patients."

"The collaboration with ESTEVE represents an important milestone in our commitment to addressing unmet needs for senior patients in Europe. By leveraging ESTEVE's extensive CNS experience and strong business operating system, we believe we will soon be able to bring this new therapy to patients in Europe," said Bruno Delie, General Manager of Luye Switzerland. "We aim to improve the quality of life for people suffering from dementia, as well as their families, friends and caregivers."

Alzheimer's disease remains a major global health issue, and the number of patients is constantly growing. As the development of new drugs in this therapeutic area is still a challenge, Rivastigmine, which is marketed worldwide, is a first-line medicine in the treatment of dementia associated with Alzheimer's disease.

About Rivastigmine MD

Rivastigmine Multi-Day Transdermal Patch (Rivastigmine MD) is a twice-weekly innovative patch formulation for the treatment of mild to moderate dementia associated with Alzheimer's disease.1 The product was developed by Luye Pharma group on its proprietary transdermal patch platform and is one of the company's core products in the central nervous system field.

Rivastigmine is in a class of medicines called cholinesterase inhibitors. These medicines can improve cognitive functions such as memory and thinking by increasing the amount of a certain natural substance in the brain and amplifying the communication channels between never cells, which are less active in individuals with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease. The drug is currently available in the form of daily administration tablets and patches.2

The product will be registered in major global markets, including Europe, Japan, and China. In May 2020, the Application for Marketing Authorization for this product in countries within the European Union was accepted for review by competent authorities of the European Union. In September 2020, the product was approved by the Center for Drug Evaluation of China's National Medical Products Administration to initiate clinical trials in that country. In February 2021, the exclusive rights to develop and commercialize the new drug in Japan were granted to Towa Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (''Towa''). This treatment is soon to start phase III clinical trials in Japan. Luye Pharma also plans to register this product in the U.S. and other countries.

About Luye Pharma Group

Luye Pharma Group (Luye Pharma), a member of Luye Life Sciences Group, is an international pharmaceutical company dedicated to the R&D, manufacturing, and sale of innovative medications. The company has established R&D centers in China, the U.S. and Europe, with a robust pipeline of over 30 drug candidates in China and more than 10 drug candidates in other international markets. Along with a number of new drugs and new formulations in the Central nervous system and oncology therapeutic areas under study in the U.S., Europe and Japan, Luye Pharma has reached high-level international standards in novel drug delivery technologies including microspheres, liposomes, and transdermal drug delivery systems, as well as actively making strategic developments in the fields of biological antibodies, cell therapies and gene therapies, among others.

Luye Pharma is developing a global supply chain of 8 manufacturing sites with over 30 production lines in total, establishing GMP quality management and international standard control systems. With more than 30 products covering the central nervous system, oncology, cardiovascular, metabolism and other therapeutic areas, business is conducted in over 80 countries and regions around the world, including the largest pharmaceutical markets - China, the U.S., Europe, and Japan, as well as in fast-growing emerging markets.

About ESTEVE

ESTEVE (www.esteve.com) is an international pharmaceutical company with headquarters in Barcelona. Its mission is to advance in innovation to improve the lives of people and, since it was founded in 1929, it has focused on providing solutions for medical needs that are not yet covered. ESTEVE has a significant presence in Europe and the USA. The company operates in the US through subsidiaries and its own production facilities dedicated to the development and manufacture of active pharmaceutical ingredients in Spain, Mexico and China, as well as a pharmaceutical plant in Germany.

References

1- Ficha Tecnica Alzerta dos por semana parches transdermicos. Agosto 2021 https://cima.aemps.es/cima/dochtml/ft/86148/FT_86148.html

2- Winblad B et al. Int J Geriatr Psychiatry 2007; 22: 456467

SOURCE Luye Pharma
H.E. Vice-Minister for Mining Affairs Khalid Al-Mudaifer details the country's mining transformation as it grows to become Saudi Arabia's third pillar of industrial growth

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, Sept. 2, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- In an interview this week during Mines and Money Online Connect, His Excellency Khalid Al-Mudaifer, Vice-Minister of Mining Affairs for the Saudi Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources, shared with a global audience of investors the reasons why Saudi Arabia is rapidly emerging as a major mining destination.

"Saudi Arabia is very much open for business, and we have taken many transformational steps to make investing in mining more attractive than ever before," said Eng. Al-Mudaifer. "Plus, because of what investors have told us are critical success factors, we have a new national mind-set, deeper understanding of the complexities of mining and a greater focus on stability and predictability. Combined with a rich and diverse geological footprint, a transformed mining sector and a sharp focus on sustainability, we can make a compelling case that Saudi Arabia is a mining country in the making."

The Vice-Minister highlighted three primary attractions for investors: Geology, Mining Ecosystem and Sustainability.

Geology

The Arabian Shield is estimated to contain $1.3 trillion worth of potential mineral value, across numerous commodities, including gold, copper, phosphate, iron ore and rare earth minerals, many of which are critical to the technologies that will drive a sustainable future, and which are in high demand.

worth of potential mineral value, across numerous commodities, including gold, copper, phosphate, iron ore and rare earth minerals, many of which are critical to the technologies that will drive a sustainable future, and which are in high demand. The recently launched National Geological Database provides online access to 80 years' worth of national records of geological, geophysical and geochemical information, including thousands of detailed reports on mining targets and prospects.

Also recently announced, a major Regional Geological Survey Program is now under way and will conduct geophysical and geochemical surveys and create detailed mapping of more than 700,000 square kilometers of the Arabian Shield.

To meet the Paris Agreement goals on climate, the global supply of copper and rare earth minerals will need to increase by 40 percent, while nickel and cobalt needs will go up by 60 percent to 70 percent, and lithium requirements will expand by 90 percent. All of those pivotal elements feature in Saudi Arabia's rich geology

Mining Ecosystem

Saudi Vision 2030 singled out mining to grow to become the third pillar of the country's industrial growth, which led to the development of a comprehensive Mining and Mining Industries Development Strategy, which has identified nearly 40 initiatives, most of which already are up and running.

Saudi Arabia's legal and regulatory framework for mining is being transformed and is now designed to ensure efficient and transparent licensing; simplify doing business; and support a dynamic, sustainable mining industry.

- Based on global best practice, a completely revised Mining Investment Law was issued late last year, and now supports a clear and transparent process for license applications and approvals

- The new "Ta-adin" web-based platform offers a single point of access for mining license applications, issuance and information

- New incentives have been implemented, including the provision of co-funding up to 75 percent of investment, a five-year royalty holiday for miners, discounts on royalties for local downstream production and support for Saudization costs

legal and regulatory framework for mining is being transformed and is now designed to ensure efficient and transparent licensing; simplify doing business; and support a dynamic, sustainable mining industry. - Based on global best practice, a completely revised Mining Investment Law was issued late last year, and now supports a clear and transparent process for license applications and approvals - The new "Ta-adin" web-based platform offers a single point of access for mining license applications, issuance and information - New incentives have been implemented, including the provision of co-funding up to 75 percent of investment, a five-year royalty holiday for miners, discounts on royalties for local downstream production and support for Saudization costs The Kingdom already has attracted significant amounts of domestic and international investment in mining commodities like gold, phosphate and aluminum.

To a degree, this prior success has been based on a variety of 'baked in' advantages for prospective investors, such as:

- High domestic demand for mineral outputs

- Geographic placement in a key part of the world and proximity to end-user markets in major geographies, including MENA, Asia and Europe

- Safety and security, as ranked by the World Economic Forum's security index

- Continuous progress in 'ease of doing business', with the World Bank placing Saudi Arabia in the top 10 in terms of an improving business climate

- Strong infrastructure, including roads, rail, ports and electricity networks, and significant investments in water utilization and infrastructure.

Sustainability

The Mining Sustainability Principle aims to protect the environment and the health and safety of workers in the sector.

The Kingdom has launched the Mining Sector Sustainability Assurance Initiative, which aims to create a sector that is focused on balancing economic value and environmental protection.

The country's new mining law ensures that sustainable practices are a foremost priority for new mining operators as they apply for licenses.

Finally, Vice-Minister Al-Mudaifer announced details of the inaugural Future Minerals Summit (FMS), the first-ever event to offer a 'one-stop-shop' for investors, miners and other industry stakeholders interested in learning more about the mining potential of the Middle East, Central Asia, and North and East Africa.

Planned for January 11 to 13, 2022, in Riyadh, FMS will welcome attendees from around the world, including governments, investors, and mining majors and corporates. The Summit program is being built around four pillars:

Defining a New Mining Hub  Showcasing opportunities across the Middle East , Central Asia , and North and East Africa

, , and North and Lands of Opportunity  Outlining partnership opportunities across integrated value chains

Reimagining Mining  Shining a spotlight on innovations that will support mining in the future

Mining's Contribution to Society  Highlighting the industry's vital role in producing the inputs needed to create a circular carbon future, as well as attracting the workforce of the future

In addition to the Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources, FMS has been endorsed by the Ministry of Investment, Public Investment Fund and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

For more information, visit www.futuremineralssummit.com.

TWEETS

Saudi Arabia emerging as major mining destination for investors due to geology, industry ecosystem and sustainability focus #KSAMining #MinesandMoney Arabian Shield mineral value estimated at $1.3 trillion of minerals that will power a sustainable future #KSAMining #MinesandMoney Transformation of KSA's mining legal and regulatory framework designed to ensure efficient and transparent licensing #KSAMining #MinesandMoney Sustainability is central to the KSA mining sector, demonstrated by its principles and sustainability assurance initiative #KSAMining #MinesandMoney

SOURCE The Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources (MIM)
BANGALORE, India, Sept. 15, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Lithium-iron Phosphate Batteries Market by Type (Portable and Stationary), Capacity (016,250 mAh, 16,25150,000 mAh, 50,001100,000 mAh, and 100,001540,000 mAh), and Application (Automotive, Power Generation, Industrial, and Others): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 20212030. It is published in Valuates Reports under the Electronics & Electrical Category.

The global lithium-iron phosphate batteries market size was valued at USD 5.6 billion in 2020, and the lithium-iron phosphate batteries market is forecast to reach USD 9.9 billion by 2030 at a CAGR of 5.9% from 2021 to 2030.

Major factors driving the growth of lithium ion batteries are:

The principal factor driving demand for the lithium-iron phosphate batteries market is the increasing demand from the automotive industry, particularly electric vehicles and creative breakthroughs in lightweight materials.

Furthermore, throughout the forecast period, growth in sales of electric vehicles and energy storage across the globe is likely to generate significant opportunities for the lithium-iron phosphate batteries market.

Lithium-iron phosphate batteries have various advantages over other types of battery materials, including lighter weight technology, faster charging, longer cycle life, and reduced energy waste, all of which are pushing the lithium-iron phosphate batteries market worldwide.

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TRENDS INFLUENCING THE GROWTH OF LITHIUM-IRON PHOSPHATE BATTERIES MARKET

During the projected period, growth in sales of electric vehicles and energy storage is expected to generate significant opportunities for the lithium-iron phosphate batteries market players. Manufacturers are concentrating their efforts on better solutions for individual needs, as well as technological improvements, in order to lower operating costs and increase the productivity of lithium-iron phosphate batteries. These criteria have enhanced the lithium-iron phosphate batteries market prospects in a variety of end-use applications, including automotive, industrial, and power generation.

Growing awareness of global warming has fuelled the demand for environmentally friendly batteries. LiFePO4 batteries are safer for the environment than lead-acid batteries since their electrodes are constructed of non-toxic elements. They may also be recycled for the materials used in their electrodes, wires, and casings, which can then be reused in new lithium batteries. Furthermore, LiFePO4 batteries, in comparison to other lithium battery technologies, use more available and non-toxic ingredients that require less energy to manufacture. LiFePO4 batteries are also a better alternative for electricity storage in zero-emission renewable electricity, wind, and solar power systems due to their performance and safety.

In comparison to other batteries, the lithium-iron phosphate battery has a high energy density, allowing it to be manufactured into battery packs of any size. Weather monitoring devices, ocean buoys, paddleboards, transportation systems, robotics, and other consumer items have all made use of it. During the projected period, the increased use of the above products around the world will create lucrative chances for the lithium-iron phosphate batteries market to develop.

However, higher up-front costs of lithium-iron phosphate batteries compared to alternative batteries, low reserve capacity, and concerns about battery damage if over or under-charged are projected to stymie lithium-iron phosphate battery sales during the forecast period.

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LITHIUM-IRON PHOSPHATE BATTERIES MARKET SHARE ANALYSIS:

By region, the Asia-Pacific regional market is projected to grow at the highest CAGR in terms of revenue, during the forecast period. The North American market is also likely to play an important role in driving the demand for lithium iron phosphate batteries.

By type, the portable segment accounted for the largest lithium-iron phosphate batteries market share in 2020 and will create abundant opportunities for growth till 2030. This is due to increased demand for LiFePO4 batteries from the automobile industry, which is the primary demand generator. However, as demand for renewable energy storage projects grows, the stationary application segment will compete with the portable application segment in the coming years.

Based on application, the automobile segment is likely to rise significantly in the next few years. Automotive manufacturers are putting a lot of effort into developing unconventional energy storage battery systems that can improve vehicle efficiency and performance. Lithium iron phosphate batteries are expected to be the most popular alternative energy storage battery technology due to their high energy density and extended cycle duration. As a result, rising demand for automobiles in nations like China is expected to drive up demand for lithium iron phosphate batteries.

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Key Market Segments

By Type

Portable

Stationary

By Capacity

016,250 mAh

16,25150,000 mAh

50,001100,000 mAh

100,001540,000 mAh

By Application

Automotive

Power Generation

Industrial

Others

By Region

North America

U.S.



Canada



Mexico

Europe

Germany



France



Italy



Spain



UK



Rest of Europe

Asia-Pacific

China



Japan



India



South Korea



Rest of Asia Pacific

LAMEA

Brazil



Saudi Arabia



South Africa



Rest of LAMEA

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SIMILAR REPORTS :

- Global Fixed Lithium Iron Phosphate Battery Sales Market Research Report contains Market Size, Market Share, Market Dynamics, Porter's 5 force Analysis, Segmentation, Regional and Competitor Analysis. Product: Fixed Lithium Iron Phosphate Battery, Product-Type: 016, 250 mAh, 16, 25150, 000 mAh, 50, 001100, 000 mAh, 100, 001540, 000 mAh, Application: Automotive, Power, Industrial, Others.

- In 2020, the global Lithium Iron Phosphate market size was USD 1050.7 million and it is expected to reach USD 1743.8 million by the end of 2027, with a CAGR of 7.3% during 2021-2027.TE

- Global Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePO4) Material Sales Market Research Report contains Market Size, Market Share, Market Dynamics, Porter's 5 force Analysis, Segmentation, Regional and Competitor Analysis. Product-Type: Ethylene carbonate, Phosphorus trichloride, Phosphorus pentachloride, Graphite, Lithium Fluoride, Lithium iron phosphate, Polyvinylidene Fluoride, Others, Application: Consumer Electronics, Electric and Hybrid Electric Vehicles, Renewable Energy Generation, Others.

- The Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePO4) Materials and Battery market is analysed and market size information is provided by regions (countries). Segment by Application, the Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePO4) Materials and Battery market is segmented into North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia, India and Other Regions.

- The global lithium-ion battery market was valued at USD 36.7 billion in 2019, and is projected to hit USD129.3 billion by 2027, at a CAGR of 18.0% from 2020 to 2027.

- The global graphene battery market size was valued at USD 48.8 million in 2019 and is projected to reach USD 398.6 million by 2027, to register a CAGR of 31.2% during the forecast period.

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- In 2020, the global Lithium Metal market size was USD 487.8 million and it is expected to reach USD 926.6 million by the end of 2027, with a CAGR of 9.6% during 2021-2027.

- The global Battery-Grade Lithium Carbonate market was valued at USD 14980 in 2020 and will reach USD 28940 million by the end of 2027, growing at a CAGR of 11.6% during 2022-2027.

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In connection with the Rights Issue, BRI is offering a maximum of 28,2 billion of its Series B shares. The Rights trading period is from September 13-22. During this period, eligible Shareholders will be able to exercise their Rights. Rights Shares will be allotted and/or delivered to eligible Shareholders from September 15-24.

BRI's President Director Sunarso said that approximately IDR 54.7 trillion of the proceeds from the Rights Issue will be used in connection with the Ultra Micro Business Combination. Which from the subscription of the Government of the Republic of Indonesia in the form of in-kind contribution (inbreng) of its shares in Pegadaian and PNM as its capital payment for the Rights.

Sunarso added that the remaining proceeds of the Rights Issue, in the form of cash, will be used for working capital for BRI in order to develop an ultra-micro ecosystem as well as micro and small businesses. The Ultra Micro Business Combination is expected to accelerate BRI to achieve its vision of becoming "The Most Valuable Banking Group in Southeast Asia" and "Champion of Financial Inclusion".

Indonesia's Growing Micro And Ultra-Micro Ecosystems

Indonesia's micro and ultra-micro ecosystems have played a crucial role in supporting the country's economic growth, and BRI has been playing a proactive role in developing these sectors. BRI believes that there are 45 million ultra-micro businesses in Indonesia in 2019, and BRI believes that out of which there were only around 20 million ultra-micro businesses that obtained access to funding from formal sources.

"Focusing on the ultra-micro ecosystem, we aim to provide ultra-micro customers with wider accessibility to financial institutions. This aligns to our company's vision to consistently grow the ultra-micro and MSME sectors in Indonesia. We invite investors to take advantage of this opportunity and participate in the huge transformation of ultra-micro ecosystem," said Sunarso.

NOT FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART IN OR INTO THE UNITED STATES, CANADA OR JAPAN

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1627394/WhatsApp_Image_2021_09_16_at_08_00_55.jpg

SOURCE PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia Tbk (BRI)
LA PALMA, Calif., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- LOTTE Chemical California, Inc. announces 15 exceptional color additions to its Radianz line of premium quartz surfaces. The new colors and patterns are available now from LOTTE dealer and distributor partners throughout North America. Eleven of the 15 new colors are being produced at the company's Turkey manufacturing facility, recently expanded to include a third production line.

The new colors in the Radianz Cirrus Prestige Collection are inspired by the enduring beauty and luxurious look of precious metals. The stunning new Cirrus Prestige Collection colors feature exquisite silver and gold veining, a design that can only be achieved with LOTTE's proprietary manufacturing process, delicately weaving the metallic powders through the quartz composite for a natural-looking result.

New Cirrus Prestige Collection colors :

Aquarius  deep oceanic blue with glimmering silver veining

deep oceanic blue with glimmering silver veining Aries  subtle gray with subtle silver veins that sparkle

subtle gray with subtle silver veins that sparkle Pegasus  attractive gray with intermingled shimmering silver and gray-blue veining

attractive gray with intermingled shimmering silver and gray-blue veining Starry  a nuanced, night-inspired brown with rich, gold undertones

Statuario Crux  a rich gray with bold, dispersed veins

New Cirrus Collection colors :

Alinda  warm white with peppery gray veining

warm white with peppery gray veining Carola  soothing, milky rich white

Carrara Bella  a rich gray color with thin, delicate veining

Carrara Bianca  a rich gray color with light veining

a rich gray color with light veining Carrara Luca  a rich gray color with compact, thin veining

Minta  warm white with gentle gray veins

Spa Black  soothing deep black with stencil-like white veins

New Classic Collection colors :

Angel White  classic and clean white

 classic and clean white Polar White  white peppered with subtle translucent flecks and darker speckles

Pacifica White  an understated white emanating a soft, subtle blue hue

"In addition to becoming a leader in the volume of premium quartz we can produce, LOTTE continues to demonstrate we are already a leader in the creation of the industry's most beautiful patterns and stunning colors," stated John Kim, director of the architectural products team for LOTTE Chemical California, Inc. "The 2021 additions to our Radianz quartz line will become immediate favorites to architects, interior designers, and the clients they serve."

Composed of up to 93% natural quartz, Radianz countertops are hygienic, scratch and stain resistant, and offer exceptional durability for both commercial and residential applications. Radianz quartz surfaces are Certified Class A fire rated, resistant to heat, and manufactured with LOTTE's environmentally-friendly process, earning GREENGUARD, GREENGUARD GOLD, and LEED certifications.

About LOTTE Chemical California, Inc.

LOTTE manufactures and markets high-performance decorative surfacing materials for residential and commercial applications around the globe. Originally part of the Samsung family of companies, LOTTE Chemical California, Inc. is rapidly expanding its North American presence through the company's solid-surface brand, Staron, a seamless and thermo-formable, acrylic product suitable for a wide range of commercial applications. The quartz surface brand, Radianz, is a premium engineered surface designed to be ultra-durable. The Locelain sintered-stone collection features a high-quality natural stone look and superb durability. Through cutting-edge technology and insights into worldwide market trends, LOTTE continues to excel in today's surface industry.

Contact:

Ray Vincenzo

(206) 290-4431

[email protected]

SOURCE LOTTE Chemical California, Inc.
The new Thermo Scientific Gallery Enzyme Master and Thermo Scientific Gallery Plus Enzyme Master analyzers are the first automated discrete analyzers designed specifically for enzyme assay applications. The systems combine hardware and new custom-designed software to deliver fully automated incubation settings, reagent additions and precise measurement calculations, all at the touch of a button. By automating these critical steps, the analyzers streamline method development and deliver reliable results for enzyme analysis.

"Traditional enzyme assays involve a manual process that can generate inconsistent results," said Dino Alfano, vice president and general manager, ion chromatography and sample preparation, Thermo Fisher Scientific. "Manual methods are usually only suitable for a few samples or limited enzyme types. Therefore, there is a growing need for a single, automated instrument to modernize enzyme analysis. These new enzyme analyzers were developed to effectively manage many enzymes, substrates and methods in a single instrument, and deliver reproducible and dependable results with minimal user input required."

Erica Fritse, global QC governance manager, DSM, said, "When considering an alternative for our aging population of discrete analyzers, we decided to replace them with the new Thermo Scientific Gallery Plus Enzyme Master. This system ensures we can continue with temperature-controlled measurement of the activity of our enzymes. We use the Gallery Plus Enzyme Master for R&D and QC release on one, easy-to-use, automated system. A big advantage is the central, global management of the measuring protocols. This makes it easier than ever to assure the use of the latest updated methods."

The Gallery Enzyme Master systems can effectively handle many different enzyme assays and measuring conditions. The analyzers offer efficient and reliable enzyme analysis across a wide range of industriesfrom enzyme manufacturers to the animal feed and pet food industryand have the flexibility to be used in applications from method development to routine analysis.

To find out more about the Thermo Scientific Gallery Enzyme Master enzyme analyzers, please visit www.thermofisher.com/enzymeanalysis.

About Thermo Fisher Scientific

Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. is the world leader in serving science, with annual revenue exceeding $30 billion. Our Mission is to enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer. Whether our customers are accelerating life sciences research, solving complex analytical challenges, improving patient diagnostics and therapies or increasing productivity in their laboratories, we are here to support them. Our global team of more than 80,000 colleagues delivers an unrivaled combination of innovative technologies, purchasing convenience and pharmaceutical services through our industry-leading brands, including Thermo Scientific, Applied Biosystems, Invitrogen, Fisher Scientific, Unity Lab Services and Patheon. For more information, please visit www.thermofisher.com.

Media Contact Information:

Laura Bright

Thermo Fisher Scientific

+1 562-335-8318

[email protected]

Janice Foley

BioStrata

+1 617-823-5555

[email protected]

SOURCE Thermo Fisher Scientific

Related Links

http://www.thermofisher.com


MIAMI, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Boyne Capital ("Boyne") is pleased to announce that one of its affiliates has acquired a majority stake in Sonic Systems International, LLC ("Sonic" or the "Company"), a leading provider of mission-critical support services to the commercial nuclear power industry.

Based in Wilmington, NC and Houston, TX, Sonic's highly skilled workforce of nuclear-certified technicians provides a range of services including non-destructive evaluation, QA/QC, refueling/reactor maintenance, engineering and project management. The Company serves a majority of U.S. commercial nuclear reactors, the country's most reliable and largest source of carbon-free electrical power. Since the Company's founding in 1977, Sonic has developed a leading reputation for safety, professionalism and technical excellence, enabling it to become a long-term trusted supplier to leading nuclear OEMs and utilities. Sonic is led by CEO Bruce Schlueter who brings significant leadership experience in the non-destructive evaluation and industrial services industries.

Boyne partnered on the transaction with Breakwater North LLC ("Breakwater North"), whose Managing Partners, Ryan Mills and David Faherty, bring energy finance and direct nuclear operating experience, having served as naval nuclear engineers aboard aircraft carriers and submarines, respectively. Main Street Capital Corporation provided debt financing and an equity co-investment to support the transaction.

Boyne Managing Partner and CEO, Derek McDowell, said: "The Boyne team is pleased to join forces with Sonic's management team and Breakwater North. Sonic differentiates itself with deep, long-tenured customer relationships, built upon its consistent reliability and responsiveness as a partner. We are excited about Sonic's position to capitalize on the revived growth of the nuclear power industry."

Former Sonic President, Dale Holbrook, said: "I am tremendously proud of the growth of the Company over the last decade, and I believe the additional resources the new investors bring will enable the Company to become an even stronger industry supplier going forward. I look forward to remaining on the Board and supporting Bruce and the rest of the team on Sonic's next phase of growth."

Breakwater North's Managing Partners, David Faherty and Ryan Mills, added: "We look forward to working with Boyne and Company management to pursue several exciting strategic initiatives, as we seek to expand Sonic's breadth of services and enhance the Company's reputation as a vendor of choice to the nuclear industry and other highly specialized industries."

Sonic represents the latest platform investment in BCM Fund II ("Fund"). Boyne Capital is dedicated to investing in the lower middle market sector, specifically companies with revenues of less than $100 million and with EBITDA of $3 million to $15 million.

About Boyne

Boyne Capital is a Florida-based private equity firm focused on investments in lower middle market companies. Founded in 2006, Boyne has successfully invested in a broad range of industries, including healthcare services, consumer products, niche manufacturing, and business and financial services among others. Beyond financial resources, Boyne provides industry and operational expertise to its portfolio companies and partners with management to drive both company performance and growth. Boyne specializes in providing the capital necessary to fund corporate growth and facilitate owners' and shareholders' partial or full exit. For more information, please visit www.boynecapital.com or call 305.856.9500.

About Breakwater North

Breakwater North is a private investment and advisory firm focused on unique acquisition and growth opportunities in the middle and lower-middle markets. The team consists of experienced finance professionals and naval nuclear engineers with greater than $30 billion of transaction experience and over ten years of active-duty military and nuclear power operational experience. Breakwater North is uniquely positioned to access and capitalize on exclusive, targeted opportunities leveraging a deep network of professionals across a wide range of industries. For more information, please visit www.breakwaternorth.com.

About Main Street

Main Street is a principal investment firm that primarily provides long-term debt and equity capital to lower middle market companies and debt capital to middle market companies. Main Street's portfolio investments are typically made to support management buyouts, recapitalizations, growth financings, refinancings and acquisitions of companies that operate in diverse industry sectors. Main Street seeks to partner with entrepreneurs, business owners and management teams and generally provides "one stop" financing alternatives within its lower middle market portfolio. Main Street's lower middle market companies generally have annual revenues between $10 million and $150 million. Main Street's middle market debt investments are made in businesses that are generally larger in size than its lower middle market portfolio companies. For more information, please visit www.mainstcapital.com.

Media Contact

Renny Sie

[email protected]

SOURCE Boyne Capital

Related Links

https://www.boynecapital.com/


WASHINGTON, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- BW Global Group, LLC, (BWGG) a human rights and government accountability advocacy firm in Washington, D.C., today, filed a formal communication with the Office of the Prosecutor ("OTP") of the International Criminal Court ("ICC"). This filing was submitted pursuant to Article 15 of the Rome Statute  of which the Nigerian Government is a signatory. The filing specifically addresses the atrocities committed by governmental forces and/or affiliated paramilitary forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria against members of the Indigenous People of Biafra ("IPOB") in Southeast Nigeria. "The body of evidence against Nigeria and its systematic and repressive campaign against the IPOB in southern Nigeria has for too long been ignored by the international community. Today, we are petitioning the International Criminal Court to investigate the criminal acts of the Nigerian government  many of which have been well-documented by leading human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, leading news publications worldwide, and policy groups such as the Council on Foreign Relations," asserted Alan White, BWGG partner and Petitioner.

Amnesty International has documented a catalogue of human rights violations that the Nigerian government has taken against the IPOB. These crimes under international law include: mass arrests, excessive and unlawful force, and torture. The BWGG petition to the ICC expands the Nigerian government's crimes to also include international rendition of the regime's political opponents. (Editor's Note: The IPOB Leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu  a British National  was caught, held and tortured in Kenya for 9 days and was unlawfully transported to Nigeria by its Security Agents (DSS) (June 19-29, 2021) in an unlawful rendition operation. Kanu was denied legal counsel for weeks and Kanu has yet to appear in Nigerian court.)

Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ), Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Africa Subcommittee stated, "Genocide is happening right before our eyes. The United States and the international community must do to more to mitigate the violence because the dire situation on the ground warrants it and because the people of Nigeria deserve to live in peace and freedom with their fundamental human rights guaranteed." In a related Congressional statement, Mr. Smith continued, "President Buhari has done little to staunch  crimes against humanity."

Dr. White noted that BWGG will advocate within the ICC for swift action, calling the ICC the judicial body of last resort  noting that the Nigeran government cannot police its own human rights responsibilities, and this paves the way for the ICC to assume responsibility for the well-being of the Biafran people.

BW Global Group is registered with the U.S. Department of Justice as an agent of the IPOB. Additional information is available to the public.

BWGG 20 F Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20001 202-507-6397

SOURCE BW Global Group, LLC
PARIS and BOSTON, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Cardiologs , a global leader in artificial intelligence (AI) cardiology diagnostics, is collaborating with cardiologists at three medical centers in France to strengthen their cardiology services. Over the past year, Pasteur Clinic (Toulouse), Ambroise Pare Clinic (Neuilly sur Seine) and Cardioreliance  Centre Cardiologique d'Orleans  Pole Sante Oreliance center (Orleans) have all started using the company's deep learning platform to support clinicians with automated electrocardiogram (ECG) analysis and diagnostics.

"Since the coronavirus crisis began, medical centers have been quick to realize the challenges they face in managing care for patients with cardiac conditions, including the time it takes to read and assess the growing number of ECGs being processed. The added pressure of the Covid-19 pandemic on providers has made any solution that saves time and promotes telemedicine essential. As a result, we're starting to see a significant uptick in the use of AI, which provides essential support for clinicians so they can dedicate their energy to the treatment of patients." said Yann Fleureau, CEO of Cardiologs.

"Our deployment coincided with the first quarantine in March 2020, and cloud technology, accessible from any terminal with the internet, was vital," said Dr. Olivier Genee, a cardiologist at Cardioreliance  Centre Cardiologique d'Orleans  Pole Sante Oreliance. "Cardiologs has since enabled all those involved in rhythmology to continue to work and collaborate remotely."

"The Oreliance health center was the first establishment to have subscribed to the solution offered by Cardiologs via its distributor Microport. The deployment was rapid and very efficient: we quickly succeeded in reducing the processing times for Holter-type assessments, and we are now able to deliver a diagnosis within two to three days at most, " testifies Dr. Olivier Genee. A much-appreciated benefit in the context of additional pressure linked to the Covid-19 pandemic. "Its adoption coincided with the first lockdown, in March 2020, and cloud technology, accessible from any terminal with the internet, has been beneficial for working and collaborating remotely," he adds.

Ambroise Pare Clinic in Neuilly-sur-Seine deployed Cardiologs in January 2021. Since then, the platform has also enabled rhythmologists to strengthen the analysis of long-term Holter electrocardiograms. The team says Cardiologs has improved its diagnostic profitability, and the clinic is now able to offer more long-term Holter examination appointments.

"By saving time on long-term ECG analyzes, we were able to increase the number of appointments to meet demand," said Dr. Arnaud Lazarus, a Rhythmologist at the Ambroise Pare Clinic. "The ability to connect at any time and from any location also gives us much greater flexibility. What's more, the effectiveness of Cardiologs analysis provided significant time-saving benefits. Today we have significantly fewer false positives to sort through."

"The adoption of Cardiologs has opened up new possibilities for us. By saving time on long-term ECG analyses, we were able to increase their number and strengthen this activity to meet demand without increasing the analysis software specific to each manufacturer of Holter recorders. The ability to connect at any time and from any location also gives us much greater flexibility," confirms Doctor Arnaud Lazarus of the Ambroise Pare clinic.

The Pasteur Clinic in Toulouse, recognized worldwide for its cardiology service, integrated Cardiologs into its diagnostic arsenal at the start of the year as well. Within weeks of deploying the solution, the clinic saw a noticeable increase in the processing of ECGs, which resulted in a 40% increase in the number of Holter data analyzes.

"Within a few weeks, we saw a noticeable acceleration in the processing of Holter results, as a result of significantly cutting down on analysis time. We were also able to speed up access to this exam in under three weeks," said Dr. Romain Cassagneau, Rhythmologist at the Pasteur Clinic in Toulouse. "The reliability of Cardiologs' technology enabled the adoption of the software by the entire medical practice, who are now relieved of a time-consuming task that required substantial concentration. This has allowed us to increase our Holter business, and above everything else, to delegate the analysis and classification of signals to AI."

About Cardiologs

Cardiologs is a medical technology company committed to transforming cardiac diagnostics using medical-grade artificial intelligence and cloud technology. Developed in partnership with leading physicians, the Cardiologs Platform empowers clinicians worldwide to deliver expert cardiac care faster and more efficiently. CE-Marked and FDA cleared for detection of 14 cardiac arrhythmias, the Cardiologs Platform is built on a growing database of more than 20 million ECG recordings and is supported by a number of clinical publications.

Media Contact:

Andrea LePain

eMedia Junction

[email protected]

617-275-8112

SOURCE Cardiologs

Related Links

https://cardiologs.com/


NEW YORK, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Cerberus Telecom Acquisition Corp . (NYSE: CTAC.U) (NYSE: CTAC) (NYSE: CTAC WS) ("CTAC") today announced that the Extraordinary Special Meeting ("Special Meeting") of its shareholders, originally scheduled for Thursday, September 16, 2021, is being postponed to 10:00 a.m., Wednesday, September 22, 2021.

As of 5:00 p.m. Tuesday, September 14, 2021, 90.39% of CTAC's public shareholders had tendered their shares for redemption. The Company plans to continue to solicit proxies from public shareholders during the period prior to the Special Meeting. Only the holders of record of CTAC's ordinary shares as of the close of business on August 9, 2021, the record date for the Special Meeting, are entitled to vote at the Special Meeting.

The Special Meeting will take place in person at Ugland House, Grand Cayman, KY1- 1104, Cayman Islands, and virtually via live webcast at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time on September 22, 2021. It can be accessed by visiting https://www.cstproxy.com/ctac/sm2021. The proxy statement is available in the "Documents" section of the CTAC website and on the SEC's website at http://www.sec.gov.

CTAC recommends that its shareholders wishing to vote at the Special Meeting log in at least 15 minutes before the Special Meeting starts, if attending virtually. CTAC encourages its shareholders entitled to vote at the Special Meeting to vote their shares via proxy in advance of the Special Meeting by following the instructions on the proxy card.

A list of CTAC shareholders entitled to vote at the Special Meeting will be open to the examination of any CTAC shareholder, for any purpose germane to the Special Meeting, during regular business hours for a period of 10 calendar days before the Special Meeting.

For assistance voting your shares, please contact Morrow Sodali LLC, CTAC's proxy solicitor, toll-free at 1-(800) 662-5200 or via email at [email protected] .

About CTAC

Cerberus Telecom Acquisition Corp. ("CTAC") is a blank check company formed by an affiliate of Cerberus Capital Management, L.P. ("Cerberus"), a global leader in alternative investing. CTAC is led by CEO Tim Donahue, former Executive Chairman of Sprint Nextel and former CEO of Nextel Communications, and is proud to have the support of a distinguished advisory board comprised of senior executives and business leaders from the information and communications technology sector. For more information, visit www.cerberusacquisition.com .

About Cerberus

Founded in 1992, Cerberus is a global leader in alternative investing with approximately $50 billion in assets across complementary credit, private equity, and real estate strategies. Cerberus invests across the capital structure where its integrated investment platforms and proprietary operating capabilities create an edge to improve performance and drive long-term value. Cerberus's tenured teams have experience working collaboratively across asset classes, sectors, and geographies to seek strong risk-adjusted returns for its investors. Cerberus has a dedicated focus on next-generation technologies and telecommunication solutions. Its team of technologists and network of advisors collaborate across its investment and operating platforms to identify opportunities and manage investments in critical IoT, edge computing, artificial intelligence, private wireless networks, network equipment, autonomy, aerospace, and ecosystem development. For more information about its people and platforms, visit Cerberus at www.cerberus.com.

Media Contact

Michael Dolio

CTAC

Mobile +1-929-280-1026

[email protected]

Important Information and Where to Find It

This press release references the proposed merger transaction announced previously involving Cerberus Telecom Acquisition Corp. ("CTAC") and KORE. CTAC and King Pubco, Inc. ("Pubco") filed a registration statement on Form S-4 with the SEC, which includes a proxy statement of CTAC and a prospectus of Pubco, and CTAC will file other documents regarding the proposed transaction with the SEC. A definitive proxy statement/prospectus was sent to the shareholders of CTAC, seeking required shareholder approval. Before making any voting or investment decision, investors and security holders of CTAC are urged to carefully read the entire registration statement and proxy statement/prospectus and any other relevant documents filed with the SEC, as well as any amendments or supplements to these documents, because they will contain important information about the proposed transaction. The documents filed by CTAC with the SEC may be obtained free of charge at the SEC's website at http://www.sec.gov. In addition, the documents filed by CTAC with the SEC may be obtained free of charge from CTAC's website at www.cerberusacquisition.com or upon written request to Cerberus Telecom Acquisition Corp., 875 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10022.

This press release, similar to the previous announcement, does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities or a solicitation of any vote or approval, nor shall there be any sale of any securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation, or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of such other jurisdiction.

CTAC, KORE and certain of their respective directors and executive officers may be deemed to be participants in the solicitation of proxies from the shareholders of CTAC, in favor of the approval of the merger. Information regarding CTAC's and KORE's directors and executive officers and other persons who may be deemed participants in the transaction may be obtained by reading the registration statement and the proxy statement/prospectus and other relevant documents filed with the SEC when they become available. Free copies of these documents may be obtained as described above.

This press release includes certain statements that are not historical facts but are forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements generally are accompanied by words such as "believe," "may," "will," "estimate," "continue," "anticipate," "intend," "expect," "should," "would," "plan," "predict," "potential," "seem," "seek," "future," "outlook," and similar expressions that predict or indicate future events or trends or that are not statements of historical matters. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding estimates and forecasts of revenue and other financial and performance metrics and projections of market opportunity and expectations. These statements are based on various assumptions and on the current expectations of CTAC or KORE's management. These forward-looking statements are provided for illustrative purposes only and are not intended to serve as, and must not be relied on by any investor or other person as, a guarantee, an assurance, a prediction or a definitive statement of fact or probability. Actual events and circumstances are difficult or impossible to predict and will differ from assumptions. Many actual events and circumstances are beyond the control of CTAC and/or KORE. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including general economic, financial, legal, political and business conditions and changes in domestic and foreign markets; the potential effects of COVID-19; risks related to the rollout of KORE's business and the timing of expected business milestones; changes in the assumptions underlying KORE's expectations regarding its future business; the effects of competition on KORE's future business; and the outcome of judicial proceedings to which KORE is, or may become a party. If the risks materialize or assumptions prove incorrect, actual results could differ materially from the results implied by these forward-looking statements. There may be additional risks that KORE presently does not know or that KORE currently believes are immaterial that could also cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. In addition, forward-looking statements reflect KORE's expectations, plans or forecasts of future events and views as of the date of this press release. KORE and CTAC anticipate that subsequent events and developments will cause these assessments to change. However, while KORE and/or CTAC may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, each of KORE and CTAC specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing KORE's assessments as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release. Accordingly, undue reliance should not be placed upon the forward-looking statements.

SOURCE KORE Wireless
"Virginia has the highest concentration of tech talent in the U.S. and thousands of tech companies have made Fairfax County home, so we are delighted to join this incredible and growing business hub," shared Jan Pawli, Cloudpermit's CEO . "We are proud to have our North American Headquarters in Reston as it is a fantastic opportunity for Cloudpermit to expand and help even more local governments digitalize development processes."

The Virginia Economic Development Partnership and the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority were involved in Cloudpermit's decision to establish its North American Headquarters in Fairfax County, Virginia.

"We are proud to welcome Cloudpermit to Fairfax County and Northern Virginia for its continental headquarters," said Victor Hoskins, President and CEO of the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority. "A company like Cloudpermit has many options for a North American base. Choosing Fairfax County is an important vote of confidence in our business climate, our assets for company success and the kind of talent it can find here  whether the company is from the U.S. or another country."

Close to 500 local governments across Europe and North America prioritize efficiency and simplicity by adopting digital and cloud-based development and permitting processes with Cloudpermit.

"Virginia is a leader in tech jobs, and we're happy to announce it has brought another company to the Commonwealth as Cloudpermit, a global leader in e-permitting software, has chosen to establish its U.S. headquarters here," said Governor Northam. "Virginia's continued growth in the software sector creates jobs, spurs innovation, and supports our booming economy. Virginia and Fairfax County have a diverse roster of international companies, and we are pleased to welcome Cloudpermit to their new home in Virginia."

Cloudpermit has just under 10 employees working out of its Reston office and is planning to double its team by the end of this year.

"Our decision to select Virginia for our North American Headquarters was easy after meeting with Governor Northam and delegation this spring in Germany," Pawli explained. "The personal involvement from key leaders in Virginia and learning how other businesses are thriving in Fairfax County from the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority gave us the confidence we needed to choose Reston as the base for our growing team."

Cloudpermit will join other successful businesses in Fairfax County and help establish more communities as easy places to build for builders, citizens, and businesses alike.

"We welcome Cloudpermit to Fairfax County and are excited to see the company join Virginia's rapidly expanding software sector," said Secretary of Commerce and Trade Brian Ball. "This is an ideal location for the company to expand into U.S. markets, and the company's decision demonstrates our strength as a software industry leader. We look forward to building a strong partnership with Cloudpermit."

About Cloudpermit: Cloudpermit empowers local governments with simple and online development processes. It takes users from application to approval and encourages collaboration among government staff, applicants, homeowners, builders, designers, third-party agencies, and all those involved in each permit. The cloud-based software was created for, and with, North American local governments to help communities thrive.

Cloudpermit Contacts:

Anna Rolnicki

Head of Marketing, North America

289-208-0930

[email protected]

Carly Thackray

Marketing and Communications Manager, North America

437-882-0292

[email protected]

SOURCE Cloudpermit Inc

Related Links

www.cloudpermit.com


ORLANDO, Fla., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Community Legal Services of Mid-Florida Inc., (CLSMF) promotes equal access to justice by providing civil legal aid to help low-income people protect their livelihoods, their health, and their families.

Katie Kelly, Senior Manager of Public Interest & Children's Law at CLSMF, filed the original complaint against Volusia County School District in May 2017 alleging the district failed to accommodate students with disabilities and denied them access to equal educational opportunities.

The complaint claimed that the school district was excluding students with disabilities by: (1) requiring parents/guardians to pick up their children with disabilities from school or to keep them home; (2) disciplining students for behavior resulting from their disability; and (3) engaging with law enforcement to remove students with disabilities from school, even as young as Kindergarten.

The Department of Justice press release states, "The department's investigation substantiated the allegations in the complaint, confirming that VCS had excluded students with disabilities from its programs and services through unnecessary removals from the classroom. It also found that VCS staff often failed to implement necessary behavioral supports and lacked training on how to properly respond to students' disability-related behavior. These issues led to the exclusion of students with disabilities from VCS's programs and services and, at times, resulted in calls to law enforcement to remove students with disabilities from school, including through the misuse of Florida's Baker Act procedures which permits the involuntary admission of a person with a mental illness to a psychiatric facility for up to 72 hours if certain criteria are met."

Finding evidence of many cases to corroborate the original complaint, the DOJ's ruling was a success for countless current and future students.

Carl and Tyler Tews, parents of an autistic child represented in the complaint say, "The idea of a legal fight was never one we wanted to entertain but it was perfectly clear it was the only way to get Jackson what he and so many other students were in need of. The DOJ ruling is not the end of the journey for us, or any of the other families, it simply ensures the district will work for ALL students, including Jackson."

The first case of its kind in the country, this landmark ruling may influence many school districts to reevaluate their current methods for assisting children with disabilities.

CONTACT: Jeff Harvey

COMPANY Community Legal Services of Mid-Florida Inc.

PHONE 407-480-4512

EMAIL [email protected]

SOURCE Community Legal Services of Mid-Florida Inc.

Related Links

https://www.clsmf.org


SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- A consortium of seven San Francisco Cultural Centers announce the availability of post-COVID-19 reopening grants for nonprofits that practice and perform artistic and cultural forms of creative activity, expression, preservation, and community wellness, reflective of the communities they serve. The grant program, administered by Community Vision Capital & Consulting and funded by the San Francisco Arts Commission, will provide funding for one-time physical and virtual reopening expenses in San Francisco. Eligible organizations with physical spaces can apply to receive grants of up to $35,000, and eligible organizations with virtual spaces can apply to receive grants of up to $10,000. Eligible organizations with both physical and virtual spaces can apply for both grants for up to $45,000.

Priority will go to projects led by organizations that are driving change and amplifying visions for their own communities, organizations with annual revenue budgets of under $250,000, and investments that will serve organizations beyond post-COVID reopening.

"Investing in the arts, especially now, is critical to ensuring the long-term health of our communities," said Catherine Howard, President of Community Vision. "We are grateful to the talented leaders of San Francisco's Cultural Centers for using their deep expertise to steward this program and support arts and culture reopening efforts in their neighborhoods."

Organizations are invited to submit an application by 12pm PST on Friday, October 8, 2021. Awards will be announced the week of November 8, 2021. Submission information is available at communityvisionca.org/sf-arts-reopening-fund

The following general eligibility criteria will be used:

Must be a registered, 501(c)3 tax-exempt nonprofit, or be fiscally sponsored by one.

Must practice and perform artistic and cultural forms of creative activity, expression, preservation, and community wellness, reflective of the communities they serve.

Organizations with physical spaces must rent or own a property located in San Francisco that is used for public art production and performance.

Organizations reopening virtually are those creating or expanding an online presence of the organization that displays or presents art online and furthers online interaction between artists and their audiences.

Must have an annual revenue budget of less than $1 million for the current and previous fiscal year.

Organizations must have provided public arts programming in San Francisco since at least January 2018.

Community Vision will review applications for eligibility before presenting a final pool of applicants to the consortium of seven San Francisco Cultural Centers for final funding decisions. In 2021, the Cultural Centers came together to form a unified BIPOC-led partnership whose vision and directive will govern local grantmaking programs, including the San Francisco Arts Reopening Fund.

"As stewards of community arts in San Francisco, the seven Cultural Centers are thrilled to present such an innovative program," said representatives of the Consortium. "This program enables us to give grants directly to arts and culture groups in our communities."

The San Francisco Arts Reopening Fund is a program of a consortium of the seven San Francisco Cultural Centers designated by the San Francisco Arts Commission. Each Center is a cornerstone of the arts in the communities they serve. Together, the Cultural Centers act as a new community arts intermediary in San Francisco.

Community Vision Capital & Consulting is a CDFI working throughout California with offices in San Francisco, Oakland, and Fresno. Since its inception, Community Vision has supported 2.5M Californians, deployed more than $483M in capital, and provided more than 1,000 real estate and financial management consults.

SOURCE Community Vision

Related Links

https://communityvisionca.org/


NEW YORK, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- As per the latest research study of Zion Market Research, EdTech and Smart Classroom industry accumulated proceeds about US$ 73.9 billion in 2020 and is slated to earn revenue of approximately US$ 210.3 billion by 2026. The EdTech and Smart Classroom market is set to register CAGR of approximately 15.8% in 2020-2026. In addition to this, surging use of mobile & smartphones and easy access to internet even in remote areas will drive market trends. In addition to this, humungous demand for EdTech solutions along with surge in online teaching with COVID-19 outbreak will drive EdTech and Smart Classroom industry landscape. Apparently, growing significance of holistic learning in educational institutions and universities has contributed to massive funding of these activities, thereby driving growth of EdTech and Smart Classroom Industry in recent years.

Increase in restrictions imposed due to COVID-19 pandemic along with easy access to high-speed internet along with massive utilization of mobile equipment in distant places along with availability of robust network infrastructure facility across globe will prompt EdTech and Smart Classroom Market size in years ahead. Additionally, technological breakthroughs in education sector have led to rise in e-learning activities and this has culminated into huge market demand. Furthermore, launching of new online learning models by reputed educational institutions and universities across globe will proliferate expansion of EdTech and Smart Classroom Industry in years ahead.

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Moreover, strict government norms pertaining to maintaining of social distancing will prompt expansion of EdTech and Smart Classroom market during assessment timeline. Online learning apps are gaining huge demand and this has further promulgated growth of EdTech and Smart Classroom Industry over assessment timeline. Apart from this, many forms of EdTech including e-textbooks, communication tools, and curriculum management software have gained wide acceptance in e-learning industry and this will translate into huge growth of EdTech and Smart Classroom Industry over upcoming years. In addition to this, various telecom firms and regional governments have ensured that students falling in low-income group slabs can also attend online classes. Citing an instance, in 2020, Telkomsel  a wireless telecommunication service provider based in Indonesia- supplied near about 5,00,000 equipment to students and provided 30GB free data per month for users of K-12 learning application known as Ruangguru. Apart from this, in same year, Starhub -a reputed service provider in telecom business based in Singapore - offered broadband subscriptions to students belonging to families having low-income. In addition to this, Ministry of Education of Singapore provided nearly over three thousand mobile equipment to students falling under low-income groups.

Highlight on Enhancing Online Learning to Boost Market Size By 2026

Rapid expansion of EdTech and Smart Classroom Market over assessment period can be credited to utilization of modern methods of online teaching & learning by universities and schools as well as other educational institutes aided by new technologies. In addition to this, massive allocation of funds by government to educational sector and adoption of new modes of online learning will pave way for growth of EdTech and smart classroom industry in near future. Acceptance of e-learning tools as well as online methods for imparting education to even remote areas with an aim to curb illiteracy is likely to open new growth avenues for EdTech and Smart Classroom Industry in the forthcoming years. Nonetheless, growing cases of plagiarism is likely to put brakes on growth of EdTech and smart classroom market over upcoming years.

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North America to Make Notable Contributions towards Overall Market Size By 2026

The growth of EdTech and smart classroom industry in North America over forecasting timeframe can be credited to easy access to new online education tools & systems embedded with innovative technological features. Surge in smart phone penetration in the U.S. and Canada will proliferate regional market size over 2020-2026. Apart from this, acceptance of AI, Deep learning methods, VR, and AR as well as 3D systems in tools used for delivering online education in countries such as the U.S. and Canada will contribute significantly towards regional market proceeds in upcoming years.

Few of the key players influencing growth of industry and profiled in our report include IBM Corporation, Apple, Inc., Cisco Systems, Google, Inc., Dell Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, SAP SE, Oracle Corporation, Ellucian, and SMART Technologies.

Inquire before Purchase of this Research Report - https://www.zionmarketresearch.com/inquiry/edtech-smart-classroom-market

The global EdTech and Smart Classroom market is segmented as follows:

By System

Student Information System

Classroom Collaboration System

Classroom Management System

Document Management System

Others

By Deployment

Cloud

On Premises

By End User

Kindergarten

K-12

Higher Education

By Region

North America

The U.S.



Canada

Europe

France



The UK



Spain



Germany



Italy



Rest of Europe

Asia Pacific

China



Japan



India



South Korea



Southeast Asia



Rest of Asia Pacific

Latin America

Brazil



Mexico



Rest of Latin America

Middle East & Africa

& GCC



South Africa



Rest of Middle East & Africa

Browse Other Related Research Reports from Zion Market Research

Online Education Market - https://www.zionmarketresearch.com/report/online-education-market

Edutainment Market - https://www.zionmarketresearch.com/report/edutainment-market

Artificial Intelligence In Education Market - https://www.zionmarketresearch.com/report/artificial-intelligence-in-education-market

U.S. Education Market - https://www.zionmarketresearch.com/report/us-education-market

About Us:

Zion Market Research is an obligated company. We create futuristic, cutting edge, informative reports ranging from industry reports, company reports to country reports. We provide our clients not only with market statistics unveiled by avowed private publishers and public organizations but also with vogue and newest industry reports along with pre-eminent and niche company profiles. Our database of market research reports comprises a wide variety of reports from cardinal industries. Our database is been updated constantly in order to fulfill our clients with prompt and direct online access to our database. Keeping in mind the client's needs, we have included expert insights on global industries, products, and market trends in this database. Last but not the least, we make it our duty to ensure the success of clients connected to usafter allif you do well, a little of the light shines on us.

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Blog - https://galusaustralis.com/

SOURCE Zion Market Research
Early-stage capital drives commercialization and clinical validation in Province

TORONTO, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ - Two promising Ontario-based oncology innovations are the latest recipients of early-stage seed capital through FACIT's Prospects Oncology Fund. The breakthrough diagnostic technologies were developed by Dr. Matthew Cecchini and Dr. Subrata Chakrabarti of Western University and Dr. Hon Leong of Sunnybrook Research Institute. Both innovations were previous finalists in FACIT's 2021 Falcons' Fortunes pitch competition.

Dr. Cecchini, Dr. Chakrabarti and their team have invented a bench-top ultrasound-based device that can automate the detection of lymph nodes in resected colorectal cancer tissue, with faster turnaround time and greater accuracy than manual exams by a pathologist. Dr. Leong has developed a prostate cancer screening kit that can easily be done at home. This innovation has significant potential to increase screening uptake by patients and enable earlier and more accurate detection. Prospects funding will enable preliminary clinical validation studies for both innovations, generating critical evidence to achieve key inflection points along their respective commercialization pathways.

As a unique commercialization venture firm, FACIT leverages its Prospects Oncology Fund to fuel top-tier innovations from Ontario's robust research pipeline. This Ontario First capital is imperative to addressing the seed-stage gap experienced by the Province's life sciences sector, helping de-risk innovations and ultimately creating greater value for homegrown intellectual property (IP). Through both the Prospects Oncology Fund and the Compass Rose Oncology Fund, FACIT has continued to grow its investment portfolio, turning every FACIT-invested dollar into 30 dollars of additional investment into the Province.

"Congratulations to Dr. Cecchini, Dr. Chakrabarti and Dr. Leong for these incredible innovations," said Jill Dunlop, Minister of Colleges and Universities. "FACIT has an impressive track record of helping to move oncology innovations to real world opportunities, and their success is reflected in some of the ground-breaking work taking place at our world-class universities and research institutes. The Ontario government is committed to investing in knowledge-based companies that support innovation in cancer research and that bring economic and patient benefits to our province."

FACIT receives support through its strategic partner, the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR), which is funded by the Government of Ontario.

"The FACIT team is pleased to support these entrepreneurial scientists, providing both capital and commercialization expertise, as they advance their technologies closer to benefiting patients with cancer," said Dr. David O'Neill, President of FACIT. "We look forward to continuing to realize the full value of Ontario IP, attracting private sector investment into the province, and anchoring companies and jobs in Ontario."

About FACIT

FACIT is an award-winning commercialization venture firm that builds companies with entrepreneurs to accelerate oncology innovation, with a portfolio that has attracted more than $1 billion in investment to Ontario. Blending industry experience, capital and the unsurpassed clinician-scientist network of its strategic partner the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR), FACIT capitalizes on the province's investment in research and healthcare to the benefit of the local economy and patients worldwide. FACIT's commercialization portfolio includes Turnstone Biologics, Fusion Pharmaceuticals, Triphase Accelerator and other biotechnology organizations. Cancer Breakthroughs. Realized. facit.ca.

About Western University, Dr. Matthew Cecchini and Dr. Subrata Chakrabarti

Western University delivers an academic experience second to none. Since 1878, The Western Experience has combined academic excellence with life-long opportunities for intellectual, social and cultural growth in order to better serve our communities. Our research excellence expands knowledge and drives discovery with real-world application. Western attracts individuals with a broad worldview, seeking to study, influence and lead in the international community. Dr. Cecchini is an anatomical pathologist at University Hospital with an interest in pathology innovation, while Dr. Chakrabarti is Chair of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, with a research focus on diagnostic molecular pathology.

About Sunnybrook Research Institute and Dr. Hon Leong

Sunnybrook Research Institute (SRI) is the research arm of Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre  one of Canada's premier academic health sciences centres fully affiliated with the University of Toronto. SRI is one of the fastest growing hospital-based research enterprises in Canada with well-established programs in basic and applied research, developing innovations in care for more than 1.3 million patients annually. As a Scientist at SRI, Dr. Leong's mandate is to bring lab-grown ideas to the clinic, with a focus on the development of liquid biopsies.

SOURCE FACIT Inc.

Related Links

http://facit.ca/


NEW YORK, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- A precedent setting article explains, and quantifies, the process and impact of creating securities. With over 50 years of experience in finance and operations, Veronica Ann Williams saw the need to explain financing and identify vulnerabilities. Securitization is the first in a series of publications based upon her Flow of Financing model. While this article starts with an analysis of derivatives, using mortgage-backed securities as an example, Williams creates a financial model that projects the profit and loss to all parties throughout the lifetime of a security.

This article was inspired after an extensive investigation that expanded to the federal government. The findings, in a case docketed by the U.S. Supreme Court, are capsulated in the article Battling Homewreckers.

Securitization: Long Term Effects of Securitizing Mortgages and other Underlying Assets is available at https://www.finfix.org/purchase/. It's trend setting purchase and distribution strategy is designed to encourage others to learn from  and build upon  Williams' extensive research.

Securitization is produced by FinFix and published by DiscoverIT.

About Veronica Ann Williams

Veronica A. Williams, a global authority on finance and technology, is an acclaimed author and professional speaker. In addition to being a trusted ethics authority and leading a private advisory firm, Williams serves on Corporate Boards, as a Judge for professional competitions and as an Arbitrator Chairperson for the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). Williams attended graduate programs at Northwestern University (USA) and Ecole Superieure des Sciences Economiques et Commerciales - ESSEC (France) and undergraduate at Brandeis University. She holds a Kellogg MBA, Brandeis BA and other credentials. Williams is a Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award recipient. See https://www.finfix.org/Founder-FinFix.pdf or www.VeronicaWilliams.com.

About FinFix

Established in 2014, FinFix strives to bring economic parity to financial services by fighting fraud, establishing vehicles to help educate and assist Americans seeking to borrow, and lessen government burdens to fix problems. FinFix was founded by Veronica A. Williams.

Ann Williams

PR Director

(973) 833-3400

[email protected]

SOURCE FinFix

Related Links

http://www.finfix.org


The findings are critical as typhoid is an increasing public health threat across sub-Saharan Africa due to the emergence and spread of multi-drug resistant strains, which are now common in Malawi. An estimated 1.2 million typhoid cases and 19,000 deaths occur each year in sub-Saharan Africa, which includes Malawi. The vast majority of these infections occur in school-age and pre-school children.

The study is being conducted through a partnership between the University of Maryland School of Medicine's (UMSOM) Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health (CVD), the Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome Trust (MLW) and Blantyre Malaria Project (BMP) in Blantyre, Malawi. The work is part of the Typhoid Vaccine Acceleration Consortium (TyVAC)  a larger effort led by CVD, the Oxford Vaccine Group at the University of Oxford, and PATH. TyVAC aims to accelerate the introduction of TCV as part of an integrated approach to reduce the burden of typhoid in countries eligible for support from Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.

In 2017, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended TCV for children six months of age and older in typhoid endemic settings.

The new study found that the vaccine prevented typhoid in Malawi  where the incidence of typhoid is high. This helps to pave the way for additional countries to introduce TCV, making it available to all children.

"Our only real option to controlling these new resistant strains of typhoid in a timely way is through the vaccine," said Professor Melita Gordon, University of Liverpool, MLW, and principal investigator for the Malawi study. "The TCV efficacy data are the first from Africa and offer great promise for the control of this deadly disease across the continent."

The analysis included more than 28,000 children aged 9 months to 12 years in Blantyre, Malawi  half received TCV and half received the control, group-A meningococcal (MenA) vaccine. Blood tests performed on children with febrile illness occurring at least two weeks after receiving a study vaccine confirmed typhoid in 10 children in the TCV group and 61 who received MenA. TCV was effective in all age groups, including children under five years of age. Typhoid is a bacterial infection caused by Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi and is a serious threat in many low- and middle-income countries. While typhoid is treatable, the effects can go beyond illness and death. Typhoid can impair physical and cognitive development in children, affect school attendance and performance, limit productivity, and reduce earning potential.

"TCVs have the potential to protect millions of children disproportionately impacted by typhoid. We hope these much-needed data catalyze additional countries to introduce this lifesaving vaccine," said Kathleen Neuzil, MD, MPH, the Myron M. Levine, MD, DTPH, Professor in Vaccinology at UMSOM. Dr. Neuzil is also the director of CVD and principal investigator for TyVAC.

Prevention of typhoid  with vaccines  is critical amid rising antimicrobial resistance. The TyVAC study in Africa helps inform a country's decision to introduce TCV into their national childhood immunization program to combat the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance occurring globally.

"These findings highlight the burden of typhoid illness and the remarkable impact of a single dose of TCV in improving the health of children in low- and middle-income countries," said E. Albert Reece, MD, PhD, MBA, Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs, UM Baltimore, and the John Z. and Akiko K. Bowers Distinguished Professor and Dean, UMSOM. "CVD has again harnessed the power of partnership to address the globe's most pressing problems."

TyVAC is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Typbar TCV is licensed by Bharat Biotech International Limited, Hyderabad, India.

About the Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health at the University of Maryland School of Medicine

For over 40 years, researchers in the Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health (CVD) have worked domestically and internationally to develop, test, and deploy vaccines to aid the world's underserved populations. CVD is an academic enterprise engaged in the full range of infectious disease intervention from basic laboratory research through vaccine development, pre-clinical and clinical evaluation, large-scale pre-licensure field studies, and post-licensure assessments. CVD has created and tested vaccines against cholera, typhoid fever, paratyphoid fever, non-typhoidal Salmonella disease, shigellosis (bacillary dysentery), Escherichia coli diarrhea, nosocomial pathogens, tularemia, influenza, coronaviruses, malaria, and other infectious diseases. CVD's research covers the broader goal of improving global health by conducting innovative, leading research in Baltimore and around the world. Our researchers are developing new and improved ways to diagnose, prevent, treat, control, and eliminate diseases of global impact, including COVID-19. In addition, CVD's work focuses on the ever-growing challenge of antimicrobial resistance.

About the University of Maryland School of Medicine

Now in its third century, the University of Maryland School of Medicine was chartered in 1807 as the first public medical school in the United States. It continues today as one of the fastest growing, top-tier biomedical research enterprises in the world -- with 46 academic departments, centers, institutes, and programs, and a faculty of more than 3,000 physicians, scientists, and allied health professionals, including members of the National Academy of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences, and a distinguished two-time winner of the Albert E. Lasker Award in Medical Research. With an operating budget of more than $1.2 billion, the School of Medicine works closely in partnership with the University of Maryland Medical Center and Medical System to provide research-intensive, academic and clinically based care for nearly 2 million patients each year. The School of Medicine has nearly $600 million in extramural funding, with most of its academic departments highly ranked among all medical schools in the nation in research funding. As one of the seven professional schools that make up the University of Maryland, Baltimore campus, the School of Medicine has a total population of nearly 9,000 faculty and staff, including 2,500 students, trainees, residents, and fellows. The combined School of Medicine and Medical System ("University of Maryland Medicine") has an annual budget of over $6 billion and an economic impact of nearly $20 billion on the state and local community. The School of Medicine, which ranks as the 8th highest among public medical schools in research productivity (according to the Association of American Medical Colleges profile) is an innovator in translational medicine, with 606 active patents and 52 start-up companies. In the latest U.S. News & World Report ranking of the Best Medical Schools, published in 2021, the UM School of Medicine is ranked #9 among the 92 public medical schools in the U.S., and in the top 15 percent (#27) of all 192 public and private U.S. medical schools. The School of Medicine works locally, nationally, and globally, with research and treatment facilities in 36 countries around the world. Visit https://www.medschool.umaryland.edu/

CONTACT

January Payne

Director of Public Relations

(443) 203-8183

[email protected]

SOURCE University of Maryland School of Medicine
FLO provides EV charging stations as part of a CEC BESTFIT-funded pilot program in Los Angeles metro area Tweet this

"FLO and the team are excited to be selected by the CEC and look forward to serving more communities with innovative solutions," said Frank Fata, FLO's Global Head of Utilities. "Our BESTFIT Team understands the challenges and intends to leverage our collective expertise to help accelerate EV adoption and make EV charging access more equitable for communities in California."

"This pilot will allow us to demonstrate that it is possible to scale public charging infrastructure in a cost-efficient way, while offering consistent uptime and reliability to EV owners," Fata added. "Tapping into existing utility assets with sufficient capacity allows for EVSE integration with poles, streetlights, underground vaults and existing service transformers to power-up DC fast-charging stations. In doing so, we will create measurable reference cases showing how this approach can significantly reduce construction time and cost of deployment of curbside charging infrastructure while improving accessibility of EV charging in underserved communities."

Following the successful deployment of 180 streetlight-mounted curbside chargers on the FLO Network in Los Angeles; multiple FLO chargers will be installed in Santa Monica and Southeast LA, featuring SmartTWO curbside units and a Smart DC Fast Charger as part of the pilot.

"Learnings from engineering to community outreach will be shared to ensure that best practices can be replicated on the state level to accelerate EV charging infrastructure deployment, reduce carbon emissions and considerably reduce the cost of implementation in California and across the U.S." concluded Fata.

About FLO

FLO is a leading North American electric vehicle charging network operator and a major provider of smart charging software and equipment. Every month, FLO enables hundreds of thousands charging events thanks to over 45,000 high-quality stations deployed on public networks, commercial and residential installations. FLO's headquarters and network operations centre are based in Quebec City, and its assembly plant is located in Shawinigan (Quebec). The company also has an office in Montreal and regional teams located in Ontario, British Columbia, California, New York, and Texas. For more information, visit flo.com.

SOURCE FLO
TORONTO, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ - Foxquilt, a North American insurtech company focused on empowering small business owners with customized insurance products, today announced it has raised an $8 million financing round led by Luge Capital with participation from AmTrust Financial, Extreme Venture Partners and Side Door Ventures. The new capital will be used to support talent acquisition, product development, and to further expand across the U.S. and Canada.

Foxquilt's driving mission is to ease the burdens faced by small business owners and create a more transparent and valuable means for securing commercial insurance. As opposed to providing a "one-size-fits-all" approach that is typical of most legacy providers, Foxquilt's platform is designed to allow businesses to choose only the coverage they need and be underwritten based on their specific business type and requirements. Their direct to business insurance products include general liability, professional liability, workers' compensation, cyber, and commercial automobile, all offered through a convenient self-service sign-up and policy admin portal.

"Our goal at Foxquilt has always been to make life easier for small business owners. Whether you're a sole proprietor or part of a larger enterprise network or marketplace, our technology-powered suite of products is made to digitize the insurance process and take one thing off an overfilled plate," said Mark Morissette, CEO and Co-founder of Foxquilt. "This funding round will propel our growth to reach even more business owners with our customer-centric and individualized approach."

Often, legacy insurance providers offer coverage ranges that either leave the business owner paying for more than they need, or leaving them vulnerable without full coverage. The Foxquilt platform harnesses AI technology to identify and match business owners to the a la carte policies that cover exactly what is needed, saving them money year-over-year.

"Of all the solutions we looked at, Foxquilt was by far the best one for SMBs and, given that they design their own insurance products and underwriting process, they can save their customers time, risk and money," said David Nault, General Partner of Luge Capital. "We also loved that Foxquilt used a combination of proprietary data, AI and industry insights to properly assess risk and make the right recommendations to business owners.''

The funding will enable the team to add dozens of resources to continue the development of new and innovative products to remain on the cutting edge of the insurtech industry. The company looks forward to launching additional expansions in 2021 to further support North American small business owners. For more information on the company please visit https://www.foxquilt.com

About Foxquilt

Foxquilt is a leading North American Insurance technology company focused on providing small businesses insurance. Foxquilt develops, underwrites and distributes a complete line of its own commercial insurance products in the United States and Canada. The company uses a combination of data analytics and artificial intelligence to recommend the best insurance coverage and price to meet the individual needs of its small business customers. For more information, visit https://www.foxquilt.com .

SOURCE Foxquilt Inc.

Related Links

https://foxquilt.com


AUSTIN, Texas, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Infosys (NSE: INFY) (BSE: INFY) (NYSE: INFY), a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting, today announced that it would collaborate with Frost Bank to provide strategic business consulting and digital capabilities that will enable Frost Bank to offer mortgage loans along with its other consumer loan products. Infosys will help design the bank's mortgage loan process landscape from origination to servicing, design the end-customer experience, and select the most effective technology platform to run and manage operations, while driving growth for its mortgage solutions over the next five years.

Infosys and Frost Bank will work together to create a human-centric, digital-first approach to customer mortgage loans that delivers superior borrower experience along with cutting-edge efficiency of operations. The implementation strategy will focus on accelerating launch of the new product, while also streamlining the mortgage value chain for Frost Bank by taking advantage of Infosys' access to global best practices and innovations.

"Offering mortgage loans along with our other consumer loan products is integral to meeting our customers' evolving needs and bringing the Frost experience to more Texans," said Phil Green, Chairman and CEO at Frost Bank. "Working with a world-class company like Infosys will allow us to be involved in the entire process from start to finish and bring our industry-leading customer service experience to mortgages."

Infosys also has deep expertise and long years of experience in collaborating with independent mortgage solution providers and regional banks in the US. Frost Bank can leverage this to compete profitably in a rapidly transforming competitive landscape.

Mohit Joshi, President, Infosys, said, "At Infosys, we have built strong capabilities in transforming mortgage businesses by providing our clients with unique solutions that meet their customers' expectations of speed, transparency, convenience, and personalization. Our collaboration with Frost Bank sets the stage for a new era of mortgage services, and we are excited to bring to this engagement, our collective expertise."

About Frost Bank

Frost is the banking, investments and insurance subsidiary of Cullen/Frost Bankers, Inc. (NYSE: CFR), a financial holding company with $46.7 billion in assets at June 30, 2021. One of the 50 largest U.S. banks by asset size, Frost provides a full range of banking, investments and insurance services to businesses and individuals in the Austin, Corpus Christi, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Permian Basin, Rio Grande Valley and San Antonio regions. Founded in 1868, Frost has helped Texans with their financial needs during three centuries. For more information, visit www.frostbank.com.

About Infosys

Infosys is a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting. We enable clients in more than 50 countries to navigate their digital transformation. With over four decades of experience in managing the systems and workings of global enterprises, we expertly steer our clients through their digital journey. We do it by enabling the enterprise with an AI-powered core that helps prioritize the execution of change. We also empower the business with agile digital at scale to deliver unprecedented levels of performance and customer delight. Our always-on learning agenda drives their continuous improvement through building and transferring digital skills, expertise, and ideas from our innovation ecosystem.

Visit www.infosys.com to see how Infosys (NSE: INFY) (BSE: INFY) (NYSE: INFY) can help your enterprise navigate your next.

Safe Harbor

Certain statements in this release concerning our future growth prospects, financial expectations and plans for navigating the COVID-19 impact on our employees, clients and stakeholders are forward-looking statements intended to qualify for the 'safe harbor' under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties relating to these statements include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties regarding COVID-19 and the effects of government an other measures seeking to contain its spread, risks related to an economic downturn or recession in India, the United States and other countries around the world, changes in political, business, and economic conditions, fluctuations in earnings, fluctuations in foreign exchange rates, our ability to manage growth, intense competition in IT services including those factors which may affect our cost advantage, wage increases in India, our ability to attract and retain highly skilled professionals, time and cost overruns on fixed-price, fixed-time frame contracts, client concentration, restrictions on immigration, industry segment concentration, our ability to manage our international operations, reduced demand for technology in our key focus areas, disruptions in telecommunication networks or system failures, our ability to successfully complete and integrate potential acquisitions, liability for damages on our service contracts, the success of the companies in which Infosys has made strategic investments, withdrawal or expiration of governmental fiscal incentives, political instability and regional conflicts, legal restrictions on raising capital or acquiring companies outside India, unauthorized use of our intellectual property and general economic conditions affecting our industry and the outcome of pending litigation and government investigation. Additional risks that could affect our future operating results are more fully described in our United States Securities and Exchange Commission filings including our Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2021. These filings are available at www.sec.gov. Infosys may, from time to time, make additional written and oral forward-looking statements, including statements contained in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and our reports to shareholders. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements that may be made from time to time by or on behalf of the Company unless it is required by law.

SOURCE Infosys
HAMILTON, N.J., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Genesis Biotechnology Group (GBG) announced that Erich E. Dagnal has joined the Corporate Development Team as Director of Mergers & Acquisitions. In this capacity, he will drive all acquisition growth initiatives for GBG and member companies from initiating to closing and onboarding the transaction. He will negotiate and execute domestic and international agreements, intellectual property out-licensing, and joint venture projects to originate new businesses and grow existing relationships and partnerships, focusing on business and geographic expansion to advance GBG's strategic priorities.

Genesis Biotechnology Group (GBG)

"I am excited to be part of the GBG team and continue its business expansion and growth initiatives," said Erich Dagnal. "The opportunity to play an important role in maintaining the level of excellence and collaboration offered to GBG clients through acquisitions, partnerships, and the pursuit of therapeutics that will change the future of human health offers unique and important challenges that are a privilege to undertake."

Erich brings more than 20 years of experience in business and corporate development to the GBG team. He previously held key positions at The Jackson Laboratory, Management Science Associates, Inc., and Crown Biosciences. He received his BS in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry from the University of Pittsburgh and his MBA from Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh, PA.

"I am delighted to welcome Erich to the GBG team. I look forward to drawing from his deep international business and corporate development experience as we continue to augment our organic growth and core capabilities through the expansion of strategic acquisitions," said Ben Bandaru, Ph.D., Director of Corporate Development for GBG.

About GBG

Genesis Biotechnology Group (GBG) is a consortium of vertically integrated companies with a mission of improving patient care by cross-linking their expertise, dedication, and vision in drug discovery, personalized and tailored clinical diagnostics, integrated state of the art, women's health care services, and through the development, manufacturing, and distribution of unique biotechnology-based products.

To find out more, please visit www.genesisbiotechgroup.com.

Contact:

Ben Bandaru, Ph.D., Director of Corporate Development for GBG

[email protected]

Direct 609.245.7507

SOURCE Genesis Biotechnology Group (GBG)

Related Links

http://www.genesisbiotechgroup.com


AMES, Iowa, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- GlobalVetLink announces an enhancement to the industry standard GVL Compliance Assistant software platform to help veterinarians prepare the compliance certificates required for international travel.

"GlobalVetLink knows every veterinarian wants to feel confident doing what they do best, which is delivering a broad range of services to their clients," stated Gary Ambrosino, CEO of GlobalVetLink. "The GVL Pet TravelPass eliminates the hours of research and preparation required to create accurate and compliant International Health Certificates for owners traveling with their pets. Our new Pet TravelPass automates this process and gives veterinary practices a new and profitable service to offer to pet owners."

The GVL Pet TravelPass is an expansion of the GlobalVetLink's Compliance Assistant SaaS platform used by over 10,000 veterinary practices for creation, and electronic submission of compliant health records for companion, production, and equine focused practices. GVL Pet TravelPass automates regulatory research with built-in intelligent rule checking on a country-by-country basis. This replaces time consuming manual research processes and eliminates mistakes that prevent many veterinary practices from offering international pet travel documentation services.

A simple step-by-step workflow collects basic information supplied by the veterinarian and creates an International Health Certificate (IHC), Certificate of Veterinary Inspection (CVI), and Rabies Vaccination Certificate in submission-ready, government standard format accepted by the USDA and state animal health offices. The GVL Pet TravelPass can be used for meeting both international and domestic travel documentation requirements.

"The GVL Pet TravelPass's ability to streamline the creation of travel documents for dogs and cats is the first product of its kind," stated Matt Keller, VP of Product at GlobalVetLink. "We're excited to simplify what hundreds of veterinarians have told us is a painstaking and nerve racking process that they often avoid, with easy-to-use online software that eliminates time consuming complex paperwork and the need to understand obscure and confusing government regulations."

GVL Pet TravelPass is available now at www.globalvetlink.com and offers an easy sign-up and get-started process, with no subscription fee or monthly minimums. GlobalVetLink offers unlimited support to practices getting started with Pet TravelPass, as well as a comprehensive library of RACE CE approved training courses through GVL University .

About GlobalVetLink

GlobalVetLink is the leader in disease tracking and compliance documentation for animal health . The GVL Compliance Assistant SaaS platform collects, communicates, and stores animal health record information and complete compliance certificate records . Veterinarians for all species have access to automated creation and electronic submission of critical compliance documents, as well as having a real-time connection to an extended network of testing labs for submission and tracking of results. The GVL Compliance Assistant is used by over 10,000 producer, equine, and companion veterinary clinics to accurately create, manage, and submit digital health certificates required by the USDA, state animal health offices, and international animal health agencies. GVL uses artificial intelligence and blockchain technology to authenticate, and securely store and communicate animal health records.

Inquiries: Rebecca Haugland, GlobalVetLink, 515-817-5075, [email protected]

SOURCE GlobalVetLink
GERMANTOWN, Md., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- GreenHill is celebrating its 30th anniversary as a leading investment reporting provider in the wealth management industry. Since its founding in 1991, GreenHill is proud of its long-standing history of building customized investment reporting services and creating a differentiated experience for both its clients and employees.

Across three decades, GreenHill has strived to help wealth management companies focus on what they do best by becoming their investment and performance reporting partner, and collaborating with each client to develop efficient, tailored cost-effective solutions. Today, the company services over 80 institutional clients ranging from bank and independent trust companies, RIA, not-for-profit, family offices, law firms and endowments.

GreenHill believes that simplicity makes everything better for everyone. The company is continually in a quest to make the investment performance reporting process an easier one for clients, leveraging its breadth of capabilities and expertise. GreenHill assists clients in meeting the demands of a changing compliance and technical landscape, providing a comprehensive range of analytical tools that address clients' needs.

"Over the past 30 years, we have built a company that's about more than performance reporting," said Bill McFadden, President. "We continually walk alongside our clients, grow with our clients and foster their success with their customers. And equally as important, we believe that the strength of our company lies in the strength of our people."

As an independent provider, GreenHill continues to stand out with customized and flexible solutions for our clients, with a keen focus on simplifying the complex. Looking toward the future, GreenHill will continue investing in its platform, expanding capabilities to help clients thrive and grow while tailoring solutions to ensure client success.

ABOUT GREENHILL

GreenHill started in 1991 by bringing investment performance reporting to the wealth management industry. Over the last 30 years, GreenHill leveraged its extensive investment consulting experience to deliver personalized investment analysis, reporting and monitoring services designed to keep pace with the changing needs of the industry. As an independent provider, GreenHill services a breadth of clients across channels  bank and independent trust companies, RIA, not-for-profit, family offices, law firms and endowments. Learn more at www.ghill.com.

Media Contact:

Jack Curran

EVP, Sales

Tel: (301) 444-1908

Email: [email protected]



SOURCE GreenHill Investment Reporting

Related Links

http://www.ghill.com


DALLAS, Texas, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Medalogix (www.medalogix.com), a premiere health-tech company using machine learning to advance patient care within home health, palliative, and hospice care settings, has partnered with Homecare HomebaseSM (HCHB) to announce Heart to Heart Hospice as the winner of the Medalogix Muse Trailblazer Award. The award is presented annually to organizations that leverage Medalogix Muse technology to achieve the highest quality of patient care.

Chief Information Officer, Russ Abercrombie of Heart to Heart, noted the importance of the Medalogix Muse product to their team. "Muse allows Heart to Heart clinicians to make the most of the vast amount of accumulated data stored in the HCHB EMR software. Muse gathers, analyzes, and presents the data in a concise intuitive format that empowers the team to provide the high-quality care that Heart to Heart Hospice in known for," said Abercrombie.

The Medalogix team reviewed all customers that currently use its Medalogix Muse product. The selection committee reviewed each customer's level of product adoption, user feedback and contribution to the evolution of the product, and the number of patients impacted by the product relative to the customer's census. Heart to Heart was noted as being an exceptional candidate for the award, as they provide quality care for their patients enhanced by the power of Medalogix's machine-learning technology, and they have contributed multiple ideas to Medalogix to improve the user experience of the product.

Heart to Heart leverages Medalogix Muse which is integrated with Heart to Heart's EMR, HCHB (www.hchb.com). The product identifies which hospice patients are most likely to transition within 7 to 10 days by analyzing more than 800 assessment points from numerous visits from the system. "The solution offered by HCHB and Medalogix continues to drive value to the industry," said Scott Pattillo, Chief Strategy Officer at HCHB. "The partnership between Medalogix and Heart to Heart is encouraging to see and patients remain the true benefactors of the relationship.''

Medalogix Muse is currently being leveraged to monitor the status of more than 60,000 hospice patients each day. "Muse is an incredibly powerful product and does an amazing job identifying patients on hospice who are about to transition," said President and CEO of Medalogix, Elliott Wood. "What is most important, however, is the successful adoption of these products by clinicians, who create true impact for patients and their families at the end of life. We are proud to partner with Heart to Heart, and excited to see the difference they are making in the lives of their patients by delivering exceptional care at the right time."

About Heart to Heart Hospice

Established in 2003, Heart to Heart Hospice was established in Plano, TX. They provide compassionate, patient-centered approach to medical care and supportive services for patients at the end-of-life, as well as for family members. Heart to Heart partners with medical professionals, physicians, hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living communities and insurers to deliver the care that patients and families deserve. For more information, visit https://hearttohearthospice.com/

About Homecare Homebase

Homecare Homebase is a Dallas-based software leader offering hosted, cloud-based solutions to streamline operations, simplify compliance and boost clinical and financial outcomes for home-based care agencies. Our customized mobile solutions enable real-time, wireless data exchange and communication between field clinicians, physicians and office staff for better care, more accurate reporting and improved revenue cycle management. Founded by industry veterans in 1999, the company is now part of the Hearst Health network. For more information visit www.hchb.com or call us toll-free at 1- 866-535-HCHB (4242).

About Hearst Health

The mission of Hearst Health is to help guide the most important care moments by delivering vital information into the hands of everyone who touches a person's health journey. Each year in the U.S., care guidance from Hearst Health reaches 85 percent of discharged patients, 205 million insured individuals, 103 million home health visits and 3.2 billion dispensed prescriptions. The Hearst Health network includes FDB (First Databank), Zynx Health, MCG, Homecare Homebase and MHK (formerly MedHOK). Hearst also holds a minority interest in the precision medicine and oncology analytics company M2Gen. Follow Hearst Health on Twitter @HearstHealth and LinkedIn @Hearst-Health.

About Medalogix

Founded in 2012 Medalogix is a one-of -a-kind data analytics company in the post-acute care space. Transforming home health and hospice agencies by leveraging cutting-edge data science, machine learning and innovative cloud technology to equip clinicians and agencies to provide the right care at the right time. The company's five machine learning products have demonstrated improved patient outcomes, and reduced cost to the healthcare system, including reduced hospitalization, appropriate and timely transitions to end-of-life care, and optimized visit utilization for patients. For more information, please visit Medalogix at https://medalogix.com/ or follow us on LinkedIn @Medalogix.

SOURCE Medalogix

Related Links

www.medalogix.com


CINCINNATI, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Just as businesses head into the peak Q4 holiday season, Amazon is reducing the inventory levels allowed by their distribution centers by as much as 30-40% for many brands. Because of these changes, sellers who rely solely on Amazon to fulfill orders (known as Fulfillment by Amazon, or FBA) may experience product out-of-stocks if the inventory levels allowed by Amazon are less than what are needed to meet product sales demands. Amazon is even cutting inventory levels for brands with excellent Inventory Performance Index (IPI)https://www.hingeglobal.com/blog/q4-checklist/ scores.

DM Fulfillment reaches 99% of the U.S. population within 1-2 days via ground delivery Amazon's reduction in FBA inventory levels means sellers must use FBM to avoid running out-of-stock.

To avoid running out of product, especially during the critical Q4 season, sellers are strongly recommended to use Fulfillment by Merchant (FBM), either in combination with FBA or alone. Fulfillment by Merchant is where sellers take responsibility for warehousing and shipping orders. Today, 57% of Amazon sellers are not using FBM . (Only 34% of Amazon sellers use a combination of FBA and FBM, and only 9% use FBM alone.)

To help sellers manage FBM, Hinge Global and DM Fulfillment are offering a joint service called TurnKey FBM. TurnKey FBM is a streamlined fulfillment solution for brands and distributors, enabling them to avoid the restrictions of FBA. TurnKey FBM leverages DM Fulfillment's direct-to-consumer fulfillment expertise and cost-effective shipping. In fact, using TurnKey FBM may be cheaper than FBA, and also result in faster shipping to consumers.

To learn more about the changes to Amazon's inventory levels and the TurnKey FBM solution, Hinge Global and DM Fulfillment are inviting you to join one of two webinars. Click below to register; registrants will also receive a recording of the event:

September 30, 2021 ( 3PM EST / 2PM CST /12 PST)

( / /12 PST) October 5, 2021 ( 3PM EST / 2PM CST /12 PST)

You can also learn more by reaching out here.

ABOUT DM FULFILLMENT:

DM Fulfillment Services provides best-in-class fulfillment and distribution solutions so that manufacturers, merchants, and trading partners can seamlessly integrate with today's omni-channel, eCommerce world. Visit www.dmfulfillment.com to learn more. Media contact: [email protected].

ABOUT HINGE GLOBAL:

HINGE GLOBAL is a leading full-service eCommerce agency, delivering profitable online sales growth for manufacturers and distributors on Amazon, Walmart.com, and other marketplaces. Visit www.hingeglobal.com to learn more.

Media contact:

Kathy Cummins

[email protected]

513-910-3638

SOURCE Hinge Global

Related Links

http://www.dmfulfillment.com


Leclanche battery systems are powering Damen's new Amherst Islander II and Wolfe Islander IV eFerries which will operate on Lake Ontario, Canada between Millhaven and Amherst Island and Kingston and Wolfe Island

First Leclanche end-to-end sale linking its e-Marine and Stationary Solutions businesses

YVERDON-LES-BAINS, Switzerland and SUMAR, The Netherlands, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Expanding its portfolio of solutions for the marine electrification industry, Leclanche (SIX: LECN) is introducing a new "ports and harbor" infrastructure solution enabling hybrid and fully electric vessels to fast charge when returning to port.

Its first customer for the innovative turnkey solution is Damen Shipyards Group, a globally operating company with more than 50 shipyards and related facilities, which has selected Leclanche to construct and provide two fast charge electric ferry stations, and supporting electrical storage systems, on Canada's Lake Ontario.

The agreement with Leclanche's Stationary Solutions group provides the complete recharging infrastructure. They will be installed next year to support two eFerries Damen has built for the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario. Both of the electric vessels are powered by Leclanche's Marine Rack System (MRS), certified by Bureau Veritas, under prior contracts with Leclanche's e-Marine group.

The Amherst Islander II (Damen 6819 E3) is fully electric with a 1.9 MWh capacity Leclanche Battery System and produces zero emissions. It will carry up to 42 cars and 300 passengers and speeds of up to twelve knots and connect the mainland port city of Millhaven, Ontario with Stella on Amherst Island .

with on . The Wolfe Islander IV (Damen 9819 E3), a larger eFerry, will provide service between Kingston , on the mainland, and Wolfe Island and features a 4.6 MWh Leclanche Battery System. It can carry twice the number of passenger vehicles  83  plus 399 passengers. It too produces zero emissions and will sail at up to twelve knots per hour  the same speed as vessels powered by conventional propulsion systems.

, on the mainland, and and features a 4.6 MWh Leclanche Battery System. It can carry twice the number of passenger vehicles  83  plus 399 passengers. It too produces zero emissions and will sail at up to twelve knots per hour  the same speed as vessels powered by conventional propulsion systems. The eFerries, have performed their sea trials successfully on the Black Sea in late April ( Amherst Island II ) and May (Wolfe Islander IV) respectively and are scheduled to be transported to Canada by a specialized semi-submersible vessel starting in August.

"Damen's broad range of ultra-modern ferries operate all over the world and we're proud to have partnered with Leclanche to build two state-of-the-art all electric ferries which are a first of its kind for North America and a breakthrough in sustainability," said Leo Postma, sales director Americas, Damen. "This partnership is consistent with our goal of being the world's most sustainable shipbuilder. Extending our partnership for the on-shore fast charge and electrical storage systems is a natural outgrowth of our business relationship and consistent with our pioneering role in the maritime energy transition. It also provides many benefits to Ontario's Ministry of Transportation."

Leclanche's Vision: The Creation of Public and Private Infrastructure to Accelerate the eTransport Industry

Leclanche's in-house capability to provide both the battery energy storage system to power maritime vessels and the on-land charging and storage system, powered by the grid or increasingly cost-effective renewable sources of energy, sets it apart from other providers.

"I would like to thank Damen for trusting Leclanche with this innovative project. We've all observed the growing pains of the global electric automotive industry and the barriers to mass adoption caused by the lack of public and universal recharging infrastructure," said Anil Srivastava, CEO, Leclanche. "You can't have eFerries or electric trains, buses, trucks or other modes of transportation displace fossil-fueled modes of transportation without a reliable, cost-effective and energy efficient infrastructure in place. Our new zero emission ports and harbors solution architecture will make it easier for ship designers and port authorities to design, build and welcome to their shores the latest generation of sustainable vessels.

"For those portside regions unable to install a fixed energy storage system on shore, we are already considering a mobile charging station option  essentially a floating e-Barge with a fast-charge storage system onboard  that will enable a ferry to power-up in port without burdening the local infrastructure."

Ontario Ports and Harbor Solution

The Ontario ports and harbor systems are equipped with a 3.0 MWh Leclanche battery energy storage system (BESS) located in port-side structures (one each in Millhaven and Stella). The BESS, which will be charged by the harbor grid, is connected to the ferry charger via 1800 kW DC-DC converters. These "buffer stations" will be protected by the industry's highest safety standard fire suppression system using piped in water running alongside the battery racks and behind each battery module. The backs of each module have an opening allowing water spray to enter in the event of any thermal events.

Crossing time between ports will be just 20 minutes and Leclanche's high power, DC-to-DC fast charging system will enable the eFerries to "refuel" in just 10 minutes at each port  well within the time it takes for the vessel to discharge passengers and vehicles and reload. The batteries have been designed to charge each vessel up to 7,850 times per year or more than 78,500 times over their projected 10-year lifespan  ensuring 21 hours of duty daily regardless of weather.

"Our continuing partnership with Damen is bringing several firsts to market including the first fully electric passenger and car ferries in North America and the first time two of our business units have collaborated to create an end-to-end solution for a key customer. Now, thanks to our e-Marine and Stationary Solutions teams, passengers will be able to embark on a vessel powered by Leclanche technology onboard and recharged on shore  with the added benefit of our electrical storage systems providing stability to the local power grid," said Srivastava.

Find more information on this project in the Case Study. For more information about Leclanche's ports and harbor infrastructure solution, visit www.leclanche.com or contact [email protected]

About Damen

Damen Shipyards Group has been in operation for over ninety years and offers maritime solutions worldwide, through design, construction, conversion and repair of ships and ship components. By integrating systems, we create innovative, high quality platforms, which provide our customers with maximum added value. Our core values are fellowship, craftsmanship, entrepreneurship and stewardship. Our goal is to become the world's most sustainable shipbuilder, via digitalisation, standardisation and serial construction of our vessels. Damen operates 35 shipyards and 20 other companies in 20 countries, supported by a worldwide sales and service network. Damen Shipyards Group offers direct employment to more than 12,000 people.

About Leclanche

Headquartered in Switzerland, Leclanche SA is a leading provider of high-quality energy storage solutions designed to accelerate our progress towards a clean energy future. Leclanche's history and heritage is rooted in over 100 years of battery and energy storage innovation and the Company is a trusted provider of energy storage solutions globally. This coupled with the Company's culture of German engineering and Swiss precision and quality, continues to make Leclanche the partner of choice for both disruptors, established companies and governments who are pioneering positive changes in how energy is produced, distributed and consumed around the world. The energy transition is being driven primarily by changes in the management of our electricity networks and the electrification of transport, and these two end markets form the backbone of our strategy and business model. Leclanche is at the heart of the convergence of the electrification of transport and the changes in the distribution network. Leclanche is the only listed pure play energy storage company in the world, organised along three business units: stationary storage solutions, e-Transport solutions and specialty batteries systems. Leclanche is listed on the Swiss Stock Exchange (SIX: LECN).

SIX Swiss Exchange: ticker symbol LECN | ISIN CH 011 030 311 9

Disclaimer

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements relating to Leclanche's business, which can be identified by terminology such as "strategic", "proposes", "to introduce", "will", "planned", "expected", "commitment", "expects", "set", "preparing", "plans", "estimates", "aims", "would", "potential", "awaiting", "estimated", "proposal", or similar expressions, or by expressed or implied discussions regarding the ramp up of Leclanche's production capacity, potential applications for existing products, or regarding potential future revenues from any such products, or potential future sales or earnings of Leclanche or any of its business units. You should not place undue reliance on these statements. Such forward-looking statements reflect the current views of Leclanche regarding future events, and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. There can be no guarantee that Leclanche's products will achieve any particular revenue levels. Nor can there be any guarantee that Leclanche, or any of the business units, will achieve any particular financial results.

SOURCE Leclanche

Related Links

https://www.leclanche.com/


George Sainteus along with co-founders Ritha Pierre Freda's House Inc. (non-profit). Freda's House Inc. was inspired by George's' grandmother, a strong compassionate woman named Freda Sainteus. Born in Baraderes, Haiti, Freda was ambitious, driven but most importantly she was caring. Freda had a great love for her hometown of Baraderes. Freda was a prominent figure in her community. Opening her home for those in need and providing warm meals to the children in her community, over the years, Freda's House became a place of refuge for many. Freda's efforts inspired the George and his co-founders and in 2016, the team organized a group of friends to assist with hurricane relief efforts in Baraderes Haiti. It was from that visit, the group dedicated themselves to creating sustainable pathways for the people of Baraderes, Haiti. Freda was loved by all.

The team has executed projects providing relief efforts during natural disasters, initiatives focusing on health, economic empowerment, education, and technology and more. The team will lay out their initiatives for 2021-2022 during the fundraiser benefit event taking place on Sept 19th, the Black & White benefit, which in the past has been a birthday celebration for co-founder George Sainteus. Instead, this year George will donate 100% of the proceeds to benefit the ongoing efforts to support rebuilding Haiti. To purchase tickets to the event visit the website Fredashouse.org.

To inquire about Zoom/Skype interviews for George Sainteus or media inquiries please contact LaToya Hurley at [email protected] or call 281-660-1813.

About Sainteus Agency

GEORGE SAINTEUS is a New York City based serial entrepreneur. His claim to fame is curating New York City's largest and most powerful Urban Professional Mixer known as The Upmixer, as well as running a highly successful insurance agency. His star-studded Upmixer events, over the years, have convened influential leaders in business, government, education, media, tech, the arts, and health care, while raising hundreds of thousands for multiple scholarships and community projects.

Press Contact:

Innovating Marketing Group

3463553364

https://innovatingmarketinggroup.com

SOURCE Sainteus Agency
BOSTON, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Political, economic, social, and technological factors are all elevating the need for end-to-end food traceability and transparency, and the COVID-19 pandemic served as a force multiplier, according to new insight from Lux Research, a leading provider of tech-enabled research and innovation advisory services. While there is an abundance of reasons for agrifood companies to implement traceability and transparency tools, understanding the value of doing so is nontrivial.

Lux's new report, "Demystifying Food Traceability and Transparency," seeks to provide much-needed clarity to the murky subject of the value of implementing traceability and transparency tools for agrifood companies. To develop a better sense of what is driving food traceability, Lux evaluated different macro forces that are promoting adoption: political, economic, social, and technological (PEST). Then Lux clearly categorized the qualitative and quantitative outcomes of food traceability projects and created a hot spot map of these outcomes among the 41 traceability projects analyzed. Further, Lux identified the unmet needs in the incumbent traceability activities and emerging technology solutions and their developers and laid out the future directions of this space.

"Among the food traceability drivers from political, economic, social, and technological angles, regulation bears the most weight. That being said, opportunities exist beyond simple compliance and provide real business benefits," explains Jerrold Wang, Analyst on the Lux Research Emerging Ecosystems of Agrifood and Health team and the lead author of the report. "Measuring a tangible, quantitative ROI remains difficult; however, the downside of failing to embrace food traceability, especially given tightening regulations, currently outweighs the unclear upside."

Lux conducted interviews with agrifood stakeholders, and, looking beyond the status quo, these interviews revealed three major unmet needs when it comes to bolstering the value derived from food traceability:

Sustainability measurements  Measuring indicators of sustainability is now critical to corporate reporting. With increased supply chain connectivity, accurate and granular data is requisite. This is an urgent and complex challenge. Sustainability indicators are difficult to measure and suffer from a lack of standardization.

 Measuring indicators of sustainability is now critical to corporate reporting. With increased supply chain connectivity, accurate and granular data is requisite. This is an urgent and complex challenge. Sustainability indicators are difficult to measure and suffer from a lack of standardization. Supply and demand forecasting  The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated food system fragility to disruptive shock. Ideally, layering predictive analytics around traceability data improves forecasts of supply and demand and balances the gap between them. Building resiliency requires improved inventory management to resist likely future perturbation.

 The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated food system fragility to disruptive shock. Ideally, layering predictive analytics around traceability data improves forecasts of supply and demand and balances the gap between them. Building resiliency requires improved inventory management to resist likely future perturbation. Trade facilitation  COVID-19 forced countries to reexamine local food security, but cross-border trade remained an economic lifeline for many regions. There is a need to optimize food supply chains when sudden, unpredictable perturbations occur. Global trade will require innovations that rapidly resolve disputes amid a growing frequency of supply chain disruptions.

Technology developers will work in earnest to capitalize on the unmet needs expressed by agrifood stakeholders, but a "one-platform-fits-all" approach is not viable, despite being the state of the art. With companies inevitably forced to utilize different platforms, platform interoperability is critical to achieving the long-desired "network effect" in food traceability. Agrifood companies should be active participants in forming consortia with suppliers, customers, tech developers, and standardization organizations to test and validate platform interoperability and metrics. Download the report executive summary to learn more.

About Lux Research

Lux Research is a leading provider of tech-enabled research and advisory services, helping clients drive growth through technology innovation. A pioneer in the research industry, Lux uniquely combines technical expertise and business insights with a proprietary intelligence platform, using advanced analytics and data science to surface true leading indicators. With quality data derived from primary research, fact-based analysis, and opinions that challenge traditional thinking, Lux empowers clients to make more informed decisions today to ensure future success.

For more information, visit www.luxresearchinc.com, read our blog, connect on LinkedIn, or follow @LuxResearch.

If you are interested in speaking with an Analyst to learn more about this research, please email [email protected]

SOURCE Lux Research

Related Links

http://www.luxresearchinc.com


GEORGETOWN, Mass., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Recognizing its continued acceleration and growth, Momentum Manufacturing Group, one of the top ten largest specialty manufacturers in North America, was awarded a 2021 Vermont Business Growth Award by the Vermont Business Magazine (VBM). Momentum, which includes the former NSA Industries operation in Vermont, receives the award for the third year in a row.

"We have a great team of skilled associates and continue to invest in state-of-the-art automation and technology to fuel our growth, quality, and efficiency in meeting the needs of our customer partners," said Jim Moroney, CEO of Momentum Manufacturing Group. "It's an honor to have these efforts recognized, and we are proud to receive this award."

The Vermont Business Growth Awards, now in their 19th year, are based upon data accumulated by VBM and recognizes company growth based upon sales over the previous five years. As the US economy continues to recover coming out of the pandemic, many businesses across the region and the country are facing unprecedented employment and supply chain issues. These challenges shine a stronger light on the accomplishment for the company's receiving the award, demonstrating true operational excellence in the face of adversity.

"We are very optimistic about what we see on the horizon. Our ability to offer a full range of end-to-end metal fabrication, extrusion, precision machining, and contract manufacturing solutions have us well-positioned as many of our partners are seeing surges in demand," Moroney continued.

About Momentum Manufacturing Group

Momentum Manufacturing Group, with over 650 employees, is the largest specialty metal manufacturing company of its kind in New England and one of the top 10 largest in North America. Momentum collaborates with customers to develop manufacturing solutions, including engineering, prototype development, metal fabrication, precision machining, aluminum extrusion, powder coating, screenprint, and assembly. The company operates out of nine state-of-the-art facilities with 24/7 lights-out operations in St. Johnsbury and Lyndonville, VT, Amherst, Groveton, and Franklin NH, and Ipswich & Georgetown, MA, totaling over 650,000 sq. ft. of manufacturing space. For more information, visit www.mmg1982.com.

Contact: Bill Grindle

Tel: +1 614-554-3985

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Momentum Manufacturing Group

Related Links

http://www.mmg1982.com


MCKINNEY, Texas, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Expanding on its industry-leading full-stack virtual care platform that connect users with U.S. licensed practitioners for expert guidance and medical treatment, MyTelemedicine is excited to announce the expansion of services to now offer virtual primary care and integrated behavioral health for members nationwide.

Virtual Care Platform

"Our foundational telemedicine services fill a vital need by empowering patients to connect by phone or video with licensed doctors for non-emergency issues. But the original model is geared toward diagnosing and treating common acute illnesses as they arise," notes Rey Colon, founder and CEO of MyTelemedicine. "Our new Virtual Primary Care services build on this foundation by letting users select a provider to be their primary care physician to monitor ongoing health concerns, order labs, medication management, as well as address preventative health care strategies," he says.

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic created a sudden surge in the use of telemedicine services nationwide. Telehealth visits soared, with daily, non-urgent telemedicine consultations increasing 4,000 percent in the first quarter of 2020, according to the Journal of American Informatics Association. The dramatic increase in consumer and provider awareness and adoption of the remote care model has since led to a sea change in how health care services are delivered.

Virtual medical consultations not only save patient's time and money by reducing costly and unnecessary office or emergency room visits, but also broaden access to affordable care for people who need it most. The MyTelemedicine platform makes it easier for individuals in rural communities to see a licensed doctor, and for those who are too ill to connect with a health care practitioner without putting themselves or others at risk.

In addition to virtual primary care, MyTelemedicine also is fighting back at the country's mounting mental health crisis with the expansion of its behavioral health services. MyTelemedicine members and their dependents can initiate on-demand consultation with a licensed counselor for crisis management or schedule a phone or video session with a licensed psychiatrist or psychologist, based on the individual's needs.

"Even before the pandemic, the prevalence of mental illness in our country has been steadily increasing, and now affects one in four adults," notes Dr. Jeff Gardere, who recently joined MyTelemedicine, better known as "America's Psychologist". Dr. Gardere is one of the most widely sought-after experts in the field of mental health and brings compassionate expertise in psychological wellness and crisis management intervention to MyTelemedicine's behavioral health services. "One-on-one mental health counseling can be hugely beneficial for anyone dealing with a short-term crisis and give them the tools to process their emotions or navigate change in a positive way," he says.

The new behavioral health services offering expands on MyTelemedicine's existing counseling services, which gives members access to master-level therapists from the comfort and privacy of their own home. Therapists are available around the clock, with many offering appointments evenings and weekends, making it easier for patients to continue their treatment. "Several recent studies have shown that online counseling is just as effective as in-person counseling," notes CEO Rey Colon. "We encourage our members who are dealing with difficult emotional issues to talk with a master-level therapist, or to schedule a session with a psychologist or psychiatrist through our mobile app Access a Doctor, so they can enjoy sound mental health as well as physical wellness."

Both virtual primary care and expanded behavioral health services are aligned with MyTelemedicine's mission of improving healthcare access through user-friendly, member-focused technologies that connect patients with trusted health care providers anywhere in the country. Says Colon, "We are always anticipating the growing needs of our members and creating new solutions to provide exceptional remote care for the patients we serve."

To learn more about Virtual Primary Care please visit https://mytelemedicine.com/virtual-primary-care.html.

About MyTelemedicine

MyTelemedicine is a digital health care technology company that built around a full-stack HIPAA-compliant virtual care platform to let healthcare providers consult with patients remotely. MyTelemedicine's advanced API technology allows third parties to integrate and offer a customized telemedicine experience to support their brand identity. Physicians can perform on-demand consultations with members anywhere via telephone and video technology. Patients receive advice, recommendations, and a diagnosis, which may include a prescription. More than 4 million members have used the MyTelemedicine platform through their Brands MyTelemedicine, Access a Doctor, GoLexi Pet Telehealth and Zeally Health brands. For more information, visit www.mytelemedicine.com.



Media Contact:

Kelley Kramer

Ph: 469.640.9829

[email protected]

SOURCE MyTelemedicine, Inc

Related Links

http://www.mytelemedicine.com


HAMILTON, Bermuda, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Nabors Industries Ltd. ("Nabors" or the "Company") (NYSE: NBR) today reiterated its financial outlook for the third quarter of 2021. The Company published the original outlook in the July press release detailing results for second quarter of 2021.

At maturity on September 15th, Nabors repaid the outstanding portion of its 4.625% senior notes due in September 2021. As of June 30th, the remaining amount totaled $82.4 million.

Anthony G. Petrello, Nabors Chairman, CEO and President, commented, "Our overall activity has developed as we expected in the third quarter with all of our segments continuing their strong performance. We are also encouraged by our cash generation quarter-to-date and expect once again to reduce our net debt as anticipated. We remain committed to improving the Company's balance sheet leverage and we have completed another step. With the retirement of the 4.625% notes, our next pending maturity occurs in early 2023 and amounts to less than $25 million."

About Nabors Industries

Nabors Industries is a leading provider of advanced technology for the energy industry. With operations in approximately 20 countries, Nabors has established a global network of people, technology and equipment to deploy solutions that deliver safe, efficient and sustainable energy production. By leveraging its core competencies, particularly in drilling, engineering, automation, data science and manufacturing, Nabors aims to help shape the future of energy and enable the transition to a lower carbon world. Learn more about Nabors and its 100-year history of energy technology leadership: www.nabors.com .

Forward-looking Statements

The information included in this press release includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Such forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, as disclosed by Nabors from time to time in its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. As a result of these factors, Nabors' actual results may differ materially from those indicated or implied by such forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release reflect management's estimates and beliefs as of the date of this press release. Nabors does not undertake to update these forward-looking statements.

Non-GAAP Disclaimer

This press release presents certain "non-GAAP" financial measures. The components of these non-GAAP measures are computed by using amounts that are determined in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America ("GAAP"). Adjusted operating income (loss) represents income (loss) from continuing operations before income taxes, interest expense, earnings (losses) from unconsolidated affiliates, investment income (loss), (gain)/loss on debt buybacks and exchanges, impairments and other charges and other, net. Adjusted EBITDA is computed similarly, but also excludes depreciation and amortization expenses. In addition, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted operating income (loss) exclude certain cash expenses that the Company is obligated to make. Net debt is calculated as total debt minus the sum of cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments. Free cash flow represents net cash provided by operating activities less cash used for investing activities. Free cash flow is an indicator of our ability to generate cash flow after required spending to maintain or expand our asset base. Management believes that this non-GAAP measure is useful information to investors when comparing our cash flows with the cash flows of other companies. Each of these non-GAAP measures has limitations and therefore should not be used in isolation or as a substitute for the amounts reported in accordance with GAAP. However, management evaluates the performance of its operating segments and the consolidated Company based on several criteria, including adjusted EBITDA, adjusted operating income (loss), net debt, and free cash flow, because it believes that these financial measures accurately reflect the Company's ongoing profitability and performance. Securities analysts and investors also use these measures as some of the metrics on which they analyze the Company's performance. Other companies in this industry may compute these measures differently. Reconciliations of consolidated adjusted EBITDA and adjusted operating income (loss) to income (loss) from continuing operations before income taxes, net debt to total debt, and free cash flow to cash flow provided by operations, which are their nearest comparable GAAP financial measures, are included in the tables at the end of this press release.

Media Contact: William C. Conroy, Vice President of Corporate Development & Investor Relations, +1 281-775-2423 or via e-mail [email protected], or Kara Peak, Director of Corporate Development & Investor Relations, +1 281-775-4954 or via email [email protected]. To request investor materials, contact Nabors' corporate headquarters in Hamilton, Bermuda at +441-292-1510 or via e-mail [email protected]

SOURCE Nabors Industries Ltd.

Related Links

www.nabors.com


SHANGHAI, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- New Core Tech announced that it has just closed its C-round raise-funding valued up to USD 35M, which led by XiaoMi, Shunwei Capital and followed by Northern Light Venture Capital and Cowin Capital etc. Binjiang Tao, the CEO of New Core Tech, discloses that the fund will be largely used to partnership and channel expansion, talent acquisition etc. This is the second round of financing since this year for New Core Tech. Early in Feb this year, New Core Tech has just finished its B+ round financing led by IDG Capital and Cowin Capital.

New Core Tech aims at providing SaaS and aPaaS especially for discrete manufacturing industry, covering Cloud MES (Manufacturing Execution System), Cloud ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), TPM (Total Productive Maintenance) and TQM (Total Quality Management) four major modules. Its smart factory solution has successfully helped thousands factories in China accomplish digital transformation through intelligence decision making process, manufacturing data collection, data analysis. Until now, its products have been widely applied in Automotive parts and High-tech Equipment manufacturing industry, with clients such as ENN Group, ZhongZhou Group etc.

The MES system provided by New Core Tech essentially is a comprehensive management system serving the operational layer of workshops within the factories. Through collecting data from manufacturing machines, such as CNC, New Core Tech is able to provide factories with a suite of resource allocation, detail scheduling, dispatching production units, document control, data collection, labor management, quality management, process management, maintenance management,product tracking and genealogy and performance analysis. Although some enterprise-sized factories have already adopted various kinds of digital management systems, MES should be the core of digital transformation since it accelerates the flow of work throught the shop. Early in 2016, Chinese government has issued an official document to point out that it is essential for discrete and process manufacturing to employ MES system.

It is reported that MES accounts 29% of the total industrial software market in China 2020. Early this year, there are nearly ten MES companies who closed fund-raising in the market, including New Core Tech. Moreover, as the market develops, most of the SMB factories has been gradually getting rid of the phenomenon of "pushing the missing components, arguing for the scheduling, hand-writing the transcript", which has dramatically increased the demand for MES domestically.

Early in Feb this year, industrial software has been selected as the major R&D focus by government, which signals that it has been the most prioritized strategic investment in China. Meantime, the Covid-19 situation speeds up the process of digital transformation of domestic manufacturing industry, especially the small-and-medium-sized enterprises. The wiliness and degree of acceptance of adopting MES has been enormously enhanced, they are expecting to increase the productivity of manufacturing through employing MES system.

According to the report named "2020 Smart Factory and MES Application" by Doctor Huang Pei, the current domestic MES is still way under mature. Most of the manufacturing enterprises are developing their in-house MES or hiring outsourcing team to co-develop, leading to large amounts of sunk cost.

The CEO of New Core Tech, Binjiang Tao, told 36Kr that, it takes a long journey for a MES to be actually implemented in the factory, and most of the time many just ends with nothing.

The MES by New Core Tech is using a SaaS and aPaaS model, not only serving the top-tier clients through customized service, but also serving the long-tail clients through more than 60 selection of modules. Clients could choose the corresponding modules based on their actual needs, which perfectly solve the pain point of long implementation process of MES.

The next phase of the evolution of MES, Binjiang Tao believes, will be the eco-system that supprts end-to-end supply chain planning and execution functions. New Core Tech has been dedicating to partner with other SaaS to co-build the digital eco-system through open API. It has been currently integrated with and compatible with systems like CRM, OA, ERP, PLM, PDM, MDC etc in order to provide comprehensive digital solution covering different departments inside and outside of factories.

Know-how in Automotive parts and High-tech Equipment manufacturing industry by New Core Tech has made it user-friendly to the clients within the industry. In fact, professionality in specific vertical industry is the key strategy of most of the MES players domestically, such as Morewis focusing on electronic packaging, PCBA, and BlackLake focusing on food, medical industry etc.

It is commonly acknowledged that MES is hard to copy, industry know-how of specific vertical really matters. Eventually, it will be hard to provide standardized MES product across different industries, especially for domestic MES providers. To focus on one specific vertical is the key to build up "the moat".

SOURCE New Core Tech
"We have not seen this level of investment in public education in a generation," said Sara Garcia, SVLG Tweet this

"We have not seen this level of investment in public education in a generation," said Sara Garcia, Director of Education & Workforce Development at SVLG, "and have never seen as great an investment in students' mental health as the Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative, and with that comes great responsibility. We hope this report serves as a toolkit for best practices in supporting students' mental health by showcasing the amazing work local schools are doing in that area."

Governor Newsom's 2021-2022 budget includes a $4 billion investment in the Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative, which will provide screenings, counseling, and therapy for young people up to age 25. The new funding, from the federal and state level, moves the state's per-student funding from 48th in the nation to the top 10 in national rankings. The study's lead author notes that money will lead to more student mental health staffing, but many schools are waiting to see where needs will be this school year before hiring new staff.

"Overall, the report shows schools are attempting to shift focus from triaging mental health support to creating preventative youth mental health practices," said Will Aubin, the report's lead researcher. "And this shift would not be possible without this increase in funding." Aubin pointed to the report showing school districts investing more money in three key areas:

1. 3rd party organizations to connect families to specialized care

2. Proactive investments in social-emotional curriculum

3. More teacher training to support student mental health needs

The new funding comes in response to Covid's increased mental health challenges for children and teens. According to CDC records, mental health-related emergency room visits for those ages 12-17 increased by 31% between April and October of 2020 compared with the same period in 2019. Related to that impact, Dr. Steven Adelsheim, Stanford University Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, pointed to the urgent need to better understand school mental health strategies at this time.

"We must do everything we can right now to support the mental health and wellbeing of our students and families as they return to the classroom," said Dr. Adelsheim.

SVLG's Sara Garcia said that the report is an important examination of practices in children's mental health in our schools now. But she also emphasized that an examination of what's working was critical as new funding gives districts a chance to make new impacts with those affected.

"This historical investment demands significant responsibility. It is incumbent upon our schools and service providers to be good stewards of public dollars intended to support the needs of the most vulnerable in our community," said Garcia.

To read the full report, please click HERE

About SVLG:

Silicon Valley Leadership group is the region's premier business advocacy organization. Building on four decades of success in championing the solutions that make Silicon Valley the best place to work and live, we promote a policy agenda focused on fostering business competitiveness and the region's innovation ecosystem. Collectively, SVLG members provide nearly one of every three private sector jobs in Silicon Valley and contribute more than $3 trillion to the worldwide economy each year.

Laura Wilkinson, SVP

Media & External Relations

Silicon Valley Leadership Group

408.200.2330

[email protected]

SOURCE Silicon Valley Leadership Group
Before his role at Europol, Nils was the Project Leader of the Dark Web Unit of the Dutch National Police. He was also the Project Leader of Operation Gravesac/Bayonet, coordinating the takeover and takedown of the dark web marketplaces Hansa Market and Alphabay. Together with colleagues around the world, Nils was instrumental in this global operation. During this action a huge amount of information regarding illicit trades was being gathered and shared with other law enforcement agencies which has led to many arrests around the globe and contributed greatly to cleaning up the crypto industry.

Nils Andersen-Roed commented: "After many years working in law enforcement I am excited to tackle new challenges in the Binance Audit and Investigations team. Over the years I have learned that simply arresting criminals isn't enough to combat crime, you also need to take a broader look at the whole ecosystem in which they are operating. Criminals and other bad actors try to misuse crypto for illegal purposes, which can have an impact on innocent participants of the whole industry. At Binance I will be in a position to keep the platforms and users safe from these bad actors while assisting law enforcement agencies around the world with their investigations and secure prosecutions."

"My goal is to make the cryptocurrency industry (and Binance specifically) a safer place. International collaboration between the industry and law enforcement agencies is key, criminals don't care about borders. Increased collaboration between the public and private sector will also be beneficial when it comes to fighting crime and making this industry a safer place for everyone."

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1628261/Binance_Nils_Andersen_Roed.jpg

SOURCE Binance

Related Links

https://www.binance.com/en


COLUMBUS, Ohio, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- In a court order dated September 10, 2021, Franklin County, Ohio Common Pleas Court Judge Mark A. Serrott granted the motion filed by Meyer Wilson attorneys on behalf of an elderly widow to confirm an arbitration award that was issued earlier this year in her favor against Columbus, Ohio area investment adviser Fisher Wealth Management, LLC.

In confirming the arbitration award, Judge Serrott simultaneously denied Fisher Wealth's request to overturn the arbitration award, finding that Fisher Wealth's legal arguments were not persuasive and lacked merit.

As explained in Judge Serrott's order, plaintiff's arbitration claims against Fisher Wealth related to investment losses stemming from three investments that Fisher Wealth sold to her.

The arbitration award, issued on May 12, 2021, followed three days of evidentiary hearing in Columbus. As part of the award, the arbitrator ordered Fisher Wealth to pay compensatory damages in the amount of $621,500, plus post-judgment interest at the statutory rate.

Following the issuance of the arbitration award, Meyer Wilson attorneys filed an application in Franklin County Common Pleas Court requesting that the arbitration award be confirmed. Fisher Wealth's attorneys thereafter filed a request asking the court to vacate the award.

Meyer Wilson attorneys David Meyer and Chad Kohler represented the plaintiff at the arbitration and in the subsequent court proceedings.

"We are very pleased with Judge Serrott's decision," said Meyer, the founding principal of the Meyer Wilson law firm. "I am proud of our client who had the courage to fight to pursue the recovery of her retirement savings that she and her late husband worked so hard to save, and it was an honor to represent her."

Founded in 1999, the law firm of Meyer Wilson represents individual investors throughout the country in disputes against brokerage firms, investment advisers, and insurance companies. For more information, visit www.investorclaims.com.

Media Contact:

Huntly Mayo-Malasky

[email protected]

SOURCE Meyer Wilson

Related Links

https://www.investorclaims.com


More than 467,000 passengers traveled through the Southern California gateway during the month  138% more than August last year and 93% of the passenger volume recorded in the same month in 2019, officials announced. ONT welcomed more than 454,000 domestic passengers and 13,600 international travelers during August. Year to date, total passenger volume was 2.6 million, 51% higher than the same period last year and within 72.5% of 2019 levels for the same eight-month period.

"Ontario International continued to experience a strong pandemic recovery in August, and we remain confident in our ability to attract air service and maintain Ontario's status as a safe, attractive destination airport," said Ronald O. Loveridge, vice president of the Ontario International Airport Authority (OIAA) and retired mayor of the city of Riverside, Calif.

Passenger Totals August 2021 August 2020 Change YTD 2021 YTD 2020 Change Domestic 454,022 193,142 135,07% 2,539,079 1,649,497 53.9% International 13,600 3,389 301.30% 66,959 72,766 -8.0% Total 467,622 196,531 137.94% 2,606,038 1,722,263 51.3%

Passenger Totals August 2021 August 2019 Change YTD 2021 YTD 2019 Change Domestic 454,022 478,782 -5.17% 2,539,079 3,392,696 -25.2% International 13,600 25,320 -46.29% 66,959 200,734 -66.6% Total 467,622 504,102 -7.24% 2,606,038 3,593,430 -27.5%

Air cargo (freight and mail) shipments in August totaled more than 68,000 tons, a decrease of 8.3% compared to the same month in 2020 but an increase of 1.6% compared to the same month in 2019. Over the first eight months of the year, air cargo  more than 543,000 tons  declined 2.7% from the same period a year ago but increased 15.6% compared to 2019.

Air cargo (tonnage) August 2021 August 2020 Change YTD 2021 YTD 2020 Change Freight 64,316 72,261 -11.0% 543,571 575,947 -5.6% Mail 3,881 2,096 85.16% 30,157 13,607 121.6% Total 68,198 74,358 -8.28% 573,728 589,554 -2.7%

Air cargo (tonnage) August 2021 August 2019 Change YTD 2021 YTD 2019 Change Freight 64,316 65,514 -1.83% 543,571 479,145 13.4% Mail 3,881 1,587 144.58% 30,157 16,950 77.9% Total 68,198 67,101 1.63% 573,728 496,094 15.6%

"Ontario International continues to be a tremendous public asset for the Inland Empire as a safe, convenient and low-cost destination airport, as well as a spacious, modern hub for commercial freight activity," Loveridge added.

About Ontario International Airport

Ontario International Airport (ONT) is the fastest growing airport in the United States, according to Global Traveler, a leading publication for frequent fliers. Located in the Inland Empire, ONT is approximately 35 miles east of downtown Los Angeles in the center of Southern California. It is a full-service airport which, before the coronavirus pandemic, offered nonstop commercial jet service to 26 major airports in the U.S., Mexico and Taiwan. More information is available at www.flyOntario.com. Follow @flyONT on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

About the Ontario International Airport Authority (OIAA)

The OIAA was formed in August 2012 by a Joint Powers Agreement between the City of Ontario and the County of San Bernardino to provide overall direction for the management, operations, development and marketing of ONT for the benefit of the Southern California economy and the residents of the airport's four-county catchment area. OIAA Commissioners are Ontario Mayor Pro Tem Alan D. Wapner (President), Retired Riverside Mayor Ronald O. Loveridge (Vice President), Ontario City Council Member Jim W. Bowman (Secretary), San Bernardino County Supervisor Curt Hagman (Commissioner) and retired business executive Julia Gouw (Commissioner).

About the Ontario International Airport Authority (OIAA)

The OIAA was formed in August 2012 by a Joint Powers Agreement between the City of Ontario and the County of San Bernardino to provide overall direction for the management, operations, development and marketing of ONT for the benefit of the Southern California economy and the residents of the airport's four-county catchment area. OIAA Commissioners are Ontario Mayor Pro Tem Alan D. Wapner (President), Retired Riverside Mayor Ronald O. Loveridge (Vice President), Ontario City Council Member Jim W. Bowman (Secretary), San Bernardino County Supervisor Curt Hagman (Commissioner) and retired business executive Julia Gouw (Commissioner).

OIAA Media Contact:

Steve Lambert, (909) 841-7527 [email protected]

SOURCE Ontario International Airport

Related Links

www.flyontario.com


SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The global powder compacting pressers market size is expected to reach USD 408.9 million by 2028, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. It is expected to expand at a CAGR of 3.7% from 2020 to 2028. The rising adoption of powder compacting pressers in the end-use industries, including automobile, military, machining, and aerospace, is anticipated to have a positive impact on the market growth.

Key Insights & Findings:

By product, hydraulic powder compacting pressers are expected to witness considerable growth from 2020 to 2028 owing to their ability to provide versatility in stroke length, die space, and pressure

In terms of application, the ceramic and cement segment is expected to witness the fastest growth from 2020 to 2028. This is credited to the increasing adoption of powder compacting pressers in the production of ceramic cutting tools due to the high heat resistance and extensive usage in metalworking for extremely hard parts

The automotive end-use segment held the largest share in 2020 on account of the rising advent of electric vehicles, coupled with the adoption of the equipment to manufacture gears, seals, and magnets

In 2020, France accounted for a 13.8% share in the European market owing to the increasing production of complex parts with high dimensional accuracy and quality in the aerospace industry in the country

Manufacturers are engaged in collaborations to expand their geographical presence, increase production capacity, and launch new powder compacting pressers using advanced technology

Read 167 page market research report, "Powder Compacting Pressers Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report By Product (Mechanical, Electric), By Application (Powder Metallurgy, Ceramic & Cement), By End Use, By Region, And Segment Forecasts, 2020 - 2028," by Grand View Research

Increasing automotive production, mainly in the emerging economies of Asia Pacific, the Middle East, and South America, is projected to aid the market growth. Furthermore, governments across the globe are providing tax incentives to vehicle manufacturers switching to electric standards, in turn, augmenting the demand for powder compacting pressers.

The aerospace and military sectors are the early adopters of powder compacting pressers, thus, lightweight parts made from aluminum, titanium, and steel, are witnessing growth. Products manufactured by these machinery aids in reducing material wastage as compared to the conventional methods, in turn, complementing the equipment demand.

Companies are collaborating with educational institutions to develop processes and technologies offering a sustainable advantage in the future. Rising investments in R&D for the incorporation of advanced technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT), in powder compacting pressers are expected to complement market growth.

Grand View Research has segmented the global powder compacting pressers market on the basis of product, application, end use, and region:

Powder Compacting Pressers Product Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2017 - 2028)

Hydraulic



Electric



Hybrid



Mechanical



Servo-hydraulic

Powder Compacting Pressers Application Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2017 - 2028)

Powder Metallurgy



Ceramic & Cement



Carbon & Carbide



Others

Powder Compacting Pressers End-use Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2017 - 2028)

Automotive



Machining



Energy & Electricity



Equipment



Medical



Military



Construction



Others

Powder Compacting Pressers Regional Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2017 - 2028)

North America



U.S.





Canada





Mexico



Europe



Austria





Belgium





Denmark





France





Germany





Italy





Poland





Russia





Spain





Sweden





Netherlands





U.K.



Asia Pacific



China





India





Japan





South Korea





Australia



Latin America



Brazil





Central & South America





Argentina





Brazil





Colombia





Chile





Peru



Middle East & Africa

&

Saudi Arabia





South Africa

List of Key Players of Powder Compacting Pressers Market

KomageGellnerMaschinenfabrik KG

SMS group GmbH

Osterwalder AG

MaschinenfabrikLauffer GmbH & Co.KG

Gasbarre Products, Inc.

Ajax CECO Erie Press

Beckwood Press

Digital Press

DORST Technologies GmbH & Co. KG

Cincinnati Incorporated

Nanjing East Precision Machinery CO., LTD.

Dongguan Yihui Hydraulic Machinery Co., Ltd.

Santec Exim Pvt. Ltd.

Quintus Technologies AB

SACMI IMOLA S.C.

Browse through Grand View Research's coverage of the Global Advanced Interior Materials Industry:

Powder Metallurgy Market The global powder metallurgy market size is expected to reach USD 5.2 billion by 2027 registering a CAGR of 11.6%, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc.

by 2027 registering a CAGR of 11.6%, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. Metal Powder Market The global metal powder market size is anticipated to reach USD 9.7 billion by 2027, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc., expanding at a CAGR of 6.9% from 2020 to 2027.

by 2027, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc., expanding at a CAGR of 6.9% from 2020 to 2027. Ceramics Market The global ceramics market size is expected to reach USD 407.72 billion by 2025, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc.

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HONG KONG, Sept. 15, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Renrui Human Resources Technology Holdings Limited ("Renrui HR" or the "Company", together with its subsidiaries, the "Group") (Stock Code: 6919.HK), is pleased to announce that on 16 September 2021, the Group has entered into a Sales and Purchase Agreement, and has agreed to acquire 51% of equity interests of Jiangnan Finance Technology (Changzhou) Company Limited (referred to below as "Jiangnan Jinke" ) and Shanghai Lingshi Human Resources Services Limited (referred to below as "Shanghai Lingshi") for approximately RMB 47million and approximately RMB 33million respectively. The target companies are the leading HR service providers in the regions, mainly engaged in provision of comprehensive flexible staffing services to local commercial banks in the PRC. As at 31 July 2021, the total number of comprehensive flexible staff employees deployed by the target companies were over 3,400. Upon completion of the acquisitions, Jiangnan Jinke and Shanghai Lingshi will become indirect subsidiaries of the Company, and their financial results will be consolidated into the financial statements of the Group.

Renrui HR has been committed to continuing to strengthen the capability to deliver fast and professional comprehensive flexible staffing solutions. The acquisitions will strengthen the Group's expansion capabilities in the financial services industry, further expand its customer base, increase the number of comprehensive flexible staffing employees as well as improve the profitability of the Group:

Enhance the capability of industry expansion : According to the "The List of Legal Persons of Banking Financial Institutions (as of 30 June 2021 )" published by the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission on August 19, 2021 , as at 30 June 2021 , there were more than 1,500 rural commercial banks and approximately 130 city commercial banks in the PRC. The Target Companies has built up business cooperation with approximately 120 rural and city banks and possess extensive experience in providing comprehensive flexible staffing services to banks and financial institutions as such they have huge potential for development in the market. As at 31 July 2021 , the Target Companies had more than 3,400 comprehensive flexible employees in over 130 cities in the PRC. Coupled with the strong fast recruitment capability, the acquisitions will enable the Group (including the Target Companies) to expand into the comprehensive flexible staffing service market targeting local financial institutions, which has a comparatively more stable and continuous demand for staffing and a relatively higher gross profit margin.





: According to the "The List of Legal Persons of Banking Financial Institutions (as of )" published by the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission on , as at , there were more than 1,500 rural commercial banks and approximately 130 city commercial banks in the PRC. The Target Companies has built up business cooperation with approximately 120 rural and city banks and possess extensive experience in providing comprehensive flexible staffing services to banks and financial institutions as such they have huge potential for development in the market. As at , the Target Companies had more than 3,400 comprehensive flexible employees in over 130 cities in the PRC. Coupled with the strong fast recruitment capability, the acquisitions will enable the Group (including the Target Companies) to expand into the comprehensive flexible staffing service market targeting local financial institutions, which has a comparatively more stable and continuous demand for staffing and a relatively higher gross profit margin. Diversify the customer base : Currently, the target companies have established a stable long-term business cooperation with the rural commercial banks and city commercial banks and have built good relationships with leading players. Through such long-term services, the target companies have accumulated extensive experience and successful precedents together with the relevant entry qualifications for providing comprehensive flexible staffing services to financial institutions. After the completion of the acquisitions, the Group will be able to explore more business opportunities in the financial services industry and diversity the customer base to more banks and financial institutions.





: Currently, the target companies have established a stable long-term business cooperation with the rural commercial banks and city commercial banks and have built good relationships with leading players. Through such long-term services, the target companies have accumulated extensive experience and successful precedents together with the relevant entry qualifications for providing comprehensive flexible staffing services to financial institutions. After the completion of the acquisitions, the Group will be able to explore more business opportunities in the financial services industry and diversity the customer base to more banks and financial institutions. Enhance the Group's profitability: The target companies are principally engaged in providing comprehensive flexible staffing services for the financial industry. Its positions primarily including lobby managers, information technology personnel and customer service personnel. The unaudited revenue of the target companies for the year ended 2019 and 2020 was approximately RMB135 million and RMB180 million , respectively. After the completion of the acquisitions, it will improve the overall profitability of the Group.

Mr. Zhang Jianguo, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Renrui Human Resources Technology Holdings Limited, stated, "China's financial industry has been growing rapidly in recent years and is expected to drive the staffing demand of enterprises. Benefitting from the stability and sustainability of the banking and financial industry, it will continue to bring new business opportunities to the Group. Thus, it has always been one of the Group's business strategies to expand its customer coverage to financial institutions. These acquisitions allow Renrui HR to acquire an established team filled with industry experts. Both Jiangnan Jinke and Shanghai Lingshi have extensive experience in providing comprehensive flexible staffing services for financial institutions. We believe that their proven track record and abundant customer resources would help the Group to overcome the high entry barriers and further promote our expansion in the comprehensive flexible staffing service market in the PRC."

About Renrui Human Resources Technology Holdings Limited

Renrui HR is a fast-growing pioneer in HR solutions in China and is the strategic partner for many industry leaders in new economy industries. Renrui HR's business includes Comprehensive Flexible Staffing Services, Professional Recruitment, OC SaaS, and overseas human resource services. The company has reinvented traditional human resources services with comprehensive digital and cutting-edge technology. Its one-stop ecological system not only allows Renrui HR to serve its customers across the nation, but it also effectively solves the challenge of fast recruitment and management problems in mass China. In July 2021, the Group launched China's first Organizational Capacity SaaS service cloud platform, Rui Xiang Cloud. Currently, Renrui HR operates more than 48 subsidiaries and branch offices across China with business coverage in over 300 cities, it has over 1,200 own employees and over 46,000 comprehensive flexible staffing employees deployed.

Company website: http://www.renruihr.com/

About Jiangnan Finance Technology (Changzhou) Company Limited

Jiangnan Jinke principally engaged in the provision of comprehensive flexible staffing services (mainly IT Business Process Outsourcing "BPO" and partly non-IT BPO ) to local commercial banks in the PRC. As of 30 June 2021, Jiangnan Jinke has more than 200 comprehensive flexible staffing employees and the unaudited revenue for the year ended 31 December 2020 was amounted to 39.5 million.

About Shanghai Lingshi Human Resources Services Limited

Shanghai Lingshi principally engaged in the provision of non-IT related comprehensive flexible staffing services (such as lobby manger, customer service centre, call centre etc.) to local commercial banks in the PRC. As of 30 June 2021, Shanghai Lingshi has more than 3,000 comprehensive flexible staffing employees and the unaudited revenue for the year ended 31 December 2020 was amounted to 140.4 million.

About Shanghai Qihang Yuntian Technology Limited

Shanghai Qihang Yuntian was established in 2007. The company started from providing training to banks and gradually transformed into three financial related service segments: financial education services, financial services and financial technology services. It mainly provides flexible staffing services to agricultural commercial banks and city commercial banks. Currently, it collaborates with approximately 120 banks to develop flexible staffing service business, such as Jiangsu Jiangnan Agricultural Commercial Bank Co., Ltd., Foshan Agricultural Commercial Bank Co., Ltd., Jinan Agricultural Commercial Bank Co., Ltd., Shandong Zhucheng Agricultural Commercial Bank Co., Ltd., etc. across more than 30 provincial-level regions of the country.

This press release is issued by DLK Advisory Limited on behalf of Renrui Human Resources Technology Holdings Limited.

SOURCE Renrui Human Resources Technology Holdings Limited

Related Links

http://www.renruihr.com/


SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- SafelyYou, the leaders in artificial intelligence-enabled fall detection and prevention for dementia care, today announced the close of a $19.5 million Series A financing round led by Eclipse Ventures. They are joined by Founders Fund, as well as existing investors DCVC and Foundation Capital. TSQ Advisors, Pathbreaker Ventures, The House Fund, Swift Ventures, Pacific Health Ventures, Anorak Ventures, and 7Percent Ventures helped to enable this funding round.

Utilizing the best of artificial intelligence and human expertise, SafelyYou empowers senior living direct care staff to implement essential fall prevention. Its AI-enabled cameras are used in consenting residents' rooms, detecting falls with unprecedented accuracy and immediately notifying care staff for assistance. SafelyYou reduces falls by 40% and ER visits resulting from falls by 80%, significantly reducing risks and unnecessary costs for residents, families and senior living communities.

SafelyYou is making a substantial impact on senior living communities at this critical time during the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, some using SafelyYou have doubled their residents' length of stay at a time when many communities faced occupancy challenges. Skilled nursing facilities using SafelyYou have seen over 1,000 hours of RN time saved in certain locations, enabling them to focus on other pressing concerns. Today, SafelyYou is the first-ever fall prevention program subsidized by a liability insurance carrier and is creating safer environments across the U.S., with an expert team supporting communities by implementing learnings from over 20,000 witnessed falls.

"We are excited to announce the closing of our Series A funding, led by Eclipse Ventures. This is another step toward achieving our vision for SafelyYou," said George Netscher, founder and CEO of SafelyYou, who started the company because of the impact Alzheimer's disease had on his own family. "We launched our business to build a better world for those living with Alzheimer's and dementia, their families, and all those who care for them. We started with a focus on falls, but there are so many more needs. This is just the beginning for us, and we'll have many more product development announcements to share in the future."

"Alzheimer's and dementia affect millions of patients and their families around the world, a number that is rapidly increasing as our society ages. SafelyYou is building a critical part of the ecosystem required to care for those afflicted by these devastating diseases," said Justin Butler, Partner at Eclipse Ventures.

The financing will enable SafelyYou, which is already deployed in numerous communities in North America, to scale up its assisted living and skilled nursing business, expanding at an even quicker pace. The company has already doubled revenue and headcount in the first half of 2021. Tompkins Square Advisors serves as a financial consultant to SafelyYou.

About SafelyYou

Originating in 2015 as the doctoral research of CEO George Netscher at the top-ranked UC Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research Lab, SafelyYou utilizes cutting-edge artificial intelligence to empower care staff to implement fall prevention. Specifically designed for memory care, or care for residents with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias, SafelyYou's subsequent fall video review provides better support for unwitnessed falls through robust ER decision making and root cause analysis to support fall prevention. Privacy and liability are protected through cameras that only activate when a fall is detected. Today, this proven technology is successfully deployed in numerous communities in North America. Research results published in the American Journal of Managed Care revealed that real-time fall detection using SafelyYou's AI-enabled video recording reduced the need for emergency services by 80% in dementia care communities.

For more information, please visit www.safely-you.com or call 415-579-3630.

About Eclipse Ventures

Eclipse Ventures is a technology-focused investment firm specializing in complex operations and full-stack solutions. Founded in 2015 and based in Palo Alto, CA, Eclipse partners with entrepreneurs boldly transforming the essential industries that define and propel economies.

Media Contact:

Ian Guss, High10 Media for SafelyYou, [email protected]

SOURCE SafelyYou

Related Links

https://www.safely-you.com/


PALO ALTO, Calif., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Salt Security , the leading API security company, today announced that the Salt Security API Protection Platform has been named the "Best in API Security" in the 2021 API Awards. The company was recognized for its ability to deliver unparalleled capabilities in API security, including continuous discovery of APIs and exposed sensitive data, API attack detection and prevention, and remediation of API vulnerabilities  uniquely securing APIs across their full lifecycle.

According to the Salt Security State of API Security Report , API-based attacks increased more than 348% in the first half of 2021, compared to a 141% increase in overall API traffic in the same time period. The need for API protection has risen in tandem. APIs have become high-value targets for attackers because they contain highly sensitive and confidential data and bad actors realize that solutions such as WAFs and API Gateways cannot adequately protect APIs. Unlike those solutions, the Salt Security API Protection Platform is purpose-built to secure APIs, leveraging big data, along with ML and AI, to mitigate attacks. The platform also provides significant "shift left" capabilities with scanning and testing of APIs in pre-production.

"In today's complex application environments, APIs have emerged as the fundamental building block for modern applications. At the same time, APIs have also become the dominant application attack vector, putting immense pressure on security teams to fill the gap," said Roey Eliyahu, CEO and co-founder of Salt Security. "The Salt platform connects to any application environment, enabling organizations to discover all APIs, stop API attacks, and provide developer insights to harden APIs. Having our industry-leading platform recognized as 'Best in API Security' underscores the value we're delivering to the modern enterprise."

The API Awards celebrate the technical innovation, adoption, and reception of companies operating in the API and microservices industry. The 2021 API Award winners were selected by an expert-led API World Advisory Board based on three main criteria: (1) attracting notable attention and awareness in the API industry; (2) general regard and use by the developer and engineering community; and (3) being a technical leader in its sector for innovation.

"The Salt Security API Protection Platform is helping developers and engineers build on the backbone of the multi-trillion-dollar market for API-driven products and services," said Jonathan Pasky, Executive Producer and Co-Founder of DevNetwork, producer of API World and the 2021 API Awards. "Today's cloud-based SaaS software and hardware increasingly is powered by an open ecosystem of API-centric architecture. The Salt win here at the 2021 API Awards is evidence of the company's leading role in the growth of the API Economy."

The 2021 API Awards will be presented at the 2021 API Awards Ceremony during API World 2021 Virtual (October 26-28, 2021), the world's largest API and microservices conference and exhibition.

To learn more about the Salt Security API Protection Platform and request a demo, please visit: https://content.salt.security/demo.html .

About Salt Security

Salt Security protects the APIs that form the core of every modern application. Its API Protection Platform is the industry's first patented solution to prevent the next generation of API attacks, using machine learning and AI to automatically and continuously identify and protect APIs. Deployed in minutes, the Salt Security platform learns the granular behavior of a company's APIs and requires no configuration or customization to pinpoint and block API attackers. Salt Security was founded in 2016 by alumni of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and serial entrepreneur executives in the cybersecurity field and is based in Silicon Valley and Israel. For more information, please visit: https://salt.security

Press Contact

Dex Polizzi

Lumina Communications

646-741-8358

[email protected]

SOURCE Salt Security
BRUSSELS, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, the European Commission announced the seven shortlisted cities for the European Capital of Smart Tourism 2022 competition (presented in alphabetical order): Bordeaux (France), Copenhagen (Denmark), Dublin (Ireland), Florence (Italy), Ljubljana (Slovenia), Palma (Spain), Valencia (Spain). The finalist cities were selected from a total of 30 applications from across 16 countries.

Find out more about each of the shortlisted destinations here.

The European Capital of Smart Tourism is an EU initiative, currently financed under the COSME Programme. It is built on the successful experience of the Preparatory Action proposed by the European Parliament and implemented by the European Commission in 2019 and 2020. It aims to promote smart tourism in the EU, foster innovative, sustainable and inclusive tourism development, as well as spread and facilitate the exchange of best practices. This EU initiative recognises outstanding achievements by cities as tourism destinations in four categories: Accessibility, Sustainability, Digitalisation as well as Cultural heritage and creativity. The competition was open to cities across both the EU, as well as the non-EU countries that take part in the COSME programme[1].

The competition has a proven track record of success. The 2022 European Capital of Smart Tourism is the third edition of the competition. Gothenburg and Malaga were selected as the winners of the 2020 European Capitals of Smart Tourism competition, while Helsinki and Lyon won the inaugural competition and jointly held the titles of 2019 European Capitals of Smart Tourism.

The two winning cities will benefit from communication and branding support throughout 2022. This will include a promotional video, a purpose-built hashtag sculpture to install in a prominent location, diverse promotional activities and visibility at the EU level.

The winning cities will be awarded in November 2021.

Background

In the first stage of the competition, an independent panel of experts evaluated the applications. All finalist cities demonstrated excellence across the four competition categories combined.

In the second stage, representatives of the seven finalist cities will present their candidatures and the programme of activities planned for 2022 in front of the European Jury. The European Jury will meet in the coming weeks and select two cities to become European Capitals of Smart Tourism in 2022.

The selection of the most innovative projects, ideas and initiatives, submitted by cities in previous years' competitions can be found in the Compendium of Best Practices, the go-to guide to smart tourism in the EU.

For the latest news on the European Capitals of Smart Tourism, sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

Contact

European Capital of Smart Tourism Secretariat:

Antigoni Avgeropoulou, [email protected], +49 (0) 30 70 01 86 390

Notes to Editors

1. The 2022 European Capital of Smart Tourism competition was open to submissions from 22 April 2021 to 16 June 2021. Terms and conditions are available at https://smarttourismcapital.eu/.

2. Smart tourism responds to new challenges and demands in a fast-changing sector, including the expectation of digital information, products and services; equal opportunities and access for all visitors; sustainable development of the local area; and support to creative industries and local talent.

3. In 2019, amongst 35 EU cities which applied, Malaga and Gothenburg stood out and were selected as the European Capitals of Smart Tourism 2020. In 2018, amongst 38 EU cities, Helsinki and Lyon stood out and were selected the European Capitals of Smart Tourism 2019.



[1] Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iceland, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine and United Kingdom. https://ec.europa.eu/docsroom/documents/39579

SOURCE European Capital of Smart Tourism
NEW BRAUNFELS, Texas, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- SilverPoint Senior Living is honored to have been recognized by Great Place to Work and Fortune as one of 2021 Best Workplaces in Aging Services (Senior Housing Small  Medium). With an astounding 90% of their employees saying SilverPoint is a great place to work. According to Great Place to Work that number is 31% higher than at a typical U.S.  based company.

The team at SilverPoint ranked their workplace high in having meaning, a sense of pride and accomplishment. Specifically, 95 percent of team members reported that working at SilverPoint has special meaning and feel a sense of pride when they look at what they accomplish each day.

Shawn Corzine, Chief Executive Officer at SilverPoint Senior Living said "When I started SilverPoint, one of my goals was to create a senior living company that was truly driven by its culture and core values. Our desire was to create an environment that not only made a difference in the lives of our residents, but our team members as well. We are truly honored to be listed as number 18 in the Fortune 2021 Best Workplaces for Aging Services. This achievement goes to our entire team that lives out our values every day!"

Connecting people to their purpose and encouraging them to reach their full potential is important with team member at SilverPoint. The heart of SilverPoint, their values, all have a positive daily impact on the teams at each of their communities.

Residents, families, and team members all benefit from those five core values:

Family  love people and live it out in actions

Purpose  help people achieve their greatest potential

Fun  find moments of joy to share

Integrity  do what is right

Dignity  honor and respect people for who they are

About SilverPoint Senior Living

SilverPoint Senior Living is a Texas senior living management company specializing in operating independent living, assisted living, and memory care communities. Their management services include portfolio management; development and acquisition; accounting and financial; marketing and sales; and IT and digital transformation. SilverPoint is strongly committed to its five core values of family, purpose, fun, integrity. SilverPoint is also a certified 2021 Great Place to Work. For more information about SilverPoint Senior Living, please visit www.silverpointsl.com or call 830-730-4472.

CONTACT:

Kelly Schwennesen

SilverPoint Senior Living

[email protected]

SOURCE SilverPoint Senior Living
QUEBEC CITY, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Tando, a brand of Derby Building Products, has received a 2021 Golden Hammer Award from Hardware + Building Supply (HBS) Dealer magazine for its Architectural Sill and Sill Corner. Judged by HBSDealer's editorial staff, the prestigious Golden Hammer Awards recognizes the best of the best new products in the home improvement industry.

Created to complement TandoStone, the #1 brand of composite stone, Architectural Sill and Sill Corner are architecturally accurate and offer the realistic look and feel of natural stone. Delivering beauty and functionality, Tando's Architectural Sill features a forward slope to direct water away from the structure, offering superior moisture management. Lightweight and easy to cut, the products can be installed by one person using standard tools. Architectural Sill Corner can be used as a corner, or builders can cut the pieces on the left or right side to act as an end cap to terminate a run.

"We're delighted to earn a Golden Hammer Award for Tando's Architectural Sill and Sill Corner," said Ralph Bruno, CEO, Derby Building Products. "These products were created to offer easy installation along with a beautiful, natural transition for TandoStone."

Architectural Sill's versatile design features an integrated nailing flange which can be repurposed as a starter strip for simplified installation beneath windows and breakaway spacers that can be used as "shims" for products that require additional clearance.

Perfect for adding curb appeal and rich textures to any exterior, Tando's Architectural Sill and Sill Corner are available in three rich colors: Pewter, Raven and Sable. Each Architectural Sill measures approximately 30" in length and corners are 5" on each face. All have an exposed height of 2.5".

For more information about Architectural Sill and Sill Corner, visit www.tandobp.com. Click here to see the HBSDealer 2021 Golden Hammer Award winners.

About Tando

Tando's exterior building products leverage innovation and manufacturing technology to solve market challenges such as labor shortages, long lead times, and moisture concerns all while meeting consumer demand for mixed material exteriors and low maintenance. From launching the first polymer shake over 40 years ago to developing the #1 brand of Composite Stone, Tando has a proven history of creating new categories, including TandoStone, Beach House Shake, and TandoShake. Tando is owned by Derby Building Products. For more information, visit www.tandobp.com or www.beachhouseshake.com.

SOURCE Derby Building Products
ELK CITY, Idaho, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Therapeutic Solutions International, Inc., (OTC Markets: TSOI), reported today new data demonstrating positive effects when its commercially available nutraceutical, QuadraMune, is administered together with ivermectin in animals suffering from similar biological processes as those elicited by a COVID-19 infection.

In a series of experiments, it was demonstrated that ivermectin alone has a marginal effect at reducing inflammation in the lungs, whereas this effect is markedly increased when QuadraMune is co-administered. The Company also observed enhanced innate immune system activity, specifically stimulation of natural killer cells (NK cells), as well as elicitation of NK memory-like activities when QuadraMune was combined with ivermectin.

"It is fundamentally important that we continue exploring molecular mechanisms of how various approaches to COVID-19 function at a cellular and immunological level," said Dr. James Veltmeyer, Chief Medical Officer, and co-inventor on the patent. "QuadraMune has previously been shown to enhance immunity and suppress inflammation in pilot clinical trials and we are pleased to report this new promising animal data which has clinical implications."

"The great advancements we are making on the Phase III JadiCell Program are fundamentally important, however, JadiCells are more aimed towards advanced COVID-19, when lung damage to some extent has already occurred," said Wais Kaihani, consultant to the Company and coinventor on the patent. "We are exploring various potential strategies to address patients at the earlier stage of the COVID-19 continuum."

"We are currently in discussions with various medical groups to potentially initiate combination trials between ivermectin and QuadraMune," stated Timothy Dixon, President and CEO of the Company and co-inventor on the patent. "To our knowledge this is the first detailed exploration of ivermectin having lung protective activities, which makes this a very interesting finding according to our collaborators."

About Therapeutic Solutions International, Inc.

Therapeutic Solutions International is focused on immune modulation for the treatment of several specific diseases. The Company's corporate website is www.therapeuticsolutionsint.com, and our public forum is https://board.therapeuticsolutionsint.com/

[email protected]

SOURCE Therapeutic Solutions International

Related Links

http://www.therapeuticsolutionsint.com


CHICAGO, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Molson Coors Beverage Company announces Topo Chico Hard Seltzer will officially expand product distribution nationwide starting January 2022.

Building on its launch footprint of nine states and seven metro areas, Topo Chico Hard Seltzer will deliver the refreshment and exotic flavors consumers have grown to love to all 50 states.

Topo Chico Hard Seltzer

"Topo Chico Hard Seltzer came out of the gate extremely strong when we launched last spring, so we couldn't be more excited to bring this legendary hard seltzer to people across the country," said Matt Escalante, senior director of seltzers at Molson Coors. "We constantly hear drinkers asking when Topo Chico Hard Seltzer is coming to their market. Now we have an answer for them."

Inspired by the taste of Topo Chico Mineral Water, Topo Chico Hard Seltzer is crafted with minerals and natural flavors for a crisp, refreshing taste. Topo Chico Hard Seltzer is available in a four-flavor variety pack, which includes: Strawberry Guava, Tangy Lemon Lime, Exotic Pineapple, and Tropical Mango. Topo Chico Hard Seltzer also comes in 24 oz singles including: Strawberry Guava and Tangy Lemon Lime, and one, 16oz single can in Strawberry Guava.

"We have loved to see the positive response from fans to the regional launch of Topo Chico Hard Seltzer from Molson Coors over the past several months," said Dan White, Chief of New Revenue Streams, Coca-Cola North America Operating Unit. "We are excited that Molson Coors will make Topo Chico Hard Seltzer and other new innovations be made available across the country next year, giving more people the opportunity to try and become fans of this great brand."

For more information about Topo Chico Hard Seltzer, including innovation news and product locator, visit topochicohardseltzerusa.com and follow @topochicohardseltzerusa on Instagram and Facebook, and @topochicohard on Twitter.

About Molson Coors Beverage Company

For over two centuries Molson Coors has been brewing beverages that unite people for all of life's moments. From Coors Light, Miller Lite, Molson Canadian, Carling, and Staropramen to Coors Banquet, Blue Moon Belgian White, Blue Moon LightSky, Vizzy, Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy, Creemore Springs, Hop Valley and more, Molson Coors produces many beloved and iconic beer brands. While the company's history is rooted in beer, Molson Coors offers a modern portfolio that expands beyond the beer aisle as well.

Molson Coors Beverage Company is a publicly traded company that operates through Molson Coors North America and Molson Coors Europe, and is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: TAP, TAP.A) and Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: TPX.A, TPX.B). Molson Coors' ESG strategy is focused on People and Planet with a strong commitment to raising industry standards and leaving a positive imprint on our employees, consumers, communities and the environment. To learn more about Molson Coors Beverage Company, visit molsoncoors.com or MolsonCoorsOurImprint.com.

Forward Looking Statements

This press release includes "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the U.S. federal securities laws. Generally, the words "believe," "aims," "expect," "intend," "anticipate," "project," "will," "outlook," "desire," and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements, which generally are not historic in nature. Statements that refer to projections of its future performance, projections regarding the hard seltzer market and expectations regarding the Topo Chico Hard Seltzer are forward-looking statements. Although Molson Coors believes that the assumptions upon which its forward-looking statements are based are reasonable, it can give no assurance that these assumptions will prove to be correct. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from Molson Coors' historical experience, and present projections and expectations are disclosed in Molson Coors' filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"). These factors include, among others, the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the impact of increased competition resulting from further consolidation of brewers, competitive pricing and product pressures; health of the beer industry and its brands in its markets; economic conditions in its markets; Molson Coors' ability to maintain manufacturer/distribution agreements; changes in its supply chain system; availability or increase in the cost of packaging materials; success of its joint ventures; changes in legal and regulatory requirements, including the regulation of distribution systems; increase in the cost of commodities used in the business; the impact of climate change and the availability and quality of water; loss or closure of a major brewery or other key facility; its ability to maintain good labor relations; its ability to maintain brand image, reputation and product quality; and other risks discussed in its filings with the SEC, including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and its Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. All forward-looking statements in this press release are expressly qualified by such cautionary statements and by reference to the underlying assumptions. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date they are made. Molson Coors does not undertake to update forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

SOURCE Topo Chico Hard Seltzer

Related Links

https://www.topochicohardseltzerusa.com/


Trophy Automotive Dealer Group Announces the Launch of Fab Cars, An E-Commerce Platform For Selling and Buying Used Cars
DUBLIN, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Truck OEM Strategies for GHG/CO2 Regulation Compliance, 2020-2030" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

This research service provides an overview of key future fuel efficiency and tailpipe emission regulations across different regions for heavy-duty commercial vehicles.

Greenhouse gas/fuel efficiency regulations in TRIAD countries and increasingly stringent tailpipe emission standards in developing countries will shape OEM powertrain strategies over the next decade.

At present, North America is adopting GHG regulations, after which it will focus on ultra NOx regulations (medium-term). Europe has developed a tool for CO2 monitoring and will soon implement GHG regulations. India planned to make the shift from BS-IV to BS-VI (equivalent to the Euro VI) by 2020; the country's fuel efficiency regulations have been in place since 2018. China will shift to China VI in 2 phases-2020 and 2023; Phase 3 fuel efficiency regulations will be implemented in 2023.

These regulations will augment the penetration of advanced aerodynamics, low rolling resistance tires, auxiliary electrification, lightweighting, and advanced diesel engine technologies such as advanced turbochargers, automated manual transmission, advanced after-treatment systems, and electrification.

Stringent emission regulations and government incentives are encouraging industry participants to explore advanced ICE engine concepts, energy recovery systems, and auxiliary electrification, including APU for operation on HVAC during vehicle standstill. The decoupling of auxiliary loads such as pumps for fuel injection and power steering, engine oil circulation, and air conditioning can reduce fuel consumption.

Energy recovery systems include waste heat recovery systems based on organic Rankine cycles and regenerative braking systems in hybrid vehicles with the potential to improve the efficiency of diesel engines. Advanced combustion strategies combined with high-efficiency transmission, advanced aerodynamics, advanced driver assistance systems, auxiliary electrification, and low rolling resistance tires will also improve fuel efficiency.

North American OEMs have commercialized most technological advancements from the SuperTruck I program, and a strong push for electrification across major OEMs and EV start-ups is being observed. Horizon 2020, the EU's Research and Innovation program, allocates funds for green transport technologies.

European OEMs are shifting to vertically integrated engines and transmission with proprietary turbochargers, and these facilitate precise control over vehicle drivetrain. As part of powertrain diversification, OEMs are focusing on proprietary natural gas engines and EV platforms.

Chinese OEMs are leveraging technology partnerships with European OEMs and engine research institutes to upgrade diesel engines to meet upcoming regulations. The transition from low-cost to value and premium trucks will drive technology changes. In addition, government incentives are driving rapid progress in electrification across different Chinese OEMs.

Indian OEMs are adopting a two-pronged approach by improving in-house engine platforms and sourcing advanced diesel engine technologies from Tier I engine suppliers, Japanese OEMs, and European engine research institutes.

Key Topics Covered:

1. Strategic Imperatives

Why Is It Increasingly Difficult to Grow?

The Strategic Imperative

The Impact of the Top Three Strategic Imperatives on the Commercial Trucks Industry

Growth Opportunities Fuel the Growth Pipeline Engine

2. Growth Opportunity Analysis, Truck OEM Strategies for GHG/CO2 Regulation Compliance

Truck OEM Strategies for GHG/CO2 Regulation Compliance - Scope of Analysis

Research Background, Commercial Trucks Industry

Research Methodology, Commercial Trucks Industry

Commercial Trucks - Market Segmentation

3. Definitions

Definitions of Key Technologies

Technology Definitions - Tires

Technology Definitions - Transmission, Axles, Lightweighting, and Road Profile Management

Technology Definitions - Aerodynamics

4. Global Emission, Fuel Economy, and Quality Regulatory Environment

Key Takeaways

Key Trends in the Diesel Powertrain Market

GHG/Fuel Economy Regulations Outlook

Global Powertrain Mix - Unit Shipment by Region and Powertrain Snapshot

Global Powertrain Mix - Unit Shipment by Powertrain Snapshot

Technology Penetration by Region - Rigid Trucks Segment

Technology Penetration by Region - Tractor Trucks Segment

Key OEM Fuel Efficiency Strategies

5. Powertrain Regulatory and Technology Outlook - North America

Regulatory Environment - North America

GHG and Fuel Economy Standards - North America

US Phase 1 and Phase 2 Standards - Combination Tractors

US Phase 1 and Phase 2 Standards - Vocational Vehicles

California Air Resources Board (CARB)'s Advanced Clean Trucks (ACT) Regulation

MD and HD ZEV Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)

NA Powertrain Mix - Unit Shipment Snapshot

Unit Shipment Forecast Analysis, North American HD Trucks

Technology Penetration - Rigid Trucks: North America

Technology Penetration - Tractor Trucks: North America

OEM Powertrain Technology Adoption Drivers - North America

6. Powertrain Regulatory and Technology Outlook - Europe

Regulatory Environment - Europe

Europe GHG Policy - Summary

Europe GHG Policy - Vehicle Segment Scope

European Powertrain Mix - Unit Shipment Snapshot

Unit Shipment Forecast Analysis, European HD Trucks

Technology Penetration - Rigid Trucks: Europe

Technology Penetration - Tractor Trucks: Europe

OEM Powertrain Technology Adoption Drivers - Europe

7. Powertrain Regulatory and Technology Outlook - China

Regulatory Environment - China

China's Fuel Efficiency Standards

Fuel Efficiency Standards Chinese Powertrain Mix - Unit Shipment Snapshot

Unit Shipment Forecast Analysis, Chinese HD Trucks

Technology Penetration - Rigid Trucks: China

Technology Penetration - Tractor Trucks: China

OEM Powertrain Technology Adoption Drivers - China

8. Powertrain Regulatory and Technology Outlook - India

Regulatory Environment - India

Fuel Consumption Standards - India

India Powertrain Mix - Unit Shipment Snapshot

Unit Shipment Forecast Analysis, Indian HD Trucks

Technology Penetration - Rigid Trucks: India

Technology Penetration - Tractor Trucks: India

OEM Powertrain Technology Adoption Drivers - India

9. Long-Haul Trucks' Fuel Consumption/CO2 Reduction Potential and Cost

Technology Fuel Consumption Reduction Potential - Class 8 Long-Haul Trucks

CO2 Reduction Potential for Long-Haul Trucks - Engine Technology

CO2 Reduction Potential for Long-Haul Trucks - Transmission, Axles, and Auxiliaries

CO2 Reduction Potential for Long-Haul Trucks - Aerodynamics and Tires

10. Vocational Trucks' Fuel Consumption/CO2 Reduction Potential and Cost

Technology Fuel Consumption Reduction Potential - Class 8 Vocational Trucks

CO2 Reduction Potential for Vocational Trucks - Engine Technology

CO2 Reduction Potential for Vocational Trucks - Transmission, Tires, and Auxiliaries

11. Urban Delivery Trucks' Fuel Consumption/CO2 Reduction Potential and Cost

Technology Fuel Consumption Reduction Potential - Urban Delivery Trucks

CO2 Reduction Potential for Urban Delivery Trucks - Engine Technology

CO2 Reduction Potential for Urban Delivery Trucks - Transmission, Tires, and Auxiliaries

12. Global OEM Powertrain Strategies - AB Volvo

Volvo Powertrain Technology Outlook

Volvo Vehicle Technology Outlook

13. Global OEM Powertrain Strategies - Daimler AG

14. Global OEM Powertrain Strategies - PACCAR Inc.

15. Global OEM Powertrain Strategies - Navistar, Inc.

16. Global OEM Powertrain Strategies - VW Group (MAN SE)

17. Global OEM Powertrain Strategies - VW Group (Scania AB)

18. Global OEM Powertrain Strategies - IVECO

19. Global OEM Powertrain Strategies - ASHOK LEYLAND

20. Global OEM Powertrain Strategies - Tata Motors

21. Global OEM Powertrain Strategies - Hino Motors, Ltd.

22. Global OEM Powertrain Strategies - ISUZU MOTORS LIMITED

23. Growth Opportunity Universe, Truck OEM GHG Strategy

Growth Opportunity 1 - Advanced Aerodynamics, Auxiliary Electrification, and Improved Thermal Efficiency for Diesel Engines will be Priorities for Diesel Engine Truck Manufacturers

Partial List of Acronyms Used in the Study

24. Next Steps

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/byx6z5

Media Contact:

Research and Markets

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[email protected]



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SOURCE Research and Markets

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BOSTON, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Urbx, the on-demand robotics fulfillment system for last-mile delivery, has filed a Motion to Dismiss the meritless patent infringement lawsuit filed by Attabotics in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

Urbx respects intellectual property. However, Attabotics' lawsuit attempts to expand its patents beyond their lawful scope.

Attabotics' asserted patents are limited to storage solutions using a single type of robot. By contrast, Urbx offers a novel dual robot system that optimizes efficiency through specialization and division of labor. For at least this reason, Urbx does not and cannot infringe Attabotics' asserted patents.

Urbx is represented in this matter by Andrew Gish, Marti Johnson, and Raymond Bilderbeck of Gish PLLC, and Theodore Folkman of Folkman LLP. All inquiries in this matter should be directed to Urbx's legal counsel.

About Urbx

Urbx is the world's first on-demand robotics fulfillment system for last-mile delivery. Urbx uses cutting edge robotics technology to enable retailers to automate and optimize the in store picking process. The Urbx micro-fulfillment solution uses vertical architecture with a dual-bot system to fulfill orders at high speeds while maximizing density. By using vertical spaces with a small footprint, Urbx enables major savings in real estate costs compared to traditional retail structures. Urbx is based in Boston, Massachusetts, with last-mile installations going live with name brand retailers next year.

Contact: [email protected]

SOURCE Urbx, Inc.
"The exhibition at MINExpo 2021 brought us valuable opportunities for communication and exchanges with our partners in the North American market. XCMG North America was officially founded in 2015 and we now have three office locations in Minneapolis, Las Vegas and Houston, two spare parts warehouses and service centers in Las Vegas and Houston, and more than 20 local employees," said Xie Bin, CEO of XCMG North America Corp.

XCMG will further strengthen its overall service capacity in the country:

XCMG plans to complete the coverage of spare parts service support in western and central eastern regions of the U.S., increasing spare parts support.

XCMG North America will continue to build localized after-sales service teams and has signed a service agreement with US based service company to support main models. With this partnership team, XCMG aims to provide technical support and a three-in-one after-sales service guarantee system in the U.S.

XCMG will also take advantage of Schwing America to bolster local technical support and spare parts service assurance.

XCMG has established the North America R&D Center in Chicago to coordinate local product R&D. The Company now sells excavators, rollers, graders, loaders, cranes, and aerial work platform products in the U.S. and through continuous efforts, its products have been widely recognized by local customers. Additionally, XCMG is cooperating with leading rental companies in the U.S. to provide extensive services.

In 2015, XCMG signed a three-year contract with a leading U.S. rental company, to deliver nearly 1,000 units of equipment which has almost been completed. The customer spoke highly of XCMG's products, localized services and spare parts supply and they have also provided localization improvement suggestions that further improve the performance of XCMG products.

For more information, please visit www.xcmg.com.

SOURCE XCMG

Related Links

www.xcmg.com


NEW YORK, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Concordia, the New York-based nonprofit that builds partnerships for social impact, is holding its 2021 Annual Summit the week of September 20. Concordia's signature gathering will take place in a hybrid format, with both in-person and digital programming from September 20-22 and digital-only programming on September 23.

Maintaining its position as the premier global affairs forum alongside the UN General Assembly, Concordia's 11th Annual Summit will convene today's preeminent C-suite executives, politicians, nonprofit leaders, and entrepreneurs to explore the greatest challenges of our time through the lens of collaboration. The Annual Summit is taking place at the Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel and on SpotMe.

Speakers include: John Kerry, United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate; Gerard Baker, Editor at Large, Wall Street Journal; Stephanie Benedetto, Founder, Queen of Raw; Ivan Duque Marquez; President of Colombia; Madame Monica Geingos, First Lady, Republic Of Namibia; Hon. Ro Khanna, Representative, California's 17th District, U.S. House Of Representatives; Stephen MacMillan, CEO, Hologic; Dr. Dambisa Moyo, Principal, Versaca Investments; Dr. Mehmet Oz, Professor Of Surgery, Columbia University; Kate Williams, CEO, 1% For The Planet; Michael Waltz, Representative Of Florida's 6th District, U.S. House Of Representatives; Gillian Tett, U.S. Editor-at-Large & Chair of the Editorial Board, The Financial Times. The full speaker list can be found here, and the agenda here.

Concordia has released a set of standards that must be met by those attending the Annual Summit in person, in line with New York City Mayor's Key to NYC vaccination mandate. Concordia's full COVID-19 in-person protocol can be found here and requires that all attendees (including guests, speakers, press, and staff) meet the following criteria:

Submit proof of at least one COVID-19 vaccination under CDC or EU guidelines when completing pre-event health questionnaire.

Consent to a rapid COVID-19 test overseen by Dynamic DXS upon arriving each day at the venue.

upon arriving each day at the venue. Consent to regular temperature checks throughout the venue.

Wear a mask at all times, unless speaking in a session or consuming food or drink.

Be a current member of our community.

Concordia's 2021 Programming Partners: AARP; Americares; Berggruen Institute; CARE; The Global Fund; MIT Solve; Organization of American States; Purdue University, Center for Tech Diplomacy; Taipei Cultural & Economic Office in NY; The Policy Circle; U.S. International Development Finance Corporation; The Rwanda Development Board; The Rockefeller Foundation; U.S. Global Leadership Coalition; Walmart Foundation; the University of Virginia Darden School of Business Institute for Business in Society; and the U.S. Department of State Office of Global Partnerships.

Concordia's 2021 Programming Sponsors: AT&T; ExxonMobil; Google; Hologic; Horizon Therapeutics; Libra Group; Merck; Rubicon; Salesforce; USANA; Veracity Worldwide; VISA; Walmart International.

To register to attend the 2021 Annual Summit, click here.

For press enquiries, contact Rita Lockheart at [email protected].

About Concordia: Concordia is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that builds meaningful partnerships for positive social impact. As equal parts convener, campaigner, and idea incubator, Concordia is actively fostering cross-sector collaboration to create a more prosperous and sustainable future. Concordia was founded in 2011 by Matthew A. Swift and Nicholas M. Logothetis.

SOURCE Concordia

Related Links

https://www.concordia.net


OAKTON, Va., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ --

What's the news? AT&T* and the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) have entered into an agreement to explore and develop 5G and edge computing-based maritime solutions aimed at benefitting national defense, homeland security, and industries such as shipping, oil and gas, recreational boating and more.

Why is this important? The NPS and AT&T experiments with 5G and edge computing are expected to result in the identification of advanced technology solutions such as a connected system of unmanned and autonomous vehicles that can improve critical elements of national defense, such as multi-domain situational awareness, command and control, training, logistics, predictive maintenance and data analytics.

The research includes the use of edge computing: where data is processed locally near a device to speed the completion of computing tasks.

What type of contract or agreement is there between AT&T and NPS? The parties entered into a three-year Collaborative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA)1. Under the agreement, super-fast, low latency AT&T 5G networking and edge computing capabilities will support a broad array of 5G-focused experiments on NPS facilities incorporating artificial intelligence, robotics, Internet of Things, machine learning, data analytics and smart base solutions.

Where will the research be conducted? As part of the CRADA, one initiative is the Naval Postgraduate School's Sea Land Air Military Research ("SLAMR") program. SLAMR conducts activity at Camp Roberts in South Monterey County and, to a lesser extent, on the NPS main campus and at SLAMR's beach lab north of the main campus in Monterey, California.

What is the focus of the program? The NPS SLAMR program will explore the development of 5G and edge computing-powered sea applications that connect crewed and non-crewed vessels and sensors. Experiments will be conducted within the SLAMR's multi-domain laboratory. The program is also focused on providing all-domain maritime solutions for a broad array of defense, industry and commercial applications.

What type of solution is being tested? The vision guiding the SLAMR program is to eventually have a command and aquatics operations facility with which to perform localized, unmanned aerial, surface, and underwater robotic vehicle activity. It is expected the facility and some of the experimental vehicles will be connected and powered by AT&T networking capabilities, including 5G and edge computing services.

How far along is the program? The placement of AT&T's 5G networking infrastructure is underway at NPS in accordance with a real estate license. It includes a tower and a short-range antenna on a pre-fabricated pad that is to be located at the SLAMR beach lab within walking distance from the main NPS campus. A key goal of the equipment placement is ease of access for faculty and students conducting autonomous vehicle research at a former waste-water treatment facility on the site. The equipment placement at the NPS main campus and SLAMR beach lab was reviewed and approved by applicable Department of Navy (DON) offices2.

Can you provide specific examples of other SLAMR experiments? Under the CRADA, an NPS Master's Degree student research project involves exploring the possibility of using virtual and augmented reality in combat medical care when medical evacuations are not possible. A separate student-led research project will study the application of 5G-powered waterborne autonomous systems for operations in the littoral environment. The projects have significant potential for military and non-military applications, and are a part of NPS' support to a Department of the Navy effort to help grow a 5G-ready workforce.

When will the AT&T 5G and edge computing capabilities be operational at the SLAMR site? We expect the first 5G and MEC nodes to be installed at the SLAMR site and available for use during the first quarter of fiscal year 2022.

Lance Spencer, Client Executive Vice President  Defense, AT&T Public Sector and FirstNet

"This is an important program to the future of our national security and defense. We're honored to explore and innovate new AT&T 5G and multi-access edge computing-based maritime applications with the Naval Postgraduate School."

Mike Galbraith, Department of the Navy (DON) Chief Digital & Innovation Officer

"5G and multi-access edge computing capabilities are increasingly important in our personal lives and even more important to our warfighters. The collaboration between the Naval Postgraduate School and AT&T will help us explore better, faster means of collecting, disseminating, and analyzing data at the tactical edge, which is vital to maintaining and exploiting battlespace awareness. Experiments conducted under the NPS-AT&T CRADA are expected to complement other DON efforts to apply 5G and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to enterprise and tactical uses."

Retired Vice Admiral Ann E. Rondeau, President, Naval Postgraduate School

"Innovation occurs at the seams and intersections of practice and expertise and NPS provides an innovation hub where this applied 5G research can occur. AT&T's experience with the existing 5G infrastructure on the Monterey Peninsula will facilitate our collaboration on the next generation of mobile networks. By working alongside experts from our faculty and industry partners, we can apply the operational experience of our graduate students to accelerate and enhance research into 5G-related naval maritime capabilities."

The Naval Postgraduate School is the Department of the Navy's applied research university that combines defense-focused interdisciplinary graduate education and solutions-focused research where experimentation and innovation activities can occur. Learn more about the SLAMR program here.

Go here for more information about AT&T's work in the public sector.

1 - The Collaborative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) does not imply endorsement of AT&T, its products, or activities by the Naval Postgraduate School, the Department of the Navy, or the Department of Defense.

2 - HERO/HERP/HERF Certification by Naval Ordnance Safety and Security Activity

About the Naval Postgraduate School

The Naval Postgraduate School provides defense-focused graduate education, including classified studies and interdisciplinary research, to advance the operational effectiveness, technological leadership and warfighting advantage of the Naval service.

*About AT&T Communications

We help family, friends and neighbors connect in meaningful ways every day. From the first phone call 140+ years ago to mobile video streaming, we @ATT innovate to improve lives.

AT&T Communications is part of AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T). For more information, please visit us at att.com.

SOURCE AT&T Communications

Related Links

http://www.att.com


In support of the mission, ABL will leverage the flexibility of the GS0 deployable launch system, which is purpose-built to rapidly activate new launch sites and support unique customer missions. The GS0 functionality will be extended to meet NASA's mission need for LH 2 operations. ABL will also advance RS1 with a hydrogen-compatible fairing and payload support systems.

This selection marks ABL's first NASA science mission award and 60th mission contracted with the prime contractor, Lockheed Martin.

"We do a lot of work at ABL focused on serving our customers' needs in the immediate future. Science missions like this let our team look further out onto the horizon and contribute to NASA's long-term roadmap of human exploration of the solar system." says Dan Piemont, President of ABL Space Systems. "This cryo demo is a great example of the unique science missions enabled by low-cost, dedicated launch, and we're happy that RS1 was chosen."

About ABL Space Systems

Founded in 2017, ABL develops low-cost launch vehicles and launch systems for the small satellite industry. ABL is headquartered in El Segundo, California, U.S. To learn more, visit www.ablspacesystems.com.

SOURCE ABL Space Systems Company

Related Links

https://www.ablspacesystems.com


AUBURN HILLS, Mich., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ --

Virtual supplier event connected more than 160 diverse business owners with 900 decision makers and 100 Stellantis buyers across commodity groups

Participants in pilot of nation's first black supplier development program announced

Event honored four companies for excellence in supplier diversity

Continuing a tradition now in its 22nd year, Stellantis today virtually hosted its annual supplier diversity MatchMaker program, furthering the company's long-standing commitment to building a diverse supply base and growing wealth for diverse business owners throughout the value chain. During the event, the company, in partnership with the National Business League (NBL), announced the first 12 Black suppliers that will participate in a pilot of the National Black Supplier Development Program.



This year's MatchMaker, attended by more than 160 exhibitors, 900 attendees and 100 Stellantis decision makers, offered diverse-owned companies the opportunity to host virtual exhibit spaces for networking, attend educational programming and hold 1:1 matchmaking meetings. The opening ceremony kicked off with remarks from Stellantis executives and Julie Fream, president and CEO, Original Equipment Suppliers Association (OESA).



"MatchMaker has been a centerpiece of our award-winning supplier diversity program for nearly a quarter century," said Mark Stewart, North America COO, Stellantis. "It continues to be a powerfully effective program based on a simple vision that an OE can share the economic impact of its business to empower diverse people and communities. This vision has never been more important than it is right now."

National Black Supplier Development Program

Stellantis and the NBL announced the National Black Supplier Development Program in June to support the development of more than 2.9 million Black businesses around the country and internationally for future opportunities within the federal government and public and private sectors. The pilot, which will run through the first quarter of 2022, is the initial phase of a larger program to develop Black suppliers for future contracting and procurement opportunities in the pursuit of greater racial equity in the marketplace.



"The start of our pilot for the National Black Supplier Development Program is an important initial phase of the journey to achieve economic justice for millions of Black businesses," said Dr. Kenneth Harris, president and CEO, NBL. "This is where we truly start to level the playing field by bringing commerce solutions to the marketplace to solve long standing economic problems."



The 12 businesses that will take part in the pilot represent geographic diversity and a range of disciplines and commodities. They are:

Isiah International, Chicago

Ten35, Chicago

Russell Westbrook Digital, Los Angeles

TKT and Associates, Louisville, Kentucky

Assured Quality Systems, Grand Prairie, Texas

Ryan Industries, Wixom, Michigan

ACE Petroleum, Detroit

Devon Industrial Group, Detroit

Dunamis Clean Energy, Detroit

Multi-Training Systems (MTS), Southfield, Michigan

Simontic Composite Inc., Greensboro, North Carolina

Coltrane Logistics, Wixom, Michigan

The online virtual procurement and contracting marketplace is expected to realize 20-30 percent of the untapped business potential of Black suppliers. The goal is to create sustainable Black businesses that will impact the local and global economies, creating jobs through entrepreneurship and growing the number of Black businesses of all sizes.

Supplier Diversity Excellence Winners

In addition to the pilot program announcement, Stellantis also recognized suppliers that have demonstrated leadership, passion and commitment to building robust supplier diversity programs. Winners in four categories included:

Indirect: Hunter Express

Direct Production: Summit Polymers

Mopar: Flex N Gate

Tier 1 Supplier Diversity Champion: Commercial Contracting Corp.

Stellantis Commitment to Supplier Diversity

MatchMaker has generated more than $4 billion in new business opportunities for minority-owned, including women, veterans, LGBTQ and disabled and small businesses since its inception in 1999.



Since 1983, the company has purchased more than $90 billion from minority-, women- and veteran-owned suppliers. In 2020, Stellantis in North America spent more than $6 billion with 200-plus diverse suppliers and received the following honors for its supplier diversity efforts:

Corporation of the Year from the National Minority Supplier Diversity Council

Top Corporation Gold Award from the Women's Business Enterprise National Council

Supplier Diversity Advocacy from the Veteran Owned Business Roundtable

The company's supplier diversity goals require that up to 12.5% of a tier-one supplier spend be sourced to certified minority-owned businesses, women-owned businesses and veteran-owned businesses. Stellantis is now also tracking spending among LGBTQ-owned and disable-owned enterprises.



For more information about Stellantis' supplier diversity programs, visit https://supplierdiversitystellantis.com/.



The virtual event was powered by OESA's meeting platform.



Stellantis

Stellantis (NYSE: STLA) is one of the world's leading automakers and a mobility provider, guided by a clear vision to offer freedom of movement with distinctive, affordable and reliable mobility solutions. In addition to the Group's rich heritage and broad geographic presence, its greatest strengths lie in its sustainable performance, depth of experience and the wide-ranging talents of employees working around the globe. Stellantis will leverage its broad and iconic brand portfolio, which was founded by visionaries who infused the brands with passion and a competitive spirit that speaks to employees and customers alike. Stellantis aspires to become the greatest, not the biggest, while creating added value for all stakeholders, as well as the communities in which it operates.

Follow company news and video on:

Company blog: http://blog.stellantisnorthamerica.com

Media website: http://media.stellantisnorthamerica.com

Company website: www.stellantis.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/Stellantis

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StellantisNA

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stellantisna

Twitter: @StellantisNA

YouTube: http://youtube.com/StellantisNA

SOURCE Stellantis

Related Links

https://www.stellantis.com


PHOENIX, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Advisor Group, the nation's largest network of independent wealth management firms, today announced the successful recruitment to its network of Altus Consulting Group, a newly formed OSJ practice with three financial advisors in Texas and Wisconsin that oversees $366 million in total client assets. Altus Consulting Group joins the growing ranks of OSJs affiliated with Advisor Group, which ranked second last year in highest number of OSJs among leading independent broker-dealers.*

The Altus advisors  Teresa O'Connor of Spring, Texas; Greg Buchanan of Houston, Texas; and Mike Aschberger of Franklin, Wisc.  are joining Advisor Group through subsidiary and network member firm Royal Alliance Associates. The Advisor Group network also includes FSC Securities, SagePoint Financial, Securities America, Triad Advisors and Woodbury Financial Services.

Dmitry Goldin, CEO and President of Royal Alliance, said, "It's an honor to welcome the Altus Consulting Group team to the Royal Alliance family. We look forward to years of close collaboration with them as they leverage the support and infrastructure of Royal Alliance and Advisor Group to achieve their growth goals. We are eager to start working together to help Altus Consulting reach new levels of success."

Founded in 2014 by Ms. O'Connor, Altus specializes in employee retirement plan services for small businesses, as well as financial planning, estate planning and wealth management services for individuals and families. In addition to its three financial advisors, Altus also includes employees Ashley Dominguez, B.F. Adam III and David Neider.

Ms. O'Connor said, "As we looked at all that Advisor Group and Royal Alliance had to offer, we were particularly impressed with the digital marketing support offered as part of the MyCMO platform, along with Advisor Group's eQuipt technology offering, which we view as an asset that will immediately strengthen our ability to serve clients. Importantly, because of our focus on retirement plan services, we were also impressed by Advisor Group's Retirement Learning Center. All in all, Advisor Group and Royal Alliance more than met all our criteria in terms of their ability to help us reach our potential, and we are thrilled to join them."

Greg Cornick, Advisor Group's President, Advice & Wealth Management, said, "It's our pleasure to bring aboard a team of financial advisors with as impressive a track record as Teri O'Connor and her team. The successful recruitment of Altus Consulting Group is evidence of the strong value proposition Advisor Group offers financial advisors across the spectrum of service models. We are proud to be in the corner of successful businesses across the country, including Altus Consulting Group, with our blend of industry-leading technology, marketing solutions, practice management support and expertise."

* Source: 2021 Financial Planning IBD Elite rankings.

About Royal Alliance Associates

Royal Alliance Associates, Inc. is part of Advisor Group, the nation's largest network of independent wealth management firms, and a Registered Investment Advisor, member FINRA and SIPC. Royal Alliance has more than 3,000 affiliated independent financial advisors and is headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey. It was founded in 1969 and employs a client driven approach focused on meeting the unique demands of businesses and individuals. For more information visit http://www.royalalliance.com.

About Advisor Group

Advisor Group, Inc. is the nation's largest network of independent wealth management firms, serving approximately 10,100 financial professionals and overseeing over $475 billion in client assets. The firm is mission-driven to support the strategic role that advisors can play in the lives of their clients. Cultivating a spirit of entrepreneurship and independence, Advisor Group champions the enduring value of financial professionals and is committed to being in their corner every step of the way. For more information visit https://www.advisorgroup.com.

Securities and investment advisory services are offered through the firms: FSC Securities Corporation, Royal Alliance Associates, Inc., SagePoint Financial, Inc., Triad Advisors, LLC, and Woodbury Financial Services, Inc., broker-dealers, registered investment advisers, and members of FINRA and SIPC. Securities are offered through Securities America, Inc., a broker-dealer and member of FINRA and SIPC. Advisory services are offered through Arbor Point Advisors, LLC, Ladenburg Thalmann Asset Management, Inc., Securities America Advisors, Inc., and Triad Hybrid Solutions, LLC, registered investment advisers. Advisory programs offered by FSC Securities Corporation, Royal Alliance Associates, Inc., SagePoint Financial, Inc., and Woodbury Financial Services, Inc., are sponsored by VISION2020 Wealth Management Corp., an affiliated registered investment adviser. Advisor Group, Inc. is an affiliate of these firms. 20 E. Thomas Rd., Ste. 2000, Phoenix, AZ, 85012. 866.481.0379.

Media Inquiries

Joseph Kuo / Chris Clemens

Haven Tower Group

[email protected] or [email protected]

424 317 4851 or 424 317 4854

SOURCE Advisor Group

Related Links

http://www.advisorgroup.com


CHICAGO, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- According to a research report "Airborne Countermeasure System Market by Application (Jammers, Missile Defence, and Counter Countermeasure), Platform (Military Aircraft, Military Helicopters, and Unmanned systems), Product and Region - Global Forecast to 2026", published by MarketsandMarkets, the Airborne Countermeasure Systems market is projected to grow from an estimated USD 11.6 billion in 2021 to USD 14.9 billion by 2026, at a CAGR of 5.2% in terms of value during the forecasted period. It is witnessing significant growth due to increasing new technologies and demand of going Airborne Countermeasure Systems systems. Significant technological advancements and integration of electronics in military equipment are resulting in a shift towards multilayered defense systems, which is expected to drive the Airborne Countermeasure Systems market during the forecast period. Adding to these factors, the increase in the use of UAV systems and the need for ground surveillance and communication jamming serve as opportunities for the Airborne Countermeasure Systems market. The new emerging security scenarios across the globe are trans-national in nature and warrant a unified approach among nations. Industries having a global presence and undergoing partnerships with local and international defense industry participants and governments are expected to benefit in this highly competitive business environment. Companies wanting to grow in this market must to able to track the various trends with respect to the threats and technologies needed to tackle these, and also provide complete solutions, which include the services and equipment for Airborne Countermeasure Systems systems.

Ask for PDF Brochure: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownloadNew.asp?id=163215454

Jamming, Missile defense and counter countermeasure systems are the applications of the Airborne Countermeasure Systems market. Due to benefits such as advanced electronic protection, and electronic support applications, the Airborne Countermeasure Systems equipment segment is expected to grow at a faster CAGR due to increased procurement of Airborne Countermeasure Systems equipment for the gradation of various unmanned aircraft systems.

Based on platform, the military aircraft segment is projected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period.

The growth in the Airborne Countermeasure Systems market is expected to drive the growth of the three platforms proportionately. The requirement of military aircraft in battlefield for surveillance and threat detection capabilities, is expected to drive the market during the forecast period.

Based on product, the Self-Protection EW Suite segment is projected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period.

Based on product, Self-Protection EW Suite segment is projected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. The requirement of electronic suites helps in protecting the aircraft by shielding and reducing human loss and increasing capabilities, and investments in R&D towards these systems are helping the growth of market for Airborne Countermeasure Systems.

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Based on application, the Counter Countermeasure Systems equipment segment is projected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period.

Growing demand for counter countermeasure systems due to their high demand for antijamming and deception techniques in countermeasure applications are projected to increase the growth of the Airborne Countermeasure Systems market.

The North America region is estimated to lead the Airborne Countermeasure Systems market in the forecast period

The North American region is estimated to lead the Airborne Countermeasure Systems market in the forecast period. The growth of the North America Airborne Countermeasure Systems market is primarily driven by increasing focus on increasing investments in Airborne Countermeasure Systems technologies by countries in this region. In addition, factors including increasing geopolitical tensions and increased defense-related expenditure are expected to drive the demand for Airborne Countermeasure Systems market in the region.

This report includes a study on the marketing and development strategies, along with the product portfolios of leading companies. It consists of profiles of leading companies, such as Lockheed Martin Corporation (US), Northrop Grumman Corporation (US), Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd. (Israel), Raytheon Technologies Corporation (US), Thales Group (France), L3Harris Technologies, Inc. (US), BAE Systems (UK), and Saab Ab (Sweden).

"North America is expected to hold the highest market share in 2021."

North America is expected to hold the highest market share in 2021. The growth of the regional market can be attributed to the increasing trend of online shopping from e-commerce platforms and favorable FAA regulations in the US. The rise in investments from key players to support start-ups in developing parcel service platforms is also expected to contribute to the growth of the regional market during the forecast period.

Winners of drone services market are Cyberhawk (UK), Sky-Futures Ltd. (UK), senseFly Ltd. (Switzerland), DroneDeploy Inc. (US), Terra Drone Corporation (Japan), PrecisionHawk (US), and Aerodyne Group (Malaysia). These key players offer drones applicable for various sector and have well-equipped and strong distribution networks across the North American, European, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Rest of the World (RoW).

Related Reports:

Electronic Warfare Market by Capability (Support, Attack, Protection), Platform (Airborne, Naval, Ground, Space), Product (EW Equipment, EW Operational Support), and Region - Global Forecast to 2025

Surveillance Radars Market by Application (Commercial, National Security, Defense & Space), Platform (Land, Airborne, Naval, Space), Frequency Band (HF, UHF & VHF; L; S; C; X; Ku; Ka; Multi-bands), Dimension, Component, Region - Global Forecast to 2025

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"I deeply align to the mission of Alcohol Justice that is working to address Big Alcohol and drug industry harmful practices through advocacy, policy, education, and community organizing," stated Avila. "It will be an honor to follow Bruce and lead Alcohol Justice in continuing to provide a public health and safety roadmap to communities, children, youth, adults, seniors, families, and all those in need of improving their lives."

Alcohol Justice was formed in 1987 as one of the endowed Buck Trust agencies under the Marin Community Foundation. It was originally known as Marin Institute for the Prevention of Alcohol and Other Drug Problems, and later as The Marin Institute or TMI. Under Livingston's guidance, the organization changed its name in 2011 to Alcohol Justice to better reflect its strong commitment to equity for all communities and its alcohol industry watchdog role.

"Under Bruce's leadership Alcohol Justice became a tough, tell it like it is, force to hold the alcohol beverage industry accountable to community values of health, wellness, and safety," said Larry Meredith, PhD, former Director, Marin Department of Health and Human Services,

Board Vice President, Alcohol Justice. "Today, Alcohol Justice is a marquee agency with a national reputation for bold actions to confront and expose practices of the alcohol beverage industry and its many tentacles that undermine community values. Bruce Livingston can be extremely proud of his remarkable accomplishments as Executive Director at Alcohol Justice. His legacy will continue to inspire communities, particularly youth and families, to fight for justice, health, and wellbeing."

During Livingston's 15 years of top management, Alcohol Justice experienced unparalleled expansion of its budget, staff, visibility, and influence. Through his fundraising and grant writing efforts the organization's annual budget grew from $1.2 million to $2.4 million. Research and advocacy staffing increased from 3 fulltime positions to 11. Under Livingston, Alcohol Justice developed campaigns, built coalitions, and utilized strategic media advocacy nationwide to call out Big Alcohol. He led the development of consecutive 5-year strategic plans, published, and self-published numerous reports, and lead Alcohol Justice into the era of social media, all while building great diversity in staff, board, and programs.

"What a number of people, from beer company CEO's, to state legislative staff, know about Bruce is a quality much admired, namely his dogged determination," stated Dr. Thomas Peters, former President & CEO, Marin Community Foundation. "With that focus, he brought experience, savvy and an unfailing commitment to young people's health to his resolute efforts at Alcohol Justice. His blunt honesty about the industry's surreptitious marketing campaigns designed to entice youngsters to form early drinking habits startled some, heartened others. Those of us inspired by his actions salute a dedicated public health advocate."

Livingston led a team that designed and executed campaigns to end alcohol advertising on BART, MUNI, LA public transit, and other cities. He led successful efforts against three different 4 a.m. bar bills in California. With key staff, he brought Alcohol Justice into collaboration with Lakota activists to close-down 4 exploitative alcohol outlets in Whiteclay, Nebraska on the border with the Pine Ridge Reservation. Locally, in Marin County, Youth for Justice was launched which organized the youth-led Alcopop-Free Zone campaign. Under his leadership Alcohol Justice took positions and lobbied on every single piece of alcohol and opioid legislation introduced in the California legislature over the past ten years. The California Alcohol Policy Coalition (CAPA), which Livingston convened, is now a national model for statewide, grassroots, equity seeking, diverse policy action.

"It has been a pleasure working with Bruce who isn't afraid to challenge the status quo. His leadership has helped pioneer Alcohol Justice's presence in California," said Veronica De Lara, Chair, CAPA, Board Member, Alcohol Justice. "His work as Executive Director has elevated Alcohol Justice as a leading organization in addressing alcohol related issues through being an effective advocate of public health policies. Thank you for your leadership"

While Alcohol Justice's Charge for Harm Campaign was defeated, Alcohol Justice established itself as a notable national voice on raising alcohol taxes and is often the point of the spear in other national efforts, such as the successful effort to get added caffeine out of youth-oriented alcopops.

"Throughout my 25 years in the non-profit sector, and my 14+ years at Alcohol Justice, Bruce has been the most talented E.D I've ever worked with," stated Michael Scippa, Public Affairs Director at Alcohol Justice. "I have been an E.D. myself and know the enormous challenges non-profit E.D.s face. Bruce has distinguished himself no matter what hat he wore to keep the organization funded, relevant, influential, and laser-focused on our important vision and mission. He will be greatly missed by staff and allies."

When Cruz takes over Alcohol Justice, he will be leading an elite team with critical skill sets  community organizing, public policy analysis, development and advocacy, technology, alcohol research, economic analysis, project management, web management, media advocacy, social media and marketing, and public relations.

"With deep gratitude for a job so well done, we wish Bruce the best that life has to offer," stated Richard Zaldivar, Alcohol Justice Board Chair. "Moving forward now with our new Executive Director Cruz Avila at the helm, Alcohol Justice will continue to grow and develop as a national and international leader in using scientific evidence to give communities and policy makers tools to combat the harm of alcohol consumption and misuse."

Contact: Michael J. Scippa 415 548-0492

Jorge Castillo 213 840-3336

SOURCE Alcohol Justice

Related Links

http://www.AlcoholJustice.org


IRVINE, Calif., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Alteryx, Inc. (NYSE: AYX), the Analytics Automation company, today announced that its SparkED education program, launched in May 2021, has thousands of learners from hundreds of universities across nearly 40 countries engaging with the program to gain real-world analytics experience. The comprehensive education program is empowering traditional academic students, as well as individuals looking to change careers, to acquire data and analytics skills via free software licenses, teaching materials, learning content and certifications. With the 2021 fall semester in full swing for many universities, educators are incorporating SparkED into their curriculums to better prepare students entering the job market as the need for data analytics skills continues to soar.

"When we launched the SparkED program earlier this year, our goal was to expand data literacy and analytics skills among all learners so that they can use this skill set to solve real-world problems," said Libby Duane Adams, co-founder and chief advocacy officer of Alteryx. "We're thrilled to see this vision come to life over just a few short months through the global expansion of SparkED, as we continue to hear from the thousands of students, educators and career changers who have used our no-cost program to get new jobs or advance their careers."

The Alteryx SparkED program brings the next generation of data analytics into the classroom, replacing curriculum rooted in spreadsheets with modern data analytics technology for users of all skillsets. This allows for more time spent on creative, applicable problem solving and gives students a competitive edge entering the job market.

"I started learning Alteryx Designer in my business analytics course, using the free software licenses and resources from Alteryx. With very little background or experience in analytics, I found the platform immediately easy to use. Before I knew it, I was passing the Alteryx Core and Designer Advanced Certifications," said Claire McCollough, student at the University of Colorado, Boulder. "This new skillset led me to various internships and even full-time job offers. I'm thrilled to be able to use Alteryx wherever I go in my career."

In addition to students and educators, SparkED enrolls those who are interested in changing their career paths by leveraging their new data analytics skills. This enables anyone to bolster their resume with in-demand certifications and skills that many businesses look for in their hires.

"Early in my career, I worked in a number of technology departments, but when I decided to take an extended break from work to have a family, I thought I might be leaving these days behind," said Balraj Oates, Alteryx developer at a major financial institution. "Fast forward 12 years later, I discovered Alteryx's free learning curriculum and essentially reignited my career. Now, I'm working for a major financial institution as an Alteryx Developer, as a result of gaining a recognized product certification."

Students, educators and career changers can learn more and sign up for the SparkED program by visiting alteryx.com/sparkED.

About Alteryx

Alteryx, the Analytics Automation company, is focused on enabling every person to transform data into a breakthrough. Alteryx unifies analytics, data science and business process automation in one, end-to-end platform to accelerate digital transformation and shape the future of analytic process automation (APA). Organizations of all sizes, all over the world, rely on Alteryx to deliver high-impact business outcomes and the rapid upskilling of their modern workforce. For more information visit www.alteryx.com .

Alteryx is a registered trademark of Alteryx, Inc. All other product and brand names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

SOURCE Alteryx, Inc.

Related Links

www.alteryx.com


NEW YORK, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Wilmington Trust Senior Vice President and Chief Wealth Strategist Alvina Lo has been named to the Outstanding 50 Asian Americans in Business Award by the Asian American Business Development Center, an organization established in 1994 whose goal is to promote Asian American businesses across the United States, the firm said today. The award is designed to recognize the contributions to the U.S. economy made by Asian American corporate executives and entrepreneurs across various industries.

"Alvina's contributions to the wealth management industry and to our clients is very deserving of this recognition, especially as she guided many through this past year of tremendous uncertainty," says Doris Meister, executive vice president and head of Wealth Management for Wilmington Trust and M&T Bank. "Our wealth clients benefit from her thought leadership, passion, and experience. Her leadership of the Emerald Family Office is inspirational to our colleagues and we congratulate her for this outstanding recognition."

As part of the Wilmington Trust Emerald Family Office & Advisory team, Alvina is responsible for wealth planning, family office services, and thought leadership development for Wilmington Trust's Wealth Management division. She oversees a national team of wealth strategists, financial planners, family office professionals, and thought leadership experts who serve as advisors to high-net-worth individuals and families, business owners, entrepreneurs, and foundations and endowments. In addition to her role at the bank, Alvina is a member of M&T Bank's Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging Council and the Asian Pacific American Resource Group (APARG).

"Alvina Lo has been an inspiration to me and our APARG team in her role as the Council Liaison for APARG. She performs her role to perfection, providing us with valuable advice and support to achieve our goals," says Arjun Mohan, president of APARG-Western New York. "She stood out in leading us, in our endeavor to make M&T Bank and Wilmington Trust the champion of diversity  even as hate crimes were on the rise in our communities -- and in celebrating Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage month in May."

Alvina holds a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from the University of Virginia where she was a Thomas Jefferson Scholar. She received her JD from the University of Pennsylvania, where she was a member of the Law Review and Order of the Coif. She also holds a Professional Tax Certificate in Estate Planning from New York University School of Law.

Alvina was most recently recognized by Crain's New York Business on their 2021 Most Notable Women in Financial Advice List and as one of Worth's Groundbreakers 2020: 50 Women Changing the World. She is a published author on estate planning and has lectured at the American Bankers Association, American Bar Association, Delaware Trust Conference, Hawaii Tax Institute, and Barron's Top Women Advisors Summit. She has been quoted in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Barron's, Bloomberg, and Business Insider. She is admitted to practice law in both New York and New Jersey. She is also a member of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP) and is a member of Women in America, a professional development group. She is also a regional committee co-chair of the Thomas Jefferson Scholarship Foundation for the University of Virginia. Alvina is multi-lingual and speaks fluent Chinese-Cantonese and basic Chinese-Mandarin.

MEDIA CONTACT: Maya Dillon, Head of Communications, Wilmington Trust.

Wilmington Trust is a registered service mark used in connection with various fiduciary and non-fiduciary services offered by certain subsidiaries of M&T Bank Corporation including, but not limited to, Manufacturers & Traders Trust Company (M&T Bank), Wilmington Trust Company (WTC) operating in Delaware only, Wilmington Trust, N.A. (WTNA), Wilmington Trust Investment Advisors, Inc. (WTIA), Wilmington Funds Management Corporation (WFMC), and Wilmington Trust Investment Management, LLC (WTIM). Such services include trustee, custodial, agency, investment management, and other services. International corporate and institutional services are offered through M&T Bank Corporation's international subsidiaries. Loans, credit cards, retail and business deposits, and other business and personal banking services and products are offered by M&T Bank, member FDIC.

This is for informational purposes only and is not intended as an offer, recommendation or solicitation for the sale of any financial profit or service or as a determination that any investment strategy is suitable for a specific investor. Investors should seek financial advice regarding the suitability of any investment strategy based on their objectives, financial situations, and particular needs. Investing involves risk and you may incur a profit or a loss. There is no assurance that any investment strategy will be successful. Wilmington Trust is not authorized to and does not provide legal, accounting or tax advice.

Wilmington Trust Emerald Family Office & Advisory is a service mark and refers to wealth planning, family office, specialized transaction, and other services provided by Wilmington Trust, N.A., a member of the M&T family.

Third-party trademarks and brands are the property of their respective owners.

 2021 M&T Bank Corporation and its subsidiaries. All rights reserved.

SOURCE Wilmington Trust
ZURICH, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Anjarium Biosciences AG ("Anjarium"), a biotech company focused on creating and delivering a new class of non-viral gene therapies today announced the closing of a CHF55.5M ($61M) Series A financing. The round was co-led by Abingworth and Gimv, with significant participation from Omega Funds, Pfizer Ventures and Surveyor Capital (a Citadel company).

Anjarium's innovative approach leverages breakthrough science and expertise at the interface of genetic medicine, synthetic biology and nanoparticle engineering to rationally design and produce tissue-targeted gene therapies, optimized to improve patient outcomes in a range of serious genetic diseases.

The Company's unique platform combines proprietary DNA-based gene vectors, natural and synthetic nanoparticle delivery modalities  including its novel Hybridosome technology  and cost-efficient, scalable manufacturing solutions.

Through this approach Anjarium has the potential to deliver more predictable, lasting, and inclusionary ways to tackle genetic disease throughout a patient's lifetime. Further, this new class of gene therapy provides the opportunity to address key shortcomings of current viral gene therapy development by creating medicines with reduced immunogenicity, increased drug payload capacity, enhanced targeted delivery, and individualized multiple dosing.

The proceeds from the Series A financing will enable Anjarium to expand its team, advance its ground-breaking platform and progress several therapeutic pipeline programs towards clinical development.

"As the limitations of conventional viral-vector based gene therapies to deliver optimal patient outcomes become increasingly evident, a fully non-viral approach represents an exciting new therapeutic opportunity," said Joel de Beer, Founder and CSO of Anjarium Biosciences. "Backed by this syndicate of leading investors, the Anjarium team is looking forward to continuing to create and deliver solutions for patients beyond what current gene therapy platforms can address, tackling more diseases, more precisely and in a more personalized way."

Bali Muralidhar, Managing Partner at Abingworth, said: "Advanced therapies such as non-viral gene therapies have the potential to provide lifetime benefits to patients with genetic diseases. Anjarium has an exciting and versatile technology that presents a broad opportunity to enhance and extend the reach of gene therapy. We look forward to supporting the team to develop its technology and translate its innovative science into life-changing products."

Bram Vanparys, Partner at Gimv, added: "We are very excited to support Anjarium as its groundbreaking science, platform and manufacturing setup holds very high potential to change the way we approach gene therapy today  with the possibility to deliver products with much better outcomes and durability."

In conjunction with Anjarium's Series A financing, Dr. Bali Muralidhar of Abingworth, Dr. Bram Vanparys of Gimv and Dr. Dina Chaya of Omega Funds will join the company's Board of Directors.

About Anjarium Biosciences

Anjarium is focused on creating a new class of non-viral gene therapies to deliver more predictable, enduring, and inclusionary ways to tackle genetic disease throughout a patient's lifetime. The Company's versatile platform aims to leverage breakthrough science and expertise at the interface of genetic medicine, synthetic biology and nanoparticle engineering to generate a pipeline of advanced gene therapies with unique competitive advantages over current viral-vector based gene therapies.

Investors in Anjarium include leading international and strategic investors Abingworth, Gimv, Omega Funds, Pfizer Ventures and Surveyor Capital (a Citadel company). www.anjarium.com

About Abingworth



Abingworth is a leading transatlantic life sciences investment firm. Abingworth helps transform cutting-edge science into novel medicines by providing capital and expertise to top calibre management teams building world-class companies. Since 1973, Abingworth has invested in over 175 life science companies, leading to 45 M&As and 71 IPOs. Our therapeutic focused investments fall into three categories: seed and early-stage, development stage, and clinical co-development. Abingworth supports its portfolio companies with a team of experienced professionals at offices in London, Menlo Park (California), and Boston. www.abingworth.com

About Gimv



Gimv is a European investment company, listed on Euronext Brussels, with almost 40 years' experience in private equity and venture capital. The company currently has a portfolio of EUR 1.1 billion of investments in around 50 portfolio companies, with combined turnover of EUR 2.75 billion and 14,000 employees. As a recognized market leader in selected investment platforms, Gimv identifies entrepreneurial, innovative companies with high growth potential and supports them in their transformation into market leaders. Gimv's four investment platforms are Connected Consumer, Health & Care, Smart Industries and Sustainable Cities. Further information on Gimv can be found on www.gimv.com

About Omega Funds

Founded in 2004, Omega Funds is a leading international investment firm that creates and invests in life sciences companies that target our world's most urgent medical needs. Omega focuses on identifying and supporting companies through value inflection points across the full arc of innovation, from company formation through clinical milestones and commercial adoption. Omega Funds' portfolio companies have brought 39 products to market in multiple therapeutic areas, including oncology, rare diseases, precision medicine and others. Please visit www.omegafunds.com for additional information.

Contact:

Anjarium Biosciences

[email protected]

MEDiSTRAVA Consulting

Mark Swallow, George Underwood, Eleanor Perkin

[email protected]

SOURCE Anjarium Biosciences
Equipped with the world-leading testing capabilities of structural static pressure and structural dynamic response, the laboratory can test the effect of wind on trackers at speeds of up to 30m per second, a speed which would cover most likely real-world scenarios. The technical database will be leveraged as the source of basic design parameters for product design, R&D and product structure design verification in the future.

By applying the technical database for concept design and structure design for product, the wind tunnel Laboratory will allow the company to mimic different local environments worldwide and serve the very purpose to lower LCOE (Levelized Cost of Energy) of PV power plants by increasing the stability of trackers.

Bruce Wang remarked, "We believe that the launch of Wind Tunnel Laboratory will continuously enhance Arctech's presence in lowering LCOE of PV power plants as the lab will enable us to carry out feasible and compliant wind tunnel tests for accurate aerodynamic information and optimize the design for mitigating wind-related risk on trackers and equipping trackers with better wind resistance capability."

Solar trackers are widely known as rigid structural parts; while the main axis of solar tracker is susceptible to deformation caused by vertical bending, torsion, and complex natural conditions in different regions. Therefore, more advanced analytic tests are necessary for reliable tracker design as the mounting of ultra-high-power modules, which are in strong demand by the industry, involves higher wind loads added to the trackers.

Arctech has always centralized the wind tunnel test by formulating strict design specifications and ensuring the execution. The new laboratory marks another milestone of the company's determination in guaranteeing safety and stability and ultimately empowering the popularization of solar tracker.

[About Arctech]

Arctech (SSE-STAR: 688408) is a world leading manufacturer and supplier of intelligent solar trackers, fixed-tilt structures and BIPV systems for utility-scale and commercial solar PV projects. As of the end of 2020, Arctech has supplied over 32GW of tracking and racking systems to nearly 1,100 PV plants in 40 countries, thanks to its extensive marketing networks with offices in China, Japan, India, the U.S., Spain, Australia, UAE, Mexico, Chile, Brazil, Vietnam and Argentina. For more information, please visit www.arctechsolar.com.

Linkedinhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/arctechsolar

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ArctechSolar

SOURCE Arctech
SHANGHAI, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Asymchem (stock code: 002821.SZ) today announced a strategic partnership agreement to provide LaNova Medicines with one-stop services such as small molecule drugs, ADC project CMCs, R&D, production and IND China-US declaration.

The collaboration between Asymchem and LaNova will include small molecule drugs, monoclonal antibodies, double antibodies, ADC projects and potentially other R&D and production initiatives. This partnership will take full advantage of Asymchem's recently completed biological CDMO service platform and production base at Shanghai Jinshan, where Asymchem is already undertaking R&D and production services for a number of early IND and clinical phase projects of biological drugs. The platform can provide R&D and production services including monoclonal antibodies, double antibodies, and ADC drugs.

"With the advent of the ADC drug research and development wave, ADC-related businesses have exploded," observed Asymchem Chief Operating Officer (COO) Yang Rui, who attended the signing ceremony in Shanghai. "In the future, we expect to build ADC pilot and commercial production facilities to further enhance Asymchem's capabilities with ADC drugs."

Antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) are a highly promising class of targeted drugs in which drug molecules are linked to antibodies that selectively attach to the surface of cancer cells while avoiding effects on nearby healthy cells, dramatically reducing side effects. More than 100 clinical trials are underway studying the effectiveness of ADCs in treating blood, lung, breast, brain and other cancers.

Rui said the partnership was a logical next step for Asymchem as the CDMO continues to expand its capabilities and service into new business areas to offer pharmaceutical and biotech companies innovative and sustainable solutions.

"This cooperative venture with LaNova will bring more valuable new drugs to the treatment of cancer and other diseases while improving the lives of patients," Rui said. "It's an exciting time to be at the forefront of drug development."

About Asymchem

Founded in 1999, Asymchem stock code: 002821.SZ) is a leading global integrated Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO) providing innovative drug R&D and manufacturing. Asymchem is supported by more than 5,000 employees based in PR China, the US, and the EU. Our mission is to drive efficiency through continuous technological advances for smarter, greener and more cost-effective manufacturing to support pharmaceutical clinical research and commercialization, backed by a proven track record of successful agency and industry inspections. For more information, please visit www.asymchem.com.

About LaNova Medicines

Based in Shanghai, LaNova Medicines is a clinical-stage R&D company whose primary focus is the development of macromolecular anti-tumor drugs utilizing GPCRs for monoclonal antibody production. The company's comprehensive platform capabilities include target verification, antibody engineering, production technology, preclinical and clinical research.

DISCLAIMER

This press release contains projections and other forward-looking statements regarding future events or our future financial performance. All statements other than present and historical facts and conditions contained in this release, including any statements regarding our future results of operations and financial positions, business strategy, plans and our objectives for future operations, are forward-looking statements. Actual results or developments may vary, depending on changes in the operating environment. Neither Asymchem nor its subsidiaries assume an obligation to update the forecasts, expectations or statements contained in this release.

SOURCE Asymchem

Related Links

http://www.asymchem.com


HILLSBORO, Ill., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Approximately 736 acres of productive Montgomery County farmland will be offered at auction Oct. 21, with Schrader Real Estate and Auction Company marketing the land and conducting the auction.

The land will be offered in 14 tracts ranging from eight to 85 acres. "The land is almost all tillable, and the buyer will have access for the 2022 crop season," said Brad Horrall, who is managing the auction for Schrader. "It includes grain storage, a pole barn with electricity, and extensive road frontage," he said.

The property is located at the junction of Illinois Route 127 and Illinois Route 185 on the south side of Hillsboro.

"The location is excellent, approximately an hour from metro St. Louis and Springfield, Illinois. Bidders will be able to make offers on any tract or combination of tracts, or on the entirety, so bidders will be able to obtain just those tracts that meet their needs," said R.D. Schrader, president of the auction company.

Schrader personnel will be available at The Event Center of Montgomery County on Tuesday, September 21 (11 a.m. to 1 p.m.) and Thursday, Oct. 7 (11 a.m. to 1 p.m.) to accommodate inspections and provide detailed information about the property.

The auction will begin at 11 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 21, at The Event Center of Montgomery County. Internet bidding will be available by prior arrangement one week before the auction.

Those seeking additional information may visit www.schraderauction.com or call 800-451-2709.

Schrader Real Estate and Auction Company, based in Columbia City, Indiana, is a leading auctioneer of agricultural land and equipment throughout the United States. The company is a five-time USA Today/National Auctioneers Association Auction of the Year winner.

For more information:

Carl Carter, 205-910-1952

SOURCE Schrader Real Estate and Auction Company

Related Links

http://www.schraderauction.com


VALLEJO, Calif., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Ayesha Curry, best-selling cookbook author, restaurateur, chef, and lifestyle luminary, recently gathered with her family and friends at the elegant social club The Battery in San Francisco to celebrate the official launch of new collections in her eponymous line of cookware and other kitchenware products. The new cookware, cast iron, bakeware, kitchen tools, and pantryware products join the successful Ayesha Curry kitchen lifestyle brand offered by Meyer Corporation. Ayesha collections are about effortless kitchenware for the everyday cook.

"I'm really excited about the new designs and refreshed Bay Area-inspired color palette of my new kitchen products, and hope that they help spark interest in spending more time making delicious meals," says Ayesha Curry. "From the very beginning, my goal in creating my kitchenware line has been to encourage the habit of gathering at the dinner table, which is so important for strengthening relationships with friends and family, and providing kids with the best foundation to learn, grow, and be healthy."

Ayesha collaborated closely with Meyer to develop her eponymous line of quality cookware and kitchenware, making sure every product created is effortlessly stylish, simple and fun to use, and accessibly priced.

The 2021 Ayesha Curry cookware and kitchenware products are available this fall at retail stores nationwide and at www.PotsandPans.com. For further information on Ayesha Curry cookware and kitchenware, consumers are welcomed to visit PotsandPans.com/Ayesha. PotsandPans.com offers an exciting affiliate program for media members and influencers. For more information and to partner, please visit PotsandPans.com/Affiliates or email [email protected].

Ayesha Curry is a renowned restaurateur, chef, two-time best-selling author, philanthropist, television host and producer. Featured on the prestigious 30 Under 30 List by Forbes magazine, Curry's accessible approach to cooking and her passion for entrepreneurial innovation has made her one of the most sought-after experts in food and lifestyle, with over 10 million avid social media followers and subscribers. Curry resides in the San Francisco Bay Area with her three kids, Riley, Ryan and Canon, and husband, Stephen.

Ayesha Curry is offered by California-based Meyer Corporation, one of the largest cookware companies in America. In addition to Ayesha, brands sold by Meyer include Anolon, Circulon, Farberware, KitchenAid, Rachael Ray, Hestan, Ruffoni, BonJour, and LocknLock.

Link to Hi-Res Images: https://bit.ly/2Xti4KA

SOURCE Meyer Corporation, U.S.
SINGAPORE, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Babel Finance, a leading global cryptocurrency financial services provider, today announced the opening of a business headquarters in Singapore named Babel Asia, with Shanshan Yu appointed Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Babel Asia will enhance the company's role as a key crypto player globally, and advance the firm's regulatory compliance efforts.

With its fast-growing crypto ecosystem, Singapore is drawing major industry players from Asia and beyond. Strategically positioned in Southeast Asia, the new office will serve traditional financial institutions and high-net-worth individuals around the world, acting as the bridge for mainstream investors to access professional crypto financial services.

"Singapore's dependable legal system, prestigious wealth management industry, and pioneering approach to crypto regulation make it an excellent launchpad for a business headquarters. In particular, regulators in Singapore are known for being tough on money laundering, so being fully compliant in this market will further the appeal of crypto assets among traditional investors. Babel Asia, led by Yu, will strengthen our ability to serve global investors seeking to diversify their portfolios, by offering world-class services from Singapore," said Flex Yang, CEO of Babel Finance.

To advance Babel Finance's compliance strategy, Babel Asia is planning to apply for relevant regulatory licenses in Singapore. The new office will also serve as a base for future merger and acquisition activities. Together, these efforts will boost Babel Finance's mission to drive mainstream adoption of crypto finance.

Spearheading Babel Asia's plans is Yu, an established figure in Singapore's finance sector, where she had a successful run at Bank of Singapore (SGX: O39), Development Bank of Singapore (SGX: D05), and United Overseas Bank (SGX: U11). Her on-the-ground experience in banking has given her a thorough grounding in serving traditional investors first-hand. She also brings invaluable expertise in navigating the country's regulatory environment and liaising with regulators. Prior to starting a career in banking, Yu co-founded a start-up in the field of interactive technology.

"The crypto ecosystem in Singapore is growing rapidly, thanks to its forward-thinking financial regulatory environment, and an increasing appetite for differentiated asset classes among the region's qualified investors. Yu's combination of banking experience, and entrepreneurial spirit prepare her well to explore the fast-changing fintech industry and open up more possibilities," said Del Wang, co-founder of Babel Finance.

"It's a great time for Babel Asia to make its first moves, as traditional finance in Singapore begins to engage with the crypto space in earnest. Both investors and regulators here are open-minded and willing to explore new asset classes. I look forward to growing our team rapidly, especially bringing onboard seasoned professionals that will quickly advance our compliance plans," said Yu, CEO of Babel Asia.

SOURCE Babel Finance
PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 15, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The national plaintiffs' law firm Berger Montague today announces that it has been selected to represent Philips CPAP user Tom Wilson of Neenah, Wisconsin, who used a Philips DreamStation I for over three years and is a member of the Facebook Group, "Philips CPAP Recall Support Group." Tom has seen that group's membership grow as consumers discover news about the recall of their Philips' CPAP and BiPAP equipment. Tom felt that injured customers needed leadership, direction, and questions answered. He also felt a need for an online community of users of the recalled machines who could provide support to one another and share information since there has been a lack of information from Philips.

Tom experienced respiratory issues while using the Philips DreamStation I which he documented in a letter to Philips' CEO, Frans van Houten. After learning of the recall, Tom spent many hours researching the issues and began to write letters to van Houten seeking a resolution for himself and other customers which went unanswered.

Tom has an interesting background differentiating him from the typical CPAP user. In addition to being a consumer advocate and author on the subject, Tom is also a former president of several large global consumer products businesses for Kimberly-Clark Corporation, an American multinational consumer products corporation that today is roughly the same size as Philips, with about $20 billion in revenue. Given his background, Tom has a good feel for business strategy including litigation and felt that the way the Philips' CEO was managing the crisis was not helping its customers and was causing it to be more costly than it had to be. Tom believed Philips had to reimburse customers for their purchases of replacement equipment and accessories or offer to provide customers with immediate and safe replacement equipment free of charge, but Philips did neither. "Every organization has issues from time to time but how a company proactively manages those issues makes all the difference," stated Tom.

Because he was not reimbursed by Philips or provided with a new machine, Tom spent $974 of his own money to purchase a new machine from a Philips competitor, money that Tom believes Philips now owes him. In frustration, Tom also decided to join the "Philips CPAP Recall Support Group" on Facebook because he was sure other consumers were in the same boat and he has quickly seen membership in that group increase.

Tom's next order of business was to select a law firm that he felt comfortable with and that he could feel good about recommending to others. Following an extensive interview process which involved researching and interviewing several firms, Tom selected Shanon Carson, John Albanese, and Dena Young of Berger Montague, who are representing thousands of injured Philips' customers and who have committed their time and firm's resources towards obtaining justice for injured consumers.

Berger Montague has already filed the largest lawsuit in the country with plaintiffs from 49 different states plus Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico alleging the recalled Philips CPAP and BiPAP machines contain a sound abating polyester-based polyurethane (PE-PUR) foam that can break down during ordinary use and emit volatile organic compounds that increase users' risk of cancer, lung issues such as pulmonary fibrosis, and serious respiratory issues, headaches, irritation, and inflammation. The case is Conley, et al. v. Koninklijke Philips N.V., et al., No. 1:21-cv-11328 (D. Mass.).

Plaintiff Daniel F. Conley, also represented by Berger Montague, served four terms as District Attorney of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, and used two of the recalled Philips CPAP machines for his sleep apnea, the Philips DreamStation and Philips System One. When he learned of the recall, Dan entered the serial number of the older model, the Philips System One, into the recall website, and was informed it was not part of the recall, so began using that machine instead of the DreamStation. Dan, however, later received an email that listed the System One on the recall as well. "The actions of Philips are unconscionable, and I brought this litigation to ensure there is a remedy for injured customers," said Dan.

Philips now says it will not be able to replace all affected CPAP devices for twelve months, leaving millions of users without a remedy, and with damages and injuries that are continuing to mount. Customers are also now being asked to return their recalled machines to Philips and equipment suppliers for disposal, and Berger Montague advises consumers who believe they have suffered an injury to consult with a lawyer before returning their recalled devices, to ensure the devices are properly preserved for litigation.

"We are honored to represent our clients and will work tirelessly for them," said Shanon Carson, Managing Shareholder of Berger Montague. "This recall and the admitted defective nature of these products have created a medical crisis for millions of Americans and Philips should promptly provide a resolution including full reimbursement and damages for their customers' injuries. If any person has been injured by the recalled machines or has information that can help establish liability, they can contact us."

Berger Montague PC is a national law firm headquartered in Philadelphia with offices in Minneapolis, San Diego, and Washington, D.C. Berger Montague litigates complex civil cases and class actions in federal and state courts throughout the country. Berger Montague has played lead roles in major cases for over 51 years and has recovered more than $36 billion for its clients and the classes they have represented.

Please Contact:

Shanon J. Carson

Managing Shareholder

Berger Montague PC

Telephone: (215) 875-4656

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Berger Montague

Related Links

http://www.bergermontague.com


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Contact

BizVibe

Jesse Maida

Email: [email protected]

+1 855-897-5880

Website: https://www.bizvibe.com/

SOURCE BizVibe
VANCOUVER, BC, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Bold Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing BOLD-100, a first-in-class anti-resistance oncology therapeutic, has demonstrated potent anti-tumor activity in combination with a PD-1 checkpoint inhibitor in a validated I/O in vivo model of colorectal cancer. Cancer immunotherapies that blockade the PD-1/PD-L1 checkpoint, such as Merck's Keytruda (pembrolizumab), BMS' Opdivo (nivolumab) and more recently Jiansu Hengrui's AiRuiKa (camrelizumab), have been shown to create durable therapeutic responses not typically seen with traditional anti-cancer therapies, improving patient outcomes in an increasingly wide range of indications and generating more than $23B in annual revenues worldwide. However, these therapies remain ineffective in a significant percentage of patients who are inherently resistant, and some patients who initially respond acquire resistance to these therapies over time. As the mechanisms underlying both inherent and acquired resistance to PD-1/PD-L1 are further elucidated, proactive anti-resistance therapeutic strategies could potentially result in both more frequent and improved patient outcomes.

Bold Therapeutics Inc.

In the experiment shown, BOLD-100 was tested by an independent CRO in an MC-38 mouse model of colorectal cancer. BOLD-100 not only demonstrated potent monotherapy activity, as it has in other models, but also significantly improved outcomes when combined with a PD-1 inhibitor. Adding to an increasing wealth of literature, this data strongly supports BOLD-100's potential to synergize with checkpoint inhibitors to reduce inherent and acquired resistance and improve patient outcomes. Further experiments are planned to explore and optimize BOLD-100's utility in combination with checkpoint inhibitors in various established preclinical models with the goal of quickly advancing into a combination clinical study. BOLD-100 has already been shown to be generally safe and well-tolerated in a 46-patient monotherapy Phase 1 study, and Bold Therapeutics anticipates initiating numerous Phase 2 studies in 2022 and beyond.

"These results in combination with a PD-1 checkpoint inhibitor adds to extensive preclinical and clinical evidence supporting BOLD-100's broad utility," stated E. Russell McAllister, CEO of Bold Therapeutics. "We have already demonstrated synergy between BOLD-100 and the therapies used in the majority of cancer care settings, ranging from traditional chemotherapies (e.g. cisplatin, gemcitabine) to targeted therapies (e.g. proteasome inhibitors, PARP inhibitors, receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors  and now checkpoint inhibitors) to novel therapies (e.g. apoptosis and DNA damage pathway inhibitors). Drug resistance remains a significant unaddressed challenge in oncology, and Bold Therapeutics and our collaborators worldwide continue to demonstrate BOLD-100's ability to address this unmet need by defeating both inherent and acquired resistance in a wide range of both solid and liquid tumor indications. Meanwhile, our ongoing seamless adaptive Phase 1b/2a clinical study is exploring the safety and efficacy of BOLD-100 in combination with FOLFOX in the treatment of advanced GI cancers  and we continue to expect to present results from the Phase 1b portion of the study at a conference in early 2022."

For more information about Bold Therapeutics, please visit the company's website at www.bold-therapeutics.com.

Contact:

E. Russell McAllister, CEO

(604) 262-9899

[email protected]

SOURCE Bold Therapeutics Inc.

Related Links

https://www.bold-therapeutics.com


SALT LAKE CITY, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Burn Boot Camp, a leading national boutique fitness franchise, has announced plans to expand its Utah footprint. Following the success of its Orem gym, the company is bringing more locations to Utah, with the first of many opening in South Jordan this month. To meet the growing demand for quality, community-driven fitness in the area, more Burn Boot Camp locations are currently planned this year for Highland, Bountiful, Herriman, American Fork and Layton, with additional locations on the agenda for 2022.

The aggressive expansion is a result of the fast-growing community established by the brand's first Utah location in Orem, which opened in 2018. Now, Burn Boot Camp is opening six more gyms in quick succession, starting with a highly anticipated grand opening in South Jordan. Located at 10467 S Redwood Road, the 8,000 square foot gym will officially open its doors on Monday, September 20, running camps all day long with a special celebration open to the public starting at 7 p.m. MDT. Development is also well underway for the Highland and Herriman locations, where the grand opening celebrations are scheduled for later this fall.

The fitness franchise aims to open the other four gyms in the Beehive State by the end of 2021.

"We knew Burn Boot Camp Orem would perform well  it was the first in the state, people in the area were craving community-driven wellness  and since opening, we've received requests asking for more locations," shared Devan Kline, CEO and co-founder of Burn Boot Camp. "The moment you walk through the doors of the Orem facility, you can feel the sense of community and the positivity. Our team is making a huge impact in the lives of our members and their families, and we want to bring that to even more areas. Above all else, Burn Boot Camp is a family-led company, invested in the whole individual. It's our goal to become a household name for families across Utah."

Burn Boot Camp is much more than a gym, it's a supportive, inspiring, and motivating community focused on helping members reach their goals. The 45-minute workouts target different muscle groups throughout the week, and can be modified up or down depending on fitness level. Memberships also include access to Childwatch services, helping even the busiest of parents to prioritize their wellness, as well as Focus Meetings, which pairs members with a trainer for guidance on nutrition, performance, mindset and more.

Burn Boot Camp has helped pioneer a trend that will continue well into the future, the importance of mind and body. The consistent growth of the franchise has led to Burn Boot Camp's recent consecutive rankings in Entrepreneur's Franchise 500. To become a part of the ever-growing #burnnation community, interested individuals can expect a total investment ranging from $181.8K-$447.9K with discounts available for military veterans and multi-unit signings.

Download the Burn Boot Camp app via Apple or Google Play to sign up for camp at Burn Boot Camp Orem or South Jordan, or click on any of the cities for more information: South Jordan, Bountiful, Highland, Herriman, American Fork, Layton and Orem.

For more information about Burn Boot Camp in Utah, visit: burnbootcamp.com/salt-lake-city-ut-region/

And, for access to all things Burn Boot Camp in the Utah area  fitness, motivation, wellness, company announcements  follow Burn Boot Camp and join the #burnnation on Instagram via Burn Boot Camp Utah, South Jordan, Highland, Layton and Orem.

About Burn Boot Camp

Founded in 2012 by husband wife duo Devan and Morgan Kline, Burn Boot Camp is a national fitness concept where like-minded men and women can come together, build confidence and inspire one another through fitness. The national franchise started as a female-focused boutique gym franchise with a mission and passion for empowering communities. Recently, Burn Boot Camp has cultivated a following from both men and women alike, giving an opportunity to families to work out together while taking advantage of Childwatch services that are provided exclusively to Burn Boot Camp members. Burn Boot Camp offers 45-minute circuit style workout camps through highly innovative daily programs crafted by certified personal trainers. For more information, visit burnbootcamp.com

Media Contact: Leah Trice, Fishman Public Relations, [email protected], 847.945.1300

SOURCE Burn Boot Camp

Related Links

https://burnbootcamp.com


WASHINGTON, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) -- the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization  in partnership with more than 40 U.S. and international groups, today held a news conference outside The Capital Hilton in Washington, D.C., to announce a worldwide boycott of Hilton Worldwide over that corporation's refusal to end an agreement to license the construction of a Hampton Hotel on the site of a bulldozed mosque in the Uyghur region of China.

SEE: Calls for Global Boycott of Hilton Over Hotel on Holy Site Bulldozed in China's Cleansing Drive (Telegraph)

https://uk.style.yahoo.com/calls-global-boycott-hilton-over-152038598.html

Muslim groups call for Hilton boycott over project in China

https://www.thehour.com/news/article/Muslim-groups-call-for-Hilton-boycott-over-16465258.php

Muslim Groups Boycott Hilton Over Planned Hotel on Uighur Mosque (Al Jazeera)https://twitter.com/CAIRNational/status/1438574250571534344

More than 40 Groups to Boycott Hilton Over Planned Hotel on Uighur Site

https://english.alaraby.co.uk/news/groups-boycott-hilton-over-planned-hotel-uighur-site

[LISTEN] CAIR, Coalition Partners Announce Global Boycott of Hilton Hotels Over Plan to Build Hotel on Site of Demolished Uyghur Masjid in China

https://radioislam.org.za/a/listen-cair-coalition-partners-announce-global-boycott-of-hilton-hotels-over-plan-to-build-hotel-on-site-of-demolished-uyghur-masjid-in-china/

Those speaking at the news conference included: (in order of appearance)

Zainab Chaudry - CAIR Office in Maryland Director

Nihad Awad  National Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)

Rushan Abbas - Founder and Executive Director of Campaign for Uyghurs

Omer Kanat - Executive Director of the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP), Executive Chair World Uyghur Congress

Abdulhakim A Idris  Inspector General of the World Uyghur Congress (WUC)

Husam Kaid  Political Lead for Free Uyghur Now

Mahmudul Kadir - Muslim Ummah of North America (MUNA)

Abdulhakim Idris - World Uyghur Congress

WATCH THE FULL NEWS CONFERENCE:

https://twitter.com/CAIRNational/status/1438597248783372291

PHOTOS: CAIR, 40+ Coalition Partners Announce Global Boycott of Hilton Hotels Over Plan to Build Hotel on Site of Demolished Uyghur Mosque in China

https://twitter.com/CAIRNational/status/1438599516584873994

The coalition also launched a Change.org petition drive asking signatories to take a pledge "to join the global boycott of ALL Hilton-owned hotels until the company cancels its plan to establish a hotel on the site of a bulldozed Uyghur mosque in China."

On September 8, the coalition delivered a letter to Hilton headquarters in Virginia giving the corporation one week to end the hotel agreement.

If you would like join CAIR's media list, please sign up here: https://action.cair.com/a/newsletters

CONTACT: CAIR Government Affairs Director Robert McCaw, 202-742-6448, [email protected]; CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-744-7726, [email protected]

SOURCE Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)

Related Links

http://www.cair.com


BASINGSTOKE, England, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Basingstoke UK, September 14, 2021 - Cash Processing Solutions Ltd (CPS), headquartered in Basingstoke UK, has been awarded a multimillion-pound contract to supply Single Note Inspection Systems to the Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India Ltd (SPMCIL).

The contract was won through a competitive tender process, with the CPS being selected to design, manufacture, test, supply, install and commission four CPS 9000 Single Note Inspection Systems during 2022

"Securing this business is a significant endorsement of CPS's capabilities in the area of Single Note Inspection and the 9000 machine itself, it is also a major step in our strategy to grow CPS's presence in this market. As end of line inspection becomes the standard in the banknote production process, CPS is well positioned to support both Commercial and State Printworks with highly productive and accurate systems as well as the long-term support required," commented Barrie Foley  CEO Cash Processing Solutions

The CPS 9000  Single Note Inspection Machine

The CPS 9000 Single Note Inspection System was developed to meet the demanding needs of banknote printing works, ensuring banknotes produced meet the defined quality standard. The CPS 9000 employs state-of-the-art camera and sensor systems to inspect every banknote at the highest level of detail. The Banknote Quality Inspection System (BQIS) examines quality in every element of the banknote and at every level of feature recognition to detect any banknote that doesn't meet the defined specification. Find out more about the CPS 9000 at www.cps.world

About CPS

CPS is an independent global provider of customer focused, end-to-end, data-driven cash management solutions, developing long-term partnerships with our customers to safeguard their reputation, optimise their efficiency and protect their investment.

CPS provides complete cash centre consultancy, data & software solutions and sorting machines, supported by a global service team, to central banks, commercial processors, casinos and retailers as well as single note inspection systems to banknote printworks, across the world.

Our global customer base is in over 100 countries and this combined with more than 60 years in the industry, gives CPS the specialist knowledge of global cash cycle trends and currency management that is needed, to deliver tailored solutions to meet the objectives of its customers'.

Learn more at www.cps.world

Press Contact

Keith Williamson  Marketing Director

[email protected]

SOURCE Cash Processing Solutions (CPS)
NEW YORK, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Castle Brands, the Pernod Ricard owned marketer of premium and super-premium beverage alcohol brands, will assume responsibility for Irish Distillers' experimental, super-premium Method and Madness Irish Whiskeys in the U.S. effective Oct. 1, 2021.

Nick Papanicolaou, CEO of Castle Brands, said the explosive popularity of Irish Whiskey in the U.S. has led to increased consumer demand for new offerings, and Method and Madness has shown great potential that will be enhanced by Castle Brands' entrepreneurial approach. "Castle Brands is all about providing a customized marketing approach for promising brands by giving them the focus needed to build impactful activation plans that create long term value," he said. Papanicolaou added that Method & Madness will nicely complement Castle Brands' existing portfolio, which includes Goslings Rum, Ginger Beer and RTD products, as well as Ramazzotti, Our/New York Vodka and Our/Los Angeles Vodka.

Simon Fay, Director of Business Acceleration of the Pernod Ricard-owned Irish Distillers brand company, said Castle Brands' local brand building expertise and energy will help build awareness and trial for Method and Madness with a new generation of U.S. whiskey drinkers. "Method and Madness seeks to push the boundaries of the Irish whiskey category, and Castle Brands will help accelerate our journey, to the benefit of our consumers and customers," he said.

Taking inspiration from the famous Shakespearean quote, 'Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't'', Method and Madness is designed to reflect a next generation Irish spirit brand with a measure of curiosity and intrigue (MADNESS), while honoring the tradition and expertise grounded in the generations of expertise at the Midleton Distillery (METHOD).

The Method and Madness range currently available in the U.S. includes three Irish Whiskeys, each with its own twist; a Single Grain Irish Whiskey Finished in Virgin Spanish Oak; a Single Pot Still Irish Whiskey Finished in French Chestnut; and a Single Malt Irish Whiskey enhanced with French Limousin Oak.

About Castle Brands

Castle Brands is a developer and international marketer of premium and super-premium brands including Goslings Rums, Goslings Stormy Ginger Beer and Goslings Dark 'n Stormy RTD, as well as Ramazotti, Our/New York Vodka and Our/Los Angeles Vodka. The company was acquired in 2019 by Austin Nichols & Co. Inc., a subsidiary of Pernod Ricard S.A. Additional information concerning Castle Brands is available on the Company's website, www.castlebrandsinc.com.

About Irish Distillers

Pernod Ricard-owned Irish Distillers is Ireland's leading supplier of spirits and wines and producer of some of the world's most well-known and successful Irish whiskeys. Led by Jameson Irish whiskey, the world's best-selling Irish whiskey, Irish Distillers' brands are driving the global renaissance of Irish whiskey and are exported to more than 130 markets. At the core of everything done by Irish Distillers is a passion for its craft, a commitment to sustainability and an ambition to create drinks that can be enjoyed the world over. Irish Distillers employs more than 600 people across its operations in Cork, Dublin and Belfast.

About Pernod Ricard

Pernod Ricard is the world's No 2 in wines and spirits with consolidated sales of 8,448 million in FY20. Created in 1975 by the merger of Ricard and Pernod, the Group has undergone sustained development, based on both organic growth and acquisitions: Seagram (2001), Allied Domecq (2005) and Vin&Sprit (2008). Pernod Ricard, which owns 16 of the Top 100 Spirits Brands, holds one of the most prestigious and comprehensive brand portfolios in the industry, including: Absolut Vodka, Ricard pastis, Ballantine's, Chivas Regal, Royal Salute, and The Glenlivet Scotch whiskies, Jameson Irish whiskey, Martell cognac, Havana Club rum, Beefeater gin, Malibu liqueur, Mumm and Perrier-Jouet champagnes, as well Jacob's Creek, Brancott Estate, Campo Viejo, and Kenwood wines. Pernod Ricard's brands are distributed across 160+ markets and by its own salesforce in 73 markets. The Group's decentralized organization empowers its 19,000 employees to be true on-the-ground ambassadors of its vision of "Createurs de Convivialite." As reaffirmed by the Group's strategic plan, "Transform and Accelerate," deployed in 2018, Pernod Ricard's strategy focuses on investing in long-term, profitable growth for all stakeholders. The Group remains true to its three founding values: entrepreneurial spirit, mutual trust, and a strong sense of ethics, as illustrated by the 2030 Sustainability and Responsibility roadmap supporting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), "Good times from a good place." In recognition of Pernod Ricard's strong commitment to sustainable development and responsible consumption, it has received a Gold rating from Ecovadis. Pernod Ricard is also a United Nations' Global Compact LEAD company. Pernod Ricard is listed on Euronext (Ticker: RI; ISIN Code: FR0000120693) and is part of the CAC 40 and Eurostoxx 50 indices. For further information, please visit http://www.pernod-ricard.com

SOURCE Castle Brands

Related Links

http://www.castlebrandsinc.com


CUPERTINO, Calif., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Claris International Inc., an Apple company, today announced a groundbreaking initiative with Venture Fund and Startup Studio, EonXI  combining the power of low-code software development, business training, mentorship, and community networking with one unified goal: expand diversity in technology and business ownership.

The lack of diversity in technology and Black-owned startups is well-documented and long-standing. According to Pew Research, Black workers comprise 11% of all employed adults, but just 5% of engineers and architects, and 7% of workers in computer occupations. Entrepreneurship within the Black community also struggled this past year  40% of businesses that closed due to the pandemic were Black-owned, compared to just 20% of all active U.S. businesses. Finally, data released by McKinsey also shows that 42% of Black workers currently hold jobs that could be subject to automation by 2030.

"The need to invest and increase diversity in tech broadly, and in Black entrepreneurs specifically, has never been greater," said Claris CEO Brad Freitag. "At the same time, the massive growth and tremendous power of low-code technologies represent some of the most significant opportunities to close this gap that we've seen in generations. This partnership with EonXI affirms a deep commitment on the part of both companies to not just talk about or study these problems, but to give Black entrepreneurs what they need to be successful, both as business owners and software developers."

Gartner forecasts that, by 2024, 75% of large enterprises will be using at least four low-code development tools for IT application development. In part, this is due to the fact that current U.S. demand for IT workers stands at roughly 500,000 open positions, but with only 50,000 computer science graduates per year. This translates to a significant gap not only in tech diversity, but pure IT talent  a gap which can be filled with a more diverse workforce educated in low code.

"Narrowing the racial wealth gap starts with access to technology and resources, hence why we are building communities of diverse developers and diverse entrepreneurs," said Aaron Wilson, General Partner at EonXI.

The Low Code Accelerator program from EonXI and Claris will provide graduates with the operational expertise and mentorship to form and scale a business as well as technical training on the Claris low-code development platform. Mentorship, both business and technical, will be provided by a large network of program partners, including Cris Ippolite, a 25-year Claris developer and President of iSolutions, as well as Cathy House, 15-year entrepreneurship Adjunct Professor in the Executive MBA program at Howard University.

"Every day, I work with brilliant Black entrepreneurs who have industry-changing ideas, but no technical training to bring those ideas to life through software," said Cathy House. "While we must invest in closing the educational gaps that led us to this point, I see tremendous opportunity in low-code software development to empower these entrepreneurs today. The team at EonXI is world-class not only in the companies they help build, but in the partnerships they forge that help them accomplish their mission. Working with an organization that has the pedigree and history of Claris to lift up Black entrepreneurs is a tremendous win, and I'm proud to be a part of this program."

With today's launch, The Low Code Accelerator program is accepting applications for the program's first class. Applications are due by October 15, 2021, and individuals interested in learning more about the program can visit the Claris website.

About Claris International Inc.

Claris International Inc. is the creator of the world's leading low-code development platform, offering a suite of services that drives digital transformation in companies from every business sector. Best known for its FileMaker app development solution, the company has more than one million active users globally across SMBs and the Fortune 500. Claris, an Apple company, has an unmatched record of business success for more than 20 profitable years. Claris is headquartered in California with operations worldwide, including London, Paris, Munich, Tokyo, Beijing, and Sydney.

About EonXI

EonXI Ventures is a venture capital firm focused on investing in innovative founders and disruptive Web 3.0 companies. EonXI's domain expertise includes but is not limited to, blockchain, gaming, interactive media & artificial intelligence. The EonXI portfolio consists of early-stage companies with a focus on underlying technology. With access to a robust limited partner network consisting of illustrious executives, family offices, and top-tier influencers, strategic partners & consumers can be reached in a matter of seconds. EonXI Ventures is the true definition of going beyond the traditional venture check.

The EonXI Startup Studio is the incubation engine of EonXI, where concepts are created, developed, and scaled into disruptive businesses in the Web 3.0 ecosystem. With a robust developer community and access to top resources, the company helps elevate the best ideas from pre-seed to market and beyond. Upon finding product-market fit, the team at EonXI Studio then activates a deep network of other founders, influencers, advisors, investors, and talent to continue to support founding teams throughout the life of the business.

Press contact

Clarity PR, for Claris

[email protected]

1-630-346-4936

SOURCE Claris International Inc.

Related Links

https://www.claris.com


CHICAGO, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Telephone and Data Systems, Inc. (NYSE: TDS) announced the promotion of Colleen Thompson to Vice President  Corporate Relations effective September 27, 2021, subject to approval of the TDS Board of Directors. To ensure a successful transition, Jane W. McCahon will continue in her role as Senior Vice President, Corporate Relations and Corporate Secretary until May 2022, after which she will become Vice President  Corporate Secretary.

"We have designated the important role of Vice President  Corporate Relations as a separate position. Exposure to Wall Street, development of our Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Program and strategic communications are all essential for our finance leadership," said LeRoy T. Carlson, Jr., TDS President and CEO. "Colleen brings an exceptional background to this role, and we are highly confident in her ability to successfully establish relationships with the financial, governance and sustainability communities."

Colleen is currently Director of Business Strategy at UScellular, where she is responsible for leading the development of the Company's five-year Strategic Long-Range Forecast. She has also served as Director of Budgeting and Forecasting where she was responsible for leading the financial planning process, including the annual budget and quarterly forecasts and development of external financial guidance. She also served as Director of Operations Accounting. Prior to joining UScellular in 2012, she worked at companies including TransUnion Corporation, Constellation Brands, and KPMG. Colleen is a Certified Public Accountant and earned her MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University and her BA in Accounting from the University of Notre Dame.

About TDS

Telephone and Data Systems, Inc. (TDS), a Fortune 1000 company, provides wireless; broadband, video and voice; and hosted and managed services to approximately 6 million connections nationwide through its businesses, UScellular, TDS Telecom, and OneNeck IT Solutions. Founded in 1969 and headquartered in Chicago, TDS employed approximately 8,900 associates as of June 30, 2021.

For more information about TDS and its subsidiaries, visit:

TDS: www.tdsinc.com

UScellular: www.uscellular.com

TDS Telecom: www.tdstelecom.com

OneNeck IT Solutions: www.oneneck.com

SOURCE Telephone and Data Systems

Related Links

http://www.teldta.com


HANOVER, N.H., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- CollegeLab and LendingTree announced a partnership today that provides students with an integrated tool to make personalized decisions on college admissions and student loans. The partnership empowers families to weigh the financial costs and opportunities of a college degree earlier in the application process. They understand that return on investment is an increasingly important factor in deciding where to go to college, providing students with everything they need to make an informed decision.

CollegeLab, a Bema Holdings company, is a SaaS tool built on 5.3 million application records. It uses artificial intelligence and expert admissions insights to help students and counselors manage the college admissions process. It enables students to understand their chance of admission at different colleges and see how they could improve those chances, while providing the tools to create application lists that are a match for the individual student. CollegeLab is a subscription-based service, but is made available free of charge to students supported by community-based organizations, including Girl Scouts of America, The Joyce Ivy Foundation, and organizations receiving support from the Lone Pine Foundation.

LendingTree is an online lending marketplace with one of the largest networks of lenders in the country. It offers a suite of tools, calculators for comparing loan options and services to hundreds of thousands of undergraduate and graduate students annually.

"We are extremely excited by this partnership with LendingTree, which will allow us to focus our data and analytics to provide students with meaningful school-specific ROI information well before the application process," said Aimahd Sabky, COO of CollegeLab.

The college decisioning process is overwhelming, opaque and can be incredibly stressful both in choosing the right institution and how to finance the future. "The CollegeLab-LendingTree partnership is an exciting first step at pairing admissions decisions with financing tools to empower the consumer to make the best time and financial investment decision," said Eric Wellner GM of Student at LendingTree.

This is the first phase of the CollegeLab-LendingTree partnership, with additional product and feature announcements anticipated this quarter.

SOURCE CollegeLab
With the spine market expected to increase 5 percent this year1 and sacroiliac joint fusion growing up to 14.7 percent2, SI joint fusion continues to be an exciting new area of spine surgery. Lower back pain is one of the most common reasons for a physician visit and those experiencing pain attributable to the SI joint range from 15 to 30 percent3.

Entasis is designed for minimally invasive SI joint fusion procedures. The system provides an array of joint stabilizing compression screw options in three diameters and nine length options, enabling surgeons to precisely fit varying patient anatomies. The screws feature circumferential fenestrations that self-harvest bone graft while compressing the joint. Dual leads threads ease insertion and easy-out threaded removal tools are available, if needed. These innovative features and stackable guide wire have led to the Entasis system being recognized as a top 10 sacroiliac joint fusion system by SPINEMarketGroup. A full suite of resources to assist in surgeon training, patient education, and patient workup is also available.

"CoreLink is proud to be a leader in the SI fusion market as a result of our strong product offering and vast training resources," said Jay Bartling, CEO, CoreLink. "Every step of our process, from design to manufacturing, keeps surgeon ease of use and patient outcomes top of mind. This is evident in our SI joint fusion systems with patented technology, unique compression screw design, and comprehensive offerings."

CoreLink will be exhibiting at the North American Spine Society's annual meeting in Boston, September 29 through October 2, booth #3221, where a full display of surgical systems will be featured, including Entasis.

1. The Spine Market Group. (2021). What is the Spine Market First Estimate for 2021. Retrieved from http://thespinemarketgroup.com/which-is-the-spine-market-first-estimate-for-2021. 2. 360 Research Reports. (2020). Global MIS Sacroiliac Joint Fusion Sales Market Report 2020. Retrieved from https://www.360researchreports.com/global-mis-sacroiliac-joint-fusion-sales-market-16695557. 3. Martin, C. T., Haase, L., Lender, P. A., & Polly, D. W. (2020). Minimally Invasive Sacroiliac Joint Fusion: The Current Evidence. International journal of spine surgery, 14(Suppl 1), 2029. https://doi.org/10.14444/6072

About CoreLink

CoreLink, known as The Source for Spine, internally designs and manufactures more than 99% of its broad portfolio of spinal implant systems. With a unique heritage that combines old-world craftsmanship with state-of-the-art manufacturing, we collaborate with surgeons to develop and deliver effective surgical solutions and improve the lives of patients. Learn more at corelinksurgical.com.

SOURCE CoreLink, LLC

Related Links

www.corelinksurgical.com


The growing incidence of modern warfare that is related with massive destruction has necessitated law enforcement and military agencies to be equipped with effective counter acting capabilities, which is in the scope of the counter-IED market.

Large budgets of governments around the world to improve national security has led to equipping their respective defense sector with data-driven intelligence. The extensive processes deployed for automated data collection are combined with data integration methods for a single interface of intelligence that helps to reliably assess threat of improvised explosive device (IED) attacks. This magnitude of threat and its associated damage necessitates the deployment of counter-IED solutions as a preventive measure, particularly for the law enforcement and military sectors.

The characteristic of counter-IED solutions wherein several programs are bundled to suit various vulnerable areas is creating opportunities in the counter-IED market. At the back of these factors, the counter-IED market is estimated to cross US$ 2.9 Bn by 2030.

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Counter-IED Market: Key Findings of Report

Key Role Played by Governments to Equip Armed Forces Creates Demand; Changing Mode of IED Attacks to Drive Research for Innovative Solutions

The surge in the number terrorist activities in various parts of the world, particularly in conflicted zones is a concern for governments for national and civilian security. This has led to dedicated research and data collection to assess vulnerabilities and adopt solid measures to prevent damage and human loss as much as possible. Thus, law enforcement departments and military agencies collaborate with behavioral and computational scientists to gauge potential attacks and their severity, if possible.

The compelling need to mitigate IED threats for the armed forces is leading to the deployment of an array of preventive solutions that comprise detection, protection, and neutralization measures categorized as counter-IED solutions. This has led to the evolution of military vehicles for armored personnel carriers (APCs) and modified infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) from the traditional ones. Counter-IED measures are adopted at various vulnerable areas such as anti-tanking, anti-personnel mining, and IED detection systems.

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The emergence of new types of IED attacks has necessitated innovative and effective counter-IED solutions. The deployment of new type of IED detection kit and ground-piercing radar systems in vehicles in Afghanistan to detect metallic buried objects is an example of this. This has accelerated the development of models that help assess nearly failsafe information for action against potential threats.

Massive Destruction Caused Due to Territorial, Economic Conflicts in Parts of Asia Pacific Drives Adoption

The incidence of terrorist activities and political and economic disputes in some parts of Asia Pacific over the past three decades have caused massive destruction leading to long-term impact experienced till date. Some countries in the region used modern warfare that depend on next-gen communication and information systems. The use of IEDs is an extension of information-age systems that are deployed based on accurate intelligence obtained from these systems. Moreover, IEDs can be placed anywhere on animals, planted on roads, or strapped on individuals. This has led to the increasing demand for counter-IED solutions in several parts of Asia Pacific.

The U.S. accounts for leading revenue contribution for North America to dominate the counter-IED market. Military vehicles in the country in large numbers are mounted with counter-IEDs to evaluate and adjust measures to discover, prevent, alleviate, and recover from IED attacks and their consequences.

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Counter-IED Market  Growth Drivers

Rising need to equip armed forces with advanced combat solutions to counter border threats and modern warfare fuels the counter-IED market

Risk of massive damage associated with IED that is characteristic of multiple technologies and new-age information systems propels demand for counter-IED systems

Counter-IED Market  Key Players

Some of the key players operating in the counter-IED market are Lockheed Martin Corporation, Raytheon Company, Allen-Vanguard, Harris Corporation, Thales Group, Chemring Technology Solutions, Northrop Grumman Corporation, Sierra Nevada Corporation, General Dynamics Corporation, L3 Technologies Inc., Parnisari Arms, and Elbit Systems Ltd.

Global Counter-IED Market: Segmentation

Counter-IED Market, by Solution

Detection

Ads-Above-Surface Detection System



Mids-Underground Mine and IED Detection System



Stand-Off IED Detector



Remote IED Detection Equipment

Countermeasure

Jammers



Neutralization

NIED

EOD

Counter-IED Market, by Deployment

Vehicle Mounted

Manned



Unmanned

Ship Mounted

Airborne Mounted

Aircraft



Aerostat



UAV

Handheld

Counter-IED Market, by End User

Military

Law Enforcement

Counter-IED Market, by Region

North America

South America

Europe

Asia Pacific (APAC)

(APAC) Middle East & Africa (MEA)

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On Aug. 30, 2021, pursuant to clinical trial protocol amended following the recommendation of the approved second interim DMC (Data Monitoring Committee) review, GoldenBiotech was noticed by CRO that the Food and Drug Administration(FDA) agreed that its ongoing phase 2 trial of Antroquinonol for treating COVID-19 patients can be extended recruiting from the mild or moderate hospitalized patients to the severe hospitalized COVID-19 patients who need non-invasive oxygen support. The total trial subjects will remain the same, 174 patients in total.

The trial recruiting is expedited in full swing covering the USA, Peru and Argentina where the new upheaval pandemic is rampant with highly transmitted SARS-CoV2 variants. "So far, there is no oral drug approved or receives the EUA from the FDA for COVID-19 treatment. Our recent progress will help shorten the completion time of our phase 2 clinical trial and time to apply with the US FDA emergency use authorization (EUA) when the significant trial results are achieved," quoted by Alex Liu, the Chairman of Golden Biotechnology Corp.

Currently, Golden Biotechnology Corp. is the only Taiwanese company that undergoes the formal clinical trial for COVID-19 treatment in multi-national centers and follows the FDA guidance for COVID-19 trials to set the trial as randomized, double-blinded and placebo-controlled study.

Antroquinonol is a new small molecule drug (NCE) with convenient oral administration design and distinguished from other emerging oral treatment drugs for COVID-19 by its multi-functional effects on anti-viral, anti-inflammation and anti-fibrosis characteristics revealed by studies. The new permitted extensive enrollment from mild, moderate to severe patients in the trial will assess the efficacy of recovery rate and prevent the milder COVID-19 patients becoming more severe conditions which will ease the heavy loading of the medical systems.

Antoquinonl stands out from current many anti-viral drugs with its ingenious capability of anti-inflammation and liver protection effects which it recruits the COVID-19 confirmed patients consistent with pneumonia from their chest X-ray or computerized tomography (CT) scan. The sign of viral pneumonia indicates the inflammation and the tendency of severity which is lack of effective cure and with poor prognosis. People with liver disease are the vulnerable group to COVID-19 infection even the lower and slower antibody protection will produce after their receiving vaccination acc. to the recent studies.

GoldenBiotech signs MOU on Aug. 24 with Sanova Pharma GesmbH for cooperation and development of Antroquinonol in the 23 European countries including Austria, UK, Italy, Norway, Denmark and Switzerland. Sanova Pharma is a leading healthcare products and logistics provider in Austria and Europe with over 70 years of history in the healthcare sector. As integrated into the Herba Group in Austria and part of global McKesson group, Sanova Pharma benefits from the knowledge and experience of the major local and global pharmaceutical wholesalers. "The MOU with Sanova Pharma will help boost the cooperation and expansion of the development for Antroquinonol in Europe," said Dr. Today Su, CEO of GoldenBiotech.

On Jan. 22, 2021, GoldenBiotech signed the licensing agreement with BNC Korea Co., Ltd, a leading South Korean company in medical device, biologicals and pharmaceuticals, for its COVID-19 new drug candidate Antroquinonol. BNC Korea is authorized for developing and commercialization of Antroquinonol for the treatment of COVID-19 in the territories of S. Korea, Russia, Ukraine and Turkey.

ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04523181

https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04523181

About Antroquinonol (HOCENA)

Antroquinonol, a novel small molecule that was discovered in 2006 by Golden Biotechnology Corp. Its compound structure, preparation methods and applicable indications have been protected with patents worldwide. Embraced by its safety and multi-functional bioactive advantages, it has been applied in several clinical trials or research in oncology, coronavirus, liver metabolism symptoms, cardio-vascular, auto-immune and neuro-degenerative diseases. Other indications of clinical trials for Antroquinonol (HOCENA) are pancreatic cancer, NSCLC (Lung cancer), AML(Leukemia), Hyperlipidemia, Atopic dermatitis and Hepatitis B etc. It has been granted the Orphan Drug Designation (ODD) by the U.S. FDA for the treatment of Pancreatic Cancer, Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) and HCC (Liver Cancer) in 2015. It also received the ODD for the treatment of Pancreatic Cancer from European EMA in 2017.

About Golden Biotechnology Corp. ("GoldenBiotech", GBC)

Golden Biotechnology Corporation, founded in 2002, is a Taiwanese based leading pharmaceutical company which dedicates to discovering novel compounds (NCE) and developing cutting-edge innovative therapeutics with breakthrough advantage against serious and rare diseases in hopes to improve and promote a lasting quality of life, health and longevity.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

https://goldenbiotech.com/en/forward-looking-statements/

Information about Golden Biotechnology Corp. (GBC,"GoldenBiotech")

https://goldenbiotech.com/

SOURCE Golden Biotechnology Corp.

Related Links

https://goldenbiotech.com


WASHINGTON, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The Talbot County Council has adopted a resolution to remove the last Confederate statue remaining on public grounds in Maryland. This is a change of position for the Council and follows a lawsuit filed by Crowell & Moring and the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland. The resolution, passed on September 14, 2021 with a 3-2 vote, orders the movement of the Talbot Boys statue from the Easton courthouse to a private park in Virginia "as soon as is practicable."

The lawsuit, which was filed in May 2021, challenged the statue's placement as racist and illegal. It brought together the Maryland Office of the Public Defender, the Talbot County Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, attorney Kisha Petticolas, and community activist Richard M. Potter, along with the ACLU of Maryland and Crowell & Moring.

"This is just one step on what is still a long road to eradicating systemic racism, but to the plaintiffs and others harmed by the presence of Confederate symbolism on the courthouse lawn, the removal of the statue is not merely symbolicit will remove a source and cause of real pain," said Daniel W. Wolff, partner at Crowell & Moring and one of the lead attorneys on the lawsuit. "This result demonstrates the continued impact of civil rights advocates using litigation to achieve results when politicians refuse to respect constitutional rights."

In May, plaintiff Kisha Petticolas, a Black lawyer who has worked in the Easton Office of the Maryland Public Defender for the last decade, explained the effects she feels from a Confederate statue situated at the place she works and seeks justice for her clients:

"Every day, I have to walk past that statue to get to work. It's an unavoidable and painfully constant reminder of a time when white people fought for Black people to stay enslaved. It is a violent, hateful legacy that white supremacists fought to preserve. How can we keep this Confederate monument erected without promoting the same legacy of white supremacy? It cannot be done. How can any Black Marylanders expect justice at a courthouse that holds up a racist symbol on a pedestal for all to see?"

The NAACP and a growing number of community activists have been advocating for years for removal of the monument, arguing it promotes a legacy of racism, celebrates traitors to the union, and is a symbol of white supremacy that is intolerable at the entryway to a public courthouse. The Talbot NAACP first asked the County to remove the statue in the summer of 2015, following the murders by a white supremacist of nine Black churchgoers in Charleston, S.C. The Council considered the request, but unanimously elected to retain the statue in 2016. Since then, requests for reconsideration have recurred periodically, as racist incidents connected to Confederate imagery continued, and as states and other local governments across the country and Maryland removed their own pro-Confederate monuments, leaving Talbot County alone in Maryland in retaining its monument.

The Maryland Office of the Public Defender, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Kisha Petticolas, and Richard M. Potter are represented by attorneys Daniel W. Wolff, David Ervin, Kelly H. Hibbert, Suzanne Trivette, and Tiffanie McDowell of Crowell & Moring LLP, and Deborah A. Jeon, Legal Director of the ACLU of Maryland.

About Crowell & Moring LLP

Crowell & Moring LLP is an international law firm with offices in the United States, Europe, MENA, and Asia that represents clients in litigation and arbitration, regulatory and policy, and transactional and corporate matters. The firm is internationally recognized for its representation of Fortune 500 companies in high-stakes litigation and government-facing matters, as well as its ongoing commitment to pro bono service and diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Media Contact:

Andrew Loeb

Communications Specialist

+1 202.624.2792

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Crowell & Moring LLP

Related Links

http://www.crowell.com


LONDON, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ --DealDash, a prominent auction site, has won the "Best Excess Inventory Liquidation Service, United States" for 2021. The felicitation ceremony will be held at the Palm Jumeirah  Waldorf Astoria in early 2022 in Dubai.

The Global Brand Awards is an annual event held by Global Brands Magazine (GBM), an international publication headquartered in the UK. The award aims to recognise global brands achieving excellence in performance across a broad range of sectors while keeping its readers updated on key trends surrounding the branding world. DealDash was evaluated based on customer service, satisfaction, digital innovation, strategic relationships and new business development.

Shiv Kumar (CEO of Global Brands magazine) commented, "We had quite a few contenders for the Best Excess Inventory Liquidation Service award, and it wasn't an easy decision, but after much consideration, DealDash was the best candidate. DealDash is a frontrunner in perfecting the gamification model and building a stellar reputation for customer service, distinguishing it from its peers."

Commenting on winning the award, Pasi Lohi (CEO) said, "This award is validation that the work we do has true value. While the award is for 'Inventory Liquidation', we see it as recognition of an amazing customer experience, which starts with our suppliers throughout the country, extends to our partners across the globe, and provides great savings to our end customers. This collaboration keeps our customers satisfied, our business partners happy, and our stakeholders smiling."

About DealDash

DealDash is the longest-running and most trusted pay-to-bid auction site on the internet. DealDash's vision is to create a world where no customer, or inventory, gets left behind.

Since 2009 DealDash has helped millions of Americans save money when buying products, they know and love. DealDash achieves this by forming strong relationships with its suppliers, producers, and customers.

DealDash auctions brand new products every day in fast-paced, no-reserve online auctions. These unique auctions help customers save 90% (and beyond) on their purchases. The savings are enabled by partnering directly with brands and manufacturers to help them move excess inventory. DealDash has a constantly growing network of suppliers across the US and around the globe who love working with DealDash to liquidate products from their overstocked warehouses.

About Global Brands Magazine (England)

Global Brands Magazine (GBM) has been at the forefront, bringing news, views and opinions on brands shaping the future of their industry. The UK-based magazine provides its readers with the latest news and information on 'best-in-class brands across the globe. Each year, GBM develops a series of awards for companies that stand out, having a unique vision, exceptional service, innovative solutions and consumer-centric products among their industry leaders.

About Global Brand Awards

Global Brand Awards honours brands for their excellence in performance and rewards companies across different sectors for the quality of their services. The Brand Awards highlight the accomplishments of organisations that have performed remarkably well in finance, education, hospitality, automotive, lifestyle, education, real estate, technology, and more. Global Brand Awards recognise vital players who progress towards excellence by providing a platform to acknowledge their efforts. In addition, GBM strives to create awareness concerning the significance of such organisations and rewards them for their notable efforts with the ultimate global recognition.

Follow us on social media, by clicking the links below, to receive more updates:

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SOURCE Global Brands Publications Limited
LONDON, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The Commonwealth of Dominica's booming real estate sector is capturing the attention of investors across the globe. Recently, the island's popular Secret Bay resort celebrated its 100th return on investment payment to CBI investors. The six-star property operates under Dominica's Citizenship by Investment (CBI) Programme, enabling wealthy investors to purchase a share in exchange for second citizenship.

Demand for Secret Bay has led to Phase I of its Residences, the shared ownership model, being sold out with Phase II soon to follow suit. This year will also mark the 10th anniversary since Secret Bay opened its doors. Over the last decade the property has been celebrated in some of the world's most prestigious travel and lifestyle publications including Travel + Leisure, CNN and Architectural Digest. Secret Bay also boasts being the only CBI property to be awarded the Green Globe certification  the highest standard for sustainability worldwide.

"We are the only CBI project throughout the region to have gained such certification. Sustainability is at the heart of everything that we do. A few examples include the reuse of wastewater for drip irrigation, the notion of single use plastic throughout the property, and a low carbon footprint," Gregor Nassief told Plan B, a podcast by CS Global Partners, a leading international marketing advisory that specialises in citizenship solutions.

However, Secret Bay isn't the only property in Dominica that has amassed strong global appeal. The island's tourism product has skyrocketed over recent years as internationally renowned hoteliers like Marriott and Hilton have flocked to Dominica to set up operations. Aside from mainstream tourism, Dominica has become a regional leader in eco-tourism with much of its real estate centring the natural environment in every aspect from construction to its daily functions. Properties like Jungle Bay and the highly anticipated Sanctuary Rainforest resort offer holidaymakers and investors a balance between a luxury experience whilst still championing sustainability.

Most importantly, these properties also come with the opportunity to gain second citizenship. In today's climate, a second citizenship has evolved from being a luxury to becoming a necessity. From the global health crisis to geopolitical instability, many are looking for quick solutions that promise safety for their families.

Established in 1993, Dominica's CBI Programme has been named the world's best route to second citizenship from the annual CBI Index  conducted by experts at the Financial Times' PWM magazine. Those who choose Dominica have the option of either investing in a national fund or through the purchase of real estate. Once an application is approved, investors gain access to increased global mobility, alternative business prospects and a lifelong second home.

+447867942505

[email protected]

www.csglobalpartners.com

SOURCE CS Global Partners
RICHMOND, Va., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Dominion Energy Virginia, the NABTU and their state affiliate Virginia Building Trades reaffirmed today their commitment to the participation of a unionized workforce in the construction of the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project and also affirmed their commitment to utilizing local workers; the hiring, apprenticeship, and training of veterans; and the use of workers from historically economically disadvantaged communities.

Dominion Energy will work collaboratively with NABTU and its affiliates on tripartite discussions with CVOW suppliers to promote project labor agreements to maximize union labor performance of the onshore electrical infrastructure work, turbine pre-assembly work, and offshore work. For the offshore work in particular, the parties will work together to identify the skills training, and schedule necessary to accelerate an offshore wind U.S union construction workforce.

"This agreement is another important step forward in making Virginia the nation's leader in clean energy and offshore wind," said Governor Ralph S. Northam. "It's good news to see more well-paying clean energy jobs on the way. Once again, Virginia companies and labor groups together are demonstrating that the Commonwealth is a great place to work and do business."

"Clean energy jobs are a critical sector driving Virginia's economy, particularly in Hampton Roads where CVOW is anchored. Union workers' commitment to safety and excellence are important values which make them a crucial component to the offshore wind workforce," said Robert M. Blue, Dominion Energy Chair, President and CEO. "We're proud to work with NABTU to expand a skilled domestic workforce for offshore wind development, give our customers access to more renewable energy, develop a domestic supply chain for offshore wind and continue to position Virginia as the best state to do business in America."

"Today's partnership represents another pivotal moment in generating viable career pathways for our members and all energy sector workers to flourish in the clean energy economy," said Sean McGarvey, President of NABTU. "Our highly trained men and women professionals have the best craft skills in the world and are the most qualified workforce to perform the onshore and offshore work on this great Coastal Virginia wind project. We commend Dominion Energy for their collaboration with us on this endeavor to advance middle class workforce development, increase high-skilled energy jobs and secure the offshore wind industry for the future."

"The Virginia State Building and Construction Trades Council is pleased to be partnered with Dominion Energy on expanding our energy portfolio as we continue to work toward a sustainable future as good stewards of our state, nation, and planet," said Jason Parker, President of the VSBCTC. "This new industry will create careers and opportunities for the working families of Virginia, and the Virginia Building Trades takes great satisfaction to be using our training and expertise to help develop our fellow Virginians into a modernized workforce for a modernized energy industry."

CVOW is the largest offshore wind project in the United States and is currently under development off the coast of Virginia Beach. Once completed in 2026, it will consist of up to 180 turbines and generate up to 2.6 gigawatts -- enough energy to power 660,000 homes. A Mangum Economics analysis estimates CVOW could create about 1,100 direct and indirect jobs in Hampton Roads, and generate $82 million in pay and benefits, $210 million in economic benefits annually and approximately $11 million annually in local and state tax revenue.

Dominion Energy and skilled craft labor have worked together for many years on traditional energy projects and are extending this long-standing partnership to renewable energy. The company has one of the largest fleets of solar facilities among its utility holding company peers and is helping Virginia become a leader in U.S. offshore wind development.

About Dominion Energy

More than 7 million customers in 16 states energize their homes and businesses with electricity or natural gas from Dominion Energy (NYSE: D), headquartered in Richmond, Va. The company is committed to sustainable, reliable, affordable and safe energy and to achieving net zero carbon dioxide and methane emissions from its power generation and gas infrastructure operations by 2050. Please visit DominionEnergy.com to learn more.

About NABTU

North America's Building Trades Unions is an alliance of 14 national and international unions in the building and construction industry that collectively represent over 3 million skilled craft professionals in the United States and Canada. Each year, our unions and our signatory contractor partners invest over $1 billion in private-sector money to fund and operate over 1,900 apprenticeship training and education facilities across North America that produce the safest, most highly trained, and productive skilled craft workers found anywhere in the world. NABTU is dedicated to creating economic security and employment opportunities for its construction workers by safeguarding wage and benefits standards, promoting responsible private capital investments, investing in renown apprenticeship and training, and creating pathways to the middle class for women, communities of color and military veterans in the construction industry. www.nabtu.org.

SOURCE Dominion Energy

Related Links

https://www.dominionenergy.com


PLEASANT GROVE, Utah, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- doTERRA today announced the support of several events across the country that will benefit the American Cancer Society (ACS) and their work in funding cancer research. doTERRA will be a participating sponsor of nine ACS community events in September, October and November, including Making Strides Against Breast Cancer in Denver, Atlanta, Cincinnati and Phoenix. In recognition of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Making Strides Against Breast Cancer features local celebrations and walks that raise funds for breast cancer research and programs.

The other five events doTERRA is sponsoring include Cattle Baron's Ball in Denver and Dallas; CEOs Against Cancer Champions of Hope Gala in Denver; and The Big Gig in Salt Lake City, which benefits the Hope Lodge.

doTERRA gives $50,000 in monetary and in-kind donations to American Cancer Society to support events and initiatives. Tweet this

"The fight against cancer is something that affects every American, and we know that we are stronger when we fight together," said Ross Johnson, Senior Corporate Relations Manager. "We are proud to partner with doTERRA, a company that has a mission of empowering people and uplifting communities around the world. We appreciate its support of so many causes benefiting our national and community-based initiatives focused on eliminating cancer."

"What we value through these engagements and our partnership with American Cancer Society is the fact that these are community-based events with local, passionate volunteers and contributors working to support friends and neighbors suffering from this terrible disease," said Kirk Jowers, president of doTERRA North America. "Whether through monetary or in-kind product donations, we hope our support helps to lift and strengthen those who continue to fight for survival and research. Our contribution represents the love and support of thousands of doTERRA employees and millions of doTERRA customers around the world."

The ACS has chapters in every state that provide resources to help people learn about prevention, and the most affordable and effective care. They also provide funding and resources for patients who can't afford care, or who may need emotional support, as well as opportunities to serve, from volunteering at their Hope Lodges to driving cancer patients to treatment who don't have a way to get there.

In addition to supporting community and national ACS programs, doTERRA has provided funding to the Huntsman Cancer Institute for the creation of the Center for Comprehensive Care and Women's Cancers in Salt Lake City, and for the completion of the doTERRA Center for Integrative Oncology within St. Elizabeth's new Cancer Center near Cincinnati, Ohio.

About the American Cancer Society

The American Cancer Society is a global grassroots force of 1.5 million volunteers dedicated to saving lives, celebrating lives, and leading the fight for a world without cancer. From breakthrough research, to free lodging near treatment, a 24/7/365 live helpline, free rides to treatment, and convening powerful activists to create awareness and impact, the Society is attacking cancer from every angle. The Society does not endorse any product or service. For more information go to www.cancer.org

About doTERRA

doTERRA International is an integrative health and wellness company and the world leader in the Global Aromatherapy and Essential Oils market. doTERRA sources, tests, manufactures and distributes CPTG Certified Pure Tested Grade essential oils and essential oil products to over nine million doTERRA Wellness Advocates and customers. Through industry leading responsible sourcing practices, doTERRA maintains the highest levels of quality, purity and sustainability in partnership with local growers around the world through Co-Impact Sourcing. The doTERRA Healing Hands Foundation, a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, offers resources and tools to global sourcing communities and charitable organizations for self-reliance, healthcare, education, sanitation, and the fight against human trafficking. Through the life-enhancing benefits of essential oils, doTERRA is changing the world one drop, one person, one community at a time. To learn more, visit www.doTERRA.com.

SOURCE doTERRA

Related Links

www.doterra.com


Pet parents of reptiles like bearded dragons also have a variety of costume options and can dress their pet up like a pumpkin, shark, biker, clown and even a stegosaurus!

After finding the perfect look, PetSmart's Resident Veterinarian, Dr. Gregory Costanzo, says that pet parents should take specific precautions to ensure that small pets and reptiles are safe in Halloween costumes.

"At PetSmart, we love to see pet parents involving their pets in celebrations like Halloween," said Costanzo. "The bottom line is, when dressing up any kind of pet, pet parents should take it slow and watch for any negative reactions to ensure pets are happy and safe."

Tips for Dressing up Small Pets & Reptiles in Halloween Costumes

Find a good fit. Ensure your pet's costume is not uncomfortable or interfering with their movements. Costumes should not cover their eyes or nose and should not be too tight.

Ensure your pet's costume is not uncomfortable or interfering with their movements. Costumes should not cover their eyes or nose and should not be too tight. Use treats. Costanzo recommends using treats to let pets know that dressing up can be fun. "Positive reinforcement has been shown to work with small animals when doing basic training," he said. "This could help your pet get more comfortable with clothing."

Costanzo recommends using treats to let pets know that dressing up can be fun. "Positive reinforcement has been shown to work with small animals when doing basic training," he said. "This could help your pet get more comfortable with clothing." Do not to leave pets unattended in their ensemble. Pet parents should always directly supervise their small pets and reptiles while wearing costumes or clothing to ensure they are comfortable and safe.

Pet parents should always directly supervise their small pets and reptiles while wearing costumes or clothing to ensure they are comfortable and safe. Watch for signs of stress. For small pets like guinea pigs, Costanzo says signs of stress would include increased respiratory rate (breathing), hunched posture, closed eyes, tooth grinding, pinning their ears back, increased vocalization, aggression or attempting to physically remove the costume from themselves. For reptiles, signs of stress may include increased respiratory rate (breathing), closed eyes, aggression or attempting to remove the costume from themselves.

For small pets like guinea pigs, Costanzo says signs of stress would include increased respiratory rate (breathing), hunched posture, closed eyes, tooth grinding, pinning their ears back, increased vocalization, aggression or attempting to physically remove the costume from themselves. For reptiles, signs of stress may include increased respiratory rate (breathing), closed eyes, aggression or attempting to remove the costume from themselves. Be gentle during photo opps. "Small pets like guinea pigs are easily startled by bright lights and loud noises, meaning pet parents should be careful taking photos," Costanzo said. "Avoid using the flash and make sure your pet is comfortable being the star of your photoshoot before you start taking pictures."

For more information, including PetSmart's Halloween collection, visit petsmart.com/halloween.

About PetSmart

PetSmart LLC is the largest specialty pet retailer of services and solutions for the lifetime needs of pets. At PetSmart, we love pets, and we believe pets make us better people. Every day with every connection, PetSmart's passionate associates help bring pet parents closer to their pets so they, together, can live more fulfilled lives. This vision impacts everything we do for our customers, the way we support our associates and how we give back to our communities.

PetSmart operates approximately 1,650 pet stores in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico, as well as more than 200 in-store PetSmart PetsHotel dog and cat boarding facilities. The retailer provides a broad range of competitively priced pet food and products, as well as services such as dog training, pet grooming, pet boarding, PetSmart Doggie Day Camp and pet adoption.

PetSmart, PetSmart Charities and PetSmart Charities of Canada work with nearly 4,000 animal welfare organizations to bring adoptable pets into stores so they have the best chance possible of finding a forever home. Through this in-store adoption program and other signature events, PetSmart has facilitated more than 9 million adoptions, more than any other brick-and-mortar organization.

SOURCE PetSmart

Related Links

https://www.petsmart.com


WASHINGTON, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- LUNGevity Foundation, the nation's leading lung cancer-focused nonprofit organization and the only lung cancer organization with a programmatic focus on early detection, announced today the recipients of its 2021 Early Detection Awards (EDAs) for lung cancer research. These awards support translational research projects directed at new approaches to improve clinical methods for the detection and diagnosis of lung cancer. These two-year awards are for up to $600,000 over a two-year period.

LUNGevity is proud to support the following 2021 Early Detection Award projects:

Anil Vachani, MD, University of Pennsylvania  Optimizing biomarker based strategies for lung cancer screening . Currently, low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) is the only tool for the screening and early detection of lung cancer in individuals who meet screening criteria. LDCT is not very sensitive; often, abnormalities identified in an LDCT scan turn out to be benign. However, ruling out cancer requires an invasive biopsy. Dr. Vachani is testing whether a biomarker signature can be integrated into LDCT screening to improve the sensitivity of LDCT so that patients may be spared unnecessary biopsies.





 . Currently, low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) is the only tool for the screening and early detection of lung cancer in individuals who meet screening criteria. LDCT is not very sensitive; often, abnormalities identified in an LDCT scan turn out to be benign. However, ruling out cancer requires an invasive biopsy. Dr. Vachani is testing whether a biomarker signature can be integrated into LDCT screening to improve the sensitivity of LDCT so that patients may be spared unnecessary biopsies. Claudio Scafoglio , MD, PhD, University of California, Los Angeles  Pilot study of SGLT2 in the characterization of early lung adenocarcinoma. The protein SGL2 seems to be produced in higher quantities on abnormal lung cells than on normal lung cells. Dr. Scafoglio is testing whether SGL2 can be used to image lung cancer cells by using a new imaging technology.

"We are thrilled to support these accomplished investigators who are working in key areas of early detection of lung cancer research: one working to improve the sensitivity of LDCT by integrating biomarkers and the other looking at a new imaging modality by detecting a protein that is preferentially expressed in lung cancer cells," notes Robert L. Keith, MD, professor of medicine and cancer biology at University of Colorado, Denver, associate chief of staff  research at Rocky Mountain Regional VAMC, and a member of LUNGevity's Scientific Advisory Board. "Through our investment in this year's awardees, we hope to move the needle in early detection of lung cancer where the potential of cure through surgical intervention is high."

"LUNGevity is deeply committed to stage-shifting lung cancer so that the majority of patients are found in an early stage versus now, when the majority of people are diagnosed with lung cancer that has already spread," says Upal Basu Roy, PhD, MPH, LUNGevity's Executive Director of Research. "Patient outcomes are vastly improved when their lung cancer is found early stage. Research is the key to boosting survival rates for this disease."

Under the stewardship of LUNGevity's Scientific Advisory Board, a group of 25 prominent scientists and researchers, LUNGevity ensures that grants are awarded to those researchers whose proposals demonstrate the greatest potential for finding lung cancer at its earliest, most treatable phase, as well as for extending and improving lives of lung cancer survivors.

LUNGevity's researchers are working on finding a better way to detect lung cancer and to better diagnose, treat, and prevent its recurrence. The foundation's research program is a crucial factor in moving the science forward to improve outcomes for people living with lung cancer.

LUNGevity's Scientific Research Program is supported by Bristol-Myers Squibb, Janssen R&D, Genentech, The Thomas G. Labrecque Foundation, the Schmidt Legacy Foundation, and individual donors.

About LUNGevity Foundation

LUNGevity Foundation is the nation's leading lung cancer organization focused on improving outcomes for people with lung cancer through research, policy initiatives, education, support, and engagement for patients, survivors, and caregivers. LUNGevity seeks to make an immediate impact on quality of life and survivorship for everyone touched by the diseasewhile promoting health equity by addressing disparities throughout the care continuum. LUNGevity works tirelessly to advance research into early detection and more effective treatments, provide information and educational tools to empower patients and their caregivers, promote impactful public policy initiatives, and amplify the patient voice through research and engagement. The organization provides an active community for patients and survivorsand those who help them live longer and better lives.

Comprehensive resources include a medically vetted and patient-centric website, a toll-free HELPLine for support, the International Lung Cancer Survivorship Conference, and an easy-to-use Clinical Trial Finder, among other tools. All of these programs are to achieve our visiona world where no one dies of lung cancer. LUNGevity Foundation is proud to be a four-star Charity Navigator organization.

About Lung Cancer in the US

About 1 in 16 Americans will be diagnosed with lung cancer in their lifetime.

More than 235,000 people in the US will be diagnosed with lung cancer this year.

About 60%-65% of all new lung cancer diagnoses are among people who have never smoked or are former smokers.

Lung cancer takes more lives than the next three leading cancers (colorectal, breast, and prostate) combined.

Only 22% of all people diagnosed with lung cancer will survive 5 years or more, BUT if it's caught before it spreads, the chance of 5-year survival improves dramatically.

SOURCE LUNGevity Foundation

Related Links

lungevity.org


TAOS, N.M., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- A wide variety of non-profit organizations are participating in the first Earth Gives Day on October 7th. The giving platform site is filled with profiles on each organization, the focus of their work, and the impact they are having on the environment. Earth Gives and its signature event, Earth Gives Day, are focused on driving resources and attention to the work of environmental and climate-focused nonprofits.

Some organizations are local, addressing specific needs in their communities, including WildEarth Guardians, The Crested Butte Land Trust, Protect the Adirondacks!, the Thurston Climate Action Team and Big Bend Conservancy.

Some are regional, such as The Western Environmental Law Center which has been using the power of the law to safeguard the public lands, wildlife, and communities of the American West since 1976, and who, in 1987, together with the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, successfully challenged Oregon timber sales to protect the endangered northern spotted owl.

Others are global in their reach and have been addressing environmental and conservation issues for many years, including The Explorers Club (1904) and Rotary International (1905).

The Earth Gives Day website provides information and the opportunity to donate. Return frequently, as additional organizations are joining, and re-visits provide the opportunity to learn about their work, and support them. https://www.earthgives.org/

About Earth Gives

Earth Gives, founded by Rhonda Bannard and based in Phoenix, Arizona is a nonprofit, catalyzing people, resources, and attention toward the climate crisis resulting in livable world where humanity and the planet thrive. It welcomes partnerships to advance the significant challenges faced by the environment and climate. Inquiries can be made to [email protected]gives.org.

Media Contact:

George Basch

[email protected]

505-363-8863

SOURCE Earth Gives
PARIS, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Enterome SA, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel drugs based on its unique ability to decode molecular interactions in the gut microbiome impacting human health, announces the publication of a new paper describing the novel mechanism of action of its investigational medicine sibofimloc (also called TAK-018) for the treatment of Crohn's disease (CD) in the high impact peer-reviewed journal Microbiome. Sibofimloc is currently in Phase 2a clinical trial and is being developed under a global licensing, co-development and co-commercialization agreement with Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited ("Takeda").

Sibofimloc is a first-in-class, orally administered, gut-restricted small molecule FimH-blocker designed to treat the underlying cause of CD and maintain patients in a non-inflammatory disease state.

In the paper, the authors showed that blocking the adhesion of overabundant FimH-expressing bacteria to the gut wall is a promising therapeutic mechanism that effectively disarms these virulent bacteria without killing them. This mechanism represents a highly selective strategy to suppress the potentially critical trigger of intestinal inflammation in CD patients without disturbing the overall composition of the gut microbiota.

Sibofimloc was shown to selectively bind and aggregate FimH-expressing bacteria in 65%-85% of ileal biopsies from CD patients. Aggregation of bacteria to sibofimloc led to a strong decrease in inflammation and a general improvement of gut integrity. Furthermore, when used at therapeutically relevant doses, sibofimloc preserved normal gut tissue integrity.

Dr Vijay Yajnik, Senior Medical Director of the Gastroenterology Therapeutic Area Unit at Takeda, said, "Current therapies for the treatment of Crohn's disease target the patient's immune system, but there still remains a significant unmet medical need to develop new therapies targeting novel pathways including the gut microbiome. The published research on sibofimloc shows a very promising finding that it exerts its local anti-inflammatory action by blocking pathogenic bacteria without disrupting the commensal gut microbiome."

Dr Christophe Bonny, Chief Scientific Officer at Enterome, said, "It is a great achievement for the Enterome team that we have been able to publish such promising data. Sibofimloc's innovative mechanism of action targets the virulence factor FimH expressed on pathogenic gut bacteria from the Enterobacteriaceae family. This target has been validated by the application of Enterome's unique and proprietary technologies. Sibofimloc, which is currently the only drug candidate targeting the underlying cause of the disease, is in a Phase 2 trial in post-operative Crohn's disease and a data readout is expected in H1 2023. The progress we are making in collaboration with Takeda is very exciting and we hope this new trial will demonstrate the clinical potential of sibofimloc as a maintenance therapy with an attractive safety profile."

The Phase 1b trial evaluating sibofimloc in active CD patients was well tolerated, demonstrated minimal systemic exposure and decreased several inflammatory biomarkers.

Reference

Chevalier*, Laveissiere*, et al. Blockage of bacterial FimH prevents mucosal inflammation associated with Crohn's disease. Microbiome (2021) DOI: 10.1186/s40168-021-01135-5 Link.

Enterome Contacts:

Marine Perrier, Head of External Communications and Investor Relations, Enterome [email protected]

Media Relations

Sylvie Berrebi / Mark Swallow / David Dible,

MEDiSTRAVA Consulting

Tel. +44 (0)7714 306525

[email protected]

About Enterome

Enterome is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel drugs based on its unique ability to decode molecular interactions in the gut microbiome impacting human health. Enterome's success is based on its unique ability to identify small proteins and peptides from gut bacteria that can deliver a therapeutic benefit in humans.

Enterome is leveraging this unique ability to develop two highly promising pipelines of clinical and pre-clinical candidates with a focus on cancer and inflammatory diseases:

- OncoMimics: innovative, off-the-shelf, microbiome peptide powered cancer vaccines (EO2401, EO2463). EO2401 is in Phase 1/2 clinical trials in patients with glioblastoma and adrenal tumors. EO2463 is in a Phase 1/2 clinical trial for indolent non-Hodgkin B-cell lymphomas.

- EndoMimics: a new generation of biologics targeting inflammatory diseases (EB1010).

These pipelines have been created using Enterome's highly efficient proprietary drug discovery platform that uses machine learning and lab assays to interrogate and decode the world's largest database of gut bacterial proteins, a unique source of novel precision drugs.

In addition, Enterome's clinical candidate sibofimloc (also referred to as TAK-018) is advancing through Phase 2 clinical trial in Crohn's disease. Sibofimloc has been partnered with Takeda globally, with Enterome retaining a significant profit share in the US.

Enterome is headquartered in Paris (France) and is backed by leading venture capital investors.

For more information, please visit the company's website at: www.enterome.com.

About the Enterome-Takeda agreement

Enterome entered into a global licensing, co-development and co-commercialization agreement with Takeda in October 2018 for sibofimloc in patients with Crohn's disease, with the potential to expand to other gastrointestinal disorders.

Enterome received a $50 million upfront payment on signing as well as a commitment from Takeda to make further investments in the Company, including in Enterome's Series E financing in June 2020. Enterome is also eligible to receive up to $640 million for achieving specified clinical development, regulatory and commercial milestones with sibofimloc. In addition, Enterome and Takeda plan to co-develop sibofimloc under the joint agreement and, if approved, the product will be co-promoted in the US under a profit/cost sharing structure. Takeda will receive an exclusive license to commercialize sibofimloc outside of the US, and Enterome will be eligible to receive royalties on net sales generated in these territories.

Sibofimloc was discovered by Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and in-licensed by Enterome in 2016.

SOURCE Enterome
NEW YORK, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- ExodusPoint Capital Management, LP ("ExodusPoint" or the "Firm"), a leading multi-strategy, global hedge fund firm, today announced the launch of a new fundamental long/short equities business unit, WestWind Asset Management ("WestWind"). The new unit will continue to enhance and expand the Firm's long/short equity business, which is currently comprised of more than 30 portfolio managers.

WestWind will be led by Robert Bovo, who has been one of ExodusPoint's long/short equity portfolio managers since 2019. ExodusPoint's Co-Founder and Head of Equities, Hyung Lee, and Mr. Bovo have a longstanding relationship, having worked together for over a decade at both ExodusPoint and Millennium Management.

"We look forward to expanding our existing partnership with Robert and leveraging his expertise and more than 20 year tenure in the industry to establish a new fundamental long/short unit that will operate alongside our well established equities business," said Mr. Lee. "The formation of WestWind exemplifies ExodusPoint's portfolio manager centric model, which offers many creative and flexible solutions to enable our investment professionals to achieve their goals."

"I'm excited to continue to work closely with Hyung to expand ExodusPoint's best-in-class platform and to see the launch of WestWind contribute to the further growth of the Firm's overall long/short equities business," said Mr. Bovo.

Before joining ExodusPoint, Mr. Bovo managed a global fundamental technology and media portfolio at Millennium Management. Prior to Millennium, he was a portfolio manager at Diamondback Capital and previously launched and managed the hedge fund XI Capital Partners. Mr. Bovo holds an MBA from the New York University Leonard N. Stern School of Business and a BSBA from Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business.

About ExodusPoint

ExodusPoint is a multi-strategy, multi-manager hedge fund firm, co-founded by Michael Gelband and Hyung Lee. The Firm manages approximately $14 billion and has over 600 employees, including approximately 100 portfolio management teams, across more than 10 offices worldwide. ExodusPoint was the largest hedge fund launch in history with $8 billion in assets in 2018. For more information, please visit www.exoduspoint.com .

SOURCE ExodusPoint Capital Management, LP
Sievila joined the Army in 2004 as an infantryman and served in Iraq from 2006 to 2007. Following his deployment, Sievila was commissioned as a second lieutenant, and he eventually switched careers in the military and became a scout platoon leader. Sievila was medically discharged from service in 2015 and diagnosed with PTSD.

Sievila describes his return to civilian life as challenging and difficult and said that the feeling of isolation and depression created a lot of irritability and anger outbursts. Fortunately, that has changed since receiving his sponsored service dog, a Golden Retriever named Willard.

"Willard definitely brings up a lot of peace and joy to my life," Sievila said. "He's adorable and very friendly. He keeps me calm and the anger and the irritability that I was experiencing before just hasn't been there like it used to be, and that brings me a lot of hope for the future. The bond that he and I have already started to develop has been wonderful."

Wisconsin-based Fairway, a proud sponsor of the Milwaukee Brewers, funds the non-profit American Warrior Initiative that has donated hundreds of service dogs to deserving veterans and active military members. "Our goal is to fund 100 service dogs in 2021," said Louise Thaxton, AWI director/co-founder and a Fairway branch manager. "We are grateful for the opportunity to continue to support our nation's veterans in their journey back to civilian life."

A video of the Fairway- Brewers-AWI service dog donation can be found here .

About Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation

Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation (NMLS #2289) is a full-service mortgage lender with a wide array of innovative products that help make homeownership more affordable with the speed and service its clients deserve. Based in Madison, Wisconsin, Fairway is dedicated to finding great mortgage options and providing some of the fastest turn times for its borrowers.

Since launching 25 years ago, Fairway has helped thousands of Americans achieve their dream of homeownership. Fairway employs more than 10,000 team members, including more than 3,000 producers at over 600 branches nationwide. With a strong focus on purchase business, Fairway funded $65.8 billion in 2020.

For more information, visit fairway.com and home.com.

PHOTO:

Pictured L-R: Brandon Woodruff, Jonie Woodruff, Willard, Andrew Sievila,

SOURCE Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation

Related Links

http://www.fairwayindependentmc.com


NEW YORK, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- First Sentier Investors, a leading global asset manager, today announced the appointment of asset management executive Jamie Damon, CFA, as a senior director, effective Sept. 13. Reporting to Bachar Beaini, First Sentier's managing director and head of the Americas region in New York, Damon will lead North American sales and client servicing for affiliate FSSA Investment Managers, an active emerging markets and Asia Pacific equity specialist.

Damon, who is based in Salt Lake City, brings more than 20 years of industry experience to First Sentier Investors and FSSA Investment Managers. Before First Sentier, Damon was an executive director at AQR Capital Management, where he was responsible for key relationships with investment consultants. Damon previously held a senior role in consultant relations at GMO and was a principal and senior investment team member for Oechsle International Advisors. He also worked at Putnam Investments and Cambridge Associates early in his investment management career.

"Jamie is a highly experienced and talented institutional investment executive," Beaini said. "We're delighted he's joining our team as we focus on expanding the market for FSSA's respected and differentiated strategies in North America."

"FSSA has a long and successful history of managing a broad range of Asia Pacific and emerging market equity strategies for sophisticated institutional investors around the world. I look forward to raising the awareness of this deeply experienced, yet largely undiscovered, investment team," Damon said.

With nearly $39 billion in assets under management globally as of June 30, 2021, FSSA Investment Managers invests in strategies including Asia Pacific, global emerging markets, greater China, Indian subcontinent and Japan equities from offices in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Edinburgh.

Damon has a bachelor of arts degree from Middlebury College and a master's degree in finance from Boston College's Carroll School of Management. He is a CFA charterholder.

Media inquiries

Margaret Kirch Cohen

CL-Media Relations, LLC

E: [email protected]

T: +1 847 507 2229

Sarah Lazarus

CL-Media Relations, LLC

E: [email protected]

T: + 1 617 335 7823

About First Sentier Investors

Sydney-headquartered First Sentier Investors manages approximately US$181 billion in assets (as of June 30, 2021) on behalf of institutional investors, pension funds, wholesale distributors, investment platforms, financial advisers and their clients worldwide.

The firm operates as a standalone global investment management business of Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc., with offices across Europe, the Americas, and Asia Pacific. First Sentier Investors' expertise spans a range of asset classes and specialist investment sectors focused on delivering sustainable investment success based on responsible investment principles. For more information please visit www.firstsentierinvestors.com

SOURCE First Sentier Investors

Related Links

https://www.firstsentierinvestors.com


NAPLES, Fla., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Forget beauty filters and faux social media influencers; Naples native & Southwest Florida's Realtor to The Blue, Kristen Weardon has truly shown that in the real world, age is no barrier to achieving dreams no matter what stage of life you are in.

Kristen Weardon

Kristen is already a well-respected mother, successful business woman, charity board member, spokesperson, international beauty queen and recently added supermodel to her list of credentials. The 2019 Naples Power Woman was looking for a new challenge for 2021 and on a whim entered the Supermodel Magazine competition where she not only won the Editors' Choice, but she also won the 2021 Face of SU Cosmetics. Thanks to that win, Kristen was invited to walk in New York Fashion Weeks DIVERSITY ROCKS runway show including up and coming designer, Just10H. She was also featured on five different Times Square Billboards for the two weeks surrounding fashion week. It was during New York Fashion Week that Kristen was honored with the inaugural title of Mrs. NYFW Queen 2021.

So, what's Kristen's message to young women? It's simple, you are only limited by your own dreams and beliefs. Whether you're a mother, a businesswoman, a student or not sure where you are in life; to never give up on your dreams. Not every opportunity will be for you, not every door will open but the ones meant for you will always bring you everything you seek and more with patience and perseverance. Stop comparing yourself to the girl in the Instagram photo. You aren't her; you are you, you're unique and no one else can be you so; go "do you" to the best of your ability and never stop hustling and dreaming.

Kristen Weardon has lived in Naples, FL for over 30 years and is one of the most plugged in Realtors when it comes to Naples history and the local property market. In the ten years since being crowned Mrs. US of A Globe, she has been able to contribute to the Naples community and beyond through her passion for humanitarian work from disaster relief to hometown heroes. When she isn't supporting her local community or closing a real estate deal, you'll find Kristen getting out 'n' about, and breaking more stereotypes by off roading with her Jeep and Jeep group.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

Kylie Tee Consulting

Kylie Tee

+61 410 667 916

[email protected]

SOURCE Kristen Weardon
MIAMI, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ - Fluent by Cansortium Inc. (CSE: TIUM.U) (OTCQX: CNTMF) ("Fluent," "Cansortium," or the "Company"), a vertically-integrated cannabis company operating under the Fluent brand, today announced the opening of Fluent Fruitland Park, the Company's 27th retail location in Florida.

The new dispensary is located at 3460 US-27, Fruitland Park, FL 34731. This location is only 10 miles away from the largest retirement community in the United StatesThe Villages. This community also represented the country's fastest growing metropolitan area over the past decade with more than 130,000 residents as of 2020. Fluent Fruitland Park will offer a broad assortment of cannabis products, including Fluent flower and pre-rolls, Sweetwater premium flower, Black Line potency oils, Moods oils and Fluent Gels by Smokiez, among other Fluent product lines.

"We are thrilled to begin offering premium-quality cannabis products to the medical marijuana patients in Fruitland Park, as well as its vast and rapidly-growing surrounding communities," said CEO Robert Beasley. "Fluent is one of only a few dispensaries serving the area and we will have many high-quality products to offer from our recently expanded cultivation projects throughout the state. Looking ahead, we have identified four additional retail locations to be opened in the first half of 2022, which would bring our total Florida footprint to 31 stores."

The Fluent brand continually strives to set the standard for premium quality, consistently formulated cannabis products. All Fluent products in the Company's Florida dispensaries use high-quality cannabis that is cultivated, processed, and packaged in strict compliance with Florida regulations. For consumers, the sleek, modern dispensaries provide a warm, welcoming and professional environment, with private consultation rooms and knowledgeable staff who carefully guide patients in selecting the right products and carefully safeguard patient privacy.

For a complete list of Fluent dispensary locations, current promotions, rewards programs and hours of operation, or to explore the entire Fluent product line and place an online order for home delivery anywhere in Florida, please visit www.getfluent.com.

About Fluent by Cansortium Inc.

Fluent by Cansortium Inc. is a vertically-integrated cannabis company with licenses and operations in Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Texas. Fluent is dedicated to being one of the highest quality cannabis companies for the communities it serves. This is driven by Fluent's unrelenting commitment to operational excellence in cultivation, production, distribution and retail. The Company is headquartered in Miami, Florida.

Cansortium Inc.'s common shares trade on the CSE under the symbol "TIUM.U" and on the OTCQX Best Market under the symbol "CNTMF." For more information about the Company, please visit www.getfluent.com.

Forward-Looking Information

Certain information in this news release may constitute forward-looking information. In some cases, but not necessarily in all cases, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "targets", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "an opportunity exists", "is positioned", "estimates", "intends", "assumes", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate" or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might", "will" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". In addition, any statements that refer to expectations, projections, or other characterizations of future events or circumstances contain forward-looking information. Statements containing forward-looking information are not historical facts but instead represent management's expectations, estimates, and projections regarding future events.

Forward-looking information is necessarily based on many opinions, assumptions, and estimates that, while considered reasonable by the Company as of the date of this news release, are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions, and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information, including but not limited to the factors described in the public documents of the Company available at www.sedar.com. These factors are not intended to represent a complete list of the factors that could affect the Company; however, these factors should be considered carefully. There can be no assurance that such estimates and assumptions will prove to be correct. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release, and the Company expressly disclaims any obligation to update or alter statements containing any forward-looking information, or the factors or assumptions underlying them, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

For further information: www.getfluent.com

Company Contact

Robert Beasley, CEO

(305) 900-6266

www.getfluent.com

Investor Relations Contact

Sean Mansouri, CFA

Elevate IR

(949) 200-4603

[email protected]

Media Contact

Julie Dietel

Grasslands: A Journalism-Minded Agency

[email protected]

(978) 502-7705

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/fluent-by-cansortium-opens-new-dispensary-in-fruitland-park-florida-301378761.html



SOURCE Cansortium Inc

Related Links

http://www.getfluent.com/


FLINT, Mich., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Forum Health, LLC, nationwide provider of integrative and functional medicine, has acquired a new practice, the Center for Health and Healing located in Wheaton, IL.

The Center for Health and Healing, which will be known as Forum Health Wheaton, is a functional medicine practice led by Dr. Fred Schultz and has been serving the Wheaton area since 1997.

Dr. Schultz is a family physician of 41 years; he feels honored to serve his patients by using a personalized functional medicine approach for the last 24 years. He is experienced in determining the root-cause of dysfunctions in the body using a combination of natural and conventional medicine. Dr. Schultz's functional approach focuses on balancing the unique needs of the individual to allow for natural healing to occur and to restore well-being.

"This partnership between my practice and Forum Health is a natural fit," said Dr. Schultz. "It is time for innovation and growth, and I couldn't think of a better network to join that is leading the way for functional medicine than Forum Health."

As part of adding this new practice to its nationwide network, Dr. Fred Schultz and Forum Health have welcomed Jessica Montalvo MD, IFMCP as a provider and plan to open a new IV center at this location.

"Dr. Schultz and I are pleased to welcome Dr. Montalvo to the practice," said Adam Puttkammer, president of Forum Health. "Dr. Montalvo brings years of experience treating cognitive decline and environmental illness. We look forward to expanding the services available to current and new patients."

Dr. Montalvo attended the University of Rochester School of Medicine, completed a residency in internal medicine at Northwestern in Chicago and subsequent training in hospice and palliative medicine. She's a certified functional medicine practitioner from the Institute for Functional Medicine and the Kresser Institute Practitioner Training Program, has training in Frequency Specific Microcurrent therapy, and completed the Dr. Dale Bredesen's training in Reversing Cognitive Decline, known as the RECODE program.

"I am excited to join Dr. Schultz at Forum Health Wheaton as a new provider," said Dr. Montalvo. "I want to dedicate my career to functional medicine and this partnership will allow me to reach more patients through the Forum Health network."

The new IV center at Forum Health Wheaton will be convenient, comfortable, and safe for patients to receive their prescribed IV therapies, as part of their personalized health plan.

Forum Health Wheaton utilizes functional diagnostic testing, preventive treatments, and a blend of natural and conventional medicine to help its patients achieve and maintain optimal health and wellness.

For more information on Forum Health locations and how to become a practitioner in the Forum Health network, visit www.forumhealth.com .

About Forum Health, LLC

Forum Health, LLC is a nationwide provider of personalized healthcare. Steeped in the powerful principles of functional and integrative medicine, Forum Health providers take a root-cause approach to care. They listen and dig deep  exploring lifestyle, environment, and genetics to help each patient achieve their ultimate health goals. Members have access to advanced medical treatments and technology, with care plans informed by data analytics and collaborative relationships. To learn more, visit forumhealth.com.

SOURCE Forum Health, LLC
TOKYO, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Fujita Kanko Inc., a leading Japanese hospitality company headquartered in Tokyo, opened Hotel Gracery Taipei in the capital city of Taiwan on September 14th. This is the second Hotel Gracery property that the company is operating outside Japan after Hotel Gracery Seoul.

The 248-room hotel is conveniently situated in the center of Taipei, a one minute walk from MRT's Zhongxiao Xinsheng Station, which is the second stop from Taipei Station, the country's main transportation hub. Surrounded by shopping, dining and sightseeing spots, the premier location is ideal for both business and leisure travelers. The hotel offers spacious guest rooms, minimum 25 m2/269 ft2, with moderate room rates, approximately US$181/night for twin/double rooms in today's currency exchange rate. All rooms have Japanese-style bathrooms with separate toilets.

"Although international traveling is still restricted due to the pandemic, we wanted to be ready to welcome back travelers and also introduce our Hotel Gracery brand in Taiwanese market," said Masato Okudate, the hotel's General Manager. "Taiwan has been a popular destination especially among Japanese, but we see a bigger potential that appeals to international market."

One distinctive feature presented at Hotel Gracery Taipei is its "concept rooms." By collaborating with several Japanese/Taiwanese brands, the hotel showcases the following fun rooms, possibly adding more or rotating in the future.

Tokyu Hands Concept Rooms (two types): the hotel collaborates with a Japanese department store, Tokyu Hands, that carries a wide variety of functional goods, also popular in Taiwan.

Traveling with Hands - the room features typical Japanese items such as vending machines and train-themed goods.

Glamping with Hands - the room features camping goods.

Katsuya Concept Room: it replicates Japanese/Taiwanese chain restaurant Katsuya. Guests can also order a delivery using its menu.

Niseko Concept Room: it is decorated with Taiwan's ice cream brand, Niseko-themed design with stargazing ceiling. The ice creams are on sale in the hotel lobby.

For more information and reservation, visit: https://taipei.gracery.com/

About Fujita Kanko

Fujita Kanko Inc., established in 1955, is a publicly-traded tourism industry corporation headquartered in Tokyo. In addition to its core hospitality business, it operates wedding and banquet facilities, high-end resorts, leisure facilities and related services. It has 70 properties/facilities, including its flagship, Hotel Chinzanso Tokyo, and 36 mid-priced hotels in the Hotel Gracery, Washington Hotels and Hotel TAVINOS groups.

Contact:

Keiko Okano

[email protected]

+1-212-583-1084 (U.S.)

SOURCE Fujita Kanko Inc.

Related Links

https://fujita-kanko.com


SUZHOU, China, Sept. 15, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- GeneQuantum Healthcare, an industry-leading biotech company dedicated to the next generation bioconjugate drugs based on the innovative intelligent ligase-dependent conjugation (iLDC) technology platform, announced the appointment of Dr. Li Wan as the Senior Vice President and Head of Global Regulatory Affairs, Dr. Weimeng Zhao as Vice President of Quality Research and Quality, to further strengthen the GeneQuantum management team.

"We are delighted to welcome Dr. Wan, Dr. Zhao to join our management team," Dr. Gang Qin, GeneQuantum's Chairman and CEO, said, "GeneQuantum is making every endeavor to accelerate the development of innovative bioconjugate drugs represented by Antibody-Drug-Conjugate (ADC) through our unique iLDC platform to provide more effective, safer and accessible innovative treatments for cancer patients worldwide. Their joining marks a concrete step forward in our strategic planning of establishing and expanding a world-class clinical and regulatory affairs team. Their extensive expertise and excellent leadership capability are crucial for the success of the company. We do expect their contribution to the acceleration of our ADC drug development so that patients will benefit earlier from our effective product."

Dr. Li Wan holds a doctoral degree in Pharmaceutical Science from Rutgers University and has more than 15 years of experience in global regulatory affairs and innovative drug R&D projects management. Dr. Li Wan was the Vice President and Head of Global Regulatory Affairs at Alphamab Oncology and Luye Pharma. Before joining Luye Pharma, he worked as the global regulatory lead at world-renowned big pharmaceutical companies including Pfizer and Novartis in the United States. Dr. Wan has expert knowledge of FDA, EMA, NMPA, PMDA, and ICH regulation and is familiar with the CMC development, clinical trials, regulatory submissions, and project management of the innovative biological products. Dr. Li Wan has successfully led many global IND/CTA/NDA submissions and obtained approvals for small molecule and antibody drug projects in the US, EU, China, and Japan, etc. In addition, he also coordinated the pre-approval inspection by FDA. He is a regulatory expert with the US Regulatory Affairs Certification (RAC) from the Regulatory Affairs Professional Society, and also the Head of SAPA Regulatory Affairs Department and a SAPA EC member.

Dr. Zhao graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a doctoral degree in Biochemistry and completed postdoctoral research at Stanford University in the United States. He has worked in Galaxy Biotech and Genentech, Inc. Dr. Zhao has extensive practical experience in quality management, analytical development, product characterization, analytical control system, and analytical method validation and method transfer.

Both of them expressed their great pleasure in joining GeneQuantum. They commented, " GeneQuantum has the world's leading Antibody-Drug-Conjugate (ADC) iLDC platform, as well as a rich and innovative pipeline based on this platform. We are very happy to join GeneQuantum in this critical moment, when the company is growing quickly with many products entering the IND and clinical stage. We always appreciate Dr. Gang Qin's persistent pursuit of innovative science and the spirit of endless exploration. We also love the energetic and innovative team of GeneQuantum. We hope to use our years of extensive experience in global regulatory affairs and clinical studies of biological drug development, and in quality management, analytical development, analytical control systems to help the company grow faster. We are looking forward to, as a part of GeneQuantum's team, working together with everyone to bring more bioconjugate drugs and new hope to the treatment of cancer patients soon."

About GeneQuantum Healthcare (Suzhou) Co., Ltd.

GeneQuantum Healthcare (Suzhou) Co., Ltd. is a high-tech biopharmaceutical company dedicated to the development of innovative biotherapeutics, with the goal to become a globally competitive leader in biopharmaceuticals. The company possesses innovative and patented iLDC (intellectual Ligase Dependent Conjugation) technical platform, focuses on next generation site-specific bioconjugate development, and aim to address the unmet medical needs of global cancer patients.

SOURCE GeneQuantum Healthcare
CRANBURY, N.J., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- OncLive, the nation's leading multimedia resource for oncology professionals, and Pfizer, its platinum sponsor, are pleased to announce the finalists of the ninth annual Giants of Cancer Care program.

Since 2013, the program has celebrated more than 125 oncology legends for their groundbreaking achievements in oncology research and clinical practice. Out of hundreds of nominations, only 14 oncologists were selected to join the prestigious 2021 class.

The Giants of Cancer Care Steering Committee selects semifinalists from nominations submitted each year and the Selection Committeecomprised of more than 120 eminent oncologists, clinicians, and researchersthen votes on the finalists in each category.

"We'd like to congratulate each and every member of this year's class of inductees on this enormous honor," said Mike Hennessy Jr., president and CEO of MJH Life Sciences, the parent company of OncLive. "It is no surprise that these oncologists were recognized for their contributions and dedication to this vital practice. They are all pioneers within the global field of oncology."

This year's inductees by award category are as follows:

Breast Cancer- Nancy E. Davidson , MD, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center/Seattle Cancer Care Alliance

, MD, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center/Seattle Cancer Care Alliance Community Outreach/Cancer Policy- Julie Gralow , MD, American Society of Clinical Oncology

, MD, American Society of Clinical Oncology Gastrointestinal Cancer- Daniel G. Haller , MD Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine

, MD Abramson Cancer Center at the Perelman School of Medicine Genitourinary Cancer- Toni Choueiri , MD, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Brigham and Women's Hospital

, MD, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Brigham and Women's Hospital Gynecologic Cancer- Robert Young , MD, RCY Medicine

, MD, RCY Medicine Leukemia- Richard M. Stone , MD, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

, MD, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Lung Cancer- Pasi A. Janne, MD, PhD, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Lymphoma- Steven T. Rosen , MD, City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center

, MD, City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center Melanoma- Michael B. Atkins , MD, Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center

, MD, Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center Myeloma- Paul G. Richardson , MD, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Jerome Lipper Multiple Myeloma Center

, MD, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Jerome Lipper Multiple Myeloma Center Pediatric Oncology- Richard J. O'Reilly , MD, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

, MD, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Prevention/Genetics- Matthew L. Meyerson , MD, PhD, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

, MD, PhD, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Radiation Oncology- Walter J. Curran Jr , MD, GenesisCare/ Emory University School of Medicine

, MD, GenesisCare/ Supportive, Palliative, and/or Geriatric Care - Dawn L. Hershman , MD, MS, Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center at Columbia University

The hybrid award ceremony will take place on Thursday, November 4, 2021 at 6:30 p.m. at the Marriott Marquis in NYC. For more information on registration, click here.

About OncLive

A digital platform of resources for practicing oncologists, OncLive offers oncology professionals information they can use to help provide the best patient care. OncLive is a brand of MJH Life Sciences, the largest privately held, independent, full-service medical media company in North America dedicated to delivering trusted health care news across multiple channels.

About Giants of Cancer Care

Giants of Cancer Care celebrates the achievements of leading researchers and educators whose discoveries have helped propel the field of oncology and established the building blocks for future advances. Every year, a selection committee of more than 120 eminent oncologists, researchers and clinicians chooses honorees from several types of tumor and specialty categories.

OncLive Media Contact

Kristie Luff

+1-609-516-3722

[email protected]

SOURCE OncLive

Related Links

https://www.onclive.com


DUBLIN, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Aircraft Seals Market by Type (Dynamic and Static), Application (Engine, Airframe, Avionics, Flight Control System, Landing Gear), Material (Composites, Polymers, Metals), End Use (OEM, Aftermarket), Platform, and Region - Forecast to 2026" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The aircraft seals market size is projected to grow from USD 1.9 billion in 2021 to USD 2.4 billion by 2026, at a CAGR of 5.1% from 2021 to 2026.

The market is driven by factors such as increase in global aircraft fleet size, and short replacement cycle of aircraft seals SKF (Sweden), Saint-Gobain (France), Trelleborg Sealing Solutions (Sweden), Meggitt PLC (UK), and Parker Hannifin Corporation (US) among others, are some of the leading players operating in the aircraft seals market. These players have spread their business across various countries includes North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. COVID-19 has impacted their businesses as well. Industry experts believe that COVID-19 has affected aircraft seals production and services by 7-10% globally in 2020.

Engine System: The largest segment of the aircraft seals market, by application.

Based on application, the engine system segment is expected to be the largest market by value. The growth of the engine system segment of the aircraft seals market can be attributed to the many sub-systems it comprises of such as air supply, thermal control, cabin pressurization, avionics cooling, smoke detection and fire suppression. Aircraft seals are also used in other important systems such as airframe, flight control & hydraulics system, avionics & electrical system, and landing gear system. Aircraft seals used in these aircraft systems to prevent the spread of fire or flames in the engine system of the aircraft, avoid air leakage, water or dust intrusion, prevent corrosion, or to prevent any aircraft fluid leakage.

Dynamic Seals: The highest revenue segment of the aircraft seals market, by type.

Based on type, the dynamic seals segment is projected to have a higher share in the aircraft seals market during the forecast period. The growth of the dynamic seals segment of the aircraft seals market can be attributed to the extensive usage in various applications, and majority of aircraft components are in motion than being stationary. These are used commonly in engine system, and flight control and hydraulics system of aircrafts.

Composites: The highest revenue segment of the aircraft seals market, by material.

Based on material, the composites segment is projected to have the highest share of revenue in the aircraft seals market. The extensive use of various types of composites for manufacturing aircraft seals, and their proven benefits such as resistance to heat and good strength, good chemical properties, low weight, etc can be attributed to its high market share. These are used in applications where there is a higher chance of corrosion, and high operating temperature.

Fixed Wing Aircraft: The highest revenue segment of the aircraft seals market, by aircraft type.

Based on platform, the fixed-wing aircraft segment is projected to have the highest revenue in the aircraft seals market during the forecast period. Fixed-wing aircraft segment consists of commercial aviation, business and general aviation and military aviation. The fixed-wing segment consists of the greatest number of aircrafts in terms of absolute numbers. However, the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles segment is projected to have the highest CAGR in the aircraft seals market.

OEM: The fastest-growing segment of the aircraft seals market, by end use.

Based on the end use, the OEM segment is projected to grow at a higher CAGR for the aircraft seals market during the forecast period. OEMs are responsible for the installation of aircraft seals in an aircraft during the assembly stage and are then made available for delivery to aircraft manufacturers. However, the Aftermarket segment is projected to have a higher market share in the aircraft seals market. Over the years, there has been a significant rise in the demand for different aircraft types across regions. According to Airbus, it delivered 863 commercial aircraft to 99 customers in 2019. The aftermarket segment is projected to have more revenue in the aircraft seals market.

North America: The largest contributing region in the aircraft seals market.

North America is projected to be the largest regional share of the aircraft seals market during the forecast period. The key factor responsible for North America, leading the aircraft seals market owing to the presence of large number of aircraft seals manufacturers in the region. Also, the region has been witnessing a rise in the newer aircrafts getting delivered. In North America, the rise in aircraft orders and supplies is encouraging manufacturers of aircraft seals to increase their sales year on year. The increasing demand for commercial aircraft and the presence of some of the leading players operating in the market, such as Parker Hannifin Corporation, Kirkhill, Inc., Brown Aircraft Supply are expected to drive the aircraft seals market in North America. These players are focusing on R&D to increase their product lines and using technologically advanced systems, subsystems, and other components for manufacturing aircraft seals. The European region is projected to have the highest growth rate in the aircraft seals market.

Key Topics Covered:

1 Introduction

2 Research Methodology

3 Executive Summary

4 Premium Insights

4.1 Attractive Growth Opportunities in Aircraft Seals Market

4.2 Aircraft Seals Market, by Platform

4.3 Aircraft Seals Market, by Type

4.4 Aircraft Seals Market, by Country

5 Market Overview

5.1 Introduction

5.2 Market Dynamics

5.2.1 Drivers

5.2.1.1 Increase in Global Aircraft Fleet Size to Increase Demand for Seals from Oem & Aftermarket

5.2.1.2 Frequent Replacement of Aircraft Seals

5.2.2 Restraints

5.2.2.1 High Manufacturing Costs of Aircraft Seals

5.2.3 Opportunities

5.2.3.1 Rising Adoption of Lightweight and Durable Seals

5.2.3.2 Developments in Additive Manufacturing Technology

5.2.4 Challenges

5.2.4.1 Issues Associated with Quality Accreditations

5.3 COVID-19 Impact: Range and Scenarios

5.4 Value Chain Analysis

5.5 Volume Analysis

5.6 Market Ecosystem Map

5.6.1 Prominent Companies

5.6.2 Private and Small Enterprises

5.6.3 End-users

5.7 Trends/Disruptions Impacting Customers

5.8 Porter's Five Forces Analysis

5.9 Trade Data Analysis

5.10 Tariff and Regulatory Landscape

5.11 Case Studies

5.12 Technology Analysis

6 Industry Trends

6.1 Introduction

6.2 Supply Chain Analysis

6.2.1 Major Companies

6.2.2 Small and Medium Enterprises

6.2.3 Aftermarket Service Providers

6.2.4 End-users/Customers

6.3 Emerging Industry Trends

6.3.1 Use of IoT in Aircraft Seals

6.3.2 Additive Manufacturing of Seals

6.3.3 Use of New Materials

6.4 Innovation & Patent Analysis

6.5 Impact of Megatrends

7 Aircraft Seals Market, by Platform

7.1 Introduction

7.1.1 Impact of COVID-19 on Platform Segment

7.1.1.1 Most Impacted Segment

7.1.1.2 Least Impacted Segment

7.2 Fixed Wing

7.2.1 Commercial Aviation

7.2.1.1 Narrow-Body Aircraft

7.2.1.2 Wide-Body Aircraft

7.2.1.3 Regional Transport Aircraft

7.2.2 Business & General Aviation

7.2.2.1 Business Jets

7.2.2.2 Light Aircraft

7.2.3 Military Aviation

7.2.3.1 Fighter Aircraft

7.2.3.2 Transport Aircraft

7.2.3.3 Special Mission Aircraft

7.3 Rotary Wing

7.3.1 Commercial Helicopters

7.3.2 Military Helicopters

7.4 Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

7.4.1 Fixed-Wing UAVs

7.4.2 Fixed-Wing Hybrid Vtol UAVs

7.4.3 Rotary-Wing UAVs

8 Aircraft Seals Market, by Type

8.1 Introduction

8.2 Dynamic Seals

8.2.1 Contact Seals

8.2.2 Clearance Seals

8.3 Static Seals

8.3.1 O-Rings & Gaskets

8.3.2 Other Seals

9 Aircraft Seals Market, by Application

9.1 Introduction

9.2 Engine System

9.3 Airframe

9.4 Avionics & Electrical System

9.5 Flight Control & Hydraulic System

9.6 Landing Gear System

10 Aircraft Seals Market, by End Use

10.1 Introduction

10.1.1 Impact of COVID-19 on End Use Segment

10.1.1.1 Most Impacted Segment

10.1.1.2 Least Impacted Segment

10.2 Original Equipment Manufacturers (Oem)

10.2.1 Increase in Global Aircraft Fleet Size Drives Segment

10.3 Aftermarket

10.3.1 Short Replacement Cycle of Aerospace Valves Boosts Segment

11 Aircraft Seals Market, by Material

11.1 Introduction

11.2 Composites

11.3 Polymer

11.4 Metals

12 Regional Analysis

13 Competitive Landscape

13.1 Introduction

13.2 Market Share Analysis, 2020

13.3 Revenue Analysis of Top 5 Market Players, 2020

13.4 Competitive Leadership Mapping

13.4.1 Star

13.4.2 Emerging Leader

13.4.3 Pervasive

13.4.4 Participant

13.5 Competitive Scenario

13.5.1 New Product Launches/Developments

13.5.2 Deals

13.5.3 Contracts

14 Company Profiles

14.1 Key Players

14.1.1 Skf

14.1.2 Parker Hannifin Corporation

14.1.3 Trelleborg Sealing Solutions

14.1.4 Meggitt plc

14.2 Other Players

14.2.1 Eaton Corporation plc

14.2.2 Dp Seals

14.2.3 Rexnord Corporation

14.2.4 W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc.

14.2.5 Performance Sealing Inc.

14.2.6 Ppg Aerospace

14.2.7 Precision Polymer Engineering Ltd.

14.2.8 Stacem

14.2.9 Nicholsons Sealing Technologies Ltd.

14.2.10 Icon Aerospace Technology

14.2.11 Brown Aircraft Supply

14.2.12 Hutchinson

14.2.13 Kirkhill, Inc.

14.2.14 Freudenberg Sealing Technologies

14.2.15 Dupont

14.2.16 Jacottet Industrie

15 Appendix

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/8s8f6r

Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]

For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900

U.S. Fax: 646-607-1904

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

SOURCE Research and Markets

Related Links

http://www.researchandmarkets.com


DUBLIN, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Global and China Hybrid Vehicle Industry Research Report, 2021" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

Energy-Saving and New Energy Vehicle Technology Roadmap 2.0 released by China-SAE points out the development goal of China's automobile industry: "the total industrial carbon emissions should reach the peak around 2028 in advance of the national carbon emission reduction commitment, and the total emissions should drop by more than 20% from the peak by 2035.

The sales volume of new hybrid passenger cars should account for 50%-60% of traditional energy passenger cars by 2025, 75%-85% by 2030, and 100% by 2035. This clarifies that energy-saving vehicles do not represent a transitional technology, but a high-efficiency technology that allows engines and motors to complement each other, replaces internal combustion engine vehicles on a large scale within a reasonable price range, and reduces fuel consumption.

Chinese automakers have developed hybrid systems independently to seize the hybrid market

In the context of energy saving and emission reduction, Chinese automakers have made efforts to develop the hybrid technology in recent years. They have launched self-developed hybrid systems, such as Great Wall Lemon DHT Hybrid System, BYD DM-i Super Hybrid, GAC Julang Hybrid System, Chery Kunpeng DHT System, etc.

Sales Volume of China's Hybrid Vehicle Market Segments

(1) PHEV passenger cars

According to CPCA (China Passenger Car Association)'s data, the sales volume of PHEV passenger cars in China increased by 2.7% year-on-year to approximately 211,900 units in 2020. From January to June 2021, the sales volume reached 183,200 units.

At present, China's PHEV passenger cars companies are mainly represented by BYD, SAIC, and Lixiang. In 2020, SAIC ranked first with the sales volume of 59,900 PHEV passenger cars, followed by BYD and Lixiang with the sales volume of 51,700 and 32,600 respectively.

(2) HEV passenger cars

According to the data from CAAM (China Association of Automobile Manufacturers), the sales volume of HEV passenger cars in China jumped by 21.9% year-on-year to about 290,400 units in 2020, approximately 272,400 units in H1 2021. It is expected to hit 500,000 units in 2021;

In 2021, the sales volume of HEV passenger cars in China soars. On the one hand, Toyota has added dual-engine to a variety of models to meet demand for energy-efficient and fuel-efficient vehicles. On the other hand, China has raised higher requirements on carbon emission, which forces automakers to reduce emissions. Automakers mainly promote lower-displacement dual-engine vehicle models.

At present, the sales volume of HEV passenger cars in China is mainly contributed by GAC Toyota, FAW Toyota, GAC Honda, and Dongfeng Honda. The sales volume of GAC Toyota's HEV passenger cars accounted for 32% of the total in 2020, and 41% in H1 2021 with a spike of 9 percentage points. Under the pressure of carbon emissions, Toyota actively boosts dual-engine models and has installed the dual engine technology on multiple models.

(3) 48V mild hybrid system

The 48V mild hybrid system is evolved from the 12V electrical system which is not completely abolished but continues to exist. The biggest advantage of the 48V mild hybrid system is that it can save much more energy and reduce emissions to comply with stringent emission policies at low costs:

Key Topics Covered:



1 Overview of Hybrid Vehicles

1.1 Introduction

1.2 Work Steps

1.3 Hybrid Solutions

1.4 Development Advantages

1.5 Industry Chain

1.6 Development Trends

2 Hybrid Vehicle Industry Policies and Status Quo

2.1 Global and Chinese Carbon Emission Policies

2.2 China's Hybrid Vehicle Policies

2.3 Global New Energy Vehicle Market

2.4 China's New Energy Vehicle Market

2.5 Micro Hybrid Market (12V Automotive Start/Stop System)

2.6 Mild/ Moderate Hybrid Market (48V+BSG/ISG System)

2.7 Strong Hybrid Market (HEV, PHEV 150V+)

3 Hybrid Vehicle Technology Roadmap

3.1 Classification of Hybrid System Technology (by Power Structure)

3.2 Classification of Hybrid System Technology (by Drive Motor Power)

3.3 Classification of Hybrid System Technology (by Motor Position)

3.4 Classification of Hybrid System Technology (by Hybrid Degree/Fuel Saving Rate Technology

3.5 Key Technology of Hybrid Vehicle Industry Chain

3.6 Hybrid Technology Development Trend

3.7 Comparison of Hybrid Vehicle Technology Solutions Inside and Outside of China

4 Hybrid Vehicle Technology Providers

4.1 Valeo

4.2 Bosch

4.3 Continental / Vitesco Technologies

4.4 BorgWarner/Delphi

4.5 Schaeffler

4.6 GKN

4.7 Hunan Corun New Energy

5 Hybrid Vehicle Manufactures

5.1 Toyota

5.2 Honda

5.3 Nissan

5.4 Volkswagen

5.5 General Motors

5.6 Volvo

5.7 BMW

5.8 BYD

5.9 Geely

5.10 SAIC

5.11 GAC

5.12 Great Wall

5.13 Chery

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/paibf

Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900



U.S. Fax: 646-607-1904

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

SOURCE Research and Markets

Related Links

http://www.researchandmarkets.com


The center serves as the home to ModularMEP, M.C. Dean's line of customizable, fully integrated, tested, and secure modular electrical buildings, rooms, and assemblies shipped to project and construction sites across the United States and select international locations. The expansion project doubles M.C. Dean's manufacturing capacity to support high growth, mission-critical customers, including data centers, airports, and healthcare facilities.

"M.C. Dean has been a valued partner in Virginia for over 70 years, and has played a critical role in the growth of the Commonwealth's advanced manufacturing sector," said Governor Northam. "Virginia's extensive infrastructure networks and world-class workforce, two of the reasons why the Commonwealth was named top state for business two years in a row, allow companies to expand and thrive like M.C. Dean. We are excited to have them in Caroline County, and we look forward to supporting all of their future successes."

M.C. Dean, headquartered in Tysons, Virginia, employs more than 4,500 professionals who engineer and deploy automated, secure, and resilient power and technology systems; and deliver management platforms essential for long-term system sustainability. M.C. Dean began development of the manufacturing center in 2003 and opened in 2006. The company has made three rounds of investment at the site over the past 15 years with the support of Caroline County and the Virginia Economic Development Partnership. Today the campus, known as the Caroline County Center for Innovation and Industry, includes more than 300,000 square feet of ModularMEP manufacturing capacity on 585-acres. The campus also includes 220 new acres of ready-to-develop land to support future expansion.

"Our ModularMEP expansion allows us to scale with our mission-critical customers' demand for modular power and technology systems that deliver enhanced quality, safety, and speed to market," said Bill Dean, M.C. Dean chief executive officer. "By investing in our home state of Virginia, we're able to serve major hubs for technology and federal clients with easy access to several large ports and I-95 for distribution. We also have access to great technology and manufacturing talent between Richmond and the D.C. corridor."

The Virginia Economic Development Partnership worked with Caroline County to secure the project for Virginia. Governor Northam approved a $500,000 grant from the Commonwealth's Opportunity Fund to assist Caroline County with the project. The governor also approved a $250,000 performance-based grant from the Virginia Investment (VIP) program, an incentive that encourages capital investment by existing Virginia companies. Funding and services to support the company's employee training activities will be provided through the Virginia Jobs Investment Program (VJIP).

"M.C. Dean has helped Caroline County become a technology employment center in the region, stimulating growth, while adding capital improvements that allow further development on the site," said Reginald Underwood, Chairman, Caroline County Board of Supervisors from the Reedy Church District. "Strategically located along the I-95 corridor between Washington, D.C. and Richmond, Caroline County is ideal for manufacturing, distribution, and data centers. Caroline County welcomes additional growth and development through technology investment."

M.C. Dean is hiring: For more information on current job opportunities, visit mcdean.com/careers.

About M.C. Dean

M.C. Dean is Building Intelligence. We design, build, operate, and maintain cyber-physical solutions for the nation's most recognizable mission-critical facilities, secure environments, complex infrastructure, and global enterprises. The company's capabilities include electrical, electronic security, telecommunications, life-safety, instrumentation and control, and command and control systems. M.C. Dean is headquartered in Tysons, Virginia and employs more than 4,500 professionals who engineer and deploy automated, secure, and resilient power and technology systems; and deliver the management platforms essential for long-term system sustainability.

M.C. Dean Media Contacts:

Regine de la Cruz, [email protected]

Mobile: 202-430-1389

Ramneek Kaur, [email protected]

Mobile: 202-446-6116

B-Roll: M.C. Dean Facility Ribbon Cutting - https://vimeo.com/606777053/d357ee177d

SOURCE M.C. Dean, Inc.
SPRING MILLS, Pa., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Green Home Solutions, the industry leader in eco-friendly indoor air quality, announced today the signing of four multi-unit agreements throughout three states in the Midwest. In total, these agreements will bring 10 territory units to Illinois, Indiana and Iowa.

Spearheading the growth across Indiana is Ben White who signed on for three units in the Indianapolis market and Brent Hernandez who will be bringing two units to South Bend. Having spent more than two decades in the army, White was looking for an entrepreneurial opportunity after his retirement and came across Green Home Solutions. His locations are slated to open in Q4 and will be family-run alongside his wife. The majority of Hernandez' career has been in customer service-related positions for RV companies and airlines. Wanting to run his own business, Hernandez settled on Green Home Solutions due to he and his family's passion for environmentally-friendly services.

"When this opportunity fell into my lap, I knew I couldn't pass it up," said White. "Speaking with the other Green Home Solutions franchisees is what really sold me and every single one was helpful and happy to talk to me. I believe my military background will be a huge asset and I look forward to getting started."

Behind the addition of two units in Des Moines, Iowa is native Mike Murtha. With a background in sales, he learned about Green Home Solutions through networking and was immediately drawn to the opportunity.

"The plant-based products and EPA registration was a huge win for me," shared Murtha. "The onboarding process has been great  the team has gone above and beyond to ensure I am set up for success. I'm looking forward to continuing to learn and grow along with my fellow franchisees."

Additionally, franchisee Jim Blandi signed agreements that have brought three more units to the Chicagoland area which are currently opened and operating.

"We've continued to build out a robust team of franchise partners throughout the years and I'm thrilled to add a few more to our roster," shared Glen Snyder, Chief Development Officer, Green Home Solutions. "Ben, Brent, Mike and Jim are the exact prospects we look for  ones who possess a passion for our brand and an overwhelming enthusiasm to build a successful business."

Recently, Entrepreneur Magazine ranked Green Home Solutions as one of the Fastest-Growing Franchises in 2021, and they are continuing to grow nationwide. The brand also responded to an increase in demand by launching a plan to extend their Area Representatives program in July that will fuel further development.

With a growing need and want of consumers to lead healthy lives in their homes and businesses, Green Home Solutions offers multiple levels of hospital-grade disinfection services that utilizes EPA-registered disinfectants and their own proprietary plant-based enzyme solution to treat surfaces for active viruses and bacteria, including the latest threat, coronavirus (COVID-19). These services can directly help alleviate personal health issues suffered by many, that are created by the moisture and humidity of the environment.

To learn more about franchising and Area Representative opportunities, you can visit greenhomesolutionsfranchising.com.

About Green Home Solutions

Green Home Solutions is a growing indoor air quality franchise with 200+ locations across the country, providing comprehensive indoor air assessments, treatments and analysis services that don't just cover over the problem but, resolves the problem at the source. Green Home Solutions was recognized by Entrepreneur magazine as one of the Fastest-Growing Franchises in 2021 and one of the Top Growth Franchises in 2020. They were also named Top Service Franchise in 2020 and a Top Recession-Proof Franchise in 2021 by Franchise Business Review. Our disinfection services, mold remediation, odor removal, and air purification solutions create a clean indoor air environment, so your family can breathe cleaner, purer air. Call 1-800-SOLUTIONS or visit www.greenhomesolutions.com and one of our professionals will schedule an appointment to review your location immediately and evaluate your indoor air quality needs.

SOURCE Green Home Solutions

Related Links

https://greenhomesolutionsfranchising.com


BEIJING, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- On September 11, the theme day of HICOOL 2021 Global Entrepreneur Summit was held in China International Exhibition Center (New Venue). With the theme of "Connect Startups Worldwide, Innovate Beijing Together" as the theme, centering on the construction of Beijing International Science and Technology Innovation Center, various activities were held at this Summit, including the award ceremony of HICOOL 2021 Global Entrepreneurship Competition, HICOOL Global Entrepreneur Summit Forum, on-site exhibition, venture capital connection in diversified forms such as competition, discussion, exhibition, investment and show. At the same time, the "Empower the Future" Global Young Entrepreneur Empowerment Program initiated by the Global CEO Council and the Beijing Talent Leading Group Office was also officially launched at the award ceremony.

Witnessing the glorious moment of more than 100 global award-winning projects

At the award ceremony of HICOOL 2021 Global Entrepreneurship Competition held in the morning, several of the world's tycoons in venture capitalists jointly presented awards to the award-winning projects of HICOOL 2021 Global Entrepreneurship Competition and the winners of Bole Award. In order to further achieve the goal of global talent selection, based on focusing on overseas projects, this year's competition opened up a new channel for the competition of local projects, and a total of 4,018 projects were registered for the competition. In addition, the competition also hit a record high in the number of applicants, with a total of 5,077 participants, of whom 25% are foreign nationals.

In order to further achieve the goal of identifying excellent entrepreneurial projects globally, based on focusing on overseas projects, HICOOL opened up a new channel for the competition of local projects this year. In 2021, the policy will be extended to cover the award-winning projects for Excellence Award, which also means that a larger number and wider range of global entrepreneurs will be entitled to HICOOL's exclusive supporting preferential policies.

After the award ceremony, the "Empower the Future" Global Young Entrepreneur Empowerment Program was officially launched. This year, "Empower the Future" will take Beijing as the starting point and build an open and convenient international ecosystem aiming at the needs for innovation and entrepreneurship of global young entrepreneurs.

Collecting the wisdom of the world's top tycoons in scientific innovation

In the keynote speech of this Summit, Shen Nanpeng from Sequoia China, Kai-Fu Lee from Sinovation Ventures, Zhang Hongjiang, President of Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence (BAAI) and other global top investors and entrepreneurs made an in-depth analysis of the development trend of global innovation in the keynote speech, seeking common development in the future.

In his speech, Shen Nanpeng mentioned that the theme of entrepreneurship in China is undergoing profound changes, and a technology-led era of entrepreneurship has arrived. With the brand new theme of entrepreneurship, Shen Nanpeng suggested that entrepreneurs should seek more resonance with the times in a "technology-driven", "green-driven" and "responsibility-driven" way. In addition, in early investment, Shen Nanpeng believed that the concept of "half business, half public welfare" would help to create a "more dynamic and valuable" entrepreneurial ecosystem, and he announced that the Angel Investment and Seed Round enterprises invested by Sequoia would automatically obtain at least RMB one million from Sequoia in the second round of financing. Shen Nanpeng also stressed that the main line of China's new era of entrepreneurship has become increasingly clear: It has been a long-term consensus at home and abroad to grow bigger and stronger in China; Innovation and entrepreneurship increasingly get back to original and hard core scientific and technological innovation; More dynamic qualitative changes are taking place in terms of business and public welfare.

In his speech, Kai-Fu Lee mentioned that entrepreneurs participating in HICOOL this year look stronger than those at the previous session last year! All of these companies are in the process of operating great tech startups, and it is great honor for Sinovation Ventures, that three of this year's first prize winners are those we supported for investment at early stage, spanning the fields of artificial intelligence, robotics, and biotechnology. We can see four great technologies undergoing revolutionary changes, including AI automation, advanced computing, life science and new energy. We can see all kinds of new opportunities emerging, and science in such four aspects is not just about investment in them at early stage, instead, they will also exert mutual impact on each other. For example, advanced computing can enable automation, and automated factories can generate new energy technologies, or AI algorithms can be used in conjunction with life sciences. In the future, we can see a number of world-changing companies and new industries. We also hope that there will be a lot of Chinese companies among them.



In his speech, Zhang Hongjiang mentioned, "I think the new story of artificial intelligence is going to start with us today, start with large model, start with the application of large model, and start with the ecology of large model. Ultimately, the development of artificial intelligence cannot do without talents, and intelligence is where talents are. Beijing is the AI highland in China and even around the world, occupying the first place in 17 items in China, including scientific and technological resources, talent accumulation, platforms, and scientific research achievements. In terms of high-level AI talents, especially industrial talents and entrepreneurial talents, Beijing has an absolute advantage in China. Such kind of advantage is rare globally. I guess there are one or two cities in the United States which can be put on a par with Beijing. AI research talents are in Beijing, and AI entrepreneurs are in Beijing. The future of AI is definitely in Beijing. I hope we can further explore new opportunities on the highland of AI in Beijing, and jointly create new heights of scientific research and entrepreneurship on the platform and ecology of BAAI.

At HICOOL 2021 Global Entrepreneur Summit Forum and Global Innovation Technology demand Release held in the afternoon, in order to promote different industry partners to exchange entrepreneurial experience, ignite the passion for entrepreneurship and discuss innovation in Beijing, more industry opinion leaders and industry experts delivered keynote speeches on global innovation trends in terms of Wonderful Life Session, Medical and Health Session, Smart City Session/New Technology Session. Meanwhile, a number of multinational enterprises and industrial leading enterprises also made their innovation needs released and connected on the spot.

In order to fully display the achievements of the construction of Beijing International Science and Technology Innovation Center, highlight the "entrepreneur-centered" concept, and create an enthusiastic and active atmosphere for innovation and entrepreneurship, on the site of this Summit, there are the display zone with the theme of science and technology innovation in Beijing, the display zone with the theme of global innovation countries, the display zone of HICOOL excellent projects and other special display zones. Besides, there are also an international talent market and the venture capital connection area, which set up a zero distance communication platform for the connection of venture capital investment between entrepreneurs and investment institutions.

In the on-site venture capital connection area of investment institutions, more than 40 top investment institutions such as Sequoia China, Hillhouse Venture Capital and Frees Fund conducted in-depth connection and negotiations with entrepreneurs. At the same time, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange introduced the policies of listing in Hong Kong to entrepreneurs on the spot and provided a channel for the connection of listing resources. In 2021, in China, which takes the lead in realizing economic recovery, strategic emerging industries such as consumption innovation and upgrading, medical and health care, new infrastructure, hard technology will enjoy continuous development, and the new generation of infrastructure will be continuously deepened. HICOOL 2021 Global Entrepreneur Summit has become a vivid stage for the demonstration of these trends of venture capital.

Seizing the new opportunity to introduce high-quality projects to Beijing

HICOOL 2021 Global Entrepreneur Summit has explored and formed an innovation model for introducing high-quality entrepreneurial projects under the new situation through five core sessions including "competition, discussion, exhibition, investment and show", which has attracted more than 6,000 international projects and nearly 10,000 global top entrepreneurial talents, forming a wide range of influence among overseas entrepreneurial circles and investors. Innovation and entrepreneurship are the source of vitality for economic development, as well as the key driving force for promoting economic and social development.

In 2020, despite the stagnation of global macro-economy, China's GDP still achieved a growth of 2.3%, becoming the only major economy in the world to achieve positive growth. In the same year, the first session of HICOOL Global Entrepreneur Summit and Entrepreneurship Competition was successfully held, which not only verified the feasibility of extending innovative talents under the complex international situation, but also sent a "Signal of Beijing" featuring openness, win-win, innovation and entrepreneurship to high-quality entrepreneurship projects all over the world.

In 2021, combined with the visible changes in global economy and innovation development in the post-pandemic era, HICOOL 2021 Global Entrepreneur Summit will firmly seize the opportunity of the construction of the national comprehensive demonstration zone for expanding the opening-up of the service sector as well as the pilot free trade zone, fully promote the realization of the strategic goal of building Beijing International Science and Technology Innovation Center by 2025, innovate services, improve the chain, meet new challenges, and continuously optimize the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem, establish a new pattern of open and win-win development in Beijing, and create a grand event for talents with global influence.

For more information, please visit HICOOL.

Media Contact: [email protected]

SOURCE HICOOL
CHICAGO and SAN JOSE, Calif., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The Hispanic IT Executive Council (HITEC) and San Jose City College (SJCC) are forming a partnership to develop a blended model of education and training supplemented by HITEC's mentorship and professional development curriculum to create new opportunities for technology students from underserved Hispanic communities.

"Our HITEC motto of pushing up and pulling up summarizes our key tenant of service to our community. We will be focused on collaborating with the SJCC team to support the students that are working hard to attain a degree in computer science and technology", said HITEC Foundation Chairman Ramon Baez.

This partnership aims to increase student retention, graduation, and employment rates. Both organizations recognize Hispanic technology leaders can be instrumental role models and mentors, with non-traditional and at-risk populations, as a way, to proactively address obstacles and drive impact for students in new and inspiring ways.

"SJCC's collaboration with HITEC is exactly what is needed to close the wage and skills gap in Silicon Valley and to open the door to technology careers for our students," said Lena Tran, SJCC Vice President of Strategic Partnerships and Workforce Innovation.

The "digital divide" has exponentially increased for Hispanics in underserved communities, especially in the last year due to the COVID-related challenges. This digital divide raises the challenges for students to stay in school and threatens their future ability to gain meaningful employment and participate in the benefits of a digitized economy.

Given the rapid digitization of the U.S. economy and the world, ensuring our Hispanic students from underserved communities have access to education, mentors, and opportunities to build meaningful careers in technology is critical.

"HITEC is committed to being the leading organization for Hispanics in technology and innovation and to helping develop the next generation of Hispanic technology leaders. I am excited about the opportunity we have with the SJCC college partnership to build the pipeline of Hispanic talent from the classroom to the boardroom", stated HITEC Chairman Guillermo Diaz Jr., CEO of Kloudspot.

Today, Hispanics make up 17 percent of the workforce and 25 percent of all students. By 2030 Hispanics will comprise 22.4 percent of the workforce and 30.3 percent of workers by 2060.

When surveyed in high school, Hispanic students say they enjoy STEM subjects as much as non-Hispanic students and aspire to STEM-related careers just as much as non-Hispanics. But while there is an equal interest, there is still a significant gap in Hispanic students pursuing STEM-related careers.

The future is digital, we believe every job will have a technology component. The time is now to create opportunities in technology fields for students to emerge as leaders in a technology-powered America.

About HITEC

About San Jose City College

SOURCE HITEC
PISCATAWAY, N.J., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- HORIBA Scientific, a global leader in the production of high-performance spectroscopy systems and solutions, announces a partnership with Covalent Metrology, a leading North American provider of analytical services, to expand engineering and scientific access to world-class expertise and chemical analysis instruments.

HORIBA Scientific New HORIBA Glow Discharge Optical Emissions Spectroscopy Lab at Covalent Metrology

The new partnership announces the opening of the HORIBA Scientific North American Demonstration Lab at Covalent's Silicon Valley headquarters. This showroom is HORIBA's first demonstration lab with a partner in North America and joins their application / demo labs in their corporate offices. It will showcase the instrument leader's top-of-line spectroscopy solutions, and bolster the companies' mutual efforts to develop methods for new chemical analysis applications. With access to new, cutting-edge instruments from HORIBA, Covalent's team of experts will be better able to support clients with more accurate and powerful chemical analysis capabilities.

"Covalent has seen a growing demand for top-quality chemical analysis services," remarks Craig Hunter, Chief Executive Officer at Covalent, "HORIBA Scientific is globally renowned for the high-performance and advanced features of their characterization technologies. Covalent is thrilled to partner with HORIBA to broaden access to their instruments and offer our customers deeper insights and new solutions."

The partnership marks a significant milestone in the organization's relationship. In addition to applications development, the demonstration lab will position both companies to accelerate research and development work in the semiconductor, electronics, and advanced materials industries throughout the North American region, giving customers greater access to instrumentation and analysis services.

"HORIBA strives to create scientific instruments that can help researchers and engineers unlock meaningful insight into materials," said Dr. Andrew Whitley, Vice President of Global Business Development for HORIBA Scientific. "Through the new demonstration facility at Covalent, our instruments will be able to help more clients in a vast range of industries to accelerate innovation and research."

The inaugural instrument installed in the HORIBA showroom is the HORIBA GD-Profiler 2 system for glow discharge optical emission spectroscopy (GDOES). The tool is designed for high-speed, quantitative analysis of all elements of interest, including nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen and chlorine. It is an ideal tool for thin and thick films characterization and process studies. It also captures direct measurement of depth (with nanometric precision) simultaneously with element quantification to achieve maximum efficiency and accuracy for depth profiling on layered materials and multi-phase samples. Analytical services requiring GDOES are available now for customer work.

About Covalent

Covalent Metrology is a disruptive analytical services laboratory and platform based in Sunnyvale, California. Its mission is to help companies who use advanced materials to get better data and insights more easily and affordably to facilitate faster development and production. Covalent is dramatically changing the characterization and imaging landscape by combining transparent pricing, data platforms, and top-notch customer service with world-class scientists, state-of-art tools, and strategic partnerships.

Covalent now has over 500 customers in 20+ industries.

About HORIBA Scientific

HORIBA Scientific, part of HORIBA Instruments Incorporated, headquartered in the United States, provides an extensive array of instruments and solutions for applications across a broad range of scientific R&D and QC measurements. HORIBA Scientific is a world leader in OEM Spectroscopy, elemental analysis, fluorescence (including the PTI brand), forensics, GDS, ICP, particle characterization, Raman, spectroscopic ellipsometry, sulfur-in-oil, SPRi and water quality measurements, as well as XRF.

Our instruments are found in universities and industries around the world. Proven quality and trusted performance have established widespread confidence in the HORIBA Brand. HORIBA supplies over 500 types of scientific analyzers to universities, research institutions, various manufacturing industries and the government. In some of the most advanced science and technologies, HORIBA provides multi-faceted data solutions for what are niche markets  assisting the most cutting-edge research in the tackling of uncharted territories.

Building on a long tradition of pursuing innovative technology to advance scientific efforts, HORIBA Instruments Incorporated owns various technologies that had been acquired through M&A such as Societe Generale d'Optique (1969), SPEX (1988), Dilor (1995), SOFIE (1996), Jobin Yvon (1997), IBH (2003), GenOptics (2009), and Photon Technology International (2014).

The HORIBA Group is a global company that offers solutions and engineering services, based on our strong performance in developing and manufacturing instruments and products in the analysis and measurement fields. With "Explore the Future" as its brand message, HORIBA has been pursuing state-of-the-art analysis and measurement technology since its establishment in 1953. Founded in the historic city of Kyoto, Japan, it has grown steadily throughout its 67 years of establishment and is now providing services worldwide as the leader in the analysis technology field. We engage in five different business segments with high value-added products and services: Automotive, Medical-Diagnostic Instruments and Systems, Semiconductor Instruments and Systems, Scientific Instruments and Systems, and Process and Environmental Instruments and Systems. We have established an optimal number of business bases in Japan, Asia, Europe, and the Americas.

SOURCE Covalent Metrology

Related Links

covalentmetrology.com


The research and programmatic grants, which are focused on improving outcomes for children battling cancer, include 22 Hyundai Scholar Hope Grants at $300,000 each, 22 Hyundai Young Investigator Grants at $200,000 each, and 20 Hyundai Impact Grants at $100,000 each. To view this year's grant award winners, click here .

"Every September, we reinforce our commitment in the fight against childhood cancer by raising awareness and spreading hope. We spread hope by providing critical funding to the doctors and researchers working tirelessly to find new cures and improve care for children battling cancer," said Scott Stark, chairman of the Hyundai Hope On Wheels Board of Directors, and president of South Point Hyundai. "We congratulate this year's grant award winners and commend them for bringing hope to children battling cancer and their families. We will fight until every child diagnosed with cancer can survive. We win with hope."

Hyundai joined the fight against childhood cancer in 1998. Since then, Hyundai and its dealers have awarded more than $185 million to help end childhood cancer through Hyundai Hope On Wheels. To honor that legacy and in recognition of National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, Hyundai Hope On Wheels launched its "We win with hope." campaign. View the campaign video here and join the fight to end childhood cancer.

The Hyundai Scholar Hope Grants and the Hyundai Young Investigator Grants are competitive research grants that are peer-reviewed by the Hyundai Hope On Wheels Medical Advisory Committee, which is comprised of leading pediatric oncologists from children's hospitals and research institutions nationwide. The grants are open to U.S.-based Children's Oncology Group member institutions. The Hyundai Impact Grants provide funding to children's hospitals for either childhood cancer research projects or programmatic initiatives such as clinical care.

To learn more about Hyundai Hope On Wheels, please visit HyundaiHopeOnWheels.org.

Hyundai Hope On Wheels

Hyundai Hope On Wheels is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that is committed to finding a cure for childhood cancer. Launched in 1998, Hyundai Hope On Wheels provides grants to eligible institutions nationwide that are pursuing critical research aimed at improving treatments and saving lives. Hyundai Hope On Wheels is one of the largest non-profit funders of pediatric cancer research in the country. Primary funding for Hyundai Hope On Wheels comes from Hyundai Motor America and its more than 820 U.S. dealers. Since its inception, Hyundai Hope On Wheels has awarded $185 million in support of more than 1,000 childhood cancer research grants.

Hyundai Scholar Hope Grant Winners ($300,000) Institution City State Children's Hospital of Alabama at UAB Birmingham AL Children's Hospital Los Angeles Los Angeles CA UCLA Mattel Children's Hospital Los Angeles CA Children's Hospital Colorado Aurora CO Yale University New Haven CT Children's National Medical Center and Children's National Research Institute Washington DC Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center Washington DC Augusta University Health Augusta GA Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago Chicago IL Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Boston MA University of Massachusetts Medical School Worchester MA The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins Baltimore MD University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's Hospital Ann Arbor MI University of Minnesota Amplatz Children's Hospital Minneapolis MN St. Louis Children's Hospital St. Louis MO Montefiore Medical Center / Albert Einstein College of Medicine Bronx NY The Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research Manhasset NY Joan and Sanford I. Weill Medical College of Cornell University New York NY Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center New York NY Cleveland Clinic Cleveland OH Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Philadelphia PA UW Health American Family Children's Hospital Madison WI





Hyundai Young Investigator Grant Winners ($200,000) Institution City State Children's Hospital Los Angeles Los Angeles CA Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford Palo Alto CA UCSF Medical Center San Francisco CA Yale University New Haven CT Children's National Medical Center and Children's National Research Institute Washington DC Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center Washington DC Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago Chicago IL Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Boston MA The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins Baltimore MD Helen DeVos Children's Hospital Grand Rapids MI University of Minnesota Amplatz Children's Hospital Minneapolis MN Duke University School of Medicine Raleigh/Durham NC Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center Lebanon NH Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center Buffalo NY Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center New York NY Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center Cincinnati OH The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital Columbus OH Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Philadelphia PA UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh PA UT Southwestern Medical Center Dallas TX Texas Children's Hospital Houston TX Primary Children's Hospital Salt Lake City UT





Hyundai Impact Grant Nominees ($100,000) Institution City State Arkansas Children's Hospital Little Rock AR Phoenix Children's Hospital Phoenix AZ University of Arizona Tucson AZ Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital Hollwood FL Orlando Health Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children Orlando FL St. Joseph's Children's Hospital Tampa FL The Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center of Children's Healthcare of Atlanta Atlanta GA Kapiolani Medical Center for Women & Children Honolulu HI St. Luke's Children's Hospital Boise ID UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center Chapel Hill NC UNM Children's Hospital Albuquerque NM NYU Langone Medical Center New York NY UH Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital Cleveland OH Natalie Warren Bryant Cancer Center at Saint Francis Tulsa OK OHSU Doernbecher Children's Hospital Portland OR St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Memphis TN Dell Children's Medical Center Austin TX El Paso Children's Hospital El Paso TX Vannie E. Cook Jr. Children's Cancer and Hematology Clinic McAllen TX UVA Children's Hospital Charlottesville VA

SOURCE Hyundai Hope On Wheels
CHICAGO, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- As students begin to return to the classroom, so too are a new class of electric apprentices at the IBEW-NECA Technical Institute (IN-Tech) in Alsip, Illinois. Serving Chicago and Cook county since 1988, IN-Tech's five-year program blends in-classroom with on-the-job education to train apprentices to assemble, install, maintain and test electrical equipment and wiring systems in residential, commercial, and industrial settings. This is especially important as the need for electricians and skilled labor is expected to soar with the alternative and renewable energies jobs projected to be created by the federal infrastructure bill.

Training in advanced technologies will be crucial to meet the demand for skilled labor, according to Gene Kent, Director, IBEW-NECA Technical Institute. IN-Tech, like Powering Chicago , represents the labor-management partnership between Chicago and Cook County electricians and contractor members of IBEW Local 134 and the Electrical Contractors' Association of Chicago and Cook County.

"IN-Tech is always poised to meet the ever-changing demand for skilled labor, even amidst the national labor shortage,'' said Kent. "The Chicagoland area is primed to receive nearly $15 billion in the proposed federal infrastructure bill which will create thousands of jobs in renewable energies. At our state-of-the-art 25-acre renewable energy training facility, we've seen interest peak during the pandemic with no signs of slowing."

IN-Tech starts a new class of students four times a year and currently has nearly 1,500 apprentices enrolled. The rigorous five-year curriculum includes instruction in renewable energies such as electric vehicle (EV) charging station installation, solar photovoltaic array installation, and more. To provide the best hands-on training in the region, IN-Tech's campus includes an 80-foot wind turbine, rooftop solar installations, a 100-foot cell tower, and an 18-kilowatt solar carport with four EV charging stations.

Chicago has the fourth-highest employment level of electricians nationally according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and is one of the top 10 regions for pay with an average annual mean wage of nearly $85,000. Nationally, the employment outlook is on the rise for electricians, with BLS data projecting 9 percent growth in employment opportunities from 2020 to 2030.

Over the last 120 years, thousands of apprentices have graduated into highly skilled union journeypersons at IN-Tech, trained with union electrical skills. All apprentices who complete the courses at the Technical Institute earn credit hours through Richard J. Daley College toward an A.A.S. in Electrical Construction Technology. For more information about IN-Tech, please visit https://ejatt.com/ .

About Powering Chicago

Bringing together the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 134 electricians and the Electrical Contractors' Association (ECA) of City of Chicago, Powering Chicago is an electrical industry labor-management partnership that invests in consistently better construction, better careers and better communities within the metro Chicago region. Employing the latest technology, its members are elevating industry performance through their commitment to safety, level of experience and reliability, while also investing in the future of skilled labor through an innovative apprenticeship program that is paving the way for the next generation of skilled electricians. For additional information, visit poweringchicago.com .

SOURCE Powering Chicago

Related Links

http://poweringchicago.com


The IMD and Red Cross want to make blood donation easily accessible. Tweet this

Diverse Blood Donors Change Lives for Sickle Cell Patients

Every ethnic and racial group includes people living with the sickle cell trait, but incidence is highest in the Black community. Chicago's Near West Side , where IMD is located, draws from African, Asian, Latin American and Mediterranean communities with the genetic sickle cell trait. Infants get sickle cell tests at birth, but minority communities often have limited continuous access to quality maternity care and adult diagnostics.

"Sickle cell disease is an invisible and enduring health disparity in the U.S.," said Kate Schellinger, IMD interim executive director. "The Illinois Medical District is fortunate to include not only prominent research and treatment centers for sickle cell disease, but also an American Red Cross blood donation center. People who donate blood can alleviate the suffering of sickle cell patients and contribute to their long-term health."

Blood transfusions are important in the care that UI Health, Rush and other medical centers give sickle cell patients. Individuals with sickle cell disease can require thousands of blood transfusions throughout their lifetime to treat complications of the disease. Frequent transfusions make finding compatible blood products more challenging because patients develop an immune response to transfused blood.

In these cases, minority donors are life savers. Their blood can contain distinct blood protein structures or antigens that are the most compatible for patients with sickle cell disease. Blood banks may lack diverse blood supplies. The IMD and Red Cross encourage healthy community members of all minority groups to donate blood.

"Locally, the Red Cross is working with Black community organizations to host blood drives in convenient locations like the Illinois Medical District that help bring donation opportunities closer to home," said Celena Roldan, CEO of the American Red Cross Illinois Region. "We simply could not carry out our work to ensure closely matched blood products are available for patients with sickle cell disease without the support and partnership from the Black community."

The need for blood is not limited to patients with sickle cell disease. Every two seconds, someone in the U.S. needs a blood transfusion, including women with childbirth complications, people fighting cancer and trauma patients in emergency rooms.

How to Help the IMD-Red Cross Blood Drive

Shortages during the pandemic make blood donation more critical right now. A diverse supply of blood is vital to treat conditions from cancer to complications from childbirth, surgeries, and trauma. "As COVID-19 cases increase, blood donations assure that hospitals and patients have continued access to vital blood products," Schellinger said.

Hospitals most often fall short of type O blood in emergencies . Fifty-one percent of Black individuals are type O. For this reason, Black donors play a critical role in meeting the constant need for blood.

"As an organization dedicated to alleviating suffering, the Red Cross is committed to the health and well-being of all communities," Roldan said. "Maintaining a diverse blood supply is critical to improving health outcomes for all patients."

The IMD and Red Cross want to make blood donation easily accessible. The American Red Cross blood donation site in the IMD is open daily at the Rauner Center, 2200 W. Harrison St. To find American Red Cross blood drives and schedule a blood donation, visit RedCrossBlood.org , download the Blood Donor App or call 1-800-RED-CROSS.

About the Illinois Medical District

The Illinois Medical District is a community of health, technology and life science organizations in the heart of Chicago, two miles west of the Loop on 560 acres. Every day, more than 80,000 people visit the IMD, including more than 29,000 employees. With $220 million in annual research funding, the IMD generates $3.4 billion in economic activity each year. The IMD offers partners a unique ecosystem of knowledge, collaboration and resources, plus something more: the opportunity to impact the world's next great healthcare innovation district. Together, IMD partners accelerate discovery and commercialization that is reshaping the practice of all life sciences, generating prosperity for everyone.

About the American Red Cross

The American Red Cross shelters, feeds and provides emotional support to victims of disasters; supplies about 40% of the nation's blood; teaches skills that save lives; provides international humanitarian aid; and supports military members and their families. The Red Cross is a not-for-profit organization that depends on volunteers and the generosity of the American public to perform its mission. For more information, visit redcross.org/Illinois or visit us on Twitter @RedCrossIL.

Media Contact:

Kyle Foehner

Purpose Brand

630-270-7291

[email protected]

SOURCE Illinois Medical District

Related Links

https://www.redcross.org/local/illinois.html


TACOMA, Wash., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The Tacoma community will gain improved access to post-secondary educational opportunities when UEI College opens a new campus location there in October. Originally known as United Education Institute (UEI), the UEI group of schools has evolved over the past four decades to expand its vocational and career training offerings. UEI operates 18 campus locations in California, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, and now in Washington. The new Tacoma campus will initially serve about 200 students with room for growth and a planned expansion of offerings over the next few years. Pending all regulatory and accreditor approvals, the first cohort of students will start in Tacoma on Tuesday, October 26.

UEI College to open in Tacoma

Programs launching at the new UEI College in Tacoma include Automotive Technician; Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC); Dental Assistant; Medical Assistant; and Medical Billing & Insurance Coding. UEI College offers both day and evening classes to accommodate students who are working while pursuing their education, as well as a hybrid learning model that combines online learning with hands-on training on campus. The new campus, conveniently located adjacent to Tacoma's 72nd Street Transit Center (1415 E. 72nd Street, Tacoma, WA 98404), is a 30,000 square-foot facility that includes classrooms and training labs for the dental, medical, automotive and HVAC programs, as well as computer labs, lounge areas and a student resource center.

Like all other UEI College locations, the new Tacoma campus will welcome students with modified operations that include comprehensive COVID-19 prevention protocols.

"The health, safety and well-being of our students and colleagues is the top priority," said Tacoma Campus President James Grover. "UEI is training essential workers, particularly in our health care programs, and students will see the types of precautionary protocols that they can expect when entering the workforce after they graduate."

In addition to these protocols, UEI College employees will follow the mandate from Washington state that all instructors and staff are vaccinated.

Investing in Tacoma, Responding to Growing Demand for Skilled Workers



"In our own way, we are contributing to the economic expansion and growing opportunities in Tacoma by supporting the personal growth of students, and by supporting businesses that have critical needs for well-trained workers," Grover said. "UEI is creating some 50 new professional jobs with our new location in Tacoma that include campus administration staff, support staff and instructor positions. We are still actively recruiting for a number of positions."

"Extending our reach into the Pacific Northwest with this first, new location in Washington is a result of the growing need that local employers have for well-trained professionals in health care and the skilled trades," said Dr. Fardad Fateri, UEI College President and Chief Executive Officer. "We look forward to fulfilling our mission as a contributing member of the Tacoma community, helping students achieve their education and career goals, and providing employers with the essential workers they need to meet today's challenges."

"UEI is a viable option for students who are not able to put their lives on hold for four years and attend a university," said Grover. "In as few as 10 months, you can learn the skills you need to start a career. We offer hands-on training from instructors who have a wealth of experience in the industries they teach. Some programs include an externship with local employers, and UEI offers career services and job placement resources. If you are an employer looking to hire skilled workers, we invite you to talk with us about your needs."

Research shows that the initial programs being offered at UEI College in Tacoma are in fields where there is growing demand. For example, with the tight labor market, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects that by 2026, employment of Medical Assistants will be up 29% from 2016 levels.

The BLS also predicts an increase for HVAC technicians as well. "The continuing growth of construction, both commercial and residential, is a factor in the projected growth for HVAC. New building construction, the retrofitting or replacement of aging systems with more energy efficient ones, and evolving environmental laws are also forces fueling the demand for qualified HVAC technicians in Washington," Grover said.

Automotive Technicians are in high demand across the state of Washington, reports the Washington State Automotive Dealers Association (WSDA), which calls the shortage of technicians a growing crisis. "Today's service departments are facing a crisis in the growing shortage of skilled technicians to service America's cars and trucks. It's a crisis that will deeply impact our industry unless we get ahead of it today," the WSDA report said.

About UEI College

Founded in 1982, UEI College is an employee-owned, accredited institution that provides students with post-secondary career education programs in high-demand sectors such as healthcare, skilled trades, business and criminal justice. Each of the hands-on training programs offered at UEI are designed to provide students with the skills, knowledge and training they need to be successful in their futures. Students can train for entry-level careers and start building their future in as few as 10 months at campus locations throughout Arizona, California, Nevada, Georgia and Washington. For more information, visit www.uei.edu.

UEI College is part of the International Education Corporation (IEC) family of schools. To see a list of current employment opportunities at our schools, visit the IEC career site at bepartofagreatteam.com.

Media Contact

Joseph Cockrell

949-812-7749

[email protected]

SOURCE UEI College
"This project marks a major milestone for Rosewood Hotels & Resorts, a brand that has redefined the concept of 'residential hospitality' since it first launched over 40 years ago with the transformation of a mansion in Dallas into an ultra-luxury hotel and restaurant," said Brad Berry, vice president of Global Residential Development at Rosewood Hotel Group. "We have been carefully considering how best to build upon the growth of our residential segment with our first stand-alone Rosewood Residences and are thrilled to have this opportunity to do so in partnership with The Ronto Group and Wheelock Street Capital. Especially now, as lifestyle preferences continue to shift and thereby create an increased demand for the experience that Rosewood Residences provides, we're proud to bring this offering to the market and to be a part of both Florida's and the luxury real estate industry's continued growth and evolution."

The Benefits and Rise of Branded Residences

Rosewood Residences is a highly distinctive collection of residential villas, estate homes and fine apartments available for purchase or rent in the world's most dynamic cities, exotic locations and emerging destinations. Designed for both short- and long-term stays, the for-sale residences span from one-of-a-kind stand-alone villas to for-rent serviced apartments. Combining exclusive and state-of-the-art amenities and facilities with elevated and intuitive service, as well as the utmost in discretion, privacy, and comfort, to deliver a seamless and immersive experience, Rosewood Residences caters to the cultivated tastes of affluent explorers. The segment has proven extremely successful for Rosewood Hotels & Resorts, which currently has a property pipeline wherein approximately 50% of all projects include a residential component. The Lido Key development represents the next phase of Rosewood Residences' global expansion and evolution. Each ultra-luxury residence expresses the values of Rosewood Hotels & Resorts through the intricate details of craftmanship, architecture, urban planning and interior and industrial design to create purposeful and enriching environments.

A New Benchmark of Luxury in Lido Key

Rosewood Residences Lido Key will occupy 3.5 prime acres of beachfront real estate designed by Miami-based Swedroe Architecture, with interiors spearheaded by New York-based Lillian Wu Studio. Combining exquisite Gulf of Mexico views with unmatched amenities and services, each of the property's 65 residences will be designed in accordance with Rosewood's guiding A Sense of Place philosophy, wherein the sensibilities of the locale inspire the distinctive style and programming provided at each respective Rosewood destination.

The residences will average approximately 4,200 square feet in size and showcase state-of-the-art finishes and features. The onsite amenities will include a private restaurant and chef services for in-residence dining and catering, world-class fitness center with options for private training and yoga sessions, outdoor pools, massage rooms, private guest suites with housekeeping service, lounge featuring library and game room, and a 24-hour concierge all managed by Rosewood. Pricing has not yet been announced.

"This is sure to be a legacy project for The Ronto Group," said Anthony Solomon, owner of The Ronto Group. "We are honored to bring the first stand-alone Rosewood Residences to the United States and to welcome the unparalleled Rosewood service and design to Florida." Added Hunter Jones of Wheelock Street Capital, "Rosewood Residences Lido Key will be an iconic addition to the city of Sarasota, and we look forward to watching its progress."

A Discerning Destination for Extended Stays

In recent years, Florida has seen an influx in demand for seasonal and permanent residences as secondary cities have been shown to provide smart solutions to the shifting lifestyle priorities and habits of today's consumers. Located off the coast of Sarasota, Lido Key is no exception. Perfect for nature lovers, beach goers, fishing enthusiasts and boaters, the destination affords a quiet and relaxing way of living free of the heavy crowds that other coastal areas can draw. The isle's picturesque stretch of town is filled with chic boutiques, fine dining establishments and casual eateries, while nearby Sarasota  recently ranked by US News & World Report as one of the Top Ten Places to Live in the U.S.  is known for its vibrant arts scene, beachy atmosphere and burgeoning food culture. Once considered a playground for retirees, the city has transformed into one of Florida's most dynamic destinations fueled by the area's arts, including the Ringling Museum, and the Van Weizel performing arts hall, as well as the arrival of families and young professionals. Perfect for year-round living or a seasonal escape, Rosewood Residences Lido Key adds an element of laid-back luxury to the accommodation offerings available in the area.

Rosewood Residences Lido Key are for purchase only, no rentals will be available. For more information, please visit www.residenceslidokey.com.

About Rosewood Residences

Rosewood Residences offers a distinct opportunity for villa, estate home and fine apartment ownership or rental in the most sought-after destinations operated by Rosewood Hotels & Resorts, an ultra-luxury hotel management company that operates an exceptional and expanding collection of unique properties worldwide. Rosewood Residences caters to the cultivated tastes of global citizens who crave a lifestyle of authenticity fused with modern luxury. Combining exclusive and state-of-the-art amenities and facilities with elevated and intuitive service, as well as the utmost in discretion, privacy and privilege, the extraordinary accommodations deliver a seamless residential experience for owners and guests.

For more information: https://www.rosewoodhotels.com/en/residences

About Rosewood Hotels & Resorts



Rosewood Hotels & Resorts manages 26 one-of-a-kind luxury hotels, resorts and residences in 15 countries, with 26 new properties under development. Each Rosewood property embraces the brand's A Sense of Place philosophy to reflect the individual location's history, culture and sensibilities. The Rosewood collection includes some of the world's most legendary hotels and resorts, including The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel in New York, Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas and Hotel de Crillon, A Rosewood Hotel in Paris, as well as new classics such as Rosewood Hong Kong. For those who wish to stay a little longer, Rosewood Residences offer a distinct opportunity for ownership or rent in extraordinary destinations within the brand's wide-ranging portfolio.

For more information: rosewoodhotels.com

Connect with us: Facebook Twitter Instagram WeChat @RosewoodHotels

About The Ronto Group

Since 1967, The Ronto Group has been perfecting their skills in real estate development through the creation of residential and commercial projects worldwide. For over thirty years, Ronto has been developing in the Southwest Florida market, creating communities that celebrate the area's irresistible appeal, from Marco Island and Naples to Sarasota and Tampa. The Company has built a solid reputation for imaginative vision, steadfast integrity and reliable performance. Headquartered in Naples, Ronto's expertise in condominium and land development has been recognized internationally for communities that are lasting examples of the luxury lifestyle, thoughtful planning and dedicated craftsmanship. The Company has also received numerous awards from the southwest Florida homebuilding industry for superior design and craftsmanship. The Ronto Group's expertise and attention to detail is evident in each of their projects. Visit www.Ronto.com

About Wheelock Street Capital

Wheelock Street Capital (https://wheelockst.com/) was formed in 2008 by Rick Kleeman and Jonathan Paul, two veteran real estate private equity investors, each with 30 years of broad real estate transaction experience across all major asset classes. Wheelock has raised over $4 billion in capital commitments from well-known institutional investors and focuses on real estate investment opportunities throughout the United States, in both public and private markets. Wheelock is currently deploying its sixth fund in its value-added series, Wheelock Street Real Estate Fund VI and its first perpetual life fund, Wheelock Street Long Term Value Fund. The Long Term Value Fund targets high-quality, cash-flowing assets with stable, yet attractive risk-adjusted returns over a 5-15 year investment horizon. The firm may invest directly or with high quality joint venture partners through a variety of capital structures and transaction types, including acquisitions, restructurings, and recapitalizations. Wheelock's investment team benefits from extensive experience from top-tier institutional investment firms and highly regarded real estate operating companies and has produced a 10-year track record of demonstrated and consistent outperformance over industry benchmarks.

Media Contacts :





North America United Kingdom Kendall Trainer Amelia Strange Nike Communications Bacchus PR Telephone: +1 646 654 3438 Telephone: +44 20 8968 0202 Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected]



Mainland China Hong Kong SAR Alex Tang Rachel Yip Act of Assembly Six Degrees PR Telephone: + 86 21 6219 5832 Telephone: +852 9678 1981 Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected]



Thailand and Southeast Asia Japan Nopnarit Lieopanich (Zaadeu) Mayumi Abe Snaith Z Communications Colours PR Telephone: +66 81 444 8444 Telephone: +81 80 3256 0766 Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Rosewood Hotels & Resorts

Related Links

https://www.rosewoodhotels.com


BOULDER, Colo., BERLIN, DELHI, India and LAGOS, Nigeria, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- US-headquartered Odyssey Energy Solutions, Inc is today announcing its acquisition of the German remote monitoring and control technology company, Ferntech GmbH.

This cements Odyssey's position as the distributed infrastructure sector's leading end-to-end investment and asset management platform. It is now supporting investors, developers, operators, and governments across the complete project lifecycle by adding new capabilities for project operations.

Emily McAteer, CEO and Co-Founder, Odyssey, says, "We're delighted about the acquisition of Ferntech and the opportunity it presents to expand the toolkit we offer our clients and users. We've successfully worked with the Ferntech team and their technology for several years. The acquisition significantly advances our mission to enable streamlined development, financing, and operations of distributed infrastructure projects at scale."

Odyssey has become the go to platform for investors and governments making investments in the distributed renewable energy market and is currently facilitating flow of funds totalling over US$900 million.

McAteer says, "Odyssey has proven the value of its platform to catalyse investment into the distributed energy sector. We are excited to now offer an integrated and industry-leading product for efficient operations and maintenance."

Ferntech's remote monitoring and control solution includes hardware and software technologies to collect, analyse, and act on granular system data. Operators need fewer trips to site and can reduce operational and maintenance costs by 30%. Standardised control algorithms also make systems smarter, improving productivity and reducing downtime by up to 10%.

Ferntech, founded in Berlin in 2016, has deployed its solutions in over 15 countries across five continents. It is recognised as an innovator in monitoring hardware and analytics, due to its ability to work across nearly any technology.

Patrick Cousins, VP Customer Success, Odyssey and former CEO, Ferntech, says, "Joining the Odyssey family is a fantastic development for us. We know we work well together and have a shared ambition to transform how we can use data to scale low carbon infrastructure at a lower cost."

Global net zero emissions targets are driving a rush into low carbon infrastructure. OECD calculates that USD 6.3 trillion of annual investment in infrastructure is needed until 2030 in energy, transport, water, and telecommunications infrastructure, to sustain growth. Decentralised assets are increasingly seen as solutions to the cost and resilience issues that affect large, centralised projects.

McAteer concludes, "We are seeing a rapid increase in investment in distributed infrastructure projects, and the sector has enormous potential. We have built the team and technologies required to make Odyssey's end-to-end investment and asset management platform exactly what the sector needs to achieve this potential."

www.odysseyenergysolutions.com

Commercial enquiries: Piyush Mathur, Chief Business Officer, [email protected]

Media enquiries: Donald Ouma, Levanter Africa, +254 783 481 975, [email protected]

About Odyssey

Odyssey provides software, hardware and data tools to finance, build and operate distributed infrastructure projects at scale. It is the distributed energy sector's only end-to-end investment and asset management platform, used by over 1,000 governments, financiers, developers and operators. It is headquartered in Boulder, Colorado and has offices in Delhi, Lagos and Berlin.

SOURCE Odyssey

Related Links

http://www.odysseyenergysolutions.com


IRVINE, Calif., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Keller/Anderle LLP is pleased to announce that two of our partners, Jennifer Keller and Reuben Camper Cahn, have been selected to the

Los Angeles and San Francisco Daily Journals' list of "The Top 100 Lawyers in California."

"The selection of more than one partner at a firm is remarkable for even the largest law firms and particularly so for a boutique firm," says managing partner Kay Anderle. "This honor attests to the outstanding capabilities of not just Jennifer and Reuben but other KA attorneys who work behind-the-scenes to achieve success for our clients."

Jennifer Keller has now been selected fourteen times for the Top 100 list. Ms. Keller is a Fellow of the invitation-only American College of Trial Lawyers and a 2018 inductee into the California Lawyers Association Trial Lawyer Hall of Fame. She is also a fellow of the Litigation Counsel of America. Chambers USA and Chambers Global rank Ms. Keller among the top commercial litigators in the nation. The Legal 500, among the most prestigious international legal directories, recommends Ms. Keller as one of just 63 "leading trial lawyers" in the entire United States. Benchmark Litigation lists her as one of the "Top 100 Trial Attorneys in America." In 2020 and 2021, Super Lawyers ranked Ms. Keller #1 in Southern California.

Reuben Camper Cahn was also selected by the Daily Journals for the 2020 "Top White Collar Lawyers in California." He has defended a wide range of matters, involving tax, public corruption, fraud, money laundering, RICO, Continuing Criminal Enterprise charges and virtually every other type of white collar case. He has tried over 100 cases to jury verdict and has argued twice before the Supreme Court (in 2011 and 2018) in addition to numerous arguments before both the 9th and 11th Circuits. Mr. Cahn is a Fellow of the invitation-only American College of Trial Lawyers. He is also a Fellow of the Litigation Counsel of America (by invitation only, limited to top  of 1 percent of lawyers nationally). Mr. Cahn is a graduate of Stanford University's English Honors Program and of Yale Law School.

Contact: Kay Anderle

Managing Partner

Address: 18300 Von Karman Ave., Suite 930

Irvine, California 92612-1057

Ph. 949.476.8700

Fax 949.476.0900

[email protected]

www.kelleranderle.com

SOURCE Keller/Anderle LLP
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. , Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) will host a conference call for investors at 8:30 a.m. (Eastern Time) on Tuesday, October 19th to review third-quarter results. Joseph J. Wolk, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer will host the call. The question and answer portion of the call will also include: Ashley McEvoy, Executive Vice President, Worldwide Chairman, Medical Devices; Jennifer Taubert, Executive Vice President, Worldwide Chairman Pharmaceuticals and Thibaut Mongon, Executive Vice President Worldwide Chairman, Consumer Health.

Investors and other interested parties can access the webcast/conference call in the following ways:

The webcast and presentation material are accessible at Johnson & Johnson's website www.investor.jnj.com . A replay of the webcast will be available approximately three hours after the conference call concludes.

. A replay of the webcast will be available approximately three hours after the conference call concludes. By telephone: for both "listen-only" participants and those financial analysts who wish to take part in the question-and-answer portion of the call, the telephone dial-in number in the U.S. is 877-869-3847. For participants outside the U.S., the dial-in number is 201-689-8261.

A replay of the conference call will be available until approximately 12:00 a.m. on November 2 nd . The replay dial-in number for U.S. participants is 877-660-6853. For participants outside the U.S., the replay dial-in number is 201-612-7415. The replay conference ID number for all callers is 13722724.

on . The replay dial-in number for U.S. participants is 877-660-6853. For participants outside the U.S., the replay dial-in number is 201-612-7415. The replay conference ID number for all callers is 13722724. The press release will be available at approximately 6:45 a.m. (Eastern Time) the morning of the conference call.

the morning of the conference call. Please refer to www.investor.jnj.com for a complete list of currently planned earnings webcast/conference calls. Please note the four-quarter date of Tuesday, January 25 th, 2022.

About Johnson & Johnson

At Johnson & Johnson, we believe good health is the foundation of vibrant lives, thriving communities and forward progress. That's why for more than 130 years, we have aimed to keep people well at every age and every stage of life. Today, as the world's largest and most broadly-based health care company, we are committed to using our reach and size for good. We strive to improve access and affordability, create healthier communities, and put a healthy mind, body and environment within reach of everyone, everywhere. We are blending our heart, science and ingenuity to profoundly change the trajectory of health for humanity.

SOURCE Johnson & Johnson

Related Links

www.jnj.com


"The U.S. is facing an ongoing maternal and infant health crisis and in 2021 we are still among the most dangerous developed nations for a woman to give birth," said Dr. Zsakeba Henderson, Senior Vice President and Deputy Chief Medical and Health Officer at March of Dimes. "We are excited to welcome Judith to the team. Her passion for building and implementing mission focused programs around the world will help us increase global understanding of preterm birth and other causes of poor maternal and infant outcomes, including disparities in those outcomes."

Prior to joining March of Dimes, Robb-McCord served as Vice President of Technical Leadership and Support at Project Concern International and Global Communities. Robb-McCord has nearly 30 years of experience as a global development expert across the U.S. government and non-governmental organizations including Jhpiego, PATH and USAID. As an expert in advancing collaborative investments in maternal and infant health, Robb-McCord will contribute to policy development and implementation in the area of global maternal and infant health to advance leadership of March of Dimes in the global health community.

"March of Dimes is the leading organization working to end the maternal and infant health crisis here in the U.S. and I am excited to join the team," said Robb-McCord. "I look forward to working with international public health agencies and the global health community to expand measurable progress for growth and greater impact so that all moms receive the care they need and all babies get the best start at life."

Robb-McCord holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Brigham Young University, a Master's degree in African Area Studies and a Masters of Public Health from University of California, Los Angeles. She is highly respected in her field and has been invited to speak by the World Health Organization and Devex Forum and is a contributing author on several peer-reviewed journal articles. As a member of many world-renowned networks and coalitions including the Global Respectful Maternity Care Council and TogetHER for Health, Robb-McCord's experience as a leader of high performing and diverse teams will continue to advance global health metrics, promote innovative and evidence-based programming to catalyze action for priority public health impact.

ABOUT MARCH OF DIMES

March of Dimes leads the fight for the health of all moms and babies. We support research, lead programs and provide education and advocacy so that every mom and baby can have the best possible start. Building on a successful 80-year legacy of impact and innovation, we're there for every familythose who had first-hand hardships, those celebrating their health and those just trying to start their families. For more information go to marchofdimes.org or nacersano.org, and visit shareyourstory.org for comfort and support. Find us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram and Twitter.

SOURCE March of Dimes Inc.

Related Links

http://www.marchofdimes.org


BATTLE CREEK, Mich., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Kellogg Company and Albertsons Companies, one of the largest food and drug retailers in the United States, have teamed up again this year to tackle the ongoing issue of childhood hunger in the communities they serve.

Kellogg has donated $120,000 to the effort  $75,000 of which will support Nourishing Neighbors, a charitable program of the Albertsons Companies Foundation. The remaining $45,000 has been donated Kellogg's long-time partner, No Kid Hungry.

This is the second year in a row that Kellogg and Albertsons Companies have joined forces to fight hunger.

"At Albertsons Companies, we believe every child deserves a healthy breakfast every day," said Christy Duncan Anderson, President and Executive Director, Albertsons Companies Foundation. "We're proud to be one of the largest contributors to food banks and hunger-relief programs in the neighborhoods we serve, and we're able to do this because of our generous customers like Kellogg Company."

"With 14 million children in America not knowing where their next meal will come from, the need has never been greater than it is today," said Michael Ross, Customer Team Lead, Kellogg Company. "We share Albertsons commitment to ensure children are fed and fulfilled, and we're proud to stand side-by-side with Albertsons to support our communities."

During the month of September, Albertsons Cos. shoppers can donate during checkout to support Nourishing Neighbors. Consumers can also visit NoKidHungry.org to learn more and support the organization's critical mission.

About Kellogg Company

At Kellogg Company (NYSE: K), our vision is a good and just world where people are not just fed but fulfilled. We are creating better days and a place at the table for everyone through our trusted food brands. Our beloved brands include Pringles, Cheez-It, Special K, Kellogg's Frosted Flakes, Pop-Tarts, Kellogg's Corn Flakes, Rice Krispies, Eggo, Mini-Wheats, Kashi, RXBAR, MorningStar Farms and more. Net sales in 2020 were approximately $13.8 billion, comprised principally of snacks and convenience foods like cereal, frozen foods, and noodles. As part of our Kellogg's Better Days purpose platform, we're helping to end hunger and are committed to creating Better Days for 3 billion people by the end of 2030. Visit www.KelloggCompany.com or www.OpenforBreakfast.com.

SOURCE Kellogg Company

Related Links

http://www.kelloggcompany.com


BOSTON, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Klaviyo , a leading customer data and marketing automation platform, announced that Jennifer Kessler has joined the company as vice president of product. In this new role, Kessler will be responsible for scaling Klaviyo's product team and expanding the company's growing product suite.

"We're excited to welcome Jen to Klaviyo as we continue to create products that help brands build better and more authentic relationships with their customers," said Ed Hallen, co-founder and interim chief product officer of Klaviyo. "We strive to provide brands with a platform to keep them ahead of a rapidly changing industry, and her experience with cross-channel data and machine learning products will be integral in this effort."

Kessler brings over a decade of experience in product-centric roles to Klaviyo. Most recently, she served as senior director of product management for Twilio, where she led multiple API-based product lines and helped lead the diligence and integration for Segment. She also founded Bizzy.io, which was acquired by SendGrid in 2017. After the acquisition, she led product management for SendGrid's Marketing Campaigns product through SendGrid's IPO.

"I'm honored to join the Klaviyo team as we help businesses of every size drive value by delivering amazing experiences to their customers," said Kessler. "I'm especially excited by the powerful data engine and intuitive UI that Klaviyo has built to date, and look forward to working with the team and our customers to find new ways to unlock its potential in driving growth."

Following a year of massive growth, the addition of Kessler represents Klaviyo's continued efforts to build its team and double down on product development. In March 2021, Klaviyo announced Personalized Benchmarks and Conversational SMS, two new products to help businesses better understand and connect with their customers on deeper levels. In July, the company also launched a suite of powerful new tools to help brands create better customer experiences. Kessler and her team will continue to develop new products that will build on Klaviyo's solid foundation.

About Klaviyo

Klaviyo is a leading customer data and marketing automation platform dedicated to accelerating revenue and customer connection for online businesses. Klaviyo makes it easy to store, access, analyze and use transactional and behavioral data to power highly-targeted customer and prospect communications. The company's hybrid customer-data and marketing-platform model allows companies to grow by fostering direct relationships with customers, without giving up their valuable data to popular big-tech ad platforms. Over 265,000 innovative companies like Unilever, Custom Ink, Living Proof and Huckberry sell more with Klaviyo. Learn more at www.klaviyo.com.

SOURCE Klaviyo

Related Links

http://www.klaviyo.com


The regional office manages projects and oversees subcontractors in multiple fast growing markets such as Salt Lake, Boise, LA and the Bay Area, to name a few. Recent Utah projects include a new prototype branch for Elevate Credit Union (formerly Box Elder CU). Also of note are several projects for Wasatch Peaks Credit Union, with a recently produced video for their Plain City branch found here.

"In addition to several branches," LEVEL5 President Luke Kassler explained, "We're also building Wasatch Peaks a brand new Headquarters building and adjacent Call Center. We're grateful to Wasatch Peaks for entrusting us with so many projects and thrilled to give back to the local Ogden and Plain City communities.

LEVEL5 also has projects underway with several other financial institutions. So many in fact, their regional office is currently interviewing for project managers, coordinators and estimators just to keep up with all the demand.

Be on the lookout for project completion announcements, photos and case study videos, which can be found on the Portfolio Page of the LEVEL5 website.

About LEVEL5

LEVEL5 builds best-in-class bank and credit union branches, operations centers and corporate headquarters, with unparalleled expertise in market analysis, site selection, design-build services and overall construction know-how.

Founded in 2001, LEVEL5 builds more than buildings. They build relationships, trust and success - on-budget, on-time and on a level all their own.

SOURCE LEVEL5

Related Links

https://level5.com


"Scott has had an impressive career spanning 30+ years of freight transportation experience," said Chad Smith, CEO, Liberty Advisor Group. "We are excited to channel Scott's talent and expertise to further grow our business and pursue our mission to serve our clients."

"I am honored to join the Liberty team which is highly regarded for their entrepreneurial spirit and results-driven attitude," said Ware. "I am greatly impressed by Liberty's achievements to date and believe we can work together to create significant value for our clients."

Scott served as the Chief Network Officer (CNO) for YELLOW Corporation responsible for the alignment and coordination of all line-haul network operations across four operating subsidiaries, while designing and implementing strategic initiatives geared towards the convergence of networks into one single operation. Prior to serving as the Chief Network Officer, Scott was President of Holland Inc, a regional transportation subsidiary of Yellow Corporation which was recognized as the 10th largest less-than-truckload (LTL) service provider in the industry. His experience has been well documented in areas of operational network transformation dealing with both M&A and organic expansion. He has led multiple large-scale initiatives that integrated new processes and performance indicators while improving efficiencies and positive margin impact to the bottom line. Scott is currently a senior executive with Road Runner Transportation Systems, based in Downers Grove, IL.

ABOUT LIBERTY ADVISOR GROUP

Liberty Advisor Group is a goal-oriented, client-focused and results-driven consulting firm. We are a lean, hand-picked team of strategists, technologists and entrepreneurs  battle-tested experts with a steadfast, start-up attitude. A team with an average experience of 15+ years, that has delivered over $1 billion in operating income improvement and over 300 M&A deals for our clients. Liberty has a proven track record in Business and Technology Strategy, Transformation and Assurance, Data Analytics, Business Threat Intelligence, and Mergers and Acquisitions. We collaborate, integrate and ideate in real-time with our clients to deliver situation-specific solutions that work. Liberty has been awarded Best Place to Work by Crain's Chicago Business, Consulting Magazine, Great Place to Work, and Fortune; Fastest Growing Consulting Firm by Consulting Magazine; and Top BI and Analytics Company by CIO Applications.

libertyadvisorgroup.com

SOURCE Liberty Advisor Group

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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- On September 10, 2021, Locality Bank IO, a digital-first community bank, received a Final Order of Approval from the Office of Financial Regulation in Florida to open a state-chartered bank in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Aimed at empowering local businesses in South Florida, Locality Bank IO still has a pending application with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

"Once regulatory approval is received from FDIC, we look forward to serving the South Florida business community as a resource with capital to lend," said Keith Costello, Locality Bank's CEO. "Our digital solutions will provide local businesses with the best of what a traditional community bank can offer plus cutting-edge technology."

A capital raise was previously announced, and organizers have commitments from local business leaders totaling $19 million. Their goal is to raise a minimum of $23 million to develop a long-term capital structure that will allow the bank to stay independent and continue to serve local businesses for years to come. The bank's offering memorandum is expected to be approved for release to investors soon. Local business owners and leaders are encouraged to invest and can learn more about the opportunity to do so at https://invest.localitybank.com/investlocality.

Serving Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach Counties, the bank's digital services will all be available through a mobile app. Services will include commercial banking, commercial real estate lending (for owner occupied and investment), SBA lending, and deposit and business treasury services.

Locality Bank IO will operate on a secure cloud-native core banking system with an open API architecture. This modernized system will allow fast iteration and new technological additions to provide a robust and engaging customer experience.

To stay up to date on the launch of Locality Bank IO in Fort Lauderdale, Florida visit https://www.localitybank.com.

About Locality Bank IO

Locality Bank IO is a digital-first community bank in organization that will be based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The bank will serve local businesses by offering the traditional services of a community bank as well as user-friendly, cutting-edge technology. To learn more, contact Locality Bank IO at https://www.localitybank.com or via email at [email protected].



CONTACT: Aimee Adler 561-302-6902 or [email protected]



SOURCE Locality Bank IO

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One of two distinct versions of the Lucid Air Dream Edition, the Dream Edition Range embodies Lucid's exacting focus on maximizing efficiency, achieving 520 miles of range while still delivering 933 horsepower. It sits alongside the 1,111 horsepower Lucid Air Dream Edition Performance and the 800 horsepower Grand Touring versions, which have also now received their official EPA range ratings.

"I'm delighted that our Lucid Air Dream Edition Range has been officially accredited with a range of 520 miles by the EPA, a number I believe to be a new record for any EV. Crucially, this landmark has been achieved by Lucid's world-leading in-house EV technology, not by simply installing an oversize battery pack," said Peter Rawlinson, CEO and CTO, Lucid Group. "Our race-proven 900V battery and BMS technology, our miniaturized drive units, coupled with our Wunderbox technology endow Lucid Air with ultra-high efficiency, enabling it to travel more miles from less battery energy. The next generation EV has truly arrived!"

Supporting the official EPA range ratings, Lucid recently completed a real-world first drive with Motor Trend featuring a pair of Dream Edition Range cars. A Motor Trend journalist and Lucid's CEO drove separate cars from Los Angeles to San Francisco at highway speeds and then across the San Francisco Bay to Lucid's global headquarters, all without stopping to charge and with plenty of range remaining on each vehicle. This range run further supports the EPA's laboratory-based range estimates and showcases the real-world capability to drive over 500 miles on a single charge.

Several other versions of Lucid Air have also received their official EPA range ratings, including the Dream Edition Performance and Grand Touring versions on both 19" and 21" wheels. Taken as a whole, these Lucid Air models now occupy the top six positions for overall EPA range ratings among all EVs, as well as the highest MPGe ratings in the Large vehicle class. The official EPA ratings are available at www.fueleconomy.gov.



EPA Range Power Lucid Air Dream Edition Range



Lucid Air Dream Edition Range (19" wheels) 520 miles 933 hp Lucid Air Dream Edition Range (21" wheels) 481 miles





Lucid Air Dream Edition Performance



Lucid Air Dream Edition Performance (19" wheels) 471 miles 1,111 hp Lucid Air Dream Edition Performance (21" wheels) 451 miles





Lucid Air Grand Touring



Lucid Air Grand Touring (19" wheels) 516 miles 800 hp Lucid Air Grand Touring (21" wheels) 469 miles

About Lucid Group

Lucid's mission is to inspire the adoption of sustainable energy by creating the most captivating electric vehicles, centered around the human experience. The company's first car, Lucid Air, is a state-of-the-art luxury sedan with a California-inspired design underpinned by race-proven technology. Lucid Air features a luxurious full-size interior space in a mid-size exterior footprint. Customer deliveries of Lucid Air, which is produced at Lucid's new factory in Casa Grande, Arizona, are planned to begin this year.

Media Contact

[email protected]

Trademarks

This communication contains trademarks, service marks, trade names and copyrights of Lucid Group, Inc. and its subsidiaries (the "Company") and other companies, which are the property of their respective owners.

Forward-Looking Statements

This communication includes "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements may be identified by the use of words such as "estimate," "plan," "project," "forecast," "intend," "will," "expect," "anticipate," "believe," "seek," "target," "continue," "could," "may," "might," "possible," "potential," "predict" or other similar expressions that predict or indicate future events or trends or that are not statements of historical facts. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the Company's expectations and timing related to the start of production and deliveries of the Lucid Air and the performance, range, and other features of the Lucid Air. These statements are based on various assumptions, and actual events and circumstances may differ. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including factors discussed in the Company's Registration Statement on Form S-1,, the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K/A for the year ended December 31, 2020 and the Company's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2021, in each case, under the heading "Risk Factors," as well as other documents of the Company that are filed, or will be filed, with the Securities and Exchange Commission. If any of these risks materialize or the Company's assumptions prove incorrect, actual results could differ materially from the results implied by these forward-looking statements. There may be additional risks that the Company does not presently know or that the Company currently believes are immaterial that could also cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements. In addition, forward-looking statements reflect the Company's expectations, plans or forecasts of future events and views as of the date of this communication. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company's assessments as of any date subsequent to the date of this communication.

 EPA estimated ranges are meant to be a general guideline for consumers when comparing vehicles.

SOURCE Lucid Motors

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"Barbara is an innovator in computational biology," says Katie Pollard, PhD, director of the Gladstone Institute of Data Science and Biotechnology. "She brings vast expertise in statistical models and will help expand our machine-learning program. And she's a renowned graduate student mentor. We're thrilled she's joining our team."

Engelhardt is also a full professor at Princeton University, on leave this academic year. She completed her graduate studies in computer science at UC Berkeley, and was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Chicago before starting her first lab at Duke University.

"Since I first learned about Gladstone during my postdoc, it's always seemed like an oasis of amazing science," says Engelhardt. "I can't wait to start collaborating with all the scientists here."

Finding Value in Throwaway Data

Engelhardt's lab is not how you might picture a traditional science labone with cells, glass beakers, and microscopes. Instead, she runs what's called a dry lab, where her team uses powerful computers to analyze data through mathematical and computational approaches.

One of the group's focus areas is to understand how cells work together in the body. The researchers look at how cells pass information to one another, how they work as part of neighborhoods, and how those neighborhoods are structured. Ultimately, they are trying to understand exactly how changes within cells or their environment can lead to disease.

To do so, they work closely with biologists, geneticists, and bioengineers to obtain data from their scientific experiments, such as microscopy images and videos of cells interacting over time. Using these files, Engelhardt can examine, for instance, whether treating cells with drugs affects how cells communicate, or how to target cancer tumors as directly as possible with a therapy.

"Sometimes, we ask for throwaway data, or data that the scientists don't need for their studies, but from which we can still glean lots of valuable insights," explains Engelhardt. "Other times, we collaborate more closely with a team to help them build better techniques to improve their own experiments."

In those cases, the process is iterative. Engelhardt's team will propose new approaches, the collaborators will try them and report back, and they'll continue to work together to find the method that can generate the best results.

Understanding How Your Cells Record Trauma

Engelhardt also studies how traumatic events that occur in your life are stored in your cells, how they may affect your genome, and how this can eventually lead to disease.

"You essentially store traumatic events in your cells, like a battery," she says. "And then later in life, these traumas may lead to depression, type 2 diabetes, obesity, heart disease, or mental health problems."

Her team has been working with the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, for which nearly 5,000 unmarried mothers were recruited between 1998 and 2000a sample that includes a large number of Black, Hispanic, and low-income families. Data has been collected over the past 22 years about these children, their mothers, and, when possible, their fathers.

"Unfortunately, though perhaps not surprisingly, these kids have been through a lot," says Engelhardt. "A large number of them have incarcerated fathers, they've witnessed or been involved in crime, they've experienced bullying at school, they've gone to bed hungry, and they've been evicted from their homes."

The instability in their lives has been recorded in their cells and shows up in chemical changes to their DNA, which was collected as part of the study. Engelhardt is using all the data available about these families to understand how traumatic events get stored in their cells, in order to find a way to erase the records and prevent disease outcomes.

"It's challenging to work with data from a group of individuals from such diverse backgrounds, but it's absolutely critical, and it's pretty exciting that we get to do it," she says.

Predicting the Best Course of Action for Patients

A third strand of research for Engelhardt's lab is to build reinforcement learning methods. This is the approach often used to guide a robot wandering through a maze, or to inform "decisions" made by self-driving cars. But Engelhardt is applying this framework to electronic health care record data.

Reinforcement learning involves three categories of information. The first is a set of states. In the context of a hospital patient, the state may include the patient's age, gender, heart rate, temperature, and diagnosed disease. The second category is a set of actions, which, in this case, would be the types of interventions that health care professionals might perform, such as putting a patient on a ventilator or giving them a particular drug. Finally, there's a reward function, or the objectives of the patient's care. This could be ensuring that vital signs are stable, reducing a patient's temperature, taking them off the ventilator, or getting them discharged as soon as possible.

"Given those three thingsthe state, action, and rewardour goal is essentially to design a protocol that will lead to the best rewards," Engelhardt says. "So by building a model that can analyze all that data, we want to predict a set of actions for a patient's given state that will lead to the best outcome for their health."

Applying reinforcement learning to patient data is much more complicated than using it for robotics or self-driving cars.

"With self-driving cars, we understand the state dynamics," she explains. "Basically, we know exactly what will happen if we turn the wheel in a certain direction. But with patients, if we give them a certain drug, we don't know precisely how their state will change as a result. So, my team is finding ways we can still predict the best intervention, despite this uncertainty."

Engelhardt's group is currently collaborating with two large hospitals that have provided anonymized electronic health care record data from nearly 400,000 patients. These data include 7,000 patients who have tested positive for COVID-19 in the past year.

"Half of these patients are Black, so we're specifically building models to understand the differences in how doctors treat Black and White patients and how this may lead to different outcomes," says Engelhardt.

To do so, her team is looking at the resources spent on patients, for instance, and if this correlates to whether they die or are discharged from the hospital.

"I think we can learn overall lessons from this data too, particularly about how the hospital system can best tackle an emerging disease like COVID-19," she says. "We're hoping to build tools that will help doctors respond as quickly as possible to new diseases like COVID-19 in the future."

From Staring at Data to Helping Patients

Although Engelhardt grew up in New York City, moving to San Francisco to run her Gladstone lab feels almost like returning home, she says. In fact, she spent 14 years in California between pursuing her studies at Stanford University and UC Berkeley, and working at Jet Propulsion Laboratory and 23andMe.

As a child, math came easy to Engelhardt. But in school, it all seemed too theoretical to her, so she didn't really enjoy statistics.

"I only started getting excited about statistics when I started my PhDthat's when the awakening happened," says Engelhardt. "I started collaborating with biology labs and everything just clicked. That's when I finally understood what it meant to apply statistical models to data to come up with impactful results. It was like everything I had done up to that point was preparing me for this career path."

Now, Engelhardt says she loves staring at data.

"Data is a big mystery and it's so much fun to go in and play detective using computational models and methods," she says. "And I love the collaborative aspect of science, too. I have an amazing group of students and postdocs, and it's just incredible to play off their ideas."

Engelhardt is also looking forward to building new collaborations at Gladstone, not only with investigators, but with nearby universities and hospitals as well.

"There are amazing wet labs here doing the most cutting-edge development of methods and technologies, a direct connection with hospitals and access to patient data, and really exciting applications to diseaseall of that is the dream," she says.

Ultimately, her goal is to leverage the freedom she has in academic research to increase the biomedical understanding of disease and improve patient care.

"I see Gladstone as a place that can catalyze the impact of the more theoretical work from my group, so that my research can actually help real patients," says Engelhardt.

About Barbara Engelhardt

Barbara Engelhardt, PhD, is a senior investigator at Gladstone Institutes. She is a professor of computer science at Princeton University, on leave in 20212022, a position she took in 2014 after having been an assistant professor in biostatistics and bioinformatics and statistical sciences at Duke University for 3 years.

She graduated from Stanford University, received her PhD in electrical engineering and computer science from UC Berkeley, supported by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, and trained as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Chicago. Engelhardt also spent 2 years working at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a summer at Google Research, and a year at 23andMe.

Engelhardt received the 2021 Overton Prize from the International Society for Computational Biology, one of the top awards in this field. Her research interests involve developing statistical models and methods for the analysis of high-dimensional biomedical data, with a goal of understanding the underlying biological mechanisms of complex phenotypes and human disease.

About Gladstone Institutes

To ensure our work does the greatest good, Gladstone Institutes focuses on conditions with profound medical, economic, and social impactunsolved diseases. Gladstone is an independent, nonprofit life science research organization that uses visionary science and technology to overcome disease. It has an academic affiliation with the University of California, San Francisco.

Media Contact: Julie Langelier | Associate Director, Communications | [email protected] | 415.734.5000

SOURCE Gladstone Institutes

Related Links

https://gladstone.org


DUBLIN, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- SVG Ventures | THRIVE and Bayer have announced that MagGrow, the company behind the patented, proprietary technology that is reducing waste associated with conventional pesticide spray applications, has won the THRIVE | Bayer Sustainability Challenge "Sustainable Scaleup Award." MagGrow is one of three winners chosen from a global pool of approximately 300 applicants from across 57 countries.

"We are thrilled to be among some of the top AgTech companies in the world providing innovative technological solutions to help solve global challenges in food production," said MagGrow CEO Gary Wickham. "We are especially proud to accept this award because it is emblematic of our efforts to create lasting and sustainable solutions that support farmers, while also positively impacting the environment."

The THRIVE | Bayer Sustainability Challenge aims to identify and support key start up and scaleup innovators like MagGrow in implementing solutions that promote sustainability. In partnership with SVG and Bayer, the collaborative is working to reduce the environmental impact of crop protection, reduce field greenhouse gas emissions, and empower smallholder farmers to access sustainable agricultural solutions. The THRIVE | Bayer Sustainability Challenge combines Bayer Crop Sciences' sustainability commitments and THRIVE's Global Initiative focus on the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals to promote innovations that can address pressing challenges in the global agrifood chain.

MagGrow's core magnetic-assist technology was recognized for its ability to significantly reduce waste, improve sustainability practices, and deliver important plant protection products where they matter the most. Using the MagGrow system, growers have seen improved coverage of 40% or more compared to conventional spraying, and reduced off-target losses by up to 70%.

As the winner of the scaleup category, MagGrow received an automatic nomination for THRIVE's TOP 50 AgTech and FoodTech listings, in addition to earning pilot project sponsorships from Bayer and access to Bayer's investment and R&D resources. The company is also eligible to participate in future partnerships within THRIVE's network.

Learn more about MagGrow at MagGrow.com, and more about the THRIVE | Bayer Sustainability Challenge at thriveagrifood.com/bayer-sustainability-challenge/.

About MagGrow

Established in 2013, MagGrow is based in Dublin, Ireland and employs over 40 people in the USA, Canada, Australasia and Europe who share the company's vision to develop a more sustainable approach to primary food production.

MagGrow's patented, proprietary technology delivers important plant protection products where they matter the most, significantly reducing waste associated with conventional pesticide spray applications. Additional benefits of the company's innovative spray technology include a reduction in water usage by up to 50%, extended spray windows and decreased labour requirements. The MagGrow system has no moving parts, is easy to install and maintain, and can be fitted to a new or existing crop sprayer. For more information, visit www.maggrow.com.

Media Contact:

Courtney Lee

Keeton Public Relations

[email protected]

720.289.9093

SOURCE MagGrow

Related Links

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WASHINGTON, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- An overwhelming majority of Latino parents support policies that require all students and educational staff to be vaccinated for in-person schooling, according to a new survey by UnidosUS (formerly the National Council of La Raza) of Latino parents about evolving perceptions of the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccines.

More than 5 million children have tested positive for COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic. Most Latino parents nearly 90% are increasingly concerned that their children will become seriously ill from COVID-19, and 7 in 10 (70%) expressed support for requiring that all students and staff be vaccinated for children to safely return to school, according to the survey.

As the delta variant continues to spread across the country, risks for infection are increasing for Latino children who are back in school and remain unvaccinated. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Latino children are more than three times as likely to be hospitalized for COVID-19 than non-Hispanic white children.

On the positive side, Latino parents are more likely to have vaccinated their eligible children. More than 6 in 10 Latino parents (62%) have vaccinated their eligible children, compared to 41% of parents overall.

"The bottom line is that Latino parentslike all parentswant their kids to be safe and healthy," said Rita Carreon, Vice President for Health at UnidosUS. "For most, that means requiring teachers and classmates to be vaccinated and protected against COVID-19."

However, the lack of clear information about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccines for children appears to be a persistent concern among Latino parents, our findings show. Among Latino parents with children under 12, 3 in 4 (75%) have concerns about the safety of the vaccines and their potential side effects. That could translate to lower vaccination rates in the short-term with emergency authorization for younger children on the horizon.

This underscores the need for increased access to credible and accurate information about vaccine safety. Our survey findings show that vaccine-hesitant Hispanic parents rely on trusted authorities for clarity on vaccine safety. Nearly two-thirds of Latino parents say they trust their doctors on vaccine guidance, and among Latino parents with children under 12, 4 in 10 (40%) say their child's doctor has already recommended that they vaccinate their child once authorized.

"Misinformation about vaccine safety remains a barrier for Latinos and other unvaccinated Americans looking to protect their families," Carreon said. "It remains critical that factual, clear and evidence-based guidance on vaccines makes its way to Latino parents so they can make informed decisions about their children's health."

About the poll

UnidosUS conducted a poll from August 12-21, 2021 via telephone and online among 1,478 Latino parents with children ages 18 and younger. Among them, 1,053 have children age 11 or younger, and 746 have children between 12 and 18 years of age. The poll included state oversamples of respondents in Arizona, California, Florida, and Texas. The poll included non-citizens and was conducted in English and Spanish.

The full survey can be found here.

Learn more about UnidosUS' Esperanza Hope for All campaign, an institution-wide initiative to mitigate the health, economic, and education effects of the coronavirus pandemic on Latinos. The campaign leverages our institution's advocacy, public health response, and Affiliate network to promote vaccine awareness, confidence, and acceptance among Hispanic communities across the country.

UnidosUS, previously known as NCLR (National Council of La Raza), is the nation's largest Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization. Through its unique combination of expert research, advocacy, programs, and an Affiliate Network of nearly 300 community-based organizations across the United States and Puerto Rico, UnidosUS simultaneously challenges the social, economic, and political barriers that affect Latinos at the national and local levels. For more than 50 years, UnidosUS has united communities and different groups seeking common ground through collaboration, and that share a desire to make our country stronger. For more information on UnidosUS, visit www.unidosus.org or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

CONTACT:

Benny Martinez

[email protected]

SOURCE UnidosUS

Related Links

https://www.unidosus.org


WASHINGTON, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- MHz Choice, the premier streamer of international series for U.S. and Canadian audiences, announces a French-focused October lineup, including the forensic crime drama Alexandra Ehle starring Julie Depardieu (Captain Marleau). Set in Bordeaux, the gruff yet brilliant coroner Alexandra Ehle (Depardieu) weaves together the crime with the victim's story as she paints a full picture of not only what happened, but why. Her unconventional approach does not always land her in the good graces of her colleagues, however.

Julie Depardieu stars as the gruff, yet brilliant coroner, Alexandra Ehle. Tweet this Julie Depardieu as Alexandra Ehle on MHz Choice

Also in October, MHz Choice is bringing the original Arsene Lupin TV series to its streaming service - 50 years after it first aired in France. Based on the classic period novels by Maurice Leblanc, the iconic gentleman-burglar is an elegant nemesis to white-collar criminals and those undeserving of getting away with their crimes  even as he himself manages to elude suspicion and capture.

MHz Choice subscribers can get a glimpse of Paris during the time of Arsene Lupin with the new documentary Paris 1900: The City of Lights. For a taste of present-day Paris, the documentary Timeless Louvre allows viewers to go beyond a simple tourist outing of the world-renowned art museum.

Also premiering in October are returning series Magellan, the final season of MHz Choice subscriber favorite The Undertaker, and a continuation of the highly acclaimed Movie of the Week series: Thierry Godard (Spiral, A French Village) stars in two of these titles in starkly different roles, first as a detective in Copy Cat and then as one half of a couple desperate to have children in The Surrogate Mother.

The full October 2021 schedule available here: https://mhzchoiceblog.com/premiere-schedule/

OCTOBER 5

ARSENE LUPIN: SEASON 1, FRANCE, INA, NEW SERIES

Gentleman burglar Arsene Lupin moonlights as a detective in this classic French TV series from 1971, based on the novels by Maurice Leblanc.

PARIS 1900: THE CITY OF LIGHTS, FRANCE, CPB FILMS, NEW DOCUMENTARY

Journey back in time to La Belle Epoque, with incredible restored and colorized footage capturing the magic and euphoria of turn-of-the-century Paris.

TIMELESS LOUVRE, FRANCE, CPB FILMS, NEW DOCUMENTARY

For almost 230 years, the Louvre has been a constant source of daydreams and fantasies, housing over 38,000 works of art and never ceasing to captivate, amaze and engage its visitors. This documentary is a total immersion into the depths of this artistic treasure trove, where thousands of men and women work every day to bring history to life.

MOVIE OF THE WEEK  COPY CAT, FRANCE, FILM & PICTURE, NEW FEATURE

A rookie and a veteran detective (Thierry Godard, Spiral) team up on the case of a murdered journalist.

OCTOBER 12

ALEXANDRA EHLE, FRANCE, FILM & PICTURE, NEW SERIES

Julie Depardieu (Captain Marleau) stars as Alexandra Ehle, a coroner at the Bordeaux Forensic Institute. Fanciful and free-thinking, she devotes herself completely to what she considers her mission: restoring to the dead their dignity and giving them justice.

MOVIE OF THE WEEK  CHILDREN OF THE LIE, FRANCE, FILM & PICTURE, NEW FEATURE

After the murder of a young woman, a police detective (Sara Martins, Detectives, Death in Paradise) and the victim's fiance work together to solve the case.

OCTOBER 19

THE UNDERTAKER: SEASON 7, SWITZERLAND, GLOBAL SCREEN, FINAL SEASON

Actor-comedian Mike Muller returns as ex-cop turned undertaker Luc Conrad in the seventh and final season of the popular mystery series.

MOVIE OF THE WEEK  SLEIGHT OF HAND, FRANCE, FILM & PICTURE, NEW FEATURE

When a kleptomaniac (Bruno Todeschini, Savage State) falls for a young woman (Fanny Valette, Spiral), his obsession leads him into a deadly trap.

OCTOBER 26

MAGELLAN: SEASON 4, FRANCE, MEDIAWAN, NEW SEASON

Inspector Simon Magellan unravels crimes and mysteries in the fictional French town of Saignac. But that's just his day job - he's also raising two teenage daughters.

MOVIE OF THE WEEK  THE SURROGATE MOTHER, FRANCE, FILM & PICTURE, NEW FEATURE

Unable to have a child of their own, a desperate couple (Thierry Godard, Gwendoline Hamon) fake a pregnancy and hire a surrogate - with tragic results.

About MHz Networks

MHz Networks offers viewers access to a library of the best television mysteries, dramas, comedies and documentaries subtitled in English through its subscription streaming service, MHz Choice. Select MHz Networks content is also available on DVD and on its free ad-supported service MHz Now, available on Samsung TV Plus.

New MHz Choice customers receive a free 7-Day Trial. For more information, go to mhzchoice.com.

SOURCE MHz Networks

Related Links

http://www.mhznetworks.org/


ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Michael Baker International, a global leader in engineering, planning and consulting services, announced today that Jake Watson, S.E., has been promoted to National Market Lead for Civilian Programs. In this newly created role, Mr. Watson will lead initiatives to expand the firm's services for Federal clients, which includes the General Services Administration (GSA), Department of Agriculture, Department of Interior, National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA), Department of Homeland Security and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). During his time at Michael Baker, Mr. Watson has actively served many of these clients, and his in-depth industry knowledge will enable him to leverage the firm's deep Federal talent to further deliver project excellence.

"Jake brings 25 years of industry experience to his new leadership role, including 14 years with Michael Baker," said James E. Koch, Ph.D., P.E., Vice President, Federal Programs and Services at Michael Baker International. "Jake's work with our firm has been repeatedly validated by industry recognition of his projects, and in his new role, he will continue to work closely with our other Federal National Market Leaders, National Practice Leads and our exceptional Federal talent throughout Michael Baker to increase our presence in Federal markets, expand our work with current clients and add new clients to our business."

Mr. Watson joined Michael Baker in 2007 and most recently served as Senior Vice President of Federal Operations. Throughout his career, he has delivered a diverse range of projects for Federal clients, including the GSA, Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Department of the Air Force, Army Corps of Engineers and the Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command (NAVFAC), among many others. During his tenure with Michael Baker, his work has won awards from the Air Force Material Command, American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).

Mr. Watson holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Utah.

About Michael Baker International

Michael Baker International is a leading provider of engineering and consulting services. The firm's Practices encompass all facets of infrastructure, including design, civil engineering, planning, architecture, environmental, construction and program management. For more than 80 years, the company has been a trusted partner, providing comprehensive services and solutions to commercial clients and all branches of the military, as well as federal, state and municipal governments. Embracing emerging technologies and the latest innovations  like intelligent transportation and design-build project delivery  Michael Baker is an industry leader that delivers expertise and quality. The firm's more than 3,000 employees across nearly 100 locations are committed to Making a Difference for clients and communities through a culture of innovation, collaboration and technological advancement. To learn more, visit https://mbakerintl.com/.

Contact: Julia Covelli

[email protected]

(866) 293-4609

SOURCE Michael Baker International

Related Links

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LOS ANGELES, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Letters received from the state bar and sources confirmed by journalist Justin Kloczko show that Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer is under investigation by the state bar for his role in the DWP billing scandal.

Consumer Watchdog received a redacted copy of a May 11, 2021 letter on state bar letterhead addressed to the author of the original complaint (name whited out) that reflects a case numbered 190-0-13014 pending against Michael Nelson Feuer. Other letters received by and conversations with Kloczko confirm the investigation.

The now-former chief deputy, Jim Clark, is also under state bar investigation as is Paul Kiesel, an outside attorney hired by the City Attorney.

Feuer's office refused to confirm or deny whether or not there was a bar investigation.

"The public has a right to know if the City Attorney, who is also running for Mayor, is under state bar investigation for unethical conduct," said Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog. "The City Council should demand that Feuer make the status of the bar investigation public. The City Attorney works for the council and the public and we have a right to know."

The May 11th letter predated the public release of the Special Master's report in the DWP case. That report dissects the anatomy of the unethical and collusive conduct by the attorneys in the case.

The Special Master, Ed Robbins, was appointed by the judge presiding over the billing scandal case to summarize that misconduct and the report delivers a huge punch, claiming that the attorneys involved violated their ethical duties as attorneys.

The 595-page Special Master's report couldn't determine Feuer's responsibility because notes kept by the chief deputy on Feuer's briefing on the issue were destroyed. Feuer famously claimed "I do not recall" over sixty times when deposed on the matter.

The DWP scandal has resulted in an FBI raid on the City Attorney's Office and DWP, resignations of top City attorneys and DWP officials and a $2.5 million sanction by the judge.

Attorneys hired by the City Attorney's Office engaged in a sham lawsuit and settlement against their own client, DWP, in a fraud on the court -- what is called a "reverse auction." A legitimate class action against the City over billing fraud was replaced with a phony case so that the City could hide problems with DWP and settle the case on the cheap. In essence, the City controlled both sides of the case, without disclosing this to the Court, and settled on its own terms with a huge payday for the crooked lawyers who were colluding with the city attorneys.

The state bar, which passed multiple times on investigations of disgraced LA trial lawyer Tom Girardi, has an added obligation to do a thorough investigation, said Court. Only the state bar can get answers about what Feuer knew and didn't know, he said, because an investigation into failures in Feuer's ethical duties associated with his license is one area where he cannot claim "I don't recall" and get away with it.

"Feuer owes the bar and public candid answers if he wants to continue as a public official," said Court.

Consumer Watchdog said that questions the state bar needs to ask and have Feuer answer include:

Why did his chief deputy Jim Clark change his deposition testimony via errata to claim he didn't remember briefing Feuer on the issue when he testified previously that he had? (The Special Master's report notes: "The evidence supports a finding that the City directed and assisted in the City suing itself with a sham lawsuit. Evidence of collusion includes: Mr. Clark's truthful February 2019 PMQ deposition testimony he changed to untruthful statements through an errata sheet after other LACA attorneys and Outside Counsel convinced him to do so.") Did Feuer discuss Clark's testimony with him and ask him to change his testimony? What steps did Feuer take to oversee the outside counsels in the DWP case? When did Feuer learn of the fraud on the court and what steps did he take when he learned about it? Why did Feuer commission a sham investigation and report at taxpayer expense that dismissed and misrepresented many of the ethical issues raised by the Special Counsel's report?

Kloczko runs The Debaser - an alternative news site covering power and corruption in Los Angeles. He also works part-time for Consumer Watchdog's Connected Car project.



SOURCE Consumer Watchdog

Related Links

http://www.consumerwatchdog.org


VANCOUVER, BC, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ - Mind Cure Health Inc. (CSE: MCUR) (OTCQB: MCURF) (FRA: 6MH) ("MINDCURE" or the "Company"), a leader in advanced proprietary technology and research in psychedelics, announced today it's joining the Digital Therapeutics Alliance, a non-profit association of industry leaders with a mission to drive awareness and adoption of digital therapies.

The company will work with the Digital Therapeutics Alliance focusing on value and reimbursement, policy and regulation, and awareness to educate the broader health care industry about the benefits of including new technologies in current treatment regimes. This framework will shape the way that the myriad of new technologies currently being developed are ultimately adopted and utilized, as well as help clinicians, caregivers, and consumers wade through a flood of options hitting the market.

"Joining the Digital Therapeutics Alliance is a huge opportunity for our company to be at the forefront of how digital technology is adopted and regulated in the mental health industry," said Kelsey Ramsden, President and CEO of MINDCURE. "We look forward to collaborating with leaders in the space to help define the future as we invest in and research the potential of digital therapeutics, with a focus on psychedelics."

"We are excited to welcome MINDCURE to the DTA community to help drive advancements in the DTx industry," said Andy Molnar, CEO of the Digital Therapeutics Alliance. "As our first member headquartered in Canada, their addition expands our global footprint as well as strengthens our coalition of digital therapeutics manufacturers focused on enabling expanded access to safe and effective DTx products to improve mental health care."

MINDCURE is positioning its software application, iSTRYM, as the industry's distribution network for science-based, evidence-backed protocols and artificial intelligence data systems. iSTRYM provides data-driven support as it optimizes the healing journey for patients and clinicians  before, during, and after therapy sessions. iSTRYM is built to shift the paradigm of care and access for psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy; reducing the cost of care, improving patient outcomes, and providing a distribution network for psychedelic companies to distribute protocols.

"Digital therapeutics is the future of mental health care, and there's a need to balance the fast adoption of new technologies with thoughtful regulation," said Ramsden. "This partnership solidifies an industry leadership role for the company as we continue to execute on our strategic research and development goals."

About Mind Cure Health Inc.

MINDCURE is a life sciences company focused on innovating and commercializing new ways to promote healing and improve mental health. The company is developing digital therapeutics technology and researching psychedelic compounds to support access to safe, evidence-based psychedelic-assisted therapies globally. Learn more at mindcure.com, and follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors

Kelsey Ramsden, President & CEO

Phone: 1-888-593-8995

About Digital Therapeutics Alliance

Founded in 2017, the Digital Therapeutics Alliance is a 501(c)(6) non-profit trade association of industry leaders and stakeholders engaged in the evidence-driven advancement of digital therapeutics. As the leading international organization on digital therapeutic thought leadership and education, the Digital Therapeutics Alliance provides patients, clinicians, payors, and policymakers with the necessary tools to evaluate and utilize DTx products.

Forward-Looking Information

Forward-looking information is based on a number of key expectations and assumptions made by management of MINDCURE, including, without limitation: the COVID-19 pandemic impact on the Canadian economy and MINDCURE's business, and the extent and duration of such impact; no change to laws or regulations that negatively affect MINDCURE's business; there will be a demand for MINDCURE's products in the future; no unanticipated expenses or costs arise; MINDCURE will be able to continue to identify products that make them ideal candidates for providing solutions for treating mental health; that iSTRYM will be developed, optimized and operate as contemplated within the psychedelics industry; that the Company will be effective in obtaining the patents applied for synthesizing ibogaine, or synthesizing ibogaine, or developing synthesized ibogaine for research, medical or commercial use; that MINDCURE will advance wellness worldwide; that iSTRYM will be brought to commercial deployment in the near term or otherwise or that it will reduce symptoms, improve quality of life, or support transformation and healing, or that the deployment may not occur at the scale or within the timeframe contemplated.

Although MINDCURE has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those described in forward-looking information presented, there may be other factors that cause results, performance or achievements to differ from those anticipated, estimated or intended. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements as no forward-looking information can be guaranteed.

Except as required by applicable securities laws, forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made and MINDCURE does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

SOURCE Mind Cure Health Inc.
Investors looking for passive income with crypto currency

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Cryptocurrency enthusiasts who want to learn about mining and how to get started

"With the exponential growth of cryptocurrencies over the last few months, many individuals are looking for new ways to generate passive income," said the founder of Mine Rigor. "Our systems are preconfigured with the latest hardware and are backed by a three-year warranty, and on-site support from our OEM distributor."

Mine Rigor has announced hosting a free webinar about cryptocurrency mining, their turnkey systems and how the get started in crypto mining. This is important for anyone who is looking to learn about cryptocurrency mining or looking for another stream of income. "We are seeing an increased demand for mining systems, which is why we are holding the live webinar to discuss our systems and their capabilities," said the founder of Mine Rigor. "We are big believers in cryptocurrency and want to help the community understand the technology behind it. We want to help educate people on how to get started with mining."

Those interested can register for the webinar here, the webinar is free and will be held on September 30, 2021, at 2:00 p.m. EDT. Those interested can register to attend our Zoom here: https://bit.ly/3CieaD6

There are only a limited number of seats are available, book your slot now.

Press Contact:

Sitehues Media

www.sitehues.com

Company Contact:

Sean Richard

Phone: 352.818.9694

Email: [email protected]

www.minerigor.com

SOURCE Mine Rigor

Related Links

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VANCOUVER, BC, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ - Mobilum Technologies Inc. ("Mobilum'' or the "Company'') (CSE: MBLM) (OTC: MBLMF) (FRA: C0B), a technology driven company making traditional finance accessible through compliant digital payment infrastructure and digital asset management technologies, is pleased to announce that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Mobilum OU, has generated an estimated record Total Transaction Volume (TTV) of approximately CAD $7.7 million in August 2021, which represents 44% month-over-month growth from the previous month.

"We are very pleased to see significant strength in our total transaction volume month over month as we continue to execute on our growth strategy," said Kaszycki. "With the launch of more services in the coming weeks in response to customer and market demand, we anticipate substantial growth in all lines of business, including the newly launched www.Buybitfast.com."

Buybitfast.com Launches

Mobilum is also excited to announce that its wholly-owned subsidiary, XPort Digital Limited ("Xport"), has officially launched BuyBitFast.com, one of the world's fastest fiat-to-crypto on-ramp platforms with highly competitive market rates and prices for the top cryptocurrencies.

BuyBitFast is a lightning-fast fiat-to-crypto on-ramping service that allows individuals to purchase crypto with a credit card without the hassle of creating an account with a cryptocurrency exchange.

Unlike other on-ramping services, BuyBitFast doesn't require a login, meaning there is no lengthy and confusing signup process to get started. Users simply need to input their email and cryptocurrency wallet address they wish to send the funds to, pass the KYC check and they will receive their crypto within minutes without any hidden fees and secondary exchange rates.

Key Highlights:

Fast: No login required: buy most cryptocurrencies in seconds once verified. No log-ins or wait times.

No login required: buy most cryptocurrencies in seconds once verified. No log-ins or wait times. Simple: 3.5% or $4.99 USD , No hidden fees. No secondary exchange rates.

3.5% or , No hidden fees. No secondary exchange rates. Flexible: Buy with almost any currency: Accepts multiple fiat currencies (coming soon) for multiple cryptocurrencies quickly and easily.

Buy with almost any currency: Accepts multiple fiat currencies (coming soon) for multiple cryptocurrencies quickly and easily. Secure: Peace of mind: Buy most cryptocurrencies in seconds once verified with all credit cards and are processed using 3D secure verification.

XPort Digital Merchant Services Launches White-Label Widget

XPort Digital has also launched its B2B offering, a white-labellable on-ramp widget that seamlessly integrates into websites and apps with javascript or mobile SDK (coming soon). XPort's widget can be set up within hours. It offers multiple fiat gateways in an all-in-one package with a fully customizable user interface to give website publishers and app developers a blockchain-based revenue stream that can be marketed to their existing user base and customers.

"Our target market for our fully-customizable on-ramp widget will include NFT marketplaces and Decentralized exchanges. NFT marketplaces have been booming, yet none of these platforms offer users an on-ramp solution. As the NFT craze continues to grow, more and more people will be looking to buy Ethereum and Solana to purchase NFTs. With our white label solution, marketplaces and exchanges will be able to add incremental revenue using our service and at the same time, offer the quickest solution for their customers," said XPort Digital CEO, Aaron Carter.

About Mobilum Technologies Inc.

Mobilum Technologies Inc. (CSE:MBLM) (OTC:MBLMF) (FRA:C0B) a technology driven Payment Service Provider (PSP) with a mission to make traditional finance accessible through compliant digital payment infrastructure and digital asset management technologies. Our goal is to allow consumers around the world to convert fiat-to-digital currency with Mobilum's fully-compliant on-ramp gateway. Mobilum has offices in Canada, Hong Kong , Poland and Estonia. For further information go to Mobilum.com.

About XPort Digital Ltd.

Xport Digital Limited is a merchant services fiat-to-crypto on-ramp gateway solution offering credit card processing for cryptocurrency exchanges, wallets and other cryptocurrency businesses. XPort's Buybitfast.com's on-ramp solution provides competitive cryptocurrency pricing and low transaction fees for retail customers while XPort's B2B plug-and-play customizable widget can be set up within hours for merchants to process credit card transactions instantly and securely. Merchants may also use XPort's Javascript or mobile SDK (coming soon) to quickly integrate directly with their own website or mobile application. Offramp service and many other features are coming in 2021!

This news release may contain certain "Forward-Looking Statements" within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and applicable Canadian securities laws. When or if used in this news release, the words "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "expect", "target, "plan", "forecast", "may", "schedule" and similar words or expressions identify forward-looking statements or information. Such statements represent the Company's current views with respect to future events and are necessarily based upon a number of assumptions and estimates that, while considered reasonable by the Company, are inherently subject to significant business, economic, competitive, political and social risks, contingencies and uncertainties. Many factors, both known and unknown, could cause results, performance or achievements to be materially different from the results, performance or achievements that are or may be expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The Company does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update these forward-looking statements or information to reflect changes in assumptions or changes in circumstances or any other events affecting such statements and information other than as required by applicable laws, rules and regulations.

Related Links

https://mobilum.com

https://buybitfast.com

https://xportdigital.com

SOURCE Mobilum Technologies Inc.

Related Links

https://mobilum.com/


FOUNTAIN VALLEY, Calif., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Motive Companies, a leading provider of renewable energy and infrastructure solutions, today announced a strategic partnership with Two Roads Professional Resources (Two Roads), a leading provider of technical staffing solutions. This partnership brings a vastly expanded range of opportunity and value to recruiters, candidates, and talent seekers.

Effective immediately, all Two Roads existing assets, employees and contracts will operate as Motive Workforce Solutions. The new group will continue to operate out of their existing Huntington Beach, California office location. Barry Vince, Co-Founder of Two Roads, has been named President of Motive Workforce Solutions, while Sarah Bennett, Talent Acquisition Manager of Motive Companies, has been named Vice President and General Manager of Motive Workforce Solutions.

"This partnership is a natural fit," said Robert Istwan, CEO of Motive Companies. He shared, "Over the past two years, we've expanded our internal talent acquisition department and hired close to 300 skilled employees. Like us, Two Roads has experienced exceptional growth. Together our companies have an opportunity to not only expand our team with top talent but establish ourselves as a leading provider of staffing solutions."

Since 1996, Two Roads has successfully provided top talent to the aerospace, defense and space industries, while accumulating a highly skilled and niche candidate database of industry professionals.

"I am excited to be joining forces with Motive Companies," said Vince. He continued, "Merging with Motive allows us to expand our footprint and explore the renewable energy and telecommunication industries. Motive's national presence across 29 cities provides us with a greater geographical reach and access to a range of positions that top talent want now and in the future."

Motive Companies and Motive Workforce Solutions will leverage their respective teams, technologies, and networks of recruiters and candidates to solve some of the issues that have long plagued traditional staffing, including bad candidate experiences, long times to fill, and poor candidate match quality.

About Motive Companies

Motive Companies is a leading provider of renewable energy and infrastructure solutions for industrial and commercial applications. Our comprehensive portfolio includes energy storage & management, solar photovoltaic, lithium-ion batteries, electric vehicle & forklift charging, LCF credits, as well as wireless, broadband & 5G. From design, construction, maintenance and installation, we provide true end-to-end services that support all energy, battery, charging and telecommunication needs. With offices across North America and a workforce of 700 professionals, we have the geographical reach, scalability, and financial stability to meet customers' changing needs. At our core, Motive Companies develops renewable energy and infrastructure solutions to create a more sustainable society. More information: https://motivecompanies.com

SOURCE Motive Companies

Related Links

http://motivecompanies.com/


LONDON, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The urgent need to sustainably manufacture pigments has been a significant conversation for the global pigments market. Consumers have expressed their desire for eco-friendly and cost-effective pigments, and regulatory bodies are hastening the shift by passing regulations to clamp down on the unrestricted use of harmful pigments, observes the latest report published by Fairfield Market Research.

In coming years, the demand for pigments is expected to soar as their uptake remains critical in manufacturing, construction, and the printing industries. According to Fairfield Market Research, the global pigments market was worth US$30.1 Bn in 2017 and is expected to reach to US$40.2 Bn by 2025, registering a CAGR of 4.6% for the period.

Get a Sample Copy of Global Pigments Market: https://www.fairfieldmarketresearch.com/report/global-pigment-market/request-sample

Supportive Regulations and Superior Attributes of Inorganic Pigments Make them Sought After

The printing industry accounts for approximately 50% of demand in the global pigments market with the plastic, paper, and textile manufacturing industries following suit. Titanium dioxide dominated the inorganic segment comprising 65% of total demand in 2018. The inorganic segment is more popular than the organic segment because of its darker colour, superior wetting ability, and leanness. Furthermore, favourable regulations are anticipated to benefit the inorganic pigment segment over the forecast period.

Nanotechnology Allows Limitless Pigment Options While Retaining Durability

Pigments play an important role in safeguarding walls and building surfaces against corrosion and harsh weather while adding an aesthetic value. Rapid urbanization and infrastructural development have opened up unprecedented opportunities for pigment manufacturers. Furthermore, as demand is anticipated to shift towards environmentally sustainable pigments in developed regions, the revenue-generation options are wider for manufacturers.

Growing preference for bright and vibrant colours is compelling pigments makers to step up their innovation efforts. Pigments have become increasingly specialized and customized to cater to different demographics, prompting the use of nanotechnology and nanoparticles. These techniques allow creation of extremely bright colours such as blue tarantula or peacock feather with nanostructures. Moreover, nanoparticles provide outstanding durability and create a dynamic effect in the area of application, making it a popular technology in the global pigments market.

Do You Have Any Query Or Specific Requirement? Request Customization of Report: https://www.fairfieldmarketresearch.com/report/global-pigment-market/request-customization

Decorative Coatings to Record Strong Growth in the Asia Pacific Region

Asia Pacific region is one of the largest producers and consumers of pigments. Western manufacturers have shifted production to the region to capitalise on the affordable cost of labour coupled with a desire to cater to local preferences. Rise of construction and refurbishment activities in the region are expected to boost the uptake of decorative coatings, especially in the emerging economies. Although the per capita consumption of paints and coatings in Asia Pacific is significantly lower than the global average of 15 KG, there is limitless scope for growth. Meanwhile, developed economies of North America and Europe are expected to see greater demand for industrial coatings instead of decorative ones.

European Players Focusing Efforts on Niche Segments to Better Compete in Pigments Market

Companies in the pigments market are unveiling new products that adhere to tougher regulations, cater to changing tastes and reduce their carbon footprint. European pigment makers have undergone restructuring with Clariant and BASF divesting their pigment units as they are unable to go toe-to-toe with Asian manufacturers that compete on price. European companies are unwilling to sacrifice their hefty profit margins and are targeting niche segments such as the automotive industry that is prominent on the continent  especially in Germany and France.

Companies profiled in this report on the pigments market are Venator, Lomon Billions, Chemours, LANXESS, Tronox, Kronos Worldwide Inc., Altana AG, DIC Corporation, and Heubach GmbH among others. In 2019, Tronox purchased the titanium oxide business of Crystal becoming the world's biggest vertically integrated manufacturer of titanium oxide. Tronox also finalized the sale of Crystal's North America business in the same year, bolstering its competitive position in the pigments market.

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Fairfield Market Research is a UK-based market research provider. Fairfield offers a wide spectrum of services, ranging from customized reports to consulting solutions. With a strong European footprint, Fairfield operates globally and helps businesses navigate through business cycles, with quick responses and multi-pronged approaches. The company values an eye for insightful take on global matters, ably backed by a team of exceptionally experienced researchers. With a strong repository of syndicated market research reports that are continuously published & updated to ensure the ever-changing needs of customers are met with absolute promptness.

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SOURCE Fairfield Market Research
- NAVER Cloud holds competitive edge with its industry-specific solutions that incorporate NAVER's know-how and technologies

- NAVER Cloud is the only cloud service provider in Korea that has proprietary technologies to develop and provide products suited to client needs

- By 2023, 80% of annual sales will be invested in original technologies to achieve a new leap forward

SEONGNAM, South Korea, Sept. 15, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- NAVER Cloud, a leading cloud service provider (CSP) in Korea, announced today at an online meetup that it will accelerate its business growth with massive investments in proprietary technologies and expertise. The company expects to become a top 3 cloud company in the Asia Pacific region, including Japan, and advance its global expansion.

NAVER Cloud's product portfolio expanded eight times in just four years, growing into the global provider-equivalent business in product numbers and technological competitiveness

Since launching its Cloud platform business in 2017 with 22 products, NAVER Cloud has grown to become a top 2 cloud service provider in Korea, with globally competitive products. In just four years, the company has expanded its product portfolio more than eight times, with 189 products in 18 categories.

Enabled by its continuous development of an expanding portfolio of globally competitive products and technologies, NAVER Cloud is offering the most scalable and easily configurable cloud service to meet the customers' diverse needs.

Industry-specialized solutions with integrated technologies leads to competitiveness and business growth expected to reach 46% growth YoY and a review of KRW 400 billion

Based on its technology investments and portfolio expansion, NAVER Cloud's revenue in 2020 grew to KRW 273.7 billion (USD 234 million), up by 41% compared to the year before. The growth rate is much higher than those of the global (29.3%) and domestic markets (18.7%). NAVER Cloud expects that its annual revenue this year will reach KRW 400 billion, up by 46% YoY.

"NAVER Cloud's core value is providing services with various technologies and expertise that NAVER has accumulated by operating a wide range of internet services, including search engine, shopping, messenger, video, games, etc.," said Kim Tae-Chang, NAVER Cloud's Chief of Cloud Business. "With our solutions, we support customers in any industry that requires best-in-class IT capabilities."

An increasing number of businesses are adopting NAVER Cloud for its highly advanced technology, supported by NAVER's deep, in-house expertise. Currently, there are more than 50,000 clients using NAVER Cloud and 55% of Korea's top 100 businesses are using the company's cloud service.

NAVER Cloud is serving to public needs as a Korea's leading cloud service provider

NAVER Cloud has established its position as a leading business in Korea by providing stability to public services during the pandemic. For example, NAVER Cloud resolved a recent access error on the COVID-19 vaccine sign-up system. The company also provided the whole range of cloud platform products for free as well as unlimited NAVER Map API to a company that shared real-time updates on infection cases and face mask availability during the beginning of the pandemic. NAVER Cloud was at the forefront of the national crisis when a vast amount of money, manpower and effort was required, and supported public needs with the sense of responsibility as a leading business in Korea.

The only Korean company with original in-house built technologies that allows it to develop and provide products that clients want

Having established itself as Korea's leading cloud company, NAVER Cloud plans to narrow the gap with global CSPs dominating the local market, and accelerate its global expansion. The company's proprietary technologies and massive investment is the key to it reaching the next level.

NAVER Cloud is the only cloud service in Korea that has proprietary technologies, including Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS) and hybrid clouds. NAVER's original technologies allows it to develop and provide products that clients want. Its differentiated technologies will be an important stepping stone for global expansion.

"As cloud adoption is spreading widely across industries, the completeness of platform service offerings and establishment of a cloud-native environment became the new criteria when selecting a cloud service provider," said Jang Bumsik, leader of NAVER Cloud's platform business. "NAVER Cloud is providing a platform in various forms that meets the needs of developers, so that they can focus on developing applications without the burden of building and managing infrastructure or platform."

According to the Open Survey respondents, the most important factors for customers when choosing a public cloud were reasonable pricing (52.1%), customer support and response to outage (41.1%), availability of various PaaS solutions (37.4%). NAVER Cloud is focusing on developing and investing in PaaS in response to customer's growing needs.

NAVER Cloud is providing differentiated technologies, including Cloud DB services that easily build and manage databases, such as MySQL, MSSQL, Redis, MongoDB and Kubernetes that effectively manage container clusters to distribute and deploy applications more efficiently and quickly as well as a Cloud Functions service that can run code without servers.

Recently, NAVER Cloud strengthened its PaaS portfolio by focusing on its data analysis platform, using NAVER's data. The company plans to launch new products this month, including Cloud Data Box, which provides data and analysis for business insights; Data Forest, a large-scale data analysis platform that is capable of big data analysis and machine learning; and Robotic Process Automation (RPA), which can automate simple and repetitive tasks through software robots to improve business efficiency and reduce operational cost.

In addition, based on NAVER's robust data and technological capabilities, NAVER Cloud is preparing for future solutions and technologies, such as Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) linked with 5G, Robot as a Service (RaaS) and isomorphic encryption. Furthermore, its hyperscale AI, HyperCLOVA, is expanding its application to various NAVER Cloud Platform services, allowing enterprise cloud customers to apply the large-scale language model to their services through NAVER Cloud Platform.



80% of annual revenue will be invested back to technology development until 2023 to make a new leap forward

Along with its investment in technology, NAVER Cloud is continuing its large-scale investment, such as expanding its workforce more than three times and establishing an eco-friendly data center, GAK Sejong, to build the world's best-in-class hyperscale data center.

"We will invest up to 80% of our annual revenue back into technology development and manpower by 2023 to secure a new growth engine," Jang said. "NAVER Cloud has already grown to become the top 2 cloud service provider in Korea and we will firmly establish ourselves as the top 3 provider in Asia-Pacific, including Japan, expanding our business footprint in the cloud industry."

Note for media and analysts:

About NAVER

Founded in 1999, NAVER is Korea's largest Internet company with hundreds of millions of users worldwide. As a global technology company, it operates the No.1 search engine in Korea, NAVER, as well as other online services, such as LINE mobile messenger, Webtoon and Webnovel publishing, SNOW video camera app and ZEPETO metaverse platform. NAVER recorded sales of KRW 5.3 trillion (USD 4.6 billion) in 2020 and is pursuing changes and innovations in technology platforms through continuous research and development of future technologies, such as artificial intelligence, robotics and mobility.

For media inquiries, please contact Weber Shandwick Korea, NAVER Corporation's global PR agency, at [email protected].

SOURCE Naver Corporation
Global Computer Numerical Controls (CNC) Machines Market to Reach $92.9 Billion by 2026

Amid the COVID-19 crisis, the global market for Computer Numerical Controls (CNC) Machines estimated at US$66 Billion in the year 2020, is projected to reach a revised size of US$92.9 Billion by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 5.6% over the analysis period. Lathe Machines, one of the segments analyzed in the report, is projected to record a 6.4% CAGR and reach US$30.1 Billion by the end of the analysis period. After a thorough analysis of the business implications of the pandemic and its induced economic crisis, growth in the Milling Machines segment is readjusted to a revised 6.8% CAGR for the next 7-year period.



The U.S. Market is Estimated at $19.1 Billion in 2021, While China is Forecast to Reach $19.1 Billion by 2026

The Computer Numerical Controls (CNC) Machines market in the U.S. is estimated at US$19.1 Billion in the year 2021. China, the world`s second largest economy, is forecast to reach a projected market size of US$19.1 Billion by the year 2026 trailing a CAGR of 8.7% over the analysis period. Among the other noteworthy geographic markets are Japan and Canada, each forecast to grow at 3% and 5.1% respectively over the analysis period. Within Europe, Germany is forecast to grow at approximately 3.6% CAGR.



Lasers Segment to Reach US$11.5 Billion by the year 2026

In the global Lasers segment, USA, Canada, Japan, China and Europe will drive the 5.8% CAGR estimated for this segment. These regional markets accounting for a combined market size of US$6 Billion in the year 2020 will reach a projected size of US$8.8 Billion by the close of the analysis period. China will remain among the fastest growing in this cluster of regional markets. More



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Verify employee vaccination status - Providing a self-service portal for employees to report vaccination status and upload documentation.

Providing a self-service portal for employees to report vaccination status and upload documentation. Manage employee vaccine exemptions - Handling intake of all medical and non-medical exemption requests, sensitive documents.

- Handling intake of all medical and non-medical exemption requests, sensitive documents. Manage testing compliance - Managing test result documentation for employees who are not vaccinated, sending weekly reminders and employer notification.

"We know our business partners trust us to provide solutions for their most pressing issues," said Polly Nicholas, Senior Vice President of Unum Solutions. "The Unum Vaccine Verifier goes beyond a survey, helping human resource teams manage these requirements and allowing them to focus on their employees."

Unum is an industry leader in Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) management, complex employee leave, and several other HR technology solutions. The company also has decades of expertise handling sensitive medical records and navigating regulatory details. Unum Vaccine Verifier includes these solutions for human resource managers:

Exemption management workflow and decision support tools

COVID-19 test result tracking and compliance management

HIPAA compliant vaccination record management and document storage

Integration with Unum's ADA services and leave programs

In addition, Colonial Life, a Unum brand, will offer a vaccine verifier option with similar functionality.

Click here to learn more about the Unum Vaccine Verifier.

ABOUT UNUM GROUP

Unum (NYSE: UNM) an international provider of workplace benefits and services has been helping workers and their families for more than 170 years. Through its Unum US, Unum International, and Colonial Life businesses, the company offers disability, life, accident, critical illness, dental, vision and stop-loss insurance; leave and absence management support and behavioral health services. In 2020, Unum reported revenues of $13.2 billion and paid $7.6 billion in benefits. The Fortune 250 company is one of the 2021 World's Most Ethical Companies, recognized by the Ethisphere Institute.

Visit the Unum newsroom for more information, and connect with us on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

SOURCE Unum Group

Related Links

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SEATTLE, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- OctoML today announced a collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. to provide first-class Apache TVM support for Snapdragon platforms and SoCs.

As part of this collaboration, OctoML has a strategic agreement to work closely with the Qualcomm's Tensor Virtual Machine (TVM) compiler team to extend Apache TVM for Qualcomm Hexagon processors. As a result, it is expected that Apache TVM will be enhanced to address the unique characteristics of Hexagon in order to make it a demonstrated leader in AI performance on power-constrained devices. These enhancements will be designed to drive fundamental innovation in Apache TVM that should benefit the entire Apache TVM community.

Built on the Apache TVM open-source framework, OctoML's Platform provides an automation framework that optimizes trained models to achieve optimal performance across a breadth of hardware endpoints and cloud serviceswithout compromising accuracy. The platform readily addresses the challenge of optimizing ML models to match the resources at the edge, which opens up opportunities for a new wave of intelligent apps.

"We are excited to be working with OctoML to further expand Apache TVM coverage to our Qualcomm AI Engine to help accelerate the deployment of ML applications and optimize models in the future," Jeff Gehlhaar, VP of Technology, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.

This collaboration is made possible through Qualcomm Technologies' support of Apache TVM. Apache TVM is a software framework that provides a unified layer between the leading machine learning frameworkslike Tensorflow and Pytorchand the vast array of hardware solutions. This innovation means that ML models can be deployed anywhere from cloud to edge to mobile.

"OctoML's ability to fully utilize hardware capabilities for machine learning, combined with the automation and accessibility of our SaaS platform, will greatly simplify the deployment of ML innovation across Qualcomm Technologies' powerful hardware," said Luis Ceze, CEO and co-founder, OctoML. "We are very excited to work with Qualcomm Technologies to unlock the power of their SoCs on our platform and enable the next-generation of ML applications at the edge."

Visit here to register for OctoML's limited access program.

Qualcomm, Snapdragon, and Hexagon are trademarks or registered trademarks of Qualcomm Incorporated.

Snapdragon, Qualcomm Hexagon, and Qualcomm AI Engine are products of Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and/or its subsidiaries.

About OctoML

OctoML is a machine learning acceleration platform based in Seattle, Washington. OctoML aims to accelerate model performance while enabling seamless deployment of models across any hardware platform, cloud provider, or edge device. The company's investors include Addition, Madrona Venture Group, and Amplify Partners. OctoML was founded by creators of open-source Apache TVM, CEO Luis Ceze, CTO Tianqi Chen, CPO Jason Knight, Chief Architect Jared Roesch, and VP of Technology Partnerships Thierry Moreau. For more information, please visit https://octoml.ai/

SOURCE OctoML
New skincare line initiates corporate social responsibility effort supporting girls in STEM

TORONTO, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ - Today, Orora Skin Science, Inc . a science-based beauty brand dedicated to bringing the most unique and effective ingredients to skincare, announced its partnership with Girlstart , an organization dedicated to bringing STEM education to low income girls in the U.S.

Girlstart provides an intensive suite of STEM education programs for K-12 girls. Its core programs foster STEM skills development, an understanding of the importance of STEM as a way to solve the world's major problems, as well as an interest in STEM electives, majors, and careers. Orora selected Girlstart as the organization to provide financial support based on its ethos and its impressive track record serving girls year round with comprehensive programming.

"We are a company that celebrates innovation and creativity. We started this partnership in the same year we launched Orora to show a long term commitment to an organization that shares our values of supporting women, increasing their self-esteem and leadership opportunities through scientific inquiry," said Peter B. Lee, CEO of Orora. "We love that Girlstart unleashes the innate problem solving power of the young girls they serve. And, we truly believe that the next best ideas for health, sustainability and progress lie in our next generation."

"The entire Girlstart community is deeply grateful to Orora for their support in providing accessible STEM education to girls in underserved communities. Leaders like Orora are inspiring today's fourth and fifth-grade girls to be our future female scientists, doctors, mathematicians, and problem solvers." Chelsey Pippin, Girlstart Engagement Officer

In addition to being a corporate sponsor for Girlstart, Orora gives $1.00 for each unit sold to the organization for each bioactive collagen serum and bioactive collagen cream sold.

Join Orora in supporting Girlstart in its upcoming fall fundraising event, Game Changers, on October 8th, 2021. To learn more and to register for the event please go to www.girlstart.org/support-girlstart/annual-luncheon/

For more information about Orora, please go to www.OroraSkin.com

About Orora

Orora is a holistic beauty brand dedicated to bringing the world's most unique and effective ingredients to skin care. Orora partners with cutting-edge science to make the latest innovations accessible for those seeking the next frontier of beauty. Orora launched in 2021 with a product line formulated with the first bioidentical and vegan collagen ingredient in a skincare product line in North America. They are headquartered in Toronto, Canada.

SOURCE Orora Skin Science, Inc.
DUBLIN, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Global Breast Cancer Diagnostics Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report by Product (Platform-based, Instrument-based), by Type (Imaging, Biopsy, Genomic Tests, Blood Tests), by Application, by End-use, by Region, and Segment Forecasts, 2021-2028" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The global breast cancer diagnostics market size is expected to reach USD 6.8 billion by 2028. The market is expected to expand at a CAGR of 7.0% from 2021 to 2028.

The introduction of 3D mammography or digital breast tomosynthesis, which is more accurate than 2D mammography, supports market growth. This advanced technology can detect 40.0% more cancers than 2D mammograms and reduce patient recalls. Rapid technological advancements are a major factor expected to drive the market over the coming years.



Companies are adopting strategies that allow them to use their resources to aid in the development of new products, as well as enhance their supply chain. In November 2019, Exact Sciences Corporation announced the acquisition of Genomic Health, which was expected to help enhance the company's market position and offerings by acquiring its product portfolio. In January 2021, Hologic Inc. announced that it has agreed to acquire Biotheranostics for approximately US$ 230 million. Biotheranostics is a commercial-stage molecular diagnostics provider for breast and metastatic cancers.



The increasing launch of predictive and companion diagnostic tests for breast cancer is expected to boost the market growth. Recent launches in the segment include BRACAnalysis CDx by Myriad Genetics, which received FDA approval in 2018 as breast cancer companion diagnostics. In May 2019, QIAGEN introduced therascreen PIK3CA RGQ PCR Kit as a companion diagnostic for Novartis proprietary PIQRAY in guiding treatment decisions from tissue and liquid biopsy.



In January 2019, the Fujifilm Holdings Corporation introduced its Tomosynthesis Biopsy option for ASPIRE Cristalle mammography system. This technique was expected to enable physicians to detect breast cancers more efficiently compared to others by providing an enhanced 3D image and a digital mammogram.



However, there are specific risk factors associated with these imaging procedures. They involve administering high doses of fluorescent and barium contrast agents, as well as radiation exposure in the case of imaging and endoscopic procedures, which can cause several adverse effects such as nausea or diarrhea. The risks of ionizing radiation exposure associated with the use of CT, MRI, and X-rays, as well as the use of radioactive tracer injections in PET can limit the adoption of such screening procedures. Therefore, factors such as adverse effects of imaging act as a challenge for the companies in this market.



Breast Cancer Diagnostics Market Report Highlights

The imaging segment held the largest revenue share in 2020 and the blood tests segment is expected to grow at the fastest rate

By product, the instrument-based products segment accounted for the largest revenue share in 2020 due to government initiatives such as mandatory screening in developed countries such as the U.S., Canada , and the U.K. for women above 45 years of age, increasing the overall testing and screening of breast cancer

, and the U.K. for women above 45 years of age, increasing the overall testing and screening of breast cancer The platform-based products segment is expected to witness the fastest growth over the forecast period. These tests are mostly used for assessing the efficacy of chemotherapy and targeted therapy in women

By application, the diagnostic and predictive segment dominated the market in 2020 and the prognostic segment is expected to witness the fastest CAGR over the forecast period due to increasing collaborations and efforts for advancements in diagnostics

The hospitals and clinics segment dominated the market in 2020

The medical labs and diagnostics centers segment is expected to witness the fastest CAGR over the forecast period due to an increase in platform-based testing such as NGS, and PCR

Key Topics Covered:



Chapter 1 Methodology and Scope

Chapter 2 Executive Summary



Chapter 3 Market Variables, Trends & Scope

3.1 Parent Market Outlook

3.2 Penetration & Growth Prospect Mapping

3.3 Regulatory and Reimbursement Framework

3.4 Market Dynamics

3.4.1 Market Driver Analysis

3.4.1.1 Increasing Incidence Of Breast Cancer

3.4.1.2 Technological Advancements

3.4.1.3 Favorable Reimbursement Framework For Breast Cancer Diagnosis

3.4.1.4 Early Detection And Increase In Awareness About Breast Cancer

3.4.2 Market Restraint Analysis

3.4.2.1 Adverse Effects Of Screening Procedures

3.5 Breast Cancer Diagnostics Market Analysis Tools

3.5.1 Pestel Analysis

3.5.2 Industry Analysis - Porter's



Chapter 4 Breast Cancer Diagnostics Market: Type Segment Analysis

4.1 Breast Cancer Diagnostics Market: Type Movement Analysis

4.2 Imaging

4.2.1 Imaging market, 2017 - 2028 (USD Million)

4.3 Biopsy

4.3.1 Biopsy market, 2017 - 2028 (USD Million)

4.4 Genomic Tests

4.4.1 Genomic tests market, 2017 - 2028 (USD Million)

4.5 Blood Tests

4.5.1 Blood tests market, 2017 - 2028 (USD Million)

4.6 Others

4.6.1 Others market, 2017 - 2028 (USD Million)



Chapter 5 Breast Cancer Diagnostics Market: Product Segment Analysis

5.1 Breast Cancer Diagnostics Market: Product Movement Analysis

5.2 Platform-based Products

5.2.1 Platform based products market, 2017 - 2028 (USD Million)

5.2.2 Next-generation sequencing

5.2.2.1 Next-Generation Sequencing market, 2017 - 2028 (USD Million)

5.2.3 Microarrays

5.2.3.1 Microarrays market, 2017 - 2028 (USD Million)

5.2.4 PCR

5.2.4.1 PCR market, 2017 - 2028 (USD Million)

5.2.5 Others

5.2.5.1 Others market, 2017 - 2028 (USD Million)

5.3 Instrument-based Products

5.3.1 Instrument-based products market, 2017 - 2028 (USD Million)

5.3.2 Imaging

5.3.2.1 Imaging market, 2017 - 2028 (USD Million)

5.3.3 Biopsy

5.3.3.1 Biopsy market, 2017 - 2028 (USD Million)



Chapter 6 Breast Cancer Diagnostics Market: Application Segment Analysis

6.1 Breast Cancer Diagnostics Market: Application Movement Analysis

6.2 Screening

6.2.1 Screening market, 2017 - 2028 (USD Million)

6.3 Diagnostic & Predictive

6.3.1 Diagnostic and predictive market, 2017 - 2028 (USD Million)

6.4 Prognostic

6.4.1 Prognostic market, 2017 - 2028 (USD Million)

6.5 Research

6.5.1 Research market, 2017 - 2028 (USD Million)



Chapter 7 Breast Cancer Diagnostics Market: End-use Segment Analysis

7.1 Breast Cancer Diagnostics Market: End-use Movement Analysis

7.2 Hospitals & Clinics

7.2.1 Hospitals & clinics market, 2017-2028 (USD Million)

7.3 Diagnostic Centers and Medical Laboratories

7.3.1 Diagnostic centers and medical laboratories market, 2017-2028 (USD Million)

7.4 Others

7.4.1 Others market, 2017-2028 (USD Million)



Chapter 8 Breast Cancer Diagnostics Market: Segment Analysis, By Region, 2017-2028 (USD Million)

Chapter 9 Breast Cancer Diagnostics Market: Competitive Analysis

9.1 Recent developments and impact analysis, by key market participants

9.1.1 Ansoff Matrix

9.2 Company Categorization

9.2.1 Innovators

9.2.2 Market Leaders

9.3 Vendor Landscape

9.3.1 List Of Key Distributors And Channel Partners

9.3.2 Key Customers

9.3.3 Key Company Market Share Analysis, 2020

9.4 Public Companies

9.4.1 Company Market Position Analysis

9.4.2 Competitive Dashboard Analysis

9.4.2.1 Market Differentiators

9.5 Private Companies

9.5.1 List Of Key Emerging Companies

9.6 Major Deals and Strategic Alliances Analysis

9.6.1 New Product Launches

9.6.2 Joint Ventures

9.6.3 Acquisitions

9.6.4 Licensing And Partnerships

9.6.5 Conferences And Campaigns

9.7 Company Profiles

9.7.1 KONINKLIJKE PHILIPS N.V.

9.7.1.1 Company overview

9.7.1.2 Financial performance

9.7.1.3 Product benchmarking

9.7.1.4 Strategic initiatives

9.7.2 DANAHER CORPORATION

9.7.2.1 Company overview

9.7.2.2 Financial performance

9.7.2.3 Product benchmarking

9.7.2.4 Strategic initiatives

9.7.3 HOLOGIC INC

9.7.3.1 Company overview

9.7.3.2 Financial performance

9.7.3.3 Product benchmarking

9.7.3.4 Strategic initiatives

9.7.4 BECTON, DICKINSON AND COMPANY

9.7.4.1 Company overview

9.7.4.2 Financial performance

9.7.4.3 Product benchmarking

9.7.4.4 Strategic initiatives

9.7.5 QIAGEN

9.7.5.1 Company overview

9.7.5.2 Financial performance

9.7.5.3 Product benchmarking

9.7.5.4 Strategic initiatives

9.7.6 THERMO FISHER SCIENTIFIC, INC.

9.7.6.1 Company overview

9.7.6.2 Financial performance

9.7.6.3 Product benchmarking

9.7.6.4 Strategic initiatives

9.7.7 GENOMIC HEALTH (EXACT SCIENCES)

9.7.7.1 Company overview

9.7.7.2 Financial performance

9.7.7.3 Product benchmarking

9.7.7.4 Strategic initiatives

9.7.8 MYRIAD GENETICS, INC.

9.7.8.1 Company overview

9.7.8.2 Financial performance

9.7.8.3 Product benchmarking

9.7.8.4 Strategic initiatives

9.7.9 ARGON MEDICAL DEVICES INC.

9.7.9.1 Company overview

9.7.9.2 Product benchmarking

9.7.9.3 Strategic initiatives

9.7.10 F. HOFFMANN-LA ROCHE LTD

9.7.10.1 Company overview

9.7.10.2 Financial performance

9.7.10.3 Product benchmarking

9.7.10.4 Strategic initiatives

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/p6ntfy

Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

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SOURCE Research and Markets

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OKLAHOMA CITY, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- PHX Minerals Inc. (NYSE: PHX) ("PHX" or the "Company") announced today that it has agreed to acquire in two separate transactions certain mineral and royalty interests totaling approximately 817 net royalty acres in East Texas and Louisiana targeting the Haynesville play (the "Acquisition") for aggregate consideration of $7,249,347 in cash and stock, subject to customary closing adjustments. The purchase price consists of $728,214 in cash and $6,521,133 in PHX common stock issued directly to the sellers of the assets. The shares to be issued are subject to a 120-day lockup period. The Board of Directors of PHX unanimously approved the Acquisition, which is subject to certain closing conditions and is expected to close by Sept. 30, 2021.

Chad Stephens, President and CEO, said, "The agreements we entered into today involve additional acquisitions of exceptional mineral assets targeting the Haynesville play, where we have been active over the last 12 months. These assets will provide the company increasing cash flow and natural gas volumes in the near-term with compelling upside potential and are located under some of the top operators with active drilling programs in the play."

Acquisition Highlights

Approximately 817 net royalty acres in East Texas and Louisiana (primarily in Harrison and Nacogdoches counties in Texas and De Soto , Caddo , Bossier and Sabine parishes in Louisiana ), focused on the Haynesville and Bossier plays;

and (primarily in and counties in and , , and parishes in ), focused on the and plays; Includes 46 PDP gross wells, 15 gross wells in progress and an estimated 149 gross undrilled locations;

Two drilling rigs currently running on the Acquisition assets and an additional 10 drilling rigs within 2.5 miles of the Acquisition assets; 1

Estimated reserves of 8.5 Bcfe; 2

Current net production 0.062 Mmcfe/d; 3 and

and Key operators of the Acquisition assets include Chesapeake/Vine, Comstock , Goodrich and Southwestern/Indigo

__________________________________ 1 Provided by Enverus as of 08/30/2021 2 As of 09/01/2021 3 Mmcfe/d is on a 6:1 basis; estimated June 2021 production

PHX Minerals Inc. (NYSE: PHX) Oklahoma City-based, PHX Minerals Inc. is a natural gas and oil mineral company with a strategy to proactively grow its mineral position in its core areas of focus. PHX owns approximately 251,000 net mineral acres principally located in Oklahoma, Texas, North Dakota, New Mexico and Arkansas. Additional information on the Company can be found at www.phxmin.com.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This press release includes "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Words such as "anticipates," "plans," "estimates," "believes," "expects," "intends," "will," "should," "may" and similar expressions may be used to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are not statements of historical fact and reflect PHX's current views about future events. Forward-looking statements may include, but are not limited to, statements relating to: the Company's ability to execute its business strategies; the volatility of realized natural gas and oil prices; the level of production on the Company's properties; estimates of quantities of natural gas, oil and NGL reserves and their values; general economic or industry conditions; legislation or regulatory requirements; conditions of the securities markets; the Company's ability to raise capital; changes in accounting principles, policies or guidelines; financial or political instability; acts of war or terrorism; epidemics and pandemics such as the COVID-19 pandemic, title defects in the properties in which the Company invests; and other economic, competitive, governmental, regulatory or technical factors affecting properties, operations or prices. Although the Company believes expectations reflected in these and other forward-looking statements are reasonable, the Company can give no assurance such forward-looking statements will prove to be correct. Such forward-looking statements are subject to a number of assumptions, risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the control of the Company. These forward-looking statements involve certain risks and uncertainties that could cause the results to differ materially from those expected by the Company's management. Investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and that actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected in forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements in this press release are made as of the date hereof, and the Company does not undertake any obligation to update the forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Information concerning these risks and other factors can be found in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Annual Reports on Form 10-K and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, available on the Company's website or the SEC's website at www.sec.gov.

SOURCE PHX MINERALS INC.

Related Links

http://www.phxmin.com


VALLEY FORGE, Pa., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- PJM Interconnection, the nation's largest power grid operator, is donating $25,000 to the American Red Cross for Hurricane Ida relief efforts. PJM also will match its employees' donations to help with relief programs.

"Our thoughts are with those impacted by this devastating hurricane," said Manu Asthana, president and CEO. "Ida and the tornadoes and flooding spawned in its aftermath were felt throughout the eastern U.S., by the customers served by our member companies and beyond. PJM and its employees hope our contribution can help people in the hurricane's path recover from this event."

Over the past few weeks, the Red Cross has deployed more than 1,900 disaster workers. The Red Cross and other organizations reported providing more than 21,800 overnight stays in emergency shelters and serving more than 226,000 meals and snacks. The Red Cross also has distributed more than 92,800 relief items for people forced from their homes and provided more than 6,100 individual care contacts.

In the spirit of PJM's culture of caring, employees contribute time and donations to many programs in the community. During 2020, for example, PJM employees donated $54,039 in funds matched by PJM to COVID-19 relief.

PJM's 2020 Impact Report highlights PJM's social responsibility efforts through an environmental, social and governance lens.

PJM Interconnection, founded in 1927, ensures the reliability of the high-voltage electric power system serving 65 million people in all or parts of Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia. PJM coordinates and directs the operation of the region's transmission grid, which includes over 85,103 miles of transmission lines; administers a competitive wholesale electricity market; and plans regional transmission expansion improvements to maintain grid reliability and relieve congestion. PJM's regional grid and market operations produce annual savings of $3.2 billion to $4 billion. For the latest news about PJM, visit PJM Inside Lines at insidelines.pjm.com.

SOURCE PJM Interconnection

Related Links

http://www.pjm.com


Among the Company's recent milestones is the success of its brick-and-mortar store and wholly owned subsidiary, MK Cuisine Global LLC's Plant-Based Deli , LLC (" New Deli ") in Venice Beach, California. New Deli is a plant-based neighborhood bodega that offers a variety of plant-based foods and ready-to-go meals, pantry staples, snacks, coffee, beer and wine. Due to increasing customer demand, New Deli's product repertoire has grown significantly since its acquisition by PlantX in May 2021, and now includes over 500 new plant-based items.

The Company has also been actively implementing its retail rebranding initiative by re-naming its existing brick-and-mortar stores as "XMarket". The new retail identity aims to reflect the dynamic, interactive, and diverse in-store experience provided by the Company's physical retail locations. As such, the Company's physical stores in Squamish, British Columbia as well as the New Deli location in Venice Beach, California will be re-branded as XMarket.

The XMarket name will also be used to brand the PlantX brick-and-mortar stores in Tel Aviv, Israel, which will open its doors on November 15, 2021. Additionally, the Company aims to launch a new website in the Israel on the same date.

The XMarket brick-and-mortar store in San Diego, California will be opening in October 2021.

To mark the official unveiling of XMarket in Squamish, British Columbia and increase local brand awareness, PlantX will be hosting a grand opening event for its XMarket store in Squamish on October 14, 2021. The celebration will take place at the PlantX Living Squamish location, which includes the Locavore Bar & Grill, and other related businesses including the Cloudburst Cafe and Locavore Food Truck. As part of this event, PlantX will be hosting a vegan barbeque, and will launch a new PlantX-commissioned mural painted by Alex Fowkes, a local Squamish artist. The event will be attended by high-profile PlantX ambassadors such as professional skier Nick McNutt, and professional mountain bike athlete, Remy Metailler. The Company will also be adding 1,500 new plant-based items to the Squamish XMarket product selection and will offer all of its customers a free plant for each purchase over $50 throughout the day.

Corporate Updates

In addition to its recent rebranding activities, PlantX is pleased to announce the following key corporate updates:

The Company announces that it has granted an aggregate of 120,000 incentive stock options (the " Options ") to purchase common shares of PlantX (" Common Shares ") to certain employees and consultants of the Company. The Options are exercisable for a five (5) year period at a price of $0.42 per share. One quarter (1/4) of the Options will vest every three (3) months from the date of the grant.

") to purchase common shares of PlantX (" ") to certain employees and consultants of the Company. The Options are exercisable for a five (5) year period at a price of per share. One quarter (1/4) of the Options will vest every three (3) months from the date of the grant. The Company also announces that it has granted an aggregate of 2,880,000 restricted share units (" RSUs ") to certain employees and consultants of the Company pursuant to the Company's restricted share unit plan (the " RSU Plan "). The RSUs have a term of one (1) year of which one quarter (1/4) of the RSUs will vest every three (3) months from the date of grant.

") to certain employees and consultants of the Company pursuant to the Company's restricted share unit plan (the " "). The RSUs have a term of one (1) year of which one quarter (1/4) of the RSUs will vest every three (3) months from the date of grant. The Company's Executive Chairman, Mr. Fred Leigh , currently owns 2,100,000 Common Shares and has purchased 250,000 shares since his recent appointment as Chairman.

About PlantX Life Inc.

As the digital face of the plant-based community, PlantX's platform is the one-stop-shop for everything plant-based. With its fast-growing category verticals, the Company offers customers across North America more than 5,000 plant-based products. In addition to offering meal and indoor plant deliveries, the Company currently has plans underway to expand its product lines to include cosmetics and its own water brand  but the business is not limited to an e-commerce platform. The Company uses its digital platform to build a community of like-minded consumers, and most importantly, provide education. Its successful enterprise is being built and fortified on partnerships with top nutritionists, chefs and brands. The Company eliminates the barriers to entry for anyone interested in living a plant-based lifestyle and thriving in a longer, healthier and happier life.

The Company website is http://investor.PlantX.com/.

Forward Looking-Information

This press release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws. All statements contained herein that are not clearly historical in nature may constitute forward-looking information. In some cases, forward-looking information can be identified by words or phrases such as "may", "will", "expect", "likely", "should", "would", "plan", "anticipate", "intend", "potential", "proposed", "estimate", "believe" or the negative of these terms, or other similar words, expressions and grammatical variations thereof, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" happen, or by discussions of strategy. The forward-looking information contained herein includes, without limitation, the business and strategic plans of the Company.

By their nature, forward-looking information is subject to inherent risks and uncertainties that may be general or specific and which give rise to the possibility that expectations, forecasts, predictions, projections or conclusions will not prove to be accurate, that assumptions may not be correct and that objectives, strategic goals and priorities will not be achieved. A variety of factors, including known and unknown risks, many of which are beyond our control, could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking information in this press release including, without limitation: the Company's ability to comply with all applicable governmental regulations including all applicable food safety laws and regulations; impacts to the business and operations of the Company due to the COVID-19 epidemic; a limited operating history, the ability of the Company to access capital to meet future financing needs; the Company's reliance on management and key personnel; competition; changes in consumer trends; foreign currency fluctuations; and general economic, market or business conditions.

Additional risk factors can also be found in the Company's continuous disclosure documents which have been filed on SEDAR and can be accessed at www.sedar.com . Readers are cautioned to consider these and other factors, uncertainties and potential events carefully and not to put undue reliance on forward-looking information. The forward-looking information contained herein is made as of the date of this press release and is based on the beliefs, estimates, expectations and opinions of management on the date such forward-looking information is made. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, estimates or opinions, future events or results or otherwise or to explain any material difference between subsequent actual events and such forward-looking information, except as required by applicable law.

SOURCE PlantX Life Inc.

Related Links

https://plantx.com/


The participating startups will be fully immersed in Plug and Play's global network of over 30,000 startups, 500 industry-leading corporate partners and hundreds of venture capital firms and investors. Out of the 153 startups, a majority of the startups are based outside the U.S., representing a variety of countries including Austria, Canada, France, Hong Kong, Israel, Singapore and more.

"Over the years, we have seen the best, most innovative startups join our unique ecosystem," said Saeed Amidi, Founder and CEO of Plug and Play. "I am excited to welcome 153 startups into our Winter 2021 Programs to close off the end of the year. Throughout the next three months, these startups will gain tremendous access to our partners. I know, without a doubt we will see some of the greatest innovations during these unprecedented times."

Throughout the next three months, these startups will be able to participate in networking events, mentor sessions, focus weeks, dealflow sessions and more. This opportunity will increase the startups' chances of securing exclusive pilots, POCs, new customers and investments. There is no equity requirement for startups to participate.

Graduation for these startups will commence mid-November at Plug and Play's Winter Summit 2021. Please register now to reserve attendance.

About Plug and Play

Plug and Play is a global innovation platform. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, we have built accelerator programs, corporate innovation services, and an in-house VC to make technological advancement progress faster than ever before. Since inception in 2006, our programs have expanded worldwide to include a presence in over 30 locations globally, giving startups the necessary resources to succeed in Silicon Valley and beyond. Companies in our community have raised over $9 billion in funding, with successful portfolio exits including Dropbox, Guardant Health, Honey, Lending Club, and PayPal. For more information, visit https://www.plugandplaytechcenter.com/ .

Media Contact

Allison Romero

[email protected]

(408) 524-1457

SOURCE Plug and Play

Related Links

https://www.plugandplaytechcenter.com/


Prescryptive Health and AssureCare partner on an end-to-end pharmacy solution; patient acquisition through to billing. Tweet this

"We've always believed the community pharmacist deserves to be fairly compensated for their expertise and care," said Chris Blackley, CEO of Prescryptive Health. "This partnership extends our mission to connect people to their local pharmacist for services, with a robust medical billing process as a model for what's possible in the future of pharmacy."

"Together, Prescryptive Health and AssureCare are partnering to greatly improve overall population health," said Yousuf J. Ahmad, DrPH, MBA, MHSA, FACHE, President & CEO of AssureCare. "This partnership is crucial to enable pharmacists to deliver on their tremendous responsibilities in healthcare and connecting those pharmacists with patients who are in need of services."

The first focus of the partnership will be COVID-19 care. Pharmacists have proven to be essential providers throughout the pandemic and are often the only provider in some of the most impacted communities. Pharmacists will be connected to patients searching for COVID-19 services, including testing and reporting, vaccines, and RegenCOV treatment. This full prevention-diagnosis-treatment-reporting-payment with revenue cycle management solution, delivered via digital technology, helps pharmacists serve their communities in the ongoing public health crisis, while remaining profitable.

"As a community pharmacist, this new partnership is thrilling to see," said Michele Belcher of Grants Pass Pharmacy in Oregon, the first store to implement the new joint offering. "When pharmacists can profitably serve their communities through digital solutions that remove complexity and frustration, we can focus on what matters: the care of our patients."

About Prescryptive Health

Prescryptive Health is a healthcare technology company delivering solutions that empower consumers. Prescryptive's secure, mobile-first products connect consumers, pharmacists, and employers, ultimately providing people with the information they need to make informed decisions and take control of their health. To learn more about Prescryptive Health, visit www.prescryptive.com.

About AssureCare

AssureCare is a privately held healthcare technology company that transforms the health management process for pharmacies, payers, and providers, by enabling the delivery of higher quality, cost-effective, collaborative care across the complete continuum of health and wellness. AssureCare's robust population health management platform provides a patient-centric, boutique electronic health record software suite that empowers providers to deliver effective and efficient patient care and supports Medication Therapy Management solutions AssureCare is an industry leader in developing modular, seamless solutions designed to improve patient outcomes and reduce costs associated with population health management.

AssureCare is a Vora Ventures portfolio company with headquarters in Cincinnati, OH. For more information, please visit https://www.assurecare.com or call 513-618-2150.

SOURCE Prescryptive Health

Related Links

https://www.prescryptive.com


LONDON, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Can a home insurance payout truly replace people's invaluable items? The insurance industry would say so, but that isn't the truth. Enter Hiro , the prevention-first insurtech for things money can't replace. Today, it is announcing a partnership with reformed burglar and veteran security consultant, Michael Fraser, who will be bringing his experience from both sides of the industry to the Hiro community, enabling members to proactively protect their homes.

Fraser was wrapped up in the world of crime as a teenager, but is now one of the most sought-after home security consultants in the country. He has co-presented many well-known TV programmes, and brings with him a wealth of home security experience.

"You're told that insurance is there to protect you, but actually, that is a common lie throughout the industry. We know that once your invaluable items are gone, they're gone, regardless of whether you get a payout. This is why we've brought Michael on board  to empower our members to proactively protect their homes," says Krystian Zajac, cofounder and CEO at Hiro. "Of course, we're still there to pay out if bad things happen, but we also help our community to make their homes more secure  and we reward them for doing so. Partnering with Michael is the next phase of this, and his advice to our members will really help them to develop safer habits and proactively protect items that can't be replaced by money alone."

This announcement boosts Hiro's proactive security offering. The insurtech company already rewards members for using smart tech to protect their homes by giving them a fairer price on their home insurance, and a discount on many smart home products from a myriad of partners, including Ring, Philips Hue and Yale. To take proactive protection a step further, Hiro will be working with Fraser to provide live Q&As, security 'tips and tricks', home security walk-throughs, and personal home security consultancies for Hiro members.

"As a youngster, I quickly realised committing burglary was wrong. So, I turned my experience on its head and helped people protect their homes and belongings from burglars. I know every trick in the book, and it frustrates me that most people only seem to adopt security measures and practises once they have been burgled. The first piece of advice I always give people is to imagine they have locked themselves out of their home  how would they get in? Because if they know there is a weakness, you can be sure a burglar will spot it," says Michael Fraser. "Hiro excites me as it shares that passion for proactivity, which I have never seen from an insurance company. I am looking forward to meeting the Hiro community and my impartial, expert advice will really help members to step up their home security."

About Hiro:

Hiro is swapping reactive for proactive. It helps you to defend the things you hold dear  the things that money can't replace  and empowers you with smart tech that prevents bad things from happening. It'll even reward you with lower prices, just for being a safer homeowner  and give you access to amazing discounts on tech to help you get the most out of your insurance, whether you claim or not. And if you decide Hiro isn't for you, it won't be held against you. You can cancel your monthly subscription whenever you like, straight from the Hiro app. No cancellation fees, no nonsense.

This is simple, transparent home insurance that helps to protect not just your valuables, but your invaluables.

To get your quote, just visit gethiro.com

Media contact:

Gus Walton - Head of PR and Communications at Hiro

[email protected]

+447767607688

SOURCE Hiro
WOLLERAU, Switzerland, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Proman has welcomed the UK Government's commitment to push for a world-leading absolute zero target for international shipping emissions by 2050, as announced by Transport Secretary Grant Shapps on 13th September 2021.

This target, which would need to be agreed through the International Maritime Organization (IMO), recognises that reducing shipping emissions is not just about cutting carbon dioxide (CO 2 ).

Of the ~3% of global greenhouse gas emissions generated by the sector, a significant proportion of this estimated 1 billion tonnes1 each year comes in the form of sulphur oxides (SO x ), nitrous oxides (NO x ) and particulate matter, all of which have a proven impact on air quality and public health.2

The global shipping sector and regulators must take decisions now regarding the fuels and technology required to meet existing IMO 2030 and 2050 targets.

Some of the world's largest shipping companies have this year backed methanol as the leading alternative marine fuel for the future, including Maersk's recent order of eight new methanol-fueled vessels and the significant investments by leading engine manufacturers MAN and Wartsila in methanol fleets and technology.

As a marine fuel, methanol's major advantage is that it can drastically  and in some instances immediately  reduce all shipping emissions. It therefore has a major role to play in meeting the UK Government's 2050 absolute zero emissions target.

With its clean-burning qualities, ship owners switching to methanol fuel can immediately eliminate SO x and particulate matter and cut NO x emissions by over 60%. Methanol produced from natural gas offers an initial 10-15% CO 2 saving, rising to over 90% when using renewable methanol. Methanol is also safe to handle, globally available and benefits from proven engine technology.

Speaking at this year's Argus Methanol Forum, David Cassidy, Chief Executive of Proman said:

"While only smaller amounts of renewable methanol are currently produced, as demand grows the level of renewable methanol production can be rapidly ramped up. As more plants get built and more capital is committed to renewable methanol production, the underlying technologies and equipment will become more cost effective and the price of renewable methanol will become more competitive. The whole process can be a massive stimulus for our global economy, creating new future-proof jobs while driving down emissions and reducing environmental harm. That surely, is a win-win situation."

Welcoming the UK Government's commitment to push for absolute zero shipping emissions by 2050, David Cassidy called for further regulatory and government actions to create a level playing field for cleaner alternative fuels:

"The global energy transition has opened the door for alternatives to conventional fuels. There is no single solution or silver bullet, and we need to keep the door open for an open fuel standard for every solution to work in concert. But investing in methanol now means a smoother and faster transition to a lower carbon future."

"As an industry, we need legislative action to help level the playing field and foster methanol's adoption. Pricing challenges will need to be confronted, and carbon taxes on fossil-based fuels should be part of the solution. Calculating emissions on a well-to-wake basis are critical to allowing like-for-like comparisons between future fuels, rather than pushing emissions further upstream. We need the development of international certificates to allow for a true "book and claim" system, because that will be crucial to the acceptance of methanol as a fuel more broadly. And we absolutely need to standardise how we all report ESG metrics."

NOTES TO EDITORS

About Proman:

Proman is an integrated energy company and the world's second largest methanol producer.

Headquartered in Switzerland, with assets in the United States, Trinidad and Oman, and ongoing expansion into Mexico, Proman is a global leader in methanol, fertilizer and other products such as melamine and has extensive experience in petrochemical plant operations, petrochemical and power plant construction, marketing and logistics, and project management.

Proman is committed to developing sustainable methanol and ammonia as cleaner alternatives to fossil fuels, offering a pathway to drastically cutting emissions in power generation, overland transportation, shipping and industry.

In June 2021, Proman finalised an agreement to build two additional 49,900 dwt methanol dual-fuel MR tankers, bringing its total investment in methanol-powered vessels to six newbuildings.

Learn more about our work along the clean shipping supply chain here: https://www.proman.org/methanol-as-a-marine-fuel/

1 https://wwwcdn.imo.org/localresources/en/OurWork/Environment/Documents/Fourth IMO GHG Study 2020 - Full report and annexes.pdf

2 According to the UK Department of Transport's Clean Maritime Plan, published July 2019, domestic shipping accounted for 11% of the UK's total NO x emissions, 2% of the primary PM2.5 emissions, and 7% of SO 2 emissions. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/815664/clean-maritime-plan.pdf

SOURCE Proman AG
ELWOOD, Ind., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Red Gold, the largest privately-owned tomato processor in the nation, announced the launch of a new line of retail products that is shaking things up in the canned tomato industry. The new brand is called "Tomato Love," and the product begins with the freshest tomatoes grown on local family farms and picked red-ripe off the vine. They are then tossed with hand-picked green chilies and a dash of seasoning to create a spicy alternative to their milder counterparts.

Even though Tomato Love is a new line of products, the brand is already racking up esteemed accolades. It was awarded the coveted ChefsBest Excellence Award from ChefsBest Certified

Master Tasters, who use their vast experience and scientific methodology to determine quality. This is only awarded to brands that surpass established quality standards. Tomato Love also won the American Package Design Award from Graphic Design USA, an acknowledgement of "the power of design to advance a brand and forge an emotional connection with the buyer at the moment of truth." (Graphic Design USA)

Prior to hitting the market, Red Gold went through several rounds of testing to ultimately land on a final product and packaging design together with SmashBrand. This resulted in strong purchase intent and 2x growth in early sales.

"The new Tomato Love brand is tomato perfection with incredible freshness and quality," said Colt Reichart, Director of Marketing, Omnichannel and Consumer Relations for Red Gold. "For four generations, our mission has been to produce the freshest, best-tasting tomato products in the world! We are proud to be Family Owned, Grown, & Made."

Within the Tomato Love product line, 3 of the 5 flavors are unique to the category: Chili Starter, Sriracha, and 2x More Chilies. "Chili Starter was developed because we did a test with a retail partner and had a high volume of consumers calling in and looking for it specifically," said

Reichart. "Sriracha was developed in partnership with The Original Huy Fong Sriracha, and 2x More Chilies was developed to address the consumer complaint that other tomato brands did not include enough green chilies. We can't wait for even more people to discover the bold and delicious flavors of our Tomato Love products."

The new product line is available at Kroger, Jewel Osco, HEB, Schnucks, Price Chopper and Walmart stores. To find Tomato Love products near you, visit

redgoldtomatoes.com/redgold/where-to-buy . To learn more about the brand, visit redgoldtomatoes.com/new#tomatolove .

About Red Gold

Four generations of the Reichart family have been producing the world's freshest, best tasting tomato products since 1942. When the US entered WWII, the government asked citizens to step up and help the war effort and the call was answered. Since then, Red Gold has become the largest privately owned tomato processor in the nation with three state-of-the-art facilities in Elwood, Geneva, and Orestes, Indiana. The company also boasts a million square foot distribution center in Alexandria and operates the subsidiary RG Transport trucking fleet in Elwood. Red Gold partners with local family farms across Indiana, southern Michigan, and Northwest Ohio to sustainably produce premium quality canned tomatoes, ketchup, sauces, salsas, and juices for foodservice, private brands, brands, export, co-pack, club and retail channels of distribution. The Red Gold family of consumer brands includes Red Gold, Redpack, Tuttorosso, Tomato Love, Sacramento, Huy Fong Sriracha Ketchup and Salsa, Folds of Honor Ketchup and 1776 BBQ. Superior Quality, Outstanding Service and Operational Excellence are the shared values that contributed to the employee-created mission statement:

"To produce the freshest, best tasting tomato products in the world." Visit

RedGoldTomatoes.com for great recipes, tips and culinary inspiration. Red Gold. Family Owned, Grown, and Made.

Media Contact

Colt Reichart, Director of Marketing, Omnichannel and Consumer

Relations Red Gold [email protected]

SOURCE Red Gold
The cruise line has marked the occasion by creating a return to sailing video , featuring many of the beloved Seven Seas Splendor crew.

"This cruise represents yet another huge step forward as we return to luxury travel. I am so excited for our guests who have waited patiently, and for our crew and team members across our global offices who have worked so hard to get to this moment," said Jason Montague, president and CEO, Regent Seven Seas Cruises. "The Regent family is finally reunited, and we are delighted to provide our guests with the unrivaled Regent experience with every luxury included, while sailing the world, once more."

Helmed by Captain Diego Michelozzi, the inaugural sailing circles the United Kingdom with ports of call including Edinburgh, Scotland; Belfast, Northern Ireland; and Liverpool, England. The ship returns to Southampton on September 22, cruising into the new Horizon Cruise Terminal, before sailing a 14-night voyage to Barcelona, Spain visiting Bordeaux, France and Lisbon, Portugal, among other destinations. Seven Seas Splendor then spends October and November exploring the Mediterranean before crossing the Atlantic for a season in the Caribbean.

The next ship in The World's Most Luxurious Fleet to resume sailing will be Seven Seas Explorer on October 15, 2021, from Trieste, Italy. Seven Seas Mariner will resume sailing December 18, 2021, from Miami, Florida, as will Seven Seas Navigator on January 6, 2022. Finally, Seven Seas Voyager will return on February 15, 2022 from Barcelona, Spain.

International Luxury Travelers Enjoy An Unrivaled Experience Once Again

Luxury travelers from the US, UK and Europe are on board Seven Seas Splendor's inaugural sailing with a number of loyal Seven Seas Society members, including Commodores  guests who have sailed with Regent Seven Seas Cruises for over 2,000 nights.

Regent's president and CEO, Jason Montague, and the cruise line's chief sales & marketing officer, Andrea DeMarco, hosted Seven Seas Society Commodore members Nancy Pflager, Malcolm Myers, and Margaret "Peggy" Nathan for a celebratory gourmet dinner on September 12, in the ship's beautiful Compass Rose restaurant.

Margaret "Peggy" Nathan of New York said "It was so wonderful to see the crew after being away from our Regent family for so long. This inaugural cruise has been an incredibly special way to experience such a beautiful ship."

Multi-Layered SailSAFE Health & Safety Program

During its voluntary suspension of sailings, Regent Seven Seas Cruises built upon its existing comprehensive health and safety protocols by establishing the SailSAFE health and safety program, a robust and science-backed strategy that creates multiple layers of protection against COVID-19. The Program was developed with guidance from a team of public health and scientific experts including the SailSAFE Global Health and Wellness Council.

By visiting RSSC.com/HealthSafetyProtocols, guests and Travel Partners can see an overview of current requirements to sail - such as all guests and crew being fully vaccinated at least two weeks prior to departure - which the cruise line believes will provide a uniquely safe and healthy cruise experience. These and other requirements will be in place until a time when the protocols can be confidently adjusted, and Regent will constantly monitor the global health environment to protect the safety and security of guests, crew and communities visited.

For more information call 1-844-4REGENT (1-844-873-2381), visit RSSC.com or contact a professional travel advisor.

About Regent Seven Seas Cruises

Regent Seven Seas Cruises is the leading luxury cruise line, delivering An Unrivaled Experience for over 25 years. Carrying no more than 750 guests, the line's spacious and stylish ships - Seven Seas Explorer, Seven Seas Mariner, Seven Seas Navigator, Seven Seas Splendor, Seven Seas Voyager and from 2023 Seven Seas Grandeur - form The World's Most Luxurious Fleet and explore more than 450 immersive destinations globally. Offering Unrivalled Space at Sea, guests enjoy sumptuous all-suite accommodations, nearly all with private balconies, which are among the largest at sea, as well as highly personalized service throughout lavish public areas and expansive outdoor spaces. Unique to Regent Seven Seas Cruises, unlimited complimentary shore excursions are available in every port, making it the only truly all-inclusive cruise line. Voyage fares also include round-trip business-class air on intercontinental flights from the U.S. and Canada, gourmet cuisine in a range of specialty restaurants and al-fresco dining venues, fine wines and spirits, entertainment, unlimited internet access, free valet laundry, gratuities, ground transfers and one-night, pre-cruise hotel packages for guests staying in Concierge-level suites and higher. For more information, please visit RSSC.com, call 1-844-4REGENT (1-844-873-2381) or contact a professional travel advisor.

SOURCE Regent Seven Seas Cruises

Related Links

www.rssc.com


PHOENIX, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Republic Services, Inc. (NYSE: RSG) today announced that it will release its third quarter 2021 financial results on Thursday, Oct. 28, 2021, after the market closes, and will host an investor conference call at 5 p.m. ET. A live audio webcast of the conference call can be accessed by logging onto the Company's Investor Relations page on republicservices.com, or listeners may access the call by dialing 844-890-1789 or 412-717-9598, passcode "Republic Services."

The Company encourages participants who will be dialing in to pre-register for the conference call using the following link: https://dpregister.com/sreg/10160199/ed4aa25413. Callers who pre-register will be given a conference passcode and PIN to gain immediate access to the call and bypass the live operator on the day of the call. Participants may pre-register at any time, including up to and after the call start time.

A replay of the call will be available one hour after the end of the conference through Nov. 4, 2021, by calling 877-344-7529 or 412-317-0088, passcode 10160199. The conference call will also be archived on the Company's website at republicservices.com.

About Republic Services

Republic Services, Inc. is a leader in the U.S. environmental services industry. Through its subsidiaries, the Company provides superior customer experience while fostering a sustainable Blue Planet for future generations to enjoy a cleaner, safer and healthier world. For more information, visit RepublicServices.com, or follow us at Facebook.com/RepublicServices, @RepublicService on Twitter or Republic Services on LinkedIn.

The Company participates in investor presentations and conferences throughout the year. Interested parties can find a schedule of these conferences at republicservices.com.

SOURCE Republic Services, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.republicservices.com


ROCHESTER, N.Y., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- WOWorks, the parent company of health-centric fast-casual brands Saladworks, Frutta Bowls, Garbanzo Mediterranean Fresh and The Simple Greek, has debuted its first location in a Walmart Grocery store in Rochester, NY at 2150 Chili Ave. The Ghost Kitchen location will include Saladworks, the nation's leading fast-casual entree salad franchise, and Frutta Bowls, the nation's fastest-growing superfoods cafe, right alongside other mouthwatering brands. This opening comes after WOWorks signed a deal for 90 non-traditional retail presences with Ghost Kitchen Brands in the spring of this year.

Saladworks currently has over 150 locations across North America, more than 40 of those having opened in the past year. For Saladworks, the initiative to open restaurants in non-traditional venues began in early 2019 and continues to be at the forefront of its future goals. Frutta Bowls, which has over 30 locations, is also following suit with an emphasis on both traditional and non-traditional growth after becoming part of the WOWorks family in December 2020.

"We're thrilled to make yet another debut for Saladworks inside a major retailer, and the first for Frutta Bowls. These partnerships have proven to be incredible opportunities for WOWorks, and we're looking forward to the growth that will come out of this opening," said Eric Lavinder, Chief Development officer for WOWorks. "Guests continue to receive the same hospitality and healthy experience they have at our stand-alone restaurants, but with even more accessibility and convenience at Walmart locations."

Saladworks provides guests a variety of healthy and delicious items through their Signature salad options, as well as Create-Your-Own options, which include salads, wraps, grain bowls, soups and more. The brand always maintains a focus on guest originality through its array of over 60 fresh, flavorful and healthy ingredients.

Frutta Bowls represents more than just a meal or snack to sate an appetite for the moment  it serves as "fuel" that stimulates your mind, energizes your body, lifts your spirit and feeds your soul. The menu features customizable Bowls, Smoothies, and Protein Bites that are packed with vitamin-rich superfoods such as Acai, Pitaya and Kale that are high in antioxidants along with Almonds, Blueberries, Oatmeal and Dark Chocolate to help boost immunity levels.

In addition to simply ordering in-person at the Walmart locations, Saladworks and Frutta Bowls guests will also have the choice to order online through the brands' websites, by using the Ghost Kitchen Brands website or using 3rd party delivery platforms. For more information about Saladworks, visit www.saladworks.com, and for more information about Frutta Bowls, visit www.fruttabowls.com.

ABOUT WOWorks

WOWorks was formed in 2020 with a mission to help guests pursue their passions and live their best lives by serving healthy, nutritious and flavorful meals along with first-rate hospitality. Fully owned by Centre Lane Partners, LLC, WOWorks' portfolio consists of: Saladworks, the nation's leading fast-casual salad brand; Frutta Bowls, a unique restaurant franchise serving a variety of superfood bowls, fresh fruit smoothies, protein bites and more; Garbanzo Mediterranean Fresh, a popular Mediterranean restaurant concept; and most recently, The Simple Greek, which offers a fresh and healthy take on traditional Greek recipes in a fast-casual setting. WOWorks seeks to drive explosive growth across all of its brands through a variety of channels, both traditional and non-traditional, including ghost kitchens, food trucks, grocery retail and more.

ABOUT SALADWORKS:

Founded in 1986, Saladworks is the nation's leading fast-casual create-your-own salad destination, with over 150 locations across 18 states and two countries. Saladworks encourages guests to be original, giving them the option to choose from salads, warm grain bowls or wraps, along with an endless array of fresh vegetables, fruits, proteins and delicious dressings. Ranked #7 on Fast Casual's Top 100 Movers and Shakers in 2021, Saladworks has been delivering the most original and incredible salad experience to guests for 35 years. For more information, visit www.saladworks.com.

ABOUT FRUTTA BOWLS:

Founded in 2016 to fulfill a need for fresh and flavorful plant-centric dining options, Frutta Bowls has since grown from its original location in Freehold, New Jersey to more than 30 locations. From Acai to Zinc, Frutta Bowls uses only the freshest, ripest and most flavorful plant-based, whole-food ingredients featured in customizable Bowls, Smoothies, Toasts and Protein Bites. For more information, visit www.fruttabowls.com

SOURCE WOWorks
AUSTIN, Texas, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Sante Ventures ('Sante'), an early-stage healthcare and life sciences investment firm, announced today the final close of its oversubscribed Fund IV. Consistent with Sante's industry focus, expertise, and previous success, the new fund will make strategic investments across early-stage Biotech, Healthtech, and Medtech companies.

Fund IV secured capital commitments from more than two-dozen limited partners, including the Pennsylvania Public School Employees' Retirement System ("PSERS") and new institutional investors in Asia and Latin America. Returning limited partners in previous Sante funds accounted for nearly 90% of the total capital.

"The confidence and commitment of our investors led to the quickest fundraise since inception," said Kevin Lalande, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Sante Ventures. "We are grateful for their partnership as we deploy this next fund to capitalize on significant healthcare opportunities and nurture cutting-edge technologies that can improve lives."

"We have seen firsthand how events over the last 18 months have accelerated the adoption of technology in all facets of life, especially in healthcare," Lalande continued. "Our team's deep understanding of biological systems, machine learning, and health industry economics offers a truly differentiated investment platform. Sante's disciplined portfolio strategy is designed to engineer the luck out of fund-level venture capital returns by delivering superior performance independent of vintage year and the broader macroeconomic cycle, as demonstrated in the success of our track record over the last 15 years. We are well-positioned to develop this next portfolio of compelling new venture opportunities, which will be consistent with the investment strategy and operating principles that have served the firm so well to date."

Following its close, the Fund will build a portfolio of 15-25 investments in authentically innovative companies with the potential to deliver better health outcomes at lower cost. As a first mover in the healthcare and life science sectors, Sante typically leads or co-leads Seed or Series A fundraising rounds, often creating the new company from scratch or as an entrepreneur's first institutional investor.

About Sante Ventures

Founded in 2006, Sante Ventures is a specialized healthcare and life sciences investment firm with nearly $1BN in capital under management. The firm invests in early-stage companies developing innovative new medical technologies, biotechnologies, and digitally enabled healthcare services. Recent Sante successes include Farapulse (Boston Scientific), Claret Medical (Boston Scientific), TVA Medical (Becton Dickinson), Millipede Medical (Boston Scientific), Molecular Templates (MTEM), AbVitro (Celgene), and Explorys (IBM Corp). Sante invests nationally and has offices in Austin, TX, and Boston, MA. For more information, please visit www.sante.com.

Media Contacts

Sante Ventures Press and Community Relations

[email protected]

512.721.1200

Trevor Gibbons, Prosek Partners

[email protected]

646.818.9238

SOURCE Sante Ventures

Related Links

https://sante.com/


- Supporting Chinese customers with cutting-edge innovations to accelerate technological breakthroughs in life science research and biopharma processing

- Significantly extended capabilities in biological drug discovery, process development, testing and validation to meeting growing local customer demand

- Continuous increase in investments and long-term commitment in China

SHANGHAI, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The life science group Sartorius officially opened its new, significantly expanded Application and Service Hub in Zhangjiang Science City in Shanghai, China. Equipped with the latest innovative instrumentation and offering cutting-edge professional expertise, this Hub covering over 3,000 square meters accommodates the Sartorius Application Center 3.0, the Confidence Validation Services Laboratory 2.0 and APAC Service Hub. This combined facility is designed as an integrated solution platform to empower and accelerate progress in areas ranging from research to process development to production in the Chinese life sciences and biopharmaceutical industries. "The grand opening of the Application and Service Hub marks a further milestone in Sartorius' development in China and underlines its long-term commitment to this fast-growing market," said Sarah Wang, Head of Sales and Services in China.

Given the fast growth of the Chinese biopharmaceutical industry over the past years, Sartorius has been continuously investing to broaden its footprint and expanding its capacity in China to meet the growing needs of local customers. The latest innovations in bioanalytic, continuous processing and digitalization are now going live in the upgraded Application Center 3.0, where the new Sartorius process solutions will be showcased and experienced as their first point of entry. More importantly, early stage monoclonal antibody (mAb) and virus-based therapies can be discovered, and their process applications can be custom developed, tested, and verified. With help of intelligent digital systems, process data could be monitored and controlled with remote SCADA system, and deviations can be reliably detected and analyzed in real time to drive the best possible outcomes. These systems combined with the power of local Sartorius expertise will enable customers to benefit from more efficient and productive process solutions for their specific products, lowering their investment outlay and significantly reducing the time to market.

In life science research and the biopharma industry, it is important not only to speed up the entire process chain from drug discovery to commercial-scale production, but also to ensure that each process step is robust and safe as well as complies with applicable GMP and GLP regulatory requirements. With its capacity and capabilities expanded, the new Sartorius China Confidence Validation Services Laboratory 2.0 will enable customers to overcome validation-related challenges. The Sartorius Hub's sterile filter validation facility will double its capacity by 2022 to meet increasing local demand. Extractables and Leachables (E&L) testing and virus clearance studies are the new local capabilities, helping to ensure regulatory compliance and safe implementation of single-use systems in biopharmaceutical production and reliable clearance processes to guarantee patient safety.

The new Sartorius APAC Service Hub ensures professional after-sales continuity for equipment repair, maintenance, and calibration service. As it is crucial for production-scale equipment to function correctly in customers' bioprocesses and this usually entails significant investments, Sartorius has expanded its Service Hub to provide real-equipment-based training, not only for Sartorius engineers in Asia but also for its customers' engineers to prevent malfunctions before they happen and to extend the service life of Sartorius equipment. Professional service engineers and a complete range of spare parts on stock speed up calibration, repair and maintenance of smaller-scale instruments significantly.

Sartorius is investing increasingly in local capacity expansion and customer-centric services. The newly opened Customer Interaction Center in Beijing for testing, validating, and adjusting equipment functionalities has successfully completed its first large-scale customer project. Moreover, the Sartorius Laboratory and Service Center in YETDA Biopark in Yantai, China, is under construction. As of the first half of 2022, this facility will provide timely, on-site support to our customers and biotech startups in their drug discovery and early development phases. Sartorius currently employs more than 700 team members in China and is continuously expanding its local organization.

This press release contains forward-looking statements about the future development of the Sartorius Group. Forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. Sartorius assumes no liability for updating such statements in light of new information or future events. This is a translation of the original German-language press release. Sartorius shall not assume any liability for the correctness of this translation. The original German press release is the legally binding version.

A profile of Sartorius

The Sartorius Group is a leading international partner of life science research and the biopharmaceutical industry. With innovative laboratory instruments and consumables, the Group's Lab Products & Services Division concentrates on serving the needs of laboratories performing research and quality control at pharma and biopharma companies and those of academic research institutes. The Bioprocess Solutions Division with its broad product portfolio focusing on single-use solutions helps customers to manufacture biotech medications and vaccines safely and efficiently. The Group has been annually growing by double digits on average and has been regularly expanding its portfolio by acquisitions of complementary technologies. In fiscal 2020, the company earned sales revenue of some 2.34 billion euros. At the end of 2020, nearly 11,000 people were employed at the Group's approximately 60 manufacturing and sales sites, serving customers around the globe.

Follow Sartorius on Twitter and on LinkedIn.

Contact

Petra Kirchhoff

Head of Corporate Communications & Investor Relations

+49 (0)551 308 1686

[email protected]

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1123369/Sartorius_Logo.jpg

SOURCE Sartorius AG
MILWAUKEE, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Ademi LLP is investigating Great Western (NYSE: GWB), for possible breaches of fiduciary duty and other violations of law in its transaction with First Interstate.

Click here to learn how to join the action: https://www.ademilaw.com/case/great-western-bancorp-inc or call Guri Ademi toll-free at 866-264-3995. There is no cost or obligation to you.

Ademi LLP alleges Great Western's financial outlook and prospects are excellent and yet Great Western shareholders will receive only .8425 shares of First Interstate Class A common stock for each Great Western share they own. Following completion of the transaction, Great Western shareholders will collectively own 43% of the combined company. The implied total transaction value based on closing prices on September 15, 2021 is approximately $2.0 billion. The merger agreement unreasonably limits competing bids for Great Western by prohibiting solicitation of further bids, and imposing a significant penalty if Great Western accepts a superior bid. Great Western insiders will receive substantial benefits as part of change of control arrangements. We are investigating the conduct of Great Western's board of directors, and whether they are (i) fulfilling their fiduciary duties to all shareholders, and (ii) obtaining a fair and reasonable price for Great Western.

If you own Great Western common stock and wish to obtain additional information, please contact Guri Ademi either at [email protected] or toll-free: 866-264-3995, or https://www.ademilaw.com/case/great-western-bancorp-inc.

We specialize in shareholder litigation involving buyouts, mergers, and individual shareholder rights throughout the country. For more information, please feel free to call us. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.

Contacts

Ademi LLP

Guri Ademi

Toll Free: (866) 264-3995

Fax: (414) 482-8001

SOURCE Ademi LLP
In addition, the Company has entered into a subscription agreement with Sibanye-Stillwater for a strategic placement of US$70 million of ioneer ordinary shares (the " Sibanye-Stillwater Placement" ). The placement shares will be issued to Sibanye-Stillwater at ioneer's 10 day VWAP as of ASX market close on 15 September 2021. The Sibanye-Stillwater Placement is subject to shareholder approval at an Extraordinary General Meeting (" EGM ") of the Company's shareholders to be held on 21 October 2021.

Transaction Highlights

Transformational strategic investment underpins the quality of Rhyolite Ridge and ioneer's future as a major lithium and boron producer in the US

Sibanye-Stillwater is a US$10 billion global mining company 2 , with a proven track record in large-scale mining projects, and has committed to become an important player in the battery materials supply chain

global mining company , with a proven track record in large-scale mining projects, and has committed to become an important player in the battery materials supply chain Formation of a joint venture operating committee comprised of ioneer and Sibanye-Stillwater representatives will leverage the deep skillsets of both partners to help deliver the Project

Sibanye-Stillwater and ioneer will work collaboratively to secure debt financing for the Project on acceptable terms to ensure the Project is appropriately fully financed to production

Proceeds from the Sibanye-Stillwater Placement will be used towards ioneer's development capital requirement, medium term working capital needs and to progress long-lead items to minimise time to production

James Calaway, Executive Chairman of ioneer commented:

"We are extremely pleased to welcome Sibanye-Stillwater, a leading international mining company, as a strategic partner in the Rhyolite Ridge Project. Sibanye-Stillwater, with its proven track record of developing and operating major mining projects including operations in the United States, its commitment to developing and maintaining an inclusive and sustainable culture, and its determination to become a major force in the battery materials supply chain, is an excellent partner for ioneer to jointly realize the promise of Rhyolite Ridge. With a strong strategic partner in place, we can now look to finalise the debt financing for the Project and move towards construction. We are confident in the alignment of our companies. Our partnership with Sibanye-Stillwater will allow ioneer to unlock the tremendous, long- term value of Rhyolite Ridge."

Neal Froneman, CEO of Sibanye-Stillwater commented:

"This is Sibanye-Stillwater's second lithium transaction and third transaction in the battery metals sector, which will be essential for the transition to a cleaner future. We are excited to build a long-term relationship with ioneer, who share our vision of facilitating security of lithium supply to the North American markets. Rhyolite Ridge is a world-class lithium project and we recognize its strategic value, with the potential to become the largest lithium mine in the US. We look forward to working collaboratively with the ioneer team and leveraging our complementary skills and capabilities to ensure this strategically important, world-class project is delivered, and materially contributes to reducing climate change."

Transaction Details

The key terms of the transaction are summarised below:

ioneer will contribute the Project for a 50% interest in the newly created joint venture limited liability company (" JVCo ") and Sibanye-Stillwater will provide US$490 million in direct funding to the Project for 50% of the ordinary units in JVCo

") and Sibanye-Stillwater will provide in direct funding to the Project for 50% of the ordinary units in JVCo ioneer will be the operator of the Project, will enter into a management services agreement with JVCo and will be responsible for the development and subsequent operation of the Project

The companies will establish a Technical Committee which will meet regularly to oversee the operations of the Project and an ESG Committee which will collaborate on key initiatives given the importance of ESG to both parties

In addition, the companies have agreed to establish a Marketing Committee to leverage each company's existing relationships to maximise the value of JVCo's products

Establishment of the Joint Venture and Sibanye-Stillwater's funding commitment is subject to certain terms and conditions precedent, including receipt of final permits, commitments for remaining debt financing, and other customary approvals. ioneer anticipates these conditions precedent to be satisfied during the during second half of calendar year 2022

The JVCo transaction is not subject to shareholder approval and is not conditional on ioneer shareholders approving the placement of shares to Sibanye-Stillwater under the Sibanye-Stillwater Placement

Sibanye-Stillwater Placement Details

Under the terms of the Sibanye-Stillwater Placement, Sibanye-Stillwater will subscribe for 145.9 million ordinary shares of ioneer at a price of A$0.655 (representing the 10-day VWAP as of ASX close on 15 September 2021). The issue of shares under the Sibanye-Stillwater Placement would exceed the Company's existing placement capacity under ASX Listing Rule 7.1 and therefore ioneer will be required to hold an EGM to approve the issue of the shares to Sibanye-Stillwater. The EGM is expected to take place on 21 October 2021 with further details on the EGM to be included in the Notice of EGM that will be despatched to shareholders and published on ASX in the coming days.

The directors unanimously recommend that shareholders at the EGM vote in favour of the issue of shares to Sibanye-Stillwater, and intend to vote the ioneer shares they own and control, or to which the director is appointed as proxy, in favour of such a resolution.

Transaction Advisers

ioneer's financial adviser is Goldman Sachs, and its legal advisers are Vinson & Elkins (United States) and Ashurst (Australia).

Sibanye-Stillwater's financial adviser is Macquarie Capital, and its legal adviser is Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP (United States).

About Sibanye-Stillwater

Sibanye-Stillwater is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and New York Stock Exchange (JSE:SSW andNYSE:SBSW) and has a market capitalisation of US$10 billion. Sibanye-Stillwater is one of the world's largest primary producers of platinum, palladium and rhodium and is also a top tier gold producer, ranking third globally on a gold-equivalent basis. It also produces other PGMs, such as iridium and ruthenium, and chrome, copper and nickel as by-products.

In the United States, Sibanye-Stillwater currently operates three integrated facilities in Montana: the Stillwater and East Boulder PGM mines (78% palladium and 22% platinum) and the Columbus Metallurgical Complex which smelts material mined to produce PGM-rich filter cake and recycles autocatalysts to recover PGMs.

Sibanye-Stillwater has continued to advance its global diversification strategy to encompass the battery metal space by investing in a Finnish lithium hydroxide project in February 2021. With the acquisition of a 30% shareholding in Keliber Oy, Sibanye-Stillwater now has a substantial interest in the Keliber Lithium Project currently in development phase in the Kaustinen region of Finland. In July 2021, Sibanye-Stillwater also announced it had entered into an exclusive put option agreement with French mining group Eramet SA for the acquisition of 100% of the Sandouville nickel hydrometallurgical processing facility in Normandy, France. Together with the ioneer Placement, the Rhyolite Ridge Joint Venture represents Sibanye-Stillwater's third transaction in the battery materials sector following the Sandouville nickel and Keliber lithium transactions in 2021.

The Sibanye-Stillwater Group focusses on embedding and excelling at environmental, social and governance (ESG) matters. Their vision is to create superior value for all stakeholders through the mining of mineral resources. The sustainable management of their operations is integral to their ability to obtain and maintain their social license to operate and generate long-term value for all stakeholders, including employees, the communities where they operate, governments and shareholders.

About ioneer

ioneer Ltd is the 100% owner of the Rhyolite Ridge Lithium-Boron Project located in Nevada, USA, the only known lithium-boron deposit in North America and one of only two known such deposits in the world. The Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) completed in April 2020 confirmed Rhyolite Ridge as a world-class Lithium and Boron Project that is expected to become a globally significant, long-life, low-cost source of lithium and boron vital to a sustainable future.

This ASX release has been authorised by ioneer Managing Director Bernard Rowe.

Contacts:

James Calaway Bernard Rowe ioneer Ltd ioneer Ltd Executive Chairman Managing Director T: +1 713 818 1457 T: +61 419 447 280 [email protected] [email protected]



Matt Dempsey Jane Munday FTI Consulting FTI Consulting Investor & Media Relations (USA) Investor & Media Relations (Australia) T: +1 202 316 9609 T: +61 488 400 248 [email protected] [email protected]







Important notice and disclaimer

Forward-looking statements

This announcement contains certain forward looking statements and comments about future events, including ioneer's expectations about the Project and the performance of its businesses. Forward looking statements can generally be identified by the use of forward looking words such as 'expect', 'anticipate', 'likely', 'intend', 'should', 'could', 'may', 'predict', 'plan', 'propose', 'will', 'believe', 'forecast', 'estimate', 'target' and other similar expressions within the meaning of securities laws of applicable jurisdictions. Indications of, and guidance on, future earnings or financial position or performance are also forward looking statements.

Forward looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties, both general and specific, and there is a risk that such predictions, forecasts, projections and other forward looking statements will not be achieved. Forward looking statements are provided as a general guide only, and should not be relied on as an indication or guarantee of future performance. Forward looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainty and other factors which can cause ioneer's actual results to differ materially from the plans, objectives, expectations, estimates and intentions expressed in such forward looking statements and many of these factors are outside the control of ioneer. As such, undue reliance should not be placed on any forward looking statement. Past performance is not necessarily a guide to future performance and no representation or warranty is made by any person as to the likelihood of achievement or reasonableness of any forward looking statements, forecast financial information or other forecast. Nothing contained in this announcement nor any information made available to you is, or shall be relied upon as, a promise, representation, warranty or guarantee as to the past, present or the future performance of ioneer.

Except as required by law or the ASX Listing Rules, ioneer assumes no obligation to provide any additional or updated information or to update any forward looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or results, or otherwise.

1 The North Basin is contiguous with ioneer claims in the area but separate from the Rhyolite Ridge Project in the South Basin. The North Basin was not included in the DFS given its different geological setting and early stage exploration status.

2 Market capitalisation as at 14 September 2021

SOURCE ioneer
ATLANTA, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The Southern Company Gas Charitable Foundation is announcing plans to donate $700,000 across its service territories to charities in support of improving equity and social justice.

On the six-month anniversary of the attack on two Atlanta spas, the Foundation has committed the first $100,000 to charities who help raise awareness of and strive to end bias against the AAPI community, which includes anyone of Asian, Asian American or Pacific Islander ancestry.

"Together as individuals and as an organization, the Southern Company Gas family of companies is committed to speaking out against anti-Asian hate and discrimination, ensuring that all people feel welcomed, valued and respected," said Bryan Batson, executive vice president, chief external and public affairs officer for Southern Company Gas and president of the Southern Company Gas Charitable Foundation. "Throughout the next year, the Southern Company Gas Charitable Foundation will partner with other funds and organizations to directly support the safety and dignity of minorities in the communities we are privileged to serve."

As part of this commitment, the Foundation is donating $10,000 to the AAPI Crime Victims & Education Fund  the first national fund for AAPI victims of racially motivated crimes. The fund was founded by AAPI community leaders and organizations in Georgia. The company is donating another $5,000 to the Asian American Bar Foundation in Houston, which has a mission to educate and serve Asian American lawyers and communities in the greater Houston area.

"We are grateful to the Southern Company Gas Charitable Foundation for their generous donation to the AAPI Crime Victims & Education Fund," says fund co-chair BJay Pak, partner at Alston & Bird and former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia. "In the wake of tragic criminal acts, having resources that allow the community to focus on healing is in everyone's best interests. We must go beyond the grotesque initial interest in the criminal acts and see violent and bias crimes as something that harms the entire community. Education and outreach are key to prevention."

While domestic anti-AAPI rhetoric and actions are not new, anti-Asian hate crimes in 16 of America's largest cities increased 149% in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic, according to the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. Some examples of hate crimes against Asian Americans include assaults, verbal harassment and the March 16 attacks on two Atlanta spas that left eight dead, including six women of Asian descent.

Following bipartisan support, President Joe Biden in May signed the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act into law to make the reporting of hate crimes more accessible at the local and state levels. Southern Company Gas said in a statement at the time, "We applaud the bipartisan efforts that helped pass into law the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act and stand alongside policymakers in our commitment to fostering inclusive communities and addressing hate crimes at the source."

The Southern Company Gas Charitable Foundation is committed to ensuring all members of the communities it serves feel safe and respected. Additional funds will be distributed over the next 12 months to organizations across the Southern Company Gas footprint in Georgia, Illinois, Tennessee, and Virginia.

To learn more about how the Southern Company Gas Charitable Foundation is helping to transform communities, visit scgcares.org.

About the Southern Company Gas Charitable Foundation

The Southern Company Gas Charitable Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit committed to supporting those who are transforming lives by tackling complex challenges with revolutionary vision. Every year, the Charitable Foundation donates millions of dollars in grants to organizations that align with Southern Company Gas' values and that passionately work to improve the lives of the communities the company serves. As an independent, nonprofit philanthropic foundation, the Southern Company Gas Charitable Foundation is funded solely by Southern Company Gas through shareholder dollars.

About Southern Company Gas

Southern Company Gas is a wholly owned subsidiary of Atlanta-based Southern Company (NYSE:SO), America's premier energy company. Southern Company Gas serves approximately 4.3 million natural gas utility customers through its regulated distribution companies in four states with approximately 666,000 retail customers through its companies that market natural gas. Other nonutility businesses include investments in interstate pipelines and ownership and operation of natural gas storage facilities. For more information, visit southerncompanygas.com.

SOURCE Southern Company Gas Charitable Foundation

Related Links

https://scgcares.org


Flt # Origin Destination Departure Arrival Frequency Aircraft 1204 ONT AUS 10:55 a.m. 3:35 p.m. Mon  Fri &

Sun 737-700 474 ONT AUS 9:50 a.m. 2:30 p.m. Sat 737-700 1739 AUS ONT 4:35 p.m. 5:55 p.m. Mon  Fri &

Sun 737-700 257 AUS ONT 2:55 p.m. 4:10 p.m. Sat 737-700

The new flights are available for booking immediately at southwest.com.

"The addition of the Texas state capital to our route map is welcomed news and further indication of confidence by ONT's largest air carrier," said Alan D. Wapner, President of the OIAA Board of Commissioners. "It is also another sign that ONT's recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic is well underway and gaining momentum."

Announcement of the new Southwest flights comes as ONT continues to experience an impressive pandemic recovery. In August, ONT reported passenger traffic was within 7% of pre-COVID levels.

About Ontario International Airport

Ontario International Airport (ONT) is the fastest growing airport in the United States, according to Global Traveler, a leading publication for frequent fliers. Located in the Inland Empire, ONT is approximately 35 miles east of downtown Los Angeles in the center of Southern California. It is a full-service airport which, before the coronavirus pandemic, offered nonstop commercial jet service to 26 major airports in the U.S., Mexico and Taiwan. More information is available at www.flyOntario.com. Follow @flyONT on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

About the Ontario International Airport Authority (OIAA)

The OIAA was formed in August 2012 by a Joint Powers Agreement between the City of Ontario and the County of San Bernardino to provide overall direction for the management, operations, development and marketing of ONT for the benefit of the Southern California economy and the residents of the airport's four-county catchment area. OIAA Commissioners are Ontario Mayor Pro Tem Alan D. Wapner (President), Retired Riverside Mayor Ronald O. Loveridge (Vice President), Ontario City Council Member Jim W. Bowman (Secretary), San Bernardino County Supervisor Curt Hagman (Commissioner) and retired business executive Julia Gouw (Commissioner).

OIAA Media Contact:

Steve Lambert, (909) 841-7527 [email protected]

SOURCE Ontario International Airport

Related Links

www.flyontario.com


"One of the major benefits of the TSolution One system is that it gives surgeons the ability to customize every patient's procedure more than ever before," said Dr. Stulberg*. "While other robotic-assisted devices on the market only work with implants from a single manufacturer, this system allows surgeons to select implants from a variety of manufacturers depending on the individual needs of each patient. The accuracy provided by the robot while preparing the bone for the joint implant helps to ensure precise implant placement, which may improve patient mobility and longevity of the construct. It's undoubtedly a game-changer for total knee replacement procedures."

St. Vincent Charity Medical Center is a leading healthcare facility in Northeast Ohio and Dr. Stulberg is internationally recognized for his expertise in total hip and knee revision surgeries. The first-generation TSolution One has been in use at St. Vincent Charity Medical Center since August of last year. Recently, St. Vincent Charity Medical Center launched its Robotic Joint Center as part of its Spine and Orthopedic Institute. The Center allows for knee replacement at the hospital's downtown location and the Brainard Surgery Center in Lyndhurst. THINK's second-generation TSolution One system will be included in the innovative technology being offered to patients through the Center.

"After the dedication of substantial resources and time in the development of our newest system, THINK Surgical is delighted to be a part of the exciting launch of the Robotic Joint Center at St. Vincent Charity Medical Center," said Stuart F. Simpson, president and CEO, THINK Surgical, Inc. "I am incredibly proud of THINK's employees. Our newest system is directly facilitating THINK's mission to deliver advanced robot technology to assist surgeons in providing optimal care for each patient. Total knee replacement procedures are increasingly being performed in an outpatient setting, allowing patients the ability to recover in the comfort of their home. The TSolution One is well aligned for use in outpatient settings like St. Vincent's Robotic Joint Center."

"St. Vincent Charity is committed to improving patient experience and outcomes through the use of technological advancements that enable us to deliver the highest quality care," said Jan Murphy, MSN, RN, FACHE, president and CEO, St. Vincent Charity Medical Center. "The addition of this next-generation TSolution One demonstrates our dedication to the future growth of the Robotic Joint Center and our commitment to accommodate the increasing demand for same-day joint replacement procedures."

The TSolution One system consists of TPLAN, a 3D pre-surgical planning workstation, and TCAT, an active robot. Pre-surgical planning allows the surgeon to design and prepare the patient's personalized joint replacement surgical plan in a virtual environment. The active robot aids the surgeon in executing the preoperative surgical plan with precise, automated cutting and removal of the diseased bone and cartilage. The TSolution One system helps surgeons to optimize joint implant placement based on each patient's unique anatomy.

Photo: Bernard Stulberg, M.D., an orthopedic surgeon at St. Vincent Charity Medical Center's Spine and Orthopedic Institute recently performed the first procedure with THINK Surgical's TSolution One Total Knee Application at the hospital's Robotic Joint Center. St. Vincent Charity Medical Center in Cleveland is among the first healthcare facilities in the United States and the first healthcare facility in Ohio to utilize the second-generation TSolution One for TKA.

About THINK Surgical, Inc.

THINK Surgical, Inc., a privately held U.S.-based medical device and technology company, develops, manufactures, and markets active robotics for orthopedic surgery. The core technology of the TSolution One system has been used in tens of thousands of successful total joint replacements worldwide. The TSolution One system is the only robot for total joint replacement procedures that features an open implant library allowing the robot to work with implants from a variety of different implant manufacturers.

THINK Surgical actively collaborates with healthcare professionals around the globe to refine of our orthopedic products, improving the lives of those suffering from advanced joint disease with precise, accurate, and intelligent technology. Please refer to the instructions for use for the TSolution One system for a complete list of indications, contraindications, warnings, and precautions. For additional product information, please visit www.thinksurgical.com.

* Dr. Stulberg is a paid consultant of THINK Surgical.

THINK Surgical, TSolution One, TPLAN and TCAT are registered trademarks of THINK Surgical, Inc. 2021 THINK Surgical, Inc. All rights reserved.

Sheri Hensley

[email protected]

(510) 602-0951

SOURCE THINK Surgical, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.thinksurgical.com


SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Super , an insurtech company that provides subscription care for the home, today announced its expansion to Atlanta where the housing market has seen marked growth this year. On the heels of a Series C funding announcement earlier this year, this is the first step in the company's plan to scale across more of the southeast U.S. Super is also available in key markets including Washington DC, Chicago, Phoenix, Baltimore, Austin, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio.

Using technology to create a better customer experience, Super takes the hassle and expense out of maintaining a home. A subscription from Super includes coverage for appliance and system breakdowns as well as maintenance services--from rekeying to carpet cleaning.

"With the momentous growth in the Atlanta housing market, it's an opportune time for us to reach more homeowners and advance our mission to make caring for a home carefree," said Jorey Ramer, co-Founder and CEO, Super. "Our team has worked tirelessly to improve our processes and product to deliver a better customer experience so we're well positioned to hit the ground running in this new market and to continue expanding our footprint."

Strategic partnerships in the real estate industry continue to contribute to Super's growth. Brokers and agents seek to bring value to their clients and Super offers a data-driven solution that addresses their clients' needs when it comes to maintaining their most valuable investment.

"Aligning with industry partners that offer value for clients is key for real estate professionals to grow their businesses," said Nimesh Patel, Broker/Owner, Managing Partner of RE/MAX Fine Properties and leader of the Nimesh Patel Group. "Super is innovating in a category--home warranty--that is ripe for transformation. Their tech-enabled approach to helping people care for their home has proven valuable for many of our clients. It's a win-win partnership."

To learn more about how to partner with Super as an agent or broker, visit hellosuper.com/realestate.

About Super

Super is a San Francisco-based insurtech company. Powered by a proprietary data platform and backed by leading investors, Super offers subscription-based care for your home. Partnering with the best local servicers to deliver quick and effective home repair and maintenance at a predictable cost, Super's vision is to make caring for a home carefree. Visit www.hellosuper.com for more information.

Media Contacts

Market Street Group for Super

Angela Baldwin / Bill Donlan

[email protected]

SOURCE Super

Related Links

https://www.hellosuper.com


Each year, leaders from the public and private sectors gather in Davos to debate the challenges faced today by society and business alike, and to begin to draw up a roadmap to overcoming those challenges.

Capturing exclusive insights on the issues that are at the top of the global business agenda on film, TBD Media will be interviewing the world's most influential corporate and public figures ahead of the annual forum.

The issue-led interviews will be showcased at the Davos Interviews 2022 campaign hub, www.davosinterviews.com . The site will be regularly updated with thought leadership content on how economies can recover after Covid, the ongoing disparity of vaccine distribution around the world, geopolitical instability and the climate crisis. Expect to hear exclusive takes on the latest thinking shaping the economy, ecology, finance, technology, society, geopolitics and industry.

A full list of organisations participating in the Davos Interviews 2022 initiative will be released prior to the event.

About TBD Media Group:

TBD Media Group is an international, purpose-driven, media developer that helps companies, organisations and governments tell their brand stories in a human and direct way. Learn more at https://www.tbdmediagroup.com/ .

Media Contact:

Jenna-Leigh Soobramoney

Head of Marketing

TBD Media Group

[email protected]

Video - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1626706/TBD_Media_Group.mp4

SOURCE TBD Media

Related Links

https://www.tbdmediagroup.com/


RALEIGH, N.C., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Tego announced today it is authorized as a Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) Registered Provider Organization (RPO). This achievement solidifies Tego as a trusted provider of CMMC compliance solutions and services meant to eliminate theft of intellectual property and sensitive information across the Defense Industrial Base (DIB) and Department of Defense (DoD) supply chain.

"This is a monumental achievement for us and our team worked very hard to get us to this point," said Nolan Smith, owner of Tego. "As an RPO, we are now able to offer additional support for our clients in the DoD space, which already includes industry leaders in Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance and the US Military itself."

The CMMC model is a set of mandatory cybersecurity requirements that all DoD contractors must implement and then validate by an independent third party before contract award. The CMMC Accreditation Body, which is managing the CMMC rollout on behalf of the DoD, announced requirements and opened applications for multiple credentialed roles, including RPO, this summer.

Greg Manson, VP of Security, Audit, and Compliance at Tego, is a Registered Practitioner (RP) who will assist clients with CMMC requirements. With decades of experience helping customers reduce risk to their IT systems and data, his RP status will further enhance client offerings at Tego. "I'm pleased to be part of an organization that is focused on delivering IT and security solutions to organizations across NC and beyond," said Manson.

Tego is based in Raleigh, North Carolina, supporting customers across the state and beyond. For information on CMMC, visit https://www.tegodata.com/cybersecurity-maturity-model-certification-cmmc/.

About Tego

Tego is an engineering-led, forward thinking technology team who creates a competitive advantage by solving problems and delivering results with remarkable efficiency. Collectively, we've spent decades solving IT and cybersecurity challenges while supporting the full spectrum of commercial and government entities of all sizes. We have an expert understanding of the strategies, tools and methodologies that support mission-critical data center, security, and cloud services. Based in North Carolina, Tego has a strong commitment to fostering long term relationships and delivering unparalleled support. For more information on Tego, visit www.tegodata.com.

Tego

Jennifer Vosburgh

919-874-5598

[email protected]

SOURCE Tego

Related Links

www.tegodata.com


SHERMAN, Texas, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Texoma Community Center ("TCC") is providing notice of a recent event that may affect the privacy of information of certain current and former clients and employees. TCC provides mental health, behavioral health, and intellectual and developmental disability services to adults and minors in the Sherman, Texas area. Information about TCC and its locations can be found at https://www.texomacc.org/. TCC is providing information about the event, TCC's response to it, and resources available to individuals to help protect their information, should they feel it necessary to do so.

What Happened? On October 20, 2020, TCC became aware of suspicious activity relating to several employee email accounts that were sending unauthorized messages. TCC immediately launched an investigation to determine what may have happened. Working together with outside computer forensics specialists, TCC's investigation determined that an unauthorized actor accessed several employee email accounts between September 24, 2020 and December 1, 2020. Because TCC was unable to determine which email messages in the accounts may have been viewed by the unauthorized actor, TCC reviewed the entire contents of the affected email accounts to identify what personal information was accessible to the unauthorized actor.

What Information Was Involved? On July 15, 2021, TCC identified the individuals potentially impacted by this incident after a thorough manual review of the impacted email accounts. TCC has worked since this time to confirm the identities of the individuals who may be impacted, the types of information at issue, and the best contact information for those who may be impacted by the event, in order to provide an accurate notification. While the impacted information varies for each individual, the scope of information potentially involved includes individuals': name, date of birth, medical history, treatment or diagnosis, health information, health insurance information including policy and/or subscriber information, insurance application and/or claims information, birth certificate, marriage certificate, digital signature, facial photograph, email address and password, unique biometric data, vehicle identification number, username and password, military identification number, and for a smaller number of individuals may include social security number, driver's license number, financial account information, and credit or debit card number.

How Will Individuals Know If They Are Affected By This Incident? TCC is mailing notice letters to the individuals identified as impacted for whom they have a valid mailing address. If an individual did not receive a letter but would like to know if they are affected, they may call TCC's dedicated assistance line, detailed below.

What is TCC Doing? TCC has strict security measures to protect the information in its possession. Following this incident, TCC took steps to change all employee email account passwords and to secure the impacted accounts. TCC is currently implementing additional technical safeguards as well as training and education for employees to prevent similar future incidents.

What You Can Do. TCC encourages individuals to remain vigilant against incidents of identity theft and fraud, to review account statements and explanation of benefits forms, and to monitor free credit reports for suspicious activity and to detect errors. Under U.S. law individuals are entitled to one free credit report annually from each of the three major credit reporting bureaus. To order a free credit report, visit www.annualcreditreport.com or call, toll-free, 1-877-322-8228. Individuals may also contact the three major credit bureaus directly to request a free copy of their credit report, place a fraud alert, or a security freeze. Contact information for the credit bureaus is below.

Consumers have the right to place an initial or extended "fraud alert" on a credit file at no cost. An initial fraud alert is a one-year alert that is placed on a consumer's credit file. Upon seeing a fraud alert display on a consumer's credit file, a business is required to take steps to verify the consumer's identity before extending new credit. If you are a victim of identity theft, you are entitled to an extended fraud alert, which is a fraud alert lasting seven years. Should you wish to place a fraud alert, please contact any one of the three major credit reporting bureaus listed below.

As an alternative to a fraud alert, consumers have the right to place a "credit freeze" on a credit report, which will prohibit a credit bureau from releasing information in the credit report without the consumer's express authorization. The credit freeze is designed to prevent credit, loans, and services from being approved in your name without your consent. However, you should be aware that using a credit freeze to take control over who gets access to the personal and financial information in your credit report may delay, interfere with, or prohibit the timely approval of any subsequent request or application you make regarding a new loan, credit, mortgage, or any other account involving the extension of credit. Pursuant to federal law, you cannot be charged to place or lift a credit freeze on your credit report. To request a security freeze, you will need to provide the following information:

Full name (including middle initial as well as Jr., Sr., II, III, etc.); Social Security number; Date of birth; Addresses for the prior two to five years; Proof of current address, such as a current utility bill or telephone bill; A legible photocopy of a government-issued identification card (state driver's license or ID card, military identification, etc.); and A copy of either the police report, investigative report, or complaint to a law enforcement agency concerning identity theft if you are a victim of identity theft.

Should you wish to place a fraud alert or credit freeze, please contact the three major credit reporting bureaus listed below:

Equifax, P.O. Box 105069, Atlanta, GA, 30348, 1-800-685-1111, www.equifax.com; Experian, P.O. Box 2002, Allen, TX 75013, 888-397-3742, www.experian.com; TransUnion, P.O. Box 2000, Chester, PA 19016, 800-680-7289, www.transunion.com. Potentially impacted individuals may also find information regarding identity theft, fraud alerts, security freezes and the steps they may take to protect their information by contacting the credit bureaus, the Federal Trade Commission or their state Attorney General. The Federal Trade Commission can be reached at: 600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20580; www.identitytheft.gov; 1-877-ID-THEFT (1-877-438-4338); and TTY: 1-866-653-4261. Instances of known or suspected identity theft should also be reported to law enforcement or the individual's state Attorney General.

TCC wants to assure those who may be impacted that TCC takes the responsibility to safeguard protected health information very seriously. TCC deeply regrets any inconvenience or concern this incident may cause you. If you have any additional questions or concerns, please contact the TCC dedicated assistance line at (888) 397-0068 (toll free), Monday  Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., Central Time and Saturday and Sunday, 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Central Time.

SOURCE Texoma Community Center

Related Links

https://www.texomacc.org


Finding Hope program equips communities nationwide with educational resources to help prevent suicide Tweet this

"Just as families and friends have learned how to support an individual in the throes of a physical health crisis, there is a critically important and supportive role to play when a loved one is in a mental health crisis. The recovery process extends far beyond clinical treatment, and involves learning, healing, and growth. This experience can and should include family, friends and loved ones," said Dr. Christine Moutier, chief medical officer at AFSP. "The Finding Hope program echoes our commitment to supporting people throughout an entire continuum of mental health and suicide-related experiences and encourages communities to gain the knowledge and resources to support those at risk."

Led by trained AFSP staff and volunteers, as well as mental health professionals, "Finding Hope: Guidance for Supporting Those at Risk" is intended to increase the ability for family members and friends to support someone with lived experience and offers a resource to community members interested in this groundbreaking education.

The program, including resources such as educational videos, will be available starting on Monday, September 20, 2021. For more information on the Finding Hope program, please visit the AFSP website, or contact your local AFSP chapter.

AFSP also offers "Introduction to Supporting Those At Risk," an introductory program to Finding Hope which provides a broader overview of supporting those with lived experience. This is a 45- to 60-minute program, available virtually, through 73 AFSP chapters nationwide.

ABOUT AMERICAN FOUNDATION FOR SUICIDE PREVENTION

The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention is dedicated to saving lives and bringing hope to those affected by suicide. AFSP creates a culture that's smart about mental health through education and community programs, develops suicide prevention through research and advocacy, and provides support for those affected by suicide. Led by CEO Robert Gebbia and headquartered in New York, AFSP has local chapters in all 50 states with programs and events nationwide. Learn more about AFSP in its latest Annual Report, and join the conversation on suicide prevention by following AFSP on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

SOURCE American Foundation for Suicide Prevention

Related Links

www.afsp.org


The ASPCA today announced the recipients of its 2021 ASPCA Humane Awards. Tweet this

"Our 2021 ASPCA Humane Award winners represent the best of usheroic people and organizations dedicated to helping vulnerable animals, and amazing animals who demonstrate the invaluable love and comfort they're capable of providing," said Matt Bershadker, president and CEO of the ASPCA. "We're proud to honor each of these recipients as outstanding examples of compassion and commitment who inspire their communities and animal advocates around the country."

This year's honorees include:

KID OF THE YEAR: Evan Bisnauth ( Bronx , NY)

Eleven-year-old Evan Bisnauth leads a busy life in the Bronx, but he doesn't let his many interestsor even a pandemicdeter him from his primary passion: helping socialize adoptable dogs at Animal Care Centers of NYC (ACC) by reading to them regularly. Always eager to help animals in need, Evan also creates amusing animations of ACC's adoptable animals to help them get attention and ultimately be placed in safe and loving homes.

CAT ADVOCATE OF THE YEAR: Sterling "TrapKing" Davis ( Atlanta, GA )

A rapper and full-time cat advocate, Sterling "TrapKing" Davis uses his talent and tenacity to teach his Atlanta community about the importance of spay/neuter surgery and caring for community cats. In 2017, Sterling formed his own nonprofit organization, TrapKing Humane Cat Solutions, to engage and activate his community, combining his dedication to saving cats with his love for making music. When he is not trapping cats in Atlanta, Sterling speaks at animal welfare conferences and provides insights on topics including the intersection of cultural bias and animal welfare.

DOG OF THE YEAR: Dogtor Loki ( Baltimore, MD )

A sweet Rottweiler named Loki is a unique therapy dog and supporter of healthcare heroes at the University of Maryland Medical Center. When the COVID-19 outbreak brought severe physical and emotional stress to healthcare workers in the Maryland area, Loki's owner, medical student Caroline Benzel, helped Loki deliver "Hero Healing Kits" containing vital health and nutritional supplies to these workers and first responders throughout the state. Loki also delighted workers and raised their spirits with her fetching "Dogtor" attire. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Loki has delivered more than 7,000 kits to local medical professionals and has helped raise more than $100,000 to deliver more kits and other resources to first responders and healthcare workers, including food and personal protective equipment (PPE). Loki also continues to provide meaningful support at her hospital, whether by raising money, improving morale, delivering food and supplies for staff, educating people about the importance of therapy animals, or making patients' stays at the hospital a little brighter.

EQUINE WELFARE AWARD: Retired Racehorse Project ( Lexington, KY )

The Retired Racehorse Project (RRP) works to increase demand for off-track Thoroughbreds in the equestrian world. In addition to producing the Thoroughbred Makeover and National Symposiumthe world's largest retraining competition for retired racehorsesthe RRP also publishes Off-Track Thoroughbred Magazine, hosts off-track Thoroughbred retraining clinics and programming at major horse events around the country, and maintains the online Thoroughbred Sport Tracker (the internet's only user-driven database tracking second career talents and accomplishments of registered Thoroughbreds).

PUBLIC SERVICE AWARD: Christine Kim ( New York, NY )

As the former Director of the NYC Mayor's Office of Animal Welfare, Christine Kim has been instrumental in laying the foundation for the first office of its kind in the county and advancing critical New York City animal welfare initiatives. She effectively united the animal welfare community and city government city leaders to tackle animal welfare issues in public policy issues including the construction of new animal shelters spay/neuter policies, animal hoarding, companion animals in shelter and housing, and crisis prevention. Christine also advocated strongly for the city's animal shelter provider, Animal Care Centers of NYC, and played a key role in developing NYC's COVID-19 Pet Response Plan and collaborated with the ASPCA to implement a COVID-19 pet hotline to help New York City's animal guardians experiencing financial hardship or health emergencies during the pandemic. In 2020 alone, the COVID-19 pet hotline coordinated services for over 19,000 animals.

HENRY BERGH AWARD: Oregon Humane Society ( Portland, OR )

A longtime leader in the national animal sheltering community, Oregon Humane Society (OHS), based in Portland, Oregon, has always been an innovator of approaches and programs that most effectively meet the needs of vulnerable animals. The depth of OHS programs goes far beyond adoption, including dedicated work in behavior rehabilitation, veterinary education, government relations, animal crime forensics, and free and low-cost services for low-income residents. By conceiving, implementing, and demonstrating groundbreaking programs that respond to contemporary animal welfare challenges, OHS has become a model for the entire animal welfare field.

CORPORATE COMPASSION AWARD: Subaru of America, Inc. ( Camden, NJ )

The largest corporate donor of the ASPCA, Subaru of America, Inc., consistently demonstrates a deep commitment to protecting animals in need and supporting the loving bond between pets and their owners. In recent years, Subaru has elevated this commitment through their Subaru Loves Pets initiative, annual Subaru Share the Love Event, and National Make A Dog's Day celebration, which shines a light on our nation's "Underdogs" special needs and senior animals in shelters. These pet-focused initiatives substantially impact animals in need and make Subaru a brand that is more than a car company.

By participating as an event attendee, corporate supporter, or making a general donation, your involvement will help the ASPCA continue to provide local and national leadership in three key areas: caring for pet parents and pets, providing positive outcomes for at-risk animals, and serving victims of animal cruelty. For more information on the 2021 Humane Awards, please visit www.ASPCA.org/2021HAL.

Press seeking interviews with the 2021 Humane Award recipients are invited to call (973) 588-2371.

About the ASPCA

Founded in 1866, the ASPCA (The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) was the first animal welfare organization to be established in North America and today serves as the nation's leading voice for vulnerable and victimized animals. As a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation with more than two million supporters nationwide, the ASPCA is committed to preventing cruelty to dogs, cats, equines, and farm animals throughout the United States. The ASPCA assists animals in need through on-the-ground disaster and cruelty interventions, behavioral rehabilitation, animal placement, legal and legislative advocacy, and the advancement of the sheltering and veterinary community through research, training, and resources. For more information, visit www.ASPCA.org, and follow the ASPCA on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

SOURCE ASPCA

Related Links

http://www.aspca.org


CLARKSVILLE, Tenn., Sept. 15, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- According to a federal lawsuit, Heather Cummins alleges she became an employee of publicly-traded GFL after it purchased Waste Industries, including her Clarksville, Tennessee location.

Now, in GFL's attempt to be dismissed from the case, Vice President and General Counsel Mindy Gilbert filed an affidavit stating:

Cummins was not an employee of GFL

GFL "does control operations or personnel of Waste Industries"

GFL "has never operated, conducted, engaged in or carried on business in Tennessee "

" GFL "does not maintain a place of business or have any employees in Tennessee "

In response to the filings, Cummins says, "Nothing makes me feel more worthless than GFL's denial of my very existence and my contributions to the company that once recognized me as #1 for sales in my region."

Cummins alleges she believed she was a GFL employee for multiple reasons, including but not limited to:

GFL CEO Patrick Dovigi offered Cummins an opportunity to purchase IPO shares "for our employees on a priority basis"

offered Cummins an opportunity to purchase IPO shares "for our employees on a priority basis" Dovigi told Cummins "I believe in GFL and the value that all of you as our employees bring to work every day"

Waste Industries CEO Van Poole joined GFL's board of directors

joined GFL's board of directors In SEC filings, GFL included Tennessee on its map of "strategically-located facilities"

on its map of "strategically-located facilities" Cummins was instructed to wear a GFL name tag & her email was changed to @gflenv.com

GFL instructed Cummins to sell its services to Tennessee customers

customers Waste trucks in Tennessee were repainted the GFL logo

were repainted the GFL logo GFL posts jobs in Tennessee on its website

on its website GFL posts former Waste Industries' Tennessee locations on its website

Cummins filed suit against Waste Industries and GFL, in the United States District Court, Middle District of Tennessee, alleging she was told she had to resign, agree never to work for the company again, abide by a non-compete, and sign a confidentiality agreement if she wanted to be compensated for sexual harassment she endured by her supervisor, Chad Keelean.

Cummins is represented by Chicago-based attorney Tamara Holder who focuses her practice on institutional abuse and multi-plaintiff litigation. She is a nationally recognized voice on workplace equality and worked as progressive legal analyst and host on Fox News Channel for nearly a decade.

For media inquiries: [email protected] or (312) 818-3850

SOURCE The Law Firm of Tamara N. Holder, LLC
Social services organizations like The Salvation Army have worked tirelessly to provide help and hope since the pandemic started, but needs are increasing again this holiday season because of the threat of evictions and a resurging pandemic.

Roughly 1.2 million Americans say they are very likely to face eviction over the next two months because of nonpaymenti. With a slow distribution of federal funding, families could be evicted before relief arrives.

The Salvation Army has already distributed more than $200 million in direct financial assistance to help people stay in their homes in 2021, after receiving more requests for financial assistance in the first six months of the year than in all of 2020.

As the nation's largest private provider of social services, The Salvation Army has been steadfast on the front lines of need to ensure hope marches on. Now the organization estimates it will need $175 million  nearly 50% more than raised through Red Kettles in 2020  to help individuals and families stay in their homes this holiday season.

"Pandemic poverty is a threat that continues to knock on the door of millions of our neighbors in need," said Commissioner Kenneth G. Hodder, national commander of The Salvation Army. "The Salvation Army continues to serve families who had never needed our help before, so we're asking everyone to help this holiday season. With the support of a generous public, we can keep families in their homes and ensure hope marches on during what has been a difficult year."

Since the beginning of the pandemic, The Salvation Army has provided more than 225 million meals, $81 million in utility assistance, and $61.5 million in rent and mortgage assistance.

Now more than ever, The Salvation Army needs everyone's help. The following options are available for those wishing to support their neighbors in need:

Enlist in Love's Army with a sustaining gift of $25 per month

per month Contact your local Salvation Army to sign up to volunteer at a Red Kettle or distribute Angel Tree gifts to children in need

or distribute gifts to children in need The Salvation Army is applying national safety protocols at all Red Kettles to ensure the safety of bell ringers, donors, and partners

to ensure the safety of bell ringers, donors, and partners Donate digitally with Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, and Venmo at any Red Kettle across the country

across the country Donate cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin or Ethereum for the first year ever

Ask Amazon's Alexa to donate by saying, "Alexa, donate to The Salvation Army," then specifying the amount

Give any amount by texting "KETTLES" to 51555

Provide new toys and clothing through The Salvation Army Angel Tree for local children of families in need

Every donation helps hope march on for those in need, and all gifts stay within the community in which they are given. Visit SalvationArmyUSA.org to donate or learn more about how you can help this year.

If you need services or know someone in need, then visit SalvationArmyUSA.org to find a location near you.

About The Salvation Army

The Salvation Army annually helps more than 30 million Americans overcome poverty, addiction, and economic hardships through a range of social services. By providing food for the hungry, emergency relief for disaster survivors, rehabilitation for those suffering from drug and alcohol abuse, and clothing and shelter for people in need, The Salvation Army is doing the most good at 7,600 centers of operation around the country. In the first-ever listing of "America's Favorite Charities" by The Chronicle of Philanthropy, The Salvation Army ranked as the country's largest privately funded, direct-service nonprofit. For more information, visit SalvationArmyUSA.org. Follow us on Twitter @SalvationArmyUS and #DoingTheMostGood.

I U.S. Census Bureau's Household Pulse Survey

Contact:

Katie Wilkinson

480-208-0606

[email protected]

SOURCE The Salvation Army

Related Links

https://www.salvationarmyusa.org/usn/


BOSTON, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Investors, consumers and governments are calling for a new era of corporate responsibility, demanding that both products and processes become more sustainable. To compete effectively in this changing landscape, leadership teams in every industry must prioritize creating transparent and circular value chains, using digital traceability to drive improved economics while accelerating sustainable outcomes.

Digital traceability enables companies to meet their sustainability objectives and achieve a broader set of business goals, including efficiency, resilience and responsiveness. Having the ability to see and analyze data along the supply chain allows companies to quickly innovate, identify strategic value chain opportunities, minimize the impact of internal and external disruptions, and certify their efforts.

"The rewards of getting traceability right are substantial, allowing companies to deliver the right product to the right place at the right time competitively and with all the right certifications," said Hernan Saenz, the global head of Bain & Company's Performance Improvement practice. "Traceability also helps companies predict potential threats and adapt faster to disruption, making companies more resilient in the face of supply and demand shocks."

Despite these benefits, new research from Bain & Company and the World Economic Forum shows that most companies are still at the beginning of their traceability journeys, with only 15% of companies delivering value at scale across multiple application areas. In part, the lack of progress stems from leadership teams' inability to agree on where and how to get started on their traceability transformations.

To address this gap, Bain & Company and the Forum have created a framework to help companies navigate their traceability journeys. "Digital Traceability: A Framework for More Sustainable and Resilient Value Chains," released today, explores four fundamental topics:

A source for sustainability and strategic differentiation: Traceability solutions can be deployed in many ways to bolster sustainability and strategic advantage. The first stepa vitally important one in defining a traceability strategyis determining where tracing will generate the greatest value for the company, both today and in the future. Leadership teams that fail to focus their investments risk overwhelming their value chains with complexity. This task requires understanding the fundamental pressures for change, which can come from customers, investors, regulators and other stakeholders.

Traceability solutions can be deployed in many ways to bolster sustainability and strategic advantage. The first stepa vitally important one in defining a traceability strategyis determining where tracing will generate the greatest value for the company, both today and in the future. Leadership teams that fail to focus their investments risk overwhelming their value chains with complexity. This task requires understanding the fundamental pressures for change, which can come from customers, investors, regulators and other stakeholders. Connecting traceability to sustainability and business objectives: In this new research, Bain & Company and the Forum found that executives are relying on traceability to pursue multiple objectives related to value chain performance, with their number one priority being regulatory compliance. Nearly as important to executives are value chain reliability and digital engagement with customers in real time. Other application goals include efficiency, sustainability, resiliency and security throughout the value chain. As a result, the most powerful traceability applications support multiple objectives. Once executives specify their business objectives, their priority applications and use cases become clearer.

In this new research, Bain & Company and the Forum found that executives are relying on traceability to pursue multiple objectives related to value chain performance, with their number one priority being regulatory compliance. Nearly as important to executives are value chain reliability and digital engagement with customers in real time. Other application goals include efficiency, sustainability, resiliency and security throughout the value chain. As a result, the most powerful traceability applications support multiple objectives. Once executives specify their business objectives, their priority applications and use cases become clearer. Understanding the traceability enablers: Once companies prioritize their traceability goals, executive teams begin assessing, building and reinforcing key enablers: the operating model, cross-functional engagement, external collaborations, partner ecosystem, technology, data, standards and certifications. These enablers are critical to traceability, but each one presents its own challenge to the implementation process. For example, Bain's research shows that identifying the right technology type proves difficult for many leadership teams46% of executives list this step as a key challenge. In addition, although most companies have launched active collaborations with their value chain partners, less than 40% describe the collaboration as highly effective.

Once companies prioritize their traceability goals, executive teams begin assessing, building and reinforcing key enablers: the operating model, cross-functional engagement, external collaborations, partner ecosystem, technology, data, standards and certifications. These enablers are critical to traceability, but each one presents its own challenge to the implementation process. For example, Bain's research shows that identifying the right technology type proves difficult for many leadership teams46% of executives list this step as a key challenge. In addition, although most companies have launched active collaborations with their value chain partners, less than 40% describe the collaboration as highly effective. From experimentation to transformation: Traceability efforts often start with small, time-limited pilot projects focused on a specific material, product, supplier or geography. In Bain's experience, many traceability projects get stuck in pilot mode, losing momentum or failing to scale. To avoid this, companies and partnerships should prioritize planning to scale each of their pilots when designing and launching them. Otherwise, they risk facing challenges with the scaling of data, technology, operating model and growth in the ecosystem.

Editor's Note: To arrange an interview, contact Katie Ware at [email protected] or +1 646 562 8102.

About Bain & Company

Bain & Company is a global consultancy that helps the world's most ambitious change makers define the future.

Across 63 offices in 38 countries, we work alongside our clients as one team with a shared ambition to achieve extraordinary results, outperform the competition, and redefine industries. We complement our tailored, integrated expertise with a vibrant ecosystem of digital innovators to deliver better, faster, and more enduring outcomes. Our 10-year commitment to invest more than $1 billion in pro bono services brings our talent, expertise, and insight to organizations tackling today's urgent challenges in education, racial equity, social justice, economic development, and the environment. We earned a gold rating from EcoVadis, the leading platform for environmental, social, and ethical performance ratings for global supply chains, putting us in the top 2% among other consulting firms. Since our founding in 1973, we have measured our success by the success of our clients, and we proudly maintain the highest level of client advocacy in the industry.

Media Contact:

Katie Ware

Bain & Company

Tel: +1 646 562 8107

[email protected]

SOURCE Bain & Company

Related Links

http://www.bain.com


APOTEKA partnership provides strategic entry for Valens' brands across Central America

---

Company secures AUS$540,000 order from Cannvalate to manufacture GMP products for Australian and New Zealand Markets

KELOWNA, BC, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ - The Valens Company Inc. (TSX: VLNS) (OTCQX: VLNCF) (the "Company," "The Valens Company" or "Valens"), a leading manufacturer of cannabis products, today announced it has signed a regional distribution agreement with APOTEKA SRL ("APOTEKA"), a part of Grupo Farmanova Intermed "GFI Costa Rica", a pharmaceutical holding company based in Costa Rica with operations throughout Central America and the Caribbean. Under the agreement, APOTEKA will bring Valens' nuance brand, with future plans to include the Green Roads brand, into three core Central American markets: Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and Panama.

Valens has developed two CBD tinctures for APOTEKA that combine known wellness ingredients with CBD. The products will be manufactured by Green Roads and are made with coconut MCT oil. They come in coconut and peppermint flavor, with added terpenes, and will be available in two concentrations: 900 and 1500 milligrams of CBD. Both tinctures have been carefully developed to match the tastes of local markets.

Tyler Robson, Chief Executive Officer and Chair of The Valens Company, said, "This partnership with APOTEKA, part of GFI Costa Rica a multiregional conglomerate with a 45-year track record, is consistent with our distribution first, asset light, growth model in international markets. The partnership represents a strategic expansion into Central America where APOTEKA will be distributing these products into regions including: Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and Panama. With limited competition currently in these markets, and a reputable distribution partner in APOTEKA, we see a compelling opportunity to further develop an innovative product portfolio, establish a foothold in the region and expand our strategy across other Central American countries in the future as more countries liberalize their cannabis laws."

Australia Market Update

The Company also announced it has secured AUS$540,000 of initial orders for GMP product from its Australian distribution partner, Cannvalate PTY Ltd ("Cannvalate"). This follows the Company's recent announcement that it had secured access to GMP Manufacturing in Australia through an exclusive partnership with Epsilon Healthcare, furthering its international expansion to GMP markets in Latin America, Europe, UK and the Asia-Pacific regions.

Jeff Fallows, President of The Valens Company, said, "We are excited to report our first GMP production through the Southport facility, marking our further expansion into the Australian market. The order represents Valens taking advantage of Epsilon's large scale GMP manufacturing capability, with the capacity and means to provide further accelerated access to Europe through their TGA and EU GMP capabilities. Through Cannvalate's significant local market presence and leading distribution platform, Valens is well placed with strategic access to a market we see through recent trends being poised for dramatic growth."

Valens expects to continue to receive purchase orders of a similar or greater value under this arrangement on an ongoing basis, which is representative of the global shift to GMP and EU GMP production standards that the Company is now able to deliver through its partnership with Epsilon Healthcare.

At Valens, it's Personal.

About The Valens Company

The Valens Company is a leading manufacturer of cannabis products with a mission to bring the benefits of cannabis to the world. The Company provides proprietary cannabis processing services, in addition to best-in-class product development, manufacturing, and commercialization of cannabis consumer packaged goods. The Valens Company's high-quality products are formulated for the medical, health and wellness, and recreational consumer segments, and are offered across all cannabis product categories with a focus on quality and innovation. The Company also manufactures, distributes, and sells a wide range of CBD products in the United States through its subsidiary Green Roads, and distributes medicinal cannabis products to Australia through its subsidiary Valens Australia. In partnership with brand houses, consumer packaged goods companies and licensed cannabis producers around the globe, the Company continues to grow its diverse product portfolio in alignment with evolving cannabis consumer preferences in key markets. Through Valens Labs, the Company is setting the standard in cannabis testing and research and development with Canada's only ISO17025 accredited analytical services lab, named The Centre of Excellence in Plant-Based Science by partner and scientific world leader Thermo Fisher Scientific. Discover more on The Valens Company and its subsidiaries at http://www.thevalenscompany.com.

Notice regarding Forward Looking Statements

All information included in this press release, including any information as to the future financial or operating performance and other statements of The Valens Company that express management's expectations or estimates of future performance, other than statements of historical fact, constitute forward-looking information or forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws and are based on expectations, estimates and projections as of the date hereof. Forward-looking statements are included for the purpose of providing information about management's current expectations and plans relating to the future. Wherever possible, words such as "plans", "expects", "scheduled", "trends", "forecasts", "future", "indications", "potential", "estimates", "predicts", "anticipate", "to establish", "believe", "intend", "ability to", or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "should", "could", "would", "might", "will", or are "likely" to be taken, occur or be achieved, or the negative of these words or other variations thereof, have been used to identify such forward-looking information. Specific forward-looking statements include, without limitation, all disclosure regarding future results of operations, future outcomes of transactions, economic conditions, and anticipated courses of action. Investors and other parties are advised that there is not necessarily any correlation between the number of SKUs manufactured and shipped and revenue and profit, and undue reliance should not be placed on such information.

The risks and uncertainties that may affect forward-looking statements include, among others, Canadian regulatory risk, Australian regulatory risk, U.S. regulatory risk, U.S. border crossing and travel bans, the uncertainties, effects of and responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, reliance on licenses, expansion of facilities, competition, dependence on supply of cannabis and reliance on other key inputs, dependence on senior management and key personnel, general business risk and liability, regulation of the cannabis industry, change in laws, regulations and guidelines, compliance with laws, limited operating history, vulnerability to rising energy costs, unfavourable publicity or consumer perception, product liability, risks related to intellectual property, product recalls, difficulties with forecasts, management of growth and litigation, many of which are beyond the control of The Valens Company. For a more comprehensive discussion of the risks faced by The Valens Company, and which may cause the actual financial results, performance or achievements of The Valens Company to be materially different from estimated future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by forward-looking information or forward-looking statements, please refer to The Valens Company's latest Annual Information Form filed with Canadian securities regulatory authorities at www.sedar.com or on The Valens Company's website at www.thevalenscompany.com. The risks described in such Annual Information Form are hereby incorporated by reference herein. Although the forward-looking statements contained herein reflect management's current beliefs and reasonable assumptions based upon information available to management as of the date hereof, The Valens Company cannot be certain that actual results will be consistent with such forward-looking information. The Valens Company cautions you not to place undue reliance upon any such forward-looking statements. The Valens Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable law. Nothing herein should be construed as either an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy or sell securities of The Valens Company.

SOURCE The Valens Company Inc.

Related Links

https://thevalenscompany.com/


BILLINGS, Mont., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Specializing in the manufacturing and distribution of products that include 4x4 tools and aftermarket or OEM truck parts, Torque King has recently focused its attention on electric-powered vehicles and how they stack up to trucks with internal combustion engines (ICE). The owner of Torque King, Dan Guarino, has started an informational series of articles that discuss various aspects of electric vehicles, from the mechanic to the driver's point of view.

In the second part of the article series, Torque King explores the distinctions between drivetrains involving internal combustion engines and electrically driven trucks. Comparing these two types of engines allows individuals who drive or work on 4x4 trucks to see differences in:

Efficiency

Torque

Power-to-weight ratio

Energy transmission

This article also dives further into the future of vehicles powered by electricity or an internal combustion engine and discusses how manufacturers will optimize and build electric vehicles. From the general layout of a specific vehicle to its miles per charge, Torque King outlines three types of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) that will be developed by startup vehicle manufacturers. With information pertaining to the proposed features of each light truck or electric 4x4's gearing solutions, automotive enthusiasts will have a solid resource to learn more about battery electric vehicles and decide if they'd like to make the change from ICEs to BEVs.

Formerly known as QUAD 4x4, Torque King has spent 40 years as a leading manufacturer, distributor and exporter of 4x4 parts or tooling. Through multiple levels of experience across an expert staff, Torque King is capable of supplying automotive companies and individuals across the United States with premium components. Located in Billings, Montana, all of Torque King's operations occur within the facility, from development to final approval. However, Torque King 4x4 also partners with other leading auto parts companies in America when needed. With an exclusive selection of products that can't be purchased anywhere else, you won't find a better set of 4x4 tools, parts and manuals and tech publications than at Torque King.

For all media inquiries, please contact Dan Guarino at 406-446-1154.

For all sales inquiries, please contact Tyler Waters at 1-406-384-0270 or 1-866-251-6762.

SOURCE Torque King
MIAMI, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Transcendent Investment Management, a diversified private equity real estate investment firm specializing in the single-family rental and build-to-rent sector, has partnered with eMindful, the leading provider of evidence-based mindfulness programs for everyday moments and chronic conditions, to offer its residents live, virtual mindfulness solutions with no out-of-pocket costs.

The exclusive partnership with eMindful is part of Transcendent's recently launched CleanLiving Health & Wellness initiative. The partnership gives residents living in Transcendent-owned and managed properties free, 24/7 access to eMindful's eM Life solution, which includes live, expert-led and on-demand mindfulness sessions with fresh content daily accessible through the web or mobile app.

"We are excited to partner with Transcendent to bring our proven mindfulness solution to their residents," said Mary Pigatti, President, eMindful. "This partnership sets Transcendent apart in the real estate space with an innovative solution that can protect the health of their residents at home and beyond."

The mission of CleanLiving Health and Wellness, of which the eMindful partnership is now a key component, is to develop a multi-faceted wellness ecosystem.

"Our goal is to make health and wellness affordable and accessible for all of our residents," said Kimmi Le, Director of Nutrition and Community Engagement for Transcendent's CleanLiving Health and Wellness initiative. "Good health starts at home, so as landlords and property owners, we have an opportunity to positively impact the lives of thousands of people."

Added Jordan Kavana, CEO of Transcendent, "Our vision is to inspire health equity on a global scale, and bridge the gap between real estate and healthcare. The partnership with eMindful is one way that we are providing our residents with affordable access to products, programs, and services, grounded by evidence-based research."

"A survey of residents at existing Transcendent communities during the pandemic revealed that stress is one of the most pressing health issues," added Le. "eMindful gives our residents access to a proven mental health solution to address a range of issues."

About Trascendent

Trancsendent owns and manages a portfolio of single-family rental homes in fast-growing metro areas across the Southeast.

About eMindful

eMindful, a Wondr Health company, provides evidence-based, mindfulness programs for everyday life and chronic conditions by helping individuals make every moment matter.

Media Contacts:

Israel Kreps

786.374.3434

[email protected]

Amy Gotzler

646.269.5543

[email protected]

SOURCE eMindful

Related Links

https://emindful.com/home/


BALTIMORE, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- University of Maryland Medicine announced a new partnership today with Vibrent Health, a health technology company based in Fairfax, Virginia, to create the All of Maryland Precision Health Initiative, a statewide digital platform for studies examining how genes and other factors affect health. The mission of All of Maryland -- a study that will be led by University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) researchers -- is to discover better ways to individualize healthcare. The goal is to enable individuals to benefit from treatments tailored to their own health profiles.

This data-driven study aims to enroll up to 250,000 volunteers across Maryland in order to identify and better understand the health needs of Marylanders by region and community. A particular focus will be on underserved populations who experience significant health disparities, causing more illness and shorter lifespans. The large-scale effort to collect broad sources of health data, including genetic information, will aid researchers in better understanding human genomic variation and its relationship to disease and treatment.

The study will be built on Vibrent Health's Digital Health Solutions Platform, which includes an online portal and mobile applications for participants and a suite of software tools and services to support study partners and researchers. The study protocol will leverage Vibrent Health's experience in creating digital health platforms for the National Institutes of Health All of Us Research Program and other precision medicine initiatives. The digital platform enables data collection from e-consent, surveys, electronic health records, genomics, wearables, and other sources and provides return of value to participants based on collected data.

"All of Maryland is a landmark health research initiative that has the potential to unlock medical mysteries, generate knowledge, and accelerate discoveries that can improve the health of Marylanders for generations to come," said study principal investigator Stephen Davis, MBBS, FRCP, FACE, MACP, Theodore E. Woodward Professor and Chair of the Department of Medicine at UMSOM, and Director, Institute for Clinical and Translational Research and Vice President of Clinical Translational Science at the University of Maryland, Baltimore.

Alan Shuldiner, MD, John L. Whitehurst Professor of Medicine and Associate Dean for Personalized & Genomic Medicine at UMSOM, added: "This program will allow us to engage as partners with research participants who represent the rich diversity of our State. We will integrate clinical informatics and mobile technologies with big data analytics to create a dynamic resource for research and learning healthcare environment delivery."

The All of Maryland study will strengthen the state's position as a national leader in precision health research and will help make University of Maryland Medicine, which includes UMSOM and University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC) and its affiliated institutions, including the University of Maryland, Baltimore, a magnet for research funding. It will also help the university attract top students interested in careers in precision medicine and enhance the university's reputation as a leader in cutting-edge health research.

"A major part of the School of Medicine's mission involves addressing the unique health needs of the local Maryland community. Our state has a vibrant and genetically diverse population, and we must work to fully understand how genes interact with our environment, especially for those living in economically disadvantaged communities," said E. Albert Reece, MD, PhD, MBA, Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs, UM Baltimore, the John Z. and Akiko K. Bowers Distinguished Professor, and Dean, University of Maryland School of Medicine. "This study can provide some important answers to these questions and lead to more individualized and effective ways to prevent, diagnose, and treat health conditions in Maryland and beyond."

All of Maryland will be one of the first statewide uses of a digital platform for precision health research, and it can serve as a template for other state-level health organizations that aspire to create similar precision medicine programs across the country. The study was developed in collaboration with community members and provides an opportunity for communities to engage in research that impacts health and public health policy.

"We are honored to partner with University of Maryland Medicine to bring the best of data-driven digital health research technology to All of Maryland. Together we will enable Maryland's academic researchers to recruit and engage with diverse populations, from communities across the state, to advance personalized medicine for all people," said Praduman "PJ" Jain, CEO and founder of Vibrent Health. "Precision medicine provides the potential to fundamentally change the delivery of healthcare, and research institutions like UMSOM are at the forefront of building the digital infrastructure needed to turn health data into meaningful outcomes."

About the University of Maryland School of Medicine

Now in its third century, the University of Maryland School of Medicine was chartered in 1807 as the first public medical school in the United States. It continues today as one of the fastest growing, top-tier biomedical research enterprises in the world -- with 46 academic departments, centers, institutes, and programs, and a faculty of more than 3,000 physicians, scientists, and allied health professionals, including members of the National Academy of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences, and a distinguished two-time winner of the Albert E. Lasker Award in Medical Research. With an operating budget of more than $1.2 billion, the School of Medicine works closely in partnership with the University of Maryland Medical Center and Medical System to provide research-intensive, academic and clinically based care for nearly 2 million patients each year. The School of Medicine has nearly $600 million in extramural funding, with most of its academic departments highly ranked among all medical schools in the nation in research funding. As one of the seven professional schools that make up the University of Maryland, Baltimore campus, the School of Medicine has a total population of nearly 9,000 faculty and staff, including 2,500 student trainees, residents, and fellows. The combined School of Medicine and Medical System ("University of Maryland Medicine") has an annual budget of over $6 billion and an economic impact of nearly $20 billion on the state and local community. The School of Medicine, which ranks as the 8th highest among public medical schools in research productivity (according to the Association of American Medical Colleges profile) is an innovator in translational medicine, with 606 active patents and 52 start-up companies. In the latest U.S. News & World Report ranking of the Best Medical Schools, published in 2021, the UM School of Medicine is ranked #9 among the 92 public medical schools in the U.S., and in the top 15 percent (#27) of all 192 public and private U.S. medical schools. The School of Medicine works locally, nationally, and globally, with research and treatment facilities in 36 countries around the world. Visit medschool.umaryland.edu

About the University of Maryland Medical Center

The University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC) is comprised of two hospital campuses in Baltimore: the 800-bed flagship institution of the 13-hospital University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS) -- and the 200-bed UMMC Midtown Campus, both academic medical centers training physicians and health professionals and pursuing research and innovation to improve health. UMMC's downtown campus is a national and regional referral center for trauma, cancer care, neurosciences, advanced cardiovascular care, women's and children's health, and has one of the largest solid organ transplant programs in the country. All physicians on staff at the downtown campus are clinical faculty physicians of the University of Maryland School of Medicine. The UMMC Midtown Campus medical staff is predominately faculty physicians specializing in diabetes, chronic diseases, behavioral health, long term acute care and an array of outpatient primary care and specialty services. UMMC Midtown has been a teaching hospital for 140 years and is located one mile away from the downtown campus. For more information, visit www.umm.edu.

About Vibrent Health

Vibrent Health develops digital health technology and research tools for health organizations, researchers and research participants. Powering the next generation of precision medicine, Vibrent's scalable technology platform for individual and population health provides actionable insights to help accelerate medical discoveries. Vibrent Health is proud to serve, since 2016, as the Participant Technology Systems Center for the National Institutes of Health's All of Us Research Program, which aims to collect health data from one million or more people to support a wide variety of research studies. This work is supported under NIH funding award U24OD02316. To learn more, visit vibrenthealth.com.

Provided by Newswise, online resource for knowledge-based news at www.newswise.com

SOURCE University of Maryland School of Medicine

Related Links

https://www.medschool.umaryland.edu


BILTHOVEN, Netherlands, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Intravacc, a global leader in translational research and the development of vaccines against infectious diseases and therapeutic vaccines, today launches its new hybrid business model that should lead to further innovation and sustainable growth over the next five years. On the one hand, Intravacc's new business model leans on contract research and small-scale GMP production for clinical research on vaccine efficacy and safety (CDMO), and on the other hand on the independent development and commercialization of proprietary intranasally administered vaccine candidates through licensing agreements.

Potential of Intravacc's contract research

Intravacc sees great opportunities thanks to its vast experience in vaccine development - from basic research to phase I & II clinical trials. Intravacc has signed a number of multi-year contracts with profit and non-profit organizations for the development of vaccines against both infectious diseases and cancer. These projects will generate revenue for Intravacc through licensing, technology, R&D services, and pilot production. A number of milestone and royalty contracts (approx. 3%) have been signed, which will run through 2031. Intravacc expects to enter into one to two service-, and partnership agreements per year, with income from these contracts accounting for 70-80% of the company's total revenue.

Prof. Virgil Schijns, Chief Scientific Officer at Intravacc, says:

"We believe that within five to ten years patients will be treated with therapeutic cancer vaccines, probably in combination with complementary immunotherapies. Intravacc is currently developing a therapeutic vaccine for bladder cancer and hopes to start a phase I study in late 2023."

Intravacc's proprietary vaccine pipeline

Prior to its privatization on 1 January of this year, Intravacc was a governmental vaccine research institute with a rich pipeline of vaccine candidates against bacterial and viral infections. At the time, these vaccines, now part of Intravacc B.V., were developed on several patented platforms and the results of the relevant studies were published in leading scientific journals. The unique feature of these vaccines is their administration through the nose. The vaccines include sIPV (Polio), RSV, whooping cough (Bordetella Pertussis), and Gonococcal (Neisseria gonorrhoeae), but also the Avacc-10 vaccine against COVID-19, which is now under development. These proprietary vaccines will be marketed under a partnership or licensing agreement, following completion of a phase I clinical trial. These proprietary vaccines will eventually contribute about 20% to Intravacc's turnover.

The excellent preclinical study results of Avacc-10 were recently published on the preprint site bioRxiv. In addition, Intravacc has started a promotional campaign ( Avacc10video ) to emphasize the importance of the nasal spray vaccine, that can also be used as a booster vaccine. Unlike the patented COVID-19 vaccines currently on the market, Avacc-10 is free of licensing fees and inexpensive to produce. Because it is free of licensing fees, this vaccine is also eligible for the WHO COVID-19 "Technology Access Pool (C-TAP) program".

Dr. Jan Groen, Intravacc's CEO, responds:

"Our new hybrid business model makes Intravacc well positioned to capitalize on the rapidly growing market for therapeutic cancer vaccines. Revenues derived from our contract research activities will form the basis of our revenue growth. Our proprietary pipeline of intranasal vaccines is also promising. Intravacc will initiate a financing round, possibly together with a partner, to enable the development of these vaccines up to clinical phase I."

Market potential

Vaccine contract development projects for rare diseases and oncology are currently booming. Recent major success with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) showed what was possible to treat cancer patients. We now see research & development resources freed up by ICI are shifting towards the develpment of therapeutic cancer vaccines. Now more than 500 different cancer vaccines are in various stage of development. However, process development, manufacturing and scale-up of therapeutic cancer vaccines in general one of the major challenges. The relatively small patient population for rare diseases and cancer in general combined manufacturing challenges will drive up the prices of these type of vaccines. ITV has man years of vaccine development experience from discovery up to phase I/II clinical trials. As a company we have developed a business plan based on a hybrid strategy focusing on CDMO services to address the growing rare disease and TCV market, but ITV also has the intention to put forward its own pipeline of early-stage products.

About Intravacc

Intravacc, located at Utrecht Science Park Bilthoven in the Netherlands, is a leading global contract development and manufacturing organization for infectious diseases and therapeutic vaccines. As an established independent CDMO with many years of experience in the development and optimization of vaccines and vaccine technologies, Intravacc has transferred its technology related to polio vaccines, measles vaccines, DPT vaccines, Hib vaccines and influenza vaccines around the world. Around 40% of childhood disease vaccines are based on Intravacc's proprietary technology. Intravacc offers a wide range of expertise for independent vaccine development, from concept to Phase I/II clinical studies for partners around the world, including universities, public health organizations (WHO, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation), biotech and pharmaceutical companies. For more information, please visit www.intravacc.nl.

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1334670/Intravacc_Logo.jpg

Contact info

Intravacc

Dr. Jan Groen, CEO

P: +31 30 7920 454

Mirjam Hartman, Media relations

P: +31 6 115 969 94

E: [email protected]

LifeSpring Life Sciences Communication, Amsterdam

Leon Melens

P: +31 6 538 16427

E: [email protected]

SOURCE Intravacc
"Dining habits have shifted over the past year with many consumers rediscovering the joy of cooking at home," said Adeline Druart, president of Vermont Creamery. "Cooking devotees and even those dabbling in the culinary world for the first time continue to show an increased desire for new experiences, with many looking to rich, indulgent tastes right from their kitchen. Our cultured sour cream refreshes a classic staple and delivers a sense of surprise and delight. Our sour creams are made with 22% milkfat  as compared to 18% in regular sour cream  for a luxuriously thick texture and differentiated flavors that deliver an elevated experience."

Vermont Creamery's culinary professionals were intent on developing flavors that would greatly enhance consumers' experience beyond a mellow dip, leaning into robust condiments and high-quality standalone ingredients to fill the gap. Taking inspiration from slow smoking, charcoal cookery, and fire roasting with different woods and preparations, the team developed hundreds of flavor concepts before narrowing the field. The team tested the best concepts on a variety of foods and selected two finalists.

The new flavors complement Latin-inspired food and potatoes. Specifically, Cilantro Lime is an ideal pairing for spicy dishes, delivering a cool and refreshing counterpoint to the heat in tacos, chili, and cheesy quesadillas with hot sauce. It may be used as a topping or as a base to build a dipping sidekick for favorite dishes. Fire Roasted Onion & Chive embodies a savory sweetness with smokey and roasted notes that is the perfect partner to loaded potatoes, crinkle chips, chilis and stews. The creme-style classic is anything but plain, with a rich, velvety texture, cultured notes, and just the right amount of tang for pairing with traditional favorites.

"We know today's consumers want a product they can believe in from a company they feel good about," shared Kate Paine, director of marketing. "Our sour cream meets our own high standards for consciously crafted dairy, made with simple ingredients, time and culinary creativity. We want to give people the opportunity to finally love a sour cream worth loving."

Reinforcing its mission to honor the community that it serves, Vermont Creamery Cultured Sour Cream is consciously crafted in the rolling green hills of central Vermont with fresh milk and the passion of its dedicated employees, called "Bettermakers." The company has been B Corp certified since 2014 and is dedicated to Business for Good. This past June, Vermont Creamery was ranked in the top 10% of most purposeful brands, according to the 2021 Purpose Power Index.

For more information, visit www.vermontcreamery.com.

SOURCE Vermont Creamery
WEST CHESTER, Pa., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- VESTECK, Inc., an early-stage medical device company, is pleased to announce the additional close of funds totaling >$5.2M of Series A financing, which includes conversion of all existing convertible notes.

Philadelphia area investors BioAdvance (https://www.bioadvance.com/) and Angel Network (https://angelstarventures.com/) Kennett Square, PA lead these additional investments, joined by several other investors.

The Series A funds will support the manufacturing of products, pre-clinical testing and completion of in human procedures, prior to our clinical study for FDA clearance.

VESTECK has designed a platform technology comprised of 6 devices that integrate the delivery of nitinol sutures into a catheter, improving clinical outcomes for endovascular aortic aneurysm patients.

Dr. Rick Jones, BioAdvance Partner said, "BioAdvance is very excited to support the VESTECK "Suture-Tight" technology and team. We appreciate that VESTECK is answering a significant global unmet need for patients and physicians."

The "Suture-Tight" catheter delivers nitinol sutures more easily than current endovascular or surgical options, securing endovascular aortic repair grafts to the aorta at initial implant or in repair procedures.

Dr. David H. Deaton, Chief Medical Officer, says, "the Suture-Tight catheter makes the process faster, easier and safer for physicians and patients. Suture-Tight will become the standard of care in EVAR."

Vesteck expects to bring significant incremental revenue to an aortic repair market projected to be $4.5B by 2028.

VESTECK CEO Joe Rafferty stated, "We are absolutely honored that our $3.5M Series A round has been over subscribed to this extent, a further recognition of this significant opportunity."

About Vesteck Inc.:

VESTECK, Inc. (WWW.VESTECK.com) is an early-stage medical device company focused on bringing their proprietary technology to the aortic repair, structural heart and GI markets.

Their first product, the "Suture-Tight" nitinol suture delivery catheter will bring a novel technology to endovascular aortic repair market solving a significant global challenge for physicians and patients.

VESTECK was represented by Kevin M. Granahan of Fox Rothschild LLP

MEDIA CONTACTS:

BioAdvance VESTECK, Inc.

Dr. Frederick Jones Joe Rafferty

Partner CEO

(610) 230-0544 610-457-7324

SOURCE VESTECK, Inc.

Related Links

http://VESTECK.com


LAS VEGAS, Sept. 15, 2021 /PRNewswire/ - An exclusive active monitoring system to allow mining companies to remotely monitor wear liners in real-time was announced by manufacturers Abreco at Minexpo 2021. Abreco IoT is the latest innovation in mining technology that provides the status of all connected liners within a system thus reducing requirements for physical inspections.

Wear liners can be monitored through the Abreco IoT exclusive and secure dashboard so data such as active heat maps can be viewed from anywhere. Abreco IoT provides the status of all wear liners connected to the system with detailed information that enables forecasting planned outages with a high degree of precision.

The improved reliability that Abreco IoT provides for wear liner monitoring can greatly reduce downtime which translates to substantial cost savings for mining companies. It is estimated that the cost of a shutdown to a mine is more than $1M in lost production.

Abreco IoT virtually eliminates the downtime related to monitoring wear liners, makes wear liner inspections and maintenance safer and substantially reduces wear liner inspection costs and risks.

An industry leader, Abreco manufactures mining wear products for several industries including mining, steel, cement, aggregate, power generation and OEMs. The company has its own foundry to produce custom castings and an engineering team to provide comprehensive wear analyses and recommendations. Visit abrecoiot.com to learn more.

SOURCE Canadian Wear Technologies
Seoul, Sep 16 : South Korean President Moon Jae-in and visiting Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi have agreed to promote bilateral ties and strengthen cooperation.

During the meeting with Wang on Wednesday, Moon said that South Korea is ready to work with China to maintain the momentum of high-level exchanges, expand people-to-people exchanges and push for more fruitful cooperation in economy, trade and environmental protection, Xinhua news agency reported.

South Korea supports China in hosting the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games and appreciates China's contribution to maintaining peace on the Korean Peninsula, Moon said, hoping that China will continue to play a constructive role in the Korean Peninsula issue.

For his part, Wang said the two sides should take the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties as an opportunity to push for greater development of bilateral relations.

On the same day, Wang also met with South Korean Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong, with both sides agreeing to establish a regular communication mechanism between foreign ministers of the two countries.

The two sides also agreed to hold a new round of high-level strategic dialogue between foreign ministries of the two countries and China-South Korea "2+2" dialogue on diplomacy and security as soon as possible.

During their meeting, Wang said that since the establishment of diplomatic relations nearly 30 years ago, China-South Korea relations have reached new heights and become more mature and stable.

The two countries have not only achieved mutual benefit and win-win results at the bilateral level, but also played a role as a guardian of peace and stability and facilitator for development and prosperity in international and regional affairs, he added.

In the face of a major shift in the international landscape, the two countries should further establish a sense of community, continue to expand common interests and tap the potential of cooperation, so as to promote the upgrading of bilateral relations, Wang said.

Wang said that China, which opposes politicizing the COVID-19 origins tracing and instrumentalizing the origins tracing work, is ready to work with South Korea to deepen cooperation in fighting the pandemic.

China is willing to speed up the alignment of development strategies of the two countries, accelerate the process of second-phrase negotiations on China-South Korea free trade agreement, and make the China-South Korea Year of Cultural Exchanges a success, he added.

Wang said that China and South Korea could strengthen cooperation on global issues such as climate change under multilateral frameworks including the United Nations, jointly safeguard the security and stability of regional and global industrial chains and supply chains, and facilitate the entry into force of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership free trade agreement as scheduled.

For his part, Chung hoped that the two sides will continue to strengthen high-level interactions, promote anti-epidemic cooperation, deepen cooperation in artificial intelligence, semiconductors and new materials, so as to inject new impetus into the development of bilateral relations.

South Korea supports carrying out global virus origin tracing in an open and transparent manner, and disagrees with politicising origins tracing, Chung said.

The two sides also had in-depth exchanges on international and regional issues of common concern.

During his visit, Wang also met with Lim Chae-jung, chairman of the South Korean side of the committee for future development of China-South Korea relations.
Washington, Sep 16 : The US has condemned ballistic missile launches by the North Korea, calling on Pyongyang to engage in meaningful dialogue with Washington.

State Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters on Wednesday that the US condemns the North Korea missile launches, Xinhua news agency reported.

He noted "these missile launches are in violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions ... they pose a threat to the North Korea's neighbours and other members of the international community." In the meantime, Price said Washington is still committed to a diplomatic approach to Pyongyang to pursue the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.

"We call on the North Korea to engage in a meaningful and substantive dialogue with us," he added.

"We've been very clear in the messages that we have conveyed to the North Korea that we stand ready to engage in that dialogue." Price also reaffirmed that U.S. commitment to regional allies is ironclad.

The Biden administration has repeatedly suggested that it seeks to engage with Pyongyang over the denuclearisation issue but showed no willingness to ease sanctions.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Wednesday that the North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles into eastern waters.

The missile launch came two days after Pyongyang said it successfully test-fired new type of long-range cruise missiles on Saturday and Sunday.

Also on Wednesday, the presidential Blue House said that South Korea successfully test fired a homegrown submarine-launched ballistic missile.
Pyongyang, Sep 16 : North Korea has launched a railway-borne missile with a mission to strike the target area 800 km away, the state media reported on Thursday.

"The test firing drill took place for the purpose of confirming the practicality of the railway-borne missile system deployed for action for the first time, of judging the combat readiness and capability of performing firepower duty of the newly-organised regiment all of a sudden and of attaining proficiency in the action procedures in case of fighting an actual war," the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said in a report.

Pak Jong Chon, member of the Presidium of the Political Bureau and secretary of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, guided the test firing drill of the missile regiment on Wednesday, Xinhua news agency reported, citing the KCNA report.

Pak said the railway-borne missile system serves as an efficient counter-strike means capable of dealing a harsh multi-concurrent blow to the threat-posing forces through separate performances of firepower duty in different parts of the country.

Wednesday's launch comes only days after the North Korea, as it said, successfully tested new type of long-range cruise missiles, which was also attended by Pak.
Los Angeles, Sep 16 : Matthew Lopez, the Tony-nominated playwright of "The Inheritance," has been roped in to pen the remake of the late pop icon Whitney Houston film "The Bodyguard" at Warner Bros.

The upcoming movie will be inspired by the 1992 romantic drama, which starred Houston and Kevin Costner, reports variety.com.

Lawrence Kasdan of Kasdan Pictures, and Dan Lin and Jonathan Eirich of Rideback are producing the new film. Rideback's Nick Reynolds will serve as the executive producer.

Kasdan was the writer-producer of the original. Lin has been attached to the property since 2011, which has seen delirious speculation over the potential lead cast for years.

Names from Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson to Channing Tatum and Cardi B have been floated. No cast has been set for LApez's script at this stage.

"The Inheritance" premiered at London's Young Vic in 2018, where it was hailed as "the most important American play of the century." It transferred to the West End later that year, and opened on Broadway in the fall of 2019.

Lopez's show has received the Olivier Award, Drama Desk Award, Evening Standard Theatre Award, London Critics' Circle Award, Outer Critics Circle Award, Drama League Award, GLAAD Media Award, WhatsOnStage Award and the South Bank Sky Arts Award.

He is the first American Latine writer to win any of these awards for best play.

His Off Broadway work includes "The Whipping Mana and "The Legend of Georgia McBride." Last year, he signed an overall television development deal with Amazon Studios.
Lucknow, Sep 16 : Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will preside over the 45th meeting of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council in Lucknow on Friday.

During the meeting in Lucknow, the GST Council is scheduled to discuss a number of important issues that may include a proposal to bring petrol and diesel under the GST regime.

A meeting of senior officers of the Union government and the participating states will give a final shape to the preparations for the meeting here on Thursday.

Union Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary and ministers from different states nominated to the council will also attend the meeting being held physically after a gap of 16 months.

The council last met physically in New Delhi on March 14, 2020.

"We understand a number of issues are going to be on GST Council's agenda. Various issues that participating states may like to raise are likely to find a place on the GST Council's agenda. This issue (petrol and diesel) may also come up. The Kerala high court in June 2021 directed the GST Council to take a call on the issue," said official sources.

Uttar Pradesh Finance Minister Suresh Khanna, however, refused to comment on the issue.

"We are the host state. We are making arrangements for A comfortable stay of our guests. We are not aware of the GST Council's agenda. We have got confirmation about participation from 24 states so far. Besides Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Union Minister of State for finance Pankaj Chaudhary, those reaching Lucknow to participate in the GST Council meeting include deputy chief ministers and finance ministers of several states," Khanna said.
Bareilly : , Sep 16 (IANS) What was initially said to be an accident that led to the death of a 52-year-old lawyer, Sanjay Singh, has now turned out to be a case of murder.

The Bareilly police have registered an FIR for murder against the lawyer's brother and three others on a complaint lodged by Rajni Singh, the lawyer Sanjay Singh's wife.

In her complaint, Rajni alleged that Mudit was accompanied by Mayank Singh, Guddu and Rahul -- all from the same village.

Sanjay was returning with his son Bittu on a bike on Tuesday night when his bike was hit by a speeding car, allegedly driven by his younger brother Mudit Pratap Singh and three others.

The police are now looking for the accused who are absconding.

The four have been booked for murder at the Bisharatganj police station. A police force has been deployed in the Atarchedi village to maintain law and order.

Bisharatganj Station House Officer (SHO) Vijay Kumar said, "We have registered an FIR under the section of murder. The accused will be arrested soon. We have recorded the statement of the lawyer's wife and son."
Chennai, Sep 16 : The opposition AIADMK and the BJP are reaching out to the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) to remain in the NDA fold after the latter announced to go solo in the rural local body polls.

The PMK on Tuesday announced that it would contest the ensuing rural local body elections, to be held on October 6 and October 9, alone.

The PMK is the political arm of the powerful Vanniyar community and the previous AIADMK government had ordered 10.5 per cent reservation for the community from within the Most Backward Caste (MBC) fold, a long pending demand of the PMK and its founder leader, Dr S. Ramadoss.

However, after the DMK government came to power, it announced a Government Order for the 10.5 per cent reservation for the Vanniyar community as well as a memorial for the 21 Vanniyars who were shot dead by the police during the regime of AIADMK leader M.G. Ramachandran on September 17, 1987.

Political observers are of the opinion that the DMK was trying to woo the Vanniyar community to get a stronghold in North Tamil Nadu where the community is strong. The announcement by the state president of the party and also an MLA G.K. Mani that the PMK would contest the rural local body polls alone was a shocker for the AIADMK-BJP combine. and hence the firefighting operation began quickly.

Sources in the BJP told IANS that senior leaders of the party in New Delhi have already communicated to the PMK youth wing leader Dr. Anbumani Ramadoss, who was a minister in the Atal Behari Vajpayee Government, to stay back in the NDA fold in Tamil Nadu.

The AIADMK leaders, O. Panneerselvam and K. Palaniswami have also communicated to the PMK leadership including Dr. S. Ramadoss regarding the continuation of the alliance.

Meanwhile, the statement issued by the PMK spokesperson, S. Balu noted that the PMK was still with the NDA and that it had announced contesting the rural local body polls on its own was due to the lack of time to enter into coalition discussions as the polls would be held in three weeks from now.

Manonmani G. Professor of Political Science at a private college in Chennai and a close observer of Tamil Nadu politics while speaking to IANS said, "PMK was testing the waters and the party now wants Anbumani Ramadoss to get a ministerial berth at the Centre and the announcement that they would contest the polls alone has brought both the AIADMK and the BJP at their feet. The statement of the party spokesman that the PMK has not severed its ties and that it was only for the rural local body polls that the party was contesting alone could be read along with this."
New Delhi, Sep 16 : Punjab Congress in-charge Harish Rawat has met Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, and sources said he has been asked to settle the raging tussle within the party as MLAs have once again started raising voices and seeking the Legislative party meet.

Rawat met the two top leaders here on Wednesday.

He is also said to have spoken to the top Congress leaders in Punjab.

The MLAs have demanded that two neutral observers be sent from Delhi so that they can narrate their grievances. The prime movers this time are Pargat Singh and Tript Singh Bajwa, both are close to the state President Navjot Singh Sidhu.

While Rawat is likely to travel to Chandigarh before he starts the second leg of his yatra on Saturday from Haridwar. He was in Chandigarh in the first week of this month to settle issues, but fresh trouble has surfaced.

Punjab Congress President Navjot Singh Sidhu had last month travelled to Delhi to meet Congress leadership but was advised to talk to General Secretary in-charge Harish Rawat, who was in Chandigarh that time.

Harish Rawat has met all the stakeholders in the state. He has also held meetings with Chief Minister Aamarinder Singh regarding the tussle. Rawat in Chandigarh had said, "We are heading towards an amicable solution." Both Sidhu and Amarinder are pitted against each other and the state Congress infighting has escalated.

Harish Rawat had met Rahul Gandhi on the issue in the past and had briefed him about the situation in the state.

There is also uneasiness after Amarinder Singh remarks on farmers' protest which was criticised by Samyukt Kisan Morcha.

Amarinder said, "His government as well as the people of Punjab, had always stood with the farmers on the issue of the farm laws, and it was sad that they were now suffering due to the continued protests of the farming community across the state".

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Srinagar/New Delhi, Sep 16 : September month in 1989 set the tone for the forced exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley, as it was on September 14, 1989, when first Kashmiri Pandit Tika Lal Taploo, was assassinated by militants at his residence at Habba Kadal in Srinagar.

Taploo's killing shocked the Kashmiri Pandit community. His killing was followed by a spate of murders targeting Kashmiri Pandits. After Taploo's death, Srinagar District Sessions Judge Nilkanth Ganjoo was shot dead. He had sentenced JKLF founder Maqbool Bhat to death and he was hanged on February 11, 1984 in Tihar Jail in New Delhi.

To commemorate sacrifices of Kashmiri Pandits, Balidaan Divas was observed at Sheetal Nath shrine in Srinagar earlier this week. Special tributes were paid to Taploo and others who fell to the bullets of ultras before they could move out from the Valley.

Thirty one years have passed since the first Kashmiri Pandit became the victim of the militancy sponsored by Pakistan in the Valley and since then KPs are living in different states across India and a few of them have moved to foreign countries.

Kashmiri Pandits, who were forced to leave everything, including their homes and hearths, behind to save their lives have been fighting relentlessly to return to their homeland.

Many promises were made to the members of Kashmiri Pandit community till August 5, 2019 -- when the Centre announced its decision to scrap J&K's special status and bifurcated it into two union territories -- but not many promises were fulfilled. However, after August 5, 2019, many steps have been taken to facilitate the homecoming of Kashmiri Pandits.

Return and Rehabilitation policy for Kashmiri Migrants In March this year, Minister of State for Home Affairs, G. Kishan Reddy informed Parliament about the detailed plan of the government to resettle Kashmiri Pandits in the Valley.

Reddy while quoting the report of the Relief Office setup in 1990 by the Government of Jammu and Kashmir stated that 44,167 Kashmiri migrant families are registered who had to move from the Valley since 1990 due to security concerns. Out of these, the count of registered Hindu migrant families is 39,782.

The minister informed that special jobs for Kashmiri migrant youth under the PM package have been an important component for the rehabilitation of Kashmiri Pandits.

A total of nearly 3,800 migrant candidates have returned to Kashmir in the last few years to take up the PM package jobs.

Post abrogation of Article 370, as many as 520 migrant candidates returned to Kashmir to take up the jobs that were provided to them under the rehabilitation package.

Another nearly 2,000 migrant candidates are also likely to return under the same policy in the year 2021 on successful completion of the selection process.

The government has devised an attractive return and rehabilitation policy to encourage the Kashmir migrants to return to their ancestral places in the Valley. The KPs who want to resettle in their native places will be provided with the assistance of Rs 7.5 lakh for repairing their fully or partially damaged house, Rs 2 lakh for dilapidated/unused houses, Rs 7.5 lakh for purchase/construction of a house in group housing societies for those who have sold their properties during the period after 1989 and before the enactment of JK Migrant Immovable Property Preservation, Protection and Restraint of Distress Sale 1997.

The cash relief being provided to Kashmiri Migrants has been increased from time to time, i.e., Rs 500 per family in 1990 has been raised to Rs 13,000 per family @Rs 3,250 per person.

Out of a total of 6,000 posts announced under PM Packages, nearly 3,800 Kashmiri migrants have been rehabilitated directly by way of providing government employment. These employees are working in various districts of Kashmir, which include Srinagar, Budgam, Baramulla, Shopian, Kulgam, Kupwara, Pulwama, Bandipora, Anantnag and Ganderbal. Remaining posts are also at final stages of recruitment.

Transit accommodation has been provided to 6,000 Kashmiri Migrants employees in various districts across Kashmir. So far, 1,025 dwelling units have already been constructed which include 721 dwelling units in the district of Budgam, Kulgam, Kupwara, Anantnag and Pulwama. Another 1,488 units are under construction and land has been identified for about 2,444 units. (1) In February this year Union Home Minister Amit Shah had announced that the government has decided to resettle all displaced Kashmiri Pandits in the Valley by 2022 along with creating 25,000 jobs for the people there. (2).

"HumWapasAyenge" Just a few months after the abrogation of J&K's special status in January 2020, the Kashmiri Pandits were optimistic about their return to the Valley in the 30th year of their mass exodus. Many KPs launched a campaign on Twitter with the hashtag #HumWapasAyenge expressing their desire to return to their homeland in Kashmir.

However, Sanjay Tickoo, president of Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Samiti, while talking to a news portal said, "Hashtags won't help anything. If they want to return, they can return. It is to be seen how many (of those who are running the campaign) are actually interested in coming back and settling down," he said.

Tickoo recalled early 1990 when Srinagar saw Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) posters carrying certain names. Any Kashmiri Pandit whose name was found on the hit list was soon killed. Having survived the scare, he is among the few Pandits who stayed back in the Valley (3).

Portal launched to redress migrants' property grievances Last month J&K Lieutenant Governor ManojSinha, launched an online portal (http://jkmigrantrelief.nic.in) for the registration of complaints by Kashmiri migrants about distress sale, encroachment or other grievances regarding property in the union territory.

According to the government, applications filed on the portal will be addressed in a fixed timeframe under the Public Services Guarantee Act, 2011 by the revenue authorities. The district magistrates, who are the competent authority, will have to undertake surveys or field verification of properties and update all registers within a period of 15 days and submit a compliance report to the divisional commissioner.

In 1997, the Government of Jammu and Kashmir had brought in the J&K Migrant Immovable Property (Preservation, Protection and Restraint on Distress Sale) Act, 1997 for preventing distress sale of properties belonging to migrants who were forced to leave in the aftermath of terrorism in the Valley. The services through the portal will be applicable to all migrants irrespective of their faith (4).

One place homeland Most of the Kashmiri Pandits are of the opinion that "one place homeland" would encourage the community members to return without any fear of militants. Many members of the Kashmiri Pandit community believe that since 1947, Kashmir was gradually moving into grip of fanaticism and theo-fascism and 1990 saw the culmination of a well orchestrated ploy to dislodge Kashmir Pandits, the epitome of Indian Nationhood in Kashmir.

They want to settle at one place so that they remain secure and no one can again force them to leave Kashmir. The security of the community is their primary concern.

The proposal to rehabilitate the community in composite townships in the Valley was mooted by the Narendra Modi-led government in 2015, which faced opposition not only from separatists but also the mainstream political parties in Kashmir. (5) However, in "Naya Jammu and Kashmir" separatists have been cut to size and mainstream politicians have realised that appeasing Pakistan won't help their cause.

Separate clusters for Kashmiri Pandits have come up at some places and construction of such colonies is ongoing in many areas. It appears that the government wants to ensure that the 2022 deadline set by it to resettle 25,000 KPs back in Kashmir is met.

1. https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1705569.

2. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/governments-2022-jk-plan-resettlement-of-kashmiri-pandits-25k-jobs-train-link/articleshow/80899281.cms 3, https://theprint.in/opinion/kashmiri-pandits-return-to-valley-is-a-must-for-idea-of-india-but-here-are-the-obstacles/353327/ 4. https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/jk-l-g-launches-portal-to-redress-migrants-property-grievances-101631004293012.html 5. https://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/30-years-in-exile-kps-demand-one-place-for-their-settlement-in-kashmir-120011900905_1.html

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Dharamsala, Sep 16 : UN experts have questioned China about the cases of disappeared Tibetan Buddhist scholar Go Sherab Gyatso and arbitrarily detained monk Rinchen Tsultrim, both belonging to Amdo in eastern Tibet, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) said on Thursday.

While expressing concern over the enforced disappearance of Gyatso and detention of Tsultrim, the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, Special Rapporteur on minority issues and Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief have jointly called China to provide information about the whereabouts of Gyatso "urgently".

They also asked legal grounds for the arrest, detention, and sentencing of Tsultrim in the communication transmitted to China.

The UN experts have further raised that "these detentions are not isolated events", but reflect a systemic pattern of arbitrary and incommunicado detentions, closed trials, and unknown charges and verdicts against Tibetans by the Chinese authorities.

According to a CTA post, the experts also expressed concern that individuals have been targeted based on religion and ethnicity by China.

Gyatso was arrested at Chengdu in Sichuan Province on October 26, 2020, since then his well-being and whereabouts remain unknown.

He has to his credit several books on Tibetan philosophy and culture and the monastic education system.

He was previously detained by the Chinese authorities in 1998 and in 2008.

Tsultrim, a monk from Nangshing monastery, was held in incommunicado detention since he was arbitrarily arrested by Chinese officials of Ngaba Public Security Bureau on July 27, 2019.

It was only on March 23 information surfaced that he was sentenced to four and a half years in prison.

The information about the charges against him, the trial date, and the court where the trial took place continued to remain unknown, said the CTA, which is based in this northern Indian hill town.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
New Delhi, Sep 16 : Pan-India raids are being carried out by anti-terror units of the states and Delhi Special Cell sleuths on Thursday to nab suspected mastermind of the terror module Humaid.

It is alleged that Humaid, a relative of arrested accused Osama, who is a resident of Delhi's Jamia Nagar, was coordinating the entire terror network in India.

The police are also looking for Osama's father Humaid-ur-Rehman. His whereabouts are unknown.

"Last known location of Humaid was in Uttar Pradesh. We are in touch with Uttar Pradesh anti-terror squad and raids are being carried out at various places," said a top IPS officer privy to the probe.

It is alleged that Humaid had sent Osama and Zeeshan Qamar, a resident of Uttar Pradesh's Allahabad, to Muscat in Oman Ato join training in Pakistan.

Once they reached Muscat, Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) took them to Gwadar port through sea routes to get them trained in making explosives and bombs.

Osama and Zeeshan Qamar were imparted the training of making bombs and IEDs and committing arson with the help of daily use items in a town named Jioni which is near Gwadar port of Pakistan.

They were also trained in handling and use of small firearms and AK-47s.

During the interrogation, it was revealed that Osama left for Muscat, Oman in April where he met Zeeshan who had also come from India.

They were joined by 15-16 Bengali-speaking people. They were divided into sub-groups and Zeeshan and Osama were placed in one group.

Over the next few days, after several short sea-journeys, changing boats several times, they were taken to the town Jioni near Gwadar port in Pakistan. There they were received by one Pakistani who took them to a farmhouse in Thatta, Pakistan.

There were three Pakistani nationals in the farmhouse. Two of these, Jabbar and Hamza imparted training to them. Both of them were from the Pakistan Army as they wore military uniforms.

They were imparted training in making bombs and IEDs and committing arson with the help of items of daily use. They were also trained in handling and use of small firearms and AK-47s.

The training lasted for almost 15 days and thereafter, they were taken back to Muscat through the same route.

Apart from Osama and Zeeshan, the other four arrested accused terrorists have been identified as Jaan Mohammad Shaikh, resident of Maharashtra's Mumbai, Moolchand, resident of UP's Rae Bareilly, Mohd Abu Bakar resident of UP's Behraich and Mohd Amir Javed resident of UP's Lucknow.

All the accused are in police custody for 14 days.

According to conspiracy, the arrested persons were tasked separately to execute different aspects of the terror plan.

The special cell sleuths busted the terror module after they got a tip-off from the central intelligence agencies about the conspiracy being hatched to carry out terror attacks in different parts of the country.

Thereafter. Special Cell carried out a multi-pronged operation wherein several teams were stationed at Mumbai in Maharashtra and Lucknow, Prayagraj, Rae-Bareilly, Pratapgarh in Uttar Pradesh (UP) simultaneously.

On September 14, on the basis of intelligence gathered through human as well as technical nodes, simultaneous raids were conducted in different states. Initially, underworld operative Jaan Mohd Sheikh was apprehended from near Kota, Rajasthan while he was on his way to Delhi; Osama was apprehended from Okhla, Delhi; Mohd Abu Bakar was apprehended from Sarai Kale Khan, Delhi; Zeeshan was apprehended from Allahabad, UP; Mohd Amir Javed was apprehended from Lucknow, UP and Moolchand was apprehended from Rae Bareilly, UP. The operation in UP was done in close and successful coordination with officers of the Uttar Pradesh ATS.

Interrogation has revealed that this module had received sophisticated RDX based IEDs, grenades, pistols and cartridges from a sleeper cell operative and these were sent to UP for safe concealment. The police are looking for sleeper cell operatives who are still in hiding.

During the probe it was found, underworld operative Jaan Mohd Sheikh along with Moolchand were tasked by Pakistan-based Anees Ibrahim, the brother of Dawood Ibrahim, to receive the same in Delhi.

The same was to be handed over to other terror operatives in Delhi and Mumbai and other parts of the country.

Subsequently, further deliveries of similar consignments of IEDs were to be done through the same channel.

The underworld component acting at the behest of Pakistan-ISI was entrusted with two tasks that are the transportation of arms and explosives and terror funding through Hawala channels.

The Pak-ISI trained terror component was tasked with reconnaissance of targets and planting of the IEDs.

Further nodes of this network are being identified, the police said.
Hyderabad, Sep 16 : Hyderabad police foiled a protest march by YSR Telangana Party (YSRTP) leader Y.S. Sharmila, who was staging a sit-in demanding justice to the family of six-year-old girl raped and murdered last week.

Police forcibly ended Sharmila's protest in the early hours of Thursday and shifted her to her residence in Jubliee Hills just hours before it revealed that the body of the accused was recovered from railway tracks.

The daughter of former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy was staging sit-in near the victim's residence in Singareni Colony in Saidabad area since Wednesday evening.

Police swung into action after midnight and dispersed YSRTP workers staging sit-in along with Sharmila. Policewomen forcibly shifted Sharmila to a police vehicle and she was later dropped at her residence.

After calling on the family of the victim, Sharmila sat on protest. She vowed to continue the fast till justice is done to the family.

She demanded a compensation of Rs 10 crore to the victim's family. She expressed concern over the crime rate in the state and said that sexual assaults on women had increased during the TRS rule.

Sharmila's mother and YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) honorary president Y. S. Vijayamma also called on the victim's family. She stated that there is an urgent need to stop heinous incidents of rape of minor girls.

Vijayamma claimed that when Rajasekhara Reddy was the chief minister such incidents never happened. She recalled that when there was an acid attack in Warangal, the culprits were taken to task.

The YSRCP leader sought to know why no leader from the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) had not visited the victim's family to express solidarity while almost all the opposition leaders are paying a visit to console the family.
Ankara, Sep 16 : Turkey's Mediterranean province of Antalya has hosted more than six million foreign tourists so far this year, according to a local media report.

The number of tourists climbed by 202 per cent between January 1 and September 13, compared to the same period of the previous year, Xinhua news agency quoted the Hurriyet Daily report as saying on Wednesday.

The Antalya Governor's office also revealed the data for the first 13 days of September, saying that the province hosted 757,461 tourists, seeing a 70 per cent year-on-year hike.

Popular with its sandy and sunny beaches, Antalya hosted approximately 3.5 million tourists due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Located on the Mediterranean coast of south-west Turkey, between the Taurus Mountains and the Mediterranean Sea, Antalya is a major tourist destination in the country.

It attracts 30 per cent of foreign tourists visiting Turkey.

Its capital city of the same name was the world's third most visited city by number of international arrivals in 2011, displacing New York.

Antalya is Turkey's biggest international sea resort.

The province features a 657 km shoreline dotted with beaches, ports, and ancient cities scattered throughout, including the World Heritage Site Xanthos.
Chennai, Sep 16 : Students, who have taken NEET examination, and their parents are upbeat at the latest initiative of the Tamil Nadu government of opening a helpline for stress relief for those who have taken NEET.

The helpline "104" was launched on Wednesday after a third student, T. Soundharya of Vellore district committed suicide fearing that she won't be able clear NEET. Soundharya had topped in Class 10 and 12 examinations in her village.

Dhanush, 19, of Salem and Kanimozhi of Ariyalur district had committed suicide on Sunday morning and Monday evening respectively.

Divya Rani, 18, a NEET aspirant from Kancheepuram while speaking to IANS said, "I received a call from the helpline and the counsellors told me not to worry and gave me a lot of tips to stay in a healthy mental condition. They told me not to worry about the result and congratulated me on having attempted the NEET. Several of my classmates have also received calls and are indeed happy at the government initiative." State Health Minister Ma Subramanian has launched a stress management counselling service for the TN students who appeared for the NEET. The service was launched at the 104 helpline centre in the DMS campus, Chennai after three students committed suicide allegedly due to the fear of failure in NEET.

Ma Subramanian told IANS, "The health department has collected the details of all the 1.2 lakh students of the state who have taken NEET and counsellors will directly speak to them. The students would be made aware that exams are not everything and that they can again write exams and can become successful." The Minister said that the whole 1.2 lakh students of the state would be covered in 10 to 15 days time.

The students were categorised districtwise and shared their numbers with the district level officers concerned, the health department officials said. 333 counsellors from district war rooms, government medical colleges and headquarters' hospitals across the state will contact the students and after taking their permission will speak to them for at least five minutes.

A counsellor at the helpline centre in Chennai told IANS," We spoke to a large number of students and around 40 per cent of them said that they were at a loss on the results. We gave them confidence and told them that if at all they don't qualify, they will get another chance and that there are other career options as well." Many students, according to the "104" helpline counsellor said that they were afraid that their parents would be unhappy with their performance and hence they were worried.

Sundaramanickyam, 48, a private company employee at Santhome, Chennai told IANS, "My daughter received a call from the helpline and half her stress is gone. It is much better than what we expected and thanks to the state health department and the Chief Minister, my daughter is back to normal. There is a little stress remaining in her and I think that it would be cleared after more interactions with her."
Patna, Sep 16 : A team of Sashastra Seema Bal nabbed two persons, including a Chinese national, from the India-Nepal border in Kishanganj district of Bihar.

The alleged Chinese national has been identified as Chojor Woser, who was accompanied by an Indian agent, Pema Bhutia, a native of Siliguri of West Bengal. Both of them were trying to cross over to Nepal illegally on Wednesday evening.

"We have spotted two persons with suspected activities at the Indo-Nepal border in the jurisdiction of Kodhobari police station of Kishanganj district. Subsequently, we zeroed-in and asked them to present documents. The alleged persons failed to produce necessary documents to cross the border," said an official of SSB.

"Initially, they were claiming to be Indian nationals. When we interrogated them briefly, they broke down. The Chinese national claimed that he does not have any documents. He has paid an amount to Pema Bhutia for helping him to cross the border," he said.

After the arrest, both were handed over to the police.
Strasbourg, Sep 16 : The European Union (EU) will convene a defence summit next year during the French presidency of the Council of the EU, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced.

The situation in Afghanistan and the rapid collapse of the government there necessitates that the EU step up its defence, von der Leyen said on Wednesday during her second State of the Union speech before members of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France.

"It is time for Europe to step up to the next level," von der Leyen said.

"(French) President (Emmanuel) Macron and I will convene a summit on European defence," she added.

Macron has been insisting on the 27-nation EU developing more autonomous military capacities.

"Witnessing events unfold in Afghanistan was profoundly painful for the families and friends of fallen servicemen and servicewomen... We have to reflect on how this (US-led) mission could end so abruptly," she said.

"There are deeply troubling questions that allies will have to tackle within NATO... But there's simply no security and defence issue where less cooperation is the answer. We need to invest in our joint partnership and to draw on each side's unique strength," von der Leyen said.

She said the EU was working with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on a new EU-NATO Joint Declaration to be presented before the end of the year.

However, this was "only one part of the equation," she said.

"Europe can, and clearly should, be able and willing to do more on its own." The rapid collapse of Afghanistan's US-backed government and the victory of the Taliban have prompted many European politicians to reflect on the EU's role in international affairs and on its over-dependence on American military forces, and to call for strategic autonomy of the bloc in defence and security matters.
San Francisco, Sep 16 : Microsoft is further nudging users away from passwords by rolling out passwordless sign-in options to all consumer Microsoft accounts.

The tech giant, like many others in the industry, has waged a war against traditional password-based authentication for some time, TechCrunch reported on Wednesday.

This is because passwords are a prime target for cyberattacks, since weak or reused passwords can be guessed or brute-forced through automated attacks, the report said.

To that end, and as it gears up to launch Windows 11 in just a few weeks, Microsoft is rolling out its passwordless sign-in option, previously available only to commercial customers, to all Microsoft accounts.

This means that users will be able to sign in to services, such as Outlook and OneDrive, without having to use a password. Instead, users can use the Microsoft Authenticator app, Windows Hello, a security key and SMS or emailed codes.

Some Microsoft apps will continue to require a password, however, including Office 2010 or earlier, Remote Desktop and Xbox 360, the report said.

Similarly, those using now-unsupported versions of Windows won't be able to ditch their passwords just yet either, as the feature will only be supported on Windows 10 and Windows 11, it added.

Microsoft said that passwordless sign-in will be rolled out to consumer accounts over the coming weeks.

It added that it is also working on a way to eliminate passwords for Azure AD accounts, with admins set to be able to choose whether passwords are required, allowed or don't exist for specific users.
Chennai, Sep 16 : Even as the authorities are mulling on the reopening of schools for junior classes in Tamil Nadu, a spike in Covid-19 cases among the school students has become a matter of worry for the state health and education departments. A few teachers have also tested positive since the schools reopened in the state on September 1.

A total of 34 students have tested Covid positive on Wednesday taking the total number of students to 117 since September 1 when the schools in Tamil Nadu for Classes 9 to 12 reopened in the state.

School Education Minister of Tamil Nadu Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi has, however, said the department has joined hands with the state health department and would plug the spread of the disease taking adequate measures.

The minister also said that the opening of classes for students from Class 1 to 8 will be done only after a review meeting with inputs from the state education and health departments on the ground level situation across Tamil Nadu. He also said that after the review meeting to be held on September 30 a decision on the same would be taken.

The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court had directed the state government to file a counter in a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition seeking a direction to stop physical classes in the schools following the spike in Covid cases.

A parent, K. Abdul Vahabudeen from Tirunelveli, had filed the PIL in Madurai bench of Madras High Court to close down physical classes as since the schools reopened on September 1, there has been a spike in the Covid cases.

In the petition, he said that the government directive on the permissible strengths to classes was not being followed and called upon the court to shut down physical classes.

The Madurai bench of the Madras high court represented by Justices M. Duraiswamy and K. Murali Shankar directed the state government to file a counter affidavit by September 30.

Meanwhile, 26 districts across Tamil Nadu, including Coimbatore and Chennai, reported an increase in new Covid positive cases on Wednesday. The number of cases reported on Wednesday was 1,658 while on Tuesday it was 1,591. This small hike in the number of Covid cases has worried the health authorities who are in the process of inoculating the whole population with at least one dose of the vaccine.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
New Delhi, Sep 16 : With an aim to resume peace talks with Naga leaders, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) is all set to appoint a new interlocutor very soon.

The present interlocutor R.N. Ravi, who was also the Governor of Nagaland, was shifted to Tamil Nadu last week. The Ministry has zeroed in on the name of the former Special Director of Intelligence Bureau Akshaya Kumar Mishra as a new interlocutor and soon the notification will be issued, sources said.

Mishra, a retired IPS officer of 1987 batch of the Rajasthan cadre is said to be a pick of Union Home Minister Amit Shah for this important assignment, sources also said.

He was made Advisor to the Home Minister after his superannuation in April this year. Mishra is said to have played a significant role in signing a peace accord with the militant groups based in Assam's Karbi-Anglong district and ceasefire agreement with the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN)(K) Niki group, another source in the security set up said.

The Naga peace talk has been virtually stalled as Ravi has not met any leader of any faction of the Naga rebel group since long and recently his comment on the Independence Day speech on August 15, 2021, was not appreciated by the political groups of the state, they added.

The huge trust deficit between Ravi and the Naga groups has led to his exit from the state as he was in cross swords with the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak- Muivah) for the last two years.

In fact the Naga Peace talks began to derail in early 2020 when the National Socialist Council of Nagaland-(Isak Muivah) (NSCN-IM) leader T. Muivah refused to hold any dialogue with interlocutor and Nagaland Governor R.N. Ravi following a dispute on the framework of the agreement signed in 2015.

Ravi, an IPS officer of 1976 batch from Kerala cadre, who had retired as the Special Director in Intelligence Bureau in 2012, was appointed as the government interlocutor on the Naga peace talks in 2014. In 2015, he signed a framework agreement with the NSCN-IM on behalf of the Centre on August 3, 2015, in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and later in 2019 he was made the Governor along with his interlocutor's responsibility.

He, according to the source, was made Nagaland Governor in 2019 despite opposition from the National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Isak-Muivah (NSCN I-M), the key rebel group that the government has been talking to.
Sanaa, Sep 16 : The Houthi militia captured key areas from Yemen's government forces following intense battles in the country's central province of al-Bayda, a military official said.

The official told Xinhua news agency that "the Houthis stepped up their military operations and gained progress on-ground leading to capturing As Sawma'ah district in al-Bayda province" on Wednesday.

"The militia's fighters were deployed in As Sawma'ah district and stationed there after the withdrawal of the government forces," he said.

"The Houthis carried out other simultaneous attacks and seized more key areas in the neighbouring district of Mukayras," he added.

He clarified that ferocious battles are still going on between the Houthi fighters and the government forces backed by local tribal fighters there.

There was no official count of casualties, but local medical sources confirmed that several people were either killed or injured from both warring sides.

The Iran-allied Houthi militia recently intensified their military operations against the government-controlled areas in different parts of the war-ravaged Arab country, and succeeded in capturing key areas from the government forces backed by Saudi Arabia.

Yemen has been locked into a civil war since the Iran-backed Shiite Houthi militia overran much of the country militarily and seized all northern provinces, including the capital Sanaa, in 2014.

Saudi Arabia has been leading an Arab military coalition that intervened in Yemen in 2015 to support the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after Houthis forced him into exile.
Colombo, Sep 16 : Sri Lanka's Health Ministry said patients with the Black Fungus had been detected from several areas of the country amidst the Covid-19 pandemic.

Deputy Director General of Health Services Hemantha Herath told the media on Wednesday that the Black Fungus had been detected on patients infected with Covid-19, who were under treatment in the Colombo National Hospital, Kurnegala Hospital and Ratnapura Hospital, among others, reports Xinhua news agency.

"The symptoms of this disease develop depending on the place where the fungus appears on the body. The fungus can be found on the skin, around the eyes, nose, brain and lungs," Herath said.

"We have noticed that people with an extremely low immune system are prone to this fungus," he added.

He further said the Black Fungus did not spread from person to person and there was no possibility of it turning into an epidemic.

According to officials, Black Fungus has been found in Sri Lanka since 2019.

However, this was the first time that Covid-19 patients had been infected with the fungus.
New Delhi, Sep 16 : Saif Ali Khan, whose latest release is horror comedy 'Bhoot Police', has talked about what scares him. The actor says he has no supernatural fear.

When asked by IANS if there was anything that scares him, Saif said: "Yes, of course!" The 51-year-old star, who plays a 'desi ghostbuster' in the movie named Vibhooti, added: "What scares me the most is family and loved ones you fear for them. That's the main thing." However, he does not have any supernatural fear.

"Supernatural fear, not really. Even though it is easy to say that in crowded Bombay. If you go out in the middle of nowhere you might feel differently," he said.

However, the actor, who is married to Bollywood diva Kareena Kapoor Khan, loves reading about 'ghost stories'.

"I like the supernatural, I like reading about it or even ghost stories. Not horror so much but something that is slightly spooky," he wrote.

Saif now awaits the release of 'Bunty Aur Babli 2' and 'Adipurush'.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Islamabad, Sep 16 : Seven soldiers and five terrorists were killed in an exchange of fire in South Waziristan district of Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, an army statement said.

The security forces conducted an intelligence-based operation in Asman Manza area of the district, Xinhua news agency quoted the military's media wing Inter-Services Public Relations said as saying the statement.

Cordon and search operation is in progress to eliminate any other terrorist found in the area, the statement added.

Despite the heavy presence of the military, terrorist attacks on security forces take place in the district.

On August 12, a soldier was killed in an explosion of an improvised explosive device in Asman Manza area.
Thiruvananthapuram, Sep 16 : The controversy that surfaced after superstar and Rajya Sabha member Suresh Gopi on Wednesday said he politely asked a Sub Inspector of the Kerala Police to salute him as he is an MP, on Thursday took a different turn when Youth Congress workers at Palakkad staged a protest against him.

Armed with chappals, a group of Youth Congress workers chanting his hugely popular film dialogue in the film 'Commissioner', where he as a police officer takes on the wife of a politician in the film, asked why should you (Suresh Gopi) be given a salute.

The protesters were holding a chappal in their right hand and was seen saluting, when the chanting of the film dialogue was going on.

But Gopi who met the media on Thursday said what he does not like is that the salute should never be based on politics.

"The Kerala Police Association need not play politics as it's one which is set up to look after their welfare only. If they claim that a police officer need not salute an MP, then I wish to get a copy of that circular to it from the State police chief," said an angry Gopi.

The controversy surfaced on Wednesday when he was on a visit to Trissur.

When the issue was picked up by the TV channels, Gopi told the media that he asked the SI to salute.

"I had reached the area for a visit and I saw this SI of Police sitting in his jeep, and he also saw me, but he remained seated. It was then I very politely went and told him that I am an MP and I can be given a salute and this is what happened," he said.

As the Kerala Police Association said they are not very pleased with the way a salute was asked.

Gopi was nominated to the Upper House in April 2016 and in between, contested two elections -- the 2019 Lok Sabha election from Thrissur and the recent 2021 Assembly polls, from the Trissur Assembly constituency - on a BJP ticket, but had to bite the dust both times.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Tehran, Sep 16 : Some of the monitoring cameras installed by UN nuclear inspectors at Iranian nuclear sites under the 2015 nuclear agreement "were damaged in recent terrorist attacks" and were not replaced due to other deal parties not fulfilling their commitments, the country's nuclear chief said.

"A number of these cameras were damaged during recent terrorist operations, leading to two extremely harsh and destructive reports" by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Xinhua news agency quoted Mohammad Eslami, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), was as saying on Wednesday.

Talking on the sidelines of a meeting with the Iranian Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, Eslami noted the cameras required under the Non-Proliferation Treaty's safeguards agreement with the IAEA are working, but those related to the 2015 agreement "were no longer necessary, given the counterparts' non-compliance".

Eslami told reporters on Wednesday that a meeting was held with Rafael Grossi, Director General of the IAEA, in order to clear up any "ambiguity" and "clarify" matters, and Iran is now confident that "no ambiguities currently exist at the IAEA concerning Iran's nuclear program", Grossi met Eslami in a one-day visit to Iran on Sunday before the IAEA Board of Governors meeting, which started on Monday in Austria's capital Vienna.

The two issued a statement on Sunday reaffirming a spirit of cooperation and mutual trust.

According to the statement, Grossi and Eslami will meet at the IAEA General Conference scheduled from September 20 to 24, and Grossi will visit Tehran in the near future to hold high level consultations with the Iranian authorities.

Iran denounced a "nuclear terrorism" attack on April 13 after a blackout struck the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in central Iran the day before.

Iran's Foreign Minister at the time Mohammad Javad Zarif accused "Israel of being behind the incident." On July 6, the Iranian government newly blamed "Israel for a sabotage act against a nuclear organisation building near Karaj city", on June 23.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
New Delhi, Sep 16 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi lashed out at critics of Central Vista project on Thursday during inauguration of the Defence Offices Complexes in Delhi.

The Prime Minister said that the people who are against the Central Vista Project conveniently ignore the fact that the defence complexes project is also a part of it. "These people ignore this fact so that they can continue spreading falsehood regarding the project," he said.

About defence complexes he said that these new complexes will now make it feasible for the armed forces to operate in better working conditions with all modern amenities.

The prime minister said, "Today the world is witnessing the magnanimous Central Vista that has been established on the pedestals of modern technology and facilities to enhance the quality of work for the Army officials working 24X7." He also said that when the country is focusing on Ease of Living and Ease of Doing Business, modern infrastructure plays an essential role. "This is the spirit at the core of the Central Vista projects being done." Modi said that the projects have been completed in 12-13 months while the estimated timeframe was 48 months. It saved 50 per cent of time and has also employed thousands of people that too when there was Covid-19 pandemic.

On the occasion, he also launched the Central Vista project's website.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, present during the occasion, complimented Prime Minister Narendra Modi for inaugurating the newly constructed Defence Offices Complex, which is a state of the art facility.

"The successful completion of this project in a record time is indeed a significant milestone in the history of India's defence sector," he said.

Singh further pointed out that this Defence Offices Complex is in line with the Prime Minister's vision for a 'New India' and his commitment for the 'Central Vista' project.

"I express my heartfelt gratitude to PM Modi for inaugurating the Defence Offices Complex and sharing his words of wisdom on the occasion," he said.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said, "Previous buildings were in a tattered state, affected working conditions of our officers... Optimum utilisation of space was not done, which is why this complex has been brought up. Over 7,000 workers can be accommodated in good working conditions." Over 7,000 defence personnel will be shifted into new complexes that have been built at Kasturba Gandhi Marg and African Avenue in the central Delhi. These personnel were working from colonial era hutments and barracks which are situated in the back of North and South Blocks on the Raisina Hills.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
New Delhi, Sep 16 : The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed immersion of Lord Ganesh idols, made from Plaster-of-Paris (POP) in Hussain Sagar Lake in Hyderabad, during the Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations.

A bench headed by chief justice N.V. Ramana made it clear that the court will allow it for the last time - the immersion of idols -- this year, and no more immersion from next year. The bench also comprising justice Surya Kant asked the Telangana government to make certain arrangements from next year. The bench added the idols should not be allowed to be left in the lake after immersion and they should be taken out immediately.

The bench said: "Let them do symbolic immersion this year. A last chance for them. They say they will ensure no harm is caused to the pond.".

The top court expressed "unhappiness" over government's actions in connection with the matter, but relaxed the high court ban on immersion of the idols, after taking into account the government's assurance that steps would be taken to ensure that no harm is caused to the water body.

Greater Hyderabad Municipality Corporation had moved the top court challenging September 13 order of Telangana High Court order declining permission for immersion of lord Ganesh idols made of Plaster of Paris in Hussain Sagar Lake.

The municipal corporation had contended that if immersion is not allowed in Hussain Sagar Lake, then it would take 6 days for the entire statues to be immersed in other ponds in the city limits.

The high court had told the government that it cannot give permission to cause water pollution. Following this order, Greater Hyderabad Municipality Corporation moved the apex court.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Los Angeles, Sep 16 : Oscar-winning actress Halle Berry has debunked the notion that she has had an easy life, suggesting people are quick to judge her on the basis of her good looks.

Berry told the New York Times newspaper: "This is another battle I fought my whole life. That because I look a certain way that I've been spared any hardship. I've had loss and pain and a lot of hurt in my life. I've had abuse in my life." "I get really frustrated when people think because I look a certain way that I haven't had any of those real-life experiences because I absolutely have," she added.

Berry won Best Actress at the 2002 Oscars for 'Monster's Ball'.

However, Berry didn't receive the job opportunities she expected even after being feted with the award, reports femalefirst.co.uk.

She earlier shared: "It was surprising, because I thought they were going to just back up the truck and drop them off at my house, right?" "When you have a historic win like that, you think, 'Oh, this is going to fundamentally change.' It did fundamentally change me, but it didn't change my place in the business overnight. I still had to go back to work. I still had to try to fight to make a way out of no way." Berry has also felt an economic pressure to take on certain roles at one stage in her career.
New Delhi, Sep 16 : Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan said that his country had to endure a "terrible" relationship with the US which turned out to be disastrous for Islamabad.

In an interview with CNN, Khan also called out the US for repeatedly accusing Pakistan of harbouring terrorists, Dawn news reported.

"What are these safe havens? The area of Pakistan along the border of Afghanistan had the heaviest surveillance by the US drones, surely they would have known if there were any safe havens?" The premier said that Pakistan was unable to take military action against the Afghan Taliban because they were not attacking Pakistan.

"Pakistan had its own internal matters to look at, such as attacks from the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)." He said that had he been in the government at that time, he would have taken a different course of action.

"I cannot destroy my country to fight someone else's war," he said. "My responsibility would have been to the people of my country." Khan also said that he did not speak to US President Joe Biden after the Taliban took over Afghanistan.

"He did not call as he is a busy man," the Prime Minister added.

When questioned whether he supports the Taliban's treatment of women, especially excluding them from sports, Khan said: "I feel very strongly that it is a mistake to think that someone from the outside will give Afghan women their rights (because) Afghan women are strong. Give them time, and they will get their rights." With regards to women having the same rights as men in public and private lives, he said: "Women should have the ability in society to fulfil their potential in life (but) you cannot impose women's rights in Afghanistan from abroad. "

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Bengaluru, Sep 16 : The Karnataka government is all set to oppose the proposal to bring petrol and diesel into the ambit of Goods and Services Tax (GST) in the GST council meeting scheduled to be held on Friday in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh.

The decision is being taken considering the fact that, if petrol and diesel are brought under GST, the state would face a revenue deficit up to Rs 700 crore.

"We need time to recover from the economic slowdown after Covid-19 lockdown for two years. Instead, we will demand the Central government to grant compensations for another two years. The situation of the state will be presented to the Union government and GST Council effectively," said Basavaraj Bommai, the Chief Minister of Karnataka.

C. Shikha, the Tax Commissioner of Karnataka, will attend the GST council meeting on Friday. She has been briefed to press for a longer compensation period and Karnataka's stand on bringing petrol and diesel into the GST net.

The Central government has asked the state government's opinion to bring fuel into the GST net. The proposal of the Central government is said to be for regulation of the prices of fuel in the country. It is believed that the new step will bring down the prices of fuel and reduce the burden on people.

The Centre's decision to bring fuel into the GST net is expected to bring petrol prices down from Rs 104 per litre in Karnataka to Rs 59 and the price of diesel will fall from Rs 94 to Rs 50 as both state and Centre will have to share only 28 per cent of taxes levied on fuel equally, say experts. It is expected to create a major financial deficit to the state. The Center will also lose out on revenue.
Lucknow, Sep 16 : More and more allies of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are demanding their proverbial pound of flesh in the upcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections.

The latest to join the bandwagon is the Republican Party of India (RPI).

RPI national president and Union minister Ramdas Athawale has said that his party would field candidates on around 10-12 seats dominated by the Muslims, Schedule Castes and backward classes in alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

He said that discussions regarding seat distribution in poll-bound Uttar Pardesh are underway with BJP national president J.P. Nadda and Home Minister Amit Shah.

Athawale said his party will kick off the poll campaign by taking out the Bahujan Kalyan Yatra from Saharanpur on September 26, which will culminate in a rally in Lucknow on December 18, after covering several districts of Uttar Pradesh.

The Janata Dal(United) has already said that though it would prefer to contest the elections in alliance with the BJP, it would still field candidates if the alliance did not materialise.

Party General Secretary K.C. Tyagi has already said that while their first choice would be to be accommodated in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), it will still go ahead with its plans to contest in UP even if that does not materialise.

"Our first choice will be to contest as part of the NDA, and we hope it works out. We have had an old presence in UP since the days of the erstwhile Samata Party, though we did not contest in 2017. We had MLAs in UP and we also had ministers in the government. The objective is to revive the party beyond Bihar," he said.

State JD(U) president Anoop Singh Patel said, "We have asked out workers to prepare for elections on the maximum number of seats in the state." According to sources, the JD(U) wants to assert its claim over the Kurmi votes in eastern Uttar Pradesh.

Till now, it is the Apna Dal -- another BJP ally -- that wields considerable influence over the Kurmi community which is the second largest block among OBC voters after Yadavs.

On the other hand, the Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP), led by Mukesh Sahani, is also determined to contest the UP elections - with or without BJP.

Mukesh Sahani, who happens to be a minister in the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar, has said that his party will contest on 165 Assembly seats that have a sizeable Nishad population.

The VIP is at loggerheads with the Nishad Party that is inching closer to the BJP. Both the parties claim to be custodians of the Nishad votes in UP.

Nishad Party president Sanjay Nishad, sources said, has sought 70 seats from the BJP for the 2022 Assembly polls.

A senior BJP functionary, talking on condition of anonymity, said that the demands being put forth by its allies were 'impractical' because they did not have a base in Uttar Pradesh.

"The 2022 Assembly election is crucial for us and every seat matters. We cannot give away seats, knowing that they will be lost. The party leadership is closely monitoring every seat and the decision will be taken at the highest level," he said
New Delhi, Sep 16 : Since the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) came to power in 2018, its government officials and ministers have often dismissed and labelled accurate news stories, which they disagree with, as "fake news", Geo TV reported.

"Yet, overtime, the term "fake news" has been weaponised and used against Pakistani reporters and media outlets to clamp down on coverage government officials find disagreeable or critical," it said.

Geo TV has compiled examples of reports the ruling party flagged as "fake news" but were actually not.

In October 2018, a dedicated Twitter account titled, @FakeNews_Buster, was created by the Pakistan Ministry of Information and Broadcasting for the purpose of "exposing fake news".

The account has repeatedly tagged news reports and informative tweets by Pakistan working journalists, accusing them of spreading disinformation, and in the process making them vulnerable to trolling and online abuse, the report said.

On Tuesday, as journalists from across the country were protesting a proposed law that seeks greater control of Pakistan's independent media and to crackdown on freedom of speech, the Federal Minister for Information Fawad Chaudhry asked, in a tweet, how legislation to combat "fake news" could be against the media.
New Delhi, Sep 16 : A team of Maharashtra Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) and Special Cell of the Delhi Police is jointly interrogating the six terror suspects who were planning to carry out attacks in the forthcoming festival season, an official said here on Thursday.

According to sources, the Maharashtra ATS team, after reaching the national capital held talks with the sleuths of the Special cell of Delhi Police.

The cops are currently examining Osama, who was trained in Pakistan, and Jaan Mohammed who is suspected to be an operative of the D company. He was arrested in Kota when he was on his way to Delhi.

Maharashtra ATS chief Vineet Agarwal, on Wednesday, said that the terror suspect Jaan Mohammed belongs to Dharavi, Mumbai.

The cops are also looking for Osama's father Humaid-ur-Rehman, who is being suspected as the mastermind of the terror module.

It is alleged that Humaid had sent Osama and Zeeshan Qamar, a resident of UP's Allahabad, to Muscat in Oman to join training in Pakistan.

Once they reached Muscat, Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) took them to Gwadar port through sea routes to get them trained in making explosives and bombs.

Osama and Zeeshan Qamar were imparted the training of making bombs and IEDs and committing arson with the help of daily use items at a farmhouse in Thatta in Sindh province.

There were three Pakistani nationals in the farmhouse. Two of these, Jabbar and Hamza imparted training to them. Both of them were from Pakistan Army as they wore military uniforms, according to the information obtained.

The training lasted for almost 15 days and thereafter, they were taken back to Muscat via the same route.
United Nations, Sep 16 : People in South Sudan currently face the highest levels of food insecurity recorded since the country's independence from Sudan 10 years ago, said a UN official.

More than 60 per cent of the total estimated population of 12.78 million people are severely food insecure, Xinhua news agency quoted Reena Ghelani, director for operations and advocacy at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, as saying.

The UN estimated in December 2020 that 2.4 million people faced emergency levels of acute food insecurity.

Between April and July 2021, some 108,000 people faced catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity, at the height of the lean season, she told the Security Council in a briefing on the humanitarian situation in South Sudan.

"The combined effects of conflict, climate shocks, displacement, the socio-economic impact of Covid-19, and the lack of investments in infrastructure and basic services have driven people deeper into need," she said.

More than 8.3 million people currently need humanitarian assistance, including 1.4 million children, said Ghelani.

Aid agencies assisted some 4.4 million people across the country between January and June 2021 with food, medical and nutritional care, water and sanitation, protection support, and shelter.

Notwithstanding these gains, there has been limited change in the behaviour of non-state armed groups and certain youth groups that continue to hamper access, she said.

Since the beginning of this year, four aid workers have lost their lives in the line of duty. And over 170 aid workers had to relocate due to security threats, she said.

The destruction and looting of humanitarian facilities has continued, including the looting of over 1,000 metric tonnes of food, valued at more than $1 million.

In addition, frequent attacks on civilians and humanitarian convoys and roadside ambushes have disrupted operations and resulted in increased prices of essential goods for an already vulnerable population she said.

An alarming development this year has been the interference of aid activities by armed youth, she added.

The humanitarian needs have further been exacerbated by exceptional flooding for a third consecutive year, affecting so far nearly 420,000 people. With more heavy rains expected in the coming months, thousands of people will be forced to move from their places and their homes and will require assistance and livelihood support, said Ghelani.

As South Sudan emerges from the lean season with hopes for the harvest season, there is a risk that flooding may lessen any food security gains, which would contribute to extreme food insecurity recurring next year, she warned.

The South Sudan humanitarian response plan of $1.7 billion is the largest ever for South Sudan, but it is only 56 per cent funded, she said.

Funding challenges have forced the World Food Programme (WFP) to reduce the scale of food rations in all refugee, protection-of-civilian camps and camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) from April this year, affecting 700,000 people.

In October, the WFP will be forced to stop support in some other IDP camps due to supplies being reallocated or reprioritised to counties where people are at the brink of famine. Should resources become available, the WFP would resume assistance to 106,000 affected people in these camps, she said.

South Sudan is also on alert for a resurgence of Covid-19, driven by the Delta variant. Measures adopted to mitigate and prevent the spread of the virus have had a limited impact due to the challenges and the lack of ability of the health system to carry out vaccinations and low uptake of the vaccination, she said.

To prevent famine in South Sudan next year, the UN official asked all actors with influence to work to de-escalate the violence in South Sudan.

While the peace process has had a real impact in parts of South Sudan, its implementation has progressed at a slow pace, and violence continues to interrupt the process, she said.

Humanitarians need continued support from the government of South Sudan for safe and unhindered access to reach people who desperately need help, she said.

While resources are needed now for the humanitarian response plan to sustain the response, donors are urged to give funding at scale early in 2022, so that humanitarians can get ahead of the needs which are anticipated to rise, she said.
September 16 : Shilpa Shetty headed off to Vaishno Devi in Jammu and Kashmir for a pilgrimage, on the same day when Mumbai Police crime branch filed a supplementary chargesheet against her husband and businessman Raj Kundra. Kundra was arrested on July 19 for his alleged connection in a pornography case.

Shilpa reached the base camp of the shrine in Katra on Wednesday. From Katra, the actress, accompanied by police personnel, started the journey up to the shrine on a horse. It is also reported that she chanted 'Jai Mata di' during the journey. The actress also talked to reporters, and said, I am very happy to be here. It was due to the goddesses' call that I came all the way to pay obeisance to her.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the Mumbai Police crime branch filed a 1,467 page supplementary chargesheet in the pornography racket case against Raj Kundra, Ryan Thorpe, IT head of his company Viaan Industries, and two other accused. Reportedly, porn clips have been retrieved from the office of Raj Kundras Viaan Industries. Police also said that deleted pornographic content from the companys database was also retrieved. Whatsapp chats and e-mails also show that Raj Kundra was running the day-to-day operations regarding uploading pornographic content.

Shilpa Shetty has also been named as one of the witnesses in the case. Earlier, it was reported that the actress said that she was not aware of her husbands operations. I am not aware about the Hotshots or Bollyfame apps. I was too busy with my own work and hence, not aware about what Kundra was up to, she said.

Raj Kundra started Viaan industries Limited in 2015 and Shilpa was one of the directors till 2020 when she resigned. After Raj Kundra was arrested, Shilpa stayed away from her work for some time. Later she resumed work and returned to her reality show Super Dancer 4 after a few weeks.

On the acting front, Shilpa made her comeback with Hungama 2 that was released on Disney Plus Hotstar. The film was not liked by the viewers, which received negative reviews.
New Delhi, Sep 16 : Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will visit Lucknow next week to give a final shape to the "Pratigya Yatra" programme to be launched by the party unit ahead of the Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh next year.

She will have scheduled meetings with the manifesto committee and with the election committee to assess the party's poll preparedness in the state, sources said.

Priyanka is likely to participate in one of the training programmes being organised by Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee.

On Thursday, she targetted the Yogi Adityanath government and said, "The government is doing drama ahead of polls while withdrawing cases of stubble burning." The Congress in Uttar Pradesh will take out a 'Congress Pratigya Yatra' with the tagline -- 'Hum Vachan Nibhayenge', ahead of the Assembly elections, due early next year.

Priyanka has said that the yatra would cover a distance of 12,000 kilometres and will pass through all major villages and towns.

The date of the yatra is yet undecided, though sources said that it was likely to begin on the Gandhi Jayanti on October 2.

Addressing a meeting of the advisory and political affairs committee of the UPCC, she had on September 10 said that the yatra would mobilise party workers across the state and also establish a contact with the people.

The Congress in Uttar Pradesh has asked the ticket seekers to deposit Rs 11,000 through pay order or DD or RTGS in the party account.

The circular issued on September 14 by State President Ajay Kumar Lallu says for the upcoming Assembly polls 2022, the party has authorised district and city presidents to collect the application and in the state, two others have been given authorisation to deposit the application along with the fees. The money along with the application has to be deposited till September 25.

The Congress has already finalised candidates for about 90 seats for the Assembly polls which include those who have been MLAs or prominent party leaders.
Patna, Sep 16 : People of Bihar are surprised over crores of rupees being credited in the bank accounts of two children.

The incident appeared in Katihar district where two class 6 students, Ashish Kumar and Gurucharan Biswas received Rs 6,20,11,100 and Rs 90,52,21,223 in their bank accounts on September 15 respectively.

Both the children are native of Pastia village in Bagahura Panchayat. They have bank accounts in Uttar Bihar Gramin Bank.

Udayan Mishra, the district magistrate of Katihar also confirmed that the children have received hefty amount.

"Big amounts were credited in the accounts of two children. The amount can be seen in the mini statements. The senior officials of the bank are being informed," Mishra said.

"As soon as we learnt about the money being credited in the accounts of two children, we have put the accounts on freeze and stopped withdrawal. When inquired with the parents of the children, they were also unable to reveal the source of the fund. Now, we are investigating the matter to find out who is the sender," said M.K. Madhukar, the LDM of Uttar Bihar Gramin Bank.

Earlier, a person named Ranjit Das of Bihar's Khagaria district also received Rs 5.5 lakh in his Uttar Bihar Gramin Bank account.

Das refused to return the money to the bank claiming that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised every citizen to give Rs 15 lakh in their bank accounts. He said he has received first instalment of it.

Das further said that he had withdrawn the money from the account and spent it. Now he has no money. After he showed inability to return the amount, bank officials lodged an FIR against Das and he was arrested by Khagaria police. Now, he is lodged in jail.
Tokyo, Sep 16 : Google News Showcase, a $1 billion news licensing programme to support publishers by surfacing card-based content across its platforms is now coming to Japan.

The effort has signed nearly 1,000, up from 800 in July, deals with news publications in India, Germany, Brazil, Canada, France, Japan, the UK, Argentina, Australia, Czechia, Italy, Canada, Austria and Colombia.

The tech giant said that over 90 per cent of the publications "provide local or community news".

In Japan, Google has signed partnerships with over 40 publishers that include national, regional and local news organisations.

News Showcase cards are meant to be glanceable and will start appearing in Google Discover on mobile, as well as Google News for the web, Android and iOS.

In the former feed, users will get them from publications they already follow, while users can find the panels in the "For You" and "Newsstand" tabs of News.

These licensing agreements also see Google to pay publishers to unlock certain paywalled content to provide a "wide range of news content" for free and encourage paid subscriptions.
New Delhi, Sep 16 : After a brief deadlock with the Supreme Court on Thursday, the Centre agreed to reinstate Justice Ashok Iqbal Singh Cheema as acting chairperson of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT), till the date of his retirement on September 20, enabling him to pronounce judgments pending with him.

During the hearing on the matter, a bench headed by Chief Justice N.V. Ramana and comprising justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli expressed serious displeasure over hasty replacement of Justice Cheema with Justice M. Venugopal, just 10 days before the former's retirement, and threatened to suo motu stay on the Tribunal Reforms Act of 2021.

Attorney General K.K. Venugopal, representing the Centre, submitted that he is prepared to argue the Centre's stand on the matter.

However, the impasse did not last long. After the matter was adjourned for 30 minutes, the government blinked but clarified that Justice Cheema's reinstatement should not be treated as a precedent.

Venugopal told the top court that, "I have taken instructions. It was said he (Cheema) took leave to write judgments. So, we have decided that he will be allowed to go to office and pronounce judgments." He added that Justice Venugopal will be sent on leave.

Appreciating the AG's efforts in breaking the deadlock, the bench said: "The Attorney General solved the problem. We thank you for this".

Initially, the AG had submitted before the top court that Justice Cheema would be "treated" as acting chairperson till September 20 and he will be paid his service benefits.

However, the bench pointed out at five judgments reserved by Justice Cheema and added, he should be allowed to pronounce these judgments.

The AG responded that it would be "very awkward" for the government to remove Justice Venugopal now.

The chief justice replied the way this order (premature retirement of justice Cheema) was passed is awkward.

The bench, in its order, said the current chairperson will be on leave till September 20 and this order is passed keeping in mind the peculiar facts and circumstances of this case.

Justice Cheema had challenged his "premature" and sudden removal from office as NCLAT acting chairperson on September 10 in the top court.

Senior advocate Arvind Datar, representing Justice Cheema, had emphasized it is not correct to treat a former Bombay High Court judge, who had been part of the legal profession for 40 years in such manner.
New Delhi, Sep 16 : Government's productivity linked incentive (PLI) scheme for auto and auto component industry will benefit the electric vehicle (EV) segment immensely, especially the two-wheelers, which can see rapid adoption over the coming years providing incumbents an opportunity to step up their game.

According to an analysis done by Kotak Institutional Equities, along with FAME-II policy (subsidy for consumers) and PLI scheme for advanced chemistry cell (subsidy for batteries manufactured in India), the PLI scheme for autos provide incentives in the range of 13-18 per cent of sales value to OEMs for manufacturing EVs in India.

This in turn, the brokerage said, provides a strong foundation for rapid adoption of EVs in India as incentives now cover both manufacturers and consumers.

For auto component manufacturers, the government will provide incentives in the range of 8-13 per cent with additional 5 per cent incentive for manufacturers of battery cell and hydrogen fuel cell components. According to brokerages, key beneficiaries in the auto component space will be mostly global MNCs such as Bosch, Continental, Delphi Automotive, Denso Corporation.

Kotak said that in its own understanding, Minda Industries, Endurance Technologies, Varroc Engineering and Schaeffler India can benefit from this scheme.

The government has approved the PLI scheme for the auto industry with an outlay of Rs 26,400 crore, which has been slashed from the initial outlay of Rs 57,000 crore. The current PLI scheme is targeted to enable India to leapfrog to EVs and incentivise emergence of an advanced automotive technologies supply chain in India.

The PLI scheme for the auto sector is open to existing automotive companies as well as new investors who are currently not in automobile or auto component manufacturing business. The scheme has two components, viz., Champion OEM Incentive Scheme -- 'sale value linked' scheme, applicable on BEVs and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles of all segments, and Component Champion Incentive Scheme -- 'sales value linked' scheme, applicable on advanced automotive technology components of two-wheelers, three-wheelers, passenger vehicles, commercial vehicles and tractors.

Under the scheme, 22 components will be eligible for incentives, which include flex fuel kit, hydrogen fuel cell, hybrid energy storage systems, electric vehicle parts, fuel injection systems, automatic transmission assembly and electronic power steering system, anti-braking system, advanced driver-assistance systems, among others.

The scheme will be effective from FY 2023 for five years and the base year for eligibility criteria would be FY 2020. A total of 10 OEMs, 50 auto component makers and five new non- automotive investors will benefit from the scheme. To avail the scheme, OEMs should have a minimum of Rs 10,000 crore in revenue and Rs 3,000 crore investment in fixed assets, auto component makers should have minimum revenue of Rs 500 crore and Rs 150 crore investment in fixed assets. New non-automotive investors must have a global net worth of Rs 1,000 crore and a clear business plan for investment in advanced automotive technologies to be eligible under the PLI scheme.
Washington, Sep 16 : Business Roundtable, an association of over 200 CEOs of America's leading companies, warned Congress of the prospect of an economic crisis if it fails to swiftly raise the debt limit.

"Failure to lift the US federal debt limit to meet US obligations would produce an otherwise avoidable crisis and pose unacceptable risk to the nation's economic growth, job creation and financial markets," the letter, sent on Wednesday, said.

Doug McMillon, chairman of Business Roundtable and president and CEO of Walmart, and Joshua Bolten, president and CEO of Business Roundtable, were among the writers of the letter to congressional leaders.

"An extended period of uncertainty around the debt ceiling poses an even higher risk than usual as America continues to confront economic risk from the pandemic," the executives wrote.

Moreover, erosion of the country's credit position would also result in "permanently higher borrowing costs" for the federal government and American companies, they warned, urging Congress to raise the debt limit "well before the mid-October deadline".

The warning came after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said last week that the Treasury Department's "extraordinary measures" to temporarily finance the government might be exhausted in October.

As part of a bipartisan budget deal enacted in August 2019, Congress suspended the debt limit through July 31.

After the debt limit was reinstated on August 1, the Treasury Department began using "extraordinary measures" to continue to finance the government on a temporary basis.

The debt limit, commonly called the debt ceiling, is the total amount of money that the US government is authorised to borrow to meet its existing legal obligations, including social security and medicare benefits, interest on the national debt, and other payments.
Gurugram, Sep 16 : Union minister for road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari inspected the construction work of the eight-lane Delhi-Mumbai Expressway (NH-148N) on Thursday to assess the status of the project and suggest improvement measures to the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) officials. This is the longest expressway in India.

After the construction of the expressway, people will be able to travel from Delhi to Mumbai by road in just 12 hours. At present, the distance from Delhi to Mumbai is about 1,510 km by road. Once operational this distance will be reduced to 1,380 km.

Haryana Chief Minister, Manohar Lal Khattar was also present during the inspection.

The union minister also saw the model of the project and asked for information from the NHAI officials over the ongoing project. Gadkari arrived at village Lohatki in Gurugram to inspect the construction work.

This eight-lane longest expressway of the country will pass through 11 villages of Gurugram district, 7 villages of Palwal and 47 villages of Mewat district, overall 65 villages in Haryana.

The total length of this highway in Haryana will be around 160 km the construction of which will cost about Rs 10,400 crore. Out of 160 km, construction of 120 km is underway. The whole stretch is expected to be completed by March 2022.

NHAI officials said the eight-lane Delhi-Mumbai expressway could be expanded to twelve-lane in future.

Addressing the media, Gadkari said once operational this expressway will help reduce traffic congestion and pollution level across Delhi and adjoining areas.

"With the construction of this expressway, employment generation opportunities will increase in Haryana. Also, Haryana's connectivity with other states states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra etc, will increase which will boost the economy," Khattar told mediapersons.

The expressway will pass through most of the remote areas of five states giving wings of development to the areas.

Gadkari said that the work of the expressway is in full swing.

"With the construction of the expressway, the distance between Delhi-Mumbai will be reduced and it will also save fuel. The toll will be collected through electronic mode. Also, extra care is being taken by the NHAI over constructing the expressway and no negligence of work will be tolerated on the part of the NHAI," Gadkari said.
New Delhi, Sep 16 : Ahead of the 2022 Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Manish Sisodia on Thursday assured to relieve people of high electricity bills by promising 300 units of free electricity within 24 hours of them coming to power in the state.

"AAP will give people of Uttar Pradesh respite from high electricity bills. Within 24 hours of coming to power, our government will provide 300 units of free electricity for residential use to every single person in the state," Sisodia - Delhi's Deputy Chief Minister tweeted.

The AAP leader is in Lucknow on Thursday to lay the ground for the upcoming polls early next year.

He said that Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal firmly believes that electricity is a basic right of every citizen and not a luxury. It is the duty of every government to provide electricity to its people.

"We will ensure that the people get electricity without any disruption. UP has power plants and therefore it is better positioned than Delhi," he said.

The AAP leader also promised free electricity to farmers if his party came to power and all cases related to power issues would be withdrawn.

Deputy CM's visit to the Hindi-belt state came just a day after Sanjay Singh, Uttar Pradesh in charge of AAP, released the list of 100 Vidhan Sabha in charge, including 35 from the other backward castes (OBCs), of the party as the party candidates for assembly polls.

"We have given representation to all communities on the list. Doctors, engineers, advocates, postgraduate, farmers and youths figure on our list," Singh had said, adding that some candidates could be changed later if they do not seem to be in line with the party's policies and programmes.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
New Delhi, Sep 16 : Russia has sought a nod from the Indian government to lift a ban on the export of single-dose Covid vaccine Sputnik Light citing the reason for its shelf life and possibility of being wasted.

The Sputnik Light vaccine in India is produced by Hetero Biopharma which is one of the Russian Direct Investment Fund partners in the production of the vaccine.

"Hetero Biopharma Limited, one of the leading Indian pharmaceutical companies and RDIF's partner in the production of the Sputnik Light, has already manufactured one million doses of Component I of the Sputnik V vaccine and two million doses of the Sputnik Light and intends to continue its production further," said Russian ambassador Nicholay Kudashev in a communication to the Centre.

He has requested the Indian government to allow the export of Sputnik Light to his country till the vaccine gets emergency use authorisation from India's drug regulator.

"However, a shelf life tenure of the vaccine, i.e., six months only, may expire before its registration, which will result in the wastage of several million doses of the vitally important Sputnik Light vaccine", he added further.

"We would like to note that the Indian manufacturers of the Russian vaccine are discouraged by the current ban that prevents the use of the produced Sputnik Light vaccine in India and its export to other countries," said the communication to V.K. Paul, chair of the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for Covid-19 (NEGVAC).

The ARDIF and Dr Reddy's Laboratories are working with the authorities on the registration of the Sputnik Light in India.

However, the top source at the Union Health Ministry confirmed that the government has not yet responded to Russia's request and any decision can be made soon.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Kabul/New Delhi, Sep 16 : Rhapsodising over the takeover of Afghanistan by medieval marauders, Pakistan has begun a hectic diplomacy campaign to seek recognition for the government in Kabul. And, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi suffered a snub at his very first stop, Dushanbe. He had no choice but to stomach the insult as he apparently did not do his homework before meeting President Emomali Rahmon.

The Tajik leader is unlikely to change his stand when he meets Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit. For Rahmon, the immediate concern is the threat at his country's borders. He is walking the extra mile to beef up border security. Russia has rushed new weapon systems to its military base in Tajikistan.

A 'chicken neck' like territory of Northern Afghanistan surrounded by Tajikistan is still to accept the Taliban supremacy, Tajik President Rahmon told a crestfallen Qureshi that he would not recognise a government formed through 'oppression'. Not words that Qureshi expected to hear from his host.

The unstated purpose of Qureshi mission was to catapult Pakistan as the most important regional player influencing the future of war-ravaged Afghanistan. China and Russia also keen to jump on the Afghan bandwagon to undo what they consider as historical wrongs.

Yet, Russia, like Tajikistan, has its reservations on Taliban; it is also in no hurry to recognise the regime that Pakistan has installed. In fact, it is this concern over Pakistani hand that is compelling the West to seek guarantees of good behaviour as much from Taliban as from Pakistan. Russian President Vladmir Putin used the BRICS forum to articulate his concern over terrorism emanating from Talibanised Afghanistan. The SCO summit is also focused on the Afghan issue.

Russia is lending its ears to the Central Asian countries that have felt uneasy over Taliban 2.0. The militant groups active in Central Asian Republics and even Russia and China have safe havens in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Tajik capital had played an important role during the Indian evacuation mission which saw hundreds of people being brought to the safety of India. This could not have made Pakistan very happy. But Qureshi could not have conveyed his unhappiness to his Tajik host.

As Foreign Minister during Gen Pervez Musharraf rule, the garrulous Qureshi was in New Delhi when Pakistani terrorists trained by JeM chief Maulana Masood Azhar attacked India's financial capital, Mumbai and killed over 160 people including a number of Americans. Qureshi advocacy about the peaceful intentions of the Taliban is a cruel joke since militant cadres of Masood Azhar (and Hafiz Saeed of Lashkar-e-Taiba, LeT) had fought shoulder-to-shoulder with the Taliban and paved the way for their triumphant march.

Two days after the Taliban flag started fluttering over the Presidential palace on August 15, JeM chief landed in Afghanistan to work out tradeoffs for the Kashmir theatre, according to Pakistani Urdu media. He met the Taliban top brass at their Kandahar headquarters and secured the nod for help in JeM forays into Kashmir to unsettle India.

Both the JeM and LeT are set to shift their bases to Southern Afghanistan to provide a reprieve to Pakistan from FATF sanctions (for terrorism financing). Like them, the Taliban are the creations of Pakistan Army's eyes and ears, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

Any lingering doubts about ISI factor on the Kabul theatre were set at rest when ISI chief Lt General Faiz Hameed flew into the Afghan capital and arm-twisted the Taliban into making Sirajuddin Haqqani the new security Tsar.

Leaking roofs say the Kabul meddling earned Hameed a reprimand from Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa. Because, his September 4 visit was without proper disciplinary protocol, which, in plain terms, means approval from his boss. An inquiry followed. When Hameed arrived at the office of Adjutant General at the GHQ (September 10) to face the inquiry, he was humiliated, according to a report that also says that the ISI flag was stripped of his vehicle before it was allowed to enter the GHQ premises.

Hameed reportedly "accepted the charges and asked for pardon".

By tradition, the ISI chief is always the personal choice of Army Chief and the incumbent is not known to indulge in one-upmanship games.

Hameed bravado was apparently a fall-out of radicalisation of the Pakistan Army particularly at the middle level, which sees close affinity with the hard-line Islamist outfits like the Haqqanis.

The installation of Sirajuddin Haqqani as the Interior Minister went against the plans of Gen Bajwa, whose concern is the larger picture of projecting a moderate faAade both for Taliban rulers and Pakistan.

He has just elevated a Shia officer, Lt General Azhar Abbas as Chief of General Staff (CGS). And it raised alarm in the predominantly Sunni Army. The story may take some twists and turns as Lt General Faiz Hameed is eyeing the top post which will fall vacant in under a year.

This digression into the power struggle in the Pakistan Army is only to put the spot light on the soft underbelly of Pakistan. And, to underline the absurdity of Qureshi contention that Taliban are peace angels. As the Tajik President warned, 'indifference' to the current situation in Afghanistan could lead to a 'protracted civil war.' After Tajikistan, Qureshi travelled to Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Iran, where also disappointment was in store for him.
New Delhi, Sep 16 : Congress social media national executive meeting is scheduled to be held on September 17 and 18 in New Delhi. All the state heads of the social media department of the party will participate in the meeting. Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will address the meet on September 18.

Rohan Gupta, Chairman of the social media department, said, "the main focus is to train the team to counter the BJP's fake narrative at the booth level in the poll-bound states." The Social media department will also devise strategy to train the office bearers in the states at the booth level and arm them with latest technique. The team will also be focusing to counter any misinformation campaign on the social media at the source itself to curb its spread.

The Congress social media team has started making videos to promote the party's publicity and also counter the BJP's narrative, said Gupta.

The Congress had launched a 'Join Congress Social Media' campaign after which two lakh online 'warriors' have registered themselves.

"We all know that the government is scared of social media. Now the government writes to Twitter to ban certain accounts. Those who are against the government are anti-nationals. Through this, we are going to give the youth and the people of the country a platform to raise their voice," Gupta said.

The Congress is preparing its social media team ahead of elections in five states which are going to polls early next year -- UP, Utttakhand Goa, Punjab and Manipur.

The Congress is out of power in all the states except Punjab and the main rival is BJP which is ruling the other states.

The Congress started the social media campaign late but picked up gradually and has full fledged social media teams now in states and it plans to make the teams dynamic at assembly and booth level.

In some states like Punjab, Goa and Uttrakhand, the party has to face AAP which has already started its campaign in the states.
Panaji, Sep 16 : While slamming the opposition for criticising the Goa government's vaccination efforts, state BJP chief Sadanand Shet Tanavade on Thursday said that despite the Congress' criticism, Leader of Opposition Digambar Kamat had no qualms about getting himself vaccinated "free of cost".

Tanavade was responding to a mediaperson at a press conference in Panaji, over the questions being raised by the Opposition about the claim made by Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on 102 per cent coverage of the first Covid vaccination jab in the state.

"But initially, they (opposition) even criticised the vaccine and told people not to vaccinate themselves. But when they realised that it was important to vaccinate themselves, they quietly went and vaccinated themselves," Tanavde told reporters.

"They did not pay money... Digambar Kamat has also taken a free vaccine. He did not pay. He took Covishield doses like us. We also took it free of cost. The government gave it free of cost to every one," Tanavade said.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the Opposition have been waging a war of words over Sawant's claim on Wednesday, that the Goa government had exceeded 100 per cent coverage of the first vaccine shot and had clocked 102 per cent vaccination.

Tanavade said that the Congress could not stomach the fact that the country had been doing well in its ambitious programme to vaccinate as many Indians as possible.

"For the first time, we have seen that India made a vaccine because of Narendra Modi's sincere leadership and his ability to take decisions. On the basis of this strength, Covaxine and Covishield (vaccines) were manufactured in India and we could export them," Tanavade said.
Shimla, Sep 16 : President Ram Nath Kovind on Thursday arrived in the Himachal Pradesh capital on a four-day visit.

He will address the special session of the state Assembly being organised on the occasion of golden jubilee of the hill state's statehood on Friday, an official statement said.

The Council Chamber, the building which houses the state legislative Assembly, was inaugurated by Lord Reading, the then viceroy of India, August 27, 1925.

The President was received at the Annadale helipad here by Governor Rajendra Arlekar, Chief Minister Jairam Thakur, Vidhan Sabha Speaker Vipin Singh Parmar and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Suresh Bhardwaj.

The President, who is visiting the state from September 16 to 19, will also attend the valedictory ceremony of the Indian Audit and Accounts Service officer trainees of 2018 and 2019 batches at the National Academy of Audit and Accounts, Shimla on September 18, a Rashtrapati Bhavan communique said.
New Delhi, Sep 16 : A police officer, Arshid Ahmad Mir, was shot dead from point-blank range by terrorists in Khanyar area of Srinagar city, evoking strong reactions from various quarters in Kashmir. While huge crowds turning up for funerals of militants in the valley had become a norm till 2020, on Sunday, thousands of people participated in the last rites of SI Mir.

As the mortal remains of the young and brave officer reached his home in Kupwara district people were shocked. Everyone mourned his death with women wailing when the body reached the village. Later thousands of people joined the funeral with slogans against terrorists.

According to J&K police, Arshid Ahmad Mir, a Probation Sub-Inspector, was critically injured in a cowardly attack of terrorists at Khanyar. He was shifted to hospital where he succumbed.

At his son's funeral, father Mohammad Ashraf Mir had one question for his killer: "I want to know the fault of my son. What wrong he could have done in his two years of service?..." This made all the participants at the burial cry out loud.

People of Kashmir are showing anger against the killing of un armed personal, it is a clear resentment against the militants among the public. No one is happy when an unarmed police man is killed. People are now appreciating the police.

At the funeral of this brave young officer, a strong voice was raised by the Islamic scholars against the barbaric killing. Strong reactions erupted in the valley. The Police chief said we have identified the perpetrators .

"We have lost a brave young officer. He was learning the nuances of policing. It's a very tragic loss for us and his family. We express our deepest condolences. Perpetrators involved in this case have been identified and they will be brought to justice," DGP Dilbagh singh said.

Jammu and Kashmir Lt. Governor Manoj Sinha condemned the attack in strong words and said: "This is a handiwork of enemies of humanity and peace." Kashmir civil society and netizens expressed grief on this dastardly and brutal attack.

A Netizen from Kashmir wrote on a microblogging site: "The dastardly attack on young, unarmed policeman left another family orphaned and it deserves highest possible condemnation." Another wrote: "Day in and day out we are losing our gems, this must end, Kashmir must wake up against the terror cycle." All the regional political parties also expressed grief over the killing of an unarmed police man, J&K Congress termed it inhuman and ghastly attack, while the NC and PDP termed the attack dastardly.

Every one in Kashmir is expressing their deepest sympathies with the bereaved family. Things are changing now this massive turnout at police officer's funeral is reminder of Kashmir's complex reality.

People from all walks of life are now fed up with daily killings in Kashmir. Terrorism has brought endless pain and suffering to the people of Jammu and Kashmir and it must end now, echo voices from all corners.

Terrorists are working as per the agenda of their handlers to keep this place in turmoil and agony. They are responsible for regular innocent killings of locals and attacks on security forces involved in maintaining and strengthening peaceful environment -- This all must stop.
Hyderabad, Sep 16 : A week after the rape and murder of a six-year-old girl in Hyderabad, two Telangana ministers on Thursday called on her parents and presented a cheque of Rs 20 lakh.

Home minister Mohammed Mahmood Ali and minister for women and child welfare Satyavati Rathore visited the victim's family in Singareni Colony in Saidabad area Thursday morning.

A couple of hours after the ministers' visit, police found the body of accused Pallkonda Raju (30) on a railway track near Station Ghanpur in Jangaon district.

The ministers consoled the family and also promised to allot them two-bed room house. They assured the victim's parents that all steps will be taken to ensure that the guilty get stringent punishment.

Some local residents lodged their protest over the manner the ministers visited the victim's family without any prior information.

Leaders of Seva Lal Banjara Sangham tried to disrupt the ministers' visit but were stopped by the police.

Later, the victim's family members said they will return the cheque to the government as they only want justice. The girl's father told reporters that the ministers left the cheque in their house. "We don't want the cheque. We want justice," he said.

The six-year-old was sexually assaulted and murdered by Raju, who happened to be her neighbor, on September 9. The incident triggered public outrage.

The state government had come under criticism from the opposition for its handling of the case. The opposition leaders who visited the victim's house, found fault with Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao and his cabinet colleagues for not visiting the family.

A massive manhunt was launched for the fugitive and Hyderabad police had announced Rs 10 lakh reward for any information leading to his arrest.

The accused was found dead on railway track in Jangaon district. Police claimed that he committed suicide by throwing himself under a train. The body was identified with tattoo marks on hands.
Panaji, Sep 16 : Goa Governor P.S. Sreedharan Pillai on Thursday announced financial aid to 71 old age homes, orphanages in the state and said that 71 patients would receive financial assistance from the Raj Bhavan for dialysis treatment, on the eve of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 71st birthday.

"The Governor, on this occasion, announced financial aid for 71 old-age homes, orphanages and other such institutions. Further, the Governor declared that 71 persons would receive financial assistance from Raj Bhavan for dialysis treatment from Governor's Discretionary Fund," a statement issued by Raj Bhavan on Thursday said.

The statement also said that the country was blessed to have a visionary leader like Modi, while complimenting the prime Minister for his "brilliant management of the Covid-19 pandemic and for his ideas for a fully-developed India", through the aegis of the 'Atma Nirbhar Bharat' initiative.
Mysuru : , Sep 16 (IANS) Hindu Jagarana Vedike South India Convenor Jagadish Karanth on Thursday gave a 10-day deadline to the Chief Minister to initiate action against officers responsible for the demolition of the Huchagani Mahadevamma temple in Mysuru.

"As the head of the state, the Chief Minister should take responsibility. If the action is not initiated, we will take a protest march to his residence," he said.

Addressing a huge gathering gathered to protest the demolition of Hindu temples, Karanth attacked the Chief Secretary and said, "He is giving orders to demolish temples every day according to the media reports. If it is true, he must be really stupid." "You must read the Supreme Court order first. It is very clear, vacating the temple is the last option. If it is built before 2008, the temple has to be regularised. The court also emphasizes that the people's feelings must also be considered.

"Though the villagers are ready to give land for the temple, the DC of Mysuru hastily went ahead with demolition without common sense," Karanth said.

"No one can tolerate this. This should be the first and last case in the state. The present government is doing what invaders Ghazni, Ghori, Khasim and Tipu Sultan have done to the Hindu temples. This must be ended," he said.

He also reacted angrily over the Bommai government's decision to decide the height of Ganesh idols during Vinayak Chaturthi. "What is the connection between the height of the Ganesh idol and coronavirus", he asked.

"Some fellows sitting in Bengaluru air-conditioned offices take improper decisions on matters of religion," he commented.

Thousands Hindu Jagaran Vedike members attended the protest organised in Mysuru to protest against the demolition of temples. They alleged that the government was only serving notices to Masjids and Christian religious centres while going ahead with demolishing the Hindu temples without talking to locals and giving any option to shift.

Even Congress Opposition leader Siddaramaiah chided the ruling BJP government for demolishing Huchagani Mahadevamma temple in Mysuru district. After feeling the heat, Basavaraj Bommai, the Chief Minister has ordered to stop the demolitions until further orders.

Meanwhile, Bajarang Dal and Hindu Jagaran Vedike supporters observed bandh in the Dakshina Kannada district. The BJP members are also carrying out an online campaign that they are Hindus first and then workers of the BJP.
Hyderabad, Sep 16 : The accused in last week's horrific incident of rape and murder of a six-year-old girl in Hyderabad, was found dead on railway track on Thursday while the police termed it a clear case of suicide.

The body of Pallakonda Raju (30) was found dead on the rail tracks near Station Ghanpur in Jangaon district on Thursday, police said.

Warangal Police Commissioner Tarun Joshi said a railway employee saw a man walking on the track and tried to pull him away but he came under the track. "It's a clear case of suicide. There is no doubt about it," the police official told media persons at the spot.

He said the police received information about 10 a.m. that a body was lying on the railway track. "Sub-inspector of police reached there to begin investigation. Since the entire state police was looking for the accused and we had all the details about him, it was confirmed from identification marks that it is the body of Raju," the police commissioner said.

Police have shifted the body for autopsy and informed Raju's family members.

Earlier, Director General of Police M. Mahender Reddy took to Twitter to confirm the incident.

"The accused of "Child Sexual Molestation and murder @ Singareni Colony, found dead on the railway track, in the limits of #StationGhanpurPoliceStation. Declared after the verification of identification marks on deceased body," tweeted the DGP.

As the head was completely crushed under the train, the deceased was identified with the tattoo marks 'Mounika' on his hands.

Telangana's minister for industry K.T. Rama Rao also tweeted about the accused's suicide "Just been informed by @TelanganaDGP Garu that the beast who raped the child has been traced & found dead on a railway track at station Ghanpur," tweeted the minister who had earlier come under criticism for tweeting that the accused was arrested.

The minister later regretted the erroneous statement saying he was misinformed.

The accused killed himself as police had launched a massive search for him following a public outrage over the horrific incident in Singareni Colony in Saidabad area.

The child went missing on September 9 from her house. Her body was later found in the house of her neighbour Raju. The autopsy report revealed that she was sexually assaulted and strangled to death.

The incident sparked massive outrage with local residents staging protests. The protesters and even some politicians who visited the victim's house had demanded that the accused be killed in encounter.

Minister for labour Malla Reddy had also made a sensational comment that the culprit will be caught and killed in encounter.

Police had announced reward of Rs 10 lakh for information leading to the arrest of the fugitive.

Several teams comprising hundreds of policemen were engaged in search operations in the limits of three police commissionerates - Hyderabad, Cyberabad and Rachakonda.

Wanted posters with pictures of Raju were posted on walls, buses and auto-rickshaws.

With pressure mounting on the state government over its alleged failure to track down the culprit nearly a week after the incident, Director General of Police M. Mahender Reddy was personally monitoring the case.

He had directed the police commissioners to intensify the search operation.

Personnel of Commissioner's Task Force and Special Operation Team (SOT) were also roped in for the massive search operations.

As the accused is likely to change his attributes to evade arrest, the police on Wednesday released few computer generated most probable disguised images.
New Delhi, Sep 16 : The Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Thursday exhorted doctors to work towards the Prime Minister's vision to holistically transform the health system for New India.

He said that doctors are the crucial pillars of healthcare and form the foundation of the Central Government Hospitals.

"Hospitals and doctors are two sides of the same coin. One cannot function without the other. Doctors may not realise this because of their dedication and focus on their work. They enjoy tremendous respect in the society," said Mandaviya.

Mandaviya was speaking at Delhi's Safdarjung hospital where he inaugurated a number of healthcare facilities like new oxygen PSA plant, makeshift Covid hospital, Child abuse care, and other patient-centric facilities. The third PM-CARES Pressure Swing Adsorption Oxygen Plant of capacity 1 MT and the new makeshift hospital facilities began at the hospital premises ahead of a possible outbreak of third Covid wave.

The Health Minister said, "Doctors' commitment in protecting us from Corona has vastly increased this respect. The Hospital should be a natural extension of this ethos." Mandaviya also released a booklet 'Quality Ki Baat' on the occasion.

He also presented the hospital its entry level National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers (NABH) accreditation certificate.

The Minister pointed out that there is room for improvement in easing the burden of patients and their relatives coming to the hospital. He linked it to the broader point of reforming the system to fulfil Prime Minister Modi's vision of New India.

Exhorting the hospital community to make it a model hospital for the whole country, he urged the doctors to defocus from the point of view of individuals and view the functioning of the entire hospital as a team so that the functioning can be made seamless.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
New Delhi, Sep 16 : Government's telecom sector package could put pressure of country's fiscal health in FY22 with expectation of wider slippages on the deficit.

The government is targeting fiscal deficit of 6.8 per cent of GDP in FY22, a big improvement over previous year when fiscal deficit shot up to 9.3 per cent in Covid affected economy.

However, with telecom package offering deferment of AGR and spectrum charge payment by four years, the possible revenue shortfall projected from communication services in FY22 could be as high as Rs 26,000 crore. This would add up to projected deficit.

Under the telecom package announced on Wednesday, the government is deferring non tax revenues at Rs 46,000 crore per year for four years starting from FY2023. This comprises Rs 14,000 crore related to the moratorium on AGR dues and Rs 32,000 crore from the moratorium on spectrum dues.

Notably, FY2022 was already under moratorium for spectrum dues, so the net impact for this year is limited to Rs 14,000 crore this year.

However, the GoI had budgeted for inflows of nearly Rs 54,000 crore from other communication services for the current year, presumably boosted by the expectation of fresh auction inflows.

"We now assess the inflows from the telecom sector into the GoI's FY2022 non tax revenues to be limited to Rs 28,000 crore, trailing the budgeted Rs 54,000 core, which will modestly widen its fiscal deficit," said Aditi Nayar, Chief Economist, ICRA Limited.

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved much-anticipated relief and reform measures for the stressed telecom sector.

Among several decisions, the Cabinet has approved a four-year moratorium on all dues by telecom operators including the adjusted gross revenue (AGR), however, those operators availing the moratorium will have to pay interest of "MCLR+2 per cent".

It has also approved the change in the AGR definition and now non-telecom revenue will not be calculated under AGR, prospectively.

In another major move, the Cabinet has allowed 100 per cent FDI in telecom under the automatic route.
New Delhi, Sep 16 : Under intense pressure and questions over his whereabouts, the Taliban's Deputy Prime Minister of Afghanistan Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar has now released a video message.

"There had been news in the media about my health and death. Over the past few nights, I have been away on trips. Wherever I am at the moment, we are all fine, all my brothers and friends," Baradar said in the clip, ARY News reported.

"The media always publish fake propaganda. Therefore, bravely reject all those lies, and I'm 100 per cent confirm to you there is no issue in the ranks of the Taliban and we have no problem." On the recent visit of Qatari Foreign Minister where he was absent, Baradar said he was unable to meet the visiting Qatari visiting dignitary as he was on a trip.

"Got information of the Qatari Foreign Minister visit to Afghanistan suddenly," he added, the report said.

Speculation intensified about the fate of Baradar when Taliban leaders met with senior delegates from Qatar in Kabul on Sunday, with him conspicuously absent from the meeting, Daily Mail reported earlier.

On Monday, Taliban was forced to deny that Baradar was dead after rumours emerged that he was killed during a gunfight with his political rivals.

The Taliban insisted that Baradar is in Kandahar province meeting with the group's supreme leader Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhundzada to discuss the country's future now the US has withdrawn.

But the social media rumour mill believes he was actually killed in a gun battle in Kabul's presidential palace that broke out during a meeting with the powerful and ruthless Haqqani family, the report said.

Three members of the Haqqani family were at the summit with Qatar delegates along with other members of the new Afghan government - led by Prime Minister Mohammad Hasan Akhund, the report said.

A major row broke out between leaders of the Taliban over the make-up of the group's new government in Afghanistan last week, the BBC reported.

The argument between Baradar and a cabinet member happened at the presidential palace, the report said.

There have been unconfirmed reports of disagreements within the Taliban's leadership since Baradar disappeared from public view in recent days.

One Taliban source told BBC Pashto that Baradar and Khalil ur-Rahman Haqqani, the minister for refugees and a prominent figure within the militant Haqqani network, had exchanged strong words, as their followers brawled with each other nearby.

The Taliban sources told the BBC that Baradar had left Kabul and travelled to the city of Kandahar following the row.

(Sanjeev Sharma can be reached at Sanjeev.s@ians.in)
New Delhi, Sep 16 : As the world adjusts to a post-pandemic reality dominated by technology, public concerns about the dangers of over-consumption are gathering pace. According to a major new survey from Saudi-based cultural institute, Ithra, over one in two (56 per cent) South Asians are worried about the impact of Internet and smartphone use on their health.

According to Ithra's survey, the overwhelming majority (88 per cent) of respondents worldwide agree that technology can be a great force for progress, with the key benefits including access to news, connectivity and freedom. 74 per cent South Asians say technology plays an even more pivotal role as it helps create and generate professional opportunities. The study in partnership with ASDA'A demonstrates tangible wellbeing concerns.

Many of these benefits were brought to the fore by the COVID-19 outbreak, with 64 per cent global audiences crediting technology with having helped combat the pandemic. The outcome, however, is that almost everyone (91 per cent) are spending more time online as a result.

Despite this underlying positivity, Ithra's findings highlight significant concerns about the damaging effects of unchecked access. In terms of relationships, 42 per cent of respondents believe technology reduces time spent with loved ones, and over a third (37 per cent) blame it for blurring the lines between work and social lives.

55 per cent South Asians state that they would rather live without a close friend than a cell phone. Parenting is also affected, with 44 per cent of people with children admitting to letting them use a computer or smartphone unsupervised, said Ithra.

Turning to technology's impact on health, half (44 per cent) of all people say they are concerned. Respondents in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia appear most worried, with 74 per cent and 56 per cent respectively fearing the negative consequences of the Internet on wellbeing, compared to only 27 per cent in Europe and Central Asia. Consistently with the group's increased device usage, younger people are experiencing more physical symptoms than their elders: 50 per cent of Gen Z respondents complain of tiredness, poor sleep and headaches as a result of digital consumption.

Close to one third (60 per cent) of South Asian respondents are spending more time online than they would like to. 41 per cent of global respondents admit to getting withdrawal symptoms without access to their devices. Sleep deprivation is also a significant issue, with 51 per cent of respondents skipping sleep every week, and one in four daily, due to use of technology.

(Siddhi Jain can be contacted at siddhi.j@ians.in)
New Delhi, Sep 16 : According to the World Happiness Report 2021 which was released by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, Finland was once again crowned as the world's happiest country. India has been ranked 139 out of 149 countries in the list of UN World Happiness Report 2021.

To make society happy, firstly it is really important to spread awareness on how it is okay to relax, chill and take a break. People tend to normalise overworking, which is so wrong. Of Course, we need a job to live and sustain ourselves but you shouldn't be working yourself to death, and the fact that this is seen as normal is really worrying. You spend more hours at work than you do awake at home, so if those hours are drenched in misery then sadness basically becomes the norm. A study from Gallup (2017) found that happier employees were more engaged, which resulted in improved customer relationships, and a 20 percent increase in sales.

Also, lowering down the crime level would act as a major factor towards a happy society. People who witness crimes, or come across evidence of a crime in their local area, can suffer anxiety and may feel demoralised or powerless. We should also teach them to stop judging people by materialistic things and accept everyone with all their flaws. Media plays an important role in making society happy because they have the power of reaching out to billions of people and helping them out through a solution-based approach.

As per Aishwarya Jain, the Founder of IM Happiness, a social community that works to increase awareness of mental well-being, "Every great leader always talks about building a happier society from Chanakya to J.R.D. Tata. As J.R.D Tata said, "I do not want India to be an economic superpower. I want India to be a happy country". Happiness makes good things happen. It actually promotes positive outcomes. It's high time corporates start taking importance of mental well-being like it's happening around the world. Last week, Nike became the latest company to close its offices for a week to give employees a mental health break. That's after LinkedIn, Bumble, and Hootsuite have all shut down their offices for a week this year to address mental health. I think the global revolution of happiness has started." Our brains are literally hardwired to perform at their best not when they are negative or even neutral, but when they are positive. Yet in today's world, we ironically sacrifice happiness for success only to lower our brain's success rate . When we are happy -- when our mindset and mood are positive -- we are smarter, more motivated, and thus more successful. Happiness is the centre, and success revolves around it.

IM Happiness is a community that believes happiness is a skill to be enhanced by training and practice. The team works day and night to help the sufferers get rid of their mental chaos and teach them the skill of being optimistic and happy in every situation, either favourable or adverse. They work on the aim of the United Nations Goals of promoting good health and well-being and have worked closely with the organisation. The team is utilizing the power of Science and Spirituality in achieving this aim.

IM Happiness is initiating a new campaign, 'Hello Happiness'. The campaign unites 30+ celebrities from across the country to have a surprise conversation with selected people in India. Ranveer Brar, Daniel Weber, Masoom Minawala Mehta and Ash King are some of the celebrities who will be a part of this campaign. With this campaign, the community wants to help people deal with their emotions and to motivate them. The campaign is free of cost and the nominee just has to register, wherein the unique algorithm will connect the nominee with a celebrity or other mentors on a call according to their keywords.

The community is trying to bring a change but it is the society's accumulative effort to spread awareness and to make oneself happy. We should try to start small and it will eventually make a great difference because a better society allows us to lead a better life.

(Aishwarya Jain, Founder of IM Happiness) (N. Lothungbeni Humtsoe can be contacted at lothungbeni.h@ians.in)
Mumbai, Sep 16 : Actor Sandesh Kulkarni, who plays the character of ACP Tawde in the latest web series 'Mumbai Diaries 26/11', has opened up on the challenges of shooting for the role while battling clinical depression in real life.

Talking about the same, Sandesh shared: "My challenge at that time was that I was going through clinical depression. I also had vertigo. Pulling off an angry hotheaded Tawde when your internal world is depressed was really a challenge." "I remember it was my first day of the shoot and I was frozen like a deer in front of the headlights. It was the entry scene where ACP Tawde comes running down the stairs and stops to talk to Dr Subramanium over phone. When you are in depression all your faculties are not sharp. Especially if there is rush. Also, the sudden running down the stairs accentuated my vertigo. I just got blank and forgot my lines as I stood frozen on the stairs," the actor recalled.

"I really had to take deep breaths and use all my mental energy to get the lines right. Finally I managed to complete it, thankfully for the police who were exhausted running up and down the stairs for each take," he added.

Opening up on his character 'ACP Tawde' in the show, Sandesh said: "ACP Tawde represents the spirit of Mumbai Police. His one line 'Ye mera sheher hai' says it all. He loves his city and stands tall to protect it. He has no means that the terrorists have - like machine guns and grenades but he has an unbreakable spirit! As he says he and his team is 'kadak'!" Helmed by director Nikkhil Advani and Nikhil Gonsalves, the show also stars Konkona Sen Sharma, Mohit Raina, Shreya Dhanwanthary, Natasha Bharadwaj, Mrunmayee Deshpande, Satyajeet Dubey, Prakash Belawadi and Tina Desai.

'Mumbai Diaries 26/11' streams on Amazon Prime Video.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
New Delhi, Sep 16 : The Congress on Thursday demanded that an inquiry should be conducted into the data fudging by ICMR as party alleged the medical body manipulated data to keep the political masters happy which led to the loss of human lives.

Addressing a press conference in New Delhi, Congress General Secretary Ajay Maken alleged that senior scientists, who worked with the ICMR, and other organisations, are now coming forward to point out serious irregularities in 'Covid management'. They have pointed out political interference and fudging of data by ICMR. Political interference resulted in preventable deaths of more than 50 lakh people in India, he said.

"The Congress demands a criminal investigation against the Prime Minister, the then Health Minister, and also against Management of ICMR. The inquiry should be conducted by sitting judge," Maken said.

He said that the party will raise the issue in and outside parliament. "Now, as the time goes by, more and more scientists who worked with the Indian Council of Medical Research are coming forward with startling facts of political interference and arrogance which was not only against 'science and democracy', but also caused millions of preventable deaths. These scientists, to name a few, include Dr Anup Aggarwal, Dr Naman Shah, Dr Somdatta Sinha, Dr Shahid Jameel and some others are gradually opening up in social media and foreign publications." Maken alleged, "In June 2020, a study commissioned by the ICMR concluded that Modi's lockdown had slowed but would not stop the virus's spread. Within days, the authors withdrew it. And ICMR tweeted the withdrawal. Some of the scientists now say that they were forced to withdraw the report. In July 2020, DG, ICMR, Dr Balram Bhargav forced ICMR scientists to withhold data, based on serological studies, which suggested that virus was spreading to 10 cities. This deliberate blunder led to loss of lakhs of lives." He said, "the second Covid wave hit India severally in April 2021. The Modi Government was caught unprepared, people of India were left to fend for themselves. Black Marketing of drugs like Hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin, Fabiflu, Dexona, Tocilizumab, Remdesivir, Paracetamol was galore. A single injection of Remdesivir was selling between Rs 50,000 and Rs 1 lakh, Tocilizumab injection for up to Rs 10 lakh in black market".

"People gasped for breath and died as there was no oxygen. People died as there were no ventilators. People died as there were no hospital beds. Lakhs of bodies floated in the Ganga and other rivers. The Modi Government abandoned India as close to 50 lakh people died," he further said.
New Delhi, Sep 16 : The Uttar Pradesh BJP is putting extra efforts on those seats which the saffron party lost in the 2017 assembly polls. Leading from the front, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and BJP Uttar Pradesh chief Swatantra Dev Singh have already started visiting these constituencies to reach out to the voters.

A senior party functionary said that the party leadership including the chief minister has decided to give special focus to the seats which the party had lost in the last assembly polls. "Around 80 seats we lost in 2017 assembly polls and we are working on to win these seats in next year's state elections. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and state president Singh will be visiting all these constituencies in future," he said.

During their visit, Adityanath and Singh will interact with people and tell them about the works of the BJP government at the Centre and in the state. Uttar Pradesh BJP spokesperson Harish Chandra Srivastava told IANS that the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and party state president have started visiting assembly constituencies which they have lost in last polls.

"Chief Minister Adityanath and state president Singh will hold public rallies or meetings to explain to people about several development and welfare initiatives started by the BJP government at the Centre and Uttar Pradesh. First such program was held in Kushinagar," Srivastava said.

The party feels that among these seats many were lost with thin margins and with little extra efforts it can be won this time. "After Adityanath and Singh's visit to these assembly segments, the party workers will get in touch with voters at regular intervals," another party functionary said.

BJP state unit leaders claim that winning these seats not only increase the party tally in assembly but also balance any possible loss of existing seats. "There is no anti-incumbency against the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh and by winning these seats; we will be increasing our numbers in the next assembly polls. Seeing the development in these constituencies, people have realised the pace of development will be accelerated by electing BJP MLA," another party leader said.
Kolkata, Sep 16 : A day after Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha member Arpita Ghosh resigned from the Upper House, the well-known theatre personality said that her resignation was a carefully thought decision, and that she didn't step down under pressure from any person or the party.

"There is very little space to work in the Rajya Sabha, and because of the pandemic, everything is stopped. I wanted to work for the party and the people, so I resigned. There was no pressure from anybody. I want to concentrate more on the organisational works of the party," Ghosh said here on Thursday.

Ghosh, who had sent her resignation letter to Trinamool Congress national General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee on Tuesday that was accepted on the same day, said, "It was not so easy as you see it. We were having discussions for the last two to three months. When it was finally settled, then only I had sent my resignation letter to the national general secretary of the party. What you see is just a formality. The process of resignation started much earlier." Ghosh, who still had five years left to complete her tenure as a Rajya Sabha member, said, "I was not feeling well to carry on in the Rajya Sabha. I have had my stint in the Lok Sabha and I can say that there is a huge difference between the two Houses of the Parliament. Moreover, my theatre - which is passion - was getting neglected for this. Now I want to concentrate on theatre." When asked that there were several complaints against her that she was not working fully for the party, Ghosh said, "Those who are complaining against me should prove the allegations. It is not my responsibility to prove that I am a trusted soldier. The party leadership knows my loyalty and dedication for the party. Wait for some time, everything will become clear." When asked to elaborate, the noted theatre personality said, "If the party doesn't have faith in me, it will not give any responsibility... but I don't think that is going to happen. I want to work for the party and that I have communicated to the top leadership and they will surely make arrangements to accommodate me so that I can give more time for the organisational works." When asked if the party had asked her to resign, Ghosh said, "I am again saying this. There was no pressure from anybody. The party has never asked me to resign. It was my decision and I was not influenced by anybody. It was a well thought out decision." The resignation of Ghosh, however, has triggered political controversy.

State BJP President Dilip Ghosh said, "They are bringing people from other states and sending them to the Rajya Sabha and for that people like Ghsosh had to resign. This is unfortunate." Responding to the BJP, state Transport Minister Firhad Hakim said, "This is our party's internal matter and people like (Dilip) Ghosh should not have interfered into it. We don't speak on BJP's internal matters. So far, I know that she has resigned on her own and the party has approved it. The party might have some other plans for her. Let the party decide."
Patna, Sep 16 : Around 15 employees were injured, including eight seriously, in an explosion at a wing of the Barauni oil refinery in Bihar's Begusarai district on Thursday, officials said.

The injured persons are admitted in Barauni refinery hospital and a private hospital. Eight of them are battling for their lives.

"A section of the refinery was shut for the last one month. The operation of the section was launched on Tuesday. Things were going smoothly for the last two days until a massive explosion at around 12 noon on Thursday," senior refinery official E.D. Shukla said: "We have stopped all kinds of production at this facility. The rescue operation is currently underway. We are ascertaining that no one is trapped inside. Human movement inside the facility is completely stopped. Only expert engineers will be allowed to inspect the affected area later to find out the reason of the incident," he added.
Washington, Sep 16 : Tech billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin features in the list of five US companies NASA selected for making Moon lander designs, the US space agency has said.

NASA has awarded a total of $146 million for the contracts, under the agency's Artemis programme, it said in a statement. Blue Origin Federation received a value of $25.6 million, while SpaceX got $9.4 million.

The highest award value of $40.8 million was bagged by Dynetics, a Leidos company, followed by Lockheed Martin at $35.2 million, and Northrop Grumman at $34.8 million.

Over the next 15 months, the selected companies will develop lander design concepts, evaluating their performance, design, construction standards, mission assurance requirements, interfaces, safety, crew health accommodations, and medical capabilities. The companies will also mitigate lunar lander risks by conducting critical component tests and advancing the maturity of key technologies.

"Establishing a long-term human presence on the Moon through recurring services using lunar landers is a major Artemis goal," said Kathy Lueders, NASA's associate administrator for Human Exploration and Operations at Headquarters in Washington, in the statement.

"This critical step lays the foundation for US leadership in learning more about the Moon and for learning how to live and work in deep space for future missions farther into the solar system," Lueders added.

These awards are separate from the Human Landing System contract that was given to SpaceX earlier this year -- which continues to be under dispute to a government watchdog.

NASA's Artemis missions include landing the first woman and first person of colour on the lunar surface, sending a suite of new science instruments and technology demonstrations to study the Moon, and establishing a long-term presence there.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Aizawl, Sep 16 : Mizoram Chief Minister Zoramthanga once again urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to provide humanitarian assistance to Myanmar nationals as the bordering northeastern state is witnessing a fresh influx of refugees from the military coup hit neighbouring country after a renewed clash between the Army and the pro-democratic forces, officials said on Thursday.

According to officials, around 11,500 Myanmarese nationals have taken refuge in 11 districts of Mizoram, whose six districts share unfenced borders with the neighbouring country, since the military coup there on February 1.

Mizoram's lone Lok Sabha member C. Lalrosanga met Union Home Secretary (Border Management) Sanjeeva Kumar and Additional Home Secretary (North-East) Piyush Goyal in Delhi on Wednesday and requested them to provide necessary assistance including money to the Myanmar nationals, who are taking shelter in the bordering state.

Mizoram planning board Vice-Chairman H. Rammawi said that the Chief Minister on Wednesday in a reminder letter to the Prime Minister over the predicament of the Myanmar nationals, has urged him to provide all humanitarian help to the men, women and children sheltered in the state since March.

Rammawi, who is closely dealing with Myanmar refugee affairs, said that besides the Chief Minister's letters to the Prime Minister, high level delegations led by state MPs since March met the Vice-President and other central ministers and officials seeking asylum and humanitarian aid for the Myanmar nationals.

"The central government has yet to respond positively and ignore the repeated requests and even remained silent on the issue for almost seven months now," he said.

Rammawi said that the Chief Minister besides writing letters, also over phone had talked to the Prime Minister and Union Home Minister Amit Shah on a number of occasions requesting them to extend humanitarian assistance to the Myanmar refugees.

He said that he has been in constant touch with the External Affairs and Home Ministry and the people of Mizoram are deeply disappointed over the Centre's silence and apathetic attitude towards the unprecedented sufferings of the hapless and distressed people from Myanmar, who fled their country for their survival.

He said that during the state's delegations meeting with the ministers and officials of the MHA and MEA requested them to review the Country's foreign policy towards Myanmar and to provide assistance to the Myanmar nationals, but to no avail yet.

According to Rammawi, the state is now reeling under a severe financial crisis and limited infrastructure of health and other services and non availability of required manpower due to the Covid-19 pandemic has already crippled the state's overall situation.

When the state government, all officials, NGOs, churches and all political parties are unitedly battling against the pandemic, the situation further turned critical due to the influx of refugees from the trouble torn Myanmar, he pointed out.

"As a generous state and the human being of the people of the state can't ignore the sufferings and helpless conditions of the Myanmar nationals with whom we share ethnic ties and common ancestry. We can't ask them to return as they came here to take shelter to save their lives," the ruling Mizo National Front (MNF) leader said, adding that the community leaders and NGOs are providing shelter and food to the Myanmar people amid the pandemic.

He said that more people expected to come to Mizoram as the renewed clash between civilians and the Myanmar army after a Burmese government in exile on September 7 called for a nationwide uprising to defeat the military junta.

Earlier, Mizoram Lok Sabha member C. Lalrosanga and Rajya Sabha member K. Vanlalvena had also raised the Myanmar refugees issue in the parliament.

As per the MHA advisory, the state governments and UT administrations have no power to grant "refugee" status to any foreigner, and India is not a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention of 1951 and its 1967 Protocol.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
September 16 : Style and Fashion Icon Shraddha Kapoor just took to her social media profile and announced the association with ethnic bran Indya, the actress has been roped-in to present the clothing brand.

Treating her fans with a beautiful and mesmerising picture of herself, Shraddha Kapoor captioned her post, So excited to be the face of @indya...Personifying the millennial Indian woman, @indya is a world of fashion where traditions are fused with modern aesthetics and is infused with an ultra-modern spirit to cater to the women of today. @indya is an authentic fashion brand quintessentially dedicated to Indian ethnic wear. We like to call ourselves a pioneer in pret modern-ethnic wear, trying to make Indian fashion approachable and affordable

Indya is a clothing and beauty brand which stands for reinventing traditional Indian wear for the new-age woman.

Apart from brand association, Shraddha Kapoor will next star opposite Ranbir Kapoor in Luv Ranjan's as-yet-untitled project along with Nikhil Dwivedi's trilogy film where she will essay the role of a shape-shifting serpent. She is also slated to appear in a double role in the remake of 1989's slapstick film ChaalBaaz title as ChaalBaaz in London.
Chennai, Sep 16 : After a man was run over by a speeding car in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, another man who was walking by in a local dress of veshti and without even wearing footwear decamped with the bag of the accident victim who was lying in a pool of blood.

Arjun, the accident victim is a resident of Acharapakkam near Tambaram and he was walking home after work in a private company, when a speeding car hit him. Arjun died on the spot and traffic police sent the body to Chrompet government hospital for postmortem.

Police arrested the driver of the vehicle Jayakumar from Peringalathur who was test driving his friend's new car.

When the police was scanning the CCTV footage, they noticed a man reaching the dying person and walking away with his bag. The person was in a local veshti and was not wearing even footwear and Tambaram police expects to arrest him soon with the help of the CCTV visuals.

Tambaram police told IANS that they are on the lookout for the person and would arrest him soon. A police officer said that they are speaking to several locals and trying to zero in on the person.
Varanasi : , Sep 16 (IANS) Almost 70 per cent work on the ambitious Kashi Vishwanath Dham project has been completed. The deadline for completion of the Rs 700 crore project is November 15.

Varanasi divisional commissioner Deepak Agrawal said, "Of the total buildings proposed inside the KV Dham project area, the structural work on 15 major buildings has been completed. Besides beginning the finishing and interior work in these 15 buildings, work of Mandir Chowk and Kashi Vishwanath temple's main premises has also been finalized." He said that the work of floor construction is taking place inside KVT premises. "We are working at an accelerated pace to meet the deadline," he added.

The second wave of Covid was largely responsible for the delay in completion of the project and led to rescheduling of its deadline.

Now, instead of the deadline of August-end, the project deadline was shifted to November.

New features like Ganga view point, which were added later to this project, will be completed later as formality of approval by the state government could also not be taken due to the second wave of the pandemic.

Talking about the delay caused due to the second wave of Covid-19, the commissioner said, "The official leading the team of the company executing the KV Dham project had become Covid-19 positive himself. Not only this, but a large number of labourers, including many from West Bengal, had left for their homes with the surge in Covid cases. Moreover, the wave also compelled the working agency to minimise manpower for maintaining social distancing at work sites as per Covid protocol. These factors hampered the progress of the project. However, we are still confident of completing the remaining work by November 15." Prime Minister Narendra Modi had laid the foundation of the project on March 9, 2018. The project was continuing at an accelerated pace till the pandemic set in.

PWD executive engineer Sanjay Gore, who is supervising the project, which is to come up in an area of 5.30 lakh square feet, said, "Despite the odds created by two waves of Covid-19, efforts continued for timely completion of the project. A total of 24 buildings are coming up in the KV Dham area. Of these, structural work of 15 has been fully completed and further work, including finishing and interior is in progress. Work on nine buildings is in progress while construction of three has been started recently due to logistic reasons." He said, "Construction of jetty and its retaining wall at Manikarnika, Jalasen and Lalita Ghats had already been completed. We can say that about 69-70 per cent work of KV Dham is complete and finalisation of exterior stone work has also started giving the glimpse of the beauty that this shrine will have after completion." In January 2020, the Gujarat-based company, assigned the contract for KV Dham construction under the supervision of PWD, had started work with a deadline of 18 months to complete the project.

Before the commencement of construction, the state government had spent over Rs 300 for the purchase of 296 identified buildings after which a budget of Rs 347.5 crore was approved for the construction work.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
San Francisco, Sep 16 : Facebook-owned WhatsApp has started testing a new in-app business directory feature to let users find local shops and services on the app in Brazil.

According to GizmoChina, currently, the feature is undergoing the testing phase in Sao Paulo in Brazil and the company is looking to soon expand the feature to users in India and Indonesia.

The test would include thousands of businesses in categories like food, retail and local services across certain Sao Paulo neighbourhoods.

Users can tap on 'Businesses Nearby' in the WhatsApp contact listing, which will then show a listing of active local business profiles. From there, users will be able to tap through and view the business' full profile, along with products and other contact information, the report said.

This feature is yet another one from Facebook to make the e-commerce system on WhatsApp stronger as the social media giant is working hard to convert the messaging platform into an e-commerce juggernaut.

WhatsApp has already launched shopping tools like product catalogs and shopping carts, according to the report.

Facebook acquired WhatsApp in 2014 in a deal worth $19 billion but the platform did not have a model to monetise its millions of daily active users. The company is now looking at different ways to generate revenue but has not ruled out in-app advertisements.
Washington, Sep 16 : Scientists at NASA have found evidence that a region of northern Mars called Arabia Terra experienced thousands of "super eruptions," the biggest volcanic eruptions known, over a 500 million year period.

Spewing water vapour, carbon dioxide, and sulphur dioxide into the air, these explosions tore through the Martian surface about 4 billion years ago, according to scientists' estimates, reported in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

"Each one of these eruptions would have had a significant climate impact -- maybe the released gas made the atmosphere thicker or blocked the Sun and made the atmosphere colder," said Patrick Whelley, a geologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

"Modelers of the Martian climate will have some work to do to try to understand the impact of the volcanoes," he added.

After blasting the equivalent of 400 million Olympic-size swimming pools of molten rock and gas through the surface and spreading a thick blanket of ash up to thousands of miles from the eruption site, a volcano of this magnitude collapses into a giant hole called a "caldera".

Calderas, which also exist on Earth, can be dozens of miles wide. Seven calderas in Arabia Terra were the first giveaways that the region may once have hosted volcanoes capable of super eruptions, the team found.

The team's analysis followed up on the work of other scientists who earlier suggested that the minerals on the surface of Arabia Terra were volcanic in origin.

A 2013 study was the first to propose that these basins were volcanic calderas.

"We read that paper and were interested in following up, but instead of looking for volcanoes themselves, we looked for the ash, because you can't hide that evidence," Whelley said.

The team used images from MRO's Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars to identify the minerals in the surface. Looking in the walls of canyons and craters from hundreds to thousands of miles from the calderas, where the ash would have been carried by wind, they identified volcanic minerals turned to clay by water, including montmorillonite, imogolite, and allophane.

Then, using images from MRO cameras, the team made three-dimensional topographic maps of Arabia Terra.

By laying the mineral data over the topographic maps of the canyons and craters analysed, the researchers could see in the mineral-rich deposits that the layers of ash were very well preserved -- instead of getting jumbled by winds and water, the ash was layered in the same way it would have been when it was fresh.
New Delhi, Sep 16 : The Centre has told the Delhi High Court that the national capital has a specific and special requirement, as it witnessed certain untoward and extremely challenging public order problems/riots/crimes having an international implication, therefore appointment of Gujarat-cadre IPS officer Rakesh Asthana as Delhi's Commissioner of Police was made in "public interest".

Justifying Asthana's appointment, the Centre, in an affidavit, said: "Considering the complexities and the sensitivities involved and also considering that no officer of appropriate seniority with balanced experience, was available in the AGMUT cadre, it was felt that an officer belonging to a large state cadre, who had the exposure of complexities of governance and who had the knowledge of nuances of broad canvas policing is given charge of Commissioner of Police Delhi." The affidavit filed by an Under secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs, stated that during the process of appointment of the Commissioner of Police, Delhi, the Cadre Controlling Authority (CCA) was faced with precarious situation, as most of the appropriate level officers of AGMUT cadre were not having sufficient balanced experience of policing in a vast law and order sensitive state/central investigating agency/national security/para-military force for appointment of Delhi Police chief.

"It was felt that an officer belonging to a large state cadre, who had the exposure of complexities of governance and who had the knowledge of nuances of broad canvas policing is given charge of Commissioner of Police, Delhi," said the 288-page affidavit, filed through advocate Rajat Nair.

Defending Asthana's appointment, the Centre said in public interest, a decision was made by it to have an officer who had experience in all the required fields to supervise Delhi Police force and to provide effective policing on the recent law and order situation which arose in the capital. The Centre insisted that no fault can be found in his appointment which has been done in accordance with and after scrupulously following all the applicable rules and regulations.

The Centre's response came on a PIL which seeking quashing of the July 27 order issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs appointing Asthana as the Delhi Police chief and also the order granting inter-cadre deputation and extension of service to him just before his superannuation on July 31.

The affidavit claimed the PIL, as well as the intervention of NGO Centre for Public Interest Litigation, was an abuse of process of law and manifestly an outcome of some personal vendetta against the incumbent Police Commissioner entertained by the petitioner as well as the intervener.

The Supreme Court on August 25, had asked the high court to decide within two weeks the plea pending before it against Asthana's appointment. The matter is listed for further hearing on September 20.
Chennai, Sep 16 (IANS Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M .K. Stalin on Thursday said that he would personally monitor the implementation of all the welfare schemes announced by the state government.

In his remarks while chairing a high-level meeting of Secretaries of various departments here, he also called upon the officials to be personally involved in the various welfare schemes announced by the state government as a slew of announcements have been made during the Governor's address and the budget.

Ministers and Secretaries concerned would be monitored by him, he said, adding that he wanted the officers to expedite the welfare schemes with priority.

A "dashboard" would be created which would help the Chief Minister to monitor the developments on a screen, Stalin said, adding that he would keep an eye on developments from his office through this screen and review the progress twice a week.

Noting that efficient and better coordination between various departments would help the projects announced by the government getting completed in time, he directed the officials not to delay implementation of any projects.
Bengaluru, Sep 16 : Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday paid last respects to veteran party leader and former union minister Oscar Fernandes at the Saint Patrick's Church in Bengaluru, Karnataka.

Rahul Gandhi was received by Opposition leader Siddaramaiah and Congress President D.K. Shivakumar and other top Congress leaders at Kempegowda International Airport (KIAL). He directly reached the residence of Oscar Fernandes on Rest House Road in Bengaluru and met his family members.

Later, he attended the final blessing ceremony organized at Saint Patrick's church for family and invited guests. He sat through the final ceremony in the church and consoled Oscar Fernandes' family members.

AICC General Secretary and Karnataka In-Charge Randeep Surjewala and other top leaders also paid their last respects.

Veteran Congress leader Oscar Fernandes passed away on September 13 at a private hospital. An octogenarian, Oscar Fernandes was being treated for a head injury he suffered when he was practicing yoga at his residence. Doctors had conducted a surgery on him to remove a clot in his head. However, he never came back from the state of unconsciousness. Fernandes was also undergoing dialysis at regular intervals. He is survived by his wife, a son and a daughter.
New Delhi, Sep 16 : The government has approved providing Rs 30,600 crore as state guarantee for the security receipts issued by the bad bank, National Asset Reconstruction Company Ltd (NARCL).

The government guarantee mechanism was approved by the Union cabinet on Wednesday, paving the way to operationalise the country's first bad bank in which majority 51 per cent stake is held by public sector banks.

The government guarantee will allow banks to transfer their non-performing assets (NPAs) to NARCL, which will buy the stressed assets on payment of 15 per cent of the amount in cash and the balance 85 per cent in security receipts.

The government guarantee will be available on the gap between the face value and actual realised value of the assets to ensure that banks do not lose out on stressed asset sale while also helping to clean up their balance sheet.

The guarantee on SRs will be available for a period of five years to ensure that resolution of bad assets happen in a time-bound manner without any delay. The incentive of government guarantee would cease if asset resolution takes more than five years.

The government has identified Rs 2 lakh crore of stressed assets in the banking sector to be transferred to the NARCL. However, in the first phase, it would take up fully-provided bad assets worth Rs 90,000 crore.

Giving details of the latest reform initiative taken by the government to clean up the banking sector, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that in the last six financial years, banks have already recovered Rs 5,01,479 crore. Of this, Rs 3.1 lakh crore has been recovered since March 2018.

Sitharaman added that the government guarantee will give more confidence to the lenders to sell their assets to NARCL.

Addressing a press conference on Thursday, the Finance Minister also said that apart from NARCL, the government is also setting up an India Debt Resolution Company Ltd to manage NPAs. In this company, PSBs and state-owned financial institutions will own 49 per cent stake.

She added that private sector banks will also hold stake in it.

The Finance Minister in her 2021-22 Union Budget speech had announced the setting up of a 'bad bank', including an asset reconstruction company and asset management company to take over the existing stressed debt of banks.

A bad bank is a bank set up to buy the bad loans and other illiquid holdings of another financial institution.
Bhubaneswar, Sep 16 : Odisha Police seized arms, ammunition and other Maoist articles during an anti-Maoist operation conducted near a reserve forest area on the border area of the Koraput and Malkangiri districts, police said on Thursday.

However, a top Maoist leader and special zonal committee member (SZCM) Suresh Surana, who was camping in the region, managed to escape, said Malkangiri SP, Prahlad Meena.

"We have recently arrested a hardcore Maoist Dubashi Shankar. During his interrogation, we came to know that another Maoist team was there with him under the leadership of Suresh Surana," Meena said.

With this input, a joint operation by the Special Operation Group (SOG) and District Voluntary Force (DVF) of Odisha Police and the Border Security Force (BSF) was conducted in Mathili PS of Malkangiri district and Boipariguda police limits of Koraput district, he said.

During the operation, an exchange of fire took place between security forces and Maoists. One gun, six live cartridges, four detonators, two walkie-talkie chargers, two remote controls, wielding machine, Maoist banners, uniforms and posters were seized during the operation, the SP informed.
New Delhi, Sep 16 : As many as 55 interlinked Kashmiri and Khalistani groups, currently operating hand-in-hand within the US, could be detrimental for both India and America, a US-based think tank warned.

In its report, the Hudson Institute also said that the activities of Khalistani groups located in North America should be investigated within the limits prescribed by US law to prevent a recurrence of the violence orchestrated by the Khalistan movement in the 1980s. It also apprehended the possibility of these groups receiving funding, support, and military training from Pakistan, which could have ties with terrorist groups operating in India.

Such diaspora-based efforts are worrisome because Pakistan's intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), may be assisting pro-Khalistan groups financially and organisationally, it observed.

Noting that the US government has shown reluctance to act on intelligence from India concerning Pakistan-supported Khalistan militancy, the think tank also observed that the US administration now needs to investigate the increasing hobnobbing between the two separatist groups.

In addition, the report further said that since Pakistan cannot take direct action against India, Indian intelligence agencies have warned that it will support militant groups in Jammu and Kashmir and Khalistan cadres to scale up their activities to carryh out a proxy war through militancy.

Referring to the recent cooperation between Khalistani and Kashmiri groups that has become increasingly apparent in North America, the UK, and Europe, with the extremist groups often operating in tandem, the report said: "For example, in August 2020, Khalistani and Kashmiri activists staged an indication in New York against India, and, in September 2019, activists appropriated imagery and slogans from the Black Lives Matter movement, whose aim is to redress systemic and structural white supremacy in the United States." "Joint protests of Khalistani and Kashmiri separatists have occurred in Washington DC, Houston, Ottawa, London, Brussels, Geneva, and other European capitals," it noted.

Importantly, the recent increase in Khalistan-related anti-India activism within the US has been occurring as the United States and India are collaborating to confront the rise of China, especially in the Indo-Pacific region. Pakistan is a critical Chinese ally and therefore has a vested interest in weakening this India-US collaboration, it said.
New Delhi, Sep 16 : The average global temperature for the past five years was among the highest on record. There is an increasing likelihood that temperatures will temporarily breach the threshold of 1.5-degree Celsius above the pre-industrial era in the next five years, a new report said on Thursday.

The Covid-19 pandemic did not slow down the relentless advance of climate change, and rising global temperatures are fuelling devastating extreme weather conditions throughout the world, with spiralling impacts on economy and society.

"There is no sign that we are growing back greener, as carbon dioxide emissions are rapidly recovering after a temporary blip due to the economic slowdown and are nowhere close to reduction targets. Greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere continue at record levels, committing the planet to dangerous future warming," the new multi-agency report titled 'United in Science 2021' said.

In less than 50 days, countries are to meet for the annual climate change summit in Glasgow in the UK. The summit is a crucial meeting to decide on the future course of action vis-a-vis the Paris Agreement, which mandates that global temperature rise be restricted to 1.5-degree Celsius compared to the pre-industrial levels.

The scale of recent changes across the climate system as a whole is unprecedented over many centuries. Even with ambitious action to slow greenhouse gas emissions, sea levels will continue to rise and threaten the low-lying islands and coastal populations throughout the world, according to the report coordinated by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the United Nations System's authoritative voice on weather, climate and water.

"This is a critical year for climate action. This report by the United Nations and global scientific partner organizations provides a holistic assessment of the most recent climate science. The result is an alarming appraisal of just how far off course we are," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in the foreward of the report.

"We are still significantly off-schedule to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. This year has seen fossil fuel emissions bounce back, greenhouse gas concentrations continuing to rise and severe human-enhanced weather events that have affected health, lives and livelihoods on every continent. Unless there are immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, limiting warming to 1.5-degree Celsius will be impossible, with catastrophic consequences for people and the planet on which we depend," Guterres said.

The 'United in Science 2021' report, the third in a series, is coordinated by the WMO, with inputs from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the World Health Organization (WHO), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Global Carbon Project (GCP), the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) and the Met Office (UK).

It presents the very latest scientific data and findings related to climate change to inform global policy and action, a release from the WMO said.

"This report shows that so far in 2021, we are not going in the right direction," said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas.
Chennai, Sep 16 : The Madras High Court on Thursday stayed two sub-sections under IT Rules 2021's Rule 9, which provide for a three-tier structure for addressing the grievances made in relation to publishers, under the Code of Ethics annexed to the rules.

A bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice P.D. Audikesavulu passed the order on two petitions that were filed challenging the validity of the IT Rules.

Carnatic musician T.M. Krishna had filed a public interest litigation, while the Digital News Publishers Association, and journalist Mukund Padmanabhan had also filed a writ petition in the matter.

"There is a substantial basis to the petitioners' assertion that there may be a violation of Article 19 (1)(a) (of the Constitution) in how the Rules may be coercively applied to intermediaries....," the court observed.

Earlier, the same sub-section of Rule 9 had been stayed by the Bombay High Court on August 14.

With the Supreme Court scheduled to take up transfer petitions next month, the Madras High Court posted further hearing of the case to October 27.
New Delhi, Sep 16 : The organisational restructuring in two state units, Bihar and Gujarat of the Congress party have been halted as talks with CPI leader from Bihar, Kanhaiya Kumar and Independent MLA Jignesh Mevani from Gujarat have not yet been finalised, sources said.

Both the leaders met Rahul Gandhi recently and sources say that talks are on between these leaders and the Congress party. However in between, the announcement for the rejig in Bihar Congress Committee has been delayed despite recommendation from the state In charge Bhakt Charan Das.

Sources say, the Congress wants to rope in these two leaders ahead of assembly polls and particularly Mevani before Gujarat polls for their oratory and crowd pulling capabilities. Mevani is an independent MLA in Gujarat and has won election with Congress support. The trio of Alpesh Thakore, Hardik Patel and Mevani was with the Congress in 2017 elections when Congress did put up a good show but could not win elections and now Congress wants to rope in Mevani ahead of polls while Alpesh has joined the BJP.

However when asked during AICC press conference on Thursday, Ajay Maken responded that he has no idea about it but said if something happens, media will be informed.

Speculations are rife in the Congress circles about Kanhaiya Kumar, the former JNU Students Union president, joining the party. Sources close to the CPI leader, on Tuesday had refuted claims and said 'these are rumours which are being spread and there is no talk of his joining the Congress'.

Sources in the Congress say that he has been meeting Rahul Gandhi in the past and the offer to join the party has been pending since the last Lok Sabha polls.

Sources also said that during the talks in the past, Kanhaiya Kumar had emphasised on having his own team to work in Bihar in order to start a movement and then gradually take it to the national level.

The Congress is weighing its options and relations with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav. The RJD is the oldest ally of the Congress and it does not want to leave the its side.

The Congress in Bihar in the recent Assembly polls was almost routed. It could manage to win just 19 seats out of 70 seats it contested in alliance with the RJD and its performance was considered one of the reasons for the defeat of the grand alliance.
New Delhi, Sep 16 : With the number of people demanding visas increasing in Afghanistan following the closure of foreign embassies in Kabul after the collapse of the former Afghan government, the black market business for visas is skyrocketing in the war-torn country.

A number of travel agencies say that currently only Pakistan visas can be obtained legally, but visas of a number of other countries are being sold in the black market at high prices, Tolo News reported.

Shafi Samim, the director of a travel agency in Kabul, told Tolo News that people are buying visas from the black market at double or triple the regular prices.

According to Samim, people are buying visas from Pakistan for up to $350, Tajikistan for $400, Uzbekistan for $1,350, and Turkey for up to $5,000.

Before the collapse of the previous government, however, a Pakistan visa cost around $15, India's was $20, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan's cost $60 each and for Turkey's it was $120.

"The real price for a Tajikistan visa is $60, but in the black market it is around $350 to $400. The real price for Turkey's visa is $120, but in the black market it is selling for up to $5,000. There are secrets that we do not know, and only the firsthand dealers know how to obtain them," Samim said, the report added.

A number of travel agency officials have urged foreign countries to reopen their embassies in Kabul in order to issue visas to Afghan people.

Mohmmad Haroon, a Kabul resident, said he has a Pakistan visa but he cannot cross at the Torkham gate. According to Haroon, in order to cross the border into Pakistan, in addition to a visa, one needs a 'gate pass', which some people near the Pakistan embassy are selling, the report said.

"People have been waiting here for long. They have visas but cannot pass via the Torkham gate. They (sellers) have created a black market and are selling the gate pass for $200 to $300," Haroon said.
Panaji, Sep 16 : If the Congress does not decide to align with the Nationalist Congress Party for the upcoming 2022 Goa assembly polls, the "secular votes" in the state would be split, state NCP president Jose Phillip D'Souza said on Thursday, underlining the importance of an alliance between the two opposition parties.

Addressing a press conference in Mapusa town in North Goa, D'Souza also urged the Congress to decide on formation of a pre-poll alliance with the Sharad Pawar-led party at the earliest, in order to go into the state assembly polls with full preparation, while adding that his outfit was also in touch with other regional parties vis a vis the formation of a poll alliance.

"Alliance is very important because I do not want division of secular votes. If there is a division of secular votes, there will be a problem for everyone," D'Souza said.

The Congress earlier this month had brushed aside a "15 day ultimatum" served by the NCP national general secretary Praful Patel, who had given the Congress in Goa 15-days time to decide on an alliance between the two parties for the 2022 assembly polls. The 15-day deadline lapsed on September 15, with the Congress refusing to commit itself to any alliance talks with the NCP.

D'Souza also said that the Congress should not take the NCP lightly, adding that his party was in touch with other regional political parties over the possibility of forming an alliance.

"NCP is talking to other parties. We are in touch with everyone, but a decision (on the alliance) will be taken by the party high command," D'Souza said.

The NCP currently have only one MLA in the 40-member Goa legislative assembly.
New Delhi, Sep 16 : Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, who was appointed election in-charge of Punjab earlier this month, will visit the state soon. Union ministers, Hardeep Singh Puri and Meenakshi Lekhi and Lok Sabha member Vinod Chavda have been made election co-incharges for Punjab.

BJP Punjab president Ashwani Sharma said that the soon election in-charge and co-inchages will be visiting Punjab in coming weeks to review the party's poll preparedness. "Dates for visit of central leaders have not been fixed but they are visiting soon to take stock of preparations. They will also guide Punjab unit with their experience," Sharma said.

In the run up to the assembly polls scheduled early next year, the BJP Punjab unit has launched several campaigns to strengthen its organisational structure at ground level. Sharma said that work is progressing at good pace for formation of a 21-member committee at each polling booth.

The BJP central leadership has directed all its state units specially five poll bound states to form a booth committee at each polling booth consisting women, youth, Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST), Other Backward Caste (OBC) and other sections of society.

The BJP is facing toughest challenge in Punjab in comparison to other four states - Uttar Pradesh, Manipur, Goa and Uttarakhand -- where polls will be held together in February-March next year.

The BJP is contesting assembly polls on its own in Punjab for the first time after its one of the oldest ally Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) walked away from alliance last year over new farm laws.

Many party leaders admitted that now the BJP is facing many challenges as party was only confined to some urban pockets.

Sharma claims that now the BJP made its presence felt across the state. "Everyone in the Punjab unit worked hard and expanded the party across the state in last one year and it will be seen in next year assembly polls," Sharma said.
Agartala, Sep 16 : The police in Tripura on Thursday arrested five persons associated with the ruling BJP after a group of people severely assaulted a Block Development Officer (BDO) and nine other government employees in southern Tripura, the police said.

Strongly condemning the incident, Tripura Chief Secretary Kumar Alok said that a dastardly attack was carried out on the BDO of Poangbari block in South Tripura district on Wednesday while he was discharging his official duties.

"I have directed the in-charge Director General of Police (Puneet Ragtogi) to arrest the miscreants," the Chief Secretary tweeted.

Sabroom sub-divisional police officer Lalhim Molsom told IANS that the police have so far arrested five persons in connection with the case and a search is on to nab the remaining people involved in the attack.

A district administration official said that when the BDO, Vaijayanta Sarkar, along with other officials went to the Madhabnagar gram panchayat to conduct a special camp to finalise the names of the beneficiaries under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Gramin), around 50 to 60 people armed with sticks attacked the officials, severely injuring the BDO and nine others while many officials fled from the spot.

Though the police tried to protect the officials, the attackers, stated to be associated with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, overpowered the security personnel.

Before leaving the spot, the miscreants also snatched the mobile phones and other belongings from the BDO and the officials.

"The goons threatened that registration of the beneficiaries cannot be done from the priority list. If I do not follow their words, they will not spare a single drop of my blood," Sarkar said in his report to the South Tripura District Magistrate.

Condemning the attack, a delegation of Tripura Civil Service officers met the South Tripura DM, Saju Vaheed A, and demanded stern action against the culprits.
Mumbai, Sep 16 : India's key stock indices rose to record high levels on Thursday, a day after the government announced support measures for some beleaguered sectors along with provisions for PLI schemes for others.

Accordingly, both the key indices -- S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty50 -- recorded new intra-day and closing highs. While the Sensex crossed the 59,200-mark, the Nifty breached the 17,600-level.

Initially, both the key indices had a gap-up opening. However, global cues capped gains as Asian markets were largely weak as the debt crisis at China Evergrande Group and Beijing's latest push to rein in private industries hurt sentiments.

On the other hand, European stocks traded higher following overnight gains in the US markets.

Among sectors, banking, telecom, FMCG and energy shares gained the most, while metals and IT fell the most.

Consequently, S&P BSE Sensex traded at 59,141.16 points, higher by 417.96 points or 0.71 per cent from its previous close.

Similarly, NSE Nifty50 rose to 17,629.50 points, higher by 110.05 points or 0.63 per cent from its previous close.

"Nifty closed at record high level for the third consecutive session aided by banks and FMCG shares. However, the advance decline ratio has fallen below 1:1 denoting profit taking across the broader markets," said Deepak Jasani, Head of Retail Research, HDFC Securities.

According to Siddhartha Khemka, Head, Retail Research, Motilal Oswal Financial Services: "Despite weak global cues, introduction of PLI reforms for telecom and auto sectors led the rally, giving confidence to the investors about the reform-led economic recovery.

"Though the rally was broad-based, PSU banks showed stellar performance -- up over 5 per cent. In fact, Bank Nifty hit record high on Thursday, breaching its previous high recorded in February 2021." Vinod Nair, Research Head at Geojit Financial Services, said: "Driven by reforms, the Indian market kept raising its bar and traded to new record highs. Today's market rally was driven by strong buying in banking stocks, especially in the PSBs.

"The banking sector is expected to perform well in the coming days as the sector, which failed to fairly participate in the ongoing rally due to fear over asset quality, is gaining traction." S. Ranganathan, Head of Research at LKP Securities, said: "It is generally seen that when an underperformer makes a much-awaited up move, it creates a feel good effect on others. Ahead of the operationalisation of the NARCL, banks provided the much-needed ammunition to the Bulls to notch up record highs of 59,000 on the Sensex. The charge of the energised Bulls took India's market capitalisation ahead of France, as PSU banks lent the firepower."
Hyderabad, Sep 16 : The Telangana government on Thursday unveiled its information technology policy 2021-26, aimed at doubling the IT exports to over Rs 3 lakh crore in the next five years.

During 2020-21, IT exports from the state stood at Rs 1,45,522 crore.

The new policy has also the target of taking the total number of employees in the IT sector to over 10 lakh in the next five years. The number of employees in 2020-21 stood at 6,28,615.

Over 50,000 jobs will be generated in the IT/ITeS sector in the Tier II and Tier III cities in the state establishing them as IT Hubs of the future.

Information Technology Minister K.T. Rama Rao unveiled the new policy in the presence of NASSCOM Chairperson Rekha Menon, US Consul General in Hyderabad Joel Reifman, and senior officials.

In his remarks on the occasion, Rama Rao said Telangana has seen the highest annual growth rate in IT/ITeS exports in the last 5 years in the country and has created over 2.5 lakh jobs in the sector during this period, bringing in several marquee investors.

He said that Telangana recorded a phenomenal growth in the IT/ITeS sector with at a rate of 12.98 per cent as total IT/ITeS exports stood at Rs 1,45,522 crore. Telangana's growth rate is more than double the average national growth rate, he said.

During the next five years, the government proposed to launch several new initiatives for the development of IT/ITeS sector.

The state will set up a start-up fund worth Rs 1,300 crore and a government investment committee with a goal to support over 8,000 start-ups and making Telangana the top choice for start-ups in the country.

It will facilitate investments and create jobs in the IT, product, engineering and R&D fields to emerge as the leader in this country.

A truly contactless, paperless and presenceless government will be created with 100 per cent of government services available over web and mobile applications except in cases that mandate physical presence, like driving license tests.

The government will ensure that at least one individual in each household and Self-Help Group is digitally literate and is given access to take advantage of the digital ecosystem.

Over 12,000 Digital Telangana Centres will be set up at the Panchayat level to provide digital services to citizens even in the remote locations. Basic Artificial Intelligence training will be provided for all technology graduates to be prepared for the next wave of employment creation in the new technologies.

There will be special focus on electric vehicles, battery storage systems, consumer electronics, medical devices and automobile sectors and the state will attract over Rs 75,000 crore in investment and over 3 lakh jobs in the electronics sector.

The Telangana Emerging Technologies Corridor will be launched as a "Hub for CoEs or Technology Centres" and will be a platform for providing institutional support, thought leadership, promoting R&D and innovation in the latest trends in technology.

The policy aims at establishing Telangana as the leader in technology-based governing through the creation of the data stack, a data analysis wing and promotion of ethical usage of emerging technologies like AI, ML and Blockchain in government services.

The government will use its patented and home-grown technology solutions to support businesses, and MSMEs. A dedicated Smart Cities wing will be created in collaboration with the Municipal Administration and Urban Development Department with an aim to create over 40 smart regions in the state benchmarking with the best smart cities in the world.

Rama Rao stated that Telangana is the fourth largest contributor to the country's economy, according to the "Handbook of Statistics on the Indian Economy 2020-21" released by the RBI.

He said the state passed several milestones in the IT and electronics sectors over last five years.

The electronics sector saw over 1.5 lakh jobs being created and Telangana is now responsible for the production of 7 per cent of India's electronics output and growing.

He said the state developed a robust innovation ecosystem consisting of T-HUB, TSIC, WE-HUB, RICH, TASK, T-WORKS, Emerging Technologies Wing, and IMAGE Center of Excellence. Over 1,500 start-ups have received support in the form of mentorship, incubations and industry connects and have raised Rs 1,800 crore in funding over the last 5 years.
NCSC ASKS PUNJAB GOVERNMENT TO CONSIDER RESERVATION IN PROMOTION OF JUDICIAL OFFICERS AND COURT EMPLOYEES Image Source: IANS News

NCSC ASKS PUNJAB GOVERNMENT TO CONSIDER RESERVATION IN PROMOTION OF JUDICIAL OFFICERS AND COURT EMPLOYEES Image Source: IANS News

NCSC ASKS PUNJAB GOVERNMENT TO CONSIDER RESERVATION IN PROMOTION OF JUDICIAL OFFICERS AND COURT EMPLOYEES Image Source: IANS News

NCSC ASKS PUNJAB GOVERNMENT TO CONSIDER RESERVATION IN PROMOTION OF JUDICIAL OFFICERS AND COURT EMPLOYEES Image Source: IANS News

Chandigarh, Sep 16 : The National Commission for Scheduled Castes has asked the Punjab government to consider reservation in the promotion of judicial officers and other court employees belonging to the Schedule Caste category.

Hearing a petition, in the presence of Central and Punjab government officials in New Delhi, Commission Chairman Vijay Sampla asked the state to submit the progress report to the commission within two weeks.

Punjab's Special Secretary, Home Affairs and Justice, Baldeep Kaur was among the officers present.

The petitioner said the state had passed the Punjab Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes (Reservation in Services) Act of 2006 but it has never implemented it in case of appointment in judicial services.

After the hearing, Sampla said: "The commission recommends that the Home Ministry of the Punjab government will immediately move the file for implementation, in accordance with the reservation rules. Progress made in the matter to be intimated to the commission within the two weeks."
New Delhi, Sep 16 : At least 87 per cent of Indian respondents said their organisations were victims of security breach in the last year, a report said on Thursday.

According to Cloud-enabled security solutions provider Barracuda, companies with staff working predominantly from home had a significantly higher network security breach rate as compared to companies with staff working predominantly in the office.

"While organisations are adapting to the hybrid approach thinking about both working from anywhere and application hosting, they continue to experience a high level of network breaches and facing ongoing connectivity and security challenges," Murali Urs, Country Manager, Barracuda Networks India, said in a statement.

"However, realising that moving to SaaS applications and the public Cloud can improve both the user experience and security, they have started embracing new SASE technologies," Urs added.

The report mentioned that 79 per cent of those surveyed in India said their organisation has been the victim of at least one ransomware attack in the last year.

On an average, only 7 per cent of employees at Indian businesses surveyed currently work in the office all the time.

The research, which surveyed 750 IT decision makers globally, indicates that network breaches, ransomware attacks and remote-work challenges underscore the need for Cloud-native Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) deployments.
New Delhi, Sep 16 : The Supreme Court on Thursday held the moratorium under provisions of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), which restrains initiation of any fresh proceedings or discontinuance of existing ones, does not protect the promoters of the stressed company, but applies only to the corporate debtor.

A bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud, Vikram Nath, and Hima Kohli said: "It is clear that the moratorium provision contained in Section 14 IBC would apply only to the corporate debtor, the natural persons mentioned in Section 141 continuing to be statutorily liable under Chapter XVII of the Negotiable Instruments Act." The apex court made this observation in a matter connected with builder-home buyers' dispute arising out of abandoning of a housing project. The bench allowed the home buyers to move against the promoters of corporate debtor, Today Homes and Infrastructure Pvt Ltd, even though a moratorium has been declared under Section 14 of the IBC.

The bench said: "We thus clarify that the petitioners would not be prevented by the moratorium under Section 14 of the IBC from initiating proceedings against the promoters of the first respondent, corporate debtor in relation to honouring the settlements reached before this Court." Citing a judgment given by the top court earlier, the bench noted that for the period of moratorium, since no Sections 138/141 proceeding can continue or be initiated against the corporate debtor because of a statutory bar, such proceedings can be initiated or continued against the persons mentioned in Sections 141(1) and (2) of the Negotiable Instruments Act.

The bench clarified that the moratorium was only in relation to the corporate debtor and not in respect of the directors/management of the corporate debtor, against whom proceedings could continue.

"Since the moratorium declared in respect of the first respondent corporate debtor continues to operate under Section 14 of the IBC, no new proceedings can be undertaken or pending ones continued against the corporate debtor." A group of home buyers of group housing project, Canary Greens in Sector 73 of Gurugram (Haryana), were aggrieved when the builder abandoned the project. The builder offered certain settlement terms, which were rejected by them. Proceedings were initiated against the firm before the NCLT under Section 9 of the IBC by an operational creditor. The corporate insolvency resolution process was initiated and a moratorium was declared under Section 14 of the IBC.
New Delhi, Sep 16 : Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Thursday met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and briefed him about farmers protest and the Karnal violence.

The meeting was held at the Prime Minister's residence, 7 Lok Kalyan Marg here.

"I briefed the Prime Minister about new schemes and initiatives launched in the state. I also briefed the Prime Minister about ongoing farmers protest and the incident happened in Karnal," Khattar said after the meeting.

Violence between police and protesting farmers in Haryana broke out on August 28 with the latter trying to reach Karnal city to protest against a state-level BJP meeting chaired by Chief Minister Khattar on local bodies elections. On September 11, farmer unions had announced they would conclude their week-long agitation in Karnal after some demands were agreed to.

Khattar also invited Prime Minister Modi for the foundation stone laying ceremony of the Haryana Orbital Rail Corridor (HORC).

The HORC, connecting Palwal to Sonepat via Sohna, Manesar and Kharkhoda, is an electrified broad gauge double railway line for passenger and freight traffic.

The meeting had created speculations in political circles about a possible change of guard in the state. However, the saffron party leaders in the national capital and Haryana denied the speculation.

"I am not aware about any change of guard in state and there is no buzz in the state unit," a Haryana BJP leader said.
New Delhi, Sep 16 : India's External Affairs Minister Dr S. Jaishankar is likely to hold discussions with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, being held at Tajikistan's Dushanbe from Thursday, the MEA spokesperson said.

Jaishankar, who has reached the Tajik capital, will be holding bilateral talks with his counterparts from Tajikistan and Iran, Sirojiddin Muhriddin, and Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, respectively.

At media briefing here, MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said: "Our EAM will be there and hopefully we will be having number of bilateral meetings. I do not want to prejudge which one. I am not rule in or rule out any meetings. So let's wait for what meetings take place." Responding to a question on the India-China standoff, he said India's position was the same.

"We reiterate our position that completion of disengagement in the remaining areas can pave the way forward for two sides to consider de-escalation of forces and ensure full restoration peace and tranquility and enable bilateral relations," he said.

Bagchi also said that the SCO is celebrating the 20th anniversary of its foundation, and India is participating for the fourth time as a full member.

The spokesman also said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will participate in the first in-person Quad leaders' summit in Washington on September 24, and on the next day, will participate in the general debate at the UN General Assembly at its 76th session.

The theme for this year's general debate is "Building resilience through hope to recover from Covid-19, rebuild sustainably, respond to the needs of the planet, respect the rights of people, and revitalise the United Nations".

While the PM will be in Washington, he will also have a bilateral meeting with US President Joe Biden, he added.

"We also look forward to bilateral meetings with other Quad leaders as well as bilateral meetings with some other leaders while he is in New York on September 25," he said.

To a question on a missing Hindu in Afghanistan, Bagchi said: "We have seen a missing person's report of an Indian national - Bansuri Lal in Kabul. We are in touch with all concerned. We have seen reports about local authorities undertaking investigation. We will continue to monitor situation and will tell you of any developments." On resumption of Operation Devi Shakti, the spokesperson said: "Until and unless operations resume at Kabul airport, it will be difficult to say how people will be evacuated. It will be easier once the operations resume. We are watching this, for the remaining Indians and Afghans willing to come."
Hyderabad, Sep 16 : Hours after the accused in rape and murder of a six-year-old girl in Hyderabad allegedly committed suicide, his family members alleged that the police killed him.

Family members of Pallakonda Raju, 30, who was found dead on the rail tracks near Ghanpur station in Jangaon district on Thursday, claimed that police killed him and projected it as a suicide.

Raju's mother Veeramma and wife Mounika demanded that the body be handed over to them. They said they have no money to even travel to Warangal and see his body.

They alleged that police arrested Raju two days ago and after killing him, dumped the body on railway track to show it as a suicide.

As the news of Raju's alleged suicide reached, Raju's relatives gathered at his sister's house at Addagudur in Yadadri Bhongir district.

A wailing Veeramma told reporters that if Raju had committed any crime, police should have arrested and produced him in court.

Raju's wife Mounika said she was facing an uncertain future with a month-old baby.

Raju was living alone at his house in Singraeni Colony in Saidabad area of Hyderabad after Mounika had returned to the village following a quarrel with him a few months ago.

He allegedly sexually assaulted and murdered the six-month-old daughter of his neighbour on September 9, and was absconding after committing the heinous crime.

Police had launched a massive manhunt for him and had announced Rs 10 lakh reward for information leading to his arrest.

After a body was found on railway track near Station Ghanpur on Thursday, police confirmed it to be the body of Raju with the help of identification marks including 'Mounika' tattooed on his arms.
Jerusalem, Sep 16 : A booster dose of Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine can prevent both infections and severe illness in adults older than 60 shortly after the injection, according to a new study conducted in Israel.

Israel had, on July 30, started administering a third dose of Pfizer's mRNA Covid vaccine amid the recent surge in the country due to the Delta variant.

It was first approved for persons who were 60 years of age or older and who had received a second dose of vaccine at least five months earlier.

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that the rates of confirmed Covid-19 and severe illness were substantially lower among those who received a booster (third) dose of the BNT162b2 vaccine.

For the study, the team extracted data from July 30 to August 31, from the Israeli Ministry of Health database regarding 1,137,804 persons who were 60 years of age or older and had been fully vaccinated (that is, had received two doses of BNT162b2) at least 5 months earlier.

At least 12 days after the booster dose, the rate of infection was eleven-fold lower and of severe disease nearly twenty-fold lower in those who received a booster compared with those who had received only two doses, the study showed.

The study is the latest that adds to the debate for the need for boosters.

While US federal health officials, including Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the top infectious disease expert, have justified plans to distribute booster shots, many have called against it.

In a recent review published in The Lancet, by an international group of scientists including those from the World Health Organisation and US Food and Drug Administration argued that vaccine efficacy against severe Covid is so high, even for the Delta variant, that booster doses for the general population are "not appropriate" at this stage in the pandemic.

The regulatory body said that vaccines cleared in the US currently provide sufficient protection against severe disease and death from Covid-19 without additional doses, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The FDA stance on booster dose comes even as the Biden administration is deliberating over the need for the third shots against Covid.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Chennai, Sep 16 : Shocked by suicides of three NEET aspirants in four days, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin is planning to reach out to other non-BJP counterparts for abolishing the national exam for admission to medical courses.

Stalin, according to sources in the DMK, is trying to bring up coordination among non-BJP Chief Ministers to try and abolish the exam.

In a high-level meeting of officials on Thursday, Stalin said that the DMK government had protested against the NEET but the Union government was "cold-hearted". He said that the DMK had conducted several protests against the implementation of NEET in the state.

He has already spoken West Bengal's Mamata Banerjee, Kerala's Pinarayi Vijayan, and Maharastra's Uddhav Thackeray on the issue.

Sources in the government told IANS that in the days to come, other non-BJP Chief Ministers including Congress Chief Ministers would be contacted.

Stalin called upon the students and parents in the state not to worry regarding the NEET and said that every exam must be taken sportingly and failures should not be treated as such a major loss. He also said that injustice was being meted out to students in the name of NEET and added that it was closing the doors of medical education for many ordinary people.

He said that students in rural Tamil Nadu are struggling to clear the NEET and added that similar situation will be taking place in other states also.

Stalin, in a video message on Wednesday, said that he was "heartbroken" over the news of suicide of T. Soundharya, a NEET aspirant from Vellore district. He called upon the students to be self-confident and to emerge victorious.

Talking to IANS, R. Padmanabhan of Madurai-based think tank Socio-Economic Development Foundation, said: "Stalin has taken a bold step to reach out to other non-BJP Chief Ministers. This will give him good acceptability among the general public of the state and he has used the opportunity to catapult himself to the national stage."
Jaipur, Sep 16 : The Rajasthan government on Thursday announced a reward of Rs 5,000 along with a citation for those rushing seriously injured persons in road accidents to hospitals.

Principal Secretary, Finance, Akhil Arora issued guidelines for the scheme titled "Jeevan Rakshak Yojana".

Medical and Health Minister Raghu Sharma said that the "Jeevan Rakshak Yojana" will be implemented through his department, and its entire budget will be borne by the dedicated Road Safety Fund.

The persons who take the seriously injured in road accidents to government and private hospitals on time will benefit from this scheme, he added.

For the successful implementation of the scheme, an amount of Rs 5 crore will be allocated in advance from the Road Safety Fund to the Director, Public Health Department.

A person taking the injured person to the hospital can voluntarily share his details if he wants to take benefit of the scheme, and his name, age, gender, address, mobile number, identity card, and bank account details will be registered by the medical officer working in the emergency room of the hospital.

Also the person who takes the injured person in a road accident to the nearest medical institution should be treated with respect and should be allowed to leave the hospital immediately as per his wish, the minister added.

If the injured person is of serious category, then the person who helps him will be given Rs 5,000 and a citation. In case there is more than one person, the citation and prize money will be divided equally among all.

According to the government, a seriously injured person means an injured person who needs to be admitted immediately for treatment or on referral. This will be decided at the discretion of the casualty medical officer at the emergency room.
Chennai, Sep 16 : PMK leader and former Union Minister, Dr Anbumani Ramadoss has urged Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin to immediately implement the Clean Air action plan.

In a letter to Stalin, he noted that the National Green Tribunal's Southern bench has sought a response from Tamil Nadu and other states regarding implementation of Clean Air Action plan as envisaged in the National Clean Air Programme.

The Tamil Nadu government should formulate and implement the Clean Air Action plan without delay, Ramadoss said, expressing his disappointment at the state not doing so even after the NGT nudge.

In the letter to Stalin, he said that the plan should include global practices on clean air as well as points mentioned by the United Nations in its documents including its document on Air Pollution in Asia and the Pacific: Science-based solutions report.

He also said that the Clean Air Action plan must be formulated after receiving comments from NGOs, general public, political parties, and people's representatives at all levels.
New Delhi, Sep 16 : The Delhi Police said on Thursday that they have arrested a Nepalese man for stealing around Rs 40 lakh from his employer's office.

According to the police, the employer had registered a complaint with the Saket police station stating that his servant, Raju Thapa, had stolen Rs 25 lakh in cash and two diamond pieces worth about Rs 15 lakh from his office at the Square One Mall in Saket.

During the course of investigation, the police gathered basic details about Thapa besides analysing CCTV footage of the house of the complainant and the nearby areas.

With the help of technical surveillance, it was revealed that the accused had contacted a lady in Adhchini. The police then dispatched a team to Adhchini, and with the help of local sources, the lady was identified and interrogated.

She disclosed that Thapa had come to her house and told her that he was going to Nepal. The location of the accused was then zeroed down in Lakhimpur Kheri in Uttar Pradesh.

Consequently, the Uttar Pradesh Police were contacted, following which the accused landed in police net.

Cash worth Rs 13 lakh and three new mobile phones purchased by Thapa using the stolen money were recovered from his possession, the police added.
Hyderabad, Sep 16 : The Telangana government has decided to provide reservation to Gouds, Scheduled Castes, and Scheduled Tribes in allotment of liquor shops in the state.

The state Cabinet decided to give 15 per cent reservation to Goud, 10 per cent to SCs and five per cent to STs.

The decision was taken as per the recent assurance given by Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao.

The six-hour-long Cabinet meeting chaired by the Chief Minister took several key decisions.

It instructed the medical and health officials to prepare comprehensive plans for the development of health infrastructure in the state and place it before the next Cabinet meeting.

It reviewed the construction of four super specialty hospitals in Hyderabad. It directed the department to take immediate measures for the construction of these hospitals.

The Roads and Buildings, and the Medical and Health Departments were directed to make arrangements for the opening of the new medical colleges from the coming year.

Medical and Health Department officials briefed the Cabinet on the Covid-19 situation in the state, especially after reopening of schools and other educational institutions. They said after opening of the schools and colleges, there was no increase in the corona cases and the situation was under total control. All the required medicines, vaccination, oxygen, and test kits are available.

The Cabinet instructed Medical and Health Department officials to increase the oxygen production capacity to 550 tonnes per day from the present 280 tonnes. The capacity of oxygen generation was earlier increased from 130 tonnes to 280 tonnes per day.

The officials informed the Cabinet that the state is ready to face corona if it hits the children. As a precautionary measure, 5,200 beds have been provided at a cost of Rs 133 crore exclusively to treat children.

About Covid vaccination, they said two crore people have been administered vaccines so far. A special drive to vaccinate 3 lakh people every day was launched on Thursday. The Cabinet has instructed every village, Mandal, district level Panchayat Raj, Municipal Administration officials, Sarpanches, MPTCs, ZPTCs, MPP, ZP Chairperson, MLAs, MLCs and other public representatives to play an active role for the success of the special vaccination.

The Cabinet discussed rainfall details, the extent of land cultivated during the Monsoon season, estimates on crops yield etc. It discussed the purchase of crops during the monsoon and the preparedness of the marketing department.

It also sanctioned Rs 100 crore in addition to Rs 300 crore already sanctioned for the repairs of roads in the state due to the heavy rains recently.

The Cabinet also approved Sangameswar, and Basaveswara Lift Irrigation Schemes to provide water to 3.84 lakh acres in Sangareddy, Andol, Zaheerabad and Narayankhed Assembly segments.
Kolkata, Sep 16 : West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has convened a high-level meeting with the superintendents of the medical colleges and senior officials of the state health department to discuss the rising cases of paediatric fever in the state, particularly in North Bengal.

According to a state health department statement, so far, 1,195 children have been admitted to different government hospitals in North Bengal with high fever coupled with cough and respiratory problems. The state government had formed an expert committee to examine the cases in the North Bengal Medical College and the Jalpaiguri District Hospital, which submitted a report to the state health department on Thursday.

Banerjee said after her meeting with the health officials, "The children who died had some other diseases. The state is taking every possible measure." The laboratory diagnosis confirmed different types of fever, which are normal during this season, including influenza and RS virus along with some cases of dengue and other respiratory illness.

On detailed enquiry by the expert committee, no specific outbreak has been found so far. All the cases were tested for Covid during admission, and so far only one case (a 17-day old baby) was found to be Covid positive. Two children have died so far.

However, the state is keeping a close vigil on the situation, and the expert team will visit the North Bengal districts again on Friday to further review of the situation.

"Higher level of diagnostic facilities for respiratory viruses is being created at the North Bengal Medical College and School of Tropical Medicine. The expert committee is developing a new standard operating procedure (SOP) and the paediatricians are being oriented to diagnose and treat this fever episode. The critical care units for paediatric cases like NICU and PICU have already been developed and are being utilised for treating more serious cases. Fortunately, the RS virus infection is generally self-limiting and gets cured in 3-5 days, and the death rate is extremely low for such infection," a senior official of the state health department said.

Meanwhile, the widespread fever among the children has triggered political debate across the state.

The Leader of Opposition, Suvendu Adhikari, tweeted, "I urge WB Health Secretary to kindly take note of the distressing news coming from North Bengal, where more than 750 children have been admitted to hospitals for high fever and undetected flu-like symptoms. Please initiate measures at the earliest as six infants have died already." "WB administration seems to be occupied with the Bhabanipur by-election, as it's their priority. So, I'd urge Union Health Minister @mansukhmandviya ji to immediately dispatch a Central team of experts to WB, to assist and aid the WB Health Dept in order to save our children," he added.
Hyderabad, Sep 16 : Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) chief Revanth Reddy allegedly describing party MP Shashi Tharoor as a 'donkey' kicked up a row on social media on Thursday.

Telangana minister K.T. Rama Rao on Thursday posted audio clip of Revanth Reddy's interaction with mediapersons on Twitter.

In the clip, Revanth Reddy, who is also an MP, can be heard calling Tharoor a 'gadha' (donkey). He was asked about Tharoor praising KTR during his recent visit to Hyderabad as the leader of the Parliamentary standing committee on information technology.

KTR posted the audio clip after Revanth Reddy apparently denied the report that he termed Tharoor as a 'donkey'.

"Born liar and looter @KTRTRS can't get away with hiding behind @ShashiTharoor ji and fake news. It's clear that you are trying to mislead current issues of child molestation and corruption charges against your family," the TPCC chief tweeted after KTR slammed him for his verbal attack on Tharoor.

"As the chairman of the IT standing committee, Shashi Tharoor Ji had paid some compliments to the efforts of the Govt of Telangana recently. His colleague in parliament & PCC chief calls him a Donkey!! This is what happens when you have a 3rd rate criminal/thug leading the party," tweeted KTR, who is the son of Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao.

After Revanth Reddy called the report fake news, KTR again took to Twitter, this time with the audio clip.

"While ***** like @revanth_anumula need not be responded to; it's important to expose filth. Here's his audio clip/comments on Tharoor. Sent to me by a reporter, I am sure if we send it to a forensic lab, it'll match his infamous #Note4Vote voice. Any comments @RahulGandhi Ji?," KTR tweeted.

Tharoor also joined the issue after someone took exception to Revanth Reddy's remarks.

"I am sure he was only expressing his fraternal feelings!" wrote Tharoor.

During the visit of the parliamentary committee on IT led by Tharoor to Hyderabad last week, KTR had made a presentation on the state's IT initiatives.

"Hugely impressive presentation by @KTRTRS &his team. I said that as with foreign policy, we need to look beyond political divides on IT policy. If @ministerktr is setting an example in Telengana that the rest of us can benefit from, we can all gain from a forward-looking IT policy," Tharoor wrote.

"Many thanks @ShashiTharoor Ji Politics can be relegated to a back burner when it comes to the interests of our nation & policy making Happy to meet & contribute to the IT standing committee under your chairmanship," KTR replied.

This apparently did not go down well with Revanth Reddy, a bitter critic of Chandrasekhar Rao and his family.

Terming Tharoor a 'donkey', the TPCC chief allegedly said that he should be expelled from the party.

Revanth Reddy also allegedly said that Tharoor and KTR were of the same ilk and their fluency in English did not mean that either of them was a knowledgeable person.
Hyderabad, Sep 16 : A special court here on Thursday sentenced a woman caretaker of a school to 20 years rigorous imprisonment for sexually abusing a minor boy four years ago.

The special court for POCSO Act cases also imposed a Rs 10,000 fine on the 27-year-old woman who had also caused burn injuries to the boy with a lit cigarette while molesting him in the school washroom.

The incident had occurred in November 2017 at a school in Chandrayangutta in the old city of Hyderabad.

K. Jyothi alias Manjula had sexually abused the nine-year-old boy when he went to relieve himself. She also used a lit cigarette to cause burn injuries on the victim's hand while molesting him. She had also threatened him not to reveal this to anyone.

The boy had later revealed what happened to his parents. They lodged a complaint with police against the school caretaker.

The police had filed a case against her under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and arrested her.
Patna, Sep 17 : The Bihar Police's Economic Offence Wing raided four premises of suspended IPS officer Rakesh Kumar Dubey on Thursday and detected movable and immovable assets to the tune of Rs 2.65 crore.

The raids were conducted simultaneously on Dubey's residence in SK Puri and Sudama Palace in Patna's Jalalpur, and Simaria village and Sachin Residency Hotel in Jharkhand's Jasidih district.

Dubey is among 41 Bihar officials who are under suspension for having alleged links with sand mafia. He was suspended during his tenure as SP of Bhojpur district some three months ago. Bhojpur in south Bihar is one of the districts where the sand mafia is very active, mining sand from the Sone river. This sand has huge demand in building construction, and one tractor trolley costs Rs 5,500 in Patna.

During the raids, the EOW officials also found Rs 26 lakh cash in Dubey's bank accounts and investment of Rs 12 lakh in the name of his wife.

A state police service officer, Dubey was recently elevated to the IPS and given his first charge as SP, Bhojpur district six months ago.

The EOW has registered a case under various sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

Apart from him, Sudhir Kumar Porika, another SP rank officer, was suspended for links with the sand mafia. Porika was SP, Aurangabad district.

The other officials include two SDPO rank officers in Bhojpur, and Arwal district, an SDO in Rohtas district and an inspector rank officer of Patna district.
Bengaluru, Sep 17 : Biocon Biologics, a subsidiary of Biocon, on Thursday offered approximately 15 per cent stake to Serum Institute Life Sciences (SILS) for 100 million doses of vaccines in a strategic alliance.

SILS is a subsidiary of Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII). The alliance will give SII CEO Adar Poonawalla a board seat in Biocon Biologics.

The stake, at a post-money valuation of approximately $4.9 billion, will provide Biocon Biologics with 100 million doses of vaccines per annum for 15 years, according to a company statement.

The vaccines will be primarily from SILS's upcoming vaccine facility in Pune with commercialisation rights of the SILS vaccine portfolio (including Covid-19 vaccine) for global markets.

"This alliance will complement the strengths and resources of the two leading players in vaccines and biologics," said Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Executive Chairperson, Biocon & Biocon Biologics, in the statement.

With this alliance, Biocon Biologics will generate a committed revenue stream and related margins, commencing the second half of FY23.

"We look forward to complementing each other's capabilities and capacities in vaccines and biologics, with the objective of addressing inequitable access both in emerging and developed markets for life saving vaccines and biologics," Poonawalla said.

In addition to vaccines, the strategic alliance will also develop antibodies targeting several infectious diseases like dengue and HIV, among others.

The two companies will enter service level agreements (SLAs) for manufacturing and distribution of the vaccines and antibodies.

Recently, Biocon Biologics had also announced a manufacturing and commercialisation partnership in select emerging markets with Boston based Adagio Therapeutics for ADG20, a novel Covid-19 antibody therapy.

The Bengaluru-based company also aims to establish, at its cost, a vaccine R&D division to support the strategic alliance in developing both vaccines and biologics for communicable diseases.

Additionally, wherever possible, it will make available its cell culture and sterile fill and finish capacities for vaccine production under the strategic alliance, the statement said.
Amaravati, Sep 17 : The Andhra Pradesh cabinet headed by Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has cleared the implementation of a sub-plan for minorities at par with SC, ST and BCs, keeping in mind the welfare of minorities across the state.

The cabinet, which met on Thursday, also cleared a one-time settlement (OTS) scheme for all the people who have availed housing loans from the Andhra Pradesh Housing Corporation Ltd between 1983 and August 15, 2011.

Briefing the media after the cabinet meeting, Minister for Information and Public Relations, Perni Venkatramaiah, said that while an amount of Rs 10,000 has been fixed for OTS in the rural areas, it is Rs 15,000 in municipalities and Rs 20,000 in corporations.

"The borrowers can avail the OTS scheme by paying the prescribed amount till December 15 and the Revenue Department officials will register the land to the OTS scheme beneficiaries on December 21, 2021," the minister said.

Apart from the OTS scheme, the cabinet also decided to release the second installment of the YSR Asara programme. The minister said that financial assistance of Rs 6,470.76 crore will be given to women in 8,00,042 self-help groups.

The cabinet also approved moving ahead on proposals with the Solar Energy Corporation of India to implement 10,000 MW solar power project to supply 9-hour day time free power to farmers on a sustainable basis for the next 30 years, at a rate of Rs 2.49 per unit.
180 Medical, one of Americas leading providers of intermittent catheters and ostomy supplies, is pleased to announce this years recipients of the 180 Medical College Scholarship Program and the 180 Medical Ron Howell Caregiver College Scholarship.

The 180 Medical College Scholarship Program, which was originally created in 2012, is offered to college students with specific medical conditions including: spinal cord injury, spina bifida, transverse myelitis, neurogenic bladder, and/or an ostomy (ileostomy, urostomy, or colostomy). Since 2012, 180 Medical has awarded over 60 scholarships to students whove experienced challenges due to their conditions that have made paying for college and achieving their goals more difficult.

In addition to the 180 Medical College Scholarship Program, the 180 Medical Ron Howell Caregiver College Scholarship was created in 2020 to honor former 180 Medical President Ron Howell upon his retirement. This scholarship program aims to help college students who are unpaid caregivers to a loved one living with a chronic disability. Because 180 Medical understands that these students often face limited financial resources and time, they created this scholarship program to aid these selfless caregivers in pursuit of their career dreams.

180 Medical takes tremendous pride in supporting the educational pursuits of our awardees. The candidates we review each year continue to raise the bar. We are inspired and energized by these applicants, especially when overlaying the complexities of managing their own condition or making a tangible commitment to care for a loved one.  Seth Segel, President

In 2021, 180 Medical received applications from hopeful students all over the United States, and as always, it was a difficult choice for the judging committee to begin narrowing down to the final recipients. This years finalists come from different backgrounds and have different career goals. However, they share one thing in common: their hope to create a brighter future and positively impact others lives.

The seven finalists who have received the $1,000 180 Medical College Scholarship award are:

o Evan Parkins (Gonzaga University)

o Isaiah Slemons (University of Wisconsin)

o Lauren Tackett (Tulsa Community College)

o Linden Williamson (Texas Lutheran University)

o Logan Stovall (Liberty University)

o Meghan Butler (University of Northern Colorado)

o Nicholas Beaty (University of California  Santa Barbara)

The recipient of the $1,000 180 Medical Ron Howell Caregiver Scholarship award is:

o Samantha Selorio (Gonzaga University)

180 Medical would like to thank everyone who applied while also encouraging hopeful students to apply or re-apply for 2022. The annual application period for both scholarship opportunities begin on January 1st and go through June 1st each year.

Congratulations again to all the 2021 scholarship recipients!

About 180 Medical:

180 Medical is one of America's fastest growing home delivery providers of intermittent catheters, ostomy products, and other related urologic disposable medical supplies. Based in Oklahoma City, the company is dedicated to meeting the supply needs of customers with diagnoses such as urinary incontinence, spinal cord injuries, spina bifida, colon cancer, Crohns disease, and many other conditions that require catheterization and ostomy supplies. 180 Medical is a subsidiary of ConvaTec, a leading global medical products and technologies company. For more information, please visit https://www.180medical.com/
"With our suite of digital asset SMAs, clients and financial advisors can invest in actively managed digital asset strategies directly from their IRA, brokerage account, bank account or crypto wallet." stated Kingslys co-founder and Chief Operating Officer, Eric Viavattene.

Kingsly Capital Management, a registered investment advisor that specializes in digital assets, announced today it has launched a suite of actively managed SMAs (separately managed accounts) focused on digital assets and cryptocurrencies.

Kingsly's actively managed digital asset strategies are designed for investors seeking exposure to Bitcoin, Ethereum, decentralized finance (DeFi), and blockchain technology & innovation. The thematic investment strategies focus on digital assets representing what Kingsly expects to be the leaders, enablers, and beneficiaries of blockchain and distributed ledger technology.

"The digital asset ecosystem and blockchain technology are beginning to transform vast segments of the global economy, the internet, and society. Evidence of this shift can be seen today in the financial industry with emergence of decentralized finance (DeFi), stated Kingsly co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Barret Ayres. We see tremendous opportunity in the businesses, tools and platforms that are leading this paradigm shift.

"We believe all investors, both retail and institutional, should have access to digital asset investment opportunities that are customizable, compliant and convenient. With our suite of digital asset SMAs, investors can choose their preferred exposure based upon their portfolio goals and can deposit directly from their IRA, brokerage account, bank account or crypto wallet. In addition, investors have the peace of mind that comes with the institutional-grade security of a regulated custodian, stated Kingslys co-founder and Chief Operating Officer, Eric Viavattene. We are excited that Kingsly will be able to provide investors with professionally managed exposure to this new asset class."

About Kingsly Capital Management LLC

Kingsly Capital Management is a registered investment adviser and privately held investment firm focused exclusively on digital assets and cryptocurrencies. Kingsly Capital manages and sub advises long-only digital asset portfolios across a variety of investment vehicles, including a suite of separately managed accounts and funds. Kingsly has offices in Arizona and Puerto Rico.

For more information about Kingslys digital asset separately managed accounts, please visit: https://www.kingslycapital.com/actively-managed-strategies/

For more information about Kingsly Capital Management, please visit: https://www.kingslycapital.com/
The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) has included laser therapy in its latest recommendations for the treatment of osteoarthritis of the knee joint, announced Dr. Scott Sigman, founder of OrthoLazer Laser Centers headquartered in Rochester New York.

These AAOS recommendations have not been updated since 2013, and according to Dr. Sigman, during that time laser therapy has proven itself to be effective at treating knee arthritis in clinical practice.

"We're very pleased, of course, that laser therapy is getting the recognition it deserves for relieving pain," Dr. Sigman said. "It's something we and our patients have known for years so it's gratifying that a group like AAOS is acknowledging the clinical data."

The direct wording of the AAOS guidelines regarding laser therapy reads:

"Patients should expect to experience improvements in pain and function with the treatment. There have been no reports of serious side effects from laser treatment for pain control."

The AAOS issues its guidelines as an educational tool to be used in formulating clinical treatment procedures by informing medical personnel about treatment approaches that have proven to be effective in actual practice.

According to Dr. Sigman, laser therapy can be effective for the treatment of knee pain whether it's acute or chronic because it reduces inflammation around the knee and promotes faster healing.

"Laser therapy also promotes the re-growth of tissue and improves blood circulation in the region around the knee," he said. "With better blood flow, more oxygen and healing nutrients can be delivered to the area. With blood vessels less constricted, swelling is reduced, and more connective tissue begins growing."

In addition, Dr. Sigman explained that laser therapy also triggers the release of endorphins, the body's "feel-good" hormones, which reduces the sensation of pain. Finally, the immune system is stimulated into producing more of the chemicals that help heal damaged tissue.

Now that the AAOS has given its nod to laser therapy as a treatment for knee osteoarthritis pain, Dr. Sigman expects even more patients will start benefitting from laser therapy's pain-relieving effects.

"Our company has experienced a tremendous amount of growth in the last year as more orthopedic surgeons and their patients learn more about laser therapy," he said. "With the new AAOS guidelines, we expect this growth to not only continue but accelerate."

In fact, in the last 18 months, the company has grown from one location in Chelmsford, MA to 15 centers operational or currently under construction.

Dr. Sigman attributes the popularity of OrthoLazer Laser Centers to two things: 1) their MLS M8 Robotic Laser Therapy technology available exclusively to OrthoLazer, and 2) their business-in-a-box franchise system.

The MLS M8 Robotic Laser is the most advanced laser therapy available today, said Dr. Sigman. Not only is it FDA-cleared to treat pain and inflammation but is non-invasive, fully automated, and completely safe."

In addition to the MLS M8 Robotic Laser, OrthoLazer's business-in-a-box system provides franchise partners everything from real estate selection and staff recruiting services to a completely designed and delivered branded OrthoLazer Center. The OrthoLazer Centers business systems and software streamline operations to maximize efficiencies and minimize staffing requirements.

Our system eliminates all the guesswork and much of the leg work, Dr. Sigman said. This means busy orthopedic practices can get their OrthoLazer center up and running quickly with very little work on their part.

To learn more about OrthoLazer, visit their website at OrthoLazer.com or call their office at 888-652-9199.

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The American College of Healthcare Trustees continues to work hard to enable the cross-pollination of ideas from different areas of healthcare. We are excited to spearhead the development of the Datathon to address unmet real world clinical needs that could be solved with data.

The American College of Healthcare Trustees (ACHT), a social enterprise that promotes exceptional and ethical governance, leadership and decision-making in healthcare, announces plans to organize a Datathon. The Dathaton will bring together diverse stakeholders from various fields, including but not limited to healthcare, medicine, technology and data science, in order to solve an important real world clinical problem.

Similar to a Hackathon, during this collaboration data scientists, clinicians, medical students, computer scientists, students, entrepreneurs and others get together to use real world information and applied data science tools and techniques to develop actionable intelligence and potential solutions to important real world problem(s) of today.

The American College of Healthcare Trustees is looking for several Sponsors for the Datathon, who will be instrumental in formulating the specific goals for this effort and/or who can provide access to anonymized data that would be crucial to solving the identified problem(s). There are multiple benefits to the Sponsors, including direct access to a highly motivated and skilled team of interdisciplinary experts, exclusively focused on the real world issue at hand for the duration of the Datathon. Other benefits include positive brand recognition and associated goodwill as well as empowering young people to pursue multidisciplinary work in healthcare by demonstrating the power of a joint effort at the intersection of medicine, technology, data science and business.

In addition to Sponsors, ACHT is seeking a broad range of participants across the disciplines mentioned, as well as seasoned professionals to serve as mentors for the Datathon. The American College of Healthcare Trustees is also interested in hearing from a variety of stakeholders in healthcare about the real world issues they would like to see addressed and/or ideas for dataset(s) to use. Please submit your ideas via this short form.

The American College of Healthcare Trustees continues to work hard to enable the cross-pollination of ideas from different areas of healthcare, said David Levien, MD, MBA, FACS, President, CEO and Board Chairman of the American College of Healthcare Trustees. We are excited to spearhead the development of the Datathon to address unmet clinical needs that could be solved with data.

For additional details about the Datathon or to discuss potential Sponsorship opportunities please contact David Levien, MD, MBA, FACS (david.levien@facht.org, 844-322-4867, https://calendly.com/dlevien48) or Roxanne Bruce MBA, DrBA (roxanne.bruce@facht.org, 207-521-7001).

About ACHT

The American College of Healthcare Trustees (ACHT) is a national professional association dedicated to promoting high performing, competent, qualified, ethical governance and leadership in healthcare that is person-centered and accountable by providing continuing education, resources, and networking.


We are a small, family-operated business, so to be commended by one of the industrys most robust recognition platforms for innovation and leadership in the pet space really validates that what were doing is important and impactful.

American Ostrich Farms (AOF) has been named a winner of the 2021 Pet Independent Innovation Awards. The annual awards program recognizes companies and brands that are revolutionizing and advancing the Pet Industry through exceptional goods, services, and technology. AOF is honored to have been selected from among over 2,000 nominees to this years competition, joining the ranks of PetSmart, Kong, Bark Box, Purina, and other previous winners.

We are thrilled for one of our products to be chosen as the Dog Food Freeze Dried Product of the Year, says AOF Founder and CEO, Alex McCoy. We are a small, family-operated business, so to be commended by one of the industrys most robust recognition platforms for innovation and leadership in the pet space really validates that what were doing is important and impactful.

American Ostrich Farms handcrafts 100% natural, preservative-free pet treats made with sustainably raised ostrich meat and eggs. Ostrich is a red meat, similar in taste and texture to beef, but with a much smaller environmental impact, as well as unique benefits for both humans and their pets. Ostrich is much lower in fat than beef, higher in protein and iron, and significantly easier to digest. All AOF pet products are grain-free and made without any additives. Learn more at http://www.AmericanOstrichFarms.com.

About American Ostrich Farms

Far from factory farms and the culture of waste, American Ostrich Farms has set out to revolutionize the way products are cultivated, crafted, and consumed. The flagship family farm is in Idaho's Snake River Plain and is North America's largest producer of ostrich, a uniquely sustainable red meat.
Apcela originally developed the enhanced encryption service for a global defense and aerospace customer in 2020 to support high throughput transit of secure encrypted data to AWS GovCloud.

Apcela, the leader in software-defined, cloud-optimized enterprise network services, today announced that it has added enhanced cloud-based encryption to its Arcus Connect software-defined, multi-cloud interconnection portfolio of services. The enhanced encryption services are currently available for AWS Direct Connect (DX) connections to GovCloud and Azure Express Route connections to Microsofts Government cloud instances.

Apcela is providing encryption up to the full 10 Gigabits per second (Gbps) line rate of the direct connection link, an 8x improvement over the native capabilities of the cloud services providers encrypted transit, which is typically limited to 1.25 Gbps. Enhanced encryption is available from most cities in North America via Apcelas Arcus Connect Platform. Customers can connect from any enterprise location via a private connection from Apcela, a Wide Area Network (WAN) extension or cross-connect into Apcelas global network of AppHUBs, or consumed as a cloud service via a secure IPSEC tunnel over the internet.

The services support high throughput connections to all AWS GovCloud and Azure Government instances in North America. While encryption to the Government Cloud regions is the primary use case, the high-speed data encryption supports enterprise use cases as well, particularly for regulated industries such as banking, finance, and healthcare where there are stringent data privacy and regulatory compliance requirements.

According to a Gartner research, Compared with CSP public ports, private cloud port services (e.g., AWS Direct Connect, Microsoft Azure Express Route) can provide greater performance assurance, security, accountability and survivability. Further Gartner anticipates that demand for private cloud port services will continue growing steadily at a 20.3% CAGR through YE24.1

While demand for private cloud connections is growing rapidly, there are some significant limitations when encryption is required, noted Kunal Thakkar, VP Product and Solutions Engineering for Apcela. Limitations of software based IPSEC VPNs throttle your encrypted throughput to 1.25 Gbps, even though your direct connect link is capable of 10 Gbps. We unlock the encrypted throughput with acceleration at the cloud edge, enabling the full 10 Gbps, with the added benefit of being able to aggregate across multiple public and/or private enterprise network connections.

Apcela originally developed the enhanced encryption service for a global defense and aerospace customer in 2020 to support high throughput transit of secure encrypted data to AWS GovCloud. With this general availability announcement for North America, Apcela is now fully supporting single and multi-cloud access across both AWS and Azure including all GovCloud and Azure Government regions for all data security classifications.

The multi-cloud encrypted access solution is offered via Apcelas Arcus Platform and global network of AppHUBs. They are part of a suite of enterprise multi-cloud WAN solutions across connectivity, security, and intelligence layers, simplifying deployment of the networking and security services needed to move mission critical applications and data to the cloud.

Sources:

1. Gartner, How to Optimize Network Connectivity Into Public Cloud Providers. Lisa Pierce, Danielle Young, and Jonathan Forest, February 19, 2021.

About Apcela

Apcela provides software-defined, cloud optimized networks for the digitally transforming enterprise. Delivered as a service, the Arcus Platform simplifies, and speeds enterprise deployment of software-defined network and security architectures built for a multi-cloud world.

Connect with us on Twitter #GoFaster or LinkedIn.

Disclaimers:

GARTNER is registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

Amazon Web Services, AWS Direct Connect, and AWS GovCloud are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates in the United States and/or other countries.

Microsoft Azure Express Routes and Azure Government are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies
Nathan Hawkes, President of Arcane Marketing, says "As a service provider to many dental practices around the country we are incredibly interested in helping our dental and medical clients with all the insights, tools, and resources they need to continue to succeed in todays turbulent economy."

Arcane Marketing is pleased to announce the launch of a groundbreaking new research study initiative being conducted for the Dental Industry in 2021. This much needed research study will explore how dental practices have adapted to the changes caused by the 2020-2021 Pandemic and how these changes have impacted their growth and day-to-day operations. Because a study of this magnitude has not been attempted in the last 8 years, the company feels that this study will provide updated and invaluable insights into whats working and not working for dental practices across America.

Nathan Hawkes, President of Arcane Marketing, says "As a service provider to many dental practices around the country we are incredibly interested in helping our dental and medical clients with all the insights, tools, and resources they need to continue to succeed in todays turbulent economy."

The dental industry has not seen similar research studies conducted for several years and qualified dental professionals are highly encouraged to add their voices and insights to this study. The study will run from Sept. 1st to Nov. 30th (estimated) with results expected in December of 2021.

Dental professionals can offer and submit their survey information by clicking here (results are anonymous): https://www.arcanemarketing.com/dental-survey/

This information will be invaluable for dentists and other dental professionals who want to find out what their colleagues and competitors are doing to thrive and succeed in this ever-evolving industry. Nathan Hawkes also urges dental professionals interested in participating in this study not to hesitate because of the fast approaching cut off deadline.

November 30th will arrive very quickly so it is paramount that we get as many dental professionals to participate as possible so our findings can be released in December. It takes roughly 2 minutes to complete. We hope these results will help them kick off their 2022 in a powerful way; armed with the information on knowing what to do next.

For more information on this 2021 Dental Industry Research Study conducted by Arcane Marketing please visit our website at: https://www.arcanemarketing.com.

Note to Editor:

Founded in 2015, Arcane Marketing is a full service digital marketing agency located in Idaho Falls, Idaho. They specialize in serving professional service providers (dentists, medical practices, attorneys, financial institutions, insurance agents, real estate agents, etc) attract more new clients and grow their practices by leveraging SEO, PPC, Social Media, Video, and their websites.

For additional media inquiries please contact Nathan Hawkes by emailing: info@arcanemarketing.com -or- call (208) 938-5988.

Arcane Marketing

675 E Anderson St, Idaho Falls, ID 83401

https://www.arcanemarketing.com


AssuredPartners logo The partnership with EONE will allow us to continue to deliver the highest level of service with the best solutions on the employee benefits platform. We welcome all clients and employees to AssuredPartners, said AssuredPartners President, Randy Larsen.

AssuredPartners, Inc. is proud to announce that Employee One Benefit Solutions, LLC (EONE) of Baltimore, MD has joined AssuredPartners. This marks the 27th acquisition in 2021. The team of 54 will remain under the leadership of Managing Partners, Brenndan Mohler and Todd Sullivan. The agency currently reports over $25 million in combined annualized revenues.

Employee One Benefit Solutions focuses on leading the way in benefits consulting and management. Both agencies combine expertise, experience, technology and innovation in order to help our clients grow and improve their organizations. We are excited to join AssuredPartners and operate towards the same goals and client focus, Mohler stated.

EONE is a great fit into the AssuredPartners Employee Benefits operations, Brian Bair, AssuredPartners Regional President stated. We are pleased to have their talented team join us.

The partnership with EONE will allow us to continue to deliver the highest level of service with the best solutions on the employee benefits platform. We welcome all clients and employees to AssuredPartners, said AssuredPartners President, Randy Larsen.

For more information on Employee One Benefit Solutions, visit: http://www.eonebenefits.com

ABOUT ASSUREDPARTNERS, INC

Headquartered in Lake Mary, Florida, AssuredPartners is a full-service insurance broker providing commercial insurance, risk management, employee benefits and personal lines through consulting and services. With over 8,000 employees located in offices throughout North America, London, Belgium and Scotland, AssuredPartners is in the business of building relationships. While cementing powerful, lasting relationships built on trust earned from working openly and honestly with our partners. Thats what we call, Power through Partnership. For more information, visit http://www.assuredpartners.com.
BioPlus Specialty Pharmacy, a CarepathRx company, announced today the launch of its highly anticipated California-based specialty pharmacy.

Now that BioPlus is in California, we are eager to serve state residents and the medical community with the insurance requirements of a brick and mortar pharmacy within the state and really show Californians the Power of 2 difference! said Elvin Montanez, Pharm.D., Chief Operations Officer at BioPlus. Look for our fast and easy service, with dedicated prior authorization and benefits investigation teams, who also have California-specific payer knowledge, he added.

Californias transition from Medi-Cal managed care pharmacy services to Medi-Cal Rx (a fee-for-service benefit system) will affect large and often vulnerable patient populations. Fortunately, BioPlus knowledge and expertise about the unique payer landscape in California will help both patients and providers alike to navigate through the onboarding and delivery process. BioPlus Intake and Benefit Investigation teams are ready to guide providers and their patients through the necessary procedures to access critically-needed specialty medications to treat complex and chronic health conditions.

BioPlus Zubair Afzal, Pharm.D., a Board Certified Oncology Pharmacist and experiential facilitator of oncology programs at teaching institutions in the State, offers California providers specialized expertise to help them choose the appropriate medication treatment for their cancer patients. Dr. Afzal is also an executive committee member of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS) where he assists local organizations to become involved with LLS and raises awareness for blood cancers.

Patients and healthcare providers across California will have greater access to BioPlus Power of 2: the first-of-its-kind 2 Hour, 2 Day, 2 Click, 2gether promise.

The patient onboarding journey starts with a 2 Hour Patient Acceptance Guarantee, which ensures speedy notification to physician offices whether a referred patient is accepted for treatment or not. After acceptance, prescriptions move though our 2 Day Ready 2 Ship process. Throughout every step of this process, a BioPlus copay assistance team helps ensure that financial hardships dont stand in the way of patient treatment. In fact, the BioPlus Financial Navigation program stands ready to help patients across California gain greater access to their specialty medications. In 2020, BioPlus patients received an average of $8,000 in financial assistance from outside sources to reduce patient out-of-pocket treatment costs.

Prescription refills take patients only 2 clicks of the keys on their computer or mobile device to refill qualifying prescriptions online. As an added benefit, the 2gether program means better treatment access with our partnerships with nonprofit foundations and donations to OneWorld Health.

BioPlus California-based specialty pharmacy access, which includes access for Medi-Cal patients, offers award-winning service. Money.com recognized BioPlus as one of the best online pharmacies of 2020. If you are a healthcare provider at any location throughout the United States who wants your patients to get on their medication therapy fast and easy, refer your patients to BioPlus.

About BioPlus Specialty Pharmacy

Meet the only independent, national specialty pharmacy to back up fast & easy with the Power of 2. BioPlus Specialty Pharmacy offers a 2 Hour Patient Acceptance Guarantee so physician offices quickly know whether a referred patient is accepted for treatment. Then prescriptions are on their way with our 2 Day Ready 2 Ship. Medication refills are an easy 2 clicks away for qualifying prescriptions.

Ranked #1 by both patients and prescribers, BioPlus provides a complete range of specialty pharmacy services for cancer, multiple sclerosis, hepatitis C, and other complex, chronic conditions. BioPlus also offers concierge-class infusion services and expertise.

For every referral received, BioPlus provides a life-saving antibiotic through our partnership with OneWorld Health. Its part of our global vision to heal the world 2gether, helping to ensure patients across town and around the world have access to life-saving and life-sustaining medications.
"The strength of the platform and the quick time to market has demonstrated exactly what we can do to support businesses with their ecommerce strategies during this global pandemic, giving them the flexibility to adapt and add additional revenue streams, said Graham Jackson, CEO, Fluent Commerce.

Luxury watchmaker Breitling announces that they have implemented a new distributed Order Management System (OMS) from Fluent Commerce.

As part of Breitlings growth strategy, the decision was made to replace its order management platform with a modern headless architecture, so they were future ready to support peak season and growth, all while improving customer experience.

Immediate benefits for Breitling, and their customers, include the ability to open and manage orders from every sales channel and coordinate the fulfilment process across all customer touchpoints.

The rollout of the Fluent Commerce Distributed Order Management System has provided Breitling with real-time inventory, so the company knows exactly which products are selling and where. Additionally, customers can see what products are in stock before they visit a store or buy online.

Today, Breitling customers now have more delivery options, including home delivery (from warehouse or the boutiques) and click and collect. They can also choose when they receive their order.

Breitling Chief Digital and Technology Officer Antonio Carriero said: Digital has changed the way the business needs to respond to customers. The Fluent deployment to our key markets in less than four months is a tribute to the fact that Breitling has the ability, and the agility, to move fast -- from the vision to delivering superior solutions and experiences to all our customers, making our watches always available where they are. Any channel, anytime.

Agile principles and a full DevOps approach of our combined teams made it possible to go live with Fluent Commerce in record time, including the integration with the newly activated ERP SAP S/4HANA. With Fluent Commerce, we will further accelerate our e-commerce and retail solutions. Our products and customers are at the center of our technology transformation, said Rajesh Shanmugasundaram, Head of Omnichannel & System Integration, Breitling.

Im delighted to see such an iconic brand as Breitling roll out Fluent Commerce to its customers in Switzerland and North America. The strength of the platform and the quick time to market has demonstrated exactly what we can do to support businesses with their ecommerce strategies during this global pandemic, giving them the flexibility to adapt and add additional revenue streams, whilst also providing more delivery options to customers, said Graham Jackson, CEO, Fluent Commerce.

Shine Mathew, CEO & Founder of AyataCommerce, said: Breitling is transforming their systems to meet the high expectations of the growing customer base. Were proud to be part of the project team empowering the organisation as fast as we did. It is a testament to the leadership, IT and business users to make decisions in a swift and responsive manner that has made this possible.

About Breitling SA

Breitling SA is a Swiss luxury watchmaker based in Grenchen, Switzerland. The company was founded in 1884 by Leon Breitling in Saint-Imier. Breitling is known for precision-made chronometers designed for aviators. The company fits all of its watches with mechanical or quartz movements that are chronometer certified by the COSC. http://www.breitling.com

About Fluent Commerce

Fluent Commerce is a cloud software company focused on distributed order management for omnichannel retail. Fluent Order Management is a cloud native, fully managed and highly flexible cloud platform. It includes the essential components for unified, headless commerce: Distributed order management, in-store pick and pack, inventory & location management, customer service, fulfillment optimisation and reporting. This enables retailers and brands to enhance all their customer touchpoints whilst increasing their profit on every order.

Fluent Commerce works with global and regional brands such as JD Sports, GrandVision, Aldo, eBay, Ted Baker and Marks & Spencer. For more information visit https://fluentcommerce.com

About Ayata Commerce

Ayata Commerce is a digital commerce agency focused on helping brands to solve the challenges of engagement, transactions and complexity. Empowering the business with a single view of client, orders & product. It was formed based on his experience working with well-known retail brands across the globe with a simple concept in mind, making peoples lives easier. This applies to our customers, employees and partners; our ecommerce implementations always have convenience in mind, and our remote first culture greatly eases the impact of work on our employees lives. http://www.ayatacommerce.com
Perking Up Poe: an entertaining and lyrical tale that sees Poe receiving some unexpected visitors. Perking Up Poe is the creation of published author Brian Eltz, a loving husband and father who earned BA and MA degrees in English Literature from The University of Scranton. After moving to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Eltz began teaching English composition at Harrisburg Area Community College, serving as an adjunct professor for over ten years.

Eltz shares, A wet, dreary day for Edgar Allan Poe

Rain and wind are tapping at the authors window.

A duo of twins come to stay for a while,

Very much wanting to make Edgar smile.

Even though Roddy and Maddy mean well,

Nothing they try seems to work. They can tell

Its something special theyll need to bring cheer.

Nevermore will Poe smile if they fail, the pair fear.

Suddenly there comes a knock at the door.

Interested readers will want to learn more!

Delivereda gift for our friend, the sad poet.

Excited? Whats inside? Wouldnt you like to know it?

Published by Christian Faith Publishing, Brian Eltzs new book is an entertaining day in the life of Edgar Allan Poe.

Poe is in for an unexpected surprise when two young children appear at the door. Lovers of Poe will delight in the Easter eggs hidden throughout the illustrations.

View a synopsis of Perking Up Poe on YouTube.

Consumers can purchase Perking Up Poe at traditional brick & mortar bookstores, or online at Amazon.com, Apple iTunes store, or Barnes and Noble.

For additional information or inquiries about Perking Up Poe, contact the Christian Faith Publishing media department at 866-554-0919.
Robert Capovilla & Mickey Williams host the Military Justice Today podcast We want all of our brave men and women who defend our freedom to know where they should turn if they encounter a problem either stateside or overseas.

The law firm of Capovilla & Williams recently launched the Military Justice Today podcast, available on all major podcast platforms, including Spotify, Apple, Stitcher, and Castbox. The bi-monthly show will cover a wide variety of topics impacting military service members in all branches of the U.S. Armed Forces as well as their families, JAG officers, judges, and federal, state, and local lawmakers. It will also include valuable commentary on current events such as the push to change the military justice system and potential impacts on future court martial, separation board, and ROTC disenrollment proceedings.

Co-host Robert Capovilla strongly believes there is a need for more understanding of how military justice issues affect both enlisted service members and officers. The great majority of soldiers, airmen, marines, sailors, and guardsmen who find themselves involved in challenging legal issues have little-to-no knowledge of how the system works and how best to resolve their matter and move on with their careers and lives, said Capovilla. The MJT podcast is a much-needed resource for them and their families, and will help alleviate the stress associated with navigating the military legal system.

Capovillas law partner and decorated combat veteran, Mickey Williams, agrees with his assessment regarding the gap in knowledge associated with military law issues. Our country does an exceptional job of training our service members to fight battles, but very little information is provided to them about how to avoid legal issues while serving, said Williams. We want all of our brave men and women who defend our freedom to know where they should turn if they encounter a problem either stateside or overseas.

The shows format will be fast-paced and informal, but packed with information from some of the most experienced attorneys practicing military law today. Capovilla and Williams spent years in positions as both prosecutors and defense attorneys in the U.S. Army JAG Corps before opening their law practice which now represents clients worldwide. Their cases routinely involve service members of all ranks fighting to protect their freedom, careers, reputations, and personal lives.

To listen and subscribe to the Military Justice Today podcast, click here.

About Capovilla & Williams: Nationally recognized for its work on behalf of military service members, veterans, and their families, the attorneys of Capovilla & Williams bring an unmatched commitment to obtaining justice. The firm represents clients across the United States and internationally in matters ranging from court martials and administrative separation to discharge upgrades and other issues falling within the jurisdiction of U.S. military courts. The firms attorneys are also known for their commitment to charitable groups and organizations that are dedicated to improving the lives of all community members, and especially veterans in need.


Forever Rescued: How Jesus Set Me Free: an inspiring reflection on a life of abuse, heartache, and Gods healing affection. Forever Rescued: How Jesus Set Me Free is the creation of published author Carol Drinkwater Gauthier, a loving wife, mother, and grandmother, a native of Massachusetts, and a retired resident of Florida in the winter months. Gauthier formerly worked as a dental assistant, kindergarten teacher, and legal assistant.

Gauthier shares, For this is how God so loved the world: He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. John 3:16 NKJV

The night is dark and Satan roars like a hungry lion tormenting me with hopelessness, depression, condemnation, guilt, shame, and suicide. I am prepared to take my life when I cry out one last time If there is a God please rescue me for I can no longer live this life of fear.

I pray you will be inspired as you read how God reached down from His throne to direct my path and set me free. Read how God continues to work miraculously in the lives of his children throughout the world who are bound by the enemy of their souls. He sets the captives free with His blessings of love, repentance, forgiveness, peace, joy, and His amazing grace to all who will believe.

He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and broke their chains in pieces. Psalm 107:14 NKJV

Published by Christian Faith Publishing, Carol Drinkwater Gauthiers new book is a compelling and thoughtful exploration of the authors life through trauma and finding a sense of purpose through faith.

Gauthier shares a private look at a life of survival and thanksgiving to God for rescuing her from years of depression and suicidal thoughts.

View a synopsis of Forever Rescued: How Jesus Set Me Free on YouTube.

Consumers can purchase Forever Rescued: How Jesus Set Me Free at traditional brick & mortar bookstores, or online at Amazon.com, Apple iTunes store, or Barnes and Noble.

For additional information or inquiries about Forever Rescued: How Jesus Set Me Free, contact the Christian Faith Publishing media department at 866-554-0919.
As Phathom readies for the potential approval and launch of our first product, we are pleased to have secured Catalent as a strategic partner to support our vonoprazan commercial manufacturing and packaging capabilities.

Catalent, the leading global provider of development sciences and manufacturing platforms for medicines, including biotherapeutics; cell and gene therapies; and consumer health products, today announced that it had signed a commercial supply agreement with Phathom Pharmaceuticals, a late clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercializing novel treatments for gastrointestinal diseases, for its lead compound, vonoprazan, which is a novel, orally active-potassium competitive acid blocker (P-CAB).

P-CABs are a new class of medicines that block acid secretion in the stomach. Vonoprazan is currently in late clinical-stage development for the treatment of gastric acid-related diseases and disorders, including gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) and Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) bacterial infection. Phathom has the rights for the development and commercialization of vonoprazan in the U.S., Europe, and Canada.

Under the terms of the agreement, should the drug receive FDA approval, Catalent will undertake the commercial manufacturing and packaging of the product at its large-scale oral solid dose manufacturing site in Winchester, Kentucky.

As Phathom readies for the potential approval and launch of our first product, we are pleased to have secured Catalent as a strategic partner to support our vonoprazan commercial manufacturing and packaging capabilities, said Azmi Nabulsi, M.D., Chief Operating Officer of Phathom Pharmaceuticals. This agreement further provides us with scalable commercialization resources and brings us closer to delivering on our commitment to change the treatment landscape for acid-related gastrointestinal diseases.

This agreement is the start of long-term partnership between Catalent and Phathom, and we are pleased to be able to be part of a program that aligns with our patient first philosophy, as this drug offers a true innovation for patients, commented Dr. Aris Gennadios, President, Softgel & Oral Technologies, Catalent. Our Winchester facility has an extensive history of manufacturing and robust track record in supporting product launches, and has all the experience and capabilities, particularly related to fluid bed technologies, to meet the needs of this program as it nears commercialization.

Opened in 1992, Catalents Winchester facility has evolved into one of the industrys premier sites for complex oral drug formulation and manufacturing. The site has launched more than 100 new products into the market since its inception and produces over three-billion tablets and capsules annually. The site doubled its footprint to 180,000 square feet in 2015, and in 2019 undertook a $40 million investment that saw the installation of new equipment to increase its tablet and capsule manufacturing capabilities, including laser drill for osmotic drug delivery, stick pack dosage manufacturing, integrated packaging lines, and expanded roller compaction and fluid bed capacity.

About Phathom Pharmaceuticals

Phathom Pharmaceuticals is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of novel treatments for gastrointestinal diseases and disorders. Phathom has licensed the exclusive rights in the United States, Europe, and Canada to vonoprazan, a novel potassium competitive acid blocker (P-CAB) in late-stage development for the treatment of acid-related disorders. For more information about Phathom, visit the companys website at http://www.phathompharma.com or follow the Company on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/company/phathompharma.

About Catalent

Catalent is the leading global provider of development sciences and manufacturing platforms for medicines, including biotherapeutics; cell and gene therapies; and consumer health products. With almost 90 years serving the industry, Catalent has proven expertise in bringing more customer products to market faster, enhancing product performance, and ensuring reliable global clinical and commercial product supply. Catalents workforce exceeds 17,000, including more than 2,500 scientists and technicians, at more than 50 facilities on four continents, and in fiscal year 2021, it generated $4 billion in annual revenue. Catalent is headquartered in Somerset, New Jersey. For more information, visit http://www.catalent.com.

More products. Better treatments. Reliably supplied.
City Electric Supply Chief Marketing Officer Thomas McShane. Weve won over 100 global marketing awards as a department and as a team. Not one of those awards was won by one specific individual," said McShane. "Collaboration, for me, is integral to what we do. It creates stronger products and a stronger creative process that allows us to grow and improve."

At 31, City Electric Supply (CES) Chief Marketing Officer Thomas McShane is celebrating 15 years with the company. Its not every day that one celebrates over a decade with a company at a fairly young age. What makes this occasion even more special is what McShane has been able to accomplish over the years. From starting the CES marketing department to bringing the largest conference in the industry to the organization, this creative and innovative CMO credits his accomplishments to the team that has helped bring every idea to life.

My success is thanks to those who Ive surrounded myself with. Those individuals are key to everything that weve achieved as a team and as a company. None of it would have happened without those individuals, said McShane. Weve won over 100 global marketing awards as a department and as a team. Not one of those awards was won by one specific individual. Collaboration, for me, is integral to what we do. It creates stronger products and a stronger creative process that allows us to grow and improve as employees and as a department. Collaboration is everything.

Prior to landing the role of CMO in 2017, McShane kicked off his career crushing boxes in the manufacturing facility at TAMCO Group, the in-house brand of City Electric Supply, at the age of 16.

I started out crushing boxes. I would take supplies out and crush the boxes in a paper corrugator, explained McShane.

At 19, he pitched an idea about social media and marketing to CES President & CEO Thomas Hartland-Mackie. McShane was asked to conduct some research and share the results with him in six weeks. He got right to it and began working on the presentation. His next challenge? Presenting his findings at a VP meeting.

They were like celebrities and they were intimidating, though not purposely. But it was awkward because you dont want to say something that makes you look foolish, said McShane. I thought I would get laughed at, but they were all on board. One of the VPs approached me on the way out and said, Congrats, looks like you got yourself a new job. I imagined that after fleshing out the proof of concept they would hire someone to manage that department, I never imagined it would be me.

McShane immediately got to work. In 2010, at the age of 20, he started the marketing department at CES in Port St. Lucie, Florida, with only three employees: one designer, a copywriter, and himself. In 2013, at the age of 23, he was asked to rebuild the team at the new CES headquarters in Dallas, Texas. Once again, McShane accepted the challenge, and by 2017, McShane was asked to take on the position of Chief Marketing Officer of CES.

As CMO, McShane has had the opportunity to help others grow with him. After originally starting with just seven team members over a decade ago, the marketing department has grown to more than 40 employees today.

I love seeing team members grow with the company. I consider that a luxury, said McShane. Growing up, I always saw the impact my dad had on peoples lives and how he encouraged everyone to grow. So, thats always been my goal.

CES Creative Director Juan Villalba joined McShanes team over 10 years ago. From Port St. Lucie, Florida to Dallas, Texas, Villalba says McShane has helped create a special community where people can work together for a common cause and shine even in the toughest of circumstances.

The office and peers are an extension of home for many, said Villalba. We have built an extraordinary culture in the workplace. A place where everyone has a voice and is empowered to write their own future within the organization. None of this would be possible without Thomass support, imagination, nor his drive and devotion to the company and to its people. His spirit inspires a community. It has been a pleasure and an honor working alongside Thomas over the years.

CES Senior Marketing Manager Leigh Ann Moltz, who considers McShane a true friend and mentor, says she will never forget the day she interviewed with McShane six years ago.

It was a pivotal moment in my life, said Moltz. Thomas never asks someone to do work he wouldnt be willing to do himself. He goes out of his way to create an opportunity for his people, and Ive learned so much under his guidance. He has a way of building teams that just work exceptionally well together. It is exciting to look back at where the department started knowing I entered in the early stages of its growth and see how much weve accomplished. From 11 oclock nights to big projects to enormous conferences and restructures  the skys the limit!

Some of McShanes accomplishments include organizing the first-ever City Electric Supply conference, the North American Managers Conference (NAMC) in 2014. Today, it has turned into the companys bi-annual conference, which is the largest in the industry. He also started the new team member orientation in 2019, which gives more than 3,000 CES branch employees across the U.S. the opportunity to visit the companys headquarters in Dallas, Texas. This day-and-a-half event is hosted by McShane and other C-Suite executives, including CEO Thomas Hartland-Mackie, Co-COO Andrew Dawes, Co-COO John Gray, Global CFO Phil Flaherty, and CTO Rob Hodgson. Employees not only get to learn about the companys history, but theyre able to ask questions to the leadership team and learn about all of the opportunities available within CES.

The importance of what that means to new employees coming on board is truly incredible. The ability for us to tell that story of who we are as an organization, the company culture, the history of CES, said McShane. And now, taking that to the next level through a mobile application as well, where individuals have access to that content at their fingertips at any point throughout the employees career, I believe is a significant brand advancement that weve made throughout the past 24 months.

The most recent innovative idea McShane was responsible for is the development of a propriety technology platform that enables CES to engage with its over 600 branches throughout the U.S. and Canada with on-demand video content through a back-of-house solution. It is designed to connect and empower branch members with new product information, monthly sales promotions, and special campaigns that enable branches to maximize customer service and sales performance.

The current solution is the old traditional game of telephone, and before you know it, the message that gets passed along is something totally different, said McShane. It just evolves, or someone doesnt fully understand it, so our ability to modernize that form of communication is something thats truly unique. And knowing that weve built that entirely proprietary has been exciting.

To understand how McShane got to where he is today, one must understand where his love for storytelling came from.

Ive always liked the aspect of being creative in storytelling and being innovative. Whether thats through creating websites or creating apps, said McShane. Im a huge fan of Disney and when you walk around, you are inspired by ideas and unique things. In my opinion, they are the best at storytelling. Being able to work for City Electric Supply and telling the story of the brand through written content, video, and hosting conferences has been amazing.

His love for Disney inspired his first pitch at the age of seven. McShane made a PowerPoint presentation to convince his parents to take him to Disneyland Paris for his birthday. The title? Mom and Dad, This Is Why We Should Go to Disneyland Paris for My Next Birthday.

Today, McShane has so much more to look forward to at CES.

Ive spent 15 years doing what I love with the people I love, for a company I love. Were always working on something new. Every day is exciting, and no day is like the one before, he said. I love any chance to be creative. I always admired my granddads creativity and my dads work ethic, and I try to follow suit.

With more than 100 global marketing awards under his belt, McShane will continue to tell you, it takes a great team.

Anything that comes out of the marketing department is something that was built and nurtured by many different people, he said. So, I attribute the success to the incredible team around me. I watch them work, and I am truly inspired.

As for advice to those seeking a career in the business world, McShane says to remember that the user experience isnt defined by the industry that youre in, but by the customers expectation.

If a contractor is on his iPhone and hes using an application to purchase a product for himself at home, he expects that same level of ease, that same level of user experience when hes purchasing products for work, when hes working through stuff for the job site, and other services, said McShane. All those expectations  it doesnt matter what industry, what products you sell  the bar is set at the same level across the board. Therefore, we have to continue to innovate.

CES is proud of all that McShane has been able to accomplish for the company at a young age and cant wait to see what idea he will come up with next. One thing is for sure, itll be a hit!

City Electric Supply (CES) is a family-owned electrical wholesale distributor headquartered in Dallas, Texas. The company was founded in 1951 by Tom Mackie in the United Kingdom and expanded to the United States in 1983. Today, CES employs more than 3,000 people in over 500 branches across the U.S.

CES is dedicated to providing personalized service and support for customers in the residential, commercial, and industrial marketplace. While CES is a large company, it prides itself in keeping its founding principle of empowering people to make local business decisions by providing customers tailored services for all their electric supply needs.


The appliance experts team at Coast Appliances Brampton, Ontario Coast Appliances has recently opened a new location in Brampton, Ontario, making it the companys third location in the province and 18th across the country.

Coast Appliances has recently opened a new location in Brampton, Ontario, making it the companys third location in the province and 18th across the country. The new store is located in the Trinity Common Mall on Great Lakes Drive, a popular shopping destination with excellent customer access and a number of complimentary retail services.

Its our plan to open more bricks and mortar locations in this densely populated province, says Gord Howie, President and CEO of Coast Appliances. We are also concentrating our efforts on expanding our ecommerce services in the greater Toronto area, and solidifying our position as the countrys largest national independent home appliance retailer.

The new store carries many of the popular appliance brands Coast Appliances is best known for, including KitchenAid, Samsung, Frigidaire, LG, Wolf, and SubZero.

The expansion comes at a time when the appliance industry is booming. COVID-19 has seen a large increase in the number of people working from home and eating in, and a rise in the number of home improvements and renovations. The appliance selection in stores remains large and diverse, but the pandemic is affecting supply chains. Howie cautions that if customers are seeking a specific model, it can mean a longer wait, an issue that is affecting most retailers.

The difference with shopping at Coast is that when you come to a specialty store like ours, you dont have to deal with the traffic of many big box stores. There are fewer people, creating a safer environment to shop. Secondly, staff members are experts in this field with extensive product knowledge. We can give customers the assistance they need, says Howie.

With over 40 years in the appliance business, Coast Appliances is known for its selection, competitive pricing, and high level of expertise amongst its long-tenured sales associates. The companys e-commerce site with live chat capabilities also provides customer service and the opportunity to shop 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Coast Appliances Brampton is located at Trinity Common Mall - 70 Great Lakes Drive, Unit 145A, Brampton, Ontario.
August saw a reversal in the upward momentum the restaurant industrys sales and traffic had been riding in recent months. Amid a rising number of COVID cases and wide media coverage of its Delta variant, sales growth was 6.1% during the month, a drop of 2.1 percentage points compared to Julys strong sales growth. This was the softest sales growth reported for any month since May, and the worst traffic growth in the last three months. Traffic growth was -5.4% during August.

Guests were marginally more positive about restaurant food during August compared to a year ago based on their online reviews and comments. In August of 2020, the percentage of sales from off-premise channels was much higher, which tends to result in lower food sentiment scores. So, the small improvement in the percentage of positive mentions in August 2021 despite the easy comparison a year ago highlights the difficulties restaurants are facing regarding food execution due to staffing shortages and supply chain issues.

Similarly, the percentage of online reviews and comments focused on restaurant service remained essentially flat year over year in August. The biggest drop in positive sentiment year over year was related to restaurant ambiance. In fact, the last three months have experienced the lowest percentage of ambiance positive mentions since the beginning of the year.

Full- and Limited-Service Restaurants Experienced Different Trade-Offs Between Sales and Sentiment

The downturn in sales experienced by the industry during August did not affect all segments equally. For limited-service brands, it was not a downturn at all. Consequently, the effects on guest sentiment of these shifts in business activity also differed between limited-service restaurants and those in full-service.

For full-service restaurants, their sales growth rate dropped by 3.8 percentage points compared to July. Less sales and traffic meant less pressure on execution, especially while operating under an environment plagued by staffing shortages. This translated into overall net sentiment for full-service restaurants increasing slightly month over month, driven by a strong improvement in the family dining segment. Sentiment increased across all key topics tracked, but the month-over-month guest sentiment of food, service and ambiance for family dining was particularly strong.

Casual dining, upscale casual and fine dining guest sentiment held steady for food and service, but ambiance improved. Combined, all segments in full-service improved 2.2 percentage points in their ambiance net sentiment scores. Throughout the pandemic, ambiance has been a key driver of guest sentiment, given its connection to cleanliness.

The story was quite different for limited-service brands. When COVID fears escalate, guests tend to shift some of their restaurant spending towards limited-service brands and less towards those in full-service. Limited-service brands experienced an 0.8 percentage point improvement in their sales growth in August compared to July.

Additional sales and traffic created extra pressures to execution for those in quick service and fast casual. Limited-service restaurants experienced a decrease in guest net sentiment during the month, with the steepest declines coming from fast casual. Not surprisingly, fast casuals improvement in sales growth during the month was almost triple the improvement posted by quick service. Fast casual had a much tougher challenge keeping up with the added demand. Service and ambiance had the biggest drops in net sentiment for this segment. Sentiment for quick service was down for nearly all topics as well.

Regional & Market Performance

Out of the 25 largest markets in the country, Orlando led on positive sentiment based on restaurant food, beverage, ambiance, value and intent to return.

On the other end of the spectrum, August was a bad month for restaurants in San Francisco. Based on restaurant sales growth it was the 2nd lowest-ranked among the top 25 biggest markets in the country (the New York DMA had the lowest sales growth in August). Additionally, it also led in the lowest net sentiment based on restaurant food, service and intent to return during the month.



Financial metrics are same-store metrics & reported on a 2-year comparison unless otherwise noted.

Net sentiment is a value representing the percentage of positive mentions minus the percentage of negative mentions for a specific attribute of the restaurant experience.

The Restaurant Guest Satisfaction Snapshot (RGSS) is produced by data from Black Box Guest Intelligence. Guest Intelligence is tracking over 190 brands to benchmark customer satisfaction and is the only online tool that integrates with operational performance data to validate the impact on financial performance. The data set focuses on six key attributes of the restaurant industry experience: food, service, ambiance, beverage, value and intent to return.

The RGSS algorithm determines the highest-ranking brands based on sentiment. Brands included in this monthly snapshot must have a total of at least 250 mentions for the month. Restaurants must have a minimum number of units to be eligible as well. DMA rankings consider only the largest 25 areas.
Dr. Channing Burks Chatmon has joined the physician team at Fertility Centers of Illinois and will begin seeing patients in Glenview and Hoffman Estates on October 25th. I consider it an honor to be able to stand alongside my patients during their journey.

Dr. Channing Burks Chatmon has joined the nationally and internationally-recognized physician team at Fertility Centers of Illinois. Fertility Centers of Illinois serves patients throughout the Midwest and across the globe at several locations in the Chicagoland area.

Dr. Burks Chatmon is board certified in obstetrics and gynecology and completed two fellowships; one in reproductive endocrinology and infertility at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center and the other in recurrent pregnancy loss at University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Burks Chatmon earned her medical degree at the Indiana University School of Medicine before going on to complete her residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Rush University Medical Center.

Her training and medical research around recurrent pregnancy loss affords her unique insight into the most cutting-edge treatment solutions in the field. She has also presented data to the medical community around evaluating ovarian egg supply, assessing oocyte (egg) health and viability, and analyzing success rates with frozen embryos, single embryo transfers and genetic screening of embryos prior to transfer.

I consider it an honor to be able to stand alongside my patients during their journey, says Dr. Burks Chatmon. I look forward to helping patients fulfill their dream of family, and I am excited to do so as a member of the esteemed Fertility Centers of Illinois family.

Dr. Burks Chatmon will begin seeing patients October 25th at the Hoffman Estates and Glenview offices and is receiving a warm welcome from the Fertility Centers of Illinois family.

We are proud and excited to welcome Dr. Burks Chatmon to our physician team, explains Dr. Christopher Sipe, President of Fertility Centers of Illinois. Her passion and drive to help others combined with her knowledge and experience will help patients overcome an infertility and/or a recurrent pregnancy loss diagnosis.

For more than 35 years, Fertility Centers of Illinois has helped thousands of couples begin their families with more than 42,000 babies born. Fertility Centers of Illinois has earned a reputation for being early to the market for state of the art technology and currently serves as the premier and largest fertility center in the Midwest region.

To learn more about Fertility Centers of Illinois or to book an appointment with Dr. Burks Chatmon, please visit http://www.fcionline.com or call 877-324-4483.

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Fertility Centers of Illinois (FCI) is one of the leading fertility treatment practices in the United States, providing advanced reproductive endocrinology services for over 35 years with more than 42,000 babies born. With a 13-physician team of nationally and internationally recognized doctors who treat thousands of patients each year, the practice has earned a reputation for medical and clinical excellence and continues to invest in the latest state-of-the-art technologies and research. FCI offers a comprehensive range of fertility treatments with an emphasis on in vitro fertilization, third party reproduction, egg donation, gestational carriers, genetic embryo screening, and egg freezing/oocyte vitrification, allowing patients to receive all of their care at one center. As the premier and largest fertility practice in the Midwest region, Fertility Centers of Illinois serves patients in the Chicagoland region, northern Indiana, and southern Wisconsin. Patients receive individualized care with accommodating financial options and a free patient support program. Learn more by calling 877-324-4483 or visiting fcionline.com
Houston-based Body by Ravi Plastic Surgery & Aesthetics announced today that Saiqa Khan M.D. has joined the team of board-certified plastic surgeon, Dr. Ravi Somayazula.

Houston-based Body by Ravi Plastic Surgery & Aesthetics announced today that Saiqa Khan M.D. has joined the team of board-certified plastic surgeon, Dr. Ravi Somayazula. Houston native Dr. Khan is overjoyed to return home to showcase her passion for cosmetic surgery and non-surgical face and body contouring. With her emphasis on helping her patients reach the confidence they have been looking for, Dr. Khan welcomes both men and women to her practice seeking to improve their appearance from head to toe. Some of her offered procedures include facial plastic surgery such as rhinoplasty and facelifts, body contouring with breast augmentation and tummy tuck, and female centric procedures like labiaplasty and mommy-makeovers.

I chose plastic surgery because of its unique ability to empower patients in both their personal and professional lives, said Dr. Khan. I build trust with my patients through listening carefully and collaborating together to come up with a comprehensive plan that will guide them to feel their best. Im so honored to be a part of the Body by Ravi Plastic Surgery & Aesthetics team and look forward to serving our clientele with the very best in surgical and non-surgical cosmetic treatments Houston has to offer.

Dr. Khan was raised in Houston and attended Duchesne Academy, followed by college at Southern Methodist University and medical school at UT Southwestern. She completed her Surgery Research Fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital  Harvard Medical School, and her Plastic Surgery Fellowship training at Beth Israel Lahey Health. She also completed several other postdoctoral appointments at various respected institutions and has published many distinguished studies. Among her many achievements, Dr. Khan was nominated for the MIT Innovators Under 35 List in 2015 has led development of the internationally patented Pulsed Electric Fields for hair stimulation, an innovation used to treat alopecia. Dr. Khan also developed a provisionally patented system used to disinfect implants and is an active resident member of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS).

Dr. Khan is the best of the best when it comes to up and coming female plastic surgeons. said the centers other physicians Dr. Ravi Somayazula and Dr. Swapna Gopathi. She brings a rich educational, practical, and research background to the practice and her compassion, skill, and dedication is sure to be a win among our discerning clientele. Were lucky to have her and extend our warmest welcome to the team.

To schedule a consultation with Dr. Khan or any of Body by Ravi Plastic Surgery & Aesthetics board-certified physicians or to learn more about the procedures performed at their practice, visit http://www.bodybyravi.com.

About Body by Ravi Plastic Surgery and Aesthetics

At Houstons Body by Ravi Plastic Surgery and Aesthetics, Dr. Ravi Somayazula, Dr. Swapna Gopathi, and Dr. Saiqa Khan, all Board-Certified Physicians, use a patient-centered approach and spend as much time as needed to make each patient feel special and respected. As a team, the doctors employ a one-of-a-kind treatment plan created to address concerns from head to toe with the latest surgical and non-surgical techniques, including: Breast Augmentation (Implants), Tummy Tucks, Liposuction, Mommy Makeovers, Facelifts, Rhinoplasty, Botox, Dermal Fillers, and Sculptra.
Innovare - Social Innovation Partners, Inc. founders Fernando DeLeon, Nicholas Freeman, and Adrian DeLeon Our investors know business success and social impact aren't mutually exclusive and walk the talk of equity in venture capital by championing entrepreneurs like us.

Chicago-based EdTech company, Innovare - Social Innovation Partners, Inc., announced that it has raised $3MM in seed funding to scale its impact on education leadership via its cloud-based strategy and analytics platform Inno. The round was led by VamosVentures of Los Angeles who invests in diverse founders that offer unique tech-driven solutions to address systemic social issues. Innovares cap table also includes LGBTQ+ syndicate Gaingels, Midwest-focused Propellant Ventures, women-of-color-powered fund Portfolia, Latina-founded Chingona Ventures, and influential angel investors with strong ties to the education and social impact sectors such as Deborah Quazzo, Angel Morales, Scott Morgan, Amanda Fernandez, Kerrien Suarez, Carlos Antequera, and Chris McGowan.

Innovare was founded in July of 2017 to meet the unique needs of K-12 education administrators and executives in nonprofits. The companys web-based application Inno aggregates the siloed data of K-12 schools such as student information systems, standardized assessments, attendance, reading and math ed-tech programs, and Google spreadsheets, into one personalized dashboard. It also guides leadership teams to develop better strategies, build a continuous improvement culture, and measure real-time impact using the synthesized data. In nonprofit organizations, the application is used by executive directors and boards to visualize impact data, manage key initiatives, and measure return on investments.

VamosVentures Founder and Managing Partner, Marcos C. Gonzalez, stated, Innovare's understanding of and commitment to supporting our education system with its strategy and analytics software is impressiveand supports our mission. Accompanied by our support as lead investor, we look forward to enhancing the impact Innovare can make for leaders across the education ecosystem. The firms investment in Innovare, out of its $50MM fund supported by Apple, Twitter, PayPal, Bank of America, and others, is its largest to date and its first in education technology.

When we look for companies to invest in, we assess the chingon/a factor - finding founders that have personally experienced their pain point, have unique experiences that help them understand their core customer, and in some cases have been able to show early validation that customers want to pay for the product. Innovare has shown all three of these points - all before receiving any venture capital investment. Weve known the founders for many years and have seen Innovare grow even during COVID. Weve continued to be impressed by how the team has applied their domain expertise and the continued positive feedback from their customers. We are excited to support their explosive growth and look forward to future success, said Founder and Managing Partner of Chingona Ventures, Samara Mejia Hernandez.

Portfolias Karen Kerr shared, school districts across the country are collecting vast amounts of data in an attempt to enhance equity in education. For that data to drive change, it's essential for education leaders to see how it all relates and to leverage the data to inform strategy and track outcomes at the school level. Innovares innovative strategy and analytics platform allows school leaders to collaboratively design strategies that will positively impact their students, ultimately creating a more equitable learning experience for all.

Myranda S. Marsh, Ed.D., Executive Director and Founder of James Jordan Middle School, a charter school in Los Angeles, stated, Innovare has been a great partner in managing data during the era of alternative assessments in California. We needed to show multi-year data from before and during the pandemic school closures. Innovare saved us a ton of administrative time by organizing our data into visual graphics that we can show to our authorizer, our Board, and the community.

Our investors know business success and social impact aren't mutually exclusive and walk the talk of equity in venture capital by championing entrepreneurs like us. They also share our excitement about our tech solutions ability to drive positive impact on our society by empowering education and nonprofit leaders with a time-saving and user-centered data and strategic planning application, said AJ DeLeon, Co-Founder and CEO, whose experience in the nonprofit, education and philanthropic sectors including working for Chicago Public Schools and the Gates Foundation spans more than two decades. Innovares founding team also includes President, Nicholas Freeman, MBA, who is a former Chicago Public Schools data strategist, and Chief Growth Officer, Fernando DeLeon, who is a former Google Product Development Program Manager and Accenture Management Consultant. Beyond the founders, the companys diverse and accomplished team includes a majority of former educators, women, and people of color.

Innovare will use the capital raised to expand its user base across the United States and internationally. Also, the company will further enhance its proprietary apps IP and competitive advantage by leveraging machine learning, building a mobile version, and launching a one-stop-shop marketplace for education leaders and nonprofit executives to collaborate and buy vetted solutions to their most pressing problems.

For more information, visit the new Innovare - Social Innovation Partners, Inc. website at http://www.innovaresip.com and follow Innovare on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram @innovaresip
Foresight, the first insurtech specializing in workers compensation coverage for the middle market, is set to attend the highly anticipated InsureTech Connect (ITC) conference in Las Vegas from October 4-6, 2021. ITC Vegas is the world's largest insurtech eventoffering unparalleled access to the most comprehensive and global gathering of tech entrepreneurs, investors, and insurance industry incumbents.

Just under one year ago, Foresight launched its workers compensation program with a unique market focus and coverage available exclusively through appointed brokers. It is the first insurtech with a workers compensation platform that ties workplace safety to insurance savings. CEO & Co-Founder David Fontain is excited to bring his leadership experience and one-of-a-kind business offering to the ITC stage for a panel titled "Insurance Reimagined - Smarter Risk. Smarter Products." He will be joined by co-panelists Ben Hubbard, CEO & Co-Founder, Parsyl and Steve Lekas, CEO & Co-Founder, Branch Insurance.

Foresight will also offer a fresh whitepaper on the video playback site for virtual attendees, and host a live social streaming event with leadership commentary from ITC for those unable to be present in person due to COVID-19 travel restrictions.

Ive attended InsureTech Connect several times to connect with and learn from peers I greatly respect, and Im grateful to now have the opportunity to attend as a sponsor and speaker, Fontain said. Im looking forward to sharing Foresights vision with the diverse, passionate community dedicated to modernizing insurance at this distinctive event.

The event is an opportunity for industry peers and media professionals alike to connect with Foresight representatives and learn more about their unique insurance product and its impact on the world of workers compensation. Additional members from the Foresight team attending the conference include co-founder Peter Grant, Chief Insurance Officer Emilio Figueroa, Head of Distribution Matt Keeping, Vice Presidents of Business Development Christine Garza and Michael Bibeau, and multiple members of the marketing team.

About Foresight

Foresight is the first insurtech specializing in commercial coverage for the hard-to-place middle market. Our mission is to improve every business we underwrite, starting with workplace safety. Foresight wraps innovative risk management technology into every policy, reducing workplace incident frequency by up to 57% and giving policyholders the ability to earn lower premiums. Learn more about us at getforesight.com.

About InsureTech Connect

InsureTech Connect (ITC) is the worlds largest insurtech event, offering unparalleled access to the largest and most comprehensive gathering of tech entrepreneurs, investors, and insurance industry executives from across the globe. Founded by Jay Weintraub and Caribou Honig, ITC has been attended by over 25,000 people from 65+ countries. Insuretech Connect 2021 will be held October 4-6, 2021 at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.For more information, please visit http://www.insuretechconnect.com.


Trust but Verify. Thats the key to working in industries where there may be significant exposure to risk. How does one know the prospect or client they are about to work with is operating in the way they think they are?

This can be a common issue in the worlds of Cannabis, THC, and Hemp, when law firms, CPAs, and real estate lenders often attempt manual verification of these types of businesses when running important transactions. Now theres a solution to streamline verification. Its called FirstPass, and its changing the paradigm for countless industries.

Founded by Austin techpreneur Justin Fischer, FirstPass is both available as an ad hoc reporting service, as well as an add-on service integrated into RiskScouts onboarding and compliance platform.

These verification services are available as one-time reports, for professionals researching just a handful of businesses per month, or as part of ongoing programs for larger institutions, such as intermediaries and wholesalers, large volume firms or organizations, and banks looking to execute prohibited business checks on their base.

Suppose a particular business says they are only operating in an ancillary capacity, however you find out they are involved in plant-touching, which might violate your organizations requirements. FirstPass can return this information in a matter of hours.

These include business addresses, all relevant license validation in applicable states, comprehensive negative news searches, review of social media accounts for claims and issues, website review, business formation, and key individuals associated with each business.

Businesses may also use FirstPass to run these types of checks on themselves and show this data to prospective banks and financial providers as part of a compliance package.

Similar to RiskScout, FirstPass serves to facilitate risk mitigation for businesses of various degrees of sizes by offering a streamlined, safe and secure portal to trust, but verify key parties, and the ability to scale up as needed.

To say that navigating the cannabis industry is challenging is an understatement, says D. Cree Crawford, President and Co-Founder of Ionization Labs, an Austin, TX-based SaaS chemical data platform company composed of agriculture, tech, and life sciences industry veterans. Having a tool to pre-screen companies and individuals with data specific to our industry is invaluable. We utilize FirstPass as an initial precursor to issuing quotes or investing time into exploring a professional opportunity. FirstPass has given us insights allowing us to make decisions based upon valuable industry data saving us time and money.

Ionization Labs is committed to delivering robust chemical data solutions through standardization, innovation, and software to empower its clients with faster, higher-quality chemical data. The Ionization Labs' platform is considered to be the standard for next-generation chemical data solutions.

Says Justin Fischer, CEO and Co-Founder of RiskScout, Ionization, like many in the industry, needs to ensure that the businesses they work with are above board and are properly licensed. We are happy to leverage our technology and compliance expertise to get these reports turned around rapidly.

For more information on FirstPass, visit http://www.riskscout.com/firstpass.
"GMED's training programs are iterative and can localize western training to healthcare workers around the world. Our program in Saudi Arabia demonstrates that there is strong demand for superior healthcare education and were prepared to offer solutions to meet that growing need."

GMED Global LLC., an international health care organization specializing in medical education and health care workforce development, today announced that it has certified over 900 critical care nurses as part of its innovative training and certification program launched last year in Saudi Arabia. Designed to train healthcare workers to western standards, GMEDs critical care nursing program represents the first use of the American Association of Critical Care Nursing outside of the United States, and is part of GMEDs mission to educate healthcare workers using premier U.S resources, best-in-class curriculum and clinical competencies in collaboration with top U.S. faculty. GMEDs first graduating class in Saudi Arabia includes 789 new critical care nurses and 117 newly certified critical care nursing trainers.

Were really proud to offer this world-class training program in clinical care nursing to the people of Saudi Arabia, said Dr. Arvin Bagherpour, Chief Executive Officer and cofounder of GMED. The graduates of this program persevered through the COVID pandemic to complete their certification, and are now trained to the highest standards and checked out on clinical competencies to get to work on the frontlines and provide much-needed care in the region.

GMED developed the curriculum for the critical care nursing program using standards outlined by the American Association of Critical Care Nursing and the Childrens Hospital Library in conjunction with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabias Ministry of Health. Led by a faculty of highly-skilled senior nursing professionals from the United States, the nine month program included an assessment process, online training, practical coursework in hospitals, and clinical training. In addition to certifying critical care nurses, the program also featured additional instruction for critical care nursing trainers, who studied to train nursing generalists in critical care.

Following the successful launch of the critical care nursing program, GMED has established healthcare education development programs across the globe to address an urgent need. According to its 2021 Policy Brief, the International Council of Nurses points to existing nursing shortages, the aging of the current workforce and the impact of the currency pandemic in creating a scarcity of skilled professionals, and estimates that up to 13 million nurses will need to be trained worldwide to fill the global nursing shortfall.

GMED has invested heavily in developing a standardized approach to superior training programs that are iterative and can localize western training to healthcare workers around the world, said Dr. Bagherpour. Our program in Saudi Arabia demonstrates that there is strong demand for healthcare education and were prepared to offer solutions to meet that growing need.

To learn more about GMEDs global health solutions visit https://www.globalhealthresponse.com/.

About GMED Global

GMED Global, LLC works across the globe to support NGOs, hospitals, medical schools, and governments in establishing training and development programs in healthcare and medical education. Based in Houston, the GMED network has a global reach, with offices in Miami, New York, New Haven, Toronto, Kazan and Riyadh. Through a unique partnership with the Royal College of Canada, GMEDs Canadian School of Medicine at Kazan State Medical University will offer both four and a six-year MD programs designed for future doctors to practice medicine in North America. GMEDs subsidiary businesses span the scope of medical education, health care delivery, and supply chain procurement and staffing. For more information visit https://www.globalhealthresponse.com/.

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The Dallas office of global law firm Greenberg Traurig, LLP has expanded its Public Finance & Infrastructure Practice with the addition of Nicole Kintop Smith as shareholder. Kintop Smith joins the firm from Kintop Smith, PC where she was a founder and managing attorney. She previously worked at McCall, Parkhurst & Horton.

Nicoles arrival at Greenberg Traurig Dallas continues the strategic growth overall in our transactional practices in Texas, office Managing Shareholder Joseph F. Coniglio said. Her practice will allow us to enhance our key role of supporting growth in the Dallas community that we serve as well as the exponential economic growth we have seen throughout Texas.

Kintop Smith has over a decade of finance experience working on traditional, innovative, and significant projects  primarily representing cities, counties, school districts, and transportation entities in project financings. She has experience working on real estate development projects, special district creation and other land use and economic development incentive matters. As a former real estate broker, she has deep experience with acquisition and disposition of property and strong deal execution experience. Kintop Smith also has significant experience representing underwriters and financial institutions in financings involving the purchase and sale of various types of tax-exempt and taxable obligations. She has served as bond counsel and disclosure counsel on some of the most notable financings involving major Texas cities, school districts, water authorities, and transportation entities.

Nicole is a leader in her industry and community, so we are confident that her impact on our practice, particularly in Dallas, will be exceptional on many levels, Public Finance & Infrastructure Practice Co-Chairs Warren Bloom and Franklin Jones said in a joint statement. Her wide-ranging experience having worked on many innovative and significant projects will undoubtedly further establish our strength and versatility in the practice for a variety of clients.

Greenberg Traurigs reputation in and commitment to Dallas, as well as its position in the public finance and infrastructure industry, corporate law, and real estate, were important factors in my decision to join the firm, Kintop Smith said. I look forward to collaborating with my new team members across the firms global platform and further adding to the firms award-winning focus on client service.

Kintop Smith is a member of the executive council of Women in Public Finance, Texas, co-chair of its DEI Committee, and serves on the national WPF DEI Committee; and a member of the National Association of Bond Lawyers, Texas Wall Street Women, Wisconsin Bar Association, Dallas Bar Association (DBA), and Texas Bar Association. She was Irving, Texas Mayors Appointee to the Bond Task Force, 2019-2020; and was a member of the DBAs WE LEAD Class of 2019. She has served as a commissioner on the Irving Civil Service Commission since 2020. In 2018, she served on the deal team recognized as a finalist for the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC), M&A Deal of the Year Award, and in 2015 served on the deal team recognized by Bond Buyer for working on the Southwest Region Deal of the Year.

Kintop Smith received her J.D. from William Mitchell College of Law and her B.A. from Lane College, where she was valedictorian. She also received a Certificate in Commercial Real Estate Development (ACRE Program) from Marquette University. Kintop Smith is admitted in Texas and Wisconsin, and following law school clerked for the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, District IV.

About Greenberg Traurig, LLP  Texas: Texas is important to Greenberg Traurig, LLP and part of its history. With approximately 130 Texas lawyers in Austin, Dallas, and Houston, Greenberg Traurig has deep roots in the Texas business, legal, and governmental communities. Greenberg Traurig Texas works with clients to address their interdisciplinary legal needs across the state utilizing the firms global platform. The Texas attorneys are experienced in industries key to the states future, including: aviation, chemicals, construction, education, energy and natural resources, financial institutions, health care, hedge funds, hospitality, infrastructure, insurance, media, medical devices, pharmaceutical and biotechnology, real estate, retail, sports, technology and software, telecommunications, transportation, and video games and esports.

About Greenberg Traurigs Public Finance & Infrastucture Practice: Greenberg Traurig, LLP has a national public finance practice that consistently ranks among the top bond, disclosure, and underwriters counsel firms according to The Bond Buyers nationwide and statewide rankings. The firms Public Finance Practice has been serving the needs of state and local issuers, underwriters, credit providers, bondholders, and conduit borrowers throughout the United States for more than 30 years in virtually every area of public finance. The firm currently has more than 30 attorneys in the Public Finance Practice in its Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minneapolis, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington, D.C. offices.

About Greenberg Traurig: Greenberg Traurig, LLP (GT) has approximately 2,300 attorneys in 40 locations in the United States, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. GT has been recognized for its philanthropic giving, diversity, and innovation, and is consistently among the largest firms in the U.S. on the Law360 400 and among the Top 20 on the Am Law Global 100. The firm is net carbon neutral with respect to its office energy usage and Mansfield Rule 4.0 Plus Certified. Web: http://www.gtlaw.com
Global law firm Greenberg Traurig, LLP welcomes Of Counsel Martye Kendrick to its Public Finance & Infrastructure Practice in the Houston office. Kendrick joins the firm from Sara Leon & Associates, PLLC.

Martye is an exceptional addition to the GT Houston team, and we are excited to have her on board, Houston office Co-Managing Shareholders Shari L. Heyen and Kent Newsome said. Martye brings with her a deep understanding of public finance and the related legal issues, which will surely strengthen our firm and provide valuable skills to clients.

Kendrick primarily serves as bond counsel and special tax counsel for her clients. She regularly advises water districts, including municipal utility districts, as well as water supply corporations, public utilities, school districts, cities and counties. Kendrick counsels clients in the areas of public finance, public law, commercial real estate development and finance, and tax.

Im beyond thrilled to join a firm with such a respected reputation, Kendrick said. By joining Greenberg Traurig, I now have the opportunity to continue to expand my practice and client offerings. I look forward to working alongside the team of highly knowledgeable Public Finance lawyers and all the future growth possibilities.

Kendrick received a J.D. from Howard University School of Law and an LL.M. in Taxation from University of Denver Sturm College of Law.

About Greenberg Traurigs Public Finance & Infrastructure Practice: Greenberg Traurig, LLP has a national public finance & infrastructure practice that consistently ranks among the top bond, disclosure, and underwriters counsel firms according to The Bond Buyers nationwide and statewide rankings. Greenberg Traurig LLPs Public Finance & Infrastructure Practice has been serving the needs of state and local issuers, underwriters, credit providers, bondholders, and conduit borrowers throughout the United States for more than 30 years in virtually every area of public finance. The firm currently has more than 30 attorneys in the Public Finance & Infrastructure Practice in its Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minneapolis, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington, D.C. offices.

About Greenberg Traurig, LLP  Texas: Texas is important to Greenberg Traurig, LLP and part of its history. With approximately 130 Texas lawyers in Austin, Dallas, and Houston, Greenberg Traurig has deep roots in the Texas business, legal, and governmental communities. Greenberg Traurig Texas works with clients to address their interdisciplinary legal needs across the state utilizing the firms global platform. The Texas attorneys are experienced in industries key to the states future, including: aviation, chemicals, construction, education, energy and natural resources, financial institutions, health care, hedge funds, hospitality, infrastructure, insurance, media, medical devices, pharmaceutical and biotechnology, real estate, retail, sports, technology and software, telecommunications, transportation, and video games and esports.

About Greenberg Traurig: Greenberg Traurig, LLP (GT) has approximately 2,300 attorneys in 40 locations in the United States, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. GT has been recognized for its philanthropic giving, diversity, and innovation, and is consistently among the largest firms in the U.S. on the Law360 400 and among the Top 20 on the Am Law Global 100. The firm is net carbon neutral with respect to its office energy usage and Mansfield Rule 4.0 Plus Certified. Web: http://www.gtlaw.com
The two most sought-after cannabis brands, G Pen and Cookies, joined forces to introduce a collaborative cannabis vaporizer. The new Cookies x G Pen Micro + marries G Pens innovative technology with the Cookies favorite blue for the discerning consumer on-the-go. It is available beginning today in stores nationwide, online at gpen.com, and available in the coming weeks at Cookies retail locations.

The Cookies x G Pen Micro + follows in the footsteps of Grenco Sciences latest launch - the Micro+ is a smart-chip enabled vaporizer, compatible with any 510 thread cartridge in addition to the Micro+ tank, that harnesses cartridge recognition technology in order to heat any concentrate to a custom level for the connoisseur and new consumers alike.

The instantly recognizable Cookies collaboration is the same sleek and discreet shape in the brands signature blue. For superior performance and supreme flavor it features a quartz lined tank with a full ceramic heating plate; an easily removable silicone sleeve on the mouthpiece; and integrated and balanced airflow for voluminous vapor clouds.

Features:



510 cartridge recognition technology

850 mAh rechargeable lithium-ion battery with haptic feedback

Manual or session heat mode

USB-C charging with pass-through technology

Dual-Channel Airflow

Ceramic plate heater with quartz liner

Three temperature settings

Smart-chip technology

Compatible with Micro+ Tank or any 510-compatible cartridge

Palm-sized at 4.45 x .67 diameter

Premium hemp travel case

Branded G Pen keychain tool

The Cookies x G Pen Micro+ Vaporizer retails for $89.95 and is available in stores nationwide and online at gpen.com. Upcoming collaborations with Lemonnade to launch later this Fall.

About

Grenco Science is a leader in engineering advanced cannabis vaporizers, setting new standards in aesthetics, portability, functionality, and user experience. Through proprietary research and development, as well as collaborations with influencers in music, art, and fashion, Grenco Science is transforming the cannabis experience and leading the movement to bring cannabis traditions to the 21st century. Visit gpen.com.

ABOUT Cookies

Cookies, founded in 2008 by Berner (the prolific Bay Area rapper and entrepreneur) and his partner Jai (a Bay Area breeder and cultivator) is more than a premiere cannabis company; it is an authentic brand with passionate fans all over the world. The company went mainstream in 2011 and has grown its business through the combination of globally recognized premium genetics, popular culture resonance, and social media influence. Cookies is constantly engaged in new breeding projects to launch differentiated brands and has quickly built a grassroots cult following while remaining loyal to its brand promise: authenticity and innovative genetics.

Today, Cookies is one of the most well-respected and top-selling cannabis brands in California and throughout the world. The company and its product are recognized globally and offer a collection of over 150 proprietary cannabis varieties and product lines including indoor and sungrown flower, pre-rolls, gel capsules, vape cartridges, CBD Flower and medicinal mushrooms. Cookies' seed-to-sale business allows for complete quality control at every stepfrom cultivation and production to customers' end retail experience. With a deep commitment to restorative justice and progressive drug policy, Cookies actively works to enrich communities disproportionately impacted by the War on Drugs through advocacy work and social equity initiatives.
In Defense of Christians (IDC), the nations leading advocacy organization for Christians and religious minorities in the Middle East and Africa, announces its 2021 Congressional Champions ahead of the IDC National Summit 2021: Combating Oppression & Empowering the Oppressed on September 21 and 22, 2021 in Washington, DC.

This distinguished group of congressional leaders are selected for their leadership on legislative efforts that support and protect persecuted Christian communities in the Middle East and Africa.

The 2021 Congressional Champions include:

Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ)

Senator Jim Risch (R-ID)

Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD)

Senator Todd Young (R-IN)

Representative Tim Burchett (R-TN)

Representative Ted Deutch (D-FL)

Representative Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX)

Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX)

Representative Debbie Lesko (R-AZ)

Representative Michael McCaul (R-TX)

Representative Hal Rogers (R-KY)

Representative Dina Titus (D-NV)

The 2021 summit will showcase IDCs achievements in 2020-2021 as well as highlight the important work that lies ahead in advocacy for persecuted Christians. Various speakers from Congress, the Administration, and civil society will provide updates on current initiatives to support persecuted Christians in the Middle East.

IDC is also pleased to announce Tracy Sabol, Lead Anchor at EWTN News Nightly, as the Masters of Ceremonies for the National Summit.

In Defense of Christians is grateful for the efforts of these legislative leaders in the fight to defend persecuted Christians in the Middle East and Africa, said IDC President Toufic Baaklini.

Now more than ever, their commitment to preserving international religious freedom is needed, he continued.

For more information on the National Summit, please visit: https://indefenseofchristians.org/2021-summit/
J.R. Martinez will deliver the keynote speech at National University's Commencement on Sept 17., 2021 at Petco Park. J.R. Martinez is an exemplary role model who embodies the attributes of empowerment, dedication, and compassion that serve as benchmarks for all of our graduates. - Randy C. Frisch, National University Interim President

The remarkable J.R. Martinez  U.S. Army Veteran, actor, motivational speaker, New York Times best-selling author, and Dancing with the Stars Season 13 winner  will deliver the keynote address at the Sept. 17 Southern California Commencement of veteran-founded nonprofit National University, which is also celebrating its 50th Anniversary this year. Martinez, who travels the world delivering a message of resilience and optimism, will address approximately 12,000 attendees, including graduates, their families and guests at Petco Park.

J.R. Martinez is an exemplary role model who embodies the attributes of empowerment, dedication, and compassion that serve as benchmarks for all of our graduates, said National University Interim President Randy C. Frisch. Like Mr. Martinez, National University graduates, which include career professionals, working parents, and members of our military community, have persevered through a variety of challenges to achieve their degrees. Our graduates, many of whom are first-generation college students, are dedicated to serving their community through career paths in healthcare, education, cybersecurity, and more.

National University, San Diegos largest private, nonprofit university, is dedicated to making lifelong learning opportunities accessible, challenging and relevant to a diverse population of students, 25 percent of whom are either active duty military or veterans.

In 2003, at the age of 19, Martinez sustained severe burns to more than 34 percent of his body when his Humvee hit an IED while he was serving in Iraq as part of the 502nd Infantry Regiment of the Armys 101st Airborne Division. Since his recovery, he has traveled around the country speaking about his experiences to corporations, veterans groups, schools and other organizations.

Martinez also has pursued an extraordinary career as an actor, author and dancer. In 2008, Martinez was cast in ABC's daytime drama All My Children as Brot Monroe. His character also served with the Army in Iraq and was injured in combat. Other TV credits include Army Wives and the syndicated show SAF3, in which he portrays a Los Angeles County firefighter/paramedic and veteran.

In 2011 Martinez and partner Karina Smirnoff won Season 13 of Dancing with the Stars. He credited her with pushing him to excel as they practiced routine after routine. The following year, Martinez published an autobiography, Full of Heart: My Story of Survival, Strength, and Spirit.

Martinez, who has undergone nearly three dozen skin graft and plastic surgeries, started supporting other burn survivors while he was still undergoing a lengthy initial treatment for his injuries. Since then, he has volunteered time to do public service announcements and as a speaker at events on behalf of burn survivors. He also is active with "Operation Finally Home," an organization that builds housing for American veterans and their families so they may live mortgage free.

Also, in appreciation of outstanding achievement as a dedicated public servant and community member who exemplifies working collaboratively to affect positive change in society, National University System Chancellor Dr. Michael R. Cunningham, National University Interim President Randy C. Frisch, and former San Diego Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman will confer an honorary doctoral degree on San Diego County Public Defender Randy Mize. Mize, who joined the office shortly after graduating from Thomas Jefferson School of Law in 1987, was appointed Public Defender in 2017. He oversees 450 attorneys and staff members who serve the community through fair and equal representation of underserved individuals accused of crimes throughout the county.

National Universitys Southern California Commencement is set to begin at 2 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 17. The event also will be live-streamed on Facebook at this link: https://vimeo.com/event/1267855/835407b5b8

About National University

National University (NU), a veteran-founded nonprofit celebrating its 50th Anniversary this year, has been dedicated to meeting the needs of hard-working adults by providing accessible, affordable, achievable higher education opportunities since 1971. As San Diegos largest private nonprofit university, NU offers over 75 online and on-campus programs and flexible four-week classes designed to help students reach their goals while balancing busy lives. Since its founding, the NU community has grown to over 30,000 students and 185,000 alumni around the globe, many of whom serve in helping industries such as business, education, health care, cybersecurity, and law and criminal justice. Learn more at NU.edu.
We are thrilled to be recognized by IoT Evolution for delivering innovative IoT connectivity solutions that improve communities and enable a higher quality of life for residents, said Daniel J. W. Neal, chairman, CEO and founder of Kajeet.

Kajeet, a leading provider of wireless connectivity, software and hardware solutions that deliver safe, reliable and controlled internet access, today announced that its Connect Prime solution has won a 2021 IoT Evolution Community Impact Award from IoT Evolution World, the leading website covering IoT technologies. In winning this award, Kajeet is recognized for helping to improve digital equity and advance the lives of U.S. citizens through safe and reliable internet connectivity.

The solutions selected for the IoT Evolution Community Impact Award have proved to help make a difference as we battle the COVID-19 pandemic. It is my honor to congratulate Kajeet for their superior contribution that empowers citizens, companies, institutions and government to continue their critical work in remote access settings, said Rich Tehrani, CEO of TMC, a co-publisher of IoT Evolution.

The global COVID-19 pandemic dramatically accelerated our reliance on digital resources for school, work, healthcare and common daily tasks. And while 90% of U.S. adults say the internet has been essential or important for them during the coronavirus outbreak, according to a recent survey conducted by Pew Research Center, millions of people remain without adequate at-home internet access  leaving them unable to access the wealth of tools and opportunities available online.

The Kajeet Connect Prime solution enables municipalities to provide safe, reliable and controlled wireless broadband connectivity to underserved residents who would otherwise not have internet access at home. Recently, Kajeet partnered with the city of Williamsburg, Virginia to help close the digital divide and enable a higher quality of life for residents. As part of the six-month pilot program funded by the CARES Act, Connect Prime was distributed to 129 low-income households to enable equitable access to critical online opportunities, including searching for jobs, virtual interviewing, remote learning, bill pay and healthcare services.

We are thrilled to be recognized by IoT Evolution for delivering innovative IoT connectivity solutions that improve communities and enable a higher quality of life for residents, said Daniel J. W. Neal, chairman, CEO and founder of Kajeet. As internet access is now critical to managing everyday life, we are pleased to offer solutions that connect all people and things, empowering users to leverage these connections for good.

Connect Prime provides a managed LTE connection on the network of choice along with a router that enables multiple concurrent connections without compromising speed or security. The solution is provisioned on Kajeets award-winning IoT management platform, Sentinel, providing extensive administrative control and advanced features such as complete visibility into data usage on all connected devices, policy controls and content blocking for added security and data management

To learn more about Kajeet Connect Prime, visit https://utm.guru/udKp7

About Kajeet

Kajeet provides optimized IoT connectivity, software and hardware solutions that deliver safe, reliable and controlled internet connectivity to nearly 3,000 businesses, schools, state and local governments and IoT solution providers. Kajeet is the only managed IoT connectivity services provider in the industry to offer a scalable IoT management platform, Sentinel, that includes complete visibility into real-time data usage, policy control management, custom content filters for added security and multi-network flexibility. Whether to empower companies to connect and control devices in the field, enable digital access that ensures student success, or offer support and a platform to launch a complex mobile solution, Kajeet is trusted by many to make powerful and flexible wireless solutions easy. Kajeet is available for hybrid and multi-network access across all major North American wireless networks, globally in 24 other countries, and on multiple licensed and unlicensed networks. Kajeet holds 39 U.S. patents in mobile technologies. To learn more, visit kajeet.com and follow us on Twitter at @Kajeet.

About Crossfire Media

Crossfire Media is an integrated marketing company with a core focus on future trends in technology. We service communities of interest with conferences, tradeshows, webinars and newsletters. Crossfire Media has a partnership with Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC) to produce events and websites related to disruptive technologies. Crossfire Media is a division of Crossfire Consulting, a full service Information Technology company based in New York.

About TMC

Through education, industry news, live events and social influence, global buyers rely on TMCs content-driven marketplaces to make purchase decisions and navigate markets. As a result, leading technology vendors turn to TMC for unparalleled branding, thought leadership and lead generation opportunities. Our in-person and online events deliver unmatched visibility and sales prospects for all percipients. Through our custom lead generation programs, we provide clients with an ongoing stream of leads that turn into sales opportunities and build databases. Additionally, we bolster brand reputations with the millions of impressions from display advertising on our news sites and newsletters. Making TMC a 360 degree marketing solution, we offer comprehensive event and road show management services and custom content creation with expertly ghost-crafted blogs, press releases, articles and marketing collateral to help with SEO, branding, and overall marketing efforts. For more information about TMC and to learn how we can help you reach your marketing goals, please visit http://www.tmcnet.com and follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, @tmcnet.
Serve, Strut and Sashay all night to the throbbing beats and melodic vibrations of the ballroom scene. Miami Beach Pride produces its inaugural ballroom event entitled Legends Ball, an all encompassing homage to our South Florida ball community and vogue aficionados. We invite ALL houses local, national and international to join us for this epic display of ball culture taking place on September 16, 2021 at 8pm.

Legends Ball will feature a lavish line-up of celebrity guest judges and hosts including Jack Mizrahi from the Gorgeous House of Gucci and Jason Rodriguez from FX's smash hit POSE where he plays Lemar Wintour.

"It's imperative that we as a leading Pride organization focus on producing events that speaks to our entire LGBTQ Community," said PeterAnthonii, Director of Marketing & PR - Miami Beach Pride.

1235 Washington Ave., once home to many iconic Miami Beach mega clubs, will be transformed into an over-the-top 1980's Tokyo Disco warehouse complete with a catwalk, disco balls, shadow dancers, and more! This red carpet affair is a celebration for ball culture enthusiasts, house music lovers, and scene stealers. We're giving you low lights, and high energy hunny, so if you didn't come to show out, don't show up.

Be the diva you are and spectate this incredible competition from one of our fully furnished VIP Box packages! Get the full VIP treatment with a complimentary Tito's Vodka bottle and mixers, a homemade charcuterie platter, and a lavishly furnished, private box for you and your friends to enjoy the show in luxury.

A brief history on ball culture...

Ball culture emerged in the 1920s in and around New York City, Harlem more specifically said to be the birth place of the underground ballroom scene. Primarily LGBTQ+ African Americans and Latinos began to organize masquerade balls known as "drags" in defiance of laws which banned individuals from wearing clothes associated with the opposite gender. Attendees dance, vogue, walk, pose, and support one another in numerous drag and performance competition categories where participants "walk" for prizes and trophies on behalf of their houses.

Houses serve as alternative families, primarily consisting of Black and Latino LGBTQ individuals, and are meant to provide shelter, solace and safety for those who have often been kicked out of their original homes due to being LGBTQ. Modern ballroom culture has existed for at least five decades. It remains largely underground and unknown for this particular community of Black and Latino queer youth and has now expanded rapidly to other major cities.
Free Bottled Water and Boxed Lunch Giveaway in LaPlace for Locals Affected by Hurricane Ida A silver lining amid the destruction: neighbors pulling resources to provide assistance to those in need.

In an effort to help offset some of the devastation caused by Hurricane Ida, Mike Brandner Injury Attorneys will be giving away a semi-load of free bottled water (20 pallets) and 1,000 boxed lunches on Friday, September 17th from 11:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. in the LA Health Solutions parking lot at 1528 W Airline Hwy, LaPlace. Supplies will be offered on a first-come, first-served basis to anyone in the area.

I was here when Hurricane Katrina swept through our beloved city leaving devastation in its wake. Therefore, I witnessed one of the silver linings that evolved from that tragic event--neighbors pulling resources to provide assistance to those in need. I see the same camaraderie now as we once again work together to recover from Hurricane Ida, stated Mike Brandner, Esq. In fact, Id like to give a shout-out to Scott Cody with WWLTV for the phenomenal assistance he has provided with helping us get these much needed supplies together for distribution.

In addition to offering free water and food, the New Orleans law firm also provides free hurricane insurance claim consultations to home and small business owners who have experienced considerable loss from Hurricane Ida.

For more details about the free bottled water and food distribution offered by Mike Brander Injury Attorneys, please call (504) 345-1111. To find out more about the hurricane insurance claim assistance, please visit MikeBrandner.com to schedule a free consultation via our LiveChat feature, or via a confidential form submission.

About Mike Brandner Injury Attorneys

Mike Brandner Injury Attorneys has successfully represented victims from a variety of backgrounds in lawsuits against large insurance companies, Fortune 500 companies, large corporations, condominium associations, labor unions, and more. Many of these cases involve injuries related to traffic accidents, hurricane insurance claims, defective products, workplace accidents, maritime accidents, railroad accidents (FELA), and other accidents. Find out more about Mike Brandner and his team of Louisiana injury attorneys by calling (504) 345-1111. You can also interact with the law firm by connecting with them on Twitter and Facebook.
Gloria Ladson-Billings

In this months episode of NEPC Talks Education, NEPC Researcher Christopher Saldana interviews Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings, the former Kellner Family Distinguished Professor of Urban Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Ladson-Billings is a former president of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), and current president of the National Academy of Education. Her research examines the pedagogical practices of teachers who are successful with African American students. She has also studied how Critical Race Theory (CRT) can be used to analyze a variety of educational issues.

Saldana and Ladson-Billings discuss policymakers response to the COVID-19 pandemic and to the civil unrest that followed the murder of George Floyd in 2019. Ladson-Billings commends policymakers who, in response to the pandemic, provided students with technology, prioritized the provision of food, and recognized the need for schools to provide the resources necessary to support student social and emotional well-being. She is disappointed, however, that more has not been done to acknowledge that the pandemic did not have the same impact on all students and to respond accordingly. She argues for a response that addresses actual student needs. For example, instead of using resources to determine generalized student learning loss, policymakers should instead identify the educational opportunities different groups of students lost during the pandemic and provide opportunities tailored to the needs of those students.

On the issue of Critical Race Theory, she explains that although CRT is a framework for analyzing racial disparities, not a school curriculum, those attacking CRT are misrepresenting it in an effort to prevent schools from teaching about racism. On the issue of reopening schools, Ladson-Billings argues that policymakers should be careful about why they reopen schools. She explains, for example, that she finds rhetoric suggesting that schools should reopen because Black and Brown children are suffering from learning loss disingenuous, because policymakers were aware of racial inequities prior to the pandemic but did not address them then.

Ladson-Billings and Saldana conclude this months podcast by discussing some policy possibilities for schools after a year full of crises. For example, Ladson-Billings encourages policymakers to rethink testing demands and be innovative about curriculums and instruction. She argues the pandemic forced school leaders to stop and reconsider every policy and choice. Ladson-Billings wants policymakers to maintain that approach as they determine what policies and practices should stay and which should go as schools reopen.

A new NEPC Talks Education podcast episode, hosted by Christopher Saldana, will be released each month from September through May.

Dont worry if you miss a month. All episodes are archived on the NEPC website and can be found here.

NEPC podcast episodes are also available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher, under the title NEPC Talks Education. Subscribe and follow!

The National Education Policy Center (NEPC), a university research center housed at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education, produces and disseminates high-quality, peer-reviewed research to inform education policy discussions. Visit us at: https://nepc.colorado.edu
MobileRiskTracker from NowSecure for Real-Time Visibility into Mobile App Security and Privacy Risks Tap this free public resource to help enterprise IT, security, compliance and risk teams who use mobile apps  and the mobile app builders who make them  to more effectively understand and manage mobile supply-chain risks and take action. All organizations should review their category benchmarks.

NowSecure, the leading standards-based mobile app security and privacy software company, announced the availability of a free online tool called MobileRiskTracker to share real-time mobile app security and privacy benchmarks. Now businesses, government and media along with mobile app builders themselves can gain visibility into the risks lurking in the millions of mobile apps used every day.

The live MobileRiskTracker continuously monitors the top 5,200 mobile apps ranked by download popularity across 12 industry groups, with more apps and industry groups to be added over time. Key insights from the benchmark analysis where risk is scored for each mobile app on a range from 0-100, with 100 as high quality and 0 low quality:



The average risk score across ALL groups was a relatively poor 66/100, with 71% of all mobile apps showing security issues and 68% showing privacy issues.

The best overall scoring groups with an average score of 70/100 were HighTech Business Software and Energy.

The worst overall scoring group averages overall at a score of 61/100 were FinTech/InsurTech and Travel/Hospitality.

131 of 5,200 total mobile apps transmit data to Russia, China, Hong Kong and other high-risk countries.

Business and government users gain tremendous productivity tapping into the millions of mobile apps available in the Apple AppStore and Google Play across dozens of categories including business, personal productivity, travel, expense management, emergency services and more. Thousands of businesses and government agencies develop and ship mobile apps in the public app stores to better serve customers, tap new revenue streams and deliver innovative new experiences. But there are no central public resources available to assess the risks in those millions of mobile apps. Prior industry benchmark reports have shown as many as 85% of mobile apps have security vulnerabilities and 70% leak private data, while nearly all share data with multiple third-party services and transmit data all over the world. To help bring visibility to these issues and drive improvements across the industry, NowSecure has launched a free MobileRiskTracker as a real-time benchmarking tool for understanding ever-evolving security and privacy issues in mobile apps in the mobile app supply chain.

While mobile apps dominate internet traffic and time spent online, very few organizations have any understanding of the inherent risks that may be in the apps they build and use every day, said NowSecure CEO Alan Snyder. We are providing this free public resource to help enterprise IT, security, compliance and risk teams who use mobile apps  and the mobile app builders who make them  to more effectively understand and manage mobile supply-chain risks and take action. We encourage all organizations using mobile apps to review their category benchmarks and all mobile app builders to see where they stand versus their peers.

How the MobileRiskTracker from NowSecure works:

The NowSecure Platform conducts mass scale, real-time data analysis by continuously scanning millions of mobile apps in public app stores. NowSecure MobileRiskTracker aggregates this data anonymously to show relative security and privacy performance for the most popular mobile apps in each specific industry group.



Analyzes the most popular mobile apps in each of 12 categories: Travel & Hospitality, Healthcare, Pharmaceutical, Energy, Hightech Business, FinTech & InsurTech, Airline, Retail, Banking & Finance, Social Media, Automotive and the Gig Economy.

Performs over 600 security and privacy tests of each mobile app each time a mobile app update is released, dynamically testing on real devices to identify real issues and trace where data is transmitted.

Scores mobile app risk for the app group on a scale of 0-100 with 100 high quality and 0 low quality/high risk, retesting and aggregating every day while charting scores over time.

Shows the frequency and distribution of high, medium and low-risk apps within each industry category.

Maps countries where actual mobile data is transmitted, including high-risk countries such as China, Hong Kong, Russia and more as identified by the U.S. State Department.

Reveals the overall percentage of mobile apps with security and privacy risks within each industry group, including the top 5 most prevalent issues.

Identifies key risk issues such as attackers can take over mobile app, insecure network communication, leaks sensitive personal data like passwords and more.

Continuously monitors for mobile app updates and retests daily, recognizing that thousands of mobile apps are updated in the app stores each day and the potential of new risks in newly added features within each mobile app.

More mobile app categories and popular mobile apps will be added to the live benchmarking tool over time.

Additional MobileRiskTracker benchmark insights by industry:



Pharmaceutical mobile apps had the highest security risk at 91% of all Pharma mobile apps with at least one security/privacy issue, followed by Energy at 84% and Automotive at 80%.

Gig Economy apps had the highest privacy risk at 91% of all Gig Economy mobile apps with at least one security/privacy issue, followed by FinTech & InsurTech at 80% and Pharma at 76%.

Retail apps have the highest number of apps that scored as high risk with 54% of all apps in the retail industry group, followed by Travel & Hospitality and FinTech & InsurTech.

Automotive apps have the highest number of apps scored as low risk with 27% of all apps in the automotive industry group, followed by FinTech/InsurTech, Healthcare and HighTech Business.

The MobileRiskTracker from NowSecure is built on the cloud-based NowSecure Platform mobile app security testing solution for continuous testing in mobile DevSecOps pipelines and continuous monitoring of mobile app supply-chain risk in mobile app stores.

Check out MobileRiskTracker today for free, request your free personalized benchmark comparing your mobile app to the tracker, and learn more about mobile app risks here.

Media professionals who would like deeper access to the benchmark data for publishing can contact NowSecure at press@nowsecure.com.

About NowSecure

NowSecure is the standards-based mobile app security and privacy software company trusted by the worlds most demanding organizations and most advanced security teams. NowSecure protects millions of mobile app users across banking, insurance, high tech, IoT, retail, hospitality, energy and government sectors. Only NowSecure delivers fully automated mobile app security and privacy testing software, mobile supply chain risk monitoring, expert mobile pen testing services, mobile security training courseware with the depth, speed, accuracy, and efficiency to meet modern business demands. NowSecure provides standards-based compliance testing for OWASP, NIAP, GDPR, CCPA, FINRA, FISMA, ioXt and numerous industry regulatory standards. With more than a dozen years of mobile-first, mobile-only experience, NowSecure identifies the broadest array of security threats, compliance gaps, and privacy risks across the entire mobile app portfolio. As a trusted security expert, NowSecure was positioned as the worldwide leader in two 2019 IDC MarketScapes for Mobile Application Security Testing, Mobile DevSecOps Trailblazer by Gartner in 2020, Deloitte Fast500 Winner in 2020, and TAG Cyber Distinguished Vendor in 2021. http://www.nowsecure.com
This prospective study demonstrates the value of Predicines liquid biopsy solutions to monitor treatment response in patients receiving immunotherapy, said Dr. Shidong Jia, Founder and CEO at Predicine.

Predicine, Inc. announced today results from a liquid biopsy study demonstrating the clinical application of utilizing the PredicineCARE liquid biopsy NGS assay to serially monitor changes in ctDNA levels in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC).

The European Urology study evaluated the effects of administering a single fraction of SABR prior to the first and second doses of avelumab (PD-L1 immunotherapy drug) in patients with mCRPC. The study is entitled Avelumab Combined with Stereotactic Ablative Body Radiotherapy in Metastatic Castration-resistant Prostate Cancer: The Phase 2 ICE-PAC Clinical Trial. PredicineCARE, PredicineRNA and Low Pass-Whole Genome Sequencing (LP-WGS) assays were utilized in the study to monitor changes at cfDNA and cfRNA levels. The study demonstrated the potential value of serial monitoring of ctDNA levels in patients with mCRPC.

Due to the amount of time required to observe clinical or radiographic evidence of treatment efficacy, there is an unmet clinical need to utilize liquid biopsy assays to more quickly and non-invasively identify mCRPC patients who are responding to therapy. The data from this study suggests that baseline AR alterations, MYC gains, and high levels of baseline ctDNA fractions may be associated with a poorer prognosis. The study also demonstrates the potential for ctDNA analysis to identify patients who are responding to treatment prior to clinical and radiographic responses. Additionally, serial monitoring of ctDNA alternations and changes in copy number alterations demonstrate the ability to detect potential resistance mechanisms.

This prospective study demonstrates the value of Predicines liquid biopsy solutions to monitor treatment response in patients receiving immunotherapy, said Dr. Shidong Jia, Founder and CEO at Predicine. We are pleased to provide a range of innovative liquid biopsy solutions that may have profound clinical implications including predicting patient survival, selecting therapies for treatment, monitoring for treatment response, and understanding subsequent resistance. Predicine was founded to address these types of unmet clinical needs. Our goal is to detect cancer early and treat early stages of cancer.

The publications can be found online at: https://www.predicine.com/publications/

About Predicine

Predicine is a molecular insights company in Silicon Valley that is committed to advancing biomarker-driven precision medicine. Predicine has developed a breakthrough cell-free DNA and cell-free RNA based liquid biopsy technology for non-invasive cancer profiling, disease monitoring, assessing minimal residual disease, and early cancer detection. The company has launched a portfolio of blood-based and urine-based assays for solid tumors and hematologic malignancies. Through its CLIA and CAP facilities in the US and China, Predicine partners with leading biopharma companies and hospitals to support global clinical trials, CDx development and personalized cancer care. Further information is available on the companys website, http://www.predicine.com. Stay in touch on LinkedIn or on Twitter @Predicine.
How to permanently waterproof a pool: The concrete in all the pools of the Nickelodeon Resort in Riviera Maya in Mexico were treated with PENETRON ADMIX. Because Penetron crystalline technology becomes an integral part of the concrete matrix and provides protection against chloride ion ingress and moisture penetration, it will also significantly reduces future maintenance costs for the Nickelodeon Resort.

The Riviera Maya Nickelodeon Resort in Quintana Roo, Mexico welcomed its first summer vacation guests in June 2021. The Penetron System was used throughout the seaside project to ensure durable and waterproof concrete structures - both above- and below-grade.

Located just 17 miles (27 km) south of Cancun International Airport, Mexicos first Nickelodeon Resort is a family beach vacation destination with a playful Nickelodeon twist. The resorts 280 suites all offer panoramic views of the Caribbean Ocean and have direct access to the pool area. In addition, the resort has six restaurants, three bars, a spa, an oceanfront pool, and the 6-acre Aqua Nick water park with over 20 water slides (total length: >600 m / >2,000 feet) and 555 meters (1,830 feet) of rivers.

Naturally, a Nickelodeon resort will play off the networks most popular characters  and the Riviera Maya Resort does exactly that, says Alejandro Mucino, Managing Director of Penetron Mexico. For example, the Pineapple Suite is inspired by SpongeBob's pineapple-shaped home under the sea; the rooftop Lair Suite is designed as an underground lair dedicated to the Ninja Turtles; and the Big Kahuna Suite is an homage to the history of Nickelodeon animation.

A Coastal Challenge

Penetron Mexico worked together with Benau Comercial, the Penetron distributor for the Caribbean region of Mexico, and the general contractor to develop a complete range of waterproofing solutions, as both the below-grade and above-grade structures of the Nickelodeon complex needed protection from the coastal environment, high groundwater levels, and exposure to the tropical climate of the Yucatan Peninsula.

Local ready-mix suppliers provided PENETRON ADMIX-treated concrete for the pools (the wading pool, childrens pool, and main pool), hot tubs, the tanks of the wastewater treatment plant, and the hotels planter boxes. Penetrons topical products  PENECRETE MORTAR and PENETRON  were applied to waterproof and repair the concrete roof slabs, the water slides, the pool drains of the main pool, the Lazy River and Rapid River concrete linings, the water compensation tanks, pumping tanks, machine room roof, and water park fountains.

Self-Healing Concrete

Easily mixed in during batching and unaffected by climatic conditions, PENETRON ADMIX quickly becomes an integral part of the concrete and lasts for the life of the concrete. Topically applied to concrete, PENETRON and PENECRETE MORTAR also provide the same self-healing capabilities as PENETRON ADMIX-treated concrete. Any hairline cracks that form in the concrete will permanently self-heal when exposed to water.

Alejandro Mucino adds, Because Penetron crystalline technology becomes an integral part of the concrete matrix and provides protection against chloride ion ingress and moisture penetration, it will also significantly reduces future maintenance costs for the Nickelodeon Resort.

The Penetron Group is a leading manufacturer of specialty construction products for concrete waterproofing, concrete repairs, and floor preparation systems. The Group operates through a global network, offering support to the design and construction community through its regional offices, representatives, and distribution channels.

For more information on Penetron waterproofing solutions, please visit penetron(dot)com or Facebook(dot)com/ThePenetronGroup, email CRDept(at)penetron(dot)com, or contact the Corporate Relations Department at 631-941-9700.
By extension, customers are also empowered to monitor and understand their health within reach,

Personalabs increases access to lab testing as it adds more locations nationwide. The Florida-based private healthcare company has added Labcorp, a life science company that processes diagnostic tests and drug development, turning its 2,300 locations into more than 4,000.

Personalabs is currently working with Quest Diagnostics, another well-known, national lab provider. The addition of Labcorp locations allows direct access to over 400 blood tests and other lab tests online.

The said expansion strengthens Personalabs mission in making healthcare more available to average Americans. For example, those who wish to order any blood test can choose to have their results processed through either lab provider, depending on their location.

Personalabs General Manager, Trey Wilson, stressed that, with the company offering lab testing products to more locations, it reasserts the goal of Personalabs in allowing ordinary people to order lab tests anytime, anywhere. By extension, customers are also empowered to monitor and understand their health within reach, said Wilson.

The addition of new locations is also timely as medical facilities are becoming restricted with COVID cases. With Personalabs online telehealth products and services, people can order necessary tests in the comfort of their homes.

About Personalabs

Personalabs is a privately-held healthcare company dedicated to providing American consumers with fast, easy, and affordable access to blood tests, physician consultations, and prescriptions for some conditions. The company has been offering the said telehealth services since 2006 and has expanded to more than 4000 locations in the US. It continues to uphold its commitment to enabling Americans to take control of their health.

Contact Person: Trey Wilson

Company Name: Personalabs

Website: https://www.personalabs.com

Phone: 1-888-438-5227

Email: TreyWilson@personalabs.com

Personalabs adds Labcorp expanding to over 4,000 locations nationwide
While the legal landscape may have changed over the last 70 years, our dedication to excellence and our commitment to our clients has never wavered."

Thompson, Coe, Cousins & Irons, LLP, a premier civil litigation firm, is proud to mark its 70th anniversary in September. The Firm provides legal services to clients both regionally and nationally across offices in Austin, Dallas, and Houston, Texas; New Orleans, Louisiana; and St. Paul, Minnesota.

For 70 years, Thompson Coe has been recognized as a top tier litigation firm and a national authority on insurance defense and sophisticated coverage issues. Their experience in this highly regulated, cost-conscious industry has enabled the Firm to bring a level of discipline and efficiency to its clients that translates into tangible value.

This is an extraordinary achievement, said Shawn Phelan, Chair of the Management Committee. While the legal landscape may have changed over the last 70 years, our dedication to excellence and our commitment to our clients has never wavered. As we look to the next 70 years, we are confident the attributes that have defined Thompson Coe will be continued by the next generation of our attorneys.

Established in 1951, Will C. Thompson joined R. Vernon Coe to create the Dallas-based firm Thompson Coe that quickly built a reputation of unparalleled excellence and experience in the areas unique to insurance. As the firm started to grow, Robert B. Cousins joined in 1953 and David B. Irons in 1959.

These four founding partners were among the principal architects of the modern insurance industry in Texas, shaping the laws that govern it and the organizations that serve it.

The Firm expanded from 23 attorneys in 1981 to 50 attorneys in 1991. The Austin office opened with three attorneys in 1999. The Houston office opened in 2001, the St. Paul office opened in 2002, and the New Orleans office opened in 2016. Additionally, during the celebration of the 50th anniversary, the firm started using the name Thompson Coe.

One key to the Firms success over the years has been creating relationships and partnering with clients to help them navigate through all of their complex business needs to meet every challenge," said Stephanie Rojo, member of the Management Committee. "This has been particularly important over the course of the last 18 months.

While they built a reputation as a Texas insurance powerhouse, Thompson Coe has broadened their offerings to meet the complex business litigation needs of its Fortune 500 clients. Building on the vision of their founding partners, Thompson Coe continues to meet the demands of the ever-changing legal landscape.

It is truly our privilege to help our clients, both as advisors and counselors, said William Moye, member of the Management Committee. Over the last 70 years, the Firm has built a reputation for always finding better in every case we handle, whether it is better outcomes or better settlement positions. Our clients know they can rely on our expertise because we have the knowledge to create custom solutions.

Thompson Coe has guided clients through high-stakes litigation, business disputes, and regulatory matters with a commitment to excellence. The Firm has numerous clients that it has partnered with for decades because of our high-level of service and efficiency.

Thompson Coe continually evolves to meet our clients needs, said Jennifer Aufricht, partner in the Dallas office. At our core we are trial lawyers, and our success is achieved by skill, discipline, and grit.

Today, Thompson Coe provides this value to its clients through a spectrum of legal services spanning multiple industries.

We are focused on results, but never lose sight of a clients' goals," said Zandra Foley, Chair of the Products Liability section. The depth of our attorneys knowledge across a wide range of industries allows us to develop creative strategies that exceed our clients expectations."

Thompson Coe is recognized as a Band 1 law firm for Insurance in Texas by Chambers & Partners USA 2004-2021.

About Thompson Coe

Founded in 1951, Thompson Coe has been providing legal services to clients both regionally and nationally for 70 years. Thompson Coe is 200+ attorney firm with offices in Austin, Dallas, and Houston, Texas; New Orleans, Louisiana; and St. Paul, Minnesota. The firm is highly recognized for its civil litigation capabilities and our diverse group of attorneys has the experience, resources, and capacity to respond to the multi-service demands of our clients across multiple states and industries. Thompson Coe offers comprehensive legal services in areas of Insurance Litigation and Coverage, Products Liability, Mass Torts, Property and Casualty Litigation, Labor and Employment, Business & Commercial Litigation, Professional Liability, Appellate Law, Insurance Regulation, State Legislation, and Business Transactions, among others.
Top 10 Most Influential CEOs in 2021 Successful corporate leadership will be defined by not only the business metrics achieved, but also the people metrics

Ted Kohnen, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Partner of Retina, a leading global advertising, marketing and technology company, has been named one of the Top 10 Most Influential CEOs Rising to the Top in 2021 by IndustryWired Magazine. Kohnen was also featured in the magazines cover story of its special issue.

In addition to Kohnen, this years IndustryWired list includes leaders from PayPal, Airbnb, SmartCone Technologies Inc. and NMS Consulting. IndustryWired Magazines feature story explores how Kohnen has worked to build resilience and maintain an upward trajectory in light of the challenges the Covid-19 pandemic has created.

Sharing his views on what defines strong and successful leadership, Ted notes in the piece: Successful CEOs and corporate leadership will be defined by not only the business metrics achieved, but also the people metrics  and how skillfully they are able to make the critical connection between the two.

Ted joined Retina in September 2018 as President, Marketing Services after more than fifteen years helping global enterprises, multi-nationals, and non-profits activate their brands. Ted was named Retinas CEO in January 2020. At the helm, Ted led the company to its most successful year, increasing year-over-year billings nearly 70%, growing profits 4x, and increasing headcount by 59% globally.

Under Teds leadership, Retina was named both the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) 2021 and 2020 Agency of the Year, the 2021 Marketing Elevation Awards Marketing Communications Agency of the Year and The Drum's 2020 Martech Agency of the Year. In addition, Retina under Teds leadership ranks as one of the top international B2B MARCOMM Agencies by B2B Magazine and among the Chief Marketer 200.

The Columbia University graduate has become the marketing agency growth specialist. First, with his career at global B2B agency, Stein IAS, where he was CMO and then Managing Director overseeing offices in the US and China. His success made him the youngest managing director in the agencys 50-year history.

About Retina

Retina is a leading marketing and technology services company, connecting expert services in strategy, creative, and technology to drive business impact for brands globally. With locations in San Francisco, New York, Las Vegas, Toronto, Madrid, Vienna, Glasgow, Bucharest, and Brasov, Retina partners with organizations such as Facebook, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Bank of Montreal (BMO), ING, Esquire Bank, eXp World Holdings, and Stanford University. Retina has been recognized as the 2021 B2B Marketing Elevation Awards Agency of the Year, the 2021 and 2020 ANA B2B Agency of the Year, and The Drums 2020 Martech Agency of the Year. Learn more at RetinaB2.com

About IndustryWired

IndustryWired features insights, trends, and opinion from the greatest business leaders, founders, C-suites and entrepreneurs across different industries. IndustryWired Magazine is the best go-to industry resource for helping todays leaders build tomorrows leading businesses. IndustryWired is known for making a big impact by supporting business enterprises and leaders to augment their brand image and make effective business decisions. Learn more at industrywired.com/
Awards of recognition were presented at the 2021 Sandler Partners National Summit in Huntington Beach, California. The hybrid in-person/virtual event welcomed over 800 attendees who received the latest insights via technology, sales, and growth presentation tracks. Remote attendees were able to watch a live broadcast of the presentations and visit virtual exhibitor booths, where they met one-on-one with over 40 technology providers. In-person participants spent much of their time outdoors, where meals, mixers, and one-on-one meetings were conducted.

Sandler Partners was proud to announce the recipients of the following awards:



Broadvoice, Operational Excellence

8x8, Top New Provider, and Zoom, Top New Provider

RingCentral, Largest Revenue Growth

DYOPATH, Best of Cloud

Comcast, Best of Cable

Spectrum, Best of Fiber

RingCentral, Best of Unified Communications

BroadVoice, Provider MVP

Jonathan Protass, Midwest Channel Manager of the Year

Scott Dragonetti, New England Channel Manager of the Year

George Sountas, Metro New York Channel Manager of the Year

Bill Alessi, Mid-Atlantic Channel Manager of the Year

Kirk Whitney, Great Lakes Channel Manager of the Year

Joyce Sherlock, Southwest Channel Manager of the Year

Hillary Corno, West Coast Channel Manager of the Year

Chris Simmons, Southwest Channel Manager of the Year

Preston Carpenter, National Channel Manager of the Year

Chris Jones, Most Influential Channel Leader

Sandler Partners recognized provider Channel Managers as top award recipients who are in elite company, stated Managing Partner Alan Sandler. Its one thing to be available when things are easy and going well. But our award recipients rose to the top because of their courage and responsiveness. It was the same message over and over from our voting panel. The winning provider Channel Managers were the ones with the courage to set expectations upfront. They were brave enough to advocate for Partners and customers, even if it meant pushing against the status quo. And they have raised the industry bar for responsiveness to Partners and clients.

Our award-winning providers, who are in a very tough competition, also shared common themes. They arent satisfied with the way its always been done. Instead, they are true partners and demonstrate tremendous channel leadership. They have spent time listening to feedback and actually moved to implement changes that benefit everyone in the ecosystem. They are deserving champions, and we appreciate our partnership!

Sandler Partners designated charity, the Surfrider Foundation, hosted an informational exhibit to help attendees learn about the Surfrider mission of protecting the worlds oceans and how to become involved personally and through donations. A raffle for a surfboard was held, with Sander Partners matching donations.

About Sandler Partners

Sandler Partners is Americas fastest-growing master agent and distributor of connectivity and cloud services. In 2021, Sandler Partners was included on the Inc. 5000 list of Americas Fastest-Growing Private Companies for the 12th straight year. Over the years, Sandler has expanded beyond its telecom roots to deliver best-in-class cloud, colocation, mobility, continuity, and security solutions from 200+ suppliers through a network of 9,000+ expert technology sales partners  agents, VARs, and MSPs  to thousands of small, medium, and enterprise organizations nationwide.
Solas Energy Consultings experience in project and construction management for utility-scale solar energy and battery energy storage systems has been critical to the success of this large-scale project.

Solas Energy Consulting US Inc, a provider of comprehensive energy solutions, today announced execution of a second round of contracts to support construction and project management services for the Edwards Sanborn Solar Storage project in Kern County, California. Solas Energy Consulting has provided owners project and construction management services, in addition to construction bid management services for the project since early 2019, during the projects development.

When complete, the Edwards Sanborn project is expected to be the world's largest integrated solar powered battery storage project, providing 760 MWac (megawatts, alternating current) of solar energy and 2,445 MWh (megawatt hours) of battery energy storage. The project will produce clean energy for more than 158,000 homes and displace more than 307,000 tons of CO2 annually, and is part of Californias efforts to reduce carbon emissions through the deployment of large-scale renewable energy infrastructure.

The project owner, Terra-Gen, LLC, is a leading US developer, owner, and operator of utility-scale renewable energy projects in North America. Edwards Sanborn marks the second battery energy storage system (BESS) project supported by Solas Energy Consulting for Terra-Gen for project and construction management services.

We are pleased to play an integral role in Californias expanding renewable energy landscape. We are also delighted to further our long-standing relationship with Terra-Gen as their trusted partner in this ground-breaking project which will positively impact communities throughout Kern County with increased energy reliability and a significant reduction in the carbon emissions created by non-renewable energy sources, noted Evelyn Carpenter, Co-founder and President of Fort Collins-based Solas Energy Consulting Inc.

Solas Energy Consultings experience in project and construction management for utility-scale solar energy and battery energy storage systems has been critical to the success of this large-scale project. We value Solas Energys expertise as a trusted partner and look forward to working with them on the next phases of this transformative project, remarked Jim Pagano, Chief Executive Officer for Terra-Gen.

We are excited to continue our support of this innovative project which serves as a model for the future of large-scale, integrated renewable energy infrastructure, added Paula McGarrigle, Co-founder and Managing Director of Calgary-based Solas Energy Consulting Inc.

The first phase of the Edwards Sanborn project will bring 735 MWh of battery energy storage on-line in the third quarter of 2021. Subsequent phases of the Edwards Sanborn Solar Storage project are expected to come on-line in the second half of 2022 and early 2023.

Solas Energy Consulting provides comprehensive strategy and consulting services for renewable energy solutions throughout the US and Canada. The companys expertise spans development and management of utility and commercial projects involving wind, solar, biomass, hydropower, geothermal, hydrogen, energy storage, grid modernization and electric vehicles (EV). With over 20 years of experience in project development, construction management, and climate change advisory, Solas Energy provides its clients with the depth and perspective required to navigate the complex issues associated with renewable energy project development and climate change policy. Solas Energy maintains offices in Fort Collins, Colorado, USA, and Calgary, Alberta, Canada. More information about the company can be found on Solas Energy Consulting's website or their LinkedIn page.
Sorcero Closes $10 Million Series A to Scale Language Intelligence Platform We could not be more grateful to have secured the resources to empower more decision makers in life sciences and, ultimately, improve patient outcomes, said Dipanwita Das, CEO and co-founder of Sorcero.

Sorcero, the leader in medical and technical Language Intelligence (LI), today announced the close of a $10 million Series A financing round led by CityRock Venture Partners (the growth fund of H/L Ventures) and Harmonix Fund, along with Rackhouse, Mighty Capital and Leawood VC, and joining previous investors, Castor Ventures and Worldquant Ventures, to support the increasing demand from new and existing customers. This brings the company's total funding to $15.7 million.

Demand for Sorceros AI-powered Language Intelligence platform has skyrocketed in recent months, particularly in the life sciences sector. The total addressable market (TAM) is very large and growing rapidly, estimated at $42 billion for analytics in life sciences, $8.6 billion in clinical analytics, and $122 billion in augmenting the biomedical workforce. Sorcero has grown alongside the market, reporting 324% annual growth in 2020.

We could not be more grateful to have secured the resources to empower more decision makers in life sciences and, ultimately, improve patient outcomes, said Dipanwita Das, CEO and co-founder of Sorcero. This investment enables us to further define the Language Intelligence market, drive our capacity to serve more customers, and expand the domain expertise of our team.

Sorceros Language Intelligence platform combines the power of the biggest language models with the accuracy of industry ontologies to deliver the next generation of advanced analytics for medical and technical content. Its applications augment subject matter experts in the worlds largest and most innovative life science companies with new capabilities to work up to 10x faster with increased accuracy and consistency.

The founding team has extensive experience in transforming global markets, positively impacting billions of lives and managing top innovation organizations. Co-founder and CEO Dipanwita Das has built international public health platforms that were used to inform over 3 billion health outcomes in 20 countries. Fellow co-founder and chief technology officer, Walter Bender, established and led the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab, invented personalized content and created the netbook category. Richard Graves, co-founder and chief commercial officer, has co-founded and grown revenue at data-science driven startups from $0 to over $200 million. As a team, the Sorcero founders and their senior executives represent a seasoned, exceptional group of leaders and technologists with proven business-building experience.

The CityRock team proudly supports innovation at the nexus of growth, impact, and diversity. Sorceros cutting-edge AI solutions are already making a life-saving difference in healthcare and biotechnology, representing the best of what can happen when skilled employees have the benefit of technology at their fingertips. Working with Dipanwita, Richard, Walter and their team to achieve these important goals is as inspiring as it is fulfilling, said Oliver Libby, partner at CityRock Venture Partners.

Harmonix Fund is thrilled to support the world-class team at Sorcero in creating the world of tomorrow, today. Sorceros advanced NLP platform represents the next generation of human Language Intelligence to solve the most pressing bottlenecks in data analytics across the healthcare and life sciences sectors. The Sorcero team represents a nexus of unparalleled creative intellect and engineering prowess. We look forward to joining their mission in improving patient outcomes and ushering in a new paradigm in applied artificial intelligence, said Maximilian Winter, general partner at Harmonix Fund, and Krish Ramadurai, partner at Harmonix Fund.

Rackhouse Venture Capital couldn't be more excited to participate in this fundraise and work more closely with Dipanwita and the entire Sorcero team to build the future of Language Intelligence, said Kevin Novak, managing partner and founder at Rackhouse Venture Capital and formerly Ubers first head of data science. We strongly believe that their differentiated technology, top-tier team and inspiring vision will enable them to continue to expand the important work they've already begun with researchers and patients in the life sciences field.

Sorcero is pioneering the promising intersection of life sciences and data sciences with an impressive team and traction, said Chris Dunn, M.D., partner at Mighty Capital. Mighty Capital invests in great products that are also great businesses, and this is definitely one!

We're pleased to support Sorcero with this additional capital investment and look forward to following the transformative impact their powerful Language Intelligence platform will have throughout the life science industries, said Karl Gemperli, co-founder and managing partner of Leawood Venture Capital. As investors, we strive to identify talented and dedicated leadership teams with deep domain expertise and unique technology. We continue to be impressed with Sorceros innovative approach of turning detailed scientific content into an actionable and valuable enterprise asset.

About Sorcero

Sorcero is the leader in medical and technical Language Intelligence (LI) for life sciences and STEM enterprises. Its technology platform delivers a 1,000% increase in analytical capability and extracts complex insights to augment critical decision-making for some of the worlds largest and most innovative pharmaceutical, diagnostic and biotech organizations. Sorcero is privately held and headquartered in Washington, D.C. and Cambridge, MA. For more information, visit http://www.Sorcero.com.
Pope Francis should be commended for admonishing bishops and priests to be pastoral instead of political The United States Catholic bishops should follow the example of the pope and drop their unholy crusade to weaponize the Eucharist against President Biden and other pro-choice Catholics."

Catholics for Choice, which uplifts and amplifies the voices of the majority of Catholics who believe in reproductive freedom, issued the following response from President Jamie L. Manson to comments Pope Francis made today on the debate among U.S. Catholic bishops about whether politicians who support abortion rights should be denied Communion:

Pope Francis should be commended for admonishing bishops and priests to be pastoral instead of political, and reminding them that Communion is not a prize for the perfect but a gift from Jesus. As Catholics, we believe that the central message of our faith can be found in Jesus command to feed one another  and Jesus welcomed all to his table, without question or orthodoxy test. The United States Catholic bishops should follow the example of the pope, who has never denied Communion to anyone, and drop their unholy crusade to weaponize the Eucharist against President Biden and other pro-choice Catholics.

That said, we were disappointed to hear Pope Francis use deeply stigmatizing words about abortion, calling it homicide. We implore the pope to bear in mind that some of the most important theologians throughout the churchs history, including St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, supported abortion as a moral choice within the first trimester. But even more importantly, we entreat him to remember that, in the United States, one in four women has an abortion. Using the language of murder is not only exaggerated and unscientific  it also creates profound shame among people of faith who have needed or chosen abortion care. These kinds of condemnations are not consistent with the culture of encounter that he has called for within the church.

Finally, we are obligated to point out that our Catholic tradition calls us to follow our consciences in matters of moral decision-making and uphold the rights of others to do the same; to respect the inherent freedom and dignity of each person; and to advocate for policies that protect the most vulnerable and marginalized in our society. Abortion access is an issue of fairness and justice, especially for the marginalized  and we believe it is a Catholic social justice value. The majority of U.S. Catholics support abortion rights, and we do so in good conscience  not in spite of our faith, but because of it.

###

Catholics for Choice shapes and advances sexual and reproductive ethics that are based on justice, reflect a commitment to a persons well-being and respect, and affirm the capacity of all people to make moral decisions about their lives.
Guests will continue to want comfort, luxury, elegance and now cleanliness and sanitation during their stay. As we move through to pandemic recovery many businesses will be forced to make changes so customers feel safe. Cleanliness and sanitation are now ranked much higher than ever before.

The Flooring Resource announces the launch of their newest blog post entitled, Flooring Sanitation and Tourism. Within this blog readers will learn more about hotel flooring options The Flooring Resource offers and what they recommend for maximum cleanliness and sanitation.

Richard Etscorn, owner of The Flooring Resource, states, The pandemic has caused consumers to re-evaluate whats important to them when selecting a hotel to stay at. Travelers are now placing a heavy priority on cleanliness, sanitation, and safety as part of their hotel selection criteria. Due to this shift in priorities, hotels are now focusing on flooring options that are antimicrobial, easy to clean, come in a variety of colors and patterns while maintaining a sophisticated and expensive look. As we evolve and consumer confidence rises, health and safety requirements will continue to be a priority for travelers. As general managers look to replace their existing flooring, they will see more options that meet the health and safety needs travelers are looking for.

The Flooring Resource suggests these types of flooring for improved sanitation:



SPC Waterproof Vinyl

Porcelain Tiles/Large Format Tiles

Carpet Tiles

Carpeting

SPC waterproof vinyl is 100% waterproof which makes it an ideal hotel option for areas such as bathrooms, kitchenettes in hotel rooms, and spa areas. In addition to the variety of colors and patterns to choose from, the SPC vinyl plank product offer a look of natural wood and stone but at a fraction of the price compared to a true hardwood or stone floor. The ROKplank brand carried by The Flooring Resource is an American made product. Being American made, the Rokplank product is easier to access, has less wait time to obtain so flooring jobs are not delayed.

Etscorn explains We strongly encourage customers to select American made products not only because it helps put Americans back to work but the products are very readily available and flooring jobs can be completed in a timely manner. Porcelain Tile and large format tile offer great value. This product would be a great option for hallways, lobbies, public bathrooms, walls, and even outside areas such as pools. The Epic porcelain tile by Milestone is another American made option that we offer. Carpet tiles allow hospitality venues the option of making a quick flooring change. The tiles are durable, easy to install, and easy to clean. Damaged or stained carpet tiles can be changed out quickly.

Carpeting has evolved over the years as well as the carpet padding. Still a popular choice by many hotels, carpeting can hold dust, fungus and mildew. For optimal sanitation, The Flooring Resource recommends using an antimicrobial carpet padding or underlayment option for all carpet installations. Cleaning and disinfecting will still be needed, however, the antimicrobial underlayment or carpet padding can eliminate a lot of issues during the lifetime of the carpeting.

To read the full blog post, visit online at https://www.theflooringresource.com/post/flooring-sanitation-and-tourism.

Etscorn adds, Guests will continue to want comfort, luxury, elegance and now cleanliness and sanitation during their stay. As we move through to pandemic recovery many businesses will be forced to make changes so customers feel safe. Cleanliness and sanitation are now ranked much higher than ever before. Hotels making this a priority will continue to thrive and receive 5-star reviews.

The Flooring Resource is located at 2480 Silver Star Road in Orlando, Florida. This flooring wholesale company has over 33 years of experience in hospitality, commercial and residential flooring. They offer competitive financing, and their customer service and quality flooring remains a priority.

To learn more, visit online at https://www.theflooringresource.com/ or call 321-245-7780.
"The Process-Driven Annual Fund" by Ron Rescigno is now available in audiobook format. Nonprofits must understand and be willing to talk about the need for investing in the tools that lead to annual fund success. Their donors and boards must be made to understand that development work, the work they do, comes with a price tag attached."

Author Ron Rescigno made it his mission to share his knowledge and expertise in helping nonprofits build strong and ongoing annual fund programs through his book The Process-Driven Annual Fund. In addition to its Kindle and paperback versions, the book, published by Fig Factor Media, recently became available in an audiobook format.

Rescigno is vice president of Rescignos Fundraising Professionals based in the Chicagoland suburb of Bridgeview, Illinois. For 29 years, Ron Rescigno and his wife Sue Rescigno, who is president of the business, have helped nonprofit organizations grow their base.

Im very excited to see that the new audiobook format will let audiences capture my passion for the work Rescignos does to help nonprofits create those strong fundraising foundations, said Ron Rescigno. Those foundations will become go-to processes that help nonprofits nurture their donors and prospects for many, many years.

Some of the chapters address topics such as direct mail being the top resource for annual gifts, the act of raising awareness versus raising money, and a deeper dive into building trust and loyalty. In his experience, Rescigno sees many nonprofits spending valuable resources, time and energy on new donor acquisition because individual giving is down. The COVID-19 pandemic has added to the negative impact.

Nonprofits must understand and be willing to talk about the need for investing in the tools that lead to annual fund success, Rescigno wrote in his book. Their donors and boards must be made to understand that development work, the work they do, comes with a price tag attached. Thats about as bluntly as I can say it. Stop cowering in a corner when the subject of cost comes up in conversations. They have nothing to be ashamed of. Boards and donors need to be educated that without investing, theyll never grow their programs, and increase revenue, not just for the annual fund, but for their entire advancement program.

The Process-Driven Annual Fund is available on Amazon.

About The Process-Driven Annual Fund:

In his book, The Process-Driven Annual Fund, Ron Rescigno explains how Rescignos proven process, when followed, will result in a thriving annual fund, including more new donors, better donor retention and more major gift prospects than ever before. Told with love and affection for the work nonprofits do, The Process-Driven Annual Fund describes the vital role the annual fund must play when it comes to engaging, building, and stewarding relationships with donors. Ron Rescigno is vice president of Rescignos Fundraising Professionals in Bridgeview, Illinois.

About Fig Factor Media:

Founded in 2017, Fig Factor Media is an international multicultural media company dedicated to celebrating authors through quality books, expert marketing/PR, event production and creative product development. Their books range from Anthologies and Business books to Childrens books. Their goal is to ignite your career as an author and offer proven methods to transform your mission into a movement. Learn more at http://www.figfactormedia.com.
Albert Chan, Tickr Chief Revenue Officer His background makes him uniquely suited to understand the evolving needs in the CPG and retail industries. Coming from Google, Albert also understands how to partner with clients to leverage data, technology and cutting-edge ideas to accelerate the speed of insight generation.

Tickr, the leading AI-powered central data solution for maximizing retail sales, marketing and brand performance, today announced the addition of former Google and Procter & Gamble executive Albert Chan to its management team as Chief Revenue Officer. The move comes as Tickr sees increasing demand for its predictive, unified data solution to major consumer brands, distributors and retailers.

Since the introduction of Tickr OmniView and its partnership with leading wholesale distributors RNDC and LibDib, the company has seen strong interest and customer growth with consumer brands. Albert will help to grow awareness with CPG and other companies looking to consolidate their siloed data into faster actionable insights through Tickrs predictive analytics solution.

We are thrilled to welcome Albert as our new Chief Revenue Officer, said Tyler Peppel, Tickr Founder and CEO. His background makes him uniquely suited to understand the evolving needs in the CPG and retail industries. Coming from Google, Albert also understands how to partner with clients to leverage data, technology and cutting-edge ideas to accelerate the speed of insight generation.

Albert brings nearly two decades of experience in CPG and retail as well as knowledge from Google, P&G, and the Harvard Business School to serve customers that need better analytical and data solutions. He has formed Joint Business Plans and worked with enterprise clients including Amazon, Walmart, eBay, Instacart, and hundreds of SMB clients such as Clif Bar & Company, Guess, Toms, and more.

Its an honor to be appointed Tickr CRO and lead its immensely talented sales and marketing teams, commented Albert. Having managed and supported some of the worlds largest consumer brands in both the CPG and technology industries, I have a deep appreciation for Tickrs advanced capabilities and its critical role as a leader in predictive analytics within the dynamic and evolving consumer and retail landscape. I look forward to building on the companys success, market position, and competitive advantages to deepen its connection with customers.

Tickr OmniView offers complete real-time cross-channel data integration, deep AI-powered insights, and predictive analytics, enabling CPGs and retailers to optimize the mix of marketing and sales across traditional, digital, and in-store.

Tickr customers include Adidas, Apple, Frito-Lay, Gatorade, Merck, RNDC and Starbucks, among others.

Learn more at tickr.com.

About Tickr

Tickr delivers the leading AI-powered solution for maximizing CPG sales, marketing and brand performance. Tickr OmniView is a machine learning-driven platform that powers faster insights, predictive scenario exploration, and better decisions for some of the world's leading CPG brands, distributors, and marketing & sales partners. The platform gives companies the ability to unify multi-source marketing, promotion and sales performance data into a single source of truth for more fully informed decision-making. Tickr customers include Adidas, Apple, Frito-Lay, Gatorade, Merck, RNDC and Starbucks, among many others.
Apple Valley Hyundai is a Hyundai dealership located in Winchester, Virginia. They are currently running a lot of promotional offers. The Hyundai Free Battery Test is one of them. To avoid unexpected battery failure, Apple Valley Hyundai is providing all customers with a free battery diagnostic inspection. People who want to take advantage of this offer must bring along the coupon available on the dealership website.

According to the dealership website, it is mandatory to present coupon at the time of write-up. This coupon code is valid only at Apple Valley Hyundai dealership and it cannot be used with any other applicable offer. It is a limited time offer and this coupon is valid until November 14th, 2021. Therefore, interested residents of the area are urged to visit the dealership as soon as they can.

Along with this, there are many other service specials going on at Apple Valley Hyundai currently. These include In-Cabin Air Filter Replacement, Multi-Point Inspection, Brake Special, Cooling System Special, and Vehicle Service Special. All these offers can be redeemed by using the coupons available on the dealership website.

For more information about these offers or to see the terms and conditions for them, customers can visit the dealership website. You can also contact the sales team of the dealership at 855-463-5530. Apple Valley Hyundai is located at 2934 Valley Ave., Winchester, VA. The dealership is open for business Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Rapidly expanding virtual public relations agency Trust Relations, today announced it is the full-time agency of record in North America for ocean and air freight logistics and supply chain leader Xeneta. Xeneta originally partnered with Trust Relations on a project basis in June 2021 to announce the company closing a $28.5 million Series C round. Impressed by the top-tier media coverage secured by the Trust Relations team in CNN, Yahoo!, Reuters and more, Xeneta signed on for a longer-term, more comprehensive public relations program, expanding its media relations campaign and thought leadership program.

During a time when the shipping industry has been crippled due to the ongoing pandemic and unprecedented port congestion, which have resulted in record high shipping rates, Xeneta is bringing attention to the need for greater shipping rate pricing transparency. Xeneta is paving the way for ocean container and air freight market intelligence by challenging the existing conditions of strained shipping markets. With the use of digitization and a specialized approach of gathering ocean and air freight rates, the company provides full freight pricing transparency to its stakeholders.

The partnership with Trust Relations will further establish Xeneta as a thought leader in the shipping and logistics industry, while leveraging the companys impressive list of customers and partnerships to drive share of voice and challenge market competitors. Outside of the traditional media relations and thought leadership, Trust Relations will also manage the companys customer case study development, engage in a formal analyst relations program and promote the companys monthly reports on global market movements in the container shipping industry.

In continuing our relationship with Trust Relations, were excited for the opportunity to generate greater awareness of our brand in the North American region, highlighting Xenetas successes in challenging the traditional shipping industry through greater transparency and innovation, said Patrik Berglund, CEO and co-founder at Xeneta AS.

Xeneta hired Trust Relations due to the agencys unique model that boasts a variety of dedicated PR practitioners with ample background and media relations expertise in the logistics and supply chain technology markets. The agency's flexible, remote structure is ideal for adapting and scaling with clients as they grow, and helps to optimize budgets with reduced overhead.

As disruptors in our own industry, our team looks forward to further partnering with Xeneta, as they shake up the conventional ways of the current logistics and shipping industry and work to improve global trade, said April Margulies, president and founder of Trust Relations.

About Trust Relations:

Trust Relations, founded in 2019, is a virtual strategic communications firm that creates nimble and proactive dream teams for clients through a national network of the industrys best and brightest practitioners. "Trust Relations" is a term coined by President and Founder April Margulies to describe a new approach to strategic communications that focuses on communicating clients' authentic actions, value and goodwill. In technology, trust relationships are an administration and communication link between two domains. In communications, they are a bond of mutual respect between a brand and the people it serves. The firm excels at identifying inspiring ways for clients to show their brand value by identifying supportive proof points and ideating creative activations that demonstrate their unique story and value proposition. For more information, visit http://www.trustrelations.agency.

About Xeneta

Xeneta is the leading ocean freight rate benchmarking and market intelligence platform transforming the shipping and logistics industry. Xenetas powerful reporting and analytics platform provides liner-shipping stakeholders the data they need to understand current and historical market behaviour  reporting live on market average and low/high movements for both short and long-term contracts. Xenetas data is comprised of over 280 million contracted container rates and covers over 160,000 global trade routes. Xeneta is a privately held company with headquarters in Oslo, Norway and regional offices in New York and Hamburg.

MEDIA CONTACT:

April Margulies, 323-216-8589

april@trustrelations.agency
As she did in some of her earlier novels, including her 2012 Newbery-winning The One and Only Ivan, starring a gorilla held captive in a shopping-mall cage, Katherine Applegate laces fantasy with the all-too-real in Willodeen, the story of a fervent young eco-activist, released earlier this month by Feiwel and Friends. The publisher is launching the novel with a 750,000-copy announced market distribution and a virtual promotional campaign targeting schools called Go Green with Willodeen: How to Become an Eco-Activist in 3 Simple Steps, which provides educators with a game plan to jumpstart students environmental awareness and activism.

The words that 11-year-old Willodeen lives by (The earth is old and we are not, and that is all you must remember) capsulize her respect for the fragility of nature at a time when its forces seem to be bitterly angry. Lately her homeland of Perchance has been plagued by fires and mudslides, droughts and fevers, and the sudden cessation of the annual migration of winged creatures called hummingbears, a source of pride and tourist income for the residents. Willodeen is determined to discover why these beloved beings have disappeared and to do what she can to facilitate natures recovery.

Given Applegates extensive in-person and virtual school visits and correspondence with kids over the years, she is keenly aware of middle-grade readers concern about the repercussions of climate changeand how to address that and other hard-hitting issues in an accessible way. Thats where her adroit use of fantasy elements comes into play. First of all, its fun for me as a writer, and I hope that translates into fun for the reader, she said of drawing from the fantasy world. When youre dealing with complex, hard topics for young readers, bits of fantasy help underline that there is always magicand hopein the world. Its the same way we use fairy tales to venture into dark places and emerge whole.

Yet the idea for the heroine of her novel was, at least in part, grounded in the real world. Discussing her inspiration for Willodeen, Applegate noted that Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teenage activist, was very much in my head when she conceived of her character, but added, I am in no way suggesting that Willodeen is Greta. I love Willodeen for her fierce honesty. Like Greta, shes willing to speak uncomfortable truths to adults. Shes also a bit of an outsider, trying to make sense of the world and find her place in it. For her, nature provides both solace and answers. If kids come away from Willodeen with the epigraph from Greta Thunberg in mindI have learned that you are never too small to make a differencethat would be wonderful indeed.

Going Green, One Step at a Time

To encourage readers to emulate Willodeens commitment to restoring and preserving the environment, Macmillan Childrens Publishing developed a concise course of eco-action with its Go Green with Willodeen initiative. A digital kit containing educator materials encourages kids to take advantage of the informational resources available to them, explore biodiversity in their own backyards, and to share what theyve learned by sending postcards or posting on social media (using #GoGreenwithWillodeen). The kit includes a letter from Applegate, an educator discussion guide, a poster, and a set of postcards for students to share what theyve learned about the environment with friends, family, or community members in a position to help create a more sustainable environment.

A handful of educators who plan on introducing their students to the campaign weighed in on the initiative. Joanna Pecor, third grade teacher at Orchard School in South Burlington, Vt., said, As I read this heartwarming and inspiring book, I found myself becoming overwhelmed in the best possible way by the connections we could make to our curriculum and initiatives. The message that one small voice or person can affect change is imperative for children to hear and to believe. The way Katherine brings to light the issue of climate change and the interdependence between humans and the natural world is brilliant. My students immediately started to brainstorm ways that we can be stewards of the land and protect Mother Earth. I know they will feel empowered to think of even more ways to be activists in our community and beyond.

Amber Webb, educator at the Roeper School in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., said, Our students were completely drawn in by the imaginary animals. We focused on the quote from Pa, Nature, Willodeen, knows more than we, and she probably always will. Students felt like nature knew what was best for itself just like we know what is best for us as individuals, and we would be better off working with nature instead of against it. Our kids thought we should start on a school level by writing to classrooms and administrators and hanging signs around campus about the importance of caring for the nature around us.

According to Jenny Lussier, school library media specialist at Brewster Elementary School in Durham, Conn., I think our learners are going to be very excited when I share the book with them. The cover illustration, with those big eyes, the tusks and of course, the hummingbear, is definitely going to catch their attention. This fall we are going to do an inquiry into plastic and the effect its pollution has on the environment, and I think Willodeen will be a wonderful way to get their thinking going.

Applegate called the Go Green with Willodeen initiative a wonderful starting place for teachers and kids. Children can take tiny actions that engender hope. It is so important for each of us to feel that we are doing something positive and making a difference. Were leaving a mess to our children, but I think theyre up to the challenge. A story in the Guardian the other day underscored this point. Colleges are seeing a surge in Gen Z members who want to focus their careers on environmental change. What an encouraging sign!

Willodeen by Katherine Applegate, illus. by Charles Santoso. Feiwel and Friends, $16.99 Sept. ISBN 078-1-250-14740-0
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind.  West Lafayettes acclaimed internationally flavored street festival returns with music, cuisine, culture, crafts, and pop-up performances from around the world. The main stage will feature traditional Iraqi maqams on the oud and santour from The Rahim AlHaj Trio, contemporary funk and forro from Nation Beat, and the fusion of fiery bomba with folkloric guaracha and salsa from Los Hacheros.

The annual West Lafayette Global Festival celebrates the diverse cultures of Purdue University and West Lafayette and marks 26 years of jubilant expression of this global village that is home.

The festivities start at 3:30 p.m. ET on Saturday (Sept. 18) on Northwestern Avenue and South Street in downtown West Lafayette. The event is free to attend and open to the public. No tickets are required for Global Fest.

The Rahim AlHaj Trio opens the main stage at 5:30 p.m., followed by Nation Beat at 7 p.m. Los Hacheros will close the festival with its performance at 9 p.m.

The city is excited to welcome thousands of new students from around the world, says West Lafayette Mayor John Dennis. We cant wait to see our longtime residents sharing a 26-year tradition of international celebration with the newest members of our community in the streets of downtown West Lafayette.

The Rahim AlHaj Trio features Rahim Alhaj, a two-time Grammy nominee, National Endowment for The Arts NationalHeritage fellow and Smithsonian Folkways Recordings artist and Iraqi Oud virtuoso and composer; joined by Iranian santour maestro Sourena Sefati and world percussion master Nicholas Baker.

The trio performs AlHajs intricate compositions that delicately combine traditional Iraqi maqams with contemporary styling and influence. His compositions evoke the experience of exile from his homeland and of new beginnings in his adopted country. His pieces establish new concepts without altering the foundation of the traditional Iraqi School of Oud.

Nation Beats live shows have taken on an almost mythological aura for their ability to lift the souls and the feet, of their growing cross-cultural audience. Band leader and drummer/percussionist Scott Kettner has long been at the forefront of merging different musical elements together from the earliest days of Nation Beat's Brazil meets North American music. With tenor saxophonist Paul Carlon, the band entered a new phase in its cross-cultural explorations where brass and percussion explode in a jazz-infused, funkified New Orleans-meets-Brazil carnival sound.

Brooklyns Los Hacheros are modern-day torchbearers of the Golden Age of Latin musicreviving folkloric styles like son montuno, guaracha and salsa, and often combining them with Bomba, a fiery rhythm from the mountains of Puerto Rico. The group recorded its sophomore album Bambulaye live to vintage analog tape, giving the music a raw, but warm and open sound similar to the Latin legends that have inspired them.

Los Hacheros has the magic of group improvisation, bassist William Ash says. We play in a style that is swing oriented and emphasizes the Cuban clave like great ones of old: Arsenio, Reve, Ritmo

Were back with live music and dance in the streets of West Lafayette, says Todd Wetzel, assistant vice provost for student life and executive director, Purdue Convocations/Hall of Music Productions. We are thrilled to sponsor the main stage events of Global Fest in partnership with the city of West Lafayette and the International Center of West Lafayette. The three ensembles offer a taste of music from the Middle East to the Americas and will surely have festival-goers dancing in the streets late into the evening.

The main stage performance schedule includes:

3:30 p.m.  Gates open, followed by opening remarks from the stage

3:40 p.m.  Boiler Bhangra

4:00 p.m.  McGovern Irish Dancers

4:30 p.m.  Purdue Chinese Performing Arts Troupe

5:30 p.m.  Rahim AlHaj Trio

7 p.m.  Nation Beat

9 p.m.  Los Hacheros

In addition to the main stage events, pop-up performances will be featured throughout the festival grounds including a Lion/Dragon Parade at 4:25 p.m. and 6:50 p.m., and performances from Okinawa Yuyukai at 5:15 p.m. and 6:40 p.m. For more details and up to date information go online.

The 26th annual West Lafayette Global Fest is co-presented by the city of West Lafayette, Purdue Convocations, and the International Center of West Lafayette. For information on how to become a Friend of Convocations and make your initial gift, go online.

Global Fest is featured in Purdues Weeks of Welcome, an initiative by the Purdue vice provost for student life to highlight the thousands of events and programming taking place during the first six weeks of the fall 2021 semester. Global Fest attendees are encouraged to share content on social media with the hashtag #PurdueWoW.

The city of West Lafayette, Purdue Convocations and the International Center of West Lafayette present the 26th annual West Lafayette Global Fest with support from Indiana Arts Commission, Skillman Corp., The Veridus Group, West Lafayette Parks and Recreation, Purdue University Honors College, Wessler Engineering Inc., Sunbelt Rentals, West Lafayette Public Library, DeFouw Automotive, MBAH Insurance, Purdue Black Cultural Center, Purdue Latino Cultural Center, Purdue Asian American and Asian Resource Cultural Center, Bowen Engineering, Friends of Convocations Endowment.

Initiated in 1902, Purdue Convocations was one of the first professional performing arts presenters in the United States. Each year, Convocations offers the region 30-40 performances of widely varying genres: Broadway-style shows, theater, dance, children's theater, world music, jazz, and chamber music, along with rock, pop, country and comedy attractions. With a vision for connecting artists and audiences in artistic dialogue and for drawing in academic discourse, Purdue Convocations aims to promote frequent exposure to and familiarity with human cultural expression in a multitude of forms and media.

Source: James Britton, Purdue Convocations director of marketing, (765) 494-5045, jamesbritton@purdue.edu.
Revelations from a new book, Peril, by Bob Woodward and Rob Costa, reveal just how deep the spiritual rot in the military goes. In the days after the January 6 protest, General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, promised, in the event of a war, to give aid and comfort to China. According to the Washington Post, after the Capitol protest, Milley sent secret communiques to the head of the Peoples Liberation Army, promising that If were going to attack, Im going to call you ahead of time. Its not going to be a surprise.
This week 20 years ago, America was paralyzed by fear and grief. Every day felt like Sept. 12, because we woke each morning awaiting another attack. And every day we comforted each other. All of us, even those who didnt lose a loved one or live anywhere near New York or Washington, felt dread and panic and aching sorrow  together.

As our nation commemorated the 20th anniversary of the worst modern-day tragedy the United States has ever suffered, our trauma had notably grown a new layer. You could see it in the eyes, and hear it in the words, of those who described the despair and shock and pride and rage and selflessness of two decades ago, as if it were last night. They were grappling with the pain of what we are now.

Gordon Felt (pictured), who lost his brother Edward Felt on Flight 93, asked at the Shanksville, Pa., ceremony Saturday, The question to be considered is: Are we worthy of their sacrifice? Are we worthy? Do we as individuals, communities and as a country conduct ourselves in a manner that would make those that sacrificed so much and fought so hard on September 11 proud of who we've become?"

At the same commemoration, President George W. Bush recalled the solidarity, grace and unity we all witnessed in the terrifying hours, days, weeks and months after the attacks. He said that today, a malign force seems at work in our common life that turns every disagreement into an argument and every argument into a clash of cultures. But he reminded us that Americans in 2001 rejected prejudice and religious bigotry and nativism and that young people embraced an ethic of service and rose to selfless action. This, Bush said, is the truest version of ourselves. It is what we have been, and what we can be again.

The unspeakable horror that burst through the clearest, brightest morning to forever change our country and our lives, arrived three weeks before I became a mother. When I delivered our twins in early October, I could not have imagined that we could have made it 20 weeks, let alone 20 years, without another attack on our homeland of the scale and skill that al-Qaeda succeeded in executing in 2001. I also could not have imagined that our three children, on this anniversary, would not know the reality of that threat but would instead know our fellow Americans  violent white supremacists  pose the worst terrorist threat to us. Most unfathomable would surely be that this 20th year would begin with a violent insurrection at our nation's capitol, which was spared attack on Sept. 11, 2001 because of the heroism of Americans who joined together to overcome their terrorist hijackers, leading to the crash of their plane in Shanksville so it could not attack the cradle of American democracy.

As we came together in our mutual anguish and fear and pride at this time in 2001, a global pandemic would  of course  have been unthinkable, but so would mobs of our fellow Americans attacking, and threatening the lives of, school board members, school nurses, election officials and public health officials.

After a year and a half, there is no end in sight to the pandemic. This year alone we have seen flooding rain do things our imagination could never before conjure as one in three Americans suffered through a weather disaster and its aftermath just this summer. Americans are deeply worried, no longer about the terror threat we expected in 2001 to forever consume us, but about how we will adapt to unending cycles of dangerous and costly viruses and natural disasters.

And in that collective anxiety, our divisions have deepened further.

Radical culture warriors in both parties work to tear at our shared values and common purpose. We have a thriving white supremacist movement on the right and, on the left, a speech and thought police that wants to defund the actual police. All of these people, opposing each other, are intolerant and do not represent the majority of us.

If there is any hope for the truest version of ourselves that Bush described, we must reignite a civic spirit and recommit to a common good that has no political party. That begins with us, with good works to love thy neighbor, through all the coming storms.

We can be uplifted and inspired by good news of consequence arising from our overlapping crises. As of this month, 75% of Americans have taken at least one shot of the COVID vaccine. That is not only significant in reducing infection, sickness and death, but it means that  wait for it  people are changing their minds. Yes, in 2021, some of us can still be persuaded, and to solve any of our problems we must regain the ability to persuade one another. In addition, after the debacle of our withdrawal from Afghanistan, Americans from all regions, and all political perspectives, are eager to welcome and support Afghan refugees. This embrace was described by the New York Times as one of the largest mass mobilizations of volunteers since the end of the Vietnam War, in an account that stated, There has been so much goodwill that some groups are struggling to handle it.

In 2021, a patriot is not a partisan but an American who will appreciate our common bonds, and give what they can to alleviate the suffering around us. There are people hurting near you; get off Facebook and donate some food, clothes, money or time to veterans, or refugees or those displaced by natural disaster. Deliver pizzas to a hospital with overrun intensive care units. Sign up to help at a vaccine site, or convince someone hesitating to get a shot. Pause, at regular intervals, to reflect on the millions of Americans who are grieving the loss of 650,000 loved ones to COVID-19, and that many who arent grieving are, after 18 months of the pandemic, facing financial, mental and emotional struggles.

Just because its unlikely the American people could unite again after a tragedy like 9/11 doesnt mean we should give up on our country. All of us can work to be better citizens of America. She is still a miracle, and she is worthy of our help.
Six years ago today, a large field of Republican presidential contenders met in Southern California for a debate. It was really broken into two debates, owing to the plethora of candidates. The undercard, dubbed the Happy Hour debate, featured four men with strong political credentials: Rick Santorum, Bobby Jindal, George Pataki and Lindsey Graham. The main event had some experienced heavyweights, too, as well as some political novices whod achieved fame in other professions.

In addition to California business executive Carly Fiorina, who matriculated to the top tier since the first debate in Cleveland a month earlier, the aspirants were Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, John Kasich, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and Scott Walker. They were joined on stage by famous brain surgeon Ben Carson and New York real estate tycoon Donald Trump. The debate moderators were Jake Tapper and Dana Bash of CNN, the network sponsoring the debate, and conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt.

Ronald Reagan was there, too, at least in spirit. Not only did the Gipper still cast a large shadow over the Republican Party in 2015, but the event was held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif.

That was fitting. On this date in history, the Mayflower set sail from Plymouth, England. The ship and its 102 passengers were pointed toward Virginia, where they'd been authorized by the crown to start a colony. Fate had other ideas. Beset by rough seas and hindered by dubious navigational decisions, the Mayflower landed on Nov. 21, 1620 -- in Massachusetts. Ten years later, another band of migrants sailed across the Atlantic for New England. Aboard the Arabella, one of the ships in the small fleet, was Puritan lawyer and religious lay leader John Winthrop. During the passage, he penned a sermon for his flock. Its words and imagery would be cited for more than three and a half centuries. They are quoted still. We must consider that we shall be a city set on a hill, Winthrop proclaimed. The eyes of all people are upon us.

Hardly anyone knew it in 2015, but six years ago, a new ethos was taking hold in the Party of Reagan.

* * *

Ive written often about John Winthrops city set on a hill, a sermon that borrowed imagery from the New Testament and has broad ecumenical appeal -- Roman Catholic politicians use it as often as Protestants -- as well as secular meaning.

John F. Kennedy liked to quote Winthrop. Reagan did it so often (with occasional embellishment) that many Americans think the words were his. One elaboration was adding the word shining to the depiction. I think Winthrop would have approved. He was describing an America he hadnt yet laid eyes on, which underscores the point that America is an idea as much a place. In his farewell address as president, Ronald Wilson Reagan expounded on this idea.

The past few days when Ive been at that window upstairs, Ive thought a bit of the shining city upon a hill. The phrase comes from John Winthrop, Reagan said, who journeyed here on what today we'd call a little wooden boat  looking for a home that would be free.

Ive spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it, Reagan continued. But in my mind, it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. Thats how I saw it, and see it still.

That was in January 1989. Twenty-six years later, it would turn out that the Republican base was in a different place. Donald Trump perceived as much, and capitalized on it. The day before the Sept. 16, 2015, GOP debate, Trump whipped up the crowd aboard a retired battleship that would have blown John Winthrops mind -- the 45,000-ton USS Iowa.

In his 15-minute speech, Trump said that America now treats illegal immigrants far better than military veterans. In his telling, immigrants werent freedom lovers with the will and the heart to get here. They were criminals and grifters.

The silent majority, believe me, is back, Trump said. Theyre disgusted with our incompetent politicians. Theyre disgusted with the people who are giving our country away. Theyre disgusted when a woman, who is nine months pregnant, walks across the border, has a baby. And you have to take care of that baby for the next 85 years.

Trumps solution was to build a barrier along the southern U.S. border with Mexico. He didnt mention any doors. Theres tremendous crime, theres tremendous drugs pouring across the border, Trump said. Were going to build a wall.
KELLY O'DONNELL: We've seen [Biden] on many occasions where he has a repeated cough? What is the situation with that cough and is that a concern?...Is there an explanation for why he coughs so frequently in situations like that? I'm sure you saw it.

NBC White House correspondent Kelly O'Donnell asked about President Biden appearing to have a mild cough or cold during his Thursday speech on his tax plan ""I don't think it's an issue of concern," White House press secretary Jen Psaki said.
PUSD ranked in top 20 percent in state in survey on teaching of reading skills
For the next 30 days, the Athens-Clarke County Police Department will issue warnings to those who are caught speeding in school zones by the countys school zone speed safety cameras, according to a press release.
Olivia is a junior journalism major at the University of Georgia. Her love for writing and sharing stories from the community led her to The Red & Black. She loves being able to highlight the people who make up the Athens community.

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With COVID-19 cases still high across the state and county, staff and faculty at the University of Georgia are frustrated with what they feel is a lack of leadership.
Simran Kaur Malhotra is the current health editor and a member of the D&I committee. As a pre-med student, she is majoring in anthropology & minoring in global health. Simran is the founder and CEO of UGA Doctors Without Borders. Associated: AHCJ; AAJA

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Members of the University of Georgias administration Wednesday heard proposals from faculty committees about implementing mask and COVID-19 vaccine mandates. The University Council executive committee members noted they cant change the state university system leaderships stance on pandemic policies.

Because UGA is a part of the University System of Georgia, the state Board of Regents ultimately controls the limits of the universitys COVID-19 policies.

You can have one resolution, you can have many different resolutions. I dont know if we have a way to get the board to change its position, Provost S. Jack Hu said. If [UGA President Jere Morehead] goes openly against the board, then he will be in trouble.

Some UGA professors have been vocal about their displeasure with USG and UGA COVID-19 policies. The United Campus Workers of Georgia and the American Association of University Professors co-hosted protests at UGA throughout the week of Sept. 13.

The executive committee on Wednesday discussed whether resolutions supporting university-wide mask and vaccine mandates should be discussed during a later meeting with the full University Council on Sept. 29.

History professor Scott Nelson presented a proposal that urged Morehead to support vaccination and indoor maks mandates, which passed the executive committee and will be presented to the full council.

One of the heavily-discussed COVID-19 resolutions was presented by Cindy Hahamovitch, a professor in the history department.

The members of the UGA University Council call on President Morehead to protect UGA students, faculty, and staff by immediately mandating COVID-19 vaccinations  as well as masking all public spaces and campus buildings, the proposal read.

While campus-wide mask and vaccine mandates have been proposed several times, Barbara Biesecker, a professor in the communication studies department, said Morehead would not actually be able to implement them.

By the governors orders, he cannot mandate vaccines, and so youre forcing the president to veto the whole thing, because he has no other option, Biesecker said. Im just wondering if youre sure you want to force him into that corner.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has said on numerous occasions that he is strongly against mandated COVID-19 vaccines. He has also said public agencies cant require vaccination proof.

Joseph Fu, a professor in the department of mathematics, attended the Franklin College faculty Senate meeting on Aug. 25 and wanted a mask mandate in his class. Fu has spoken out about wanting the freedom to determine whether to switch his course from face-to-face to online instruction.

Despite appearing before the Senate to voice support for mask and vaccine mandates, Alan Dorsey, the dean of Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, said Fu is prohibited from enforcing a mask mandate or converting to online instruction.

Hahamovitchs proposal stated that if masks and vaccinations are not immediately mandated at UGA, faculty who switch to online instruction would be acting ethically in compliance with Centers for Disease Control guidelines.

Clarification: This article has been updated to reflect the language of Cindy Hahamovitchs proposal more clearly.
Brattleboro, VT (05301)

Today

Partly cloudy skies this evening will give way to occasional showers overnight. Low 58F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 50%..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies this evening will give way to occasional showers overnight. Low 58F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 50%.
Brattleboro, VT (05301)

Today

Mostly cloudy this evening with showers developing after midnight. Low 58F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 50%..

Tonight

Mostly cloudy this evening with showers developing after midnight. Low 58F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 50%.
Brattleboro, VT (05301)

Today

Partly cloudy this evening followed by increasing clouds with showers developing after midnight. Low 57F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 50%..

Tonight

Partly cloudy this evening followed by increasing clouds with showers developing after midnight. Low 57F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 50%.
ROCKLAND, Maine (AP)  When Virginia Oliver started trapping lobster off Maines rocky coast, World War II was more than a decade in the future, the electronic traffic signal was a recent invention and few women were harvesting lobsters.

Nearly a century later, at age 101, she's still doing it. The oldest lobster fisher in the state and possibly the oldest one in the world, Oliver still faithfully tends to her traps off Rockland, Maine, with her 78-year-old son Max.

Oliver started trapping lobsters at age 8, and these days she catches them using a boat that once belonged to her late husband and bears her own name, the Virginia. She said she has no intention to stop, but she is concerned about the health of Maine's lobster population, which she said is subject to heavy fishing pressure these days.

I've done it all my life, so I might as well keep doing it," Oliver said.

The lobster industry has changed over the course of Oliver's many decades on the water, and lobsters have grown from a working class food to a delicacy. The lobsters fetched 28 cents a pound on the docks when she first starting trapping them; now, it's 15 times that. Wire traps have replaced her beloved old wooden ones, which these days are used as kitsch in seafood restaurants.

Other aspects, though, are remarkably similar. She's still loading pogeys  lobster-speak for menhaden, a small fish  into traps to lure the crustaceans in. And she's still getting up long before dawn to get on the boat and do it.

She was destined for this life, in some ways. Her father was a lobster dealer, starting around the turn of the century, and instilled a love of the business in Oliver, who would join him on trips.

Wayne Gray, a family friend who lives nearby, said Oliver had a brief scare a couple of years ago when a crab snipped her finger and she had to get seven stitches. She never even considered hanging up her lobster traps, though.

The doctor admonished her, said Why are you out there lobstering? Gray said. She said, Because I want to.

After all these years, Oliver still gets excited about a lobster dinner of her own and typically fixes one for herself about once a week. And she has no plans to quit lobstering any time soon.

I like doing it, I like being along the water, she said. And so Im going to keep on doing it just as long as I can. 
As Afghan refugees travel to find peace and stability, Connecticut is welcoming them with open arms, Gov. Ned Lamont said Wednesday evening.

The White House informed the governor Wednesday afternoon that the state soon will be asked to accept as many as 310 Afghan refugees for resettlement.

Lamont said the Connecticut Department of Social Services will work with partners across state, federal and local governments to make necessary resources available and provide support to the men, women and children coming from Afghanistan.

I welcome these individuals with open arms into our wonderful state, Lamont said. It is our obligation and our duty to ensure these Afghan refugees feel welcome in our state, and we will work to ensure they have everything they need from food and shelter to education and job training.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security told Lamonts office that these refugees will have been vetted and have all necessary vaccinations, including for COVID-19.

These evacuees are our allies and have supported our country for years, and it is our turn to return the favor, Lamont said. Connecticut has a legacy of being there for those in need, and we are proud to answer the call.

Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services, a nonprofit resettlement agency based in New Haven, will receive at least 200 refugees and possibly another 100 later on, according to Ann OBrien, the director of community engagement at IRIS.

The Connecticut Institute for Refugees and Immigrants, a Bridgeport-based resettlement agency, is also taking in 100 refugees, according to Ashley Gaudiano, CIRIs director of external affairs.

CIRI has its first Afghan family arriving next week, while IRIS anticipates refugees coming in after the next three weeks. These families will be resettled all throughout Connecticut.

These are the people that want all the same things in terms of a quiet life, the ability to work in peace and send their kids to school, OBrien said. These are families just like all of us and they have been uprooted in the middle of a conflict zone and deposited on a military base. And they need to feel welcomed and loved.

IRIS typically receives a couple of families a week, so this is a much higher volume than the agency is used to.

Both agencies usually try to get permanent housing ready before a familys arrival, but some families might at first need to stay in temporary housing, such as hotels, Airbnbs or churches, depending on how much notice the agencies are given.

IRIS will then move families into affordable apartments furnished with donated goods and, through hundreds of volunteers, help the refugees find jobs, get kids enrolled in school, learn English, navigate the bus system and anything else they need to acclimate into the community.

CIRIs resettlement team also provides an array of services, such as school enrollment, employment and workforce development, trauma informed case management and legal services.

Both IRIS and CIRI are asking for donations to help accommodate the incoming families, as well as volunteer opportunities.

Gaudiano said its vital that Connecticut residents open their arms, hearts and minds to refugees to make sure they feel welcome and know they are part of a supportive community.

The state has also joined Welcome.US, a national effort committed to helping Afghan refugees resettle in the United States, according to Lamonts office.

liz.hardaway@hearst.com
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP)  Alaska on Wednesday reported its highest number of new COVID-19 cases, a day after the states largest hospital announced it had entered crisis protocol and started rationing care.

There were 1,068 new cases of COVID-19, with case counts 13% higher than last week. State officials said 201 Alaskans required hospitalization for COVID-19, and 34 of them were on ventilators in a state with limited health care capacity.

Our hospitals have been and continue to be incredibly stressed, Dr. Anne Zink, the states chief medical officer, said on a conference call. There is not capacity in the hospitals to care for both COVID and non-COVID patients on a regular basis.

Statewide, there are about 1,100 non-intensive care unit hospital beds, with only 302 available Wednesday. The state has only 21 of its 125 ICU beds open.

When many people become ill at the same time, it overwhelms the states health care system.

And then we start to see excess mortality where more people dying from other things such as heart attacks and strokes and car accidents and bear maulings or whatever else happens, Zink said.

When announcing its crisis care protocol on Tuesday, Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage said it would prioritize care to those who have the best potential to benefit most.

Staff at the hospital, one of three in the states largest city, are stretched thin, leaving people to wait for hours in their cars to see a doctor in case of an emergency.

Jared Kosin, president and CEO of the Alaska State Hospital and Nursing Home Association, said the Providence announcement conveys how bad the situation is.

We certainly from the hospital world have been talking about this and the grave circumstances and direction were headed. To now be here is really hard to make sense of when it is all preventable, he said. All it takes is a vaccine.

Its also troublesome that rationing of care is happening now. Providence officials in their announcement said they expected COVID-19 hospitalizations to escalate over the next two to four weeks.

If this doesnt put everyone on high alert, I dont know what else its going to take, Kosin said.

The ramifications are statewide; rural hospitals usually send their most critical patients to Anchorage for care. But with the system strained, they have to look elsewhere.

Zink said in one case, it took hospital staff about nine hours to find another facility that would take their patient.

It took about 10 hours for another hospital to call facilities up and down the West Coast to finally find a hospital in Oregon that would accept their patient, Kosin said.

When a patient at Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corp. in Bethel needs transfer, they are usually sent to Fairbanks or 400 miles (643.74 kilometers) east, to the Anchorage area.

Worst-case scenario we look out-of-state, sort of a very last-ditch effort said Dr. Ellen Hodges, the health corporations chief of staff. But these hospitals in Washington, which is our go-to in Seattle, have not had space. Theyre experiencing their own increase in patients.

Hodges said she never would have thought that this would be the scenario at this point of the pandemic.

I dont think theres any words really to talk about how stressful and helpless you feel when theres not enough care in for the patients that we need to get care to, she said.

Officials urge people to get vaccinated and to wear masks, but only a few places in the state have mask mandates. Anchorage had such a mandate earlier in the pandemic, but a new mayor who was critical of such measures was elected. The Anchorage Assembly on Tuesday evening asked Mayor Dave Bronson to institute a mask mandate, and he declined.

If someone wants to wear a mask or get a vaccination thats their personal choice, Bronson said in a statement issued after the Assembly meeting. But we will not violate the privacy and independent healthcare decisions of our citizens in the process.

Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy, a first-term Republican facing re-election next year, has both recovered from COVID-19 and been vaccinated.

I urge, and I hope you guys print this, I strongly urge folks to get a vaccine, strongly urge them to do that, he told reporters Tuesday.

He followed that with this tweet Wednesday: Alaska will continue to vigorously fight the COVID-19 virus on many fronts. However, my Administration will likewise ferociously defend the fundamental rights of every Alaskan.

His spokesperson, Jeff Turner, did not respond when asked to describe what rights the administration was defending.

Dunleavy has never instituted a statewide mask mandate, and he reiterated that stance Wednesday. That remains a decision best left to local governments, Turner said in an email to The Associated Press.

To change the course, Kosin said it goes back to what healthcare professionals have been saying for months.

Getting vaccinated is the No. 1 thing people need to do. The second thing is be smart, wear masks in indoor settings when youre around other folks, trying to limit transmission as much as possible, he said.

That is the only path forward to actually make a difference, Kosin said.
STONINGTON, Conn. (AP)  A Connecticut town's police force is warning residents to stay away from aggressive minks.

In a recorded message sent to residents, Capt. Todd Olson of the Stonington Police Department urged people to stay away from a mink if the see one, The Day of New London reported Thursday.

Olson said that even though they resemble a pet ferret, minks are territorial and are not friendly. One of them chased a person Wednesday, he said.

Olson said the departments animal control officer notified the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection about the minks and the agency is looking into the situation.

A mink farm once operated in the town.
WASHINGTON (AP)  Congressional Democrats are calling top executives at ExxonMobil and other oil giants to testify at a House hearing as lawmakers investigate what they say is a long-running, industry-wide campaign to spread disinformation about the role of fossil fuels in causing global warming.

The House Oversight Committee on Thursday requested that executives at ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron and Shell testify at a hearing next month, along with leaders of the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry's top lobbying group, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

We are deeply concerned that the fossil fuel industry has reaped massive profits for decades while contributing to climate change that is devastating American communities, costing taxpayers billions of dollars and ravaging the natural world, Oversight Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., wrote in a letter to oil executives.

We are also concerned that to protect those profits, the industry has reportedly led a coordinated effort to spread disinformation to mislead the public and prevent crucial action to address climate change, they wrote. Khanna, chairman of Oversight's environment subcommittee, has been pressing the oil industry for months for documents and other information on its role in stopping climate action.

Khanna has been focusing on Exxon after a senior lobbyist for the company was caught in a secret video bragging that Exxon had fought climate science through shadow groups and had targeted influential senators in an effort to weaken President Joe Bidens climate agenda, including a bipartisan infrastructure bill and a massive $3.5 trillion spending bill currently moving through Congress.

Washington-based lobbyist Keith McCoy also dismissed Exxons public expressions of support for a proposed carbon tax on fossil fuel emissions as a talking point.

McCoy's comments were made public in June by the environmental group Greenpeace UK, which secretly recorded McCoy and another lobbyist in Zoom interviews.

Darren Woods, Exxons chairman and chief executive, condemned McCoy's statements and said the company stands by its commitment to work on finding solutions to climate change.

Woods is among the executives the House panel hopes to question at an Oct. 28 hearing, along with BP America CEO David Lawler, Chevron CEO Michael Wirth and Shell president Gretchen Watkins.

The committee also has said it will formally question McCoy about his comments, although timing of that interview has not been set.

Maloney and Khanna said in a statement that ExxonMobil and other oil companies have worked to prevent serious action on global warming by generating doubt about the documented dangers of fossil fuels and misrepresenting the scale of their efforts to develop alternative energy technologies.'' They compared the tactics to those deployed by the tobacco industry to resist regulation "while selling products that kill hundreds of thousands of Americans.''

The oil industry's strategies of obfuscation and distraction span decades and still continue today,'' Khanna and Maloney said. The five largest publicly traded oil and gas companies reportedly spent at least $1 billion from 2015 to 2018 "to promote climate disinformation through branding and lobbying,'  the lawmakers wrote.

The committee gave oil executives until Sept. 23 to respond and said additional steps, including issuing subpoenas, are possible.

A spokesman for Exxon said the company had received the letter and would respond to the committee. He declined further comment.

Bethany Aronhalt, a spokeswoman for API, said the group "welcomes the opportunity to testify again before the House Oversight Committee and advance our priorities of pricing carbon, regulating methane and reliably producing American energy. API President Mike Sommers was among those invited to testify next month.

Exxon and other oil companies frequently boast about efforts they say they are making to produce clean energy in social media posts accompanied by sleek videos or pictures of wind turbines.

We power progress together by providing more and cleaner energy solutions for the world, says Shells Facebook profile, which is followed by more than 9 million people.

___

Associated Press writer Amanda Seitz in Columbus, Ohio contributed to this story.
BRUSSELS (AP)  The European Union said Thursday that it will fund its new health preparedness and rapid response agency to the tune of 30 billion euros ($35 billion) over the next six years, even pushing it higher if individual efforts from the member nations and private sector are taken into account.

Caught off guard by the sudden onset of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, the 27-nation bloc long lagged behind the U.S. and Britain in vaccination rates before regrouping and meeting its goal of having 70% of EU adults vaccinated this summer.

With Thursday's official launch of the Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority, or HERA, it wants to make sure the bloc will be ready when the next crisis strikes.

We need to be better prepared for future health crises. HERA will establish new, adaptable production capacities and secure supply chains to help Europe react fast when needed, EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton said.

HERA will be able to draw from several of the EU's Byzantine budget lines for a total of almost 30 billion euros ($35 billion). This however excludes investments at member nation level and from the private sector.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who first announced plans for such a medical response agency last year, said this week that the overall total until 2027 could reach 50 billion euros ($59 billion) by 2027.

During the crisis, the EU saw the limits of its health outreach because the essence of pandemic policies are still handled at national level. The EU was slow in getting the first shots in the arms of citizens and the public uproar about initial shortages was such that the need for HERA quickly became apparent.

HERA will have the clout and budget to work with industry, medical experts, researchers and our global partners to make sure critical equipment, medicines and vaccines are swiftly available when and as necessary, European Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas.

While some nations like the United States and Britain fully centered on getting their own people vaccinated first, the EU continued to export doses amid the pandemic. Von der Leyen stressed that on top of delivering 700 million vaccine doses to Europeans, the 27-nation bloc had also sent as many shots to 130 nations.

We are the only region in the world to achieve this, she said in her State of the Union address on Wednesday.

HERA should be fully operational as of early next year.

___

Follow APs pandemic coverage at:

https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic

https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine

https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
AUSTIN, Texas (AP)  A federal judge in October will hear the Biden administration's efforts to block Texas' new law banning most abortions, which is already putting a strain on clinics and patients in the two weeks since it took effect.

U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman, an appointee of President Barack Obama, will decide whether to grant a temporary hold that could allow Texas clinics to resume performing abortions on most patients. Currently under the new law, abortions in Texas are now prohibited once medical professionals can detect cardiac activity, usually around six weeks.

Supporters of the law known as Senate Bill 8 are preparing for a ruling that favors the Justice Department's challenge but believe the measure  the strictest abortion law in the nation  will ultimately be upheld.

Here are some questions and answers about what's next and the impact so far:

___

WHAT HAS BEEN THE IMPACT?

Abortion providers say the ramifications have been punishing and exactly what we feared.

More than 100 pages of new court filings this week offered the most comprehensive glimpse at how the near-total ban on abortion in Texas has played out. Physicians and executives at Texas nearly two dozen abortion clinics described turning away hundreds of patients, and some who show up for appointments cannot proceed because cardiac activity has been detected.

One Planned Parenthood location in Houston normally performed about two dozen abortions daily, but in the 10 days after the law took effect, the clinic had done a total of 52. Clinics in nearby states, meanwhile, say they are struggling to meet surging demand and care for their own residents is being delayed to accommodate women making long trips from Texas.

At a Planned Parenthood clinic in Oklahoma City, more than 60% of the 219 appointments over the next two weeks are for women from Texas. Doctors say recent patients from Texas have included rape victims, as SB8 makes no exceptions in cases of rape or incest.

Texas abortion providers say they are complying with SB8, and there are no reports of lawsuits accusing clinics of violations.

____

WHAT WAS THE LANDSCAPE IN TEXAS BEFORE?

More than 55,000 abortions were performed last year in Texas, which already had some of the nation's strictest abortion laws, including a ban after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

____

IF A JUDGE SIDES WITH CLINICS, HOW SOON COULD THEY REOPEN?

If the new Texas law is put on hold by a court, abortion providers say it could be done quickly, but how soon is likely to depend on several factors.

Abortion providers in Texas have experience when it comes to abruptly ramping up operations again. In the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, abortions in Texas were all but banned for weeks under orders by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott that postponed surgeries not immediately medically necessary."

But providers are already reporting staffing issues and worry some clinics will permanently shutter the longer SB8 is in effect. A decade ago, Texas had more than 40 abortion clinics, but more than half of them closed for good during a protracted legal battle over a 2013 law that was ultimately overturned by the Supreme Court.

I believe that, without court-ordered relief in the next couple of weeks, SB8 will shutter most if not all of the remaining abortion clinics in Texas, Amy Hagstrom Miller, president of the abortion provider Whole Woman's Health, told the court this week.

Seth Chandler, a professor of law at the University of Houston, said he believes the judge will act within two weeks. But he said even if Pitman temporarily stops the law from being enforced, abortion clinics may still be reticent to quickly resume normal operations over concerns of a swift appeal.

If I were an abortion clinic, I would still be concerned," Chandler said.

____

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

The Biden administration filed its lawsuit a week ago and this week asked for a temporary restraining order that would put SB8 on hold while the lawsuit proceeds.

Texas Right to Life, the state's largest anti-abortion group and a driver of the new law, has cheered the fact that it has stopped abortions everyday that it has been in effect.

A ruling to grant a temporary hold wouldn't decide the constitutionality of the law, though whether the administration's lawsuit  which calls it "clearly unconstitutional"  is likely to succeed is a factor in putting the law on hold. At the hearing, Pitman will hear from both sides, and a written ruling would likely follow.

In the short term, that means SB8 is in effect unless and until Pitman says differently. Supporters of the law are already anticipating Pitman will rule against the law and are preparing their next move. If they're right and Pitman puts the law's enforcement on hold, abortion providers could theoretically resume their previous practices. But Texas could also quickly ask a federal appeals court to reinstate the law, and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that oversees Texas is a conservative-leaning panel with a track record of staying lower-court rulings from Austin.

The law has already made one trip to the Supreme Court. The justices voted 5-4 not to intervene to prevent it from taking effect, but they said further challenges were possible. With the Biden administrations challenge underway, the law could return to the justices quickly.

__

HOW ARE OTHER STATES RESPONDING?

After Texas' law went into effect Republican lawmakers in at least half a dozen states said they would consider introducing bills using the Texas law as a model, hoping it provides a pathway to enacting the kind of abortion crackdown they have sought for years. Those states include Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Mississippi, North Dakota and South Dakota.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, two dozen state attorneys general, all Democrats, submitted a brief in the Biden administrations lawsuit saying a substantial reduction of abortion access in one state would result in health care systems being burdened elsewhere. They asked Pitman to block enforcement of the law.

The City Council in Portland, Oregon, briefly considered a boycott of Texas businesses because of the new law but instead decided to set aside $200,000 to fund reproductive care.

__

Gresko reported from Washington.
HARTFORD  A jury found a Texas man guilty Wednesday after organizing to buy and sell 25 kilograms of cocaine throughout Hartford, according to federal prosecutors.

Raul Chavez, 62, of El Paso, Texas, ran a cocaine trafficking operation that smuggled the drug from Mexico into El Paso and then to Connecticut and other states, according to the U.S. Attorneys office.

Authorities said upwards of 40 kilograms of cocaine were transported multiple times a year, supplying Hartford-area dealers for about 10 years.

In 2014, Chavezs organization was trying to find an additional supplier for its Hartford customers, according to authorities.

In July 2014, a confidential source for the Drug Enforcement Administration met with Andrew Duron, also known as Chavo, in North Carolina. Duron told the source that he wanted to purchase up to 50 kilograms of cocaine for $28,000 per kilogram, the U.S. Attorneys office said.

That August, Duron, the confidential source and an undercover DEA agent met in New Jersey where Duron agreed to buy 25 kilograms of cocaine for $700,000, according to the U.S. Attorneys office.

The 25 kilograms of cocaine were going to Bloomfield resident Tyshawn Welborn, also known as Black, and Hartford resident Todd Vernon. Vernon had prepaid for about 13 kilograms of cocaine, the U.S. Attorneys office said.

On Aug. 22, 2014, Chavez and others met with Welborn at a restaurant in East Windsor to discuss their plan for the pick-up and delivery of the money, the U.S. Attorneys office said.

The next day, Aug. 23, 2014, Duron met with the undercover DEA agent in Wethersfield. The two then drove in separate cars to a store on Kennedy Road in Windsor. While Duron met with Chavez and another associate in the store, another person arrived and showed the undercover agent a duffel bag containing about $284,000 in cash, as well as a loaded .38 caliber revolver, according to the U.S. Attorneys office.

Shortly after, investigators arrived and arrested Duron, Chavez and his associates, the U.S. Attorneys office said.

Word then traveled that Chavez had been arrested. His son, Christopher Chavez, then diverted a shipment of 34 kilograms of cocaine, which was en route to Connecticut, to a high-level drug distributor in Cleveland, Ohio, according to the U.S. Attorneys office.

Raul Chavez has been detained since he was arrested in August 2014 and was charged with conspiracy to distribute five or more kilograms of cocaine. Duron, Welborn, Vernon and Christopher Chavez were also convicted of related charges, according to the U.S. Attorneys office.

Raul Chavez initially pleaded guilty to the charge in March 2016, but later withdrew his guilty plea in January 2017 before he was scheduled to be sentenced. Though the judge denied the motion and sentenced Chavez anyways, Chavez appealed the decision, causing the case to go to trial, the U.S. Attorneys office said.

His trial began on Sept. 7, 2021, and the jury returned the verdict Wednesday morning. Raul Chavezs sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 8. He faces a mandatory minimum prison term of 10 years, and a maximum term of life in prison, the U.S. Attorneys Office said.

In 2020, there were 457 overdose deaths involving cocaine statewide, according to data from the state Department of Public Health.

Those struggling with substance abuse issues can call the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration national hotline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357) for a free and confidential treatment referral or information.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP)  Police have made an arrest in connection with a fatal shooting outside a Providence nightclub last month.

Ahmad Crowell, 31, of Warwick was held without bail at his arraignment Wednesday on first-degree murder and firearms charges. He did not enter a plea and was referred to the public defender's office.
SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK, Calif. (AP)  Fire crews moved to ramp up the battle Wednesday against two expanding forest fires threatening Sequoia National Parks giant sequoia trees and infrastructure.

The Colony and Paradise fires, ignited by lightning strikes last week, covered about 14 square miles (36 square kilometers) in Californias steep Sierra Nevada.

The Colony Fire was a threat to Giant Forest, home to more than 2,000 sequoias, but not imminently, said Mark Ruggiero, fire information officer for Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks.

The fires are among the latest in a long summer of blazes that have scorched more than 3,500 square miles (9,065 square kilometers) in California, destroying hundreds of homes.

Sequoia National Park has been closed and its headquarters and resident employees have been evacuated, along with a portion of the community of Three Rivers outside the entrance.

The parks historic wooden entrance sign dating to 1935 was covered in fire-resistant wrapping, and hoses were in place at the headquarters area for structure protection.

More than 300 firefighters were on the lines, aided by helicopters and air tankers when smoke conditions allowed. On Thursday, a national interagency management team will take over the fires, being managed collectively as the KNP complex, and even more resources are expected, Ruggiero said.

A 50-year history of using prescribed burns to remove other types of trees and vegetation in the parks sequoia groves was expected to help the giants survive by lessening the impact if flames reach them, Ruggiero said.

Giant sequoias, some thousands of years old, live on the western flank of the Sierra. They are adapted to fire, which can help them to thrive by releasing seeds from their cones and creating clearings that allow young sequoias to grow.

But Ruggiero noted that the extraordinary intensity of fires in current climate conditions can overwhelm sequoias, a scenario that played out when the 2020 Castle Fire killed many trees in the region.

Studies estimate that 7,500 to 10,600 large sequoias were killed by that fire, along with many of other sizes, according to the National Park Service.

The Colony Fire also poses a broader danger because it is burning at an elevation of the central Sierra where there are 280 million pines and other types of trees that have been killed by drought and bark beetles, Ruggiero said.

The Colony Fire specifically is burning in a really bad spot ... where these trees are like jackstraws and its difficult to put fire personnel into some of these areas because of that, he said.

Elsewhere, two California fires that have caused extensive destruction in the northern Sierra and southern Cascades were not growing.

The state's second-largest fire on record, the Dixie Fire, was 86% contained after burning 1,500 square miles in the northern Sierra and southern Cascades region. Near Lake Tahoe, containment of the 342-square-mile (885-square-kilometer) Caldor Fire increased to 71%.

North of San Francisco, a 20-year-old Ukiah man was arrested Tuesday and jailed on suspicion of starting the Hopkins Fire in Mendocino County, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said in a statement. The fire that sparked Sunday north of Ukiah charred 257 acres (104 hectares), destroyed homes and forced evacuations.

-

Antczak reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press reporter Janie Har in San Francisco contributed to this report.
Mark Lennihan/AP

NEW YORK (AP)  TV actor Allison Mack, who played a key role in the cultlike group NXIVM, has surrendered to a California prison to serve her sentence in a New York case against the groups spiritual leader.

Mack, best known for her role as a young Supermans close friend on Smallville," was sentenced to three years behind bars in June. She had previously pleaded guilty to the charges she manipulated women into becoming sex slaves for NXIVM leader Keith Raniere.
McAdoo council appointed a temporary police officer in charge.

Longtime officer Tony DiVirgilio will fill the post while Chief of Police Jeff Wainwright is out on leave. Mayor Dane Watro said that while the reason for the leave couldnt be divulged, it isnt a permanent leave and Wainwright isnt being disciplined.

The change is effective immediately and was approved by the council at its Tuesday meeting without opposition. Watro said DiVirgilio will receive no additional pay for holding the post.

DiVirgilio has served as a borough officer since his May 2009 swearing in. He was promoted to full time in 2012. McAdoo has one other full-time officer, aside from him and the chief, and has one part-time officer.

In his new role, DiVirgilio is expected to work on complaints the borough fielded at its council meeting. One person complained of motorists not being cited for parking at expired meters.

Several residents complained of a neighbor making noise on Cleveland Street near Blaine Street for months. They reported that she plays Christmas music and Patsy Cline constantly from a speaker in her lawn, facing other properties. The music continues into the evening as children are trying to sleep before school. One man brought his young daughter to the meeting, explaining that he has to put the air conditioner on at night so she can sleep before waking up for school.

Music is also played during daytime while residents are trying to work from home, posing a distraction. The residents said they called the police station and state police at Frackville about the issue, but it persists. Watro explained that he, too, attempted to resolve the issue by speaking to the woman but that was also ineffective.

One woman asked if the police could cite her based on the neighbors accounts, one of which has video of the music being heard at his home four buildings away. Watro said the police need to be present to hear the music to cite them. He said DiVirgilio will be contacting the neighbors and will seek a peaceful resolution.

Watro said there was also a complaint Monday from bus drivers concerning drivers not stopping for the extended arm or stop sign as buses pick up and drop off students. DiVirgilio was made aware of the situation and is monitoring those areas.

When people are caught breaking the law, Watro said, they will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

We dont need children getting hurt, Watro said.

In other news:

 The borough will seek no more than a $100,000 grant to convert the former Holy Trinity Orthodox Church, 223 S. Kennedy Drive, into a community center. The building is owned by van Hoekelen Greenhouses Inc., which will enter into a lease agreement with the borough. The community center will be used by area adults, children and nonprofit groups such as McAdoo Area Food Pantry. The borough by resolution offered its support of the center and for applying for a Keystone Communities Program grant.

 Kayla Gartner sought approval from the council for hosting a Trunk or Treat event at Veterans Memorial Park on Oct. 23 with a rain date of Oct. 30.

 The McAdoo Community Civic Association will also host its annual Halloween event Oct. 24. The events details will be announced later.
The Union Cabinet, chaired by PM Modi, on September 15, approved a list of structural and process trajectory reforms in multiple industries, particularly in telecom and the automotive industry. With an objective to generate employment, promote competitive markets, and safeguard the interest of consumers, Union Minister of Railways, Communications and Electronics & Information Technology of India Ashwini Vaishnaw and Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting of India Anurag Thakur announced the latest amendments in the telecom, auto and drone industries respectively, during a joint press conference.

Here's all you need to know about the mega reforms:

The Centre stated that the outstanding performance of the telecom sector in combatting the COVID-19 crisis resulted in a massive surge in Internet data consumption. According to the government, the reform measures in the said sector will further boost connectivity.

'Robust Telecom Sector'

Briefing the media after the Union Cabinet meeting, Telecom minister Ashwani Vaishnaw asserted that reforms would revamp the framework of the telecom sector exhaustively.

Approved four-year moratorium period on dues and rationalised the definition of adjusted gross revenue (AGR) i.e. the usage and licensing fee that telecom operators are charged by the Department of Telecommunications.

With competition and customer choice, the reform is seen to boost 4G proliferation, infuse liquidity and lure investment in 5G networks.

100% FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) in telecom via the automatic route has been approved to boost investments.

Bank Guarantees (BGs) rationalized: Huge reduction in BG requirements (80%) against License Fee (LF) and other similar levies.

One BG is enough: No requirements for multiple BGs in different Licenced Service Areas (LSAs) regions nationwide.

The Centre is set to perform annual compounding of interest instead of monthly compounding.

Shifting from Prepaid to Post-paid and vice-versa will not require fresh Know Your Customers (KYC).

KYC reforms: Self-KYC (App based) permitted. E-KYC rate revised to only One Rupee.

No Spectrum Usage Charge (SUC) for spectrum acquired in future spectrum auctions.

In Auto Industry & Drones, to boost manufacturing capabilities

With a budgetary outlay of Rs 26,058 crore in the Automobile and Drone industry, the Cabinet meeting chaired by PM Modi, expected to climb investments close to Rs 4,75,000 crore in the upcoming five years. Notably, the Central government has approved a Production-linked incentive (PIL) scheme for the Automobile Industry and Drone Industry to enhance the country's manufacturing capabilities, said Anurag Thakur during the joint press conference.

"PLI scheme will encourage industry to make fresh investments for an indigenous global supply chain of Advanced Automotive Technology products. It is estimated that over a period of five years, the PLI Scheme for Automobile and Auto Components Industry will lead to a fresh investment of over 42,500 crores, incremental production of over 2.3 lakh crore and will create additional employment opportunities of over 7.5 lakh jobs. Further, this will increase Indias share in global automotive trade," the Centre stated.

"PLI scheme for the auto sector will incentivise high-value Advanced Automotive Technology vehicles and products. It will herald a new age in higher technology, more efficient and green automotive manufacturing," the Cabinet further informed.

PLI Scheme for Drones

The PLI Scheme for the drones and drone components industry will aid in boosting the revolutionary technology in its strategic, tactical and operational utilities. A product-specific PLI scheme for drones with clear revenue targets and a focus on domestic value addition is a key strategy to building capacity, the Centre stated.

"The PLI for the Drones and Drone components industry, will over a period of three years, lead to investments worth  5,000 crores, an increase in eligible sales of Rs 1,500 crore and create additional employment of about 10,000 jobs," the Centre added.

Fellow ministers' reactions on reforms in Telecom, Automobile & Drone industries

Taking to Twitter, PM Modi said, "Continuing the reform trajectory, the Cabinet has approved a PLI Scheme for the Auto Industry and Drone Industry. This will give an impetus to manufacturing and bring the sector at par with global trends as well as best practices."

Continuing the reform trajectory, the Cabinet has approved a PLI Scheme for the Auto Industry and Drone Industry. This will give an impetus to manufacturing and bring the sector at par with global trends as well as best practices. https://t.co/mfb7c2T1a1  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 15, 2021

The Union Minister of Textiles of India, Piyush Goyal took to the micro-blogging site, Koo, saying, "Big Bang Reforms!"

Meanwhile, Ravi Shankar Prasad said, "Some key reforms in Telecom sector approved by Union Cabinet today will boost the growth of this sector, bring more investments, create job opportunities and improve ease of doing business."
Kareena Kapoor and her beau, Saif Ali Khan are currently enjoying a tropical family vacation along with their kids. Kareena Kapoor took to Instagram to share a few glimpses from her trip ahead of her birthday. The Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham actor celebrates her birthday on September 21.

Kareena Kapoor shares glimpses of her tropical vacation on Instagram

Kareena Kapoor and Saif Ali Khan were recently snapped at Mumbai Airport. It is after that, that Kapoor took to Instagram to share a few pictures from her family trip with her fans and friends. She posted a picture of herself in a neon top and a straw hat that exuded beachy vibes. In the picture she posted ahead of her birthday, she covered her face with the large hat and wrote, "Who dat".

The actor also posted another story on her Instagram handle from her tropical vacation. She seemed to have clicked the pictured as she was lounging at the beach. The picture features the clear blue sky and the majestic ocean. See the picture here.

This is not the first time the popular Bollywood family has gone on an exotic vacation. Kareena, Saif, Jehangir and Taimur jetted off to the Maldives in honour of Saif Ali Khan's 51st birthday, and Kareena treated her fans to several pictures from the trip. Wishing her husband a happy birthday she posted a family picture on social media and wrote, "Happy Birthday to the love of my life... To eternity and beyond with you is all I want".

On the career front, Kareena Kapoor was recently in the news after she shared a behind the scenes picture from the sets of Laal Singh Chaddha. Helmed by Advait Chandan, the film will also star Aamir Khan alongside Kapoor. The film will also mark Telugu actor Naga Chaitanya's debut in the Bollywood film industry. A major share of the film has been shot in Punjab and Ladakh. Laal Singh Chaddha will be an adaptation of Tom Hanks' 1994 iconic film, Forrest Gump. Kareena Kapoor is also gearing up to don the producer's hat for an untitled project in collaboration with Hansal Mehta. Saif Ali Khan, on the other hand, was last seen in the horror-comedy, Bhoot Police, which also starred Arjun Kapoor, Yami Gautam and Jacqueline Fernandez in lead roles.

Image: Instagram/@kareenakapoorkhan
Bollywood actor Katrina Kaif is currently on a busy schedule in Turkey to shoot for the third instalment of her upcoming third instalment of the Tiger franchise. The actor, who plays the lead role along with Salman Khan in the action series, was seen taking some break from her busy calendar. Kaif took to her Instagram story and shared snips from her trip to Turkey.

Katrina Kaif strolls in Turkey

Katrina Kaif took to her Instagram story and shared a video as she did some grocery shopping at a supermarket in Turkey. Posting the video in her stories on Instagram, she wrote in the text "Anyone else as unusually excited for supermarkets as I am." In the clip, she is walking through the various sections of the store. Katrina also shared a post where she was seen taking a stroll in nature.

Katrina Kaif in Jee Le Zara

Katrina Kaif will soon be seen in the road trip Jee Le Zara alongside Priyanka Chopra and Alia Bhatt. The movie will be directed by Farhan Akhtar and co-written by Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti. The brother-sister duo has worked together for other road-trip movies like Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara and Dil Dhadakne Do. The movie will mark Priyanka Chopra, Katrina Kaif and Alia Bhatt's first onscreen project together. Kaif took to her Instagram and shared a picture with her co-stars and wrote, "This makes my heart smile I just love these girls and being around each other is just too much fun always - combine that with a great script, awesome director, and a road trip and a camera and the skys the limit."

Priyanka Chopra also shared the same photo and wrote, "Lets rewind, to me musing about wanting to do another Hindi movie ASAP, on an unusually rainy night in Mumbai in Nov 2019. But it had to be the right one - different, cool, never been done before I thought. The idea grew into a movie helmed by an all-female cast. There are not enough Hindi movies that are female multi-starrers. This led to an impulsive phone call to my 2 real friends about this idea that involved 3 on-screen girlfriends. A celebration of friendship we called it."

Image: Instagram/@katrinakaif
Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the US next week, India on Thursday expressed concern over the reports of growing anti-India activities by Pakistan-backed Khalistani separatist groups from Americal soil.

External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said that ensuring the security of the Prime Minister and his delegation was an important issue, when asked about the reports that a banned Khalistani separatist is planning to hold protests in Washington and New York during PM Modi's visit to the cities.

Referring to a report by leading American think-tank Hudson Institute about the Khalistani groups, Bagchi said it reflected how Pakistan was continuing efforts to undertake activities against India from the US.

"I do not know about the specific call given by the banned outfit. I am not going to comment on that. But we certainly take a lot of interest in ensuring the security of the Prime Minister and his delegation," Bagchi said at a media briefing. Also, Bagchi clarified that the issue was not about protests, it's about security.

Further, the MEA spokesman said, "We convey and share with the host country, in this case, the US. If the organisation is banned, it shouldn't be undertaking these kinds of activities."

"This issue is about security and these are organisations that have had problems in the past in terms of terrorist activities etc. I would not like to go into details," he added.

Basis the report by the Hudson Institute, MEA spokesperson said it makes it clear how Pakistan has yet again continued its efforts in trying to undertake activities against India including terrorism.

"It was very focused about activities they are taking in American soil. I do hope that authorities in the US will see that and understand the risks that this kind of activities pose for countries that have a shared vision against terrorism and violence," Bagchi said.

The think-tank said Pakistan-backed Khalistani separatist groups, banned by the Indian government, are quietly gaining ground in the US and that Washington has so far remained indifferent to the appeals made by New Delhi to curb their activities.

The US-based Sikhs for Justice (SJF), a pro-Khalistan group, was banned by the GoI in 2019 for its alleged anti-national activities.

PM Modi will travel to the US next week to participate in the first in-person summit of the Quad that is expected to broadly focus on contemporary global challenges including the Afghan crisis, the coronavirus pandemic and ensuring a free and open Indo-Pacific.

He will attend the Quad summit on September 24 in Washington and address the 76th session of the UN General Assembly in New York the next day.

Bagchi said Modi will have a bilateral meeting with US President Joe Biden.

"We are also looking forward to bilateral meetings with other Quad leaders," he said.

The MEA spokesperson said the prime minister is likely to have some other bilateral meetings with other leaders in New York.

It will be the Prime Minister's first visit to the US since President Joe Biden took office.

Previously, PM Modi had visited the US in September 2019 to address the 'Howdy-Modi' event in Houston. Notably, it will be PM first visit to the US since President Joe Biden.

(Image: PTI)
The Indian High Commission in Mauritius on Monday informed the handover of a Dornier aircraft from India to Mauritius. India, as part of Vision SAGAR, has supplied the aircraft on lease. The deal was part of the Indian Navys Security and Growth for All in the Region (SAGAR) programme announced for enhanced maritime security of the Indian Ocean Region (IOR).

India on Monday handed over Dornier aircraft to Mauritius to assist the island nation with its security. "Implementing Vision SAGAR, HC handed over a Dornier aircraft on lease from @indiannavy to Mauritius and exchanged the contract for the purchase of a new Dornier aircraft under Line of Credit (LOC). India-Mauritius for enhanced maritime security of our common IOR," tweeted the Indian High Commission in Mauritius.

#AzadiKaAmritMahotsav

(2/2) Another milestone in 47 years of maritime cooperation between &.



Looking forward to many more years of -cooperation under Vision SAGAR @MEAIndia @JugnauthKumar @HALHQBLR @indiannavy pic.twitter.com/5HdZOi93c3  India in Mauritius (@HCI_PortLouis) September 13, 2021

Further adding to the deal, the High Commission also informed that the deal marked 47 years of maritime cooperation between India and Mauritius. "Another milestone in 47 years of maritime cooperation between India and Mauritius. Looking forward to many more years of India-Mauritius cooperation under Vision SAGAR," the HC added. The spokesperson for Indian Navy shared the series and wrote "bridges of friendship".

India's 'Mission SAGAR'

It is to mention that 'Mission SAGAR' was launched by the Indian government on 10 May, 2020, aiming to deliver COVID-19 related assistance to the countries in the Indian Ocean region. It is also being seen as a major milestone in engagement with the countries in the region to fight the menace of COVID-19. INS Airavat is on a deployment to South East Asia for trans-shipment of relief materials.

According to the continuing programme, the Indian Navy has been carrying out numerous philanthropic missions to help nations in their battle against the lethal pandemic. The Navy's missions span the entire extent of the Indian Ocean, including South East Asia and East Africa. Under the programme, the Navy has carried out multiple missions apart from COVID relief initiatives. With the help of the programme, the Central government is trying to strengthen ties between countries and to improve maritime cooperation and engagement between various countries. Numerous joint missions and training sessions have been done as part of the Naval outreach initiative in the past year.

Image: Twitter/ @HCI_PortLouis
The Indian Army contingent participating in the sixth edition of the Peaceful MIlitary exercise organised by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) was welcomed by Major General Ivan Tereschenko, Chief of Staff, Central Military District, Russian Armed Forces on Thursday, September 16.

The Indian Army had participated in the sixth edition of the 'Peaceful Mission' military exercise on Thursday to foster close relations between SCO member states in Orenburg, Russia.

The sixth edition of SCOs Peaceful Mission exercise

From September 13 to 25, Russia is hosting the 6th iteration of the exercise Peaceful Mission in the Orenburg Region. The exercise's goal is to strengthen links between SCO member states and to improve military chiefs' ability to command multi-national military contingents. The exercise was held to allow the Armed Forces of the SCO members to share best practices.







The exercise also gave the Armed Forces of the SCO Nations a chance to practise counter-terrorism operations in an urban setting in a multinational and combined setting. Professional engagement, mutual knowledge of exercises and procedures, the construction of collaborative command and control structures, and the eradication of terrorist threats are all part of the exercise's scope.

Indian Army also participated in ZAPAD-2021 hosted by Soviet Union & Russian Federation

Prior to this, the Indian Army also participated in the ZAPAD-202 Multilateral 'Joint Strategic Exercise' held by the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation for a week. The seven-day long joint strategic exercise ended on Wednesday. This edition of Zapad saw participation from seven nations. ZAPAD 2021 was held at Mulino in the Novgorod Region of Russia. The Indian military, which was also among the participants in the exercise, carried out intense operations during ZAPAD 2021.

Exercise #ZAPAD2021



Multi Nation Exercise #ZAPAD2021 culminated today at Mulino Training Ground, Russia. #IndianArmy contingent was complimented for stupendous performance in training & simulated combat. (1/2) pic.twitter.com/gFh7Ak13hz  ADG PI - INDIAN ARMY (@adgpi) September 15, 2021





As part of the Exercise, strategic planning, tactical actions and manoeuvres were rehearsed and executed jointly in conventional operational scenarios. The Joint Strategic Exercise included defensive & offensive manoeuvres by the Coalition Forces to restore territorial integrity under simulated combat conditions. New generation weapon systems and equipment were also demonstrated by the Russian Armed Forces during the exercise.

The ZAPAD closing ceremony was chaired by the Deputy Defence Minister of the Russian Federation, Lieutenant-General Yunus-Bek Evkurov. While speaking at the ceremony LG Yunus-Bek Evkurov expressed his gratitude to all the participating contingents and observers. Among the countries participating in this exercise include Mongolia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Serbia, Russia, India and Belarus.

With inputs from ANI

Image: Twitter/ @ADGPI
In a recent development in the international forum, External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar 'exchanged views on recent developments in Afghanistan' with Tajikistan President Emomali Rahmon. EAM S Jaishankar elucidated that the Head of State of Tajikstan evaluated the aftermath of the Afghan crisis and their 'impact on regional security'.

Batting for the country's fight against terrorism and radicalism, the EAM affirmed India- Tajikstan partnership in combatting 'fundamentalism. Taking to Twitter, EAM S Jaishankar extended his gratitude to the Tajik President and stated, "Thank Tajik President Emomali Rahmon for receiving me. Conveyed greetings of PM Narendra Modi. Exchanged views on recent developments in Afghanistan and their impact on regional security. India and Tajikistan are strong partners in fighting terrorism, fundamentalism and radicalism.

Thank Tajik President Emomali Rahmon for receiving me. Conveyed greetings of PM Modi.



Exchanged views on recent developments in Afghanistan and their impact on regional security.



India and Tajikistan are strong partners in fighting terrorism, fundamentalism and radicalism. pic.twitter.com/2TROaE48V6  Dr. S. Jaishankar (@DrSJaishankar) September 16, 2021

Ahead of the arrival of Tajikistan Foreign Minister, EAM Jaishankar had stated, "A good discussion on arrival with Tajik FM Sirojiddin Muhriddin. Look forward to continuing it tomorrow[sic].

A good discussion on arrival with Tajik FM Sirojiddin Muhriddin.



Look forward to continuing it tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/B1kpOYgWgX  Dr. S. Jaishankar (@DrSJaishankar) September 16, 2021

(Image: EAM Jaishankar/ Twitter)
India's Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Arindam Bagchi on Thursday during a press briefing responded to the abduction of 50-year-old Afghanistan-origin Indian national Bansri Lal Arendeh from Kabul. MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi told the media that the Government of India has seen a missing person's report about Indian national Bansri Lal adding that the MEA is in touch with all concerned in the case.

"We've seen a missing person's reports about a reported Indian national - Bansri Lal - missing in Kabul. We're in touch with all concerned. We've seen reports about local authorities undertaking investigation. We'll continue to monitor situation and tell you of any developments," said Arindam Bagchi, MEA spokesperson.

Indian abducted in Afghanistan

On Tuesday, reports suggested that 50-year-old Afghanistan-origin Indian national Bansri Lal Arendeh was abducted from Kabul. Speaking to Republic TV, Indian World Forum president Puneet Singh Chandok had claimed that Arendeh was kidnapped while he was on the way to his shop in the 11th police district of Afghanistan's capital. Moreover, he asserted that the Indian's staff member was also abducted and "mercilessly beaten" but managed to escape.

Mentioning that the local authorities have hinted at the involvement of an extortion gang, he added that his family is yet to receive any ransom call. It is believed that the abducted man's family resides in Faridabad, Haryana.

As part of 'Operation Devi Shakti', India has already evacuated over 800 individuals from Afghanistan. The safety, security and early return of Indian nationals stranded in Afghanistan featured in the meeting between India's Ambassador to Qatar Deepak Mittal and the Taliban Political Office head Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai on August 31. As per the MEA, Stanikzai assured that India's concerns will be positively addressed.

Taliban takeover of Afghanistan

After the Taliban stormed into Kabul on August 15, Afghanistan president Ashraf Ghani resigned and fled the country with his associates. Since then, several persons have lost their lives in the chaos at the Hamid Karzai International Airport with thousands of people desperately trying to flee the country. This includes the death of at least 169 Afghans, 11 US Marines, a US Navy sailor, and a US Army soldier in a suicide bombing at the Abbey Gate of the Kabul airport on August 26. This led to US airstrikes on terrorists belonging to ISIS-K that claimed responsibility for this attack.

On August 31, the Taliban gained control of the Kabul airport after the last batch of US troops left Afghanistan. Though the Taliban promised to form an "inclusive" government to run Afghanistan, it announced a 33-member caretaker Cabinet which neither has women nor mainstream politicians from previous regimes. While Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund, the chief of the Taliban's Rehbari Shura, is the new Prime Minister, he has two deputies in Mullah Baradar and Mawlavi Hanafi. Meanwhile, Taliban founder Mullah Omar's son Mullah Yaqoob has been named the Defence Minister.

Image: ANI/Republic World
PM Modi Inaugurates New Defence Ministry Office Complexes 'with All Modern Amenities'

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday inaugurated two new Defence Ministry office complexes in Delhi as part of the Central Vista revamp project. PM Modi presented the new office buildings located at Kasturba Gandhi Marg and Africa Avenue at 11 am. The PM vested the newly built defence office complex at Africa Avenue along with the Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh. Following the inauguration, PM Modi met with Army, Navy, Air Force and Civilian Officers. Union Minister of Petroleum, Hardeep Singh Puri and Chief of Defence Staff, Bipin Rawat, were also present at the inauguration function.

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Mumbai Police Forms 'Nirbhaya Squad', JT CP Speaks To Republic On Steps For Women Safety

With the motive of providing protection and ensuring women's safety, the Mumbai police have recently formed the Nirbhaya Squad. The decision has been taken in the wake of the Saki Naka brutal rape case in the Mumbai suburbs. Thereafter, detailed guidelines have been provided to the Mumbai Police and they have been directed by Police Commissioner Hemant Nagrale to create more awareness about the helpline number issued for women safety, i.e., 103.

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Navjot Sidhu Fires Salvo At Akali Dal, Claims 'Badals Laid Foundation For Farm Laws'

Launching a frontal attack on the SAD, Punjab Congress president Navjot Singh Sidhu claimed that the Badals laid the foundation for the Centre's farm laws. Addressing a press briefing on Wednesday, he pointed out similarities between The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020 and The Punjab Contract Farming Act, 2013 passed by the state Assembly during Parkash Singh Badal's tenure as the CM. For instance, he claimed that both laws mandated dispute settlement by bureaucracy and did not mention MSP guarantee.

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India Surpasses Average Daily COVID Vaccinations As Compared To 18 Other Countries

The Union Health Ministry announced on Thursday, that India has exceeded the average daily COVID-19 vaccination rate of the world's 18 major countries. The world's 18 major countries have administered 81,70,000 (8.17 million) doses of COVID-19 vaccine. India has administered 85,40,000 (8.54 million) doses. Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Russia are among the nations on this list.

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Student Activists Blame Joe Biden Govt Over Handling Of Afghan Withdrawal And COVID

A student activist organisation has blamed US President Joe Biden administration for using the crisis unfolding in Afghanistan and the COVID-19 pandemic to score political points instead of handling the situation. Russian news agency Sputnik cited a statement by Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) published on September 15 which stated that the Taliban is holding more than 100 Americans hostage to gain recognition from the outside world. The YAL statement also accused Biden of covering up the hostage crisis for re-election and using the COVID-19 vaccine mandate to distract the US citizens from the developing situation on the ground.

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Yemen: Houthis Capture Key Areas From Govt Forces Following Intense Battle

After an intense battle in Al Bayda, the Houthi militia have seized some of the key areas from Yemen's government forces. The militia fighters have been stationed at Sawma'ah district after the withdrawal of security forces, reported Xinhua. As per the report, the intense battle was still taking place between Houthi rebels and the government forces.

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FULL LIST OUT | Gujarat Cabinet Expansion: 24 New Faces Sworn In; No Minister In Rupani's Team Makes Cut

24 MLAs were inducted into the Gujarat Council of Ministers led by Bhupendra Patel at the Raj Bhavan in Gandhinagar on Thursday. Most importantly, no Minister in the erstwhile Vijay Rupani-led government including Deputy CM Nitin Patel made the cut. A total of 10 Cabinet Ministers, 5 Ministers of State (Independent Charge) and 9 Ministers of State were administered the oath of office and secrecy by Gujarat Governor Acharya Devvrat. This includes Rajendra Trivedi who stepped down as the Assembly Speaker. Bhupendra Patel was sworn in as the CM on Monday.

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Massive setback: Bombay HC Rejects Param Bir Singh's Plea Against Inquiries; Ex-Mumbai Top Cop On The Run

In a setback to ex-Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh on Thursday, the Bombay High Court rejected his pleas challenging the Maharashtra government's two preliminary enquires against him. While one PE pertained to his alleged failure in connection with the Antilia bomb scare case, the other relates to reinstated police officer Anup Dange's allegations. Dange had not only accused Singh of shielding people with underworld links but also claimed that the former Mumbai top cop's relative demanded a bribe of Rs.2 crore to reinstate him into the force.

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Taliban To Form 'Regular Army' Under Its Rule In Afghanistan; To Include Ex-servicemen

Almost after a month of taking over Afghanistan, the Taliban has now said that it will form a regular kind of 'army' under its government and will soon make the final decision regarding it. Plannings are underway about forming the Taliban army in Afghanistan under the view of an establishment of a Taliban-led caretaker government.

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A 47-year-old Nepalese man was arrested from Uttar Pradesh for allegedly stealing cash and two diamond pieces from the office of his employer in south Delhi's Saket area, police said on Thursday.

The accused has been identified as Raju Thapa alias Sher Bahadur Thapa, originally hailing from Lumbani in Nepal, they said.

On Monday, complainant Vinod Tayal reported that his servant Thapa stole Rs 25 lakh cash and two diamond pieces, worth around Rs 15 lakh, from his office at Square One Mall, Saket on Saturday, police said.

Police gathered details about Thapa. During analysis of technical details of the accused, it was found that after the incident, he had dialled a number in Adhchini, Malviya Nagar, a senior police officer said.

Police rushed to Adhchini and with the help of CCTV footage and local intelligence, another Nepal native, Kamla, was traced, the officer said.

She told police that she knew Thapa for the last four to five months and they were in touch with each other over the phone. On Sunday morning, Thapa came to her house and they consumed liquor the whole day, police said.

Next morning, he went from her house after saying that he was going to Nepal. She further said that Thapa was near UP's Lakhimpur Kheri, which is near the Nepal border, police said.

Later, the Delhi Police took the help of UP Police and apprehended Thapa from Lakhimpur Kheri. He was brought to Delhi on transit remand, the officer said.

Thapa confessed to have committed the crime. He works as a peon in the office for last 26 years. His family resides in Nepal. Police recovered Rs 14 lakh cash and three new mobile phones purchased using the stolen money, they added.

(Disclaimer: This story is auto-generated from a syndicated feed; only the image & headline may have been reworked by www.republicworld.com)
In a major development, Republic Media Network has accessed details of a foiled Pakistani terror plot. According to details, the terrorists nabbed by the Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) had received special training in Pakistan. The terrorists, who have also been linked with Dawood Ibrahim's brother Anees Ibrahim, were arrested by the UP ATS after they received information from central agencies and Special Cell of Delhi Police regarding multiple blasts being planned by terror suspects and explosives being stored at various locations.

According to the latest information on the terror suspects, Osama a.k.a Sami and Zeeshan Qamar were given training in Pakistan. According to available information, the terrorists were given training for bridge blast, railway track blast, and large gathering area blast in Pakistan. Moreover, it has also been revealed that the terrorists travelled to Pakistan using a boat from Oman. They had made their way into Pakistan without procuring any stamping to avoid proof that they ever visited the country.

READ | Exclusive details of Pakistan terror plot accessed; links with ISI module exposed

Around 1.5 kg of RDX was found with the terrorists suggesting that they were planning a large gathering area blast. The terrorists continue to be interrogated by the Information Bureau for more information on the plan. According to the details extracted, the two terrorists, trained in Pakistan, seems to be the key part of the plan and had received advanced training to execute bomb blasts.

READ | Pakistan ISI & Dawood's brother Anees plotted terror blasts during festivals: Delhi Police

Pak-Dawood terror plot revealed

A day after the Delhi Police Special Cell busted a Pakistan-organised terror module, various pieces of evidence have emerged proving that the Imran Khan-led country, with the help of the terrorists and mafia, was planning a re-run of the 26/11 attack that took place in Mumbai. The arrest of six men, including two Pak-ISI trained terrorists stopped the plan from developing any further. The terrorists were allegedly planning several blasts across the country, including in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, and Maharashtra, during the upcoming festivals of Ganesh Chaturthi, Navratri, and Ramleela. Police said that Pakistan-based Anees Ibrahim, who is the brother of Dawood Ibrahim, was connected with underworld operatives to execute the terror plan.

READ | Pak ISI-Dawood terror plot: UP ADG says terrorists' IED could have caused countless deaths

Of the six arrests, one was nabbed from Kota, two were arrested in Delhi and three from Uttar Pradesh with the help of UP ATS. The names of the arrested include Jaan Mohammad Shaikh alias Sameer Kaliya, Osama a.k.a Sami, Zeeshan Qamar, Mohd Abu Bakar, Mohd Amir Javed and Moolchand a.k.a Saaju and Lala.

Earlier, Republic Media Network accessed exclusive details of the Pakistan terror plot. According to the Delhi Police, one of the arrested terrorists, Jaan Mohammad Sheikh alias 'Sameer', was given the task of carrying out the transportation in India. He was in charge of bringing the explosives from Uttar Pradesh to Delhi.

(Image: AP/Republic World/PTI)
The Delhi Police special cell has foiled another important link to the Pak-based terror module that was busted recently where the involvement of a family member of an arrested terrorist has been established. The Special Cell of Delhi has decided to issue a Lookout Circular (LOC) to nab Humaid-ur-Rehman who is the uncle of- Osama Saifi- arrested with five others on September 15. The role of Humaid was to assist suspected terrorists by hiding and storing ammunition in Uttar Pradesh's Praygraj.

As per the Special Cell sources, it has also been alleged that Saifi's father was involved in the terror module. Meanwhile, another arrested suspect- Zeeshan Qamar has reportedly informed police that Humaid radicalised him and sent to Pakistan for training. More details are awaited on the matter as fast-paced developments are taking place in the investigation. Yesterday, the Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) had arrested three more terror suspects after a tip-off from the central agencies. A live bomb was additionally recovered from the Prayagraj district of the state with explosives and firearms, apart from a live IED, in the multi-state operation.

Pak-Dawood terror plot

The terror attacks were been planned in 3 cities, with the whole operation being coordinated by Dawood Ibrahim's brother- Anees Ibrahim. Two arrested terrorists named Osama and Zeeshan had been trained in Pakistan and were working under the instructions of the ISI to operate the terror plot. They had been tasked with conducting a reconnaissance of different suitable locations in Delhi and UP for placing IEDs for the blast, police have revealed.

UP ATS who was also coordinating with Delhi Police in the investigation revealed that a powerful Improvised Explosive Device (IED) was recovered during a raid, which could have caused huge casualties. According to the ADG, those arrested were highly radicalised and had dangerous plans of attack.

Delhi Police Special CP Neeraj Thakur earlier had informed that there were two components of the operation - one was the safe delivery of IEDs to the terrorists hiding in India, and the second was planting the explosives in major cities during the ongoing festive season. The arrested persons were tasked separately to execute different aspects of the terror plan. The terror operation was closely coordinated from the other side of the border.
New Delhi, Sep 15 (PTI) The Delhi Police is looking for Humaid-ur-Rehman, a relative of one of the alleged terrorists arrested by the Special Cell, officials said on Wednesday.

The Delhi Police's Special Cell on Tuesday busted a Pakistan-organised terror module with the arrest of six men, including two Pak-ISI trained terrorists.

The accused, identified as Jaan Mohammad Sheikh (47) alias ''Sameer'', Osama (22), Moolchand (47), Zeeshan Qamar (28), Mohd Abu Bakar (23) and Mohd Amir Javed (31), were arrested following raids in Delhi and parts of Uttar Pradesh.

All the six arrested accused, including Osama and Qamar, were produced at a Delhi court and have been taken on 14 days' police remand for further interrogation, they said.

Jamil Khatri (28), a resident of Rae Bareli, and Imtiaz Ali (38), a resident of Pratapgarh, were detained on Wednesday in connection with the probe by police.

Through technical surveillance and manual inputs, both Khatri and Imtiaz came under suspicion. Both of them belong to a poor economic background, police said.

They did small work to earn their living. Ali earlier worked in Mumbai and was now engaged in fishing activities at his native village.

Both of them were let off after questioning and were handled over to their relatives. They will be called for questioning again, if required, a senior police officer said.

Police are looking for Humaid-ur-Rehman, a resident of Uttar Pradesh's Allahabad who is uncle of Osama, the Pak-trained terrorist who was arrested by the special cell team on Tuesday.

Osama, is a third year BA student of an Allahabad-based university, while Zeeshan Qamar, a native of Lucknow, the second Pak-trained terrorist arrested by the Special Cell on Tuesday is a graduate and earlier worked as an accountant in a business firm, the officer said.

Qamar allegedly got in touch with Humaid-Ur-Reham for business-related work a few years ago and eventually got radicalized by him.

Police said that Humaid-ur-Rehman was the primarily link through which both Osama and Qamar came in touch with the terror operatives. He arranged for their transportation and helped them in reaching Pakistan, police said.

Police said the accused men, Qamar, Humaid-ur-Rehman and Osama, preferred meeting physically and avoided contacting each other on mobile phones. Even when they sent messages on WhatsApp, they ensured that they deleted their conversation immediately.

The arrested accused, Shaikh, who is closely associated with underworld don Dawood Ibrahim's brother, Anees, since last over a decade, used dark network applications to receive instructions from across the border, the officer said.

Phones of the accused have been seized and will be sent to Forensic Science Laboratory for further examination, they said.

Police had said interrogation revealed that the Pakistan terror module was being operated through two components, via underworld and the Pak-ISI trained terror module.

Special Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) Neeraj Kumar Thakur had said, "In a multi-state operation, we have arrested six people, including two Pakistan-trained terrorists. Two among them, Osama and Qamar had gone to Pakistan for training this year, following which they returned to India. Police said they got inputs from central agencies that a Pak-abetted and sponsored group of entities is planning to execute serial IED blasts in India.

"With the help of human and technical surveillance, it was found that the network was spread across various states. On Tuesday, we conducted raids simultaneously in different states and initially, the first accused, Sheikh, was apprehended from near Kota in Rajasthan while he was on a train on the way to Delhi," Thakur had said.

Later, Osama was nabbed from Delhi's Okhla and Bakar from Sarai Kale Khan, while Qamar was apprehended from Allahabad, Javed from Lucknow and Moolchand from Rae Bareilly in close coordination with the UP Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) team, the officer had said. PTI NIT/AMP AAR AAR

(Disclaimer: This story is auto-generated from a syndicated feed; only the image & headline may have been reworked by www.republicworld.com)
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday said that she will not allow the country to turn into Pakistan or Taliban. While alleging that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has claimed the Bhabanipur constituency, from where the Bengal CM is fighting the upcoming bypolls, Mamata Banerjee said that the saffron party will turn this constituency into Pakistan if TMC wins. The TMC supremo further accused BJP of practising divisive politics.

West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee said, "I don't like the policies and politics of the BJP. They only follow the politics of dividing people into religious lines. In Nandigram, they had said it would become Pakistan (if the TMC wins). In Bhabanipur too, they are saying it will turn into Pakistan. This is shameful."

CM Mamata: 'I want my country to be strong'

Bhabanipur bypolls are crucial because the West Bengal CM had lost to her aide-turned rival BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari in Nandigram during the Assembly polls held earlier this year. She must win this by-poll to retain her Chief Minister's post.

While speaking to voters in the Bhabanipur constituency, Banerjee said that she wants her country to be strong. Speaking further she said that she will protect her motherland with all her might. "We don't want India to become another Taliban (ruled state). I will never allow my country to turn into Pakistan," the Chief Minister added.

Attacking BJP for taking exception to her recent visit to a mosque in the area, the Bengal CM said that the saffron party has a problem with her visiting a Gurudwara too. She said, "I have visited a mosque; I have visited a Gurudwara also, and the BJP has a problem with both. I don't bring religion into politics, unlike the BJP leaders who only understand the language of divisive politics."

Talking about the sizeable Hindi-speaking population of the Bhabanipur constituency, the TMC supremo said that she would always stand by them through thick and thin. Remarking that she never differentiate among communities, she said that it is the BJP, which destroys brotherhood and social fabric among communities.

"I was the first to oppose demonetisation. I know the kind of harassment the business community has gone through during demonetisation. I used to regularly visit Burrabazar (the business hub of Kolkata) and talk to the business community members," she added.

(With inputs from PTI)

(Image: AP, PTI)
Unicode Consortium is known for standardising and approving all the emojis being used all over the globe. Recent updates from the California based non-profit organization confirms that a new update 14.0 has been released to introduce a total of 838 new characters. After the addition, the total emoji count available to use will be about 144,697 characters. The latest Emojis releasing in 2021 include 5 new scripts bringing it to a total of 159 scripts and 144,697 emoji to use. Some of the latest additions include a saluting face, a troll, heart hands, a low battery indicator, a hand with the index finger and a thumb crossed are the latest quick-to-share have been introduced with this latest emoji pack

Unicode 14 emojis pack released

Among the 838 new characters in #Unicode14 are 37 new #emoji, along with new emoji sequences, that are expected to show up on s, s, and other platforms sometime next year  https://t.co/deSr1g6m8k # pic.twitter.com/xuTf8Os02K  The Unicode Consortium (@unicode) September 7, 2021

All of the above-mentioned information has been confirmed by an official blog post available on the Unicode website. Unicode Consortium confirms to bring in 828 new characters with their Version 14.0 update. The updates new scripts and characters have also brought in some support for lesser-used languages and unique written requirements from all over the globe. These also include a whole new set of numerous symbols additions. The blog post also confirmed that the funds sanctioned for the Adopt-a-Character program helped the developers to come up with some of these additions. All the new additions have also been listed on the website. We have also written all the new scripts and characters introduced with the

All these script and character changes have been taken from Unicode's official website

Toto used to write the Toto language in northeast India

Cypro-Minoan, an undeciphered historical script primarily used on the island of Cyprus

Vithkuqi, a historic script used to write Albanian and undergoing a modern revival

Old Uyghur, a historic script used in Central Asia and elsewhere to write Turkic, Chinese, Mongolian, Tibetan, and Arabic languages

Tangsa, a modern script used to write the Tangsa language, which is spoken in India and Myanmar

Many Latin additions for extended IPA

Arabic script additions were used to write languages across Africa and in Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Java, and Bosnia, and to write honorifics, and additions for Quranic use

Other character additions support languages of North America and of the Philippines, India, and Mongolia

What is Unicode Consortium?

According to the description mentioned on their official website, "The Unicode Consortium is a non-profit corporation devoted to developing, maintaining, and promoting software internationalization standards and data, particularly the Unicode Standard, which specifies the representation of text in all modern software products and standards." The Unicode Consortium helps to developed standards in the area of internationalization including defining the behaviour and relationships between Unicode characters. Some of the major computer corporations, software producers, database vendors, government ministries, research institutions, international agencies, various user groups, and interested individuals are a part of this organization.

Image: @unicode/ Twitter
Mars, the neighbouring red planet, has experienced thousands of massive and ancient volcanic eruptions in the past few centuries, confirmed NASA in its latest revelation. Scientists found out that a region of northern Mars called 'Arabia Terra' experienced thousands of "super-eruptions," the biggest volcanic eruptions known. As per the agency, these explosions tore through the Martian surface over a 500-million-year period about four billion years ago, spewing water vapour, carbon dioxide, and sulfur dioxide into the air.

Martian volcanos could fill millions of swimming pools

Scientists found evidence for thousands of such eruptions by studying the topography and mineral composition of a portion of the Arabia Terra region in northern Mars. Some volcanoes can produce eruptions so powerful they release oceans of dust and toxic gases into the air, blocking out sunlight and changing a planets climate for decades, and Mars was no exception. NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center geologist Patrick Whelley explained that each of these ''super-eruptions'' would have had a significant climate impact that made the atmosphere thicker and made the atmosphere colder by blocking the sun.

NASA revealed that the ancient massive volcanos produced molten rock and gas equivalent of 400 million Olympic-size swimming pools and spread a thick blanket of ash up to thousands of miles from the eruption site. Following this, volcano of this magnitude collapses into a giant hole called a caldera," which gave the earliest hints that the region may once have hosted volcanoes capable of super-eruptions. Calderas also exist on Earth and can stretch to dozens of miles.

NASA said that these Martian calderas were earlier thought of as craters resulting from asteroid impacts but scientists argued in a 2013 study that they werent perfectly round like craters, and had some signs of collapse, such as very deep floors and benches of rock near the walls. Besides, their conclusion was cemented after the scientists found minerals associated with altered volcanic ash on the surface of 'Arabia Terra', stated the agency. Although Mars is known for its Olympus Mons volcano, the biggest in the solar system and 100 times larger by volume than Earths largest volcano of Mauna Loa in Hawaii, 'Arabia Terra' so far has the only evidence of explosive volcanoes on Mars.

(Image: NASA/Unsplash)
On Wednesday, September 15, experts said at a webinar on 'Accelerating COVID Vaccinations in Africa' that well-off countries should abandon vaccine nationalism, as it is leading to supply shortages and hindering attempts to contain the COVID-19 pandemic in the continent, reported Xinhua News Agency. The Brookings Institution, a Washington-based organisation, convened the webinar. Notably, vaccine nationalism arises when governments get into arrangements with pharmaceutical companies to give vaccines to their own populations before they are available to other countries. Speaking at the event, the African Union's special envoy for the African Medicines Agency, Michel Sidibe, emphasised that wealthier countries must cease hoarding vaccines, which has been unhelpful to the pandemic fight.

I said at the @BrookingsGlobal and I will repeat it again, Were facing an unprecedented gl health crisis w/ an unacceptable level of inequity thats spreading suffering & disrupting peoples lives. It's more than a h crisis. Its a pol, eco, & social crisis, a human security cri pic.twitter.com/H4MOe9WZJv  Michel Sidibe (@MichelSidibe) September 15, 2021

Sidibe pointed out that Africa's fight against the pandemic has been hampered by vaccine nationalism and also emphasised the importance of vaccine equity in preventing the emergence of new coronavirus strains, accelerating recovery, and bolstering the resilience of Africa's public health institutions. Meanwhile, Agnes Binagwaho, vice-chancellor of the University of Global Health Equity and former Rwandese Minister for Health, claimed that delayed vaccination might cost Africa 3 per cent of its GDP and that multilateral efforts to stop vaccine nationalism and increase access to the life-saving commodity should be stepped up. She also went on to slam several wealthy nations for considering third booster doses, claiming that doing so would deny low-income African countries the opportunity to immunise high-risk individuals, reported the news agency.

'Vaccine nationalism and price hikes constrained supply in Africa'

Stating that new variants of Coronavirus have derailed a return to normalcy and also put pressure on public health facilities, Aloysius Uche Ordu, director of the Brookings Institution's Global Economy and Development programme, said it is crucial to address vaccine nationalism and price hikes that have constrained supply in Africa. According to an article published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) in February 2021, the United States acquired 800 million doses of at least six vaccines that were under development. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom had also procured 340 million shots, or about five doses per citizen, stated the article. The World Health Organization (WHO) had also highlighted worries over vaccine nationalism, claiming that such unilateral agreements with rich countries may render vaccines inaccessible to people in some of the world's poorest areas.

(Image: Unsplash/ Twitter/ @MichelSidibe)
Nearly 400 illegal migrants were rescued and returned to Libya, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Wednesday.

"32 persons were disembarked today at Azzawiya Refinery point (western Libya) and 313 others were returned to Tripoli last night after being rescued/intercepted at sea," the UN refugee agency tweeted.

It said, "during both disembarkations, UNHCR and IRC were present to provide urgent medical help and humanitarian assistance to all survivors."

345 illegal immigrants were rescued during August by UNHCR

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees rescued some 400 illegal immigrants off the coast of Libya. The UNHCR rescued a group of migrants that included 28 women and four children. According to the UNHCR Twitter post, roughly 200 migrants from the group had been repatriated to Libya.

Since 2020, Libyan residents have continued to depart the war-torn country. In February 2020, the UNHCR rescued another group of 400 illegal immigrants off the coast of Libya. In two coast guard vessels, the refugees were transported to Tripoli, Libya's capital, according to UNHCR. They were given life-saving aid.

23,601 illegal migrants have been rescued and returned to Libya in 2021

According to the International Organization for Migration, 23,601 illegal migrants have been rescued so far this year, while hundreds more have died or gone missing off the Libyan coast on the Central Mediterranean route. According to reports, the number of migrants departing African countries has increased dramatically in recent months. In addition, 323 migrants died tragically and 417 went missing in 2020 while attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea to reach European shores.

Conflict in Libya

Since the assassination of late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, the North African country has been plagued by insecurity and chaos, making it a popular region for illegal migrants hoping to cross the Mediterranean Sea to European coastlines. Despite the country's violent uprisings, Libyan civilians continue to fight for peace and stability. Amnesty International's study termed the April 2021 incident one of the "deadliest" because it took the lives of 130 individuals. The United States Institute of Peace stated, "External causes have compounded Libya's issues by funnelling money and weaponry to proxies who have put personal interests above those of the Libyan people."

Image: AP
While South Sudan continues to battle for stability, ten years after independence, a United Nations (UN) official said on 15 September that people in the North African nation are presently facing the highest levels of food insecurity recorded since separating from Sudan. As per Xinhua report, Director for operations and advocacy at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Reena Ghelani, has estimated that out of 12.78 million in South Sudan, over 60 per cent people face acute food insecurity.

Her remarks followed the UN estimating in December last year that 2.4 million people faced emergency levels of severe food insecurity. Additionally, Ghelani told a UN Security Council (UNSC) in a briefing on the humanitarian situation in South Sudan that between April and July 2021, around 1,08,000 people faced catastrophic levels of food insecurity. She noted that the same period witnessed the height of the lean season.

She noted that the combined repercussions of conflict, climate shocks, displacement, the socio-economic impact of COVID-19, and the lack of investments in infrastructure and basic services have further pushed the people in South Sudan deeper into need. Ghelani reportedly stressed that over 8.3 million people require urgent humanitarian assistance including 1.4 million children.

4.4 mn people need assistance

The UN official also revealed that the aid agencies have assisted some 4.4 million people across the country between January and June 2021 with essential items like food, medical and nutritional care, water and sanitation among other help. Ghelani stated that notwithstanding the gains by agencies, there has been limited change in the behaviour of the non-state armed groups and certain youth groups that continue to hamper the access. She said, since the beginning of 2021, four aid workers have died while carrying out their duties and more than 170 workers were forced to relocate amid security threats.

She told the UNSC briefing that destruction and looting of the humanitarian facilities have also continued, including the looting of more than 1,000 metric tons of food worth over US$1 million. The frequent attacks on civilians as well as the humanitarian convoys and roadside ambushes have disrupted operations triggering an increase in the prices of essential goods for the population which is already vulnerable, she concluded.

(IMAGE: AP)


On Wednesday, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) urged Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan to resume talks over the controversial issue of water supply from an Ethiopian dam being built on the Nile's main tributary. According to a brief presidential statement authorised by all 15 council members, negotiations on the African Union's chairperson's request to finalise the language of a mutually acceptable and binding agreement on the filling and functioning of the dam within a fair time frame should restart.

It said, "the Security Council calls upon the three countries to take forward the AU-led negotiation process in a constructive and cooperative manner." According to Ethiopian state media, the dam on the Blue Nile is 80 per cent complete and will achieve full generating capacity in 2023, making it the world's seventh-largest hydroelectric power plant.

Ten years of negotiations with Ethiopia have failed

Ten years of negotiations with Ethiopia have failed, according to Egypt and Sudan, and the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is beginning the second filling of its reservoir. They claim that this not only contravenes a 2015 deal but also poses an existential threat to 150 million people in downstream countries. Egypt's Foreign Ministry urged Ethiopia to take the talks "seriously" in order to reach a legally binding agreement on the dam's construction and operation.

Sudan's foreign minister, Mariam al-Mahdi also asked for a quick resumption of the discussions in order to establish an agreement acceptable to all three sides. Ethiopia's foreign ministry said it welcomes the council's decision to refer the matter to AU-led talks, but expressed disappointment that the council pronounces itself over a water right and development issue that is outside of its jurisdiction.

Egypt and Sudan asked the UNSC in July for a legally binding resolution requiring the three countries to negotiate a legally binding agreement within six months under AU auspices that ensures Ethiopia's ability to generate hydropower while preventing significant harm to downstream states' water security.

The council urged the three nations to jointly continue supporting the negotiations

The council's brief statement urged observers who had been invited to the negotiations, as well as any other observers the three nations agreed to jointly invite to continue supporting the negotiations with a view to assisting resolution of unresolved technical and legal issues. The council went on to say that its statement does not establish any principles or precedent in any future transboundary water issues.

(Inputs from AP News)

Image: AP
A tiny hairy creature that belongs to the Marsupialia mammals' class and inhabited the grassy fields of Australia's Victoria state has been saved from extinction.

Officials claim that due to non-native foxes, ecological degradation, and stray cats, the eastern barred bandicoot population has fallen, the BBC reported. Following 30 years of conservation program initiatives, the number of this creature has increased from a mere 150 to approximately 1,500.

Bandicoots became the first species in Austalia to see their status altered from "extinct in the wild" to "endangered." When bandicoot populations dropped in the years up to the late 1980s, conservationists in the state of Victoria spent millions of dollars on captive breeding initiatives.

'Significant milestone': Environment Minister Lily D'Ambrosio

As part of such initiatives, predator-free zones, some of which have been guarded by trained dogs, have been set up, some bandicoots have been relocated to islands that are free of foxes. As per the BBC, Victoria's Environment Minister Lily D'Ambrosio said she was thrilled about the successful completion of the project to protect these creatures from extinction. She even stated when she announced the change in the bandicoot's conservation status on Wednesday that it is an astonishing significant milestone for Australia.

According to the Australian Geographic website, Ambrosio revealed the reclassification, claiming that currently, the eastern barred bandicoot species in the state of Victoria has a far prosperous future. The predator-free zones are built in four places such as Woodlands Historic Park, Hamilton Community Parklands, Mt Rothwell, and Tiverton. The two locations in Skipton and Dunkeld are safeguarded by Victoria Zoo's guard dogs.

After being relocated to fox-free environments on Phillip, Churchill, as well as French islands, these captive bandicoots, some of which have been interbred with Tasmanian eastern barred bandicoots, are also prospering. Ambrosio informed that at several of the rehabilitation locations, community volunteer groups have helped to inspect fences, count the bandicoots, and clear weeds and infestations.

More about the Australian bandicoot

Over 20 varieties of tiny to moderate-sized, terrestrial, primarily nocturnal marsupial omnivores make up the bandicoot family. They are mostly found in the region of Australia and New Guinea. Bandicoots possess a V-shaped feature with large noses that resemble proboscises monkeys. The bandicoot is a fossorial excavator, with its well-tuned projected nose and keen claws. They have tiny, sharp teeth that help these animals eat food quickly.

(Image: Shutterstock)
China on September 15 called on the European Union (EU) to stop sending wrong messages on the issues concerning Beijings sovereignty. As per the Xinhua report, the spokesperson for the Chinese Mission to the EU made the remarks on Wednesday after Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa accused China of its actions including the expulsion of the Lithuanian ambassador. Chinese Foreign Ministry on August 10 had announced the decision to recall its envoy from Lithuania and demanded the Lithuanian government to withdraw its ambassador to China.

The Chinese governments decision against Lithuania, declared last month, came in response to the Lithuanian government giving a nod to Taiwan for opening its own representative office. However, China considers the self-ruled democratic island as its own and criticises the nations building separate diplomatic relations with Taiwan. The Chinese news agency cited media reports to state that Jansa sent a letter to EU leaders on September 13 claiming that Chinas actions including the expelling of Lithuanian envoy will have an impact on overall relations of the bloc with China.

Notably, Slovenia currently holds the rotating presidency of the 27-nation-bloc. Jansa, in the letter, also called on the EU member states to show support to Lithuania and not allow China to threaten any one of them. Slovenian PM even said that definite steps will be discussed during the informal dinner of EU leaders slated to take place on October 5. Expressing concerns over the reports stating Jansas letter to the bloc, spokesperson for the Chinese Mission to the EU said, I have taken note of relevant reports and express my great concern.

The Chinese official quoted the unnamed spokesperson as pointing out that the crux of the entire matter involving Lithuania and China is the European countrys violation of the one-China principle' and provocations that undermine Chinas sovereignty as well as the territorial integrity. The media outlet quoted the spokesperson as saying, China's response to Lithuania's wrong actions is justified and legitimate...The whole thing is clear. It has nothing to do with the size of the country.

Last month, Lithuania even expressed its regret over Chinas decision to recall its diplomats. The Baltic nation has also said that it is determined to have mutually beneficial ties with Taiwan. Taiwans representative office in Vilnius was announced by the self-ruled democratic island in July. Lithuania and Taiwan do not have any diplomatic ties as of now. The relations between both nations, however, are extremely friendly.

EU should urge its members to correct mistakes: Spokesperson

The Chinese official repeatedly stressed its commitment to the one-China policy while also urging the EU to call on its members to rectify their mistakes and stop sending wrong messages on the issues that concern Chinas sovereignty and even territorial integrity. The spokesperson clarified, China will not threaten anyone, nor will we accept anyone's threat or allow anyone to harm China's core interests at will.

Over China-Lithuania row, the US has previously showcased support to Vilnius. US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy R Sherman spoke with Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis on August 13. As per the official statement by the US Department of State, Sherman and Landsbergis discussed China and elevating US-Lithuania relations.

The statement read, Deputy Secretary Sherman reiterated the United States is resolute in our solidarity with our NATO Ally and EU partner Lithuania, including standing with them in the face of the Peoples Republic of Chinas recent coercive behaviour in response to Lithuanias decision to develop mutually beneficial ties with Taiwan.

IMAGE: AP
Chinas envoy Geng Shuang on September 15 has called on the global community to ramp up its efforts to bring about a substantive improvement of Syrias humanitarian situation. Chinese news agency Xinhua cited United Nations (UN) assessments to state that the humanitarian needs in Syria have spiked to the highest level since the crisis started at least ten years ago. UN assessments reportedly also note that over 13 million people in the country are in urgent need of assistance.

Geng Shuang, China's deputy permanent representative to the UN called on the international community to elevate joint efforts to increase humanitarian assistance to Syria, and also work towards attaining substantive improvement of the countrys situation at the earliest. He said to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) that initially, it is important to vigorously carry out the early-recovery projects that are connected to the needs of the Syrian people while providing emergency humanitarian assistance.

"The international community should implement Resolution 2585 by promoting early-recovery projects in water resources, health care, education, and shelter while helping Syria fight COVID-19 so as to promote its economic and social development," Geng said.

The envoy, as per the report, said that emphasis has to be laid on the unilateral sanctions imposed by the relevant countries aggravate the humanitarian crisis in Syria, halt its economic and social development and run other counter efforts of the international community. Geng also added that the monitoring of the cross-border aid delivery mechanism should be enhanced and measures should be taken to help the transition from cross-border to cross-line delivery.

UNSC has obligation to ramp up its monitoring: Geng

Further, in his remarks to the council, Geng said that UNSC has an obligation to ramp up its monitoring in a bid to ensure that the cross-border mechanism is neutral and transparent. He said that it must be made evident that the cross-border mechanism is a special arrangement made under specific circumstances with the cross-line mechanism being the main channel. Geng said China supports the World Health Organisation (WHO) in continuing to carry out humanitarian operations in northeastern Syria through the cross-line mechanism.

IMAGE: AP
Pope Francis said that he does not know how to explain the vaccine hesitancy seen in some cardinals of the Catholic Church. Many religious heads, especially in the US, have shown conscientious objection towards the COVID-19 vaccine but Pope has reckoned that the vaccines were "morally acceptable. In addendum, he has also, multiple times, encouraged people to get jabbed for the common good.

On Wednesday, the 84-year-old reiterated his call for global immunization against coronavirus, disclosing that one of the cardinals was in the ICU. While he stopped short of revealing the identity of the patient, BBC reported that American Cardinal Raymond Burke recently spent days on a ventilator after contracting the lethal infection. While it is not clear if he was referring to Burke but it is worth noting that he has blatantly opposed vaccination.

Even in the College of Cardinals, there are some vaccine negationists. But one of them, poor thing, has been hospitalised with the virus. These are the ironies of life," the Argentinian Pope told reporters aboard his flight from Slovakia to Italy.

Tackling vaccine hesitancy in the Vatican

Talking about the Vatican city, he reckoned that almost everyone back home had been vaccinated. Furthermore, he said that they were working on methods to convince the vaccine sceptics. "As children [we were vaccinated] for measles, polio - all the children were vaccinated and no one said anything," he said, indicating that vaccines have been ubiquitous for decades.

"It's a bit strange because humanity has a history of friendship with vaccines," Pope Francis told reporters during his flight.

Pope Francis, on Sunday, commenced his trip to Slovakia which also featured a brief stop in Hungary. The 84-year-old pontiffs trip was particularly significant as it would mark the first time that he would travel internationally following his intestinal surgery. In July, Pope Francis underwent a three-hour-long surgery to remove 33 centimetres of his colon. The surgery for diverticular stenosis generally involves removing the left side of the colon and then joining up the remaining healthy parts of the large intestine. Speaking to reporters, he expressed his joy at the resumption of his trips following a COVID triggered break and his surgery. Bad weeds never die, the Pope said, quoting a dictum from his native country-Argentina.

(With inputs from AP)

(Image: AP/Unsplash)
Amid the ongoing fight between the resistance and the Taliban in Afghanistan, the European Parliament on Tuesday passed a resolution and blamed Pakistan for their involvement in the situation. The parliament were critical of Pakistan assisting the Taliban in fighting the Ahmad Massoud-led National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRF) in the Panjshir Valley.

Having proclaimed the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the Taliban is now fighting NRF to take control of the Panjshir Valley. International reports had earlier claimed that Pakistan was actively involved in the fight. The European Parliament have now hit out at the country for supporting the Taliban in the fight.

"The Taliban are facing the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRF) in the Panjshir Valley led by Ahmad Massoud and Pakistan is assisting the Taliban in fighting the NRF by supplying its special forces and providing air support. Taliban fighters have been provided with safe havens in Pakistan for many years," said a European Parliament release.

Taliban have already started their rule in Kabul and have imposed numerous repressive measures reversing the achievements made by the country in the last two decades with the support of the EU and the international community. The international community except for a few countries have been voicing concern over the developments in the war-torn nation. The European Parliament said that the Taliban government could not be supported as it included persons responsible for acts of terrorism including persons under UN sanctions and wanted lists.

Pakistan passport holders in the Taliban govt, says European Parliament

The parliament release went on to claim that most of the individuals holding positions in the Taliban government have Pakistan passports and even use the country as a safe haven. "Taliban's caretaker government was formed without keeping the Taliban's promises of an inclusive government, the Ministry of Women's Affairs has been dismantled. The Taliban do not envisage continuous participation of women in leadership roles in Afghanistan, and are persecuting women leaders, officials and activists, and are using lethal force to disperse women's rights protests. There is a well-founded fear that the Law on Elimination of Violence Against Women, which imposes criminal penalties for child and forced marriages, domestic violence and numerous other abuses against women will be repealed," the release said.

Split in Taliban?

Meanwhile, sources on Wednesday informed Republic Media Network that cracks have already emerged in the cabinet of the Taliban as Deputy Prime Minister and co-founder of the insurgent group Mullah Ghani Baradar has rebelled the decision to include Pakistan-based terror outfit- the Haqqanis - in the government. As part of the rebellion, Mullah Ghani Baradar has also not been attending meetings, which obviously have in attendance Sirajuddin Haqqani, the interior Minister of the country and Minister for Refugees Khalil ur-Rahman Haqqani. The split in the Taliban has been reported weeks after the announcement of the government of the Islamic Emirates of Afghanistan.

(With ANI inputs) Image: AP/ Shutterstock
Openly homosexual priest Lars Gardfeldt of Carl Johan Parish in Gothenburg, Sweden has refused to officiate marriages of heterosexual couples. In order to do so, he has referred to an individual priests right not to marry a couple in case of conscientious objection. Notably, the Swedish church presently allows the individual priests to refuse to wed specific couples if they are considered to have an issue with the union. This is typically illustrated if the involved parties are intoxicated or are under the influence of any drugs, but could also include homosexuality which the individual clergy might condone.

While speaking on Swedish Radio, Gardfeldt works in a parish said that he will no longer marry opposite-sex couples in order to show the absurdity of refusing marriage to two consenting adults. As per the Expressen newspaper, the homosexual priest said that he felt great sadness that he would no longer wed the heterosexual couples but noted that he wants to show how the churchs present position is theologically and ethically reprehensible.

Gardfeldt said, I want to fix the debate...We should not recruit new anti-gay priests. We should not ordain new priests who pass on the idea that homosexuals are inferior people.

Gardfeldt wants church to tackle homophobia

The Swedish priest has also called for the church to tackle homophobia within the institution by refusing anti-gay priests. Gardfeldt said that it could only happen if the bishops take a stringent approach. The openly homosexual clergy has now also called on the senior officials in the Church of Sweden to safeguard the rights of queer people by committing to overturning the conscientious objection rule before the church elections on September 19.

The Church of Sweden, as per Pink News report is the countrys largest Christian denomination. It is not only a former state church but has at least 5.8 million members. Reportedly, the church is known for being a trailblazing force within the religious circles of Sweden.

While same-sex couples have been allowed to get married in the Church of Sweden since 2009, there still isnt any requirement for priests to agree to perform such a union. The individual clergy is allowed to refuse, a right that several church politicians do not wish to remove.

IMAGE: @larsgardfeldt/Twitter


After an intense battle in Al Bayda, the Houthi militia have seized some of the key areas from Yemen's government forces. The militia fighters have been stationed at Sawma'ah district after the withdrawal of security forces, reported Xinhua. As per the report, the intense battle was still taking place between Houthi rebels and the government forces.

A military official told Xinhua that the militia group had gained some of the areas following an intense battle in Al-Bayda on Wednesday, September 16. The military official who remained anonymous told the news outlet that the Houthis militia group has captured the Sawma'ah district in al-Bayda province. The military official further stated that the militia group was stationed at Sawma'ah district after the withdrawal of the forces from the area.

Houthi Militia captures some of the areas

Furthermore, the military official informed that the militia group had captured some of the areas in Mukayras. The fierce battle was going on between the Houthi fighters and the government forces backed by local tribal fighters. Moreover, there was no official information regarding the casualties that occurred during the battle. Reportedly, some of the people were injured or killed by a terrorist groups and government forces, reported Xinhua citing medical sources. Earlier on September 13, a massive landmine explosion in Hodeidah city of Yemen injured 15 citizens. The incident took place in Al Khawkhah district in Yemen's Red Sea Port and the blast was claimed by the local Houthi militia.

Yemen-Houthi Militia Conflict

The Yemen-Houthi Conflict began in September 2014, when the Iran-backed Houthi militia seized the capital city of Sanaa. In order to replace the country's President Abed Rabbi Mansour Hadi, the militia group formed the Supreme Political Council along with its allied forces in 2015. In March 2015, the rebels and their allies engaged in a battle for Aden and captured Aden International Airport. The battle forced President Hadi to flee the country to Saudi Arabia. After an official requests from Hadi, Saudi Arabia and several other Arab nations in 2015, intervened militarily to fight against Houthis.

Image: AP

Inputs from AP, ANI
Pakistans National Security Advisor (NSA), Moeed Yusuf on Wednesday, said that his country is incapable of holding any more refugees from conflict-hit Afghanistan. Addressing a press briefing in Islamabad, Moeed Yusuf said that Pakistan was battered with multiple challenges including financial and security constraints and wasnt in the condition to host any more refugees. Ever since the Taliban took control of the Central Asian country, hundreds of residents fled to Pakistan, majorly via the land border of Chaman.

Pakistan is in no condition right now to accept any more refugees, Yusuf told a news conference, adding that the Islamic Republic was already hosting more than 3 million Afghan refugees who had fled the war and violence in their country over the past decades.

While the top official reckoned that Pakistan is willing to ramp up efforts for Afghan refugees, he pointed out the threat of cross border terrorism. You don't need to think too much to know what will happen. There will be a security vacuum. You already know ISIS is present there, Pakistani Taliban are present there, al-Qaeda is there, he said. Additionally, NSA Yusuf also highlighted regional security threats stemming from the Taliban takeover. If Afghanistan destabilizes the spillover effect comes to Pakistan, he said asking the international community to negotiate with the insurgent and establish peace in Afghanistan.

Turkey builds bulwark to stop migration

This comes as Turkey's Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu on Wednesday denied accepting the influx of refugees coming from Afghanistan. According to a report by the news agency, Xinhua, Turkey has been extending the construction of a wall on its eastern Van province border with Iran in order to secure the country from the migrant influx. The media report said that the country has already built 221 kilometres border wall near the Iran borders and it was planning to add another 242 kilometres. The news agency claimed that the decision was taken during a meeting on the issue of migration on September 15. "Our agreements with Iran has resulted favourably. We are purposing to finish the 20 kilometres on our (southeastern province) Hakkari border by this Christmastime," Xinhua news agency quoted him as saying.

(With inputs from PTI)

Image: YusufMoeed/Twitter/AP
Slamming the 'wait and watch' policy of different countries on recognising the new Afghanistan government, Pakistan's National Security Adviser Moeed Yusuf on Thursday said that such an approach would take Afghanistan more towards an economic downfall.

While addressing a press conference in Islamabad, he said that the world needs to directly communicate with the newly formed Taliban government in Afghanistan and further influence and mould governance in the way they want. Emphasising the fact that proper governance in Afghanistan is not possible without engagement, NSA Yusuf also recalled the decision taken by the West in the 1990s which led to a severe collapse.

Further adding to it, he said that Afghanistan would again become a hub for terrorist activities if the world still abandon its people, quoted ANI.

Terrorist activities in Afghanistan

Pakistan NSA Yusuf also spoke about the current situation in Afghanistan stating that the militant Islamic State (IS) group followed by Pakistani Taliban and Al Qaeda are already present in the country. In such a situation, there is no need to risk a security vacuum by abandoning Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, several people including many Afghan citizens hold Islamabad responsible for the Taliban takeover and assisting the militant group in every possible way.

Pakistan's Security Adviser also said that the international community has extended its humanitarian efforts for Afghanistan but it has not yet recognised its newly-formed government.

NSA Yusuf's comment on 9/11 risk

Earlier in the month of August, an interview of Pakistan's NSA Moeed Yusuf sparked controversy after his statement suggested a risk of another terrorist attack if the countries failed to identify the Taliban. However, later the Office of the Pak NSA issued a clarification and accused the publication of misinterpreting the interview.

(With ANI inputs)

Image: Twitter/@YusufMoeed/AP
United Nations' Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Afghanistan announced that more than 6,34,000 Afghans were internally displaced by conflicts in 2021. As of September 12, 2021, a total of 6,34,800 persons have been displaced by hostilities, with 2,82,246 displaced people had received assistance, according to the UNHCR.

According to a report by Xinhua, since the Taliban took control of the country in mid-August, the security situation in Afghanistan has remained stable. Officials in Afghanistan and humanitarian organisations have raised worry over the living conditions of displaced families in the country, claiming that it has harmed women and children who lack access to health care and education.

More than 28,000 Afghans affected by catastrophes

According to OCHA, more than 28,000 Afghans have been affected by the catastrophes in Afghanistan since the beginning of this year. At a high-level ministerial conference on Afghanistan's humanitarian crisis in Geneva on Monday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the risk of a complete economic collapse in Afghanistan was 'serious' and emphasised the urgent need for monetary support. On Tuesday, the United Nations urged the countries that have pledged 1.2 billion dollars in aid to Afghanistan to act promptly.

According to TOLO News, some people in Afghanistan are attempting to flee the nation, while others who are in the country lacked the financial means to purchase a home. Property sales have plummeted, and rent costs have dropped by half. Furthermore, numerous properties were abandoned as renters fled the war-torn country.

On the other hand, tens of thousands of residents in Kandahar, organised a protest against the Taliban after they were ordered to leave their houses. According to The Khaama Press, Taliban-led Afghan government provincial commanders ordered families living in the Afghan national army's land division to leave their houses within three days.

Qatar is the major base managing the Afghan evacuees

The Al Udeid Air Base near Doha, Qatar is the major base managing the initial outflow of Afghan evacuees, where evacuees are verified against the National Counterterrorism Center's terrorist watch list. The largest US Air Force installation in Europe, Ramstein Air Base in Germany is also a processing centre for Afghan evacuees.

(Image: AP)
The United Nations officials have warned against the crisis in Afghanistan amid an estimate that 90% of health infrastructure and medical facilities in the war-ravaged state would shut down. This comes to the fore as international organisations have cut down on funding to the Islamic Emirates of Afghanistan and the Afghanistan health structure operated by the Taliban. The COVID-19 pandemic in the self-imposed government has also impacted the war-ravaged nation.

Despite it having been two years since the spark of SARS-Cov-2 that led to deaths of millions, the pandemic does not top Afghanistan's list of worries. According to a report by The National Interest, the health infrastructure of Afghanistan appears to be safe as the 'population is overwhelmingly young, and young are typically less vulnerable to COVID-19'. Also, Afghanistan's death rate has been lower than various other countries.

Afghanistan's Ministry of Health and the World Health Organisation (WHO) claim nearly 7,100 COVID-related deaths have been reported in the country since the outbreak of the pandemic. Obviously, the healthcare facility in Afghanistan is not as well equipped as it needs to be, and also records among the lowest COVID vaccination rates in the world. The country needs to import COVID-related medical supplies, including PCR tests and other life-saving equipment, according to the country's Dr. Wahid Majrooh, the countrys acting health minister.

COVID testing centres in Afghanistan are shut since the evacuation of US-led forces, commented Majrooh, who held office in the Ministry of Public Health till the Taliban's conquest since August 15. Majrooh also revealed that of nearly 300 COVID-19 tests conducted by authorities on September 7, more than 100 were tested positive. Further, he had expressed grave concern over Afghanistan's incompetence to curb the surge in COVID infections. Reports suggest that Afghan hospitals no longer have the power to hold cold storage, typically required to store COVID vaccines and COVID-19-related shipments.

Majrooh also warned against the temporarily suspending medical aid to Afghanistan would ignite more than urgent consequences, outpacing the war-ravaged country's health care system. He stated that when we hear messages from the World Bank or the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund donors, whether they say that they have put our funds on hold, or they've frozen them; what that actually means is that 3700 health facilities, health of 35 million people will collapse.
The members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) are reluctant to host Afghan refugees and foreign military outposts on their land, according to Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev's press office statement on September 16.

ANI reported, quoting Sputnik, that Tokayev attended a meeting of the CSTO's Collective Security Council in Dushanbe on September 16.

The press office statement said, "The CSTO's common position on the unacceptable deployment of Afghan refugees and foreign military sites on our countries' territory was endorsed by the head of state. Personnel from the UN field missions in Afghanistan were temporarily stationed in Almaty due to humanitarian concerns and the significance of giving international help to the Afghan people."

Afghanistans Refugee Crisis

Afghanistan's refugee crisis has risen to the fore since the Taliban's takeover. Last month, Afghanistan was thrown into chaos when the Taliban took control of Kabul after which the democratically elected government of then-President Ashraf Ghani collapsed.

Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are two other Central Asian countries that border Afghanistan but are not members of the CSTO. Uzbekistan, on the other hand, has stated that it will only allow refugees to travel by plane to third countries for a brief period.

According to UN Refugee Agency figures, more than 4,00,000 Afghans have been displaced from their homes this year alone. They fled as the terror group claimed territory under its control, bringing the total number of internally displaced people to five million by the end of 2020.

Thousands of Afghans await relocation on US military sites

Approximately 64,000 Afghan evacuees had landed in the United States as of September 14. After the United States withdrew from Afghanistan last month, the vast majority of Afghan citizens were put in jeopardy under Taliban administration. According to an official federal document obtained by The New York Times, nearly 49,000 people are staying on eight domestic military sites, waiting to be relocated in the United States. Approximately 18,000 people are stationed at sites around the world, the majority of which are in Germany. Some people leave after a few weeks, but the majority stay for months.

About CSTO countries

The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) is a Eurasia-wide intergovernmental military alliance made up of post-Soviet republics. The treaty was drafted by the Soviet Armed Forces, which were gradually replaced by the Commonwealth of Independent States' United Armed Forces. CSTO members comprise Russia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus, and Tajikistan.

(With inputs from ANI)

Image: AP
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's top legal adviser lashed out on Thursday at the International Criminal Court's decision to investigate allegations of crimes against humanity during his war on drugs.

The court on Wednesday said it had authorised an investigation requested by former prosecutor Fatou Bensouda into Duterte's "war on drugs" campaign, saying it could not "be seen as a legitimate law enforcement operation."

Duterte's spokesperson, Harry Roque, said the president was unfazed when he'd informed him late on Wednesday of the court's decision to open an investigation.

More than 6,000 mostly poor drug suspects have been killed, according to the government, but human rights groups say the death toll is considerably higher and should include many unsolved killings by motorcycle-riding gunmen who may have been deployed by police.

Duterte, who has has denied condoning extrajudicial killings of drug suspects, is constitutionally prohibited from running for another term as president in elections next year.

But he has announced he will run as vice president instead in a maneuver critics have said is an attempt to both maintain power and insulate himself from the ICC investigation, which has been expected.

The investigation will look at killings that took place during some of the time Duterte was mayor of Davao, and at his time as president between July 1, 2016 and March 16, 2019, the date the Philippines withdrew from the court.

The presidential legal counsel argued that if the court wanted to investigate it should done so have while the Philippines were members of the ICC, and that now it has no jurisdiction.

Last year, the court decided not to pursue an investigation into crimes alleged committed by China against Uyghur and other minorities there, saying it did not have jurisdiction over non-members.

The United States and Russia are other notable non-members of the ICC.

But Carlos Conde, senior Philippine researcher for Human Rights Watch, said by focusing on the years that the country was still a member of the court, the ICC is well within its rights to investigate Duterte's actions.

(Disclaimer: This story is auto-generated from a syndicated feed; only the image & headline may have been reworked by www.republicworld.com)
Deputy Permanent Representative-Political Coordinator to the United Nations, R Ravindra, on Wednesday, 15 September, while speaking on the briefing on Indias UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), encouraged the Transitional National Legislative Assembly (TNLA) and new members to the Council of States (COS) in South Sudan to pay attention to the much-needed legislative work. During the briefing, Ravindra also called on TNLA and COS to meet the benchmarks set in the Revitalised Peace Agreement.

As per a press note, Ravindra stated that there is a need to resume talks to revive the reconciliation process between the Transitional Government and the South Sudan Opposition Movements Alliance. He also applauded South Sudan for taking noteworthy steps, and even said that it is encouraging that economic reforms have helped improve macroeconomic stability and public finances while also mitigating the impact of COVID-19.

Ravindra said, The developments in South Sudan during the last three months have provided the impetus to the implementation of the Revitalized Agreement. Political violence has decreased, and the parties have been by and large faithful to the Revitalized Agreement. The peaceful cohabitation of various political parties is reassuring and provides hope for peace and stability.

He added, The Presidency of the Republic of South Sudan and the leadership has taken noteworthy steps. The appointment of new members to the COS with a large representation of women, reconstitution of the TNLA, and their swearing into office in August, the appointment of the first woman Speaker, and new political appointments are indeed all positive signs.

Further, while referring to killings on the Juba-Nimule road, Ravindra termed the launching of the consultative process for the establishment of the Commission for Truth, Reconciliation and Healing (CTRH) as a "positive step". On the security front, the Indian envoy also said that localised violence has increased but it was encouraging that the ceasefire has continued to hold. Moreover, Ravindra even supported the call given by the Presidency of South Sudan for cessation of hostilities between the rival factions and observance of a reasonable distance to prevent further violence.

"The defections and internal disputes, and fighting within SPLM/A-IO (SPLM-Army in opposition) has unfortunately resulted in fatalities. We commend the mediating role of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in addressing the situation. The continuing violence calls for an early establishment of the Unified Command of the military and the graduation of the Necessary Unified Forces, which is a critical aspect of the Agreement," he said.

'India will continue to support South Sudan'

Ravindra further went on to appreciate the continuing cooperation between the Transitional Government and UNMISS in providing protection to internally displaced persons (IDPs) in camps for the internally displaced. He urged UNMISS to continue to move forward on the transition of the Malakal Protection of Civilians site. He said that the humanitarian needs of the population are increasing and the international community needs to step in to bridge the funding gap in the budget.

At the end of the briefing, the Indian envoy concluded saying, India congratulates the people and Government of South Sudan on their tenth anniversary as an independent and sovereign State. We believe, at this transformative phase, South Sudan requires the wholehearted support of the international community, including from the IGAD, AU and UN. For its part, India will continue to support South Sudan, and its people.

(with inputs from ANI)


Nepal acknowledged India for its continued support towards the infrastructural development of the Himalayan nation on Thursday. India expressed its delight at the productive collaboration with the Nepal government and the joint efforts made towards strengthening connectivity infrastructure between the two countries.

The discourse took place during the 4th Joint Project Monitoring Committee on 'Strengthening of Road Infrastructure' in the Terai region of Nepal which was held through video-conferencing. The meeting concluded with both delegations agreeing that the next JPMC meeting would be held on a mutually convenient date as per requirement.

Delegates from India-Nepal talk development issues

The Joint Secretary of the Northern Division of the Ministry of External Affairs of India, Anurag Srivastava, along with the Joint Secretary from Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport of Nepal Keshab Kumar Sharma co-chaired the fourth Joint Project Monitoring Committee (JPMC) meet.

The meet evaluated the overall implementation of the Government of India-funded Terai Roads Project in Nepal while expressing pleasure at the satisfactory progress achieved with the fulfilment of 13 out of 14 road packages under the project.

Both nations noted that despite the hazards posed by the COVID pandemic, the initiative has made good progress and has finally reached the final stage of completion.

India's commitment to developing Nepal

It should be noted here that among others, India had committed Rs 500 crore in 2016 for the construction of 10 roads with a total length of 306 km in the Terai region in Nepal. The roads connect the Mahendra Rajmarg also called the East-West Highway to the Indian border, increasing the ease of connectivity between the people of the two countries. Both sides noted that 13 out of the total 14 packages have already been dedicated to the people of Nepal together by the Minister for Physical Infrastructure and Transport of the Government of Nepal and the Ambassador of India to Nepal on March 31, 2021.

"During the meeting, the Nepali side thanked GoI for the continued support for the development of infrastructure in Nepal, particularly in the area of road connectivity. The Indian side expressed its happiness at the fruitful cooperation with GoN and the joint efforts made towards strengthening connectivity infrastructure between the two countries," a GoI statement read.
North Korea's captial Pyongyang stated last week that it had successfully launched a new long-range cruise missile, which the North Korean media termed as a strategic weapon of tremendous significance. According to a report by Sputnik, Pyongyang tested a new missile system meant to confront any force that threatens the country when it launched ballistic missiles on Wednesday, according to North Korean marshal Pak Jong-chon, as quoted by the state-run news agency KCNA.

Pak Jong-chon, a member of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea, stated that the railway-borne missile system acts as an efficient counter-strike tool capable of administering a hard multi-concurrent blow to threat-posing troops. The North Korean military's ambitions to grow the railway-borne missile regiment to a brigade-size force in the near future, as well as perform drills to gather operational experience for actual war, were also mentioned by the marshal.

Missiles travelled 800 kilometres

According to KCNA, Yesterday's missiles travelled 800 kilometres before hitting a target in the sea off North Korea's east coast. The launch of two North Korean ballistic missiles, were detected by South Korea and Japan which Seoul claimed were fired from the central inland area of Yangdok. This comes after Pyongyang announced last week that it had successfully tested a new long-range cruise missile capable of targeting 1,500 kilometres away from the nation.

The development of a long-range cruise missile, a strategic weapon, has been delayed over last two years using a scientific and reliable weapon system development technique. Pyongyang's missile activities, according to the US Indo-Pacific Command, highlight the DPRK's persistent concentration on developing its military programme and the threats that it poses to its neighbours and the world community.

North Korea spent the first six months of 2021 building its nuclear missile programmes

The events were preceded by a military parade in North Korea on September 9 to commemorate the country's 73rd anniversary, which featured mechanised paramilitary units, rocket launchers, and anti-tank weapons. The parade did not feature any nuclear weapons or ballistic missiles. North Korea spent the first six months of 2021 building its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes, according to a United Nations report.

Image: Twitter/@JaiRajp02741035
HISTORIC: SpaceX Launches First Private Flight With Four Amateurs On Earth-circling Trip

First time in the history of space tourism, Elon Musk's American Aerospace Company, SpaceX, launched the Inspiration4 mission on Wednesday, September 16, with four civilian crew and no professional astronauts. The Falcon 9 rocket took off from the Kennedy Space Center pad which was used by the companys three previous astronaut flights for NASA. This time the Dragon capsule aimed to travel to an altitude of 357 miles (575 kilometers), just beyond the Hubble Space Telescope.

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US Says Al Qaeda Regrouping Noticed By CIA In Taliban-controlled Afghanistan

United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on Wednesday said that early signs that Al Qaeda regrouping in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan have been noticed by the intelligence. Citing that American intelligence agencies are closely monitoring the situation, Deputy Director of the US CIA David Cohen said that current intelligence reports indicate "some potential motion of Al Qaeda [returning] to Afghanistan," reported Intelnews.org. He further added that the CIA, in particular, is already working to develop "methods to work within the horizon".

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Ex-Ministers Sulk Ahead Of Gujarat Cabinet Swearing-in; Last-minute Lobbying On: Sources

Amid rumours that the new Gujarat Cabinet will contain all fresh faces, Ministers in the erstwhile Vijay Rupani-led government are believed to be unhappy. Former Deputy CM Nitin Patel who is also likely to be dropped was reportedly incommunicado for several hours even as Union Minister Bhupender Yadav and BJP general secretary (organisation) BL Santhosh were trying to repeatedly contact him. As per sources, he is aggrieved also because the MLAs which he recommended do not feature in the list of Council of Ministers.

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European Parliament Resolution Calls Out Pakistan For assisting Taliban In Fighting NRF

Amid the ongoing fight between the resistance and the Taliban in Afghanistan, the European Parliament on Tuesday passed a resolution and blamed Pakistan for their involvement in the situation. The parliament were critical of Pakistan assisting the Taliban in fighting the Ahmad Massoud-led National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRF) in the Panjshir Valley.

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'Major Success': Head Of Islamic State In Sahara 'killed' Confirms France's Emmanuel Macron

French troops have neutralised the Islamic State (IS) leader Adnan Abou Walid al Sahraoui in the Sahel region, countrys President Emmanuel Macron said on 16 September. In a tweet, he confirmed that Sahraoui, who led the terror outfit in the Greater Sahara, has been killed, marking a major success in Frances fight against terrorism. It is imperative to note that France has repeatedly been subjected to attacks perpetrated by Islamist terrorists leading Macron to blatantly declare a war on Radical Islam.

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Afghanistan: Mullah Baradar Refutes Rumours Of Taliban Infighting Amid Power Struggle With Haqqanis

Putting an end to rumours about his death, Taliban co-founder and Afghanistan's Deputy PM Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar appeared in an interview on state-owned broadcaster Radio Television Afghanistan on Wednesday. After his meeting with Martin Griffiths, the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs in Kabul on September 5, he was not seen publicly and did not participate in the talks with Qatar's high-level delegation. Later, reports suggested that Baradar was injured or killed in a clash with a rival faction of the terrorist group last week.

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Uttar Pradesh polls: Congress Defends Seeking Money From Ticket Aspirants; Claims 'sign Of Transparency'

On Wednesday, Uttar Pradesh Congress president Ajay Kumar Lallu defended his party's move to ask the Assembly election ticket aspirants to pay a contribution amount. While submitting their applications seeking a Congress ticket, they have to deposit Rs.11,000 via RTGS, money order, or demand draft. Speaking to the media, Lallu clarified that the amount was necessary for Congress to function effectively. He cited the publication of a circular in this regard as a sign of the party's "transparency".

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'He has no right...' | BJP Threatens To Lodge FIR Against Rahul Gandhi For 'insulting Hindu Gods'

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday hit out at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over his latest remarks on the Hindu religion. BJP MLA Rameshwar Sharma has now said that an FIR will be lodged against Rahul Gandhi for his "insulting Hindu gods and goddesses. The lash out at the opposition leader came after he made some strong remarks connecting BJP and the Hindu religion while speaking at the All India Mahila Congress foundation day.

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'Our position remains unchanged': Ardern Welcomes AUKUS Partnership; Australian Nuclear Subs To Be Banned From NZ Waters

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Thursday welcomed the new trilateral security partnership between the United States, United Kingdom and Australia - 'AUKUS'. However, Ardern has also stated that Australian nuclear submarines will be banned from New Zealand waters. Ardern's statement comes in view of the country's 'New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone' foreign policy.

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Haryana Govt To Form Committee To Remove Farmers' Blockade At NH-44

With an aim to remove the protesting farmers from the Kundli-Singhu border in Sonipat, the Haryana government has formed a high-powered panel that would speak to the farmers for convincing them for removing the blockage at the National Highway 44. The decision was taken after a high-level meeting chaired by Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar along with another meeting by Sonipat Deputy Commissioner Lalit Siwach with the representatives of the farmers.

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STORY: Tajikistan Lukashenko CSTO Afghanistan - Tajik President, Lukashenko discuss Afghanistan

LENGTH: 02:48

FIRST RUN: 1351

RESTRICTIONS: Part no access Belarus

TYPE: Russian/Natsound

SOURCE: TAJIK STATE TV, BELARUSIAN STATE TV AND RADIO COMPANY

STORY NUMBER: 4344336

DATELINE: 16 September 2021 - Dushanbe

SHOTLIST:

RESTRICTION SUMMARY:

TAJIK STATE TV

Dushanbe, Tajikistan - 16 September 2021

1. Wide of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation meeting

2. Tajik President Emomali Rahmon speaking at meeting

3. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan

4. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Emomali Rahmon, Tajik President:

++INCLUDES CUTAWAYS++

"Announced (by Taliban) composition of the interim government (in Afghanistan) ignores political, ethnic and language diversity and gender equality. It means that in upcoming two- or three-years propagation of extremist ideology will intensify and the possibility of expansion of these destructive ideas to the neighbouring regions will increase manyfold."

5. Kyrgyz President Sadyr Zhaparov, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Secretary-General of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation Stanislav Zas

6. Screen showing Russian President Vladimir Putin taking part in meeting virtually

7. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Emomali Rahmon, Tajik President: ++ENDS ON CUTAWAY++

"Using political and military vacuum, various terrorist groups strengthen their positions in the country. Afghanistan is turning on our eyes into a hotbed of international terrorism. According to information we receive from various regions of Afghanistan, real situation on the place is completely different. It's many times worse than the one presented by media."

8. Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko

9. Wide of the meeting

BELARUSIAN STATE TV AND RADIO COMPANY - NO ACCESS BELARUS

Dushanbe, Tajikistan - 16 September 2021

10. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Alexander Lukashenko, Belarusian President: ++INCLUDES CUTAWAY OF MEDIA++

"They try to characterize incidents with refugees and migrants at the border as international hybrid threat. They make active attempts to shift responsibility for migrant issues onto transit countries. It all happens right after US and their NATO allies messed up in Afghanistan and Middle East countries."

11. Kyrgyz President Sadyr Zhaparov

12. Media

13. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Alexander Lukashenko, Belarusian President:

"At the same time, Western countries close their eyes on blatant violations of their own obligations on human rights. Over last week, incidents take place almost at daily basis at the borders with Poland and Lithuania. During these incidents, refugees from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria are pushed to the Belarus territory in a harsh and cruel way with the use of arms."

14. Kazakhstan's President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev

15. Media

16. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Alexander Lukashenko, Belarusian President:

"The West's double standards show up in active attempts to hide from migrant issues behind a fence at Western border of CSTO. Allocation of hundreds of millions of dollars is being discussed. What a worthless fool's errand."

TAJIK STATE TV

Dushanbe, Tajikistan - 16 September 2021

17. Wide of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation meeting

STORYLINE:

Tajikistan's President Emomali Rahmon and his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko on Thursday took part in a meeting with leaders of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation to discuss the situation in Afghanistan.

Rahmon said during the meeting that he believed the "political and military vacuum" was allowing terrorist groups to strengthen their positions in the country, tuning it into what he called "a hotbed of international terrorism".

Lukashenko meanwhile accused U.S. and NATO of allowing massive influx of refugees to Europe which authorities are reluctant to accommodate.

"Refugees from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria are pushed to the Belarus territory in a harsh and cruel way with the use of arms," said Lukashenko.

Thousands of people in Afghanistan have been looking for ways to leave the country after the Taliban took control of Kabul in a swift power grab, seeking to escape what they see as a return to ruthless fundamentalist rule.

Hundreds have headed to the Central Asian nations of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, which share a border with Afghanistan.

Poland - like Lithuania - has seen a surge of migrants arriving across its border with Belarus in recent weeks, prompting the government in Warsaw to accuse President Lukashenko of sending migrants from Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere across the border in a "hybrid war" to create instability in the 27-nation EU.

In response Poland has begun building a barbed wire fence along the border, a measure which Lukashenko called "a worthless fool's errand".

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Despite completing the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that several EU member states and the US continue to oppose the project aggressively. While speaking at a press conference on September 15, Lavrov said that criticism has been raised against the pipeline and added that it is incomprehensible why this has been the case. The Russian minister also said that most of the criticism has come from the US, claiming that the pipeline could undermine Europes energy security.

Lavrov further went on to say that the EU is also criticising Russia for not being willing to communicate with the bloc as a whole. However, he added that the European Union itself has persistently destroyed relations with Russia at all levels. Lavrov said, We will communicate with those who are willing to do so.

Nord Stream 2 project

Meanwhile, Russia announced the completion of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline construction on September 10. The Nord Stream 2 is built under the Baltic Sea and bypasses Poland and Ukraine. It is a 1,230-km gas pipeline and would bring 55 million cubic meters of gas annually from Russia to Germany.

Poland and Ukraine expressed over the pipelines completion as they believe Russia could use Nord Stream 2 pipeline as a political weapon. Ukraine has described the new pipeline as a powerful geopolitical weapon for Russia. It is worth noting that the 1,230-kilometre natural gas line project has posed a major foreign policy dilemma for the US. The United States has strongly opposed the construction and said that Moscow's pipeline is a geopolitical manoeuver that will undermine Ukraines role in transiting energy to Europe and increase European dependence on Russian gas. However, Germany, which is actively involved in the project, has insisted that the project is purely commercial.

The US long feared it would give Russia excess power over European gas supplies. It is also to be noted that Trump had damaged the relationship between Germany and the US. Now, the Biden administration is determined to rebuild its ties. In July, the US and Germany gave their nod to complete the project, ignoring Ukraine and Poland.

Image: AP
United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on Wednesday said that early signs that Al Qaeda regrouping in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan have been noticed by the intelligence. Citing that American intelligence agencies are closely monitoring the situation, Deputy Director of the US CIA David Cohen said that current intelligence reports indicate "some potential motion of Al Qaeda [returning] to Afghanistan," reported Intelnews.org. He further added that the CIA, in particular, is already working to develop "methods to work within the horizon".

While accepting that closure of the United States embassy in Kabul and a network of CIA stations across Afghanistan, had "diminished" the ability of American intelligence agencies to assess conditions on the ground, the CIA Deputy Director added that the reports are coming from countries that border Afghanistan. Acknowledging that current situation, Cohen who was speaking at the Intelligence and National Security Summit in Washington said that Al Qaeda might take one to two years to amass its former strike capability, so as to directly threaten American interests.

Al-Qaeda's close association with Taliban

While DIA official Lt. Gen. Scott D. Berrier stressed that both Al-Qaeda and ISIS-K have returned to Afghanistan, it is Al-Qaeda that has a closer alliance with the Taliban. Meanwhile, Director of United States National Intelligence Avril Haines in her statement via videoconferencing at the National Security Summit admitted that US President Joe Bidens abrupt military withdrawal "dismantled the CIA intelligence network that the United States built up over the last 20 years."

CIA veteran's warning of Taliban-Al Qaeda threat

Last week, Michael Morell, who served as acting Central Intelligence Agency director twice, during an online forum sponsored by the US Attorney's Office, speculated that the Taliban would invite al-Qaida to rebuild its base in Afghanistan. Morell, who briefed President George W Bush on September 11, believed that the Taliban will give a safe haven to al-Qaida in order to target the United States.

Pakistan behind Taliban's quick takeover of Afghanistan

Meanwhile, another former member of CIA, John Sipher blamed Pakistan for the Taliban's quick takeover of Afghanistan.

In response to a Washington Post article that blamed America for the situation in Afghanistan, Sipher claimed Pakistan's unwavering support for the Taliban as the reason for Afghanistan's condition.
In a major development for travel enthusiasts, Chile has opened its doors for fully vaccinated foreigners, according to Xinhua. All incoming passengers who wish to enter the South American country must present proof of full vaccination, a negative COVID-19 PCR test was taken no more than 72 hours before arrival and a vaccination passport. Notably, all the vaccine passports need to be validated by the Chilean Health ministry.

Chile, popular amongst tourists for its scenic national parks, is highly dependent on non-resident tourists, who account for 40 per cent of its total tourism revenue. According to Chiles Health Chief Paula Daza, all non-resident travellers would also be required to undergo a mandatory 5-day quarantine along with medical travel insurance. Meanwhile, unvaccinated tourists-including children - will only be allowed to enter under strict criteria, such as for humanitarian reasons.

"We call on all citizens and foreigners, whether residents or not, to behave responsibly and fully comply with the regulations in force," Chile's Undersecretary of Crime Prevention Maria Jose Gomez said during a press conference.

Countries that have reopened borders for foreigners

Sri Lanka

In its latest travel guidelines, the island has allowed fully vaccinated Indian travellers to enter its territory. As per the reports, anyone travelling from India, with both the doses of either Covaxin or Covishield vaccine, will be allowed entry.

Turkey

While Turkey allowed Indian travellers weeks ago, it has now eased quarantine rules for them. Starting September 4, Indian passengers have been exempted from mandatory quarantine given they have been fully inoculated using COVID vaccines approved for emergency use by WHO or the Turkish administration. As of now, Covishield has been given the green light by WHO, while Turkish health officials have okayed Sputnik.

Switzerland

Switzerland, which is significantly dependent on tourism, was one of the first countries on the European continent to reopen its doors for Indian tourists. As per the reports, passengers who have received both the jabs of Covishield, will not be required to undergo quarantine on arrival.

France

A major tourist and student hub, France has put India on its Amber List. According to multiple reports, passengers who have received both the jabs of Covishield or with any vaccine approved by the country will be allowed entry into the country. Notably, the passengers are required to carry their vaccine passports.

Image: AP/Representative
At the outset of the collective, AUKUS i.e Australia, United Kingdom, United States of America association, that was announced on September 15, Jeremy Corbyn, a Member of UK Parliament from Islington constituency indicated the trilateral defence association as 'AUKUS cold war'. Corbyn, the leader of Opposition in the PM Boris Johnson government from 2015-2020, asserted that AUKUS would not bring 'peace, justice and human rights to the world'.

While three leading countries vouch that the alliance has been formulated with a vision of a safer and more secure Indo-Pacific, critics do not view strengthening of arms and military as a step toward peace-keeping approach. They fear militarisation of the 'Cold War' era.

Starting a new cold war will not bring peace, justice and human rights to the world. #AUKUS  Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) September 16, 2021

What is AUKUS?

The Head of States of the UK, US and Australia namely, PM Boris Johnson, President Joe Biden and Scott Morrison announced the trilateral defence alliance with an objective to acquire a nuclear-powered-conventionally armed submarine fleet. They declared the intention to continue working with their allies.

On Wednesday, President Joe Biden had said, "This is about investing in our greatest source of strength, our alliances, and updating them to better meet the threats of today and tomorrow."

"It is about connecting America's existing allies and partners in new ways," he added.

While analysts view the newly-formed partnership as one of the biggest ones in decades which will stir 'counter aggressive moves in the Indo-Pacific, British PM Johnson said the pact 'would preserve security and stability around the world'.

UK PM advocated for that pact saying it would generate 'hundreds of high skilled jobs'.

'AUKUS Cold War'

Cold war refers to the period of geopolitical tension between the US and the Soviet Union generally considered to have triggered since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 to the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The scuffle of hegemony between two superpowers was viewed as proxy war ignited with ideological, military and social struggle. While the liberal democratic States in Western Bloc was led by the US, the Eastern Bloc was led by the Soviet Union and its Communist Party, inclusive of governments and nations which supported right-wing approach and uprising across the world.

While AUKUS will hamper Australia's deal with France to build 12 submarines, experts commented that regional security concerns will grow 'significantly'.

Pursuant to the lost deal, France's Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told local media houses, "It is really a stab in the back."

China remarked that the AUKUS trio, wherein, Australia will acquire nuclear-powered submarines with the help of technology supported by the US, 'seriously undermines regional peace and stability and intensifies the arms race'.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian denounced the agreement deeming the trilateral accord as 'extremely irresponsible'.

Additionally, the Chinese embassy in Washington blamed the member states of AUKUS for a 'Cold War mentality and ideological prejudice'.

Image: AP
China's Ambassador to the UK Zheng Zeguang has been banned from the UK Parliament. Zheng Zeguang was planned to attend a meeting organised by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on China but he was informed that he cannot join it. The ban comes to the fore as China sanctioned a handful of anti-China parliamentarians of the UK in March.

The Chinese authorities imposed sanctions on some of the UK Members of Parliament for their remarks on alleged human rights violations against Uyghur minorities in Xinjiang. The participation of Zeguang was cancelled after a letter from the sanctioned members of Parliament and House of Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle. The letter that was written against holding the meeting was signed by the Conservative Party Member of Parliament Ian Duncan Smith, Tim Loughton, Nusrat Ghani and the Chair of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee Tom Tugendhat.

UK bans Chinese Envoy From Parliament

In the letter, the British MP's stated that Chinese authorities have not made any effort to reverse the sanctions. House of Lords Speaker John McFall in the statement stated that both houses agreed to the decision about not organising the All-Party Parliamentary Group China Meeting in the parliament. The sanctions by the Chinese authorities on the United Kingdom MP's were imposed in March.

The decision has been condemned by a Chinese Embassy Spokesperson. Speaking on the decision to ban its envoy from Parliament, a Chinese Embassy spokesperson has stated that the decision of the UK Parliament shows the "narrow and parochial mindset of some individuals in the UK". He termed the decision of the parliament as a "shortsighted, reckless and cowardly move" and added that they "despise and strongly condemn" it. He further stated that the Chinese authorities sanctions on anti-China parliamentarians of the UK were "justified and reasonable".

Image: AP

Inputs from PTI
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson undertook a reshuffle of his top team on September 15. He retained two of his senior Indian-origin ministers Rishi Sunak and Priti Patel in the UK Cabinet. Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has also retained his position in the cabinet. The Prime Ministers office had said that the aim of a reshuffle was to put in place "a strong and united team to build back better from the pandemic", according to AP.

UK Cabinet Reshuffle

Taking to Twitter, Boris Johnson said that the cabinet he had appointed would work tirelessly to unite the whole country. He added, "We will build back better from the pandemic and deliver on your priorities". Liz Truss has been appointed United Kingdom's new Foreign Secretary, Commonwealth and Development Affairs. She will also remain Minister for Women and Equalities. Truss has replaced Dominic Raab who has now been moved to the position of Secretary of State for Justice and an added title of Deputy Prime Minister.

The Cabinet I have appointed today will work tirelessly to unite and level up the whole country.



We will build back better from the pandemic and deliver on your priorities.



Now lets get on with the job.  Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) September 15, 2021

Dominic Raab has faced criticism for delaying his return from a holiday in Greece as the Taliban took over Afghanistan. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has appointed Nadhim Zahawi as the Education Secretary. He replaced Gavin Williamson who was the first minister to indicate his departure from the cabinet. Taking to Twitter, Williamson stated that it had been a "privilege to serve" in the job. He also added that he is looking forward to continuing to support the PM and the government.

It has been a privilege to serve as Education Secretary since 2019. Despite the challenges of the global pandemic, Im particularly proud of the transformational reforms Ive led in Post 16 education: in further education colleges, our Skills agenda, apprenticeships and more.  Gavin Williamson (@GavinWilliamson) September 15, 2021

Nadine Dorries has been given the position as the head of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Health Secretary Sajid Javid retained his position in the cabinet. Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick has been fired and replaced by Michael Gove. Anne-Marie Trevelyan has replaced Liz Truss as Secretary of State for International trade. Furthermore, Oliver Dowden has now been given the role of minister without portfolio at the Cabinet Office. Simon Clarke has been appointed as the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and Nick Gibb, the school minister, has left the cabinet.

Image: AP

Inputs from AP
In a major Cabinet reshuffle, UK PM Boris Johnson has fired a string of ministers and promoted new faces to replace them. The Prime Ministers office on 15 September had said that the aim of a reshuffle was to put in place a strong and united team to build back better from the pandemic. According to AP, Johnson fired his education, justice and housing secretaries, and even demoted his former foreign secretary.

The Cabinet I have appointed today will work tirelessly to unite and level up the whole country.



We will build back better from the pandemic and deliver on your priorities.



Now lets get on with the job.  Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) September 15, 2021

In the biggest move in the reshuffle, Johnson sacked Education Secretary Gavin Williamson and demoted Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who has faced criticism over the recent months for delaying his return from a holiday in Greece as the Taliban took over Afghanistan. Raab has been appointed Justice Secretary, with the added title of Deputy PM. He will be replaced by International Trade Secretary Liz Truss.

Williamson, on the other hand, was the first to confirm he had been fired. While taking to Twitter, he said that it had been a privilege to serve in the job. He also added that he is looking forward to continuing to support the PM and the government. It is worth noting that Williamson had been under fire for his performance during the pandemic.

It has been a privilege to serve as Education Secretary since 2019. Despite the challenges of the global pandemic, Im particularly proud of the transformational reforms Ive led in Post 16 education: in further education colleges, our Skills agenda, apprenticeships and more.  Gavin Williamson (@GavinWilliamson) September 15, 2021

New UK Cabinet

In other moves, vaccine minister Nadhim Zahawi, who has been praised for presiding over the UK inoculation programme, has been promoted to the education secretary. Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick has been sacked and replaced by Michael Gove. Treasury Minister Steve Barclay has replaced Gove as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Anne-Marie Travelyan has returned to Cabinet as international trade secretary, stepping into Trusss shoes.

Moreover, Oliver Dowden has now been given the role of minister without portfolio at the Cabinet Office. Dowden will replace Amanda Milling as well, and will now co-chair the Conservative Party. Simon Clarke is now the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and Nick Gibb, the school minister, has left the government after seven years. Nadine Dorries, a junior health minister and best-selling novelist, has been promoted to secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport. In the coming hours, more moves are expected as the British PM seeks to fill vacant positions.

(Image: AP)


Several Ex and currently serving US military officials and lawmakers are calling for the resignation of US Armys Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley over sensational reporting from Woodwards upcoming book Peril. In the recently published excerpts, US Army General revealed that he reached out to his Chinese counterpart from the Peoples Liberation Army during the final days of Trump's presidency. Milley said he cautioned China about an attack over fears that the former US commander-in-chief Donald Trump had a mental decline and might strike the Peoples Republic with a nuclear arsenal.

Americas top military officer stated in the third upcoming Trump book that he made secret calls to Gen. Li Zuocheng of Chinas People's Liberation Army assuring, that the United States had no intention of starting a war with Beijing. If we're going to attack, I'm going to call you ahead of time," Army Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley told Chinese Armed Forces Li Zuocheng.

Accusing the Armys chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of usurping the civilian authority and breaking the chain of command, Retired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a military whistleblower that testified against former President Trump's impeachment said that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley must resign. If he made secret calls to his so-called Chinese counterparts, giving details about the military action against the Communist superpower, he violated the sacrosanct principle of civilian control over the military, Retired Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman indicated.

Its an extremely dangerous precedent. You cant simply walk away from that, Vindman tweeted, adding a hashtag to his remark do the right thing in the right way.

In his televised statement, with host Chris Cuomo, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman said: There has been reporting indicating that he was deeply concerned [about strike on China]. He didn't voice those concerns [to a chain of command] but instead, he worked behind the scenes and that's troubling to me."

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, US Armys recipient of the Purple Heart medal who served as director of European affairs for the National Security Council, and has been a key player in the Ukraine-focused impeachment proceedings of Donald Trump asked for Milleys resignation for promising, China of handing advance details in case the United States military planned to conduct a strike on orders of the former commander-in-chief, as revealed in Watergate sleuth Bob Woodwards book.

General Li, you and I have known each other for now five years. If were going to attack, Im going to call you ahead of time. Its not going to be a surprise, Milley was reported to have said in the forthcoming book.

Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., reacted to the report as he said in televised remarks on 'Mornings with Maria': "If true, there is a word for it, and it sure seems like treasonous activity to me. This seems like exactly what Benedict Arnold did in the past." He slammed Biden administration as having "most incompetent foreign affairs and foreign policy, national security decisions made ever" and said both US Secretary of State Blinken and Gen. Milley "must immediately resign."

Image: Twitter/@BetterknowYou

Slamming Gen. Mark Milley for overstepping his designated duties in the military role by secretly calling Chinas PLA and attempting to resist the then US Presidents orders, lawmakers and geopolitical analysts argued that Gen. Milley held no retention of support of military that he commands. He, divulging military details to the Chinese Army about armed confrontation [if any] would inevitably cost US military troops their lives had an armed conflict broken out. Army Gen. Milleys Army Values were also subjected to scrutiny that puts welfare of own nation, constitution, military unit and soldiers first, and also analysts stressed that he has been Americas highest-ranking military officer who served for over 39 years in the Army.

Republican lawmakers demanded a full investigation into this aspect, condemning Gen. Milley for undermining the civilian control of the military. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a senior member of Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence also called for Milleys resignation. Rubio lashed out, saying that the senior military leader worked to actively undermine the sitting commander in chief of the US armed forces. This amounted to treason in military terms. Senator Rubio released a press statement on Sept.15, asking to fire Gen. Milley.

The sitting Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces contemplated a treasonous leak of classified information to the Chinese Communist Party in advance of a potential armed conflict with the Peoples Republic of China (PRC), Sen. Rubio said. These actions by General Milley demonstrate a clear lack of sound judgement, and I urge you to dismiss him immediately, he wrote to Joe Biden. You must immediately dismiss General Milley as our national security and ability to lead in the world are at stake, Rubio said.

Gen. Milley denies wrongdoing

In a statement issued by his spokesperson Army Col. David Butler, Gen. Milley denied any wrongdoing as he said that his actions were "legal and in keeping with the duties of his position. General Milley continues to act and advise within his authority in the lawful tradition of civilian control of the military and his oath to the Constitution, the statement read. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs regularly communicates with Chiefs of Defense across the world, including with China and Russia, it added.

Image: Twitter/credit: Twitter/@Frank_Oppong
Members of the US Congress, on Wednesday, pushed for a hardline approach on Pakistan given its duplicitous role in war-ravaged Afghanistan. Earlier this week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the White House would reassess its relationship with Pakistan in the coming weeks to formulate what role it would play in the future of the Taliban controlled country. But two Democrats-Bill Keating and Joaquin Castro-called for immediate actions against Pakistan.

"How do we reassess that relationship, how we learn from their actions? And when we go forward. What do we do, what are some of the big issues that we should have stakes in the ground that we should have in dealing with Pakistan and the way they've acted over these decades?" Congressman Bill Keating asked US President Joe Biden.

I will question @SecBlinken today as Congress conducts its constitutional oversight responsibilities.@HouseForeign is holding the first hearing evaluating the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and our policies over the past twenty years of war.https://t.co/JBYF30lszh  Joaquin Castro (@JoaquinCastrotx) September 13, 2021

US to reassess relationship with Pakistan

The Biden administration will reassess its relationship with Pakistan in the coming weeks to formulate what role it would play in the future of Afghanistan, US State Secretary Antony Blinken said on Monday. Testifying before the Houses Foreign Affairs Committee, the American lawmaker said that Islamabad always had multiple interests in American conflicts and that it has an active role in counter-terrorism negotiations. As the Taliban administration nears its one month anniversary, Blinken said that his country will continue to monitor Pakistan's role in "coming years."

(Pakistan has) multiplicity of interests some that are in conflict with ours...It is one that is involved hedging its bets constantly about the future of Afghanistan, it's one that's involved harbouring members of the Taliban ... It is one that's also involved in different points cooperation with us on counterterrorism," Blinken said. "This is one of the things we're going to be looking at in the days, and weeks ahead - the role that Pakistan has played over the last 20 years but also the role we would want to see it play in the coming years and what it will take for it to do that," he added.

After the Taliban stormed into Kabul on 15 August, Afghanistan president Ashraf Ghani resigned and fled the country with his associates. Since then, several people have lost their lives in the chaos at the Hamid Karzai International Airport with thousands of people desperately trying to flee the country. While Washinton has been slammed for its "hasty" and "messy" withdrawal, Blinken has said that it was the right thing to do.

(Image: AP)
The White House on Wednesday announced that US President Joe Biden will be hosting a leader-level meeting of the major economies on energy and climate on Friday, 17 September. According to a press release, Biden will reconvene the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate (MEF) to galvanise efforts to confront the global climate crisis. During the meeting, the US President will emphasise both the urgency and the economic benefits of stronger climate action.

The press note read, The virtual meeting builds on the Leaders Summit on Climate the President hosted in April and comes six weeks before the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 26) in Glasgow, which will set the course for global climate efforts over the coming decade.

It added that during the MEF meeting, Biden will call on leaders to strengthen their climate ambition heading into COP 26 and in the years beyond. The President also will outline plans to leverage the MEF post-Glasgow as a launchpad for collective, concrete efforts scaling up climate action through this decisive decade.

It is worth mentioning that Biden has returned the US to the Paris Agreement. He had committed at the Leaders Summit to reduce US emissions 50 to 52 per cent below 2005 levels in 2030. He has even set a goal of eliminating pollution from fossil fuels in the power sector by 2035 and from the US economy overall by 2050.

Paris Accord not honoured by most G20 nations

Meanwhile, the MEF meeting comes after the latest analysis of climate change unveiled by watchdog Climate Action Tracker (CAT) revealed that none of the G20 countries have a proper plan to meet the Paris Agreement aim. The analysis observed policies of 36 nations and said that the negligent list of countries includes even the world's largest economies. It stated that the countries observed make up 80 per cent of the world's total carbon emissions but a developing country like the Gambia was the only one in the "1.5 compatible" category.

The CAT revealed that the six nations, including the UK, are in the "nearly sufficient" category as its policies do not completely meet the benchmark but can get aligned with little improvements. It added that policies of the US, Japan and other EU nations were insufficient to meet the 1.5-degree threshold. However, it also said that this is still an improvement for the US as it earlier was put in the critically-insufficient category under former President Donald Trumps administration and now it has been upgraded to almost sufficient.

(Image: AP)
The activist monk belongs to the Khmer Krom ethnic minority group marginalized in Cambodia, where they are often considered Vietnamese.

Pang Soda (C), defrocked on Sept. 2 by Kompong Cham Buddhist authorities in Cambodia, is shown in an undated photo.

A former Buddhist monk from Cambodias Khmer Krom ethnic minority group was jailed this week in Phnom Penh for allegedly violating measures aimed at stopping the spread of COVID-19 in the country, with one rights group calling the action taken against him harassment.

Pang Soda, formerly the abbot of a temple in Kompong Cham province, was arrested and sent to Prey Sar Prison on Tuesday after being accused of breaking contact with authorities who had ordered him to remain in touch, a member of a Khmer Krom rights group said next day.

They told him not to turn off his mobile phone so that they could contact him, Bun MonySecretary of the Khmer Kampuchea Krom Associationtold RFA on Wednesday. But he turned off his phone and failed to honor his pledge with the authorities.

So yesterday, he was questioned by police and sent to Prey Sar Prison, he said.

Bun Mony said his group then contacted Pang Sodas relatives to offer legal help but were told they had asked instead for help from an unnamed government official.

We are fully prepared to assist him by providing a Khmer Krom lawyer, so we regret that his family gave us this answer, Bun Mony said.

Requests for comment from Pang Sodas younger brother received no response, but Khmer Krom lawyer Seun Chumchuon told RFA that he is ready to provide legal assistance in the case, though as of Wednesday he had received no request from family members for help.

Prison Department spokesperson Nuth Savana could not be reached for comment Wednesday, while San Sokseyhaspokesperson for the Phnom Penh Police Commissariatdenied any knowledge of Pang Sodas arrest.

Arrested without warrant

Formerly abbot of the Wat Vongkut Borey Serey Phnom Penh Thmey pagoda in Kompong Cham, Pang Soda was arrested without a warrant on Sept. 2, stripped of his monastic status by local Buddhist authorities, and sent to Phnom Penh for questioning on charges of violating government-mandated COVID-19 prevention measures, Khmer Krom sources said.

Police at the same time confiscated the cell phone of other monks who had witnessed the arrest, sources said, adding that Pang Soda was later released after promising to remain in constant contact with authorities.

Speaking to RFA, Khmer Kampuchea Krom Federation Branch in Cambodia head Taing Sarak said his group is now monitoring the court action against Pang Sodawho had been active in social work providing food, money, and other kinds of support to vulnerable peopleand will appeal if the courts fail to render justice in the case.

The Khmer Krom, ethnic Khmer who live in a part of Vietnam that was once southeastern Cambodia, face widespread discrimination in Vietnam and suspicion in Cambodia, where they are often perceived not as Cambodians but as Vietnamese.

Khmer Krom who leave Vietnam for Cambodia remain one of the countrys most disenfranchised groups, according to the international rights group Human Rights Watch.

Reported by RFAs Khmer Service. Translated by Sovannarith Keo. Written in English by Richard Finney.
A Chinese woman who threw eggs at vice president Wang Qishan's motorcade during his 2019 trip to Germany is facing forcible repatriation after her application for political asylum was rejected, RFA has learned.



"A letter arrived on the 13th, and the repatriation order takes effect on the 17th," Mao Xinxin told RFA from her current home in Dusseldorf.



"It didn't say how long I was permitted to remain in Germany; just that the repatriation order takes effect on Sept. 17," she said.



The order comes despite an incident in which Mao and a group of other Chinese dissidents in exile threw the eggs and shouted "Down with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)!" on , 2019, as Wang and his entourage visited the Chancellery in Berlin.



They were taken away by German police for questioning and later released.



"I spent two hours scouting out the terrain," Mao recalled. "I bought the eggs and waited for about one-and-a-half hours."



"Then Wang Qishan's motorcade arrived. I threw two eggs -- one at the door of his limousine and one in front of it. [Fellow activist] Li Fang threw four," she said.



She said the Chinese authorities would likely take a dim view of her actions if she returns to China.



"It's pretty big, given that he's the vice president of China," Mao said.



Mao, who hails from the northern Chinese province of Shaanxi, has been involved in rights activism in China for more than a decade, helping out jailed free speech activist Wu Gan and bringing food to jailed rights lawyer Yu Wensheng.



She also helped take care of the family of rights activist Zhai Yanmin, who was arrested during a nationwide crackdown on rights lawyers launched on , 2015.



"To start with, I just hated injustice ... but then I gradually realized that things are so bad in China because of the one-party dictatorship," Mao told RFA.



"I led a pretty low-key life in China, and never went to meet up with [other activists]," she said. "It would have been a disaster for me to get locked up in a police station or prison when my kids were still young."



Mao was briefly detained by state security police after she tried to stage a public commemoration of the , 1989 Tiananmen massacre in 2016, then put under surveillance.



The experience made her determined to leave China.



She arrived in Germany three years ago on a tourist visa, and immediately applied for political asylum, but the process turned out to be tortuous one.



"A lot of odd things happened ... including the Chinese interpreter who advised me while I was in the first refugee camp to give up my application," Mao said. "I didn't know him ... so why would he want to persuade me to give up this chance at asylum?"



Mao has been an outspoken critic of the CCP during her time in Germany, including holding up placards outside the Chinese consulate in support of the 2019 protest movement in Hong Kong.



Fellow activist Li Fang said he fears what will happen to Mao if she is sent back to China.



"She often does these protest activities alone on the street, outside embassies, or in other public places in Berlin," Li said. "I think she is a brave person, and a person of conscience, who is now facing deportation."



"This is dangerous; given what she has done in Germany alone, she is in danger of imprisonment if she is sent back to China," Li Fang. "The CCP will definitely retaliate over the Wang Qishan incident."



"The problem is that, if you offend China's highest-ranking leaders, the consequences are hard to predict."



Overseas members of the China Democracy Party (CDP), a political party banned by the CCP, issued a statement warning that if Mao Xinxin is repatriated, she will definitely be persecuted by the authorities.



The group called on the German government to review her application for political asylum on humanitarian grounds.



In 2018, Shanghai resident Dong Yaoqiong was sent for "compulsory treatment" after she streamed a live video of herself splashing ink on a poster of President Xi in protest at "authoritarian tyranny."



She was then committed as a psychiatric patient in a women's ward in Hunan's Zhuzhou No. 3 Hospital. Her father, Dong Jianbiao, who was detained when he tried to visit her, has suggested the authorities put extreme pressure on her mother to sign the committal papers.



Dong 's incarceration in the Zhuzhou No. 3 Hospital, a psychiatric institution, came after she accused the authorities of "persecutory brain control," an allegation some activists have said could be linked to attempts to disorient her through psychiatric medication or even technology.



"There is a portrait of Xi Jinping behind me," she said in the live streamed video protest. "What I want to say is that I am using my real name to oppose Xi Jinping's tyranny and dictatorship, and the oppressive brain control perpetrated on me by the Chinese Communist Party." She then threw the ink across Xi's image on the poster and shouted her slogans again.



Dong was later released from the hospital, but remains under close surveillance and unable to live freely, she said in a video clip posted briefly to social media in . Activists who helped her or campaigned on her behalf have also been targeted by the CCP's "stability maintenance" system.



Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Seven pro-democracy councilors are removed from office after their oaths of allegiance are judged wanting.

Lee Cheuk-yan (2nd R), chairman of the Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, leads a candlelight vigil in Hong Kong's Victoria Park in remembrance of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre in Beijing, June 4, 2020.

Hong Kong's national security police have ordered the organizers of a now-banned candlelight vigil for the victims of the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen massacre to delete all of their online posts, the group said via its Facebook page on Thursday.

The Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China said it would comply with a national security police demand to remove all content from its website and social media accounts under a draconian national security law imposed on Hong Kong by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from July 1, 2020.

"[We] received a letter from the police commissioner on Sept. 10 saying ... that implementation rules provide for the removal of specified messages from electronic platforms within seven days of receipt of notification," the Alliance said in a Facebook post on Thursday.

"[We] will remove all posts from our website, Facebook, and other specified electronic platforms by 10.00 pm tonight," it said.

The organization has been charged alongside three of its former leaders -- Lee Cheuk-yan, 64, Albert Ho, 69, and Chow Hang-tung, 36 -- with "incitement to subvert state power" under the national security law.

Chow was arrested on Sept. 8 and denied bail, while Lee and Ho are already serving jail terms linked to their activism.

Four other Alliance members, Tang Ngok-kwan, 53, Simon Leung, 36, Chan To-wai, 57, and Tsui Hon-kwong, 72, have been charged with "failure to comply with a notice to provide information."

The group refused to provide detailed information on its members, activities, and funding sources to national security police, arguing that it isn't an agent of a foreign government, and therefore isn't bound by that part of the national security law.

"By arresting vigil organizers, Beijing and Hong Kong authorities are telling the world theyre not only afraid of the most peaceful protests, but also of their own brutal past," Human Rights Watch (HRW) China director Sophie Richardson said in a statement posted on the HRW website and signed by dozens of rights groups.

"They should end this political persecution and immediately drop the charges and release the vigil organizers," she said.

Call for targeted sanctions

The statement, signed by the U.S.-based Hong Kong Democracy Council, the Christian rights group ChinaAid, Humanitarian China and the U.K.-based Hong Kong Watch, among others, called on concerned governments to impose "coordinated, targeted sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes," on Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam, police chief Raymond Siu, secretary for security Chris Tang, and other officials linked to the operation targeting the Alliance.

"Hong Kong and mainland authorities should not be able to ban commemorations, shutter museums, and jail peaceful critics without paying a price," Citizen Power founder and veteran dissident Jianli Yang said.

"Governments appalled by the rapidly deteriorating human rights situation in Hong Kong should make their opposition felt," Yang said.

The takedown order came as seven pro-democracy District Council members were stripped of their seats after their oaths were judged insufficient to prove their loyalty to Hong Kong and China.

Clarisse Yeung, Leung Pak-kin, Wei Siu-lik, So Yat-hang, Chan Wing-tai, Lai Tsz-yan, and Michael Pang were stripped of their council seats on Sept. 15, five days after they pledged allegiance at a ceremony for Hong Kong Island councilors.

"As the oath administrator had questions about the validity of the oaths taken by ... seven District Council members, letters were issued to the ... members concerned on Sept. 10 to require them to provide additional information," the government said in a statement announcing the disqualifications.

"After considering the written replies ... and all relevant information, the oath administrator ... determined that the oaths taken by seven District Council members were invalid," it said.

The councilors were removed from office with immediate effect.



Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
A Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-backed paper quotes a military source as saying the move could make Australia a nuclear target.

US President Joe Biden takes part in a virtual press conference on national security with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison (L) and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson (R) in the East Room of the White House, Sept. 15, 2021.

China hit out on Thursday at a trilateral security pact between the U.S., the U.K., and Australia that will help Canberra develop nuclear submarines, calling it "severely damaging" to regional peace and stability.

Referring to a new security partnership announced on Sept. 15, which is widely viewed as a pushback against growing Chinese military power in the region, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said three countries had "seriously undermined regional peace and stability, intensified the arms race, and undermined international non-proliferation efforts."

"This is extremely irresponsible ... China will pay close attention to the development of the situation," he said.

"Relevant countries should abandon the outdated Cold War zero-sum mentality and narrow-minded geopolitical perception," he said. "Otherwise, they will only end up shooting themselves in the foot."

Under the deal, Australia will receive nuclear propulsion systems for submarines, but won't deploy nuclear weapons.

But China's Global Times newspaper, which has close ties to the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), quoted "Chinese military experts" as saying that the move could mean Australia becomes a nuclear strike target anyway.

It cited an anonymous "senior Chinese military expert" as saying that nuclear submarines are typically tasked with launching second-round nuclear strikes.

When Australia acquires such weaponry and technology, the country will potentially pose a nuclear threat to other countries, the expert said.

"It's easy for the U.S. and the U.K. to deploy nuclear weapons and submarine-launched ballistic missiles on the Australian submarines if they believe it's necessary, and Biden and Morrison's promises of 'not seeking nuclear weapons' are meaningless," it quoted the military expert as saying.

U.S. President Joe Biden said the allies need to consider how the strategic situation in the region may evolve.

"The future of each of our nations and indeed the world depends on a free and open Indo-Pacific enduring and flourishing in the decades ahead," he said.

Australian prime minister Scott Morrison said his government would meet all of its nuclear non-proliferation obligations, while U.K. prime minister Boris Johnson said the pact, known as AUKUS, wasn't adversarial in nature.

U.S. officials told Reuters that nuclear propulsion would allow the Australian navy to operate more quietly, for longer periods, and provide deterrence across the Indo-Pacific.

Washington has shared nuclear propulsion technology only once before -- with Britain in 1958.

A necessary move

Rick Fisher, senior fellow on Asian Military Affairs at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, said the deal was a "necessary" move to ensure regional stability.

"This is what is necessary in order to provide assurance to Australians, who are truly facing Chinese political and military coercion every day," Fisher told RFA.

"This is an appropriate response. It is also the kind of move that affirms the credibility of American alliance commitments," he said.

He said nuclear-powered submarines would also give Australia the ability to counter "Chinese naval assaults into the South Pacific."

Fisher said China could have around 4,000 nuclear warheads by the end of the decade.

"Helping Australia to obtain nuclear submarines is a very, very minimal first step toward equalizing the military balance in Asia and effectively deterring Chinese aggression," Fisher said. "Much more has to be done."

Currently, China's most advanced strategic nuclear submarine is the Long March 18, which is armed with Julang III submarine-launched ballistic missiles with a range of around 12,000 kilometers.

Former Japanese security official and diplomat and Doshisha University professsor Nobukatsu Kanehara told the annual forum of the Global Taiwan Institute that the U.S. has to contend with China's growing military power in the region.

"U.S. bases in Japan cover any response to the situation on the Korean peninsula, and in Taiwan," he said. "But the problem is that, whether we are provocative or not, China is constantly growing and expanding its military capabilities."

Chinese ambassador banned

China's wrath over the AUKUS deal came after its ambassador was banned from the U.K. parliament after Beijing imposed sanctions on U.K. lawmakers for speaking out against its rights abuses in Xinjiang.

House of Commons speaker Lindsay Hoyle and House of Lords speaker John McFall said on Tuesday that it wouldn't be "appropriate" for Zheng Zeguang to address the All-Party Parliamentary China Group while members were subject to Chinese sanctions.

The Chinese embassy in London said the move was "despicable and cowardly," and went against the interests of both countries.

China imposed sanctions on nine British politicians, lawyers, and an academic in March for spreading what it said were "lies and disinformation" over the mass incarceration of at least 1.8 million Uyghurs and other ethnic groups in Xinjiang's "re-education" camps, "vocational training centers," and prisons.

The sanctions targeted former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith, foreign affairs committee chairman Tom Tugendhat, and human rights lawyer Helena Kennedy, a member of the House of Lords, among others, who wrote to the speakers in protest at Zheng's planned visit.



Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
The tests occurred during a South Korean weapons test, a Chinese diplomatic visit to South Korea, and a denuclearization strategy meeting in Tokyo.

People watch a TV broadcasting file footage of a news report on North Korea firing what appeared to be a pair of ballistic missiles off its east coast, in Seoul, South Korea, September 15, 2021.

North Koreas test firing of two ballistic missiles Wednesday, which coincided with three other major regional security events, is an attempt by Pyongyang to grab international attention, analysts told RFA.

The launches happened on the same day as a South Korean ballistic missile test of its own, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yis diplomatic visit to South Korea, and envoys from Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo meeting in Japan to discuss strategies to bring Pyongyang back to the negotiating table over its nuclear and missile programs.

According to South Koreas Joint Chiefs of Staff, the North Korean missiles were fired from an inland location after 12:30 p.m. and traveled 800 kilometers (497 miles), reaching a maximum altitude of 60 kilometers (37 miles). The missiles touched down in waters east of the Korean peninsula. They were the Norths first ballistic missile tests since March.

The ballistic missile tests came two days after North Korea successfully tested a new cruise missile system, which would give it the capability to hit most of Japan with the low-flying cruise missiles.

The U.S. condemned the North Korean launch in a statement that called it a violation of several UN Security Council Resolutions and a threat to North Koreas neighbors and the international community. The statement did not mention the South Korean launch.

Japans Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga described the North Korean tests as outrageous and said they threatened regional peace and security.

Wang Yi on Wednesday told reporters when asked about Mondays cruise missile tests that concerned parties must work toward a peaceful and stable Korean peninsula.



"Not only North Korea but other countries are also carrying out military activity," he said.

The U.S. and UN have invoked sanctions on North Korea over the denuclearization issue. Pyongyang wants sanctions relief, while Washington wants complete denuclearization, which North Korea is seemingly unwilling to give.

Keep calm

Overreactions to North Korean missile tests only help Pyongyang, Soo Kim of the California-based RAND Corporation told RFAs Korean Service Wednesday.

"It would serve the U.S. and the international communitys interest to not hype North Korean provocations, as doing so would give Pyongyang the undue attention that it seeks, she said.

Quickly rushing to address the nuclear and missile threats may only be playing into North Koreas hands," Soo Kim said.

Jessica Lee of the Washington-based Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft meanwhile told RFA that the situation on the Korean peninsula is a ticking bomb.

President Biden squandered his early days in office to open up new channels for diplomacy on the Peninsula. Now hes scrambling to catch up in the midst of a crisis, she said.

Wednesdays dual ballistic missile test in the North and submarine-launched ballistic missile test in the South illustrate the urgent need for diplomacy, said Lee.

Lee also said that more than 40 U.S. civil society organizations have called for the administration to suspend broad-based sanctions that hurt innocent North Koreans.

A more flexible sanctions regime that is linked to progress in denuclearization, or other types of threat reduction steps such as eliminating North Korea's chemical weapons, would provide a critical off-ramp from the current situation, she said.

Offering Pyongyang more concessions to return to negotiations would be a mistake, however, Bruce Klingner of the Heritage Foundation told RFA.

We don't need to buy our way back to dialogue. We announce that we are open to dialogue. We are eager for negotiations. But once again it's North Korea that's refusing dialogue, Klingner said.

As North Korea ratchets up additional provocations  they're trying to show that they're negotiating from a position of strength  that even with the sanctions and the COVID restrictions they've imposed on themselves and the economic problems theyre having, that they're still tough, that they aren't going to give in to the U.S., Klingner said.

Ramon Pacheco Pardo, a Korea expert at King's College London, told RFA that the ballistic and cruise missile launches were a response to joint military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea weeks ago.

Statements coming out from Pyongyang when the exercises started pointed out to these tests, as a way for North Korea to show that it can deter the U.S. and South Korea, he said.

Regarding Washington's response, I think that its hands are tied. China and Russia aren't going to agree to a new round of sanctions, and the U.S. has actually been calling for talks in recent weeks, he said.

The launches show that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ignores the suffering of his people as he pours resources into nuclear and missile programs, Anthony Ruggiero of the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) told RFA.

North Korea will continue these tests to increase pressure on Biden to conclude a limited nuclear deal and provide sanctions relief. President Biden should respond by increasing sanctions and diplomatic pressure to address these programs, he said.

Ken Gause of the Virginia-based CNA think tank advised against new sanctions as a response to North Korean missile launches.

If the U.S. and UN did manage to pass some sort of sanctions in response to the missile launch, they would be watered down, and nobody would pay much attention to them. So, it would be a symbolic act. But again, it gets in the way of your diplomacy," said Gause.

Gause said the timing of the tests were a message to China:

Hey, you need to pay attention to North Korea. You can't just go to South Korea.

They get very jealous when China plays one off against the other... The North Koreans will say Look, we're your ally, we are your partner over here. Don't forget about us, Gause said.

Reported by Soyoung Kim, Kyung Ha Rhee, Dukin Han, Hye Jun Seo and Yong Jae Mok for RFAs Korean Service. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
Residents say they are subsisting on dry goods to get through lockdowns set to run until the end of September.

Police set up a roadblock to prevent locals from entering and leaving villages during a government-ordered lockdown amid the coronavirus pandemic, in Laos' capital Vientiane, May 2021.

Many villagers in southern Lao provinces say they are short of food and other essentials due to prolonged and strict government-ordered coronavirus pandemic lockdowns, preventing people from working and closing most markets and stores.

The impoverished, landlocked country of 7.4 million people saw a spike in outbreaks beginning in April after managing to nearly evade infections for a year. As of Thursday, Laos recorded total 18,059 confirmed COVID-19 cases, including 154 new ones, though the number of related fatalities held at 16.

The office of Prime Minister Phankham Viphavanh on Wednesday urged all southern provinces to strictly enforce COVID-19 prevention measures until the end of the month.

A villager from Tha Khek district in Kham Mouane province, which is under lockdown from Sept. 14-17, told RFA that dry goods, such as noodles, canned sardines, and rice are nearly gone, while fresh meat and vegetables are no longer available since markets are closed.

My village right now is still under lockdown and people are not allowed to go out, she said. The markets are closed, so there is no buying or selling of anything.

Police and soldiers are patrolling the area to ensure that no one goes out unless they have permission, she added. If they find any violators, they will fine and warn them the first time, but jail them for a second offense.

A resident of a village in Savannakhet province said that not only are markets being shut down, individual vendors also have had to stop selling food on the street.

Weve been eating whatever dry food we have for three meals a day for one month, she said.

A villager from Saravane province, which is on lock down from Sept. 14-28, said that the past week has been difficult for many people, with all the fresh food markets closed in Saravane city. Authorities have allowed one market to operate to relive the food shortage.

When were under the lockdown, people cant go in and out, but on Sept. 15, they opened one market to provide relief, he said, adding that a truck was reportedly transporting rice from Pakse in neighboring Champassak province.

The decision to open one of the citys three large markets was made so residents would have enough food during the lockdown, said an official at the provincial department of industry and commerce.

Merchants need to obtain permission from provincial officials to transport fresh food within the province, he added.

Those who sell dry goods, such as rice, are not allowed in yet, and violators will be fined 100,000 to 10 million kip (U.S. $10-1,025), he said.

An official at Kham Mouane Province Department of Industry and Commerce said that before authorities there announced the 15-day lockdown and the closure of all markets, they had notified villagers to stock up on food.

They are all closed at this time  food stores and markets, he said. Even trucks that transport goods from outside have been told to temporarily postpone deliveries. The province notified the public before the lockdown that they should buy food to store.

Reported by RFA Lao Service, Translated by Sidney Khotpanya. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
A barbed wire fence near Fai Kaung village in Pang Seng sub-township on the Myanmar-China border, in an undated photo.

Residents of Myanmars northern Shan state have destroyed a fence built by Chinese authorities they say encroaches on their countrys territory, prompting observers to warn that if the dispute goes unresolved it could seriously damage relations between communities living along the two nations shared border.

Chinese officials announced last week that they planned to build a fence along the border near Hat Hin village in northern Shan states Namkham township to prevent the cross-border transmission of the coronavirus, as well as curb drug and human trafficking. The announcement drew immediate condemnation from area residents, who claimed the barrier would encroach on as much as 0.6 acres of Myanmar territory.

Despite the protest, Chinese authorities proceeded to erect the fence as planned on the evening of Sept. 12, Hat Hin village administrator Lon Ai Sum told RFAs Myanmar Service.

We had already told them to stop [plans for] construction because it would take away 0.5 to 0.7 acres of our land, and at that time they agreed, he said.

Then they started erecting the fence without bothering to inform us. The villagers saw them working on it about two hours later and began pulling it down in protest.

Lon Ai Sum said the administrator of Namkham township and other officials visited the area the next day and called for a stop to the construction so that the two governments could negotiate the dispute.

Hat Hin village and Dengxiu village across the border in Chinas Yunnan province are both ethnic Shan villages that have coexisted peacefully for years. Earlier this year, a drainage canal was dug by the Chinese between the two villages as a border line and a fence was erected on the Chinese side, according to residents.

But Hat Hin villagers said that when they saw Chinese authorities were building the barbed wire barrier past an existing fence and further into Myanmar territory, they became incensed.

Nang San Kham, a resident of Hat Hin, said the land that the Chinese had now expanded into was formerly owned by villagers on the Myanmar side.

That land was not good for agriculture and so it was left fallow, she said.

Later on, villagers from the Chinese side came to build fishponds and planted bamboo groves. They didnt listen when our village elders told them not to do it. And now they are claiming it is their land.

Namkham residents, said township land had been at the center of more than one cross-border dispute in recent times.

In 2013, they said, some 20 Chinese men in military uniforms planted a Chinese flag on Myanmars side of the border near Namkhams Kone Sah village.

Similarly, in October 2019, Shan parties and civil society groups protested what they said was Chinese encroachment on Myanmar territory about 60 feet between Border Posts 57 and 58 near the townships Naung Kham village.

Call for coordination

Sai Khun, a Shan youth leader in Namkham, told RFA that both governments need to coordinate closely to avoid further border disputes.

China has actually been carrying out a form of border demarcationit is not good to do that without negotiating with our side, he said.

We are losing cultivation land. The villagers know what they are talking about as their ancestors have been living here for ages. It hurts not only our villagers but the entire country.

Chinese officials set up an emergency border fence and installed CCTV cameras along the border near Fai Kaung village in Pang Seng sub-township, where fighting between ethnic Kokang forces and Myanmars military broke out last month, said a Fai Kaung resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity. He claimed that it was difficult for he and his fellow villagers to access their farmland as a result of the fence.

And last month in Temor, an area controlled by ethnic Kachin State Special Region 1 Militias, local leaders said Chinese authorities similarly attempted to build a fence inside Myanmar territory.

Maung Maung Soe, an ethnic affairs analyst who has lived in the Shweli (Ruili) Valley near the border for several years, said that if the border issue between the two countries is not resolved properly, relations between the two peoples living along the border will be seriously impacted.

They already know among themselves which land belongs to whom as the area is not very large, so local authorities from both sides  should mark the land properly after negotiations, he said.

If they do things unilaterally without the consent of the other, affecting local livelihoods and property, it will harm the friendship of the people on both sides.

Attempts by RFA to contact the Chinese Embassy in Yangon went unanswered Wednesday.

Reported by RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
Customers say they believe the junta would use the money to maintain power instead of help the nation.

Myanmars junta has lost some 2 trillion kyats (U.S. $1 billion) in revenue from its military-operated power company since seizing power seven months ago amid a widespread public boycott of the paying of electricity bills, according to the countrys shadow National Unity Government (NUG).

NUG Minister of Finance and Investment Tin Tun Naing said Tuesday that 98 percent of electricity customers in the countrys Yangon region, 97 percent in Mandalay region, and about 80 percent in the countrys remaining states and divisions have been refusing to pay their bills as part of a Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) to protest the junta and its Feb. 1 coup detat.

We have a record of the Ministry of Electricity and Energys meter bills, and they have failed to recoup about 2 trillion kyats in the last seven months, he told RFAs Myanmar Service.

The people need to keep up with this action. I predict that the junta could lose about 2.5 trillion kyats U.S. $1.43 billion) by the end of the year.

Following its establishment in May, the NUGs Ministry of Electricity and Energy issued an order exempting all households from paying electricity bills and on June 8 announced that it had also ordered the suspension of payments for commercial entities.

According to a leaked departmental directive issued on Sept. 7 by the juntas Yangon Region Electric Power Corporation, residents of townships in Yangon region alone were in arrears of more than 281 billion kyats (U.S. $161 million) from June to December 2020.

The junta recently issued a letter of warning ahead of the close of the 2020-21 fiscal year, instructing district and township level offices to discuss overages with customers and cut off power, if necessary, to ensure that they pay their balances on any overdue electricity bills beginning from March 2021.

The directives come after junta chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, during a May 20 meeting in the capital Naypyidaw, noted that electricity revenues were down and called on the people of Myanmar to pay their bills.

The juntas Ministry of Electricity and Energy acknowledged in a statement on July 8 that it has had to purchase power from privately owned power plants to make up for shortfalls and warned that it would only be able to supply electricity to the country if the government can earn enough revenue.

The Independent Economists of Myanmar (IEM) reported in July that the ministrys revenue had dropped by 90 percent since February this year due to the boycott on the payment of monthly meter fees.

The IEM said in a statement that the ministry is currently losing 100 billion kyats (U.S. $57.2 million) a month, with only two percent of customers in Yangon and three percent in Mandalaythe two cities that account for the nations highest electricity consumptionmaking electricity payments in March.

More than 4,000 employees have been fired from the department, which is now dealing with a shortage of staff, it added.

Trying to starve the junta

Several people told RFAs Myanmar Service they are taking part in the boycott because they believe the junta would use electricity tariffs to perpetuate military rule and said they would not pay electricity bills until a civilian government is elected.

A resident of Mandalay recently told RFAs Myanmar Service that he had joined the boycott because he believes the junta would use the money for its own benefit.

We are trying to starve the junta of vital revenues so it will not be able to function by refusing to pay all taxes, said the resident, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Income from the electricity sector is definitely a part of the government machinery. What benefit will we get from  paying them?

Since the coup, security forces have killed 1,093 civilians and arrested at least 6,533, according to the Bangkok-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP)mostly during crackdowns on anti-junta protests.

The junta says it had to unseat Aung San Suu Kyis National League for Democracy (NLD) government because the party had engineered a landslide victory in Myanmars November 2020 election through widespread voter fraud. It has yet to present evidence of its claims and public unrest is at an all-time high.

Last week, the NUG declared a nationwide state of emergency and called for open rebellion against junta rule, prompting an escalation of attacks on military targets by various allied pro-democracy Peoples Defense Force (PDF) militias and ethnic armed groups.

A poster calling for participation in the Civil Disobedience Movement on display in Yangon's Kyimyindaing township, April 24, 2021. Citizen journalist Infrastructure targeted

Power infrastructure has also been the target of sabotage by the PDF and other armed groups in opposition to the junta.

A July 16 bomb blast in Mandalays Pyigyidagun township killed an employee of the Electric Power Corp. and a man waiting to pay his meter bill and injured at least seven people.

The week prior, on July 7, township power offices in Yangons Hlaing, Mayangone, Kamayut, South Okkalapa, and Thingangyun townships were targeted in bomb blasts. The Yangon Revolutionary Front claimed responsibility and said the explosions were a warning to the Department of Electricity to refrain from forcing people to pay their bills.

Since then, there have been at least 10 bomb blasts at power offices in Mandalays Mogok and Pyigyidagun townships, Yangons Lanmadaw township, and Magway regions Myothit and Yezakyo townships.

A 30-year-old man from Yangons South Dagon township told RFA that the explosions had made him too afraid to visit a power office to pay his bill.

At first, the reason for not paying was in protest of the junta, but later it was because NUG and PDF groups have warned against paying meter bills, said the man, who also declined to be named.

There were incidents in Mandalay where two people who went to pay their bills were killed in a bomb blast, so now even those who were not against [the military] dare not go pay their bills.

An employee of the power corporation said he had to be extremely cautious when distributing meter bills to customers.

There are no security guarantees provided by the department, so we have to look out for ourselves, he said, speaking anonymously due to concerns about his safety.

Long term impact

Analysts told RFA that Myanmars major cities that account for the nations largest share of energy consumption could be severely impacted by the boycott and any subsequent power outages.

Its not as simple as people think because electricity and water are basic requirements, said Aung Phyo, an energy researcher in Shan states Kalaw township.

If a certain situation arises, there will be no money from the people. How can the government prepare a budget without revenue? You need revenue to carry out maintenance and repairs. Without these, factories may have to close. People in urban areas who require a lot of electricity will suffer more.

Reported by RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
Ra Tsering Dhondup was jailed for three years in 2010 for publishing writings criticizing Chinese government policies in Tibet.

Tibetan writer and former political prisoner Ra Tsering Dhondup is shown in an undated photo.

A Tibetan writer jailed for three years for criticizing Chinese government policies in Tibet died this week in Sichuans capital Chengdu after suffering ill health for eight years following his release, Tibetan sources say.

Ra Tsering Dhondup, who wrote under the pen name Shinglo Marpo, was a monk at the Rongtha monastery in Khyungchu county in Sichuans Ngaba (in Chinese, Aba) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture and was 34 at the time of his death.

Dhondup was arrested in February 2010 for publishing a magazine whose content criticized the Chinese communist government, Gendun Tseringa friend and former colleague of Dhondups now living in Indiatold RFAs Tibetan Service.

He was first detained in Barkham and was later sent to Mianyang Prison to complete his three-year sentence, Tsering said. He was released in 2013, but he was in failing health, and later he succumbed to liver disease and passed away.

A magazine published by Dhondup had described conditions in Tibet after protests opposing Chinese rule swept the region in 2008, leading to hundreds of arrests and deaths at the hands of Chinese security forces, another friend of Dhondup said, also speaking from exile.

Ra Tsering Dhondup, another friend, and I myself worked on that magazine together. However, it was published only once, he said.

Because of harsh treatment and lack of medical care in prison, Dhondups condition had severely deteriorated during the eight years following his release, said Tenzin Dawa, a researcher at the Dharamsala, India-based Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy.

Tibetan political prisoners suffering ill health are sometimes freed in critical condition before the end of their term, with at least seven reported during the last year to have diedeither in prison or after their releasefrom injuries inflicted under torture in custody, sources say.

This is the Chinese governments way of avoiding responsibility for their crimes, Dawa said

Formerly an independent nation, Tibet was invaded and incorporated into China by force 70 years ago.

Chinese authorities maintain a tight grip on the region, restricting Tibetans political activities and peaceful expression of cultural and religious identity, and subjecting Tibetans to persecution, torture, imprisonment, and extrajudicial killings.

Reported by Ugyen Tenzin and Lhuboom for RFAs Tibetan Service. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi. Written in English by Richard Finney.
KALININGRAD, Russia -- The condition of a Russian woman who launched a dry hunger strike to protest against the "anti-sanitary conditions" of her prison cell is deteriorating rapidly.

Antonina Zimina's father, Konstantin Zimin, told RFE/RL on September 15 that his daughter, who was handed a 13-year prison sentence on high treason charges she denies, is refusing both food and water.

"Antonina has been on a dry hunger strike for five days. Death usually occurs around the seventh day," he said in noting her state of health.

Zimin said that his daughter started the hunger strike after she was moved to a so-called "transit" cell in the detention center in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad on September 7, from which convicts are sent to prisons to serve their terms.

Zimina informed her father by letter that there were 15 women in the cell and that the toilets and sewage system did not work. After the detention center's administration ignored the women's request to fix the toilet and sewage, Zimina started the hunger strike and four other women joined her.

Zimina and her husband, Konstantin Antonets, were convicted of spying for Latvia, in December. The charges against them stemmed from a wedding photo that included an officer of the Federal Security Service.

Antonets was handed a 12 1/2 years prison sentence. The couple has denied any wrongdoing ever since they were first arrested in July 2018.

On September 15, Russia's Supreme Court rejected the couple's appeal and upheld their sentences.

In recent years, the number of cases of alleged high treason has increased dramatically in Russia.

One of the latest high-profile high treason cases involves Ivan Safronov, a journalist and an aide to Russian Roskosmos space agency chief, Dmitry Rogozin.

Safronov was arrested on July 7 and later charged with passing classified materials to the Czech Republic. Safronov and his supporters reject the charge.
Armenia has challenged Azerbaijan at the United Nations' top court, accusing it of decades of rights abuses against Armenian citizens and ethnic Armenians -- including events that unfolded during the 2020 war over Azerbaijan's breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Armenia contends that Azerbaijan has "subjected Armenians to racial discrimination" for decades as a "state-sponsored policy of Armenian hatred," according to a statement issued on September 16 by The Hague-based International Court of Justice.

As a result, the court said, Yerevan claims that "Armenians have been subjected to systemic discrimination, mass killings, torture, and other abuse."

The tribunal said Armenia is alleging that "these violations are directed at individuals of Armenian ethnic or national origin regardless of their actual nationality."

Armenia also claims that "these practices once again came to the fore in September 2020, after Azerbaijan's aggression" against Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia.

The Armenian claim says "during that armed conflict, Azerbaijan committed grave violations" of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD).

Armenia also alleges that "even after the end of hostilities," following a cease-fire which entered into effect on November 10, 2020, "Azerbaijan has continued to engage in the murder, torture, and other abuse of Armenian prisoners of war, hostages, and other detained persons."

"Armenia further contends that all good-faith efforts by Armenia to put an end to Azerbaijans violations of the CERD through other means [have] failed," The Hague-based tribunal said.

Armenia has called on the tribunal to take provisional measures "as a matter of extreme urgency" in order to "protect and preserve Armenia's rights and the rights of Armenians from further harm, and to prevent the aggravation or extension of this dispute" until the court determines the merits of the allegations.

A spokesperson for Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry said Azerbaijan would defend itself "robustly" and plans to file a countersuit accusing Armenia of the same rights violations.
Independent Internet monitors say access to Google Docs has been restored after a temporary outage that coincided with the publication by associates of jailed opposition politician Aleksei Navalny of a list of election candidates voters should cast ballots for to topple ruling party incumbents in elections later this week.

GlobalCheck, a group that monitors websites' accessibility in Russia, said late on September 15 that Russian telecommunications operators MTS, Megafon, and Rostelecom started blocking Google Docs hours after the list was published as part of Navalny's "Smart Voting" system.

Another watchdog, the online privacy NGO Roskomsvoboda, said it had noted that Tele2 customers in Russia also could not access the Google site ahead of the September 17-19 elections.

GlobalCheck said on September 16 that Google Docs was once again accessible.

Navalny's team said in a tweet that it had published the list on Github as a workaround to the blockage of Google Docs.

Russian Internet regulator Roskomnadzor denied it had ordered any blocking of the site, adding that as of midday on September 16, "the Internet services in question are accessible on the territory of the Russian Federation."

Russians will vote for a new State Duma -- the lower house of parliament -- along with legislatures in 39 regions and nine regional governors.

In recent years, authorities have adopted an array of legislation to boost Russia's Internet "sovereignty" while also investing in digital tools to make Internet policing more sophisticated.

In addition, most genuine Kremlin critics have been barred from running in the elections, seen as a key part of President Vladimir Putins efforts to further cement his hold on power heading into the next presidential balloting, scheduled for 2024.

Smart Voting, an idea that Navalny came up with in 2018, is an online strategy designed to promote candidates that have the best chance to defeat those from United Russia, the Kremlin-linked ruling party.

In two regional elections over the past two years, it showed largely successful results and allies of Navalny, whose movement was banned as extremist this summer, are hoping the system that runs on an app mobile phone users can download once again will upend candidates for United Russia.

The party has seen its popularity decline amid the Kremlin's flagging efforts to deal with an economy hit by the coronavirus pandemic and years of ongoing international sanctions.

With reporting by Meduza, TASS, and RIA Novosti
A court in Moscow has suspended an Interior Ministry decision to ban a stand-up comic of Azerbaijani origin from entering and residing in the country for life over his on-stage joke about Russians.

Sergei Badamshin, a lawyer for comedian Idrak Mirzalizade, said on Telegram that the Zamoskvorechye district court had suspended the decision on September 16 until a full court decision on the issue is made.

The Interior Ministry said on August 30 that the presence in the Russian Federation of Mirzalizade, a Belarusian citizen who holds permanent residence in Russia, is "undesirable" because of his statements that "incited hatred and enmity towards ethnic Russians."

Mirzalizade, who is a well-known stand-up comic in Moscow, has said the performance at the heart of the controversy was about problems faced by non-Russians when they want to rent an apartment in the Russian capital.

In the performance, the comedian jokes about what would happen if the perception of Russians by others was based on separate incidents, drawing a parallel with situations that shape prejudices about non-Russians living among Russians.

Mirzalizade served 10 days in jail in August for the performance.

Though he has maintained his innocence, he also has publicly offered apologies several times to "all who felt insulted by some parts of my performance, which were taken out of context."

Earlier in June, the comic wrote on Instagram that two unknown men attacked him after he received several threats because of his performance.

He also placed on YouTube a video showing the moment of the attack.

Mirzalizade is an ethnic Talysh, which is a Persian-speaking ethnic minority of Azerbaijan.
Authorities in Tehran have approved use of the coronavirus vaccine produced by U.S. pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson as Iran faces a fifth wave of COVID-19 infections.

"The Johnson & Johnson single-dose corona vaccine has been approved," Mohammad Reza Shanehsaz, head of Iran's Food and Drug Administration, said on September 16.

RFE/RL's Coronavirus Coverage Features and analysis, videos, and infographics explore how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting the countries in our region.

Shanehsaz said the Russia-developed single-shot Sputnik Light vaccine has also been approved in Iran.

Iran's decision to approve the Johnson & Johnson vaccine comes eight months after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei banned vaccines produced in Britain and the United States, saying those countries were "untrustworthy."

However, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who took office in August, has promised to prioritize combatting the pandemic.

Iran has been using its own COVIran Barakat vaccine, as well as Russia's Sputnik V, India's Covaxin, and a version of the British-developed Oxford/AstraZeneca shot produced by a Russian-South Korea joint venture.

Iran's Health Ministry says about 13 million people out of the country's population of 83 million have been fully vaccinated.

According to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, Iran had recorded more than 5,378,000 infections and 116,072 deaths from COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, making it the hardest-hit country in the Middle East.

Iran has registered nearly 16,000 COVID-19 deaths in the last 28 days.

Based on reporting by Reuters
BISHKEK -- Another former Kyrgyz prime minister has been detained as part of a widening investigation into alleged corruption during the development of the Kumtor gold-mine project.

The State Committee for National Security (UKMK) said on September 16 that Joomart Otorbaev was arrested and placed in a detention center. A decision on whether he will be moved formally into pretrial detention will be decided by a court within 48 hours.

Otorbaev, who served as prime minister between 2014-15, is one of several former prime ministers and other senior officials arrested in connection with the Kumtor project in recent months.

Kumtor has been a target of financial and environmental disagreements for years. It is currently the subject of an ongoing control battle between the Kyrgyz state and the mine's operator, Canada's Centerra Gold.

The Kyrgyz government has temporarily taken over control of the mine in what President Sadyr Japarov has called a necessary move to address environmental and safety violations.

Centerra has called Kyrgyzstan's actions "wrongful and illegal."

In May, the Canadian firm said it had "initiated binding arbitration to enforce its rights under long-standing investment agreements with the government."

Last month, investigators questioned two former Kyrgyz presidents, Sooronbai Jeenbekov and Askar Akaev, in the high-profile case.
A court in Kyrgyzstan has handed life sentences to two Tajik nationals over deadly ethnic clashes that erupted earlier this year near a disputed segment of the Kyrgyz-Tajik border.

Relatives of Abduroziq Qahhorov and Askar Yunusov told RFE/RL on September 15 that the two men were found guilty a day earlier of looting and committing crimes against the peace in Kyrgyzstan's southern region of Batken and sentenced a day earlier.

According to the relatives, the trial was held behind closed doors at the Leilek district court. Tajik authorities have yet to comment on the court's rulings.

The court is currently trying three Kyrgyz citizens of Tajik origin on charges of high treason, illegal border crossing, and illegal drug trafficking. The charges also stem from the deadly clashes near the border in late April, during which 36 Kyrgyz citizens and 19 Tajik nationals were killed and dozens more injured on both sides.

Authorities from the neighboring countries have blamed each other for the conflict.

Many border areas in Central Asia have been disputed since the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991.

The situation is particularly complicated near the numerous exclaves in the volatile Ferghana Valley, where the borders of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan meet.
Russian President Vladimir Putin says he expects to remain in self-isolation for several days after dozens of members of his inner circle tested positive for COVID-19.

Speaking via a video conference with leaders of the member states of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) who had gathered in Dushanbe for a summit on September 16, Putin said he wished "he could shake hands and embrace" the other leaders as he originally intended before being forced to self-isolate.

"You know, unfortunately, I had to cancel my trip to Dushanbe at the last moment, and I am sorry about that. But that is because, as you know, the coronavirus was discovered not just in one or two people, but in several dozens of people in [my] closest circle. So now I have to stay in self-isolation for several days," Putin said.

It was previously unclear how big the outbreak was and how long Putin would remain isolated.

It is not known which of Putin's close contacts tested positive for COVID-19, but Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on September 15 that the president is absolutely healthy and "of course" has tested negative for the illness.

Putin, 68, has described his self-quarantine as a "test" for the Russian coronavirus vaccine Sputnik V, which he says he received several months ago.

CSTO members include Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, along with the presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Belarus, were being hosted by their Tajik counterpart Emomali Rahmon, in Dushanbe.

Based on reporting by RIA Novosti, TASS, and Interfax
TARAZ, Kazakhstan -- Police in Kazakhstans southern Zhambyl region have summoned two journalists as part of a probe into what they called the "distribution of false information" over deadly ammunition explosions last month that led to the resignation of Defense Minister Nurlan Ermekbaev.

Regional police took the two journalists -- Islambek Dastan of Turaninfo.kz and Daniyar Alimkul -- in for questioning on September 16. Dastan was summoned as witness, while Alimkul's status is a witness with the right to defend himself.

Dastan told RFE/RL after the questioning that he answered the investigators' questions regarding his live broadcast on Facebook covering the explosions and fire at the ammunition warehouse on August 26 that killed at least 17 people. One person remains missing in the accident.

The blasts also injured 98 people -- about half of them employees of the Emergency Situations Ministry.

"The explosions took place, right? I do not know how one can falsify anything by just covering the blasts," Dastan said.

Alimkul refused to comment on the questioning, saying that he signed papers prohibiting him from disclosing the investigations proceedings. His lawyer, Aliya Arzymbetova, said that there are no suspects in the case at this point.

The explosions caused a public outcry and criticism of the government as many in the Central Asian nation recalled similar explosions at an ammunition warehouse near the town of Arys in the nearby Turkistan region in 2019 that killed four people and injured dozens of others.

Some 85 percent of Arys's buildings, mainly private houses, were damaged by heavy smoke, shock waves, and flying debris from the explosions.
One evening in late August, as most residents of Rostov-on-Don were preparing for bed, a house on a sleepy, unpaved street on the outskirts of the southern Russian city erupted in flames.

The house belonged to Sergei Shalygin, a local opposition activist and blogger who had spent four years building and expanding the 100-square-meter property with his son. For Shalygin, the incident -- less than three weeks before Russia was due to hold nationwide legislative elections -- had clear motives.

This is nothing new. Something like this happens during every national vote."

"Local authorities in August ordered [a clampdown on] bloggers with a sizable following," he told RFE/RL's Russian Service. "The only reason I can see for the arson attack is my political activism."

The elections to Russia's lower house of parliament and legislative bodies throughout the country come amid a concerted, months-long crackdown on dissent that markedly accelerated after the return to Russia and subsequent jailing of opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, who blamed his August 2020 poisoning on the Kremlin and urged his supporters to take to the streets.

But the closer Russia has gotten to the important vote, the greater the pressure has grown on the opposition, according to activists affected by arson attacks.

Shalygin is known locally as an activist who cooperates with various political forces, including the liberal Yabloko party and the now-outlawed political network founded by Navalny. He said that the arson attack is still being probed; investigators are expected to announce a conclusion in October.

But Shalygin is far from alone. RFE/RL's Russian Service discovered evidence of a spate of arson attacks against opposition activists, and found that not a single one had led to a criminal conviction.

Overnight on July 27, a car parked in the courtyard of a home in the Far Eastern town of Dalnegorsk was set alight. The car belonged to Daniil Kulikov, the editor in chief of the local independent TV channel Dal-TV. But Kulikov had also registered to work as an election monitor in the upcoming vote and was involved in the political campaign of the party New People.

In an interview with RFE/RL's Russian Service, Kulikov cited unconfirmed video camera footage that allegedly shows a hoodie-clad figure who stops beside his car in the darkness and throws something at it before lighting a match to ignite the vehicle. Kulikov was out of town at the time, but his wife and young child were home.

On his TV channel, Kulikov had regularly covered cases of local corruption and incompetence, and he admitted that he had likely earned his fair share of enemies in Dalnegorsk. The attack, however, did not intimidate him.

"Obviously, my mom is worried for me, and so is my wife, but she knows that I'll keep pushing till the end, even though I understand that the pressure can grow, especially ahead of the elections," he said.

It's not just in Russia's hardscrabble provinces that such attacks are taking place. The geographic scale of the incidents indicates a concerted campaign of intimidation against independent activists.

On August 28, the day before Shalygin's home was engulfed in flames, a car belonging to feminist campaigner Alyona Popova was set alight in Moscow. Popova is running for a seat in Russia's State Duma, its lower house of parliament, and frequently criticizes the authorities.

"I got the news from an employee of a local warehouse. When I arrived, the security guard who witnessed the event had gone, and the head of security told me nothing," she said in an interview. "Who put out the flames, I also don't know. No one told me anything."

Popova suspects that the attack was either the work of her political opponents or of activists aligned with Male State, a chauvinistic, ultra-right movement that has sent her multiple death threats because of her advocacy on behalf of victims of domestic violence and her work to bring attention to the issue.

Incidents of the sort reported by activists involved in this year's election campaigns are not isolated to this campaign season -- they bear similarity to arson attacks that have accompanied every political cycle in Russia's modern history, analysts say.

"This is nothing new. Something like this happens during every national vote, and it was actually worse during [elections in] 2007 and 2011," said Moscow-based political analyst Aleksandr Kynev.

Vladimir Gelman, a political scientist at the European University in St. Petersburg, said such incidents are just one in an arsenal of measures the authorities may choose to use to scare their opponents. The organizers and perpetrators are rarely, if ever, found.

"The authorities have not yet exhausted their resources -- they will continue to ramp up the pressure," he said. "This is a selective tactic, where they choose [their targets] and punish them one by one. And it doubles up as a signal to other potential activists."
Russia heads to the polls in parliamentary elections September 17-19 amid a crackdown on opposition figures, independent media, and nongovernmental groups. International observers have been highly critical of previous elections, and the OSCE has decided not to send monitors to this vote. We asked Russians: Do you think you have a real choice in this election?
A popular Instagram vlogger from Russia's northwestern Komi region, Aleksandr Tretyakov (@tretyakov034), posted a video on September 9 in which he offered to "personally" pay 500 rubles (about $7) to anyone over the age of 18 who is registered in Komi.

The 30-second video, which is no longer accessible but which was archived by the local news channel Novaya Respublika, specifies in a subtitle: "You will simply have to vote for whom I tell you to vote for."

Another subtitle urges people to bring friends with them, promising 500 rubles for each of them as well.

The video does not specify for whom Tretyakov wanted followers to cast their ballots.

Russians go to the polls September 17-19 to elect a new State Duma and regional legislatures and governors. Komi is not holding regional elections this year.

The elections come as the ruling United Russia party is polling at historically low levels of support. The government has carried out a wide-ranging crackdown against independent candidates, many of whom were disqualified, jailed, or driven out of the country.

Analysts believe the administration of President Vladimir Putin would like to secure a constitutional majority of two-thirds of the Duma's 450 seats for United Russia to pave the way for the presidential election in 2024. Under constitutional amendments pushed through the Duma earlier this year, Putin would be eligible to seek a fifth and sixth term as president and could remain in the Kremlin until 2036.

Komi regional election commission member and lawyer Viktor Vorobyov has asked the Komi Interior Minister Andrei Sitsky to look into whether the video violates the law against buying votes or violates the electoral rights of any candidates.

In comments to RFE/RL's North.Realities, Vorobyov said it would be up to prosecutors to determine whether the video violated the law and whether it was an administrative or a criminal violation.

"Unfortunately, the boundary between the criminal and the administrative is quite poorly defined and the concept of 'buying votes' can be variously interpreted," he said. "Giving away free goods, like soap, could be seen as 'buying votes.' But in this case, in my opinion, we are talking about a criminal case -- money in exchange for a vote."

The penalty for criminal vote-buying is a fine of up to 300,000 rubles ($4,150) or up to five years in prison.

Vorobyov filed his request on September 10 and has not received a response.

Tretyakov, who has about 23,000 Instagram followers, did not respond to numerous written requests for comment on this story.

RFE/RL senior correspondent Robert Coalson contributed to this report.
MOSCOW -- Russian President Vladimir Putin has accepted an invitation to attend the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, according to Russian media reports.

The state-run TASS news agency on September 16 quoted Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying Putin had accepted an invitation from Chinese President Xi Jinping "with delight."

Lavrov was speaking following a meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, in Dushanbe.

Following revelations of a long-running, state-sponsored doping program, Russian athletes were barred from competing at the Olympics and other major international competitions under the Russian flag and anthem until December 2022.

A Russian team will compete in Beijing under the name ROC, for Russian Olympic Committee.

Russian officials are also barred from receiving Olympic credentials unless they are invited by the head of state of the host nation.

Moscow has acknowledged shortcomings in its anti-doping procedures but has denied the existence of a state-organized doping program.

With reporting by Sport.ru and Reuters
As the old joke goes, the Soviet Union was heralded for producing the world's largest microchips and the fastest watches. But Russia alone can lay claim to having a "single voting day" over a span of three days.

The holding of Russia's myriad local, regional, and nationwide elections has been streamlined in recent years, clearing up electoral calendars by scheduling races big and small on a single day across the country.

The "unified" date for the 2020 regional elections that decided regional parliaments and 18 governors, for example, was pegged to the second Sunday of September. The "unified" date for the 2016 and 2021 elections for the State Duma and a handful of gubernatorial and mayoral slots was set for the third Sunday of September.

Yet the 2020 elections were actually held over three days -- from Friday, September 11, to Sunday, September 13. And this year's elections will take place from Friday, September 17, to Sunday, September 19.

Like everything else of late, it appears the coronavirus pandemic threw a wrench in the plan, and in the process helped create a three-day voting window that critics say could benefit the ruling United Russia party.

Russia's first-ever nationwide vote held over multiple days came after the government had awoken late to the seriousness of the pandemic. With the country under lockdown, a nationwide vote to cement Kremlin-backed constitutional amendments, including one allowing President Vladimir Putin to seek two more terms and potentially rule until 2036 -- was postponed from its original date in April.

When the coast was clearer the vote was held from June 25 to July 1 and the amendments, one of which gave a green light for elections to be held over two or three days, became the law of the land. By the end of July, Central Election Commission (CEC) head Ella Pamfilova was proposing that the September elections for regional parliaments and 18 regional heads should have two additional days of early voting.

"This is not our whim, its a demand of the times," Pamfilova told a meeting of the CEC, suggesting it would stem the transmission of COVID-19 by keeping polling stations less crowded. "We are continuing to proceed from the priority that the president has outlined very clearly and never stops repeating: the health and safety of our citizens during any events, including such important ones as elections."

After the vote was indeed held over three days, independent media began to peel back the onion on the process.

"Everybody's A Winner!" blared a headline by Meduza, a little under seven months before the online news outlet would be branded a "foreign agent." "Russia's New Three-day Voting Scheme Delivers Huge Victory Margins For Incumbent Governors..."

The outlet went on to explain that in seven of the 18 gubernatorial races, "the authorities' candidate won more than 80 percent of the ballots cast" and in six others garnered more than 70 percent of the vote.

Juxtaposing those results to 2019, when elections for 16 regional heads were held, Meduza noted that just four candidates took more than 80 percent of the vote, and only three won more than 70 percent.

"In other words, Russian officials decision to spread voting across three days has obviously benefitted the state authorities candidates," the outlet concluded.

The upcoming "unified" State Duma, gubernatorial, and mayoral elections -- as well as balloting for regional and local legislatures -- have raised similar concerns.

A needs-assessment mission from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) acknowledged the challenges of gathering people to vote during a pandemic, saying in May that some participants in the mission saw the "possibility of the extended voting period as a positive measure to decrease overcrowding at polling stations and decrease the risk of COVID-19 transmission."

But others "expressed concerns related to the secure storage of the election material at night during multi-day voting, and opined that it might affect the integrity and limit transparency of the process, it said.

After the Russian authorities said it would only accept 60 of the OSCE's requested team of 80 long-term observers and 420 short-term observers to oversee the vote due to coronavirus concerns, the widely respected election monitor decided not to send a team at all.

"The national authorities cited the epidemiological situation as the reason for the limitations," OSCE spokesperson Katya Andrusz said in written comments to RFE/RL this week. "However, no pandemic-related entry restrictions or rules about operating and moving within the country would seem to prevent the deployment of a full election observation mission in line with ODIHRs initial assessment."

The vote will go on -- over three days and without the OSCE -- and many pundits expect the situation to boost the United Russia party despite indications that it is suffering an all-time low in popularity.

Three-day voting is the biggest threat to an honest vote because it makes the balloting three times harder for an already limited number of observers to monitor, Stanislav Andreichuk, a leader of the voters rights group Golos, wrote this week.
Russia and its Central Asian allies have launched two days of talks in the Tajik capital to discuss the situation in Afghanistan a month after Taliban militants entered Kabul and seized power in the war-torn country.

Leaders of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) met for a summit in the Tajik capital on September 16, to be followed a day later by a gathering of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which includes China.

The talks come as Moscow and Beijing move to assert themselves as key players in the region following the rapid collapse of the Western-backed government in Kabul at the end of a 20-year-old U.S.-led military mission in Afghanistan.

Both regional security blocs have been viewed as Moscow's and Beijing's counters to U.S. geopolitical dominance.

With Afghanistan facing a looming major humanitarian crisis in the aftermath of the Taliban's takeover, Afghanistans Central Asian neighbors are wary of the security threats emanating from the war-torn country and the potential for tens of thousands of refugees to pour over the border.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was forced to join via video conference after self-isolating because of close contact with several people in his inner circle who tested positive for COVID-19, and other leaders of CSTO member states, which include Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, kicked off the diplomatic talks in Dushanbe.

The leaders agreed to fortify the CSTOs southern borders and continue to plan and implement a package of measures aimed at bringing down the level of and neutralizing potential threats in the organizations space," Tajik President Emomali Rahmon said after the talks, according to TASS.

Meanwhile, the office of Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev said he "supported the joint CSTO position that the placement of Afghan refugees or foreign military bases on our countries' territories is unacceptable."

At a presummit meeting on September 15, CSTO Secretary-General Stanislau Zas acknowledged that the situation on the Tajik-Afghan border was "unfavorable," and pledged that Dushanbe would be provided with "all the necessary military and military-technical assistance" to combat any threat from the south.

In recent weeks, the security grouping held military exercises in Kyrgyzstan to prepare for any possible trouble. Tajikistan conducted military maneuvers with Russia and Uzbekistan, while Uzbekistan also held separate drills with Russia along the Uzbek-Afghan border.

The CSTO has scheduled three more sets of military maneuvers close to the Tajik-Afghan border in October, with a fourth scheduled for November.

Russia has military bases in the former Soviet republics of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Leaders from the eight-member SCO are then due to hold talks in Dushanbe on September 17.

Founded in 2001, the SCO initially consisted of China, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan before India and Pakistan joined in 2017.

Putin, who is self-isolating due to "all-day" exposure to a close contact who tested positive for the coronavirus, cancelled his attendance at the two summits.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will also participate in the SCO meeting virtually.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, whose country is an observer member of the SCO and keen to join the grouping, will attend the gathering.

Before heading to Dushanbe, Raisi said that Tehran's participation in the SCO meeting shows that "regional cooperation is a top priority for us."

Afghanistan holds observer status at the SCO, but Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on September 15 that the Taliban had not been invited to observe proceedings in the Tajik capital.

"Nobody is hurrying to give full recognition to the Taliban," Lavrov said.

The Taliban has sought to reassure neighboring countries and Russia that it poses no threat since gaining control last month over almost all of Afghanistans territory, including Kabul, the capital.

The hard-line Islamist group also promised inclusiveness and a general amnesty for former opponents, but many Afghans remain deeply fearful, especially after the group formed an all-male government led by hard-line veterans, banned protests, and cracked down on demonstrators and journalists.

Lavrov said he "welcomed" several Taliban promises, including on curbing drug-trafficking and preventing attacks on other countries, but added: "Now we are monitoring to see how it will be fulfilled in practice."

Tensions between CSTO member states also surfaced during the September 16 talks, with Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov proposing to "draw up mechanisms for rapid response and decision-making within the [CSTO] in case of armed conflict between member states, according to his press service.

The proposal follows deadly ethnic clashes that erupted earlier this year near a disputed segment of the Kyrgyz-Tajik border.

With reporting by AFP
Western diplomats have expressed concern over Ukraines delay in implementing recently passed judicial legislation that is seen in Washington and Brussels as crucial to improving the nation's rule of law and cleaning up corruption.

Following a meeting on September 16 at President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's office in Kyiv with senior members of Ukraines parliament and judicial bodies, diplomats from the Group of Seven (G7) industrial nations and the European Union backed a joint statement demanding judicial reforms move forward.

The G7 diplomats warned against attempts to delay reforms aimed at strengthening the rule of law, increasing public confidence in the judiciary, attracting foreign investment, and bringing Ukraine's Euro-Atlantic future closer, according to a copy of the statement distributed by Ukraines presidential office.



Ukraines parliament in July passed two bills to revamp the nations judicial system in a long-awaited move applauded by Washington and Brussels.



The nation's judicial system is plagued by corruption, undermining political and economic progress. Western nations have tied future financial aid to its overhaul.

The legislation calls for the creation of panels to oversee the two bodies responsible for selecting and choosing candidates for judicial vacancies.

The panels would consist of six experts each, including three Ukrainian citizens chosen by the nations Council of Judges and three foreigners picked by G7 nations.

Ukraines judiciary has opposed the reforms, saying the inclusion of foreign experts in the selection process compromises the nations sovereignty. It wants to amend the legislation.

In a move seen as an attempt to delay its implementation, the Council of Judges failed to name three experts for one of the two panels by the September 13 deadline. That prompted Zelenskiy to call the meeting with representatives of the G7 countries -- Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States.



In a statement, the U.S. State Department said the Council of Judges' refusal to nominate Ukrainian judges to participate in the process threatens to derail the promise of real judicial reform in Ukraine.



We remain firmly committed to assisting in this critical reform so that the people of Ukraine may trust their courts and judges and so that Ukraine can continue on its path toward Euro-Atlantic integration, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said.

Civil society activists say outside experts are necessary because the nations judicial system is controlled by tycoons and other powerful special interests.

Pointing to past failures to get rid of compromised judges, they say Ukraine's judiciary is incapable of reforming itself.

Ukraine has a history of failing to implement legislation deemed critical to its aspirations of joining Euro-Atlantic organizations because of opposition by special interests.

During the September 16 meeting, Nicolas Harrocks, the deputy head of mission at the British Embassy in Kyiv, called on Ukrainian officials to move forward with what he called "high-quality" legislation.

Matti Maasikas, the head of the EU delegation to Ukraine, told the meeting that the fate of judicial reforms will impact Ukraines ability to attract aid and foreign investment.

Bohdan Monich, chairman of the Council of Judges, said his organization is determined to implement this law." But he also stated that it had prepared amendments to the bill for choosing members of the panels.

The meeting was chaired by Andriy Smyrnov, the deputy head of the presidential office.

Tetiana Shevchuk, legal counsel for the Kyiv-based Anti-Corruption Action Center, told RFE/RL the meeting seemed to generate no meaningful progress on the standoff between the judiciary and proponents of reforms.

The office of the president and the parliament showed their commitment to the reform, but it's unclear whether this will be enough to unblock it, she said.
KHUFIYA, NETFLIX ORIGINAL

Mumbai: A Spy thriller by Vishal Bhardwaj, starring Tabu sounds like a cherry on the top of a cake. In the genre of thriller, Tabu always proved to be the classic one. To be more descriptive, "Expect nothing but the sheer thrill," said Tabu. "Excited to announce my re-uniting with Vishal Bhardwaj for Khufiya. Coming very soon on Netflix," Tabu made the big reveal recently.

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Intelligence drama KHUFIA will release on Netflix, also casted star Ali Fazal, Wamiqa Gabi, and Ashish Vidyarthi. This thriller story is inspired by Amar Bhushan's spy thriller 'Escape to Nowhere.'





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The storyline of the film will be centering around Krishna Mehra, a Raw operative assigned the task of tracking the mole passing on defense secrets. Her character will be the shred between being a spy or a lover. Vishal Bhardwaj has reportedly started looking for locations for the film's shoot and has finalized his Mussoorie so far.







With Khufiya, Vishal Bhardwaj aimed to show the central conflict of an undercover agent: "With Khufiya, my attempt is to create an edgy espionage film that contrasts the slow burn of intelligence and surveillance work with one's deep-rooted emotional conflicts."

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KHUFIYA will be Tabu's third collaboration with the ace director Vishal Bhardwaj after the severely applauded films like Haider and Maqbool. The 50-year-old actress said it's like an advent opportunity for her. "Khufiya is one of a kind project, extremely close to my heart and I am excited to be a part of this gripping spy thriller. As always, it's a delight working with VB (Vishal Bhardwaj) again, and feels like a homecoming,"







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At the same time, Pratiksha Rao, director of Films and Licensing at Netflix India, said they are considering working with Vishal Bhardwaj: "His films are known to brilliantly showcase inherent conflicts between different characters and their worlds through moving stories, and we can't wait for our members to experience this through the incredible story of Khufiya."


63% RISE IN CRIME RATE AGAINST WOMEN

New Delhi: The Crime rate against women in the Capital is increasing day after day. The rate increased about 63% in the first six months of 2021 as compared to 2020.

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The data in general identified that the rape cases were increased by 43% from 580 till June 15 last year to 833 this year. The cases of molestation rose by 39% from 733 to 1,022, and kidnapping of women from 1,026 to 1,580. Even the abduction of women 46 to 159 and dowry deaths from 47 to 56.



It is noted this time that the number of riot cases has come down this year as communal rites broke out in northeast Delhi in February last year following Anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protests.

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Heinous crime figured till June 15 came down scarcely from 2,436 to 2315. In the first six months this year. The city recorded seven cases of dacoity, 196 murders, 295 attempts to murder, 701 robbery, 35 riot cases, and seven kidnappings for ransom.

In the relative period last year, Delhi observed 4 cases of dacoity, 226 murders, 236 attempts to murder, 701 robbery, 681 riot cases, and eight kidnappings for ransom, the data stated.



The data showed there were 1,217 more cases of snatching reported in 2020 as compared to 2021 with 3,829 cases of snatching this time and 2,612 in the last.


ACTOR SONU SOOD





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Mumbai: Income Tax Department(ITD) raided the properties of actor Sonu Sood this Wednesday. The IT Department surveyed his Mumbai-based premises and another company in Lucknow.

Delhi's CM Arvind Kejriwal with Actor Sonu Sood



Sources revealed that "A recent deal between Sonu Sood's company and a Lucknow-based real estate firm is under the scanner." It was also observed that last month, the Delhi Government had declared Sonu Sood as the brand ambassador of their 'Desh Ka Mentor' program.

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Due to this initiation, Delhi's CM Arvind Kejriwal twitted in Hindi, "Sachai ke raaste par laakho mushkile aati hai, lekin jeet hamesha sachai ki hi hoti hai. Sonu Sood Ji ke saath bharat ke unn laakho parivaro ki duaye hai jihne mushkil ghadi me Sonu ji ka saath mila tha. ( Millions of difficulties came across the path of truth, but the victory belongs to the truth. There are prayers of millions of families of India with Sonu Sood Ji who supported people in their difficult times)"





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Even many linked the raids to this association and he is the brand ambassador of 'Desh Ka Mentor' program, but Asif Bhamla, the BJP spokesman, criticized such claims.


HARPAL SINGH CHEEMA URGES TO CONDUCT FLOOR TEST

Chandigarh: With about 40 Congress MLA's seeking removal of Captain Amarinder Singh as the Chief Minister of the state, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Punjab has demanded the Punjab Vidhan Sabha Speaker Rana KP Singh, to conduct a floor test of the Punjab government to prove its majority. Majority of Congress MLA's seeking the removal of Capt Amarinder for his unskilful and failure.

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Punjab Chief Minister, Captain Amarinder Singh



In a statement issued from the party headquarters here on Thursday, a senior leader of the AAP and Leader of Opposition (LoP) Harpal Singh Cheema said, The state government has gone into minority and a floor test is the need of the hour; as Capt Amarinder Singh has lost the support of the people of Punjab as well as the Congress party and its MLAs.

Harpal Singh Cheema

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Cheema said that the Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh said that the Congress government has split and Captain has lost the trust of most of his Congress MLA's. He said, the ruling Congress in Punjab has lost the majority to run and retain the government as per the number of MLA's. The two factions, which have been publicly blaming and distrusting each other for a long time, have been wielding power over the number of MLA's. In such a challenging situation, the government of Capt Amarinder Singh has lost its majority, he said, adding that being in minority, CM Capt Amarinder Singh has no moral or constitutional right to remain in government.

AAP

The AAP leader said that the majority of the Congress MLAs were seeking the removal of Capt Amarinder Singh for his incompetence and failure in running the state. The Chief Minister does not even have a majority in his cabinet so he cannot be the head of government. The Punjab Vidhan Sabha Speaker should immediately conduct a majority test in the House to know how many MLAs are with Capt Amarinder Singh's government, he said.

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Incidentally, an assignment of the Aam Aadmi Party led by Harpal Singh Cheema had met the Governor of Punjab, last month; demanding to convene a special session of the Vidhan Sabha, directing Captain Amarinder Singh to prove majority in the house. Taking a dig, Harpal Singh Cheema questioned, Why Capt Amarinder Singh and Navjot Sidhu did not accept the AAPs challenge of proving majority in the House? Where is Navjot Sidhus morality now, why is he keeping mum on the issue?

Navjot Singh Sidhu

He further slammed the rebel ministers and legislators of the Congress, stating why they did not meet the Governor and demand a floor test against Capt Amarinder Singh. If the rebel Congress MLAs and ministers are true and serious in their stance against Captain, then why dont they move a motion of no-confidence in the Assembly, he questioned. Cheema said this proves that these Congress MLA's and ministers, who have been part of the mafia rule for four-and-a-half years, are now dramatizing and building pressure; only for the sake of chair.
STRAY DOG STERILIZATION DRIVE

Chandigarh: The Punjab Government has decided to further ramp up the ongoing drive to sterilize street dogs in the state for controlling their population and checking the human-animal conflicts by adopting a humane approach towards the growing stray dog threat.

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For this purpose, the Local Government department will engage veterinary doctors at the municipality level to give further strength to the animal birth control and anti-rabies (ABC/ AR) program in a humane manner.

Besides undertaking the extensive sterilization drive, a separate campaign will also be launched soon to create public awareness and solicit their cooperation to not only check the stray dog menace but also control the cruelty against animals, especially dogs.



These decisions were taken at a meeting, chaired by the Chief Secretary, Ms Vini Mahajan, here, to review the progress of the measures being taken to control the menace of stray dogs and check the inhumanity against animals in the rural and urban areas of the state.

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Vinni Mahajan, Chief Secretary

The Chief Secretary asked the Local Government department to ensure that all the civic bodies to engage only those animal welfare organizations/ NGOs having requisite permission from the Animal Welfare Board of India to carry out the ABC/ AR program while adopting the humane approach in the state.



"This is required to ensure that the animal welfare organizations/ NGOs undertaking the dog sterilization are having requisite infrastructure, experience, and expertise required as per the ABC (Dogs) Rules, 2001, in adherence to the relevant guidelines of AWBI to prevent cruelty to dogs, she asserted.

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Ajoy Kumar Sinha, (Principal Secretary) Local Government





Ms Mahajan was informed that over 1.7 lakh street dogs have so far been sterilized in the cities and villages across the state.

Principal Secretary, Local Government, Ajoy Kumar Sinha, apprised the Chief Secretary that the department has already constituted the monitoring and implementation committees at state as well as district levels for effective management of stray dogs, controlling rabies, and putting brakes on the stray dog population while working under the ambit of law with a humane approach.





"Cruelty against animals, including stray dogs, would not be tolerated at any cost," asserted the Chief Secretary, while warning of strict action against all those involved in such inhuman acts.

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The Chief Secretary directed the ACS-cum-Financial Commissioner Rural Development and Panchayats, Seema Jain, to take steps to further control the stray dog population in the rural areas. Ms Jain apprised the Chief Secretary that the Rural Development and Panchayats department has already sterilized 1,041 dogs in the rural areas of Muktsar, Jalandhar, and Amritsar districts.


Australia's Special Visa Offered to Foreign Aspirants

Australia: The news came in that hundreds of overseas workers could now be welcomed to Australia in the next 10 months. Under the travel exemptions for holders of a government visa created to aid the post-pandemic recovery - even as tens of thousands of its citizens remain stranded overseas.

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KAREN ANDREWS, HOME AFFAIRS MINISTER

"This government's initiatives to bring top talent to Australia are cementing our economic recovery," Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews said in her emailed statement. "Returning Australians remain the priority, however, this automatic travel exemption recognizes the importance of significant investment."





The exemption will simplify the entry for the requirements to allow the rapid remotion of workers to handle critically to establish a business in Australia. Fewer than 500 exemptions are expected to be granted to holders of the Temporary Activity (subclass 408) "Post Covid-19 Economic Recovery Event" visas during the next 10 months before the program is drafted to expire.



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At the very start of the pandemic in March 2021, Australia implemented a ban on non-citizens and non-residents from entering the nation that added to the skills in some key industries and services. Strict caps have also been placed on its citizens; as of late July, some 38,000 Australians were still stranded abroad.



That strain seeded itself in Sydney in mid-June; now around half the nation's population of 26 million people are in lockdown as authorities seek stem of an outbreak that's infecting more than 1,500 people a day. New South Wales, the most popular state, is looking forth to start removing the lockdown restrictions and start allowing international travel again later this year when vaccination thresholds are reached.



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"These visa holders are bringing the skills, investment, and new ideas that employ Australians and keep us internationally competitive for years to come," Andrews said in the statement. "They're adding to our economy, generating new jobs, and contributing to our tax base so we can continue to provide the essential services all Australians rely on."
Vietnamese Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Tran Hong Ha and Minister of Environment of the Republic of Korea (RoK) Han Jeoung-ae discussed environmental cooperation programmes between the two countries during their online talks on September 15.They touched upon cooperation in emission trading system water resources , personnel training and book publishing, among others.Ha expressed his hope for stronger cooperation and more support from the RoK in such spheres as waste management, and circular and green economy.He also proposed collaboration in designing and building an exhibition centre of Vietnam nature and biodiversity, and restoring polluted sections of the Red River in Vietnam.Vietnam wants to learn from the RoK's experience in calculating emission peaks and solutions to achieve carbon neutrality, Ha said, adding that his ministry is drawing up a project on developing the Vietnamese carbon market, which is scheduled to be submitted to the Prime Minister next month.He called on the RoK ministry to help Vietnam improve capacity of management agencies in greenhouse gas inventory, the measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) of greenhouse gas emissions and the management of ozone-depleting substances.For her part, Han said his agency stands ready to cooperate with the Vietnamese ministry in environmental matters, and share its experience and technologies in water resources exploitation and utilisation, air pollution settlement and waste treatment.
Early next month, a grieving Fallbrook couple will host a free public event to thank the community and celebrate the life of their late son, whose devastating, yearlong struggle with pediatric brain cancer was followed by nearly 18,000 people worldwide.

On Feb. 20, 6-year-old kindergartner Parker Landis passed away after a 13-month battle with diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, a rare brainstem cancer that strikes children ages 6-10. The survival rate for DIPG is less than 1 percent, with an average life expectancy of just 9 months after diagnosis.

Parkers parents, Mark and Jennifer Landis, knew their sons illness was terminal when they got his diagnosis on Jan. 17, 2016. But they never stopped fighting, and their roller-coaster journey  chronicled with Marks raw, honest posts and touching photographs on the Facebook page Hope for Parker  inspired a community support campaign that still continues.

Portrait of Mark and Jennifer Landis and their 3-year-old daughter Taylor, photographed March 4 at their Fallbrook home. (Charlie Neuman / San Diego Union-Tribune/Zuma Press)

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After we got the diagnosis we kept it to ourselves until we could digest it, but when we went public we were overwhelmed with the outpouring of public support, Jennifer said. Theres no way we couldve done what we did without the support. Im glad that we could be there to hold his hand until the end. We never left his side.

Over the past year, the Landises were the beneficiaries of a community carnival, a crowdfunding campaign that raised nearly $60,000, numerous individual fundraisers and a meal train of home-cooked meals that are still arriving on their doorstep. The Make-A-Wish Foundation also granted Parkers wish for a family trip to Hawaii last year, though he was too ill at the time to enjoy it.

The money raised allowed the Landises to take leaves from their jobs  hes a software engineer, shes a pharmacist  and to fund nearly a dozen trips to New York last year for a high-profile clinical trial that might someday lead to a cure for DIPG.

Since Parkers death, the Landises say theyve been struggling through each day in a state of shock. They avoid phone conversations and dont leave the house much. Jennifers not sure when shell return to work.

I think this will always be hard, said Jennifer, 35. We will always be a family of four minus one, not a family of three.

Up until last year, the Landises thought theyd exhausted their share of bad luck. They lost everything they owned (except for their cat and a laptop computer) when the Witch Creek Fire swept unexpectedly into their Rancho Bernardo neighborhood in the pre-dawn hours of Oct. 22, 2007.

We thought that would be the worst thing in our lives forever, Jennifer said. This foreign force had entered our sacred space and took everything.

Mark, 38, said the shock of their sudden loss haunted him for many years. Now it seems insignificant.

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Family portrait of Mark and Jennifer Landis with their children Taylor and Parker, taken in September 2015, just a few months before his diagnosis with pediatric brain cancer. (Credit: Mark Landis)

The couple met in 1995 when they were students at Rancho Bernardo High School (she was a freshman, he, a junior) and theyve been together ever since. They married in 2004 and six years later welcomed their first child, Parker Steven (their bubbly, talkative daughter Taylor is now 3).

Parker was a thriving, goofy, introspective boy who loved to swim, ride his bike and lead the neighborhood children around the cul-de-sac dressed in his beloved Captain America costume. Most weekends Jennifer worked, so Mark took a big hand in child-rearing.

I was grateful. A lot of fathers dont have that alone time in the early years with their child, Mark said. He was my little buddy. We got into all sorts of trouble together.

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In retrospect, the couple say they now realize the first symptoms of Parkers illness were appearing in fall 2015, when his behavior became a bit more cranky and clingy and he seemed a little clumsy.

Once he tripped while we were walking and I asked him what happened. He said my leg stopped working. I didnt think anything of it at the time, Mark said.

Then one Friday after school, Mark found Parker sound asleep on the floor at daycare. As they walked to the car, Parker was groggy and stumbling. He would later be diagnosed with strep throat, so the Landises initially thought the boys fever was virus-related.

The next morning, Parker began vomiting and holding one eye shut when he watched TV, so Jennifer took him and Taylor to the pediatrician for a check-up. When the doctor saw that Parkers eyes couldnt follow his finger back and forth, he feared an infection behind the eyes.

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An ambulance rushed Parker to a nearby emergency room, where an MRI showed a lemon-sized mass in his brain. Twenty-four hours later, now at Rady Childrens Hospital, the final diagnosis came in. The Landises say they dont much remember that day, other than feeling numb, helpless and confused.

DIPG is whats known as an orphan disease. Its so rare (1 in a million children, with only about 300 cases diagnosed each year in the U.S.) that it gets scant money for research.

One of just a handful of DIPG clinical researchers worldwide is Dr. Mark Souweidane, who last spring was seeking diagnosed patients for a Phase 1 clinical trial in New York. Hundreds of chemotherapy trials for DIPG had failed, but Souweidane had pioneered a way to surgically deliver drugs directly to the brainstem.

Rather than take their son home to die, the Landises decided to go for the moonshot and apply for the trial. A few weeks later, Parker was accepted as Patient No. 26.

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Portrait of Mark and Jennifer Landis and their 3-year-old daughter Taylor at their Fallbrook home on March 4. (Charlie Neuman / San Diego Union-Tribune/Zuma Press)

The time off and expense of travel would require more resources than the couple had, so after two weeks of difficult discussions, they launched a crowdfunding campaign and accompanying Facebook page.

Jennifer said it was hard exposing their lives to strangers.

I didnt want to sacrifice our sons dignity. Its like we were the car crash on the side of the road and people were driving by looking at it.

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Mark said the page was initially created as a necessity, but eventually it became a therapeutic way to express the struggle he and Jennifer were going through. On the page he promoted fundraisers for other children with DIPG and for disease research. And he published dozens of photos of Parker enjoying brief respites of health and often sleeping after procedures. The Landises refused to publish any photos that showed their son suffering.

People mightve wanted to see the car crash, but we werent going to show that, he said.

Parker would later be written up in news articles and the doctors blog as the first trial patient to receive the highest dose of the new drug and the only one of the 31 patients to endure three surgical infusions.

The drugs results were inconclusive  almost all of the young patients have since passed from the disease  but it did prove that the drug-delivery procedure was survivable.

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The Landises say they hope their sons participation helped contribute to a future cure. They live by a pact not to regret the treatment choices they made for their son.

Last year was a roller-coaster. We had a lot of hope, then not hope, then hope again, then not hope after that, she said. Parents who get this diagnosis, we all go in different directions because were so desperate. But in the end it all ends up the same. They all pass away.

Parkers health seesawed between six-week bouts of vitality after a month of radiation last spring and after the first surgery in New York last June. But by fall, hope began to fade.

He first lost the use of his arms, then his legs, then his ability to speak. In December he was placed on hospice. As Parkers death neared, Marks posts on Facebook became more sporadic. In the final weeks there were no words, just a series of photos of Parker taken before he got sick so people could remember him for how he lived, not how he died.

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Theyre now working together on Parkers celebration of life service, which will be detailed on the Hope for Parker page in the coming weeks. It will take place at 3:30-5:30 p.m. April 9 at the Grand Tradition Estate, 220 Grand Tradition Way in Fallbrook. For Parkers friends and former classmates, there will be a bounce house, face painting and fire trucks.

Mark said that although the experience of the past year was unimaginably sad, it was also inspiring in how so many people, friends and strangers, locally and abroad, reached out to offer support and words of encouragement online.

Id like to say Ive found some enlightenment, he said. Im so much more compassionate than I used to be and I have no problem expressing my feelings now ... Before this, I didnt really know what death was, but now I understand it. Theres horror in it, but theres a beauty, too.

Celebration of Life for Parker Landis

When: 3:30-5:30 p.m. April 9

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Where: The Grand Tradition, 220 Grand Tradition Way, Fallbrook

Details: https://www.facebook.com/events/364303683969187/

pam.kragen@sduniontribune.com


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In a recently-published study, the University of Cambridge researchers suggested that some unexplained findings from what they called the XENON1T experiment conducted in Italy may have resulted from dark energy rather than the dark matter; this said investigation was originally designed to identify.

The study investigators built a physical model to help explain results, which may have been coined from dark energy particles generated in an area of the Sun along with strong magnetic fields, even though future investigations will be needed to verify such an explanation.

The study authors said their research could be an essential step toward dark energy's direct detection. A Phys.org report said that everything the eyes can see in the skies and the everyday world, from tiny moons to gigantic galaxies, from ants to whales, makes up smaller than five percent of the universe.

What's remaining is dark. Specifically, 27 percent is dark matter, the hidden or unseen force that holds galaxies and the cosmic web together, whereas 68 percent is dark energy, causing the universe to expand at a fast-tracked rate.

ALSO READ: Quantum Error Computing Source Identified Thanks to Sydney University Machine Learning





Discovery of Dark Energy

According to Cambridge's Kavli Institute for Cosmology, Dr. Sunny Vagnozzi, the first author of the paper, despite the invisibility of both components, there's a lot known about the dark matter since it existed was suggested as early as the 1920s, whereas dark energy was not detected until 1998.

The first author added, large-scale experiments such as XENON1T have been designed for the direct detection of dark matter by looking for signs of dark matter "hitting" ordinary matter, although dark energy is even more indefinable.

As specified in the study published in Physical Review D, to discover dark energy, the researchers looked for gravitational interactions in general; the way gravity is pulling objects around.

More so, on a large scale, such gravitational impact of dark energy is repulsive, pulling things away from each other and making the expansion of the universe accelerate.

XENON1T Experiment

Last year, the XENON1T experiment reported an unforeseen signal indicator, or excess, over the expected.

About a year ago, the XENON1T experiment reported an unexpected signal, or excess, over the predictable background.

According to researcher Dr. Luca Visinelli from the Frascati National Laboratories in Italy, the sorts of excesses are frequently flukes, although some in a while, they can lead to fundamental detections, as well.

Visinelli, also the study's co-author said, they explored a model in which such a signal could be attributable to dark energy instead of the dark matter the experiment was originally developed to identify.

During that time, the most prominent explanation was the excess hypothetical, extremely light particles known as axions produced in the Sun.

Nevertheless, the explanation is not standing up to observations since the extent of axions needed to explain the XENON1T signal would radically change the stars' evolution much heavier than the Sun, conflicting with what has been observed.

'Chameleon Screening'

Vagnozzi, together with his co-authors, developed a physical model, which used a screening mechanism type also known as chameleon screening, to present that dark energy particles produced the strong magnetic fields of the Sun could explain the XENON1T excess.

Explaining their findings, Vagnozzi said their chameleon screening shuts down the dark energy particles' product in very dense objects, preventing the problems the solar axions faced.

He added, it allows them as well to decouple what happens in the local very dense Universe from what happens on the hugest scales, where there is extremely low density.

It was really surprising, sad Vagnozzi, that such excess could, in principle, have resulted from dark energy instead of dark matter.

Related information about dark energy is shown on the University of California Television's YouTube video below:

RELATED ARTICLE: Superconductivity Research: Researchers Develop New Material that Enables Quantum Information-Based Technology

Check out more news and information on Space in Science Times.
Good morning, Bay Area. Its Thursday, Sept. 16, and more groups may be advised to get a COVID vaccine booster shot soon. Heres what you need to know to start your day.

The sharp decline in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations in the Bay Area and California over the past week has health officials feeling cautiously optimistic.

The states positive test rate and average hospitalizations are now half their August peak. But its unclear if the trends will hold with the winter months approaching, more offices reopening and schools resuming in-person learning.

Were going to have to wait and see, said Dr. Grant Colfax, director of the San Francisco Department of Public Health.

Read more from Aidin Vaziri about whether the Bay Area can expect another surge.

 Evidence of waning immunity for the Pfizer vaccine may drive federal authorities to recommend boosters for older Americans and frontline health care workers as soon as next week.

 When hand sanitizer was scarce, Bay Area companies started making it. Now theyre awash in the product.

Building on the same approach

Stephen Lam/The Chronicle

The cost of the recall election totaled around $400 million, and in the end, none of it may amount to much of anything.

Gov. Gavin Newsoms landslide victory means he is unlikely to face significant political fallout from the effort to remove him from office. And for the states Democratic leaders, it largely appears to be a signal to get back to business as usual.

The governor on Wednesday said he did not feel vindicated by the election results, but rather enlivened and energized to serve people who are counting on effective government to keep them safe and healthy. But there are a few warning signs for Newsom as he looks ahead, writes Alexei Koseff.

 Democrats launched a full-scale effort to rewrite recall laws that they argue could allow a vocal minority of conservative voters to perpetually disrupt state government.

 San Francisco is the only county where Larry Elder isnt leading the California recall replacement vote. Heres who is out front.

 Editorial: The recall election was not even close, but will Gov. Newsom start acting boldly or play it safe until 2022?

 Gov. Newsom comfortably cruised to victory. But what does the strong support for Larry Elder mean for Republicans in California and nationwide?

Around the Bay

Nina Riggio/The Chronicle

 BART death: The death of a woman on a BART platform, tethered to her dog inside a departing train, has raised questions about the transit systems pet policies.

 Breathing easier: This is how the air quality so far this year in the Bay Area compares to last year. Also: The Bay Areas air quality advisory has been extended through Thursday.

 Another recall attempt thwarted: Sonoma County District Attorney Jill Ravitch overwhelmingly beats recall attempt.

 Tragic events: Driver dies after plunging off a steep cliff on Highway 1 near Devils Slide tunnels. Also: A 30-year-old man died after being pulled into the ocean Tuesday at Panther State Beach near Santa Cruz.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

 New SFO shops: The S.F. airport will get four new shops, including an outpost of longtime local bookstore Green Apple Books. Also: Waymo is subleasing a new office from its onetime rival.

 Late to the altar, but safe: A groom and his groomsmen had to be rescued by firefighters from a jammed hotel elevator in Emeryville.

Cool beans

Jessica Christian/The Chronicle

After 20 years, Napas Rancho Gordo has become a cult hit company, changing the way Bay Area restaurants and diners think about the humble bean.

The heirloom legume company from Steve Sando sources beans directly from Mexico, California and Europe, and is celebrated by local chefs: topped with caviar and gold flakes at Californios, featured in vegetarian agnolotti at French Laundry, and anchoring a breakfast dish at Plow.

Rancho Gordo also has a dedicated following of home cooks. Its bean club has 11,000 members with a wait list of more than 35,000 eager bean lovers. Membership also includes entry into a private Facebook group that features a tight-knit community.

Also:

 Home cook businesses were legalized earlier this year. Go inside one of the first restaurants to get up and running.

 Aperture Cellars, which is quickly becoming one of the major players in high-end Sonoma County wine, has just added a sizable new vineyard to its holdings.

Bay Briefing is written by Kellie Hwang and Anna Buchmann and sent to readers email inboxes on weekday mornings. Sign up for the newsletter here, and contact the writers at anna.buchmann@sfchronicle.com and kellie.hwang@sfchronicle.com.
Lew Thomas was running the bookstore at San Franciscos Legion of Honor when he decided to become one of the photographers featured in the modern and contemporary art books he liked to stock and discuss.

He got a late start, in his 30s, but he was early to the idea that photographers didnt have to go out on the street or into nature.

Breaking free of the traditional formats that favored sharp realism and crisp lines, Thomas could make an equally compelling image of sunshine streaming through the window of his home. That 1972 image, titled simply Light on the Floor, is now in the permanent collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

There was this classical tradition of Ansel Adams and Edward Weston kind of photography here, and Lew changed that, said Sandra S. Phillips, curator emerita of photography at SFMOMA.

He was engaged in a radical rethinking of the place of photography in the art world, and he challenged the old classical ideals. It was the beginning of conceptual art in photography here.

This was celebrated in January 2020, when Thomas and his proteges Hal Fischer and Donna-Lee Phillips were given a group show titled Thought Pieces at SFMOMA.

Not long after, Thomas was diagnosed with early-stage dementia and moved into a Petaluma nursing home, where he died Aug. 3. The cause of death was pneumonia, according to his daughter, Kesa Labanowski. He was 88.

Lew was a major influencer in changing how practicing photographers thought about the medium, said Fischer. Through his art, his mentorship and his publications, Lew was a driving force in bringing a new, intellectually-informed perspective into photography.

Lewis Christopher Thomas was born Dec. 19, 1932, at St. Marys Hospital in San Francisco. He was the only child of Cora and Lawrence Thomas, who owned a one-truck moving company called Rapid Transit. The family lived in a flat on California Street, and Thomas attended the parish school at St. Dominics Catholic Church.

After the parish school, Thomas started at Lowell High School, but transferred to Drew School on the street he lived on. From there, he advanced to the University of San Francisco, also within walking distance, where he earned his B.A. in English in 1962.

He wanted to be a librarian but landed a job at the White House, the downtown department store where he was in charge of clearing the cash and credit receipts out of the register at the end of each night.

Lew Thomas / Courtesy Philip Martin Gallery, Los Angeles

One of his accounts was with Natalie Simon, who had moved out from Cleveland. A phone flirtation led to a first date, and in 1960 they were married at City Hall. A few years later he answered an ad for a clerk job at the bookstore at the California Palace at the Legion of Honor. When he arrived for the interview, he learned that there was no bookstore. The museum was looking for someone to create one, and Thomas was hired as bookstore manager, with no prior experience.

He ran it as a kind of salon for poets, writers, artists and thinkers, said Philip Martin, his gallery representative, based in Los Angeles.

Thomas approach was derived from St. Thomas Aquinas, the 13th century Dominican intellectual and philosopher whom he studied at USF. Thomas embraced his theory that Gods miracle was in all light and movement.

I did not need a pictorial image to make a photograph, he later wrote in his 1978 book Structural(ism) and Photography. I did not need to go somewhere to make a photograph. All the content I would ever need for photography was already with me.

Thomas launched his own imprint, NFS Press, in the garage of his Noe Valley home, which also contained his lab and darkroom. For a time, he and his wife also owned an art bookshop called the Greatest Bookstore in the World at 22nd and Guerrero streets. He could answer any question from his spot at the cash register.

He was very intellectual and had an encyclopedic mind, so if you asked him about almost any book he could recite a paragraph, said Jane Reed, an artist and curator known as the person in the boat as it rocked in the Irish Sea during David Irelands short conceptual film Skellig.

Lew was interested in time and space and used them frequently in his photographic series.

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An example Reed cites is a series titled Time Equals 36 Exposures, which consisted of 36 exposures of a white timer with black numbers at different times of the day and then 36 exposures of its negative to form a reverse grid. He did that type of thing often. He photographed water draining in a sink to show the passage of time to show that an image is not stagnant. It moves.

His conceptual photographic work was interrupted when Thomas was hired as the director of the Creative Art Center in New Orleans, where he moved in 1991. He lived in an apartment in an old mansion in the Garden District for 15 years. But he was still a San Francisco city boy to the core, and was insane about the 49ers and the Giants, Labanowski said.

Lew Thomas / Courtesy SFMOMA

Thomas found himself living through dramatic, historic situations on multiple occasions. He was in a plane flying from New Orleans to San Francisco for his daughters wedding during the 9/11 attacks. His flight landed in Albuquerque and he had to drive two days from there.

When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, he rode it out in a Garden District apartment, though he also left New Orleans for good in the aftermath, and moved to Petaluma to be near his daughter.

Once there, he lived through COVID-19, which he contracted at age 87 when it swept through the nursing home where he lived. He recovered, and when his daughter visited him they would sit outside and hed tell stories about art and artists. Anything could trigger a story, even the air conditioning unit on the roof, which reminded him of the photographs of German water towers taken by Bernd and Hilla Becher.

My dad saw art in something as simple as a lamppost, Labanowski said. He never lost his passion for it.

Thomas first marriage, to Sally Noack, ended in divorce. Though he had long been separated from his second wife, Natalie, they remained close and he was at her bedside when she died in 2006. Survivors include his daughter, Kesa of Petaluma; a son, Chris Racanelle of Montpelier, Vt.; and grandchildren Zachary and Natalie Labanowski, both of Petaluma.

At Thomas request, there will be no memorial service.

Sam Whiting is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: swhiting@sfchronicle.com. Twitter:@samwhitingsf
California Supreme Court Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuellar, a 2015 appointee of former Gov. Jerry Brown and one of the courts more liberal members, is resigning to become president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Cuellar, 49, announced his departure Thursday, two days after the voters rejected a recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom, who will nominate his successor.

His resignation, effective Nov. 1, was first reported by the New York Times. He told the Times he hoped to bring a fresh perspective to the Carnegie think tank, whose previous president, William Burns, is now President Bidens CIA director.

Cuellar told reporters the recall election had not affected his decision. Asked why he was leaving, he said, I have had a terrific run at the court with amazing colleagues, but he also noted his past work in international affairs. We should all go and do what engages us and also what will help us leave the world a better place, he said.

Cuellar, known as Tino, was born in the northern Mexican town of Matamoros and, as a boy, walked 7 miles each way over a border crossing to attend a Catholic school in Texas. When he was 14, his father got immigration papers and moved the family to Calexico (Imperial County), where he had a job teaching Spanish.

Cuellar earned a college degree at Harvard, a law degree at Yale and a doctorate in political science at Stanford, where he became a law professor in 2001 and directed the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Affairs.

He also served in two presidential administrations: as an adviser in Bill Clintons Treasury Department and as assistant for justice and regulatory policy on Barack Obamas Domestic Policy Council. On that council, he led the White House effort that helped persuade Congress in 2010 to repeal the dont ask, dont tell law, which allowed gays and lesbians to serve in the armed forces only if they concealed their sexual orientation. He was also co-chairman of President-elect Obamas working group on immigration.

Cuellar was the fourth Latino justice in the courts history. His appointment, and others by Brown, gave the court a majority of Democratic appointees for the first time since 1987. The court now has a 5-2 Democratic majority but reaches a consensus in most of its rulings, with relatively few that are closely divided.

One rare 4-3 decision came in 2018, when a majority upheld a voter-approved state law requiring police to collect DNA samples from anyone arrested on suspicion of committing a felony. Cuellar dissented, calling the law a major intrusion into the privacy of all the people subject to its procedures.

This March, he wrote an opinion for a unanimous court that reduced the impact of Californias cash bail system, which the voters had refused to abolish in November. The ruling said judges in most cases must consider a defendants ability to pay before setting bail in any amount.

Asked Thursday which decisions he wanted to be remembered for, he mentioned, among others, the bail ruling and a 2017 ruling allowing suits against pharmaceutical companies for defective warning labels in generic versions of their products.

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Newsoms only previous appointee to the court was Martin Jenkins, the governors former legal affairs adviser and the first openly gay justice on the states high court.

Newsoms office thanked Cuellar for his service and said in a statement that the governor looks forward to considering several highly qualified candidates to fill the impending vacancy in the coming months, drawing from a broad, experienced pool of candidates that reflects all aspects of the states diversity.

Cuellars wife, Lucy Koh, is a federal judge in San Jose who has been nominated by President Biden to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

It should be an easy transition for Justice Cuellar, going from the finest think tank in California to the greatest think tank in the world, said Gerald Uelmen, former law school dean at Santa Clara University.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BobEgelko
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In a tiny, two-seat, incredibly fast aircraft, 19-year-old pilot Zara Rutherford touched down in Palo Alto Wednesday on her journey to become the youngest female to fly solo around the world.

Rutherford hopes her attempt to break this record will inspire girls and young women to pursue their dreams, according to her website  especially if those dreams are in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, where women are historically underrepresented.
So far this year, the Bay Area is breathing easier than last fire season, with air quality benefiting from a combination of weather, wind and more-distant wildfires  though with conditions ripe for new major blazes in California, the regions fortunes could quickly change in coming months, experts warn.

At this time last year, smoke from massive lightning-sparked blazes in and around the Bay Area choked the air. Smoke from wildfires as far away as Oregon and Washington also made its way down to Northern California, helping turn the sky orange on one very unsettling day.

By Sept. 16, Spare the Air alerts indicating unhealthy pollution levels had stretched for a record 30 consecutive days  triggered by the PM2.5 fine particles found in wildfire smoke.

By the end of 2020, the region had recorded 52 Spare the Air days, according to Aaron Richardson of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District.

Fast-forward to 2021: Even as the Dixie Fire nears 1 million acres across five northeastern counties and the Caldor Fire continues to burn near Tahoe, the Bay Areas air quality hasnt been nearly as bad yet. The region has recorded 13 Spare the Air days so far  some due to an uptick in ozone rather than smoke, Richardson said.

The Air Quality Index  a measurement system from 0 to 500 divided into five color-coded ranges  tells a similar story. According to Richardson, the highest 24-hour average PM2.5 concentration reading for 2021 in the Bay Area so far was 124, in the indexs orange unhealthy for sensitive groups level, on Aug. 28 at a San Jose monitoring station. Last year, the highest reading was 218, in the purple very unhealthy range, on Sept. 11 at an Oakland station.

According to data from the Environmental Protection Agency, daily AQI values this year have mostly stayed in the good (green) and moderate (yellow) range for the San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward region, though they crept into the orange zone in late August.

Environmental Protection Agency

Experts said the noticeable air quality improvement this year highlights the extreme effects of the huge wildfires that ringed the region last year, spawned by a rare lightning siege, with thousands of dry lightning strikes igniting fires that merged into complexes.

The result was a lot of fires right near us to the north, south and east, and the smoke didnt have to travel far to make a dramatic impact, said John Balmes, a professor of medicine at UCSF and environmental health sciences at UC Berkeley.

Balmes said for much of the year, winds in the Bay Area travel from west to east, which protects us from fires elsewhere, especially to the east. But last year, offshore winds blowing from land toward the ocean pushed a lot of smoke into the region, including from giant wildfires in Oregon and Washington in early September  helping produce the eerie orange skies on Sept. 9.

Jessica Christian/The Chronicle

This year, the largest wildfires have been well outside the Bay Area, and offshore wind events have been rare, according to Eleanor Dhuyvetter, a meteorologist with the Bay Area office of the National Weather Service.

She added that onshore winds from the Pacific have helped keep smoke elevated  so that while skies may appear hazy, the air people breathe has been relatively clean.

Onshore winds pick up in the afternoon at pretty breezy speeds that keep the air really clear at the surface so there is no stagnant smoke, she said.

Additionally this summer, Richardson said the Bay Area has benefited from a strong marine layer and fog, which helps keep the smoke above us.

Fire Tracker Follow wildfires across the state Latest updates on wildfires burning across Northern and Southern California

But the fall season is when the offshore winds, known as the Diablo winds in Northern California, arrive. The risk of wildfire continues through October and sometimes November, and the powerful winds can not only spread blazes but also carry smoke into the Bay Area.

Diablo winds could reach the Bay Area beginning Sunday night into Monday morning, and again on Monday night into Tuesday, according to David King, meteorologist for the National Weather Service.

Its still a bit of a low confidence forecast, he said, adding: But it actually looks like its going to be coming fairly soon.

Environmental Protection Agency

The Camp Fire, the deadliest wildfire in California history, brought thick smoke into the Bay Area in November 2018, with AQI levels reaching unhealthy and very unhealthy levels. The Wine Country wildfires in October 2017 also resulted in a stretch of unhealthy air for Bay Area residents.

Moving into the fall season, Dhuyvetter said, more offshore wind events could set the Bay Area up for decreasing air quality, especially if large wildfires ignite in the periphery of the Bay Area.

Chronicle staff writer Annie Vainshtein contributed to this report.

Kellie Hwang is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kellie.hwang@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @KellieHwang
Last year, more than 10% of the worlds sequoia trees were wiped out by a single wildfire. Fire officials want to make sure that doesnt happen again.

On Thursday morning, as flames rushed toward the storied Giant Forest in Sequoia National Park, where fire was expected to hit the grove of some 2,000 big trees within 24 hours, crews were wrapping sequoias with aluminum insulation, digging protective lines around the titans and planning to light back burns to push away the approaching flames.

The Colony Fire, one of two blazes that make up the fast-moving 9,365-acre KNP Complex, was within a mile of Giant Forest, park officials said. The second blaze, the Paradise Fire to the south, was farther away, but also burning in the direction of the historical grove.

The Giant Forest is by far the most famous part of the park. Its the part of the park that every person who comes here wants to visit, said Rebecca Paterson, a spokesperson for Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. We want to give the grove every shot we can for it to come through as unscathed as possible.

The centerpiece of the sprawling stand of towering trees is the General Sherman tree, the largest living thing on Earth. It is 275 feet tall and has a diameter of more than 36 feet at its base. The tree is believed to have been around since the days of ancient Greece, perhaps dating back 2,700 years.

Five of the 10 largest sequoias on Earth live in Giant Forest.

Noah Berger/Associated Press

These monarchs were among the trees being prioritized for protection by fire crews, Paterson said. About 350 firefighters were battling the KNP Complex, and more were on the way.

Last year, the Castle Fire, which burned south of the KNP Complex in Sequoia National Park, is estimated to have killed between 7,500 and 10,600 mature sequoias, including the globes ninth largest, the King Arthur tree. Sequoias only grow on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada, making last years casualties all the more significant. Between 10% and 14% of the total sequoia population was lost.

In recent years, a handful of other groves have been ravaged by fire in the nearby Sequoia and Sierra national forests.

The trees have long been mostly immune to wildfires and, in fact, rely on heat from the flames to release seeds from their cones for reproduction. However, the hotter, more extreme fire behavior seen over the past decade has posed an increasing threat to the giants.

Low- to moderate-severity fires that burn through the understory and clean up the twigs and branches that fall on the ground are really good, said Kristen Shive, lead forest scientist for the Nature Conservancy in California, who has studied the impact of wildfire on sequoias.

Some small pockets of high-severity fire are part of the fire history too, and theyre important. But now were seeing high-severity patches on a scale much larger than weve seen over history, she said.

The hope among scientists and park officials is that the KNP Complex doesnt burn as severely as some of the more recent infernos.

Fire Tracker Follow wildfires across the state Latest updates on wildfires burning across Northern and Southern California

On Thursday, firefighters reported active but not catastrophic fire behavior.

Shiver also noted that Giant Forest had a significant fire history, meaning the area has regularly burned  often because park managers have set controlled fires there  and consequently there would be less vegetation to fuel a big, destructive blaze.

Other smaller stands of sequoias in the park were believed to be more vulnerable to the KNP Complex because they hadnt burned as frequently. These include the Suwanee and Oriole groves.

Historically, sequoias have burned about once every decade, based on examinations of trees that have lived for up to 3,000 years.

Sequoia National Park remained closed to the public this week. The parks headquarters at Ash Mountain at the southern entrance gate and the Mineral King area have been evacuated as the Paradise Fire has neared. Parts of the the community of Three Rivers, just outside the park, were also under mandatory evacuation orders. Kings Canyon National Park remained open.

Kurtis Alexander is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kalexander@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kurtisalexander
Attorneys who defended the man acquitted of murder charges in the 2015 shooting death of Kate Steinle are calling on President Joe Bidens administration to drop the federal charges against their former client, arguing that his continued incarceration is a product of political furor.

In an open letter posted this week on the blogging site Medium, San Francisco public defenders Matt Gonzalez and Francisco Ugarte recalled the bitterly politicized debate surrounding Jose Ines Garcia Zarates status as an undocumented immigrant, saying thats what continues to hold him behind bars  not an earnest quest for justice.

While Garcia Zarates criminal trial centered on the facts surrounding the shooting, the case galvanized critics who blamed Steinles death on lax immigration enforcement, and who held up the case as a referendum on San Franciscos sanctuary city policies.

Among the most vocal detractors was former President Donald Trump, who called Garcia Zarates acquittal a complete travesty of justice.

There was a racial animus that Trump took advantage of to disparage Mexican immigrants, Ugarte said in an interview with The Chronicle. It worked for him in 2016, and its time to really evaluate what this case is about.

In 2017, a San Francisco jury found Garcia Zarate not guilty of murder and assault charges after defense attorneys argued that a gun Garcia Zarate found on Pier 14 wrapped in a T-shirt went off accidentally. The bullet ricocheted on the concrete pier before it struck Steinle in the back.

The jury convicted him only of being a felon in possession of a gun, a decision that a state appeals court later overturned. The higher court said the jury should have been allowed to decide whether Garcia Zarate had only momentary possession of the weapon, which would not have been a crime.

Garcia Zarate remains in custody, however, after a federal grand jury indicted him on charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition and being an undocumented immigrant in possession of a firearm and ammunition. The indictment came days after the San Francisco jurys verdict.

The state-court ruling has no legal effect on the federal prosecution, which will continue, former U.S. Attorney David Anderson said in September 2019 following the appellate court decision. A repeatedly deported, previously convicted felon has no right to possess a firearm under federal law, even if California extends him sanctuary.

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The trial has since been delayed due to questions over Garcia Zarates competency.

The U.S. Attorneys Office did not immediately respond to The Chronicles request for comment on Thursday. Attempts to reach attorneys for the Steinle family were not successful.

Gonzalez and Ugarte said that rather than evaluate the jurys findings, Trump and then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions rushed to keep Garcia Zarate in custody.

Thus far, their efforts are working, their letter argued. What they could not change, however, is that Garcia Zarate is factually innocent of the charges, including the federal indictment alleging gun possession.

Megan Cassidy is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: megan.cassidy@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @meganrcassidy
Proposals to mandate COVID-19 vaccinations for tens of thousands of staff and students in two Bay Area school districts are drawing support from health experts and many families  though some parents and students expressed trepidation.

The school boards for the Oakland Unified and West Contra Costa Unified districts are slated to vote on the proposed mandates next week. If theyre approved, these two Bay Area districts would become the first in Northern California to adopt such requirements.

These votes come after school districts have shut some classrooms and quarantined students in the wake of the delta variant. While children rarely get seriously ill from COVID-19, the cases have disrupted learning just as teachers are trying to catch up students, many of whom were stuck in distance learning for more than a year.

The debates over policy, ethics and medicine expected to play out at the school board meetings next week are probably a preview of what other Bay Area school districts might face in the coming months. With emergency authorization of the shots for 5- to 11-year-olds likely by the end of October, districts will also have to grapple with mandates for younger students. And some are already arguing that instead of each district rehashing this issue, California health officials should step in and set statewide policy.

Were moving forward because we need to, for the safety of our kids and our community, said Benjamin Sam Davis, the Oakland school board member who sponsored the measure there. Because the state has left this vacuum that we have to step into. We definitely need state leadership on this.

The two districts plans to mandate vaccines for school staff are likely to be much less contentious. The teachers union in West Contra Costa Unified backs the proposal. But the idea of requiring shots for eligible students 12 and older, might face more resistance. Nationally, 58% of parents of 12-to-17-year-olds say they dont want their childs school to require students to be vaccinated, according to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation report.

When Davis introduced the measure during a board meeting last week, another board member, Mike Hutchinson, silently shook his head.

Hutchinson said the proposed mandate opens the door for lawsuits and has no mechanism for enforcement. It creates more barriers for students  namely, students of color or those from low-income families  who already have difficulty obtaining the vaccine, or who may mistrust the medical establishment, he said. Chiefly, Hutchinson said, its inappropriate for local public schools to be dictating medical policy, which should be the purview of the state Legislature.

Some health experts applauded the idea of mandating vaccination for school staff and students.

Kids lives have been really disrupted from COVID restrictive policies, said Dr. Jeanne Noble, director of COVID response at UCSFs Parnassus Emergency Department. So I think the quickest way for them to get back to normal is a vaccine mandate.

State law has long required kids in school to get vaccinated against other infectious diseases, and COVID should be no different, said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease physician at UCSF.

No one quibbles over getting vaccination for (measles, mumps and rubella) or tetanus or chicken pox, he said.

But those who are vaccine-hesitant may push back at public meetings on the issue next week. The school boards will vote Tuesday in West Contra Costa  which serves more than 28,000 students in the cities of Richmond, El Cerrito, Hercules, Pinole and San Pablo, as well as several unincorporated areas  and Wednesday in Oakland, which has 50,000 students.

One possible concern for families is that the Food and Drug Administration has granted full approval for the Pfizer vaccine to people 16 and older, but has not yet done so for children 12 to 15, who can get the vaccine under emergency use authorization designation. Full FDA approval for 12-to-15-year-olds could be coming by the end of the year.

School boards are actually in a tough situation to make these decisions ahead of the FDA full approval, said Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, a UCSF professor of epidemiology and biostatistics. But I think we have enough experience to know these vaccines are safe. And we have enough experience to know the absence of high levels of vaccination in school districts is not compatible with the safest way to do in-person learning. Thats why youll see more school districts making this decision.

If the Bay Area school districts approve the mandates, they would follow the Los Angeles and Culver City (Los Angeles County) school districts, which recently became the first in California to require vaccination for staff and students. California will require public school staff to either be vaccinated or submit to weekly testing beginning next month, but there is no similar statewide rule regarding students.

Some local school officials are pressing the state to add COVID shots to mandatory school vaccinations in place for decades.

We find it extremely troublesome that each and every school district in California must act as medical experts and determine whether or not to require students to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in California schools, says a letter signed by officials at Sequoia Union High School District in San Mateo County to Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday. The Legislature or state public health department should act, the letter said.

On the subject of mandatory childhood vaccinations, Newsom said Wednesday, There's nothing on the table at the moment, but the state is always looking at the science. He stressed the importance of full federal approval for the vaccines.

Students and parents in the affected Bay Area schools appeared split, with most voicing support for mandatory vaccinations but some expressing reservations.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

Thirteen-year-old Chelsi Guadamuz, a student at Richmonds Lovonya DeJean Middle School, just got her second dose of the vaccine on Wednesday. Her father, Oscar Guadamuz, smiled approvingly after hearing about the proposed vaccine mandate from a reporter.

I dont have a problem with that, he said. Its good.

But eighth-grader RayShaun Boatmon was skeptical of the school board proposal.

Parents are nervous, he said.

Tomas Brubaker, a 17-year-old junior at Oakland Tech High School, said that a mandate seemed reasonable to some degree because the important thing is safety.

But he added, Some people have medical conditions and personal beliefs and things they dont feel comfortable doing. Its sort of between safety and morals.

If approved, West Contra Costa would require staff to get their first dose by Oct. 3 and second dose by Oct. 31; students 12 and older would have to get their first dose by Nov. 21 and their second shot by Dec. 19. The district would not allow testing to serve as an alternative for staff or students. Those who could provide proof of a medical or religious exemption would be allowed to stay in classrooms. About 93% of the districts staff is vaccinated. Its unclear what percentage of students are vaccinated.

Oaklands proposal does not specify dates by which students and staff would need to get vaccinated. In the city of Oakland overall, 54% of 12-to-17-year-olds are fully vaccinated, and 71% have gotten at least one dose, according to the Oakland proposal.

Many Oakland Tech students interviewed by The Chronicle on Thursday said they were already vaccinated and expressed overwhelming support for a vaccine mandate.

This is a massive way we could stop people from getting COVID here, said Alden Gates, 16, a junior. I wear a mask, I wash my hands between classes and I still dont feel safe. There are people in my classes who I know arent vaccinated.

Catherine Ho, Rachel Swan and Michael Cabanatuan are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: cho@sfchronicle.com, rswan@sfchronicle.com, mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Cat_Ho, @rachelswan, @ctuan
Few food groups are as coveted as the Rancho Gordo bean club. Sales at the Napa company, which specializes in heirloom beans, doubled over the pandemic. The club has 11,000 members who are sent a curated box of beans and recipes every quarter. And the wait list to get in is 35,000 people long.

Members get pristine, beautifully speckled beans, yes, but theres a lesser known perk of joining: a private Facebook group that one member described as the nicest, happiest place on the internet.

The Facebook group, which people get access to only after becoming bean club members, is a haven for bean lovers  a.k.a beaniacs, people of the bean, bean hive and leguminati. Its a place where they can obsessively debate bean cookery, catalog recipes (including in handwritten notebooks, three-ring binders and digital spreadsheets), share photos of dishes and unapologetically stan for a company that in the last 20 years has gone from an obscure Napa farmers market stand to a global cult favorite.

Discussions arent limited to bean obsessing. Its a tight-knit community where many members share whats going on in their personal lives and anxieties about world events. Theyve turned to beans  and the group  as a refuge from it all, particularly during the pandemic.

Its a place where people come to reorient, said member Tracy Heisler. We dont know each other, but its almost like an ideal online community.

Rancho Gordo marked its 20th anniversary in 2021, after a banner year of pandemic sales and surging demand for the companys heirloom legumes. Its beloved by home cooks as much as fine dining chefs, and the beans quality and variety has been well-documented, especially as the companys received more national attention in recent years (including a New Yorker deep dive in 2018). After CBS News interviewed Rancho Gordo founder Steve Sando last November, thousands of orders poured in.

The bean club Facebook group, though, is filled with passionate early bean adopters, people who discovered Rancho Gordo through word of mouth, magazine articles or chance visits to the companys now-closed Ferry Building Marketplace stand.

Jessica Christian/The Chronicle

Sando started the Facebook group in 2017, he jokes, out of laziness. He was fielding so many questions from fervent bean club members about how to cook specific varieties that he created the group to let them talk among themselves. It worked. The page took off, but remained one of the best-kept secrets of getting into the club. (This reporter is a member of the bean club and the Facebook group.)

Sando and two Rancho Gordo employees monitor the Facebook page, though by and large it needs very little policing. As far as online communities go, this one is unusually wholesome. The comment sections rarely devolve into off-topic snarkiness. People answer each others questions kindly and patiently. Photos of cats curled up in empty bean club boxes and dogs wearing Rancho Gordo-branded tissue paper have their own adorable hashtag, #beanclubpets.

And while most food-focused social media is filled with photos of carefully composed dishes, the feed here is often endearingly unpolished, and sometimes poorly lit. Besides, cooked beans, beige and homogenous, are on their own not inherently photogenic. The beaniacs dont mind.

Every shot doesnt always look like the cover of Bon Appetit or Martha Stewart. This group is really willing to show food thats not pretty, but delicious, said member Beth Casey. I think thats nice that people are willing to bare their souls a little bit and that life isnt always perfect.

For many members, the Facebook group has changed how they cook and eat. Many learned to love types of beans they had never enjoyed before. Vegetarians and carnivores alike delight in sharing recipes that put beans front and center, and in learning new ways to treat their treasured legumes. Brian Davis, a vegetarian who eats beans three times a week, has internalized from the group to salt his beans at the end rather than the beginning of the cooking process. Even Sando, famous for his anti-recipe minimalism, recently made a batch of King City Pinks (a creamy California heirloom bean) in a rice cooker, a new-to-him cooking method spurred by a post in the group.

Meg Webber Manning, a retiree who lives in Alabama, was a recipe-bound cook until she joined the bean club and Facebook group in 2017. She learned from other members how to riff freely without turning to a recipe.

Courtesy Tracy Heisler/

For Webber Manning, the group has also doubled as a surprising source of support. In August, she posted that her husbands health was declining; her brother was dying of cancer; and that she was feeling a sense of malaise from the pandemic and world events. As a form of catharsis, she decided to document on the Facebook group what she called her beans of salvation: stretching one pot of Alubia Blanca, a Spanish-style white bean, into many meals over the course of several days. With her husband, who has Parkinsons, now in an assisted-living facility, she was learning how to cook for one.

My house now smells amazing, and for the first time in way too long, Im excited about a meal. Thank you for hauling me from the depths of despair, she wrote to the group.

Dozens of people responded and more than 400 liked her post, offering support and their own anecdotes about times beans had helped them get through difficult moments. (Many describe this as bean therapy.)

One of those people was Greer Blair. Two years ago, her home was severely damaged in a freak flood. She lost a large collection of spices and cookbooks, a devastating blow for an avid home cook. She briefly posted about it on the Rancho Gordo Facebook group.

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Before she knew it, her inbox filled with supportive messages from members offering to send her bags of beans. Blair didnt take them up on it  happily, she stored her beans in a plastic tub that saved them from damage  but the kindness of complete strangers across the country was an absolute balm and blessing. Rancho Gordo also offered to send her spices, cookbooks and other items to replenish her lost pantry.

It gave me something to read, something to try, and just connected me to something outside of my circumstances at the time, Blair said. Steve and his company do good and want to make sure people can eat and share food together. He practices in private what he preaches in public.

Jessica Christian/The Chronicle

Many of the members said the group feels like a natural extension of Sando and his ethos. Rancho Gordo is more popular than ever, but his founding commitment to preserving heirloom bean varieties and supporting small farmers remains unchanged. Sando still writes the bean club newsletter and recently traveled to Lucca, Italys bean capital, in search of a specific borlotti cranberry bean he hopes to export. Hes excited about a new Rancho Gordo farm near Modesto, where theyre testing what bean varieties can grow in California.

Hes not sure what the next 20 years of Rancho Gordo will look like. But unlike when he struggled to convince anyone to care about heirloom beans two decades ago, he now has an army of bean converts  the 5,300 members of that Facebook group and beyond  behind him.

On March 24, 2020, just as the pandemic was starting to sweep the world, he posted this message to the group.

Things in the world seem to stink right now except for here. This feels like home.

Elena Kadvany is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: elena.kadvany@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ekadvany
Two decades after Steve Sando started Rancho Gordo in Napa, the cult hit company has changed the way Bay Area restaurants and diners treat the humble bean. Chefs have been serving its heirloom legumes for years, from classic refried pintos with tacos to caviar-topped beans. Sando has played a critical role in educating locals on the difference between standard canned beans and heirloom versions, many chefs said.

While canned beans often sit on grocery store shelves for years, Rancho Gordo beans are less than 2 years old and are sourced directly from small farms in Mexico, California and Europe. These bean varieties span a much broader spectrum than anything in a can, from delicate and creamy white beans to nutty garbanzos and meaty runner beans. Chefs praise their unrivaled taste and texture  and Rancho Gordos dedication to careful sourcing  for changing the bean game.

In turn, Sando credits local chefs with helping spread the bean gospel long before it was trendy. Restaurants now make up 30% of Rancho Gordos overall sales.

Here are eight Bay Area restaurants that serve the heirloom beans and their chefs on how the beans transformed their dishes.

The French Laundry, Yountville

In 2003, a chef walked up to Steve Sandos bean stand at the Yountville farmers market. It was Thomas Keller of the famed French Laundry. He put the beans on his menu, and other chefs quickly followed. Keller was impressed by both the quality of fresher, dried beans and knowing exactly where they came from.

Traditionally, prior to Rancho Gordo, when we were buying dried beans, we were not really 100% sure of the sourcing of it. The most important aspect to chefs is sourcing, and Steve understood that, Keller said. Through Steve, we had the ability to work with farmers and revive these heirloom beans. The importance then became not just what he was bringing in, but with whom.

Nearly 20 years later, the beans are often served at the French Laundry; most recently, Rancho Gordos dense, pink-hued pinquito beans were served alongside vegetarian eggplant agnolotti.

Kin Khao, Nari, San Francisco

Courtesy Adahlia Cole

When Kin Khao opened in San Francisco in 2014, one dish unexpectedly became a best-seller: a vegetarian, bean-centric play on nam tok, the Thai grilled meat salad with a funky, citrusy dressing.

The heart of it, said owner Pim Techamuanvivit, was Rancho Gordo beans  quickly dunked in the deep fryer so their skins crisp up and tossed in a vegan fish sauce-based dressing, served with lettuce and herbs for wrapping. They used whatever varieties were available; sometimes cranberry beans, or Good Mother Stallard, a speckled bean with rich flavor. Techamuanvivit credits the quality of the beans, with creamy interiors and their own depth of flavor, for the dishs continued popularity.

Ive tried taking it off the menu, she said, but every time we did, there was so much uproar.

The inspiration for the dish came from Techamuanvivits own Rancho Gordo stash in her home pantry. She loves to cook fat Royal Corona white beans in butter until their skins crisp up and have them for breakfast with eggs and bacon.

Kin Khao is temporarily closed, but the nam tok beans will return as soon as it reopens. They will also soon be served at sister restaurant Nari.

Californios, San Francisco

Provided by Val M. Cantu

Rancho Gordo beans also launched a signature dish at Californios, a contemporary tasting menu Mexican restaurant. Chef Val M. Cantu elevated the modest legume with his tres frijoles, or three beans. The dish combined three bean varieties (Royal Corona, moro and cranberry) in three different applications (mousse, broth and cooked whole). Later, it got crowned with caviar and gold flakes.

We tend to not go back in time with our dishes, but so many people ask about it constantly, including friends and family, Cantu said. Theres a lot of complexity in Rancho Gordos beans, a lot of umami  a lot of flavors you wouldnt normally get from beans.

The menu at Californios changes frequently, but the tres frijoles persisted for years until Cantu stopped serving it. But Rancho Gordo beans still make an appearance as a mousse on a vegetarian chilapita, a tart made from masa dough.

Luna Mexican Kitchen, San Jose, Campbell

Courtesy Art Cervantes | QuixoteFilms

When Jo Lopez opened the first Luna Mexican Kitchen in 2017, she would drive to Rancho Gordo in Napa to pick up orders of beans. Today, her two restaurants go through 1,500 pounds of the beans a week.

Once you have them, you cant go back, said Lopez, a vegetarian who often eats Rancho Gordo beans at home.

At Luna, beans anchor many dishes. Epazote black beans cooked with the herb, garlic and onion, are folded into enchiladas and served with cochinita pibil. Pintos star in charro beans, a hearty bean stew served with a platter of sizzling grilled meat or seafood. And the restaurants slow-cooked lamb barbacoa comes with hearty lima beans and fresh corn tortillas.

Otra, Sons Addition, San Francisco

Soleil Ho / The Chronicle

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Nick Cobarruvias, chef and co-owner of Otra and Sons Addition in San Francisco, fell in love with Rancho Gordo beans in 2003, when his then-girlfriend told him to check out a special bean stand at the farmers market.

I remember cooking them for the first time and somebody saying these are perfect, he said. The beans are awesome if you dont mess with them too much and let them shine.

At Sons Addition (which is temporarily closed), rio zape beans  pinto-like chocolate-y beans that were the founding inspiration for Rancho Gordo  were long served with a pork dish. Braised rio zapes also lay the foundation for a bean and charred corn salsa on sweet potato tacos at Otra.

Otras comforting ribollita stew combines Rancho Gordos meaty Christmas Lima beans with creamy gigantes from Iacopi Farms in Half Moon Bay. One of Otras opening dishes  pork tenderloin paired with ranchero-style stewed beans, a favorite of Cobarruvias growing up in Texas  will return to the menu this fall.

The Anchovy Bar, State Bird Provisions, San Francisco

Provided by the Anchovy Bar

Anchovy Bar chef de cuisine Koji Yokoyama uses Rancho Gordo vaquero beans, a chili bean with black-and-white skin like a cows hide, to mimic the texture of mung beans in a Chinese New Year sticky rice dish he learned from his father-in-law. The beans and rice are wrapped and cooked in a banana leaf for eight hours, then pan seared. Crispy local squid tossed in a fish sauce vinaigrette and herbs top the dish.

Past Anchovy Bar dishes have featured another creative take: pickled beans.

Stuart Brioza, who owns the Anchovy Bar, State Bird Provisions and the Progress, has cooked with Rancho Gordo beans since the companys earliest days. Theyre often on the State Bird menu, currently in a donabe dish with fermented turnips and barley miso butter.

Maxine Siu, Plow, San Francisco

Rancho Gordo beans have been on the menu at Plow since the popular Potrero Hill breakfast spot opened 11 years ago. The Midnight black beans anchor Plows chorizo and eggs dish: a layer of beans and chorizo topped with two fried eggs and avocado, plus corn tortillas on the side. The beans are cooked simply, the Rancho Gordo way, with sauteed onions and garlic, a couple of bay leaves and water.

I chose them for their texture and dense, rich flavor, owner Maxine Siu said of this black bean variety. Their skins are never tough. You can tell the beans havent been sitting around for years.

Elena Kadvany is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: elena.kadvany@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ekadvany
Evidence of waning immunity for at least one COVID-19 vaccine may drive federal authorities on Friday to advise older Americans, as well as frontline health care workers, to get a third shot starting as soon as next week.

With the delta variant surging across the United States and public health officials in every state struggling to improve vaccination rates as they wrestle with widespread transmission, pressure is mounting to protect even fully vaccinated people from breakthrough cases that in rare instances result in severe illness or even death.

Pfizer, which makes the vaccine that has been most used in the United States, has requested that its boosters be approved for everyone age 16 and older; an advisory board for the Food and Drug Administration is taking up that request at a meeting Friday. And last month, President Biden said the country should be prepared to deliver boosters for all three vaccines to all eligible Americans on Sept. 20.

But many doctors and public health experts have pushed back on that plan, and reports released this week suggest the FDA is more likely to take a nuanced approach and recommend boosters for only select groups of people who are at high risk of severe illness or death or who are very frequently exposed to the virus.

On Wednesday, the FDA released documents it will review at Fridays meeting, and among them was a report in which federal scientists declined to recommend for or against boosters for everyone. The report noted that current data shows the Pfizer vaccine is still highly effective at preventing severe illness and death among all age groups, and that much of the evidence of waning immunity is inconclusive.

Also on Wednesday, a report out of Israel published in the New England Journal of Medicine provided some of the first real-world evidence that boosters are effective at increasing protection from severe disease as well as mild infections. That study, which involved the Pfizer vaccine and looked at people age 60 and older, found rates of severe illness were about 20 times lower and mild illness about 11 times lower among those who got boosters than those who did not. The FDA is expected to consider that report along with data provided by Pfizer and other studies done in the United States.

All of the reports taken together weave a complex tapestry of data that is difficult to draw conclusions from, say many experts in public health and vaccine immunity. Further complicating the issue is a global vaccine shortage that raises ethical questions about where limited supply should be directed.

There is data to support boosters. There are certain populations in whom an additional dose is a good thing. But its hard for me to see how the data justify why every American should get a third dose, said Dr. Michael Reid, chief medical officer of the UCSF Pandemic Initiative for Equity and Action.

The FDA for now is scheduled to review and vote on boosters for Pfizer, which is the only one of the three vaccines with full federal approval so far. It likely will consider boosters for the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines later this year. Pfizer makes up well over half of all vaccines given in the U.S.

If the FDA approves boosters for Pfizer recipients, the topic likely will be taken up by a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention committee that sets national vaccine guidance.

Fridays public meeting is expected to be lively and potentially heated, and many experts said it wasnt immediately clear what the advisory board would recommend. For weeks, scientists in favor of boosters for everyone as soon as possible and those who want to wait before offering them widely have staged furious debates in public forums and on social media.

Earlier this week, a group of experts including two FDA scientists published an essay arguing boosters should not be given in the U.S. until more evidence is available and global vaccine equity has been addressed. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nations best known infectious disease expert, has been a vocal proponent of boosters.

Health experts said even before the vaccines were authorized that boosters would likely be needed, either due to waning immunity from the first shots or to keep up with variants. But determining the appropriate time to give boosters is complicated because there are many variables to consider, and decisions must be made under the pressure of a public health crisis.

Ideally the process to consider boosters, and the best schedule for giving them, would take years to work through. And typically its not in the political spotlight where you have the White House and other leaders weighing in, said Dr. Art Reingold, a UC Berkeley epidemiologist. But this is an unusual set of circumstances.

You could argue politicians have gotten a little ahead of themselves, he said. But you could counter that this is a pandemic and we dont have time to waste.

Indeed, the surge fueled by the highly transmissible delta variant has made the booster question much more urgent, many public health and infectious disease experts say. If the United States had higher vaccination rates and had been able to quell this surge, then it could afford to take more time to assess the need for boosters and who should get them.

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But there is so much virus circulating now  especially in the Southern states, but in California and other much more highly vaccinated places as well  that even fully vaccinated people are at greater risk of breakthrough infections. Though vaccinated people are far less likely than unvaccinated people to end up hospitalized with severe illness, those who do tend to be older or suffering from other underlying health problems.

Initial reports showed the Pfizer vaccine was more than 90% effective at preventing hospitalization with COVID-19. Reports released last week by the CDC found that more recently, the rate had dropped to 80%. For all vaccines, protection against hospitalization was lowest  about 76%  for people age 75 and older.

The CDC already has recommended that immune-compromised people get boosters. Advising boosters for older adults, especially those who live in long-term care facilities or other congregate settings, would be a natural next step, many experts say.

Boosters for health care workers also make sense because even though they dont face great risk of severe illness, hospitals and other facilities cant afford to lose them for a week or longer if they get even a mild breakthrough infection.

Right now theres data that are clear for people age 60 and above, and indirectly frontline health care workers because theyre in touch with all these people who arent vaccinated, and also we cant afford to lose them, said Dr. Eric Topol, executive vice president of Scripps Research in La Jolla (San Diego County). Those are the two groups that are pretty clear cut right now.

Topol and many other experts believe boosters will eventually prove effective for all age groups. But younger adults and teens can probably afford to wait a couple of months to get their third shots, which will give public health officials time to administer boosters to those most in need, as well as collect more data on whether theyre needed for everyone.

There will be not the same need for everybody to get a booster shot immediately, said Dr. Melanie Ott, a senior investigator at the Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco. And, honestly, we would not have this discussion for anyone so urgently right now if we had a 99% vaccination rate, because we would have very little circulating viruses. We would be all protected.

Erin Allday is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: eallday@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @erinallday
SKOPJE, North Macedonia (AP)  A group of 44 evacuees from Afghanistan arrived in North Macedonia Wednesday to receive temporary shelter, under an international effort to assist people considered to be at risk under Taliban rule.

Most of the evacuees worked for the Turquoise Mountain charity co-founded by Britains Prince Charles to teach traditional Afghan crafts.
COOS BAY, Ore. (AP)  A longtime Coos Bay police officer has been indicted and arrested on child sexual abuse charges.

According to court records, Terry Scott Rogers, 51, was arrested Friday on 18 felony charges and two misdemeanor charges, The World reported. The indictment alleges Rogers started abusing a child in 2012 when the child was younger than 12 and that it continued for six years.

Rogers was indicted on two counts of first-degree unlawful sexual penetration, three counts of second-degree unlawful sexual penetration, eight counts of first-degree sex abuse, five counts of luring a minor and two charges of third-degree sex abuse.

According to the records, a Coos County grand jury voted to indict Rogers last week.

In a defendants memorandum in support of release, Rogers attorneys argued his law enforcement background and his time in Coos Bay is proof he can be released on his own recognizance while awaiting trial.

Court records show Rogers posted a $50,000 security and is out of jail custody.

According to the memorandum, Rogers has been a police officer with the Coos Bay Police Department for 22 years and is currently on administrative leave.

Coos Bay Police Chief Chris Chapanar confirmed the investigation, telling KPIC-TV the Oregon Department of Justice is handling the case.
ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP)  A man who was prohibited from buying a gun because of a prior conviction has pleaded guilty to getting his girlfriend to buy one for him, a federal prosecutor in North Carolina said.

Travis Shaqwann Fair, 31, of Asheville went to a gun dealer in June 2019 and discussed buying a cheap gun with a store worker, Acting U.S. Attorney William T. Stetzer said in a news release. Kourtney Nichelle Shivers, 29, of Asheville went to the same store to buy the gun for Fair, Stetzer said.
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP)  An Indonesian court ruled Thursday that President Joko Widodo and six other top officials have neglected citizens rights to clean air and ordered them to improve the poor air quality in the capital.

A three-judge panel at the Central Jakarta District Court notched a victory for a healthy living environment, siding with 32 residents who filed a lawsuit two years ago against Widodo and the ministers for environment, health and home affairs, as well as the provincial governors of Jakarta, Banten and West Java.

The verdict was initially scheduled for May 20, but had been postponed several times. The judges voted 3-0 in favor of the plaintiffs under the Coalition for the Clean Air Initiative.

Presiding Judge Saifuddin Zuhri ordered the seven officials to tighten national air quality standards so they are sufficient to protect human health, the environment and ecosystems, including the health of sensitive populations, based on science and technology.

They have been negligent in fulfilling the rights of citizens to a good and healthy environment, said Duta Baskara, a member of the panel. The judges dismissed a part of the lawsuit alleging Widodo violated human rights.

The plaintiffs, who included activists, public figures, motorists and pollution disease victims, did not ask for financial compensation and instead demanded a more robust supervision and sanctions for offenders.

We hope the defendants would accept their defeat wisely and choose to focus on making efforts to improve air quality conditions rather than doing useless things, such as legal efforts to fight in appeals,'' said Ayu Eza Tiara, one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs.

It is unclear if the government will appeal. Presidential spokesperson Fadjroel Rachman told The Associated Press that the president and his Cabinet were studying the verdict and the Ministry of Forestry and Environment would respond later.

Irvan Pulungan, an adviser on climate change for Jakarta's governor, said the governor was open to working closely with the plaintiffs to solve the citys pollution problems and improve air quality.

Pulungan said the court decision that granted part of the plaintiffs demand is not a disturbance to the governments work but a vehicle for a collaborative effort to fix the unhealthy air.

He said the city administration has passed new regulations since 2019, including on emission tests and new curbs on private car usage.

Central and local governments needed to integrate actions to maximize the effectiveness of policies, Pulungan said.

Jakarta counts 10 million people and three times more including those living in its greater metropolitan area. The severe air pollution in Jakarta stems mostly from vehicle emission, factories and coal-fired power plants located in the neighboring provinces of Banten and West Java, according to the Center on Energy and Clean Air in its 2020 report. It identified 136 industrial facilities, including power plants, as contributing to pollution.

The Climate Action Tracker, an independent scientific analysis organization, said in its report in April that the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a reduction of air pollution in many countries. However, due to the number of coal-fired power plants in the vicinity of major urban centers, the effect is not observed in Indonesia, where South Tangerang, in Jakartas metropolitan area, was the worlds 25th most polluted city.

Prone to flooding and rapidly sinking due to uncontrolled ground water extraction, Jakarta is the archetypical Asian mega-city. It has been creaking under the weight of its dysfunction, causing massive pollution to rivers and contaminating the ground water that supplies the city. Congestion is estimated to cost the economy $6.5 billion a year.

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Yuyun Ismawati, one of the plaintiffs, said in a statement Thursday that if Widodos administration ignored the courts decision, health costs will continue to increase.

The Jakarta administration data released last year showed more than 5.5 million cases of diseases related to air pollution in the city. The data also said the estimated burden of medical care costs from cases of non-communicable diseases due to air pollution in 2020 could reach 60.8 trillion rupiah ($4.2 billion).

In an amicus curiae brief submitted in support of the lawsuit, the U.N. special rapporteur for human rights and the environment, David R. Boyd, said that protecting people from the harmful effects of air pollution is a constitutional and legislative obligation of the Indonesian government, and not an option.

Boyd said air pollution is a major problem in Indonesia, causing hundreds of thousands of premature deaths annually. He said levels of PM 2.5  fine particulate matter smaller than 2.5 millionths of a meter  in Jakarta were well above national and regional standards as well as World Health Organization recommended limits.

Yet air pollution is a problem that is amenable to solutions that are well known, Boyd said.

Thursdays verdict has tarnished Widodos credibility in improving infrastructure and the environment in the Southeast Asias largest economy, which has been his signature policy that helped him win a second term in 2019.

Widodo has announced shortly after being reelected that the capital will be moved outside Java, where 57% of the countrys 270 million people are concentrated. The new site for the capital will be in sparsely populated East Kalimantan province on Borneo island, known for rainforests and orangutans.
JACKSON, Miss. (AP)  A Mississippi public school teacher with 15 years of experience providing health insurance for their family took home just under $30,000 a year in net pay in 2020, a shocking number, a policy adviser with the Southern Regional Education Board told state lawmakers Wednesday.

That's only a few thousand dollars more a year than first-year teachers who were paying for only their health insurance took home, the adviser said.

All of these are shocking numbers to us  that a Mississippi teacher potentially serving 15 years, especially one who is a single parent, is taking home a wage that can barely cover housing and utilities," board policy adviser Megan Boren said.

A teacher with 15 years of experience took home an annual salary of about $29,680 after taxes and benefits in 2020, compared with about $26,580 for first-year teachers, according to data shared by the Atlanta nonpartisan nonprofit.

A teacher with 35 years of experience took home $43,266 after taxes and benefits in 2019. The Southern Regional Education Board did not have 2020 salary figures available for 35-year teachers.

The Legislature's Senate Education Committee met Wednesday to discuss increasing teacher pay in Mississippi, the state with the lowest average teacher pay in the nation.

During the 2021 legislative session, the Mississippi Legislature approved a $1,000 raise for most teachers and a $1,100 raise for those in the early years of their careers. The raises were signed into law by Republican Gov. Tate Reeves in March.

But many contend lawmakers need to go much further to get Mississippi up to speed with other states.

According to the Southern Regional Education Board, the average teacher salary in the U.S. for 2018-19 was $62,304. For Mississippi, the average was $45,105, approximately $8,200 below the southeastern region average.

The starting salary for teachers with zero to three years of experience and a bachelor's degree in Mississippi was $37,000, about $3,300 below the regional average.

We need to pay our teachers based on their level of professionalism, Felica Gavin, chief operating officer at the Mississippi Department of Education, told lawmakers. "Theyre not paid as professionals as in some other industries.

Southern Regional Education Board President Stephen Pruitt said pay is only one piece of the puzzle when it comes to reducing teacher shortages.

Mississippi Insurance Administrator Cindy Bradshaw said health insurance plans for single teachers are affordable compared with other states but families bear a much greater cost.

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In 2020, the state contributed $378 a month toward teachers' health insurance, while employees paid $40. Employees opting for a family coverage plan paid $726 a month in 2020, while the state pitched in $378. That's compared with neighboring Alabama, which charges $251 a month for a family plan. The state covers $1,091. Single-plan employees in Alabama pay $42 a month, while the state pays $477.

Republican Sen. Brice Wiggins said the state's current monthly premiums for families are cost prohibitive, especially for families with single incomes.

What are we doing and what is the board doing to address this family coverage to attract teachers who have families so that they can provide family coverage?" Wiggins continued. That's a policy decision we have to consider if we're talking about attracting teachers who generally are family-oriented.

The Southern Regional Education Board offered several lawmakers ideas Wednesday for how they can better retain teachers, including deceasing monthly employee family premiums and raising teachers' starting and average salaries.

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Leah Willingham is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
ST. LOUIS (AP)  A civil rights group sued the St. Louis City Department of Corrections Wednesday for allegedly violating the Missouri Sunshine Law.

The ACLU of Missouri said in a news release that it filed suit on behalf of ArchCity Defenders over requested records about incidents of detainees being abused by corrections officers at the St. Louis City Justice Center.

The lawsuit stems from a written sunshine law request that ArchCity Defenders attorney Maureen Hanlon submitted in April seeking access to use of force reports completed by correctional staff for the prior six months relating to the use of a chemical agent at the City Justice Center. It contends the city has failed to provide a single record.

A spokesman for the city did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment.

In May, several civil rights groups filed suit on behalf of three detainees alleging a pattern of detainees being maced without warning and then denying medical care and water afterward. The facility has been the site of multiple uprisings.

The ACLU of Missouri said understanding the use of chemical agents is crucial considering the departments recent purchases total $17,379, which is more than the previous six years combined.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP)  The Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners was created and maintained for the discriminatory purpose of denying Black residents their right to control the police department, a lawsuit filed Tuesday contends.

Gwen Grant, president and CEO of the Urban League of Greater Kansas City, also alleged in her lawsuit that the police board violated taxpayer rights under the Hancock Amendment, a citizens' initiative approved by voters in 1980 that limits state revenues and local taxes, KCUR-FM reported.
SALT LAKE CITY (AP)  The state of Utah didn't do enough to make sure a remote highway was safe before a tour bus crashed, killing four people from China and injuring two dozen more in 2019, family and survivors said in a lawsuit filed Tuesday.

The lawsuit alleges state transportation officials failed to post warning signs, had a road design that left little room for error and included no rumble strip to warn drivers they were getting close to the edge.

More than a dozen people were thrown from the bus after the driver drifted off the road and overcorrected when he steered back, sending the bus into a rollover. All 30 people on board were hurt.

The lawsuit said the unpaved shoulder was too deep and soft, requiring the driver to steer harder to get back onto the road after passing through a too-narrow buffer zone. It had been repaved the day before, creating a dangerous contrast with the rough shoulder, the lawsuit said.

The Utah Department of Transportation declined to comment on the case filed against it and several contractors, citing its policy on pending litigation. The National Transportation Safety Board previously found highway design, signage and other characteristics were not factors in the crash.

Four people in their 60s died in the crash and several more suffered serious injuries. The group of older adults from China was on a seven-day tour operated by America Shengjia Inc., a tour bus company based in Ontario, California. The tour started in Los Angeles and was set to end in Salt Lake City.

The company is facing at least four lawsuits in federal court in California brought by surviving passengers and family members of those killed, alleging wrongful death, negligence and infliction of emotional distress.

The Utah lawsuit seeks unspecified damages to make up for lost wages, medical bills and emotional suffering. It was first reported by KUTV in Salt Lake City.

The bus crashed a few miles from Bryce Canyon National Park, which is known for its intricately shaped red-rock spires called hoodoos.

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The NTSB investigation found a lack of safety standards for bus roofs and windows contributed to the death and injury toll. Its final report, released in June, also cited inconsistent seat belt use and recommended a lane-departure warning system for commercial buses.

The report ruled out driver problems like intoxication or speeding. An earlier report had found the bus had problems starting earlier in the day, but further examination found no mechanical issues or other malfunctions, it said.

The driver had told investigators the road felt slippery, and it was newly paved at the time, but tests showed normal friction, the report found.

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Associated Press writer Andrew Dalton in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
SACRAMENTO  Hours after Gov. Gavin Newsom crushed the attempt to recall him, Democrats launched a full-scale effort to rewrite recall laws that they argue could allow a vocal minority of conservative voters to perpetually disrupt state government.

On Wednesday morning, as results of Newsoms landslide victory were still rolling in, state legislators began to tout proposed measures to overhaul the states more-than-century-old recall process.

The list of possible reforms legislators want is long. Among the top ideas: raising the number of signatures needed to qualify for the ballot, requiring a runoff between the top two vote-getters to replace the governor and allowing the lieutenant governor to take over if the governor is recalled.

State Sen. Steve Glazer and Assembly Member Marc Berman, who chair the Legislatures election committees, announced they would hold joint, bipartisan hearings this fall to vet those and other possible changes.

Both legislators said their aim is to prevent the recall process from becoming an often-utilized tool for partisan gain or a vehicle to elect a replacement governor with far less than a majority of the vote.

The biggest issue is we currently have a process where the governor can be recalled and replaced by somebody who gets less votes than the governor, Berman, D-Menlo Park, told reporters during a news conference. At the end of the day, thats the most important issue.

Weeks before election day, high-profile Democrats began calling for an overhaul of the recall laws for future contests. They feared a far-right Republican could someday become governor with a scant share of the votes.

Those fears were exacerbated by the emergence of Larry Elder, the conservative radio host who received the most votes among the 46 replacement candidates on Tuesdays ballot. Although Elder was chosen on about 26% of the overall ballots cast, he would have become governor if Newsom lost.

Under Californias law, if a governor is recalled by a majority of voters, the top vote-getter among the replacement candidates wins  even if their total share of the electorate is less than that of the ousted incumbent.

Democratic legislators said they have recently been inundated with calls and emails from constituents whove called that provision of the recall process crazy and insane.

Recent polling also suggests voters are open to some changes. A survey this month by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies found 69% of registered voters would support holding a runoff between the top two replacement candidates.

Glazer, D-Orinda, said the goal of reform efforts is not to eliminate voters option to recall a governor. He said voters want accountability from their leaders, but not a system ripe for abuse.

They dont want this partisan manipulation where a small minority can force an election and have a candidate prevail with less than a majority vote, Glazer said. That is anti-democratic.

But overhauling Californias recall process could be a long and difficult effort. Any significant changes would have to be approved by voters through a constitutional amendment, likely on the November 2022 ballot.

The effort also faces fierce opposition from recall activists, who accuse Democrats of trying to change the rules to keep their grip on single-party dominance in Sacramento.

Orrin Heatlie, a retired Yolo County sheriffs sergeant who launched the effort to recall Newsom, said limiting the recall process would deprive voters of one of their few tools to keep the states majority party in check.

Thats a dangerous precedent that theyre going to try to set, he said. When you back the people into a corner, thats when they rise up.

Heatlie said he would support a measure to require a runoff between the top replacement candidates on a recall ballot. But he said other proposals from Democrats, such as increasing the signature requirement, are designed to stifle voters.

The recall system is a peaceful manner for people to protest the government, he said.

But Democratic legislators said they expect most voters will welcome reforms after the state just spent $276 million to conduct a special election that was decided by a margin similar to the 2018 governors race Newsom won and that fell just 14 months before a scheduled statewide election.

He added, That money could be spent on housing, homelessness, on combating climate change, forest fires, early childhood education  you name it.

That said, the elections price tag was a minuscule piece of the states $196 billion general fund budget.

Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Lakewood (Los Angeles County) and Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, both said, after the end of the legislative session last week, that recall reforms would be a priority next year.

We came far too close to having a Governor elected by a tiny fraction of eligible voters, Rendon said in a statement Wednesday.

Sen. Ben Allen, D-Santa Monica, has been pushing for changes to Californias recall laws since 2018. His proposal, SCA3, would allow the governor, or any other recalled office holder, to run as a candidate on the recall ballot.

Allen said Newsoms recall merely brought attention to a problem thats long been apparent. He cited the case of Sen. Josh Newman, D-Fullerton (Orange County), who was recalled in 2018 and replaced by a Republican who received about 16,000 fewer votes. Newman reclaimed the seat in 2020.

That always seemed like a fundamental unfairness to me, Allen said. Its a problem that our current system allows for a duly elected official to be replaced by someone who has less popular support.

Meanwhile, Newsom isnt wading into the fight over recall reforms. On Wednesday during a news conference in Oakland, he noted he has been the target of six failed recall attempts  only one qualified for the ballot.

Im going to leave that to more objective minds, Newsom said of proposed recall changes. Its a strange place to be as someone that might be on the receiving end yet again.

Dustin Gardiner is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dustin.gardiner@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dustingardiner
LATEST Sept. 17, 1 p.m. The man who died in a crash on Highway 1, near the Devil's Slide Trail, has been identified as a 73-year-old San Francisco man.

Multiple media reports have identified the victim as Anthony Colonnese Jr. He was driving in the northbound lane before veering onto the opposite lane, crossing a berm and careening into the beach.

KRON reports that Colonnese Jr.'s body was recovered, but the vehicle he was driving before his death has yet to be procured by officials. A drone was used to find his body, said said Mark Andrews, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol.

An investigation regarding the crash and the circumstances that led up to Colonnese's death is still underway. His body was found ejected from the side of the vehicle, and was pronounced dead at the scene.

Sept. 16, 10 a.m. New details regarding the Wednesday afternoon crash near Pacifica are trickling in from California Highway Patrol's San Francisco branch.

That includes more information about the victim, a 73-year-old man, reports KRON.

The station also reports that he was driving in the northbound lane before crossing a berm and careening into the beach.

His body and the vehicle have yet to be be recovered, as CHP halted efforts just after 7 p.m. Wednesday after the southbound lane on Highway 1 by the Tom Lantos Tunnels reopened to traffic, CHP said via Twitter.

Sept. 15, 4:30 p.m. A Wednesday afternoon crash near Pacifica has left one individual dead and closed southbound Highway 1 "indefinitely," according to the California Highway Patrol's San Francisco branch.

KPIX reports that the car drove off the cliff near the Devil's Slide Trail following a crash, killing the driver in the vehicle, though details remain scant on what led to the tragic incident.

Cal Fire CZU was on-site late Wednesday afternoon recovering the vehicle and the body "a few hundred feet down."

CHP San Francisco also reported that there were no other passengers in the car, according to KPIX.

The affected area in Highway 1 is just south of Tom Lantos Tunnels, CHP San Francisco said in a tweet, and will remain closed "indefinitely."

No other occupants were in the vehicle, KPIX reports.

This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP)  Cyprus' Orthodox Church formally took charge Thursday of two ornately decorated 18th century doors stolen from a church in the ethnically divided island's breakaway north and reclaimed from a Japanese art college after a long legal battle.

Communications and Works Minister Yiannis Karousos said the wooden doors  painted with religious scenes, carved and gilded  were discovered at the Kanazawa Art College more than 20 years ago and their return followed long and intensive efforts.

No information was provided on how the college acquired them.

The artifacts originally stood in the central gateway of the iconostasis  the ornately decorated screen that separates the sanctuary from the rest of an Orthodox church  of Saint Anastasios in Peristeronopigi village.

Built in 1775, the church sits atop a cave where the saints grave is preserved.

The doors were stolen after the islands ethnic split in 1974, when Turkey invaded in response to a coup aimed at union with Greece. Turkish Cypriots declared independence in the north, thats recognized only by Turkey.

In what Karousos called cultural genocide, hundreds of frescoes, mosaics and other religious works of art were looted from churches in the north after the invasion.

Since 1974, Cypriot government and church authorities have fought long legal battles in the United States, Europe and elsewhere to reclaim them.

Karousos said the doors repatriation sends the message to antiquities smugglers and the international ring of crooks that however many years go by, (Cyprus) will hunt them down, because cultural genocide cannot be tolerated anywhere in the world.
Chris Pizzello/Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP

LONDON (AP)  Elton John says he is postponing European dates on his world tour until 2023 so that he can have an operation on an injured hip.

The 74-year-old singer-songwriter had been due to play cities in Britain and Europe this year as part of the Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour, followed by shows in the U.S. in 2022.
LONDON (AP)  A judge ruled Thursday that the will of the late Prince Philip should remain secret to protect the dignity of his widow Queen Elizabeth II, who is Britains head of state.

Philip died in April at the age of 99 after more than seven decades of marriage to the queen.

Wills are usually public documents in Britain, but for almost a century it has been customary for the wills of senior royals to be sealed on the order of the High Court.

Judge Andrew McFarlane said Philips will should be sealed for 90 years. After that, it can be be opened in private and consideration given to whether it should be published.

I have held that, because of the constitutional position of the Sovereign, it is appropriate to have a special practice in relation to royal wills, McFarlane said in a written judgment. There is a need to enhance the protection afforded to truly private aspects of the lives of this limited group of individuals in order to maintain the dignity of the Sovereign and close members of her family.

The judge stressed that he had not seen or been told of the contents of the will.

McFarlane said that as president of the High Courts family division, he is custodian of a safe which holds 30 envelopes, each containing the sealed will of a deceased royal, including the late Queen Mother Elizabeth and the current queens sister, Princess Margaret. Both died in 2002.

In the years that followed, a man who claimed to be Margarets illegitimate son, Robert Brown, fought a failed court battle to have both wills unsealed in order to seek evidence for his claim.

The judge said that while there might be public curiosity about royal wills, there is no true public interest in the public knowing this wholly private information.

The ruling came after a court hearing in July that was held in private. Media organizations were not allowed to make the case for publishing the will.
PARIS (AP)  The city of Paris is unveiling a monumental artwork built around an actual monument: the Arc de Triomphe completely wrapped in silver and blue fabric.

The installation by late artist couple Christo and Jeanne-Claude, who conceived the project in 1961, will open on Saturday. Visits will take place for almost three weeks. At weekends, the Arc de Triomphes traffic-heavy roundabout will be entirely pedestrianized.

Visitors to the famous Napoleonic arch, which dominates the Champs-Elysees Avenue, will not only be able to see the gleaming fabric, but to touch it too  as the artists had intended.

Those climbing the 50 meters (164 feet) to the top will step on it when they reach the roof terrace.

At a press conference on the project entitled Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped, Frances Culture Minister Roselyne Bachelot called it a formidable gift offered to Parisians, the French and beyond, to all art lovers.

Bachelot added that it was a posthumous testimony of artistic genius.

Bulgarian-born Christo Vladimirov Javacheff met Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon in Paris in 1958 and they later became lovers. The idea for the artwork was born in the early '60s, when they lived in Paris. Jeanne-Claude died in 2009, and Christo in May last year. The monument was to be wrapped last fall, but the COVID-19 pandemic delayed it.

Christo "wanted to complete this project. He made us promise him that we will do it, the couples nephew, Vladimir Yavachev, told The Associated Press.

The 14 million-euro ($16.4 million) project is being financed through the sale of Christos preparatory studies, drawings, scale models, and other pieces of work, Yavachev said.

Passersby on Thursday looked up in awe. It makes me think of a big gray elephant placed in Paris on the Champs-Elysee" said 47-year-old Thomas Thevenoud, who works nearby.

You really rediscover the beauty of the form," said 39-year-old Parisian Agnieszka Wojel. I couldnt stop taking pictures because its extraordinary... We are very lucky.

The artists were known for elaborate, temporary creations that involved blanketing familiar public places with fabric, including Berlins Reichstag and Paris Pont Neuf bridge, and creating giant site-specific installations, such as a series of 7,503 gates in New York Citys Central Park and the 24.5-mile Running Fence in California.

Yavachev said he plans to complete another one of their unfinished projects: a 150-meter-tall (492 feet) pyramid-like mastaba in Abu Dhabi.

We have the blueprints, we just have to do it, he said.

___

Masha Macpherson and Alex Turnbull in Paris contributed
Taking in the dizzying view above San Francisco from the northwest windows of the Top of the Mark, its hard to believe that very corner is laced with tragedy.

Below, the red stone James C. Flood Mansion and Grace Cathedral watch over dog walkers in Huntington Park. Between the Russian Hill high-rises, the bays waters to Alcatraz and Angel Island peek through, and on to the Golden Gate Bridge and ocean beyond.

Years ago, in place of tourists and business guests snapping the panoramic sight on their phones, loved ones would gather there to get one last glimpse of soldiers warships heading out to battle, earning the corner of the fabled bar the name Weepers' Corner.

During World War II, San Francisco was the biggest port on the West Coast, and the recently opened Top of the Mark went from what Life magazine described as the exclusive night spot rendezvous for San Francisco cafe society to a Pacific-bound servicemans last port of call.

Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

A 1944 Time magazine story wrote that up to 30,000 soldiers and sailors came up the elevator every month for a final drink on American soil. Packed to the rafters, the swing band would play as couples danced. Servicemen toasted the Golden Gate believing it would bring them good luck, praying it wouldnt be their last martini.

A lot of ships were shipping out from Treasure Island. Officers would leave a bottle for fellow squadron members for when they came back from their tour of duty, InterContinental Mark Hopkins hotel manager Jaap Boelens tells me over a dirty vodka martini. As so often is the case on the 19th floor, the view distracts us. Its iconic. It really is a very good looking city, he says. The sunset is different almost every time, with the fog rolling in. It feels timeless.

The bottle ritual went something like this: Servicemen who returned from battle could claim a free bottle of bourbon from behind the bar. Once they signed a note and attached it, their squadron could drink from it for free if and when they also returned.

Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

The only catch was that the last officer to take a sip had to buy the next bottle. The tradition acted as an unofficial way to document those who returned from war, and to honor those who didnt.

At that time, everyone was either going to Japan for the expected big battle, or they had just come back from a big battle like Iwo Jima or Okinawa, veteran T. J. Chapman told his grandson Boston Globe writer Keith Chapman. You were either drinking to celebrate that you hadnt been killed, or you were drinking to forget that you might.

The Mark Hopkins Hotel was built on the footprint of its namesakes Victorian fairy castle of a home that was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake. The hotel built in the railroad barons honor became a sensation in 1939 when owner George D. Smith chose to knock down all the walls in the penthouse suite on the 19th floor and turn it into a glass-walled cocktail lounge with 360 degree views of the city.

Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

Seven decades after its time as a wartime icon, the hotel helped the city through more hard times as the luxury rooms filled with first responders during the early depths of the coronavirus pandemic.

It was interesting. Id never closed a hotel before, Boelens says. It was high stress, high anxiety. There was a lot of uncertainty in the world. It got very quiet on the streets. We didnt know how long it was going to last.

The contract with the city saw Muni drivers, police, firefighters and hospital workers with commutes use the hotel when BART service was cut in half.

We had a lot of nurses from S.F. General. Anyone who had a long commute stayed with us. It didnt feel like a hotel, it felt like a small apartment building. You got to know the people very well. We gave them to-go bags for dinner.

The hotel reopened to tourists in August 2020 but was forced to shutter again in January after travel restrictions saw occupancy rates drop to single digits. The bar is now open, though the regular pianist, band nights and Sunday brunch are still on hold. Boelens says his goal is to restart Sunday brunch by Fleet Week in October, so guests can get a sky-high view of the Blue Angels.

Im looking forward to bringing that all back, Boelens says. It brings a lot of life.

As we talk, waiter Jose Cervano brings us drinks and napkins with a smile. Cervano has been serving patrons on the 19th floor since 1975. The staff is ready, theyre happy to be back, Boelens says.

Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

The best way to visit the Mark is maybe before sunset, after a stroll around Huntington Square. The historic block and the bar seem to be of a pair, and of a different time. Once the site of the robber barons wedding-cake mansions that crumbled in 1906 (save for the Flood Mansion, which somehow survived the fire), the place is now a tranquil oasis right on top of the bustling city.

A good starting point is Grace Cathedrals gilded Doors of Paradise. Down the steps the diocese marks the former spot of a 40-foot-tall "spite fence" built by a furious Charles Crocker. Huntington Park fills the footprint once occupied by the mansion of another railroad magnate, Collis Huntington, and is centered around the curious fountain of the turtles. The Brocklebank Apartments on the corner of Mason and Sacramento may be most recognizable as where James Stewart started his agonizingly slow car chase in Vertigo, and also once housed San Francisco columnist Herb Caen.

The fortress-like James C. Flood Mansion, now the headquarters of maybe the most elite club in California, the Pacific-Union Club, sits across from the flags of the Fairmont Hotel where Tony Bennett first sang I Left My Heart in San Francisco (and more recently famous for Sean Connery throwing an FBI agent from the roof in The Rock).

From there, across the cable car tracks of California Street, is the Top of the Mark elevator.

Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

You can be on the hill and fully entertain yourself for a whole day, Boelens says. Many other places in San Francisco have been around for as long, but theyre not on top of Nob Hill. Its untouched up here.

The bar is still frequented by those in uniform today, among a mishmash of tourists and guests on business. And no bar in San Francisco, or maybe anywhere, can count as many famous visitors. Boelens tells me that over the years everyone from Elvis Presley to Michael Jackson to Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama have taken in the view.

Until the 90s the windows circled the entire room with an old circular bar in the middle. The bar was moved to the corner so the central space could be used for dancing and banquet events, meaning the Pine Street facing wall is now windowless.

We still want to say its 360, Boelens laughs. If you put your face against the glass.

Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

On my way back to the elevator, host Brian Hamilton ushers me toward the glass cabinet containing the squadron bottles, and tells me the wartime tradition is still going strong. One recent note on a bottle of gin from a veteran honors those who died in the Kabul terror attack in August. Hamilton unlocks the case and hands me a green bottle with a note on it.

An older gentleman asked to add this to our collection last week, he says. He wasnt a war vet, but he survived the Holocaust. Hes nearly 100.

The combination of heartache and good cheer on the handwritten note epitomize the timeless draw of the bar.

As a holocaust survivor I am so grateful to to all the service men and women who served during World War 2. Enjoy this bottle of tequila.
SHREVEPORT, La. (AP)  More than a dozen students at a Louisiana high school were arrested after a fight Thursday, Caddo Parish Sheriff Steve Prator said.

Around 3 p.m., the school resource officer assigned to Southwood High School, Cpl. Calvin Williams, responded to a fight at the campus courtyard in front of the student center. At one point, Williams called for backup and at least nine deputies came to help.
TORONTO (AP)  The leader of the Canadian province of Alberta apologized Wednesday for his handling of the pandemic and said he is reluctantly introducing a vaccine passport and imposing a mandatory work-from-home order two months after lifting nearly all restrictions.

Alberta declared a public health emergency as Premier Jason Kenney said hospitals might run out of beds and staff in intensive care units within 10 days.

It is now clear that we were wrong, and for that I apologize, Kenney said.

Indoor dining at pubs and restaurants is now banned.

Kenney said COVID-19 is hitting Alberta harder than anywhere else in Canada because it has the lowest rate of vaccination in the country.

He apologized for misreading the coronavius' likely path in June but said he wasnt sorry for lifting all restrictions. He said he didnt think a pandemic-weary population would continue to follow them.

The governments first obligation must be to avoid large numbers of preventable deaths. We must deal with the reality we are facing. We cannot wish it away, Kenney said.

The premier, who is leader of the United Conservative Party, had declared the summer would be the best summer ever, but he said Wednesday that Alberta is now facing its greatest health care challenge.

Several Canadian provinces are bringing in vaccine passports, which compel people to prove they have been vaccinated before being allowed to use nonessential services such as pubs and restaurants. Kenney had resisted such measures.

Alberta has more than 18,000 active virus cases, far more than any other Canadian province.
The patriarch of a South Carolina legal dynasty at the center of multiple police investigations turned himself in Thursday to face charges related to insurance fraud.

Richard Alexander "Alex" Murdaugh, a prominent attorney in the Lowcountry region, is accused of hiring a hit man to shoot him dead so his son could collect a $10 million life insurance payout, according to the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division. The agency also announced on Wednesday that it has opened a separate investigation into the 2018 death of a housekeeper at Murdaugh's home.

The same agency is investigating the killings of Murdaugh's wife and son, who were shot to death outside the family's Islandton, S.C., home in June.

Murdaugh pulled up to the Hampton County Law Enforcement Center on Thursday morning. He is expected to have a court hearing in Hampton County, S.C., on Thursday.

Police said Murdaugh confessed on Monday to "the scheme of having [a hit man] murder him for the purpose of his son collecting a life insurance policy." Murdaugh had hoped that his surviving son, 25-year-old Buster Murdaugh, would receive $10 million after his death, according to an affidavit.

But the plan went awry, and Murdaugh survived. He called 911 after a bullet grazed his head on Sept. 4, telling police he had been changing a tire on the side of the road when an unknown gunman fired at him from a truck.

SLED arrested 61-year-old Curtis Edward Smith of Walterboro, S.C., on Tuesday and charged him with assisted suicide, assault and battery of a high aggravated nature, pointing and presenting a firearm, insurance fraud, and conspiracy to commit insurance fraud. Smith was jailed at the Colleton County Detention Center, police said.

"Mr. Smith admitted to being present during the shooting of Mr. Murdaugh and to disposing of the firearm afterwards," police said in an affidavit.

According to court records, Murdaugh had represented Smith in a 2013 speeding case, the Associated Press reported. Police said Murdaugh provided the gun that Smith used in the Sept. 4 shooting.

Court records do not list an attorney for Smith.

An attorney for Murdaugh said the 53-year-old had struggled with opioid addiction for 20 years, during which time some people "took advantage of his addiction and his ability to pay substantial funds for illegal drugs," according to a statement shared with The Washington Post on Wednesday.

"One of those individuals took advantage of his mental illness and agreed to take Alex's life, by shooting him in the head," Murdaugh's attorneys said in the statement. "Fortunately, Alex was not killed by the gunshot wound."

The lawyers added that Murdaugh is cooperating with state investigators.

A series of tragic events involving the Murdaugh family began in 2018, when their longtime housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield, died at the home in an apparent slip-and-fall accident. But Satterfield's death certificate indicated she died of natural causes, and the death was not reported to the local coroner's office, according to SLED, which added that no autopsy was performed. Her estate later filed a wrongful death claim against Alex Murdaugh and settled for about $500,000, CNN reported.

Then, on Feb. 24, 2019, Murdaugh's teen son Paul Murdaugh allegedly slammed a boat carrying five friends into a piling near a bridge over Archers Creek. One of the passengers, 19-year-old Mallory Beach, disappeared below the water in the chaos of the crash and was found dead a week later.

Paul Murdaugh faced three felony charges, including boating under the influence causing death, but a trial was never scheduled.

Three generations of Murdaugh men had served as elected prosecutors in South Carolina's Lowcountry region for 87 consecutive years. The family's ties to the law enforcement community spurred concerns that the case against Paul Murdaugh had been mishandled. His family said Paul Murdaugh received online death threats after the wreck.

The boating incident also revived questions about the 2015 hit-and-run death of 19-year-old Stephen Smith, who was found dead on a rural road about 10 miles from the Murdaugh family's home.

According to the Augusta Chronicle, rumors circulated that there was a coverup in the case and that the Murdaughs were allegedly involved. The family denied those accusations, calling them "unfortunate fabrications and unfounded comments," the newspaper reported.

The most recent string of investigations began June 7, when Alex Murdaugh said he found his wife, 52-year-old Maggie Murdaugh, and Paul Murdaugh shot dead outside their home in Islandton. Police have not yet made any arrests or named any suspects in connection with the deaths.

SLED opened in late June an investigation into Stephen Smith's death "based upon information gathered during the course of the double murder investigation of Paul and Maggie Murdaugh," a spokesperson told the Augusta Chronicle.

In the aftermath of the death of his wife and son, Alex Murdaugh stepped down from the law firm where he was a partner amid allegations that money had gone missing. A day later, Curtis Edward Smith allegedly shot Murdaugh.

As Murdaugh drove along Old Salkehatchie Road near Varnville, S.C., on Sept. 4, the hired gunman followed close on his trail, according to investigators.

Eventually, police said Murdaugh pulled over, and Smith fired a shot that grazed the attorney's head, leaving him with a nonfatal wound. Smith drove away from the scene of the shooting and disposed of the gun, police said.

Murdaugh then called 911 and received medical treatment at a nearby hospital before checking into rehab for an unspecified "dependency" issue last week.

"On September 4, it became clear Alex believed that ending his life was his only option," Murdaugh's attorneys said. "Today, he knows that's not true."

SLED announced on Monday that the agency had opened an investigation into the "misappropriated funds" that Murdaugh allegedly took from the law firm Peters, Murdaugh, Parker, Eltzroth & Detrick, where he was a partner. By Tuesday, police had arrested Smith and allegedly obtained a confession from Murdaugh admitting to the insurance fraud plot.

"Alex is not without fault but he is just one of many whose life has been devastated by opioid addiction," his attorneys said in a statement.

The most recent development came Wednesday, when SLED announced it was also investigating the death of Satterfield, the Murdaugh family's housekeeper. The Hampton County coroner requested that the law enforcement agency look into her death amid the other investigations.

"On the death certificate the manner of death was ruled 'Natural,' which is inconsistent with injuries sustained in a trip and fall accident," the coroner's request said.

WCSC reported that Satterfield's sons filed a lawsuit Wednesday against Murdaugh and other defendants involved in the settlement, saying the family had yet to receive the money.

Officials expect to make additional charges in the multiple investigations involving the Murdaugh family.

"I continue to urge the public to be patient and let this investigation take its course," SLED Chief Mark Keel said in a statement Monday. "Investigative decisions we make throughout this case and any potentially related case must ultimately withstand the scrutiny of the criminal justice process."
Most Americans dont believe their personal information is secure online and aren't satisfied with the federal government's efforts to protect it, according to a poll.

The poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and MeriTalk shows that 64% of Americans say their social media activity is not very or not at all secure. About as many have the same security doubts about online information revealing their physical location. Half of Americans believe their private text conversations lack security.

And they're not just concerned. They want something done about it. Nearly three-quarters of Americans say they support establishing national standards for how companies can collect, process and share personal data.

What is surprising to me is that there is a great deal of support for more government action to protect data privacy, said Jennifer Benz, deputy director of the AP-NORC Center. And it's bipartisan support."

But after years of stalled efforts toward stricter data privacy laws that could hold big companies accountable for all the personal data they collect and share, the poll also indicates that Americans dont have much trust in the government to fix it.

A majority, 56%, puts more faith in the private sector than the federal government to handle security and privacy improvements, despite years of highly publicized privacy scandals and hacks of U.S. corporations from Target to Equifax that exposed the personal information of millions of people around the world.

Indeed, companies such as Apple have made a big push to pitch themselves as attuned to consumer privacy preferences and committed to protect them.

I feel there is little to no security whatsoever," said Sarah Blick, a professor of medieval art history at Kenyon College in Ohio. The college's human resources department told Blick earlier this year that someone fraudulently applied for unemployment insurance benefits in her name.

Such fraud has spiked since the pandemic as perpetrators buy stolen personal identifying information on the dark web and use it to flood state unemployment systems with bogus claims.

I believe my information was stolen when one of the credit bureaus was hacked, but it also could have been when Target was hacked or any other of the several successful hacks into major corporations," Blick said.

About 71% of Americans believe that individuals data privacy should be treated as a national security issue, with a similar level of support among Democrats and Republicans. But only 23% are very or somewhat satisfied in the federal governments current efforts to protect Americans privacy and secure their personal data online.

This is not a partisan issue, said Colorado state Rep. Terri Carver, a Republican who co-sponsored a consumer data privacy bill signed into law by Democratic Gov. Jared Polis in July. It takes effect in 2023.

The legislation, which met opposition from Facebook and other companies, follows similar measures enacted in California and Virginia that give people the right to access and delete personal information. Colorado's also enables people to opt out of having their data tracked, profiled and sold.

That was certainly one of the pieces where we got the strongest pushback but we felt it was so important, Carver said. Theres great frustration that individuals have that they dont have the tools and the legal support to establish any kind of effective control over their personal data.

Carver said it took several years to get the law passed, and advocates had to abandon some priorities, such as the idea of enabling people to opt in if they want to allow processing of their personal data  instead of making them opt out. She hopes the efforts by Colorado and other states push Congress to set nationwide protections.

We need a strong federal data privacy bill," she said. "It would just make sense, given interstate commerce.

The poll also found broad agreement in how Americans look at technology: 81% of Democrats and 78% of Republicans say they view technology as playing a major role in the country's ability to compete globally. Seventy-nine percent of Democrats and 56% of Republicans see value in the government's technology investments.

At least 6 in 10 adults support the federal government taking measures such as spending more on technology, expanding access to broadband internet and strengthening copyright protections to improve U.S. competitiveness.

There are some generational variations in support for government policies to safeguard data privacy and security, though majorities across age groups are in favor. While 85% of adults age 40 and older are in favor of stronger punishments for cyber criminals, 70% of younger adults say the same.

The underlying current is that this is an area where people do see a direct role in government," Benz said. This is something pretty tangible for people."

____

The AP-NORC poll of 1,004 adults was conducted June 24-28 using a sample drawn from NORCs probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.3 percentage points.
HOUSTON (AP)  Another Texas inmate has had his execution delayed over claims the state is violating his religious freedom by not letting his spiritual adviser lay hands on him at the time of his lethal injection.

Ruben Gutierrez was set to be executed on Oct. 27 for fatally stabbing an 85-year-old Brownsville woman in 1998.

But a judge on Wednesday granted a request by the Cameron County District Attorneys Office to vacate the execution date. Prosecutors said the U.S. Supreme Courts upcoming review of similar religious freedom issues made by another inmate, John Henry Ramirez, whose execution the high court delayed last week, will impact Gutierrezs case.

As the Ramirez matter may be dispositive of any issue related to Gutierrezs religious liberty claim, it is in the best interest of the state, the family of the victim of Gutierrezs crimes, that his execution be delayed, prosecutors said in a motion filed Tuesday.

Gutierrez was previously an hour away from execution in June 2020 when the Supreme Court granted him a stay because his spiritual adviser was not allowed to accompany him in the death chamber.

Last month, Gutierrezs attorneys filed a complaint in federal court alleging the Texas Department of Criminal Justice was violating his right to practice his religion by denying his request to have his priest touch his shoulder, pray out loud and perform last rites when he was executed.

Gutierrez, 44, said that these three things need to be done to ensure my path to the afterlife, according to his complaint.

His attorneys cited the Constitution's First Amendment and a federal statute that protects an inmates religious rights. Ramirez made similar claims when he was granted a stay.

The Supreme Court has dealt with the presence of spiritual advisers in the death chamber in recent years but has not made a definitive ruling on the issue. That could change after it hears oral arguments in Ramirezs case on Nov. 1.

The court was criticized after it declined to halt the February 2019 execution of Alabama inmate Domineque Ray over his request to have his Islamic spiritual adviser in the death chamber, but then a month later granted a stay for Texas inmate Patrick Murphy, who wanted his Buddhist spiritual adviser in the chamber.

Since then, the Supreme Court has delayed several executions over requests for spiritual advisers.

After the court halted Murphys execution, the Texas prison system banned all clergy from the death chamber. Texas previously allowed state-employed clergy to accompany inmates, but its prison staff included only Christian and Muslim clerics.

In April, the Texas prison system reversed its two-year ban. The new policy allows an inmates approved spiritual adviser to be in the chamber, but the two cannot have any contact and vocal prayers are not allowed during the execution. Texas prison officials say direct contact poses a security risk and vocal prayer could be disruptive.

Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said the Ramirez case is an opportunity for the Supreme Court to determine if inmates have the right to a spiritual adviser in a death chamber and if so, what is permitted in exercising that right.

The fact this case can provide the court with an opportunity to lay out a blueprint for what is and what is not acceptable, thats not a guarantee that theyll do it, said Dunham, whose group takes no position on capital punishment but has criticized the way states carry out executions.

If the Supreme Court doesnt provide clear guidance, this issue will continually come up, Dunham said.

Gutierrez has long maintained he didnt kill Escolastica Harrison during what prosecutors say was an attempt to steal more than $600,000 that the elderly woman had hidden in her home.

His attorneys have requested DNA testing they say could point to the real killer.

Prosecutors have said that request is a ruse and that Gutierrez was convicted on various pieces of evidence, including a confession.

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Follow Juan A. Lozano on Twitter: https://twitter.com/juanlozano70
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP)  A state appellate court Thursday reversed one of two decisions to allow Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown to appear on the November ballot as an independent candidate after he lost the Democratic primary.

An appeal of the remaining decision is scheduled to be heard Friday.

The four-term mayor of New Yorks second-largest city was knocked off the general election ballot when he lost the June primary to India Walton, a socialist candidate making her first run for office.

After the loss, Brown sought to qualify for the independent Buffalo Party line for the general election, but his nominating petition was rejected because it was submitted after a state-imposed deadline had passed.

In two separate court challenges, Brown and his supporters successfully argued that the deadline, moved because of the coronavirus pandemic, was excessively early.

State and federal judges earlier this month ordered the Erie County Board of Elections to put Brown's name on the ballot, decisions Walton then appealed.

On Thursday, state appellate judges from the Fourth Judicial Department in Rochester reversed Supreme Court Judge Paul Wojtaszek's decision, ruling that a reasonably diligent candidate could be expected to meet the state's requirements for independent candidates.

And because those requirements do not unfairly discriminate against independent candidates, the judges wrote in a four-page decision, they place "only a minimal burden on the constitutional rights of those candidates and their voters.

A federal appeals court in New York City is scheduled to consider Walton's challenge of U.S. District Judge John Sinatra's decision on Friday.

Elections officials have not said what they will do in the case of competing decisions.

Walton said Thursday's decision acknowledged the state Legislature's right to set New York's political calendar.

If everyday Buffalonians are late on rent, parking fees, or school assignments, they face consequences. There is no reason the rules should not apply to my GOP-backed opponent as well, she said in a statement.

Brown's campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The judges also noted that Brown, in holding elected office for 25 years, is not a typical independent candidate.

Brown, they wrote, first chose to participate in the Democratic primary election in lieu of filing a timely independent nominating petition. States are constitutionally permitted to preclude candidates who lose one primary election from subsequently running on another ballot line.
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP)  Officials in Washington state are upset the Biden administration is challenging a law making it easier for workers who become ill at a former nuclear weapons production site to be compensated.

The Supreme Court will likely decide in the next few weeks whether to accept the U.S. Department of Justice's appeal. If the high court rejects the case, the state law will stand.

State Attorney General Bob Ferguson on Thursday called on the Biden administration to stop this assault on Hanford workers.

It's time to bring this fight to an end, Ferguson said at a news conference at a Hanford union office in Pasco, Washington. We want them to drop the appeal to the Supreme Court.

This is a matter of life and death for Hanford workers," said Nick Bumpaous, a Hanford union leader, who called the appeal an "amoral endeavor."

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A law passed in 2018 by the Washington state Legislature made it easier for sick Hanford Nuclear Reservation workers to qualify for state worker compensation benefits.

The law required the Washington state Department of Labor and Industries to presume that radiological or chemical exposures at Hanford were the cause of any neurological diseases or respiratory illnesses claimed by past or current Hanford employees.

The U.S. Department of Justice under President Donald Trump challenged its constitutionality in 2019, on the grounds that federal jurisdiction over such matters supersedes state law. But they lost in federal court in Eastern Washington and on appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Now the Biden administration has picked up the fight.

"This lawsuit angered me when the Trump administration filed it  and it continues to anger me now that the Biden administration is continuing it, Ferguson said.

Tom Carpenter of Hanford Challenge, a Seattle-based watchdog group, said many of the chemicals workers are exposed to are known carcinogens.

Under the state law, many types of cancer are presumed to be caused by working at Hanford.

Workers no longer have to prove that their illness was not caused by something else in their lives, or that exposure to a specific chemical caused their illness. About 1,500 different volatile gases have been found in waste in Hanfords underground storage tanks.

Most other workers in Washington state must prove their illness was a direct result of a specific workplace incident in order to be paid workers compensation

Hanford, located near Richland, Washington, was created by the Manhattan Project during World War II to make the plutonium used in the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. The site went on to produce most of the plutonium for the nations nuclear weapons arsenal during the Cold War.

Currently, about 11,000 workers are cleaning up the radioactive and other hazardous chemical wastes left over from plutonium production. Hanford contains the nation's largest quantity of radioactive waste, and cleaning it up will take decades and cost billions of dollars.
LOS ANGELES (AP)  The results of Tuesdays recall election in which California Gov. Gavin Newsom defeated an attempt to remove him from office look all too familiar to the state's enfeebled Republicans  they were embarrassed again by Democrats, who havent lost a statewide race in 15 years.

The returns were incomplete Wednesday  about 26% remained uncounted  but Newsoms 2.5 million-vote lead gave him an insurmountable lead. It was business as usual for him a day after his victory. He visited an Alameda County school to talk about the pandemic and investments in education, two key issues for him.

For the state GOP, it once again was a time to evaluate what went wrong. Despite pre-election polls showing high enthusiasm among Republican voters for an election that was driven by GOP activists, only 36% voted to remove Newsom. That preliminary result fell into a predictable range for statewide elections in recent years  an unwelcome sign for the party as it looks for a comeback.

When then-Democratic candidate Joe Biden defeated President Donald Trump in California in 2020, he grabbed 63.5% of the vote, compared to 34.3% for Trump. It was similar in 2018 statewide races, when no Republicans seeking top offices were able to break 40% of the vote.

That year, Newsom  in his first run for governor  received 62% of the vote, with Republican John Cox picking up 38%. Those double-digit margins reflect a simple political truth in the state at this time: There are a lot more Democrats in California than Republicans, with the party holding a statewide registration edge of nearly 2-to-1.

And issues being promoted by many conservatives  including dialing back environmental regulations, limiting the reach of COVID restrictions or echoing Trump's baseless claims of voter fraud  are out of step with the state's liberal-minded voters.

With the nation and state deeply divided by politics, the results showed it is going to be harder for a hard, partisan Republican to get elected, said Republican consultant Tim Rosales. He advised Assemblyman Kevin Kiley, who was among the Republicans running in the recall to replace Newsom.

Newsom spent the last weeks of the campaign warning about the threat to Democratic policies on climate change, the pandemic and the threat of Trumpism, while focusing his criticism on leading Republican candidate Larry Elder, a conservative who was seeking to becomes the state's first Black governor. Elder far outdistanced all other replacement candidates.

Even when comparing different statewide races, each with different candidates, in recent elections it's showing the same results for Republicans, said Paul Mitchell of Political Data Inc., a firm that gathers voting research for Democrats, independents and academics. It very clearly shows Republicans are not going to be competitive statewide in the current climate.

Cox, who ran again in the recall, lamented what he considered a weak turnout from supporters, noting that the vote total was on track to fall well short of the 6 million votes Trump received in the state in 2020.

"Where were these voters?" he asked. Is it people just dont believe there can be any change?

Republican registration in California has dipped to a meager 24%, meaning GOP candidates start at a huge disadvantage in any routine statewide race. Democrats control every statewide office and dominate the Legislature and congressional delegation.

But the recall was different. If Newsom was removed, his replacement would have been the top vote-getter among 46 replacement candidates that included no significant Democrats. That meant a Republican could slip into the governor's seat with support from a relatively narrow slice of GOP and conservative voters.

But it didnt happen. Newsom easily carried the first question on the ballot, whether he should be removed, yes or no, making the replacement voting irrelevant.

While statewide races continue to look out of reach for Republicans, the party has made inroads in Congress. It captured four Democratic House seats in 2020. Those seats will be hotly contested again in 2022.

While the preliminary statewide recall results show Newsom with a wide lead, the recall contest is much closer in competitive House districts in Southern California, said Sam Oh, who ran winning 2020 campaigns for Republican U.S. Reps. Michelle Steel in the 48th District, and Young Kim in the neighboring 39th.

The preliminary numbers after election day show the recall results are very close in these targeted seats, he said, referring to districts held by Steel and Kim. Its setting up for a very competitive 2022 race again.

Those districts, however, could be reshaped during once-a-decade reapportionment that adjusts district boundaries to account for population shifts. And the dynamic that drove the recall will be different than the factors in each House race.

Elders sudden rise to star of the GOP recall field was applauded by many conservative voters. After the conclusion of his first run for office, Elder teased a possible future run  Stay tuned, he told supporters.

But signs of Republican infighting that has plagued the state party for years continued during the recall, as the GOP looks for a way forward following Trump's presidency.

The day after the results were in, two GOP consultants who worked for rival candidates highlighted the partys divisions during a Sacramento Press Club panel. Ron Nehring, a former state party chairman who backed former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, blasted the Elder campaign for raising accusations of voter fraud before the election was over.

I find it astonishing that any campaign would seek to further erode public confidence in our elections with absolutely no evidence to do so, Nehring said.

Elders campaign manager, Jeff Corless, pushed back, saying it was important for Republicans to ensure the elections have integrity. He said Elder often was asked if Democrats would steal the election.

At the end of the day, election integrity is important and no one should have a problem with that, Corless said.

State Republican Party Chairwoman Jessica Millan Patterson called Newsoms victory hollow and predicted he would suffer in 2022, when he again is on the ballot.

California remains a state where surging crime, raging wildfires, crippling drought ... unaffordable housing and suffocating taxes are a sobering reality, she tweeted.

___

Associated Press writer Kathleen Ronayne in Sacramento contributed.
SOUTH BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP)  Some of the residents of a long-closed Vermont orphanage want the Catholic Church to pay for therapy as they continue to recover from what they described as abuse at the hands of the nuns and priests who were supposed to care for them.

The youngest members of the group that calls itself The Voices of St. Josephs Orphanage are in their late 50s. The oldest are pushing 80.

They held a meeting Thursday at a South Burlington hotel where they looked for ways to continue their recovery from the abuse that many say they suffered at the hands of the staff.

It has been a long and oftentimes painful process to achieve some of the healing in our lives and to feel we are making a difference in our society, said Brenda Hannon, 68, of Williston who lived at the orphanage from 1959 to 1968. One of our greatest accomplishments is that we are now visible to all of you and we are now believed, as to what was done to us.

During a news conference, some of the former residents called upon the church to do more to help them recover, including paying for their therapy. They said that in some cases the diocese has been willing to pay for therapy, but only with therapists of the diocese's choosing.

In a Thursday statement, the diocese said its representatives, including Bishop Christopher Coyne, have been meeting with former residents of St. Josephs Orphanage one-on-one and they will continue to do so.

Each meeting is unique, each persons story is unique, and the help we offer each former resident is specific to them," the statement said. If the person feels they would be helped through counseling, we would work with them as needed.

The group was formed in the aftermath of a 2018 report in Buzzfeed News about the Burlington orphanage that included allegations of a boy being thrown from a window to his death, a girl forced to slap herself 50 times and children being locked in an attic. There were also allegations of sexual abuse.

The article sparked Vermonts law enforcement community to investigate the allegations. Last year, Vermont Attorney General T.J. Donovan said the investigation could find no evidence of murder. But it found that children were abused at the orphanage, which closed in 1974, and the Vermont law enforcement community failed to protect the children who lived there.

Over the years since its foundation the orphanage group held meetings where they shared stories and learned that many of them had similar experiences. They published an anthology of their experiences that was on sale at the meeting.

Before I joined this group I never really thought about what happened, I buried everything down, the only thing that I knew was that I hurt and I didn't know quite why, said Debi Gevry-Ellsworth, now of Pomfret, Connecticut, who arrived at the orphanage when she was 2 in 1964 and lived there until 1974.

She has a poem in the book entitled Bricks and Mortar" that begins, If bricks were scales and mortar flames, this monstrosity of a building would be a dragon burning children that wear no cross.

The group also encouraged the Vermont Legislature to pass a law earlier this year to eliminate the statute of limitations in civil cases of childhood physical abuse.

When it opened in the mid-1850s the orphanage was operated by a Canadian religious order and then until its closure by Vermont Catholic Charities, a part of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington.
BOSTON (AP)  A Massachusetts storage company that federal prosecutors said illegally auctioned the personal possessions of an Air Force sergeant while he was deployed has agreed to pay the service member $60,000 in compensation, the U.S. attorney's office in Boston announced Thursday.

Father & Son Moving & Storage also agreed to pay a $5,000 civil penalty and implement new policies to prevent future violations of the federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, according to a statement.

It is wrong to auction off the possessions of a servicemember who is serving our country overseas, acting U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Nathaniel Mendell said. The law protects service members from this kind of mistreatment  they have more important things to worry about when they are overseas risking their lives to protect our nation."

A voicemail requesting comment was left with an attorney for the storage company.

The company broke the law by failing to obtain a court order before auctioning everything in the technical sergeant's storage units while he was serving in Qatar, prosecutors said.

Father & Son had sent mail indicating that the man owed money to his previous address at Hanscom Air Force Base outside Boston, but he didn't get it in Qatar until almost a month after his possessions had been sold, according to the lawsuit filed in August 2020.

The possessions sold included items that belonged to a cousin who was killed while serving in the military in Afghanistan, his grandfathers medals, all his furniture including a dresser handmade by his great-grandfather and personal photographs, according to the suit.

The case was referred to the U.S. Justice Department by the Air Force.
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP)  A citizens advisory committee to the New Mexico Legislature on political redistricting endorsed a set of conceptual maps Thursday to circulate for public comment.

The committee is forging toward an Oct. 15 deadline for outlining redistricting map proposals that will inform the Legislature's decisions later in the year.

As of Thursday, the Citizens Redistricting Committee was still waiting to receive crucial recommendations from alliances of Native American communities. New Mexico has 23 federally recognized tribes.

These concepts are built largely on the testimony we received," said Edward Chavez, a former state Supreme Court justice and chairman of the redistricting committee. The public is still going to have the opportunity to comment on each of these concepts, to actually take one of these concepts and modify it.

The actual line-drawing will be done by the state's Democrat-led Legislature, which could hew to the committee's recommendations  or ignore the suggestions and use its overwhelming majorities to create districts that help Democrats win elections for years to come.

States, including New Mexico and Indiana, are using citizen advisory boards on redistricting to temper political inclinations without taking powers away from state lawmakers. Judges might wind up using the advisory maps to resolve redistricting lawsuits.

The New Mexico Legislature plans to convene in December to redraw boundaries for the state's three congressional districts, 112 legislative seats and a public education commission that oversees public charter schools.

Proposed adjustments to a congressional swing district in southern New Mexico are under special scrutiny. Last year, U.S. Rep. Yvette Herrell ousted a first-term Democrat from the 2nd District seat.

The citizens committee advanced seven concepts for reshaping congressional districts. They all retain a compact central district in and around Albuquerque, with two sprawling districts that span the north of the state and the south.

There was a significant population who spoke about maintaining the core of the existing districts, a lot of Hispanics from the north talking about northern New Mexico and the common culture of Native Americans and the Hispanics said Brian Sanderoff, a pollster and consultant on the redistricting effort. We heard people from Albuquerque saying that it is a community of interest.

This year marks the first time in at least 30 years that the redistricting process in New Mexico has been overseen by both a Democrat-led Legislature and Democratic governor. Republicans control the process in 20 states, including Florida, Texas and North Carolina.

The once-a-decade redistricting process has ramped up with the recent release of 2020 census data showing how populations have changed in neighborhoods, cities and counties since 2010.

U.S. House and state legislative districts must be redrawn to rebalance their populations. But mapmakers can create an advantage for their political party in future elections by packing opponents voters into a few districts or spreading them thin among multiple districts  a process known as gerrymandering.
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP)  A convicted rapist set for release from Washington state's McNeil Island Special Commitment Center has been arrested because of DNA linking him to a 2004 rape in Spokane, police said.

Scott Raymond Halvorson, also known as Raymond Reynolds, faces charges of first-degree rape, second-degree rape and second-degree assault, The Spokesman-Review reported.

Halvorson's first conviction was in 1988 for luring a 4-year-old girl to his Spokane County apartment. Before that sentencing, Halvorson raped a 10-year-old girl at knifepoint, according to court records.

He was again convicted of rape in 2008 and was civilly committed to McNeil Island in 2014.

In June, Halvorson had a petition granted for release on Sept. 21 into the Spokane community, where he would have been supervised by the Department of Corrections.

DNA from a 2004 rape had been submitted for testing in 2020. This year the kit was tested and uploaded to the Combined DNA Index System, where it matched Halvorson, police said. Spokane officers had been investigating cold cases through a Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs grant.

It was by chance that the results came back shortly before Halvorson was set to be released, investigator Sgt. Zachary Storment said.

For years, Washington had a large backlog of sexual assault evidence kits, commonly called rape kits. This changed about six years ago, when the state Legislature passed a bill requiring departments to submit the kits for testing. At the same time, the Legislature provided money for the Washington State Crime Lab to test the 10,370 backlogged kits.

The results for the 2004 Spokane rape were confirmed with a new DNA sample from Halvorson, Storment said. Then they contacted the victim.

In 2004, a 52-year-old sex worker reported a client had violently assaulted her. She told police the rapist had tried to strangle her.

After the assault, Halvorson drove away, the victim told police. While she was reluctant to report the assault to police, she went to the hospital and police took her statement. They were unable to find a suspect.

The victim, now in her late 60s, told police she wanted to press charges if her attacker could be identified, although she is still scared he would retaliate against her.

A conviction on these allegations would make Halvorson a persistent offender, requiring a sentence of life without the possibility of release, according to court documents.

Halvorson was transferred from McNeil Island to the Spokane County Jail this week. It wasn't immediately known if he has a lawyer to comment on the case.

About half of Washingtons backlogged kits had been tested as of November. While the kits are being tested, that doesnt mean the results are being investigated. Few departments have the resources to investigate the large number of cases, Storment said.

Im grateful that we actually found something like this case that shows it is worth doing, Storment said.
CONCORD, N.H. (AP)  The New Hampshire Supreme Court on Thursday rejected an appeal for a bail hearing for a truck driver who's been in jail since he was charged with causing the deaths of seven motorcyclists in 2019.

Volodymyr Zhukovskyy, 25, of West Springfield, Massachusetts, is scheduled to face trial on Nov. 29 on multiple counts of negligent homicide, manslaughter, driving under the influence and reckless conduct stemming from the crash that happened in Randolph on June 21, 2019. He pleaded not guilty.

The victims, members of the Jarheads Motorcycle Club, were from New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

A judge denied three requests for a bail hearing, agreeing with prosecutors that Zhukovskyy is a danger to himself and others. After the third denial, in April, Zhukovskyy's lawyers challenged the judge's decision and they said that Zhukovskyy was entitled to a hearing because both sides disputed facts that were relevant to his dangerousness.

Prosecutors argued that the judge was not required to hold a bail hearing under state law nor use any specific method to assess Zhukovskyy's dangerousness. The state Supreme Court agreed, and noted undisputed facts establishing a pattern of reckless behavior.

The charged offenses are especially indicative of the defendants character and the risk of danger he poses given that this is not the first time the defendant has been charged with driving while under the influence," the court wrote.

The justices noted Zhukovskyy's 2014 conviction of operating a vehicle while under the influence of alcohol in Massachusetts, and that he was released on bail in Connecticut on a similar offense at the time of the 2019 crash.

The justices also noted that Zhukovskyy, in court, noted it is not a secret" that he has a history of substance abuse" that includes misdemeanor drug possession convictions in 2018 and 2019.

We are not convinced by the defendants argument that the fact that he has been sober while in pretrial detention raises an important doubt about whether he is currently dangerous," the court wrote.

Although commendable, his sobriety while detained in a restrictive environment does not negate the undisputed fact that he allegedly committed the June 21, 2019 offenses while driving under the influence of drugs in violation of release conditions" following his arrest in Connecticut, the court said.

The justices wrote it was reasonable for the judge to conclude based solely on the undisputed facts, that, because the defendant had failed to lead a law-abiding life free from controlled substances when on conditional release, he is unlikely to do so now."

It wasn't immediately known if Zhukovskyy's lawyers planned any further appeal.

Sorry, but we cant comment on any aspect of the case at this time," Steve Mirkin, one of his public defenders, said in an email.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP)  The director of Covered California said Thursday he will step down early next year, prompting a national search for a new leader of the nation's largest state-based health insurance marketplace.

Peter Lee has been Covered California's only executive director in its nine-year history, launching the marketplace in 2012 at a time when the Affordable Care Act was a polarizing force in U.S. politics.

During his tenure, Covered California dramatically expanded the number of people eligible for discounts in their monthly health insurance premiums. A record high 1.6 million people in the state with a population of about 40 million people now buy their health insurance through Covered California. That helped to reduce the state's uninsured rate to 7.7% in 2019 from 18.5% in 2010, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Lee, 62, said the recent deaths of his mother and uncle caused him to pause and reflect on what he wants to do with the next phase of his life. He does not have another job lined up.

Covered California has been in many ways the beacon of showing how the Affordable Care Act can work, Lee told The Associated Press in an interview. The organization is in great shape and I want to look at something new.

Health insurance marketplaces are a key component of the federal Affordable Care Act, former President Barack Obama's health care law.

The marketplace is for people who don't have  or can't get  health insurance through their jobs and make too much money to qualify for government-funded health care. It was designed to make it easier for those people to get health insurance and offers discounts to some people who make below a certain income level.

Most states chose to let the federal government run their marketplaces for them. But California is one of 15 states that runs its own marketplace. Lee has been the public face of California's marketplace for the past decade, traveling throughout the state to promote it with the fervor of an evangelist.

He insisted on negotiating with health insurance companies on prices and standardizing benefits across plans so consumers could more easily compare plans when deciding which to purchase.

Hes willing to negotiate and to say no to insurers that were not providing value and to hold the plans accountable for higher standards on quality and equity," said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, a consumer advocacy group. I think it's a testament to his work that we've had less than a 2% average increase in premiums for the last three years.

When Republican President Donald Trump was in office, the federal government slashed its marketing budget for the federal marketplace. But Lee spent about $100 million per year  money that comes from small fees assessed on premiums  on marketing in California, including TV and radio ads in multiple languages and paying social media influencers to encourage people to buy health insurance.

He has definitely made his mark in making the point that health insurance doesn't necessarily sell itself, that you have to market it like any other product, said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy with the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit group focusing on health care issues.

Dr. Mark Ghaly, California's health and human services secretary and chair of Covered California's Board of Directors, said the agency will launch a national search for Lee's replacement.

Today, Covered California is an indispensable part of our states drive toward universal coverage and is in a great position to continue its mission of service and innovation as a state and national leader, Ghaly said.
HAVANA (AP)  Opening a small business is a bureaucratic headache in many parts of the world. In Cuba, it's an adventure in largely unknown territory.

Most sorts of private businesses have been banned for more than 50 years, even if hundreds of thousands of Cubans in recent years have taken advantage of reforms that opened up cracks for small private enterprise in the once-solid wall of the state-dominated socialist economy.

Now, after five years of waiting, a new legal system takes effect on Sept. 20 that could greatly expand the scope of private businesses, and give them greater legal certainty in efforts to help an economy in crisis.

Cautious or enthusiastic, business executives are concerned about an inefficient credit system, the requirement to have U.S. dollars that the state itself does not sell and limitations on hiring professional services.

Knowing that I can have a company, a business in Cuba, in my country, invest, take risks in the markets and that this is supported by law ... is peace of mind for me, said Carlos Gomez, the 35-year-old owner of the audiovisual production company Wajiros Films.

The company has made at least 35 films since its opening in 2017, short, long and international co-productions, all under the label of artistic creation collective but without a legal status. That carries negative consequences such as the impossibility of having bank accounts, the lack of distinction between business and family assets, and the impossibility of importing equipment.

At the end of August, Cuban authorities published in the Official Gazette about 20 norms that allow and regulate small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which were eliminated in 1968 in a revolutionary offensive against the last vestiges of private property.

At that time, warehouses, bars or repair shops were closed or absorbed by the state, which struggled to manage those businesses efficiently.

But the government legalized a tightly limited  but legal -- form of self-employment in the early 1990s to cope with the crisis caused by the collapse of Soviet aid. It taxed and squeezed, but never eliminated the sector.

Cuban leaders had always been uneasy with private economic activity, previously describing it as an evil that was necessary to provide jobs and services that the state could not during hard times. The government had also complained about inequality associated with self-employment, since a private worker could earn much more than a state worker.

But as of 2010, former President Raul Castro recognized the lack of productivity and slightly opened the economy to individual initiative. Some businesses ended up having more than 50 employees despite the fact that they were officially self-employed.

In 2019, before the pandemic and the effects of the US sanctions that suffocated the economy, there were about 600,000 self-employed'' workers, most of them linked to the tourism market.

One was tied to a self-employment license that had many limitations. With the legalization (of SMEs), new possibilities and perspectives are opened. Among these is the recognition of several partners in a business and legal status, said Lauren Fajardo, designer and co-owner of Dador, a clothing workshop created by her and two friends that employed about 10 people. Like hundreds of other initiatives, the business has been paralyzed by the pandemic.

The new regulations establish that SMEs - a mandatory status for companies with more than three workers - will be established as limited liability'' companies that must be approved by the Ministry of the Economy.

They may have up to 100 employees and they will be allowed all activities except those that the State reserves as strategic - education, health, defense, waste management and mining, among others.

There will be limitations on professional services. The establishment of companies of this type or their independent exercise is not allowed, so architects, engineers or lawyers are not authorized to set up law firms but they can be employed as staff of SMEs.

The positive thing about these rules is that they arrived... I think it is time to think about how to take advantage of it and that these really contribute to the growth of the country,  economist Omar Everleny Perez said.

Experts and businessmen had asked for the laws for more than five years. They were published in the midst of a crisis with an 11% drop in GDP in 2020, a shortage of basic goods and a growth of the black market. Social tension reached such a point that in July there were unusual and massive protest demonstrations on the island.

Now that they have laws, entrepreneurs have begun to evaluate their impact. The AP spoke with more than a dozen of them and some chose not to give their names to fully analyze their concerns.

One of the questions among those who have established businesses, for example, is how the capital or machinery will be certified, since many were acquired irregularly or rescued from abandoned state workshops.

Many wonder how the credit system in Cuban pesos will operate if raw materials are acquired in dollars, or how goods such as vehicles that the state does not offer or allow to bring from abroad will be obtained, or whether employees will be able to have unions.

One aspect that causes concern is that the law allows for Cuban citizens and permanent residents in the country to open limited liability companies, or LLCs. But it excludes emigrants who in many cases are the true owners of enterprises that are already operating, or owners of the capital necessary to form an SME.

In addition, the authorities reported that what will open on Sept. 20 is a call to register LLCs and cooperatives but by sectors, starting with those in food production or with a technological base. Many entrepreneurs wonder how long they will have to wait for an appointment if they are outside the areas considered key by the government, despite the fact that their initiatives will generate jobs.

People are seeking to understand, understand the context and above all to find opportunities to promote projects, said Oniel Diaz, co-founder of the Auge consultancy.

Diaz held advisory talks with business people to discuss the law. During the meetings, he noted a change that could show the future of SMEs in Cuba: given that tourism is paralyzed and the only thing that can supply customers is the national market, there could be a reconfiguration of the sector after the pandemic.

And the businesses that are coming to us today are no longer restaurants, they are no longer cafeterias, they are no longer small restaurants or rental companies. They are people who want a construction business, to produce food, flower shops ... with added value, Diaz said.
NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP)  Lawyers for a British woman sentenced to a four-month suspended sentence for making up claims that she was gang raped by as many as a dozen Israelis during a vacation in Cyprus in 2019 are appealing to the countrys Supreme Court to overturn the conviction.

A legal team is arguing at Thursdays hearing that the lower court shouldnt have admitted the womans written retraction of the rape claims as evidence because investigators obtained it after she sat in a police station for seven hours without a lawyer or an interpreter present.

The team headed by British lawyer Lewis Power said that the woman  whose identity hasn't been formally released and was 19 at the time of her trial  was suffering from a stress disorder and had been pressured into making an unreliable retraction.

Moreover, the team said the discourteous lower court judge failed to provide the woman with a fair hearing, because he didnt give defense lawyers the chance to put forward evidence supporting the womans claims.

Lewis said in a written statement that the legal team believes that ultimately justice will be achieved so that the woman can free herself from the shackles of an unjust conviction which has tarnished her young life.

Lead prosecutor Adamos Demosthenous told The Associated Press that the state would support the correctness of the original ruling and stands by it.

A group of around 30 activists from the Network Fighting Violence Against Women held banners and chanted slogans in support of the woman, including national interests absolve rapists, police and judges are also guilty and rapists are to blame for rape, not short blouses and miniskirts.

Judge Michalis Papathanasiou said in his original ruling that he would give the woman a second chance and not send her to jail, because she admitted through her lawyers during mitigation that she made a mistake in making the false rape claim.

Papathanasiou said the defendant didnt tell the truth and tried to deceive the court with evasive statements in her testimony. He said the woman had admitted to investigators that she made up the claims because she was ashamed after finding out that some of the Israelis had videoed her having consensual sex with her Israeli boyfriend on their cellphones. He had also said her admission was the only time the defendant told the truth.

The case drew widespread interest in the U.K. and Israel after initial reports that the woman was the victim of a gang rape evolved into her being charged with making up claims of rape. The guilty verdict also triggered strong reaction from activist groups.

The woman insisted that she was raped in a hotel room at a coastal resort town in July 2019 and that she was forced to sign the retraction 10 days later while under police questioning. All of the Israelis, aged 15-20, were then released and allowed to return home.

The British government said it had raised numerous concerns with Cypriot authorities about the judicial process in the case and the womans right to a fair trial.
HAVANA, Cuba (AP)  The draft of a new family code for Cuba released Wednesday proposes allowing same-sex couples to marry and adopt as well as giving children greater participation in decisions that affect them.

The preliminary draft, which must be approved by Cubas parliament then go to a grassroots plebiscite, comes almost three years after the islands communist government backed away from enshrining gay marriage protections in its new constitution in the face of opposition.

Evangelical groups objected to the constitutional proposal to eliminate the description of marriage as a union of a man and woman, and change it to the union of two people ... with absolutely equal rights and obligations.

We consider this version to be consistent with the constitutional text, and develop and update the various legal-family institutions in correspondence with the humanistic nature of our social process, Justice Minister Oscar Silveira Martinez said in announcing the draft.

Evangelical groups, however, are expected to object to the change in the family code draft.

Both Martinez and Yamila Gonzalez Ferrer, vice president of the National Union of Jurists of Cuba, emphasized that the proposed family code is much broader than an authorization of same-sex marriage.

It protects all expressions of family diversity and the right of each person to establish a family in coherence with the constitutional principles of plurality, inclusion, and human dignity, Gonzalez said.

The draft, which has more than 480 articles, was drawn up by a team of 30 experts and will be posted on the Justice Ministrys website to collect opinions. It will then go to lawmakers  likely in December  then to a popular referendum possibly next year.

Cubas current family code dates from 1975 and has been overtaken by new family structures and social changes, legal experts say.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP)  Sixteen small businesses and agriculture producers in rural West Virginia are receiving more than $177,000 from a federal government program that helps install renewable energy systems and make energy efficiency improvements.

U.S. Sens. Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito announced the awards Wednesday as well as $50,000 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to Woodlands Community Lenders through the Rural Business Development Grants program.
ALBANY, Ore. (AP)  FBI officials in Oregon and Albany police have arrested a 64-year-old man accused of threatening an Oregon public official.

David Scott Ryder was arrested Wednesday morning on charges of interstate transmission of a threat and stalking, The FBI in Oregon said in a news release.

The threats were made in three emails between Aug. 10-23 and in a voicemail left on an office phone on Aug. 23, according to the FBI.

The FBI included excerpts from the messages which called for the public official to resign, saying ...all the people that wont get your FAKE (expletive) vaccine are the same ones who you will see hang you in a public place for crimes against America.

The FBI also said the person threatened to take the worthless soul from the public official and also threatened to kill police who might come to investigate the threats.

Ryder made his initial appearance before a U.S. Magistrate Judge on Wednesday. The judge ordered him released while the case proceeds.

It wasnt immediately known if Ryder has a lawyer. The name of the public official who was threatened wasnt released.
WILMINGTON, Del. (AP)  A former firefighter and union leader was sentenced to five years in prison Wednesday for possessing child pornography, federal prosecutors in Delaware said.

Joseph Leonetti Jr., a former Wilmington firefighter and union president, pleaded guilty to one count of possessing child pornography in April, U.S. Attorney David Weiss announced.
PARIS (AP)  The leader of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara died of wounds from a drone strike that hit him on a motorcycle last month in southern Mali, in a French-led operation involving backup from U.S., EU, Malian and Nigerien military forces, French authorities said Thursday.

The French government did not disclose how they identified him as Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi, whose group has terrorized the region. The claim could not immediately be independently verified.

France declared the killing a major victory against jihadists in Africa and justification for years of anti-extremist efforts in the Sahel. French government officials described al-Sahrawi as enemy No. 1 in the region, and accused him of ordering or overseeing attacks on U.S. troops, French aid workers and some 2,000-3,000 African civilians - most of them Muslim.

Experts called the announcement big and welcome news for governments struggling against violent extremists  but warned that ISGS could find a new leader, and that the threat of jihadist violence remains high.

The death of Al-Sahrawi will likely disrupt ISGS operations in the short-term. But it is unlikely to permanently cripple the extremist group, said Alexandre Raymakers, senior Africa analyst at risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft.

He called it a tactical success for Operation Barkhane considering Al-Sahrawi's elimination had been a top priority for the French military, but noted that despite the loss of several senior leaders to French military operations over the years, the jihadist group has continued to expand its footprint in the Sahel.

This reinforces our determination to fight terrorism with our partners in the Sahel, with our American and European partners, French Defense Minister Florence Parly told reporters in Paris. We will not leave the Sahel.

Intelligence gleaned from the capture of ISGS fighters earlier this year allowed France to hone in on specific areas where Al-Sahrawi was likely to hide, Parly said.

He was on a motorcycle with one other person when they were hit by a drone strike in the Dangalous Forest near the Niger border on Aug. 17, one of several airstrikes in the region in mid-August, said the chief of staff of France's military, Thierry Burkhard.

France then sent a team of 20 special ground forces to the region to verify the identities of those hit, and determined that about 10 ISGS members were killed, including Al-Sahrawi, according to Burkhard.

French President Emmanuel Macron announced the death overnight, after authorities took time to verify his identity. According to Macrons office, al-Sahrawi personally ordered the killing of six French aid workers and their Nigerien colleagues last year, and his group was behind a 2017 attack that killed four U.S. troops and and four Niger military personnel.

His group also has abducted foreigners in the Sahel and is believed to still be holding American Jeffrey Woodke, who was abducted from his home in Niger in 2016, as well as a German hostage.

The leader of the Islamic State was one of the biggest criminals and (IS) was one of the most violent groups that killed many people in the Sahel," said Mahamoudou Savadogo a conflict analyst and former military officer in Burkina Faso. He said this death would unburden local communities and governments in the region.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian urged African governments to fill the void and seize back ground taken by the Islamic State extremists.

Rida Lyammouri, senior fellow at the Policy Center for the New South, a Moroccan think tank, called it a huge blow for ISGS but added, "there will be someone whos ready to take over. The real success is when (the) civilian population is no longer terrorized by this group and others.

France's head of foreign intelligence, Bernard Emie, estimated that several hundred jihadist fighters remain in the area.

Rumors of the militant leaders death had circulated for weeks in Mali, though authorities in the region had not confirmed it.

The extremist leader was born in the disputed territory of Western Sahara and later joined the Polisario Front. After spending time in Algeria, he made his way to northern Mali where he became an important figure in the group known as MUJAO.

MUJAO was loyal to the regional al-Qaida affiliate. But in 2015, al-Sahrawi released an audio message pledging allegiance to the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

France, the region's former colonial power, recently announced that it would be reducing its military presence in the region, with plans to withdraw 2,000 troops by early next year.

But Parly insisted that France wouldn't pull out entirely, saying the attack was proof that the international cooperation in the region is bearing fruit.

She also reiterated concerns about reports of the possible deployment of Russian mercenaries in Mali. If Mali's government were to reach such a deal with Kremlin-backed private military firm Wagner Group, that would be totally incompatible with the anti-terrorism strategy in the Sahel that led to the killing of the Islamic State leader, Parly said.

Wagner has been accused of human rights abuses in the Central African Republic and involvement in the conflict in Libya. Russia denies any involvement in Mali.

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Ahmed reported from Bamako, Mali. Krista Larson and Carley Petesch in Dakar, Senegal, and Sam Mednick in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, contributed.
CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP)  When a wildfire crested the mountains near North America's largest alpine lake, embers and ash that zipped across a smoky sky pierced Lake Tahoes clear blue waters.

The evacuation order for thousands to flee their homes has been lifted, but those who returned have found black stripes of ash building up on the shoreline  a reminder that success fighting the Caldor Fire wont insulate the resort region on the California-Nevada line from effects that outlast wildfire season.

Scientists say its too soon to draw conclusions about the lasting damage that record-setting wildfires will have on Lake Tahoe. But theyre not wasting time. Researchers and state officials on the Tahoe Science Advisory Council discussed future study at a meeting Thursday.

Scientists funded by California, Nevada and the League to Save Lake Tahoe are researching lake clarity and biodiversity during and after wildfires. Theyre using collection buckets  some loaded with glass marbles  to capture and measure the size and quantity of particles and pollutants from wildfires that have sullied the normally crystal-clear waters. Theyre studying how particles enter the lake, how they move around it and the effect on algae production.

The clarity of the iconic alpine lake can vary even without catastrophic wildfires. On average, Lake Tahoe is clear 65 feet (20 meters) below the waters surface. Through wildfire season, scientists stationed near the lake's center have only been able to see 50 feet (15 meters) below the surface  a reduction they arent sure is due to particles, algae or simply lack of sunlight, said Geoff Schladow, professor of civil and environmental engineering and director of the University of California, Davis' Tahoe Environmental Research Center.

My feeling is, in some ways, it may look worse than it is, Schladow said. What smoke in the basin actually does, particularly when it lasts for months, is something we dont really know. Were finding that out as we speak.

Smoke from Northern California wildfires has cloaked the Lake Tahoe basin in past years. But as blazes have grown in size and intensity  partially due to climate change, scientists say  smoke that has sat atop the lake for two to three months in the past two wildfire seasons has exceeded the expectations of many residents and tourists who flock to the deep blue lake for its clean alpine air and fragrant pine trees.

Its also concerned scientists, who have spent years studying how algae, erosion and air pollution from vehicles that 15 million tourists drive in each year affect clarity. They say the sheer amount of wildfire smoke that has lingered could harm lake clarity in ways that werent previously considered.

Our bread-and-butter sources of declining lake clarity are pretty well understood, said Allison Oliver, an ecologist at the Skeena Fisheries Commission in western Canada who studied how rivers and creeks delivered murky sediment to Lake Tahoe after the 2007 Angora Fire.

This new phenomenon where were getting these big shifts in climate regimes and this pattern of big summer fires," she said of the Sierra Nevada mountains, "thats not something that was on peoples radar as much 15 or 20 years ago. Now, its routine.

On many days, smoke has blotted out views of the mountains that wrap the lakes pristine waters and left an inescapable campfire stench on clothes, in cars and beneath fingernails.

Its really apparent that we need to be concerned about not only fires burning in the basin that cause erosion and burn scars, but the smoke generated from massive fires outside the basin," said Jesse Patterson, the League to Save Lake Tahoes chief strategy officer. We need to think bigger, if we want to keep Tahoe blue decades to come.

The league, best known for its Keep Tahoe Blue bumper stickers, has aggressively pursued environmental restoration projects to maintain the lakes clarity, prevent erosion and replant burn scars. But amid accelerating climate change, Patterson fears local land management efforts may no longer be enough to protect the lake.

Scientists fear alpine lakes can act as sponges, soaking up the microscopic particles in wildfire smoke, said Sudeep Chandra, a biology professor and director of the Global Water Center at the University of Nevada, Reno. Regardless of whether studies end up showing smoke obscures algae-fighting sunlight or increases the flow of pollutants into the lake, he believes the challenge for scientists will be expanding the scope of research into factors affecting Lake Tahoe.

Chandra applauded efforts to maintain lake clarity through restoring rivers, preventing erosion and encouraging responsible development. But after he saw how much smoke from California's Dixie Fire further north in the Sierra Nevada ended up in the basin, he said questions about the lakes future need to reckon with broader climate change trends.

Were clearly regionally connected. Thats going to be a new way of thinking about managing the Lake Tahoe basin, he said.

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Metz is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
In the weeks before Gabrielle "Gabby" Petito disappeared during a road trip with her fiance, police responded to a call reporting a "domestic problem" between the couple.

According to a police report obtained by The Washington Post, a witness called 911 on Aug. 12 after he saw Petito, 22, and Brian Laundrie, 23, squabbling over a phone outside the Moonflower Community Cooperative - a natural food store in Moab, Utah.

The onlooker, identified only as Christopher, said he saw Petito slap Laundrie during the argument. Christopher said Petito then climbed into the vehicle through the driver-side window "as if Brian had locked her out and she was trying to find a way in," the police report said. Then, the couple drove away.

When Christopher saw the fight unfold, he told police he "feared the worst."

Investigators in North Port, Fla., where Laundrie and Petito lived together, named Laundrie a person of interest in Petito's disappearance on Wednesday. The North Port Police Department said in a statement that Laundrie had declined to share "any helpful details" and noted that he returned to Florida without Petito on Sept. 1.

Petito's parents reported her missing 10 days later, police added.

"We are pleading with anyone, including Brian, to share information with us on her whereabouts in the past few weeks," North Port Police Chief Todd Garrison said in a statement on Wednesday. "The lack of information from Brian is hindering this investigation. The answers will eventually come out."

An attorney for Laundrie said that he would not be providing any information about the case to the police.

"On the advice of counsel the Laundrie family is remaining in the background at this juncture and will have no further comment," attorney Steven Bertolino said in a statement shared with The Post on Wednesday.

"This is understandably an extremely difficult time for both the Petito family and the Laundrie family," Bertolino added. "It is our understanding that a search has been organized for Miss Petito in or near Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. On behalf of the Laundrie family it is our hope that the search for Miss Petito is successful and that Miss Petito is re-united with her family."

On Aug. 12, police caught up with Petito and Laundrie in their white 2012 Ford Transit van a few miles from the Moonflower Community Co-Op near the turnoff for Arches National Park, according to the report. When an officer turned his cruiser's lights on to stop the van, Petito grabbed Laundrie's arm to get his attention and caused the vehicle to swerve into the curb before it stopped, the report said.

The officer who pulled them over noted that Petito was "crying uncontrollably" in the passenger seat.

"At no point in my investigation did Gabrielle stop crying, breathing heavily, or compose a sentence without needing to wipe away tears, wipe her nose, or rub her knees with her hands," one officer wrote in the police report.

Weeks of traveling together had created an "emotional strain" on their relationship, Laundrie told Moab Police officer Daniel Scott Robbins. The close quarters had "increased the number of arguments" between the pair. Petito also told police she had been suffering from "serious anxiety."

Because of the "little arguments she and Brian had been having all day, she was struggling with her mental health," Petito added, according to the report.

Laundrie told Robbins that Petito feared he would leave her in Moab without a ride, which spurred her "manic state" and caused the physical altercation between them. According to police, Petito left minor scratches on Laundrie's face and right arm during the struggle.

Despite the fight, both Laundrie and Petito asked police to refrain from filing charges.

"Both the male and the female reported they are in love and engaged to be married and desperately didn't wish to see anyone charged with a crime," another officer, Eric Pratt, wrote in the police report.

Police said Laundrie had "no fear for his safety" and the officers determined he was at "low risk of danger or harm" from Petito, in part because she was much smaller than him. Police also noted that no one reported Laundrie had harmed Petito in any way.

Instead of making an arrest, Robbins ordered Laundrie to stay in a hotel room provided through the city's "Safe Haven" program for the night so that he and Petito could spend some time away from one another. Robbins drove Laundrie to the hotel and left Petito with the van for the night.

"I instructed both Brian and Gabrielle to take advantage of this time apart to relax their emotions and regain control of their anxiety," Robbins wrote in the report.

Petito's family issued a new statement Wednesday, WLNY reported, in which they called on Laundrie to answer questions about his fiancee's disappearance. They referred to his silence as "reprehensible."

"We beg you to do the right thing and help us bring Gabby home," Petito's family said, according to the station. "Brian, whatever happened in Wyoming, happened. The only thing you can control is what you do now. Tell us where Gabby is."
BERLIN (AP)  Federal prosecutors in Germany said Thursday they have indicted four men on suspicion of supporting the Islamic extremist group Jabhat al-Nusra.

Prosecutors said in a statement that one the men  who were indicted last month  is also accused of membership in the group, which was formed as al-Qaidas branch in Syria but later broke away.
Two dozen Republican attorneys general warned the White House on Thursday of impending legal action if a proposed coronavirus vaccine requirement for as many as 100 million Americans goes into effect.

Your plan is disastrous and counterproductive, the prosecutors, led by Attorney General Alan Wilson of South Carolina, wrote in a letter sent to President Joe Biden. If your Administration does not alter its course, the undersigned state Attorneys General will seek every available legal option to hold you accountable and uphold the rule of law.

The letter is the latest GOP opposition to sweeping new federal vaccine requirements for private-sector employees, health care workers and federal contractors announced by Biden earlier this month. The requirement, to be enacted through a rule from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, is part of an all-out effort to curb the surging COVID-19 delta variant.

The OSHA rule, which covers nearly two-thirds of the private sector workforce, would last six months, after which it must be replaced by a permanent measure. Employers that dont comply could face penalties of up to $13,600 per violation.

Once its out, the rule would take effect in 29 states where OSHA has jurisdiction, according to a primer by the law firm Fisher Phillips. Other states like California and North Carolina that have their own federally approved workplace safety agencies would have up to 30 days to adopt equivalent measures.

Republican leaders  and some union chiefs, too  have said that Biden was going too far in trying to muscle private companies and workers. One of the first to speak out was Gov. Henry McMaster of South Carolina, who said on Twitter that his state would fight to the gates of hell to protect the liberty and livelihood of every South Carolinian.

Writing to Biden that the vaccine edict is also illegal, Wilson warned that courts have fully upheld only one of 10 emergency temporary OSHA standards in recent decades

The prosecutors also cautioned that the edict is unlikely to win hearts and minds  it will simply drive further skepticism over vaccines.

Your vaccine mandate represents not only a threat to individual liberty, but a public health disaster that will displace vulnerable workers and exacerbate a nationwide hospital staffing crisis, with severe consequences for all Americans," they write.

In lieu of vaccine or weekly testing requirements, the prosecutors proposed that some companies could have employees work remotely, rather than report in person.

In addition to Wilson in South Carolina, the letter was signed by attorneys general in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.

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Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP.
Khampha Bouaphanh/AP

AUSTIN, Texas (AP)  Republican Matt Krause, a longtime ally of embattled Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, said Thursday he is joining the growing ranks of candidates who will challenge him for his job in 2022.

Paxton is seeking a third term under the cloud of an FBI investigation, set off by an extraordinary revolt by his top deputes last year, and is still awaiting trial on felony securities fraud charges. Republicans George P. Bush and Eva Guzman, a former Texas Supreme Court justice, have already launched GOP primary challenges against Paxton.
CAIRO (AP)  A global human rights group Thursday accused Egypts main domestic security agency of harassing and intimidating rights advocates and activists to silence them.

The Amnesty International report was the latest rebuke to Egypts government, which faces increasing pressure from the U.S. to improve its human rights record.

A government media officer did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.

The rights group said the National Security Agency was increasingly using a well-honed pattern of unlawful summons, (and) coercive questioning of activists in practices amounting to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

The London-based group said it documented how the agency, which handles terror-related and political cases, used such measures to control the lives of at least 26 people, including seven women, between 2020 and 2021. The report is titled: This will only end when you die, in reference to what one activist was told of her regular summons to the agency.

Amnesty did not disclose the names of those activists. The NSA is overseen by the Interior Ministry. Egypt's President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi has in the past maintained that his country has no political prisoners.

Egypts government has in recent years waged a wide-scale crackdown on dissent, jailing thousands of people, mainly Islamists, but also secular activists involved in the 2011 Arab Spring uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak. Many people have been imprisoned on terrorism charges, for breaking a ban on protests or for disseminating false news.

In recent years, lengthy pretrial detentions have become a common practice to keep the governments critics behind bars for as long as possible.

NSA officials questions and threats reveal one clear objective: to stifle human rights and political activism, said Philip Luther, Amnestys research and advocacy director for the Middle East and North Africa region.

Amnesty said at least 20 activists described how the agency's attempt to monitor and manipulate their activities had left them in a depressed and helpless state.

The group said officers used physical and psychological abuse during interrogations of summoned activists, many of whom had already spent significant time in detention. In their cases, they were told to present themselves to police stations for so-called monitoring after their release.

Security forces also threatened activists and their families with detention or physical harm if they did not give up information, Amnesty said. The group said many activists and rights advocates are now fearful of voicing their opinions or taking part in political activities.

Some have left the country as a result, the report added. But even they are not out-of-reach: After traveling, one received a message from an officer saying he would now be on the run for the remainder of his life.

Amnesty urged the countrys chief prosecutor to open investigations into the NSAs practices.

The State Department announced Tuesday it would withhold $130 million of $300 million in military financing for Egypt due to human rights concerns. Secretary of State Antony Blinken would allow the rest go through to preserve a U.S.-Egypt security engagement that Washington believes is critical to Mideast stability.
AL-AIN, Lebanon (AP)  Dozens of trucks carrying Iranian diesel arrived in Lebanon on Thursday, the first in a series of deliveries organized by the militant Hezbollah. The powerful group operates independently from Lebanese authorities, which are struggling to deal with a crippling energy crisis.

The overland delivery through neighboring Syria violates U.S. sanctions imposed on Tehran after former President Donald Trump pulled America out of a nuclear deal between Iran and world powers in 2018.

The shipment is being portrayed as a victory by Hezbollah, which stepped in to supply the fuel from its patron, Iran, while the cash-strapped Lebanese government grapples with months-long fuel shortages that have paralyzed the country.

This is a very big and great thing for us because we broke the siege of America and foreign countries. ... We are working with the help of God and our great mother Iran," said Nabiha Idriss, a Hezbollah supporter gathered with others to greet the convoy as it passed through the eastern town of Al-Ain.

There was no immediate comment from Lebanese or U.S. officials on the Iranian fuel delivery. Local commentators said Washington, worried about chaos in Lebanon amid raging, multiple crises, may have decided to look the other way.

Hezbollah has portrayed the Lebanese economic meltdown, which began in late 2019, as partly caused by an informal siege imposed by America due to the militant group's power and influence in Lebanon. The group  designated a terrorist organization by Washington  has been sanctioned by consecutive U.S. administrations.

Lebanon's crisis is rooted in decades of corruption and mismanagement by the ruling class and a sectarian-based political system that thrives on patronage and nepotism. Severe shortages in fuel have resulted in crippling power cuts. People wait hours in line for gasoline. Protests and scuffles have broken out at gas stations around Lebanon including in some Hezbollah strongholds.

Hezbollah's leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, announced last month that Iran was sending fuel to Lebanon to help ease the crisis. The first Hezbollah-commissioned Iranian oil tanker arrived in the Syrian port of Baniyas on Sunday and the diesel was unloaded to Syrian storage places before it was brought overland to Lebanon on Thursday by tanker trucks.

The convoy of 60 trucks, each carrying 50,000 liters (13,210 gallons), went through an informal border crossing in Qusayr in Syria. Another convoy of 60 tanker trucks is expected Friday.

Hezbollah, often accused of operating a state-within-a-state, has been taking part in Syrias civil war alongside government forces. It manages its own crossing points along the Lebanon-Syria border, away from formal border crossings.

Nasrallah said in a televised speech earlier this week that the tanker did not offload its cargo directly in Lebanon to avoid embarrassing authorities and risking sanctions on Lebanon.

Hezbollahs Al-Manar TV called it the tanker truck convoys to break the American siege. It said the trucks were on their way to the eastern Lebanese city of Baalbek where a Hezbollah-linked distribution company will start distributing the fuel. Nasrallah said the company, al-Amana, which is already under U.S. sanctions, won't risk new penalties.

For critics, however, the convoy is a symbol of the dissolution of the Lebanese state. While the oil delivery was seen as a victory for Hezbollah, the group is facing growing internal criticism for increasingly pulling Lebanon into Iran's orbit and for defending its political allies who resist change rather than push for reform.

Don't forget this day, tweeted Laury Haytayan, a Lebanese oil and gas expert and activist, describing it as the day Hezbollah won over the Lebanese state.

Lebanese gathered on the roadside leading to Lebanons Bekaa Valley to greet the convoy. Hezbollahs yellow flags and banners praising the Iran-backed group and Syrias President Bashar Assad decorated the streets. A few women showered the trucks with rice and flowers as they drove past. Others raised banners reading: Thank you Iran, and Thank you Syria. Heavy gunfire, and at least one rocket propelled-grenade, were fired in celebration.

Lebanons new Prime Minister Najib Mikati, whose government was formed last week after a 13-month political deadlock, has not commented on Hezbollah's deal to import fuel from Iran.

Nasrallah has said a month's worth of diesel would be donated to public hospitals, nursing homes, orphanages, water stations and the Lebanese Red Cross. He said fuel would also be sold at discount prices to private hospitals, pharmaceutical factories, bakeries and cooperatives that sell food products.

He said three other tankers carrying diesel and one carrying gasoline are to arrive in the coming weeks.

Faced with the possibility of Iranian fuel arriving in Lebanon, U.S. officials have said they are discussing long-term solutions for the energy crisis in Lebanon, including a recently revived natural gas line from Egypt.
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP)  The storage-room merchants' desk where President-elect Abraham Lincoln penned his first inaugural address, beseeching southern states to recall the mystic chords of memory" and invoke the better angels of our nature to circumvent the Civil War, was unveiled by Illinois officials Thursday after a painstaking restoration to its 1850s splendor.

The walnut-and-poplar hulk is displayed in the library atrium of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in downtown Springfield. It's two blocks from the third-floor sanctum where the 16th president stole away to concentrate on crafting his case to a divided nation against secession over slavery.

"Lincoln used this desk to write a message of peace when the country was tearing itself apart, library and museum executive director Christina Shutt said. Sometimes it seems like were nearly as divided today. I hope this desk will...invite us to remember Lincolns words that, We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies.

Hounded by friends and favor-seekers after his unlikely election, Lincoln sought a hideout to prepare his March 4, 1861, inaugural. His brother-in-law, Clark Moulton Smith, offered a room in his store on the statehouse square, according to Smith's family and the biography by Lincoln law partner William Herndon.

There, Lincoln found the oasis, measuring about 6 feet (1.83 meters) wide, 3 1/2 feet (1.07 meters) deep and 6 feet tall.

By the time he took the presidential oath, the Confederacy had been established, and though the war's debut at the battle for Fort Sumter in South Carolina was just six weeks away, Lincoln proceeded with his appeal: "Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory ... will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

The state purchased the desk from Smith's daughter in 1953 for $500 and for decades it sat in the Old State Capitol with no notice to recommend it. This year, Third Coast Preservation of Elmhurst got $6,300 and six months to restore it, which included reversing well-meaning changes in a 1958 makeover  changes that were historically inaccurate at best and damaging at worst, Third Coast conservator Anna Weiss-Pfau said.

Historical objects have a visceral impact often missing with documents, such as the ones paired with the desk for the exhibit, Lincoln's Life in Letters," from an early homework assignment to the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln historian Christian McWhirter said.

An object maybe doesnt provide you as many details as say a letter would, but an object just carries so much power...," McWhirter said. People can be brought to tears by a historical object."

Each change made to the inaugural desk  nails pulled, cornices replaced, glue blocks removed  is saved because they've become part of the object's history but also to offer a roadmap to future restorers, said Third Coast conservator Robin DeGroot, who did the bulk of the work.

Asked whether the desk's history or the words Lincoln set down on it spoke to him during his toil, DeGroot joked, I should say yes.

I do understand the significance," DeGroot said. "I appreciate the opportunity to help preserve it. But my part is like, 'OK, well it took me six months to do it but now its going to be here and hopefully thousands of people will be able to see this. That is really more important.

___

Follow Political Writer John OConnor at https://twitter.com/apoconnor
FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP)  A judge heard arguments Thursday over the constitutionality of allowing public tax credits to support private school tuition as a school-choice dispute reached a Kentucky courtroom.

Opponents said the provisions represent a form of aid to private education  through the state tax code  that's prohibited by Kentucky's Constitution. Attorneys defending the measure said tax credits don't amount to government spending. They claimed the provisions are constitutional.

The General Assembly has a lot of discretion as to how it might want to incentivize charitable behavior and giving using the tax structures, state Assistant Deputy Attorney General Christopher Thacker said in defending the provisions.

The hearing in Franklin County Circuit Court focused on a key part of a new state law enacted by the Republican-led legislature over Democratic Gov. Andy Beshears veto. Judge Phillip Shepherd, who indicated he hopes to rule within weeks, expressed concerns about the provisions.

The law created a form of scholarship tax credits  referred to by supporters as education opportunity accounts. Under the measure, private donors backing the accounts would be eligible for tax credits. The grants, managed by third-party groups, could be used for an array of educational expenses  including private school tuition in several of the states most populated counties.

The measure's opponents say it would undermine support for public education.

The Council for Better Education is among plaintiffs challenging the provisions. The same group sued over inequities in Kentucky school funding more than 30 years ago. That case led to passage of the landmark Kentucky Education Reform Act.

Eric Harrington, an attorney representing the plaintiffs, said during Thursday's court hearing that the legislature created an unconstitutional system to channel funds to private schools through the use of a really irresistible and attractive tax credit for wealthy donors.

Supporters of the measure say it offers opportunities for parents who want new schooling options for their children but are unable to afford them.

In raising one of his concerns during the hearing, Shepherd said the money involved is not just an act of philanthropy, its money that was owed to the state as taxes.

The judge praised efforts to help children, but he also expressed concerns that the provisions would almost inevitably" create a two-tiered system of education.

Theres going to be a small subset of kids in Kentucky who will get the advantage of this, and the rest of the kids in Kentucky are going to be excluded, Shepherd said.

Thacker responded that the provisions have an egalitarian purpose. The measure gives some low-income parents the same opportunity wealthy families already have to send their children to private schools, he said.

The lawsuit asks that the judge block state revenue officials from implementing the program and strike down those provisions.
DOVER, Del. (AP)  The ex-husband of a woman who was slain in a murder-suicide in Pennsylvania stemming from a love triangle must relinquish proceeds he received from her individual life insurance policies, a Delaware judge ruled Thursday.

But Vice Chancellor Sam Glasscock III also ruled that Meredith Sullivans ex-husband, Luke Chapman, is entitled to keep the proceeds from her University of Delaware group life insurance policy.

The rulings uphold the findings in a report issued in February by a Chancery Court officer. That report was handed down exactly three years to the day that Chapman filed for divorce from Sullivan.

The dispute over the insurance policies involved conflicting state laws and came in a case of first impression, meaning it involved a novel issue that had never been addressed previously by a Delaware court.

Sullivan was killed at her Pennsylvania residence in April 2018, two weeks after Delawares Family Court entered the divorce decree. The wife of a man with whom Sullivan was having an affair broke into her home, waited for her to arrive, then fatally shot Sullivan before killing herself. Sullivan, 33, was killed just days after taking a job as an assistant vice president at Villanova University. She had previously been a senior director for marketing at the University of Delaware.

Following Sullivans death, Chapman received the proceeds of two individual life insurance policies, for which he was the sole beneficiary. He also received insurance proceeds as the primary beneficiary on Sullivans group life insurance policy.

Sullivans mother and siblings argued that Chapman was not entitled to the insurance proceeds, even though the policies were issued in Delaware, because she had moved to Pennsylvania shortly before her death.

Under Pennsylvanias revocation upon divorce law, the former spouse of a life insurance policy holder is deemed to have predeceased the policy holder for beneficiary purposes and is not entitled to any proceeds. The law is based on the presumption that a policy holder who names a spouse as beneficiary, then is divorced and dies without having changed the beneficiary designation, nonetheless intended to remove the ex-spouse as a beneficiary.

Delaware law also has a revocation upon divorce provision but, unlike Pennsylvanias law, which applies both to wills and insurance policies, Delawares law applies only to wills.

Chapman argued in a court petition that because the divorce decree was issued in Delaware, and because the insurance policies were issued in Delaware, Delaware law governs the disposition of the insurance proceeds and he is the proper recipient.

Glassock agreed with the conclusion by Master in Chancery Patricia Griffin that, because Sullivan was living in Pennsylvania at the time of her death, Pennsylvania has a stronger policy interest in ensuring that its public policy on automatic revocation of beneficiary designations is implemented.

Pennsylvania surely has more interest in the vindication of the intent of its residents than Delaware has over non-residents, Glasscock wrote.

Regarding the group insurance policy, however, Glassock noted that the contracting parties were not Sullivan and her insurer, as was the case with the individual policies, but were the university  obviously a Delaware resident  and its insurer. Chapman, as primary beneficiary, is thus entitled under Delaware law to the proceeds of the group life insurance policy, the judge determined.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP)  An Ellis man has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for producing child pornography involving an 8-year-old child, federal prosecutors announced Thursday.

Acting U.S. Attorney Duston Slinkards Office said in a news release that Clinton Wade McElroy, 49, pleaded guilty in May to one count of production of child pornography after an earlier conviction.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP)  Kansas schools are seeing a growing number of COVID-19 outbreaks, and school-aged children are getting infected more frequently than any other age group.

The state Department of Health and Environment's latest data, reported Wednesday, showed 63 active COVID-19 clusters in schools across the state, responsible for 408 cases and one hospitalization. That's up from 31 active clusters accounting for 179 cases last week, The Topeka Capital-Journal reported. Also, 34 of this week's reported clusters are new.
BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (AP)  A Kentucky welcome center has temporarily closed for sanitation and staffing shortages due to COVID-19, officials said.

The welcome center along Interstate 65 on the Kentucky-Tennessee line closed Tuesday and is expected to remain closed until next week, a statement from the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet said. Truck parking remains open.
MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. (AP)  The father of a 7-year-old Michigan girl whose hair was cut by a teacher without her parents permission has filed a $1 million lawsuit against the school district, a librarian and a teacher's assistant.

The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in federal court in Grand Rapids against Mount Pleasant Public Schools, MLive.com reported. It alleges that the biracial girls constitutional rights were violated, racial discrimination, ethnic intimidation, intentional infliction of emotional distress and assault and battery.

Jimmy Hoffmeyer, who is Black and white, said that in March his daughter arrived home from Ganiard Elementary with much of the hair on one side of her head cut. Jurnee said a classmate used scissors to cut her hair on a school bus, Hoffmeyer told The Associated Press in April.

Two days after the bus incident  and after complaining to the principal and having Jurnees hair styled at a salon with an asymmetrical cut to make the differing lengths less obvious  Jurnee arrived home with the hair on the other side cut.

I asked what happened and said I thought I told you no child should ever cut your hair, Hoffmeyer said at the time. She said but dad, it was the teacher. The teacher cut her hair to even it out.

Jurnee's mother is white. Hoffmeyer said the girl who cut Jurnees hair and the teacher who cut it are white.

The district failed to properly train, monitor, direct, discipline, and supervise their employees, and knew or should have known that the employees would engage in the complained of behavior given the improper training, customs, procedures, and policies, and the lack of discipline that existed for employees, according to the lawsuit.

In July, the Mount Pleasant Public Schools Board of Education said the staffer who cut Jurnees hair was reprimanded and an independent third-party investigation determined that despite good intentions of the worker who cut the girls hair, doing so without permission from her parents and without the knowledge of district administrators violated school policy.

Two other employees were aware of the incident but didnt report it. All three employees have apologized, the board said.

The school board said the independent investigation found no racial bias and included interviews with district personnel, students and families and a review of video and photos, including posts on social media. District administrators also performed an internal review of the incident.

But Hoffmeyer said the district never questioned him or Jurnee. She now attends another school.

Amy Bond, Mount Pleasant Public Schools Board of Education president, said Thursday that the district has not received the complaint.

We are confident that the facts will prevail given our districts appropriate and aggressive response to the incident and the findings of the third-party investigation that was conducted, Bond said in a statement. We will aggressively defend against these baseless allegations in court and will not allow this to distract us from our mission to provide every child a world-class education that prepares them for college and careers.

The district is located about 150 miles (241 kilometers) northwest of Detroit. About 4% of Mount Pleasants 25,000 residents are Black, according to the U.S. Census.
PHOENIX (AP)  An attorney representing the Republican-controlled Arizona Senate told a judge Thursday that the long-delayed review of 2020 election results in the state's most populous county will be released next week.

The results of the so-called audit of President Joe Biden's win and their unprecedented review of Maricopa County's vote counts, elections procedures, voting machines and related computers will be made public on Sept. 24, attorney Kory Langhofer told the judge.

Langhofer was ordered to say when the final report would be ready by Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Michael Kemp at the conclusion of a hearing on a public records lawsuit related to the review. The Senate had fought to keep its records and those of its outside contractors secret, but Kemp ruled both the Senate's records and those of its outside contractors must be made public.

The Arizona Court of Appeals upheld the ruling on the contractors' records last month in a decision allowed to stand Tuesday by the Arizona Supreme Court.

The Senate has already turned over a raft of records after losing the lawsuit filed by the watchdog group American Oversight. But so far, Cyber Ninjas and other contractors that conducted the recount have not turned over any documents.

Langhofer told Kemp on Thursday that he expects the companies to give the records to the Senate, which will review them and release any that are not subject to being withheld due to legislative or attorney-client privilege. He also said several thousand Senate records withheld on privilege grounds continue to be a matter of dispute between the Senate and the watchdog group, and Kemp may ultimately need to review them and decide if they should be made public.

Senate President Karen Fann told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Cyber Ninjas and the contractor had not yet handed over the completed audit, which was launched amid unfounded claims by former President Donald Trump that he lost in Arizona and other battleground states because of fraud.

I havent even seen the whole report, Fann said Ive been able to see some bits and pieces and mostly that was just in conversations.

When pressed by the judge to say whether the Senate has received the draft report, Langhofer said not yet.

I believe the Senate is in possession of, or its agents are in possession of, a draft report, but not from Cyber Ninjas," he said. "There were some ancillary reports, but the main one the Senate does not have yet.

Fann has repeatedly said that Senate Republicans plan to review the report and may make changes before it is released.

But American Oversight attorney Keith Beauchamp said that he wants the draft report released immediately.

Your honor, our view is we ought to receive that today if it's in their possession and it's a public document, Beauchamp said.

Langhofer disagreed, arguing that a draft report is not public, and the two sides agreed to take that issue up later.

Multiple courts have now confirmed that these records belong to the public, not to Cyber Ninjas, and they must be released, American Oversight Executive Director Austin Evers said in a statement after the hearing ended. With the Senate apparently releasing its audit report next Friday, its more urgent than ever for the public to get the full story about how this process was conducted.

Senate Republicans issued subpoenas to Maricopa County for all 2020 ballots, the machines that counted them and other data in the states most populated county early this year.

The materials were given to contractors with little to no election experience for what Fann calls a forensic audit. Election experts say the 2020 election was secure and well-run, and the contractors are using bizarre and unreliable procedures. Maricopa County has refused further participation.

Even after the report is released, the Senate plans to do additional probes of the county's election systems. The Senate issued additional subpoenas in late July seeking access to the county's computer routers, but the Board of Supervisors refused to hand them over, saying elections equipment was never hooked into the county's system and handing over the routers would compromise law enforcement, health and other sensitive records.

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich issued a decision late in August that said the county must comply. He said an earlier judicial ruling said Senate subpoenas were valid, and the county would be penalized under a state law that withholds shared revenues to local governments if they don't hand over the routers. He gave the county until Sept. 27 to comply.

The Republican-dominated Board of Supervisors has discussed the decision in closed session several times without taking action. But on Thursday it posted an agenda for an special Friday afternoon meeting where it said it may decide how to proceed. Brnovich had suggested a negotiated settlement.

The audit that began in April was originally set to take about 60 days, but there have been repeated delays. Most recently, Cyber Ninjas canceled plans to submit its report last month saying several of its team members contracted COVID-19 and had serious symptoms.

Fann, Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan, volunteers who worked on the audit and several Republican senators who have vocally backed the review gathered Wednesday night for a celebratory reunion, according to numerous social media posts. GOP state Sen. Wendy Rogers in one post called the volunteers Patriots, everyone of them - real people who did the Lords work.

Other Republican-controlled battleground states are also considering or starting reviews of Biden's 2020 election wins. On Wednesday, Pennsylvania GOP senators pressed ahead with conducting their own forensic investigation of the election.

___

Associated Press reporter Jonathan J. Cooper contributed.
WASHINGTON (AP)  The prosecutor tasked with examining the U.S. government's investigation into Russian election interference charged a prominent cybersecurity lawyer on Thursday with making a false statement to the FBI five years ago.

The indictment accuses Michael Sussmann of hiding that he was working with Hillary Clintons presidential campaign during a September 2016 conversation he had with the FBIs general counsel, when he relayed concerns from cybersecurity researchers about potentially suspicious contacts between a Russian bank and a Trump Organization server. The FBI looked into the matter but ultimately found no evidence of a secret back channel.

That deception mattered because it deprived the FBI of information that might have permitted it to more fully assess and uncover the origins of the relevant data and technical analysis, including the identities and motivations of Sussmann's clients, according to the indictment filed by special counsel John Durham and his team of prosecutors.

Sussmann's lawyers said their client was charged because of politics, not facts.

The Special Counsel appears to be using this indictment to advance a conspiracy theory he has chosen not to actually charge. This case represents the opposite of everything the Department of Justice is supposed to stand for. Mr. Sussmann will fight this baseless and politically-inspired prosecution, attorneys Sean Berkowitz and Michael Bosworth said in a statement.

The case against Sussmann is just the second prosecution brought by Durham in two and a half years of work. Both involve false statements, yet neither undoes the core finding of an earlier investigation by Robert Mueller that Russia had interfered in sweeping fashion on behalf of Donald Trumps 2016 presidential campaign and that the Trump campaign welcomed that aid.

The indictment also lays bare the wide-ranging and evolving nature of Durham's investigation. In addition to having scrutinized the activities of FBI and CIA officials during the early days of the Russia probe, it has also looked at the behavior of private individuals like Sussman who provided the U.S. government with information as it scrambled to determine whether Trump associates were coordinating with Russia to tip the election's outcome.

The indictment concerns a Sept. 19, 2016, meeting at FBI headquarters between Sussmann and the FBI's then-general counsel, James Baker. During the meeting, prosecutors say, Sussmann provided Baker with three white papers and data files that purported to show a potential connection between Russia-based Alfa Bank and a Trump Organization server.

The indictment notes that the FBI investigation determined that the email server was not actually owned or operated by the Trump Organization but was instead administered by a mass marketing email company that sent advertisements for Trump hotels.

According to the indictment, Sussmann said he was not presenting the materials on behalf of any particular client, which prosecutors say led Baker to believe that Sussmann was acting as a good citizen rather than a paid advocate or political operative.

Sussmann's attorneys say he met with Baker because a major news organization was about to publish a story about Alfa Bank, and he wanted to give Baker a copy of the material on which the story would be based. Besides, they say, it didn't matter who Sussmann's clients were because the FBI would presumably have looked into the issue whether there was a political connection or not.

The Alfa Bank matter was not a pivotal element of the Russia probe and was not even mentioned in Muellers 448-page report in 2019. Still, the indictment may give fodder to Russia investigation critics who regard the probe as politically tainted and engineered by Democrats.

Sussmanns former firm, Perkins Coie, has deep Democratic connections. Sussmann represented the Democratic National Committee in connection with a Russian government hack of its email servers. A then-partner at the firm, Marc Elias, brokered a deal with the Fusion GPS research firm to study Trumps business ties to Russia.

That work yielded a dossier of research from former British spy Christopher Steele that helped form the basis of flawed surveillance applications targeting a former Trump campaign official, Carter Page.

A spokesman for Perkins Coie said Sussmann, "who has been on leave from the firm, offered his resignation from the firm in order to focus on his legal defense, and the firm accepted it.

The Durham investigation has already lasted months longer than the earlier special counsel probe into Russian election interference conducted by Mueller, the former FBI director, and his team. The investigation was slowed by the coronavirus pandemic and experienced leadership tumult following the abrupt departure last fall of a top deputy on Durham's team.

Though Trump had eagerly anticipated Durhams findings in hopes that theyd be a boon to his reelection campaign, any political impact the conclusion may have once had has been dimmed by the fact that Trump is no longer in office.

The Durham appointment by then-Attorney General William Barr in 2019 was designed to examine potential errors or misconduct in the U.S. governments investigation into whether Trumps 2016 presidential campaign was conspiring with Russia to sway the election.

A two-year investigation by Mueller established that the Trump campaign was eager to receive and benefit from Kremlin aid, and documented multiple interactions between Russians and Trump associates. Investigators said they did not find enough evidence to charge any campaign official with having conspired with Russia, though a half-dozen Trump aides were charged with various offenses, including false statements.

Until now, Durham had brought only one criminal case  a false statement charge against an FBI lawyer who altered an email related to the surveillance of Page to obscure the nature of Pages preexisting relationship with the CIA. That lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to probation.
CAIRO (AP)  Forces loyal to a powerful Libyan commander said Thursday they are now battling their former allies, Chadian rebels who have sought refuge in southern Libya as they fight the government in Chad's capital, N'Djamena.

The self-styled Libyan army led by commander Khalifa Hifter said it launched an operation against the Chadian fighters in the Libyan towns of Tamsah and Tarbo, on the border with Chad.

The clashes, which flared up earlier this week, could further destabilize the wider Sahel region, months after Chadian President Idriss Deby Itno  who ruled Chad for more than 30 years and became an important ally to Western nations in the fight against Islamic extremism in Africa  was killed under murky circumstances. The Chadian government blames the rebels for his killing.

Hifters forces, which control eastern and most of southern Libya, said they launched airstrikes on the rebels positions and sent reinforcement to the border area.

The Chadian rebels  the Front for Change and Concord in Chad, also known by the French acronym FACT  reportedly have 1,000 to 1,500 fighters in their ranks. In April they clashed with Chadian forces north of NDjamena, leading to the killing of Deby.

It was not clear what caused the fighting, but the rebels claimed that Hifter's forces, in cooperation with France, aim to capture or kill their leader, Mahamat Mahdi Ali, who is currently in Libya. They provided no evidence for that claim.

Hifter's forces and the Chadian rebels were allies in his failed attempt to capture the Libyan capital of Tripoli from a U.N.-supported government there. That campaign lasted 14 months and ended with a cease-fire in 2020, leading to an interim government that is supposed to take Libya into national elections in December.

A U.N. experts report earlier this year said Hifter's forces used the Chadian rebels to protect oil facilities during his 2019 attack on Tripoli.

Libya has been in turmoil since 2011, when a civil war toppled long-time dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who was later killed. The country has for years split between rival administrations in the east and the west, each backed by armed groups.
SOUTH BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP)  The middle and high schools in South Burlington, Vermont, had been on lockdown for part of Thursday afternoon after the school administration received word that some students were being threatened by other students claiming to be armed, the superintendent said.

We want to begin by letting all of you know that all students and staff in the school buildings are safe at this time," Superintendent David Young said in a letter to parents, WCAX-TV reported.
GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, Ariz. (AP)  Authorities were searching Thursday for a Maryland man reported missing at Grand Canyon National Park.

Park officials said they received a report around 9 p.m. Tuesday about an overdue backpacker in the vicinity of the Walhalla Plateau on the canyons North Rim.

They said 66-year-old Clifton Cliff Beck of Mount Airy had obtained a backcountry permit to spend two nights on the Walhalla Plateau.

It is believed that Beck is travelling alone. He was expected to exit the backcountry last Sunday.

Park rangers searched unsuccessfully by aircraft Wednesday for Beck.

Thursdays operations include deployment of nine ground search teams as well as aerial searches by helicopter and fixed-wing aircraft in the Walhalla Plateau area.
LANSING, Mich. (AP)  The Michigan Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a challenge to deadlines set by a commission that is drawing new maps for seats in Congress and the Legislature, but the legal battle is not over.

The court turned down an opportunity to immediately accept a lawsuit. But it also said it soon would set rules for additional litigation.
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP)  The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled Thursday that unanimous votes are required for the state Board of Pardons to grant clemency.

Justices overruled a lower court that had declared the 124-year-old standard to be unconstitutional. The order by Justice G. Barry Anderson means that the three board members all must agree to grant a pardon, Minnesota Public Radio reported.
AP

HONOLULU (AP)  The adoptive parents of a missing 6-year-old Hawaii girl pulled her out of school to home-school her, the state Department of Education said.

Isabella Kalua attended kindergarten at Waimanalo Elementary last school year via distance learning, said Nanea Kalani, a spokeswoman for the education department. In June, her adoptive parents filed paperwork with the school to withdraw the child to home-school her, Kalani said.
PALISADES PARK, N.J. (AP)  New Jersey will institute universal pre-kindergarten across the state for all 3- and 4-year-olds, Gov. Phil Murphy said Thursday.

Murphy, a Democrat running for reelection this year, has increased state funding for pre-K since he took office in 2018 by 35%, but the pledge Thursday will expand the availability of early childhood education.

So far in the state, 140 of New Jersey's roughly 600 districts have state-funded pre-K programs.

While we still have a long way to go to achieve pre-K for all, todays expansion further demonstrates our commitment to reaching as many students as possible, Murphy said.

It's unclear how long the expansion will take and how much it would cost. Murphy didn't specify a timeline, but he tasked the state Department of Education with making a plan to meet the goal.

Florida, Vermont and the District of Columbia have truly universal pre-K programs, meaning they're not capped based on income or enrollment levels, according to the nonpartisan Education Commission of the States. New Jersey would join that list under Murphy's proposal.

New Jersey already funds some pre-K, stemming from a nearly two-decade-old court case that led to pre-K program funding in cities and towns with high poverty rates.

Thursday's announcement won praise from lawmakers as well as from the state's biggest teachers union, the New Jersey Education Association.

The announcement comes just as mail-in ballots are about to go out to voters who opted to get them in the Nov. 2 election. Murphy faces Republican challenger former Assembly member Jack Ciattarelli. Ciattarelli has called for expanding pre-K through private daycare providers.
WASHINGTON (AP)  A Muslim civil rights group is calling for a boycott of Hilton hotels over what it says are plans to build a hotel on the site of a bulldozed Uyghur mosque in China.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations and other organizations held a news conference Thursday outside the Capital Hilton in Washington announcing the boycott campaign.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP)  The office of Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry issued its first public statement Thursday about evidence authorities say they have of phone calls between him and a key suspect in the presidential assassination, saying he received countless calls from people concerned for his safety following the slaying.

The office said it is unable to identify all those who called him or determine the nature of the conversations, noting that Henry couldnt take all the calls.

After an act of such gravity, many people naturally wanted to inquire about his situation, the office said, referring to the July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moise.

Former Port-au-Prince chief prosecutor Bed-Ford Claude, whom Henry dismissed this week, invited the prime minister to meet with him to talk about two calls between him and Joseph Badio that took place just hours after Moise was killed.

Badio once worked for Haitis Ministry of Justice and at the governments anti-corruption unit until he was fired in May amid accusations of violating unspecified ethical rules. Police say they are looking for him on charges including murder.

Claude said evidence shows that Badio was in the vicinity of Moises home when the calls were made, and on Tuesday, just hours before he was fired, Claude asked the judge in the case to charge Henry.

The prime ministers office said political interests do not allow anyone to make serious and baseless innuendos, much less to attempt to hand someone over to popular retribution.

It added: Conversations with individuals against whom charges are laid cannot, in any case, be used to incriminate anyone.

The office also said Henry is doing his utmost to identify all those involved and bring them to justice: Nothing will distract him from this goal. It is a duty to the memory of the president, his family and the Haitian people.

Moise had selected Henry as prime minister shortly before he was killed, and he assumed the position a couple weeks after the assassination.

Henrys office issued the statement hours after Haitis new justice minister pledged to find those responsible for high-profile killings as he spoke publicly for the first time since taking over from his predecessor, whom Henry also fired this week.

Justice Minister Liszt Quitel said he is prioritizing the killings of Moise and Monferrier Dorval, head of Port-au-Princes Bar Association, who was killed at his home last August.

Quitel also said he aims to fight gangs and reduce lengthy pretrial detentions, with thousands of people languishing in prison for years without a single hearing.

There is no more room for distraction or diversion, confusion and petty infighting, he said. The task is immense.

Quitel takes over the position from former Justice Minister Rockfeller Vincent, whom Henry dismissed a day after he fired Port-au-Princes chief prosecutor earlier this week for an undefined serious administrative fault.

Quitel only briefly mentioned Moises killing in his speech as he promised to establish coherence and harmony between Haitis judicial and executive powers.

We are living in difficult times with pressing needs for justice and security, he said.

Quitel is one of three new officials taking over top government positions in Haiti this week. Claude was replaced by prosecutor Frantz Louis Juste, while Renald Luberice, who served as secretary general for Haitis Council of Ministers, resigned on Wednesday, saying he could not serve under Henry and accused him of obstructing justice. He was replaced by Josue Pierre Louis.

The abrupt firings and resignation have led some to question the future of the Tet Kale party in power as the investigation into Moises killing continues while Haiti prepares for legislative and presidential elections scheduled for early November.

It feels like whatever the outcome of the investigation, this is obviously a break between key figures, said Laurent Dubois, a Haiti expert and Duke University professor. It might create cracks for other political actors to move in.

Dubois said he wonders whether those around Henry will support him or distance themselves from him in the near future, deepening Haitis political instability as it not only tries to recover from the assassination but from an Aug. 14 earthquake that killed more than 2,200 people.

If they feel hes kind of going down, they dont want to be next to him when it happens, Dubois said.

Shortly after resigning, Luberice, the former council of ministers secretary general, helped found a political movement called Gathering of Jovenelists for Democracy, which aims to find justice for Moise. Among those in the group is Claude Joseph, the former prime minister who led the country after the assassination until Henry was installed.

Among those calling for Henry to step down is Haiti's ombudsman-like Office of Citizen Protection, which also urged the international community to stop supporting him. However, the Core Group, composed of ambassadors from Germany, Brazil, Canada, Spain, the U.S., France, the European Union and representatives from the United Nations and the Organization of American States, issued a statement on Wednesday evening saying it supports efforts by Henry and other political leaders to form an inclusive government.
TORONTO (AP)  Barack Obama endorsed Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday in the Canadian election, calling him an effective leader in a rare endorsement of a Canadian candidate by a former American president.

It is the second time Obama has done it. Obama also urged Canadians to re-elect the Liberal leader in Canadas last election in 2019.

Obama tweeted Thursday that he was proud to work with Trudeau and described him as an effective leader who has strong democratic values.

Trudeau is in a tough re-election fight with his Conservative rival ahead of Mondays parliamentary elections. Obama's endorsement helped Trudeau with progressives in 2019.

Obama also endorsed Emmanuel Macron for president in Frances 2017 election, and he warned British voters against leaving the European Union.

Trudeau formed a close relationship with Obama when he was president.

Thanks for your support, @BarackObama, Trudeau tweeted. Progress is on the ballot  and we're going to keep fighting for it.

The former president has long been popular with many Canadians.

"This is welcomed by Trudeau and Co. but not a surprise," said Nelson Wiseman, a political science professor at the University of Toronto Will Obamas endorsement make a difference? Not many voters are still undecided so the material impact of Obamas endorsement is minimal in my opinion. I think it is more symbolic of Liberal affinity with the Democrats which has been the case since JFK in the 1960s.

Daniel Beland, a political science professor at McGill University, said it can only help Trudeau with progressive voters.

Obama remains very popular in Canada and, although its unlikely to alter the race, this is something positive for the Liberals, Beland said.
TRENTON, N.J. (AP)  A northern New Jersey police officer admitted Thursday that he traveled to Atlantic City earlier this year in a bid to sexually assault two young girls.

Stephen Wilson, 34, a Bayonne resident who served on the Jersey City force, pleaded guilty to attempted aggravated sexual assault, according to the state Attorney General's office. Prosecutors will recommend that he get an eight-year state prison term when he's sentenced Oct. 21, and Wilson will also have to register as a sex offender and will be put on lifetime parole supervision once he's freed.
HOWELL, Mich. (AP)  A Michigan lawmaker ordered to jail in a drunken driving case is accused of taping a handcuff key to his foot.

The key was discovered when state Rep. Jewell Jones, a Detroit-area Democrat, was placed in jail Tuesday for violating bond conditions, authorities said.

"He truly believes that he doesnt have to follow the judges orders, doesnt have to follow rules, said Livingston County Sheriff Michael Murphy, who runs the jail. Hes the reason that politicians and elected officials get the bad rap.

Jones, 26, returned to court Wednesday to face new charges over the key.

Allegations in this matter allege the defendant taping a handcuff key to the bottom of his foot with clear tape and was found by Livingston County corrections officers upon his incarceration, assistant prosecutor Carolyn Henry said in a court filing.

Defense attorney Byron Nolan said Jewell realizes the seriousness of the allegations.

The sheriff said he doesn't know why Jones had a handcuff key.

At the end of the day, folks are handcuffed to and from a facility. If someone has a handcuff key, thats a bad day for us," Murphy told the Livingston Daily Press & Argus.

Jones has been in and out of court since April when he was charged with drunken driving, resisting police and other offenses. That case is pending.

Separately, Jones was removed from his House committee assignments Thursday. House Speaker Jason Wentworth, a Republican, said the latest allegations were a new low.
HONOLULU (AP)  Some Hawaii schools are participating in a state Department of Health program that provides COVID-19 testing for students, teachers and staff.

Most of the public schools that have registered haven't started testing yet, but state Epidemiologist Sarah Kemble told members of the Hawaii House Committee on Pandemic and Disaster Preparedness the program is moving quickly, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported.
PITTSBURGH (AP)  A Syrian refugee accused of plotting to bomb a Christian church in Pittsburgh and who was inspired by the Islamic State group pleaded guilty to a federal charge on Thursday and awaits sentencing.

Pittsburgh resident Mustafa Mousab Alowemer, 23, entered the plea to attempting to provide material support and resources to the Islamic Stage group, a militant extremist organization.

Authorities have said he had detailed plans in 2019 to bomb the Legacy International Worship Center, a small Christian church on the city's North Side.

Federal prosecutors said at the plea hearing that he talked about potentially planting a second explosive device, timing the detonation to coincide with when first responders would begin to arrive, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported.

Defense attorney Andrew Lipson told the judge that Alowemer did not agree with the prosecutions allegation that he had plotted a second attack, the paper said.

That truly was not his intention or desire, Lipson said.

In a release, the U.S. attorney's office said Alowemer wanted to inspire other U.S. supporters of the Islamic State group to conduct similar actions.

Alowemer gave someone he thought was a fellow IS supporter instructions about how to build and use explosives in May 2019, but that person was in fact with the FBI, prosecutors said. A month later, they said, he purchased nails and nail polish remover to build an explosive device, they said.

In a June 2019 meeting with an FBI agent and an FBI confidential source, Alowemer gave them maps with arrival and escape routes, and a handwritten, 10-point plan about how he would deliver the explosives in a backpack. He was arrested about a week later.

He faces up to 20 years in prison at sentencing in January and remains in federal custody. Authorities say Alowemer was born in Syria and came to the United States in 2016.
MADRID (AP)  A series of small earthquakes in Spains Canary Islands has put authorities on alert for a possible volcanic eruption, with one official saying Thursday there is intense seismic activity in the area off northwest Africa.

Authorities have detected more than 4,200 temblors in what scientists are calling an earthquake swarm around La Palma island since last Saturday. An earthquake swarm is a cluster of quakes in one area during a short period and can indicate an approaching eruption.

But officials said they had no indication an eruption was imminent, and a scientific committee monitoring the activity said that the number of tremors and their magnitude had fallen Thursday.

Even so, the Scientific Committee for the Special Civil Protection Plan and Emergency Response for Volcanic Risks warned there could be a rapid, renewed surge in quakes and kept the public warning level on yellow, according to private Spanish news agency Europa Press.

Volcano warnings are announced in accordance with the level of risk, rising through green, yellow, orange and red.

The committee reported that ground depressions up to 10 centimeters (4 inches) deep have formed  an occurrence often attributed to magma movements.

Before a volcano erupts, there is a gradual increase in seismic activity that can build up over a prolonged period.

The Canary Islands Volcanology Institute said that by Thursday 11 million cubic meters (388 million cubic feet) of molten rock had been pushed into Cumbre Vieja, a dormant volcanic ridge on La Palma where the last eruption was in 1971. The strongest quake so far was a magnitude 3.4 one, according to the institute.

La Palma has a population of around 85,000 people.

The institute has is telling staff on the island to monitor any changes, including testing the water in wells.

The Canary Islands are a volcanic archipelago made up of eight islands. At their nearest point to Africa, they are 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Morocco.
Charles Rex Arbogast/AP

MADISON, Wis. (AP)  Tommy Thompson, the longest-serving governor in Wisconsin history and current interim president of the University of Wisconsin System, had surgery Thursday following a water-skiing accident.

On my way in to surgery this morning, the 79-year-old Thompson posted on Facebook. Had a little water skiing accident over the weekend and have to have my bicep reattached to the tendon.
EDWARDSVILLE  Granite City and East Alton men were charged Tuesday with possession of cannabis and psilocybin.

Jacob T. Epperson, 21, of Granite City, and Hunter A. Voegele, 22, of East Alton, were each charged with unlawful possession of cannabis with intent to deliver, Class X felonies, and unlawful possession of psilocybin with intent to deliver, Class 1 felonies.

The cases were presented by the Metropolitan Enforcement Group of Southwestern Illinois.

According to court documents, on Sept. 13 the two allegedly were found to be in possession of more than 5,000 grams of cannabis and more than 50 grams of psilocybin with intent to deliver.

Bail was set at $200,000 each.

Other drug-related felony charges filed Sept. 14 by the Madison County States Attorneys Office include:

 Dalton A. Bandy, 24, of Fairview Heights, was charged with unlawful possession of methamphetamine and theft over $500, both Class 3 felonies. The case was presented by the Collinsville Police Department. On Sept. 14 Bandy allegedly was found to be in possession of less than five grams of methamphetamine, and took 116 wooden pallets valued in excess of $500 from Rural King, 9525 Collinsville Road. Bail was set at $30,000.

 Matthew S. Holmes, 36, of Granite City, was charged with unlawful possession of methamphetamine, a Class 3 felony, and aggravated fleeing or attempting to elude a police officer, a Class 4 felony. The case was presented by the Granite City Police Department. On Sept. 14 Holmes allegedly was found to be in possession of less than five grams of methamphetamine. He also is accused of driving a 2005 Ford Mustang when he attempted to flee a Granite City police officer, disobeying two or more traffic control devices. Bail was set at $30,000.

 Tamala B. Myers, 41, of Collinsville, was charged with unlawful possession of methamphetamine, a Class 3 felony. The case was presented by the Madison County Sheriffs Department. On Sept. 14 Myers allegedly was found to be in possession of less than five grams of methamphetamine. Bail was set at $30,000.

 Jerad D. Gettings, 31, of Edwardsville, was charged with unlawful possession of methamphetamine, a Class 3 felony. The case was presented by the Roxana Police Department. On July 11 Gettings allegedly was found to be in possession of less than five grams of methamphetamine. Bail was set at $30,000.

 Jacob A. Young-Delatte, 31, listed as homeless out of Granite City, was charged with unlawful possession of methamphetamine, a Class 3 felony. The case was presented by the Granite City Police Department. On Sept. 13 Young-Delatte allegedly was found to be in possession of less than five grams of methamphetamine. Bail was set at $30,000.

 Christopher J. Anderson, 30, of was charged with unlawful possession of a controlled substance and aggravated fleeing or attempting to elude a police officer, both Class 4 felonies. The case was presented by the Madison County Sheriffs Department. On Sept. 13 Anderson allegedly was found to be in possession of less than 15 grams of cocaine. He also is accused of driving a 2008 Yamaha when he fled from a sheriffs deputy, reaching speeds in excess of 21 miles per hour over the posted speed limit. Bail was set at $20,000.

 Jason M. Higdon, 37, of Wood River, was charged with unlawful possession of a controlled substance, a Class 4 felony. The case was presented by the Roxana Police Department. On April 6 Higdon was found to be in possession of less than 15 grams of buprenorphine. Bail was set at $20,000.

 Maylynn T. Holloway, 28, of South Roxana, was charged with unlawful possession of a controlled substance, a Class 4 felony. The case was presented by the Roxana Police Department. On July 13 Holloway allegedly was found to be in possession of less than 15 grams of fentanyl. Bail was set at $20,000.

 Ashly L Rexford, 36, of Wood River, was charged with unlawful possession of a controlled substance, a Class 4 felony. The case was presented by the Bethalto Police Department. On May 12 Rexford allegedly was found to be in possession of less than 15 grams of fentanyl. Bail was set at $20,000.
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP)  Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaros reluctance to get a COVID-19 vaccine is a rarity in his country  and may complicate his plans to attend the U.N.s General Assembly next week.

The assemblys leader, Abdulla Shahid, announced Wednesday that all attendees must be vaccinated to speak at the gathering, citing a New York City policy. That could bar Bolsonaro, a beleaguered right-wing leader seeking to rehabilitate his image abroad.

Bolsonaro plans to travel to New York for the assembly, he said in a live broadcast on social media Thursday night. But his press office did not respond to questions about his vaccination status. The president, who was infected with the virus last year, told supporters as recently as Tuesday that he remains unvaccinated.

It was not immediately clear how the rule would be enforced. Spokespersons for Shahid and for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Thursday that discussions were ongoing, and Guterres spokesperson Stephane Dujarric suggested the result could be an honor system in which anyone entering the hall would attest to being vaccinated.

We fully expect to find appropriate solutions," he said at a news briefing.

Whether Bolsonaro will eventually get vaccinated  or already has, quietly  is a matter of speculation in Brazil, where COVID-19 has killed more than 585,000 people. Thats the worlds second-highest death toll, and the eighth highest on a per-capita basis. Most Brazilians are eager to get their shots. The country's vaccination program even has a beloved mascot, Joe Droplet.

When vaccines were about to roll out at the end of last year, the president was intransigent, repeatedly saying he wouldnt receive a shot nor force anyone else to do so.

Im not going to take the vaccine, period, he said in a television interview in December. You think my life is at risk? Thats my problem. Period.

Invoking personal freedom jibed with his staunch opposition to restrictions aimed at limiting the virus spread. He said no one should be kept from coming and going as they please. He touted the supposed healing powers of the anti-malarial chloroquine long after scientists around the world had dismissed it as ineffective. He has routinely presented himself as willing to stand up against experts.

In his debut General Assembly appearance in 2019, Bolsonaro struck a defiant tone, railing against socialism and what he described as media sensationalism regarding fires in the Amazon rainforest. The next year, in a recorded video, he said Brazil was the victim of an environmental smear and stressed the economic harm caused by pandemic stay-at-home recommendations.

This year, more than 100 heads of state and 23 cabinet ministers plan to deliver speeches at the U.N. in person. Other leaders are speaking by video  the only option available last year.

Per tradition, the Brazilian leader speaks first and is followed by the U.S. president. That provides an opportunity to at least swap pleasantries backstage. Bolsonaros administration has been working to demonstrate to Joe Biden its heightened commitment to stemming Amazon deforestation, and he may herald recent preliminary results pointing in the right direction.

Although a Brazilian foreign minister has spoken at the General Assembly in lieu of the president dozens of times, that isn't in Bolsonaros interest, given global scorn for his environmental track record, his authoritarian impulses and his alleged mismanagement of the pandemic, said Mauricio Santoro, a professor of political science and international relations.

Bolsonaro's international image is so bad that addressing the assembly "could be an opportunity for him to try to deliver a better message about himself to the world, said Santoro, who teaches at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. Its important for him to go there.

Bolsonaro spent months sowing doubt about vaccines, especially the one produced by Chinese firm Sinovac. He also warned that there would be no legal recourse against Pfizer for anyone suffering side effects. Women might grow beards and mens voices turn high-pitched, he joked. People could even transform into alligators.

The presidents skepticism initially resonated among his base and in some of Brazils less-educated communities, but ultimately it did little to dampen Brazilians desire for vaccines. Recent polls show about 9 of 10 people have either been vaccinated for plan to do so. Some have mocked Bolsonaros far-fetched claims by rolling up their sleeves while dressed in alligator costumes.

The government changed tack and began promoting vaccines, and the effort paid off. A greater share of Brazil's population has now received first shots than in the U.S.

Many are doubtful that Bolsonaro is unvaccinated, including Santoro.

Perhaps he received a vaccine, but doesnt want to tell his supporters, because he spoke against vaccines for so many months, Santoro said.

Publicly, anyway, Bolsonaro remains reticent.

Why take the vaccine? To have antibodies, isnt that right? My antibody levels are way up high, he said Thursday night. After everybody in Brazil is vaccinated, Ill decide.

___ Associated Press writers Jennifer Peltz at the United Nations and Diane Jeantet in Rio de Janeiro contributed to this report.

___ Follow David Biller on Twitter at https://www.twitter.com/DLBiller
MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (AP)  A Tennessee university will once again seek permission to strip the name of a Confederate general from one of its buildings, officials said.

Middle Tennessee State Universitys Board of Trustees voted unanimously Tuesday to petition the Tennessee Historical Commission for approval to remove the name of Confederate Lt. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest from an Army ROTC building, news outlets reported.
RAPID CITY, S.D. (AP)  The South Dakota School of Mines and Technology has been awarded an $11 million federal grant to develop better material and manufacturing technology to withstand cold weather.

South Dakota Mines will partner with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Cold Regions and Engineering Lab. The research will be done over five years and is aimed at developing better materials and technology to support the Army's military objectives in cold and remote regions.
GRUNDY, Va. (AP)  Democrat Terry McAuliffe and Republican Glenn Youngkin clashed over abortion and vaccination policies Thursday in Virginias first gubernatorial debate of the general election season, as each sought to cast the other as extreme.

The candidates in the closely watched race met at the Appalachian School of Law in Grundy, a small town in southwest Virginia, where the debate got off to a relatively heated start, with cross-talk and occasional snide remarks.

The first questions of the night dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic, which has left more than 12,000 Virginians dead and hospitalized tens of thousands more. The candidates' answers highlighted the already clear differences about how they would approach attempting to manage the virus.

Asked his position on President Joe Biden's sweeping new vaccine mandates issued earlier this month, Youngkin called himself a strong advocate for the COVID-19 vaccines but said he thought the president lacked the authority to dictate that workers receive one.

I have been a strong, strong advocate for everyone to get the vaccine. I do believe that individuals should be allowed to make that decision on their own, said Youngkin, a former business executive and political newcomer.

McAuliffe criticized Youngkin as failing to show leadership, saying later in the debate: His Day One plan would be to unleash COVID because he doesnt believe we should mandate vaccinations.

He also accused Youngkin of urging college students to use loopholes to get past universities vaccine mandates, with the Democrats campaign promptly highlighting a tape of Youngkin saying, I encourage people to ... stand up for your exception.

The candidates stark differences on abortion were also on display during the hourlong debate. Each sought to make the case that the other was out of line with the mainstream. McAuliffe said Youngkin wants to ban abortion, while Youngkin called McAuliffe the most extreme pro-abortion candidate in America today.

McAuliffe, who often promises to be a brick wall against legislation that would curtail abortion access, was asked a question about third-trimester abortions and indicated he would support loosening a requirement that three doctors sign off on the procedure. He called it an issue of fairness for women in rural communities.

Youngkin, who describes himself as pro-life but says he supports exceptions for rape, incest or to save a mother's life, said he would not have signed Texas new law banning most abortions but indicated he would support a pain threshold bill.

Apart from this weeks recall election in California, only Virginia and New Jersey are electing governors this year, and the Virginia race is by far the most competitive. Thats meant the contest has drawn outsized national attention as a possible indicator of voter sentiment heading into the 2022 national midterm elections.

Polls have generally shown McAuliffe, who previously served as governor from 2014-2018, with a slight edge over Youngkin.

While Virginia has been trending blue for over a decade, Republicans are optimistic about their chances this year, hoping that a diverse statewide ticket and a historical trend of opposition in Virginia to the party in control of the White House will boost their odds.

Youngkin, a former co-CEO of the investment firm The Carlyle Group, also has the vast personal wealth to help bankroll his campaign.

Campaign finance records filed Wednesday that covered the past two months showed Youngkin with a significant fundraising advantage over McAuliffe, thanks to $4.5 million Youngkin loaned his campaign. But McAuliffe, a prodigious fundraiser, will enter the final two months of the campaign with an advantage in cash on hand, with $12.6 million in the bank compared to $6 million for Youngkin, the records show.

Once best known as a top Democratic Party fundraiser, McAuliffe jumped into the race in December with something close to incumbent status, having preceded current Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam in office. Virginia law does not allow governor to serve consecutive terms.

McAuliffe went on to win a resounding victory in Junes five-way Democratic primary.

Youngkin captured the GOP nomination in a seven-way convention in May.

During their closing remarks, McAuliffe told voters Youngkin was too extreme and a Trump wannabe. He said that he had the on-the-job experience needed to provide a steady hand and guide Virginia out of the pandemic.

Youngkin made the case that it's time for a fresh perspective.

Do you want tired, old recycled policies from a tired politician? Or do you want to embrace someone new, a business leader who knows how to create jobs and get things done? he said.

Thursdays debate was moderated by Susan Page, the Washington bureau chief of USA Today, who assertively pressed both candidates when they avoided giving direct answers. Page was joined by panelists Bob Holsworth, a veteran Virginia political analyst, and Candace Burns, an anchor for TV station WTVR in Richmond.

Princess Blanding, an activist and educator making a long-shot third-party bid, was not part of the event.

The debate was held a day before early in-person voting was to begin at local voter registration offices and was the first of two debates the candidates have agreed to before the Nov. 2 election. The second is planned for Sept. 28 at a community college in northern Virginia.

Also on the ballot this fall are races for attorney general and lieutenant governor, positions currently held by Democrats. Democrats will also be defending their majority in the House of Delegates, with all 100 seats on the ballot.

___

Rankin reported from Nellysford, Virginia.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP)  A West Virginia woman has been sentenced to nearly three years in federal prison for defrauding Charleston-area businesses.

Misty Brotherton-Tanner, 41, was sentenced in federal court in Charleston for her April guilty plea to wire fraud and money laundering. Prosecutors said Wednesday that she also was ordered to pay about $537,000 in restitution.
BENTONVILLE, Ark. (AP)  A Pine Bluff woman has pleaded not guilty to capital murder, escape, fleeing and other charges in the death of a northwest Arkansas police officer.

Shawna Cash, 23, entered the plea Wednesday in Benton County Circuit Court, according to the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported.
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP)  Zimbabwe's government has ordered all its employees to get vaccinated against COVID-19 or they won't be allowed to come to work.

The Public Service Commission, which is in charge of employment conditions for government workers, issued an internal notice Wednesday ordering employees to get vaccinated.

All civil servants should be vaccinated without delay, and unvaccinated members shall not be allowed to report for duty, said the notice, which has been seen by The Associated Press. The commission urged heads of government departments to make arrangements for their employees to be vaccinated "and to explain to any who elect not to be vaccinated that they will not be deemed to be working.

It wasn't made clear what would happen to employees who refused to be vaccinated, although state-owned newspaper The Herald reported that the government would adopt a policy where unvaccinated workers wouldn't be paid.

Information minister Monica Mutsvangwa announced the mandatory vaccination program for government workers earlier this week. She didn't give any timeframe for workers to receive vaccinations and also didn't clarify what the repercussions would be for any who refused.

The government is Zimbabwe's biggest employer and has about 500,000 workers.

Zimbabwe is one of the leading countries in Africa in terms of vaccinations, with more than 12% of the countrys 15 million people fully vaccinated. That compares to just 3.6% of people across Africa who have been fully vaccinated, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Zimbabwe has received more than 11 million doses, mainly Chinese Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines.

The southern African nation announced last month that it was opening COVID-19 vaccinations to children between the ages of 14 and 17, one of the first countries in Africa to do that. It was already offering jabs to anyone 18 or older.

___

Follow APs pandemic coverage at:

https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic

https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine

https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
By Megan Munce

Bay City News Foundation

A five-year-long investigation into gang activity in the Bay Area has culminated in federal charges for 55 members of the Nuestra Familia, El Hoyo Palmas and San Jose Grande gangs, federal prosecutors announced Thursday.

Craig Fair, special agent in charge for the FBI's San Francisco division, said in a news conference that "Operation Quiet Storm" was one of the largest gang takedowns in the division's history. Acting U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California Stephanie Hinds also concurred that the charges were the most significant action taken against the Nuestra Familia organization in decades.

The specific charges for the various defendants range from federal racketeering to drug trafficking and murder, with particular aim taken at the leadership of the Nuestra Familia prison gang.

"As alleged in the indictment, these seven individuals have for years led a violent and lucrative criminal organization from their prison cells," Hinds said. "By disrupting gang leadership, we take aim at the head of the snake and seek to reduce violence and other criminal activity on our streets and in our jails and prisons."

The investigation was a collaboration of local, state and federal law enforcement, including the FBI, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Fair said arrests were made in Santa Clara, Alameda, Modesto, San Benito, Santa Cruz, Kern, San Francisco, Tulare and Stanislaus counties, with officers seizing bulk cash, dangerous weapons and narcotics.

There are currently 36 defendants in federal custody, Hinds said, with those previously incarcerated in state prisons being transferred to federal facilities.

Copyright  2021 Bay City News, Inc. All rights reserved. Republication, rebroadcast or redistribution without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. Bay City News is a 24/7 news service covering the greater Bay Area.

Copyright  2021 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited.
San Marcos could become the next Texas city to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana. During a September 10 press conference in front of the San Marcos Public Library downtown, members from nonprofit Mano Amiga and Vera Institute of Justice outlined the initiative.

Currently, possession of small amounts of marijuana is considered a "citation eligible offense" in San Marcos, meaning that the person won't be arrested on the spot, but instead issued a citation to turn themselves into Hays County at a later date.
If you spent any time two weeks ago monitoring the destructive march of the Caldor Fire into the Tahoe Basin on social media, you likely noticed the frustrated  sometimes bitterly angry  posts directed at Airbnb.

You may also have noticed that those public messages  either admonishing the San Francisco-based tech giant or asking for its help  were not always well received. While Tahoe residents were evacuating their homes, frightened they wouldnt be able to return, the sight of would-be vacationers pleading for refunds on Twitter rubbed many the wrong way.

Yet for hosts and guests alike, Airbnbs response to the Caldor Fire raises serious questions about its extenuating circumstances policies and how it handles natural disasters like wildfires. As one host, Kaia Crawford, told SFGATE: Airbnb is penalizing both the guest AND the homeowner, which to me is just abhorrent. It's profiting off a very upsetting situation.

In a place with longstanding friction between locals and tourists, its not surprising that some of that simmering anger would resurface during a stressful, painful time for the region. Still, what is often missed in important, big picture discussions about overtourism, Zoom towns and gentrification is the way that individual people are mostly just living their lives in these places  trying to do the right thing, make a living, maybe take a vacation once in a while. But in communities that are being transformed by tourism, residents are pitted against outsiders, homeowners against renters, and everyone, it seems, is at least somewhat at the mercy of Airbnb. And while Airbnb isn't alone in their opaque cancellation policies, they are by far the largest vacation rental website, with more than 6 million listings around the world as of 2019.

At a time when climate change is expected to lead to more frequent and extreme weather events, including wildfires like the one currently threatening Sequoia National Park, its reasonable to expect more communities will find themselves in the situation that Lake Tahoe was in at the end of August and early September.

So as the Caldor Fire was threatening South Lake Tahoe and the region's air quality spiraled into some of the worst in the world, I reached out to several of the people who posted complaints about Airbnbs handling of the disaster. Among them was Ryan Kunselman.

Kunselman, who lives in Colorado, is a few years out of college and hadnt seen his mom on the East Coast in two years when he and his girlfriend booked a trip to Tahoe for late August. Because all three were coming from outside the region, and the fires were not yet the national news they would soon become, the family didnt realize how bad it was until they were driving down to the lake, Kunselman told SFGATE.

Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

When the family stopped for gas, they saw a post warning that hiking trails were closed. Then, as they approached the Airbnb in Stateline, Nevada, the sun turned red and ash began falling from the sky. By the time they reached their rental, the Air Quality Index was 500, according to Kunselmans recollection. They didnt even step inside what had been described as a cozy, quiet condo near the lake theyd reserved several months before. Instead, they fled the smoke for Sacramento and, ultimately, Yosemite.

Kunselman first contacted the rentals Airbnb host. The minute I mentioned a refund, he wrote SFGATE in an email, she would not contact me back and completely ignored me.

Airbnb sided with the host. In a message Kunselman forwarded to SFGATE, the company writes, We understand that this might not be what you'd hoped for, but we came to this outcome because the listing is not in California nor directly impacted by the El Caldor [sic] wildfire." The response seems to suggest that because the house  located in a town named for its location straddling the border  sat on the Nevada, not California, side of Stateline, the companys Extenuating Circumstances policy did not apply.

The policy, as described on Airbnbs website, dictates how cancellations are handled when unforeseen events beyond your control arise after booking and make it impracticable or illegal to complete your reservation.

To Kunselman, a wildfire raging nearby and air quality so unhealthy its considered hazardous for everyone, including healthy adults, had pretty clearly met those guidelines. So Airbnbs decision came as a surprise. Even worse, it seemed final. Our review is complete now, the message continued, and we won't be able to offer additional support on this case at this time.

Jane Tyska/Digital First Media via Getty Images

The owner of Kunselmans rental was not overly forthcoming when contacted for comment. She did share that Kunselmans characterization of his experience is not fully accurate and is incomplete. But, she added, the case was ongoing and it was her understanding that he would receive a full refund. That was news to Kunselman, who had been told his case was closed.

When I asked Airbnb if they could comment on Kunselmans situation, they responded, Without having the opportunity to identify the reservation and look into the details, we can't comment. By the time I followed up with Kunselman for his reservation information, Airbnb had reversed course and agreed to the refund, which he attributed to the company having been contacted by this reporter.

Social media backlash

Kunselmans five-day reservation in Stateline put him out about $2,200. So when it looked increasingly unlikely he would get his money back, he took to Twitter in a since deleted post.

But while Kunselman was successful in getting the attention of both Airbnb and reporters like me, his post, asking Airbnb for help with his refund, also provoked an onslaught of angry responses. Dont use this hashtag to whine, wrote @brightlymargot. [D]o you think youre going to get any sympathy from folks who are looking for information about the fire destroying their homes, their friends homes, their neighborhoods? Another simply read, Cry about it.

While some of the backlash to Kunselmans tweet had to do with his use of the Caldor Fire hashtag  around which evacuees, fire victims and volunteers were organizing to exchange information and help one another  others seemed to blame him for not having booked a rental with a more lenient cancellation policy or shamed him for asking for a refund at all. One read, simply, Waaaah.

While perhaps understandable, this animosity raises the question of whether your average Airbnb user  renters and hosts  are its rightful recipients. Because, as anyone who has spent hours on hold with customer service knows, social media can sometimes seem like the only  or, at least, best  recourse when a seemingly powerless person is wronged by a large, powerful company.

And, for many of us, a vacation is a luxury, yes, but a rare one  one for which we plan and save for months or years. During the pandemic, a lot of us put off seeing friends and family, celebrating milestones, getting married and honoring lost relatives. These long-planned trips are weighted with meaning and represent a real investment  an investment in relationships, in mental health, in joy. These things are, of course, privileged. But they also seem like things most people should have access to.

Jane Tyska/Digital First Media via Getty Images

It seems fair, then, to ask why the average Airbnb user should quietly accept the loss of thousands of dollars while a corporation that had almost $3.4 billion in revenue last year profits during a disaster? In response to a question about whether these policies could cost the company customers, a spokesman defended Airbnb by citing this publication. [A]s per SF Gate's own reporting, Airbnb appears to be the only large short-term rental platform offering extenuating circumstances refunds for this fire.

Heeding the call to stay away

Candace Kim was in a different, but equally frustrating, position. Unlike Kunselman, Kim, who lives in Los Angeles, wasnt caught off guard. With a Tahoe trip planned for the week after Labor Day, she had been closely following the Caldor Fire. And, as her travel date got closer, and the news from the region grew more concerning, she contacted her Airbnb host.

She was less concerned about smoke, she said, than something else: Tahoe area tourism officials were asking visitors to stay away. Shed read the news stories and followed the situation in the Sierra and, while there was conflicting guidance, just didnt feel like she should go. I saw the worsening condition and also the pleas from locals at Lake Tahoe, she wrote in an email to SFGATE, and decided it made sense to pull out.

Gavin Newsom had declared a state of emergency in the region, and though Nevadas governor, Steve Sisolak, took a bit longer, hed done the same days before. But when Kim contacted her Airbnb host, she was told that the rentals strict cancellation policy continued to apply. The host, Kim said, insisted that her North Tahoe Airbnb is safe from the fires, and said she does not offer refunds or cancellations because of wildfire smoke. When Kim responded that her reason for canceling was that travel to the area is heavily advised against, the host said they would refund half of the reservation cost.

Jae C. Hong/AP

Based on the emergency declarations and local tourism boards advising against travel, Kim said she felt Airbnbs Extenuating Circumstances policy should apply. The language seemed clear in referring to Government declared local or national emergencies, epidemics, pandemics, and public health emergencies. But when she contacted the company, she was told her reservation didnt qualify because her Airbnb wasnt in an active evacuation zone. (The evacuation orders in the Tahoe Basin had more to do with county and state lines than any other factor.)

Airbnb responded to Kims concerns by assuring her "the fire is far from the host's place" and "her place is safe." Even after Kim submitted documentation that the Lake Tahoe Visitors Bureau site said "travel to Lake Tahoe is not advised or safe," that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had designated the Caldor Fire a declared disaster, and Gov. Newsom had declared a state of emergency in Placer County, where the Airbnb Kim had reserved is located, the company would not budge.

Kim ultimately decided to cancel her trip anyway and take the financial hit. She doesnt, however, blame her host, who offered a full refund if they were able to fill Kims reservation dates and, when they werent, was nice enough to give a partial refund. She said she understood why the host would feel entitled to some money, since its their livelihood. But she faults Airbnb for not honoring its own policy and for leaving it to the host and guest to sort out between themselves, she told SFGATE. I don't want to be that dramatic person that says I'll never use Airbnb again but I certainly will think twice!

When asked about Kims situation, an Airbnb spokesperson said her reservation did not qualify for a refund because Airbnb activated their extenuating circumstances policy on Aug. 17 and Kim made her reservation Aug. 18. Airbnb also clarified that the explanations Kim was given for why she wouldnt be refunded were simply the ambassador relaying what the host was saying and why [the host] was choosing to uphold her cancellation policy.

The hosts

I messaged each of the hosts with whom Kunselman and Kim had reserved rentals. Kims host, who agreed to speak candidly if she could remain anonymous, said she wished Airbnb would make a blanket announcement, as they did during the COVID-19 shutdown. So then there would be no ambiguity about whether the area is open or not and which set of refund and cancellation rules apply.

The host, who lives in another home on the property, said she understood why guests would be concerned. But the rentals are her income, she said, adding that she uses that money to offset the below-market rent for an older man who has lived on the property for years. She also made one of the larger houses available for evacuees and, she said, installed HEPA air filters in all the cabins.

JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images

During the initial stages of the pandemic, she explained, Airbnb credited the hosts some of their losses, which, she said, would be the right thing to do in this case.

The North Tahoe host is wary, she said, of Airbnbs system for determining which reservations meet the extenuating circumstances guidelines. They don't share with the hosts or the guests what the exact criteria is, she said. Airbnb granted a full refund to two of her guests that requested cancellations because of smoke, which meant the host received nothing. But more than a dozen others were rejected, according to the host. I just wonder how they make their decisions, she added. Possibly they don't want to make that public so that people don't manipulate the system?

But the lack of transparency seems to be exacerbating the frustration of both travelers and hosts.

Kaia Crawford, another host, who described herself as a 17-year resident of South Lake Tahoe and a former firefighter, expressed her disappointment with Airbnb  as well as competitors like VRBO, Homeaway and others  for their lack of what she called community support during a difficult time for the region.

Its been tough to reach them and get an actual human being on the phone, she wrote in an email. She also felt that there were mixed signals from the company about who is supposed to cancel the reservation and the consequences of a cancellation. Airbnb is penalizing both the guest AND the homeowner, she wrote, which to me is just abhorrent. It's profiting off a very upsetting situation.

One of Crawfords biggest complaints about Airbnbs policy is something many guests might not be aware of: When a host cancels a reservation, even when requested, the host is not only voluntarily losing rental income but can be penalized in other, more lasting ways. For homeowners like her, who preemptively canceled reservations during the Caldor Fire  in large part to lessen the congestion created by visitors  they are sort of blacklisted, she wrote. Theyre put on a bad child list of canceling too many reservations even though the situation called for it. Even for hosts willing to accept the financial hit of refunding a reservation, the long-term loss of, say, Super Host status is a tougher pill to swallow.

Airbnb disputes Crawfords claim. [A]s it relates to the area where weve implemented our Extenuating Circumstances policy, none of this is accurate. Our policy makes clear that Hosts in the impacted area are allowed to cancel reservations penalty-free, meaning there are no cancellation fees or impacts to their Superhost statuses.

A follow-up question asking what determines the area where the policy is implemented and how either a host or a guest would know if theyre considered impacted by an event covered by this Policy was not immediately returned.

Tahoe fights back

Crawford described Tahoe as a tight community and said that many of the homeowners were actively trying to discourage visitors during the fire so that firefighters would have a smooth path without additional people complicating their work. We live up here, WE know what it's like, and have a much, much better idea of what is happening, she wrote, and for us to be penalized for being pro-active is just ridiculous!

According to Crawford, when the rental companies, including Airbnb, denied requests for refunds  even partial refunds  the guests thought, well, may as well make the best of a bad situation and go up anyway. Crawford pleaded with people on social media to stay away. When that didnt work, I began reaching out and blasting Airbnb and others on social media to try and get their attention.

[T]here was zero communication from the big rental companies and zero attempts at compensation of some sort, she wrote. [Th]e homeowners cant afford to lose money any more than the guest can, however, it would have been nice to at least get their assistance to at least TRY and make a bad situation less so.

When I asked an Airbnb spokesperson to comment on why hazardous smoke isnt considered an extenuating circumstance, he said that air quality has been included in the policys activation and that, Guests can contact our Community Support team if they believe their reservation qualifies due to air quality.

Jae C. Hong/AP





But at least some Airbnb users, both guests and hosts, have been unsatisfied by the companys response. Candace Kims would-be host in North Tahoe said she still doesnt know why some cancellations are approved and refunded and others arent  if those guests were just lucky with the support team person they got. It's unclear to me, she wrote, how they interpret their extenuating circumstances policy.

Crawford was more strident in her criticism of Airbnbs handling of the Caldor Fire. We up here in Lake Tahoe are a COMMUNITY!! We stick together and we would appreciate it if the big companies acted like they are part of our community because lets call it for what it truly is..we are a money-making machine for them.

These companies..especially Airbnb..their motto is community.well, it would be really awesome if they started acting like one.

Fortunately, the Caldor Fire is increasingly contained and the city of South Lake Tahoe was spared, even as many hundreds of homes were lost in El Dorado County. But the story of how Airbnb, and other large rental companies, handle these cases goes beyond one disaster.

Airbnbs extenuating circumstances information page already makes clear that not all disasters fall under its policy. What is covered: Natural disasters, acts of God, large-scale outages of essential utilities, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, and other severe and abnormal weather events. Whats not: weather or natural conditions that are common enough to be foreseeable in that location, which, the website clarifies, includes hurricanes occurring during hurricane season in Florida.

The obvious question then is whether there comes a point when wildfires in the American West are so common as to be foreseeable? And, if so, what does that mean for Airbnbs millions of customers  hosts dependent on rental income for their livelihood and travelers trying to plan an escape during unpredictable times?

When I asked Airbnb whether wildfires might someday be excluded from the companys extenuating circumstances protection, the response was noncommittal. At this time, I cannot comment on future adjustments or changes to this policy.
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Effective Aug. 28, Missouri employers with at least 20 employees in the state must provide unpaid leave for employees who are victims of domestic or sexual violenceas defined by state statuteor have family or household members who are victims of such violence. Covered employers must also notify current employees of their right to leave under the law by Oct. 27 or upon commencement of employment for future employees.

The new lawtitled the Victims Economic Safety and Security Act (VESSA)provides employees with protected leave time to: seek abuse-related medical attention and counseling, or recover from abuse-related injuries (physical or psychological); obtain services from a victim services organization; participate in safety planning; temporarily or permanently relocate to a safer living space, or take other actions to increase the safety of the employee (or family or household member); and/or pursue legal remedies to ensure the health and safety of the employee (or family or household member), including preparing for civil and criminal actions resulting from the violence. Of note, not only may employees take VESSA leave relating to their own experience with domestic or sexual violence, they may also take leave to deal with such abuse suffered by a "family or household member," including individuals who reside in the same household as the employee, immediate family members by blood or marriage, and people who "share a relationship through a son or daughter."

Similar to the FMLA and other protected leave frameworks, an employee who takes VESSA leave must be returned to the same or other equivalent position upon their return to work, and the employer may not deprive them of any employment benefits they had before the leave. Unique to VESSA, the amount of leave available will vary depending on the employer's number of employees. Specifically:

1-19 employees = no leave entitlement.

20-49 employees = 1 week unpaid leave per year.

50 or more employees = 2 weeks unpaid leave per year.

The employee's VESSA leave need not be used on consecutive days, but the employee is required to give the employer at least 48-hour notice of anticipated leave usage. If prior notice is not practicable under the circumstances, the employee may provide a certification that the unscheduled absence was VESSA-related within a "reasonable period" after the absence, though "reasonable period" is not defined in the statute. Employers may require employee certification of the reason for leave in either situation and may request periodic updates from the employee regarding their expected return date. Types of permissible employee certification are outlined in the statute.

In addition to leave, employers must provide reasonable safety accommodations to employees affected by domestic or sexual violence to the employee (or their family or household member) so long as the accommodation does not pose an undue hardship on the employer's operations. The statute provides that reasonable safety accommodations include actions such as adjustment to a job structure, work facility, or work requirementfor example, transfer, reassignment, modified schedule, leave, a changed telephone number or seating assignment, installation of a lock, implementation of a safety procedure, or assistance in documenting actual or threatened domestic violence that occurs in the workplace or work-related settings. In determining whether a safety accommodation is reasonable, employers may consider any exigent circumstances or danger facing the employee or the worker's family or household member. Employers may require employees who request safety accommodations to provide a written statementsigned by the employee or an individual acting on the employee's behalfcertifying that the accommodation is for an authorized purpose.

Finally, as noted above, covered employers must notify all current employees of their rights under the law on or before Oct. 27 or upon commencement of employment for future employees. The new law does not contain a penalty for failure to comply with the notice requirement, but compliance is relatively straightforward to achieve and may be provided to employees electronically. The Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations has also published a poster that must be posted in common areas along with other required employee notices.

Employers should take action to implement VESSA-related leave and accommodations policies, and prepare to meet the notice requirement on or before Oct. 27. In addition, employers should educate and train supervisors on identifying situations that may trigger an obligation to provide VESSA leave or accommodations to employees.

Jennifer Chierek Znosko is an attorney with Littler in St. Louis. Whitney L. Fay is an attorney with Littler in Kansas City, Mo.  2021 Littler. All rights reserved. Reposted with permission.
Islamabad, Sep 16 (IANS) Seven soldiers and five terrorists were killed in an exchange of fire in South Waziristan district of Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, an army statement said.

The security forces conducted an intelligence-based operation in Asman Manza area of the district, Xinhua news agency quoted the military's media wing Inter-Services Public Relations said as saying the statement.
Jaishankar, who has reached the Tajik capital, will be holding bilateral talks with his counterparts from Tajikistan and Iran, Sirojiddin Muhriddin, and Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, respectively.

New Delhi, Sep 16 (IANS) India's External Affairs Minister Dr S. Jaishankar is likely to hold discussions with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, being held at Tajikistan's Dushanbe from Thursday, the MEA spokesperson said.

At media briefing here, MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said: "Our EAM will be there and hopefully we will be having number of bilateral meetings. I do not want to prejudge which one. I am not rule in or rule out any meetings. So let's wait for what meetings take place."

Responding to a question on the India-China standoff, he said India's position was the same.

"We reiterate our position that completion of disengagement in the remaining areas can pave the way forward for two sides to consider de-escalation of forces and ensure full restoration peace and tranquility and enable bilateral relations," he said.

Bagchi also said that the SCO is celebrating the 20th anniversary of its foundation, and India is participating for the fourth time as a full member.

The spokesman also said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will participate in the first in-person Quad leaders' summit in Washington on September 24, and on the next day, will participate in the general debate at the UN General Assembly at its 76th session.

The theme for this year's general debate is "Building resilience through hope to recover from Covid-19, rebuild sustainably, respond to the needs of the planet, respect the rights of people, and revitalise the United Nations".

While the PM will be in Washington, he will also have a bilateral meeting with US President Joe Biden, he added.

"We also look forward to bilateral meetings with other Quad leaders as well as bilateral meetings with some other leaders while he is in New York on September 25," he said.

To a question on a missing Hindu in Afghanistan, Bagchi said: "We have seen a missing person's report of an Indian national - Bansuri Lal in Kabul. We are in touch with all concerned. We have seen reports about local authorities undertaking investigation. We will continue to monitor situation and will tell you of any developments."

On resumption of Operation Devi Shakti, the spokesperson said: "Until and unless operations resume at Kabul airport, it will be difficult to say how people will be evacuated. It will be easier once the operations resume. We are watching this, for the remaining Indians and Afghans willing to come."

--IANS

ams/vd
"Last known location of Humaid was in Uttar Pradesh. We are in touch with Uttar Pradesh anti-terror squad and raids are being carried out at various places," said a top IPS officer privy to the probe.

The police are also looking for Osama's father Humaid-ur-Rehman. His whereabouts are unknown.

It is alleged that Humaid, a relative of arrested accused Osama, who is a resident of Delhi's Jamia Nagar, was coordinating the entire terror network in India.

It is alleged that Humaid had sent Osama and Zeeshan Qamar, a resident of Uttar Pradesh's Allahabad, to Muscat in Oman Ato join training in Pakistan.

Once they reached Muscat, Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) took them to Gwadar port through sea routes to get them trained in making explosives and bombs.

Osama and Zeeshan Qamar were imparted the training of making bombs and IEDs and committing arson with the help of daily use items in a town named Jioni which is near Gwadar port of Pakistan.

They were also trained in handling and use of small firearms and AK-47s.

During the interrogation, it was revealed that Osama left for Muscat, Oman in April where he met Zeeshan who had also come from India.

They were joined by 15-16 Bengali-speaking people. They were divided into sub-groups and Zeeshan and Osama were placed in one group.

Over the next few days, after several short sea-journeys, changing boats several times, they were taken to the town Jioni near Gwadar port in Pakistan. There they were received by one Pakistani who took them to a farmhouse in Thatta, Pakistan.

There were three Pakistani nationals in the farmhouse. Two of these, Jabbar and Hamza imparted training to them. Both of them were from the Pakistan Army as they wore military uniforms.

They were imparted training in making bombs and IEDs and committing arson with the help of items of daily use. They were also trained in handling and use of small firearms and AK-47s.

The training lasted for almost 15 days and thereafter, they were taken back to Muscat through the same route.

Apart from Osama and Zeeshan, the other four arrested accused terrorists have been identified as Jaan Mohammad Shaikh, resident of Maharashtra's Mumbai, Moolchand, resident of UP's Rae Bareilly, Mohd Abu Bakar resident of UP's Behraich and Mohd Amir Javed resident of UP's Lucknow.

All the accused are in police custody for 14 days.

According to conspiracy, the arrested persons were tasked separately to execute different aspects of the terror plan.

The special cell sleuths busted the terror module after they got a tip-off from the central intelligence agencies about the conspiracy being hatched to carry out terror attacks in different parts of the country.

Thereafter. Special Cell carried out a multi-pronged operation wherein several teams were stationed at Mumbai in Maharashtra and Lucknow, Prayagraj, Rae-Bareilly, Pratapgarh in Uttar Pradesh (UP) simultaneously.

On September 14, on the basis of intelligence gathered through human as well as technical nodes, simultaneous raids were conducted in different states. Initially, underworld operative Jaan Mohd Sheikh was apprehended from near Kota, Rajasthan while he was on his way to Delhi; Osama was apprehended from Okhla, Delhi; Mohd Abu Bakar was apprehended from Sarai Kale Khan, Delhi; Zeeshan was apprehended from Allahabad, UP; Mohd Amir Javed was apprehended from Lucknow, UP and Moolchand was apprehended from Rae Bareilly, UP. The operation in UP was done in close and successful coordination with officers of the Uttar Pradesh ATS.

Interrogation has revealed that this module had received sophisticated RDX based IEDs, grenades, pistols and cartridges from a sleeper cell operative and these were sent to UP for safe concealment. The police are looking for sleeper cell operatives who are still in hiding.

During the probe it was found, underworld operative Jaan Mohd Sheikh along with Moolchand were tasked by Pakistan-based Anees Ibrahim, the brother of Dawood Ibrahim, to receive the same in Delhi.

The same was to be handed over to other terror operatives in Delhi and Mumbai and other parts of the country.

Subsequently, further deliveries of similar consignments of IEDs were to be done through the same channel.

The underworld component acting at the behest of Pakistan-ISI was entrusted with two tasks that are the transportation of arms and explosives and terror funding through Hawala channels.

The Pak-ISI trained terror component was tasked with reconnaissance of targets and planting of the IEDs.

Further nodes of this network are being identified, the police said.

--IANS

sk/dpb
Kabul/New Delhi, Sep 16 (IANS) Rhapsodising over the takeover of Afghanistan by medieval marauders, Pakistan has begun a hectic diplomacy campaign to seek recognition for the government in Kabul. And, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi suffered a snub at his very first stop, Dushanbe. He had no choice but to stomach the insult as he apparently did not do his homework before meeting President Emomali Rahmon.

The Tajik leader is unlikely to change his stand when he meets Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit. For Rahmon, the immediate concern is the threat at his country's borders. He is walking the extra mile to beef up border security. Russia has rushed new weapon systems to its military base in Tajikistan.

A chicken neck' like territory of Northern Afghanistan surrounded by Tajikistan is still to accept the Taliban supremacy,

Tajik President Rahmon told a crestfallen Qureshi that he would not recognise a government formed through oppression'. Not words that Qureshi expected to hear from his host.

The unstated purpose of Qureshi mission was to catapult Pakistan as the most important regional player influencing the future of war-ravaged Afghanistan. China and Russia also keen to jump on the Afghan bandwagon to undo what they consider as historical wrongs.

Yet, Russia, like Tajikistan, has its reservations on Taliban; it is also in no hurry to recognise the regime that Pakistan has installed. In fact, it is this concern over Pakistani hand that is compelling the West to seek guarantees of good behaviour as much from Taliban as from Pakistan. Russian President Vladmir Putin used the BRICS forum to articulate his concern over terrorism emanating from Talibanised Afghanistan. The SCO summit is also focused on the Afghan issue.

Russia is lending its ears to the Central Asian countries that have felt uneasy over Taliban 2.0. The militant groups active in Central Asian Republics and even Russia and China have safe havens in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Tajik capital had played an important role during the Indian evacuation mission which saw hundreds of people being brought to the safety of India. This could not have made Pakistan very happy. But Qureshi could not have conveyed his unhappiness to his Tajik host.

As Foreign Minister during Gen Pervez Musharraf rule, the garrulous Qureshi was in New Delhi when Pakistani terrorists trained by JeM chief Maulana Masood Azhar attacked India's financial capital, Mumbai and killed over 160 people including a number of Americans. Qureshi advocacy about the peaceful intentions of the Taliban is a cruel joke since militant cadres of Masood Azhar (and Hafiz Saeed of Lashkar-e-Taiba, LeT) had fought shoulder-to-shoulder with the Taliban and paved the way for their triumphant march.

Two days after the Taliban flag started fluttering over the Presidential palace on August 15, JeM chief landed in Afghanistan to work out tradeoffs for the Kashmir theatre, according to Pakistani Urdu media. He met the Taliban top brass at their Kandahar headquarters and secured the nod for help in JeM forays into Kashmir to unsettle India.

Both the JeM and LeT are set to shift their bases to Southern Afghanistan to provide a reprieve to Pakistan from FATF sanctions (for terrorism financing). Like them, the Taliban are the creations of Pakistan Army's eyes and ears, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

Any lingering doubts about ISI factor on the Kabul theatre were set at rest when ISI chief Lt General Faiz Hameed flew into the Afghan capital and arm-twisted the Taliban into making Sirajuddin Haqqani the new security Tsar.

Leaking roofs say the Kabul meddling earned Hameed a reprimand from Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa. Because, his September 4 visit was without proper disciplinary protocol, which, in plain terms, means approval from his boss. An inquiry followed. When Hameed arrived at the office of Adjutant General at the GHQ (September 10) to face the inquiry, he was humiliated, according to a report that also says that the ISI flag was stripped of his vehicle before it was allowed to enter the GHQ premises.

Hameed reportedly "accepted the charges and asked for pardon".

By tradition, the ISI chief is always the personal choice of Army Chief and the incumbent is not known to indulge in one-upmanship games.

Hameed bravado was apparently a fall-out of radicalisation of the Pakistan Army particularly at the middle level, which sees close affinity with the hard-line Islamist outfits like the Haqqanis.

The installation of Sirajuddin Haqqani as the Interior Minister went against the plans of Gen Bajwa, whose concern is the larger picture of projecting a moderate facade both for Taliban rulers and Pakistan.

He has just elevated a Shia officer, Lt General Azhar Abbas as Chief of General Staff (CGS). And it raised alarm in the predominantly Sunni Army. The story may take some twists and turns as Lt General Faiz Hameed is eyeing the top post which will fall vacant in under a year.

This digression into the power struggle in the Pakistan Army is only to put the spot light on the soft underbelly of Pakistan. And, to underline the absurdity of Qureshi contention that Taliban are peace angels. As the Tajik President warned, indifference' to the current situation in Afghanistan could lead to a protracted civil war.'

After Tajikistan, Qureshi travelled to Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Iran, where also disappointment was in store for him.

--IANS

ksk/
Pakistan -- for long a backer of the Taliban -- clearly welcomed the group's success in Afghanistan.

Tajik authorities have taken a different position and that has raised questions about why Tajik President Emomali Rahmon and his government continue to make clear their strong opposition to a Taliban government in Afghanistan, Bruce Pannier writes in the Qishloq Ovozi blog.

China, Iran, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan -- all conceded that there is nothing they could do about Afghan internal politics and held out hope that some form of cooperation with the Taliban might be possible, Pannier said.

The Tajikistan government is no doubt saying what many governments are thinking.

The Carnegie Endowment's Paul Stronski mentioned this in a recent podcast and suggested that Tajikistan is a messenger for the views of other countries.

Tajik political expert Khairullo Mirsaidov agreed, telling Ozodi, "Rahmon could not have made such a statement without Russian consent. Now that the United States has left the region, Russia does not want to give full control of Afghanistan to Pakistan."

After Rahmon said during an August 25 meeting with visiting Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi that Tajikistan would not recognise any Afghan government that was seen as exclusive, he specifically mentioned that he expected ethnic Tajiks to be included, Pannier added.

The next day, French President Emmanuel Macron invited Rahmon to visit Paris.

This proved that there are obviously some dividends to be gained by openly opposing Taliban rule in Afghanistan -- and Rahmon seems to appreciate that, the blog said.

It is worth remembering that Rahmon was Tajikistan's leader more than 20 years ago when the Taliban had control of most of Afghanistan.

None of the other current leaders in the countries bordering Afghanistan were in power when the Taliban was ousted by a US-led military invasion in 2001, Pannier wrote.

Rahmon supported a group led by ethnic Tajiks in Afghanistan who were fighting the Taliban in the late 1990s and he has given moral support to the ethnic Tajiks in Afghanistan now -- including the holdout group in the Panjshir Valley that continues to oppose Taliban rule.

There is a large population of ethnic Tajiks in Afghanistan -- where they make up about 25 percent of the population -- and the Tajiks in Tajikistan feel a strong connection to them.

That is not true of any of the other states neighbouring Afghanistan, Pannier wrote in the blog.

In fact, Rahmon's public concern for the Tajiks in Afghanistan has earned the generally unpopular leader of Tajikistan some rare public support in his country, an important detail as he positions his eldest son, Rustam, to take over as president, he added.

The blog said that Tajikistan's chief Islamic cleric, Saidmukarram Abdulkodirzoda, made it clear in a September 11 interview with state news agency Khovar that improving ties with the Taliban is out of the question.

"Islam is compassion and brotherhood," Abdulkodirzoda said, "But today the terrorist movement known as the Taliban call themselves an Islamic state and execute women, children, and brothers."

Abdulkodirzoda had more to say and since all of Tajikistan's top clerics are carefully vetted by the government, his views can be taken as the government's views, Pannier added.

(Sanjeev Sharma can be reached at Sanjeev.s@ians.in)

--IANS

san/arm
The cash and gold bars found from the houses of former administration's officials and local offices of former government's intelligence agency have been returned to Da Afghanistan Bank's treasury, Xinhua news agency quoted the statement as saying.

Kabul, Sep 16 (IANS) The Taliban has handed over about $12.3 million cash and some gold to Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB), the country's central bank, a statement said on Thursday.

"The officials of Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan by handing over the assets to national treasury proved their commitment to transparency," it added.

The statement also said that Mohammad Idrees, acting governor of the central bank, has assured the safety of Afghans' deposits in commercial banks.

"Da Afghanistan Bank assures our countrymen that all commercial banks operating in the country are under serious supervision and are conducting their operations better than before. The banks are completely secure," Idrees was quoted as saying.

All commercial banks in the region and the world usually keep 10 per cent of their capital as cash and use the remainder in various commercial activities and provide useful services to their people, the statement said.

"Commercial banks in Afghanistan, on average, keep 50 per cent of the afghani and foreign currency with them. Therefore, the banking sector is in a good condition.

"These banks have invested a certain amount of money inside the country and abroad to play a useful role in the economic growth of Afghanistan," the Governor added.

The statement came as thousands of customers are trying withdraw their savings since the Taliban's takeover in mid-August.

Reports of freezing Afghanistan's bank assets by the US as well as a halt of funds by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have fueled concerns among Afghans.

On August 28, the central bank issued an order to all banks in the country, setting a temporary limit of withdrawals of $200 or 20,000 afghani for one customer every week.

--IANS

ksk/
Apna, the professional network for grey and blue collar workers, has turned a unicorn after raising fresh funds of about $100 million in series C funding led by Tiger Global.

The round also witnessed participation from Owl Ventures, Insight Partners, Sequoia Capital India, Maverick Ventures and GSV Ventures. With this round, Apna has gained a total valuation of $1.1 billion. The company has grown 125x over the past 15 months and is currently conducting 18 million interviews every month.

The company intends to use the funding to further reinforce its presence in existing 28 cities and expand pan-India by the end of 2021. The team plans to double down on their edtech platform for skilling and invest in hiring exceptional talent and building world class engineering and product capabilities. Apna plans to build a global enterprise by venturing into new markets such as the US, South East Asia, and Middle East and Africa starting early next year.

Nirmit Parikh, Founder and CEO, Apna says, Apna has a deep social purpose, and is committed to discovery and creation of opportunities to enhance a billion livelihoods, across geographies. With the continued support of our partners, we aim to accelerate our journey of solving for the world.

As an "undercover" blue collar worker, Parikh worked as a shop floor employee, electrician, foreman, cashier, and other gigs before setting up Apna to cater to this category. His thought process was that one cannot build a platform to cater to this section of the workforce sitting in relative luxury.

Griffin Schroeder, Partner, Tiger Global says, Apnas viral adoption is driven by a novel social and interactive approach to connecting employers with job seekers. We expect job seekers in search of meaningful connections and vetted opportunities to drive Apnas continued explosive growth across India  and the world.

Most of the recognition and use of the app has happened through "strong word-of-mouth" recommendations, said Parikh. The firm has built the platform to reflect the language of a particular region along with English.

Parikh believes English is an aspirational language for the workforce logging in to Apna, and hence a mixed lexicon works better for its users. Associating with Owl Ventures, the largest venture capital firm focused on education technology, will help bolster Apnas global ambitions in the skilling space.

Amit Patel, Managing Director, Owl Ventures states, We believe that Apna has the potential to fundamentally shift how companies approach hiring skilled professionals and how these individuals approach networking and upskilling...By incorporating learning and upskilling offerings to drive strong outcomes for its user communities, Apna is building an end-to-end solution that has the potential to help individuals over the course of their career and not just in a single interaction. That repeated interaction and trust they are building on their platform can profoundly impact not just India but the global talent ecosystem."
In this article, you will find what qualifies as a workplace injury, how important it is to protect your rights, why do you need a personal injury lawyer, and how to file a workers compensation claim.

Every year, at least 2.5 billion people across the USA suffer fatal or minor injuries at work, and more than 4,000 workers die because of work injuries. Workplace injuries can be very difficult to deal with, as they can affect someone physically, mentally, emotionally, and financially. Luckily, employers across most countries are required by law to protect their workers with compensation insurance in case work-related incidents occur.

Employees compensation provides injured people instant help with medical bills and lost wages. But its not always an easy process to deal with. Injured workers must know how and when to file a claim. The biggest hurdle is to get your employers insurance company to approve the claim and start the payment process. Also, proving the severity of the injuries is also a difficult process to deal with and get compensation. Heres what you need the know about employees compensation, and how to get help in case youve been injured at the workplace.

What qualifies as a workplace injury?

Workplace injuries are illnesses that occur while trying to complete work tasks. Usually, a workplace injury occurs because of an unsafe workplace environment (dangerous equipment, contamination with hazardous chemicals). Additionally, jobs that involve difficult movements (heavy lifting) are the most common to cause injuries to employees.

Types of injuries at the workplace:

Slip and fall injuries

Brain injuries

Spinal cord injuries

Tripping injuries

Psychological and emotional conditions might occur after a workplace injury, such as anxiety and depression. Workplace injuries can happen in many contexts, and any of them can permanently affect your ability to work or live normally. Besides the fact that theyre painful, these injuries may also affect your and your familys financial income. A personal injury lawyer can help you obtain compensation so you can cover some of the costs related to your injury.

Why should you protect your rights?

After a workplace accident, its crucial to protect your legal rights. If youve been a victim of a work accident, then youre entitled to a set of legal rights. Still, it may become impossible to protect yourself if you dont know where youre standing. Your injuries can be severe enough to stop you from enjoying your favorite activities anymore or perform your normal daily duties. But you can deal with these rough times by seeking compensation and protect your rights.

The first and most important thing to do when a workplace accident occurs is to report it to your employer incident. No matter if youre injured or not, reporting the accident to your employer is crucial if you want to be covered under your states compensation laws. You dont need to have visible injuries to be eligible for compensation! Reporting your workplace accident can keep other employees safe, and make your employer implement new safety rules to prevent these accidents in the future. Fill a report in case symptoms of your injuries show up weeks or months later after the workplace accident.

After a workplace accident, its important to see a doctor as soon as possible. If the injury is severe enough, you might be transferred to the emergency room. If the injury is less serious, you should still see a doctor. The workers compensation laws entitle you to claim back any consultation fees.

Why do you need a personal injury lawyer?

There are times when you could represent yourself if youve been injured at work, and this includes:

If youve suffered a minor injury

If your employer confesses responsibility

If its not necessary to skip work or missed for a very little while

If you do not have existing injuries to the area on your body where youve been lately injured

However, most workplace injuries are bad enough to claim compensation. Most employers are off work for weeks, months, years, or they might not return to work at all. So, why do you need a personal injury lawyer? Because the laws are complex and not everyone can manage to understand the steps necessary to take to fill a claiming application and defend themselves.

For example, your employer might have already hired an experienced lawyer that will help him win the case. They might claim that you were at fault in causing the accident and escape responsibility for your injuries. Thats why you need to hire a knowledgeable attorney to help you understand what your case if worth. Seek a lawyer that has handled similar cases before, and will know how much compensation you could be eligible for. If your injuries are severe enough, or you might as well be permanently disabled, you need to be sure that youre going to receive compensation for future medical appointments and other lost wages that are included in the compensation settlement. Only an experienced personal injury lawyer will help you calculate the amount of compensation you deserve and what other factors must be taken into account.

How to file a workers compensation claim?

Filing a workers compensation claim is important coverage because it can help you with workplace injuries or illnesses. If you get sick or injures during working hours, its important to know that you can claim compensation. Each state has a law that requires employers to provide compensation to workers that have been injured at the workplace. So, make sure you first understand your states laws and learn how to file a workers compensation claim.

You will need to provide basic information, such as:

How did the accident happen?

What injuries have you suffered?

The time and date of the accident

Any employer has the obligation to provide sufficient safety at the workplace to their employees. However, workplace accidents cant be prevented 100%. Each case is different, but your lawyer must remain dedicated and true to your case to claim compensation for your injuries.
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Westpac is homing in on share investments made by colourful soccer identity Bill Papas through an online trading platform amid fears the Forum Finance boss ploughed millions he allegedly defrauded from the bank into stocks.

Mr Papas is suspected of depositing at least $2 million of money he allegedly defrauded from Westpac into building a sizeable share portfolio held on an online trading platform, MacroVue.

Bill Papas and his amazing alleged fraud

Mr Papas and his company Forum Finance have been accused by Westpac and two other lenders  Sumitomo and Societe Generale  of orchestrating a $400 million fraud on the lenders by forging the signatures of managers at large bank customers. The banks have brought civil proceedings in the Federal Court against Mr Papas, his former business partner and companies, while NSW Police is separately investigating reports from the lenders about the alleged fraud.

The Age and Herald can reveal the alleged fraudster drew down his share trading account on Macrovue by $1.5 million just days before the bank obtained freezing orders from the Federal Court over Mr Papas Australian assets.
The United States and Europe also want to tame the excesses and extremes of capitalism in the smartphone age. China is smoothing out the rough edges with a chainsaw. In early July, two days after Didi went public in New York, Chinas internet regulator ordered it to stop signing up new users while officials examined its cybersecurity practices. Then Didis apps were forced off mobile stores. Then the company was fined for antitrust violations. Then passels of government officials stationed themselves in Didis offices. There is almost certainly more to come. Silicon Valley may not have managed to halt the Chinese tech industrys rise. But Xi might. Didis ascent, which more than a dozen former employees described to The New York Times, did not merely end Ubers business in China. It made Didi the biggest online ride platform on the planet. On average, 156 million people a month used Didi in China in the first quarter of this year, compared with 98 million for Uber worldwide. Didi handled 25 million rides a day in China during that period; Uber, globally, 16 million. Those numbers do not include Didis services in Latin America, Japan, Russia and beyond.

China wants to make sure Didis next chapter  and the whole tech industrys  is less unruly than the first. In this age of distrust between China and the United States, one of Beijings concerns appears to be whether companies like Didi, with all their data and influence on ordinary lives in China, should really be going public on American stock exchanges. After Didis initial public offering, the company was valued at $US79 billion ($108 billion) at its July 1 peak. Its 38-year-old founder and CEO, Cheng Wei, and its president, Jean Liu, 43, who is almost certainly the most prominent woman in Chinas internet industry, own shares worth billions. It is taking much less time to destroy that wealth than it did to create it. This place was never conquered In late January 2015, Zhou Hang, the founder of one of Chinas earliest ride-hailing companies, Yongche, got a call from Cheng. The two met at a luxury hotel near Beijings Summer Palace, and over dinner they discussed the possibility of a merger. Yongche had been a pioneer in ride hailing, while Didi was a leader in taxis. A union would make sense.

Soon after, rumours about a tie-up started circulating in the Chinese tech media. Zhou asked Cheng whether he had leaked the news. Only the two of them had been at the dinner. Cheng denied doing so. Cheng Wei, left, and Jean Liu, the president and chief executive of DiDi. The ride-hailing company is among a number of tech giants being targeted by the Chinese government. Credit:Getty But on Valentines Day, Didi announced that it would join forces with its biggest rival, Kuaidi. Zhou now believes that Cheng used their meeting to push Kuaidi to agree to the merger. The boyish, bespectacled Cheng had brought a bagful of cutthroat corporate tricks to Chinas booming online rides industry. He was 22 when he talked his way into a job at the e-commerce giant Alibaba. The sales team he joined was nicknamed the iron army for its relentless drive. After climbing Alibabas ranks for six years, Cheng started Didi because of how hard it was to get a cab in Beijing. Populations in Chinas megacities had swelled, but the supply of taxis wasnt keeping up. The companys name is meant to mimic the sound of a car horn.

In Didis early years, Cheng copied Alibabas tradition of ice-breaking rituals for new hires, including intimate questions such as how they lost their virginity, former employees said. Once, as punishment after Didi users reported bad experiences, he forced his chief technology officer to streak, Cheng told the Chinese magazine Caijing. He ordered other executives to clean bathrooms. Cheng also adopted Alibabas zest for waging war against rivals. Loading According to Zhou, Yongches system was inundated with fake orders after Didi started its ride-hailing service in 2014. Cars were dispatched, but no customers showed up, tying up Yongches drivers. When Yongche investigated, it found that many of the orders had come from internet addresses near Didis offices, Zhou said. The Times sent Didi a list of detailed questions for this article, but the company declined to comment. In the past, Didi has denied other allegations about faking orders.

Didis tactics against Uber in China could be equally underhanded. According to Super Pumped, a chronicle of Ubers rise by Times reporter Mike Isaac, Didi managers sent fake text messages to Uber drivers, saying that Uber had shut down in China and that they should work for Didi instead. Didi also sent new recruits to be hired by Uber as engineers. There, they acted as moles, feeding information back to Didi. The trickery paid off. In August 2016, after the two companies had spent hundreds of millions of dollars fighting each other, Uber announced that it would sell its China operations to Didi. Bloomberg Businessweek splashed Cheng on its cover and called him the Uber slayer. Like many Chinese business executives, Cheng is fond of military metaphors. In interviews, he has compared Didis years of conflict and competition to the Battle of Verdun. He said he saw his own spirit fighting Uber reflected in Russian propaganda films. Napoleon came to Moscow, he told one interviewer. Hitler came to Moscow. None of them prevailed. This place was never conquered. In the grey zone

It was only four-odd decades ago that private ownership was forbidden in China, and the Communist Party has been hot and cold on the concept ever since. Private businesses have long had to figure out how to make a buck under the threat of being squashed by the authorities. If Didi was very worried about the government in its early years, it didnt show it. We knew fear because we had seen the tiger. Cheng Wei didnt seem to be as afraid. Zhou Hang, founder of Yongche In 2014, when the city of Beijing banned the use of private cars for ride-hailing businesses, Zhou of Yongche obeyed and took such vehicles off his companys platform, he said. Didi did not, as officials soon discovered. When Shanghai accused Didi of running an illegal taxi business, the company said it worked only with lawful car-leasing companies, not with individual car owners. Zhou now says he made a big strategic blunder. But he had reason to be cautious. Yongche had been under constant pressure from regulators. Zhou and other executives were regularly summoned to government meetings for criticism and lecturing.

We knew fear because we had seen the tiger, Zhou said. Cheng Wei didnt seem to be as afraid. In the early days Xi jinping was a big supporter of Did and Cheng Wei. Credit:AP Didi had acquired some political capital. In September 2015, Cheng was the youngest member of the Chinese delegation that accompanied Xi on a visit to Seattle. Xi later stopped at Didis booth at a Chinese conference and listened and smiled as Cheng talked about his companys global ambitions. But at the time, Chinese officials were also unwilling or unable to challenge tech companies on antitrust grounds. After Didi merged with Kuaidi in 2015, Zhou filed an anti-monopoly complaint to the authorities, but he never heard back, he said. The next year, Chinas Commerce Ministry said it would investigate Didis tie-up with Uber. The combined Didi was obviously a behemoth, with something like 90 per cent of the Chinese market. But Chinese law did not contain clear rules governing mergers between companies, like Didi and Uber, whose owners were mostly foreign investors. Beijing never unwound their union.

Killings threaten growth By 2018, Didi was busy taking over the world. It was expanding into Australia and other overseas markets. It had opened a lab in Silicon Valley to develop intelligent driving technologies and had begun contemplating going public. Then came the murders. The first victim was a 21-year-old flight attendant in the Chinese city of Zhengzhou. It was May 2018. Didi apologised and suspended Hitch, the carpooling service the woman had been using when she was killed. But it was not until that August, when another woman was raped and stabbed while riding with Hitch, in the city of Wenzhou, that the company went into crisis mode. After the second murder, some Didi employees were shocked that the company had brought Hitch back online just a week after suspending it, even if some new safety features had been added in the interim. But Hitch had been lucrative for Didi. It was cheaper to let customers drive one another around than to pay professional drivers. The company had celebrated Hitchs manager, Huang Jieli, in an internal video that compared her to Hua Mulan, the female warrior of ancient Chinese legend.

Not long before the first murder, on a chilly evening in Beijing, Yang Tingting had been in a Didi when she noticed her driver was smirking at her. She tried to ignore him. But then he began asking, How much do you charge for one? An investigation into ride-hailing app Didi Chuxing caused it to be pulled from domestic app stores just days after it became the largest US listing by a Chinese company since Alibaba in 2014. Credit: Terrified, Yang, who was 30, thought about trying to jump out of the car. Back at her hotel, she submitted complaints in the Didi app, but customer service didnt call her until the next afternoon. When she explained what the driver had done, the male service agent asked: Did you give him any hints? Could he have misunderstood you? When Yang said she had been dressed professionally and worked in media, the agent said that perhaps the driver had been asking how much it would cost to place an advertisement. She said she had felt that the driver meant to harm her. The agent just laughed.

By that point, Chinese officials had been dissatisfied with one element of Didis safety controls for years. Since 2016, the Transportation Ministry had been asking ride-hailing companies to upload real-time data about drivers, cars and trips to a central platform. But Didi was slow to share information, despite sharp warnings from national and local authorities. Is there really any need to give real-time data to regulators? the companys chief development officer at the time, Li Jianhua, told a reporter in 2017. If our user information is leaked by a government department, who is responsible then? Only after the murders did Didi agree to upload all its data. It made other safety improvements and fired Hitchs manager, Huang, who couldnt be reached for comment for this article. Data is the lifeline Safety concerns of a different kind led Beijing to bring down the hammer after Didi went public in June.

Data is the lifeline of any business, Cheng had told the BBC in 2018. If you cant guarantee data security, thats going to be totally destructive for the business. China has enacted a series of laws to ensure that tech companies protect their data and store it locally. Regulators have also ordered the creators of hundreds of apps to stop collecting user information to excess. In regulatory filings ahead of its IPO, Didi noted that its business could suffer if Chinese authorities were not satisfied with its data security and privacy practices. But those specific risks barely came up in Didi executives discussions with investors and bankers before the listing, two people involved in the process said. One of them said that because Didi had already talked with investors and lined up cornerstone shareholders in the months before, top company brass felt it didnt need to spend as much time making formal sales pitches as would be standard for an IPO. Didis underwriting banks agreed, this person said. Didi filed its preliminary paperwork on June 10. By June 29, it had priced its shares at $14 apiece. They began trading on the New York Stock Exchange the next day.

Chinas internet regulator pounced first. Didi may have hoisted itself into Beijings crosshairs by choosing to go public in this year of crackdowns on big tech. Even so, the company is now a stand-in for something much larger than itself. What China does with Didi could tell us how Xi intends to treat all entrepreneurs and would-be disrupters. Something needs to be done; theres just no question about it, said Minxin Pei, a political scientist who studies China at Claremont McKenna College. But the way they are doing it is very counterproductive. The government tends to act in a way that errs not on the side of caution, Pei said, but on the side of excess. The New York Times
The Australian sharemarket limped to the finish line on Friday, with stocks weighed down by predictions that the price of iron ore will fall further.

The S&P/ASX200 finished 0.76 per cent lower to 7403.7for the day, pushing the index down a small 2.9 points for the week overall.

A brief jump in the oil price midweek powered energy stocks higher on Thursday, but miners sunk the market at Fridays open after the iron ore price extended its recent slide to sit at $US107.21 a tonne.

No respite is expected from iron ore price declines. Credit:Jacky Ghossein

Fortescue led the declines on Friday, losing 11.5 per cent for the session to $15.27 and earning a downgrade from UBS, while Rio Tinto finished the day 4.7 per$39.16 cent lower to $98.8 and BHP lost 3.4 per cent to $39.06.

Gold stocks also struggled off the back of a declining gold price, with Newcrest down 3.1 per cent to $23.78.

Analysts have been warning investors this week that there is more pain to come for iron ore, with expectations that weaker steel production in China will send the market into surplus sooner than anticipated.

The team at UBS cut its price forecasts for 2021 to 2023 by 10 per cent on Friday, with expectations that Chinas steel production will plateau by 2023.

We expect the price to fall below $100/t by the end of 2021 and average $89 a tonne in 2022 (vs consensus of ~$132 a tonne), Myles Allsop wrote in a note to clients.

The path out of lockdowns was also on the minds of investors this week with Victoria and New South Wales both moving towards higher vaccination rates and modest easing of restrictions.

Chief executive of equities research firm Kalkine, Kunal Sawhney, said it appeared the market was still digesting the impacts of lockdowns on the labour market.

Lockdowns forced several businesses to slash working hours and lay off workers in August, keeping employment levels muted. While the unemployment rate dipped to its lowest level in almost 13 years, it was majorly due to a sharp decline in the number of people seeking work, he said.

In the midst of these broader economic worries it was the stocks with positive news to share that performed the best this week. Pharmaceuticals wholesaler API finished the week up 10.5 per cent, hitting $1.47 after telling investors it would open its books to its takeover suitor, Wesfarmers.

Embattled department store Myer booked gains of 12.6 per cent to 58 cents after revealing its 2021 numbers, which saw the business bounce back to profit but decline to reinstate its dividend.

Telco giant Telstra also finished 1.3 per cent ahead to $3.92 in a week where boss Andy Penn revealed the companys corporate strategy for the next four years.
Stefan Qins investors thought theyd found a sure thing -- a hedge fund that was generating 500 per cent returns by exploiting the price gaps between cryptocurrencies on 40 exchanges throughout the world.

Instead, the 24-year-old self-proclaimed math whiz used their money on a lavish lifestyle, including a $US23,000-a-month Manhattan penthouse apartment, and failed investments in initial coin offerings and real estate. Federal prosecutors said Qin defrauded more than 100 people out of about $US90 million ($123 million).

Stefan Qin has been sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison over his crypto fraud.

After some of his victims said Qin should spend as long as possible behind bars for securities fraud, US District Judge Valerie Caproni sentenced him on Wednesday (local time) to seven-and-a-half years and called him a potentially very dangerous person.

Qin deliberately and consciously chose a path to rip off investors, including fake account statements and lying to clients about how he was using their money, Caproni said. This kind of white-collar crime is just as devastating to victims as other types of crime, and it will be punished severely.
Victoria will reject electricity market changes that prop up fossil-fuel power stations and any changes aimed at keeping the lights on must prioritise zero-emissions technologies, Energy Minister Lily DAmbrosio says.

Ms DAmbrosio told The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald she was drawing a line under any market revisions that would result in payments to existing coal and gas generators merely to be idle but available.

Lily DAmbrosio, Victorias Minister for Energy, Environment & Climate, has made it clear that her state wont support any redesign of the energy market that supports an extension of the life of coal or gas-fired power stations. Credit:Joe Armao

Because of failures at a national level ... we have increased uncertainty amongst investors for new renewable energy projects, Ms DAmbrosio said. Im drawing a line under this right now.

Most electricity in Australia is generated, bought, sold and transported in markets that need to match supply and demand in real time. The National Electricity Market (NEM) fills this role for the east coast and southern states.
State and territory leaders have been told restrictions including stay-at-home orders and a ban on any travel should remain in areas of concern where thousands of cases are reported each day even when 70 per cent of the eligible population is vaccinated.

Concerns were raised in Fridays national cabinet meeting about whether the health systems in NSW and Victoria could cope with the ongoing outbreaks. The bulk of the countrys more than 1800 cases on Friday were in those states, and there have been 12,519 cases reported over the last week.

GPs in most states and territories can now administer the Pfizer vaccine to everyone aged over 12 as long as they have enough supplies. Credit:AP

Under the national plan, restrictions can begin to ease once 70 per cent of the eligible is fully vaccinated, and more freedoms will be introduced once 80 per cent have been double-dosed.

But a sensitivity analysis of the modelling that informed the plan, conducted by the Doherty Institute and presented to state and territory leaders on Friday, found that if daily case numbers were in the thousands it would be prudent to keep medium public health safety measures in place in locations of concern until that 80 per cent target is reached.

Read the full story here.
Immigration Minister Alex Hawke will allow the Tamil asylum seeker family at the centre of a protracted immigration dispute to remain in the community in Perth for another three months while their latest legal battle plays out in court.

Supporters of the Murugappan family  who had previously lived in the Queensland town of Biloela  had been concerned the family could be sent back to immigration detention or removed from Australia when the bridging visas of Nadesalingam and Priya and their oldest daughter Kopika, 6, expired on September 22.

Nades and Priya Murugappan with their daughters Kopika and Tharnicaa.

But the barrister for the federal government, Stephen Lloyd, SC, told the Federal Circuit and Family Court on Thursday that Mr Hawke had given an undertaking he would grant them a further three-month bridging visa from September 23 unless new adverse material came to light.

Lawyers for the Murugappan family are challenging a ministerial decision on June 22 preventing the three from reapplying for bridging visas.
The head of the Minerals Council of Australia says the development of a nuclear submarine fleet provides the nation a great opportunity to build a domestic nuclear power capacity.

The council, which counts uranium miners among its members, has long supported the pro-nuclear case in a decades-old debate over the potential of a domestic nuclear energy industry for Australia, which the submarine announcement may reignite.

Australias only nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights in southern Sydney. Credit:ANSTO

Not only will we develop the skills and infrastructure to support this naval technology, but it connects us to the growing global nuclear power industry and its supply chains, said Minerals Council chief executive Tania Constable in a statement.

While Australia has one third of the worlds uranium supplies, it has limited its nuclear capacity to a single world-class medical research reactor at Lucas Heights in Sydney.
Given that we are in the advanced stages of lockdown fatigue it was to be expected that attention would turn again to the perennial Column 8 favourite of nominative determinism (C8). Before it goes any further, yes, the gloriously named Serena Lillywhite, CEO of Transparency International Australia, is clearly one of the best examples of nominative determinism ever recorded. Thank you to all the readers who remind us of this every time her name appears in the news.

To augment the billy can detail (C8) provided by citizen Ward, Toby Tyler of Metford advises that safe camping should include surety regarding handle integrity. This is to safeguard against failure when boiling-hot can of tea is swung over the head to hasten separation of the tea leaves.

Donald Hawes of Peel adds a correction. There is no raw steel surface on a billy can (C8), it is tin-plated. The tin physically protects the underlying steel from reaction with liquids. Once the tin surface is pierced, the unprotected steel rusts like billy-o.

Russell Hill from Hobart remembers being asked if he knew the difference between a dozen eggs (C8) and an elephant. Unable to answer this query, his mother said that she would never send him to the shops for eggs as he may come home with an elephant.

A resounding Nooooo! from Heather Lindsay of Woonona to Dick Barkers chaotic prune (C8) suggestion. Dont do it Hugh Barrett! Put five, put two, but never four. With all seeded foods four is bad luck.
Academics spend their lives pursuing critical inquiry and pride themselves on demolishing erroneous arguments. Consequently, managing and governing a university is often likened to herding cats.

Academics should be ornery and opinionated, and there would be something wrong with a university where they kept quiet and went along with everything proposed by management.

Murdoch University was investigated by TEQSA over breaches to English literacy standards required of foreign students. Credit:Aja Styles

For centuries, universities kept to their traditions as small unworldly communities of self-governing scholars. Then they went through phases of high growth and expansion, funded first by governments and then through fees.

In 1950, the University of Melbourne had fewer than 9000 students and total income of around 700,000. In 2020, it had 52,000 students, total income of $2.6 billion and total assets of nearly $9.5 billion.
Richard Pusey has been accused of leaving cat litter, faeces and food around a property in his neighbourhood and stalking someone by using a CCTV camera to keep them under surveillance.

The 43-year-old, who became infamous after he filmed police officers after they were hit by a truck in the aftermath of the fatal Eastern Freeway crash last year, was on Wednesday charged with two counts of stalking and four counts of assaulting police.

He faced court wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the phrase fake news sells on Thursday morning after he was remanded in custody the previous day.

Richard Pusey leaves jail in August. Credit:Joe Armao

Police were called to his address following reports of a noise complaint about 4.15am on Wednesday.
As Victoria braced to enter its sixth lockdown, Rick Savickas lay in a Footscray Hospital bed on suicide watch, police outside his door, feeling as though he had nothing left to live for.

The 57-year-old had worked his whole life, never taking a handout from the government, until the pandemic struck last year and he lost his casual job at an engineering workshop.

Rick Savickas was earning more than $1000 a week before the pandemic struck Victoria. Credit:Jason South

Mr Savickas drew from his superannuation to help fund a furniture-making business, but was unable to sell his work during lockdown. He gained and lost two more jobs, with his employers blaming the pandemic for each layoff.

Mr Savickas previously earned more than $1000 a week. He could survive on JobSeeker when the payment increased to about $1100 a fortnight last year, but when it reduced again to about $720 a fortnight, including rent assistance, he could not keep up with the rent for his Brooklyn home, which was about the same amount.
Picnics are back on the blanket from Saturday. Credit:Daniel Pockett/Getty Images Officials decided against waiting until Sunday to grant additional freedoms to Victorians, but the plan to release the road map at the end of this weekend remains. The plan is expected to set out how stranded Victorians can come home, and will likely include home quarantine. There will also be some changes to COVID-19 rules in regional Victoria, excluding Ballarat. From 11.59pm Friday night, regional indoor gyms and pools can reopen, although density limits will apply and spas, saunas and steam rooms are excluded.

Hydrotherapy and swimming lessons may occur. Tour transport is allowed with up to 10 people per vehicle, however, there is no change to the current rules which allow movement around the state and public gatherings of up to 10 people. The announcements come as the state records 514 new local cases, a record for the current Delta outbreak, and is the first time since August last year that more than 500 cases have been reported in a single day. Of the new cases, 148 have been linked to known clusters, meaning more than 350 cases remain a mystery. Breakdown of Thursdays 514 new local cases Victorias COVID-19 response commander Jeroen Weimar provided a breakdown of the states new 514 local cases during the daily coronavirus briefing. Three cases are in the regional city of Ballarat;

Seven are elsewhere in regional Victoria - four in the Mitchell Shire, one in Murrindindi, and two in Greater Geelong (all connected to existing clusters);

317 are in Melbournes northern suburbs, including in Craigieburn, Roxburgh Park, and Glenroy;

124 are in Melbournes western suburbs, including in Truganina, Altona North, and Deer Park;

46 cases are in Melbournes south east, including in Dandenong, Keysborough, and Clyde North;

14 cases are in Melbournes eastern suburbs, including in Doncaster and Donvale;

Three cases are currently under investigation.

Victorian COVID-19 response commander Jeroen Weimar said authorities were seeing more COVID-19 cases in Melbournes south-east. If youre in the south-eastern suburbs  around Dandenong, around Keysborough, around Clyde North  if youve got any symptoms whatsoever, or please just check those exposure sites, we really need to see people coming forward to get tested in that part of our city, Mr Weimar said. We think were starting to see some seeding out now, particularly from essential workers ... moving from the north and west into the south-east, and obviously, were keen to stop it wherever we possibly can. More than 81,000 vaccine doses were administered in Victoria on Wednesday, including 41,758 at state hubs, while 61,961 test results were processed  a 12 per cent increase in the number of tests reported the previous day.

There are now 4370 active cases in the state. Ballarat re-enters lockdown Loading Ballarat residents began their first day of a week-long snap lockdown on Thursday as the number of positive cases in the city of about 100,000 climbed to six. One of the three new cases in Ballarat is a mystery case, Mr Weimar said.

Changes for construction workers Mr Andrews also announced on Thursday that construction workers will need to get vaccinated if they want to keep working. Workers in the industry will need to show evidence to their employer that they have had a first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine by 11.59pm on Thursday, September 23. Limited medical exemptions and proof-of-booking exceptions will apply, in line with requirements for aged care workers.

Church, Alfred hospitals emergency centre added as exposure sites A Melbourne church and emergency department are among the COVID-19 exposure sites identified by Victorian health authorities on Thursday. St Joseph Melkite Catholic Church at Fairfield was listed as a tier-1 exposure site across three days, while Casey Hospitals emergency department waiting room at Berwick, in Melbournes south-east, was declared a tier-1 site for an exposure on Tuesday, between 8.28pm and 11.36pm. Also declared tier-1 sites were a childcare at Diamond Creek and TopGear Wheels and Tyres in Heidelberg West - both in Melbournes north-east. The Alfreds emergency and trauma centre was listed as a tier-1 exposure site on Wednesday evening, as was a construction site and an early learning centre attached to a junior school in Ballarat.

Loading An Alfred Health spokesperson said a patient visited the emergency department on Tuesday night and tested positive for COVID-19. Meanwhile, a construction site in Cerberus Lane in Canadian, a suburb of Ballarat, was listed as a tier-1 exposure site on Wednesday night, after a case attended the worksite on September 10 from 6.50am to 5.30pm. Clarendon Colleges Early Learning Centre is also a tier-1 exposure site on September 10, from 8.15am to 9am. But The Ballarat Courier is reporting anyone who attended the Mair Street campus, including the junior school, at any time last Friday is now subject to a 48-hour stop and stay directive, meaning they must go home immediately and get tested after a child tested positive.

Given the speed with which the Delta variant is moving from person to person, anyone associated with the school, and their household, is asked to quarantine for 48 hours in the first instance, Grampians Public Health clinical director Dr Karen Aarons wrote to parents. A playground, an IGA and two shops have also been added to the list of exposure sites in the city. Premier Daniel Andrews, Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton and COVID-19 response commander Jeroen Weimar on Wednesday. Credit: Eddie Jim No guidance for Wodonga as Albury re-enters lockdown No lockdown has been announced for Wodonga, despite its sister city over the border Albury going into lockdown.

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard announced the lockdown for Albury on Thursday after two mystery cases were detected in the border city. Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said while there would be knock-on effects for Wodonga, he did not say the city would join Albury in lockdown. In some many ways they are one place, Mr Andrews said. We might have to reach out and try and support them.
State Prosecutors have long performed substantial unpaid overtime without complaint, she wrote. Director of Public Prosecutions Amanda Forrester SC. Credit:DPP However, that essential recuperation time is no longer available, with the demands for increased productivity and provision of service to the courts and defence, in combination with more complex and voluminous cases. It is the unrelenting pressure and content which elevates the danger of burnout and workplace stress. It also enhances the risk of mistakes, and ultimately potential injustice to victims and those accused of criminal offence. While 71.3 per cent of cases in 2020-21 were dealt with in five days or less, trials which lasted 10 days or longer increased from 16 to 35 as the office experienced an increase in the number of complex prosecutions such as murder cases. In the past financial year the ODPP dealt with 516 trials which were heard over a combined 2385 days.

The time it took for a criminal case to reach trial in the Supreme Court was 53 weeks in 2020-21 instead of a target of 28 weeks. In the District Court criminal cases took 54 weeks before they started, compared to a goal of 32 weeks. Cases are still expected to take a long time to make it to court in the coming 12 months with a new target of 39 weeks for criminal trials to get to the Supreme Court. Recent law changes are also predicted to have an impact with new family violence offences, the voluntary assisted dying scheme, and industrial manslaughter laws likely to result in complex and resource-intensive cases. The latest annual report from the office also warns more significant criminal reforms are anticipated without any appropriate resourcing being provided or foreshadowed.

Justice system not evolving with changing legal landscape Ms Forrester wrote preparation for the tasks which come up during a trial were expected to be done outside of court hours but these responsibilities had become more demanding and time consuming than before. Counsel conducting trials will generally perform many, many hours of work after hours, just to complete the trial, let alone to work on their other matters which require attention at the same time, she wrote. Unfortunately, the justice system has not evolved to account for this increased trial preparation time. Courts still sit from 10am to 4:30pm (some judges sit even longer hours) five days a week, with an expectation that all necessary preparation will occur outside those hours, no matter how much that involves.

Such is the strain on workers at the ODPP an office therapy dog, with support from the Attorney General, was brought in which the annual report noted a staff survey had found raised morale and productivity. Loading Ms Forrester said todays prosecutor workforce placed a significant value on spending time with loved ones and having a good work-life balance. People are too frequently having to sacrifice time with their families and friends, time to recover and to take leave, in order to continue to serve the community to the best of their ability, she said. While attempting to meet the often unreasonable demands of a criminal justice system which is not adapting sufficiently to deal with the extraordinary changes in society and technology which we have seen in the last three decades.

For the second year in a row Ms Forrester called out the WA Police Force for a significant decline in the quality of the briefs being handed to her office to prosecute. There are some exceptions, most notably in homicide cases, but, despite sustained efforts on our part, the ODPP has been unable to achieve improvement in this area, she said. This leaves the ODPP in the invidious position of either absorbing additional workload to remedy deficiencies in cases, or to discontinue the cases. Given the adverse impact of the latter course on victims of crime, and the consequent potential risk to the community, ODPP staff are going to considerable additional effort to assist investigators to conduct their roles, which detracts from the ODPP staff performing their own core tasks. WA Police Commissioner Chris Dawson said on Friday he had not read the annual report from the ODPP but would review comments it made.

We do know, and its understandable a lot of those trials now, particularly those handled by the DPP are very complex ... but if there is a need for an improvement well obviously look at that, he said. Ms Forrester said she had tried to make changes during her time as director to increase productivity and reduce workflow but an increase in police numbers, investigations, and prosecutions of corruption and organised crime had negated efforts. Senior staff walking out the door When Ms Forrester started as director she noted in her first annual report, 2016-17, there had been an upward trend in workload coinciding with several senior, experienced and talented prosecutors leaving the office as some received judicial appointments. A modified graduate program was introduced last year and while six new lawyers started through the initiative in the most recent reporting period it has not been enough to counter a continued bleeding out of senior talent.

The turnover of senior legal staff at the ODPP was close to 50 per cent higher than the overall employee rate in the past financial year. This means we are losing valuable knowledge and resources which are impossible to replace promptly and adds further strain on our workforce, the annual report said. The biggest loss was that of deputy director Carmel Barbagallo SC, the prosecutor for the long-running Claremont murders case, who was appointed to the District Court as a judge in January. It will be near impossible to replace her sheer capacity for work and her contribution to the ODPP over many years, Ms Forrester wrote. Another prosecutor, Joanne Andretich, was called up to the Magistrates Court in July last year while several other senior lawyers from the ODPP have moved into private practices.

WA court appointments 2020-21 September 14, 2021  Private firm and Legal Aid WA barrister Angus Hockton appointed as a Magistrate of the Magistrates Court of Western Australia to fill vacancy of Magistrate Christian Miocevich moving to the District Court. August 26, 2021  State Solicitors Office senior assisting state solicitor Carol Conley appointed to SAT as an ordinary member. August 12, 2021  Former Legal Aid WA lawyer Michelle Harries, Sarah Oliver from Francis Burt Chambers, former prosecutor Cillian Stockdale, former prosecutor Matthew Holgate appointed to Magistrates Court. July 29, 2021  Marcus Solomon SC appointed a judge of the Supreme Court. June 1, 2021  Barrister Lisa Campbell-Tovey and Supreme Court Registrar Natalie Whitby appointed as judges of the District Court. June 9, 2021  Supreme Court Principal Registrar Larissa Strk as a judge of the Supreme Court. January 15, 2021  Private practice lawyer Alana Padmanabham appointed magistrate in Childrens Court. January 14, 2021  DPP deputy director Carmel Barbagallo SC appointed to District Court. December 16, 2020  Criminal lawyer Simon Freitag SC appointed to District Court. July 31, 2020  Genevieve Cleary, Benjamin Tyers, Joanne Andretich, Andrew Matthews, Gavin MacLean and Benjamin White added to regional Magistrates Court positions. July 30, 2020  Lawyer Gary Massey and barrister Karen Shepherd appointed to District Court along with Magistrate Martin Flynn. This years state budget provided an additional $9.1 million to the ODPP over the next four years to help meet demand. About $3.6 million is set aside for office space with the actual demand for services to be funded with $1.5 million over the next 12 months before dropping to $300,000 the following year. More than half of the additional funding commitment has been put off until 2024-25. Ms Forrester wrote she was pleased to say her office had received commensurate funding with the promise to boost police numbers by 950 officers. [It] enables us to plan to meet the increased demand, if not to hire and train prosecutors in advance, she wrote.


Australia is going to build nuclear submarines as part of a new broader defence technology pact with the US and Britain. How much the world has changed since just April 2016. Back then, Australia chose a conventional, diesel-powered submarine as its key undersea weapon, to be built in partnership with the French.

A nuclear sub was ruled out because of the sensitivity of military nuclear technologies, the complexity and cost and because we were told our strategic needs would be met by the diesel submarine. The sensitivity, complexity and cost remain. Whats changed is our security environment. Thats summed up in three words: China under Xi.

Scott Morrison, Joe Biden and Boris Johnson launched the AUKUS alliance on Thursday morning.

Any doubts about the direction Xi Jinping is taking China were ended in Tiananmen Square on July 1, when he doubled down on his vision that a great China is one that can use its power in the world however it deems fit, engaging in a great struggle against others who seek to make their own decisions.

And its more than China that has changed. In 2016, the British government would almost certainly not have been seized with the urgency of sharing nuclear secrets with Australia, and the US would only have done so with a huge amount of arm-twisting, notably of submarine folk in the US Navy. We would have been regaled with stories about how the US and British only share their nuclear defence technology with each other, under an agreement signed in 1958.
Industry Minister Christian Porters future on the front bench may be known within days, with the Prime Minister prepared to dump him from cabinet if formal advice finds he breached ministerial standards by accepting anonymous donations for his legal fees.

Scott Morrison would not guarantee Mr Porters position in the ministry on Thursday, saying he was prepared to make difficult decisions if departmental advice concluded the standards had not been met.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he was prepared to make difficult decisions if Industry Minister Christian Porter is found to have breached ministerial standards. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

I have taken decisions in the past, difficult decisions, when I believe [standards] havent been adhered to and decisions have been taken as a consequence of that, Mr Morrison said on Thursday.

In the same way on these issues, I will follow the same process. Ill deal with it carefully, and as always Ill ensure that the ministerial guidelines are adhered to.
It is not surprising that Julia Gillard has not watched Strong Female Lead, the documentary about how she was vilified and demeaned while serving as Australias first female prime minister from 2010 to 2013. Im aware of the content, she said drolly in a videoed message this week, as of course, I was there.

No need for her to be retraumatised while the rest of us are reminded of the relentless efforts, by the opposition, many in the media and, increasingly, numbers of her own male colleagues, to undermine her legitimacy and, ultimately, orchestrate her removal from office.

Julia Gillard on the day she was sworn in as prime minister in 2010, with the then governor-general, Quentin Bryce. Credit:Government House

When the hugely popular Gillard, then deputy prime minister, agreed to challenge Kevin Rudd for the top job, I am sure she had no idea what she was in for. Previous Labor leaders had back-stabbed their predecessors, and everyone got over it, especially caucus members who relished staying in office. Why not this time?

The answer, of course, lies in her gender. Too many Australians apparently could not hack having a woman leading the nation. Why this was, and remains, the case is still unexplained  perhaps inexplicable  but Strong Female Lead provides grim confirmation of what happened.
The man accused of raping former political staffer Brittany Higgins has pleaded not guilty in court.

Bruce Lehrmann did not appear himself in the ACT Magistrates Court on Thursday morning but his lawyer, Warwick Korn, told the court he had been instructed to enter a plea of not guilty.

Former ministerial staffer Brittany Higgins at a rally in Canberra in March. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer

Magistrate Beth Campbell clarified: Thats to the allegation that on the 23rd of March 2019 your client engaged in sexual intercourse with Brittany Higgins without her consent and was reckless as to whether she had consented.

Ms Higgins went public with the allegation in February, sparking a national conversation about the treatment of women and their involvement in politics.
Australians have found out the hard way that there is a price to pay for having six defence ministers in eight years in a volatile time in a changing region.

The rise of China, and the increasing assertion of Xi Jinping as its president-for-life, have coincided with a period of conflict and indecision at the top of the Australian government that has cost far more than the $2.4 billion spent on submarines that will never be built.

Scott Morrison joined US President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday to unveil the new AUKUS defence pact.

There is no easy way to measure the cost in lost time and confused strategy, but there is no doubt the damage is real  and confirmed by the very need for what Prime Minister Scott Morrison calls a forever partnership with the United States and Britain to build nuclear submarines.

Seven years after Australia opened talks with Japan to buy a fleet of conventional submarines, the federal government wants nuclear submarines but does not know which ones. It will need at least 18 months to consider the options.
Australia is second only to New Zealand for the lowest number of coronavirus deaths per capita in the OECD  a sign the countrys public health measures have worked to protect the population, Health Minister Greg Hunt has declared.

By Thursday evening, more than 70 per cent of the eligible population aged 16 and over would have had a first dose. Once 70 per cent of that population is fully vaccinated, the country can move into the next phase of the national recovery plan that will see fewer restrictions and increased caps on international arrivals.

Health Minister Greg Hunt said Australians have been protected from the brunt of the pandemic. Credit:Scott McNaughton

More than 95 per cent of aged care workers have also had their first shot as the jab becomes mandatory for staff in the sector from Friday. That program will be discussed at national cabinet on Friday as state and territory leaders look to mandate vaccinations for all healthcare workers.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the pace of the vaccine rollout means the double-dose target will be reached soon.
Victoria is now home to 43,000 fewer people than at the start of the pandemic, making it the only state in the nation to record a drop in population since coronavirus hit Australia.

The state shrank by about enough people to fill the Victorian border city of Wodonga in the 12 months to March on Australian Bureau of Statistics data. Victorias population declined 0.6 per cent since the pandemic hit, as international border closures to stop the spread of the virus meant offshore migration failed to make up for those leaving the state.

Melbournes streets have been empty during lockdowns. Credit:Scott McNaughton

In every other state and territory there was an increase in residents, ranging from a modest 0.1 per cent population growth in NSW to a high of 0.9 per cent in Queensland.

Nationally there was a 0.1 per cent increase, or about 35,700 people, compared to 1.5 per cent growth in 2019 before the pandemic hit. The Australian population is now 25,704,340, including 6,648,600 people living in Victoria.
Singapore: China has declared the new defence pact between Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom gravely undermines regional peace and stability while branding Australias acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines a damaging setback to global non-proliferation efforts.

Chinese government spokesman Zhao Lijian also rejected Prime Minister Scott Morrisons suggestion he had extended an open invitation to President Xi Jinping to reopen talks between the two countries, saying he was not aware of that.

Xi Jinping at the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing in June. Credit:AP

The announcement of a new trilateral security partnership between Australia, the US and the UK was accompanied by a dramatic ramping up of Australias defences as it looks to secure itself against a rising China.

Along with the planned acquisition of nuclear submarines, Morrison said Australia wanted to enhance its arsenal with long-range US Tomahawk missiles.
Kabul: Friction between pragmatists and ideologues in the Taliban leadership has intensified since the group formed a hard-line cabinet to govern Afghanistan last week.

The cabinet is more in line with the Talibans harsh rule in the 1990s than their recent promises of inclusiveness, said two Afghans familiar with the power struggle.

The wrangling has taken place behind the scenes, but rumours quickly began circulating about a recent violent confrontation between the two camps at the presidential palace, including claims that the leader of the pragmatic faction, Abdul Ghani Baradar, was killed.

Taliban fighters take control of Afghan presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan on August 15. Credit:AP

The rumours reached such intensity that an audio recording and handwritten statement, both purportedly by Baradar himself, denied he had been killed. The Pashto-language letter had a stamp from the office of Baradar, who has served as the chief negotiator during talks between the Taliban and the United States.
Blinken and White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the US had notified French officials of the deal before it was announced. Morrison did not convey the bad news directly to Macron before making the public announcement. A statement from the Naval group was more restrained, describing the loss of the $90 billion contract as a major disappointment and noting that the company had delivered on all its commitments. The statement said the consequences of the decision would be analysed over the coming days, but compensation for breaking the contract is also going to run to billions. Frances Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian was furious and hit the airwaves.

It is really a stab in the back. We built a relationship of trust with Australia, and this trust was betrayed and Im angry today, with a lot of bitterness, about this breach [of contract], he told France Info radio. This is not done between allies, especially when theres been two years of negotiations for this contract. Foreign Affairs Marise Payne and French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian at a meeting in 2019. Credit: Its a slap in our face, Frances former ambassador to the US Gerard Araud told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in an interview. He said Morrison had never given the French the impression that he could walk away from the entire contract without notice or negotiation.

Even if you concluded that the program was wrecked, it was not necessary to do it in this sort of brutal and inelegant way, he said. For us, Australia was the pillar of our Indo-Pacific strategy, we had the impression that we had created a political partnership with Australia, so its really quite insulting to see overnight the Australians saying we dont care. Loading Everything we have done with the Australians has been thrown overboard in a night. When asked if the relationship was salvageable for future collaborations, Araud said: No, no, its not possible.

The way it was done  the submarines we were selling were nuclear-powered  why didnt Australia take France on board? Why? Not only did they scrap the contract, they are kicking the French out. There was no reason why we shouldnt be part of this new game. He said the damage was not just confined to the Australia-France relationship. The French Foreign Minister said Bidens secret negotiations were something former US president Donald Trump would do. Araud said it was a hostile act from the United States. The US has trampled our national interest. What the US has done to our national interest is a hostile act, he said.

Scott Morrison joins US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to announce a pact between the three nations that will see a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines built in Adelaide. What we were doing with the Australians was a strategic choice and this strategic choice has been swept away, not only by the Australians but also by the Americans. He said the British involvement was immaterial because they were poodles of the Americans, as usual. Loading In London, Prime Minister Boris Johnson came under pressure to declare that the relationship with France was rock solid, while Defence Secretary Ben Wallace conceded if it had happened to us, I would have been deeply disappointed [for Britains defence industry].

Former British prime minister Theresa May asked if the agreement would result in Britain being dragged into military conflict if China invaded Taiwan. The fallout overshadowed the European Commissions new Indo-Pacific strategy unveiled in Brussels which expressed interest in joint maritime exercises with its partners in the region, including Australia. Josep Borrell, Vice-President of the Commission, was repeatedly questioned about the AUKUS alliance as he unveiled the new European strategy. I suppose that a deal like that wasnt cooked the day before yesterday, Borrell said. Despite that, we werent informed. The communique also stated that concluding a free trade agreement with Australia was one of its objectives and assured Australia that the security pact would not affect the future of those negotiations.
Washington: How remarkable to think that just a few weeks ago Australians were feeling slighted by a lack of attention from the Biden administration.

As the 20-year war in Afghanistan came to its ignominious end last month, President Joe Biden did not pick up the phone to call Prime Minister Scott Morrison until after the final US troops had left Kabul. It seemed a shoddy way to treat a close ally that had sacrificed 41 lives in the war effort.

And it stung that America did not send any spare vials from its abundant supply of Pfizer vaccines down under, forcing the Morrison government to cut a deal with Poland to access its soon-to-expire doses.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison appeared with US President Joe Biden and British Prime minister Boris Johnson at the rare joint virtual press conference. Credit:AAP

Now a country that takes inordinate pride in punching above its weight on the global stage is very much doing so again.
San Jose: Prince Harry and his wife Meghan have been chosen as one of Time magazines 100 most influential people of 2021.

The honour comes with a glowing write-up by their friend, World Central Kitchen chef and founder Jose Andres, who said that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex turn compassion into boots on the ground through their Archewell Foundation and give voice to the voiceless through media production.

Springing into action is not the easy choice for a young Duke and Duchess who have been blessed through birth and talent, and burned by fame, he wrote. It would be much safer to enjoy their good fortune and stay silent. Thats not what Harry and Meghan do, or who they are.

They dont just opine. They run toward the struggle.

Andres essay comes with a Time magazine cover photo of the British prince and his former TV actress wife that is leaving some people scratching their heads.
Washington: Peter Dutton says outbursts and propaganda from China about Australias development of nuclear-powered submarines will not deter the country from deepening defence ties with America, as the Defence Minister announced a significant expansion of the US military presence in Australia.

Dutton said he expects to see an increase in the number of US troops rotating through northern Australia, as well as more bilateral military exercises and possibly new US military bases in Australia.

Dutton and Foreign Minister Marise Payne met with their US counterparts in Washington for the annual AustraliaUS Ministerial (AUSMIN) consultations a day after the launch of the landmark AUKUS security partnership between the US, UK and Australia.

Optimistic about more US troop rotations: Marise Payne, right, speaks during a news conference with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin at the State Department in Washington. Credit:AP

US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken stressed that the Biden administrations decision to share Americas closely guarded submarine secrets with Australia did not come with any expectation of favours in return.
PHILIPSBURG:--- Domestic (relational) violence has devastating, long-term effects on victims, both physically and psychologically. The impact of disasters such as hurricanes and pandemics may also lead to an increase in cases. Supporting victims of domestic abuse must always be a priority, but to prevent or reduce harm, we must first understand the behaviors that lead to perpetrators committing this crime and learn skills how to best address them. For this reason, the Stichting Justitiele Inrichtingen St. Maarten (SJIS)-Probation Department and the St. Maarten Prosecutors Office (OM SXM) have joined forces to combat domestic violence on St. Maarten.

Recently a group of professionals, amongst those SJIS-probation officers and staff members of Safe Haven Foundation and government department Womens Desk, followed the Safe Homes behavioral intervention training for offenders, to prevent and reduce domestic (relational) violence amongst their clientele.

Probation officers often have the most contact with domestic violence offenders and play an important role in assessing the context of the offenders violent behavior and recommending appropriate sanctions to the prosecutors office and court. Their recommendations can advance or impede both safety and accountability outcomes for the victim and the offender. However, until recently there was no evidence-based training that could be used by probation officers and other professionals to influence the behavior of offenders in order to stop the abuse and violence.

The Safe Home method provides insight into why someone exhibits this behavior, how to get control of their anger and how to react differently. During the training, the partner of the offender is also involved in order to prevent new violent behavior.

Probation officers would be able to offer the training in a compulsory framework to offenders of relational violence who are ordered by the prosecutors office or court to follow the Safe Homes training, but it is also important to provide the training as preventive assistance before the situation gets out of control and police and court are involved. Therefore Safe Haven and Womens Desk domestic violence professionals will provide the training on a voluntary basis to persons within the community.

Furthermore, a Safe Homes animation video and brochure are being development and will be made available to the public through the media and at various locations such as the Police KPSM, SJIS, Safe Haven, Womens Desk, Prosecutors Office, and the Court House.

Tackling relational violence cases via behavioral intervention training is not a new approach within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Currently, the Safe Homes training is available for the community of Saba, St. Eustatius, and Bonaire under the name of Kas Sigur Training and in the Netherlands as the Borg Training. Recently probation staff and other professionals in Curacao also underwent the same training.

The trainer is Desire Frans, who holds a masters degree in criminology. Desire currently serves as Senior Probation Officer at Probation Caribbean Netherland and is a certified Domestic Violence and Behavioral Intervention trainer.

The training is part of a series of activities that aims to provide an alternative approach to conflicts and combat domestic violence. Other related activities are the Mediation Skills training that took place in July, a Gender-Based Violence training scheduled for September, pilot mediation in criminal cases implemented by SJIB and OM SXM during the course of 6 months until the end of 2021.

The Safe Homes behavioral intervention training falls under the Domestic Violence and Mediation Project financed through the Resources for Community Resilience R4CR funding program, which was implemented by VNG International (the International Cooperation Agency of the Association of Netherlands Municipalities VNG) and funded by the St. Maarten Recovery and Resilience Trust Fund to improve the capacity of St. Maartens civil society organizations and to support reconstruction and resilience at the community level.
PHILIPSBURG:--- An ongoing situation in the Netherlands between Schiphol International and contractor Ballast Nedam has prompted Independent MP Christophe Emmanuel to write to Minister of TEATT Roger Lawrence to obtain information on any potential fallout for the re-construction of the Princess Juliana International Airport (PJIA).

In the week of August 27, 2021, several media outlets in the Netherlands reported on the significant financial losses of Schiphol International Airport in the first half of 2021 due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Included in these reports are the delays Schiphol is now faced with on the construction of a new wing at the airport due to conflicts with contractor Ballast Nedam.

The reports specifically mentioned rising costs and shortage of building materials. Dutch media has reported that the issue between Schiphol and Ballast Nedam could result in a legal dispute between the two.

As Schiphol is heavily involved at the Princess Juliana International Airport (PJIA) and as Ballast Nedam has recently been awarded the bid for the re-construction of PJIA, I obviously have my concerns and would appreciate if the Minister would answer a few questions so that we are clearly moving forward, MP Emmanuel said.

The MP is seeking answers to the following question:

1. Has Schiphol or Ballast Nedam informed PJIA of any consequences for the re-construction of PJIA due to the reported dispute between Schiphol and Ballast Nedam? If yes, please elaborate.

2. Has Schiphol or Ballast Nedam informed PJIA of any cost overruns for the re-construction of PJIA due to an increase of material cost? If yes, please indicate how much cost overrun can be expected?

3. Has Schiphol or Ballast Nedam informed PJIA of any delays in the re-construction of PJIA due to shortage of material? If yes, please indicate the length of this delay.

4. Please explain if there is any clause in the re-construction contract of PJIA that indemnifies PJIA from additional costs related to third-party disputes and delays.

5. If a legal dispute develops between Schiphol and Ballast Nedam, how will this affect the re-construction of PJIA?

6. Please indicate if the re-construction is on schedule and if not, why not?

Lastly Minister, in the event that PJIA does not have any information regarding the aforementioned questions or if they have not been briefed by Schiphol or Ballast Nedam, I hereby also request that you insist that PJIA reaches out to both Schiphol and Ballast Nedam with the questions in order to provide you with the answers. You can, in turn, inform my person and Parliament accordingly, MP Emmanuel concluded.

The MP was very vocal against Ballast Nedam being awarded the contract to re-construct the airport citing its criminal history of bribing governments and other officials in at least to other countries.
PHILIPSBURG:--- The Central Committee of Parliament, will meet in a session on September 16, 2021.

The Central Committee meeting, which was adjourned on August 30, 2021, will be reconvened on Thursday, September 16, 2021, at 15.00 hrs in the General Assembly Chamber of the House at Wilhelminastraat #1 in Philipsburg. The Minister of Finance will be present.

The agenda point is:

Reform of the tax system on Sint Maarten

(IS/652/2019-2020 dated March 5, 2020)

This meeting was requested by MP S.A. Wescot-Williams, MP C.A. Buncamper, and MP M.D. Gumbs

Due to measures taken to mitigate the coronavirus (COVID-19), the House of Parliament is only allowing persons with an appointment to enter the Parliament building.

The parliamentary sessions will be carried live on St. Maarten Cable TV Channel 115, via SXM GOV radio FM 107.9, via Pearl Radio FM 98.1, the audio via the internet www.sxmparliament.org, and www.pearlfmradio.sx
PHILIPSBURG:--- Tuesday, September 14, was the official (re)opening ceremony of the sewing center at the Point Blanch prison.

The sewing center at the Pointe Blanche prison has been closed for some years, but after minor renovations, it has officially opened back its doors for the inmates residing at the Pointe Blanche prison. Present during the ceremony were the honorable Minister of Justice, Ms. Anna E. Richardson and her supporting staff, the interim director of the prison, Mr. Aartwichgt Bell, the prison management team, the sewing instructor Mr. Carlos Gomez and the prison staff members.

In the month of April 2021, a survey was conducted amongst the inmates to identify their interests in daytime and rehabilitation programs that could be offered by the prison to ensure that the investment that the ministry makes is a positive and necessary one. The results yielded that about 65 inmates, which includes male and female inmates, have expressed interest in the proposed programs, which translates to approximately 85% of the population. Based on the survey, thirty-seven (37) male and three (3) female inmates expressed interest in participating in the sewing center.

The sewing center has always been used to teach the inmates how to sew where they learn a trade that can be used after release. Minister Richardson, therefore, has been adamant in getting the sewing center reopened as soon as possible to allow the inmates to be proactive during their stay and engage in activities that can positively affect their reintegration into society. Now reopened, the inmates will make uniforms for the inmates, prison officers, and other prison staff. The aim is to eventually have all uniforms used in the justice sector such as KPSM, douane, and so on, to be made by the inmates. This not only provides the inmates with meaningful daytime activity, but it also can reduce the overall uniform expenses within the Ministry of Justice.

The (re)opening ceremony commenced with encouraging words by Minister Richardson who stated:

Today is monumental. After taking such a hit from the hurricane and some other drawbacks, we are here today. It is such a warm feeling to be here right now. I am excited and I welcome Mr. Gomez back to the sewing center. I cannot wait to be able to show the public all that these young men can do under the leadership and guidance of Mr. Gomez. Congratulations to the management team. What you are doing and bringing to fruition is a great deal and it must not go unmentioned. I commend you for your dedication in reestablishing the sewing center and giving our clients the opportunity to be involved and proactive during their stay.

Mr. Gomez, the sewing instructor who has been instrumental in setting up the sewing center in the prison in Curacao and has years of service in the Point Blanche prison sewing center stated: I feel very happy. This is my home, and this is my profession. I will continue to teach the inmates how to sew. I thank Minister Richardson, the management team, and supporting staff for this opportunity.

During the ceremony Minister Richardson was joined by the interim director Mr. Bell, the prison management team, and Mr. Gomez for the ribbon-cutting, which marked the official (re)opening of the sewing center.

The sewing classes will resume as soon as possible which will yield positive results very soon. This is one of the many programs that the Minister is dedicated to (re)establishing at the prison. Other programs and initiatives such as the GED lessons, cooking lessons, improving the gym and library areas with fresh paint and equipment are presently being worked on.
PHILIPSBURG:--- Two of St. Martins authors, Lasana Sekou and Fabian Badejo, have praised the historic Africa-CARICOM Summit held virtually on September 7, 2021, said their publisher HNP.

The summit was hosted by Kenya and chaired by Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta under the theme Unity across Continents and Oceans: Opportunities for Deepening Integration.

The event was attended and addressed by the heads of state and government of the African Union and CARICOM member states. Heads of regional integration secretariats and institutions of CARICOM and Africa also attended.

This is the unique culmination of continuous efforts by the people of Africa and the Caribbean to solidify the historical, cultural, and blood connections that they share across centuries, said Sekou, a poet, and publisher.

It is the spirit of the African connections so concretized by Garvey that lives on among us, said Sekou. The pan-African and pan-Caribbean themes of Sekous poetry have long been reviewed in critical journals and books.

Blood is indeed thicker than water, noted Badejo. Throughout history, the longing for reconnection between Africa and the African Diaspora has never waned.

The longing and connectednessoften against great political and social odds and even violencemay be subtle as hush-hush stories in Caribbean families about an African ancestor, to defiantly speaking African-based Caribbean languages; from folk songs of longing sung in Carriacou for centuries, to Cubas decades-long role in the liberation of southern African countries, said the writers in a joint statement.

Just as Europe, and in particular the UK, has special relations with its diaspora, especially in the USA, so too it should be considered natural for Africa to have similar special relations with people of African descent in this part of the world, said Badejo.

The late, great Barbadian poet and historian Kamau Brathwaite, who lived and worked in Ghana and Kenya at the onset of his career, understood this from a personal and professional point of view, Badejo explained.

So did many others understand and inform this point of view practically and intellectually, from David Walker to Marcus Garvey, from Queen Mother Moore to Kwame Nkrumah, said Badejo, who is also a journalist and cultural critic.

The summit produced proposals to further strengthen the ties between the two regions. These include direct air links between destinations in Africa and the Caribbean and visa-free travels for the citizens of African and CARICOM countries.

The Leaders indicated support for the establishment of a CARICOM/Africa public-private partnership dedicated to mobilizing resources and deploying them in critical cutting-edge projects, including renewable energy, the creative industries, and digital technology  (And) the contribution of the African Medical Supplies Platform (AMSP) in making vaccines available to CARICOM was lauded, according to CARICOM news.

Sekou said that It is key for the general populations to see themselves as the foundation of this official level summit. What this multilateral cooperation will achieve over time, including wielding global bargaining power, widening the diasporic reach to include non-CARICOM members in the region and institutions of Brazil and other nations of the Americas, is invariably based on peoples movements.

It is the same peoples movements and consciousness that produce activists and artists such as St. Martins Thomas Duruo and Carlos Cooks, Trinidads Claudia Jones, Jamaicas Bob Marley, Antiguas Dobrene OMarde, or Barbados Ambassador to CARICOM David Comissiong. And thats just to name a few of the many who have been about this pan-African liberation business, said Sekou.

While on September 7, CARICOM proposed the creation of a Forum of African and Caribbean Territories and States, both authors said that for St. Martin to critically tap into the opportunities that are sure to open because of the initiatives proposed at the summit, the nation has to act on Nkrumahs dictum and seek political independence.

We are at a critical time when we must join the comity of nations coming together to build and rebuild the world to benefit our people. We can only do this if we attain political freedom, Sekou and Badejo stressed.

This first Africa-CARICOM Summit was a giant step towards pan-African unity, which will facilitate political, economic, educational, cultural, and technological cooperation, Sekou and Badejo said.

We applaud the vision of all those who made this summit possible on both sides of the Atlantic and encourage them to intensify their efforts to achieve the goal of reuniting the African family at home and abroad, they added.

It has also been proposed at the Africa-CARICOM Summit for September 7 to be observed annually as Africa-Caribbean Day.
Addressing the Internet Of Things (IoT) and challenges in device design using a comprehensive approach

As the number of connected devices increases worldwide, the ways that they are being used, designed, and tested have also expanded. The rise of connected devices is demanding engineers to harness the power of the internet of things, which is expected to hit 28 billion by 2025. A comprehensive approach to device design is needed more than ever to address the challenges that this rapid growth will bring. Why engineers should be using IoT technology in product design The demand for devices designed to use the Internet of Things (IoT) technology is increasing as more industries are finding expanded ways to put them into use. Industries such as healthcare, automobiles, and agriculture are becoming more dependent on cloud capabilities and are therefore in need of new devices able to connect to it. Due to this rise in demand, an increasing amount of devices are delivering a multitude of benefits both to consumers and companies. However, this new wave of products has led to a growing list of challenges for engineers as they are forced to address IoT tech in regards to connectivity, regulations, longevity, and security. Ways to use IoT in the development process Engineers are facing these new challenges along with the normal pressure of deadlines and test considerations. By approaching all of these issues from a comprehensive point-of-view, the solutions become clearer and new device capabilities can be born. Lets look at the challenges individually as well as possible solutions for them. Improving connectivity IoT enables data to be transferred between infrastructure, the cloud, and devices, making the process smooth Because IoT is based around connection, its no surprise that the primary challenge for engineers to overcome is the improvement of connectivity between devices. IoT enables data to be transferred between infrastructure, the cloud, and devices, so making this process as smooth as possible is crucial. The main challenges involved with connectivity have to do with development and product testing while meeting industry standards and best practices. Additionally, many companies lack the necessary equipment and technology to develop new IoT devices, which makes it difficult to create scalable prototypes and test new products. Suggested solutions To address the issue of not having the expertise and necessary tools for testing, we suggest outsourcing the prototyping and evaluation process instead of attempting to tackle this in-house. By doing this, youre able to free up resources that would otherwise be needed for expensive equipment and qualified staff. Helping comply with regulations When working with devices that are connected across the world, there is a complex web of regulations and conformance standards that can lead to challenges for engineers. The necessity of complying with these regulations while also pushing to meet deadlines can be burdensome and lead to an increase in production time and expenses. Failure to comply with global and regional laws, as well as system and carrier requirements, can lead to fines and costly setbacks. This type of failure can destroy a companys reputation on top of causing financial losses, often leading to the loss of business. Suggested solutions By testing the IoT device design and components early, engineers can address any pre-compliance issues that may arise. During the early stages of development, we suggest using scalable and automated test systems readily available in the marketplace. Improved communication with other devices New challenges arise as new devices hit the market and existing technologies are redesigned to offer a better experience In the rapidly growing number of connected devices, new challenges will arise as new devices hit the market and existing technologies are redesigned to offer a better user experience. This rapid growth in devices will lead to congested networks leading to the necessity of devices being able to function in the midst of increased traffic and interference. Failure to do this will lead to delayed responses which could prove to be fatal. Suggested solutions The best solution for this issue is found in the evaluation process and supporting test methods that the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) published in the American National Standard for Evaluation of Wireless Coexistence (ANSI). This process addresses the interconnectivity issues present in radio frequency environments. The outlined process involves defining the environment and evaluating the wireless performance of the equipment through thorough testing. An in-depth version can be found in its entirety online. Increasing the longevity of devices IoT devices are being used in vital industries such as healthcare and automotive so battery life and power consumption are two challenges that engineers must take seriously. A failure in this area could potentially lead to loss of life or safety concerns on the road. As new firmware and software are being designed to address these factors, engineers must be implementing them into IoT devices with the ability to be continually updated. Suggested solutions Longevity should be addressed in all aspects of the design process and tested thoroughly using a wide range of currents. By doing this, an engineer can simulate consumer applications to best predict performance. Security Security and privacy are concerns with any technology, but with the use of IoT in medical devices, its paramount Security has been a controversial issue for IoT since its inception. Security and privacy are concerns with any technology, but with the widespread use of IoT in medical devices, smart home appliances, and access control and surveillance, its paramount. For example, medical devices may store information about health parameters, medications, and prescriber information. In some cases, these devices may be controlled by an app, such as a smart pacemaker, to prevent heart arrhythmias. Naturally, a security issue in these devices could be devastating. Another example of dangerous security concern is with surveillance cameras and access control, such as for home or business security systems. These intelligent door locking systems contain locks, lock access controllers, and associated devices that communicate with each other. Suspicious activities are flagged with alerts and notifications, but if a hacker gains access, it can lead to real-world, physical danger. Security design points Here are some key points for security design: Physical security: IoT devices may be in external, isolated locations that are vulnerable to attack from not only hackers but by human contact. Embedding security protection on every IoT device is expensive, but its important for general security and data safety. Security of data exchange: Data protection is also important because data gets transmitted from IoT devices to the gateway, then onto the cloud. With surveillance and access control information or sensitive medical information, and encryption is vital to protecting data from a breach. Cloud storage security: Similar to data exchange, the information stored in medical devices, surveillance and access control systems, and some smart appliances with payment features, must be protected. This includes encryption and device authentication through access control, which can police what resources can be accessed and used. Update: Security vulnerabilities will always occur, so the key to addressing them is having a plan to address errors and release patches. Customers should also have options to secure devices quickly and effectively. Suggested solutions Engineers can include security and protection into IoT devices with early and perpetual testing throughout the design process. Most security breaches occur at endpoints or during updates, giving engineers a starting point for how to address them. Creating more secure devices Ensuring the security of connected devices should be of supreme importance for engineers as these devices are vulnerable to security breaches. The ultimate security of devices goes beyond the scope of engineering as the network and enterprise levels must also be secure to protect against potential threats. However, engineers play a role in this protection as well and should consider device security in the design process. Suggested solutions On a device level, engineers can help protect IoT devices from vulnerabilities by implementing early testing and continuing it throughout the design process. Most security transgressions occur at endpoints so this continual testing can, and should, create barriers to breaches. Regulations and compliance For IoT engineers, the complex web of regulations and compliance standards present new challenges Regulations and compliance surrounding data and technology are nothing new, but for IoT engineers, the complex web of regulations and compliance standards present new challenges. Engineers are already addressing obstacles in security and connectivity, all while meeting deadlines, and working around regulations adds time and expense to the process. Unfortunately, a failure to comply with global, regional, or local laws can lead to setbacks and fines. In addition to time lost in production and possible fines, the damage to a companys reputation can lead to even more losses. Suggested solutions Compliance should be considered early and often in the design process. In the early stages of development, the IoT device or components can be tested to address and compliance issues. If possible, use a scalable and automated test system. The comprehensive solution As we stare at an uncertain future full of possibilities, its clear to see that new challenges will continue to be presented as technology evolves and new innovative devices are designed by engineers. By addressing these issues early and often, solutions can be implemented and problems prevented before they even have a chance to occur thanks to sound engineering and solid design.
Manchester City wasted no time in venting any lingering frustrations over losing last season's final to Chelsea.

Liverpool ground past AC Milan, Manchester United slipped to a damaging defeat in Switzerland, City hit Leipzig for six and Chelsea flexed new muscle. Here, the PA news agency looks at the big lessons from the week's Champions League action. Henderson proves his point Not many better feelings  Special European night at Anfield! Amazing atmosphere, brilliant win!  pic.twitter.com/jpGv3nSEfC  Jordan Henderson (@JHenderson) September 15, 2021 Jordan Henderson put his hand to his ear and wheeled away in celebrating his first Champions League goal in seven years, to seal Liverpool's slender 3-2 win over AC Milan. The stalwart Reds midfielder's gesture could be interpreted in a number of ways but no doubt underscores his desire to stay at the centre of all things Anfield. His recent four-year contract extension shows Liverpool's confidence in their former Sunderland star. But the 31-year-old slipped out of England's starting XI in the summer's Euros and will be itching to force his way back into Gareth Southgate's side. Boosting his goals tally will be one way to stay on the England radar, while also extending his efficacy with Jurgen Klopp's men.

City fire ominous warning

Manchester City wasted no time in venting any lingering frustrations over losing last season's final to Chelsea. Pep Guardiola's men hit RB Leipzig for six, with Jack Grealish firing a fine first goal in the competition. City were at their fluent best, albeit against modest opposition for the scale of the tournament. But the only top Premier League side searching a summer striker who failed to bring one in continue to rack up the goals. City's 6-3 triumph proved facile enough, but the match ball still belonged to Leipzig striker Christopher Nkunku, who conjured a hat-trick in among the most trying of circumstances.

Romelu Lukaku has already justified his transfer fee

Lukaku has wasted no time in making his mark (John Walton/PA)

It might have cost a cool 98million for Chelsea to bring Lukaku back for a second Stamford Bridge stint, but the 28-year-old has quickly proven his goalscoring prowess. The former Anderlecht youngster claimed his fourth goal in as many matches for the Blues since leaving Inter Milan, with a powerful header to settle a tetchy west London clash with Zenit St Petersburg. The Blues started their Champions League defence with a slender 1-0 win over the stubborn Russians, with Lukaku burying the only genuine chance of the night.

History threatens to repeat itself for United

Last term a shock defeat to Istanbul Basaksehir thwarted United's Champions League aspirations. This time around a trip to Swiss outfit Young Boys first up ought to have offered a comfortable easing back into the tournament. Instead United slipped to a damaging defeat, where not even Cristiano Ronaldo could save the day. The evergreen Portugal star's opener should have had United in control, but Aaron Wan-Bissaka's red card halted the momentum and Jesse Lingard's errant back-pass gifted the hosts the 2-1 win at the death. Immediate, unwanted proof that Ronaldo's homecoming alone will not be enough to catapult United to a period of dominance.

Bayern coast through an alarming culture clash at Barca

Barcelona's great heritage stands on the brink of ruin amid another chastening defeat, this time a 3-0 home drubbing by Bayern Munich. The Lionel Messi years are over and his departure to Paris St Germain only serves to underscore the genuine trials at the falling Catalan giants. Boss Ronald Koeman said Barcelona's squad could not compare to that of Bayern. Financial mismanagement remains at the heart of Barca's problems. The men from Munich could teach the overreaching Spaniards a thing or two about prudence, but the lesson would be too little, too late.
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP)  A Brazilian Supreme Court justice on Wednesday requested additional time to review a controversial ruling that could loosen protections of Indigenous lands, which may in effect leave the decision to Congress.

The top court is evaluating a ruling that invalidated a claim by some Indigenous people in Santa Catarina state to what they say is their ancestral territory. It has prompted thousands of Indigenous people to travel and stage protests in capital Brasilia, worried about the precedent upholding the lower court's ruling would set.
(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)

Jeff Inglis, The Conversation

(THE CONVERSATION) A rally in Washington, slated for Sept. 18, 2021, is being billed as an effort to support people who face criminal charges for their involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Many of the same groups who participated in January are expected to return to the nations capital for this demonstration. Capitol Police are reportedly preparing for violence and erecting protective fencing around the building.

The groups involved in Januarys attack on the Capitol carried a variety of political and ideological flags and signs. The Conversation asked scholars to explain what they saw  including ancient Norse images and more recent flags from U.S. history  and what those symbols mean.

Here are five articles from The Conversations coverage, explaining what many of the symbols mean.

1. The Confederate battle flag

Perhaps the most recognized symbol of white supremacy is the Confederate battle flag.

Since its debut during the Civil War, the Confederate battle flag has been flown regularly by white insurrectionists and reactionaries fighting against rising tides of newly won Black political power, writes Jordan Brasher at Columbus State University, who has studied how the Confederacy has been memorialized.

He notes that in one photo from inside the Capitol, the flags history came into sharp relief as the man carrying it was standing between the portraits of two Civil War-era U.S. senators  one an ardent proponent of slavery and the other an abolitionist once beaten unconscious for his views on the Senate floor.

2. The yellow Gadsden flag

Another flag with a racist history is the Dont Tread On Me flag. A symbol warning of self-defense, it was designed by slave owner and trader Christopher Gadsden when the American Revolution began, as Iowa State University graphic design scholar Paul Bruski writes.

Because of its creators history and because it is commonly flown alongside Trump 2020 flags, the Confederate battle flag and other white-supremacist flags, some may now see the Gadsden flag as a symbol of intolerance and hate  or even racism, he explains.

It has been adopted by the tea party movement and other Republican-leaning groups, but the flag still carries the legacy, and the name, of its creator.

3. Powerful anti-Semitism

Another arm of white supremacy doesnt target Blacks. Instead, it demonizes Jewish people. Plenty of anti-Semitic symbols were on display during the riot, as Jonathan D. Sarna explains.

Sarna is a Brandeis University scholar of American anti-Semitism and describes the ways that [c]alls to exterminate Jews are common in far-right and white nationalist circles. That included a gallows erected outside the Capitol, evoking a disturbing element of a 1978 novel depicting the takeover of Washington, along with mass lynchings and slaughtering of Jews.

4. Co-opted Norse mythology

Among the most striking images of the January riot were those of a man wearing a horned hat and no shirt, displaying several large tattoos. He is known as Jake Angeli, but his full name is Jacob Chansley, and he has pleaded guilty to one of six charges as part of a plea deal for his role in the riot.

Tom Birkett, a lecturer in Old English at University College Cork in Ireland, explains that many of the symbols Chansley wore are from Norse mythology. However, he explains, These symbols have also been co-opted by a growing far-right movement.

Birkett traces the modern use of Norse symbols back to the Nazis and points out that they are a form of code hidden in plain sight: If certain symbols are hard for the general public to spot, they are certainly dog whistles to members of an increasingly global white supremacist movement who know exactly what they mean.

5. An outlier, of sorts

Another flag was prominent at the Capitol riot, one that doesnt strictly represent white supremacy: the flag of the former independent country of South Vietnam.

But Long T. Bui, a global studies scholar at the University of California, Irvine, explains that when flown by Vietnamese Americans, many of whom support Trump, the flag symbolizes militant nationalism.

[S]ome Vietnamese Americans view their fallen homeland as an extension of the American push for freedom and democracy worldwide. I have interviewed Vietnamese American soldiers who fear American freedom is failing, he explains.

Editors note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversations archives and is an update of an article previously published on Jan. 15, 2021.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/capitol-police-prepare-for-a-return-of-insurrectionists-to-washington-5-essential-reads-on-the-symbols-they-carried-on-jan-6-167686.
Christian Abraham / Hearst Connecticut Media

A correction officer died last week from complications associated with the coronavirus, according to a memo from the agencys commissioner.

Department of Correction Commissioner Angel Quiros sent a memo to all DOC personnel on Friday, announcing the death of Correction Officer Quentin Foster from complications associated with COVID-19.
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP)  A U.S. citizen living in Mexico who claimed ties to the Sinaloa cartel faces a 17-count indictment related to a drug trafficking operation between Mexico and Alaska, federal authorities announced Wednesday.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for Alaska said Miguel Baez Guevara, 38, was arrested by Mexican immigration authorities in Sonora, Mexico, on Friday. He was deported to the United States and arrested upon his arrival in Arizona, the office said in a statement.

Guevara pleaded not guilty Tuesday in federal court in Arizona, where he was being detained pending transfer to Alaska, the office said. An online court records system did not show an attorney for Guevara.

William Taylor, an assistant U.S. attorney involved in the case, was asked during a news conference if authorities had confirmed a link between Guevara and the cartel, known for its extensive drug distribution network. Taylor said he could not go into details outside the indictment, which said that Guevara claimed membership in, and association with, the Sinaloa Cartel operating in Sonora, Mexico.

The cartel is also known for its association with Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, who had been widely considered its leader. He was sentenced to life in prison in the U.S. in 2019, and there has been little sign since that the cartel has weakened.

The indictment against Guevara alleges Guevara controlled and participated in a network of drug traffickers designed to transport heroin, methamphetamine, and cocaine from Mexico to Alaska and other locations in the United States for distribution.

Alaska was targeted because of the increased prices the Enterprise would receive due to its distance away from Mexican sources of supply, the indictment alleges.

The indictment, signed in 2020, alleges actions dating to 2016. Taylor said the indictment was recently unsealed. The pandemic interfered with efforts to work with international agencies on an arrest, he said.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for Alaska said Guevara's indictment and arrest are part of an ongoing investigation in which 23 people have pleaded guilty to charges.
DAGSBORO, Del. (AP)  A Georgetown man has been charged with murder in the death of a man who went missing a decade ago, Delaware State Police said.

John Wisniewski of Dagsboro was reported missing in February 2011. Over the next 10 years, investigators continued to look into his disappearance, and Delaware State Police said in January new leads emerged in the case. The leads indicated that Michael Ellingsen fatally shot Wisniewski in January 2011 and buried him on the Dagsboro property where they were both living at the time, police said.
STAMFORD  A nationwide bus driver shortage has affected the morning and afternoon trips to and from school for some Stamford students this week.

Sharon Beadle, spokesperson for Stamford Public Schools, said some drivers called in sick this week. Finding replacements has been tricky because of driver shortages across the state. That has meant longer wait times than usual for some students, she said.

In the case of Peter Daos son, it meant a delay of four hours on Tuesday morning.

Dao lives in North Stamford near the New York state line, and his 13-year-old son takes an early bus to Cloonan Middle School, in downtown Stamford.

On Monday, Daos wife drove their son to school after the bus hadnt arrived by 7:15 a.m. The pick up time is 6:30 a.m.

On Tuesday, Dao made multiple calls to district officials to report the late bus, which finally arrived at 10:30 a.m.

As a taxpayer, I was appalled, Dao said, adding that his wife had to take the entire morning off work.

Dao was not satisfied with the explanation that the delays were caused by a bus shortage, since he said bus delays have happened multiple times in the past, including pre-pandemic.

He said his son, who is autistic, had a meltdown due to the anxiety and stress he felt by the bus being late by multiple hours. By the time his son got to school, he had missed the first three classes of the day.

Even one day of missed school is a huge thing, Dao said.

By Wednesday morning, Dao said the bus was on time.

Beadle did not directly respond to Daos situation, but said there was one very unfortunate isolated incident due to a miscommunication about the required stop for a particular bus.

She added, We have identified and addressed the issue.

Beadle said on Wednesday that the district was still experiencing bus delays due to the shortage of drivers, but that Wednesday was much better than Monday and Tuesday.

Beadle did not say how many buses or students were impacted by the shortage, but a message was put out to Stamford families early Monday morning warning of the expected delays.

Bus service in Stamford is provided by Ohio-based First Student. A message was left with the company, but was not immediately returned.

Beadle said Stamford has not been affected previously by the shortage since the district has had enough drivers to cover all the routes. The biggest issue is filling in for drivers who call out sick.

Were just asking families to be understanding and patient, Beadle said. Its not a First Student issue, its not a Stamford Public Schools issue, its an issue impacting the entire state of Connecticut.

Its also impossible to say the issue has been resolved, Beadle said.

We dont have enough substitutes, so you dont know on any given day how many people are going to call out, she said.

Across the state, districts have reported driver shortages, with companies saying they have struggled to fill openings, in part because of the pandemic.

Fran Rabinowitz, executive director of the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents, said much of the issue is finding substitute drivers.

What I have heard from superintendents is they had enough drivers  many tell me they had enough, but they had absolutely no substitutes, she told Hearst Connecticut Media earlier this month. If a bus driver is out for illness, its better than them working while sick, but you always want to have substitutes available.

Jay Brock, a spokesman for First Student, had earlier stated that driver shortages remain an issue.

The student transportation industry was already managing a bus driver shortage before COVID-19, and the pandemic has only exacerbated the situation, he told Hearst. We are no different than so many other job sectors that are struggling to fill openings, including retail, restaurants and hotels.

The Stamford Public Schools website on transportation includes a link that reads Stamford needs school bus drivers that leads to an application to work for First Student.

ignacio.laguarda@stamfordadvocate.com
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP)  Crews searching for a missing man at Grand Canyon National Park made an unexpected discovery this summer.

They found the remains of another person, believed to be Scott Walsh, who was last seen stepping off a shuttle bus at the park's South Rim in 2015. The clothing had blended in with the surroundings, and the body was positioned in a way that made it almost undetectable, said park spokeswoman Joelle Baird.

It happens every once in a while here during searches that we end up finding people we weren't expecting, she said Wednesday.

Crews had been looking for Gabor Berczi-Tomscanyi, a Hungarian national who lived in Hong Kong. He was reported missing to police in Las Vegas in late July while traveling in the U.S. Southwest. The car he was driving was located in a Grand Canyon parking lot in mid-August and his body was found a few days later  about 430 feet (131 meters) below the canyon's rim at Yavapai Point.

Authorities determined Berczi-Tomscanyi died from a traumatic fall but are still investigating what led up to it.

The other body was spotted during an aerial search for Berczi-Tomscanyi. It was found about 600 feet (182 meters) below the Pipe Creek overlook and about 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) from where Walsh's day pack was found in 2015, Baird said.

The fact that he was found was just coincidental, she said. We weren't necessarily looking for him, and he wasn't a person that was really on our radar.

Walsh wasn't reported to the park as missing in 2015. His last known residence was in Ecuador. Park officials believe it's him because the day pack had prescriptions with his name on them, and a jacket found with the remains had a driver's license issued to Walsh out of Brooklyn, New York, Baird said. He was 56 years old.

The park hasn't been able to locate any immediate family but has talked with friends of Walsh, Baird said.

The Coconino County medical examiner's office is working to confirm the identity of the skeletal remains. County spokeswoman Trish Lees said that might require DNA testing.

Unintentional finds don't happen often at Grand Canyon National Park, which covers 1,904 square miles (4,931 square kilometers) and is bigger than the state of Rhode Island.

Eight people are still listed as missing from the Grand Canyon or last seen there over the past 10 years, Baird said.

Rangers doing scheduled training have found the remains of others months and years after they were reported missing. Sometimes, rafters on the Colorado River that flows through the Grand Canyon find them.

In December 2017, rafters on a day hike found the remains of a California man who was last seen on a trail in June of that year.

In 2015, a group of rafters in search of old mining equipment on a hike in the canyon came across the wreckage of a small aircraft with human bones scattered nearby.

Investigators had long suspected the homebuilt plane was piloted by Joseph Radford of Glendale, Arizona, and crashed in the canyon in March 2011, likely on purpose, according to a National Transportation Safety Board report. But until the rafters' discovery, there were no visual signs of a crash site.
GENEVA (AP)  The head of the United Nations called Thursday for immediate, rapid and large-scale cuts in greenhouse gas emissions to curb global warming and avert climate disaster.

Ahead of the annual U.N. General Assembly meeting next week, Antonio Guterres warned governments that climate change is proceeding faster than predicted and fossil fuel emissions have already bounced back from a pandemic dip.

Speaking at the launch of a U.N.-backed report summarizing current efforts to tackle climate change, Guterres said recent extreme weather  from Hurricane Ida in the United States to floods in western Europe and the deadly heatwave in the Pacific Northwest  showed no country is safe from climate-related disasters.

These changes are just the beginning of worse to come," he said, appealing to governments to meet the goals of the 2015 Paris climate accord.

Unless there are immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, we will be unable to limit global heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit), said Guterres. The consequences will be catastrophic.

In their report, titled United in Science 21, six U.N. bodies and scientific organizations drew on existing research to argue that there is a direct link between human-caused emissions, record high temperatures and disasters that have a tangible impact on individuals and societies, including "billions of work hours (...) lost through heat alone.

Because of the long-lasting effects of many emissions already released into the atmosphere, further impacts are inevitable, they noted.

Even with ambitious action to slow greenhouse gas emissions, sea levels will continue to rise and threaten low-lying islands and coastal populations throughout the world, the authors wrote.

University of Michigan environment dean Jonathan Overpeck, who wasn't part of the report, said scientists have said this before but it's important: The situation is getting bad, we know why and we know how to solve it in ways that leave us, and future generations, with a better, healthier, more sustainable world.

Guterres urged governments to put forward more ambitious plans for cutting emissions by the upcoming U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, including a commitment to stop adding more greenhouse gas to the atmosphere by mid-century than can be removed.

Michael Mann, a prominent climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University, said he agreed with the report's message of urgency but questioned some of the starker warnings it contained.

In particular, the 1.5C threshold agreed in Paris didn't apply to individual years, some of which can be unusually hot due to other factors, he said.

This misleading framing unnecessarily feeds the fears that the public has that weve somehow already crossed that threshold and that it is too late now to prevent, said Mann. We have not. And it is not.

He also noted that the drop in emissions seen during the pandemic could be viewed as a positive sign that significant cuts are possible if entire economies are weaned off fossil fuels.

The United States, Britain and the European Union have already made pledges that  if implemented  would help avert dangerous planetary warming, said Mann.

Kim Cobb, a professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech, was equally reassured that the 1.5C target isn't out of reach.

However, this new report is a stark reminder of the difference between the emissions pathways required to achieve that target, and the reality on the ground, she said. Simply put, we are way off course.

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Jordans reported from Berlin. AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein contributed from Washington.

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Read more of APs climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/Climate

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On Twitter, follow Seth Borenstein at @borenbears, Frank Jordans at @wirereporter and Jamey Keaten at @jameykeaten
ACCRA, Ghana (AP)  West African leaders have decided to impose travel bans and freeze financial assets of members of Guineas ruling junta and their families after a coup more than a week ago, according to the bloc known as ECOWAS.

The decisions were announced Thursday after an Extraordinary Summit on Guinea in Ghanas capital, Accra. Mediators with the regional group had traveled to Guinea to meet with junta leaders and check on the condition of deposed President Alpha Conde.

ECOWAS president Jean Claude Brou said the West African leaders have also insisted that there should be no need for very long transition for the country to return to democratic order.

The targeted sanctions come after Guineas coup leaders set a number of conditions for releasing Conde, according to the foreign minister of Ghana.

ECOWAS had already warned it will impose penalties on the junta in Guinea unless it immediately releases Conde, who has been held at an undisclosed location since being detained during the Sept. 5 coup in Conakry.

We are coming to address a burning issue in the region, said Ghanas President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the current chair of the regional bloc, ahead of the summit. He was joined by presidents or high-ranking officials from eight of the other 15 ECOWAS countries.

Members of the ECOWAS delegation that visited Conakry after the coup presented their reports at Thursdays meeting, said Ghanaian Foreign Minister Shirley Ayorkor Botchway. The junta has set a number of conditions for complying with the demands of regional mediators, she said, but declined to disclose what they are.

The delegation has spoken with Condes doctor who ascertained that indeed physically, hes very well, she said. However, she said, the ex-president is still coming to terms with the fact that his government has been toppled after more than a decade in power.

For anybody who has gone through such a traumatic experience like he did, mentally, its not the best, not to say that mentally we found anything wrong, but he was quite shocked; hes still in a state of shock, she added.

Meanwhile in Conakry, junta leaders were also set to meet with mining company representatives on the third day of a special summit to chart Guineas political future. Junta leader Col. Mamady Doumbouya has sought to reassure the countrys most vital economic sector that the political changes will not impact existing mining projects in the country, which has the worlds largest reserves of bauxite.

Guineas coup leaders have yet to make public their proposed timeframe for handing over power to a civilian transitional government, nor have they outlined how quickly new elections can be organized.

Conde had sparked violent street demonstrations last year after he pushed for a constitutional referendum that he used to justify running for a third term, saying term limits no longer applied to him. He ultimately won another five years in office last October, only to be toppled by the coup 10 months later.

At the time he came to power in 2010, he was Guineas first democratically elected leader since independence from France in 1958.

The regional bloc also planned to tackle concerns over whether a second member state, Mali, is making enough progress toward a return to democracy more than a year after a military takeover there.

In Mali, the ruling junta led by Col. Assimi Goita has committed to holding new elections by February 2022, though mediators who recently visited have expressed concern about whether that deadline now can be met.

Goita overthrew Malis president in August 2020 and then agreed to a civilian transitional government and an 18-month timeframe for holding a vote. However, only nine months after the first coup he effectively staged a second one, firing the civilian interim leaders and ultimately naming himself as president of the transition.

ECOWAS has not reinstated Malis membership in the bloc, marking the first time since 2012 that two of the 15 member states are suspended concurrently.

ECOWAS president Brou said there was the need to revisit the organizations 2001 protocol on good governance because a lot of things have changed or improved.

___

Associated Press writers Krista Larson in Dakar, Senegal and Boubacar Diallo in Conakry, Guinea contributed.
STAMFORD  Prosecutors presented footage of the shooting that took the life of 16-year-old Marcus Hall at the probable cause hearing Thursday for a Stamford man accused of the killing.

Using video surveillance footage from various locations, including Rikos Pizza, Matthews Bakery and the Salvation Army, Stamford Police officers reconstructed the scene of the crime, which occurred late at night on Sept. 20, 2018.

Footage showed a white Honda sedan driving around the crime scene before and after the shooting. Cameras also captured two men walking up to the location of the crime, and then later jumping a fence and running away.

In one of the videos, one of the men is shown firing five-to-seven shots, an estimate provided by Stamford Police investigator Louis Burdi. The video does not show Hall or anyone else besides the two men.

Police believe the man who fired the gun is Isaias Delacruz, who was in court Thursday facing charges of murder, conspiracy to commit murder and carrying a pistol without a permit.

Hall, a Westhill High School student and aspiring skateboarder, was shot multiple times in the area of 62 Pequot Lane.

Burdi was one of the officers who arrived at the scene of the shooting. He said he spotted Hall, alive, on the ground when he showed up. Hall was transported to the hospital. Two days later, he died.

The investigation into the crime hinged on identifying the vehicle in the surveillance footage. Stamford Police officer Angel Gonzalez said that when he analyzed the videos, he noticed that the gas cap door on the car was black.

In November, Gonzalez said he spotted a white car with a similar gas door in Stamford and took down the cars license plate. When he ran the registration, he came up with the name of a woman, who police later interviewed.

That woman, according to police, identified Delacruz and another man, Jonathan Montero-Delossantos, as two people who were in her car on the night of the shooting.

Montero-Delossantos, who state attorney Michelle Manning said goes by the nickname John Gotti, after the famed New York City mobster, was also charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder. His attorney waived his clients right to a hearing of probable cause.

During a probable cause hearing, the state presents its evidence in a given case and a judge is called upon to decide if there is enough to justify a murder charge.

Local defense attorneys often do not request probable cause hearings, because the evidence presented during the hearing goes on to the record and is permanently preserved even if a witness dies or is not able to testify at the trial.

A woman who was in the car with the owner of the vehicle took the stand Thursday. She identified Montero-Delossantos as one of two men who got into the car and were dropped off in another location, only to return to the vehicle a few minutes later. The woman did not identify Delacruz.

Early in the hearing on Thursday, state attorneys called witness Corey Fields, 20, to the stand.

Before Fields testimony, state attorney Michelle Manning said that when Fields was issued a subpoena to appear in court, he crumpled the paper in an inspectors face and indicated he would not be cooperative.

During the hearing, when presented with a copy of what appeared to be signed testimony he gave police, Fields said the testimony was not what he told police. He did acknowledge to Manning he did sign the document, however.

Once he was on the stand, Fields denied crumbling the subpoena, saying he still had the paper.

Delacruzs probable cause hearing will continue Monday, as state attorneys plan to call one more witness.

ignacio.laguarda@stamfordadvocate.com
With two hot-button issues off the agenda, Luzerne County Council on Tuesday approved a payment in lieu of taxes agreement proposed by the nonprofit that plans to purchase the Sherman Hills housing complex in Wilkes-Barre.

Councilman Harry Haas cast the lone no vote on approving the agreement under which the county will receive $86,387 per year from Indelible Housing Inc.

The Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, as a pure public charity, will not owe property taxes on Sherman Hills when it takes ownership of the subsidized low-income housing development at 300 Parkview Circle.

Indelible Housing proposed to make an annual payment in lieu of taxes, or PILOT, instead. Nonprofits often make PILOT payments to taxing bodies, even though they are not obliged to pay property taxes.

At an Aug. 24 work session, attorney Francis Hoegen told council Indelible Housing wants to make a fixed annual PILOT payment to show it is a good corporate citizen.

Three weeks ago, Haas asked Hoegen if the PILOT payment might be jeopardized by the sale of the property or a future county reassessment.

Hoegen assured him that was not a concern, since a nonprofit that owns a property may not sell it to a for-profit entity.

On Tuesday, Haas again expressed concern about the impact a future reassessment might have on the PILOT payment. A reassessment would not affect the payment schedule, Hoegen said.

Postponed votes

For the second time, council postponed a vote on proposed revisions to the county flood protection authoritys articles of incorporation.

The revision is needed for the authority to work with Duryea to upgrade the boroughs flood control system.

At present, the authority may provide certain forms of assistance to county municipalities, authority Executive Director Christopher Belleman told council. However, the authority may not take over levee maintenance functions, as called for in the proposed agreement with Duryea, unless the articles of incorporation are amended, Belleman said.

Council members did not agree on the merits of Chairman Tim McGinleys proposed addition to the revisions. It states that revenue from the levee protection fee collected by the authority will fund only projects and activities related to the Wyoming Valley Levee System.

Belleman said the additional language would be redundant, since levee fee revenue may only be used to maintain the flood control system that protects 12 municipalities in the floodplain.

McGinley said several constituents approached him with concerns that levee fees might be diverted to other projects.

Also, council removed from the agenda a proposal to reinstate Joyce, Carmody & Moran, P.C. to the countys approved panel of law firms that provide insurance defense services to the county.

Council removed the firm from the panel last November, after it filed a motion in U.S. Supreme Court one week before the 2020 presidential election, without notifying county officials.

The motion asked Justice Amy Coney Barrett to recuse herself in a dispute over the mail-in ballot deadline in Pennsylvania.

Councilmen Robert Schnee and Chris Perry said they want to wait a full year after Joyce, Carmody & Moran was removed from the approved panel of law firms before voting whether to reinstate the firm.


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Arad police caught 30 Turkish migrants who allegedly entered the country illegally through Serbia, and were accommodated in Arad and in the neighboring town of Vladimirescu, in several boarding houses, agerpres reports.

The police checked the respective houses following some information and found 27 Turks accommodated in Vladimirescu and three in Arad, "all those in question having entered the Romanian territory through Serbia."

"Following the verifications carried out in the databases of the General Inspectorate for Immigration and the General Inspectorate of the Border Police, it turned out that they were not listed as having legally entered Romania," the Arad County Police Inspectorate informed on Thursday.The police have drawn up an investigation file for fraudulent crossing the state border, the 30 migrants being taken over by the Territorial Service of the Arad Border Police for further investigations.
The Romanian Constitutional Court (CCR) is to discuss on September 28 the notification regarding the existence of a legal conflict between Parliament and the Government on the censure motion initiated by MPs of Save Romania Union - Party of Liberty, Unity and Solidarity Alliance (USR PLUS) and the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), CCR officials specified on Thursday for AGERPRES.
The Romanian Constitutional Court (CCR) ruled on Thursday that, until September 29, the parties should express their point of view regarding the notification of the President of the Senate, Anca Dragu, to resolve a legal conflict between the Government and Prime Minister Florin Citu, on the one hand, and the Parliament, on the other hand, in connection with the reshuffle of ministers.

The President of the Senate, Anca Dragu, said that she filed a challenge with the Constitutional Court on a legal conflict of a constitutional nature between the Government of Romania and the Prime Minister of Romania, on the one hand, and the Romanian Parliament, on the other.

"I ask the Constitutional Court to establish the existence of a legal conflict of a constitutional nature between the Romanian Government and the Prime Minister, on the one hand, and the Romanian Parliament, on the other hand, arising from the violation of the constitutional provisions regarding the obligation to have Parliament's approval in the case of a cabinet reshuffle that follows a change in the political composition of the Government. Moreover, I also ask that the Prime Minister be obliged to come up with proposals of ministers and send them to Parliament to give its approval on the new composition of the Government," Dragu told a press statement at the Parliament Palace, Agerpres informs.
The European Commissioner for Transport, Adina Valean, will greet on Friday in Romania the Connecting Europe Express train, a specially-created train, part of the European Year of Rail Networks, informs a release of the European Commission representation office in Romania.

"I am glad that the Connecting Europe Express will arrive to Romania as well, the most important 'station' for me. It's an experimental train, a laboratory train, which illustrates not only the advantages of rail travel, but also the obstacles that we must overcome to have a single European rail space. Romania must accelerate investments in rail infrastructure, in order to achieve better connectivity with the other member-states of the European Union," said Adina Valean.

The Connecting Europe Express train will stop in over 100 cities in 25 countries over its five week tour, before reaching Paris on October 7. In total, the route is 20,000 km long and the train is to cross 33 border crossing points. Leaving from Lisbon and ending its journey in Paris, the train will make a notable stop in Ljubljana, connecting the Portuguese, Slovenian and French presidencies of the Council of the European Union, Agerpres.ro informs.

Connecting Europe Express will reach Romania on September 17. In order to mark the event, the European Commission representation office in Romania is telling the story of railways through an exhibition in Bucharest's North Railway. With the aid of a curator, 10 representative works from Romania were selected, extraordinary visual stories. The images are done by Romanian photographic artists who've known excellence in the realm of photography and were awarded along the years with numerous prizes and medals in national and international festivals and salons under the patronage of the most reputed organizations in the realm of photographic art.
France's residence in Romania is opening up its gates, on Saturday, for scheduled and guided visits, on the occasion of the 38th edition of European Heritage Days, the French Institute informed on Thursday, through a press release sent to AGERPRES.

Frances' residence, which celebrates 129 years of existence, houses numerous French artwork, but also Romanian, highlighting the past and offering a projection into the future of the Romanian-French friendship, Agerpres.ro confirms.

Visitors will have the opportunity of also seeing an exclusive archive photography exhibition belonging to the AGERPRES National News Agency, which aims to evoke the residence's history through Romania's history and that of the Romanian-French diplomacy. The exhibition is organized with the technical support of AGERPRES who put at the disposal of the French Embassy in Romania a series of photographs which point to the special relationship between the two countries.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE) celebrates, on Thursday, 25 years since the signing of the Treaty of Understanding, Cooperation and Good Neighbourliness between Romania and the Republic of Hungary (Timisoara, 16 September 1996), context in which Minister Bogdan Aurescu is talking about consolidating a "constructive, pragmatic and European partnership".

The basic political treaty between Romania and Hungary represents one of the political-legislative pillars of the bilateral relationship in the last two and a half decades, being a solid landmark of the development of the Romanian-Hungarian cooperation, the MAE reminds.

"At present, the joint membership of the EU and NATO contributes to a better coordination of our states, in order to promote the common interests in the two structures. I express my confidence that today, 25 years after its signing, the foundations of the bilateral relationship, as they are defined by the basic political treaty - trust, cooperation and mutual respect - will guide us to strengthen a constructive, pragmatic partnership, in the European spirit, meant to generate definite benefits for all our citizens," the Minister of Foreign Affairs declared on this occasion, according to a press release sent to AGERPRES.

Romania and Hungary, as strategic partners, neighboring states and EU and NATO member countries, share a number of common interests, and in this context the full capitalization of the Basic Political Treaty and the instruments created by it, as well as the bilateral strategic partnership must be a priority in the future.

The Treaty of Understanding, Cooperation and Good Neighbourliness between Romania and the Republic of Hungary also created the platform for cooperation between the two states in the field of protection of the rights of persons belonging to the Romanian minority in Hungary, and to the Hungarian minority in Romania, respectively. Thus, the Romanian-Hungarian specialty committee for cooperation on national minority issues, created on the basis of this treaty, remains the reference forum for discussing any issues concerning our related minorities, able to identify appropriate consensual approaches to ensure the preservation and assertion of ethnic, linguistic, religious and cultural identity.

The Romanian MAE expresses its hope that, "by using this priority framework of cooperation, the persons belonging to the Romanian minority in Hungary will be able to preserve and develop the defining elements of their ethnic, linguistic, cultural, spiritual identity so that they can be bequeathed to future generations of ethnic Romanians", Agerpres.ro informs.

The MAE "also voices its confidence that in the future, and even more so in a context marked by challenges, the relationship between Romania and Hungary will continue to develop politically, economically, at a societal level, in accordance with the political-legislative foundations represented by the Treaty on Understanding, Cooperation and Good Neighbourliness between Romania and the Republic of Hungary and the Declaration on Romanian-Hungarian Cooperation and Strategic Partnership for 21st Century Europe, as well as on the basis of belonging to the same European and Euro-Atlantic community".

To mark the quarter of a century since the signing of the Treaty of Understanding, Cooperation and Good Neighbourliness between Romania and the Republic of Hungary, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in collaboration with Romfilatelia has produced a postage stamp issue that illustrates the importance that Romania attaches to this historical moment in the bilateral relationship.

***

Hungary is the first state with which Romania has created the mechanism of joint government meetings, a useful tool that has contributed to the deepening of sectoral cooperation.

Hungary is one of Romania's traditional economic partners. In 2020, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, trade amounted to almost 9 billion euros. A particularly useful tool in stimulating economic cooperation is the Joint Committee for Economic Cooperation Romania - Hungary.

The last meeting of this Committee, which took place in Budapest on April 8-9, 2021, highlighted the significant potential for economic and sectoral cooperation between Romania and Hungary, as well as the interest of the two states to engage in joint projects, mutually advantageous in areas such as: infrastructure and transport, cross-border cooperation, tourism, energy, agriculture, environmental protection, health, etc.

Such a project, meant to boost economic cooperation and trade between the two states, is represented by the bilateral Chamber of Commerce, which will be based in Budapest, and which will be an effective vector for promoting the interests of Romanian companies on the Hungarian market, and of Hungarian companies on the Romanian market, respectively.
Most new cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection, compared to the last report, were registered in Bucharest - 604 and in Timis - 260, Ilfov - 246, Constanta - 212, Dolj - 202, the Strategic Communication Group (GCS) informed on Thursday.

The fewest cases were registered in the counties of Covasna - 13 and Tulcea - 16, Ialomita - 22.

Satu Mare County is on the first place in terms of the incidence of infections, cumulated at 14 days, with 2.79 cases per thousand inhabitants, being followed in the yellow zone by Ilfov County, with 2.14, Agerpres informs.

The other counties and the municipality of Bucharest remain in the green scenario from the point of view of the infections with the new coronavirus, the highest incidence per thousand inhabitants being in the counties of Bistrita Nasaud - 1.93, Timis - 1.93 and in Bucharest - 1.93.
The Chairman of Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania (UDMR), Kelemen Hunor, declared, on Thursday, at the Women's Organization Forum of the party, "United for the future - together for our children", in Targu Mures, that the Union has responsibilities and plans for the coming years, including a rethinking of the family support system and that the document "Together for the family!" will be debated and adopted within the 15th Congress of UDMR, in Sangeorgiu de Mures.

"The current support system does not open up prospects for younger families and large families. We offer the country a new political philosophy, which we will discuss in Congress. Of course, we will keep support for children, but we will also add income for families with more children. At the same time, we will discuss supporting multi-generational families and creating opportunities for young families to access housing loans more easily," said Kelemen Hunor, according to the official translation.

He said that the representatives of the Union addressed the issue of families at the Congress in 2017 and on other occasions, but now UDMR is in a governmental position and can have more influence on the development of public policies.

The president of the Women's Organization of UDMR, Rozalia Biro, stated that there is no other way to build a community than by supporting and strengthening the family, and thus the community can be developed.

The mayor of Sfantul Gheorghe, Antal Arpad, and deputy Andrea Csep, presented the initiatives related to family, as well as the way in which they are applied at the level of local public administrations.

"We are taking our family support policy to a new level so that young families can have as many children as they want. In Sfantul Gheorghe, the municipality has set up several family support programs that can serve as good examples for other cities, such as the PEDIBUS or the Come Home program, through which young people can get land for free if they move home," said Antal Arpad.

Deputy Andrea Csep said that the UDMR Women's Organization considers that helping families is very important, and reducing domestic violence has been a priority program of the organization for many years.

"In Parliament, we have managed to bring more changes to the laws that serve the welfare of families. The next step is to bring security to families. We also want to find concrete solutions to make the daily life of families better, safer and more predictable. In order for young people to start a family, we need to create an atmosphere in which there isn't a fiscal policy that poses a threat," he said, Agerpres.ro informs.

One day before the 15th Congress of UDMR, the Women's Organization of UDMR organized, on Thursday, the Forum "United for the future - together for our children" approching projects related to family policies, as well as current issues of education and parenting.
The Ministry of Health informed on Thursday that there are 109 free intensive care beds in the whole country, of which 40 are for children.

In Bucharest, three beds are available in intensive care.

A number of 6,271 people infected with the novel coronavirus are hospitalized in specialized health units, out of whom 182 children, the Strategic Communication Group announced on Thursday.According to GCS, 741 patients are admitted in intensive care, of whom 12 are children.
The mechanism for compensating household energy bills announced by the government covers almost all electricity consumers nationwide and over half of the natural gas consumers, the vice-president of the National Regulatory Authority in the Energy Area (ANRE), Zoltan Nagy-Bege, said on Wednesday, agerpres reports.

"The mechanism presented by minister Popescu today after the government meeting is a compensation mechanism. It is very important from the point of view of the message sent to the European Commission and to potential investors in this field of electricity or natural gas. (...) We have a compensation mechanism for the final consumer, we limit the expenses of certain categories of consumers with these utilities and we directly compensate the suppliers from various budget sources, if they are identified, of course. (...) In Romania, almost 90% of household electricity consumers have a consumption below 200 kilowatts every month. Also, almost all [natural gas consumers - editor's note] in Romania will be covered, as there is a tranche of consumption that probably covers more than half of the consumers," Zoltan Nagy- Bege told Digi 24 national television broadcaster on Wednesday evening.

The ANRE vice-president mentioned that the electricity compensation mechanism proposed by the government would cover almost half of the current value of the tariff applied to consumers who have not chosen an offer on the competitive market - the universal electricity service - although he admitted that this tariff will increase from January 1.The vice-president of ANRE underlined that he refers only to the actual price of electricity, without taking into account the taxes that are added to it.He claimed that the compensation mechanism announced by the government would cover the price increase applied on July 1 by gas suppliers to consumers who have not yet concluded a contract on the competitive gas market.The Minister of Energy, Virgil Popescu, announced on Wednesday that the Romanian state will compensate the electricity bills for approximately 13 million Romanians who have a monthly consumption between 30 kWh and 200 kWh.For electricity, the difference between the lowest price on the market, 64 bani per kWh, with all taxes included, and the average, 82 bani per kWh, will be compensated. "For gas, we took a reference price of 255 lei per kWh, more than double compared to last year. Up to an annual consumption of 1,200 cubic meters, all types of homes will benefit from an aid of 25pct of their invoice value," he added. Suppliers will invoice these discounts.
President Klaus Iohannis welcomed, on Thursday, at the Cotroceni Presidential Palace, the delegation of the OMV Group, led by Alfred Stern, the new CEO of the group.

"Against the backdrop of the current situation on the natural gas market, the President of Romania expressed the need to protect vulnerable consumers and the economy in its entirety, following the marked increase of prices," shows the Presidential Administration in a release.

According to the quoted source, on the occasion of the meeting, the leadership of the OMV Group presented the company's development strategy in Romania for the coming period, but also the results of the current activity, as well as of the corporate social responsibility initiatives. OMV Group expressed its commitment to remain a trustworthy partner for the long-term for the Romanian state.

The discussions revolved around the challenges and opportunities generated by the process of energy transition. One of the important subjects of the meeting was the noted increase of prices for natural gas and electrical energy, a worrying aspect given that Romania is an important producer of natural gas in the region.

In the current context, President Iohannis emphasized the determining role played by natural gas and the exploitation of deposits in the Black Sea in the transition to green energy, in agreement with the European Green Plan and the horizon of the European package Fit for 55.

"The Black Sea region is and must remain a pole of regional stability and a strategic perimeter for national security. Romania disposes of real potential in the realm of natural gas production, the capitalization of which may and must ensure energy independence," the Presidential Administration mentions.

Furthermore, President Klaus Iohannis stated his support for the partnership between OMV Petrom and the Romgaz National Company in the Neptune Deep offshore project, essential both for supplying energy security, as well as for reaching the objectives regarding energy transition, Agerpres.ro informs.

"The conclusion of negotiations between the American company ExxonMobil and the Romgaz National Company creates encouraging premises for the involvement of the national producer as an active partner in exploiting natural gas in the Black Sea and for the project to be streamlined," the Presidential Administration shows.

The head of state also reiterated the necessity to invest in new energy production capacities, based largely on renewable sources, important for the energy mix assumed by Romania in the context of the new European ambitions regarding energy neutrality.

He also showed appreciation for the active involvement of OMV Petrom in local communities, through social-educational projects to ensure energy efficiency at the level of school units.
Prime Minister Florin Citu declared on Thursday that renaming the Great Hall of the Bucharest National Theater (TNB) into the "Ion Caramitru" Hall represents a small gesture, but it is a symbol of gratitude for all the actor accomplished during his cultural activity, agerpres reports.

"I was thinking, we all met master Ion Caramitru as an actor, in movies or on the stage of the National Theater. Last year, as Minister of Finances, I met him as a manager and I would like to say that even as a manager he was just as talented as he was an actor. Many beautiful words were spoken during this period and my message will be a very short one, because no matter what or how much I say, I would never manage to illustrate what Ion Caramitru meant for us Romanians. I know that renaming the Great Hall of the Bucharest National Theater into the "Ion Caramitru" Hall is a small gesture, but it is a symbol through which we show our gratitude for what Ion Caramitru accomplished in his cultural activity," Florin Citu said during the renaming ceremony of the "Great Hall" into "Ion Caramitru".

The Prime Minister said that from now on, plays put on in this hall will have a special significance."And thus the legacy left by him will never be lost. Thank you, Ion Caramitru!", Citu added.At the end, the head of the Executive requested the other participants to the show to hold a short moment of silence in memory of the great actor.
PNL (National Liberal Party) Diaspora supports Ludovic Orban for a new term in office as leader of this political party, on the occasion of the September 25 Congress, agerpres reports.

The leadership of PNL Diaspora on Wednesday decided, with 29 votes in favour and 5 against, to support the motion "Force of the Right," of chairman Ludovic Orban, while Florin Citu's motion, "Liberal Romania" obtained 7 votes in favour and 27 against, the Liberal organisation informed on Facebook.

"Ludovic Orban is the only option that the National Liberal Party has. We are facing now a very difficult situation, with PNL being close to losing governance or, even worse, rebuilding the USL [a former political alliance between the PNL and PSD - Social Democratic Party - editor's note] alliance. None of these situations is wanted by our electors and this is visible in the opinion polls. There is only one politician who has the necessary experience and tact to bring the mandate given entrusted to us by the citizens to a good end, and this person is Ludovic Orban. In four years he managed to score important victories in all the election rounds, he showed that he can govern during crises, he proved that he can bring people to the negotiation table who have different kinds of ideas and visions, and to make them a team ready to work for Romanians and for Romania. Ludovic Orban is and he will remain the president of the National Liberal Party!," said Senator Viorel Badea, the leader of PNL Diaspora, according to the abovementioned source.
President Klaus Iohannis will lead, between September 21-23, the Romanian delegation at the high-level segment of the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly, which will take place in New York, according to the Presidential Administration.

In this year's session of the UN General Assembly, for the first time since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the works of the event will take place with the physical presence of heads of state or government of UN member-states.

"The participation of the President of Romania in this session will constitute an important opportunity to emphasize our country's position regarding the current global challenges, which require common solutions, solidarity and cooperation, based on solid democratic principles and respect for international law. President Klaus Iohannis will emphasize the importance of international order based on rules, as well as of efficient and equitable multilateralism, to the benefit of all citizens of UN member-states," shows the Presidential Administration.

The topic of the 76th session of the General Assembly is "Building Resilience through hope to recover from COVID-19, rebuild sustainably, respond to the needs of the planet, respect the rights of people, and revitalise the United Nations."

The high-level general debates segment starts on September 21, being the most important annual international event in multilateral diplomacy.

According to the Presidential Administration, the head of state will hold, on September 21, the national intervention in the plenum of the General Assembly, on the first day of the high-level general debate segment.

President Klaus Iohannis is to attend, on September 22, the "Informal High Level Event regarding Transformative Action for Nature and People."

Furthermore, the head of state will take part, at the invitation of the US President, Joe Biden, on September 22, in the Global COVID-19 Summit: Ending the Pandemic and Building Back Better Health Security to Prepare for the Next, organized by the US President, Agerpres.ro informs.

The Presidential Administration shows that President Klaus Iohannis will send a message emphasizing the efforts of our country to combat the pandemic, as well as support for the construction of a durable global architecture for healthcare, which would allow for the adequate management of unforeseen crises.

The agenda of President Iohannis comprises, also, a series of formal events dedicated to the program of each high-level segment of the UNGA.

On the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, the head of state will have a meeting with representatives of the American Jewish Committee (AJC).
The chairman of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), Marcel Ciolacu, stated that the Citu Government is "down", "with or without the censure motion" and they must come for a new vote of confidence in Parliament, considering that "there is no other solution than that of early elections."

"The Citu Government is down. At the moment in which Citu changed Stelian [Ion] at Justice and didn't make another designation, according to the Administrative Code, in five days, for another minister, so in other words you changed the political composition of the Government, within 45 days - it's the CCR [Constitutional Court of Romania] decision, so nobody can infringe it - they must come for a new vote of confidence in Parliament, with or without a motion. I said it very clearly: PSD will vote for any motion that comes to the vote. We are waiting to see what happens at the CCR with the motion from AUR and the AUR - USR [Alliance for the Union of Romanians - Save Romania Union] alliance," said Ciolacu at private broadcaster Radio Guerilla.

He added that the text of the censure motion should have been built by collaboration, in which the Save Romania Union - Party of Liberty, Unity and Solidarity (USR PLUS) should have been mentioned, as it was in Government.

"I didn't understand why all three of us didn't sit down, the motion would have been voted on by now. Why didn't the three of us find a text. Or I'm feigning misunderstanding. USR wanted an alliance with AUR, so that the text of the motion doesn't feature USR. You can't pretend USR wasn't in government in this period, you can't pretend that the USR didn't deliver anything it promised. (...) PSD submitted motions that Orban contested at the CCR, now he doesn't agree with contesting at the CCR. (...) Now, the USR signs with AUR and I'm the one 'in cahoots with the PNL [National Liberal Party]'. If we signed with them, the PNL would come out to say: 'PSD is working with USR." It's small politics," said the PSD leader.

Marcel Ciolacu also showed that from the moment the Citu Government falls, from his point of view, there is no other solution than that of early elections, arguing that the PSD doesn't desire the return to power of the former coalition, even if Florin Citu is no longer Prime Minister.

"From my point of view, at that time there is no other solution than early elections. I don't want, there is no other solution. They can be done. (...) In two weeks if you shorten the electoral campaign period, two weeks, and it's done. It doesn't rest on the President, but on Parliament and the Prime Ministers that the Prime Minister designates, categorically, it's his attribution. (...) They have no exit than through early elections. Even if they return to the table, it will be an alliance that in two-three months will reach the same impasse. They don't function like a normal government. (...) Citu leaves. I'm still left with Turcan, with Ghinea? What will happen, the USR comes back? Stelian comes back?," he said.

Asked who he believes the President will propose as Prime Minister if the censure motion passes Parliament, the PSD chair said that he believes the proposal will be Florin Citu again, Agerpres.ro confirms.

"My opinion is that Mr. Citu will be proposed again as Prime Minister, after he falls in the vote regarding the new change of the composition inside the government, or he falls through a censure motion. (...) The PSD no longer wants the USR either. If two governments fail, there are early elections. What's the catastrophe with early elections? Things resettle. (...) You shorten the campaign, you enter the ten days after the Prime Minister is designated and it's done. (...) We don't want this coalition any more," said the Social Democrat leader.

He recalled that, in the consultations with President Klaus Iohannis, after the parliamentary elections, he proposed Alexandru Rafila as Prime Minister, with a national union government, "because it was the time," but the head of state "preferred to make an improvisation that is costing us all now."
The Federation of Free Trade Unions in Education and the "Spiru Haret" Federation of Trade Unions in Education inform that they are to sue the state if the employees in education are forced to get tested for Covid-19 at their own expense.

"The Federation of Free Trade Unions in Education and the "Spiru Haret" Federation of Trade Unions in Education, which are representative for the pre-university education sector, warn the government that they will challenge in court the normative acts saying that the staff in education must get tested for COVID-19 at their own expense," reads a press release of the two unionist organizations.

The Labour Code says that: "The measures regarding the security and health at the workplace cannot attract, under any circumstances, financial obligations for the employees., Agerpres informs.

They also said that, if the Executive observed its objective and, through public campaigns, determined 70pct of the Romanian population to get the vaccine, then Romania would have reached the mass immunisation stage by now and there would be no 4th wave of the pandemic.
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In mid-2021 Turkey donated eight of their Kipri 2 MRAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected) armored vehicles to Somalia for use by army commandos trained by Turkish trainers stationed there. Turkey also donated 14 Turkish 6x6 heavy trucks from the same manufacturer. A year earlier Turkey gave the Somali army twelve Kipris and a dozen pickup trucks.

The Turkish MRAPs impressed southern neighbor Kenya, which has long provided peacekeepers in Somalia. In early 2021 Kenya ordered 118 Turkish Kripi 2 MRAPs. These are mainly for Kenyan peacekeepers in Somalia. Kenya already has 250 South African MRAPs plus a hundred armored vehicles with less protection than MRAPs. The Kipri 2 is a more modern and affordable MRAP.

Kripi 1 was ready for service in 2009 and the Turkish Army ordered 468. The original Kripi 1 was a 4x4 18-ton armored truck similar to those made in several other Western countries. Kirpi has a turret, a crew of three, and can carry seven troops or a ton of cargo. Turkey has stressed buying more and more locally made military equipment.

The Kirpi was successful with its first users and the national police also bought Kripi fir use in eastern Turkey where PKK (Kurdish separatists) are still active. From 2012 to the present Kripi was used in Syria and in 2020 was sent to Libya where Turkey had intervened in the civil war there.

In 2018 Kripi 2 entered service, with several improvements based on user feedback. The Turkish security forces immediately ordered 529 of the new version. The 20-ton Kripi 2 has an improved suspension for a smoother ride and a two-ton payload. Kripi 2 can be equipped with additional composite armor panels and improved resistance to mines as well as improved air conditioning. Top speed is 60 kilometers an hour and a range of 1,000 kilometers on internal fuel. Kripi 2 can also be equipped with an RWS (Remote Weapons System) instead of a manually operated 7.62mm or 12.7mm machine-gun turret. In addition to a crew of 3 there is room for ten troops using mine-protected seats, or two tons of cargo. There are gun ports so the troops can fire their weapons from inside the vehicle.

So far over two thousand Kipris have entered service or are on order. Besides Kenya and Somalia, other foreign users include Kosovo, Libya, Pakistan, Qatar, Tunisia and Turkmenistan. Sales to other Moslem majority nations are always easier if you are offering something competitive. The Turks have long been able to do that with manufactured goods, especially complex systems.
Further to Iceland Seafoods announcement published on 17 May, Iceland Seafood is pleased to announce that an agreement has been finalised with the Mestanza family to acquire an 85% stake in the company Ahumados Dominguez in Spain. Pedro Mestanza; the companys Managing Director, who will continue to lead the company after the acquisition, will hold a 15% minority stake and has an option to buy additional 5% stake from Iceland Seafood within the next five years.



The 85% stake in the company is acquired at 12.44m, representing a valuation in line with agreed LOI announced in May this year. The sales of the company in 2020 were 19.3m, EBITDA and PBT after adjusting for one off items were 1.7m and 1.1m respectively. Iceland Seafood will finance the acquisition with a combination of debt and equity, further information on share issuance in relation to the acquisition will be provided when available.

Ahumados Dominguez is known for its production of premium quality smoked salmon. The company has strong brand and consumer recognition in Spanish retail. It actively runs consumer campaigns and has a direct consumer facing through its specialty stores. The Ahumados Dominquez brand is among the seven most dominant brands in the smoked salmon sector within Spanish retail. The acquisition will strengthen Iceland Seafoods proposition in the Spanish retail sector and it will create opportunities to utilize the strong platform of Ahumados Dominguez to sell high quality cod products. At the same time Iceland Seafood will be entering the fast-growing retail market for salmon in Spain. Utilizing opportunities that Ahumados Dominguez has as a standalone company and new opportunities created with the acquisition, the aim is to significantly grow both sales and profitability in the coming years.

Bjarni Armannsson CEO:

Im pleased we are announcing the acquisition of Ahumados Dominguez. This is a very important part of our ambition to strengthen our position into Spanish retail and at the same time, entering the fast-growing salmon sector in Spain. Ahumados Dominguez is an excellent addition to the current strong footprint in salmon that we have in the Irish salmon sector. Annually, the Group will be producing high quality salmon products from over 6,000 MT of raw material, predominantly for retail. We are confident that the Ahumados Dominguez experienced management team and strong consumer brand position will create an excellent platform for future growth and welcome this new addition to the group.

Pedro Mestanza, MD Ahumados Dominguez:

It is an exciting step for Ahumados Dominguez to partner up with Iceland Seafood. The Groups international expertise and experience when it comes to sourcing and marketing of seafood creates an opportunity to expand our range of high quality products whilst maintaining the highest standards of service to our customers

Mar Advisors advised Iceland Seafood International on the transaction.

For more information:

Iceland Seafood International hf.

http://www.icelandseafood.com/Investors
Arlington, Virginia, Sept. 14, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Atlas Networkthe nonprofit organization connecting 500 free-market organizations in almost 100 countries to advance the cause of libertyhas announced the six finalists for this years Templeton Freedom Award. Named for the late investor and philanthropist Sir John Templeton, the prestigious award annually honors his legacy by identifying and recognizing the most exceptional and innovative contributions to the understanding of free enterprise and the public policies that encourage prosperity, innovation, and human fulfillment via free competition. The winning organization receives a US$100,000 grand prize and the runners-up each receive US$20,000. The award is generously supported by Templeton Religion Trust and will be presented during Atlas Networks 2021 Liberty Forum & Freedom Dinner on December 14 in Miami, Florida.

The six finalists for the 2021 Templeton Freedom Award are:

Cardinal Institute for West Virginia Policy (Charleston, West Virginia)Initiating Education Choice Reform

Quality education is key to breaking the cycle of poverty, but for decades, West Virginia students have been trapped in a system consistently ranked at the bottom of national rankings, with no alternatives available. Leaders of the Cardinal Institute for West Virginia Policy knew there was a better way, and in 2015 they began a journey to transform education in their state. As a result of their tireless efforts, West Virginia opened to charter schools in 2019, and this year the West Virginia legislature adopted the Hope Scholarship Program, a nation-leading education reform that provides funding directly to families and students rather than systems. Parents across West Virginia now have the agency they need to make the best decisions for their children, and by introducing competition into the education marketplace, Cardinal Institute has revolutionized educational choice, creating the gold standard for reform and bringing a West Virginia miracle closer to fruition.

Cato Institute (Washington, D.C.)Working to Eliminate Qualified Immunity

Just a few years ago, qualified immunity was an obscure legal concept known only to a small handful of lawyers and legal scholars. Now, its a household term. Uniting advocacy groups and leaders from across the political spectrum, Cato Institute demonstrated how qualified immunity enables government officials to violate the civil rights of citizens with impunity. Their work to promote public awareness of the topic has been so successful that more than 60% of Americans now favor ending this abusive legal loophole, and legislative efforts to ban qualified immunity are picking up steam. Several jurisdictionsincluding Colorado, New Mexico, and New York Cityhave already banned the legal defense, clearing the way for citizens to bring lawsuits against officialsincluding police officerswho have violated their rights. Bills to that effect have also been introduced at the national level by members of Congress representing three political parties. Cato Institute's efforts aim to restore the civil rights of every American and give renewed energy to the creed liberty and justice for all.

Centre for Development and EnterprisesGreat Lakes (Bujumbura, Burundi)Opening Borders to Increase Trade

In the landlocked Central African nation of Burundi, oppressive regulations, complicated bureaucracy and physical barriers at border posts force Burundians desperate for cross-border trade to enter the informal economy, condemning millions to lives marred by poverty and abuse by border officials. The Centre for Development and EnterprisesGreat Lakes, or CDE, is determined to reduce these barriers and create the conditions for formal, open tradeand, consequentlyfor a better life in Burundi. CDE launched their "Fungua Njia" or "Open Road" campaign in 2019, which has culminated in fewer required commercial documents, the elimination of 90% of non-tariff barriers; the establishment of a simple local travel document to replace costly passports; the reduction of regulatory agencies from 19 to 4; and, most importantly, the legal recognition of over 30,000 women traders, who have finally been extended protection against sexual harassment, illegal seizure of their goods, physical violence, and bribery at the border. These changes have cleared the way for explosive growth in trade that is not only more frequent, but also more affordable and secure. CDEs work demonstrates the power of free enterprise and trade to bring dignity and prosperity to millions of people across Africas Great Lakes region.

Centre for Civil Society (New Delhi, India)Securing Legal Protections for Street Vendors

Street vendors are essential to Indias economy, accounting for over US$10 million in transactions each day. But these entrepreneurs often operate at the mercy of local authorities who arbitrarily extort, abuse, and threaten them, seizing their goods and charging them hefty fines. Centre for Civil Society, or CCS, has been a consistent champion for street vendors, securing the passage of the landmark Street Vendors Act in 2014. Sadly, implementation of the law has been fragmented and remains unfinished in states across the country. With sustained research and publicity campaigns on behalf of and in partnership with vendors, Centre for Civil Society has maintained pressure on government officials to protect street vendors economic rights. Moreover, CCS work to educate vendors about the law is enabling millions to stand up for their rights, ultimately allowing them to earn a livelihood free from the fines and fear that have prevented them from plying their trade in peace.

Institute of Economic Affairs (London, United Kingdom)Revitalizing a Free Trade Champion

Just over forty years ago, the Institute of Economic Affairs, or IEA, laid the intellectual groundwork for sustained economic expansion across the United Kingdom, and today they have once again helped to lead the country out of crisis. Out of the uncertainty created by the Brexit referendum, the IEA worked to make the most of the opportunity to redefine economic policy in the United Kingdom. For four years they played a significant role in changing hearts, minds, and policy with a clear vision for advancing free trade. Their Plan A+ programme became a media sensation and was championed by a wide range of policymakers and UK leaders who have since implemented dozens of free trade deals worth over US$1 trillion. Overcoming immense opposition from think tanks, regulatory agencies, social media attacks, and even targeted burglaries, the IEA achieved their most monumental policy contribution in decades. Their steadfast commitment to open trade has helped to secure a more prosperous future for the people of the United Kingdom, rekindled Britains deep liberal tradition, and created a model to be emulated around the world.

Libertas Institute (Lehi, Utah)Unleashing the Potential of Utahs Small Businesses

Red tape and bureaucracy often discourage aspiring entrepreneurs, overwhelm small businesses, and hinder established companies from reaching their full potential. Utahs Libertas Institute aims to change this stifling environment with the nations first comprehensive regulatory sandbox. This innovative system allows business owners to seek exemption from onerous regulations, giving entrepreneurs and enterprises time to innovate while providing lawmakers the opportunity to review and repeal outdated or restrictive policies. By decreasing unnecessary regulations, Libertas Institutes regulatory sandbox creates a welcoming environment for fresh business ideas. Sandbox programs in Utah have helped dozens of companies serve their customers more cost effectively and efficiently by reducing their regulatory burden. Libertas Institute is encouraging similar sandboxes across the country and hopes to see their policy proposals adopted on the national level. Libertas Institutes concerted deregulation efforts are allowing a new generation of entrepreneurs in Utah to achieve their dreams, making the state a beacon of innovation and opportunity in the United States.

To schedule an interview with any of the finalists, please contact AJ Skiera at Aj.Skiera@AtlasNetwork.org or (202) 449-8440. For more information, please visit AtlasNetwork.org.

###

About Atlas Network:

Atlas Network is a nonprofit organization that aims to secure for all individuals the rights to economic and personal freedom through its global network of strategic partners that operate independently in nearly 100 countries. Atlas Network does not receive funds from any government or quasi-government institutions. Its programs are entirely funded by voluntary gifts from those who cherish the principles of a free society and desire to help Atlas Network unleash individual ingenuity to enrich humanity.

About the Templeton Freedom Award:

Awarded since 2004, Atlas Networks Templeton Freedom Award is named for the late investor and philanthropist Sir John Templeton. The award annually honors his legacy by identifying and recognizing the most exceptional and innovative contributions to the understanding of free enterprise and the public policies that encourage prosperity, innovation, and human fulfillment via free competition. The award is generously supported by Templeton Religion Trust and will be presented during Atlas Networks Freedom Dinner on December 14 in Miami, Florida, at loanDepot (Miami Marlins) park. The winning organization will receive a $100,000 prize, and five additional finalists will each receive $20,000 prizes.

Attachments

AJ Skiera Atlas Network 202-449-8440 aj.skiera@atlasnetwork.org

Source: Atlas Network
Launches Nordics Regional Expansion

Dr. Lowan Stewart, One of Europe's Preeminent Ketamine Physicians, Appointed as Awakn's Regional Director for the Nordics

Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - September 16, 2021) - Awakn Life Sciences Corp. (NEO: AWKN) (OTCQB: AWKNF) (FSE: 954) ("Awakn" or the "Company"), a biotechnology company developing and delivering psychedelic medicine to treat addiction, is pleased to announce that it has signed a binding share exchange agreement to acquire a 100% interest in Axonklinikken AS ("Axon"), a leading ketamine-assisted psychotherapy clinic in Norway. As part of the transaction Axon will be renamed 'Awakn Oslo AS', and Axon's majority shareholder Dr. Lowan Stewart will be appointed as Regional Director for the Nordics and Managing Director Awakn Oslo AS.

The acquisition will enable Awakn to accelerate its clinic roll out program, as Awakn will now parallel path its regional expansion plans in both the Nordics (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland) and U.K. & Ireland, territories with a combined 100m population and US$5trn GDP.

Awakn Oslo AS will serve as a regional hub from which Awakn plans to expand across the Nordics and is in addition to the two other clinics Awakn plans to have operational this fiscal year (Bristol and London locations), all of which Awakn expects to begin generating revenue in the near-term.

"This is a key element of our goal for Awakn to become the leading authority in the development and delivery of psychedelic therapeutics to treat addiction," said Anthony Tennyson, Awakn's CEO. "Our approach of development and delivery enables Awakn to earn revenue while we also develop a deep IP portfolio with strong commercial potential. This acquisition will enable Awakn to accelerate the first element of our three-pronged revenue generation strategy: clinics in the UK and Europe, licencing partnership beyond the UK and Europe, and therapeutics commercialisation."

The new Oslo clinic will be led by Dr. Stewart, one of Europe's preeminent ketamine physicians. Dr. Stewart was previously the founder and medical director of the Santa Fe Ketamine Clinic, the first ketamine treatment center in New Mexico. He has lectured internationally on ketamine for depression and is a member of the American Society of Ketamine Physicians.

"This marks huge progress for psychedelic-assisted therapies in the Nordic region. As a practicing physician, medical adviser and researcher, I am excited at the opportunity to further expand the use of ketamine-assisted therapies for those suffering from addiction to this region of the world," said Dr. Stewart. "With its robust pipeline of research, Awakn is poised to address a growing need in our communities for new, research-backed treatment options for a variety of mental illnesses that provide significantly better outcomes."

As consideration for the acquisition, Awakn shall issue to the shareholders of Axon an aggregate of 200,000 common shares of Awakn at a deemed price of $2.50 per share. Awakn has also agreed to pay to the shareholders of Axon the following additional consideration (the "Additional Consideration") of up CAD1.35m based on Axon meeting certain milestones:

Opening a second clinic in Norway.

Opening a first clinic in a second Nordic country.

Opening a first clinic in a third Nordic country.

Achieving agreed revenue and EBIDTA targets.

Awakn shall have the option to pay any amount of the Additional Consideration in cash or common shares at its option. The value to calculate the number of the common shares to be issued shall be the greater of (i) a 10-day volume weighted average price, (ii) the minimum price allowable by the NEO Exchange, and (iii) CAD$2.50. The initial 200,000 common shares issued shall be subject to a lock-up resulting in 10% being released upon completion of the acquisition and 15% every three months thereafter.

About Awakn Life Sciences Corp.

Awakn Life Sciences is a biotechnology company with clinical operations, developing and delivering psychedelic medicine to better treat addiction. Awakn's team consists of world leading chemists, scientists, psychiatrists, and psychologists who are developing and advancing the next generation of psychedelic drugs, therapies, and enabling technologies to treat addiction. Awakn will also deliver evidence backed psychedelic therapies for addiction in clinics in the U.K. and Europe and through licencing partnerships globally.

www.awaknlifesciences.com | Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook

Notice Regarding Forward Looking Information

This news release contains certain forward-looking information and forward-looking statements, as defined in applicable securities laws (collectively referred to herein as "forward-looking statements"). Forward-looking statements reflect current expectations or beliefs regarding future events or the Company's future performance. All statements other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "continues", "forecasts", "projects", "predicts", "intends", "anticipates", "targets" or "believes", or variations of, or the negatives of, such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "should", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved, including statements relating to the acquisition of Axon, the intended business of the Company, the expansion of the Company's business, generation of revenue. All forward-looking statements, including those herein are qualified by this cautionary statement.

Although the Company believes that the expectations expressed in such statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in the statements. There are certain factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking information. These include: the business plans and strategies of the Company, the ability of the Company to comply with all applicable governmental regulations in a highly regulated business; the inherent risks in investing in target companies or projects which have limited or no operating history and are engaged in activities currently considered illegal in some jurisdictions; changes in laws; limited operating history; reliance on management; requirements for additional financing; competition; inconsistent public opinion and perception regarding the medical-use of psychedelic drugs; and regulatory or political change. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing list of factors is not exhaustive of the factors that may affect forward-looking statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements in this news release speak only as of the date of this news release or as of the date or dates specified in such statements.

Investors are cautioned that any such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking information. For more information on the Company, investors are encouraged to review the Company's public filings on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward- looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, other than as required by law.

This news release does not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities in the United States. The Company's and Awakn's securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to U.S. Persons unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available.

Investor Enquiries:

KCSA Strategic Communications

Valter Pinto / Tim Regan

Phone: +1 (212) 896-1254

Awakn@KCSA.com

Media Enquiries:

America and Canada: KCSA Strategic Communications

Anne Donohoe

Adonohoe@KCSA.com

Rest of World:

ROAD Communications

Paul Jarman / Anna Ramsey

Awakn@roadcommunications.co.uk

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/96771
NEW YORK and ZURICH, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Leading healthcare investors Avista Capital Partners ("Avista Capital") and Nordic Capital (through Nordic Capital CV1) today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement to sell Acino ("Acino" or "the Company"), a Swiss pharmaceutical company headquartered in Zurich with a global platform that promotes affordable healthcare in key emerging markets through contract manufacturing and out-licensing. The acquirer, ADQ is one of the region's largest holding companies with a broad portfolio of major enterprises spanning key sectors of Abu Dhabi's diversified economy.

In partnership, Avista Capital and Nordic Capital acquired Acino in 2013 via a take-private transaction from the Swiss stock exchange (SIX: ACIN). Since that time, both investors supported Acino's long-term growth strategy and transformed the business to become a high-growth emerging markets- focused pharmaceuticals platform with significant market presence in the Middle East, Ukraine, Russia, and South Africa. Since the 2013 investment, Acino has executed a number of strategically-important acquisitions, including PharmaStart (Ukraine), Litha Healthcare (South Africa), and the acquisition of a portfolio of select over-the-counter (OTC) and prescription pharmaceutical assets from Takeda Pharmaceuticals, which expanded Acino's global footprint and addressable therapeutic areas.

Thompson Dean, co-CEO and Managing Partner of Avista Capital, said, "We are incredibly proud that our partnership with Acino strengthened its business and expanded its client base, capabilities, and geographic footprint. During the period of our investment, Acino brought to market many innovative products that are making a real difference in the lives of patients in emerging markets around the world. We know Steffen Saltofte and his team are well-positioned to capture the significant opportunities in front of them, and we wish Acino the best as they embark on this next chapter with ADQ."

Thomas Vetander, Partner, Nordic Capital Advisors, said, "During the ownership period, Acino executed on key growth initiatives and made significant investments to drive both organic and acquisitive growth. This includes the acquisition of Takeda's primary care portfolio in key emerging markets, which has positioned Acino for the next phase of its development. We thank the Acino team for their dedication during these years. It's now time for the Company to take the next step forward together with ADQ to aim for even further growth and expansion."

Mr. Saltofte, CEO of Acino, concluded, "On behalf of the entire Acino team, I would like to thank Avista Capital and Nordic Capital for their partnership and invaluable contributions to our company. As owners, they have been instrumental in supporting us and fully focused on seizing the opportunities available to Acino. We look forward to building on our momentum and continuing our strong growth with our new partners at ADQ."

Fahad Al Qassim, Executive Director, Healthcare & Pharma at ADQ, commented: "We are creating a strong platform to fortify the UAE's position as a regional hub for pharmaceutical manufacturing, commercialisation and distribution in select growth-leading markets. Our aim for ADQ's healthcare and pharma cluster is to ensure access to affordable, essential medicines and advance new, innovative treatments that help improve people's lives. We thank Avista Capital and Nordic Capital for their collaboration and contributions to Acino's success. We look forward to working with Acino's leadership team to deliver an even greater level of growth, innovation and ambition across ADQ's pharma value chain."

The financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. It is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals.

Media contacts:Avista Capital PartnersDaniel Yunger or Jon MorganKekst CNCe-mail: daniel.yunger@kekstcnc.com / jonathan.morgan@kekstcnc.com

Nordic CapitalKatarina Janerud, Communications ManagerNordic Capital AdvisorsTel: +46 8 440 50 50e-mail: katarina.janerud@nordiccapital.com

ADQmedia@adq.ae

About AcinoAcino is a Swiss pharmaceutical company headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland with a clear focus on selected markets in the Middle East, Africa, Russia, the CIS Region, and Latin America. The company is backed by Nordic Capital and Avista Capital Partners. Acino delivers quality pharmaceuticals to promote affordable healthcare in these emerging markets and leverage its high-quality pharmaceutical manufacturing capabilities and network to supply leading companies through contract manufacturing and out-licensing. For more information, please visit www.acino.swiss.

About Nordic CapitalNordic Capital is a leading private equity investor with a resolute commitment to creating stronger, sustainable businesses through operational improvement and transformative growth. Nordic Capital focuses on selected regions and sectors where it has deep experience and a long history. Focus sectors are Healthcare, Technology & Payments, Financial Services, and selectively, Industrial & Business Services. Key regions are Europe and globally for Healthcare and Technology & Payments investments. Since inception in 1989, Nordic Capital has invested more than EUR 19 billion in over 120 investments. The most recent entities are Nordic Capital X with EUR 6.1 billion in committed capital and Nordic Capital Evolution with EUR 1.2 billion in committed capital, principally provided by international institutional investors such as pension funds. Nordic Capital Advisors have local offices in Sweden, the UK, the US, Germany, Denmark, Finland and Norway. For further information about Nordic Capital, please visit www.nordiccapital.com.

"Nordic Capital" refers to, depending on the context, any, or all, Nordic Capital branded entities, vehicles, structures and associated entities. The general partners and/or delegated portfolio managers of Nordic Capital's entities and vehicles are advised by several non-discretionary sub-advisory entities, any or all of which are referred to as "Nordic Capital Advisors".

About Avista Founded in 2005, Avista Capital is a leading New York-based private equity firm with nearly $8 billion invested in 40 growth-oriented healthcare businesses globally. Avista partners with businesses that feature strong management teams, stable cash flows and robust growth prospects  investing in the medical devices and technologies, pharmaceuticals, outsourced pharmaceutical services, healthcare technology, healthcare distribution, and consumer-driven healthcare sectors. Avista's Operating Executives and Advisors are an integral part of the team, providing strategic insight, operational oversight and senior counsel, which helps drive growth and performance, while fostering sustainable businesses and creating long-term value for all stakeholders. For more information, visit www.avistacap.com.

About ADQEstablished in Abu Dhabi in 2018, ADQ is one of the region's largest holding companies with direct and indirect investments in more than 90 companies locally and internationally. Both an asset owner and investor, ADQ's broad portfolio of major enterprises span key sectors of a diversified economy, including energy and utilities, food and agriculture, healthcare and pharma, and mobility and logistics, amongst others. As a strategic partner of Abu Dhabi's government, ADQ is committed to accelerating the transformation of the emirate into a globally competitive and knowledge-based economy.

For more information, visit adq.ae or write to media@adq.ae. You can also follow ADQ on Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/avista-capital-partners-and-nordic-capital-to-sell-acino-a-leader-in-advanced-drug-delivery-technologies-to-adq-301378297.html

SOURCE Avista Capital Partners
BASEL, Switzerland, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Nouscom, a clinical stage immuno-oncology company developing off-the-shelf and personalized cancer neoantigen vaccines, today announced initial results from the Phase 1 trial of NOUS-209, the first clinical results for the company. NOUS-209, an off-the-shelf cancer vaccine based on shared neoantigens, in combination with the anti-PD-1 checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab, was shown to be safe, highly immunogenic, and demonstrated promising early signs of clinical efficacy with no dose-limiting toxicities, in the treatment of Microsatellite Instable High (MSI-H) gastric, colorectal and gastro-esophageal junction solid tumors.

The results were presented in an e-poster (#1004P) at the European Society of Molecular Oncology (ESMO) congress which is taking place September 16 to 21, 2021. The primary author of the poster is Dr Michael Overman, Principal Investigator (PI) of the trial and Professor in the Department of Gastrointestinal Medicine at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Dr Michael Overman, PI of the trial, said: "There is still a significant unmet need in the treatment of MSI-H tumors, with many patients not responding to a single agent immunotherapy. The technology developed by Nouscom is innovative and looks to address this issue  the Phase 1 results are very encouraging, and this data provides exciting early validation of the multi-neoantigen approach in humans, supporting the compelling preclinical data seen previously. I look forward to reporting on the fully enrolled Phase 1 results.''

The Phase 1 study (NCT04041310) is a multicenter, open label, multiple cohorts, first-in-human clinical study of NOUS-209 in combination with pembrolizumab, designed to evaluate safety, tolerability and immunogenicity and to detect preliminary evidence of anti-tumor activity. The trial enrolled 21 patients in the US.

Furthermore, the trial was designed to define the recommended Phase 2 dose (RP2D), with dose level 2 selected as RP2D, based on safety and tolerability, and supportive data gained from infectious disease studies.

"Presenting the first clinical dataset from our lead candidate NOUS-209 for the treatment of MSI-H solid tumors at ESMO, a major oncology conference, is an important milestone for Nouscom." Dr Marina Udier, Chief Executive Officer of Nouscom added. "We are very pleased to have demonstrated NOUS-209 is safe, highly immunogenic and shows early signs of clinical efficacy. NOUS-209 leverages a core strength of the company's platform, namely the capacity of its proprietary viral vectors to encode a large number of neoantigens."

MSI-H tumors are characterized by a defective DNA mismatch repair system, which generates highly immunogenic frame shift peptides (FSPs) that are not found on healthy tissue. NOUS-209 encodes 209 FSP cancer neoantigens, selected by Nouscom's proprietary GENESIS (GE(netic)NE(oantigen)S(election)I(n)S(ilico)) algorithm, so that each patient's tumor will express, on average, 50 of these neoantigens.

NOUS-209 is Nouscom's lead candidate and has been developed from its proprietary heterologous prime/boost viral vector platform, which combines viral vector vaccines based on neoantigens, with other immunomodulators to harness the full power of the immune response. The vaccine is composed of four Great Ape Adenoviral (GAd) and four Modified Vaccinia Ankara (MVA) vectors.

The poster is available to registered congress participants, speakers and viewers on the ESMO website (https://www.esmo.org/meetings/esmo-congress-2021).

About NOUS-209

Nous-209 is an off-the-shelf immunotherapy for Microsatellite Instable High (MSI-H) tumors. The design of NOUS-209 is based on the neoantigens created by frameshift mutations (frameshift peptides, FSP) and are shared across multiple MSI tumors, not found in healthy tissues. NOUS-209 comprises 209 shared FSP neoantigens, selected by a proprietary algorithm on the basis than an average of 50 neoantigens on any patient's tumor will be shared with those in NOUS-209. These FSPs were cloned into proprietary Great Ape Adenoviral (GAd) and Modified Vaccinia Ankara (MVA) vectors to generate the viral-vectored vaccine.

NOUS-209 is in Phase 1 clinical trial in combination with the anti-PD-1 checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab in US patients with gastric, colorectal and gastro-esophageal junction MSI tumors.

About Nouscom

Nouscom is a clinical stage immuno-oncology company developing next-generation, off-the-shelf and personalized cancer vaccines. Nouscom's proprietary technology platform harnesses the full power of the immune response by combining viral vectored vaccines based on multiple neoantigens with other immunomodulators.

Nouscom is currently advancing the clinical development of its programs:

NOUS-209 (lead), an off-the-shelf cancer immunotherapy for the treatment of MSI-H solid tumors, and

NOUS-PEV, a personalized vaccine for the treatment of advanced melanoma or lung cancer

Nouscom is led by an experienced management team with deep roots in the pharma and biotech industry and are veterans in the field of viral vectored vaccines.

Nouscom, which was founded in 2015 and is headquartered in Basel, Switzerland with operations in Rome, Italy, is backed by international life sciences investors.

For more information on Nouscom, please visit the company's website at www.nouscom.com or follow us on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/company/nouscom-ag/

Contacts

Nouscom Rick Davis, CBO E : info@nouscom.com T : +41 61 201 1835

MEDiSTRAVA Consulting Sylvie Berrebi, Eleanor Perkin E : nouscom@medistrava.com T : +44 (0) 7714 306525

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nouscom-announces-initial-results-from-phase-1-trial-for-nous-209-an-off-the-shelf-neoantigen-cancer-vaccine-in-msi-h-solid-tumors-301377913.html

SOURCE Nouscom
(U.S. Air Force)

DAYTON, Ohio (Tribune News Service)  Local COVID conditions have restricted travel to dozens of Department of Defense installations  and after its recent shift to a stricter health protection condition, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base finds itself on that list.

Wright-Patterson is among the installations subject to travel restrictions, recent Pentagon updates have indicated.

No missions have stopped as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic or the travel restrictions, said a spokeswoman for the 88th Air Base Wing, the unit that acts as landlord to the large Air Force Base.

"When Wright-Patterson Air Force Base transitioned health protection condition Charlie, it triggered the shift to 'red' on the DOD COVID-19 travel restrictions installation status chart," spokeswoman Stacey Geiger said. "Currently, local travel is not impacted; the 'red' status only impacts considerations for official travel to or from the installation. "

To help mitigate transmission of virus, a waiver for official travel is required, she noted.

"Waivers will be granted under certain circumstances such as mission requirements and will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis," Geiger said. "The purpose of the waiver is to ensure deliberate thought went behind the trip with an emphasis on individual safety and mission success."

Wright-Patterson is by no means alone. Big bases like Norfolk Naval Base, Eglin Air Force Base, Joint Base San Antonio and others also fall under restrictions.

Military bases increasingly restricted travel again this summer with rising COVID rates. As recently as Aug. 16, 194 of 230 installations (84%) had seen travel restrictions lifted. That meant service members were able to move to new assignments or travel without waivers.

Rising Delta variant numbers quickly changed that. The most recent Sept. 13 update has restrictions lifted at 76 of 230 installations.

Wright-Patterson moved to HPCON "Charlie" Sept. 1, representing a stiffer regimen of requirements against COVID-19.

The status was to be in effect for the next 30 days and capped the physical presence of workers at 25% or less of the base's pre-pandemic working population  no more than about 7,500 or fewer employees on base.

(c)2021 the Dayton Daily News (Dayton, Ohio)

Visit the Dayton Daily News (Dayton, Ohio) at www.daytondailynews.com

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previous coverage Wright-Patterson moves to health protection condition Charlie
Buy Photo Command Sgt. Maj. Michael Carlan unfurls the flag of a new task force, which was activated at a ceremony on Clay Kaserne in Wiesbaden, Germany, on Sept. 16, 2021. (David Edge/Stars and Stripes)

A task force that drastically expands the Armys combat capacity in Europe was activated Thursday, bringing hundreds of new soldiers to the services mission on the Continent.

The 2nd Multi-domain Task Force at U.S. Army Europe and Africas headquarters in Wiesbaden, Germany, lets the command move beyond conventional ground-war tactics, the Armys top general in Europe said. It is part of the services long-running quest to modernize its fighting methods.

It will bring significant capabilities, USAREUR-AF commander Gen. Christopher Cavoli said . It will allow us to operate not just in the land domain.  It will allow us to operate in all domains.

The new task force will synchronize various capabilities under one unit, Cavoli added.

It is led by Col. Jonathan Byrom and includes a headquarters element along with an intelligence, cyberspace, electronic warfare and space detachment. There also is a brigade support company.

The task force will do reconnaissance across all those domains to monitor for threats and prepare a response if needed, Byrom said.

Buy Photo Gen. Christopher Cavoli, left, the U.S. Army Europe and Africa commander, passes the 2nd Multi-domain Task Force colors to Col. Jonathon Byrom at an activation ceremony for the unit Sept. 16, 2021, in Wiesbaden, Germany. (David Edge/Stars and Stripes)

We are giving arrows into the quiver of that combatant commander to use to achieve whatever effect that he wants, he told reporters Thursday. And that really depends on where we are at in the combat continuum.

The multi-domain task force in Europe is the Armys second to be activated. The first was established at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state. A similar task force is expected to be set up in the Pacific next year.

In Europe, the formation of the unit means about 500 more soldiers based in Wiesbaden along with 750 family members. The Armys new 56th Artillery Command is expected to activate next month, adding to the influx.

In April, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced during a visit in Berlin that the Pentagon would increase forces in Germany with the new fires command and multi-domain task force.

The decision indicated President Joe Biden's intent to shift away from former President Donald Trumps plan to move 12,000 troops out of Germany. That plan is on hold while the administration conducts a global force posture review.

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said Wednesday that the review is nearly finished.

It is very much an effort on track, Kirby said during a news conference. They are nearing the completion of their work. And I think in relatively short order well be able to talk more about the global posture review.

Stars and Stripes reporter David Edge contributed to this story.
Then-U.S. Forces Korea commander Gen. Vincent Brooks greets South Korean President Moon Jae-in at Yongsan Garrison, South Korea, June 13, 2017. (Sean Harp/U.S. Army)

A retired Army general who oversaw all U.S. troops on the Korean Peninsula said he believed nuclear weapons would not give South Korea a strategic advantage and may instead escalate tensions to an unnecessary degree of danger.

Vincent Brooks, the former commander of U.S. Forces Korea and United Nations Command, spoke during a virtual roundtable discussion hosted by the Korea Defense Veterans Association on Tuesday.

He described South Korea as a mature democracy that had withstood great pressures and tests, but possessing a nuclear weapon would not help it deter threats from North Korea. In light of North Koreas ongoing nuclear program, the subject of Seoul possessing nuclear weapons has been raised by many South Korean politicians in recent years, including primary candidates in the upcoming presidential election.

President Moon Jae-in has ruled out the deployment of nuclear weapons in South Korea, warning during a television interview in 2017 that it may lead to a nuclear arms race in the region.

Im of the view that South Korea and the alliance have the advantage, Brooks said. They have the military advantage and the addition of nuclear weapons  does not help that.

The U.S. withdrew its nuclear weapons from the peninsula in 1991 and signed a bilateral defense treaty to protect South Korea from external attacks.

South Korea does not possess nuclear weapons but has made advances in developing its missile program. On Wednesday, it became one of the few nations to successfully test-fire a submarine-launched ballistic missile, an accomplishment Moon described as a deterrent to North Korea's continued provocations.

In addition to its technological advances, decades-old guidelines limiting the range of South Korean-developed ballistic missiles to a maximum range of roughly 500 miles were scrapped by the U.S. and Seoul in May.

Given these advances, Brooks said, he believed the idea of South Korea possessing nuclear weapons escalates the threshold to one that is an unnecessary degree of danger.

Its going to be debated and must be debated by the sovereign nation of [South Korea], to decide for itself, Brooks said. But there are a lot of things that come with the possession of nuclear weapons and its not all good.

The 42-year Army veteran said Seoul should be very careful not to open the door to these types of things when they have strength already; and not to do it just to be equalizing against Pyongyang.

North Korea is imitating South Korea, Brooks said. South Korea does not need to imitate North Korea.

North Korea on Wednesday announced it had fired two ballistic missiles across its eastern coast. The missiles flew about 500 miles at a maximum altitude of 37 miles, according to South Koreas Joint Chiefs of Staff.

North Koreas Wednesday test happened just two days after it fired long-range cruise missiles that flew 932 miles for over two hours, according to the countrys state-run news agency.

Brooks said that despite North Korea having numerical superiority, its military lacks technical capabilities and a will to fight.

North Korea is estimated to have roughly 1.2 million troops, according to the Council on Foreign Relations, compared to South Koreas active-duty force of around 550,000. Roughly 28,500 U.S. troops are also stationed in South Korea.
Naval Air Crewman (Helicopter) 2nd Class James P. Buriak, Lt. Paul R. Fridley, Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Sarah F. Burns, Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Bailey J. Tucker and Lt. Bradley A. Foster were killed when an MH-60S Seahawk helicopter, assigned to Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 8, crashed approximately 60 nautical miles off the coast of San Diego, Aug. 31. (U.S. Navy)

SAN DIEGO, Calif. (Tribune News Service)  A Navy undersea search and salvage operation began this week to locate and recover an MH-60S Seahawk helicopter and the remains of the five crew members killed in an Aug. 31 crash near San Diego, the Navy said Thursday.

The Navy estimates the helicopter is on the sea floor 4,000 to 6,000 feet deep, according to the Navy's San Diego-based 3rd Fleet.

Deep-sea search and recovery operations didn't immediately begin at the site in the days following the crash because the Navy had to scramble to bring the equipment necessary to search at such depth to San Diego from around the country, said Lt. Sam Boyle, a 3rd Fleet spokesperson.

"The depth and distance from shore make this a complex operation," Boyle said.

According to the Naval Safety Center, on the day of the crash the Seahawk, assigned to Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 8, began vibrating side-to-side upon landing on the San Diego-based aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln. The vibration led to the aircraft's rotor striking the flight deck of the Lincoln, which in turn caused the helicopter to crash and fall overboard into the sea.

One crew member on board the helicopter was rescued from the water. Five sailors on board the Abraham Lincoln were also injured.

The Navy declared the five sailors dead after a three-day search.

On Wednesday, the Dominator, a contracted merchant vessel, left Naval Air Station North Island to begin on-site recovery operations with personnel from the Navy's Supervisor of Salvage and Diving, part of the service's Sea Surface Command. The recovery team is part of a Navy command that specializes in undersea recovery.

The salvage crew will try to locate the wreck using a shallow-water, side-scan sonar able to reach search depths of 8,000 feet and a towed pinger locator able to find downed aircraft at depths up to 20,000 feet.

While the Navy knows approximately where the helicopter went into the water about 60 nautical miles southwest of San Diego, it has not yet found the wreckage on the ocean floor, Boyle said.

"We're mapping the (bottom of) the ocean over the area," Boyle said. "We are making every effort to find the wreckage and the remains of our shipmates."

The sailors killed in the crash were:

 Lt. Bradley Foster, 29, from Oakhurst, Calif.

 Lt. Paul Fridley, 28, from Annadale, Va.

 Naval Air Crewman 2nd Class James Buriak, 31, from Salem, Va.

 Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Sarah Burns, 31, from Severna Park, Md.

 Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Bailey Tucker, 21, from St. Louis, Mo.

In March, a Navy salvage crew recovered a downed MH-60S in more than 19,000 feet of water off the coast of Okinawa, Japan. The crew of that helicopter were able to escape before it sank, the Navy said.

The Dominator and a Navy salvage crew recovered the remains of eight Marines and one sailor in 2020 after a Marine Corps assault amphibious vehicle sank near San Clemente Island. That recovery was at a significantly shallower depth of 385 feet.

An investigation into the helicopter crash is ongoing.

2021 The San Diego Union-Tribune.

Visit sandiegouniontribune.com.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
The amphibious dock landing ship USS Germantown departs Sasebo Naval Base, Japan, Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021. (U.S. Navy)

The USS Germantown steamed out of Sasebo Naval Base on Wednesday following a decade of service in the Indo-Pacific region.

The U.S. Navy announced the dock landing ships departure in a Wednesday news release. The ship is sailing for San Diego as part of a scheduled rotation, according to Sasebo Naval Base spokesman Aki Nichols.

Germantown and the sailors who have sailed with her have made an incredible impact across the entire 7th Fleet theater, said Rear Adm. Chris Engdahl, commander of Expeditionary Strike Group 7, in the release.

Organized around the amphibious assault ship USS America, the strike group and the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit compose a rapid force for a range of missions, from humanitarian and disaster relief to combat operations.

The Germantowns sister ship, the USS Rushmore, is slated to replace the Germantown later this year, according to the Navy. The Rushmore, commissioned in 1991, is homeported in San Diego.

The Germantown first arrived in Sasebo in 2011, when it relieved the USS Harpers Ferry. Dock landing ships launch Marines making amphibious landings in air cushioned and conventional landing craft and in helicopters, according to the Navy. The ships company numbers about 400.

During its tenure in the region, the 609-foot-long Germantown participated in numerous operations and exercises, including Cobra Gold, Valiant Shield, Kamandag, Sama Sama, Tiger Triumph 2019 and three Talisman Sabre exercises.

It has been our immense pleasure to serve here in 7th Fleet, with the finest warfighters in the Navy and Marine Corps, said Cmdr. Cullen Greenfield, commander of the Germantown, in the release. Working with our partners and allies to foster an integrated, global effort to safeguard free and open access to the Indo-Pacific region is a critical duty, and it has been a tremendously rewarding opportunity for this team.

Prior to departing for the Pacific, the Germantown also participated in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, where it exercised in the United Arab Emirates in preparation for a possible amphibious assault. The ship later supported Operation Enduring Freedom, according to the Navy.
New York and its neighborhoods, such as the East Village in Manhattan, were the epicenter of the coronavirus crisis in spring 2020. (Jeenah Moon/For The Washington Post)

WASHINGTON  Uncle Sam can be a slow learner.

That can have deadly consequences when lessons not learned affect the nation's battle against a global pandemic like the coronavirus.

A recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report details the problem: Despite experiencing various biological emergencies and running numerous exercises to prepare for more, federal agencies failed to learn numerous lessons that might have helped in the pandemic.

"Challenges identified in prior exercises and incidents persisted during the COVID-19 response," according to GAO, a government-wide watchdog. That left federal and other officials feeling "underprepared to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic." GAO "highlighted a disconnect between preparedness activities and exercises conducted prior to the pandemic and what was needed for an effective response."

The study examined 19 after-action reports from 2009 through 2019, including 11 based on exercises. The review included eight after-action reports from the departments of Homeland Security, Defense, Agriculture, and Health and Human Services for the real-life spread of H1N1, Ebola, and Zika. Department officials agreed to GAO's 16 recommendations in the report released last month.

Consistent with its firm fact-based, nonpartisan and nonpolitical stance, GAO, which identifies itself as "the supreme audit institution for the United States," did not discuss the various ways former president Donald Trump's specific actions and inactions contributed to the United States leading the world in COVID-19 deaths. On Jan. 19, his last full day in office, the U.S. COVID-19 death toll exceeded 409,000, far more than any other nation, according to data provided by Johns Hopkins University. Now more than 666,000 Americans are dead.

Previous "exercises and after actions identified significant gaps and challenges that actually unfolded during the pandemic," Chris Currie, GAO's homeland security and justice director said by email. "In short, agencies did not follow up and close these gaps beforehand."

GAO found that "several key themes continued to emerge" during the last decade "and that those same issues manifested as challenges during the COVID-19 response." The themes included the need to improve:

 Coordination of response operations and resources;

 Information management "across all levels of government and with nongovernmental, private sector, and international entities;" and

 Development, modernization and testing of plans and capabilities.

On the question of coordination, after-action reports from 2014 and 2019 covered issues that recurred during the current pandemic, including, according to the report, "efforts to secure and distribute supplies, specifically medical countermeasures such as personal protective equipment and testing supplies."

A Department of Homeland Security report on a 2010 anthrax attack exercise, meanwhile, highlighted the need for improved information sharing among agencies. Those issues persisted a decade later. Without standardized data collection, GAO said "information collected and reported by states and other entities to the federal government is often incomplete and inconsistent." Two public health experts told GAO "that confusing and conflicting communication from the federal government hindered response and recovery efforts." GAO also found "that frequent changes in CDC COVID-19 testing guidelines, without transparent scientific rationale, raised the risk of creating confusion and eroding trust in federal partners."

The report also notes that agencies did not prepare for such a widespread and long-lasting event, such as the coronavirus, because they didn't expect one unlimited by time and geography. For example, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) officials told GAO "the COVID-19 response presented unique challenges, because the pandemic affected the entire country simultaneously and posed challenges for acquiring life-saving supplies in the face of global supply chain shortages." A FEMA COVID-19 review demonstrated the resources "needed for nationally significant biological incidents were underdeveloped."

The Department of Health and Human Services was not prepared to handle the repatriation of Americans from overseas early in the pandemic because the department "had not exercised that scenario, including during the 2019 Crimson Contagion exercise." That training that was recent, prescient and on point. GAO described Crimson as "a multi-state, whole-of government exercise based on the spread of a novel influenza virus starting in China."

The Crimson after-action report offered numerous recommendations to address supply-chain issues for items including personal protective equipment and ventilators, which have been scarce at times during the pandemic. HHS officials told GAO they didn't have time to address the recommendations before the pandemic accelerated in early 2020.

Despite weaknesses in the government's COVID-19 response, James Blumenstock, the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials' senior vice president for pandemic response and recovery, praised years of planning through exercises and real emergencies for "the strengths and success of our COVID response to date." However, "we also feel that our efforts have been somewhat compromised," he added by phone, by "years of inadequate commitment to and investment in building and sustaining a public health system and infrastructure that's needed and capable of handling the myriad threats of the 21st Century."

The association joined other organizations supporting creation of an independent COVID-19 commission to study and make recommendations related to the nation's coronavirus response.

Many officials did not take perils like COVID-19 seriously.

GAO said a 2019 FEMA report found that risk assessments in only half the states "included a pandemic among the threats to which their communities are the most vulnerable." And contrary to the pandemic's harsh lessons, "states and urban areas indicated that in a worst-case scenario, medical care and life-sustaining goods delivery were two of the capabilities that were furthest from the desired goal."

Perhaps one reason for that is before the current pandemic, "it was challenging to build interest in and support for large-scale biological incident exercises," federal officials told GAO, because it can be difficult for authorities "to recognize the need to exercise high consequence, low probability biological events such as the COVID-19 pandemic."

GAO investigators were told that prior to COVID, "some localities were reluctant to participate in biodefense exercises because they thought it was a waste of time to exercise a scenario that would never happen."
Buy Photo The deluxe from Moose Hills Burger in Yamanashi prefecture, Japan, is a monster worth every bite. It comes with two Australian-beef patties, bacon, cheese, egg and avacado. (Theron Godbold/Stars and Stripes)

Japans Yamanashi prefecture is loaded with destinations and activities, from Mount Fuji itself to Fuji-Q Highland amusement park and many other things to see and do.

All that adventure-seeking builds an appetite, and Moose Hills Burger has what you need. The size of these Australian-beef burgers lives up to the restaurants name.

My group of motorcycle riders left Yokota Air Base at 8 a.m. on a recent morning, bound for Yamanashi and, specifically, lunch at Moose Hills. We arrived after a few hours of spirited riding to find that a line had already formed.

A sea of Harley-Davidson motorcycles, cars and bicycles filled the lot. Parking was free but hectic; an overworked attendant marshaled incoming customers as they jockeyed for a spot.

We were directed to park about a block away and hiked to the entrance.

Moose Hills opens at 11 a.m., about the time we arrived, and was already teeming with people waiting to be seated. I recommend arriving a bit earlier if time is a premium for you.

The restaurant, which has room for about 60 people, was packed, but despite that we waited only about 30 minutes before we were seated and promptly presented with English menus.

As the name implies, burgers are the staple here, but the lineup includes some custom creations like pineapple burgers, guacamole cream cheeseburgers and a chili Mexicana burger.

If you arent in the mood for a burger, Moose Hills makes fried chicken, hot dogs and other staple sandwiches and sides.

No matter what your budget, youll find something to snack on, with sides starting at about $4.50 and meals going up to about $20, with fries and a drink included.

I chose the deluxe. A burger about the size of a moose, its built with two beef patties, two thick slices of bacon, eggs, avocado and cheese. I was not disappointed.

The buns were fresh and lightly toasted; the egg was a strange addition, but added a unique flavor to the meal. The bacon was the perfect amount of crispy for a burger, and its smoky, salty flavor was perfectly offset by the avocado.

The best parts of the burger are the patties and the cheese. Unlike other Japanese burger patties Ive eaten, these held together under the strain of being devoured. The meat had a clean flavor that the sharp cheddar complemented perfectly.

We finished up and hit the road again to Yokota, feeling full on a relaxing ride through great mountain scenery.

Buy Photo Moose Hills Burger, near the base of Mount Fuji in Yamanashi prefecture, specializes in satisfying big appetites. (Theron Godbold/Stars and Stripes)

Location: 3290-1 Katsuyama, Fujikawaguchiko, Minamitsuru District, Yamanashi 401-0310

Directions: Exit the Kawaguchiko IC on the Chuo Expressway and head toward Fujinomiya; Moose Hills is two miles farther on Highway 139 on the left. Google plus code is FPPM+MG Fujikawaguchiko, Yamanashi.

Hours: Open daily, including holidays, 11 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Prices: meals average between $7 and $20

Dress: Casual

Information: Phone: 0555-72-6691; Online: moosehills.jp
It already seems a long time ago that Joe Biden arrived in the White House promising to defend democracy and protect human rights worldwide. Now, less than a month after having thrown Afghanistans struggling democracy to the wolves, the president is offering only the merest pretense of preserving human rights in Egypt.

The Biden administration has reportedly decided to supply the government of Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi with more than half of the $300 million in American military aid that had previously been suspended by Congress because of the Egyptian governments appalling human rights record. U.S. law requires the secretary of state to certify that Cairo has taken sustained and effective steps to clean up its act before the money can be released. But Antony Blinken will exercise his prerogative to exempt $170 million from such conditions.

The latest State Department report on human rights in Egypt calls out Cairo on the full panoply of abuses, from extrajudicial killings and detention of political opponents to violence against the LGBTQ community and the use of forced child labor. Even so, officials briefing Washington journalists in private are spinning the Blinken waiver as an improvement over the policy of previous administrations, which routinely released the entire $300 million. In this narrative, Biden is the first American president to punish el-Sissi, to the tune of $130 million, for failing to improve his rights record.

But at best, Biden is slapping el-Sissi with a wet noodle. The amount being withheld is just 10% of the $1.3 billion in military aid Egypt is annually allocated by the U.S. And it represents an infinitesimal proportion of international assistance Cairo receives, much of it from Gulf Arab countries.

Unimpressed, human rights groups have condemned the administrations decision as a betrayal of its stated commitment to human rights and to the rule of law. In a statement on Tuesday, 19 organizations  including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Freedom House  said the waiver gives license to the Egyptian government to continue perpetrating egregious human rights violations without fear of repercussions.

Theres been criticism, too, from within Bidens own party. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., noting that Egypts human rights record has worsened over the past two years, characterized the administration decision as a half-hearted implementation of the statute, and warned that other dictators would take notice.

While the partial withholding of aid will please nobody, it will not too greatly inconvenience el-Sissi, who can shrug off the deficit. Overall, U.S. support for Egypt  military and economic aid combined  has remained fairly constant for decades, rarely topping $2 billion a year. But since the general seized power in a 2013 coup, this has been dwarfed by assistance from Gulf Arab countries, especially Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The growth of the Egyptian economy has made American nonmilitary aid less critical for Cairo.

Same again for U.S. military assistance, which is meant for the procurement of American defense supplies. Even as Egypt under el-Sissi has climbed the ranks of the worlds major importers of arms  it now ranks third, behind Saudi Arabia and India  it has dramatically reduced its dependence on U.S. sources. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institutes, which maintains a military expenditure database for most countries, Egypts principal arms suppliers since 2016 have been Russia and France, accounting for 41% and 28% of imports, respectively; the U.S.s share was just 8.7%.

To stand a chance of influencing Cairos attitude toward human rights, the Biden administration would, at the minimum, have had to withhold a much larger proportion of military aid. Biden himself might have leaned on el-Sissi, whether in public pronouncements or private advice. That would have been consistent with his pre-election pledge of no more blank checks for the Egyptian leader.

But Biden signaled a change of heart shortly after taking office. In February, his administration approved the sale of missiles worth $200 million to the Egyptian navy, despite el-Sissis continued repression of dissent.

Bidens attitude toward the general softened further in the summer, when Egypt helped to broker the end of the latest Gaza war between Israel and Hamas. And the Egyptian leader earned even more brownie points in Washington this week, when he hosted Israels Prime Minister Naftali Bennet in Sharm el-Sheikh, the first public meeting between leaders of the two countries in about a decade.

With his stock rising in the Biden administration, el-Sissi can surely stomach the occasional wet noodle.

Bloomberg Opinion columnist Bobby Ghosh writes on foreign affairs, with a special focus on the Middle East and Africa. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
A wanted posted shows Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi, the leader of Islamic State in the Greater Sahara. French President Emmanuel Macron announced the death of al-Sahrawi on Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021, calling the killing a major success for the French military after more than eight years fighting extremists in the Sahel. (Rewards For Justice via AP)

PARIS  The leader of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara died of wounds from a drone strike that hit him on a motorcycle last month in southern Mali, in a French-led operation involving backup from U.S., EU, Malian and Nigerien military forces, French authorities said Thursday.

The French government did not disclose how they identified him as Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi, whose group has terrorized the region. The claim could not immediately be independently verified.

France declared the killing a major victory against jihadists in Africa and justification for years of anti-extremist efforts in the Sahel. French government officials described al-Sahrawi as "enemy No. 1" in the region, and accused him of ordering or overseeing attacks on U.S. troops, French aid workers and some 2,000-3,000 African civilians - most of them Muslim.

Experts called the announcement big and welcome news for governments struggling against violent extremists  but warned that ISGS could find a new leader, and that the threat of jihadist violence remains high.

"The death of Al-Sahrawi will likely disrupt ISGS operations in the short-term. But it is unlikely to permanently cripple the extremist group," said Alexandre Raymakers, senior Africa analyst at risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft.

He called it a "tactical success" for Operation Barkhane considering Al-Sahrawi's elimination had been a top priority for the French military, but noted that despite the loss of several senior leaders to French military operations over the years, the jihadist group has continued to expand its footprint in the Sahel.

"This reinforces our determination to fight terrorism with our partners in the Sahel, with our American and European partners," French Defense Minister Florence Parly told reporters in Paris. "We will not leave the Sahel."

Intelligence gleaned from the capture of ISGS fighters earlier this year allowed France to hone in on specific areas where Al-Sahrawi was likely to hide, Parly said.

He was on a motorcycle with one other person when they were hit by a drone strike in the Dangalous Forest near the Niger border on Aug. 17, one of several airstrikes in the region in mid-August, said the chief of staff of France's military, Thierry Burkhard.

France then sent a team of 20 special ground forces to the region to verify the identities of those hit, and determined that about 10 ISGS members were killed, including Al-Sahrawi, according to Burkhard.

French President Emmanuel Macron announced the death overnight, after authorities took time to verify his identity. According to Macron's office, al-Sahrawi personally ordered the killing of six French aid workers and their Nigerien colleagues last year, and his group was behind a 2017 attack that killed four U.S. troops and and four Niger military personnel.

His group also has abducted foreigners in the Sahel and is believed to still be holding American Jeffrey Woodke, who was abducted from his home in Niger in 2016, as well as a German hostage.

"The leader of the Islamic State was one of the biggest criminals and (IS) was one of the most violent groups that killed many people in the Sahel," said Mahamoudou Savadogo a conflict analyst and former military officer in Burkina Faso. He said this death would "unburden" local communities and governments in the region.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian urged African governments to fill the void and seize back ground taken by the Islamic State extremists.

Rida Lyammouri, senior fellow at the Policy Center for the New South, a Moroccan think tank, called it a "huge blow for ISGS" but added, "there will be someone who's ready to take over. The real success is when (the) civilian population is no longer terrorized by this group and others."

France's head of foreign intelligence, Bernard Emie, estimated that several hundred jihadist fighters remain in the area.

Rumors of the militant leader's death had circulated for weeks in Mali, though authorities in the region had not confirmed it.

The extremist leader was born in the disputed territory of Western Sahara and later joined the Polisario Front. After spending time in Algeria, he made his way to northern Mali where he became an important figure in the group known as MUJAO.

MUJAO was loyal to the regional al-Qaida affiliate. But in 2015, al-Sahrawi released an audio message pledging allegiance to the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

France, the region's former colonial power, recently announced that it would be reducing its military presence in the region, with plans to withdraw 2,000 troops by early next year.

But Parly insisted that France wouldn't pull out entirely, saying the attack was proof that the international cooperation in the region is bearing fruit.

She also reiterated concerns about reports of the possible deployment of Russian mercenaries in Mali. If Mali's government were to reach such a deal with Kremlin-backed private military firm Wagner Group, that would be "totally incompatible" with the anti-terrorism strategy in the Sahel that led to the killing of the Islamic State leader, Parly said.

Wagner has been accused of human rights abuses in the Central African Republic and involvement in the conflict in Libya. Russia denies any involvement in Mali.

___

Ahmed reported from Bamako, Mali. Krista Larson and Carley Petesch in Dakar, Senegal, and Sam Mednick in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, contributed.
The Nigerian Air Force confirmed that there was an airstrike targeting a branch of Boko Haram in the northeast part of the country where civilians were reported to have been killed, a NAF spokesman said Thursday.

The incident comes in the wake of the Trump administration's decision to end a ban on weapons sales, including for aircraft capable of carrying out strikes, put in place by President Barack Obama.

Edward Gabkwet, the NAF spokesman, said in a brief interview that he had received many reports that civilians were killed but could not say definitively.

"We are investigating," he said. "We have to be sure. That environment is highly infested with terrorists."

Local reports cited at least 10 deaths at the village in Yobe state, with more injuries. The governor there instructed hospitals to provide free care to the injured and said his office would work with the military to determine what had gone wrong.

"Government will work closely with the security forces especially the Nigeria Air Force to establish what actually happened," Gov. Mai Mala Buni said in a statement.

Gabkwet initially denied that the NAF was involved. But on Thursday, after Buni called for an investigation, the spokesman released a statement saying one of the NAF's pilots fired shots after observing "suspicious movement consistent with Boko Haram terrorists behavior."

"Unfortunately reports reaching Nigerian Air Force (NAF) Headquarters alleged that some civilians were erroneously killed while others were injured," he said in the statement.

The Nigerian government has used airstrikes in the northeast to target Boko Haram and an offshoot loyal to the Islamic State that have killed more than 30,000 people over the past 12 years.

NAF has said it will use A-29 Super Tucano planes from the United States to conduct some of those airstrikes. Six of the planes arrived in Nigeria in July, following the Trump administration's controversial decision to greenlight the nearly $600 million Super Tucano deal, ending an Obama-era ban of selling weapons to Nigeria.

Asked Thursday whether Super Tucano planes were involved in this airstrike, Gabkwet said he did not believe so, but added, "All of these things will come out when the investigation is done."

Alfa reported from Maiduguri, Nigeria.

Buy Photo Nigerian Air Force Squadron Leader Benjamin Agom, right, and Slovenian Air Force 2nd Lt. Alvosa Lajbaher load a simulated patient onto a C-130J during aeromedical evacuation training at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, on Thursday, Jan. 18, 2018. (Michael B. Keller/Stars and Stripes)
China on Thursday slammed a decision by the United States and Britain to share sensitive nuclear submarine technology with Australia, a move seen as a direct challenge to Beijing and its growing military ambitions.

After President Joe Biden's announcement on Wednesday of a new defense alliance, to be known as AUKUS, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian described the agreement as "extremely irresponsible" while Chinese state media warned Australia that it was now an "adversary" of China and should "prepare for the worst."

At a regular news briefing in Beijing, Zhao said the alliance "seriously undermined regional peace and stability, aggravated the arms race and hurt international nonproliferation efforts."

He accused the United States and Britain of "double standards" and using nuclear exports as a "tool in their geopolitical games," as he admonished them to "abandon their outdated Cold War mentality"  a common refrain from ministry spokespeople.

"Otherwise, they will only shoot themselves in the foot," he added.

While Biden, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison did not mention China in their remarks on Wednesday, the pact is widely seen as a response to China's expanding economic power, military reach and diplomatic influence. China is believed to have six nuclear attack submarines, with plans to increase the fleet in the next decade.

"Beijing will view this as part of the Biden administration's effort to build coalitions to hem China in and contain its rising power," said Bonnie Glaser, director of the German Marshall Fund's Asia program.

The agreement, which comes soon after the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, is part of a broader effort by Biden to focus on the Indo-Pacific region and recruit allies to counter what his administration sees as an increasingly militant and authoritarian China.

Under the Biden administration, Washington and Beijing have clashed over human rights, trade, the South China Sea and Taiwan. As the United States attempts to engage China on climate pledges ahead of a key international summit in November, there have been few signs of progress. A 90-minute call between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Biden last week resulted in few specifics. During the call, Xi said U.S. policies have caused "serious difficulties" in the relationship, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

Glaser said she expects Beijing to exert more pressure on Australia and the United Kingdom to "deter others from banding together" against China. "In Chinese, that's 'killing the chicken to scare the monkey,'" she said.

On Thursday, the state-run Global Times described the United States as "losing its mind trying to rally its allies against China" and accused Australia of becoming a "running dog" of Washington. China and Australia have been locked in a trade war for more than a year as relations have deteriorated.

"Since Australia has become an anti-China spearhead, the country should prepare for the worst," the editorial warned.

Others say Beijing has little recourse to pressure those involved in the alliance. "There is not a lot they can do in material terms because the relationship with the U.S. is already at rock bottom. They have already imposed sanctions on Australia and threatened it so much that their bullying tactics have proven to be counterproductive," said Christopher Hughes, a professor of international relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science, focusing on Chinese foreign policy.

According to Hughes, while the new alliance is likely to fan already high anti-Western nationalism in China, it could also "add fuel to growing concerns inside China" over Xi's expanding crackdown on the private sector and society and a weakening economy.

"If they are wise, they will realize that this alignment is the result of their own assertiveness and change tack," he said. "[China] does not have a lot of cards to play."
This photo provided by the North Korean government Thursday, Sept. 16, 2021, shows a test missile is launched from a train on Sept. 15, 2021, in an undisclosed location of North Korea. North Korea says it succeeded in launching ballistic missiles from a train for the first time in part of continuing efforts to bolster its war deterrence, a day after the two Koreas tested-fired missiles hours apart. (Korean Central News Agency)

While President Joe Biden has left the door open for discussions on eliminating North Korea's nuclear weapons, leader Kim Jong Un has shown no interest in picking up again. Meanwhile, he has been busy making his arsenal bigger, deadlier and better able to strike South Korea, Japan, American forces in Asia  and the U.S. mainland. His achievements undermine former President Donald Trump's assertion that his unprecedented summits with Kim had ensured North Korea was "no longer a nuclear threat." This year North Korea resumed testing its ballistic missiles and test-fired a new cruise missile.

1. Could Kim really hit the U.S.?

Kim appears to have acquired that capability after successfully testing an intercontinental ballistic missile in November 2017. But one test may not be enough to ensure the reliability of the ICBM known as the Hwasong-15. A new ICBM  displayed at a military parade to mark the 75th anniversary of the ruling Workers' Party in October 2020  is bigger and likely boasts more powerful engines, weapons experts say. They added that its likely purpose is to deliver a multiple nuclear warhead payload that could overwhelm U.S. defenses, or a high-yield weapon. North Korea can fit miniature warheads onto missiles and fire them, a United Nations report said in 2020. It has also developed weapons that can be moved around more swiftly to evade detection. In early September, it tested new cruise missiles, claiming ranges that could hit almost all of Japan, and showed off what it said was a new delivery system it used to fire short-range ballistic missiles off a train. What's less clear is whether the weapons could beat antimissile systems and survive reentry, or if they're refined enough to strike their intended targets.

2. What about its bombs?

Of North Korea's six atomic tests, Kim was responsible for four. They've come a long way since the first detonation in 2006. That one measured less than one kiloton, leaving experts wondering whether it had been a partial failure. (A kiloton is equal to the force of 1,000 tons of TNT). The most recent, in September 2017, was the most powerful. Its estimated yield of 120-250 kilotons dwarfed the 15-20 kiloton U.S. bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Experts estimate that North Korea has assembled 30-40 nuclear warheads, the fewest among the nine nations with nuclear weapons.

3. How are North Korea's weapons more nimble?

Kim has rolled out new solid-fuel ballistic missiles that are easier to move, hide and fire than many liquid-fuel versions. He has launched more than two dozen since May 2019 including nuclear-capable, hypersonic KN-23 missiles that can strike all of South Korea  including U.S. forces stationed south of Seoul  within two minutes. He has also launched KN-25 short-range missiles designed to be fired in rapid succession from a single launcher to overwhelm interceptors. The new ballistic Pukguksong-3 missile  the biggest of the bunch  is designed to be fired from a submarine and has an estimated range of 1,900 kilometers (1,200 miles). At last year's parade, it rolled out an even more advanced version, which likely has a greater range and payload capacity. Weapons experts say North Korea is also developing an ICBM that uses solid-propellant technology, potentially giving the U.S. less warning ahead of any strike aimed at the mainland.

4. Where does Kim's military get its fissile material?

It has been self-sufficient for decades. The program, which once turned out enough plutonium for about one nuclear bomb a year, now relies largely on uranium enrichment and, according to weapons experts, produces enough fissile material annually for about six bombs. The Trump administration said North Korea enlarged its stockpile even after nuclear talks began. Experts estimate the country as of 2018 had enough for roughly 30-60 nuclear weapons. North Korea appears to have resumed plutonium-producing operations at a nuclear reactor in its antiquated Yongbyon complex in mid-2021.

5. What other surprises might be out there?

North Korea may be working on ICBMs that carry multiple warheads and in-flight countermeasures to throw interceptors off the trail, according to Datayo, an open-source weapons research site. Kim has pushed to develop his fleet of submarines and is looking to deploy a new vessel soon that experts say could fire missiles. He may even try to revive the country's satellite program, arguing that North Korea has the right as a sovereign state to develop a space program. Weapons experts say satellite launches could be used by North Korea to advance missile technology.

6. How big are North Korea's conventional forces?

Despite being among the world's poorest countries, North Korea has one of the largest militaries. Of its nearly 26 million people, more than 1 million are in active service, according to the CIA World Factbook. On top of that, more than 6 million are considered reserve soldiers. The military has thousands of pieces of artillery trained on the Seoul area and hundreds of missiles that can strike South Korea and Japan.

7. How can the country afford all this?

The money needed is not huge in global terms. North Korea spent around $4 billion annually on its military between 2007 and 2017, according to a 2019 CIA assessment  roughly equivalent to two days' U.S. military spending. As a share of its economy, though, the outlay ranks among the highest globally, if not the most. Although international sanctions have hit the economy hard, North Korea is evading some through means such as clandestine, high-seas transfers of banned goods such as oil, and generating enough cash to keep its nuclear program moving through methods that include ransomware attacks.

8. Wasn't Trump going to fix this?

Trump's talks with Kim, beginning with Singapore in June 2018, turned the duo from insult-throwing enemies into dialogue partners. But their three meetings didn't produce any noticeable change, and North Korea has become what three decades of diplomacy had tried to prevent  a state capable of developing, projecting and detonating atomic bombs. Tensions continue to yo-yo.
The Japan Coast Guard approaches a Chinese coast guard ship in Japanese territorial waters in this undated photo. (Japan Coast Guard)

The Japanese government filed a protest with Beijing after seven Chinese coast guard ships  four outfitted with cannons  appeared together last month in waters around disputed southern islets in the East China Sea.

The flotilla was spotted near the Senkaku Islands on Aug. 30, a Japan Coast Guard spokesman told Stars and Stripes by phone on Thursday. It was nearly double the usual contingent of Chinese ships patrolling the area and the largest since 2016.

We consider this incident extremely serious, the Japan Coast Guard spokesman said. The Japanese coast guard is always prepared with force that exceeds them.

Japans Ministry of Foreign Affairs filed a protest over the incident with its Chinese counterpart, the spokesman said. The spokesman did not know when the protest was made or at what level.

Kyodo News first reported the protest on Wednesday. A ministry spokesman was unavailable to comment this week, the office told Stars and Stripes on Thursday.

The Senkakus are five uninhabited islets 280 miles west of Okinawa. They are controlled by Japan but claimed by both Taiwan and China, which refers to them as Diaoyu Dao.

China maintains an almost daily presence in the waters off the islands, according to the Japan Coast Guard website. In 2020, Chinese-flagged vessels were spotted in the area a record 333 times, besting the previous years record of 282.

On Aug. 30, two Chinese vessels were patrolling in Japans contiguous zone around the islands when five more arrived at approximately 1 a.m., the coast guard spokesman said. Four of the vessels were equipped with the deck cannons. The contiguous zone is a 24-mile-wide band beyond the 12-mile territorial limit. Nations may exercise limited control in their contiguous zones, according to the United Nations.

Four of the ships, including one with a deck gun, then entered Japans territorial waters at 2:42 a.m., the spokesman said. They departed 23 minutes later after being warned off by the Japan Coast Guard.

Some of the Chinese ships attempted to approach five Japanese fishing vessels operating in the area but were prevented from reaching them by the coast guard, the spokesman said. The Chinese Coast Guard vessels often engage and harass Japanese fishermen in the area, he said.

The Chinese vessels remained in the contiguous zone until 5:30 p.m. when three departed, the spokesman said. They decreased their number further three days later.

The Aug. 30 incursion remains the most serious incident involving Chinese ships in the area since 2016 when they sent 15 ships, the Japan Coast Guard spokesman said. From Aug. 7-9, three to six ships entered Japans territorial waters several times.

Its customary in Japan for some government officials to speak to the media on condition of anonymity.
Buy Photo Tokyo reported 831 new coronavirus infections on Thursday, Sept. 16, 2021. (Akifumi Ishikawa/Stars and Stripes)

TOKYO  New coronavirus cases in Japans capital city fell below 1,000 on Thursday for the third time in 11 days.

Tokyo reported 831 newly infected people, about half the number a week prior, according to public broadcaster NHK and metropolitan government data. The citys fifth and most severe coronavirus wave peaked at 5,773 new cases on Aug. 13 and continues to wane.

Japan on Wednesday reported 6,809 new cases, a slight increase over previous days but far from the Aug. 27 peak of 26,050, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center and the World Health Organization. Another 74 people died of complications of COVID-19, the coronavirus respiratory disease, according to Johns Hopkins.

More than half  52.3%  of Japans population is fully vaccinated, according to the center.

None of the U.S. military installations in Japan had reported new COVID-19 cases by 5:30 p.m. Thursday.

On Okinawa, Amelia Earhart Intermediate School at Kadena Air Base closed a fourth-grade classroom Thursday until testing and quarantine requirements were complete after another positive case, according to the school principal.

The school closed a classroom earlier in the week after someone tested positive, but the message Wednesday from principal Jason Federico did not specify if the same classroom was involved. His message, posted on the Marine Corps Community Service, School Liaison Officer Facebook page, said students would receive remote learning in the interim.

You will receive a message from Mr. Furusho outlining the remote learning plan for your students while the classroom is closed, Federico wrote in a separate Facebook post.

Okinawa prefecture, where Kadena and the headquarters of III Marine Expeditionary Force are located, reported 229 new infections Thursday, according to the prefectural Department of Public Health and Medical Care.

South Korea update

U.S. Forces Korea reported another 12 people tested positive since Sept. 4, according to a news release Wednesday.

Four people had fallen ill with COVID-19 symptoms: a service member and a Defense Department civilian employee at Camp Humphreys and two service members at K-16 Army airfield.

Contact tracing discovered another seven: two service members at K-16, one South Korean employee at Yongsan Garrison, two family members at Humphreys, one at Osan and one at Daegu.

One service member planning an international flight tested positive prior to departure, according to USFK.

South Korea reported 1,943 new cases on Thursday, including 717 in Seoul and 652 in Gyeonggi province, where Osan and Humphreys are located, according to the Korean Disease Control and Prevention Agency.

South Korea has fully vaccinated 41.2% of its population, or 21.2 million people, KDCA reported. Another 68.1%, or 35 million, have received the first of two shots.

Stars and Stripes reporter Mari Higa contributed to this report.
Serbian army soldiers stand to attention in front of armored personnel carriers on display as part of a newly established "Serbian Unity Day" holiday in Belgrade, Serbia, Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021. (Marko Drobnjakovic/AP)

BELGRADE, Serbia  Serbia kicked off a new national holiday on Wednesday with a display of military power and calls for all ethnic Serbs in the Balkans to unite under one flag, triggering unease among its neighbors decades after similar calls led to the bloody wars of the 1990s.

Serbs were told to display thousands of red, blue and white national flags wherever they live in the region or the world to mark "The Day of Serb Unity, Freedom and the National Flag."

Opening the full day of celebrations, populist President Aleksandar Vucic inspected military hardware displayed in a Belgrade park, praising the army's readiness to respond to outside threats.

He said that the army is "five times stronger" than only a few years ago, and announced new military purchases.

Later Wednesday, Vucic spoke at a rally in downtown Belgrade  where nationalist sentiment flew high  attended by government members, Bosnian Serb officials and tens of thousands of his supporters.

Vucic, a former ultranationalist who advocated expansion of Serbia's borders at the expense of its neighbors, said the new holiday is not meant to threaten anyone or change established borders in the Balkans.

"The Serbian flag is threatening someone, and they expect us to apologize?" Vucic asked. "My answer is: Never again. We will carry our flag with pride anywhere in the world."

Also speaking at the rally was the Bosnian Serb separatist leader, Milorad Dodik.

"Our country is not Bosnia-Herzegovina, it is Serbia,'' he said to strong applause from the crowd.

The muscle-flexing by Serbian officials as well as their calls for the creation of the "Serb World," or political unification of an estimated 1.3 million ethnic Serbs living in Bosnia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Croatia with Serbia, have triggered worries in neighboring countries.

Actors dressed in Serbian WWI military uniform replicas during a ceremony to mark the newly established "Day of Serb Unity, Freedom and the National Flag" state holiday in Belgrade, Serbia, Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021. (Marko Drobnjakovic/AP)

In the 1990s, Serb forces with financial and political support from Belgrade led bloody campaigns in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo with the goal of forming a "Greater Serbia." The campaign unsuccessfully tried to redraw the internal borders of the former Yugoslavia and create a single Serb state.

Denis Becirovic, a lawmaker in the Bosnian parliament, said that Vucic "is restoring the Greater Serbia project" by supporting secessionist policies of Bosnian Serbs.

"Sadly, the expansionist forces in Serbia have a potential to again ignite the whole region," Becirovic said. "The West has to stop the Greater Serbia demon before it's too late."

Croatian President Zoran Milanovic said he couldn't "believe that Serbs have nothing more important or smarter to do" than create holidays which infringe on the internal affairs of neighboring states.

Serbia's Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin, the most vocal supporter of the "Serb World," was quick to respond.

"There is nothing more important than the preservation of the Serb identity," he said.

The new national holiday coincides with a key Serbian and French victory in 1918 against the Central Powers in the Balkan theater of operations during World War I.
Buy Photo Evacuees from Afghanistan board a commercial flight going to the United States on Aug. 26, 2021, after a temporary stay at Ramstein Air Base, Germany. Health officials administered more than 12 measles, mumps and rubella vaccinations Thursday ahead of mass vaccinations scheduled to begin Friday at Ramstein and nearby Rhine Ordnance Barracks. (Jennifer H. Svan/Stars and Stripes)

KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany  The Air Force has administered more than 7,000 vaccine doses for measles and chickenpox to Afghan evacuees at Ramstein Air Base and Rhine Ordnance Barracks, a spokesman said Sunday.

The vaccinations for the 9,000 Afghans waiting for flights to the United States were expected to be completed by the end of the day, Lt. Col. Will Powell, a spokesman for the 86th Airlift Wing, said in a statement.

About 20 had declined the vaccines, he said.

We documented that information, let them rejoin their family, and provided the information to the State Department, Powell said. They will handle it from that point on.

Evacuees are receiving a shot for the chickenpox and another shot for measles, mumps and rubella at the request of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Air Force said.

The Afghans are required to either receive both inoculations or show proof of prior vaccinations to enter the United States, the wing said Thursday. Few Afghans are likely to have documented proof, since most fled Kabul with few or no possessions.

These vaccines offer them the ability to have extra protection, Lt. Col. Jaime Rojas, 86th Medical Group chief of aerospace medicine, said in a statement. With the extra protection of the vaccines, wherever we end up sending them, there is protection for both the individual and for the people at the end destination as well.

Evacuee flights were halted Sept. 10 after four cases of measles were discovered among U.S. arrivals from overseas bases. Most evacuees are transiting through U.S. military bases in Europe and the Middle East before heading to stateside bases.

One case of measles was confirmed Thursday among the evacuee population at Ramstein and ROB, wing officials said. The patient and family are being treated and have been isolated for the past three days, Ramstein officials said.

As soon as someone shows symptoms of illness, they are immediately isolated, screened and tested  to ensure the safety of the community and the rest of the evacuee population, the wing said in response to an email query.

The Virginia Department of Health announced Tuesday that five people who had recently traveled from Afghanistan were diagnosed with measles. It was unclear Thursday if that number included the four cases the White House announced Sept. 10.

Ramstein public health officials took blood samples from 70 randomly selected evacuees last week and found that 94% had antibodies, indicating a past measles infection and recovery or a prior vaccination, wing officials said.

The Air Force did not say Sunday when flights to the United States would resume. Last week, the White House said the flights will remain suspended for at least another week.

The Air Force said it will take several days to complete the vaccinations.

We understand the evacuees have been on a difficult journey, and we are committed to ensuring their health, safety and security during this short-term delay, the wing said in its statement.

U.S. Navy officials said Friday that there had been no confirmed cases of measles at two bases in Europe temporarily housing Afghan evacuees. There are 100 Afghans at Naval Station Sigonella in Sicily and 500 at Naval Station Rota in Spain, said U.S. Navy Capt. Tamara Lawrence.

All eligible evacuees at NAS Sigonella and NS Rota received measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella (chickenpox) vaccinations for their onward movement to the U.S., Lawrence said.

Earlier this month, officials reported that 1,900 evacuees from NAS Sigonella and another 750 from NS Rota had left for the United States.

Stars and Stripes reporter Alison Bath contributed to this report.

Jennifer H. Svan
Shamima Begum, the 22-year-old woman who left Britain as a teenager in 2015 to join the Islamic State in Syria, has appealed to the public for forgiveness and offered to help the government fight terrorism if she is allowed to return home. (Screengrab from Good Morning Britain YouTube)

LONDON  Shamima Begum, the 22-year-old woman who left Britain as a teenager in 2015 to join the Islamic State in Syria, has appealed to the public for forgiveness and offered to help the government fight terrorism if she is allowed to return home.

Begum was 15 when she, along with two school friends, boarded a plane from London's Gatwick Airport to Turkey  where they then traveled to the Syrian border. Less than two weeks after arriving in the country, Begum married a man later convicted of terrorism offenses.

In a live interview with ITV's "Good Morning Britain" on Wednesday, Begum asked the public to forgive her decision, saying that when she left British soil to join ISIS she believed she was "doing the right thing as a Muslim."

Speaking from a detention camp in Syria, she said she did not realize that the group was a "death cult" and that it had never been her intention to hurt anyone.

In 2019, Begum, who was born in Britain, was stripped of her citizenship by the government  sparking global debate over whether countries should take back foreign fighters who many argue pose a significant risk to national security.

"I tell you from the bottom of my heart that I regret every, every decision I've made since I stepped into Syria, and I will live with it for the rest of my life," she said, adding that she would rather be killed than rejoin the terrorist organization.

In a 2019 interview with Sky News she had said she had no regrets about joining the extremist group.

Begum maintained on Wednesday that she did not carry out any crimes and that her decision was poorly judged because of her age at the time. She argued that if the authorities truly believed she was guilty, she should be allowed to return to Britain to face trial.

She went on to say that she believed she could help Britain fight terrorism if allowed to return.

"I want to help," she said. "You clearly don't know what you're doing."

In the years since she left London, Begum has often shown little remorse for her actions  once saying that the Manchester Arena suicide bombing was "fair justification" in response to coalition airstrikes that killed Syrians.

The 2017 attack, which was carried out at an Ariana Grande concert in England, killed 22 people and injured over 116  many of whom were young women.

Speaking on Wednesday, Begum said she was sorry to those affected by the attack.

Sajid Javid, who was Britain's Home Secretary at the time Begum's citizenship was revoked, said Wednesday that the government stood by its decision and that the safety of citizens remained its priority, the BBC reported.

Under British law, the home secretary can revoke citizenship if it is "conducive to the public good" and if it does not make a person stateless. The government has argued that Begum is eligible for Bangladeshi citizenship.

However, while Begum has Bangladeshi roots, the Bangladeshi foreign ministry said in a 2019 statement that she was not a Bangladeshi citizen and had never visited the country.

"There is no question of her being allowed to enter into Bangladesh," the statement said.

Since moving to Syria, Begum has given birth to three children  all of whom have been lost to illness.
Emissions from a coal-fired power plant are silhouetted against the setting sun in Independence, Mo., on Feb. 1, 2021. The head of the United Nations on Thursday, Sept. 16, warned governments that climate change is proceeding faster than predicted. (Charlie Riedel/AP)

GENEVA  The head of the United Nations called Thursday for "immediate, rapid and large-scale" cuts in greenhouse gas emissions to curb global warming and avert climate disaster.

Ahead of the annual U.N. General Assembly meeting next week, Antonio Guterres warned governments that climate change is proceeding faster than predicted and fossil fuel emissions have already bounced back from a pandemic dip.

Speaking at the launch of a U.N.-backed report summarizing current efforts to tackle climate change, Guterres said recent extreme weather  from Hurricane Ida in the United States to floods in western Europe and the deadly heatwave in the Pacific Northwest  showed no country is safe from climate-related disasters.

"These changes are just the beginning of worse to come," he said, appealing to governments to meet the goals of the 2015 Paris climate accord.

"Unless there are immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, we will be unable to limit global heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit)," said Guterres. "The consequences will be catastrophic."

In their report, titled United in Science 21, six U.N. bodies and scientific organizations drew on existing research to argue that there is a direct link between human-caused emissions, record high temperatures and disasters that have a tangible impact on individuals and societies, including "billions of work hours (...) lost through heat alone."

Because of the long-lasting effects of many emissions already released into the atmosphere, further impacts are inevitable, they noted.

"Even with ambitious action to slow greenhouse gas emissions, sea levels will continue to rise and threaten low-lying islands and coastal populations throughout the world," the authors wrote.

University of Michigan environment dean Jonathan Overpeck, who wasn't part of the report, said scientists have said this before but it's important: "The situation is getting bad, we know why and we know how to solve it in ways that leave us, and future generations, with a better, healthier, more sustainable world."

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres attends a briefing in Berlin, Germany, on Dec. 17, 2020. (Michael Sohn, Pool/AP)

Guterres urged governments to put forward more ambitious plans for cutting emissions by the upcoming U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, including a commitment to stop adding more greenhouse gas to the atmosphere by mid-century than can be removed.

Michael Mann, a prominent climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University, said he agreed with the report's message of urgency but questioned some of the starker warnings it contained.

In particular, the 1.5C threshold agreed in Paris didn't apply to individual years, some of which can be unusually hot due to other factors, he said.

"This misleading framing unnecessarily feeds the fears that the public has that we've somehow already crossed that threshold and that it is too late now to prevent," said Mann. "We have not. And it is not."

He also noted that the drop in emissions seen during the pandemic could be viewed as a positive sign that significant cuts are possible if entire economies are weaned off fossil fuels.

The United States, Britain and the European Union have already made pledges that  if implemented  would help avert dangerous planetary warming, said Mann.

Kim Cobb, a professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech, was equally reassured that the 1.5C target isn't out of reach.

"However, this new report is a stark reminder of the difference between the emissions pathways required to achieve that target, and the reality on the ground," she said. "Simply put, we are way off course."

___

Jordans reported from Berlin. AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein contributed from Washington.
Ashraf Ghani, Afghanistan's president, speaks during a meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., at the U.S. Capitol on June 25, 2021. (Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg)

WASHINGTON (Tribune News Service)  Then-Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's decision to flee his country on Aug. 15 torpedoed an 11th-hour deal the U.S. had brokered to keep the Taliban out of Kabul for at least two weeks, according to the State Department's special envoy to Afghanistan.

The envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, told the Financial Times that the U.S. had secured an agreement under which Ghani would remain in Kabul and Taliban fighters would not enter Afghanistan's capital while diplomats negotiated a political transition of power in Qatar.

After Ghani fled, he said, the Taliban asked American officials if they planned to take over the security of Kabul, a proposition the U.S. rejected.

"Even at the end, we had an agreement with the Talibs for [them] not to enter Kabul," Khalilzad told the Financial Times in his first interview since the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Khalilzad said he had no inkling "at all" that Ghani was intending to flee. He said the Afghan leader's decision prompted the city's security forces to disband  creating a security vacuum and unleashing the chaotic bid to evacuate.

"There were questions of law and order in Kabul after Ghani fled... The Talibs [then]...say: 'Are you going to take responsibility for security of Kabul now?... And then you know what happened, we weren't going to take responsibility," he said.

When the Taliban entered the city, many Afghans became panicked at the prospect of a return to the Taliban's ruthless rule and rushed to the airport, creating chaos as the U.S. tried to evacuate Americans and at-risk Afghans.

Ghani has said he left the country to avoid "bloodshed" of civilians in Kabul. After Ghani left the country, Nikita Ishchenko, a spokesman for the Russian embassy in Kabul, told reporters that Ghani left his country with "cars full of money." Afghanistan's ambassador to Tajikistan also accused Ghani of stealing millions of dollars as he left the country. Ghani, now in the United Arab Emirates, has denied those accusations and said he left with just his clothes.

The State Department's chief spokesman, Ned Price, said before Ghani fled, Khalilzad "was engaged in discussions with the Taliban on what we hoped would be a political transfer, a negotiated agreement from one Afghan government to the next."

He said Khalilzad's statement that the Taliban asked if the U.S. planned to secure Kabul did not mean its leaders would have countenanced an extension of America's military presence in the country, and the Biden administration never considered sending American forces to secure the streets of Kabul.

"Policing the city of Kabul, that is not something that was ever contemplated," Price said. "The Taliban felt they had no option but to enter the city."

Khalilzad, a holdover from the Trump administration, negotiated the 2020 deal with the Taliban, under which the U.S. agreed to withdrawal all its forces this year. Lawmakers in both parties have blasted that agreement, saying the U.S. gave up its leverage for meager concessions from the Taliban.

In the wake of the chaotic U.S. exit from Afghanistan, at least one lawmaker, Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., has called for Khalilzad's resignation.

Khalilzad told the Financial Times that he always had a resignation letter at-the-ready because "somebody might take it".

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Vice Adm. Eli Sharvit looks out from aboard the Israeli Navy Ship Atzmaut in the Mediterranean Sea on Sept. 1, 2021. Sharvit described Iranian activities on the high seas as a top Israeli concern and said the navy is able to strike wherever necessary to protect the countrys economic and security interests. (Ariel Schalit/AP)

ATLIT, Israel  Israel's navy has stepped up its activities in the Red Sea "exponentially" in the face of growing Iranian threats to Israeli shipping, the country's just-retired navy commander said in an interview.

Vice Adm. Eli Sharvit stopped short of confirming a series of attacks and mishaps on Iranian ships that have been attributed to Israel. But he described Iranian activities on the high seas as a top Israeli concern and said the navy is able to strike wherever necessary to protect the country's economic and security interests.

"The state of Israel will protect its freedom of navigation across the globe," Sharvit told The Associated Press, days after completing his five-year term. "That's not related to distance from the country."

Sharvit was a busy man during his tenure  overseeing a small but well-equipped force responsible for safeguarding Israel's Mediterranean coast as well as the Red Sea, a vital gateway for imports from Asia.

An oil platform in Israel's offshore Leviathan gas field is seen from on board the Israeli Navy Ship Atzmaut as a submarine patrols in the Mediterranean Sea on Sept. 1, 2021. One of the navys most important responsibilities is protecting Israels natural gas platforms in the Mediterranean Sea, which now provide some 75% of the countrys electricity. (Ariel Schalit/AP)

While the Israeli navy has an overwhelming advantage over its enemies in the region, it nonetheless faces an array of threats. They include the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which possesses an arsenal of guided surface-to-sea missiles, and Gaza's Hamas militant group, which has developed a small squad of naval commandos, as well as the challenges posed by Iran's military activity across the region.

One of the navy's most important responsibilities is protecting Israel's natural gas platforms in the Mediterranean Sea, which now provide some 75% of the country's electricity.

To the north, Hezbollah has made no secret of its intentions to target those platforms if war breaks out. The Iranian-backed militant group successfully struck an Israeli naval vessel during a 2006 war, killing four soldiers, and is believed to have vastly upgraded its missile stockpile since then. Israel says Iran continues to try to smuggle sophisticated weapons to Hezbollah.

Sharvit confirmed that Israel has intercepted many arms shipments to Hezbollah. "We are very vigilant concerning seaborne arms shipments, and every time that a shipment is one of arms, and not something else, we act," he said.

An Israeli Navy sailor mans his weapon on board the Israeli Navy Ship Atzmaut in the Mediterranean Sea on Sept. 1, 2021. One of the navys most important responsibilities is protecting Israels natural gas platforms in the Mediterranean Sea, which now provide some 75% of the countrys electricity. (Ariel Schalit/AP)

With Lebanon's economy in disarray, however, he said Israel has "no interest" in stopping fuel deliveries meant for civilian use.

Along Israel's southern flank, Sharvit said Hamas has a small but formidable unit of well-trained naval commandos.

Hamas frogmen managed to infiltrate an Israeli beach during a 2014 war before they were killed. Since then, the unit has been equipped with state-of-the-art equipment allowing them to travel underwater well up Israel's coastline and making them much harder to detect, Sharvit said.

During a recent war in May, Israel says it thwarted an attempt by Hamas to launch a torpedo-like underwater drone at Israeli targets.

Israel has faced criticism over its naval blockade and heavy restrictions on Gaza. Israel says the blockade is needed to prevent a Hamas military buildup. But critics, including human rights groups and U.N. officials, say the policy amounts to collective punishment.

"Israel's disproportionate and unreasonable restrictions on access to Gaza's territorial waters as well as to vital items needed to repair fishing boats harm the livelihoods of thousands, put lives at risk and hinder economic development," said Gisha, an Israeli rights group that has called for the blockade to be eased.

Israeli Navy sailors stand on deck of the Israeli Navy Ship Atzmaut in the Mediterranean Sea on Sept. 1, 2021. (Ariel Schalit/AP)

Sharvit, however, said it is difficult to separate the civilian and military spheres because Hamas uses the open waters to test rockets and train its navy commandos. "The sea is the biggest test site in Gaza," he said.

But Israel's biggest concern, by far, is archenemy Iran. Israel accuses Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons, a charge Iran denies. It also cites Iran's military presence in neighboring Syria and Iran's support for militant groups like Hezbollah and Hamas.

In recent years, Israel and Iran have been engaged in a shadow war that has seen the killings of Iranian nuclear scientists, mysterious explosions at Iranian nuclear facilities and more recently a series of explosions on cargo ships with Iranian or Israeli connections. In most cases, no one has claimed responsibility.

Sharvit refused to discuss specific operations but said Israeli naval activity in the Red Sea has grown "exponentially" over the past three years.

Iran for years anchored a ship off Yemen that was believed to be a base for its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. That ship, the MV Saviz, came under a suspected Israeli attack last April.

The Red Sea also has deep strategic significance by hosting key global shipping routes, including the Suez Canal and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. Almost all of Israel's imports enter by sea.

Vice Adm. Eli Sharvit arrives on board the Israeli Navy Ship Atzmaut in the Mediterranean Sea, on Sept. 1, 2021. (Ariel Schalit/AP)

"We have increased our presence in the Red Sea most significantly," Sharvit said. "We are operating there continuously with main ships, that is to say missile frigates and submarines. What in the past was for relatively short periods of time is now done continuously."

He also said that Israel is ready to respond even further away to direct attacks on Israeli shipping. "If there were an attack on Israeli shipping lanes or Israeli freedom of navigation, Israel would have to respond," he said.

He said that has not yet happened. The cargo ships believed to have been targeted by Iran in the Persian Gulf had Israeli connections but were owned and operated by businesses based elsewhere. He said such attacks merit an international response.

Yoel Guzansky, a senior fellow and Iran expert at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, described the navy as "good but small" and cautioned against relying too heavily on it in Israel's overall Iran strategy.

"I think some operations may be an overstretch," he said, adding that heightened tensions at sea could expose Israel's vulnerabilities connected to its heavy reliance on global shipping.

"I would put my efforts elsewhere," he said.
From left, Australian Minister of Defense Peter Dutton, Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin arrive for a news conference at the State Department in Washington, on Thursday, Sept. 16, 2021. (Andrew Harnik/AP)

The new defense technology agreement between the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia that allows Australia to build nuclear-powered submarines is designed in part to check destabilizing activities by China, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Thursday.

Top diplomats and military leaders for the United States and Australia on Thursday discussed the increasingly contested security environment in the Indo-Pacific region, where China has worked to assert its growing military power, Austin said, after a hourslong meeting at the State Department. He said the first step of the new pact, dubbed AUKUS and unveiled Wednesday evening at the White House, will provide Australia the ability to strengthen its military by building eight nuclear-powered submarines.

Thats pretty exciting, because it will provide Australia additional flexibility and capability that will be very, very beneficial to all of us going forward, Austin said in a news briefing alongside Secretary of State Antony Blinken and their Australian counterparts.

Austin and Australian Defense Minister Peter Dutton said the new agreement could also result in an increase in the number of American troops training in Australia, the number of bomber training flights in the region and the sharing of other technology. But they also said those details had yet to be forged. The new cooperative is meant to share between the three nations other advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence and cyber capabilities, which are considered critical to modernizing their militaries.

The AUKUS pact was first announced Wednesday evening in a White House event featuring President Joe Biden, who was joined by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison by video conference. None of the national leaders mentioned China in their remarks, and Biden administration officials said in a background briefing earlier Wednesday for reporters that the new alliance was not aimed or about any one country.

However, Austin, Blinken and their Australian counterparts all mentioned China in brief remarks after their meetings Thursday.

Austin said the meetings discussed a wide range of issues within the Indo-Pacific region, including terrorism and climate change, but the officials also discussed in detail Chinas destabilizing activities and Beijings efforts to coerce and intimidate other countries, contrary to established rules and norms.

While we seek a constructive, results-oriented relationship with the [Peoples Republic of China], we will remain clear-eyed in our view of Beijings efforts to undermine the established international order, Austin said.

The defense secretary has labeled China the Pentagons No. 1 priority even before he was confirmed for the job by the Senate in January. Pentagon officials have said the U.S. military must modernize its weaponry, its homeland defense capabilities and the way its troops fight to ensure it retains its advantage against China, as well as Russia. China has invested heavily in its military in recent years  especially in its naval and nuclear forces and in emerging technology such as hypersonic weapons and space capabilities, Pentagon officials have said.

The United States has also long called on China to stop building up and militarizing artificial islands  often land parcels claimed by multiple countries  in the South China Sea. The practice, U.S. officials have long said, threatens free and open trade in the region.

China expressed its dissatisfaction with the AUKUS agreement via a series of statements from its top officials Wednesday and Thursday.

"The nuclear submarine cooperation among the U.S., the U.K. & Australia severely undermines regional peace & stability, intensifies [the] arms race and undercuts [international] non-proliferation efforts," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lijian Zhao tweeted Thursday. "It's highly irresponsible and shows double standards on using nuclear export for geopolitical games."

While the agreement would provide Australia the nuclear-powered submarines, it does not give Australia any nuclear weapons or nuclear-capable missiles, officials said.

Dutton brushed off the Chinese statements about the pact, saying the agreement would promote peace in the region, which is now facing significant uncertainty more so than at any other time since the Second World War.

This is not the first time weve seen outbursts from China in terms of Australias position, he said. We do believe it's in Australia's national security interest to deepen our relationship with the United States with other partners  [and] make sure that peace prevails in the Indo-Pacific  all of which we're doing as part of this discussion.

China was not the only nation unhappy with the new agreement. France, a key ally to all three countries who signed the AUKUS pact, also expressed displeasure with the agreement, which will mean killing a previous multibillion dollar agreement for France to build conventional submarines for Australia.

"It was really a stab in the back, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on France-Info radio, according to The Associated Press. We built a relationship of trust with Australia, and this trust was betrayed.

Blinken said France would continue to be a vital partner in the Indo-Pacific region when asked Thursday about the French reaction.

Dutton said Australias decision was based on the new opportunity to invest in better, longer-lasting technology and not intended to anger France.

The core advice to us from the [Australian] Chief of Navy and the Chief of Defence Force has been that a conventional diesel submarine was not going to provide us with a capability into the second half of the 2030s, 2040s and beyond, and we needed a nuclear-powered submarine, Dutton said. And, in the end the decision that we have made is based on what is in the best interests of our national security, and the prevailing security and peace within the Indo-Pacific, and therefore it became a natural partnership with the U.K. and the U.S., our two oldest, most enduring partners.
President Joe Biden leaves the East Room of the White House on Thursday, Sept. 16, 2021, in Washington. (Evan Vucci/AP)

WASHINGTON  President Joe Bidens decision to form a strategic Indo-Pacific alliance with Australia and Britain to counter China is angering France and the European Union. Theyre feeling left out and seeing it as a return to the Trump era.

The security initiative, unveiled this week, appears to have brought Bidens summer of love with Europe to an abrupt end. AUKUS, which notably excludes France and the European Union, is just the latest in a series of steps, from Afghanistan to east Asia, that have taken Europe aback.

After promising European leaders that America is back and that multilateral diplomacy would guide U.S. foreign policy, Biden has alienated numerous allies with a go-it-alone approach on key issues. Frances foreign minister expressed total incomprehension at the recent move, which he called a stab in the back, and the EUs foreign policy chief complained that Europe had not been consulted.

France will lose a nearly $100 billion deal to build diesel submarines for Australia under the terms of the initiative, which will see the U.S. and Britain help Canberra construct nuclear-powered ones.

As such, French anger on a purely a commercial level would be understandable, particularly because France, since Britains handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997, is the only European nation to have significant territorial possessions or a permanent military presence in the Pacific.

But French and European Union officials went further, saying the agreement calls into question the entire cooperative effort to blunt Chinas growing influence and underscores the importance of languishing plans to boost Europes own defense and security capabilities.

Some have compared Bidens recent actions to those of his predecessor, Donald Trump, under Trumps America First doctrine. Thats surprising for a president steeped in international affairs who ran for the White House vowing to mend shaken ties with allies and restore U.S. credibility on the world stage.

Although its impossible to predict if any damage will be lasting, the short-term impact seems to have rekindled European suspicions of American intentions  with potential implications for Bidens broader aim to unite democracies against authoritarianism, focused primarily on China and Russia.

Just three months ago, on his first visit to the continent as president, Biden was hailed as a hero by European counterparts eager to move beyond the trans-Atlantic tensions of the Trump years. But that palpable sense of relief has now faded for many, and its one clear winner, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, is on her way out.

Since June, Biden has infuriated Americas oldest ally, France, left Poland and Ukraine questioning the U.S. commitment to their security and upset the European Union more broadly with unilateral decisions ranging from Afghanistan to east Asia. And, while Europe cheered when Biden pledged to return to nuclear negotiations with Iran and revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, both efforts remain stalled nine months into his administration.

The seeds of discontent may have been sown in the spring but they began to bloom in July over Bidens acquiescence to a Russia-to-Germany gas pipeline that will bypass Poland and Ukraine, and a month later in August with the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan that left Europe scrambling to keep up after it had expressed reservations about the pullout.

Then just this week, Biden enraged France and the European Union with his announcement that the U.S. would join post-Brexit Britain and Australia in a new Indo-Pacific security initiative aimed at countering Chinas increasing aggressiveness in the region.

Unsurprisingly, China reacted angrily, accusing the U.S. and its English-speaking partners of embarking on a project that will destabilize the Pacific to the detriment of global security. But, the reactions from Paris and Brussels were equally severe. Both complained they were not only excluded from the deal but not consulted on it.

The White House and Secretary of State Antony Blinken say France had been informed of the decision before it was announced on Wednesday, although it was not exactly clear when. Blinken said Thursday there had been conversations with the French about it within the past 24 to 48 hours, suggesting there had not been an in-depth consultation.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, who in June extolled the excellent news for all of us that America is back, expressed total incomprehension at the announcement of the initiative. It was really a stab in the back, he said. It looks a lot like what Trump did.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki dismissed the comparison. I would say the president doesnt think about it much, she told reporters. The presidents focus is on maintaining and continuing our close relationships with leaders in France, with the United Kingdom, with Australia and to achieving our global objectives, which include security in the Indo-Pacific.

In Brussels, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell echoed the French ministers complaints. I suppose that an agreement of this nature was not cooked up the day before yesterday. It takes a certain amount of time, and despite that, no, we were not consulted, he said. That obliges us, once again  to reflect on the need to put European strategic autonomy high on the agenda.

Indeed, the 27-member European Union on Thursday unveiled a new strategy for boosting economic, political and defense ties in the Indo-Pacific, just hours after the announcement by the U.S., Britain and Australia. The EU said the aim is to strengthen and expand economic relations while reinforcing respect of international trade rules and improving maritime security. It said it hopes the strategy will result in more European naval deployments to the region.

U.S. officials brushed aside the French and EU complaints on Thursday.

There are a range of partnerships that include the French and some partnerships that dont, and they have partnerships with other countries that dont include us, Psaki said. That is part of how global diplomacy works.

Speaking alongside Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and the Australian defense and foreign ministers, Blinken said there is no regional divide with Europe over Indo-Pacific strategy. We welcome European countries playing an important role in the Indo-Pacific, he said, calling France a vital partner.

But how closely they will work together remains to be seen.

-

AP writers Darlene Superville, Sylvie Corbet in Paris and Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed to this report.
Buy Photo A U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone taxis on the runway at Kandahar Airfield in November 2017. (Phillip Walter Wellman/Stars and Stripes)

"Studies of our drone strikes have suggested that maybe eight out of 10 times we are hitting the wrong target, we have killed thousands of civilians."  Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., in an interview on CNN's "The Lead with Jake Tapper," Sept. 14

  

Murphy appeared on CNN to discuss an Aug. 29 drone strike in Afghanistan in the waning days of the U.S. presence there. The U.S. military initially claimed that the drone targeted an Islamic State vehicle preparing for a car-bomb attack.

But now it appears that the vehicle was driven by an aid worker who had loaded his car with water canisters, not explosives. Investigations by The Washington Post and the New York Times raised doubts about the military's claim that the weapon used, a Hellfire missile, triggered a "secondary explosion" indicative of a car loaded with explosives.

As many as 10 people may have been killed, including the aid worker and seven children ranging in age from 3 to 16.

As part of his appearance on "The Lead with Jake Tapper," Murphy made a claim that jumped out  that studies have shown that "maybe eight out of 10 times we are hitting the wrong target."

That would be an astonishing record of failure. Is he right?

The short answer is no.

Peter Bergen, vice president for global studies at the New America Foundation, heads a project that has documented in great detail the drone war in Pakistan, air and ground operations in Yemen and Somalia, as well as the internationalized air war in Libya. He was puzzled by Murphy's statement.

"Eight out of 10 is not a stat I have ever heard of," Bergen said. "As I document in my new book, 'The Rise and Fall of Osama bin Laden,' based on the documents that came out bin Laden's Abbottabad compound, he was very worried about the precision of CIA drone strikes, which were killing a large number of al-Qaida's leaders."

In Pakistan, for instance, the New America data shows there have been a total of 414 strikes, resulting in 2,366 to 3,702 deaths, most of them militants (estimated at 1,910 to 3,071). The civilian death toll was calculated as between 245 and 303. In Yemen, there have been 374 strikes, resulting in 1,387 to 1,776 total deaths, including 124 to 150 civilians, New America says.

In the four countries in New America's data set, nearly 1,500 civilians are recorded as being killed in drone strikes.

Until the Trump administration ended the practice, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released data on drone strikes in "areas of active hostilities" such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. Between Jan. 20, 2009, and Dec. 31, 2015, the data showed 473 strikes resulted in 2,372 to 2,581 combatant deaths and 64 to 116 civilian deaths. In 2016, there were 53 strikes, resulting in 431 to 441 combatant deaths and one civilian death, the DNI said.

One can be reasonably suspicious about the civilian death toll in official government releases, given how news accounts place the numbers much higher. The human rights group Reprieve says that a 2010 drone strike killed a deputy commander of the Pakistani Taliban, but at a high cost - claiming 128 more people, 13 of them children.

Bergen noted that the civilian casualty rate from drone strikes "was high initially but became smaller and smaller over time for all sorts of reasons; longer flight times, smaller payloads, better intel, more congressional scrutiny, more media scrutiny, clearer rules of engagement."

Indeed, when we contacted Murphy's staff for an explanation, we were told he was referring to a statistic in a 2015 article in the Intercept about a 2012-2013 operation. The article was based on internal government documents.

"Documents detailing a special operations campaign in northeastern Afghanistan, Operation Haymaker, show that between January 2012 and February 2013, U.S. special operations airstrikes killed more than 200 people," the article said. "Of those, only 35 were the intended targets. During one five-month period of the operation, according to the documents, nearly 90% of the people killed in airstrikes were not the intended targets."

The documents obtained by the Intercept described the other people killed as EKIA - "enemy killed in action." It's unclear how many might actually be civilians. Some obviously might be militants. One cannot easily leap to the conclusion that everyone else killed in the drone attack did not have links to terrorism.

Murphy argues that the Intercept articles, dubbed the Drone Papers, are the only reliable glimpse of internal government records. His staff dismissed Bergen's work as relying on news reports.

"What I said was true," Murphy said in a statement to The Fact Checker. "The data we have does suggest over 80% of strikes hit the wrong target. Since the government classifies data on the efficacy of drone strikes, the only full public data set is from a leak of the Haymaker drone campaign in Afghanistan. And a study of that data by The Intercept showed that 90% of drones killed the wrong target. At the time of this disclosure, the military did not offer any exculpatory evidence to rebut this claim, and so without any other data and no contradictory information from the military it's completely reasonable to infer a broader trend from the limited data available. The bottom line is that the data released by the Intercept provides ample evidence that our drone program is wildly ineffective and badly in need of reform."

The recent drone attack in Afghanistan has highlighted the sometimes-terrible collateral damage in this form of aerial warfare. Increasingly it appears the drone hit an innocent target, not a terrorism suspect as the military claimed.

Numbers are hard to come by, but it's certainly possible that "thousands" of civilians have been killed by drone strikes. There is certainly evidence that the impact of civilian deaths from drone strikes has undercut the U.S. image in the region.

But we deal in reliable statistics. Murphy is wrong to claim that "studies" show that 8 out of 10 times U.S. drones have hit the wrong target. He's talking only about the supposed track record during a five-month period in a region of Afghanistan nearly a decade ago. Moreover, these documents do not indicate whether the other people killed were associated with the target of the attack or innocent civilians. So he cannot take this particular example and apply it to the entire drone program.

Notwithstanding the most recent example, the track record is said to have improved since 2013 - and many militants have been killed.
Jose Camarillo, an immigration service officer for Department of Homeland Security assigned to Task Force McCoy, reviews paperwork from an Afghan evacuee before starting the biometrics process Sept. 6, 2021, at Fort McCoy, Wis. (Ryan Tatum/U.S. Army)

(Tribune News Service)  U.S. Reps. Gwen Moore and Ilhan Omar are calling on the secretary of defense to investigate "possible mistreatment and/or neglect" faced by Afghan refugees at Fort McCoy in western Wisconsin.

The two members of Congress wrote a letter Wednesday to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin III requesting that he investigate concerns raised with their offices about conditions at Fort McCoy, including families lacking access to basic necessities and staff speaking in a "rude, condescending manner" to refugees.

The Wisconsin State Journal on Tuesday reported that many Afghan refugees staying at Fort McCoy still have not been able to get a new set of clothes, including undergarments. The evacuees also had to wait in hours-long lines to get food, but an official with the Department of Homeland Security said that problem has since been addressed.

"We need an investigation to shed light on these claims and where needed, provide reforms that affirm the dignity of every refugee," Moore, D-Milwaukee, said in a statement to the State Journal.

Asked to comment on the letter, Fort McCoy said in a statement that the Department of Defense and the team at the base supporting the evacuees are "dedicated to treating our Afghan guests with dignity and respect while we care for their needs."

In their letter, Moore and Omar, D-Minn., said they have also heard reports of a lack of access to feminine hygiene products and staff calling refugees "animals."

"These families fled their homes and left everything behind, and many arrived here literally with only the clothes on their backs," the representatives said. "They should be treated with compassion and dignity."

Fort McCoy said a "robust donation system" has been established to ensure the needs of Afghans are met. Clothing, undergarments, shoes, baby items and personal hygiene products are being distributed. The base said personnel seek "constant feedback" from the Afghans on how they can improve the refugees' stay.

Fort McCoy, 40 miles east of La Crosse and the Minnesota border, is one of eight military bases in the U.S. housing refugees who fled from Afghanistan after the recent collapse of the country's government to the Taliban. As of Tuesday, 12,500 Afghans were staying there.

Two Afghan women staying at Fort McCoy spoke Saturday with the State Journal about what they are experiencing at the base on the condition of anonymity. Both said the Americans they have interacted with have always been "nice," but complained of some of the Afghan men at the base harassing women. Some of the Afghan men make inappropriate comments about women's appearance and skip people in lines, they said.

The two women, who wanted their identities shielded because they feared a reaction from the Afghan men who are causing problems, said over the weekend they were frustrated with a lack of access to food and clothing. One of the women said she had not been able to change her underwear since escaping out of the Kabul airport in Afghanistan.

Thomas Gresback, a Fort McCoy spokesperson with the Department of Homeland Security, said Tuesday that Fort McCoy initially experienced supply chain issues, but that has been addressed within the last few days. He said Fort McCoy personnel are distributing clothing "as fast as we can."

In addition to the investigation, Moore and Omar asked Austin to provide information on how the Defense Department is ensuring that Afghans are treated respectfully. They also requested all reports that Afghans have made about any alleged mistreatment, and information on the reporting process. Moore said its important that Afghans can report mistreatment or poor conditions without fear of retaliation.

"We urge you to swiftly take action to address these concerns and ensure that any such shortfalls are immediately alleviated and that these vulnerable individuals have access to all their basic needs while they await movement to their final places of refuge in our country," Moore and Omar said.

(c)2021 The Wisconsin State Journal (Madison, Wis.)

Visit The Wisconsin State Journal (Madison, Wis.) at www.wisconsinstatejournal.com

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Participants in a mob take over the inaugural stage at the Capitol on Jan. 6. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)

WASHINGTON  Experts with the Rand Corp. suggested in a new report that the U.S. military use technology to track online trends and work with local law enforcement agencies to stamp out extremism within its ranks.

Rand, a nonprofit think tank, published a report Thursday that offered a framework for identifying and extricating extremists from the military. The report noted multiple, recent instances of service members engaging in violent protest, including the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., and the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

At least five service members face federal charges for allegedly participating in the riot, during which a mob that sought to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election stormed the Capitol and disrupted a joint session of Congress.

The vast majority of military personnel and their families are not extremists, according to the authors of the Rand report. But even a small number of people engaged in extremist activities could damage the U.S. militarys reputation, its force, its members and the larger community.

One method that Rand recommended was using machine-learning technology to spot online trends of extremist groups targeting the military community. Using artificial intelligence, the military could create models that would detect extremist communities on social media and see whether theyre targeting service members with misinformation and trying to recruit them.

The Rand report warned the use of machine learning could create privacy concerns, and theres the risk for false results.

The internet and social media have reduced the costs of creating, sustaining and growing extremist organizations, the report states. [The data are] publicly available, and recent advances in machine-learning methods would allow trained professionals  to spot early patterns of extremist activities.

Experts also suggested military installations work with their local law enforcement agencies to combat against extremism. Civilian and military law enforcement agencies should share information about which groups pose a threat for service members in their area.

Extremism often emerges from and affects the broader military community, the authors of the report said. The agencies should share information about extremist slogans or symbols appearing on the installation or in the community, as well as any rumors or misinformation being spread that could stoke conflict.

In response to the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered a military-wide stand-down to address extremism. In April, he created a Counter Extremism Working Group to study extremism within the military ranks, including the ability of the services to weed out recruits with extremist views and whether military law or regulations should be amended to address the issue.

The Defense Department policies on extremism now task commanders with detecting and investigating acts of extremism, as well as doing early intervention when they observe signs that troops could engage in extremist activities. During this process, commanders must also judge whether taking action could infringe on service members right of expression.

The policies place significant responsibilities on commanders, the Rand authors wrote.

This is a tremendous responsibility, particularly given that commanders are not subject-matter experts in extremism, the report states. Even for experts, this would be difficult because many of the precursors to extremism are common.

Rands proposed framework for the military asks leaders to first create a clear definition for extremism and give commanders more guidance about how they can balance the rights of service members with stamping out extremism in their units.

Military regulations are murky about precisely what constitutes extremist activity, and current Defense Department rules do not bar troops from membership in extremist organizations unless they actively participate in activities deemed illegal or that could harm military order and discipline. Austin has charged the new Counter Extremism Working Group with reviewing the Pentagons rules regulating extremism, including whether the Uniform Code of Military Justice should include a specific crime related to extremism.

The experts also recommended the military design programs that could prevent service members and their families from associating with extremist groups or developing those beliefs. The programs should focus on counseling people when they first begin showing signs of extremism, which could include feelings of frustration and anger toward authorities, culture or society.

Rand suggested base chaplains  who are a key line of defense for service members concerns  can play a large role in helping troops manage their feelings and find legitimate channels to air their grievances.

Finally, Rand recommended the Defense Department improve its process for collecting data about extremism in the military. The Pentagon now uses the Defense Incident-Based Reporting System, which records overall law enforcement activities and statistics within the military and shares them with the FBI.

However, certain codes used in the reporting system dont align with what the FBI uses. For example, the FBI system, called the National Incident-Based Reporting System, has a code for reporting bias against lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender individuals. The militarys system has no code for reporting transgender bias. Those two systems should align, Rand said.

The integration would ensure that trends in extremism are shared between civilian and military law enforcement agencies, Rand wrote.
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt speaks in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, on Sept. 9, 2019. Schmitt, who filed a lawsuit in April 2020 against the Chinese government, the Community Party of China and others, alleging that the hiding of information and other actions at the outset of the coronavirus outbreak led to loss of life and significant economic damage in Missouri, is now running for a U.S. Senate seat. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)

COLUMBIA, Mo.  Missouri's Republican attorney general, Eric Schmitt, sued China over the coronavirus. He signed on to a failed lawsuit seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Now, as he positions himself for a Senate run, he's turning his attention closer to home and suing to stop mask mandates in the state's liberal cities and Missouri schools.

For state attorneys general hoping to gain greater influence and advance their own political agendas, filing lawsuits has become an increasingly common strategy. The partisan divide over coronavirus restrictions has given GOP politicians an opening to showcase their conservative bona fides to voters and capitalize on the public's exhaustion with COVID-19 protocols a year and a half into a pandemic that shows no signs of waning.

For Schmitt, the fight over mask mandates could bolster his support in a crowded primary for retiring GOP Sen. Roy Blunt's seat in next year's midterm elections.

Schmitt is "taking advantage of what we call the politics of grievance," said retired St. Louis University political scientist Steven Puro. "He's going to play on that as much as he possibly can."

Schmitt's spokesperson framed the lawsuits as his way of "fighting back against government bureaucrats."

"Nothing is off the table in our mission to beat back the encroachment and overreach from local to federal government on the liberties and freedom of the people of Missouri," Chris Nuelle said in a statement.

Schmitt, 46, is now promising a fight over President Joe Biden's federal vaccine mandate that all employers with more than 100 workers require them to be vaccinated or be tested for the virus weekly.

"Missouri has been a national leader in pushing back against the Biden Administration & Covid related mandates," Schmitt tweeted last week. "Biden's historic overreach on vaccine mandates will not stand in Missouri."

While the job's responsibilities vary by state, most attorneys general are tasked with defending state laws and constitutions and acting as consumer-protection watchdogs.

They've long had the power to file headline-grabbing lawsuits with a political edge, but Paul Nolette, an associate professor at Marquette University and an expert on state attorneys general, said they've traditionally stuck to lower-profile lawsuits against scammers and defending state laws that are challenged in court.

Filing flashy legal challenges became increasingly popular among Republican attorneys general during the Obama era, Nolette said. When Donald Trump became president, Democratic attorneys general took the lead in suing the White House over its policies.

"Now Republican (attorneys general) are flexing their muscles during the Biden administration as well, particularly on this issue of suing municipalities and essentially their own constituents," Nolette said. "I would classify that as still unusual, but it's become more common just in the last few years."

GOP attorneys general in red states now are zeroing in on liberal policies adopted by majority Democratic cities, the one place where Democrats have some control, he said.

For example, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has been fighting in court with San Antonio since 2018 over the city's handling of immigrants suspected of being in the United States illegally, accusing city officials of violating a new state law targeting what conservative critics call "sanctuary cities."

The practice is less common among Democratic attorneys general. Not because they're less political, Nolette said, but because fewer people tend to live in rural Republican strongholds, so the impact of blocking conservative policies there is less attention-grabbing.

Even though Schmitt is technically suing his own constituents, University of Central Missouri political scientist Robynn Kuhlmann said Schmitt's lawsuits will resonate in drastically different ways with Republicans and Democrats.

"While it may seem as if he's attacking constituents of the liberal perspective, I think it's important to note for those who are conservative it is in essence defending rights and liberties," Kuhlmann said.

In fighting mask mandates, Schmitt is acting against the guidance of public health officials, who encourage mask wearing to stop the spread of COVID-19, particularly when it's caused by the more contagious delta variant that has caused a spike in cases, hospitalizations and deaths. Schmitt's lawsuit cites the low death rate among school-age children, and he has stressed the importance of letting families make their own health decisions.

A Columbia Public Schools spokesperson said in a statement after Schmitt sued that the district is "extremely disappointed to learn that the Missouri Attorney General has chosen to pursue litigation against the school district for providing safety measures for its scholars, teachers, and staff members."

But Republicans might find there are limits to such moves. A recent Republican-fueled effort in California to recall Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, in part over COVID-19 restrictions that he imposed, came up short amid increasing worries over the perniciousness of the delta variant.

Lawsuits can be used as a tool for politically ambitious attorneys general to drum up name recognition, fundraising and votes, Nolette said.

The tactic works, Nolette said, because attorneys general can sue and immediately cash in on the recognition for taking action. The process is more complicated for a state lawmaker, who must work for months and sometimes years to get legislation passed.

"Some of these lawsuits, even if the expectation is that they're not really going to go anywhere, the fact is you can always sue and get a hearing, even if the argument is ridiculous," Nolette said.

Schmitt's lawsuit seeking to hold China responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic is pending in federal court, and the Chinese government has refused to participate. Lawsuits against other countries typically don't go anywhere because U.S. law generally prohibits them.

Schmitt is making more progress on his lawsuits against local masking rules. He secured a win last month when a Missouri judge banned St. Louis County from enforcing its mask mandate while Schmitt's lawsuit plays out in court.

A number of Missouri attorneys general have used the position as a steppingstone to higher political office.

Republican John Ashcroft was attorney general from 1977 to 1985 and later was elected Missouri governor and U.S. senator and then appointed U.S. attorney general under President George W. Bush.

Democrat Jay Nixon served as attorney general from 1993 to 2009, when he was elected governor. And Schmitt's predecessor, Republican Josh Hawley, served two years as attorney general before catapulting into the U.S. Senate.

The stakes are high for Schmitt, who faces a slew of other Republican Senate candidates, including former Gov. Eric Greitens, who resigned amid scandal in 2018, and Mark McCloskey, who was recently pardoned along with his wife for waving guns at social justice demonstrators last year. U.S. Reps. Vicky Hartzler and Billy Long also are running.

And even though Missouri now is considered a red state, there's concern among Republicans that the crowded field could give Greitens a path to the GOP nomination and possibly squander what should be an easy win for Republicans.

If Schmitt wants to win, Puro said, he needs to quickly clear the GOP field. Filing lawsuits that garner attention from state voters and wealthy national donors will help, Kuhlmann said.

"This allows for name recognition to occur in this crowded field, and also some credit claim in that he has this position as attorney general and is acting on defending Missouri's laws," she said.
Staff at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center receive casualties Aug. 27, 2021, who were medically evacuated from Kabul, Afghanistan, after an attack outside of Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul a day earlier and evacuated to LRMC. (Marcy Sanchez/Landstuhl Regional Medical Center)

SANTA ANA, Calif. (Tribune News Service)  Purple Hearts are being posthumously awarded to the 13 American service members who died last month in the bombing attack of the Kabul airport. Seventeen others wounded in the blast as they helped process evacuees trying to flee Afghanistan before U.S. troops withdrew have also been approved to receive the special honor. A dozen more Purple Hearts are pending final approval.

In each case, the decision to award the medal was made by U.S. Central Command, said Yvonne Carlisle, a spokesperson for the Marine Corps.

On Tuesday, Sept. 14, Marine Corps officials said that seven of the original 15 Marines who were injured in the airport blast remain at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Two are in critical, but stable condition, said Capt. Johnny Henderson, a Marine spokesperson. The others are considered to be in serious, but stable condition. Their names are not being released.

Three Southern California natives, Marines Cpl. Hunter Lopez, 22, of Indio, Lance Cpl. Dylan R. Merola, 20, of Rancho Cucamonga, and Lance Cpl. Kareem M. Nikoui, 20, of Norco, are among the service members receiving the honor posthumously; the medals will go to their next of kin. Funerals are planned this weekend for Lopez and Nikoui and next week for Merola.

Ten of those who died were attached to Camp Pendleton's 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment. Staff Sgt. Darin T. Hoover, 31, of Salt Lake City, Utah, lived in Aliso Viejo with his fiance.

The Purple Heart is a solemn distinction of sacrifice given to U.S. service members "injured or killed by the action of an enemy of the United States." More than 1.8 million Purple Heart medals have been presented to service members since the award was created in 1782, according to the National Purple Heart Hall of Honor. It is the nation's oldest combat medal.

In 2012, California was the first in the nation to become a Purple Heart State after the California Legislature passed a resolution initiated by then-Assemblyman Paul Cook  he's now a San Bernardino County supervisor. The resolution means the state in various ways recognizes the service and sacrifice of it Purple Heart veterans who have died or were injured.

Today in California, there are 20 chapters of the Military Order of the Purple Heart with 3,000 registered members. Like other veteran's groups, such as the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars, these chapters provide a place for service members to share stories and get support, financial aid and other needed services.

"The chapters are where Purple Heart members can meet. We help veterans in need and refer them to other organizations," said Jim Anderson, of Bakersfield. He belongs to the Folsum chapter and was a past department commander of the group.

Anderson, 75, who served in the Navy during the Vietnam War, received his distinction after being wounded while on a Navy patrol boat that hit a mine.

For the families of those who have posthumously received the medal, the chapters are a way to remember their fallen service member. Spouses, parents and children can join as an associate members.

"Talking to a Purple Hearter makes you more at ease," Anderson said. "Talking about injuries and how it happened. Someone that's gone through it understands more about what you're feeling."

Don Pageler, 75, of Westminster, said he spent decades hiding his Purple Heart. "Much of what I had to deal with was survivor's guilt."

In 1967, during the Six Day War, he was on the USS Liberty when it was attacked by the Israeli Air Force and Navy. There were 34 aboard who were killed and 171 who were injured by a torpedo blast.

It took him more than 20 years to seek help after suffering physically and emotionally. Meeting with other combat-injured vets helped. Now, he goes to local schools and teaches students about military history through his own experiences.

Pageler said he expects those who survived the Kabul airport attack may need a similar outlet.

"These guys will carry a lot of pain and anger from what happened," he said. "If they can't talk about it, they can't work through it emotionally. That's what these organizations are about; it's a place to feel safe."

But it may take time, he said. "They won't be ready to join groups. Often, it's not till later in life that we reach out for that help."

(c)2021 The Orange County Register (Santa Ana, Calif.)

Visit The Orange County Register (Santa Ana, Calif.) at www.ocregister.com

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HORSHAM TOWNSHIP, Pa. (Tribune News Service)  Redeveloping a former naval airbase holds "tremendous potential" for Horsham's economy, but only if state and federal funds keep going toward environmental clean up.

That was the overall message from representatives of area water authorities and state lawmakers during a House Republican Policy Committee meeting on PFAS contamination Wednesday.

The former Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Willow Grove is one of three former and active military bases believed to be responsible for high levels of PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, in local drinking water wells.

Removing PFAS from firefighting foams used by the military for decades is currently the greatest roadblock in what state Rep. Todd Stephens described as a major economic boon for the area and the state.

"The real highlight for having the committee here is to see the tremendous potential that the former (base) has to offer our community, our region and, frankly, the commonwealth," Stephens, R-151, of Horsham, said during the meeting held in Horsham's municipal building.

PFAS contamination has already stalled the Horsham Land Redevelopment Authority's plans to bring 1.7 million square feet of commercial development, and with that 7,075 jobs, for several years.

The hearing was more of an educational experience to stress the need for continued funding for PFAS clean up for Republican lawmakers unfamiliar with the contamination that thousands of area residents have lived with for years.

The 1,200-acre base closed in 2011, following a 2005 recommendation by the federal Base Realignment and Closure Committee to cease operations of everything but the Air Force Reserve Base at Willow Grove.

In 2012, the HLRA was selected to be the organization in charge of reshaping the 862 acres of the now-closed naval air station.

Redeveloping the former military base was no small task by itself. Horsham Township Manager Bill Walker said Wednesday any existing infrastructure on the base is unusable for HLRA's plans.

Willow Grove had also been listed as an Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site after several volatile organic compounds contaminating soil and ground water were found in 1995.

As HLRA Executive Director Michael McGee explained after Wednesday's hearing, environmental hazards had to be remediated before any redevelopment could move forward.

The military was already working in consultation with the EPA and the state's Department of Environmental Protection to remediate several contaminated areas of the base throughout the closure.

The EPA added PFAS to a list of potentially harmful unregulated chemicals in drinking water as part of a nationwide testing program between 2013 and 2015.

A lifetime health advisory level for PFAS in drinking water at 70 parts per trillion was created in 2016, a level that many public wells in Horsham, Warminster and Warrington far exceeded.

Tina O'Rourke, business manager for the Horsham Water and Sewer Authority, said Wednesday that two of Horsham's 14 public wells showed levels of 1,000 ppt each when they were taken offline in 2016.

The 2016 levels not only shuttered the local drinking water supply for thousands of residents, but it brought another environmental roadblock to the HLRA redevelopment.

Warminster Municipal Authority General Manager Tim Hagey told officials that the aquifer under Willow Grove is estimated to be contaminated with upwards of 300,000 ppt of PFAS.

The contamination is not only vast, but a lack of federal or state regulations on PFAS has helped delay some remediation efforts by the military.

The 70 ppt level is not a legally binding limit, which means the military has officially only agreed to reimburse local authorities and their customers to bring PFAS levels down under that level.

"The Navy has done some work for anything above 70 (ppt), but our residents don't want any (PFAS). And, you can't blame any of them for not wanting a standard that is at 70 (ppt) when this chemical bioaccumulates in the body, their families' bodies," Hagey said.

PFAS gained the infamous nickname "forever chemicals" in recent years because the heavy compounds can settle and remain in a person's bloodstream for decades after being ingested.

Despite a near constant push by elected officials at nearly all levels of government for several years, neither the EPA nor the DEP have set hard limits on PFAS in drinking water.

Pennsylvania has been inching toward setting its own limits since 2018 through a task force established in an executive order from Gov. Tom Wolf.

The state completed its first step of that order earlier this year after sampling over 400 potentially contaminated wells to establish a baseline for PFAS contamination.

The two most common chemicals, PFOA and PFOS, were found in over 100 wells, though only two tested over 70 ppt.

The average levels of about 50 wells tested in Bucks and Montgomery counties was around 14 ppt.

Several states have created their own PFAS limits since as early as 2018, starting with New Jersey's limits for 13 ppt of PFOS and 14 ppt for PFOA.

Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York and Vermont have set similar standards, though the limits vary by each state.

A federal bill giving the EPA two years to develop a national maximum contaminant limit passed a House vote of 241-183 in July.

The bill faces a large partisan divide, gaining yea votes from only 23 Republicans  including Bucks Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, of Middletown  but has not seen any action on the Senate floor.

The objections to the federal bill came mostly from GOP lawmakers who viewed the bill as over-regulation, most wanting no regulation until a federal study on the long-term health effects of PFAS exposure in humans was completed.

A national multi-site study, which includes areas of Bucks and Montgomery counties contaminated by military base firefighting foams, was delayed in 2020 by the coronavirus pandemic.

While researchers appear to be ready to start recruiting for that study possibly before the end of this year, the researchers originally expected the study to take a few years to complete.

North Wales Water Authority Executive Bob Bender said dedicated funding is key in pushing ahead on remediation, and that lengthy bureaucratic delays endanger future funding.

The local response to PFAS contamination has usually come in the form buying new carbon filtration systems, and most utilities opted to purchase much, if not all, of their water from North Wales since 2016.

State grants are often a resource for utilities to help pay for capital projects, but Bender said those often have a matching requirement.

If North Wales gets a $1 million grant to install new machinery, for example, then that means the authority is contributing up to $500,000 out of pocket.

The state does have a relatively new funding source in Act 101 of 2019, which was introduced by Stephens as an alternative to waiting for federal reimbursement for PFAS clean up.

The bill allows a local Military Installation Remediation and Infrastructure Authority to use state tax dollars as grant money to utilities.

The MIRIA in Horsham allocated just over $15 million last December alone. About $2.8 million went to help promote the redevelopment of the Willow Grove base.

The money has also been awarded to help pay for filtration systems and even rate reductions for customers affected by PFAS.

The state will ultimately seek reimbursement from the federal government for MIRIA funds awarded, instead of forcing residents to wait years for regulations and eventual repayment.

Bender said he wanted to see more dedicated funding programs like Act 101 before time takes attention away from PFAS.

"My fear is that the media is going to move on to the next topic, that the legislature is going to have other issues to deal with and three or five years from now, we're not going to have this level of attention," Bender said.

(c)2021 Bucks County Courier Times, Levittown, Pa.

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Since Sept. 11, U.S. Marine Corps veteran Josh Stears has been biking 13 miles a day to raise funds for Platoon 22, which seeks to prevent veteran suicide. (Facebook)

FREDERICK, Md. (Tribune News Service)  One day in late August, Frederick County Sheriff's Office Detective and retired U.S. Marine Josh Stears went for a mountain bike ride in the park.

He usually hits the trails around Clarksburg three days a week to get a good workout. He keeps track of the mileage on his phone.

After this particular ride, Stears loaded his gear into his car and checked his phone to see how many miles he traveled. The screen read 13, and a bell went off in his head.

A day or so before, 13 U.S. military service members were killed in an attack in Kabul, Afghanistan  a place Stears once served with the 3rd Battalion, 8th Marines to protect the U.S. Embassy. He was there for about six months in 2002, spending six hours a day on a rooftop at a marksman post and six more hours waiting at the ready in full gear should they be needed.

Watching the U.S. pull out of Afghanistan from afar, and seeing the 13 service members killed, Stears felt angry and confused. Those deaths and Stears' coincidental 13-mile ride sparked his decision to partner with local nonprofit Platoon 22 to start the 13 For 13 Ride Challenge to pedal for patriots. Since Sept. 11, Stears has been biking 13 miles a day to raise funds for Platoon 22, which seeks to prevent veteran suicide.

Each day of the ride is dedicated to one of the 13 killed in Afghanistan, and community members are encouraged to come along or bike on their own.

"I wanted to do something positive surrounding this tragedy to honor the Marines and other service members killed in the attack," Stears told the News-Post, and Platoon 22 seemed like a fitting cause.

The organization is named for the 22 veterans on average that die by suicide each day.

Niki Falzone, director of operations and veteran services for Platoon 22, said she was touched when Stears reached out to her with the idea.

"Josh was able to take a heart wrenching tragedy and bring a positive outlook with #pedalforpatriots," she wrote in an email. "We immediately got to work with flyers and information so that we could share with the community."

Falzone commended Stears for rallying the mountain biking community and encouraging other groups to get involved. LifeCYCLE Studio in Frederick hosted a special class Monday in support and raised nearly $500, according to Falzone.

"Anytime that we can get involved with the veteran, active duty, or first responder community, it aligns with our goals," Falzone wrote. "There is a lot of mixed emotion and moral injury felt among those communities mentioned in light of the Afghanistan withdrawal that ultimately cost these brave men and women their lives."

With those fallen heroes in mind, Stears on Tuesday set up to ride at Little Bennett Regional Park. He was joined by his friend Chris Duley, of Frederick, and two strangers who saw his post on Facebook.

"Sounded like a good reason to ride," said Ryan Jones of Keedysville. "I just think we can do a better job supporting our veterans when they return home."

Jefferson resident Matt Kauffman, a friend of Jones', agreed, saying he wanted to ride for a good cause.

As the four men became acquainted, they talked about their mountain biking gear and trails. The sun beat down on the gravel parking lot by the Pine Grove Trail as other mountain bikers gathered nearby for an evening ride. When the clock reached 5:30 p.m., the 13 For 13 riders climbed on their bikes and set out on a narrow dirt trail leading into the woods.

They rode in honor of U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Rylee McCollum. He was 20 years old when he was killed and hailed from Jackson, Wyo. McCollum was serving his first deployment when the attack happened, The New York Times reported. He was married and had a child on the way.

"I wanted to do something to show that we do value their ultimate sacrifice," Stears said. "What they do does matter."

(c)2021 The Frederick News-Post (Frederick, Md.)

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Winston Watusi

Music Plus

Once again I write this while much of the city and the Bay remains silent, devoid of live music.

Its been harder this time. The Delta variant has screwed over the few establishments that braved level two last time.

The previous indoor limit was 100; with Delta its 50. And the difference between 50 and 100 people is the difference between making money and... not.

I had a chat with Andy Craw, who plans the music down at Jack Dustys in Bureta, including weekly acts on Saturdays and Sundays plus special events such as the monthly blues jam.

That should have happened last Wednesday but, as Andy confirms, like the weekend music it just doesnt work for 50 people. The luxury of hiring a band for that number of punters is sadly just that  a luxury, and an unaffordable one.

But hes chomping at the bit to get going again: The minute we hear the words level one well be celebrating and bringing back the bands, Andy says. A lot of people cant wait.

So with little new live action on the horizon, lets look back a couple of weeks. I wrote about a fantastic tribute album, a collection of especially-assembled artists  I cant bring myself to fashionably say curated  playing the songs of Mark Bolan and T. Rex. Its called AngelHeaded Hipster and is available on Spotify.

I say that deliberately as many things I wanted to mention this week arent, and it exposes a cruel trap New Zealand is caught in, which started when Amazon gave New Zealand the two finger salute after we asked them to collect GST. We can now only order from Amazon in America or Australia.

Leonard Cohen & Joni Mitchell

Going Backwards

That means many CDs made in the UK are now not available here. Amazon will not ship them even via their Australian store. Its worse for blu-rays. Even The Warehouse doesn't stock them now, and the blu-ray region code from America means their imported ones dont generally work here.

So weve now reached a point where we are dependent on Spotify to provide music we can no longer buy, and Netflix (or one of the other two-dozen streaming services) to supply unavailable movies. If they happen to have them. Many things once easy to access are now denied us.

I received some great emails after writing about the Mark Bolan tunes - one in particular which suggested I listen to a similar Joni Mitchell set. I did and am very grateful to have had it recommended.

It is simply called A Tribute To Joni Mitchell, and includes contributions from Sufjan Stevens, Bjork, Emmylou Harris, Elvis Costello and more, but the stand-out track for me is Princes take on A Case Of You. It is one of the most astounding bits of singing I know, sounding like he pitched it at the absolute top of his range and then shifted it up a few more keys for good luck.

It is so high that small animals might run from the room, but is simultaneously absolutely controlled and deeply emotional. Wow.

Availability

The problem with these tribute albums is that because of the many artists involved there are sometimes rights issues, which keep them off Spotify and other similar platforms. So good luck finding them.

One of my favourites, the Leonard Cohen tribute Im Your Fan  including everyone from Nick Cave to REM and The Pixies  is not on Spotify. Or easy to buy. But Spotify has another Cohen tribute, one far more obscure, called Acordes Con Leonard Cohen (According To...) which is actually a record of a Spanish tribute concert.

Cohen had a long mutual love affair with Spain, caused partly by his championing of Spanish poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca. He even named his daughter Lorca, and the album not only includes members of Cohens band but also his son Adam and partner Anjani Thomas.

Theres also Elliott Murphy, Jackson Browne and many Spanish musicians: about half the songs are in Spanish and it is a thing of beauty. The rush of pleasure at hearing Leonards songs slowly unfold in the beautiful Spanish language really is something special.
A truck driver who has tested positive for Covid-19 has travelled across the Auckland border to Hamilton, Cambridge and Tauranga.

Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield says the truck driver travelled over the border for essential deliveries.

They work for food provision services and their contact was limited to deliveries and drop-offs.

Bloomfield says they are unsure if the driver travelled to these places during their infectious period.

He says there may be exposure events and they are working to see if there are locations of interest but they are unsure of these as yet.

If there are locations these will be added to the Ministry of Health website, he says.

This shows the importance of surveillance testing, says Bloomfield.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says the driver was previously tested on 22 August and this shows the importance of testing.

Nothing is foolproof which is why alert level 2 is so important, says Ardern.

The truck driver is one of 13 new community cases today, this brings the total number of cases in the current outbreak to 996.

There are 460 people who have recovered and 19 people in hospital with the virus with four of these people in ICU.

Five cases have been identified in managed isolation and quarantine with two of these historical.

Bloomfield says all but one of today cases are linked to known cases and most of these are household contacts.

Ardern also spoke about alert level changes ahead of the final decision Cabinet will make on Monday.

She says so long as Auckland is in Alert Level 3 or 4 there needs to be a greater level of preparedness in the rest of the country, so it will stay at alert level 2.

If Auckland does move down an alert level next week, the rest of the country will see some easing of the alert level 2 rules.

If Auckland moves to level 3 next week, Cabinet would consider raising the amount of people allowed at gatherings in Level 2 to 100 people, says Ardern.

"Our alert level system served us very well over the last year and a half, but as vaccines become more and more a part of our toolkit, we need to integrate them into our system."

The first vaccination buses are beginning their work in Auckland this afternoon.

Ardern says the country has hit another milestone today in its vaccination programme, with 3 million first doses now delivered nation-wide.

"Thanks to all those who have been vaccinated so far. But we have the capacity to do even more and even faster."

She says there is the ability to have 80 per cent of eligible people vaccinated with their first dose in Auckland this week.

"It's the most important thing you can do to help us as we work together to get out of lockdowns."

Earlier: Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield will provide an update on the current Covid-19 outbreak.

On Thursday, Bloomfield announced 14 new Covid cases. All in the Auckland community.

A total of 20 people were in hospital with the virus. Three in North Shore, 11 in Middlemore and six in Auckland. Four are in ICU or HDU.

All 14 of Wednesday's cases were epidemiologically linked.

Currently New Zealand is at Alert Level 2, and Auckland is at Alert Level 4. This is expected to remain in force until 11.59pm on Tuesday.

Cabinet is expected to meet on Monday to discuss this and an announcement of either or not the alert levels will be shifts down is expected in the afternoon.
An independent review of WorkSafe's handling of Whakaari / White Island leading up to the deadly eruption is months overdue.

The blast in December 2019 took 22 lives.

Soon after WorkSafe's Whakaari investigation team laid charges against 13 parties last year, Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety Michael Wood announced WorkSafe's own conduct would be reviewed by David Laurenson QC.

This follows an earlier, separate probe of adventure activities, which indicated WorkSafe did not have direct oversight of tourism operators, relying on third-party auditors instead.

It also said adventure activities had been low priority and there was a lack of engagement with operators and enforcement.

Now the subsequent WorkSafe review is still being finished, five months after the initial deadline.

When asked why, Minister Michael Wood gave a written statement to RNZ.

"My understanding is that it's practically complete, he says.

"David Laurenson QC requested more time because of the complexity and volume of information that needed to be assessed. Of course, I'd have liked to have seen it done faster but it is an independent review, so it's important to maintain that independence."

Wood expects the findings and recommendations would be publicly released after they have been considered by government.

Lawyer Stacey Shortall, the co-author of the book Health and Safety at Work in New Zealand: Know the Law, hopes there will be a quick response.

"MBIE [the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment] undertook the review of the adventure activities regulatory regime and of course MBIE has the oversight role of WorkSafe, she says.

All of these entities and agencies are interconnected, so I do think the minister's decision to commission an independent review is a very good step."

She says WorkSafe was expected to both regulate industries and crack down on them, which created tension.

The Whakaari eruption has made that even more complex.

WorkSafe is carrying out its biggest prosecution ever - against seven tourism companies, the owners of the island the Buttles, the National Emergency Management Agency and Crown researchers GNS Science.

At the same time, WorkSafe's own conduct leading up to the eruption is being reviewed.

Some have argued this critique should be broader but Shortall says: "That then brings you directly into challenges with the ongoing prosecution and the coronial inquiry that's under way as well."

"It becomes very vexed as to how you manage all of those - competing in some ways - lines of work at the same time."

University of Otago senior lecturer Lesley Gray, who specialises in disaster-related health risks, expects the findings will have wide-reaching consequences.

"At the time of the Whakaari / White Island eruption, there was somewhere around the region of 300 operators across New Zealand in adventure activities," she tells RNZ.

"So there will be significant interest from lots of different operators."

In a statement, the Ministry for Business Innovation and Employment says its priority was to update victims and their families on the WorkSafe review's progress, before saying anything publicly.

WorkSafe declined to comment.

Together, the two departments have budgeted more than $18 million over four years for their response to the eruption.

WorkSafe's investigation last year cost $5.5m alone and all parties charged have pleaded not guilty.

- Sam Olley/RNZ
A truck driver who travelled to Tauranga, who has since tested positive for Covid-19, has been interviewed by public health staff and linked to the current outbreak.

It comes as the Ministry of Health works to establish any potential exposure events from the case, whilst National call for rapid testing at the Auckland boundary.

The truck driver, an essential worker who works in the food provision service, visited Hamilton, Cambridge and Tauranga with Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield stating this afternoon that much of the contact involved in that period limited to deliveries and drop-offs.

Bloomfield says they are unsure if the driver travelled to these places during their infectious period and they are working to see if there are locations of interest.

Auckland Regional Public Health has now completed its initial interview with the truck driver who returned a positive test result as confirmed earlier today, says a Ministry of Health spokesperson.

This case has been linked to the existing outbreak.

A small number of exposure events are in the process of being worked through by public health staff.

Any that are locations of interest will be listed on the Ministry of Health website.

We anticipate the first of a handful of Auckland locations, expected to be supermarkets and dairies, to be published this evening. Where we can readily identify contacts, these exposure events will not be listed.

The MOH confirm there are four other household contacts related to this case, who are in self-isolation and are being tested.

All essential workers crossing the Auckland boundary will have to show they have had a Covid-19 test in the previous seven days, as part of surveillance testing, from tonight.

However, Nationals Covid-19 spokesperson Chris Bishop is calling for rapid antigen testing to be used at the Auckland boundary for essential workers.

But Bishop believes the seven-day testing option does not go far enough.

Weekly testing for essential workers crossing the Auckland boundary is just not good enough, he says.

Delta moves so quickly that a worker could spend six days with Covid-19 and infect potentially thousands of people in that time before they have to go and get a nasal PCR or saliva PCR test.

The Government should be rapidly rolling out rapid antigen tests so that essential workers crossing the Auckland border can use them daily, with weekly nasal or saliva PCR tests as the backup.

Another new case, identified at Middlemore hospital on Wednesday evening, has also been interviewed, and is now in isolation at home awaiting transfer to MIQ.

The individual is in a household where no other cases have been identified at this stage, says a MOH statement.

All household members are in isolation and we continue to look for links to other cases.

The other five previous cases identified through exposure events at Middlemore hospital have all been linked to the outbreak on further investigation.

The MOH says more information on both these cases will be available tomorrow.
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Techcross succeeded in signing a deal with Dutch fleet

Techcross Europe Office signed a contract to install a ballast water management system on the fleet of Anthony Veder Rederijzaken B.V. (hereinafter referred to as Anthony Veder), the Dutch leading gas carrier.

Through this order, Anthony Veder's 13 vessels will be equipped with a direct electrolysis ballast water management system, Electro-Cleen System (ECS). Depending on the size of the vessel, products with 300 to 450 tons will be delivered sequentially by 2024, and delivery to the first vessel will begin immediately from the third quarter of this year. Founded in 1937, Anthony Veder is a shipping company specializing in the transportation of petrochemical products such as gas, LNG, and LPG, providing stable and high-quality services worldwide. Currently, 31 vessels are being operated, and in order to comply with the BWM Convention enacted by the IMO, various ballast water management systems have been listed as candidates since 2019 and suitable products have been thoroughly reviewed. The main determinant at this time was the low maintenance and operating cost (OPEX). As the ballast water management system is used for a long period of time throughout the operational period of the vessel, even if the initial purchase cost is low, but the replacement parts or OPEX are high, the overall cost used during the life of the system will eventually increase significantly. Considering this, the ECS by Techcross received high evaluations for its low power consumption and low OPEX with just a single treatment during ballasting, as well as being a semi-permanent product that does not require replacement of separate equipment during the period of use. As we provide system installation and service over the next several years, we hope to maintain a continuous and steady partnership between the two companies, said the representative of Techcross Europe Office. In the meantime, Techcross has been promoting under the slogan "SAVE OPEX SAVE EARTH" since the beginning of this year, with low OPEX and convenient maintenance.




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On Sunday and Monday, September 12 and 13, 2021, Scarsdale, NY retailer Value Electronics brought together calibrators, cinematographers, and other video professionals to evaluate flagship TVs andfor the first time, ultra short-throw (UST) projectorsto determine which model was the best of the best. I discussed the annual event in detail last week, including how the evaluations were carefully set up and provided links to the live stream of each day.

Before the shootout began, Stacey Spears, co-creator of the Benchmark series of test and evaluation discs, offered some opening remarks and explanations of the test patterns that would be used. In the photo at the top of this article, hes explaining the break-in pattern on his latest disc, Ultra HD Benchmark, which exercises all the pixels of a 4K display equally. This is especially important to do for 100 hours or so before calibrating an OLED TV.

Calibrator John Reformato was quite impressed with Staceys presentation. We got to see a lot of the test patterns and content from Staceys new disc, but it was a unique experience to be in the same room with him as he was showing and explaining everything.

Mark Jessamy The 4K TVs were lined up right next to each other for direct comparison. A Sony BVM-HX310 professional monitor, which is commonly used to master commercial content, was placed in the center to see how accurately the TVs reproduced what the content creators saw.

The King of 4K TVs

There were four contenders in the 4K TV category:

Hisense 75U9DG Dual Cell LCD/LED ($3,499.00)

LG 65G1 OLED ($2,999.00)

Samsung QN65QN90A QLED ($1,999.99)

Sony XR-65A90J OLED ($3,799.99)

The 4K TV shootout included three performance modes: SDR Day (standard dynamic-range content with some ambient light in the room), SDR Reference (with no ambient light), and HDR Reference (high dynamic-range content with no ambient light). The judges were asked to assign a numerical score from 1 to 10 to several attributes in each situation:

SDR Day

Motion/DSE

Image quality/brightness

Upscaling/sharpness

SDR Reference

Black level/shadow detail

Color accuracy/skin tones

24p motion

HDR Reference

Black level/shadow detail

Color accuracy/skin tones

24p motion

UHD detail/sharpness

High APL

Live sports

4000-nit tone mapping

And the King of 4K TVs is (drum roll, please) the Sony XR-65A90J OLED. As you can see in the final scoringwhich was calculated by averaging the judges scores for each attributethe 65A90J came out on top in all attributes of the SDR Day Mode and SDR Reference Mode tests. In the HDR Reference tests, it achieved the best score in four out of seven attributes, and it tied with the LG 77G1 OLED for the best score in another. The 77G1 just barely squeaked out the top score for color accuracy/skin tones and had a more comfortable lead in 4,000-nit tone mapping.

Value Electronics The 4K TVs were judged on several attributes with SDR Day mode (SDR content with ambient light), SDR Reference mode (SDR content with no ambient light), and HDR Reference mode (HDR content with no ambient light). The scores shown here are the averages of the judges individual scores for each attribute.

Presenter Stacey Spears gave me three examples where the LG fell short. First of all, it had relatively poor uniformity compared with the Sony. Also, there was visible dither noise near black. Finally, in a shot of the Space Needle in Seattle, WA, the image on the LG was softer than on the Sony due to some sort of filtering.

Mark Jessamy Once again, the Sony BVM-HX310 was placed between the 8K sets.

The King of 8K TVs

There were three contestants in the 8K TV category:

LG 77ZX OLED ($19,999.99)

Samsung QN75QN900A QLED ($4,999.99)

Sony XR-75Z9J LCD/LED ($6,999.99)

In this case, the TVs were evaluated with no ambient light, and the judges were tasked with assigning numerical scores in only four attributes:

4K black level/shadow detail

4K upscaling

4K color

8K native quality

As you might guess, the first three attributes were based on 4K content, while the last one used native-8K footage provided by cinematographer Phil Holland. The 8K content was played from a USB drive, but unfortunately, the Sony can only play 8K via HDMI, not USB. So, that attribute was not considered in the final determination; it was for exhibition only on the LG and Samsung.

The winner in this case was no surprise to me: the LG 77ZX OLED. As the average scoring clearly indicates, it easily won two out of the three 4K attributes, coming in second to the Sonys 4K upscaling. Of course, it costs three to four times as much as the other two sets, and its the only OLED in the group.

Value Electronics The 8K TVs were judged only with HDR content and no ambient light. Native 8K content was played from a USB drive, which the Sony could not accommodate, so that attribute was for exhibition only and not included in the final determination.

Once the Kings of 4K and 8K TVs were crowned, it was time to put them next to each other and feed them 4K and 8K content to see what the difference between them, if any, might be. Using Phil Hollands footage in both 4K (upconverted to 8K for the 77ZX) and 8K (downconverted to 4K for the 65A90J), everyone agreed that the 8K image was clearly better, even at a distance of five or six feet. According to Stacey Spears, calibrator John Reformato had been an 8K skeptic until he saw this demo, which turned him into an 8K advocate.

Mark Jessamy All the ultra short-throw projectors were evaluated on the same-size screen of the same material.

The King of ultra short-throw projectors

On Monday, the judges turned their attention to three ultra short-throw (UST) projectors:

Hisense L9G ($5,499.00 w/100-inch screen)

LG HU85LA ($4,999.99)

Samsung SP-LSP9T ($5,499.99)

Since UST projectors are marketed as TV replacements, the judging was performed in three modes, much like the 4K TVs:

SDR Day

Motion

Peak brightness

Black level/perceived contrast

SDR Reference

Black level/shadow detail

Color accuracy/skin tones

24p motion

HDR Reference

Black level/shadow detail

Color accuracy/skin tones

24p motion

UHD detail/sharpness

Geometry

Focus

High APL

4,000-nit tone mapping

Color gamut

The Hisense comes with its own screen, while the LG and Samsung do not. Even so, after some discussion, the team decided to evaluate all three projectors on the same UST ALR screen material from Draper, each one measuring 98 inches diagonally with an aspect ratio of 16:9. This put them all on the same playing field, so to speak, but it does not represent what most buyers of the Hisense will experience if they use its included screen. I might have recommended that the comparison include two Hisense projectors, one using its own screen and the other using a Draper screenif not in the main shootout, at least in a separate viewing.

Value Electronics Ultra short-throw projectors are intended to be TV replacements, so the judges were asked to evaluate them in the same modes as the 4K TVs. The attributes were much the same, with a few different items specific to projectors.

Interestingly, the Hisense L9G was crowned King of UST Projectors. As you can see in the scoring summary, it won two of three attributes in SDR Day mode and tied for the highest score in the third one. It achieved the highest score in two of three attributes in SDR Reference mode, and it won five out of nine attributes in HDR Reference mode and tied for highest score in a sixth. Im left to wonder how it would have done with its own screen.

Thats a wrap for 2021

John Reformato was thrilled with the whole event. Now that the TV Shootout is over, I want to say how incredible it was to work with people such as Stacey Spears, Phil Holland, Dave Mackenzie, Jason Dustal, Tyler Pruitt, and the rest of the incredibly talented crew. The test patterns and content that Stacey, Phil, and Tyler brought really showed the differences in the displays. A great TV Shootout this year!

So, there you have it; the 2021 Value Electronics TV Shootout is now in the history books. I commend store owner Robert Zohn, calibrators Jason Dustall and John Reformato, presenters Stacey Spears and Rob Sabin, and all the judges for pulling off such an ambitious event. Bravo!
Why it matters: China has been quietly developing CPUs and GPUs for years, but it's been trying to accelerate existing projects without much tangible success as of late. Still, now and then, we hear about another small breakthrough made by a Chinese company. Such is the case of Jingjia Micro, which is getting closer to releasing a graphics card that could potentially come close to the performance of a GeForce GTX 1080.

So far, we've seen a lot more action in the CPU space from Chinese companies like Zhaoxin, which are trying to develop x86 processors that can catch up to and eventually compete with those made by Intel and AMD. However, GPUs have not seen nearly the same attention being devoted to them.

One notable exception is Jingjia Micro (also known as Jingjiawei), which started as a military-civilian company developing and manufacturing military-grade electronics. Almost three years ago, the company said it was working on its own discrete high-performance graphics card after successfully launching China's first domestic GPU.

According to a report from MyDrivers, Jingjia Micro is getting ready to launch not one but two graphics cards. The first is an entry-level model called JM9231 that will offer performance around the level of a GeForce GTX 1050 or Radeon RX 560. The second, more ambitious one, is the JM9271, which is supposedly able to keep up with a GeForce GTX 1080 or AMD's RX Vega 64.

JM9231 GTX 1050 JM9271 GTX 1080 API Support OpenGL 4.5, OpenCL 1.2 OpenGL 4.6, DX12 OpenGL 4.5, OpenCL 2.0 OpenGL 4.6, DX12 Boost Clock Rate > 1,500 MHz 1,455 MHz > 1,800 MHz 1,733 MHz Bus Width PCIe 3.0 PCIe 3.0 PCIe 4.0? PCIe 3.0 Memory Bandwidth 256 GB/s 112 GB/s 512 GB/s 320 GB/s Memory Capacity/Type 8GB GDDR5 2GB GDDR5 16GB HBM 8GB GDDR5X Pixel Rate > 32 GPixel/s 46.56 GPixel/s > 128 GPixel/s 110.9 GPixel/s FP32 Performance 2 TFLOPs 1.8 TFLOPs 8 TFLOPs 8.9 TFLOPs Output options HDMI 2.0, DisplayPort 1.3 HDMI 2.0, DisplayPort 1.4 HDMI 2.0, DisplayPort 1.3 HDMI 2.0, DisplayPort 1.4 Video Encoding H.265/4K 60FPS H.265/4K 60FPS H.265/4K 60FPS H.265/4K 60FPS TDP 150W 75W 200W 180W

Digging deeper, the JM9231 will integrate 8 GB of GDDR5 memory and offer two teraflops of FP32 performance with a TDP of 150 watts, which would be an impressive feat for the Chinese company. As for the JM9271, it will come with 16 gigabytes of HBM memory and deliver 8 teraflops of compute power at a TDP of 200 watts.

That said, Jingjia Micro explains that it's still in early development stages for the two graphics cards, which still have to go through more testing before the company can begin trial production runs. Efficiency is not a strong point of these, though performance is somewhat promising if they're comparable -- at least on paper -- to GPUs from several years ago that are still fairly capable in the case of the GTX 1080. There's also no word on DirectX or Vulkan API support, so it's possible the JM9231 and JM9271 cards may never end up in a gaming PC.

Overall, it doesn't look like China has made strides on this front yet despite pouring billions into subsidies for its semiconductor industry. Just as we've seen with the country's CPU efforts, progress is slow, and few companies have the engineering know-how to pursue such projects.

The only other prominent companies known to be working on GPUs are Huawei's HiSilicon subsidiary and Tianshu Zhixin Semiconductor, which are both working on GPGPUs for the Asian server market.
Something to look forward to: After 16:10 displays, the next big upgrade for many laptops is going to be a bright, high refresh rate OLED panel from Samsung. A number of upcoming models from Asus and Lenovo will integrate the new display technology, and it won't be long before we start seeing these in even more laptops from Dell, HP, and others.

Earlier this year, Samsung revealed that it would soon start mass manufacturing 90Hz OLED panels for laptops. This move would bring the first high refresh rate OLED panels to the notebook market and pave the way for displays with even higher refresh rates of 120Hz and over.

After several successful trial production runs, the South Korean giant is now delivering on its promise. A Samsung spokesperson noted that "the 90Hz OLED panel offers more options for consumers who are looking to enjoy high-performance content on their laptops. With our innovative OLEDs, were further pioneering and leading the market in display technologies that offer superior image quality."

The first laptops featuring Samsung's new OLED panels are all 14-inch and 16-inch models from Asus and Lenovo that are landing later this year.

Earlier this month, Asus announced the ProArt Studiobook Pro 16 and ProArt Studiobook 16 laptops, which come equipped with 4K OLED HDR displays that cover 100 percent of the DCI-P3 color space in addition to offering the unbeatable contrast that is typical with this display technology.

The two creator-oriented laptops can be configured with an AMD Ryzen 5000 H-series CPU. In the case of the Pro model, you can pair that with an Nvidia RTX A2000 or A5000 GPU, while the standard model comes with either an Nvidia RTX 3070 or RTX 3060 Laptop GPU. Pricing starts at $2,499.99 and $1,999.99, respectively.

Other Asus models that will come equipped with a Samsung OLED panel are the Vivobook Pro 14X and Pro 16X, the Vivobook Pro 14 and Pro 15, and the dual-display Zenbook Pro Duo 15. Then there's the Zenbook 14X with a QHD+ 90 Hz OLED panel that will start at $1,399.99.

Lenovo's OLED offerings include the IdeaPad Slim 7 Carbon and the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 Pro, which are Ryzen-powered 14-inch laptops that will arrive next month at a starting price of $1,289.99 and $1,449, respectively. For Chrome OS enthusiasts, the company introduced the Chromebook Duet 5, a 13.3-inch detachable with a 1080p Samsung OLED display that starts at $429.99.
In brief: Microsoft has a lot of happy Microsoft 365 and Office 365 users, with over a million organizations on the former and over 300 million seats on the latter service. However, a lot of people and companies depend on and prefer the "perpetual" version of Office, and that's coming alongside Windows 11 next month.

Last year, Microsoft gave many people hope when it said that it hadn't given up on the standalone version of Office. At the time, this was only mentioned in a one-liner buried in announcements from Microsoft Ignite 2020, but now the "perpetual" version of Office has an official release date -- October 5.

Microsoft will also be launching Windows 11 on that day, and it looks like the next-generation, non-subscription version of Office will debut alongside it. The company didn't go into more detail, so we'll have to wait a few more weeks before we get the full reveal.

Microsoft is also making the Long Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) available today for commercial and government users on both Windows and Mac. This is the other non-subscription version of Office that offers only the essential features present in Microsoft 365 and Office 365, as it's designed for specific, regulated scenarios. In other words, this is a locked-in-time Office suite for devices that aren't connected to the Internet or act as process control devices on the factory floor.

Notable features that will come to both Office LTSC and are likely to end up in Office 2021 include support for Dark Mode, Line Focus for Word documents, dynamic arrays in Excel, and an XLOOKUP function to make it easier to find things when searching through tables.

It's also important to note that both Office 2021 and Office LTSC will come with five years of support. And the good news is that Microsoft confirmed there will be at least one more "perpetual" version of Office in the future. Pricing information is not yet available as of writing this, but the company is also making Project and Visio available.

For people who are interested in the next version of on-premises Exchange Server, Skype for Business Server, Project Server, and SharePoint Server, Microsoft says it will have more to share later this year.

Otherwise, Microsoft still recommends that most people use Office 365 and Microsoft 365, which bring a host of cloud and collaboration features, as well as AI-based automation tools. If you're a small or medium-sized company, you should know that Microsoft will increase prices on these subscriptions starting next year.
(Photo : GettlyImages/ SOPA Images ) Walmart delivery

Walmart has partnered up with Ford to launch a new delivery service available in three major cities in the United States.

The new service, called robo-delivery, will be using autonomous test cars with built-in sensors. The software of the said vehicle is developed and distributed by Argo AI.

Walmart and Ford to Launch Robo-Delivery

Customers who reside in Austin, Texas; Miami, Florida; and Washington, D.C, who orders items from Walmart via its official website and live within a specific area are eligible to have their items delivered by a Ford autonomous vehicle.

The two companies plan to start the integration testing of the vehicles for the delivery service this year. They also plan to expand the geographic areas in the next few years.

Autonomous delivery is now seen as a lucrative market, with online grocery shopping growing over the next ten years and American consumers spending more than $100 billion on delivery services by 2025, according to The Verge.

Also Read: Google, Walmart Team Up To Let Users Buy Groceries With Google Assistant

Ford has been experimenting with robo-delivery for years now. In 2018, the automaker announced that a grocery delivery pilot would be introduced with Postmates and Walmart as partners. Ford also helped Domino's Pizza deliver food using its autonomous vehicles.

The robo-delivery service is not as smooth sailing as the companies expected it to be. There are still a lot of issues that need to be sorted out.

The cars themselves need human monitors, both behind the wheel and from remote command centers. Any potential labor savings would happen years from now, according to Mashable.

Also, customers would have to retrieve their deliveries from the cars, which could cause some issues for differently-abled customers and the elderly and those who live in apartment buildings and are used to delivery workers bringing their orders straight to their doorstep.

Automakers on Delivery Services

Ford is not the only vehicle company that is trying to work through these issues. General Motors also has its own project with Walmart in Arizona.

The retail giant is securing its spot on the market by partnering with several AV operators, including Waymo, Nuro, and Udelv.

In 2018, Walmart expanded its delivery services to 100 cities across the United States.

Delivery is just one part of Ford's plan to commercialize autonomous vehicles. Ford recently announced that it was partnering with Lyft to launch robotaxis in Miami, Austin, and Washington D.C before 2021 ends, according to Bloomberg.

The plan was announced in July, and the car company stated that it would begin with a modest fleet size, with less than 100 taxis on the streets of the three major cities.

However, Ford added that it has plans to deploy more than 1,000 autonomous vehicles across several states over the next five years.

Aside from Miami, Austin, and Washington D.C, Argo AI and Ford have been testing their fourth-generation vehicles in Detroit, Michigan, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Los Angeles, California.

Argo AI is also reportedly preparing to introduce an autonomous micro-transit and delivery service with Volkswagen in Germany, using its fifth-generation autonomous technology.

The project will be launched in 2025. The company is said to be valued at $12.4 billion on the market.

Related Article: Walmart Steps Closer on Delivering Goods From Skies; Amazon Laughs at the Idea

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Written by Sophie Webster

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Anonymous, one of the most popular hacking groups, is active once again. Security experts confirmed that the cybercriminals' latest attack focuses on Epik, an alt-right web host company.



They added that the hackers were able to leak gigabytes of data from the web host's clients. These include 8chan, Parler, Gab, Texas GOP, and more. This is currently a serious matter since Epic provides website hosting and DNS services and domain names for various agencies and organizations.

On the other hand, cybersecurity experts said that the Anonymous hacking party released the stolen database as a torrent file. Involved hackers claimed that the data leaked is more than 180GB in size and contains a decade's worth of data from the giant web hosting company.

"The data set is all that's needed to trace actual ownership and management of the fascist side of the Internet that has eluded researchers, activists, and, well, just about everybody," said the Anonymous hackers.

Anonymous Hackers' Latest Breach's Possible Effects

According to Ars Technica's latest report, the new leaked database could allow anyone to know Epik customers' identities and other personal information. This simply means that the cybercriminal gang could allow researchers, activists, and other individuals.

Also Read: Bangkok Airways Data Breach: 'Partial Credit Card Information' May be Among Data Stolen

Meanwhile, the latest hacking activity of Anonymous started after the Texas Heartbeat Act became law this month of September. This new rule allows private departments to enforce the so-called six-week abortion ban, which would also charge an individual violation of the restriction with more than $10,000 in damages.

For those who don't have any idea what Epik is, it is a web service and domain registrar provider that specifically serves right-wing clients. The company is an important service provider since it helps organizations that mainstream IT providers usually turn down.

Aside from the Anonymous hacking group, other online attackers are breaching various companies. These include the Ragnarok ransomware gang. On the other hand, various hackers are now using verified high-profile Twitter accounts to conduct crypto scam campaigns.

Former US Intelligence Staff are Now Hackers?

BCC reported that three former U.S. intelligence officers admitted that they are now working for the United Arab Emirates as hackers.

Investigators confirmed that they are now breaking the laws of the United States by carrying out hacking operations for UAE. Because of their serious crime, the ex-U.S. intelligence operatives were forced to pay $1.7 million to resolve the charges filed against them.

For more news updates about the Anonymous hacking group and other cyber attackers, always keep your tabs open here at TechTimes.

Related Article: Fortinet VPN Users' Compromised as Hacker Gang Leaks 500,000 Passwords on Dark Web Forum

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Written by: Griffin Davis

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
SpaceX Inspiration4's most-awaited take-off is about to happen. The private and all-civilian space flight would send four crew members outside Earth's atmosphere. These individuals are the following:

Also Read: NASA Awards SpaceX, Blue Origin, Among Other Firms Contract to Design Moon Lander Systems

Jared Isaacman - the founder and CEO of Shift4 Payments, the leader in integrated payment processing solutions. He is also a pilot operating military and commercial flights.

Hayley Arceneaux - a physician assistant from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, the medical organization that saved her from her osteosarcoma bone cancer.

Chris Sembroski - a U.S. Space Camp counselor who conducted simulated space shuttle missions. He is also supporting STEM-based education since it inspires young individuals to explore areas of their passions.

Dr. Sian Proctor - a science communication specialist whose father works for NASA tracking station during the recent Apollo space missions. She also uses her motto "Space2inspire" to encourage various people to continue their passions.

How to Watch the SpaceX Inspiration4 Launch?

According to The Wired's latest report, you can watch the actual live stream via SpaceX's official webcast. The major space launch is expected to take place on Sept. 15 at exactly 8:02 p.m. ET.

On the other hand, SpaceX would conduct its upcoming activity in Complex 39A, located at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. However, some critics said that the most-awaited space launch could be delayed.

If this happens, the next attempt would be on Sept. 16 at 8:05 p.m. EDT. For those interested to watch the complete SpaceX Inspiration4 launch event, you can click this link and scroll down until you reach the "Watch" option. Just click that button so that you can see the latest updates for the upcoming launch.

While SpaceX is still preparing for its upcoming all-civilian spacecraft, NASA Artemis is testing its spacesuit fabrics. On the other hand, Virgin Galactic delays commercial space missions with the Italian Air Force.

SpaceX Inspiration4's Other Details

SpaceX's official website explained the main objectives of the upcoming Inspiration4 launch.

"The Inspiration4 mission is part of Jared's ambitious fundraising goal to give hope to all kids with cancer and other life-threatening diseases," said Elon Musk's space agency.

As of the moment, the giant space company aims to generate more than $200 million in revenue, which would all go to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

For more news updates about SpaceX and its upcoming out-of-this-world missions, always keep your tabs open here at TechTimes.

Related Article: SpaceX Inspiration4 Mission: Where to Watch the All-Civilian Launch Online

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Written by: Griffin Davis

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Google Grace Hopper, a subsea cable that is 3,900-miles long, has now reached the United Kingdom. This massive wire named after the pioneering computer scientist, Grace Hopper, is expected to connect the United States, the United Kingdom, and Spain.

"The cable will improve the resilience of the Google network that underpins our consumer and enterprise products," said that giant search engine company via its official blog post.

On the other hand, the tech giant firm confirmed that its new giant cable would enhance the company's network so that consumers could communicate with their loved ones and friends more efficiently.

Thanks to Google's innovation, many people can now contact other individuals from point A to point B smoother and easier. This would help a lot of users since they are unable to visit their families because of the current COVID-19 restrictions implemented by various governments across the globe.

Google's Grace Hopper Subsea Cable

According to CNET's latest report, Google's latest Grace Hopper cable represents a new generation of trans-Atlantic cable. Jane Stowell, the strategic negotiator of a global infrastructure for Google, explained that the company started to work on this massive wire back in 2003.

Also Read: Google Pixel 6 Pro Leak: 12 GB RAM, Telephoto Camera, and MORE But Active Edge Feature Won't Return Soon

On the other hand, the 3,900-mile cable is also a part of Google's ongoing investment in the U.K., which aims to support users relying on their tools to start their own businesses and other personal agendas.

Besides, the new subsea cable is also designed to enhance the technology sector in the U.K., which has now grown up to 40% for the last two years. This just shows that Google clearly wants to offer better technological advancements.

In other news, Google Assistant Driving Mode was also released to replace the Android Auto. On the other hand, Google Photos printing service has expanded its shipping options and other features.

Other Giant Cables of Google

Aside from the Grace Hopper, Google also has other giant subsea cables that are now operating in various countries. These include the Firmina.

This wire was specifically designed to act as a subsea internet cable, which stretches from the United States East Coast to the eastern seaboard of South America.

On the other hand, the search engine giant also announced its partnership with Sparkle, which led to the creation of the Blue and Ramab subsea cable systems.

For more news updates about the new Grace Hopper and other upcoming Google cables, always keep your tabs open here at TechTimes.

Related Article: Google One Adds New 5TB Monthly Subscription at $24.99/Month | Is It Worth It?

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Written by: Griffin Davis

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Doccla is a health tech startup that focuses on a new patient monitoring system that would promote "Virtual Wards," and it would soon get an upgrade thanks to the new funding worth $3.3 million they received. The focus of this could both be applied to the hospital or home setup, something which can be used during the health crisis today.

Hospitals are having massive problems during this health crisis, where people are either getting rejected because of full capacity or lack of medicine. In several states, particularly in NYC, mobile morgues are being set up to accommodate the capacity of the morgues in the area, all full of victims from this health crisis.

Doccla Receives $3.3 Million in Funding

Tech Crunch reports that the startup company that focused on health tech and patient monitoring systems in the digital world, Doccla, has recently received a massive boost to improve its platform and expand its service. Healthcare is a massive deal in today's era, especially as it is an essential need during this time, as the pandemic has struck the entire world with the coronavirus.

The funding is meant to upgrade the current systems that Doccla has distributed over its partner hospitals and those that have it available on their tech and service. It serves as a way to monitor different vitals and information about a patient, especially now that the health crisis has fully backed up the medical workers and front liners to a heavy load.

Potentially, the company's patient monitoring system would help integrate health care into technology more than it is now. The health crisis has made it hard for a lot of people to cope up, and it includes both medical workers and patients who are all suffering now.

The initiative is to alleviate the need for intensive monitoring in a hospital ward, as nurses are also backed up with overwhelming cases they need to attend to.

Read Also: Artificial Intelligence May Change Racial Inequality in Healthcare by Eliminating Discrimination in Patients

Doccla Virtual Ward

Doccla has regarded themselves as the "virtual ward" company which offers their service mostly into health care and technology. The company aims to be of help to this pandemic, and in the future of healthcare and hospitals to have a better monitoring system that may be of help to both the medical worker and the patient.

How Does This Work?

The startup tech company also offers their services for both the hospital and home setting and can potentially send the medical worker the information which they need for a patient's current status. Moreover, it helps in alerting the medical worker for any emergencies or needs of a patient through the application.

The virtual ward would potentially help in alleviating the load forward routines or checkups for patients, but not necessarily remove it.

Related Article: Bad Bots, Malware Pose Threats to Health Care Websites-CAPTCHA Verification No Longer Enough

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Written by Isaiah Richard

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
TikTok has introduced new features that are aimed towards helping users with mental health issues as well as suicidal thoughts.

These mental health features include a search intervention feature, support for users with eating disorders, and mental wellness guides.

The social media platform encourages its users to consult qualified personnel should they be experiencing mental health concerns and would like to get help.

TikTok's New Mental Health Features

TikTok has a new set of features that aim to help its users with mental health issues. These features focus on mental health concerns such as eating disorders and suicidal thoughts.

"We care deeply about our community, and we always look for new ways in which we can nurture their well-being," a press release posted on the TikTok website reads.

One of the new features is a search intervention feature that features an opt-in viewing screen. When a user searches for terms and distressing content, the results page will be covered by an opt-in viewing screen beginning this month.

The user will have to click "Show results" in order to view such content.

TikTok has rolled out what it refers to as well-being guides that will provide support to users who want to share their mental health struggles on the platform. These guides can be accessed through the Safety Center.

The platform will also be featuring curated content from partner organizations that will help users learn about mental health issues. The in-app programming already started last September 10 and will last until September 16.

Related Article: TikTok to Introduce New Tactics to Educate Users of Negative Effects of Social Media on Mental Health

TikTok Provides Support for Users with Eating Disorders

Eating disorders are a serious mental wellness concern and TikTok is using its platform to address the issue.

According to the company's press release, TikTok has added a new Safety Center guide focusing on eating disorders that has been developed with the help of the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA), National Eating Disorder Information Centre, Butterfly Foundation, and Bodywhys.

The new guide is in addition to features TikTok already rolled out earlier this year in support of the National Eating Disorders Awareness Week.

Other Things You Should Know About the New Features

According to a report by the BBC, the new resources "will be rolled out globally in the coming months."

Users who search for terms and phrases like suicide will also be directed to local support resources such as the Crisis Text Line.

The company says it takes "very seriously our responsibility to keep TikTok a safe space for these important conversations."

TikTok has noted that "the guides and resources shared on our platform are purely for informational purposes and are not intended to be a substitute for professional or medical advice."

The platform still encourages its users to reach out to doctors and other qualified personnel for mental and even physical health concerns.

Also Read: Top 5 TikTok Influencers to Follow for Mental Health Advice, Tips, and Peace of Mind

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Written by Isabella James

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Samsung Display's 90 Hz OLED laptop screen with 14-inch and 16-inch variations begin mass production, the South Korean tech giant announced.

Is it for the upcoming 2022 MacBook Pro?

The South Korea-based company has only confirmed that it has lived up to its promise to ramp up the production of its OLED tech, as per The Verge.

Samsung's department that produces screens for various giant phone makers, such as Apple and OnePlus, is now manufacturing 90 Hz OLED panels for laptops on a much larger scale.

It is worth noting that Samsung Display also disclosed that the company is working with numerous global manufacturers of laptops for its OLED panels, namely Lenovo, HP, Samsung Electronics, Asus, and Dell.

Samsung 90 Hz OLED Laptop Screen Mass Production

Samsung Display said in a statement that "the 90Hz OLED panel offers more options for consumers who are looking to enjoy high-performance content on their laptops."

The display division of the South Korean phone maker further touted that their pioneering 90 Hz OLED tech for laptops will offer the best image quality for their users.

Samsung's 90 Hz OLED Display and Asus Laptops

The Verge further noted in the same news report that the 14-inch variant of the 90 Hz screens will be seen on the upcoming Asus laptops.

The Vice General Manager of Asus, Y.C. Chen, said in a statement that "the demand for laptops is increasing steadily as working from home and remote learning become the new norm."

The Asus exec went on to claim that the OLED laptop screen could help meet the demands of the consumer's new normal lifestyle, whether it involves video streaming, gaming, online schooling, and even work from home video meetings--to name a few.

Samsung further revealed that a 14-inch Zenbook and 14-inch Vivobook Pro will be using the 90 Hz OLED displays.

Read Also: Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3, Z Fold 3, More: How Expensive are Foldable Devices' Screen Repair

Samsung 90 Hz Display: For MacBook Pro 2022?

The new Samsung Display OLED panels will allow laptops to showcase smoother content, thanks to its 90 Hz refresh rate support, according to Mac Rumors.

The outlet further noted that the current models of MacBook Pro still settle for an LCD with a 60Hz refresh rate. That said, if ever Apple decided to include the 90 Hz display on its upcoming machine, there would be a significant improvement for it.

It is important to note that OLED tech has been the preferred choice for the latest tech devices as it flaunts deeper blacks, brighter, and more contrast display.

On the other hand, the 90Hz refresh rate provides a more seamless experience when scrolling, streaming videos, and most especially gaming.

Although Samsung Display did not mention providing its latest laptop OLEDs to Apple, there are rumors predicting that the next-gen MacBook Pros will be available in two sizes--a 14-inch and 16-inch, while flaunting the OLED tech.

Related Article: Apple Lawsuit: M1 MacBook Pro and Air Have Display Hardware Defects, Causes Screens to Crack

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 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
(Photo : Image from Commons.Wikipedia.com) Health Worker Becomes First Person with Prosthetics to Board First SpaceX Private Flight

A health worker by the name of Hayley Arceneaux becomes the first person with prosthetics to board the first SpaceX private flight.

The four people that are to board SpaceX's first private flight include Jared Isaacman (sponsor), Chris Sembroski (raffle winner), Sian Proctor (business winner), and Hayley Arceneaux (St. Jude representative).

SpaceX Inspiration4 First Private Flight

According to the story by Physics.org, they will reportedly be circling Earth for three days at what was noted as "unusually high altitude."

They will reportedly do so on their own without a professional escort helping them.

This is also before they are expected to splash down off the Florida coast.

Hayley Arceneaux is a physician assistant at St. Jude and the representative of the institution, which will be the beneficiary of the charity event that will happen once the Inspiration4 crew comes back to surface.

Arcenaux was reportedly a bone cancer patient at the age of 10 at Memphis Tennessee. In order to save her leg, St. Jude actually replaced her knee along with a part of her thigh bone by implanting a titanium rod.

St. Jude Representative Aboard SpaceX First Private Flight

She will reportedly be the first person ever with a prosthesis to go into space at the age of 29, which also makes her the youngest American to do so.

She was reportedly St. Jude's very own runaway choice in January as the hospital's sole representative in space.

For those that want to see the SpaceX Inspiration4 flight live through stream, click here to learn more.

Arceneaux reportedly kept up with her fellow passengers in training, and this was even while trudging up Washington's Mount Rainier in the snow.

The only compromise she has is that SpaceX adjusted her capsule seat in order to relieve knee pain.

Hayley's Mission

Hayley noted that she was so excited when it came to opening space travel up to a lot of people, including those that aren't actually that physically fit.

Learn more about the upcoming SpaceX Inspiration4 mission objectives, and what the trip is expected to accomplish.

She will reportedly chat with St. Jude patients from orbit itself while reminding them that their dreams can also come true.

She has reportedly taken along her late father's St. Jude tie, which is considered her prized possession.

Read Also: SpaceX Reusable Rockets: Falcon, Other Spacecraft Essential to 'Back Up Biosphere' Says Elon Musk

Hayley Arceneaux Shares Her Journey

She noted that she is so thankful for her journey with cancer due to it giving her a love for life.

This also includes a zest for life as well as the confidence to be able to say yes to certain opportunities. Hayley noted that this is the biggest honor in her life.

According to the article by Space.com, Arceneaux reportedly works for St. Jude as a physician assistant but has also actually been involved with the research hospital.

The research hospital treats and researches certain pediatric cancers as well as other diseases. She was reportedly involved ever since she was just a kid.

Hayley Arceneaux is expected to be one of the first to join SpaceX's first private flight.

Related Article: NASA Artemis Tests Space Suit Fabrics by Firing Ballistic Air Guns, Rocks, and Mock Meteorites to Test its Safety

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 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
(Photo : Image from Apple Website) Apple Discontinues iPhone SE 256GB Smartphone After 'California Streaming' Event

Apple has just discontinued the iPhone SE 256GB smartphone after its recent "California Streaming" event.

Following the recent updates for the upcoming Apple lineup, Apple has quietly just discontinued the 256GB capacity option for the Apple iPhone SE.

iPhone SE 256GB Discontinued

According to the story by MacRumors, prior to the event, the popular iPhone SE was still available in 64GB, 128GB, as well as the 256GB configurations.

Ever since the recent "California Streaming" event, as well as the subsequent product lineup rejic, however, only the first as well as the second of those particular capacities are listed on the official Apple online store.

For those still interested to buy the iPhone SE 64GB and 128GB models, the price for these two options remain the same.

According to Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple analyst, the company is still planning an upcoming upgrade to the iPhone SE model expected to come out in the first half of 2022.

The new iPad mini is also expected to drop its headphones jack as Apple pushes towards wireless listening.

Apple iPhone 13 Variants

It was noted that the current model was actually launched back in April 2020, so this means that the removal of the 256GB variant could be a sign that the company is starting to ramp down on its production of that particular model.

During the event, Apple announced both the iPhone 13 as well as the iPhone 13 mini models, which are expected to start with 128GB of storage.

This would mean that the iPhone 13 starting models will have twice the memory of the starting models of the iPhone 12 as well as iPhone 12 mini beginning at a 64GB offering.

The storage capacities for the upcoming iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 mini are expected to include 128GB, 256GB, as well as a 512GB offering.

The iPhone 13 Pro and the iPhone 13 Pro Max, on the other hand, are expected to come with a new 1TB storage option as well. The pricing has also been revealed for the iPhone 13, the iPhone 13 mini, the iPhone 13 Pro, as well as the iPhone 13 Pro Max.

Prices for the iPhone 13 Lineup

The Apple iPhone 13 mini will sell at $699

The Apple iPhone 13 will sell at $799

The Apple iPhone 13 Pro will sell at $999

The Apple iPhone 13 Pro Max will sell at $1,099

Read Also: Xiaomi 11 T and 11 T Pro Focuses on Cinemagic with Display of Over 1 Billion Colors, Recording Movie Effects, and More

The article by MacRumors noted that the preorders for the new upcoming iPhone 13 models will start on Sept. 17, 2021.

For those that might want to order the iPhone 13 models ahead of launch, there isn't much of a wait until orders can be placed.

Sadly, for those that do not live in the United States, Apple's mmWave 5G connectivity will not be available. Apple has limited its 5G connectivity to models that are available only in the United States and not in other countries.

Related Article: Xiaomi Live Event Compares 'Xiaomi 11 T Pro' Charging Capabilities to Apple and Samsung Introducing the 120W HyperCharge

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Written by Urian B.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Mozilla continues to bring improvements to its private browsing for users. However, the latest news about the company pointed out its most recent Mozilla VPN.

The Virtual Private Network (VPN) of Mozillas has been released on Wednesday, Sept.15, along with its new set of features for privacy.

This covers both the Multi-hop and Custom DNS server features.

Mozilla VPN Introduces Custom DNS Server

According to the recent blog by Mozilla, the newly-launched VPN version features a custom DNS server. For someone skeptical about the sites that he/she will visit, this addition will boost your privacy.

Apart from that, Mozilla VPN is also focused on protecting user's activity online from the Internet Service Provider or ISP DNS servers.

The add-on capabilities, such as ad-blocking, tracker blocking, and more, will help the users to secure their data.

This Mozilla VPN is also smooth to use.

With the custom DNS server, you can create your own DNS server based on your preference or liking. To begin with, head to the Network Settings right below the Advanced DNS. After searching this location, you can select the DNS servers that are suggested in your area.

How Multi-hop Feature Works in Mozilla VPN

Besides the fully customizable DNS server for Mozilla VPN, the team behind its development also unveiled another feature on the lookout: the Multi-hop.

If before you could only rely on one VPN server, this feature can now allow you to utilize two of them.

To know how this feature works, start by tapping the Multi-hop feature. Upon choosing it, there will be an exit server that you can use which is the miscellaneous VPN server.

Mozilla has been focused on improving the privacy set-up of the users through Multi-hop. This could be used by the people who frequently engage in online discussions, such as journalists and activists.

Those who have public wifi can also access the feature. It will guarantee that you will no longer worry about your privacy on the open web.

In another report by Fast Company, Mozilla has delivered a new feature to Firefox dubbed as "Suggest."

If you are a regular browser user, you can now add new search options to a particular section. The smart suggestions will be a good guide for those who want to find the best answers on the web.

Read Also: GNOME 41 Beta is Now Available For Linux--Here Are the Updated Packages

Mozilla Can Now Surpass Microsoft Windows 11's Browser Policy

On Tuesday, Sept.14, we reported that Mozilla Firefox has now the answer to the confusing default browser prompt of Windows 11.

Through the new notification, Mozilla will ask the user about their desired default browser.

In an old article back in March, the company proved that it is one of the leading companies when it comes to privacy and security. Back then, Mozilla Firefox announced its smart block feature that would protect the users when browsing privately.

Related Article: Mozilla Firefox 89 Arrives with New Total Cookie Protection for Cross-Site Tracking; Updated Design Comes with Bigger Tabs

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Written by Joseph Henry

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang just earned a top honor recently; one that he shares with only two other Big Tech executives.

Huang has been included in TIME Magazine's 100 Most Influential People list for 2021, reports GameSpot.

In the list, he joins the likes of A-List celebrities such as Billie Eilish and Kate Winslet, as well as Olympic multi-gold medalist gymnast Simone Biles. The other two Big Tech leaders are Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, and Apple CEO Tim Cook.

You can take a look at the official list on the TIME magazine website to see who else made the cut.

But aside from the TIME Magazine list spot, the NVIDIA CEO will also receive the semiconductor industry's highest honor on November 18: the Robert N. Noyce Award, reports VentureBeat.

NVIDIA has been quite the juggernaut in the tech space this year, especially under Huang's leadership. It was during his tenure when the company first introduced real-time ray tracing technology to the masses, which helped bring visual fidelity in video games to the next level.

Aside from that, Team Green has also been at the forefront of implementing new supersampling technologies (DLSS, or Deep Learning Supersampling), which enabled games to run at higher resolutions without sacrificing performance.

These features were brought to the mainstream market with the introduction of the first-generation RTX 20 series of graphics cards, and was further improved on by the RTX 30 series.

Read also: AI and Its Takeover of Video Game Graphics: A Closer Look

Why Was NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang Included, Though?

Contrary to what you might think, Huang didn't make the Time Magazine list because of his company's efforts in improving graphics card tech for gaming. Rather, it's NVIDIA's industry-leading work in enabling AI via neural networks.

According to Huang's official TIME profile, NVIDIA's advancements in developing AI has helped transform the world into one where phones can "answer" questions out loud, farms can "choose" to spray weed but not the crops, and doctors can predict how new drugs will work with unprecedented speed and accuracy.

NVIDIA has also been at the forefront of using neural networks and artificial intelligence to help the world's largely at-home workforce.

Back in June, the company introduced a program called Vid2Vid cameo, which uses AI to take a 2D image of a person and convert it into a full "talking head" video.

This tech could be a lifesaver for those who have been struggling with punctuality in Zoom meetings. It can allow even the most potent of latecomers to come to their meetings on time, even if they haven't even showered or fixed up their hair straight from bed.

What's Next for Team Green?

TIME considers the NVIDIA CEO as one of the most tech-savvy chief executives in the semiconductor industry. As such, people can likely expect more amazing things from Team Green moving forward.

Their next-gen RTX 4000 GPUs, for instance, are coming soon and are sure to bring more exciting features with them.

Related: NVIDIA Graphics Card Prices in China Go Up 18% Following Latest Ethereum Price Increase

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Written by RJ Pierce

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Notable chipmakers around the world, such as NVIDIA and Intel, have high standards when it comes to their graphics cards. On the other hand, China-based manufacturers tend to lag behind their western counterparts.

For many years, China has been finding ways to at least launch a quality GPU that could match other known and trusted brands.

Now, it seems that it is gradually happening with Jingjia Micro's upcoming GPUs that appear to be market-ready soon. One of its soon-to-launch cards is reportedly close to NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 1080 when it comes to performance.

Is Jingjia Micro Now Ready to Release its Two New GPUs?

Chinese processor manufacturer, Jingjiawei or better known as Jingjia Micro was not really a semiconductor manufacturing company. The truth is it began as a firm that develops military-grade electronics.

The venture of Jingjia Micro did not finish there and it continued to explore mode developments.

Over the past years, Jingjia Micro has been waiting for an opportunity to release a marketable GPU across the country. It happened previously when the company managed to drop its first domestically-produced GPU.

This year, Jingjiawei appears to be preparing two upcoming GPUs in the lineup, MyDrivers spotted.

The discovery got more interesting when the company said that the JM9271 GPU could match AMD's RX Vega 64 or GeForce GTX 1080.

There is also an entry-level graphics card included in the line-up. The second and last model dubbed as JM9231 is reportedly close to the Radeon RX 560 or GeForce GTX 1080's performance.

What to Look For Jingjia Micro's JM9231 and JM9271?

According to Techspot's report on Thursday, Sept.16, Jingjia Micros's JM9231 will feature two teraflops FP32 along with 150-watt TDP. It will also boast 8GB GDDR5 memory.

Meanwhile, a more powerful JM9271 is coming with 16 GB HBM memory. It will also bring 8 teraflops at a 200-watt TDP.

At the time of writing, Jingjia Micro said that it is still working with the two GPUs. The graphics cards will undergo a series of tests before being official to the public.

So far, Jingjiawei hopes that its upcoming GPUs could be usable at par with the most popular cards. For gaming fans, the company has not yet mentioned if JM9271 and JM9231 can smoothly run games.

All over China, many companies are doing their best to match the western quality when it comes to chipmaking. Even though it's still far from happening, we could see that it is quite possible through its slow progress.

Read Also: NVIDIA Launches GeForce Game Ready 471.96 WHQL Driver; Now Supports 6 New G-SYNC Compatible Displays

NVIDIA GPUs in China Hit By Price Increase

Earlier this month, the price trend of the NVIDIA graphics cards in China was seen to be continuously increasing after the Ethereum price accelerated.

An increase of 18% could mean that many buyers will avoid buying the said chips. However, for ETH miners, this opportunity could give them more gains through crypto mining.

Related Article: Intel Arc 'Alchemist' GPUs To Go Up Against RX 6700 XT, RTX 3070; Preliminary Pricing Revealed

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Written by Joseph Henry

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
An ExpressVPN executive is facing a $1.6 million fine for cybercrime charges filed against him and two other people.

Daniel Gericke, who serves as the chief information officer of ExpressVPN, is a former US intelligence officer and military manwho has been charged for his purported involvement in Project Raven, which is a top-secret spy operation allegedly operated by the United Arab Emirates, reports Tech Radar.

The US Department of Justice handed down the fine, which Gericke and his two accomplices, Marc Baier and Ryan Adams, all agreed to pay to resolve the criminal charges against them.

According to the case, the three men basically worked as mercenary hackers for the UAE during their time with Project Raven.

Despite this debacle, however, ExpressVPN expressed their support for their company executive, reports CNET.

Either way, the $1.6 million fine that the three defendants have to settle is part of their agreement to cooperate with US authorities, in exchange for "deferred prosecution."

Aside from this, the defendants also agreed to forfeit US and foreign security clearances, as well as employment restrictions in the future.

All in all, it looks like ExpressVPN has had its share of bad luck lately. Early this month, the company was tagged in a lawsuit which aims to make them, alongside other VPN providers, liable for their customers pirating online content.

ExpressVPN was sent numerous copyright infringement notices, with the three other VPN providers being VPN Unlimited, Zenmate, and Unlimited SurfShark.

Read also: Russia Has Blocked ExpressVPN, NordVPN, Four Other VPN Services

ExpressVPN Executive Scandal: What in The World is 'Project Raven?'

Governments can say whatever they want about the apparent "non-existence" of their top-secret spying programs, but espionage is still a key part of running a nation. And Project Raven is a perfect example of that.

The ExpressVPN CIO and two others formed part of a so-called "secret hacking team" of American mercenaries that spied on rival leaders, political dissidents, and rival leaders of the nation's monarchy.

According to a report by Reuters, a lot of the operatives on Project Raven weren't even Emirati citizens, but mostly foreigners.

These former US government hackers employed their state-of-the-art tech, as well as their wealth of experience and knowledge to achieve the spy program's goals.

One member of the team, a woman named Lori Stroud, eventually lost interest in the mission after learning that Project Raven also spied on Americans.

Unlike the ExpressVPN executive, however, Stroud is not as high profile and lives under-the-radar in an undisclosed location in the US.

ExpressVPN's Recent Troubles

This issue with one of their top executives is not even the only thing that has plagued ExpressVPN recently.

For instance, the company's services are now blocked in Russia, alongside five others. This decision was made ahead of the country's parliamentary elections.

But does this mean that you can't trust a VPN provider anymore?

Not really. VPNs are still very useful, because they allow you to do things on the internet that you normally won't be doing without it.

Just be wary about who you're giving your hard-earned money to.

Related: Difference Between Tor and VPN and Which one is Better

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Written by RJ Pierce

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
NASA James Webb Space Telescope is considered the largest and most powerful of its kind. Thanks to its advanced features and other components, this new technology could offer better images compared to Hubble, Spitzer, and other space telescopes.

One of the astrophysicists of the giant space agency, Jane Rigby, said that the innovation could offer more HD photos of various space objects. The space expert added that these captured images would amaze many people while providing essential scientific information to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

As of the moment, the giant telescope is scheduled for launch this coming Dec. 18. However, you need to remember that this date could still change depending on the operation efficiency of NASA, as well as the weather's condition on that day.

But, space enthusiasts and other Earth-based experts would definitely wait for its upcoming arrival outside the planet since it would be quite different from other telescopes of various space agencies.

NASA James Webb To Use Near, Mid Infrared Light Feature

According to NPR's latest report, NASA's innovation can capture light rays, especially those traveling more than the universe's entire history. This simply means that it could take photos of the oldest known space objects.

Also Read: Health Worker Becomes First Person with Prosthetics to Board First SpaceX Private Flight

However, the giant space agency hasn't confirmed if it can take HD images of Quasars and other bright heavenly bodies.

"Webb will be able to see galaxies as they looked a couple hundred million years after the Big Bang," explained Rigby.

NASA James Webb Space Telescope could achieve this, thanks to its mid-infrared and near-infrared light features, making it better than Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes.

Aside from its advanced infrared capability, it would also use a very large mirror to reflect a massive amount of light, leading to artistic but more reliable photos, as reported by TNW.

In other news, NASA Hubble Space Telescope was able to capture irregular galaxies' footage. On the other hand, ISS released a new viral Aurora lights timelapse video.

What Makes James Webb Space Telescope Different?

The new NASA technology is quite different from Hubble since it can see through dust and other space telescopes, preventing other models from capturing stars and other heavenly bodies' photos.

On the other hand, it is also more powerful compared to Spitzer, another advanced space telescope that produced stunning images before it was permanently taken down back in 2020. People would know more about how the giant James Webb Space Telescope operates once it reaches outer space.

For more news updates about NASA James Webb and other similar innovations, always keep your tabs open here at TechTimes.

Related Article: [LOOK] Amateur Astronomer Captures Rare Moments With Jupiter Using Newtonian Telescope: Why is it Glowing?

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Written by: Griffin Davis

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
ATMO decided to relaunch its popular Atmocube, which was first unveiled back in 2015. This gadget's recent version was a small, portable air quality monitor that can check the air ventilation quality in various offices.

Because of its reliable database, the tech developer was able to receive a number of awards. Atmocube is currently essential since COVID-19 is still ravaging many countries across the globe.

Most companies and businesses are forced to allow their employees to work remotely just to avoid getting infected, especially since the daily cases in the United States and other parts of the world are continuously increasing because of new variants, such as Lambda and Delta.

However, there are some firms that are now deciding to bring back their employees to officed-based scenarios. This is one it is important to ensure that the building you are working on has great ventilation quality. The new ATMO Atmocube version would allow companies to do just that.

ATMO's New Atmocube Model

According to TechCrunch's latest report, the new Atmocube is quite different from its early model. The latest version is more prominent and visible to allow employees to feel safer when they are working in their offices.

Also Read: Ministry of Health Promises to be Careful After Auditors Found $5.39 Million Wasted on Unused Fitness Trackers

On the other hand, it also relies on up to 14 sensors to measure the environmental parameters. Meanwhile, ATMO claims that its new Atmocube could identify the transmission risk of COVID-19 in a closed area. Users can see the virus transfer risk by checking the so-called "score" on Atmocube's screen.

"As businesses return to the office, they need a tool to make information about indoor air quality transparent and accessible to their employees," said Vera Kozyr, ATMO's co-founder.

Aside from the new Atmocube, various tech developers are also making their own efforts to enhance their consumers' wellness. These include Fitbit, which received a new feature that could detect your snoring's strength. On the other hand, various AI startups are now focusing on mental health.

Atmocube's Other Capabilities

ATMO's official website confirmed that the new Atmocube offers real-time environmental measurements. This means that if the air quality of a closed space suddenly changes, consumers will be informed about it as soon as possible.

Here are other features it offers:

Can measure 14 indoor environmental parameters

Offers RF scanning

Can detect the room's environmental comfort quality

For more news updates about Atmocube and other similar technologies, always keep your tabs open here at TechTimes.

Related Article: Elvie Slide, a Smart Breast Pump for Moms Covered by Insurance, Launches in the US

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Written by: Griffin Davis

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Samsung Together 2021 event already took place on Sept. 16, at exactly 2:00 p.m. (EST). The short virtual conference, which lasted for more than 48 minutes, provided all the important details that consumers should expect from the new Galaxy Book series.

"Samsung Together: The New Way To PC" virtual event provided how the new Galaxy laptops would change employees' experiences in various businesses and companies.

"In this event, we explore new ways to work with the latest lineup of Galaxy Book Series," said Samsung via its official webcast page.

The giant Apple competitor claimed that the new Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 360, Galaxy Book Pro, and other models were specifically designed to allow professionals, including architects, fintech experts, and other employees, to have better and seamless connectivity and more productivity and power.

Samsung Together 2021 Confirms Galaxy Book Series' Major Features

The latest Samsung Together event has featured big names, including the company's Vice President and Global Mobile B2B Samsung Electronics Head KC Choi, SEA Mobile B2B Specialist Jeff Gustafson, Microsoft Corporation's Worldwide Sales Leader Greg Taylor, and more.

Also Read: Samsung TV Plus Now Available on Mobile | Features, Compatible Devices, Channels, and More!

One of the first features confirmed by Choi is the latest magnesium-aluminum housing, which allows the new Samsung Galaxy Book series lineup to have better protection and lighter weight. On this feature, it is already noticeable that the tech firm wants employees to have an easier time carrying the new laptops.

Aside from this, the speakers also confirmed the following features:

5G or LTE connectivity (Allows users to connect with other people and devices easily)

Dual Array Mic (Offers better and clearer audio quality)

Studio Mode

65W fast charging feature

Long-lasting 20-hour battery life

Samsung Galaxy Tab compatibility (Enables users to have a second screen in a short period of time, wirelessly)

Great compatibility with other PC brands

Smart Switch App (Allows consumers to easily transfer their documents and other files to another laptop or PC)

Enhanced Security System (Prevents unwanted access of cameras and mics)

Samsung Partners With Giant Tech Firms

To achieve the major enhancements for the new Galaxy Book series, Samsung announced that it has partnered with various tech firms. These include Microsoft Corporation, which would soon release its Windows 11 to the new laptop models.

On the other hand, the giant tech developer also collaborated with Targus, a multinational mobile computing accessories company. Thanks to their latest partnership, consumers can enjoy the accessories offered by Targus once they purchase one of the new Samsung Galaxy Book models.

Samsung also partnered with Intel to use the chipmaker's 11th-gen SoC for its Galaxy Book Pro version, allowing the new device to last longer than expected.

Aside from these, interested consumers could also take advantage of the company's Samsung Care Plus for Business service, which offers the following services:

Has App locker feature (Compatible with Windows Installers, Scripts, DLLs, and more)

Allows consumers to have a 3-year option warranty

Offers Samsung Knox Management Offers cross-platform feature (reduces the cost of using UEM)

Offers pickup, delivery, and onsite repair services

Protection against damages

Uses genuine Samsung components for faulty Galaxy Book units

Free repair services and accommodates replacement concerns

For more news updates about the new Samsung Galaxy Book series and other upcoming laptops or computers, always keep your tabs open here at TechTimes.

Related Article: Samsung Announces New Sizes for Neo QLED QN90A 4K, The Frame TVs

This article is owned by TechTimes

Written by: Griffin Davis

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
James Finn writes for The Advocate as a Report For America corps member. Email him at JFinn@theadvocate.com or follow him on Twitter @RJamesFinn.

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Zachary City Councilman Hunter Landry plans to resign by the end of this year and his fellow council members will soon have to appoint a temporary replacement to serve out the remainder of his term.

Landry, who was elected to the District 4 council seat in 2018, said his family is moving to Pass Christian, Mississippi, where his wife recently accepted a job.

Landry hasnt tendered his resignation yet, but plans to do so in late November or early December. He expects to resign about a year before the next regularly scheduled election scheduled in November 2022.

If I stay on until were within one year of that election, then whoever the council appoints to fill in will just stay on until the election, he said. Otherwise, we would have to hold a special election, and having a special election would cost the taxpayers $30,000 or $40,000. In order to save that money, I agreed to stay on for a few months.

A former teacher at Zachary High School and past member of the Zachary Planning and Zoning Commission, Landry was widely expected to run for mayor in 2022.

+3 Zachary council seeks answers after complaints of people living in cars along main drag Seeking more information on reports that people are living in shabby vehicles parked on a used car lot along a main thoroughfare, the Zachary 

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I had every intention of launching a mayoral campaign shortly, he said, adding that he feels a bit disappointed that that wont happen. But I had to do what was best for my family over my personal ambitions.

Once Landrys resignation is official, the council will vote on a replacement. Depending on when it appears on the agenda, Landry said, he may still be on the council and able to vote on the matter.

Anyone can make suggestions to the council about who should be placed in the interim job. Landry said he has already turned in his recommendation.

He said he is proud of his accomplishments as a council member, which include promoting downtown revitalization efforts and pushing for public meetings to be livestreamed online.

I think Im leaving Zachary in good hands with the remaining council members and the current administration, he said.
Carnarvon from the ASX-listed Province Resources Limited, backed by French renewable energy giant Total Eren, which is trying to start a green hydrogen project taking advantage of solar and wind resources to create an eight-gigawatt power facility. The Kimberley tenements start inland from Eighty Mile Beach near the proposed $US36 billion Asian Renewable Energy Hub project, a 26-gigawatt solar and wind proposal which covers a 6700 square kilometre area, previously rejected for a federal environmental approval. Plenty of WAs north is sunny and prime for solar projects but only the coast gets high enough wind speeds to warrant turbines. Alinta asset strategy general manager Gary Bryant spoke in June about the difficulty in finding locations for potential wind farms in WA, with the need for a good wind resource in a place which was not near Aboriginal heritage areas and would not be mined or blasted by cyclones. Fortescues Gascoyne tenements stretch hundreds of kilometres, from south of Carnarvon and up to Onslow and join up with miscellaneous mining licence applications on Uaroo Station, owned by the Forrest family, where the mining company flagged in December it could build a wind and solar hub.

The iron miners Uaroo tenements are connected to two long corridors of miscellaneous applications which link the cattle station to Fortescues closest iron ore operation in the Pilbara, Eliwana, as potential electricity transmission lines. Dr Forrest outlined in his Boyer Lecture at the start of the year how he believed green hydrogen, which requires wind and solar energy, could be a $US12 trillion industry and the potential for projects in the Pilbara. We aim to start building Australias first green steel pilot plant this year, with a commercial plant in the Pilbara, powered entirely by wind and solar, in the next few years, he said. Fortescue flagged in December the potential for building a wind or solar farm west of Eliwana. Credit:Fortescue In the Pilbara, Fortescue is designing vast wind and solar farms that can generate over 40 gigawatts of power  more than half of what Australia can make now.

Fortescue is so far falling well short of its 40-gigawatt Pilbara target with publicly announced solar projects adding up to 0.21 gigawatts. The company has said it had no timeframe for exploration on its Gascoyne licences but would be entitled to explore for minerals. Fortescue chief executive Elizabeth Gaines said WA was well-positioned to be at the forefront of the global renewable hydrogen industry. At Fortescue Future Industries we are advancing projects in Western Australia to build large-scale renewable energy and green hydrogen production capacity, she said. Fortescue was contacted for comment about its intentions behind the pending Kimberley tenements.

Mining licence applications are being made in an environment where there is no freehold land to snap up for projects as WAs Labor government, which controls both houses of Parliament, explores tenure options and potential legislative changes to enable large-scale renewable infrastructure. Hydrogen Industry Minister Alannah MacTiernan said many hydrogen projects would require significant amounts of land but pastoral leases, which cover Crown land, occupied most suitable sites. She said the pathway proponents currently took to progress projects was to access a Section 91 licence under the states Land Administration Act, allowing industry to undertake solar and wind studies which could underpin investment decisions. If Native Title is determined over the site, we expect the application for a license to be supported by a letter of consent from the Native Title holders and support from other interest holders, including pastoralists, Ms MacTiernan said. From a Section 91 licence a project could move to a Section 79 exclusive lease if it had proof of viability together with an Indigenous Land User Agreement.

The Asian Renewable Energy Hub has exclusive lease rights for its project while Province recently received a Section 91 licence for a 100 square kilometre area north of Carnarvon. Province Resources HyEnergy Project near Carnarvon. Credit:Province Resources Province chief executive David Frances said the absence of certainty for green hydrogen land tenure and no comprehensive legislative regime to govern the industry were risks for the sector. Part of Provinces footprint is over another Forrest family-owned station, Brickhouse, where its exploration licence applications have been objected to in the WA Wardens Court. A spokesman for Harvest Road, the Forrest food production arm, said it would continue to exercise its legal rights to object to any exploration lease application it believed may produce adverse impacts to its pastoral operations.
The Australian sharemarket was buoyant on Thursday as some of Australias best known businesses unveiled strategies for a post-COVID future.

The S&P/ASX200 edged higher throughout the day to end at 7,460.2, a gain of 0.58 per cent.

Energy and banking stocks took the lead early in the session, with BHP gaining close to 1 per cent to finish at $40.65, while South32 was up 4.1 per cent to $4.15, with the overall energy sector higher after Wednesdays jump in oil price. Market heavyweights like the Commonwealth Bank and CSL also maintained strong momentum throughout the session.

Energy stocks led a broad based rally. Credit:Louie Douvis

There was a broad range of economic and corporate news to digest throughout the day, including modest easing of coronavirus restrictions in Victoria and jobs figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

The nations jobless rate fell to its lowest level since before the global financial crisis, hitting 4.5 per cent in August, but this was due to a fall in the overall number of Australians looking for work due to COVID-19 lockdowns.

The total number of hours worked in New South Wales dropped by 6.5 per cent for the month, while Victoria was down 3.5 per cent.

Consistent with the decline in hours worked, the underemployment rate rose by almost a percentage point in both States and gives a truer picture of labour market slack, RBC Capital Markets managing director Su-Lin Ong said.

Telstra used its investor day to unveil its T25 strategy, including $500 million in fixed-cost reductions planned over the next three years. The telco said its 5G mobile network would be extended to 95 per of the population under the plan. Telstra shares finished the day 0.5 per cent higher to $3.95.

Shares in department store Myer jumped 16.7 per cent to 59.5 cents after its full year financial results, which kept dividends on hold but showed a return to profit. Meanwhile, retail giant Wesfarmers upped its bid for pharmaceuticals wholesaler API to $1.55 per share and was granted access to its books. API, which operates Priceline and Priceline pharmacy stores, jumped 16.1 per cent on the news to $1.47.

Victorian premier Daniel Andrews confirmed modest easing of coronavirus restrictions for the state from this weekend. The consumer discretionary sector barely reacted to the idea of a path out of lockdown, though shares in Corporate Travel Management edged up 2 per cent to $21.42.
When it comes to reality television role models, Australian designer Joshua Scacheri is following in the tottering heels of Jessica Mauboy rather than Guy Sebastians swagger-fuelled steps. Like Australian Idol runner-up Mauboy, Scacheri  who appeared on the latest season of the Heidi Klum Project Runway update, Making The Cut  is hoping to overcome a swing and miss for the top prize.

With the debut runway appearance of his new brand Love Hero at London Fashion Week on Saturday, the designer, who first gained sartorial recognition in Brisbane, will promote his latest incarnation as a champion of sustainability, prints with a punch and suiting so relaxed that it could easily be dozing.

The new Love Hero collection making its debut at London Fashion Week by Australian designer Joshua Scacheri.

When I was knocked out, I was the frontrunner, said Scacheri, who left in episode 5 of Making The Cut, screening in Australia on Amazon Prime, while Chicago dress designer Andrea Pitter went on to be awarded the $US1 million ($1,366,643) cash prize. The internet went crazy.

On the series, Scacheri managed to snatch airtime from the judges, Moschino designer Jeremy Scott and model Winnie Harlow, to extrapolate on the principles of his new brand Love Hero, even though it was still an idea germinating off camera.
They travelled the world in luxury and lived a life of opulence with fast cars, property and jewellery.

But having fled Sydney as long ago as 2015, Sydney men Benjamin Neil Pitt, 38, and Matthew John Battah, 36, arrived on home soil in handcuffs and in the company of Australian Federal Police officers on Wednesday night after being extradited from Dubai.

One of the two men, aged 36 and 38, charged over their alleged involvement in importing 2.8 tonnes of ice. Credit:NSW Police

The men, who police allege sit at the top of a drug syndicates food chain, were charged over their alleged involvement in importing 2.8 tonnes of ice, with an estimated street value of $150 million, brought in on multiple shipments between 2013 and 2014.

Now the Herald can reveal that authorities have moved to seize assets valued at up to $15 million linked to the pair.
The Australian Turf Club wants as many as 15,000 fully vaccinated people at The Everest horse race next month, with a proposal for an exemption to the COVID-19 rules presented to the NSW crisis cabinet.

The Everest, which is Australias richest horse race, is locked in for October 16 as part of the Spring Racing Carnival, with organisers lodging an exemption for crowd sizes at the event, which could fall either side of the state meeting its 70 per cent vaccine target.

The NSW government is considering a proposal for a crowd of up to 15,000 at this years Everest. Credit:Getty

NSW Jobs and Tourism Minister Stuart Ayres presented the plan to crisis cabinet, which includes temperature checks upon entry and mandatory face masks.

The 15,000 crowd proposal would be three times larger than the planned cap for outdoor sporting events post lockdown under the NSW COVID-19 road map.
Hundreds of tenants across three neighbouring social housing towers at Redfern are being tested for COVID-19 after health authorities detected a dozen cases of the virus among residents.

NSW Health confirmed the emerging outbreak at one of the Morehead Street unit blocks, which are together home to more than 630 people, amid growing fears the virus is spreading among the inner citys most vulnerable.

Health authorities set up a COVID-19 testing clinic outside the Redfern towers. Credit:Nick Moir

The outbreak at 57 Morehead Street, known as the Lawson tower, intensified concern among people who live at the nearby Waterloo public housing estate, where some cases have been detected among its 2500 residents.

Theyre scared as hell, Waterloo Public Housing Action Group chairman Richard Weeks said. All of a sudden, it just hit us.
Police have found two boys, aged 10 and 6, after an amber alert was triggered when a woman abducted them on the Gold Coast.

The abduction occurred about 11am on Lindfield Road in Helensvale, with authorities saying the boys may be at significant risk, although the woman involved was known to them.

Police found the boys who were safe and well just before 1pm at a Benowa address.
Some roles are being removed, while other roles will have a change in portfolio, responsibilities, title, or reporting line. Some level of disruption will likely occur during the transition period. There may be short-term disruption to student service support. For one law student, who recently spoke to WAtoday on the provision of anonymity, signs of the shakeup had already taken effect as he was shocked at how badly Murdoch handled student welfare after he transferred from another WA university. What the degree will be worth at the end of the day is really concerning me. Murdoch law student He said he spent hours trying to chase up which units had transferred over from his previous uni and would form part of his degree.

He also saw clerkships to the Federal Court offered to the first applicants to email back, which he said was wholly unfair for those with jobs who did not necessarily monitor their student emails around the clock. The student said complaints got bounced back by Murdochs student services with no clear direction or details about whom to specifically raise his issues with, beyond the mention of the universitys lacklustre and hard to navigate website. All this money Im paying now and what the degree will be worth at the end of the day is really concerning me, and what it also means for school-leavers, he said. A Murdoch University spokesperson said the impacts to staff in the four service directorates were still only proposals, with impacted employees being asked to provide feedback and express interest in prospective roles.

Some existing roles have been identified at risk of redundancy, however it is our number one priority to redeploy as many staff as possible, they said. As yet, no employees have been made redundant as part of this process. We are genuinely consulting about the changes with all impacted employees and have allowed additional time to ensure we capture all employee feedback through this period. They said staff who did not find a suitable role through redeployment would be offered a redundancy package commensurate with their role and time at Murdoch. They would have access to a range of free and confidential support through the universitys employee assistance program. Those re-deployed at a lower classification will maintain their previous salary for 12 months in accordance with the Enterprise Agreement, while a number of fixed term roles have also been proposed to become continuous as part of this process.

Murdochs rankings The latest restructure comes in the wake of Murdoch cementing its position as Western Australias worst-performing public higher education institute for research, teaching and impact, according to Times Higher Educations latest rankings. Not only did it remain behind Edith Cowan University for a second year running, it fell behind ECU in the sub-category of young universities (under 50 years), coming last in WA for the first time this year. Times Higher Educations WA young university rankings (under 50 years). Until 2017, Murdoch was considered the top young WA university but that honour now goes to Curtin University.

ECU Vice-Chancellor Professor Steve Chapman welcomed ECUs climb in research rankings during such a difficult time in higher education, brought on by the pandemic. Were a dynamic young university with a growing international reputation for world-class research and its pleasing to see this continues to be recognised in the THE rankings, he said. Now more than ever, the impact of ECUs translational research matters. Overall, Murdoch remained in the 501-600th percentile in the THE rankings, behind ECU in the 401-500th percentile globally, with Curtin weathering a slight drop on last years performance to drop to 251-300th place. The rankings come after a year of hundreds of jobs cuts and reductions to academics research capabilities in WA.

Loading Curtin was estimated to have axed 656 total jobs, according to headcounts supplied to the Australian Charities and Not-For-Profit Commission, which was about 10 per cent of its workforce during 2020. ECU conversely invested $16 million into research and staff in 2020. The University of Western Australia delayed major cuts until June this year, when it announced it would be pursuing $40 million in jobs and school restructures. It is seeking to axe significant fields of study and research in social and molecular sciences despite the university acknowledging there were areas of high research performance in the school of social sciences.

UWAs education and research restructures were not reflected in this years rankings, with it improving its poll WA position by moving up seven places to 132nd spot on last years 139th position in THEs global rankings. Unlike Murdoch, which ruthlessly reduced its sciences  made up of chemistry, physics, maths and statistics  from fully fledged degrees to first-year or teaching units for other degrees late last year, with up to 200 academic jobs estimated to have been slashed across the campus. Engineering also suffered under in its STEM everywhere strategy, as well as significant cuts to the arts and humanities. A Murdoch University spokesperson said the university was engaging in world-leading translational research and making important discoveries, such as discovering new ways to identify and monitor long COVID and developing new treatments for Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Times Higher Educations overall rankings for WA public universities.

And it looked to a number of rankings used to measure the performance, reputation and achievements of universities around the world, with the most recent rankings yet to factor in recent appointments and research outputs, they said. We acknowledge that the latest THE results are not where we want to be, the spokesperson said. However, we have a clear plan to improve our rankings results through a range of initiatives including the recruitment of high calibre academics and researchers, changing our curriculum and how we teach, stronger industry connections to ensure our students our job ready, and investing in infrastructure in learning and teaching and research. We are confident these will drive improvements in the coming years. It argued that it had already seen some improvement in the latest Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) rankings, which placed Murdoch in the 500-600 band  up from 700-800 in 2019.

Loading Fairer measure of research success Rankings, which rely heavily on research, have always been considered the drawcard for international students to Australia, with a lot of prominence being put on Shanghais Jiao Tong rankings, also known as ARWU. But with Australias borders remaining closed the focus has been shifting to retaining and increasing domestic student intake. The rankings are also widely used by faculty to inform career decisions by university leaders to help set strategic priorities and by governments to help monitor policy, according to the THE website.

Why? Because the THE rankings are based on one of the richest databases of university performance in the world. But Flinders University ecologist Professor Corey Bradshaw and his colleagues have developed a ready-made app, called the Epsilon Index, to assess individuals research performance, which they say is fairer. Theres no straightforward process to compare the relative strengths of researchers in disparate disciplines  some just tend to have fewer citations than others, he said. Then theres gender. Research publications for women might dip during maternity leave for instance, affecting perceived performance, even though their ability  and their research  is no less brilliant. Women also tend not to be offered the same opportunities as men even today, so they are unfairly ranked against men for most existing metrics.

The Epsilon Index is a new way to reduce systemic biases in assessing researcher quality via citations by providing career-stage, gender, and opportunity corrections to citation-based performance metrics. The app was tested using a sample of 480 global researchers with Google Scholar profiles, stratified evenly into eight disciplines (archaeology, chemistry, ecology, evolution and development, geology, microbiology, ophthalmology, palaeontology), three career stages (early-, mid-, late-career), and two genders. Flinders Universitys simple method to scale its index across disciplines with variable citation trends to enable fairer comparison of researchers in different areas. It then provided an -index using a ranking algorithm that could be standardised across disciplines, corrected for career breaks, and provided a sample-specific threshold that could determine whether individual performance was greater or less than expected relative to the other researchers in a sample. Flinders professor Justine Smith, who has been deemed a superstar of STEM, hopes the -index will make a difference to how women in science are perceived.
Australia will acquire a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines as part of a historic new pact between this country, the US and the UK.

The AUKUS alliance will see the US help Australia develop the capability to build nuclear submarines locally in Adelaide.

The new alliance was announced in a press conference on Thursday morning by US President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison with the trio affirming a commitment to ensure stability in the Indo-Pacific region.

All three leaders were at pains to point out that the submarines will be conventionally armed, not nuclear armed, but powered by nuclear energy.
If there was ever a doubt about which side Australia would take in the most consequential geopolitical tussle of our century, it was banished by the new AUKUS defence pact. In a modern-day equivalent of then-prime minister Harold Holts Vietnam War-era decree All the way with LBJ, Scott Morrison has tied Australias future to Americas ability to maintain peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region. Its a big roll of the dice.

In the most surprising result of the new pact, the US, with the help of Britain, has agreed to share highly sensitive nuclear submarine technology with Australia, the first time it has made such a deal in more than 60 years. This reflects the degree to which Washington now sees Australia and Britain as essential partners in challenging the rise of China in the region.

US President Joe Biden listens as Prime Minister Scott Morrison speaks via videoconference in the East Room of the White House. Credit:Bloomberg

Nuclear-powered submarines are faster and harder to detect. Because nuclear propulsion does not require air, they do not need to surface frequently, unlike conventional submarines. China has undergone a massive build-up of military capacity which includes more than 70 submarines, of which fewer than 10 are believed to be nuclear.

In signing up to such a substantial upgrade in its military capacity, Australia will no doubt be expected to play a greater role in standing up to Chinas growing assertiveness. Last years Defence Strategic Update said the prospect of high-intensity conflict in the Indo-Pacific, while still unlikely, is less remote than in the past. Defence Minister Peter Dutton and his department head, Mike Pezzullo, memorably warned in recent times about the drums of war.
We may have just abandoned a 20-year war in Afghanistan, but Australians should stand by for a khaki-shaded election.

The decision to shift Australia into a new defence pact with its oldest allies, the United Kingdom and United States, tied with the gift of nuclear-propulsion technology for a new submarine fleet, does not simply re-frame Australias position in an unsteady Indo-Pacific.

Heading towards an election, Scott Morrison gets to present himself as a national leader with a chair at the same table as US President Joe Biden. Credit:AAP

It elevates Scott Morrison from harried, strife-beset leader looking increasingly like a potential loser, to the position of Prime Minister taking charge of his nations defence in an emerging regional Cold War.

The new pact, saddled with the awkward acronym AUKUS, may not have got off to the shining start for which Morrison hoped, of course, when US President Joe Biden appeared to forget his name at the crucial moment.
Wellington: New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Thursday that Australias new nuclear-powered submarines would not be allowed in its territorial waters under a long-standing nuclear-free policy.

A new Indo-Pacific security partnership announced by US President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, will see the United States and Britain provide Australia with the technology and capability to deploy nuclear-powered submarines.

The Royal Australian Navy: its nuclear submarines wont be welcome in New Zealands water. Credit:Royal Australian Navy

The Indo-Pacific deal is widely seen as a counter to Chinas growing influence in the region.

I discussed the arrangement with Prime Minister Morrison last night, Ardern said at a news conference.
Stephen Sondheim has been keeping busy during the pandemic. The celebrated American composer went on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert last night to discuss his creative output, revealing that he and David Ives are working on a new musical called Square One.

"We had a reading of it last week and we were encouraged," Sondheim said nonchalantly, neglecting to mention that the reading starred Bernadette Peters and Nathan Lane. "With any luck, we'll get it on next season."

Sondheim had been collaborating with Ives on a musical based on the work of Spanish surrealist director Luis Bunuel, but reports earlier this year indicated that this project had been scrapped. It was unclear whether Square One (which Sondheim noted he and Ives had been working on for several years) was a continuation of the Bunuel project, or an entirely different one.

Sondheim also discussed the mentorship of Oscar Hammerstein II, James Lapine's new book, Marianne Elliott's Broadway revival of Company, and Steven Spielberg's remake of West Side Story.

You can watch the full interview here:
- Dodge is first among 32 brands industry-wide,* and for the second straight year claims the top spot among mass-market brands, according to the J.D. Power 2021 Automotive Performance Execution and Layout (APEAL) Study.Dodge is the first domestic brand to capture the No. 1 ranking two years in a row among mass-market brands, while Ram reprises its second-place performance from 2020.The latest mass-market results mark the third consecutive year Dodge and Ram have outperformed their direct competitors in the prestigious study. Their No. 1-2 ranking last year reversed their finish order in 2019 In addition, the latest APEAL study names the 2021 Ram 1500 as the best vehicle in the large light-duty pickup category. It denotes the second straight year the Ram 1500 has crowned that list.The news comes hard on the heels of the brands continuing success in the most recent J.D. Power Initial Quality Study (IQS). Ram and Dodge finished No. 1-2 overall , echoing their 2020 surge when Dodge became the first domestic brand to top the industry, and Ram tied for third.I said last year that we would keep the throttle wide open, and these various results demonstrate our continuing resolve to do so, said Mark Champine, Stellantis Head of Customer Experience, North America. We remain on a mission to do better for our customers, and we know we have more work to do.APEAL rates the emotional bond between customers and model-year 2021 vehicles. This is determined from customer feedback about vehicle attributes from seating comfort to throttle response during the first three months of ownership.The feedback is then aggregated on an overall 1,000-point APEAL index.In the latest study, Dodge and Ram are separated by one point with scores of 882 and 881, respectively  the same margin that divided them last year. Each brand improved by 10 points over their performances in the 2020 study  four better than the industry average, which posted a six-point gain, from 842 to 848.Further, the Dodge Charger sedan, Dodge Durango SUV, Ram 2500/3500 heavy-duty pickup and Jeep Gladiator pickup placed second in their respective segments.Jeep jumped three spots into a tie for eighth in this years IQS results, giving Stellantis three brands in the first quartile. Such performance is consistent with the mindset instilled by the companys new Customer Experience organization, formerly known simply as Quality.The new organization has a mandate that is more intense.Ours is a journey that never ends, Champine says. Because you can always do better.*Tied with Premium BrandJ.D. Power is a global leader in consumer insights, advisory services and data and analytics. A pioneer in the use of big data, artificial intelligence (AI) and algorithmic modeling capabilities to understand consumer behavior, J.D. Power has been delivering incisive industry intelligence on customer interactions with brands and products for more than 50 years. The world's leading businesses across major industries rely on J.D. Power to guide their customer-facing strategies. J.D. Power has offices in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. To learn more about the company's business offerings, visit JDPower.com/business . The J.D. Power auto shopping tool can be found at JDPower.com Stellantis is one of the worlds leading automakers and a mobility provider, guided by a clear vision to offer freedom of movement with distinctive, affordable and reliable mobility solutions. In addition to the Groups rich heritage and broad geographic presence, its greatest strengths lie in its sustainable performance, depth of experience and the wide-ranging talents of employees working around the globe. Stellantis will leverage its broad and iconic brand portfolio, which was founded by visionaries who infused the brands with passion and a competitive spirit that speaks to employees and customers alike. Stellantis aspires to become the greatest, not the biggest, while creating added value for all stakeholders, as well as the communities in which it operates.
New Vehicles More Appealing Than Ever, J.D. Power Finds

Porsche Highest-Ranking Premium Brand; Dodge Highest-Ranking Mass Market Brand; General Motors Tops in Segment-Level Awards

TROY, Mich., September 15, 2021; On the strength of some very successful new-vehicle launches for 2021, the auto industry continues its trend of producing ever-more appealing vehicles. The BMW 4 Series, Chevrolet Tahoe, Ford Bronco Sport, Ford Mustang Mach-E, Genesis G80, Kia K5 and Toyota Sienna are all-new or completely redesigned models that achieved segment-topping performances in appeal to owners. These models and others have helped boost the industry's overall vehicle emotional appeal this year, according to the J.D. Power 2021 U.S. Automotive Performance, Execution and Layout (APEAL) Study,SM released today.

"One of the biggest factors driving the industry's improvement this year is the introduction of several highly appealing new models," said David Amodeo, director of global automotive at J.D. Power. "The APEAL Study measures owners' emotional attachment to their new vehicle, and the product launches that took place this model year have done a really good job. Some are all-new and some are redesigns, but the new launches demonstrate that automakers are getting even better at hitting buyers' emotional triggers."

Now in its 26th year, the study complements the J.D. Power Initial Quality Study (IQS)SM and the J.D. Power Tech Experience Index (TXI) StudySM by measuring owners' emotional attachment and level of excitement with their new vehicle. The APEAL Study asks owners to consider 37 attributes, ranging from the sense of comfort they feel when climbing into the driver's seat to the exhilaration they get when they step on the accelerator. Vehicle owners' responses to queries about these attributes are aggregated to compute an overall APEAL index score measured on a 1,000-point scale.

Following are key findings of the 2021 study:

Mass market brands increase in emotional appeal: Though premium brands continue to outscore mass market brands, the gap continues to narrow. The average APEAL score for premium brands is 864, compared with 845 for mass market brands. The 19-point gap in score this year is down from a 23-point gap a year ago.

Dodge brand continues to impress: Stellantis's Dodge brand repeats its top-ranking performance in APEAL among mass market brands this year with a score of 882. At the same time, Dodge's index score equals the score for Porsche, a perennial premium-brand APEAL leader. Proving that a brand can succeed in both APEAL and IQS, Dodge not only leads mass market brands in APEAL this year, but also was a close second to sibling brand Ram in IQS earlier this year.

High quality and high appeal: Seven models provide both the highest level of emotional appeal and initial product quality, according to analysis of the 2021 APEAL and IQS studies. The models that receive both APEAL segment awards and awards in the 2021 IQS are: BMW X4, BMW X6, BMW X7, Cadillac CT5, Chevrolet Corvette, Genesis G80, Kia Telluride and Nissan Maxima. The Maxima also is the highest-scoring model in both studies, a remarkable achievement and the first time ever for a mass market model.

Teslas unofficial score is highest in the study: Tesla receives an APEAL index score of 893, which is three points lower than last year. The automaker is not officially ranked among other brands in the study as it doesnt meet ranking criteria. Unlike other manufacturers, Tesla doesnt grant J.D. Power permission to survey its owners in 15 states where it is required. However, Teslas score was calculated based on a sample of surveys from owners in the other 35 states.

Highest-Ranking Brands

Porsche ranks highest among premium brands and ties Dodge overall with a score of 882. Genesis (879) and Land Rover (879) rank second in a tie among premium brands.

Dodge ranks highest among mass market brands and ties Porsche overall with a score of 882. Ram (881) ranks second and Nissan (866) ranks third among mass market brands.

Toyota is the biggest gainer in the mass market rankings, placing five rank positions higher than in 2020. Genesis gains the most in the premium brand rankings, up four places year over year. Nissan is the biggest gainer in terms of index points, improving 22 from a year ago.

Model-Level APEAL Awards

The parent company receiving the most model-level awards (given to models ranking highest in their respective segment) is General Motors Co. (five awards), followed by BMW AG with four awards. Hyundai Motor Group and Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. each receive three awards.

The complete list of award recipients is:

General Motors Company: Cadillac CT5 , Chevrolet Blazer, Chevrolet Corvette, Chevrolet Tahoe, and GMC Sierra HD

BMW AG: BMW 4 Series , BMW X4 , BMW X6 , and BMW X7

Hyundai Motor Group: Genesis G80 , Kia K5 , and Kia Telluride

Nissan Motor Co., Ltd.: Nissan Maxima , Nissan Sentra , and Nissan Versa

Ford Motor Company: Ford Bronco Sport and Ford Mustang Mach-E

Daimler AG: Mercedes-Benz CLA

Honda Motor Company: Honda Ridgeline

Jaguar Land Rover Limited: Land Rover Defender

Stellantis NV: Ram 1500

Toyota Motor Corporation: Toyota Sienna

Volvo Motor Corporation: Volvo XC40

The Nissan Maxima receives a model-level award for a fourth consecutive year. The BMW X4 and Chevrolet Blazer receive model-level awards for a third consecutive year. The BMW X6, GMC Sierra HD, Honda Ridgeline, Kia Telluride, Nissan Sentra, Nissan Versa and Ram 1500 each receive model-level awards for a second consecutive year.

The 2021 U.S. APEAL Study is based on responses from 110,827 owners of new 2021 model-year vehicles who were surveyed after 90 days of ownership. The study was fielded from February through July 2021.

For more information about the U.S. APEAL Study, visit

https://www.jdpower.com/business/automotive/us-automotive-performance-execution-and-layout-apeal-study.
The HealthCare.gov website is photographed in Washington on Aug. 13, 2021. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo)

2.8 Million People Signed up for Obamacare in Special Period, Officials Say

Some 2.8 million people signed up for health insurance during a special enrollment period, the Biden administration announced Wednesday.

There are now 12.2 million people enrolled in Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act, in federal and state marketplaces, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, in addition to over 82 million people enrolled with Medicaid and the Childrens Health Insurance Program.

Most of the people who utilized the special period signed up through HealthCare.gov, according to government statistics. Approximately 738,000 signed up through state marketplaces across 15 states.

California, Connecticut, Washington, Nevada, New York, New Jersey, and Vermont are continuing special periods through the end of the year.

President Joe Biden ordered the national special period because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It lasted from Feb. 15 to Aug. 15.

The largest states saw the highest enrollment numbers, led by 542,067 Floridians and 416,987 Texans.

The enrollment numbers were nearly three times the enrollment seen during the same time frame in 2020 and nearly four times seen during the months in 2019.

These numbers are encouraging, but we have more work to do to drive down the cost of health care for all Americans, Biden said in a statement.

The president noted that his agenda includes lowering prescription drug costs by letting Medicare negotiate drug prices as well as providing health care premium tax cuts for poor Americans and extending Medicaid to millions more.

I urge Congress to act quickly to deliver for the American peopleto keep up the vital work of expanding access and lowering health care costs across the board, and to continue building on the strong foundation of the Affordable Care Act, Biden said.

But the plan to lower drug costs hit a roadblock on Wednesday when three moderate DemocratsReps. Scott Peters (Calif.), Kurt Schrader (Ore.), and Kathleen Rice (N.Y.)joined Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee in voting against a bill backed by Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

The group, along with two other Democrats, had introduced their own bill taking aim at prescription drug costs that does not go as far as the Biden-backed one.

The bill favored by the president and Pelosi may be advanced after all because its being marked up in a second committee. But Democrats can only afford three defections in a full floor vote, making it uncertain that the party could pass it there.
Afghanistan Watchdog to Investigate Unanswered Questions

What happened to the weapons, fuel, drones, planes, and other resources the United States provided to the now-defunct Afghanistan government? What happened to the hundreds of thousands of soldiers and police officers who abandoned their posts? What happened to the Afghan women and girls, and the others who supported the failed nation-building project?

Those are just a few of the questions that Special Inspector General for the Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John Sopko intends to investigate before his office closes in about a year, he said on Sept. 14.

Sopko and his SIGAR agency are the authors of what has been dubbed the Afghanistan Papersa previously secret history of the war, akin to what the Pentagon Papers were for the Vietnam War. His work revealed in December 2019 that U.S. officials had falsely told the public about alleged progress in Afghanistan for years while acknowledging in private that the nation-building efforts were failing miserably.

Sopko spoke with the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) on Sept. 14, saying his work isnt finished.

We have a number of indictments and investigations and audits that were finishing up, Sopko told POGO. But then theres other questions we think need to be answered.

Sopko said that along with the questions mentioned aboveand many morehe also intends to investigate the future of the Afghan narcotics trade. His 2018 report states that illicit narcotics account for 60 percent of the Talibans annual revenue.

I directed my staff today to investigate what has happened to the narcotics trade since then, and what can we predict is going to happen? he said. We spent billions on fighting narcotics, and I think the American people would like to know about that.

Sopko doesnt have much time to find the answers to his questions. SIGAR is set to expire along with the Afghanistan reconstruction project, and the inspector general said he thinks he has about a year left to complete the task.

During the wide-ranging interview with POGO, Sopko also spoke about why he thought the Afghanistan reconstruction project was such a dismal failure.

He said U.S. officials were overly optimistic because thats the way they could advance their careerspeople who made their career on happy talk, he described it. The special inspector general also said the U.S. government demanded signs of progress on too short of a timeline.

To illustrate his point, Sopko spoke about what he called perhaps the dumbest project throughout the 20-year war.

They brought in sexy white Italian goats to breed with the Afghan goats and improve the wool production.  We talked to the woman who they bought the goats from, who was tearing out her hair over how stupid it wasbecause they wanted to show success in a year or two, Sopko said.

She said, This takes 10 to 20 years to do this!

All the Italian goats eventually died, according to Sopko.

You could not make up some of the programs we had over there, he said.

POGO Executive Director Danielle Brian asked Sopko why his work has had such an impact on discourse when so many other inspector generals have been relatively ineffective.

Many IGs are acting under a conflict of interest because the administration dangles an appointment in front of their face, so they kind of lose some of their ardor for oversight, Sopko said. And weve had too many IGs who are fat, dumb, and happy.

Sopko didnt just focus his ire on U.S. security officials or his fellow IGs; he also criticized The Washington Post for trying to ascertain the identities of the Afghans he interviewed for his various reports.

The Washington Post sued us for not divulging their identities. They said, You have to tell us who your whistleblowers are, he said. Isnt that ironic? This is the same Washington Post that for 30-some years defended someones name and never revealed it. I think the name was Deep Throat or something like that.

You have to defend whistleblowers. Anyone in this town should know that. Especially reporters.
American Airlines Buying Stake in Second South American Carrier Gol

By Kyle Arnold

The Dallas Morning News

American Airlines plans to buy a minority stake in a second South American airline, Brazils Gol, as it aims to strengthen its ties to its strongest international region.

American plans to spend $200 million on the 5.2 percent interest in Sao Paulo-based Gol, an ultra-low-cost carrier that flies throughout South American but is strongest in Brazil, American announced Wednesday morning.

American and Gol have been engaged in a codesharing deal since February 2020, allowing the two sides to sell tickets on each others routes and letting customers seamlessly transfer flights between the two entities.

The partnership comes less than two months after American Airlines announced it planned to buy a minority stake in another South American ultra-low-cost carrier, JetSmart out of Chile. JetSmart has the same private equity majority owner, Indigo Partners, as U.S. competitor Frontier Airlines.

American Airlines also has a small ownership stake in China Southern Airlines.

This new deal allows American and Gol customers to earn points on the two airlines frequent flyer programs, Americans AAdvantage and Gols Smiles program. American and Gol have also agreed to be exclusive codeshare partners with one another in their respective countries.

Our long-haul network marries seamlessly with GOLs strong domestic network in Brazil, said American Airlines President Robert Isom in a statement. Together, we will be able to offer customers flying to, through, and from Brazil, access to the largest network with the lowest fares and the Americas biggest and best joint travel loyalty program.

Gol flies a fleet of 122 Boeing 737 jets to more than 60 destinations, mostly in Central and South America. But most of its destinations are in Brazil. It also flies to Miami and Orlando, Florida, in the United States.

American already flies to 17 destinations in South American. This new deal, combined with the JetSmart partnership, should help American connect to dozens more smaller destinations in the region.

2021 The Dallas Morning News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Disneyland is seen from the location of a press conference calling for the reopening of Orange County theme parks in Anaheim, Calif., on Sept. 16, 2020. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

Anaheim City Council Fills District 2 Vacancy

Anaheim filled its vacant District 2 seat on the city council on Sept. 14 with Gloria Maae, a local neighborhood advocate who has served on various city commissions and boards.

Maae was chosen out of a selection of 10 applicants applying for the seat, which came after former Councilman Jordan Brandman resigned in August.

Maae was approved in a 42 vote, with Councilmen Jose Moreno and Avelino Valencia disagreeing on how the applicants were interviewed by individual councilmembers, rather than with the entire council together, saying the process was unfair to the candidates.

Ive been involved in a lot of searches over the years, Moreno said during the council meeting. And one of the things thats an important ethic in searches is that all candidates are actually sitting and interviewed by the people making the vote together so that everyone is hearing the same responses, everyones getting the same questions, so that its fair, and its inclusive, and its equitable.

So this process was very difficult and very much counter to what I consider to be ways of being fair to all candidates. For example, I have no idea what you were being asked by other council members, and I have no idea what you said to them.

After disagreements arose, the council asked the ten applicants, who were present at the meeting, various questions and took their answers into consideration, although Maae was ultimately nominated for what councilmembers agreed was because of her extended experience helping the community.

[With] Gloria, her 20 years of experience of working with the community  Gloria, from her heart, trying to do best for the community, for her neighbors, so she would be my nomination, Councilman Jose Diaz said.

Gloria stood out as having the best balance of experience with the city knowledge and understanding of city-wide issues, and a proven track record of advocacy and results in West Anaheim, Councilman Trevor ONeil said.

Gloria comes with a long list of community involvement already. She understands the importance of Anaheims tourism economy, and ultimately how that drives revenue back into neighborhoods. And the unique perspective that she brings on neighborhood issues, I believe, would complement the work that we do very well.

Maae is anticipated to be inaugurated into the council at the next meeting on Sept. 28.

Former Councilman Jordan Brandmans resignation came following career and personal reasons after vulgar text messages he had written to another colleague about former Councilwoman Denise Barnes were made public.

Additionally, Brandman led an effort to remove former sister cities commissioner Larry Larsen in April after Larsen refused to partner Anaheim with Pudong, China.

Larsen had said previously that he was shocked by the commissions consideration of a Chinese city, given how the CCP had lied for weeks about having the virus before informing the World Health Organization.

Its called the China virus. The city of Anaheim is in the tank, and were going to invite them into our house? Larsen said during a Feb. 22 commission meeting.

Larsen said that every industry in China is tied to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and that Anaheim shouldnt even consider doing business there, especially after the CCP virus pandemic.

I believe that what was said at the February and March meeting by the commissioner in question does not represent what Anaheim stands for, Brandman said during an April 27 meeting.

He was given the opportunity to resign. He chose not to do so. It is incumbent upon us as an example, to do what we think, within the commission.

Larsen addressed the council during the April 27 meeting; Brandman didnt attend the public comments and arrived late to the city council meeting.

Jordan Brandman has accused me of the most vile thing a person can be accused of, and thats being a racist, Larsen said.

He raked me through the mud in trying to destroy my stellar reputation that Ive worked my entire life in this city to develop. And then he doesnt have the nerve to show up.
A leaf sits on top of a pile of coal in Youngstown, Ohio, on Sept. 30, 2020. (Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)

Analysis: Bidens Lofty Climate Goals Collide With Political, Economic Reality

President Joe Biden campaigned on a promise to restore U.S. leadership in the global fight against climate change and followed up with a dizzying number of executive orders and lofty targets to slash emissions.

But nine months into his presidency, political, legal, and economic obstacles have forced his administration to make several moves in support of fossil fuels development at home and abroad, and raised questions about whether the Democrat will be able to meet his commitments to clean energy.

Setbacks include a judge overturning the administrations effort to block new oil and gas leasing on federal lands, forcing it to offer millions of new acres for drilling, and rising retail gas prices that have led the White House to publicly ask the global oil cartel, OPEC, to boost production.

Most importantly, heavy political opposition has forced the administration to put its centerpiece climate proposals that would help deliver an April pledge to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 into a budget reconciliation bill that has an uncertain future in the closely-divided U.S. Congress.

Democrats, who hope to pass the bill by the end of September, are already talking about paring back investments and targets.

The stakes couldnt be higher. If Washington fails to deliver ahead of a climate summit in November in Glasgow, Scotland, other global powers, including the worlds top greenhouse gas emitter, China, will be reluctant to commit to slashing their own emissions.

If that (climate-related legislation) went down before Glasgow, it would be a big mess for Biden and his administration, said Bill Hare, chief executive of non-profit Climate Analytics.

A Biden administration official said legal and economic realities have compelled certain administration moves and touted Bidens progress so far.

President Joe Biden looks at a wind turbine blade as he tours the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Arvada, Colo., on Sept. 14, 2021. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

We can do two things at once: Achieve our climate goals while ensuring the energy transition is one that takes into account the interests of the middle class, who experience changes in energy prices very directly, and meet global energy needs as the economy recovers from the pandemic, the official said, asking not to be named in order to be able to speak freely.

Bidens mission is uniquely challenging in the United States, where some voters and even some senior leaders in the opposition Republican party are skeptical that climate change is caused by human activity.

Congress is where the main theater of activity is taking place. And that is where I would pin the fate of the Biden administrations climate legacy, said Sam Ricketts, a co-founder of Evergreen Action, a group aiming to advance climate policy at the federal level.

Hard to Quit

Biden has reengaged the United States in the Paris international agreement to fight climate change, canceled the Keystone XL crude oil pipeline project from Canada, paused new oil and gas leasing on federal lands, and suspended drilling rights in the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Miles of unused pipe, prepared for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, sit in a lot outside Gascoyne, N.D., on Oct. 14, 2014. (Andrew Burton/Getty Images)

His administration also aimed to decarbonize the power sector by 2035a key marker on the U.S. path to its Paris agreement goal of net zero emissions by 2050.

In addition, the United States and Europe have agreed to big voluntary cuts to methane emissions this decade, Reuters reported earlier this week.

At the same time, however, the administration has backed lesser-known oil and gas infrastructure projects like Enbridges Line 3 pipeline from Canada and sped up processing of oil and gas drilling permits. Government data show the administration has approved more than 2,600 drilling permits on onshore leases, a faster pace than during the Trump administration.

In August, the White House also urged the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to lift production to help the global economy recover from the impacts of the coronavirus crisis and keep retail pump prices in check for U.S. motorists.

After a federal judge in Louisiana in June blocked Bidens signature attempt to pause new leasing, the Interior Department plans to open millions of acres for oil and gas exploration, including some 80 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico to be auctioned later this year.

What started as a set of ambitious campaign promises is quickly devolving into a disappointing milieu of fossil fuel development, said Taylor McKinnon, a senior campaigner for the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group opposed to oil and gas development.

All Eyes on Congress

Climate Analytics Hare said much now depends on the legislation making its way through Congress, which includes provisions to reduce carbon emissions from the power and transport sectors, tax credits for clean energy technologies, fees on methane releases from oil and gas, more investments in electric vehicle deployment, and a fund to funnel climate investments to low-income communities.

Many of the proposals were initially in a smaller infrastructure package but have since been either weakened or wedged into the $3.5 trillion budget bill that only requires a simple majority in the 100-member Senate rather than 60 votes as usual under the chambers rules.

Even that will require the backing of every single Democratic senator, a big ask given that both Joe Manchin, a moderate from coal-producing West Virginia, and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona have said they will not vote for a bill of that size.

Neither Manchin nor Sinemas offices responded to requests for comment.

Ahead of the Glasgow summit, international observers are not optimistic about the prospects.

It is not too hard for China to be cynical about U.S. climate action, said Li Shuo, a senior climate policy officer at environmental group Greenpeace East Asia, who is in regular contact with officials in China.

Even Americas partners are worried, according to Pete Betts, a former lead European Union and United Kingdom climate negotiator who now works at think tank Chatham House.

The international climate community has had to become expert over the years on U.S. domestic politics and legislative processes, and the challenges of delivering are well understood by allies and competitors of the U.S. alike, he said.

By Valerie Volcovici and Nichola Groom
A damaged wall is seen after a 6.0 earthquake that killed three and injured a dozen in Luzhou, in southwestern China's Sichuan Province on Sept. 16, 2021. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)

At Least 3 Dead After Earthquake Strikes Southwestern China

An earthquakemeasuring a magnitude of 6.0jolted southwestern Chinas Sichuan Province early Thursday morning, according to Chinas state-run media.

At least three people have been confirmed dead and three others seriously injured in Lu County, where the center of the quake struck, local authorities said.

Lu County, a division of Luzhou City, is located about 126 miles southeast of Sichuans capital Chengdu. Lu also borders Chinas megacity of Chongqing.

At least 57 people also sustained minor injuries, local state-run media in Sichan reported, while hundreds of houses in Lu County have collapsed.

In response to the quake, provincial authorities in Suchan have activated a level 2 response, the second-highest of Chinas four-tier earthquake emergency response system.

The quake had a focal depth of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles), according to Chinas Earthquake Networks Center. The epicenter was monitored at 29.2 degrees north latitude and 105.34 degrees east longitude.

An unnamed resident in Caoba, a village in Lu County, told Chinas state-run media The Paper that his neighbor was one of the dead.

The neighbor, a man in his 60s, tried to run out from his two-story home after the earthquake struck, according to the resident. Before he reached outside, he fell after being hit by a falling wall. He died soon after.

The resident said many locals in his village have decided to stay outdoors for the time being despite the rain.

At around 10 a.m. local time, local authorities reported that thousands of locals had been removed from their homes. A local emergency shelter has taken in over 10,000 people.

In 2008, an 8.0-magnitude earthquake in Sichuan killed tens of thousands, many of them schoolchildren who died when their school buildings collapsed. The quake left a dent in the credibility of Chinas government-backed Red Cross Society of China, which mismanaged donation funds designated for the survivors.

The Chinese Red Cross is not affiliated with the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Reuters contributed to this article.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern speaks to the media at a press conference with the details of the Auckland supermarket terror attack, at the Beehive Theatrette in Wellington, New Zealand, on Sept. 3, 2021. (Robert Kitchin - Pool/Getty Images)

AUKUS Is the New ANZUS: Diplomacy Expert

The historic trilateral security pact between Australia, the United States, and the UK will take precedence over the existing and long-running ANZUS treaty involving New Zealand and the U.S.

Joseph Siracusa, adjunct professor of international diplomacy at Curtin University said the AUKUS alliance was really an updating of the Australia, New Zealand, and United States (ANZUS) security treaty.

The ANZUS will fade into the background compared to this, he told The Epoch Times. This is two major powers working together. So, the UK replaces New Zealand, which is what I always thought would happen after the Cold War was over.

This arrangement is a reaffirmation of multilateralism where you have several countries working together, whether its in trade, defence, or water, you know its a victory for multilateralism, as opposed to bilateralism, he added, noting that it would be effective in opposing Beijing, who tended to pick off its enemies one at a time.

ANZUS was established in 1951 as a non-binding security arrangement to combat the threat of communism during the Cold War.

New Zealand was suspended from the agreement in 1986 after passing laws not allowing nuclear-powered ships into its waters. However, in 2012, it lifted its ban on U.S. warships.

On Sept. 16, U.S. President Joe Biden, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison held a joint virtual press conference from each of their capitals to announce the Australia, United Kingdom, and United States (AUKUS) alliance.

At the heart of AUKUS, the U.S. and UK governments will assist Australia over the next 18-months with pathways towards acquiring at least eight nuclear-powered submarines, amid ongoing tensions with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the region.

It also adds an extra dimension to the existing Five Eyes arrangement, which has been the main intelligence sharing network between Australia, UK, United States, Canada, and New Zealandand has, of late, been a platform for democratic allies to engage on issues related to countering CCP aggression.

New Zealand (NZ) Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern issued a statement indicating nuclear-powered vessels would not be allowed in NZ waters soon after the announcement.

The agreement would also spur collaboration on cyber, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, and undersea capabilities.

An issue NZ opposition leader Judith Collins was concerned with.

New Zealand is not interested in the nuclear side of the new partnership, but the deeper integration of technology, artificial intelligence and information sharing as well as security and defence-related science, industrial bases and supply chains are areas we would traditionally be involved in, she said in a statement.

Arderns government has faced criticism in recent months for its approach to China, which has been described as too subtle for international observers to notice.

In contrast, Australiawhich lies just across the Tasman Seahas been engaged in a year-long trade dispute with China, which began after Foreign Minister Marise Payne called for an investigation into the origins of COVID-19.
In this handout released by the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer USS Barry (DDG 52) launches a Tomahawk cruise missile in support of Operation Odyssey Dawn in the Mediterranean Sea on March 29, 2011. (U.S. Navy via Getty Images)

Australia to Acquire Tomahawk Cruise Missiles, 8 Nuclear Subs Amid Historic US, UK Alliance

Australia will acquire Tomahawk missiles and at least eight nuclear submarines from the United States as part of the freshly minted AUKUS security agreement inked with America and the United Kingdom.

The new Australia, United Kingdom, and United States (AUKUS) agreement will see Australia become one of the only countries in the world to operate nuclear-powered submarines, despite ratifying the non-nuclear proliferation treaty.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has maintained that Australia would not be seeking to acquire nuclear weapons or establish a civil nuclear capability.

We will continue to meet all our nuclear non-proliferation obligations, according to a statement on Sept. 16.

The prime minister instead earmarked the acquisition of long-range strike capabilities, including Tomahawk missiles, which will accompany existing commitments including Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles that can hit targets from 900km away; Long-Range Anti-Ship Missiles (a type of automated missile); and continuing collaboration with the United States to develop hypersonic missiles (high-speed missiles that can bypass defence shields).

An artistic rendition of DARPAs Hypersonic Technology Vehicle (HTV-2). The Chinese regime recently held its fourth test of a hypersonic missile. (DARPA)

In March, the Australian government pledged $1 billion towards developing its own guided-missile production industry.

The move was announced on Sept. 16 by U.S. President Joe Biden, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and Morrison during a joint virtual press conference from each of their capitals.

At the heart of AUKUS, the U.S. and UK governments will assist Australia over the next 18-months with pathways towards acquiring at least eight nuclear-powered submarines, amid ongoing tensions with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the region.

This forever partnership that we have announced today is the single greatest initiative to achieve these goals since the ANZUS (Australia, New Zealand, and the United States) alliance itself, Morrison told reporters in Canberra.

It is the single largest step we have been able to take to advance our defence capabilities in this country, not just at this point but for the future, he added.

The agreement will also spur cooperation across new and emerging areas including cyber, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, and undersea capabilities.

It will also see the cancellation of the troubled $90 billion submarine program with French defence contractor Naval Group, who had been tasked with converting and delivering 12 Attack-class, diesel-powered submarines to the Royal Australian Navy.

Contractual gates were build into the attack class project, necessarily. Decisions have to be made before you proceed through those gates, and so, as we were looking towards that next gate, we have decided not to enter through it as part of the Attack-class program but instead now to pursue this path which gives us a far greater capability to meet the strategic needs, Morrison said, noting that $2.4 billion had been invested into the project.

A senior White House official noted that the sharing of U.S. nuclear propulsion technology and engagement with another nation at this level was rare.

Britains Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Australias Prime Minister Scott Morrison and US President Joe Biden at a joint press conference via AVL from The Blue Room at Parliament, in Canberra, Australia, on Sept. 16, 2021. (AAP Image/Mick Tsikas)

Weve done this only once before, as I indicated. That was almost 70 years ago with Great Britain, the official told reporters on Sept. 16, in reference to the 1958 move to share the technology with the UK.

This technology is extremely sensitive. This is, frankly, an exception to our policy in many respects. I do not anticipate that this will be undertaken in other circumstances going forward. We view this as a one-off.

Federal Greens member of Parliament Adam Bandt was critical of Australias decision, claiming dangerous nuclear submarines would place floating Chernobyls in the heart of Australias cities.

It makes Australia less safe, increases the risk of conflict in our region [and] puts us in the firing line, he wrote on Twitter on Sept. 16. Greens will fight this tooth and nail.

David Limbrick, a member of Victorias state Parliament for the Liberal Democrats, responded on Twitter, saying, The Navy moves away from fossil fuels, and the Greens still arent happy. Theres no pleasing some people!

Liberal Senator Eric Abetz welcomed the announcement in a statement to The Epoch Times, Our unique geography and our location in the Indo-Pacific requires dynamic naval capabilities, and nuclear submarines will serve that end very well.
President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the Delta variant and his administration's efforts to increase vaccinations, from the State Dining Room of the White House on Sept. 9, 2021. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

Biden Admin Quietly Fires Trump Education Appointees Who Filed Lawsuit

President Joe Biden earlier this month quietly fired two presidential appointees from the Trump administration who had sued the Department of Education for refusing to deliver their signed presidential commissions.

The two men, economics professor Steve Hanke and law professor John Yoo, were appointed by then-President Donald Trump to the National Board for Education Sciences (NBES) when he signed their respective commissions in December 2020. Hanke is at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and Yoo is at the University of CaliforniaBerkeley.

The appointees stayed in touch with the department about the paperwork when the Trump administration was in power and after the Biden administration took office. However, when they began to press for their commissions to be delivered, the Biden-controlled agency stopped communicating with them, according to their lawyers at Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF), a Sacramento, California-based national public interest law firm.

The appointees argued that the department failed to acknowledge the validity of the appointments and made it impossible for them to fulfill their responsibilities as members of NBES, an independent board that advises officials within the Education Department on research and funding priorities. The board also performs an oversight function, advising the director of the Institute for Education Sciences. The institute is an independent, nonpartisan arm of the department that evaluates and provides funding for education research.

The Education Sciences Reform Act requires that the board meet at least three times a year and produce an oversight report to both Congress and the secretary of education. The report is due annually on July 1yet the department had refused to call a meeting.

The Biden administrations failure to call a meeting, as well as its continuing refusal to deliver the commissions, prompted Hanke and Yoo to sue Education Secretary Miguel Cardona on July 15 in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The lawsuit is ongoing, and Cardona is required to file a response with the court by Sept. 24.

The appointees argue that even though the commissions werent delivered to them, they still possess what lawyers call a vested legal right to the delivery of their commissions, even after the election of a new president. This principle was included in the Supreme Courts ruling in Marbury v. Madison (1803), which established the principle of judicial review, which is the power of federal courts to declare legislative and executive acts unconstitutional.

PLF attorney Jessica Thompson told The Epoch Times that even though no president had ever before fired NBES members appointed by a previous administration, the Biden White House delivered an ultimatum in the form of letters to both men on Sept. 2.

The letters, from Catherine M. Russell, the director of the White House Office of Presidential Personnel, asked the men to quit NBES voluntarily by close of business that day.

Should we not receive your resignation, your position with the Board will be terminated effective 6:00 pm tonight, Russell wrote.

The ultimatum letters constitute a legal admission that Hanke and Yoo were appointed by Trump, Thompson said.

The fact that the Trump appointees were fired on Sept. 2 means that they were legally appointed and that they should have been able to serve in those positions for the past nine months.

If they werent legally appointed, there would be no need to ask them to resign or to fire them, the attorney told The Epoch Times. He could just go ahead and appoint the new people that he would like to serve on the board.

Biden also could have sent out a letter saying his administration refused to recognize the appointments by Trump, but he didnt do that, she said.

Its a bit petty that the Department of Education has continued to refuse to send over the commissions, Thompson said.

I believe that weve already established and proved the key point that we were trying to advance through this lawsuit, which is that appointment by the president, even if its from the prior administration, is valid once the president signs that commission.

She said she accepts that Biden enjoys the legal prerogative to remove her clients from the NBES but those clients still want to take physical possession of the paper commissions signed by Trump.

Its an honor to be appointed by the president and to receive such a commission and our clients and other members [of the board] were excited to serve the country in this way. And so these commissions mean something to them, and theyre hopeful that they can still obtain them.

Department of Education officials didnt immediately respond to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.
People queue outside a vaccination centre to get the Johnson&Johnson vaccine against COVID-19 in La Paz, on August 2, 2021. (AIZAR RALDES/AFP via Getty Images)

Bolivians Exasperated With Socialist Governments Vaccine Distribution Program

As the COVID-19 vaccine distribution continues to face challenges in Latin America, Bolivians are speaking out about their frustrations with government healthcare resources and the organizational integrity exhibited by the Movement for Socialism party led by President Luis Arce.

Since the partys return to power under Arces leadership in October 2020, Bolivians have faced a pandemic response fraught with difficulties, including oxygen and medical supply shortages in hospitals.

There have been many issues, Isabel Carrasco, 28, former primary school teacher living in Sucre, told The Epoch Times. My parents couldnt get their second vaccine until the end of August. Their first dose was in May.

Carrasco said her 88-year-old grandfather, who received his first dose of Sputnik V, the Russian COVID-19 vaccine, back in April, spent months being turned away from government-regulated healthcare providers who had no information on when he may receive the second dose.

He would listen to the radio every day to see if there were any announcements of vaccines arriving, Carrasco said.

Carrasco received her first dose of Sputnik V in August. She said her second dose wouldnt be possible until November.

Despite the donation of thousands of doses of AstraZeneca and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines from the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) facility, the majority of COVID-19 vaccines available to Bolivians are the Russian Sputnik V and the Chinese Sinopharm, both of which have a lower efficacy rating than Pfizer-BioNTech.

According to the World Health Organization, Bolivia suffered a dramatic spike in new COVID-19 cases that began in late March, growing from 4,903 weekly cases on March 22 to a peak of 19,834 weekly cases on June 7. The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus claimed the lives of 18,595 people in Bolivia as of Sept. 15.

The CCP virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus, is the pathogen that causes COVID-19.

Vaccination rates in Bolivia are lower than in neighboring countries with comparable population sizes. In Chile, more than 28.5 million total doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered, while the Bolivian government has distributed less than a quarter of that amount, according to World Health Organization data.

Carrasco described how delayed access to the vaccine proved critical as a wave of COVID-19 swept through her hometown in June, infecting her and other family members, all of whom endured severe symptoms.

I think they could have done a lot to improve [vaccine distribution]. They could have had better vaccines overall, why did we have the Chinese and Russian vaccines, anyway? Carrasco said, adding that she believes it has a lot to do with politics.

Paola Perez, 29, a teacher in Bolivia, told The Epoch Times about the level of public distrust with the Sinopharm vaccine.

People didnt want to get Sinopharm because it was Chinese, Perez said, adding that she and her mother have also experienced delayed access to their second doses of Sputnik V.

Perezs brother, who is also a teacher working in a rural part of Chuquisaca state, told her he returned to in-person classes as of Aug. 30. According to a statement released from the Sucre Municipal Government, in-person classes have been approved to recommence in rural communities as of July 29. However, the secretary-general of Chuquisaca, Maguiver Rosales, told The Epoch Times parents of students and teachers will be required to show proof of their COVID-19 vaccine status before face-to-face classes will be allowed to resume in the cities.

Perez described the vaccine program and subsequent mandate that affects urban educators as, too politicized.

Gabriella Salinas, a 23-year-old student at the Catholic University in Santa Cruz, told The Epoch Times she had difficulties getting vaccinated in August. Her school served as a distribution point for vaccines. The school had announced that Johnson&Johnson vaccines had arrived from the United States. After arriving early she and her mother were told the doses never arrived.

It was ridiculous! Salinas said. I was mad. My mom and I waited a long time with a lot of other people. I asked the nurse what happened and she said the Johnson vaccines were still being held in La Paz. Why? What were they doing with them? They were just sitting on them.

Brayan Gonzales, a 35-year-old mine worker in Potosi, told The Epoch Times he had trouble finding COVID-19 vaccines during the winter case spike.

It was a treasure hunt. When our cases went up in June, everyone was trying to get the vaccine. I only get paid when I work, so spending hours waiting in lines just to find out if a place has vaccines costs my family money, Gonzales said.

Gonzales was fifth in line when Sagrada Familia [health center] opened. When it was his turn, the nurse said the location only had second doses in stock.

Why wouldnt they just put a sign on the door? Miners are poor and need to work to survive. My family suffered because youre too lazy to hang a sign on your door.
Brown University Limits Social Gatherings Over Asymptomatic Cases on Highly Vaccinated Campus

Brown University has closed its dining halls and placed new restrictions on social gathering after an increase in positive, asymptomatic COVID-19 cases among its overwhelmingly vaccinated student population.

As of Sept. 16, Brown has performed 12,216 routine asymptomatic tests on 10,624 individuals over the past seven days, which returned 80 positive results, according to a COVID-19 dashboard on the Ivy League schools website. With a vaccine mandate in place, nearly 98 percent of students and 96 percent of faculty and staff have been vaccinated.

In an interview with The Brown Daily Herald, Browns Executive Vice President for Planning and Policy Russell Carey told the student newspaper that there has not been any evidence of any serious illness among those tested positive. He added that neither anyone has been hospitalized due to COVID-19 nor there is any sign of a widespread outbreak on campus.

Despite all that, Brown officials announced a series of restrictive measures in response to what they see as a significant increase of COVID-19 cases on campus. Social gatherings for undergraduate students are limited to no more than five peoplewhether indoors or outdoorsexcept for those sharing living space with more than five other students. This restriction applies to both on- and off-campus activies.

All community members, regardless of whether they have been vaccinated, are required to wear masks indoors, unless when alone or eating. This requirement also applies to students who do not live on campus.

Most of the transmission we have seen is due to close social gatherings in which masks are not worn, university officials said in a statement announcing the changes.

Under the new policy, undergraduate students are required to get tested for COVID-19 twice per week, regardless of their vaccination status. Vaccinated students were previously required to be tested once per week, while those unvaccinated had to be tested twice weekly.

In-person dining services are also suspended, as dining facilities switch to take-out only. A Brown spokesperson told The Herald that the re-opening of dining halls will be dependent on testing results and other health and safety indicators.

In addition, the university specifically asks students to refrain from small-group hopping, meaning that students are expected to consistently engage with the same small social group, rather than joining multiple small-group gatherings over the course of a day or short period of time.

The Providence, Rhode Island-based university has been conducting routine asymptomatic testing of students, faculty, and staff since Aug. 24. About 17,500 individuals have been tested in more than 488,000 tests, returning 735 positive results, with a positivity rate of 4.3 percent.
California State Legislators Consider Reforming Recall Elections Process

Two California state legislators are calling for a reform of Californias provisions for recall elections, describing the current system as flawed.

The announcement came a day after the Sept. 14 recall election of incumbent Gov. Gavin Newsom. According to unofficial results from the night after the election, Newsoms position as governor survived the recall effort.

Assemblymember Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park) and Senator Steve Glazer (D-Contra Costa) said in a press release, [We] are determined to fix a broken system in the wake of the 2021 gubernatorial recall election, which raised questions about whether a system designed in the early 20th century has enough checks and balances to ensure democratic and fair elections.

Berman argued: I think yesterdays election highlighted the fundamentally undemocratic nature of Californias existing recall process. California law should not allow an elected official to be recalled and replaced by someone else who receives fewer votes.

The legislators say they intend to look into the definitions and conditions of when a recall is applicable. Californias recall process has existed for 110 years. Despite numerous attempts to recall the states governers, only two have qualified for the ballot: the 2003 recall of then-governor Gray Davis and this years attempted recall of Newsom.

Glazer told the press: Neither of us are suggesting that the recall process be eliminated. Were simply saying that accountability is good and that it needs to be maintained. But we have to look for ways to modernize it; and understand how its been manipulated over the last couple decades in a way that we think might be counterproductive.

The two chairs said they will discuss the idea with other state legislators to come to a consensus and eventually allow California voters to decide whether or not to adopt recall reforms.

They are also considering analyzing and potentially mimicking other states recall election processes. Currently, only 19 of the 50 states have an official recall election process.

California is among the six states where a successor is chosen on the recall election ballot; nine states hold a separate special election; and five states appoint a successor. Of the states that have recall processes, California has a relatively lower threshold for certifying a recall election to take place.

To initiate a recall, the Secretary of State must receive a petition alleging a reason for recall, and proponents have 160 days to gather the minimum number of required petition signatures (12 percent of the votes cast in the previous election for the office).

Other states minimum signature requirements are between 15 and 40 percent, and proponents usually have between 60 and 150 days to gather signatures (Louisiana gives 180 days and Washington gives 270 days).

Legislators did not give an exact timeline of when they would draft and finalize such an initiative, though they said October is the earliest time they foresee the state legislature possibly convening to discuss the issue.
An American flag flies at half staff at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 11, 2021. (Stefani Reynolds/Getty Images)

Capitol Police Asks National Guard to Provide Support Ahead of Sept. 18 Justice for J6 Rally

U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) officials have requested that the Pentagon provide support from the National Guard ahead of a demonstration in Washington planned for Sept. 18, USCP said.

Officials didnt provide details on the potential number of National Guard troops that could be deployed, although Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters on Sept. 15 that it is not an exorbitant ask. Its not of a particularly large size or major capability. I think its more in the form of some manpower support.

We have received a request from Capitol Police for some assistance for this weekends protests, scheduled protests. Im not going to detail the specific request, he said. Were doing the analysis, we are in receipt of it, were analyzing it, and if it can be validated and supported, well do that and well look at the sourcing inside the department as to whats most appropriate.

The request comes as organizers expect hundreds of people to attend the Justice for J6 event on Sept. 18, which is expected to take place in Union Square between 1st and 3rd streets at 12 p.m., according to the groups website. The rally is being organized by Look Ahead America, a nonprofit group that is seeking to release hundreds of people who were charged in the Jan. 6 Capitol incident. It could prove to be the largest gathering since then.

More than 600 people have been charged with a range of crimes, from misdemeanors to serious felony charges including assault, obstruction of an official proceeding, or conspiracy, for their alleged actions in early January at the U.S. Capitol, when protesters and rioters breached the building, interrupting a joint session of Congress.

Protesters walk around in the Rotunda after breaching the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

Douglas Jensen (C) speaks to U.S. Capitol Police officers inside the building in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

Many of those charged remain in jail pending trial, including those who arent accused of carrying out acts of violence.

A total of five deaths were recorded in the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 6 incident. Of the deaths, Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt was determined to have died from homicide. A Capitol officer, Brian Sicknick, was determined to have died of natural causes. The remaining three people died outside the Capitol building, with two of the deaths due to natural causes, and the remaining death ruled as an accident.

Several police officers were reported to have taken their own lives following the incident.

Look Ahead America, which says it advocates for disaffected Americans who are ignored by both political parties and the government, noted that the Sept. 18 protests would be peaceful.

The groups executive director, Matt Braynard, says the purpose of the protests is for patriotic Americans to educate their state legislators on the power they have to give instructions to their states federal legislators.

We have composed a draft resolution a state legislature can pass to inform US Senators and Representative [sic] to oppose the tyrannical and inhumane treatment of the January 6 political prisoners who have been targeted by the Department of Justice and the FBI, Braynard, a former Trump campaign operative, said in a statement on the groups website.

Earlier this week, Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger said that protective fencing will be reinstalled ahead of the rally.

The fence will go up a day or two before, and if everything goes well, it will come down very soon after, he said on Sept. 13. Workers began installing the fence late on Sept. 15.

Manger told The Epoch Times in an email that his agency is closely monitoring the planned event but that hes confidentgiven the changes in intelligence-gathering and sharing made after Jan. 6that the work we are doing now will make sure our officers have what they need to keep everyone safe.

However, some suspect that the rally has a very high probability of becoming a false flag event.

Do yourself a favor and stay away from DC on September 18, Ron Watkins, former administrator of the imageboard website 8kun, stated in a recent post on Telegram.

Watkins, who is a strong advocate for election integrity and previously encouraged people to gather in Washington on Jan. 6 to peacefully protest, said in a separate post, Everyone who attends the event should be fully aware of the potential risks of their participation at this time.

Mimi Nguyen Ly and Reuters contributed to this report.

Editors note: This article has been edited for clarity.
Afghan refugees line up for food in a dining hall at Fort Bliss' Dona Ana Village, New Mexico on Sept. 10, 2021. (David Goldman/AP Photo)

CDC Warns of Larger Imminent Outbreaks of Measles After Six Afghan Refugees Test Positive

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is warning that there could be larger outbreaks of measles after six Afghan refugees tested positive for the disease.

The warning wasnt issued publicly but was delivered to Robert Fenton Jr., the senior response official for the Operation Allies Welcome Unified Command Group. The operation is centered on helping Afghans escape Afghanistan and settle in the United States.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDCs director, sent the warning to Fenton on Sept. 14 in a memorandum obtained and published by Just the News.

Walensky notes that six Afghans have tested positive for measlesfive of them were flown into Virginiaand says there are 17 additional suspected cases of measles in the evacuee population.

The cases are an indicator of potentially much larger imminent outbreaks, she said.

Because measles can rapidly and easily spread, even a single case is considered by public health officials to constitute an outbreak.

Hundreds of people were exposed to the disease in several hospitals where the six confirmed cases were, according to Walensky, who urged Fenton to immediately implement CDC public health standards to prevent measles from being introduced into U.S. communities as healthcare facilities in multiple states grapple with an increase in COVID-19 patients.

The large number of unvaccinated Afghan evacuees as seen already has the potential to seed countless U.S. community outbreaks, Walensky wrote, adding later that the outbreaks represent a major public health threat and rapid mass vaccination and expanding quarantine isolation capacities are essential.

The Department of Homeland Security, which is named as the contact for Operation Allies Welcome, and the CDC did not respond to requests for comment.

Refugees arrive at Dulles International Airport after being evacuated from Kabul following the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, in Dulles, Va., on Aug. 27, 2021. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The measles cases have completely shut down evacuation efforts that were continuing in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. The pause in flights from a U.S. military base in Germany started Sept. 10 and is in place for the moment through Sept. 20, according to the Pentagon.

Afghans are required to get vaccinated for measles to get humanitarian parole and military officials are planning to start vaccinating them overseas after previously waiting to give them shots until after theyd entered the United States.

U.S. troops flew or facilitated the evacuation of roughly 124,000 people from Afghanistan across 17 days in August. Around eight out of 10 of those were Afghans, according to the State Department.

Over 50,000 Afghans have already arrived in the United States to be resettled across the country, U.S. officials have said.

The memos publication came after a new report showed the number of Afghan immigrants living in the United States jumped nearly 2.5 times from 2010 to 2019, with 133,000 recorded in the latter year, according to Census Bureau numbers analyzed by the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that pushes for an immigration model that accepts fewer immigrants.

Approximately 65 percent of Afghan households in the United States used at least one major welfare program in 2019, compared to 24 percent of the native population, the think tank found.

Afghan households, not surprisingly, are much larger on average, but they dont have more workers on average than does the native born, Steven Camarota, the centers director of research, said during a panel discussion on the findings this week. As a consequence, they have less income coming in, and so a much larger end up in poverty or near poverty.
Chicago Mayor Proposes New Measure Targeting Gangs for Fines in Civil Court

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Tuesday introduced a new ordinance that would allow the city to target gang leaders by suing them and seizing their assets.

The proposal, known as Victims Justice Ordinance, would authorize the city to file a civil complaint against gang members who knowingly engaged in two or more gang-related criminal offenses within five years of each other. At least one of them must be a felony involving profit-driven gang violence.

Lightfoot, a Democrat, said her proposal directly targets the gang leadership and violent gunmen, adding that it does not go after the guys on the corner or small players.

For each offense, the court would able to impose fines up to $10,000, and to seize any property that is directly or indirectly used or intended for use in any manner to facilitate street gang-related activity. A minimum of 50 percent of any monetary fines recovered will be dedicated to supporting victims and witnesses of gang crime.

To be very blunt and clear, we are going after their blood money, Lightfoot said at Tuesdays city council meeting, money they have profited from the killing of innocents.

Lightfoot had planned to fast-track the ordinance by introducing it directly to the councils public safety committee, but scheduling was abruptly canceled by committee chairman Chris Taliaferro, a fellow Democrat who is a member of the Progressive Reform Caucus. The ordinance was then further delayed by another progressive council member, Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez, who sent it to the Rules Committeea move often used by aldermen to delay or kill proposals.

Rodriguez-Sanchez said of the mayors proposal, We believe that the ordinance is a PR move so that the administration can say they are doing something about crime.

Local media reported that progressives and ACLU of Illinois are opposed to the anti-gang measure citing risks of unfair targeting of some black and Latino residents if they are wrongly accused of being involved in gang activity and listed in the polices gang database.

The mayor pushed back, saying cases would not rely on the database. She had also introduced a separate ordinance on Tuesday to address such concerns, allowing Chicagoans to lodge appeals with the police board if they feel they are incorrectly named in the database.

Unfortunately, it also became clear that not all of the members of the city council understand how vitally important it is for us to protect victims of gang violence and they will have to answer to their constituents for that, the mayor said.

Lightfoots proposed measure comes after Chicago concluded the summer with a soaring number of homicides. As of Aug. 31, the Chicago Police Department (CPD) reported 524 murders, with 78 in August alone, which followed a violent July that had seen 105 cases. At this pace, it is likely that the city will surpass last years total murder count of 769.

Among this summers homicide victims was Ella French, a 29-year-old CPD officer. A shooting the took place on Aug. 7 on the southwest side of Chicago during a traffic stop left French dead, and her partner, Officer Carlos Yanez Jr., critically wounded. Yanez lost one eye in the shooting and remains partially paralyzed.

Chicagos homicide problem prompted Lightfoot to pledge last month that she would increase the CPDs budget for fiscal year 2022, despite opposition from more progressive council members including Rodriguez-Sanchez, who advocated for a redirection of police resources toward community services such as housing and health care.

It is my expectation that the police department budget will increase. No question, the mayor said in August. We have to make sure that we are continuing to provide resources to recruit the next generation of police officers, and to make sure that were doing that recruitment in a way that reflects the diversity of our city.
China Applies to Join Pacific Trade Pact in Bid to Boost Economic Clout

BEIJINGChina has filed an application to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the countrys commerce ministry said on Thursday, as the worlds second-biggest economy looks to bolster its clout in trade.

Commerce Minister Wang Wentao submitted Chinas application to join the free trade agreement in a letter to New Zealands trade minister, Damien OConnor, the Chinese ministry said in a statement.

The CPTPP was signed by 11 countries including Australia, Canada, Chile, Japan, and New Zealand in 2018.

Before that, it was known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and seen as an important economic counterweight to Chinas regional influence.

It was central to then-U.S. President Barack Obamas strategic pivot to Asia but his successor, President Donald Trump, withdrew the United States from the pact in 2017.

Accession to the CPTPP would be a major boost for China following the signing of the 15-nation Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) free trade agreement last year.

Beijing has lobbied for its inclusion in the pact, including by highlighting that the Chinese and Australian economies have enormous potential for cooperation. However, relations between the two countries have soured.

Britain and Thailand have also signaled interest in joining the CPTPP.

Wang and OConnor held a telephone conference to discuss the next steps following Chinas application, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) speaks with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer along with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy(C) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and other members of Congress as they take part in a ceremony to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the steps of the US Capitol in Washington on Sept. 13, 2021. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

Chinese Regimes Suppression of Freedoms Getting Worse: Speaker Pelosi

The Chinese regimes suppression of freedoms and human rights is getting worse domestically, while its control of data overseas poses a threat to the international community, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on Sept. 16 during a trip to Britain.

Theyre getting worse in terms of suppression and freedom of speech, Pelosi said of the Chinese regime, during a moderated discussion at the Cambridge Union.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is tightening restrictions on the ability of citizens to speak out, she said. Theyre not trying to change the government, theyre just trying to express themselves, and its a major problem.

The speaker, in the UK for a G7 parliamentary leaders conference, pointed to the CCPs genocide against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, suppression in Tibet, and rollback of democracy in Hong Kong.

Pelosi commended a new security alliance between the United States, Britain, and Australia focused on the Ind0-Pacific region announced on Wednesday, calling it a very important initiative. Such actions should be conducted sooner rather than later, she said, before the economic, security and values threat to the rest of the world posed by the Chinese regime becomes too large to unwind.

She also praised the UK for deciding to exclude Chinese telecom equipment giant Huawei from its 5G network, calling the company a big threat.

Over the past year, Huawei and other Chinese telecom firms have been ousted from next-generation wireless networks across Europe and elsewhere amid growing concern that the equipment could be used by the CCP for espionage or to disrupt communication networks. The Trump administration also put Huawei and its affiliates on a trade blacklist citing national security risks.

We do have to develop our own 5G and be advanced in so much technology so that were not saying, Well, theyre the best and the cheapest and so we all have to be enslaved by the Chinese in terms of their control of the data,' Pelosi said.

The speaker noted, however, that the United States and other countries should still work with China on other issues, including climate change, terrorism, or fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.
Police surround employees as they rally for a better compensation plan at Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI), in Ningbo city in China's Zhenjiang Province, on Sept. 9, 2021. SHI had announced earlier that it will close its plant in Ningbo. (Courtesy of interviewee)

Chinese Workers Demand Better Severance Pay as Samsung Heavy Industries Shuts One Plant

A large-scale protest broke out on the premises of Samsung Heavy Industries Ningbo (SHI Ningbo) on Sept. 9. Around 1,500 local employees demanded better compensation schemes after the company announced plans to close its plant in Ningbo city, south of Shanghai. The company issued a letter on Sept. 10, stating that all employees would be terminated.

SHI is moving equipment and products from Ningbo to its Rongcheng plant in Chinas eastern province of Shandong. The Rongcheng plant will be the companys only shipbuilding factory in China.

A document released by the local government, which was later taken down from its website, revealed that the Beilun district government of Ningbo took back 194 acres of land that was leased to SHI Ningbo. It said the move was part of the local governments plan for industrial renewal, which would bring in more profitable businesses into the citys industrial parks. Ningbo is the second-largest city in Chinas eastern province of Zhejiang.

Several protesting employees spoke with the Chinese language Epoch Times and said they are standing up for their rights and the livelihood of their families.

Workers in a Tough Situation

Around 1,500 employees rallied for better compensation, demanding a 3N compensation plan instead of an N+1 plan offered by the company, a group of workers told the publication. They said that protesters held up banners and marched in the factory. Some slept on the ground at night. They said that armed police arrived at the scene, but so far there has been no violence.

Workers rally for a better compensation payout at Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI), in Ningbo city in Chinas Zhenjiang Province, on Sept. 9, 2021. SHI had announced earlier that it will close its plant in Ningbo. (Courtesy of interviewee)

The N in the N+1 compensation plan stands for the number of years of an employees service at a company. According to Chinas Labor Contract Law, if an employer terminates the labor contract, the employee would get a months wage for each full year of employment, plus an extra months wage. The N+1 compensation plan is the minimal compensation standard for employees. For example, if an employee has worked at SHI for 10 months and earns $1,000 a month, then he or she receives a payout of $11,000 (10 months x $1,000 + 1 month) under the plan.

A 3N scheme offers an employee three times the standard compensation when his or her monthly wage is three times higher than the average local wage, which is set by the local government. Based on the previous example, if the monthly wage of an employee is three times higher than the average local wage, then he or she gets $30,000 as total compensation (10 months x $1,000 x 3).

An employee surnamed Zhang (an alias) said that SHI Ningbos employees were not taken into consideration when the company decided to shut its plant and when the local government took back the land.

Most of us are around 40 years old and have worked for the company for about 14 years. We were given a notice on Sept. 10, informing us to sign, to dissolve the labor contract. We are given six days to go through all the compensation payout procedures, from Sept. 13 to Sept. 18. They just told us this was the final chance for us, Zhang told The Epoch Times.

Another employee surnamed Sheng (an alias) said that he has worked for SHI for almost 12 years. We are no longer young and no longer physically fit. At this age, we are too young to retire but too old to start a new business. Where do we look for work? No one would even give us a chance.

Workers held a protest to demand a better compensation payout at Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI), in Ningbo city in Chinas Zhenjiang Province, on Sept. 9, 2021. SHI had announced earlier that it will close its plant in Ningbo. (Courtesy of interviewee)

SHI established a plant in Ningbo in 1995. It specializes in the production of ship blocks with iron structures, produces 200,000 tons of ship blocks per year, and its annual export amounts to approximately $800 million, according to the companys official website.

We have worked hard for the company and we have done a great job. In exchange for our contributions, the company offers us a compensation scheme of N+1, which shows no sincerity of the company, Sheng said.

[SIH] says its N+1 compensation scheme is legal. But my question is: is it reasonable?

The banners that the protesters have displayed in their videos and photos had captions that read: I need a job to feed my family and [My] youth, dream, sweat, tears, and blood are all shed here. In the videos, some protesters chanted, I need food.

A protester surnamed Wang (an alias) said that the local government did not coordinate a negotiation between SHI Ningbo and its employees. The government is here only for stability maintenance, she said.

Stability maintenance usually refers to the Chinese regimes efforts to censor public opinion and suppress dissent in order to maintain totalitarian control over society.

Wang pointed out that industrial workers have limited skills and that it is difficult for most of them to find employment, especially middle-aged workers. She also said that those with professional skills have earned a good income at SHI. The current average salary of the employees at Samsung Heavy Industries is around $1,550 per month, she told The Epoch Times.

According to a report by Eworldship.com, a Shanghai-based news outlet on shipbuilding, a Chinese senior manager at SHI Ningbo said that the company will possibly consider the N+3 plan, which means employees get extra compensation of two months wages. The report also said that SHI Ningbos parent companySamsung Heavy Industries in South Koreahas given $116 million to SHI Ningbo, which would go toward the employees compensation payout plan.

Zhang told The Epoch Times that what the employees want is the 3N compensation plan. He said $15 million would suffice to pay employees if the N+1 compensation scheme is adopted, but the compensation fund of $116 million from the parent company would be more than enough to compensate the workers with the 3N scheme.

Leaving China

Samsung Electronics moved its smartphone and TV production lines out of China in 2019 and 2020, respectively, according to Reuters.

An independent Chinese current affairs commentator and economist, who goes by the pen name Lengshanshipin, expressed his sympathy for SHI Ningbos employees. He said, Ordinary Chinese people are now paying the price for the CCPs [Chinese Communist Party] instigation of nationalism against Japan, South Korea, European countries, the United States, and other democratic countries.

Some experts believe that ani-Korean sentiment in China was triggered when South Korea and the United States agreed to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Defense (THAAD) in 2016 to counter North Koreas nuclear threats. The move angered Beijing.

The Chinese language Epoch Times reached out to some employees at SHI Ningbo on Sept. 14. They said they were still negotiating with the company over the compensation plan.

Samsung Heavy Industries did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Luo Ya Follow
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks to the media with members of the Republican Study Committee about Iran in Washington on April 21, 2021. (Joshua Roberts/Getty Images)

Christie, Pompeo to Co-chair Republican Redistricting Group

The National Republican Redistricting Trust (NRRT) announced Thursday that former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would help lead the organization as co-chairs. This move comes as both Republicans and Democrats prepare for coming battles over redistricting in the wake of over a year of partisan debate over election laws.

NRRT describes its mission as coordinat[ing] the GOPs 50-state redistricting effort. The group is very new, having been formed in 2017 as a response to the National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC). Both groups formed with the intention of preparing for the first redistricting since President Barack Obama.

On its landing page, NRRT explains its fears should Democrats take the upper hand in redistricting.

Democrats will stop at nothing to gerrymander Democrats into permanent majorities, it warns. [Democrats] believe the courts should pick the winners and losers in our elections and that the ultra-liberal representatives they put into office will pass their radical left-wing agenda.

Turning to its newly appointed co-chairs, the organization says, Governor Chris Christie and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo know how important it is that we fight back against the Democrats nationwide power grab.

Karl Rove, a longtime Republican strategist, will also be working with NRRT as an adviser.

Democrats, who have since before the 2020 election accused Republicans of voter suppression, consider controlling redistricting to be extremely important. To many Democrats, redistricting is only one of many ways that Republicans are trying to suppress the votes of minorities.

One such concern came from Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), sponsor of the controversial For the People elections bill. The bill would give an unelected federal panel the ability to approve or reject state redistricting schemes with a majority vote.

Because of opposition from Republicans, Merkley saw a great risk of the legislation being filibustered. In a CBS interview, Merkley warned that Democrats must abolish the filibuster to pass the bill or Republicans would bring about an election Armageddon.

Other Democratslike Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.)have compared Republican election efforts to a kind of new Jim Crow.

Democrats warn that voter ID requirements and restrictions on mail-in and absentee ballots are a thinly disguised attempt to suppress the votes of minorities.

Republicans, meanwhile, have expressed concerns that ongoing Democratic election legislation efforts constitute a power grab from the party and from the federal government.

On the Senate floor before its August recess, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) objected to the federal redistricting committee in the For the People Act. He argued that the Founders knew that redistricting would be abused. He pointed out that the word gerrymander was derived from the skewed districts created by Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry. Cruz states that although redistricting on partisan grounds is bad, the same would happen in an appointed committee and would be worse since citizens would not be able to vote them out.

At an emergency session of the House on Aug. 24, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) accused Democrats of trying to rig an election with their ongoing legislative efforts.

This round of redistricting will be the first since the Supreme Court shot down a major provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The provision required certain statesmostly Southern statesto get federal preclearance before changing election laws. In 2013, in the case of Shelby v. Holder, the Supreme Court ruled that provision to be unconstitutional.

In the wake of this decision, and in the wake of widespread skepticism about the legitimacy of the 2020 election, many states with Republican legislatures that were formerly required to get federal preclearance have now moved to put in place stricter election laws.
Citing First Amendment, Private Investigator Asks Supreme Court to Review License Denial

A private investigator is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a decision by the Maine Department of Public Safety denying him a license to practice his profession because he criticized a Maine State Police officers conduct in a fatal shooting.

The investigator, Joshua Gray, claims that the denial of the license constitutes a violation of his right to free speech under the First Amendment, according to his attorneys at the Institute for Justice (IJ), a public interest law firm with a special interest in occupational licensing issues.

When the government retaliates against people because of their speech, it violates the First Amendment, IJ senior attorney and lead counsel Paul Sherman said in a statement.

Thats true whether the government is imposing a fine, withholding a parade permit, or denying an occupational license.

The petition for review in Gray v. Maine Department of Public Safety, court file 21-375 (pdf), was filed with the Supreme Court on Sept. 3. A response from the state is due Oct. 12. The Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruled against Gray on April 6, finding that the license refusal was lawful.

Grays problems go back four years to February 2017, when he criticized the behavior of Maine police in the fatal shooting of 25-year-old Kadhar Bailey and 18-year-old Amber Fagre. Gray expressed his opinion on his Facebook page that the shooting could have been avoided but for reckless conduct by the police, and made some statements in the process that the department believed were erroneous, IJ stated in a summary.

According to court documents, Gray, who already had a private investigation business called NSI Surveillance & Investigation in neighboring Massachusetts, applied to the department for a professional investigator license in Maine on Jan. 26, 2018. On behalf of the department, the chief of the Maine State Police denied Grays application on Aug. 31, 2018, saying Gray had made materially false statements on social media, which called into question his ability to competently investigate and then report investigative findings with accuracy, objectivity, and without bias, and demonstrated that he lacked the required competency and fitness of character to act as a professional investigator in Maine.

A state appeals court held that the department couldnt deny Gray the license for having expressed himself on social media unless the statements he made fell outside the protection of the First Amendment. The court asked the department to reconsider the matter and it did so by posing a series of questions to Gray about the police incident he complained about.

Although Gray admitted he alleged on social media that a Maine State Police lieutenant had disciplinary problems and may have been drunk when he had murdered, executed, or killed the female victim, the department determined that the officer had never been investigated by the internal affairs department until Gray complained about him. The lieutenant also swore an affidavit that he has never consumed alcohol in his life.

The department then issued a second decision denying the license, Gray appealed, and the Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruled against Gray this past April, finding that the First Amendment was not implicated in the case.

Police shootings are one of the most widely debated political issues today, Gray said in a statement released by IJ. If I had praised the Maine police for the shooting of Kadhar Bailey and Amber Fagre, they would have had no excuse for denying me a professional investigators license. They singled me out because I criticized them. Thats censorship, and it violates my First Amendment rights.

The office of Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey, a Democrat, didnt immediately respond to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.
A lone passenger sits at a tram stop on a mostly-empty city center street on the first day of a lockdown as the state of Victoria looks to curb the spread of COVID-19 outbreak in Melbourne, Australia, on July 16, 2021. (Sandra Sanders/Reuters)

City Lockdown to Stop Protest Sends Terrible Message: Australian Director For Human Rights Watch

The Australian Director at Human Rights Watch Elaine Pearson has described the decision by Victorian authorities to shut down and divert the capital citys public transport system to prevent a potential anti-lockdown protest as neither necessary nor proportionate.

Writing on Twitter on Sept. 16, she added, And it sends a terrible message to more authoritarian regimes who dont need encouragement in cracking down on protests they dont like.

Pearsons comments come as authorities in Victoria plan to ban buses, trams, and trains from entering the CBD between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. in a bid to stop a planned anti-lockdown protest on the weekend, which Victorian Chief Police Commissioner Shane Patton described as a super spreading event.

Victorias capital is still locked down amid a prolonged outbreak of the more transmissible Delta variant of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus.

Residents of the state have so far endured more than 200 days of lockdown, non-consecutively over six lockdowns, since the pandemic spread to Australia in 2020. Now authorities refuse to lift restrictions until 70-80 percent of people in the state are fully vaccinated.

According to News.com.au, police will be out in Melbournes CBD on Saturday to ensure people comply with the state chief health officers public health orders, which determine what people can and cant do.

Anyone whos planning to come in, it is an illegal gathering, and well be doing everything we can to prevent that gathering, Patton said.

And if people do get to make it into the CBD for that gathering, well be enforcing that.

Well be doing everything we can to prevent access to the city, he said.

Under the states public health orders, police have the power to hand out $5,500 fines to people trying to enter the city, while anyone venturing more than 5km (3.1 miles) from their place of residence risk a $1,800 penalty.

Thousands of Australians have previously gathered in a largely peaceful fashion to rally against Melbournes ongoing local lockdown restrictions. In the last gathering, Victorian police used non-lethal ammunitions such as pepper ball rounds in their attempts to control the protestors. Injuries were reported from both protestors and Victorian police at the event.

The decision to block transport into Melbournes CBD was previously used in Sydney, where police officers held up traffic on major roads into the city, stopping some 38,000 cars, in a bid to fend off any would-be protesters.
European Union flags flutter outside the European Commission headquarters in Brussels, Belgium on Aug. 21, 2020. (Yves Herman/Reuters)

Court Win for EU Regulators Over Crackdown on $825 Million Belgium Tax Scheme

LUXEMBOURGEU competition regulators secured a big win on Thursday when Europes top court backed their crackdown on Belgiums 700-million-euro ($825-million) tax scheme for Magnetrol, BP and more than 30 other multinationals.

European competition chief Margrethe Vestager launched a fight against sweetheart tax deals nearly a decade ago. She has won three cases at a lower tribunal but lost two, including an order to iPhone maker Apple to pay 13 billion euros ($15.3 billion) in Irish back taxes which was dismissed by the tribunal last year.

The European Union executive, the European Commission, ordered Belgium in 2016 to recover some 700 million euros from companies which benefited from the scheme. These included U.S. manufacturer Magnetrol, oil company BP, chemical producer BASF, Wabco, Cellio, Atlas Copco and Belgacom, now Proximus.

The EU competition watchdog said the series of tax rulings given to the companies constituted an aid scheme.

The EU Court of Justice (CJEU) agreed with the Commissions arguments, saying the General Court, which in 2019 annulled the Commissions decision, had made several legal errors.

The Commission correctly found that there was an aid scheme, judges said.

They said the regulators sample of 22 tax rulings from a total of 66 was enough to show a systematic approach by Belgian authorities.

The final verdict in the case will still take some time, said Koen Platteau, a partner at law firm Simmons + Simmons.

This is not the end of the judicial review process since the case is now referred back to the General Court which will have to decide on the other arguments invoked by Belgium, including on the existence of state aid, he said.

Judges referred the case back to the lower tribunal, telling it to examine whether the scheme can be classified as state aid and whether regulators were correct to order the recovery of the aid.

Following the General Court ruling, the Commission in 2019 opened separate investigations into 39 companies which benefited from the Belgian tax rulings while also appealing the judgment.

Other ongoing EU cases include Ikea and Nikes Dutch tax affairs and Luxembourgs tax treatment of Finnish company Huhtamaki.

The case is C-337/19 P Commission v Belgium and Magnetrol International.

($1 = 0.8482 euros)

By Foo Yun Chee and Marine Strauss
Critical Race Theory Has No Place in Military: Rep. Ken Buck

Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) wants the U.S. armed forces to be more focused on military readiness, not military wokeness and hopes to put an end to the dangerous and divisive critical race theory being taught to servicemen and women.

Earlier this week, Buck submitted an amendment to the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which specifies the annual budget and expenditures of the Department of Defense, regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion practices being mandated at the Department of Defense when it comes to employee training.

Buck is just one of many Republican lawmakers who oppose critical race theory (CRT) over fears that peddling the Marxist theory to service members will only serve to reduce both their cohesion and combat effectiveness when it comes to fighting real threats facing the United States, such as those posed by terrorist groups.

CRT redefines human history as a struggle between the oppressorstypically considered to be white peopleand the oppressedother identity groupssimilar to Marxisms reduction of history to a struggle between the bourgeois and the proletariat.

CRT adherents generally believe that the United States is systemically racist, that racial oppression exists, and that institutions that emerged in majority-white societies are racist and white supremacist. The theory has slowly expanded in recent decades through academia, government structures, school systems, and the corporate world.

In an interview with The Epoch Times, Buck said he believes CRTwhich has become more of a central focus following the death of George Floyd while in police custody on May 25, 2020has no place within the U.S. military, calling it dangerous and divisive.

I think that there are political theories that are being espoused in this country, such as critical race theory, that are dangerous and divisive and have no place in the military, he said.

If we want to have those discussions in the private sphere, in the marketplace of ideas, we can certainly have those discussions. But to require members of the military to be trained in critical race theory and to have inclusion and diversity officers in the Department of Defense, I think undermines the necessary discipline that we need in our military to conduct business.

People hold up signs during a rally against critical race theory being taught in schools at the Loudoun County Government Center in Leesburg, Va., on June 12, 2021. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)

Advocates of CRT, such as Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have defended its teaching within the U.S. military structure, saying that he wants to understand white rage and that its important for military members to be open-minded and be widely read.

Buck disagreed with this sentiment, saying the military should instead be focusing its attention on winning wars and not spending hours and hours being trained on social issues.

Any time we require hours and hours of training on diversity, inclusion, and other areas, we take away from the time that our troops are actually engaged in the activities that that will save their lives. The training is so important to them, he said.

I can remember talking to a general several years ago, and the Obama administration required more hours of training in a particular month than the service members worked in that month.

In other words, more than 40 hours a week they were expected to be in this type of diversity training, and not in the field practicing and training for why they joined the military.

Buck noted that placing too much of a burden on teaching social issues to military members can also actually widen the divide between Americans based on their race, among other things, which in turn takes away from the cohesion that is necessary to create a unified fighting force.

It reduces our ability for military preparedness for all threats out thereChina, which is the greatest threat to this countrys security, he said, noting also Russia, Iran, North Korea, and terrorist groups that present a threat to the United States.

Cathy He contributed to this report.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is seen at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, on June 28, 2021. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Democrats Are Considering Expanding the Supreme Court, They Dont Like the Last Three Justices: Speaker Pelosi

Speaker of the House Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) admitted that her Party is looking at expanding the Supreme Court beyond nine Justices because they dont like the last three Justices appointed by former President Donald Trump.

Okay, well first thing on the Court, we have not increased the number of judges on the Supreme Court since Lincolns day, when it became nine. So, there is a discussion that could be had about should we expand that, Pelosi told students at Cambridge University on Monday. Adding, The only thing is, when you talk about it, everybody says youre being political, youre only doing it because you dont like the justices who are there. The second part of that is true but  its not about politics.

The Speaker said there are some things that need to be reformed about the Supreme Court, criticizing the fact that appointees to the highest court in the nation do not have to disclose their assets like elected officials in the U.S. Congress, but they make very important decisions that affect the public.

Mount Olympus,  we dont have to know anything about them, and they make decisions that affect our lives. In many ways, whether its climatetheyll make important climate, environmental decisionsthey make decisions in relation to a womans right to choose, and make decisions in relating to voting rightsyou name any subject. Were at the mercy of this Court that is on Mount Olympus, accountable to no onefor life, Pelosi said.

Seated from left: Associate Justice Samuel Alito, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John Roberts, Associate Justice Stephen Breyer, and Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, standing from left: Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Associate Justice Elena Kagan, Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, and Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett pose during a group photo of the Justices at the Supreme Court in Washington, on April 23, 2021. (Erin Schaff/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

The Speaker said Democrats will make a decision about whether or not to expand the Court after the panel appointed by President Joe Biden issues their report on the legal ramifications of doing so because it is an issue of justice.

Robert Henneke, General Counsel at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, told The Epoch Times that Bidens bipartisan group of experts on the commission to study the Supreme Court reforms is not impartial.

A sham commission set up, both for Biden to deflect away from having to engage on this terrible idea, but then to create a bias commission that would agree with the progressive viewpoint, said Henneke.

Bidens April Executive Order, directs that the commission complete its report within 180 days of its first public meeting. This action is part of the Administrations commitment to closely study measures to improve the federal judiciary 

Pelosi praised her Partys effort to ensure justice and fairness by having the commission study the consequences of expanding the Supreme Court.

So, there are some things that are worthy of conversation and, to that end, President Biden established a commission to study that. Its not something that you just walk in and say, I heard at a rally we should pursue the Court so lets just do that, but no lets study what the ramifications are and how you do it in a way that is not interpreted as  a political decision, but a decision of justice, said Pelosi. Adding, So, theres just an injustice  but I dont think youll see any move to increase the Court until the Presidents commission makes its report.

But Henneke said expanding the Court is a terrible idea that would have long-term consequences.

Adding more justices to the Supreme Court, would further politicize the court and subject it to manipulation by the legislative branch depending upon which side is in power, said Henneke. The speakers proposal to court pack, to add more votes until her side wins, you can see where that leads to. That leads to then the Republicans, when its their turn, adding more justices until their side wins. And thats not what the role of the courts are; the courts are not to be on one side or another.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the 2020 DVF Awards in Washington, on Feb. 19, 2020. (Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for DVF)

Now deceased Democrat-appointed Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg previously said she was opposed to packing the court.

I have heard that there are some people on the Democratic side, who would like to increase the number of judges. I think that was a bad idea when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt tried to pack the court. Ginsburg said in a 2019 interview. So, I am not at all in favor of that solution to what I see is a temporary situation.

These three last Justices, that went to the court did not have to reach the 60-vote threshold because the Republicans changed the rules to say, to confirm the Supreme Court justices as you just need to do a simple majority, said Pelosi.

However, Henneke called the Speakers comment on the 60-vote threshold, nakedly hypocritical since it was originally the former Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) who in 2013 changed the filibuster rule in the Senate to allow presidential confirmation in the Senate to be approved by a simple majority.

The rule change will make cloture for all nominations other than the Supreme Courta majority threshold vote, yes or no. The Senate is a living thing, and to survive it must change, as it has over the history of this great country. To the average American, adapting the rules to make the Senate work, again, is just common sense, Reid said in a speech on the Senate floor in 2013. This is not about Democrats versus Republicans. This is about making Washington work, regardless of whos in the White House, or who controls the Senate.

Then Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) warned that changing the Senate rule would come to haunt Democrats, later when the GOP is in the majority.

And get this, they think they can change the rules of the Senate in a way that benefits only them. They want to do it in such a way that President Obamas agenda gets enacted, but that a future Republican President couldnt get his or her picks for the Supreme Court confirmed by a Republican Senate using the same precedent our Democratic friends wants to set, said McConnell in a speech from the Senate floor in 2013.

(L-R) John Boehner (R-Ohio), Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) in Washington, on July 18, 2013. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The Republicans did use the simple majority rule that Reid put in place to confirm three Supreme Court Justices during the Trump administration.

In addition, progressives have been calling for an end to the filibuster so they can pass the Democrats legislative agenda with a simple majority of 50 votes which Pelosi hinted would be good to change.

We wish they do that for a womans right to choose, we wish they do that for the climate, we wish they do it for LGBTQ, wish they do it for gun violence protection, the list goes onup, voting rights, and the rest, said Pelosi. That three people are going to have a job for life, who are relatively young, court wise, to make decisions that affect all of us, while we cant get a bill passed that will enable people not to stand in line for 10 hours to vote.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen delivers a speech during a debate on "The State of the European Union" as part of a plenary session in Strasbourg on September 15, 2021. (YVES HERMAN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

EU Introduces Program to Fight Chinese Regimes Debt-Trap Diplomacy

Von der Leyen slams Beijings forced labor practices: Human rights are not for saleat any price.

The European Union announced on Sept. 15 that its introducing a new investment program called Global Gateway to rival Chinas controversial development program, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which has saddled many poor nations with heavy debt loads.

In her State of the Union speech, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the new program would be a template for Europes future investments and projects around the world.

We are good at financing roads. But it does not make sense for Europe to build a perfect road between a Chinese-owned copper mine and a Chinese-owned harbor, she told lawmakers at the European Parliament.

We have to get smarter when it comes to these kinds of investments.

China has been ruled as a one-party state since the communist party came to power in 1949. Until the Trump administration began to challenge the regime for flouting international law and its widespread human rights abuses, the West, for 40-plus years, had been engaging with China in the hope that the communist regime would liberalize the country.

But the opposite has been achieved.

With the changing global tides, von der Leyen said the EU has refined its focus and wants to make investments in quality infrastructure on a values-based approach, offering transparency and good governance to other countries.

We want to create links and not dependencies, she added.

Her announcement came after the Group of Seven (G-7) leaders in June pledged to provide a democratic alternative to Chinas BRI to address the infrastructure gap in poor countries, which has been exacerbated by the pandemic.

Total infrastructure needs in developing countries will exceed $40 trillion by 2035, according to a White House fact sheet.

To narrow this infrastructure gap and counter Beijings growing influence around the world, leaders of the worlds seven richest nations launched a new initiative, called Build Back Better World, or B3W, to help finance bridges, ports, roads, and other infrastructure projects in developing countries.

Since its launch in 2013, Chinas BRI, also known as One Belt, One Road, has poured billions of dollars into infrastructure projects across Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Asia. In recent years, however, Beijing has been accused of using debt-trap diplomacy to lure many nations into its orbit.

A protester holds a slogan during a rally outside the Chinese Consulate in the financial district of Makati, metropolitan Manila, Philippines, to mark Independence Day on June 12, 2019. The Philippine defense secretary says an anchored Filipino fishing boat has sunk in the disputed South China Sea after being hit by a suspected Chinese vessel which then abandoned the 22 Filipino crewmen. (Aaron Favila/AP)

Sri Lankan villagers shout slogans during a protest in Mirijjawila village in Ambalantota, Sri Lanka, on Jan. 7, 2017. Sri Lankan police used water cannons to try to break up violent clashes between government supporters and villagers marching against what they say is a plan to take over private land for an industrial zone in which China will have a major stake. The government has signed a framework agreement for a 99-year lease of the Hambantota port with a company in which China will have 80 percent ownership. Officials also plan to set up the nearby industrial zone where Chinese companies will be invited to set up factories. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

Washington has repeatedly criticized the Chinese regime for expanding its geopolitical influence through predatory lending practices. BRI projects have raised the risk of economic distress in many borrower countries, including Sri Lanka, Montenegro, Pakistan, and Tajikistan, because of unsustainable loan levels and opaque contracts.

We want to turn Global Gateway into a trusted brand around the world, von der Leyen said.

If Europe is to become a more active global player, it also needs to focus on the next generation of partnerships, she said, praising the new EU-Indo-Pacific strategy, which seeks to increase Europes influence in Asia. As part of the strategy, the bloc will form closer trade and investment relations with Taiwan, in response to the growing threat posed by a communist China in the region.

Von der Leyen also criticized Beijings forced labor practices and human rights abuses, without directly naming China.

There are 25 million people out there, who are threatened or coerced into forced labor. We can never accept that they are forced to make productsand that these products then end up for sale in shops here in Europe, she said.

China is considered the global hot spot for goods made with forced labor. U.S. and EU officials have repeatedly raised concerns over the use of forced labor in China, particularly in the Xinjiang region.

So, we will propose a ban on products in our market that have been made by forced labor. Because human rights are not for saleat any price, von der Leyen said.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen delivers a State of the Union Address at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, on Sept. 15, 2021. (Yves Herman/Pool via AP)

EU Pledges 200 Million Vaccine Doses to Low-Income Nations

BRUSSELSThe European Unions top official said Wednesday that ramping up COVID-19 vaccinations around the world was the blocs No. 1 priority right now and committed another 200 million vaccine doses to Africa and low-income nations.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen used her State of the European Union speech on Wednesday to announce the new donation that will be fully delivered by the middle of next year and comes on top of 250 million vaccine doses already pledged.

Von der Leyen said the bloc was also investing 1 billion euros ($1.2 billion) to boost increased vaccine production capacity in Africa.

African health officials say they need just under 800 million doses to vaccinate 60 percent of the continents population. As of last week, 145 million doses had been procured, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Von der Leyen stressed that on top of delivering 700 million vaccine doses to Europeans, the 27-nation bloc had also sent as many shots to 130 nations.
EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell delivers a speech on the situation in Afghanistan during a plenary session at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, on Sept. 14, 2021. (Julien Warnand/Pool via Reuters)

EU Says It Has No Option but to Talk to Taliban

BRUSSELSThe European Union has no option but to talk to Afghanistans new Taliban rulers and Brussels will try to coordinate with member governments to organize a diplomatic presence in Kabul, the top EU diplomat said on Tuesday.

The Afghan crisis is not over, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told the European Parliament in Strasbourg. To have any chance of influencing events, we have no other option but to engage with the Taliban.

EU foreign ministers have set conditions for reestablishing humanitarian aid and diplomatic ties with the Taliban terrorist group, who took control of Afghanistan on Aug. 15, including respect for human rights, particularly womens rights.

Maybe its a pure oxymoron to talk about human rights but this is what we have to ask them, he said.

Borrell told EU lawmakers that the bloc should be prepared to see Afghans trying to reach Europe if the Taliban allow people to leave, although he said he did not expect migration flows to be as high as in 2015 caused by Syrias civil war.

The European Commission plans to secure funding from EU governments and the common budget of 300 million ($355 million) both this year and next to pave the way for resettlement of around 30,000 Afghans.

By Robin Emmott
A worker checks rolls of sheet aluminium at a factory in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, on May 8, 2021. (STR/China OUT/AFP via Getty Images)

EU to Suspend Planned Tariffs on Chinese Aluminium, Lobby Group Says

BRUSSELSThe European Union is set to impose duties on aluminium from China in October, only to suspend them for nine months, the EU industry association said on Wednesday, adding that this would threaten jobs and send the wrong signal to Beijing.

The European Commission launched an investigation into aluminium flat-rolled products, which are used in a variety of sectors, from construction to transport and consumer durables, in August 2020 and set provisional duties of between 19.3 percent and 46.7 percent in April 2021.

Definitive duties, likely to be between 14 percent and 25 percent, would normally apply from October for five years. However, after complaints from two aluminium users and an importer, they are set to be suspended for nine months, European Aluminium said.

The Commission said its investigation was still ongoing, with definitive measures, if any, needing to be imposed by Oct 11. It added that it had received a request for suspension and was considering it, in consultation with EU member states.

No final decision had been made, it said.

European Aluminium Director Gerd Goetz said in a statement that the development had sent shock waves through the aluminium and other industrial sectors.

How can European industries trust in the urgently needed trade enforcement measures when the flood gates for high-carbon, dumped Chinese products stay so willingly open? he said.

The Commission has suspended tariffs on only a handful of occasions, the last time in 2009 related to shipments of chemical glyphosate from China.

The new suspension request pointed to market conditions that had changed since the initial complaint was lodged in mid-2020.

Like many commodities, aluminium prices have risen as economies have rebounded. European Aluminium says though that EU capacity is enough to supply the market and sector profit margins are tight.

By Philip Blenkinsop
European Union flags flutter outside the EU Commission headquarters in Brussels, Belgium on May 5, 2021. (Yves Herman/Reuters)

European Parliament Calls for Tougher Stance Toward Chinese Regime

In a landmark report announced on Sept. 16, the European Parliament urged the European Union (EU) to adopt a more robust strategy to engage with the communist Chinese regime to defend its vital democratic values.

The new EU strategy on China was approved by an overwhelming majority in Strasbourg, France, on Sept. 15, with 570 votes in favor, 61 against, and 40 abstentions.

The report outlined six pillars on which the EU and its member states should work together to build a new strategy to deal with China. It includes cooperation on global challenges, engagement on international norms and human rights, identifying risks and vulnerabilities, building partnerships with like-minded partners, fostering strategic autonomy, and defending European interests and values.

Members of the European Parliament (MEP) made a series of recommendations to the EU and its 27 member states, such as addressing human rights violations, tackling Beijings disinformation campaigns, calling for an independent investigation into the origin of COVID-19, and excluding Chinese companies that dont fulfill security standards in 5G and 6G wireless telecommunication networks.

We must not be naive when dealing with China, said MEP Hilde Vautmans after the vote on Sept. 15. Economic gains should not make us blind to the Chinese Communist Partys ambitious political agenda, its increasingly assertive foreign policy, and its repressions in Xinjiang and Hong Kong.

MEPs in the report also asked Beijing to allow an independent and transparent probe into the origins and spread of COVID-19.

The European Parliament reiterated its condemnation of the Chinese regimes systemic human rights violations in Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Tibet, and Hong Kong. It also urged support for European companies that have suffered from the regimes economic coercion after cutting ties with forced labor in Xinjiang, while calling for a ban on forced labor products.

Earlier this year, the EU leveled sanctions against Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials over their role in overseeing the repression of ethnic Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, which led to Beijing slapping retaliatory sanctions against European politicians and entities. The deepening row led to the freezing of a bilateral trade deal in May after seven years of negotiations.

The European Parliament emphasized in the report that the deal wont move ahead unless the regime in Beijing lifts its sanctions on MEPs and EU institutions.

The report noted that the differences in fundamental values between the EU and China are rooted in the CCP. The ruling party, which is committed to MarxismLeninism, is against democratic values such as freedom of speech and religion, it said.

We must defend our values and interests by acquiring European strategic autonomy in areas such as trade, digital and security, and defense, said Vautmans, calling for the 27 member states to work together to confront the regimes threat.

European Commissioner on international partnership Jutta Urpilainen said during debate on Sept. 14: China will remain an increasingly assertive global power that does not shy away from applying economic pressure on countries and actors whose policies it disagrees with.

Our values gap is growing.

The report also called for developing an EU investment agreement with Taiwan. MEPs had pushed the EU to build closer ties with the democratic-ruled island in a previous resolution adopted by the European Parliaments Committee on Foreign Affairs on Sept. 1.

MEPs also sought to combat Beijings disinformation efforts, recommending the creation of a dedicated committee to monitor and counter such campaigns.

They also proposed the development of a regulatory system to prevent European media companies from being acquired by firms controlled or sponsored by third-country governments.

The European Parliament urged EU member states to work with like-minded partners, such as the United States, Canada, UK, Japan, India, South Korea, and Australia.

Educational and research institutions across the EU should be free from the CCPs influence and financial support, the report said. It encouraged programs that study Chinese culture and languages independently from the CCPs influence, such as those from Taiwan.

On Sept. 15, the EU announced an investment project to counter the regimes controversial infrastructure investment program, the Belt and Road Initiative. Beijing has poured billions of dollars into infrastructure projects across Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Asia, and analysts worry its used to expand the regimes global influence while ensnaring developing countries in debt traps.
Evergrande Default Could Rock Chinas Entire Economy

Analysis

Chinas public debt already stands at 270 percent of GDP, and non-performing loans have hit $466.9 billion. In addition to existing economic challenges, real estate giant Evergrande Group has signaled that it may default on payments owed to creditors.

Chinas second largest developer has been facing a liquidity crisis, as its onshore bond trading has been suspended. Without access to funding, Evergrande will find it impossible to pay suppliers, finish projects, or raise income, making default more likelyan eventuality which could send ripples through the entire Chinese economy.

Evergrande made $110 billion in sales last year and has $355 billion in assets. In June, it failed to pay some commercial paper and the government froze a $20 million bank account. The company now owes total liabilities of $305 billion, making it the most indebted real estate developer in the world. It is also the largest issuer of dollar junk bonds in Asia. Evergrande owes money to 128 banks and over 121 non-banking institutions. Consequently, the companys stock price has dropped by 90 percent over the past 14 months, while its bonds were trading at 60 to 70 percent below par.

Evergrande accounts for 4 percent of total Chinese real estate high-yield debt. The companys debt is of such significant size that it may pose systemic risk to Chinas banking system. Late or defaulted payments by Evergrande could cause a chain reaction of defaults across institutions. An Evergrande sell-off could drive down prices, crashing over-leveraged developers. Authorities worry that this threatens to destabilize the entire real estate sector, which comprises about 30 percent of the Chinese economy.

Additionally, Evergrande has implications for the labor market. The company employs 200,000 people regularly and 3.8 million per year, on a project basis. After 18 months of sporadic COVID-19 lockdowns, China needs more, not fewer, jobs.

People gather to demand repayment of loans and financial products at Evergrandes headquarters, in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China on Sept. 13, 2021. (David Kirton/Reuters)

Evergrande is expected to be unable to meet interest and principal payments due next week.

The Peoples Bank of China and the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission warned Evergrandes executives to reduce its debt risks. Beijing instructed authorities in Guangdong Province to coordinate with potential buyers of Evergrandes assets. Meanwhile, regulators have signed off on a proposal to let Evergrande renegotiate payment deadlines, which would grant a temporary reprieve.

Evergrande is not the only problem in Chinas debt market. By midyear, Chinese onshore and offshore defaults already totaled more than $25 billion, which is nearly the same amount as for the entire previous year. Real estate firms accounted for about 30 percent of these defaults. Some of the larger culprits were China Fortune Land Development and Sichuan Languang Development. Furthermore, the transportation, tourism, and retailing sectors have been particularly hard hit by the pandemic lockdowns, increasing defaults in those sectors. Some state-linked companies have also suffered defaults, such as Yongcheng Coal & Electricity Holding Group and Tsinghua Unigroup. Additionally, China Huarong Asset Management, a majority state-owned company, failed to release its 2020 results on schedule. Between the main company and its subsidiaries, Huarong had $39 billion of debt outstanding, eventually posting a $15.9 billion loss for 2020.

Over the past several years, Chinas corporate debt to GDP ratio has been steadily increasing. In 2017, it hit a record 160 percent, up from 101 percent 10 years earlier. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has made it a priority to rein in the debt, particularly in Chinas $10 trillion shadow banking sector. Local government financing vehicles (LGFV) have defaulted on many trust loans in the shadow banking system, but not on a public bond. So far, this year, 915 million of LGFV have defaulted. This so-called hidden debt of local governments has become so pervasive that Beijing has named it a national security issue.

Investor confidence has been shaken, as both private and state-linked companies, once considered safe investments, have been in default. The danger is that investors, fearing contagion, might panic and begin selling off both good and bad debt, driving down the market.

A complete collapse of Evergrande could cause widespread economic turmoil and even civil unrest. The future of Evergrande and the Chinese economy depends on whether or not the central authorities will allow Evergrande to go into default, leaving its creditors high and dry, or if the Chinese Communist Party will intervene in order to maintain stability.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
The China Evergrande Centre is seen in Hong Kong, China on Aug. 25, 2021. (REUTERS/Tyrone Siu)

Evergrande Suspends Bond Trading After Latest Downgrade

Cash-strapped Chinese developer Evergrande Group has applied for a suspension of trade of its onshore corporate bonds on Sept. 16, following a ratings downgrade a day earlier.

Hengda Real Estate Group, the property service provider and a subsidiary of Evergrande, found on Wednesday that its bonds ratings had been downgraded from AA to A.

According to Hengda, the rating agency, China Chengxin International (CCXI), put both the bond and its issuer on a watchlist for further downgrades.

Hengda asked to suspend trade of its onshore corporate bonds for one day.

Upon resumption of trade on Sept. 17, its Shanghai and Shenzhen exchange-traded bonds will only be traded through limited negotiated transactions.

The most recent application comes after repeated trading freezes in recent days due to volatile trade. Yet, according to market analysts, the latest suspension could indicate an increased likelihood of default and debt restructuring.

Besides real estate development, Evergrande Group has interests across the sporting, health, and tourism industries. With liabilities to the tune of over $300 billion, the property giant is scrambling to raise funds as it teeters on the brink of collapse if current restructuring efforts fail.

The impacts are expected to be far-reaching across both the real estate, banking, and iron ore sectors.

Two weeks ago, CCXI downgraded Evergrande and its onshore bonds from AAA to AA, erasing the bonds value as it attempted to engage in repurchase trading.

On Sept. 7, Fitch Ratings flagged a probable default for the company.

In July, CCXI revised its outlook for the first time on Chinas real estate sector from stable to negative.

Reuters contributed to this report.
Faith in the Human Spirit Restored: Young Man Offers to Change Womans Tire for Free

A mom and daughter who sustained a flat tire in the middle of a highway were surprised when a stranger quickly pulled over, wanting to help. Impressed with the young mans approach to helping others, the woman shared their exchange on social media, where it tugged at netizens heartstrings.

I think that kindness begets kindness, lawyer Mary Kate Tischler, of Long Island, New York, told The Epoch Times.

Mary Kate, 47, was driving home on Aug. 25 after swimming at a friends house with her daughter, Ruby, when a tire blew out on Southern State Parkway.

I slowly moved the car off the side of the road, she recalled. I was starting to look for the number for roadside assistance when all of a sudden, like almost immediately, a black Jeep pulled in front of me and a young man got out. I noticed that he was wearing a yarmulke.

Kasriel Zakutinsky fixing Mary Kates tire. (Courtesy of Mary Kate Tischler)

The strangerKasriel Zakutinsky, a nurse recruiter in his 20s from Brooklyn, New Yorkcame to the passenger side window to tell Mary Kate that he had equipment in his car and would be happy to change the tire for her.

It was a sweltering hot day, said Mary Kate, and she couldnt believe that someone would be so selfless. However, Kasriel justified his offer by telling the mom, I would like to think that if the same thing happens to my mother, or to my grandmother, that somebody would help.

Noticing Kasriels professional-looking equipment, Mary Kate began to ask the young man some questions.

Pointing to his yarmulke, Kasriel explained that his Jewish community provides rapid, volunteer-run roadside assistance, EMS, fire crews, and even food banks and financial support to anyone and everyone who needs them.

I was just blown away by that, said Mary Kate. I thought that was just such an incredible thing  theyre willing to help anyone who is in need.

The mom also commended Kasriel for his kindness toward her 7-year-old daughter throughout the roadside ordeal.

[He] was being so friendly to her, really trying to make sure that she wouldnt be nervous because there we are, stranded, she said. Before he would do anything with the tire, hed say, Ruby, dont be nervous; the car is gonna go up a little bit now. Itll be like a little ride.'

When the job was done and Mary Kate asked what she owed him, Kasriel simply smiled and held up a zero sign with his thumb and forefinger.

Ill never forget, he said, Zero, communicating to me that he was doing this out of the kindness of his heart, said Mary Kate, adding that reaching for a $20 bill, as was her instinct, just didnt seem appropriate.

As she went back to her car, the mom started crying, reassuring Ruby that they were tears of joy, relief, and gratitude.

I feel like I dont believe in coincidences, she reflected. I think the fact that he just happened to be right behind me on the highway  I really feel like thats the power of the universe working for good.

As Kasriel was changing the tire, Mary Kate had snapped a discreet photo with a Facebook post in mind. Later that evening, she posted her heartfelt experience online, with the caption, Would you like to have your faith in the human spirit restored?

Her post, which was viewed by thousands, eventually got back to Kasriel, who chatted with her through LinkedIn. In a follow-up post, the grateful mom shared a link for donors to support his volunteer roadside assistance group, Chaverim of the Five Towns and Rockaways.

In an email interview, Kasriel, who was born into an Orthodox Jewish family, told The Epoch Times that he always tries to help if he sees someone on the side of a highway with a flat tire, and especially if it happens to be stranger in distress who has a child or when the weather is bad.

Contrary to the negative articles that the media writes about Jewish communities, the Orthodox Jewish community is the warmest, kindest community, he explained. Our core is based on helping others, no matter their race, religion, age, gender  I live every second of it, I wouldnt switch it for anything.

Kasriel, who claims that life is too short for negativity, bias, and hate, hopes that his interaction with Mary Kate and Ruby on Aug. 25 encourages everyone to do good for others.

A number of netizens have already told Mary Kate that her story prompted them to pay it forward, and members of the Jewish community have reached out to thank her for helping squash stereotypes by spreading a story of kindness and hope.

I think its important for more stories to be shared about people doing good things, she said.

Share your stories with us at emg.inspired@epochtimes.com, and continue to get your daily dose of inspiration by signing up for the Epoch Inspired newsletter at TheEpochTimes.com/newsletter
Federal Judge Blocks Biden From Using COVID-19 Policy to Expel Illegal Immigrants

A federal judge on Thursday ruled against the Biden administration and said it cannot use the Trump-era rule to expel illegal immigrant families with children who were taken into custody at the border under a public health order.

Judge Emmet Sullivan of the District of Columbia District Court ruled that the federal government has enough power to use measures to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Last year, former President Donald Trumps administration utilized the Title 42 rule to expel certain illegal aliens as a pandemic containment measure, which the Biden administration kept intact.

But in view of the wide availability of testing, vaccines, and other minimization measures, the Court is not convinced that the transmission of COVID-19 during border processing cannot be significantly mitigated. Indeed, the government has successfully implemented mitigation measures with regard to processing unaccompanied minors in order to minimize risk of COVID-19 transmission, Sullivan, who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton, wrote in the order (pdf), which takes effect in 14 days.

President Joe Biden reportedly had plans to end Title 42 deportations earlier this summer but decided against it due to the Delta variants spread. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in August indefinitely extended Title 42 until the agencys director, Rochelle Walensky, determines that the danger of further introduction of COVID-19 into the United States from covered noncitizens has ceased to be a serious danger to the public health.

After the injunction was handed down, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said reporters should ask the Department of Justice for comment.

Were focused on taking steps to address the root causes of migration, implement orderly asylum processes, strengthen collaborative migration management efforts in the region, and effectively secure our borders, Psaki said, without elaborating on whether the Biden administration will consider an appeal of Sullivans ruling. Weve made considerable progress on that front.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which in August sought an injunction against Title 42, hailed Sullivans ruling on Thursday.

President Biden should have ended this cruel and lawless policy long ago, and the court was correct to reject it today, stated Omar Jadwat, the head of the ACLUs Immigrants Rights Project.

The Biden administration, meanwhile, is still in discussions with the Mexican government about potentially restarting a version of the Remain in Mexico policy that was championed by Trump after the Supreme Court last month issued a ruling to essentially restore it.

In a separate move on Thursday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, announced he is closing down six ports of entry from Mexico to Texas due to a surge of illegal immigrants in recent days. It comes after photos were taken at a bridge in Del Rio, Texas, showing thousands of people who crossed into the United States illegally under a bridge.
Film Review: The Card Counter: Yet Another Redemption Yarn From Paul Schrader

R | 1h 49min | Drama, Thriller, Mystery | 10 September 2021 (USA)

Love him or hate him (and there are few people on the fence), youve got to give filmmaker Paul Schrader credit for one thing: Hes consistent. Hes consistent in that he uses the same blueprint for most of his movies, something that some might deem as lazy and repetitive.

When regulated to providing just the screenplay (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Bringing Out the Deadall directed by Martin Scorsese), Schraders antihero-seeking-redemption motif is not so much easier to take but livelier.

When unchecked and directing his own material (Hardcore, Light Sleeper, Affliction, Forever Mine, First Reformed), Schraders films are visually stylish but narratively inert and relentlessly grim.

The Card Counter

Oscar Isaac stars as William Tell, an Iraq War veteran and convicted felon, who spent his years in the can learning how to count cards. A talented poker player, Tell (probably not his given last name) is a master of blackjack and knows that keeping a low profile and winning just enough to get by will not raise the ire of casino watchdogs.

Literally living out of a suitcase, the nomadic Tell travels from city to city while staying in second-tier motels and avoiding his fellow man. When not clad in full black at the casinos, Tell stays in his room, which he augments by removing all electronic devices and artwork and covering everything in light gray bedsheets. Why Tell does this is never hinted at or explained. He doesnt appear to have OCD and is not a germaphobe.

While in the rooms, he faces walls writing in a journal while sipping high-end whiskey. It almost certainly is Schrader suggesting some sort of spiritual symbolism, but it is vague, oblique, and borderline condescending to the audience.

When not working, William Tell (Oscar Isaac) sits in his hotel room, covered in sheets, and writes. (Focus Features/Copyright 2021 Focus Features, LLC)

Haddish Is Out of Her League

Tells tedious routine gets a jolt when he reconnects with La Linda (Tiffany Haddish), a woman who recruits professional gamblers for wealthy backers who wish to remain anonymous. The problem, at least initially, is that Tell actually prefers routine and not having to answer to anybody.

Unlike many comedic performers and former stand-up comics whove made successful transitions to drama, Haddish fails miserably. She cannot present Schraders ultraheavy dialogue convincingly and is woefully miscast. Her lackluster turn is made all the worse by her appearing opposite the acting powerhouse Isaac.

In what is arguably the most contrived and forced passage in the film, Tell takes a break from the gambling tables to take in a sparsely attended law enforcement lecture, hosted by John Gordo (Schrader regular Willem Dafoe), a security expert Tell knew in Iraq. Given the gravity of whats presented in flashback sequences taking place at Abu Ghraib prison, it is impossible to believe that Gordo would not recognize Tell, who is sitting mere feet away and making lingering eye contact.

At this same lecture, Tell is approached by Cirk (thats Kirk with a C) (Tye Sheridan), the son of another man who knew Gordo in Iraq. With information that only a cop or stalker might know, Cirk reminds Tell that Gordo is an enemy to both of them and that they should kill him.

Having spent years trying to leave his iffy past behind, Tell takes Cirk under his wing in an attempt to divert his mind away from homicide.

Isaac Must Carry the Film Alone

Like far too many child actors before him, Sheridan (The Tree of Life, Mud, Joe) has had difficulty tackling adult roles. Apart from his stint as the younger Cyclops in the X-Men franchise, every role Sheridan has turned in since 2014 has been a bust. Looking alternately bored or confused the entire time, Cirk lacks anything resembling the required passion, rage, or anger of a guy bent on committing murder.

Oscar Isaac (L) carries the film because the other major players, including Tye Sheridan, dont match his acting prowess. (Focus Features/Copyright 2021 Focus Features, LLC)

With Dafoe appearing on screen for less than 15 minutes and Haddish and Sheridan contributing next to nothing, Isaac is left with carrying the entire movie on his own, and he more than handles the challenge. A minimalist performer, Isaacs dark eyes and exacting baritone often hide (in a good way) his smoldering intensity. Hes a perfect leading man for mysterious and calculating characters such as this, and Schrader would be wise to cast him again if at all possible.

Having preached to the same fervent but modest choir for nearly a half century, Schrader widened his audience somewhat with First Reformed (which netted him his only career Academy Award nomination). And he could have continued that momentum with The Card Counter, but his questionable decisions regarding cast and plot resulted in a movie that could have been great but in the end is just average and largely forgettable.

As self-directed Schrader films go, The Card Counter borders on the hopeful and ends on a note that delivers redemption and good conquering evil, albeit in a highly bittersweet manner.

The Card Counter

Director: Paul Schrader

Stars: Oscar Isaac, Tiffany Haddish, Tye Sheridan, Willem Dafoe

Running Time: One hour, 49 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Release Date: Sept. 10, 2021

Rating: 2.5 out of 5
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during an event in the East Room of the White House in Washington D.C. on Sept. 15, 2021. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Former Australian PM Quick to Back Historic AUKUS Security Alliance

Former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has called the newly announced trilateral security partnership between Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom historic and important.

Historic because it overturns decades of strategic caution and announces to the world that we take national security seriously, he said in a statement on Twitter on Sept. 16.

Important because it acknowledges the scale of the strategic challenge from China and declares that Australia will play our part in meeting it, he added.

Tony Abbott addresses media at Parliament House in Canberra on Sept. 15, 2015. (Stefan Postles/Getty Images)

His comments were in stark contrast to those from another former Prime Minister Paul Keating, who said the agreement was a dramatic loss of sovereign capability for Australia.

Australia has had great difficulty in running a bunch of Australian-built conventional submarinesimagine the difficulty in moving to sophisticated nuclear submarines, he said in a statement.

If the United States military with all its might could not beat a bunch of Taliban rebels with AK47 rifles in pickup trucks, what chance would it have in a full blown war against China?

Keating was an international advisor to the state-owned China Development Bank.

The new security alliance was announced on Sept. 16 by U.S. President Joe Biden, and the British and Australian Prime Ministers Boris Johnson, and Scott Morrison during a joint virtual press conference from each of their capitals.

The new alliance, called AUKUS, will see the U.S. and UK governments assist Australia with acquiring nuclear-powered submarines, a move that would make Australia one of the only countries in the world to operate nuclear-powered weapons, despite ratifying the non-nuclear proliferation treaty.

We will launch a trilateral effort of 18 months, which will involve teamstechnical and strategic and navy teamsfrom all three countries to identify the optimal pathway of delivery of this capability, according to a joint statement by the three governments.

Britains Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Australias Prime Minister Scott Morrison and US President Joe Biden at a joint press conference via AVL from The Blue Room at Parliament, in Canberra, Australia, on Sept. 16, 2021. (AAP Image/Mick Tsikas)

We will also announce efforts to spur cooperation across many new and emerging arenascyber; AIparticularly applied AI; quantum technologies; and some undersea capabilities as well.

The move bolsters the U.S. and UK governments commitment to the Indo-Pacific, while also marking a significant shift for Australias defence capabilities (which has long eschewed nuclear development as it has been prohibited under law).

It also adds an extra dimension to the existing Five Eyes arrangement, which has been the main intelligence sharing network between Australia, UK, United States, Canada, and New Zealandand has, of late, been a platform for democratic allies to engage on issues related to countering Chinese Communist Party (CCP) aggression.

Prime Minister Morrison said the new submarines would be built in the city of Adelaide.

But let me be clear. Australia is not seeking to acquire nuclear weapons or establish a civil nuclear capability, he said. We will continue to meet all our nuclear non-proliferation obligations.

Federal Greens member of Parliament Adam Bandt was critical of the move claiming dangerous nuclear submarines would place floating Chernobyls in the heart of Australias cities.

It makes Australia less safe, increases the risk of conflict in our region & puts us in the firing line, he wrote on Twitter on Sept. 16. Greens will fight this tooth and nail.

Liberal Democrat state member of Parliament David Limbrick responded on Twitter, saying, The Navy moves away from fossil fuels, and the Greens still arent happy. Theres no pleasing some people!

Liberal Senator Eric Abetz welcomed the announcement in a statement to The Epoch Times, Our unique geography and our location in the Indo-Pacific requires dynamic naval capabilities, and nuclear submarines will serve that end very well.
A Microsoft logo is seen on an office building in New York City on July 28, 2015. (Mike Segar/Reuters)

Former AWS Veteran Charlie Bell to Head Cybersecurity Ops at Microsoft

Former Amazon.com Inc. cloud executive Charlie Bell said he has joined Microsoft Corp. to lead a newly formed role overseeing cybersecurity operations.

Bell, who will start as an executive vice president, indicated in a LinkedIn post that his role will include dealing with digital fraud, ransomware attacks and with public exposure of private data.

Bells appointment comes at a time when Microsoft has been hit hard in terms of cybersecurity shortcomings.

Last week, the company warned some of its Azure cloud computing customers that a major flaw discovered by security researchers could have allowed hackers access to their data.

In late August, security experts at Wiz described a database flaw that also would have allowed one customer to alter anothers data in the Azure cloud platform.

Bell, who long reported to former Amazon Web Services chief Andy Jassy and oversaw the engineering teams working on AWSs main software services, will report directly to Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella, Bloomberg News said.

Bell began his career as a developer of mini-computer software used in engineering of space shuttle payload mixes. He joined Amazon in 1998 after his startup was acquired by the e-commerce giant.

Im thrilled to join Microsoft to take on one of the greatest challenges of our time, leading a newly formed engineering organization: Security, Compliance, Identity, and Management, Bell wrote in a LinkedIn post.

Bell will start his role officially once a resolution is reached with his former employer, Bloomberg added, citing an email from Nadella.

Microsoft spokesperson Frank Shaw, in a statement to Reuters, said, Were sensitive to the importance of working through these issues together, as weve done when five recent Microsoft executives moved across town to work for Amazon.

Amazon did not respond to a Reuters request for comment on Bells new job.
Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Capitol Hill in Washington on June 23, 2021. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

Former Trump Pentagon Chief Says He Did Not Authorize Mark MilleyChina Calls

Former acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller, who briefly led the Pentagon from late 2020 until January 2021, said he did not authorize an alleged phone call between Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley and his Chinese Communist Party counterpart.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the highest-ranking military officer whose sole role is providing military-specific advice to the president, and by law is prohibited from exercising executive authority to command forces, Miller said in a statement to Fox News, referring to allegations contained in a forthcoming Bob Woodward book that Milley made two secret phone calls to Gen. Li Zuocheng of the Peoples Liberation Army in late October 2020 and two days after the Jan. 6 Capitol breach, respectively.

If the reporting in Woodwards book is accurate, it represents a disgraceful and unprecedented act of insubordination by the Nations top military officer, Millers statement added, saying that Milleys alleged histrionic outbursts and unsanctioned, anti-Constitutional involvement in foreign policy prove true, he must resign immediately or be fired by the Secretary of Defense to guarantee the sanctity of the officer corps.

When he led the Pentagon, Miller recalled that he didnt and wouldnt ever authorize such conduct.

The Woodward book, co-authored by Robert Costa, asserted that Milley became concerned that former President Donald Trump was unstable and would spark a war with China. That prompted him to arrange two secret phone calls with Li, it claimed, adding that Milley told his Chinese counterpart that the United States wouldnt strike and said he would tell his counterpart if Trump ordered an attack.

Following publication of the alleged phone call, Milleys spokesman, Col. Dave Butler, told news outlets that his communications with Li were part of his normal responsibilities and duties and that Milley did not break protocol in how he spoke to Li.

Christopher Miller, then-director of the National Counterterrorism Center, testifies to Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington on Sept. 24, 2020. (Tom Williams/Pool via Reuters)

All calls from the Chairman to his counterparts, including those reported, are staffed, coordinated and communicated with the Department of Defense, Butler said.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki and other Biden administration mounted a defense of Milley, saying they believe he is still suitable to be the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Milley is somebody who has fidelity to the Constitution, she said, adding that Biden has confidence in [Milleys] leadership and the role he has played in his experience with him.

Later, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said he cannot verify the claims in Woodwards book but added he see[s] nothing in what Ive read that would cause any concern.

But Miller said that if the allegations are correct, an investigation is warranted because a lesser ranking officer accused of such behavior would immediately be relieved of duty.

Any accusations that President Trump was intent on starting a war with China are completely unfounded, Miller also said in his statement. President Trump absolutely believed and advocated for a more aggressive approach to China, but he was elected to end our Nations wars, not start new ones. I was proud to play a small role in achieving those goals.

The Department of Defense hadnt responded to a request for comment as of this articles publication.
A combination picture shows the four defendants at the start of the trial of former Volkswagen executives charged with misconduct over their role in the carmaker's manipulation of diesel emissions testing, in Brunswick, Germany on Sept. 16, 2021. (Julian Stratenschulte/Pool via Reuters)

Four Former VW Employees Go on Trial in Dieselgate Lawsuit

BRAUNSCHWEIG, GermanyFour former employees of carmaker Volkswagen went on trial on Thursday over the Dieselgate scandal in which illegal software was used to cheat emission tests.

The trial, being held in the city of Braunschweig, close to Volkswagens headquarters in Wolfsburg, started without former CEO Martin Winterkorn, whose separate trial will take place at a later date.

The four employees, who are accused of fraud, had been aware of the illegal software but failed to raise the issue, instead seeking to maximise profits for the carmaker and, as a result, their performance bonuses, Braunschweig prosecutors said.

Prosecutors Andre Schmidt, Elke Hoppenworth and Daniel Facca attend the start of a trial against four former Volkswagen executives, charged with misconduct over their role in the carmakers manipulation of diesel emissions testing, in Brunswick, Germany on Sept. 16, 2021. (Julian Stratenschulte/Pool via Reuters)

The defendants either claim they did not know about the manipulation or had informed their superiors about it, judicial sources said.

Volkswagen admitted in 2015 to cheating U.S. diesel engine tests, sparking the biggest crisis in its history.

It has cost the worlds second-largest carmaker more than 32 billion euros ($37.7 billion) in vehicle refits, fines and legal costs so far.

($1 = 0.8499 euros)
President Joe Biden speaks on workers rights and labor unions in the East Room at the White House in Washington on Sept. 8, 2021. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

France Criticizes Biden After Nuclear Submarine Deal Between US, UK, Australia

The French government on Wednesday issued an angry response to the United States agreement with the United Kingdom and Australia to provide Australia with nuclear submarines.

French Minister Of Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-yves Le Drian and Minister of the Armed Forces Florence Parly, in a sharply worded joint statement, said the decision that was announced by President Joe Biden is contrary to the letter and spirit of the cooperation that prevailed between France and Australia, based on a relationship of political trust as well as on the development of a very high-level defence industrial and technological base in Australia.

The American choice to exclude a European ally and partner such as France from a structuring partnership with Australia, at a time when we are facing unprecedented challenges in the Indo-Pacific region, whether in terms of our values or in terms of respect for multilateralism based on the rule of law, shows a lack of coherence that France can only note and regret, the statement added.

On Wednesday, Biden joined Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to jointly announce the creation of an enhanced security partnership targeting the Asia-Pacific region to share submarine technology with Australia.

During the announcement, Biden made reference to France and said the country has a substantial presence in the region, adding that the United States considers France a key partner and ally in strengthening the security and prosperity of the region.

The United States looks forward to working closely with France and other key countries as we go forward, Biden said, without elaborating.

But during the same announcement, Morrison confirmed that Australia pulled out of a reported $66 billion deal with France to produce nuclear submarines. Instead, he added, Australia will produce nuclear-powered submarines using UK and U.S. technology.

Le Drian on Thursday described the announcement as a stab in the back to France, adding that trust has been broken.

The foreign minister also excoriated Biden for embarking on a brutal and unilateral decision that he described as reminiscent of foreign policy moves made by his predecessor, President Donald Trump.

Following the angry missives, Johnson and Morrison on Thursday both stressed that France is still an important ally in the region. Johnson described the France-UK relationship as rock solid during an interview, reported the BBC, while Morrison said that French officials were good partners.

Of course theyre disappointed, Morrison said in response to the joint statement from Le Drian and Parly, reported The Associated Press. Theyve been good partners. This is about our strategic interest, our strategic capability requirements and a changed strategic environment and weve had to take that decision.

The Epoch Times has contacted the White House for comment.
Two soldiers of the counter-terrorism Barkhane mission in Africa's Sahel region patrol aboard a Light Armored Vehicle (LAV) to observe the construction of the new French base in Gossi, center Mali, on March 25, 2019. (Daphne Benoit/AFP via Getty Images)

France Says It Has Killed ISIS-GS Leader, a Former al-Qaeda Leader, in Africa

The French military has killed a leader of the ISIS-affiliate group ISIS in the Greater Sahara (ISIS-GS), French President Emmanuel Macron announced late on Sept. 15.

ISIS-GS leader Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi was neutralized by French forces, Macron wrote on Twitter, according to a translation.

This is another major success in our fight against terrorist groups in the Sahel, he wrote. The Nation is thinking this evening of all its heroes who died for France in the Sahel in the Serval and Barkhane operations, of the bereaved families, of all of its wounded. Their sacrifice is not in vain. With our African, European, and American partners, we will continue this fight.

According to the Counter Extremism Project, an international nonprofit working to combat the growing threat of terrorism and extremist ideology, al-Sahrawi was formerly the self-proclaimed leader for the al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group The Sentinels (al-Mourabitoun) in the Sahara. In May 2015, he pledged allegiance to ISISs Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and split to form ISIS-GS.

Al-Sahrawi was designated a global terrorist by the United States after he claimed responsibility for a 2017 terror attack in Niger that killed four U.S. military personnel, as well as four soldiers from Nigers military.

His group has also abducted foreigners in the Sahel region of West Africa, and is still believed to be holding American Jeffrey Woodke, who was taken from his home in Niger in 2016.

The terrorist was also responsible for ordering the killing of six French aid workers and their Nigerien drivers in August 2020, according to Macrons office.

French Defense Minister Florence Parly congratulated military and intelligence agents for their efforts in the covert mission.

It is a decisive blow against this terrorist group. Our fight continues, she wrote, according to a translation of her Twitter post.

File photo showing French Defence minister Florence Parly speaking at a news conference in Helsinki, Finland, Aug. 23, 2018. (Lehtikuva/Vesa Moilanen/via Reuters)

Its unclear where al-Sahrawi was killed, although the ISIS group is blamed for most of the attacks along the border between Mali and Niger.

French troops have spent eight years helping local forces fight the Islamist terrorists in the Sahel.

Macron announced in June that he would reduce the number of French troops in the Sahel, to ultimately halve the then 5,100-member Barkhane force.

Macron said that while there will still be a military presence in the Sahel region to help African allies fight groups linked to ISIS and al-Qaeda, France is seeking to shift some of its focus toward counterterrorism operations and the strengthening and training of local forces.

Melanie Sun contributed to this report.
The Universal Music Group (UMG) logo on a building in Zurich, Switzerland, on July 20, 2021. (Arnd Wiegmann/Reuters)

Frances Bollore Poised to Own $7 Billion Worth of Universal After Listing

PARIS/AMSTERDAMVincent Bollore is set to own $7 billion worth of Universal Music Group shares after it floats next week, raising questions about how the French tycoon could use this new source of cash as Universals parent Vivendi charts a new course.

Bollore, the top investor in Vivendi who spearheaded the spin-off of the worlds biggest music label, is set to be one of the deals biggest winners, the prospectus issued on Tuesday showed.

Listing Universal, with an estimated equity value of 33 billion euros ($39 billion), involves distributing 60 percent of its shares to Vivendis shareholders. Bollore is set to receive about 18 percent, worth about 5.9 billion euros ($7 billion).

The question next is what he will do with his share, a source familiar with the transaction said. The cash that he will get from this, he could deploy it in some other way.

Universals listing, Europes biggest so far this year, drew international attention after Vivendi sold 20 percent of the division to a group led by the Chinese tech company Tencent and 10 percent to U.S. billionaire Bill Ackmans Pershing Square.

Vivendi, now part of Bollores family-run empire, has invested in a range of companies, including media and publishing group Lagardere and Telecom Italia.

Separating Universal from Vivendi will deprive the Paris-based group of its most valuable asset and is likely to push down the share price of its parent after the spin-off.

The media group expects its shares to trade at a lower price after Universals shares start trading on Sept. 21 on Euronexts Amsterdam stock exchange, Universal said in the prospectus.

For Bollore and Vivendi, Universals spin-off aims to extract the most value from its prized asset as streaming revenues help the music industry rebound from a downturn.

Universal sees itself as indispensable for professionals seeking to collect royalties in far-flung places and on social media, an impossible task even for well-known names, let alone smaller ones.

In the 2000s, professionals and record labels lost sales to piracy of digital music and a shrinking market for physical media such as CDs. Their fortunes turned in the mid-2010s as subscription services led by Spotify helped restore royalty revenue.

In addition, the explosion of music on ad-supported social media platforms such as YouTube has started to benefit record labels as they strike deals for a share of ad revenue on user-generated content that includes music clips.

Universal has registered six consecutive years of sales growth, reporting 1.49 billion euros in core earnings in 2020 on 7.43 billion euros in sales.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Army General Mark Milley (R) hold a press briefing about the U.S. military drawdown in Afghanistan, at the Pentagon in Washington on Sept. 1, 2021. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

House Republicans Ask Defense Secretary for Probe Into Gen. Milleys Calls With China

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin should open an official investigation into reports that Gen. Mark Milley held secret calls with a Chinese general, a group of House Republicans said on Sept. 16.

In a letter to Austin, the group asked Austin to open an Army Regulation 156 investigation into the calls, which Milleys spokesman appears to have confirmed took place.

Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) and 26 other Republicans said theyre gravely concerned with Milleys ability to exercise his duties and responsibilities as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

In this recent case, our specific concerns involve reports from 14 September 2021, which indicate that Gen. Milley blatantly disregarded the concept of civilian control of the military, and gave aid and comfort to Americas principal adversary, the Chinese Communist Party, they wrote.

John Kirby, the Pentagons press secretary, told The Epoch Times in an email that the Department of Defense is aware of the letter and will respond to the members directly.

General Milley retains the trust and confidence of Secretary Austin, he added.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff didnt return a query.

According to anonymously sourced reports, Milley told Chinese Gen. Li Zuocheng across conversations in October 2020 and January that the United States wasnt going to attack China and suggested that he would tip off China if an attack were about to occur.

Republicans say those remarks, if accurately reported, amount to treason, and have called on President Joe Biden to fire Milley, or for Milley to resign.

Biden offered his support for Milley on Sept. 15, without commenting on the veracity of the reporting. Austin is an appointee of Biden, while Milley was appointed by President Donald Trump.

An Army Regulation 156 investigation can be formal or informal. The members of Congress are asking for a formal probe.

While Milley hasnt personally commented, a spokesman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Sept. 15 that Milley regularly communicates with Chiefs of Defense across the world, including with China and Russia and confirmed that Milley spoke with the Chinese in October 2020 and January.

The calls were in keeping with these duties and responsibilities conveying reassurance in order to maintain strategic stability, the spokesman said.

But the calls were unauthorized, Christopher Miller, who headed the Pentagon when the second one took place, said on Sept. 15.

If the reporting  is accurate, it represents a disgraceful and unprecedented act of insubordination by the Nations top military officer, Miller said.
Indiana Woman Who Strangled Stepdaughter Gets Life Sentence

MARION, Ind.A northern Indiana woman convicted of murder in the strangulation death of her 10-year-old stepdaughter was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Amanda Carmack, of Gas City, was sentenced during a hearing on Wednesday. A jury convicted her last month on murder, strangulation, neglect, and battery charges in the killing of Skylea Carmack. She was arrested days after her stepdaughters body was found in trash bags in a shed behind the familys home in September of 2019. When questioned by police, Amanda Carmack admitted to strangling the girl in the shed.

Carmack first stood trial for the killing last year, but the judge declared a mistrial after four people involved in the proceedings tested positive for COVID-19. She was retried this year and convicted.

Carmacks attorney, who argued during the trial that the slaying was not premeditated, told WANE-TV that he would appeal the conviction.
Police investigate the scene of a shooting in Orange, Calif., on April 1, 2021. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

Irvine Police Chief Announces Retirement; Assistant Chief To Succeed Him

IRVINE, Calif.Irvine Police Department (IPD) Chief Mike Hamel will retire next month after 27 years with the department, the last six as chief, it was announced Sept. 14.

IPD Assistant Chief Michael Kent was appointed by interim City Manager Marianna Marysheva to succeed Hamel, whose retirement will become effective Oct. 7. Kent is a longtime Irvine resident, graduating from Woodbridge High School.

Kent participated in the IPDs Explorers program for youths interested in law enforcement careers. He was hired as an officer with the department in 2002.

Kents positions with the department have included patrol sergeant, Office of Professional Development sergeant, investigations, SWAT and operations lieutenant, and detective.

Hamel was a Los Angeles Police Department officer for two years before joining the IPD in 1995 as a lateral transfer. Hamel was a SWAT operator, training and recruitment lieutenant and deputy chief before becoming chief in 2015.

Irvine Mayor Farrah N. Khan described Hamel as a person of high integrity, character, and an unrelenting resolve to serve Irvine in the most professional manner possible.

Irvine Police Chief Mike Hamel has announced he is retiring after 27 years of distinguished service to the Irvine community. We are extremely grateful to Chief Hamel for his outstanding service and dedication to our community. pic.twitter.com/kNBbpcUkXq  City of Irvine (@City_of_Irvine) September 15, 2021

Assistant Chief Michael Kent has been appointed as the next Irvine Chief of Police upon Hamels retirement October 7. Read the complete press release at https://t.co/eoUQKkirut. pic.twitter.com/hgqA3BwrN8  City of Irvine (@City_of_Irvine) September 15, 2021
A laborer works in a container area at a port in Tokyo, Japan on March 16, 2016. (Toru Hanai/Reuters)

Japans Hot Exports Growth Cools as COVID-19 Hits Supply Chains

TOKYOJapans exports extended double-digit gains in August, led by strong shipments of chip manufacturing equipment, although the pace of growth weakened as COVID-19 hit key Asian supply chains and slowed factory production.

The trade growth is unlikely to dispel worries about the outlook for Japans economy, which has not yet recovered to pre-pandemic levels after taking an enormous hit from a collapse in global trade in the first quarter of 2020.

Exports rose 26.2 percent in August compared with the same month a year earlier, the Ministry of Finance said on Thursday, marking the sixth straight month of double-digit growth as strong demand for chip-making equipment offset slowing U.S and European Union-bound shipments of cars.

However, the growth was slower than the 34.0 percent expected by economists in a Reuters poll and the 37.0 percent advance in the previous month.

Exports have been driving the economy. The recovery scenario for Japans economy may become shaky if they wont grow, said Takumi Tsunoda, senior economist at Shinkin Central Bank.

Policymakers are under pressure to keep the fragile recovery intact, which has been thrown into doubt due to a resurgence of the pandemic in other parts of Asia, leading manufacturing hubs such as Vietnam and Malaysia to roll out lockdown measures.

The semiconductor issue had quite a big impact, which weighed on car exports a lot, said Takeshi Minami, chief economist at Norinchukin Research Institute.

I think its likely to impact exports at least until the year-end as bottlenecks in parts supply in Southeast Asia continue.

Toyota Motor Corp. cut its annual production target by 300,000 vehicles last week as rising COVID-19 infections slowed output at parts factories in Vietnam and Malaysia.

While vaccination rates are improving and daily COVID-19 infections appear to have peaked, analysts expect Japan to see annualised 1.2 percent growth in the current quarter, much slower than projected last month, a Reuters poll on Tuesday showed.

By destination, shipments to China, Japans largest trading partner, rose 12.6 percent year-on-year in August, led by chemicals and semiconductor parts, the data showed.

Exports to the United States, the worlds top economy, soared 22.8 percent, as strong demand for power-generating machines offset a decline in car shipments.

Shipments to Asia as a whole gained 26.1 percent, their slowest pace in five months, while those to the European Union advanced 29.9 percent in August.

Imports jumped 44.7 percent in August compared with the same month a year earlier, versus the median estimate for a 40.0 percent increase, due to stronger demand for fuel and medical goods.

That brought a trade deficit of 635.4 billion yen ($5.81 billion), the largest shortfall since December 2012 and bigger than the median estimate for a 47.7 billion yen deficit.

The trade data follows the Reuters Tankan poll on Wednesday, which found confidence among Japanese manufacturers fell to a five-month low in September as the latest wave of COVID-19 forced factory halts around Asia.

($1 = 109.4200 yen)

By Daniel Leussink and Kantaro Komiya
Jobless Claims Rise as Pandemic Fears and Supply Chain Crunch Weigh on Recovery

The number of American workers who filed for unemployment rose last week after touching a pandemic-era low in the prior week, with the spread of the Delta variant and supply chain issues weighing on the labor market recovery.

First-time filings for unemployment insurancea proxy for layoffscame in at 332,000 for the week ending Sept. 11, a rise of 20,000 from the previous weeks revised level of 310,000, the Labor Department said in a release (pdf). The consensus forecast cited by FXStreet was for 328,000 claims.

On the face of it, it is disappointing but not entirely surprising to see a slight increase in new jobless claims given the toll taken by the Delta variant. Countering that somewhat is the decline in continuing claims to a fresh pandemic era low, Bankrate senior economic analyst Mark Hamrick told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement.

Continuing claims, which run a week behind the headline number and represent people continuing to collect benefits after earlier making an initial filing, fell by 187,000 to 2,665,000, a pandemic-era low.

The good news for American workers is that fresh job losses remain relatively muted. Theres strong demand for workers across a wide variety of sectors, lending to job and income security, Hamrick said.

Job openings in the United States surged to a record high of 10.9 million on the last day of July, while hiring lagged that figure by more than 4 million, painting a picture of an economic recovery held back by businesses struggling to fill vacant positions. There are now 2.5 million more job openings than unemployed people in the United States, with the Labor Departments most recent jobs report showing that the total number of unemployed edged down to 8.4 million in August while the unemployment rate edged down to 5.2 percent.

The jobless claims data comes as investors look to next weeks Federal Reserve policy meeting that could provide clues as to the timeline for the central bank to begin paring back its massive bond-buying program. Fed officials have been discussing when to start tapering the Feds $120 billion in monthly Treasury and mortgage security purchases, with the labor market recovery a key touchstone. While tapering is expected to start this year, the timing of the announcement, as well as the pace of the wind-down, hasnt yet been settled.

Patrick Harker, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, told Nikkei in an interview on Sept. 13 that the disconnect between record-high job openings and the millions still unemployed is driven by a range of factors, including fears related to the outbreak.

The supply issues are due to a myriad of factors, but first and foremost is people, whether theyre worried about their children or elder care, or theyre fearful to go back into the workplace or to get on mass transit in major cities to get to the workplace, Harker said.

He told the outlet that he favors moving quickly toward a taper announcement.

I am supportive of moving toward a tapering process sooner rather than later. When exactly that happens, the committee needs to decide. I would hope sometime this year we would be able to start the tapering process, Harker said, referring to the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the Feds monetary policy setting body, which is scheduled to meet on Sept. 21-22.
U.S. Attorney John Durham speaks to reporters on the steps of U.S. District Court in New Haven, Conn., on April 25, 2006. (Bob Child/AP Photo)

John Durham Grand Jury Indicts Lawyer Whose Firm Represented Democrats in 2016

Special prosecutor John Durham has charged Washington-based lawyer Michael Sussmann, who represented former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee, with lying to the FBI during Clintons 2016 campaign.

Sussmann works for the high-powered law firm Perkins Coiewhich has long done legal work for the Democratic Party and top Democrats, including filing election-related lawsuits.

The lawyer was indicted (pdf) on a single felony count of making a false statement during a meeting with FBI General Counsel James Baker in September 2016. Prosecutors allege that Sussmann lied by denying he represented any client when he told the federal law enforcement agency about evidence that allegedly linked then-candidate Donald Trumps Trump Tower to a bank in Russia.

Sussmann met with Baker to hand over papers and data files containing evidence of the alleged link between the Trump Organization and the Russian bank, which wasnt disclosed. Unconfirmed media reports have stated that it was Alfa Bank.

The indictment is the second criminal case brought by Durham since he was named by former Attorney General William Barr in 2018 to investigate officials who investigated the TrumpRussia probe. Durham, a former U.S. attorney, was asked to stay as a special counsel and continue his investigation after President Joe Bidens administration took office in January.

Sussmann, the indictment alleges, didnt turn over the information as a good citizen, but rather as an attorney representing Clinton, a technology executive, and an internet company.

Sussmanns lie was material because, among other reasons, Sussmanns false statement misled the FBI General Counsel and other FBI personnel concerning the political nature of his work and deprived the FBI of information that might have permitted it more fully to assess and uncover the origins of the relevant data and technical analysis, the indictment reads.

The Epoch Times in 2019 found that Sussmann had provided the information to Baker and at least one journalist ahead of the FBIs application for a FISA warrant to surveil former Trump campaign aide Carter Page. Perkins Coie, on behalf of the Democratic National Committee, also hired Fusion GPS, which in turn hired Christopher Steele to produce the dossier that contained since-discredited claims against the former president.

About a month later, The New York Times and other news outlets reported on the FBI investigation into the alleged Alfa BankTrump Organization connection. The FBI said it looked into the matter, but found no connections.

Trump and other former administration officials have long described the FBI investigation into his campaign as a witch hunt designed to politically wound his reelection chances.

Lawyers for Sussman, a former federal prosecutor, said on Sept. 16 that their client never made false statements to the FBI and that theres no evidence that the alleged falsehood affected the agencys work.

Mr. Sussmann has committed no crime, they said in a statement, according to The Associated Press. Any prosecution here would be baseless, unprecedented, and an unwarranted deviation from the apolitical and principled way in which the Department of Justice is supposed to do its work.

In 2017, Sussmann was asked by congressional investigators about his interview with Baker and testified that he passed along information on behalf of his client.

When trying to access Sussmanns page on Perkins Coies website, a page not found message was displayed.

Representatives for Perkins Coie and Sussmanns lawyers didnt respond to requests for comment by press time.
In this screenshot, South Korea's first underwater-launched ballistic missile is test-fired from a 3,000-ton-class submarine at an undisclosed location in the waters of South Korea, on Sept. 15, 2021. (South Korea Defense Ministry via AP)

Kim Jong Uns Sister Warns of Destruction of S.Korean Ties

SEOUL, South KoreaThe powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Wednesday criticized South Koreas president and threatened a complete destruction of bilateral relations after both of the countries tested ballistic missiles hours apart.

The launches of missiles underscored a return of tensions between the rivals at a time when talks aimed at stripping the North Korean regime of its nuclear program are stalled.

Kims sister, Kim Yo Jong, criticized South Korean President Moon Jae-in for comments he made while observing his countrys missile tests, including its first of a submarine-launched ballistic missile. Moon said South Koreas growing missile capabilities will serve as a sure deterrence against North Korean provocations.

The tests came hours after the South Korean and Japanese militaries said North Korea had fired two ballistic missiles into the sea.

In a statement carried by state media, Kim berated Moon for describing North Korean weapons demonstrations as a provocation, and warned of a complete destruction of bilateral relations if he continues with what she described as slander of North Korea.

A man walks past a TV screen showing North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, in Tokyo, on Sept. 15, 2021. (Koji Sasahara/AP Photo)

She said North Korea is developing its military capabilities for self-defense without targeting a specific country, and that South Korea is also increasing its military capabilities. North Korea has often accused the South of hypocrisy for introducing modern weapons while calling for talks on easing tensions between the divided countries.

If the president joins in the slander and detraction (against us), this will be followed by counter actions, and the North-South relations will be pushed toward a complete destruction, she said. We do not want that.

The South Korean and Japanese militaries said the two short-range ballistic missiles fired by North Korea flew 800 kilometers (500 miles) before landing in the sea inside Japans exclusive economic zonea worrying development even though they did not reach Japanese territorial waters. The last time a North Korean missile landed inside that zone was in October 2019.

The launches came two days after the North Korean regime said it fired a newly developed cruise missile, its first known missile test in six months.

Hours after the latest North Korean launches, South Korea reported its first test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile. As Moon and other top officials looked on, the missile flew from a submarine and hit a designated target, Moons office said. It did not say how far the weapon flew.

Experts say North Korea is building up its weapons systems to apply pressure on the United States in the hopes of winning relief from economic sanctions aimed at forcing the North to abandon its nuclear arsenal. U.S.-led talks on the issue have been stalled for more than two years.

North Korea is trying to communicate a message that things will not go as Washington wishes, if it doesnt accept the Norths demands, said Moon Seong Mook, an analyst with the Seoul-based Korea Research Institute for National Strategy. He said North Korea may think it has an opportunity now to win concessions from U.S. President Joe Bidens administration while it is embroiled in a domestic debate following the chaotic pullout from Afghanistan.

People watch a TV screen showing a news program reporting about North Koreas missiles with file footage in Seoul, South Korea, on Sept. 15, 2021. (Lee Jin-man/AP Photo)

Observers say Moons government, which has been actively pursuing reconciliation with North Korea, may have taken action to appear tougher in response to criticism that its too soft on the North.

The rival nations are still technically in a state of war since the 1950-53 Korean War, which pitted the North and ally China against the South and U.S.-led U.N. forces, ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said the launches threaten the peace and safety of Japan and the region and are absolutely outrageous.

The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said the North Korean test highlights the destabilizing impact of (North Koreas) illicit weapons program though it said it didnt pose an immediate threat to the U.S.

The North Korean regime launches represent a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions that bar the North Korean regime from engaging in any ballistic missile activity. But the council typically doesnt impose new sanctions when the North launches short-range missiles, like Wednesdays.

Wednesdays tests came as Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was in Seoul for meetings with Moon and other senior officials to discuss North Korea and other issues.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in (R) greets Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi prior to a meeting at the presidential Blue House in Seoul, South Korea, on Sept. 15, 2021. (Choi Jae-ku/Yonhap via AP)Its unusual for the North Korea regime to make provocative launches when China, its last major ally and biggest aid provider, is engaged in a major diplomatic event. But some experts say North Korea may have used the timing to draw extra attention.

Kim Dong-yub, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, said Wednesdays tests appeared to be of an improved version of a short-range missile it tested in March. He said the weapon is likely modeled on Russias Iskander missiles, which are designed to fly at relatively low altitudes, making them harder to be intercepted by missile defense systems.

The international community wants the North Korean regime to abandon its nuclear program and has long used a combination of the threat of sanctions and the promise of economic help to try to influence the North. But negotiations have stalled since 2019, when then-U.S. President Donald Trumps administration rejected the Norths demand for major sanctions relief in exchange for dismantling an aging nuclear facility.

Kim Jong Uns government has so far rejected the Biden administrations overtures for dialogue, demanding that Washington abandon what it calls hostile policies first. But the North Korean regime has maintained its self-imposed moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile tests, a sign that it may not want to completely scuttle the possibility of reopening the talks.

In 2017, the North Korean regime claimed to have acquired the ability to strike the American mainland with nuclear weapons after conducting three intercontinental ballistic missile tests and its most powerful nuclear test. In recent years, it has also performed a series of underwater-launched missile tests in what experts say is a worrying development because such weapons are difficult to detect and would provide North Korea with retaliatory strike capability.

South Korea, which doesnt have nuclear weapons, is under the protection of the U.S. nuclear umbrella, which guarantees a devastating American response in the event of an attack on its ally. But South Korea has been accelerating efforts to build up its conventional arms, including developing more powerful missiles.

Experts say South Koreas military advancements are aimed at improving its capacity for preemptive strikes and destroying key North Korean facilities and bunkers.

Separate from the submarine-launched missile, South Korea also tested a missile from an aircraft.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Lufthansa planes are seen parked on the tarmac of Frankfurt Airport, Germany, on June 25, 2020. (Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters)

Lufthansa Putting on More Business Flights: CEO

BERLINLufthansa is putting on more flights for business travelers in September and October, the chief executive of the German airline told Reuters on Wednesday.

We are now seeing very clearly that business travelers are coming back, Carsten Spohr said, adding Lufthansa had increased capacity on domestic flights by 30 percent in September and would increase it by another 15 percent in October.

Lufthansa will reintroduce the hourly frequency of flights between Frankfurt and Hamburg and Frankfurt and Berlin in the mornings and evenings, times popular with business travelers.

In Europe, we are already flying 60 percent of our program again, Spohr said.

Business travel is seen only returning gradually after it collapsed during the coronavirus pandemic as many companies have slashed their travel budgets and have got used to holding meetings online.

Speaking on the sidelines of a conference in Berlin, Spohr said the air cargo business was booming.

In air freight, due to the major unprecedented bottlenecks in global supply chains, the boom has even increased since the end of the summer holidays, he said.

By Klaus Lauer
People gather to demand repayment of loans and financial products at the Evergrande's headquarters, in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China on Sept. 13, 2021. (David Kirton/Reuters)

Evergrande Credit Rating Downgraded Again, Default Could Send Shocks Through China

Rating agencies have further downgraded the credit rating of troubled Chinese housing giant Evergrande after the company disclosed the full extent of its financial problems. An expert has warned that a default could send shocks through the countrys property and banking industry.

On Sept. 15, U.S. rating agency S&P further downgraded Evergrande from CCC to CC with a negative outlook, citing reduced liquidity and default risks, including the possibility of the company undergoing debt restructuring.

The downgrade comes two days after Evergrande released a statement in Mandarin saying growing speculation about its impending bankruptcy was completely untrue, but conceded it had indeed encountered unprecedented difficulties at present.

Another rating agency, Fitch, published an update on Sept. 14 warning that if Evergrande defaulted it could expose numerous industries to heightened credit risk. However, the overall impact on the banking sector would be manageable, it said. Fitch downgraded the companys rating to CC from CCC+ on Sept. 7.

Near the end of June, Evergrande reported a massive 1.97 trillion yuan (US $305 billion) in liabilities, according to a draft of its first half-year report. This included 572 billion yuan ($88.8 billion) in bank loans and other borrowings.

On Sept. 14, the highly indebted property group revealed in a statement to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that its cashflow was under tremendous pressure.

It has struggled to sell its properties and assets, including its Hong Kong-based headquarters, stakes in electric vehicle companies, and property service businesses, which it planned to use to pay off its crippling debt.

Evergrandes sales had halved from June to August, imposing tremendous pressure on the groups cashflow and liquidity, with the group blaming the weak performance on ongoing negative media reports.

The company disclosed that two of its subsidiaries had failed to uphold guarantee obligations for 934 million yuan ($145 million) worth of wealth management products issued by third parties.

China Bracing for Domino Effect

Frank Tian Xie, professor of business at the University of South Carolina Aiken, said the debt crisis and suspension of repayments to investors suggested Evergrande faced a default and insolvency.

[Banks] have rights to auction its assets based on their contract if it defaults, then Evergrande and its subsidiaries will go bankrupt and sell off properties, Xie told The Epoch Times.

He warned that if Evergrande were to go bankrupt, would have knock-on effect for banks and developers.

Xie suggested it could pose a wider threat to the countrys debt-laden property sector, or even the financial system.

He added that the debt is now causing difficulty for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Even if authorities bailed out the group, it could unleash a domino effect on other sectors of Chinas economy.

Chinas National Bureau of Statistics said the impact on the countrys property sector was under further observation, when asked about Evergrandes liquidity crisis at Wednesdays press conference.

Complaints have flooded Chinese social media platforms as property buyers worry their projects could remain unfinished, leaving them without their pre-paid new homes. Investors have also called for their money back.

Since Sept. 12, angry investors have protested at the companys Shenzhen headquarters, demanding the repayment of loans and financial products. Despite attempts by security guards and police to disperse the crowds, around 40 protesters still remain.

Reuters and Luo Ya contributed to this report.
Tragic Prelude" is a 31-foot-by-11-foot-by-6-inch mural by John Steuart Curry, in 1937, for the Kansas State Capitol in Topeka, Kansas. "I wanted to paint him as a fanatic, for John Brown was a fanatic. He had the wild zeal of the extremist, the fanatic for his causeand we had the Civil War, with its untold misery," Curry said in a 1939 newspaper interview. (Public Domain)

Martyr or Madman: John Browns Lingering Legacy

Sunday, Oct. 16, 1859. A light rain fell across the dark and sleeping town of Harpers Ferry, Virginia.

The name of the town lost its apostrophe in 1891, and earlier, in 1863, the town itself became a part of West Virginia, as the only state to secede from a Confederate state.

But before these changes, on that night in 1859, a band of 21 armed raiders, led by an old man with a white beard, unleashed hell not only on the town but also on the nation.

Engraving of Harpers Ferry, notable as the site of John Browns abolitionist uprising. (Fotosearch/Getty Images)

They kidnapped several prominent citizens, including the slave owner Lewis Washington, a distant relative of Americas first president. They cut telegraph wires in and out of the town, seized the federal armory and a rifle works, and declared to various citizens that an insurrection was underway.

Ironically, of this attempt to spark a slave rebellion, the first casualty was a freed black man, Heyward Shepherd, who worked for the railroad and, while investigating the delay of a train that Browns men had stopped, was shot by a raider.

Despite the raiders efforts to cut communications, word of this violent raid quickly spread. By Monday afternoon, the old man, who proclaimed himself here in the name of the Great Jehovah, found himself and his few surviving followers trapped inside an engine house beside the armory, surrounded by hundreds of armed and enraged townsmen.

Early the next day, after attempts at negotiation had failed, Marines who had arrived from Washington under the command of Col. Robert E. Lee stormed the engine house, captured those inside, and squashed the insurrection.

John Browns attempt to launch a slave rebellion failed, but it changed the course of American history forever.

The Man

John Brown (18001859) was raised in an abolitionist family. His father, for example, helped run the Underground Railroad in Hudson, Ohio. Though credentialed as a Congregationalist minister, Brown was soon operating a tannery business like his father. He was married twice and was the father of 20 children, several of whom died young. Browns financial fortunes rose and fell both with the economic trials of his time and from his own often poor business decisions.

Despite his lifelong involvement in the abolitionist movement, it wasnt until 1855 that John Brown gained a national reputation for his opposition to slavery. Encouraged by two of his sons to go to Kansas to fight the influx of slave owners into that territory, and in retaliation for an attack made by pro-slavers on the town of Lawrence, Brown led a raid against neighbors living in cabins along Pottawatomie Creek, where he and his followers, including two of his sons, executed five men who supported slavery. The Pottawatomie Massacre kicked off the killings and guerrilla warfare that soon gave this territory the name of Bleeding Kansas.

Returning East, Brown traveled in abolitionist circles, raising money to free slaves and to purchase guns. He had come to believe that only violence would end slavery in America.

And he began plotting the raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry.

Illustration of abolitionist John Brown leading a raid on an arsenal at Harpers Ferry, 1859. (Kean Collection/Getty Images)

While under fire from John Browns insurgents, U.S. Marines used a ladder to ram down the engine house door in Harpers Ferry. Woodcut, Oct. 18, 1859. (Everett Collection/Shutterstock)

Trial and Execution

Ernest Hemingways Men at War, a thick anthology of war stories popular with GIs during World War II, contains a selection from Leonard Ehrlichs Gods Angry Man, his novel about John Brown and the raid on Harpers Ferry. In this passage, Ehrlich imagines John Browns thoughts when his sons are dead or dying in the engine house, and he realizes his cause is doomed:

I suffered much in Kansas. I expect to suffer here, in the cause of human freedom. I have been well known as Old Brown of Kansas. I shed blood on the Pottawatomie. Slaveholders I regard as robbers and murderers, and I have sworn to abolish slavery and liberate my fellow men. And now I am here  I have failed  Two of my sons were killed here today.

The trial of John Brown at Charles Town, in an 1859 engraving from Harpers Weekly.

(Everett Collection/Shutterstock)

After he was taken into custody, John Browns trial lasted five days, and the jury needed only 45 minutes to find him guilty of murder, insurrection, and treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia. On Dec. 2, 1859, he was hanged in Charles Town, Virginia, which is today a part of West Virginia. At that hanging were a number of Americans who would also make their mark on American history: Jeb Stuart, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, John Wilkes Booth, who would later assassinate Abraham Lincoln, and possibly even the poet Walt Whitman.

Failure

From its inception, Browns plan to lead a slave revolt using Harpers Ferry as the base for his operations had no chance of success. He and his men were too few in number to intimidate the citizens of Harpers Ferry, and he apparently lacked the imagination to envision how quickly the raiders would be outnumbered and outgunned.

When he revealed his intentions to a select few supporters, even some Northern freed blacks refused to support him. In his book John Brown: The Legend Revisited, Merrill D. Peterson writes of Brown:

In August he had a secret meeting with Frederick Douglass in nearby Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. He had counted on Douglas to join him. But the black leader, to whom he disclosed his plan more fully than to anyone else, thought it suicidal and declined. His young black companion, Shields Green, however, decided to go with the old man. He eventually met his death on the gallows.

Commemorative print depicting the trial and execution of militant abolitionist John Brown in 1859. (Everett Collection/Shutterstock)

Success

Browns attack on Harpers Ferry and his subsequent execution deepened the fissures dividing North and South into a canyon. Though many Northerners thought his violent actions were wicked and unhinged, many more come to regard Brown as a martyr for a great cause. Fearful of slave rebellions, Southerners tended to regard him as Satan incarnate.

His attempt at insurrection lent an enormous importance to the presidential election of 1860. Watching the reactions to Brown of their countrymen north of the Mason-Dixon Line, Southerners came to believe that the election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency would mean an end not just to slavery, but also to a decline of Southern influence on national affairs.

Meanwhile, Browns death lit a bonfire in the hearts of the ever-growing ranks of abolitionists. Within three years of his death, Northern troops would march into battle singing John Browns Body, with its signature line: John Browns body lies a-moldering in the grave, but his soul goes marching on. That song also inspired Julia Ward Howes popular 1862 song, the Battle Hymn of the Republic.

John Brown is portrayed sympathetically in The Last Moments of John Brown, 188284, by Thomas Hovenden. Gift from Mr. and Mrs. Carl Stoeckel (1897); The Metropolitan Museum of Art. (Public Domain)

His Continuing Legacy

Just as was true in his own time, through the decades since his death on the gallows, John Browns reputation has depended on the biases of its interpreters. As an example, in his reaction to a 1939 mural of Brown painted by Arthur Covey in the capitol building of Topeka, Kansas, state representative Martin Van Buren Van De Mark said: John Brown was just a crazy old coot. He was nothing but a rascal, a thief, and a murderer  whose memory should not be perpetuated.

Over the years, some historians and novelists have found grounds for agreement with that statement while others have hailed Brown as a hero and a man of conviction.

In the aforementioned John Brown: The Legend Revisited, Merrill Peterson examines in detail these interpretations. He looks at the many books written about Brownbiographies, histories, novels, plays, and even poetry like Stephen Vincent Benets epic verse John Browns Bodyand discusses how authors and scholars could reach so many different conclusions regarding him. Was John Brown an egotistical fanatic or a holy man of justice? Was he insane? Was he a righteous warrior? Was he a loving father or a man who drove some of his sons to their deaths fighting slavery?

Harbinger

These questions may not have clear answers, but there is one certainty: John Brown foresaw the savage struggle that would soon engulf the United States of America, a bitter war that would pit North and South against each other. He clearly understood that his attack on Harpers Ferry would cause the nation to take one more step toward that land of death.

On the day of his execution, Brown handed one of his guards a piece of paper with these words: I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done.

Less than two years later, the nation began the bloodiest war in its history, a conflict that would bring an end to slavery. For better or for worse, John Brown loomed large as a major contributor to that savage clash.

John Brown was a harbinger of the Civil War. Union General Philip Sheridan riding through the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, in 1864. Printed by L Prang & Co. (MPI/Getty Images)

Terrorism and Murder

In our own divided time, no matter what our political persuasion, John Brown forces us to ask: Are violence and murder justifiable means to ideological ends? What happens when we abandon reason, debate, and goodwill, and turn instead to savagery and killing?

Brown was a man impatient with the possibilities of politics, law, debate, and persuasion as avenues for ending slavery. Like some today, both here and abroad, he believed his cause so just that he was willing to commit the cold-blooded murder of unarmed men, as he and his followers did in Kansas, for the righteousness of his cause. And like some today, he was willing to resort to terrorism as the means to forward his goals, as he hoped to do at Harpers Ferry.

John Brown thus seems an amalgam of all the qualities explored by Merrill Peterson: a man of piety, a fanatic, a seeker after justice, a self-righteous man who believed he had truth in his pocket, a hero, and a villain. He is a mirror, and in him we see what we wish to see.

Jeff Minick has four children and a growing platoon of grandchildren. For 20 years, he taught history, literature, and Latin to seminars of homeschooling students in Asheville, N.C. He is the author of two novels, Amanda Bell and Dust On Their Wings, and two works of non-fiction, Learning As I Go and Movies Make The Man. Today, he lives and writes in Front Royal, Va. See JeffMinick.com to follow his blog.
A nurse prepares the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, at the West Wales General Hospital in Carmarthen, Wales, on April 7, 2021. (Jacob King/PA)

Menstrual Changes After COVID-19 Vaccination Should Be Actively Investigated: Reproductive Immunologist

The possible link between CCP virus vaccinations and menstrual changes should be investigated to clear up the doubts, a reproductive immunology lecturer from Imperial College London said.

In an editorial published on Thursday in the British Medical Journal, Dr. Victoria Male said failing to thoroughly investigate reports of menstrual changes after CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus vaccination will likely fuel fears that the vaccines can hurt womens chances to have children.

According to the editorial, by Sept. 2 more than 30,000 cases of menstrual disorders and unexpected vaginal bleeding after vaccination had been reported in the UK to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agencys (MHRA) yellow card surveillance scheme for adverse drug reactions.

On Aug. 16, the MHRA published an update saying the rigorous evaluation completed to date did not support a link between changes to menstrual periods and related symptoms and CCP virus vaccines.

The document says the number of reports of menstrual disorders and vaginal bleeding were low in relation to both the number of people who have received CCP virus vaccines to date and how common menstrual disorders are generally.

It also said the reported disorders were mostly transient in nature and that there had been no evidence to suggest that the vaccines would affect fertility and the ability to have children.

Male corroborated MHRAs statement, saying most reported post-vaccine menstrual disorders only occurred for a single cycle before they returned to normal.

She also added that both unintended pregnancy rates and pregnancy rates in assisted reproduction clinics have been similar in vaccinated and unvaccinated patients in clinical trials.

However, Male argues that further investigation will be needed to eliminate uncertainties.

The yellow card scheme relies on voluntary reporting of suspected side effects or medical device incidents to be reported by health professionals and the public, including patients, carers, and parents.

Male said the nature of the systems information collection method makes it difficult to draw firm conclusions.

A woman is vaccinated against COVID-19 at a Poliambulatorio Health Canter in the southern Italian Pelagie Island of Lampedusa on May 15, 2021. (Alberto Pizzoli/ AFP via Getty Images)

The reproductive immunology lecturer suggested that she doesnt believe the vaccines affect womens fertility based on the evidence available.

Three CCP virus vaccines are currently available in the UK. Two of themPfizer-BioNTech and Spikevax (developed by Moderna)are mRNA vaccines, while the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab is an adenovirus vectored vaccine.

The menstrual changing events occurred across all three vaccines. Male said it suggests that if there is a connection between the vaccines and menstrual disorders, its likely to be a result of the immune response to vaccination rather than a specific vaccine component.

According to Male, menstrual cycles can be affected by immune activation in response to various stimuli, such as other vaccines and viral infections, including CCP virus infection.

In one study of menstruating women, around a quarter of those infected with the CCP virus experienced menstrual disruption, the editorial said.

Male believes an investigation may also help understand the mechanism behind the menstrual changes following vaccinations, and it will also help clear any unnecessary fears and mistrust towards the vaccines.

Although reported changes to the menstrual cycle after vaccination are short-lived, robust research into this possible adverse reaction remains critical to the overall success of the vaccination programme, she wrote.

Male called on the UKs health authorities to follow the example of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, which made available $1.67 million (1.2 million) to encourage this important research on Aug. 30.

Dr. Jo Mountfield, vice president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said the college wants to reassure women that any changes generally revert back to normal after one or two cycles, but it also supports calls for more research into the possible association.

The MHRA said period problems can be caused by stressful life events and added that changes to the menstrual cycle have also been reported after people have had the virus or are suffering from so-called long-COVID.

Dr. Alison Cave, chief safety officer at the MHRA, said they are closely monitoring reports of suspected menstrual disorders through the robust yellow card scheme.

As outlined in our vaccine safety surveillance strategy, the yellow card scheme is one of several sources of evidence we use when evaluating the safety of vaccines, she said.

Based on our current rigorous safety monitoring, women can be reassured that the current evidence does not show a link with any changes in womens periods or symptoms, nor is there any evidence to suggest that COVID-19 vaccines will affect fertility. This is also the conclusion of our expert scientific advisory committee, the Commission on Human Medicines, Cave said in a statement.

Whilst uncomfortable or distressing, period problems are extremely common and stressful life events can disrupt womens periods. Changes to the menstrual cycle have also been reported following infection with COVID-19 and in women affected by long-COVID, she added.

Our advice remains that the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks for most people.

PA contributed to this report.
The proposed site for a residential resettlement center for illegal alien teenage boys in Alma, Michigan on Aug. 4, 2021. (Steven Kovac/The Epoch Times)

Michigan City Officials Face Recall for Approving Resettlement Shelter for Unaccompanied Alien Teens

ALMA, Mich.The city commission of Alma, Michigan, voted on Sept. 14 to approve a conditional rezoning request by Masonic Pathways to allow a former nursing home to be converted into a shelter for unaccompanied illegal alien teenage boys.

The 4-2 vote to approve the facility overrode an Aug. 4 recommendation by the citys planning commission to reject the proposal.

The city commissioners actions might end up costing them their jobs.

Alma resident Chuck Murphy, who also is the chairman of the Gratiot County Republican Party, told The Epoch Times that recall petitions against commissioners who backed the resettlement center were filed with the Gratiot County clerks office early on Sept. 15.

Alma Mayor Greg Mapes also will be subject to the recall, even though he recused himself from voting, because of the appearance of a conflict of interest due to his decades-long affiliation with the Masonic Order.

Mapes is a strong supporter of the resettlement project.

Murphy also told The Epoch Times that residents living near the proposed migrant youth facility have retained a law firm to mount a legal challenge to the city commissions approval.

The green light from the city commission clears the way for the propertys owner, Masonic Pathways, a philanthropic, fraternal, nonprofit organization, to lease the six-acre former nursing home complex to Bethany Christian Services.

Bethany Christian Services (BCS) will be paid by the federal government to operate a resettlement center on the property for up to 36 unaccompanied alien boys between the ages of 12 and 17.

According to BCS spokesperson Nate Bult, the average stay of a resident is expected to be between 30 and 45 days.

Bethany will pay Masonic Pathways $385,000 annually to lease the facility for the next three years.

John Clore of Us Against the Media, a Lansing-based group opposed to the rezoning, told the Epoch Times, It was all orchestrated. A lot of people in the community and even some on the city commission have been involved with Masonic Pathways. Money talks. When it comes to money, the opinion of the people doesnt matter.

Masonic Pathways officials didnt immediately respond to a request for comment.

Were grateful that the Alma City Commission approved our request for rezoning  We believe that Alma is a compassionate and welcoming community, and we look forward to providing life-saving services for vulnerable children and youth here in Alma, BCS spokesperson Kristi Stevens said in a statement provided to The Epoch Times.

Robi Rodrigues of Citizens Against told The Epoch Times: The action of four city commissioners voting in favor of the resettlement center is not fair to the people who elected them. Those officials do not think they have any accountability.

And what lack of respect for the planning commission! I believe thats why Planning Commission Chairman Don Ayers resigned Tuesday night, said Rodrigues.

City Hall confirmed to The Epoch Times that Ayers did submit a letter of resignation on Sept. 14, but declined to release a copy of the document.

Ayers didnt immediately respond to a request for comment.

Alma resident and business owner Dawn Daniels supports the location of the resettlement shelter in her town.

It is simply a rezoning issue, she told the Epoch Times. We are not here to adjudicate the immigration policies of the United States government.

I see it as an opportunity to help in the asylum process for young people, Daniels added. That is something Alma should be proud to do.

According to the Administration for Children and Families, as of July 19, there were 14,319 unaccompanied alien children in the care of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement.

The children are being temporarily housed in 200 state-licensed facilities similar to the one proposed for Alma. The shelters are spread over 22 states.

Seventy-two percent of the clients were over 14 years of age, and 68 percent were males.

According to USDHHS data, from 2003 to the end of fiscal year 2019, more than 400,000 unaccompanied alien minors were placed in the agencys custody by Border Patrol.
A Samsung flag flies outside the Samsung office in Seoul, South Korea on October 25, 2020. (Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)

More Fortune Global 500 Companies Pulling out of China

More foreign Fortune Global 500 companies such as, Samsung, Toshiba, and Ericsson, are speeding up withdrawal from China in September, and thousands of workers are facing unemployment.

South Korean shipbuilder Samsung Heavy Industries Co. (Samsung Heavy) is carrying on the capital withdrawal from its Ningbo, Zhejiang Province shipbuilding plant due to decreased productivity caused by its superannuated facilities, wrote Korea Herald, a South Korean media in Seoul.

Since Sept. 8 thousands of employees gathered at the Ningbo plant to protest the closure of the factory, and express their dissatisfaction with the compensation package proposed by management.

The protesters held banners that said Samsung is my home, I want to work! I need to support my family! and The government vacate the cage and replace the bird, while the employees get the least.

I want to eat [live]! the workers shouted.

Vacate the cage and replace the bird is an industrial restructuring strategy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) proposed by Wang Yang, then Party Secretary of Guangdong Province, in May 2008, indicating relocation or elimination of certain industries in the region and replacement or upgrading of other industries in the same region.

A document from the local government, and circulated online, said that Ningbo government has signed an agreement to reclaim about 476 hectares of the land of Samsung Heavy Industries.

Mr. Zhang, an employee of Samsung Ningbo Shipyard, told the Chinese edition of The Epoch Times that on September 12, dozens of special police came to the rally scene, and that no conflict between the police and the employees occurred.

In fact, early in 2020, workers had heard that the government was going to take over the land. Samsung Heavys withdrawal of its investment this time is because the Ningbo authorities unilaterally reclaimed the land and paid Samsung Heavy about $620-770 million as compensation, said Zhang.

Ningbo plans to use the land to build a chemical zone, he said.

The Ningbo officials have not yet confirmed how the land will be used.

Although the authorities did not mobilize people to boycott Samsung, it was a disguised boycott and expulsion, said Chinese financial media blogger Financial Cold Eye in a Youtube video on September 11.

Toshiba and Ericsson Shutting Down in Two Cities

Besides Samsung, Japanese electronics giant Toshiba and Swedish telecom gear maker Ericsson are also closing their companies in china.

Japanese electronics giant Toshiba will shutter its factory in the northeastern city of Dalian, Liaoning Province at the end of September, Nikkei Asia said.

Caijing, a Chinese financial media said that on September 11, serval employees of Toshiba Dalian told The Time Weekly that some employees are no longer working there.

Toshiba Dalian was established on September 25, 1991. When the company closes, it will have reached its 30th anniversary.

Swedish telecom equipment manufacturer Ericsson is closing its R&D center in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province and TietoEVRY, a company headquartered in Finland, has agreed to take a 630 of its employees, reported Mobile World Live.

Early in July, Ericsson released its second-quarter 2021 financial report indicating that sales fell by more than 60 percent year-on-year, resulting in a 1 percent year-on-year decline in overall revenue, according to data by Caixin, a financial media in China.

More Foreign Investment of Fortune Global 500 Look to Withdraw From China

After the outbreak of the U.S.-China trade war coupled with the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, the global supply chain has seen the importance of disconnecting from the CCP. Now it is a major trend for the foreign companies of Fortune Global 500 to move their industrial chains out of China, said Financial Cold Eye.

Japanese Panasonic Group will close its battery plant in Shanghai, China. Panasonic will focus its investments on Central and South America and Southeast Asia, where it has the largest share, said Nikkei Asia in April.

IBM shut down a research institute in China, which operated in northwestern Beijings Zhongguancun area for 25 years, reported Today China on Jan. 24.

Apple, Microsoft, and Google planned to move their production lines to other parts of Asian countries like Vietnam, Thailand, CNBC reported on March 4, 2020.

And global consumer electronics makers HP, Dell, Microsoft, and Amazon are all looking to shift substantial production capacity out of China, reported Nikkei Asia on July 3, 2019.
Nearly 11 Percent of Los Angeles City Employees to Seek Vaccine Exemptions

More than 6,000 people, or 11 percent, of Los Angeles city employees plan to seek an exemption from the citys COVID-19 vaccine mandate, according to city data released on Sept. 14.

This comes after the Los Angeles City Council last month approved an ordinance to require city employees to be fully vaccinated by Oct. 5, with exemptions for medical or religious reasons. Exemptions will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. All city employees were required to report their vaccination status and whether they would be seeking exemptions by Sept. 13.

Roughly 48 percent of city employees are fully vaccinated, and 50 percent reported that they were at least partially vaccinated. A total of 23,000 city employees have not reported their vaccination status, while 5,688 said they were unvaccinated.

Nearly half of the 6,000 employees seeking exemptions come from the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), where 2,651 employees plan to file for religious exemptions, and 368 plan to file for medical exemptions.

LAPD Lawsuit

On Sept. 11, six LAPD employees filed a lawsuit in federal court against the city, claiming the citys vaccine mandate violates their rights and that the LAPD failed to create a formal process to submit requests for medical or religious exemptions.

The suit claims the mandate violates the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which require medical or religious accommodation.

Subjecting City employees to a new condition of employmentwhich neither they nor Plaintiffs contemplated when they were hiredforces them to choose between their livelihood, in a time of acute nationwide economic hardship, and preservation of their fundamental constitutional privacy rights to control self-disclosure of sensitive personal information, the suit states.

The plaintiffs are asking the court to overturn the vaccine mandate and block the city from enforcing it.

Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer responded to the LAPD employees lawsuit in a video on Sept. 13.

Its a lawsuit that I am confident we will win. The U.S. Supreme Court and courts across the country have upheld vaccination mandates by governments across the country and theyve done so because they said that the greater good compels this right now, Feuer said.

The State Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH), which protects employees from discrimination and harassment in the workplace, has stated that an employer may require employees to receive an FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccine as long as the employer complies with all state and federal laws.

Mandate Poses Employment Challenges

An LAPD officer spoke to The Epoch Times on agreement of anonymity in a previous interview.

The officer said the number of employees leaving due to the vaccine mandate may have a significant impact on the LAPDs ability to serve the community.

According to the officer, the department has a total of 1,800 to 2,200 officers who respond to citizen calls, but on a typical night, they have fewer than 800 officers in the field. Training, vacation or duty-related injuries also makes 15 to 25 percent of officers unavailable at any given time.

It takes at least five years for an officer to become proficient at their job, the officer said. Less than that, and they are placed with more senior officers to assist them in navigating the complexities of liability and a procedurally intense environment, not to mention, just being able to remain alive at the same time.

If the LAPD were to lose an additional 3,000 employees or more, it would take at least five years to replace those losses, the officer said.
Israeli medical personnel tend to COVID-19 patients inside an isolation ward at the Ziv Medical Centre in the city of Safed in northern Israel on Aug. 12, 2021. (Jalaa Marey/AFP via Getty Images)

New Jersey Lawmaker to Propose Bill to Treat Recovered COVID-19 Patients No Different Than Vaccinated People

New Jersey state Sen. Joe Pennacchio announced on Wednesday he would introduce new legislation that would treat recovered COVID-19 patients the same as those who have been vaccinated.

The proposed measure will apply to any vaccine mandate or passport scheme that may be implemented, according to a statement by Pennacchio, a Republican.

The introduction of the bill addresses public concerns with President Joe Bidens recent decision to force vaccines on many Americans, as well as concerns with governments and private businesses mandating vaccine passports for their workers and the public to participate in recreation and other daily activities, Pennacchio said in the statement.

When drafting his legislation, the senator drew from policies implemented by Israel to counter the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus pandemic.

According to a recent Israeli study, which has not been peer-reviewed yet, natural immunity gained from recovering from COVID-19 was estimated to be about 13 times stronger than having two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, reported News Medical.

The science strongly suggests that people who have recovered from prior COVID-19 infections have a natural immunity that may offer a sufficient amount of protection to make additional vaccinations unnecessary, Pennacchio said. My new legislation would offer those with natural immunity as a result of infection the same rights and protections as those who have been vaccinated under any vaccine mandate or passport scheme that may be implemented.

Pennacchio also cited a report by The Rockefeller University, which suggested that it is insufficient to use only antibody level to determine a persons protection against the CCP virus, as certain memory cells developed by the human body may also be an equal, if not better, indicator of a persons COVID protection.

Unlike circulating antibodies, which peak soon after vaccination or infection only to fade a few months later, memory B cells can stick around to prevent severe disease for decades. And they evolve over time, learning to produce successively more potent memory antibodies that are better at neutralizing the virus and more capable of adapting to variants, the report said.

Michel Nussenzweig, professor and researcher at The Rockefeller University, cautioned in the report against natural infection: While a natural infection may induce maturation of antibodies with broader activity than a vaccine doesa natural infection can also kill you.  A vaccine wont do that and, in fact, protects against the risk of serious illness or death from infection.

Pennacchio stressed in the statement that continued studies, science, and data should determine the best course of COVID-19 therapeutics and vaccination. Public health policy must be based on transparent identifiable science and data, he stated.

CDC Guidelines

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that during July, 74 percent of 469 COVID-19 cases reported in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, occurred in fully vaccinated individuals. Five of those patients who were hospitalized, four were fully vaccinated; no deaths were reported, the CDC report said.

However, the CDC stated that data from this report are insufficient to draw conclusions about the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines against the CCP virus, including the Delta variant, during this outbreak.

As population-level vaccination coverage increases, vaccinated persons are likely to represent a larger proportion of COVID-19 cases, the CDC said.

The CDC acknowledged on its website that recovering from COVID-19 may offer some immunity. Current evidence suggests that reinfection with the virus that causes COVID-19 is uncommon in the 90 days after initial infection. However, experts dont know for sure how long this protection lasts, the CDC said.

Earlier in September, when answering on CNN a question on whether people who recovered from COVID-19 should get vaccinated, Dr. Anthony Fauci, a top U.S. public health official, said, I dont have a really firm answer for you on that.

Thats something that were going to have to discuss regarding the durability of the response. The one thing that paper from Israel didnt tell you is whether or notas high as the protection is with natural infectionwhats the durability compared to the durability of a vaccine? So it is conceivable that you got infected, youre protected, but you may not be protected for an indefinite period of time, said.

Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.
Pro-life protesters stand near the gate of the Texas state capitol on May 29, 2021. (Sergio Flores/Getty Images)

New Legal Tactic Serves Both Sides of Abortion Battle

As the political battle over abortion continues, both sides have started using private cause-of-action laws in attempts to tip the balance.

Unlike typical laws that rely on government enforcement, private cause-of-action laws dont have a government penalty attached to them. Instead, the measures allow lawbreakers to be sued by private citizens.

In theory, private cause-of-action laws shouldnt count as state infringements on rights, even when they penalize actions that are unconstitutional for states to prosecute. Thats because such laws are enforced by the citizens themselves.

Thus far, that method seems to allow both pro-life and pro-abortion legislators to make laws that previously would have been struck down by the Supreme Court.

In Texas, a recent law has banned abortion after the detection of a heartbeat. In California, a measure that pro-life activists say effectively outlaws photography outside abortion clinics awaits signing. Both bills rely on private cause-of-action for enforcement.

Texas

Texass legislation follows attempts from Georgia, Iowa, North Dakota, and others to ban the abortion of unborn babies with heartbeats.

However, the Supreme Court struck down such measures from each of those states. Because of Roe v. Wade, the court considers abortion within the first 14 weeks of pregnancy to be a constitutional right. A fetal heartbeat can be detected as early as the sixth week of pregnancy.

The Texas legislation effectively dodges the Supreme Court by having citizens restrict post-heartbeat abortion through lawsuits, said Mark Dickson, a Texas pro-life activist who leads Right to Life East Texas.

Abortion is throwing away another human beings life, Dickson said. My reasons for being against suicide are the same reasons Im against abortion.

Dickson was an early adapter of the private cause-of-action strategy implemented in the Texas measure. He leads a nationwide effort to abolish abortion using those laws, one small town at a time.

Because of Dicksons work, 34 towns in Texas have completely outlawed abortion using laws similar to the statewide Texas legislation. Most places that approved those ordinances have less than 3,000 people. Yet in total, 350,449 Texans now live in towns that have outlawed abortion.

Thus far, the Texas law seems to be working. The Supreme Court has denied an appeal by groups that support abortion.

Some, including Holly Gatling, the executive director of South Carolina Citizens for Life, see the denial as a chance for states to decide abortion laws.

Were in a very, very exciting time legislatively, and with the legal issues that are going to the U.S. Supreme Court, Gatling said. I would venture to say that the court is leaning toward returning the issue to the states.

Katie Glenn, government affairs counsel for Americans United for Life, said the court doesnt yet have legal grounds to overturn the Texas law and that the future of Texass law is unknowable.

You have to demonstrate that youve suffered harm to file a lawsuit and they havent demonstrated that, Glenn said. So the court is going to let the law go into effect.

California

However, laws that dodge constitutional precedent can be a double-edged sword.

In California, legislators recently voted on a measure that could use a private enforcement mechanism against pro-life protesters. Currently, it awaits Gov. Gavin Newsoms signature.

The legislations text would ban photographing abortion clinic patients, providers, and assistants for online display. If someone takes such a photo, the person photographed can sue them or bring an action to the courts seeking injunctive relief.

According to Susan Arnall, the director of outreach and engagement at the Right to Life League, the measure would effectively ban photography in public anywhere near an abortion clinic.

The original intent of the bill was to prevent doxing of people, Arnall said. We all can agree on that. But they went much farther. What theyre even saying is, Look, you cannot videotape.

Arnall said she and other pro-life protesters have had people throw eggs at them and throw knives into the ground at their feet, and theyve faced angry counterdemonstrators as well. But videotaping those acts might soon be illegal.

If pro-life activists post a video of their protest at an abortion clinic and a patient or employee appears in a frame, they can face a lawsuit.

The First Amendment protects speech in public places, Arnall said. Public places are marketplaces owned by the state and you have the right to take photographs and engage in political speech in public places. The public sidewalk in front of Planned Parenthood is a public space.

But because Californias law depends on private enforcement by lawsuit, its possible that the Supreme Courts previous rulings on similar cases wont apply, she said.

The analogy is the same, Arnall said. Just like Texas is attempting to curtail abortion rights using a private cause of action, so too is California attempting to curtail First Amendment rights.

Its likely that the court will decline to hear an emergency appeal, she said.

The office of California Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, the bills writer, didnt respond to a request for comment by press time.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul speaks at the New York State Capitol in Albany, New York, on Aug. 24, 2021. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

New York Imposes Masks for 2-Year-Olds and Above in Childcare Facilities

Similar mandates for other state-regulated facilities

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Wednesday announced that state-regulated childcare centers across the state must mandate masks for children aged 2 and above, as well as staff and all visitors.

A similar measure was announced in May this year by then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The pushback against the mask mandate, which also applied to those as young as 2 years old, was so vocal that New York state rescinded the order just days later.

The new mask mandate for childcare facilities across New York state is effective immediately, Hochul said.

Starting today, were going to require masks in childcare and daycare centers, because if youre watching the national news, the scariest announcements coming out every single morning are the number of children now contracting COVID, the governor said.

She added: We dont have a vaccine available for 5 to 11-year-olds. I am very anxious to get this approved. And as soon as it is, well be working with parents and pediatricians and schools to make sure that the children are vaccinated, but were not hearing that that will occur for a number of months yet.

Similar mask mandates will apply for state-run congregate facilities, mental health facilities, and substance abuse facilities, Hochul said.

Hochul previously announced on Aug. 24just after taking her ceremonial oath of officethat there would be universal mask mandates in schools, and that she was seeking to ultimately impose checks to ensure that all school staff are vaccinated or get weekly COVID-19 testing.

On Wednesday, Hochul urged all New Yorkers over 12 years of age to get vaccinated against the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, which causes COVID-19.

She previously allocated $65 million in state funding to local governments to distribute and administer booster shots of the COVID-19 vaccine when they become available.

She said on Wednesday that local health agencies have identified over 200 vaccination sites to administer booster shots, with more to come.

She said, in anticipation of booster shots: I just want the message to go out, be aware of when you had your last shot. Eight months later, start talking about going to see your doctor, a pharmacist, or take advantage of one of our  mass vaccination sites. Well make sure all the information gets out.
New York Times Pulled Ad Holding China Accountable for Virus Outbreak; Chinas Evergrande Is Too Big to Fail?

The New York Times pulled an ad at the last minute in March 2020. But for what reason? I spoke with Brett Kingstone, a real estate developer from Florida and the client who paid for the ad. He says that after the entire editorial procedure and approval from the paper, it was pulled from print at the last minute before publishing and hitting major cities. The ad was one of its kind in those daysasking to hold Chinas Communist Party accountable for causing the global pandemic with the spread of the novel coronavirus, the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.

For our second topic, we explore the reasons behind Chinas top real estate developer Evergrandes potential default. The company is likely to go bankrupt if the countrys state-controlled economy does not rescue this real estate giant. Will Chinese leader Xi Jinping take the damage it will cause to the housing market, which accounts for around 30 percent of Chinas economy? And will the regime be able to sustain the social uproar and the protests from investors and homeowners due to the companys lack of payment to them?
Nicki Minaj attends the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards at The Forum in Inglewood, Calif., on on Aug. 27, 2017. (Christopher Polk/Getty Images)

Nicki Minaj Decries Cancel Culture Over COVID Vaccine Comments, Makes China Comparison

As White House officials responded to Nicki Minajs claims on Twitter that the COVID-19 vaccine led to an adverse health problem, the rap star later said she is being targeted for asking questions about the shot and compared the phenomenon to the Chinese regimes censorship.

Minaj, who has 22 million followers on Twitter alone, wrote on Monday that her cousin in Trinidad wouldnt take the vaccine because his friend got it [and] became impotent. She also shared a claim from a man who said he developed a blood clot in his eye after getting vaccinated.

On Wednesday, Biden administration COVID-19 adviser Anthony Fauci responded to her assertion and told CNN that theres no evidence that it happens, nor is there any mechanistic reason to imagine that it would happen. He added that Minaj should be thinking twice about making such claims online.

For her claims, Minaj, who added that she isnt vaccinated, said she received significant criticism and suggested shes now the target of a cancel culture mob for her tweets, asserting in an Instagram video that the phenomenon is similar to the Chinese Communist Partys restrictions on visitors and citizens.

I remember going to China and they were telling us you know, you cannot speak out against, you know, the people in power, there, etc, Minaj said in an Instagram Live video. Dont yall see that we are living now in that time where people will turn their back on you  but people will isolate you if you simply speak and ask a question, she continued.

Before that, the rap star said the White House invited her to speak with Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy and Fauci about the vaccine.

The White House has invited me & I think its a step in the right direction. Yes, Im going. Ill be dressed in all pink like Legally Blonde so they know I mean business. Ill ask questions on behalf of the ppl who have been made fun of for simply being human, Minaj wrote in a Twitter post.

But later, in the Instagram video, Minaj said that when she made the post about the White House invitation, an unnamed official called her back and appeared angry when she spoke about it publicly.

Minaj also said she was barred from using her Twitter account on Wednesday, although the social media platform said her tweets didnt violate its terms and conditions.

A spokesperson for Twitter told BuzzFeed that Twitter did not take any enforcement action in the account.

The Epoch Times has contacted the White House for comment.
This photo provided by the North Korean government on Sept. 16, 2021, shows a test missile launched from a train in an undisclosed location of North Korea, on Sept. 15, 2021. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)

North Korea Again Shows Off New Weapon System: Railway-Borne Missiles

North Koreas state-run television aired video footage on Thursday of the communist countrys first successful test-firing of missiles that were launched from a train.

The missiles were tested at dawn on Sept. 15 and accurately struck a targeted area 497 miles (800 kilometers) in the sea off North Koreas east coast, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

The launch was part of a firing drill aimed at confirming the practicality of the railway mobile missile system, the agency reported. The railway-borne missile was transported along rail tracks in the countrys mountainous central region.

A rail-based ballistic system reflects North Koreas efforts to diversify its launch options, which now include various vehicles and ground launch pads and may eventually include submarines. Firing a missile from a train could add mobility, but some experts say North Koreas simple rail networks running through its relatively small territory would be quickly destroyed by enemies during a crisis.

State media showed what appeared to be two different missiles streaking up from rail-car launchers engulfed in orange flames along tracks surrounded by dense forest.

This photo provided by the North Korean government on Sept. 16, 2021, shows a test missile launched from a train in an undisclosed location of North Korea, on Sept. 15, 2021. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)

This photo provided by the North Korean government on Sept. 16, 2021, shows a test missile launched from a train in an undisclosed location of North Korea, on Sept. 15, 2021. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)

The latest firing drills come as senior envoys from Japan, the United States, and South Korea met in Tokyo earlier this week to discuss North Koreas missile and nuclear development a day after Pyongyang tested a new long-range cruise missile.

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said during a press briefing on Wednesday that North Koreas actions are in violation of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions, which barred the communist country from testing ballistic missiles.

These activities highlight the destabilizing impact of the DPRKs illicit weapons program, Kirby said, referring to the country by the initials of its official name, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK).

The South Korean and Japanese militaries said earlier that North Koreas two short-range ballistic missiles landed inside Japans exclusive economic zone but outside its territorial waters. The last time a North Korean missile landed inside that zone was in October 2019.

Over the weekend, North Korea also successfully test-fired a new missile capable of hitting targets 932 miles (1,500 kilometers) away, with analysts spreading concerns that the missile could be the countrys first such weapon with nuclear capabilities.

The Academy of National Defense Science conducts long-range cruise missile tests in North Korea, as pictured in this combination of undated photos supplied by North Koreas Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Sept. 13, 2021. (KCNA via Reuters)

North Korea has ignored past offers from the Biden administration to resume negotiations to abandon its nuclear program. The United States said following the latest tests it has no hostile intent and called for North Korea to return to talks.

What we seek to do is to reduce the threat to the United States, to our allies in the region,  and we think we can do that through diplomacy, U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters in Washington.

President Donald Trump, who met with North Koreas leader Kim Jong Un three times during his four years in office, was the first U.S. president to set foot on North Korean soil, but the authoritarian leader ignored demands to give up its nuclear and missile programs in exchange for sanctions relief.

Experts say North Korea is building up its weapons systems to apply pressure on the United States in the hopes of winning relief from economic sanctions aimed at forcing the country to abandon its nuclear arsenal.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

From NTD News
NTD Evening News Full Broadcast (Sept. 16)

President Joe Biden doubles down on his plan to raise taxes on the rich, around 8,000 illegal immigrants are waiting to turn themselves in to Border Patrol in Del Rio, Texas, and rapper Nicki Minaj is accused of spreading vaccine misinformation.
Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison (C) appears on stage with video links to Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson (L) and U.S. President Joe Biden at a joint press conference at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, on Sept. 16, 2021. (Mick Tsikas/AAP Image via AP)

Nuclear Submarine Deal Will Reshape Indo-Pacific Relations

WELLINGTON, New ZealandThe United States, Britain, and Australia have announced theyre forming a new security alliance that will help equip Australia with nuclear-powered submarines. The alliance will see a reshaping of relations in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond. Heres what it might mean for various players:

United States

Ten years ago under President Barack Obama, the United States began discussing the need to focus more attention on the Indo-Pacific region while pivoting away from conflicts in the Middle East.

Under President Joe Biden, the United States has now withdrawn its troops from Afghanistan while finding that tensions with China have only grown.

In the Pacific, the United States and others have been concerned about Chinas aggressive actions in the South China Sea and its antipathy toward Japan, Taiwan, and Australia.

In announcing the deal, none of the three leaders mentioned China, although the alliance was seen as a provocative move by the Chinese communist regime. The United States had previously only shared the nuclear propulsion technology with Britain. Biden said it was about ensuring peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific over the long term.

The Virginia-class fast-attack submarine USS Illinois (SSN 786) returns home to Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam from a deployment in the 7th Fleet area of responsibility on Sept. 13, 2021. (Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Michael B. Zingaro/U.S. Navy via AP)

Britain

Leaving the European Union under Brexit has left Britain seeking to reassert its global position. Part of that has been an increased focusor tilttoward the Indo-Pacific.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the new alliance would allow the three nations to sharpen their focus on an increasingly complicated part of the world. He said that perhaps most significantly, it would bond the three nations even more closely together.

Australia

Under the arrangement, Australia will build at least eight nuclear-powered submarines using U.S. expertise, while dumping a contract with France for diesel-electric subs. Experts say the nuclear subs will allow Australia to conduct longer patrols and give the alliance a stronger military presence in the region.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he had called the leaders of Japan and India to explain the new alliance. Japan, India, Australia and the United States already have a strategic dialogue known as the Quad. Biden is set to host fellow Quad leaders at the White House next week.

France

Australia told France it would end its contract with state majority-owned DCNS to build 12 of the worlds largest conventional submarines. The contract was worth tens of billions of dollars. France is furious, demanding explanations from all sides.

It was really a stab in the back. We built a relationship of trust with Australia, and this trust was betrayed, said French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian on France-Info radio.

China

The Chinese regime said the alliance would severely damage regional peace and stability, and jeopardize efforts to halt nuclear weapon proliferation. It said it was highly irresponsible for the United States and Britain to export the nuclear technology, and that Australia was to blame for a breakdown in bilateral relations.

Beijing has been unhappy with the Biden administration calling it out over human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region, the clampdown on democracy activists in Hong Kong, and cybersecurity breaches. Biden spoke by phone with Chinese leader Xi Jinping last week. After the call, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported that Xi expressed concerns that U.S. government policy toward China has caused serious difficulties in relations.

New Zealand

Left out of the new alliance is Australias neighbor New Zealand. It has a longstanding nuclear-free policy that includes a ban on nuclear-powered ships entering its ports. That stance has sometimes been a sticking point in otherwise close relations with the United States.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said New Zealand wasnt asked to be part of the alliance and wouldnt have expected an invitation. Still, it leaves New Zealand out of a deal to share a range of information including artificial intelligence, cyber, and underwater defense capabilities.
National Party leader Judith Collins speaks during budget day 2021 at Parliament on May 20, 2021 in Wellington, New Zealand. (Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)

NZs Absence From New Military Alliance Disappointing: NZ Opposition Leader

Opposition leader Judith Collins says the absence of New Zealand from the newly formed trilateral security partnership AUKUS is concerning and leaves many questions for the Ardern government to answer.

Its disappointing that after many years of New Zealands co-operation with our traditional allies, the current government appears to have been unable to participate in discussions for AUKUS, the National Party leader said in a statement on Sept. 16. It raises serious concerns about the interoperability of New Zealands defence force systems with our traditional allies in the future.

New Zealand is not interested in the nuclear side of the new partnership, but the deeper integration of technology, artificial intelligence and information sharing as well as security and defence-related science, industrial bases and supply chains are areas we would traditionally be involved in, she added.

New Zealands strong nuclear-free stance shouldnt have been a barrier to us joining such a partnership. We could have been carved out of the nuclear aspect of the partnership.

AUKUS was announced on Sept. 16 by U.S. President Joe Biden, and British and Australian Prime Ministers Boris Johnson, and Scott Morrison during a joint virtual press conference from each of their capitals.

The new alliance will see the U.S. and UK governments assist Australia with acquiring nuclear-powered submarines amid ongoing tensions with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the region.

The move would also make Australia one of the only countries in the world to operate nuclear-powered submarines, despite ratifying the non-nuclear proliferation treaty.

We will launch a trilateral effort of 18 months, which will involve teamstechnical and strategic and navy teamsfrom all three countries to identify the optimal pathway of delivery of this capability, according to a joint statement by the three governments.

AUKUS will add an extra dimension to the existing Five Eyes arrangement, which has been the main intelligence sharing network between Australia, UK, United States, Canada, and New Zealandand has, of late, been a platform for democratic allies to engage on issues related to countering the CCP.

AUKUS would also see cooperation across other areas, including cyber, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, and underseas capabilities.

NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she welcomed the increased engagement of the United States and the United Kingdom.

But National Party Foreign Affairs spokesperson Gerry Brownlee was concerned NZ could miss out on discussions relating to cybersecurity and intelligence.

We need assurance were not left out of information streams that counter-terrorism, he said in a statement.

The government needs to come clean about what happened here. Does this new partnership affect our Five Eyes relationship? What about our relationship with Australia, the one country that we have the closes defence and economic partnership? And will this have an impact on our standing as a responsible international citizens? he added.

The government needs to explain why it looks as though New Zealand has been left out of the loop.
In this screenshot from video, doctors examine a child sitting on hospital bed in India, on Sept. 15, 2021. (AP via NTD)

Official: Fever Outbreak in North India Kills 114

Infections following monsoon rains have led to a fever outbreak in Indias northern Uttar Pradesh state which has killed at least 114 people in the past three weeks, health officials said Wednesday.

The states Health Minister Jai Pratap Singh told The Associated Press that most cases were caused by dengue, a seasonal viral infection spread by mosquitoes, followed by leptospirosis, scrub typhus, and malaria.

Leptospirosis and scrub typhus are bacterial infections, while malaria is a mosquito-borne disease caused by a parasite. They typically spike after the rainy season in India.

Singh said the dengue cases were due to a virulent strain called D2, which has been detected in some of the states districts in a sample survey carried out by a team of the Indian Council of Medical Research.

Dengue, also called the breakbone fever for the severe pain it causes, isnt always fatal, but severe cases may require hospitalization.

It can lead to internal bleeding, liver enlargement, circulatory shutdown, and death.

Prevention efforts targeted at destroying mosquito-breeding sites, like removing trash or old tires and other objects containing standing water, are still the best ways to curb the spread of the disease, according to health experts.

The health system in Lucknow, the state capital, is also buckling as a surge in cases has put pressure on hospitals there.

The city has so far reported over 1,500 cases of fever linked to the outbreak after authorities began conducting door-to-door surveillance last week.

Authorities are scrambling resources to control the outbreak.

Uttar Pradesh, Indias most populous state, often figures disproportionately among the post-monsoon infection fatalities in the country because of the weak health system.

In the city of Prayagraj, footage showed hospitals crowded with cases of fever, while the district administrator Sanjay Kumar Kharati claimed there would be no problem of arranging beds for children since the region opened a new 80-bed hospital since a week ago.

Thousands of people suffer from dengue, encephalitis, malaria, typhoid, and other mosquito-borne diseases each year during the summer monsoon.
Crude oil storage tanks are seen in an aerial photograph at the Cushing oil hub in Cushing, Okla., on April 21, 2020. (Drone Base/Reuters)

Oil Holds Above $75 as US Inventory Drop Supports

LONDONOil slipped but held above $75 a barrel on Thursday, within sight of a near seven-week high hit a day earlier, supported by a big drop in U.S. crude inventories and expectations of recovering global demand.

U.S. crude inventories fell by 6.4 million barrels last week, more than analysts expected, as oil facilities offshore were still recovering from Hurricane Ida.

The United States is the worlds largest oil consumer.

Brent crude was down 9 cents, or 0.1 percent, to $75.37 by 0815 GMT. On Wednesday, Brent touched $76.13, its highest since July 30. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) was down 4 cents at $72.57.

Brent has rallied 46 percent this year, supported by supply cuts by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies, and some demand recovery from last years pandemic-related collapse.

The recovery from the destruction caused by the coronavirus is genuinely under way, said Tamas Varga of oil broker PVM. Generally speaking the world is on the mend.

Adding to the signs of demand recovery, closely watched reports this week said world oil use will rise above 100 million barrels per day, a level last seen in 2019, as soon as next years second quarter.

Oil is also finding support from a surge in European power prices, which have sky-rocketed due to a host of factors including low gas inventories and lower-than-normal gas supply from Russia.

The gas price surge and impact on oil is a situation that I believe will get much worse before it gets better, said Jeffrey Halley, analyst at brokerage OANDA.

Weighing on oil were signs of a resumption of recovery efforts in the U.S. Gulf after Hurricane Nicholas, which was downgraded to a tropical depression.

U.S. Gulf energy companies have been able to quickly restore pipeline service and electricity, allowing them to bolster efforts to repair more significant damage from Ida.

By Alex Lawler
A group of front-line workers including healthcare professionals and members of the police and fire service protest vaccine mandates outside the Ontario Legislature in Toronto, on Sept. 13, 2021. (The Canadian Press/Darryl Dyck)

Vaccination Threats and Coercion a Reminder of Life in Iran

Commentary

In a free and democratic country, no one should have to choose between their bodily autonomy and their livelihood. That is not a real choice.

The Supreme Court of Canada and the Ontario Court of Appeal have made it very clear, again and again, that bodily autonomy is a cherished right that must be protected. This includes the right to not receive treatment, no matter how absurd it might seem to an outsider.

I was born in Iran, a country that does not have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms and does not recognize human rights and civil liberties. Since the 1979 Revolution, millions of Iranians have been purged from their positions because they did not toe the party line, and instead asked questions and spoke out against injustice.

One of the first things the Iranian regime does to people that oppose its oppressive measures is to prevent them from making a living. Without the means to keep a roof over their head and provide for their family, people are not able to oppose the dictatorship. Only when their basic needs are met can they focus on resisting the oppression going on around them. Further, purging the regimes opponents from government positions ensures that only government supporters work in the public sector, and few if any people will challenge government policies.

Never did I imagine I would witness similar techniques being used by various levels of government in Canadamy beloved adopted home. This is happening either directly through government mandates, or through the governments empowerment of employers that choose to terminate those who refuse the COVID-19 vaccine.

There is a simple alternative to firing people for refusing to submit to a medical procedure: safety concerns can be addressed by providing rapid testing.

It is precisely during times of emergency that our Charter, human rights, and civil liberties are most vulnerable. Once we start giving away or losing those rights, getting them back will not be easy.

The current mandates should not seek to divide people between those who are vaccinated and those who are not. Its about sticking together as a society, rather than looking for people to blame. And we need to stick together more than ever when the Charter rights of all Canadians are being threatened.

For the past 18 months, front-line workers including doctors, nurses, paramedics, firefighters, and social workers have been considered heroes as theyve worked tirelessly through very difficult and unprecedented conditions, while many of us have had the privilege of working from home.

Today those very same heroes are losing their careers, their ability to put food on the table and a roof over their heads, simply because they do not want to submit to a medical procedure they are not comfortable with.

Some of these individuals are single moms or dads who need the income to provide for their children. Others are supporting larger families. Many of these front-line workers will not be able to obtain any other employment elsewhere, as more and more vaccine policies are mandated.

Many employers recognize a medical exemption to mandatory vaccine policies. But this is hollow and meaningless, given that Dr. Nancy Whitmore, the CEO of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, limits this medical exemption only to those who have already received the first dose of the vaccine and have had severe allergic reactions to it. This means anyone wishing to obtain a medical exemption must first submit to the blatant violation of their bodily autonomy, contrary to the Charters protection of life, liberty, and security of the person.

In other words: to be exempt from violations, you must first submit to a violation.

Employers who reject religious and conscientious exemptions are violating the Human Rights Code and may expect grievances filed by unions and complaints to the Human Rights Commission. But that does not solve the immediate problem of many front-line workers who will be left without an income, and no way of making a living in the meantime. It is not clear whether these people would even be entitled to unemployment benefits.

Over the last week, I have received countless requests for help from front-line workers who have lost, or are about to lose, their livelihoods. While this has been disheartening, I have found hope and witnessed courage in so many Canadians, including those who are fully vaccinated, who recognize the injustice of these mandates and do not hesitate to speak out against them.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
The Orange County Board of Supervisors prepares for its weekly meeting in Santa Ana, Calif. on Aug. 25, 2020. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

Orange County Board of Supervisors Approves Plan to Help Afghan Refugees, Residents Share Concerns

The Orange County Board of Supervisors approved a three-year service plan for Afghan refugees entering the county as concerned residents discussed their hesitancy at the Sept. 14 meeting.

Krishna Murphy, an Orange County resident, told the board that immigrants are highly valued members of society, but he is concerned over who is being allowed in.

Responding to the proposition that we accommodate refugees in Orange County, and Im not against that in principle, he said. I think that America is the land of opportunity and America has prospered by the immigrants that have come here.

In this case, who is it that we are bringing into our country, whats being added? Murphy asked. How many of these people are actually Taliban? Has there been any vetting done?

Another county resident said shes not against refugees coming into the country but advised the board to prioritize the need of residents.

You have provided us with zero framework with which you will be vetting these refugees, she said. Where you will be placing them, how will we place them anywhere when we cannot place the homeless individuals who currently reside in our country?

Homelessness is running rampant, we have vaccine hesitation, we have no control over these immigrant and minority communities, and yet were bringing more immigrants and minorities into our community, and we have no resources, we have no ability to house them.

Supervisor Doug Chaffee advocated for the agenda item and told The Epoch Times that 950 Afghan refugees would be spread out across the state.

Its important to show that we are who we are as Americans that we welcome people, that we are generous and helping those who cant, and in this instance, were helping Afghanistan, he said. People who helped us, our nation, and we should not desert them, so were very pleased to help them any way we can.

Afghan refugees will initially be arriving in Sacramento. While its possible many can enter Orange County, its not clear how many will be transported, since the county is known to have high rental costs.

While theres no active resettlement agency in the county, the board is urging nonprofits and charities to step forward to assist refugees that will enter the state. Additionally, both Chaffee and Chairman Andrew Do plan to provide $1,000 per month for five years out of their personal funds to help with resettlement.

Prior to the recent Afghanistan evacuation, 48 Afghans had been transported to the county. With more anticipated to arrive, Chaffee and the board hope to pave a way for them to become integrated into the community.

One of the important things is helping them assimilate over time, which means that they may need language training, they may need housing, of course, and they may need employment training, just to be able to get around in a new environment, Chaffee said.

Chaffee intends to assist the entering refugees, with education and housing being a top priority.

Housing is our greatest need, he said. Its difficult, housing is expensive here, so were hoping that various charities and businesses, in addition to whenever we have a government program, we can step up and help out.

With many residents hesitant about the refugees, Chaffee urged the community to act on a humanitarian basis to assist those in need. As concerned residents questioned who would be entering the state, Chaffee reassured them that refugees are heavily vetted by the federal government.

The agenda item passed unanimously.
(L-R) Australian Defence Minister Peter Dutton, Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and U.S. Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin pose for a group photograph at the State Department in Washington on Sept. 16, 2021. (Andrew Harnik/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Party Leaders React to Canada Being Left Out of Allies Defence Pact

Canada was left out of a new defence pact between the United States, Australia, and the UK, which was announced on Sept. 15.

Dubbed AUKUS, the agreement seeks to deepen diplomatic, security, and defense cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region, according to a statement by the White House.

Party leaders were asked about the pact as they were campaigning in different parts of Canada in the final week before the election.

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau downplayed the exclusion of Canada from the pact during a campaign stop in Montreal on Sept. 16.

We continue to be strong members of the Five Eyes, and continue to share information and security approaches with our partners, Trudeau said when asked if Canada will lose in terms of defence intelligence if its not part of the alliance.

Trudeau said that the deal was mainly about Australias decision to acquire nuclear submarines, as the country gets increasingly nervous about Chinas ambitions in its backyard.

This is a deal for nuclear submarines, which Canada is not currently or any time soon in the market for; Australia is, Trudeau said.

That is what we will continue to work alongside our partners to ensurethat were keeping ourselves safe, that were standing up against challenges, including those posed by China.

The AUKUS agreement will see Australia, the UK, and the United States sharing information and technology, including the integration of security and defense-related science, technology, industrial bases, and supply chains, according to the White House.

Conservative Leader Erin OToole blasted Trudeau for the failure to join the alliance despite Canadas standing as a member of the Five-Eyes, an intelligence alliance that includes Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, and the United States.

This is another example that Mr. Trudeau is not taken seriously by our friends and allies around the world, OToole said during a campaign stop in Saint John, New Brunswick, on Sept. 16.

This is another major gathering of our closest allies that Mr. Trudeau is not even given a phone call.

He went to say that Canada has become irrelevant under Trudeaus leadership.

OToole said if elected he would contact other leaders in the AUKUS alliance to push for Canadas membership in the pact.

We need to be part of those discussions, he said, referring to the defence talks as well as discussions on global trade, security, cybersecurity, human rights and other issues impacting Canada.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh accused Trudeau of missing an opportunity to press China to release Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, two Canadians that have been arbitrarily detained in China for over 1000 days.

Canada should have been part of the pact, Singh said. This pact seems like a potential avenue to apply more pressure, but Canada was absent.

With files from The Canadian Press
Pennsylvania Auditor General: COVID-19 Businesses Closure Process Was Flawed

A performance audit has confirmed what Pennsylvania business owners already suspected: The process used to determine businesses closures during COVID-19 mitigation efforts was flawed and administered unevenly.

Pennsylvanias Auditor General Timothy DeFoors audit provides a window into the process of Gov. Tom Wolfs administration as it shuttered thousands of businesses.

This audit revealed a flawed process that provided inconsistent answers to business owners and caused confusion, DeFoor said in a Sept. 14 statement. While the pandemic certainly presented some unique challenges, the process was hastily assembled on the fly, unevenly administered and should be reformed before anything like it is ever used again.

On March 19, 2020, Wolf released a list of businesses considered life-sustaining, and ordered all other businesses to be closed to help slow the spread of COVID-19.

Gas stations, grocery stores, beer distributors, and abortion clinics were considered life-sustaining and could stay open. Real estate brokers, auto sales, hair salons, elective surgeries, and child care services werent considered life-sustaining and were forced to shut down.

Businesses could ask to remain open by applying for a waiver from the Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED).

In the 15 days it accepted waiver applications, March 20 through April 3, 2020, DCED received 42,380 applications.

During that time, DCED posted online five different versions of the waiver request form for businesses to use, the audit stated.

Of the applications submitted, one-third, 14,168, were from businesses that didnt even require a waiver to remain open because they provided goods or services already declared life-sustaining. The fact that they applied for a waiver illustrates the frustration and confusion businesses experienced, the audit stated.

Pennsylvania More Restrictive

To determine which businesses to close, the federal government gave the state guidance that considered essential workers as those critical for protecting public health and safety, and also considered those supporting economic and national security as essential. The guidance amounted to 14 sectors with essential critical infrastructure workers in each sector.

The Wolf administration built a more complex system to consider a businesss life-sustaining or non-life-sustaining qualities. It listed 10 industries, 19 sectors, 105 subsectors, and 306 industry groups, with exceptions for certain types of businesses.

The Wolf administrations plan restricted more businesses from remaining open than the federal guidelines, the audit stated.

Once waiver applications started to arrive, DCED asked employees, who were working from home and given no formal training, to work as reviewers and decide if a business should get a waiver or remain closed.

For example, massage businesses were closed, but some received waivers because they provided massages for essential health care workers. Pet groomers were closed but those that sold pet food could keep the food part of their business open.

Auto sales werent allowed but an auto dealer could keep the repair shop open.

Pennsylvania residents were going out of state to buy cars, the audit stated. A Pennsylvania nurse whose car was wrecked in a crash had to go to Ohio to get a new vehicle.

The restriction on automobile sales not only adversely affected Pennsylvania automobile dealerships, but it resulted in Pennsylvania residents being forced to travel out of state to purchase a vehicle necessary to travel to their critical jobs during a time when residents were being asked to limit travel in order to limit the spread of the virus, the audit stated.

The shutdown came as a surprise to everyone, Daniel Durden, chief executive officer of the Pennsylvania Builders Association, told The Epoch Times. There was so little time to button up job sites, to protect buildings from being damaged or being a danger to people in the neighborhood who may wander into a construction site.

The waiver process looked like an opportunity to work within the shutdown, Durden said, but home builders found inconsistency when they applied for waivers.

We had members share waiver applications that worked. Others used identical language; sometimes it worked, sometimes it didnt, Durden said.

Often a builder would be rejected for the waiver but the contractor who was going to do the work would be approved. The main contractor couldnt open the worksite, leaving them both out of work.

If you cant line up your subcontractors in the order the work needs to be done, not only will it take longer to build the home, it will cost you a lot more money, Durden said. Builders operating without a lot of reserves when the shutdown occurred went out of business.

More Waiver Issues

The audit was based on a sampling of 150 waiver applications. In the sample, four businesses were allowed to remain open that should have been closed; two were told to close that didnt need a waiver to remain open; two were told they didnt need a waiver but were later incorrectly told to close; and three received no decision but were sent an unrelated letter.

The results of these decision errors by reviewers had real life negative consequences to businesses that should have been able to operate but instead were notified that they had to close, the audit stated.

Other issues with the waiver application and review processes identified by the performance audit included:

Waiver applications processed early in the program were reviewed differently than those processed later, with some later applications receiving multiple levels of review including by legal counsel.

Businesses that included keywords (such as health care workers) on their applications often resulted in favorable, but questionable, responses. Additionally, some business owners argued that their businesses were personally life-sustaining rather than explain how their businesses provided life-sustaining products or services to customers.

Waiver application databases didnt keep the identity of all individuals who reviewed an application, along with all decisions made, only retaining the last decision made.

Waiver application databases werent designed to require reviewers to write the reason for decisions made.

The wording of the waiver decision responses emailed to businesses by DCED lacked clarity and could have led to confusion for businesses as to what, if any, business operations they could continue to perform.

DCED Responds

The audit was given to DCED before it was made public, and a letter from DCED Secretary Dennis Davin is attached to the end of the audit.

The waiver requests DCED received ranged from heartfelt and often heart wrenching individuals pleas from small business owners to keep their struggling businesses open, to requests from multinational corporate entities represented by legal counsel, Davin wrote. This diversity presented a unique set of challenges for making consistent determinations as to which businesses could remain open because they were life-sustaining and which businesses, unfortunately, had to remain closed to protect public health.

The DCED appreciates the feedback provided by the Auditor General on the business exemption process undertaken at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, DCED Communications Director Casey Smith told The Epoch Times in an email.

The Wolf Administration prides itself on transparency, and this audit reinforces what we have said time and time again-this situation was unprecedented and DCED is proud of the work accomplished by our team in an incredibly short time period, Smith wrote.

The public can be assured that every decision was made in a professional manner. We thank the auditor generals team for their review and feedback of the business exemption process and for reassuring the public that all decisions were made in a fair, professional, and transparent manner.
A Police car is seen in Wisconsin on Aug. 31, 2020. (Kerem Yucel/AFP via Getty Images)

Police: Case of 4 Found Fatally Shot in Wisconsin a Mystery

MENOMONIE, Wis.Four people found slain in an abandoned SUV in a western Wisconsin cornfield had been shot and were all from Minnesota, authorities said Tuesday of a case they described as a mystery.

Preliminary results of autopsies performed Monday by the Ramsey County Medical Examiners Office showed the two men and two women all died of gunshot wounds, the Dunn County Sheriffs Office said.

The victims were identified as Matthew Isiah Pettus, 26; Loyace Foremann III, 35; and Jasmine Christine Sturm, 30, all from St. Paul; as well as Nitosha Lee Flug-Presley, 30, of Stillwater.

Dunn County Sheriff Kevin Bygd said during a news conference Tuesday that authorities dont believe the person or people responsible for the killings are local or still in the area. He said investigators do not have a motive.

That one is a mystery, he said.

Authorities believe the four Twin Cities-area residents died less than 24 hours from the time they were found and the location was a place these victims were randomly brought, Bygd said.

Everybodys a suspect at this point, he said. Were looking at everybody and every possibility.

Plug-Presleys father, Damone Presley Sr., told the St. Paul Pioneer Press that the four victims were at a St. Paul bar Saturday night and they got in someones vehicle when they left.

Why would this happen? he said Tuesday.  It just doesnt make sense.

A 911 caller alerted deputies Sunday to the black SUV that was off a rural road in the Town of Sheridan, according to the Dunn County Sheriffs Office.

Sheriffs officials said earlier that there may have been a second dark-colored SUV traveling with the vehicle that was abandoned.

The Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation and the Wisconsin State Patrol are assisting in the investigation.
Young people walk past an HSBC bank in midtown Manhattan, New York, on Aug. 1. The banking giant is looking to shed retail bank branches in New York to focus more on investment and corporate banking. (Jaya Gibson/The Epoch Times)

Pro-China HSBC Bank Exits US Retail Banking Amid Financial Losses

New York customers are told to empty their safe-deposit boxes

HSBC is in the process of retreating from the American retail banking market. Meanwhile, customers in New York have already been notified to clean out their safe-deposit boxes.

HSBC Holdings is a British multinational investment bank and financial services holding company. Its the largest bank in Europe and headquartered in London.

According to a May 27 Reuters report, HSBC will sell or close about 150 commercial bank branches in the United States, exit most of its retail banking operations catered to individuals and small businesses, and maintain only a small physical presence in the United States to serve a small number of wealthy clients.

The report also said that HSBCs U.S. wealth and personal banking business incurred a loss of $547 million in 2020 compared to a $5 billion profit in Asia, primarily from Hong Kongits most profitable market.

Citizens Bank, a unit of Citizens Financial Group, has agreed to buy HSBCs East Coast banking operations, including 80 branches; while Cathay Bank, a subsidiary of Cathay General Bancorp, agreed to buy HSBCs West Coast operations, including 10 branches.

According to a May 26 statement by Citizens Bank, the 80 East Coast HSBC branches that it acquired include 66 branches in the New York metro area, nine branches in the Mid-Atlantic/Washington area, and five branches in Southeast Florida. The branches, which will continue to operate as HSBC branches until the deal closes, will be renamed Citizens Bank branches immediately thereafter.

The Citizens Bank building, located at Bowery and Canal Street, was recently listed as a New York City Landmark. (Tim McDevitt/The Epoch Times)

The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2022. HSBC will retain more than 20 branches and turn them into wealth management centers that will continue to serve high-net-worth international clients.

HSBC customers in New York recently received notices, stating that the bank will be renamed Citizens Bank and safe-deposit box customers need to remove their belongings from their safes.

Mr. Huang, a resident of Elmhurst in Queens, New York, told The Epoch Times that he received letters from HSBC in late August and early September, informing him that the safe-deposit box operations at the Elmhurst East Branch will end on Sept. 27, his bank safe-deposit box contract will be terminated, and he needs to retrieve his belongings before Nov. 5. If no actions were taken by that time, the safe would be drilled open in the presence of a notary and HSBC staff, and the contents would be removed and stored on his behalf for two years.

The HSBC branches at 58 Bowery Street in Chinatown and 39-10 Main Street in Flushing will be converted into HSBC Wealth Management Centers, serving premium customers only, while day-to-day deposits and withdrawals will move to other branches that will be renamed Citizens Bank.

The China Connection

HSBC traces its origin to British Hong Kong, and its present form was established in London by the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation in 1991; its name derives from that companys initials. The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation opened branches in Shanghai in 1865. Though HSBC moved its headquarters to London in 1993, Hong Kong remains its largest market, accounting for 54 percent of its profits worldwide.

HSBC showed support for Beijings controversial national security law, which was implemented in Hong Kong in June 2020. The chief executive for HSBCs Asia-Pacific division, Peter Wong, signed a petition supporting the law and stated in a post on Chinese social media that HSBC respects and supports all laws that stabilize Hong Kongs social order.

In response, Joshua Wong, a Hong Kong pro-democracy activist, decried the banks position and said that it demonstrates how China will use the national security law as new leverage for more political influence over the foreign business community in this global city.

Pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong registers as a candidate for the upcoming Legislative Council election in Hong Kong, on July 20, 2020. (Tyrone Siu/Reuters)

Alistair Carmichael, the UK chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong, said HSBC made a serious error by bending to Chinas will regarding the security law, calling it a colossal misjudgment since it would be seen as a large British corporation advocating for a fairly flagrant breach of international law when banks rely on a rules-based system.

Since August 2020, HSBC has also frozen the accounts of many Hong Kong pro-democracy organizations and activists, including the accounts of Jimmy Lai and Ted Hui, an exiled former pro-democracy member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council.

At the time, Kyle Bass, a billionaire hedge fund investor, harshly criticized HSBCs obedience to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on Twitter, and called for sweeping U.S. sanctions against the bank.

Former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also singled out HSBC for not closing the bank accounts of 11 Chinese and Hong Kong officials who were sanctioned by the United States for undermining Hong Kongs autonomy.

In January, the CEO of HSBC defended the companys relationship with Chinese authorities in Hong Kong and the freezing of Ted Huis account to the United Kingdoms parliamentary foreign affairs committee.

In February, over 50 members of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China called for the immediate unfreezing of funds belonging to Ted Hui and his family.

According to a government document obtained by The Epoch Times in December 2020, since 2016, the CCP has been able to go directly to the Hong Kong HSBC and investigate the accounts and records of certain Chinese officials implicated in corruption probes.

Kowtowing to the CCP

In mainland China, HSBCs kowtowing to the CCP did not immediately pay off. State media accused the bank of playing a role in the arrest of Huaweis chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou. In December 2018, Canadian authorities arrested Meng at Vancouver International Airport on a U.S. extradition warrant. She is accused of being involved in a scheme to use the global banking system to evade U.S. sanctions against Iran.

In September 2020, Chinas Ping An Insurance bought 10.8 million HSBC shares for about HK $305 million, overtaking BlackRock, the worlds largest asset manager, as the banks single largest shareholder, Reuters reported.

Since then, a number of Hong Kong media reports have shown photos of HSBC branches embarking on an image transformation. Its employees wear bright red polo shirts, commonly known as China Red.

As part of its latest push into Asia, HSBC is pouring billions of dollars into wealth services in China, where it has hired 600 wealth managers to cater to the needs of the nouveau riche. Noel Quinn, the CEO of HSBC Holdings, told Bloomberg on Sept. 2 that its an opportunity too big to miss for HSBC, even though Xi Jinping is cracking down on the rich.

HSBC is still Europes biggest bank, according to the Bloomberg report, but with almost two-thirds of pre-tax profits from Asia in the first half of this year, its clear where its priorities lie. HSBC is in the process of relocating several senior executives from London to Asia, although Quinn stressed that the bank would not yet move its headquarters from the British capital.
A Qantas Boeing 747 during a fly past at the Formula One Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne on March 15, 2015. (William West/AFP via Getty Images)

Qantas International Flights From Australia Scheduled for Dec. 18

Qantass first commercial international flights from Australia in nearly two years are scheduled to take off on Dec. 18 and the two days following, right after the Federal Governments overseas travel ban deadline on Dec. 17.

The flights will depart from Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. The first destinations include London, Los Angeles, Vancouver, Singapore, Tokyo, Fiji, and Honolulu.

On current projections, Australia is expected to reach National Cabinets 80 percent vaccination threshold in December 2021, which would trigger the gradual reopening of international borders, the company said on its website.

If assumptions change or dates move, our restart plans will be adjusted accordingly and well keep you updated.

While the flights still depend on the Federal Governments final decision on when to open the international border, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce is relatively confident.

Its obviously up to government exactly how and when our international borders re-open, but with Australia on track to meet the 80 percent trigger agreed by National Cabinet by the end of the year, we need to plan ahead for what is a complex restart process, Joyce said.

Some people might say were being too optimistic, but based on the pace of the vaccine rollout, this is within reach and we want to make sure were ready.

Passengers wearing face masks arrive on a Qantas flight into Ballina Byron Gateway Airport in Ballina, Australia on April 1, 2021 . (James D. Morgan/Getty Images)

The cheapest tickets for Sydney-London on Dec. 18 have already sold out, according to Qantas booking site. The one-way tickets to London and Los Angeles are around $1600 and $2300.

International flights are noticeably absent from Perth, the capital state of Western Australia, which plans to keep its border shut even after reaching the vaccination target.

Unfortunately, I think there are one or two states that are taking a more conservative view on that, and departing from the national plan, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce said in a business conference last week traveller.com.au reported.

We might get into a situation where from Sydney you can visit your relatives in London, maybe Dublin, but you cant visit your relatives in Perth, or maybe Cairns.

Qantas has noted that all passengers will need to be fully vaccinated to board international flights, and required all its frontline staff to get their second dose by Nov. 15.

Meanwhile, Air Canada has also made vaccination mandatory for its Sydney-Vancouver flight scheduled on Dec. 17.

The full list of Qantas international flights for December are:

Sydney-London (December 18)

Melbourne-London (December 18)

Sydney-Los Angeles (December 18)

Melbourne-Los Angeles (December 19)

Brisbane-Los Angeles (December 19)

Sydney-Honolulu (December 20)

Sydney-Vancouver (December 18)

Sydney-Singapore (December 18)

Melbourne-Singapore (December 18)

Brisbane-Singapore (December 19)

Sydney-Tokyo (December 19)

Sydney-Fiji (December 19)
Then-Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab arrives at Downing Street as Prime Minister Boris Johnson carries out a Cabinet reshuffle in London on Sept. 15, 2021. (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

Raab Plays Vital Role in Cabinet After Being Replaced as Foreign Secretary: Downing Street

Dominic Raab is playing a vital role as the new justice secretary, Downing Street said on Thursday, following Raabs demotion from his previous job as foreign secretary.

In a cabinet reshuffle that started on Wednesday, Raab was the only minister who was replaced from the governments four Great Offices of State.

Asked about the change on Thursday, Prime Minister Boris Johnsons official spokesman said Raabs new job in the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) is a vital position for him.

It is true that dealing with criminal justice is one of the key functions of government and thats why the prime minister has sought to move Dominic Raab into this position, given his background and expertise in this area, he told reporters.

It has been speculated that the former foreign secretary was demoted for taking a holiday in the Greek island of Crete while the Taliban was advancing in Afghanistan, and not returning to the UK immediately after the Afghan capital of Kabul fell into Taliban control.

But his colleague, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, dismissed the theory earlier on Thursday.

I dont think thats why, Wallace told BBC Breakfast.

Dominic is by trade a lawyer, he started his life in the Foreign Office as a human rights lawyer and hes gone to the Ministry of Justice which is actually a very, very important role and a role he desperately understands, the defence secretary said.

Raab picked up the title of deputy prime ministera position that has been vacant since 2015while being transferred to the MOJ.

He has previously served as the first secretary of state and stood in for Johnson while the prime minister was hospitalised with COVID-19.

Johnsons spokesman said the new title formalises Raabs position as the prime ministers deputy, allowing him to stand in for Johnson at Prime Ministers Questions in Parliament.

It demonstrates his seniority within government and the trust the prime minister places with him, he said.

Asked what the difference was between being first secretary and deputy prime minister, the spokesman added, You can expect him to be involved in cross-governmental work when that is necessitated.

The spokesperson said he wasnt going to be prescriptive while we are still in the midst of this process, but it is clear Raab will play an important senior role in government.

Pressed on whether Raab had specifically requested the title change during the reshuffle, the spokesman told reporters, Look, Im not going to get into individual conversations that take place.

He said it is right that individual conversations remain private, and that hes happy to confirm this was a planned move.

He also confirmed that the first secretary of state position has now been abolished.

Former Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice Robert Buckland was sacked during Wednesdays reshuffle of senior cabinet roles. Asked if Johnson agreed with Bucklands comment in his resignation letter that the justice system had suffered from underfunding, the Downing Street spokesman denied the claim.

No, the government has invested significant resources to tackle court backlogs from the pandemic, put more criminals behind bars, and provide better support for victims, he said.

It has seen an extra quarter-of-a-billion in the last financial year for speedier justice, in addition to the 1 billion [$1.4 billion] court reform programme, 85 million [$117 million] for the CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] to manage caseloads, for example.

PA contributed to this report.
Religious Exemption Denials by Hospital Reversed After Nurses Take Stand

Pomona Valley Hospital (PVH) reversed its decision to deny vaccine exemption requests submitted by more than 200 nurses and other staff after the group hired an attorney to represent them.

The employees had each submitted the hospitals declination form requesting exemption from the vaccine based on their personal religious beliefs in response to state and county COVID-19 vaccine mandates for all health care workers.

Like all health care providers in the state, PVH is required by the California Department of Public Healths order released on Aug. 5 to be in compliance with the order by Sept. 30 or face disciplinary action and fines.

The Epoch Times previously reported that the PVH employee group received a form letter email from the hospital denying their requests, and they hired employment attorney Dan Watkins of Watkins & Letofsky to assist them in seeking protection from the states vaccine mandate and the hospitals blanket denial of their religious exemption requests. Watkins had previously requested to remain anonymous, but later chose to reveal his name after filing a lawsuit on behalf of employees at the Los Angeles Police Department.

Watkins sent a letter to Pomona Valley Hospital administrators requesting that they reverse the hospitals stance on the matter or face lawsuits by its employees.

We simply asked that PVH respond to each application individually, on a case-by-case basis, Watkins told The Epoch Times. Each of the individuals we are representing submitted PVHs required form, and the hospital responded by asking for more detailed information to be submitted, then blanketly denied all of the requests by sending out a mass email.

More information is not necessary nor required by law. It is a clear overreach and attempt at coercion and intimidation. Additionally, the law states that each case must be reviewed on an individual basisit is a highly personal and confidential consideration, Watkins stated.

Consideration Granted

On Sept. 8, Watkins received a response by PVHs attorney, Michael R. Goldstein of Musick, Peeler and Garrett, stating that the hospital had indeed reconsidered and would now approve the requests for religious exemptions it had received.

In part, the letter stated: PVHMC believes that vaccines are the best way to reduce the spread of COVID19 and help protect against severe illness, hospitalization, and death. Having a fully vaccinated workforce is vital to PVHMCs commitment to protecting public health, preventing disease, and promoting the well-being of the patients and the community it serves. PVHMC also understands that the California and Los Angeles County public health orders identify an exemption from mandatory vaccination based upon an employees religious beliefs.

Upon further review and examination, PVHMC has decided to approve all requests for religious exemption that it has received to date.

Calls by The Epoch Times to Mr. Goldstein for comment were not immediately returned.

While exempted employees and volunteers will continue to be required to wear personal protective equipment like vaccinated personnel, they must also be tested for COVID-19 at least once a week to retain their exemption.

In the PVH declination form it states, Associates who meet criteria for exemption will be considered unvaccinated. There is no exemption from testing if unvaccinated.

Protecting Employee Rights

Watkins pointed out that while many health care organizations are processing religious and medical vaccine exemptions in line with FEHA laws and Title VII protection, many are not, which he believes is a clear violation of employee rights.

The case is pretty clear, that a sincerely held religious belief of an individual is just that, Watkins said. The exemptions are not reliant on confirmation or affirmation from a pastor or priest or from some spiritual leader. You do not have to testify to the frequency of attending services. Some of the questions employers are including in the applications are very intimidating, and theyre designed to make employees think that they dont even have a belief, or that they cant defend their beliefs.

According to the State Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH), an employer may require employees to receive an FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccine so long as the employer complies with the Fair Employment and House Act (FEHA).

This means that, in mandating vaccinations, the employer must provide reasonable accommodation based on disability or sincerely held religious belief or practice; cannot discriminate against or harass employees or job applicants based on their disability or religion; and cannot retaliate against anyone for engaging in a protected activity, such as requesting a reasonable accommodation.

On March 4, Californias DFEH released its updated COVID-19 guidance addressing several open questions regarding employee vaccination under California law. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) provided similar guidance on how mandatory vaccination programs could comply with federal law.

In its guidance for employers, the DFEH notes that accommodating sincerely held religious beliefs and practices may be achieved through job restructuring, job reassignment, or modification of work practices, but that segregating an individual based on religion is generally not reasonable.

However, as with disability accommodations, employers may exclude employees from the workplace if they show an accommodation imposes an undue hardship.

In some of these religious exemption cases, it is apparent that there has been an intentional effort to intimidate and coerce people to not even submit an exemption request in the first place by asking questions of employees that are overbroad and irrelevant to the analysis, Watkins told The Epoch Times.

In the case of PVH, they simply issued a blanket denial of the requests after saying they needed more detailed information, which is not legal and could be considered a form of harassment and intimidation.

Many employers throw so many obstacles at employees and make it so hard or confusing for them that they just give up and cave in to these mandates.
Russian President Vladimir Putin looks on during a meeting with athletes, participants of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, in Moscow on Sept. 11, 2021. (Sputnik/Evgeny Biyatov/Kremlin via Reuters)

Russias Putin Says He Will Be in COVID-19 Self-Isolation A Few Days

MOSCOWRussian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday he would have to spend a few days in self-isolation after dozens of people in his entourage fell ill with COVID-19, the TASS news agency reported.

Putin was speaking via a video link at a summit of a Russia-led security bloc being held in Tajikistan which he had initially planned to attend in person.

It was previously unclear how big the outbreak was and how long Putin would remain isolated.

This is not just one person or two people, there are dozens of people, he said. And now I have to remain in self-isolation for a few days.

Putin, 68, has had two shots of Russias Sputnik V vaccine. He said this week he was now personally testing its efficacy.

The Kremlin said Putin was healthy. His spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said on Thursday the presidents self-isolation could last at least a week and added that he was unaware of anyone being gravely ill in the Kremlin.

He said Putin was yet to decide whether he would attend a summit of the Group of 20 major economies at the end of next month in Rome.

The Kremlin had imposed rigorous measures designed to keep Putin away from anyone with COVID-19.

Kremlin visitors have had to pass through special disinfection tunnels, journalists attending his events must undergo multiple PCR tests, and some people he meets are asked to quarantine beforehand and be tested for COVID-19.

By Maxim Rodionov
Security use a sniffer dog to check the luggage of passengers on the Ryanair plane with registration number SP-RSM, carrying opposition figure Raman Pratasevich which was traveling from Athens to Vilnius and was diverted to Minsk after a bomb threat, in Minsk International airport in Belarus on May 23, 2021. (Onliner.by via AP)

Ryanair Raises Passenger Target to 225 Million a Year by 2026 After Its Post-COVID Recovery Plans Are Approved

Budget airline Ryanair on Sept.16 said it has raised its five-year passenger traffic growth after shareholders approved the companys post-COVID recovery plans.

In a statement, the Irish carrier said it expects to see more rapid traffic growth by 2026 and has raised its five-year growth forecast to 50 percent, up from past estimates of 33 percent.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the companys passenger traffic was 149 million but it now expects that to grow to over 225 million by March 2026, which is 25 million passengers per year higher than the previous target of 200 million.

The growth will be driven by the delivery of 210 new Boeing 737 Max jets over the next five years. However, the plans are subject to no adverse COVID developments and vaccination levels remaining at 90 percent throughout Europe.

In August, EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said 70 percent of adults in the European Union were now fully vaccinated against COVID-19, which translates to 250 million people.

Ryanair said the Boeing 737 Max jets will deliver industry lowest costs, reduced emissions, and will enable Ryanair [to] accelerate its post-Covid growth as opportunities open up at primary and secondary airports all over Europe, particularly where legacy carriers have failed or reduced fleet sizes as a result of Covid and State Aid.

The company will also open 10 new bases across Europe in 2021 in an effort to recover traffic and boost jobs previously lost to the COVID-19 pandemic.

It will also take advantage of opportunities that are being vacated by competitor airlines such as EasyJet, Flyby, Pegasus Airlines, and Lufthansa Group, which have suffered from collapses or significantly reduced fleet sizes amid the pandemic after air traffic levels plunged.

The performance of the B737 Gamechanger aircraft this summer has exceeded our expectations. Operational reliability, fuel consumption, and lower CO2 emissions have so far exceeded guidelines with very positive passenger and crew feedback to these new, more fuel efficient, quieter aircraft, Ryanairs Chief executive Michael OLeary said.

Ryanair also plans to create 5,000 jobs over the next five years for pilots, cabin crew, and engineers, meaning the company will have recouped the 3,000 workers it announced it would be laying off at the start of the pandemic.

Earlier in the week, Ryanair opened a 50 million euro ($42.54 million) Aviation Training Centre in Dublin and plans to open two more in Spain and Poland between now and 2026.

The COVID-19 pandemic has delivered an unprecedented blow to Europes aviation and tourism industries. Only Ryanair has used this crisis to place significantly increased aircraft orders, to expand our airport partnerships, and to secure lower operating costs so that we can pass on even lower fares to our guests, so that together with our airport partners, we can recover strongly from the COVID pandemic and deliver higher than expected growth in both traffic and jobs over the next 5 years, OLeary added.

However, with airline companies hoping to get back to some kind of new normal following the pandemic, customers can expect a significant hike in ticket costs, even for short-haul flights across Europe.

Prices will rise I think during October and at Christmas and I think prices into next summer will be significantly stronger than they were pre-COVID because theres about 20 [percent] less capacity in the short-haul market across Europe, OLeary told Reuters on Thursday.
Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe during a tour of the COVID-19 mass immunization clinic and drive-thru immunization space at International Trade Centre in Regina on Feb. 18, 2021. (The Canadian Press/Michael Bell)

Saskatchewan Announces Proof of COVID Vaccination Program

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe says that the province will be introducing a proof of COVID-19 vaccination program.

Moe said on Sept. 16 that the fourth wave of the pandemic is driven almost entirely by the roughly 20 to 30 percent of the population who choose not to be vaccinated.

As a government, we have been very patient, possibly too patient. The time for patience is over, Moe said, adding that he will soon introduce measure aimed at making it less comfortable to remain unvaccinated in the province.

Moe said that starting on Sept. 17, the province will roll out an interim mandatory masking policy applicable at all public indoor spaces. He said the program would be lifted in late October, and be replaced with a full vaccination or negative test policy that will last for three to four weeks.

The proof of vaccination policy for accessing non-essential businesses is planned to come into effect on Oct. 1.

All provincial government employees will also be required to be vaccinated, or otherwise show proof of a negative COVID-19 test.

These are not measures we wanted to implement, and as a government we have been patient in providing the opportunity and access to get vaccinations, but that patience has come to an end, Moe said.

Moe said less than a week ago that vaccination would remain a choice, and that he believed creating a situation where there are two classes of citizens based on their vaccination status is a divisive path for a government to take.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, who had previously opposed a proof of vaccination system, announced on Sept. 15 that his province would also bring in a proof of vaccination program.

With files from The Canadian Press
U.S. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) speaks to reporters after a Republican Senate luncheon at the U.S. Capitol Building on June 15, 2021. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Sen. Scott Says Biden Shouldnt Remain Silent on Chinas Oppression in Hong Kong

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) is calling on President Joe Biden to speak out against Chinas assault on democracy in Hong Kong, after nine activists in the Chinese-ruled city were given months-long sentences for commemorating victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Once a thriving democracy, Hong Kong is now fully under the oppressive rule of General Secretary Xi Jinping and the Communist Chinese government. These unwarranted and unjustifiable arrests are just the latest proof of Hong Kongs sad transformation, Scott said in a statement.

Among those sentenced to prison on Sept. 15 was Albert Ho, former chairman of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, which has organized the annual candlelight vigil since 1990.

Hong Kong authorities banned the vigil in 2020 and 2021, citing concerns about the spread of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, the pathogen that causes COVID-19.

Despite the ban, thousands of people, including Ho, gathered at the citys Victoria Park on June 4, 2020, to remember the student protesters.

On Sept. 15, Ho was sentenced to 10 months in prison. Several former pro-democracy lawmakers, including Leung Kwok-hung and Eddie Chu, were given six-month prison terms for participating in the vigil.

Ho, whos already serving 18 months for his role in protests in 2019, will serve the new sentence concurrently.

In December 2020, U.S.-based organization Human Rights First awarded Ho its 2020 Roger N. Baldwin Medal of Liberty Award in recognition of his decades-long achievement as a human rights defender.

In all, the nine activists received sentences ranging from 6 to 10 months. Three other activists were given suspended sentences.

Participants hold candles as they take part in a memorial vigil in Victoria Park in Hong Kong on June 4, 2020. (Anthony Kwan/Getty Images)

As the worlds dictators continue their assaults on democracy, free speech, and human rights, Joe Biden is silent, Scott said.

As the leader of the free world, Joe Biden should be the loudest voice condemning Communist Chinas transgressions, but he is again missing in action.

Instead of continuing his failed appeasement, its time for Biden to clearly and unapologetically stand for the rights of Hong Kongers and the protection of freedom and democracy around the world.

The 12 people who were dealt sentences on Sept. 15 were among a total of 26 activists charged in connection with the vigil in 2020. Nathan Law and Sunny Cheung fled the city before they were summoned to court in September 2020.

Prominent young activists Joshua Wong, Lester Shum, Tiffany Yuen, and Janelle Leung, were given jail terms in April after they pleaded guilty to unlawful assembly charges. In May, Wong was sentenced to an additional 10 months in jail.

The remaining eight defendants who face charges will stand trial in November, including Lee Cheuk Yan, the leader of the Alliance. Theyve pleaded not guilty.

On Sept. 16, 61 Hong Kong and international human rights groupsincluding Freedom House, Hong Kong Watch, Human Rights Watch, and Safeguard Defendersjoined together to call on the Hong Kong government to drop all charges against the leaders of the Alliance.

By arresting vigil organizers, Beijing and Hong Kong authorities are telling the world theyre not only afraid of the most peaceful protests, but also of their own brutal past, said Sophie Richardson, Human Rights Watchs China director.

They should end this political persecution and immediately drop the charges and release the vigil organizers.

Mimi Nguyen Ly contributed to his article.
Conservative MP Garnett Genuis responds to a question during a news conference in Ottawa on Nov. 26, 2020. (The Canadian Press/Adrian Wyld)

Significant Security Concerns: Tory Candidate on Trudeaus Book Deal With CCP-Controlled Publisher

The 2016 publishing deal with a communist Party-controlled company that printed Liberal Leader Justin Trudeaus personal memoir in China raises concerns not only from an ethics perspective but also in the context of national security, a Tory candidate says.

We are very concerned about the fact that the Prime Minister of Canada would have a personal publishing deal with a Chinese state-owned and controlled company, Conservative candidate Garnett Genuis told NTD Television, The Epoch Times sister media.

This means that he is dependent on that company, and indirectly on the Chinese government in terms of royalties, for his personal financial situation, said Genuis, who is seeking re-election in the riding of Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan and is his partys shadow minister for human rights.

The Epoch Times asked the Liberal Party for comment but didnt hear back.

The Globe and Mail reported on Sept. 14 that Trudeaus Canadian publisher HarperCollins struck a deal with Yilin Press of Nanjing, China, in 2016 to republish Trudeaus memoir Common Ground in Chinese, under the title, The Legend Continues.

The parent company of the publisher is Jiangsu Phoenix Publishing and Media, a state-owned enterprise that takes orders from the propaganda department of the Jiangsu provincial Communist Party committee.

Genuis says this relationship between a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) state-owned company and the prime minister prompts questions of both ethics and national security.

Is this a possible mechanism of influence over the Prime Minister of Canada? he said.

This is very clearly an attempt by the Chinese government to establish a personal relationship with a foreign head of state that advances their interests.

On Sept. 14, Conservative candidate Michael Barrett wrote to federal ethics commissioner Mario Dion, asking for confirmation as to whether Trudeau had disclosed the book deal to him at any point since 2016. Barrett said the book deal was made at a time when the Liberal leader was actively pursuing a relationship with Beijing, including a free trade deal and joining the Asian Infrastructure Bank.

Conservative MP Michael Barrett arrives to a caucus meeting in Ottawa on June 23, 2021. (The Canadian Press/Sean Kilpatrick)

Subsequently Mr. Trudeau has faced many important decisions regarding Canadas relationship with China including whether to ban Huawei from Canadas 5G network, choosing to partner with a Chinese state enterprise on the development of a COVID vaccine, responding to Chinas genocide against the Uighurs, and the crackdown on Hong Kong, he wrote.

Barrett added that Trudeau could possibly be in breach of Section 7 of the Conflict of Interest Act on preferential treatment, as well as Section 21, under which he should have recused himself on decisions related to the Chinese regime.

However, Trudeau said he played no role in the deal when asked by a reporter during an election campaign stop in Richmond, B.C., on Sept. 14.

All the handling of the international editions of my book was done entirely by the publisher, he said.

All of the profits from that book go to the Canadian Red Cross. I dont see a single penny, and I have nothing to do with where it gets translated or sold.

When pressed about whether clearance was sought from Dion, Trudeau didnt answer directly, but said the ethics commissioner has cleared all my sources of income, many times.

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau speaks to the media following the federal election English-language Leaders debate in Gatineau, Que., on Sept. 9, 2021. (The Canadian Press/Fred Chartrand)

China Interfering in Election: Genuis

Genuis said the issue of Beijings influence on Canadian politicians is timely, as Conservative candidates are seeing attempts by the regime to actively interfere in the federal election, working behind the scenes to influence who gets elected in Canada.

We see the deplorable efforts of the government of China to interfere in Canadas election, to try to prevent the election of Conservative candidates in support of the election of Liberal candidates, he said.

This is something that weve been warned about many times, and the government has failed to take it seriously.

Chinese state-owned media have published hostile reports against the Conservative Party and leader Erin OToole, who has taken a strong position against the CCP, including defending human rights in China.

Genuis said his partys policies to curb foreign interference, particularly on protecting Chinese-Canadians from threats, potential violence, and intimidation, have been well-received by the Chinese community, but they also triggered the CCP to order its agents in Canada to interfere and falsely malign Conservative candidates.

Conservative MP Kenny Chiu rises during question period in the House of Commons on April 13, 2021. (The Canadian Press/Adrian Wyld)

Conservative candidate Kenny Chiu, who is seeking re-election in the B.C. riding of StevestonRichmond East, has seen similar efforts to rob him of votes, in a series of smear campaigns against him over the years.

He told The Epoch Times in a previous interview that he has been a target of misinformation against him in other election campaigns, but this year it has been exceptional.

Its nothing compared to what Ive seenits multi-dimensional, he said, referring to social media posts, radio commentaries, and online articles in pro-Beijing media that portray him negatively.

Chiu has taken a public stance against the CCPs human rights violations and interference operations. In April, he introduced Bill 282, a private members bill that seeks to impel those who work on behalf of foreign entities to register as foreign agents in an effort to counter foreign interference in Canada.

Genuis said the attempts by the CCP shows that the regime does not want a Conservative government that is ready to stand up for what is right, stand up for justice, and combat foreign state-backed interference.

No country that is serious about its sovereignty can afford to allow the kind of interference weve seen come from other countries, especially from the government of China, he said.

With reporting by Limin Zhou and Omid Ghoreishi
Slovenias Prime Minister Urges EU to Stand With Lithuania Against Chinese Pressure

BRUSSELSThe European Union must stand with Lithuania against Chinese pressure and not give in to trade threats, Slovenias prime minister said in a letter to fellow EU leaders, according to a copy seen by Reuters.

The Chinese regimes decision to withdraw its ambassador to Lithuania over a dispute about Taiwan was reprehensible and would hurt EU-China ties, Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa, whose country holds the six-month EU presidency, said in his Sept. 13 letter.

We will be able to face China successfully only with a united, coherent, and common approach, Jansa wrote. We must stand by every EU member state that is facing pressure.

Lithuania and Taiwan this year opened reciprocal representative offices in a sign of deepening relations.

The Chinese communist regime considers fiercely democratic, self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory and has threatened to use force to bring the island under its control. Its regularly angered by any moves which suggest the island is a separate country.

Beijing recalled its ambassador from Vilnius and expelled Lithuanias from Beijing. Lithuania recalled its ambassador in Beijing for consultations.

Lithuanian officials have also said that the Chinese regime has begun making trade with the Baltic state more difficult, stopping the approval of permits for food exports to China.

In his letter, Jansa said Taiwan remains our important partner. This should not be denied.

EU leaders are due to discuss their approach to China, the EUs second-largest trading partner, at a summit dinner in Slovenia on Oct. 5, in a bind at what approach to take with a relationship that is becoming increasingly contentious.

EU diplomats in Brussels say the Chinese regime is seeking to divide the 27 countries to increase its influence and weaken its power in trade, business, and politics.

Epoch Times staff contributed to this report
Alex Murdaugh is seen in a mugshot taken on Sept. 16, 2021. (Hampton County Detention Center)

South Carolina Police Arrest Alex Murdaugh, Lawyer Who Allegedly Plotted Own Shooting

South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh was arrested Thursday in South Carolina on charges including insurance fraud after he told state agents that he conspired with another man to commit suicide so his son would get $10 million from a life insurance policy.

Murdaugh, 53, was charged with insurance fraud, conspiracy to commit insurance fraud, and filing a false police report, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) said.

The arrest came a day after authorities announced the arrest of Curtis Edward Smith, 61. Court documents say Smith and Murdaugh admitted to hatching a scheme that centered on Smith shooting Murdaugh dead.

But the shot Smith fired only grazed Murdaughs head, leaving him alive. He was rushed to the hospital and survived.

I can assure you that SLED agents will continue working to bring justice to anyone involved with any criminal act associated with these ongoing investigations, SLED Chief Mark Keel said in a statement. The arrests in this case are only the first step in that process.

Murdaugh was booked at the Hampton County Detention Center.

Smith appeared in court earlier Thursday and was released on bond, court records show.

Murdaugh originally told authorities that he was shot on the side of the road by a stranger after pulling over.

Attorneys representing Murdaugh told The Epoch Times in an email that he suffers from an opioid addiction and that people took advantage of his addiction and his ability to pay substantial funds for illegal drugs.

One of those individuals took advantage of his mental illness and agreed to take Alexs life, by shooting him in the head. Fortunately, Alex was not killed by the gunshot wound. Alex is fully cooperating with SLED in their investigations into his shooting, opioid use, and the search to find the person or people responsible for the murder of his wife and son. Alex is not without fault but he is just one of many whose life has been devastated by opioid addiction, the lawyers said.

Smith was a former client of Murdaughs, according to court records.

Curtis Edward Smith is seen in a mugshot. (Colleton County Sheriffs Office via AP)

Dick Harpootlian, one of Murdaughs attorneys, said on NBCs Today show this week that Murdaugh informed his legal team of what he did and that the team then went to the authorities.

He believed that $10 million policy had a suicide exclusion, Harpootlian said. Suicide exclusions are only good for two years, and he didnt realize that. So he arranged to have this guy shoot him.

Murdaughs wife and one of his sons were found murdered in June on one of the familys properties. Authorities are still investigating the murders, as well as allegations that Murdaugh stole money from the law firm he recently resigned from.

SLED on Wednesday said it was opening yet another probe, into the death of Gloria Satterfield.

Satterfield was Murdaughs housekeeper when she died on Feb. 26, 2018. Her death had been blamed before on injuries sustained in a trip and fall accident, the Hampton County, South Carolina coroner told Keel in a recent letter.

The coroner asked for an investigation because she said the death wasnt reported to her at the time, nor was an autopsy performed.

Eric Bland, who is representing Satterfields estate, said on CNN that Murdaugh was the one who blamed the housekeepers death on an accident.

He told the story of that she had tripped and fell down the stairs over his dogs, said Bland, who filed a lawsuit on behalf of the estate against Murdaugh.
SpaceX Launches 4 Amateurs on Private Earth-Circling Trip

Cape Canaveral, Fla.SpaceXs first private flight streaked into orbit Wednesday night with two contest winners, a health care worker, and their rich sponsor, the most ambitious leap yet in space tourism.

It was the first time a spacecraft circled Earth with an all-amateur crew and no professional astronauts.

Punch it, SpaceX! the flights billionaire leader, Jared Isaacman, urged moments before liftoff.

The Dragon capsules two men and two women are looking to spend three days going round and round the planet from an unusually high orbit100 miles (160 kilometers) higher than the International Space Stationbefore splashing down off the Florida coast this weekend.

Its SpaceX founder Elon Musks first entry in the competition for space tourism dollars.

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon sit on launch Pad 39A at NASAs Kennedy Space Center as it is prepared for the first completely private mission to fly into orbit in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Sept. 15, 2021. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Isaacman, 38, made his fortune with a payment-processing company he started in his teens. Hes the third billionaire to launch this summer, following the brief space-skimming flights by Virgin Galactics Richard Branson and Blue Origins Jeff Bezos in July.

Joining Isaacman on the trip dubbed Inspiration4 is Hayley Arceneaux, 29, a childhood bone cancer survivor who works as a physician assistant where she was treatedSt. Jude Childrens Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. Isaacman has pledged $100 million out of his own pocket to the hospital and is seeking another $100 million in donations.

Arceneaux became the youngest American in space and the first person in space with a prosthesis, a titanium rod in her left leg.

Also along for the ride: sweepstakes winners Chris Sembroski, 42, a data engineer in Everett, Washington, and Sian Proctor, 51, a community college educator in Tempe, Arizona.

(L-R) Chris Sembroski, Sian Proctor, Jared Isaacman, and Hayley Arceneaux stand for a photo in Bozeman, Mont., on Aug. 8, 2021, during a fighter jet training weekend to familiarize the crew with G-forces. (John Kraus/Inspiration4 via AP)

The recycled Falcon rocket soared from the same Kennedy Space Center pad used by the companys three previous astronaut flights for NASA. But this time, the Dragon capsule aimed for an altitude of 357 miles (575 kilometers), just beyond the Hubble Space Telescope.

Across the country, SpaceX employees at company headquarters in Hawthorne, California, cheered wildly at every flight milestone, including when the spent first-stage booster landed upright on an ocean platform. .

Inside the capsule, Proctor looked giddy with joy, cupping her hands to form a heart before liftoff and then pumping her fists.

Their automated capsule has already been to orbit: It was used for SpaceXs second astronaut flight for NASA to the space station. The only significant change is the large domed window at the top in place of the usual space station docking mechanisms.

Its pretty incredible, Isaacman said as the door over the window opened.

An accomplished pilot, he persuaded SpaceX to take the Dragon capsule higher than its ever been. Initially reluctant because of the increased radiation exposure and other risks, SpaceX agreed after a safety review.

Now I just wish we pushed them to go higher, Isaacman told reporters on the eve of the flight. If were going to go to the moon again and were going to go to Mars and beyond, then weve got to get a little outside of our comfort zone and take the next step in that direction.

Isaacman, whose Shift4 Payments company is based in Allentown, Pennsylvania, is picking up the entire tab for the flight but wont say how many millions he paid. He and others contend those big price tags will eventually lower the cost.

Yes, today you must have and be willing to part with a large amount of cash to buy yourself a trip to space, said Explorers Club President Richard Garriott, a NASA astronauts son who paid the Russians for a space station trip more than a decade ago. But this is the only way we can get the price down and expand access, just as it has been with other industries before it.

Though the capsule is automated, the four Dragon riders spent six months training for the flight to cope with any emergency. That training included centrifuge and fighter jet flights, launch and reentry practice in SpaceXs capsule simulator, and a grueling trek up Washingtons Mount Rainier in the snow.

Four hours before liftoff, the four emerged from SpaceXs huge rocket hangar four hours before liftoff, waving and blowing kisses to their families and company employees, before they were driven off to get into their sleek white flight suits. Once at the launch pad, they posed for pictures and bumped gloved fists, before taking the elevator up. Proctor danced as she made her way to the hatch.

A SpaceX Falcon 9, with four private citizens onboard, lifts off from Kennedy Space Centers Launch Pad 39-A in Cape Canaveral , Fla., on Sept. 15, 2021. (Chris OMeara/AP Photo)

Unlike NASA missions, the public wont be able to listen in, let alone watch events unfold in real time. Arceneaux hopes to link up with St. Jude patients, but the conversation wont be broadcast live.

SpaceXs next private trip, early next year, will see a retired NASA astronaut escorting three wealthy businessmen to the space station for a weeklong visit. The Russians are launching an actress, film director, and a Japanese tycoon to the space station in the next few months.

Once opposed to space tourism, NASA is now a supporter. The shift from government astronauts to non-professionals is just flabbergasting, said former NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, a former space shuttle commander.

Someday NASA astronauts will be the exception, not the rule, said Cornell Universitys Mason Peck, an engineering professor who served as NASAs chief technologist nearly a decade ago. But theyll likely continue to be the trailblazers the rest of us will follow.

By Marcia Dunn
The Inspiration4 crew of Chris Sembroski, Sian Proctor, Jared Isaacman, and Hayley Arceneaux poses while suited up for a launch rehearsal in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Sept. 12, 2021. (Inspiration4/John Kraus/Handout via Reuters)

SpaceX Launches First All-Civilian Space Flight

The SpaceX Inspiration4 mission took flight on Sept. 15, making history on several fronts.

The SpaceX program, based in Hawthorne, Calif., will launch the first-ever all-civilian crew on a three-day mission to space. The flight, called Inspiration4, is a part of a fundraising campaign for St. Judes Hospital and will be launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The mission will be led by Shift4 Payments founder and billionaire Jared Isaacman, who is also a trained pilot.

Our crew carries the responsibility and importance of this mission as we prepare to blast off, Isaacman said in a statement sent to The Epoch Times.

We have been well-prepared for the challenges ahead of us the next three days and look forward to sharing our experience with the world as we continue to bring attention to St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital here on Earth.

Inspiration4s other passengers include Hayley Arceneaux, 29, a physician assistant at St. Jude and a pediatric cancer survivor. Arceneaux thought her dream of becoming an astronaut was over when a bone cancer diagnosis caused doctors to remove a femur on her leg at 10 years old, according to the Today Show. At 29, Arceneaux will make history as the youngest person to go to space; she will also be the first person ever to travel to space with a prosthesis.

Chis Sembroski, 42, an Air Force veteran and aerospace data engineer, and Sian Proctor, 51, a pilot and geoscientist will also board Inspiration4. Sembroskis friend won a seat in a lottery by donating to St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital, and later recommended Sembroski go on the flight instead. Proctor won the contest as a Shift4 customer.

Inspiration4 has a planned orbit of 575 kilometers (357 miles), a SpaceX spokesperson told The Epoch Times. This is the farthest a human spaceflight has traveled since the Hubble [telescope] missions, according to SpaceX. The Dragon space capsule the crew will be traveling in has a three-layer observation dome.

Though civilians, the crew experienced thorough training at the SpaceX Hawthorne base, including G-force training on Mig-29, AlphaJets, and LC-39 aircraft.

Aboard the ship will be several items that will be later auctioned off to raise even more money for St. Jude; those items include artwork by St. Jude patients, a ukulele by Martin Guitar, and a Time Magazine autographed by the crew. The crew will also be bringing their own meaningful personal items aboard; Arceneaux, who lost her father to cancer three years ago, will bring his beloved tie to orbit, as well as pictures of her loved ones.

Im bringing some things that represent me, and Im bringing pictures of friends I lost through the years to cancer because theyre such an important part of why were going on this mission raising money for St. Judes, Arceneaux told the Today Show.

The crew will also be gathering research while in orbit. In space, the crew will record ECG activity, movement, sleep, heart rate, and rhythm, blood oxygen saturation, cabin noise, and light intensity data, as well as provide biological samples before, during, and after the mission for research on the impact of space travel on the human body; Researchers will also track cognitive and behavioral tests on crew members.
State-Sanctioned Killing for Organs Could Spread Beyond China If Not Challenged: Dr. Torsten Trey

The Chinese regimes practice of forced organ harvesting often uses prisoners of conscience as a living pool for human organs, and these people are killed on demand in a murder-for-profit operation. Governments around the world, including in the United States and UK, have publicly condemned Chinese authorities for the practice, and the collection of evidence has made the issue an unavoidable topic in human rights circles. To learn more about the Chinese regimes practice of forced organ harvesting, and whats being done to stop it, we sat down for an interview with Dr. Torsten Trey, founder of Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH).

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A man enters the Regeneron Clinic at a monoclonal antibody treatment site in Pembroke Pines, Fla., on Aug. 19, 2021. (Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images)

States See Looming Monoclonal Antibody Crunch as Biden Administration Rations Doses

Demand has increased 20-fold in recent weeks, expert says

Some states are set to receive fewer doses of monoclonal antibody treatments after the Biden administration switched the distribution system this week.

Demand for monoclonal antibodies, used to treat non-hospitalized COVID-19 patients, has shot up in recent weeks, leading to what some officials have described as a shortage.

The Biden administration tipped off states in early September that it was limiting distribution of the treatment before abruptly switching on Sept. 13 from letting sites directly order the doses to putting the federal government in charge of allocation to states, which can then choose where to send them.

Some state officials say they werent notified of the change until late Sept. 13, and that pending orders with AmerisourceBergen, the primary distributor in the old model, were being closed out.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) alerted Texas health officials that the national supply has considerably decreased and states should expect lower amounts of therapeutics available for shipment in the coming weeks, Douglas Loveday, press officer for the Texas Department of State Health Services, told The Epoch Times in an email.

The amount available to distribute is expected to be disproportionately small compared to the amounts needed.

Other states have also been told they wont get as many doses as they were getting before. Among them are southern states grappling with the worst COVID-19 outbreaks in the nation.

Dr. Scott Harris, Alabamas top medical officer, said HHS recently called to let us know that Alabama and some other states are going to be on an allocation.

We dont think providers are going to be able to order as much as they would like, he said during a briefing late last week. Up until the change, there was really sort of no limit to what could be ordered.

HHS and the federal COVID-19 response team didnt respond to requests for comment.

HHS said in an update on Sept. 13 that the higher number of COVID-19 cases in the United States in recent weeks has caused a substantial surge in the utilization of monoclonal antibody (mAb) drugs, especially in parts of the country with low vaccination rates.

Federal officials informed state health officials that theres been a 20-fold increase in demand for monoclonal antibodies in just the past few weeks, James Blumenstock, chief of health security at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, told The Epoch Times.

Clearly thats outstripping the current supply even with the supply increase this month; that increase is not sufficient to meet the current demand, he said.

The timeline for when supplies will increase enough to meet the jump in demand isnt clear. The new process will help ensure consistent availability for the drugs in all parts of the nation, according to HHS, which is basing its weekly shipments on reports of new COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations and inventory data.

Monoclonal antibody treatments from two companies, Regeneron and Eli Lilly, are purchased by the federal government and distributed across the nation. Patients get them for free. The treatment received emergency use authorization from drug regulators earlier in the COVID-19 pandemic. Clinical trials show that they reduced hospitalization or death by as much as 70 percent.

Dr. Aldo Calvo, medical director of family medicine at Broward Health, shows a Regeneron monoclonal antibody infusion bag during a news conference in Fort Lauderdale, Fla, on Aug. 19, 2021. (Joe Cavaretta/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP)

It takes several weeks or months to produce a batch of Regenerons drug, REGEN-COV, a spokesman for the New York-based company told The Epoch Times in an email. Regeneron says demand has grown since earlier this year but that its ready to deliver new doses quickly because it remained proactive and has the drug in various stages of the manufacturing process.

An Eli Lilly spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email that the Indiana-based company continues to work with governments globally to help address the therapeutic needs of patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Another monoclonal antibody treatment, from GlaxoSmithKline, isnt being distributed through the federal government. A spokesperson for the company, which is headquartered in the United Kingdom, told The Epoch Times in an email that there are no supply or access issues for its medicine.

The United States has purchased or committed to purchasing nearly 3 million doses of REGEN-COV, including 1.4 million doses on Sept. 14. Most of the doses cost taxpayers $2,100 each, according to the Regeneron spokesman. Eli Lillys treatment requires two drugs, etesevimab and bamlanivimab. The company just reached an agreement to provide 388,000 additional doses of etesevimab to the U.S. government for nearly $1,000 each, building on earlier contracts to supply nearly 1 million vials of one drug or the other.

More than 2.1 million monoclonal antibody doses were shipped to more than 8,000 sites across the nation as of early September, John Redd, chief medical officer for HHS emergency preparedness and response office, told state officials in a recent call.

Redd said that HHS hadnt returned to the allocation model that was used between November 2020 and February. A few days later, the model was switched.

Bidens administration said last week in a fresh COVID-19 response plan that it would increase shipments of monoclonal antibodies to states by 50 percent in Septembersomething critics are pointing to in questioning the change.

It is regrettable that the Biden administration would play politics with peoples lives during a pandemic, by withholding a life-saving treatment and providing mixed messages to Americans, Christina Pushaw, press secretary for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, told The Epoch Times via email.

Today, I pressed President Bidens team to explain the sudden rationing of these life-saving treatmentswithout any warningafter the administration urged us to promote them. It is yet another example of confusing and conflicting guidance coming from the federal government, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan wrote on social media.

Sen. Tommy Tubervilles (R-Ala.) office told The Epoch Times in an email that its looking into the matter to see how it can be of assistance.

Florida hasnt yet seen its supply drop, and some other states said they dont expect the distribution model change to affect them.

We do not have any concerns about monoclonal supply at this point of time in Arkansas based on current usage patterns, Danyelle McNeill, a spokeswoman for the Arkansas Department of Health, told The Epoch Times in an email.

Some governors, including DeSantis, have heavily promoted monoclonal antibodies, which have a high efficacy rate against cases of COVID-19 that dont require hospital care and are sometimes used following exposure to a COVID-19 patient.

COVID-19 is the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.

For now, officials are encouraging people to continue seeking out the antibody treatments. Some experts say the drop in supply should prompt people who havent received a COVID-19 vaccine to get one.

The public health message is, while everyone is doing their absolute best to treat and care for individuals who get sick from COVID, the best effort is to avoid that scenario in the first place, and therefore get vaccinated, Blumenstock said.
Supporters of California Gubernatorial Candidate Larry Elder Reflect on Recall Election

As California gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder conceded defeat, his supporters reflected on the purpose of the recall election.

Unofficial results of the election were released on the evening of Sept. 14, leading to Gov. Gavin Newsom claiming an early victory and Elder addressing a crowd of supporters in Costa Mesa.

We may have lost the battle, but we are going to win the war, Elder said.

Elder proceeded to suggest his efforts to win the recall were over before the official election results were released. Newsom addressed Californians on Twitter shortly before 9:00 p.m. while ballots were still being counted.

California Governor candidate Larry Elder speaks with supporters at the Hilton hotel in Costa Mesa, Calif., on Sept. 14, 2021. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

No is not the only thing that was expressed tonight, Newsom said in a Sept. 14 speech. Im humble and grateful for the millions and millions of Californians that exercise their fundamental right to vote and express themselves so overwhelmingly by rejecting the division, by rejecting the cynicism, by rejecting so much of the negativity that has defined our politics.

Crystal Myers-Barber, a resident of Costa Mesa told The Epoch Times the media was calling the election before the counting process was complete.

I remember back in 2018, I was watching the elections, and AP news called it, and people were still standing in line, Myers Barber said.

Myers Barber said she encountered Orange County residents at polling sites who were told their vote had already been cast.

Ive met people today who were voting at our precinct, and one lady saw that she already voted, she said.

The Epoch Times reached out to the Orange County Registrars Office on Sept. 14 regarding a similar situation in Newport Beach and was told by the office they would respond at a later time.

Juan Rivera, a 21-year-old resident of San Martin was present at the Costa Mesa event after campaigning in favor of the recall. He hoped the recall would bring about change, citing a deep division among Californians.

California governor candidate Larry Elder speaks with supporters at the Hilton hotel in Costa Mesa, Calif., on Sept. 14, 2021. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

Ive spoken to a lot of Latinos that are Democrat that says they are tired of being used as a political pawn  and they want change, he said. People are tired of the high prices. Taxes are going up and homelessness in every single community.  A lot of people are struggling right now, and Gavin Newsom gave stimulus checks, but he did not bother giving it to people that are in communities that actually need the money.

I would go to mostly the areas that were Democrat and I knew that they were. I would explain to them, Im not urging you to vote yes, but please consider doing your proper research. And when people actually did the research, they knew that this was not a Republican recall.

Israel Sandez, a former Democrat, told The Epoch Times the unofficial election results were rough, but there is a need for change within the state.

I was once a Democrat, I was raised a Democrat, and I felt that the times are changing, and the Democratic Party is becoming so divisive, he said. When I saw someone like Larry Elder as a uniter, not merely just as a person of color, but someone who understands from the background. Im Latino, but I identify with someone that understands my socio-economic background. When hes running for office, hes not a divider, he is a unifier.

Sandez began advocating for the recall after becoming dissatisfied with Newsoms failed policies.

The election so far, its been a rough campaign. California has been increasingly Democratic. Elections are unpredictable. The people who did the recall, to sign the petitionwe put it on the ballot, we made our voices heard. We were dissatisfied with what Gavin Newsom was doing to our state.
Suspect Arrested in Fatal Stabbing at Brentwood Homeless Encampment

LOS ANGELESA man was arrested for allegedly fatally stabbing another man who intervened in a dispute between the suspect and his girlfriend today at a homeless encampment outside the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs facilities.

The attack was reported at about 6:40 a.m. at 11301 Wilshire Blvd., according to the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department.

Paramedics took the victim to a hospital with a stab wound to the upper body, where he died. The Los Angeles Times reported he was a homeless veteran, but further information on his identity was not immediately available.

A preliminary investigation revealed that the suspect was involved in a dispute with his girlfriend when the victim intervened and was stabbed, sheriffs officials said.

The girlfriend was not injured in the dispute.

The suspect was detained at the scene by authorities and later taken to a hospital for medical clearance so he could be booked into jail, according to the sheriffs department. No weapon was retrieved from the scene. His name was not released.

A man sits in Skid Row in Los Angeles, Calif., on Dec. 30, 2020. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

Authorities said the stabbing solely involves the transient population surrounding the location.

The homicide is the second at the encampment since April. A 51-year-old transient was struck and killed by a vehicle on April 4. Pedro Saade-Floresalso known as Pedro Floreswho was homeless at the time of the homicide, was charged with murder.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, whose district includes the unincorporated area where Wednesdays fatal stabbing occurred, said her office, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, sheriffs Homeless Outreach Services Team and service providers have been working diligently to engage and move the 30-40 individuals, many of whom are veterans living in the encampment into interim and permanent housing.

We will be intensifying outreach efforts with the goal of moving every encampment resident into interim and permanent housing over the next two-to-three months, Kuehl said. Almost all current residents of this encampment are already connected to a VA housing resource, including vouchers, and many are actively looking for an apartment.

But its clear we must accelerate the pace at which people are moved off the street. Further loss of life in this encampment is simply unacceptable.
Taiwan Serves as Sea Fortress to Thwart Chinas Expansion in Pacific, Taiwan Minister Says

TAIPEI, TaiwanThe self-ruled island is a sea fortress blocking Beijings expansion into the Pacific, Taiwans Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said on Sept. 15.

Wu made the remarks during a keynote speech at an online symposium organized by the Washington-based nonprofit Global Taiwan Institute (GTI). The event, which focused on Taiwan-U.S. relations, was attended by U.S. Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.) and David Stilwell, former assistant secretary at the State Departments Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs.

A democratic Taiwan plays a significant role in ensuring freedom of navigation in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, Wu said, commenting on Taiwans strategic location within the first island chain.

The first island chain is the string of islands closest to the Chinese mainland, stretching from the southern Japanese island of Kyushu through Taiwan, the Philippines, to Indonesia. For decades, military strategists for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have seen the first island chain as a barrier before the regime can project its air and naval power to the second island chain and beyond. The second chain stretches from Japan to Guam and Papua New Guinea.

Taiwan is a de facto independent country with its own constitution, democratically-elected officials, and military. However, the CCP sees the island as a part of its territory and seeks to impose its communist rule on the island like it has Hong Kongeither through war or other means to undermine the islands liberal democracy.

Isnt this irredentism precisely what gave rise to the second world war? Wu said, commenting on Beijings aggression toward the island.

The CCPs aggression is not limited to Taiwan. Wu said Beijing is waging an ideological warfare against democracy and attempting to reshape the rules-based international system to serve its own agenda.

It continues to infiltrate democracies with disinformation aiming to demolish our faith in democratic values, Wu added. These efforts intend to create the facade that [a] one-party system is more effective than [a] democratic system.

Chinas most recent propaganda campaign involved using the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, painting the United States as an unreliable partner. The campaign seeks to undermine U.S. standing in the world.

Wu added that Taiwans experiences in confronting different threats from the CCPincluding cyberattacks, gray-zone tactics, disinformation, and united front tacticswould be valuable knowledge for other countries.

Taiwan has learned valuable lessons and developed various means to tackle the threats to democracy, and we are more than willing to share this knowledge with fellow democracies, Wu explained.

The CCPs united front efforts, carried out by its United Front Work Department (UFWD), seek to persuade organizations or individuals to spread the partys propaganda, both inside and outside of China.

In the United States, the CCP has also deployed grass-roots level united front groups as part of its effort to infiltrate Americas civil and political institutions. In October 2020, the U.S. State Department designated the Washington-based National Association for Chinas Peaceful Unification, which is controlled by the UFWD, as a foreign mission for its malign influence in the United States.

Wu concluded, We believe the U.S. can further demonstrate its credibility and reliability in the Indo-Pacific by deepening comprehensive relations with Taiwan.

Close Taiwan-U.S. ties are key to regional peace, stability, and prosperity.
Soldiers march to position during an anti-invasion drill on the beach during the annual Han Kuang military drill in Tainan, Taiwan, on Sept. 14, 2021. (Ann Wang/Reuters)

Taiwan to Boost Arms Spending by $8.7 Billion, Warns of Severe Threat From China

The Taiwanese government announced on Sept. 16 a proposal to boost its defense spending by $8.69 billion ($240 billion Taiwan dollars) over the next five years, citing an urgent need to improve military equipment in the face of severe threats coming from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, reelected by a landslide last year on a pledge to stand up to the CCP, has made modernizing Taiwans mainly U.S.-equipped military a priority, turning it into a porcupine, both highly mobile and hard to attack.

Deputy Defence Minister Wang Shin-lung told reporters that the new arms, all to be made domestically, would include cruise missiles and warships.

In the face of severe threats from the enemy, the nations military is actively engaged in military building and preparation work, and it is urgent to obtain mature and rapid mass production weapons and equipment in a short period of time, Taiwans Defence Ministry said in a statement on Sept. 16 after a weekly Cabinet meeting.

The Chinese Communists have continued to invest heavily in national defense budgets, its military strength has grown rapidly, and it has frequently dispatched aircraft and ships to invade and harass our seas and airspace.

The new money, which comes on top of planned military spending of $17 billion for 2022, will need to be approved by parliament where Tsais ruling party has a large majority, meaning its passage should be smooth.

China claims Taiwan as its territory, even as the island has been self-governing since 1949, and China has never governed Taiwan. The communist regime has frequently sent planes and ships into the islands waters and airspace to intimidate the Taiwanese.

Chinese J-15 fighter jets are launching from the deck of the Liaoning aircraft carrier during military drills in the Yellow Sea, off Chinas east coast, on Dec. 23, 2016. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)

On Sept. 5, the CCP deployed 19 military aircraft into Taiwans air defense identification zone (ADIZ), as it continues its aggressive posturing toward the self-governing island, which scrambled jets in response.

Another large-scale incursion occurred in June when Beijing flew 28 military aircraft into the islands ADIZ.

This summer, the regime went so far as to issue an edict requiring foreign warships to register their intent in order to enter the South China Sea. The CCP claims sovereignty over the entire sea, in spite of legitimate claims by Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan, and the Philippines.

Taiwan has been keen to demonstrate that it can defend itself, especially amid questions about whether the United States would come to its aid if China attacks.

Under the Trump administration, and continuing under President Joe Biden, the United States has increased its diplomatic engagement with Taiwan, increasing its arms sales and military maneuvers, as well as its joint statements along with Japan, South Korea, and the G-7.

Antonio Graceffo and Reuters contributed to this report.

From NTD News
Taiwan air force pilots stand next to French-made Mirage fighter jets during an annual exercise at the Hsinchu air force base on Jan. 16, 2019. (Sam Yeh/AFP via Getty Images)

Taiwan Conducts Military Exercise Amid Escalating China Threats

On Sept. 13 to 15, Taiwan held its 37th Han Kuang Exercise, an annual military exercise of the Republic of China (Taiwan) Armed Forces. On Sept. 15, a Taiwan F-16V fighter jet demonstrated its ability to perform a swift landing, refueling, and take-off.

The three-day exercises aim to counter different scenarios of an invasion by the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army (PLA), such as losing the function of its main airports, runways, missile defense, or a bio-weapon attack. The exercise simulates how Taiwans military and medical personnel would respond to these scenarios.

The exercise displayed some of the Taiwanese airforces main fighters, including F16V, Indigenous Defense Fighter (IDF), Mirage M2000-5, and E-2K Hawkeye early warning aircraft, landing on the Pingtung Jiadong operational runway and taking off after replenishing fuel.

Taiwanese Air Force fighter jets park on a highway that is converted as a runway during the take-off and landing drill as part of the annual Han Kuang drill in Pingtung, Taiwan, on Sept. 15, 2021. (Taiwan Military News Agency/Handout via Reuters)

President Tsai Ing-wen attends a Taiwanese Air Force fighter jets take-off and landing drill, as part of the annual Han Kuang drill, in Pingtung, Taiwan, on Sept. 15, 2021. (Taiwan Military News Agency/Handout via Reuters)

According to Taiwans airforce command, the exercise fully demonstrated its military-civilian unity and enhanced its national defense and mobilization. Its strategic communication mechanism made the public understand the militarys training status and defense determination. Most importantly, it raised Taiwans national defense awareness by emphasizing to all its citizens the importance of national recognition, national support, and national participation.

Taiwan is strengthening its defenses against the Chinese Communist Partys (CCP) increasingly aggressive military operations in the East China Sea and the South China Sea. The United States and its allies are also deepening military cooperation in the region and formulating strategies for more effective military responses.

The United States, the UK, and Australia on Sept. 15 announced a new trilateral security partnership for the Indo-Pacific amid rising Chinese assertiveness in the region. The first move under this partnership called AUKUS, will be for the United States and the UK to support Australia in acquiring nuclear-powered submarines, according to a joint statement by the three governments. The alliance is also set to enhance sharing of information in key technologies between the three countries.

In other parts of the region, the current U.S. administration has worked to bolster partnerships to counter the Chinese regime, most notably the informal Quad grouping of Australia, Japan, India, and the United States.

Soldiers march to position during an anti-invasion drill on the beach during the annual Han Kuang military drill in Tainan, Taiwan, on Sept. 14, 2021. (Ann Wang/Reuters)

On Sept. 10, before the Han Kuang military exercise, Taiwans Foreign Minister Joseph Wu and National Security Council Secretary-General Wellington Koo attended a round of sensitive talks known as the Special Channel with senior U.S. officials in Annapolis, Maryland. The meeting, also known as the U.S.-Taiwan Strategic Dialogue or Monterey Talks. These talks are annual discussions about military affairs between the United States and Taiwan, including defense review and political and military dialogue.
Texas Governor Says White House Reversed Course in Border Crossing Closures

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott shut down six ports of entry with Mexico amid a surge of illegal immigrants trying to cross into the United States in recent months. However, hours later, Abbott said that the Biden administration changed course and decided against closing down the border crossing areas.

I have directed the Department of Public Safety and the Texas National Guard to surge personnel and vehicles to shut down six points of entry along the southern border to stop these caravans from overrunning our state, said Abbott, a Republican, in a statement to news outlets on Thursday.

But Abbott later said that the decision was reversed by the federal government.

Six hours after the U.S. Customs and Border Protection requested help from Texas to close ports of entry and secure the border, the Biden Administration has now flip-flopped to a different strategy that abandons border security and instead makes it easier for people to cross illegally and for cartels to exploit the border, the governor said in a statement to news outlets. The Biden Administration is in complete disarray and is handling the border crisis as badly as the evacuations from Afghanistan, Abbott said.

Its not clear what ports of entry were shuttered by Abbotts order. The Epoch Times has contacted Abbotts office and CBP for comment.

Dennis Smith, a CBP spokesman, said the agency has received no directive from the federal government to close ports of entry.

BORDER NOW: Heard from sources last night that theres 6,000 illegal immigrants under this international bridge in Del Rio now. Chatter about another 20k on the way, unconfirmed. Mostly Haitians, some Cubans, Venezuelans. Most transported to BP station, processed, released. pic.twitter.com/mK3e1d07Ov  Charlotte Cuthbertson (@charlottecuthbo) September 16, 2021

I couldnt comment on anything the governor said, I dont have any information on that, Smith told the Texas Tribune.

Texas Department of Public Safety Regional Director Victor Escalon earlier in the day said that all points of entry in Del Rio would be closed due to the large numbers of illegal aliens in the area.

Six, seven days ago, Del Rio saw 400 migrants sitting, underneath the bridge, the (point of entry) in downtown Del Rio  theres about 6,000 sitting there right now and more are coming, Escalon told CNN. Before I came here today, my last instructions are, were going to shut down all the POEs in Del Rio, he continued.

Border Patrol agents detain illegal immigrants who have just crossed into the United States from Mexico under the international bridge in Del Rio, Texas, on Sept. 14, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

Images captured by The Epoch Times this week showed thousands of illegal immigrants amassing under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas. A source with the Border Patrol said that about 8,000 illegal aliens, including Haitian, Cuban, and Venezuelan nationals, are in the area.

Val Verde County Sheriff Joe Frank Martinez, meanwhile, said that Border Patrol agents are overwhelmed by the sheer number of illegal immigrants who arrived in the area.

They just cant process them fast enough, so theres a backlog of these individuals underneath the bridge. Theyre not detained, theyre just gathered there waiting their turn to get processed, he told the Tribune.
A patient receives her booster dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at the Southfield Pavilion in Southfield, Mich., on Aug. 24, 2021. (Emily Elconin/Getty Images)

The Death of Science

Commentary

The scientific method used to govern much of popular American thinking.

In empirical fashion, scientists advised us to examine evidence and data, and then by induction come to rational hypotheses. The enemies of science were politics, superstition, bias, and deduction.

Yet we are now returning to our version of medieval alchemy and astrology in rejecting a millennium of the scientific method.

Take the superstitions that now surround COVID-19.

We now know from data that a prior case of COVID-19 offers immunity as robust as vaccination. Why, then, are Joe Bidens proposed vaccination mandates ignoring that scientific fact? Dr. Anthony Fauci, when asked, seemed at a loss for words.

Is this yet another of the scientific communitys Platonic noble lies, as when Fauci assured the public last year that there was no need for masks? He later claimed he had lied so that medical professionals would not run out of needed supplies.

Fauci also threw out mythical percentages needed for herd immunity, apparently in an attempt to convince the public that it will never be safe until every American is protected from COVID-19 by vaccination only.

And why was it that hard for the scientific community to postulate a likely origin of COVID-19. Some of the very scientists engaged in gain-of-function research oversaw an investigation with Chinese authorities. They confirmed the predetermined conclusion that the virus likely had little to do with gain-of-function engineering. And they saw little proof it was birthed in a Wuhan virology lab. Yet scientific opinion, emerging evidence, and basic logic have suggested the opposite.

How can the government hector citizens that they have a moral dutyand soon a legal obligationto be vaccinated when it does not mandate vaccinations for unvetted refugees flying in from Afghanistan?

How can the government medical community remain largely silent when an anticipated 2 million foreign nationals will cross into the United States in the current fiscal yearalmost none of whom are vaccinated or tested for COVID-19?

Why do the media and government blame particular races for the delta variant outbreak on grounds that they were insufficiently vaccinated? Why wouldnt officials simply urge the Latino and black communities to be vaccinated as quickly as possible? Data shows that both groups have lower vaccination rates than white and Asian populations.

Are woke political agendas discrediting science and losing public health?

We saw just that in June 2020, when more than 1,200 health care professionals signed a petition demanding exemptions from lockdowns and quarantines for Black Lives Matter protesters marching en masse. And they concocted medical excuses such as vital to the national public health to insist that violating quarantines was less unhealthy than not pouring into the streets.

Why did presidential candidate Joe Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris, warn the American people on the eve of vaccination rollouts that an inoculation under the Trump administration could be unsafe, thereby undermining confidence in vaccines?

Why was the medical community largely silent about such dangerous sabotaging of new vaccines, but months later became vociferous in warning the public that any doubts about the safety of these Operation Warp Speed vaccinations were scientifically misplaced? Was there a medical breakthrough on Jan. 20, 2020, to alter their consensus?

From rewarding wokeness in medical school admissions to the peer reviewing of scientific papers, the anti-scientific mania has polluted scientific endeavors.

Critical race theory would preposterously tell us that we need racism to fight racism.

Critical legal theory ludicrously claims that laws have no rational basis but simply reflect power inequities.

Modern monetary theory defies millennia of evidence and basic logic in stating that governments can simply print money without worrying about balancing expenditures with revenues or inflating the currency to ruination.

Corporations are now asked to substitute a new woke agenda theoryEnvironmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG)in lieu of market realities, rules of investment, and economic data.

Science is dying; superstition disguised as morality is returning. And well all soon become poorer, angrier, and more divided.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Thousands of Health Employees Laid Off in France Over Vaccine Mandate

About 3,000 French nationals working in the medical and care sector have been suspended from work for deciding not to get vaccinated against the CCP virus before a government-imposed deadline, Frances Minister of Health announced on Sept. 16.

Two months ago, President Emanuel Macron ordered hospital staff, ambulance technicians, nursing home workers, doctors, fire brigade members, and people caring for the elderly or infirm in their homessome 2.6 million employees in totalto get a COVID-19 vaccine by Sept. 15.

Yesterday, some 3,000 suspensions were served on staff in health and social care facilities who had not yet entered into a vaccination course, Olivier Veran told French RTL radio, originally in French.

Most of the suspensions are only temporary.  Many of them have decided to get vaccinated as they see that the vaccination mandate is a reality.

French Health Minister Olivier Veran gestures as he speaks during a session of questions to the government at the National Assembly in Paris, on Sept. 7, 2021. (Christophe Archambault/AFP via Getty Images)

According to local daily Nice Matin, nearly 450 health workers have been suspended in a hospital in the city of Nice, in southern France.

The French government reported on Sept. 7 that around 84 percent of staff in care homes and health care establishments had received two vaccine shots, meaning about a total of 300,000 care employees remain unvaccinated.

Employees not vaccinated could get laid off from their jobs or have their pay suspended, authorities said as they announced the new mandate earlier this year, although a top court in France has forbidden employers from firing staff in the medical and care sector.

From Sept. 15, if you are a caregiver and you are not vaccinated, you will no longer be able to work and you will no longer be paid, Veran said during an interview with Frances LCI earlier this week, AA reported.

Health care workers who have received only one dose of a vaccine will have to take a CCP virus test every three days until theyve completed their second doseOct. 15 is the deadline for both vaccines to be administered.

Firms and employers are subjected to penalties if they fail to comply with Macrons order and receive fines of $160 (135 euros) that can climb up to $4,430 (3,750 euros) after being fined three times in one month, Les Dernieres Nouvelles dAlsace reported. The penalties can also be accompanied by six months in prison.

Some hospitals have previously expressed concerns that mass lay-offs would result in staff shortages.

Hospital workers gather in protest of the health pass outside the CHU (University Hospital) Pellegrin where the health pass is mandatory in Bordeaux, southwestern France, on Aug. 9, 2021. (Philippe Lopez/AFP via Getty Images)

Emmanuel Chignon managed to keep his nursing care home in western France running through the worst of the CCP virus pandemic, but now he is confronting a new crisis: staff who would rather quit than comply with a government mandate that they get vaccinated.

We feel like were living through a third wave, but this time its a human resources wave, Chignon said on Sept. 14 at the nursing home he runs in Bordeaux, southwest of Paris.

Vanessa Perotti, a health care worker at Hopital Beaujon in Clichy, a working-class Paris suburb, is also among the workers who decided not to get vaccinated and instead quit her job in the medical field.

Thierry Paysant, a fire safety officer with the public hospital system in Nice, took another approach and pitched a tent in front of the citys Saint-Pons abbey, and erected a placard reading Hunger Strike in large red letters.

Thierry Paysant, security worker and firefighter at the Pasteur hospital, and Christophe, caregiver at the Pasteur hospital, hold a banner that reads Hunger strike to protest against Frances restrictions, including compulsory COVID-19 passes, near the Abbaye Saint-Pons in Nice, France, on Sept. 15, 2021. (Eric Gaillard/Reuters)

We will go as far as we are able to go, Paysant said outside the abbey, where he had also set up a camping stove.

He added that he wasnt against the vaccination itself, but objects to people being forced to get the shot or risk losing their jobs.

Its hard to swallow, he said. It was imposed in a violent way.

Some media outlets have attempted to characterize demonstrations against vaccine passports, dubbed health passes by the French government, as anti-vaccine, but many protesters have said theyre against the vaccine passports and mandates, not the vaccines themselves.

Vaccine passports have been flagged by a variety of organizations, including civil liberties groups, as creating a two-tier society of vaccinated and unvaccinated.

Reuters contributed to this report.

From NTD News
Thousands of Illegal Immigrants Amass Under Bridge in Texas

DEL RIO, TexasThousands of illegal immigrants, mostly from Haiti, are congregating under an international bridge in Texas while they wait to be processed by Border Patrol.

The illegal immigrants are spread out over a dirt lot strewn with litter, many sitting or lying on blankets. Others stand, chatting with companions.

Some 9,000 illegal immigrants, including Haitian, Cuban, and Venezuelan nationals, are in the area, Val Verde County Sheriff Joe Frank Martinez confirmed at 3:45 p.m. local time on Sept. 16.

Five hundred more had arrived within the previous half-hour as the sheriff and the mayor of Del Rio, Texas, held a press conference near the bridgealmost within sight of the Rio Grande, which serves as the international border with Mexico.

The number has skyrocketed in less a week, from only a couple of hundred under the bridge on Sept. 9.

Mayor Bruno Lozano confirmed that another 20,000 are on their way.

Im deeply frustrated. The thing that I worry about is a stampede. The thing I worry about is terrorism, Lozano said.

This is not secure. This is not defensible, he said, looking toward the wide open border and the number of people walking back and forth across it.

We dont really know who they are.

BORDER NOW: Heard from sources last night that theres 6,000 illegal immigrants under this international bridge in Del Rio now. Chatter about another 20k on the way, unconfirmed. Mostly Haitians, some Cubans, Venezuelans. Most transported to BP station, processed, released. pic.twitter.com/mK3e1d07Ov  Charlotte Cuthbertson (@charlottecuthbo) September 16, 2021

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said that he has directed the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas National Guard to maintain their presence at and around ports of entry to deter crossings, although its unclear how effective that will be in reducing numbers.

The Biden Administration is in complete disarray and is handling the border crisis as badly as the evacuation from Afghanistan, Abbott said in a statement Sept. 16.

Lozano said his citys medical services are stretched thin. An illegal immigrant woman was rushed to hospital on Sept. 15 to give birth. On Sept. 16, The Epoch Times witnessed Border Patrol loading a woman into an ambulance.

Lozano blamed the Biden administration, particularly Vice President Kamala Harris, for not focusing on the U.S.Mexico border, especially the smaller cities being affected, such as Del Rio. The number of illegal aliens currently under the bridge is almost one-third of the population of the city.

Were ignored. Theyre prioritizing urban centers, he said.

Sheriff Martinez confirmed that the illegal immigrants arent being tested for COVID-19.

None of them are being tested for anything, he said.

Law enforcement is adding more portable toilets under the bridge every day and drinking water stations are provided.

The illegal immigrants cross the river frequently to go back to Mexico for food and supplies.

Lozano said the system is so overwhelmed that it will likely take Border Patrol two weeks to transport the current 9,000 illegal aliens to Border Patrol facilities and process them. Those who are released often get dropped at the local Stripes gas station in Del Rio, where they wait for a bus to San Antonio.

It isnt clear why the bulk of the Haitians cross into Del Rio, though migration patterns show that people from certain countries have favored routes into the United States.

CBP didnt answer the phone or return voicemails or an email on Sept. 16 as the number of illegal immigrants continued to swell. No CBP representative spoke at the press conference.

Its completely predictable because Biden is basically inviting in illegal immigrants, Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a nonpartisan think tank that advocates for a pro-immigrant, low-immigration system, told The Epoch Times.

This just seems to be an extreme example of what weve been seeing since Jan. 20, which is illegal immigrants, taking Biden up on his offer that if they manage to get into the United States, theyll be let go.

Thousands of illegal immigrants amassing in Del Rio, Texas, on Sept. 16, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

President Joe Biden, upon entering office, quickly overhauled the U.S. immigration system, ending construction on the border wall as well as a program that forced many asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico.

Biden administration officials also stopped using the federal governments Title 42 authority, which was established during the COVID-19 pandemic, to expel unaccompanied minors, or illegal immigrant children.

The use of Title 42 has dropped in recent months as Democrats pressure Biden to end the authority. Officials applied it to just 44 percent of the illegal immigrant encounters in August.

The decline in federal immigration enforcement has prompted Texas authorities to fill the void. State and local law enforcement have ramped up enforcement of illegal immigrants, including in Del Rio, where the mayor has pleaded with Biden to stop releasing illegal immigrants as local conditions deteriorate.

Crossing the border into the United States without proper papers is illegal, but after entering, an illegal immigrant can claim asylum, or fear of persecution if they are returned to their home country. If they do, they are often released into the United States. If they dont, they are processed under Title 8, or federal law, typically getting a court date or told to appear at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office on a certain day. Most dont end up appearing.

The CBP spokesperson told The Epoch Times that the vast majority of single adults and many families will continue to be expelled under the CDCs Title 42 authority, and those who cannot be expelled under Title 42 and do not have a legal basis to remain will be processed under Title 8 authorities.

There are indications that a number of single adults are being allowed to remain in the country, particularly foreign nationals whose nations have been granted a special type of protection called Temporary Protected Status by U.S. authorities.

One Haitian man, a single male who crossed with some 350 other illegal immigrants to Del Rio from Mexico in July, spoke to The Epoch Times after entering the United States. About a month later, he texted to say hed made it to Boston and was fine.

A Cuban man in his late-20s, Eduardo, told The Epoch Times this week at a gas station in Del Rio that he was waiting to be picked up by his parents, who live in Houston. He said he traveled from Panama through Central America before making it through Mexico to reach Del Rio, walking most of the time.

Theres no freedom in Cuba, said Eduardo, who had been dropped at the gas station by Border Patrol.

The United States recorded more than 208,000 illegal immigrant arrests at the border in August, one of the highest months on record. Under the Biden administration, the country is on pace to set records for the highest number of fiscal year and calendar year encounters.

The administration would have known about the large groups of immigrants that are now in Del Rio, Jaeson Jones, CEO of Omni Intelligence, told The Epoch Times.

U.S. intelligence programs monitor Central America to detect large groups forming, said Jones, a former Texas Department of Public Safety intelligence and counterterrorism captain, who worked closely with Border Patrol.

No one in the federal government has acknowledged what was coming, stated that this was happening, nor did they do anything to mitigate it, because this should have been stopped. This is a large caravan of people that wasnt stopped, he said.

To me, this just is more validation of the level of failure of leadership within the current administration.

Charlotte Cuthbertson Senior Reporter Follow Charlotte Cuthbertson is a senior reporter with The Epoch Times who primarily covers border security and the opioid crisis. charlottecuthbo
Falun Gong practitioners take part in a parade marking the 22nd year of the persecution of Falun Gong in China, in Brooklyn, N.Y., on July 18, 2021. (Larry Dye/The Epoch Times)

Chinese Living in the US Call on Chinese People to Quit the CCP

Over 383 million Chinese have quit the Chinese Communist Party

Three Chinese who live in the United States quit the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its affiliated organizations, joining over 383 million Chinese who have registered a public statement of withdrawal from the CCP.

From cradle to grave, Chinese citizens are told to be loyal to the CCP. They are also forced or asked to join CCP-affiliated organizations. As young children, they are enrolled in the Young Pioneers. In middle school, they can join the Communist Youth League. As an adult, they may choose to join the CCP.

When joining these organizations, members are required to raise their fists and swear an oath to the CCP that they will fight their whole life for the communist party, give their blood for the communist party, and never betray the communist party.

Gebi Dong, a U.S.-based economist and an independent columnist, said of the CCP, Its evil is all-encompassing, all its manifestations are demonic, and the extent of its evil can be said to be unprecedented, unparalleled in the world.

The CCPs persecution of the Falun Gong practice group is the greatest humanitarian disaster in the world: live harvesting of human organs is an unprecedented evil in human history  and 1.4 billion people are controlled by the CCP, which is also unprecedented in the history of mankind, he said.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual practice that teaches people to follow the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, and it has been persecuted by the CCP since 1999.

Since 2004, when The Epoch Times published the editorial series Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, hundreds of millions of Chinese people have quit the CCP by making a public declaration that the oaths they gave to the CCP are null and void. Quitting the CCP is called Tuidang in Chinese.

As of Sept. 13, the number of Chinese people who have quit the CCP has reached 383,504,922.

The Global Service Center for Quitting the CCP (Tuidang Center) said on the website that each person who publishes a statement to quit the CCP at the Tuidang Center will receive a certificate.

Chinese Economist

Dong recalled that when first visited Los Angeles in 2011, he heard about the Tuidang movement from a volunteer at the Tuidang Center near the East West Bank.

After settling in the United States, he gained a deeper understanding of the movement, he said. He not only made his declaration to quit the CCP, but also began to persuade other Chinese people to cut their ties with the CCP.

It is a worldwide consensus that the CCP is the most evil regime of mankind, he said. Once the CCP goes down, it would be a big regret to accompany the regime into the grave with the mark of the CCP.

In ancient China, society had a deeply spiritual foundation that contained moral values from Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. Chinese people believed that a person should not make bad vows at will, because it would bring disaster to oneself, Dong said. Today, if a person has dedicated his life to communism, then the mark of communismthe scythe and the axwill remain on that person as a sign of communist membership, he said.

Chinese have an old saying Heavens way is hard to violate, once you lose your conscience or violate heavens principle, you will be punished by heaven. So its absolutely right that Heaven will eliminate the CCP, he said.

A poster printed with the characters Heaven will eliminate the Chinese Communist Party. Quit the CCP for safety, on a wall in a city of northern Chinas Jilin Province, in May 2015. (Minghui.org)

Chinese Student

Zhang Yuchang, a Chinese citizen, said he was astonished to learn of the human rights abuses by the CCP while he studied abroad as an international student.

After returning to China, one day in May 2020, Zhang went to the CCPs branch office in his local community, demanding to withdraw from the CCP organization.

He wrote a formal statement of withdrawal and signed it with his fingerprints.

The staff at the party branch were surprised. They at first said that their manager was not in and asked him to come back later to make an inquiry, then said that a meeting was needed to decide how to proceed.

The staff recognized Zhangs withdrawal from the party after his third visit but did not issue any receipt or proof to Zhang.

Now back in the United States, Zhang told The Epoch Times, If you dont want to be  fooled by the CCP, but you want to have the right to be a real human being and live in a better environmentI urge people to quit the CCP as soon as possible.

Chinese Christian

On July 11, a group of Chinese people living in New York held an event in front of the New York Public Library denouncing the crimes of the CCP on the occasion of its centennial.

At the event, Yang Shisong, a Christian, told The Epoch Times the CCP will always be my enemy.

While in China, Yang used the software called Freedom Gate that allows people inside China to access websites that are blocked by Chinas internet blockade.

He sent an email to quit the Communist Youth League, to which he had automatically been enrolled in school when he reached an age set by the CCP.

After arriving in the United States, Yang publicly posted the certificate of withdrawal issued by The Global Service Center for Quitting the CCP.

Yang said he tries to tell his friends and family about the CCPs deception of the Chinese people.

The CCP persecutes Buddhism, Christianity, and Catholicism to almost extinction, and the evilness has never stopped since the CCP established its regime. The persecution of Falun Gong has been particularly cruel, Yang added.

The CCP will not stand long. If you look over history, no regime that persecuted religion has lasted long, he said.

It is inevitable that the CCP will destroy themselves because they are against the will of heaven, just a matter of time.

Yang said that Chinese people should keep a distance from the CCP: Quitting the CCP is a shortcut to avoid being dragged down with the CCP.

As a Christian, Yang believes that those who have already quit the CCP differ from those who are still with the CCP in spirit: a group of people with a spirit of fraternity and equality, and we can live in peace and love with people of all nationalities and ethnicities, he said.
Top Scientists Publicly Dismissed Lab Leak Theory, but Privately Said It Could Be True | Truth Over News

Virologist and New South Wales Scientist of the Year Edward Holmes admitted before the world that he delayed releasing vital genomic data in the crucial early days of the COVID-19 outbreak due to pressure from the Chinese Communist Party.

Holmes, who has a long history of collaborating with Wuhan scientists, made this shocking admission at a function held in his honor this year.

But he failed to tell the audience about his role in publicly initiating the natural origins narrative when he was privately 80 percent sure the virus came out of a lab.

Holmes wasnt alone. Kristian Andersen, Holmess coauthor of the infamous proximal origin letter, publicly said that a lab leak was a crackpot theory while he privately said he was 60 to 70 percent sure the virus came from a laboratory.

Welcome to Truth over News with Jeff Carlson and Hans Mahncke.

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Workers inspect products at Toshiba's laptop factory in Lu 'an City, Anhui Province, China. The Japanese electronics giant will close its 30-year-old Dalian production base, a sign of its increasingly bleak future in the Chinese market. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)

Toshiba Closes Factory in Dalian, Denying Full Withdrawal From China

Japanese electronics giant Toshiba is closing its factory in Dalian City after entering the Chinese market 30 years ago.

There are also online rumors that Toshiba will completely withdraw from China by closing 33 factories and R&D facilities in 24 Chinese cities by the end of this year.

Takagi, head of Toshibas media division in Japan, told The Epoch Times in a phone call on Sept. 10 that the company has decided to close its production base in Dalian at the end of September due to the reduced production range and a lack of new products.

The spokesperson evaded questions whether Toshiba will completely withdraw from China by the end of the year. However, a notice on Toshibas Chinese-language website, published on the same day, said that rumors of a complete withdrawal from China were false.

News of the Dalian factory closure began in May, according to Chinese media reports.

A video uploaded to Weibo on Sept. 3 revealed that Toshibas Dalian factory held a meeting attended by a thousand people on Aug. 31, formally informing employees of the factorys official suspension at the end of September.

As one of the first Japanese companies to enter China, Toshiba first set up a wholly Japanese owned factory in Dalian in 1991 to make a wide range of products, including LCD televisions and medical equipment. At present, it mainly produces industrial motors and broadcast transmitters.

After spending about ten years of development in China, Toshiba and other Japanese home appliances gradually began to decline in the market. According to a 2012 China market analysis, Toshiba and Sanyo, the two leading Japanese home appliance brands, together accounted for less than 1 percent of the Chinese market.

In the three fiscal years from 2012 to 2014 alone, Toshibas home appliance business suffered cumulative losses of 234.7 billion yen ($2.14 billion). The company has since embarked on a number of restructuring and plant closures in China.

In 2013, it already closed its LCD TV factory in Dalian.

In March 2016, Toshiba sold 80.1 percent of its home appliance business to Midea Group for $477 million, hoping to use Mideas strength in the Chinese market to increase its own market share and launch new product lines.

In November 2017, Toshiba sold a 95 percent stake in its Toshiba TV to Hisense for 760 million yuan ($120 million).

Since the Covid-19 pandemic began last year, the Japanese government has offered incentives to bring overseas Japanese industriesmainly in Chinaback home, promising to pay all relocation costs. Toshiba also announced a number of restructuring, relocation, and sale plans, fueling rumors of its withdrawal from China.

Communist Party Cell at Toshiba Dalian

A report by Netease, a Chinese web portal, on the closure of Toshibas Dalian factory, cited the Toshiba Dalian (Communist) Party Committee as a model for party building among foreign companies in Liaoning Province. It also named Wu Jianxin, the companys party secretary, an outstanding Communist Party member in Dalian. In addition to his title as party secretary, Wu holds several de facto posts, including deputy general manager, head of general affairs, and head of the business division of Pioneer Park.

According to local media in Dalian, Wu joined Toshiba as a senior executive in 1992. The following year, he took the lead in setting up a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) branch at the instruction of the Dalian Development Area, but was opposed by Japanese executives based in the city who wanted him to concentrate on his job and not bring politics into corporate operation.

However, by 1997, Wu had written to Toshibas headquarters legal department and eventually gained approval.

In 2009, the companys CCP membership had grown from the initial four to several hundred. Although there was a union, Wu continued to represent workers in pay negotiations with Toshiba. In June of this year, Wu was named National Outstanding Party Affairs worker by the CCP.

Jennifer Bateman Follow Jennifer Bateman is a news writer focused on China.
A man enters an advance polling station in Ottawa, Sept. 10, 2021, ahead of the federal election on Sept. 20th. (The Canadian Press/Adrian Wyld)

Trudeau Touts Pandemic Recovery Plan, OToole Reaffirms Climate Change Policy

With five days left until the federal election, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau campaigned on his COVID-19 recovery plan and defended his decision to hold a large indoor rally, while Conservative Leader Erin OToole reaffirmed his partys climate change policy and plans for economic recovery.

At a campaign stop in Halifax, Nova Scotia on Sept. 15, Trudeau reiterated his partys plan to navigate the country out of the COVID-19 pandemic by investing $25 billion in healthcare over the next five years.

The plan would include hiring 7,500 doctors and nurses, clearing health system backlogs made worse during the pandemic, and expanding mental health services, among other measures.

The reality is this pandemic highlighted that we need to do more on healthcare, he said.

Trudeau was questioned by reporters on the Liberal Partys decision to hold an indoor rally in Brampton, Ontario with several hundred supporters the previous day, despite the area being a COVID-19 hotspot.

Trudeau defended the decision, saying it was in line with all public health guidelines.

Trudeau also faced questions on sexual harassment in the military, particularly on why the Liberal government did not carry out its promise of an external review of the allegations of misconduct against former defence chief Jonathan Vance.

Trudeau said it is not right that women in the armed forces cannot trust the systems in place to protect them, and pointed out that Lt.-Gen. Jennie Carignan has been appointed to support victims who want to come forward, while retired Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour has been appointed to undertake a review of sexual misconduct in the military.

We commit, absolutely, to following full-heartedly on the recommendations that General Carignan, but especially Justice Arbour, have put forward to end discrimination within the military once and for all, Trudeau said.

Meanwhile, Conservative Leader Erin OToole made a stop at Saguenay, Quebec on Sept. 15, where his party won 10 out of the provinces 78 seats in 2019. OToole told supporters that his partys economic recovery plan would rebuild and rejuvenate the country.

The plan would include recovering 1 million lost during the pandemic, introduce new anti-corruption laws, implement a country-wide mental health action plan, and balance the budget within a decade, among other measures.

The Conservative Leader also reaffirmed his commitment to implement his low-carbon personal savings account policy, aimed at addressing climate change.

Canada needs to meet our Paris commitments, we need to lower our emissions, have our economy working, OToole said.

Thats why I launched my plan in April. Its a very detailed plan to meet our Paris target, and to promote collaboration on a range of issues from pricing carbon to electric vehicles to technology. We need to work together as a countryprovinces and the federal governmentto meet our targets and have a strong economic recovery.
The "Palais des Nations", which houses the U.N. Offices, is seen at the end of the flag-lined front lawn in Geneva, Switzerland, on Sept. 4, 2018. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images)

UN Power Grab

Commentary

In 2020, Dr. Anthony Fauci advocated that the U.N. be given the power to rebuild the infrastructures of human existence. Sounds audacious, right? Not to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Hes all in.

The U.N. apparatchiks ambition became clear with the release of Our Common Agenda, an 85-page report (pdf) that describes Guterress vision for the U.N.s future. It makes for alarming reading.

The text is written in the impenetrable bureaucratese favored by globalists and stuffed to the gills with utopian generalities. But, by squinting ones eyesif they can be stopped from spinning in their socketsit becomes clear that Guterres hopes to apply the same power techniques temporarily deployed during the COVID-19 pandemic to enact other agendas that globalists deem paramount.

Guterres engaged the obligatory fearmongering required to accrue increased power.

We are at an inflection point in history, he wrote. In our biggest shared test since the Second World War, humanity faces a stark and urgent choice: a breakdown or a breakthrough.

Only the U.N. can save us!

The United Nations presence is global, its membership is universal, and its activities span the breadth of human need, Guterres wrote. Its fundamental values are not the preserve of any region. Indeed, they are found in every culture and religion around the world: peace, justice, human dignity, equity, tolerance, and, of course, solidarity. However, while the fundamental purposes and principles of the United Nations endure, the Organization must evolve in response to a changing world to become more networked, inclusive, and effective.

Translation: This is a power grab to give the U.N. in generaland the secretary-general, in particularauthority over the creation of national and international public policies.

How would that power be deployed? For starters, it would come through the forging of an international taxing system.

Taxation is one of the most powerful tools of government, Guterres wrote, stating the obvious. Taxation can also drive a sustainable and just transition as governments shift subsidies from activities that damage the environment to those that sustain and enrich it.  As discussions continue, the perspectives of all countries must be heeded, including the potential for asymmetrical impacts on countries at different stages of development.

Translation: Well redistribute income to the developing world and use global warming as the pretext to create an international taxing power to bring the worlds economy under our control.

Guterres also goes after free speech.

Now is the time to end the infodemic plaguing our world by defending a common, empirically backed consensus around facts, science, and knowledge, he wrote. The war on science must end. All policy and budget decisions should be backed by science and expertise, and I am calling for a global code of conduct that promotes integrity in public information.

Translation: Well establish an informational monopoly that will disseminate officially approved facts and suppress heterodox opinions.

You think Im exaggerating? Decide for yourself.

While vigorously defending the right to freedom of expression everywhere, we must equally encourage societies to develop a common, empirically backed consensus on the public good of facts, science, and knowledge. Guterres wrote.

A global code of conduct that promotes integrity in public information could be explored together with States, media outlets, and regulatory bodies, facilitated by the United Nations. With recent concerns about trust and mistrust linked to technology and the digital space, it is also time to understand, better regulate, and manage our digital commons as a global public good.

I think we all know how that would work out. Social justice would rule the day.

Racism, intolerance, and discrimination continue to exist in all societies, as seen during the pandemic with scapegoating of groups blamed for the virus, Guterres wrote. As a start, the adoption of comprehensive laws against discrimination, including based on race or ethnicity, age, gender, religion, disability, and sexual orientation or gender identity, is long overdue.  Fuller use could be made of human rights mechanisms, including the universal periodic review, in this regard, and I support the update of the modalities of the universal periodic review by the Human Rights Council as part of the new guidelines.

And, of course, he calls for the repeal of all gender-discriminatory laws.

Translation: The new international order will promote critical race theory, abortion rights, and the values of the transgender movement, while suppressing dissent from the reigning global moral order.

Yes, there will be mass migration.

People on the move require special attention, support, and protection, Guterres wrote. Measures to protect, assist, and find solutions for the internally displaced, benefiting from the High-level Panel on Internal Displacement, are essential to leaving no one behind.

He demanded that the rights of all persons on the move be upheld regardless of status  through the inclusion of refugees and migrants in essential public services.

Translation: Millions of people will be removed from the destitute southern hemisphere into the developed worldwith full access to free social welfare services.

The report even pushes granting children the vote: To listen to and work with youth, governments are urged to promote political representation for youth, including young women and girls. This could entail lowering the voting age and the eligibility age for standing as a candidate for elected office, as well as strengthening youth participatory bodies.

Translation: Well give children political power. Greta Thunberg will lead us!

The private sector will be engaged in the internationalist growth project.

The increasing role and influence of the private sector, and its centrality to achieving so many of the actions outlined in this report, will also be taken into account within the United Nations system, Guterres wrote. The business and human rights agenda is important in this regard. I also call for a broader range of businesses, from multinational corporations to small and medium-sized corporations, to participate in the Sustainable Development Goals and climate action, including through business models that align with efforts to rethink measures of progress and prosperity.

Translation: A corporatocracy will reinforce formal international power structures by enforcing correct policies and punishing disapproved behaviors without resort to democratic processes. Or to put it another way, well govern you through your employers and consumption habits.

Guterres even described how the U.N. will deploy techniques of propaganda and social control to gain our acquiescence.

In a different U.N. Secretary-General report, he described this as behavioural science, writing: Behavioural science enables us to diagnose barriers preventing people from adopting a certain behaviour, understand enablers that help people achieve their aims, and design and measure the impact of interventions on the basis of these assessments and the premise of ethical choice and transparency all premised on commitments to human dignity, transparency, and respect for ethical requirements.

Translation: Well manipulate data, social media, and information dissemination to make you want to do what we want.

Right now, thankfully, this is all so much windbaggery. The U.N. doesnt have the legal or coercive power to compel the implementation of Guterress wish list.

But that shouldnt make us sanguine. The leaders of national and international institutionsand our current federal governmentare controlled by people with the same globalist ideology as the secretary-general. Bluntly stated, they want to lead an international technocracy that exercises top-down control over us all.

Unless we stand strong defending national sovereignty and individual libertyvalues that the international community scorns and that Guterres barely mentionswe could really end up in the collectivist soup.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Chinese citizens wait to submit their visa applications at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing on May 2, 2012. (Mark Ralston/AFP/GettyImages)

US Continues Visa Restrictions for Students From Chinas Military-Affiliated Universities

Reports of Chinese citizens from Chinese military-affiliated universities being denied visas to the United States indicate that the Biden administration is continuing a Trump-era policy regarding national security.

In September, both Chinese and U.S. media reported that a 23-year-old finance student at Washington University in St. Louis named Wang Ziwei said the United States revoked his student visa on security grounds.

Wang graduated from the Beijing Institute of Technology, which is identified by the U.S. government as affiliated with the Chinese communist regimes military, the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA).

An engineer surnamed Huang from a state-owned aircraft manufacturer said that his visa application for accompanying his wife who is studying in the United States was rejected. He revealed to Chinese media that he obtained both an engineering bachelors and masters degrees from Harbin Institute of Technology, one of seven major Chinese universitiesknown as Seven Sons of National Defensethat are affiliated with the PLA and participates in military projects.

The seven universities are Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, and Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications.

On July 7, Chinese state-run newspaper China Daily reported that at least 500 Chinese students who majored in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM disciplines) were denied visas by the U.S. embassy and consulates on the grounds of violating Section 212(f) of the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act and Presidential Proclamation 10043.

Section 212(f) gives the U.S. president the power to deny entry of aliens or non-U.S. nationals who are deemed detrimental to the interests of the United States. Based on that statute, former President Donald Trump issued Proclamation 10043 on May 29, 2020, titled Suspension of Entry as Nonimmigrants of Certain Students and Researchers From the Peoples Republic of China, in response to Chinas espionage and technological theft, especially for military use through its researchers and students studying at American universities and research institutes.

The Trump administration also highlighted the potential for Chinas military-civil fusion strategy to target U.S. tech innovations and acquire them through outright theft, intelligence gathering, and academic collaborations. The strategy mandate private Chinese companies and universities to collect intel for and participate in Chinese military technological development.

The Biden administration stated on April 27 that it would relax visa restrictions set by the Trump administration on Chinese and other countries students studying in the United States this fall. However, it continues visa restrictions for Chinese students from military-affiliated universities in China.

Chinese officials appealed to U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman to drop the visa restrictions when she visited in July.

In response to Chinese opposition, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing said the policy is necessary to protect U.S. national security interests in a statement. The embassy added that more than 85,000 visas for Chinese students were approved within the past four months. The numbers show clearly that the United States stands ready to issue visas to all those who are qualifiedincluding Chinese students and scholars, it said in the statement.
Border Patrol agents detain illegal immigrants who have just crossed into the United States from Mexico under the international bridge in Del Rio, Texas, on Sept. 14, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

USMexico Border Arrests Top 200,000 for Second Straight Month

Arrests at the United States southern border topped 200,000 for a second consecutive month and remain on track to set a new yearly record, according to newly released data.

Border agents apprehended 208,887 people last month, a slight dip from July but up more than four times from August 2020 and three times from August 2019, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data show.

Most of the illegal immigrants caught were single adults, nearly 100,000, while approximately 80,000 people who were arrested were part of a family unit. About 18,500 unaccompanied children were apprehended.

The men and women at CBP continue to step up to meet the demands of high numbers of encounters at our southern border, Acting CBP Commissioner Troy Miller said in a statement.

The number of border arrests had gone up for 16 straight months, starting during the Trump administration, after hitting a low of just 17,106 in April 2020, shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic started.

The apprehensions jumped after President Joe Biden took office and dramatically changed the immigration enforcement system, altering or outright stopping key tenets of the former administrations policies.

In one such policy change, the Biden administration stopped using Title 42 powers, activated because of the pandemic, to expel unaccompanied minors, with officials arguing that doing so would be cruel. Expulsions of other illegal immigrants through the powers have also dropped. Officials used the powers on under half of the encounters in August, after previously utilizing them on over 60 percent early this year.

The new numbers bring the total number of encounters for this fiscal year to 1.54 million. That means the Biden administration could eclipse a fiscal year record, depending on the flow in September. The current record is 1.64 million, set in 2000.

Even if that doesnt happen, the administration is almost certain to set a calendar year record, Steven Kopits, president of the conservative Princeton Policy Advisors, told The Epoch Times last month.

Many migrants kicked out of the United States arent being dissuaded from trying again, data show. A quarter of the immigrants arrested in August had at least one prior encounter with U.S. agents in the prior 12 months, a jump from 14 percent in previous years.

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), the top Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said the new data show the United States is experiencing the worst unlawful migration crisis in more than 20 years.

Portman said he looks forward to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas testifying before the panel next week. He plans to ask him when the administration will change course and address this surge of unlawful migrants, he said, adding, I urge the Biden administration to take action because the migrant crisis is a direct result of its decision to dismantle the previous administrations policies with no consideration of the historic influx it would incite.

Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), the chairman of the panel, didnt immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did the White House, which hasnt commented on the numbers.
US Regulators Approve Texas Nuclear Dump Despite Opposition

By Ari Natter

From Bloomberg News

Texas officials vowed to fight a federal regulators decision to approve plans to allow thousands of tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste to be stored in oil fields in the state.

Texas will not become Americas nuclear waste dumping ground, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, said on Twitter Tuesday. Abbott last week signed into law legislation that attempts to block the project from moving forward.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a license Monday to Orano CIS LLC and its joint venture partner, J.F. Lehman & Co.s Waste Control Specialists LLC, to establish a repository in the heart of Texas Permian Basin oil fields for as many as 40,000 metric tons of radioactive waste.

Texas blowback underscored the federal governments decadeslong, futile hunt for a permanent disposal site for spent nuclear fuel. A political logjam over the issue has stranded tons of waste on site at several dozen power plants and other sites across the country including at two nuclear power plants in Texas.

The joint venture, known as Interim Storage Partners LLC, plans to have waste shipped by rail from around the country and sealed in concrete casks where it would be stored above ground at a site about 30 miles from Andrews, Texas, near the New Mexico border.

Local officials once embraced the Texas project as an economic boon, but it now faces stiff opposition from the local community, the state, and oil companies that fear a leak could taint a region that produces millions of barrels of oil a day. The waste can remain radioactive for thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years.

We have opposition to this project on every level, said Karen Hadden, executive director of the Sustainable Energy & Economic Development Coalition, an Austin, Texas-based environmental group fighting project. We do not consider this fight over. We will continue to battle these dangerous plans.

The Andrews County Commissioners Court, which functions as the countys board of commissioners, had previously backed the plan as a means of diversifying the areas fortunes from the boom and bust of oil cycles. But it reversed course earlier this year and voted unanimously to oppose the project.

The concerns are what if there was a leak, if there was an attack, if there was a transportation accident, County Judge Charlie Falcon said in a phone interview. It could affect our entire area and we are a very large oil producer in the state.

Interim Storage Partners said the NRCs approval was based upon a thorough multi-year review.

The extensive analyses concluded that this facilitys commercial interim storage and transport operations satisfy all environmental, health, and safety requirements without negative impact to nearby residents or existing industries, the company said in a statement.

Congress in 1987 designated a ridge in the Nevada desert about 90 miles north of Las Vegas called Yucca Mountain to be the nations repository. But decades of political opposition led by Nevada Democrat and former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid kept the project from moving forward. In 2010, President Barack Obama scrapped the plan and the Biden administration opposes its use as well.

Instead, the administration plans to work with Congress and states to reach consent on storing nuclear waste, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told Congress earlier this year.

A similar nuclear waste storage project, proposed in New Mexico by Holtec International Corp., is also awaiting approval by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The agency said it expects to make a decision on that proposal in January 2022.

2021 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
President Joe Biden speaks during an event with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison (L) and United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson (R) in the East Room of the White House on Sept. 15, 2021. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

US, UK, Australia Announce New Security Partnership Amid Rise in Chinese Influence

The United States, the UK, and Australia on Sept. 15 announced a new trilateral security partnership for the Indo-Pacific amid rising Chinese assertiveness in the region.

The new alliance was announced by President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison during a joint virtual press conference from each of their capitals.

The first move under this partnership, called AUKUS, will be for the United States and the UK to support Australia in acquiring nuclear-powered submarines, according to a joint statement by the three governments.

We all recognize the imperative of ensuring peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific over the long term, Biden said.

Morrison said the submarines would be built in the city of Adelaide, in close cooperation with the United States and the UK; he stressed that Australia wont be fielding nuclear weapons.

We will continue to meet all our nuclear non-proliferation obligations, he said.

Johnson called it a momentous decision for Australia to acquire the technology, adding that it would make the world safer. The three countries will now commence an 18-month consultation period to hash out the details of the development project, the joint statement said.

The alliance is also set to enhance sharing of information in key technologies between the three countries.

AUKUS will bring together our sailors, our scientists, and our industries to maintain and expand our edge in military capabilities and critical technologies, such as cyber, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, and undersea domains, Biden said.

While China wasnt specifically mentioned by the leaders, the communist regime loomed large over the announcement, which occurs as the Biden administration seeks to enhance alliances to push back against an array of threats posed by Beijing.

Biden also stressed the need to maintain a free and open Indo-Pacific, a thinly veiled reference to Beijings growing military aggression in the South China Sea and elsewhere that has stoked international condemnation.

In other parts of the region, the Biden administration has worked to bolster partnerships to counter the Chinese regime, most notably the informal Quad grouping of Australia, Japan, India, and the United States. Biden will host the groups first in-person leaders-level meeting at the White House on Sept. 24.

The new AUKUS partnership figures to end Australias attempts to have French shipbuilder Naval Group build it a new submarine fleet valued at $40 billion, to replace its more than two-decades-old Collins vessels, Australian media reported.

Reuters contributed to this article.
The Moab City Police Department in Utah released body camera footage of an officer's response to a domestic incident involving missing woman Gabby Petito and her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie (Moab Police Department)

Utah Police Release Bodycam Footage of Missing Woman Gabby Petito

Petito's alleged final text message to her mother is revealed

Police in Utah released body camera footage involving an incident between missing Long Island woman Gabby Petito and her boyfriend Brian Laundrie after officers responded to a 911 call involving a domestic incident.

On Thursday, the Moab City Police Department released the footage of their interaction with Laundrie and Petito when they pulled over their vehicle near Arches National Park in Moab on Aug. 12.

I have really bad OCD. I was apologizing to him saying Im sorry Im so mean, Petito told the responding officer in the footage, referring to obsessive-compulsive disorder. Weve been fighting all morning. He wouldnt let me in the car before  he told me I needed to calm down.

Petito then sat in the officers squad car when he spoke with Laundrie.

Laundrie then told the officer, who wasnt named, that Petito just gets worked up sometimes, I try to distance myself from her. I locked the car.

I said, Lets just take a breather. She had her phone. I was trying to push her away to say, Lets just take a step back, he continued before saying that Petito hit him with her phone. Petito, he added, attempted to grab the steering wheel of his van to make him pull over.

Neither Laundrie nor Petito, 22, made the 911 call to report the domestic disturbance, according to a police report obtained by the New York Post.

The male tried to create distance by telling Gabbie to go take a walk to calm down, she didnt want to be separated from the male, and began slapping him, the police report said. He grabbed her face and pushed her back as she pressed upon him and the van, he tried to lock her out and succeeded except for his drivers door, she opened that and forced her way over him and into the vehicle before it drove off.

Latest on Petito case Wednesday September 15, 11:30am. Please use 1-800 CALLFBI pic.twitter.com/NpkUEjoME5  North Port Police (@NorthPortPolice) September 15, 2021

And the officer, in his report, wrote that he initially believed that the male had been observed to have assaulted the female but later said, No one reported that the male struck the female.

One of the responding officers wrote that he would characterize it more as a mental/emotional health break than a domestic assault and no significant injuries were reported, according to Fox News. The report said that Petito stayed in the van that night, while Laundrie stayed in a hotel.

On Wednesday, Petitos mother, Nichole Schmidt, told news outlets that she obtained a text message from her daughters phone on Aug. 30.

No service in Yosemite, the message read, referring to the California national park. But Schmidt told the New York Post that she doesnt believe that text was sent by her daughter.

I do not believe the text on August 30th was from my daughter, Schmidt told the New York Post, saying: The van was in Florida on the 1st [of September]. I think I can do the math.

Authorities this week said Laundrie returned home alone to North Port, New York, on Sept. 1 with Petitos white 2012 Ford Transit van. Authorities have taken possession of the van.

North Port Police Chief Todd Garrison told news outlets that Laundrie has been uncooperative with authorities in their investigation. Laundrie has not been charged with a crime.

As a father, I can imagine the pain and suffering Gabbys family is going through. We are pleading with anyone, including Brian, to share information with us on her whereabouts in the past few weeks. The lack of information from Brian is hindering this investigation, he said.
The Sunrise senior living care home is pictured in Bagshot, England, on April 14, 2020. (Warren Little/Getty Images)

Vaccine Mandate to Cause Catastrophic Staff Shortage in Care Sector: Unions

The UK governments COVID-19 vaccine mandate for care workers will cause catastrophic staff shortages in the care sector, unions have warned.

The government announced in July that from Nov. 11, all care home workers and anyone entering a care home in England will have to prove they have had two doses of a CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus vaccine unless they are exempt under the regulations. To beat the deadline, care workers must have their first dose by Sept. 16.

Unison, which represents staff members who provide public services, criticised the no jab, no job policy and said mandatory vaccination should be scrapped.

The union said the care sector is already in the grip of a severe staffing crisis and multiple care agencies can no longer provide emergency cover.

Unison general secretary Christina McAnea blasted the government for sticking to the heavy-handed approach despite warnings from care employers of the dire consequences.

This move is damaging a sector already on its knees and undermining trust in the vaccine, she said. Vaccine-hesitant staff must be offered reassurance and persuasion, not threats and ultimatums.

Instead of encouraging much-needed recruitment into care, the government is actively driving experienced staff away.

The GMB union estimated that up to 70,000 care home workers in England may not be fully vaccinated by the Nov. 11 deadline.

Care is already facing a staffing black hole of 170,000 by the end of the year, said GMB national officer Rachel Harrison. Even in a best-case scenario we will lose tens of thousands of key workers if the jab is forced on them. How will care bosses deal with these huge staffing vacancies? How can they reassure people residents will receive safe care?

Martin Green, chief executive of Care England, told BBC Radio 4s Today programme that some care homes may have to close as a result of mandatory vaccination.

Care homes are now in a difficult position, he said, as they will be forced to choose between dismissing unvaccinated staff and risking unsafe services, or breaking the law by keeping employees on.

With less than 24 hours before the deadline, the government announced a temporary self-certification process for medical exemptions, which it said will ensure those with medical exemptions can continue working.

It will allow staff and volunteers to self-certify that they meet the medical exemption criteria before the new NHS COVID pass system is introduced, with these exemptions expiring 12 weeks after its launch.

The GMB union said the government had fudged it at the eleventh hour.

PA contributed to this report.
People count California recall ballot votes at a Los Angeles Registrar site at the Los Angeles Fair Grounds in Pomona, Calif., on Aug. 31, 2021. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

Voters, Watchdog Group Voice Concerns About Problems in California Recall Election

A number of voters and a watchdog group have raised concerns about the integrity of elections since Californians began castingor mailing intheir ballots earlier this month leading up to the Sept. 14 gubernatorial recall election.

Woodland Hills resident Emon Afshar and his wife, Tina, were told by poll workers they had already voted when they showed up to cast their ballots at the Disabled American Veterans Hall on Sept. 11.

But they hadnt.

Then the couple behind us comes to the table, gives their names, and the same thing. The system showed they had voted. So now, there is four of us. And one of the employees over there, or the volunteers, tells us that its been happening all day, and in multiple locations, Afshar told The Epoch Times.

So, all four of us go to speak to the supervisor, he said. We asked him, what is our recourse?

Vincent McCormack, the supervisor, told the couples they could vote by provisional ballot.

[He said] that over 70 percent of the people who came in that day experienced the same thing, that the system showed somebody had voted for them, Afshar said.

The Afshars recorded the conversation on video and sent it to news media. Since then, several nationally known political commentators have shared the video on social media.

Since the story broke, Afshar said he has been contacted by other people who also encountered the same problem at the same polling location.

Afshar and his wife then went to Los Angeles Pierce College, another voting location in Woodland Hills, later that day to vote. There, the system recognized their names as registered voters and they were able to each finally vote on a machine, rather than a provisional ballot, Afshar said.

He said the supervisor at the previous location, McCormack, appeared flustered and worried.

I feel bad. He was a nice guy, Afshar said.

But, he said, McCormack should have advised voters to try voting at a different location rather than giving everyone provisional ballots.

Los Angeles Registrar Responds

Afshar said that he received a phone call from Los Angeles County Registrar of Voters Dean Logan on Sept. 13.

He apologized. He explained to me that it was only happening to a couple of machines [at] a couple of locations and that it was already resolved, Afshar said.

In response to an inquiry, Mike Sanchez, spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, told The Epoch Times via email: The issue (on Saturday, Sept. 11) was quickly resolved and voting was continuous. Any affected voters did receive a Provisional Ballot to ensure no voter was turned away and had the opportunity to cast a ballot. The Provisional Ballots cast at that location were verified and included in the Election Night tally. Registrar Dean Logan did speak directly to the voter on the issue and explained the situation and the resolution to him.

The 70% reference is incorrect and was never substantiatedlocation specific or broadly, Sanchez stated.

A statement from the Registrar was also released on Sept. 11:

The Registrar identified issues with the settings on some of the electronic poll book devices used at these locations to check-in voters prior to issuing ballots. The voters who experienced this issue were offered and provided a provisional ballotthe failsafe option to ensure no one is turned away from voting. Provisional ballots are regular ballots and once the eligibility of the voter is verified, they are processed and counted. After troubleshooting the issue, the equipment at the locations was replaced and voting continued.

However, on Sept. 14, Afshar saw news reports about more voters experiencing the same problem at the same location, he said.

Afshar said he would like to see an independent investigation into the matter.

I want a third-party investigator to figure out what happened, not someone whose job is in jeopardy to come and tell us that everything is OK.

In another incident, a video recorded on Sept. 14 at the Robbie Waters public library in Sacramento obtained by The Epoch Times showed voter Felise Nglam complaining about the same problem.

Somebody already voted for me, he said. I dont know whats going on, but this is why I dont trust the voting system anymore. Its just a waste of time.

Elder Campaign Requests Affidavits

On Sept. 13, a number of mainstream media outlets accused Larry Elder, the top Republican contender in the recall election, of making false allegations of election fraud.

The controversy stemmed from Elders campaign website, which had included a link to another site called StopCAFraud.com.

Elders campaign told The Epoch Times via email that the StopCAFraud website is an outside company that is collecting affidavits of voting fraud or irregularities.

The goal is to have the affidavits ready to go in case we need to take legal action, campaign spokesperson Stephanie Marshall told The Epoch Times in an email on Sept. 14.

We should all be concerned about election integrity and we all want every proper vote to be counted. Weve provided a link to an outside website that is providing an avenue for voters to document irregularities they encounter in this election, Ying Ma, Elders communications director, said in a statement issued earlier the same day.

The StopCAFraud site states that it was Paid For By Larry Elder Ballot Measure Committee Recall Newsom Committee, and lists its funding sources as Elder for Governor 2021, Geoff Palmer, and Saul Fox.

It asks Californians to Report Election Fraud in CA, and states: Election integrity should be a universally accepted American ideal. Unfortunately, there are instances where such integrity is called into question.

It then asks anyone who has experienced any irregularities, interference, or intimidation while voting to fill out a form to report these incidents.

Election Integrity

Possible problems with the integrity of elections in California, an almost solidly blue state, have been investigated and discussed for many years.

Ruth Weiss of the Election Integrity ProjectCalifornia (EIPCa) told The Epoch Times that the problem is much deeper than isolated glitches in the system and complaints shouldnt be casually brushed off but be taken seriously.

There are real issues where people have people vote in their name. There are other issues where people werent in the system.

In many cases, mistakes are made because poll workers arent adequately trained, she said.

Rather than accept provisional ballots, Weiss advised voters to demand that poll supervisors call the Registrar of Voters hotline to report the problem and get the issue resolved.

Problems Reported

EIPCa said some vote-by-mail ballots in the recall election were flawed because a vendor apparently cut off the part of the code that was supposed to be printed on them. EIPCa received several reports, but stated that its still too early to tell exactly about how many defective ballots were sent out.

I cant give you numbers. I just know its serious, and it is not just one county, Weiss said.

The machines are rejecting these ballots because when the vendor cuts these ballots apart, they trimmed off part of the code and so now the machine cant read it.

The legal rights of citizen poll observers to watch activities of the electoral process were also limited or suspended so they could not engage in meaningful observation in some counties, she said.

Our observer rights in a lot of places across the state have been trampled. Theyre not letting us in; theyre not letting us observe, Weiss said. The same thing that happened in 2020 is happening again. Theyre ignoring California state law that allows us the right to observe.

Many of the election integrity issues stem from the push by California lawmakers to create a permanent vote-by-mail system, Weiss claimed.

A number of problems come from sending a vote-by-mail ballot out to everybody on the voter rolls when your voter rolls are not maintained.

In the 2020 election, Weiss said vote-by-mail ballots were sent to more than 440,000 ineligible voters, and she expects that number may be even higher in the recall election.

Voters with a long history of voting in every election suddenly werent on the rolls, she said. People who never registered to vote are receiving ballots, and people in other states were receiving ballots and information for the California recall, and they dont live in California, she said. We have a lot of that going on again in this election.

Other voters reported getting multiple ballots, she said.

In December 2018, the state of California and Los Angeles County agreed to remove up to 1.5 million inactive voters from voter rolls in order to settle a federal lawsuit brought by Judicial Watch and EIPCa.

In January, Election Integrity Project and 10 California congressional candidates filed another lawsuit against California state officials and various registrars of voters over what they claim were unconstitutional practices and laws used in the November 2020 election.

Recommendations

Weiss said the EIPCa received criticism from both Democratic and Republican political parties for suggesting that people vote in person or take their vote-by-mail ballots to polling locations in person for the recall election.

People on both sides of the issue in this particular election felt that our message was getting in the way of their get-out-to-vote message to mail their ballots in early or take them to ballot drop box locations, Weiss said.

However, EIPCa has long opposed ballot harvesting and wholesale vote-by-mail ballot elections.

We have always advocated for going back to a system where everybody votes in-person unless they cant and then they ask for an absentee ballot, not a vote by mail ballot, as so many other states do, Weiss said.

Ballot harvesting, she said is a felony in some states, while its currently legal in California.

To restore election integrity, EIPCa supports a return to the previous system of absentee ballots. Under that system, voters must apply for an absentee ballot, which must be delivered to a polling location by a close friend, relative, or someone living in the same household as the absentee voter to ensure a proper chain of custody.

Under current law, paid ballot harvesters can go door to door gathering ballots.

EIPCa has asked any Californians who experienced issues voting in the recall election or any former Californian who received recall-election communications or a ballot to report these incidents. Weiss said EIPCa will release more details soon about alleged problems in the recall election.
Damaged cars sit in front of an apartment building, following an explosion in Dunwoody, Ga., on Sept. 13, 2021. (Ben Gray/AP Photo)

Weekend Blast: Gas Now Shut Off to Georgia Apartment Complex

DUNWOODY, Ga.Gas has been temporarily turned off at an apartment complex in an Atlanta suburb where a building partially collapsed during a weekend explosion, sending four people to the hospital.

Atlanta Gas Light said inspectors have identified appliance and fuel line issues within the buildings. Officials said they have been directed by the Dunwoody City Code Officer to suspend all-natural gas service to the entire complex until all units are inspected and deemed safe.

The company told WSB-TV that one of its crews was headed to the complex, in response to a call from someone who reported smelling gas, when the explosion occurred.

An apartment building sits damaged following an explosion in Dunwoody, Ga., on Sept. 13, 2021. (Ben Gray/AP Photo)

Atlanta Gas Light is committed to delivering safe and reliable natural gas service to our customers, it said. Upon arrival, we began coordinating with first responders, turning off the natural gas connected to the impacted units and performing safety checks. At this time, we have not identified any other calls to Atlanta Gas Light related to odor of gas complaints at the impacted locations.

Four people were taken to a hospital after Sundays explosion at Arrive Perimeter apartments and at least 25 units were damaged, news outlets reported.

Officials with the City of Dunwoody said Monday that on-site inspections revealed two gas leaks in a building at the complex that werent related to the explosion. Gas was shut off so those repairs could be made and crews could inspect additional buildings.

Police said they were called to the apartments in DeKalb County around 1:24 p.m. Sunday local time, where they encountered heavy gas fumes. Police began evacuating residents but then there was an explosion. The blast was so powerful that it damaged surrounding buildings.

One resident told WSB-TV that the smell of gas has become almost a regular occurrence at the complex.

This has been an ongoing issue, Erik Wiley said. A lot of residents have been complaining about smelling gas.

Wiley said he called SCANA Energy a few months ago about the smell. SCANA confirms they dispatched crews from Atlanta Gas Light on March 29.

They did detect gas and they were going to notify management, Wiley said.

But SCANA said there were no signs of a gas leak. And, Atlanta Gas Light said that other than Sunday, they have not confirmed any calls received from property management or from SCANA.
Will the Right to Die Always Trump the Right to Religious Liberty?

Commentary

Once again, rights to freedom of thought, conscience, and religionall fundamental freedoms set out in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and which Australia has ratifiedare under attack.

This time, the threat comes from the recent decision of Queenslands Palaszczuk government to deny faith-based hospitals and aged care facilities the right to opt-out of administering euthanasia when it is legalised.

Most religious health and aged care providers oppose efforts to make it lawful for doctors to kill patients by administering a lethal cocktail of drugsa process fashionably described as voluntary assisted dying, or VAD.

States such as Victoria, Tasmania, and Western Australia, which have already legalised euthanasia, have accepted the right of individual practitioners to opt-out of the practice on the basis of conscience. But only South Australia has extended that right of conscientious objection to faith-based organisations.

Now the Queensland government has found a way around this pesky problem of institutional religious conscientious objection with a crafty loophole.

Queensland Parliament House in downtown Brisbane, Australia, on Oct. 19, 2013 (Wikimedia Commons CC)

The proposed bill intends that a faith-based facility with a patient who requests VAD but is too ill to be moved will be forced to allow a doctor or other medical practitioner who deals in euthanasia to come onto the premises to administer the deadly dose.

Unswayed by those holding a deep conscientious objection to the practice of euthanasia, its proponents insist it must be legalised in the name of compassion and to relieve those who say their suffering has become unbearable.

In Queensland, that compassion is now to be extended to those residents in but deemed incapable of being moved out from a faith-based facility. And all this despite vigorous objections from the states religious leaders, whose institutions actually provide around a quarter of all hospital beds in the state.

Each time a bill proposing to legalise euthanasia comes before a state parliament, proponents give solemn assurances that conscience will always be respected, that the protocols governing its administration will be strict, and that the categories of those eligible to be put to death will not expand.

And as each successive state turns its attention to the legalisation of euthanasia, those assurances turn out to be increasingly rubbery.

Queensland is the latest state to implement the lawwhile one is already being prepared by an independent member of the New South Wales Parliament for debate later in the yearand, as things stand at the moment, the Queensland iteration contains the most liberal provisions yet.

Thus, there must be a prognosis of death expected from an eligible condition within 12 months rather than six; the so-called right to die for those deemed too ill to be moved will now always trump individual or institutional conscientious objection; doctors dealing in death will have more or less unfettered access to health care facilities; and rather than requiring that it be the patient who first raises the possibility of VAD, a doctor will now be allowed to do so.

The legalisation of euthanasia is sweeping across Australia, and before the end of the year, all states are expected to have passed laws making the practice lawful in one form or anothereven though actual implementation may be delayed for many months.

Opponents of legalised euthanasia recognise that the cultural tide is not in their favour and that little is to be gained from their trying, Canute-like, to stand on the shore of the times and command the waves to retreat.

People rally against Bill C-14, the medically assisted dying bill, during a protest organized by the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on June 1, 2016. (The Canadian Press/Justin Tang)

Clearly, many people in Australia now want to have the option of asking a doctor to end their lives for them when they think the time is right; and they are comfortable with the idea that the medical care provided by doctors and nurses is set to extend beyond acts of caring to acts of killing.

However, it is equally clear that this surge of progressive reform, claimed to be all about compassion, and dignity, and the avoidance of suffering, is contemptuous of fundamental freedoms enshrined in international instruments, such as the UDHR.

It threatens to sweep aside the considered concerns of many who harbour a deeply held conscientious objectionsometimes based on religious belief, sometimes notto the practice of euthanasia.

Lip service is paid easily enough by so-called progressives to the liberal ideal of respect for freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.

But Queenslands enthusiasm for legalising the practice of euthanasiaand for imposing on faith-based institutions a legal obligation to participate in itshows clearly enough that proponents of euthanasia will not permit the exercise of those fundamental freedoms to frustrate their zeal for the newly-minted right to die.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
For those ringing bells on behalf of the Salvation Army this holiday season, a merrier sound is the tinkle of quarters or other spare change cascading into red kettles as shoppers exit with purchases in hand.

Better yet is the whisper of dollar bills wafting down  and given a continuing shortage of coins for some retailers, those whispers could be far more frequent as the calendar flips to November.

The U.S. Coin Task Force convened in July 2020 to address a scarcity of coins in the early stretch of the COVID-19 pandemic, led by representatives of the Federal Reserve, the U.S. Department of the Treasury and retail trade groups.

More than a year later in Connecticut and nationally, however, some stores are still coming up short on occasion for sufficient coins to make change on purchases, with managers scribbling warning signs to post at entrances and checkout lanes alongside mask advisories and hiring notices.

The task forces takeaway? The problem is a circulation issue rather than an outright shortage, with a far larger-than-normal percentage of $48.5 billion in coin sitting dormant in home drawers and piggy banks. While the U.S. Mint was forced to cut back on coin production at the outset of the pandemic, by the end of 2020 it had produced more coins than the previous year.

But the Federal Reserve estimates that cash made up 19 percent of U.S. payment transactions last year, down from 26 percent the prior two years, basing its conclusions on the results from spending diaries by more than 1,500 people who logged their transactions.

Small businesses have been affected the most, according to the task force which has a website online at getcoinmoving.org for any updates.

The task force continues to urge shoppers to spend coins where possible, and for businesses not to horde their quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies to increase coin circulation. It acknowledges the particular difficulties for small businesses who may deal with larger numbers of customers using cash rather than payments cards.

At a Petco store on Connecticut Avenue in Norwalk where signs are posted noting the limited supply of coins, cashiers are suggesting that customers use an existing philanthropic program by rounding up  their cash purchase to the nearest dollar, with the difference donated to a local animal shelter. A Petco spokesperson said Wednesday that the program has been in place for a few years.

Not all stores are running into difficulties. A Stop & Shop spokesperson indicated it is not coming up short in making change, with the supermarket chain the largest operating in Connecticut.

The coin shortage has not been a huge issue with use due to the pandemic pushing most customers to order through our app, online order, curbside pickup, etc., stated Robert Guerrieri, owner of Upper Crust Bagel on Sound Beach Avenue in Old Greenwich. The large majority of our customers pay with credit cards.

But other chains have felt the pinch, including a Walgreens pharmacy in Newtown, which had signs posted this week asking customers to pay with plastic if possible.

Gov. Ned Lamont is scheduled to attend a kickoff ceremony on Thursday in Hartford for the Salvation Armys annual fundraising push. Salvation Army spokesperson Laura Krueger noted the nonprofit has been expanding its channels for donation, including through virtual red kettles in her words and other crowdfunding initiatives.

Many make donations at The Salvation Armys Red Kettles with change, Krueger said Wednesday. Because of the pandemic, we had fewer kettles out and fewer volunteers. However, we started the fundraising season early in mid-September. NFC readers were added to the kettles a couple of years ago, making touchless donating possible.

Alex.Soule@scni.com; 203-842-2545; @casoulman
For investigators, the images from the U.S. Capitol riot have proved crucial. From social media to an array of cameras blanketing the Capitol complex, agents from across the country have pieced together the identities of hundreds of angry people who stormed the building on Jan. 6.

For a mother an daughter from Canterbury who were charged Tuesday, it was pictures posted to social media that first gave them away, records show. But arresting documents show FBI agents turned to surveillance to strengthen their case.

Jean Lavin, 56, and her daughter, 19-year-old Carli Krzywicki, were the latest of more than 550 people charged by federal authorities for their alleged role in the riot. While not accused of violent offenses, the two face charges related to illegally entering the building.

Lavin did not respond Wednesday to a call seeking comment. Both appeared briefly Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Connecticut, where their cases were transferred to Washington. They are scheduled for virtual hearings next week.

Carla, who is just 19, is presumed innocent of any criminal conduct and is entitled to due process before judgment may be passed on her, said Morgan Rueckert, an attorney for Krzywicki. She will address these charges, through counsel, in court at the appropriate time.

Documents released following the arrest show how FBI agents learned the mother and daughter were at the Capitol riot and how they tracked the two within the grounds.

A Facebook post

Federal Court Records

In a statement of facts associated with the arrest, an FBI agent said the agency received a tip around Jan. 6 from someone who reported that Lavin and Krzywicki had been at the Capitol on the day of the riot.

The FBI agent said the tip included a screen grab from Krzywickis Facebook page with a post containing images of the two outside the U.S. Capitol and a group of people inside the building.

The post, from an account bearing Krzywickis name, read: this is history. we dont go burning down your city and stealing from your business. we come for the government officials that are ruining our country, we go straight to the source. change needs to happen. that is our house and you work for us.

When Krzywicki was interviewed by a FBI agent, she acknowledged making the post but later taking it down because it seemed like a bad idea to leave it up, according to court records.

A bike rack

Federal Court Records

The first image that investigators shared in court records was from just outside the Capitol building, where people were gathered near a wall. The image shows a bike rack barricade that has been turned vertically and was being used to get over the terrace and then into the Capitol building.

Investigators said that open source video showed Lavin and Krzywicki scaling the bike rack to get over the wall, according to the court documents.

A wordy sign

Federal Court Records

A sign that investigators spotted Lavin carrying was featured in eight photos that the investigators included in the statement of facts. While a person in a dark jacket, jeans and a red hat was climbing the bike rack, the sign is seen above the crowd.

The sign reads Trump Won on one side and Dont allow 7 states of cheaters to hijack our election!

The sign is also seen in a large crowd that is gathered near the Senate Wing door, according to an image in the statement of facts.

Federal Court Records

Through a series of photos, a woman, believed to be Lavin, is carrying the sign while walking through the Capitol Building, according to the statement of facts. The sign has two small American flags attached to it.

Trump apparel

Federal Court Records

FBI agents used Lavin and Krzywickis outfits to continue to identify them on surveillance video as they moved from the grounds through the Capitol building, the documents showed.

Agents said Lavin was wearing a red jacket, pink shirt, pink hat that said, Trump, and carried a purple backpack, according to court records. Krzywicki had a red winter hat that said Trump, along with a blue hooded sweatshirt with Trumps name, records show.

The route

Federal Court Records

With surveillance footage, FBI agents were able to outline how the mother and daughter moved through the U.S. Capitol Building, records show.

They were first seen entering the building through the Senate Wing door at 2:24 p.m., the records said. They were spotted next in the Capitol Crypt from 2:25 to 2:31 p.m., the statement of facts shows.

Federal Court Records

At 2:32 p.m., they moved to the Capitol Crypt lobby toward the Orientation lobby, and returned at 2:46 p.m. to the Capitol Crypt lobby, according to records.

Around 2:56 p.m., agents said they left the Capitol building through the Senate Wing door, the statement of facts read.

Rondinone, Nicholas

The interview

When agents spoke to Lavin and Krzywicki in June, they said they went to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 on a bus from Norwich that was organized by a local Facebook group, according to documents. They told investigators that they had missed Trump speak because the bus driver had gotten lost in New York City.

Lavin told investigators they went into the Capitol building to look around out of curiosity, arrest records show. She said she did not post anything to social media, but may have shared some photos with friends, the documents show.

Both told investigators they were in the building for a short time, left and then returned again for about 20 minutes, according to arrest records. Krzywicki said they left for the final time after Lavin fell, an FBI agent wrote in the statement of facts.

A member of the FBI who met with the mother and daughter confirmed that the images from video and Facebook were Lavin and Krzywicki, according to the statement of facts.
NEW YORK (AP)  A federal judge on Wednesday rejected a request by lawyers for former President Donald Trump to delay the progression of a defamation lawsuit by a woman who accused him of rape.

Judge Lewis A. Kaplan in Manhattan issued a brief denial of the request the lawyers made in December to delay the lawsuit while an appeals court decides whether the United States can be substituted as the defendant. It was unclear whether he would explain his reasoning in a subsequent filing.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is slated to hear arguments in November on whether Trump can be replaced as the defendant in the lawsuit brought by columnist E. Jean Carroll.

The U.S. Justice Department has asserted that Trump cannot be held personally liable for crude and disrespectful remarks he made about Carroll because he was president at the time.

Carroll says Trump raped her in the mid-1990s in an upscale Manhattan department store.

Her lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, said in an email, We very much look forward to oral argument in E Jeans case before the Second Circuit. ... In the meantime, we are reviewing todays order.

Lawyers for Trump and the Justice Department did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

The Associated Press generally does not identify people alleging sexual assault, but Carroll has consented to being named in the media.

Former U.S. Attorney General William Barr began the effort to replace Trump as the defendant while Trump was still in office.

Barrs intervention last October was criticized on the campaign trail by Trump's Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, who said it was inappropriate for the Justice Department to attempt to intervene in a private legal battle over Trumps personal conduct.

In June, the Justice Department under Biden, who won the election, stuck to the position it took while Barr led the department.

It said Trump was acting within the scope of his office in denying wrongdoing after White House reporters asked him about Carrolls claims.

Elected public officials can  and often must  address allegations regarding personal wrongdoing that inspire doubt about their suitability for office, the Justice Department said.

Even reprehensible conduct ... can fall within the scope of employment, the lawyers wrote, conceding that Trump used crude and disrespectful language in questioning Carrolls credibility.

Kaplan ruled last October that Trump cannot use a law protecting federal employees from being sued individually for things they do within the scope of their employment.
The new Texas law that bans most abortions in the state has been welcomed by many of the religious leaders who help bolster the anti-abortion movement. Yet some abortion opponents in U.S. religious circles are wary of the law and questioning the movements current direction.

The wariness relates in part to the laws most novel feature, which some critics view as an invitation to vigilantes: It provides no enforcement role for public officials and instead authorizes private citizens to sue anyone they deem to be assisting in an abortion, with the prospect of gaining $10,000 in the process.

The law has serious downsides and conveys that anti-abortion activists are willing to engage in desperate and extremist tactics, said Charles Camosy, an associate professor of theological and social ethics at Fordham University who favors tougher nationwide restrictions on abortion.

Because it appears to be playing legal games to get around rulings of federal courts, the law feeds the false narrative that pro-lifers dont have public opinion on our side, Camosy, a Catholic, said via email.

The law, Senate Bill 8, prohibits abortions once medical professionals can detect cardiac activity, usually around six weeks. It was assailed in a recent column in the National Catholic Reporter, an independent online news outlet, by one of its senior reporters, Michael Sean Winters.

I fear greatly that the premature implementation of this truly strange law will turn out to be the historic beginning of a backlash against the pro-life movement for which it is ill-prepared, Winters wrote.

He said the laws provisions encourage a kind of vigilante justice we had all thought consigned to old Western movies and warned that its implementation would likely prompt some women to resort to illegal and potentially risky abortions.

I am as pro-life as pro-life can be, but I detest the pro-life movement, for its short-sightedness, for its moral myopia, for its viciousness, Winters wrote. The pro-choice movement is now energized in a way it has not been for years.

Amid the furor over SB 8, the Catholic bishop of Lexington, Kentucky, John Stowe, issued a broader critique of some elements of the anti-abortion movement, suggesting they pursued their cause while neglecting other pressing social issues.

Those who vehemently fight legal abortion but are uninterested in providing basic healthcare for pregnant mothers or needy children, who are unconcerned about refugee children or those lacking quality education with no hope of escaping poverty cannot really claim to respect life, Stowe tweeted.

Among staunch supporters of the Texas law, theres a degree of disdain for abortion opponents who depict the measure as a strategic mistake.

The pro-lifers who oppose Texas SB 8 play to lose  or rather they play the part of controlled opposition, paying lip service to the unborn, but not actually acting like real lives are at stake every single day, said Chad Pecknold, associate professor of theology at The Catholic University of America.

Whatever happens to Texas SB 8, it will long be remembered as the moment when pro-lifers started playing to win, Pecknold added via email.

Implementation of the law has elated many top faith leaders in Texas and other states whove been campaigning against abortion over the years, including many of John Stowes fellow bishops.

We celebrate every life saved by this legislation, said the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops, which represents the 20 bishops serving the state.

Abortion does not help women, the bishops said. Abortion is never the answer. It is always the violent taking of innocent human life.

The statement was lauded by Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Pro-Life Activities.

Naumann acknowledged that the law has sparked controversy but criticized President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for responding with radical pledges to block it and other tough anti-abortion measures.

Like Naumann, some prominent Southern Baptist pastors in Texas welcomed the law while noting its contentious aspects

I do believe its legitimate to ask if we really want third parties to be able to financially profit from reporting the crimes of others, said the Rev. Robert Jeffress of the First Baptist Dallas megachurch.

Overall, Jeffress said via email, Im very supportive of and grateful for this strong affirmation of the value of life by our Texas lawmakers.

Phillip Bethancourt, formerly a senior public policy official with the Southern Baptist Convention and now lead pastor of Central Church in College Station, Texas, noted that theres debate about whether the law is ultimately good or bad.

But theres one community that will be universally thankful for it: those pre-born children for whom this law will mean life instead of death, he said via email. We need to see more legislation and not less around the country that does everything it can to protect life.

Another Baptist pastor, John Elkins of Sovereign Grace Fellowship in Brazoria, Texas, said he welcomes the law while wishing it would ban abortion altogether. He hopes congregation members who share his outlook will find ways to assist unwed mothers in their community.

Among the vocal supporters of SB 8 is Marjorie Dannenfelser, a Catholic who heads the Susan B. Anthony List, a prominent national anti-abortion group.

The goal of the pro-life movement has always been to make abortion illegal and unthinkable, she wrote in a column Wednesday in National Review. Texans are doing just that, in defiance of the undemocratic stifling of debate wrought by the Supreme Court years ago.

Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee, said her organization supports any legal strategy that would protect unborn babies.

Too many state attorneys general fail to defend protective laws, or judges strike them down when they do, said Tobias, who belongs to the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. The Texas approach is novel and deserves its day in court using established legal procedures.

Michael New, an abortion opponent who teaches social research at Catholic University, called the law unconventional and predicted it would face multiple legal challenges. Already, it has been targeted by lawsuits from abortion providers and from the U.S. Justice Department.

Nonetheless, New said he was pleased that SB 8 has taken effect.

Pro-lifers have identified a strategy that, at least in the short term, has succeeded in providing legal protection to thousands of unborn children, he said.

Unsurprisingly, SB 8 has been assailed by clergy from faith groups that support abortion rights. Among the plaintiffs in a July suit challenging the law is the Rev. Daniel Kanter, senior minister of First Unitarian Church of Dallas and a past chair of Planned Parenthoods Clergy Advocacy Board.

The Jewish Council of Public Affairs, which represents more than 140 national and local Jewish organizations, condemned SB 8 and other anti-abortion restrictions as dangerous measures that should be thwarted by federal legislation.

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support from the Lilly Endowment through The Conversation U.S. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP)  Food banks in New Mexico with high rates of childhood poverty and hunger are watching with apprehension as the federal government boosts standard food stamp benefits in October and extends generous emergency allotments temporarily.

President Joe Bidens administration has approved a permanent 25% increase in food aid over pre-pandemic levels, available to all 42 million SNAP beneficiaries across the country. The increase on Oct. 1 coincides with the expiration of a smaller, 15% boost in food-aid benefits that was ordered as a pandemic protection measure.

At the same time, emergency allotments in food aid are continuing in most states, including New Mexico, but will phase out as public health emergency designations eventually come to an end.

The allotment often doubles standard monthly benefit payments and the eventual expiration threatens to send shock waves through personal and family finances in New Mexico, where more than one-in-four residents depends on the federal government's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to help put food on the table.

We enjoy seeing families  low-income families  being able to access their own food. Its certainly a more dignified and respectful way to get the food that their families need, said Sherry Hooper, executive director of The Food Depot that acts as a food bank of last resort for 40,000 people across a sparsely populated area the size of West Virginia.

The Food Depot is here to help if any of those benefits end or if they need additional help, she said.

She said the pandemic has increased the number of people seeking help with food essentials by about 30% in her territory in northern and eastern New Mexico.

The federal government fully funds the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, without state matching funds.

New Mexico lawmakers nonetheless funneled $10 million toward emergency food aid during legislative sessions in early 2021 and November 2020, and the administration of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is lobbying for a more robust emergency nutrition package for the coming fiscal year that starts on July 1, 2022.

The pandemic has been accompanied by an unprecedented outpouring of federal assistance designed to limit disruptions in housing, food security and the broader economy. But some direct emergency aid to low-income households is already winding down.

The federal government in early September ended its supplemental unemployment benefit of $300 a week that went out to roughly 50,000 residents. State finance authorities are sprinting to provide rental assistance to people who have fallen behind on payments to landlords, while a statewide eviction moratorium remains in effect for people who can't afford to pay rent.

On the food-aid front, about 540,000 people were enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program as of August, across a state with 2.1 million residents, according to the Human Services Department that administers federal nutritional benefits.

Agency spokeswoman Jodi McGinnis-Port says the average household SNAP benefit of $237 in July 2019 increased to $477 in July 2021  and will nudge higher in October.
EDWARDSVILLE  Dunlap Lakes residents say they dont oppose affordable housing, but they wonder why the rules are different for individual homes and planned unit developments.

The questions follow the citys Aug. 16 plan commission meeting which discussed the Charles Cove planned unit development, or PUD, proposed by developer Matt Pfund.

Pfund originally sought to put as many as nine cottages on 0.68-acres at 7074 Marine Road, the southwest corner of Route 143 (Marine Road) and Park Drive, north of the lake. While he has not disclosed pricing yet, he stressed these would be high-quality units meant for single people, couples and empty nesters who want to downsize. Four of the nine units would have single-car garages.

Aside from concerns about property values, other fears from Dunlap residents include stormwater run-off, soil erosion and possible damage or pollution to the lake from this project.

The development does not fit into the immediate area, said East Lake Drive resident Russ Darbon last month. Probably the biggest issue for the lake [would be] the silt deposited during and after the building process.

Rick LeBlanc and his wife moved to this area in 2019 from Canada to build their retirement home at the lake. They went through long and involved processes to first get the site sub-divided, then to build their home.

I do not understand why a homeowner like me was not given the same opportunity when we built a home at 201 East Lake  my request for variances to city regulations for lot size, setbacks and other items were dismissed without any chance to discuss or explain  while a proposed project like Charles Cove, which would need major variances, is given the chance to be heard, he said.

While City Planner Emily Fultz declined to discuss LeBlancs case, she said in general, the difference is because the zoning rules for planned unit developments, or PUDs, are different from the rules for R-1, single-family homes.

The zoning code defines district as a section of the City of Edwardsville in which zoning regulations and standards are uniform, she said. The Dunlap Lake Subdivision is zoned [as a] R-1 Single Family Dwelling District. In this district, the R-1 Regulations apply. The only way to get around these regulations is to apply for a variance. However, variances may only be applied for in certain instances, such as a hardship to the homeowner, the hardship involved has not been made by anyone currently with an interest in the land or it is not self-imposed.

A PUD, on the other hand, is a tract or tracts of land developed as one unified development adhering to common standards (bulk and use) developed specifically for the subject project, she explained. A PUD allows for modification of the typical zoning standards (such as the R-1 Regulations) to promote a more creative development approach that still meets the sprint and intent of the citys codes and ordinances. The citys PUD regulations are available here and include purpose statements that further explain the purpose of this development type, like reducing or eliminating rigidness that sometimes accompanies strict zoning standards.

LeBlanc added that he believes the Aug. 16 meeting was premature. He does not understand why the city elected to devote a portion of that meeting to the Charles Cove PUD when the targeted site may or may not meet the citys regulations and the site hasnt been determined if it is within Dunlap Lake. As of Sept. 8, that research continues, according to Pfund.

Mike Watts, the lake property owners association president, did not respond to an email request in time for publication. According to Carolyn Green, the lakes association manager, attorneys are researching if the property on Park Drive is in the association or not. Alderman William Krause, whose ward Charles Cove would be in, also did not return repeated messages for comment in time for publication.

If it is in the association, the plan that was presented to the city does not meet subdivision restrictions, Green wrote in an Aug. 30 email. Representatives of the association met with the Pfunds and the attorneys will share information as the legal review takes place.

Other than the homes on Park Drive, the Dunlap Lake homes closest to Charles Cove, some as close as 300 feet, would be those on Ora Jane Way, followed by Mallard Lane and the northernmost part of East Lake Drive. LeBlancs definition of affordable is relative to some people.

We had a house down the street sell for $235,000 in 2018, he said, noting that while it was not as much as his home costs, it fell within his definition of affordable. According to Zillow.com, that same home in the 200 block of East Lake Drive is now valued at $318,000. He said his own home was appraised at $845,000 while homes nearer to the lake fetch closer to $400,000. Trulia.com lists 440 East Lake Drive at $349,400. A home on Ora Jane Way sold in November 2020 for $430,000, also according to Trulia.com.

Yet on RE/MAX Alliances website, a one-bedroom, one-bath, 648-square-foot home at 6925 Marine Road lists for $89,900. That is less than a half-mile from the Charles Cove site.

Mayor Art Risavy said Sept. 9 that affordable housing is the first topic he charged the newly re-formed Human Relations Committee with researching and investigating. The committee has met twice so far, with its next meeting on Oct. 4 at 5 p.m. in city hall. Human Resources Director Amanda Tucker said committee members are meeting with specific focus groups and gathering information before they issue a request-for-proposal (RFP) to hire an outside company to study city housing. The RFP will likely go out in November, she said.

Fultz visited the HRCs Sept. 1 meeting, where she presented an updated version of the affordable housing presentation that she initially gave in February at the Wildey Theatre, to help bring the committee members up to speed.

Personally, I agree that affordable housing is needed in Edwardsville, Risavy said before putting his mayor hat back on.

He said Dunlap Lake residents argued last month at plan commission that Charles Cove is too dense and too small. The big distinction Risavy strove to make is between affordable housing and less expensive housing. He said at its price points, which he did not give, Charles Cove is a great example of the latter, not the former. He said just because they would have a smaller overall footprint did not necessarily make them affordable.

I believe he will come back and revise this plan and make everyone happy with a new proposal, Risavy said of Matt Pfund. The Pfunds met with Watts and the Dunlap Lake board on Aug. 26 and have been collaborating with them on revising the plan. Pfund notified the citys public works department that he will bring that revised plan for review next month.

Krause sent LeBlanc a timeline for Charles Cove to advance through the committees it must pass to become reality. The next stop is the land use committee on Oct. 21 at 6 p.m. Then it will return to the citys plan commission on Nov. 15 at 7 p.m. Next, it will land on the public services committee agenda for Nov. 30 at 4 p.m., then stop at administrative and community services (ACS) on Dec. 2 at 5 p.m. First reading at city council is scheduled for Dec. 7 at 7 p.m.

Reach reporter Charles Bolinger at 618-659-5735
EDWARDSVILLE  With the COVID-19 pandemic at 18 months and counting, local libraries are getting a much-needed dose of annual funding.

Eleven libraries in Madison County are receiving more than $260,000 in grants from the Illinois Public Library Per Capita and Equalization Aid Grants Program, which for more than 40 years has helped public libraries with a low library tax base to ensure a minimum level of funding for library services.

The $266,072.52 received by 11 local libraries is part of $18.1 million in grants awarded to 638 public libraries across the state.

This year, the Edwardsville Public Library will receive $39,280.73 in grant funds, while the Glen Carbon Centennial will receive $19,077.65.

The Illinois House of Representatives had recently improved an increase in funding, so we got approximately $3,000 more than we had in the past, Glen Carbon Centennial Library Director Christine Gerrish said. With the change in census numbers, were expecting it to go up next year as well.

Gerrish said the grant funds for Glen Carbon will be used to offer more online resources for the librarys patrons.

It will be used to pay for different databases and to buy ebooks, generally through a Cloud app that we have, Gerrish said. Its for things that people can use 24/7 wherever they are, as long as they have a library card.

It helps us to be able to meet those types of special needs. Without this funding, it would really pinch our general budget. This gives us the ability to expand what were able to offer.

Each year, the libraries have to fill out an application for the funds demonstrating that they are adhering to the Standards for Illinois Public Libraries.

The grant amount is based on population times a multiplier, and the multiplier just went from $1.25 to $1.475 for the current year. That represents a sizable increase for the Edwardsville Public Library, which received $33,288.75 last year.

While the libraries receive the funds on an annual basis, the grant money is especially important this year with the challenges the libraries have faced during the pandemic.

The Per Capita Grant from the state allows us to improve our collection and programming for the citizens of Edwardsville without an increase in taxes, Edwardsville Public Library Director Jill Schardt said. We plan to use our grant money for this fiscal year to support our patrons use of electronic resources and to improve our self-checkout capability.

The Edwardsville Public Library also received a $10,300 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for the NEA Big Read, which is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest.

The grant money for Edwardsville will pay for a community-wide read of Circe by Madeline Miller. The program started Sept. 4 and runs through Oct. 31.

This is the first time weve gotten this grant, which is awarded to about 75 libraries across the nation, said Jacob Del Rio, Head Librarian of Adult Services for Edwardsville Public Library. The NEA has you pick from a pool of books that they have predetermined and the one we chose was Circe by Madeline Miller.

Its a very popular book, so we knew there would be some initial interest, and we have 500 copies that were giving away for free to the community. Were going to have book discussions at various places in town as well as other events.

The community response to the book has already been impressive.

The book is set in ancient Greek mythology, but its written as literary fiction, Del Rio said. You dont have to be a fan of Greek mythology to enjoy the book, but if youre interested at all in Greek mythology, youll really get a kick out of it.

We were going to hand out a lot of the books at the Edwardsville Book Festival (at Edwardsville City Park), which was originally scheduled for Sept. 4 but was postponed until Oct. 9 because of the weather. We have free copies of the book at our library and at Lovejoy Library on the campus of SIUE.

The events include two NEA Big Read Edwardsville Movies in the Park, Disneys Hercules on Friday, Sept. 17 and  Kikis Delivery Service on Friday, Oct. 15 at Edwardsville City Park. Both viewings start at 8 p.m.

Other events include:

 A Circe Book Tasting and Tea at 1 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 19 at Queens Cuisine, 120 S. Main St. in Edwardsville. Registration is required.

 Greek Stories in the Stars, 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 22 at Edwardsville Public Library. An indoor presentation by the River Bend Astronomy Club will be followed by telescope viewing opportunities at Edwardsville City Park.

 Keynote Presentation #1, 7 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 27 at the Wildey Theatre. The speaker will be Dr. Nancy Ruff, an English language and literature professor at SIUE.

 Keynote Presentation #2, 7 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 11 at the Wildey Theatre. The speaker will be Dr. Jessica DeSpain, an English language and literature professor at SIUE.

 A virtual author discussion with Madeline Miller at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 20 on Facebook Live.

 Dangerous and Sometimes Deadly Plants, 7 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 28 at Edwardsville Public Library. The program is presented by Dr. Kurt Schultz, a professor of biology at SIUE.

 The Edwardsville Halloween Parade, 6:30 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 31 in downtown Edwardsville.

In addition, there will be Circe book discussions at the locations listed below:

 Tuesday, Oct. 5 at noon at Goshen Coffee, 6120 Shoger Drive, Suite A in Edwardsville.

 Sunday, Oct. 10 at 1 p.m. at 222 Artisan Bakery, 222 N. Main St. in Edwardsville.

 Wednesday, Oct. 13 at 4 p.m. at Sacred Grounds, 233 N. Main St. in Edwardsville.

 Thursday, Oct. 14 at 6 p.m. at Edwardsville Public Library.

 Friday, Oct. 15 at noon at Lovejoy Library at SIUE.

For more information, go to https://www.edwardsvillelibrary.org/ or call 618-692-7556.
GoFundMe page

EDWARDSVILLE  A GoFundMe campaign has been started for a teenager who died after being struck by a vehicle as he was walking last Tuesday evening in Edwardsville.

Montrez Spencer, 18, was pronounced dead over the weekend at St. Louis University Hospital in Missouri. Following the incident, Edwardsville Fire Department provided medical assistance on the scene at Governors Parkway, behind Kohls on Troy Road, before Spencer was airlifted to the hospital on Sept. 7.
ST. LOUIS (AP)  Missouri's new health czar lamented that the pandemic had become so embroiled in politics as another child died of COVID-19 and the virus sickened record numbers of youths.

Donald Kauerauf, who began serving three weeks ago as the director of the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, told lawmakers Tuesday that we failed, as a nation, public health because we got to this point, the Springfield News-Leader reports.

In emergency planning, Kauerauf said, you plan for the absolutely worst scenario  but we didnt plan for this reaction from the public. And he said it was crucial to retool the public message as he works toward a goal of getting around 80% of the states residents vaccinated. Currently, 52.8% have gotten at least one dose of the vaccine, state data shows.

Weve got to start something new, Kauerauf said.

The state just ended what is shaping up to be one of the deadliest months of the pandemic. Data lags by several weeks, but COVID-19 deaths in Missouri have already reached 878 in the five weeks that span August  more than triple the numbers seen this past spring, before the highly infections delta variant took hold, according to state data analyzed by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Hospital officials hope the number of deaths will start to drop, as cases and hospitalizations have shown signs of easing. Statewide, the average number of COVID-19 hospitalizations dropped to 1,999 after a peak of 2,417 on Aug. 20, according to the latest data.

Recent deaths include a child who died last week in the St. Louis area, the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force announced Tuesday. No other details were released, including the child's age and whether the child had underlying health conditions, the Post-Dispatch reports.

The death brings the total number of Missouri children younger than 18 who have died from COVID-19 to six, according to state health department spokeswoman Lisa Cox.

This summer saw nearly 34,000 cases among children, more than four times the number from last summer, according to an analysis released Tuesday by the Missouri Hospital Association. And the state set a single day record for child cases on Sept. 7 with 1,133 positive test results.

Some local health departments in the St. Louis area have reported that up to a third of new cases are among children.

Dr. Clay Dunagan, chief clinical officer for BJC HealthCare, blamed the increasing number of cases among children on the delta variant and schools not taking steps to reduce spread such as requiring masks. Children younger than 12 aren't yet eligible for vaccines, and vaccination rates among teens lag behind that of adults.

That really puts kids in harms way, Dunagan said.

In southeast Missouri, some parents of students in the Jackson School District told school board members Tuesday that they were concerned about a policy that recommends, but doesnt require, that students and staff wear masks, the Southeast Missourian reports.

Forty Jackson students have COVID-19, according to associate superintendent Jessica Maxwell. Maxwell said the district has quarantined 268 students in total.
LIBREVILLE, Gabon (AP)  The United Nations is withdrawing 450 Gabonese peacekeepers from its mission in Central African Republic following allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse, Gabons government said Wednesday.

Following the numerous cases of allegations of exploitation and sexual abuse being processed, the United Nations today decided to withdraw the Gabonese contingent from MINUSCA, the statement said, referring to the mission there.
Expat Phi Phi GM found dead

PHUKET: Search teams on Phi Phi Island found the body of Florian Hallermann, the 56-year-old General Manager of the Zeavola Resort, yesterday (Sept 15).

deathpolice

By The Phuket News

Thursday 16 September 2021, 10:22AM

The extensive search was carried out for days. Image: TNA

The discovery came after a days-long search involving more than 50 people after Mr Hallermann failed to return to the resort last Saturday (Sept 11).

Mr Hallermanns body was found about 200 metres from a path leading over the hills in the centre of the island, on a steep slope overlooking Ao Plaew (Flame Bay), reports state news agency TNA.

The cause of death is still unknown, the agency reported.

Mr Hallermanns body has been recovered from the remote site and officers are in the process of investigating his death, the agency report added.

Mr Hallereman was last seen walking past a resort in the Laem Thong area on the island last Saturday. A CCTV camera recorded him walking towards the path of the hills

Mr Hallermann, an Austrian national, was last seen walking through the Laem Thong area in Moo 8, Phi Phi Island, on Saturday.

Krabi Immigration Superintendent Col Kongrit Suksai said the search team said CCTV footage from a camera in front of a hotel showed Mr Hallermann walking past the camera at 2:24pm.

He was walking alone with a backpack along the path leading to Ao Nui.

After Mr Hallermann failed to return to the resort, hotel staff posted photos of him on social media, asking if anyone had seen him. They filed a missing person report at Phi Phi Police Station on Monday (Sept 13), Col Kongrit said.

Mr Hallermann had been working on Phi Phi Island for almost 20 years. He was well known and loved by the locals.
Parents given until Sept 24 on vaccines for schoolchildren

BANGKOK: Parents have until Sept 24 to decide whether to inoculate their children with the Pfizer vaccine before the Education Ministry reopens real classrooms for students.

CoronavirusCOVID-19healthVaccine

By Bangkok Post

Thursday 16 September 2021, 10:30AM

A teacher at Surao Mai School in Suan Luang district of Bangkok teaches students online in an empty classroom on June 23, 2021. Photo: Wichan Charoenkiatpakul/file

The Centre for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) yesterday (Sept 15) disclosed the timeline for student vaccinations, with Sept 24 the final day for parents to give their consent, reports the Bangkok Post.

The government will provide the Pfizer vaccine for students from 12 to 17 years old on a voluntary basis.

Schools will hold meetings with parents from Friday to Wednesday about the policy, and they are required to make a decision by Sept 24, according to the schedule posted by the CCSA.

All schools will send their lists of students to be vaccinated to the education office in their provinces on Sept 25, with the jab campaign set to start on Oct 4. It covers 4.5 million students.

The Education Ministry also plans to give all teachers the vaccine before students return to classes. About 30% of teachers have not been jabbed, according to the ministry.

The vaccination campaign has thus far prioritised senior citizens, pregnant women and people with chronic diseases.

The country has injected 27mn people, or 38% of the total populaton, with initial doses.

The goverment is now expanding the target group to students.

The ministry has tentatively set Nov 1 for the reopening of all schools after ordering students to study online since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak.

Parental fears

Not all parents wanted to have their children vaccinated.

Nilawan Noi-i, an aunt of 14-year-old Chanathip Pimphoklang, said she was fretting about possible side effects from the vaccine as the government has not guaranteed its safety.

Chanathip, who studied at Thessaban 2 School in Muang district of Nakhon Ratchasima, said he would not take the vaccine shot and preferred studying at home to avoid infection.

Banyat Wutthiwai said that he would wait until the last minute before making the decision on vaccination for his 15-year-old son.

He said he was against schools reopening in the province as a virus surge continued. Nakhon Ratchasima registered 260 new transmissions yesterday - the highest in a week - and the province decided to reopen a field hospital at Chatchai Hall yesterday after shutting its doors on Saturday.
PPAO moves to set up cheap ATK test centre

PHUKET: The Phuket Provincial Administrative Organisation (PPAO, or OrBorJor) has approved setting up a centre to provide COVID tests by antigen test kits (ATKs) at cheap prices near the Phuket Check Point in Tha Chatchai to help alleviate the financial burden on those who need to cross the bridge to the mainland regularly.

COVID-19Coronavirushealthtourismtransport

By The Phuket News

Thursday 16 September 2021, 01:34PM

PPAO President Rewat Areerob proposed the move at a meeting of the PPAO Council yesterday (Sept 15), where it was approved.

Mr Rewat said that the repeated cost of people having to take ATK tests in order to be able to leave or enter the island was prohibitive for many people needing to travel off-island.

The proposed centre would be set up at the Phuket Gateway, near the Phuket Check Point in Tha Chatchai, Mr Rewat explained.

An area covering 40 square metres at the Phuket Gateway had already been chosen as the location to provide the services, he said.

The PPAO had already received bids from three operators wanting to provide ATK test services at the site, Mr Rewat noted.

Initial concessions to provide ATK test services at the Phuket Gateway would be for an initial six months, he added.

The price of the tests to be provided had yet to be confirmed, but a price of about B200 per test had been set as the target, Mr Rewat noted.
Thailand joins Chinas first multinational peacekeeping exercise

HENAN: China wrapped up the countrys first multinational peacekeeping exercise yesterday (Sept 15), demonstrating the extent of its military might on a huge training ground ringed by mountains.

Chinesemilitary

By AFP

Thursday 16 September 2021, 09:18AM

Soldiers assemble during the multinational live exercise Shared Destiny-2021 held by the Chinese military at a tactical training base of the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army in Zhumadian, central Chinas Henan province yesterday (Sept 15). Photo: AFP

Troops from Thailand, Mongolia and Pakistan joined Chinas armed forces for the 10-day exercise dubbed Shared Destiny 2021 at the military base in Queshan county in central Henan province.

Chinas defence spending is the second largest in the world after the US, and tensions have dramatically increased between rival powers as Beijing has poured trillions of yuan into the modernisation of its military.

But the country has repeatedly sought to allay fears over its military intentions, projecting itself as a peaceful counterpoint to what it calls the bullying, hegemonic behaviour of Washington.

Senior Colonel Lu Jianxin told journalists invited to the base that the exercise demonstrates Chinas support for the multilateral system centred on the UN as Beijing sought to put its defence diplomacy on full display.

Blue-helmeted soldiers took turns role-playing various scenarios: civilians and refugees caught up in a brawl, or armed militants attacking UN forces.

Dozens of armoured vehicles, bulldozers, helicopters and tanks - all bearing the UN logo - were mobilised for the event.

As of the end of July, China was the eighth-largest contributor to peacekeeping troops, with 2,158 military personnel engaged around the world, according to UN data.

Chinese forces are mainly engaged in South Sudan, Mali, Lebanon and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

During her trip to Asia last month, US Vice President Kamala Harris described Chinas disputes with its neighbours over the South China Sea as undermining the rules-based order and threaten[ing] the sovereignty of nations.
Southern Pines, NC (28387)

Today

Rain this evening with thunderstorms developing overnight. Potential for heavy rainfall. Low near 70F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 80%..

Tonight

Rain this evening with thunderstorms developing overnight. Potential for heavy rainfall. Low near 70F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 80%.
Markus Schreiber/AP

GENEVA (AP)  After a two-year hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic, organizers of the annual Davos conference will host the high-profile gathering of elites in the Swiss Alps in-person again in January.

The World Economic Forum said Thursday that its next annual meeting will take place from Jan. 17-22 in the resort village of Davos in eastern Switzerland. A virtual version was held in January this year after repeated attempts to reschedule an in-person event were thwarted by health concerns and logistical hassles stemming from the pandemic.
ALTON  In an omen of the upcoming holiays, members of the Grandpa Gang were hard at work Wednesday preparing for the annual Christmas Wonderland display in Altons Rock Spring Park.

The display doesnt opens until after Thanksgiving, but work began this week with members erecting the flats, or static displays, in the park, a job that requires several people at the same time. Eventually the group of volunteers will break into smaller groups to hang holiday lights, set up flood lights, erect the lighted tunnels and wire the power needed for the entire show.

The Grandpa Gang consists mostly of retired workers from the trades who set up the show every year.

During the annual display at Rock Spring Park, the sitre sparkles against the night sky with millions of glistening lights, all hung by volunteers.

Visitors can turn off their headlights and let the holiday displays carry them through the magical scene. Displays include Robert Wadlow, the Worlds Tallest Man, placing the star on the Christmas tree as well as the legendary Piasa Bird carrying a bag of gifts for kids.

The Grandpa Gang coordinates the annual Christmas event and is seeking volunteers to work any time between 8 a.m. to noon, Monday through Friday. Work will run through the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

People interested in volunteering can contact Dick Alford at 618-781-2482 or Tom Spahr at 618-250-0670.

For more than 25 years, Altons Rock Spring Park has been decorated with Christmas Wonderland. This years holiday light display is scheduled to start Friday, Nov. 26 and run through Monday, Dec. 27. Christmas Wonderland will come to life 6-9 p.m. Monday through Friday and 5-9 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.

All proceeds from the attraction is returned to the community in the form of donations to local charities. Earlier this year the Grandpa Gang presented nearly $65,000 to 53 civic organizations.

Despite COVID-19 precautions limiting some displays last year, a record number of visitors attended Christmas Wonderland during the 2020 holiday season. COVID-19 concerns canceled the traditional Enchanted Forest and visits with Santa Claus, but the features are expected to return this holiday season.

Additional photos can be found at thetelegraph.com.
People are beginning to look for third doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, although it remains unclear who needs one and when.

According to a new article written by scientists including two of the FDAs top vaccine scientists, in the Lancet earlier this week, there is no credible evidence that the vaccines potency against severe disease declined substantially over time, which is one of the key arguments in favor of booster doses. The two scientists are leaving the FDA this fall and were not writing on the FDAs behalf.

COVID-19 vaccines continue to be effective against severe disease, including that caused by the delta variant, the group of scientists wrote. Most of the observational studies on which this conclusion is based are, however, preliminary and difficult to interpret precisely due to potential confounding and selective reporting.

The scientists said in the piece that current vaccine supplies would save more lives if used in previously unvaccinated populations than used as boosters for the vaccinated.

Boosting could be appropriate for some individuals, the scientists said, including those who have immunocompromising conditions.

However, it is not known whether such immunocompromised individuals would receive more benefit from an additional dose of the same vaccine or of a different vaccine that might complement the primary immune response, the scientists wrote.

The scientists also noted that boosting may ultimately be necessary when the general population sees waning immunity from the primary vaccination or if variants express new antigens to the point at which immune responses to the original antigens no longer protect adequately against currently circulating viruses.

Although the benefits of primary COVID-19 vaccination clearly outweigh the risks, the scientists said, there could be risks if boosters are widely introduced too soon, or too frequently, especially with vaccines that can have immune-mediated side-effects. Widespread boosting should be undertaken only if there is clear evidence that it is appropriate.

There are boosters available for specific autoimmune people, the people who qualify under autoimmune disorders qualify but its highly advisable they speak to a doctor, said Amy Yeager, public information officer with the Madison County Health Department. "The conversation right now is looking at research and evidence for additional doses for the general population. The only thing approved is a booster dose for people with autoimmune disorders.

Yeager noted that there is a difference between booster doses, which are needed and approved for the immunocompromised, and additional doses, used for the general population.

Its important to get that distinction clear, Yeager said.

That discussion about additional doses is still being debated in both the FDA and CDC discussions.

For those with immunocompromising conditions seeking a booster dose, Madison County vaccine clinics may have a specialist able to distribute the third dose of the vaccine.

We have a nurse who will do triage and theyll see if that person qualifies and make a determination on whether they meet those qualifications, Yeager said. We have a series of questions and a specific nurse. If you meet the criteria, talk to healthcare providers about the need for it and then contact a vaccine clinic in advance to ensure there is someone there to give the dose.

Theoretically they should be able to get it anywhere, Yeager continued, but some providers arent giving it, they want those specialists. We will ask you a lot of questions but will give it if you meet qualifications. Some people are trying to slip in there and get it when they dont need it.

The booster dose does achieve the intended result, helping the immunocompromised gain additional protection against the virus.

This provides them with an opportunity to have some additional protection, Yeager said. Thats necessary with the current delta variant.

The number of Americans who are not immunocompromised but have obtained extra shots is unclear, according to the New York Times. About 1.8 million people have done so since mid-August, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but that count is likely to include many with weakened immune systems. The Food and Drug Administration authorized additional shots for that group last month.

A study in The New England Journal of Medicine, published on Wednesday, indicated that recipients of a third shot of the Pfizer vaccine in Israel were far less likely to develop severe COVID-19 infections than those who had received two injections.

The FDA committee will meet on Friday to discuss and vote on Pfizer-BioNTechs application to offer boosters to people 16 and older. The CDC panel is expected to meet next week. Agencies are not required to follow the panels recommendations, but they generally do so, according to the Times.

Last week, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said new data showed that as delta surged, the unvaccinated were 4.5 times more likely than the fully vaccinated to get infected, over 10 times more likely to be hospitalized and 11 times more likely to die, according to The AP. Still, government scientists are also weighing hints that protection is waning among older adults who were vaccinated early last winter.
JERSEYVILLE  Got Faith? Ministry has received a donation of a former hospital building valued at $3.9 million.

Steve Pegram, founder of the Jersey County non-profit organization, said the group had previously expressed interest in the hospital, closed for nearly 10 years, and had been praying for it the past four years.

In June, Pegram received a call from Bob Carruthers, director of the Sandy Creek Baptist Association, telling him the owners of the building wanted to donate it to the Got Faith? Ministry.

The next day, Pegram said, he received a call from the Walmart in Jerseyville offering to donate 40 gallons of disinfectant cleaner.

That told me that this whole thing is from God, Pegram said. As soon as you walk in, there was a musty smell. Whats the odds of Walmart calling the day after you find out its got this kind of smell in it?

Pegram said the ministry has also received a fog machine from the Sandy Creek Baptist Association that uses a special disinfectant to kill various types of mold.

Theres 42 bedrooms in the building, and I had to do every one of them, he said.

The deed to the building was officially signed over to the ministry on Sept. 10. Pegram said the building will be named the Got Faith? Ministries Center. He said he is working with Shawn Williamson, a former pastor of the First Assembly of God in Jerseyville, to help with the buildings electrical wiring.

Pegrams plan for the building is to host various ministries and projects out of the site, such as a food pantry and counseling for teen pregnancy, drug and alcohol addiction. He also plans to turn the lobby area into a place where the people Pegram calls his curmunchkin friends can visit and play cards.

For the past two years, a portion of the building has been home to Resurrection Church. Pegram said he is working with the church on a Senior Box project which will provide boxes of food to seniors once a month in Jersey, Calhoun and Greene counties. He plans to have the program ready to go sometime in October.

Got Faith? Ministry celebrated its 10-year anniversary this year. In May, officials in both Jerseyville and Jersey County officially recognized the first weekends of May and August as Got Faith? Weekends.

The ministry has started popular charitable events such as its Feed And Inspire The Hungry Weekend with the Cans 4 Car Crusade and the Faith Fest Christian Music concert and shopping cart race. The group also presents the 500 Mens Breakfast: Faith, Food & Fellowship during the Jersey County Fair, as well as The Yard Sale in which people can purchase items with canned goods rather than money.

All food collected at Got Faith? events goes to Jersey County food pantries, such as the Salvation Army Food Pantry, Fieldon Food Pantry, First Fruits Ministry, Jerseyville Township Food Pantry, Charity Works and St. Vincent De Paul Food Pantry.

The ministry asks people to donate food items their own families would use. It also accepts financial donations mailed to Got Faith, 24400 State Highway 3, Dow, IL, 62022.
GRANITE CITY  Authorities have identified a Missouri man killed Wednesday morning on Interstate 270 near Granite City.

Herbert A. Veliz, 30, of Overland, Missouri, was killed in a three-vehicle accident at 6:09 a.m. Wednesday. Another driver, Nevan J. Wilson, 30, of Haelwood, Missouri, was taken by ambulance to an area hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

According to the Illinois State Police, Veliz was driving a 2002 Lexus RX east on I-270 at Milepost 3.4 in Madison County. For an unknown reason, his vehicle left the roadway to the left and went into the median, striking the ditch embankment, and then struck the front of a 2019 Freightliner semi driven by Wilson and a 2021 Freightliner semi driven by Brad R. Linder, 56, from Georgetown, Kentucky. Wilsons truck also struck Linders truck.

Linder declined medical attention.

The ISP Traffic Crash Reconstruction Unit is continuing the investigation.
MANILA, Philippines (AP)  Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte would rather die first before facing an international tribunal, his spokesman said Thursday, the day after the International Criminal Court announced it would investigate allegations of crimes against humanity during his bloody war on drugs.

Dutertes spokesman, Harry Roque, said the president was unfazed when hed informed him late Wednesday of the courts decision.

The president didnt have any reaction, because from the get go, he has said that hell die first before he faces any international courts, Roque told reporters.

If there are any complaints, they should file it here in the Philippines.

The court on Wednesday said it had authorized an investigation requested by former prosecutor Fatou Bensouda into Dutertes anti-drugs campaign, saying it could not be seen as a legitimate law enforcement operation.

More than 6,000 mostly poor drug suspects have been killed during the campaign, according to the government, but human rights groups say the death toll is considerably higher and should include many unsolved killings by motorcycle-riding gunmen who may have been deployed by police.

Duterte, who has cheered many of the deaths but denied condoning extrajudicial killings of drug suspects, is constitutionally prohibited from running for another term as president in elections next year. But he has announced he will run as vice president instead in a maneuver critics have said is an attempt to both maintain power and insulate himself from the ICC investigation, which has been expected.

Amnesty International's Secretary General Agnes Callamard said the ICC's announcement comes at a pivotal time and that human rights should be at the center of discussions when the Philippines chooses its next leaders.

No one is above the law, she said in a statement. "Dutertes government must immediately end the cycle of killings, remove those involved from the ranks of the police and bring all those suspected of criminal responsibility to trial.

Duterte's chief legal counsel, Salvador Panelo, alleged that the Netherlands-based international court was being utilized as a political and propaganda apparatus" by Duterte's political opponents.

While we expect that more theatrics will be employed by the detractors of the president as election season draws near, this blatant and brazen interference and assault on our sovereignty as an independent country by the ICC is condemnable, he said in a written statement.

In her 57-page request, a partially redacted version of which the court released to the public, Bensouda argued that Duterte's aggressive approach and bellicose rhetoric toward drug traffickers had already taken shape when he served as mayor of Davao City, before he was elected president in 2016.

Throughout his tenure as mayor, a central force of his efforts was fighting crime and drug use, earning him the nicknames The Punisher and Duterte Harry for the violent manner in which he sought to combat crime," Bensouda wrote.

On multiple occasions, Duterte publicly supported and encouraged the killing of petty criminals and drug dealers in Davao City.

She dismissed the contention by Philippine authorities that deaths in the war on drugs resulted from police acting in self defense, noting that statements by some public officials suggest that they considered the killings an achievement and an integral component of the campaign, and that they were encouraged by Duterte as president.

Duterte praised the increasing number of police killings as proof of the success of his war on drugs, she argued, adding that Duterte made public statements encouraging security forces to kill drug suspects, regardless of the level of threat.

The investigation will look at killings that took place during some of the time Duterte was mayor, and during his time as president between July 1, 2016 and March 16, 2019, the date the Philippines withdrew from the court.

Panelo, the presidential legal counsel, argued that if the court wanted to investigate it should have done so while the Philippines was a member of the ICC, and that now it has no jurisdiction.

Last year, the court decided not to pursue an investigation into crimes allegedly committed by China against Uyghur and other minorities there, saying it did not have jurisdiction over non-members. The United States and Russia are other notable non-members of the ICC.

But Carlos Conde, senior Philippine researcher for Human Rights Watch, said by focusing on the years that the country was still a member of the court, the ICC is well within its rights to investigate Duterte's actions.

He told reporters in Manila that Duterte's run for vice president does not in any way afford him immunity from suit or investigation by the ICC.

"He will of course try everything in his power to frustrate the ICC from doing its job and its mandate, Conde said.

___

Rising reported from Bangkok
BRUSSELS (AP)  Human rights and refugee groups appealed Thursday to the European Union to step up its help for people trying to flee Afghanistan, accusing the bloc of failing to do enough to assist those living in fear of Taliban rule.

More than 100,000 people were airlifted out of Kabul in a chaotic exodus late last month after President Joe Biden announced that U.S. troops would withdraw, and the Taliban seized control of strife-torn Afghanistan in just a few weeks. Thousands more Afghans want to leave.

In new figures released Thursday, the EUs asylum agency said that asylum applications by Afghans numbered 7,300 in July  before the government fell  a 21% increase over June and the fifth consecutive monthly rise. Almost 1,200 were unaccompanied minors, EASO reported. More than half of asylum applications by Afghans in Europe are rejected.

The EU should be sharing, rather than shirking, the responsibility to offer them protection, the 24 non-governmental organizations, including Amnesty International, Caritas Europa, the International Rescue Committee, Oxfam, and the Red Cross, said in a statement.

The groups warned that 18 million people are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan, nearly half the population. More than 630,000 people have been forced from their homes so far this year due to violence and drought.

There was no immediate reaction from the European Union.

Despite the rise in asylum applications, the EU faces no imminent challenge from the arrival of thousands of Afghan refugees, top European officials say. Most Afghans are sheltering in neighboring Iran and Pakistan, and to a lesser extent in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

Still, that hasnt stopped some European governments sounding the alarm amid deep concern of a repeat of events of 2015, when well over 1 million people entered Europe, most of them fleeing conflict in Syria, sparking one of the EUs deepest political crises.

We regret the misleading and alarmist rhetoric expressed by some European leaders in the past weeks, the groups said. They said such talk may raise barriers to refugees integration and inclusion in European societies and that it could stoke fears about a non-existent crisis at Europes borders.

They called on the EU to set up safe pathways for Afghans in need of protection and the establishment of an ambitious resettlement program in Europe for people already sheltering in Iran and Pakistan.
EDWARDSVILLE  Two people have been charged with battery stemming from an incident at the Watershed Nature Center in Edwardsville July 22.

Lia N. Greenlee, 18, of Glen Carbon; and Jessica A. Watson, 40, of Granite City, were each charged Sept. 15 with aggravated battery, Class 3 felonies.

The cases were presented by the Edwardsville Police Department.

According to court documents, on July 22 Greenlee allegedly sprayed two juveniles with pepper spray and Watson punched one of them.

Bail was set at $20,000 each.

Other felony charges filed Sept. 15 by the Madison County States Attorneys Office include:

 Travis Hall, 37, of St. Louis, was charged with unlawful possession of weapons by a felon, a Class 3 felony, and unlawful possession of a controlled substance, a Class 4 felony. The case was presented by the Glen Carbon Police Department. On May 31 Hall allegedly was found to be in possession of a Glock Model 48 9 mm handgun and less than 15 grams of heroin. He has a Missouri 2009 conviction for distribution of controlled substance, making him ineligible to possess weapons. Bail was set at $40,000.

 Thomas V. Campbell, 36, of St. Louis, was charged with unlawful possession of weapons by a felon, a Class 3 felony. The case was presented by the Madison County Sheriffs Department. On Sept. 14 Campbell allegedly was found to be in possession of a .40 caliber Smith & Wesson SD 40 handgun. He has a 2012 Missouri conviction for felony driving while revoked, making him ineligible to possess weapons. Bail was set at $40,000.
EDWARDSVILLE  Two people were charged Wednesday in separate motor vehicle theft cases by the Madison County States Attorneys Office.

Brett M. Allen, 24, of Bethalto, was charged Sept. 15 with offenses relating to motor vehicles, a Class 2 felony.

The case was presented by the Glen Carbon Police Department.

According to court documents, on Aug. 4 Allen allegedly was found to be in possession of a stolen 1997 Ford F-150. Bail was set at $40,000.

In a separate case, Justin M. Reinkenmeier, 36, of Nashville, Illinois, was charged with offenses relating to motor vehicles, a Class 2 felony.

The case was presented by the Highland Police Department.

According to court documents, on Aug. 1 Reinkenmeier allegedly was found to be in possession of a stolen 2012 Yamaha FZ1 motorcycle. Bail was set at $60,000.

Other felony charges filed Sept. 15 include:

 Larry D. Payton, 50, listed as homeless out of Edwardsville, was charged with theft over $500, a Class 3 felony. The case was presented by the Edwardsville Police Department. On Aug. 23 Payton allegedly took a wallet containing more than $800 cash, debit and social security cards, and drivers license, from another person. Bail was set at $25,000.

 Zachary B. Watson, 26, of Bethalto, was charged with theft over $500, a Class 3 felony. The case was presented by the East Alton Police Department. On July 8 Watson allegedlytook approximately $1,800 from another person as part of a building repair contract and failed to complete the repairs. Bail was set at $50,000.

 Linsey A. Bell, 29, and Derek E. Hall, 37, both of same East Alton address, were both charged with criminal damage to government supported property, both Class 4 felonies. The cases were presented by the East Alton Police Department. On Sept. 1 the two allegedly damaged the door of an apartment at Township Village Apartments, 617 Valley, East Alton. Bail was set at $40,000 each.

 George Garcia, 18, of Collinsville, was charged with aggravated fleeing or attempting to elude a police officer, a Class 4 felony. The case was presented by the Madison County Sheriffs Department. On Sept. 14 Garcia allegedly was driving a 1997 Dodge Ram when he tried to flee from a Madison County sheriffs deputy, reaching speeds in excess of 21 miles above the posted speed limit. Bail was set at $25,000.
WASHINGTON (AP)  The Biden administration is considering requiring vaccinations against COVID-19 and contact tracing of international visitors after the U.S. revamps current broad restrictions that bar many foreigners from traveling to the U.S., a top White House adviser said Wednesday.

Jeffrey Zients, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, said that because of the recent increase in COVID-19 cases, current travel restrictions will remain in place until the administration rolls out a new system for regulating international travel.

The system will include a prominent role for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

We will also be putting in place contact tracing to enable CDC to follow up with inbound international travelers and those around them if someone has potentially been exposed to COVID-19, Zients said, and we are exploring vaccination requirements for foreign nationals traveling to the United States.

Zients made the comments to a panel that advises Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo on issues around travel and the U.S. tourism industry.

The U.S. currently bars most non-Americans who have traveled to China, India, the United Kingdom, most of Europe, Brazil and other countries in the previous 14 days. Airlines and other travel companies have pushed the administration to ease the restrictions, particularly on U.K. visitors.

Separately, Anthony Fauci, the government's top expert on infectious disease, has said he would support a proposal to require vaccination for people on domestic flights.

The airline industry is adamantly opposed to such a requirement, saying it would be difficult to enforce and could lead to long lines at airports. Industry officials say it would be unfair to single out air travelers with a mandate that would not affect people who travel by train, bus or car.
Westerly, RI (02891)

Today

Cloudy skies early, then off and on rain showers overnight. Low 64F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%..

Tonight

Cloudy skies early, then off and on rain showers overnight. Low 64F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%.
Cigarette giant Philip Morris International's (PMI) controversial takeover of Vectura has gone ahead after it secured nearly three-quarters of the inhaler maker's shares.

PMI confirmed this morning that its offer for the FTSE 250 company had now received approval from investors representing 74.8 per cent of Vectura shares.

Having already bought a 29.6 per cent stake in the group last month, the Marlboro brand owner said it earned the thumbs up from shareholders who own another 45.6 per cent of Vectura shares.

Going ahead: Philip Morris confirmed this morning that its offer for the FTSE 250 company had now received approval from investors owning 74.8 per cent of Vectura shares

This means the business surpassed the 50 per cent threshold for the deal to be accepted, and the offer became 'unconditional,' meaning that shareholders cannot prevent the transaction from going ahead. But it is just short of the 75 per cent required to delist Vectura from the London Stock Exchange.

An initial deal to buy the Chippenham-based firm worth 852million was agreed in July, which exceeded a previous takeover bid in May from private equity house Carlyle Group.

Four weeks later, though, the takeover battle heated up when Carlyle had a 155p per share offer accepted by Vectura's board. PMI then reacted less than 48 hours later with a 165p per share offer.

The Takeover Panel subsequently decided to put Vectura up for auction. But with under half an hour before the deadline to submit bids ended, Carlyle withdrew from the process and Vectura's directors told investors to back the PMI offer.

Many healthcare organisations have voiced fervent opposition to the PMI deal due to the considerable harms caused by tobacco smoking and the ethical implications of a tobacco company profiting from selling products used to treat illnesses exacerbated by smoking.

There are additional concerns that future research for the firm could be hit, with several universities having rules that block them from taking funding from cigarette businesses and their subsidiaries.

Controversial: Many healthcare organisations have voiced fervent opposition to the Vectura's takeover by Philip Morris due to the considerable harms caused by tobacco smoking

Asthma UK's boss Sarah Woolnough has tweeted: 'By accepting a takeover bid from big tobacco firm PMI, Vectura has sold out millions of people living with lung disease & chosen to prioritise short-term financial gain over people's health.

Woolnough is one of 35 individuals from academia, charities and healthcare bodies who have signed a letter today addressed to Public Health Minister Jo Churchill expressing their concerns about the deal.

The group, which includes the heads of Cancer Research UK and the Royal Society for Public Health, said the deal was not in the public interest and creates 'perverse incentives' for PMI.

It also noted that PMI had been involved in several scandals in recent years, such as accusations of running marketing campaigns targeting children and complicity with tobacco smugglers that led to a $1.25billion settlement with the European Union.

Transition: Though famous for owning the Marlboro brand of cigarettes, Philip Morris is aiming to earn at least $1billion in sales from 'Beyond Nicotine' products by 2025

The letter said: 'PMI and other tobacco companies have a long history of subverting tobacco control policies for their own financial gain and of research manipulation, and concerns have been raised that such conduct may be ongoing with irregularities reported in their recent clinical studies.

'For these reasons, we have strongly opposed the takeover from the beginning.'

PMI has repeatedly insisted that its long-term strategy has been to move away from tobacco-based products, and is aiming to earn half of revenues from smoke-free products and at least $1billion in sales from its 'Beyond Nicotine' products by 2025.

Chief executive Jacek Olczak recently told the Mail on Sunday that it aims to stop selling cigarettes in the UK in the next decade and had even considered selling its Marlboro business, thereby exiting the cigarettes industry.

He said the firm, which still sells over 700 million cigarettes every year, decided against the latter move in order to invest in its wellness products.

Danni Hewson, a financial analyst at AJ Bell, described PMI's purchase of Vectura as an 'uncomfortable prospect' that has 'posed difficult questions and many people wont like the answer thats been delivered.'

She added: 'But there is precedent, the world expects big oil to use their deep pockets to transform global energy strategies, from a purely pragmatic perspective shouldnt we embrace the same ethos in this situation.

'Phillip Morris isnt ignoring the elephant; its making us all take a long hard look. Discomfort is good, it tends to deliver change, but care must be taken that the promised change does come and there no detours on the journey.'

Shares in Vectura closed trading 0.3 per cent higher at 164.9p on Thursday.
British science pioneer Oxford Nanopore has revealed it will seek to raise approximately 300million from its London listing, which it confirmed last week.

The biotech innovator - which was held by fallen star fund manager Neil Woodford and ditched in his fund's fire sale - said it is targeting a free float of at least 25 per cent of its issued share capital, prior to a secondary offer to be sold by certain existing shareholders.

Oxford Nanopore confirmed its intention to list last week with a reported valuation of 4billion, a figure that would net top executives a combined fortune of 150million.

Oxford Nanopore's products can sequence genetic information in real time

The firm sells and develops nanopore sequencing products, which enable direct, real-time analysis of long DNA or RNA fragments.

At the moment it is loss-making, and does not expect to break even for at least another five years due to continuing heavy investment in research and development, reporting a loss of 73.2m in 2020 after revenues of 113.9m.

Oxford Nanopore said it is in its early stages of what is possible and its London floatation will position the business for the next stage of its development and support its ambitious growth plans.

It added that listing would further raise the profile of the company, provide a more permanent capital structure and wider capital raising capabilities, and improve its talent pipeline.

The listing will also create a liquid market in the shares for existing and future shareholders, the firm said.

Oxford Nanopore also revealed a partnership agreement with software firm Oracle Corporation, which has agreed to subscribe for 150million of new shares in the firm.

The firm confirmed its intention to list last week with analysts predicting a valuation of 4bn

The deal will see the two companies explore a number of potential new solutions to address opportunities in the applied and clinical markets, and related go-to-market strategies.

The collaboration is intended to draw on the group's strengths in sequencing and genetic analysis, together with Oracle's strengths in database and cloud technologies, Oxford Nanopore said.

Oxford Nanopore made headlines in the financial press for its association to former star fund manager Neil Woodford, with the biotech business representing one of the unlisted holdings that helped worsen the spiralling liquidity crisis that lead to the collapse of Woodford Equity Income.

Woodfords Oxford Nanopore stake was ultimately offloaded by Link Fund Solutions to Acacia Research Corporation in a 220million fire sale of a 19-strong portfolio of healthcare stocks.
Online fashion brand Asos has pledged to become net zero across its supply chain by 2030 as part of plans to become a more socially responsible company.

The group has launched a new phase of its 'fashion with integrity' strategy, which includes goals to improve product circularity, transparency within its supply chain and the representation of women and minorities, among other missions.

By the end of the decade, it said it wants all its own-brand products made from either recycled or more sustainable and so-called Scope 1 and 2 emissions cut by 87 per cent per order against 2018/19 levels.

Ambitious targets: By the end of the decade, Asos said it wants so-called Scope 1 and 2 emissions cut by 87 per cent for an average order against 2018/19 levels

Scope 1 emissions concern greenhouse gas emissions emanating from the operations that the company directly controls; Scope 2 emissions refer to the electricity purchased by the business that is used to power those operations.

In addition, the Topshop and Miss Selfridge owner has set targets to cut emissions from both transportation and its own-brand goods by 58 per cent for every pound of profit it makes by 2030.

Diversity forms another core element of the programme. Women should hold at least half of senior roles and comprise a minimum of 40 per cent of engineering, product and science positions, the group stated.

Like Primark, which produced a similar plan yesterday, Asos must overhaul operations in Asia, Europe, the US and elsewhere without threatening the ultra-low prices or rapid delivery times that have won over an army of young shoppers.

The new mission statements follow calls from shareholders, governments and socially aware customers for companies to identify their environmental impact and then cut the use of water and chemicals and reduce the millions of tonnes of throw-away clothing that end up in landfills.

Asos said all third-party brands must sign up by 2025 to the Transparency Pledge, a commitment by apparel firms to publish all the sites that make its goods, who owns the sites, what products are made and the number of staff at each facility.

Important message: Asos chief executive Nick Beighton has said: 'The responsibility for a sustainable future lies with all of us, and businesses must lead the way'

Before then, it will start publishing a yearly human rights strategy and 'implementation reports' that centre on topics like modern slavery, wages and gender empowerment to be reviewed by outside parties.

Chief executive Nick Beighton said: 'The responsibility for a sustainable future lies with all of us, and businesses must lead the way.

'We will make sure we deliver products and brands that allow our customers to shop ethically and responsibly, safe in the knowledge that they are reducing their impact on the planet and contributing to a fairer world.

'We undertake the next step of our FWI journey confident that what we are doing is right for the planet, right for our people, right for our customers and will underpin our ambitious growth plans.'

Open promise: Asos said all third-party brands must commit by 2025 to the Transparency Pledge, a commitment by apparel firms to publish all the sites that make its goods

The fast-fashion industry, which has been turbocharged by online ordering and instant delivery, has come under fire for causing an estimated 10 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions.

Worker conditions in the textile industry have also come under the spotlight since the 2013 collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh that killed more than 1,000 workers.

Many environmental campaigners are sceptical about green pledges from major brands, believing they do not fit with a sector that churns out items for little more than a few pounds.

Asos sells more than 85,000 products in 200 markets.

But Beighton said he remained proud of the industry because it brings people confidence and joy and employs millions.

Shares in Asos closed trading 0.5 per cent lower at 30.50 on Thursday. They have fallen by more than a third since the start of the year.
Philip Morris has sealed a controversial 1billion buyout of asthma inhaler maker Vectura despite a furious backlash from health experts.

Almost 75 per cent of Vecturas shareholders backed the Marlboro Mans takeover  throwing into question the Citys repeated commitments to ethical investing.

The tobacco giant  whose brands include Marlboro, Chesterfield and Parliament  has said the tie-up with the Wiltshire-based firm would help it transform into a broader healthcare and wellness company.

'Healthcare and wellness': Philip Morris - whose brands include Marlboro, Chesterfield and Parliament - has defied health experts to seal a 1bn buyout of asthma inhaler maker Vectura

But health specialists and politicians have vigorously campaigned against the deal  branding it unethical and saying it could kill the company.

They raised concerns that Vectura could be frozen out of academic studies and conferences if it was owned by a cigarette maker.

Philip Morris had spent months competing with private equity giant Carlyle  with both putting forward multiple takeover bids  before Vecturas board backed the tobacco titan last month.

The deal has thrown a spotlight on how far City promises to only invest in companies with good environmental, social and governance credentials actually go.

Investors including Legal & General backed the deal. L&G said it was the optimal result for our clients, investors and the futures of both companies.

Danni Hewson, AJ Bell financial analyst, said the takeover had been uncomfortable.

Hewson said: Despite the ethical outcry, Vectura shareholders have succumbed to Big Tobaccos big pockets.

However good Philip Morriss intentions, the bottom line is with this acquisition its playing both sides, making money from tobacco which makes people sick and inhalers which help them feel better.

Philip Morris boss Jacek Olczak says the Vectura buyout is crucial to the companys Beyond Nicotine plan to move away from being a tobacco seller  and the group has said it intends to stop selling cigarettes in the UK within the next ten years.

Some have argued that Philip Morris  with billions of pounds at its disposal  is a logical buyer as it has huge funds at its disposal and is already ploughing money into non-tobacco products such as e-cigarettes. It intends to generate at least 725million a year from these lines by 2025.

But charities said Vectura had sold out millions of people with lung disease.

The FTSE 250-listed firm is one of the UKs leading science companies. It makes inhalers and nebulisers  but also works with top drug companies such as Hikma and Glaxosmithkline to convert their medicines into powders that can be inhaled.

The company was founded in 1997 by students from the University of Bath and joined the stock market in 2004.

A coalition of 35 charities, clinicians and health specialists, including Dr Andrew Goddard, president of the Royal College of Physicians and Michelle Mitchell, head of Cancer Research UK, have written to health minister Jo Churchill urging the Government to block the deal.

Sarah Woolnough, chief executive of Asthma UK and the British Lung Foundation, said: Vectura has sold out millions of people with lung disease.

She added the firm is now owned by a tobacco company, and this could cause considerable problems, such as the firm being excluded from research and clinical networks.

Labour health spokesman Jonathan Ashworth branded the Philip Morris deal a disgrace.

Lord Sikka, who advised MPs on audit reform, said: The company is disabling millions of people by selling tobacco products to make profits.

Then it makes more money by selling asthma drugs. What next  go into funeral business?
One of the worlds richest men has thrown his weight behind British biotechnology star Oxford Nanopore.

American billionaire Larry Ellison has committed to invest 150million in the company when it floats on the stock market in London next month.

The investment will be made through 77-year-old Ellisons cloud computing business Oracle Corporation.

Backing: American billionaire Larry Ellison has committed to invest 150m in Oxford Nanopore when it floats on the stock market in London next month

Oxford Nanopore makes so-called DNA sequencing technology, which allows experts to read the information stored in cells and identify changes which may cause disease.

The company could be worth as much as 4billion when it lists in London though the price has not yet been decided.

Who is Larry Ellison? Technology entrepreneur Larry Ellison is the ninth-richest man in the world, according to the Bloomberg Billionares Index. The 77-year-old, who was born in New York City and given by his single mother to her aunt and uncle for adoption, has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on anti-ageing research and once said that death never made any sense to me. Ellison has been married and divorced four times, and has a penchant for boats.

That would net its British academic founders  chief executive Gordon Sanghera, 60, business development chief Spike Willcocks, 45, and Hagan Bayley, 70  a combined paper fortune of 150million.

So far, the business has sold its technology mainly to researchers. But its bosses think there is a huge opportunity for the service to be put to more practical uses, helping doctors to diagnose patients and sewage companies to analyse the quality of their water.

Oracle, founded by Ellison in 1977, is planning to work with Oxford Nanopore to combine some of their services.

Mike Sicilia, an executive vice president at Oracle, said: Oxford Nanopores innovative sequencing technology is unparalleled in the market.

Oxford Nanopore plans to raise 300million by selling new shares in its float next month, and some of its existing investors will also sell down their stakes.

Current backers include Acacia Research Corporation, the US investor which snapped up a stake of around 6 per cent from Neil Woodfords doomed Equity Income fund.
Australia will build eight nuclear-powered submarines under an Indo-Pacific security partnership with the United States and Britain that analysts say will likely rile China, which denounced the creation of blocs intent on harming others.

Australia will be only the second country after Britain in 1958 to be given access to U.S. nuclear technology to build nuclear-powered submarines.

Our world is becoming more complex, especially here in our region, the Indo-Pacific, said Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

To meet these challenges, to help deliver the security and stability our region needs, we must now take our partnership to a new level.

In announcing the new security group on Wednesday, the leaders of the United States, Australia and Britain did not mention China, but Washington and its allies are seeking to push back against its growing power and influence, particularly its military buildup, pressure on Taiwan and deployments in the contested South China Sea.

Chinas U.S. embassy said that countries should not build exclusionary blocs targeting or harming the interests of third parties.

In particular, they should shake off their Cold-War mentality and ideological prejudice, it said.

The trilateral pact, including access to U.S. nuclear submarine technology, will be seen in Beijing as a threat, said Asia Society Policy Institute senior fellow Richard Maude.

China will see the suit of announcements today as further evidence of a strengthening coalition to balance its power. It will object, but its own assertive and uncompromising behaviour is driving these new alignments.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern welcomed the focus on the Indo-Pacific but said Australias new nuclear-powered submarines would not be allowed in its territorial waters under a long-standing nuclear free policy.

I am pleased to see that the eye has been turned to our region from partners we work closely with. Its a contested region and there is a role that others can play in taking an interest in our region, Ardern said at a news conference.

Singapore said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told Morrison in a phone call that Singapore had long-standing relations with Australia, Britain and the United States, and hoped the new grouping would contribute constructively to the peace and stability of the region and complement the regional architecture.

Morrison also called leaders in Japan, New Zealand and India.

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said Japan would cooperate with the Quad grouping of the United States, Australia and India, as well as Southeast Asias ASEAN grouping and Europe, to achieve a free and open Indo-Pacific.

The strengthening of security and defence cooperation among the United States, Britain and Australia is important for the peace and security of the Indo-Pacific region, he said in a regular news conference.

SHOT ACROSS BOW

Morrison said Australia would scrap a $40 billion deal with France to develop conventional submarines to replace its ageing Collins-class fleet and negotiate over 18 months with the United States and Britain to build eight nuclear powered submarines.

Australia has no plans to acquire nuclear weapons and this proposal will remain consistent with Australias longstanding commitment to nuclear non-proliferation, he said.

Nuclear-powered submarines can spend longer underwater, allowing for stealth in potential flashpoint areas with China such as the South China Sea, security analysts said.

Beijing will certainly interpret the new subs as a shot across Chinas bow, Bates Gill, head of Asia-Pacific Security Studies at Macquarie University, told Reuters.

Like the recently announced plan to acquire long-range anti-ship missiles, this move is intended to deter hostile maritime forces from approaching Australia. China is currently the only country that could pose that kind of threat to Australia, Gill said.

Australia will also enhance its long-range strike capability with Tomahawk cruise missiles deployed on naval destroyers and air-to-surface missiles for its FA-18 Hornet jets.

The submarine decision reflects growing concern in the government about Chinas military build-up, future intentions in the region and willingness to use coercion, said Maude.

The trilateral security pact could worsen Australias strained trade ties with its biggest export customer China but its insatiable appetite for resources may limit its punitive responses, say analysts.

China has in recent years imposed hefty tariffs and restrictions on Australian exports of items including wine, beef and barley, and outright banned coal imports to express its anger over Australias foreign policies.

Morrison will travel to Washington this month to meet leaders of the Quad, a group that has also been criticised by China, to discuss security.

SOURCE: REUTERS
The latest in New York politics This article was featured in the Capitol Confidential newsletter. Sign up here to get it each morning.

Partisan gridlock over setting New York's election districts? Oh, yeah. Facing a deadline to release a single map proposing New Yorks congressional and state legislative district lines for the next decade, a 10-member 'bipartisan' panel split along party lines and issued two plans. (TU)

Employees and children in New York's state-regulated day care centers will be required to immediately resume wearing masks as COVID-19 spread among children has been a cause for concern across the nation, Gov. Kathy Hochul said Wednesday. (TU)
Orange, yellow and green permeate these environs. Theyre the virgin cocktails inked with turmeric, mango and basil. They are kaleidoscopic plates of Afro Caribbean-inspired street food, Ethiopian injera plates and spiced stews. They are the bright interior where tangerine napkins pop against teal and emerald chairs and the browns and blues of large canvas art by Obaro Ene, a locally based Nigerian-American painter, teacher and hula-hooping artist, anchor the walls. This is the second act for Umana Restaurant and Wine Bar in its new Central Avenue location (the former New Scotland Antiques) just two doors from where it was before.

Umana Yana is named for a famed thatched communal meeting place in owner Dale Davidsons homeland of Guyana. Here on Central Avenue, where storefronts are more often filled with posters and deals, its brightly lit picture windows stand out as a transparent, warm invitation. On a warm night, orange chairs and napkins brighten the sidewalk while plants hanging in the windows add flashes of leafy green. When a sudden downpour sends staff hurriedly out to gather things in, punched-metal lampshades glitter fractured light and bulbs slung from awning to sidewalk trees emit a fuzzy glow.

The warmth is apparent the second you walk in. Staff in shorts and tees cheer friendly welcomes from behind the island bar and explain theyre still awaiting the transfer of a wine bar license to the new location. My predecessor raved about a muscat-like South African wine made from bukettraube grapes and a smoky, oaky 2012 pinotage back in 2014, but were not dismayed by its absence: Housemade sorrel tea and ginger beer deliver a Caribbean lilt; virgin potions include a No-jito with fresh muddled basil, lemon and allspice syrup and a mango mint refresher with peppercorn syrup and pink salt rim. Should you need to unwind, you can add a coconut CBD boost for $3.

Besides the reopening, Im here for Ethiopian injera. In the absence of any Ethiopian restaurants for miles around, Umana is the place for classic spongy, teff-fermented crepes with which to pick up the berbere-seasoned meats and salads layered on top in a colorful spread. Previously offered weekly, injera plates are now on the menu nightly so you can switch between fragrant stewed chicken doro wat, fish asa wat  a spicy stew lit with jalapeno, ginger, coriander, cumin and allspice  or tofu yetsom beyaynetu, a spread of vegan sides. I try to recall the names from trips to Philly where Ethiopian restaurants abound: Atkilt, a cabbage and potato dish is here alongside misir wat (lentil stew) and a smoky eggplant dip thats an Ethiopian version of baba ganoush. Theres braised kale with peppers, a jumble of fresh cucumber and tomatoes to cool things off and, finally, a sunny-side-up fried egg flopped on top.

If injera was the goal as a classic dish to communally tear and share, its by no means the only treat. Frenched, jerk-seasoned lamb lollipops are bright with pineapple mint sauce, the temp a perfect medium rare for soft lollipop bites. Fluffy yucca-scallion puffs smashed with Indian spices and rolled into cigar-shaped crisps have the spice profile of samosas amplified by mango chutney and tamarind jam.

As Afro beats fill the air, customers venture in to sit at the bar while a thunderstorm rages outside. Were working through a stew of slow-roasted goat, pulling meat from cleaved bones, savoring notes of basil and ginger, forking up mouthfuls of tomatoey African jollof rice and sliding crisp, marinated tofu from skewers slathered in red curry sauce.

Our pace slows and a server swings by to offer pineapple bread pudding or flourless chocolate ganache cake  both too rich for full bellies. We relent and share a squidgy coconut cinnamon square served warm with soon-melting vegan ice cream.

Umana Yana is little changed in ideology: Funky and warm, with a slim mix of Afro-Caribbean plates. Though none stray far from hearty stews and snacks, the popular Sunday brunch is back with vegan scrambles, crispy johnnycakes and sorrel jam, or pina colada challah French toast. For now, Umana is a welcoming space to eat, but when its wine list is back, its new location slightly closer to Lark Street will surely cement it as a meeting place of the people, as Davidson clearly intends.
Counties across New York are settling legal claims with opioid manufacturer Johnson & Johnson and three drug distributors as part of statewide settlements announced by state Attorney General Letitia James this summer. Now, Hudson Valley counties are getting estimates of their share of the funds they could receive if they settle.

As a whole, the region could see at least $5.4 million in initial payouts from Johnson & Johnson, and millions more from big three drug distributors McKesson Corporation, Cardinal Health Inc., and Amerisource Bergen Drug Corporation, who will deliver up to $1.1 billion statewide.

Sullivan County  home of the states highest death rate per capita from drug overdoses, according to county Commissioner of Health and Family Services John Liddle  is hoping to receive up to $2 million but has so far been guaranteed a base amount of $583,115 from the Johnson & Johnson settlement, which could arrive as early as February 2022.

This is public enemy number one for us in Sullivan County, said Liddle of the opioid crisis there.

The county plans to use the funding to invest more in ongoing initiatives like emergency mental health support for the community, counselors, pre-arrest aversion programs, and more.

A separate settlement against drug distributors McKesson, Cardinal Health and Amerisource Bergen will also yield more money for New York counties. Sullivan is set to receive a guaranteed payout of $292,785 from that settlement, and potentially close to $5 million.

Payments to each county depend upon a number of circumstances, including how many of the states municipalities accept the settlement and choose to forego future ligation. The more localities that sign on, the higher the amount each county will receive because there will be less remaining legal exposure for Johnson & Johnson, and subsequently, the three drug distributors.

Payouts are also based on factors related to the opioid epidemic, such as addiction rates, expenditures and more. In the Hudson Valley, the opioid epidemic was responsible for over 300 deaths in 2020, mainly in more heavily populated Dutchess and Orange counties, according to the New York State Department of Health. (Sullivan Countys population is five times smaller than Orange Countys, but had almost half as many opioid overdose deaths.)

Orange County in Lower Hudson Valley announced that it could potentially receive as much as $3,016,936 just from the Johnson & Johnson settlement, with a guaranteed minimum payment of $1,292,727. Opioids have been cited as the cause of 69 deaths in the county so far this year.

The county says it would use funding for mental health and addiction programs and preventative efforts. Additionally, Darcie Miller, the countys Commissioner of Mental Health and Social Services, said they could potentially use a portion of the payouts to alleviate the burden of residents incurred treatment costs.

I was on the phone with someone at the end of last week, who her family plan for her insurance had a $13,000 deductible, said Miller. In recovery from opioid addiction, [one] could not afford treatment with that kind of deductible.

Dutchess County is scheduled to receive $2,547,844 over nine years, officials there confirmed, while Ulster County could receive up to $1,432,362, with a minimum guaranteed payment of $613,753.

Columbia County will receive between $165,665 and $381,958 from the Johnson & Johnson settlement. Greene County could get anywhere from $197,000 to $461,000, according to County Attorney Edward Kaplan, an amount that he called not earth-shattering.

However, Kaplan was enthused by the variety of programs the money could be used for, including medication-assisted treatment, abstinence treatment, expanded telecare and transportation to addiction services.

Its the entire gamut of addition related services, he said. Its deep and its global, and in my humble opinion, its not a Band-Aid. Its really working towards the stabilization of a crisis, he said.

How soon Johnson & Johnson payments will reach counties

James announced earlier this summer that Johnson & Johnson will deliver up to $230 million to New York state as part of its $5 billion settlement resolving claims that the drugmaker was responsible for fueling the countrys deadly opioid epidemic.

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Across the state, excluding New York City, there were 5,975 opioid overdoses requiring outpatient emergency department visits, and 1,564 opioid overdose hospitalizations last year, which was up from 2019, potentially due to the COVID-19 pandemics disruption of normal drug treatment and prevention efforts.

James claimed that Johnson & Johnson, the parent company of Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc., helped fuel the opioid epidemic. Substantial payments from the settlement, estimated to be paid to New York State as soon as February 2022, will be made upfront, with additional payments allocated over nine years.

While no amount of money will ever compensate for the thousands who lost their lives or became addicted to opioids across our state or provide solace to the countless families torn apart by this crisis, these funds will be used to prevent any future devastation, James said in a press release from the announcement of the settlement in June.

More money still to come from the opioid settlement

The Johnson & Johnson settlement is the result of a lawsuit filed by the attorney generals office in March 2019 against six national prescription opioid manufacturers; the Sackler Family, who own OxyContin manufacturer Purdue Pharma; and four national prescription drug distributors.

Johnson & Johnson was the first company to reach a settlement with the Attorney Generals Office, but the $230 million deal represents a fraction of the total funding New York is set to receive as other defendants in the suit begin to settle.

Along with the $1.1 billion coming from the "big three" drug distributors, three other settlements have been reached in the suit. The state is set to receive $200 million from Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family; $50 million from Endo Health Solutions; and $32 million from McKinsey & Company.

As settlements from the opioid industry began nearing fruition this summer, the state legislature voted unanimously in June to direct the money from settlements into an Opioid Settlement Fund. This money can only be used to fight the epidemic and cannot supplant or replace existing state spending on drug prevention and treatment.

Money from the fund will be distributed by the legislature with the advice of the Opioid Settlement Board, a 19-member panel that will include appointees by the Governor, counties, and the legislature.

Members of the board serve for three years and will be charged with earmarking the settlements. The Attorney General's Office declined to comment on how payments to counties have been calculated before all the numbers are finalized.
While the western and southern Catskills have seen a surge of new hotels to accommodate the latest generation of NYC tourists, the northern Catskills of Greene County is riding the same wave of enthusiasm for easy, driving distance escapes.

The push out of New York City to get into the great outdoors, and the messaging that the Hudson Valley and the Catskills have open spaces that allow people to enjoy the summer without being among a lot of people during the pandemic has helped, said Heather Bagshaw, Greene County tourism director, speaking about the renewed interest in the region.

To accommodate the tourism influx, multiple hotels in the countys mountain towns are reopening under new ownership. One small hotel chain, Wylder Hotels, which has properties near Lake Tahoe and on an island in the Chesapeake Bay, plans to reopen the former Thompson House Resort in Windham in the spring 2022 after it completes its updates.

Founder and CEO of Wylder Hotels John Flannigan wasnt necessarily looking to expand to the Catskills, but he fell in love with the Windham property, which is not far from where he grew up in Rochester.

I look for hotels that are in amazing locations that have adventure in or around them, said Flannigan, noting that his other hotels did well during the pandemic precisely because of their emphasis on nature.

We encourage people to get outdoors  were adventure based.

Being in the outdoors with the backdrops of the mountain top is huge and unique, adds Bagshaw, who points to new boutique hotels in the area that incorporate the natural surroundings into their aesthetic. For example, Piaule is set in a forest setting and their unique cabins have one wall that is a complete window, she noted.

Unlike Piaule, though, the forthcoming Wylder property and other new Greene County hotels are revamping older accommodations.

Buying the resorts and renovating them [has] created a whole new vibe up here of an economic driver and the investment in different properties. We're very lucky in our community that this is happening, said Bagshaw.

Here are a few to book now or look forward to come spring.

Hotel Mountain Brook

Hotel Mountain Brook

Located a block from Main Street in Tannersville, this Adirondacks-style inn has new owners, Travis and Azie Shelhorse of {verdigreen} hotels, a mom-and-pop boutique who also own the Twin Gables B&B in Woodstock. Theyve completed their first round of renovations, including two private cabins (The Rose and The Raven) and the three-bedroom suite (Many Trails Lodge). The dining room and lobby have been updated for a more modern rustic vibe, and the old library has been transformed into a Choose Your Own Adventure room with books to borrow, movies to rent, popcorn and candy, and games such as shuffleboard and foosball. The remaining updates are on hold until winter. Portions of the proceeds from their Many Trails Lodge were donated to the Stockbridge Mohican community, the original stewards of the land the hotel was built upon.

Hotel Mountain Brook, 57 Route 23C (Hill Street), Tannersville

Washington Irving Inn

Washington Irving Inn

The Washington Irving Inn, a beautiful Victorian-style Inn located on seven acres on the outskirts of Hunter and Tannersville, is currently open and under the new management of Jason Marcus and Chris Barnes. It is still undergoing renovations and expansions. The new owners recently purchased the adjacent lot (formerly The Chateau Belleview restaurant, which just closed in August) and are planning to connect the properties with a wooded path for a 10-acre food and beverage hospitality experience. Literary fans will love that the Inn is located on The Rip Van Winkle Trail' while film buffs will love that a scene from Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel docuseries on Netflix was filmed here.

Washington Irving Inn , 6629 Route 23A, Tannersville

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The Hunter

The Hunter/James Orr

About five minutes from popular ski resort Hunter Mountain is this mountaintop hotel, which was recently purchased by Lark Hotels, a Maine-based boutique chain. It sits across the street from the Instagram-famous Scribners Catskill Lodge, and a planned remodel, pushed back to spring 2022 due to pandemic-related supply chain issues, will refashion it into a ski lodge with a retro, seventies flair. In the meantime, the property will remain open as The Hunter Inn, and bookable via the old website until mid- to late March. Once the property is fully remodeled, it will relaunch under their Bluebird Hotel brand of revamped motor lodges that includes Spa City Motor Lodge in Saratoga Springs.

The Hunter (currently the Hunter Inn), 7433 Main St., Hunter

Coming soon: Wylder Windham

Wylder Windham

Wylder Hotels recently announced the acquisition of The Thompson House Resort, a 110-room, full-service resort on 20 acres that sits adjacent to Windham Mountain and Windham Country Club. They plan to reimagine and restore the seven individual inns, lodges, cottages, manors and farmhouses on the property and reopen in the spring of 2022.

It is a magical, one-of-a-kind property, full of charm in an incredible location Flannigan said in a press release. I grew up in upstate New York so when I discovered this gem of a place with so much history and soul, I was not only excited and proud to have uncovered someplace new and special, but I knew immediately that this was the place for our next Wylder.

Wlyder Windham , 19 State Route 206, Windham
ALBANY  First, he lost his marriage.

Now, he's lost his annulment.

Appellate justices in Albany on Thursday unanimously reversed a lower court ruling that annulled a marriage based on a mans claim that his wife married him just to become a U.S. citizen.

The Appellate Division of state Supreme Courts Third Department determined that the husband, a Cortland County man identified as Travis A., lacked evidence to show that his Filipino wife, identified as Vilma B., fraudulently used him to become a citizen.

The couple met online in February 2018 and became engaged four months later on the first of the mans two visits to the Philippines, the decision explained.

In April 2019, the woman entered the U.S. on a fiancee visa and moved in with her fiance. They were married that June but, according to the ruling, the marriage quickly deteriorated. The wife moved out less than two weeks after the wedding.

In July 2019, the husband sought a legal annulment. He argued his wife married him with the sole purpose of becoming a U.S. citizen. The wife, who denied any fraud, said her husband engaged in domestic violence and that she left for her safety.

In January 2020, following a nonjury trial in Cortland County, acting Supreme Court Justice Julie Campbell annulled the marriage.

The wife appealed, sending the matter before the Third Department, where it was argued last month.

The husband represented himself.

"I was used as a vessel," the husband told the justices. "Had I known of this prior to the marriage, I never would have been married."

Presiding Justice Elizabeth Garry, who listened to the arguments with justices Christine Clark, John Egan, Stanley Pritzker and John Colangelo, told the husband the legal standard to get an annulment is significantly higher than that for a divorce.

Jonathan D. Lamberti, who represented the wife, said Campbell's ruling was unsupported and erroneous. He said the husband was potentially setting a dangerous precedent in which any immigrant spouse who did not leave the country could be accused of immigrant fraud.

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In a 5-0 ruling Thursday, justices reversed the lower court decision.

To obtain an annulment, the ruling said, one spouse must prove the other spouse knowingly made a material false representation with the intent to induce the other person into marriage.

The husband's case of fraud in the inducement was premised upon his claim that the wife induced him to marry through false representations of love and affection for the sole purpose of obtaining an immigration benefit, Clark said in the decision.

Clark said the husband ultimately failed to demonstrate that the marital break was due to any cause other than the general discontent and incompatibility of the parties."

Clark said Campbell erred by, among other things, taking a negative inference against the wife for purportedly exploring relief under the Violence Against Women Act.

By the husbands own account, his wife had threatened  during their spats  to leave the marriage and return to the Philippines, Clark said. That the woman remained in the country after moving out, she said, is "insufficient to demonstrate that, prior to the marriage, the wife had the intent to induce the husband to marry with the sole objective of obtaining an immigration benefit."
WASHINGTON (AP)  The top U.S. military officer on Wednesday defended the phone calls he made to his Chinese counterpart in the turbulent final months of Donald Trump's presidency, saying the conversations were intended to convey reassurance to the Chinese military and were in line with his responsibilities as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Some in Congress accused Gen. Mark Milley of having overstepped his authority and urged President Joe Biden to fire him, but Biden indicated Wednesday he stands behind Milley.

I have great confidence in Gen. Milley, Biden said when asked by a reporter whether Milley had done the right thing.

In a written statement, Milley's spokesman, Col. Dave Butler, said Milley acted within his authority as the most senior uniformed adviser to the president and to the secretary of defense.

His calls with the Chinese and others in October and January were in keeping with these duties and responsibilities conveying reassurance in order to maintain strategic stability, Butler said. All calls from the chairman to his counterparts, including those reported, are staffed, coordinated and communicated with the Department of Defense and the interagency.

The Milley phone calls were described in excerpts from the forthcoming book Peril by Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. The book says Milley told Gen. Li Zuocheng of the Peoples Liberation Army that he would warn his counterpart in the event of a U.S. attack.

Milley was appointed chairman of the Joint Chiefs in 2019 by Trump and kept on by Biden. In that position Milley does not command any troops but rather is an adviser to the president and to the secretary of defense. John Kirby, spokesman for Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, said Austin has complete and utter trust and confidence in Gen. Milley.

The book by Woodward and Costa reported that Milley, fearful of Trump's actions in his final weeks as president, twice called his Chinese counterpart to assure him that the United States was not going to attack China. One call took place on Oct. 30, 2020, four days before the election that Trump lost. The second call was on Jan. 8, 2021, less than two weeks before Biden's inauguration and just two days after the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by supporters of Trump.

The Associated Press obtained a copy of the book. Details from the book, which is set to be released next week, were first reported by The Washington Post on Tuesday.

General Li, I want to assure you that the American government is stable and everything is going to be okay, Milley told him in the first call, according to the book. We are not going to attack or conduct any kinetic operations against you.

If were going to attack, Im going to call you ahead of time. Its not going to be a surprise," Milley reportedly said.

In his statement Wednesday, Milley's spokesman did not directly address this aspect of the call but said Milley regularly communicates with his counterparts across the globe, including in China and Russia, to reduce tensions, provide clarity and avoid unintended consequences or conflict.

Milley spoke with a number of other military leaders around the world after the Jan. 6 riot, including from the United Kingdom, Russia and Pakistan. A readout of those calls in January referred to several other counterparts that he spoke to with similar messages of reassurance that the U.S. government was strong and in control.

The second call was meant to placate Chinese fears about the events of Jan. 6. But the book reports that Li wasnt as easily assuaged, even after Milley promised him: We are 100 percent steady. Everythings fine. But democracy can be sloppy sometimes.

On Tuesday, Trump said Milley should be tried for treason if it was true that he had promised Li that he would warn him in the event of a U.S. attack. In a follow-up statement Wednesday, Trump called Milley a complete nutjob and said he never told me about calls being made to China.

He put our Country in a very dangerous position but President Xi knows better, and wouldve called me, Trump added.

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Milley believed the president suffered a mental decline after the election, agreeing with a view shared by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a phone call they had Jan. 8, according to officials. Milley also asked senior officers to swear an oath that Milley had to be involved if Trump gave an order to launch nuclear weapons, according to the book.

In the statement Wednesday, Milley's spokesman said Milley had conferred with the senior officers about nuclear weapons protocols to remind uniformed leaders in the Pentagon of the long-established and robust procedures in light of media reporting on the subject. Butler, the spokesman, appeared to be referring to news reports of the Jan. 8 Milley-Pelosi phone call. Butler did not address whether Milley had insisted he be part of the nuclear weapons procedures.

Pelosi had previously said she spoke to Milley that day about available precautions to prevent Trump from initiating military action or ordering a nuclear launch, and she told colleagues she was given unspecified assurances that there were longstanding safeguards in place.

Milley, according to the book, called the admiral overseeing the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, the military unit responsible for Asia and the Pacific region, and recommended postponing upcoming military exercises.

It's not clear what, if any, military exercises were actually postponed. But defense officials said it is more likely that the military postponed a planned operation, such as a freedom of navigation transit by a U.S. Navy ship in the Pacific region. The defense officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

In response to the book, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., sent Biden a letter Tuesday urging him to fire Milley, saying the general worked to actively undermine the sitting Commander in Chief.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, called the report deeply concerning, telling reporters at the Capitol, I think the first step is for General Milley to answer the question as to what exactly he said.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said he had no concerns that Milley might have exceeded his authority, telling reporters that Democratic lawmakers were circumspect in our language but many of us made it clear that we were counting on him to avoid the disaster which we knew could happen at any moment.

___

Associated Press writers Hillel Italie in New York and Lisa Mascaro and Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP)  The recall election that once threatened to derail California Gov. Gavin Newsom's political future has instead given it new life, offering a rare midterm vote of confidence that could fuel an ambitious legislative agenda featuring new coronavirus vaccine mandates, housing for the homeless and health insurance for people living in the country illegally.

Nearly 64% of voters in the recall election voted to keep Newsom in office, according to early returns, giving him a larger margin of victory so far compared to his 2018 election.

On Wednesday, one day after surviving the recall that a few months ago had him sweating, Newsom indicated he planned to go even bigger in 2022 as he heads into his reelection campaign.

When you face a recall ... it sharpens your focus about time, Newsom said. Things that you may have looked at on the horizon and said, You know over the next two, three years, we want to get this done, you start looking very differently and say, Whats possible in the next two to three months?"

Newsom was not afraid to take big swings in his first term, often eschewing the moderate tendencies of some of his predecessors. While he hasn't always satisfied the most liberal wing of the Democratic Party, he has relished governing what he calls a nation state given its status as the nation's most populous.

In his first three years in office, Newsom signed legislation that allowed college athletes to get paid, gave free lunch to every public school student and issued executive orders aiming to ban the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035 and end all oil extraction in the state by 2045.

This year, he has already issued orders requiring all of the state's roughly 2.2 million health care workers to get vaccinated to keep their jobs. He's also required all state workers and public school teachers and staff to either get vaccinated or submit to weekly testing.

President Joe Biden has already ordered large employers to require their workers be vaccinated. But some Democrats in California's Legislature want to go further by applying that standard to companies with fewer than 100 employees and to schoolchildren old enough to be immunized.

State Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks, a Democrat from Oakland who is preparing to introduce vaccine verification legislation, said the Newsom campaign didn't hold back from saying vaccine mandate" in campaign ads.

And the voters responded to it. I see that, I think my fellow legislators see that," she said. We can't be intimidated by a very small group that live in baseless conspiracy theories.

Some local governments are already doing this. San Francisco requires proof of full vaccination for a host of indoor activities, including dining inside and visiting the gym. Los Angeles County will implement a similar policy for customers and workers at bars and nightclubs starting next month. The Los Angeles Unified School District will soon require all eligible students to be inoculated.

Newsom said Wednesday that he supports those decisions and urged other local governments to do the same thing but he's satisfied with local rules right now, though he said there are conversations happening about a statewide vaccine mandate for public school students.

The pandemic has also intensified efforts to increase the number of people who have health insurance in California for primary and preventive care. The UC Berkeley Labor Center estimates nearly 3.2 million Californians won't have health insurance next year, the largest percentage of them immigrants who are living in the country illegally.

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Newsom's budget this year offers government-funded health insurance to low-income adults 50 and over who are living in the country illegally, but some Democrats want him to expand coverage to all low-income adults, regardless of their immigration status.

I believe this year was a significant down payment for us to work toward universal coverage," said Assemblyman Joaquin Arambula, a Democrat from Fresno who chairs the budget subcommittee that oversees health care spending.

Newsom indicated Wednesday that he plans to renew his focus on housing the homeless. He devoted his entire 2020 State of the State address to that issue, but the pandemic soon hit and quickly shifted his focus to public health. Still, Newsom pointed to his administration getting 6,000 housing units for the homeless online in only five-and-a-half months, a remarkable pace made possible by the urgency of the pandemic.

He added: That's now focused my energy to say what more can we do in that space with that same sense of urgency on climate change, on issues of affordability of housing?

Advancing those issues will require reaching consensus among Democrats who dominate the state Legislature, a task that's not as easy as California's progressive reputation would suggest.

But Michael Bustamante, a Democratic consultant who worked for former Democratic Gov. Gray Davis during the recall campaign that led to his 2003 ouster, said Newsom should not hold back.

When you have a near-death experience, it seems to me that people tend to become far more appreciative of the life that they have, he said. Newsom almost has nothing to lose and everything to gain by thinking big, by being aggressive.
DENVER (AP)  A civil rights investigation that was launched amid outrage over the death of Elijah McClain  a Black man put into a chokehold during an encounter with suburban Denver police two years ago  found a deeply engrained culture of racially biased policing within the department, Colorado's attorney general said Wednesday.

Attorney General Phil Weiser said the investigation found the Aurora Police Department has long had a culture in which officers treat people of color  especially Black people  differently than white people. He said the agency also has a pattern of using unlawful excessive force; frequently escalates encounters with civilians; and fails to properly document police interactions with residents.

It's the latest mark against the Aurora department since Weiser's office indicted three officers and two paramedics on manslaughter and other charges this month in connection with McClain's death.

These actions are unacceptable. They hurt the people that law enforcement is entrusted to serve, Weiser said.

The investigation cites numerous examples of biased policing in addition to McClain's death. Among them:

 Police responded to two mental health calls on the same day. In one, police drew their weapons and aimed at a Black man who claimed he had a knife and planned to kill himself in what the report called a tense standoff. The other incident with a white man who was very drunk and exhibiting mental health issues ended after an officer walked up to him, extended his hand, and said, Im (Joe), you look to be hurting. How can we help you?'

 A city panel that oversees officer hiring and discipline overturned a decision by a former police chief to fire a lieutenant who used a racial epithet to refer to a group of Black residents.

Weiser urged the police department to commit to recommended reforms in officer training, its policies on use of force and especially stricter standards for police stops and arrests. If it fails to do so, he said his office will seek a court order compelling the department to do so  but he noted that the department fully cooperated in the investigation.

Police stopped McClain, a 23-year-old massage therapist, as he walked home from a store on Aug. 24, 2019, after a 911 caller reported a man wearing a ski mask and waving his hands who seemed sketchy.

Officers put McClain in a chokehold and pinned him down. Paramedics injected him with 500 milligrams of ketamine, an amount appropriate for someone 77 pounds (35 kilograms) heavier than McClains 143-pound (64-kilogram) frame, according to an indictment. He fell unconscious, was pronounced brain-dead at a hospital, and was taken off life support.

The state civil rights probe, announced in August 2020, was the first of its kind under a sweeping police accountability law passed in Colorado amid protests over the killings of McClain and George Floyd.

Weiser said his office wants a state agreement with Aurora, called a consent decree, to be submitted to a court. The agreement would have ongoing independent oversight and would specify what the city and department must do to fulfill his investigations recommendations.

Aurora police Chief Vanessa Wilson and City Manager Jim Twombly said in statements that they will cooperate with Weiser's office and already have been working to implement reforms in the department.

We acknowledge there are changes to be made, Wilson said, adding: We will not broad brush this agency or discount the professionalism and integrity that individual officers bring to our community every day.

Sheneen McClain, the single mother who raised Elijah, said she participated in the state investigation, welcomed its findings and urged the police department to work with Weiser's office.

It's just terrible that it takes my son's death for Aurora police to change what they've been doing for a long time in this community, she said. Front and center: Elijah would still be here if the system was operating like it should. My son's death was preventable and it's really sad that it took all this to get justice done and make sure it won't happen to someone else.

The Colorado police accountability law made it unlawful for police officers or other employees of government agencies to deprive people of their constitutional rights and gave the attorney general the power to enforce it.

Under the law, if the attorney general finds an agency has a pattern or practice of violating peoples rights, the attorney general must notify the agency of the reasons for that belief and give it 60 days to make changes. If the agency does not make changes, the attorney general can file a lawsuit to force them.

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State Rep. Leslie Herod, a Democrat from Denver who helped craft the police accountability legislation, said Weiser's recommendations proved the law is working.

We have affirmed what the citizens of Aurora and so many folks already knew: That the Aurora Police Department has operated in a way that is racist and that is particularly racist against Black people and presents harm to our community, said Herod, who is Black.

Weisers office is also prosecuting three police officers and two paramedics on manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and assault charges in McClains death. He convened a grand jury to decide whether to file criminal charges after being ordered to take another look at the case by Democratic Gov. Jared Polis amid last years protests.

The grand jury indicted all five.

The Aurora Police Department faced criticism when officers put four Black girls on the ground last year and handcuffed two of them next to a car that police suspected was stolen but turned out not to be.

And an officer was charged with assault in July after being captured on body camera video pistol-whipping and choking a Black man during an arrest. Another officer was charged with not intervening as required under the new police accountability law.

Lorenzo M. Boyd, stewart professor in criminal justice and community policing at the University of New Haven in Connecticut, said Weiser's action is unusual because the federal, not state government generally reaches court-approved agreements with local police departments to ensure changes are made.

A lot of times the state tries to not ruffle feathers at home. Theyll farm things out to the feds to kind of keep their hands clean," Boyd said. "But it seems like in this situation, the states attorney general in Colorado decides, you know, we need to fix our own house before outsiders need to come in and do it.

___

Associated Press writers James Anderson and Thomas Peipert contributed to this report.

___

Nieberg is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
MINNEAPOLIS (AP)  The Minnesota Supreme Court on Wednesday threw out the third-degree murder conviction of a former Minneapolis police officer who fatally shot a woman who had called 911 to report a possible rape behind her home.

In its ruling in the case of Mohamed Noor, the Supreme Court also clarified what would constitute third-degree murder, or depraved-mind murder, saying the statute doesn't apply if a defendant's actions are directed at a particular person.

Noor was convicted of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in the 2017 death of Justine Ruszczyk Damond, a dual U.S.-Australian citizen who called 911 to report a possible sexual assault behind her home. He was sentenced to 12 1/2 years on the murder count but was not sentenced for manslaughter.

The ruling means his murder conviction is overturned and the case will now go back to the district court, where he will be sentenced on the manslaughter count. He has already served more than 28 months of his murder sentence. If sentenced to the presumptive four years for manslaughter, he could be eligible for supervised release around the end of this year.

Damond's fiance, Don Damond, said the ruling was a double blow against justice. In a statement to The Associated Press he said that since Justine's death, he has worked to try to prevent more fatalities at the hands of "stressed and inadequately trained police officers. He said the Minneapolis Police Department hasn't made any real progress toward change, and now Noor is not being held accountable for his fiancee's killing.

I have lived with the tragic loss of Justine and none of this can hurt my heart more than it has been, but now it truly feels like there has been no justice for Justine, he said.

Caitlinrose Fisher, an attorney who worked on Noor's appeal, said she's grateful the Supreme Court clarified the law, and hopes it will lead to greater equity and consistency in charging decisions.

Weve said from the beginning that this was a tragedy but it wasnt a murder, and now the Supreme Court agrees and recognizes that, she said.

Noor's defense team also released a joint statement, saying fairness has been delivered and Noor is looking forward to hugging his son as soon as possible.

Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman, whose office prosecuted the case, said in a statement that he disagrees with the Supreme Court's analysis but must accept the decision. Freeman said the conviction on second-degree manslaughter still stands and was just.

The ruling could give former Minneapolis Officer Derek Chauvin grounds to contest his own third-degree murder conviction in George Floyd's May 2020 death. But that wouldn't have much impact on Chauvin since he was also convicted of the more serious count of second-degree murder and is serving 22 1/2 years on that count. Experts say it's unlikely Chauvin would be successful in appealing his second-degree murder conviction.

The ruling in Noor's case was also closely watched for its possible impact on three other former Minneapolis officers awaiting trial in Floyd's death. Prosecutors had wanted to add charges of aiding and abetting third-degree murder against them, but that's unlikely to happen now. The three men are due to go on trial in March on charges of aiding and abetting both second-degree murder and manslaughter.

The Attorney General's Office, which is prosecuting that case, said it is studying the decision.

The Supreme Court said that for a third-degree murder charge, the persons mental state must show a generalized indifference to human life, which cannot exist when the defendants conduct is directed with particularity at the person who is killed.

The justices said that Noor's conduct was directed with particularity at Damond, and the evidence is therefore insufficient to sustain his conviction ... for depraved-mind murder.

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State law has defined third-degree murder as an act eminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved mind, without regard for human life. A central dispute has been whether dangerous to others must be read as plural, or if the fatal act can be directed at a single, specific person.

In its ruling, the Supreme Court pointed to numerous other cases in which it has interpreted the depraved mind, regardless of human life phrase. In roughly 20 cases over more than 160 years, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that depraved-mind murder shows an indifference to life in general, not to the life of a specific, targeted person.

We reaffirm our precedent today and confirm that the mental state required for depraved-mind murder cannot exist when the defendants actions are directed with particularity at the person who is killed, the justices wrote. The Supreme Court also made the point of overruling one of its own prior rulings that contradicted this precedent  saying that in that case, the justices had gotten it wrong.

While evidence shows Noors conduct was aimed at Damond, the state argued that depraved-mind murder applied because Noors partner and a bicyclist were nearby.

The Supreme Court said the mere proximity of others does not establish that Noor had an indifference to human life in general.

The justices also said that they may agree that Noor's decision to shoot his gun because he was startled was unreasonable, adding that his conduct was especially troubling given the trust that citizens should be able to place in our peace officers. But the tragic circumstances of this case do not change the fact that Noors conduct was directed with particularity toward Ruszczyk.

Prosecutors had argued that since nearly all killings by officers are directed at a specific person, no officers could be prosecuted for third-degree murder if the statute was interpreted as Noor's attorneys suggested. But the Supreme Court disagreed, saying anyone, including an officer, who kills someone while showing indifference to human life in general could be convicted of depraved-mind murder. The justices also noted that officers could be prosecuted on other murder counts if the facts of the case warrant it.

Noor testified in his 2019 trial that a loud bang on his squad car made him fear for his and his partners life, so he reached across his partner from the passenger seat and fired through the drivers window. Fisher told the Supreme Court justices that it would be very hard to imagine that an officers split-second reaction to a perceived threat would count as a depraved-mind murder but that other charges could be justified instead, such as manslaughter.

Fisher said Wednesday that Noor "really believed that he was saving his partner's life that night, and instead he tragically caused the loss of an innocent life ... I think just having reaffirmation that a mistake like that isnt murder will mean more than words can say.
LOGANSPORT, Ind. (AP)  A U.S. Marine from Indiana who was killed during the frenzied evacuation at Afghanistans Kabul airport was hailed Tuesday as a hero during a funeral in his hometown.

The life of Cpl. Humberto Sanchez will inspire generations of Americans, former Vice President Mike Pence told mourners at Life Gate Church in Logansport.

No one will ever say it better than his mother did, said Pence, a former Indiana governor, speaking near Sanchez' flag-covered casket. In those final moments of his life, it was a work of heart, doing everything he could to get those kids out of harms way.

Between speakers, a younger brother, Ariel Loran, played The Marines Hymn on a saxophone.

A Marine chaplain, Capt. Blake Campbell, said Sanchez, 22, was working security at the U.S. embassy in Jordan when he was transferred to the Kabul airport. He was among 13 U.S. service members killed Aug. 26 in a suicide bombing during the U.S.-run evacuation.

We grieve the loss of a son and a brother and a friend," Campbell told the congregation. And this town, this church, this community grieves with you."

Burial was planned at Mount Hope Cemetery. The service capped days of heavy emotion in the northern Indiana community. Sanchez, known as Bert, was among 17 members of his Logansport High School class who joined the military after their 2017 graduation.

He played on the soccer team and was part of the homecoming court during his senior year. Sanchez, the son of Mexican immigrants, was the first member of his immediate family to be born in the U.S., said Zach Szmara, pastor of The Bridge Community Church in Logansport.

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He described Sanchez as a bridge builder.

His presence brought vibrant color into parts of life that were gray and dull, Szmara said. If he wasn't in the classroom that day or didn't show up at the event, you could sense it. You wanted him around, whether it was a quinceanera or a cookout, a classroom or Christmas Eve.

After his body arrived Sunday in Indiana, thousands of people lined roads for miles to honor Sanchez, saluting and holding American flags.

I'm told he never gave up until the job was done, Pence said. He stayed at his post, stood in the gap. ... He gave his life defending innocent civilians fleeing from the chaos that had become Afghanistan.
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP)  A Florida woman who vanished while on a nomadic cross-country trip in a converted camper van with her boyfriend is the subject of a nationwide search while authorities labeled him Wednesday as a person of interest in her disappearance.

Investigators say Gabrielle Gabby Petito, 22, was last in contact with her family in late August when the couple was visiting Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park. Much of their trip was documented on social media accounts that abruptly ceased.

The boyfriend, Brian Laundrie, returned to their Florida home in her 2012 white Ford Transit van on Sept. 1  10 days before Petitos family reported her missing  according to police in the Gulf Coast town of North Port. That van has since been impounded by investigators and processed for clues.

Laundrie has not cooperated with police and is now considered a person of interest in the case, North Port police said. He has not been charged with any crime; the FBI and the Suffolk County Police Department in New York are assisting in the investigation.

We are pleading with anyone, including Brian, to share information with us on her whereabouts in the past few weeks," North Port police Chief Todd Garrison said in a statement Wednesday. The lack of information from Brian is hindering this investigation. The answers will eventually come out.

An attorney for the Laundrie family, Steve Bertolino of New York, said in an email Wednesday that the family is remaining in the background" as the search continues and will have no further comment.

In my experience, intimate partners are often the first person law enforcement focuses their attention on in cases like this and the warning that any statement made will be used against you is true, regardless of whether my client had anything to do with Ms. Petitos disappearance. As such, on the advice of counsel Mr. Laundrie is not speaking on this matter, Bertolino said.

Petito and Laundrie were childhood sweethearts in Suffolk County but moved from Blue Point, New York, in 2019 to live with his parents in North Port, which is about 34 miles (54 kilometers) south of Sarasota. They set out on their journey in July from New York, saying on social media accounts they intended to reach Oregon by Halloween.

An eight-minute YouTube video titled Van Life: Beginning our Van Life Journey features scenes from the couples trip.

Gabby Petito, never goes outside, she says while walking with Brian along a beach. The video, set to music, has nearly 450,000 views: Sunsets. Gabby driving the white van. Gabby running along the beach. Gabby preparing food. Other images show the couple sharing kisses, flipping backward on swings and cartwheeling on the beach.

I love the van, she says near the end of the video as the camera pans to the white Ford parked in the Utah desert.

The entry is the only one posted on their YouTube channel, Nomadic Statik.

Thank you so much for watching, and we hope you tag along on our journey wherever the van takes us! they wrote.

Yet there are signs something was seriously wrong.

Police in the southern Utah tourist town of Moab responded to a call about a possible domestic violence incident that officers say was more of a mental health crisis involving the couple on Aug. 12. The officers said in a police report no significant injuries were observed.

One witness called 911 and said he saw Laundrie and Petito fighting over a phone, according to the police report. When Laundrie got back into the van, Petito hit him in the arm before trying to climb through the drivers side window.

Officers said they pulled the van over near the entrance to Arches National Park and saw Petito crying uncontrollably in the passenger seat. She told officers that she was struggling with her mental health.

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At no point in my investigation did Gabrielle stop crying, breathing heavily, or compose a sentence without needing to wipe away tears, wipe her nose, or rub her knees with her hands, Officer Daniel Robbins said in his report.

Laundrie reportedly told Robbins that emotional tension had been building between him and Petito and that they were arguing more frequently because they had been traveling together for four to five months.

Laundrie said that when the two of them began arguing in town, he had attempted to separate from Petito so they could calm down. Laundrie said he got into the van but Petito was afraid he would leave without her, so she went to slap him and he pushed her away to avoid the blow, according to the police report.

Officers recommended that the couple spend the night apart but didnt file any charges after investigating.

It's not clear what happened next.

Questions about what Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Park officials are doing with the case were forwarded to National Park Service headquarters in Washington, with spokeswoman Cynthia Hernandez saying in an emailed statement that that the agency is coordinating with other law enforcement agencies about Petitos whereabouts.

Petito is white, 5-foot-5 (1.6 meters) and about 110 pounds (50 kilograms), with blonde hair and blue eyes, police said. She has several tattoos including one on a forearm that reads, let it be.

Petito's family said in a statement that they need answers from Laundrie, including when he last saw her and why he left Gabby all alone and drove her van to Florida.

These are critical questions that require immediate answers, the statement said.

_____

Associated Press writers Frieda Frisaro in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Sophia Eppolito in Salt Lake City; and Mead Gruver in Cheyenne, Wyoming contributed to this story.
Lets not repeat the errors of the war in Afghanistan. After the mixed success of U.S. interventions including Vietnam and the Bay of Pigs, the Powell Doctrine tried to avoid disastrous future engagements.

The doctrine required: a vital national interest; a clear and attainable objective; full risk analysis; exhaustion of all nonviolent alternatives; a solid exit strategy to avoid endless war; full consideration of all consequences; support by the American people; broad international support; and decisive force against the enemy, minimizing casualties and ending the conflict quickly.

After our recent experience, the doctrine needs an update.

We learned a number of things from this war. Our powerful military-industrial complex must be harnessed and strictly regulated lest it becomes a powerful force for corruption, as it did in Afghanistan. Neither the United States, nor any nation, can nation build; we cannot create a nation (an economy, a middle class, a democratic government) where one has never existed before. While we can provide economic and diplomatic support to democracies, we should not try to remake a nations culture or military in our own image. Mission creep is certain to metastasize when corrupt U.S. contractors unite with a corrupt foreign government.

Lets not let our brave soldiers down by asking them to create a nation, eliminate corruption in a government  any government  or perform any political task. There are limits to power. When the original mission  get Osama Bin Laden  was accomplished, it was time for the military to leave. Any contrary argument bears a heavy burden to justify why the life of one Marine is worth the defense of a corrupt foreign government that clearly had no support, none, from its own citizens.

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I tire of U.S. officials who propped up the Afghan government for years, now heaping blame on President Joe Biden to cover their own failures. Bidens Hobsons choice was to either put more U.S. troops in harms way in the vain hope of a slower, less bloody exit, or withdraw quickly using our existing force to save as many lives as possible.

I believe history will be kind to Biden. The question is whether we will be kind to our own history and learn from our experience in Afghanistan.

Robert G. Wakeman lives in Slingerlands.
This photo shows trainees participating in an entrapment class at the Townville Volunteer Fire Department in the winter. Classes will return to the fire hall starting on Oct. 25, running through Jan. 31. This class is already filled up and spots were filled in record time.
The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum has unveiled the hulking desk the president-elect used in 1861 to craft his first inaugural address
[September 16, 2021] 5G Drives Double-digit Growth for the Sixth Straight Quarter in Smartphone Apps Processors, Finds Strategy Analytics

For the sixth straight quarter, the global smartphone applications processor (AP) market clocked a double-digit year-on-year revenue growth in Q2 2021, according to Strategy Analytics' (News - Alert) Handset Component Technologies (HCT) service report. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005575/en/ Figure 1. 2Q 2021 Smartphone Applications Processors Revenue Share ( Source (News - Alert) : Strategy Analytics, Inc.) The global smartphone AP market grew 18 percent year-on-year to $7.0 billion in Q2 2021. Strategy Analytics' research report "Smartphone Apps Processor Market Share Tracker Q2 2021: MediaTek and Unisoc Post Triple-digit Revenue Growth " estimates that Qualcomm, MediaTek (News - Alert), Apple, Samsung LSI and Unisoc captured the top-five revenue share rankings in the smartphone applications processor (AP) market in Q2 2021.



Qualcomm (News - Alert) led the smartphone AP market with a 36 percent revenue share, followed by MediaTek with 29 percent and Apple with 21 percent. After leading the smartphone AP market in both unit and revenue terms in 2020, Qualcomm continued this momentum in 1H 2021.

5G AP shipments grew 140 percent year-on-year, driving an 8 percent growth in average selling prices (ASPs).

TSMC and Samsung (News - Alert) Foundry manufactured almost 100 percent of smartphone APs shipped in Q2 2021. In addition, 5 nm-based APs accounted for approximately 20 percent of all smartphone APs shipped during the quarter. Sravan Kundojjala, author of the report and Associate Director of Handset Component Technologies service at Strategy Analytics, commented, "Despite capacity constraints, both Qualcomm and MediaTek leveraged their scale and long-term foundry relationships to post robust shipment growth in Q2 2021. For the third straight quarter, Qualcomm saw a double-digit smartphone AP shipment growth. However, Qualcomm's smartphone AP revenue growth outpaced its shipment growth, driven by a high mix of 5G APs. We estimate that 5G APs accounted for 54 percent of Qualcomm's total smartphone AP shipments in Q2 2021. In light of shortages, Qualcomm shifted focus to premium and high tier APs to make the best use of available capacity. " Mr. Kundojjala continued, "MediaTek and Unisoc posted triple-digit growth in their smartphone AP revenues in Q2 2021, driven by increased traction at China-based smartphone OEMs. Both companies gained market in 4G APs as the market leader Qualcomm shifted focus to 5G APs. Strategy Analytics observed this phenomenon during the 3G to 4G transition too. Unisoc and MediaTek have a proven track record in capturing long-tail demand in mature technologies."

Source: Strategy Analytics, Inc. #SA_Components About Strategy Analytics Strategy Analytics, Inc. is a global leader in supporting companies across their planning lifecycle through a range of customized market research solutions. Our multi-discipline capabilities include: industry research advisory services, customer insights, user experience design and innovation expertise, mobile consumer on-device tracking and business-to-business consulting competencies. With domain expertise in: smart devices, connected cars, intelligent home, service providers, IoT, strategic components and media, Strategy Analytics can develop a solution to meet your specific planning need. For more information, visit us at www.strategyanalytics.com. For more information about Strategy Analytics

Service Name: Handset Component Technologies View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005575/en/

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[September 16, 2021] Aira Technologies Raises $13M in Equity Financing to Supercharge Wireless Using AI

SARATOGA, Calif., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Aira Technologies, an AI software technology startup, announced that it has raised $13M in equity financing led by Neotribe Ventures and Acrew Capital. Aira was founded in 2019 by wireless industry veterans including CEO Anand Chandrasekher (ex-Intel, ex-Qualcomm) and CTO Dr. Ravikiran Gopalan (ex-Bell Labs, ex-Qualcomm) along with well-known wireless researchers Dr. Pramod Viswanath (Professor, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) and Dr. Sreeram Kannan (Professor, University of Washington, Seattle). This round also includes participation from Foothill Ventures and industry angels Ryan Drant (Founding Partner, Questa Capital) and Carl Waldspurger. Today's wireless communications are built on a foundation of human-intuition based protocols and analytically tractable approximations. Machine Learning (ML) techniques, powered by real-time data, can provide radical improvements in wireless communications. Aira's vision is to harness machine learning to make every wireless connection, in every transport, more than 10x better. The company's technology provides breakthrough benefits in battery life, latency and reliability. For example, using Aira's technology, wireless ear-buds can dramatically improve performance while also improving battery life; the same holds for any wearable device from glucose monitors to hearing aids. "Traditinal techniques to improve wireless have reached the point of diminishing returns. We are a company founded on the premise that machine learning techniques applied to real-time data, can provide radical improvements in wireless communications. We have already demonstrated the potential of our technology, and are excited to be able to scale our technology with this additional funding. All of our lives are increasingly connected - work/learn/health/play have all become hybrid. Everything and everyone is more connected. This puts a premium on wireless reliability, security, and throughput more than ever before. Our mission is to utilize machine learning to make all wireless connections better," said Aira Technologies CEO Anand Chandrasekher.



"AI and Machine Learning have been instrumental in changing the way image recognition is done today and created many new businesses. We see similar tremendous potential for Aira's core capabilities in applying ML to wireless. We were excited to be their first investor and are very excited to participate in this next round to take the technology to the next level" said Swaroop (Kittu) Kolluri, Founding Managing Partner at Neotribe Ventures. "Aira's technology paves the way to a truly wireless and connected world. At Acrew, we're strong believers in leveraging data to completely rethink the way things are done. We were blown away by Aira's groundbreaking technology and the world of new use cases it represents," said Asad Khaliq, Founding Partner at Acrew Capital.

For additional information, please contact Aira Technologies at www.aira-technology.com or info@aira-technology.com. About Aira Technologies

Aira Technologies has developed the world's first software system that leverages machine learning to supercharge wireless connections. Using Aira technology, wireless networks can achieve more than 2x range, 4x better battery life and 1000x better reliability. Aira Technologies' software solutions are under evaluation by leading wireless platform providers. Contact: Leslie Smith, (562) 618-0071, lesliesmith@muddygecko.com View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/aira-technologies-raises-13m-in-equity-financing-to-supercharge-wireless-using-ai-301378312.html SOURCE Aira Technologies

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[September 16, 2021] Ambassadors from Over 20 Countries Visited H3C Group to Discover the Innovation Power Supporting High-quality Development

HANGZHOU, China, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- On the eve of the opening of the 4th China Quality Conference held in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, a delegation of Ambassadors from over 20 countries visited H3C's Hangzhou headquarters, to find out how H3C's innovative solutions are empowering the digital transformation for a wide range of industries. During the visit, Gary Huang, Senior Vice President and President of International Business of H3C, gave an introduction on the company's leading digital technologies and products, encompassing areas such as semiconductor chips, cloud services and infrastructure, networking, edge computing, and terminal devices. He also showcased H3C's achievements in advocating digital transformation and leading the development of the digital economy for both China and overseas. Solid development as the foundation for high quality The digital economy of today has entered a stage of accelerated technological innovation, where digital transformation is leading advances in product quality in almost every industry. According to the latest forecasts from IDC, by 2023, more than half of the global economy will be driven by digital products, services and experiences. As a key driver and participant of this digital evolution, H3C has made a number of notable contributions. At H3C's Hangzhou Innovation Experience Center, the delegation of Ambassadors was introduced to H3C's Digital Brain, developed under the company's Cloud & AI Native strategy, as well as its efforts towards achieving carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals. They also learnt more about H3C's latest commercial products, including MagicHub, and core technological innoations such as Engiant 660, a high-end programmable network processor chip independently developed by H3C.



"Since its establishment, H3C has put quality as the foundation of everything we do  quality that is driven by constant innovation", said Huang. "By delivering the best products and solutions to our customers, we are able to fully empower the transformation and development of the global digital economy." Behind these achievements is H3C's consistent approach itn improving the quality of its products and solutions over time. Based on its advanced Integrated Product Development (IPD) methodology, H3C has established a quality management model that places customer needs at its core. From inception to launch, each product must go through seven technical review points, involving more than 1,500 checks, and be subject to four thorough evaluation processes before it is considered ready to enter the market.

In addition to ensuring the quality of its market-ready products, H3C has also created the "Internal Pilot Office" for product verification, in order to trial out new products and solutions and gather feedback from within the company before introducing them to external customers. Driving the acceleration of digital economy with innovation Every year, H3C invests no less than 14% of its revenue in R&D. To date, more than 12,000 patent applications have been made, amongst which over 90% are invention-related patents. Through its "1+3+3" multi-dimensional innovation platform  representing one product development platform, three forward-looking research platforms and three technological collaboration platforms  as well as incentivization systems for general innovation and high-performing staff, H3C has built a powerful engine of technological innovation, working together with partners throughout the industry to enhance the value created by digital transformation. Based on end-to-end innovation covering domains such as semiconductor chips, cloud services and infrastructure, networking, edge computing, and terminal devices, H3C will continue to play the roles of as a highly-engaged participant, a leader of digital industrialization as well as an important enabler for industrial digitalization. H3C's pursuit of innovation-driven quality has enabled it to become a leader in the industry. The Group has held the top market share position in areas such as cloud platform, computing virtualization, data center and wireless network for years, as well as leading the field in both enterprise networks and network management software. While expanding overseas, H3C has established representative offices in eight overseas markets, with four new being set up. The company has built spare parts centers in 19 countries, covering 174 major cities with end-to-end capabilities in market development, project delivery and service support. In just a few short years, the company has built up strong international influence and a solid reputation for the H3C brand. "Through this visit, H3C hopes that the distinguished delegation of Ambassadors will walk away with a fuller understanding of our products and solutions," said Huang. "More importantly, we hope that they can leverage the experiences and methodologies shared today and find ways of improving quality management and improvement in their own countries." "Our vision at H3C is 'Shaping the Digital Future for a Better Life'. In order to achieve this, we operate by a principle of 'Quality First', always placing customer needs at the core, proactively promoting collaboration in international quality control, and making our own contributions to help people realize their aspirations," added Huang. SOURCE H3C

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[September 16, 2021] Arctech Launches World's First PV Company-owned Wind Tunnel Laboratory to Smartly Increase the Stability of Trackers

SHANGHAI, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Arctech, the world's leading tracking, racking, and BIPV solutions provider, announced that the inauguration ceremony of its wind tunnel laboratory was successfully held at the headquarters located in Kunshan, Jiangsu Province, China on 6th September, marking that the company has become the first in the PV industry worldwide to own a wind tunnel laboratory. Equipped with the world-leading testing capabilities of structural static pressure and structural dynamic response, the laboratory can test the effect of wind on trackers at speeds of up to 30m per second, a speed which would cover most likely real-world scenarios. The technical database will be leveraged as the source of basic design parameters for product design, R&D and product structure design verification in the future. By applying the technical database for concept design and structure design for product, the wind tunnel Laboratory will allow the company to mimic different local environments worldwide and serve the very purpose to lowerLCOE (Levelized Cost of Energy) of PV power plants by increasing the stability of trackers.



Bruce Wang remarked, "We believe that the launch of Wind Tunnel Laboratory will continuously enhance Arctech's presence in lowering LCOE of PV power plants as the lab will enable us to carry out feasible and compliant wind tunnel tests for accurate aerodynamic information and optimize the design for mitigating wind-related risk on trackers and equipping trackers with better wind resistance capability." Solar trackers are widely known as rigid structural parts; while the main axis of solar tracker is susceptible to deformation caused by vertical bending, torsion, and complex natural conditions in different regions. Therefore, more advanced analytic tests are necessary for reliable tracker design as the mounting of ultra-high-power modules, which are in strong demand by the industry, involves higher wind loads added to the trackers.

Arctech has always centralized the wind tunnel test by formulating strict design specifications and ensuring the execution. The new laboratory marks another milestone of the company's determination in guaranteeing safety and stability and ultimately empowering the popularization of solar tracker. [About Arctech] Arctech (SSE-STAR: 688408) is a world leading manufacturer and supplier of intelligent solar trackers, fixed-tilt structures and BIPV systems for utility-scale and commercial solar PV projects. As of the end of 2020, Arctech has supplied over 32GW of tracking and racking systems to nearly 1,100 PV plants in 40 countries, thanks to its extensive marketing networks with offices in China, Japan, India, the U.S., Spain, Australia, UAE, Mexico, Chile, Brazil, Vietnam and Argentina. For more information, please visit www.arctechsolar.com. Linkedin:https://www.linkedin.com/company/arctechsolar

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ArctechSolar View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/arctech-launches-worlds-first-pv-company-owned-wind-tunnel-laboratory-to-smartly-increase-the-stability-of-trackers-301378388.html SOURCE Arctech

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[September 16, 2021] Asetek Unveils Premium Performance Invicta Sim Racing Pedals

AALBORG, Denmark, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Asetek, sim racing gear innovator, the creator of the all-in-one liquid cooler, and the global leader in liquid cooling solutions for gaming PCs and DIY enthusiasts, today announced its Invicta Sim Racing Pedals. Asetek's initial sim racing products include a throttle and brake pedal, and as an add-on a clutch pedal, along with its custom-made RaceHub software for quick and easy adjustments and calibration. Invicta means "undefeated" and with Invicta pedals, the most competitive SimSports gamers will be able to experience full immersion and the feeling of a real racecar. Invicta Pedal Feature Set: Unique Twin Hydraulic Opposing Rapid Piston (T.H.O.R.P) brake system (Patent pending) - designed to bring ultimate immersion to sim racers

Brake pedal hardness and travel can be adjusted from a softer arcade feeling with extended travel to a formula car mode hard pedal with minimal travel and true car feeling

Clutch simulates a real-world clutch and is designed to provide a proper physical bite point to feel like a real racecar

Customizable and configurable ARGB lighting that can be controlled with RaceHub software or turned off

Foot plates inspired by real racecars and real racecar driving

All aluminum pedal base with integrated heel stop, foot plates and pedal arms mounted with ball bearings for extended life and smooth operation

RaceHub software that enables quick and easy customization of the Invicta pedals' settings. This includes calibration of the clutch bite point, dead zones, throttle curves, and updating firmware simply and efficiently. Support for future Asetek SimSports products

Tried and tested for hundreds of hours by real-world Formula and GT drivers and sim racing pros. Lifetime tested in automated mechanical rigs for many thousands of activations

Designed and manufactured/assembled in Denmark The Asetek Invicta pedals will be available for purchase in Q4 2021 with pricing to be revealed later this year. In addition to the Invicta pedals, Asetek will also offer replaceable pedal plates for a more comfortable feeling for racers racing without shoes. Stay tuned for more SimSports products from Asetek, including wheelbases, steering wheels, shifters, and other end-user customization options. Invicta pedals samples will be on display on Friday and Saturday September 17 and 18, 2021 at the ADAC SimRacing Expo (Nurburgring, Germany) in the Asetek SimSports pop up stand in the Phoenix Racing race shop. "We have been working non-stop since last year designing racing simulator gear that will revolutionize the market. I am excited to announce the first of our SimSports products, the premium performance Invicta pedals," said Andre Sloth Eriksen, CEO and founder of Asetek. "Our goal is simple and precise  to develop SimSports products with a true racecar feeling that ignite your racing passion and elevate your performance. And we are doing that while providing you with unique software for easy and simple use, for the ultimate in customization and personalization." Learn more from Andre Sloth Eriksen in the recently published YouTube video entitled "Meet Sim Racing's New Major Manufacturer  Interview with Andre Eriksen", with Will Ford of Boosted Media. About Asetek Asetek (ASTK.OL), a global leader in mechatronic innovation, is a Danish garage-to-stock-exchange success story. Founded in 2000, Asetek established its innovative position as the leading OEM developer and producer of the all-in-one liquid cooler for all major PC & Enthusiast gaming brands. In 2013, Asetek went public while expanding into energy efficient and environmentally friendly cooling solutions for data centers. In 2021, Asetek is introducing its line of products for next-level immersive SimSports gaming experiences. Asetek is headquartered in Denmark and has operations in China,?Taiwan?and the United States.?For more information, please visit www.asetek.com. Contact:



Margo Westfall

Asetek Sr. Marketing Manager

+1 408 644.5616

mwe@asetek.com This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com https://news.cision.com/asetek/r/asetek-unveils-premium-performance-invicta-sim-racing-pedals,c3416025 The following files are available for download:







https://mb.cision.com/Main/6758/3416025/1468837.pdf Asetek SimSports Invicta Pedals_FINAL + image https://news.cision.com/asetek/i/pedals-pr-no-text-updated,c2954658 Pedals-PR-no-text updated

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/asetek-unveils-premium-performance-invicta-sim-racing-pedals-301378335.html SOURCE Asetek

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[September 16, 2021] ASU Prep Digital Forges Partnership With Ohio Charter School Network to Reduce Student Learning Loss Due to COVID Quarantine

After powering through a year or more of remote and hybrid learning due to COVID, a significant share of traditional school districts are returning to familiar in-person models this school year. Even so, the advantages of online learning remain clear, particularly in the event of student quarantines. In Cleveland, one forward-thinking network of schools is offering students and their families a first-of-its-kind solution to keep students up to date with the school content and curriculum they have the potential to miss because of a COVID quarantine. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005331/en/ ASU Prep Digital's New "Learning Under Quarantine" Offering Delivers In-Person Curriculum to K-12 Students Remotely, Whenever There's a COVID Outbreak (Photo: Business Wire) A new offering called Learning Under Quarantine from ASU Prep Digital, envisioned for Breakthrough Public Schools in collaboration with The 305 Education Group, is now in place. To prevent COVID learning losses, ASU Prep Digital provides online instructors to teach Cleveland-area students who miss in-person learning due to a 10-day quarantine. This innovative approach increases teaching and learning time simultaneously, while providing a practical solution for schools that simply do not have the human or financial resources to operate dual in-person and online models. During the 2020-21 school year, Breakthrough - one of the highest-performing public, nonprofit charter school networks in Ohio - only operated remotely. However, for the 2021-22 academic year, network leaders knew changes were necessary. "Our families overwhelmingly wanted their kids back in school buildings this year, and as educators, we believe that in-person education is critically important at this time to address unfinished learning and the social and emotional development of our students," said Tyler Thornton, COO of Breakthrough Public Schools, which serve kindergarteners through eighth graders. "At the same time, we are conscious that COVID quarantining is a growing reality, and we have a responsibility to keep students engaged and progressing in their education even when they're unable to attend school in person." After vetting potential partners to answer this need, Breakthrogh Public Schools partnered with ASU Prep Digital. The online PreK-12 school, developed by Arizona State University, combines easy-to-use technology with a strong curriculum, qualified educators, grade-specific and concurrent college courses, and customizable solutions. Each of these components blend to create one-of-a-kind formulas (or learning plans/models) that are customized to meet the needs of schools and students, helping them to succeed and advance academically.



"We implemented the Learning Under Quarantine Model for Breakthrough Public Schools to assist their reopening framework, so that quarantined students could continue learning, while also alleviating the burden on teachers and parents," said Julie Young, Managing Director of ASU Preparatory Academy and ASU Prep Digital. The Learning Under Quarantine model, which started this month, operates at Breakthrough's network of 12 Cleveland schools to engage with and teach students who must stay home from school due to a 10-day COVID quarantine policy.

"Many schools are searching for an approach that lets them effectively teach in this still unpredictable COVID environment," said Young. "At ASU Prep Digital, we have the advantage of a proven online program that gives schools and students the option to excel in a non-traditional way. Through an extensive collaboration process, we created this new Learning Under Quarantine model to meet the needs of Breakthrough's student population. We look forward to customizing this offering to fit the needs of more schools that could use this same type of quality teaching assistance." Learning Under Quarantine is customized by grade level and extends far beyond packets sent home for students and their families to navigate independently. Quarantined students at Breakthrough can expect two hours of daily, live, one-on-one or small group instruction, in addition to asynchronous learning activities. Thanks to communication between the student's teachers and ASU Prep Digital, all material is aligned to the network's curriculum and content, allowing students to transition back into the classroom seamlessly - all while alleviating the burden on teachers and parents. The Learning Under Quarantine curriculum is heavily focused on math and English Language Arts - two areas where student performance is closely tracked, but also foundational subjects that are the basis for all other learning. While parental supervision is expected, particularly with the younger students who may need an initial introduction to basics like logging in, it is not the parent's role to oversee the education; ASU Prep Digital's educators are on deck to fill that role. "When students miss school, valuable learning opportunities are lost; it can be difficult to catch up to your peers after an extended absence," said Thornton. "Learning Under Quarantine makes the transition back to the classroom easier for students, and it allows the entire class to continue progressing at a solid pace through the year." Thornton and Young both point out that the advantages are not strictly academic; continued engagement while out of the classroom helps students maintain social connections and interaction, which is severely limited during quarantine. Learning Under Quarantine also keeps students in the habit of learning and discovering new things, so they are better prepared to acclimate back into to the classroom. "Ultimately, this innovative offering can help to prevent learning gaps and losses for not only students in Cleveland, but for students in schools across the country and globally that face similar challenges," said Young. "Staying engaged and learning while in quarantine amounts to an easier, more successful transition back to the classroom." What's Next While Learning Under Quarantine is currently operating to support quarantined students at Breakthrough Public Schools, it has the potential to expand to additional school districts throughout the country. ASU Prep Digital has plans underway to adapt the Learning Under Quarantine model to more school districts, including one in Arizona. Although Learning Under Quarantine is the first model of its kind, forging partnerships with local school districts is hardly a novelty to ASU Prep Digital. To date, ASU Prep Digital has established working relationships with more than 1,338 schools and school districts across the country and globally. For more information about Learning Under Quarantine, send an email to: partnership@asuprep.org. About ASU Prep Digital ASU Prep Digital is an accredited online K-12 school that offers a single online course or enrollment in a full-time, diploma-granting program. Because it is part of Arizona State University, ASU Prep Digital offers an accelerated path toward college admission and the chance to earn concurrent high school and university credit. For more information, visit asuprepdigital.org. About Breakthrough Public Schools Breakthrough Public Schools is one of the highest-performing networks of free, public charter schools in Ohio, serving nearly 3,600 students in grades K through 8. Breakthrough is a nationally recognized nonprofit network of 12 college preparatory schools throughout Cleveland, with campuses in Glenville (2), St. Clair - Superior, Lee Harvard, Union Miles, and Cudell. For more information, visit breakthroughschools.org. Media note: To access and download a photo that accompanies this announcement, click here: https://bit.ly/3nrpjNS View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005331/en/

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[September 16, 2021] DG Financial Technology, Japan acquires majority stake in Pune-based Vizitech Solutions

PUNE, India, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- DG Financial Technology Inc. (HQ: Tokyo, DGFT), a leading Japanese payment service provider, has acquired a majority stake (60% outstanding shares) in Pune-based Vizitech solutions. The transaction was led by DGFT's Representative Director, President and Co-COO: Hiroshi Shino. The deal announced (Thursday, September 16) is another addition to the growing activity in the cross-border mergers and acquisition market. There has been an increase in demand to acquire well run companies that have successfully navigated pandemic induced challenges. Tokyo-based DGFT offers comprehensive payment services to online businesses like eCommerce platforms, stores and other face-to-face business operators. DGFT and Vizitech have been working closely since 2016 to develop 24/7/365 monitoring solutions. Despite global lockdowns, Vizitech successfully continued operations and supported DGFT's increasing online transaction volumes. This acquisition fits into DGFTs strategy of investing in its high-quality infrastructure partners. Anand Shiralkar (Founder and CEO, Vizitech) states: "We have built a diverse and versatile Managed Services platform that has continued to delight its customers for the past nine years. Through this acquisition, we look forward to creating ripples in the Fintech space in Japan and India and expanding across other continents." Gautam Kulkarni (Co-founder and COO) adds: "This acquisition allow us to leverage the expertise and breadth of DGFT and lend our unique strength to impact the world of Fintech to create a win-win position for the fintech ecosystem. It's an opportune time given the increase in online cashless transactions."



Vizitech also supports system operations of Kipp Financial Technologies Inc., a DGFT investee, which develops Embedded Finance business. The Japanese Fintech Market is expected to grow at approximately 1.2 trillion yen in 2022. Taking advantage of Vizitech's technical capabilities in the financial IT field and ability to provide 24/7/365 operation and monitoring systems in Japanese, Vizitech will promote the provision of managed services to FinTech companies and other businesses, and aim to expand business in India, a growing leader in the global IT market. About Vizitech:

Vizitech is a Managed Services Provider skilled at localized system development and management for finance and payment industries. The leadership team has a deep-rooted understanding of the Fintech industry and employs top talent in the financial system development industry. It was founded by Anand Shiralkar and Gautam Kulkarni in 2012, headquartered in Pune (India) and caters to services in multiple languages, with environments and structures that comply with International Payment Card Security Standard (PCI DSS). About DGFT: DGFT provides payment-related services such as online payment services to businesses in a wide range of industries. DGFT contributes to the realization of a safe, secure and convenient cashless society by providing optimal services for businesses not only in e-commerce but also in the expanding face-to-face (real store) electronic payment area. Relevant contacts: Company name: Vizitech Solutions Private Limited

Established: October 19, 2012

Representative: CEO & Founder Anand Shiralkar

Address: Office No. 05, S.NO. 846, Near Marathawada College, Shivajinagar, Pune - 411004, Maharashtra, India.

Contact Email: info@vizitechsolutions.com

URL: https://www.vizitechsolutions.com/ DG Financial Technology, Inc.:

Parent Company name: Digital Garage,Inc.(https://www.garage.co.jp/en/)

Established: April 24, 1997

Representative: Representative Director, Chairman and CEO Kaoru Hayashi, Representative Director, President and Co-COO Keizo Odori, Representative Director, President and Co-COO Hiroshi Shino

Address: Digital Gate Building 10F, 3-5-7 Ebisu Minami, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0022.

URL: https://www.dgft.jp/

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[September 16, 2021] Freight trains from Chengdu's Qingbaijiang boost global trade

CHENGDU, China, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Qingbaijiang district in Chengdu, Southwest China's Sichuan province, has achieved outstanding results in its support for the Belt and Road Initiative and regional economic development. It has done so by making full use of Chengdu International Railway Port. After starting operations in 2013, the China-Europe (Chengdu) Railway Express, departing from the railway port, now outperforms many of its rivals in China. It puts Chengdu at the forefront of opening-up among the country's inland regions. The port has built a Chengdu-centered international rail network that connects to Europe, Mongolia, Russia, Japan, South Korea and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.



Trains departing from the port have traveled to 65 cities overseas, including Lodz in Poland and Nuremberg in Germany, as well as 20 Chinese cities. In the first half of this year, the Chengdu route dispatched more than 2,800 freight trains.

The China-Europe freight train service is recognized as a major channel for connecting global markets thanks to its high efficiency and stability, which benefits more multinational companies than ever. Since 2016, TCL Technology Group, a home appliance producer based in Huizhou, Guangdong province, has transferred part of its production capacity to Chengdu and delivered its products to Europe through the China-Europe freight train. In 2020, TCL chartered an average of two freight trains a week to haul its deliveries to Europe, equating to a total of more than 4,000 containers of products throughout the year. As of last month, Sichuan-based manufacturer Changhong Group had chartered four trains to Europe this year, carrying smart home appliances such as refrigerators and LCD television components. The company will maintain a frequency of one or two dispatched trains a month. On June 25, China's leading television manufacturer Konka Group's first delivery of TV sets was dispatched to Europe via the China-Europe freight train. Its export are estimated to consist of more than 200,000 units and total output value is expected to reach more than 100 million yuan in the second half of this year. In 2020, the Chengdu route transported goods worth 150.7 billion yuan into and outside of China, strongly boosting foreign trade in Sichuan. The next focus of Chengdu International Railway Port will be strengthening its role as a key land port and improving the international supply chain. SOURCE Qingbaijiang District Government of Chengdu

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[September 16, 2021] Hit Showtime Series Billions, Inspired by Chancery Court Impropriety, Exposes Depths of Dysfunction and Corruption in Delaware

Today, judicial watchdog and advocacy group Citizens for a Pro-Business Delaware is lauding the hit Showtime series Billions for its most recent episode, "Implosion," which highlighted the corruption and backroom deals plaguing the First State's government and judicial system. Said CPBD Campaign Manager, Chris Coffey, "Corruption at the highest levels of Delaware's government and legal system is so rampant and well-known that it has surpassed parody and become a plotline in a TV series known for its stark portrayals of abuse of power in elite society. We thank the producers of Billions for heeding our calls and plumbing the depths of Delaware's dysfunction in a way that's accessible to millions of viewers." The episode aired amidst a wave of heightened scrutiny of the First State for the lack of transparency, diversity, and accountability in its state government and judiciary. Now in its fifth season, Billions is a drama television series created by Bria Koppelman, David Levien, and Andrew Ross Sorkin. The show's story is centered around two competing characters and how they obtain and abuse power in an unending game of brinkmanship to come out on top. Billions pits Bobby Axelrod, a hedge fund manager who accumulates wealth and power in the world of high finance using aggressive and illegal tactics, against now-New York State Attorney General Chuck Rhoades.



According to the New York Times review of the latest episode of Billions, "Implosion," which aired on Sunday, September 12th, 2021, seeking a favor to hurt Axelrod, "Rhoades reaches out to Drew Moody (an impressively sinister Michael Cerveris), attorney general for the tax-haven state of Delaware. "Moody blows him off. 'I don't believe corporations are people,' he purrs. 'They're better than people, because they don't [expletive] up when they get so obsessed with one thing they can't see reality.'"

Said Chris Coffey, "What happened next was a textbook example of Delaware corruption and how the legal system is driven by money and backroom deals: Mike Prince, a billionaire rival to Axelrod with billions invested in corporations in the First State, visits the Delaware Attorney General and threatens to move his companies elsewhere, leaving the AG to explain where thousands of jobs went. AG Moody quickly acquiesces to Prince's demands and offers to appoint a hostile trustee to the board of Axelrod's bank who will be able to do damage from the inside. "Unfortunately, with elite attorneys hand-picked by the state's courts to oversee the sales of massive corporations can charge those companies millions of dollars without explaining why and engage in endless litigation to line their own pockets - all rubber-stamped by the very judges who appointed them - it's no surprise that Billions writers would find Delaware ripe for a plotline about greed and corruption. "When real-life figures like former Chancery Court Chancellor Andre Bouchard continuously side with their friends and former colleagues in elite law firms at the expense of the people, and use notorious encrypted email service ProtonMail to conduct their business, it's clear why Delaware's unsavory reputation for corruption and favor trading continues to live on." View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005547/en/

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[September 16, 2021] HMNC Brain Health Initiates Pioneering Precision Therapy Program in Mental Health

Pioneering the first large-scale double-blind studies to test the combination of therapies and genetic companion diagnostics in the area of mental health





Partners with worldwide leading contract research organization, ICON





Program targeting the 30% of Major Depressive Disorder related to a dysfunction in the human bodys stress system with a completely novel mode of action





First patient planned for enrollment in Q1, 2022; first results expected in Q2, 2023

MUNICH, Germany, Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- HMNC Brain Health, (HMNC or the company), a clinical stage biopharma company pioneering the development of personalized therapies powered by predictive companion diagnostics, has entered a definitive agreement to initiate a clinical phase II proof-of-concept program for its Nelivabon Project, targeting the 30% of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) related to a dysfunction in the human bodys stress system with a completely novel mode of action. This is the first time ever that large-scale precision therapy studies are being conducted in the area of mental health. HMNC Brain Health has developed the compound BH-200, which specifically targets the dysfunction of the HPA-Axis (Hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis), also called the stress axis in correlation with a companion biomarker test. The phase II program includes novel features as it in parallel will evaluate the test performance and the activity of BH-200 in two separate studies. A successful program would bring the total of positive trials to three and mark a huge step towards market approval. The Phase II studies will be set up and operated by ICON, one of the worlds leading contract research organizations and will start in Q1, 2022. Genetic tests in combination with treatment are a common protocol in other medical areas such as oncology, but its a novelty in psychiatry. The ability to apply this combined concept in depression therapy has the potential to be a significant breakthrough in the treatment of mental health disorders, said Dr. Hans Eriksson, Chief Clinical Development Officer of HMNC Brain Health. The first patient enrolled for the Nelivabon Project is expected in Q1, 2022 for the first segment of the study, with the second segment of the study slated for Q3, 2022. The initial results data will be available beginning of Q2, 2023. As we shift from a traditional one-size-fits-all treatment model for mental health disorders, we are exploring more robust, and targeted therapies, adds Benedikt von Braunmuhl, Chief Executive Officer at HMNC Brain Health. Our Nelivabon Prject addresses a high unmet medical need for many patients suffering from a dysfunction in the bodys stress system. Once clinically validated in conjunction with its predictive companion diagnostic, the project will be a potential solution for millions of patients suffering from this form of MDD. We are very confident that our precision psychiatry approach for the treatment of Major Depressive Disorder will prove its noteworthy potential addressing a large patient population.



About the Nelivabon Project With the Nelivabon Project, HMNC Brain Health has worldwide exclusive rights to a completely novel compound addressing a high unmet medical need. The project comprises the compound BH-200 and a matching molecular diagnostic test targeting the dysfunction of the HPA-Axis (Hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis), also called the stress axis with a completely novel mode of action. The neuropeptide vasopressin coordinates hormonal and behavioral adaptation to stress. Repeated stressors cause an elevated activity of vasopressin in the brain, potentially resulting in an increase of anxiety and a major depressive episode. BH-200 is an antagonist at the vasopressin V1b receptor, expected to be able to target this dysfunction. The clinical development is combined with a predictive companion diagnostic which identifies patients with an underlying dysfunction of the HPA-Axis -related major depressive disorder. These simple to perform molecular-diagnostic tests pave the way for the targeted use of antidepressants as they enable physicians to predict their patients response to special treatments. The now starting phase II program includes novel features since it in parallel will evaluate the test performance and the activity of BH-200 in two separate studies. A successful program would bring the total of positive trials to three and mark a huge step towards market approval. The compound BH-200 was in-licensed worldwide exclusively from Sanofi after having demonstrated efficacy despite being tested in an unselected population. At Sanofi, the predefined primary endpoint was met in one of the two MDD studies conducted, supporting the antidepressant efficacy of BH-200. Once clinically validated in conjunction with its predictive companion diagnostic, the Nelivabon Project could represent a highly efficient treatment for those patients suffering stress axis related MDD.

About HMNC Brain Health HMNC Brain Health (HMNC Holding GmbH) is a clinical stage biopharma company pioneering in developing personalized therapies powered by predictive companion diagnostics, leading to far shorter treatments and higher remission. The company develops a unique pipeline for targeting both major depressive disorder (MDD) and treatment-resistant depression (TRD). HMNC Brain Health is located at one of the leading European biotech hubs in Munich and backed by renowned family offices. The company now enters the next stage of its development with a large-scale licensing and fundraising agenda. About ICON ICON is a global provider of consulting, and outsourced development and commercialisation services to pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical device and government and public health organizations. Media Contacts

Alexander Schmidt (Europe)

+49 151 22 99 39 765

alexander.schmidt@gaulyadvisors.com Anne Donohoe (U.S.)

+1 212-896-1265

hmnc@kcsa.com Investor Contact (U.S.)

Tim Regan

+1 347-487-6788

tregan@kcsa.com



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[September 16, 2021] Hunter Communications Deploys TNS Call Guardian Authentication Hub to Shield Business Customers in Oregon and California from Robocalls

Transaction Network Services ( TNS (News - Alert) ) today announced that Hunter Communications, the premier communications service provider of fiber-optic internet and phone services to businesses and homes in southern Oregon and northern California, will deploy TNS Call Guardian Authentication Hub to protect business customers from receiving unwanted scam and nuisance calls. More than 78 billion unwanted calls were made in the last 12 months, and regional service providers are vulnerable as a target for bad actors to launch high-volume scam and nuisance robocall campaigns. TNS enables service providers to address this challenge through a multi-layered approach delivered through its suite of robocall mitigation products, including Call Guardian Authentication Hub. Regional providers, like Hunter Communications, can use the Call Guardian Authentication Hub to quickly and economically go-to-market with a hosted call authentication solution that analyzes real-time call events combined with STIR/SHAKEN authentication and validation of caller ID. "Carriers of all sizes are looking for technologies and tools able to address policy and regulatory compliance requirements, including the TRACED Act and implementation of STIR/SHAKEN," said DavidKaemmer, Vice President of Sales at TNS. "Hunter Communications joins a growing list of wireless and wireline service providers that have turned to TNS to not only meet robocall mitigation policy objectives when it comes to protecting subscribers but exceed them."



TNS' 2021 Robocall Investigation Report shows that efforts by the leading carriers to deploy STIR/SHAKEN and call verification solutions have had a positive impact. More than one-third of the total calls traversing carrier networks in December 2020 were self-signed by a voice service provider ensuring the caller was verified. "We needed a partner with proven, innovative robocall protection solutions to address the negative impact unwanted robocalls have on our business customers," said Michal Wynschenk, CEO of Hunter Communications. "Our focus is on offering reliable voice service and a superior experience to our customers, and TNS helps us deliver on that mission."

Call Guardian Authentication Hub, which combines TNS' Call Guardian analytics and robocall detection engine with Metawsitch's MetaSphere Qcall, is a hosted, cost-feasible solution that can extend STIR/SHAKEN implementation to regional carriers. "For years, Metaswitch, which was acquired by Microsoft (News - Alert) last year, and TNS' combined solution has helped service providers in North America deploy the STIR/SHAKEN call authentication framework necessary to protect their subscribers against robocalls," said Joe Weeden, Vice President of Product Management for Microsoft. "With Call Guardian Authentication Hub, Hunter Communications will shield their business customers from robocalls and quickly be in compliance with FCC (News - Alert) protocols designed to combat illegal call spoofing." Hunter Communications completed full implementation and migration to Call Guardian Authentication Hub in June of 2021. To learn more about TNS' suite of robocall protection solutions, visit here. ENDS About Transaction Network Services (News - Alert) From small rural operators in the US to the largest multi-national carriers, TNS addresses the full needs of wireless and wireline operators in the US and globally. TNS Call Guardian is an industry-leading call analytics solution used by leading US wireless service providers as well as US landline providers to deliver a superior user experience by protecting their subscribers from high risk and nuisance robocalls. By analyzing over 1 billion call events across more than 500 operators every single day and capturing crowdsourced feedback, the Call Guardian app enables carriers to identify more unwanted robocalls than competitors. Call Guardian is a registered trademark of Transaction Network Services, Inc. For additional information visit here. About Hunter Hunter Communications provides ultra-high-speed fiber optic broadband internet, data and voice services to business and residential customers in communities throughout southern Oregon and northern California. With Gig speeds, no data caps, and competitive pricing, Hunter's 2,000+mile fiber network is nationally recognized for performance and reliability. BroadbandNow recognized Hunter with four 2020 Internet Service Provider Awards, including for fastest business internet speeds in Oregon and among the top 10 nationwide. Founded in 1994, Hunter is headquartered in Medford, Oregon where the company established a legacy of service excellence and commitment to local communities. Hunter Communications was acquired in 2020 by Grain Management LLC. Additional information is available at Hunterfiber.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005421/en/

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[September 16, 2021] L3Harris Increases Indiana Campus Size and Expands Workforce to Support Growing DOD Satellite Work

L3Harris Technologies (NYSE:LHX) has increased the size of its campus and is expanding its workforce in Fort Wayne, Indiana to address the Department of Defense's growing and urgent need for advanced, resilient satellites. "Our customers face rapidly evolving threats now, not in years," said Ed Zoiss, President, Space and Airborne Systems, L3Harris. "We've increased our investment and expanded our capacity prior to receiving program awards so we can help them address threats without hesitancy." Members of Indiana's congressional delegation participated in a dedication Sept. 16 for the new building. "Hoosiers welcome the expansion of L3Harris Technologies facility right here in Fort Wayne. This campus will address the Department of Defense's urgent need for satellite programs and invest in innovative technology, while also bringing new jobs to the northeast Indiana workforce," said Sen. Todd Young. "The expansion of the L3Harris Technologies facility in Fort Wayne is a win for the economy of Northeast Indiana, and an example of Hoosiers working hard with fellow Americans to achieve a common goal of protecting the United States," said Sen. Mike Braun. "I'm proud this state-of-the-art defense technology will be developed in Indiana, which will help keep us all safe." "At its new facility, L3Harris ill develop technology to detect hypersonic missiles and defend against adversaries like Russia and China, track weather patterns around the world and boost our economy," said U.S. Rep. Jim Banks. "This investment is a victory for America and a victory for northeast Indiana."



The new classified facility provides the space for our missile defense satellite programs. It will support engineering, integration, testing and program management and brings the total size of the L3Harris campus to 150,000 square feet. "Our expertise in electro-optical/infrared technology and our fresh approach to the problem set garnered the trust of the Space Development Agency and the Missile Defense Agency," Zoiss said.

The Space Development Agency awarded L3Harris its tracking layer prototype program to develop and integrate an end-to-end satellite system in October 2020. The Missile Defense Agency awarded the company a prototype contract to develop the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor in January. L3Harris is also expanding its Palm Bay, Fla., site to increase satellite production capacity. About L3Harris Technologies L3Harris Technologies is an agile global aerospace and defense technology innovator, delivering end-to-end solutions that meet customers' mission-critical needs. The company provides advanced defense and commercial technologies across air, land, sea, space and cyber domains. L3Harris has approximately $18 billion in annual revenue and 47,000 employees, with customers in 130 countries. L3Harris.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005252/en/

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[September 16, 2021] Northwell Health and Walgreens Announce Strategic Agreement

Northwell Health and Walgreens announced today they have signed a five-year strategic affiliation aimed at improving the health of populations and advancing health equity throughout New York State. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005209/en/ Northwell Health van and Walgreens store. Photo courtesy: Northwell Health The agreement will explore the common goals of developing innovative health care delivery models, offerings and services that better the health of populations and reduce costs of healthcare by advancing the delivery of retail health services in relation to access, quality, equity, satisfaction and efficiency of care. "We are very excited to partner with Walgreens to improve health, improve care and reduce costs through collaborative and innovative opportunities," said Mark Solazzo, Northwell Health President of Strategic Initiatives & Chief Operating Officer. "This affiliation agreement strengthens our resolve and mutual commitment towards community health equity." The collaborative activities are being pursued as part of this agreement include digital offerings, retail and specialty pharmacy services, and offering Walgreens as an in-network pharmacy provider for Northwell's employees. These initiatives are all designed to generate operational synergies and efficiencies consistent with the mission of providing quality, value-based care to patients and consumers throughout the New York state area. "Northwell Health shares our commitment to expanding access to affordable, high-quality health care and pharmacy services," said Jeff Bruneteau, regional vice president of Eastern operations, Walgreens. "Having our pharmacy services available to Northwell Health employees gives them convenient access to a broader network of trusted Walgreens pharmacies." As part of the digital agreement, Northwell telehealth providers are now accessible on the Walgreens Find Care platform acrossthe state of New York, expanding community member access to virtual emergency care services from board-certified emergency medicine physicians in the comfort of their home. Pediatric specialists are also available.



Northwell Health and Walgreens are also exploring a retail health clinic collaboration at select Walgreens store locations throughout the tri-state area, which would create additional access to primary care particularly in underserved communities. Additionally, since September 1, Northwell Health's employees can fill their non-specialty prescriptions at any Walgreens pharmacy. "Northwell Health and Walgreens worked together during the peak of the pandemic to offer COVID-19 vaccines to vulnerable community members," said Dr. Deb Salas-Lopez, Northwell Health senior vice president of community and population health. "We look forward to continuing to build on our relationship."

To locate a Northwell Health-GoHealth location visit: https://www.gohealthuc.com/nyc#center-locator.

To locate a Walgreens store visit: https://www.walgreens.com/storelocator/find.jsp?tab=store+locator&requestType=locator. About Northwell Health Northwell Health is New York State's largest health care provider and private employer, with 23 hospitals, 830 outpatient facilities and more than 16,600 affiliated physicians. We care for over two million people annually in the New York metro area and beyond, thanks to philanthropic support from our communities. Our 76,000 employees - 18,900 nurses and 4,800 employed doctors, including members of Northwell Health Physician Partners - are working to change health care for the better. We're making breakthroughs in medicine at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research. We're training the next generation of medical professionals at the visionary Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell and the Hofstra Northwell School of Nursing and Physician Assistant Studies. For information on our more than 100 medical specialties, visit Northwell.edu and follow us @NorthwellHealth on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. About Walgreens Walgreens (www.walgreens.com) is included in the United States segment of Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. (Nasdaq: WBA), a global leader in retail pharmacy. As America's most loved pharmacy, health and beauty company, Walgreens purpose is to champion the health and wellbeing of every community in America. Operating more than 9,000 retail locations across America, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, Walgreens is proud to be a neighborhood health destination serving approximately 8 million customers each day. Walgreens pharmacists play a critical role in the U.S. healthcare system by providing a wide range of pharmacy and healthcare services. To best meet the needs of customers and patients, Walgreens offers a true omnichannel experience, with platforms bringing together physical and digital, supported by the latest technology to deliver high-quality products and services in local communities nationwide. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005209/en/

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[September 16, 2021] Perspectum Announces Partnership with Datavant to Improve Clinical Trial Recruitment with Connected Data

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Perspectum, a global quantitative and genomics-based imaging company, is joining forces with Datavant, the leader in helping healthcare organizations securely connect health data, to offer pharma-sponsored clinical trial recruitment solutions. The partnership with Datavant will enable Perspectum to connect its precision quantitative and genomics-based imaging data to real-world medical data.

Together, the companies will focus on improving patient recruitment in Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH) and Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) clinical trials and also plan to improve recruitment in other therapeutic areas such as cholestatic liver disease, long-COVID, and oncology. We are very excited to work with Datavant to achieve the mutual goal of improving patient outcomes, said Dr. Rajarshi Banerjee, Chief Executive Officer of Perspectum. Dr. Banerjee adds, Solid tumor cancers, cholestatic liver disease and long-COVID all require diagnostic lab test results combined with imaging to confirm diagnosis and support disease staging. By linking our data to labs and other real-world data we will join Datavant in its mission to connect disparate medical data sets to help researchers identify trial patients faster. Were thrilled to partner with Perspectum as they bring an innovative approach to the challenge of effective trial recruitment, said Travis May, Founder and President of Datavant. Imaging data yields highly specific insighs about patient disease. It becomes even more valuable when it is connected with other real-world data, which adds precision and speed to finding candidates for clinical trials.



About Perspectum Perspectum, a global medical technology company with offices in the U.K., the U.S. and Singapore, delivers leading digital technologies that help clinicians provide better care for patients with chronic metabolic diseases, multi-organ pathologies and cancer. With a strong focus on precision medicine using advanced imaging and genetics, our vision is to empower patients and clinicians through quantitative assessments of health enabling early detection, diagnosis and targeted treatment. With a diverse team of physicians, biomedical scientists, engineers and technologists, Perspectum offers a way to manage complex health problems at scale.

For additional information, please visit: https://perspectum.com, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. About Datavant Datavants mission is to connect the worlds health data to improve patient outcomes. Datavant works to reduce the friction of data sharing across the healthcare industry by building neutral, trusted and ubiquitous technology that protects the privacy of patients while supporting the exchange of identified and de-identified health data across tens of thousands of healthcare institutions. For Further Information: For Perspectum Nellie Wild

VP Corporate Affairs

Perspectum

nellie.wild@perspectum.com For Datavant Elenee Argentinis

Head of Marketing

Datavant

pr@datavant.com



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[September 16, 2021] RGB CustomPC of Plano Joins National Tech Worker Apprenticeship Program

PLANO, Texas, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- RGB CustomPC, a growing provider of customized personal computer assembly services for individuals and organizations, has joined CompTIA Apprenticeships for Tech, a national program to expand and diversify the information technology (IT) workforce across America. CompTIA Apprenticeships for Tech and partners such as RGB CustomPC are working together to increase the number of IT workers across America; expand tech career opportunities for women, individuals with disabilities, people of color and other populations; and help employers meet their current and long-term needs for IT professionals. "The structure of the Apprenticeships for Tech program has helped us to upskill our current employees and create a long-term plan to attract new talent, offering education, training and a clear path for career advancement," said Holly Millay, who with her husband, Sean Benedict, founded RGB CustomPC in March 2019. "We emphasize professionalism, leadership, communication, accountability and excellence which are all things we see in this program." CompTIA, the nonprofit association for the IT industry and workfoce, and Maher & Maher, a recognized leader in building innovative and successful apprenticeship initiatives, were selected by the U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL) to participate in the national apprenticeship initiative. The program is designed to help companies of all sizes  from small firms such as RGB CustomPC to large enterprises with thousands of workers  to fill their staffing needs for technology professionals, and to do so in a way to opens career opportunities for more individuals.



"As our business has evolved, the need for qualified technical support specialists has increased," Millay explained. "The comprehensive curriculum will provide invaluable training across a broad spectrum of workplace behaviors, leadership skills, customer service skills, and technical aptitude. We expect to continue to experience rapid growth over the next few years and desire a powerful and talented group of people to grow with us." "Apprenticeships are a proven method for developing the tech talent that any business needs," said Amy Kardel, vice president for strategic workforce relationships at CompTIA. "We're pleased to welcome RGB CustomPC to the program and look forward to working with them as they grow their business and create new career opportunities for more people."

Employers interested in joining the CompTIA Apprenticeships for Tech program and individuals who would like to become apprentices can find more information at https://www.comptia.org/content/lp/apprenticeships-for-tech. About CompTIA Apprenticeships for Tech

CompTIA Apprenticeships for Tech is a national initiative to increase the number of skilled technology workers and expand tech career opportunities for diverse populations, including women, individuals with disabilities and people of color. It is funded by the U.S. Department of Labor, led by CompTIA, the nonprofit association for the IT industry and workforce, and Maher & Maher, a recognized leader in building innovative and successful apprenticeship initiatives and is built according to the Registered Apprenticeship Program model. For more information visit https://www.comptia.org/content/lp/apprenticeships-for-tech. Media Contact

Steven Ostrowski

CompTIA

sostrowski@comptia.org

+1 630-678-8468 View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/rgb-custompc-of-plano-joins-national-tech-worker-apprenticeship-program-301378596.html SOURCE CompTIA

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[September 16, 2021] Semcasting Launches Employee-Based Title Targeting

NORTH ANDOVER, Mass., Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Semcasting , creators of Audience Designer and its patented identity resolution Smart Zones technology, today announced the release of its employee-based title business-to-business (B2B) targeting solution in the Audience Designer (ADS) Data Center.

Using natural-language processing in combination with the automated classification of titles, roles and experience, Semcasting has built deterministic profiles for more than 74 million employees by title with links to their office and their homes. Through ADS, a target audience can be refined by their professional title and seniority, as well as by their consumer profile and interests. With ADS Business Title targeting, for the first time B2B marketers can programmatically execute B2B campaigns to pre-qualified decision-makers with full transparency to who they are reaching at scale. Rather than just seeding the funnel with keywords and chasing website visits as intent, Semcastings prebuilt universe of employees and decision makers is based on actual roles and responsibilities. To each professional profile, Semcasting has applied a constellation approach to digital identity that is based on hashed emails, personal mobile devices, corporate networks IPs, home WIFI targeting and connected TV identifiers. Marketers can now fill the top of any campaign funnel with a fully pre-qualified audience at scale before they spend a dime on media. Employee-Based Title Targeting was designed to reduce wasted media spend and put marketers in direct contact with decision-makers. Semcastings constellation approach to identity resolution provides match rates average +85% or better to first-party CRM lists. For every employee and title, there is an average of three or more digital touchpoints. 1st Party data and digital IDs are controlled exclusively by the brand or their marketing company. Leveraging a clean-room matchingprocess to anonymous DSP IDs, Semcastings self-serve platform allows brands to control their own data, and customer data can never need to be copied, retained or shared. Semcasting ADS is a cookie-free matching process that links directly to most major media platforms protecting user privacy and further reducing the scale obstacles that have plagued B2B onboarding.



Employee Business Profiles is an advancement to the existing ADS B2B Organizational Targeting. B2B Organizational Targeting allows marketers to onboard a first-party data list and then enhance and segment that audience based on a businesses North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) industry code, revenue, employee count and location. Marketers can further tailor their B2B audiences by the standard attributes as well as the following to get a more well-rounded understanding of the right audience: Title  The technology translates nuances in employees title naming by normalizing the titles into a standard across industries and organizations.

 The technology translates nuances in employees title naming by normalizing the titles into a standard across industries and organizations. Level of Employee  It clearly identifies if the employee is an executive, mid-level manager or staff, etc.

 It clearly identifies if the employee is an executive, mid-level manager or staff, etc. Organization and Industry  Marketers can construct their own audience segments in minutes using NAICS Industry Codes, Domain lists, Company names and locations. Adequate scale in various B2B and ABM siloed tactics have been consistent problems for B2B marketing regardless of the target industry, said Ray Kingman, founder and CEO of Semcasting. The ability of ADS to onboard 1st party data at match rates above 85% is an advantage, but to be able to transparency select professionals by title, industry, company names, domains, or geography upfront without having to march down the proverbial funnel can be a game-changer in terms of achieving immediate scale while saving time and money.

Semcasting customers using Employee-Based Title Targeting will be able to seamlessly identify a target audience with a clear count of professionals by title, know who they work for, and home they can be reached at home in the off-hours. Marketers can instantly download an insights report and be in-market on their choice of media platform the same day. With Semcasting Employee Based-Title Targeting, B2B marketers can finally size and plan to the true value and scale of each market opportunity. To learn more about Semcasting, the ADS Data Center and Employee Business Profiles, please visit https://audiencedesigner.com/ . About Semcasting

Semcasting, a data-as-a-service provider, created the next-generation end-to-end audience design solution, AudieneDesigner (ADS), which includes omnichannel onboarding, audience design and attribution in one self-serve platform. Our three-time patented SmartZones IP Targeting platform onboards a wide array of consumer, business, mobile and internet site traffic to both online and offline locations. Smart Zones uniquely links all cross-device activity for targeted advertising and attribution with nearly 100% reach and unrivaled accuracy. Semcasting is headquartered in North Andover, Massachusetts. Media Contact

Matt Caldecutt

Blast PR for Semcasting

matt@blastpr.com

(347) 687-3721



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[September 16, 2021] "Snake Lighter" Art Project in Brooklyn is the First-Time a GeoPose-Based Installation has Been Created in the U.S.

BROOKLYN, N.Y., Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pioneering augmented reality artist Stephen Black is collaborating with artist Daniel Bainbridge on an installation opening Friday, September 17 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., on the Hawkeye Crates loading dock, 272 Morgan Ave., Unit G, in Brooklyn.

The Snake Lighter Art Installation is part of the Bushwick Open Studios Project. The Snake Lighter collaboration between Black and Bainbridge features music by Antonello Arciuli. The installation will be on view Saturday, September 18 and Sunday, September 19 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Starting from Monday, September 20th, until the night of September 26, Snake Lighter will be open only by appointment. Black said visitors to Snake Lighter will get both an imaginative artistic experience and a glimpse into the future of AR. Snake Lighter is groundbreaking and historic in that this will be the first time that a GeoPose-based fine art installation has been created in the United States and perhaps the world. GeoPose is a protocol where a digital objects precise position and orientation are encoded to a physical location. In addition to its technical and economic advantages, GeoPose represents an open and ethical future for the spatial web  the computing atmosphere that exists in a 3D space. The installation is partially powered by the sales of two newly published books by Book Merah, which was founded by Black: i ate tiong bahru and Newspaper Drumsticks. Bubiko: First Flight, the first film to be made with location-based AR, will be screened at the Snake Lighter exhibition. It was made in Bari, Italy, which has the worlds largest AR testbed. The short film has been described as historic as the worlds first website. Bubiko: First Flight was written, directed, and produced by Black. The music is by DJ Spooky, Arciuli and Mark Mothersbaugh and features choreographyby Ezio Schiavulli and the Network Internazionale Danza Puglia.



In addition to Snake Lighter and Bubiko: First Flight, there will be a number of other artworks, including prints and videos, at the installation. The Bushwick Open Studios Project is programmed by Arts In Bushwick, a visual and performing arts platform prioritizing visibility, resources and support to Bushwick artists and Brooklyn-native artists of color from all mediums of visual art, music and performing arts.

About Stephen Black

With a background as an artist, writer and producer for network television, Black began researching augmented reality in 2015. Since that time, he has spoken about AR worldwide, including at MIT, the VIEW Conference, and other venues across the world. With Sayuri Okayama, he created Bubiko Food tour to explore the intersections of AR, food, and pop culture. His short film Bubiko: First Flight, created at the Augmented City AR testbed in Bari, Italy, has been called as historically significant as the first website on the internet. Black, a bestselling writer, is a former producer and director at the Cartoon Network, Fuji TV, CNN, Fox, and Turner Classics. He is a graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology and has a Bachelors Degree in Photographic Illustration. For more information about Black, visit blacksteps.tv .

Information about Spatial Cinema and Bubiko: First Flight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIOFMzq8kBE&list=PL6yW3XOOiMK2RKW0swi2j6qrP7RU3qVz0 Newspaper Drumsticks: https://www.amazon.com/Newspaper-Drumsticks-brother-Alaska-Oklahoma-ebook/dp/B087T6QSLN i ate tiong bahru: https://www.amazon.com/I-ate-Tiong-Bahru-second/dp/1637601751 A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/ce979eb7-93f9-4f40-91ea-a58069a3a724 Contact:

Stephen Black

BubikoWorldTour@gmail.com





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[September 16, 2021] SoftBank Adds New Managing Partners to Latin America Funds' Investment Team to Focus on Early-stage Companies

SoftBank Group International ("SBGI") today announced that Rodrigo Baer and Marco Camhaji will be joining SBLA Advisers Corp., which manages the SoftBank Latin American Fund ("LatAm Fund") and the SoftBank Latin American Fund II ("LatAm Fund II"), as Managing Partners focused on identifying and supporting early-stage companies across the Latin American region. Mr. Baer and Mr. Camhaji bring significant expertise and experience identifying and supporting early-stage technology growth companies. They will be based in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and will report to Marcelo Claure, Corporate Officer, Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer of SoftBank Group, Chief Executive Officer of SBGI and Chief Executive Officer of SBLA Advisers Corp. "As one of the largest and most active technology investors in Latin America, the LatAm Fund has invested in almost two-thirds of the unicorns operating in the region," said Mr. Claure. "With the addition of Rodrigo and Marco to our world-class investment team, as well as the launch of our second Latin America Fund, we will be better able to identify great entrepreneurs and support them at every step of their lifecycle. I'm confident Rodrigo and Marco's insights and experience will add great value for the high-growth companies we support in Latin America." "SoftBank and the LatAm Fund have been an aggressive investor in Latin America, a region that continues to grow at an extraordinary pace," said Mr. Baer. "I am excited to work with Marcelo and the team to identify early-stage companies and provide them with the capital and operational support to help them succeed and scale their companies in an increasingly challenging market." "Latin America continues to be a hotbed of innovation with entrepreneus disrupting, redefining and creating new industries," said Mr. Camhaji. "Supporting these entrepreneurs in the early stages of their companies and helping them cultivate talent as well as optimize and scale their operations is a tremendous opportunity, and I can't wait to get started."



About Rodrigo Baer Mr. Baer is one of the pioneers of the venture capital industry in Brazil, investing in more than 20 companies since 2010. Mr. Baer is also a big contributor to the ecosystem through his YouTube (News - Alert) Channel, "Pergunte ao VC", and its founder education program, "VC for Founders", at Cubo. Before Redpoint, Mr. Baer co-founded Warehouse Investments, was an Engagement Manager at McKinsey and worked in Aurora Funds, a Healthcare Services-focused venture capital fund in the U.S. He is also active with Endeavor and multiple angel groups. Mr. Baer holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management and Undergraduate from EAESP-FGV.

About Marco Camhaji Mr. Camhaji has had vast experience working with technology investments in Latin America since 2008. Prior to joining SoftBank, Mr. Camhaji was a Business Development Principal at Amazon, establishing strategic partnerships with fintech companies in Latin America. Mr. Camhaji also had experience as an operator as the CEO of Adianta, a Brazilian B2B invoice financing company. Previously, he was a Founder and Partner at Yellow Ventures, making seed investments in technology startups. Mr. Camhaji was also a Partner and CFO of Redpoint eVentures, one of the main early-stage venture capital funds in the region. Earlier in his career, he was also the CFO of successful startups, including Movile and Apontador. Mr. Camhaji is also a volunteer member of BayBrazil, and has acted as part of the Advisory Committee since 2014. Mr. Camhaji holds a Master's in Management from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a B.S. in Law and Accounting from EAESP-SP. About SoftBank The SoftBank Group invests in breakthrough technology to improve the quality of life for people around the world. The SoftBank Group is comprised of SoftBank Group Corp. (TOKYO: 9984), an investment holding company that includes stakes in telecommunications, internet services, AI, smart robotics, IoT and clean energy technology providers; the SoftBank Vision Funds, which are investing more than US$135 billion to help extraordinary entrepreneurs transform industries and shape new ones; the US$5 billion SoftBank Latin America Fund, the largest venture fund in that region; the newly-launched US$3 billion SoftBank Latin America Fund II; and the SB Opportunity Fund, a US$100 million fund dedicated to investing in enterprises founded by entrepreneurs of color in the U.S. To learn more, please visit https://group.softbank/en. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005429/en/

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[September 16, 2021] Technicorum Strikes a Strategic Business Partnership to Integrate Fiat-Crypto Payment in Gennix Microlending Protocol

SINGAPORE, Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- (via Blockchain Wire)  Technicorum Holdings, an IT and service group specializing in Digital Assets and successful incubator of innovative DeFi and NFT project KingSwap, today announced that Gennix, a microlending protocol aimed at reducing financial inequality on the blockchain has struck a strategic business partnership with DTC to integrate Fiat -Crypto payment for consumers. DTC is delighted to be a strategic partner to Gennix and potential future developments for the DeFi ecosystem," said El Lee, COO of Digital Treasures Center. "DTC acts as a payment gateway and liquidity provider for Gennix users to convert between fiat and crypto. Onboarded users also get access to DTC's compliant and secure wallet solution that complements the decentralized platform at Gennix. Gennix enables participation for everyone, providing benefits for Holders, Stakers, Lenders, and borrowers within the Gennix ecosystem. The strategic partnership with DTC offers a simplified Fiat-Crypto payment gateway for all Gennix users. This enables anyone to purchase or sell $GNNX Tokens to a stablecoin such as USDT, then convert it into fiat money and participate in the Gennix ecosystem. DTC on-ramps and off-ramps integration on the Gennix platform offers quicker, secure, and reliable payments for the Gennix community. We have seen the greatest success when opportunity drives collaboration," Keefe Tan, Project Director for Gennix. "Gennix has identified the specific challenge that a partnership with DTC can solve. We have identified the pain points of our users, what worries them and how we can better serve our community.



Shareholders are becoming increasingly deliberate about investing in projects based on their sustainability. Gennix provides investors options to convert fiat money easily into USDT, BTC, ETH, or other ERC20 tokens to purchase $GNNX tokens through its platform and other DEX on Binance Smart Chain such as PancakeSwap. The on-ramp and off-ramp integration in Gennix platform allows investors to purchase and withdraw from as low as $200 to as high as $1,000,000 fiat money directly from their local banks to the Gennix platform vice versa. For more information on Gennix, please visit https://www.gennix.io/.

ABOUT GENNIX

Gennix is a DeFi-built uniform Layer 2 lending protocol thats designed to maximize scalability, composability, and growth. The project promotes end-to-end lending and borrowing of digital assets and related financial products by operating on public networks. A game-changing feature that distinguishes Gennix from other DeFi projects is its foundation on the latest innovative BSC network and the introduction of NFT yield boosters. For more information, visit http://www.gennix.io/. ABOUT TECHNICORUM GROUP

Technicorum Group comprises of subsidiaries, a few which are regulated, specializing in various verticals in the Digital Assets space, with a one-stop-shop capability to launch, incubate and bring to the global market any blockchain, digital asset, fintech, NFT, DeFi etc project, and is primarily responsible for the KingSwap project, with references of over 100 ICOs worked on in the past 3 years through its subsidiaries. ABOUT KINGSWAP

KingSwap (https://www.kingswap.io/) is a DeFi project based out of Singapore with a **regulated token that introduces a liquidity pool platform with possible fiat conversions. KingSwaps high-yield liquidity platform offers extensive staking rewards and digital collectibles. **" Regulated" - KingSwap commissioned Gravitas International Associates Pte Ltd, a Singapore Payment Service Act ("PSA") exempt company, to issue the $KING tokens. A legal opinion regarding the token issuance has been submitted to the MAS in accordance with the PSA requirements. Gravitas has already submitted an application to the MAS for full licensing under PSA, and the said application is pending review. KingSwap itself has no license specific to DeFi projects, as there is no specific legislation anywhere in the world at this point in time, and is following the regulatory framework of the PSA in Singapore at the time of writing. All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their registered owners. Media Contact: ima.jamal@technicorum.com



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[September 16, 2021] TMYTEK Unveils the New 5G Millimeter Wave Beamformers and Frequency Converters with Full FR2 Spectrum

TAIPEI, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- TMY Technology, Inc. ( TMYTEK ), the world's leading millimeter-wave solutions provider headquartered in Taiwan, today announced its 5G mmWave beamformers and frequency converters that support both 28GHz and 39GHz with the full 5G FR2 spectrum coverage for antenna and algorithm developers. In particular, academic researchers and antenna module makers can benefit from these innovative products to speed up their R&D progress 20X faster in the advanced mmWave solutions. "5G is no doubt the driving force for the next-generation transformation and we are more than excited to see and support the boost of new 5G opportunities in the global market with our growing mmWave prodct offerings to speed up FR2 technology development and application faster than ever," said Ethan Lin, VP and Co-Founder of TMYTEK. "Our BBox 5G series and UD Box 5G series not only support 28GHz in the FR2 frequency band for most countries in the world but also cover 39GHz that is currently available in the US, Canada, Australia and China markets. By solving the challenge of mmWave propagation and understanding the pain points in beamforming implementation, our team continues optimizing product design to ensure the cutting-edge performance of 5G mmWave development products. Meanwhile, we have added dynamic thermal compensation for constant RF performance and enabled SPI control by FPGA/SDR to achieve a short beam switching time of hundreds nanosecond to fulfill the 3GPP beam management requirement."



Covering FR2 bands n257, n258, n259, n260 and n261, the most common 5G mmWave and satellite communication spectrum, the latest 5G version of beamformer and frequency converter designed by TMYTEK allowing developers and researchers to perform mmWave applications development and test on extended frequency band options. The use case of the University of Hawai?i at Manoa has successfully developed a 5G NR sensing prototype system for contactless COVID-19 test by TMYTEK's mmWave products. With two of TMYTEK's beamformer, BBox, as the OFDM transmitter (Tx) and receiver (Rx), and one UD Box as a frequency up and down converter, researchers can set up a mmWave radar environment quickly and focus on algorithm development, to successfully developed an accurate, safe, and contactless COVID-19 testing system.

TMYTEK's latest BBox 5G beamformers integrate all active circuits, including Power Amplifier (PA), Low Noise Amplifier (LNA), Phase Shifter, and T/R switch in one box to make a complete RF front-end for 5G mmWave applications. Moreover, the detachable antenna design offers excellent flexibility for easy attachment for any array antenna. UD Box 5G, an ultra-broadband frequency up and down converter radio frequency cover up to 44GHz. TMYTEK's in-house designed GUI and API provide individual control of phase and amplitude of each channel in BBox and configure the frequencies in UD Box, allowing antenna designers, system integrators and algorithm developers to complete beamforming and conduct testing from different angles for various mmWave deployment scenarios. For more information, please visit tmytek.com . About TMYTEK TMY Technology, Inc. (TMYTEK) is an innovator and a game-changer that delivers the breakthroughs of millimeter-wave solutions in 5G/B5G and satellite communication applications to worldwide clients. As a leading technology developer, TMYTEK enables people's everyday life with better connectivity from our clients' products. By transforming the mmWave RF fronted with innovative devices, inventing ready-to-use beamforming development kit, implementing phased arrays with modern Antenna-in-Package (AiP) technology, and redefining the OTA testing methodology, TMYTEK empowers industrial inventions to market faster. Together with our global partners and allies, we make historical firsts and positively impact society. Find out more from www.tmytek.com View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/tmytek-unveils-the-new-5g-millimeter-wave-beamformers-and-frequency-converters-with-full-fr2-spectrum-301378444.html SOURCE TMY Technology Inc.

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[September 16, 2021] Unveiling Right Issue, BRI to Build the Largest Ultra-Micro Ecosystem in Indonesia

JAKARTA, Indonesia, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia (Persero) Tbk (IDX:BBRI) has on August 31, 2021 launched a rights issue, with a transaction target of up to IDR 96 trillion. The proceeds from the Rights Issue will be used for establishing an ultra-micro holding company through which BRI will hold 99.99% of the issued and paid-up capital in PT Pegadaian (Persero) and PT Permodalan Nasional Madani (Persero). In connection with the Rights Issue, BRI is offering a maximum f 28,2 billion of its Series B shares. The Rights trading period is from September 13-22. During this period, eligible Shareholders will be able to exercise their Rights. Rights Shares will be allotted and/or delivered to eligible Shareholders from September 15-24.



BRI's President Director Sunarso said that approximately IDR 54.7 trillion of the proceeds from the Rights Issue will be used in connection with the Ultra Micro Business Combination. Which from the subscription of the Government of the Republic of Indonesia in the form of in-kind contribution (inbreng) of its shares in Pegadaian and PNM as its capital payment for the Rights. Sunarso added that the remaining proceeds of the Rights Issue, in the form of cash, will be used for working capital for BRI in order to develop an ultra-micro ecosystem as well as micro and small businesses. The Ultra Micro Business Combination is expected to accelerate BRI to achieve its vision of becoming "The Most Valuable Banking Group in Southeast Asia" and "Champion of Financial Inclusion".

Indonesia's Growing Micro And Ultra-Micro Ecosystems Indonesia's micro and ultra-micro ecosystems have played a crucial role in supporting the country's economic growth, and BRI has been playing a proactive role in developing these sectors. BRI believes that there are 45 million ultra-micro businesses in Indonesia in 2019, and BRI believes that out of which there were only around 20 million ultra-micro businesses that obtained access to funding from formal sources. "Focusing on the ultra-micro ecosystem, we aim to provide ultra-micro customers with wider accessibility to financial institutions. This aligns to our company's vision to consistently grow the ultra-micro and MSME sectors in Indonesia. We invite investors to take advantage of this opportunity and participate in the huge transformation of ultra-micro ecosystem," said Sunarso. NOT FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART IN OR INTO THE UNITED STATES, CANADA OR JAPAN Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1627394/WhatsApp_Image_2021_09_16_at_08_00_55.jpg

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[September 16, 2021] Vizient Expands Capabilities in "Bill Only" Surgery Workflows to Address Clinical Supply Chain Needs

Vizient, Inc announces a strategic partnership with Surgery Exchange LLC to enable greater access to a cloud-based solution that addresses a persistent surgical process challenge for hospitals and surgery centers: efficient surgery planning and case management. This collaboration creates both clinical and operational efficiency by eliminating manual ordering, tracking, and billing of implant "bill only" cases by streamlining the surgery workflow. Implant surgery can be highly complex, requiring not just the appropriately sized implant but components and instruments to be used with it, all of which must be prepared prior to the procedure. Manual procurement processes create ordering errors and inaccuracies, resulting in millions of dollars of product being stored at the hospital, often with little oversight or accountability for inventory management. Vizient members will now have the opportunity to modernize their inventory management process for medical devices through the Surgery Exchange Platform, a comprehensive implant/bill-only process technology solution. Supply partners also benefit from the ability to add other supply chain technologies and applications to the platform, which can quickly automate and complement existing processes. "By expanding our relationship with Surgery Exchange we are better able to help our members solve a historical challenge for managing inventory required for implant surgeries. We will also be able to integrate our clinical and spend data which will give members additional insight into opportunities for greater cost efficiencies," said Simrit Sandhu, executive vice president, transformation & clinical supply solutions for Vizient. The University of Chicago Medical Center looked to Surgery Exchange because manual requisitions were resulting in use of non-contracted products and much of the process was inefficiently tracked through email. With too many touches, his led to pricing inconsistencies and inaccuracies that resulted in longer payment cycles and invoice holds.



As a member of Vizient's Supply Chain Strategy Council (SCSC), which has identified implant / bill-only as a priority, University of Chicago Medical Center is looking forward to implementing the platform, which will enable the health system to standardize and automate requisition data for bill-only items. They expect to see value in pricing accuracy for purchase orders, productivity gains in accounts payable as well as timely payment to supply partners. "Deploying a technology to automate a manual surgery process should result in a noticeable improvement in case planning," said Eric Tritch, vice president of supply chain & support services at University of Chicago Medicine. "The desired outcome would help with both the provider and supplier knowing exactly what you need for each surgery and make both our inventory team and our reps' lives easier with less rework on implant invoice reconciliation."

Most orthopedic, spine, cardiovascular and other implant products are elective surgeries; meaning that except for trauma cases, they are scheduled weeks in advance. However, many providers wait until after surgery to submit details on the device and products used for procurement and billing purposes. With the Surgery Exchange solution, identification of potential contract exceptions or compliance concerns are surfaced prior to surgery allowing the provider to proactively resolve issues. "As the volume of elective surgeries begins to recover post-pandemic, the Surgery Exchange Platform can enhance the end-to-end surgery workflow by providing increased visibility and automation to the procurement and inventory management process," said Erik Axter, managing principal, physician preference items (PPI) solutions. Surgery Exchange's solutions are tailored to identify real-time issues, so the proactive nature of the solution can quickly mitigate those problems. This comprehensive solution delivers better control, compliance, and patient outcomes by eliminating inaccurate implant pricing, missed reimbursements, unnecessary overnight shipping expenses, equipment rental fees for changed/canceled surgeries, lost OR time due to unavailable product, and provides visibility throughout, especially to Central Sterile Processing to track and manage loaner trays. In addition, the process automation further benefits supply partners by reducing overall sales and general administrative (SG&A) costs. Their ability to engage in proactive case planning, inventory management and expedited payments adds efficiencies to their operations "The entire process for planning and managing implant and bill-only cases is very different than other types of surgeries and falls out of the traditional med-surge purchasing process," said Amin Rahme, president of Surgery Exchange. "With our combined capabilities, all the stakeholders, from the manufacturer to the sales rep, from the physician to the supply chain department, know what is coming and can plan accordingly." About Vizient, Inc. Vizient, Inc. provides solutions and services that improve the delivery of high-value care by aligning cost, quality and market performance for more than 50% of the nation's acute care providers, which includes 97% of the nation's academic medical centers, and more than 20% of ambulatory care providers. Vizient provides expertise, analytics and advisory services, as well as a contract portfolio that represents more than $110 billion in annual purchasing volume, to improve patient outcomes and lower costs. In 2021, Vizient acquired Intalere, which expanded its footprint with ambulatory and rural acute care providers. Vizient has earned a World's Most Ethical Company designation from the Ethisphere Institute every year since its inception. Headquartered in Irving, Texas, Vizient has offices throughout the United States. Learn more at www.vizientinc.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005022/en/

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[September 16, 2021] Webscale Powers Shopware's Enterprise Cloud Delivery into North America

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Webscale , the cloud platform for modern commerce, today announced that it has entered into a strategic partnership with Shopware AG , a leading ecommerce system used by some of the largest European brands, retailers and manufacturers across both B2C and B2B industries. The agreement makes Webscale the first cloud delivery engine for Shopware deployments in North America.

Shopware delivers substantial flexibility with less complexity, allowing merchants to be fully in control of their customer experience, said Ben Marks, Director, Global Market Development, Shopware AG. Webscales modern commerce vision, together with the level of control and visibility they provide their global customer base, perfectly aligns with our goals for Shopware 6, and Im delighted to welcome them to the Shopware partner network. While new to the North America market, Shopware has seen significant traction across the European and the UK ecommerce markets. Shopware will leverage Webscales developer-centric platform, managed CI/CD and containerized cloud deployments with headless capabilities to accelerate its adoption in the region. Together, Shopware and Webscale will address the needs of any size of business, looking to implement and realize the advantages of truly customizable commerce. Over the past two years, we have witnessed Shopwares impressive expansion in the European market, said Adrian Luna, Head of Strategic Partnerships, Webscale. With Shopwares push into North America, it was the perfect time to join forces in accelerating joint customer adoption, by utilizing our enterprise-grade cloud platform as the launch pad for digital agencies supporting rapidly growing ecommerce businesses. For agency and digital transformation parners, Webscale + Shopware will mean the accelerated adoption of a new, modern open source commerce technology and faster time-to-market. For digitally mature brands looking for an efficient, fast, and fully capable technology stack to aid their mobile first realignment, Shopwares modern framework, paired with Webscales secure and scalable cloud platform, will serve as a clear path for ecommerce success.



About Webscale Webscale is the worlds only cloud platform for the successful delivery of modern commerce applications. Offering enterprise-grade security, predictive scalability and blazing-fast performance, the Webscale SaaS platform leverages automation and DevOps protocols to simplify the technology needs of growing brands. The platform supports omni-channel use cases across a variety of ecommerce platforms and architectures, including headless, progressive web applications, self-hosted and fully hosted commerce clouds. Deployed in multi-cloud environments, including Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure, Webscale powers Fortune 1000 brands including Dollar General, Unilever, Swarovski, Olympus, Regal Cinemas and thousands of other B2C, B2B, and B2E ecommerce storefronts across 12 countries. Webscale has offices in Santa Clara, CA, Boulder, CO, San Antonio, TX, Bangalore, India and London, UK.

For more information, visit www.webscale.com . Follow us on LinkedIn , Twitter , and Facebook . Media Contact: Andrew Humber

Webscale

pr@webscale.com

About Shopware Shopware is a leading ecommerce system and used by some of the largest European brands, retailers and manufacturers across B2C and B2B industries. As a trendsetting open source solution, Shopware gives retailers the freedom to quickly and easily realise their growth potential - with more flexibility and less complexity. Today, more than 100,000 companies rely on a Shopware solution, with all retailers - from start-ups to enterprise - generating a combined turnover of 7.6 billion euros in 2019. From its headquarters in Schoppingen, Germany, Shopware employs 300 people and relies on a global network of 1,200 sales, technology and solution partners. A community with hundreds of thousands of members gives customers access to over 4,000 extensions and certified professional support. 100% equity-financed, Shopware is completely independent; and through high investments in research and development, is the leading driver of innovation in European ecommerce. For more information, visit www.shopware.com . Media Contact: Wiljo Krechting

Shopware

public.relations@shopware.com



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Wolters Kluwer Earns Five 2021 Best in Biz International Awards

Wolters Kluwer Compliance Solutions has won five 2021 Best in Biz International Awards for product excellence and innovation. The wins include a Gold-level distinction in the "Best New Product" category for Wolters Kluwer's OneSumX ProViso offering, which combines artificial intelligence and regulatory experts to help support financial institutions' efforts in effectively managing the increasingly large scope, volume and scale of regulatory changes in the financial services industry.

Wolters Kluwer earned three Silver-level distinctions, winning twice under the "Best New Version of the Year" category for its iLien Motor Vehicle offering as well as for its OneSumX for Compliance Program Management solution. Another Silver win was achieved in the "Enterprise Product of the Year/Financial Software" category for its iLien for Lien Management product. Wolters Kluwer's Online Applications offering was also a winner, under the "Most Innovative Product of the Year" category.







"We are pleased to see these impressive industry accolades for our offerings, many of which have been developed through the direct and insightful feedback of our clients," noted Steve Meirink, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Compliance Solutions. "We are grateful for those many inputs, which have been invaluable in creating solutions that have substantively enhanced lenders' capabilities and, ultimately, helped them better serve their customers."

With these wins, Wolters Kluwer also was placed on the coveted Most Awarded Companies list in this year's Best in Biz International competition, joining other leading companies showcasing stellar product origination, creativity and innovation.

Best in Biz International commended the winning entrants for their efforts, given "the continuing and unprecedented ramifications of the COVID-19 global pandemic on all companies and industries worldwide Congratulations on not only surviving, but thriving, amidst the global and local challenges the pandemic has presented to all businesses, large and small," noted Best in Biz program officials.

Wolters Kluwer Compliance Solutions is a market leader and trusted provider of risk management and regulatory compliance solutions and services to U.S. banks and credit unions, insurers and securities firms. The business, which sits within Wolters Kluwer's Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC) division, helps these financial institutions efficiently manage risk and regulatory compliance obligations, and gain the insights needed to focus on better serving their customers and growing their business.

Wolters Kluwer's GRC division provides an array of expert solutions to help financial institutions manage regulatory and risk obligations. Wolters Kluwer Compliance Solutions' eOriginal suite of purpose-built, digital lending solutions, for example, helps lenders digitize their transactions and features electronic signatures, collateral authentication and an electronic vault. Compliance Solutions' OneSumX for Regulatory Change Management tracks regulatory changes and organizes them to create structured, value-added content through a single data feed that is paired with an easy-to-use software solution. Wolters Kluwer Finance, Risk & Regulatory Reporting (FRR), meanwhile, is a global market leader in the provision of integrated regulatory compliance and reporting solutions. The division's legal solutions business are Wolters Kluwer CT Corporation and Wolters Kluwer ELM Solutions.

About Wolters Kluwer Governance, Risk & Compliance

Governance, Risk & Compliance is a division of Wolters Kluwer, which provides legal and banking professionals with solutions to help ensure compliance with ever-changing regulatory and legal obligations, manage risk, increase efficiency, and produce better business outcomes. GRC offers a portfolio of technology-enabled expert services and solutions focused on legal entity compliance, legal operations management, banking product compliance, and banking regulatory compliance.

Wolters Kluwer (AEX: WKL) is a global leader in information services and solutions for professionals in the health, tax and accounting, risk and compliance, finance and legal sectors. Wolters Kluwer reported 2020 annual revenues of 4.6 billion. The company, headquartered in Alphen aan den Rijn, the Netherlands, serves customers in over 180 countries, maintains operations in over 40 countries and employs 19,200 people worldwide.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005087/en/
[September 15, 2021] Santander Corporate & Investment Banking Has Acted as Financial Advisor for Vineyard Wind 1 - the First Large-Scale Offshore Wind Farm in the U.S.

Santander Bank, N.A. ("Santander Bank" or "Santander") today announced that its Corporate & Investment Banking division ("Santander CIB") has acted as financial advisor, joint lead arranger, administrative agent and green loan coordinator for the financing of Vineyard Wind 1, the first large-scale offshore wind farm in the United States. Santander is one of nine international and U.S.-based banks raising approximately $2.3 billion of senior debt to finance the construction of the project. Vineyard Wind is a joint venture between Avangrid Renewables, a subsidiary of AVANGRID, Inc. (NYSE: AGR), part of the Iberdrola Group, and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP). Vineyard Wind 1 is an 800 MW project located 15 miles off the coast of Martha's Vineyard and will be the first large-scale offshore wind project in the United States. The project is expected to generate electricity for more than 400,000 homes and businesses in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, save ratepayers $1.4 billion over the first 20 years of operation and is expected to reduce carbon emissions by more than 1.6 million tons per year. Onshore construction for Vineyard Wind 1 will begin this year, with first power from Vineyard Wind 1 expected to be delivered to the grid in 2023. "Santander is extremely proud of our advisory capabilities in renewable energy, in particular offshore wind, and appreciate the opportunity to advise Avangrid and CIP in this landmark transaction that is so critical to Massachusetts and U.S. climate goals," said Marco Antonio chon, Head of Santander Corporate & Investment Banking U.S.



"Santander is very proud to have advised in the financing of the first large-scale offshore wind project in the U.S.," said Pablo Urgoiti, Head of Global Debt Financing U.S. for Santander CIB. "Renewable financing is a cornerstone of our product offering and we are glad that our cumulative global experience in offshore wind has been there to support this process." Santander CIB has become a leader in renewable energy finance and advice owing to its efforts to seek solutions in environment, social and corporate governance (ESG) and other areas to help customers transition toward more sustainable models and a less polluting economy. Santander is committed to leading the way in environmentally responsible financing and advisement for projects that add value to society while helping fight climate change and pollution, and protecting natural resources.

Santander CIB is a global division that supports corporate and institutional clients, offering tailored services and value-added wholesale products suited to their complexity and sophistication. Our coverage model combines local knowledge with global expertise of industry sectors of our clients. For more information, please visit https://www.santandercib.com/. Santander Bank, N.A. is one of the country's largest retail and commercial banks with $89.5 billion in assets. With its corporate offices in Boston, the Bank's approximately 9,200 employees and more than 2 million customers are principally located in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware. The Bank is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Madrid-based Banco Santander, S.A. (NYSE: SAN) - one of the most respected banking groups in the world with 150 million customers in the U.S., Europe, and Latin America. It is overseen by Santander Holdings USA, Inc., Banco Santander's intermediate holding company in the U.S. For more information on Santander Bank, please visit www.santanderbank.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210915006155/en/

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[September 15, 2021] SHAREHOLDER ACTION ALERT: The Schall Law Firm Announces the Filing of a Class Action Lawsuit Against Waterdrop Inc. and Encourages Investors with Losses in Excess of $100,000 to Contact the Firm

The Schall Law Firm, a national shareholder rights litigation firm, announces the filing of a class action lawsuit against Waterdrop Inc. ("Waterdrop" or "the Company") (NYSE: WDH) for violations of the federal securities laws. Investors who purchased the Company's shares pursuant and/or traceable to the Company's initial public offering conducted in May 2021 (the "IPO") are encouraged to contact the firm before November 15, 2021. If you are a shareholder who suffered a loss, click here to participate.



We also encourage you to contact Brian Schall of the Schall Law Firm, 2049 Century Park East, Suite 2460, Los Angeles, CA (News - Alert) 90067, at 310-301-3335, to discuss your rights free of charge. You can also reach us through the firm's website at www.schallfirm.com, or by email at brian@schallfirm.com. The class, in this case, has not yet been certified, and until certification occurs, you are not represented by an attorney. If you choose to take no action, you can remain an absent class member.

According to the Complaint, the Company made false and misleading statements to the market. Waterdrop achieved its past revenue growth through illicit means likely to draw the attention of Chinese regulators for violating their rules. The Company was ordered by the Chinese government to shut down its mutual aid platform because it did not comply with Chinese law. The Company's operating losses increased significantly in the first quarter of 2021 based on shutting down the mutual aid platform and increased customer acquisition costs. Based on these facts, the Company's public statements were false and materially misleading throughout the IPO period. When the market learned the truth about Waterdrop, investors suffered damages. Join the case to recover your losses. The Schall Law Firm represents investors around the world and specializes in securities class action lawsuits and shareholder rights litigation. This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and rules of ethics. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210915006156/en/

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[September 15, 2021] SolarWinds Strengthens International Footprint by Opening South Korean Entity

SolarWinds (NYSE:SWI), a leading provider of simple, powerful, and secure IT management software, announced the official opening of its strategic South Korean entity in Seoul, Korea, and the appointment of Ken Parker as country manager of SolarWinds (News - Alert) in South Korea. With Parker's appointment, the newly expanded leadership team will support the company in its efforts to strengthen the brand and further solidify its position as a market leader for IT operations management (ITOM) software. Reporting to Joe Signorelli, director of Japan and Korea sales at SolarWinds, Parker will focus on strengthening the company's commitment to customers and Partners in South Korea, supporting their expanding needs in their digital transformation journeys through the adoption of SolarWinds ITOM solutions. SolarWinds works closely with industry-leading technology resellers, distributors, service providers, and system integrators to develop partnerships to provide new revenue opportunities. "Welcoming Ken onto our leadership team is an important step in our go-to-market strategy focused on building collaborative business relationships and bringing value to our Partners in South Korea," said Signorelli. "We believe Ken's enthusiasm and extensive industry experience will help us grow our existing sales team, focus on strategic alliances, and expand our channel business in the region. We look forward to his leadership in helping customers and Partners solve their IT management challenges." Parker brings over 20 years of experience in the IT industry. He has close ties to South Korea, beginning his career at the first commercial internet service provider in the country. Prior to SolarWinds, he served as the Korean country manager at Ivanti, Korea, where he helped companies achieve zero-trust security and expanded market share. Additionally, he's held several senior positions at various global technology companies, including NetApp, Acopia Networks, and Pulse (News - Alert) Secure. "It's an exciting time be part of a larger growth strategy focused on sales, and I believe the team has a great opportunity to build momentum and empower more customers and Partners with SolarWinds solutions," said Parker. "It's a privilege to join the SolarWindsfamily, and I look forward to contributing to the team's growth in the region."



Connect with SolarWinds THWACK 

Twitter 

Facebook 

LinkedIn #SWIcorporate

About SolarWinds SolarWinds (NYSE:SWI) is a leading provider of simple, powerful, and secure IT management software. Our solutions give organizations worldwide-regardless of type, size, or complexity-the power to accelerate business transformation in today's hybrid IT environments. We continuously engage with technology professionals-IT service and operations professionals, DevOps and SecOps professionals, and database administrators (DBAs)-to understand the challenges they face in maintaining high-performing and highly available IT infrastructures, applications, and environments. The insights we gain from them, in places like our THWACK community, allow us to address customers' needs now and in the future. Our focus on the user and commitment to excellence in end-to-end hybrid IT management has established SolarWinds as a worldwide leader in solutions for observability, IT service management, application performance, and database management. Learn more today at https://www.solarwinds.com/ko/. The SolarWinds, SolarWinds & Design, Orion, and THWACK trademarks are the exclusive property of SolarWinds Worldwide, LLC or its affiliates, are registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and may be registered or pending registration in other countries. All other SolarWinds trademarks, service marks, and logos may be common law marks or are registered or pending registration. All other trademarks mentioned herein are used for identification purposes only and are trademarks of (and may be registered trademarks of) their respective companies.  2021 SolarWinds Worldwide, LLC. All rights reserved. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210915005552/en/

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[September 15, 2021] COYO and Smarp join forces to form a global Top 5 software provider in the employee communications and engagement space

HAMBURG, Germany, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- German COYO and Finnish Smarp announced they would merge both SaaS companies. The combined organization will be servicing medium-sized and large businesses from offices in the US, Germany, UK, France and Finland, with customers like Salesforce, Google, Amazon, DHL, Deutsche Bahn and E.ON. By combining Smarp's employee communications and advocacy portfolio with COYO's social intranet and employee engagement offering, the new player will address the challenges of an increasingly mobile workforce and how companies can effectively manage change while keeping their employees engaged and motivated. The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred demand for digital workplace solutions. Both companies have seen double-digit topline growth in the past three years featuring a combined customer list of more than 700 companies from various industries. Customers of Smarp and COYO will benefit from an extended portfolio that includes multi-channel communication, social intranet, employee surveys, employee advocacy and a marketplace for widgets and connectors. For the time being both Smarp and COYO will continue to operate under their current brands. Product development and sales of both platforms will be continued. The transaction has been supported by Marlin Equity Partners, a global investment firm with over $7.6 billion of capital under management. At the same time, the management and founders of Smarp and COYO as well as Smarp's largest investor, Nauta Capital from London, will be investing in the new firm. Jan Marius Marquardt, CEO and founder of COYO, comments: "We are absolutely excited about joining forces as global businesses have never shown a greater needto drive employee engagement during a pandemic and while their digital transformation has not been completed yet. There is both a need and an opportunity for our two companies to form a global leader based on the combined experience we can bring in."



Roope Heinila, CEO and founder of Smarp, says: "COYO and Marlin are excellent partners for us to take our common vision forward thanks to the compatibility of our products. It has also been a pleasure to see how well our corporate cultures fit together."

"Thanks to our broader offering, we are able to serve our enterprise-level customers in an even more diverse manner in both Europe and North America. I firmly believe that our customers will gain significant added value by combining COYO's social intranet and employee surveys with Smarp's core competencies in employee communications and employee advocacy." - Cross reference: Picture is available at AP Images ( http://www.apimages.com ) - On COYO COYO is the 360 Employee Communications Platform that strengthens collaboration, motivation and culture in organizations. With the combination of a social intranet and a social employee app, companies reach all employees and actively support exchange. As a leading German provider of employee communications software headquartered in Hamburg, COYO offers companies an intuitive and centralized solution that makes it easy to reach all employees, improve internal communication and promote a culture of feedback. COYO allows a device- and location-independent communication channel - for all company-relevant information and social exchange. From hospital operations to passenger transport: more than one million users from companies such as Ritter Sport, Deutsche Bahn, Asklepios and E.ON have already found their digital home in COYO. More information is available at www.coyoapp.com. On Smarp Smarp is the #1 mobile-first employee communications platform that helps companies build strong, two-way relationships with their employees  whether they are at their desk or on the go. The platform automatically delivers relevant, personalized content to every employee through whichever platform, medium or channel they prefer. It's a single solution for companies to drive alignment, productivity and engagement through effective communications. After being founded in 2011, Smarp has helped over 300 companies transform the way they communicate and share content. Smarp's top 20 customers alone represent over 4 million employees worldwide. To find out why companies like Amazon, Marriott, L'Oreal, Pfizer, Bayer and many, many more use Smarp, visit www.smarp.com. Press contact Sarah Mag

COYO GmbH

sarah.mag@coyoapp.com

+49 171 27 83 772 Sarah Schrodel

PIABO PR GmbH

coyo@piabo.net

+49 174 176 37 38 Jenny Tallholm

Smarp

+358 46 923 5388 SOURCE COYO GmbH

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[September 15, 2021] BLUETTI AC300 and B300 Launch

LAS VEGAS, Sept. 15, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- In July 2021, Bluetti - the portable solar storage pioneer, announced the future release of an industry first, modular solar power station  the AC300 and its accompanying LFP battery module, the B300 (3,072Wh). Word spread fast, and the AC300 was trending throughout the United States, with a particular interest coming from portable solar power users based in California, Texas, Florida, and New York. At long last, on September 15, the AC300 and B300 are finally here! Now Available For Order Solar Vs. Gas Generators (Why Should Everyone Go Solar?) Solar Generator: No added noise/extremely quiet operation  35dB (As quiet as whisper)

Free, clean, endless renewable power source from the sun or wind.

Increases your daily solar consumption 24/7

Extremely low maintenance (due to barely any moving parts)

Seamless UPS(Uninterrupted Power Supply) when power outages occurred Gas/Propane Generator Noisy operation =70dB (As loud as a washing machine)

Emissions, deadly toxic carbon monoxide (The generators must be used outside)

(The generators must be used outside) Higher carbon footprint  (Uses fossil fuels for power)

Requires maintenance  (Lots of moving parts to maintain)

Monthly fuel costs  (Fuel is not free like the sun) When using a solar generator, you are essentially using free energy from the sun instead of using costly dirty fossil fuels. You can continue getting this free energy from the sun for the lifespan of your solar panels, which is usually around 25 to 30 years. And, Unlike most conventional fuel or gas generators, solar generators have absolutely no moving parts and do not use a liquid fuel. Means that the likelihood of needing to pay for any types of repairs is significantly lower. Aside from the obvious financial gains of using a solargenerator, choosing this green technology over other fossil fueled systems has various environmental and health benefits. Gas powered generators lead to air pollution alongside noise pollution, and while the latter is just simply annoying, the former contributes to climate change and respiratory diseases.



Last but not least, most heavy duty gas powered generators can weigh hefty amounts, sometimes up to 250 pounds. While Bluetti's heavy duty solar powered AC300 weighs a mere 44 pounds and the external battery B300 weighs 74lbs in comparison. Obviously, the less powerful the generator the lighter it usually weighs but in summary, solar generators are way more easier to move around than gas powered generators for the same amount of power density. Why Should The BLUETTI AC300 Be Chosen?

Bluetti AC300 is 100% modular and can accept up to four B300 battery modules per unit, adding up to a total of 12,288Wh  Good luck running out of power.

and can accept up to four B300 battery modules per unit, adding up to a total of 12,288Wh  Good luck running out of power. Being modular means people can transport vast amounts of power with ease. All together the machine ways too much to transport, but individually, each part is highly portable.

AC300 uses top of the range LFP cells which have 3500+ life cycles leading up to 80% of the original capacity. (In other words, putting the device through one cycle a day, means 10 years of service life.)

of the original capacity. (In other words, putting the device through one cycle a day, means 10 years of service life.) Capable of receiving 2,400 watts of unrivalled MPPT solar charging input, it's time to go full-time solar!

MPPT charging input, it's time to go full-time solar! Packed with a 3000 watt pure sine wave inverter able to adjust the AC charging rate (no need for a power brick, one charging cable will do just fine)

While connected to two B300 battery modules, the AC300 can be charged with both solar and AC simultaneously, adding up to 5400 watts of power input.

Allows the connection of the new BLUETTI Fusion Box Pro, connecting of which doubles the voltage, power, and capacity up to 6000W, 240V, 24,576Wh.

All of this technology can be controlled by a complex, yet easy to use smartphone app via Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Where To Buy The AC300 & How Is It Delivered? All brand new BLUETTI products can be bought on the official website: bluettipower.com AC300 paired with 1 B300 battery module now starts at $2899 (original price is $3699, that is $800 OFF for a limited quantity). AC300 paired with 2 B300 battery modules starts at $3648 (original price is $4498, that is $850 OFF). Also, for all one-stop shopping a total amount thousand bucks can be saved when buying certain AC300 solar bundles. Orders will be delivered in 3~5 weeks from purchase date. The AC200 MAX Is Now Back In Stock After being quickly sold-out on its debut release, the AC200 MAX and B230 battery modules are now both available to be purchased again. And in the unlikely case it was forgotten, the AC200 MAX has a standard built-in 2,048Wh LFP battery pack (with expandable battery capabilities)  an all-round upgrade of the long loved AC200/P. Excitingly, the AC200 MAX can be connected to both the B230 and B300 battery modules, unlike the AC300 which is only compatible with the B300 battery module. At total capacity (connected with two B300 battery modules) the AC200 MAX boasts up to 8,192Wh! For a limited time period, BLUETTI is also offering a discount coupon on the AC200 MAX meaning it can now be bought for $1,799, that is $300 savings. Additional savings can be made by purchasing bundles. If you are looking for raw power, then its quite simple. Look no further, get your power here: www.bluettipower.com View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bluetti-ac300-and-b300-launch-301370976.html SOURCE BLUETTI INC

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[September 16, 2021] ForgeRock Announces Pricing of Initial Public Offering

ForgeRock, Inc. (ForgeRock), a global identity leader, today announced the pricing of its initial public offering of 11,000,000 shares of its Class A common stock at a price to the public of $25.00 per share. In addition, ForgeRock has granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 1,650,000 shares of Class A common stock at the initial public offering price, less underwriting discounts and commissions. The shares are expected to begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange on September 16, 2021 under the ticker symbol "FORG". The offering is expected to close on September 20, 2021, subject to customary closing conditions. Morgan Stanley and J.P. Morgan are acting as lead book-running managers for the offering. Deutsche Bank Securities, Mizuho Securities, and HSBC are acting as joint book-running managers for the offering. BTIG, Cowen, Piper Sandler, Truist Securities, and William Blair are acting as co-managers for the offering. The offring is being made only by means of a prospectus. When available, copies of the final prospectus may be obtained from: Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, Attn: Prospectus Department, 180 Varick Street, 2nd Floor, New York, New York 10014; and J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, c/o Broadridge Financial Solutions, 1155 Long Island Avenue, Edgewood, NY 11717, by telephone at 866-803-9204, or by email at prospectus-eq_fi@jpmorganchase.com.



A registration statement relating to these securities has been filed with, and declared effective by, the Securities and Exchange Commission. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy these securities, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation, or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.

About ForgeRock ForgeRock, a global leader in digital identity, delivers modern identity and access management solutions for consumers, employees and things to simply and safely access the connected world. Using ForgeRock, more than 1,300 organizations around the world orchestrate, manage, and secure the complete lifecycle of identities from dynamic access controls, governance, APIs, and storing authoritative data - consumable in cloud or hybrid environments. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210915006215/en/

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[September 16, 2021] UST is now certified as a CarbonNeutral Company

Company demonstrates Climate Action; Pledges to Reach Net-Zero Carbon Emissions by 2040 BENGALURU, India, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- UST, a leading digital transformation solutions company, today announced that it has achieved CarbonNeutral company certification in accordance with The CarbonNeutral Protocol, the leading global framework for carbon neutrality. Aligned with the company's longstanding commitment to act responsibly and minimize the impact of its activities on the environment, this latest accreditation underscores UST's unwavering pledge to climate action. The first set of clear guidelines for businesses to achieve carbon neutrality, the CarbonNeutral Protocol, was created by Natural Capital Partners in 2002. Since then, the Protocol has been continually updated with input from an Advisory Council of external experts to ensure it reflects the latest industry and scientific best practices. The CarbonNeutral company certification is the latest in UST's ongoing ESG and social responsibility initiatives, including joining the Amazon-led The Climate Pledge, a cross-sector business community working together to crack the climate crisis and solve the challenges of decarbonizing the economy. As a signatory, UST is taking science-based, high-impact actions to tackle climate change by innovating in supply chain efficiency, sustainable transportation, circular economy, and clean energy solutions. Eco-Friendly Actions From its humble beginnings in 1999, UST has always invested in mproving society through corporate sustainability and social responsibility actions positively impacting the world.



Some of the current and upcoming initiatives include: Plans to install a 1.2 MW on-grid solar power system in UST's Trivandrum campus, which will reduce the dependency on traditional power sources for the campus by 35%.

Creating a large waterbody with 174,240 Sq. Ft. of surface area, where rainwater is harvested. 80% of UST's water consumption is from this waterbody, which has helped the company reduce their dependency on the urban water supply system.

water consumption is from this waterbody, which has helped the company reduce their dependency on the urban water supply system. Utilizing battery-operated vehicles for traversing across UST's campus leads to a cleaner and healthier working environment and reduces carbon emissions.

campus leads to a cleaner and healthier working environment and reduces carbon emissions. Working with suppliers that use zero or low emission vehicles.

Measure and report greenhouse gas emissions on a regular basis.

Switching to renewable energy for 25% of power needs by 2025 and 50% by 2030.

Undertaking several afforestation projects by planting tree saplings in the form of dense foresting.

Take actions to neutralize any remaining emissions with additional, quantifiable, real, permanent, and socially beneficial offsets to achieve net-zero annual carbon emissions by 2040. "We are extremely honored to be recognized as a certified CarbonNeutral company as we further our commitment to decrease our carbon footprint and support additional carbon-reduction projects," said Krishna Sudheendra, Chief Executive Officer, UST. "I am tremendously proud of our entire team's passionate efforts to make a positive impact and look forward to seeing these programs continue to grow and build a better world."

Saskia Feast, Managing Director, Global Client Solutions, Natural Capital Partners, said: "We are delighted to work with UST as they continue their commitment to positively impact the world through their CSR initiatives. In this critical decade of climate action, we need to use all the solutions available to deliver the change we need. UST's CarbonNeutral company certification and commitment to environmental stewardship demonstrate how business can deliver meaningful action on climate change." "With this step, UST is making it crystal clear that we are taking action today to protect the planet and commit to transforming the communities we impact every day," added Nandagopal Ramachandran, General Manager - Operations, UST. "At the same time, we are committing to further emissions reductions, with a target for Net Zero by 2040. We believe that sustainability is everyone's responsibility and actions from everyone, however small they are, will bring large impact to life on the planet." For more information about UST's social commitment, please visit https://www.ust.com/en/who-we-are/ust-social-commitment. About UST For more than 20 years, UST has worked side by side with the world's best companies to make a real impact through transformation. Powered by technology, inspired by people, and led by our purpose, we partner with our clients from design to operation. We identify their core challenges and craft disruptive solutions that bring their vision to life through our agile approach. With deep domain expertise and a future-proof philosophy, we embed innovation and agility into our clients' organizations-delivering measurable value and lasting change across industries and worldwide. Together, with over 26,000 employees in 25 countries, we build for boundless impact-touching billions of lives in the process. Visit us at ust.com. Media Contacts, UST: Tinu Cherian Abraham

+1 (949) 415-9857 Neha Misri

Global Communications, UST

+91-9284726602

media.relations@ust.com

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[September 16, 2021] Euroclear completes acquisition of MFEX Group



BRUSSELS and STOCKHOLM, Sept. 16, 2021 /CNW/ -- Euroclear is pleased to announce its acquisition of MFEX Group, a leading global digital fund distribution platform, completed yesterday. Euroclear announced its intent to acquire MFEX on March 26, 2021. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The combination of MFEX's innovative distribution platform with Euroclear's FundSettle post-trade expertise creates a compelling offering for fund distributors and fund management companies globally. MFEX's broad fund distribution network and talented people will be complementary to Euroclear, enhancing and extending Euroclear's customer proposition which will further grow the funds business. Lieve Mostrey, Chief Executive Officer, Euroclear commented: "We are delighted to have completed the acquisition of MFEX Group. This transaction brings together two highly complementary businesses and we look forward to working with our new colleagues at MFEX to build a stronger fund distribution proposition for our clients." About Euroclear Euroclear group is the financial industry's trusted provider of post trade services. Euroclear provides settlement and custody of domestic and cross-border securities for bonds, equities and derivatives to investment funds. Euroclear is a proven, resilient capital market infrastructure committed to delivering risk-mitigation, automation and efficiency at scale for its global client frachise.



The Euroclear group comprises Euroclear Bank, the International CSD, as well as Euroclear Belgium, Euroclear Finland, Euroclear France, Euroclear Nederland, Euroclear Sweden and Euroclear UK & International. The Euroclear group settled the equivalent of EUR 897 trillion in securities transactions in 2020, representing 276 million domestic and cross-border transactions, and held EUR 32.8 trillion in assets for clients by end 2020. For more information about Euroclear, please visit www.euroclear.com. About MFEX

As independent experts in global fund distribution, MFEX offers a complete solution for fund companies and distributors. The MFEX Group was established in Sweden in 1999 and is headquartered in Stockholm with offices in Paris, Luxembourg, London, Geneva, Kuala Lumpur, Milan, Madrid, Umea, Hong Kong, Singapore and Zurich. The main supervisory authority is the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority (Finansinspektionen). Today, MFEX is a pan-European leader with a global presence active in 52 countries on 5 continents with more than 300 employees. The company is divided into four main business areas: Trading and custody, Distribution agreement and rebate collection, Data and fund information and Due Diligence / AML & KYC (Global Fund Watch). In September 2021, MFEX became a part of the Euroclear group - one of the world's largest providers of domestic and cross-border settlement and related services for bond, equity, ETF and mutual fund transactions. More information is available at www.mfex.com Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/832898/Euroclear_Logo.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1474566/MFEX_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/euroclear-completes-acquisition-of-mfex-group-301377894.html SOURCE Euroclear

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[September 16, 2021] Getac Focuses on the Entire Logistics Chain and Launches a Virtual Exhibition to Present Rugged Solutions for Transport and Logistics

TAIPEI, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Getac, leading provider of rugged mobile computing solutions, has announced today the launch of the new "Getac Transport & Logistics Virtual Exhibition", an online platform to showcase its latest rugged technologies and integrated solutions for transport and logistics. The new exhibition has been carefully designed o help transport and logistics professionals discover the benefits of Getac's rugged technologies in key areas across the transport chain. These areas include airport management, railroad management, passenger handling, materials handling, long-haul delivery fleet management, port digitalization and automation, and freight transport.



All visitors to the exhibition will have the opportunity to interact with Getac's latest products, view digital content, datasheets, and insights; as well as liaise directly with Getac experts. Through this initiative, Getac wants to support companies in choosing digital solutions that will help them achieve the necessary transformation throughout their IT processes.

In this context, new innovative technologies such as Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, augmented/virtual reality and 5G need the support of powerful software and hardware solutions, in order to successfully optimize processes, reduce costs and remain competitive in the global marketplace. The Transport and Logistics Virtual Exhibition offers the perfect opportunity to get an up-close look at Getac's latest products and solutions, key features, functionalities, design and more. In particular, the new fully rugged F110 tablet as well as the fully rugged UX10 tablet, both highly configurable, for transport and logistics professionals working in extremely challenging environments; but also, solutions for handling professionals such as the Getac Device Monitoring System (GDMS), Getac Driving Safety Utility and Getac Keywedge Barcode Reader Utility. You can register to access the virtual exhibition by clicking on the link: TRANSPORT AND LOGISTICS VIRTUAL EXHIBITION About Getac Getac Technology Corporation is a key subsidiary of MiTAC-Synnex Business Group with a 2020 annual revenue of US $41.3 billion and listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE: 3005). Getac was established in 1989 as a joint venture with GE Aerospace to provide defence electronics. Today Getac's business includes rugged laptops, rugged tablets, software, and mobile video solutions for defence, police, firefighters, utilities, automotive, manufacturing, transport and logistics. For more information, visit: https://www.getac.com/intl/  2021 Getac Technology Corporation. All rights reserved. Getac and Getac logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Getac Technology Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other brands and product names are trademarks of their respective companies. SOURCE Getac

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[September 16, 2021] TCL Electronics Wins "Best IR Company" at HKIRA 7th Investor Relations Awards 2021

TCL Electronics Holdings Limited ("TCL Electronics" or "the Company", HKSE stock code: 01070.HK) was awarded "Best IR Company" at the HKIRA 7th Investor Relations Awards 2021. Since its launch in 2015, the Investor Relations Awards have been held for seven consecutive years, recognizing excellence and best practices in investor relations by listed companies and related professionals in Hong Kong. This year, a total of 167 companies were nominated and the winners were chosen online by a group of qualified voters composed of more than 890 buy-side investors and sell-side analysts. This award reflects the recognition of the industry and investors towards TCL Electronics' outstanding performance in investor relations. As a company listed in Hong Kong for over 20 years, TCL Electronics has always been committed to maintaining good communications with investors, carefully listening to the suggestions and opinions of every investor and shareholder through information disclosure, field research and roadshows. We are also dedicated to improving the corporate governance and value of the Company by prioritizing the interests of our shareholders and adopting rigorous and stable management. In the first half of 2021, the Company reached HK$ 34.93 billion in revenue, increasing by 103.7% year-on-year and gross profit reached HK$ 5.57 billion, up 57.6% year-on-year. Thanks to the Company's focus on core business dvelopment and enhancement of supply chains and channels, the net profit attributable to owners of the parent from continuing operations reached HK$ 1.04 billion, up 122.9% year-on-year and the expense ratio fell by 1.2 percentage points year-on-year to 14.2%.



Looking forward, TCL Electronics will continue to focus on its smart display business and whole-heartedly implement its "AI x IoT" full-scenario smart and healthy life strategy to achieve growth in both revenues and profits. The Company is also committed to fostering long-term investor interaction and targeting quality growth to become a responsible, accountable, and trusted enterprise. About TCL Electronics

TCL Electronics Holdings Limited ("TCL Electronics" or "the Company", stock code: 01070.HK, incorporated in the Cayman Islands with limited liability) was listed on the mainboard of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in November 1999. The Company is mainly engaged in R&D, manufacturing and sales of smart screen, smart mobile and connected device, smart commercial display, smart home product and other diversified IoT products, as well as independently developed home Internet services. TCL Electronics is the only diversified consumer electronics company within the industry in China with vertically integrated supply chain. Focusing on the smart display business, supported by 5G technology and "AI x IoT" strategy, TCL Electronics is committed to providing a smart and healthy life in household, mobile and commercial scenarios, and dedicated to becoming a global leading smart technology company. TCL Electronics is part of the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect program, and is included in the Hang Seng Stock Connect Hong Kong Index, the Hang Seng Composite MidCap & SmallCap Index and the Hang Seng Corporate Sustainability Benchmark Index, and received Hang Seng Indexes Company Limited's ESG rating of A for three consecutive years from 2018. For more information, please visit the website of investor relations of TCL Electronics: http://electronics.tcl.com, or TCL Electronics Investor Relations WeChat Page. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005374/en/

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[September 16, 2021] BYJU'S Acquires Leading K-12 Creative Coding Platform Tynker to Continue U.S. Expansion

BYJU'S, the global leader in personalized learning with more than 100 million students on its platform, and Tynker, the world's leading K-12 creative coding platform, today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement for BYJU'S to acquire Tynker, further accelerating BYJU'S U.S. market expansion. The acquisition will enable Tynker to introduce its creative coding platform to even more kids, educators, schools and coding camps globally. Tynker's creative coding platform has been used by over 60 million kids and 100,000 schools in 150 countries. Tynker co-founders Krishna Vedati, Srinivas Mandyam and Kelvin Chong will remain in their roles and continue carrying out Tynker's mission of providing every child with a solid foundation in computer science, programming, and critical thinking skills. All three co-founders are parents themselves and started Tynker to create a platform that would provide children with the proper tools to create an engaging introduction to computer science. Since its inception in 2013, Tynker has helped kids create over seven billion lines of code, and the founders remain passionate about bringing every young learner's creation to life and making an indelible impact on the current education system. "Joining forces with Tynker will unlock the ability for us to bring imagination to life for hundreds of millions of students through coding," said Byju Raveendran, Founder and CEO, BYJU'S. "Our goal is to ignite a love for programming in children globally and we feel strongly that Tynker's creative coding platform and approach to making programming fun and intuitive for kids will get us there even faster." Bringing Tynker into the BYJU'S family will help guide the two edtech giants to their goal of unlocking a love for creative coding by innovating, exploring and setting new benchmarks for tech-enabled personalized learning solutions. The acquisition will not only help expand BYJU'S U.S. footprint by providing access to the more than 60 million students and over 100,000 schools in Tynker's existing global usr base, but is also key for both brands who share the same vision to democratize access to coding for students.



"At Tynker, we believe that kids of all ages should develop the critical thinking skills needed to become the 'makers of tomorrow,'" said Krishna Vedati, co-founder and CEO of Tynker. "Our focus is on understanding what kids are passionate about - whether that's building games, making animations or modding Minecraft - and we then create specific experiences, apps and personalized learning paths to empower them to create with code. We wholeheartedly believe that joining the BYJU'S family can help children on a global level develop the fundamental STEM skills that will serve them well as they progress in school and ultimately help prepare them for careers in both technical and non-technical fields." Technology is integrated into virtually every aspect of our lives and continues to evolve, and because of that, learning about it is more important than ever. In fact, parents and educators alike believe that coding is an important skill that children will need to succeed in the digital economy. Tynker is loved and known by kids, parents and educators around the globe and has notable partners to help drive its vision, including BBC Learning, Google, Microsoft (News - Alert) , Mattel, NASA, and more. Additionally, Tynker is also known for its pioneering role in providing fun and engaging coding games and puzzles to the Hour of Code, a global movement to introduce people of all ages to computer programming, with millions of students participating each year.

Over the last year and a half, BYJU'S has acquired two additional major edtech companies in the U.S. - Osmo, the award-winning playful learning system for creating healthy screen time experiences, and Epic, the leading online digital reading platform. All three acquisitions map back to BYJU'S goal of investing $1 billion in the U.S. edtech market over the next three years. About BYJU'S Launched in 2015, BYJU'S is the global leader in personalized learning, and is beloved by 100 million students around the world. Founded by Byju Raveendran and Divya Gokulnath, BYJU'S was created to unlock the love for learning for students K-12. By blending real-world and digital play in a seamless, active way, BYJU'S has created an opportunity for people to learn at their own pace and style with the support of an empowering network of 11,000+ global educators. The company is paving the way for new-age, geography-agnostic learning tools that sit at the cross-section of mobile, interactive content and personalized learning methodologies. To learn more, go to: byjus.com About Tynker Tynker is the world's leading K-12 creative coding platform, enabling students of all ages to develop the coding skills to design and power animations, games, music, robots and drones, smart devices, virtual worlds like Minecraft, and more. The company's award-winning platform helps kids engage at home, school, and on the go, while developing critical thinking, problem-solving, and programming skills to help them be successful today and tomorrow. Tynker's highly successful coding curriculum has been used by one in three U.S. K-8 schools, 100,000 schools globally, and over 60 million kids across 150 countries. Tynker's partners include some of the world's most respected brands, including BBC Learning, Google (News - Alert) , Microsoft, Mattel, NASA, and more. Tynker is accessible from any computer with an internet browser, as well as via the Tynker and Tynker Junior mobile apps, and offers both free and paid subscription options. For more information, visit http://www.tynker.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005112/en/

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[September 16, 2021] Global Utilities Explore Intersection of Digital Transformation and Clean Energy at Industry's Premier Artificial Intelligence Event: Bidgely Engage Virtual 2021

Utilities and energy retailers around the world will come together for the fifth annual Bidgely Engage Virtual 2021 conference, taking place October 5 - 8, to uncover the role of customer-centric artificial intelligence (AI) in achieving organization-wide goals. Utility leaders, industry luminaries and tech experts will discuss trends and best practices shaping the energy sector's digital transformation as well as tactical strategies for bringing AI applications to life. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005278/en/ Bidgely Engage Virtual 2021, the energy industry's premier AI event, will take place October 5-8, featuring speakers like Salesforce, Duke Energy (News - Alert) , Con Edison, Portland Gas Electric, PEPCO and more. (Graphic: Business Wire) "Under the motif Future Ready, this year's Engage embodies the core of energy innovation, and the path to a sustainable future through AI, from the perspectives of key industry players and analysts," said Gautam Aggarwal, chief business officer for Bidgely. "Returning to the virtual stage once again gives way to a broad speaker lineup to provide attendees with a wealth of diverse experiences and knowledge." Engage Virtual 2021 encompasses three short days of high-impact sessions, followed by a day of hands-on demonstrations that illustrate AI in action. Sessions will focus on how utilities use data analytics to balance immediate business needs, such as customer experienc and demand side management, alongside larger corporate initiatives of reaching net-zero targets, improving customer relationships and modernization.



Session content filmed onsite at leading utility locations will be aired during the event, followed by live Q&A with each speaker. Featured speakers include: Larry Bekkedahl , Senior VP of Advanced Energy Delivery, Portland General Electric

, Senior VP of Advanced Energy Delivery, Michael Kelly , Senior Research Analyst & Managing Consultant, Guidehouse Insights

, Senior Research Analyst & Managing Consultant, William Hughes (News - Alert) , Principal Analyst, Guidehouse Insights

, Principal Analyst, Adam Grant , Program Manager, NV Energy

, Program Manager, Nayan Parikh , Sr Manager Customer Technology, PSEG-Long Island

, Sr Manager Customer Technology, Jennifer Popkin , Senior Consultant, Energy and Utilities, West Monroe

, Senior Consultant, Energy and Utilities, Eric Wesoff , Managing Editor, Canary Media

, Managing Editor, William Ellis , Regional VP of External Affairs, PEPCO Holdings

, Regional VP of External Affairs, Ann Becker , VP Sustainability, Arizona Public Service

, VP Sustainability, Jamie Wimberly , Chief Executive Officer, Distributed Energy Financial Group

, Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Liza Legaspi , Energy Management Supervisor, Southern California Gas

, Energy Management Supervisor, Irvine Sloan , VP of Strategic Account Management, Duke Energy

, VP of Strategic Account Management, Lon Huber , VP of Rate Design and Strategic Solutions, Duke Energy

, VP of Rate Design and Strategic Solutions, Lenny Singh , SVP, Customer Energy Solutions, Con Edison

, SVP, Customer Energy Solutions, Allisyn Glasser , Chief Enterprise Architect, Con Edison

, Chief Enterprise Architect, Karl Popham , Manager, Electric Vehicles & Emerging Technologies, Austin Energy (News - Alert)

, Manager, Electric Vehicles & Emerging Technologies, Sharon Talbott , Product Marketing Director, Energy and Utilities, Salesforce

, Product Marketing Director, Energy and Utilities, Matt Valle , VP Development, Florida Power & Light

, VP Development, Jason McGrade, Deputy Director, SECC For Engage 2021 registration information, visit www.bidgely.com/events/engage-virtual.

About Bidgely Bidgely is an AI-powered SaaS (News - Alert) Company accelerating a clean energy future by enabling energy companies and consumers to make data-driven energy-related decisions. Powered by our unique patented technology, Bidgely's UtilityAI Platform transforms multiple dimensions of customer data - such as energy consumption, demographic, and interactions - into deeply accurate and actionable consumer energy insights. We leverage these insights to empower each customer with personalized recommendations, tailored to their individual personality and lifestyle, usage attributes, behavioral patterns, purchase propensity, and beyond. From a Distributed Energy Resources (DER) and Grid Edge perspective, whether it is smart thermostats to EV chargers, solar PVs to TOU rate designs and tariffs; UtilityAI energy analytics provides deep visibility into generation, consumption for better peak load shaping and grid planning, and delivers targeted recommendations for new value-added products and services. With roots in Silicon Valley, Bidgely has over 17 energy patents, $50M+ in funding, retains 30+ data scientists, and brings a passion for AI to utilities serving residential and commercial customers around the world. For more information, please visit www.bidgely.com or the Bidgely blog at bidgely.com/blog. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005278/en/

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[September 16, 2021] Amolyt Pharma Announces $80 Million Series B Financing led by Sectoral Asset Management and Andera Partners

LYON, France and CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Amolyt Pharma, a global company specialized in developing therapeutic peptides for rare endocrine and related diseases, today announced that the company has closed an $80 million Series B equity financing round. The financing was co-led by Sectoral Asset Management and Andera Partners, with participation from ATEM Capital and all investors from the companys July 2019 Series A financing, including LSP, Novo Holdings (Novo Ventures), Kurma Partners, Mass General Brigham Ventures, Innobio 2 managed by Bpifrance, Orbimed, Pontifax, Eurazeo, Sham Innovation Sante/Turenne Capital and Credit Agricole Creation. Amolyt plans to use the proceeds from the financing to advance its pipeline of potential therapeutics for rare endocrine and related diseases, including clinical development of AZP-3601 for hypoparathyroidism, pre-clinical development of AZP-3813 for acromegaly and ongoing research related to AZP-3404. In addition, the company continues to work to further expand its early-stage pipeline through both internal research and development activities and potential in-licensing opportunities. We are very pleased to expand our high-quality syndicate with the addition of these new North American and European investors, and we are highly appreciative of the continued support from our existing investors, stated Thierry Abribat, Ph.D., founder, and chief executive officer of Amolyt Pharma. This financing will give us the opportunity to further pursue our mission of building a leading rare endocrine and related disease company, and we will continue to work to introduce new and potentially life-changing thrapeutics to patients globally.



The Series B financing follows several recent positive pipeline developments, including the following: In September 2021, the company announced completion of the multiple ascending dose (MAD) part of its Phase 1 trial of AZP-3601 for the potential treatment of hypoparathyroidism and will present the results at the 2021 meeting of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (ASBMR) on October 1 st .

. In September 2021, the company announced that it had exercised its option to globally license a portfolio of macrocyclic peptide growth hormone receptor antagonists (GHRAs) under the terms of the research collaboration agreement with Peptidream announced in December 2020. The identified, optimized drug candidate, AZP-3813, is being developed as a potential treatment for acromegaly to be used in combination with somatostatin analogues (SSAs) for patients who do not adequately respond to SSAs alone.

In May 2021, the company presented positive data from the single ascending dose (SAD) part of its Phase 1 trial of AZP-3601 for the potential treatment of hypoparathyroidism at the 23rd European Congress of Endocrinology (ECE). Data showed that AZP-3601 induced a long-acting serum calcium response following a single administration in healthy volunteers.

About Amolyt Pharma

Amolyt Pharma, a clinical stage biotechnology company, is building on its teams established expertise in therapeutic peptides to deliver life-changing treatments to patients suffering from rare endocrine and related diseases. Its portfolio includes AZP-3601, a long-acting PTH analog as a potential treatment of hypoparathyroidism, AZP-3813, a macrocyclic peptide growth hormone receptor antagonist for the potential treatment of acromegaly, and AZP-3404, which is undergoing indication selection work. Amolyt Pharma aims to further expand and develop its portfolio by leveraging its global network in the field of endocrinology and with support from a strong syndicate of international investors. To learn more, visit www.amolytpharma.com or follow us on Twitter at @AmolytPharma.

At Amolyt: Media:

Cherilyn Cecchini, M.D.

LifeSci Communications

ccecchini@lifescicomms.com

+1.646.876.5196 Investors:

Ashley Robinson

LifeSci Advisors, LLC

arr@lifesciadvisors.com

+1.617.430.7577





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[September 16, 2021] Lever Announces the Winners of The Rise Awards 2021

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Lever, a leading Talent Acquisition Suite, announced the winners for its first-ever, Rise Awards as part of their annual conference, Lever Ascend. The Rise Awards recognize and celebrate employees, employers, and organizations committed to excellence in talent acquisition. Over 75 submissions were sent in from organizations all across the world. The winners were selected by a panel of judges including Ben Eubanks, Chief Research Officer at Lighthouse Research , Steve Smith from Starr Conspiracy, Dean Delpeache, Director, Talent & Diversity at Fiix Software , Madeline Laurano, Founder at Aptitude Research, Ty Abernethy Co-founder & CEO at Grayscale , Andres Blank Co-founder & CEO Fetcher , and Markellos Diorinos CEO & Co-Founder at Bryq . The finalists had their company name, size, location, and more removed to prevent bias. The winners reflect a group of diverse organizations working to transform talent management strategies. They are: Candidate Experience Excellence: Spreetail

Results: Spreetail has an extremely data-driven and NPS focused process. They have been focused on continually improving the process and leaning in on the hard feedback that was able to help them get better. They've inveted time, people, and money into this strategy and their NPS scores are a clear sign that the investment is paying off.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Excellence: Talking Rain

Results: Talking Rain leveraged technology and innovative approaches to their diversity recruitment plan to understand their data and historical trends in recruitment to develop an equitable hiring strategy and visionary plan for continued progress.

Candidate Relationship Management Excellence: Atlassian

Results: Improving the candidate experience via a talent community is something of an impossible dream for many organizations. Atlassian used nurture campaigns effectively using opt-ins to drive community size from around 500 members to over 21,000, resulting in 285 hires in one year.

Human Resources/HR Technology/Talent Operations Innovation Excellence: Rubius Therapeutics

Results: Onboarding, performance, maintaining remote workers, are all challenges that every company is called upon to do well with. Rubius Therapeutics is leveraging software to add more to the bottom line than just recruiting.

Best Talent Attraction Campaign: Atlassian

Results: With an original approach to their campaign, Atlassian naturally attracted curious and engaged people to their program that better assessed people's skill sets and built the company's brand up, while impacting the local community.

Onboarding Program Excellence: Omnidian

Results: Omnidian pointed to results/impacts that were beyond satisfaction scores. "Our onboarding time went from one to two months to one to two weeks." They also came to the realization that the old onboarding approach was limiting their growth and business effectiveness, necessitating a step into VR training and other methods to speed up the onboarding experience.

Talent Acquisition Team of the Year: Greenlight

Results: Greenlight highlighted each goal they created to continue to improve upon their program and how they addressed each goal throughout their application.

Rising Stars: Royal Ambulance

Results: This employee at Royal Ambulance accomplished what seems impossible. During a pandemic as a healthcare employer, they were able to rapidly scale up volume hiring (hundreds of internal and external positions) in some of the hardest-to-fill roles -- from EMTs to nurses to C-level executives.



Nate Smith , co-founder and CEO of Lever. For more information on The Rise Awards and Lever Ascend, visit the event website here .

About Lever Lever is a leading Talent Acquisition Suite that makes it easy for talent teams to reach their hiring goals and to connect companies with top talent. Lever is the only platform that provides all talent acquisition leaders with complete ATS and robust CRM capabilities in one product, LeverTRM. The Lever Hire and Lever Nurture features allow leaders to scale and grow their people pipeline, build authentic and long-lasting relationships, and source the right people to hire. Lever Analytics provides customized reports with data visualization, see offers completed and interview feedback, and more, to inform strategic decisions between hiring managers and executives alike. Our platform also enables companies to hire with inclusivity in mind, helping eliminate any hiring bias. Lever supports the hiring needs of over 4,000 companies around the globe including the teams at Netflix, Atlassian, KPMG, and McGraw-Hill Education. For more information, visit https://www.lever.co . View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lever-announces-the-winners-of-the-rise-awards-2021-301378184.html SOURCE Lever

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[September 16, 2021]

Melissa Spencer, Certified Brain-centric Instructional Designer by Carr Knowledge & ICNTL

SEATTLE, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Melissa Spencer, Senior Executive Partner, Gartner, Inc., completed the Brain-centric Instructional Designer (BcID) Certification from Carr Knowledge & The Institute for Connecting Neuroscience with Teaching & Learning.

"With Brain-centric Design (BcD) I know how to make my big idea their big idea every time."

The BcID certification promotes the learning sciences in cognitive neuroscience competency standards through a uniform global program. Credential individuals must successfully complete a 14-week mentorship with Brain-centric Design (BcD) founders, Rich Carr, and Kieran O'Mahony, PhD, in addition to 28 deep understanding vertical BcD sessions delivered asynchronousl online. A complete cognitive presentation utilizing the BcD framework must be developed, presented, and accepted for inclusion in the Neuroscience of Learning Academy for global distribution.







Spencer first witnessed the guaranteed results while attending Brain-centric Design's Columbia University New York presentation on BcD Reverses The Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve. She now applies the pedagogic model.



"Working for a recognized inspirational technology leader known for digitally maturing organizations to meet business needs with an engaged staff culture resulting in strong business value, I need to ensure everything I deliver is understood." Said Spencer. "Everything. Understanding how their brain processes information, and presenting this critical information so they understand it, every time, is both revolutionary and liberating."

"With Brain-centric Design (BcD) I know how to make my big idea their big idea every time."

For more information about the BcID certification, visit CarrKnowledge.com

Carr Knowledge specializes in showing individuals & organizations how to innovate thinking for retention, depth, & understanding of any concept, presentation, or delivery of new information and is the developer of Brain-centric Design. Carr Knowledge and its allied BcIDs advance the Cognitive Culture to hypergrowth industry across all segments through advocacy, research, education, and the promotion of high cognitive standards of neuroscientific, psychologically safe, and professional practices.

Visit Carr Knowledge.

Contact:

Rich Carr

CEO/Pres

1-253-249-8174

rc@carrknowledge.com

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/melissa-spencer-certified-brain-centric-instructional-designer-by-carr-knowledge--icntl-301378392.html

SOURCE Carr Knowledge
[September 16, 2021] HVAC Innovator Bluon Acquires XREF Publishing

A new move by Bluon, Inc. - the leading support platform that more than 65,000 member technicians depend on every day - positions the company to become the first brand-agnostic marketplace for the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) industry. With a mission to bring unparalleled innovation to the industry by empowering HVAC technicians, Bluon seeks to enhance the relationships and transactional experience between local technicians and their local distributors. Bluon has acquired XREF Publishing Company, the leading provider of replacement part and cross reference part information used by thousands of local HVAC distributors in the US. XREF is the only brand-agnostic, cross reference engine available to distributors, allowing them to identify what replacement part is compatible with their customers' specific needs and within their local inventory. By adding XREF's one-of-a-kind database and their long list of existing distributor customers to Bluon's rapidly evolving platform - with its loyal community of HVAC technicians - Bluon becomes well positioned to enable local technicians to acquire replacement parts from their local distributors in a tiny fraction of the time currently required. "The REF acquisition marks a huge milestone for Bluon, in our evolution from a sticky support platform loved by technicians, to enabling the existing marketplace between contractors and local distributors to operate much more effectively and efficiently," said Scott Pierson, a distribution pioneer and executive vice president at Bluon.



Existing XREF customers will benefit substantially by the transaction, with a far better interface to access the coveted XREF data. More importantly, starting in 2022, they will be able to receive transaction requests, informed via the XREF data, from their local customers utilizing the Bluon app + support platform. The XREF information will be seamlessly added to the Bluon platform and will be easily searchable and available to Bluon's HVAC technician members, as well as distributors using the platform. Empowering technicians with this data for the first time will contribute to a revolution in efficiency within the HVAC B2B supply chain. Technicians will soon be able to easily interact with their local distributors and exchange real-time information about replacement parts - directly from within the Bluon platform. Faster transactions, better communication with technicians, and improved in-field independence will produce more revenue and higher margins for local distributors.

About Bluon Bluon recognizes that HVAC techs are the heart and soul of the industry and the ultimate drivers of its efficiency and innovation. Bluon's support platform is a revolutionary mobile app that offers tools, training and 24/7 tech support to HVAC technicians in the field. Bluon is the first mobile app platform to aggregate detailed technical information on more than 40,000 unique HVAC models, further providing technicians with the information they need to be effective and proficient on the job. With more than 150,000 downloads, 65,000 onboarded technician members (growing by 6,500 each month) and hundreds of distributors already in the Bluon network, it has become the largest and fastest growing support platform and community in HVAC. Fueled by the feedback from its members, Bluon is set to revolutionize the way in which technicians and their local distributors interact, enabling both parties to do more with less. For more information about Bluon, visit www.bluon.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005301/en/

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[September 16, 2021] Noodle.ai Teams with Chess Grandmaster Garry Kasparov to Evangelize 'Human + Machine Intelligence' to Save the Planet

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Noodle.ai, the world leader in Flow Operations, a breakthrough technology that enables the frictionless flow of goods from raw materials to shelf, today announced a partnership with Chess Grandmaster Garry Kasparov. Together, they will engage business leaders to adopt "good AI" to reduce or eliminate waste in manufacturing, a huge contributor to climate change. Kasparov, who dominated the chess world for two decades and retired in 2005 while still No. 1, champions the term "augmented intelligence" to describe how machine learning augmentsinstead of replaceshuman intelligence to create good outcomes for companies, workers, and societies. In a series of virtual events with industry leaders, Noodle.ai and Kasparov will share how the latest breakthroughs in AI can tackle supply chain problems. As in previous virtual conversations between Noodle.ai CEO Stephen Pratt and Kasparov, the upcoming events will focus on real-world applications of augmented intelligence. Noodle.ai and Kasparov will explain how augmenting the human capacity to ask questions with the analytic power of machines to find answers creates combinations that help workers, companies, and the environment. "At Noodle.ai with Flow Operations software, we focus on how technology and people, working together, can eliminate waste from the factory to the customer-facing distribution channel to better protect the planet nd improve the customer experience as well as the bottom line," says Pratt. "Garry has dedicated a large portion of his life to uncover how human + machine intelligence, working in flow state, can help humanity. We're thrilled to work with him to do just that."



After losing a rematch to IBM DeepBlue in 1997, world champion Kasparov became the first knowledge worker to have his job threatened by a machine. But he realized the great potential of partnering with AI instead of competing with it, leading to his creation of human + machine Advanced Chess in 1998, which he described as "augmented intelligence." This in turn led to his formulation of the equation of human and machine symbiosis that others dubbed 'Kasparov's Law.' In 2017, he wrote Deep Thinking: Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins. "With augmented intelligence, we harness both the computing power of machines and the power of human creativity to drive greater results and to free humans to do the creative labor at which we excel," Kasparov says. "Noodle's focus on manufacturing will have the biggest impact on solving problems that are damaging our quality of life and produce gains that make our lives better, generation after generation. I'm excited to partner with them to pursue this endeavor."

Learn More To learn more about this partnership, please visit: Noodle.ai + Garry Kasparov, Chess Grandmaster for the Win About Garry Kasparov

Garry Kasparov is a chess champion, human rights leader, and the author of multiple books on chess, AI, and world affairs. In 1985, he became the youngest world chess champion in history at the age of 22. His matches against the supercomputer Deep Blue put AI in the headlines around the world and turned him into an advocate for getting the most out of the human-machine relationship. Kasparov's mission has led him to collaborations and events with the University of Oxford, DeepMind at Google, Citi Group, and many more. He is a Security Ambassador for Avast Software, focusing on cybersecurity and digital freedom. About Noodle.ai

Noodle.ai is the world leader in FlowOps, a category of AI software that aims to eliminate operations entropy across an entire supply chain, from raw materials to consumer. Noodle.ai applies advanced data science powered by Explainable AI (XAI) to take in vast amounts of data, detect patterns, predict outcomes, and restore flow to business. The FlowOps product offering, Asset Flow, Quality Flow, Demand Flow, Inventory Flow, and Production Flow, works together to dramatically improve operator effectiveness in supply chains and manufacturing in order to create a world without waste. www.noodle.ai View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/noodleai-teams-with-chess-grandmaster-garry-kasparov-to-evangelize-human--machine-intelligence-to-save-the-planet-301378220.html SOURCE Noodle.ai

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[September 16, 2021] Dragos and the ONG-ISAC Announce Joint Initiative to Bolster Security of ICS/OT in the Oil and Natural Gas Sector

Dragos, Inc., a provider of cybersecurity for industrial controls systems (ICS)/operational technology (OT) environments, and the Oil and Natural Gas Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ONG-ISAC), have announced a joint initiative to strengthen security and community-wide visibility for industrial cybersecurity in the North American oil and natural gas industry. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005328/en/ Dragos's Neighborhood Keeper will be used by the ONG-ISAC, enabling ONG-ISAC's analysts to gain greater visibility into industrial control system (ICS) cyber threats facing the oil and natural gas sector. Originally developed with the support of an award from the U.S. Department of Energy, Neighborhood Keeper is a free, opt-in, anonymized information-sharing network available to all Dragos Platform customers. The ONG-ISAC analysts will have access to anonymous and aggregated information about threat analytics and Indicators of Compromise (IOC) as they are detected by the Dragos Platform and shared with Neighborhood Keeper. Insights and trends gleaned from this information will be shared more broadly with all ONG-ISAC members. At the same time, Dragos customers in the oil and natural gas sector will benefit from access to a larger pool of ONG-ISAC cybersecurity expert analysis providing feedback on threats and vulnerabilities. In the future, ONG-ISAC analysts and asset operators will be able to anonymously connect and share relevant threat intelligence that has been enhanced with ONG-ISAC's own insights.



"Achieving strong industrial cybersecurity in the oil and natural gas industry is attainable through a collaborative, community effort," said Robert M. Lee, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Dragos, Inc. "The infrastructure of the oil and natural gas industry is becoming more interconnected every day and state and criminal actors are evolving their capabilities to take advantage of those connections. This new capability for the ONG-ISAC helps the oil and natural gas community operate collectively to make sure an attack on one member can be seen and shared by all. Working together, the community is made stronger than what any single company or organization can achieve on their own." Cyber threats targeting ICS/OT networks continue to increase in frequency and sophistication, but data collection and analysis is extremely limited for industrial defenders. Because adversaries can move through ICS/OT networks undetected they are able to continually train and prepare for the next cyber attack. Neighborhood Keeper is a fundamentally new approach to information sharing that drastically diminishes risk to organizations by reducing the sensitivities around sharing and performing this task at machine-speed.

"The ONG-ISAC is a member-driven organization that furthers trust among security teams from private companies through a common mission. It supports these companies as well as partners in government and the security industry to ensure high-level preparedness, response and recovery capabilities. Our members look to us for accurate and timely indications and warnings of adversarial attacks on our networks and the overall threat landscape," said Angela Haun, Executive Director, ONG-ISAC. "The collaboration with Dragos on programs like Neighborhood Keeper will provide our members with real-time situational awareness through rapid-fire sharing of cyber threat intelligence that facilitates enhanced response to threats in our industry." About ONG-ISAC The ONG-ISAC serves as a central point of coordination and communication to aid in the protection of exploration and production, transportation, refining, and delivery systems of the ONG industry, through the analysis and sharing of trusted and timely cyber threat information, including vulnerability and threat activity specific to ICS and SCADA systems. About Dragos, Inc. Dragos has a global mission: to safeguard civilization from those trying to disrupt the industrial infrastructure we depend on every day. The practitioners who founded Dragos were drawn to this mission through decades of government and private sector experience. Dragos codifies the knowledge of our cybersecurity experts into an integrated software platform that provides customers critical visibility into ICS and OT networks so that threats are identified and can be addressed before they become significant events. Our solutions protect organizations across a range of industries, including power and water utilities, energy, and manufacturing, and are optimized for emerging applications like the Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT). Dragos is privately held and headquartered in the Washington, DC area with regional presence around the world, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and the Middle East. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005328/en/

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[September 16, 2021] Yamaha Rightwaters, FAMU-FSU College of Engineering Partner to Bring Trash Interceptor Concepts to Life

Yamaha (News - Alert) Rightwaters joined forces with the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University - Florida State University College of Engineering (FAMU-FSU College of Engineering) to study and prove a land-based trash interceptor concept. The device will assist in cleaning debris out of waterways before trash can reach the ocean. The Yamaha Rightwaters team designed and built a scale model of an interceptor concept in 2020, with plans to deploy the finished product in Brunswick, Ga. This fall, Will Hill, Strategic Initiatives Manager at the Resilient Infrastructure & Disaster Response (RIDER) Center at the college and Florida State University, will work in conjunction with faculty members Tarek Abichou and Sean Martin to spearhead a project constructing and proving the trash interceptor concept. If successful, the final product will be an economical, scalable and easily deployable device. "The community of Brunswick, Ga., like many others nationwide, must consistently innovate to stay ahead of rising levels of pollution and waste," said Hill. "Pollution and waste accumulating in inland waterways and marshes are threats that destabilize ecosystems and the local economies that depend on them. We are honored to have the opportunity to work with Yamaha Rightwaters in developing practical, effective solutions to one of the biggest challenges facing our waterways. We look forward to seeing the impact this device will have on plastic problems facing Georgia's coast." Yamaha Rightwaters aims to deploy the interceptor device in December or early in Q1, 2022. From there, Yamaha Rightwaters seeks to expand the project to more waterways around the country. "The trash interceptor pilot program is just the beginning of what we hope will become a much larger initiative," said John O'Keefe, Senior Specialist, Government Relations, Yamaha U.S. Marine usiness Unit. "Working with the college, Yamaha Rightwaters hopes to engage a 'student science' approach to the trash interceptor while tapping into the enthusiasm this generation of students has displayed towards conservation and environmental issues."



As part of those efforts, a group of undergraduate seniors at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering will also develop a land-based trash interceptor device from their own designs and concepts for their engineering capstone project. The device they design must also be economical, scalable and easily deployable. "The device our students are working on has a much broader scope, which brings its own challenges and opportunities," said Shayne McConomy, faculty member and Capstone (News - Alert) Design Coordinator, FAMU-FSU College of Engineering. "We're asking them to design a trash interceptor that Yamaha Rightwaters can, in theory, deploy in waterways across the country. It takes a concentrated team effort to achieve sustainable solutions, and this is a cause our students are excited to work on."

In 2020, Yamaha Rightwaters and Skeeter Boats provided FSU's Coastal and Marine Laboratory a Yamaha/Skeeter boat package to assist FSU's Apalachicola Bay System Initiative (ABSI), which seeks to develop a management and restoration plan for the oyster reefs and overall health of the bay. "Yamaha Rightwaters and Florida State University share a common goal of cleaner, healthier waterways," continued O'Keefe. "Working together, we can help provide our children and grandchildren the same boating and fishing experiences we enjoy today." Yamaha Rightwaters is a national sustainability program that encompasses all of Yamaha Marine's conservation and water quality efforts. Program initiatives include habitat restoration, support for scientific research, mitigation of invasive species, the reduction of marine debris and environmental stewardship education. Yamaha Rightwaters reinforces Yamaha's long-standing history of natural resource conservation, support of sustainable recreational fishing and water resources and Angler Code of Ethics, which requires pro anglers to adhere to principles of stewardship for all marine resources. Yamaha Marine products are marketed throughout the United States and around the world. Yamaha Marine U.S. Business Unit, based in Kennesaw, Ga., supports its 2,400 U.S. dealers and boat builders with marketing, training and parts for Yamaha's full line of products and strives to be the industry leader in reliability, technology and customer service. Yamaha Marine is the only outboard brand to have earned NMMA's C.S.I. Customer Satisfaction Index award every year since its inception. REMEMBER to always observe all applicable boating laws. Never drink and drive. Dress properly with a USCG-approved personal floatation device and protective gear.  2021 Yamaha Motor Corporation, U.S.A. All rights reserved. This document contains many of Yamaha's valuable trademarks. It may also contain trademarks belonging to other companies. Any references to other companies or their products are for identification purposes only and are not intended to be an endorsement. FAMU is a registered trademark of Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University. FSU and Florida State University are registered trademarks of Florida State University. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005432/en/

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[September 16, 2021] Arrow Electronics Announces Carol Lowe as a New Director to Its Board

Arrow Electronics (News - Alert) , Inc. (NYSE:ARW) announced that Carol Lowe, former executive vice president and chief financial officer of FLIR Systems, Inc., has joined the company's board of directors. The addition of Ms. Lowe increases the total number of directors on the board to 12. "Carol brings our board valuable experience and a depth of knowledge in many aspects of finance, as well as business services, strategic planning, business development and information technology," said Michael J. Long, chairman, president, and chief executive officer of Arrow Electronics. "She has instilled knowledge-based, performance-driven cultures throughout her career, and we look forward to her insightful contributins."



In her most recent role at FLIR Systems, a global provider of sensing technologies, Ms. Lowe led the global finance and information technology organizations, and was responsible for sales operations, indirect procurement, and the lean/continuous improvement program. Previously, Ms. Lowe was senior vice president and chief financial officer of Sealed Air Corporation from 2012 to 2017, where she reshaped finance and IT into world-class organizations. Earlier in her career, Ms. Lowe served in roles of increasing responsibility, spanning finance and operations with companies operating in a variety of industries, including industrial technology, manufacturing, and food service. Arrow Electronics guides innovation forward for over 180,000 leading technology manufacturers and service providers. With 2020 sales of $29 billion, Arrow develops technology solutions that improve business and daily life. Learn more at fiveyearsout.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005262/en/

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[September 16, 2021] Oh Canada! Kaseya Expands Canadian Presence Through Hiring Push and New Data Centers

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kaseya, the leading provider of IT and security management solutions for managed service providers (MSPs) and small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), announced today its growth plans in Vancouver, with a focus on hiring local tech talent as well as expanding its current office space downtown. In addition to expansion in Western Canada, Kaseya is now serving Unitrends and Spanning customers through two data centers located in Quebec and Ontario.

Due to increased demand for Kaseyas IT Complete suite of solutions, the company is planning to add 75 new positions in Vancouver by the end of 2022. These opportunities include roles in Kaseyas account management and research and development teams, which work across Kaseyas 27 IT Complete modules. To provide a world-class Center of Excellence for the Vancouver team, Kaseya will lease an additional 10,000 square feet in the historic Sun Tower in downtown Vancouver. Kaseya has had a presence in Vancouver since 2018 and is passionate about building out its talent base in one of Canadas hottest tech hubs. Due to the increasing number of Canadian customers, Kaseya is utilizing two data centers in Ontario and Quebec to locally store data from its Unitrends and Spanning customers. The Unitrends data center in Ontario will serve Unitrends Endpoint Backup customers, while Spanning Office 365 customers will be served through the Amazon Web Services (AWS) regional data center in Quebec. These locations meet the need for Canadian customers to store their data within the country to comply with data soereignty regulations.



"Our expanding presence throughout Canada is a testament to Kaseyas best-in-breed software solutions that provide what multifunction IT professionals across Canada need to streamline their organizations and grow their businesses, said Holly Pateman, Senior Vice President, Product Marketing at Kaseya. By tapping into Vancouvers world-class talent pool and working to effectively store and secure data within the Canadian border, Kaseya continues to build the most comprehensive IT software platform that meets the needs of our Canadian customers. To learn more about working in the Vancouver Center of Excellence, visit Kaseyas Careers Page. To learn more about Kaseyas data protection solutions, visit Unitrends and Spanning.

About Kaseya Kaseya is the leading provider of IT and security management solutions for managed service providers (MSPs) and small to medium sized businesses (SMBs). Through its open platform and customer-centric approach, Kaseya delivers best in breed technologies that allow organizations to efficiently manage, secure, and backup IT. Kaseya IT Complete is the most comprehensive, integrated IT management platform comprised of industry-leading solutions from Kaseya, Unitrends, RapidFire Tools, Spanning Cloud Apps, IT Glue, ID Agent, Graphus, RocketCyber and TruMethods. The platform empowers businesses to: command all of IT centrally; easily manage remote and distributed environments; simplify backup and disaster recovery; safeguard against cybersecurity attacks; effectively manage compliance and network assets; streamline IT documentation, and automate across IT management functions. Headquartered in Miami, Florida, Kaseya is privately held with a presence in over 20 countries. To learn more, visit www.kaseya.com. Media Contact: Victoria Johnson

PR Manager

Walker Sands

kaseyapr@walkersands.com Kylie Banks

Corporate Communications Manager

Kaseya

kylie.banks@kaseya.com



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[September 16, 2021] PlantX Provides Corporate Update

VANCOUVER, BC, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ - PlantX Life Inc. (the "Company" or "PlantX") (CSE: VEGA) (Frankfurt: WNT1) (OTCQB: PLTXF) is pleased to provide its shareholders with a Corporate Update describing current and future developments within the Company. Among the Company's recent milestones is the success of its brick-and-mortar store and wholly owned subsidiary, MK Cuisine Global LLC's Plant-Based Deli, LLC ("New Deli") in Venice Beach, California. New Deli is a plant-based neighborhood bodega that offers a variety of plant-based foods and ready-to-go meals, pantry staples, snacks, coffee, beer and wine. Due to increasing customer demand, New Deli's product repertoire has grown significantly since its acquisition by PlantX in May 2021, and now includes over 500 new plant-based items. The Company has also been actively implementing its retail rebranding initiative by re-naming its existing brick-and-mortar stores as "XMarket". The new retail identity aims to reflect the dynamic, interactive, and diverse in-store experience provided by the Company's physical retail locations. As such, the Company's physical stores in Squamish, British Columbia as well as the New Deli location in Venice Beach, California will be re-branded as XMarket. The XMarket name will also be used to brand the PlantX brick-and-mortar stores in Tel Aviv, Israel, which will open its doors on November 15, 2021. Additionally, the Company aims to launch a new website in the Israel on the same date. The XMarket brick-and-mortar store in San Diego, California will be opening in October 2021. To mark the official unveiling of XMarket in Squamish, British Columbia and increase local brand awareness, PlantX will be hosting a grand opening event for its XMarket store in Squamish on October 14, 2021. The celebration will take place at the PlantX Living Squamish location, which includes the Locavore Bar & Grill, and other related businesses including the Cloudburst Cafe and Locavore Food Truck. As part of this event, PlantX will be hosting a vegan barbeque, and will launch a new PlantX-commissioned mural painted by Alex Fowkes, a local Squamish artist. The event will be attended by high-profie PlantX ambassadors such as professional skier Nick McNutt, and professional mountain bike athlete, Remy Metailler. The Company will also be adding 1,500 new plant-based items to the Squamish XMarket product selection and will offer all of its customers a free plant for each purchase over $50 throughout the day.



Corporate Updates In addition to its recent rebranding activities, PlantX is pleased to announce the following key corporate updates:

The Company announces that it has granted an aggregate of 120,000 incentive stock options (the " Options ") to purchase common shares of PlantX (" Common Shares ") to certain employees and consultants of the Company. The Options are exercisable for a five (5) year period at a price of $0.42 per share. One quarter (1/4) of the Options will vest every three (3) months from the date of the grant.

") to purchase common shares of PlantX (" ") to certain employees and consultants of the Company. The Options are exercisable for a five (5) year period at a price of per share. One quarter (1/4) of the Options will vest every three (3) months from the date of the grant. The Company also announces that it has granted an aggregate of 2,880,000 restricted share units (" RSUs ") to certain employees and consultants of the Company pursuant to the Company's restricted share unit plan (the " RSU Plan "). The RSUs have a term of one (1) year of which one quarter (1/4) of the RSUs will vest every three (3) months from the date of grant.

") to certain employees and consultants of the Company pursuant to the Company's restricted share unit plan (the " "). The RSUs have a term of one (1) year of which one quarter (1/4) of the RSUs will vest every three (3) months from the date of grant. The Company's Executive Chairman, Mr. Fred Leigh , currently owns 2,100,000 Common Shares and has purchased 250,000 shares since his recent appointment as Chairman. About PlantX Life Inc. As the digital face of the plant-based community, PlantX's platform is the one-stop-shop for everything plant-based. With its fast-growing category verticals, the Company offers customers across North America more than 5,000 plant-based products. In addition to offering meal and indoor plant deliveries, the Company currently has plans underway to expand its product lines to include cosmetics and its own water brand  but the business is not limited to an e-commerce platform. The Company uses its digital platform to build a community of like-minded consumers, and most importantly, provide education. Its successful enterprise is being built and fortified on partnerships with top nutritionists, chefs and brands. The Company eliminates the barriers to entry for anyone interested in living a plant-based lifestyle and thriving in a longer, healthier and happier life. The Company website is http://investor.PlantX.com/. Forward Looking-Information This press release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws. All statements contained herein that are not clearly historical in nature may constitute forward-looking information. In some cases, forward-looking information can be identified by words or phrases such as "may", "will", "expect", "likely", "should", "would", "plan", "anticipate", "intend", "potential", "proposed", "estimate", "believe" or the negative of these terms, or other similar words, expressions and grammatical variations thereof, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" happen, or by discussions of strategy. The forward-looking information contained herein includes, without limitation, the business and strategic plans of the Company. By their nature, forward-looking information is subject to inherent risks and uncertainties that may be general or specific and which give rise to the possibility that expectations, forecasts, predictions, projections or conclusions will not prove to be accurate, that assumptions may not be correct and that objectives, strategic goals and priorities will not be achieved. A variety of factors, including known and unknown risks, many of which are beyond our control, could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking information in this press release including, without limitation: the Company's ability to comply with all applicable governmental regulations including all applicable food safety laws and regulations; impacts to the business and operations of the Company due to the COVID-19 epidemic; a limited operating history, the ability of the Company to access capital to meet future financing needs; the Company's reliance on management and key personnel; competition; changes in consumer trends; foreign currency fluctuations; and general economic, market or business conditions. Additional risk factors can also be found in the Company's continuous disclosure documents which have been filed on SEDAR and can be accessed at www.sedar.com . Readers are cautioned to consider these and other factors, uncertainties and potential events carefully and not to put undue reliance on forward-looking information. The forward-looking information contained herein is made as of the date of this press release and is based on the beliefs, estimates, expectations and opinions of management on the date such forward-looking information is made. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, estimates or opinions, future events or results or otherwise or to explain any material difference between subsequent actual events and such forward-looking information, except as required by applicable law. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/plantx-provides-corporate-update-301378641.html SOURCE PlantX Life Inc.

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[September 16, 2021] Worldwide Enterprise Applications Revenue Grew 4.1% in 2020 as Organizations Responded to the Pandemic with Investments in Digital Resiliency, According to IDC

The enterprise applications market continued to grow in 2020 as organizations accelerated their digital transformation efforts in response to the business disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a new report from International Data Corporation (IDC), the enterprise applications market grew 4.1% year over year in 2020 with worldwide revenues reaching $241 billion. The top 5 enterprise application vendors in 2020 were SAP, Salesforce, Oracle, Intuit (News - Alert) , and Microsoft, which together accounted for 22.8% of worldwide revenues. Digital resiliency, the ability for an organization to rapidly adapt to business disruptions by leveraging digital capabilities to not only restore business operations but also capitalize on changed conditions, became a focal point for organizations in 2020. As the core technology systems that most organizations use to conduct business, enterprise applications are critical to both an organization's resiliency and its digital-first strategy. "Digital resiliency is a requirement in the digital-first world. Rapidly adapting to a business disruption requires a business to leverage its digital capabilities within its enterprise application portfolio. Modular, intelligent applications are helping the organization leverage the data and gain insights to better maneuver the organization so it can remain resilient and capitalize on the changed conditions," said Mickey North Rizza, program vice president, Enterprise Applications and Digital Commerce at IDC (News - Alert) . IDC forecasts worldwide revenues for the enterprise applications market will be nearly $334 billion in 2025 as organizations revamp their applications portfolios to deliver the digital resiliency and flexibility needed to thrive in the digital economy. This will be a gradual process as organizations evaluate their currnt portfolios, and the many customizations across these applications, and map out a transformation strategy. Demand for public cloud-based enterprise applications is expected to produce a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.6%, surpassing the 6.7% CAGR for the overall market and overtaking on-premises software in the next several years.



The enterprise applications market is comprised of the following secondary markets: enterprise resource management (ERM), customer relationship management (CRM), engineering applications, supply chain management (SCM), and production applications. Each of these secondary markets consists of multiple functional markets. IDC's software market sizing and forecasts are presented in terms of commercial software revenue. The term commercial software is used to distinguish commercially available software from custom software. Commercial software revenue typically includes fees for initial and continued right-to-use commercial software licenses. These fees may include, as part of the license contract, access to product support and/or other services that are inseparable from the right-to-use license fee structure, or this support may be priced separately. Upgrades may be included in the continuing right of use or may be priced separately. Commercial software revenue excludes service revenue derived from training, consulting, and systems integration that is separate (or unbundled) from the right-to-use license but does include the implicit value of software included in a service that offers software functionality by a different pricing scheme.

The IDC report, Worldwide Enterprise Applications Software Forecast, 2021-2025: A Digital-First World Requires Next-Generation Applications (IDC #US47983921), provides IDC's five-year forecast for the enterprise applications software market. The report also provides a forecast for enterprise applications revenue by deployment type (public cloud vs. on premise) and geographic region. The report, Worldwide Enterprise Applications Market Shares, 2020: Next-Generation Applications Shaping the Market (IDC #US47983821), reviews shares for the enterprise applications market, which continued to grow in 2020, despite the pandemic. The report provides worldwide revenue, market share, and year-over-year growth for more than 400 enterprise application vendors. The report also provides a breakdown of enterprise applications revenue by geographic region and deployment type (public cloud vs. on premise). About IDC

International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. With more than 1,100 analysts worldwide, IDC offers global, regional, and local expertise on technology, IT benchmarking and sourcing, and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries. IDC's analysis and insight helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community to make fact-based technology decisions and to achieve their key business objectives. Founded in 1964, IDC is a wholly owned subsidiary of International Data Group (IDG), the world's leading tech media, data, and marketing services company. To learn more about IDC, please visit www.idc.com. Follow IDC on Twitter (News - Alert) at @IDC and LinkedIn. Subscribe to the IDC Blog for industry news and insights. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005023/en/

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[September 16, 2021] Detroit Webseries Say Nice Things Begins Filming Season One October 4th, 2021

DETROIT, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Say Nice Things is a character-driven, place-crucial dramedy about siblings Natalie and Leyroy Hendrix, inheritors of the Tireman Trade Center: a former factory repurposed as a post-industrial wonderland; a mishmash of flea and farmer's market, odd-ball retailers, public music space, and comfort food cafe. Season One spends 72 hours in the life of the staff and patrons dedicated to keeping this iconic "Old Detroit" institution alive despite big-money developers gobble up the city around them. Writer and Showrunner Veronica Frick and writer Radfan Ali Alqirsh developed the series as a love letter to the working-class communities that make up Detroit and the neighborhoods that border it. Production of the series was originally planned for 2020 but postponed due to the pandemic. It was during this time that Veronica reached out to writer, editor and Michigan Native Craig Bernier (author of Your Life Idyllic) to revise the original script. Director LeShawn Bell joined the team in April of 2021 and "by May over a dozen local performers and artists were joined together for a table read" explains Producer Julia LeBrell. "I was invited to the reading by friend and fellow comic Joe Aasim and found myself laughing out loud within the first episode. Veronica and Radfan capture the absurdity that comes with trying to keep small business alive an ever-changing city." In August, actor Robert Forte Shannon III (poducer of Raphead Response) and Veronica connected at an area networking event run by The D Brief podcast hosts Seth Resler, Becky Scarcello and producer Jewell Dziendziel.



Populated by local artists, community organizers and entrepreneurs, the cast and crew of Say Nice Things is dedicated to making art that represents the spirit of a city in transition. The series is raising funds on IndieGoGo to cover all production costs, including industry standard wages and supplies to ensure filming sets following CDC recommendations for work safety during the pandemic. The independent series will be filmed in Detroit during October and will be available on YouTube in December 2021. Contact Us

Julia LeBrell

Producer, Say Nice Things

(248) 572-3102

319126@email4pr.com

Website: Say Nice Things Fundraising Campaign | Indiegogo

Instagram @_say_nice_things

Facebook Group: Say Nice Things

YouTube Account: Say Nice Things

TikTok: SayNiceThingsTV View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/detroit-webseries-say-nice-things-begins-filming-season-one-october-4th-2021-301378546.html SOURCE Say Nice Things

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[September 16, 2021] Trinity Life Sciences Partners With Komodo Health

Trinity Life Sciences, a leader in global life sciences commercialization solutions, today announced a partnership with Komodo Health that will unlock unique, valuable insights in combination with Trinity's EvidenceFirst. Trinity's experts leverage EvidenceFirst, a suite of real-world evidence (RWE) offerings, to help pharma, biotech, and medtech companies navigate to strategic, data-informed decisions across an asset's lifecycle. Komodo's Healthcare Map is the industry's largest and most complete database of de-identified, real-world patient data, and tracks more than 330 million patient journeys. Already a powerful source of RWE solutions, EvidenceFirst will now use Komodo software to draw from the Healthcare Map's unmatched view of patients to deliver relevant and actionable insights life sciences clients need to answer core and evolving business questions. "Trinity's decades of experience in putting real-world data analytics into context for life sciences commercialization has moved us to continuously seek out new opportunities that strengthen the data-driven insights we provide to our clients," said Dave Fitzhenry, CEO, Trinity. "Trinity is proud to partner with Komodo Health as we continue to focus on enabling flexible, evidence-based decisions by harnessing the growing power of RWE through EvidenceFirst." "The challenges of healthcare are increasingly being addressed through real-world data and insights, and Trinity Life Sciences is an exemplar of the innovative, data-driven approaches that are transforming the industry today," said Aswin Chandrakantan, MD, Chief Medical Officer, Komodo Health. "Komodo is proud to bring our unparalleled depth, breadth, and speed of insight to unlock new opportunities that ill drive a deeper understanding of patient journeys, smarter business strategies, and ultimately help speed cutting-edge therapies into the hands of patients who need them most."



Trinity Life Sciences and Komodo Health will be at Asembia's Specialty Pharmacy Summit in Las Vegas on October 26-28, 2021. Executives from both companies will be available for media interviews and to answer attendee questions. To set up a meeting, please reach out to Elizabeth Marshall (781.577.6376, emarshall@trinitylifesciences.com). About EvidenceFirst

EvidenceFirst allows life sciences companies to make evidence-based decisions across an asset's lifecycle. The intricacies and context of life sciences business questions are ever-changing-EvidenceFirst's suite of RWE offerings are designed using Trinity's decades of experience to accommodate each client's unique situation, leveraging data sources they might not have access to or with which they struggle to gain insights. EvidenceFirst powers and integrates with Trinity's full portfolio of solutions and services across the range of commercialization business needs with built-for-purpose insights.

About Trinity Life Sciences

Trinity Life Sciences is a trusted strategic commercialization partner, providing evidence-based solutions for the life sciences industry. With 25 years of experience, Trinity is committed to solving clients' most challenging problems through exceptional levels of service, powerful tools, and data-driven insights. Trinity's range of products and solutions includes industry-leading benchmarking solutions, powered by TGaS Advisors. To learn more about how Trinity is elevating life sciences and driving evidence to action, visit trinitylifesciences.com. About Komodo Health

Komodo Health believes that smarter, more innovative use of data and analytics is essential for reducing disease burden. We apply artificial intelligence and other advanced data science techniques to our first-of-its-kind Healthcare Map, which tracks the unique patient journeys of over 330 million patients. We empower a multitude of healthcare stakeholders - life sciences companies, healthcare payers and providers, patient advocacy groups, and others - to create a more cost-effective, value-driven healthcare system. For more information, visit komodohealth.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005325/en/

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[September 16, 2021] Data Study: Rising Demand for Ammunition Over the Past 18 Months

HARVEY, La., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- American firearm owners have purchased ammunition in record quantities throughout the 18-month period between February 23, 2020 and August 23, 2021. This historic spike in demand is nearly entirely attributable to three factors: Apprehension over the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the resultant lockdowns and interruptions to supply chains; BLM protests, coupled with public cries to "defund the police"; The Biden administration's adverse position on the Second Amendment and its recent ban on the import of Russian firearms and ammunition. Ammo.com, an American online ammunition retailer, offers unique insight into just how sharply demand for ammunition has risen in the United States over the past 18 months. During this time period, Ammo.com recorded a 590% increase in revenue accompanied by a 271% increase in traffic to their website. During the period between May 28, 2020 and June 5, 2020, when BLM protests were at their peak, Ammo.com recorded a 200% increase in revenue and 99% increase in site traffic as compared to May 19, 2020 through May 27, 2020. During the period between January 4, 2021 and January 22, 2021, when the Biden administration took power following a historically contentious election and vote count, Ammo.com recorded a 78% increase in revenue and 73% increase in site traffic as compared to December 16, 2020 through January 3, 2021. The Biden administration's announcement of their ban on ammunition manufactured in Russia, which officially took effect on September 7, 2021, took American firearm owners by suprise.



In response to the announcement on August 20, 2021, enthusiasts seeking to stockpile 7.62x39 ammunition (for which the popular AK-47 rifle is chambered) had a marked impact on Ammo.com's online sales. During the period between August 17, 2021 and August 23, 2021 the retailer recorded a 124% increase in revenue from 7.62x39 sales accompanied by a 91% increase in site traffic as compared to August 10, 2021 through August 16, 2021. Firearm enthusiasts in New Jersey alone purchased 507% more 7.62x39 ammunition during that time period. Alex Horsman, Ammo.com's Head of Marketing, responded to the increase in sales, "The data is clear  Americans purchase more ammunition when uncertainty lies ahead, and we saw this throughout the last year and a half."

Throughout the past 18 months, Americans have mostly purchased 9mm (the country's most popular pistol cartridge among both law enforcement professionals and private citizens) and 5.56x45 and 223 Rem (both of which function in the AR-15, the country's most popular rifle) ammunition. For the whole story regarding Ammo.com's surge in sales over the last 18 months, interested parties can check out the full data study here . ABOUT AMMO.COM Ammo.com is an American retail online ammunition store that offers great prices, fast shipping, and live American customer support. It also uses a real-time inventory management system that keeps the site constantly up-to-date on stock, ensuring no surprises come checkout. The company provides an array of information and resources in its Resistance Library . Ammo.com's mission is to arm Americans, both physically and philosophically, to fulfill the Founding Fathers' intent with the Second Amendment, to protect the country from its government by keeping the state in check. That's why it's known as America's Pro-Freedom Ammo Source. Follow Ammo.com on Facebook , Twitter , and Instagram . Media Contact:

Alex Horsman

Ammo.com

1901 Manhattan Blvd.

Building D PMB #300

Harvey, LA 70058

https://ammo.com

800-604-1094

319121@email4pr.com View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/data-study-rising-demand-for-ammunition-over-the-past-18-months-301378319.html SOURCE Ammo.com

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[September 16, 2021] First Orion Receives Coveted 2021 Contact Center Technology Award from CUSTOMER Magazine

NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark., Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- First Orion, a provider of digital call experiences for the worlds leading mobile carriers, enterprises, and mobile apps, today announces its Branded Call Enhancement portfolio has been named a 2021 Contact Center Technology Award winner by CUSTOMER Magazine.

First Orions Branded Call Enhancement solutions include ENGAGE Branded Call Display and INFORM Branded Caller ID. These services allow customer service and contact centers to label and brand their outbound calls to show consumers whos calling and the reason for the call, improving overall customer experience and satisfaction. ENGAGE displays a content-rich message including logo, custom background, and personalized text, and INFORM allows businesses to add and update a 32-character message to further identify the department, and/or reason for a call. By offering a branded call experience that engages customers, call and contact centers can experience a 200% increase in answer rates. First Orion is thrilled to be driving engagemnt in the contact center space, says Viki Zabala, Chief Product and Marketing Officer for First Orion. We believe branding phone calls will be the #1 digital transformation product implemented by contact centers and CCaaS this year  and early adopters of this technology have already seen a direct impact on both their customer satisfaction and revenues.



First Orions mission is to provide transparency in communication to help businesses and consumers create meaningful connections. By offering a digital call experience, businesses can increase call answer rates, boost productivity, and drive revenues while delivering an enhanced customer experience that improves brand loyalty and retention. First Orion also works directly with mobile carriers to provide real-time call protection services that combat scam and fraudulent calls and empower consumers to trust their phones again. The 16th-annual CUSTOMER Magazine Contact Center Technology Award honors vendors and technologies that have embraced technology as a key tool for customer service excellence. This award distinguishes their success as innovators, thought leaders, and market movers in the contact center and customer care industries.

For more information, visit www.firstorion.com. About First Orion

First Orion provides true digital call experiences for the worlds leading mobile carriers, enterprises, and mobile apps developers. The companys Branded Calling Suite  INFORM and ENGAGE  allow businesses to brand their outbound calls while empowering consumers to connect over a trusted, verified call. First Orions Call Protection Suite offers scam, fraud, and spoof protection solutions to hundreds of millions of consumers. Processing more than 100 billion calls annually, First Orion powers digital call experiences for T-Mobile, Metro by T-Mobile, and Boost Mobile networks along with Fortune 500 brands, PrivacyStar, and other mobile apps. Headquartered in North Little Rock, Arkansas, First Orion was founded in 2008 and employs more than 300 people across its global offices. For more information, visit www.firstorion.com. Media/PR Contact:

Uproar PR for First Orion

Brittany Johnson

bjohnson@uproarpr.com

312-878-4575 x246



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[September 16, 2021] IT Support London 365: Why Outsourced IT Support Is the Popular Choice for Small Businesses Post Covid-19

London, United Kingdom, Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- In a digital world where businesses cannot afford to hit issues with their technology infrastructure, IT support is critical. Many businesses rely on the support of IT specialists to keep their systems and services running, to keep software up to date, to protect against viruses, and to provide guidance and support in fixing system malfunctions that hinder business operations. Post covid-19 pandemic, the importance of IT support has only increased. Many businesses have had to digitalise their approach to business to suit online markets, theyve had to invest in software and technology to stay afloat and futureproof their business operations, and with employees now working from home or from external locations, a fully functioning and robust IT infrastructure is a categoric requirement. IT Support London 365, a full-service remote IT support, monitoring and management team based in London, England, understand that for smaller businesses, it isnt always viable to hire in-house IT specialists. Yet with this new reliance and investment in technology, smaller businesses need expert support, on-demand, to ensure their processes, software and technology remain functioning, secure, and valuable. Below, we look at why outsourced IT support has become a popular choice and requirement for small businesses post covid-19: Location isnt an issue for outsourced remote IT support Perhaps the biggest advantage to outsourcing small business IT support London is that systems and software across your infrastructure can be fixed, maintained or updated, regardless of location. In a world where many businesses are now switching to flexible working policies and employees are using technology from home or from anywhere in the country, its reassuring to know that an outsourced IT support team can assist with all sorts of IT issues and requirements using innovative remote-access software. This means you dont need to hire somebody to be at your physical location, saving you time and money. Remote IT support can help businesses navigate investments in technology As a small business who are aking investments in technology and IT infrastructure, all of which may have been fast tracked because of the covid-19 pandemic, youre likely to be using tools and software that youve never used before. Valuable data, documents and processes are now being stored in cloud-based applications, and many of your day-to-day operations that historically didnt rely on technology, may now be critically reliant on IT.



Remote IT support, such as that provided by IT Support London 365, gives businesses the expert support required to not only navigate these new ventures into technology, but to thrive using them. It helps small businesses to continue their focus on their work, without having to become IT experts, without having to deal with technology hinderances, and without having to worry about how their employees will cope with tech fails. With outsourced IT tech support, assistance is available on-demand

Larger businesses often have the luxury of in-house IT support teams to assist with updates, viruses, installation of new software, security and more. However, due to the size and scale of these business, IT support teams are often being thrown from one task to the next, and emergencies take priority, meaning issues can take some time to be resolved. Theres no such waiting game with outsourced IT tech support. Your IT infrastructure is being supported by a professional at your disposal, and in a way that suits your communication needs. Whether you need immediate assistance over a call or LiveChat, or you prefer to email, the assistance is tailored to you, based on your requirements. Remote IT support is helping small businesses keep their data safe and systems secure If many of your business operations are now using technology, and youre storing data that can be accessed online by your team and workforce, its critical that you have a robust data security operation. However, as a small business, you may not have the time or necessary knowledge to ensure your data is being stored correctly and routinely backed up, or that your IT systems are protected from potential hackers. IT Support London 365 provide remote IT support that takes on the responsibility of your data. With their data backup and recovery services, should disaster strike in the form of floods, fires, or software malfunctions, critical client and business data is safe and retrievable. When it comes to cyber security, IT Support London 365 can put processes in place to help your IT system defend itself and withstand cyber-attacks. In a world where attacks from hackers to install malicious viruses have sky-rocketed, with the purpose to unlock your data and shut down your businesses IT operation, the importance of cyber security has never been greater, and remote IT support is helping businesses stay secure post covid-19. More Information IT Support London 365 provide IT support, IT consultancy, and IT security for small and medium businesses in London and beyond. Their team specialises in outsourced and remote support, helping your business with all aspects of IT and technology, and ensuring the efficient performance of your IT infrastructure. Book a free consultation today via the website: https://www.itsupportlondon365.com/ https://thenewsfront.com/it-support-london-365-why-outsourced-it-support-is-the-popular-choice-for-small-businesses-post-covid-19/

IT Support London 365 London, England United Kingdom https://www.itsupportlondon365.com/ info@itsupportlondon365.com

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[September 16, 2021] Strata Identity Receives SINET16 Innovator Award

Strata Identity, the distributed, multi-cloud identity orchestration company, today announced it has been recognized as a 2021 SINET16 Innovator Award winner. The annual SINET16 awards recognize the most innovative and compelling technologies that address cybersecurity threats and vulnerabilities. Strata was selected from a pool of 190 applications from 18 countries, following two rounds of evaluation by the SINET Judging Committee. The panel was composed of 117 private and government security professionals including leading risk executives, experts in government intelligence and defense agencies, venture capitalists, and investment bankers. A recent study foundthat due to incompatible identity silos created by multi-cloud environments, more than 60% of companies said they lack visibility into policies, applications and users, and half are still using manual efforts to manage them. Strata's Maverics Identity Orchestration Platform automates multi-cloud and hybrid cloud identity management by enabling legacy on-premises and modern cloud identity systems to coexist indefinitely without requiring any changes to applications.



"Being recognized with the highly respected SINET16 Innovator award is a special honor for the entire Strata team," said Eric Olden, CEO of Strata Identity. "Our unique approach for unifying cloud and on-premises identity with standards-based orchestration addresses one of the biggest problems facing organizations as they migrate to the cloud or try to manage identity across multiple clouds." "Congratulations to Strata Identity for being selected as one of this year's SINET16 Innovators," said Robert D. Rodriguez, Chairman of SINET. "This year's class of winners are emerging as leaders in their field, and paving the way for critical security advancements into multiple government agencies and industry sectors."

Strata was selected based on cumulative scoring associated with: The urgency in the marketplace for their products and solutions

How innovative and unique their solutions are

How well their products and technologies solve real and significant cybersecurity problems

What advantages exist over other solutions

The companies' ability to succeed based on the state of their product, capital, and leadership About Strata Strata is pioneering the concept of identity orchestration for distributed, multi-cloud identity. The Maverics Platform enables enterprises to seamlessly unify on-premises and cloud-based authentication and access systems for consistent identity management in multi-cloud environments. Strata's distributed approach to identity enables organizations to break decades-old vendor lock-in, preventing a broader transition of enterprise workloads to the public cloud. The company's founders co-authored the SAML open standard for identity interoperability, created the first cloud identity services, delivered the first open-source identity products, and are now building the first distributed identity platform. For more information, visit us on the Web and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005264/en/

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[September 16, 2021] Frost Bank Selects Infosys as Strategic Partner to Launch New Mortgage Loan Product Offering

AUSTIN, Texas, Sept. 16, 2021 /CNW/ -- Infosys (NSE: INFY) (BSE: INFY) (NYSE: INFY), a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting, today announced that it would collaborate with Frost Bank to provide strategic business consulting and digital capabilities that will enable Frost Bank to offer mortgage loans along with its other consumer loan products. Infosys will help design the bank's mortgage loan process landscape from origination to servicing, design the end-customer experience, and select the most effective technology platform to run and manage operations, while driving growth for its mortgage solutions over the next five years. Infosys and Frost Bank will work together to create a human-centric, digital-first approach to customer mortgage loans that delivers superior borrower experience along with cutting-edge efficiency of operations. The implementation strategy will focus on accelerating launch of the new product, while also streamlining the mortgage value chain for Frost Bank by taking advantage of Infosys' access to global best practices and innovations. "Offering mortgage loans along with our other consumer loan products is integral to meeting our customers' evolving needs and bringing the Frost experience to more Texans," said Phil Green, Chairman and CEO at Frost Bank. "Working with a world-class company like Infosys will allow us to be involved in the entire process from start to finish and bring our industry-leading customer service experience to mortgages." Infosys also has deep expertise and long years of experience in collaborating with independent mortgage solution providers and regional banks in the US. Frost Bank can leverage this to compete profitably in a rapidly transforming competitive landscape. Mohit Joshi, President, Infosys, said, "At Infosys, we have built strong capabilities in transforming mortgage businesses by providing our clients with unique solutions that meet their customers' expectations of speed, transparency, convenience, and personalization. Our collaboration with Frost Bank sets the stage for a new era of mortgage services, and we are excited to bring to this engagement, our collective expertise." About Frost Bank Frost is the banking, investments and insurance subsidiary of Cullen/Frost Bankers, Inc. (NYSE: CFR), a finacial holding company with $46.7 billion in assets at June 30, 2021. One of the 50 largest U.S. banks by asset size, Frost provides a full range of banking, investments and insurance services to businesses and individuals in the Austin, Corpus Christi, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Permian Basin, Rio Grande Valley and San Antonio regions. Founded in 1868, Frost has helped Texans with their financial needs during three centuries. For more information, visit www.frostbank.com.



About Infosys Infosys is a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting. We enable clients in more than 50 countries to navigate their digital transformation. With over four decades of experience in managing the systems and workings of global enterprises, we expertly steer our clients through their digital journey. We do it by enabling the enterprise with an AI-powered core that helps prioritize the execution of change. We also empower the business with agile digital at scale to deliver unprecedented levels of performance and customer delight. Our always-on learning agenda drives their continuous improvement through building and transferring digital skills, expertise, and ideas from our innovation ecosystem.

Visit www.infosys.com to see how Infosys (NSE: INFY) (BSE: INFY) (NYSE: INFY) can help your enterprise navigate your next. Safe Harbor Certain statements in this release concerning our future growth prospects, financial expectations and plans for navigating the COVID-19 impact on our employees, clients and stakeholders are forward-looking statements intended to qualify for the 'safe harbor' under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties relating to these statements include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties regarding COVID-19 and the effects of government an other measures seeking to contain its spread, risks related to an economic downturn or recession in India, the United States and other countries around the world, changes in political, business, and economic conditions, fluctuations in earnings, fluctuations in foreign exchange rates, our ability to manage growth, intense competition in IT services including those factors which may affect our cost advantage, wage increases in India, our ability to attract and retain highly skilled professionals, time and cost overruns on fixed-price, fixed-time frame contracts, client concentration, restrictions on immigration, industry segment concentration, our ability to manage our international operations, reduced demand for technology in our key focus areas, disruptions in telecommunication networks or system failures, our ability to successfully complete and integrate potential acquisitions, liability for damages on our service contracts, the success of the companies in which Infosys has made strategic investments, withdrawal or expiration of governmental fiscal incentives, political instability and regional conflicts, legal restrictions on raising capital or acquiring companies outside India, unauthorized use of our intellectual property and general economic conditions affecting our industry and the outcome of pending litigation and government investigation. Additional risks that could affect our future operating results are more fully described in our United States Securities and Exchange Commission filings including our Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2021. These filings are available at www.sec.gov. Infosys may, from time to time, make additional written and oral forward-looking statements, including statements contained in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and our reports to shareholders. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements that may be made from time to time by or on behalf of the Company unless it is required by law. View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/frost-bank-selects-infosys-as-strategic-partner-to-launch-new-mortgage-loan-product-offering-301378722.html SOURCE Infosys

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[September 16, 2021]

Thermal Conversion to Remain the Technology of Choice in Global Waste-to-Energy (WtE) Market, Says Fairfield Market Research

LONDON, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Waste-to-energy is a compelling method of energy generation to overcome the inevitable depletion of oil and gas reserves. The World Bank states that waste generation will double by 2025 to reach six million tons daily. Several countries are assessing alternate sources of energy because of environmental concerns, volatility in crude prices, and restricted landfills. Waste-to-energy solves long-term challenges by reducing the volume and decreasing the amount of greenhouse gas emissions, fuelling growth in the waste-to-energy market.

The global waste-to-energy market was valued at US$25.7 Bn in 2020 and is anticipated to be worth US$36.2 Bn in 2025, registering a CAGR of 7.1% during the forecast period.

Get a Sample Copy of Global Waste-to-Energy (WtE) Market: https://www.fairfieldmarketresearch.com/report/waste-to-energy-wte-market/request-sample

Need for Cities to Dispose of Waste Effectively Aiding Growth in Waste-to-Energy Market

The Paris Agreement, concerns about the safe disposal of waste, and ever-increasing investments in green energy are the primary drivers in the waste-to-energy market. Government subsidies help in no small measure. A lower scope for landfill coupled with greater waste generation has improved growth prospects in the waste-to-energy market. As the global population simultaneously grows and urbanises, waste is concentrated in metropolitan areas, putting the spotlight on efficient waste management frameworks. Cities are considering waste-to-energy units to cope with urban waste effectively, boding well for companies in the waste-to-energy market.

Thermal Conversion Only Cost-effective Option at Present in the Waste-to-energy Market

In 2020, the thermal technology segment held 51.6% of the waste-to-energy market with a value of US$19.9 Bn. Incineration is a popular process as it can reduce waste weight and volume by 75% and 90% respectively. The bottom layer of ash generated in incineration plants is used by construction companies, further reducing landfill burden. Incineration is the only waste-to-energy technology that is operationally feasible and viable on a commercial level. Heat recovered from incineration can be further deployed for hydroelectric power generation, mking it well-worth the while for stakeholders in the waste-to-energy market.







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Government Push to Use Biofuels Explains Europe's Lead in the Waste-to-energy Market

In 2021, Europe accounts for the maximum share of the waste-to-energy market as a result of giants such as EQT, Suez Environment, Ramboll Group, and Veolia having their headquarters there. Supportive government policies including direct subsidies, carbon tax, and landfill tax are predicted to drive the waste-to-energy market over the forecast period. European energy and climate policy is emphasizing the need to move away from polluting fossil fuels, creating an incentive for waste-to-energy techniques to produce biofuels and biogas. Report predicts that the Europe waste-to-energy market will show a CAGR of 6.80% between 2020 and 2025.

China and India Unveil Grand Plans to Harness the Potential in the Waste-to-energy Market

Asia Pacific follows Europe in the waste-to-energy market with Australia, China, Japan, and South Korea particularly profitable. The Indian Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has unveiled an initiative to subsidise $310 thousand per MW up to a limit of $1.55 million per venture for five waste-to-energy plants. China has similar ambitions with its 13th Five-Year Plan that sought to generate 600,000 tonnes of energy from waste by 2020. This would necessitate the building of 200 new facilities between 2020 and 2030, benefiting demand in the Asia Pacific waste-to-energy market.

Key Players Entering Into Partnerships With Local Companies in Waste-to-energy Market

Some companies profiled in the report on the waste-to-energy market are Viridor, Ramboll Group, GCL Poly, China Everbright International Limited, EDF, AVR, EQT AB, Covanta Energy Corporation, Hitachi Zosen Inova AG, Babcock & Wilcox Vflund A/S, Veolia, Seuz Environment, and Wheelabrator.

In 2019, Covanta Holding Corp. signed a concession agreement with Zhao County, China to manufacture and operate a waste-to-energy facility. The project is a joint venture between Covanta and a local partner. China's energy-to-waste targets are aided by preferential tariffs on purchasing electricity from energy-to-waste facilities and it remains to be seen how rivals respond to this development in the waste-to-energy market.

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[September 16, 2021]

5th Annual World Energy Storage Day Virtual Conference & Expo Offers Global Platform For Energy Storage And E-Mobility Leaders on Sept. 21-22

PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Customized Energy Solutions (CES) presents the fifth annual World Energy Storage Day (WESD), a virtual Conference & Expo that convenes energy storage and e-mobility pioneers, regulators, policymakers, associations, and think tanks from over 100 countries to deliberate the challenges, opportunities, and solutions that will lead us to a greener, more sustainable future. The event aims to drive awareness, facilitate bilateral trade and global market development, and spark new research and innovation in energy storage and other emerging technologies.



Starting at 8pm ET on September 21 in the U.S., the event will feature live sessions and workshops discussing the policy landscape, investment scenarios, and the latest innovations and research on stationary energy storage, EVs and charging infrastructure, green hydrogen, supply chain, and more.

A workshop on long duration energy storage will be a key highlight of the U.S. agenda. The workshop will run from 12:30-1:30pm ET on September 22 and will feature prominent speakers from the Department of Energy, World Bank, Google, National Grid, and more. Other workshops on the agenda include:

This event was created to foster a global ecosystem for promoting emerging technologies in energy storage, says Craig Tropea, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at CES. Our event partners and supporters all recognize the value of collaborating to capitalize on the momentum weve helped create, and our expert-led sessions will focus especially on effectively integrating renewables, EV adoption, and reliable, resilient energy.

Additional program highlights include a country roundtable, partner seminars, startup pitches, a networking lounge, and a media corner.

During a Global Startup Showcase, startups will present new ideas in smart energy, energy storage, e-mobility, green H2, and IoT. Judges will select the top 10 startups, giving them the opportunity to showcase their solutions and technology to more than 20,000 international attendees at the expo. Selected startups will also earn the opportunity to be a part of various startup accelerator programs and funding opportunities with CES. Attendees can also expect a WESD Photograph Contest and an Emerging Tech Info-Artist competition .

Supporting partners include Keysight Technologies, Underwriters Laboratories, Accure Battery Intelligence, The World Bank, U.S. Department of Energy, Indo German Energy Forum, and Schaultbau. The full list of more than 30 partners is available here .

For registration and more details on the WESD Global Virtual Conference & Expo, visit Live.EnergyStorageDay.org .

About World Energy Storage Day (WESD)

With energy storage rising to the forefront of industry developments, World Energy Storage Day is celebrated on September 22nd every year by various global industry stakeholders, policy makers, think tanks and associations to acknowledge its importance across the globe. It is a global movement initiated by various apex trade bodies working to promote and adopt energy storage, e-mobility & green hydrogen technologies for a sustainable future. Learn more about WESD at EnergyStorageDay.org .

About Customized Energy Solutions (CES)

Established in 1998, Customized Energy Solutions is an energy advisory and service company that works closely with clients to navigate the wholesale and retail electricity markets across the United States and globally. CES offers software solutions, back office operational support, and advisory and consulting services focused on asset optimization and energy market participation efficiency. CES is also a third-party asset manager of approximately 10,000 MWs of renewable and conventional generation resources across all ISOs in the United States and Ontario, Canada. CES empowers clients to achieve their goals by helping them navigate the evolving energy markets, complex market rules, and new energy technologies. To learn more, visit CES-LTD.com or connect with CES on LinkedIn , Twitter , and Facebook .

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[September 16, 2021] Barchart Partners with SovEcon on Black Sea Grain Pricing and Research

CHICAGO, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Barchart, a leading provider of data, tools, and software to agribusinesses around the world, has announced a new distribution partnership with SovEcon, a leading research firm focused on assessing stocks, consumption, crops and exports forecasting, and key price drivers of the Black Sea agricultural markets. SovEcon will join the cmdty Pricing Network (CPN), making their Black Sea grain prices available to users through cmdtyView Pro , Barchart's leading trading and analytics platform for global grain markets. Additionally, users can access data from SovEcon through an API subscription. With access to SovEcon's leading coverage of wheat, corn, soybeans, and other agricultural prices for Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, clients will be well equipped with the data they need to stay well-informed around the Black Sea agricultural markets. "Barchart is rapidly expanding the offering of key commodity datasets from across the globe through the cmdty Pricing Network, and we're thrilled for users to be able to access grain data for Black Sea regions through SovEcon," says Barchart CEO Mark Haraburda. "SovEcon's unique data offering expands our network's footprint even further and provides our users with access to a specialized segment of the agricultural market that is difficult to find elsewhere." "We are proud to partner with Barchart to provide traders and buyers with reliable, and timely information for Black Sea exports to help better manage their risk," says Andrey Sizov, Managing Director ofSovEcon. "By using our data within Barchart's platform, users will be able to stay ahead of the market with timely information from the Black Sea grain markets, which remains opaque to many."



SovEcon data can be accessed as part of a cmdtyView Pro subscription or through an API subscription. To learn more or to subscribe to SovEcon's Black Sea grain data, please click here . cmdtyView Pro allows users to analyze data, make a decision, and then quickly put it into action. In addition to our newly integrated Black Sea grain data from SovEcon, cmdtyView Pro is packed with intuitive features for grain professionals, including advanced charting, benchmark cash prices, commodity news, analytics, Excel tools , and more.

To unlock access to Barchart's distribution through the cmdty Pricing Network, please click here . Visit our website to learn more about how cmdty by Barchart is becoming the leader in commodity data . About Barchart

Barchart is a leading provider of market data and services to the global financial, media, and commodity industries. Our diversified client base trusts Barchart's innovative Solutions across data, software, and technology to power their operation from front to back office, while our Media brands enable financial and commodity professionals to make decisions through web content, news, and publications. For more information, please visit www.barchart.com/solutions . About SovEcon

SovEcon is a leading research firm focused on assessing stocks, consumption, crops and exports forecasting, and key price drivers of the Black Sea agricultural markets. SovEcon has helped ag professionals to trade wheat and corn and manage risk by providing accurate analysis of the Black Sea since 1991. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/barchart-partners-with-sovecon-on-black-sea-grain-pricing-and-research-301378055.html SOURCE Barchart

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[September 16, 2021] Cart.com Recruits Sales Veteran Randy Ray as Chief Revenue Officer

HOUSTON, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Cart.com, the first end-to-end ecommerce services provider, today announced its appointment of executive-level B2B sales veteran Randy Ray as the company's first Chief Revenue Officer. Following on the heels of Cart.com's recent $98 million Series B funding round, Ray is tasked with driving sales growth across all facets of the company's rapidly expanding portfolio, which includes fully integrated software tools, services, and infrastructure brands need to rapidly scale online. Ray's 15-plus years of experience driving sales and operational success for major brands will support Cart.com's continuing mission to bring all aspects of the ecommerce ecosystem under a single umbrella, delivering streamlined and unified experiences for online merchants of all types and sizes. A passionate, customer-focused sales leader, Ray previously built a GTM operation from the ground up at Zipline, the operations platform dedicated to supporting frontline retail employees, and delivered explosive sales that drove an 8X increase in valuation in just two years. Ray was previously Senior Vice President at supply-chain solution provider High Jump, forging a customer-first strategy that supported over 2,000 customers, and Global Vice President of Sales at Infor, a global leader in industry-specific cloud software solutions. Joining Infor as employee No.6, Ray grew the sales organization to a team of over 100 employees, and boosted Infor's average transaction price over sixfold in just three years. Ray also had a successful nine-year carer at Oracle, rising to become Area Vice President and leading sales across North America.



"I've worked with the world's biggest retail and SaaS brands, and I've seen the need for a unified Ecommerce-as-a-Service hub to create operational efficiencies and unlock scalable success," Ray said. "I'm a firm believer in the Cart.com mission to drive success for online brands, and I'm looking forward to tripling our sales organization and building out a world-class revenue infrastructure as we take the company global over the next 6 to 9 months." "Randy is a results-driven sales leader who believes in the power of teamwork and collaboration to produce the best results," said Omair Tariq, Cart.com co-founder and CEO. "The Cart.com team is looking forward to working with Randy, a customer-centric executive with an impressive range of experiences working with different technology companies. As Chief Revenue Officer, Randy will further accelerate our growth at Cart.com in scaling businesses into world-class ecommerce leaders and prepare for future funding rounds."

About Cart.com

Cart.com is the first end-to-end ecommerce solutions provider delivering a fully integrated and owned suite of software, expert services, and infrastructure to scale businesses online. Founded in September 2020 by experienced ecommerce experts, Cart.com is on a mission to put brands back in charge of their ecommerce journey and their customer relationships as the premiere ecommerce-as-a-Service (ECaaS) provider in the ecommerce services space. Cart.com offers a wealth of business solutions - including online store software, digital marketing services, fulfillment services, financial services, and customer service capabilities so brands of any size are able to work with a single partner to attain the same capabilities as some of the world's largest companies. For more info: Cart.com , LinkedIn . View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cartcom-recruits-sales-veteran-randy-ray-as-chief-revenue-officer-301378767.html SOURCE Cart.com

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[September 16, 2021] Cushman & Wakefield Commits to Industry-Leading Science Based Targets and Reaching Net Zero Emissions Across Its Value Chain by 2050

Cushman & Wakefield (NYSE: CWK), a leading global real estate services firm, today announced ambitious science-based targets to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that are approved by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). In addition, by signing up to the Business Ambition for 1.5C campaign, Cushman & Wakefield pledges to reach net zero emissions across its entire value chain by 2050. "With buildings generating a significant portion of the world's carbon emissions, we recognize Cushman & Wakefield plays a vital role in shaping a sustainable future for the real estate industry and beyond," said Brett White, Executive Chairman & CEO of Cushman & Wakefield. Cushman & Wakefield will immediately focus efforts on its corporate offices and operations by committing to reduce absolute scope 1 and 2 market-based GHG emissions 50% by 2030 from a 2019 base year. Scope 1 includes direct emissions, and scope 2 emissions are from purchased heat and electricity. The firm's science-based targets will not only reduce absolute GHG emissions from its corporate operations, but will also include the facilities it manages on behalf of its clients, some of the world's largest real estate owners and occupiers. Leading by example, the firm commits to partnering with its clients (representing 70% of its scope 3 value chain emissions) to set their own science-based targets by 2025. Notably, approximately 99% of Cushman & Wakefield's emissions come from facilities it manages on behalf of clients, and the firm is committed to actualizing its vision of a sustainable future that extends beyond its own corporate footprint. These targets have been approved by the SBTi.



Additionally, by 2050, the firm pledges to achieve net zero emissions across its entire value chain, encompassing all direct and indirect business elements that contribute to GHG emissions (scopes 1, 2 and 3). This target was pledged through the Race to Zero campaign and the SBTi's Business Ambition for 1.5C pathway-initiatives using climate science frameworks to reach net zero in a global effort to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change. "As a leader in the commercial real estate industry, we understand environmental action requires bold commitments aligned with climate science," said John Forrester (News - Alert) , President of Cushman & Wakefield. "These commitments further our ongoing efforts to reduce our impact and our clients' impact on the environment as well as mitigate the impacts of climate change. We have an opportunity and responsibility to continually evaluate our organization and hold ourselves accountable for the intended outcomes. We realize our work goes beyond the present moment and will impact generations to come."

"We congratulate Cushman & Wakefield on setting science-based targets consistent with limiting warming to 1.5C, the most ambitious goal of the Paris Agreement," said Alberto Carrillo Pineda, Managing Director, Science Based Targets at CDP, one of the SBTi partners. "By setting ambitious science-based targets grounded in climate science, Cushman & Wakefield is taking action to prevent the most damaging effects of climate change." These recently announced science-based targets build upon Cushman & Wakefield's longstanding commitment to reducing its own environmental impact across the property life cycle, in addition to suppliers' and clients' impact. In 2020, the firm achieved a 1.1% absolute reduction in scope 1 and 2 (market-based) GHG emissions; a 2.5% absolute reduction in scope 3 GHG emissions; and a 14% reduction in total scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions per million square feet (MSF) of office space. Cushman & Wakefield also worked with clients to provide energy and sustainability services to over 370 MSF of space in the U.S. in 2020. More information is available in the firm's 2020 Corporate Social Responsibility Report. Learn more about Cushman & Wakefield's science-based targets and net zero commitment. About Cushman & Wakefield

Cushman & Wakefield (NYSE: CWK) is a leading global real estate services firm that delivers exceptional value for real estate occupiers and owners. Cushman & Wakefield is among the largest real estate services firms with approximately 50,000 employees in over 400 offices and 60 countries. In 2020, the firm had revenue of $7.8 billion across core services of property, facilities and project management, leasing, capital markets, valuation and other services. To learn more, visit www.cushmanwakefield.com or follow @CushWake on Twitter (News - Alert) . View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005552/en/

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[September 16, 2021] Sila Smart Risk Management Translates into Instant ACH for Customers

Sila Inc., a fintech software platform that provides payment infrastructure as a service, today announced that it has rolled out Instant ACH, a new service that uses state-of-the-art risk management to avail customers of funds from ACH debit transactions instantly. After passing a risk analysis, funds are immediately available to the end-user for ACH debits. To qualify for Instant ACH on Sila's platform, additional criteria for end-user onboarding as well as support for multiple Plaid services are required. Once these prerequisites are met, if an ACH debit request is made, Sila's risk scoring engine examines the onboarding data, details from the transaction, and other signals, to guarantee the transaction. Sila also sends an SMS to the verified phone of the end-user to confirm all transactions as part of the approval process. Once all steps have been completed, Sila tokens are issued and available for transfer or to redeem. If Instant ACH is requested and the funds are redeemed into a bank account via Same-day ACH before 9:30 AM PT, then it is possible to move funds from one bank account to another on the same day. "Our team at Sila is always looking for ways to push the envelope to provide real value to customers," said Shamir Karkal, CEO and co-founder, Sila. "With Instant ACH, we assume a very calculated risk that results in a tangible benefit. We can do so because we invested into building deep relationships with ID authenticatin vendors in our space. External data sources are also used to further mitigate the risk."



The Sila token (SILAUSD) is a U.S. issued stablecoin pegged to the U.S. Dollar (1 token=$0.01). Underlying USD funds are held by Evolve Bank & Trust, an FDIC member bank. SILAUSD makes money programmable by enabling 24/7 transfers. While ACH is less expensive than other means of fund transfers and used globally, it is also comparatively slower in that it takes multiple days for funds to be made available. The number of checks and balances that make ACH transactions so reliable and secure, are also the reason why it takes between three and five business days for a transaction to be completed. In 2016, the National Automated Clearing House Association (NACHA) released guidelines for expedited ACH transfers or same-day ACH transfers. While an improvement on the status quo at the time, same-day ACH transfers came with a number of restrictions and conditions to make them work.

Sila is a fintech software platform that provides payment infrastructure as a service, a business-critical element for all companies that need to integrate with the US banking system and blockchain quickly, securely, and in full compliance with US regulations. The firm recently announced that it received $13M in Series A funding led by Revolution (News - Alert) Ventures. The company closed Q1 2021 by quadrupling transaction volume and doubling its headcount. Growth of the Sila platform has been exponential - customers' end-users grew 535% in the previous seven months. Sila's solution resonates with fintechs from startups to middle-market to NYSE listed companies. About Sila Sila is a fintech software platform that provides payment infrastructure as a service, a business-critical element for all companies that need to integrate with the US banking system and blockchain quickly, securely, and in compliance with US regulations. Sila offers Banking, Digital Wallet & ACH Payments APIs for Software Teams. . The firm was recognized as a '2021 best place to work in financial technology'. Sila is headquartered in Portland, Oregon. For more information go to www.silamoney.com View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005249/en/

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[September 16, 2021] Arvest Bank Collaborates with Tech Leaders Thought Machine and Accenture for Next Generation Core Banking Platform

Arvest Bank (Arvest) today announced it is working with Thought Machine and Accenture (News - Alert) to adopt a next generation core banking platform to support the bank's multi-year transformation strategy. Thought Machine's cloud-native core banking engine, Vault, will provide Arvest with the capabilities to build personalized, real-time banking services. "Since our founding nearly 60 years ago, Arvest has been committed to serving our customers and communities by helping them find financial solutions for life," Arvest president and CEO Kevin Sabin said. "As modern consumers' lifestyles and digital banking expectations change, we want to ensure we deliver a banking experience that makes their lives easier today and well into the future. A next-generation core engine powering Arvest will allow us to do just that." Thought Machine was chosen for its modern approach to developing core banking software - an emphasis on product innovation, faster time-to-market and its cloud-first capabilities were a key factor in selecting Vault. Using Vault, Arvest will be able to offer highly personalized banking services that are available on-demand, helping to deliver superior levels of customer satisfaction. Vault's core engine at the heart of the bank will help Arvest create superior digital experiences, products and processes to address the needs of customers today and for generations to come. "Deploying modern, cloud-native core banking software will allow Arvest to truly step ahead of the competition in terms of customer experience, resilience and innovation," said Paul Taylor, CEO, Thought Machine. "Banks of the future are adopting Vault to deliver cutting-edge experiences for customers, build exciting new products and free themselves from legacy constraints. This is a pivotal moment for Arvest, and we are extremely excited to be working with the bank as it builds its future." Accenture has also been working with middle-market banks to help modernize their core systems and achieve their digital transformation goals across retail, small and medium-sized business, commercial and enterprise capabilities. Accenture is helping Arvest develop and strategically structure its future bank proposition and aiding in the selection of the best-suited ecosystem partners. "Arvest is making bold moves to become a technology leader among peers by deploying a next-generation core banking platform, supported by a strong ecosystem of partners," said Brett Goode, a managing director and digital banking lead at Accenture. "We are thrilled to help Arvest transform its technology infrastructure to create the digtal experiences that customers and employees demand, by offering the latest and most innovative technologies at scale and speed."



In addition to a next generation core banking platform, Arvest's forward-looking digital transformation strategy will include introducing new products, services and experiences to customers to address their digital banking needs today and into the future. The multi-year strategy will include innovation in the bank's emerging payments, digital applications and operational capabilities. Accenture and Thought Machine are collaborating to bring core modernization and cloud-first capabilities to financial institutions of all sizes globally. Accenture is the first systems integration partner to implement Thought Machine in North America, which is where the companies are initially focusing their efforts.

About Arvest Arvest operates more than 230 bank branches in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Kansas through a group of 14 locally managed banks, each with its own board and management team. These banks serve customers in more than 130 communities, with extended weekday banking hours at many locations. Arvest provides a wide range of banking services including loans, deposits, treasury management, credit cards, mortgage loans and mortgage servicing. Arvest also is one of a select few banks in the nation to have its mobile app - Arvest Go - certified by J.D. Power for providing an outstanding mobile banking experience. Arvest is an Equal Housing Lender and Member FDIC. About Thought Machine Thought Machine was founded in 2014 with a mission to enable banks to deploy modern systems and move away from the legacy IT platforms that plague the banking industry. We do this through our cloud native core banking platform, Vault. This next generation system has been written from scratch as an entirely cloud native platform. It does not contain a single line of code which is legacy, or pre-cloud. Founded by entrepreneur Paul Taylor, Thought Machine's customers include Lloyds Banking Group, SEB, Standard Chartered, Atom bank, Monese, TransferGo and Curve. We are currently a team of more than 500 people spread across offices in London, Singapore, Sydney, Melbourne, New York and have raised more than 110m in funding from Eurazeo, Draper Esprit, SEB, British Patient Capital, IQ Capital, Playfair Capital, Nyca Partners, Lloyds Banking Group and Backed. For more information visit thoughtmachine.net. About Accenture Accenture is a global professional services company with leading capabilities in digital, cloud and security. Combining unmatched experience and specialized skills across more than 40 industries, we offer Strategy and Consulting, Interactive, Technology and Operations services - all powered by the world's largest network of Advanced Technology and Intelligent Operations centers. Our 569,000 people deliver on the promise of technology and human ingenuity every day, serving clients in more than 120 countries. We embrace the power of change to create value and shared success for our clients, people, shareholders, partners and communities. Visit us at www.accenture.com. Accenture's Banking industry group helps retail and commercial banks and payments providers boost innovation; address business, technology and regulatory challenges; and improve operational performance to build trust and engagement with customers and grow more profitably and securely. To learn more, visit https://www.accenture.com/us-en/industries/banking-index. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005151/en/

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[September 16, 2021] Aderant Promotes Raphael Shure to Chief Operating Officer

Aderant, a global business management software provider for law firms, has announced the promotion of Raphael (Rafi) Shure to Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer (COO). In his previous role as Senior Vice President and Chief Client Officer, he was responsible for all professional services and global support. As COO, Shure will now oversee all internal and client-facing operations, including finance, IT, professional services, and customer support. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005172/en/ Raphael (Rafi) Shure, new Chief Operating Officer at Aderant, a global business management software provider for law firms. (Photo: Business Wire) Shure brings tremendous experience to the COO position as a member of the Aderant executive team since 2013 and a veteran software leader. Shure holds a bachelor's degree from Cornell University and an MBA with honors distinction from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. His business acumen will add substantial strategic perspective as Aderant continues to expand. Additionally, Shure has developed strong working relationships with many of Aderant's clients during his eight years at the company. He possesses a deep understanding of the challenges law firms face as well as how technology can be the solution. In addition, Shure has promoted two from within the company to serve in global consulting and customer support leadership roles. Matt Graywood has been named Vice President of Global Professional Services at Aderant, and the Professional Services department will report to him. Having joined the company in 2019 asSenior Director of EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) Professional Services, Graywood is an experienced software and professional services leader with over twenty years of experience. Prior to Aderant, Graywood served in a variety of leadership roles, including COO of Preoday, Head of Strategic Programmes for Kewill, and Head of Professional Services for Misys. During his tenure at Aderant, Graywood has been responsible for significant growth within the EMEA region from his London base.



Samantha Rouse has been promoted to Vice President of Global Customer Support. Rouse joined Aderant in 2019 through its acquisition of Bellefield Systems where she was Vice President of Operations. Prior to Aderant and Bellefield, Rouse held a number of leadership positions at several companies, including Senior Vice President of Operations at Mobile Aspects and Senior Vice President of Products and Services at Four Rivers Software Systems. In 2020, her Aderant role expanded as Senior Director of North American Support, overseeing customer support for the company's entire product line across the region. Rouse has been instrumental in Aderant's expansion and development of the company's support services arm. "Rafi is an excellent leader and one of Aderant's most valuable voices," said Aderant President Chris Cartrett. "His objectives as COO will be to enhance and streamline client service and related business processes, break down silos between departments to galvanize the company, and expand the service and support options to suit the evolving needs of our clients, especially those leveraging our SaaS (News - Alert) applications. His consistent dedication to client service during his tenure at Aderant has been an invaluable asset to our leadership team. The promotions of Matt and Samantha into senior management roles will strengthen our organization even more. I am thrilled to have Rafi move into this new position."

"I am excited to take on the role of COO," Shure remarked. "Aderant is well-positioned for continued success, reflecting its sustained growth in recent years with best-in-class software and enterprise SaaS solutions for the legal industry. As COO, I look forward to working with Chris and the rest of our leadership team to prioritize investment in our business, deliver enhanced outcomes for our clients, and drive operational excellence within Aderant." To learn more about career opportunities at Aderant, click here. About Aderant

Aderant is a global industry leader which provides comprehensive business management software for law firms and other professional services organizations. The company's popular technology brands include Aderant Expert/Expert Sierra for practice management, Handshake and Drive for knowledge management, iTimekeep, OCG Live & Thrive for timekeeping and compliance, BillBlast for eBilling, CompuLaw for docketing and calendaring, and Expert Case for legal case management. Aderant operates as a unit of Roper Technologies (NYSE: ROP), a constituent of the S&P 500 , Fortune 500  and the Russell 1000  indices. The company is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, and has several other offices across North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. For more information, visit Aderant.com, email info@aderant.com, or follow the company on Twitter (News - Alert) @Aderant or on LinkedIn. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005172/en/

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[September 16, 2021] Acorio: ServiceNow Rome Will Focus on The Future Workplace

ServiceNow (News - Alert) today announced the release of Rome, a release that Acorio, an NTT DATA company and the largest pure-play ServiceNow Consultancy, believes will help ServiceNow customers through the next iteration of work. As companies return or eye a return to the office, the new release will serve as an intentional step in creating the future of the modern workforce, according to a new eBook published today by Acorio. "Business strategies have advanced through the different phases of the pandemic and now we see more companies grappling with the future of hybrid work rather than the chaos of trying to provision remote-only workers like we faced through much of the crisis," Ellen Daley, senior vice president, Acorio, said. "Acorio believes that ServiceNow Rome is another giant step forward in the company's journey to bring the future of work into business. ServiceNow recognizes the importance of further enabling modern enterprises to deliver digital workflows, unlock productivity and protect the things that matter most: our employees, our customers, and our communities." In Acorio's third annual ServiceNow Insight and Vision Report, more than half of respondents responded that their digital transformation initiatives started or increased in importance because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nearly 40 percent reported return to work as a newly important priority for this year and ServiceNow Rome appears to build on both of those business concerns.



The 24-page eBook tackles the key challenges facing today's businesses and ServiceNow Rome addresses them. Sections focus on: IT Workflows. The broadest product range on the ServiceNow platform - encompassing IT Service Management (ITSM), IT Operations Management (ITOM), IT Business Management (ITBM), IT Asset Management (ITAM) DevOps, Security Operations, Governance Risk and Compliance as well as industry-specific solutions such as Telecommunications Network Performance Management - IT Workflows can be overwhelming. This section includes all the major highlights, pulling out several products and giving examples of upgrades, that demonstrate how ServiceNow will provision the future workforce.

The broadest product range on the ServiceNow platform - encompassing IT Service Management (ITSM), IT Operations Management (ITOM), IT Business Management (ITBM), IT Asset Management (ITAM) DevOps, Security Operations, Governance Risk and Compliance as well as industry-specific solutions such as Telecommunications Network Performance Management - IT Workflows can be overwhelming. This section includes all the major highlights, pulling out several products and giving examples of upgrades, that demonstrate how ServiceNow will provision the future workforce. Employee Workflows. This section focuses on the ways in which ServiceNow Rome helps to create unified and engaging experiences for employees. In today's world, a strong hybrid workforce starts with a great employee experience, giving on-site and remote workers access to the info they need to be engaged and productive. With ServiceNow Rome, the platform seeks to further unlock productivity and improve employees' service experience with updates to Employee Service Management and HR Service Delivery.

This section focuses on the ways in which ServiceNow Rome helps to create unified and engaging experiences for employees. In today's world, a strong hybrid workforce starts with a great employee experience, giving on-site and remote workers access to the info they need to be engaged and productive. With ServiceNow Rome, the platform seeks to further unlock productivity and improve employees' service experience with updates to Employee Service Management and HR Service Delivery. Customer Workflows. In today's service-based economy, keeping customers loyal is paramount to growing and sustaining your business. ServiceNow Rome empowers the next evolution of driving customer loyalty with connected digital workflows by joining customer service with other departments using AI and workflow to assign, manage, and resolve issues end-to-end.

In today's service-based economy, keeping customers loyal is paramount to growing and sustaining your business. ServiceNow Rome empowers the next evolution of driving customer loyalty with connected digital workflows by joining customer service with other departments using AI and workflow to assign, manage, and resolve issues end-to-end. Creator Workflows. Developers of all levels can reduce time to market and speed up delivery. ServiceNow offers full stack development power with an application structure that is set up in the base system. This section explores how ServiceNow Rome empowers the next generation of developers on the platform. To download a copy of the ServiceNow Rome eBook, please visit: https://exclusive.acorio.com/servicenow-rome-release-ebook-4

About Acorio An Elite ServiceNow partner, Acorio, an NTT (News - Alert) DATA company, is the largest pure-play ServiceNow consultancy in the world. Our commitment is to our clients, to inspire and guide them to realize immediate ROI and ensure long-term success along their entire ServiceNow journey. The firm now employs 300 employees focusing 100 percent on ServiceNow. Headquartered in Boston, MA, Acorio has nine regional hubs across the U.S. and an international presence in Spain and Australia. The consultancy serves Fortune 1000 and Global 2000 clients in multiple industries ranging from healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, to high tech and retail. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005568/en/

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[September 16, 2021] "Overland-Tandberg Collaborates with AT&T to Bridge the Digital Divide for Underserved Communities"

Overland- Tandberg (News - Alert) , a global provider of technology products and services in over 100 countries, continues to lead in helping the underserved segments of society obtain access to technology and services that can effect change. On September 16, AT&T (News - Alert) will debut its first Connected Learning Center, designed to increase access to educational and digital literacy tools among families impacted by the digital divide, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Annette G. Strauss Family Gateway (News - Alert) Center in Dallas. This is the first of more than 20 Connected Learning Centers that AT&T plans to house in local community organizations. As of now, centers are planned to open in Dallas, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Cleveland, Detroit, Houston, Miami and San Francisco. Overland-Tandberg will lead onsite configuration of the computers in each center. "Many organizations have well intentioned initiatives that commit to helping, but in this challenging environment, the difference is not made simply through a financial contribution, but rather working in these communities to ensure adoption and success," said Eric L Kelly, Chairman and CEO of Overland-Tandberg. "That's what greatly excited me about working with AT&T and Dell (News - Alert) , because both are equally committed to that ethos and actually putting resources and people into these communities to train and modernize their environments, which is essential in today's fast-paced global economy," he continued. Each AT&T Connected Learning Center will provide access to free high-speed AT&T Fiber internet and Wi-Fi, educational content, digital literacy tools, as well as mentoring and tutoring support from AT&T employee volunteers. Dell Technologies is donating Dell OptiPlex computers and Dell monitors to each location and Overland-Tandberg will deploy onsite installation services, data management and security products to each location from several of its branded portfolio. This collaboration is part of the AT&T Connected Learning program, which launched in April as part of the AT&T's $2 billion commitment to help bridge the digital divide through efforts that promote broadband affordability, accessibility and adoption. "At AT&T, we want to make an impact in our communities. Increasing access to technology is the first step toward advancing digital equity and creating a more connected society," said Hardmon Williams, VP of AT&T Believes & Community Engagement at AT&T. "It's been an honor to work on the ground with Overland-Tandberg, ensuring our Connected Learning Centers are properly equipped with the tools and connection required for students and families to succeed at home, in school, and in life." "I am absolutely thrilled to have worked on such an amazing collaboration with a dynamic team of people," said Tina Brown, Chef Operating Officer at Overland-Tandberg. "My immense thanks goes out to the AT&T, Dell and Overland-Tandberg teams that came together to make high impact and meaningful work a reality. The program is certain to make a difference throughout the country."



"Access to technology has never been more important in allowing communities to participate in today's digital ecosystem. That is why we are committed to helping to give underserved communities the tools, skills and support needed for future success," said Jessica Anderson, Director of Strategic Giving, Dell Technologies. "We are excited to work with AT&T and Overland-Tandberg to bring more access to communities across the nation allowing more people to participate in today's digital world." About AT&T Communications

We help family, friends and neighbors connect in meaningful ways every day. From the first phone call 140+ years ago to mobile video streaming, we @ATT innovate to improve lives. AT&T Communications is part of AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T). For more information, please visit us at att.com. About Dell Technologies Dell Technologies (NYSE:DELL) helps organizations and individuals build their digital future and transform how they work, live and play. The company provides customers with the industry's broadest and most innovative technology and services portfolio for the data era. Learn more at: https://www.delltechnologies.com/ About Overland-Tandberg Overland-Tandberg is a global technology company that develops and manufactures hybrid cloud IT infrastructure and data protection solutions enabling businesses, large and small, to securely manage and protect their digital assets. Serving Enterprise, Small to Mid-size Enterprise (SME), Small to Medium-sized Businesses (SMB), and Small Office Home Office (SoHo) markets and spanning over 90 countries, Overland-Tandberg's brands have created a rich and trusted heritage across the globe. Overland-Tandberg is a certified minority-owned corporation. We view empowerment of people as essential to unlocking the virtues of progressiveness and inclusion, placing the company in front of the competitive landscape, and ensuring the company is ready for the next 40 years, and beyond. To learn more please visit: www.overlandtandberg.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005321/en/

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[September 16, 2021] Torq appoints Jason Chan to company's CISO Advisory Board

Torq today announced that Jason Chan has joined the company's CISO Advisory board. The former leader of information security at Netflix, Jason will leverage his decades-long career building and leading security teams to help Torq continue to accelerate product development and build the company's market presence. He will work closely with Torq's leadership and product teams, as well as with customers seeking to modernize their security automation practices. "Jason's experience leading rapidly-growing security organizations gives him unparalleled insight into the challenges those teams face," said Ofer Smadari, CEO and co-founder of Torq. "His guidance on how to effectively use automation to improve team culture and overall security has been a key element of Torq's rapid growth and success. We're thrilled to have him join us as an advisor." As a member of Torq's CISO Advisory board, Jason will collaborate on strategic product direction, working to ensure that Torq continues to provide an easy, opinionated solution for security teams of any size and maturity. He will also work with Torq's go-to-market functions to share best practices for security automation. His thought leadership will appear on Torq's blog, podcast and video channels, as well as in best pactice articles for security automation implementation.



"Torq's easy and powerful automation transforms how security teams work. By giving each and every member of a security team the power to create and deploy automated workflows, Torq frees security teams from repetitive work, accelerates alert response and helps them keep pace with the ever changing needs of the organization they protect," said Jason. After spending most of his twenty-plus year career in cybersecurity, Jason recently retired from his last role leading information security at Netflix, where he'd helped the company securely navigate explosive growth since 2011. At Netflix, his team became known for its contributions to the cybersecurity community, including over thirty open source security projects and dozens of conference presentations. Prior to Netflix, he led the security team at VMWare and spent most of his earlier career in security consulting.

This announcement follows Torq's recent public launch, and announcement of a $20M Series A round led by GGV Capital, as well as a previously undisclosed $8M seed from Bessemer Venture Partners. For more information on Torq, or to see a demo of the platform, visit Torq.io About Torq Torq is a no-code automation platform for security and operations teams. Frontline security professionals use Torq's easy workflow designer, limitless integrations and pre-built templates to deliver stronger security in minutes. Teams use Torq to accelerate threat response, automatically remediate risks, and automate away manual security tasks. Torq is led by the teams that built Luminate and Twistlock, pioneers of Zero Trust and Cloud Native Security, and is backed by GGV Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners. Founded in 2020, the company has offices in Portland, Tel Aviv, and New York. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005236/en/

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[September 16, 2021] ABL Space selected for NASA Cryogenic Demonstration Mission

EL SEGUNDO, Calif., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- ABL Space Systems announced that is has been selected as the launch provider for the NASA Cryogenic Demonstration Mission. Developed under a NASA Tipping Point contract awarded in 2020, the Cryogenic Demonstration Mission will launch in 2023 and demonstrate in-space transfer of cryogenic liquid hydrogen (LH 2 ), the most challenging but highest-performing propellant for lunar and deep space exploration. The mission will help demonstrate numerous novel cryogenic propellant management technologies and help forge a path to sustainable Artemis operations on the moon and beyond.



In support of the mission, ABL will leverage the flexibility of the GS0 deployable launch system, which is purpose-built to rapidly activate new launch sites and support unique customer missions. The GS0 functionality will be extended to meet NASA's mission need for LH 2 operations. ABL will also advance RS1 with a hydrogen-compatible fairing and payload support systems.

This selection marks ABL's first NASA science mission award and 60th mission contracted with the prime contractor, Lockheed Martin. "We do a lot of work at ABL focused on serving our customers' needs in the immediate future. Science missions like this let our team look further out onto the horizon and contribute to NASA's long-term roadmap of human exploration of the solar system." says Dan Piemont, President of ABL Space Systems. "This cryo demo is a great example of the unique science missions enabled by low-cost, dedicated launch, and we're happy that RS1 was chosen." About ABL Space Systems Founded in 2017, ABL develops low-cost launch vehicles and launch systems for the small satellite industry. ABL is headquartered in El Segundo, California, U.S. To learn more, visit www.ablspacesystems.com. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/abl-space-selected-for-nasa-cryogenic-demonstration-mission-301378851.html SOURCE ABL Space Systems Company

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[September 16, 2021] Plug and Play's Winter 2021 Batches Feature 153 Startups To Participate in Innovation Program

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Plug and Play has chosen 153 startups to join their Winter 2021 Batches. These companies will participate in one of the following programs that will run through November: Energy , Enterprise Tech , Fintech , Health , Insurtech , Internet of Things , Mobility , Real Estate & Construction , and Travel & Hospitality .





The participating startups will be fully immersed in Plug and Play's global network of over 30,000 startups, 500 industry-leading corporate partners and hundreds of venture capital firms and investors. Out of the 153 startups, a majority of the startups are based outside the U.S., representing a variety of countries including Austria, Canada, France, Hong Kong, Israel, Singapore and more. "Over the years, we have seen the best, most innovative startups join our unique ecosystem," said Saeed Amidi, Founder and CEO of Plug and Play. "I am excited to welcome 153 startups into our Winter 2021 Programs to close off the end of the year. Throughout the next three months, these startups will gain tremendous access to our partners. I know, without a doubt we will see some of the greatest innovations during these unprecedented times." Throughout the next three months, these startups will be able to participate in networking events, mentor sessions, focus weeks, dealflow sessions and more. This opportunity will increase the startups' chances of securing exclusive pilots, POCs, new customers and investments. There is no equity requirement for startups to participate. Graduation for these startups will commence mid-November at Plug and Play's Winter Summit 2021. Please register now to reserve attendance. About Plug and Play Plug and Play is a global innovation platform. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, we have built accelerator programs, corporate innovation services, and an in-house VC to make technological advancement progress faster than ever before. Since inception in 2006, our programs have expanded worldwide to include a presence in over 30 locations globally, giving startups the necessary resources to succeed in Silicon Valley and beyond. Companies in our community have raised over $9 billion in funding, with successful portfolio exits including Dropbox, Guardant Health, Honey, Lending Club, and PayPal. For more information, visit https://www.plugandplaytechcenter.com/ . Media Contact

Allison Romero

allison@pnptc.com

(408) 524-1457 View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/plug-and-plays-winter-2021-batches-feature-153-startups-to-participate-in-innovation-program-301378850.html SOURCE Plug and Play

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[September 16, 2021] Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation, Milwaukee Brewers Team Up to Donate a Service Dog to U.S. Army Veteran

MILWAUKEE, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation recently partnered with the Milwaukee Brewers to donate a service dog to U.S. Army Veteran Andrew Sievila through the American Warrior Initiative . Milwaukee Brewers All-Star pitcher Brandon Woodruff has also invited Sievila to throw the first pitch at the Brewers-Cubs game on Sunday, September 19 at American Family Field in Milwaukee. Sievila joined the Army in 2004 as an infantryman and served in Iraq from 2006 to 2007. Following his deployment, Sievila was commissioned as a second lieutenant, and he eventually switched careers in the military and became a scout platoon leader. Sievila was medically discharged from service in 2015 and diagnosed with PTSD. Sievila describes his return to civilian life as challenging and difficult and said that the feeling of isolation and depression created a lot of irritability and anger outbursts. Fortunately, that has changed since receiving his sponsored service dog, a Golden Retriever named Willard. "Willard definitely brings up a lot of peace and joy to my life," Sievila said. "He's adorable and very friedly. He keeps me calm and the anger and the irritability that I was experiencing before just hasn't been there like it used to be, and that brings me a lot of hope for the future. The bond that he and I have already started to develop has been wonderful."



Wisconsin-based Fairway, a proud sponsor of the Milwaukee Brewers, funds the non-profit American Warrior Initiative that has donated hundreds of service dogs to deserving veterans and active military members. "Our goal is to fund 100 service dogs in 2021," said Louise Thaxton, AWI director/co-founder and a Fairway branch manager. "We are grateful for the opportunity to continue to support our nation's veterans in their journey back to civilian life." A video of the Fairway- Brewers-AWI service dog donation can be found here .

About Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation

Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation (NMLS #2289) is a full-service mortgage lender with a wide array of innovative products that help make homeownership more affordable with the speed and service its clients deserve. Based in Madison, Wisconsin, Fairway is dedicated to finding great mortgage options and providing some of the fastest turn times for its borrowers. Since launching 25 years ago, Fairway has helped thousands of Americans achieve their dream of homeownership. Fairway employs more than 10,000 team members, including more than 3,000 producers at over 600 branches nationwide. With a strong focus on purchase business, Fairway funded $65.8 billion in 2020. For more information, visit fairway.com and home.com. PHOTO:

Pictured L-R: Brandon Woodruff, Jonie Woodruff, Willard, Andrew Sievila, View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/fairway-independent-mortgage-corporation-milwaukee-brewers-team-up-to-donate-a-service-dog-to-us-army-veteran-301378825.html SOURCE Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation

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[September 16, 2021]

NASA to Announce Landing Site for Artemis Lunar Robotic Rover

WASHINGTON, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- NASA will host a media teleconference Monday, Sept. 20, at 4 p.m. EDT, to announce the lunar landing site for the agency's Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER). The rover will be delivered to the Moon's surface in late 2023 under the Artemis program and part of the agency's Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative.

VIPER is the first resource-mapping mission on the surface of another celestial body. While on the Moon, VIPER will get a close-up view of the location and concentration of ice and other resources, assisting in the advancement of scince and human exploration as part of Artemis missions.







Scientists and mission operators will leverage near real-time Earth-to-Moon communications and work together to drive the rover along an unexplored region of the Moon's South Pole.

Audio of the teleconference will stream live online at:

https://www.nasa.gov/live

Briefing participants are:

Lori Glaze , director of the Planetary Science Division, NASA Headquarters

, director of the Planetary Science Division, NASA Headquarters Daniel Andrews , VIPER project manager, NASA's Ames Research Center

, VIPER project manager, NASA's Ames Research Center Anthony Colaprete , VIPER lead project scientist, Ames

, VIPER lead project scientist, Ames Darlene Lim , VIPER deputy lead project scientist, Ames

, VIPER deputy lead project scientist, Ames Darryl Gaines , deputy manager, NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services, NASA's Johnson Space Center

To participate in the teleconference, media must email their name and affiliation to joshua.a.handal@nasa.gov by 3:45 p.m. Monday, Sept. 20, at for dial-in information.

Learn more about the VIPER mission at:

https://www.nasa.gov/viper

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nasa-to-announce-landing-site-for-artemis-lunar-robotic-rover-301378870.html

SOURCE NASA
[September 16, 2021] OctoML Provides Apache TVM Support For Snapdragon Platforms And SoCs

SEATTLE, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- OctoML today announced a collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. to provide first-class Apache TVM support for Snapdragon platforms and SoCs. As part of this collaboration, OctoML has a strategic agreement to work closely with the Qualcomm's Tensor Virtual Machine (TVM) compiler team to extend Apache TVM for Qualcomm Hexagon processors. As a result, it is expected that Apache TVM will be enhanced to address the unique characteristics of Hexagon in order to make it a demonstrated leader in AI performance on power-constrained devices. These enhancements will be designed to drive fundamental innovation in Apache TVM that should benefit the entire Apache TVM community. Built on the Apache TVM open-source framework, OctoML's Platform provides an automation framework that optimizes trained models to achieve optimal performance across a breadth of hardware endpoints and cloud serviceswithout compromising accuracy. The platform readily addresses the challenge of optimizing ML models to match the resources at the edge, which opens up opportunities for a new wave of intelligent apps. "We are excited to be working with OctoML to further expand Apache TVM coverage to our Qualcomm AI Engine to help accelerate the deployment f ML applications and optimize models in the future," Jeff Gehlhaar, VP of Technology, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.



This collaboration is made possible through Qualcomm Technologies' support of Apache TVM. Apache TVM is a software framework that provides a unified layer between the leading machine learning frameworkslike Tensorflow and Pytorchand the vast array of hardware solutions. This innovation means that ML models can be deployed anywhere from cloud to edge to mobile. "OctoML's ability to fully utilize hardware capabilities for machine learning, combined with the automation and accessibility of our SaaS platform, will greatly simplify the deployment of ML innovation across Qualcomm Technologies' powerful hardware," said Luis Ceze, CEO and co-founder, OctoML. "We are very excited to work with Qualcomm Technologies to unlock the power of their SoCs on our platform and enable the next-generation of ML applications at the edge."

Visit here to register for OctoML's limited access program. Qualcomm, Snapdragon, and Hexagon are trademarks or registered trademarks of Qualcomm Incorporated. Snapdragon, Qualcomm Hexagon, and Qualcomm AI Engine are products of Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and/or its subsidiaries. About OctoML

OctoML is a machine learning acceleration platform based in Seattle, Washington. OctoML aims to accelerate model performance while enabling seamless deployment of models across any hardware platform, cloud provider, or edge device. The company's investors include Addition, Madrona Venture Group, and Amplify Partners. OctoML was founded by creators of open-source Apache TVM, CEO Luis Ceze, CTO Tianqi Chen, CPO Jason Knight, Chief Architect Jared Roesch, and VP of Technology Partnerships Thierry Moreau. For more information, please visit https://octoml.ai/ View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/octoml-provides-apache-tvm-support-for-snapdragon-platforms-and-socs-301378872.html SOURCE OctoML

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[September 16, 2021] New Study from StrategyR Highlights a $92.9 Billion Global Market for Computer Numerical Controls (CNC) Machines by 2026

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- A new market study published by Global Industry Analysts Inc., (GIA) the premier market research company, today released its report titled "Computer Numerical Controls (CNC) Machines - Global Market Trajectory & Analytics". The report presents fresh perspectives on opportunities and challenges in a significantly transformed post COVID-19 marketplace.



FACTS AT A GLANCE

Edition: 9; Released: April 2021

Executive Pool: 487

Companies: 42 - Players covered include Amada Co., Ltd.; Dalian Machine Tool Group Corporation; DMG Mori AG; FANUC Corporation; Haas Automation, Inc.; Hurco Companies, Inc.; Shenyang Machine Tools Co., Ltd.; Yamazaki Mazak Corporation and Others.

Coverage: All major geographies and key segments

Segments: Application (Automotive, Industrial, Power & Energy, Other Applications); Type (Lathe Machines, Milling Machines, Lasers, Grinding Units, Welding Machines, Winding Machines, Other Types)

Geographies: World; United States; Canada; Japan; China; Europe (France; Germany; Italy; United Kingdom; Spain; Russia; and Rest of Europe); Asia-Pacific (Australia; India; South Korea; and Rest of Asia-Pacific); Latin America (Argentina; Brazil; Mexico; and Rest of Latin America); Middle East (Iran; Israel; Saudi Arabia; United Arab Emirates; and Rest of Middle East); and Africa.



Complimentary Project Preview - This is an ongoing global program. Preview our research program before you make a purchase decision. We are offering a complimentary access to qualified executives driving strategy, business development, sales & marketing, and product management roles at featured companies. Previews provide deep insider access to business trends; competitive brands; domain expert profiles; and market data templates and much more. You may also build your own bespoke report using our MarketGlass Platform which offers thousands of data bytes without an obligation to purchase our report. Preview Registry



ABSTRACT-



Global Computer Numerical Controls (CNC) Machines Market to Reach $92.9 Billion by 2026

Amid the COVID-19 crisis, the global market for Computer Numerical Controls (CNC) Machines estimated at US$66 Billion in the year 2020, is projected to reach a revised size of US$92.9 Billion by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 5.6% over the analysis period. Lathe Machines, one of the segments analyzed in the report, is projected to record a 6.4% CAGR and reach US$30.1 Billion by the end of the analysis period. After a thorough analysis of the business implications of the pandemic and its induced economic crisis, growth in the Milling Machines segment is readjusted to a revised 6.8% CAGR for the next 7-year period.





The U.S. Market is Estimated at $19.1 Billion in 2021, While China is Forecast to Reach $19.1 Billion by 2026

The Computer Numerical Controls (CNC) Machines market in the U.S. is estimated at US$19.1 Billion in the year 2021. China, the world`s second largest economy, is forecast to reach a projected market size of US$19.1 Billion by the year 2026 trailing a CAGR of 8.7% over the analysis period. Among the other noteworthy geographic markets are Japan and Canada, each forecast to grow at 3% and 5.1% respectively over the analysis period. Within Europe, Germany is forecast to grow at approximately 3.6% CAGR.



Lasers Segment to Reach US$11.5 Billion by the year 2026

In the global Lasers segment, USA, Canada, Japan, China and Europe will drive the 5.8% CAGR estimated for this segment. These regional markets accounting for a combined market size of US$6 Billion in the year 2020 will reach a projected size of US$8.8 Billion by the close of the analysis period. China will remain among the fastest growing in this cluster of regional markets. More



MarketGlass Platform

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Our platform is free for qualified executives and is accessible from our website www.StrategyR.com or via our just released mobile application on iOS or Android



About Global Industry Analysts, Inc. & StrategyR

Global Industry Analysts, Inc., (www.strategyr.com) is a renowned market research publisher the world`s only influencer driven market research company. Proudly serving more than 42,000 clients from 36 countries, GIA is recognized for accurate forecasting of markets and industries for over 33 years.



CONTACTS:

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Director, Corporate Communications

Global Industry Analysts, Inc.

Phone: 1-408-528-9966

www.StrategyR.com

Email: ZA@StrategyR.com



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Info411@strategyr.com View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-study-from-strategyr-highlights-a-92-9-billion-global-market-for-computer-numerical-controls-cnc-machines-by-2026--301378874.html SOURCE Global Industry Analysts, Inc.

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[September 16, 2021] Global RegTech Market Size and Share expected to reach around USD 19,319.6 Million by 2026 with CAGR of 20.9% from 2020-2026 - Zion Market Research

NEW YORK, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- As per the findings of Zion Market Research study, RegTech industry gathered revenue about US$ 5,232.9 million in 2020 and is slated to earn revenue of approximately US$ 19,319.6 million by 2026. The RegTech market is projected to register highest gains of approximately 20.9% over 2020-2026. Apart from this, Regulatory technology or RegTech is a new technique making use of information technology for improving regulatory procedures in financial sector. Additionally, regulatory technology encompasses regulatory reporting, transaction monitoring, risk & compliance management, and regulatory intelligence. With its extensive use in regulated business particularly in consumer goods sector, RegTech market is predicted to accelerate in upcoming years. Moreover, surge in fraudulent events such as money laundering and counterfeiting witnessed in financial sector will create new growth opportunities for RegTech market over forecasting period. In addition to this, surging requirement for secured risk & compliance management protocols leading to massive implementation of regulatory technology solutions to ease compliance costs along with raising organizational efficiency will drive market trends. Furthermore, RegTech assist in accelerating business processes along with improving their reliability & reducing risk of compliance failures, thereby providing seamless & hassle-free experience to customers. Get free Sample of this Research Report with TOC for more Insights - https://www.zionmarketresearch.com/sample/regtech-market In addition to this, rise in GDPR issues with nations has prompted financial institutes for implementing guidelines and is one of the major factors proliferating size of RegTech Market. Need for performing rapid business transactions and favorable government policies towards adoption of RegTech by banks & Fintech firms promoting KYC activities will steer market expansion. With probability of committing errors minimized due to low human involvement in real time fraud analysis, the RegTech industry is slated to expand rampantly over assessment timespan. Need To Maintain Transparency of Financial Matters to Drive Market Growth Growth of RegTech Market over forecasting years can be credited to need for preventing money laundering frauds & forging issues through effective risk management & fraud detection by regulatory technology. In addition to this, regulatory sandbox model has aided improvements in RegTech along with reducing entry barriers in SaaS driven offerings, thereby resulting in humungous expansion of RegTech Industry over upcoming years. Large-scale utilization of new technologies like bioetric, machine learning, internet of things, cloud computing, blockchain ,and AI is likely to result in tremendous growth for RegTech Industry over upcoming years.



Request for Customization on this Report - https://www.zionmarketresearch.com/custom/5881 North American Market to Retain Domination Over 2020-2026

Expansion of RegTech Market in North America over forecast timespan is due to large-scale acceptance of RegTech solutions by Fintech Firms and other financial institutions such as banks in countries such as the U.S. and Canada. Immense utilization of technologies such as deep learning, big data analytics, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and block chain and other initiatives take by regional governments for reducing costs of compliance has resulted in larger demand for RegTech by the firms based in the countries such as the U.S. and Canada. Presence of key players in the U.S. is projected to contribute noticeably towards regional market revenue over the years ahead. Apparently, RegTech Market is highly consolidated with each player in the business trying to optimize returns on investment along with increasing pie of market share. With view to expand their regional customer base and increase market profitability as well as establish strong position in market, firms are adopting new business strategies such as product innovations, product portfolio expansion, and formation of strategic alliances with regional players. Key players favorably influencing growth of RegTech Market and profiled in the study include 8of9, Gecko Governance, Governor, AllAtUsUnity, Connxus, Collibra, iComplai, Waymark, InterRegs, Onrule, Riskpriorities, C2P (Compliance and Risks),Clausematch, GAN Integrity, RegAsk, Capnovum, Feedstock, Simpliance, AxiomHQ, and Autologyx. Inquire before Purchase of this Research Report - https://www.zionmarketresearch.com/inquiry/regtech-market The Global RegTech Market is segmented as follows: By Component Solution

Services By Deployment Type On-Premises

Cloud By Organization Size Large Enterprises

Small & Medium Enterprises By Application AML & Fraud Management

Regulatory Intelligence

Risk & Compliance Management

Regulatory Reporting By Region North America

The U



Canada

Europe

France



The UK



Spain



Germany



Ital



Rest of Europe

Asia Pacific

China



Japan



India



South Korea



Southeast Asi



Rest of Asia Pacific

Latin America

Brazil



Mexic



Rest of Latin America

Middle East & Africa

& GCC



South Africa



Rest of Middle East & Africa Browse Other Related Research Reports from Zion Market Research Healthcare Regulatory Affairs Outsourcing Market - https://www.zionmarketresearch.com/report/healthcare-regulatory-affairs-outsourcing-market

Auditing Services Market - https://www.zionmarketresearch.com/report/auditing-services-market

Legal Process Outsourcing Market - https://www.zionmarketresearch.com/report/legal-process-outsourcing-market About Us: Zion Market Research is an obligated company. We create futuristic, cutting edge, informative reports ranging from industry reports, company reports to country reports. We provide our clients not only with market statistics unveiled by avowed private publishers and public organizations but also with vogue and newest industry reports along with pre-eminent and niche company profiles. Our database of market research reports comprises a wide variety of reports from cardinal industries. Our database is been updated constantly in order to fulfill our clients with prompt and direct online access to our database. Keeping in mind the client's needs, we have included expert insights on global industries, products, and market trends in this database. Last but not the least, we make it our duty to ensure the success of clients connected to usafter allif you do well, a little of the light shines on us. Contact Us: Zion Market Research 244 Fifth Avenue, Suite N202 New York, 10001, United States Tel: +49-322 210 92714 USA/Canada Toll-Free No +1-855-465-4651 US OFFICE NO +1-386-310-3803 Email: sales@zionmarketresearch.com Website: https://www.zionmarketresearch.com Blog - https://thefoodbeveragenews.com/ Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1605489/Zion_Market_Research_Logo.jpg

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[September 16, 2021] AM Best Affirms Credit Ratings of Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance Co., Ltd. and Its Subsidiaries

AM Best has affirmed the Financial Strength Rating (FSR) of A++ (Superior) and the Long-Term Issuer Credit Rating (Long-Term ICR) of "aa+" (Superior) of Samsung (News - Alert) Fire & Marine Insurance Co., Ltd. (SFM) (South Korea). AM Best also has affirmed the FSR of A (Excellent) and the Long-Term ICR of "a" (Excellent) of SFM's wholly owned subsidiary, Samsung Reinsurance Pte. Ltd. (SRE) (Singapore). AM Best also has affirmed the FSR of A- (Excellent) and the Long-Term ICR of "a-" (Excellent) of PT Asuransi Samsung Tugu (AST) (Indonesia). Finally, AM Best has affirmed the FSR of A- (Excellent) and the Long-Term ICR of "a-" (Excellent) of Samsung Vina Insurance Co., Ltd. (SVI) (Vietnam). The outlook of these Credit Ratings (ratings) is stable. The ratings of SFM reflect its balance sheet strength, which AM Best assesses as strongest, as well as its strong operating performance, very favourable business profile and very strong enterprise risk management (ERM). SFM's risk-adjusted capitalisation is assessed at the strongest level, as measured by Best's Capital Adequacy Ratio (BCAR), supported by its substantial absolute capital and surplus that totaled KRW 16 trillion (USD 15 billion) as at year-end 2020 on the back of strong earnings and accumulated other comprehensive income. SFM's balance sheet strength is also supported by its low asset and underwriting leverage ratios compared with its domestic peers; the highest regulatory solvency ratio in South Korea's non-life segment; and its debt-free position. Its asset allocation is highly conservative, with a majority of investments in fixed-income assets while maintaining a relatively small proportion of overseas and alternative investments compared with peers, which offsets concentration risk from affiliated stock holdings. SFM's strong operating performance is underpinned by its large absolute net income stream that is supported by robust investment profits, outstanding and stable underwriting performance, and the lowest combined ratio among its domestic peers. After a deterioration in 2019 with an industry-wide rise in auto and medical claims, SFM's underwriting performance improved in 2020 and the first half of 2021, mainly driven by favourable auto line performance following a series of rate increases and reduced claims frequency amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Investment profits continue to be robust, supported by substantial volume of investment assets. As the leader in South Korea's non-life insurance segment with a market share of approximately 23% in terms of gross premium written (GPW) in 2020, SFM has superior brand power and a large captive agent distribution network, as well as highly diversified product offerings. SFM demonstrates especially strong leadership in the rapidly growing online auto insurance line with a high-quality customer base and an immense amount of data and knowledge that it has accumulated as the pioneer in this area. AM Best also notes that the Samsung Group's related business in South Korea and overseas serves as a good profit source to SFM with very favourable loss ratios. Notwithstanding its limited presence in overseas markets, the company has been cautiously pursuing global expansion through inorganic growth and partnership; SFM's most recent ventures include its investment in Canopius Group Limited and an initiative to turn its China operation into a joint venture with Tencent Holdings (News - Alert) Limited. With a group risk management culture entrenched in the organisation and a robust governance structure, SFM's risk management capabilities are superior to its domestic and international peers with similar business profiles. The ratings of SRE reflect its balance sheet strength, which AM Best assesses as strong, as well as its adequate operating performance, limited business profile and appropriate ERM. These ratings also recognise the high degree of integration and wide range of implicit and explicit support the company receives from SFM. SRE's risk-adjusted capitalisation is assessed at the strongest level, as measured by BCAR, and is expected to remain at a similar level over the medium term. Although its capital and surplus has demonstrated a stable growth trend with full profit retention over the past years, the company's absolute capital base of USD 81 million as of year-end 2020 remains small for a reinsurer. Its high retrocession dependency is largely offset by the strong credit profile of its parent, SFM, which undertakes the largest share in SRE's retrocession programme. SRE's operating performance has been mostly profitable, with a five-year average return-on-equity ratio of 3.5% (2016-2020) and a combined ratio of 91.2%, although there has been historically moderate volatility in its underwriting performance, mainly driven by changing business strategy and small net premium base. Its underwriting performance is underpinned by a relatively low loss ratio compared with peers, as the company benefits from highly profitable captive business from the Samsung group. The company has been cautiously growing third-party treaty business in recent years, of which the share increased to 28% of GPW in 2020, exhibiting moderate profit volatility. SRE reported a favourable underwriting performance in 2020 with a combined ratio of 81%, mainly driven by an enlarged net premium base under a new retention strategy and decreased captive cargo claims amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Its five-year average net investment yield is low compared with its regional peers due to its highly conservative investent strategy.



SRE is a small reinsurer mainly focused on Southeast Asia and India, with a GPW of approximately USD 76 million in 2020. SRE's volume of captive business declined materially in 2020, mainly due to a change in the intra-group business arrangement with its Samsung Group affiliates. Nonetheless, AM Best expects this captive business to remain a key contributor to SRE's underwriting profits over the medium term. As a wholly owned subsidiary of SFM and the only reinsurer within the group, SRE shares the Samsung brand and is strategically important to SFM as an integral part of its global expansion and business diversification into reinsurance. Given the high level of integration with the group, SRE receives a wide range of support from SFM in areas such as retrocession, actuarial, underwriting, pricing, risk management and technology.

The ratings of AST reflect its balance sheet strength, which AM Best assesses as strong, as well as its strong operating performance, limited business profile and appropriate ERM. These ratings also recognise the wide range of implicit and explicit support provided by AST's parent, SFM. AST's risk-adjusted capitalisation is assessed at the strongest level, as measured by BCAR, supported by its low net underwriting leverage and a highly liquid investment portfolio, which partially offsets its small capital base of USD 22 million as at year-end 2020. The company's investment strategy is highly conservative as most of its investments are allocated in time deposits and Indonesian government bonds, which provide sufficient liquidity. Yet, with high reinsurance dependence, AST's credit risk was heightened moderately in 2020 due to its enlarged reinsurance asset base following large loss cases and increased cession to domestic reinsurers with lower credit ratings. Nonetheless, AM Best views the company as having a sufficient capital buffer against such risk. AST has a track record of strong operating performance, underpinned by profitable underwriting and stable investment activities, as demonstrated by a five-year average return-on-equity ratio of 10.2% (2016-2020) and a combined ratio of 68.9%. AST's strong underwriting performance is driven principally by its low expense ratio, attributed to a large ceding commission income coupled with low acquisition costs from the direct distribution channel. Deterioration in its loss ratio in 2020 due to a couple of large unprecedented claims was offset mostly by an improved expense ratio driven by increased ceding commissions and reduced management expenses. AST's net premium base has decreased, caused by the declining volume of Samsung Group business, which has been a major source of profit for AST. AM Best notes that the company plans to expand its profile into other Korean Interests Abroad (KIA) and select local inward reinsurance business over the coming years, while restructuring its retained portfolio toward small to medium-sized risks to reduce underwriting volatility. AST is a joint venture between SFM and PT Asuransi Tugu Pratama Indonesia Tbk, which own 70% and 30% of the company, respectively. AST holds less than a 1% market share in Indonesia's non-life insurance segment, based on GPW in 2020. With the majority of its premiums generated from Samsung Group-related business and KIA, the company's exposure to its domestic Indonesia market remains limited despite its strategic focus to strengthen local inward reinsurance business over the past years. AST shares the Samsung brand and is highly integrated into its parent, receiving support in various areas including marketing, pricing, underwriting and risk management. The company also receives direct reinsurance support from SFM. The ratings reflect SVI's balance sheet strength, which AM Best assesses as strong, as well as its strong operating performance, limited business profile and appropriate ERM. These ratings recognise the wide range of implicit and explicit support provided by SVI's parent, SFM. SVI's balance sheet strength is underpinned by its very low underwriting leverage and strong internal capital generation, which partially offset its relatively small capital base of USD 54 million as of the end of 2020. Its highly liquid investment portfolio consisting of only cash and time deposits also supports the balance sheet strength assessment. Negative balance sheet strength factors include SVI's high dependency on reinsurance, which is offset partially by its well-diversified reinsurance panel of companies with good credit profiles, including SFM. SVI has a track record of strong operating performance with a five-year average return-on-equity ratio of 14.9% (2016-2020) and a combined ratio of -88.3%. The company's strong underwriting performance is driven mainly by its large reinsurance commission income, reflecting SVI's fronting insurance business model. Although slightly volatile given its small premium base, its favourable loss experience, as evidenced by a five-year average loss ratio of 26.3% (2016-2020), is due in large part to highly profitable captive business from Samsung group-related risks. A solid stream of interest income provides additional stability to SVI's overall bottom line. SVI has an approximate 2% share of Vietnam's non-life insurance market, based on GPW in 2020. The company has limited exposure to its domestic market, with most of its revenue generated by Samsung Group-related business and KIA business, which collectively represents more than 90% of GPW. The company also has product concentration as the property and marine cargo lines together make up more than about 90% of its premium income. SVI's ERM system, which is part of SFM's global governance system, is well-developed and in line with the parent's risk framework and appetite. SVI is 75% owned by SFM, shares the Samsung brand name and is highly integrated into its parent company. SFM continually provides support to SVI in major areas such as marketing, actuarial, underwriting and risk management. Furthermore, SVI is strategically important to SFM because it offers coverage to Samsung Group companies and other KIA business in Vietnam, a major destination for Korean investments. Negative rating actions could occur for SFM if there is a continuous deteriorating trend in its operating performance to a level that no longer supports the current strong assessment. Negative rating actions could also occur if there is a significant deterioration in its risk-adjusted capitalisation. Negative rating actions could occur for SRE if there is a deterioration in its operating performance arising from a continued unfavourable trend in its underwriting performance. Negative rating actions may also arise if support from SFM is reduced to an extent that no longer supports the current level of enhancement. Negative rating actions could occur for AST if there is a sustained deterioration in its operating performance, such as increased underwriting volatility with large scale accident claims while the net premium base remains contracted, or if support from SFM is reduced to an extent that no longer supports the current level of enhancement. Negative rating actions could occur for SVI if the company's operating performance should deteriorate materially, for example due to an increased frequency of large-scale loss events. Negative rating actions also may arise if support from SFM is reduced to an extent that no longer supports the current level of enhancement. AM Best remains the leading rating agency of alternative risk transfer entities, with more than 200 such vehicles rated throughout the world. For current Best's Credit Ratings and independent data on the captive and alternative risk transfer insurance market, please visit www.ambest.com/captive. Ratings are communicated to rated entities prior to publication. Unless stated otherwise, the ratings were not amended subsequent to that communication. This press release relates to Credit Ratings that have been published on AM Best's website. For all rating information relating to the release and pertinent disclosures, including details of the office responsible for issuing each of the individual ratings referenced in this release, please see AM Best's Recent Rating Activity web page. For additional information regarding the use and limitations of Credit Rating opinions, please view Guide to Best's Credit Ratings. For information on the proper use of Best's Credit Ratings, Best's Preliminary Credit Assessments and AM Best press releases, please view Guide to Proper Use of Best's Ratings & Assessments. AM Best is a global credit rating agency, news publisher and data analytics provider specialising in the insurance industry. Headquartered in the United States, the company does business in over 100 countries with regional offices in London, Amsterdam, Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Mexico City. For more information, visit www.ambest.com. Copyright  2021 by A.M. Best Rating Services, Inc. and/or its affiliates. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005632/en/

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[September 16, 2021] Roosevelt & Cross Completes $25 Million City of Yonkers Industrial Development Agency School Facility Revenue Bonds for the New Community School Project

Roosevelt & Cross Incorporated, a registered broker-dealer that specializes in tax-exempt and taxable municipal debt, today announced the successful completion of a $25 million City of Yonkers Industrial Development Agency School Facility Revenue Bonds issue for the New Community School Project. This state-supported revenue bond issue is the first debt issuance for the Phase I Plan, which consists of several projects under consideration by the Yonkers Joint Schools Construction Board. The Phase I Plan, authorized up to $523 million, is expected to be completed by 2025. This issue is the first of several financing initiatives that support the "Rebuild Yonkers Schools" effort backing the new construction and infrastructure improvements to existing educational facilities in the City of Yonkers. This effort to improve Yonkers Public Schools was initially mandated in 2016. As book-running Senior Manager for the issue, Roosevelt & Cross generated $50.78 million in orders, and placed the bonds with 18 institutional investors. "We saw significant interest from institutional investors in this important offering," said Scott Monahan, Executive Vice President with Roosevelt & Cross who serves in the firm's Public Finance department. "This initial issuance represents the dedication from all of the financing team's professionals. We expect additional success as the Phase I projects continue to come to the market for financing." The Yonkers Joint Schools Construction Board ("YJSCB") was established and operates pursuant to the Yonkers City School District Joint Schools Construction and Modernization Act. Its mission is the creation of new school facilities and modernization of existing school facilities in Yonkers to meet the needs of the city's school children.



"This is an essential first step in creating a better future for the children of Yonkers Public Schools," said Elaine Brennan, Executive Vice President with Roosevelt & Cross's Public Finance department. "Roosevelt & Cross sees great demand for improved facilities for education and this long-term effort is a sign of what is possible with the collaboration of city, state and educational leadership." Capital Markets Advisors LLC served as municipal advisor to the transaction.

About Roosevelt & Cross Incorporated Roosevelt & Cross Incorporated is a registered broker-dealer that specializes in tax-exempt and taxable municipal debt. The firm is entirely employee owned and directed, and 100% of the firm's capital is committed to municipal securities. As a top-ranking municipal bond underwriter in New York, New Jersey, and New England, Roosevelt & Cross offers strong distribution capabilities across major and mid-size institutional accounts, professionally managed retail accounts, and high net worth individual accounts. The firm's investment banking and credit analysis capabilities are on par with the best in the industry. Roosevelt & Cross is consistently ranked the #1 underwriter of education bonds in New York State. Based in New York City, the company has branch offices in Buffalo, Boston, West Hartford, CT, East Greenwich, RI and Warren, NJ. Visit https://www.roosevelt-cross.com/ to learn more. Follow us on LinkedIn. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005660/en/

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[September 16, 2021] What's Steering Automotive Shopping? New Research from Onbe Reveals Going Digital is Key to Driving Success

Onbe, a fast-growing corporate disbursements platform with over 25 years of payments experience counting 11 of the world's leading automotive brands as clients, released a new U.S. study closely examining consumer automotive shopping behaviors. Surveying more than 1,000 Americans between 18 and 99 years old in August of 2021, the study found that providing seamless digital experiences, from shopping to incentives, is the key to driving purchasing action. In 2020, millennials bought 32% of new cars, surpassing Baby Boomers for the first time. Onbe's 2021 study found that 68% of under-30 consumers plan to purchase or lease a vehicle in the next 18 months, proof that younger millennials are rapidly gaining buying power. "The millennial generation expects to have seamless digital experiences whenever and however they engage with brands, so to win their business, automotive brands need to be ready to offer digital automotive incentives, too," said Tracy Monson, Senior Vice President of Product at Onbe. "To maintain momentum and loyalty, auto dealers can utilize incentives to enhance the in-person buying experience and encourage consumers to not only buy now but keep coming back for maintenance and secondary purchases." 86% of auto-buyers will comparison shop online before kicking the tires, and 72% of them would be willing to purchase digitally, marking the need for sellers and dealerships to meet purchasers where they are shopping-online. 80% of buyers would consider purchasing a different make o model if their desired choice wasn't available or was priced higher than they wanted to pay. This highlights the opportunity for brands to win new customers, and for both online sellers and dealerships to incentivize buyers to check out their inventories. 86% of younger Millennial buyers-those under 30-would be motivated to service their auto at the dealership for just 10% off their service for the first year or a $15 reward for each scheduled maintenance service. If given a $100 incentive for buying a vehicle, more than 50% said they would be most likely to spend that reward on vehicle maintenance or accessories-giving dealers the opportunity to drive repeat business.



Download an automotive whitepaper with key survey findings here. The survey findings will be discussed in a live webinar to be held on October 5, at 1:00 p.m. eastern, featuring Tracy Monson, Senior Vice President of Product at Onbe, and Don Apgar, Director of the Merchant Acquiring advisory practice at Mercator Advisory Group. Click here to register for the webinar.

ABOUT ONBE Onbe, with offices in Chicago, Philadelphia and London, creates engaging corporate disbursement experiences on behalf of modern brands for consumers, workforces and marketplaces, delivering value beyond currency. Backed by top-tier investors and with over 25 years of industry experience, Onbe's team of experts and purpose-built payment issuing platform seamlessly connect brands to their constituents around the world. www.onbe.com View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005674/en/

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[September 16, 2021] Canada Launches World's First Inclusive Work-Integrated Learning Program in Virtual Reality

A thousand Canadian post-secondary students, who traditionally face barriers to learning, will soon have meaningful work-integrated learning experiences with industry experts on a virtual campus. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005728/en/ Funded in part by the Government of Canada's Innovative Work-Integrated Learning Program, Wavemakers is the first national work-integrated learning program to use virtual reality to connect diverse post-secondary students with leading employers across Canada. It opens doors to meaningful learning experiences with industry experts in a virtual campus. (Photo: Business Wire) Funded in part by the Government of Canada's Innovative Work-Integrated Learning Program, Wavemakers is the first national work-integrated learning program to use virtual reality to connect diverse post-secondary students with leading employers across Canada. Leveraging leading-edge technology, innovative curriculum, and industry expertise, Wavemakers offers an opportunity for all Canadian post-secondary students to choose a more diverse and incluive future.



"We're on a mission to expand opportunities for all Canadian post-secondary students and employers to succeed in the workplaces of tomorrow," says Krista Pawley, co-founder of Wavemakers. "Wavemakers bridges a critical gap by connecting post-secondary students from traditionally underrepresented communities with future-focused employers across Canada." Through the eight-week program, students learn from industry leaders about the technologies and mindsets needed to thrive in the future of work. "Wavemakers presented Edelman (News - Alert) with a platform to connect with high potential students from diverse communities in new ways," says Bianca Boyd, COO of Edelman. "Not only will our senior leaders share their lived experiences with students, but they will broaden their perspectives on what the workplace could, and should, look like."

About 1,000 post-secondary students from underrepresented communities (Black, First Nations, Metis, Inuit, LGBTQ2S, students with disabilities, neurodiverse students, rural and remote students, and women) will complete the Wavemakers' program by March 31, 2022. Throughout their experience, students will interact with industry leaders from across multiple sectors. "Wavemakers left me inspired to keep considering new ways of problem-solving, as the [societal] issues we face are becoming increasingly complex," says Mya Walz, Wavemakers Student Alumni from the beta cohort in summer 2021. "The virtual reality campus gives students the flexibility to practice, explore, and complete meaningful work experiences from wherever they are," says Alison Reaves, NorQuest College. "The quality of the Wavemakers content, together with the novelty of the experience, helps students stay engaged and form connections with other students and program mentors in a way that traditional online programs cannot." Wavemakers is partnered with colleges, universities, and community organizations from coast-to-coast-to-coast. Participating industry partners include CAMH, Cobalt Lawyers, Convergence (News - Alert) .Tech, CompuVision, Cormorant Utility Services, Dairy Farmers of Canada, Deloitte Canada, Edelman Canada, Jacobs, Manulife, Paramount Fine Foods, Restaurant Brands International, Unwasted, Rooted and Rising, Rizing, Stem Cell Canada, Sunlife, and TD Bank. "We're thrilled to be working in partnership with Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), industry partners, post-secondary institutions, and community groups across Canada," says Oren Berkovich, Wavemakers Co-Founder. "Together we're building a workforce representative of Canada's multicultural and dynamic nature." -30- The Innovative Work-Integrated Learning (I-WIL) Initiative is for post-secondary students to help them find opportunities related to their studies. I-WIL focuses on short and intensive activities that use technology. ABOUT WAVEMAKERS Wavemakers is a groundbreaking work-integrated learning program supported by the Government of Canada, designed to connect diverse post-secondary students with leading employers across Canada. Wavemakers is the ONLY innovative work-integrated learning program accessible to all Canadian post-secondary students, wherever they are, that leverages cutting-edge technologies, world-class experts, and critical employer networks so that students are ready to make waves towards a brighter future. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005728/en/

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[September 16, 2021] Tauriga Sciences Inc. Products Offerings Now Available on Amazon Prime

NEW YORK, NY, Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NewMediaWire -- Tauriga Sciences, Inc. (OTCQB: TAUG) (Tauriga or the Company), a New York based diversified Life Sciences Company, today announced that its proprietary product offerings are now available on Amazon Prime. Currently, 3 SKUs of the Companys flagship brand Tauri-Gum, as well as its Tauri-Pet dog treats  are available to Amazon Prime customers. Amazon Prime is a paid subscription program from Amazon which is available in various countries and gives users access to additional services otherwise unavailable or available at a premium to other Amazon customers. Services include same, one or two-day delivery of goods and streaming music, video, e-books, gaming and grocery shopping services. In April 2021, Amazon reported that Prime had more than 200 million subscribers worldwide. In other news, the Company continues to experience strong levels of revenue growth and new customer acquisition. Link to Tauriga Sciences Inc. E-Comm Website: www.taurigum.com Link to Amazon Tauri-Gum Product(s) Page: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=tauri-gum&ref=nb_sb_noss ABOUT TAURIGA SCIENCES INC. Tauriga Sciences, Inc. (TAUG) is a revenue generating, diversified life sciences company, engaged in several major business activities and initiatives. The company manufactures and distributes several proprietary retail products and product lines, mainly focused on the Cannabidiol (CBD) and Cannabigerol (CBG) Edibles market segment. The main product line, branded as Tauri-Gum, consists of a proprietary suplement chewing gum that is Kosher certified, Halal certified, and Vegan Formulated (CBD Infused Tauri-Gum Flavors: Mint, Blood Orange, Pomegranate), (CBG Infused Tauri-Gum Flavors: Peach-Lemon, Black Currant), (DELTA 8 THC Infused Tauri-Gum Flavor: Evergreen Mint), (Vitamin C + Zinc Infused Tauri-Gum Flavor: Pear Bellini), (Caffeine Infused Tauri-Gum Flavor: Cherry Lime Rickey), & (Vitamin D3 Infused Tauri-Gum Flavor: Golden Raspberry). The Companys commercialization strategy consists of a broad array of retail customers, distributors, and a fast-growing E-Commerce business segment (E-Commerce website: www.taurigum.com). Please visit our corporate website, for additional information, as well as inquiries, at http://www.tauriga.com



Complementary to the Companys retail business, is its ongoing Pharmaceutical Development initiative. This relates to the development of a proposed Pharmaceutical grade version of Tauri-Gum, for nausea regulation (specifically designed for the following indication: Patients Subjected to Ongoing Chemotherapy Treatment). On March 22, 2021, the Company announced that it had Converted its U.S. Provisional Patent Application (filed on March 17, 2020) into a U.S. Non-Provisional Patent Application. The Patent, filed with the U.S.P.T.O. is Titled MEDICATED CBD COMPOSITIONS, METHODS OF MANUFACTURING, AND METHODS OF TREATMENT. On December 18, 2020 the Company disclosed that it had entered into a Master Services Agreement with CSTI to lead the Company's clinical development efforts. The Company is headquartered in Wappingers Falls, New York. In addition, the Company operates two full time E-Commerce fulfillment centers: one located in Montgomery, Texas and the other in Brooklyn, New York.

DISCLAIMER -- Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains certain forward-looking statements as defined by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 which represent managements beliefs and assumptions concerning future events. These forward-looking statements are often indicated by using words such as may, will, expects, anticipates, believes, hopes, believes, or plans, and may include statements regarding corporate objectives as well as the attainment of certain corporate goals and milestones. Forward-looking statements are based on present circumstances and on managements present beliefs with respect to events that have not occurred, that may not occur, or that may occur with different consequences or timing than those now assumed or anticipated. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed in forward looking statements due to known and unknown risks and uncertainties, such as are not guarantees of general economic and business conditions, the ability to successfully develop and market products, consumer and business consumption habits, the ability to consummate successful acquisition and licensing transactions, fluctuations in exchange rates, and other factors over which Tauriga has little or no control. Many of these risks and uncertainties are discussed in greater detail in the Risk Factors section of Taurigas Form 10-K and other periodic filings made from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Such forward-looking statements are made only as of the date of this release, and Tauriga assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances. You should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Contact: Tauriga Sciences, Inc.

4 Nancy Court, Suite 4

Wappingers Falls, NY 12590

Chief Executive Officer

Mr. Seth M. Shaw

Email: sshaw@tauriga.com

cell # (917) 796 9926

Company Instagram: @taurigum

Personal Instagram: @sethsms47

Twitter: @SethMShaw

Corp. Website: www.tauriga.com

E-Commerce Website: www.taurigum.com Attachment Tauriga 09-16-2021



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[September 16, 2021] Zilliqa's NFT ecosystem heats up as its latest collection 'The Bear Market' breaks the bullish $1m sale milestone in less than 24 hours.

SINGAPORE, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Newest addition to Zilliqa's non-fungible token (NFT) ecosystem, "The Bear Market", recently broke sales records for the public blockchain in just under 24 hours of going live. The NFT collection  cheekily coined "The Bear Market"  boasted over $1 million in sales, the highest of any NFT collection on the blockchain platform thus far. The Bear Market is a collection of 10,000 programmatically-generated digital art pieces of bears that can be minted by users on the Zilliqa blockchain. Also known as generative NFTs, the collection was launched as a commemorative piece by Switcheo Labs in partnership with Zilliqa to celebrate the upcoming launch of the Zilswap NFT marketplace. The sale began on 15 September 2021 at 8AM UTC and is set to run for 48 hours. Within a day, more than half the available pieces were snatched up by the Zilliqa community. Amrit Kummer, President at Zilliqa, said: "The recent NFT boom has made waves not just within the crypto realm, but is instead quickly becoming mainstream. This phenomenon is also gaining traction on Zilliqa, as its highly scalable nature allows for much lower network fees compared to incumbents like Ethereum. The strong showing from NFT launches such as The Bear Market has been supported by a wider audience that have been previously priced out." Ivan Poon, co-founder of Switcheo Labs, said: "The support we've received from the Zilliqa community has been overwhelming. We could not have asked for a warmer reception, and we are committed to supporting Zilliqa users with critical infrastructure through upcoming projects such as the Zilswap NFT marketplace, cross-blockchain bridge and more".



One of the pertinent pillars of success for NFT collections is having an active community to support the project, and The Bear Market looks to be headed in the right direction. According to LunarCRUSH, a cryptocurrency social listening platform, Zilliqa topped the charts and took the spot for being the Coin of the Day on 15 September, the same day The Bear Market was launched. Zilliqa saw a 47.4% increase in social engagements with over 11 million engagements on social media, and a 68.2% increase in social mentions. The Bear Market sale is still ongoing at https://thebear.market and can be purchased for 2,000 ZILs.

About The Bear Market NFT Collection The Bear Market is a collection of 10,000 digital art pieces minted as NFTs on the Zilliqa blockchain. Each NFT in the collection has unique traits that are programmatically generated in a fair and random manner to form a final digital image. This collection was created by Switcheo Labs to commemorate the partnership with Zilliqa, as well as the upcoming launch of ZilSwap's NFT marketplace. About Zilliqa & ZilSwap Zilliqa is a high-performance scalable public blockchain platform based in Singapore. ZilSwap is a fully on-chain decentralized application running on Zilliqa. ZilSwap acts as a core tenet of infrastructure on Zilliqa, allowing its users to perform critical actions such as the swapping of tokens and provision of liquidity. Contact: Lynn Choy, Email: lynn.choy@switcheo.network, Phone: +6598564074 View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/zilliqas-nft-ecosystem-heats-up-as-its-latest-collection-the-bear-market-breaks-the-bullish-1m-sale-milestone-in-less-than-24-hours-301379024.html SOURCE Switcheo Labs

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[September 16, 2021] FinTech Frontier Rolls Out Second Pitch Competition to Showcase the Future of FinTech

CINCINNATI, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- FinTech Frontier announced today the official kickoff of its annual Pitch Competition by inviting early-stage startup companies to showcase their FinTech innovations on October 28. FinTech Frontier invites early-stage startup companies to showcase their FinTech innovations on October 28 . The purpose of this nationwide competition is to showcase the most innovative FinTech startups of tomorrow, with a focus on: Data & Privacy, Supply Chain, Increasing Access, and Green FinTech. FinTech Frontier is a future-focused partnership between Cincinnati-based, industry-leading financial services corporations and FinTech-focused entrepreneurs, powered by Cintrifuse  Cincinnati's catalyst for startup innovation. It is designed to accelerate innovation that transforms every aspect of financial services  from consumer-facing experiences to back-office operations. The competition is made possible through the support of Western & Southern Financial Group , Fifth Third Bank , JobsOhio , and Cintrifuse .



"Whether you're expanding access for all to improve financial wellness, leading the green revolution through financial services, bringing added financial transparency to supply chains, or protecting consumers' financial health with greater data, identity, or security tools, we want to hear from you," said Pete Blackshaw, CEO of Cintrifuse. Each finalist will produce a five-minute video recorded pitch. The final competition will occur during StartupCincy Week, and will include the videos followed by live Q&A with a panel of judges. Winners will be determined by a scoring rubric including judge scores and popular vote amongst attendees, with cash prizes totalling $75,000.

The winning participants will also be given the unique opportunity to sit down with competition sponsors to receive support, as well as exposure to Cintrifuse's network of Venture Capitalists. "Last year's finalists have gone on to raise millions in venture capital, win additional pitch competitions, and launch new markets, " said Mark Wood, who leads Fintech Frontier. "We search for the most innovative fintechs and provide them with a national platform, and in return give audience members insight into the future of financial technology." The Pitch Competition is part of a suite of programs aimed at supporting fintech entrepreneurs, helping to create a thriving fintech ecosystem in Cincinnati. The region routinely ranks as one of the best cities to launch a startup thanks to its density of Fortune 500 corporations, top ranked universities, access to seed capital and relative affordability. "Greater Cincinnati is burgeoning with the capital, talent, technology and industry leadership to make the region a game-changing player in FinTech," said Blackshaw. "We're excited to help accelerate the potential of the Queen City as the FinTech industry's presence in the area continues to grow." *Apply Here*

Applications will be accepted through October 8th, with finalists announced October 15th. For Media Inquiries: Mandy Mayfield

BX3 on behalf of FinTech Frontier

Mandy@bx3.io View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/fintech-frontier-rolls-out-second-pitch-competition-to-showcase-the-future-of-fintech-301379026.html SOURCE FinTech Frontier

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[September 16, 2021] Convoy Joins The United Nations Global Compact

Convoy, the nation's most efficient digital freight network, announced today that it has joined the United Nations (UN) Global Compact, the world's largest corporate sustainability initiative, as a participant. With this commitment, Convoy is joining thousands of other companies from around the world in demonstrating its support for the development, implementation and disclosure of responsible business practices. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005791/en/ Convoy Joins the United Nations Global Compact (Graphic: Business Wire) The UN Global Compact is a call to companies to align their operations and strategies with ten universally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, labor, environment and anti-corruption, and to take action in support of UN goals and issues embodied in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).



"At Convoy, our mission is to transport the world with endless capacity and zero waste," said Dan Lewis, Convoy CEO and Co-Founder. "We believe in making trucking a more sustainable profession for truck drivers, as well as environmentally sustainable, by reducing empty miles and waste. We also believe in acting with purpose and integrity as a company. The UN Global Compact and collaborative projects like the Sustainable Development Goals align with this, and we're committed to supporting them." In line with the Global Compact's environment principles, Convoy is reducing empty miles in transportation by leveraging technology and data to optimize how thousands of truckloads efficiently move around the United States each day via our digital freight network. We're lowering the cost for shippers to move their freight, improving the lives of truck drivers by helping them earn more with less hassle, and helping create a sustainable future for all of us through the reduction of carbon emissions. To date, Convoy has already prevented more than 3.3 million pounds of carbon emissions from polluting our planet, and we are just getting started.

Launched in 2000, the UN Global Compact is the largest corporate sustainability initiative in the world, with more than 9,500 companies and 3,000 non-business signatories from more than 160 countries. About Convoy Convoy is the nation's most efficient digital freight network. We move thousands of truckloads around the country each day through our optimized, connected network of carriers, saving money for shippers, increasing earnings for drivers, and eliminating carbon waste for our planet. We use technology and data to solve problems of waste and inefficiency in the $800B trucking industry, which generates over 87 million metric tons of wasted CO2 emissions from empty trucks. Fortune 500 shippers like Anheuser-Busch, P&G, Niagara, and Unilever trust Convoy to lower costs, increase logistics efficiency, and achieve environmental sustainability targets. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005791/en/

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[September 16, 2021] Homeowner Receives Hurricane Recovery Help

The devastation caused by Hurricane Ida is nothing new to 68-year-old Henry Jones, who is thankful Ida's recent fury didn't reach him in Clarence, Louisiana, a small village in north central Louisiana. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005805/en/ Henry Jones, second from left, with officials from Hancock Whitney, which partnered with FHLB Dallas to provide funding to repair his hurricane damaged home. (Photo: Business Wire) He wasn't so lucky last year when Hurricane Laura barreled through and caused extensive damage to his home, so much that he had to temporarily evacuate and stay with a relative. But, thanks to disaster recovery funds from the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas' (FHLB Dallas) and Hancock Whitney, his home was fully repaired. Mr. Jones received a $9,890 subsidy earlier this year to fund the repairs. The funding was part of FHLB Dallas' Disaster Rebuilding Assistance program and was provided through Hancock Whitney, a member of FHLB Dallas. The subsidy covered a new roof and replacement of damaged sheetrock and wood paneling. The work was completed this spring. Mr. Jones said he was trying to figure out how to fund repairs and was coming up empty when a Hancock Whitney employee, who attends his church, told him the Disaster Rebuilding Assistanceprogram might be an option for him.



"I really appreciate it, and thank God these funds were available because I don't know how I would have made the repairs without this help," Mr. Jones said. The Disaster Rebuilding Assistance program provides funds for the repair and rehabilitation of owner-occupied housing affected by a federally declared disaster within FHLB Dallas' five-state District.

Hancock Whitney was among many FHLB Dallas members who participated in the program to assist residents impacted by natural disasters. Several hurricanes in 2020 resulted in high demand for the funding. "It feels good to be able to help homeowners who really suffered after several hurricanes hit our communities last year," said LaCarsha Babers, assistant vice president and community development officer at Hancock Whitney. "We appreciate our partnership with FHLB Dallas in providing these funds." In 2021, FHLB Dallas set aside $500,000 for Disaster Rebuilding Assistance. The funds are disbursed through member institutions like Hancock Whitney on a first-come, first-served basis, one homeowner at a time. "Natural disasters have the potential to cause great stress and suffering within affected communities," said Greg Hettrick, first vice president and director of Community Investment at FHLB Dallas. "Partnerships such as this one with Hancock Whitney make a positive impact on people like Mr. Jones, who no longer need to worry about costly home repairs." About Hancock Whitney Since the late 1800s, Hancock Whitney has embodied core values of Honor & Integrity, Strength & Stability, Commitment to Service, Teamwork, and Personal Responsibility. Hancock Whitney offices and financial centers in Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, and Texas offer comprehensive financial products and services, including traditional and online banking; commercial and small business banking; private banking; trust and investment services; healthcare banking; certain insurance services; and mortgage services. The company also operates a loan production office in Nashville, Tennessee. BauerFinancial, Inc., the nation's leading independent bank rating and analysis firm, consistently recommends Hancock Whitney as one of America's most financially sound banks. More information is available at www.hancockwhitney.com. About the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas The Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas is one of 11 district banks in the FHLBank System created by Congress in 1932. FHLB Dallas, with total assets of $58.6 billion as of June 30, 2021, is a member-owned cooperative that supports housing and community development by providing competitively priced loans and other credit products to approximately 800 members and associated institutions in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico and Texas. For more information, visit our website at fhlb.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005805/en/

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[September 16, 2021] AM Best Withdraws Credit Ratings of American Sentinel Insurance Company

AM Best has withdrawn the Financial Strength Rating of B+ (Good) and the Long-Term Issuer Credit Rating of "bbb-" (Good) of American Sentinel Insurance Company (American Sentinel) (Harrisburg, PA). These Credit Ratings (ratings) were under review with developing implications pending the sale of American Sentinel. The sale of American Sentinel to Pie Carrier Holdings was withdrawn. All the business in American Sentinel has been moved over into an affiliate, Aegis Security Insurance Company (Aegis). The new and renewal book of business for American Sentinel has been rolled over to Aegis, effective Jan. 1, 2021. Additionally, the company has received regulatory approval to enter into a Loss Portfolio Transfer and Quota Share Agreement between American Sentinel and Aegis, and management moved all of the reserves to Aegis. At the current time, American Sentinel is a shell company with no premium or reserves. AM Best's policy is for a final rating to be completed along with a rating withdrawal. However, a final rating could not be completed due to the lack of business and forward-looking financial information necessary to support the formation of a current rating opinion. This press release relates to Credit Ratings that have been published on AM Best's website. For all rating information relating to the release and pertinent disclosues, including details of the office responsible for issuing each of the individual ratings referenced in this release, please see AM Best's Recent Rating Activity web page. For additional information regarding the use and limitations of Credit Rating opinions, please view Guide to Best's Credit Ratings. For information on the proper use of Best's Credit Ratings, Best's Preliminary Credit Assessments and AM Best press releases, please view Guide to Proper Use of Best's Ratings & Assessments.



AM Best is a global credit rating agency, news publisher and data analytics provider specializing in the insurance industry. Headquartered in the United States, the company does business in over 100 countries with regional offices in London, Amsterdam, Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Mexico City. For more information, visit www.ambest.com. Copyright  2021 by A.M. Best Rating Services, Inc. and/or its affiliates. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005849/en/

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[September 16, 2021] MineRigor.com Hosts a Webinar on Crypto-Mining for Investors Looking to Add to Their Financial Portfolio

ORLANDO, Fla., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- A new technology company, Mine Rigor, is introducing a turn-key solution for setting up a profitable, high-performance crypto mining operation. The company's new crypto mining systems are preconfigured with the best hardware backed by a three-year warranty from the best OEM partners in North America. Who can benefit from the technology? Investors looking for passive income with crypto currency

Novice Miners who are looking for supported, warrantied systems

Cryptocurrency enthusiasts who want to learn about mining and how to get started "With the exponential growth of cryptocurrencies over the last few months, many individuals are looking for new ways to generate passive income," said the founder of Mine Rigor. "Our systems are preconfigured with the latest hardware and are backed by a three-year warranty, and on-site support fro our OEM distributor."



Mine Rigor has announced hosting a free webinar about cryptocurrency mining, their turnkey systems and how the get started in crypto mining. This is important for anyone who is looking to learn about cryptocurrency mining or looking for another stream of income. "We are seeing an increased demand for mining systems, which is why we are holding the live webinar to discuss our systems and their capabilities," said the founder of Mine Rigor. "We are big believers in cryptocurrency and want to help the community understand the technology behind it. We want to help educate people on how to get started with mining." Those interested can register for the webinar here, the webinar is free and will be held on September 30, 2021, at 2:00 p.m. EDT. Those interested can register to attend our Zoom here: https://bit.ly/3CieaD6

There are only a limited number of seats are available, book your slot now. Press Contact:

Sitehues Media

www.sitehues.com Company Contact:

Sean Richard

Phone: 352.818.9694

Email: info@minerigor.com

www.minerigor.com View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/minerigorcom-hosts-a-webinar-on-crypto-mining-for-investors-looking-to-add-to-their-financial-portfolio-301379104.html SOURCE Mine Rigor

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[September 16, 2021] The NAGA Group AG: Christian Angermayer's Apeiron Investment Group and Fosun Join Forces to Further Drive NAGA Growth

NAGA Group AG (XETRA: N4G, ISIN: DE000A161NR7), provider of the social network for trading, cryptocurrencies and payments NAGA.com, announces its largest equity financing round to date and welcomes Apeiron Investment Group Ltd, the private investment company of entrepreneur and investor Christian Angermayer, and Igor Lychagov, founder of Exness (one of the world's largest brokerage firms with a monthly trading volume of USD 1 trillion) as new strategic and long-term investors. Hauck & Aufhauser acted as sole bookrunner in the transaction. In addition to participating in the capital increase, Apeiron has entered into a share purchase agreement with its Elevat3 strategy, operating in partnership with Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, to purchase a block of shares from FOSUN Group and is in negotiations to acquire additional shares from other shareholders. These transactions are subject to regulatory approvals. In total and upon full completion, Apeiron is targeting a stake of approximately 22% in NAGA. Following the strategic investment, the Supervisory Board is to be increased from four to five members at the upcoming Annual General Meeting. The company will propose to elect Christian Angermayer as a new member of the Supervisory Board. In order to be able to add this agenda item to the upcoming Annual General Meeting, the date of the Annual General Meeting was postponed from September 23, 2021 to October 11, 2021. Benjamin Bilski, Founder and CEO says: "We are delighted to welcome Aeiron with its Elevat3 strategy as a new strategic partner. We have worked very hard over the last few years and this partnership is an absolute milestone for us. Already, NAGA has more than 1 million registered accounts, operates in more than 100 countries and is on track to grow revenue by more than 100% in 2021 compared to 2020. And that's just the beginning. I believe that NAGA's growth can be accelerated with the proceeds of the current capital increase and with the strategic input of our new shareholders. "



Christian Angermayer comments: "NAGA is one of the fastest growing neo-brokers in the world. The company has impressively proven that combining social media, investments, cryptocurrencies and payments on one platform attracts a new generation of investors who are used to a simple user experience and all services just a tap away. This retail investment market is growing rapidly and offers tremendous potential. I am very much looking forward to working with the founders, the board, Igor and Fosun." Alan Liu, global partner of Fosun and board member NAGA said, "We are delighted to be working with Christian, who has a proven track record of building global technology champions. We are also honored to welcome Igor Lychagov to our investor table, his retail brokerage experience is truly second to none."

NAGA also announces its new investor relations website. At https://www.group.naga.com, the company will provide investors with detailed information about the company and its performance, as well as regular company presentations, trading updates and videos. About NAGA NAGA is an innovative fintech company that seamlessly connects personal finance transactions and investments through its social trading platform. The company's proprietary platform offers a range of products from stock trading, investments and cryptocurrencies to a physical Mastercard. Additionally, the platform allows for exchanges with other traders, provides relevant information in the feed, and autocopy features for successful members' trades. NAGA is a synergistic total solution that is easily accessible and inclusive. It provides an enhanced foundation to trade, invest, network, earn and pay. This applies to both fiat and crypto products. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005857/en/

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[September 16, 2021] KBRA Assigns Preliminary Ratings to Glenbeigh 2 Issuer 2021-2 DAC

Kroll Bond Rating Agency Europe Limited (KBRA) assigns preliminary ratings to six classes of notes issued by Glenbeigh 2 Issuer 2021-2 DAC (Glenbeigh 2). The transaction a static RMBS securitisation backed by seasoned buy-to-let (BTL) mortgage loans. The underlying provisional collateral consists of a 1.1 billion portfolio of seasoned first lien performing and re-performing mortgages that are secured by buy-to-let (BTL) properties located in Ireland. The loans in the portfolio were originated by Permanent TSB plc and were sold on 13 November 2021 to Citibank, N.A., London Branch (Sponsor) which transferred the beneficial interest of the portfolio to Glenbeigh 2 Seller DAC (Interim Seller under Glenbeigh 2) and in turn to Glenbeigh 2 Seller 2021-2 DAC (Seller under Glenbeigh 2). The servicing of the loans was transferred to Pepper Finance Corporation (Ireland) DAC (Pepper) in March 2021. The Notes' payment priority is strictly sequential. The aggregate note issuance is expected to be equal to the collateral balance. Certain Notes also have the benefit of a Liquidity Reserve Fund (LRF) and a General Reserve Fund (GRF). The Class A Notes are rated for timely interest payments and ultimate payment of principal while all other rated notes are rated for ultimate payment of interest and ultimate payment of principal. Click here to view the report. To access ratings and relevant documents, click here. Related Publications European RMBS Rating Methodology

European RMBS Rating Methodology Country Addendum: United Kingdom

Global Structured Finance Counterparty Methodology

ESG Global Rating Methodology



Disclosures Further information on key credit considerations, sensitivity analyses that consider what factors can affect these credit ratings and how they could lead to an upgrade or a downgrade, and ESG factors (where they are a key driver behind the change to the credit rating or rating outlook) can be found in the full rating report referenced above.

A description of all substantially material sources that were used to prepare the credit rating and information on the methodology(ies) (inclusive of any material models and sensitivity analyses of the relevant key rating assumptions, as applicable) used in determining the credit rating is available in the Information Disclosure Form(s) located here. Information on the meaning of each rating category can be located here. This credit rating is endorsed by Kroll Bond Rating Agency UK Limited for use in the UK. Information on a credit rating's endorsement status is available on its rating page at KBRA.com. Further disclosures relating to this rating action are available in the Information Disclosure Form(s) referenced above. Additional information regarding KBRA policies, methodologies, rating scales and disclosures are available at www.kbra.com. About KBRA Europe Kroll Bond Rating Agency, LLC (KBRA) is a full-service credit rating agency registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as an NRSRO. Kroll Bond Rating Agency Europe Limited is registered as a CRA with the European Securities and Markets Authority. Kroll Bond Rating Agency UK Limited is registered as a CRA with the UK Financial Conduct Authority pursuant to the Temporary Registration Regime. In addition, KBRA is designated as a designated rating organization by the Ontario Securities Commission for issuers of asset-backed securities to file a short form prospectus or shelf prospectus. KBRA is also recognized by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners as a Credit Rating Provider. Kroll Bond Rating Agency Europe is located at 6-8 College Green, Dublin 2, Ireland. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005874/en/

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[September 16, 2021] BankPlus Donates $100,000 to Saints and Pelicans Gulf Coast Renewal Fund, Supporting Nonprofits Impacted by Hurricane Ida

As nonprofits and community organizations along the Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf Coast begin rebuilding and repairing damages incurred from the recent impact of Hurricane Ida, BankPlus has announced a donation of $100,000 to the Saints and Pelicans Gulf Coast Renewal Fund. The BankPlus donation will support nonprofits which are providing essentials and services to those in need. "BankPlus is committed to helping rebuild our communities," said Bill Ray, CEO of BankPlus. "We know the Saints and Pelicans Gulf Coast Renewal Fund will put our donation to good use. The funds will ensure community organizations can continue to provide resources and necessities over the long-term rebuilding process." "I would like to thank Bill Ray and BankPlus for this generous donation to the Saints and Pelicans Gulf Coast Renewal Fund. My late husband Tom and I first became well-acquainted with Bill and his wife Sara when we held training camp at Millsaps College in Jackson, and I am proud to call them close friends," said Gayle Benson, owner of the Saints and Pelicans. "With the support of BankPlus and may other great community-oriented companies both in the Gulf South and nationally, the Renewal Fund will continue to be able to provide important support to the nonprofits that are doing such important relief work in our region."



"When we welcomed the Saints to Jackson after Hurricane Katrina, we saw just how much their efforts meant to the entire Gulf Coast region. Now, after Hurricane Ida, we are proud to join forces with the Saints and Pelicans to help those who need it most along the Gulf," Ray said. Individuals or businesses interested in contributing to the Gulf Coast Renewal Fund can do so by visiting NewOrleansSaints.com/hurricaneida.

About BankPlus

Founded in 1909, BankPlus is one of the Southeast's premier regional banks serving consumers and businesses with the latest technology through a full suite of financial services, including retail banking, commercial banking, mortgage lending and wealth management. With over $5 billion in total assets, BankPlus operates 79 financial centers throughout Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana. For more information about BankPlus, visit www.bankplus.net. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005910/en/

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[September 16, 2021] Nils Andersen-Roed joins Binance from Europol to further strengthen investigations and audit team

SINGAPORE, Sept. 16, 2021 /CNW/ -- Binance , the world's leading blockchain ecosystem and cryptocurrency infrastructure provider, has grown its Audit and Investigations team again with the hire of Nils Andersen-Roed from Europol where he was a specialist on the Dark Web team. His focus will be on conducting and leading internal and external investigations with the purpose of identifying bad actors that attempt to commit crimes on Binance's platforms and to protect users' funds, as well as proactively supporting law enforcement agencies with their investigations. Nils' appointment strengthens an already strong team of security specialists working hard to make sure Binance remains the most secure crypto ecosystem around. Before his role atEuropol, Nils was the Project Leader of the Dark Web Unit of the Dutch National Police. He was also the Project Leader of Operation Gravesac/Bayonet, coordinating the takeover and takedown of the dark web marketplaces Hansa Market and Alphabay. Together with colleagues around the world, Nils was instrumental in this global operation. During this action a huge amount of information regarding illicit trades was being gathered and shared with other law enforcement agencies which has led to many arrests around the globe and contributed greatly to cleaning up the crypto industry.



Nils Andersen-Roed commented: "After many years working in law enforcement I am excited to tackle new challenges in the Binance Audit and Investigations team. Over the years I have learned that simply arresting criminals isn't enough to combat crime, you also need to take a broader look at the whole ecosystem in which they are operating. Criminals and other bad actors try to misuse crypto for illegal purposes, which can have an impact on innocent participants of the whole industry. At Binance I will be in a position to keep the platforms and users safe from these bad actors while assisting law enforcement agencies around the world with their investigations and secure prosecutions." "My goal is to make the cryptocurrency industry (and Binance specifically) a safer place. International collaboration between the industry and law enforcement agencies is key, criminals don't care about borders. Increased collaboration between the public and private sector will also be beneficial when it comes to fighting crime and making this industry a safer place for everyone."

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1628261/Binance_Nils_Andersen_Roed.jpg View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nils-andersen-roed-joins-binance-from-europol-to-further-strengthen-investigations-and-audit-team-301379153.html SOURCE Binance

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[September 16, 2021] Ranger Energy Services, Inc. Agrees to Acquire Basic Energy Services Assets From Chapter 11 Bankruptcy

Ranger Energy Services, Inc. (NYSE: RNGR) (the "Company") today announced that its controlled subsidiary Ranger Energy Acquisition, LLC (the "Buyer") was selected as the successful bidder at an auction to acquire certain assets of Basic Energy Services, Inc. and its subsidiaries ("Basic"). The Buyer's winning bid at a competitive auction conducted by Basic under section 363 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code was for a cash purchase price of $36.65 million and includes Basic's business lines outside the State of California (excluding the water logistic business), specifically all assets within the well servicing service line, all assets within the fishing and rental tool service lines, all assets within the coiled tubing service line, all rolling stock assets required to support the operating assets being purchased and real property locations inclusive of, but not limited to, real property owned in New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas. The Company currently expects to pay the cash purchase price with proceeds from the private placement described below. Stuart Bodden, President and Chief Executive Officer of Ranger stated, "We are very pleased to continue the expansion of our scale and scope with this latest acquisition. Combined with the Patriot (News - Alert) and PerfX transactions earlier this year, the Basic assets strengthen our ability serve clients in our markets and to drive ongoing growth in both revenue and free cash flow." The closing of the transaction is subject to various conditions, including approval by the bankruptcy court. A hearing to seek court approval is scheduled for September 23, 2021, and the transaction is expected to be concluded by the end of September 2021. The Company expects to hold an investor call and provide additional information regarding the transactions described herein in connection with the closing. Credit Facility The Company today announced that its controlled subsidiary RNGR Energy Services, LLC ("Ranger LLC") received a debt commitment letter from Eclipse Business Capital LLC and Eclipse Business Capital SPV, LLC with regard to a new $77.5 million credit facility consisting of a $50 million revolving credit facility, a $12.5 million M&E term loan facility and a $15 million term loan B facility. The closing of the credit facility is subject to various conditions including entry into definitive documents and, with respect to the term loan B facility, the simultaneous close of the Basic asset acquisition. Ranger LLC currently expects to use a portion of the proceeds received from the revolving credit facility to pay off existing indebtedness. The credit facility is available at the Company's option and would be pledged against certain asset sales. Private Placement <> The Company today announced that it entered into a definitive agreement on September 10, 2021, with several purchasers to issue an aggregate amount of $42 million of shares of its newly issued Series A Convertible Preferred Stock (the "Preferred Stock"). The Preferred Stock will be non-voting except under certain limited circumstances. In connection with the private placement, the Company has also agreed to grant customary registration rights to the purchasers. The Preferred Stock will automatically convert into shares of Class A Common Stock of the Company upon the later of (i) receipt of stockholder approval, which the Company expects to seek at a special meeting of stockholders following the closing of the transaction, or (ii) the effectiveness of the shelf registration statement, which the Company expects to file as soon as practicable following the Closing, to register the shares of Class A Common Stock convertible from the Preferred Stock. Affiliates of CSL Capital Management, L.P. ("CSL") and Bayou Well Holdings Company, LLC ("Bayou") have agreed to vote in favor of the preferred stock conversion.



The closing of the private placement is subject to various conditions, including the simultaneous close of the Basic asset acquisition. The Company is expected to contribute a portion of the proceeds received from the private placement to the Buyer to fund the Basic asset acquisition. Tax Receivable Agreement Termination and Class B Redemption

The Company today announced that it entered into a definitive agreement with affiliates of CSL and Bayou pursuant to which the Tax Receivable Agreement, dated August 16, 2017, was terminated, effective on September 10, 2021. In consideration of the termination of the Tax Receivable Agreement, the Company will issue an aggregate of 376,185 shares of Class A Common Stock of the Company to affiliates of CSL and Bayou. The shares will be issued upon receipt of stockholder approval, which the Company expects to seek at a special meeting of shareholders following the closing of the transaction. Affiliates of CSL and Bayou also consented to the redemption by Ranger LLC of their outstanding units in Ranger LLC and the redemption by the Company of corresponding shares of Class B Common Stock of the Company for an equivalent number of shares of Class A Common Stock of the Company, or cash, at the election of Ranger LLC or the Company, as the case may be. The redemptions are contingent on the closing of the private placement and the Basic asset acquisition. Following the redemptions, no shares of Class B Common Stock of the Company will be issued and outstanding. Advisors Piper Sandler is serving as exclusive financial advisor to the Company with respect to the Basic asset acquisition and sole placement agent with respect to the debt financing and private placement of Preferred Stock. Winston & Strawn LLP is serving as legal counsel to the Company. About Ranger Energy Services, Inc. Ranger is an independent provider of well service rigs and associated services in the United States, with a focus on unconventional horizontal well completion and production operations. Ranger also provides services necessary to bring and maintain a well on production. The Processing Solutions segment engages in the rental, installation, commissioning, start-up, operation and maintenance of MRUs, Natural Gas Liquid stabilizer and storage units and related equipment. Cautionary Statement Concerning Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements contained in this press release constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These forward-looking statements represent Ranger's expectations or beliefs concerning future events, including the closings of the Basic asset acquisition, debt financing and private placement of Preferred Stock, and it is possible that the results described in this press release will not be achieved. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are outside of Ranger's control that could cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it is made, and, except as required by law, Ranger does not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. New factors emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for Ranger to predict all such factors. When considering these forward-looking statements, you should keep in mind the risk factors and other cautionary statements in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The risk factors and other factors noted in Ranger's filings with the SEC (News - Alert) could cause its actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005911/en/

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[September 16, 2021] Worldwide Identity Verification Industry to 2026 - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact and Forecasts - ResearchAndMarkets.com

The "Identity Verification Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2021 - 2026)" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The global identity verification market was valued at USD 7.66 billion in 2020. It is expected to reach USD 16.65 billion by 2026, registering a CAGR of 13.29% during the forecast period (2021-2026). Companies Mentioned Mastercard Inc.

Onfido Limited

Acuant Inc.

Intellicheck Inc.

Jumio Corporation

Trulioo Information Services Inc.

Mitek Systems Inc.

Veriff

IBM (News - Alert) Corporation (Trusteer)

AuthenticID

Experian PLC

TransUnion

Trunarrative

Pindrop

Neustar Inc.

Nuance Communications (News - Alert) Inc. Key Market Trends Financial Services Accounts for the Largest Market Share Digital ID verification is increasingly becoming a vital part of banking, and the industry is expected to command a significant share of the global market during the forecast period. It is one of the highly regulated, governed industries, and it is also prone to identity frauds that augment the demand.

Banks and financial service providers, including pension and insurance providers, have a stringent identity and personal data requirements, often known as the 'Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements. Whether opening a bank account, switching accounts, taking out life insurance, or accessing pension records, a customer's identity, several such attributes are required to be gathered and verified as part of a firm's risk-based assessment and legal obligations.

Additionally, Metal Pay, a peer-to-peer payments platform that allows users to buy, sell, trade, and send crypto using cryptocurrency trading pairs or fiat money, wanted to differentiate itself from its competitors by offering a quick and seamless account opening process. The company had requirements to comply with strit AML and KYC requirements, so identity verification during the account opening process became a critical component in minimizing risk and eliminating fraud.

Globally, the financial industry is on the verge of a digital revolution, with an increasing propensity toward fintech to promote digital payments, where fintech operates with customers digitally, similar to banks and financial institutions' work. The growing fintech investments worldwide are expected to influence the adoption of identity verifications as competition increases and vendors intensely focus on gaining new customers.

Furthermore, new government regulations, such as the European Union's Revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2), require banks to provide each other with access to account information and transaction data. This suggests that there is more incentive than ever for a unified digital identity system that seamlessly allows users to verify their identities across a range of FIs.



Asia Pacific to Witness Significant Market Growth The Asia-Pacific region is home to some densely populated countries, such as India and China. The region is one of the fastest adopters of technology with increasing internet penetration. Also, as these emerging economies adopt digitalization, the risk of breach of customer data and data channels has been growing. The demand for the prevention of identity theft solutions has been increasing in the region.

Furthermore, Asia-Pacific is one of the fastest-growing regions in terms of GDP, which induced expansion of the existing corporates and new startups. It created the demand for fast, secure, and paperless digital transactions across these growing corporates, increasing the need for secure identity verification solutions to prevent data breaches.

Moreover, countries like Singapore, one of Asia's most advanced nations in the digital banking segment, have the widest variety of digital offerings in Asia. Globally, Singapore has the second-highest inclination for digital banking. However, the growing number of multinational corporations in Singapore also makes the country vulnerable to cyber attacks.

In 2020, the Singaporean government launched the SingPass digital identity platform, which allows secure digital signatures for property caveats. This initiative is in line with the digital government blueprint target to enable citizens to complete between 90% and 95% of their e-government transactions without leaving their homes by 2023. This project is expected to allow for digital document signing on several platforms. It is also likely to extend into the corporate use ecosystem to benefit businesses in the private sector, particularly those in legal and financial services and telecommunications. Key Topics Covered:

1 INTRODUCTION 2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 4 MARKET INSIGHTS 4.1 Market Overview 4.2 Industry Attractiveness - Porter's Five Forces Analysis 4.3 Assessment of Impact of COVID-19 on the Industry 5 MARKET DYNAMICS 5.1 Market Drivers 5.1.1 Adoption of Solution Through Stringent Regulations and Need For Compliance 5.1.2 Adoption of BYOD Trends in Enterprises 5.2 Market Challenges 5.2.1 Budgetary Constraints During the Adoption of Identity Verification Solutions 5.3 Market View of Different Types of Solutions 5.3.1 Document/ID Verification 5.3.2 Digital/Electronic Identity Verification 5.3.3 Authentication 6 MARKET SEGMENTATION 6.1 By Deployment Type 6.2 By End-user Industry 6.3 Geography 7 COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE 7.1 Company Profiles 8 INVESTMENT ANALYSIS 9 FUTURE OUTLOOK OF THE MARKET For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/c49vig View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210916005915/en/

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[September 16, 2021] Governor Northam provides keynote at M.C. Dean Facility ribbon cutting

RUTHER GLEN, Va., Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Governor Ralph Northam today delivered the keynote speech at a ribbon cutting event for M.C. Dean, Inc.'s $25.1M manufacturing center expansion. The center serves as the home to ModularMEP, M.C. Dean's line of customizable, fully integrated, tested, and secure modular electrical buildings, rooms, and assemblies shipped to project and construction sites across the United States and select international locations. The expansion project doubles M.C. Dean's manufacturing capacity to support high growth, mission-critical customers, including data centers, airports, and healthcare facilities. "M.C. Dean has been a valued partner in Virginia for over 70 years, and has played a critical role in the growth of the Commonwealth's advanced manufacturing sector," said Governor Northam. "Virginia's extensive infrastructure networks and world-class workforce, two of the reasons why the Commonwealth was named top state for business two years in a row, allow companies to expand and thrive like M.C. Dean. We are excited to have them in Caroline County, and we look forward to supporting all of their future succeses."



M.C. Dean, headquartered in Tysons, Virginia, employs more than 4,500 professionals who engineer and deploy automated, secure, and resilient power and technology systems; and deliver management platforms essential for long-term system sustainability. M.C. Dean began development of the manufacturing center in 2003 and opened in 2006. The company has made three rounds of investment at the site over the past 15 years with the support of Caroline County and the Virginia Economic Development Partnership. Today the campus, known as the Caroline County Center for Innovation and Industry, includes more than 300,000 square feet of ModularMEP manufacturing capacity on 585-acres. The campus also includes 220 new acres of ready-to-develop land to support future expansion. "Our ModularMEP expansion allows us to scale with our mission-critical customers' demand for modular power and technology systems that deliver enhanced quality, safety, and speed to market," said Bill Dean, M.C. Dean chief executive officer. "By investing in our home state of Virginia, we're able to serve major hubs for technology and federal clients with easy access to several large ports and I-95 for distribution. We also have access to great technology and manufacturing talent between Richmond and the D.C. corridor."

The Virginia Economic Development Partnership worked with Caroline County to secure the project for Virginia. Governor Northam approved a $500,000 grant from the Commonwealth's Opportunity Fund to assist Caroline County with the project. The governor also approved a $250,000 performance-based grant from the Virginia Investment (VIP) program, an incentive that encourages capital investment by existing Virginia companies. Funding and services to support the company's employee training activities will be provided through the Virginia Jobs Investment Program (VJIP). "M.C. Dean has helped Caroline County become a technology employment center in the region, stimulating growth, while adding capital improvements that allow further development on the site," said Reginald Underwood, Chairman, Caroline County Board of Supervisors from the Reedy Church District. "Strategically located along the I-95 corridor between Washington, D.C. and Richmond, Caroline County is ideal for manufacturing, distribution, and data centers. Caroline County welcomes additional growth and development through technology investment." M.C. Dean is hiring: For more information on current job opportunities, visit mcdean.com/careers. About M.C. Dean M.C. Dean is Building Intelligence. We design, build, operate, and maintain cyber-physical solutions for the nation's most recognizable mission-critical facilities, secure environments, complex infrastructure, and global enterprises. The company's capabilities include electrical, electronic security, telecommunications, life-safety, instrumentation and control, and command and control systems. M.C. Dean is headquartered in Tysons, Virginia and employs more than 4,500 professionals who engineer and deploy automated, secure, and resilient power and technology systems; and deliver the management platforms essential for long-term system sustainability. M.C. Dean Media Contacts:

Regine de la Cruz, regine.delacruz@mcdean.com

Mobile: 202-430-1389 Ramneek Kaur, ramneek.kaur@mcdean.com

Mobile: 202-446-6116 B-Roll: M.C. Dean Facility Ribbon Cutting - https://vimeo.com/606777053/d357ee177d View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/governor-northam-provides-keynote-at-mc-dean-facility-ribbon-cutting-301379165.html SOURCE M.C. Dean, Inc.

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NASHVILLE The Tennessee Department of Commerce & Insurances (TDCI) Securities Division is partnering with the Investor Protection Trust and PBS Books to produce the How to Make Your Earnings Work for You - Through Retirement virtual event that will livestream on TDCIs Facebook page on Friday, Sept. 17, 2021 at 12:00 p.m. CT/1:00 p.m. ET.

How to Make Your Earnings Work for You - Through Retirement, explores ways to ensure that the money you earn today will cover your expenses later in life. Whether you are new to the workforce or close to embracing retirement, its important to know how and when to adjust investment accounts. Whether you are grinding away as a newbie in your career or slowing down as you gear up for retirement, making sure the money you earn today will cover your expenses later in life is an important conversation to have.

Engage with financial experts by asking questions live  via Facebook  and begin charting the path that makes sense for you. Panelists include Laura Adams, (host of the Money Girl podcast), Chris Browning (Popcorn Finance blogger), Pam Krueger (founder and CEO of Wealthramp) and Elle Martinez (host of the Couple Money podcast).

Following the live event, a recording of the one-hour program will be available on WI65.org along with a variety of tools and resources for savers and investors of all ages and at all stages of life. Videos of previous sessions can be seen in their entirety here.

How to Make Your Earnings Work for You - Through Retirement is the seventh in a series of 60-minute When Im 65 Boomers to Zoomers: Building a Secure Path to Retirement virtual events. The When Im 65 Boomers to Zoomers: Building a Secure Path to Retirement is a yearlong series of 12 60-minute virtual events livestreaming via Facebook Live on partner Facebook pages on a Friday each month at 12:00 p.m. CT/1:00 p.m. ET.

This series provides all Americans with quality and objective information needed to make wise and safe investment decisions at every age and every stage of life. The Boomers to Zoomers virtual events are interactive and feature timely topics, financial experts, motivational stories and practical information viewers can use immediately to prepare for long-term financial security. For more information visit, WI65.org.

###

About These Groups

About the Tennessee Department of Commerce & Insurance: Fostering fair marketplaces, public safety, and consumer education that promote the success of individuals and businesses while serving as innovative leaders. Our divisions include the State Fire Marshals Office, Insurance, Securities, Regulatory Boards, Tennessee Law Enforcement Training Academy, Tennessee Emergency Communications Board and TennCare Oversight. https://www.tn.gov/commerce.html | https://www.facebook.com/Tennessee- CommerceAndInsurance | https://twitter.com/TNCommerceInsur



The Investor Protection Trust (IPT) is a nonprofit organization devoted to investor education. More than half of all Americans are now invested in the securities markets, making investor education and protection vitally important. Since 1993 the Investor Protection Trust has worked with the states and at the national level to provide the independent, objective investor education needed by all Americans to make wise and safe investment decisions. www.investorprotection.org | facebook.com/InvestorProtectionTrust | twitter.com/IPT_Info

PBS Books is a multi-platform initiative celebrating PBS programming. Born out of the desire to develop original content that would appeal to vast audience of diverse readers, PBS Books hosts regular social and digital engagement events, as well as live coverage of important literary events across the country. In 2018, PBS Books launched a Library Engagement Program to build and enhance working relationships among libraries, local PBS stations, cultural institutions, and readers. Today, the Library Network has more than 1,800 partners. www.pbsbooks.org | www.facebook.com/PBSBooks1 | twitter.com/pbsbooks
ANDERSON COUNTY, US 25/SR 9 Bridge over Clinch River between SR 61 and Carden Farm Drive: SR 9 northbound is reduced to one lane approaching the bridge as crews continue work in this area. Motorists should be alert for workers present, changing conditions, lane shifts, and use extreme caution through this bridge construction project.

BLOUNT COUNTY, US 129 North and South between SR 35 Hall Road and Tyson Boulevard: US 129 North is reduced to one lane between Hall Road and Hunt Road as crews perform widening and roadway realignment through this project. This closure will remain in place around the clock for an estimated four to six weeks. Motorists should expect potential delays during peak travel times. Motorists should be alert for workers present and brief stoppages of traffic through this roadway construction project. For project information, go to https://www.tn.gov/tdot/projects/projects-region-1/sr-115-alcoa-highway-hall-road-to-tyson-blvd.html

BLOUNT COUNTY, SR 335 Hunt Road between Ambrose Street and Ramsay Street: Motorists should be alert for possible lane closures at various times as crews install utilities through this construction project. Motorists should be alert for workers present directing traffic and use extreme caution through this area.

BLOUNT COUNTY, SR 33 between Foothills Mall Drive and Henry Street: Motorists should be alert for possible nightly lane closures between the hours of 7 p.m. and 6 a.m. the following morning through this intersection improvement construction project. Motorists should be alert for workers present, changed conditions, and use extreme caution through this area.

BLOUNT COUNTY, US 411/ SR 35 between High Street and Sevier County Line: Motorists should be alert for possible lane closures between the hours of 7 p.m. and 6 a.m. the following morning through this resurfacing project. Motorists should be alert for workers present, possible delays, and use extreme caution through this area.

CAMPBELL COUNTY, I-75 North and South between Mile Markers 135 and 142: Motorists should be alert for possible temporary lane closures between the hours of 7 p.m. and 6 a.m. the following morning through this project. Motorists should be alert for slowed or stopped traffic, expect potential delays, and use extreme caution through this area.

CAMPBELL COUNTY, SR 63 between Myers Lane and Frontier Road/Woodson Lane: Motorists should be alert for possible temporary lane closures between the hours of 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and/or 7 p.m. and 6 a.m. the following morning through this construction project. Motorists should be alert for slowed or stopped traffic, expect potential delays and use extreme caution

through this area.

CARTER COUNTY, US 19E/SR 37 Bridge over the Doe River and Riverview Road: Motorists should be alert for possible lane closures through this bridge repair project. Motorists should be alert for workers present, slowed traffic, and use extreme caution in this area.

CARTER COUNTY, SR 37 between Doe River Bridge and Willow Lane: Motorists should be alert for possible lane closures between the hours of 9 a.m. and 8 p.m. through this resurfacing project. Motorists should be alert for workers present, possible delays, and use extreme caution through this area.

CARTER COUNTY, SR 37 between Log Miles 8.3 and 13.3: Motorists should be alert for possible lane closures daily between the hours of 9 a.m. and 8 p.m. through this resurfacing and safety project. Motorists should be alert for workers and equipment present, expect potential delays, and use extreme caution through this area.

CARTER COUNTY, SR 67 between SR 359 and SR 91: Motorists should be alert for possible lane closures during daylight hours through this resurfacing project. Motorists should be alert for workers present, possible delays, and use extreme caution through this area.

CARTER COUNTY, SR 173 between Log Miles 0 and 4.2: Motorists should be alert for possible lane closures daily between the hours of 9 a.m. and 8 p.m. through this resurfacing and safety project. Motorists should be alert for workers and equipment present, expect potential delays, and use extreme caution through this area.

CARTER COUNTY, SR 359 between I-26 and Milligan Highway: Motorists should be alert for possible lane closures during daylight hours through this resurfacing project. Motorists should be alert for workers present, possible delays, and use extreme caution through this area.

CLAIBORNE COUNTY, SR 33 between New Hope Road and Russell Road: Motorists should be alert for possible lane closures between the hours of 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. through this resurfacing project. Motorists should be alert for workers present, expect delays and use extreme caution through this area

CLAIBORNE COUNTY, SR 63 between Old Town Creek and US 25E/SR 32: Motorists should be alert for possible lane closures through this construction project. Motorists should be alert for workers present, expect delays and use extreme caution through this area.

COCKE/GREENE COUNTY, SR 35 between Cloud Way and Bright Hope Road: Motorists should be alert for possible lane closures during daylight hours through this resurfacing project. Motorists should be alert for workers present, possible delays, and use extreme caution through this area.

GREENE COUNTY, US 11E/SR 34 both directions between Blue Springs Parkway and Forest Road in Mosheim: Motorists should be alert for lane closures and lane shifts through this area for bridge repair operations. These lane closures will remain in place 24/7 until repairs are complete. Motorists should be alert for workers present, changing conditions, and use extreme caution in this area. This bridge repair project is estimated to be complete on or before October 31, 2021.

HAMBLEN COUNTY, I-81 South between Mile Markers 16.5 and 15.5: On Monday, September 20, 2021 and Tuesday, September 21, 2021, motorists should be alert for possible temporary lane closures between the hours of 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. as crews perform roadway maintenance activities. Motorists should be alert for workers present, slowed traffic, expect potential delays, and use extreme caution through this area.

HAMBLEN COUNTY, SR 34 between Jefferson County Line and Walters Drive: Motorists should be alert for possible lane closures between the hours of 7 p.m. and 6 a.m. the following morning through this resurfacing project. Motorists should be alert for workers present, expect possible delays, and use caution through this area.

JEFFERSON COUNTY, I-40 West near Mile Marker 414: On Monday, September 20, 2021, motorists should be alert for possible lane closures between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. the following morning as crews perform guardrail repairs. Motorists should be alert for workers present, expect possible delays, and use caution through this area.

KNOX COUNTY, I-40 East and West between Mile Markers 369 and 375: Motorists should be alert for possible temporary lane closures nightly between the hours of 7 p.m. and 6 a.m. the following morning through this resurfacing project. Motorists should be alert for workers present, slowed traffic, expect potential delays, and use extreme caution through this area.

KNOX COUNTY, I-40 West near Mile Marker 378.6: On Sunday, September 19, 2021, motorists should be alert for possible lane closures between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. the following morning as crews perform guardrail repairs. Motorists should be alert for workers present, expect possible delays, and use caution through this area.

KNOX COUNTY, I-40 East between Mile Markers 385.5 and 386.6: On Monday, September 20, 2021 and Tuesday, September 21, 2021, motorists should be alert for possible lane closures between the hours of 7 p.m. and 5 a.m. the following morning as crews perform roadway maintenance repairs. Motorists should be alert for workers present, expect possible delays, and use caution through this area.

KNOX COUNTY, I-40 East near Mile Marker 391.4: On Friday, September 17, 2021, motorists should be alert for possible lane closures between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. the following morning as crews perform guardrail repairs. Motorists should be alert for workers present, expect possible delays, and use caution through this area.

KNOX COUNTY, I-40 West near Mile Markers 393.4 and 404.3: On Friday, September 17, 2021, motorists should be alert for possible lane closures between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. the following morning as crews perform guardrail repairs. Motorists should be alert for workers present, expect possible delays, and use caution through this area.

KNOX COUNTY, I-140 West near Mile Marker 2.5: On Sunday, September 19, 2021, motorists should be alert for possible lane closures between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. the following morning as crews perform guardrail repairs. Motorists should be alert for workers present, expect possible delays, and use caution through this area.

KNOX COUNTY, I-640 East and West between Mile Markers 0 and 3.6: Motorists should be alert for possible temporary lane closures nightly between the hours of 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. the following morning through this milling and resurfacing project. Motorists should be alert for workers present, slowed traffic, expect potential delays, and use extreme caution through this area.

KNOX COUNTY, I-640 West near Mile Marker 7.1: On Sunday, September 19, 2021, motorists should be alert for possible lane closures between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. the following morning as crews perform guardrail repairs. Motorists should be alert for workers present, expect possible delays, and use caution through this area.

KNOX COUNTY, I-640 Ramps at Exit 8: Motorists should be alert for possible temporary lane closures nightly between the hours of 7 p.m. and 6 a.m. the following morning through this construction project. Motorists should be alert for workers present, slowed traffic, expect potential delays, and use extreme caution through this area.

KNOX COUNTY, Various Interstates through Knoxville: Motorists should be alert for possible mobile lane closures nightly between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. the following morning as crews perform roadway maintenance activities. Motorists should be alert for workers present, slow or stopped traffic, and use extreme caution in this area.

KNOX COUNTY, US 129/SR 115 Alcoa Highway between Topside Road and Maloney Road: Motorists should be alert for possible temporary lane closures and lane shifts as crews perform work through this project. Motorists should be alert for new traffic patterns. Motorists should be alert for workers present, reduce speed and use extreme caution through this area. For project information, go to https://www.tn.gov/tdot/projects/projects-region-1/sr-115-alcoa-highway-little-river-to-maloney.html

KNOX COUNTY, US 129/SR 115 Alcoa Highway between Maloney Road and Woodson Drive: Motorists should be alert for possible temporary lane closures and lane shifts as crews perform work through this project. Motorists should be alert for new traffic patterns. Motorists should be alert for workers present, reduce speed, and use extreme caution through this area. For project information, go to https://www.tn.gov/tdot/projects/projects-region-1/sr-115-alcoa-highway-maloney-to-woodson.html

KNOX COUNTY, US 441 Broadway Viaduct between Jackson Avenue and Fifth Avenue: US 441 Broadway Viaduct over Norfolk Southern Railroad in downtown Knoxville is closed for bridge replacement. The Broadway Viaduct will be closed to all traffic for the duration of the project. During the closure, Broadway will be closed from the intersection of Oak Avenue, Worlds Fair Park, and Jackson Avenue to just north of the Depot Avenue intersection. Depot Avenue will also be closed. These closures will ensure the safety of workers and motorists as crews demolish the old bridge and reconstruct the new bridge. Primary and Local Detour Routes around the bridge closure will be in place. For detour routes and project information, go to https://www.tn.gov/tdot/projects/projects-region-1/broadway-viaduct.html

KNOX COUNTY, US 441/SR 71 Chapman Highway between Highland View Drive and Burnett Lane: Motorists should be alert for possible lane closures daily between the hours of 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. through this construction project. Motorists should be alert for workers and equipment present, expect potential delays, and use extreme caution through this area. For project information, go to https://www.tn.gov/tdot/projects/projects-region-1/chapman-highway-evans-to-burnett.html

KNOX COUNTY, SR 62 Oak Ridge Highway at Schaad Road: Motorists should be alert for possible lane closures through this area at various times as crews perform roadway resurfacing and signal work at this intersection. Motorists should be alert for workers present, reduced speeds, expect possible delays, and use caution through this area.

KNOX COUNTY, SR 332 Concord Road between Turkey Creek Road and Northshore: Motorists should be alert for possible lane closures daily between the hours of 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. and new traffic patterns through this construction project. Motorists should be alert for workers present, expect potential delays, and use extreme caution through this area. For project information, go to https://www.tn.gov/tdot/projects/projects-region-1/sr-332-proposed-widening.html

KNOX COUNTY, SR 332 Northshore Drive between Lyons View Pike and Papermill Road: Motorists should be alert for possible temporary lane closures nightly between the hours of 7 p.m. and 6 a.m. the following morning as crews perform work on concrete curb ramps through this area. Motorists should be alert for workers present, reduced speeds, expect possible delays, and use caution through this area.

LOUDON COUNTY, I-40 East near Mile Marker 362: On Monday, September 20, 2021, motorists should be alert for possible temporary lane closures between the hours of 8 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. as crews perform roadway maintenance activities. Motorists should be alert for workers present, slowed traffic, expect potential delays, and use extreme caution through this area.

LOUDON COUNTY, I-75 South near Mile Marker 79.4: On Sunday, September 19, 2021, motorists should be alert for possible lane closures between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. the following morning as crews perform guardrail repairs. Motorists should be alert for workers present, expect possible delays, and use caution through this area.

LOUDON COUNTY, I-75 North and South between Mile Markers 79 and 84: Motorists should be alert for possible temporary lane closures between the hours of 7 p.m. and 6 a.m. the following morning through this resurfacing project. Motorists should be alert for workers present, slow traffic, expect delays, and use extreme caution through this area.

LOUDON COUNTY, I-75 South near Mile Marker 77: On Monday, September 20, 2021, motorists should be alert for possible temporary lane closures between the hours of 8 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. as crews perform roadway maintenance activities. Motorists should be alert for workers present, slowed traffic, expect potential delays, and use extreme caution through this area.

LOUDON COUNTY, I-75 North near Mile Marker 70: On Wednesday, September 22, 2021, motorists should be alert for possible temporary lane closures between the hours of 8 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. as crews perform roadway maintenance activities. Motorists should be alert for workers present, slowed traffic, expect potential delays, and use extreme caution through this area.

LOUDON COUNTY, SR 72 between Good Hope Road and Corporate Park Drive: Motorists should be alert for possible closures at various times through this resurfacing project. Motorists should be alert for workers present, slow or stopped traffic, and use extreme caution in this area.

LOUDON COUNTY, US 321/SR 73 between I-40 and Simpson Road: Motorists should be alert for possible nightly lane closures between the hours of 7 p.m. and 6 a.m. the following morning through this resurfacing project. Motorists should be alert for workers present, slow or stopped traffic, and use extreme caution in this area.

LOUDON COUNTY, US 411/SR 33 between Blount County Line and Monroe County Line: Motorists should be alert for possible lane closures daily between the hours of 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. through this resurfacing project. Motorists should be alert for workers present, slow or stopped traffic, and use extreme caution in this area.

MORGAN COUNTY, SR 29 between Vanderpool Road and Scott County Line: Motorists should be alert for possible lane closures daily between the hours of 9 a.m. and 8 p.m. through this resurfacing project. Motorists should be alert for workers present, slow or stopped traffic, and use extreme caution in this area.

MORGAN COUNTY, SR 62 between Petit Lane and SR 116: Motorists should be alert for possible lane closures daily between the hours of 9 a.m. and 8 p.m. through this resurfacing project. Motorists should be alert for workers present, slow or stopped traffic, and use extreme caution in this area.

ROANE COUNTY, I-40 West between Mile Markers 340 and 344: Motorists should be alert for possible lane closures at various times through this slope stabilization project. Motorists should be alert for workers present, reduced speeds, lane shifts, and use extreme caution through this area.

ROANE COUNTY, I-40 East near Mile Marker 348.5: On Sunday, September 19, 2021, motorists should be alert for possible lane closures between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. the following morning as crews perform guardrail repairs. Motorists should be alert for workers present, expect possible delays, and use caution through this area.

ROANE COUNTY, I-40 East near Mile Marker 360.4: On Sunday, September 19, 2021, motorists should be alert for possible lane closures between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. the following morning as crews perform guardrail repairs. Motorists should be alert for workers present, expect possible delays, and use caution through this area.

SEVIER COUNTY, SR 71 between US 411 and Macon Lane: Motorists should be alert for possible lane closures daily between the hours of 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. through this construction project. Motorists should be alert for workers and equipment present, expect potential delays, and use extreme caution through this area.

SULLIVAN COUNTY, I-26 East and West between Mile Markers 5.3 and 9.9: Motorists should be alert for possible temporary lane closures through this resurfacing project. Motorists should be alert for workers present, slow or stopped traffic, expect potential delays, and use extreme caution in this area.

SULLIVAN COUNTY, I-26 East near Mile Marker 9: On Wednesday, September 22, 2021, motorists should be alert for possible lane closures between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. the following morning as crews perform guardrail repairs. Motorists should be alert for workers present, expect possible delays, and use caution through this area.

SULLIVAN COUNTY, I-81; US 11E/SR 34 and routes in and near the Bristol area: On Saturday, September 18, 2021, motorists should be alert for traffic control devices in place for pre and post-race traffic patterns associated with the race at Bristol Motor Speedway. Motorists should be alert for personnel directing traffic and be alert for increased pedestrian traffic near the speedway. Motorists should use extreme caution in this area.

SULLIVAN COUNTY, I-81 North near Mile Marker 72.5: Motorists should be alert as a complete shoulder closure is currently in-place in this area and also for possible temporary lane closures between the hours of 7 p.m. and 6 a.m. which may occur as crews haul off slide debris. Motorists should be alert for workers present, slow traffic, and use extreme caution through this area as work vehicles and hauling trucks will be exiting on and off the shoulder area throughout daytime work hours.

SULLIVAN COUNTY, I-81 South near Mile Marker 62: On Wednesday, September 22, 2021, motorists should be alert for possible lane closures between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. the following morning as crews perform guardrail repairs. Motorists should be alert for workers present, expect possible delays, and use caution through this area.

SULLIVAN COUNTY, I-81 South near Mile Marker 61: On Tuesday, September 21, 2021, motorists should be alert for possible lane closures between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. the following morning as crews perform guardrail repairs. Motorists should be alert for workers present, expect possible delays, and use caution through this area.

SULLIVAN COUNTY, I-81 North near Mile Marker 53.3: On Tuesday, September 21, 2021, motorists should be alert for possible lane closures between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. the following morning as crews perform guardrail repairs. Motorists should be alert for workers present, expect possible delays, and use caution through this area.

SULLIVAN COUNTY, SR 34 Intersection at Industrial Park Rd: Motorists should be alert for lane reductions through this intersection improvement project. Motorists should be alert for workers and equipment present, changed traffic patterns, expect potential delays, and use extreme caution through this area.

SULLIVAN COUNTY, SR 93 from near I-26 (Log Mile 6.2) to near US 11W/ SR 1 (Log Mile 11.3) : Motorists should be alert for possible lane closures through this resurfacing and bridge repair project. Motorists should be alert for workers and equipment present, expect potential delays, and use extreme caution through this area.

UNICOI COUNTY, I-26 East near Mile Marker 26.7: On Wednesday, September 22, 2021, motorists should be alert for possible lane closures between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. the following morning as crews perform guardrail repairs. Motorists should be

alert for workers present, expect possible delays, and use caution through this area.

UNICOI COUNTY, I-26 West near Mile Markers 33.6 and 31.4: On Wednesday, September 22, 2021, motorists should be alert for possible lane closures between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. the following morning as crews perform guardrail repairs. Motorists should be alert for workers present, expect possible delays, and use caution through this area.

UNICOI COUNTY, SR 81 between Log Miles 0 and 1.8: Motorists should be alert for possible lane closures daily between the hours of 9 a.m. and 8 p.m. through this resurfacing and safety project. Motorists should be alert for workers and equipment present, expect potential delays, and use extreme caution through this area.

UNICOI COUNTY, SR 107 between 6th Street and SR 173: Motorists should be alert for possible lane closures daily between the hours of 9 a.m. and 8 p.m. through this resurfacing and safety project. Motorists should be alert for workers and equipment present, expect potential delays, and use extreme caution through this area.

UNICOI COUNTY, SR 173 between Log Miles 1 and 3.2: Motorists should be alert for possible lane closures daily between the hours of 9 a.m. and 8 p.m. through this resurfacing and safety project. Motorists should be alert for workers and equipment present, expect potential delays, and use extreme caution through this area.

WASHINGTON COUNTY, I-26 East near Mile Marker 19.7: On Wednesday, September 22, 2021, motorists should be alert for possible lane closures between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. the following morning as crews perform guardrail repairs. Motorists should be alert for workers present, expect possible delays, and use caution through this area.

WASHINGTON COUNTY, I-26 East near Mile Marker 23.3: On Tuesday, September 21, 2021, motorists should be alert for possible lane closures between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. the following morning as crews perform guardrail repairs. Motorists should be alert for workers present, expect possible delays, and use caution through this area.

WASHINGTON/CARTER COUNTIES, SR 91 between Broadway Street and SR 67: Motorists should be alert for possible lane closures during daylight hours through this resurfacing project. Motorists should be alert for workers present, possible delays, and use extreme caution through this area.

WASHINGTON COUNTY, SR 93 between Davis Road and Fire Hall Road: Motorists should be alert for possible temporary lane closures through this construction project. Motorists should be alert for workers present, reduced speeds, and use caution through this area.

For information on statewide interstate construction motorists can access the Tennessee Department of Transportation SmartWay website at https://smartway.tn.gov/traffic

TDOT is now on Twitter. For up to the minute traffic information in Knoxville and the Tri-Cities follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/knoxville511. For statewide travel information follow www.twitter.com/TN511
We've confirmed this story with two trusted sources and a few more people with insider perspectives.

Here's the word . . .

THE SHOOTER WHO CRITICALLY INJURED A COP THIS AFTERNOON DIDN'T MERIT MUCH ATTENTION FROM JACKSON COUNTY PROSECUTOR 'MEAN' JEAN PETERS BAKER!!!



This is what police throughout the area are saying and the deets are SCATHING as they're leveled against the Prosecutor's office.

This story tracks because recently we've seen quite a few crimes that should've merited more attention from the Prosecutor's office but, tragically, didn't.



However . . .

For what seems like years the police & prosecutor's office have been locked in a serious feud and this officer-involved shooting escalates the crisis.



"Mean" Jean dropping a great many high profile cases has been seen as retaliatory.

Now . . . An officer hurt by a suspect who should've merited attention from the Prosecutor's office raises the stakes of this volatile conversation that has a real life impact for EVERYONE on local streets.



Deets and the money line . . .

"The suspect, identified as 33-year-old Cody Levi Harrison, of Gladstone, has a long rap sheet of criminal history. Most recently charged with second-degree felony burglary and stealing in Jackson County. He was released on own recognizance on Aug. 30. He was scheduled to appear in court for a preliminary hearing Sept. 13, just two days prior to the shooting, but the hearing was continued."

Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com links . . .

Neighbors describe sounds of a 'warzone' during Independence police shooting INDEPENDENCE, Mo. - As the public awaits another update on the status of an Independence officer shot Wednesday, people living in the area of the shooting say there is still a lot of confusion on what went on during the incident. Investigators said the shooting happened East 23rd Street South and South Northern Boulevard around 11:30.

MSHP: Deceased suspect identified in Independence shooting that seriously wounded an officer The deceased suspect in a deadly shooting this afternoon in Independence has been identified as Cody L. Harrison. Harrison, 33, is believed to have resided in Gladstone, Missouri. The next of kin has been notified.There are no updates on the condition of Officer Blaize Madrid-Evans, who was severely injured in the shootout.

Suspect killed after shooting, injuring Independence officer had violent past INDEPENDENCE, Mo. - The Missouri State Highway Patrol is investigating a shooting Wednesday that left the suspect dead and a 22-year-old Independence officer seriously injured. The suspect, identified as 33-year-old Cody Levi Harrison, of Gladstone, has a long rap sheet of criminal history. Most recently charged with second-degree felony burglary and stealing in Jackson County.

Independence police ID officer injured in shooting as 22-year-old who recently joined department INDEPNDENCE, Mo. - The Independence Police Department has identified the officer seriously injured in a shooting Wednesday. Police said 22-year-old Officer Blaize Madrid-Evans was shot by a suspect and critically injured during a call for service. The officer recently began his career with the department at the Kansas City Regional Academy on January 4 and graduated July 8.

Developing . . .
Like it or not, they're on the way . . . Here's the www.TonysKansasCity.com update from both sides of the State Line . . .



The State Department says Missouri is expected to receive 1,200 Afghanistan refugees The U.S. State Department says Missouri is expected to receive 1,200 Afghanistan evacuees from a first group arriving for resettlement in the United States. State department data obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday detailed how a first group of 37,000 arrivals will be resettled in each state.

GOP leader questions plans to put Afghan evacuees in Kansas TOPEKA, Kan. - A top Republican lawmaker in Kansas said Wednesday that he's concerned about President Joe Biden's plan to resettle almost 500 Afghan evacuees in the state because he doesn't know how well they're being vetted.

Developing . . .
Hi Rachita06

Me too, I agree, hiking the first half of October is great normally. Second half can be a great challenge if we would get a early winter.

For your time at Lucerne please look at and the Top Questions about Lucerne (Lucerne forum on the TA website).

It could be a good idea to turn your trip around and to start at Vevey or nearby Montreux - - (one train hour from Geneva airport and to end it at Lucerne (one train hour from Zurich airport.

You see, I am not a big fan of Geneva. Others may see this differently.

On your way from Montreux to the Jungfrau area at the Bernese Oberland I would recommend to take the scenic Goldenpass line via Gstaad. And at the Jungfrau area I would recommend to stay at one of the mountain towns - -

From the Jungfrau area you can take the Northern leg of the Goldenpass line via Brunig-Hasliberg which is very scenic, too.

For all time tables look at .

Happy planning

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With all due respect, you really should have done a bit more research. Yes it is perfectly normal over there. Just read FB groups such as LINT-Phil and you will find posts every day from women being offloaded for various reasons.

If she did not have the financial capacity to pay everything for the whole trip, then by law she is required to have an AOS, just Google it. CFO is technically not required unless getting married/emigrating, but the IOs have recently been requesting it for anyone visiting a foreign partner.

It's not hard to get both documents. I got the AOS notarized at the Philippine Embassy in London, and my fiancee had her CFO certificate sorted within a few days after submitting the required documents to her telecounseler. She was asked for both when she left NAIA 3 weeks ago to meet me in Europe so we can get married. This is on top of the numerous other documents she had to show about our relationship, pictures together, my passports, PH stamps etc.

Last December she had neither an AOS or CFO when she met me in Dubai and she was allowed to travel, even if it was her first time abroad. Still had all the other documents showing us together and our relationship. It could have been luck or it coud have been an understanding IO.

So really, it all depends on the IO on the day, but it is better to be over prepared than under prepared. And always remember PH don't think or do anything like the rest of us. Never assume something that is simple and straightforward for us is the same over there.
Dining options: Breakfast, After-hours, Reservations

Description: In the early 70s a famous Italian chef, Giovanni, starts his trip to Greece. During a cruise he arrives in Mykonos, he gets thrilled by the Greek islands and the Greek light and opens restaurants on the cosmopolitan island and in Psyri in Athens. Santorini, however, becomes his last stop, the final destination of a journey full of experiences and challenges. On the magnificent island of Santorini he meets Niko Topuzi, a real connoisseur of authentic Italian pizza with huge experience! Together they envision a partnership and the creation of a unique Italian restaurant. Their dream comes true and Cacio e Pepe opens on one of the main streets of Fira. The authentic Italian cuisine and impeccable service make it a hot spot with fanatic customers, not only travelers, but also the residents of Santorini.
The Health Minister says the Health Ministry is not ignoring the concerns of nurses on short
Since the beginning of September, the Russian-occupation forces have carried out 85 armed provocations in eastern Ukraine, killing four Ukrainian soldiers and wounding 36 more.

Since the beginning of September this year alone, four Ukrainian defenders have been killed and 36 more have been wounded amid more than 85 armed provocations by the Russian-occupation forces, the Permanent Mission of Ukraine to the International Organizations in Vienna informed the delegations of the OSCE participating States at a meeting of the Forum for Security Co-operation on Wednesday, September 15, an Ukrinform correspondent reported.

In total, since the comprehensive ceasefire was established on July 27, 2020, 58 Ukrainian service members have been killed and more than 220 soldiers have been wounded in the attacks launched by Russian armed formations.

From July 27 last year to September 12 this year, positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine came under 2,315 attacks. In particular, the enemy used weapons prohibited by the Minsk agreements  tanks, 152mm and 122mm artillery systems, 120mm and 82mm mortars  in more than 585 attacks, the Ukrainian delegation informed foreign diplomats about Russias ceasefire violations in eastern Ukraine.

In addition, the Ukrainian Mission underscored that Russian armed formations were systematically taking measures to mine Ukrainian positions using UAVs and with the help of sabotage groups.

"Russia continues to use POM-2, MON-50, PFM-1, and PMN mines, which are prohibited by international law," the Mission said.

It was also pointed out that the Russian-occupation forces violated other provisions of the Minsk agreements, including on the use of UAVs  more than 145 cases, the construction of new positions and consolidation of existing ones  29 cases, mine delivery  more than 55 cases, attacks on civilian facilities  more than 40 cases.

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Over the past 24 hours, on September 15, Ukraine military reported three ceasefire violations by enemy forces in the Joint Forces Operation zone.

Thats according to the press center of the Joint Forces Operation HQ, Ukrinform reports.

"Near the settlement of Novoluhanske, the enemy engaged the positions of Ukrainian servicemen with small arms," the statement said.

It is noted that toward Pivdenne, Russian-controlled armed groups fired easel-mounted anti-tank grenade launchers.

Near Avdiivka, Russian invaders used 120 mm mortars proscribed by the Minsk agreements.

The Ukrainian side to the Joint Ceasefire Control and Coordination Center, applying the established coordination mechanism, informed OSCE Missions monitors of all violations by Russian occupation forces.

As of 7:00 on September 16, no new ceasefire violations were reported.

"Ukrainian forces, while adhering to ceasefire, keep monitoring the situation in the Joint Forces Operation zone to repel and deter armed aggression by the Russian Federation," the JFO HQ wrote.

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During the visit to Washington, the Ukrainian side discussed various options for purchasing or obtaining technology to strengthen air and missile defense.

"In the United States, we really raised the question of how America can help Ukraine strengthen its air and missile defense. In this regard, various options of technologies that Ukraine can get or purchase from the United States or with their assistance were discussed," Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba said at an online briefing, answering a question about whether there is a real chance to get the Iron Dome missile defense system, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

He also assured that the issue of strengthening Ukraine's defense capabilities is constantly on the agenda of the Ukrainian authorities.

As reported, the bill of the U.S. House of Representatives envisages greater military assistance to Ukraine through the transfer of new weapons systems, including the potential transfer of the Iron Dome missile defense system.

Earlier in May, Defense Minister Andriy Taran said the Ministry considered purchasing a missile defense system of the Iron Dome type.

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There are more than 19,000 women among over 400,000 war veterans in Ukraine.

"Out of more than 400,000 war veterans in Ukraine, there are more than 19,000 women. At present, there are still some problems in the issues of medical care for servicewomen, and the Ministry of Veterans Affairs continues to work towards resolving these issues. By the way, this concerns not only veterans. We realize that it is necessary to change the system of medical and psychological support for the defenders of Ukraine as a whole," Minister of Veterans Affairs of Ukraine Yulia Laputina said during a working meeting with Liliana Palihovici, Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office on Gender, the Ministry's press service reports.

She stressed that the Ministry paid special attention to the respect for veterans and well-deserved honouring of soldiers killed in the Russian-Ukrainian war. "The Russian-Ukrainian war has been going on for eight years. We have already lost 4,410 defenders, 19 of whom are servicewomen. Therefore, the Ministry also supports the families, children of fallen defenders," the minister said.

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Photo credit: mva.gov.ua
German Galushchenko and Dainius Kreivys, Ukraine and Lithuanias energy ministers, on Wednesday, September 15, held the first meeting of the Working Group on Expanding Strategic Energy Cooperation between the relevant ministries.

Thats according to the Ukrainian government portal, Ukrinform reports.

The key topics for discussion were energy security, energy decarbonization, and integration of Ukrainian and European energy markets. It is reported that Ukraine has already successfully implemented most of the technical steps required to synchronize the Ukrainian power system with ENTSO-E.

"Ukraine has made its strategic geopolitical choice  severing all connections with the energy systems of Russia and Belarus and fully integrating into European energy markets. Synchronization of the Ukrainian and Lithuanian energy systems with ENTSO-E is a mutually beneficial process for our countries and the EU, which will increase flexibility of the European power system and ensure Europes resilience against geopolitical threats," Galushchenko said.

The participants in the meeting paid special attention to confronting geopolitical threats in the energy sector the European region is facing.

"Lithuania is concerned not only about the safety of the Ostrovets nuclear power plant, but also about its wider impact on the region's power architecture. Electricity imports from the Ostrovets NPP to the Baltic States may hinder the successful synchronization process and undermine the development of green energy generation and reserve capacity in the Baltic States. Lithuania is taking all measures to avoid this," Kreivys said.

Galushchenko focused on the threats of a possible launch of Russias Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and the need to coordinate Ukraine and EUs efforts to counter common threats.

As reported, the synchronization of the Integrated Power System of Ukraine with ENTSO-E is scheduled for 2023. Test operation of the IPS and the power system of Moldova in isolated mode is scheduled for February 2022, which will be one of the stages of integration into ENTSO-E.

ENTSO-E is a European network of electricity transmission system operators, uniting 43 entities in 36 countries across Europe.

Photo: CMU press service

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Head of Cherkasy Regional State Administration Oleksandr Skichko and President of the Ukrainian-Arab Business Council Sheikh Emad Abu Alrub have signed a memorandum of cooperation between the region and the council.

Ukrinform reports this with a reference to Cherkasy Regional State Administrations press service.

"We are expanding the borders of international cooperation. Among the priority tasks is finding and attracting partners and investors for the regions enterprises. Promising, among others, is the Arab direction," said the governor.

According to the administration, in the first five months of this year, the volume of bilateral trade between the enterprises of Cherkasy region and the Arab countries amounted to almost $51 million.

The enterprises of the region carry out foreign economic operations with 16 Arab countries. The largest volumes of goods were exported to Oman, Egypt, Morocco, Libya and Algeria.

The regional state administration added that investments from Egypt and Jordan come to three enterprises in the region, specializing in sawmilling, renewable energy, vehicle production, and the food industry.

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Ukroboronprom State Concern and Babcock International Group have signed a cooperation agreement to expand the capabilities of the Ukrainian Naval Forces, Ukrinform reports, referring to Ukroboronprom's press service

The document provides for cooperation and joint implementation of Ukrainian naval projects in the framework of Ukraines Naval Capabilities Enhancement Program (UNCEP).

I expect that the implementation of the signed agreement will significantly enhance possibilities and national military capability of the Ukrainian fleet. And our cooperation shall become a driver for the revival of Ukraine's shipbuilding industry," Yuriy Husyev, General Director of Ukroboronprom State Concern, said.

It is noted that signing the cooperation agreement will allow further development of a tripartite Memorandum of Implementation, signed in Odesa on June 21 by Ukraine's Defense Ministry, the UK Government and Babcock, which confirmed Babcock as the designated prime industrial partner for both countries.

Babcock International is an international group of companies operating in aerospace, defense and security industries. It has extensive experience in implementing large-scale projects in the field of naval shipbuilding.

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World Bank Vice President for Europe and Central Asia Anna Bjerde concluded her first official visit to Ukraine on September 15, the World Bank's press service has reported.

"During the visit, Ms. Bjerde met with Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko, and Governor of the National Bank Kyrylo Shevchenko, to discuss Ukraine's challenges and opportunities, the World Bank's record investment and assistance program in the country, opportunities for accelerating the implementation of ongoing World Bank-funded investment projects, as well as supporting Ukraine in its ambitious climate goals," the report reads.

Two loan agreements for recently approved projects were signed during the visit: a $200 million Improving Higher Education for Results Project and a $212 million Improving Power System Resilience for European Power Grid Integration Project.

"The World Bank is a long-term development partner of Ukraine and we will continue supporting the country and its people in making tough reforms and achieving their economic potential," Bjerde said.

The World Bank has provided Ukraine with $147 million to respond to COVID-19 in the health sector and $350 million to strengthen the country's social safety nets. The pandemic response financing is part of the World Bank's current investment project portfolio in Ukraine amounts to about $3.4 billion, in 11 ongoing investment projects and one Program for Results operation, with a total of $1.6 billion in budget support, investments, and private sector financing since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The investments support improvements in basic public services that directly benefit ordinary people in areas such as water supply, sanitation, heating, power, energy efficiency, roads, social protection, education and healthcare, as well as private sector development.

Since Ukraine joined the World Bank in 1992, the Bank's commitments to the country have totaled more than $13 billion in about 80 projects and programs.

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Ukraine should launch a format of consultations with the ambassadors of CE8 countries  Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania.

"There is a format of G7 Ambassadors, and that's very good. They do a lot for reforms in Ukraine. And I suggest thinking about the CE8 diplomatic format in Kyiv, involving ambassadors of the Baltic states, the Visegrad Group, and Romania," Ambassador of Poland to Ukraine Bartosz Cichocki said during the 1st Ukrainian Central European Forum in Kyiv, an Ukrinform correspondent reported.

According to the diplomat, he would recommend Ukrainian politicians "to meet with CE8 Ambassadors, not only with those of G7 countries." Moreover, Austria could join this consultation format.

According to Cichocki, the situation has not changed for the better lately: "I mean the summit of the presidents of the United States and Russia in Geneva, the US-German statement on Nord Stream 2, the completion of its construction, and what happened in Afghanistan and is happening in Belarus."

"From our point of view, this bad dynamic should consolidate us, the region should be cemented, unite The countries of our region are victims of this bad dynamic, and we must jointly find an answer to these challenges and threats," the Ambassador said.

At the same time, he pointed to the first signals that Ukraine and Poland "understand the situation well"  a joint statement by the two countries' foreign ministers in late July on the consequences of launching Nord Stream 2, Andrzej Duda's "unequivocal statement" at the Crimea Platform summit on August 23, and a meeting between the prime ministers of Poland and Ukraine on September 9.

"Together, we expect real guarantees for gas transit through Ukraine. We all understand that Nord Stream 2 creates a security deficit but also coerces us into political consolidation," said the Ambassador of Poland.

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Ukraine will continue to "put friendly pressure" on its partners over the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.

"We see that partners hear what we tell them and the proposals we make, but decisions have not yet been made. We will continue negotiations, continue putting a sort of friendly, exclusively friendly, pressure on partners," Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba said at an online briefing, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

Kuleba noted that Ukraine called on its partners to move "from words to concrete actions, from assurances to concrete guarantees."

"Especially since we see that the Russian Federation has taken concrete action in the European gas market, twisting gas price, creating the effect of market unpredictability and excitement due to shortages, so now Germany and the United States need to act. Ukraine is ready to act together with them," the minister emphasized.

As reported, the Russian gas monopoly Gazprom announced the completion of the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline on September 10.

Nord Stream 2 is the Russian gas pipeline built from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea, bypassing Ukraine. The sole shareholder of the project is OAO Gazprom.

In July, Germany and the United States reached an agreement under which the US would not hinder the completion of the pipeline, while Germany undertook to impose sanctions in case of Russia's aggression against Ukraine, as well as to assist Ukraine in energy transformation.

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The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has dismissed as provocation the Russian FSB's accusation of the alleged involvement of the Ukrainian side in damaging a gas pipe in the occupied Crimea.

Thats according to a statement released by the ministrys press service, Ukrinform reports.

We have taken note of the provocative statements by the FSB of the alleged involvement of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people in rallies against the actions of the Russian occupation administration and illegal paramilitary groups operating in the temporarily occupied Crimea. We consider these accusations, in particular involvement in the attack on the gas pipeline, as another provocation on the part of the Russian Federation, the Foreign Ministry said.

Ukrainian diplomats said confessions by illegally detained Ukrainian citizens circulated in the media were obtained through applying severe torture. This is an unsuccessful attempt by Russias occupying repressive bodies at concealing repressions against the Crimean Tatar population of Crimea.

We demand that the Russian Federation immediately release unlawfully held citizens of Ukraine and stop torturing and persecuting representatives of the Crimean Tatar people, the Foreign Ministry said.

Read also: Jailed Mejlis official vows to continue fighting against Crimea occupation

MFA Ukraine also called on the international community to join the efforts toward the release of all illegally held Ukrainian citizens from Russian prisons and torture chambers.

As reported, on September 3-4, FSB operatives in the occupied Crimea detained Nariman Dzhelyalov, brothers Aziz and Asan Akhtemovs, as well as Eldar Adamanov and Shevket. Their exact whereabouts became known only on the third day following what Ukraine insists was an extrajudicial detention, or abduction.

On September 6, the Kyiv District Court of Simferopol ruled that Nariman Dzhelyalov, deputy chief of the Crimean Tatars Mejlis, and brothers Aziz and Asan Akhtemovs were taken into until November 4. They are charged with sabotage  the damaging of a gas pipe that fed one of the Russian military based in Simferopol district.

The FSB claims Ukraines behind the attack stands Ukraines GUR military intelligence, with the involvement of the Crimean Tatars representative body, Mejlis.

The FSB suspects the Akhtemov brothers as immediate executors of the attack, naming Dzhelyalov as their accomplice.

Lawyer Ayder Azamatov said his client Asan Akhtemov, before agreeing to sign what turned out to be a guilty plea, had been subjected to torture involving electrocution techniques.

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Ukraine prepares a meeting of the heads of government of the Lublin Triangle countries and a joint visit of the prime ministers of the Associated Trio members to Brussels.

"We continue to develop our regional alliances. Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal recently met with his Polish counterpart Mateusz Morawiecki. We will make efforts to organize a meeting of the heads of government of the Lublin Triangle countries," Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba said at an online briefing, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

In addition, Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova prepare for the sixth Eastern Partnership summit on December 15 within the framework of the Associated Trio, another format created by Ukraine.

"We are also working to ensure that the three prime ministers of the Associated Trio visit Brussels together. I am convinced that we will be able to do that," said the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.

Kuleba also informed about the progress of the UkraineTurkey Quadriga format.

"In October, my Turkish colleague and friend Mevlut Cavusoglu will visit Ukraine. We will coordinate the future plans of Quadriga activity and specific projects that will be implemented under the auspices of this format," the minister said.

As reported, the Quadriga political and security consultation platform is based on the implementation of the agreements reached by the presidents of Ukraine and Turkey in Istanbul on October 16, 2020.

The Associated Trio is a trilateral format of the enhanced European integration cooperation between Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova, which was launched during the joint visit of the foreign ministers of Moldova and Georgia to Ukraine on May 17, 2021.

The Lublin Triangle is a trilateral platform for political, economic, cultural, and social cooperation between Ukraine, Lithuania, and Poland, founded on July 28, 2020. The purpose of the platform is to support Ukraine's integration into the European Union.

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Over 118,000 people were vaccinated against COVID-19 in Ukraine on September 15, the Ukrainian Health Ministry has reported on Facebook.

"As many as 118,786 people were vaccinated against COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, on September 15, 2021. Some 68,806 people received their first dose, and 49,980 people were fully vaccinated," the report reads.

According to the ministry, 899 mobile vaccination teams, 2,919 vaccination sites, and 321 vaccination centers were operating across the country in the past day.

A total of 11,106,749 doses have been administered in Ukraine since it launched a vaccination campaign, with 6,097,683 people receiving their first dose and 5,009,066 people receiving both doses (two people received their first dose abroad).

Some 5,744 new COVID-19 cases were recorded in Ukraine on September 15.

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The Ukrainian World Congress (UWC) on International Democracy Day reaffirmed its commitment to support Ukraine's democratic reforms and Euro-Atlantic aspirations, the UWC has reported on its Facebook page.

The UWC works with the Government of Ukraine, international governments and organizations, the Ukrainian diaspora, and civil society towards this end, reads the report.

It is noted that the Foreign Policy Council leads UWC international policy. The Council forms and conducts advocacy efforts in support of Ukraines peace process, Euro-Atlantic integration, and democratic reforms

In particular, through UWC offices in New York, Toronto, Kyiv, and Brussels, the Council works with governments, civil society, and international organizations to strengthen the UWC public diplomacy program.

The Council brings together globally renowned foreign policy experts and thought leaders who lead high profile discussions and meet with key stakeholders, reads the report.

As reported, UWC strongly condemned Russia's new wave of terror in the occupied Crimea and called on the international community to demand immediate release for the political prisoners.

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News Release  UNHCR

NAIROBI, Kenya  UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, reiterates its urgent call for investigations following the release of the Human Rights Watch report today, which provides additional and detailed information on the appalling abuses and enormous suffering of Eritrean refugees and other civilians since the start of the conflict.

We are deeply disturbed and saddened by the testimonies of refugees, including women and children, indicating immense suffering faced during a time when they were extremely vulnerable and fearful for their lives.

We continue to call on all responsible authorities including the Tigray Regional Authorities and the Federal Government to launch formal investigations into all credible allegations received to date. We welcome the joint investigation by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission into human rights violations and abuses in the Tigray region.

UNHCR could not access the northern Tigray camps of Hitsats and Shimelba from November 2020 until March 2021, when we found both camps completely destroyed, deserted of refugees, and all facilities looted and vandalized. Some 7,600 refugees, about 38 per cent, of those known to be residing in the camps remain unaccounted for.

I am extremely concerned about the safety and well-being of the thousands of refugees that we are still unable to reach, said Clementine Nkweta-Salami, UNHCRs Regional Bureau Director for the East, Horn of Africa and Great Lakes. For months, our teams on the ground have been working with Ethiopian authorities to locate and provide support to Eritrean refugees who were previously sheltered at the two camps and will continue to do so.

Nearly a year into the conflict, the humanitarian situation in Tigray, and neighbouring regions of Ethiopia is deteriorating, putting civilians, including refugees and internally displaced persons, at grave risk.

We are equally worried about the current situation of over 20,000 Eritrean refugees living in Mai Aini and Adi Harush camp in southern Tigray. Access to both camps has improved only slightly since the escalation of hostilities in the area in July and conditions remain dire. In addition to dramatic shortages of food and clean drinking water, basic services such as healthcare are largely unavailable.

UNHCR is doing its utmost to protect and assist Eritrean refugees and displaced Ethiopians in the Tigray region and beyond. While providing immediate support, our priority is the urgent relocation of refugees out of harm's way. We continue to call for a cessation of hostilities to be able to do so. UNHCR implores all parties and actors to respect their international obligations and stop the violence against and intimidation of Eritrean refugees now.

ENDS


(Photo : Photo by Helena Lopes from Pexels)

Obtaining a small business loan could be the most crucial step that you could take to turn your business around. There are several things that a business loan can do to effect a turnaround in your business.

1-. A business loan can be used for physical expansion

Are you thinking of moving to a new location, opening more branches, or expanding your current office space? A small business loan can help you with all that. It can help you pay your initial mortgage and still have enough money left for the monthly payments.

2-. A business loan can help you to boost your business credit

If you are looking to build up your business credit, a small business loan might be the fastest way to help you achieve that. Small businesses often find it hard to get large-scale, expensive business financing due to their lack of funding. Taking out a small loan and repaying the loan consistently can help you build up your business credit.

This tactic also helps you build up a good relationship with a specific lender, so asking for larger loan amounts will be easier when your business needs it in the future. But you need to be careful with this tactic, as one late payment can affect your credit history and make it worse than what it would have been without the loan.

3-. A business loan can help you to purchase new equipment

A small business loan can help to purchase equipment that will increase your profit margins drastically. A lot of small business owners need essential equipment but are unable to afford them. A business loan offers them the opportunity to afford this equipment and pay at their convenience.

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Are you out of stock? Do you have urgent orders to fill? A business loan can help you with that. Don't miss out on orders and new customers because you can't replace depleting inventory.

Furthermore, you also risk losing old customers to your competitors if you don't take business loans to replace your inventory. You can also take a business loan to purchase inventory when the cost of raw materials is low, so you can buy in bulk and store them until you need them.

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Are you looking to upgrade your company's IT infrastructure and automate business processes? A business loan can help you with that. Automating your business processes will boost your business in so many ways and make you a trailblazer among competing businesses in your industry.

You'll stand out from others and attract more customers faster and easier. IT infrastructure, IT staff, and IT outsourcing could be expensive initially for a small business. You need a business loan to help you offset such costs.

7-. A business loan can help you pay your initial staff hires

Are you just starting a new business that needs more than one hand but can't afford to pay the staff with your startup capital? A business loan can help you to fund this. It can help you hire competent staff and pay them fair wages until your business grows and finds its footing.

Calculate the number of staff you'll be needing and their estimated wage demands. Multiply this by the total number of periods that you'll be hiring the staff for. This will help you estimate the amount of money you need to request in your loan application.

Conclusion

For several small business owners, business loans are precisely what they need to boost, rejuvenate and turn around their business. You can't afford to continue missing out on life-changing business opportunities due to your lack of funds. Get a business loan when necessary for your business.

Get the loan from a conventional lender that won't burden you with too many strict requirements. There are good loan companies that will provide you loans at competitive rates even without a social security number and at a convenient repayment plan. Ensure that your business's recurrent revenue will be enough to repay the business loan.
(@FahadShabbir)

San Francisco, Sept 14 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 15th Sep, 2021 ) :Apple CEO Tim Cook strode through a slickly produced video Tuesday to launch a new iPhone, with few hints of the exceptional string of troubles facing his company including policy reversals, a spyware attack and legal fights.

Cook -- from an empty, darkened auditorium -- raved over upgraded cameras, brighter screens and new features for some of the Silicon Valley giant's other devices like the iPad.

"These are the best iPhones we've ever created," Cook said, noting Apple's work to design the "very best products and services to enrich people's lives." Yet a head-spinning series of problems have occupied the recent public discussion of one the world's most valuable companies.

Due to a long and loud fight over its online app marketplace, a judge ordered Apple last week to allow developers to sidestep its hefty commission on purchases.

It has also delayed a plan to scan its customers' devices as part of a child abuse prevention move, after privacy advocates howled over the risk of opening a backdoor for government surveillance.

And then Monday it was forced to roll out an urgent fix after cybersecurity researchers found a weakness that allowed Pegasus spyware to infect Apple devices without users so much as clicking a malicious message.

That said, Apple still possesses massive reach in the digital world and beyond, and manages to be worth over $2 trillion.

Its fans cheered the release of the updated products Tuesday, including analyst Daniel Ives who noted "the supercycle for Cupertino," referring to the California city that is home to Apple's headquarters.

"Apple remains in the midst of its strongest overall product cycle in roughly a decade," he added.

The iPhone 13 range includes four models, from the Mini version to the Pro Max, with prices similar to iPhone 12 at last year's release.

Their cameras and batteries are more powerful, and 5G capability is to be extended to more than 200 mobile operators in 60 countries and regions by the end of the year.

It is true the company has racked up massive profits driven by the demand for its devices as much of the world hunkered down at home due to the pandemic.

At the same time legal battles, new laws and the scrutiny of regulators around the world has added up to a series of challenges for the company.

As Cook expounded on iPhone developments, a group fighting to loosen Apple's control over its App Store tweeted its verdict on the new handset.

"Today's rollout of the iPhone 13 only tells us one thing: new iPhone, same bad App Store," wrote Coalition for App Fairness.

"It's time for @Apple to #OpenTheAppStore and level the playing field for app developers and innovators."Apple has started to cede ground on its App Store dominance, including in an agreement with Japanese regulators.

It also faces the legislation adopted by South Korean lawmakers, which banned Apple and Google from forcing app developers to use the tech giants' payment systems.
(@ChaudhryMAli88)

Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue, Shaukat Tarin on Thursday underlined that due to prudent fiscal policies and strict financial discipline, Pakistan's economy was shifting from consolidation to growth phase

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 16th Sep, 2021 ) :Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue, Shaukat Tarin on Thursday underlined that due to prudent fiscal policies and strict financial discipline, Pakistan's economy was shifting from consolidation to growth phase.

He said the government's objective was to steer economy towards an inclusive and sustainable economic growth with key focus on bottom-up approach as envisaged by the Prime Minister, said a press issued by Ministry of Finance here.

Shaukat Tarin, held a virtual meeting with, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific (UNESCAP) Ms. Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana at the Finance Division.

In his remarks, the finance minister briefed the Executive Secretary, UNESCAP about the macro-economic challenges faced by Pakistan and underlined economic and fiscal policies being undertaken to place the economy on growth trajectory.

He apprised that government of Pakistan had to opt for IMF program to fix balance of payments crisis due to precarious economic situation in FY-2018.

The minister said that unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic shock resulted in considerable economic contraction leading to loss of livelihoods, disruption in supply lines and limited economic activity during partial lockdowns.

At present, Pakistan was faced with a difficult choice to strike a balance between need for fiscal consolidation and ever rising demand for economic stimulus to stimulate economic growth amid COVID-19 and in post COVID scenario, he said.

Nevertheless, the government introduced smart and targeted lockdowns across various cities/districts to curtail spread of virus, he added.

This strategy was lauded globally for striking a balance between lives and livelihoods, during testing times, he added.

A Kamyab Pakistan Program is being introduced to uplift underprivileged population by extending micro-credit to promote financial empowerment, he informed.

Moreover, the minister stated that the rapidly evolving situation in Afghanistan had posed new economic challenges for Pakistan.

Peace and stability in Afghanistan was important for the whole region, he stressed.

In her remarks, the Executive Secretary invited the finance minister for delivering keynote address at the upcoming meeting of UNESCAP's Committee on Macroeconomic Policy. The 3-day Committee meeting will deliberate upon the macroeconomic policies of member countries as well as issues relating to financing for development. She emphasized the significance of supporting countries which were facing financing and development constraints due to on-going pandemic.

She stressed upon the need for evolving a mechanism to provide maximum relief to the developing countries which were facing socio-economic challenges.

She stated that this committee meeting would propose establishment of consultative group on financing for development for SDGs.

The minister accepted the invitation to deliver keynote address in virtual mode.
(@FahadShabbir)

The South Korean biotechnology company GL Rapha, which is licensed to produce Russian COVID-19 vaccines, has successfully manufactured the first 10 million doses of the Sputnik Light vaccine and expects to soon start their export to prospective buyers, the company told Sputnik on Thursday

SEOUL (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 16th September, 2021) The South Korean biotechnology company GL Rapha, which is licensed to produce Russian COVID-19 vaccines, has successfully manufactured the first 10 million doses of the Sputnik Light vaccine and expects to soon start their export to prospective buyers, the company told Sputnik on Thursday.

"Hankook Korus (GL Rapha's subsidiary - ed.) has now completed the production of the active ingredient for 10 million doses of the Sputnik Light and is preparing for their subsequent shipment. We are preparing to ship once the Russian side validates the certification (of our plant - ed.) according to GMP standards (good manufacturing practice - ed.)," head of the company's public relations department Kim Gi Young said.

The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and the South Korean biotechnology company GL Rapha agreed in November 2020 to produce the Sputnik V vaccine for export. The contract manufacturing has been carried out at the Hankook Korus Pharm plant in Chuncheon, with capacity to produce more than 150 million doses per year. GL Rapha has created a consortium of seven South Korean companies that will collectively be able to produce more than 500 million doses a year.

Initially GL Rapha was producing Sputnik V, but later the company, at the request of RDIF, switched to the production of Sputnik Light in addition to the previously agreed volumes of the Sputnik V shots.

"In April, we shipped a batch of Sputnik V to Russia for validation, and in June we shipped Sputnik Light. In late July, the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology completed the verification. And after thorough preparation and testing, we switched to mass production in August by launching bioreactors with a volume of one thousand liters each, which allowed us to produce 10 million doses of Sputnik Light," GL Rapha's representative said.

Earlier in September, the South Korean manufacturer reported that, thanks to the use of large-scale reactors, it was able to reach the production of 4 million doses per week, significantly exceeding the RDIF technical team's expectations. The company hopes to increase the volume of vaccine production to 6 million doses per week and up to 10 million shots per week once additional equipment arrived.
(@FahadShabbir)

SHARJAH, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 16th Sep, 2021) The Department of Government Relations (DGR) in Sharjah has hosted the bicentennial celebrations of the Central American countries of Costa Rica and Guatemala at the House of Wisdom in Sharjah.

The week-long celebration has been organised to honour the culture and diversity of these two nations, and aims to foster greater intercultural understanding and explore new business and investment partnerships with Sharjah and the UAE.

The opening ceremony took place on Thursday, 16th September, in Sharjahs iconic cultural hub, in the presence of Sheikh Fahim Al Qasimi, Chairman of DGR Sharjah; Sheikh Majid Al Qasimi, Director of DGR Sharjah; Abdallah Sultan Al Owais, Chairman, Sharjah Chamber of Commerce and Industry; Lars Henrik Pira Perez, Ambassador of Guatemala to the UAE; and William Reuben, Consul-General of Costa Rica in the UAE. Francisco Chacon, Ambassador of Costa Rica in UAE, participated in the event virtually.

Other important dignitaries at the bicentennial commemoration ceremony included Khalid Jassim Al Midfa, Chairman of the Sharjah Commerce and Tourism Development Authority; Dr. Abdulaziz al Musallam, Chairman of the Sharjah Institute for Heritage; and Francisca Mendez Escobar, Ambassador of Mexico. The event was also attended by a host of investors, entrepreneurs and members of prominent business organisations from Sharjah and the two Central American countries.

In his opening address, Sheikh Fahim Al Qasimi, Chairman of DGR, extended his heartiest congratulations to both nations on behalf of H.H. Dr. Sheikh Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah. Stating that it was a huge honour to host the celebration of the 200th year of independence of the two countries in Sharjah, he said, "Today, we celebrate history, we celebrate leadership, but above all, we celebrate friendship."

The DGR Chairman added, "Our countries histories go back far beyond the formation of the nations that they are today. This takes leadership, and leadership is about placing values that are core of our countrys development. Our countries today share the common values of culture, education, and innovation.

"

Thanking Costa Rica and Guatemala for their close bonds of friendship with Sharjah and the UAE, Abdallah Sultan Al Owais, Chairman of SCCI, commended the opportunities given to partner together across numerous sectors. Stating that the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic had led to several trade and investment challenges for businesses and economies globally, he highlighted the strategic importance of the UAE as an import and re-exports market, and expressed Sharjahs interest in establishing closer commercial collaborations with the two nations.

In his address, the Ambassador of Guatemala stated that the bicentennial celebrations will help the country further promote its exports, investments, and tourism. "However, our main objective is to strengthen our ties of understanding, improve our cultural cooperation, and enhance the knowledge between the people of our societies," he said.

The Guatemalan Ambassador added, "I am convinced that no economic exchange will take place on a sustained basis without our human bonding and our understanding of each other. Our friendship with the people and the Government of Sharjah marks a step forward in further advancing our ties and building bridges between our communities."

Thanking the UAE for being Costa Ricas strategic partner, the nations Ambassador to the UAE, Francisco Chacon, said in a virtual address, that while the country mourns the lives lost during the COVID-19 pandemic, the bicentennial commemoration was an occasion to reflect on the path Costa Rica must take as it prepares itself for the next 200 years.

He added, "The UAE has been a wonderful strategic partner to Costa Rica. We hope that Sharjah will bring to Costa Rica the emirates advances in innovation, education, and other sectors, that was achieved thanks to the vision of H.H. Sheikh Dr. Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi."

In a bid to promote intercultural dialogue and strengthen ties between Sharjah and the two nations, the photography exhibition and food tasting activities will be open to the public and all visitors to the House of Wisdom from 9:00 to 23:00 until Wednesday, 22nd September.
Tehran, Sept 15 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 16th Sep, 2021 ) :Iran has demoted its chief nuclear negotiator and replaced him as deputy foreign minister, state media reported Wednesday.

Abbas Araghchi will remain part of Iran's negotiating team in talks on reviving a landmark nuclear agreement with major powers but will no longer be styled chief negotiator.

He will be replaced as deputy minister by Ali Bagheri, a protege of President Ebrahim Raisi who served as his deputy for international affairs when Raisi was judiciary chief.

Raisi became president in early August, taking over from moderate Hassan Rouhani, the principal architect on the Iranian side of the 2015 nuclear agreement.
Beirut, Sept 16 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 17th Sep, 2021 ) :The judge leading Lebanon's investigation into last year's devastating Beirut port blast issued an arrest warrant for an ex-minister who failed to appear for questioning Thursday, a judicial source said.

"Judge Tareq Bitar issued an arrest warrant in absentia for former public works and transportation minister Youssef Fenianos," the source told AFP.

Fenianos, 57, headed the ministry from 2016 to early 2020. His whereabouts are unknown, but he is thought to be in Lebanon.

The warrant came a day after more than 140 human rights groups, survivors and relatives of victims called for an international probe into the country's worst peace time disaster, as "Lebanese leaders continue to obstruct, delay, and undermine the domestic investigation".

Hundreds of tonnes of ammonium nitrate fertiliser exploded at Beirut's port on August 4 last year, killing at least 214 people, injuring thousands, and ravaging entire neighbourhoods of the capital.

It emerged later that officials had known the highly volatile substance had been left to linger unsafely at the port for years after it was unloaded in 2014.

But progress in the Lebanese investigation has been slow.

A court threw out a first judge put in charge of the investigation after he charged former prime minister Hassan Diab and former ministers with "negligence and causing death to hundreds" after all had refused to appear before him.

And officials have been working to hamper the probe led by his successor Bitar.

Parliament has refused to lift the immunity of three other former ministers who are also lawmakers so the judge could question them.

And the former interior minister refused to allow the head of the General Security agency to be interrogated.

Political parties across the spectrum, including powerful Shiite movement Hezbollah, have accused Bitar of "politicising" the probe.

Bitar in August subpoenaed Lebanon's then caretaker premier Diab for interrogation on September 20 after he too failed to show up for questioning, but he has flown to the United States on holiday.

Diab's government handed over to a new cabinet earlier this week after more than a year of horse-trading over who would next take the reins of the multi-confessional country.

Fenianos' lawyer, Nazih al-Khoury, said the arrest warrant was in "blatant violation of the law".

"We, as a defence team, are studying the options we can resort to in the coming days and that are available to us under the law," he told AFP.

Observers fear that Bitar, like his predecessor, will be kicked off the investigation.
Bamako, Sept 16 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 17th Sep, 2021 ) :Mali's interim legislature on Thursday passed laws granting amnesty to the perpetrators of the two recent coups in the troubled Sahel state, the government and parliamentary officials said.

In August last year, army officers led by Colonel Assimi Goita overthrew president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita after weeks of anti-government protests.

Under diplomatic pressure, the army subsequently handed power to a civilian-led interim government tasked with steering Mali back towards civilian rule.

But Goita deposed interim president Bah Ndaw in May, in a second coup, and was later declared interim president himself.

On Thursday, two bills were passed the so-called National Transitional Council, which serves as a interim parliament, giving amnesty to those involved in both putschists.

Mali's justice ministry said in a statement that 99 deputies voted in favour of the motion, with two votes against and two abstentions.

Souleymane De, the chairman of the legislature's legal committee, told AFP the new laws mean that those involved in the two coups cannot be prosecuted.

Goita has pledged to respect the February 2022 deadline for civilian elections set by the previous interim government, which also set October 31 as a date for holding a constitutional referendum.

But rampant insecurity in Mali, and the scale of the task, has cast doubt on the reform timetable.

Swathes of the vast nation lie outside of government control because of a jihadist insurgency that first emerged in the north in 2012, before spreading to the centre of the country, as well as neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger.
ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 17th Sep, 2021 ) :Foreign Office Spokesperson Asim Iftikhar Thursday said Pakistan strongly condemned the continuing grave violations of human rights (HR) and curbs on fundamental freedoms by occupation forces in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).

During a weekly press briefing, the spokesperson said India must be held accountable for these crimes against the innocent Kashmiri people.

He said the draconian military siege, media and communication blackout in the IIOJK continue unabated. Extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests and detentions and other atrocities, enabled by the draconian laws, are the new normal in IIOJK, he added.

He said despite India's denial of access to international media, human rights and international organizations, the grave situation of human rights in IIOJK had been extensively covered by international media, reported by the United Nations (UN) and prominent human rights organizations, and had been raised at numerous platforms, including world parliaments.

"Therefore we have seen that despite India continuously peddling false propaganda and trying to push its sham narrative of so-called normalcy' in IIOJK, the global concern and censure of Indian atrocities in IIOJK had continued especially since India's illegal and unilateral actions of 5 August 2019." He recalled the United Nations Security Council discussed the issue of Jammu and Kashmir on three occasions since 5 August 2019.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights had issued two reports in 2018 and 2019, making specific recommendations including the institution of an Independent Commission of Inquiry to investigate the gross and systematic human rights violations by India in the occupied territory, he added.

He said a number of Special Procedures/Rapporteurs of the Human Rights Council expressed serious concerns and had remained actively engaged on the human rights situation in IIOJK.

He elaborated that the high commissioner for human rights in her report to the HRC Session on 13 September expressed concerns that: "Indian authorities' restrictions on public assembly and frequent communication blackouts continued.

Hundreds of people remained in detention for exercising their right to the freedom of expression, and journalists faced ever-growing pressure.

Ongoing use of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act throughout India was worrying, with IIOJK having the highest number of cases." The official said India must realize that it cannot keep the Kashmiris silent through oppression and illegal occupation, and cannot ignore the calls for bringing an end to its human rights violations in IIOJK.

"International community is increasingly becoming the voice of the Kashmiri people." "In this regard, we have emphatically rejected the Indian media's baseless claims that Indian authorities have busted a so-called 'terror module' having alleged links with Pakistan," he added.

He said fabricating unfounded allegations and peddling white lies were part of India's well-known smear campaign against Pakistan, which had already been fully exposed by EU DisinfoLab and others. Propagation of false news was India's state policy steered by its pliant media.

Talking about the situation in Afghanistan, he said on the humanitarian side, Pakistan had led the way, having sent already 4 planes containing relief goods and medical supplies for the people of Afghanistan. "We also welcome the high-level meeting convened by the UN in Geneva earlier this week to mobilize urgent humanitarian assistance for Afghanistan. Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi represented Pakistan." "We also continue to emphasize that sustained, constructive engagement of the international community is imperative to avoid a humanitarian crisis and help ensure durable peace and stability in Afghanistan. Well-being of the Afghan people should be the foremost priority." "Pakistan remains actively engaged with the international community and continues to consult our friends and partners," he added.

He said Pakistan had played a critical role in helping the United States degrade Al Qaeda's core leadership in Afghanistan, which was the international coalition's core objective.

At the same time, Pakistan had always maintained that there was no military solution to the larger Afghan conflict and that a political settlement offered the only plausible pathway to sustainable peace in Afghanistan  a position now shared by the United States, he noted.

He said achieving an inclusive political settlement in Afghanistan that represented Afghanistan's diversity and reflected the gains made by the country remained a shared objective for Pakistan and the United States. "We look forward to building on this convergence while also strengthening other aspects of a broad-based and constructive relationship."To a question about the illicit sale and purchase of fissile material in India, he said this issue was of serious concern for Pakistan, the region and for the global community.

"With so many incidents, this issue has to be taken seriously and questions have to be asked about India's capacity or willingness to effectively address these concerns."
MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 14th September, 2021) Syrian President Bashar Assad thanked Russia for its efforts to protect international law during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Assad's office said on Tuesday.

"I would like to use this meeting to express my gratitude to Russia and the Russian people for the humanitarian assistance provided to the Syrian people .

.. I want to thank you and the Russian political system, in particular, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the efforts that have been made at international meetings to protect international law," Assad said, as quoted by his office in a statement.
MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 16th September, 2021) Australia will receive at least eight nuclear submarines as part of the newly-formed AUKUS (Australia-UK-US) defense alliance, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Thursday.

On Wednesday evening, Morrison together with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and US President Joe Biden declared formation of the new AUKUS defense and security partnership, "which will protect and defend our shared interests in the Indo-Pacific."

The first initiative under the AUKUS alliance will be the creation of nuclear-powered submarine technology for the Royal Australian Navy.

"Under AUKUS, the three nations will focus immediately on identifying the optimal pathway to deliver at least eight nuclear-powered submarines for Australia," Morrison announced in a statement posted on his official website.

Prior to Wednesday's announcement, the Australian tv channel ABC reported that Australia had decided to create new nuclear submarine fleet and to abandon the contract with the French Naval Group worth 90 billion Australian Dollars (US $66 billion) in favor of a joint project with the United States and Great Britain, which offered Australia "a conventional submarine of exceptional quality." The decision was explained by the acceleration of changes in regional security.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington, in response to the formation of the defensive partnership between the United States, Great Britain and Australia, has already urged countries to get rid of the Cold War mentality and to refrain from creating alliances against anyone.
The US and Lithuania are working together as partners to advance democracy in Belarus, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday during remarks alongside Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 15th September, 2021) The US and Lithuania are working together as partners to advance democracy in Belarus, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday during remarks alongside Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis.

"Lithuania and the United States are very strong partners in NATO. We stand together for collective defense and security. We stand against economic coercion, including that being exerted by China. And we stand strongly for democracy, including in Belarus where we're very much working together," Blinken said.

The two leaders met in Washington, DC on International Day of Democracy, which Landsbergis said was a symbolic day to reaffirm the countries' commitments to democracy and livery across the globe.

Lithuania has been dealing with a migration crisis from Belarus that their Defense Minister, Arvydas Anusauskas, called part of a joint Russia-Belarus hybrid attack.

A group of US lawmakers on Friday wrote an open letter condemning the sentencing of Belarussian opposition activists Marya Kalesnikava and Maksym Znak and demanding that the Lukashenko regime release them.
Estonia and France asked for a UN Security Council meeting on Wednesday to discuss the latest ballistic missile launches on the Korean Peninsula, a diplomatic source in the United Nations told Sputnik

UNITED NATIONS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 15th September, 2021) Estonia and France asked for a UN Security Council meeting on Wednesday to discuss the latest ballistic missile launches on the Korean Peninsula, a diplomatic source in the United Nations told Sputnik.

"Estonia and France requested a meeting at the UN Security Council under the 'Any Other business' agenda to address the situation with the missile launches," the source said.
Estonia will borrow 10,000 single-dose Janssen vaccines against COVID-19 from Spain, with the batch expected next week, Estonian Minister of Health and Labour Tanel Kiik said on Wednesday

HELSINKI (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 15th September, 2021) Estonia will borrow 10,000 single-dose Janssen vaccines against COVID-19 from Spain, with the batch expected next week, Estonian Minister of Health and Labour Tanel Kiik said on Wednesday.

The vaccine, produced by Johnson & Johnson's subsidiary, was not imported by Estonia in August at all, according to the minister, and in September the country received only 2,400 doses, so Tallinn initiated talks with EU members on the need for the vaccine shots.

"We are in talks with Spain about borrowing the Janssen vaccines, and 10,000 doses must arrive in Estonia in the beginning of the next week," Kiik told a press conference.

The official noted that many in Estonia preferred the Janssen vaccine, so the country simply ran out of doses. Kiik added that Tallinn ordered 300,000 vaccine doses as part of the joint EU procurement plan, but had received only 48,400 of them.

The borrowed vaccines are planned to be returned to Spain as soon as new batches are received by Estonia.

On December 27, 2020, the Baltic state launched its vaccination campaign. As of early Tuesday, 743,034 Estonians, or 55.9% of population, have gotten at least one shot, and 664,432 were fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the health department.
The Estonian Health Board has decided to recognize all COVID-19 vaccination certificates presented upon arrival, even for vaccines not approved for use in Estonia

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 17th September, 2021) The Estonian Health board has decided to recognize all COVID-19 vaccination certificates presented upon arrival, even for vaccines not approved for use in Estonia.

"Estonia recognizes those vaccines that are recognized by the home country (of the traveler)," the authority said in response to Tallinn University when asked what other vaccines apart from those in Estonia's portfolio are acceptable in the country.

The response was published by the Estonian Delfi news portal.

Estonia has authorized four vaccines for its vaccination campaign, such as Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, and Janssen.

Travelers who hold a full vaccination certificate, or a document proving that the holder has had COVID-19 in the last 180 days, are exempt from mandatory testing and quarantine upon arrival in Estonia.
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The European Parliament called on Thursday for a plan to gradually stop the use of animals for experiments and research in the European Union

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 16th September, 2021) The European Parliament called on Thursday for a plan to gradually stop the use of animals for experiments and research in the European Union.

Earlier in the day, the European legislature adopted a resolution "on plans and actions to accelerate the transition to innovation without the use of animals in research, regulatory testing and education" with 667 votes against 4.

"MEPs request an EU-wide action plan with ambitious and achievable objectives as well as timelines for phasing-out the use of animals in research and testing," the parliament said in a statement.

The lawmakers propose to reduce, refine and replace the use of live animals as soon as it is feasible and does not compromise human health and the environment.

"They want sufficient medium- and long-term funding to be made available to ensure the fast development, validation and introduction of alternative testing methods including through increased funding under Horizon Europe," the lawmakers added.

In 1986, the EU created a framework for protection of animals used in scientific research so that they receive appropriate care and are not subjected to unnecessary suffering. The bloc banned animal testing for finished cosmetic products in 2004, followed by a ban on similar testing for cosmetic ingredients in 2009.
(@FahadShabbir)

The construction of a temporary fence on Latvia's border with Belarus border will require 488,400 euros ($570,000) worth of barbed wire, LTV channel reported on Thursday, citing the State Security Agency's data

RIGA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 16th September, 2021) The construction of a temporary fence on Latvia's border with Belarus border will require 488,400 Euros ($570,000) worth of barbed wire, LTV channel reported on Thursday, citing the State Security Agency's data.

The media outlet specifies that Brief, which has been supplying masks and other personal protective equipment to government departments since the beginning of the pandemic, will be commissioned with the supply of barbed wire amounting to $574,190.

Last month, media reported that the total estimated cost of the construction of the almost 23 mile long fence will cost the nation about $32 million.

Lithuania, Latvia and Poland, which all border Belarus, have accused Minsk of creating a migration crisis, after a sharp increase in the detention of illegal migrants. In connection with the current situation, Riga, Vilnius and Warsaw have introduced a state of emergency on their borders with Belarus. President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko stated that Minsk will no longer restrain the flow of illegal migrants to the EU countries due to sanctions.
WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 16th September, 2021) Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) head Ilham Ehmed raised the issue of Turkish attacks in northern Syria during a visit to Russia, as well as asked Moscow to facilitate a meeting with the Syrian leadership, SDC representative in the US, Bassam Saker, told Sputnik.

"Ehmed has visited Moscow and held meetings with Mikhail Bogdanov, the Russian special presidential representative for the middle East and Africa, as well as other senior Russian officials. The meetings were good," Saker said. "She complained about Ankara's violation of an agreement with Russia by launching attacks in northern Syria. Russia has promised to address the issue."

Saker, who is also a member of the Presidential Committee at the SDC, said that Ehmed brought up the issue of Kurdish participation in the Syrian political process.

"Ehmed raised the issue of including the Syrian Kurds to be part of the political process," Saker said.

Moreover, Ehmed discussed Russia's role in arranging a meeting between the Syrian Kurds and Damascus.

"Russia has promised to help facilitate a meeting between the Syrian Kurds and Damascus," he added.

The two sides also agreed to have meetings and talks in the near future, Saker said.

Earlier in September, Saker told Sputnik that Ehmed would visit Washington in the near future for meetings with US officials to discuss continued support for the region.
Uruguay would like to expand cooperation with Russia in the scientific and technological spheres, Uruguayan Ambassador to Russia Daniel Castillos Gomez told Sputnik

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 15th September, 2021) Uruguay would like to expand cooperation with Russia in the scientific and technological spheres, Uruguayan Ambassador to Russia Daniel Castillos Gomez told Sputnik.

"Russia is an important market for Uruguay... We want to develop new areas of cooperation, which we consider to be very promising, for example, cooperation in science and technology," the diplomat said.

In his opinion the two countries have "excellent relations," as they maintain a fluid dialogue and cooperation at the multilateral level, and have a similar opinion on many international issues.

As emphasized by the ambassador, Russia occupies a leading position in industry and science.

"There are extensive and interesting prospects for cooperation," Castillos Gomez added, noting Russia's success in developing vaccines against the COVID-19 pandemic, in particular the Sputnik V vaccine.

According to the ambassador, the Uruguayan University of the Republic is interested in deepening relations with Russian research institutes in connection with the health sciences.

Castillos Gomez mentioned numerous points of contact between the countries and expressed the hope that the circumstances of the pandemic would allow a meeting of the Joint Commission for the Promotion of Trade and Economic Relations early next year, which includes representatives of several Russian ministries, including the head of the Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance.

In addition, Uruguay, being an exporter of meat, dairy products, wine and fish, is interested in such exhibitions as ProdExpo and WorldFood, which take place in Moscow, the diplomat said.
France and the United States had high-level talks ahead of the announcement of Washington's new alliance with Australia and Britain, with Canberra to acquire nuclear submarines, a White House official said Thursday

Washington, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 16th Sep, 2021 ) :France and the United States had high-level talks ahead of the announcement of Washington's new alliance with Australia and Britain, with Canberra to acquire nuclear submarines, a White House official said Thursday.

"Senior administration officials have been in touch with their French counterparts to discuss AUKUS, including before the announcement," the official told AFP after the agreement angered France, which had a deal of its own to supply conventional submarines to Australia.

"I will leave it to our Australian partners to describe why they sought this new technology.

.. we cooperate closely with France on shared priorities in the Indo-Pacific and will continue to do so," the official added.

The AUKUS agreement scuppered Australia's multi-billion-dollar 2016 deal to buy submarines from France, which had been personally backed by President Emmanuel Macron.

France's foreign minister branded the new agreement "a stab in the back.""I'm very angry today, and bitter... This is not something allies do to each other," Jean-Yves Le Drian said.

China condemned the deal as an "extremely irresponsible" threat to stability in the region.
West African leaders were meeting on Thursday to decide on measures to bring Guinea back to constitutional rule after troops ousted President Alpha Conde in a coup this month

Accra, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 16th Sep, 2021 ) :West African leaders were meeting on Thursday to decide on measures to bring Guinea back to constitutional rule after troops ousted President Alpha Conde in a coup this month.

The 15-member regional ECOWAS group already suspended Guinea after Conde's ouster on September 5 by a special forces commander who captured the president and declared a political transition.

ECOWAS sent a mission to Guinea last week to meet with coup leader Lieutenant-Colonel Mamady Doumbouya and on Thursday will review the mission's report and decide on next steps.

"We are required to take informed decisions on these matters," Ghana's President Nana Akufo-Addo, who is also the current chair of ECOWAS, said opening the summit. "I count on your excellencies to help proffer durable solutions to the crisis." Ghana's Foreign Minister Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey said on Wednesday the coup leaders were probably still not in a position to decide on a timetable for a return to democratic rule.

But the ECOWAS heads of state will take decisions on what they want to see over the next months for progress in Guinea, she said.

"I am not saying that sanctions will be applied but that may happen," Botchwey said.

"The heads of state will... consider the totality of the situation and then come up with decisions on what they will do... to put pressure on the coup makers, the military, to return their country back to constitutional rule." Guinea's military rebellion has fuelled international concerns over democratic backsliding across west Africa and drawn parallels with Mali, which suffered two coups since August last year.

- No timetable - Guinea's junta began a four-day series of talks on Tuesday designed to sound out the country's leaders on the path towards civilian rule.

Doumbouya and his ruling officers have so far met political leaders, religious authorities and rights activists, and are due to speak to foreign diplomats, trade unionists and mining executives through to Friday.

When addressing political leaders in Guinea on Tuesday, Doumbouya said the coup was the result of "the failure of the entire political and military class".

He also refused to commit to a timetable to restoring civilian rule.

"The only timetable that counts is that of the Guinean people who have suffered so much," the strongman said.

After seizing power earlier this month, Doumbouya cited rights abuses under Conde and promised a government of "national unity" that will guarantee a transition.

There have been no concrete details on transition plans since, however.

When faced with a similar coup in Mali last year, ECOWAS imposed economic sanctions, but lifted them after the military committed to restoring civilian rule.

But over a year since that putsch, Mali's army is still in power and there are increasing doubts about a pledge to hold elections in February next year.

- Captive Conde - Public discontent in Guinea had been brewing for months before the coup over the leadership of Conde, 83.

A former opposition figure, Conde became Guinea's first democratically elected president in 2010 and was re-elected in 2015.

But last year, he pushed through a controversial new constitution that allowed him to run for a third term in October 2020.

The move sparked mass demonstrations in which dozens of protesters were killed. Conde won the election but the political opposition maintained the poll was a sham.

The military is currently holding the former president, despite international calls for his release, including from ECOWAS.

Guinea's junta has agreed to the principle of freeing Conde, but the issue remains highly sensitive -- and it is unclear what will happen to the former leader if he is released.

Opposition groups are also opposed to his liberation, citing the danger he might try to regain power.

A poor nation of 13 million people, Guinea has abundant deposits of iron, gold, diamonds and bauxite, the ore used to make aluminium. Mining is the driver of the economy.
(UroToday.com) In the on-demand poster session of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Annual Congress, Dr. Morris provided a summary of the PSMAfore trial in progress (NCT04689828). This study examines the role of [177Lu]Lu-PSMA-617 (177Lu-PSMA-617) in taxane-naive patients with mCRPC. 177Lu-PSMA-617 is a high-affinity prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA)-targeted radioligand therapy that delivers -particle radiation to cell expressing PSMA and the surrounding microenvironment. Among patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) previously treated with  1 androgen receptor pathway inhibitor (ARPI) and 12 taxanes, the phase III VISION trial demonstrated that 177Lu-PSMA-617 significantly prolonged radiographic progression-free survival (rPFS) and overall survival. In the PSMAfore trial, Dr. Morris and colleagues are investigating the effect of 177Lu-PSMA-617 on rPFS in taxane-naive patients with mCRPC treated with either 177Lu-PSMA-617 or a change in ARPI.

This is a multicentre, open-label, randomized phase III trial conducted in adult men with progressive mCRPC and confirmed PSMA expression by [68Ga]Ga-PSMA-11 PET/CT. In terms of prior treatment, to be eligible, patients must be taxane-naive in the metastatic setting and have received one prior ARPI and be a candidate for a change in ARPI. Additionally, patients must have an ECOG performance status of 0 or 1; a castrate level of serum/plasma testosterone (< 50 ng/dL or < 1.7 nmol/L); and recovered to grade  2 from toxicities related to prior therapies.

The authors plan to randomize approximately 450 patients. After enrollment, patients will be randomized 1:1 to receive 177Lu-PSMA-617 (7.4 GBq i.v. every 6 weeks for 6 cycles) or a change in ARPI to either abiraterone or enzalutamide. Regardless of randomization, best supportive care is allowed in both arms. Randomization will be stratified according to prior ARPI use in castration-resistant vs hormone-sensitive prostate cancer settings and pain symptomatology (score 03 vs 410 on the worst pain intensity item of the Brief Pain Inventory  Short Form).

The authors will assess the primary endpoint of rPFS according to PCWG3-modified RECIST v1.1 criteria. Following blinded independent centrally confirmed radiographic progression, patients in the ARPI arm can crossover to the 177Lu-PSMA-617 arm.

The planned sample size of 450 patients provides 95% power to detect a hazard ratio of 0.56 for rPFS after 156 events with an overall one-sided significance level of 0.025. The key secondary endpoint is overall survival while other secondary endpoints include safety and tolerability of 177Lu-PSMA-617 and health-related quality of life.

Presented by: Michael Morris, MD, Prostate Cancer Section Head, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York, USA.

Written by: Christopher J.D. Wallis, University of Toronto Twitter: @WallisCJD during the 2021 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Annual Congress 2021, Thursday, Sep 16, 2021  Tuesday, Sep 21, 2021.
Kenyas Catholic Bishops have issued a pastoral letter that addresses various pertinent matters affecting the nation.

Paul Samasumo  Vatican City.

In their pastoral letter, released Wedensday and titled, Call to keep our hope alive, the Bishops called a press conference where they read the document. Leading the presser in Nairobi, Chairman of the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops (KCCB), Archbishop Martin Kivuva Musonde of Mombasa, said the document was the result of a process of deep collective reflection by Kenyas Bishops.

Covid-19 and mixed messaging from politicians

Among other matters, the Bishops commended the Kenyan Government in the manner it handled the covid-19 pandemic.

We thank the Government of Kenya for the concerted efforts towards ensuring that the country is cushioned against the ravaging impact of the Covid-19 pandemic through a raft of measures, including rolling out a vaccination campaign. We applaud the majority of Kenyans who have continued to adhere to the Ministry of Health protocols on Covid-19 prevention, Archbishop Kivuva told Kenyan media.

Nevertheless, the Bishops condemned double standards exhibited by politicians who continue to hold large public gatherings in total disregard of the Governments health protocols.

We note with concern that despite the Government announcing a suspension of all public gatherings in the country, a section of political leaders has continually defied this directive. It is unfortunate that no action has been taken on all those leaders who are abjectly flouting these protocols, reads the pastoral letter.

The Bishops added, We wish to state that our political leaders are sending a wrong message to ordinary Kenyans, and it is dismaying that the law enforcement agencies are not taking action on this recklessness by politicians.

The rift between Kenyan President and his deputy

The Bishops also addressed the bitter and public fall-out between Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto.

It is an open and sad reality that the President and Deputy President of the Republic of Kenya are not reading from the same script. The public exchanges that are being witnessed are dangerous for the prevailing peace and tranquillity in the country and cannot be taken lightly. They are already creating anxiety among the people and have the potential to ignite political violence if not addressed with immediate effect, the Bishops said. They continued, We are deeply concerned that if this open disagreement between the President and the Deputy President is taken up by their supporters, the trickle-down effect it could generate across the country will be dire to even contemplate. In a young democracy like ours, it is important that there is unity among the top leaders as this gives confidence to the people, the Bishops admonished.

The Church is above partisan politics

The nine-page document also reminds politicians, clergy and the faithful about the Bishops' ban against politicians visiting Catholic parishes and turning them into arenas for political campaigns.

We wish to firmly state again that our places of worship and liturgy are sacred and should not serve as political arenas. The Church is above politics, the Bishops reiterated.

Electoral reforms

The pastoral letter also deals with the perennial challenge of political violence in Kenya and the need for electoral reforms before the next general election of August 2022. The Bishops further express concern over the drought situation affecting some Kenyan regions. They encourage Kenyans to pray for peace, tolerance and justice.
Vietnam Briefing discusses Vietnams recently released National Digital Transformation Programme by 2025 with a vision towards 2030.

As Vietnam seeks to attract hi-tech FDI and progress from a middle-income economy it plans to accelerate a digital shift, automating several processes to help achieve these goals.

This will not only benefit the country but also presents significant opportunities for foreign investors in the medium to long term.

Vietnam recently approved the National Digital Transformation Programme by 2025, with an orientation towards 2030. The initiative will help accelerate digital transformation through changes in awareness, enterprise strategies, and incentives towards the digitalization of businesses, administration, and production activities.

The programme will target businesses, cooperatives, and business households that want to adopt digital transformation to improve their production, business efficiency, and competitiveness.

To meet targets the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) will issue documents and tools guiding the digital transformation and boost cooperation with the relevant agencies. This includes a roadmap for production facilities and offering them a 50 percent reduction in consultancy costs.

Digital transformation programme highlights

The National Digital Transformation Programme includes some of these goals by 2025:

80 percent of online public services at level 4 to be online with access on mobile devices;

90 percent of work records at ministerial and provincial levels are online while 80 percent of work records at district level and 60 percent of work records at commune level are processed online;

All national databases including those for population, land, business registration, finance, and insurance are online and connected, with shared data on a government reporting information system;

Inspection of state management agencies are done through digital systems and information systems;

Annual labor production to be increased by 7 percent; 8 percent by 2030;

50 percent of banking operations by customers to be fully online;

50 percent of population to have a digital checking account;

70 percent of customer transactions made through digital channels;

50 percent of decisions on lending, small and consumer loans of individual customers made digitally and are automated;

70 percent of work and service records at credit institutions to be processed and stored digitally; and

Fiber optic internet infrastructure covers 80 percent of households and 100 percent of communes.

In addition, to the above the government wants the digital economy to contribute 20 percent by 2025 and 30 percent by 2030 to the countrys economy. It also aims to be in the top 50 countries on the UNs ICT Development Index as early as 2025.

Digital transformation has also been prioritized in eight sectors which include finance and banking, healthcare, education, agriculture, transport, logistics, energy, natural resources, and environment and manufacturing.

Digital transformation makes headway, but more can be done

In the past few years, Vietnam has reached important milestones in the digital economy. For example, its internet economy has grown 16 percent from 2019 to US$14 billion among the highest in Southeast Asia as per a report by Google. The report projected Vietnam to grow its digital economy from 2020 to 2025 by 29 percent, second only to the Philippines at 30 percent. It is also estimated that by 2025, Vietnams internet economy would be worth about US$52 billion.

The pandemic has accelerated this shift amid strict lockdowns and movement restrictions. Supermarkets and traditional stores have also resorted to online avenues to reach out to more consumers during this time, while e-commerce sites have increased sales. Nevertheless, even these businesses have found it challenging amid Vietnams strict lockdown measures and limited movement.

Cash is king in Vietnam and most people do not have bank accounts. While the use of mobile wallets has risen, most consumers still prefer to use cash on delivery (COD) for online shopping and e-commerce sites. A solution to this is mobile money which is the use of telecommunications for payment of small value transactions. The government in March 2021 allowed a pilot program for mobile money service which will run for two years. Even so, around 70 percent of Vietnams population are internet users and thus opportunities for digital payments are immense.

As Vietnam moves from low-tech manufacturing to a service-oriented economy, fintech, artificial intelligence, e-commerce, and software will play a bigger role in the digital economy and while there are challenges, it presents significant opportunities for the government, as well as domestic and international investors.

While Vietnam has made important progress, more work needs to be done to address the digital skills development gap. This is to ensure that in pursuit of the nations digital economy achievements, everyone has equal opportunity. The World Bank (WB) has also noted opportunities to expand Vietnams digital transformation by encouraging reforms to promote e-learning, e-payments, and e-governments. The WB stressed that Vietnam also needs a digitally skilled labor force, a dynamic and agile local private sector, and good and secure access to information.

The pandemic has accelerated a resulted in a shift with more people adopting digital means. The government has also used various digital tools such as social media, websites, and infographics to send messages about the pandemic hoping to raise awareness. The WB estimated that around two-thirds of enterprises have access to technologies related to the digital economy.

All these factors bode well and present significant opportunities for Vietnam. The government can take advantage of existing conditions to become a digital economic center.

Opportunities for investors

To aid with this project the Asian Development Bank (ADB) will partner with the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC), which will help in raising Vietnams digital economy contribution to 20 percent of GDP by 2025.

Under the agreement, ADB will assist four technical activities including research and development of legal frameworks, policies and solutions to promote the digital economy, finding resources to develop national digital platforms, and researching and promoting investment in digital infrastructure projects towards a comprehensive and sustainable digital society.
The Republic of China (ROC) military will add 240 billion Taiwan dollars (US$8.7 billion) to its defense spending over the next five years to protect the island of Taiwan against the communist regime on mainland China, citing the severe threats posed by the Chinese Communist Partys Peoples Liberation Army (PLA).

Statements by ROC deputy minister of national defense Wang Shin-lung that the arms would consist of Taiwan-built ships and cruise missiles came after defense minister Joseph Wu described the democratically run island as a sea fortress standing in the way of Beijings belligerence.

A democratic Taiwan plays a significant role in ensuring freedom of navigation in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, Wu said in a keynote speech at an online event held by the D.C.-based Global Taiwan Institute and attended by U.S. Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.) and David Stilwell, former assistant secretary at the State Departments Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs.

Wu referred to Taiwans position in the first island chain, which consists of the islands in the Western Pacific on Chinas coast, from southern Japan to Indonesia. The PLAs air and naval reach is stymied by the fact that the entirety of this region is held by countries allied with the United States or hostile to Beijing.

The second island chain includes central Japan and stretches through Guam to Papua New Guinea.

The Chinese Communists have continued to invest heavily in national defense budgets, its military strength has grown rapidly, and it has frequently dispatched aircraft and ships to invade and harass our seas and airspace, the Taiwanese defense ministry said.

To counter the mainland threat, the ROC military is actively engaged in military building and preparation work, and it is urgent to obtain mature and rapid mass production weapons and equipment in a short period of time, the defense ministry said in a Sept. 16 statement after a weekly Cabinet meeting.

A statue of a Taiwanese soldier stands outside the General Li Guang-Qian temple on February 03, 2021 in Kinmen, Taiwan. (Image: An Rong Xu/Getty Images)

Grey-zone conflict

Wu also warned that the CCP was using nationalist irredentism to stir up a conflict, while waging an ideological warfare against democracy and attempting to reshape the rules-based international system to serve its own agenda globally.

It continues to infiltrate democracies with disinformation aiming to demolish our faith in democratic values, Wu added. These efforts intend to create the facade that [a] one-party system is more effective than [a] democratic system.

Beijing has used such propaganda to cow the population of Hong Kong  which in 2019 and 2020 protested massively for democratic reforms  into submission to the CCP, eventually imposing a strict National Security Law on the territory, despite a 1984 promise to respect the former British colonys political freedom.

READ MORE:

Taiwan Rebuffs Chinese Propaganda Claims That Afghanistans Fate Is an Omen for the Island

In Taiwan, the opposition Kuomintang or Chinese Nationalist Party, which often takes a pro-Beijiang stance, used to be a staunchly anti-communist party that waged civil with the CCP on the mainland. In recent decades, however, the Kuomintang gave in to economic incentives and Beijings united front strategy, which conflated the Communist Party with the Chinese people and national identity.

Taiwans experiences in confronting different threats from the CCPincluding cyberattacks, gray-zone tactics, disinformation, and united front tacticswould be valuable knowledge for other countries, Frank Fang of The Epoch Times writes, citing Wus speech.

Taiwan is currently governed by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which promotes a separate Taiwanese identity and aims to achieve formal independence for the island.

Communist China considers retaking Taiwan to be a matter of utmost importance, and frequently intimidates Taiwan with flights of fighters and bombers, in addition to warships. On Sept. 5, the Taiwanese air defense forces detected 19 PLA air force fighters in its identification zone; another major incursion happened in June, with the PLA flying 28 planes into the ROC air defense zone in the Taiwan Strait.
The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson departed from San Diego last month. It has recently entered the South China Sea. Carrying F-35C stealth fighters, the aircraft carrier is participating in maritime strike exercises, flight operations with fixed and rotary-wing aircraft, and coordinated tactical training air and surface units.

South China Sea operations are part of the American Navys routine presence in the Indo-Pacific region. The U.S. aircraft carrier has been broadcasting its position, something which many experts say is unusual. Its believed it is showing that it is moving freely in waters that Beijing claims as its own.

In an interview with Radio Free Asia, Rear Adm. Dan Martin, commander of the Carl Vinson Strike Group, said that their operations in the region indicate American willingness to defend its interests as well as uphold the freedoms outlined in international laws.

According to international law, only waters within 12 nautical miles of a nations territory are considered its own territorial waters. However, communist China has built several artificial islands in the South China Sea to expand territorial claims. The strategy has attracted strong protests from other nations in the region.

Any coastal state law or regulation must not infringe upon navigation and overflight rights enjoyed by all nations under international law Unlawful and sweeping maritime claims including in the South China Sea pose a significant threat to the freedoms of the seas, including freedom of navigation, overflight, and lawful commerce Were not going to be coerced or forced to cede the international norms, Martin said.

The CCP-backed Global Times called USS Carl Vinsons presence in the South China Sea a provocative deployment. It accused the aircraft carriers of coming straight to the South China Sea with the aim of deterring Beijing.

Fu Qianshao, a Chinese military expert, told the media outlet that Beijing is fully confident in dealing with such actions. He said the PLA cannot be defeated within the second island chain. Following USS Carl Vinson, Washington also deployed the guided-missile destroyer USS Benfold near Meiji Reef in the South China Sea.

Martin stated that all their interactions with the Chinese Navy have been professional and safe. They havent seen any aggressive maneuvering from the Chinese side that would trigger concerns.

Another busy day in @7thFleet, we trained alongside and bolstered #AlliancesandPartnerships and operated on the high seas near PLAN ships, aircraft, and submarines. Our presence in the region contributes to the security and stability for a #FreeandOpenIndoPacific, the official account of USS Carl Vinson tweeted on Sept. 12.

While USS Carl Vinson passed through the southern point of the South China Sea, it came close within 50 nautical miles from Haiyang Dizhi 10, a fleet of Chinese survey vessels that conduct research in the region. Dizhi was operating within 200 nautical miles from Indonesias exclusive economic zone.

New maritime rule, Taiwan issue

The U.S. Navys deployment in the South China Sea comes as Beijing recently implemented a new maritime law on Sept. 1. It requires foreign vessels to report to Chinese authorities if they enter areas that Beijing claims to be their territory. The foreign vessels are expected to supply information regarding the estimated time of arrival and departure and current details on the position, for example.

In an interview with The Epoch Times, Su Tzu-yun, a Taiwan-based expert, said that the new rule could heighten tension in disputed regions like the South China Sea.

Beijing will also apply the Maritime Traffic Safety Law to the artificial islands after September 1. So when [vessels of] other countries sailed within 12 miles of Chinese-claimed artificial reefs  a clash may break out, Su said.

Beijings claims to the contested waters largely rest on its own narratives rather than any international recognition. Most countries in the region, such as Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Japan, have never recognized the communist regimes claims.

On Sept. 1, Pentagon spokesperson John Supple criticized Beijings new maritime law. The United States remains firm that any coastal state law or regulation must not infringe upon navigation and overflight rights enjoyed by all nations under international law [Chinas] unlawful and sweeping maritime claims  pose a serious threat to the freedom of the seas, Supple said.

Ned Price, a spokesperson at the U.S. State Department, said that Washington follows a universal set of rules for all nations, whether they be large or small with regards to maritime activities. He said Chinas claims in the South China Sea are unlawful and excessive.

Americas increasing presence in the Indo-Pacific also puts Beijing on the defensive regarding Taiwan. Chinese officials have made it clear that they would resort to military violence to annex the island nation if needed. According to Lee Cheng-hsiu, a military expert at the National Policy Foundation of Taiwan, U.S. naval activities in the Indo Pacific act as a deterrent to such developments.

In an interview with The Epoch Times, Lee said that the CCP believes Chinese people will never rise against the regime as long as the economy keeps performing well. A war with Taiwan, especially one that has the support of the American military, is a threat to the stability of CCP rule.

If a war against the U.S. breaks out, the CCP will worry that if it loses the war, the leader must step down and the regime will fall apart. Thats why the CCP uses the so-called intimidation and military exercises to confront and compete with the U.S., but it will not really attack Taiwan, Lee said.
The Australian government on Sept. 16 announced its cancellation of a 2016 contract with France to build a fleet of submarines, as the project is to be taken up using American nuclear technology instead. The development comes on the heels of statements by U.S. President Joe Biden announcing a new alliance with Australia and Britain, abbreviated AUKUS.

The ABC understands Australia will use American and British technology to configure its next submarine fleet in a bid to replace its existing Collins class subs with a boat more suitable to the deteriorating strategic environment, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported on Sept. 15.

Adding the vessels to Australias military will make it the seventh country to field nuclear-powered submarines, and the only one that does not also possess nuclear weapons.

READ MORE

British Ships Detect Noisy Chinese Nuclear Subs, Global Times Claims Reveal Was Intentional

US Increasing Surveillance of Chinese Submarines: PRC Think Tank

The AUKUS alliance is widely seen as countering the Peoples Republic of China (PRC), which has increased its belligerence in the South and East China seas, as well as towards Taiwan, the democratically governed island that Beijing claims as its own territory. The pact could also see the U.S. operate Virginia-class nuclear attack submarines out of Perth, in the state of Western Australia.

Although Australia will not enrich nuclear fuel on its soil or equip the new subs with nuclear weapons, they offer a significant technological boost over the conventionally diesel-electric boats that most navies deploy. Nuclear submarines can stay submerged for months, and have a sailing range limited only by the provisions they carry and the crews psychological well-being.

French protests

Jean-Yves Le Drian, French Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs, and Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly issued a statement protesting Australias decision to scrap the US$66 billion program to build up to 12 conventionally powered subs, calling it contrary to the letter and spirit of the cooperation that prevailed between France and Australia. The French officials also said that Canberras move showed a lack of coherence.

Naval Group, the French company charged with building the planned Attack-class submarines, was surprised by the sudden cancellation, according to an insider who spoke with Bloomberg.

The company had met all its contractual obligations to date, from pricing to timelines and pledges for local production in Australia, the person said. It had expected commitments over 50 years under its contracts and would negotiate a breakup fee, Bloomberg writers Jason Scott and Jenny Leonard wrote on Sept. 15.

It was really a stab in the back. We built a relationship of trust with Australia, and this trust was betrayed, Le Drian said Thursday on France-Info radio.

Jacinda Ardern: No Australian nuclear subs allowed in New Zealand waters

New Zealands prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, gave moderate support to the AUKUS pact, but declared at a Sept. 16 press conference that Australias nuclear vessels would not be welcome in New Zealand territorial waters or ports.

The country does not allow most nuclear-powered ships in its waters, a policy Ardern said remains unchanged. She noted that New Zealand and Australias relationship under the current ANZUS pact was unaffected by the new trilateral arrangement with London and Washington.

In 1984, New Zealand banned nuclear ships from its territory, but lifted the ban for U.S. warships in 2012. In 1987, it banned all nuclear weapons from his territory, a move that led the United States to drop its ANZUS obligations.

Neither Australia nor New Zealand have domestic nuclear power industries, though Australia has large deposits of uranium.

The AUKUS treaty is likely to diminish ANZUS importance, according to experts.
Covid-19 restrictions have made grieving harder for family members who have lost loved ones to the highly contagious and deadly virus.

For 33-year-old Chak Siekly, health restrictions set by Cambodias health ministry - allowing no more than 10 people at an hour-long funeral ceremony for Covid-19 victims - have left his pain lingering when he lost his 89-year-old father to the virus.

With a face buried under a sea of grief and deep sadness, Chak Siekly cremated his father from a distance, not able to see his fathers face up close one last time at an unfamiliar pagoda.

None of those who had known and respected the Buddhist monk were able to honor his legacy in-person during the final moments before cremation, the son explained.

Chak Sieklys father was the head monk of Srae Sang monastery in Kandal province for many years. He passed away after six days of treatment at Olympic coronavirus makeshift hospital in Phnom Penh, in early August.

As of September 14, more than 2,000 Cambodians had died from Covid-19.

Im deeply saddened that I was not able to honor him and celebrate his passing with proper blessings from monks and the elderly in our community, Chak Siekly told VOA Khmer on August 18, at Tuek Thla monastery in Phnom Penh, about 33 kilometers away from his hometown in Sang district, Kandal province.

Its very hard for me to accept this, because as his son, I did not even have a chance to be with him during his last moment. He passed [on a hospital bed] by himself. How lonely his soul might have been, Chak Siekly wondered.

The religious tradition under Theravada Buddhism that allows Cambodians to honor the dead and find a peaceful place for grieving and healing includes honoring the dead by having the body washed and respectfully displayed for immediate family members to honor at their own home for at least two days. During that time, relatives and members of the community are able to join and pay respects to the deceased.

Buddhist monks, priests, and nuns often also chant and recite verses of impermanence, one of the essential doctrines of Buddhism  knowing the Dharma, meaning the nature of human existence. The chanting, often accompanied by prayer and food offerings and other goods to the monks, is believed by Cambodians to send the dead into the next rebirth with serenity.

However, the coronavirus pandemic makes it impossible for family members and members of community to practice the long-perceived tradition and belief. This has a detrimental impact on those who lost their loved ones to this deadly virus, says Soam Sareth, a Buddhist pastor at Tuek Thla monastery in Phnom Penh.

What Ive seen day in, day out is that [designated health] workers brought the bodies of deceased Covid patients, wrapped in plastic bags and none of the immediate family members were allowed to get close or see the face of their loved ones, Soam Sareth, 95, told VOA Khmer in August. Its emotionally painful when you no longer honor their soul following our religious tradition.

Despite such lingering grief and sadness triggered from an inability to properly honor the dead, some religious leaders encourage people like Chak Siekly to use an alternate way to honor his father and grieve and heal.

The current circumstance is very hard for them [those who lost loved ones to coronavirus], so after the cremation, family members alternatively can bring their ash home and honor them as they wish to, said Bhikku Vanchirbanho Kou Sopheap, also a professor at Pannasastra University of Cambodia.



A week later, they can bring foods and goods to the monks, who would perform Buddhist sermon to properly send off their lost loved one into a rebirth, he added.
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A 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck Puerto Rico early Tuesday, causing power outages and structural damage. At least one person has been killed in a series of quakes that hit the island in recent days. Governor Wanda Vazquez has declared a state of emergency and asked for a federal emergency declaration. VOA's Zlatica Hoke reports.
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A massive manhunt is under way after six Palestinians convicted of terrorism escaped from a prison in northern Israel earlier this week.

The prison break is shaping up to be the first serious security challenge for Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's new government and one of the biggest escapes in Israel's history.

The six men escaped from Gilboa prison early Monday, taking advantage of a structural flaw in the facility in northern Israel, just a few kilometers from the West Bank.

They were able to unscrew a metal plate under the toilet in their cell and escape via the sewage system. Officials said the escapees apparently received help from the outside and had a change of clothes and a car waiting for them.

Five of the six are part of the Islamic Jihad, one of the most radical groups in the West Bank, and several of them were serving life sentences for killing Israelis. The sixth is identified as Zakaria Zubeideh, and was a senior member of the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades  a group that the United States and other governments consider a terrorist organization.

Israeli troops have sent thousands of soldiers and police to the area to search for the men and extended a curfew that had been imposed for the Jewish New Year. They also halted family visits to prisoners for several days.

Israeli officials believe the men are either still in Israel or the West Bank. Israel moved all the Islamic Jihad prisoners from the Gilboa facility to other facilities, sparking riots in several prisons. There were also demonstrations against Israel in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which included violent clashes that witnesses said were spreading Thursday.

Israeli officials are concerned the men may carry out a terrorist attack or kidnappings. Palestinian officials warned of widespread unrest if Israeli forces kill the men.

Israeli authorities have also said that they expect Palestinian security forces to help them if the convicts have escaped to the West Bank. But the Palestinian governor of Jenin, Akram Rajoub, said that is not likely.

He said that the prisoners hold a special place in the Palestinian public's heart and that he does not think the public will want to hand them over to Israel and will not help the Palestinian Authority do that.

Israeli officials say they are working to find the convicts and capture them.


Israeli police said on Friday night that they had caught two of the six Palestinians who escaped from a maximum-security prison this week in a daring prison break that has captured the country's attention.

Police said the two were caught in northern Israel on Friday night.

The announcement did not identify the prisoners or give any other details. But the Haaretz news site identified them as Mahmoud Aradeh and Yakub Kadari, members of the Islamic Jihad militant group who were both serving life sentences. The report said the men were caught in the northern city of Nazareth after a civilian alerted police about two suspicious figures.

The six Palestinians tunneled out of the Gilboa prison on Monday, setting off a furious manhunt across Israel and in the West Bank.

They include four members of the militant group Islamic Jihad who were serving life sentences as well as Zakaria Zubeidi, a well-known militant leader from the second Palestinian uprising in the early 2000s. All of the prisoners are from the nearby city of Jenin in the occupied West Bank.

The escape exposed major flaws in Israel's prison service and set off days of angry criticism and finger pointing.


A special court on Friday accused the former leader of a key militia in the Central African Republic of crimes against humanity at the height of the civil war.



Former captain Eugene Barret Ngaikosset, arrested nearly a week ago, was once a commander of the guard of President Francois Bozize, who was toppled in 2013 by the Seleka, a coalition of largely Muslim armed groups.



He then became an important leader of the largely Christian and animist anti-Balaka militias, which Bozize founded to fight the Seleka.



The two groups plunged the country into a bloody civil war, with the United Nations accusing them in 2015 of having committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in 2014 and 2015.



Ngaikosset, arrested September 4 just outside the capital, Bangui, "was accused of crimes against humanity" by two judges of the Special Criminal Court (CPS), the tribunal said in a statement.



Made up of Central African and international magistrates, the court has been tasked with judging serious human rights violations since 2003 in this country that has been locked in civil war since 2013.



CPS prosecutors must decide if Ngaikosset will be placed in custody while awaiting a possible trial, the statement said.



The International Criminal Court in The Hague also could be tasked with handling the former captain's case.



'Butcher'

Central African media have dubbed Ngaikosset "the butcher of Paoua," referring to massacres committed by the army in the northwest city of the same name from 2005 to 2007, when he was a commander of Bozize's dreaded presidential guard.



In a 2009 report, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said diplomats had at the time asked Bozize to take legal action Ngaikosset, who it said was implicated in various atrocities in the northwest.



The ex-captain had set up a faction of the anti-Balaka, which means anti-machete, after Bozize's fall in 2013.



And a report from the U.N., which froze his assets abroad and issued a travel ban, accused him in 2015 of carrying out or supporting actions contrary to international human rights law.



The civil war has dropped in intensity since 2018 but armed groups, some with past links to the Seleka or anti-Balaka, occupied late last year more than two-thirds of the country.



Some elements launched a rebellion at the end of 2020 against the administration of President Faustin-Archange Touadera, who was re-elected on December 27.



His army, with the support of hundreds of Russian paramilitaries and Rwandan soldiers, have today largely reconquered lost territory.
The United States is gravely concerned about fighting in parts of Ethiopia, the U.S. State Department said Friday, urging the Ethiopian government and Tigrayan rebels to start negotiations quickly.

"We urge the Ethiopian government and TPLF to enter at once into negotiations without preconditions toward a sustainable cease-fire," State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement, using an initialism for the Tigray People's Liberation Front.

Reports of continued human rights abuses and atrocities by parties to the conflict are deeply disturbing, including the reported attack on civilians in a village in the Amhara region this week, Price said.

Local officials Wednesday told Reuters that Tigray rebels killed 120 civilians over two days in the raid. The Tigrayan forces later issued a statement rejecting what they called a "fabricated allegation" by the Amhara regional government and denying any involvement in the killing of civilians.

"We condemn all such abuses against civilians in the strongest possible terms and call on all parties to the conflict to respect human rights and comply with their obligations under international humanitarian law," Price said.

There was no immediate comment from the office of Ethiopia's prime minister. The spokesperson of the Amhara regional government and Getachew Reda, a spokesman for the Tigrayan forces, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Eritrean Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel said: "Eritrea categorically rejects these intermittent accusations. Scapegoating Eritrea is neither constructive, nor will it serve the interests of peace and stability in the [Horn of Africa] region."

War broke out 10 months ago between Ethiopia's federal troops and forces loyal to the TPLF, which controls the Tigray region.

Since then, thousands have been killed and more than 2 million have fled their homes. Fighting spread in July from the Tigray region into the neighboring regions of Amhara and Afar, also in the country's north.

The United Nations said on Friday that it had completed its joint investigation with Ethiopia's state-appointed human rights commission of abuses in the Tigray conflict, with a final report to be released November 1.
A protest by Brazilian truckers loyal to President Jair Bolsonaro largely fizzled out Friday, to the relief of industries that feared supply shortages.

Brazil's infrastructure minister said in a statement early Friday that there were protests along highways in three states, Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and Rondonia, but no roads were blocked. That compared with 16 states that had registered highway protests earlier in the week.

The nation's federal highway police said the protests "no longer present threats of partial or total blockades and are heading toward total demobilization."

Stirred up by Bolsonaro's call to action against the Supreme Court at political rallies on Tuesday, the truck blockades gained steam on Wednesday. Earlier this week, the right-wing leader had accused the Supreme Court of preventing him from governing and called on Justice Alexandre de Moraes to step down.

On Thursday, he sought to defuse the dispute and said he had told truckers to stand down, warning that if the protests continued past Sunday, it would bring about serious supply shortages.

With scant rail infrastructure in Latin America's largest country, the economy is heavily dependent on trucks and the protests threatened key export routes. A major truckers' strike in 2018 brought activity to a standstill.

Besides supporting Bolsonaro in his battle against the Supreme Court, truckers are unhappy about soaring diesel prices.

Bolsonaro gained prominence in the 2018 presidential campaign with his early support for the truckers, and he has remained sympathetic to their complaints of high fuel prices.
A section of mountain on the outskirts of Mexico City gave way Friday, plunging rocks the size of small homes onto a densely populated neighborhood and leaving at least one person dead and 10 others missing.

Firefighters scaled a three-story pile of rocks that appeared to be resting on houses in Tlalnepantla, which is part of Mexico state. The state surrounds the capital on three sides.

As rescuers climbed the immense pile of debris, they occasionally raised their fists in the air, the familiar signal for silence to listen for people trapped below. Firefighters and volunteers formed bucket brigades to pass 19-liter containers of smaller debris away as they excavated.

In this moment our priority is focused on rescuing the people who unfortunately were surprised at the site of the incident, said Tlalnepantla Mayor Raciel Perez Cruz in a video message.

Authorities had evacuated surrounding homes and asked people to avoid the area so rescuers could work.

Rescuers carried a body on a stretcher covered with a sheet past AP journalists. The Mexico state Civil Defense agency said in a statement that at least 10 people were reported missing.

Among the volunteers were 30-year-old construction worker Martin Carmona, 30, and his 14-year-old son. They organized us in a chain to take out buckets of sand, stone and rubble, Carmona said. A coworker lives there. He has a wife and two young children under the debris.

Carmona and his son arrived to the pile before government rescuers and his friend was already there digging for his wife and kids.

Neighbors began to complain that they need more help and organization.

Carmona said rescuers heard children, but after two hours of removing debris, authorities told volunteers to leave the area. Only relatives stayed to help the rescuers.

A boulder that plunged from a mountainside rests among homes in Tlalnepantla, on the outskirts of Mexico City, when a mountain gave way on Sept. 10, 2021.

Search dogs clambered over the rubble with their handlers.

Ana Luisa Borges, 39, said she lives just three houses down from those hit by the landslide.

It thundered horribly, she said of the sound of the slide. I grabbed my youngest son and ran out (of the house). Then came a very big cloud of dust. Fortunately, her other four children were in school.

There are a number of houses there, she said of the slide area. There was a building, but they tell us there are people there and children. I saw one person come out with head injury.

Borges said they have been warned that another rock could come down and that she didnt know where they were going to sleep tonight.

Theyve only told us that we have to leave (our homes), she said.

Tlalnepantla officials announced they were opening several shelters for displaced residents.

The neighborhood is a heap of jumbled houses climbing the mountainside, many with corrugated tin roofs, separated in places by just a steep staircase.

One massive boulder stopped against a two-story house barely its equal, knocking out the front wall and spilling the homes contents into the street. A path of destruction traced uphill.

Boulders that plunged from a mountainside rests among homes in Tlalnepantla, on the outskirts of Mexico City, when a mountain gave way on Sept. 10, 2021.

Maximinio Andrade, who lives with his parents and siblings  14 family members in all  near the slide walked down the steep street pushing a flat-screen television on a hand cart. He had not been home at the time of the landslide but feared thieves would enter now that the surrounding homes had been evacuated.

Theyve already started stealing from the destroyed homes, he said.

National Guard troops and rescue teams carrying lengths of rope made their way through narrow streets.

Images from the area showed a segment of the steep, green side of the peak known as Chiquihuite sheared off above a field of giant rubble with closely packed homes remaining on either side.

Mexico state Gov. Alfredo del Mazo said via Twitter that local, state and federal authorities were coordinating to secure the zone in case of more slides and to remove rubble to locate possible victims.

The landslide follows days of heavy rain in central Mexico and a 7.0-magnitude earthquake Tuesday night near Acapulco that shook buildings 320 kilometers away in Mexico City.

While visiting the scene later Friday, Del Mazo said authorities believe four homes were destroyed in the landslide and another 80 were evacuated as a precaution.

Its likely the earthquake and the intense rain we have had in recent days have affected (the area) and for this came the landslide and the breakup of the mountain, he said.
Israeli police on Saturday said they have arrested four of the six Palestinians who broke out of a maximum-security prison this week, including a famed militant leader whose exploits over the years have made him a well-known figure in Israel.

The arrests moved Israel closer to closing an embarrassing episode that exposed deep flaws in its prison system and turned the fugitive prisoners into Palestinian heroes. Late on Friday, Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired a rocket into Israel in an apparent sign of solidarity, drawing Israeli airstrikes in reprisal.

The four wanted men were caught in a pair of arrests in northern Israel.

Early on Saturday, police said they had caught two men, including Zakaria Zubeidi, in the Arab town of Umm al-Ghanam. Zubeidi was a militant leader during the second Palestinian uprising in the early 2000s.

While he has been linked to attacks on Israelis, he also was well known for giving frequent media interviews and for a friendship he once had with an Israeli woman. Zubeidi over the years had received amnesty and taken college courses and was active in a West Bank theater movement before he was re-arrested in 2019 on suspicions of involvement in attacks.

Photos released by police showed Zubeidi, handcuffed and wearing a white headband, being led away by two police officers.

In a statement, police said that Israeli security forces, including the military, have been working around the clock to catch the fugitives.

All of the forces were deployed at full strength, searched in open areas, collected every piece of information until they succeeded in solving the puzzle to locate these two fugitives, including Zubeidi, police said. The search for the final two prisoners was continuing.

Earlier, two other prisoners were arrested in Nazareth, an Arab city in northern Israel just west of Umm al-Ghanam.

A video circulating on social media showed Israeli police shackling one of the prisoners, Yakub Kadari, into the backseat of a police vehicle and asking him for his name. The man, wearing jeans and a green T-shirt, calmly identifies himself as Kadari and answers yes when asked whether he is one of the escapees. Kadari was serving two life sentences for attempted murder and bomb planting.

According to Israeli media reports, local residents in both towns had turned in the prisoners.

The six Palestinians tunneled out of the Gilboa prison on Monday, setting off a furious manhunt across Israel and in the West Bank.

For the Palestinians, the fugitives were heroes who succeeded in freeing themselves from multiple life sentences. Fighting against Israel and taking part in attacks against the Israeli military or even civilians is a source of pride for many.

In the Gaza Strip as well as in the West Bank, Palestinians had organized sit-ins and joyful gatherings to celebrate the prison break.

While Zubeidi was a member of the secular Fatah group, the others belonged to the Islamic Jihad militant group, including four serving life sentences. All of the prisoners are from the nearby city of Jenin in the occupied West Bank.

As soon as the news about the capture of the two fugitives was confirmed Friday, a flurry of bitter posts expressing disappointment and shock filled Palestinian social media.

Israel said late Saturday that Palestinian militants in Gaza fired a rocket toward Israel that was intercepted by Israeli air defenses. The Israeli military said it responded with airstrikes on a series of Hamas targets in Gaza. Israel says it holds Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, responsible for all rocket fire emanating from the territory.

There was no immediate reaction from the Palestinian Authority, but Abdeltaif al-Qanou, a spokesperson for the Gaza-ruling Hamas movement, said despite the re-arrest, the prisoners have scored a victory and harmed the prestige of the Israeli security system.

The escape has exposed major flaws in Israel's prison service and set off days of angry criticism and finger pointing. The men escaped through a hole in the floor of their shared cell, tunneled through a hole outside the prison and according to media reports, escaped past a sleeping prison guard.

It has also increased tension between Israel and the Palestinians.

Earlier on Friday, Hamas had called for a day of rage to protest Israeli crackdown against imprisoned Palestinians, but the day passed without major confrontation. In Jerusalem, a Palestinian suspected attacker died shortly after being shot by Israeli police in the volatile Old City, where he had reportedly tried to stab officers. Police said one officer was lightly wounded in the leg.
At a taxi stand by a bustling market in Kampala, Ugandas capital, traders simply cross a road or two, get a shot in the arm and rush back to their work.

Until this week, vaccination centers were based mostly in hospitals in this East African country that faced a brutal COVID-19 surge earlier this year.

Now, more than a dozen tented sites have been set up in busy areas to make it easier to get inoculated in Kampala as health authorities team up with the Red Cross to administer more than 120,000 doses that will expire at the end of September.

All of this we could have done earlier, but we were not assured of availability of vaccines, said Dr. Misaki Wayengera, who leads a team of scientists advising authorities on the pandemic response, speaking of vaccination spots in downtown areas. Right now, we are receiving more vaccines and we have to deploy them as much as possible.

In addition to the 128,000 AstraZeneca doses donated by Norway at the end of August, the United Kingdom last month donated nearly 300,000 doses. China recently donated 300,000 doses of its Sinovac vaccine, and on Monday a batch of 647,000 Moderna doses donated by the United States arrived in Uganda.

Suddenly Uganda must accelerate its vaccination drive. The country has sometimes struggled with hesitancy as some question the safety of the two-shot AstraZeneca vaccine, which is no longer in use in Norway because of concerns over unusual blood clots in a small number of people who received it.

Africa has fully vaccinated just 3.1% of its 1.3 billion people, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Public health officials across Africa have complained loudly of vaccine inequality and what they see as hoarding in some rich countries. Soon hundreds of millions of vaccine doses will be delivered to Africa through donations of excess doses by wealthy nations or purchases by the African Union.

Africa is aiming to vaccinate 60% of the continents population by the end of 2022, a steep target given the global demand for doses. The African Union, representing the continents 54 countries, has ordered 400 million Johnson & Johnson doses, but the distribution of those doses will be spread out over 12 months because there simply isnt enough supply.

COVAX, the U.N.-backed program which aims to get vaccines to the neediest people in the world, said this week that its efforts continue to be hampered by export bans, the prioritization of bilateral deals by manufacturers and countries, ongoing challenges in scaling up production by some key producers, and delays in filing for regulatory approval.

Uganda, a country of more than 44 million people, has recorded more than 120,000 cases of COVID-19, including just over 3,000 deaths, according to official figures. The country has given 1.65 million shots, but only about 400,000 people have received two doses, according to Wayengera. Ugandas target is to fully vaccinate up to 5 million of the most vulnerable, including nurses and teachers, as soon as possible.

At the Red Cross tent in downtown Kampala, demand for the jabs was high. By late afternoon only 30 of 150 doses remained, and some who arrived later were told to come back the next day.

I came here on a sure deal, but it hasnt happened, said trader Sulaiman Mivule after a nurse told him he was too late for a shot that day. I will come back tomorrow. Its easy for me here because I work in this area.

Asked why he was so eager to get his first shot, he said, They are telling us that there could be a third wave. If it comes when we are very vaccinated, maybe it will not hurt us so much. Prevention is better than cure.

Mivule and others who spoke to the AP said they didnt want to go to vaccination sites at hospitals because of they expected to find crowds there.

Bernard Ssembatya said he had been driving by when he spotted the Red Crosss white tent and went in for a jab on the spur of the moment. Afterward, he texted his friends about the opportunity.

I was getting demoralized by going to health centers, he said. You see a lot of people there and you dont even want to try to enter.

Yet, despite enthusiasm among many, some still walked away without getting a shot when they were told their preferred vaccine was not yet available.

The one-shot J&J vaccine, still unavailable in Uganda, is frequently asked for, said Jacinta Twinomujuni, a nurse with the Kampala Capital City Authority who monitored the scene.

I tell them, of course, that we dont have it, she said. And they say, OK, lets wait for it.
U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi will fly to Tehran this weekend for talks that may ease a standoff between Iran and the West just as it risks escalating and scuppering negotiations on reviving the Iran nuclear deal, diplomats said on Saturday.



Three diplomats who follow the International Atomic Energy Agency closely said Grossi's trip before next week's meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors was confirmed.



Two said Grossi was due to arrive in Tehran early on Sunday and meet the new head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Mohammad Eslami.



The IAEA informed its member states this week that there had been no progress on two central issues: explaining uranium traces found at several old, undeclared sites and getting urgent

access to some monitoring equipment so that the agency can continue to keep track of parts of Iran's nuclear program as provided for by the 2015 deal.



Separate, indirect talks between the United States and Iran on both returning to compliance with the nuclear deal have been halted since June. Washington and its European allies have been

urging hardline President Ebrahim Raisi's administration, which took office in August, to return to the talks.



Under the 2015 deal between Iran and major powers, Tehran agreed to restrictions on its nuclear activities in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions against it.



President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of thedeal in 2018, re-introducing painful economic sanctions. Iran responded as of 2019 by breaching many of the deal's core

restrictions, like enriching uranium to a higher purity, closer to that suitable for use in nuclear weapons.



Western powers must decide whether to push for a resolution criticizing Iran and raising pressure on it for stonewalling the IAEA at next week's meeting of the agency's 35-nation Board of Governors. A resolution could jeopardize the resumption of talks on the Iran nuclear deal as Tehran bristles at such moves.
The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR says Cameroon continues to be one of the world's most neglected displacement crises, with refugee needs increasing far more quickly than are available resources. The central African country is home to about 500,000 refugees, most of them having fled the troubled Central African Republic and Boko Haram terrorism in Nigeria.



Raouf Mazou, the UNHCR's assistant high commissioner for operations, says that this week he met with humanitarian agencies and Cameroonian government officials, including Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute, to look for ways to reinforce humanitarian actions to help displaced persons and refugees.

In August, countries surrounding Lake Chad reported an increase in the number of people displaced in Chad, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Nigeria, and Niger.



Cameroon said at least 1,500 former Boko Haram militants have arrived on its northern border with Nigeria since May, when the Islamist group's leader, Abubakar Shekau, was declared killed.



Cameroon also reported that more than 40 villages were razed and 10,000 citizens fled northern Cameroon to Chad after a violent conflict between herders and fishers in August.



Mazou visited Cameroon's Far North region on the border with Nigeria and Chad, where he met with representatives of some 4,000 displaced people in the northern border village of Zamai. Mazou said they desperately need civil registration documents so they can integrate into their new communities.



"If there is one thing that is essential, it is the issue of civil registration. They kept on repeating the same thing, they kept on saying our children are here, they cannot go to school. When we asked, Why can't they go to school? one of the key reasons why [is that] we [displaced persons] don't have documents for them [displaced children]. Of course, there is also the issue of the cost. Even if primary education is free, people do have to pay an amount of money, but the issue of documentation for them is absolutely crucial," Mazou said.



Speaking to local media, including Cameroon state broadcaster CRTV, Mazou said there are more than a million displaced Cameroonians in the country.



The UNHCR says Cameroon, with a population of 26 million, is also home to about 500,000 refugees and asylum-seekers.



Among the refugees, 120,000 are Nigerian citizens fleeing Boko Haram terrorism, and 321,000 are fleeing violence caused by the political tensions in the Central African Republic. Cameroon says other refugees are from Chad, Senegal, Mali and Niger.



Xavier Bourgois, the UNHCR's spokesperson in Cameroon, says the agency has limited means to help people seeking refuge.



He said the UNHCR has only 44% of the $100 million it needs to provide emergency humanitarian services for refugees and displaced Cameroonians and to assist host communities that share their already stretched resources with displaced people.



In February, Cameroon said 5,000 of the 120,000 Nigerians, mostly women and children, who fled across the border fleeing from Boko Haram terrorists have agreed to voluntarily return to Nigeria. The UNHCR says about 4,500 Nigerians have returned. Those remaining are still worried about their security should they return to Nigeria.



Several thousand Central African Republic refugees have also returned to their home country. Cameroon says a majority are still scared of insecurity and violence after the December general elections there.


Abimael Guzman, the leader of the brutal Shining Path insurgency in Peru who was captured in 1992, died on Saturday in a military hospital after an illness, the Peruvian government said.

Guzman, 86, died after suffering from an infection, Justice Minister Anibal Torres said.

Guzman, a former philosophy professor, launched an insurgency against the state in 1980 and presided over numerous car bombings and assassinations in the years that followed. After his capture, he was sentenced in life in prison for terrorism and other crimes.

President Pedro Castillo tweeted that Guzman was responsible for taking countless lives.

"Our position condemning terrorism is firm and unwavering. Only in democracy will we build a Peru of justice and development for our people," Castillo said.

Guzman preached a messianic vision of a classless Maoist utopia based on pure communism, considering himself the "Fourth Sword of Marxism" after Karl Marx, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and Mao Zedong. He advocated a peasant revolution in which rebels would first gain control of the countryside and then advance to the cities.

Guzman's movement declared armed struggle on the eve of Peru's presidential elections in May 1980, the first democratic vote after 12 years of military rule.

Prison built for him

Throughout the 1980s, the man known to his followers as Presidente Gonzalo built up an organization that grew to 10,000 armed fighters before his capture inside a Lima safehouse by a special intelligence group of the Peruvian police backed by the United States. Since then, he was housed in a military prison on the shores of the Pacific that was built to hold him.

By the time Guzman called for peace talks a year after his arrest, guerrilla violence had claimed tens of thousands of lives in Peru, displaced at least 600,000 people and caused an estimated $22 billion in damage.

A truth commission in 2003 blamed the Shining Path for more than half of nearly 70,000 estimated deaths and disappearances caused by various rebel groups and brutal government counterinsurgency efforts between 1980 and 2000.

Yet it lived on in a political movement formed by Guzman's followers that sought amnesty for all "political prisoners," including the Shining Path founder. The Movement for Amnesty and Fundamental Right failed, however, to register as a political party in 2012 in the face of fierce opposition from Peruvians with bitter memories of the destruction brought by the Shining Path.

In its songs and slogans, the Shining Path celebrated bloodletting, describing death as necessary to "irrigate" the revolution.

Its militants bombed electrical towers, bridges and factories in the countryside, assassinated mayors and massacred villagers. In the insurgency's later years, they targeted civilians in Lima with indiscriminate bombings.

The Shining Path was severely weakened after Guzman's capture and his later calls for peace talks. Small bands of rebels have nevertheless remained active in remote valleys, producing cocaine and protecting drug runners.
The U.S. has removed its most advanced missile defense system and Patriot batteries from Saudi Arabia in recent weeks, even as the kingdom faced continued air attacks from Yemen's Houthi rebels, satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press show.

The redeployment of the defenses from Prince Sultan Air Base outside Riyadh came as America's Gulf Arab allies nervously watched the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, including their last-minute evacuations from Kabul's besieged international airport.

While tens of thousands of American forces remain across the Arabian Peninsula as a counterweight to Iran, Gulf Arab nations worry about the U.S.'s plans. Tensions remain high as negotiations appear stalled in Vienna over Iran's collapsed nuclear deal with world powers, raising the danger of future confrontations in the region.

"Perceptions matter whether or not they're rooted in a cold, cold reality. And the perception is very clear that the U.S. is not as committed to the Gulf as it used to be in the views of many people in decision-making authority in the region," said Kristian Ulrichsen, a research fellow at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University.

"From the Saudi point of view, they now see Obama, Trump and Biden  three successive presidents  taking decisions that signify to some extent an abandonment."

2019 attack

Prince Sultan Air Base, 115 kilometers (70 miles) southeast of Riyadh, has hosted several thousand U.S. troops since a 2019 missile-and-drone attack on the heart of the kingdom's oil production. That attack, though claimed by Yemen's Houthi rebels, appears instead to have been carried out by Iran, according to experts and physical debris left behind. Tehran has denied launching the attack, though a drill in January saw Iranian paramilitary forces use similar drones.

Just southwest of the air base's runway, in an area set off by an earthen berm, sat American Patriot missile batteries, as well as one advanced Terminal High Altitude Area Defense unit, according to satellite images from Planet Labs Inc. A THAAD can destroy ballistic missiles at a higher altitude than Patriots.

A satellite image seen by the AP in late August showed some of the batteries removed from the area, though activity and vehicles still could be seen there. A high-resolution Planet Lab satellite picture taken Friday showed the batteries' pads at the site empty, with no visible activity.



A redeployment of the missiles had been rumored for months, in part because of a desire to face what American officials see as the looming "great powers conflict" with China and Russia. However, the withdrawal came just as a Houthi drone attack on Saudi Arabia wounded eight people and damaged a commercial jetliner at the kingdom's airport in Abha. The kingdom has been locked in a stalemate war with the Houthis since March 2015.

Deep commitment to allies

Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby acknowledged "the redeployment of certain air defense assets" after receiving questions from the AP. He said the U.S. maintained a "broad and deep" commitment to its Mideast allies.

"The Defense Department continues to maintain tens of thousands of forces and a robust force posture in the Middle East representing some of our most advanced air power and maritime capabilities, in support of U.S. national interests and our regional partnerships," Kirby said.

In a statement to the AP, the Saudi Defense Ministry described the kingdom's relationship with the U.S. as "strong, long-standing and historic," even while acknowledging the withdrawal of the American missile defense systems. It said the Saudi military "is capable of defending its lands, seas and airspace, and protecting its people."

"The redeployment of some defense capabilities of the friendly United States of America from the region is carried out through common understanding and realignment of defense strategies as an attribute of operational deployment and disposition," the statement said.

Despite those assurances, Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal, the kingdom's former intelligence chief whose public remarks often track with the thoughts of its Al Saud ruling family, has linked the Patriot missile deployments directly to America's relationship to Riyadh.

Needing reassurement

"I think we need to be reassured about American commitment," the prince told CNBC in an interview aired this week. "That looks like, for example, not withdrawing Patriot missiles from Saudi Arabia at a time when Saudi Arabia is the victim of missile attacks and drone attacks  not just from Yemen, but from Iran."

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, on a tour of the Mideast in recent days, had been slated to go to Saudi Arabia but the trip was canceled because of what American officials referred to as scheduling problems. Saudi Arabia declined to discuss why Austin's trip didn't happen after the withdrawal of the missile defenses.

Saudi Arabia maintains its own Patriot missile batteries and typically fires two missiles at an incoming target. That's become an expensive proposition amid the Houthi campaign, as each Patriot missile costs more than $3 million.

"I think we saw in Biden's statements on Afghanistan, the way he said things, that he's clearly going to put U.S. interests first, and obviously that came as quite a disappointment to partners and allies around the world who maybe hoped for something different after Trump," said Ulrichsen, the research fellow. "He sounds quite similar to an 'America First' approach, just sort of a different tone."
A Tunisian man died in a hospital Saturday after setting himself on fire, witnesses and medics said, days after another burned himself alive to protest living conditions.

Both acts recall the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi, the street seller whose suicide by fire on Dec. 17, 2010, launched Tunisia's revolution that in turn sparked the Arab Spring that toppled several autocratic leaders in the region.

On Saturday, a 35-year-old man "set himself on fire on Habib Bourguiba Avenue" in the center of Tunis, the civil defense told AFP.

The man, whose motives are still unknown, "suffered third-degree burns and was rushed to hospital," a civil defense spokesperson added.

Local media including state television later reported that he had died of his injuries.

A witness, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the man had arrived at the iconic avenue in central Tunis accompanied by a younger man and tried to attract the attention of some journalists who were present there.

The man then doused himself with flammable material that he set on fire with a lighter, the witness said.

Police set up barricades in the area, and an AFP reporter saw a pair of burned shoes behind them shortly after the incident.

Last week a young man wounded in the 2011 revolution burned himself alive after the government failed to provide compensation, his family said.

Neji Hefiane, 26, died in a hospital on the southern outskirts of Tunis on Sept. 4 after having set himself alight in front of his family, his father said.

Hefiane suffered gunshot wounds to the head during anti-regime protests in the early days of the revolution, according to his family, and although he was on an official list of people entitled to government aid, he received no compensation.

"It was the injustice and marginalization he suffered that pushed my son to kill himself," his father, Bechir Hefiane, said on Monday.

He said he wrote to President Kais Saied explaining his son's case and asking him to intervene on behalf of the struggling family that lives in a working-class Tunis district.

"We've got no reply, even after my son's death," he added.
Several hundred people line up every morning, starting before dawn, on a grassy area outside Nairobi's largest hospital hoping to get the COVID-19 vaccine. Sometimes the line moves smoothly, while on other days, the staff tells them there's nothing available and they should come back tomorrow.

Halfway around the world, at a church in Atlanta in the U.S. state of Georgia, two workers with plenty of vaccine doses waited hours Wednesday for anyone to show up, whiling away the time by listening to music from a laptop. In six hours, one person came through the door.

The dramatic contrast highlights the vast disparity around the world. In richer countries, people can often pick and choose from multiple available vaccines, walk into a site near their homes and get a shot in minutes. Pop-up clinics, such as the one in Atlanta, bring vaccines into rural areas and urban neighborhoods, but it is common for them to get very few takers.

In the developing world, supply is limited and uncertain. Just more than 3% of people across Africa have been fully vaccinated, and health officials and citizens often have little idea what will be available from one day to the next. More vaccines have been flowing in recent weeks, but the World Health Organization's director in Africa said Thursday that the continent will get 25% fewer doses than anticipated by the end of the year, in part because of the rollout of booster shots in wealthier counties such as the United States.

Bidian Okoth said he spent more than three hours in line at a Nairobi hospital, only to be told to go home because there weren't enough doses. But a friend who traveled to the U.S. got a shot almost immediately after his arrival there with a vaccine of his choice, "like candy," he said.

"We're struggling with what time in the morning we need to wake up to get the first shot. Then you hear people choosing their vaccines. That's super, super excessive," he said.

Okoth said his uncle died from COVID-19 in June and had given up twice on getting vaccinated because of the length of the lines, even though he was eligible because of his age. The death jolted Okoth, a health advocate, into seeking a dose for himself.

He stopped at one hospital so often on his way to work that a doctor "got tired of seeing me" and told Okoth he would call him when doses were available. Late last month, after a new donation of vaccines arrived from Britain, he got his shot.

The disparity comes as the U.S. is moving closer to offering booster shots to large segments of the population even as it struggles to persuade Americans to get vaccinated in the first place. President Joe Biden on Thursday ordered sweeping new federal vaccine requirements for as many as 100 million Americans, including private-sector employees, as the country faces the surging COVID-19 delta variant.

About 53% of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated, and the country is averaging about 145,000 new cases of COVID-19 a day, along with about 1,600 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. Africa has had more than 7.9 million confirmed cases, including more than 200,000 deaths, and the highly infectious delta variant recently drove a surge in new cases as well.

John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters Thursday that "we have not seen enough science" to drive decisions on when to administer booster shots.

"Without that, we are gambling," he said, and urged countries to send doses to countries facing "vaccine famine" instead.

In the U.S., vaccines are easy to find, but some people are hesitant to get them.

At the church in northwest Atlanta, a nonprofit group offered the Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer vaccines for free without an appointment from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. But site manager Riley Erickson spent much of the day waiting in an air-conditioned room full of empty chairs, though the group had reached out to neighbors and the church had advertised the location to its large congregation.

Erickson, with the disaster relief organization CORE, said the vaccination rate in the area was low and he wasn't surprised by the small turnout. The one person who showed up was a college student.

"When you put the effort into going into areas where there's less interest, that's kind of the result," he said. His takeaway, however, was that CORE needed to spend more time in the community.

Margaret Herro, CORE's Georgia director, said the group has seen an uptick in vaccinations at its pop-up sites in recent weeks amid a COVID-19 surge fueled by the delta variant and the FDA's full approval of the Pfizer vaccine. It also has gone to meatpacking plants and other work locations, where turnout is better, and it plans to focus more on those places, Herro said.

In Nairobi, Okoth believes there should be a global commitment to equity in the administration of vaccines so everyone has a basic level of immunity as quickly as possible.

"If everyone at least gets a first shot, I don't think anyone will care if others get even six booster shots," he said.
Explosives-laden drones targeted Irbil international airport in northern Iraq late Saturday where U.S.-led coalition troops are stationed, but there were no reports of casualties, according to security forces and officials in Kurdish-run region.

At least two drones carrying explosives targeted the airport, Kurdistan's Counter-Terrorism Service said in a statement. It said the attack did not lead to any casualties.

Lawk Ghafuri, spokesperson for the semi-autonomous northern region, said the explosives struck outside of the airport and dismissed reports the attack had impacted flights. He said the airport remained open and an investigation was ongoing by Kurdish authorities.

The attack is the first following a two-month lull in drone and rocket attacks to target the U.S. presence in Baghdad and military bases across Iraq. On July 8, rockets landed in and around the heavily fortified Green Zone in the Iraqi capital Baghdad, which houses the U.S. Embassy. It caused material damage but no casualties.

Until recently the attacks were a frequent occurrence. The U.S. has blamed Iran-backed militias for attacks. More recently, the attacks have become more sophisticated, with militants using drones instead of Katyusha rockets.

U.S. forces will end their combat mission in Iraq by the end of this year but will continue to train and advise the Iraqi military. There are currently 2,500 U.S. troops in Iraq helping local forces counter what remains of the Islamic State group.
U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi is set for talks in Iran on Sunday that may ease a standoff between Tehran and the West just as it threatens to escalate and scupper negotiations on reviving the Iran nuclear deal.

Grossi arrived in Tehran overnight, Iranian state media said, ahead of next week's meeting of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The IAEA and Iran's envoy to the agency said he would meet the new head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Mohammad Eslami.

Grossi is expected to hold a news conference at Vienna airport around 8:30 p.m. (1830 GMT) after returning later on Sunday, the IAEA said.

The IAEA informed member states this week that there had been no progress on two central issues: explaining uranium traces found at several old, undeclared sites and getting urgent access to some monitoring equipment so the agency can continue to keep track of parts of Iran's nuclear program as provided for by the 2015 deal.

Separate, indirect talks between the United States and Iran on both returning to compliance with the deal have been halted since June. Washington and its European allies have been urging hardline President Ebrahim Raisi's administration, which took office in August, to return to the talks.

Under the 2015 deal between Iran and major powers, Tehran agreed to restrictions on its nuclear activities in exchange for the lifting of sanctions.

President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the deal in 2018, reintroducing painful economic sanctions. Iran responded as of 2019 by breaching many of the deal's core restrictions, like enriching uranium to a higher purity, closer to that suitable for use in nuclear weapons.

Western powers must decide whether to push for a resolution criticizing Iran and raising pressure on it for stonewalling the IAEA at next week's meeting of the agency's 35-nation Board of Governors. A resolution could jeopardize the resumption of talks on the deal as Tehran bristles at such moves.

Countries on the IAEA Board of Governors will be watching Grossi's visit to see whether Iran yields either on granting access to the monitoring equipment to service it or offers the prospect of answers on the uranium particles found at the undeclared former sites.
Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri appeared in a new video marking the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, attacks, months after rumors spread that he was dead.

The SITE Intelligence Group that monitors jihadist websites said the video was released Saturday. In it, al-Zawahri said that Jerusalem Will Never be Judaized, and praised al-Qaida attacks including one that targeted Russian troops in Syria in January.

SITE said al-Zawahri also noted the U.S. military's withdrawal from Afghanistan after 20 years of war. It added that his comments do not necessarily indicate a recent recording, as the withdrawal agreement with the Taliban was signed in February 2020.

Al-Zawahri made no mention of the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan and the capital Kabul last month, SITE added. But he did mention a Jan. 1, attack that targeted Russian troops on the edge of the northern Syrian city of Raqqa.

Rumors have spread since late 2020 that al-Zawahri had died from illness. Since then, no video or proof of life surfaced, until Saturday.

He could still be dead, though if so, it would have been at some point in or after Jan 2021, tweeted Rita Katz, SITE's director.

Al-Zawahri's speech was recorded in a 61-minute, 37-second video produced by the group's as-Sahab Media Foundation.

In recent years, al-Qaida has faced competition in jihadi circles from its rival, the Islamic State group. IS rose to prominence by seizing large swaths of Iraq and Syria in 2014, declaring a caliphate and extending affiliates to multiple countries across the region.

IS's physical caliphate was crushed in Iraq and Syria, though its militants are still active and carrying out attacks. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the shadowy leader of IS was killed by U.S. special forces in a raid in northwestern Syria in October 2019.

Al-Zawahri, an Egyptian, became leader of al-Qaida following the 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan by U.S. Navy SEALs.
The human rights records of more than 40 countries will come under scrutiny by the 47-member United Nations Human Rights Council during its upcoming four-week session.



The session promises to be extremely busy. Nearly 90 reports on a wide range of thematic issues will be presented. They include torture, enforced disappearances, the right to development, slavery, the rights of people of African descent and racism.

As in previous years, the councils laser-lens focus on the way governments treat their people is expected to garner a lot of attention. Reported abuses, some amounting to crimes against humanity, will be examined in countries such as Myanmar, Belarus, Syria, Eritrea, Burundi, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michele Bachelet will present an oral update on the situation in Afghanistan Monday as a follow-up to the councils August 24 special session on that country. The European Union, Mexico and Britain along with human rights activists have criticized the resolution that was adopted for failing to establish a robust independent mechanism to monitor violations by the Taliban.

Council President Fiji Ambassador Nazhat Shameem Khan says discussion on Afghanistan has not ended with the special session.

And, really, it is a matter for states to decide whether they want to take the outcome of the special session further and achieve another result," she said. "But I do want to note that the Security Council on the 30th of August adopted a resolution on safe passage. It addressed human rights concerns particularly as it relates to women and children.

Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth says he is dismayed at the councils reluctance to take on powerful countries such as Russia and China. He says he fears the Kremlin will not be held to account for its unprecedented crackdown on opposition parties in advance of this months parliamentary elections.

Ideally, we would like to have a resolution. At minimum, there should be a joint statement. But, again, this is a situation that just because a government is relatively powerful, should not mean that it escapes scrutiny. And this is again a bit of a test of the councils credibility, he said.

Roth says the same dynamics are playing out regarding Chinas abusive treatment of more than a million Uyghurs in internment camps in Xinjiang province.

China has always escaped formal scrutiny by the council. There has never been a resolution on China. It is time to end that, given the severity and the atrocities, the crimes against humanity being committed in Xinjiang, he said.

China maintains the Uyghurs are being held in reeducation camps and that the vocational training they are receiving is necessary to counter terrorism and alleviate poverty.

Roth is calling on Bachelet to present a report describing the inhumane conditions under which the Uyghurs are being incarcerated and to call for the Chinese government to be held accountable.
The woman who broke barriers as the first female foreign minister and deputy prime minister in culturally conservative Somalia now aims for the country's top office as the Horn of Africa nation moves toward a long-delayed presidential election.

Parliament member Fawzia Yusuf H. Adam is well aware of the challenges in winning votes in a nation where women often remain marginalized. In an interview with The Associated Press, she described the struggle of leading a foreign ministry staff that was overwhelmingly male.

"They were very reluctant to collaborate with me just because I am a female," she said.

Even as more educated women return to Somalia from the large diaspora to help rebuild the country after three decades of conflict, attitudes toward Adam's run for office are mostly skeptical, if sympathetic. Even friends and colleagues see her chances as next to impossible because of her gender.

"She's good, but unfortunately she's a woman," said Abdiwahid Mohamed Adam, a doctor at Mogadishu Memorial Hospital. Complicating her bid, he said, is the fact that Adam comes from the breakaway region of Somaliland, a comparatively stable area in the north that has sought international recognition as an independent country for years.

But the soft-spoken Adam, a widow and mother of three, said she believes her run for the presidency is worthwhile, not futile, on several levels, while the timing of the election has been pushed back once again amid political tensions from mid-October toward the end of the year.

"I want to break this barrier against women, so that in the near future many others will have the courage to run and even win," she said, adding that it's time to fight for the rights of women.

Somalia's years of insecurity marked by devastating attacks by the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab extremist group also have driven Adam to run. "There was mayhem in this country for the past 30 years," she said. "Young people are dying like flies, killing each other, exploding themselves, killing other people."

Like others across Somalia, she has watched as the insecurity weakened the country's foundation. High unemployment, poor education and one of the world's least-equipped health systems are all a result. Corruption and political squabbling haven't helped.

"I thought a woman may be what this country needs, the leadership of a woman, to bring peace and stability," Adam said.

Her presidential campaign has been relatively low-profile because of the insecurity and the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of holding large public rallies, Adam prefers smaller indoor gatherings. "This could be less expensive but less effective as well," said Liban Abdullahi Farah, a political analyst in the capital, Mogadishu.

Unlike many other candidates and every day people in Somalia, where face masks are hardly seen despite having one of the highest COVID-19 fatality rates in Africa, Adam says she takes the pandemic seriously and speaks bluntly about its dangers after seeing several friends die.

"I keep giving advice on this pandemic, particularly how badly it impacts women and the poorest of them," she said. "We don't have a good health system to deal with this phenomenon."

Women in Somalia have been especially hard hit by the coronavirus, Adam said, both physically and economically.

"I personally took my two vaccinations, many people did, but many poor people in the camps, the internally displaced people, the very poor, vulnerable people do not have that chance," she said. "What I am hoping is to win this election. (The pandemic) will be one of my priorities, because we don't want to lose more people."

Apart from some awareness messaging, Somalia's federal government does little to enforce basic virus prevention measures of social distancing, hand-washing and mask-wearing.

At the country's coronavirus treatment center in the capital, deputy director Abdirahim Omar Amin told the AP that "very many women have been infected" by COVID-19. Health ministry data, however, show that men represent more than 70% of confirmed cases in Somalia.

"The people themselves do not have the awareness, or they are in a state of denial, calling it 'just heartburn' and stay at home, and the person is brought here when it is too late," he said.

Among the women Adam hopes to help if elected president is Fatuma Mohamed, one of the hundreds of thousands of people living in camps in Mogadishu after being displaced by insecurity or climate shocks like drought.

Mohamed said her husband died of COVID-19, while she survived. Now she struggles to raise two young children, earning money by doing laundry when she can.

"This disease has devastated us, it killed my mother and my husband," she said. "I have not seen anyone offering me a helping hand. I struggle all alone."

Adam's path in life has been far different. Married to a general, she first entered politics in her hometown of Hargeisa in Somaliland years ago but fled to Mogadishu, saying local politicians saw her as a threat. She later started a political party, the National Democratic Party, and rose to some of the country's highest offices.

Now, in pursuit of the presidency, Adam has Somaliland in mind as part of her ambitions.

"If I am elected, I am sure I could reunite my country as I belong to both sides, the north and south," she said, "and I believe that I am the only person who's capable of doing that as I already made a plan for the unification."

If her candidacy fails, she said, she aims to become prime minister, adding, "I would always advise whomever wins the presidency."
Poland's top political leaders on Sunday attended the beatification of two revered figures of the Catholic Church  a cardinal who led the Polish church's resistance to communism and a blind nun who devoted her life to helping others who couldn't see.

Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski and Mother Elzbieta Roza Czacka took a step toward sainthood at a time of declining church attendance and as some Poles have left the church over sex abuse scandals and the church's coziness with the current right-wing government.

In a time of growing secularization and societal divisions, the celebration was a reminder of the moral authority and the unifying power the church once held over Poland.

The Mass was led by Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, the head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

It took place in the Temple of Divine Providence in Warsaw, attended by President Andrzej Duda, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, ruling party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski and many faithful.

Wyszynski was Poland's primate, or top church leader, from 1948 until his death in 1981. He was under house arrest in the 1950s for his refusal to bend to the communist regime and was considered by some to be the true leader of the nation. His long resistance to communism is credited as a factor that led to the election of a Polish pope, John Paul II, and ultimately the toppling of Poland's communist system in 1989.

Czacka, born in 1876 to an aristocratic family, went blind as a young woman and devoted the rest of her life to helping others. The Franciscan nun helped develop a Polish version of Braille and opened a center for the blind near Warsaw.

Pope Francis paid tribute to them both during a visit to Budapest on Sunday, recalling how Wyszynski was arrested and imprisoned and how Czacka devoted her whole life to helping the blind.

"May the example of these new Blesseds encourage us to transform darkness into light with the power of love," he said.

Wyszynski led the church through nearly three turbulent decades of often bitter conflict with the communist authorities, followed later by a form of partnership with the secular regime. Late in his life, Wyszynski had become accepted by the authorities as an important force in national life, and members of the regime attended his funeral.

During the difficult years of the 1950s, when Poland's avowedly atheistic government sought to silence the church, the tall, slender Wyszynski thundered from his pulpit that "Christ has the right to be announced, and we have the right to announce him."

Warsaw Archbishop Kazimierz Nycz recalled Wyszynski as a man who saved the Polish church under communism.

Wyszynski is often called the Primate of the Millennium in recognition of his achievement of holding a celebration of Poland's millennium of Christianity in 1966.

Sunday's ceremony comes after the Holy See has punished around 10 Polish bishops and archbishops over reported cover-ups of sexual abuse of minors by priests under their authority.

The revelations of clerical abuse and coverups have been pushing some Poles away from the church and leading some to take their children out of religion classes in schools.

Some Poles are also angry about the church's closeness with the right-wing government and a new restriction on abortion. The ruling, which went into effect earlier this year, denies women the right to abort fetuses with congenital defects.
North Korea carried out successful tests of a new long-range cruise missile over the weekend, its state media, KCNA, said on Monday, amid a protracted standoff with the United States over denuclearization.

The missiles flew 1,500 km (930 miles) before hitting their targets and falling into the country's territorial waters during the tests held on Saturday and Sunday, KCNA said.

It was seen as the North's first missile launch after it tested a new tactical short-range ballistic missile in March. North Korea also conducted a cruise missile test just hours after U.S. President Joe Biden took office in late January.

The latest test highlighted steady progress in Pyongyang's weapons program amid gridlock over talks aimed at dismantling the North's nuclear and ballistic missile programs in return for U.S. sanctions relief. The talks have stalled since 2019.

Rodong Sinmun, the ruling Workers' Party's official newspaper, ran photos of the new long-range cruise missile flying and being fired from a launcher.

North Korea tested a "newly developed long-range cruise missile," according to its Rodong Sinmun newspaper.

Tests allegedly happened Saturday and Sunday, but we never heard about them from US or South Korean authorities. pic.twitter.com/puPaPLegtY

 William Gallo (@GalloVOA) September 12, 2021

The missile is a strategic weapon that has been developed over the past two years and is a key element of a five-year plan outlined in January to advance defense science and arsenals, KCNA said.

The test provides "strategic significance of possessing another effective deterrence means for more reliably guaranteeing the security of our state and strongly containing the military maneuvers of the hostile forces," KCNA said.

"In this course, detailed tests of missile parts, scores of engine ground thrust tests, various flight tests, control and guidance tests, warhead power tests etc. were conducted with success," KCNA added.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un did not appear to have attended the test, with KCNA saying Pak Jong Chon, a member of the Workers' Party's powerful politburo and a secretary of its central committee, oversaw it.

The reclusive North has long accused the United States and South Korea of a "hostile policy" toward Pyongyang.

The unveiling of the test came just a day before chief nuclear negotiators from the United States, South Korea and Japan meet in Tokyo to explore ways to break the standoff with North Korea.

China's foreign minister, Wang Yi, is also scheduled to visit Seoul on Tuesday for talks with his counterpart, Chung Eui-yong.

Biden's administration has said it is open to diplomacy to achieve North Korea's denuclearization but has shown no willingness to ease sanctions.

Sung Kim, the U.S. envoy for North Korea, said in August in Seoul that he was ready to meet with North Korean officials "anywhere, at any time."

A reactivation of inter-Korean hotlines in July raised hopes for a restart of the negotiations, but the North stopped answering calls as annual South Korea-U.S. military exercises began last month, which Pyongyang had warned could trigger a security crisis.


Increasing numbers of children are being killed or targeted for recruitment by armed groups in conflicts raging at Nigers borders with Mali and Burkina Faso, Amnesty International said in a report published Monday.

"In Nigers Tillaberi region, an entire generation is growing up surrounded by death and destruction," said Matt Wells, Amnesty's deputy director for crisis response.

"Armed groups have repeatedly attacked schools and reserves, and are targeting children for recruitment, he added in a statement.

Amnesty blamed the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) and the al-Qaida-affiliated Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), for causing the "devastating impact on children" in the region.

The rights group released a 57-page report documenting the impact on children of the conflict in Nigers western Tillaberi, an area of 100,000 square kilometers (38,000 square miles) on the borders of Mali and Burkina Faso that is home to different ethnic groups such as Djerma, Fulani, Tuareg and Hausa.

According to conflict tracking organization ACLED, cited by Amnesty, violence against civilians has led to 544 conflict-related deaths from January to July 23 this year, already exceeding the 397 people killed in the whole of 2020.

"Armed groups have killed more than 60 children in Nigers tri-border area in 2021," the report said, adding that the ISGS, which operates primarily on the border with Mali, appears responsible for most of the large-scale killing.

During the research for the report, Amnesty spoke to 16 boys who had narrowly survived ISGS attacks on their villages.

"We all are used to hearing gunshots and to seeing [dead] people layered on top of [dead] people," one boy, age 13 or 14, said.

Another boy, who witnessed the killing of his 12-year-old friend Wahab in March, told the researchers: "I think of Wahab and how he was killed.

"Sometimes I have nightmares of being chased by people on motorbikes or seeing Wahab pleading with the [attackers] again, he said.

According to Amnesty, both ISGS and JNIM have committed war crimes and other abuses in the conflict, including the murder of civilians and targeting of schools.

"Many children are experiencing trauma after witnessing deadly attacks on their villages. In some areas, women and girls have been barred from activities outside the home, and risk abduction or forced marriage to fighters," the report said.

Witnesses said JNIM has picked out males ages 15 to 17, and possibly younger, as recruits, offering bribes of food, money and clothes.

"The Nigerien government and its international partners must urgently take action to monitor and prevent further abuses and protect the basic rights of all those affected by this deadly conflict  especially children," Wells said.

Amnesty International said it had interviewed 119 people, including 22 children, three young adults between 18 and 20, and 36 parents for the study.

Others interviewed included staff from NGOs and humanitarian agencies, United Nations officials and government officials.
U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi said on Sunday she was deeply concerned about the alleged torture of a Saudi aid worker while in detention in Saudi Arabia.

The aid worker, Abdulrahman al-Sadhan, was detained by Saudi authorities in March 2018 and reported to be sentenced to 20 years in prison followed by a 20-year travel ban, according to an April 6 U.S. State Department statement. He was arrested from the Red Crescent Society office in Riyadh, where he worked.

In a tweet, Pelosi, a Democrat, said Congress would monitor his appeal hearing, which she said was on Monday, and all human rights abuses by the regime.

Deeply concerned with allegations of torture in detention of aid worker Abdulrahman al-Sadhan. His sentencing continues Saudi Arabias assault on freedom of expression, Pelosi tweeted.

Separately, al-Sadhans sister said his health was getting worse.

We are very worried about my brothers safety & health, deteriorating under torture in Saudi detention, while we remain completely deprived of any contact with him, Areej al-Sadhan, wrote on Twitter.

The Saudi Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment on either tweet.

Saudi de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has moved to crush dissent while introducing social and economic reforms to modernize the kingdom. Saudi authorities have detained senior royals, activists, intellectuals and clerics.

In an April statement, Geneva-based advocacy NGO MENA Rights Group said al-Sadhan was brought to trial for having run two satirical Twitter accounts and accused of funding terrorism, supporting or sympathizing with the Islamic State militant group, and preparing, storing and sending messages that would prejudice public order and religious values.

The group also said al-Sadhans family had learned he was subjected to severe torture in detention, including electric shocks, beatings that caused broken bones, flogging, hanging from the feet and suspension in stress-positions, threats of murder and beheading, insults, verbal humiliation.
Pope Francis called for Europe to show "solidarity" around the world during economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, speaking on a visit to Slovakia  one of the worst hit countries in Europe.



On his first foreign trip since a colon operation in July, the 84-year-old Argentine pontiff called the pandemic "the great test of our own time."



"It has taught us how easy it is, even when we are all in the same boat, to withdraw and think only of ourselves," he said.



Slovakia, a European Union member with a population of 5.4 million, had the highest per capita Covid-19 contagion and mortality rates in the world for several weeks this year.



"After long and trying months of pandemic, fully conscious of the difficulties to be faced, we look forward with hope to an economic upturn favored by the recovery plans of the European Union," the pope said in the Slovak capital, Bratislava.



But he warned against "a fleeting sense of euphoria" and a focus on profits as countries begin to recover and called instead for Europe to display "a solidarity that, by transcending borders, can bring it back to the center of history".



The pope is also due to meet with members of Slovakia's Jewish community later on Monday, a day after warning that anti-Semitism was still "lurking" around the world.



The meeting will take place on Rybne Square in what used to be a Jewish neighborhood of Bratislava where a synagogue that was torn down in Communist times once stood.



Three days before the pope's arrival, Slovakia's government issued an apology for the first time for the role played in the Holocaust by the Nazi puppet regime in power at the time.



"The Slovak cabinet feels a moral duty to publicly express regret over the crimes committed by the ruling power of that time," it said, emphasizing in particular the "condemnable" anti-Jewish laws adopted in 1941.



Under the orders of the then-government headed by a Catholic priest, Jozef Tiso, tens of thousands of Slovak Jews were deported and killed.



A memorial on Rybne Square commemorates the 105,000 victims of the Holocaust in Slovakia.



After the war, most of the survivors either emigrated or stayed and hid their Jewish identity.



Under Communism, Jews were prosecuted and jailed for alleged Zionist crimes, and the regime banned practicing their religion.



The community now numbers only around 2,000 people and anti-Jewish attitudes remain strong in Slovakia, a predominantly Catholic country.



'Fuse' of anti-Semitism



During a whistle-stop visit of just a few hours to Hungary on Sunday, the pope spoke of the "threat of anti-Semitism."



"This is a fuse that must not be allowed to burn. And the best way to defuse it is to work together, positively, and to promote fraternity," he said, addressing Christian and Jewish leaders.



The Roman Catholic Church put an end to centuries of official anti-Semitism in 1965 at the Vatican II Council, which approved a document called "Nostra Aetate" calling for respect of Judaism.



But relations can still become frayed.



The visit comes after the pope last month came under criticism from Jewish religious authorities for some remarks he made about their books of sacred law, the Torah.



During his visit to Hungary, Pope Francis met the country's anti-migrant Prime Minister Viktor Orban before calling on believers to be "open and considerate".



The head of 1.3 billion Catholics has often urged help for the marginalized and those of all religions fleeing war and poverty, in contrast to Orban who styles himself as a defender of "Christian Europe" from immigrants.
Firefighting crews in southern Spain are looking at the sky for much-needed rainfall expected on Monday and that they hope can help extinguish a major wildfire that has ravaged 7,700 hectares in five days and displaced around 2,600 people from their homes.

Authorities are describing the blaze in Sierra Bermeja, a mountain range in the Malaga province, as a sixth-generation fire of the extreme kind brought by the shifting climate on the planet. The mega fires are catastrophic events that kill, blacken large areas and are difficult to stop.

In Spain, that is paired with an increasing dynamic of rural areas losing population, leading to poorer management of forests and accumulation of burnable material.

We are facing the most complex fire known by the forestry extinction services in recent years, Juan Sanchez, director of the southern Andalusia region's anti-fire service, told reporters late Sunday.

We have been talking a lot about the consequences of the abandonment of the rural environment and climate change, Sanchez added. We are seeing them today.

The affected area has doubled since Saturday, when authorities said that the flames were contained within a perimeter of around 40 kilometers. An ember cloud led to a new fire hot spot soon after, causing a new wildfire that eventually joined the previous blaze, experts said Sunday. By Monday morning, the perimeter had reached 85 kilometers.

Spain's weather agency, AEMET, had forecasted rain in the area for later Monday, but it was unclear if the rainfall would be sufficient to quell the flames.

About 500 firefighters were working in shifts on the ground, assisted by 50 water-dropping airplanes and helicopters from the air. They were joined on Sunday by 260 members of a military emergency unit. A 44-year-old firefighter died Thursday while trying to extinguish the blaze.

Around 2,600 residents have been relocated in total. Most of those evacuated from parts of the resort town of Estepona, had been able to return home by Monday, but 1,700 people remained displaced from six villages and hosted in other towns, including in a pavilion in the city of Ronda.

Climate scientists say there is little doubt that climate change from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas is driving more extreme events, such as heat waves, droughts, wildfires, floods and storms.

In Spain, official data showed that the country had experienced fewer fires so far this year than the average during the past decade, but the number of big forest fires  those affecting more than 500 hectares  was 19 in the first eight months of 2021 compared to 14 on average for the same period since 2011.

That has also led to a greater bush and forest area burned: 75,000 hectares as of Sept. 5, compared to an average of 71,000 hectares on average in the previous years, data from the Ministry of Ecological Transition showed.
Britains chief medical officer (CMO), Professor Chris Whitty, recommended Monday that children between the ages of 12 and 15 be offered the COVID-19 vaccine, saying they would benefit from reduced disruption to their education.

More than a week ago, Britains Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization, the panel that advises British health departments on immunization policies, issued a statement saying the "margin of benefit to inoculating children of those ages was too small for them to recommend the government do so.

But Monday, Whitty, along with his counterparts from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, told reporters they are recommending to their respective health ministers that the age group be given a single dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. They have yet to decide on whether to give the students a second dose.

Whitty stressed the vaccinations should be an offer, not a mandate, adding, We do not think this is a panacea. This is not a silver bullet  but we think it is an important and potentially useful additional tool to help reduce the public health impacts that come through educational disruption."

Whitty said the CMOs have shared their recommendations with their ministers, and it is now up to the ministers to decide how to respond.

The United States, Israel and some European countries have rolled out vaccinations to children more broadly, putting pressure on the British government to follow suit.

Britain has experienced more than 134,000 deaths from COVID-19, and a rapid start to its immunization rollout has slowed, with 81% of those over 16 receiving two vaccine doses.

Some information in this report was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse.
A powerhouse in global trade, China has more shipping ports at home than any other country. Key investments add about another 100 ports in at least 60 nations. And Beijing is looking for more.

Earlier this month, operations at Israels port of Haifa, one of the largest maritime transport hubs in Mediterranean, were handed over to China's state-run Shanghai International Port Group to run for the next 25 years.

Another gigantic Chinese shipping company, COSCO Shipping, is poised to expand its footprint in Europe by taking a stake in the port of Hamburg. Negotiations have been reportedly going well, and a deal is expected soon.

If COSCO succeeds, it would be the companys eighth port investment in Europe.

The state-owned company's previous investment involves the acquisition of Greeces Port of Piraeus, one of the world's most important shipping centers located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. COSCO bought 51% of the ports operating company in 2016. After a Greek court gave the go-ahead last month, COSCO now can raise its stake in Piraeus to 67%.

The Chinese government does not have an official platform summarizing the overall data for Chinas overseas port projects, but publicly available information shows that Beijing now has a foothold in at least 100 ports in 63 countries.

According to data published on the COSCO official website, as of June this year, the group has operated and managed 357 terminals in 36 ports around the world. Its port portfolio has stretched from Southeast Asia to the Middle East, Europe and the Mediterranean.

In addition, China Merchants Group, another major port developer and operator in China, says on its website that the company completed "equity acquisition of eight high-quality ports in Europe, the Middle East and the Caribbean last year alone, expanding the group's global port layout to 27 countries, 68 ports."

In a recent opinion piece published by the Daily Mail, former British Defense and International Trade Secretary Dr Liam Fox and former U.S. National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane noted that China now owns 96 ports around the world. Some of these are at key locations for maritime trade, "giving Beijing strategic dominance without having to deploy a single soldier, ship or weapon."

In 2013, China for the first time surpassed the United States to become the world's largest trading nation. That same year, Chinese president Xi Jinping proposed a strategic framework of what has been dubbed the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (MSR) - the sea route part of the broader Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

The specific trade route of MSR connects China to Southeast Asia, Africa, and even Europe by sea. Chinese companies are now owners of all of the major ports along the route.

Dr. Sam Beatson of Nottingham University Business School says it makes sense for China to be engaging in these deals given the volume of containers China continues to deliver at accelerating rates of growth. "China's ports, shipping and maritime trade industry is strategic in part because of its massive size and global role, not only the huge numbers it employs and its role as a national industry that has championed the growth of many of China's largest coastal cities," he told VOA.

The most Mahanian country

Over a century ago Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, one of the most influential American writers of his day, designated seaports as one of three pillars of sea power. His writing argued that Britains control of the seas was critical for its emergence as a dominant global power. The view heavily influenced American policymakers.

"Since the Cold War, China has bought into the Mahanian construct wholesale," James R. Holmes, the J.C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the U.S. Naval War College told VOA. "It is safe to say he's more popular in China today than anywhere else in the world."

Reports by official Chinese media in recent years show that since 2013, Chinese president Xi Jinping has visited a port almost every year, including the visit to the port of Piraeus in 2019, where China's MSR and BRI connect and a project that Xi personally pushed for with Greek leaders multiple times, according to China's official Xinhua News Agency.

China experts believe that establishing ports in geo-strategically important countries, including those that are located near maritime chokepoints, are central to Beijings global strategy. "These port linkages allow Beijing to exert political influence not only in the country hosting the port, but in many cases the surrounding countries as well," Craig Singleton, a China expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told VOA.

Holmes, a former U.S. Navy officer, noted prosperity is the top priority for any government. And Beijings port investments mean it can hold a large portion of a country's prosperity hostage, compelling its leadership to take political stances agreeable to the Chinese Communist Party. "So, seaports are a critical enabler for China's bid for commercial, diplomatic, and military influence."

Beatson, who lecturers in the department of risk, finance and banking at Nottingham University, pointed out that among all the deals, "neither governments nor companies within countries seem to want to block control of their ports by companies from China - I highlighted this in 2017 I think when pointing out the role of China Merchant Group in ownership of Houston and Miami ports through the joint venture with France's Terminal Links."

As commercial ports could be used for military purposes, analysts have long been concerned about the security implications of ports controlled by Beijing.

China's first overseas military base was established at the port of Djibouti situated at the entrance to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. "Chinas militarization of its port project in Djibouti serves as a warning vis-a-vis Beijings port interests in other countries, such as Tanzania, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, and Burma, among others," said Singleton.

One of the thorniest issues between the U.S. and Israel in recent years has been the Chinese takeover of Haifa Port, place where the Sixth Fleet of the US Navy docks. Washington feared that the port would provide an opportunity for Chinese surveillance.

Dr. Eyal Pinko, a former Israeli intelligence officer pointed out that the port can easily be used to collect naval intelligence. You can track the whereabouts of ships and communications. Once you own and operate the port site, these are very easy to do. You can do whatever you want. You are the landlord there," he told VOA in a telephone interview.

Editor's note: This article was updated to clarify that Dr. Sam Beatson works at Nottingham University Business School and lectures in the department of risk, finance and banking.
Spain's countryside is suffering a slow demise after the long exodus of its rural population but Sarnago hopes to avoid this fate  for now.

Nestled in the mountainous region of Soria north of Madrid, it reached its peak in 1950 when there were 462 permanent residents, mostly living off farming.

But the lure of city life and better paid jobs finally took its toll when the last resident left by 1979.

Campaigners have now saved the hamlet by attracting five permanent residents, many working remotely or coming for short stays.

Spain hopes to help save struggling communities like Sarnago by offering visas and tax incentives to digital nomads, who work from their laptops around the world, to encourage them to live in what many here have come to describe as Espana Vacia, or Empty Spain.

The draft start-up law will offer 12-month visas to non-European Union residents.

Tax incentives

Like many other countries which have introduced nomad visas, Spain wants to entice foreign workers with low tax rates.

They would be eligible for the Spanish non-resident tax rate of 24% on incomes of up to $711,000 per year. In comparison, Spanish residential tax rates are as high as 45% depending on earnings, according to data from Spain's treasury ministry.

Once a person is living and working in Spain, they can apply for a residence permit to extend their stay for two years, which can be renewed for another two years.

The law, which could be amended but has received support from all major political parties, is an attempt to address Spain's rural decline.

Among 8,131 Spanish municipalities, 3,403 are classed as at risk of dying out, according to the country's National Statistics Institute  almost 43%.

Spain also wants to encourage companies and entrepreneurs to bring badly needed investment to rural parts of the country that are struggling economically.

So, will digital nomads be drawn to live in tiny remote villages like Sarnago?

I hope that we could attract foreigners to come and live here for a time at least, Jose Maria Carrascosa, president of the Friends of Sarnago Association, told VOA.

The village is 280 kilometers north of Madrid and most people in the region work as farmers.

We have reasonably good Internet connection  4G  for a rural area so you can send emails but when you want to do a Zoom meeting it is a bit more of a problem. We also have a co-working place.

A quieter life

Carrascosa discloses that anyone who wants to spend time in his village should be prepared for a quieter social life.

The only bar closed years ago and the nearest school and shops are a 5-kilometer drive away in a bigger village.

Sarnago is among 30 other dying villages that joined the National Network of Welcoming Villages for Remote Workers, RNPAT, a group working with the Spanish government to attract workers to live in the countryside.

We have found that people are much more enthusiastic about working online because of the pandemic. We have seen that more people have moved from cities to small villages, Ricardo Ortega, RNPAT president, noted in an interview with VOA.

We believe this visa may tempt people to come and enjoy the Spanish way of life, away from cities and the coast. They can see the real Spain.

In an effort to redress decades of rural malaise, Spain's leftist government introduced a $11.9 billion plan in March that includes measures to improve internet connection in the country and build a series of co-working spaces in small villages.

Alejandro Macarron Larumbe, who heads the Demographic Renaissance Foundation in Spain which seeks to redress rural depopulation, said the government must address practical problems of connectivity with poor Wi-Fi, infrastructure, and amenities.

This visa scheme could help attract foreign talent and create momentum, Macarron said in an interview with VOA.

We have a lot of rural villages which are lovely. But we must be realistic so probably there is little chance people would want to live too far from airports.

Tim Acheson could be a poster boy for Spain's digital nomad scheme.

The British fintech specialist recently bought a town house with his wife in Maria, a village of 1,000 inhabitants in southeastern Spain.

The couple, who travel from London to Spain about once a month, are now considering moving permanently to their new home.

The internet is better in Maria than it is in London  and I live next to an internet exchange in London, he told VOA.

Our house is about two hour's drive from Alicante airport, so it is well connected. No one speaks English there, but we are learning the language fast and everyone is so friendly to us.

Acheson and his wife became residents in Spain last year which means that they cannot take full advantage of the nomad visa.

I really hope that Spain makes this nomad visa work. They have one of the best internet systems in Europe and a great quality of life, he added.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michele Bachelet warns the increasingly brutal conflict in Ethiopias northern Tigray region threatens to spill over to the whole Horn of Africa.

Preliminary findings of a joint investigation by the U.N. Human Rights Office and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission into alleged violations in Tigray have been submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Since her last update in June, fighting has continued unabated in Tigray and has expanded into neighboring Afar and Amhara regions. U.N. rights chief Bachelet said mass detentions, killings, systematic looting, and sexual violence have displaced nearly two million people in this region and created an atmosphere of fear. She said civilian suffering is widespread and impunity is pervasive.

Bachelet said investigators have documented multiple allegations of human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings, torture, and enforced disappearances. She says sexual and gender-based violence, including gang rapes, have been characterized by a pattern of extreme brutality and ethnically targeted.

From my last update to the Council to date, allegations of human rights violations have continued to implicate government forces and its allies," Bachelet said. "We have received disturbing reports that local fishermen found dozens of bodies floating along the river crossing between Western Tigray and Sudan in July. Some allegedly had gunshot wounds and bound hands, indications that they might have been detained and tortured before being killed.

The Ethiopian government declared a unilateral ceasefire in Tigray at the end of June, nearly eight months after it began its military offensive in the region. Shortly after, Tigrayan rebels retook the capital Mekelle.

Bachelet reports Tigrayan forces have perpetrated many human rights abuses since gaining control of parts of Tigray and expanding to neighboring regions,

During the period under review, the Tigrayan forces have allegedly been responsible for attacks on civilians, including indiscriminate killings resulting in nearly 76,500 people displaced in Afar and an estimated 200,000 in Amhara," Bachelet said. "More than 200 individuals have reportedly been killed in the most recent clashes in these regions, and 88 individuals, including children, have been injured.

Bachelet said accountability for human rights abuses and a national reconciliation process are the only solution to the conflict in Tigray and to achieving a sustainable peace.

The chief of the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, Daniel Bekele, said all parties to the conflict have committed violence against civilians, including sexual violence and use of child soldiers. But he notes the situation in Tigray is complex.

He said the Commission is still analyzing the information and evidence gathered and is not ready to share any findings and conclusions at this stage. He said the commissions findings, conclusions and recommendations will be contained in the final report of the joint investigation, to be published November 1.
U.S. President Joe Biden will host a first in-person summit of leaders of the "Quad" countries  Australia, India, Japan and the United States  which have been seeking to enhance cooperation to push back against China's growing assertiveness.

The summit will be held at the White House in Washington on September 24, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement. The U.S. visits of Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga will coincide with the United Nations General Assembly in New York, which Biden will address on September 21.

A virtual meeting of the Quad leaders was held in March, and they pledged to work closely on COVID-19 vaccines and climate change, and to ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific in the face of challenges from Beijing.

"Hosting the leaders of the Quad demonstrates the Biden-Harris administration's priority of engaging in the Indo-Pacific, including through new multilateral configurations to meet the challenges of the 21st century," Psaki said.

Kurt Campbell, Biden's Indo-Pacific coordinator, said in July the long-planned in-person meeting should bring "decisive" commitments on vaccine diplomacy and infrastructure.

Biden, who is pushing big infrastructure spending at home, said in March he had suggested to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson that democratic countries should have an infrastructure plan to rival China's massive Belt and Road Initiative, which involves projects from East Asia to Europe.

Psaki said the Quad leaders would "be focused on deepening our ties and advancing practical cooperation on areas such as combating COVID-19, addressing the climate crisis, partnering on emerging technologies and cyberspace, and promoting a free and open Indo-Pacific."

A senior U.S. official said infrastructure would be among a range of topics discussed at the summit.

Withdrawal from Afghanistan

The Quad meeting will come after Biden's image has taken a battering over the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. U.S. officials have said ending America's longest war will allow the administration to divert resources and attention to tackling China-related issues.

Republican Senator Bill Hagerty, a former U.S. ambassador to Japan, welcomed the plan to host the Quad leaders.

"Biden's Afghanistan withdrawal debacle made India's neighborhood more dangerous & raises legitimate questions for Japan and Australia as well, so it's good we will be hosting Quad partners soon," he said on Twitter.

"We must repair & renew our alliances, and this one is key."

COVID vaccines

The vaccines initiative from the first summit stalled after India, the world's largest vaccine producer, was hit by a catastrophic wave of infections and halted vaccine exports.

At the March summit, the four leaders agreed Indian drugmaker Biological E. Limited would produce at least a billion coronavirus vaccine doses by the end of 2022, mainly for Southeast Asian and Pacific countries.

Japan's Kyodo News reported last week that Suga would visit Washington this month for the Quad meeting even though his term as leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party  and by default as Japan's prime minister  ends September 30.

Suga became the first leader to hold a face-to-face White House summit with Biden in April, underscoring Japan's central role in U.S. efforts to face down China.


After a semester online, Wang Ziwei looked forward to meeting classmates who are returning to campus at Washington University in St. Louis. But the 23-year-old finance student said the U.S. revoked his student visa on security grounds.

Wang is among at least 500 students the Chinese government says have been rejected under a policy issued by then-President Donald Trump to block Beijing from obtaining U.S. technology with possible military uses. Students argue it is applied too broadly and fume at what they say is an accusation they are spies.

The whole thing is nonsense, Wang said. What do we finance students have to do with the military?

The students join companies and individuals whose plans have been disrupted by U.S.-Chinese tension over technology and security, Beijings military buildup, the origins of the coronavirus, human rights and conflicting claims to the South China Sea and other territory.

The policy blocks visas for people who are affiliated with the ruling Communist Partys military wing, the Peoples Liberation Army, or universities deemed by Washington to be part of military modernization efforts.

U.S. officials say they believe thousands of Chinese students and researchers participate in programs that encourage them to transfer medical, computer and other sensitive information to China.

Washington cites Beijings strategy of civil-military fusion, which it says treats private companies and universities as assets to develop Chinese military technology.

Joint research institutions, academia and private firms are all being exploited to build the PLAs future military systems  often without their knowledge or consent, the State Department said in a 2020 report.

Trumps successor, Joe Biden, has given no indication of what he might do.

Chinese officials appealed to U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman to drop the visa restrictions when she visited in July, according to The Paper, a Shanghai online news outlet.

A security guard stands guard behind fences around the U.S. embassy near a sign board directing visa applicants in Beijing on Sept. 6, 2021.

The policy is necessary to protect U.S. national security interests, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing said in a statement. It said the policy is a response to some abuses of the visa process and is narrowly targeted.

More than 85,000 visas for Chinese students have been approved over the past four months, according to the embassy.

The numbers show clearly that the United States stands ready to issue visas to all those who are qualified  including Chinese students and scholars, it said.

China is the biggest source of foreign students in the United States, according to U.S. government data. The number fell 20% in 2020 from the previous year but at 380,000 was nearly double that of second-ranked India.

An engineer at a state-owned aircraft manufacturer said he was turned down for a visa to accompany his wife, a visiting scholar in California studying pediatric cancer.

The engineer, who would give only his surname, Huang, has undergraduate and graduate degrees from the Harbin Institute of Technology in Chinas northeast. It is one of seven schools Chinese news reports say are associated with visa rejections because they are affiliated with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

I was insulted, Huang said. That I graduated from this school means I am a spy? Whats the difference between this and racism?

Huang said his wifes fellowship was two to three years, but she will cut that to one, sacrificing her career to avoid being away from their two children for too long.

Its a pretty big impact on individuals when one country fights with another, Huang said.

Rejection letters received by several students cited Trumps order but gave no details of the decision. However, some students said they received rejections immediately after being asked which university they attended.

Wang, the finance student, said he obtained a visa, but the U.S. Embassy called later and said it was revoked.

Wang graduated from the Beijing Institute of Technology, another university associated with visa rejections due to its connection with the industry ministry. Others include Beijing Aerospace University, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Harbin Engineering University and Northwestern Polytechnical University.

Graduates of the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications also say they have been rejected.

Five Chinese scientists at universities in California and Indiana were charged last year with lying about possible military connections on visa applications. Those charges were dropped in July after the Justice Department said an FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) report indicated such offenses often had no connection to technology theft.

The Chinese government complained in August that three students who had visas were refused entry into the United States at the Houston airport after military training photos were found in their phones.

Beijing strongly deplores and rejects the policy and appealed to the U.S. government to make changes, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said.

A group that says it represents more than 2,000 students and scholars has announced plans for a lawsuit asking a court to throw out or narrow the restrictions.

At Washington University in St. Louis, a handful of student visas were affected, according to Kurt Dirks, vice chancellor for international affairs.

Students can start the semester online or wait until next year, Dirks said in an email.

Should they continue to face challenges, the university will work with them so they can complete their program online, Dirks said.

Monica Ma, 23, said she was turned down for a U.S. visa to complete a masters degree in information management at Carnegie Mellon University.

The graduate of the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications said after spending a year in Australia working on her degree, she needs to attend classes in person at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh because they no longer are taught online.

Ma said she has a job offer from an internet company that requires her to complete her degree. She has postponed her attendance for classes until next year in hopes she can obtain a visa by then.

I cannot change it through my efforts. Thats the saddest part, Ma said.

Li Quanyi, an electrical engineering student from the southern city of Guiyang, said he was accepted by Columbia University but failed to obtain a visa. Li graduated from the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications.

Carnegie Mellon and Columbia didnt respond to questions sent by email.

Li has moved to Hong Kong and said he is happy there.

I am not going, even if the rule changes, Li said. The United States rejected me, and I am not going.
Officials in Cameroon say there has been a jump in cases of civilians assaulting police officers. Videos shared on social media in Cameroon show citizens mocking and battering police in response to alleged brutality and corruption.

Paul Atanga Nji, the territorial administration minister, also tasked with civilian protection, says at least 15 videos of civilians of refusing police orders and attacking officers have been shared on social media platforms within the past two weeks.

Nji said the police force confirmed its officers were the victims in the videos.

In some cases, he said, police have been victims of humiliation, battery and other forms of assault from civilians the police are supposed to protect.

This irresponsible behavior towards the police is unacceptable," Nji said. "It should be understood that the police are at the service of each and every one under the esteem guidance of the head of state [Cameroons President] Paul Biya. No person, regardless of their social status, for whatsoever reason has a right to assault a police officer on duty.

In one video, a driver refuses a police demand to search his car, hits the police officer and then runs him over with his car while some bystanders applaud.

Another video appears to show a civilian carrying a police officer on his shoulder before throwing him on the back of a truck.

The civilians are believed to be retaliating for acts of police brutality or corruption.

Nji said if civilians have grievances, they should send complaints of alleged police misdeeds to the chief of police, who can take disciplinary action.

However, human rights lawyer Christopher Ndong says when police brutality and corruption are reported, senior government and police officials do not investigate.

He adds that police often beat people, detain some abusively and extract bribes from innocent civilians.

"There is no adult Cameroonian who will not tell you the excesses of a policeman," Ndong said. "You have a document all complete, a policeman says you are wrong. You must give 500 [Francs (XAF) or $1 as a bribe]. You have [car] documents which are wrong, the policeman will not impound the vehicle as the law provides. A policeman will be asking the man to pay fines that are determined by him and the state sits and looks at it. You see the fabulous sums he is collecting, and he does it with arrogance because they [police] have guns.

Police officials deny the allegations, saying most officers in Cameroon are neither corrupt, nor take part in civilian abuse.
International aid groups are calling on Burkina Faso's government to let them help register the country's internally displaced people. The Norwegian Refugee Council says the government is taking weeks to register IDPs for food and other aid, forcing some back into dangerous areas.

In a statement released Monday, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said government authorities are taking weeks to register IDPs, like these 500 or so who until recently stayed at a school in the town of Ouahigouya.

The NRC say they could carry out the registration process, which is essential before aid can be distributed to IDPs within a week, and implored the government to quote, Let us step in and support.

Rasmata Ouedraogo, who was living in the school, fled her village of Nongo with her young son after a terrorist attack.

She says they were wearing army uniforms, so it was difficult to know if they were terrorists. She had to hide herself for two days in her house.

She says she arrived in Ouahigouya around two months ago, and so far, her family has received one hundred dollars in aid payments.

The first thing we need is food for us and our children, and then some clothes, among other things, she told VOA.

The community leader of the IDPs says this month students will return to their studies, so the schools owner has asked the IDPs to move out. Local authorities sent them to a site outside of the town where access to food and services is difficult.

At the very beginning, we were able to have some cereal like maize and millet plus $100 for each family, but that was two to three months ago, he says. He added that some people arrived more recently, and those people have not gotten any food so far.

Many of the IDPs who stayed at the school say they are unsure of whether theyve been registered or not, but say none of them are receiving enough aid. Tom Peyre-Costa is from the Norwegian Refugee Council.

Authorities really lack the capacity to count and register newly displaced people, and meanwhile aid organizations are not allowed to intervene. So, this is what we are asking for today. We need more flexibility, he said.

In a tense press conference Monday, Laurence Marchal Ilboudo, the minister of humanitarian affairs said this when asked why offers of assistance from aid groups were being turned down.

You asked why we don't make it easier for the partners if they can do it better than the locals," he said. "But why them? Because they have the resources? Because they have the machines? Our nation has the expertise to do it. Why don't we make use of this material expertise so that the locals can do it themselves?

As the school now lies empty, waiting for the students to return, the IDPs who resided there remain in need of help.
Special envoys from the United States and South Korea met with their Japanese counterpart Tuesday in Tokyo for talks on North Koreas nuclear weapons program, following tests conducted by the rogue state Saturday and Sunday.

Sung Kim, U.S. special representative for North Korea, and Noh Kyu-duk, South Korea's special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs, joined Japan's director-general for Asian and Oceanian affairs, Takehiro Funakoshi, for a meeting on how to address this latest development with North Korea.

North Korea state media confirmed the nation tested newly developed long-range cruise missiles Saturday and Sunday. Cruise missiles fly at relatively low altitudes and can be guided in-flight. That allows them to fly under or around missile defense radars.

Analysts say the missiles appeared visually similar to the U.S. Tomahawk, a nuclear-capable cruise missile with a range of about 1,600 kilometers. North Korea hinted the missile is nuclear-capable, though its not clear the North yet has a nuclear warhead small enough to fit on it.

Regardless, the missiles represent another lethal component in North Koreas arsenal, which has significantly expanded since 2019 when it resumed major weapons tests.

As the three envoys addressed reporters before their talks, Kim said the recent events in North Korea are a reminder of the importance of close communication and cooperation among Japan, North Korea and the U.S.

Noh agreed, saying it was good the three representatives can have a candid discussion on how to engage with North Korea based on our shared understanding of the urgency of denuclearization."

In recent comments, Kim has indicated Washington remained open to diplomacy to deal with North Korean issues.

Pyongyang has so far rejected those overtures, saying nothing has changed from the U.S., citing issues such as ongoing sanctions and joint military drills with South Korea.

Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse.
A Russian court has fined Facebook, Twitter and Telegram, saying the companies failed to delete content that Russian internet regulator Roskomnadzor said violates Russian law.



Facebook was fined about $288,000, while Twitter was fined about $69,000 and Telegram was hit with $124,00 in fines, according to the magistrate court in Moscow's Taganskiy district.



None of the companies has commented on the issue.



The most recent fines come as Russia has levied similar fines on Google, WhatsApp and TikTok in recent months.



In March, the Kremlin slowed down Twitter in the country for failing to remove content.



The fines have been over content, as well as for the companies refusal to store personal data on Russian users in Russia.



Russia is also trying to compel these companies to open official offices in Russia.



Kremlin critics say the moves are an effort by the countrys ruling United Party to stifle dissent in the run-up to September 19 parliamentary elections.



Some information in this report came from Reuters.


Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry on Tuesday replaced the chief public prosecutor who had been seeking charges against him as a suspect in the assassination of President Jovenel Moise, plunging the country into a fresh political crisis.

Moise was shot dead on July 7 when assassins stormed his private residence in the hills above Port-au-Prince. The 53-year-old had been governing by decree for more than a year after Haiti failed to hold legislative and municipal elections amid a political gridlock and had faced many calls to step down.

His death has left Haiti in an even deeper constitutional and political crisis as it has only a handful of elected officials nationwide.

Henry, a political moderate and neurosurgeon whom Moise named prime minister just days before his death in an attempt to reduce political tensions, has sought to forge a new consensus between different political factions. But allegations over his possible involvement in Moise's killing are now overshadowing that.

Prosecutor Bed-Ford Claude said last week that phone records showed Henry had twice communicated with a man believed to be the mastermind behind Moise's killing on the night of the crime.

That suspect, a former justice ministry official whom Henry has publicly defended, is now on the run.

Henry dismissed his request to discuss the matter as politicking and did not respond to the allegations.

That prompted Claude to write on Tuesday to the judge overseeing the investigation into Moise's slaying and ask him to charge Henry as a suspect.

He also wrote to Haitian migration services ordering them not to let the prime minister leave the country "due to serious presumption relative to the assassination of the president."

Later on Tuesday, a letter from Henry to Claude dated September 13 emerged in which he said he was firing him for "grave administrative error," without going into detail. In a separate letter dated September 14, he named Frantz Louis Juste to the post.

It remains unclear whether the order actually is valid, as Haiti's 1987 constitution mandates that the prosecutor can only be appointed or fired by the president, a position that remains vacant.

Decades of political instability as well as natural catastrophes have plagued Haiti's development. Its aid-dependent economy is the poorest in the Americas, more than a third of Haitians face acute food insecurity, and gangs have turned swathes of the capital into no-go areas.

Claude had invited Henry on Friday to meet with him to discuss the phone calls with the suspect, noting that he could only summon the premier on presidential orders, but the country was without a president.

Haiti's Office of Citizen Protection demanded on Saturday that Henry step down and hand himself over to the justice system.

Henry retorted on Twitter that "no distraction, invitation, summons, maneuver, menace or rearguard action" would distract him from his work.

The prime minister announced on Saturday that Haiti's main political forces had reached an agreement to establish a transition government until the holding of presidential elections and a referendum on whether to adopt a new constitution next year.

The agreement establishes a Council of Ministers under Henry's leadership.

A constituent assembly made of 33 members appointed by institutions and civil society organizations will have three months to prepare the new constitution.

Moise's attempts at holding elections and a constitutional referendum were attacked for being too partisan. Critics called them veiled attempts at installing a dictatorship.

His supporters said he was being punished for going after a corrupt ruling elite and seeking to end undue privileges.
The U.S. Justice Department has placed new limits on the use of chokeholds and no-knock warrants by federal law enforcement agencies, the department announced on Tuesday.



The agency said in a statement it had issued policies explicitly prohibiting the use of chokeholds and carotid restraints unless deadly force is authorized.



The circumstances in which federal law enforcement officers can make unannounced entries into peoples has also been curtailed.



The Justice Department action does not affect local or state law enforcement agencies.

The announcement was made after a review of the departments law enforcement agencies, including the FBI.



Building trust and confidence between law enforcement and the public we serve is central to our mission at the Justice Department, Attorney General Merrick Garland said in the statement. The limitations implemented today on the use of chokeholds, carotid restraints and no-knock warrants, combined with our recent expansion of body-worn cameras to DOJs federal agents, are among the important steps the department is taking to improve law enforcement safety and accountability.



The use of aggressive restraint practices by law enforcement became even more controversial in the U.S. following the death of an African American man named George Floyd, who died in May 2020 after white police officer Derek Chauvin pinned his knee on the back of his neck for more than nine-and-one-half minutes as he repeatedly cried out that he could not breathe.



Two months earlier, white plainclothes police officers in Louisville, Kentucky, fatally shot Breonna Taylor, an African American woman, during a disastrous raid on her apartment with a no-knock warrant.



Floyd's death, captured on cellphone video by a bystander, inspired global protests against institutional racism and police practices, particularly in the U.S.
A U.N. investigative body finds what it calls, an alarming upsurge in fighting and violence, with some incidents amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity, ten years into Syrias civil war. The report by the U.N. Syria Commission of Inquiry will be submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council.

The group began investigating alleged violations of international human rights law in Syria in August 2011, five months after civil war broke out. The three-member panel now says conditions in Syria look increasingly bleak.

It reports fighting and violence have been intensifying in recent months in the northwest, northeast and south of the country. It reports civilians are having difficulty finding a haven in this war-torn country.

Commission member Hanny Megally said the lull in hostilities in northwestern Idlib province, brought about by a March 2020 ceasefire agreement brokered by Russia and Turkey, has ended.

Megally said it began unraveling with increased Syrian and Russian air strikes and shelling of this last rebel held territory.

In terms of the crimes, the aerial attacks, and bombardments, they were hitting civilian objects - schools, hospitals, marketplaces, etc," Megally said. "Detentions, torture in detention, deaths in custody, sexual, gender-based violence. Unfortunately, even cases of rape.

The report finds several areas are under siege by pro-government forces, trapping thousands of civilians without enough food or health care. The investigators also accuse the terrorist organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham of imposing restrictions on media and freedom of expression in areas under its control in the northwest.

The commission accuses the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces of unlawfully interning thousands of women and children in camps across northeast Syria.

Commission Chair Paulo Pinheiro said one of the most scandalous features is the situation of an estimated 40,000 children held in Al Hawl and other camps.

Pinheiro said nearly half are Iraqi, while 7,800 come from nearly 60 other countries. He said only some 1,000 foreign children have been released and brought home. Most foreign children, he notes remain deprived of their liberty because their home countries refuse to repatriate them.

Most are under 12 years old. No one accused them of crimes," Pinheiro said. "Yet, for over three years, they have been held in horrifying conditions  Protection can never mean indefinite detention of children. The first remedy for an unlawful detention is release. Punishing children for the sins of their parents cannot be justified.

U.N. and international agencies estimate Syrias decade-long war has killed about a half million people and forcibly displaced 13.5 million, both internally and as refugees in neighboring countries.

The U.N. Commission said it is not safe for refugees to return to Syria given the upsurge in violence and human rights violations, the unstable political situation, the plummeting economy, and fast-spreading COVID-19 pandemic.
Four former Minneapolis, Minnesota, police officers pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges they violated the civil rights of George Floyd, a Black man, when he was pinned face-down on a city street on May 25, 2020, the day he was killed.

The former police officers  Derek Chauvin, Tou Thao, Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane  were arraigned before a U.S. magistrate judge via videoconference in Minneapolis. Chauvin, who is serving a 22-year sentence for the murder of Floyd, appeared from a room at a Minnesota maximum security prison.

The civil rights charges stem from Floyd's death after police detained him on suspicion that he had tried to pass a $20 counterfeit bill at a nearby convenience store.

Bystanders captured cellphone videos of Chauvin restraining Floyd, who gasped that he could not breathe. The other three officers assisted in the arrest or kept bystanders from intervening to help Floyd.

Chauvin was convicted of manslaughter and murder earlier this year, while the other three former officers face trials next March on charges of aiding and abetting.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Tony Leung is deciding a number of legal questions in the civil rights case, including requests by Thao, Kueng and Lane to separate their trials from Chauvin's, a motion that prosecutors oppose.

The death of Floyd reverberated throughout the U.S. and the world, with street protesters calling for police reforms and the end of police abuse of minorities in the weeks that followed.


The dismissal of Radio Television Slovenia's (RTV) director of television programming has reignited charges of political pressure on the country's influential public broadcaster.

Andrej Grah Whatmough, RTV's chief executive, dismissed Natalija Gorscak on August 20, citing poor ratings and management differences.

But Gorscak maintains that she was fired for refusing under pressure to dismiss the managing editor of RTV's news and current affairs department, Manica Janezic Ambrozic.

Gorscak and analysts who spoke with VOA see the dismissal as another sign that Prime Minister Janez Jansa's government is looking to bring Slovenia's independent media to heel.

Since Jansa's center-right party took power in 2020, media analysts say, the government has attempted to increase control over RTV and the state news agency, STA, and that the prime minister and allies have tried to intimidate journalists on social media.

Jansa's supporters counter that the country's media is biased in favor of opposition political parties and that public media are often reporting unfair or false news.

After one of RTV's programs last year criticized a government plan to raise the pay of high-ranking officials, Jansa used Twitter to accuse the broadcaster's news programs of disseminating untruths.

"Don't spread lies @InfoTVSLO We pay you to inform in these times and not to mislead the public. Obviously there are too many of you and you are overpaid," Jansa said in the tweet.

Gorscak has worked for RTV almost continuously since 1996. She disputed allegations of biased reporting and falling ratings under her tenure.

"We are a public television  not a state television. It is our job to oversee the work of each government. We work according to professional standards, and each government has always criticized us, which is how it should be," she told VOA.

Gorscak said political pressure on RTV has never been as bad as under Jansa. "The government wants to ensure that TV journalists will report according to its wishes, particularly ahead of parliamentary elections," she said.

Slovenia will hold regular parliamentary elections in the second quarter of 2022.

Motives questioned

The Vienna-based International Press Institute said justifications for Gorscak's dismissal "appeared questionable."

"It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the sacking [firing] was the result of strong political pressure aimed at sweeping out staff and overseeing a shift in editorial position to one more pliant to the government," IPI Europe advocacy officer Jamie Wiseman told VOA.

"IPI is concerned it will now open the door to the dismissal of other editorial staff in the crosshairs of the ruling party. If such controversial changes continue, the broadcaster's editorial independence will be jeopardized further."

It already may be eroding.

RTV journalists contacted by VOA espoused differing views about the level of pressure. Still, some described how they self-censored after online attacks by government officials. Four journalists spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity because of potential retaliation.

"After a critical story, it is not just government officials who attack you on platforms like Twitter, but also a number of other, often anonymous people, who I believe are connected to the government," one RTV journalist said. "As a result, many journalists resort to self-censorship in order to avoid trouble."

Critics say RTV's new chief Whatmough was installed to promote the government's agenda, although Whatmough and others in the government reject that assertion.

Whatmough took over in April after being elected by the broadcaster's Program Council  a 29-member body mandated to act independently. The majority of council members, 21, is appointed by the parliament.

Prior to that, Whatmough was a member of the RTV's Supervisory Board since 2015. He was first nominated to that position by the Party of Modern Centre, now a junior party of Jansa's government coalition, local media reported.

Jansa has not commented on the changes at RTV, and Whatmough and RTV have not responded to VOA's questions about the controversy.

In an interview with news website Siol.net, however, Whatmough said Gorscak's firing was "based on professional arguments" and that he was disappointed it had been politicized.

"The director [Gorscak] did not support any of my proposals [for program changes], but an even bigger problem was that she did not have any proposals of her own," Whatmough was quoted as saying. He denied being under any political pressure.

Aggressive posture

Marko Milosavljevic, a professor of journalism at the University of Ljubljana, told VOA that "every government wants to have an influence on the public media; every politician wants to have a lot of positive media attention."

But "the situation at present is very different from the past," Milosavljevic said, "because the situation has never been so legally unfounded, aggressive and vulgar."

He cited unsuccessful attempts to fire previous RTV CEO Igor Kadunc last year and a draft media law proposed by the Culture Ministry that would have cut one of the main sources of funding for the broadcaster.

The draft never made it to parliament after protests from the opposition, academics and journalists.

Peter Jancic, editor of Siol.net and a former member of the Program Council, dismissed claims the Jansa government was interfering.

"There is a constant battle going on as the left-wing and the right-wing parties want to increase their influence on the public television, particularly ahead of general election," said Jancic. In spite of that, "most journalists at RTV Slovenia are trying to do their job professionally and impartially," he said.

Siol.net, which is owned by the state-run telecommunication operator Telekom Slovenia, is widely viewed as pro-government.

'Entirely autonomous'

Slovenia's Culture Ministry, which oversees media policy, also denied that RTV's journalists are under political pressure or that Whatmough is pro-government.

"The CEO is entirely autonomous in his decisions and has a wide support of the Program Council  he is supported by members who are in their beliefs close to the left side of the political spectrum as well as by those who are closer to the right side," the ministry said in a statement to VOA. Vasko Simoniti of Jansa's Slovenian Democratic Party is the minister.

"The Slovenian government respects the freedom of expression and the media freedom. Indeed, pressures on individual journalists exist, but that has been happening continuously also in times of previous governments," the statement added.

Laurens Hueting, senior advocacy officer for the European Center for Press and Media Freedom, said the Jansa government's efforts to influence media have not reached the level of Hungary or Poland, where leaders have moved to squelch independent reporting.

But that is changing, he said.

"Slovenia still has high levels of press freedom and media pluralism," Hueting said, "but the current government is attempting to reshape that landscape by boosting its own propaganda channels, expanding control over RTV and press agency STA, and undermining critical journalism."


An explosion from suicide bombing has killed at least 11 people Tuesday in the Somali capital, witnesses and officials said.

Witnesses said a suicide bomber walked into a teashop made of corrugated tin and detonated an explosive vest.



The attack occurred near a checkpoint manned by Somali government security forces in Wadajir district, which is next to both Mogadishus airport and the headquarters of the Africa Union forces known as AMISOM.



Soldiers as well as civilians are among the dead according to a Somali government official who requested anonymity because he is not allowed to speak to the media.



The al-Shabab militant group claimed responsibility for the attack.

The prime minister of Somalia, Mohamed Hussein Roble, condemned the barbaric act by al-Shabab.

I condemn today's bombing by al-Shabab terrorists at a teashop in Wadajir district, which resulted in the death and injury of innocent people, he said in a Twitter post. May God have mercy on the dead and heal the wounded.



Roble said the attack shows that al-Shabab are thirsty for the indiscriminate bloodshed of the Somali people.



Thousands of Somali civilians have been killed in the fighting involving al-Shabab since 2006. The group is fighting to overthrow the international supported government of Somalia.

Abdulkadir Mohamed Abdulle contributed to this report.
U.S. warnings to Russian President Vladimir Putin over shielding cybercriminals holed up in Russia appear to have made little impact, according to top U.S. law enforcement and cyber officials.

"There is no indication that the Russian government has taken action to crack down on ransomware actors that are operating in the permissive environment that they've created there," Paul Abbate, deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said Tuesday at an intelligence summit just outside Washington.

"We've asked for help and cooperation with those who we know are in Russia, who we have indictments against, and we've seen no action," Abbate said. "So, I would say that nothing's changed in that regard."

U.S. President Joe Biden has twice called on the Russian leader to take action against cybercriminals operating out of Russia  first at a summit in June in Geneva and again in a phone call a month later.



"I made it very clear to him that the United States expects when a ransomware operation is coming from his soil, even though it's not sponsored by the state, we expect them to act if we give them enough information to act on who that is," Biden told reporters following the July phone call.

SEE ALSO: Biden, Putin Discuss Ransomware Attacks From Russia Since the initial talks, senior White House officials have noted a decrease in ransomware attacks, though they have been hesitant to attribute the change to any action by Moscow.

"The present absence of criminal activity should not be confused with solid policing," U.S. National Cyber Director Chris Inglis told an audience later Tuesday.

"There's still a monetary incentive and possibly a geopolitical incentive to allow that to come back," he said, pushing back against calls for the U.S. to go on the offensive.

"There is a sense that we can perhaps fire some cyber bullets and kind of shoot our way out of this. That will be useful in certain circumstances if we have a clear shot at a cyber aggressor and it could take them offline," Inglis said. "That's not going to affect the leadership that allows this to happen."

"We have to figure out what is it that matters to Putin and the oligarchs and how do we change their decision calculus," he added.

The Kremlin has repeatedly denied any role in a series of ransomware and cyberattacks against U.S. companies and infrastructure.

And following the Biden-Putin call in July, it issued a statement supporting collaboration on cybersecurity, calling for such efforts to "be permanent, professional and nonpoliticized and should be conducted via special communication channels ... and with respect to international law."



The U.S. blames Russia or Russian-based cyber actors for a series of high-profile hacks and ransomware attacks, including the December 2020 hack of SolarWinds, a U.S.-based software management company, and for the May 7 ransomware attack against Colonial Pipeline, the largest fuel pipeline operator in the U.S.

U.S. officials have blamed the GRU for targeting the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 elections and the pharmaceutical companies developing vaccines against the coronavirus.

SEE ALSO: US, Britain Warn of Russian Brute Force Cyber Campaign Asked Tuesday whether the U.S. has reached the point where it is ready to take action against Russia, the commander of U.S. Cyber Command deferred to the White House.

"That's obviously for the president to decide," CYBERCOM's General Paul Nakasone said. "But those options certainly will be provided for his consideration."

VOA's Masood Farivar contributed to this report.


This story was updated to include reaction from Turkey.

WASHINGTON - Syrian Christian leaders are expressing concerns over escalating Turkish attacks in northeast Syria, saying the recent military activity has driven many Christians and members of other minority groups from their homes.

Military officials in the region said last week that Turkey carried out attacks against the Christian-majority town of Tel Tamer and surrounding villages.

The Turkish shelling recently destroyed two schools, a municipal building, a bakery and a power line in the area, said Matai Hanna, a spokesman for the Syriac Military Council, a major Christian militia in northeast Syria.

This is against international law, which prohibits the targeting of civilian infrastructure, he told VOA.

The Syriac Military Council is part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-led military alliance that has been a major U.S. partner in the fight against the Islamic State terror group, also known as IS or ISIS.

Turkey views SDF as an extension of the Turkey-based Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a militant group designated as terrorist by Washington and Ankara.

Hanna said his group is ready to defend the region against any major offensive carried out by Turkey and its Syrian partners.

The Turkish military and allied Syrian militias have been in control of parts of northeast Syria since October 2019, following a major military campaign against SDF fighters.

Since then, occasional clashes have erupted between local forces and Turkish-backed armed groups, despite multiple cease-fire agreements brokered by the U.S. and Russia.

Bassam Ishak, president of the Syriac National Council, one of the largest Christian political groups in Syria, said the Turkish bombing of areas on the Syria-Turkey border has led to the displacement of a large number of residents, including many Assyrian Christians.

The recent Turkish bombardment on the city of Tel Tamer caused a sense of instability and anxiety among the residents of the city, prompting many Assyrian Christian residents to flee, he told VOA.

Ishak, who also is a Washington representative of the Syrian Democratic Council, the political wing of SDF, added that a significant number of residents fleeing areas bombed by the Turkish military have settled in other Assyrian villages far from the Turkish bombing, which also increases uncertainty among local residents.

A source at Turkeys Foreign Ministry told VOA that, The allegations are baseless.

Turkey has always had a clean record in protecting civilians and civilian infrastructure during its counter-terrorism operations in Syria. The international community should rather focus on atrocities, oppression and war crimes committed by PKK/YPG dominated so-called Syrian Democratic Forces [SDF], targeting all Syrians irrespective of ethnic and religious background, the source said, adding that, Turkey will resolutely continue its counter-terrorism activities against PKK/YPG wherever it operates.

The U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Syria has accused Turkish-backed Syrian groups of committing war crimes against Christians, Yazidis, Kurds and other ethnic and religious minorities in northern Syria. Rights groups also have accused these groups of carrying out demographic change by pushing out indigenous residents of the area.

Nadine Maenza, chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), told VOA, It is stunning that Turkey continues to attack civilians in northeast Syria, even targeting Syriac-Assyrian villages in the Khabur River Valley, forcing some of the last remaining residents who survived genocide from ISIS to flee.

USCIRF continues to recommend that the U.S. government pressure Turkey to provide a timeline to withdrawal from northeast Syria and to cease all activities negatively impacting religious and ethnic minorities in the area, she said.

Aykan Erdemir, senior director of the Turkey Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former member of the Turkish parliament, said the Turkish government attempts to justify its attacks targeting predominantly Christian settlements in northeast Syria as a counterterrorism measure against alleged affiliates of the PKK.

Ongoing attacks by Turkish troops and Ankaras Islamist proxies have not only led to civilian casualties in Tel Tamer and beyond but also displaced the regions vulnerable minorities, he told VOA.

Erdemir said the lack of a vocal opposition within Turkey, besides the pro-Kurdish Peoples Democratic Party, to the Turkish governments role and complicity in human rights abuses in northern Syria also exacerbates the problem.

VOAs Zana Omer contributed to this story from Tel Tamer, Syria.
Hong Kong's security chief called on Wednesday for the city's main press association to disclose to the public who its members work for and how many of them are students, a day after he accused the group of infiltrating schools.



The comments by Secretary for Security Chris Tang are likely to deepen concern over a crackdown on civil society in the Asian financial hub after Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law on the former British colony last year.



Tang, in an interview with the pro-Beijing newspaper Ta Kung Pao published on Tuesday, said the Hong Kong Journalists' Association (HKJA), was infiltrating schools to recruit students as journalists.



The HKJA, responding to Tang, did not specifically mention the infiltration accusation but said that as of Wednesday it had 486 members and 56 of them were students. It does not disclose who its members work for.



Tang defended his comments on Wednesday saying he was conveying "doubts held by many in society" about the press association.



"I believe if they openly let the public know the information, it will clear their name," Tang told reporters outside the city's Legislative Council, referring to details about who the HKJA members work for.



The media industry has seen profound changes since Beijing imposed the security law last year.



Media tycoon Jimmy Lai, a staunch critic of Beijing, is in jail and awaiting trial on national security charges. His pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily closed following police raids and the arrest of executives including its chief editor.

Scores of civic groups and opposition parties have disbanded or scaled back operations over the past year, while some of their members have been arrested and jailed.



The Professional Teachers' Union, Hong Kong's largest, disbanded this month after it was criticized by Chinese state media for "politicizing" education.



The security law, imposed after months of at times violent pro-democracy protests, punishes what Beijing broadly refers to as subversion, secession, collusion with foreign forces and terrorism with up to life in jail.



The Hong Kong government has repeatedly said the law is only aimed at a tiny group of "troublemakers" and all law enforcement actions against individuals or groups "have nothing to do with their political stance or background."



Hong Kong's once-thriving media sector and vibrant civil society have long been features of the city that returned to Chinese rule in 1997 with a promise of wide-ranging freedoms not guaranteed on the mainland.
London's High Court said on Wednesday it would take steps if necessary to serve papers on Britain's Prince Andrew in a U.S. lawsuit brought by a woman who accuses him of sexually assaulting her two decades ago.



The prince, Queen Elizabeth's second son, is accused by Virginia Giuffre of assaulting her when she was 17, at a time she says she was being abused by the financier Jeffrey Epstein.



Andrew, 61, who is officially known as the Duke of York, has rejected the accusations and his lawyers have described the case as baseless. His legal team declined comment.



Last week, Giuffre's legal team said it had tried to serve papers on Andrew by leaving the documents with a police officer at his home in southern England. The prince's lawyers told the U.S. District Court in Manhattan they had not been properly served under English law and the Hague Convention.



A spokesperson for London's High Court said the issue about how claims could be served on parties in different jurisdictions was governed by the Hague Service Convention, which requires requests to be made and approved by the relevant authority in each country.



"The lawyers acting for Ms Giuffre have now provided further information to the High Court, and the High Court has accepted the request for service under the Hague Service Convention," the spokesperson said in a statement.



"The legal process has not yet been served but the High Court will now take steps to serve under the Convention unless service is arranged by agreement between the parties."



Manhattan hearing



At a hearing on Monday in Manhattan, the prince's lawyer, Andrew Brettler, said Giuffre appeared to have in 2009 signed away her right to sue the prince in resolving a separate lawsuit.



"This is a baseless, nonviable, potentially unlawful lawsuit," Brettler said. "There has been a settlement agreement that the plaintiff has entered into in a prior action that releases the Duke and others from any and all potential liability."



Andrew is a former friend of Epstein, a registered sex offender who killed himself in a Manhattan jail in August 2019 after U.S. prosecutors charged him with sexually exploiting dozens of girls and women.



The prince stepped down from royal duties and charities and other organizations distanced themselves from him after a BBC interview in November 2019 about his relationship with Epstein.



He denies having sex or any relationship with Giuffre. Her lawsuit, filed last month, says he forced her to have unwanted sexual intercourse at the London home of Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite and Epstein's longtime associate.



It also said Andrew abused Giuffre at Epstein's mansion on Manhattan's Upper East Side, and on a private island Epstein owned in the U.S. Virgin Islands.



Maxwell has pleaded not guilty to charges she aided Epstein's sexual abuses. She faces a scheduled Nov. 29 trial before U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan in Manhattan.



The next conference for Giuffre's lawsuit is scheduled for Oct. 13.
U.S. President Joe Biden meets Wednesday with corporate executives to discuss COVID-19 vaccinations for workers as infections in the U.S. surge among the unvaccinated.

Biden said Thursday the Labor Department was planning to impose a vaccine requirement on companies that employ at least 100 people. He said the companies must require workers to be fully vaccinated or provide a negative test at least once a week.

About 100 million employees would be subject to the requirements, the president said.

The new vaccination and testing requirements are part of a broader push by the Biden administration to contain the spread of the highly transmissible Delta variant of the coronavirus. The variant is the cause of a spike in infections, hospitalizations and deaths in the U.S.

Although vaccinations are free and widely available, only 55% of Americans have been fully vaccinated, according to Johns Hopkins Universitys Coronavirus Research Center.

Biden and the business leaders will meet at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House. A White House official said the executives who will attend are with companies that have instituted vaccine requirements or are in the process of doing so.

While the Business Roundtable and some other business groups support Bidens vaccination and testing requirements, some Republican lawmakers have threatened to sue the Biden administration, arguing Biden has exceeded his authority.

The White House official said the meeting hopefully will serve as a rallying cry for more businesses across the country to step up and institute similar measures.

Some information in this report was provided by the Associated Press and Reuters.
Tanzania's first female president, Samia Suluhu Hassan, this week named a woman as defense minister  the latest in a number of appointments of women to top government posts.

The appointment came as part of the second Cabinet reshuffle Hassan has made since the death of her predecessor, John Magufuli, earlier this year.

At the swearing-in of Stergomena Tax as Tanzanias first female defense and national service minister, Hassan said she made the choice to shatter the myth that women cannot serve in such a position.

I have decided to break the longtime myth that in the Defense Ministry there should be a man with muscles. The ministers job in that office is not to carry guns or artillery," Hassan said, adding that Tax's main duty will be to coordinate and manage the administration of policies at the ministry.

Gender activists have welcomed the appointment but said more needs to be done to address the country's gender equality gap.

Anna Henga, who heads the Legal and Human Rights Center, says there must be an amendment of laws such as the marriage act and the education act, laws that put women in low decision positions. She added that the government should also allocate money through the Health Ministry to educate people that women can also be leaders.

Analysts say an increase in the political representation of women at the national level does not automatically lead to women having more power in daily life, especially in highly stratified societies.

Sociologist Nasor Kitunda says gender should be irrelevant.

I think this tries to show that there is a direction in gender equality though Im not a believer in gender. The primary criteria should be someones performance and their ability to implement those responsibilities," Kitunda said.

For Tanzanian human rights activist Aika Peter, appointing more women leaders is positive but there must be a rotation to allow others to show their leadership skills.

We really need to see new faces in these positions  when you see the same people being recycled every day it gives the impression there are people who are so good at this job, there are no others who can be good at it, Peters said.

Tax's appointment brings the number of women who hold ministerial positions in Hassans government to eight.
The United Nations is withdrawing 450 Gabonese peacekeepers from its mission in Central African Republic following allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse, Gabon's government said Wednesday.

"Following the numerous cases of allegations of exploitation and sexual abuse being processed, the United Nations today decided to withdraw the Gabonese contingent from MINUSCA," the statement said, referring to the mission there.

Gabon's defense ministry said it had opened an investigation into the allegations.

"If they are proven, their perpetrators will be brought before military courts and tried with extreme rigor," Gabon's defense ministry warned.

The U.N mission in Central African Republic was deployed in 2014 to end insecurity stemming from inter-religious and intercommunal fighting that erupted in 2013. The mission still has more than 10,000 personnel in the country.

The U.N. mission there has faced allegations of sexual exploitation by peacekeepers from other countries in the past as well.
On this edition of Africa 54: the Nigerian air force said on Thursday it may have killed and injured civilians while pursuing suspected Islamist insurgents in the northeast state of Yobe, in an incident that residents said left at least six people dead; West African leaders are gathering in Accra on Thursday to determine how the region's main political and economic bloc can steer Guinea back towards constitutional rule following the military coup, Thursday September 16 is International Identity Day. It's marked as tribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goal 16.9 which calls for identity for all individuals by 2030.
Rights groups have condemned Eswatini's arrest of two lawmakers this week and the use of force against pro-democracy protesters. The southern African kingdom, Africa's last absolute monarchy, has been rocked by protests since June.

Protests re-ignited Thursday in Eswatini, previously known as Swaziland, as two pro-democracy members of parliament appeared in court.

Mthandeni Dube and Mduduzi Mabuza were arrested earlier this week on charges of terrorism for inciting unrest and violating COVID-19 regulations.

The unrest began over a month ago with protests calling for political reform.

Twenty-five-year-old Vuysiwa Maseko is a member of the Swaziland National Union of Students, which is among the central groups leading the demonstrations.

He says the arrests exemplify the lack of freedom in the country.

"Indeed, its angering and raging because these are the people's representatives in parliament," said Maseko. "They are the voices of the voiceless and arresting them means government is shutting 1.1 million voices  the population of Swaziland.

Weeks of demonstrations have cost the landlocked countrys economy at least $200 million.

Theyve also cost lives. Local police have confirmed over 30 people have been killed and many more arrested.

International organizations and governments have condemned the response by authorities, calling the use of force excessive.

Amnesty International spokesperson Robert Shivambu says the lawmakers should be released immediately.

"They have committed no crime and have been targeted by the government solely for for their political views," said Shivambu. "We believe that both MPs are victims of political witch hunt, which is designed to silence any critical voice that is demanding political reforms and human rights.

Government spokesperson Sabelo Dlamani declined to comment in response to the condemnation.

Instead, he deferred to Prime Minister Cleopas Dlaminis parliamentary address on Wednesday, in which he vehemently denied political motivation for the lawmakers arrest.

But the prime minister also said the rule of law would be upheld and applied to anyone who incited violence under the guise of free expression.

Until the government meets with the public for peaceful negotiations, Amnesty International spokesperson Robert Shivambu says more episodes of violence are feared.

"The government thinks that the only way to respond to these protests is crackdown that we have seen, they have deployed the police and the army to crack down on dissent. So we are we are concerned that things could escalate," said Shivambu.

The international support is welcome by student protesters like Maseko.

But members of the United Eswatini Diaspora say they want to see more than just talk from the international community.

Qhawekazi Khumalo says they want countries, from neighboring South Africa to other global powerhouses, to halt business with the government.

"Were calling for sanctions of all Swaziland products, particularly those that Emaswati are business shareholder in, and those are some of the things that the world has authority, you know to do," Khumalo said.

The jailed members of parliament remain behind bars after a judge deferred a decision to grant them bail at a Thursday hearing. A new date for a ruling has yet to be announced.
Four journalists imprisoned for a year in Burundi on charges that rights groups condemned as baseless have been released after receiving a presidential pardon, according to a decree seen Thursday by AFP.

The journalists were working for IWACU, the isolated African country's last independent media outlet, when they were arrested in Bubanza province in October 2019 while covering an incursion of rebels from neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Agnes Ndirubusa, Christine Kamikazi, Egide Harerimana and Terence Mpozenzi were charged with threatening state security and sentenced in January to 2 years in prison, a verdict upheld on appeal in June.

But they were pardoned by a decree signed Wednesday by President Evariste Ndayishimiye, who was elected in May.

IWACU's founder and head, Antoine Kubarahe, said their release was "a great relief."

"These four colleagues, I repeat, were guilty of nothing. They were doing their job," he told AFP.

"I am happy they will be reunited with their families on Christmas Eve," he added, thanking the "great outpouring of support in Burundi and around the world" for their cause.

"May their freedom open a new chapter for Burundi's media," he said.

The European Union's ambassador to Burundi, Claude Bochu, tweeted that the pardon was a "relief and an excellent sign for the new year!"

The EU has imposed sanctions on Burundi since 2015, but their relationship has been warming of late.

Ndayishimiye's election had raised hopes for a more open political environment in Burundi after 15 years of Pierre Nkurunziza, whose rule was marked by violence and brutality against dissidents. Nkurunziza died in June.

In October, 65 human rights groups issued a joint statement demanding the journalists be released.

"Their continued detention on baseless charges is a stark reminder that, despite a recent change in leadership, the Burundian government has little tolerance for independent journalism," the group said.

On Reporters Without Borders' annual press freedom index, Burundi ranks 160th out of 180 in the world.
The former president of Chad, Hissene Habre, died on Tuesday at age 79, five years into a life sentence for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

His trial in Senegal marked the first time an African country tried a former leader of another African country for crimes committed in office. However, his conviction was less than perfect justice.

Hissene Habre oversaw the killing and torture of tens of thousands of people during his rule as Chads president from 1982 to 1990. He was also accused of rape and sexual slavery.

At the time, Habre received support from the United States and France to defend against Libyas invasions of northern Chad.

He was found guilty of crimes against humanity in 2016 by a Senegalese court, and was still serving his life sentence when he died of COVID-19.

Allan Ngari is the organized crime observatory coordinator for West Africa with the Institute of Security Studies in Dakar.

It was the first time for universal jurisdiction to be successful in Africa. It was the first time that a former head of state was found guilty for personally committing acts of rape. But it came almost 26 years later from when he was deposed of presidency in Chad, he said.



Habres victims and their supporters worked tirelessly over those years to bring the former dictator to justice.

Reed Brody is a member of the International Commission of Jurists and a human rights lawyer who has worked with Habres victims since 1999.

That a band of torture victims never gave up and were able to turn the tables and bring a dictator to justice in Africa before an African court  these are enormous achievements that I feel proud of and that I know the victims feel proud of, he said.

One of those victims is Clement Abaifouta, the president of the Association of Victims of the Crimes of the Hissene Habre Regime.

Abaifouta endured four years of torture at the hands of Habres regime. During that time he not only witnessed the deaths of many of his co-detainees from torture, illness and sexual violence, but he was forced to dig their graves.

He says when Hissene Habre was convicted, all of Africa celebrated and jumped for joy because Africans proved they were capable of trying dictators on African soil. "The case of Hissene Habre is a lesson for all dictators: you cannot hide. Justice is like the sun. It will always catch you," he said.

Habre and the Chadian government were ordered to pay Abaifouta and the other victims tens of millions of dollars, and the African Union was tasked with setting up a trust fund. The victims, however, have yet to see a penny and the fund was never established.

Abaifouta said he will continue to pressure the Senegalese authorities and the African Union to begin the process of reparations.

Habre is to be buried in Dakar on Thursday, his family told the Agence France-Presse.

Some material for this article came from AFP.
Kenya has hailed its efforts to crack down on poaching as it released the results of the country's first-ever national wildlife census, calling the survey a vital weapon in its conservation battle.

According to the census released late Monday, the country has a total of 36,280 elephants, a 12% jump from the figures recorded in 2014, when poaching activity was at its highest.

"Efforts to increase penalties on crimes related to threatened species appear to be bearing fruits," the report, which counted 30 species of animals and covered nearly 59% of Kenya's land mass, said.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) warned in March that poaching and habitat destruction, particularly due to land conversion for agriculture, was devastating elephant numbers across Africa.

The population of African savanna elephants plunged by at least 60% in the last half century, prompting their reclassification as "endangered" in the latest update to the IUCN's "Red List" of threatened species.

The census said the numbers of lions, zebras, hirolas (Hunter's antelopes) and the three species of giraffes found in the country had also gone up, but did not provide comparative figures from earlier years.

The state-funded survey counted 1,739 rhinos including two northern white rhinos, 897 critically endangered black rhinos and 840 southern white rhinos, and said the tourist magnet Maasai Mara National Reserve was home to nearly 40,000 wildebeest.

"Obtaining this level of information... allows for better policy, planning and assessment of areas that require focus in our interventions to maintain or improve our national conservation efforts," Wildlife Minister Najib Balala said in the report.

President Uhuru Kenyatta applauded conservation agencies for successfully clamping down on poaching and urged them to find newer, inventive approaches to protect wildlife.

"The reduction in losses in terms of elephants, rhinos and other endangered species is because of the great work that KWS [Kenya Wildlife Service], its officers and men are doing", he said late Monday.

'Our children's legacy'

Special attention should be given to antelope species such as sable antelopes and mountain bongos which already number less than 100 each, the report said, warning that they could become extinct unless urgent action was taken.

Exponential growth in human population and the accompanying rise in demand for land for settlement as well as activities such as livestock incursions, logging and charcoal burning are threatening to put brakes on the recent gains, it added.

Kenya, like several of its African peers, is trying to strike a balance between protecting its wildlife while managing the dangers they pose when they raid human settlements in search of food and water.

"[Wildlife] is our heritage, this is our children's legacy and it is important for us to be able to know what we have in order to be better informed on policy and also on actions needed as we move forward," Kenyatta said.

"It being a national heritage, it is something we should carry with pride", he added.
Police said the death of 21-year-old Ian Muhama in the Kachere area of Blantyre brings the number of albino attacks this year to four  a drop from past years, but still disconcerting.

Three victims, including Muhama, have been killed, while another, a baby girl, is missing.

James Kadadzera is a spokesperson for the Malawi Police Service.

The first incident this year in Mangochi (district), the suspects were arrested and the body was also found," Kadadzera said. "Another incident in Chikwawa [district] where a 20-month-old baby was abducted, we are on ground and we are sure of finding the suspected and we are sure of finding the whereabouts of the abducted baby.

Kadadzera also said police are investigating the death of Muhama.

Statistics show that since 2014, more than 170 albinos have been attacked in Malawi because of false beliefs that concoctions mixed with their body parts bring luck and wealth.

In some cases, grave robbers have exhumed corpses to retrieve albinos bodies.

Observers say efforts to end the attacks havent helped much.

In 2018 the government and the United Nations developed the National Action Plan on Persons with Albinism. The plan is designed to discourage attacks and provide albinos with greater protection, in part by giving out security alarms.

Maria Jose Torres is the U.N. national coordinator in Malawi. She said full implementation of the plan could help end the attacks.

The United Nations is calling upon the authorities to continue implementing that National Action Plan on Persons with Albinism to ensure that the criminal practice of attacking persons with albinism is fully eliminated in Malawi, Torres said.

Boniface Massa is chairperson for the Disability and Elderly Rights Directorate at the Malawi Human Rights Commission, a key stakeholder in the action plans.

Massa said the plan, for its promises, is falling short.

We have so far highlighted serious gaps in terms of the actual protection pillar under the National Action Plan," Massa said. "So overall what we noted from our findings that we are still analyzing is that there hasnt been direct impact on the life of people with albinism.

In a statement this week, Amnesty International said the recent attack is the latest reminder that Malawi remains a dangerous place for persons with albinism.

Some rights activists believe the attacks could end only if police mount a crackdown on markets for the albino body parts.

But police spokesperson Kadadzera says there is no such market.

There are a lot of people that we have arrested with bones," Kadadzera said. "And they dont have anywhere to sell the bones so thats why I am saying this is just a mystery; this is just a belief that is unfounded.

He said in the meantime, police, chiefs and religious leaders are trying to educate people to stop believing in the myths that perpetuate the attacks.
Mali's interim government on Saturday condemned an armed police protest that led to the liberation of a special forces commander detained for allegedly using brute force to quash protests last year.

In a statement on public television, the government said "uniformed and armed men took to the streets to demonstrate" in a "condemnable" act.

It said the fight against impunity would continue.

Angry police officers marched on a prison in the capital, Bamako, on Friday, after a special forces commander was held as part of an investigation into the killings of protesters in 2020.

Detained commander Oumar Samake had been in prison for only a few hours before he was released, in circumstances that remain unclear.

A prison official told AFP that guards had stepped aside when the police arrived at the prison.

However, a justice ministry official who requested anonymity said that the government had ordered his release "for the sake of peace."

The affair has generated outrage in Mali, where a leading human rights group said it constituted an "attack on democracy and the rule of law," and former Prime Minister Moussa Mara said he was "scandalized."

Call for respect of state

Mali's government stressed that the investigation into the 2020 protester killings was ongoing and urged security forces to "respect the authority of the state."

Samake had been detained for his alleged role in lethal clashes between security forces and opponents of former President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita last year, in a wave of protests that eventually led to Keita's overthrow.

One such protest on July 10, 2020, sparked several days of deadly unrest.

Mali's political opposition said at the time that 23 people were killed; the U.N. reported 14 protesters killed, including two children.

One year on, the events involving Samake's detention underscore Mali's deep political instability.

The military deposed Keita in August 2020 after weeks of protests fueled by grievances over corruption and Mali's long-running jihadist conflict.

Army officers then installed a civilian-led interim government to steer Mali back toward democratic rule.

But military strongman Colonel Assimi Goita deposed these civilian leaders in May in a second coup.

Goita has pledged to restore civilian rule and stage elections in February next year. There are doubts about whether elections can be held within such a short time.

Mali has been struggling to quell a brutal jihadist insurgency that emerged in 2012 and left swaths of the vast nation outside government control.
Russia recently sent a group of 600 military instructors to the Central African Republic to train the army, police, and national gendarmerie, Russia's foreign ministry said Friday.

Moscow is in the spotlight after a United Nations report, seen by Reuters Tuesday, said Russian military instructors and local troops had targeted civilians with excessive force, indiscriminate killings, occupation of schools and large-scale looting.

The Kremlin has said it is a lie that Russian instructors had taken part in killings or robberies.

Russia notified the United Nations Security Council of the deployment of the 600 instructors, Russia's foreign ministry told Reuters in a statement Friday. It did not say when exactly they arrived.

Moscow has been jockeying for influence in the troubled African nation with France, which has around 300 troops there. The gold and diamond-rich country of 4.7 million people is mired in violence.

Moscow's latest deployment of instructors comes after it said it had sent 175 instructors to CAR to train the army at the request of the local authorities in 2018, a number that subsequently grew to 235. Another batch of 300 were sent ahead of last December's elections to train local troops, it said.

"The Russian specialists will continue their work based on the needs of the official authorities of the CAR, taking into account CAR's leadership as well as the ongoing clashes between regular CAR troops and militants," the foreign ministry said.

It said that the instructors would not themselves be involved in combat operations against illegal groups.

"The goals of achieving a lasting settlement and ensuring security in the country cannot be met without effective support for the CAR authorities in enhancing the combat capabilities of the national armed forces and law enforcement agencies," it said.
The United Arab Emirates is dismantling parts of a military base it runs in the East African nation of Eritrea after it pulled back from the grinding war in nearby Yemen, satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press show.



The UAE built a port and expanded an airstrip in Assab beginning in September 2015, using the facility as a base to ferry heavy weaponry and Sudanese troops into Yemen as it fought alongside a Saudi-led coalition against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels there.



But the country once praised as "Little Sparta" by former U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis appears to have found the limits of its military expansion in Yemen's stalemate conflict, experts say. After it withdrew troops from the conflict, the satellite photos show it began shipping off equipment and tearing down even newly built structures.



"The Emiratis are paring back their strategic ambitions and are pulling out of places where they had presences," said Ryan Bohl, an analyst at the Texas-based private intelligence firm Stratfor. "Having that hard-power deployment exposed them to more risk than the Emiratis are now willing to tolerate."



Emirati officials did not respond to questions from the AP. Eritrea, which gave a 30-year lease to the Emiratis for the base, similarly did not respond to questions sent to its embassy in Washington.



The UAE, a federation of seven sheikhdoms home to Abu Dhabi and Dubai, poured millions of dollars into improving the facility at Assab, only some 70 kilometers (40 miles) from Yemen. It dredged a port and improved the dusty airstrip's roughly 3,500-meter (11,500-foot) runway to allow for heavy support aircraft.



The Emiratis also built barracks, aircraft canopies and fencing across the 9-square-kilometer (3.5-square-mile) facility initially built in the 1930s by colonial power Italy.



Over time, the UAE stationed Leclerc battle tanks, G6 self-propelled howitzers and BMP-3 amphibious fighting vehicles at the airport, according to United Nations experts. Those types of heavy weapons have been seen on Yemeni battlefields. Attack helicopters, drones and other aircraft have been seen on its runways.



Barracks on the base housed Emirati and Yemeni troops, as well as Sudanese forces filmed disembarking in Yemen's port city of Aden. Records show the ship carrying them, the SWIFT-1, traveled back and forth to Assab. The vessel later came under attack by Houthi forces in 2016 and the Emirati government asserted it carried humanitarian aid, a claim for which U.N. experts later described themselves as being "unconvinced of its veracity."



The base also aided wounded soldiers by housing "one of the best field surgical hospitals anywhere in the Middle East," said Michael Knights, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near-East Policy who has studied the Assab base.



As Yemen's war dragged on, the Emiratis also used the base for holding prisoners as the Saudi-led coalition faced increasing international pressure over detainee abuse and airstrikes killing civilians. The UAE announced in the summer of 2019 it had begun withdrawing its troops from the war, which still rages today.



"There's only so far that they can punch above their weight, which they do militarily and economically," said Alex Almeida, a security analyst at Horizon Client Access who has studied Assab. "Once they figured out Yemen wasn't worth it for them, they decided, 'We're going to end it,' and they ended it pretty suddenly."



Satellite pictures from Planet Labs Inc., analyzed by the AP, show that decision appears to extend to Assab as well.



In June 2019, around the time the Emiratis made their withdrawal announcement, workers apparently razed structures believed to be barracks alongside the port, the satellite images show. Workers gathered neat rows of materiel just north of the port, apparently waiting to be shipped off.



In early January of this year, another photo showed what appeared to be vehicles and other equipment being loaded onto a waiting cargo ship. By Feb. 5, the ship and that equipment were gone.



The deconstruction included newly built canopies along a new tarmac near the facilities' runway as well. In the Feb. 5 images, another set of canopies that analysts earlier linked to the drones being flown out of the base had been dismantled as well. The UAE has used Chinese-made armed drones in the Yemen war to kill leaders among the Houthi rebels.



Destruction of the drone hangars come after rebels in Ethiopia's Tigray region in November alleged that Emirati drones from Assab had been used against their positions. The UAE hasn't commented on the allegation for which the rebels offered no evidence.



The U.N.-backed government in Libya also has alleged the UAE has flown weapons through Assab on its way there. U.N. experts have accused the UAE among other nations of funneling weapons into Libya amid its yearslong civil war.



Meanwhile, a Ukrainian-registered Antonov An-124 cargo plane flew several flights in late January back and forth to the Emirati city of Al Ain from Assab, according to flight data from FlightRadar24.com.



That aircraft, once linked to the Emirati military, now flies for an Ukrainian-Emirati company called Maximus Air. The firm did not return a request for comment left at its Abu Dhabi office.

Despite the dismantling work, Emirati attack helicopters still have been seen at the base. It remains a strategically important point as well, sitting just off the crucial Bab el-Mandeb strait connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden.



But the UAE may face more-pressing concerns. Since 2019, tensions between the U.S. and Iran have seen a series of escalating incidents, including attacks on ships off the Emirates. Those threats closer to home may take precedence over an expanded military footprint abroad.



"I think what 'Little Sparta' is doing is to keep its powder dry for whatever it needs to do next," Knights said.
High-level African officials met virtually this week to discuss the challenges Africa faces in trying to manage a growing population amid climate change. The conference was aimed at identifying ways African governments can manage these pressures to minimize or avoid conflict.

Africa generates about 3% percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, the lowest of any continent. But its more vulnerable than any other region in the world, since Africans depend so heavily on their natural environment for food, water and medicine.

Speaking at a virtual conference Tuesday on climate, conflict and demographics in Africa, Nigerian Vice President Yemi Osinbajo said African governments need to keep the climate in mind as they try to boost their economies.

Our first obligation for us and for African countries must always be to ensure the well-being of our people through access to development services, including electricity, health care, education, safe jobs and a safe environment, including access to clean cooking fuels. We must prioritize solutions that align the development and climate agenda, and that is absolutely important, said Osinbajo.

The Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, based in Brussels, says that in 2019, Africa recorded 56 extreme weather events compared to 45 in the previous year.

The extreme weather patterns affected the lives of 16.6 million people in 29 countries. At least 13 million of them were from five countries: Kenya, Mozambique, Somalia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.

West Africa had fewer weather-related catastrophes but is feeling the effects of global warming just the same.

Ghana environment minister Kwaku Afriyie explains how climate change has impacted agricultural lands in the country.

"The harsh and deteriorating climate conditions in northern Ghana undoubtedly energized region-growing food insecurity and seasonal north-to-south migration. And besides, increasing of floods and protracted drought lead to displacement of people. Statistics show that over the last few years, there has been a new internal displacement which has occurred in Ghana due to climate-induced disasters and even beyond our borders, he said.

The U.N. special representative to the African Union, Hannah Tetteh, said the continent needs to improve cross-border information-sharing and cooperation to handle climate-related crises.

The challenge has not been that we havent developed yet these structures. The challenge has been we have not utilized them yet effectively, and that goes to issues of national sovereignty and the unwillingness of member states to have others, as it were, take an active interest and maybe recommend the things that need to be done in order to respond to a particular crisis. And if we recognize we are all in this together, then that certainly has to change, she said.

As for specific suggestions, Osinbajo suggested governments encourage greater use of natural gas and plant more trees to maintain forests that can soak up carbon dioxide and prevent it from warming the atmosphere.
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International aid groups are calling on Burkina Faso's government to let them help register the country's internally displaced people. The Norwegian Refugee Council says the government is taking weeks to register IDPs for food and other aid, forcing some back into dangerous areas. Henry Wilkins reports from Ouahigouya, Burkina Faso.



Camera: Henry Wilkins


Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro said his government would not give in to "blackmail or threats" after the United States urged him to make serious efforts toward holding elections if he wants sanctions relief.

Washington's call comes ahead of a Friday meeting in Mexico between representatives of both the leftist government and opposition leader Juan Guaido -- considered interim president by the United States -- before talks set for August 30 under mediation from Norway.

Venezuela is suffering through a crippling economic crisis, exacerbated by a raft of fresh sanctions imposed by Washington following a contested election in 2018.

In a state television broadcast, Maduro said his country would go to the talks "autonomously and independently and does not submit to blackmail or threats from the United States government."

Earlier, Maduro said he was seeking an "immediate lifting of all the criminal sanctions" led by the United States, which in 2019 said it no longer considered him the legitimate president after wide allegations of electoral irregularities.

State Department spokesman Ned Price said the sanctions were aimed at "promoting accountability" on democracy and human rights.

"We've also been clear that the Maduro regime can create a path to easing sanctions by allowing Venezuelans to participate in long overdue free and fair presidential, parliamentary and local elections," Price told reporters.

Doing so "requires the Maduro regime to engage in sincere discussions with the opposition -- led by, of course, Interim President Juan Guaido -- that result in a comprehensive negotiated solution to the Venezuelan crisis," he said.

Guaido is seeking guarantees over electoral conditions as well as the release of political prisoners including Freddy Guevara, who was recently detained.

'For our political prisoners'

Guaido declared himself Venezuela's president in 2019 through his position as parliament speaker.

The opposition-dominated parliament had claimed Maduro's 2018 re-election was fraudulent, a view shared by the European Union and the United States.

Former US president Donald Trump, vowing to crush leftists across the Americas, imposed sweeping sanctions to pressure Maduro including on Venezuela's key export of oil.

But Maduro has withstood the pressure with support from the nation's military, Russia, China and Cuba despite a crumbling economy that has caused millions to flee.

Biden has largely kept in place Trump's stance on Venezuela while promising a more nuanced approach that relies on US allies.

Neither Maduro or Guaido will attend the latest talks, and the government holds most of the cards.

In a video retweeted on his official Twitter account, Guaido said: "Today there is unity in Venezuela supporting the possibility of a solution through a comprehensive agreement."

In a later tweet, he wrote: "For our country, for our political prisoners, for the struggle and the sacrifice of thousands, we are going to rise up and move on until we achieve it."

The government and the opposition last held negotiations in Barbados in 2019 that were also mediated by Norway and failed to make a breakthrough.
Australia has signed a new security partnership with the United States and Britain to share defense technologies in what analyst say is an effort to counter the potential threat from China.

British officials have stressed that the pact was not a response to one country, but analysts believe it is an unmistakable sign of concern about Chinas military ambitions in the Indo-Pacific region. They have said it has highlighted the strategic importance of the region to both the United States and Britain.

The new pact was announced Wednesday during a virtual joint statement President Joe Biden made along with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

President Biden praised the partnership.

"We need to be able to address both the current strategic environment in the region and how it may evolve. Because the future of each of our nations, and indeed the world, depends on a free and open Indo-Pacific enduring and flourishing in the decades ahead.

In the joint statement, the leaders said there were several potential issues of concern, including territorial disputes, terrorism and organized crime.

Analysts said the deal was significant because it allows Australia to build nuclear-powered submarines for the first time. The government in Canberra has insisted the submarines would not carry nuclear weapons.

The alliance  known by its acronym, AUKUS  will also cover artificial intelligence, quantum technologies and cyber defenses. Johnson said the three nations were natural allies. Morrison said the pact would boost regional security.

The future of the Indo-Pacific will impact all our futures. To meet these challenges, to help deliver the security and stability our region needs, we must now take our partnership to a new level. A partnership that seeks to engage, not to exclude, to contribute, not take, and to enable and empower, not to control or coerce. And, so, friends AUKUS is born, he said.

However, Australias news reports suggest the scrapping of a multi-billion-dollar submarine defense deal with France will cause immense diplomatic tensions between the two nations. The deal, the Australian government says, will be scrapped because of Australias plans to build nuclear-powered submarines under the AUKUS security pact with the United States and Britain.

For decades, Australia has sought security with defense and intelligence pacts.

The ANZUS, another security treaty between the U.S., Australia and New Zealand, recently celebrated its 70th anniversary. Australia is also an active member of the Five Eyes alliance, which includes the U.S., Britain, Canada and New Zealand. The Five Eyes alliance was created to monitor the Soviet Union after the Second World War.

Australian officials have said the nuclear-powered submarines would be service in the mid to late 2030s.

Adam Bandt, leader of the Greens, a minor left-of-Center party, said on Twitter that the move was dangerous and would put floating Chernobyls in the heart of Australias cities, referring to a nuclear energy accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine in 1986.
Voters in the western U.S. state of California overwhelmingly rejected an effort to remove Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom from office.

With about two-thirds of the expected vote counted, Newsom by early Wednesday was defeating the Republican-led recall effort by a 64-to-36% margin. He can now serve out the remainder of his four-year term ending in early 2023, although he is planning to run for reelection next year.

In Tuesdays election, the majority of voters cast a no vote, saying Newsom should not be recalled. That made moot the second question on the ballot: Who should replace Newsom if the majority wanted to oust him?

Had Newsom lost the recall vote in the heavily Democratic state, Larry Elder, a conservative radio talk show host and supporter of former Republican President Donald Trump, would have become governor, since by law, the 53-year-old Newsom could not be among the list of possible choices to replace himself. Elder led 46 other candidates, most of them Republicans.

Newsom is the second California governor in 18 years to face a recall vote. In 2003, voters removed Democrat Gray Davis and installed popular Hollywood actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican.

Newsom is also the second U.S. governor in nine years to survive a recall vote. In 2012, conservative Governor Scott Walker in the midwestern state of Wisconsin defeated a recall vote but eventually lost a reelection bid in 2018.

Recall elections are common in California, the most populous U.S. state, in which voters angered by the performance of elected public officials can petition to hold recall votes before an officials term expire. Along with Newsom, several municipal officials in the state faced recall votes on Tuesday.

The recall effort against Newsom was launched by Republicans who opposed his strict COVID-19 rules throughout the coronavirus pandemic, including school closures and restrictions on small businesses such as bars and restaurants.

Newsom didnt help his political standing when he ignored one of his coronavirus orders and dined last year without wearing a mask or social distancing at an upscale restaurant in California's wine-making region. Later, anti-Newsom organizers secured enough signatures of registered voters to force a recall ballot.

As the outcome became apparent late Tuesday, Newsom told supporters, 'No is not the only thing that was expressed tonight. We said yes to science, yes to vaccines, yes to ending this pandemic."

Weeks ago, voter surveys showed a close vote on whether Newsom should be recalled. But with his fate in doubt, Democrats rallied around him, and he campaigned relentlessly.

Leading national Democratic figures, including President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, visited the state to lend their support at political rallies, while former President Barack Obama appeared in a Newsom television ad.

Elder easily trounced the other challengers by winning nearly 47% of the vote on the question of who should replace Newsom if he was recalled. In a concession speech early Wednesday morning, Elder urged his supporters to be gracious in defeat.

But he also teased a possible run against Newsom in 2022, declaring, We may have lost the battle, but we are going to win the war.

Newsom equated the recall effort, and especially Elders presence on the ballot, to support for Trump, a deeply unpopular figure among California Democrats.

We defeated Donald Trump, we didnt defeat Trumpism, Newsom said. Trumpism is still alive all across this country.

Newsom is a prominent figure among national Democrats, having previously served as mayor of the city of San Francisco and California lieutenant governor before he was elected governor in 2018.
Two men have been accused of defamation after they allegedly lied to a Burkina Faso journalist in a recent report, which found that those responsible for distributing aid in the country are exploiting internally displaced women, demanding sex in return for food. The government and the media outlet which published the story are now at loggerheads as the trial of the two men is set for the end of the month.



In the northern town of Kongoussi on Wednesday, two men displaced by Burkina Fasos conflict stood accused of defamation after they told a local journalist that women in their community, including one of their wives, had been forced into sex in exchange for food aid distributed by the government.



A key witness, the director of Minute.bf, which initially published the story, did not arrive for the court hearing. The judge subsequently postponed the case until September 29.



Minute.bf published a statement on their website later in the day, claiming they had not received a summons to appear at the court.



Speaking to VOA Wednesday, Lassane Sawadogo, director of Minute.bf said he believes they spoke to credible witnesses despite doubts after publication.



"One of our sources clearly said that his wife traded sex for food. For us, a husband who makes such statements about his own wife cannot be lying. But how do we verify such information? We have now been told that the people we interviewed confessed they lied. Whats to say they are not lying again?"



Sawadogo went on to say he hopes the government will investigate the allegations of sex in exchange for food in other parts of the country too.



Last month, VOA and another news website focusing on aid, The New Humanitarian, also published stories documenting testimonies from nine women who said they had been forced into sex in exchange for food aid in the nearby city of Kaya.



One of the defendants outside the courtroom in Kongoussi told VOA he had lied to Minute.bf. Meanwhile, members of the governments social action department responsible for distributing aid in the area spoke to members of the local press. When VOA asked for an interview, they said they were banned from speaking to international media without authorization.



At a press conference on Monday, the minister for humanitarian affairs, Laurence Ilboudo-Marchal blamed Minute.bf for rushing to publish without verification in response to a question on the matter.



"Minute.bf, what you did there, you almost destroyed families because you didnt give us time to answer you," she said. "You were making an important denunciation. Did you write to us? Let us listen to you? Or come to ask us and say, 'Madam minister here are the accusations, what is your answer?' If you had published our response, maybe this wouldnt have gone to court," she said.



At the press conference, the minister also faced questions about a recent report from aid group The Norwegian Refugee Council, which said the government was slow to register newly displaced people and was risking lives as a result.



Over the last year, the government has also implemented a ban on journalists trying to visit official camps for internally displaced people in the country.



With neither the government nor Minute.bf seeming ready to back down, Burkina Fasos sex for food aid scandal remains unsolved.
Witnesses in the northwest Cameroon town of Kumbo have accused the military of killing several civilians during retaliatory raids Monday on separatists. Cameroon's military denies any civilians were killed. The clashes followed the deaths of seven troops when their armored vehicle hit an improvised explosive device. Cameroon's Presbyterian Church is calling for an independent investigation into reports of civilian deaths.

Cameroons military said Monday that seven of its troops perished when their armored vehicle hit an improvised explosive device in the western village of Kikaikelahki.

The troops were part of a military convoy dispatched to fight separatists around the town of Kumbo.

The military says other troops have been deployed to find and kill the separatists who planted the explosive device.

Deben Tchoffo is governor of Cameroon's northwest region where Kumbo is found. He says the troops also were ordered to search and seize weapons used illegally by separatists.

"The circulation of those arms were banned by the government, and we instructed administrative authorities and security forces to recuperate all those guns and ammunition that are circulating in the region. Many guns have been taken and are now kept at the level of administrative and security services. The process is ongoing."

Cameroon military says in a reprisal after the seven troops were killed, government troops killed 13 fighters.

Philip Ndongwe is a teacher in Kumbo. He says one of the people killed is a popular motorcycle taxi driver. He says men who attacked the house they ran to for safety were dressed in Cameroon military uniforms.

"They actually jumped into the campus, shot in the air, and you could see panic and there was nothing I could do other than struggling to also save myself. I first hid myself under the table. It was so traumatizing."

The Catholic Church in Kumbo on Monday condemned what it calls the killing of civilians and blamed both fighters and government troops for the violence.

Fonki Samuel Forba, moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Cameroon, says independent investigations should be carried out to find out if those killing civilians are fighters or government troops.

"There should be a cease-fire in this country. The barrel of the gun will not solve this problem. Until we sit down as a family and talk out our problems, we will not solve these problems. We are all waiting. We can only get a true story when a credible organization has done investigations of the situation. The culprits will be brought to book."

The military has denied any involvement in the killing of civilians and insists that all those killed are fighters. The military says its troops are professional.

Violence erupted in Cameroon's English-speaking regions in 2016, when teachers and lawyers protested alleged discrimination at the hands of the French-speaking majority.

The government responded with a crackdown that sparked an armed movement for an independent, English-speaking state.
As the delta variant of COVID-19 has surged through Vietnam over the past two months, the countrys central provinces have endured the strictest lockdown measures to date.

As of Tuesday, the country had recorded 624,547 confirmed cases and 15,660 deaths, according to the John Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.

Both foreigners and locals have been complaining that food and water supplies have been mishandled because of restrictions on motorbike delivery people known locally as shippers. When the full lockdown was announced three days in advance it caused people to rush to stock up at local markets.

'Directive 16'

On July 22, the government issued Directive 16, an official notice to follow stay-at-home orders, for the coastal city of Da Nang. Under the new directive, residents couldn't leave their homes. Non-essential businesses were shut, food shipping stopped and residents were banned from exiting Da Nang without official written permission.

Ward leaders were mobilized to the various neighborhoods, enforcing curfews and issuing order forms to residents for food and water deliveries. If residents were in green zones, they were allowed out during a two-hour period but only in close proximity to their homes. Some ward bosses provided free groceries consisting of a few different vegetables and instant noodles.

Supermarket aisles emptied, and anxiety about a Wuhan-style lockdown was starting to collectively set in. Expatriates and locals have been panicking and venting their frustrations in online forums.

Why wasnt there a concrete plan for food supply chains if outbreaks were to get this bad, thats what I am most angry about, said Brian Edwards, a British national whose name has been changed for privacy. Because of an existing respiratory problem, Edwards was afraid to go out into crowded spaces such as supermarkets and is relying on local contacts to help him receive food.

In August, Da Nang color-coded its neighborhoods based on infection rate data and provided an online map. All wards underwent mass COVID-19 testing every three days in spaces where social distancing was not possible and people became concerned these might become superspreader events.

Vaccine availability an issue

Until recently, Vietnam had received widespread acclaim for its handling of COVID-19, but a slow vaccine rollout has become its Achilles heel. There is a consensus that Vietnamese authorities relied too heavily on donated vaccines as opposed to buying them.

Most local people want the vaccine in Vietnam  maybe not the Chinese-made Sinopharm  but the rollout of any vaccines has been too slow, and you know, people just follow orders and rarely say anything critical about the top, said Nguyen Tung, a Da Nang local, whose name has been changed to protect his privacy.

Tung thinks the government is showing signs of strain in communicating information to the public and the strict lockdowns could continue into next year, especially in Ho Chi Minh. He says the authorities will eventually need to stop the strict lockdowns and let the country move toward natural immunity while allowing the economy to open back up.

Some people are worried the authorities might be stockpiling vaccines and money might go into the wrong hands. Vaccine scams save already emerged, with some people being overcharged for the shots or receiving fake vaccines. As of September, less than 4% of Vietnams adult population has received two shots, and 16.5% have received a single shot. Much of the vaccine rollout has been concentrated in Ho Chi Minh, which has the highest case rate nationwide. Military personnel have been dispatched to the city to manage the lockdown there.

Many foreigners marooned in Da Nang have encountered problems renewing their tourist visas. At the same time, they are also finding it difficult to leave the country because of the strict lockdown and lack of domestic and international flights.

As of Tuesday, leaving the central provinces of Vietnam requires flight tickets, a COVID-19 test, and a written letter of permission to leave from an embassy or city police authorization. Those leaving need to hire a private car to drive them to Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh, depending on the departing city. The cost is roughly 7.5 million dong ($330) per person if ride-shared, and the journey itself can take up to 24 hours depending on traffic and the time required to pass through provincial checkpoints.

In Facebook groups, people have been lamenting that visa agents are overcharging them for extending their visas or local immigration officials making them pay excessive overstay fines at the airport. Expatriates main gripes include lack of communication or miscommunication between the government and foreigners residing in Vietnam and the ever-changing rules.

They (immigration officials) are so corrupt, they will try to make money from you in any way possible, wrote one foreigner on Facebook about his recent exit experience.

There is no reliable information, nobody knows whats going on and they are making it impossible to leave, said Mark Warth, an Australian national who is desperate to leave Vietnam with his wife. His name has been changed to protect his privacy.

The dearth of reliable information has likely prompted Vietnamese authorities to implement a new hotline for foreigners in Da Nang; however, responses have been either slow or nonexistent.

Most expatriates in Da Nang are English teachers. Due to the closure of many local schools and the recent worldwide termination of most foreign teaching contracts with online Chinese schools, many foreign teachers are struggling financially. And the situation for the poorest locals has worsened as the Vietnamese economy slows.

Many local people are starving and havent had paid work for a long time, said Nga Hanh, a local woman working as a consultant in Da Nang whose name has been changed to protect her privacy.

Hanh has a brother who works for the government. His salary has been slashed in half since last year, but he says he is one of the lucky ones to still have a job.

Some of my friends in the tourism industry havent worked for over a year, Hanh said.

Her sister, a nurse, has been forced to stay in the hospital and work 24-hour shifts since the latest lockdown began, and she isnt being paid for overtime.

It must be so terrible for the really poor people here in my country right now. Nobody takes care of the poor people adequately, said Hanh.
The speaker of the British House of Commons, Lindsay Hoyle, has banned Chinas ambassador to Britain, Zeguang Zheng, from entering Parliament until Beijing lifts sanctions it imposed six months ago on five Conservative lawmakers and two peers.



The ban  the first ever imposed on a foreign envoy by a House of Commons Speaker  is the latest sign that British authorities are growing increasingly frustrated with what they see as Beijings aggressive diplomacy. Hoyle consulted with Downing Street and Britains Foreign Office before announcing the ban, according to local media reports.

His bar on Zheng came just hours before British Prime Minister Boris Johnson appointed former trade minister Liz Truss as Britains new foreign secretary, part of a wider Cabinet reshuffle. Truss is seen as a China hawk and has lobbied for much tougher measures to be pursued against Chinas Communist government for rights violations.



In a statement midweek Hoyle said: I do not feel it's appropriate for the ambassador for China to meet on the Commons estate and in our place of work when his country has imposed sanctions against some of our members.

Last week Hoyle met with British lawmakers targeted by the Chinese sanctions. They urged him to impose a ban on the envoy. The Chinese embassy in London described the prohibition on Zheng as despicable and cowardly.

Zheng, who was appointed as envoy in June, was scheduled to speak to a British parliamentary group on China, but the invitation was withdrawn.

Souring relations



Relations between China and Britain have become fraught over Beijing's crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong and repression of its Muslim minority in the western Chinese province of Xinjiang, where China's Communist government has interned more than a million Uyghurs in detention centers, according to rights groups.



The Chinese sanctions imposed in March on British lawmakers, one of whom is a former leader of the ruling of Britains ruling Conservatives, were in retaliation for Britain sanctioning Chinese officials and a state-run entity for alleged human rights violations in Xinjiang.

The Chinese sanctions imposed in March on British lawmakers, one of whom is a former leader of Britains ruling Conservatives, were in retaliation for Britain sanctioning Chinese officials and a state-run entity for alleged human rights violations in Xinjiang.

China has denied repeated claims that Uyghur Muslims are being held in detention centers. Beijing targeted 10 British organizations and individuals in its March sanctions. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said the British officials were being punished for spreading lies and disinformation about Xinjiang.



Chinas Global Times newspaper, an English-language outlet of the Chinese Communist Party's flagship People's Daily newspaper, reacted with fury to the parliamentary ban on the Chinese envoy, saying in an angry editorial: It is extremely rare, if not 'a global innovation, for the UK to ban a foreign envoy from Parliament, a public venue for political discussions in the country. It shows brutality, impulsiveness, and the breaking of the rules.

The editorial added: London acts as if only it can sanction others, but not the other way around. Given that it simply does not have the strength to deal with China this way, the UK now behaves like a hooligan after having become a loser. It suggested Beijing bar the British ambassador from entering the Great Hall of the People.



The group of British lawmakers sanctioned by China, which includes former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith and MPs Tim Loughton and Nusrat Ghani, welcomed Hoyles decision, praising the Speaker for standing up for freedom of speech in the mother of Parliaments by supporting those parliamentarians who have been sanctioned by China.

Liz Truss



The appointment of Liz Truss as foreign secretary is unlikely to please Beijing. She has been targeted for criticism by Chinas Foreign Ministry and Communist Party-run media in the past for lobbying for tough measures against Beijing as international trade secretary. The 46-year-old is only the second woman to hold the post of foreign secretary and is seen as a vigorous champion of free trade and markets and a strong supporter of the transatlantic alliance with Washington.

She faults China for not pursuing fair trade and for engaging in economic coercion and warned in a speech last week against Britain becoming strategically dependent on China, criticizing Beijing for unfair trading practices.



Last December Truss fought a behind-the-scenes battle with Britains Foreign Office, her new ministry, over whether Parliament should legislate to allow British courts a role in determining whether the repression of Xinjiang amounts to genocide. The Foreign Office opposed giving British courts preliminary power to determine whether genocide is occurring in Xinjiang, or elsewhere, arguing the decision should rest with international courts.



Nigel Adams, a Foreign Office minister, told a parliamentary panel that there was credible, troubling and growing evidence of forced labour taking place on a significant scale in Xinjiang but he feared an asset flight, if ministers rushed into enacting measures, warning China could start withdrawing investments from Britain.



Truss backed the legislative proposal.



Commenting on Trusss appointment, British newspaper The Times said she is far more hawkish on China than the prime minister, aligning herself with the American shift towards confrontation with Beijing. Other British commentators said her pick to replace Dominic Rabb will help repair bridges with Washington following the U.S.-led NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan, which was criticized by senior British Conservative lawmakers.



New UK Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, is a proper China hawk, tweeted Sophia Gaston, director of the British Foreign Policy Group, a London-based think tank. Gaston said Truss would be able at the Foreign Office to hold China to account on values while playing a larger role in coordinating diplomatic efforts with our [foreign] partners.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yis Asia tour this month following visits to the same region by two U.S. officials will intensify a superpower tug-of-war. Analysts say smaller countries can get a bounty of assistance from both China and the United States as long as they avoid offending Beijing.

Countries in Asia stand to get military equipment and training from Washington along with economic aid from Beijing, which is already building core infrastructure in much of Eurasia. Both nations are passing out COVID-19 vaccinations. Smaller, sometimes impoverished nations stand to be rewarded by both sides unless they get too cozy with Washington, scholars believe.

This soft power competition between the U.S. and China has some benefits to the smaller countries where they can be an object of courting in the soft power competition, but at the same time the room for maneuver for them is also increasingly narrowed, said Alexander Vuving, professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Hawaii, a U.S. Department of Defense institute.

Wang on Friday reached Vietnam, his first of four stops, to discuss trade, economic ties and political trust. Vietnam said it is taking its relations with China as a top priority in its foreign policy. This may cause tension with the U.S. which, since 2017, has pushed for a stronger partnership with Hanoi.

The Chinese foreign ministers visit coincided with a deal Vietnam signed with Japan to allow for exports of Japanese defense equipment and technology. Vietnams acquisition of these goods appears to be in response to Chinas growing aggressiveness and influence in the region.

The United States looks to Asia for allies in checking the expansion of China, though analysts say it is not known for punishing smaller countries that hew toward Beijing.

Vaccine diplomacy

Wang pledged 3 million COVID-19 vaccine doses after the U.S. government offered 1 million new doses in August. The U.S. also agreed to set up a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention regional office in Hanoi. Vietnams case shows a competitive flavor between superpowers, said Yun Sun, co-director of the East Asia program at the Stimson Center in Washington.

Over the weekend Wang took another 3 million doses to Cambodia, which also accepted a $270 million grant from China, the VOA Khmer service reported. Cambodia already leans strongly toward China over the United States, Vuving said, and Wang hopes to lock in that preference.

The Balancing act

In Singapore on Monday, Wang said on his ministrys website that China hopes to deepen practical cooperation. Both China and the United States see Singapore as a neutral, sometimes analytical force in Asia, with China particularly happy when the city-state calls for calm, Sun said.

Vietnam and Singapore have achieved a balancing act between superpowers, Vuving said. Earlier this month, China deepened bonds with the Philippines through an aid pledge after the Southeast Asian state agreed to restore a Visiting Forces Agreement with the U.S. government, an analyst told VOA.

Manila vies with Beijing over access to disputed South China Sea and has warmed this year toward United States, Chinese Cold War rival

U.S. forces have helped train Filipino counterparts for any potential operations in the South China Sea, parts of which Manila and Beijing dispute.

Consequences of US ties

South Korea, which Wang visited Tuesday and Wednesday, shows what China can do when a country veers too close to the United States, said Stephen Nagy, senior associate professor of politics and international studies at International Christian University in Tokyo.

After Seoul agreed with Washington to install a missile detection system that might see into China as well as its archrival North Korea, in March 2017, Beijing banned package tours to South Korea and caused a double-digit percentage decline in Chinese visits.

China also has engaged in economic coercion against Australia and Taiwan when once friendly ties became strained, Nagy added.

This month South Korea became one of the worlds few countries with the capability to fire ballistic missiles from extremely quiet submarines. This is part of a strategic arsenal that will cause concern in China given Seouls longstanding alliance with Washington, said Steven Kim, a visiting research fellow with the Jeju Peace Institute in South Korea.

Wang will probably talk to Korean counterparts about health and economic cooperation with stern implicit comment that it should value its economic ties with China, Nagy forecast.

I think that the overall diplomacy is one that would be characterized by trying to produce constructive engagement, but of course, telling states that Wang Yi will be visiting that they need to proceed carefully in terms of the kind of relationships theyre building with the United States, he said.

Chinese defense head Wei Fenghe visited peers in Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines last week. He suggested that maritime disputes be settled among Asian leaders

Back-to-back diplomacy

Wangs visit follows trips by U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in July to Singapore, Vietnam and the Philippines as well as U.S. Vice President Kamala Harriss trip to Vietnam and Singapore last month.

Vietnam has been the target of global criticism for limiting free speech, a free press and clamping down on those it considers political dissidents

U.S. and Chinese officials have done back-to-back diplomacy in the past, including the Chinese defense ministers whirlwind Asia tour a year ago this month following anti-China statements by then-U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo.

The recent flurry of visits shows a growing Sino-U.S. rivalry, Sun said. For smaller countries to maximize the benefits and minimize the risks, thats going to be hard because with great power competition in mind, neither Beijing nor Washington is leaving stones unturned to push for their own agenda, she said.
Plans by anti-COVID vaccine activists to shut down rail travel in Italy fell apart Wednesday as police outnumbered protesters at railway stations across the country. The Italian government has gone ahead with its plan to require Green Passes for long-distance travel, and the pass became mandatory Wednesday.

Italian authorities have said they are adamant that everything needs to be done in the country to keep down the number of new COVID-19 infections.

The Green Pass, which requires a single dose of a COVID vaccine or negative testing before travel on high-speed trains, domestic flights, interregional buses and most ferries, became mandatory September 1.

Anti-vaccination protesters used social media to call for protests at railway stations throughout the country on Wednesday.

Authorities are working to change the minds of people like this unidentified woman in Rome, who is among the 30% of those over the age of 12 who are still not vaccinated in Italy.

She tells Italian state television she does not agree with the vaccine and does not want to be vaccinated or tested.

Many opponents of the vaccine say requiring it infringes on their personal freedoms, and many say they do not believe the vaccines have been sufficiently tested.

However, in a country that has had close to 130,000 deaths from COVID-19 since the outbreak in the country began in February 2020, most people interviewed at railway stations said they favor the decision to require the Green Pass.

This woman about to board a high-speed train at a station in Rome told Italian state television she thought it was the right thing so that people can travel safely.

Only a handful of protesters turned out as police deployed in large numbers to avoid disruptions to services.

Italys Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese and other politicians had made clear that violence would not be tolerated, only peaceful protests.

The warning comes after a spate of violent incidents that have included physical attacks on journalists covering anti-Green Pass protests.

In recent days, anti-vaccination activists have also targeted Italian politicians and doctors on social media for speaking in favor of the Green Pass in what some have dubbed a climate of hatred against the COVID-19 vaccination campaign.

The government of Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi introduced the digital or paper Green Pass certificate earlier this summer. The objective was to prevent new infections and keep the numbers under control as well as encourage those still not vaccinated to get their shots.

In addition to bans on travel, those without a Green Pass cannot eat indoors at restaurants and cafes, cannot enter cinemas, theaters or leisure centers.

New daily COVID-19 infections in Italy now are under 7,000, but there are fears that there could be new increases in the coming weeks as the delta variant spreads.
The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened problems of conflict, terrorism, and scarce resources in Central Africa to plunge millions of people deeper into poverty. That's according to members of the regional bloc CEMAC. CEMAC heads of state Wednesday called for solidarity to improve living conditions in the six-nation economic bloc.

During a virtual heads of state summit Tuesday, the central African leaders said the advent of COVID-19 forced the closure of many businesses and caused millions of workers to lose their jobs.

Cameroons President Paul Biya is chairman of the CEMAC heads of state conference. He says it is regrettable that many people are reluctant to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

Biya says it is not possible for CEMAC to attain herd immunity when fewer than 5% of its close to 60 million people have agreed to be vaccinated against COVID-19. He says CEMAC member states should make sure all their people are vaccinated against COVID-19 so that the economic bloc can get to the crucial point of revamping its economy to fight against hardship.

Christophe Mbelle is an economist at the University of Yaounde. He says the COVID-19 crisis increased unemployment by between 60% and 70% across CEMAC countries.

Not even pharmaceutical companies were immune to the effects of the pandemic.

Mbelle says local companies only produced 5% of medicines needed by central African countries last year. He says in 2020, CEMAC countries invested more than $269 million to import drugs from Europe and America. Mbelle says if not for COVID-19, he is sure the $269 million would have been invested in home industries to create jobs and improve the well-being of suffering civilians.

The six nations of CEMAC are dealing with multiple crises within their borders in addition to COVID-19. Cameroon and Chad are fighting Boko Haram terrorism on their common borders with Nigeria.

Cameroon is fighting armed separatists in its English-speaking western regions. The U.N. also says that rebels have continued to challenge authorities in the Central African Republic with unending clashes since 2014.

The region is also dealing with the effects of climate change. This week, CEMAC said several thousand people fled intercommunal violence sparked by conflicts over water from the Logone River that separates Cameroon from Chad. The Lake Chad Basin Commission says the lake's water resources have diminished by 70% within the past 50 years, and several million people in the area lack water and food.

Kristalina Georgieva, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, issued a statement Tuesday after her virtual participation in the CEMAC summit from Washington. She said in 2020, COVID-19, combined with an ensuing decline in oil prices and security issues, had led to a deep recession and imposed a heavy toll on CEMAC member states.

She said the countries fiscal positions were weakened and external reserves depleted.

Georgieva said CEMAC must accelerate the vaccination campaign to ensure a sustainable economic recovery.

CEMAC anticipated a 2.8% economic growth rate in 2021. In April, though, the Bank of Central African States, which serves as the central bank for CEMAC countries, cut the anticipated growth rate to 1%, saying COVID-19 was slowing the economy.


Kenya is stepping up its COVID-19 vaccination campaign by setting up inoculation centers in public spaces like malls, markets, and bus stops. Authorities hope the extra convenience will lift a vaccination rate that stands at just 2%.

At a bus terminal in Nairobi, hundreds of people wait to get vaccinated. It's an exercise that has saved them long-distance travel to the designated vaccination centers.

Walter Juma, a public bus conductor, is getting ready to receive his first COVID-19 jab. He said because of the demanding nature of his job, he could not find the time to go for vaccination at the health facilities.

"The vaccination is now near my place of work and home," Walter said. "This has helped a lot. There are other people who cannot walk for long, the elderly and some are sick."

Health officials said the number of people turning up for their vaccinations has doubled since more inoculation sites opened a month ago. Jackline Kerubo is a sub-county medical officer.

"We've decided to come to the community because usually we give Monday to Friday at our public health facilities, but you find most people don't have time to come, so we decided to come to the community so that we increase accessibility to the vaccine," Jackline said.

Kenya is receiving more vaccine doses from the U.S. government and other nations, so the supply is much better than during the first phase of the vaccination program.

With its new vaccination strategy, Kenya's vaccination taskforce chairman, Dr. Willies Akhwale, says they are hoping to vaccinate at least 10 million people by the end of the year.

"We are now using about 800 centers, and we are going to gradually increase this to 3,000 centers by December," Willies said. "Increasing them means you are reaching people; you are opening vaccination center closer to where people are."

So far, 2.5 million people have received the first dose of the vaccine in Kenya.
Vietnam is facing challenges in its COVID-19 vaccination efforts from global shortages and anti-Chinese vaccine sentiment as it tries to reach herd immunity by the end of next years first quarter.

Shot or no shot? Chau Nguyen asked her sister after spending nights thinking about whether to get vaccinated and whether to accept the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine. While not a vaccine skeptic, the restaurant owner in the citys Go Vap District worried about her health after she ultimately got the vaccination.

Her reluctance is understandable given the anti-Chinese vaccine sentiment circulating on social media; many Vietnamese worry about Chinese vaccines safety and efficiency.

Chaus dilemma came as Ho Chi Minh City entered the vaccination campaign, targeting at least one shot for 70% of its population in August. The month kicked off with controversy as authorities announced a plan to purchase and use 5 million doses of Chinese Sinopharm vaccine.

On Aug. 25, Vietnam reported 12,096 new COVID-19 cases and 335 deaths, marking the seventh day in a row the country recorded more than 10,000 cases a day.

The latest number brings the total number of cases in the fourth COVID-19 wave to 377,245. The COVID-19 death tally was at 9,349.

Ho Chi Minh City continued to see spikes in COVID-19 cases. As of Aug. 25, the city reported 5,294 new cases and 266 deaths.

From March to mid-August, Ho Chi Minh City, with a population of about 10 million, vaccinated more than 4.3 million people, more than 100,000 of whom received the full two shots, Vice Chairman of the municipal People's Committee Duong Anh Duc told reporters Aug. 13.

That group included 456,000 people over 65, a priority group getting vaccines that are still scarce in Vietnam, such as the Moderna and Pfizer shots. During that period daily vaccinations ranged up to more than 318,000.

High demand

Vietnamese people tend to accept vaccinations -- a June UNICEF survey said 67% of Vietnamese are eager to be vaccinated.

There are many reasons why people in Ho Chi Minh City are encouraged to get shots, even though they acknowledge that vaccines provide only partial protection from COVID-19.

The government seems to have convinced people of the severity of COVID-19. Most of those speaking with VOA judged the current pandemic situation in Ho Chi Minh City as dangerous. Van Anh, 26, disagreed with the notion that the economic costs of dealing with the pandemic are worse than those of the pandemic.

Chau, the Go Vap District restaurant owner, who ended up having an AstraZeneca dose Aug. 2, told VOA local authorities called her to get a shot. She had asked whether she could refuse vaccination and was told she could, but if she became infected and spread the virus to others, she risked being fined millions of dong.

Unlike Chau, some others say being vaccinated is better than continuing under the countrys strict social distancing measures under Directive 16, which was extended for a month, starting Aug. 15.

Asked about the argument that lost jobs, closed businesses and other consequences of pandemic measures are more of a risk than dying from the pandemic, Bich Nguyen, a 30-year-old who works in the media industry, told VOA, I 70% agree with this opinion.

He said he has been desperate to start a probationary period for work since June 1 because the city has been locked down since May 31.

It cost me nearly 100 million dong [about $4,400] from a purely financial aspect, but when it comes to the mental aspect, the stress, fatigue, loss of will ... are immeasurable, he said.

Thao Vu, 31, whose husbands company has been closed since the start of the lockdown period, said that she is willing to get a shot because it is the only way to open the economy and restore social activities.

It is necessary to realize that the pandemic will not stop just because we are in lockdown. Once we open the society and economy, there is a complete risk of an outbreak again, so we need to learn how to live with it. Long-term lockdowns only push manual workers into poverty and businesses to close, leading to social evils that will increase when people are unemployed. The consequences on the economy and social security may be more serious than the pandemic itself, she said.

Vaccine shortages, anti-Chinese vaccine sentiment

While citizens are willing to get vaccinated, Ho Chi Minh City faces challenges that could result in interruption.

As of Aug. 12, the city had administered most of the roughly 4.3 million doses allocated by the national Health Ministry. Municipal leaders said that Ho Chi Minh Citys current vaccine strategy is to reach high coverage as soon as possible.

Regarding plans for the future, the city said it would continue to search for vaccines. It is in talks to buy 5 million doses of the Moderna vaccine and aims to get 2 million doses in October. In addition, it has said it has international commitments for another 750,000 doses.

The Vietnamese government established a working group on COVID-19 vaccine diplomacy Aug. 13. The working group is expected to mobilize donated vaccines, drugs for treatment and medical supplies, as well as technology transfer for vaccine and drug production from other countries.

In its first meeting on Aug. 16, group members said countries, especially developing countries, will face difficulties obtaining vaccines through the end of the year, given complexities of the global pandemic situation.

The assessment is worrisome for Ho Chi Minh City. While the city faces vaccine shortages, the local government finds it hard to take advantage of available Sinopharm vaccines because of anti-Chinese sentiment.

Van Anh, who works in the media industry, said she approves of government social distancing measures and stressed the importance of vaccines for public health purposes but said she will not accept Chinese vaccines.

Similarly, Binh Tran, a 20-year-old student who is in his second year of medical school in Ho Chi Minh City, argued that vaccines will protect people from COVID-19 but said that he would not accept Chinese vaccines because of low immune efficiency and unreliable data.

Anti-Chinese vaccine sentiment has prompted Vietnamese government and Ho Chi Minh City officials to repeatedly affirm that "the best vaccine is the first one," emphasizing that vaccination is good for everyone and contributes to the pandemic fight. They have also called on people to be aware of the importance of vaccinations and ready to receive the vaccine.

Since Aug. 13, having used up the doses allocated by the Health Ministry, Ho Chi Minh City has officially administered Sinopharm vaccines while promoting access to other vaccine supplies and making use of available sources.

Earlier, on Aug. 12, the city allocated Sinopharm vaccines to its localities. Specifically, the Center for Disease Control of Ho Chi Minh City issued an order to provide 1,000-7,000 doses of Sinopharm vaccine, also known as Vero Cell, per city region, a total of 44,000 doses.

Meanwhile, Ho Chi Minh City Party chief Nguyen Van Nen said local authorities should tell people what type of vaccine they were getting before vaccinations. After inspecting a local COVID-19 vaccination location Aug. 13, Nen noted an instance of people expressing disappointment after receiving Chinese vaccinations.

We should use our experience and tell people the type of vaccine in advance, so only those who accept the vaccine will go to get the shots, he said.

Meanwhile, though, he stressed that the city has no choice regarding what vaccine to provide, saying that while the city has tried various sources, supplies are extremely limited.
As Lebanon struggles with acute fuel and electricity shortages, Iran-backed Hezbollah has arranged for oil tankers carrying Iranian diesel fuel to arrive from Syria Thursday  despite the threat of U.S. sanctions.

Lebanese news reports say Hezbollah has started bringing Iranian fuel into Lebanon, with about 20 tankers entering the northern Bekaa valley early Thursday after shipping it into neighboring Syria. Beiruts An-Nahar newspaper said that some residents in the town of Al-Shawagir fired shots in the air to celebrate the entry of the Iranian diesel.

Hezbollah announced that as many as four such shipments of fuel from Iran are expected.

Observers say the Iranian fuel could help ease Lebanon's crippling energy shortages but critics argue that accepting it will expose the country to the risk of U.S. sanctions and comes with conditions attached.

Professor Habib Malik of the Lebanese American University told VOA that Hezbollah is choosing to disregard the threat of sanctions because the groups leaders see it as a win-win situation for themselves.

Ordinary people are literally dying because they are lacking all the basic necessities: electricity, gasoline, water even, Internet. To these people, any slight improvement will be seen as fantastic, so Hezbollah can cash in on that. Even if Lebanon is slapped with sanctions, for Hezbollah Lebanon will have been wrenched away from its Western and Arab ties  traditional orientations  taken to Syria, Iran and maybe even eventually China. Theyve been hellbent on hijacking Lebanon out of its traditional connections with the West and Arab world and into something completely new, he said.

Observers say the arrival of the fuel could mark a new phase in Lebanons two-year financial crisis  one of the worst economic meltdowns in the countrys history.

With the central bank unable to release dollars to pay for fuel imports, many Lebanese suffer from chronic power cuts for as many as 22 hours a day.

Robert G. Rabil, a professor of political science at Florida Atlantic University, writing in the magazine National Interest, urges Washington to recognize the urgency of helping Lebanese now and work with civil society organizations to help change the sociopolitical conditions that allowed Hezbollah and other non-state actors to thrive in the first place.

Habib Malik warns that Western help with energy is desperately needed right now. He said a U.S. plan for supplying electricity to Lebanon has been too slow.

"This is something that makes a lot of sense over months and maybe even years. But it doesnt in any way address peoples immediate needs. The U.S. seems to be operating on a completely unrealistic time scale as far as Lebanons dire situation is concerned," he said.

Energy expert Diana Kaissy, an adviser to the independent Lebanese Oil and Gas Initiative in Beirut, told the Saudi Arab News that Hezbollah does not have a permit from the energy ministry and that  she said  suggests the diesel will be sold below market price. This means that there will be a competitor in the fuel market and therefore, a new cartel will emerge owning illegal weapons and selling fuel based on incorrect foundations, Kaissy said of Hezbollahs action.

Iran and Hezbollah are already the target of U.S. sanctions. Former U.S. President Donald Trump reimposed sanctions on Iran in 2018 in a bid to cut its oil sales, while Hezbollah is designated by the U.S. and EU nations as a terrorist group.
Experts are split on how the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan could affect North Korea. Some argue that the collapse of Kabul, triggered by the withdrawal of U.S. forces, could encourage North Korea's nuclear ambitions, while others suggest the fall of Kabul may work against Pyongyang because getting Washington's attention would be harder given the complex aftermath of the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

After maintaining a military presence in Afghanistan for 20 years, the U.S. fully vacated its largest military base, Bagram Airfield, on July 2 and transferred control to Afghan forces.

Then, in early August, Taliban forces swept across Afghanistan and began taking control of major provincial capitals. On Sunday, the Taliban claimed the capital city of Kabul, and Afghanistan came under its control.

In the past, North Korea has often used major crises to ramp up anti-U.S. rhetoric. Demanding the troop removal was a recurring theme.

And as the Taliban pushed from provincial capitals to Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, North Korea resumed its rhetoric against the presence of U.S. troops in South Korea as the allied nations engaged in annual joint military exercises.

"For peace to settle on the peninsula, it is imperative for the U.S. to withdraw its aggression troops and war hardware deployed in South Korea," said Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, on August 10.

North Korea dropped the demand in 2018, while embarking on a charm offensive.

Propaganda fodder

Harry Kazianis, senior director of Korean studies at the Center for the National Interest, a think tank in Washington, D.C., said the U.S. troop withdrawal and the subsequent fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban could embolden North Korea to direct their "propaganda efforts to say the U.S. should leave (South) Korea as well."

He added: "North Korea clearly does not hope to win some sort of war against the U.S., but it clearly hopes that if it waits Washington out, (the U.S.) will eventually accept it as a nuclear weapons state or at least unofficially accept it."

Evans Revere, a former State Department official who has extensive experience negotiating with North Korea, said Pyongyang has ratcheted up efforts to weaken the U.S.-South Korea alliance. He warned that North Korea should not miscalculate the situation in Afghanistan.

"The North Koreans would be wise not to draw wrong conclusions about what they are witnessing here, because America is still a very strong, very powerful, and a very capable country, and the North Koreans should not allow this unfortunate sequence of events that we've seen in recent days to give them a wrong message," Revere said.

Revere said North Korea has two key aims in its relations with the U.S.

"The North Koreans have long wanted to see the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the Korean Peninsula," said Revere, who is now affiliated with the Brookings Institution, a think tank based in Washington.

"North Korea's goal is to undermine the alliance and bring it to an end. That has not changed over the years. And what we've seen in recent years is that the North Koreans have become much more active in trying to bring about this situation" than in previous years, added Revere.

Targeting the alliance

Ken Gause, director of the Adversary Analytics Program at the CNA research center in Arlington, Virginia, said the recent developments in Kabul could bolster Pyongyang's efforts to break the alliance between Washington and Seoul.

"North Korea may see the U.S. as wounded right now, and maybe there are some benefits to North Korea in terms of adding pressure and driving a wedge between the U.S. and South Korea," said Gause.

Gause thinks it will become more difficult for Pyongyang to get sanctions relief from the Biden administration  something it has hoped to obtain since the Trump administration  now that Washington must handle the aftermath of Afghanistan.

"What does this do in terms of the Biden administration's willingness to engage with North Korea and put sanctions on the table, I would say, is probably much weaker now than it would have been before Afghanistan," said Gause.

Gause said he expects the Biden administration will be in "lockdown mode, trying to figure out how to move forward on its various foreign policy fronts." He added, "They've got other issues that are higher up on that agenda than North Korea right now."

Retired U.S. Army General James Thurman, the commander of U.S. forces in South Korea from 2011 to 2013, said what happened in Kabul testifies to the importance of military readiness against North Korean aggression.

"I'm confident in the South Korean military, very confident, having spent nearly three years over there training with them," Thurman said.

"It's a completely different set of circumstances. But I think our adversaries are emboldened when they see something like this take place," Thurman added, referring to the fall of Kabul.

South Koreans weigh in

The sudden collapse of Kabul sparked some concern among residents of Seoul, South Korea's capital, triggering debates over national security.

Kim Yo-whan told VOA's Korean service on Tuesday that she is concerned the chaos of Kabul could be repeated in South Korea, where groups are advocating for the departure of U.S. forces.

"The Taliban took control of major regions soon after the U.S. military withdrew, and that could easily happen in South Korea," said Kim, who owns a small business. "The U.S. forces in South Korea are the last line of defense toward free democracy" in the region, she added.

Yoon Sae-jung, a schoolteacher, thinks otherwise. She told VOA, "The U.S. will not decide easily that it will withdraw from South Korea" because "South Korea is geopolitically important" to counter China.

Lee Kwon-yeol, an office worker, also thinks the U.S. will not withdraw because "South Korea and Afghanistan are different strategically."

On Tuesday, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said President Joe Biden "has no intention of drawing down our forces from South Korea."

The U.S. military presence in South Korea has lasted about 70 years, from the time it entered the Korean Peninsula to fight against North Korea, which invaded the South in 1950. Approximately 28,500 U.S. troops are stationed there to defend against any potential aggression from the North.

Its military alliance with South Korea was solidified by a mutual defense treaty signed after the war ended, in 1953.

Taeksung Oh contributed to this report.


Malaysias king on Friday appointed Ismail Sabri Yaakob the countrys new prime minister, returning a member of the corruption-mired United Malays National Organization to the top job three years after Malaysians voted the party out of office.

King Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah said Ismail Sabri had secured the support of 114 of the 220 sitting members of the House of Representatives. He replaces Muhyiddin Yassin, whom he served as deputy prime minister and who resigned Monday after conceding that he had lost majority support in parliament.

Muhyiddin was appointed prime minister by the king in February 2020 after helping engineer the collapse of the coalition government that beat UMNO at the polls in 2018. But his Bersatu partys own coalition with UMNO was fragile from the start, with some members of the larger UMNO bristling at playing a junior role in the alliance.

UMNO engineered the collapse of the previous government and now they are reaping the rewards of the position of the prime minister, said Adib Zalkapli, Malaysia analyst for consulting firm Bower Group Asia.

But as Malaysias third prime minister in as many years, analysts say Ismail Sabris coalition, comprising the same mix of parties as the last, will likely prove just as shaky.

In the Malaysian context, its basically the status quo, Adib said.

Wong Chin Huat, a political analyst and professor at Malaysias Sunway University, is also expecting a short run for the new prime minister.

Pressure will be mounted on him to have an election once the [pandemic] situation improves. But his power base may be challenged even before then because his coalition enjoys only 52% majority in the House and is very fragmented by parties as well as factions, he said.

Elections are due by 2023 but could be called sooner. The king ruled out elections to choose Muhyiddins immediate successor as a precautions against the spread of the coronavirus.

The country of 32 million is suffering the highest rate of new daily COVID-19 cases per 1 million people in Southeast Asia. It recorded 178 deaths on Thursday and a record 22,948 new cases, pushing the countrys total number of cases since the start of the pandemic up to nearly 1.5 million.

Public anger at the governments pandemic response has been mounting with the rising caseload. But with the same parties running the government, Adib said Ismail Sabris Cabinet was also likely to bear some similarities to Muhyiddins, promising little change in policy.

Very likely we will see some of the similar faces  whether they did well or not so well  who will be back. So, I think there will be continuity as far as the management of the pandemic is concerned, he said.

Days before resigning, in a last-ditch effort to cling to power, Muhyiddin offered to push through a list of political and economic reforms opposition parties have been calling for in exchange for their support but failed.

Wong said the offer came too late and seemed insincere, but added he would be looking to see if Ismail Sabri picks up on some of the proposals in order to woo opposition lawmakers and hedge against the threat of those in his own coalition who might pull out.

He and Adib said having UMNO back in the prime ministers seat was also raising concerns that the corruption cases opened against party heavyweights over the past three years may be dropped or stymied.

A number of senior UMNO officials including former Prime Minister Najib Razak and party president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi are facing dozens of charges. Najib was convicted on seven charges and sentenced to 12 years in jail in July 2020 but remains out on bail and in Parliament while appealing the decision. He and the others deny any wrongdoing and claim the cases are politically motivated.

The day he announced his resignation, Muhyiddin blamed his coalitions collapse on his refusal to compromise with kleptocrats. He did not name anyone, but the remarks were seen as a dig at some UMNO members; some of them, Najib and Ahmed Zahid included, publicly pulled their support for Muhyiddin weeks earlier.

Its definitely something that everyone is talking about, whether the cases will continue or not, Adib said.

Partly people do not believe that the judiciary, while it has been improved, has become totally independent, Wong added.

The professor said reforming the Attorney Generals Chambers, which oversee prosecutions, could prove low-lying fruit for Ismail, a relatively easy way to both shore up support with power-players within his coalition who want to see the corruption cases through and voters who rejected UMNO at the polls.

For Ismail Sabri, to strike a delicate balance within his coalition and also to demonstrate to the public he can deliver something, embarking on the AGC reform is the most important thing, he said.
Malaysias longest-governing political party appeared set to reclaim the premiership it lost in a shock 2018 election result, with its lawmakers summoned to the palace Thursday to verify their candidate has enough support to take office.

The choice of former Deputy Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob would essentially restore the ruling alliance of Muhyiddin Yassin, who resigned as prime minister on Monday after infighting in the coalition cost him majority support.

Ismails appointment would also see the return of the United Malays National Organization, which ruled Malaysia since independence from Britain in 1957 before it was ousted in 2018 over a multibillion-dollar financial scandal.

Ismail, 61, who is an UMNO vice president, appeared to have majority support. UMNO Secretary-General Ahmad Maslan tweeted that all lawmakers from UMNO and other parties in the former ruling alliance who support Ismail have been summoned to meet Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah.

With Ismail Sabri poised to become Malaysias next prime minister under the same alliance, many Malaysians will view it as nothing more than a game of musical chairs with the baton passed from Muhyiddins Bersatu party to UMNO, said Ei Sun Oh, a senior fellow at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs.

Muhyiddin departed after less than 18 months in office amid internal squabbling and mounting public anger over what was widely perceived as his governments poor handling of the pandemic. Malaysia has one of the worlds highest infection rates and deaths per capita, despite a seven-month state of emergency and a lockdown since June.

The kings role is largely ceremonial in Malaysia, but he appoints the person he believes has majority support in Parliament as prime minister.

Local media said Ismail is believed to have obtained 114 votes, surpassing the 111 needed for a simple majority. It is similar to the support Muhyiddin has before 15 UMNO lawmakers withdrew support for him, causing his government to collapse.

A lawyer before he joined politics, Ismail held several ministerial posts in UMNO governments. In 2015 as trade minister, Ismail courted controversy when he urged Malay consumers to boycott profiteering Chinese businesses. He was also slammed for supporting the vaping industry, which is dominated by Malays, despite health warnings from the health ministry.

In 2018 polls, Ismail waved the racial card, warning that every vote for the opposition was akin to eliminating special privileges given to Malays under a decades-old affirmative action program.

Ismail was named defense minister when Muhyiddin took power in March 2020, and became the governments public face through daily briefings on security issues related to the pandemic. He was promoted as deputy prime minister in July as Muhyiddin sought to woo support from UMNO, which was unhappy at playing second fiddle to Muhyiddins smaller party. Since Muhyiddin resigned, his party has voiced support for Ismail.

The other contender in the race, Anwar Ibrahim, leads a three-party alliance that is the biggest opposition bloc with 88 votes. Even if all opposition parties support him, he would still fall short with only 105 votes.

Anwar was due to succeed then-Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad before their reformist alliance collapsed in February 2020, sparked by the withdrawal of Muhyiddins party. Muhyiddin then formed a new government with corruption-tainted UMNO and several other parties.

Some analysts said Ismail would be a poor choice as he is associated with the failings of Muhyiddins government and that his government is likely to remain shaky.

His cabinet appointees are likely to be familiar faces and it is more than likely that similar policies that failed to arrest the pandemic advances or spur economic growth will be continued with minor tweaks, Oh said.

Other analysts warned it may also set the stage for increased politicking in UMNO as Ismail may later mount a challenge against the party president, who is fighting multiple criminal charges.
Demonstrators clashed with Thai police in Bangkok Wednesday amid ongoing protests over the governments handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Protesters fired slingshots and threw paint and firecrackers at police, who in turn used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse them. The confrontation occurred as the crowd sought to approach the home of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha.

The protesters are demanding Prayuth resign for what they believe is his mismanagement of Thailands most serious outbreak of infections and its adverse impact on the economy. He refuses to resign.

Police said at least eight officers were injured and the Erawan Medical Center reported one demonstrator was hurt. This was the second consecutive day of protests over the governments response to the pandemic.

The U.S.-based Johns Hopkins University says on its coronavirus dashboard that Thailand currently has more than 795,000 confirmed cases and 6,588 deaths. The coronavirus causes the COVID-19 disease.
A European Union official said Thursday that the union is designating $35 billion to a new Health and Emergency Response Authority (HERA) designed to prevent and rapidly respond to health emergencies, after being caught off guard in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.



In her state of the union speech Thursday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen first mentioned the need to create a new biomedical authority to avoid the mistakes made during the pandemic and better respond to similar crises in the future.



Von der Leyen said the goal is to make sure that no virus will ever turn a local epidemic again in a global pandemic.

Funding for HERA



EU leaders laid out the plan for HERA in Brussels on Thursday, saying it will be set up to anticipate threats and potential health crises through intelligence-gathering and by building the necessary medical and research response capabilities.



In a statement, the EU said an initial $7 billion for HERA would come out of the current 2022-27 budget framework, but EU Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Stella Kyriakides told reporters that amount will increase to almost $35 billion once investments in health, security preparedness and response are made through other EU programs.

Access to information needed



The EU plan for HERA calls for development, production and distribution of medicines, vaccines and other medical countermeasures such as gloves and masks that often were lacking during the first phase of the coronavirus response.



European Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton said this will require more rapid access to information and "a more structured and firm dialogue with the industrial community, and in particular, the pharmaceutical industry.



He said during the early days of the pandemic, EU leaders lacked crucial information about what was available and what was needed.



The EU said the first steps toward the creation of HERA were taken earlier this year, and they hope it will be fully operational by early 2022.



Some information for this report came from The Associated Press.
The European Union is pledging to donate 200 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to low-income countries by mid-2022.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen made the pledge Wednesday in Strasbourg, France during her annual State of the European Union speech before the European Parliament. Von der Leyen said the 200 million doses the EU plans to contribute is in addition to an earlier promise of 250 million doses, which she described as an investment in solidarity, and it is an investment in global health.

Von der Leyen said the scale of injustice and the level of urgency is obvious with less than 1% of all global doses of COVID-19 vaccines administered in low- and middle-income countries.

Lets do everything possible so that it does not turn into a pandemic of the non-vaccinated, she told the EU lawmakers.

US Army requirement

Meanwhile, U.S. Army officials issued a mandatory vaccination order for all uniformed personnel. Officials said Tuesday that the Army expects all active-duty soldiers to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by December 15, while imposing a deadline of June 30, 2022 for all Reserve and National Guard soldiers.

The statement said soldiers who refuses the vaccine will be first counseled by their chain of command and medical providers, but warns that if they continue to refuse and have not been exempted from the vaccine, they will be suspended from their duties or even dismissed from the service.

Alaska situation



In the United States, the largest hospital in the remote northwest state of Alaska announced Tuesday that it has begun rationing care due to a raging outbreak of new COVID-19 infections. Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage, the states largest city, said Tuesday it is now operating under a policy of crisis standard of care, meaning the hospital is unable to provide an equal quality of medical care to all patients.

The hospital said in a statement that an overflow of COVID-19 patients in its emergency room has left other patients waiting in their cars for hours before they are seen by a doctor for urgent care.

Providence Alaska Medical Center joins a growing number of hospitals across the U.S. who have been forced to ration or even deny medical care to their communities as COVID-19 patients fill their halls beyond capacity.

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
The chaotic aftermath of Washingtons troop withdrawal from Afghanistan is being followed with a mix of trepidation and glee thousands of kilometers away  in Africas Sahel, where another foreign power, France, also vows to wind down its long-running counterinsurgency operation, at least in its present form.

As the United States continued to evacuate thousands of citizens and allies at Kabuls airport this week, dozens of civilians and soldiers were killed in several Islamist attacks across a vast and dangerous three-border region that straddles Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali. It was just another marker in a protracted fight that has killed thousands, displaced 2 million and  like Afghanistan  is considered by some as unwinnable.

If there many stark differences between Americas war in Afghanistan and Frances in the Sahel  from their size and nature to their Islamist targets  there are also haunting similarities, analysts say.

Both involve yearslong foreign involvement in countries with weak and unstable governments. Both operations have struggled against troop fatigue, casualties, and dwindling support at home. Both are against Islamist groups which, many say, are patiently confident they will outlast their enemy.

If theres any lesson to draw, its that indefinite military solutions arent sustainable, said Bakary Sambe, Senegal-based director of the Timbuktu Institute think tank.

Sooner or later, theres got to be an exit, he said.

Staying put

Unlike the U.S., France for now has no intention of withdrawing from the Sahel, a vast area below the Sahara. It will, however, soon begin decreasing its 5,100-troop Barkhane operation, the linchpin of a regional counterterrorist fight spanning five West and Central African countries.

Nor was the Sahel mentioned in French President Emmanuel Macrons first major response to the Talibans swift victory. Rather, he warned against resurgent terrorism in Afghanistan and illegal migration to Europe.

Yet it may be hard to compartmentalize.

I think the French cannot afford not to look at whats going on in Afghanistan when preparing for the very gradual drawdown of Barkhane forces, said University of Kent conflict expert Yvan Guichaoua.

Images of mayhem and anguish at Kabuls airport and elsewhere is something that certainly shocked French officials, he said, and maybe made them think about the circumstances in which they are going to leave.

Others are not so sure.

I dont think [the French] are drawing this kind of direct parallel, between Afghanistan and the Sahel, said Jean-Herve Jezequel, Sahel Project director for the International Crisis Group policy group.

Maybe this is a mistake. But the French are downsizing, theyre not withdrawing. Theyre still the biggest military force in the region, he said.



Different  but also echoes of Afghanistan

Macron announced in July Frances Barkhane operation would formally end early next year, with troops shrinking to up to half their current numbers and shifted to other anti-terrorist missions  notably forming backbone of the European Unions fledgling Takuba force, currently aimed at helping Mali fight terrorism in the Sahel region.

Yet Frances revamped mission with its narrowed goals  counterterrorism and beefing up local forces rather than securing large tracts of territory  comes after mounting casualties, fading support at home, a spreading insurgency and growing anti-French sentiment in some Sahel nations.

Born in 2013, Frances military intervention in that region is half as old as the U.S. war in Afghanistan was, with a fraction of its scope and troop losses. Originally aimed to fight jihadist groups in Mali, it later expanded to four other vulnerable former colonies  Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso and Mauritania  that together now form a regional G5 Sahel counterinsurgency operation. Meanwhile, the jihadists are moving south, into parts of sub-Saharan Africa.



While Paris pushes for greater governance and democracy  in June, Macron briefly suspended operations in Mali after its second coup in a year  the nation-building efforts seen in Afghanistan are not likely, Crisis Watchs Jezequel said.

Its a failure, he added. But its a failure of the Sahel states.

Today, some of those states, especially Mali, are watching Afghanistans swift unraveling with alarm, experts say, even as extremists celebrate.

The Sahels myriad jihadi groups lack the deep roots and experience of the Taliban, which held power in the 1990s. Yet, especially Western recognition of Afghanistans new rulers will comfort the idea that the Islamist alternative is possible, Sambe said.

It will galvanize radical Islamist groupsand thats the fear, he said.

The European Unions executive arm said Saturday it does not recognize the Taliban.

Moving forward

For France, moving forward in the Sahel means focusing southward, where the insurgency has spread, and beefing up the Takuba Task Force. Nearly a dozen European countries, including Estonia, Italy, Denmark and non-EU-member Norway have joined or promised to take part in the military mission. But many others remain on the sidelines, including Germany.

The fear of many European countries is to commit troops and then be confronted with a fiasco or death of soldiers, Guichaoua said.

However, he and others add, French persuasion, from raising fears of conflict-driven migration to Europe, to offering military support in other areas, appears to be working.

Not under French consideration, though, is any dialogue with extremists  an effort controversially tried with the Taliban that is earning support among some Sahel authorities, at least when it comes to homegrown groups.

The French have considered this a red line, Guichaoua said. Because that would mean somewhat that French soldiers died for nothing. But it is on the agenda for Malian authorities.

Local-level negotiations with jihadi groups have long taken place, he said  to gain access to markets, for example, or get hostages released  but not high-level ones, and the main reason is France.

For their part, the Sahels extremists appear willing to wait, as the Taliban did in Afghanistan.

Both, Guichaoua said, are convinced foreign powers will eventually leave, so time is on their side.
Greece has erected a 25-mile fence and installed a new surveillance system on its border with Turkey as fears mount of a surge in Afghan refugees trying to reach Europe. Greece has faced recurring refugee crises since 2015, when more than a million mainly Syrian refugees swarmed through its land and sea borders to escape conflict in their homeland.

Speaking from Checkpoint One, Greeces key border post along the countrys rugged land frontiers with Turkey, Public Order Minister Michalis Chryssochoidis sounded what he called a clear and fair warning.



Our borders, he said, will remain safe and inviolable. And we will not allow any indiscriminate inflow of refugees.



The ministers warning sounded as he toured the checkpoint and a soaring, 25-mile, steel fence completed in recent days amid fears of a deluge of Afghan refugees fleeing for their lives after the Taliban takeover.

Defense Minister Nikos Panagiotopoulos said the Greek fence along the shallow Evros river that separates the country from Turkey is just part of a bigger plan pieced together by authorities to further shield the country against a new migration crisis.



We are on alert, but Greece, he said, will continue to protect itself from any threat.



The defense minister said special surveillance systems, including a fleet of drones and night cameras, had been installed across the new fence to watch for illegal crossings. Army bulldozers were also seen plowing across stretches of the countrys northern frontier with Bulgaria, where military trucks were unloading barbed wired to erect more fences.



Greece has been on the front line of Europes migration woes since about 1.2 million refugees from Syria streamed through in 2015, sparking the biggest migration push to the European continent since the Second World War.



Greece has repeatedly complained to the European Union about doing too little to support hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees trapped in the country for six years, as neighboring states and other European nations, including Germany, turned a blind eye, sealing their borders to keep them away.



The United Nations is now making appeals for countries in the region to not do the same to fleeing Afghanis. But the government in Athens says it won't sit passively.

In fact, in a surprise move. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis placed an urgent telephone call to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday trying to drum up support and a common strategy on how to deal with a potential migration crisis in the region.



Details of the meeting or any decision between the two men were not released. But no sooner had the call ended than Erdogan warned Europe he too would not allow Turkey to become what he called a refugee warehouse.



Turkey is already hosting 3.6 million Syrian refugees and more than 300,000 Afghans.



In Greece, meanwhile, humanitarian groups, Afghan refugees and leftist parties are now up in arms about the border fence and the government's controversial plan of deterrence. Those groups say the plan completely disregards human rights and the right to asylum to those fleeing danger and bloodshed.
North Macedonia's bid for membership in the European Union was held up for two decades by a dispute with Greece over its name. One painful compromise later, the road forward is being blocked again  this time by Bulgaria in a dispute over language and historical grievances.

And Albania, whose EU bid is to be considered in tandem with that of North Macedonia, is collateral damage.

Both North Macedonia and Albania had high hopes of moving forward this year, but progress was brought to a halt at a June meeting of the EU's General Affairs Council, where Bulgaria exercised its veto as an EU member to block the start of accession negotiations with North Macedonia.

Among several cultural and historic grievances, Sofia called for North Macedonia to acknowledge that the language spoken there is derived from Bulgarian. That is a bitter pill for the government in Skopje, which already acceded to the addition of "North" to the country's name to satisfy the objections of Greece, which has a province named Macedonia.

The government in Skopje said it does not plan on giving up on its EU aspirations and that it will continue to actively seek out a solution.

"If there is political will and leadership on the side of Bulgaria, I think we can find a European solution that would be good for Macedonian-Bulgarian friendship, for the European promise to the region, and for North Macedonia. But there is an 'if,' because we already did our best," Nikola Dimitrov, North Macedonia's vice prime minister for European affairs, said in comments reported by Euronews.

In a June 28 statement on its Foreign Ministry website, Bulgaria maintains it is committed to resolving its differences with North Macedonia, but it demands an end to what it describes as the suppression of the rights of people in North Macedonia "who identify themselves as Bulgarians."

Experts in the United States  which supports EU integration of the entire Balkans  warn that the delay in starting accession talks with the two countries is likely to be exploited by Russia and China to increase their influence in the western Balkans.

Balkans expert Edward Joseph, a senior fellow with the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, describes the impasse as an extremely serious challenge for the EU and its vision.

"This is an unconscionable blockage and imposition by Bulgaria against North Macedonia. Failure to do this will destabilize the Balkans and represents an opening for Russia and China in the region," Joseph told VOA's Macedonian Service.

ll other countries in the EU agree that North Macedonia and its 2 million people are more than ready to join the bloc.

"North Macedonia has done what it has been asked; it has done more than any other country has been asked. And we in the United States, we respect what North Macedonia has done in this compromise, which was a true compromise with Greece," Joseph said.

He argued that Bulgaria is demanding that Macedonians "accept a version of history, a version of who they are  except that version that Bulgarians insist upon is against EU values," which maintain that members must not bring bilateral issues into the accession process.

Bulgaria, for its part, maintains that it sees EU enlargement in the western Balkans as a priority and that it does not object to accession talks with Albania, although at present the bloc is not prepared to discuss the one country without the other.

"We are resolute to continue the dialogue with the Republic of North Macedonia," the statement on its Foreign Ministry website says. "We are committed to finding pragmatic, sustainable and mutually acceptable solutions to the challenges inherited from the past."

Joseph argues that if the EU members are not able to bring sufficient pressure on Bulgaria and North Macedonia to move the process forward, the United States should step in.

"Washington has to join with Brussels and with key capitals Berlin, Paris and others, and bring requisite pressure," he said, noting that U.S. President Joe Biden had himself argued in the 1990s for the Clinton administration to do more to integrate the Balkans with western Europe.

Erwan Fouere, a former EU special representative in North Macedonia, offered a similar assessment.

"The Americans are expecting the EU to take assumed leadership. And unfortunately, the EU is not assuming the leadership as it should," he said. "The situation with Bulgaria and the veto that Bulgaria imposed  undermines the entire EU enlargement agenda. So many promises that have been given to North Macedonia, that have been broken, and this is another one now," he told VOA Macedonian.

Fouere, currently a senior associate research fellow at the Center for European Policy Studies in Brussels, said the way forward may require "mediation by a third party, by the Council of Europe or OSC. These are all entities that have experience in resolution of bilateral disputes."


As the U.S. Congress and criminal justice system pursue accountability for those involved in the January insurrection at the Capitol in Washington, a court in North Macedonia has sentenced several former officials for their roles in a 2017 assault on the parliament in Skopje.

Both legislature attacks were aimed at disrupting the democratic process. Rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol as lawmakers inside were meeting to certify the results of President Joe Bidens election victory over President Donald Trump.

The assault in Skopje involved protesters who supported the conservative VMRO-DPMNE party seeking to prevent the election of a new parliamentary speaker and opposing a proposed coalition government between the Social Democrat party and ethnic Albanian parties.

Among those sentenced Monday were former parliament Speaker Trajko Veljanoski, former senior intelligence official Vladimir Atanasovski, and government ministers Mile Janakieski and Spiro Ristovski.

The officials were all from the VMRO-DPMNE party, and their sentences range from six years to six-and-a-half years on charges of endangering constitutional order and security.

The court said that on the day of the assault Veljanoski intentionally prolonged debate inside while Janakieski and Ristovski communicated with protest organizers outside.

Zoran Zaev, who led the Social Democrats at the time and is now prime minister, accused the attackers of attempted murder. Zaev was injured in the assault, along with dozens of journalists and lawmakers.

A judge said in explaining the verdict Monday that organizing an intrusion of the legislature and attacking lawmakers was neither democracy nor patriotism.

Former VMRO-DPMNE leader and prime minister Nikola Gruevski was also accused of being one of the organizers of the attack but has not faced trial. He resigned in 2016 after 10 years in power, and after being sentenced to two years in prison on corruption charges, he fled to Hungary, where he was granted political asylum.

Gruevski said at the time of the attack he deplored the violence and that the other parties were responsible for instigating the attack by attempting a power grab.

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and AFP
A minister of Myanmars shadow government says the United Nations has an obligation to recognize what the people want ahead of the 76th General Assembly that began Tuesday in New York.

Myanmar has been in turmoil since Februarys military coup, during which the military ousted the democratically elected government and followed it with an ongoing violent crackdown on opposing demonstrators.

The annual assembly, which concludes on September 30, will see a nine-member credentials committee discuss who will take the nations U.N. seat, with the choice down to either members of the military junta or representative of the former government.

Dr. Sasa, the minister of International Cooperation for Myanmars National Unity Government (NUG), the shadow government formed in the wake of the coup, which includes ousted legislators and ethnic minority leaders, says the people have spoken.

The origin of the legitimacy is really with the will of the people of Myanmar. The will of the people of Myanmar has been expressed in the elections, which were free and fair. The U.N.s duty is to uphold the will of the people of Myanmar. That is the obligation.

The U.N should look at realistic issues, not just about politics, Sasa, who uses one name, told VOA from an undisclosed location.

With or without U.N recognitions, we know what we have to do. That is to end this military junta regime reign of terror, he added.

In Myanmars November elections, the National League for Democracy (NLD) party, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, won a landslide victory. But the armed forces made unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud as the coup unfolded earlier this year. A mass uprising, spearheaded by the Civil Disobedience Movement, opposed the coup, and thousands took to the streets in protest.

But thousands have since been killed and detained, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a group that monitors Myanmar. The military disputes the figures, saying the number of those killed is lower.

In July, the U.N. had warned that a civil war could break out, but Sasa said the current situation shouldnt be defined this way.

UN Official Says Myanmar at Risk of Civil War as Despair Rises UN rights chief says that what began as a coup by the Myanmar military has rapidly morphed into an attack against the civilian population

People from the outside will see this as a civil war. Its really not a civil war. Its a struggle for freedom and democracy, and tyranny, and the destruction of democracy under a military dictatorship.

'We draw the line'

But only last week the NUG announced a defensive war against the Myanmar military, following months of fighting across the country. Political analysts have argued that the announcement was a call to arms.

Myanmar's Shadow Government Announces 'Defensive War' After the NUGs acting president, Duwa Lashi La, called for a nationwide uprising, there have reports that the government has increased its military presence in Yangon

Sasa explained the decision.

We want to stick to law and order, protect the civilians as much as possible, but [at] the end of the day, another side is fighter jets. The people of Myanmar are facing military fighter jets, heavy artillery, heavy weapons. And the question is, how can we disable those weapons?

We draw the line. Enough is enough. We cannot prolong this reign of terror, Sasa said.

Myanmars political unrest has only multiplied the countrys problems as it struggles with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Because many protest leaders work in the medical sector, several have been targeted by the armed forces. Furthermore, people are refusing to be vaccinated under the militarys stewardship.

Myanmar Faces COVID Vaccination Woes as Health System Under Threat The country is still fighting a third wave of COVID-19 at a time of increasing political tensions

Originally a medical doctor from a remote village in Chin Yet, Sasa has become a popular new face in politics and was set to take a top job in the government before the coup.

Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, has spent much of its years under military rule and has endured years of ethnic hostilities. Sasa said he faced many difficulties growing up in the country, including the loss of childhood friends and family members.

The suffering I have seen in my life is something I cannot even begin to describe. It is hard to see such suffering  no hospitals, school, college. To go to hospital or college  takes like seven days walking through the jungle, he said.

But he managed to get an education, first in India, and then in Armenia, where he went to medical school. He also worked as a schoolteacher, he said, and more recently with humanitarians and health workers in rural villages in Myanmar. But when the opportunity to move into politics came, he found it difficult to resist.

I was being asked by top leaderships to try politics. It became very difficult to say no. I got the opportunity to bring people together  me, as a minority. I feel I can bring a real value to the country.

He became a leading member of the Chin State NLDs election committee for the general elections, which got him noticed by Aung San Suu Kyi.

Today, however, with Suu Kyi still detained and facing a slew of charges by the military, and Sasa on the run, things are much different.

None of us thinks this hell [the coup] would happen. Because COVID-19 is happening, it would lead to chaos and help no one.

When the coup unfolded, Sasa found himself immediately at risk. He managed to flee unnoticed, disguised as a taxi driver.

We saw the smoking guns, the government surrounding us, every street everywhere. I start thinking about how to get out from there. The only way was to do like a taxi driver  it takes me three days and nights  I thought Id be arrested and killed.

Sasa is still on the run and admits his current situation is still very tough. The military charged him with high treason following his political involvement after the coup. He became Myanmars representative to the U.N. by the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH)  a legislative body representing ousted lawmakers.

But he is still hopeful, saying hes honored to be bringing people together with an inclusive government fighting for a better Myanmar.

That feeling of risking life every day, it is uneasy, it is painful. But in the way we are building the future, we are building a better tomorrow for all.

Hopefully, well see a new Myanmar, a new future, sooner or later, he said. All the sacrifices we have made, history will look back and remember something great.
For minority Kurds in Iraq and Syria who have found the presence of U.S. troops essential for their protection, watching the extraordinary images of desperate Afghans clinging to a U.S. aircraft as it took off has prompted serious questions about their future.

"Will Afghanistan's scenario repeat in Iraq?" was the headline of two programs Tuesday on the Iraqi Kurdistan region's top television channels, Rudaw and NRT. They were referencing the Taliban's swift takeover of Afghanistan last week as U.S. forces withdrew from the country.

The Kurds in Iraq were able to carve out their autonomous region after the 1991 Gulf War, when the U.S. and its Western allies established a humanitarian no-fly zone in northern Iraq.

When the Islamic State group (IS) gained prominence in 2014, Kurdish fighters became the main U.S. allies on the ground, enabling the Syrian Kurds to also establish a self-proclaimed administration in northeast Syria.

In an interview with the VOA Kurdish service, Sheikh Jaafar Sheikh Mustafa, the Kurdistan region's vice president for security affairs, wanted to assure Kurdish citizens that Iraq was unlikely to share Afghanistan's fate because of "the big difference" between the two countries.

"We do not think the coalition forces will leave Iraq.  But if they did, Iraq's composition is different now. We have the position of the republic's president. We own a political fraction and have Parliament members and ministers in Iraq," he said.

The top government positions in Iraq are divided across the country's main factions: The Kurds hold the presidency, the prime minister is a Shiite, and the speaker of Parliament is a Sunni.

Mustafa said the power division and the Iraqi government's recognition of Kurdish peshmerga forces make any future confrontation between the two governments unlikely in the absence of U.S. troops.

"Iraq has armed and security forces in Defense and Interior ministries. And in the Kurdistan region, we have a robust army of peshmerga who, as seen by everyone, were able to confront the most vicious force on earth, which was IS," he said.

2014 IS attack

That assurance does not ease the worries of many Kurds, who say the quick disintegration of the Afghan army reminded them of summer 2014, when the Iraqi army melted within hours in the face of an IS attack and left its U.S.-provided weapons to the Islamist group.

Ara Ako, a resident of the Kurdistan region's Sulaimani province, said any pullout of U.S.-led coalition forces could lead to "a chaos that Iraq is still not prepared for."

"In Iraq, there are a lot of militias linked to regional countries outside a unified command. Also, there is still a possibility for the resurgence of IS fighters who continue their explosions and slaughtering activities," Ako said.

Danya Osman, another Sulaimani resident, said she was mostly concerned about individual freedoms vanishing if the U.S.-backed system collapsed in Iraq.

"If it was not for peshmerga and the coalition forces, we would not have been able to confidently move around and live this way," she said.

About 2,500 U.S. troops are in Iraq to help Iraqi forces and the peshmerga in their battle against IS.

Last month, after hosting Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi at the White House, U.S. president Joe Biden announced he would end the U.S. combat mission in the country by the end of this year. Biden said the U.S. will continue to train and advise the Iraqi military but declined to say how many U.S. troops will stay.

Days before the meeting, Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein told the VOA Kurdish service that his government believed American "fighting forces are not necessary in Iraq at this stage."

Asked if he was concerned that Iraq could face violence by IS and other militant groups proportional to the Taliban, Hussein said, "Iraq's situation is different from Afghanistan's." He said IS was destroyed and that Iraqi forces needed intelligence sharing, training and equipment to deal with the group's remnants.

The foreign ministers comments came as a report by the United Nations sanctions monitoring team warned that IS was capable of conducting attacks in the capital, Baghdad, while also reasserting itself in the Diyala, Salah al-Din and Kirkuk provinces.

The report, released July 23 and based on member state intelligence, said: "The group has evolved into an entrenched insurgency, exploiting weaknesses in local security to find safe havens and targeting forces engaged in counter-ISIL operations."

ISIL is another name for Islamic State group.

The report said that in Syria, where the U.S.-backed Kurds make up the nucleus of Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), IS was also able to continue its insurgency activities and was poised to remain a problem for some time.

About 900 U.S. troops are in northeast Syria, helping SDF fight IS remnants.

While U.S. officials have not announced any changes to the mission in northeast Syria, any troop withdrawal in the region will likely expose the SDF to Turkey, which sees the Kurdish group as a terrorist organization.

'A stab in the back'

When the Trump administration decided in 2019 to withdraw U.S. forces in the region, Turkish forces and allied Syrian militants followed with a major offensive against the SDF. Kurdish officials then called the U.S. move a "stab in the back."

According to Nawaf Khalil, director of the Germany-based Kurdish Center for Studies, the SDF have, over the years, turned to a doctrine of self-reliance that needs to be further emphasized in preparation for any sudden U.S. withdrawal.

"The Afghan lesson must definitely be considered by the Kurds and Syrians in general," Khalil said.

But he said it was unlikely for Washington to pull U.S. troops from Syria, because unlike Afghanistan, where nearly 20 years of conflict with the Taliban has cost the U.S. more than 2,300 deaths and billions of dollars, the United States' involvement in Syria, which has lasted nearly seven years, has been minimal and has proven very effective in countering terrorism.

"Following the Afghanistan fiasco, the Americans might even reaffirm their involvement in Syria to assure their local and international partners that what happened in Afghanistan won't happen in Syria," Khalil said.

Sirwan Kajjo contributed to this report from Washington.


Campaigning to elect a new German leader this month is being clouded by concerns that the country will face a new influx of refugees  this time those fleeing Taliban rule in Afghanistan.

In 2015, more than 1 million migrants, many of them Syrians escaping their country's civil war, traveled across the Mediterranean and Europe to reach Germany, according to German officials.

Angela Merkel is not standing in the September 26 election, so Germany will soon have a new chancellor tasked with formulating policy toward Afghanistan and the unfolding refugee crisis.

Armin Laschet is the candidate for Merkel's Christian Democratic Union party, which currently shares power with the Social Democrats. Speaking shortly after the Taliban seized power last month, he pledged there would be no repeat of the refugee influx.

"The European Union must be prepared that there will be refugees heading towards Europe. And this time we must provide humanitarian aid to the region, to the countries of origin in time. 2015 must not repeat itself. We need an orderly protection for those who are heading towards Europe," Laschet told reporters on August 16.

Laschet's rival  Olaf Scholz of the Social Democrats, who are leading in the polls  also maintains that Europe must share the burden of any imminent refugee influx.

"It isn't just Germany, but all of Europe has a responsibility, and we have to remember that almost all refugees, and there are millions in the world, have often found refuge in a neighboring country," Scholz told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle.

Germany has evacuated more than 4,000 Afghans since August. The government says anyone directly employed by German forces in Afghanistan is entitled to asylum. The situation for contractors, however, is not clear.

Afghan brothers Ahmad and Ikram, who did not want to give their real names, arrived in Germany in 2015 as part of the wave of migrants seeking a new life in Europe. They are currently staging a protest outside the Foreign Ministry in Berlin, to demand that Germany speed up the asylum process for refugees.

"Afghanistan is no longer safe. People cannot let themselves die there  they themselves, and their families. And so, they say it doesn't matter how dangerous the way is, people are saying we're leaving, because otherwise they will be killed," Ahmad told VOA.

So, could Germany face another migrant influx? The situation is very different, says Nora Brezger of the Berlin Refugee Council, a support group for migrants.

"At the moment now, there is actually no way to Europe where people can cross, like it was in 2015 or 2016. So, it's more that a lot of Afghan refugees are in the surrounding countries of Afghanistan, and in the Balkan route they are stuck in Bosnia, they are stuck in Serbia, they are stuck in Greece, they are stuck in Turkey," Brezger told VOA.

"So, it's not a question of how we should avoid people coming here. For us, it's more a question of how should we make people come here because they need a safe place," she said.

VOA recently spoke to several Afghan refugees currently stuck in the Turkish city of Erzurum. Among them was Yusuf, who said he was doing casual work to try to save money to reach Europe. Germany continues to exert a strong pull for those seeking a new life.

"We want to go to Germany, but the borders are closed at the moment. If you want to go to Germany via Bulgaria, you would be held in Bulgaria. The human smugglers say that the borders are open, you can go  but we know that they are closed. Once the borders are opened, God willing, we will go," Yusuf said.

It appears unlikely that Germany  or the rest of Europe  is prepared to reopen those borders anytime soon.

VOA's Memet Aksakal contributed to this report.


Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry has fired and replaced the chief public prosecutor who was seeking charges against him as a suspect in the July assassination of President Jovenel Moise.

Prosecutor Ben-Ford Claude had sent a letter to a judge Tuesday, alleging that phone records showed the prime minister spoke twice with Joseph Felix Badio, an official wanted by police in connection with Moises assassination, on the morning of July 7, hours after the president was gunned down at his home.

Claude said he asked Prime Minister Henry to discuss the evidence. Claude also asked Haitis immigration authority to issue an order banning Henry from leaving the country.

In a letter released Tuesday but dated the day before, the prime ministers office said the prosecutor was being dismissed for an undisclosed administrative error. The office posted a tweet late Tuesday announcing that Frantz Louis Juste has been named to replace Claude as chief prosecutor.

More than 40 suspects have been arrested in the investigation into Moises killing, including 18 former Colombian soldiers and two Americans of Haitian descent. Badio remains at large.

Henry, a political moderate and neurosurgeon, was named prime minister by Moise days before his death in an effort to ease friction between rivals and create a new consensus.

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
Ernesto, a 31-year-old Haitian migrant, waded knee-deep through the Rio Grande that separates the United States and Mexico.



He wasnt heading to the United States, though. He was leaving a migrant encampment in Del Rio, Texas, on Thursday to slip back into Mexicos Ciudad Acuna to buy water and food for the fourth time, he said, since arriving Monday morning in the United States.



Reuters witnessed hundreds of other migrants, mostly Haitians but also Cubans, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans, wading through the Rio Grande and back into Mexico to stock up on essentials they said they were not receiving on the American side.



U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not respond to questions about the number of people in the Del Rio camp. One CBP agent told Reuters Wednesday that about 6,000 people were in the camp. Reuters journalists estimated they saw at least 1,000 people on the rivers two shores.

The scene is illustrative of the humanitarian challenges facing President Joe Biden as border arrests hover around 20-year highs. U.S. authorities arrested more than 195,000 migrants at the Mexican border in August, according to government data released Wednesday.



Ernesto, who declined to give his surname to protect his identity, has been waiting in an overwhelmed makeshift migrant camp under the bridge connecting Del Rio and Ciudad Acuna. He said he had not been fed at the camp, where migrants are sleeping under the International Bridge and jostling for shade in 99 degree Fahrenheit (37-degree Celsius) temperatures.



Although he initially was scared to cross back into Mexico, he was compelled to do so to feed his 3-year-old daughter. "Ive been crossing once a day," said Ernesto, who wants to claim asylum. Sometimes, he said, he runs to avoid Mexican migration officials but is usually not bothered by them. "But now money is running out."



About 20 migrants interviewed by Reuters also said they had not been fed on the Texas side. The migrants showed Reuters tickets with numbers they had received from the U.S. Border Patrol. Several said other migrants told them they could be stuck at the camp for up to five days.



Border Patrol said in a statement it was increasing staffing in Del Rio to facilitate a "safe, humane and orderly process." Drinking water, towels and portable toilets have been provided, the statement added, while migrants wait to be transported to facilities.



U.S. border agents are still rapidly expelling almost all single adults and some families encountered at the border under a COVID-19-related order implemented by former President Donald Trump and kept largely in place by Biden.

`I can wait a little longer



Carlos, a 27-year-old Venezuelan who left his home after graduating from college in July, said he thought the camp had doubled in size since he arrived Tuesday. Carlos, who declined to give his full name, said he had only $10 left and that there were 400 families ahead of him in the queue for processing.



Still more migrants were arriving. Yoandri Calzadilla, who said he was fleeing political persecution in Cuba, prepared to cross to Texas with his wife Thursday morning. They left Cuba in 2019, he said, starting off in French Guiana and slowly making their way up through South and Central America as they worked odd jobs.



"Ive been waiting three years, living under bridges. I can wait a little longer here," he said.
From a new rail and road link that gives China overland access for the first time to the Indian Ocean via Myanmar to infrastructure projects in Sri Lankas east and north, concerns are running high in India as its rival, China, edges closer to its coast, analysts have told VOA.

While India has long confronted China along their rugged Himalayan borders, the maritime challenge is also growing as relations with its Asian neighbor have worsened.

Last month, Beijing transported a test cargo by road from Myanmars Yangon port on the Indian Ocean to the Chinese border province of Yunnan and by rail onto Chengdu in Sichuan province in southwestern China.

As the new trade route opened, Chinas special envoy for Asian affairs Sun Guoxiang visited Myanmar for talks with its military rulers, who ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February.

Beijing, which has not condemned the army coup in Myanmar, is pressing ahead with bilateral projects that include a deep seaport in Myanmars Kyaukpyu along the Bay of Bengal.

It would be the third Chinese-developed port in Indias vicinity after Gwadar in Pakistan and Hambantota in Sri Lanka.

Clearly they are coming closer and closer to India and that is extremely worrying given its adversarial, hostile relations with China, said Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan, director for the Center for Security, Strategy and Technology at New Delhis Observer Research Foundation.

Although these are civil projects, the overall worry is that these countries are falling more and more into Chinese influence, he told VOA.

China has been building infrastructure projects in Sri Lanka and Myanmar  countries that provide access to the Indian Ocean, the vital sea lanes that ferry Beijings oil imports and carry its exports to the Africa, Middle East and Europe.

In Sri Lanka, Indias latest worries center on the Colombo Port City project being built by a Chinese state-owned firm adjacent to the strategic Colombo Port, just 300 kilometers from India. Those concerns intensified after the island country passed controversial legislation in May that critics say will give China virtual control over the approximately 62-hectare reclaimed land that is to be developed as a special economic zone.

Colombo hopes the Chinese development will turn into a financial hub between Singapore and Dubai, create hundreds of jobs and boost its struggling economy.

Sri Lankan geopolitics and foreign policy analyst Asanga Abeyagoonasekera described it to VOA as a strategic trap.

Once you give these on a 99-year-lease, what kind of hold does the Sri Lankan government maintain? The danger is the that these could easily be turned into Chinese colonies or Chinese zones of activity, he said.

The hybrid nature of Chinese projects such as the 5G network is a question everywhere in the world, he said, noting that there are suspicions of expansion of Chinese projects beyond their initial purpose. And that, he added, represents a serious security threat.

A $12 million renewable energy project awarded to a Chinese firm to be built on Sri Lankan islands off the northern Jaffna peninsula that lie barely 50 kilometers from Indias coast earlier this year is also causing concern in New Delhi.

While Beijings presence has loomed in big infrastructure projects in Sri Lanka such as the Hambantota port, an airport and highways for years, the Chinese footprint has grown since the return to power of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa  the brothers have long been friendly to China.

The leaders in Sri Lanka have amplified the pro-China tilt that began during their previous term, according to Abeyagoonasekera.

Although built as trade routes as part of Chinas ambitious Belt and Road initiative, these projects give significant potential military advantages, analysts said.

It is not simply about protecting their commerce. This is part of Chinas broader expansionism and the Chinese vision is of dominating the high seas and being a great maritime power, Sreeram Chaulia, dean of the School of International Affairs of O.P. Jindal University, said.

Deepening distrust about Beijing in New Delhi following last years bruising, nine-month standoff along their Himalayan borders has made India more alert to the maritime threat it faces as it feels increasingly squeezed in the Indian Ocean, analysts say.

It is pushing back by accelerating its naval engagement with other countries also seeking to counter China. Once hesitant, India has now embraced the Quad, the informal alliance of India, the United States, Japan and Australia.

India will need to step up its own naval capabilities but even if you make the investments today, developing these takes a very long time. So, India is building up its diplomatic muscle by increasing naval partnerships with countries, Rajagopalan said.

Most recently those efforts were demonstrated during a visit last week to New Delhi by the Australian defense and foreign ministers.

Stating that both countries are working to enhance Australias posture in the Indian Ocean region, Australian Defense Minister Peter Sutton said that It is in the sovereign interests of us both to align our strategy, our capability and our resources.

Since last month, four Indian warships have also been engaged in exercises and port visits with the Philippines, Vietnam, Singapore, Indonesia and Australia in the Indo-Pacific.

However, analysts say despite efforts, India and its allies like Japan have been less successful in helping countries in the South Asian region develop the infrastructure for which they have turned to China.

They need to do more on this front, Chaulia said, adding, If we wait for another five or 10 years, then China would already be in all the prime spots in this littoral region.
Iran has agreed to allow international inspectors to service surveillance cameras at its sensitive nuclear sites and to continue filming there, averting a diplomatic showdown this week.

The announcement was made September 12 after talks in Tehran between Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and Mohammad Eslami, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran.

The talks were aimed at easing a standoff between Tehran and the West just as it threatens to escalate and scupper negotiations on reviving the Iran nuclear deal.

"We agreed over the replacement of the memory cards of the agency's cameras," Eslami was quoted as saying by Iranian news agencies.

"IAEA inspectors are permitted to service the identified equipment and replace their storage media which will be kept under the joint IAEA and AEOI seals in the Islamic Republic of Iran," the nuclear bodies said in a joint statement.

"I am glad to say that today were able to have a very constructive result, which has to do with the continuity of the operation of the agencys equipment here," Grossi said. It "is indispensable for us to provide the necessary guarantee and information to the IAEA and to the world that everything is in order.

It was Grossi's first visit to Iran since hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi took office in August.

Talks between Iran and world powers over limiting Iran's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief have been idle since June.

Earlier this month, the IAEA said in a report that Iran had continued to increase its stockpile of highly enriched uranium.

It also said that verification and monitoring activities have been "seriously undermined" since February, after Iran refused to let inspectors access IAEA monitoring equipment.

Western powers must decide whether to push for a resolution criticizing Iran and raising pressure on it for stonewalling the IAEA at next week's meeting of the agency's 35-country board of governors. A resolution could jeopardize the resumption of talks on the deal, as Tehran bristles at such moves.

Under the 2015 deal between Iran and major powers, Tehran agreed to restrictions on its nuclear activities in exchange for the lifting of sanctions.

President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the deal in 2018, reintroducing painful economic sanctions. Iran responded as of 2019 by breaching many of the deal's core restrictions, like enriching uranium to a higher purity, closer to that suitable for use in nuclear weapons.

(Information in the report came from AP, AFP and Reuters.)
U.N. investigators report judges and prosecutors in Venezuela are under intense political pressure from high-ranking officials to punish perceived opponents of the government of President Nicolas Maduro.

The three-member U.N. Independent International Fact-Finding Mission accuses the Maduro government of a pattern of serious human rights violations and crimes under international law in the context of its policy to silence and quash the opposition. It says the judiciary's independence has been eroded because of intimidation and threats against judges and prosecutors to do the state's bidding.

The mission was denied entry into Venezuela to conduct its probe. Its findings are based on 177 interviews and extensive analysis of thousands of pages of legal case files and other official documents.

Those findings will be presented to the U.N. Human Rights Council next week.



Chair of the mission, Marta Valinas, says a detailed analysis of 183 detentions of real or perceived government opponents presents a full picture of irregularities marring all stages of the criminal process.

"Based on the investigations and analysis conducted, the mission has reasonable grounds to believe that instead of providing protection to victims of human rights, violations and crimes, the Venezuelan justice system has played a significant role in the state's repression of government opponents," Valinas said.

The report notes most justices are appointed provisionally, and this makes them vulnerable to how they carry out their functions. It says several former judges, prosecutors and family members who had been subjected to threats have fled the country out of security concerns.

Mission member Francisco Cox Vial says judges order pretrial detention as a routine, rather than an exceptional measure. He says the mission reviewed 183 cases of detention. He says 113 of the detainees made allegations of having been tortured, sexually assaulted and/or subjected to other cruel treatment.

"In 67 of these, the detainees appeared in court with clear marks of mistreatment or raised allegations of torture, sexual violence, and/or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment during court proceedings," Vial said. "The mission is also concerned that many of the detainees were handed back to the custody of agencies who allegedly tortured them."

In contrast to the treatment of government opponents, the report notes that in recent years, public officials in Venezuela, including some at a high level, have commited violations and crimes with impunity. The mission says the Venezuelan state is constitutionally obligated to investigate and punish all perpetrators of human rights violations, regardless of their position.

Mission members say they have repeatedly tried to contact the government and justice authorities to discuss its findings, but to no avail.


Kurdish-led authorities in northeast Syria have released 324 Syrian nationals from a refugee camp that houses thousands of people, including families of Islamic State fighters.



The released Syrians left the al-Hol camp Wednesday, local officials said, adding that they were mostly women and children.



The decision to release these individuals, who made up 92 families, came after we verified their documents and identities, said Mounir Mohammad, an al-Hol camp official.



He told VOA on Wednesday that this was the 18th group of Syrian nationals to leave the camp since the U.S.-led campaign that destroyed ISs so-called caliphate in March 2019.



The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-led military alliance that has been a major U.S. partner in the war on IS in Syria, detained thousands of IS fighters and their families when it seized the terror groups last stronghold in Syria in the 2019 campaign.



According to camp officials, there are about 62,000 people still living in al-Hol, including nearly 22,000 Syrian nationals. About 30,000 of those living in the camp are Iraqi refugees.

1,600 families released

Mohammad said 1,600 Syrian families had been allowed to leave the camp so far; he did not say how many individuals had been released. In May, 95 Iraqi families were released from the camp and sent back to Iraq.



Rasha Al Aqeedi, a senior analyst at the Washington-based Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy, said the timing of this weeks release was interesting, given recent comments by SDF leadership that [IS] attacks in Syria have escalated and that the majority of those in the camp are supporters or at least sympathizers.



Its unclear how much vetting was done for these Syrians, but it looks like a goodwill gesture from SDF leaders toward non-Kurds, unless there has been a deal of some sort that were not aware of, she told VOA.



Local authorities said they were hopeful that reducing al-Hols population would help diminish the violence plaguing the camp. The United Nations says at least 70 people have been killed in al-Hol this year.

Two killings



This week, two female Iraqi refugees, aged 18 and 23, were killed in separate incidents carried out by unknown gunmen inside the camp, the Kurdish Red Crescent reported.



The SDF says IS has operatives in the camp who are responsible for the violence. The Kurdish-led military group says these operatives coordinate with IS militants who are still active in parts of eastern Syria.



SDF fighters, with the help of the U.S.-led global coalition, arrested an IS leader Wednesday in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour. The militant reportedly was responsible for funding and recruiting operatives.



This story originated in VOAs Kurdish Service.
It has been more than two years since Venezuelan authorities arrested a group of CITGO executives, all of them dual U.S.-Venezuelan nationals. The family of one executive, Tomeu Vadell, lives in a small Louisiana town that recently held a vigil to draw attention to the detention. For VOA, Jorge Agobian has more from Lake Charles.
Amid long-standing and deepening tensions between Israel and Iran, some prominent Israelis with Persian roots have engaged in little-publicized contacts with Irans people and advocated for reviving the historic friendship between the two Mideast powers.

These Israelis are part of the worlds only Persian diaspora community located in a country that Irans Islamist rulers have banned their citizens from contacting. They spoke about their barrier-breaking conversations with Irans people and hopes for reconciliation as part of VOAs Persians of Israel documentary series that was filmed in 2017 and published online Friday.

The Israelis featured in the series include veteran journalist Menashe Amir, who has been broadcasting to Iran in Farsi via radio and online for six decades; Rita, one of Israels most successful pop stars; Dorit Rabinyan, a novelist who has won international acclaim for writing about romances of young Persian women and a taboo-breaking Jewish-Muslim couple; and Dan Halutz, who led Israels military during two of its most challenging operations of the 2000s.

The Persian Israeli community to which they belong numbers about 300,000, according to community members, out of a total Israeli population of 8.7 million. It began to form in the 1920s and 30s, when small numbers of Irans minority Jews migrated to the British mandate of Palestine to fulfill a desire to live in the biblical homeland of the Jewish people.

Israels creation in 1948 as a modern-day Jewish homeland drew many more Iranian Jews: 21,000 in the first three years, according to the Israeli government.

Iran was among Israels early friends. It was the second Muslim-majority nation to recognize Israeli independence, doing so in 1950, after Turkey did the same in 1949.

Iran and Israel were drawn together by a common goal -- resisting the rise of Arab nationalists backed by the Soviet Union. The two nations also shared an alliance with the United States.

As Israeli-Iranian ties deepened, another 35,000 Jews migrated from Iran to Israel from 1952 to 1971. In those years, Israel helped Iran to develop its agriculture and armed forces, while Iran helped Israel to meet its energy needs by exporting oil to the Jewish state. But Iran kept the relationship low-key, declining to open an embassy or station an ambassador in Israel.

The Iranian-Israeli partnership unraveled quickly after Irans 1979 Islamic Revolution, which brought to power Islamist clerics hostile toward Israel.

In the 1980s, Iran began arming Islamist militants such as the Lebanese group Hezbollah and encouraged them to attack Israel. While Irans Islamist constitution recognized Judaism as a minority religion, Iranian authorities also imposed restrictions on Jewish life. Such policies prompted tens of thousands more Iranian Jews to escape what they saw as an oppressive Islamist regime. Most of them migrated to the U.S., while 8,000 moved to Israel in the 1980s and several thousand more did the same in the 1990s and 2000s.

The waves of Jewish migration from Iran have reduced its Jewish population to about 9,000 to 15,000, based on estimates in the U.S. State Departments 2020 report on International Religious Freedom. There had been about 85,000 Jews in Iran when the Islamic Revolution began, according to Encyclopedia Iranica.

Iranian leaders escalated their verbal threats toward Israel in recent decades, calling for its destruction or demise. They also alarmed Israel by pursuing what the International Atomic Energy Agency said was a nuclear weapons program until 2003. Israel, an undeclared nuclear-armed power, has accused Iran of covertly continuing that program and called it an existential threat that could prompt the Jewish state to take military action in self-defense.

Tehran has denied ever trying to make nuclear bombs under cover of a civilian nuclear program.

Iran and Israel also have engaged in what some observers call a shadow war in the past few years. Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes on Iranian military sites in Syria; Israel has shot down what it said were two Iranian drones that entered its airspace; Israeli and Iranian-owned vessels in Mideast waters have been hit with explosions that each side blamed on the other; Iran blamed a major power outage at its Natanz nuclear site in April on alleged Israeli sabotage; and Iran saw its top nuclear scientist and a high-ranking al-Qaida operative assassinated in its territory in 2020 attacks attributed to Israel by Iranian officials and Western media respectively.

That shadow war escalated in May when the Iran-funded and armed Palestinian militant group Hamas that controls the Gaza Strip indiscriminately fired thousands of rockets into Israel, which carried out hundreds of retaliatory air strikes targeting Hamas militants, weapons, tunnels and other infrastructure. The fighting lasted 11 days until Egypt brokered a cease-fire.

Irans government, which long has maligned Israel as a perceived enemy of the Persian nation, also adopted a law last year authorizing tougher penalties and prison sentences for Iranians found to have engaged in non-accidental contact with Israelis.

Amir, the Israeli broadcaster, said he and his Iran-based listeners who called in to his programs in recent decades have defied Tehrans efforts to block dialogue between Israelis and Iranians.

Amir also has brought visiting Iranian Muslims based in the West to Israels Holocaust remembrance center Yad Vashem to educate them about the 20th century genocide perpetrated by Nazi Germany and combat Iranian leaders efforts to deny or minimize it.

Israeli pop star Rita said her first Farsi-language album released in 2012, All My Joys, inspired her to become a cultural ambassador to Iranians who had reached out to her online and in person to share their love for her music.

Rabinyan, the Israeli author, said she unexpectedly developed an Iranian readership after discovering that her debut novel, Persian Brides, was translated into Farsi and published in Iran without her knowledge. She expressed hope that those readers will hear her desire for peace.

Former Israeli military chief Halutz, who visited pre-revolution Iran on a pilot training course in 1972, said he did not anticipate an Israel-Iran peace agreement anytime soon. But he said a dialogue between moderate people on both sides would be a good way to start the process.

This article originated in VOA's Persian Service.
U.N. human rights experts say the international community is abandoning millions of Yemeni civilians to a life of intolerable suffering and desperation as Yemen enters its seventh year of civil war with no end in sight. The statement comes as the three-member UN Group of Eminent International and Regional Experts on Yemen presents its findings ahead of a report to the U.N. Human Rights Council next week.

The United Nations estimates more than 1,200 civilians have been killed or injured in Yemen this year. This is on top of the more than 20,000 civilians who have been killed or injured since the war began in 2015.

Additionally, the U.N. humanitarian office reports about 233,000 people have died of causes related to hunger, disease, lack of health care, a collapsed economy, and other indirect causes.

Eminent expert Ardi Imsels says civilians continue to pay the highest price in this conflict, as they sink deeper into hunger, poverty, suffering and despair.

"This year, the group of Eminent Experts continues to have reasonable grounds to believe that all parties to the conflict have committed serious violations of international human rights and international humanitarian law, some of which may amount to war crimes," said Imsels. "As we have said before, there are no clean hands in this conflict.

The group accuses the government of Yemen, supported by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and Iranian-backed Houthi rebels of multiple atrocities. The report documents numerous airstrikes in populated areas by the Saudi-led coalition and indiscriminate shelling attacks by the Houthis.

The range of violations committed by all parties include arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, torture, rape and other forms of gender-based sexual violence. In view of the enormous suffering of the Yemeni people, Eminent Expert Melissa Parke says the situation in Yemen should be at the top of the international agenda.

"We are seeing a generation of children caused irreparable harm, forced to be child soldiers, denied their fundamental rights to food and education, to health care," said Parke. "Yemen was already patriarchal before the war, but the situation for women has only become worse with the conflict, and the associated displacement, extreme poverty and indiscriminate violence.

The group says impunity for these crimes must end. Perpetrators must be held accountable and brought to justice. The Eminent Experts are calling on states to stop all arms transfers to the parties, which they say are driving the conflict.

The report contains a so-called non-exhaustive list of countries that are providing weapons to Yemens warring parties. They include Canada, France, Iran, Britain, and the United States.


A wave of antigovernment protests that began in Irans southwest 11 days ago has spread to the capital, Tehran, where demonstrators have marched and chanted slogans against their Islamist rulers for the first time in 18 months.

Video clips of Mondays demonstration in central Tehran were widely shared on social media and acknowledged by the deputy governor of the Iranian capital region, Hamidreza Goudarzi.

The clips showed at least dozens of Iranians marching on Tehrans Jomhuri Islami Avenue, or Islamic Republic Avenue, chanting slogans against Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Islamist ruling system over which he presides, and his practice of using the recession-plagued nations wealth to pay and arm allied Islamist militias in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.

Bold chants by protesters

The Tehran protesters chants included Death to the dictator, Shame on Khamenei, let go of the country, "Cannons, tanks, fireworks, mullahs must go, and Neither for Gaza nor Lebanon, I sacrifice my life only for Iran.

Another social media video appeared to show protesters marching and chanting anti-government slogans on the grounds of a hospital in the northern city of Karaj on Monday. VOA could not independently verify the clip because it is barred from reporting inside Iran.

Iranian state media noted the Tehran demonstration but did not reference any of its anti-government chants. They quoted the Tehran official, Goudarzi, as saying the protest was prompted by a power outage at a nearby shopping center.

Now there is no gathering and the situation is normal, Goudarzi said, apparently after the march concluded. There were no reports of Iranian security forces taking action to stop it.

Largest display of discontent in months

The streets of the Iranian capital had not seen such a public display of discontent and anti-establishment chants since January 2020, said Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights, in a message to VOA Persian.

Tehran last witnessed several days of antigovernment protests in response to Iranian security forces January 8, 2020, downing of a Ukrainian passenger plane shortly after it took off from the Iranian capital. The crash killed all 176 people on board, most of them Iranians and Iranian Canadians who were flying to Kyiv en route to Canada.

After three days of blaming the crash on mechanical problems with the plane, Iranian officials admitted that their forces shot down the Ukraine International Airlines jet. They said those forces mistook the plane for an enemy threat hours after launching missiles at an Iraqi base that houses U.S. troops. Iran had attacked the U.S. troops, wounding dozens, in retaliation for a U.S. airstrike that killed top Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad five days previously.

Foundation for Defense of Democracies analyst Behnam Ben Taleblu told VOA Persian that Mondays Tehran protest was the most significant outpouring of antigovernment demonstrators in the Iranian capital since early 2020.

Citizens are standing with protesters

Tehran citizens are standing in unity with protesters who over a week ago bravely took to the streets in southwest Irans Khuzestan province over lack of access to water, Taleblu said. Shows of unity like these are precisely what the regime fears most, as it relies on divide and conquer to survive.

Nightly street protests against water shortages began in drought-stricken Khuzestan on July 15 and spread in the following days to several other Iranian provinces, with protesters chanting slogans increasingly critical of the government. Social media videos that VOA also could not verify appeared to show Iranian security forces firing bullets and tear gas to try to clear the streets.

Iranian state media have reported the killings of at least four people in the protests, including a police officer, and blamed the deaths on saboteurs.

London-based rights group Amnesty International said last Friday that video footage and consistent accounts from sources in Iran led it to conclude that security forces had killed at least eight protesters and bystanders, including a teenage boy, in seven different cities. It accused Iran of deploying unlawful force, including by firing live ammunition and birdshot, to crush mostly peaceful protests.

Khamenei offers warning

In a statement on his official website last Friday, Khamenei expressed sympathy with the water-deprived residents of Khuzestan but warned them against playing into the hands of Irans enemies.

Experts have blamed Irans drought not only on significantly lower-than-usual rainfall in recent months but also on years of Iranian government mismanagement of water resources.

Taleblu said Irans street protests have been slowly growing in momentum, scale and scope.

If past is prologue, Tehran is likely to employ lethal force once again against protesters. This cycle of protest and crackdown cannot be ignored by the Biden administration, he said.

U.S. continues to track unrest

Asked by VOA Persian whether the Biden administration believes Irans response to the protests has been harsh, State Department spokesperson Jalina Porter repeated a comment issued several times since the unrest began, telling a Friday press briefing that the U.S. was following reports of the protests and fatalities and believes Iranians should be free to assemble and express themselves without fear of violence or arbitrary detention by security forces.

Were also monitoring reports of government-imposed internet shutdowns in the region, Porter added. We urge the Iranian government to allow its citizens to exercise their universal rights of freedom of expression, as well as [to] freely access information online.

Guita Aryan contributed to this article, which originated in VOAs Persian Service . Click here for the original Persian version of the story.
A lawyer for Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of Myanmars deposed civilian government, says his client missed her latest scheduled court appearance after she fell ill Monday.

Her legal team said the 76-year-old Suu Kyi appeared ill and complained of being drowsy during a pre-hearing meeting in the capital Naypyidaw.

Min Min Soe later told reporters that Suu Kyi was suffering from car sickness as she has not traveled by car over the last several weeks, and was taken back home to rest.

Mondays scheduled hearing was a resumption of her trial on charges of illegally possessing unlicensed walkie-talkies. She also faces separate charges of violating the countrys Natural Disaster Management Law for breaking COVID-19 restrictions while campaigning during last years parliamentary elections, breaching the Official Secrets Act, inciting public unrest, misusing land for her charitable foundation, and accepting illegal payments of $600,000 in cash plus 11 kilograms of gold.

Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace laureate, has been detained since February 1, when her civilian government was overthrown nearly three months after her National League for Democracy party scored a landslide victory in the elections.

The junta has cited widespread electoral fraud in the November 8 election as a reason for the coup, an allegation the civilian electoral commission denied.

The coup triggered a crisis in the Southeast Asian country that led to deadly anti-junta demonstrations and clashes between several armed ethnic groups and the ruling junta.

Duwa Lashi La, the acting president of Myanmars shadow National Unity Government, called for a revolt against junta in every corner of the country last week during a videotaped speech posted on social media.

(Some information for this report came from Agence France-Press and Reuters.)
North Korea test-fired two ballistic missiles Wednesday, its second launch in less than a week and latest apparent attempt to increase diplomatic pressure on the United States.

The missiles were launched from a central inland area in North Korea and splashed into the sea off the countrys east coast, according to a text message from South Koreas military.

Few other details were immediately available, including what kind of missiles were launched or how far they flew. Japans defense ministry said the projectiles did not enter Japanese territory and fell outside Japans exclusive economic zone.

In a statement, the U.S. military said it is aware of the launch and has assessed it does not pose an immediate threat to U.S. personnel, territory, or allies. However, the launch highlights the destabilizing impact of North Koreas illicit weapons program, the statement issued by the Indo-Pacific Command said.

The launch comes two days after North Korea claimed to have test-fired a new long-range cruise missile. It was Pyongyangs first known missile test in about six months.

Late last month, United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency said North Korea appears to have recently restarted a plutonium-producing nuclear reactor at its Yongbyon nuclear site.

The moves suggest North Korea is trying to increase its bargaining leverage with the United States, amid stalled nuclear talks, some analysts say. The North has often engaged in diplomacy after raising tensions via verbal threats or weapons tests.

The Norths latest launch coincided with a visit to Tokyo by Sung Kim, the U.S. special envoy to North Korea, who is meeting with his counterparts from South Korea and Japan.

On Tuesday, the U.S. envoy repeated Washingtons offer to restart talks without preconditions, saying the United States is ready to work with North Korea on humanitarian issues regardless of progress on denuclearization.

While U.S. President Joe Bidens administration has expressed a willingness to resume talks with North Korea, much of its focus has been elsewhere, such as the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and efforts to fight COVID-19.

North Korea is expressing its discontent toward the Biden administration which has remained in a very passive policy toward North Korea in the name of a cautious and collaborative North Korea policy, said Bong Young-shik, a research fellow at Yonsei Universitys Institute for North Korean Studies in Seoul.

Another possible factor, Bong says, is South Koreas upcoming presidential election. So far, the campaign has featured very little discussion about North Korea; instead, candidates have focused on the economy and COVID-19 policy.

North Korean leadership must have decided to increase the levels of the provocations as a way of getting more attention from all the relevant parties, he added.

In June, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country is preparing for both dialogue and confrontation with the United States.

A few months later, North Korea briefly reopened several lines of communication with the South, raising hopes that Pyongyang would enter a new phase of diplomacy. But the North cut the hotlines just days later, after South Korea and the United States went ahead with joint military drills that Pyongyang sees as a provocation.

For most of this year, North Korea has focused on domestic problems, including natural disasters, pandemic prevention, and a food shortage. Because those crises still exist, some analysts expect North Korea may refrain from major provocations that would risk bringing further economic and diplomatic isolation.
The United Nations says 117 million students worldwide are still out of school due to the coronavirus pandemic that began more than a year-and-a half ago.

In a statement Thursday, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization said the number of students who have yet to return to the classroom represents about 7.5% of the global student population.

We know that the longer schools stay closed, the more dramatic and potentially irreversible the impact on childrens well-being and learning, especially for the most vulnerable and marginalized, said Assistant UNESCO Director-General for Education, Stefania Giannini.

Giannini said it is encouraging that many governments are working to safely reopen schools but added, Our utmost and urgent aim must be to reopen schools everywhere, for all students.

UNESCO said schools have fully reopened in 117 countries, allowing 35% of the worlds students ranging from pre-primary to secondary levels to return to the classroom. In September 2020, 16% received in-class instruction when schools in only 94 of the worlds 195 countries had reopened.

The organization said prolonged and repeated closures have caused lost learning opportunities and a rise in drop-out rates, factors that have adversely affected the most vulnerable students disproportionately.

Remedial and hybrid learning, teacher support and bridging the digital divide are key components of building resilient education systems, UNESCO said.

The group also said it is collaborating with the United Nations Children's Fund and the World Bank to help governments reopen schools and run programs aimed at helping students catch up on lost learning.

Some information in this report was provided by The Associated Press and Reuters.
Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob Monday signed a cooperation deal with the main opposition bloc, aimed at ensuring the stability of his new government.

Under the accord between Prime Minister Ismail and veteran opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, Ismail has agreed to a set of reforms including new laws to prevent party defections, limiting the prime ministers term to 10 years, and lowering the voting age from 21 to 18.

The agreement also ensures bipartisan agreement on every bill that is introduced in parliament, input from the opposition on a national recovery council, and an assurance that the opposition leader receives the same pay and privileges as a Cabinet minister.

Ismail said in a statement that the agreement will lead to bipartisan cooperation, help the government fight the COVID-19 crisis and revive the economy.

"The government is confident that this will not only see political differences being put aside but also ensure the national recovery will be inclusive and holistic," he said.

Ismail became Malaysias third prime minister in three years when he was appointed by King Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah last month to succeed Muhyiddin Yassin. Muhyiddin resigned after conceding he had lost the majority of lawmakers. Ismail served as deputy prime minister under Muhyiddin.

The king praised the bipartisan cooperation deal in an address to parliament Monday.

It is this kind of maturity that is craved by the people, he said.

The king selected Muhyiddin as prime minister in March 2020 after the collapse of then-Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamads ruling coalition a month earlier. But Muhyiddin was beset by constant challenges to his leadership within his fragile coalition and rising anger over his governments poor response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The country of 32 million is suffering the highest rate of new daily cases per one million people in Southeast Asia, with more than 1.9 million infections and 20,711 deaths currently, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.

Muhyiddins tenuous grip on power began unraveling when a group of lawmakers with the United Malays National Organization, the largest party in the coalition, withdrew their support. UMNO, once Malaysias long-serving ruling party dating to the countrys independence in 1957, has a handful of politicians facing corruption charges, including former Prime Minister Najib Razak.

Muhyiddins 17-month tenure as prime minister is the shortest in Malaysian history.

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters.
Nearly 70 students kidnapped in northern Nigeria two weeks ago are free, authorities said Monday.



Zamfara state Governor Bello Matawalle said security forces freed the students from the Government Day Secondary School. He said no ransom was paid.



Heavily armed gunmen kidnapped them on September 1, continuing a wave of similar attacks in Zamfara that prompted the state government to shut all schools.



UNICEF said there have been 10 similar attacks in Nigeria over the past year, leading to 1,436 kidnappings and 16 deaths.



In this incident, 73 students were initially taken, but five were rescued the day after the attack.



"Using some of the bandits that repented, we were able to know where they were keeping these children. We worked closely with them for about 10 days, and yesterday at about 2 a.m., the commissioner of police, alongside others, took off to the location where these children were rescued," Matawalle said.



Authorities blame the abductions on bandits seeking ransom, but some are fearful the bandits are linked to the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram.



Some information in this report comes from The Associated Press.
The Nigerian air force confirmed Thursday an airstrike against suspected Islamic extremists that killed civilians in the northeastern state of Yobe.



A spokesman said the Wednesday attack was called in response to movements by suspected members of Boko Haram or Islamic State's West African (ISWAP) branch, which broke away from Boko Haram in 2016.



"Unfortunately, reports reaching Nigerian Air Force headquarters alleged that some civilians were erroneously killed, while others were injured," Air Commodore Edward Gabkwetin said in a statement.



"Therefore, a board of inquiry has been set up to thoroughly investigate the circumstances of the incident."

Reports on the number of people killed range from six to 10.
Nine Hong Kong pro-democracy activists were sentenced to several months in jail for taking part in an unauthorized candlelight vigil in observance of the brutal 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown on student protesters.

The nine defendants include such figures as Albert Ho and Figo Chan, who were sentenced earlier this month to lengthy sentences for taking part in an unauthorized demonstration in October 2019 at the height of anti-government protests triggered by a controversial extradition bill that evolved into a greater demand for greater freedoms for the financial hub.

The nine defendants pleaded guilty earlier this month for attending the 2020 candlelight vigil which authorities banned, citing the COVID-19 pandemic. The vigil had traditionally been held every year to commemorate the June 4,1989 crackdown on student-led pro-democracy protests staged in Beijings Tiananmen Square, where they called for an end to official corruption, political reforms and a more fair and open society.

Human rights groups believe as many as several thousand people were killed when tanks rolled through Tiananmen Square to squelch the demonstrations.

The nine activists were handed sentences ranging between six and 10 months in jail. Three other defendants who also pleaded guilty for taking part in last years vigil received suspended sentences.

The 2019 demonstrations prompted Beijing to approve a sweeping national security law for Hong Kong last year under which anyone believed to be carrying out terrorism, separatism, subversion of state power or collusion with foreign forces could be tried and face life in prison if convicted.

Hong Kong authorities have increasingly clamped down on the citys pro-democracy forces since the law took effect last year.

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters.
Pope Francis said Wednesday that Catholic bishops should minister to politicians who support abortion rights, such as U.S. President Joe Biden, with compassion and tenderness, not condemnation.

The pontiff, returning to Rome from Slovakia, warned that Catholic Church leaders should not let politics enter into questions about whether observant Catholics like Biden should be refused the right to receive Communion when they attend Mass.

But Francis declined to give a direct yes or no answer to whether Biden should be denied Communion, as some U.S. Catholic bishops have demanded. Francis said he did not know the U.S. case well enough to give an answer.

The pope reiterated church doctrine that abortions are homicide.

But he said priests and bishops should act in a pastoral way and not in a political manner when discussing any issues that confront them. Francis said they must use "the style of God" to talk with the faithful with "closeness, compassion and tenderness."

"And what should pastors do? he asked rhetorically. Be pastors, and not go condemning, condemning."

U.S. bishops agreed in June that their conference doctrine committee would draft a statement on the meaning of Communion in the life of the church, and that it would then consider it as a group, possibly at a meeting in November.

Aboard his flight back to the Vatican, Francis told reporters, "Communion is not a prize for the perfect," but rather "a gift, the presence of Jesus in his church and in the community. That is the theology."

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press.
A report submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council blasts the Nicaraguan governments harsh crackdown on opposition leaders in advance of November 7 Presidential and Parliamentary elections.

Critics accuse Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega of systematically ridding himself of viable opposition candidates to secure a fourth consecutive term as President of the country.

In her latest update to the Council, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michele Bachelet said increasing restrictions by Nicaraguan authorities on peoples right to vote are undermining free and fair elections. She said Nicaraguans should be able to exercise their right to vote without intimidation, violence, or administrative interference.

Her report documents the arbitrary detention of 16 people between June 22 and September 6. They include political leaders, human rights defenders, businesspeople, journalists, as well as peasant and student leaders.

She said these arrests are in addition to 20 other government opponents who have been detained since May 28. She spoke through an interpreter.

This group includes six men and one woman who have publicly stated that they were aspiring to the presidencyThe large majority of these people remain deprived of their liberty and have been so for up to 90 days, being held incommunicado, some in isolation without any official confirmation as to their whereabouts from the authorities to their families, she said.

The Public Prosecutors Office says most of the people detained are accused of conspiracy to undermine national integrity and other crimes linked to the implementation of cooperation funds.

U.N. rights chief Bachelet said attacks on freedom of expression and against the media and journalists have intensified. She said similar patterns of repression are being registered against human rights defenders, social and political leaders, among others.

Given this deteriorating situation in Nicaragua, it is essential that the government once again guarantee the full enjoyment of civil and political rights of all Nicaraguans, that they put an end to persecution of the opposition, press, and civil society, and that they immediately and unconditionally release the over 130 persons detained since April 2018, according to civil society sources, said Bachelet.

The Nicaraguan government has consistently brushed off U.N. and international criticism, claiming it is based on disinformation from North American and European countries seeking to maintain their colonial grip on the country.
Cuba has introduced new controls over online content deemed to affect national interests, in a move described as Orwellian by independent media and activists.

Decree 35 was passed last week, following the biggest anti-government protests in decades, as Cubans called for better living conditions amid economic hardship and the pandemic. Details of the unrest spread in part because of social media.

The new law is aimed at content or messages that Havana deems to be false news, offensive or that may incite acts that upset public order." Under it, anyone who tries to subvert the constitutional order will be considered a cyberterrorist.

A special channel also has been set up for citizens to inform on anyone who breaks the law.

"Our Decree 35 goes against misinformation and cyber lies," Reuters quoted Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel as saying.

The Cuban president blamed the July 11 protests on an online campaign that he said was led by U.S.-backed counter-revolutionaries.

So far, the penalties for breaching the regulations have not been made public, but it is believed the government would fine offenders, a Cuba-based journalist who requested anonymity, said.

Orwellian measures

Independent media within Cuba and analysts have said the decree is similar to the totalitarianism described in George Orwell's novel 1984, in which Big Brother controls every aspect of citizens' lives.

This decree is a way of silencing any critical voices in Cuba, which may have existed after 62 years of communist rule, Normando Hernandez, of the Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and the Press, told VOA. The Miami-based organization supports opposition media on the island.

It is a way to kill off all liberty of expression. It means even if you call a meeting, this can be construed as cyberterrorism. Any content that the government construes as against the government can be seen as a crime, he said.

No arrests under the law have been reported. But Hernandez said that many Cubans already are fearful of violating the legislation, and they are avoiding posting on social media platforms.

Bertrand De La Grange, chief editor in Madrid for independent Cuban website 14ymedio, said the new decree is Orwellian.

They are trying to create the same totalitarian world as George Orwell described in 1984 or Animal Farm, he told VOA.

De La Grange said the government introduced further restrictions on free speech in response to the biggest demonstrations since the 1990s, which in part were caused by criticism over the high coronavirus rate.

The fact the regime is doing this shows it is on the defensive. It is not solving any of the major problems. The COVID-19 situation is much worse than the official media say, he added.

As of Thursday, Cuba has more than a half-million confirmed cases and 4,500 deaths from COVID-19, according to data from the Johns Hopkins University. Its new case rate is estimated at 9,376 a day over the past week.

De La Grange said 14ymedio and other independent media had managed to circumvent controls because Havana does not operate a total block on the internet in the way that China does.

This decree is a way to try to punish those who publish what the regime calls 'fake news' but it is what we know is the true situation, said De La Grange.

Under the new decree, the state telecommunications company can suspend access to the internet for those found to have broken the new law.

Journalist Camila Acosta said that despite the regulations, Havana could not prevent millions of Cubans from accessing social media.

They can charge independent journalists like me  I have had five telephones confiscated this year alone  but they cannot possibly control millions of Cubans who access social media all the time. It is impossible, said Acosta, who works for the news website Cubanet, and for the Spanish daily ABC.

Acosta was arrested after reporting on the July demonstrations and has been placed under house arrest for six months while police investigate her case.

This will make my job more difficult, but they have introduced previous legislation to attack the free media so this is not new. What is new is that it is an attempt to stop people organizing demonstrations, Acosta told VOA from her home in Havana.

Digital repression

Since the introduction of mobile internet a bit more than two years ago, platforms including Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram have allowed Cubans to air complaints.

Havana insists that it permits free speech as long as it is within the revolution. But Decree 35 has alarmed Cuba civil rights campaigners, who say it uses vague language regarding what information internet users should provide to the government.

The law says users should grant public security institutions the technical facilities and services they require and give the Communications Ministry the information that (the ministry) determines.

"We have to see the context of this. Cuba has already introduced legislation to restrict the activities of journalists and activists, said Amnestys Americas director Erika Guevara-Rosas, referring to a law passed in 2019. This new decree is not sending out a message to them, it is sending a message to the general Cuban population."

It wants to strengthen a culture of fear among anyone who might be thinking of organizing protests or complaining about the fact you have to stand in line for hours to get basics in Cuba, Guevara-Rosas told VOA.

The communist government wanted to formalize digital repression in a country in which it already controls all aspects of life, Guevara-Rosas said.

U.S. lawmakers, including Senator Marco Rubio, as well as foreign diplomats in Havana, have criticized the new measure.

What the dictatorship doesnt realize is that the Cuban people have lost all fear to voice their opinions, theyve realized the despotic nature of the regime and arent afraid of protesting against over 60 [years] of repression, Rubio told VOA.

Congress this month passed an amendment co-sponsored by the Republican senator from Florida to provide Cubans uncensored access to the internet.

It is now in the [U.S.] presidents hands to act upon what Congress has approved, Rubio said.

British Ambassador to Cuba Antony Stokes also voiced concern at the decree, tweeting, Harassment, detentions against peaceful protesters, trials without due process and censorship embodied today by Decree Law 35 silence legitimate voices and violate international conventions.
In the West African country of Burkina Faso, a de facto ban is preventing journalists from visiting sites for internally displaced people.

For at least a year, the Ministry of Women, National Solidarity, Family and Humanitarian Action has been turning down official requests to visit camps, local journalists say.

A Burkina Faso government spokesperson has cited two reasons for visits being denied: the protection of the "dignity" of those in the camps and the safety of journalists.

While armed groups are a threat in some parts of the country, many of the camps for internally displaced people (IDPs) are in safer regions and have not been the target of attacks. Many are accessible to media with little risk, journalists say.

Humanitarians and journalists believe the ban is linked to a report published by the nongovernmental organization Oxfam in May 2020. The report focused on the experiences of female IDPs, who it said are at risk of sexual abuse.

Analysts and those who cover the camps say the ban comes amid a more restrictive environment for reporting in Burkina Faso, including a 2019 law that carries a 10-year sentence for reporting that "demoralizes" the military.

"This new policy follows the worsening censorship trend in Burkina Faso," said Alexandra Lamarche, a senior advocate for West Africa at the Washington-based advocacy group Refugees International. "While the government may claim to be preserving the dignity of its displaced citizens, this is yet another effort to deny and hide the true magnitude of the crisis."

More than 1.2 million people have been displaced by Burkina Faso's war with rebel groups in the north and east of the country, which started in 2015, according to United Nations estimates. Many of the armed groups are linked to the Islamic State group and al-Qaida.

"At present, 78% of these displaced people live in displacement sites," Lamarche said.

Unlike refugees, IDPs seek safety within their own country.

Burkina Faso Minister of Communications Ousseni Tamboura, who earlier cited media safety concerns for the ban, defended the country's relationship with journalists, telling VOA, "Freedom of the press is doing very well."

The Ministry of Women, National Solidarity, Family and Humanitarian Action did not respond to VOA's request for an interview.

Media access

An international journalist described the lack of access to the camps as "unfortunate."

"The people I've spoken to say they want their voices heard so people will know what they're going through," said the journalist, who is based in the region and asked to remain anonymous. "It's the best way for people to understand their situation."

The government's argument that the ban is designed to protect the safety of journalists doesn't hold water either, the journalist said. There are sites where neither IDPs nor journalists are in danger.

"If the government wants to protect their dignity, it shouldn't silence them," the journalist told VOA, adding that "it's part of a larger picture of a shrinking media freedom space."

Some members of the media say they have found other ways to report on the camps, such as visiting IDPs in unofficial host communities or walking in without permission when sites are unattended. Others say they ask residents to come out to be interviewed.

Without access, journalists cannot verify reports of water shortages and other issues that the camp residents say they face.

Press freedom record

Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has said that Burkina Faso is "one of Africa's success stories" and cited its "dynamic, professional and diverse media."

In RSF's 2021 World Press Freedom Index, where 1 is the freest, the country ranks 37th out of 180 countries, the fifth best in Africa.

In the country, however, reports deemed to have "demoralized" the military carry a 10-year prison sentence and large fines. To date, no journalist or outlet has been prosecuted under the 2019 law, but its vague wording has raised concerns.

A 2020 report in the Columbia Journalism Review found that local journalists, when reporting on the ongoing conflict, have "complained of a culture of intimidation in which informants are afraid to speak."

Two news outlets were reprimanded over their coverage of a raid on the village of Solhan, the biggest attack the country has seen since its conflict began.

A local radio station, Omega, was suspended for five days after it reported apparently false claims of further attacks in the vicinity one day after the initial assault. And the French radio station RFI was reprimanded for reporting that the deputy mayor of Solhan had said there was a second attack one day later, which the military denied.

In response to the RFI case, government minister Tamboura said the deputy mayor had not been at the location and therefore could not "guarantee the truth of the facts."

Tamboura also referred VOA to Burkina Faso's high ranking on the RSF index, saying, "The professional media associations and the ministry are in a regular working relationship on many matters of concern, and I have not yet heard or received any letters relating to these complaints."

French Burkinabe journalist Fanny Noaro-Kabre said recent events "show things are getting tougher, [but] I find it easy to be a journalist here."

"No threats, no intimidation. Accreditation can be obtained, for the moment, easily, said Noaro-Kabre, who has been based in the country for six years. "Compared to other countries on the continent, we don't have to hide."

Vital role

Investigative reporting and coverage of human rights is important, said Jessica Ni Mhainin, a policy research and advocacy officer at the freedom of expression organization Index on Censorship.

"Journalists fulfill a crucial public service by holding power to account, but the authorities must provide them with an enabling environment in order for them to do so," Ni Mhainin added.

Lamarche said her organization had seen similar policies enforced in other countries with humanitarian crises, adding, "Very limited good comes of such efforts."

In northeast Nigeria, where Boko Haram is active, security forces control the movement of people in and out of camps and have used this authority to prevent reporters from reporting on the crisis, she said.

IDP sites in Burkina Faso fall under the jurisdiction of the government, not humanitarian groups.

When asked if they had seen a dearth of local reporting on IDPs since the ban was implemented, a local journalist replied, "Of course."

The journalist, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals, added, "Now, we can't be expected to gather information on all sorts of subjects that need to be reported: the rapes and sexual abuse committed at the [IDP] sites, sometimes the lack of food, water and housing."
Scientists from multiple organizations that monitor and assess the state of the Earth's climate system warn the world is not on track to meet the target of the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2050.

The United in Science 2021 report warns greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere are continuing at record levels, committing the planet to dangerous future warming. It notes the last five-year period has been the warmest since record-keeping began in 1850.

Scientists say rising temperatures due to human activity are causing higher than average temperatures in the Arctic, Europe and Asia. That is increasing the frequency and intensity of floods, droughts, wildfires, storms, and other extreme weather events throughout the world.

Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization Petteri Taalas says weather events that used to happen every 100 years now are happening every 20 years because of climate change. He warns they will occur with even greater frequency in the future if the world does not limit warming to well below two degrees Celsius by mid-century.

"Now we are heading towards three degrees warming instead of 1.5 to two degrees," he said."And it has been shown clearly that it would be beneficial for the welfare of us human beings and the welfare of the biosphere and the planet to reach the lower limit of the Paris Agreement of 1.5 degrees."

The report notes that COVID-19 has had no impact on climate change. It says pandemic lockdowns and economic slowdowns reduced air pollution for a time, but was only temporary. Now that societies are opening again, it says carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere are growing.

Taalas says mitigation measures can reduce the release of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere and reduce climate change, but for this to happen, people must change their daily behavior.

"If we fail with climate mitigation, we would have a permanent problem for at least hundreds or even thousands of years and both economic and human wellbeing events would be much more dramatic than this COVID pandemic, which has been hitting us all in a dramatic way," he said.

In a forward to the United in Science report, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warns time is running out. He says all countries must commit to net-zero emissions by 2050, backed up by concrete long-term strategies to prevent further irreversible damage.

He says these pledges must be made now for November's U.N. Climate Change Conference in Glasgow to be a turning point in the fight for the survival of the planet.


Somalia's president announced Thursday that he has suspended the hiring and firing powers of the prime minister during the Horn of Africa country's slow-moving election period.

President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, commonly known as Farmajo, made his announcement via a Facebook post on Villa Somalia, the official presidential account. Farmajo accused Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble of making rash decisions, which he said "could lead the country into [a] political and security crisis."

Roble did not respond immediately to Farmajo's statement. A source close to Roble told VOA's Somali Service that he would "soon" share his views with the Somali people.

The two leaders' relationship has grown increasingly strained over the case of missing intelligence officer Ikran Tahlil Farah, a young woman who disappeared June 26.

She was employed by the National Intelligence Agency, which said in early September that she had fallen into the hands of al-Shabab militants and was killed by the group. Al-Shabab has denied the accusation about Farah.

Roble assigned a military court to investigate the case and appointed a new intelligence agency director to replace Fahad Yassin. But Farmajo rejected Roble's appointment.

On Monday, Farmajo had announced a five-member commission, chaired by the attorney general, to investigate the spy case. But Roble objected to that decision, saying Somalia's constitution requires that the judicial branch remain independent of the executive branch.

Parliamentary elections are underway, with 35 of the 54 seats in the upper house already chosen. Elections for the 275-seat lower chamber are expected in coming weeks. Members of those two chambers elect the president, a process that could take months. Farmajo took office in February 2017; his current term formally ended February 8.


Three imprisoned Iranian dissidents will be honored next month at Pen America's annual gala.

The literary and human rights organization announced Thursday that writer-filmmaker Baktash Abtin, novelist-journalist Keyvan Bajan and author-critic Reza Khandan Mahabadi are this year's recipients of the 2021 PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award. All three are members of the anti-censorship Iranian Writers Association and are serving a collective 15.5 years on charges including endangering national security and "spreading propaganda."

"Baktash Abtin, Keyvan Bajan, and Reza Khandan Mahabadi are embodiments of the spirit that animates our work at PEN America." They are writers who are called not only to offer prose and ideas on a page, but to live fearlessly  and sacrifice immensely in service of the liberties that underpin free thought, art, culture, and creativity," PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel said in a statement.

"By taking up the mantle of leadership within Iran's literary community, they have served as beacons for countless authors and thinkers whose ability to imagine, push boundaries, and challenge repression under the most dangerous conditions is fed by the knowledge that they do not stand alone."

The PEN gala is scheduled for Oct. 5 at its longtime venue the American Museum of Natural History, with Awkwafina serving as host and others receiving awards including scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Walt Disney Chairman Robert Iger. Last year's ceremony was held online because of the pandemic.

The Freedom to Write Award, given to artists and writers jailed for their work, has been awarded to Russian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov and the Chinese writer-activist Xu Zhiyong among others. According to PEN, 44 out of the previous 48 honorees have since been freed.

PEN has not yet determined who will accept the award on behalf of this year's winners.
The U.N. Children's Fund in Nigeria said at least 1 million Nigerian children could miss school this year because of insecurity, as schools in the north of the country have been targeted by armed groups in a series of mass kidnappings for ransom.

UNICEF Nigeria said Wednesday the country had recorded 20 school attacks this year alone, and 1,436 students have been abducted. The report also showed that 16 students have been killed, and 200 remain missing.

As schools across the country began opening this week for a new semester, more than 37 million students are due back at schools.



But officials reported low attendance in attack-prone areas like north central Kaduna state. In the capital, authorities pushed back the resumption date to September 19 without giving a reason.





In the UNICEF report, country representative Peter Hawkins urged Nigerian authorities to prioritize security at schools, stating it was unacceptable for communities to be worried to send their children to school over fears they will be abducted.



Emmanuel Hwande, spokesperson at Nigerian Union of Teachers, said the government must take responsibility.



"We want the government to take actions, actions that will see that the security agencies respond properly to incidents of kidnapping, incidents of abduction where we'll see them actively involved, actively engaging such criminal elements," Hwande said.

Ransom-seeking criminal gangs began targeting schools in northern Nigeria late last year. Amnesty international says hundreds of schools there have been closed as a result.



Abuja resident Florence Ulo is scared about sending her five-year-old son back to school.



"Even me that is in the city, and of course my son's school is not far from the house and they have security, but I still don't feel comfortable," she said. "The thought of that they can go into a school and abduct children is very scary for a parent."

Last year, the coronavirus pandemic set back school calendars and disrupted learning for millions of students in Nigeria. UNICEF's Hawkins said the situation has worsened "with the additional challenge of school closures due to prevailing insecurity across the country."



He said that while countries worldwide, including Nigeria, have taken action to provide remote learning, many students are not being reached.



He said UNICEF joined a global "digital freeze" of social media Thursday to protest the inability of children around the world to access classrooms, and that unless mitigation measures are implemented, the World Bank estimates a loss of $10 trillion U.S. dollars in earnings over time for the present generation of students globally.


U.S. President Joe Biden and his wife on Thursday visited a Maryland hospital treating troops wounded in Afghanistan, four days after the U.S. military completed its withdrawal from the country.

"Tonight, the president and first lady are visiting wounded warriors at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center," the White House said.

Biden spent a little under two hours at the hospital, but no further details were provided by the administration on the visit, including whether the president met with service members.

The military hospital, located in a northwest suburb of Washington, is treating, among others, a dozen US service members wounded in an Aug. 26 attack on the Kabul airport during the evacuation of foreign personnel and Afghan allies, U.S. media reported.

On Sunday, Biden and his wife, Jill, paid tribute to the 13 US service members killed in the attack, as their remains were returned to the United States at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.

Claimed by the Islamic State's regional arm IS-Khorasan, the suicide attack killed over 100 people, making it one of the deadliest bombings for civilians in Kabul in recent years, and leading to the worst single-day death toll for the US military in Afghanistan since 2011.
First-time claims for U.S. unemployment compensation increased last week but remained near the low point during the 18-month coronavirus pandemic, the Labor Department reported Thursday.



A total of 332,000 jobless workers filed for assistance  up 20,000 from the revised figure of the week before. In part, benefit claims increased because Hurricane Idas drenching rains played havoc with the economy in the southern state of Louisiana.



Still, the claims figures for the last month have been on the whole the lowest since the pandemic swept through the U.S. beginning in March 2020, although they remain above the 218,000 average of 2019.



The jobless claims total has fallen steadily but unevenly since topping 900,000 in early January. Filings for unemployment compensation often have been seen as a current reading of the countrys economic health, but other statistics are also relevant barometers.



Even as the U.S. government said last month that its world-leading economy grew by an annualized rate of 6.6% in the April-to-June period, in August it added only a disappointing 235,000 more jobs. Economists said that figure was partly reflective of the surging delta variant of the coronavirus inhibiting job growth.



The number of new jobs was down sharply from the more than 2 million combined figure added in June and July. The unemployment rate dipped to 5.2%, which is still nearly two percentage points higher than before the pandemic started in March 2020.



About 8.7 million workers remain unemployed in the U.S. There are nearly 11 million available jobs in the country, but the skills of the available workers often do not match what employers want, or the job openings are not where the unemployed live.



The size of the U.S. economy  nearly $23 trillion  now exceeds its pre-pandemic level as it recovers faster than many economists had predicted during the worst of the business closings more than a year ago.



How fast the growth continues remains an open question.



For months, the national government had sent an extra $300 a week in unemployment compensation, on top of often less generous state aid, to jobless workers. But that extra assistance has now ended throughout the country. About 7.5 million jobless workers were affected by the cutoff in extra funding.



In addition, the delta variant of the coronavirus poses a new threat to the economy.



Political disputes have erupted in numerous states between conservative Republican governors who have resisted imposing mandatory face mask and vaccination rules in their states at schools and businesses, although some education and municipal leaders are advocating for tougher rules to try to prevent the spread of the delta variant.



U.S. President Joe Biden has ordered workers at companies with 100 or more employees to get vaccinated or be tested weekly for the coronavirus. In addition, he is requiring 2.5 million national government workers and contractors who work for the government to get vaccinated if they havent already been inoculated.



In recent weeks, about 150,000 new cases have been identified each day in the U.S., and more than 1,500 people are dying from COVID-19 daily.



More than 65% of U.S. adults now have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, and overall, 54.1% of the U.S. population of 332 million.
The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned five al-Qaida supporters for allegedly helping the militant group with financial assistance.

The department said the operatives supporting al-Qaida were working out of Turkey.

"We will continue working with our foreign partners, including Turkey, to expose and disrupt al-Qaida's financial support networks," Treasury Department official Andrea Gacki said in a statement.

Five individuals named

The department said Egyptian lawyer Majdi Salim, whom it described as the main facilitator, was sanctioned, along with Muhammad Nasr al-Din al-Ghazlani, an Egyptian financial courier, and Turkish citizens Nurettin Muslihan, Cebrail Guzel and Soner Gurleyen.

"As a result of today's action, all property and interests in property of these individuals named above, and of any entities that are owned, directly or indirectly, 50 percent or more by them, individually, or with other blocked persons, that are in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons must be blocked and reported to OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control)," the department said in a statement.

"Unless authorized by a general or specific license issued by OFAC or otherwise exempt, OFAC's regulations generally prohibit all transactions by U.S. persons or within the United States (including transactions transiting the United States) that involve any property or interests in property of blocked or designated or otherwise blocked persons," the statement added.

Some information for this report came from Reuters.
Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido was in London on Tuesday as part of a surprise international trip to revive support for forcing the resignation of the countrys authoritarian leader, Nicolas Maduro. One year ago, Guaido was recognized by the U.S. and over 50 countries as Venezuelas interim president after Maduro blocked opponents in the last presidential election. However, VOAs Brian Padden reports.
Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido has gotten a boost after a four-day visit to Washington where he met with President Donald Trump and other U.S. officials. It's been a year since the United States and other Western nations threw their support behind Guaido with little success in pushing Nicolas Maduro from power. VOAs Ardita Dunellari reports.
The global battle against COVID-19 is expected to be top of mind for Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc when he travels to the United States for the U.N. General Assembly session next week, following a weekend stopover in Cuba. It remains unclear whether he will meet with U.S. President Joe Biden or other Western leaders on the sidelines of the U.N. session.



Vietnam's Foreign Ministry announced plans for the visit Wednesday, saying Phuc will pay an official visit to Cuba from September 18 to September 20 before arriving in New York to attend the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly. He will be in the United States from September 21 to September 24.



In his first overseas trip since being elected president by the National Assembly in April, Phuc is expected to introduce Vietnam's diplomatic policy to the United Nations. In an interview Thursday with Vietnamese media, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Dang Hoang Giang stressed that Phuc would express Vietnam's desire to work with other countries on COVID-19 prevention and other urgent problems.



Giang said Phuc will meet with other leaders in New York to discuss ways of controlling the pandemic and speeding economic recovery. The former prime minister also will meet with leading U.S. vaccine manufacturers to seek the "earliest, fastest, and most effective possible delivery commitments for Vietnam, as well as medicine, equipment, and medical supplies to prevent COVID-19."





Aside from the pandemic, analysts will be paying close attention to see who Phuc meets on the sidelines of the General Assembly debate, particularly since this will be the first U.S. visit by a Vietnamese leader since the 13th National Party Congress in late January.



The visit coincides with Biden's first in-person meeting with his fellow QUAD leaders  Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Phuc held phone talks Wednesday with Suga, but it remained unclear whether he will meet in New York with Biden or any of the other QUAD leaders.



A source familiar with the matter told VOA that Phuc is expected to meet in New York with Korean President Moon Jae In. VOA also learned that Vietnam has been trying to arrange such a meeting with the U.S. side.



Vietnam considers the annual U.N. session in New York, which attracts dozens of world leaders, as a good opportunity for party-to-party and people-to-people diplomacy. Phuc also may reach out to thank Americans who have worked to help Vietnam overcome the impact of the toxic defoliant Agent Orange, which was widely used by the United States during the Vietnam War.



"Bilateral activities in the United States are expected to make important contributions to enhancing the cooperation between Vietnam and the new U.S. administration, promoting the well-developed Comprehensive Partnership, and be consistent with the shared goals and interests of both Vietnam and the United States," Giang said Thursday.



He said Phuc also will meet with members of the U.S. business community to "inform about Vietnam's efforts in controlling and repelling the pandemic and restoring production, thereby helping strengthen confidence and attract more investment from U.S. investors, businesses and partners."



Earlier this month, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh received U.S. Charge d'Affaires Christopher Klein and representatives from U.S. enterprises and investors in Hanoi. The Americans told the Vietnamese leader about their operations in Vietnam, describing their problems and making proposals related to supply chains, logistics, work permits and access to vaccines.



Chinh affirmed Vietnam's commitment to its vaccination campaign and said the country will double down on efforts to advance the proposals made by the U.S. businesses.



Vietnamese state media reported that Chinh also asked the Americans "to boost closer coordination with Vietnamese ministries, sectors and localities so as to effectively implement pandemic containment measures, maintain production activities, ensure social welfare for workers and facilitate Vietnamese businesses' investment in the U.S."
Vietnam is speeding up its vaccination program in an effort to loosen coronavirus lockdown restrictions in major cities by the end of the month, the government said Monday.



Health workers administered vaccines throughout the night in the capital, Hanoi, which has been under lockdown since July.



More than a million vaccine shots were given over the weekend in Hanoi, out of around 5.5 million administered there since vaccinations started in March, the Health Ministry said.



We have to speed up the vaccination program so we can make a plan to reopen the city, Hanoi mayor Chu Ngoc Anh said Sunday. More than half of the countrys 98 million population is also under lockdown.



About 80% of the citys 5.7 million adults have received at least one shot, with authorities aiming for 100% by the end of this week.



However, the countrys overall vaccination rate remains low at about 28%, and only 4% have been fully vaccinated with both jabs.



Vietnam managed to keep its infection rate relatively low up until April this year, with only 35 deaths. Last year it was praised for keeping the virus under control, an accomplishment generally attributed to the discipline of being a single-party communist state with tight controls at all levels.



But vaccine shortages forced Vietnam to slow down its vaccination program in recent months, even as the delta variant of the virus infected over 600,000 people and killed more than 15,000 in just four months.



In Ho Chi Minh City, the nations business hub and most hard-hit by the surge, over 95% of adults have received the first vaccine, but many who need to come in for the second dose arent able to get it due to low supplies.



Among measures to cope with the shortage, Vietnams health authority has allowed combinations of different two-dose COVID-19 vaccines to speed up the vaccination campaign. Experts say this tactic is likely safe and effective, but researchers are still gathering data to be sure.



Vietnam is currently using AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Moderna and Sinopharm, a Chinese-made vaccine.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivered to Congress this week an unwavering defense of the Biden administration's exit from Afghanistan, in which he outlined the administration's priorities for the country going forward.

Here are those priorities and the challenges in meeting them.

Assisting Americans and at-risk Afghans

Blinken said the administration was continuing "relentless efforts" to help the fewer than 100 remaining Americans as well as potentially thousands of at-risk Afghans to leave the country if they choose.

Citing the "ongoing terrorist threat to operations of this nature," the State Department declined to provide an official count of Afghans attempting to flee.

A VOA source with knowledge of the evacuation process says that as of Sunday, at least 1,300 at-risk Afghans and U.S.-affiliated individuals are seeking to leave through the Kabul airport or overland transport. Approximately 8,200 are trying to depart from the Mazar-e-Sharif airport, where charter planes have waited for weeks to be cleared for departure.

"The United States has pulled every lever available to us to facilitate the departure of these charter flights from Mazar," a State Department spokesman said.

But those assisting evacuations are losing patience and accuse the administration of offering "empty promises."

"As the days go by and the situation becomes more dire for our 704 passengers, it's hard to have any faith in political promises," independent humanitarian Hazami Barmada told VOA. In recent weeks, she has been assisting the evacuation of a group that includes nine American citizens, nine lawful permanent residents of the U.S., and 170 Special Immigrant Visa holders and their families. As of Wednesday, the group is still stranded in Mazar-e-Sharif.

Engaging diplomatically with Taliban

The U.S. and other Western nations have moved diplomatic operations from Kabul to Doha, Qatar. Blinken said the U.S. was prepared to engage with the Taliban from the Qatari capital in coordination with allies and partners "on the basis of whether or not it advances our interests."

With military intervention no longer a point of leverage for the foreseeable future, the challenge is "how to be diplomatic with a terrorist group," said Brian O'Toole, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.

Paired with the right leverage, diplomacy may be effective, O'Toole said. This includes the previous Afghan government's $9.5 billion in assets currently frozen in American banks, U.S. dominance over the global financial market, and threats of United Nations and Western sanctions or trade restrictions. Incentives could include offers of international aid, budgetary assistance and recognition of the Taliban government.

Blinken said the U.S. has organized key countries to leverage their combined influence over the Taliban. Last week, he led a ministerial meeting of 22 countries plus NATO, the EU, and the United Nations to align these efforts.

The effectiveness of the soft power approach also depends on whether the Taliban will continue to behave as an extremist group or move toward governing Afghanistan as part of the international community in some form.

At this point, the signals are mixed, said Michael O'Hanlon, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Despite their pledges to build an inclusive government, members of the all-male interim cabinet are Taliban old guard who may care more about maintaining the internal cohesion of the group than about placating the West. On the positive side, the Taliban have been largely cooperative in the U.S.-led evacuation of 124,000 people out of Afghanistan.



We were adversaries when our country was occupied," Taliban spokesperson Suhail Shaheen told VOA. He added the Taliban has "turned a new page with its former battleground enemy and that it "depends on the U.S." whether they will help in the rebuilding of Afghanistan.

So far, the Taliban are calculating that it's in their best interest to help Washington, O'Hanlon said. "They really don't want to be in a military fight with the United States, even if they won the previous fight."

Over-the-horizon capability

A key priority of the administration is ensuring that Afghanistan does not become a breeding ground for terrorists plotting attacks on the homeland. U.S. intelligence, however, can no longer closely monitor terror groups such as al-Qaida and the Islamic State-Khorasan province.

"There's just no question, as you pull out, without troops on the ground, without the infrastructure we had, without the Afghan government in the position that it was, our intelligence collection is diminished," Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told attendees at a national security summit Monday.

Now the administration is relying on its "over-the-horizon" capacity  its ability to detect and destroy terrorist threats through aerial surveillance and drones launched from outside of country. The same approach has been employed in places around the world where the U.S. does not have military forces on the ground, Blinken said.

But in those countries, the U.S. has at least some intelligence and logistical support, either from a military base or a partner country nearby.

"In Somalia, we're nearby in Kenya. In Syria, we're nearby in Iraq or Turkey. In Yemen, we have access to the water right around Yemen and, if necessary, facilities on the Arabian Peninsula as well," O'Hanlon said. "But here in Afghanistan, the landlocked Hindu Kush, we don't really have any easy, close by waterway. And we don't have any countries that are particularly interested in helping us monitor the Taliban."

There are no American bases in any of the six countries that border Afghanistan. The closest base is more than 1,600 kilometers away, in the United Arab Emirates, and it was used to launch drone strikes against IS-Khorasan during the chaotic last days of evacuations before the August 31 withdrawal.

The best option for Washington is to engage with Pakistan, said James Jeffrey, former special envoy to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS and current chair of the Middle East Program at the Wilson Center.

"We have been at odds with Pakistan because of their support of the Taliban," Jeffrey said. "But now that de facto the Taliban is no longer an enemy, I see no reason why we can't, as part of our overall approach, force the Pakistanis to allow us to strike ISIS and al-Qaida from their territory."

How much support Washington can wrangle out of Islamabad remains to be seen. "There is no way we are going to allow any bases, any sort of action from Pakistani territory into Afghanistan," Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan said in June.

Earlier this month, U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Director Willam Burns flew to Pakistan and India to discuss with counterparts the security concerns following the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.

Support humanitarian aid to Afghan people

On Monday, the administration announced it would send nearly $64 million in new humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan, for a total of $330 million in assistance to the Afghan people this fiscal year. Blinken said the aid would flow through independent organizations such as nongovernmental organizations and U.N. agencies and not through the Taliban government.

"That may work for $64 million in aid, because you can air-drop things and the Taliban has no air presence," said O'Toole. But it will be challenging to distribute larger aid packages without the blessing of those in power.

"You're talking about having real supply convoys and land routes," O'Toole added. "It may be hard to avoid the Taliban."

Moving on from Afghanistan

While Afghanistan has been the first major foreign policy crisis for the administration, the focus will continue to be on Biden's domestic priorities, said Aaron David Miller, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

"Within that context, Afghanistan is an issue that they would like to put in the rearview mirror," Miller said.

Polls show Americans are more focused on issues such as the pandemic and the recent Biden vaccine mandate, the push to renew the nation's infrastructure, and the upcoming fight on the debt ceiling.

"There are just so many issues out there that I wouldn't be surprised if Afghanistan receded to some degree," said Karlyn Bowman, a distinguished senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who focuses on American public opinion.

"But clearly as we move ahead toward the 2022 elections, Republicans will remind Americans what happened in Afghanistan," Bowman added.

Biden's approval rating has dropped to a new low of 43% with Americans disapproving of his handling of foreign policy (56%) and the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan (61%), according to a September 2 NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll.

Still, a majority of Americans said they support the decision to withdraw in recent polls from the Pew Research Center and ABC News/Washington Post.

Jeff Seldin and VOA's Urdu Service contributed to this report.


The United States is developing a "new system for international travel" that will include contact tracing for when the nation eventually lifts travel restrictions that bar much of the world's population from entering, a senior White House official said Wednesday.

White House coronavirus response coordinator Jeff Zients told the U.S. Travel and Tourism Advisory Board that the administration does not plan to immediately relax any travel restrictions, citing COVID-19 delta variant cases in the United States and around the world.

Reuters first reported early in August that the White House was developing vaccine entry requirements that could cover nearly all foreign visitors. The White House previously confirmed it was considering mandating vaccines for foreign international visitors.

"The American people need to trust that the new system for international travel is safer even as we  I mean, at that point, we'll be letting in more travelers," Zients said Wednesday, adding that existing restrictions eventually would be replaced.

"We are exploring considering vaccination requirements for foreign nationals traveling to the United States," Zients said.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said at the same meeting that the spike in COVID-19 cases was preventing the lifting of international travel restrictions. "We want to move to a metrics-based system," Raimondo said. "Before we can do that, we have to get a better handle on the domestic situation, which requires us to get everyone vaccinated."

'Vaccination rates matter'

Zients said the new plan would replace the current restrictions and would be "safer, stronger and sustainable." He did not lay out specific metrics for when the administration might relax restrictions.

"Vaccination rates matter here at home and other countries," Zients said, urging travel companies such as airlines to quickly mandate employee vaccines.

Some industry officials fear the Biden administration may not lift travel restrictions for months or potentially until 2022.

The extraordinary U.S. travel restrictions were first imposed on China in January 2020 to address the spread of COVID-19. Numerous other countries have been added, most recently India, in May.

The administration wants to lift travel restrictions "as soon as we can," Zients said.

Zients said the new system would include collecting contact tracing data from passengers traveling to the United States to enable the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to contact travelers exposed to COVID-19.

The Trump administration in 2020 blocked an effort to require airlines to collect contact tracing information from U.S.-bound international passengers after some senior administration officials cited privacy concerns.

Zients said they wanted the new system to be "ready to press 'go' on" when it is safe to lift restrictions. "We get the importance of this."

The United States currently bars most non-U.S. citizens who within the past 14 days have been in the United Kingdom, the 26 Schengen countries in Europe without border controls, Ireland, China, India, South Africa, Iran and Brazil.

The United States separately bars nonessential travel by most non-U.S. citizens at U.S. land borders with Mexico and Canada.

Critics say restrictions no longer make sense, because some countries with high rates of COVID-19 infections are not on the restricted list, while others on the list have the pandemic under control.
On September 26 Germans will go to the polls in a federal election to apportion seats in the Bundestag and decide who will succeed Angela Merkel as chancellor. Marking the end of the Merkel era, many view this electoral contest as Germanys most important election in decades.

But one wouldnt be able to guess that from the campaign, which has been bland and cautious. All the main party leaders have played for safety, promising political continuity and competing over who has the right to be seen as the true ideological heir of Angela Merkel, whos retiring from politics.

Is this the most boring election ever? newspaper Die Welt asked recently.

What excitement and fizz thats been seen so far in the election has come just in the past few days. Armin Laschet, the leader of center-right Christian Democrats, or CDU, Merkels party, accused Sunday his Social Democrat opponent, Olaf Scholz, currently Germanys finance minister, of mismanagement following recent raids by prosecutors on the finance ministry in a money-laundering probe.

And Merkel has come out from the sidelines to join the fray with an uncharacteristically sharp attack on Olaf Scholz and a warning that a vote for his party could let in the far left. Voters had two options, she says: a government made up of the center-left and the Greens which accepts the support of the left-wing party, or at least doesn't exclude it, or a moderate conservative-led government with Armin Laschet as chancellor.

Merkels reference to a leftwing party was to Die Linke, a party formed in 2007 after a merger between the remnants of the Communist ruling party of former East Germany and a far-left West German group.

No clear majority

Neither the Social Democrats, SPD, or the CDU will have sufficient votes to form a single-party government and will have to shape a coalition government after weeks and possibly months of horse-trading and wrangling. The new German government will be a coalition of likely three parties, say analysts.

Merkels rare criticism of the SPD, the junior partner party in her governing coalition since 2013, is seen as testimony to the CDUs parlous state in the polls. It is the first time in 15 years that the SPD has overtaken the CDU in opinion polling.

Laschets CDU and its Bavarian affiliate, the Christian Social Union, CSU, have fallen six points behind the SPD and with less than two weeks remaining the story of this election has been the surprising rise of the Social Democrats, who are polling at 25%, a back from the dead revival.

Earlier this year, the SPD was being written off but Scholz, a political pragmatist, has managed through his own high favorability ratings to pull the party up and now is being tipped by pollsters and political commentators to succeed Merkel.

With the German election campaign entering its final stretch, Scholz popularityhas finally morphed into support for his party, according to Henning Hoff, editor of the Internationale Politik Quarterly, which is published by the German Council on Foreign Relations.

There is now much to suggest that Germanys next government will be led by Olaf Scholz, he added in his assessment of the direction of electoral travel. Scholz, he argues, has shown shrewdness in his campaigning and is managing to persuade many voters that he is a natural Merkel successor by projecting professionalism and reliability almost to a fault.

Perhaps most miraculously, the SPD has shown uncharacteristic discipline since the campaign started in earnest. There has been next to no sniping, even when Scholz deftly steers the SPD on a distinctly centrist course. The candidate has practically merged with his party. The SPD is Scholz, at least for now, according to Henning.

He has also been lucky, considering his opponents.

Green Party leader Annalena Baerbock, a fresh face who was the darling of the media at the start of the year, has fallen by the wayside following a string of mishaps and missteps. And Laschet, state premier of North Rhine-Westphalian, has turned in a lackluster performance, the nadir of which, according to pollsters, came in July when he was caught on camera chuckling with aides in the background when accompanying German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on a tour of towns stricken by record floods.

Discontent with Laschet in the ranks of the CDU and the CSU has risen with each polling downgrade. Last week, the CSU secretary general, Markus Blume, said the center-right bloc would have fared better if Markus Soder, the President of Bavaria and CSU leader, had been chosen instead of Laschet as the candidate for chancellor. Some CDU lawmakers have publicly agreed.

This week, the walker of the pro-business Free Democrats, Christian Lindner, said he was surprised by the weakness of the CDU and by how fuzzy its policies are.

Last week, Laschet suffered another setback when a court ruled that a 2018 police eviction ordered by his North Rhine-Westphalia government against environmental protesters was illegal. An activist died during the police operation.

Shifting support

Laschets hopes of turning around the election rest with the large bloc of undecided voters and with the overall volatility of an election that has seen the lead change hands between the CDU, SPD and Greens several times since the start of the year.

But Scholz and his Social Democrats have significant momentum just when it counts  in the home stretch, say pollsters. Many Germans have already voted with early mail-in ballots.

If the SPD does top the poll later this month, Scholz will face the huge task of forming a coalition government and the negotiations likely will take months. His best hope will be to form a coalition with the Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats, but theres much that divides all three parties. The Greens are polling around 17% and the Free Democrats around 11%.

The divisions were emphasized Wednesday when Lindner, the Free Democrats leader, told Britains Financial Times that he will have strict conditions on participating in a Scholz-led coalition government.

The conditions will include tax cuts and restrictions on any new borrowing. The prerequisite for us joining any coalition is that we cant have tax increases and we respect the constitutional debt brake, he said. Whoever wants to do something else will have to look for another partner, he added.

Both Scholz and the Greens want higher taxes to boost public investment and redistribute wealth. If Scholz fails to reel in the Free Democrats, he might have to turn to Die Linke to form a government or to make an approach to the defeated CDU.It is still quite possible that despite coming in second, Laschet will have an opportunity, too, to form a coalition government. Lindner believes the CDU has more coalition options than Scholz.

Some information for this article came from AFP.
North Korea said the ballistic missiles it launched Wednesday were fired from a train, the first time the nuclear-armed country has tested a railway-based launch system.

Wednesdays launch is North Koreas second in less than a week, as it increases pressure on the United States over stalled nuclear talks.

Pictures posted in state media Thursday showed a dark green missile emerging from a railcar parked near a tunnel in a mountainous area, which was filled with orange plumes of smoke and fire from the launch.

The drill, which involved North Koreas Railway Mobile Missile Regiment, is part of a wider effort to enable the country to strike an intensive blow to the menacing forces in many places at the same time, according to the Korean Central News Agency.

The train-based launch gives North Korea yet another option for launching and protecting its rapidly expanding missile arsenal.

North Korea has been pushing hard to develop more ways to launch missiles, whether from the sea, roads, or, now, railways. Analysts say the multipronged strategy is meant to make it more difficult for U.S. and other intelligence agencies to monitor, predict, and detect North Korean launches.

Theyre trying everything they can think of, Joshua Pollack, a researcher at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, told VOA.

Its just one more set of problems for the enemy, he said.

North Korea has long test-fired missiles using a variety of road-mobile launch vehicles, which provide more of an element of surprise than do firings from its formal launch facilities.

The North has also unveiled a series of submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Although it does not currently have a submarine capable of deploying such missiles, Pyongyang in 2019 offered its first glimpse of what appeared to be such a vessel under construction.

North Korea's strategy

With its latest train-based launch system, North Korea appears to be pursuing a relatively cheap and reliable way to rapidly transport a small number of missiles in ways that are difficult to detect, said Adam Mount, a senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists.

Russia did it. The U.S. considered it. It makes a ton of sense for North Korea, Mount said on Twitter.

There are drawbacks to such a strategy. North Koreas rail system is relatively small, old, and in bad shape.

In a crisis, U.S. intelligence will be capable of monitoring this rail network closely to determine its status, chart the movement of trains, and try to distinguish between decoy trains and ones that are nuclear armed, Mount said.

There are similar limitations with North Koreas other launch systems.

Many of North Koreas road-mobile launchers are massive, featuring as many as 22 wheels. That makes them difficult to maneuver, especially on North Korean roads, many of which are in poor condition.

While submarine-launched ballistic missiles would provide North Korea with an unpredictable new capability, some analysts say the threat is exaggerated. That is in part because North Korea apparently has yet to finish building, much less deploy, a single submarine capable of firing the missiles. The vessel being built, some analysts say, appears outdated.

Although each launch system has its own vulnerabilities, analysts say the Norths approach looks more dangerous when considered as a whole.

By diversifying its launch systems, North Korea is compounding the demands on a finite number of U.S. sensors, Mount said.

It is not clear whether or when North Korea will deploy its new launch systems, such as the ballistic missile submarine or the train-based launch system. However, it may feel more motivation to do so, as South Korea continues to unveil new weapons.

On Wednesday  the same day as the Norths ballistic missile launch  South Korea announced it conducted its first underwater test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile. The test makes South Korea only the seventh country with a homegrown one.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who observed the launch, said his countrys upgraded missile capabilities can be a sure-fire deterrent to North Koreas provocation.

Kim Yo Jong, the politically powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, blasted Moons remarks. North Koreas launches, she insisted, were not a provocation, but part of a normal and self-defensive action.

North Korea has repeatedly cited the South Korean military buildup, as well as the presence of U.S. troops, as justification for its own weapons advancement.
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California voters have rejected a move to unseat their governor in a recall election, a rarely used provision of direct democracy in some 20 U.S. states. Nearly two thirds of voters had rejected the recall effort by mid-Wednesday. Newsom, a Democrat, faced down 46 challengers.
Six years ago, more than a million migrants travelled across the Mediterranean and Europe to reach Germany - many of them Syrians escaping the civil war. So, could history repeat itself as refugees try to flee Taliban rule in Afghanistan? Henry Ridgwell reports.
China and France have reacted angrily to an agreement between the United States and Britain to help Australia develop a nuclear-powered submarine fleet as part of a new trilateral security partnership focused on the Indo-Pacific region.

"We need to be able to address both the current strategic environment in the region and how it may evolve," U.S. President Joe Biden said Wednesday at a White House event announcing the pact. "Because the future of each of our nations, and indeed the world, depends on a free and open Indo-Pacific enduring and flourishing in the decades ahead."

The trio will be known by the acronym AUKUS.

Biden, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson stressed that these nuclear-powered submarines will not carry nuclear weapons.

"Let me be clear, Australia is not seeking to acquire nuclear weapons or establish a civil nuclear capability," Morrison said, speaking virtually to the White House, along with his American and British counterparts. "And we will continue to meet all our nuclear nonproliferation obligations."

A senior Biden administration official who briefed reporters prior to the announcement set a timeline of 18 months for the three countries to work together to identify the optimal pathway for delivering the submarines.

Johnson said his country will play an important role in sharing knowledge with Australia, a former British colony that remains in the Commonwealth, an organization led by Queen Elizabeth II.

This agreement, he said, "will draw on the expertise that the U.K. has acquired over generations dating back to the launch of the Royal Navy's first nuclear submarine over 60 years ago."

The new partnership will allow the three countries to share information and expertise more easily in key technological areas such as artificial intelligence, cybertechnology, quantum technologies, underwater systems and long-range strike capabilities.

"This initiative is about making sure that each of us has a modern capability, the most modern capabilities we need to maneuver and defend against rapidly evolving threats," Biden said.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian Thursday warned during a press briefing in Beijing the agreement seriously undermines regional peace and stability. He accused the three nations of engaging in extremely irresponsible behavior and urged them to abandon their Cold War mentality.

Morrison also announced that Australia nullified a $43 billion contract with France to acquire a dozen of the worlds largest conventional submarines in favor of the nuclear-powered submarines with American technology, noting U.S. technology was not available in 2016 when the contract was finalized.

Biden noted that this is a multilateral effort, and that the trio welcomes help from longtime allies. "The United States looks forward to working closely with France and other key countries as we go forward," he said.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian responded to the cancellation, telling Franceinfo radio network that Australia betrayed his country.

This brutal, unilateral and unpredictable decision reminds me a lot of what Mr. Trump used to do, Le Drian said. I am angry and bitter. This isn't done between allies.

Just two weeks ago, French President Emmanuel Macron voiced optimism about future relations with Australia while hosting Morrison at a time when France and Australia reconfirmed the deal.

It's a stab in the back. We created a relationship of trust with Australia and that trust has been broken, Le Drian said.

Relations between Trump and Macron deteriorated during Trumps term in the White House. And some diplomats have voiced concerns in recent months that Biden is not being candid with Americas European allies.

Pushing back on China

Although none of the three leaders mentioned China in his remarks on Wednesday, analysts see this as another move by Western allies to push back on Beijing's rise in the military and technology arenas.

"It's already clear from the context that building for a high-intensity warfare environment  and that's what a submarine does  there is really only one clear potential adversary in that equation," said Euan Graham, senior fellow for Asia-Pacific security at the Singapore office of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The deal, signed by countries that already share close ties, is a clear sign of Washington's intention to remain a dominant and stabilizing power in the region.

"The U.S. effectively is willing to share almost everything it has," said Professor Julian Ku, who focuses on international disputes and law at Hofstra University in New York. "It takes what's already a very deep alliance to another level."

The new fleet, which a Biden administration official described as having the characteristics of "stealth, speed, maneuverability, survivability," will have a broader range and can stay below the surface for long periods.

"Tactically, this will give Canberra an operational means to sustain undersea combat power for much longer durations throughout the western Pacific when compared to Australia's current diesel submarine," said Eric Sayers, a nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who focuses on Asia-Pacific security policy.

China's navy has a fleet of 60 submarines, which includes six nuclear-powered attack subs.
The White House on Wednesday defended the top U.S. military commander, Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley, against calls for his resignation following disclosures in a new book by Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.

According to the book, titled "Peril," Milley told senior military officials that any attack orders coming from former President Donald Trump in the waning days of his presidency must be cleared with him. The book also disclosed that Milley twice called China to assure Beijing that no U.S. attack was imminent.

Under U.S. law, the president is the commander in chief and there is a tradition of civilian control of military leaders.

But Milley, believing that Trump had suffered a mental decline after losing his reelection bid last November, summoned his senior military leaders in early January to make sure they conferred with him before carrying out any overseas attack orders from Trump, according to the book. Milley has not challenged the assertions.

After the outreach to Beijing was disclosed Tuesday, senior officials said Milley had coordinated the calls with the knowledge of the office of the secretary of defense, the Pentagon's civilian leadership.

Trump issued no such attack orders in January as he prepared to leave Washington and turn the presidency over to Democrat Joe Biden, though he persists to this day in unfounded claims that he was cheated out another four-year term by fraudulent vote counts.

Milley has continued to lead the U.S. military during Biden's first eight months in office. But some Republican lawmakers have called for his resignation over the incidents described in the book, which is set for release next week.



White House press secretary Jen Psaki rejected any contention that Milley had violated the principle of civilian control of the military. She said Biden has "complete confidence in his leadership, his patriotism and his fidelity to the Constitution."

The incidents occurred at a time when the former president "fomented unrest leading to insurrection and an attack on our nation's Capitol," she said. Hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the building on January 6 to try to prevent lawmakers from certifying Biden's victory.

Psaki called the rioting at the Capitol "one of the darkest days in our nation's history."

Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, a frequent Biden critic, called for Milley's resignation, saying that Milley "worked to actively undermine the sitting commander in chief of the U.S. armed forces" and that his actions amounted to treason.

"Gen. Milley has attempted to rationalize his reckless behavior by arguing that what he perceived as the military's judgment was more stable than its civilian commander," Rubio wrote to Biden.

"It is a dangerous precedent that could be asserted at any point in the future by Gen. Milley or others," Rubio said. "It threatens to tear apart our nation's longstanding principle of civilian control of the military."

Another Republican, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, called the book's revelations "deeply concerning."

"Our Constitution embeds civilian control of the military, and if the chairman of the joint chiefs was actively undermining the commander in chief and pledging to our enemies to defy his own commander, that is completely inconsistent with his responsibilities," Cruz said.

But Milley's spokesman, Colonel David Butler, said the chief of staff's reported actions were within normal bounds, noting he regularly consults with defense chiefs across the world, including those in China and Russia.

"General Milley continues to act and advise within his authority in the lawful tradition of civilian control of the military and his oath to the Constitution," Butler said in a press release.


HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP)  Banana bread was served at a recent birthday party at Melfort Old Peoples home, where a group of residents mustered a raspy happy birthday tune.

Just a week after arriving at the facility, Rodrick Bhatare, in his 90s, said he felt a bittersweet moment at the celebration for a 103-year-old fellow resident.

I havent been this happy in a very long time, he said. I just wished I was doing it with my family. Hard-hit by the pandemic, his family could no longer provide for him, he said.

The economic ravages of COVID-19 are forcing some families in Zimbabwe to abandon the age-old tradition of taking care of older people.

Some roam the streets. The lucky ones end up at facilities for older people once widely viewed by many Zimbabweans as un-African and against the social bonds that have held extended families together for generations.

Rarely talked about, older people are silent victims of the pandemic, said Priscilla Gavi, executive director of HelpAge Zimbabwe.

Parents or elderly relatives have become an extra strain in this pandemic so although it goes against our culture, many people are finding old peoples homes as the only option, Gavi said.

Zimbabwe's care homes have experienced a 60% increase in admissions since the COVID-19 pandemic erupted in March 2020, and most of the country's more than 170 facilities for older people are full, she said.

COVID-19 has increased the risk of abuse and neglect of older people across Africa and around the world, according to a report by HelpAge International.

In addition to being one of the groups most at risk of severe illness and death from COVID-19, older people are chronically neglected in response and recovery efforts, especially in lower-income countries, according to the report, Bearing the Brunt.

For the older people in care institutions, the experience is both a saving grace and a source of anguish.

Bhatare said that after he retired from work as a quarry miner about two decades ago all was well as he alternately stayed with his two daughters and other relatives.

He was living with a married niece and four of her children when COVID-19 hit and their income from selling goods on the street dropped. Food in the home became scarce, tensions rose, and to survive Bhatare began foraging for meals on the streets until concerned neighbors alerted HelpAge, which found him a place in the Melfort home, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) east of Harare, the capital.

My daughters are married but they are also struggling. I had become a strain to everybody, he said.

Zimbabwes economy was already battered before the pandemic and now more than 80% of urban households are struggling to buy basic food supplies, while large numbers of rural families are also sinking into hunger, according to the World Food Program.

People age 70 and above make up less than 3% of Zimbabwes population of about 15 million and often became casualties of belt-tightening.

They are not bringing in any income in an environment where even young children are working to contribute towards household incomes. The elderly are becoming the sacrificial lambs. COVID-19 has really knocked them down, said Phillip Pasirayi, a sociologist and director of the Center for Community Development in Zimbabwe.

Feeling abandoned by their families can be a shock for many older people at care facilities, he said.

It doesnt really resonate with what we are accustomed to as Africans. You want to spend your last days surrounded by family. That is the tradition, Pasirayi said.

When they are forced into old peoples homes, many go into depression, into dementia  they are confused that their children or relatives have abandoned them, said Daniel Francis, the administrator at Melfort Old Peoples home.

Some families resort to tricks to remove their older relatives, he said.

With the pandemic, some people take an elderly relative to a faraway place. They buy them a drink at the shops, tell them We are coming back, and they go for good. Elderly persons are being dumped and they are forgotten, Francis said. Police take such people to the social welfare department.

The social welfare department doesnt have a home so they come to us, said Francis, whose facility has a capacity for 40 resident. But in the pandemic it limits numbers to 22 to allow more physical distance between residents.

The care homes that don't charge their residents, and are funded by charities and churches, are under strain.

The Melfort home would find it difficult to return to full capacity, he said, as its donations have dropped by more than 60% in the pandemic, he said.

Times are even tougher at the Society for the Destitute Aged's care home in Harares Highfield township. Princess Diana opened an accommodation wing amid much fanfare in 1993. But today paint is peeling off the walls, ceilings are falling in and bees have taken over the out-of-service 200-liter (53-gallon) water heater.

The home has no vehicle so when a resident needs medical care, manager Emilia Mukaratirwa must risk crowded public taxis or, when money permits, hire a small car to rush a retiree to a hospital.

The whole place needs a makeover, but for now just getting bread is like Christmas. Thats how desperately we need help, Mukaratirwa said.

Despite the disappointment of not being with family, Bhatare at the Melfort Old Peoples home is adjusting to his new reality.

These strangers have become my family, they treat me well," he said. "I still love my real family but I dont want to be a burden to them.
The Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) says COVID-19 has crippled democratic processes in the southern African nation where by-elections to fill vacant parliamentary and council seats have been suspended indefinitely.

In a statement to mark International Day of Democracy, ZESN said, This day comes amid the battle with the COVID-19 pandemic which has led to fatalities, surge in infections and the closure of so many multi-sectoral spaces. Democracy has also suffered a huge blow especially in Zimbabwe; with the indefinite suspension of by-elections and other electoral activities. This has led to the quarantining of democracy and prevention of equal participation of citizens in democratic electoral and governance processes.

Civic society and institutions supporting democracy constantly appeal for multi-stakeholder efforts towards the promotion of inclusion, equal treatment, and participation in democratic governance issues by citizens to ensure sustainable peace and development. International Day of Democracy presents ZESN with the opportunity to reiterate its calls for the government to uphold the principle of holding periodic elections by universal suffrage and to put in place measures that ensure inclusive participation in elections, especially of women, People with Disabilities (PWDs), and youths in Zimbabwe.

ZESN said despite the fact that women constitute the demographic majority, and youths account for the largest voting population, their participation, especially as candidates, in elections has been very low. This, according to ZESN, has resulted in the limited representation and participation of these important constituencies in the governance of the country.

ZESN remains committed to promoting democratic elections in Zimbabwe that are free and fair elections in line with international best practices and respect for human rights. Voter registration is a continuous process in Zimbabwe, hence the Network implores all citizens that are 18 years of age and above to register to vote to ensure they all participate in the democratic electoral processes.

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change led by Douglas Mwonzora has recalled a large number of parliamentarians and councilors said to be linked to Nelson Chamisas MDC Alliance. The process of recalling more lawmakers and councilors in currently being conducted nationwide.

The United Nations defines democracy as a state where the people have rights, especially to vote for and elect their government and regulation from among themselves, rather than being controlled by a government over whom they have no right of dissent, election or protest. Lack of democracy can lead to lack of rights or a voice, and this impacts on human rights as set out by the UN.

International Day of Democracy was commemorated yesterday under the theme Strengthening democratic resilience in the face of future crises.

In a statement, the United Nations said the unprecedented COVID-19 crisis has resulted in major social, political and legal challenges globally. The UN noted that as states around the world adopt emergency measures to address the crisis, it is critical that they continue to uphold the rule of law, protect and respect international standards and basic principles of legality, and the right to access justice, remedies and due process.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres was quoted in the UN website as saying governments should be transparent, responsive and accountable in their COVID-19 response and ensure that any emergency measures are legal, proportionate, necessary and non-discriminatory. The best response is one that responds proportionately to immediate threats while protecting human rights and the rule of law.

The Secretary Generals policy brief says states must respect and protect, among other rights, freedom of expression and of the press, freedom of information, freedom of association and of assembly.

The United Nations says the International Day of Democracy provides an opportunity to review the state of democracy in the world. It says democracy is as much a process as a goal, and only with the full participation of and support by the international community, national governing bodies, civil society and individuals, can the ideal of democracy be made into a reality to be enjoyed by everyone, everywhere.

The values of freedom, respect for human rights and the principle of holding periodic and genuine elections by universal suffrage are essential elements of democracy. In turn, democracy provides the natural environment for the protection and effective realization of human rights. These values are embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and further developed in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which enshrines a host of political rights and civil liberties underpinning meaningful democracies.

The link between democracy and human rights is captured in article 21(3) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states: The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.
The United Arab Emirates have put the Israeli Mossad in charge of providing security for World Expo, to be held in Dubai from 1 October 2021 to 31 March 2022.

According to MijharAlJazeera.com, where various documents can be found, Israel in return demanded that the Emirates hand over an exhaustive list of foreign nationals residing in their country. The list should include name, nationality, photo, passport copy, private address and telephone number.

The Emirates are home to 10 million people, of whom only 1.5 are citizens. The other 8.5 million are mainly employees from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh (over 5 million), other Arabs (1.5 million), Persians (500,000), Chinese (200 000) and Westerners (200,000).

The Emirates are particularly apprehensive of terrorist attacks at the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States have agreed to the creation of an enhanced trilateral security partnership  AUKUS.

The security challenges in the Indo-Pacific region have grown significantly. Military modernisation is occurring at an unprecedented rate and capabilities are rapidly advancing and their reach expanding. The technological edge enjoyed by Australia and our partners is narrowing.

AUKUS will build on the three nations longstanding and ongoing bilateral ties, and will enable the partners to significantly deepen cooperation on a range of emerging security and defence capabilities, which will enhance joint capability and interoperability. Initial efforts under AUKUS will focus on cyber capabilities, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, and additional undersea capabilities.

This is an historic opportunity for the three nations, with like-minded allies and partners, to protect shared values and promote security and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region.

AUKUS will complement Australias network of strategic partnerships, including with our ASEAN friends, our Pacific family, our Five Eyes partners, the Quad and other like-minded partners.

First initiative under AUKUS

The first initiative under AUKUS is for Australia to acquire nuclear-powered submarine technology, leveraging decades of experience from the US and UK.

Under AUKUS, the three nations will focus immediately on identifying the optimal pathway to deliver at least eight nuclear-powered submarines for Australia.

Over the next 18 months, Australia, the UK and US will intensely examine the full suite of requirements that underpin nuclear stewardship and demonstrate a clear pathway to becoming a responsible and reliable steward of this sensitive technology. Australia will establish a Nuclear-Powered Submarine Taskforce in the Department of Defence to lead this work.

Nuclear-powered submarines do not have the same limitations that face conventional submarines on weapons storage, speed and endurance. They can stay completely submerged for many months, limiting the opportunities for detection by adversaries.

As a three-ocean nation, it is necessary for Australia to have access to the most capable submarine technology available. As a nation, we are ready to take the step to pursue the most advanced submarine technology available to defend Australia and its national interests.

Australia has no plans to acquire nuclear weapons and this proposal will remain consistent with Australias longstanding commitment to nuclear non-proliferation. All three nations are deeply committed to upholding leadership on global non-proliferation.

The Governments intention is to build the nuclear-powered submarines in South Australia, maximising the use of Australian workers.

Building the submarines in Australia is the best way to develop a strong and effective sustainment industry, which will enable us to meet every requirement to safely operate and maintain nuclear-powered submarines.

Attack class submarine program

The pursuit of nuclear-powered submarine technology means that Australia will no longer proceed with the Attack class conventional submarine program with Naval Group.

The Government would like to thank the Attack class submarine workforce, Naval Group, the Government of France and Lockheed Martin Australia for their efforts to date. However, accelerating changes to regional security make conventional submarines unsuited to our operational needs in the decades ahead.

The Government will actively work with industry to ensure the people and skills developed under the existing program are not lost to the Governments Naval Shipbuilding Enterprise as we establish a new program to support the delivery of nuclear-powered submarines to the Navy.

The existing submarine workforce are prime candidates for the unprecedented work that needs to be performed across the Enterprise over the coming decades, where we will rely on their expertise more than ever.

The Government will partner with our Australian-owned sovereign shipbuilder, ASC, to manage and implement a new Sovereign Shipbuilding Talent Pool.

The Government is committed to finding a role within the Sovereign Shipbuilding Talent Pool for each and every skilled shipbuilding worker impacted by this announcement.

The Sovereign Shipbuilding Talent Pool will re-deploy the existing shipbuilding workforce throughout current and new shipbuilding programs, while building the nuclear-powered submarine skills that will be crucial for the success of the nuclear-powered submarine program.

This decision was not taken lightly. Our partnership with the Government of France and Naval Group on the Attack class conventional submarine program would have resulted in the most capable and lethal conventional submarine ever built.

As likeminded liberal democracies, Australia and France share a common commitment to the rules-based global order that has delivered stability and prosperity to the Indo-Pacific.

We look forward to continuing to work closely and positively with our French counterparts. France is a key friend and partner to Australia and the Indo-Pacific.

Other capabilities

The Government will also acquire additional long-range strike capabilities for the Australian Defence Force.

Throughout the decade, Australia will rapidly acquire long-range strike capabilities to enhance the ADFs ability to deliver strike effects across our air, land and maritime domains.

These include:

 Tomahawk Cruise Missiles, to be fielded on our Hobart class destroyers, enabling our maritime assets to strike land targets at greater distances, with better precision.

 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles (Extended Range) will enable our F/A-18 A/B Hornets and in future, our F-35A Lightning II, to hit targets at a range of 900km.

 Long-Range Anti-Ship Missiles (Extended Range) (LRASM) for the F/A-18F Super Hornet.

 Continuing collaboration with the United States to develop hypersonic missiles for our air capabilities.

 Precision strike guided missiles for our land forces, which are capable of destroying, neutralising and supressing diverse targets from over 400km.

 Accelerating $1 billion for a sovereign guided weapons manufacturing enterprise  which will enable us to create our own weapons on Australian soil.

These capabilities, coupled with the planned Life-of-Type Extension of Australias Collins class submarine fleet, will enhance Australias ability to deter and respond to potential security challenges.

The management of this transition, and other capability acquisition options that will meet Australias strategic requirements, will be at the forefront of consultations through AUKUS over the next 18 months.
PRIME MINISTER MORRISON: Well, good morning from Australia. Im very pleased to join two great friends of freedom and of Australia: Prime Minister Johnson and President Biden.

Today, we join our nations in a next-generation partnership built on a strong foundation of proven trust.

We have always seen the world through a similar lens. We have always believed in a world that favors freedom; that respects human dignity, the rule of law, the independence of sovereign states, and the peaceful fellowship of nations.

And while weve always looked to each other to do what we believe is right, we have never left at  each other. Always together. Never alone.

Our world is becoming more complex, especially here in our region, the Indo-Pacific. This affects us all. The future of the Indo-Pacific will impact all our futures.

To meet these challenges, to help deliver the security and stability our region needs, we must now take our partnership to a new level  a partnership that seeks to engage, not to exclude; to contribute, not take; and to enable and empower, not to control or coerce.

And so, friends, AUKUS is born  a new enhanced trilateral security partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. AUKUS: a partnership where our technology, our scientists, our industry, our defense forces are all working together to deliver a safer and more secure region that ultimately benefits all.

AUKUS will also enhance our contribution to our growing network of partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region: ANZUS; our ASEAN friends; our bilateral strategic partners, the Quad; Five Eyes countries; and, of course, our dear Pacific family.

The first major initiative of AUKUS will be to deliver a nuclear-powered submarine fleet for Australia. Over the next 18 months, we will work together to seek to determine the best way forward to achieve this. This will include an intense examination of what we need to do to exercise our nuclear stewardship responsibilities here in Australia.

We intend to build these submarines in Adelaide, Australia, in close cooperation with the United Kingdom and the United States.

But let me be clear: Australia is not seeking to acquire nuclear weapons or establish a civil nuclear capability. And we will continue to meet all our nuclear non-proliferation obligations.

Australia has a long history of defense cooperation with the United States and the United Kingdom. For more than a century, we have stood together for the course of peace and freedom, motivated by the beliefs we share, sustained by the bonds of friendship we have forged, enabled by the sacrifice of those who have gone before us, and inspired by our shared hope for those who will follow us.

And so, today, friends, we recommit ourselves to this cause and a new AUKUS vision.

PRIME MINISTER JOHNSON: Im delighted to join President Biden and Prime Minister Morrison to announce that the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States are creating a new trilateral defense partnership, known as AUKUS, with the aim of working hand in glove to preserve security and stability in the Indo-Pacific.

Were opening a new chapter in our friendship, and the first task of this partnership will be to help Australia acquire a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines, emphasizing, of course, that the submarines in question will be powered by nuclear reactors, not armed with nuclear weapons. And our work will be fully in line with our non-proliferation obligations.

This will be one of the most complex and technically demanding projects in the world, lasting for decades and requiring the most advanced technology. It will draw on the expertise that the UK has acquired over generations, dating back to the launch of the Royal Navys first nuclear submarine over 60 years ago; and together, with the other opportunities from AUKUS, creating hundreds of highly skilled jobs across the United Kingdom, including in Scotland, the north of England, and the Midlands, taking forward this governments driving purpose of leveling up across the whole country.

We will have a new opportunity to reinforce Britains place at the leading edge of science and technology, strengthening our national expertise. And perhaps most significantly, the UK, Australia, and the U.S. will be joined even more closely together, reflecting the measure of trust between us, the depth of our friendship, and the enduring strength of our shared values of freedom and democracy.

Only a handful of countries possess nuclear-powered submarines, and it is a momentous decision for any nation to acquire this formidable capability and, perhaps, equally momentous, for any other state to come to its aid. But Australia is one of our oldest friends, a kindred nation and a fellow democracy, and a natural partner in this enterprise.

Now, the UK will embark on this project alongside our allies, making the world safer and generating jobs across our United Kingdom.

Thank you. Over to you, Mr. President.

PRESIDENT BIDEN: Thank you, Boris. And I want to thank that fellow down under. Thank you very much, pal. Appreciate it, Mr. Prime Minister.

Im honored today to be joined by two of Americas closest allies  Australia and the United Kingdom  to launch a new phase of the trilateral security cooperation among our countries.

As Prime Minister Morrison and Prime Minister Johnson said, I want to thank you for this partnership, your vision

as we embark together on this strategic mission.

Although Australia, the UK, and U.S. partnership  AUKUS  it sounds strange with all these acronyms, but its a good one, AUKUS  our nations will update and enhance our shared ability to take on the threats of the 21st century just as we did in the 20th century: together.

Our nations and our brave fighting forces have stood shoulder-to-shoulder for literally more than 100 years: through the trench fighting in World War I, the island hopping of World War II, during the frigid winters in Korea, and the scorching heat of the Persian Gulf. The United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom have long been faithful and capable partners, and were even closer today.

Today, were taking another historic step to deepen and formalize cooperation among all three of our nations because we all recognize the imperative of ensuring peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific over the long term.

We need to be able to address both the current strategic environment in the region and how it may evolve. Because the future of each of our nations  and indeed the world  depends on a free and open Indo-Pacific enduring and flourishing in the decades ahead  ahead.

This is about investing in our greatest source of strength  our alliances  and updating them to better meet the threats of today and tomorrow.

Its about connecting Americas existing allies and partners in new ways and amplifying our ability to collaborate, recognizing that there is no regional divide separating the interests of our Atlantic and Pacific partners.

Indeed, this effort reflects a broader trend of key European countries playing an extremely important role in the Indo-Pacific.

France, in particular, already has a substantial Indo-Pacific presence and is a key partner and ally in strengthening

the security and prosperity of the region.

The United States looks forward to working closely with France and other key countries as we go forward.

And finally, this initiative is about making sure that each of us has a modern capability  the most modern capabilities we need  to maneuver and defend against rapidly evolving threats.

AUKUS will bring together our sailors, our scientists, and our industries to maintain and expand our edge in military capabilities and critical technologies, such as cyber, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, and undersea domains.

You know, as a key project under AUKUS, we are launching consultations with Australias acquisition of conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines for its navy  conventionally armed.

I want to be exceedingly clear about this: Were not talking about nuclear-armed submarines. These are conventionally armed submarines that are powered by nuclear reactors. This technology is proven. Its safe. And the United States and the UK have been operating nuclear-powered submarines for decades.

I have asked Secretary Austin and the Department of Defense

to lead this effort for the U.S. government in close collaboration with the Department of Energy and Department of State.

Our governments will now launch an 18-month consultation period to determine every element of this program  from workforce, to training requirements, to production timelines, to safeguards and nonproliferation measures, and to nuclear stewardship and safety  to ensure full compliance with each of our nations commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Well all undertake this effort in a way that reflects the longstanding leadership in global nonproliferation and rigorous verification standards, in partnership and consultation with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

So, I want to thank the Prime Minister  Prime Minister Morrison and Prime Minister Johnson for their friendship, but mostly important for their leadership and partnership as we undertake this new phase of our security cooperation.

And the United States will also continue to work with ASEAN and the Quad, as was stated earlier; our five treaty allies and other close partners in the Indo-Pacific; as well as allies and partners in Europe and around the world to maintain a free and open Indo-Pacific, and build a future of peace, opportunity

for all the people of the region.

Were joining together. Partnerships are getting stronger. This is what were about.

I want to thank you all. And I look forward to seeing both of you in person very soon, I hope.

Thank you. Thank you.
Role Call Role Call is a series in which Vulture talks to actors about performances theyve probably forgotten by now, but we definitely havent. I have some actor friends who took themselves very seriously and were very disdainful of my participation in Spice World. Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photo by Columbia Pictures

You could describe 1997s Spice World as a movie about five young pop stars fighting to assert their autonomy in the face of a music industry that treats them like plastic playthings and a tabloid press thats determined to tear them apart. Or you could more accurately describe it as a movie about the sheer absurdity of trying to make a Spice Girls movie in the first place  a cameo-studded, self-referential adventure that careens through dream sequences, sight gags, musical performances, an alien encounter, a haunted mansion, and a string of action-movie parodies that climaxes with Victoria Posh Spice Beckham delivering an unhinged Speed homage.

Crucial to pulling all this off is Richard E. Grants Clifford, the groups rageaholic manager, complete with Nike-swoosh sideburns and a collection of jewel-tone power suits that resemble Professor Plum gone Hollywood. When hes not cracking the whip as the girls prepare for their high-stakes gig at Londons famed Royal Albert Hall  the closest thing the movie has to a central storyline  Clifford endures a stream of increasingly ridiculous movie pitches from a pair of Hollywood producers (led by Cheers George Wendt) trying to shamelessly cash in on the Spice Girls phenomenon. (Justice for Spice Force Five!) With blatant references to merchandise potential, formulaic studio filmmaking, and the irrelevant question of whether anybody in the band can actually act, director Bob Spiers and screenwriter Kim Fuller  brother of the groups then-manager, Simon Fuller, and future writer of less-beloved pop-star vehicles like From Justin to Kelly and S Club 7s Seeing Double  made it clear that even if satisfying critics was never in the cards, Spice World at least was in on the joke.

The Spice Girls themselves, who this year are celebrating the 25th anniversary of their debut single, Wannabe, have had varied and changing opinions of the movie  Melanie Sporty Spice Chisholm has said she was only really able to appreciate it after revisiting it through her daughters eyes. But Grant has always been happy to talk about it and the many ways the role has continued to pay off for him years later: Lena Dunhams affection for Spice World led her to give him a part in Girls, and that role in turn partly inspired Marielle Heller to cast Grant opposite Melissa McCarthy in Can You Ever Forgive Me?, which earned him an Oscar nod for best supporting actor in 2019.

Over Zoom, Grant  who plays drag-queen mentor Loco Chanelle in the film adaption of the West End musical Everybodys Talking About Jamie (premiering on Amazon Prime Video on September 17)  frequently broke into full-jaw, show-all-your-teeth laughter as he recalls the delightfully chaotic summer of 1997. To him, its the cult favorite he never saw coming. I had no idea there are nights where people dress up as the Spice Girls and go to screenings like its The Rocky Horror Picture Show, he said during our conversation in August. I have some actor friends who took themselves very seriously and were very disdainful of my participation in Spice World. They said, How can you consider yourself a legitimate, proper actor if you go and be in that kind of movie? And I said, Because it was just one of the most fantastically enjoyable jobs to do  and it was a hit! Theres nothing I can complain about.

Maybe its because Sporty Spice has joked that performing with the group is not unlike performing with a bunch of drag queens, but there was something about seeing you in a campy, music-driven movie like Everybodys Talking About Jamie that made me want to revisit you in Spice World, and I wonder if you felt that at all.

[Grins nervously.] Its that weird thing  Im aware of other peoples careers, but in your own, like a pit pony, youre looking forward. So I didnt look back until you asked me to.

You had a young daughter when you signed on to do this movie. What was your relationship to Spice Mania at the time?

Well, because my daughter had been listening to them solidly from the age of 7, thats all I heard in the car, all I heard in the bedroom. So I knew every song of the Spice Girls before I got to work with them. I was fully educated in all things Spice.

The Beatles A Hard Days Night is frequently referenced as the precursor to a movie like Spice World. The former came out when you were roughly the same age your daughter was when the latter came out. Did that help you understand the groups popularity and a movie project like this?

Having been a lifelong Beatles fan, I was absolutely astonished to be in a public situation where that Spice Mania paralleled what Id seen on newsreels or read about happening to the Beatles. But what I was so struck by is that even though they were the epicenter of this global whirlwind, they seemed as surprised as I was walking into this. They kept saying over and over again, We cant believe this has happened to us. So that was very touching and vulnerable.

The five of them together can be an unstoppable force  in old TV interviews, they often bulldoze the host in a way that seems quite intimidating. What were your impressions of meeting them and acting across from them?

I had just turned 40, and they were about half my age. And Scary Spice, Mel B, pinched my bum on the first day and said, Youre not bad for an old guy. [Laughs.] I thought, If thats a seal of approval from the rowdiest of the Spice Girls, then I was A for away. They just seemed able to talk about anything. They were so uninhibited, and so thrilled with the success that they had, that it was hard not to be taken up by all that energy.

And the producers were absolutely thrilled because, on the first day, each of us had huge Winnebagos with a living room and just about every modern thing that a Tom Cruise Winnebago could have. And they said, We feel lonely in here; we want to be with each other. I certainly didnt give mine up  its the biggest one Id ever had in my career  but they all insisted on joining up. So, to the producers delight, they got rid of four Winnebagos that they no longer needed to pay exorbitant rentals on because they all wanted to be together all the time.

You were one of the first people cast in this movie. How did Kim Fuller pitch the movie to you?

This was so long ago, and in those days, we had answering machines. Do you even know what that is?

I do!

Its a machine with a cassette in it, a little light that beeps and flashes red. And when my daughter came back from school, she went into my study and pressed the button because the light was flashing. And she heard this message saying, Hi, its Kim Fuller. I called your agent, and I want you to be the Spice Girls manager in the Spice World movie. And my daughter was absolutely hysterical. She said, I dont care if Disney offers you a lifelong contract  you have to work for the Spice Girls so that I can come and meet them. And so thats basically how it happened.

In the films end-credits scene, a fake look at life on set, youre on the phone with an agent wondering aloud if this role will hurt your career. What did your actual agent think at the time?

My agent was, and remains, very money-focused. And when he saw what they were offering, he was very, very happy, as was I. So smiles all around the table.

What did you think of the script? Theres not a lot of plot; there are so many weird tonal shifts and spoofs. Believing that it would all add up onscreen seems like it would have been an act of blind faith.

I knew that my role in it was to basically be somebody trying to herd cats, trying to maintain control where control was the last thing on anybodys mind. So that was my overriding impression. Because of the A Hard Days Night film, I knew that narrative wasnt the strongest point of it. It was almost like a series of sketches all woven together in order to pitch the Spice Girls into whatever extreme situation they could, whether it was seeing aliens or Meat Loaf [who plays the groups bus driver]. It was that slightly improvisatory, anything-goes style.

When Roger Moore accepted the part [as the Chief, the bands enigmatic label head], sending himself up as James Bond, stroking the cat like Blofeld, I thought, Well, that is a measure of just how random a lot of it seemed to be. So that was really enjoyable. And, of course, we knew the critics were going to have a field day and say, This is not cinema in the true sense. But weve had the last laugh, because people have still carried on watching it almost 25 years down the line, which is astonishing.

The Chief communicates with Clifford entirely through cryptic phone calls. I know phone calls are not always filmed live between actors  did you get to interact with him much while he was filming?

Oh, completely; we did everything within that whole day. In the studio when we were working, everybody went very quiet [when Moore showed up]. I hadnt experienced that before, but it was Roger Moore  a legend. And in this total silence, he just said, Do I owe anybody any money in here? And that broke the ice. He was really, really charming and very nice. When he introduced himself, Id said to him that a girlfriend Id had nicknamed my dick Roger Moore because it only has two expressions: one eyebrow up or down! [Laughs.] I told him this, and he thought that was funny.

Oh my God.

So thats a measure of this mans great humor.

The movie is filled with so many cameos, from famous musicians to iconic character actors and TV personalities. Did you have any favorites?

Elton John came in Storm Troopering. Hes born with the IMPATIENT button pressed firmly down, so you have to get Sir Elton very quickly or hes gone before you can blink. Im trying to think who else 

Elvis Costello is your bartender when youre drinking after a fight with the band.

Yes! And Meat Loaf on the bus. Meat Loaf was so friendly. I thought he was going to be in another dimension of  I dont know what I expected, really, but I didnt expect this really friendly guy to be there.

Was Clifford fully formed when you took the role or did you have room to make him your own?

They just said, Be as bossy and extreme and manic as you like. The more and more you do that, its more for the Spice Girls to bounce off. So I went for it. And they gave me great clothes, all these tight-fitting colored suits with fancy shoulder pads and big collars. I got to keep all of the costumes. I dont think Id fit into any of them right now, but theyre all in my loft.

And the facial hair  those insane sideburns, that soul patch. You had to maintain that for, what, about two months?

Its just glue, just a bit of glue.

This is like finding out the Spice Bus isnt real! I imagine that Clifford, whos basically on the verge of a breakdown the entire movie and has these fits of eye-bulging rage, must have been really fun to play. Nothing seemed like too big of a swing.

It was license to thrill, license to kill. Theres also something about the fact that you know youre making a movie that is entirely for fans of this band. Theyre not people who are going to be reading Sight & Sound magazine and following the inner workings of [Andrei] Konchalovskys career. Its popcorn, pop culture, unequivocally and unapologetically. I think its great celebratory quality is what comes across in the movie and why its such a global success.

Theres a winking reference in the film to whether the girls can even act, but as Ive revisited Spice World over the years, Ive developed such appreciation for their comedic timing and over-the-top line readings. What did you make of their performances?

There would be things that were scripted and then there would be a free-for-all atmosphere: Do I have to say that line again? Do I have to do exactly whats been written down? There was a lot of improvisation, which made it more lively. None of them pretended to be trained actors, so having to do something ten times over for technical reasons, they just had no patience with it. So there was just a feeling that you said Action! and whatever happened, they grabbed.

Is that stressful?

Oh, it was fun. Ive never had an experience like that, before or since.

The group reportedly rejected a script with more fictionalized versions of themselves prior to the one Kim wrote, and Geri Ginger Spice Halliwell wrote in the movies official companion book that she spent a lot of time fine-tuning it with him. They did not seem like women you could just feed lines to.

They didnt ask, Could the line be like this? Theyd just do it. Theyd just say, Oh no, what were going to talk about is much better than this. And theyd go for it.

What were your favorite memories of shooting?

The stuff in Albert Hall, where theyre performing and where Clifford has a big argument with them on stage. Thats the day I remember more than any other. Its such an iconic venue for Londoners, and to be there with my daughter and all her friends plus her many new friends that summer  that was an amazing feeling. [The kids] didnt mind how long they had to wait watching the endless replays or the miming of the songs. Sometimes with extras, by the tenth take, the assistant directors got to go, Okay, come on, get your energy back. But the moment [the band] finished a number or did a scene, all these young female fans of theirs went absolutely bananas. You could feel their energy. It was extraordinary.

You and Geri reunited just before the pandemic and posted a heartwarming photo on Twitter. How often do you run into the band members?

I see Geri every now and again. Victoria sent me a Spice Girls T-shirt for Pride two months ago. I was on a radio show that Emma [Baby Spice Bunton] was DJ-ing on. I saw Mel C recently  she asked me to do an interview with her for something. And then I was filming a Christmas special a few weeks ago that will come out later this year, and Scary was on that. I hadnt seen her for a while. From them having been 20 or 21 or whatever Geris age was, and then now seeing them with kids and ongoing lives, its fairly sweet. And they always ask after my daughter. It feels like a win-win having met and worked with them.
American Horror Story Gaslight Season 10 Episode 5 Editors Rating 5 stars * * * * *  Previous Next Photo: FX

I have profoundly and enthusiastically sung the praises of American Horror Story since Murder House first aired in 2011, but somewhere between Hotel (2016) and 1984 (2019), the seriess full potential must have lost its grip just enough that this season, especially this episode, crept up to sucker punch me flat on my ass. And still, as exciting as it is to experience a

fully revitalized show that weaves together baby nibbling, bitchy child vamps, frequent karaoke, and Sarah Paulson with full Tourettes, its a slight bummer to see something of this caliber miss an opportunity to avoid yet another moms nuts scenario. But, much like our collective begrudging acceptance of a postFreak Show Jessica Langeshaped hole in the show, we can decide to choke this down as a necessary evil to advance things along if it will help us sleep better at night. That will start tomorrow night, though, because after watching this preRed Tide finale, Gaslight, weve got some dark hours ahead of us before any manner of peaceful slumber.

If we can dip into the world of Rosemarys Baby (1968) long enough to draw a comparison, the newborn child at the center of that story was the spawn of actual Satan, while the baby in this show, tentatively named Eli, is the only pure thing worth protecting in a family composed of selfish beasts of their own making. This baby isnt from hell, but it was indeed born into it. At the top of the episode, we see Doris (Lily Rabe) amid a difficult labor, sweating and straining, while her husband, Harry (Finn Wittrock), sits beside her doing some sweating and straining of his own as he tries his best not to suckle off his own babys umbilical-cord fragment. Once his son is out of his wifes womb, Harry absconds to the restroom with a batch of soiled towels soaked with his sons blood and squeezes them into a series of Dixie cups. First off, Harry, youre gross. Second, youre also bad for the environment at this moment on top of it all because instead of wasting all those little cups, you could have just gnawed on the bloody towels like a clump of used pads. Dont tell me you didnt think pads too.

Back at their rental in Provincetown, it finally dawns on Doris that Harry and Alma didnt go back to New York as they said they would. She doesnt get to dwell on this deception for long, though, because Ursula (Leslie Grossman) is inexplicably at her bedside holding her baby while sporting a full face of Cruella makeup to highlight that, no, shes not up to anything good. Ursula doesnt give a crap about much other than the black pills that will, she hopes, provide her with a client roster of cash cows. With many other aspects of this season, it seems as if there could be more to this, but who knows? If Alma actually gets through Red Tide without turning into a Pale Person or some other kind of punishment for being the actual worst, much could be left dangling in the well of unfished possibilities. If I were a writer on this show, which Im very clearly not as of now [takes black pill], that kid would have been bald as a kneecap by episode two.

While all this is happening, Karen (Sarah Paulson) gets picked up by Mickey (Macaulay Culkin) in front of the Fudge Room, and the two go on a joy ride in his tacky Speed Racer car, purchased with the same post-black-pill dough that bought him a fancy new suit, gold-chain necklace, and facial treatment. Mickey makes a hard sell for Karen to take the pill and move to Los Angeles with him, promising her a future as a designer in various Speed Racer things, but she gives him the ol motherfucker salute and cuts the ride short, taking to the dunes. In the end, and only as a last-ditch effort to save herself from being attacked by Pale People, she caves and takes a pill, leading to a heartbreaking Starry Night lights-out that made me cry the first real boo-hoo since Asylum (2013). Putting her friend Mickey out of his inevitable Speed Racer downward spiral by making him her first, and last (maybe), kill, she paints the masterpiece she has always wanted to paint, which we dont get to view. It doesnt matter if its good; it matters that she finished it. Its like Sheryl Sandberg said: Done is better than perfect. It would be fitting in the case of this season to add And you dont have to be a dick about it.

The funny thing about ambition is that the success of it all is almost the least important part. This is why so many interns and young creatives get suckered into doing endless hours of free work. The dangled carrot of a career at the end would be nice to reach, but its the doing and the striving that are the actual drug. Alma and Harry are so far up their own asses that no amount of accolades or paychecks could ever touch their lofty views of themselves and how they want their lives to look. And no matter what they make of themselves, Doris isnt going to be around to hold them back while they make it. Alma wastes no time chomping into her baby brothers leg, telling her mom that she couldnt help taking just a sip because baby blood makes her play her doofy violin so beautifully that she moves herself to the point of weeping. While Doris is losing it, Holden (Denis OHare ) is downstairs calling the design boards she has been working on pedestrian Pottery Barn hell. This is enough for Alma to finally con her into taking a black pill, and Doris, as one would have guessed, turns into a Pale Person and gets abandoned by her husband and daughter like a breeding dog dumped, kennel and all, by the side of the road. Whos left to watch over little Eli now? He had better start developing an early talent for decoupage or something if hes got a chance in hell with this crew. To quote his mother, now chomping on roadkill in her dirty bathrobe, its not okay to hurt people just to be good at something. But we see what becomes of the mediocre, and thats not a fun menu to order off either.

Little Sips

 We learned in previous episodes that the Pale People are filled with hate because they know theyre not talented. Youd think that, out of anyone else, talented people would be at the receiving end of their hate the most, but were shown over and over that the Pale People cant feed on those who have taken the black pill. Maybe its not the talent that repels them but the fact that the blood of the pill poppers is tainted by whats in the pill itself. And on that same line, maybe because Karen fed on Mickey, his blood will have some sort of unique effect on her because he took the pill. This is the first time weve seen someone feed on one of the talented. Is she actually dead, or will she become some new variety of monster?

 I keep thinking about the Browns and what hand they could possibly have in this. Since baby blood is such a hot commodity, could it be that Doris was selected as the winner of their weird Instagram contest solely because she was pregnant and they wanted to lure more baby food to the area? Im going to throw a big guess out there and say that Eli is going to tie into part two in some way.

 The image of Elis little foot being chomped on by Alma wont be leaving my mind any time soon. Im basically still typing at this point to avoid going to bed.
Martin freaking Short! Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

How does he do it? For more than 40 years, Martin Short has been the type of funny where talk-show hosts introduce him as the funniest man alive. Hes a larger-than-life personality whose comedy is out of this world, so maybe Roger Ebert wasnt that far off when he described his sense of humor as that of an alien in his legendary pan of Clifford. Short has had an incredibly varied career, mixing arguably the most prolific sketch output ever with iconic film and TV roles and award-winning Broadway runs, not to mention being the greatest talk-show guest to ever live. Even now, in his early 70s, Short is embarking on maybe his best role yet on Hulus Only Murders in the Building. While some of his fellow comedy legends might have one big film that defines them, Short has remained improbably relevant.

On Vultures Good One podcast, Short discusses sketch comedy, collaborating with Steve Martin, performing on late-night TV, and more. You can read an excerpt from the transcript or listen to the full episode below. Tune in to Good One every Thursday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Right out the gate, show business was a tremendous source of parody and satire for you. You were doing Hollywood-adjacent characters, people who are on the fringes of show business. That continued with Jiminy Glick and even, arguably, Only Murders in the Building. And your stage persona is usually making fun of a show-business-phony-type person. But also, you clearly love Hollywood and long revered it. What is the balance? How much are you making fun of these things? How much are you celebrating them?

Im not really making fun of it at all. I mean, I know it looks like Im making fun of it, and Im satirizing it because you satirize what you know. And I know its show business, but when I go on [late-night TV] and make fun of Dave Letterman or pretend to fawn over Fallon, whats really fun is to see their reaction, because were all friends and they know its me.

Sometimes Ill send elaborate notes  like almost 20 pages. It just became a process that Ive always done, and it allows me to go out there and say, Im gunning for bear. If hes off or Im off, Ill toast myself because I did everything I could do. Thats a big part of the way I operate. Its not my fault if they are in a bad mood or if the director screws it up because hes not good. Ill still toast myself with a glass of Champagne; I did everything I could.

These guys will read all the jokes. [Jimmy] Kimmel wont, because he wants to be surprised. But David Letterman used to love to read all my notes. And at one point Id talked about an actress who had bad breath. I had a joke in a story I was going to tell I sent to the segment producer: Her breath smelled like Kaye Ballards couch. Now, Kaye Ballard was a comedian from the 60s and very funny, and it was just a name I put in there. I didnt mean to do it on the air. So, I was telling this true story on the show of an actress I worked with who had bad breath on the stage. I talked to the stage manager of the play about her breath. I said to the stage manager, Dont tell her because shell know its coming from me, because we had to kiss in the play. And the next night hed clearly gotten to her. She still had horrible breath, but now she had an Altoid. And I said to Dave, It smelled like someone put a peppermint in the morgue, and that was it. And Dave said, And what else? And I said, Oh, come on. Ive been waiting for it all day, he said. I said, Rush Limbaughs couch. He goes, Nooooooo. I said, Kaye Ballards couch. Because they post-produced it, we go to commercial, they have a picture of Kaye Ballard. I felt horrible. And she wrote a letter to her lawyer, Mark Sendroff, who I knew, and she was kind of like, What did I do to those guys? Shes 80 or something. So I sent her a long letter to say, Ill tell you exactly what happened. It was just a fill-in joke. You could have been any name, and I didnt mean to do it on the air. And she sent me an email back saying, I always liked you. She was great. Just hilarious.

So, whatever irony you have, it is just a gateway so you could have the reference for these things that you naturally love.

Yes. Like, I read the comments because they are hilarious. On Conan, Ill come out and insult him  say things like he looks like an orange crash-test dummy or freeze-dried Prince Harry, whatever I say to him, and then you read the comments: If Conan wanted, he could take him apart. So theyre not quite getting it.

Did this reverence of the things you make fun of include the impressions you did?

Impressions are a very interesting thing to do. I liken them to a Hirschfeld sketch. If you find someone unctuous, for example, and you want to play that unctuousness in a sketch, its unfair unless you also present them to be a little fascinating. You wouldnt know how to impersonate them if you hadnt paid attention to them. The first time I did Jerry Lewis on SCTV, I made sure that he was funny  I mean, as funny as I could make him. I mean that as a compliment to Jerry, not me. Id be running around like a monkey and light my cigarette and the flame would go up. These are his jokes. But then we cut to him in a sailor boys outfit lecturing Hollywood about modern showrunning and you go, Thats a slight. But if Id just done that, it wouldnt be an accurate appraisal.

Do you see any difference between you, who grew up in Canada, and Steve Martin, who grew up in Southern California, and also has a history of deriving comedy from show business?

No, I dont think theres any difference to the border. When I look at Steves career, he was massively famous in the 70s when I was on the Second City stage. I knew Steve Martin; I loved him on SNL, but I didnt have his albums. So, it was later on, when I got to know him, that I realized he had a happy dance, I had a happy dance. He was making fun of show business, I was making fun of show business. But I think theres no big difference. Because he was watching Johnny Carson and I was watching Johnny Carson, he was watching Ed Sullivan and I was watching Ed Sullivan. We were products of television. And it doesnt matter what city  youre watching the same program.

What is it like now collaborating with Steve?

As you would imagine, we accumulate material. We have writers that help us. Well look at their jokes, look at our jokes. Well sit on the phone. Well have sessions where we share a screen and were both typing, working on the script, adding new lines to our live show. When we do Colbert, like today, we have a Dropbox file called Colbert, and he and I will look at it and go over it: If you say that, Ill say that, But Selena is going to be there too, so we shouldnt plan too much because we dont know where its going to go, because we dont want it to be bogged down.

Only Murders in the Building feels somewhat unique in terms of the balance you have to strike between being natural while also being big in moments. What was it like finding that tone?

The writing dictates how Im going to do it. My job is to do whatever they present to me. I have to make it somehow real, even though its heightened, and thats the trick. There are times that Ill say to [the shows co-creator] John Hoffman, You know, if I say this line, I am that person. Like, there was one line [where] Steve is unconscious. Hes been drugged, and Selena and I are helping him. I said, You know what? I could urinate on him. And she says, I think thats for jellyfish. I said, All right. Well, you know, I could try it anyway. So I said to John, Okay, so if I say that, that means I like to urinate on people. Do we want that for the character? So there goes that line.

One time you said if you could, youd still be working on SCTV.

Absolutely correct. SCTV is a variety-sketch show on television, so you cant do that forever because it doesnt exist. But when you look at my career, I went from SCTV right to SNL. But I also did four major specials, which are in the SCTV mode, with similar writers  my brother Michael, Paul Flaherty, Dick Blasucci. I just love that kind of work. And also, you dont know if youre going to be good on SCTV or SNL. There are some people who have been on SNL that they didnt really work out that are geniuses, like Ben Stiller. So, its not about judgment of yourself. However, the flip side is if youre effective in something, you dont run away from a hit if thats your style of comedy. You know, I didnt do Second City in Toronto for years. Id been asked and said, Thats not what I do. I was clearly afraid of it. But I actually didnt know if Id be good at it. I didnt realize that improvising was just: You keep talking.

What is it about sketch? Why has it worked for you for so long?

I just think its its own form. When Ed Grimley really became popular on SNL from SCTV, I was asked to do the Ed Grimley movie. A similar character that probably led to similar questioning would be Paul Reubens, who eventually did Pee-wees Big Adventure. The difference is he had Tim Burton. With the exception of Pee-wees, which is a brilliant movie, Ed Grimley worked for seven minutes on SNL, but why does that mean he works for 90 minutes? Its the form. A 60-second commercial can be a higher art form than a mediocre movie. Yeah  you know, its that.

And it is just so much fun. I hosted SNL in 2012, and Bill Hader and I did a sketch where I was the queens doctor. Bill is a genius and were buddies, so that was fun, but when I think of that scene, I remember trying to make Bill laugh through the whole thing, because Bill laughs and he doesnt like that he laughs. He did not want to laugh through this scene. The cue cards at SNL are changing last minute, so you have to look at them. But its supposed to look like were looking at each other. But I kept on leaning into his shot with my face, or Id exaggerate the British accent from dress rehearsal. And he does break up, and its the best moment.
Big changes are coming for a treatment aimed at helping COVID-19 patients avoid a stay in the hospital.

The change involves just how much monoclonal antibody treatment Alabama will be getting.

monoclonal antibody monoclonal antibody

We were told the state will get enough to treat everyone who needs it, but the way it's distributed is different.

The infusion treatment is already meant for a very specific group of people who are sick with COVID, and you can only get it within 10 days of being infected.

The state had a set number for allocation but, we were told last week, that number is changing some.

Dr. Aruna Arora is the Madison County Medical Society President and she told us now the state department of health will distribute based on the need.

It was initially going straight to the provider.

"There are about six to seven states that will continue to be ahead in the need of demand for this treatment, but it should just make us realize the monoclonal antibodies are here for us if we need the treatment. But, really, the only way through this is for us to get the vaccination," said Dr. Arora.

Dr. Arora says the hospitals are being overrun by people who aren't vaccinated and that is the whole reason we are seeing the snowball effect with everything else.

The treatment is available now at select locations like Huntsville Hospital, but they said the biggest thing to change is doctors will filter who is at most high risk first and move down a tiered system.
Students in a southern Pennsylvania school district are battling the latest example of panic spreading over how history and race are taught in schools across the US.

"I don't think a moral compass will let you ban books about equality and loving each other," Central York High School senior Christina Ellis told CNN.

Ellis is among the students protesting a book ban in York, Pennsylvania, and questions whether the officials who decided to remove certain reading materials from the curriculum even read the resources they deem controversial. She was joined by other teens protesting in front of Central York High School this week.

On Monday, students, parents and other community members debated during a virtual school board meeting about the list of anti-racism books and resources that were banned from the curriculum by the Central York school board last year.

Last October, the all-White school board unanimously banned a list of educational resources that included a children's book about Rosa Parks, Malala Yousafzai's autobiography and CNN's Sesame Street town hall on racism.

From chaotic school board meetings to political strife along party lines, debates about diverse curriculum have ignited controversy across the country in recent months. And earlier this month, a new Texas law aimed at restricting discussions of race and history in schools had some educators second guessing themselves and forgoing civics-related activities to avoid running afoul of it.

But in York, discussions about race erupted in the wake of last summer's protests and students started having more conversations about racism and creating more inclusive environments.

School officials say it's not a ban, and the materials are "frozen" while the board vets the material. But that process has taken nearly a year. At the virtual board meeting on Monday, district leaders said the materials are still prohibited.

Some students and their parents said it's frustrating and questioned the logic of a school board that they say isn't diverse and doesn't address the concerns of a multicultural student body.

A senior at Central York High School, Edha Gupta, said the book ban, "was a slap in the face."

"This is a board that after hearing their students' concerns about diversity in the district, hearing my struggle with race, being an Indian American and consistently feeling like I didn't belong. After all those conversations for weeks on end, they still pursued the book ban."

Gupta isn't the only student angry with the board.

"I was deeply hurt when I heard about this book ban, which hurts Black and brown authors and resources," said Ellis, a Black senior, at the high school.

She said the books are crucial to teaching students about racism.

"Why is a Sesame Street episode threatening the education of children. If anything this school board is threatening education," she said during the meeting.

School librarians have pulled books from shelves, and teachers say their lesson plans have been impacted.

"I have to now, with this resource ban, think twice about whether or not I should or could use a James Baldwin quote as an opening for my class," said Ben Hodge, a teacher at Central York High School.

There's also some fear among educators.

"There are teachers looking over their shoulders wondering if someone's going to be at their door darkening their door, saying you said something or you mentioned something or used something that you were not supposed to," said Patricia Jackson, who has taught in the Central York School District for more than 20 years.

The fact that all the banned materials are by or about people of color is just a coincidence, according to Jane Johnson, the school board president.

"Concerns were based on the content of the resources, not the author or topic...," she said in a statement.

What do the parents say

"I don't think that a board that lacks diversity is the appropriate authority to determine what qualifies as appropriate material to address race in this community," said Brandi Miller, a parent of a student in the school district.

However, other parents were supportive of the ban.

One mother said,"the community is 100% against an critical race theory indoctrination agenda," during Monday's meeting. "Schools are not the place for politics or identity to be shaped."

But critical race theory is not taught in K-12 curriculum.

"This is very clearly an attack on diversity, equity (and) inclusion. It very much feels like a political overreach based on misinformation," Ana Ramon, deputy director of advocacy at the Intercultural Development Research Association, told CNN earlier this month.

York parent Matt Weyant commended the school board for implementing the ban.

"I don't want my daughter growing up feeling guilty because she's White," he said.

That sentiment is spreading across the US. A growing number of states have passed or are considering policies strictly defining what students are allowed to learn about race.

But it's the students who are missing out say former and current students.

During the board meeting, a man who said he was alumnus of the school district, said that unless the school board can go through each book on the ban and explain what's so "abhorrent," about each of them, then the books should be allowed back into the school's curriculum.

"I want to learn genuine history," said Olivia Pituch, a student who was protesting in front of Central York High School this week.

"I don't want to learn a White-washed version. I want to hear all of it. I don't want everyone to be worried about how we feel because no one was worried about how BIPOC members of the community felt."

But one expert said this ban is different from many of the other debates across the country.

"This seems pretty egregious. I can see how certain trainings or workshops that some parents take exception to seem really outside of what a history class can be expected to do," said Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, an associate professor of history at the New School. "But the kind of texts that are being banned here make me feel that there is now just sort of an allergy to anything that mentions race or racism."

This is about more than a book, or a movie, or even a curriculum, veteran teachers argue. In York, they worry it's a war on their profession.

"I am not an enemy of the state. I am here to take care of your babies when they walk into my classroom and there are some I'm looking up at them, but they're still babies," Jackson, the York teacher, said.

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A SpaceX rocket soared into orbit Wednesday evening, carrying four people  none of whom are professional astronauts  and kicking off the first-ever mission to Earth's orbit crewed entirely by tourists.

The launch pad at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida was dramatically illuminated with spotlights against the night sky, and when the SpaceX rocket's nine engines fired up just after 8 pm ET it flooded the surrounding wetlands with a blaze of light as it soared into the upper atmosphere and made a dramatic, ghostly light show overhead. After reaching orbital speeds  more than 17,000 miles per hour  the capsule carrying the four passengers detached from the rocket and began to maneuver toward its intended orbit.

The team of amateurs  which include a billionaire who self-funded the mission, a cancer survivor, a community college teacher and a Lockheed Martin employee  strapped into their 13-foot-wide SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule Wednesday afternoon before their SpaceX rocket roared to life and blasted the capsule into orbit. The crew will remain aboard their capsule for three days as it flies through orbit before returning for a splashdown landing off the coast of Florida on Saturday.

For the next three days, the passengers will float around the capsule as it circles around the planet once every 90 minutes, traveling at more than 17,500 miles per hour, while the passengers float and take in panoramic views of Earth. To cap off the journey, their spacecraft will dive back into the atmosphere for a fiery re-entry and splash down off the coast of Florida.

Splashdown is currently slated for Saturday, but that could change if weather or other issues prompt an earlier or later return. The capsule is stocked with enough food and supplies for about a week.

This is only the third crewed launch from US soil in the past decade.

The crew includes 38-year-old billionaire Jared Isaacman, who personally financed the trip; Hayley Arceneux, 29, a childhood cancer survivor and current St. Jude physician assistant; Sian Procotor, 51, a geologist and community college teacher with a PhD; and Chris Sembroski, a 42-year-old Lockheed Martin employee and lifelong space fan who claimed his seat through an online raffle.

All four passengers will spend the entire mission aboard the SpaceX capsule, a 13-foot-wide, gumdrop-shaped spacecraft that detaches from SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket after reaching orbital speeds and was originally built to carry NASA astronauts.

And yes, for all three days in space, the passengers will all have to share a special zero-gravity-friendly toilet located near the top of the capsule. No showering will be available, and crew will all have to sleep in the same reclining seats they will ride in during launch.

SpaceX hopes this will be the first of many similar tourism missions, paving the way toward a future when it's as common to take a jaunt to space as it is to hop on an airplane. And the Crew Dragon capsule is SpaceX's first step on the way there. Though it was designed and built under a NASA contract and intended to get astronauts to and from the International Space Station, SpaceX still owns and operates the vehicle and is allowed to sell seats or entire missions to whoever the companies wishes. And with that, SpaceX and its space tourism customers get to design the entire mission  from picking the flight path and training regiment all the way down to choosing whcih foods the passengers will munch on while in oribt.

At a press briefing Tuesday evening, Sembroski, the 42-year-old who got his ticket via a raffle, told reporters that joining the Inspriation4 mission felt like "we're writing the rules, we're breaking a couple of them that NASA used to demand...We get to kind of do things our own way."

This is far from the first time civilians have traveled to space. Though NASA has been averse to signing up non-astronauts for routine missions after the death of Christa McAuliffe, a New Hampshire school teacher who was killed in the Challenger disaster in 1986, a cohort of wealthy thrill-seekers paid their own way to the International Space Station in the 2000s through a company called Space Adventures. American investment management billionaire Dennis Tito became the first to self-fund a trip in 2001 with his eight-day stay on the International Space Station, and six others came after him. They all booked rides alongside professional astronauts on Russia's Soyuz spacecraft.

This mission, however, has been billed as the beginning of a new era of space travel in which average people, rather than government-selected astronauts and the occasional deep-pocketed adventurer, carry the mantle of space exploration.

But to be clear, we are still a long way from that reality, and this trip is still far from "average." It's a custom, one-off mission financed by a billionaire founder of a payment processing company, and though pricing details have not been made public, it likely cost upward of $200 million. (According to one government report, SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule costs roughly $55 million per seat.)

Isaacman  who will become the third billionaire to self-fund a trip space in the past three months and the first to buy a trip to orbit on a SpaceX capsule  is billing this mission as one that he hopes will inspire would-be space adventureres, hence the missions's name, Inspiration4. He's also using it as the centerpiece for a $200 million fundraiser for St. Jude Children's Hospital, $100 million of which he donated personally and the rest he is hoping to raise through online donations and an auction set to begin Thursday. Items will include a ukulele that Sembroski will play in space and 66 pounds of beer hops.

So far, the fundraiser has brought in $31 million of its $100 million goal.

Correction: A previous version of this article misidentified Christa McAuliffe's home state.

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The implosion of Lehman Brothers, 13 years ago this week, showed how the collapse of a single entity can send shockwaves around the world.

Echoes from that event are resounding today as a massive property developer on the other side of the world teeters on the brink of default.

The risk is that the collapse of Evergrande, a Chinese real estate company with a staggering $300 billion of debt outstanding, could set off a chain reaction that spreads overseas.

"Some fear an Evergrande meltdown will have systemic risks on par with the impact Lehman Brothers' demise had on the US stock market," Ed Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research, wrote in a note to clients Thursday.

Like Lehman in its heyday, Evergrande is massive, suggesting a default would be felt widely. The company has 200,000 employees, raked in more than $110 billion in sales last year and has more than 1,300 developments, according to Reuters.

Wall Street is keeping close tabs on the Evergrande situation, which highlights the extraordinary amount of borrowing Chinese companies and families have taken on over the years. Yet there are no signs that investors think an Evergrande default will infect US markets or the domestic economy.

No contagion, at least so far

For now, investors seem confident that authorities in Beijing would use their vast control over the Chinese economy to limit the damage. And there is no evidence, at least so far, of contagion in US markets.

"I don't think the Evergrande meltdown, and the financial problems of Chinese property companies more broadly, will reverberate back on the US economy or markets," Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, told CNN.

"We think that the 'China's Lehman moment' narrative is wide of the mark," Simon MacAdam, senior global economist at Capital Economics, wrote in a note on Thursday.

MacAdam said even a "messy collapse" of Evergrande would have "little global impact beyond some market turbulence."

David Kotok, co-founder and chief investment officer of Cumberland Advisors, agrees, dismissing Evergrande as a "Chinese domestic credit problem."

"It does not look as if it has any contagion effects on American companies or American financial markets," Kotok said. "We see no credit spread widening,"

Credit spreads, the difference between corporate bonds and ultra-safe Treasury rates, remain very narrow. That's a sign that investors aren't worried  especially given the Federal Reserve's unprecedented support for the economy and markets. Of course, that can change in a heartbeat.

"I would change my view at once if I saw any contagion or spillover" into the world's biggest economies, Kotok said.

The US Treasury Department declined to comment on the Evergrande situation.

Growth engine to slow

Beyond the market impact, the collapse of Evergrande could affect China's economy, the second-largest in the world after the United States, and a key catalyst for global growth.

Evergrande has already suspended work on some projects in a bid to conserve cash. Given the company's size, that will put pressure on China's real estate market.

"Property development has been a major growth engine for the Chinese economy over the last decade," Guy Lebas, chief fixed income strategist at Janney Capital Management, told CNN in an email.

He said the lack of large-scale real estate development could slow China's economy, though there is debate over how productive that growth was in the first place.

"While there may be modest knock-on effects in other economies, I don't expect them to be too large," Lebas said.

'I don't know if China can have a Lehman Moment'

Wall Street's cautious optimism is driven by the fact that Beijing's authoritarian government has enormous influence over what happens in China's economy, financial markets and banking system. Consider Beijing's recent crackdowns on everything from video games and casinos to ride-sharing.

"If it appears that a default(s) may ignite a financial crisis, Chinese authorities would almost certainly forestall this from happening," Zandi of Moody's said.

Kotok pointed out that in China, the government controls the rules of the road, right down to how much credit is extended to various parts of the economy.

"I don't know if China can have a Lehman Moment," Kotok said.

While Yardeni doesn't expect Beijing to save Evergrande, he does see the government injecting enough liquidity to limit the damage.

"Or at least we hope so," he said.

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Maintaining a healthy environment during a pandemic without alienating employees and customers who don't want to wear masks or get vaccinated has been a headache for small business owners.

Although everyone has questions about how it will work, some were relieved by President Biden's announcement last week that employers with 100 or more staff will have to require workers to get the Covid-19 vaccine or submit to weekly testing. That's because a federal plan takes some of the pressure off of them to decide whether to require their workers to get vaccinated.

But not all small businesses are on board with Biden's plan.

Here's what a handful of business owners have to say about the new vaccine mandate.

Wishing it applied to even smaller businesses

Bob Szuter, who with his father owns Wolf's Ridge Brewing in Columbus, Ohio, only has 80 employees so technically isn't required to comply with the Biden plan.

Szuter believes at least 90% of his employees are fully vaccinated. "There are still a few we know are not. We worry about their health and what can happen to the business," he said.

He has been worried that if he mandated the vaccine he'd risk losing workers. And he was already understaffed and having a hard time hiring. But in the wake of the announcement, and due to a situation that arose over the weekend at his restaurant, he felt emboldened to do so.

A vaccinated staff member tested positive, which meant any unvaccinated employee who came into contact with that staff member would have to quarantine, he said. So he decided to make the vaccine mandatory for everyone working there.

"With where we are in the pandemic and dealing with staffing issues, it's more important to make sure our entire staff is [as] healthy as can be and to limit any downtime due to illness or isolation and quarantine measures," Szuter said.

He's not making testing an option for his unvaccinated workers, either, he added. "It wouldn't fix the issues for us."

Szuter remains concerned that by having a vaccine mandate he could still lose staff to other small businesses that don't have one. That's why he wishes Biden's new rule applied to businesses with 50 or more employees to level the playing field even further.

"But, at the end of the day, targeting employers with 100 or more [workers] certainly did make it easier for us to just go ahead and [mandate vaccination]," he said.

A sigh of relief

For two other business owners, Biden's move has taken the heat off of them in making the tough call to mandate.

"Our general response is mild excitement," said Tyler Enders, co-owner of Made in KC, which sells gifts and coffees, as well as spirits and wines at some locations. He employs roughly 115 employees across nearly a dozen locations in Missouri and Kansas.

"It redirects people's frustration [to the federal government]...It really relieves that pressure."

Kevin Kelly, co-owner and CEO of Emerald Packaging, a California-based produce-packaging manufacturer with roughly 275 employees, was equally blunt.

"It makes life so much easier," he said. "I just talked to employees and said, 'I'm not going to try to persuade you anymore.'"

Like a lot of employers, Kelly had been offering employees financial incentives to get vaccinated. But now he is simply going to require that they do it.

He would be concerned, he said, if he is going to be on the hook to pay for weekly Covid tests should any of his employees remain unvaccinated. Kelly estimates that at $100 a pop, a weekly test for 40 or more employees will be an expense -- and a coordination hassle -- that he's not willing to assume.

"I'm just not going to do that. We don't have to do the 'or,'" he said. Instead, he plans to simply require vaccination as a condition of employment and not offer testing as an alternative, unless employees themselves or the state government absorb the cost.

Employers are eagerly awaiting upcoming guidance from federal agencies to clarify the rules for enacting Biden's plan, including who will be legally obligated to pay for testing if an employee remains unvaccinated, whether by choice or due to a religious or medical exemption.

It's good for the economy

A few weeks before Biden's announcement, Aaron Seyedian, who owns the company Well-Paid Maids in Washington, DC, decided to mandate that all his staff get vaccinated.

Until that point, Seyedian, who has 16 employees, had been offering financial incentives and free transportation to vaccination sites for his staffers, about half of whom he estimates remained unvaccinated.

Going into the summer, business was good since vaccinated customers were feeling optimistic that they were fully protected from Covid, he said.

But as cases grew due to the spread of the Delta variant, he started getting emails from clients, asking that he only send them fully vaccinated staffers to do cleaning jobs. So in August, he issued a mandate. Since then, only one employee has refused to get the vaccine and that person will effectively be laid off unless or until they change their mind, Seyedian said.

While Biden's plan won't affect Seyedian's current policy, he applauds the president for laying down a federal minimum standard on vaccines and testing. As Seyedian sees it, it can only be good for customer-facing businesses.

"The more we can reduce the cognitive load for consumers in terms of stuff they have to worry about, it's great for spending. What's good for the economy is not to have to think about [Covid]," he said.

Not a fan of Biden's plan

Nick Sharp employs just under 50 people in his Miami-area businesses -- which include two cafes, a brewery and a coffee roasting company. For him, Biden's plan is overreaching and he said he doesn't plan to require vaccinations of his own staff.

Sharp, who was born in Australia and does not like the stringent measures his home country has taken to contain Covid cases, believes individuals can choose how to assess and respond to risk.

"I don't think it's a good function for governments...and employers to mandate things like this except in extreme and rare circumstances where you have a high level of certainty. I don't think that exists [in this situation]," Sharp said. For him, there is not sufficient certainty on many issues, including those pertaining to the vaccine's long-term effects or its effects on those who already have had Covid.

But, he noted, "I don't think [the mandate] is some nefarious strategy of trying to control people and cause people harm."

He's not alone in feeling that a mandate goes too far. The National Federation of Independent Businesses issued a critical letter to Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, alleging that the new mandate forces small business owners with more than 100 employees to coerce their workers into getting vaccinated, and will penalize the businesses if they don't.

Sharp said he follows city, county and state guidelines -- and sat on the City of Coral Gables Business Recovery Task Force -- and always keeps his employees apprised of the latest guidance.

People, he observed, took more precautions as the Delta variant started surging in Florida this summer. "What drives it is when you know someone who's tested positive. It becomes more real. And then people's behavior changed. More staff got vaccinated and masked."

Sharp estimates about 70% of his employees are vaccinated and about half choose to wear masks regularly.

[Editor's note: While scientists continue to learn more every day about Covid-19, there is a high level of certainty in the medical community that vaccinations and masks dramatically slow the spread of the virus and the progression of the disease.]

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It is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. The Jewish holy day began last night at sundown and is considered the most important and sacred of Jewish religious holidays.

Here's what you need to know to Get Up to Speed and On with Your Day.

(You can also get "5 Things You Need to Know Today" delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up here.)

1. Coronavirus

Three reports published yesterday support the argument that booster doses of Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine would be safe and effective and may be needed. These and other reports will be on the docket tomorrow when FDA vaccine advisers meet to discuss booster doses, though the agency has signaled it has a lot of factors to consider before making an official move on the subject. What's not up for debate, experts say, is that the vaccines work to reduce infection, spread and serious illness. Meanwhile, the rise of child cases of Covid-19 is sounding alarm bells. About 60% of all cases in Georgia over the last 60 days occurred in K-12 schools, representing about a sevenfold increase. In the past week, Ohio has seen a 44% increase in cases among school-age children, compared to a 17% jump in the rest of the population.

2. Policing

The Justice Department has announced that federal law enforcement officers will be banned from using neck restraints (commonly known as chokeholds) during arrests and using no-knock entries while executing warrants except in rare cases. As the federal government looks to increase policing accountability, some states are facing issues within their own justice systems. In Colorado, a 14-month investigation into the Aurora police department found a pattern of practicing racially biased policing and excessive force. In Georgia, the US Justice Department announced a statewide investigation into the state's prisons, focusing on prisoner-on-prisoner violence and sexual abuse of gay, lesbian and transgender prisoners by prisoners and staff.

3. Larry Nassar

Acclaimed gymnasts who were abused by former physician Larry Nassar testified yesterday in a powerful Senate hearing. Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney, Maggie Nichols and Aly Raisman all accused the FBI of botching its investigation into allegations against Nassar and called out intimidation by the sport's governing bodies. The gymnasts gave new insight into how the FBI had mishandled their allegations. For instance, Maroney said when she related graphic details of her abuse to the FBI in 2015, the formal summary from the agent contained false information that she said minimized the abuse. They also expressed anger over the decision by the Justice Department not to charge two former FBI employees involved in the investigation who were referred by the department's inspector general for potential prosecution.

4. Debt ceiling

The clock is ticking on raising the debt ceiling. In short, if Congress doesn't raise the limit on federal borrowing soon, the government will default on its debt by the end of next month and risk serious damage to both the US economy and its international reputation. However, the issue has created divisions in Congress. Many Republicans don't want to be involved in the vote to raise the debt ceiling because they say Democrats have driven up spending with Covid-19 relief plans and their domestic agenda. Democrats are considering tacking the borrowing increase onto a must-pass spending bill to keep the government open to force the GOP's hand. But if Republicans block that plan, things would get even uglier.

5. China

Major powers are pushing back on China's increasingly aggressive military posturing. President Biden and the UK government will work together on an effort to help Australia acquire nuclear-powered submarines to try to counter Beijing's influence in the region. While the trilateral partnership isn't specifically about responding to issues with China, the US says it's important to have an allied front against possible Chinese aggression. Meanwhile, Japan has asserted that the Senkaku Islands, known as the Diaoyu Islands in China, are unquestionably Japanese territory. These islands are also claimed by China, so Japan's pushback could set up a new conflict between the region's two biggest powers.

BREAKFAST BROWSE

Apple's iPhone 13 secret weapon is, surprisingly, its price

New colors and gizmos are great, but nothing's prettier than a nice discount.

Rivian beats Tesla, GM and Ford to build the first electric pickup truck

For when you want to be environmentally responsible but still have to haul a few loads to the dump.

RuPaul has a new namesake: A rainbow-colored fly

And it's fabulous, baby!

Meghan and Harry are named 'icons' in Time's list of 100 most influential people

We're going to need a new word for "power couple."

The Crystal Cabin Awards recognize the airplane interior designs of the future

See, a future with more legroom is possible!

TODAY'S NUMBER

40%

That's about how much of the US electricity sector is powered by methane, the main component of natural gas. Methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than the longer-lasting carbon dioxide. The US and EU are expected to announce a plan tomorrow to cut methane emissions by nearly a third by 2030.

TODAY'S QUOTE

"The problem is not theological, it's pastoral. How we bishops deal with this principle. We must be pastors, also with those who are excommunicated. Like God with passion and tenderness. The Bible says so."

Pope Francis, addressing the ongoing debate within the US Catholic Church over granting communion to Catholic politicians who support abortion rights, including President Biden. The Pope said bishops should be pastors, not politicians, in such situations.

TODAY'S WEATHER

Check your local forecast here>>>

AND FINALLY

How high can you go?

"Les oiseaux dans la charmille," also known as Olympia's Song or the Doll Song from Jacques Offenbach's opera "The Tales of Hoffman," is considered one of the hardest pieces of music ever written for soprano voice. It's also bizarre and delightful -- after all, she's playing a wind-up doll! (Click here to view.)

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Calhoun Community College ranks No. 1 across the country for advanced manufacturing degree training.

But, not every manufacturing student at Calhoun has the same story or the same path.

"I got a real difficult past," said Chadric Page.

When life began to spiral, Page went through the Downtown Rescue Mission's life recovery program.

"Toyota Manufacturing came up to our mission and in one of the classes, they were telling us about all the different stuff they've got going on," said Page.

An inspiration to start a new chapter. A mentor along the way encouraged Page to apply to Calhoun's Alliance for Machining Professionals.

"He said hey, I want you to apply to the AMP program, it's for guys who want to get into machining," said Page.

Now, Page is working at M&J Precision, a machine and fabrication business in Decatur. He's balancing not only work but classes too.

"I'm learning both at my job and at the school, which is great because I think it really does fast track my education," said Page.

But, this is just one journey to a career in manufacturing.

Dean for Technologies, John Holley, said students can get short-term certifications or continue their education at a four-year college.

The goal is to give students, or adults, an employable skill.

"Our programs are probably about 20% theory, what students would say is classroom work and 80% hands-on," said Holley.

Machines at the school, give students the opportunity to get hands-on experience.

"What this program is going to do, it's going to start you off on that machinist level," said Page. "To be a good programmer, you need to be a good machinist, so I'm getting the basics of what I need to know to be able to move forward, said Page.

Page's story, an unconventional route to some and possibly an inspiration to others.

"There were people that were meant to push pencils all day and I'm not," said Page. "If M&J decides that I'm worthy enough to stay on with them, I'll probably stay on with them for a while."

Page said he may even make a career out of it.

Students interested in manufacturing can pinpoint their passion and take it well beyond their education. Page is proof of just that.

For students wanting to dive into advanced manufacturing, registration begins in October for the next semester. Calhoun Community College will give financial support to those who need it and are interested in any of the programs! More information can be found, here.
People needing a coronavirus test now have a new option where they don't have to get out of their cars.

A drive-through testing center opened on Wednesday at the Decatur Fire and Police Training Center.

An influx of patients, both in and out of Morgan County, are looking to be tested for the coronavirus.

"At some of the urgent cares, first thing in the morning, they're trying to beat the line so they're sitting outside, waiting for them to open doors," said Assistant District Manager of Morgan County, Michael Glenn." "Hopefully this testing center is going to alleviate some of that."

Glenn said for the past several months, the need for testing has remained high.

With so many people still unvaccinated, community transmission is continuing in Morgan County.

"When you're in a crowd, 56% of those folks you're in contact with are probably un-vaccinated," said Glenn.

A drive-through testing center could be the solution to covid-19 testing traffic.

"It's very convenient," said Glenn. "It helps reduce some of the transmission, as well as convenience for people wanting to be tested," said Glenn.

Doctor Wes Stubblefield said vaccination is key in slowing some cases of infection, but said if you do test positive for this virus, here's what you need to do:

"You would want to go back and say who you were in contact with," said Dr. Stubblefield. "The second thing you want to do is educate yourself on signs and symptoms of the virus."

Shortness of breath and loss of taste are two of the main symptoms you may have.

The drive-through clinic is a partnership between the Alabama Department of Public Health and Nomi Health.

The testing center will be open for two weeks unless the demand grows for coronavirus testing. Test results should come back in less than 24 hours.

It's open from 9 A.M. until 5 P.M. Monday through Friday at the Decatur Fire and Police Training Center parking lot.

In Morgan County, 44.3% of people have at least one dose of the vaccine.
NEW YORK (AP)  Mayim Bialik and Ken Jennings will split Jeopardy! hosting duties for the remainder of 2021.

Sony Pictures Television announced the plan Thursday, the same week that episodes filmed by ousted host Mike Richards to begin the show's 38th season are airing.

Richards, who also lost his role as Jeopardy! executive producer, was initially selected as Alex Trebeks successor but left the show after past misogynistic and disparaging comments surfaced.

Bialik was tapped as interim host, and her episodes begin Monday and will air through Nov. 5.

Sony says Bialik and Jennings, the record-holder for longest Jeopardy! winning streak, will share hosting duties based on their schedules after that date.

New episodes of "Jeopardy!" air at 3:30 p.m. weekdays on WAAY 31. Classic episodes of the show air at 3 p.m. weekdays.
Sydney Liao, 16, of Scappoose, Ore., relaxes with a couple of her Pygora goats, Cosmo and Izzy on Saturday at the first Wahkiakum Farm to Fiber Festival at the county fairgrounds in Skamokawa. Her family started with four Pygora goats nine years ago, and now have 11 of the animals, which Liao described as "really sweet." See more photos at waheagle.com.

The first ever Farm to Fiber Festival was held at the Wahkiakum County Fairgrounds this past weekend.

Diana Zimmerman Vicki Skeers and Jo Johnstead represented the River City Strippers, a local quilting club, at the festival this weekend. The Strippers meet each Friday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at St. Catherine Catholic Church in Cathlamet, to work on their own pieces and talk about their husbands, or make comfort quilts and baby quilts for people in the community.

"It went really well!" organizer Lori Cagle said happily.

So well, she and the other organizers, members of the Wahkiakum Fiber Arts Association, are already thinking about next year.

According to Cagle, vendors traveled from Montana, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington to attend the event, and Pygora goat exhibitors came from Idaho, Washington, and Oregon.

"All of the vendors were really excited," Cagle said. "They knew it was our first year and they knew it was going to be a little bit slow, but they did really well. I think we had close to 150 people come through."

This year, they also had sheep shearing demonstrations, and next year they hope to add a sheep herding demonstration.

"I go to fiber festivals all the time," she said. "Some of us thought it would be great to have something closer. We thought the fair was a great venue to have an event like this, so we did it as a fundraiser for the fair.

"It was a win/win situation. It brought people into the area, and gave some of the hotels, and bed and breakfasts some business."
Wild boar become election issue in Rome.

Rome's wild boar are back in the news again after a dozen of the tusked animals showed up among children and parents outside a school in a northern suburb of the city on Thursday morning.

The cinghiali walked through families waiting for the school bell to ring on Via della Tenuta di S. Agata in the Monte Mario district, reports online newspaper RomaToday which published footage of the incident.

Parents outside the school, which caters to kindergarten children up to high-school students, described the situation as "absurd and dangerous."

The group of boar comprised four large adults accompanying younger animals, witnesses told RomaToday, with the cinghiali then walking calmly through beeping traffic on Via Trionfale.

There is nothing new about wild boar in the city's northern suburbs such as Monte Mario where they were recently photographed outside Italy's foreign ministry at the Farnesina.

The growing population and "anti-social" activity of the wild boar poses problems for authorities, motorists and residents in the capital.

In recent years cinghiali have discovered that it is easier to rifle through the city's trash than go foraging for food in the woods; there are also reports of people feeding the animals.

The boar can be extremely dangerous to humans if approached when there are young cinghiali present, and they have also caused traffic accidents.

In May wild boar "mugged" a woman outside a supermarket in a rural area north of Rome, relieving her of her shopping bags and eating the contents.

A year ago there was uproar when authorities killed a family of cinghiali in a playground near the Vatican, leading to a blame game between municipal and regional bodies over who is actually in charge of keeping the animals' population in check.

So who exactly is in charge of the Rome's wild boar? The answer is complex, with multiple agencies involved, complicated further by animals moving in between public and privately-owned land.

Earlier this month Rome mayor Virginia Raggi initiated legal proceedings against the surrounding Lazio regional government over the "massive and uncontrolled presence" of wild boar in the capital, accusing the region of failing to implement effective management plans for these animals.

Wild boars are now an electoral issue as Romans set to vote for a new mayor in elections on 3-4 October.

Photo RomaToday
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Fiscally constrained itself, Beijing is not keen to bail out companies. Plus, in the last few years, regulators have already gained some expertise in winding down unwieldy debt-fueled conglomerates. The restructurings of Anbang Group Holdings Co. and HNA Group Co., while painfully slow, were largely orderly and did not prompt a Lehman-like moment. So can China do it again with Evergrande? First, it has an impossible equation to solve.
The ruling African National Congress decided in December 2017 that expropriation without compensation was among the mechanisms needed to accelerate land reform, as long as it didnt undermine the economy, agricultural production and food security. While it wants to amend Section 25 of the constitution, which deals with property rights, it only controls 58% of the seats in parliament and needs two-thirds of lawmakers to assent to changes. The Economic Freedom Fighters, the third-biggest political party, which has 11% of the seats and also supports expropriation, wanted the state to take custodianship of all land -- a proposition the ANC says would go too far. Parliament has yet to vote on the changes. Lawmakers are processing a separate Expropriation Bill that sets out when land can be seized. Passing it only requires a parliamentary majority, but its application could be challenged on constitutional grounds.
House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn (D-Fairfax) and Democratic Majority Leader Charniele L. Herring (D-Alexandria) entered September with a combined total of $1.9 million. Portions of those funds would probably go to supporting other Democrats, with the aim of keeping the partys majority in the House, given that Filler-Corns Republican opponent, John Wolfe, ended August with $167 in available cash, and Herring has no Republican opponent.
The story here is I do not think this has ever been done before. That tells you something, Ifill said. She added that it is important for people to understand that if we are being very serious about attacking this important civil rights issue, it has to be multilayered. We need DOJ to use all the powers available to them.
How many more may arrive in the next few days is unclear. CBP is scrambling to send additional agents to Del Rio to help process the migrants, issuing them numbers as they queue up to be formally apprehended, the first step in applying for asylum or another form of U.S. protection. Most of the migrants are likely to be released into the United States with a notice to appear in court at a future date.
A string of councils getting car parks under the federal governments controversial commuter car park fund were not consulted about the projects until after they were announced, even though the original plan was for Commonwealth money to be matched by local or state funding.

The poor consultation was revealed in submissions to a Senate committee published on Wednesday, as an international body that fights corruption says the administration of the grants scheme can be described as corrupt conduct.

Maroondah City Council was one of the few local governments to report asking for federal money for commuter car parks, including the one at Croydon station. Credit:Paul Jeffers

The $660 million fund was used ahead of the 2019 election to announce that the Coalition would build car parks near train stations. A scathing Auditor-Generals report found more than three-quarters of the projects were in Coalition-held electorates, and two-thirds were in Melbourne.

In the more than two years since the 47 car parks were initially promised, three have been built, construction has begun on four more and six were cancelled. The federal government says that by the end of 2022, 33 of the projects will either be completed or under construction.
When January 23 ticks over next year, it will mark a major milestone for Gladys Berejiklian. The first female NSW premier to be elected in her own right will notch up five years in the job. Berejiklian already has the title of the second longest serving Liberal premier, only eclipsed by Robert Askin who was in power for a decade.

Five years will give Berejiklian perks that come with being a long-serving premier. The car, the driver, an office and staff. (Over the years, Nick Greiner and Bob Carr have each cost the taxpayer as much as $400,000 a year).

Shes back: Premier Gladys Berejiklian at Wednesdays COVID-19 press conference, her second appearance this week, even though she had indicated they would stop as of last Friday. Credit:Janie Barrett

To stop his one-time opponent Kristina Keneally from receiving those sweeteners after her 15 months as Labor premier, the Liberals Barry OFarrell, once in the job, introduced rules that a premier must be in power for five years before receiving any taxpayer-funded fringe benefits.

There is no entitlement for short-term premiers, OFarrell declared in 2011. After years in opposition, OFarrell might have thought hed easily clock up five years. That wasnt to be. He managed three before falling on his sword at the corruption watchdog over a vintage bottle of wine.
WASHINGTON (AP)  The White House offered Wednesday to connect Nicki Minaj with one of the Biden administrations doctors to address her questions about the COVID-19 vaccine, after the Trinidadian-born rappers erroneous tweet alleging the vaccine causes impotence went viral.

The White House said that theyve offered such calls with others concerned about the vaccine, part of an aggressive public relations campaign to beat back rampant disinformation about the vaccines safety and effectiveness.

Minaj tweeted Wednesday that the White House has invited me and yes, Im going, but a White House official said the rapper was simply offered a call.

Minaj made headlines earlier this week when she noted in a tweet to her more than 22.6 million followers that the Met Gala required attendees to be vaccinated, and that she wouldnt get the shot until I feel Ive done enough research. She later issued a tweet sharing an unverified story about a cousins friend in Trinidad. Minaj asserted the unidentified individual became impotent and his testicles became swollen after receiving the shot.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nations leading infectious disease expert, dismissed the claim as misinformation during an interview Tuesday on CNN.

Theres no evidence that it happens, nor is there any mechanistic reason to imagine that it would happen, he said.

Throughout the year, the White House has struggled to counteract resistance to getting a shot, particularly among younger and more Republican demographics. The administration has pointed in particular to false or misleading information about the safety and efficacy of the vaccines as a driver of that hesitance. It has referenced a study by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a nonprofit that studies extremism, that linked a dozen accounts to spreading the majority of vaccine disinformation on Facebook.

The administration has sought out new ways to refute disinformation and reach young vaccine skeptics, earlier this year inviting teen pop star Olivia Rodrigo to the White House to show her support for the shot.
Dreamstime photo

MONTVILLE  A 60-year-old convicted serial bank robber has been sentenced to more than four years in prison for robbing another bank after being released from prison, the U.S. Attorneys Office said.

Anthony Hall, 60, of Montville, was sentenced Tuesday in New Haven to 52 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for robbing a Norwich bank while he was on supervised release for a prior federal robbery conviction, according to a press release.
Its the time of year when people start seeing more bats, when more bats get into their houses, when more bats are submitted for rabies testing.

Its a new generation of bats, testing their wings.

This is the time of year when young bats are learning how to fly, said Jenny Dickson, director of the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protections Wildlife Division.

Everyone leaves the roost and goes one way, the dumb kid goes the other way, into someones house. Its pretty common, she said.

While we may be seeing more bats now, the population has not rebounded from the devastating white-nose syndrome, which has killed millions of bats since it was first found in 2007 in bats in a cave near Albany, N.Y.

Even if we could wave a magic wand and get rid of white-nose tomorrow, it would be decades before we could rebuild the population, Dickson said.

While bats are more prey than predator, bats get a bad rap; theres no two ways about it, Dickson said.

They can carry rabies. Since it is fatal if not treated, rabies is a pretty frightening disease. Bats also are suspected of being the source of the coronavirus that began the COVID-19 pandemic.

But while there are a lot more bats flying around now  eating millions of mosquitoes, by the way  rabies does not pose a significant threat, Dickson said. Less than half of one percent will have the rabies virus, she said. And in order to catch rabies from a bat, a person would have to be bitten or scratched.

In the past year, the State Public Health Laboratory tested 459 bats submitted by the public and 15 tested positive, a rate of 3.3 percent. But those were bats submitted that were behaving strangely in the first place, Dickson said.

But its best to keep them out of the house. If one is flying around the bedroom at night, a series of rabies shots may be in order, as a precaution, experts said.

The rabies vaccine isnt as frightening as people think either, said Laura Simon, field director for the Humane Society of the United States. It requires four shots in the arm over two weeks, plus a dose of immunoglobulin.

Its not painful at all and its 100 percent effective, Simon said.

Rabies is extremely low in this country among people, Simon said. We have one to three people die in this country every year. Thats in large part because dogs are required to be vaccinated for rabies. Despite how low the risk is of a person in this country contracting rabies, we go to extraordinary lengths to protect them, she said.

In one of the most high-profile rabies cases, Greenwich teenager Maria Fareri, an eighth-grader at Central Middle School, died of rabies in 1995, after she was exposed to a rabid bat. Her family did not know she had been bitten, and she was not treated in time. Fareri became the first person to die of rabies in Connecticut since 1932.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are about 5,000 animal cases of rabies in the United States each year, 90 percent in wildlife. This is a major change in the past 60 years. Back then, most cases were in domestic animals, primarily dogs, the CDC reported.

According to the state Department of Public Health, of 949 animals tested in the past year, 40 tested positive for rabies: two bobcats, three cats, two coyotes, three foxes, nine raccoons, four skunks and two groundhogs, in addition to the 15 bats.

You never want to handle wild animals, Dickson said. You want to avoid interactions with them, but its not something that warrants a high level of concern.

Also, the fear of being attacked by a rabid bat isnt warranted, she said. When bats get the rabies virus, they typically dont get the furious form of rabies. Theyll get sick and die.

Seeing a nocturnal animal such as a bat during daytime also isnt necessarily reason to fear. There are those situations  where you might see them active in the daytime, Dickson said. If the weather has made it hard for them to get their full meal of insects at night, they might still be hunting when the sun comes up. A bat also may become tired and settle under an eave at the end of a long night.

Those bats certainly have been active at night. They can eat something on the range of 1,000 mosquitoes in an hour or so, Dickson said. And this has been a really good year, weather-wise, for a lot of invertebrate species.

Its important for the bats to be out eating up bugs, because theyre trying to put on weight before they go into hibernation, Dickson said. If youre a little bat, youre going to pack on a couple ounces. Thats a big deal for them.

There are nine bat species native to Connecticut, although the population of little brown bats has been reduced by 90 percent by white-nose syndrome, according to a study in the journal Conservation Biology. Big brown bats also have seen their numbers shrink from the fungus, which grows on bats while they are hibernating.

Dickson said three species in Connecticut are considered tree-roosting bats. They typically will fly further south, and theyll stay active all year long, she said. Of the rest, some hibernate in Connecticut, some will travel to nearby states, flying hundreds of miles. Theyre really particular about the temperature and humidity conditions, she said.

Big brown bats, which Dickson said stay out later and can typically take a little frost, arent really that big, she said. When we talk about those guys, were still taking about a wingspan of 12 inches or so but a body length of about 5, she said.

If they get into the house, its because a hole has been created for them, maybe by another animal chewing through a screen. A lot of times, people have bats in and around their homes and they dont realize it, Dickson said. They may be under an eave or flashing. Bats are extremely loyal to a roost location and may stay there for decades, she said.

If they do get in, open a door or a window, dim the lights indoors and turn on an outdoor light. That will attract insects and the insects will attract the bat. A box or blanket can help trap them. They usually cant fly off the ground or floor. Droppings and dark brown stains may appear near eaves and beneath entrance holes and roosts, according to DEEP.

Further, according to DEEP: one of the simplest techniques for solving nuisance problems is letting the bats exit on their own and then preventing their re-entry.

Those who do appreciate bats can put up bat boxes, which are open on the bottom. They do work if you build them right and put them in the right location, Dickson said. That would be somewhere where there is at least four hours of sunlight during the day and in an open area, not in a tree, where predators can find them.

Bats like to be warm during the summer months, Dickson said. The heat helps the young bat grow during the summer.

edward.stannard@hearstmediact.com; 203-680-9382
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The pandemic, lockdowns, social distancing and the rest have spread everything from irritation to despair through the theatre world in general, but for Tonderai Munyevu the effects have been very specific. His play, Mugabe, My Dad and Me, scheduled for a 2020 run in the Theatre Royal Studio, has undergone multiple postponements and has finally surfaced in the main theatre, the more suitable intimate space being temporarily out of action. It's fair to say the quality of the text and performance triumphs despite the uncongenial setting.

Tonde, as he is always referred to in the play, is a gay Zimbabwean actor/writer who has been in this country for many years. He knows no other ruler of Zimbabwe than Robert Mugabe. Tonde's mother flees his father's violence for the UK and, when his father dies, Tonde doesn't bother to go back for the funeral. It's only when Mugabe is toppled, a rift in the world picture he knows, that Tonde returns  and tries to understand and evaluate the world of his father and Mugabe and the place of what he calls the Diasporians, such as himself. The result is a fairly simple narrative and a highly complex examination of family, tradition, nationality, land, power  and, above all, identity.

Munyevu bounds cheerfully on stage, all welcoming grin and merrily wide-open eyes, and goes into a routine, ending with a deliberately awful joke, that comes dangerously close to tilting the audience response the wrong way. The laughs remain even when the play itself starts and the subject matter gets serious, but before long the audience is deeply involved in Tonde's world.

The first scene is a powerful riff on the "Where are you from?" theme. Tonde is pulling pints in a London pub (out of work actor), when a middle-aged customer who, like a fair few pub-bore Brits, knows more about Africa than the Africans, delivers a series of insulting questions. In a neat coup, Tonde then turns, not aggressively, on the white audience and promising us a history lesson. How did he know the audience would be predominantly white? (It was.)

Wryly personal and powerfully political scenes alternate rapidly  a scene with Tonde on the booze looking for a sexual pick-up in Soho and barely reacting to the news of his father's death is wonderfully queasy  until the pace picks up as Tonde returns to Zimbabwe. A series of thought-provoking scenes culminate in Tonde at his father's graveside inadvertently summoning up the late President. His initial comical bonhomie ("Call me Bob") dissipates as Tonde questions him about whether the Zimbabwe he built justifies the lives sacrificed to create it. Mugabe keeps swinging the blame onto the West, notably Tony Blair, and, if we are left in no doubt that Mugabe became an evil tyrant, we question whether the nature of his evil was the same as we in the West assume it to be.

Munyevu is by turn engaging and passionate and plays out the set piece dialogues (with his father, a policeman or Mugabe) with great animation and subtlety. However, this review has been written as though it were a one-man show and there were two people on stage almost throughout: Millie Chapanda, in traditional costume in contrast to Munyevu's casual white shirt and jeans, mostly plays the mbira, its bell-like sound a rippling accompaniment to Tonde's narrative. It's more complex than this: she tells the story of the mbira's significance in Zimbabwean celebration, she represents the female in African culture (Munyevu insists that all performances of his play have a female mbira player) and, when his story ends inconclusively, Mama Africa plays and sings of the links between the living and the dead.
The new Texas law that bans most abortions in the state has been welcomed by many of the religious leaders who help bolster the anti-abortion movement. Yet some abortion opponents in U.S. religious circles are wary of the law and questioning the movements current direction.

FILE - In this Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2021 file photo, Barbie H. leads a protest against the six-week abortion ban at the Capitol in Austin, Texas. Dozens of people protested the abortion restriction law that went into effect Wednesday. (Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman via AP, File)

The new Texas law that bans most abortions in the state has been welcomed by many of the religious leaders who help bolster the anti-abortion movement. Yet some abortion opponents in U.S. religious circles are wary of the law and questioning the movements current direction.

The wariness relates in part to the laws most novel feature, which some critics view as an invitation to vigilantes: It provides no enforcement role for public officials and instead authorizes private citizens to sue anyone they deem to be assisting in an abortion, with the prospect of gaining $10,000 in the process.

The law "has serious downsides" and conveys that anti-abortion activists are willing to engage in "desperate and extremist tactics," said Charles Camosy, an associate professor of theological and social ethics at Fordham University who favors tougher nationwide restrictions on abortion.

"Because it appears to be playing legal games to get around rulings of federal courts, the law feeds the false narrative that pro-lifers dont have public opinion on our side," Camosy, a Catholic, said via email.

The law, Senate Bill 8, prohibits abortions once medical professionals can detect cardiac activity, usually around six weeks. It was assailed in a recent column in the National Catholic Reporter, an independent online news outlet, by one of its senior reporters, Michael Sean Winters.

"I fear greatly that the premature implementation of this truly strange law will turn out to be the historic beginning of a backlash against the pro-life movement for which it is ill-prepared," Winters wrote.

He said the laws provisions encourage "a kind of vigilante justice we had all thought consigned to old Western movies" and warned that its implementation would likely prompt some women to resort to illegal and potentially risky abortions.

"I am as pro-life as pro-life can be, but I detest the pro-life movement, for its short-sightedness, for its moral myopia, for its viciousness," Winters wrote. "The pro-choice movement is now energized in a way it has not been for years."

Amid the furor over SB 8, the Catholic bishop of Lexington, Kentucky, John Stowe, issued a broader critique of some elements of the anti-abortion movement, suggesting they pursued their cause while neglecting other pressing social issues.

"Those who vehemently fight legal abortion but are uninterested in providing basic healthcare for pregnant mothers or needy children, who are unconcerned about refugee children or those lacking quality education with no hope of escaping poverty cannot really claim to respect life," Stowe tweeted.

FILE - In this May 5, 2021, file photo, Texas state Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, center at lectern, stands with fellow lawmakers in the House Chamber in Austin, Texas, as she opposes a bill introduced that would ban abortions as early as six weeks and allow private citizens to enforce it through civil lawsuits, under a measure given preliminary approval by the Republican-dominated House. The law went into effect on Sept. 1. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

Among staunch supporters of the Texas law, theres a degree of disdain for abortion opponents who depict the measure as a strategic mistake.

"The pro-lifers who oppose Texas SB 8 play to lose  or rather they play the part of controlled opposition, paying lip service to the unborn, but not actually acting like real lives are at stake every single day," said Chad Pecknold, associate professor of theology at The Catholic University of America.

"Whatever happens to Texas SB 8, it will long be remembered as the moment when pro-lifers started playing to win," Pecknold added via email.

Implementation of the law has elated many top faith leaders in Texas and other states whove been campaigning against abortion over the years, including many of John Stowes fellow bishops.

"We celebrate every life saved by this legislation," said the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops, which represents the 20 bishops serving the state.

"Abortion does not help women," the bishops said. "Abortion is never the answer. It is always the violent taking of innocent human life."

The statement was lauded by Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Pro-Life Activities.

Naumann acknowledged that the law has sparked controversy but criticized President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for "responding with radical pledges" to block it and other tough anti-abortion measures.

Like Naumann, some prominent Southern Baptist pastors in Texas welcomed the law while noting its contentious aspects

"I do believe its legitimate to ask if we really want third parties to be able to financially profit from reporting the crimes of others," said the Rev. Robert Jeffress of the First Baptist Dallas megachurch.

"Overall," Jeffress said via email, "Im very supportive of and grateful for this strong affirmation of the value of life by our Texas lawmakers."

Phillip Bethancourt, formerly a senior public policy official with the Southern Baptist Convention and now lead pastor of Central Church in College Station, Texas, noted that theres debate about whether the law "is ultimately good or bad."

"But theres one community that will be universally thankful for it: those pre-born children for whom this law will mean life instead of death," he said via email. "We need to see more legislation and not less around the country that does everything it can to protect life."

Another Baptist pastor, John Elkins of Sovereign Grace Fellowship in Brazoria, Texas, said he welcomes the law while wishing it would ban abortion altogether. He hopes congregation members who share his outlook will find ways to assist unwed mothers in their community.

Among the vocal supporters of SB 8 is Marjorie Dannenfelser, a Catholic who heads the Susan B. Anthony List, a prominent national anti-abortion group.

"The goal of the pro-life movement has always been to make abortion illegal and unthinkable," she wrote in a column Wednesday in National Review. "Texans are doing just that, in defiance of the undemocratic stifling of debate wrought by the Supreme Court years ago."

Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee, said her organization supports "any legal strategy that would protect unborn babies."

"Too many state attorneys general fail to defend protective laws, or judges strike them down when they do," said Tobias, who belongs to the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. "The Texas approach is novel and deserves its day in court using established legal procedures."

Michael New, an abortion opponent who teaches social research at Catholic University, called the law "unconventional" and predicted it would face multiple legal challenges. Already, it has been targeted by lawsuits from abortion providers and from the U.S. Justice Department.

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Nonetheless, New said he was pleased that SB 8 has taken effect.

"Pro-lifers have identified a strategy that, at least in the short term, has succeeded in providing legal protection to thousands of unborn children," he said.

Unsurprisingly, SB 8 has been assailed by clergy from faith groups that support abortion rights. Among the plaintiffs in a July suit challenging the law is the Rev. Daniel Kanter, senior minister of First Unitarian Church of Dallas and a past chair of Planned Parenthoods Clergy Advocacy Board.

The Jewish Council of Public Affairs, which represents more than 140 national and local Jewish organizations, condemned SB 8 and other anti-abortion restrictions as "dangerous measures" that should be thwarted by federal legislation.

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support from the Lilly Endowment through The Conversation U.S. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
OTTAWA - It's pronounced koh-MIHR'-nuh-tee. Never heard of it? Well, get used to it. It's what Canada will be calling the Pfizer vaccine from now on, at least officially.

Vials of both Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines sit empty on the counter at the Junction Chemist Pharmacy, in Toronto, Friday, June 18, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

OTTAWA - It's pronounced koh-MIHR'-nuh-tee. Never heard of it? Well, get used to it. It's what Canada will be calling the Pfizer vaccine from now on, at least officially.

Health Canada has approved new monikers for Pfizer, Moderna and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines and announced the change on social media today.

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has now been dubbed Comirnaty, which the company says represents a combination of the terms COVID-19, mRNA, community, and immunity.

The Moderna vaccine will go by SpikeVax and the AstraZeneca vaccine will be named Vaxzevria.

Pfizer and Moderna say the change marks the full approval of the vaccines by Health Canada, which were previously approved under an interim order that was set to expire today.

It's the first time SpikeVax, until now known as the Moderna vaccine, has been fully approved anywhere in the world, Stephane Bancel, the company's CEO, said in a press release Thursday.

During the interim order, the vaccines didn't go by their brand names, but now that new and more long-term data has been submitted and approved they will go by their permanent name.

Chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam painted a grim picture Thursday of what could lie ahead if more people don't embrace the vaccines.

"Unless we can quickly reduce overall transmission rates through accelerated vaccination and other measures where the virus is surging, continued expansion of the epidemic could lead to higher case counts than we have experienced thus far," Tam said at a news conference.

"Were still close to seven million eligible people not yet fully vaccinated. Amid predominance of the highly contagious and more severe Delta variant, hospitalizations could exceed health care capacity in impacted areas."

The vaccines are even more important in the face of the highly contagious Delta variant, she warned.

Health Canada points out the vaccines themselves are not changing  only the names are.

The manufacturers hope full approval from the government agency will make people who still haven't received the shot more comfortable with the idea.

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"Health Canadas approval of Comirnaty for individuals ages 12 and older affirms the vaccines safety and efficacy shown in longer term data submitted to Health Canada  and hopefully that licensure may improve vaccine confidence among Canadians," Pfizer spokesperson Christina Antoniou wrote in a statement.

Although the name change has been approved, Canada will still receive vials labelled Pfizier-BioNTech for the next several months.

Health Canada's regulatory documents show that based on the data provided by the manufacturers the vaccines are effective and were well tolerated by participants in the studies.

The FDA approved new names in the United States earlier this summer, and the vaccines have been going by their brand names in the EU since the spring.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2021.

Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version supplied an incorrect pronunciation for Comirnaty.
COVID-19 cases crept up in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island Thursday, mostly among the young and unvaccinated.

Nova Scotia's provincial flag flies on a flag pole in Ottawa, Friday July 3, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

COVID-19 cases crept up in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island Thursday, mostly among the young and unvaccinated.

Health officials in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia reported double-digit caseloads, while Prince Edward Island reported eight new cases  seven of which were connected to an outbreak at a Charlottetown elementary school.

"All of these cases initially tested negative and then tested positive on a second or subsequent test," Dr. Heather Morrison, the Island's chief public health officer, told reporters Thursday. "I am concerned about this outbreak and the impact on children and families."

A man heads to receive a COVID-19 vaccination at a clinic in Halifax on April 16, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan

There are now 34 active reported cases of COVID-19 on the Island, "the highest number of active cases we've had at any one point since the pandemic began," Morrison said.

Public health is setting up a pop-up COVID-19 testing clinic on Friday for staff and students at West Royalty Elementary School in Charlottetown, the site of the outbreak, she added.

New Brunswick reported 51 new COVID infections Thursday, 47 of which  or 92 per cent  involved people who were not fully vaccinated. Officials said 35 of those cases, or 69 per cent, involved people under 40.

COVID-19 infections have been confirmed at six schools across the province and one child-care facility in the town of Riverview, near Moncton.

New Brunswick data indicates people between 12 and 39 lag in COVID-19 vaccination, with less than 78 per cent of residents in those age groups vaccinated with a first shot and less than 66 per cent fully vaccinated. By contrast, nearly 86 per cent of all eligible New Brunswickers have received at least one dose of vaccine and more than 77 per cent are fully vaccinated.

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"It is imperative for New Brunswickers to get vaccinated, so now is the time to book your appointment at a regional health authority clinic or call a participating pharmacy," Dr. Jennifer Russell, the province's chief medical officer of health, said in a news release Thursday.

New Brunswick has 336 active reported cases of COVID-19 and 15 people in hospital with the disease, including nine in intensive care.

Meanwhile, Nova Scotia reported 34 new cases Thursday, and officials said there was evidence of community spread among unvaccinated people between 20 and 40 years old in the province's central region.

Twenty-six new infections were in the northern region, where a large cluster of cases among unvaccinated people has been identified, the Health Department said in a news release, adding that more cases are expected from the group.

About 73 per cent of Nova Scotians are fully immunized against COVID-19, and 79 per cent have received at least one dose.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2021.
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, facing a COVID-19 crisis that is threatening to collapse its health system in just over a week, has reintroduced limits on gatherings along with elements of a vaccine passport system.

Alberta Education Minister Adriana LaGrange provides an update on COVID-19 and back-to-school guidance in Edmonton on Aug. 13, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, facing a COVID-19 crisis that is threatening to collapse its health system in just over a week, has reintroduced limits on gatherings along with elements of a vaccine passport system.

Alberta is also asking for help from other provinces to use their intensive care beds and staff while prepping its triage protocols, which would see doctors forced to choose who gets life-saving treatment and who does not.

The United Conservative government declared Wednesday a state of public health emergency.

"We may run out of staff and intensive care beds within the next 10 days," Kenney said.

"Unless we slow (virus) transmission, particularly amongst unvaccinated Albertans, we simply will not be able to provide adequate care to everyone who gets sick."

Alberta has 269 patients in intensive care in a system set up for 173. Of the 269 patients in ICUs, 218 have COVID-19 -- the vast majority unvaccinated or partially vaccinated.

Alberta premier Jason Kenney shakes hands with Leela Aheer, Minister of Culture, Multiculturalism and Status of Women, after being sworn into office, in Edmonton on April 30, 2019. Aheer is calling on the premier to admit he botched the fourth wave of COVID-19 and to outline a plan to fix it. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson

There have been mass cancellations of non-urgent surgeries throughout the province  transplants, some cancer treatments and childrens surgeries, as staff are reassigned to COVID-19 care.

Dr. Verna Yiu, the head of Alberta Health Services, said the health system has never had so many people in intensive care at one time.

Triage has not been activated yet, she said, but staff are being briefed on rules and processes.

"If activated, the triage will be provincial in scope (and) applicable to all health facilities and critical care units in Alberta," said Yiu.

Federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu said on Twitter that Ottawa is prepared to help.

"We'll be there with ventilators, vaccines and people. In the meantime stay safe, get vaccinated and help each other."

Alberta has more than 18,000 active COVID-19 cases, by far the highest in Canada.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney arrives for a press conference in Calgary, Friday, Sept. 3, 2021.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Todd Korol

It has been lagging on vaccinations, with less than 72 per cent of those 12 and older, who are eligible, fully immunized.

To stem transmission, Kenneys government introduced an array of measures including a form of the vaccine passport.

Several provinces are bringing in the passports, which compel people to prove they have been vaccinated before being allowed to use non-essential services.

Kenney had resisted such measures for health privacy reasons. But critics said he did so to prevent a revolt by anti-restriction members of his caucus.

Kenney said he was reluctant to approve what he called, not a passport, but a "restriction exemption program."

"With unvaccinated patients overwhelming now our hospitals, this is now the only responsible choice that we have," he said.

Starting Sept. 20, people will need to show proof of vaccination to enter select non-essential businesses, including retail shops, restaurants, nightclubs, casinos, concerts and libraries.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney announces new COVID-19 measures for Alberta in Calgary, Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh

However, businesses that opt out of the program can operate at reduced capacity and with distancing rules or restrictions. For example, restaurants not in the program are limited to outdoor dining with no more than six people at a table.

There is a welter of other rules to reduce capacity at weddings, funerals and private social gatherings starting Thursday.

Mandatory work-from-home orders are also in place unless its essential a worker is on-site. Masking in schools, previously left to school boards, is now mandatory for students in Grade 4 and up, along with staff and teachers.

Opposition NDP Leader Rachel Notley said the necessary measures were sadly preventable.

"This is a crisis of this premier and his cabinets own making."

She said Kenney pushed Alberta faster and harder than any other province and refused to act for weeks when it was obvious something had to be done.

"He refused to take responsibility. He blamed in fact low vaccination rates for the fact that he ignored the evidence and went into hiding.

"What we saw today from the premier was not an apology. It was an embarrassing attempt to duck responsibility."

Kenney pushed back on suggestions that he and his government are to blame for the crisis. His government lifted nearly all health restrictions on July 1 despite warnings of the Delta variant. No action was taken through the summer as cases and hospitalizations soared.

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At the time, Kenney triumphantly announced COVID-19 was on the wane and mocked reporters who warned of the Delta variant. He announced there was no Plan B for high hospitalization rates because the government didnt foresee it happening.

Earlier this week, the province's chief medical health officer, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, acknowledged the decision to drop restrictions was wrong and that it lit the fuse on the skyrocketing caseload.

Kenney apologized for misreading COVIDs predicted path in June but said he wasnt sorry for lifting all restrictions. He said he didnt think a COVID-weary population would continue to follow them.

 With files from Alanna Smith in Calgary

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 15, 2021.

Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version said restaurants that opt out of the vaccine program are limited to no more than six people at a table, but that is only for outdoor dining.
Alberta businessgroups say a new program the province has launched to fight COVID-19 has been short on details while giving business owners little notice to make dramatic changes to their operations.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney announces new COVID-19 measures for Alberta in Calgary, Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh

Alberta businessgroups say a new program the province has launched to fight COVID-19 has been short on details while giving business owners little notice to make dramatic changes to their operations.

The Calgary Chamber of Commerce and Canadian Federation of Independent Business said Thursday that their members have uncovered plenty of confusion as they scramble to make sense of the restriction exemption program Alberta Premier Jason Kenney announced Wednesday.

"Yesterdays announcement prompted more questions than answers for our business community," said Deborah Yedlin, the chamber's president and chief executive, in a statement.

"Answers and clarity are needed urgently."

The program Yedlin was referring to is meant to force people in Alberta to show proof of vaccination to enter non-essential businesses, including select stores, restaurants, nightclubs, casinos, concerts and libraries as of Sept. 20.

Businesses can opt out of the program but must operate at reduced capacity and with distancing rules or restrictions. For example, restaurants not in the program are limited to outdoor dining with no more than six people at a table.

Just after the program was announced, Annie Dormuth, the CFIB's provincial affairs director for Alberta, was already hearing from owners confused about if they will have to apply to use the program or to opt out of it.

Others were concerned the government didn't offer guidance or training to staff around how to check if vaccination proof is fraudulent or deal with unruly patrons who disagree with the measures.

Some even lamented a lack of time to reorient their businesses and retrain staff for the new policies because the program has more exemptions than initiatives in other provinces and was announced roughly four days before it will go into effect.

"In the province of B.C., they were given a week and they were given support in the form of posters and guidance documents and here, we are three-and-a-half days away from this now and there's not a whole lot of guidance being provided to business owners right now," said Dormuth.

The lack of details is the latest challenge for small business owners who have spent much of the pandemic dealing with lower sales and fewer patrons.

CFIB estimates that small businesses in Canada now have debt totalling $139 billion due to COVID-19, a slight increase from the estimated $135 billion in February of this year.

Three-quarters of small businesses that took on debt believe it will take more than a year to repay. In the hospitality sector alone, 87 per cent believe it will take longer than two years to deal with their debts.

Despite the pandemic challenges, Andrew Cowan had no qualms about requiring guests to show proof of vaccination before they visit Northern Chicken, the Edmonton restaurant he co-owns.

"Between my business partner and I, there were chats about how maybe we were going to do a vaccine passport ourselves, but the government is doing it now, so we don't have to worry," he said.

Cowan believes the changes won't take much effort for his restaurant to implement because it doesn't seat too many people and his staff have become accustomed to adapting to changes quickly after more than a year of pandemic regulations.

The biggest task stemming from the new program, he said, is training staff to check vaccine statuses and deal with any guests that try to buck the new regulations.

"It was a pretty muddy announcement, but we've got it pretty much figured out now and it doesn't really change much from our perspective," Cowan said.

"We were already being careful and trying to keep everything socially distanced in the restaurant already."

The program that his restaurant and others are now adjusting to was introduced because a wave of new COVID-19 cases has overwhelmed hospitals.

Seeing droves of unvaccinated patients, health-care workers intensified their calls for more stringent safety measures amid polls showing support for vaccination passports in recent months, but Kenney refused to heed their advice until this week.

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"Jason Kenney has demonstrated himself to be a skilled contortionist, bending himself virtually into a pretzel in order to appease a small fringe but vocal group of individuals who are opposed to vaccination," University of Alberta assistant professor of infectious diseases, Dr. Ilan Schwartz, said at a Wednesday press conference held by Protect Our Province.

The organization comprised of health-care workers has long urged the government to take the pandemic and the fourth wave more seriously by retaining basic measures like isolation for people who test positive for COVID-19.

Despite Kenney finally edging toward more measures, the group remains disappointed with his new program and its lack of clarity, and fears it will do little to quell the virus.

Dr. Schwatz said, "We're left with a hodgepodge of measures that are confusing, and consequently, they're likely ineffectual."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2021.

Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version said restaurants that opt out of the vaccine program are limited to no more than six people at a table, but that is only for outdoor dining.
BRUSSELS (AP)  The European Union said Thursday that it will fund its new health preparedness and rapid response agency to the tune of 30 billion euros ($35 billion) over the next six years, even pushing it higher if individual efforts from the member nations and private sector are taken into account.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen puts on her protective face mask after delivering a State of the Union Address at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021. Stung by the swift collapse of the Afghan army and the chaotic U.S.-led evacuation through Kabul airport, the European Union on Wednesday unveiled new plans to develop its own defense capacities to try to ensure that it has more freedom to act in future crises. (Yves Herman, Pool via AP)

BRUSSELS (AP)  The European Union said Thursday that it will fund its new health preparedness and rapid response agency to the tune of 30 billion euros ($35 billion) over the next six years, even pushing it higher if individual efforts from the member nations and private sector are taken into account.

Caught off guard by the sudden onset of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, the 27-nation bloc long lagged behind the U.S. and Britain in vaccination rates before regrouping and meeting its goal of having 70% of EU adults vaccinated this summer.

With Thursday's official launch of the Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority, or HERA, it wants to make sure the bloc will be ready when the next crisis strikes.

We need to be better prepared for future health crises. HERA will establish new, adaptable production capacities and secure supply chains to help Europe react fast when needed, EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton said.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen walks in the chamber prior to delivering a State of the Union Address at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021. The European Union announced Wednesday it is committing 200 million more coronavirus vaccine doses to Africa to help curb the COVID-19 pandemic on a global scale. (Yves Herman, Pool via AP)

HERA will be able to draw from several of the EU's Byzantine budget lines for a total of almost 30 billion euros ($35 billion). This however excludes investments at member nation level and from the private sector.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who first announced plans for such a medical response agency last year, said this week that the overall total until 2027 could reach 50 billion euros ($59 billion) by 2027.

During the crisis, the EU saw the limits of its health outreach because the essence of pandemic policies are still handled at national level. The EU was slow in getting the first shots in the arms of citizens and the public uproar about initial shortages was such that the need for HERA quickly became apparent.

HERA will have the clout and budget to work with industry, medical experts, researchers and our global partners to make sure critical equipment, medicines and vaccines are swiftly available when and as necessary, European Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas.

While some nations like the United States and Britain fully centered on getting their own people vaccinated first, the EU continued to export doses amid the pandemic. Von der Leyen stressed that on top of delivering 700 million vaccine doses to Europeans, the 27-nation bloc had also sent as many shots to 130 nations.

We are the only region in the world to achieve this, she said in her State of the Union address on Wednesday.

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HERA should be fully operational as of early next year.

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JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP)  An Indonesian court ruled Thursday that President Joko Widodo and six other top officials have neglected citizens rights to clean air and ordered them to improve the poor air quality in the capital.

An activist displays a placard with a doll representing babies affected by air pollution during a protest outside Central Jakarta District Court where judges are scheduled to announce their verdict on a civil lawsuit filed against several Indonesian officials, including President Joko Widodo and Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan, for their failure to improve poor air quality in the capital city, in Jakarta, Indonesia, Thursday, Sept. 16, 2021. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP)  An Indonesian court ruled Thursday that President Joko Widodo and six other top officials have neglected citizens rights to clean air and ordered them to improve the poor air quality in the capital.

A three-judge panel at the Central Jakarta District Court notched a victory for a healthy living environment, siding with 32 residents who filed a lawsuit two years ago against Widodo and the ministers for environment, health and home affairs, as well as the provincial governors of Jakarta, Banten and West Java.

The verdict was initially scheduled for May 20, but had been postponed several times. The judges voted 3-0 in favor of the plaintiffs under the Coalition for the Clean Air Initiative.

Activist display placards during a protest outside Central Jakarta District Court where judges are scheduled to announce their verdict on a civil lawsuit filed against several Indonesian officials, including President Joko Widodo and Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan, for their failure to improve poor air quality in the capital city, in Jakarta, Indonesia, Thursday, Sept. 16, 2021. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)

Presiding Judge Saifuddin Zuhri ordered the seven officials to tighten national air quality standards so they are sufficient to protect human health, the environment and ecosystems, including the health of sensitive populations, based on science and technology.

They have been negligent in fulfilling the rights of citizens to a good and healthy environment, said Duta Baskara, a member of the panel. The judges dismissed a part of the lawsuit alleging Widodo violated human rights.

The plaintiffs, who included activists, public figures, motorists and pollution disease victims, did not ask for financial compensation and instead demanded a more robust supervision and sanctions for offenders.

We hope the defendants would accept their defeat wisely and choose to focus on making efforts to improve air quality conditions rather than doing useless things, such as legal efforts to fight in appeals,'' said Ayu Eza Tiara, one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs.

A municipal worker takes a break as the hazy city skyline is seen in the background in Jakarta, Indonesia, Thursday, Sept. 16, 2021. An Indonesian court ruled Thursday that President Joko Widodo and six other top officials have neglected to fulfill citizens' rights to clean air and ordered them to improve the poor air quality in the capital. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana)

It is unclear if the government will appeal. Presidential spokesperson Fadjroel Rachman told The Associated Press that the president and his Cabinet were studying the verdict and the Ministry of Forestry and Environment would respond later.

Irvan Pulungan, an adviser on climate change for Jakarta's governor, said the governor was open to working closely with the plaintiffs to solve the citys pollution problems and improve air quality.

Pulungan said the court decision that granted part of the plaintiffs demand is not a disturbance to the governments work but a vehicle for a collaborative effort to fix the unhealthy air.

He said the city administration has passed new regulations since 2019, including on emission tests and new curbs on private car usage.

An activist holds up a poster during a protest outside Central Jakarta District Court where judges plan to announce their verdict on a civil lawsuit filed against several Indonesian officials, including President Joko Widodo and Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan, for their failure to improve poor air quality in the capital city, in Jakarta, Indonesia, Thursday, Sept. 16, 2021. An Indonesian court ruled Thursday that President Joko Widodo and six other top officials have neglected to fulfill citizens' rights to clean air and ordered them to improve the poor air quality in the capital. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)

Central and local governments needed to integrate actions to maximize the effectiveness of policies, Pulungan said.

Jakarta counts 10 million people and three times more including those living in its greater metropolitan area. The severe air pollution in Jakarta stems mostly from vehicle emission, factories and coal-fired power plants located in the neighboring provinces of Banten and West Java, according to the Center on Energy and Clean Air in its 2020 report. It identified 136 industrial facilities, including power plants, as contributing to pollution.

The Climate Action Tracker, an independent scientific analysis organization, said in its report in April that the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a reduction of air pollution in many countries. However, due to the number of coal-fired power plants in the vicinity of major urban centers, the effect is not observed in Indonesia, where South Tangerang, in Jakartas metropolitan area, was the worlds 25th most polluted city.

Prone to flooding and rapidly sinking due to uncontrolled ground water extraction, Jakarta is the archetypical Asian mega-city. It has been creaking under the weight of its dysfunction, causing massive pollution to rivers and contaminating the ground water that supplies the city. Congestion is estimated to cost the economy $6.5 billion a year.

Yuyun Ismawati, one of the plaintiffs, said in a statement Thursday that if Widodos administration ignored the courts decision, health costs will continue to increase.

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The Jakarta administration data released last year showed more than 5.5 million cases of diseases related to air pollution in the city. The data also said the estimated burden of medical care costs from cases of non-communicable diseases due to air pollution in 2020 could reach 60.8 trillion rupiah ($4.2 billion).

In an amicus curiae brief submitted in support of the lawsuit, the U.N. special rapporteur for human rights and the environment, David R. Boyd, said that protecting people from the harmful effects of air pollution is a constitutional and legislative obligation of the Indonesian government, and not an option.

Boyd said air pollution is a major problem in Indonesia, causing hundreds of thousands of premature deaths annually. He said levels of PM 2.5  fine particulate matter smaller than 2.5 millionths of a meter  in Jakarta were well above national and regional standards as well as World Health Organization recommended limits.

Yet air pollution is a problem that is amenable to solutions that are well known, Boyd said.

Thursdays verdict has tarnished Widodos credibility in improving infrastructure and the environment in the Southeast Asias largest economy, which has been his signature policy that helped him win a second term in 2019.

Widodo has announced shortly after being reelected that the capital will be moved outside Java, where 57% of the countrys 270 million people are concentrated. The new site for the capital will be in sparsely populated East Kalimantan province on Borneo island, known for rainforests and orangutans.
LONDON (AP)  Irish airline Ryanair said Thursday that it's planning to create 5,000 jobs over the next five years as part of its recovery from the shock of the coronavirus pandemic.

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Chief Executive of Ryanair, Michael O'Leary, speaks during a press conference in London, Tuesday, Aug. 31, 2021.(AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

LONDON (AP)  Irish airline Ryanair said Thursday that it's planning to create 5,000 jobs over the next five years as part of its recovery from the shock of the coronavirus pandemic.

The additional pilots, cabin crew and engineers will mean that the company will have more than recouped the 3,000 jobs it got rid of at the start of the pandemic last year.

CEO Michael OLeary said the carrier has been snapping up slots that have been vacated by airlines that have either collapsed or retrenched over the past 18 months or so.

Ryanair will open 10 new bases across Europe this year as we work with airport partners to help them recover traffic and jobs post-COVID, and take up slot opportunities that are being vacated by competitor airlines who have collapsed or significantly reduced their fleet sizes," he said before the companys annual shareholder meeting in Dublin.

Ryanair also upgraded forecasts for growth over the next five years, with projections that passenger numbers will grow by 50%, compared with 33% predicted previously. That equates to 226 million passengers by March 2026, 25 million more than previous targets.

We can recover strongly from the COVID pandemic and deliver higher-than-expected growth in both traffic and jobs over the next five years, O'Leary said.
Los Angeles County supervisors voted unanimously Wednesday to phase out oil and gas drilling and ban new drill sites in the unincorporated areas of the nation's most populous county.

A truck drives past pump jacks operating at the Inglewood Oil Field, Thursday, June 10, 2021, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Los Angeles County supervisors voted unanimously Wednesday to phase out oil and gas drilling and ban new drill sites in the unincorporated areas of the nation's most populous county.

Over 1,600 active and idle oil and gas wells in the county could be shuttered after the 5-0 vote by the board of supervisors. A timetable for the phaseout will be decided after the county determines the fastest way to legally shut down the wells.

Among the sites is the Inglewood Oil Field, one of the largest U.S. urban oil fields. The sprawling, 1,000-acre (405-hectare) site, owned and operated by Sentinel Peak Resources, contains over half the oil and gas wells in the countys unincorporated areas. The field produced 2.5 million to 3.1 million barrels of oil a year over the past decade, according to the company.

The goal is to provide direction to county departments to begin addressing the variety of issues, environmental and climate impacts created by these active and inactive oil and gas wells, said Supervisor Holly J. Mitchell, who represents the district where most of the Inglewood Oil Field is located.

Mitchell, along with Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, made the motion to phase out drilling in the county's unincorporated areas.

Motorists wait for a signal to change as pump jacks extract oil at the Inglewood Oil Field, Thursday, June 10, 2021, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

The California Independent Petroleum Association, representing nearly 400 oil and gas industry entities, opposed the measure. In a letter to the board, CEO Rock Zierman said a phaseout of oil and gas production would threaten hundreds of jobs, raise gas prices and make California more dependent on oil from foreign countries.

Sentinel Peak Resources, owner of Inglewood Oil Field, did not respond to calls and emails for comment on the motion.

Inglewood Oil Field is adjacent to several Black communities, including Baldwin Hills, Ladera Heights and View Park, where residents have worried about the fields impact on their health and the local environment for at least a decade. Residents have complained of foul odors from the wells and say they have seen oil bubbling through sidewalk cracks in their neighborhoods.

There are tens of thousands of people who live in very close proximity to oil wells, 73% of whom are people of color, Mitchell said in an interview before the vote. So, for me, it really is an equity issue.

Inglewood Oil Field was the site of a spill in April when a pipeline leaked more than 1,600 gallons (6,000 liters) of oil, according to the California Governors Office Emergency Services. Supporters of the phaseout have said that shutting down drilling will move the region closer to environmental equity.

Companies have been drilling for oil in Los Angeles since the late-1890s, and the area quickly became a hub for oil production in California. Oil was found in Baldwin Hills in 1924, long before Black Americans gravitated there and to other communities with oil facilities because of housing discrimination and the affordable real estate.

Sonya Vasquez of the Los Angeles-based non profit Community Health Councils has been working with Baldwin Hills residents for years on issues related to the oil field.

I ... think the writing is on the wall and hopefully there is this sense that something good has to be done with this land, she said. And were in this era where we shouldnt be relying so much on fossil fuel.

Residents, activists and politicians supporting the ban and phaseout want the Inglewood Field to be turned into an expansion of neighboring Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area.

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The measure that passed also called for residents, the oil companies and other stakeholders in the community to explore what else can be done with the privately owned land. My goal is complete, comprehensive (cleanup of the site), with the oil companies paying for it, not taxpayers," Supervisor Mitchell said.

The petroleum industry's Zierman said companies should be compensated if their operations are condemned without justification.

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Follow Drew Costley on Twitter: @drewcostley

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Tech Manitoba has done a lot of work over the past decade supporting the provinces growing tech sector.

Tech Manitoba has done a lot of work over the past decade supporting the provinces growing tech sector.

But in addition to providing training in sophisticated new coding languages and helping recruit high-end talent, the organization is also doing some very grassroots training.

On the Labour Day weekend, Tech Manitoba delivered a basic digital literacy course in Lynn Lake to 22 people.

Its part of a digital literacy program Tech Manitoba has been running since 2019 thats helped about 2,800 people in the province gain fundamental skills and confidence to participate in the online world, but it was the first time its been offered in a remote northern locale.

Paula Canas, the program manager, said it has been her goal to get outside the provinces main cities and towns.

"During the pandemic we really understood the need," she said.

The Lynn Lake session would not have been possible without a lot of help. Glenn Laycock, executive director of the Northern Manitoba Sector Council recruited an instructor and covered travel costs and organized connections in Lynn Lake.

The Marcel Colomb First Nation, located just south of Lynn Lake helped recruit participants as did Michael Raess, manager of environment & community relations with Alamos Gold Inc., a mining company that has a long-standing mineral development project in Lynn Lake.

Canas knows there is a need in remote communities but delivering the programs is not easy.

"We need people in the communities who are able to help us out," she said. "Michael from Alamos Gold did this from the good of his heart."

Raess said, "At Alamos Gold, one of our driving principles is to help residents build communities that will have brighter futures beyond our presence. When I learned about the training that Tech Manitoba offered, I jumped at the opportunity to help bring the classes to the community."

Laycock and Canas have been talking for a year about organizing a trip. It had to be cancelled twice before it was scheduled for the Labour Day weekend. Canas said Raess had to knock on doors to remind people of the course.

All the participants of the digital literacy course got free laptop computers courtesy of Tech Manitoba and Computers for Schools.

Laycock said there is real dearth of computer equipment in many remote communities.

"I have been to reserves where the only computer connection is in the band office," he said. "In many places they have nothing."

Tech Manitoba also partnered with the Manitoba office of Computers for Schools, the non-profit organization that refurbishes old computers donated from government offices and the community and then makes them available to people who need them.

The original plan was to raffle off 10 laptops for the participants in Lynn Lake, but when Canas told Justin Menard, the executive director Computers for Schools about the session, he provided 15 more so that everyone in the session also received a free laptop.

"Everyone was very excited," said Canas.

A recent study on human capital by RBC called Building Bandwidth: Preparing Indigenous youth for a digital future, found that even though Indigenous youth frequently use digital devices, they are 13 per cent less confident in their digital literacy skills than their non-Indigenous peers.

In addition to the courses  that cover basic things like using a keyboard, familiarity with programs like Word and Excel and tips on how to be safe on the internet  with the help of Computers for Schools, Canas has shipped about 700 laptops to people who need them across the province. Gardewine, the trucking company that does lots of work in the north has provided its services for free.

Tech Manitobas federal funding for the program runs out in March and Canas is extremely hopeful it will get renewed.

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But the work has also underlined the need for better broadband services in the north, something that is beyond the purview of Tech Manitoba. (Canas said the digital literacy class focused on using the computer for things that did not require an internet connection.)

For instance in Lynn Lake, many people have to use the internet connection at the Alamos offices.

Canas is looking to bring her digital literacy program to more remote communities and she is looking to establish more partnerships like the ones with Computers for Schools and the Northern Manitoba Sector Council.

For the entire province to be able to have the kind of opportunities urban dwellers take for granted  like taking classes from home, applying for work, doing online banking, even online shopping  much work still needs to be done.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP)  SpaceXs first private flight streaked into orbit Wednesday night with two contest winners, a health care worker and their rich sponsor, the most ambitious leap yet in space tourism.

In this July 2, 2021 photo provided by John Kraus, from left, Sian Proctor, Chris Sembroski, Jared Isaacman and Hayley Arceneaux pose for a photo at Duke Health in Durham, N.C, during hypoxia training to understand how each crew member reacts in a low-oxygen environment. (John Kraus/Inspiration4 via AP)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP)  SpaceXs first private flight streaked into orbit Wednesday night with two contest winners, a health care worker and their rich sponsor, the most ambitious leap yet in space tourism.

It was the first time a spacecraft circled Earth with an all-amateur crew and no professional astronauts.

"Punch it, SpaceX!" the flight's billionaire leader, Jared Isaacman, urged moments before liftoff.

The Dragon capsules two men and two women are looking to spend three days going round and round the planet from an unusually high orbit  100 miles (160 kilometers) higher than the International Space Station  before splashing down off the Florida coast this weekend.

In this July 28, 2021 photo provided by John Kraus, from left, Jared Isaacman, Sian Proctor, Hayley Arceneaux and Chris Sembroski stand in the crew access arm at Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. They will use this arm to board the Falcon 9 rocket on launch day. (John Kraus/Inspiration4 via AP)

Its SpaceX founder Elon Musks first entry in the competition for space tourism dollars.

Isaacman is the third billionaire to launch this summer, following the brief space-skimming flights by Virgin Galactics Richard Branson and Blue Origins Jeff Bezos in July. Only 38, Isaacman made his fortune from a payment-processing company he started in his teens.

Joining Isaacman on the trip dubbed Inspiration4 is Hayley Arceneaux, 29, a childhood bone cancer survivor who works as a physician assistant where she was treated  St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. Isaacman has pledged $100 million out of his own pocket to the hospital and is seeking another $100 million in donations.

Arceneaux became the youngest American in space and the first person in space with a prosthesis, a titanium rod in her left leg.

Also along for the ride: sweepstakes winners Chris Sembroski, 42, a data engineer in Everett, Washington, and Sian Proctor, 51, a community college educator in Tempe, Arizona.

Jared Isaacman, left, and Hayley Arceneaux prepare to head to launchpad 39A for a launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Wednesday Sept. 15, 2021. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

Once opposed to space tourism, NASA is now a supporter. "Low-Earth orbit is now more accessible for more people to experience the wonders of space," tweeted NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, a congressman when he hitched a ride on a space shuttle decades ago.

The recycled Falcon rocket soared from the same Kennedy Space Center pad used by the companys three previous astronaut flights for NASA. But this time, the Dragon capsule aimed for an altitude of 357 miles (575 kilometers), just beyond the Hubble Space Telescope.

Across the country, SpaceX employees at company headquarters in Hawthorne, California, cheered wildly at every flight milestone, including when the spent first-stage booster landed upright on an ocean platform.

Inside the capsule, Proctor looked giddy with joy, cupping her hands to form a heart before liftoff and then pumping her fists.

Isaacman noted upon reaching orbit that few people have been to space  fewer than 600 over 60 years. But he added, "Many are about to follow. The door's opening now and it's pretty incredible."

A SpaceX Falcon 9, with four private citizens onboard, lifts off from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39-A Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021, in Cape Canaveral , Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

Their automated capsule has already been to orbit: It was used for SpaceXs second astronaut flight for NASA to the space station. The only significant change is the large domed window at the top in place of the usual space station docking mechanisms.

An accomplished pilot, Isaacman persuaded SpaceX to take the Dragon capsule higher than its ever been. Initially reluctant because of the increased radiation exposure and other risks, SpaceX agreed after a safety review.

"Now I just wish we pushed them to go higher," Isaacman told reporters on the eve of the flight. "If were going to go to the moon again and were going to go to Mars and beyond, then weve got to get a little outside of our comfort zone and take the next step in that direction."

Isaacman, whose Shift4 Payments company is based in Allentown, Pennsylvania, is picking up the entire tab for the flight, but wont say how many millions he paid. He and others contend those big price tags will eventually lower the cost.

"Yes, today you must have and be willing to part with a large amount of cash to buy yourself a trip to space," said Explorers Club President Richard Garriott, a NASA astronauts son who paid the Russians for a space station trip more than a decade ago. "But this is the only way we can get the price down and expand access, just as it has been with other industries before it.

Though the capsule is automated, the four Dragon riders spent six months training for the flight to cope with any emergency. That training included centrifuge and fighter jet flights, launch and reentry practice in SpaceXs capsule simulator and a grueling trek up Washingtons Mount Rainier in the snow.

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Four hours before liftoff, the four met with Musk before emerging from SpaceXs huge rocket hangar, waving and blowing kisses to their families and company employees, before they were driven off to get into their sleek white flight suits. Once at the launch pad, they posed for pictures and bumped gloved fists, before taking the elevator up. Proctor danced as she made her way to the hatch.

Unlike NASA missions, the public wont be able to listen in, let alone watch events unfold in real time. Arceneaux hopes to link up with St. Jude patients, but the conversation wont be broadcast live.

SpaceXs next private trip, early next year, will see a retired NASA astronaut escorting three wealthy businessmen to the space station for a weeklong visit. The Russians are launching an actress, film director and a Japanese tycoon to the space station in the next few months.

"Someday NASA astronauts will be the exception, not the rule," said Cornell Universitys Mason Peck, an engineering professor who served as NASAs chief technologist nearly a decade ago. "But theyll likely continue to be the trailblazers the rest of us will follow."

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP)  Zimbabwe's government has ordered all its employees to get vaccinated against COVID-19 or they won't be allowed to come to work.

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP)  Zimbabwe's government has ordered all its employees to get vaccinated against COVID-19 or they won't be allowed to come to work.

The Public Service Commission, which is in charge of employment conditions for government workers, issued an internal notice Wednesday ordering employees to get vaccinated.

All civil servants should be vaccinated without delay, and unvaccinated members shall not be allowed to report for duty, said the notice, which has been seen by The Associated Press. The commission urged heads of government departments to make arrangements for their employees to be vaccinated "and to explain to any who elect not to be vaccinated that they will not be deemed to be working.

It wasn't made clear what would happen to employees who refused to be vaccinated, although state-owned newspaper The Herald reported that the government would adopt a policy where unvaccinated workers wouldn't be paid.

Information minister Monica Mutsvangwa announced the mandatory vaccination program for government workers earlier this week. She didn't give any timeframe for workers to receive vaccinations and also didn't clarify what the repercussions would be for any who refused.

The government is Zimbabwe's biggest employer and has about 500,000 workers.

Zimbabwe is one of the leading countries in Africa in terms of vaccinations, with more than 12% of the countrys 15 million people fully vaccinated. That compares to just 3.6% of people across Africa who have been fully vaccinated, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Zimbabwe has received more than 11 million doses, mainly Chinese Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines.

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The southern African nation announced last month that it was opening COVID-19 vaccinations to children between the ages of 14 and 17, one of the first countries in Africa to do that. It was already offering jabs to anyone 18 or older.

___

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https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic

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https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
A St. Boniface-area space may be the next Winnipeg place to undergo a name change, as critics charge Papoose Park incorporates an outdated and offensive term towards Indigenous people.

A St. Boniface-area space may be the next Winnipeg place to undergo a name change, as critics charge Papoose Park incorporates an outdated and offensive term towards Indigenous people.

"The name brings disgrace to the neighbourhood and the city," reads one anonymous submission to the Welcoming Winnipeg committee.

"The word papoose is now considered offensive. At the time of the parks naming, it was unsure, but as time evolves, we must keep up with updates. This name is no longer suitable."

The Welcoming Winnipeg initiative  intended to guide the city in adding, naming and renaming historical markers in a way that reflects the citys Indigenous histories  had received a public request to rename the Comanche Road park in consultation with Indigenous elders and local community members.

After internal discussion, the group is recommending the citys executive policy committee strip the park of all references to the term and leave it unnamed until a new name is chosen.

"In our initial conversation, we didnt realize this was going on within our city  how could this be going on for so long?" said Reanna Merasty, chairwoman of the committee of community members. "Thinking of its context as a racial slur, we understood collectively that it needed to go."

Merasty said the etymology stretches back to the Ojibwa word for baby and, while not commonly used in Winnipeg, is considered a slur to other Indigenous groups. Modern dictionary definitions the committee reviewed indicate the term, originally used to refer to Indigenous children or a particular style of baby carrier, has become "outdated and offensive."

After receiving the application for a name change, the committee undertook a two-week public review and received 33 online public responses, nearly 80 per cent of which indicated the name should be changed.

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The application did not suggest a new name, but instead recommended a conversation with Indigenous elders to appropriately relabel the park.

A statement to the Free Press from the Winnipeg mayors office Wednesday noted, "these renaming projects are important because names and symbols matter."

"Welcoming Winnipeg is aiming to help resolve the absence of Indigenous perspectives, contributions and experiences to ensure they are more accurately reflected in Winnipegs stories, historical markers and place names," the statement read.

Councils executive policy committee will vote Sept. 21 on the motion to strip the current name from the St. Boniface-area park.

julia-simone.rutgers@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @jsrutgers
Drumbeats reverberated as four Indigenous leaders rode horseback past the brick-walled restaurants on King Street: it was the beginning of a ceremony to recognize the place of Indigenous people in Winnipeg.

Drumbeats reverberated as four Indigenous leaders rode horseback past the brick-walled restaurants on King Street: it was the beginning of a ceremony to recognize the place of Indigenous people in Winnipeg.

On Wednesday morning, the flags of Treaty One First Nations, the Dakota and the Metis were hoisted at city hall. They'll be there permanently, alongside the flags of Canada, Manitoba and Winnipeg.

"It'll make our people proud that their flag will be flying at city hall," said Sagkeeng First Nation Chief Derrick Henderson. "That is so significant."

Chiefs, representatives of various Indigenous groups and Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman spoke at the flag-raising event. Ribbon skirts, headdresses and face masks were abundant among the crowd.

MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Chiefs from Treaty 1 First Nations, Dakota Nations and the Metis Nation arrive on horseback for a ceremony at Winnipeg City Hall Wednesday morning.

"Something (at city hall) was missing," Bowman told attendees. "That something was the simplest, most basic acknowledgement of the nations we are here to honour today."

Bowman said city hall is meant to be a symbol of modernism, progress and hope, and that the newly erected flags signify that times have changed.

Tim Daniels, chief operating officer of Treaty One Development Corp., helped design the entity's flag last year.

He created the first sketch using the Notes app on his iPad. Now, when he drives by city hall, he'll be reminded of the treaty: the flag's colours  yellow, green and blue  represent the phrase "As long as the sun shines, the grass grows and the rivers flow," which is how long the treaty is meant to last.

"There's a lot of pride," Daniels said about seeing the flag raised. "It's a... milestone day."

MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Marcia Wacanta-Half from Sioux Valley Dakota Nation takes a photo with her phone as chiefs from Treaty 1 First Nations, Dakota Nations and the Metis Nation arrive on for a ceremony at Winnipeg City Hall Wednesday morning.

Clayton Sandy, who attended on behalf of Sioux Valley Dakota Nation, said recognition for the nation is "long overdue."

"The Dakota people haven't been treated that well, and haven't been recognized a lot, but we're slowly getting there," he said, adding it's because much of the nation immigrated from the United States.

Sandy is an ambassador for the Circles for Reconciliation. He said he's seen a positive shift in people's willingness to engage in reconciliation over the past decade.

"We are here for our children, so they can stand proud as they see the great flags of our nations," Andrew Carrier, the vice-president of the Manitoba Metis Federation, said in a speech.

Carrier's opinion aligned with Sandy's: "it's about time that we finally recognize that this is our home," he said.

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MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS "Something (at city hall) was missing," Mayor Brian Bowman told attendees. "That something was the simplest, most basic acknowledgement of the nations we are here to honour today."

"It is truly important to recognize that we are the founders of this great nation of Manitoba."

gabrielle.piche@freepress.mb.ca
WINNIPEGGER Bhavni Bhakoo expected to retire and spend most of her time with her grandchildren.

WINNIPEGGER Bhavni Bhakoo expected to retire and spend most of her time with her grandchildren.

Instead, COVID-19 health orders helped to entice her to run for the Peoples Party of Canada in Winnipeg Centre.

SUPPLIED People's Party of Canada Winnipeg Centre candidate Bhavni Bhakoo.

"In the lockdowns, I didnt know what else to do. I couldnt see my children, I couldnt see my grandchildren, I couldnt see anybody," said Bhakoo, 58.

The multimedia artist said she spent decades living in downtown Winnipeg and believes reopening the economy is essential, since the once "thriving" area resembles a "ghost town."

While the Peoples Party of Canada has been widely criticized for its far-right stance, most recently for opposing COVID-19 vaccine mandates and health orders, Bhakoo said she feels it has been unfairly judged.

She rejects the partys "anti-vax" label, noting she personally supports and has taken non-COVID vaccines. She believes too little research has been done on COVID-19 shots to prove their value.

"Im choosing at 58 years old not to be a guinea pig for an experimental vaccine," she said.

Bhakoo, who has East Indian ancestry and was raised in Kenya, moved to Manitoba 38 years ago. She said she feels strongly that Canadians rights were trampled on by measures meant to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and her party wants to rectify that.

"Basically, were here to give people an option. Here to bring back the Constitution and give the people the rights and freedoms," she said.

Another candidate whose party veers to the right of the Conservatives said voters need options beyond the large, established parties.

"I decided to put my name forward really to give people the option to vote for a Christian party whos strongly pro-life and against the mandatory vaccinations and testing, standing up for freedom," said Jerome Dondo, the Portage-Lisgar candidate for the Christian Heritage Party.

While smaller parties are shut out of debates and dont have much media access, Dondo urged voters to select candidates who represent their own beliefs. Even if that vote doesnt lead to a candidate being elected, he said larger parties will take notice if others manage to chip away at their support.

For the Peoples Party of Canada, most polls show a recent rise in support to between five and eight per cent of decided voters. If that is matched by voting results, it would mark a notable increase from the 1.62 per cent of Canadians who voted for the party in 2019.

The party has attracted candidates in all of Manitobas 14 federal ridings. Its leader, Maxime Bernier, has received plenty of attention this month during the Manitoba portion of his self-titled "Mad Max Tour." Bernier, who has said he isnt vaccinated, publicly acknowledged he could have been arrested again for failing to isolate after travelling to those rallies.

"Im ready to go back in jail to defend our freedoms!" he tweeted on Sept. 6, alongside a picture of one Manitoba event.

He was arrested by RCMP at a rally in St-Pierre-Jolys on June 11 after being ticketed earlier in the day for disobeying public health orders when he attended an event in Niverville.

His party is also known for calling to "substantially lower" the number of immigrants and refugees Canada accepts each year, which has triggered allegations of racism.

While the PPC is unlikely to have enough support concentrated in one riding to win a Manitoba seat, it could manage to chip away at Conservative support in some of the most hotly contested ridings, said a public policy expert.

"Most of that is going to come from Conservative supporters. There are some races thats going to throw a lead to the NDP or Liberals that they wouldnt normally have won. That, I think, is (the PPCs) big influence," said Jim Farney, an associate professor of public policy at the University of Regina.

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Farney said he doubts a Peoples Party candidate will be elected on the Prairies and stressed its tough to predict how much of the current support at this point in the election will result in actual votes on Sept. 20.

The professor said such far-right candidates are likely benefiting from the anger of those who oppose mask and vaccine mandates by offering them a "political outlet" for their views.

More general anti-establishment views may also fuel the increased support, said Farney.

"I think theyre probably mobilizing a kind of anti-system vote, people who just see the system and the establishment as flawed," he said.

joyanne.pursaga@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @joyanne_pursaga
A monument commemorating students who died at the former St. Boniface Industrial School is in the planning stages.

A monument commemorating students who died at the former St. Boniface Industrial School is in the planning stages.

"I think the biggest thing right now is just the significance of recognizing the residential school, the hardships the people went through," Sagkeeng First Nation Chief Derrick Henderson said Wednesday.

Many Sagkeeng children were forced to attend the Winnipeg institution, which operated on Des Meurons Street from 1889 to 1905.

Henderson confirmed hes been discussing a new monument with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Boniface, to be erected at St. Boniface Cathedral cemetery on Tache Avenue. According to a grassroots research effort, some 70 residential school students may be buried there.

Henderson doesnt know what shape the memorial will take.

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"When we did our school, I let the community look at how the school design was going to be, so I want this to be the same thing," he said. "We have a lot of good Aboriginal artists in our community, so Im sure theyll come up with something."

The chief expects the monument to be up in a year or two; theres no set timeline. First, Henderson wants to locate the childrens bodies; crews have searched the cemetery for two months.

Its not unusual for a cathedral cemetery to house unmarked graves, Archbishop Albert LeGatt told the Free Press earlier this month.

Although 6,000 people are buried in the cemetery, only a few hundred have headstones, he said.

 with files from John Longhurst

gabrielle.piche@freepress.mb.ca
A new session of the Manitoba legislature will begin with an Indigenous land acknowledgment.

A new session of the Manitoba legislature will begin with an Indigenous land acknowledgment.

"Its time has come," Premier Kelvin Goertzen said Thursday.

A legislative assembly committee on the matter will be headed by former Indigenous relations minister Eileen Clarke, he said.. She and two other PC MLAs will consult with Indigenous groups and others to come up with the wording for the acknowledgment.

"We need to get the wording right," Goertzen said, adding Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman has been consulted about the land acknowledgment that is recited at the start of city council meetings.

Once the province's acknowledgment is formalized, it is expected to be a part of daily proceedings at the legislature, in addition to the traditional prayer. It will also be included in annual reports. That would occur once the matter is brought to the house rules committee after Oct. 22 and approved for the next session.

"This is timely, and long overdue. It is imperative that land acknowledgments need to take place in the legislature," said Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak Grand Chief Garrison Settee. "It is an incremental step on the path to reconciliation, in line with the calls to action."

Several grand chiefs met with Goertzen two weeks ago to impress the need for land acknowledgments in the legislature, Settee said, noting he hopes chiefs will remain involved in the development of the acknowledgment. He also hopes Indigenous leadership will be present in the legislature the first time the acknowledgment is read.

NDP MLA Nahanni Fontaine told reporters Thursday caucus members had submitted wording for a land acknowledgment in 2018, but discussions quickly fell by the wayside.

"So to hear today the premier announce a consultative process that is going to be led by three non-Indigenous people is pretty disingenuous," said Fontaine. "I would suggest to everyone that it is an attempt to mitigate some of the horrible comments that both the former premier and the current minister of Indigenous reconciliation have stated in the last little bit."

Manitoba Metis Federation president David Chartrand said the government's decision to develop a land acknowledgment signifies the government is ready to turn a new leaf.

Under former premier Brian Pallister, Chartrand said an "outright race war" between Indigenous peoples and the premier held ministers back from launching initiatives such as the land acknowledgment.

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"We're starting to see a different approach being taken by this government," Chartrand said, adding Goertzen had asked the federation for feedback before the working group was publicly announced.

The legislature's current session resumes Oct. 6, and the house will sit for two weeks, Goertzen said.

During that time, his government expects to receive the unanimous consent required to withdraw five contentious bills, including Bill 64, which would have scrapped elected English school boards. Bill 72 (the Disability Support Act) and budget implementation legislation are expected to pass.

Goertzen's term as premier ends after the Progressive Conservative party elects a new leader, who will serve as premier, on Oct. 30.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca

julia-simone.rutgers@freepress.mb.ca

Julia-Simone Rutgers

Reporter Julia-Simone Rutgers is a general-assignment reporter. Read full biography
When it was clear there were not going to be enough nurses to fully staff all of the emergency rooms, intensive care units and COVID-19 wards during the pandemic, the Progressive Conservative government came up with a plan: a $6-per-hour premium for any nurse willing to go directly to the front lines of critical care.

When it was clear there were not going to be enough nurses to fully staff all of the emergency rooms, intensive care units and COVID-19 wards during the pandemic, the Progressive Conservative government came up with a plan: a $6-per-hour premium for any nurse willing to go directly to the front lines of critical care.

The pay bump was available to any nurse who redeployed to an ER, ICU, personal care home or designated COVID-19 unit, and for nurses working in any facility where a COVID-19 outbreak was declared.

Although government should be commended for taking action, it's pretty clear now  some nine months after it was announced  the wage premium has backfired in spectacular fashion.

The premium had two main goals: convince appropriately trained nurses to transfer into critical-care settings, while luring part-time or private-care nurses to bolster overall staffing levels.

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES In order to stave off hospital staffing shortages due to the pandemic, Manitoba's Progressive Conservative government offered a $6-per-hour premium for any nurse willing to go directly to the front lines of critical care.

Although the hourly bump did encourage some nurses to redeploy, it was not enough to fully staff critical-care units. It was, however, just enough to create shortages in other areas.

You can see the evidence of the government's strategic miscalculation all over the health-care system.

The NDP released statistics this summer showing that six months after the wage premium was made available, 25 per cent of critical-care nursing positions remained vacant. That is largely why so many critical-care nurses are being forced to work double shifts, or work seven days a week. It's a situation that is starting to take its toll on nursing resources.

This week, CBC reported seven nurses in the St. Boniface COVID-19 unit, and an unspecified number at Health Sciences Centre, had resigned because they were burned out from working too many hours. Going back further, it's worth noting Manitoba was the only province in Canada that had to transfer ICU patients to other jurisdictions, largely because of a nursing shortage.

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Winkler-Mordens Boundary Trails Health Centre.

At the same time, shortages have sprung up outside the critical-care setting. Boundary Trails Health Centre, which is located between Winkler and Morden, was recently forced to close 10 beds because of a shortage of nurses. Surgical wait lists, lengthened by pandemic restrictions, are growing even longer because of a limited number of surgical nurses.

The worst part is that government was warned it wasn't going to work, and it went ahead anyway.

"We told them what was going to happen and they ignored us," said Darlene Jackson, president of the Manitoba Nurses Union.

The MNU did want nurses on the front lines to be properly compensated, particularly since all nurses have been working without a contract for more than five years, she said. However, Jackson cautioned the wage bump on its own wasn't going to encourage nurses who are working fewer hours, or who have left the system altogether, to put aside their distrust of this government  distrust that was created by a botched effort to reorganize the Winnipeg hospital system.

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Darlene Jackson, president of the Manitoba Nurses Union: "They ignored us."

Five years ago, former premier Brian Pallister unleashed a plan to close three smaller ERs and beef up resources at four others to provide a better overall level of care. It was a promising idea that was crippled by two massive mistakes in strategy.

First, Pallister cut funding to the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority and slowed increases to the system in general to battle the budget deficit. Second, he failed to get the nurses onside with his plan.

With about 14,000 nurses in the province, there are theoretically enough bodies to fill every shift in every facility in the province. But over the years, nurses have won the right to work as much as they want, where they want, when they want. The Pallister government decided to bully nurses, rather than work with them to find solutions.

And it certainly didn't help that Pallister essentially refused to negotiate a new contract with the nurses and tens of thousands of other provincial public servants.

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Former Manitoba premier Brian Pallister: massive mistakes in strategy.

What would alleviate the nurses shortage? Other than the wage bump, the only solution mentioned by Health Minister Audrey Gordon has been an increase in the number of spots in nursing programs. That's sort of like putting a brand new sprinkler system into a house that's already burned to the ground: too little, too late.

You can bet that mobilizing more nurses to work more hours will be a major topic of discussion in contract talks, which are currently in mediation. According to Jackson, the key to unleashing more resources is rebuilding trust.

Jackson said the province will need to demonstrate it respects the right of nurses to maintain control over their working lives. That will mean enhancing shift flexibility while paying a fair and competitive salary.

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Jackson acknowledged there is no guarantee a new contract along with greater shift flexibility would translate into more nurses who are prepared to work more hours. However, she said that efforts to force nurses to redeploy from unit to unit, hospital to hospital, isn't getting the job done either.

"It is going to take a leap of faith on the government's part," she said. "We just have to acknowledge there is a shortage and we have to find a way to deal with it."

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca
As a long-time researcher of the health and social impacts of dementia, I keep a constant, close eye on what governments do to support 500,000 Canadians living in residential care facilities and 7.8 million family caregivers. Or should I say, what governments dont do.

Opinion

As a long-time researcher of the health and social impacts of dementia, I keep a constant, close eye on what governments do to support 500,000 Canadians living in residential care facilities and 7.8 million family caregivers. Or should I say, what governments dont do.

So far during this election campaign, I have seen little to inspire hope that any party leader recognizes the pressing needs of seniors in care, 87 per cent of whom are cognitively impaired, or of the families who devote time and energy to them.

Lets not forget that in the first wave of COVID-19, long-term care (LTC) residents accounted for 81 per cent of all COVID-19 deaths in Canada (the highest proportion of LTC COVID-19 deaths in the world) and tens of thousands were left to suffer in isolation, for months on end. How can the federal election agenda not include a policy ensuring families access to LTC residents as essential visitors?

Families as essential caregivers

Along with loneliness, sickness and death, COVID-19 brought attention to the crucial role that family members play in supporting people in long-term care. Most caregivers are women, who bear the brunt of government inattention to the cost to their mental and physical health as they provide "free" care to their elderly loved ones, who are also mostly women. Why isnt easing their burden, and that of their mothers and grandmothers who require care, a major platform item for our famously feminist prime minister?

A commonly cited national benchmark for quality long-term care is just over four hours a day of direct care per resident. Provincial averages vary, with New Brunswick the lowest at a mere 3.1 hours. British Columbia uses a target of 3.36 hours per day, and Manitoba averages 3.6. Family caregivers pick up the slack.

Family caregivers may visit daily for several hours to make essential contributions that include assistance in walking or mobility, psychosocial support (such as taking the senior outside to prevent social isolation) and personal care, which can include bathing, grooming, assisting with meals and dressing.

Families also assist with housekeeping, getting loved ones to appointments and doing personal laundry. In fact, these essential care partners contribute up to $66.5 billion annually in unpaid care to patients in hospital, long-term care, group care settings and home care.

In Ontario, one-third of LTC residents do not even have the comparative luxury of family help: they depend on staff for their basic needs. As we heard through media during the pandemic, residents who dont have family present  and that was all of them for months  dont get the best care from overburdened staff, who have annual turnover rates as high as 400 per cent.

The major parties platforms on long-term care issues makes frustrating reading. The Liberal party promises $25-an-hour wages and to ensure 50,000 more workers are hired and trained. This vow at least gets at low wages (now averaging $17 an hour), and the need to attract more workers. The Conservatives say they will promote careers through immigration, which is not new. The NDP says it will improve working conditions for staff but offers no specifics.

The Liberals and Conservatives both promise $3 billion to fix up LTC homes, and both parties say they will use tax credits to encourage seniors to remain in their own homes. The NDP says it will end for-profit long-term care, which would, in fact, increase quality and safety of care for residents.

A recent analysis by the Canadian Institute for Health Information indicates that one in nine people who moved into long-term care in 2018-19 could potentially have been cared for at home. That might be a better option, but where would the support be? The Conservatives say they would pay $200 a month to families to care for elders in their homes. That amount cannot begin to make a meaningful difference when caregivers lives and savings are taken over by the daily demands of helping their loved ones.

National standards

The Canadian Health Coalition argues that what is needed is a National Seniors Care Strategy to establish "consistent standards of funding, care, and staffing levels across federal, provincial and territorial jurisdictions."

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LTC homes in Canada are funded and administered through a mix of private for-profit, private non-profit and publicly owned facilities. The quality of care at publicly owned care homes is better (as measured by higher staffing levels and fewer transfers to emergency departments) and yet they account for only 46 per cent of LTC facilities in Canada. One in three facilities is for-profit; taking that profit out would increase quality.

We spend billions on care homes (ironically named since many do not seem care-centred), public and private, where nobody wants to end up. Canadians who have spent their lives contributing to this country, with their work, taxes and community activities, deserve more at the end of their lives than to be considered a drain on the public purse.

We need high national standards for long-term care within the Canada Health Act, which currently only covers hospital and doctor services. National standards are needed to ensure the right for seniors in LTC homes to have essential visitors always, even in pandemics.

When no other real support is available, tax credits, token payments and aspirational words dont cut it. We need equitable access and quality in long-term care across the country. We need the political will and leadership to make it happen and place seniors, caregivers and workers at the moral and operational centre of long-term care. That would get my vote.

Debra Sheets is a professor in the school of nursing at the University of Victoria.

This article was first published at The Conversation Canada: theconversation.com/ca.
Perhaps it was a rare and unexpected moment of clarity.

The organizers of an anti-mask/anti-vaccine protest on Monday, originally scheduled to culminate outside Winnipegs Health Sciences Centre, made a last-minute decision to reroute the march  which began at the Manitoba legislature  to city hall instead.

"The venue changed because we heard feedback on the negative impacts that it had on the hospital last time," said Shaun Zimmer, who helped organize and also spoke at the event. "We want to make sure that were not causing any more divide  unlike many individuals (who) do  so we changed it to accommodate for that."

JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Protest organizer/speaker Shaun Zimmer.

Whether the result of a spontaneous moment of self-awareness or at the urging of authorities seeking to de-escalate a potentially contentious situation, the decision was a welcome show of civility in a public debate that has otherwise mostly included anything but. And the protest relocation stood in stark contrast to other similarly themed rallies across the country, which carried through with their plans to disrupt access and intimidate staff and patients at hospitals in other Canadian cities.

Despite the venue change, however, the intent and tenor of the Winnipeg gathering were consistent with the pro-misinformation assemblies that continue to take place in opposition to government and public-health responses  most notably, mask and proof-of-vaccination mandates  to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Buoyed by the reams of inaccuracies, conspiracy theories and false narratives that are commonly available to those who plumb the darker corners of the internet, attendees at such gatherings hold placards inappropriately comparing current public-health orders to "genocide" and "crimes against humanity," erroneously suggesting its necessary to "take back ... freedoms" that have never been rescinded, and declaring, without any apparent intended irony, "my body, my choice" in reference to safe and effective vaccines that everyone has the choice to receive or decline.

When these gatherings occur in public places such as outside the seats of political power where health-care policies are formulated and enacted, they are an appropriate  albeit lamentably misguided  manifestation of the fundamental democratic right to protest against that with which one disagrees.

The freedom to promote viewpoints other than those favoured by government and the public majority is one of the bedrock principles of a free and open society.

Its when these airings of grievances relocate to venues such as health-care facilities  where shouted slogans and other verbal abuse might discourage patients from entering to attend appointments for treatment, and may offer unwarranted insult and compounded discouragement to the doctors, nurses and support staff who have spent the last 18 months risking their own lives to save the lives of others infected with COVID 19  that such protests become, as Ontario Premier Doug Ford stated Monday, "selfish, cowardly and reckless."

Liberal Party Leader Justin Trudeau said if his government is re-elected, it will amend the Criminal Code to make it an offence to obstruct access to health-care facilities, or to threaten or intimidate health-care workers or those seeking treatment. Given the ongoing unrest related to pandemic-mitigation measures, such legislative measures cant come soon enough.

Other federal party leaders also rightly condemned such disruptions of health-care activities, as did most provincial and civic leaders.

The organizers of the most recent Winnipeg rally did the right thing by taking their message someplace other than a hospital. The fact they relocated it, however, does not make that message any less fallaciously or corrosively wrong.
Manitoba's next premier may be the darling of a right-wing, anti-vax fringe party.

Manitoba's next premier may be the darling of a right-wing, anti-vax fringe party.

Under the governing Progressive Conservatives' one-member, one-vote rule, People's Party of Canada's-endorsed candidate Ken Lee could win the leadership on Oct. 30 and become premier.

Sources say Ken Lee, the former chief financial officer of the PC party, has sold more party memberships than the required 1,000. (Facebook)

Sources say Lee, the former chief financial officer of the PC party, has sold more party memberships than the required 1,000  and many, many more than any of the other leadership candidates.

A supporter of Lee offered on social media to pay for people's $20 memberships. When contacted by the Free Press, the Winnipeg man said he was told by someone in Lee's campaign that he shouldn't offer to pay for memberships. Instead, he said he was offering $20 loans at zero per cent interest that don't have to be paid back for 100 years.

Elections Manitoba said that doesn't appear to be a violation of campaign finance rules.

It is, however, sleazy, said political analyst Christopher Adams.

CP Lee's campaign platform lists several points, including no vaccine passports and saying vaccination shouldn't be required for a job, which align with the views of anti-vaxx protesters. (David Lipnowski / The Canadian Press files)

"I wouldn't brag about it," the University of Manitoba political studies professor said Wednesday.

"There is a tradition in leadership campaigns of people buying memberships for other people. I'm not surprised about that happening," he said, citing tactics that have been employed by the three main political parties at the provincial and federal level.

The deadline for candidates to enter the leadership race was 5 p.m. Wednesday. Candidates were required to have the endorsement of 50 established party members by the deadline. By midday, sources said Lee was a dozen short of the total number of PC party members needed to vouch for him.

The Progressive Conservative leadership election committee wouldn't comment on the outcome or Lee's candidacy after the Wednesday deadline had passed. It said it wouldn't issue a statement until it had a slate of approved candidates and had finished reviewing and verifying the applications and memberships.

Late Wednesday, Lee issued a news release that said he had "met all the requirements set out by the leadership rules... and is awaiting conditional rules and background checks."

The PC party would not say why it had allowed Lee to make it as far as the vetting process when his campaign website is critical of the Tory pandemic actions, condemns public health orders and COVID-19 vaccination requirements.

In an email, the Progressive Conservative party's leadership election committee said "the views of any applicant or interested party is their own and not that of the PC party."

Ken Lee's website states that chief provincial public health officer Dr. Brent Roussin has failed Manitobans. (Alex Lupul / Winnipeg Free Press files)

Leadership hopeful and former Conservative MP Shelly Glover said she welcomes Lee's "or anyone elses" candidacy.

"This is a democratic country where people are allowed to speak their mind," she said in an email. "We may choose to disagree, but I dont think we should silence those with opposing opinions."

Often a new candidate in a leadership race might bring in a lot of disaffected people to a party, Adams said.

"Leadership races sometimes bring in people who are not within the control of the party organization." The "silver lining" is that they can add some "vitality" to a leadership race, he said.

On social media, Lee has the endorsement of local People's Party of Canada leaders who want him to be premier.

"We at the Peoples Party of Canada stand with him and endorce (sic) him," PPC Winnipeg South candidate Byron Gryba said on Facebook. "PPC are fighting hard against vax passports. We want freedom to gather, shop etc. for all Canadians. Perhaps there will be no need for invasive nasal rapid testing."

"Dr. Roussin has failed Manitobans," reads one line that takes up an entire page of Ken Lees campaign site, referring to Dr. Brent Roussin, whos been in charge of Manitobas public health response since the pandemic began.

Lee's campaign platform lists several points, including: "no vaccine passports, vaccination not a job requirement, churches and businesses  all essential, added protection for the vulnerable, increase hospital ICU capacity."

Glover and former health minister and Tuxedo MLA Heather Stefanson have said theyre vying for the leadership and passed the vetting process after publicly launching their campaigns. McPhillips MLA Shannon Martin, who launched his campaign Monday, announced late last night that his bid has "come up short."

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Lee, an accountant, has been flying under the radar and most Manitobans don't know his views, Adams said.

"I think that these things work themselves out. I don't think the party would elect a leader that they think is unelectable as a premier," Adams said.

The party's leadership rules have been criticized by candidates as being too restrictive and now there are questions about them being not exclusive enough, Adams said.

"It's kind of ironic that a month ago, people were complaining that the party had set up too high a threshold to join the race and that the turnaround (time) was too short," he said. Glover complained the candidates had to raise too much money and sign up too many members in just weeks. Winnipeg city Coun. Scott Gillingham said the tight deadlines didn't provide him with enough time to launch a proper leadership bid.

"Now the question is, are the thresholds too low? I guess that there's always the seeking of that balance in all of these processes," Adams said.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca
BAMAKO, Mali (AP)  France's president announced the death of Islamic State in the Greater Sahara's leader late Wednesday, calling Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi's killing a major success for the French military after more than eight years fighting extremists in the Sahel.

BAMAKO, Mali (AP)  France's president announced the death of Islamic State in the Greater Sahara's leader late Wednesday, calling Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi's killing a major success for the French military after more than eight years fighting extremists in the Sahel.

French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted that al-Sahrawi was neutralized by French forces but gave no further details. It was not announced where al-Sahrawi was killed, though the Islamic State group is active along the border between Mali and Niger.

This undated image provided by Rewards For Justice shows a wanted posted of Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi, the leader of Islamic State in the Greater Sahara. French President Emmanuel Macron announced the death of al-Sahrawi Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021, calling the killing a major success for the French military after more than eight years fighting extremists in the Sahel. Macron tweeted that al-Sahrawi was neutralized by French forces but gave no further details. (Rewards For Justice via AP)

The nation is thinking tonight of all its heroes who died for France in the Sahel in the Serval and Barkhane operations, of the bereaved families, of all of its wounded," Macron tweeted. Their sacrifice is not in vain.

Rumors of the militant leader's death had circulated for weeks in Mali, though authorities in the region had not confirmed it. It was not immediately possible to independently verify the claim or to know how the remains had been identified.

This is a decisive blow against this terrorist group, French Defense Minister Florence Parly tweeted. Our fight continues.

Al-Sahrawi had claimed responsibility for a 2017 attack in Niger that killed four U.S. military personnel and four people with Nigers military. His group also has abducted foreigners in the Sahel and is believed to still be holding American Jeffrey Woodke, who was abducted from his home in Niger in 2016.

The extremist leader was born in the disputed territory of Western Sahara and later joined the Polisario Front. After spending time in Algeria, he made his way to northern Mali where he became an important figure in the group known as MUJAO that controlled the major northern town of Gao in 2012.

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A French-led military operation the following year ousted Islamic extremists from power in Gao and other northern cities, though those elements later regrouped and again carried out attacks.

The Malian group MUJAO was loyal to the regional al-Qaida affiliate. But in 2015, al-Sahrawi released an audio message pledging allegiance to the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

The French military has been fighting Islamic extremists in the Sahel region where France was once the colonial power since the 2013 intervention in northern Mali. It recently announced, though, that it would be reducing its military presence in the region, with plans to withdraw 2,000 troops by early next year.

News of al-Sahrawi's death comes as France's global fight against the Islamic State organization is making headlines in Paris. The key defendant in the 2015 Paris attacks trial said Wednesday that those coordinated killings were in retaliation for French airstrikes on the Islamic State group, calling the deaths of 130 innocent people nothing personal as he acknowledged his role for the first time.

___

Larson reported from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press writer Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.
Let's be clear: For most people Joe Biden was not elected last November to get us out of Afghanistan. His election was not a blank check to oversee a dramatic expansion of the federal government. His victory wasn't even wholly about halting the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, although surely that was top of mind for many voters at the time.

For many, Biden was elected for one thing and one thing only: to walk our nation -- our democracy -- back from the cliff edge where former President Donald Trump and his cronies had led it, and where below waited fascism, demagoguery and totalitarianism. Simply put, Biden's mandate was to ensure that Trump would never, ever, occupy the White House again -- and ideally leave the political stage for good.

Yet we're not even a year into his first term and Biden's approval rating has dipped to 42%, thanks to political fumbles that are also creating an opening for a 2024 Trump run. Indeed, GOP insiders have noted that Trump has been signaling that he is more likely than not to run again in the next election.

Last fall, the two of us breathed a huge sigh of relief alongside millions of other Americans when voters delivered a resounding 306 to 232 electoral vote victory for Biden over Trump. With record turnout and a margin of more than seven million votes, the Biden win was a decisive rebuke to Trump -- personally and politically. Although Biden won a number of swing states by the narrowest of margins, he did so with a coalition that included not only some Republicans disaffected with Trump but more than half of independent voters, according to exit polls. When Biden delivered his victory speech on November 7, 2020, he spoke about being for "we the people," and how he had run to "restore the soul" of the nation and unify the country.

But somehow since that moment, the Biden administration seems to have forgotten its mandate. Through a series of self-inflicted wounds, miscalculations and gaffes, the Biden administration is "priming the pump" for a Trump presidency, part deux.

Early on in Biden's presidency, Trump's omnipresence seemed to grow more distant by the day -- thanks in part to his being kicked off Twitter and Facebook. But the former president nonetheless continues to be the most influential Republican in the country, with a recent CNN opinion poll showing that 63% of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents still feel that Trump should be the leader of the GOP. Just over half believe that they have a better chance with Trump as the nominee than someone else. (This is a drop from the 78% who thought they had a better chance with Trump in 2019, but the recent number should still be a concern.)

Recently, Trump has increased his media appearances and is planning rallies in states like Georgia and Iowa -- the latter of which is the first caucus state. Veteran Trump adviser Jason Miller estimates the chance of the former president running again in 2024 is "between 99 and 100 percent." And don't forget that Trump is building a war chest that already tops $100 million dollars.

President Biden, meanwhile, has blown a steady gust of wind into Trump's sails. Let's count the ways:

All of this has created a cloud of pessimism around Biden. Many expect Democrats to lose seats in the 2022 midterm elections, which will further fuel Trump's sense that America is eager to have him back on the scene.

Biden needs to do America an urgent favor and begin addressing Covid-19 like the existential threat that it is by using the awesome powers vested in his office. He needs to start governing in a bipartisan manner, embracing some of the GOP agenda as his own to widen the fissure between Trump and the rest of his party.

Many in America, and the world, are counting on Biden to not give Trump a path back towards electability, a sequel most Americans are uninterested in seeing.

The-CNN-Wire

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Alex Murdaugh, the South Carolina lawyer whose wife and son were killed in June, turned himself in Thursday on charges related to an insurance fraud scheme.

A beige SUV containing Murdaugh pulled up to the Hampton County Law Enforcement Center late Thursday morning, and Murdaugh was seen exiting the vehicle shortly after it pulled through a gate. He is expected to appear in court Thursday.

According to court documents, Murdaugh arranged for a former client to kill him so his surviving son could collect a life insurance payout of about $10 million.

In a statement Thursday, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) confirmed agents had arrested Murdaugh, who was booked at the Hampton County Detention Center. He faces charges of insurance fraud, conspiracy to commit insurance fraud and filing a false police report, the statement said, and the case will be prosecuted by the state Attorney General's office.

"I can assure you that SLED agents will continue working to bring justice to anyone involved with any criminal act associated with these ongoing investigation," SLED Chief Mark Keel said in the statement. "The arrests in this case are only the first step in that process."

Murdaugh was shot in the head on a roadway September 4 but survived. A family spokesperson had previously blamed the shooting on an unidentified man in a blue truck. However, Murdaugh admitted to authorities Monday that he had conspired with a man -- identified by police as Curtis Edward Smith -- to kill him as part of the scheme, according to an affidavit to support charges against Smith.

Murdaugh decided to end his own life but believed his life insurance policy had a suicide exclusion, his other attorney Dick Harpootlian said, and that the scheme "was an attempt on his part to do something to protect" his eldest and only living child.

Additionally, state investigators have announced the opening of two other investigations regarding the 2015 unsolved death of a teen as well as the 2018 death of the Murdaugh family's housekeeper.

The killings of his wife and son on June 7 have not been solved, and Murdaugh has denied responsibility.

Former client charged in suicide scheme

Smith, 61, was charged Wednesday with assisted suicide, assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature, pointing and presenting a firearm, insurance fraud and conspiracy to commit insurance fraud, according to the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division.

On Thursday, Hampton County Magistrate Judge Tonja Alexander set bond for Smith at $55,000. Asked if he was interested in a public defender, Smith replied, "I'm probably going to look at one, yes," adding he would likely apply for one early next week.

Alexander ordered Smith to appear for roll call on October 25 at the Hampton County courthouse. Smith must obtain an attorney within 15 days or his bond will be revoked, Alexander said, and he must keep the court notified of any changes of address.

The Colleton County Sheriff's Office said Smith had a separate bond hearing on Wednesday morning and received a $5,000 cash surety bond for a meth charge and a personal recognizance bond for a marijuana charge. He was transferred to Hampton County custody Wednesday afternoon, authorities said.

Murdaugh was not fatally wounded when he was shot September 4. Afterward, he called 911 to report he had been shot on a road in Hampton County, according to SLED, and he was taken to a hospital in Savannah, Georgia.

Authorities initially described Murdaugh's injury as a "superficial gunshot wound to the head," though Murdaugh's attorneys said his skull was fractured in the shooting.

Murdaugh allegedly provided Smith with a firearm and directed Smith to shoot him in the head. Smith admitted Tuesday to being present at the shooting and to disposing of the firearm afterward, the affidavit states.

Murdaugh had represented Smith as his attorney on at least two occasions dating back to 2010, according to court records from the Colleton County 14th Judicial Circuit.

He first represented Smith in a personal injury lawsuit that Smith brought against a land management company, and Murdaugh is also listed as Smith's attorney for a 2013 traffic infraction, the court documents show.

Questions remain over housekeeper death, attorney says

The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) announced on Wednesday that it was opening a criminal investigation into the February 2018 death of Gloria Satterfield and the handling of her estate.

Satterfield was the Murdaugh family housekeeper for more than two decades before dying in 2018 after what was described as a "trip and fall accident" at the Murdaugh home, according to attorney Eric Bland, who is representing her estate.

SLED said it is opening an investigation based upon a request from the Hampton County coroner that highlights inconsistencies in the ruling of Satterfield's manner of death, as well as information gathered during SLED's other ongoing investigations involving Murdaugh.

"The decedent's death was not reported to the Coroner at the time, nor was an autopsy performed. On the death certificate the manner of death was ruled "Natural," which is inconsistent with injuries sustained in a trip and fall accident," the coroner's request to SLED said.

Bland filed a lawsuit Wednesday on behalf of Satterfield's estate against Alex Murdaugh, the estate's former attorney Cory Fleming, as well as Palmetto State Bank.

Bland told CNN's Chris Cuomo on Wednesday that following her death, her family trusted Murdaugh to help them bring a lawsuit against himself on behalf of the estate.

"Certainly there were questions by my clients because after she unfortunately fell, she was airlifted to a hospital and she had a traumatic brain injury, she never was able to communicate with them for the next three weeks until she died," Bland told Cuomo. "So, it was Alex Murdaugh who told the story of that she had tripped and fell down the stairs over his dogs."

"They trusted him," Bland said. "He hand-walked them to his best friend and college roommate to bring a lawsuit against himself on behalf of the estate."

According to Bland, a number of claims were made which all contributed to a settlement, but none of those settlements ever ended up in court, except one for around $500,000 from Lloyds of London insurance.

"There's no court orders approving any of these settlements. And it's required under the law, if you have a wrongful death or survival case, a judge has to approve the settlements. None of that exists in the court record, and our clients never found out that these cases had settled these claims, until it was printed in the paper by investigative reporters," Bland said.

According to the attorney, the claims were settled for more than $2 million, of which his clients have received no part. "It's our job to get them answers, and get them their money back," Bland added.

In addition, police on June 22 reopened the investigation into the 2015 death of Stephen Smith, 19, whose body was found in the road in Hampton County.

SLED said the probe was being reopened based on information gathered while investigating the double homicide.
GILBERTSVILLE, N.Y.  New York State Police are searching for a suspect in a property damage case in Otsego County.

State police say someone intentionally burned a pride flag hanging on the front porch of a home on Spring Street in Gilbertsville sometime between Sept. 9 and 12. There was also minor damage to the paint on the front porch from the fire.

The homeowner told police another pride flag and a lawn sign that read Keep it Kind were also stolen from the property several weeks before this incident. It is not yet clear if the same suspect was involved in both crimes.

Anyone with information on the flag burning or theft at the home is asked to call state police at 607-561-7400.
Rome, N.Y. - Four days into the new school year, frustrations among many Rome parents are growing.

Rome parents frustrations growing over busing issues

They say the busing issues they've been dealing with this week aren't getting any better and they say they aren't getting calls back from the district about their concerns.

We've had a number of parents contact us at News Channel 2.

Some say their kids aren't being picked up at all, so they've have to walk to school all week.

Another parent says their child spent 2 1/2 hours on a bus to get home after school, and because of the heat lately, they have come home all sweaty and wet.

We reached out to Rome Schools Superintendent Peter Blake several times on Thursday to discuss the parents complaints, concerns, and frustrations but we were told he was unavailable.

The district is dealing with a brand new bus company which is short bus drivers, as well as the task of moving students from Staley Elementary School, which flooded out last month and cannot be used, into different elementary schools.

Some parents we talked with on Thursday say they have sympathy for what the district is going through, while others say this whole busing process should've been sorted out better before the school year began.

David Managno says his child in elementary school hasn't had many issues with busing this week, but the bus for his child who is in middle school hasn't come at all this week, so he's walked to school each day.

Managno and his wife have been trying to contact the district to find out why the bus hasn't been showing up, but they say they have had to leave voice mails, and have not received a single return call.

Tina Rienzo was picking up her granddaughter from Gansevoort Elementary Thursday afternoon.

She says her grandson takes the bus from Strough Middle School and has gotten home between 4:30 and 4:45 each day, "Hes tired when he comes home, very tired, its around dinner time so its eat dinner, get a snack, go to bed. So its a long day."

According to the School Boards website there is a Special Board Meeting set for next Monday, September 20th at 6:00 P.M., and there may be some disgruntled parents that may show up for that.

We aren't sure whether the public is invited to that special meeting. As soon as we find out, we will pass that information along.
UTICA, N.Y. -- As 54,000 Afghan evacuees undergo processing at eight military bases across the U.S., the Center, in Utica, prepares to receive and resettle around 20 of them.

"Our capacity this year was 110 refugees; we got 37, so we do have the capacity to do more," says Shelly Callahan, Executive Director of the Center- formerly the Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees.

The challenge: they don't know exactly how many are coming, or when. Governor Kathy Hochul on Thursday said 20 evacuees would be coming to Utica. Officials at the Center say that number will likely grow. And they could have three weeks notice, or, they could have three days. And the Center gets $1200 from the federal government's Refugee Resettlement Program per evacuee, and they must find and furnish an apartment with that modest sum.

"So obviously if you're a single case and you come here and that's all the money, the agency takes a hit. We go in the hole on 1 and 2 person cases, because it's impossible to get everything that someone would need with that amount of money," says Callahan.

One thing Callahan expects the evacuees will arrive with, is a hearty work ethic.

"They are work eligible so they'll be very much like refugee populations we've dealt with before and vaccinations are mandatory for this group, so they will be vaccinated against Covid and everything else," says Callahan. "All the folks that we deal with are highly motivated to get a job to start building their American dream."

Among those standing at the ready to help them achieve that dream: Utica College.

"Once we knew that some Afghan refugees were going to be coming here, we knew that as a college with the history that we have, we had to step up and do something," says Senior Associate Provost, Robert Halliday.

UC is home to students from 17 different countries. They look forward to collecting donations for the evacuees, and working with the Center to determine what they need.

"Our troops have been overseas supporting these people for two decades. Some of them are here now. It's our turn to step up and do our part," says Halliday.

Callahan and staff assembled a packet for the evacuees, showing them some of the features of what could become their new home. She was proud to include the designation given to Utica by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees a decade and a half ago: "the Town that Loves Refugees". From the reaction Callahan has been getting, that still holds true.

"We have had so many people reach out to us, phone calls, emails, foks on the street that I see out at the market. Employers, do you need any help? Are you getting Afghan evacuees? Is there anything that we can do? Do you need a place for folks to stay? Really remarkable."
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI)- A proposal for a mixed-use building in West Lafayette could demolition the former ATO House.

The owner is asking to tear the historic building down and develop a four-story apartment building with retail space below. The development would have 51 residential units, over 5,000 square feet of ground-floor retail, and a 31-space ground-level parking garage.

For close to a hundred years, the house was home to the Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity.

However, ATO stopped renting the house last year and it's been vacant since.

Several people spoke out against this proposed development, including Purdue University itself.

General Counsel for Purdue Steve Schultz gave Purdue's formal opposition at the Area Plan Commission Meeting tonight.

He says, that the University feels that the mixed-use development is inconsistent with Purdue's master plan.

He added that Purdue planned on preserving the property for congregate living space in the future since it is a historic building and is on the national registry.

However, Dan Teder, the attorney representing the owner of the building says, Purdue was interested in the development previously.

"Purdue's been made very much aware of this situation and to come in 6 to 8 months later and say it doesn't fit with the master plan," said Teder. "Well, what about our master plan?"

Even though the building is designated as historic, it has no protection since it's not in a historic district. That means the building can be torn down regardless.

The Area Plan Commission passed the proposal 12 to 5. It now goes to West Lafayette City Council for approval.

If approved the 12 to 15 million dollar project could break ground in the Spring of 2022. To see the proposal click here.
Dr. Anthony Fauci to deliver remarks for W&Ms Class of 2020 in-person Commencement ceremony

Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci will receive an honorary degree from William & Mary and deliver remarks to William & Marys Class of 2020 as part of the universitys in-person celebration for the graduates next month.

Dr. Fauci, the nations top infectious disease expert and chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden, was appointed director of NIAID in 1984 and has advised seven presidents on domestic and global health issues. He will receive the honorary degree of Doctor of Science and will deliver his remarks virtually.

Additionally, Dr. Thomas Lovejoy, a world-renowned expert in biodiversity and founder of Nature on PBS, and Donald Patten, former rector at W&M and a renowned lawyer in asbestos liability litigation, will receive honorary degrees. Patten will receive the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws and Lovejoy will receive the honorary degree of Doctor of Science.

Dr. Fauci exemplifies the value of service that runs so deep in our university, said W&M President Katherine A. Rowe, who hosted a virtual Community Conversation with Dr. Fauci on Feb. 18. Hes a public servant, who studied classics before turning to medicine. This breadth serves him well as he helps our nation navigate the challenge of our time. He is the ideal person to speak to William & Marys Class of 2020, who completed their degrees and launched professional lives amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Thomas Lovejoys career reflects W&Ms mission: to advance learning and research that tackles our worlds most pressing problems. For over five decades, he has advocated for conservation efforts to combat the devastating effects of climate change. We are privileged to honor his lifetime of dedication to this planet.

As rector, Donald Patten strengthened William & Marys ties to our surrounding peninsula. Over the past year, these partnerships have played a critical role in mitigating the pandemics impact in our region. We are proud to honor his long-standing service to our university, his professional accomplishments on behalf of public health and his many civic contributions.

{{youtube:small:right|8oicZZ_3UKo,A virtual Commencement ceremony was held for the Class of 2020 on May 16, 2020.}}

The Class of 2020 will gather for an in-person Commencement experience over William & Marys Homecoming & Reunion Weekend, October 7-10, 2021. A virtual Commencement was held for the class in the spring of 2020, but state and university COVID-19 restrictions prohibited any in-person events at the time.

Dr. Anthony Fauci

Dr. Fauci oversees an extensive research portfolio of basic and applied research to prevent, diagnose, and treat established infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, respiratory infections, diarrheal diseases, tuberculosis and malaria as well as emerging diseases such as Ebola and Zika. He has been at the forefront of the nations fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and as a result is known worldwide for his work.

Dr. Fauci has advised seven Presidents on HIV/AIDS and many other domestic and global health issues. He was one of the principal architects of the Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a program that has saved millions of lives throughout the developing world.

He helped pioneer the field of human immunoregulation by making important basic scientific observations that underpin the current understanding of the regulation of the human immune response. In addition, Dr. Fauci is widely recognized for delineating the precise ways that immunosuppressive agents modulate the human immune response.

Dr. Fauci has made seminal contributions to the understanding of how HIV destroys the body's defenses leading to its susceptibility to deadly infections. Further, he has been instrumental in developing treatments that enable people with HIV to live long and active lives. He continues to devote much of his research to the immunopathogenic mechanisms of HIV infection and the scope of the body's immune responses to HIV.

He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in classics with a pre-med track from the College of the Holy Cross. He earned his medical degree from Cornell University Medical College.

Thomas Lovejoy

An ecologist who has worked in the Brazilian Amazon since 1965, Lovejoy works on the interface of science and environmental policy. Starting in the 1970s, he helped bring attention to the issue of tropical deforestation and in 1980 published the first estimate of global extinction rates.

He is responsible for coining the term biological diversity, originated the concept of debt-for-nature swaps and has worked on the interaction between climate change and biodiversity for more than 30 years.

He is the founder of the public television series Nature. Previously, he served as the Senior Advisor to the President of the United Nations Foundation, as the Chief Biodiversity Advisor to the World Bank as well as Lead Specialist for the Environment for the Latin American region, as the Assistant Secretary for Environmental and External Affairs for the Smithsonian Institution, and as Executive Vice President of World Wildlife Fund-US.

He has served on advisory councils in the Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Clinton administrations. In 2009 he was appointed Conservation Fellow by the National Geographic Society. He chaired the Scientific and Technical Panel for the Global Environment Facility which provides funding related to the international environmental conventions from 2009-2013 and serves as Advisor to the current Chair. He became a professor at George Mason University in March 2010.

Lovejoy received his bachelors degree and a Ph.D. in Biology from Yale University.

Donald Patten

Patten, an attorney with the firm of Patten, Wornom, Hatten & Diamonstein in Newport News, Virginia, served on William & Marys Board of Visitors from 1999 to 2003 and as its rector from 2001 to 2003. He is an emeritus member of the Business School Foundation.

His career in law has spanned more than three decades, and over the past 20 years, he has focused on asbestos product liability litigation. In that role, he has represented individuals injured by asbestos in Virginia and multiple other states, including Ohio, Texas and Mississippi.

Patten is a member of several professional organizations and previously served as president of the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association. He received the highest rating awarded by Martindale-Hubbell Legal Directory for legal competence and was selected by his peers to be included in the 2001-2002 edition of the The Best Lawyers in America.

Patten has been highly engaged in the Newport News community, previously serving as chair of the Planning Commission, chair of the Peninsula Airport Commission, a member of the Newport News City Council and vice mayor. He also served on the executive committee of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. He was president of the Christopher Newport University Education Foundation and chair of Mary Immaculate Hospital. He was previously a member of the board of the Peninsula Alliance for Economic Development and the Mariners Museum. He currently serves on the C. E. Thurston & Sons Asbestos Trust Advisory Committee.

Patten received his bachelors degree at the University of Richmond and his law degree at the University of Virginia.
Learn more about Beth

Beth Comstocks experience at William & Mary helped her shape her own story. Arriving from a small town in Virginia, Beth was drawn to biology early on as the classes fed her natural curiosity and appetite for discovery. After graduating, she went on to become a science journalist, which led her to a career in media and business where she was eventually named by both Fortune and Forbes as one of the worlds most powerful women Throughout her career, Beth has held a number of marketing and communications jobs at General Electric, NBC, CBS and Turner Broadcasting/CNN. She spent almost 30 years at GE, where she became the companys first chief marketing officer and, later, the companys first female vice chair of innovation. As President of Integrated Media at NBC Universal, Beth oversaw the early development of hulu.com. She currently serves as a director at Nike and trustee of The National Geographic Society.
A 30-member delegation visited Yan'an, in Northwest China's Shaanxi Province from May 10-13, 2021, at the invitation of the All-China Women's Federation (ACWF). Members of the delegation included women ambassadors, spouses of ambassadors and other women diplomats from more than 20 countries. They visited the historical site of the women's committee of the CPC (Communist Party of China) Central Committee in Yangjialing, the village history museum of Liangjiahe and primary-level women's development-project sites. Prior to the visit, the delegation attended the Silk Road on Fingertips  Silk Road Women's Forum in Xi'an. The visit symbolized the launch of "China in the Eyes of Women Diplomats," an activity being held by the ACWF throughout the year.

Some delegates expressed gratitude for the warm invitation from and the diligent organization by the ACWF. Following are part of their thoughts on the visit:

'A Leader Who Always Thinks about His Country and People, and Who Bears Responsibilities on the World Stage'

Winnie Chibesakunda, Ambassador of Zambia to China, said the visit deepened her understanding about why China has chosen to walk the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics. "President Xi Jinping worked for many years at the primary level. He knows the importance of making and perfecting policies that truly answer the people's needs and he works to give the people a better life. Many countries in Africa continue with political systems dating from the colonial period, and those countries have not found a path fitting their development. Africa needs to learn from China. Xi is a president who promises and keeps to his promises. He proposed during the 2018 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation a series of cooperative projects to help African countries develop. President Xi has played his part in leading and promoting China-Africa communications and cooperation, fulfilling the promises China has made to Africa," Chibesakunda says.

Tania Romualdo, Ambassador of Cabo Verde to China, said she was impressed by her visit to Liangjiahe, a village where President Xi used to work. "I can tell President Xi is a leader who always thinks about his country and people, and who bears responsibilities on the world stage. He still thinks about the places where he has worked before, like Liangjiahe and Ningde. He cares about the development of those places and the people there, with whom he has kept a close connection. This is the reason why China has shaken off poverty and achieved great progress. During the 13 years when the CPC Central Committee was based in Yan'an, the Party made many significant decisions that would lead to a huge change in China. The CPC has achieved the revolutionary victory under such hard circumstances and has led Chinese people in reaching the great achievements of today. This is amazing!" Romualdo says.

Christiane Adovelande, President of the Group of African Ambassadors Spouses (GAAS) and spouse of Ambassador of Benin to China, says President Xi impresses her as a person with great love. "Xi works to benefit more people. When he was in Liangjiahe in his youth, Xi had already begun holding firm to the belief he had to serve his country and people. I was deeply moved by his concept of the Chinese Dream meaning the dream of Chinese people," Adovelande says.

'The CPC Has Reached Success Because the Party Has Persisted on a Clear Goal Since Its Founding: To Strive for Happiness of the People'

Isabel Domingos, Ambassador of Sao Tome and Principe to China, says the visit to Yan'an gave her a deeper and more comprehensive impression of the history of China and the CPC. "The CPC has gone through a lot of hardships, leading people of all ethnic groups to achieve the victory of the revolution in China and to reach all-round economic and social development. The CPC has reached success because the Party has persisted on a clear goal since its founding: To strive for happiness of the people. The Party has been able to unite its people closely together and to reach victory during one (battle) after another, regardless of the various difficulties they have encountered when they were marching ahead."

Adovelande has visited many places in China. During each visit, she says she has witnessed the CPC and Chinese Government's efforts to improve people's livelihoods and to advance social progress. "President Xi, the CPC and the Chinese Government have done a lot to help people shake off poverty. Xi has stressed the idea of 'no one should be left behind' in poverty alleviation. The recent visit to Liangjiahe reminded me of China's vigor shown in poverty alleviation, the building of a well-off society and opening a new chapter in the country's development history. I want to send my best wishes to the Chinese people," Adovelande says.

'The Irreplaceable Role Chinese Women Play in All Fields Is Worth Learning by Women from Other Countries'

Romualdo recalled her visit to Ningde, during which she saw the great achievements China made in poverty reduction and the important roles women have played in the elimination of poverty and hunger, as well as in education and health-care development. Each visit has left her with remarkable experiences.

Domingos talked about the significant role of Chinese women during the revolutionary period in Yan'an. "Women not only fought at the front, they also made clothes and shoes and provided supplies to soldiers. This showed Chinese women's firm belief, passion and determination to achieve the revolutionary victory. Since the success of the revolution and the founding of the People's Republic of China, Chinese women have continued to make important contributions to building a democratic and prosperous country with blooming economic and social progress. The irreplaceable role Chinese women play in all fields is worth learning by women from other countries," Domingos says.

'The BRI Will Connect Chinese Women Closely with Women All Around the World'

Chibesakunda says, "The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a very inclusive drive. The initiative not only benefits countries that were along the geographic route of the ancient Silk Road, it has also been opened for all countries to participate. There are a lot of things Zambia has already benefited from the BRI. China offers scholarships to Zambian students and many of the youth in our country are working in most of our industries, and they are grasping various approaches in what they are doing. We are grateful to China and we hope to cooperate with China in more fields in the future. The issues discussed during the Silk Road Women's Forum are affecting women worldwide. Such a forum should come up with solutions, which should be shared internationally, so the women and governments of Zambia and other countries can learn practical knowledge, deepen cooperation and push the world to develop better."

Romualdo mentioned the outstanding efforts China made in epidemic prevention and containment in 2020, as well as the country's achievements in promoting economic recovery, which impressed the world. "China provided an example for other countries to learn from and the country played its role in advancing global inclusiveness. I sincerely expect the Silk Road Women's Forum will act like a bridge and the BRI will connect Chinese women closely with women all around the world," says Romualdo.

Maria Gustava, Ambassador of Mozambique to China, recalled the 25th anniversary (in 2020) of the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women. "Due to the impact caused by the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, women in many countries and regions encountered difficulties in their development; women's development in certain fields even fell back. Women and children became the majority of the COVID-19 pandemic's victims in poverty-stricken areas in Africa. The BRI, however, provided a good platform for various countries to combat the pandemic together, recover economic development, deepen cooperation and achieve win-win relations. The Silk Road Women's Forum provided a good opportunity for various countries to advance gender equality and women's development and to ensure none of them get left behind in the digital era, regardless whether the country is rich or poor. I expect to see the partnership between Mozambique and China and among various countries develop, and a new chapter is written in the field of women's communication and cooperation."

Domingos noted women medical workers made up 70 percent of those who fought on the front line during China's fight against COVID-19. "Chinese women play a unique and important role in their families as well. Actually, I can say that women play a role of more than 'holding up half the sky.' I hope the Silk Road Women's Forum will have a greater influence on various countries, helping them share good practices and learn from each other, so women will make greater contributions to the building of the Belt and Road. Meanwhile, women will achieve self-development and advance gender equality worldwide," says Domingos.

Source: Liaison Department of the All-China Women's Federation and Shaanxi Women's Federation

(Women of China English Monthly June 2021 issue)
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People visit the 28th Beijing International Book Fair in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 14, 2021. The book fair kicked off Tuesday and is scheduled until Sept. 18. It has attracted roughly 2,200 exhibitors from 105 countries and regions, including 57 along the Belt and Road, said the organizer, adding that over 300,000 books are on display. [Xinhua/Ju Huanzong]

BEIJING, Sept. 14 (Xinhua)  Quality publications marking the contributions of the Communist Party of China (CPC) during its 100-year history are exhibited at the 28th Beijing International Book Fair that kicked off Tuesday.

The book fair has attracted roughly 2,200 exhibitors from 105 countries and regions, including 57 along the Belt and Road, said the organizer, adding that over 300,000 books are on display.

Several high-end conferences and forums will be held at the book fair to promote cultural exchanges between Chinese and foreign publishers, the organizer added.

With Pakistan as the guest country of honor, this is the first major international book fair held online and offline amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The book fair is scheduled until Sept. 18.

A press exhibitor introduces books via live streaming during the 28th Beijing International Book Fair in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 14, 2021. The book fair kicked off Tuesday and is scheduled until Sept. 18. It has attracted roughly 2,200 exhibitors from 105 countries and regions, including 57 along the Belt and Road, said the organizer, adding that over 300,000 books are on display. [Xinhua/Ju Huanzong] People visit the 28th Beijing International Book Fair in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 14, 2021. The book fair kicked off Tuesday and is scheduled until Sept. 18. It has attracted roughly 2,200 exhibitors from 105 countries and regions, including 57 along the Belt and Road, said the organizer, adding that over 300,000 books are on display. [Xinhua/Ju Huanzong] People visit the 28th Beijing International Book Fair in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 14, 2021. The book fair kicked off Tuesday and is scheduled until Sept. 18. It has attracted roughly 2,200 exhibitors from 105 countries and regions, including 57 along the Belt and Road, said the organizer, adding that over 300,000 books are on display. [Xinhua/Ju Huanzong] People visit the 28th Beijing International Book Fair in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 14, 2021. The book fair kicked off Tuesday and is scheduled until Sept. 18. It has attracted roughly 2,200 exhibitors from 105 countries and regions, including 57 along the Belt and Road, said the organizer, adding that over 300,000 books are on display. [Xinhua/Ju Huanzong] People visit the booth of Pakistan during the 28th Beijing International Book Fair in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 14, 2021. The book fair kicked off Tuesday and is scheduled until Sept. 18. It has attracted roughly 2,200 exhibitors from 105 countries and regions, including 57 along the Belt and Road, said the organizer, adding that over 300,000 books are on display. [Xinhua/Ju Huanzong] People visit the 28th Beijing International Book Fair in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 14, 2021. The book fair kicked off Tuesday and is scheduled until Sept. 18. It has attracted roughly 2,200 exhibitors from 105 countries and regions, including 57 along the Belt and Road, said the organizer, adding that over 300,000 books are on display. [Xinhua/Ju Huanzong]

People visit the 28th Beijing International Book Fair in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 14, 2021. The book fair kicked off Tuesday and is scheduled until Sept. 18. It has attracted roughly 2,200 exhibitors from 105 countries and regions, including 57 along the Belt and Road, said the organizer, adding that over 300,000 books are on display. [Xinhua/Ju Huanzong]

People visit the 28th Beijing International Book Fair in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 14, 2021. The book fair kicked off Tuesday and is scheduled until Sept. 18. It has attracted roughly 2,200 exhibitors from 105 countries and regions, including 57 along the Belt and Road, said the organizer, adding that over 300,000 books are on display. [Xinhua/Ju Huanzong] Visitors talk with a press exhibitor during the 28th Beijing International Book Fair in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 14, 2021. The book fair kicked off Tuesday and is scheduled until Sept. 18. It has attracted roughly 2,200 exhibitors from 105 countries and regions, including 57 along the Belt and Road, said the organizer, adding that over 300,000 books are on display. [Xinhua/Ju Huanzong] People visit a 5G-powered panoramic reading space during the 28th Beijing International Book Fair in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 14, 2021. The book fair kicked off Tuesday and is scheduled until Sept. 18. It has attracted roughly 2,200 exhibitors from 105 countries and regions, including 57 along the Belt and Road, said the organizer, adding that over 300,000 books are on display. [Xinhua/Ju Huanzong] People visit the 28th Beijing International Book Fair in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 14, 2021. The book fair kicked off Tuesday and is scheduled until Sept. 18. It has attracted roughly 2,200 exhibitors from 105 countries and regions, including 57 along the Belt and Road, said the organizer, adding that over 300,000 books are on display. [Xinhua/Ju Huanzong]

(Source: Xinhua)
YULIN, Shaanxi, Sept. 15 (Xinhua)  Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for freeing the mind, carrying out reform and innovation, and making persistent efforts to usher in a new chapter of high-quality development in northwest China's Shaanxi Province.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks during a two-day inspection tour of Yulin City in Shaanxi starting Monday.

Xi urged fulfilling various tasks in COVID-19 prevention and control and economic and social development, coordinating development and security in a better way.

He also emphasized the need to better serve and integrate into the new development paradigm.

On Monday, Xi visited a chemical company under the China Energy Investment Corporation. He said the coal industry should follow a green and low-carbon path of development, and coal consumption needs to be transformed and upgraded.

The coal chemical industry, as a sector with huge potential and good prospects, must be transformed into a high-end, diversified and low-carbon industry, Xi said, adding that sci-tech innovation is the most pressing task and efforts must be accelerated to achieve breakthroughs in key and core technologies.

During his trip to the village of Gaoxigou, Xi chatted with villagers in the field, asking about their work, income, medical care, children's education and employment.

Hailing the village as a model of ecological conservation on the Loess Plateau, Xi highlighted the need to integrate ecological governance with the development of distinctive local businesses. He emphasized exploring a way to attain coordinated development between ecology and economy, and harmony between humans and nature.

Xi later visited the revolutionary site of Yangjiagou, where Mao Zedong and the Party's central authorities stayed for over four months between 1947 and 1948, commanding the War of Liberation and leading the land reform movement.

Xi stressed always upholding and improving the Party's leadership, upholding the basic tenets of Marxism and the principle of seeking truth from facts, and adapting Marxism to China's conditions.

On Tuesday morning, Xi visited another revolutionary site -- the premises of the former prefectural Party committee of Suide.

The CPC has the support of the people, Xi said, explaining the success of the revolution. "We must carry forward revolutionary traditions and fine conduct and always keep the people's interests uppermost in mind," he said.

Visiting a middle school in Suide, Xi watched the students practise calligraphy and do physical exercises, and chatted with them.

Education is fundamental to the pursuit of national rejuvenation, said Xi.

Xi called for efforts to cultivate young people, who are equipped with moral grounding, intellectual and physical ability, aesthetic sensibility and work skills, and are well-prepared to join the socialist cause.

The primary role of schools in education should be strengthened, Xi noted. He added that the quality of education should be improved in an all-round way while easing students' burden of excessive homework and off-campus tutoring.

While touring an exhibition hall for local intangible cultural heritage in Suide, Xi expressed appreciation for the local efforts to protect and inherit traditional culture.

As an invaluable asset of the Chinese nation, folk arts are vital to sustaining historical legacy and building a socialist country with great cultural strength, said Xi.

On Tuesday afternoon, Xi traveled to the village of Haojiaqiao and visited the home of a villager whose family was lifted out of poverty.

Xi stressed that making villagers live a better life is the unswerving mission and aspiration of the Party. He urged the whole Party and the nation to carry forward the spirit forged in the fight against poverty to secure new and greater victories in fully building a modern socialist China.

When leaving the village, Xi expressed his hope for the villagers to continue upholding the fine traditions and make further efforts in building their village into a model of rural vitalization.

(Source: Xinhua)
Independent assessment taking place to explore factual case for Wrexhams City Status bid

The advantages and disadvantages of Wrexham becoming a city are being explored and examined as part of an independent assessment that will help inform the debate ahead of a possible formal bid later this year.

In July it was announced that Wrexham Council had unveiled two ambitious applications that could see the town become a city, and then also becoming a City of Culture with the council promising to share the benefits such a move would entail.

The bid is technically a competition held by the Queen, to grant the prestigious and rare civic honours of City Status to a select number of worthy towns and cities in the United Kingdom.

Since the announcements there has been a gap in public information circulating about the bid, so we enquired to Wrexham Council if that was it due to the time of year, August being a traditionally quiet period for public council business, or if there has been work ongoing.

Chief Executive Ian Bancroft told us, From a technical point of view we are doing a piece of work around a longer piece of work around Wrexham as a place, coming out of the pandemic and recovery. As part of that piece of work we are looking at the comparisons of what benefits and disadvantages its brought to other areas.

So our logic in terms of steps is that well get that information back in October. Well engage then with people about what the benefits are, what are the disadvantages may be, what some of the perceived disadvantages are or are not. Then, the aim is as was agreed at executive board to bring an executive board report back prior to the deadline of December.

A lot of work going on behind the scenes to make sure that theres a real factual case around the bid. Does this support the economic and community recovery of Wrexham, and if it does, what does it support? What are those benefits? Then having that engagement with key people and stakeholders.

A recent tender documented explained more detail on the place making project specification, to develop a place making strategy to inform economic recovery following the pandemic; future regeneration interventions; benchmark Wrexham in terms of performance indicators that can be used for future evaluation of significant regeneration activity; and identification of Wrexhams key attributes that will support inward investment opportunities.

Councillors have been told, Whilst this work is predominately focussed on developing a place-based strategy, the advantages and disadvantages of becoming a city as discussed at Executive Board can be explored through this work.

More detail on the process has been given in the update to councillors:

By the end of this month an independent assessment of the benefits and dis-benefits (including but not limited to: economic, social, health & wellbeing) that are associated with the gaining of city status, as experienced by other similar towns in the UK, identification of benchmarking indicators and Wrexhams key attributes that support inward investment will be produced.

A second phase by the end of next month will involve stakeholder engagement over the findings of phase 1, including Members, key stakeholders and the wider community.

Third phase up until 8 December 2021

The decision point in early December on if to progress the City Status application would have to take place ahead of an 8th December deadline, with Wrexham.com told there are hopes for a non-political, educated debate on the benefits, the advantages or the disadvantage of city status.

To discover if Wrexham is worthy of the status a maximum of eight sides of A4 can be submitted to show how the town meets the proposal against the criteria of:

Distinct identity

Civic pride

Cultural infrastructure, interesting heritage, history and traditions

Vibrant and welcoming community

Record of innovation

Sound governance and administration

Associations with Royalty

Other particularly distinctive features, age, residents or communities who have made widely recognised significant contributions to society and cultural infrastructure.

Minister of State for the Constitution & Devolution, Chloe Smith, previously said of the civic competition, The Civic Honours competition is an opportunity to promote your hometown and win an honour for it that will last for all time.

I encourage entries from local authorities in every part of the UK, from vibrant towns and cities with distinct identities, history, and sense of community.

The brilliance of the United Kingdom is rooted in diverse and unique communities brought together by a shared sense of civic pride, so I have no doubt the competition will be fierce  but success will be a historic moment of celebration for the winners, which will take its place within Her Majestys Platinum Jubilee.
Schools in Greece reopened Monday, a move that will lead to a new surge of COVID-19 among children and in the wider population. Infection rates in young people are already very high. According to the Ministry of Health, more than 12 percent of all cases occur among those aged under 17 and 38 percent among 18-to 39-year-olds.

After the New Democracy (ND) government ended lockdown restrictions mid-May, cases began to surge to record levels. The largest wave of cases were in August, with many days breaking the 3,000 mark of reported cases and a record of 4,608 daily infections on August 24. On average, 2,171 new COVID-19 infections are still being reported each day with numbers steadily rising. On Monday, 2,279 cases were recorded, but just 24 hours later rose to just short of 3,000 cases (2,919).

These numbers must increase significantly after this week as schools, colleges and universities reopen. ND Education Minister Niki Kerameos told Skai TV that the government's priority is face-to-face teaching in all educational institutions.

A teacher wearing a protective face mask speaks to her pupils in junior high school in Athens, Monday, Sept. 13, 2021. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

The government is requiring teachers and lecturers to present a certificate of full vaccination, or proof of having contracted coronavirus within the last six months, or a negative laboratory test result that must be presented to the schools twice weekly.

Such mitigations will not stop the spread of the Delta variant, which can partially evade immunity provided by the vaccines, and is vastly more transmissible, producing viral loads roughly 1,000 times higher than the initial virus.

The government is forcing students back into the classroom, dropping remote learning options. It is not justified for a student to be absent from class because parents are afraid to send him to school because of an outbreak in the class, Kerameos said. Like her counterparts in Europe and around the world, the education minister categorically rejects school closures.

Before, we still had school classes closed to protect students' families from spreading the virus. But now most are vaccinated and if not, they have the option to do it immediately, Kerameos claims. She and her ilk were never concerned about protecting the public from the virus, only about saving the economy, meaning the profits of the corporations. For this schools must remain open so to allow parents to work.

The most basic quarantine measures have been thrown out. Kerameos announced that a classroom would be closed only if more than half the children in the class contracted COVID-19. The infected person's contacts will not be quarantined, but a laboratory test will be done.

Athina Linou, an epidemiologist and professor at the National and Kapodistrias University of Athens, reacted to the move in horror. This is not right at all, she told ANT1. If we know that 11 children are sick, then probably at least five more are also sick. At some point, those 20 kids will go home, pass the virus on to siblings, parents, grandparents, friends, maybe a household helper and a neighbour. That means one class can infect another 100 to 150 people, given the transmissibility of the new variant. Add to that the tutorials and activities.

She warned, Of the 100 children who get sick, 10 percent will get very, very sick. And a certain percentage, whether they get seriously ill or not, will have long-term after-effects, for a year, for two years. That's going to create an explosive situation in the daily lives of families.

With classes too large, rooms too small and children still unvaccinated, Linou previously described the opening of schools and kindergartens as criminal. She told Skai that the ministry was ignoring that we have a much more contagious virus and that schools were closed most of the time last school year. It's terrible that we're not taking action. The same goes for public transport, in the workplace the issue of home offices needs to be addressed again. It's a difficult situation.

Nikos Tzanakis, the Professor of Pulmonology at the University of Cretes medical school, speaking to iatropedia.gr, this week estimated that coronavirus will infect 30,000 to 50,000 children. We believe that 25-30 percent of children will come in contact with the virus. Assuming that we have a transmissibility specific to the Delta virus, this means that one third of these children will be infected, that is, around 30 to 50 thousand children will be infected.

Mathematical modelling research at the University of Crete found that if 50,000 children are infected with the virus, 1.5 percent are likely to develop more severe symptoms and may require hospitalisation. Tzanakis warned, We are dealing with a strain that 'hits' children very hard. While during the pandemic, hospitalizations in paediatric departments did not exceed 240, it could not be excluded that they could reach 300 and even more than double to 600 cases.

George Pavlakis, a doctor and academic, advised before schools returned, The smartest policy would be to make a huge effort to bring down the cases even with a lockdown. Another solution would be not to start schools next week or to have the lesson outside, not to have the children in the classrooms. Cases could reach a record 4,000 a day, said Pavlakis as he warned that the Delta mutation should be treated as a new pandemic, because of the huge difference in infectivity.

The growth of cases will be made worse with Greeces health system already under enormous strain. Doctors are decrying low capacities and major staff shortages in the pandemic. On August 31, all five intensive care doctors at the Rethymno hospital on Crete submitted their resignations due to exhaustion from being overworked. We have been sounding the alarm for a long time in several letters, but the management not only ignores us completely, but also burdens us with additional tasks every day, they said.

A few days prior, the heads of Rethymnos Intensive Care Unit, the Emergency Department, the Department of Pathology and the Department of Pulmonology addressed an open letter to the directors and the public: We are in the second year of the pandemic and despite the assurances of the management, we are working with the same staff. A few holes had been plugged by untrained staff, which is not enough. In addition to their departments, they are also supposed to support a new COVID clinic. The staff are treating corona patients on their wards, even though they do not officially have beds dedicated to COVID patients.

The head of the intensive care unit at Papanikolaou Hospital in Thessaloniki, Nikos Kapravelos, warned a week ago on Open TV, The hard part is still ahead, the disease is progressing faster this time. More than 95 percent of the available COVID beds in his intensive care unit were already occupied, with only a few beds left for patients with other conditions. When we consider that holidaymakers are still returning, schools are opening and many remain unvaccinated, it's not good news, said Kapravelos.

The World Socialist Web Site and Socialist Equality Parties internationally are fighting for the strategy to eradicate COVID-19 through the building of rank-and-file safety committees in every workplace.

Only the closing of schools and non-essential workplaces, combined with extensive public health measures, testing, tracing and vaccination can bring an end to the pandemic. This programme stands in contrast to the agenda of the capitalist parties, who, with the aid of the trade unions have herded children and educators back into classrooms, based on a herd immunity policy and mitigation, relying primarily on vaccination. The fight for the implementation of the necessary safety measures must be organised independently of these organisations. This means the establishment of Rank-and-File Safety Committees of educators, students, and parents throughout Greece.
Directed by Magorzata Szumowska and Michal Englert; written by Szumowska and Englert

A tall young man carrying few belongings walks through a lush, eerie forest. His journey takes him along desolate bridges and through an underpass until he crosses from Ukraine into Poland. Arriving at an immigration office, he tells a creaky bureaucrat simply, Id like to live here. The stranger seems vaguely familiar to the official, who begins to feel unusual and suddenly begs for the strangers help. Moments later, the latter walks out of the building carrying the official document that he needs.

So begins Never Gonna Snow Again (2020), Polands official submission to the 93rd Academy Awards, which were held in April. The film recently had its theatrical release in the US. Magorzata Szumowska, one of its directors (the other is Michael Englert), is known on the international festival circuit for films such as Elles (2011), which starred Juliette Binoche.

The mysterious immigrant is named Zhenia (Alec Utgoff, Stranger Things ). He has a broad, inscrutable face and an uncanny ability to win peoples confidence. We learn that he was born near the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, seven years to the day before it happened. This Russian speaker claims to know every language and has no apparent difficulty with Polish.

Alec Utgoff in Never Gonna Snow Again

Soon Zhenia has established himself as a freelance masseur in a gated community of white McMansions. The majority of his wealthy clients are women of a certain age who send their children to the French school. They address him by his first name and freely (and sometimes unconsciously) reveal their preoccupations, insecurities and prejudices. Zhenia indulges them and says little.

Maria (Maja Ostaszewska), one of Zhenias clients, has hostile children and an indifferent husband. She takes refuge in wine and cigarettes. As Zhenia massages her, she chatters about feckless delivery drivers whom one cant communicate with because theyre all Pakistanis or Ukrainians. Suddenly realizing her gaffe, she apologetically reassures Zhenia that he is different. He responds mildly that he is not offended.

Zhenia makes stereotyped remarks to his clients about the stress he can feel as he massages them. He names what he knows to be its causes. He also flatters the women by guessing, from the feel of their muscles, that they are younger than they are. One woman, Ewa (Agata Kulesza, Ida ), calls him out on it. Educated and steely, Ewa sees Zhenia as naive. Yet this widow with a history of anxiety and a sullen, somewhat menacing son seems to need Zhenias company. Who is in charge?

Alec Utgoff and Agata Kulesza in Never Gonna Snow Again

It emerges that Zhenia also performs hypnosis, and his clients soon ask for this service, too. One man who has cancer (Lukasz Simlat) swears by Zhenia. He feels rejuvenated after every visit and believes that Zhenia has healing powers. His wife (Weronika Rosati) observes Zhenia in silence.

At times, one fears that Zhenias gentleness might conceal something dangerous. But, instead of taking advantage of his hypnotized clients, he plays piano or breaks into a dance as graceful as it is improbable.

The film treats its affluent characters with a certain sympathy and a touch of grotesquerie. The performances of Ostaszewska and Kulesza stand out.

At the end of the day, Zhenia walks home to the unwelcoming concrete building where he has a narrow, dim apartment. A socioeconomic gulf separates him from his clientele. Light and color underscore this difference: Zhenias room is bathed in golden twilight, in contrast to the cold white and neutral grays of the gated community.

In his room, he thinks about his mother, who died when he was a child. The two appear in otherworldly flashbacks, standing in overgrown grass as strange, glinting particles fall. At her wake, Zhenia held his hands above his mothers corpse, trying to heal her. He finds that he still has the power of telekinesis he discovered as a child. Loud knocks on the door often break Zhenias reveries, but there is not always anyone there. One day, he finds only a cryptic note from a prospective client who is waiting for him.

The only time that Zhenia lets down his guard is when he finally has a drink with the communitys Ukrainian gatekeeper, who has been persistently inviting him. Slightly drunk, the two zip around the sleeping neighborhood on electric scooters. Zhenia happily shouts that he is a superhero who will save everyone.

The movie takes place in fall and winter, but we do not see snow. Occasionally, a character makes a remark to the effect that it will never snow again. Responding to one such comment, Zhenia says, Ive heard that, too, but maybe it will. The film thus raises the issue of global warming, but only in glancing references.

Utgoff is intriguing as Zhenia. He moves easily, and the appeal that Zhenia has for his clients is understandable. Yet Zhenia seems more like a composite of traits and behaviors than a fully developed character. He is mysterious, but the mystery ultimately does not seem to be of much consequence.

The movie itself resembles a patchwork of elements that do not add up to a whole. Promisingly, it raises issues of class, nationality, immigration, loneliness and desire. Introducing an interview with co-director Szumowska, Deadline commented that Poland has generated some fresh class distinctions since communist days and that Never Gonna Snow Again examines those distinctions with a shrewd and merciless eye.

Deadline observed that the concept of gated communities for the rich is quite a new thing for former Eastern bloc nations, but the other director, Englert, maintains that Its quite common [in Poland]. This is something that kind of describes this pretty fresh democracy fascinated by capitalism.

Polish and other eastern European filmmakers are beginning to take up important social questions, but their efforts reveal the damage caused by Stalinist rule and the ongoing propaganda barrage claiming the later was communism. The issues here (and in a number of other Polish, Romanian and Hungarian films) still receive desultory attention rather than sustained examination. The movie hints and alludes instead of presenting ideas that have been fully thought through.

In Never Gonna Snow Again, we get little sense of the larger world in which the wealthy clients, their odd children and immigrants like Zhenia and the gatekeeper live. The Polish state, which is linked closely with the Catholic Church, is in the hands of the right-wing Law and Justice Party. It has tightened restrictions on abortion and responded to mass protests with police violence. It is promoting far-right and anti-Semitic movements and persecut ing historians and journalists who investigate Polands role in the Holocaust. These realities find no expression or even a hint in the film.

Beautiful long shots effectively depict and contrast the gated community with Zhenias neglected neighborhood. The directors successfully create eerie moments, too. When under hypnosis, Zhenias clients find themselves in a half-lit forest that gives the impression of being underwater.

But neither the social commentary nor the supernatural elements are developed to a conclusion. And because of the films episodic structure, these two sides do not always cohere. For these reasons, Never Gonna Snow Again is ultimately unsatisfying.
Sharon Graham, the newly elected general secretary of Unite the union, was presented as the star attraction by the Socialist Party (SP) at its National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) online meeting last Sunday.

The event was promoted as a virtual lobby of the annual conference of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), the 12th annual NSSN rally supposedly aimed at forcing the trade union bureaucracy to take up a fight. This political fiction has paved the way for one disaster after another.

Screenshot of Sharon Graham speaking at the National Shop Stewards Network's online meeting on September 12, 2021

With its slogan, Fight for a pay rise, the rally advanced no perspective to combat the homicidal policy of the British ruling class through its abandonment of all COVID-19 mitigation measures and the demand to live with the virus. But even the claim that the TUC could provide a vehicle for opposing the pay restraint was based on crude historical falsifications. NSSN Chair, Rob Williams had to go back 10 years in order to reference any co-ordinated industrial action by the trade unionsthe one-day strike action over public sector pension cuts on November 30, 2011 against the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition. But he was forced to acknowledge that all opposition was then swiftly wound down by the unions and Weve spent the past decade paying the price for that.

Williams opening remarks were essentially a restatement of the September 8 editorial statement in the SPs newspaper, The Socialist, which claimed, A decade ago, TUC Congress became a 'council of war', coordinating strike ballots across 29 public sector unions against the attack on pensions by the Tory-led coalition government. That resulted in the historic N30 two million-strong walkout that was effectively a public sector general strike.

The editorial claimed that right wing union leaders had been Forced into action by members' pressure levered by the NSSN and left unions, before acknowledging that this had ended in a sell-out that had opened up a decade of austerity.

Now, however, as the editorials headline suggested, we have reached a new pivotal moment for the trade union movement in which the TUC Congress must become a decisive meeting to discuss and set out the action that is needed to force back the Tories on pay and cuts, linking up with workers in the private sector in a united struggle to push back against the employers' onslaught.

The SP adds as a caveat, If this isn't done, those unions which are up for the fight must come together to give a lead for the action that is needed.

And the occasion for this proclaiming this pivotal moment? The election of Sharon Graham as Unite general secretary. This year's TUC Congress, online again due to the pandemic, will provide the first public platform for newly elected Unite general secretary Sharon Graham. It's an ideal opportunity for her to send a clear message to both the employers and their crisis-ridden Tory government that their brutal offensive, designed to make workers pay for the Covid crisis, will be met by fierce resistance from the labour and trade union movement.

The anointing of Graham as the saviour of the trade union movement crowns a politically degraded relationship between the SP and its main rival, the Socialist Workers Party, with this career bureaucratthe latest and perhaps least convincing in a line of similar figures hailed as the standard bearer of a left fightback.

The SP et al acted as foot soldiers in her election campaign and constitute a significant proportion of the volunteer army Graham attributed her election success to for getting out the vote.

In reality, as the self-appointed Workers Candidate, Graham won the election with the backing of barely 4 percent of Unites 1.2 million membership and won only because her rivals fared even worse. Despite the left packaging provided by the SP and SWP, Graham was unable to generate any enthusiasm outside of a narrow layer of local union representatives, in an election that saw an historically low turnout of just over 10 percent.

Graham was among a list of featured speakers composed exclusively of union general secretaries, deputy general secretaries and national executive members from the Communication Workers Union (CWU), the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers' Union, the Rail, Maritime and Transport union, the Prison Officers Association (!) and others.

The fraudulent nature of the opposition being presented at the event was summed up by Dave Ward, General Secretary of the CWU, who described how his union was presenting a motion before the TUC for a social movement fighting for workers and transforming society. This involved a call for a New Deal for workers, which was not defined and consisted essentially of a national rally to be held in spring 2022!

The CWUs real attitude towards mobilising workers was demonstrated in the bureaucracys overturning a 97 percent strike mandate last October at Royal Mail by its 110,000 members against further restructuring. Ward appealed instead to key shareholders, offering to demonstrate how to make the privatised company a very successful business. At British Telecom earlier this year, the CWU sabotaged the first national strike action since privatisation. Following a consultative ballot in which 97 percent voted in favour of strike action, the CWU entered into an agreement with management behind the backs of its membership and rubber stamped 13,000 job losses as part of the 1.5 billion cost cutting exercise.

Graham has been plucked from relative obscurity, having been ensconced within the trade union bureaucracy for decades and having earned her spurs by overseeing backroom deals to sellout workers struggles as head of Organisation and Leverage.

Her mantra of working with good employers, while standing up to bad employers translates into an appeal for a corporatist partnership between Unite and other unions and the major corporations in which they agree to act as an industrial police force in return for maintaining their lucrative posts.

In welcoming Graham, Williams referred to the strike by Manchester bus drivers against Go North West over fire and rehire as an example of the victories workers had achieved under Unite and her personal leadership role.

Graham needed little encouragement to blow her own trumpet. I was with these drivers in dispute, we had leverage, we had strike action and we were able to push that employer back There was a dispute which was going on for weeks, after weeks, after weeks and the confidence these workers had that we could win making sure the unions resources were pointing with them was critical to them being able to win.

Graham and her flunkeys in the SP are trying to portray a terrible betrayal for which workers have paid a bitter price as a victory. After 11 weeks of indefinite strike, a rotten agreement was imposed on the 400 bus drivers at the Queens Road depot. There was no co-ordination of their fight with thousands of bus workers employed by Go North Wests parent company Go-Ahead or the 80,000 bus workers Unite represents across the UK.

Grahams leverage campaign was based on getting Go Ahead to remove the threat to fire workers and rehire them on inferior terms by Unite giving the company almost everything it wanted, including 1.3 million worth of cuts including job losses and speed-ups. The SP welcomed this outcome and hailed it as a huge victory.

In a piece written for the Guardian newspaper on September 12, Graham also singled out the role of leverage in settling last years dispute at British Airways against fire and rehire and bringing the company back to the negotiating table. This was based upon a similar sellout agreement rammed through by Unite, which led to the destruction of 4,000 jobs and pay cuts of 15 percent.

Graham told the NSSN rally that her first action as Unite general secretary was to bring together all our members involved in 22 current disputesby which she meant a conference call with 80 local reps. This has nothing to do with co-ordinating any action by workers against the major corporations, but instead applying leverage and targeting what she referred to as the decision makers. With Go North West and British Airways as the blueprint for success, this will involve attempts to establish industry-wide collective agreements enshrining the role of Unite as a partner of the corporations in their cost cutting exercises. The moral outrage of Graham and the union bureaucracy over fire and rehire is highly selective. It ends when the employers agree to co-opt them into their business plans to ramp up exploitation.

Grahams remarks to the NSSN also made evident that her oft-cited rejection of Westminster politics has nothing to do with opposition from the standpoint of the independent interests of the working class.

She made no criticism of Labour or the trade unions for working in a de facto coalition with the Conservative government, the policy of only constructive criticism in the national interest. Instead, referring to the pandemic in the past tense, she complained that Labour was now back in the deep freeze and therefore not in a position to exert any real influence over the policy of the ruling elite.

Nevertheless, while denouncing parlour games in Westminster she signalled that she would still be collaborating with the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, stating, My conversations with Keir Starmer will not be about which chairs will be moved around in Labour but the agenda Ive been given. In truth Graham has received no genuine mandate by Unites members, and there is nothing that sets her agenda apart from the right-wing pro-capitalist policies of Starmers Labour Party.

The tub thumping and militant rhetoric could not conceal the air of political desperation which characterised the NSSNs attempt to present the trade union bureaucracy, or a supposed left faction, as an engine of class struggle. There were repeated references to establishing a coalition of the willing, another hark-back to the 2011 pension dispute when a handful of unions including the Public and Commercial Services Union, National Union of Teachers, and University College Union, made a brief feint of opposition before falling back into line. All settled for the government terms, hiking up workers contributions towards inferior pensions on retirement.

The claim by NSSN chair Rob Williams that the TUC could be transformed into a council of war recalls the slogan of the Communist Party of Great Britain during the 1926 General Strike All Power to the (TUC) General Council. This policy, adopted under the influence of the Stalinist bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, meant that the British working class was completely disarmed in the face of the treachery of the TUC, which called off the strike and left the miners to be starved back to work. It led to biggest defeat the working class has suffered to this day, ultimately helping pave the way for the Hungry Thirties and the Second World War.

The struggle waged by Leon Trotsky against this politically disorientating line was based on the fundamental principles that a successful socialist revolution demanded the building of a genuine socialist party by breaking the working class from the debilitating influence of the fake lefts of the labour and trade union bureaucracy.

For the SP, which not only claims to be socialist, but Trotskyist, the reprise of the Stalinist position towards the trade union bureaucracy is not the result of a mistaken policy. Compared with the likes of Sharon Graham, the left reformists of the 1920s appear like revolutionary firebrands. At least they had had a connection with the class struggle and held the allegiance of hundreds of thousands of socialist minded workers.

Almost a century later Graham, Ward, and the entire union bureaucracy represent completely pro-company organisations which have ceased to function in the remotest sense as defensive organisations of the working class, but which provide the pseudo-left groups with comfortable and lucrative berths within their sprawling apparatus. It is this that truly binds together the SP with the trade union bureaucracy and accounts for all its political contortions, apologetics, and outright lies.
In this Tuesday, Aug. 31, 2021 photo Ann Enderle R.N. attends to a COVID-19 patient in the Medical Intensive care unit (MICU) at St. Luke's Boise Medical Center in Boise, Idaho. (AP Photo/Kyle Green,File)

The Delta wave of the pandemic has left an immense hidden trail of devastation stemming from a complete failure of local and state public health departments to provide a timely and accurate statistical accounting of the number of cases and deaths. The actual toll of the pandemic becomes guesswork pieced together by daily reports from health systems to their respective states.

However, the limited data available to the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) demonstrates that intensive care unit (ICU) capacity utilization across many healthcare systems in the Southeast, Midwest, the South, specifically Texas, and the Southwest, including California, has exceeded 95 percent.

According to the New York Times, One in four hospitals are now reporting more than 95 percent of ICU beds occupied, up from one in five last month. The latest metrics from the HHS website on hospital utilization indicates that out of 84,513 staffed ICU beds in the country, 67,175, or approximately 80 percent, are in use. Almost 31 percent of these beds are being occupied by patients admitted for COVID-19.

The tragic death of Ray Martin DeMonia, a Cullman, Alabama antiques dealer, in Meridian, Mississippi, from a heart attack earlier this month, may seem anecdotal but depicts in glaring reality the consequences to the population when health care systems become inundated by an entirely preventable disease. DeMonia was turned away from 43 hospitals across three states because their ICUs were full. The nearest available bed was 200 miles away at Rush Foundation Hospital. Delay in care, in this case, led to his untimely death.

A heart attack need not be fatal nor debilitating. Rapid intervention that allows the reopening of a blocked coronary artery can restore oxygenated blood to the heart muscle and prevent the tissue from dying. If the blockage persists for five or six hours, a significant portion of the heart muscle can fail, and acute heart failure can occur with the heart attack leading to a dangerous combination. After twelve hours, the damage is irreversible. Additionally, dangerous heart rhythms can be generated that make the remaining portion of the heart work inefficiently.

The care of patients in ICUs is labor-intensive. It requires a tremendous investment in resources that include highly trained specialistsa cadre of nurses, physicians, therapistsand an array of complex equipment used to treat patients. Additionally, interventional radiological suites, blood banks, laboratories, and pharmacies must work together intimately to allow the hospital services to function efficiently.

However, when these systems reach capacity, the ability to care, treat, and respond immediately to a medical emergency is compromised. Instead of nurses caring for one patient, they may be assigned three or four patients in their extended shifts. Non-ICU staff are utilized who are unfamiliar with the processes or do not know how to respond to critical results. Patients must be monitored in busy emergency rooms or makeshift units lacking the necessary support systems.

A sustained surge in sick patients also means that essential procedures or operations must be suspended. Patients with life-threatening illnesses have to cope until health systems can return to routine operations. But as the current surge of COVID-19 impacts younger patients, ICU stays are more extended. The state of siege under which the hospitals operate runs into weeks, which can be a matter of life and death for patients who desperately need urgent comprehensive medical attention. They also take an incredible toll on the mental well-being of the staff, who feel they are perpetually working over an assembly line of severly ill patients.

Speaking with U.S. News, the executive vice president of the Houston Methodist hospital system, Roberta Schwartz, frankly stated, We basically do ICU in the emergency room. You may hold down there for 45 minutes, and you may hold for three days. Youre going to get great care if you can come to one of our facilities. But ideally, you want to get people up to the appropriate unit as quickly as you can.

Its not very comfortable, but it works, she told U.S. News about the makeshift ICU. And a blow-up mattress is better than a sleeping bag, which is better than a tent outside.

The answer for the ruling elite to the current crisis is the implementation of hospital care rationing programs, which Idahos Department of Health and Welfare (DHW) announced last week as the state faced a massive surge in COVID-19 patients. On September 11, there were over 600 patients hospitalized, far above the winter peak when no more than 466 people had been hospitalized at any one time.

DHW Director Dave Jeppsen wrote, Crisis standards of care is a last resort. It means we have exhausted our resources to the point that our healthcare systems are unable to provide the treatment and care we expect. This is a decision I was fervently hoping to avoid. The best tools we have to turn this around is for more people to get vaccinated and to wear masks indoors and in outdoor crowded public places. Please choose to get vaccinated as soon as possible  it is your very best protection against being hospitalized from COVID-19. The crisis standard of care, in basic terms, means resources are diverted to those the hospital staff believes have the best chance for survival.

Yet, beyond meagerly suggesting that residents consider getting vaccinated, Idaho Republican Governor Brad Little, like his counterparts in Florida, Texas and elsewhere, has remained vocally opposed to any mask mandate.

Governor Little is also working with the states attorney general, Lawrence Wasden, to use the court systems to stop President Joe Bidens large employer COVID vaccination and testing mandate.

Meanwhile, patients are being transported across state lines to Spokane, Washington, where there is some capacity in ICUs. However, as Dr. Christopher Baliga, an infectious disease specialist at Seattles Virginia Mason hospital, told the Washington Post, We are keeping our head above water, but barely. Our capacity to absorb overwhelmed patients from other states is severely limited.

According to an analysis by the Economist, though COVID deaths are averaging close to 1,700 per day in the US, excess deaths are almost twice as many at 3,100 per day. Cumulatively, with more than 662,000 reported deaths due to COVID, there have been 860,000 excess deaths. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, an independent global health research center based at the University of Washington, places the current excess deaths in the US at over one million.

Not all these deaths are directly related to COVID infections. Dr. Steven Woolf, director emeritus of the Virginia Universitys Center on Society and Health, noted last year, Some people who never had the virus may have died because of disruptions caused by the pandemic. These include people with acute emergencies, chronic diseases like diabetes that were not properly care for, or emotional crises that led to overdose or suicides.

To be even more precise, the current preventable deaths are a byproduct of deliberate neglect on the part of state and federal governments, when in the face of inundated health systems operating at overcapacity they steadfastly refuse to lock down and disrupt the transmission of the virus, thereby perpetuating the social murder that is measured economically and tabulated in the ledgers of the financial aristocracys portfolios and ever-larger bank accounts.
The following is an interview withDr.Jeremy Fischer, former associate professor of philosophy at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, who resigned his position in protest of the universitys inadequate COVID-19 health and safety policies. In his resignation letter, Dr. Fischer said he did not want to be complicit in a moral atrocity and pointed to the political nature of the current health crisis. His areas of specialization include ethics, moral psychology, philosophy of emotion and philosophy of race. The interview was conducted by email.

Emma Arceneaux: Why did you resign? What developments led to you concluding that you should leave?

Jeremy Fischer: As you can imagine, this is a long story. In the end, I resigned because the university refused to implement readily available measures that would greatly protect the public health. After extensive advocacy efforts failed, I chose to distance myself fromand sound the alarm aboutwhat I fear is an impending moral disaster.

I will note, though, that the University of Alabama (UA) System initially responded fairly well to the COVID crisis. For the 2020-2021 school year, UAH (University of Alabama in Huntsville) and the UA System moved most classes online. Most staff were also permitted to work from home. On-campus mitigation policies included indoor mask requirements, six-feet indoor social distancing, re-entry COVID testing at the start of each semester, and regular random-sample testing throughout each semester. UAH also set up a vaccination clinic in March 2021. Even as late as February 2021, UAH administrators liberally granted requests to teach entirely online in the upcoming fall semester.

Jeremy Fischer

It became clear by April 2021, however, that the UA System and the state of Alabama would be downplaying coronavirus risks for the fall. At that time, as word came down from the Chancellor and/or the Board of Trustees that all workers would soon be required to report to campus, the permission I received to teach online in the fall was revoked.

Then in May, the state of Alabama passed a law prohibiting public universities from mandating either COVID vaccinations or even that proof of such vaccination be shown ( Act No. 2021-493 ). (Other legal guidance which might prove relevant is the states liability shield law, Act No. 2021-4, implemented on February 12, and discussed below.) In June, the UA System Health and Safety Task Force plan for the fall in effect eliminated social distancing requirements, among other changes. The plan, in my judgment, was to allow largely uncontrolled spread of the coronavirus and hope for the best.

By June, it was clear from news reports out of India that a Delta crisis might soon threaten the U.S. As the crisis spread to the UK and then to Israel, I reached out to colleagues in the faculty senate (of which I was a member) and across the campus. Several of us decided to draft and distribute a petition urging the UA System leadership to adopt a more protective health and safety plan. Our demands were modest: (1) To require mask use of all persons inside classrooms and all university facilities (with few exceptions); (2) To require six feet of distance between all persons inside classrooms and all university facilities (with few exceptions); and (3) to permit any faculty or staff who is concerned about the safety of returning to campus workspaces to (a) work remotely or (b) take unpaid leaves of absence. The first two demands drew on C.D.C. guidance for universities where not everyone is fully vaccinated. The third was grounded in both public health considerations that favor more aggressive intervention, as well as basic principles of academic freedom .

By the end of July, the petition attracted signatures from 135 UAH faculty, instructors, staff and researchers from 29 departments, seven colleges, and numerous additional units across campus.

On August 3, we sent the petition to the UA System leadership. UAH President Dawson acknowledged receipt, but the petition received no substantive response.

On August 13, we followed up with President Dawson by emailing him with further specific questions and suggestions. By that time and to their credit, the UA System modified its policies to require university indoor face coverings. However, we asked the president to comment on our demands for social distancing and for being able choose whether to work from home, as well as on the following possible mitigation policies:

(1) Introducing MERV13 HVAC filters in all buildings, offices and classrooms.

(2) Measuring CO2 levels in all classes to ensure sufficient outside air is being introduced and circulated.

(3) Providing stand-alone HEPA filters in all classrooms to supplement HVAC filtration.

(4) Resuming regular random-sample testing of the UAH community.

(5) Mandating re-entry testing requirements for faculty, staff or students who are coming back to campus for Fall 2021.

(6) Testing wastewater in buildings in order to rapidly alert large numbers of people of possible exposure.

(7) Publicizing the percentage of UAH community members who are vaccinated.

(8) Requiring high quality (e.g., N95) masks indoors.

We received no reply to this follow-up email. Informal communication with senior faculty led me to suspect that administrators lacked good reasons for declining to implement all of these measures.

Meanwhile, UAH announced to the community that we could be confident in the universitys response to COVID and implied that the campus was a safe environment for all students, faculty and staff and that the well-being of Charger Nation remains our top priority. These assurances struck me as severely downplaying the dangers (especially given UAH COVID-policies) of the Delta variant and as introducing a false sense of security into the community. They also ignore the impact that COVID spread within Charger Nation might have on the broader community surrounding our campus. After all, about 85% of UAH undergraduates live off campus. Since the fact that UAH is a public institution of higher education gives it tremendous credibility with our students, I worried that these students would be lulled into taking health risks they might come to regret and/or spreading the coronavirus into the broader Tennessee Valley region.

So, for reasons I discuss at further length below, I decided to publicly resign in the hopes of drawing some public scrutiny to the matter.

EA: Can you describe the 2020-2021 school year at UAH/UA? What measures were in place, including remote learning/instruction, masks, ventilation, distancing, etc.? Were there known outbreaks? Were there any deaths within the school system that you know of?

JF: See above for details on the 2020-2021 measures at UAH.

In the first year of the pandemic, UAH recorded 393 COVID cases. To my knowledge, UAH did not publicize COVID-related deaths on campus. But I happen to know of one person who died from COVID.

EA: You noted that UAH President Darren Dawson acknowledged receipt of the petition. Has he since responded further to the petition or directly to your resignation?

JF: No UAH or UA System administrator ever responded to the substance of the petition or to my resignation letter.

EA: What has been the reaction to the petition/your resignation, particularly by those with sentiments like yourself who are deeply concerned over community transmission?

JF: The most common reactions have been disbelief and outrage about the UA Systems meager policy response to the Delta crisis. Colleagues elsewhere have told me that they are hesitant to return to the classroomeven though they live in states like Washington with much lower transmission rates and even though their university mandates vaccines and regular testing. Most importantly, several instructors from across the U.S. have reached out to me to brainstorm about what they might do at their own institutions. Some campuses, like nearby University of Georgia and also Georgia State University, are holding demonstrations. At other institutions, at least two instructors have chosen to resign in protest. Some have organized their campus with petition efforts. Some instructors are unilaterally moving their classes online, or unilaterally requiring in-person mitigation measures (like face coverings).

These stories are heartening, and the possibilities for constructive action are numerous. I suspect that instructorsespecially tenured professorsgreatly underestimate their power, especially when it comes to unilaterally moving their classes online.

EA: I am interested to know what you have heard from students to your resignation. In addition, can you discuss the impact of both the pandemic and the response to it by policy makers, from politicians to university administrators, on your studentshow they see the world, how this will alter their lives, and the socioeconomic, political system within which they live?

JF: Its hard to know how the pandemic, and the policy response to it, has affected students. I have heard from about a dozen students, all of whom support my decision to sound the alarm about the local COVID policy response. I suspect that many students share my sense of disappointment, frustration, and outrage. But the situation is complicated. Many students also seem eager to get back to normal and believe that it is now safe to do so.

I hope that social scientists are surveying students attitudes on the questions you ask. Some universities are soliciting and then publicly sharing feedback from students about campus safety measures. Id like to see more of that.

EA: The World Socialist Web Site calls for the eradication of the virus, not merely mitigation. Mitigation measures are only effective, scientists have shown, in combination with efforts to eradicate the disease. How would you respond to that?

JF: The policies of the University of Alabama Systemespecially the rejection of C.D.C. recommendations for six-feet social distancing indoors, the promotion of flimsy low-quality masks, the absence of supplemental HEPA filtration and the elimination of regular random-sample testingcan barely even be categorized as aiming at mitigating, let alone eliminating, COVID. Robust mitigation policies would be a huge improvement for Alabama.

That said, I agree that the debate between elimination- and mitigation-based approaches is extremely important. I applaud your efforts to present these issues to the public. Moreover, I respect epidemiologists and concerned members of the public who advocate elimination by means of paying workers for a few months to stop engaging in nonessential activities.

However, I am still studying the issue. In particular, I am still figuring out what concrete practical differences there are between a genuinely robust mitigation effort (which we have hardly glimpsed in the US) and an elimination effort. A vigorous public debate between prominent advocates of these approaches would be useful. Until I learn more, Id prefer not to comment further.

EA: The powers-that-be are trying to claim the solution to the pandemic is personal responsibility. We believe this requires a global, coordinated scientific response. That is, this is a social responsibility. Could you comment?

JF: The personal responsibility slogan is widely deployed in Alabama as well. But notice the extraordinary steps taken to protect workplace managers from accepting their own personal legal responsibility for how they treat their subordinates. The passage of Alabamas liability shield law, Act No. 2021-4, suggests that, as is often the case, decision-makers escape personal responsibility for their mistakes while the rest of us are made to bear the costs.

In my view, even though the disproportionately powerful have a correspondingly disproportionate responsibility, at the end of the day responsibility is broadly shared. Yes, the situation requires a global, coordinated scientific response; but (as I suspect youd agree) such a response will only come about if vast numbers of private individuals demand it. I make this obvious point to push back slightly against the tendency, common among professors, to shift all responsibility onto administrators and other powers-that-be. Academic administrators certainly play an important role in these matters; but faculty (especially senior faculty) sometimes have more power than they choose to exercise.

EA: In your resignation letter, you said you did not want to be complicit in a moral atrocity. Can you elaborate on what you consider to be the moral atrocity in this situation? Is it limited to UAH? What does it mean on a world scale?

JF: There is a good chance that classes and other in-person events on campus will accelerate COVID transmission in the wider community. This is a huge problem for a state like Alabama, in which only about 76% of senior citizens are fully vaccinated. (Compare that number with 99% in Vermont, 98% in Maine, 96% in Washington State and 95% in Maryland.) Already, as the school year begins, Alabama hospitals are packed with COVID patients and running out of ICU beds (and workers to staff them ).

In such circumstances, large institutions like schools and universities need to take all reasonable steps to minimize coronavirus transmission. (See, for example, the possible mitigation policies, numbered (1)-(8) above, as well as our petition demand to move at least some classes online and implement C.D.C.-recommended social distancing guidelines.) But, despite their modest efforts, the UA System failed to take even most of these steps. In my judgment, this failure is morally atrocious.

My particular role at the university complicated matters further. At UAH I taught various philosophy courses, including courses on the philosophy of mind and ancient Greek philosophy. Most often, though, I taught ethics courses. For the upcoming year I was scheduled to teach a course called, Advanced Moral Philosophy. The last time I taught this course, the texts included Jeff McMahans important book, The Ethics of Killing. Teaching this material again in the present context would have been a fascinating experience. But sitting around a seminar table during a moral emergency, cogitatingrather than spending more of my time agitatingseemed somewhat in bad taste. The fear that my students might transmit the coronavirus to each other during these ethics seminars, moreover, horrified me.

On reflection, I concluded that it might be best to publicly distance myself from the disaster that I fear is taking place in Alabama, and to use my resignation to focus attention on the moral seriousness of our situation, as well as on the low-hanging fruit still available to schools and universities that want to minimize coronavirus transmission in the region. I have some hope that persuasion and other kinds of coordinated campus actions might still hasten UAHs move to online classesor at least its implementation of additional, if ultimately inadequate, mitigation measures.

Regarding your last question, it does seem that administrators at UAH are merely responding to intense outside political pressures. As far as I see, they are not, for the most part, personally opposed to taking adequate measures against the coronavirus. They were perfectly willing to support these measures last year. Rather, their decisions take place downstream from state and federal policy decisions, including general funding policy decisions, as well as specific coronavirus policy decisions. So, there is likely a role for all concerned citizens to play in shaping these upstream decisions.

EA: In your letter, you state that the pandemic involves not only a public health but a political crisis. What do you see as the nature of this political crisis? A political problem requires a political solution. In your view, what would that be?

JF: These are hugely important questions, but ones that I hardly even attempt to answer in a satisfying way here.

Here is one thought. I alluded already to state and federal actions that, in my view, improperly constrain universities decision making. We can speculate about the various interests that guided these decisions. But clearly one enabler of this political problem is the considerable lack of voice that workers suffer in the workplaceeven in the academy, where shared governance is the dominant buzzword. This lack of voice, for example, legally enabled UAH administrators (who were not in the first place elected by workers) to shrug off the strong concerns of 135 workers who signed their names to our petition. I believe this response reflects a management structure that Elizabeth Anderson has called workplace dictatorship (in her book, Private Government ).

If that assessment of the political crisis is sound, then the solution presents itself: Workers should have significant and formal input in workplace decisions that greatly impact their interests. If that is so, then one political solution to consider is workplace democracy (as David Ellerman discusses in his recent interesting book, Neo-Abolitionism ).

EA: What do you think about the call by the WSWS for the formation of rank-and-file workplace committees as a means of organizing against unsafe work and school reopenings? Are you familiar with, and what are your thoughts on, the statements from the rank-and-file committees, including the Alabama Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee (founding statement here: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/01/20/alab-j20.html )?

JF: After only glancing at this founding statement of the Alabama Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee, I am inclined to agree with most of its demands including (1) full transparency from school boards about the spread of the coronavirus, (2) more democratic decision making, (3) robust opportunities for educators to receive vaccinations, (4) income protection for parents, (5) the halt of nonessential production in the state (again, with income protection for workers), (6) increased funding for ventilation system upgrades in schools, and (7) free, high-quality mental health and social services for students and families who request it.

Because I am not an expert on K-12 pedagogy or child development, and because (as I said above) I am still a bit unsure about whether robust mitigation efforts might suffice to minimize suffering and death from the coronavirus, I would prefer to withhold my public judgment from some other demands until I study the issue more carefully. On those demands, I would rather defer to rank-and-file committees of educators, school workers, parents and students in each school in collaboration with trusted scientists and health experts (in the words of the Safety Committee).

EA: What do you hope others take away from your story?

JF: I hope to encourage faculty to further organize around and voice their concerns about campus safety issues, in particular, and the lack of shared governance more generally. Regarding the former, its also important to consider the long history of higher ed institutions neglecting the well-being of their members. And I would hope that people who are now rightly concerned about COVID on campus might broaden their concerns to encompass these related issues as wellissues such as the harassment that students sometimes face from campus police and the barriers to accessibility that immunocompromised and disabled people sometimes face, not to mention the costly tuition bills that often force already burdened working-class students into wage work during the school year.
Over the past year, the Xi Jinping regime has taken significant action against the Chinese high-tech giant Alibaba and its subsidiary, the Ant Group, as part of broader moves directed against high-tech companies.

Alibabas founder Jack Ma has been under pressure from government authorities and disappeared from public view for two months at the end of last year, following the decision by financial regulators to suspend the Ant Groups $137 billion initial public offering (IPO) on Wall Street just as it was about to be launched in November. Had it been allowed to go ahead, the IPO would have been the largest ever.

In this Friday, Oct. 23, 2020, photo, an employee walks past a logo of the Ant Group at their office in Hong Kong. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

This week, as initially reported in the Financial Times on Monday, the government moved to break up Alipay, the financial services firm run by Ant. It ordered Ant to separate the app Huabei, which operates like a consumer credit card, from the main group, along with Jiebei, which makes unsecured loans to small businesses.

These actions are part of increased state intervention into high-tech areas of the Chinese economy and its financial system.

Last month, Chinas State Council and the Chinese Communist Partys Central Committee issued a joint statement saying there was an urgent need for new laws to regulate the digital economy and internet finance to ensure that this new business model operated in a healthy manner.

There have been various interpretations of the governments move to tighten control over the countrys high-tech and financial giants. These include: The claim that it emanates from Xis authoritarian proclivities; that, in the words of a Financial Times (FT) editorial, it is part of the CCPs authoritarian drive to bring about a wholesale transformation; and even the claim in an FT column that it is a step towards a second version of the Soviet Unions central economic planning agency, Gosplan.

There are undoubtedly political considerations in the moves against the high-tech and financial moguls, not the least being Xis desire to clip the wings of some of the richest individuals in China, all of them multi-billionaires, in order that their wealth and international financial connections not become the basis for a political challenge to the ruling CCP.

But the more fundamental issue appears to be the implications of what is known as fin-tech for the increasingly fragile Chinese financial system.

An article in the Diplomat earlier this month pointed to these growing concerns. It noted that some observers had pointed to the strident criticism by Ma of Chinese financial authorities last October, just before the attempted Ant IPO, while others have said it is part of a general crackdown to ensure CCP control.

However, very few have elaborated how exactly Alibaba and its mobile payment system, Alipay, might generate financial risks, and what specific problems they create for regulators The tension between Alibaba and the monetary authority of China lies in the nature of a privately operated mobile payment system.

Over the past decade, Alipay has grown into the largest mobile payment platform in the world. People put money into their Alipay account and then use their smart phone to scan a QR code when making a transaction, without the need for cash or cards. Alipay QR codes can be seen everywhere in shopping complexes.

When people use Alipay, the Diplomat report said, they believe they are making transactions in renminbi (RMB), the Chinese currency controlled by the central bank. They are, in fact, using a currency issued by Alibaba with exchanges with RMB at the ratio of 1:1.

In the most extreme case, if Alibaba were to go bankrupt, then any Alipay account would be worthless.

There are other, more immediate, questions.

One problem is that Alibaba is not a commercial bank and is not covered by banking regulations, such as the regular reporting of its reserves. As a tech company, it is free from such supervision.

Another problem identified in the Diplomat article is that Alipay, a privately-run system, is massively used. The issue is how can the monetary authority maintain financial and economic stability if the majority of grassroots transactions in China take place through a non-RMB currency?

It pointed out that as the Alipay system continues to grow, one day the central bank might need Alibabas support or even the approval in order to achieve its monetary policy objectives, a possibility that it cannot tolerate.

The Peoples Bank of China (PBOC) cannot roll back the mobile payment system because it is so widespread that reversing it would likely inflict substantial pain on the economy and cause unnecessary panic.

So the alternatives appear to be the introduction by the PBOC of its own mobile payment system or the imposition of greater state control over Alibaba and Alipay.

In many respects, the Chinese government is caught in problems of its own making. The development of high-tech firms such as Alibaba and its Alipay system was promoted by the regime in an earlier period as it stepped up the introduction of market mechanisms to facilitate increased dynamism in the Chinese economy and financial system.

The problems it is now encountering recall the remarks of Marx on the development of the credit system in the 19th century. In the first stages, he explained, it furtively creeps in as the humble servant of accumulation, but then assumes a powerful and dominant position. Or, as he put it in the Communist Manifesto, the bourgeoisie is like the sorcerers apprentice, who conjures up forces from the nether world which then escape his control.

The issues that have arisen in China, among them the private ownership of massive data sets of consumer transactions and the implications of high-tech developments for the stability of the financial system, are not confined to that country.

In an editorial on the moves to break up Alipay, the FT said worries over how regulators should handle big financial data are not unique to China.

It pointed out that last year, before he became the head of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Gary Gensler published a paper warning that using artificial intelligence to make lending decisions could lead to financial instability.
In a major escalation of the US-led war drive against China, President Biden together with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced a new military alliance focussed on the Indo-Pacific region. While not mentioned by name, China was obviously the primary target of the new AUKUS pact.

A top US official briefing the media described the agreement as a fundamental decision, that binds decisively Australia to the United States and Great Britain for generations. It marks a reforging of the wartime alliance during World War II in the Pacific in which Australia was a major base of operations for both the US and Britainat that time against Japan.

Boris Johnson, Scott Morrison and Joe Biden at G7 meeting in June 2021 [Source: Australian Government]

For British imperialism, the pact signifies the return of a military presence to Asia that it relinquished over fifty years ago when it withdrew its bases in South East Asia and the Persian Gulf. In April, the British navy despatched an aircraft carrier strike group for exercises in the Indian Ocean and sensitive South China Seaits largest force since the Falklands War in the southern Atlantic in 1982.

The fault lines of a disastrous new world war are rapidly emerging as the Biden administration forges alliances in the Indo-Pacific against China which the US regards as the greatest threat to its global hegemony. Far from easing tensions with Beijing, Biden has ramped up the US confrontation with China on every frontfrom its hypocritical denunciations of human rights and the Wuhan Lab lie to trade war measures, naval provocations in the South China and East China Seas and unfounded accusations of Chinese threats against Taiwan.

The AUKUS announcement comes ahead of the first-ever, in-person leaders meeting next week of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or Quada quasi-military alliance of the US, Japan, India and Australia. It follows a virtual meeting of the leadersalso a firstconvened by Biden in March that pledged allegiance to a free, open rules-based order. This stock phrase signifies a commitment to the post-World War II imperialist order dominated by the US in which it set the global rules.

The announcement comes in the immediate aftermath of Washingtons debacle in Afghanistan after two decades of a criminal and bloody neo-colonial occupation ended in the ignominious collapse of its puppet regime in Kabul. The withdrawal from Afghanistan was part of a broad strategic shift set out in Pentagon documents away from the war on terror to focus on great-power rivalrychiefly against China.

The aggressive and militarist character of the new alliance is underscored by the associated decision to provide Australia with nuclear-powered submarines that will greatly extend the capabilities of its navys submarine fleet. Nuclear-powered submarines, as oppose to the diesel-powered submarines that Australia had contracted to buy from France, can operate at far greater distances and remain submerged for extended periods of time, enabling them to be deployed to the strategic South China and East China Seas.

The US has only ever shared its nuclear submarine technology with one other countryBritainsome 70 years ago. Only six countries currently have nuclear-powered submarines. Prime Minister Morrison was at pains to insist that Australia would not acquire nuclear weapons, which would be a breach of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, nor would it establish a civilian nuclear industry.

There is, however, a logic to the decision: without a nuclear industry, Australia, which has among the largest uranium reserves in the world, would be completely dependent on the US or UK for nuclear fuel for its submarines. Once a nuclear industry is developed, fuel can also be used to build nuclear weaponsa move proposed in recent years amid rising US-China tensions by several Australian strategic analysts.

A top Biden administration official told the media that the formation of AUKUS was the the biggest strategic step Australia has taken in generations. The alliance and the acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines is the culmination of the closer and closer integration of Australia into the US war plans against China that began with the Obama administration and accelerated under Trump.

President Obama chose to announce his pivot to Asia, which set course for an all-embracing conflict with China, in a speech to the Australian parliament in November 2011. The visit to Australia followed the ousting of Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in an inner-party coup by protected sources of the US embassy in Canberra. Rudds crime was not that he opposed the US-Australian alliance but that he advocated US compromise with China as Obama was preparing for confrontation.

Rudds replacement Julia Gillard signed an agreement with Obama to open Australian military bases to US Marines, warships and warplanes. The Australian foreign minister and defence minister are currently in Washington for talks with their American counterparts in the annual AUSMIN talks which are expected to outline an even closer integration of the Australian armed forces and military bases with the US war machine.

The negotiations between the US, Britain and Australia to conclude the AUKUS alliance have been underway behind closed doors for months according to unnamed sources. The complete secrecy is not only aimed at keeping China in the dark, but reflects the fear in ruling circles in Washington, London and Canberra that the widespread, but latent, anti-war sentiment among workers and youth will erupt.

The latest announcement makes clear that the US imperialisms preparations for war against China are well advanced. If it cannot subordinate Beijing to US interests by other means, the American ruling class will not hesitate to go to war to prevent being eclipsed by China.

The only means for halting this catastrophic drive towards conflict between nuclear-armed powers is to forge an international anti-war movement of the working class on the basis of a socialist perspective to put an end to the capitalist system and its reactionary division of the world into rival nation states.
Canadas social democratic New Democratic Party (NDP) is waging an election campaign that must go down as one of the most fraudulent and dishonest in the partys six-decade history. After two years of loyally propping up Justin Trudeaus big business minority Liberal government, the NDP and its leader Jagmeet Singh are attempting to market themselves as implacable opponents of the super-rich who have fought throughout the pandemic to secure social support for working people.

The New Democrats have published daily news releases over the past two weeks denouncing Trudeau as a shill for the rich, corporations, and wealthy. Singh has traversed the country proclaiming his determination to make the super-rich pay their fair share, and attacking the Liberals for allowing the wealthy to ride out the pandemic in luxury yachts while leaving everyone else in leaky lifeboats. Through this less-than-convincing left feint the NDP seeks to act as a safety valve for mounting popular opposition to the financial and political elite, which has found expression in recent months in a series of militant strikes and job actions by workers seeking to claw back wage and benefit concessions given up over the past four decades. These militant struggles have also been fuelled by anger over the ruling elites ruinous profits before lives policy in response to COVID-19. The NDP has fully supported this homicidal policy, both by its backing of the Trudeau Liberal government, which has spearheaded the back-to-work/back-to-school drive nationally, and by directly implementing it in British Columbia, the one province where it forms the government.

Federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh at the 2021 NDP convention (Photo credit: Canadian Dimension)

In one of the NDPs media releases, it identified 14 times Justin Trudeau gave the ultra-rich a free ride. These included his refusal to crack down against fee hikes from Canadas big five banks in the middle of the pandemic, as their profits soared, his governments creation of the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS), which funnelled millions to big business, and the Liberals enabling of Canadas billionaires to increase their wealth by $78 billion during the pandemic.

To call this presentation of the past two years self-serving barely begins to describe the monumental fraud Singh and his NDP handlers are seeking to perpetrate on Canadian workers. The truth of the matter is that every pro-corporate policy they attack Trudeau and the Liberals for was made possible thanks to Singh and the New Democrats steadfast parliamentary support. This began on election night in 2019, when Singh appeared jubilant upon learning that the NDP would hold the balance of power in a minority parliament, even though the social democrats representation had fallen by almost half compared to their disastrous 2015 result under the former Quebec Liberal cabinet minister and Thatcher enthusiast Thomas Mulcair. It continued throughout the pandemics multiple waves of infection and mass death, and led to Singh publicly pledging this February to continue propping up the Trudeau Liberal government until the pandemic was over. And it culminated in late July, when Singh appealed to the unelected Governor General, the Queens representative, to use her arbitrary and sweeping reserve powers to block the calling of a federal election because parliament was working well.

Indeed, it was working well for the financial oligarchy that dominates all aspects of social, economic and political life, and this was in no small part due to the NDPs efforts. The NDP voted unanimously with the Liberals and Conservatives to approve hundreds of billions of dollars in pandemic bailout measures that overwhelmingly benefited the super-rich. The CEWS, which even the Globe and Mail, the traditional mouthpiece for the Bay Street financial elite, attacked as too generous corporate welfare, was championed by the NDP as a job saving measure. Singh and the NDP even boasted that it was they who convinced the Liberals to increase the percentage of an employees wages companies could receive a government subsidy for from the initially proposed 10 percent to 75 percent. In reality, in pressing for the expansion of the CEWS, which has provided tens of billions of dollars to big business with virtually no strings attached, the NDP was echoing and joining forces with a Whos Who of corporate lobby groups, from the Chamber of Commerce and Business Council of Canada to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

The soaring profits for the banks Singh suddenly finds so objectionable were secured above all thanks to the funnelling of over $650 billion into the financial markets and corporate coffers by the government and Bank of Canada following the March 2020 stock market collapse. This vast largesse, which dwarfs the comparatively small sum doled out to workers and their families in the form of the poverty-level Canada Emergency Response Benefit, was also instrumental in helping Canadas billionaires profit off of mass infection and death. Another key factor in the swelling of their stock portfolios and investments was the enforcement of the reckless back-to-work/back-to-school policy by the entire political establishment, including the NDP and its trade union backers.

The NDPs parliamentary support to the Liberals has allowed the Trudeau government to press ahead with its plans to increase military spending by over 70 percent over a decade, to almost $33 billion per year by 2026, and purchase new fleets of warships and fighter planes. This has been combined with the further integration of Canadas armed forces into US imperialist-led operations around the world, including against strategic rivals like China and Russia. Significantly, among the few occasions the NDP has joined forces with the Conservatives in attacking the Trudeau government is over the question of China. In actions that underscore that Singh and the NDP are fully on board with the Canada-US military-strategic partnership that is the cornerstone of Canadian imperialist policy, they have repeatedly echoed complaints levelled by the Conservatives and US Congressional leaders that the Liberal government is too conciliatory to Beijing.

Singh now claims to be afraid of Trudeau, according to a recent interview in The Tyee. He considers the prospect of another Liberal government to be pretty bad and a Conservative government under the former Harper minister Erin OToole to be worse. This was itself a climbdown from his statement during last weeks English-language leaders debate, in which he said that the Liberals and Conservatives were just as bad as each other. This was evidently too much for the NDPs backers in the upper echelons of the trade union bureaucracy. They have developed unprecedentedly close corporatist relations with the Trudeau government since it first came to power in 2015, and fully expect Singh and the NDP will resume propping up Trudeau and his Liberals in the event next Mondays election produces another hung parliament.

The tripartite corporatist alliance between the Liberals, unions, and big business reached a new level during the pandemic. In March 2020 the then Canadian Labour Congress President Hassan Yussuff, who has since been compensated for services rendered to the ruling class with an appointment to the Senate, led the way with his call for a collaborative front between employers and workers. Yussuff worked closely with Trudeau and corporate lobbyists to enforce an unsafe return to work as the first wave of the pandemic still raged by demobilizing all worker opposition and protests to the reopening drive. Over recent months, unions like Unifor, the United Steelworkers, and the teachers unions in every province have proven instrumental in sabotaging the struggles of industrial workers and educators against new concession-filled contracts and the dangerous reopening of schools.

Under these conditions of mounting class struggle, and with decisive sections of the ruling class making clear that they want an intensification of the onslaught on jobs, wages, and social spending after September 20 to pay for the multi-billion-dollar bailout of the super-rich, Singhs pitch is that he is best equipped to ensure the stability of Canadian capitalism. With his demagogic attacks on the ultra-rich and demands for the wealthy to pay their fair share, the NDP leader is seeking to appeal both to widespread popular anger at rising social inequality and the growth of low-wage poverty jobs, and the concern of a minority faction within the ruling elite that the continued unrestrained growth of vast wealth in the hands of a tiny few could provoke a social explosion.

This is the essential content of Singhs demand that the elite pay its fair share. The partys taxation and spending proposals amount to nothing more than a drop in the bucket. The NDP intends to raise just $166 billion in extra revenue and spend an additional $215 billion over five years, according to its election platform. This equates to about $33 billion and $43 billion per year respectively. This is a tiny fraction of the vast sums handed to the banks and big business virtually overnight during the pandemics early stages, and similarly small change when compared with Canadas total federal budget, which in 2019, the last year prior to the pandemic, amounted to $350 billion. Yet even Singhs tepid proposals would never be implemented. The NDP has proven time and again at the provincial level that once in power, it will bow to the demands of big business and enforce spending cuts and austerity.

Singhs repeated references to the wealthy paying a fair share are an explicit recognition of the corporate elites right to acquire and hoard huge wealth, which is possible under capitalism only through the ruthless exploitation of the working class. He never talks of expropriating even a portion of the obscene wealth accumulated by the financial oligarchy during decades of privatizations, tax cuts, wage reductions, and the gutting of social programsmeasures that were implemented just as brutally by NDP governments at the provincial level as by their Tory and Liberal counterparts. Nor is there even the most oblique reference to establishing social equality. The word socialism never passes Singhs lips.

This extremely important omission thoroughly exposes the absurd character of the claims, repeated endlessly by the media and sections of the pseudo-left, that Singh has turned the NDP to the left. Singhs brand of mild reformist politics and unswerving loyalty to the interests of big business and Canadian imperialism is, at least rhetorically, significantly to the right of the recent campaigns of Bernie Sanders and the Democratic Socialists of America. Sanders twice ran for US president in 2016 and 2020 with the explicit aim of trapping leftward-moving workers and youth within the confines of the Democratic Party, the oldest capitalist party in the world. On both occasions, Sanders demonstrated where his true loyalties lay by offering full-throated endorsements to pro-war, pro-austerity candidates backed by Wall Street, Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joseph Biden in 2020. But compared to Singhs timid and vague pledges to ensure a fair deal for all and tackle the rigged economy, Sanders campaign calls for a political revolution and claim to be a democratic socialist sound positively radical.

Singh is a fitting representative of Canadas social democrats, which have emerged over the past three decades as open proponents of Canadian imperialist aggression abroad and savage austerity at home. Workers looking for a real alternative to ever increasing social inequality, imperialist aggression, environmental devastation and the accelerating attacks on working peoples democratic and social rights will not find it in the New Democratic Party. What they require is a mass working class party based on a socialist and internationalist program that fights for the revolutionary transformation of society, by placing the central levers of economic life under public ownership and the democratic control of the working class. That party is the Socialist Equality Party, the Canadian section of the International Committee of the Fourth International.
It is more than eight months since former president Donald Trumps supporters stormed the US Capitol in an attempt to block congressional certification of Joe Bidens victorious Electoral College vote. That fascist coup attempt, directed from the White House by Trump himself, led to the deployment of thousands of National Guard troops to protect the January 20 inauguration of Biden and the installation of a security fence around the Capitol, which remained standing until early July.

Now the nations capital is once again being transformed into a fortress, ahead of Saturdays Justice for J6 rally, organized by former Trump campaign staffer and long-time Republican operative Matt Braynard. The organizers are demanding the release of several hundred Trump supporters, whom they label political prisoners, charged and imprisoned for participating in the violent assault, which led to the death of five people and the wounding of 138 police officers. Many of those being held are members of fascist militias such as the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers and the III Percenters.

A video surveillance apparatus is seen on the East Front of the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Sept. 10, 2021, as security officials prepare for a Sept. 18 demonstration by supporters of the people arrested in the Jan. 6 riot. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

At previous rallies organized by Braynard, far-right Republican lawmakers Matt Gaetz (Florida), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Georgia), Paul Gosar (Arizona) and Louie Gohmert (Texas) have spoken in support of the arrested militia members, describing them as patriots who have been wrongly imprisoned simply for exercising their First Amendment rights.

While it is unclear how many, if any, Republican lawmakers will speak at the event, the fascist rally has the tacit support of many of the partys leaders. When asked by the Associated Press this week if Senator Josh Hawley, one of seven Republican senators who voted to overturn the election results in the aftermath of the failed coup, would be attending the rally, his office refused to answer, instead issuing a comment on his behalf.

Joe [Biden] should resign, Hawleys statement read.

On Wednesday, the official Twitter account of the Capitol Police posted the following statement: The USCP has asked the Department of Defense for the ability to receive National Guard support should the need arise on September 18.

US Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger released a statement on Monday claiming he was aware of concerning online chatter regarding the event. We are here to protect everyones First Amendment right to peacefully protest, said Manger. I urge anyone who is thinking about causing trouble to stay home. We will enforce the law and not tolerate violence.

In the same statement, Manger announced that the Capitol Police Board, the body charged with overseeing the security of the Capitol complex, had approved the deployment of security fencing.

The statement also noted that the police board met last week to issue an emergency declaration allowing the US Capitol Police to deputize police outside the department as United States Capitol Police Special Officers.

Speaking to reporters Monday after hosting a security briefing with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Manger said the fencing will start going up a day or two before the rally, and if everything goes well, come down very soon after.

Pelosi spoke to reporters after the meeting Monday, commending Manger for his plan ahead of the rally, which she said seems much better than the one hatched by ousted former Capitol Police Chief Steve Sund in advance of January 6. Pelosi said she did not have anything to compare [Mangers plan] to, because we werent briefed before.

When asked by CNN if the National Guard would be deployed ahead of the rally, Pelosi responded, Youll have to ask the police board.

CNN and the Associated Press both reported Monday that the Capitol Police, along with federal and local law enforcement, are preparing for the possibility that some of those in attendance will be armed.

Speaking to Forbes on Monday, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin said he was very concerned about a repeat of the January 6 attack. During a floor speech, Durbin described the impending rally as another gathering of violent white nationalists.

Eric Harris, a top aide to Democratic Representative Jimmy Gomez (California), told Forbes that he heard from several Republican staffers that their bosses might make an appearance at this demonstration.

Democratic Representatives Tim Ryan (Ohio) and Rosa DeLauro (Connecticut) released a joint statement on Monday concerning the rally, which read, in part: Given the violent tendencies of the right-wing extremists who plan to attend, it is obvious that this rally poses a threat to the Capitol, those who work here, and the law enforcement officers charged with protecting our democracy.

Omitting mention of the fact that the Capitol Police leadership purposefully sabotaged the defense of the Capitol last January, Ryan and DeLauro added they were pleased that the Capitol Police... appear to have developed a clear plan, based on careful intelligence analysis, to maintain order and protect public safety.

As with the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the claim that a lack of intelligence facilitated the January 6 assault has already been proven a lie. Last week, Politico reported that on January 4, at least 300 law enforcement officials participated in a conference call to talk about the possibly that Donald Trumps supporters would turn violent on January 6. Politico wrote that the officials, including Mike Sena, president of the national Fusion Center Association, discussed the possibility of the impending rally called by Trump turning into a mass-casualty event.

Law enforcement officials were so prepared for this distinct possibility, wrote Politico, that on the FBIs private communication service, agents and police began circulating the hashtag #CERTUNREST2021

Reporting indicates a significant number of individual [sic] plan to or are advocating for others to travel to Washington, DC to engage in civil unrest and violence, read a summary of the call, obtained by the transparency group Property of the People, which has previously released sensitive law enforcement documents .

Even now, as the Republican Party en masse embraces Trumps whitewash of January 6 and his lying claims of a stolen election, and most Republican officials either openly or tacitly encourage fascist rallies in defense of the coup, Pelosi, in comments made last week at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, called for  a big, strong Republican Party. 

As the Democrats appeal to good Republicans like war hawks Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney, the threat of fascist violence lingers over the Capitol. Early Monday morning, Capitol Police announced they had arrested a California neo-Nazi, 44-year-old Donald Craighead. Craighead was arrested near the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington D.C.

According to a statement put out by the Capitol Police, officers noticed a black Dodge Dakota truck without legal license plates parked near the same headquarters where a still unidentified person placed one of two active pipe bombs the evening of January 5.

Upon approaching the vehicle, police observed a swastika and other white supremacist symbols. In photos released by the department, one can see the Othala rune carved into Craigheads dashboard. The rune is popular among US Special Forces and neo-Nazis. The photos also show a machete and knives in the cabin of the truck, which are prohibited in D.C.

Police claim that when they began speaking to Craighead, he ranted about white supremacist ideology and other rhetoric pertaining to white supremacy.

In an interview with NBC San Diego, Joanne Craighead, Donalds grandmother, described her grandson as always in trouble and heading in the wrong direction his whole life. Craighead allegedly told police he was outside the Democratic Party building because he was on patrol.
The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) is conducting a determined campaign against blatantly anti-democratic electoral laws, rushed through both houses of the Australian parliament, with virtually no public discussion or media coverage, in less than 24 hours on August 25-26.

These measures are part of an escalating assault on the fundamental democratic and social rights of the working class in Australia and internationally, which the ruling class is intensifying as its profit-driven reopening drive triggers a terrible worsening of the COVID-19 pandemic.

SEP members speaking with JBS meat workers during 2019 federal election. [Source: WSWS media]

The Labor Party opposition worked in close consultation with the Liberal-National Coalition government to pass the legislation. This is a desperate joint bid to prop up the discredited political establishment and suppress dissent.

The new laws compel political parties that do not have a seat in parliament to submit lists of 1,500 members to the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), suddenly trebling the previous requirement.

With the Delta virus raging in many parts of the countryand threatening a public health system breakdownthe SEP and 35 other currently registered parties have only until December 2 to present expanded lists of members or be automatically deregistered. That would strip them of the elementary democratic right to stand candidates in federal elections with their party names on ballot papers.

In another naked act of political censorship, the new laws give the AEC the power to deregister parties that have historically significant political words in their party names, such as socialist or communist, if a previously registered party has claimed that label.

The SEP is demanding the repeal of these laws and the removal of all restrictions on the right of parties and individuals to run in elections. This Sunday September 19 the SEP is holding an online public meeting to discuss the campaign and how to advance this fight. Click here to register.

The SEP is appealing to all supporters and readers to join the campaign and become electoral members, and urge others to apply to be electoral members. That will help ensure that we can advanceand make as broadly known as possiblea genuine socialist perspective at the next election, which is due before May.

As we explain on our electoral membership application form: The working class must have a political voice, which the ruling class through its latest legislation is seeking to stifle. The opposition to the dictates of big business and its political servants needs to be guided by a socialist program that puts the social needs of working peopleabove all their health and livesahead of the private profits of the wealthy few. The SEP alone fights for this perspective.

The application form sets out the basic policies with which electoral members need to agree:

For a scientific program to eradicate the coronavirus pandemic against the criminal, herd immunity policies of the ruling elite.

For an end to militarism and war.

Against all forms of nationalism and racism and for the unity of the international working-class.

For the social rights of the working class, including quality, free education and healthcare for all, and a decent, full-time job with permanent conditions for those able to work.

For a workers government and socialism, that is a society in which the working-class democratically controls the wealth that it produces, not the banks and the billionaires.

The SEP stands candidates in parliamentary elections in order to make our socialist policies known to the widest possible audience. That also provides voters with the basic democratic right to express support for a clear socialist program to oppose the disastrous private profit system of capitalism.

Anyone who agrees with the program and election policies of the SEP and undertakes to support campaigns for the election of our candidates is eligible to apply for electoral membership. Applications are approved by the SEP Political Committee.

An electoral member has the right to belong to a local electoral committee of the SEP, as organised by the National Committee, to facilitate the election of SEP candidates to parliament, and to nominate for selection by the National Committee as a SEP election candidate.

An electoral member cannot be a member of any other political party. That is a rule of the SEP, but also a requirement of the party registration legislation.

Because of the reactionary electoral laws, electoral members must be Australian citizens, eligible to vote and correctly listed on the electoral roll at their current address. If you are not enrolled to vote, we urge you to do so.

Electoral members must be ready to confirm their SEP electoral membership as soon as they are emailed or phoned by the AEC, which can occur once the partys list is submitted.

Electoral members of the SEP are also encouraged to join the many regular public meetings, webinars and forums organised by the party, and to apply for full membership of the SEP.

To defeat the agenda of the corporate elite and its political servants, the working class needs a new political leadership, based on the lessons of the strategic experiences of the international working class over the past two centuries.

That historical level of understanding, which is required for full membership of the SEP, is set out and explained in the SEPs Statement of Principles.

That is why we also urge all SEP electoral members to study the Statement of Principles and consider applying for full membership of the SEP.

To defeat the bipartisan attempt to silence the struggle for socialism, we appeal to all our existing electoral members, our readers, members of rank-and-file committees and all working people, students and youth: Help us recruit the extra 1,000 electoral members that we need to retain our party registration and take forward the fight for the essential socialist alternative!
Part one can be accessed here.

Dr. Malgorzata (Gosia) Gasperowicz is a developmental biologist and a researcher at the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Calgary. She earned her Masters at the Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology in Gdansk, Poland and a Ph.D.in biology at Albert Ludvig University of Freiburg, Germany. Dr. Gasperowicz is a co-founder of ZeroCOVIDCanada, a member of COVIDisAirborne, and a member of the World Health Network (WHN). Since the pandemics beginning, she has been analyzing the dynamics of the SARS-CoV-2 spread and communicating this scientific understanding to the public via social and traditional media. She also advocates for better pandemic-response policies.

Dr. Gasperowicz

BM: I wanted to raise the question about the return-to-school campaign initiated everywhere in Canada, the US and Europe. A study in the spring from Montreal noted that school reopenings were a catalyst for community transmission. Could you speak to this vital issue?

MG: I can speak about it for Alberta. So, during the whole summer of 2020, cases were climbing though very slowly. It was still an exponential rise, but the doubling time was more than 60 days.

And then it flipped to a faster growth rate on September 17. Cases began to double every two and a half weeks. Now, our schools opened on September 1. The sudden rise in COVID cases after two weeks is what you would expect to see after the reopening based on a model done in different jurisdictions.

Now, it doesnt prove that school reopenings led to faster growth in Alberta, but it is in line with, consistent with, findings from other studies that saw similar trends. It is what one would expect from the theory that schools are the initiator of rapid community spread.

BM: You recently commented on Twitter after posting a critical report on schools written by Evan Blake, writer for the WSWS. You said, We are in the midst of an intentionally cruel wave. I found your choice of words fascinating. Can you explain why you qualified it as such?

MG: Back in May 2021, after the peak of the third wave, cases were declining sharply. The R value was around 0.6, and the halving time was around six days, the fastest decline we ever had. In-person schools were closed at this time. And then, on May 25, they decided to reopen. And that was the root of the fourth and current wave.

We alerted the public health authorities. The Delta variant was present in our province. We had just five weeks of in-person school left before the summer holidays. It wouldnt have been a big sacrifice to keep everything online. Yet, they reopened schools, and immediately the R value for both the original and Delta variant increased by 20 percent. Had we just kept schools closed, continued doing what we had been doing, we could have stopped the spread in our communities before the end of July, more precisely, by July 22, if not earlier. The vaccines were available, and we were beginning the vaccination campaigns more aggressively. It could have been over.

Yet, the decision was made to reopen. At that time, at the end of May, considering that Delta was present and known to be 40 percent more transmissible than the Alpha variant, my model projected that we would see the peak of our fourth wave in September. By just having this minimal data, knowing the parameters of Delta, it was enough to predict the current wave.

And at the same time, modelers from British Columbia also concluded that if we rapidly opened in Alberta, we would see the steep rise of our fourth wave in the fall. They also found that if the virus evaded vaccines, even partially, the surge would be even more vertical. Their analysis corroborated ours. And these reports were published and available to the government officials on May 31.

The policymakers knew that if we opened too fast, it would lead to the fourth wave. It was a conscious decision on their part to open despite our warnings. It had been predicted, and it was preventable. So, they chose not to eliminate but, instead, let the virus spread.

Daily COVID cases in Alberta, Canada, May 25, 2021

BM: Are you are saying it was a conscious decision, that it was premeditated?

MG: Thats how it looks like.

BM: Returning to the subject of COVID vaccines. I recently read in a news article that vaccinations were not intended to be used as a mitigation strategy. Public health measuressocial distancing, contact tracing, isolation, quarantine, closure of schools and nonessential businessesare the primary mitigation measures, and vaccines should be used as secondary measures to prevent disease or severity of the disease. Is this correct? Can you speak to the role of vaccinations in mitigation?

MG: There are two aspects to vaccinations. First, there is individual protection, where the virus breaks through all mitigation measures and infects the person. The vaccines can protect that person to a certain extent from severe outcomes.

But another function of vaccines is being a mitigation measure, part of the total measures to reduce the spread of community transmission. And in my modeling studies, I focus on this aspect of the vaccines by asking how much they can reduce the R-value, how much they can slow down the spread.

I found that it can reduce the spread. But just by itself, it cannot stop it. Alone, it is less potent than using a mixture of public health measures that weve been using during the pandemic. Each time we applied the cocktail of public health measures, even without the vaccines, we could bend the curve and reduce the spread and get into exponential decline. With vaccines only, we wouldnt be able to do it in the Delta phase of the pandemic. Public health measures can reduce the R-value much more effectively than vaccines alone.

The proof of it is from the real-life experiment, when we compare Israel with New Zealand. Israel has more than 60 percent of its population fully vaccinated. Around 30 percent have received the third booster shot. And despite such a high vaccination rate, they saw an exponential rise in infections. More recently, the curves have flattened a bit, but they reached 11,000 daily new cases in a country with just nine million people.

By comparison, New Zealand, which has only 28 percent of its population fully vaccinated, recently implemented Alert-Level-4 lockdown [the highest level in New Zealands COVID-19 Alert System] and bent the Delta curve. The decline was very rapid; the calculated R-value was somewhere between 0.4 to 0.5. But it was the comprehensive public health measures with some vaccinations that did it. In short, the strategy of elimination was much more successful than relying solely on vaccines.

And there is this dangerous idea being perpetuated by those relying on vaccines when they say they want to decouple infections from disease severity. These decision-makers suggest that it is acceptable to let the virus spread because it wont harm us if we are vaccinated. But eventually, it will. Even now, some vaccinated people are catching the virus and getting very sick or dying from the infection, though to a much lesser extent than unvaccinated people. But the virus evolves all the time. Perhaps this time I dont get sick because I am vaccinated. But what happens next time, especially as the virus keeps evolving?

Comparison of daily COVID cases in New Zealand and Israel

BM: So where do we go now? How do we end this pandemic?

MG: There is no other alternative. We should decide to aim for global eradication. And if we take this decision, we will have a chance at eliminating the virus, at least in some places. Maybe we will never eradicate it, but at least we will stop it in many areas, and, in other regions, we can drive cases to very low numbers. But everything starts from that decision. And the best decision is a global decision where every country adopts an international eradication policy. But it can also begin with individual countries that opt to eliminate the virus. It could lead to a domino effect, where other countries start to adopt the same strategies. And once we employ these tools to stop the virus, the elimination can proceed very rapidly, like in New Zealand.

The Delta variant has been the most dangerous strain of the coronavirus. So, the developments in New Zealand come as excellent news. I was afraid it would be much more difficult to bend the Delta curve because it was more transmissible than the Alpha, or the original variant. Now, however, we have seen exponential declines are possible, and they would be possible everywhere. But taking that decision is the most important. And once we take it, in only several weeks we would stop all community transmission. And if in every region community transmission is contained, then we wont have a big problem anymore.

BM: Dr. Gasperowicz, thank you for your thoughtful replies. I think your analogies and the discussion have been very fruitful. I think they get to the heart of it. My last question for youWhat should scientists do, especially as policymakers are not listening to their warnings?

MG: Scientists should talk to everybody. They should disseminate the knowledge and become strong advocates for the elimination and eradication of the virus. They should convince as many other people as possible to become advocates as well. Because if there is pressure on politicians, then politicians might do something. If they dont have pressure from the public, they probably wont act. So, keeping pressure on politicians is essential. We are in an emergency, in a crisis, in a natural disaster.

BM: Perhaps, to some extent, I can appreciate your sentiments. The ruling class has demonstrated that they are incapable of or have no inclination to bring the pandemic to a rapid end. The Socialist Equality Party is the only political tendency fighting for a correct response to the pandemic. We agree. We have to eradicate the virus. But what the pandemic exposes is the inherent class nature of society, the class struggle that is being waged.

You had mentioned the mother working two jobs facing the reality of being exposed to the virus while the same said politicians live comfortably in their zero COVID bubble.

A recent news article in the Wall Street Journal said that Microsoft employees, the executives and the managers would continue to work from home because of the uncertainty of the Delta variant. In contrast, teachers, students and parents are being asked to go back into the classrooms and dangerous work environments amid the Delta variant.

This irrationality has everything to do with economics. It has to do with the supply of goods, with the need to continuously create profits regardless of the crisis at hand, whether it is climate change, the pandemic, or another natural disaster that threatens the population and life on this planet.

Fundamentally, the capitalist order cannot function anymore to make life meaningful or habitable for human beings. You said that they are happy to see the elderly dying because the system sees them as useless. They are a drain on the system. You are right when you say they are happy the elderly die and can keep the money in the pensions for themselves. And the politicians job is to figure out how to manipulate the publics mind to accept these irrational choices.

Scientists should speak to everyone. But more than just talking about curves and zeros but also talking about World War II, about holocausts and genocides, about their grandmothers lives and experiencesa living history. And speak out against the murdering of the old and feeble. And then, I think, the human connection, that political connection, or that realization that it is a socioeconomic factor driving this insanity begins to find a place in peoples consciousness.

MG: Yes, I agree. I agree with that. And its so painful because I see how people are manipulated and how propaganda works. And there are people who are the victims of it. So, like the quote you mentioned from Joe Biden about the people who are not vaccinated harming people who are vaccinated. I dont like the stance of anti-vaxxers, but its not their fault. They are looking to blame anti-vaxxers for their failed policies by finding the perfect scapegoat. Its easy to deflect the anger and blame and hate against them.

But it has been the decisions made by policymakers that have killed people or put them in the hospitals, not the anti-vaxxers. If I design a policy, I have to consider that anti-vaxxers will be a variable in this process. If I fail to do this, this is my mistake. I cannot blame the anti-vaxxers. Blaming them is like blaming the rain in the fall when my roof leaks. My job is to build a watertight roof knowing how much rain I can expect. The point being, I have to understand that there are going to be people who are anti-vaxxers, and I have to protect them just as much as I would anyone else.

I know there are anti-vaxxers and others who are vaccine-hesitant. But there are also those people who have obstacles to getting vaccinated. Its not easy. If you have two jobs, no car, cannot take days off from this job, and cannot afford to miss two days because of a headache from the vaccine, these become difficult choices. Thats why many people dont make it a priority to vaccinate themselves. And now they are blamed for full hospitals.

And many of these people, at least here in Alberta, are being told that the virus is becoming endemic and less dangerous, that there wont be much harm from the infection. They then ask themselves, If the virus isnt dangerous, then why should I get vaccinated?

This putting people against each other is such an ugly trick. It has been used so many times in history.

BM: Again, thank you very much for all your time. I hope we can speak again.

MG: It was my pleasure. Good night.
Last Friday, the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) in Sri Lanka held an online public lecture entitled, The debacle of US imperialism in Afghanistan. The event attracted almost 100 people with several dozen more watching on the Socialist Equality Partys Facebook page. The video has so far been viewed by over 1,000 people and shared more than 200 times.

Students participated from almost all universities in Sri Lanka, including the Colombo, Sri Jayawardenepura, Peradeniya, Jaffna and Sabaragamuwa campuses, an indication that young people are looking for a serious analysis of crucial international developments.

IYSSE meeting (WSWS Media)

IYSSE convener and SEP political committee member Kapila Fernando chaired the meeting. He stressed that young people and workers needed to understand the root cause of US imperialisms two-decade war on terror in Afghanistan and the reasons for its humiliating defeat.

SEP political committee member Saman Gunadasa gave the main lecture. He began by explaining the brutal conditions imposed on the Afghan population during the two-decade US-led occupation. Indiscriminate bombing by US forces, he said, killed more than 170,000 Afghan civilians, and included direct attacks on hospitals and even weddings. These war crimes also included the kidnapping and torture of people in secret locations.

The US invasion created tens of thousands of refugees and led to half the population requiring humanitarian assistance. This devastation, Gunadasa said, generated boiling hatred among the masses and paved the way for the Taliban to overthrow the US-created Afghan puppet state with little difficulty.

The debacle in Afghanistan is the most humiliating defeat suffered by US imperialism since its defeat in Vietnam, the speaker said. He referenced President Joe Bidens speech which listed the damage and US military casualties, and the huge cost of the war. Biden justified the US war, however, and failed to mention the massive destruction suffered by the Afghan masses.

Gunadasa reviewed the historical and political events that led to the invasion of Afghanistan. He pointed out that even though none of the perpetrators of the September 11, 2001, terror attack on New York and Washington were Afghans, the US government used it as a pretext to invade the Central Asian nation.

Afghanistan had long been a centre of imperialist intrigue and neo-colonial conspiracies. The speaker noted Washingtons backing for Islamic extremist organisations, including the predecessors of Al Qaeda, during the war against the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

US imperialism reacted to the dissolution of the Soviet Union by the Stalinist bureaucracy in 1991 by increasingly using its military to try and reassert its declining hegemony. But none of the fundamental problems confronting American capitalism were resolved through war, despite the killing of millions of people and the destruction of entire societies, such as Iraq and Libya.

Gunadasa referred to Fredrick Engels, who had explained that even though the military is equipped with modern weapons, military strategy will not be able to overcome the economic woes.

No one should be under any illusion that the debacle in Afghanistan will mean an end to US-led wars and military aggression, the speaker warned. Biden made clear that his administration wants to free its hands of Afghanistan in order to effectively focus on more important military interventions. This meant targeting China and other rivals, such as Russia, along with Iran, North Korea and other countries, Gunadasa explained.

Referring to the newly-formed Taliban administration in Afghanistan, Gunadasa said the new regime could not overcome the devastation inflicted on the masses during the 20-year war but would turn to international finance capital in order to ruthlessly exploit the countrys cheap labour and resources.

The UK foreign secretary has expressed Britains willingness to be flexible with the new regime, the speaker noted, and Indian big business had already invested in Afghanistan during the US military occupation.

Indias Modi government is now looking to have some arrangement to secure those investments, Gunadasa said. Pakistan, a traditional ally of the Taliban organisation, is making overtures to US imperialism, suggesting it be a mediator between the new Afghan government and US imperialist interests.

Gunadasa noted that Sri Lankas Rajapakse government had hurriedly issued a cautious statement advising the Taliban to protect human rights but was nervously wondering what Washingtons next moves would be in the region. The cash-strapped Colombo administration, which continues to turn to Beijing for loans and other financial assistance, is under increasing pressure from the US to sever its relations with China.

Gunadasa concluded by noting that the US debacle in Afghanistan has exploded the myth of the invincibility of imperialism in the consciousness of millions of workers throughout the planet.

That consciousness of the working class, however, must be developed and directed into the building of a global anti-war movement based on socialism in order to stop all imperialist wars, he concluded.

Gunadasa answered several questions asked after his lecture. Referring to organisations advocating for the protection of womens rights in Afghanistan, he explained that these rights could not be won by appealing to imperialism.

If the imperialists were interested in any kind of humanitarianism, would they have waged a two-decade war in Afghanistan, destroying the lives of thousands of children and women? he asked. The rights of any community, he said, can be defended only through a struggle to defeat imperialism by a socialist movement led by the working class.

Gunadasa also answered a question about the Talibans rise to power and its impact on the spread of religious extremism. The US-led imperialist powers were the main culprits in promoting and sponsoring religious extremism and used it for their own destructive interests, he explained. The working class, the speaker stressed, was the social force that could unite the masses in the struggle for socialist internationalism and to put an end to religious, ethnic and other forms of discrimination.
On Monday evening, New York Congresswoman and Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez accompanied some of the worlds richest and most influential actors, fashion moguls and politicians at the Met Gala, one of the most prominent and exclusive social events in the world.

The Gala is an annual fundraising event to benefit the Metropolitan Museum of Arts Costume Institute, in New York City. Tickets start at $30,000.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at the Met Gala (Credit: instagram/AOC)

The event itself is perhaps best described as a circus of the rich, with gaggles of millionaires and billionaires parading down the red carpet, one bizarre costume after another, all under the banner of culture and art. The goal appears to be to show off their fortunes in as dramatic and absurd a fashion as possible.

Kim Kardashian (net worth $1.2 billion), for example, showed up in a faceless, full-body black spandex morphsuit, resembling some type of Marvel villain. Incredibly, the look was hailed as the most relevant of the night. Rapper Lil Nas X wore a royal gold robe, covered in gold beading over an actual golden suit of armor, made by Versace no less.

Collectively, the price of the outfits alone was likely enough to feed a small country.

What was Ocasio-Cortez, the self-proclaimed socialist, doing at such an event? Ocasio-Cortez explained to reporters that she was there to kick open the doors at the Met and to break the fourth wall and challenge some of the institutions.

Framing her appearance as a social justice crusade, the congresswoman wore a $10,000 dress with the words Tax the Rich in red on the lower back half. She told reporters that her dress was made by New York-based Aurora James, a sustainably focused, Black woman immigrant designer. Aurora James is known for her 15% Pledge campaign, which encourages retailers and corporations to commit 15 percent of their purchasing power to supporting black-owned businesses.

Ocasio-Cortez explained to reporters that she intended to send the message: When we talk about supporting working families and when we talk about having a fair tax code, oftentimes this conversation is happening among working and middle class people [on] the Senate floor, she stated. By attending the Gala, she was seeking to bring all classes in the discussion on taxing the rich.

While it is hard to believe that the Congresswoman herself honestly believes in such a ridiculous idea, the comment expresses the entire political orientation she seeks to push workers to adopt: to appeal to the rich to tax themselves.

One is expected to believe that Elon Musk was left shaking in his boots as Ocasio-Cortez gallivanted about at the Gala in her statement dress. There is no indication that he or any other attendee spent the evening consumed by a moral crisis. And all of the institutions of American capitalism likewise appear unshaken by Ocasio-Cortezs appearance.

As for her reference to the discussion among the working and middle class people in the Senate, it is hardly necessary to point out that the US Congress is composed largely of millionaires whose fortunes primarily come from their careers and connections in corporate America.

This latest political stunt of Ocasio-Cortez was monumentally unserious, farcical and stupid. However, it is worth examining the politics behind it.

First, Ocasio-Cortez poses absolutely no threat to the political establishment. The fact that she was even invited to such an exclusive event reveals just how integrated into, and accepted by, the ruling class she really is. Since her appearance, nearly every mainstream media outlet has lauded her statement.

Ocasio-Cortez serves merely to provide a left gloss to the Democratic Party as it shifts further and further to the right. Acutely aware of the immense social tensions brewing in US society, the ruling class relies on figures like Ocasio-Cortez to convince workers and youth that the Democratic Party can be reformed into an organization that fights in their interests.

To carry out this task, Ocasio-Cortez is permitted the occasional party-sanctioned publicity stunt that allows her to posture as left. But her real service is to cover the Democratic Party and obscure the real political issues. Perhaps nowhere is this clearer than in Ocasio-Cortezs silence on the pandemic and the reopening of schools.

Far more significant than the message on Ocasio-Cortezs dress was the message she helped de Blasio send with the holding of the Gala itselfthat the pandemic is over, that all remaining restrictions are to be removed, and that New York is back in business.

The same day Ocasio-Cortez was attending the Gala, more than 1 million school children in New York City, including in Ocasio-Cortezs district, were being crammed back into classrooms to become infected with COVID-19.

The reopening of schools coincided with the cutting off of federal unemployment benefits and the scrapping of the eviction moratorium, threatening millions of families with destitution and homelessness unless they send their children to unsafe schools and return to unsafe workplaces.

Ocasio-Cortez has done everything in her power to facilitate the right-wing policies of the Biden administration in relation to the pandemic. Two weeks ago she held a public event in her district, which includes part of the Bronx, to promote the unsafe return to school for children. She said nothing while at this event about the ongoing pandemic. In fact, she has remained totally silent on the growing impact of the Delta variant on the population, including the severe impact it is having on children.

The world is besieged by a health crisis of historic proportions. Millions of people have died worldwide and millions more are being put at risk. Under these conditions, what do the so-called left representatives of the political establishment have to offer? Ocasio-Cortezs appearance at the Met Gala sums it up.
The revelations from Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa that General Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, took action to stop what US officials called a right-wing coup by former president Donald Trump, have demonstrated how close the United States came to dictatorship and a potential war with China during Trumps final days in office.

Milley told US military officials not to follow orders from Trump without Milleys approval after Trumps attempt to foment an insurrection, and he promised to warn Chinese military officials if Trump attempted to start a war. This reality has exposed the criminality of the Democrats constant calls for unity and bipartisanship with Trumps co-conspirators in the Republican Party.

In this Jan. 6, 2021 photo, insurrections loyal to President Donald Trump rally at the U.S. Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)

On Wednesday, a spokesman for Milley confirmed one of the main revelations in Woodward and Costas new book, Peril, namely that Milley telephoned his Chinese counterpart, Gen. Li Zuocheng, commander of the Peoples Liberation Army, on October 30, 2020, four days before the US presidential election, and then again on January 8, 2021, two days after the attack by a pro-Trump mob on the US Capitol.

CIA Director Gina Haspel warned Milley, according to the new book, We are on our way to a right-wing coup.

In keeping with the Democrats efforts to cover up the events of January 6, the Post and New York Times have buried their articles on the revelations on their front pages, and neither newspaper has published an editorial on the subject.

For his part, Biden said on Wednesday that he had great confidence in Milley, while avoiding any comment on the content of the revelations in Peril.

By contrast, the Republicans have launched a furious campaign against Milley. Republican Senator Ted Cruz, one of Trumps co-conspirators, accused Milley of undermining the commander in chief and pledging to our enemies to defy his own commander. Senator Rand Paul demanded that Milley be court martialed, while Trump himself accused Milley of treason.

According to dialogue published verbatim in the new bookobviously based on interviews with Milley or Pelosi, or bothPelosi told Milley that the Republicans have blood on their hands for encouraging Trump to believe he could retain the presidency despite his loss in the election.

But it is a sad state of affairs for our country that weve been taken over by a dictator who used force against another branch of government, she continued. And hes still sitting there. He should have been arrested. He should have been arrested on the spot  He had a coup detat against us so he can stay in office. There should be some way to remove him.

In other words, the January 6 attack on Congress was not viewed by those in a position to knowthe head of the US military and the leader of congressional Democratsmerely as a riotous excess by a pro-Trump crowd. They understood it and openly discussed it as a serious bid for power, an effort by Trump and his inner circle to block the certification of the elections outcome and hijack the presidency: a political coup based on fascist violence.

The quotes from Pelosi are particularly revealing. She was speaking then, on January 8, only two days after her own life had been threatened and her staff had been compelled to barricade themselves into a conference room, whispering pleas for help on cellphones while the mob howled in the hallways outside. She therefore spoke bluntly and plainly of a coup detat and a would-be dictator who posed an imminent threat.

Only a few days later, Pelosi would revert to the boilerplate and blather of capitalist politics, engaging in a series of parliamentary maneuversimpeachment, which failed, followed by a resolution to establish an independent commission into January 6, which failed, followed by the appointment of a select committee to investigate the events, which has met exactly once.

The driving force of this cover-up has not been Pelosi, however prominent a role she has been given. The orders come from the White House, where President Biden has decreed a policy of bipartisan unity in Washington, seeking, as he said openly, to strengthen the Republican Party: in other words, to legitimize the party of coup-plotters.

In his inauguration speech, Biden did not even mention the events of January 6, much less the fact that the outgoing president had fomented an insurrection.

Bidens policy is not just a matter of seeking Republican support for various pieces of legislation. That is only the pretext. His real concern is the stability of American capitalism, and the political system through which it has ruled for more than a century. Biden seeks to preserve the two-party system, even under conditions where the Republican Party has broken with democracy and is openly embracing the authoritarianism and fascistic politics of Trump.

Since the events of January 6, the Democrats have spent far more time and energy over the alleged transgressions of former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo than responding to an unprecedented effort to overthrow the government and establish a right-wing dictatorship.

The new revelations in the Woodward book confirm everything the World Socialist Web Site has said about the January 6 coup attempt, and they shatter the efforts of various pseudo-left groups, ranging from the Democratic Socialists of America to the former opponent of the American surveillance state, Glenn Greenwald, to dismiss the events of that day as insignificant or mere political horseplay.

This was a serious attempt to overturn the election, and it failed only because the decisive centers of power in the military-intelligence apparatus judged the attempt to be poorly organized and unlikely to succeed. A democracy which depends on the sufferance of generals and CIA directors, however, is not a democracy at all, but a dictatorship in waiting.

The events of January 6, and the subsequent cover-up, demonstrate that the defense of democratic rights cannot be entrusted to any section of the American ruling elite. This task must be taken up by the working class, through the building of a mass socialist movement.
Ninety-eight percent of K-12 schools in the United States are now open for in-person instruction, leading to a spread of COVID-19 infections in schools and surrounding communities. Over 94 percent of the country is experiencing high levels of transmission, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and cases among children have exploded.

More than 1.2 million infections among children ages 0 to 17 have been reported in the US since July 22 when schools began reopening for the fall semester. This is roughly 20 percent of the 5,292,837 child cases since the pandemic began, according to data from the American Academy of Pediatrics. Tragically, 111 children have died since July 22, about a quarter of the 460 total childhood COVID-19 fatalities. According to the CDC, nearly 30,000 children were hospitalized in August alone.

Chicago educators and parents protest school openings (Source: CPS Sick-Out Info Facebook page)

Despite the surge in cases, hospitalizations and deaths, due to the more infectious Delta variant, the Biden administration and state and local officials from both corporate-controlled parties have doubled down on their efforts to keep schools open. The political establishment has pursued this criminal policy with the full backing of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the National Education Association (NEA) and their state and local affiliates.

New York City Public Schools, the largest district in the US with 1.1 million students, began in-person instruction Monday, following a deal between Mayor Bill de Blasio and the United Federation of Teachers. According to the New York City Department of Education Daily Covid Case Map, there have already been 114 classroom closures and over 150 partial classroom closures in the first two days of instruction. There have been 218 positive cases reported this week.

Despite the already concerning numbers, infections are and will be vastly underreported due to inadequate testing, contact tracing, and quarantine protocols in the district. Testing is not mandatory in the district. Only volunteer, unvaccinated students will be randomly tested biweekly. This will result in tests for only 10 percent of unvaccinated children. This is a four-fold decrease from the number of tests administered last semester. Under the current model, hundreds, if not thousands, of infections will go undetected and unreported in the district.

It is horrible they are making everybody go back while cases are rocketing, a New York City special education teacher who recently took leave for non-COVID medical issues told the World Socialist Web Site. They are not quarantining people who are sick or exposed like before. They said we must have safe distancing and testing in the schools but then they do not do it.

The protocols set up by the mayor and school officials are designed to keep the schools open no matter how severe outbreaks are. Individual schools will be closed only if there is evidence of a COVID-19 outbreak in the building, but this will be difficult to prove given a low level of testing and transparency. The districts quarantine policy is far more lax than last years, and fully vaccinated staff and students in middle and high schools are exempt from needing to be quarantined if exposed to a positive case.

The same conditions exist across the US. Educators and parents are particularly concerned that school officials are providing inadequate details about outbreaks or deliberately concealing life-and-death information from them.

Steve, an educator in the Bay Area of California, said, One teacher was recently out for about a week. I eventually found out she was out for COVID. When she returned, she said none of the students nor the staff members she worked with had been notified that they had been in contact with someone on campus who had been infected with COVID.

Steve continued, One of the school substitutes shared with me that he had replaced four teachers over the last three weeks who had been out for COVID. No one had shared with him that he might be in contact with people on campus (students) who had been in contact with persons who had contracted COVID.

Michael, a parent of two children in a school district in the San Luis Obispo area of California, said, The local paper reported an estimated 500 cases in the district during the first month of reopening, thats nearly as many new cases this month as all of last year.

Our former district did not provide a remote option, so we enrolled our kids in an Independent Study program at a neighboring district. The materials are awful, worse than nothing. We're looking for alternatives, leaning toward homeschooling as soon as the affidavit filing period opens. We are not sending our kids in to be canaries in the mine!

Some school administrators may have good intentions, but theyre clearly not qualified to decide pandemic risks for children or society. No sane person who cares about reducing a deadly pandemic would require children to gather in schools. It increases spread, as simple as that.

Adding to the causes for the underreporting of cases is the delay in getting test results, low turnout for testing, positive results for individuals who are identified outside of a district testing program and therefore not reported, and inadequate contact tracing and lax quarantining protocols.

The Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) relaunched its COVID-19 Dashboard on Tuesday to report cases in each school district. Parents have been in an uproar as major discrepancies have been identified across various districts. They have organized their own tracking of cases through Facebook groups.

A significant discrepancy is in Knox County Schools (KCS), one of the largest districts in the state. The TDOE dashboard shows only 300 new student cases last week in the district, but Tennessee Department of Health data shows 1,012 infections among children ages 5 to 18.

KCS parents recently received a letter from district officials which declared that the dashboard aims to protect individual privacy. The data does not include pre-K students or staff, it has omitted a school site due to low enrollment and included total absences without breaking down how many are COVID-related absences.

The idea of protecting privacy is the same canard they have been using since the beginning of COVID, a former teacher in the district responded to the letter. FERPA [Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act] has a caveat about providing information if there is a health issue like a pandemic. The school board willfully misinterprets FERPA to avoid providing accurate COVID info. Also, lumping all absences together is pure obfuscation. They know the students who are absent because of COVID or quarantine because they are not marked absent but temporary virtual learners. It would be very easy to have two lists, one of non-COVID absences and one of temporary virtual learners.

In addition to parents aggregating their own data on positive cases, Knox County parents have also recently organized sickouts to keep children home to protect their lives and long-term health.

A similar development has occurred in Hawaii Public Schools where a surge in childhood cases has provoked mass opposition from parents and teachers. Parents in Hawaii have also used social media to aggregate COVID-19 infections in schools and have organized an ongoing sickout to keep their children out of schools.

Our community spread is getting out of hand, and everyone knows schools should not be open now, a special education teacher in Hawaii told the WSWS. I had more kids staying home in late August than I had in my classroom, and now we are being told to provide distance learning for kids who are approved for special conditions and cant come to school. This year may be more challenging in some ways than last year.

Noting the districts active role in covering up the spread in schools, she said, The State has forbidden indoor gatherings of 10 or more, and yet we have full classes of 20-30. This feels schizophrenic. There is no more COVID MOU [Memorandum of Understanding] or any kind of addendum to our collective bargaining agreement pertaining to health and safety. The interim superintendent is claiming spread isn't happening at school, but only out in the community.

Chicago Public Schools (CPS), the third largest district in the US with over 340,000 students, is also seeing a rise in infections. Last Thursday, CPS officials reported 2,900 students and staff members had been identified as a close contact to someone who tested positive for COVID-19. Yet according to a source close to the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), the district informed the union there were 5,665 students and 98 staff members who had potentially been exposed to the virus.

The media is blaming inadequate contact tracing for the spread. Without a doubt, tracing is inadequate and CPS officials have failed to do the bare minimum. CPS officials have repeatedly missed their deadline to roll out a testing program. The district promised that this would be in place by the start of the school year, and after several delays now says it will be ready at the end of September. So far, only three percent of students and staff have opted into the district testing program. According to CPS, only 638 tests were administered across the district last Monday.

With growing anger among educators and parents, the CTU is calling for the establishment of guardrails of improved safety measures and a metric for closing a school, based on a certain number of infections. However, this is just damage control from the CTU, which supported the opening of the schools based on the fiction it could be done safely. Last year, CTU President Jesse Sharkey, a member of the now defunct International Socialist Organization, blocked a strike by teachers over Mayor Lori Lightfoots criminal reopening of schools.

On Monday night, CPS parents protested outside Lightfoots home demanding a remote option due to the lack of safety protocols and thousands of students who have been placed on quarantine for COVID-19 exposure. While the sentiments of parents were no doubt sincere, the remote option demand has been promoted in Chicago, New York City and other locations by sections of the trade union bureaucracy affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America as a means of letting off steam and encouraging individual opt-outs by concerned parents, rather than collective action by the working class to close the schools, which is a critical component of the public health strategy needed to save lives.

The WSWS is assisting educators and parents in expanding the growing national and international network of educators rank-and-file committees, which are seeking not to mitigate the pandemic, but to eliminate and eradicate it once and for all. This means shutting all schools and non-essential businesses and providing the necessary resources for the protection of incomes and provision of high-quality remote learning. This must be combined with universal testing, contact tracing and quarantining, and a vast expansion of vaccinations. This science-driven strategy can only be implemented in a political struggle against both big business parties that have prioritized profit over saving lives.

The focus has to be on eradication, Michael, the parent in San Luis Obispo said. Everything else is not enough.
Twenty-year-old Texas A&M University student Kirstyn Katherine Ahuero died from COVID-19 on September 8. Her death comes as campuses have reopened for in-person classes, and thousands of students have tested positive for the virus.

According to her obituary, Ahuero was a sophomore biomedical sciences major at Texas A&M University, College Station, the valedictorian of her high school class, and a volunteer over the past summer for the National Suicide Hotline, having decided that she wanted to be a psychiatric nurse. She loved spending time with her animals, taking trips with family and gaming with her family and friends.

Kirstyn Katherine Ahuero, a sophomore at Texas A&M, died of COVID-19 (family photo)

Amy Earhart, an associate professor of English at Texas A&M, stated in a tweet with over 51,000 likes, Our first student has died of covid ... and I feel horrible. No masking rules, no vaccination rules. How is this ok?

It is not known at this time whether Ahuero was vaccinated.

In the wake of her death, no shutdown of in-person classes has been announced by the university, nor has there even been a change in safety measures.

Many of the tweets in response to Earharts tweet expressed outrage at the clearly homicidal policy of the Texas government, which has banned both mask and vaccine mandates in the state even as deaths spiraled out of control. As of Wednesday 20,000 new cases were confirmed, with 411 deaths reported. Almost 60,000 people have lost their lives in the state from COVID-19 as a result of the bipartisan push for reopening nonessential businesses and schools while throwing out public health measures.

Susan Chabot commented, Exactly the reason I retired effective Wed. I cant in good conscious work for a district that has no mitigation in place to slow the spread. Missing out on $6000 in longevity and AP score bonuses but I cant watch it happen day after day. Many others expressed similar experiences and sympathy for school staff, who have been forced to choose between their jobs and their health.

Liz Norell asked what it would take for the government to change course, with Kelsey Kaye replying in a comment referencing the 2012 mass shooting at an elementary school in Connecticut, that Sandy Hook proved that children dying isnt enough to promote change. She received over 2,000 likes.

Ahuero joins a growing number of young people who have tragically passed away from COVID-19 in the prime of their lives. Breanna Gray, 19, was going to be attending her first semester at Navarro College in Corsicana, Texas, when she fell ill on July 31 and died August 19.

Even as infections rise, Texas A&M ended mandatory COVID-19 testing last Friday. The university has 1,554 active cases, according to its own count as of this writing. Given the university has a combined 74,214 students and staff, that would mean that at least 2 percent of the student population is currently infected with coronavirus. The day of Ahueros death, 200 cases among students and 6 among staff were reported on the universitys website.

According to the universitys own data, within a span of just 12 days between August 31 to September 11, 5 percent of the total student body of 72,982 students, or 3,388 students, had become infected with coronavirus. The university has no numbers available for how many of those infected required hospitalization.

College Station is located in Trauma Service Area N, which encompasses 360,000 people. In this Service Area, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services, close to zero ICU beds have been available since August, with one such bed available as of this writing and just 35 ordinary hospital beds open. This situation persists for most of the state, with only 322 adult ICU beds remaining available for the whole state, which is home to 29 million people.

Other universities around the state have reported hundreds of cases in the first few weeks of school.

At University of Texas at Austin, which has around 40,000 students enrolled, classes started on August 26. From this date until Monday, 246 infections have been recorded, though given the 7-day moving average positivity rate of 6.41 percent recorded by the University Health Services and UT Health Austin, the actual number is likely far higher. Trauma Service Area O, in which Austin is located, has nearly run out of staffed ICU beds, with 6 remaining for the 2.37 million people living there.

At University of Texas at Dallas, in Richardson, with around 29,000 students enrolled, 207 cases have been recorded since the start of the semester on August 23 as of this writing. Over the summer many maintenance workers were infected on the campus as well. According to the universitys dashboard, 74 percent and 77 percent of students and staff, respectively, have been at least partially vaccinated. In Trauma Service Area E, where Richardson is located and which roughly corresponds to north Texas, 72 ICU beds remain for the 8 million people who live in the area.

Basically, if a student needs an ICU bed after getting coronavirus from in-person classes at a Texas university or for any other reason, he or she will have to either drive a hundred or more miles, wait for someone else to die or die themselves.

According to local ABC affiliate KRHD, a protest was organized for Tuesday by students on social media calling for more public health measures by the Texas A&M administration. One student planning on attending the protest, Maya Budhrani, stated to the ABC affiliate, I just dont think the university is taking [public health protocols] as serious as they should and that Theres a lot of, yeah, you should do this, but theres no follow-through, no consequences.

Protesters spoke to local CBS affiliate KBTX about their reasons for attending. Ellis Howard, a junior at Texas A&M, stated, I do feel like I could catch the virus and pass it on to some family members of mine who are less fortunate, and they are immunocompromised.

Monica Dhingra, a freshman, stated, My parents came here from India, so we have a lot of family and friends there. When the COVID situation got really bad there, especially with the Delta variant, a lot of people we knew passed away.  Were just very aware of the medical downsides of getting COVID, regardless of age. As of July, India had seen over 4 million COVID-19 deaths, with the virus spreading rapidly among children .

The university issued weak excuses in response to the protests, blaming the Texas governments reactionary measures for the universitys inaction while placing responsibility on the shoulders of students.

Texas A&M Chief Operations Officer Greg Hartman declared, I think when we walk through all the things that were doing, which I think is everything we can be doing given the state guidance weve been provided as a public institution of higher education in Texas, the university is listening.

Meanwhile, Texas A&M Student Health Services Director Dr. Martha Dannenbaum placed the blame on the students and general public. It is very difficult for an institution to implement safeguards, beyond what we can do of course, when the community maybe is operating under a different standard.

Both of these excuses are false.

The Texas A&M University System reopened in 2020 in the midst of the pandemic, causing mass infections on its campuses, with the New York Times tracker documenting 2,767 cases in 2020 and 5,576 as of May 26, 2021.

While the Texas government has banned mask mandates, the government did not force A&M to reopen for in-person learning; the administrators did it themselves. The blood is on their hands, along with the state government, local officials, the Democrats and the Biden administration, which have promoted school reopenings.

Furthermore, mass support exists for public health measures, as there is well placed fear over the very real consequences of the spread of coronavirus. The claim that the community is operating under a different standard, i.e., that it opposes basic public health measures, is patently false.

The majority of the public supports masking. An August 2021 survey by the Texas Politics Project, a joint project by the University of Texas at Austin and the Texas Tribune, found that 46 percent strongly support requiring masking of university students and staff on campus, with another 10 percent somewhat supporting it. This is in contrast to 29 percent strongly opposing and 5 percent somewhat opposing, while the rest either did not know, did not support either position or had no opinion.

More importantly, the August survey also asked what the number one issue in Texas was, and the greatest number of responses was the coronavirus (23 percent), followed by political corruption (14 percent).

The university strongly encouraged but did not require masking for all students and staff on campus, according to its guidance on face coverings. It is currently providing a raffle for those who are vaccinated, offering $14,500 towards education-related expenses, and for employees a $500 gift card, among other incentives.

Texas A&M, like most universities and schools, has no comprehensive program for contact tracing, relying instead on individuals to determine if they have been in close contact with an infected person.

On Monday a petition was launched demanding the implementation of basic safety measures; it now has over 400 signatures as of this writing. The measures included contact tracing and notification, online option for infected individuals and those at higher risk, better quarantine measures, increased testing, and treatment on campus for those who are sick.

These safety measures, while a marginal improvement if implemented, would still be completely inadequate for combating COVID-19. The very notion that schools can be safely reopened in the midst of the pandemic, as is incessantly advocated by the Democratic Party, corporate media and the unions, is completely fraudulent and must be opposed by students, staff and faculty alike.

This fact is shown most sharply in the case of Duke University in North Carolina, which experienced an outbreak involving 349 students and 15 employees, despite 92 and 98 percent of staff and students being vaccinated, respectively, and a mask mandate for indoor settings and classrooms. That is, vaccines, while being a powerful tool against the pandemic and for preventing deaths, are not a silver bullet, and neither are masks.

University staff, students and workers must turn their attention away from this false notion of mitigating the virus and towards that of eradicating it. Polio, syphilis and malaria have all been eliminated through the dedicated application of public health measures. The notion that in the 21st century that humanity should have to live under the constant threat of a deadly and evolving disease, taking away people in the prime of their lives and leaving others with long-term symptoms, should be rejected with the contempt it deserves.

Any attempt to address COVID-19 without demanding the closure of in-person education and nonessential businesses, that is not solidly based on a scientific analysis and is instead based on immediate political considerations, will flounder upon the objective fact that a highly contagious airborne disease has no regard for pragmatic political considerations.

Students, faculty and staff alike must join and build rank-and-file committees, independent from the Democrats and Republicans as well as the unions, none of whom has issued any statements on the deaths of educators and students. In fact, they have championed reopening at all costs. In order to put an end to the pandemic and save lives, the entire working class must be mobilized to shut down all schools and nonessential businesses.
VIGO COUNTY, Ind. (WTHI) - The Vigo County Health Department released final numbers for its three-day COVID-19 clinic at the Wabash Vally Fairgrounds.

Health officials said 200 people in total received the vaccine, while another 1,179 people were tested for the virus.

The health department partnered with the Indiana State Department of Health to host the clinic.

Sullivan County Clinic

If you missed this one, you'll have another chance on Friday and Saturday in Sullivan.

The state will work with the Sullivan County Health Department to host another clinic. This one happens at the Sullivan County Fairgrounds.

You'll be able to stop in from noon until 8 pm both days for a COVID-19 vaccine or test.

You do not have to be a Sullivan County resident to take advantage of the clinic.
CASEY, Ill. (WTHI) - Wednesday was a special night for many Vietnam veterans; some traveled quite a long distance to spend time with one another in Casey, Illinois.

Wednesday marked the 50th reunion of the 2nd Platoon of the 101st Airborne Division.

These men tell me their service and sacrifice have kept them united since the early 1970's when they fought in Vietnam.

Then about a decade later they started having reunions.

There have been 50 ever since.

There is nothing that would keep Ken Evenson, a machine gunner from the 2nd Platoon of the 101st Airborne Division, from seeing his brothers.

"I'm from northwest, North Dakota. It's about 1,400 some odd miles and I won't miss these things at all. I'll make that three-day drive anytime they want to do it, we're there!" said Evenson.

You read that right, 1,400 miles.

Members of the platoon came from Texas, Florida, Georgia and Pennsylvania to name a few places.

They traveled all the way to the Wabash Valley.

Don Stephen was the lieutenant of the second platoon. He says this group, is family.

"It is a brotherhood. It's what it amounts to. A very close brotherhood" said Stephen.

26 members make up this brotherhood.

A few have died in recent years, but about 15 made it a point, to reunite in Casey, Illinois.

That moment they all come together again is one Stephen is ready for, well in advance.

"I can't wait, you know? I get anxious weeks before it comes. And I think most of them will tell you the same thing. So you know, it's like I'm seeing brothers for the first time," said Stephen.

"We went there, we stuck together and we got the job done," said Stephen.

The veterans say stories like these, are ones they plan on sharing for a long time.

"We tell the same war stories over and over and over again. It don't get stretched any, or it don't get decreased any by any stretch of the imagination either, but it's, it keeps, it's healthy for your mind," said Evenson.

If they ever need anything, a brother is there to pick them up along the way.

"We're just a phone call away. If anybody needs anything all they gotta do is call," said Stephen.

They told News 10 they have explored different locations for their reunions throughout the years.

A couple of times they even went to Washington D.C.

In the end, they always find themselves in Casey, Illinois.
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (WTHI)- On September 14th the Indiana supreme court established a 9 member eviction task force. Their goal is to provide landlords and tenants access to federal assistance resources including millions of dollars in federal funding.

Since march of 2020 there have been more than 59,000 eviction filings across the Hoosier state.

The task force will help landlords and tenants resolve their issues by creating a pre-eviction diversion program. The chair for the task force Judge Bob Altice says many Hoosiers are in need of assistance.

"The issue that we've identified is one how to notify the public that there is rent assistance available how to get them to the right spot and then how to make the money flow so we can get the money to those who need it" says Altice. The money distributed to those in need comes from the U.S department of treasury's emergency rental assistance program.

Altice says an increase in evictions can lead to more problems statewide including homelessness and child welfare issues.

"Homelessness really triggers a lot of bad things everything from the department child's services getting involved, kids missing school so it really is a crisis situation," says Altice.

The task force's recommendations on how to implement the program will need to be submitted to the high court on January 17th.

If you are a tenant or landlord going through an eviction click here for resources to help.
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (WTHI) - The Indiana Republicans have released the Statehouse and Congressional Redistricting Maps.

It happens after the government releases the census.

The redistricting reflects changes in population.

The Indiana Constitution requires lawmakers to redraw these state legislative and congressional boundary lines every 10 years.

Their decisions largely influence the power each political party holds.

That's why some of the changes aren't sitting well with many Hoosiers.

With the proposed changes -- Vigo County remains a part of the 8th Congressional District.

One of the key changes to note is that of District 5 in Central Indiana -- that appears to be the most signficantly redrawn.

Who draws these lines?

That job comes down to a team of elected legislators.

In Indiana -- that team has a Republican majority.

For the last 10 years, Indiana's congressional map included seven Republican districts, and two Democratic ones.

The newest map proposal shows things are likely to stay the same.

State Representative Alan Morrison told News 10 the new maps have changed slightly.

For example, District 8, in the Wabash Valley.

Looking at the new maps you'll see half of Fountain County, all of Orange County, and all of Crawford County are now included in District 8.

"And we try to do the best we can to keep communities of interest together, political subdivisions, townships, and so changes that you see in the lines that go north south east or west...they're following population changes," Morrison said.

News 10 reached out to Democratic State Representative Tonya Pfaff, but she was unavailible for comment Wednesday.

We plan to talk with her Thursday.

Voters can express their comments or concerns at committee hearings, and can always reach out to their elected representatives.

Click here to find your state lawmakers.
The United States has reached another grim milestone in its fight against the devastating Covid-19 pandemic: 1 in 500 Americans have died from coronavirus since the nation's first reported infection.

As of Tuesday night, 663,913 people in the US have died of Covid-19, according to Johns Hopkins University data. According to the US Census Bureau, the US population as of April 2020 was 331.4 million.

It's a sobering toll that comes as hospitals in the US are struggling to keep up with the volume of patients and more children are grappling with the virus. In hopes of managing the spread and preventing more unnecessary deaths, officials are implementing mandates for vaccinations in workplaces and masking in schools.

They're fighting against daily case, hospitalization and death rates that jumped after the early summer as the highly contagious Delta variant became dominant.

The country averaged more than 152,300 new Covid-19 cases each day over the past week as of Tuesday -- more than 13 times than what it was on June 22, when the average was at its lowest of 2021 (11,303 daily), according to Johns Hopkins University data.

The US averaged 1,805 new Covid-19 deaths each day over a week as of Tuesday -- significantly higher than the low average of the year (218) reached July 5, according to Johns Hopkins.

With only 54% of the population fully vaccinated, the rate of people initiating vaccinations each day (more than 341,900) is a 4% drop from last week and 28% drop from a month earlier, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.

Health experts have hailed vaccinations as the best source of protection against the virus, noting that the majority of people hospitalized with and killed by Covid-19 are unvaccinated. In Pennsylvania, from January 1 to September 7, 97% of the state's Covid-19 deaths were among unvaccinated people, Pennsylvania's acting secretary of health said Tuesday.

Another layer of strong protection, experts say, is masking.

The CDC recommends people -- even those fully vaccinated -- wear masks indoors in areas with substantial or high community transmission. More than 99% of the population lives in a county with one of those designations.

In Ohio, where children's hospitals are overwhelmed with Covid-19 and respiratory cases, Gov. Mike DeWine is encouraging schools to issue mask mandates since the state legislature has told him it would overturn any mandate he issued.

"Reasonable people may disagree about a lot, but we can all agree that we must keep our children in the classroom so they don't fall behind and so their parents can go to work and not take time off to watch their kids at home," DeWine said.

The combination of masks and vaccinations is the way to keep children in school, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN on Tuesday.

"If you surround the kids with vaccinated people and you have everybody wear a mask, you can get a situation where the children will be relatively safe in school," Fauci told CNN's Jake Tapper.

Coronavirus models foresee hospital admissions declining, CDC says

A CDC ensemble forecast that uses 10 models from other researchers predicts Covid hospital admissions to decrease during the next four weeks for the first time since the June 23 report.

The forecast predicts the US will see 5,000 to 15,300 new Covid-19 hospital admissions on October 11.

A total of 97,051 people are currently in hospitals with Covid-19, according to data from the US Department of Health and Human Services.

Fight brewing over vaccine mandates

To manage the spread of the virus, many officials and experts have promoted vaccine mandates -- but others are opposing such measures.

New York issued an order in August requiring all health care workers be vaccinated against Covid-19 by September 27. But on Monday, 17 Catholic and Baptist medical professionals filed a federal complaint seeking to prevent the state from enforcing the mandate, saying they oppose getting the vaccine for religious reasons.

On Tuesday, a federal judge issued a restraining order temporarily suspending New York state from enforcing its vaccine mandate if health care workers claim a religious exemption.

Because the mandate does not require health care workers to receive their first dose of the vaccine until September 27, the judge's order states the temporary restraining order "does not, as a practical matter, go into effect until that date."

A hearing is scheduled for September 28.

After the ruling, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul's press secretary, Hazel Crampton-Hays, said that the governor is considering all legal options.

"Governor Hochul is doing everything in her power to protect New Yorkers and combat the Delta variant by increasing vaccine rates across the State," Crampton-Hays said.

In Los Angeles, despite a mandate that all city employees be inoculated against the virus, nearly a quarter of the police force is seeking an exemption, according to Mayor Eric Garcetti's office. Those who are not vaccinated will be required to show evidence of weekly testing and a negative Covid-19 result if regularly reporting to work.

By November 1, Nevada workers who serve "vulnerable populations" must show proof of vaccination under a new emergency regulation passed Tuesday.

New hires must have at least one dose by their start date and must follow through on the required vaccination schedule to remain employed. Workers are allowed to ask for a medical or religious exemption.

Meanwhile, most American adults believe that the public health benefits of Covid-19 restrictions on activity are worth the economic and lifestyle costs they exact, a report released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center shows.

The Pew report also found about 80% of adults say they believe mask requirements on airplanes and public transportation are necessary to address the spread of the virus, and that international travel should be restricted.

Booster meeting won't be a slam dunk

On Friday, the US Food and Drug Administration will meet to discuss whether most Americans need a booster of their Covid-19 vaccine.

Unlike other meetings to discuss the vaccine, this one, with requests from Pfizer to authorize a third dose for most people, won't be a slam dunk.

"This will be much messier than in December," said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University. The FDA committee was quick to recommend authorization of vaccines made by Pfizer and rival Moderna last December.

When the FDA's Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee meets Friday, it will be presented with dueling data, some of it suggesting there's a need for boosters, but other pieces of data suggesting there is no such need.

Three separate articles published last week in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report suggest that we don't need boosters.

On the other hand, an Israeli study found that over time, the vaccines' power to keep people from getting very sick with Covid-19 diminished. Looking at illnesses in the second half of July, that study found that those who'd received their second dose of Pfizer's vaccine in March were 70% more protected against severe disease than those who received the second shot in January.

President Joe Biden announced plans last month to begin administering booster doses next week. While she wouldn't say directly if that date would be met, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said Tuesday she is hopeful about the timeline to get doses administered.

If the booster does get approved, experts will still have to wait and see how much protection is added by the third dose.

"I would hope that that would sustain us for an extended period of time, but I don't know that right now," Fauci said. "We're just going to have to do the boost, and then follow people long enough to determine what the durability of that protection is."

Moderna on Wednesday said booster doses of its Covid-19 vaccine recharged waning antibody levels and boosters formulated to match variants also worked as expected, according to their research team.

The 80 volunteers were given two doses of Moderna's vaccine. Their blood was tested six months later and they got a third shot.

Moderna has started its application for emergency use authorization of the third dose of its vaccine, but the FDA has not scheduled discussion of Moderna's application.

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EUPORA, Miss. (WTVA) - The retirement of Euporas police chief will take effect on Thursday, Sept. 30.

In a letter dated Sept. 8 to the City of Eupora, Chief of Police Gregg Hunter announced his retirement.

I never knew when my time would come or the circumstances surrounding it, but I prayed for the Lord to reveal to me in a clear way so that I will understand and that prayer was answered, he stated in the letter.

Hunter said he began his career in law enforcement more than 30 years ago after he returned from a three-year enlistment in the U.S. Army Military Police.

I want to say thank you to the citizens of Eupora, my fellow co-workers, all those in the court system, and the city leaders for your tremendous support over the years.

Open this link to read the letter.
HOUSTON  Two dozen Republican attorneys general are warning the White House of impending legal action if a proposed coronavirus vaccine requirement for as many as 100 million Americans goes into effect.

The letter sent Thursday is the latest in GOP opposition to sweeping new federal vaccine requirements for private-sector employees, health care workers and federal contractors announced by President Joe Biden earlier this month. The requirement, to be enacted through a rule from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, is part of an all-out effort to curb the surging COVID-19 delta variant.



Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall

The prosecutors, led by Attorney General Alan Wilson of South Carolina, called Biden's plan disastrous and counterproductive." They wrote: If your Administration does not alter its course, the undersigned state Attorneys General will seek every available legal option to hold you accountable and uphold the rule of law.

In addition to South Carolina, the letter was signed by attorneys general in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
TUPELO, Miss. (WTVA) - Longtime Tupelo physician Dr. Ken Harvey will retire at the end of September.

His last day at IMA-Tupelo will be on Sept. 30, which is also his 72nd birthday, according to a news release from North Mississippi Health Services (NMHS).

It doesnt seem like it has been 37 years, Harvey said. It has come and gone quickly, but its time to make a change.

The following is a copy of the NMHS news release.

After almost four decades of practicing internal medicine in Tupelo, Ken Harvey, M.D., is hanging up his stethoscope at the end of September.

It doesnt seem like it has been 37 years, says Dr. Harvey, whose last day at IMA-Tupelo will fall on Sept. 30, his 72nd birthday. It has come and gone quickly, but its time to make a change.

A Picayune native, he graduated from Picayune High School in 1967 and enrolled at Mississippi College, where he majored in chemistry. I wanted to get a Ph.D. and teach at Mississippi College, Dr. Harvey said. After graduating with his bachelors degree in chemistry in 1971, he had no car and no money for graduate school, so he went to work as a research chemist with Crosby Chemicals back home in Picayune. During his two years at Crosby Chemicals, he had an accident in the lab. The doctor who treated him was an old friend who asked if he had ever considered going to medical school. I hadnt, he says, but I had worked long enough as a research chemist to know that job wasnt for me. Ive always enjoyed challenges like solving puzzles, and medicine is a lot of puzzles.

Dr. Harvey graduated from the University of Mississippi School of Medicine in Jackson in 1977 and completed residency training in internal medicine at University of Mississippi Medical Center in 1980. Because his medical training was funded by a health professions scholarship from the U.S. Air Force, he was assigned to serve at Columbus Air Force Base upon completion. Once his Air Force commitment ended, he became the 14th doctor to join a growing internal medicine practice in Tupelo founded by Drs. Antone Tannehill, F.L. Lummus, Eugene Murphey and Bill Wood. It was a really good group of doctors and they were able to attract not only internal medicine physicians, but also subspecialists. There were 14 of us practicing in a building that was designed for eight doctors, he says. My first two years, my desk was out in a hallway.

All the doctors had busy practices both in their clinics and at North Mississippi Medical Center. We worked all day and then all night on call, then all the next day, Dr. Harvey says. I really dont know how we all survived.

Around 1993, they formed IMA Foundation and affiliated with North Mississippi Health Services, which alleviated the doctors practice management responsibilities. Even with the hospitalist program in place, Dr. Harvey continued to visit his patients in the hospital until two years ago. I liked following my patients over the long-term, taking care of them at the hospital when they were really sick and then following them afterward at the clinic, he says. I really enjoyed the hospital practice, and I have missed that part.

In fact, building lasting relationships with patients and their families has been his favorite part of the journey. Im taking care of people now who are the same age as or older than their parents were when I started seeing them, Dr. Harvey says. I have a patient who has only had two doctors during her lifetimea pediatrician and me, and Im also still taking care of her grandmother.

One of his longtime patients suffered a heart attack the year after Dr. Harvey started practicing in Tupelo. Im still taking care of him 35 years later, seeing him three or four times a year, he says. Thats a lot of visits. He even has two patients who first started seeing him at Columbus Air Force Base 40 years ago.

After you see patients for a while, theyre your friends and almost your family, Dr. Harvey says. You go through a lot with them  you rejoice with them and you grieve with them. Thats the best part of the practice.

While retirement is bittersweet, Dr. Harvey looks forward to spending more time with Patricia, his wife of 46 years, and their son, Jeff, who lives in Oxford. Now that hell have some free time, he hopes to travel the United States and attend as many Ole Miss sporting events as possible. He also enjoys reading and plans to start the vegetable garden his wife requested.
BOONEVILLE, Miss. (WTVA) - A new scholarship program will help health care students at Northeast Mississippi Community College.

MolinaCares Accord launched the program.

The following is a copy of a news release from Molina.

The MolinaCares Accord (MolinaCares), in collaboration with Molina Healthcare of Mississippi (Molina), is partnering with Northeast Mississippi Community College (NEMCC) to launch a scholarship program for new students enrolling in various health care workforce programs. MolinaCares is investing $25,000 to fund the education and professional advancement of individuals seeking to become certified nurse aides, dental assistants, emergency medical technicians and first responders.

We are excited to partner with Northeast Mississippi Community College and provide students with the chance to achieve their professional goals, said Bridget Galatas, plan president of Molina Healthcare of Mississippi. An important component of addressing social determinants of health includes increasing equitable access to high-quality education and workforce development opportunities.

The scholarship program will support high school graduates, GED certificate holders and any young adult seeking job training. In addition to funding tuition, MolinaCares will cover the expenses of all necessary supplies and equipment, such as books and personal protective equipment. CPR and First Aid certification that is required for health care programs will also be covered.

We are grateful for MolinaCares generous donation, said Patrick Eaton, vice president of institutional advancement and executive director of the Development Foundation and Alumni Association of Northeast Mississippi Community College. The scholarships will provide the funds necessary to help students achieve their goals and join the health care workforce.

MolinaCares is also launching a similar scholarship program in partnership with Climb Community Development Corporation (Climb CDC) in Gulfport.
STARKVILLE, Miss. (WTVA) - Mississippi State University's Student Association is bringing back an old service that they hope can keep students safe while they're having fun.

The program is called Cowbell Cabs which is a free service to students that allows them to get home from the local bars and restaurants safely.

Campus of Mississippi State University in Starkville, Mississippi. Campus of Mississippi State University in Starkville, Mississippi.

Cowbell Cabs was halted last year because of the pandemic, but with the vaccine readily available for students, some felt it was time to bring the driving service back.

The cabs are available from 9 PM to 2 AM every weekend in September and October.

Each student that calls the cab service is allowed to bring one guest.

MSU's Student Body President, Garrett Smith, said his main goal in bringing the service back is to give students more opportunities to be safe.

We want everybody to be responsible on game day weekends," he said. "We know that most of them are, but we want to make it a little bit easier for all of them to be that way.

The phone number to call Cowbell Cabs is (662)813-0084.

The Student Association pays for all cab rides so the service can be free and an easy option for students.
Tupelo Partly Cloudy 79 Hi: 89 Lo: 71 Feels Like: 82 More Weather Columbus Mostly Cloudy 77 Hi: 83 Lo: 72 Feels Like: 78 More Weather Oxford Partly Cloudy 70 Hi: 84 Lo: 68 Feels Like: 70 More Weather Starkville Mostly Cloudy 90 Hi: 86 Lo: 69 Feels Like: 129 More Weather

Canadian high pressure will build into our area over the next few days. This will bring into our area some of the coolest air of the season so far. Some folks will see overnight lows down into the upper 40s.
Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, who reported the phone call to Ukraine that resulted in President Donald Trump's first impeachment trial, is photographed in his home on July 29, 2021. Mandatory Credit: Hannah Gaber, in Woodbridge, Virginia.

Its not every day the White House has to refute claims from a rapper. But then again, were not living in normal times.

Pounding the alarm: The White House offered Wednesday to connect Nicki Minaj with one of the Biden administrations doctors to address her questions about the COVID-19 vaccine, after the Trinidadian-born rappers erroneous tweet alleging the vaccine causes impotence went viral.

The White House said that theyve offered such calls with others concerned about the vaccine, part of an aggressive public relations campaign to beat back rampant disinformation about the vaccines safety and effectiveness.

In non-pop culture news  Congressional leaders have been briefed about a rally called "Justice for J6" that is scheduled Saturday at the Capitol, and security crews are using a chain-link fence around the building to deter another riot like the one on Jan. 6. The rally is meant to support people charged in the Capitol riot.

Its Amy and Mabinty, with the real news out of Washington.

Trump whistleblower accuses Gen. Milley of breaking chain of command

A new book claiming that Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, held calls with Chinese military leaders to head off a nuclear confrontation prompted swift backlash from many Trump allies  and one very consequential Trump critic.

Retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the whistleblower who reported calls with Ukraine that led to the impeachment of former President Donald Trump, called for Milley's ouster over the top general's phone calls.

Milley, the top-ranking officer in the military, made two phone calls with his Chinese counterpart in 2020 to assure them that the U.S. would not launch a nuclear strike, according to a new book by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa of The Washington Post.

Is Milley really in "Peril"? On Wednesday, President Joe Biden said he still has "great confidence" in Milley. White House press secretary Jen Psaki also offered the administration's endorsement of the top general, continuing that Milley "went through the normal channels of communication" and did not subvert the chain of command.

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Real quick: Stories you'll want to read

Threats against the VP : Niviane Petit Phelps, a 39 year-old former Florida nurse, plead guilty Friday to six counts of making threats against vice president Kamala Harris.

A message to China? The United States is forming a security partnership with Australia and the United Kingdom. One of the first initiatives will be to help Australia develop a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.

Medicare drug-price proposal rejected: Three House Democrats joined Republicans in rejecting a section of President Joe Biden's $3.5 trillion budget that proposed having Medicare negotiate drug prices.

Want this news roundup in your inbox every night? Sign up for OnPolitics newsletter here.

A former Pennsylvania lawmakers $15,000 message to Biden

Billboards showing President Joe Biden "Making the Taliban Great Again" recently popped up in Pennsylvania, and state Sen. Scott Wagner is staking claim for them.

The billboards depict President Joe Biden dressed in Taliban garb and holding a rocket-propelled grenade, and they bear the phrase, Making the Taliban Great Again! The phrase, of course, apes former President Donald Trumps campaign slogan and rallying cry for his supporters, Make America Great Again!

How much did this cost? Wagner took to the highways and byways of central Pennsylvania, renting out a dozen billboards at a cost of about $15,000.

Why did he do this? Wagner said he felt the need to express his opinion because the pullout in Afghanistan, and the ensuing chaos as the government collapsed with astonishing speed, is an absolute mess and a tragedy.

The billboards have attracted a lot of attention on social media and from passersby, with mixed reactions. Those who support Biden believe the billboards are disrespectful and crude. Those who dont, well, dont.

Want to live longer? Take 7,000 steps per day.  Amy and Mabinty

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump whistleblower slams Gen. Milley for China call
Students, staff lash out at University of Toronto for lack of COVID-19 prevention protocols, posting allegedly 'fake' photos

Now that universities have reopened campuses for the first time since the pandemic, one is facing criticism for not doing enough when it comes to proper distancing protocols.

The University of Toronto is being called out by students and staff for misrepresenting its physical distancing measures, after the schools Twitter account posted photos of a spacious classroom and lecture hall.

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The tweet, which was posted last week, highlights the first week of classes and includes several photos of scenes around campus. One photo shows a lecture hall with masked students each sitting individually at a table, while another shows a sparsely attended classroom with students sitting between chairs marked with a restricted seat placeholder.

Some on Twitter found the photos to be misrepresentative of the current reality.

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Terezia Zoric, president of the University of Toronto Faculty Association, says the school is making decisions based on efforts to manage perceptions rather than align with the science and follow the best practices. And that includes steps that their own experts and public health professors have said they need to take in order to be safe.

When weve asked them to share information with our public health experts...they have been unwilling to share information with us, she tells Yahoo News Canada.

Zoric explains that the schools administration, along with those of other schools, worked successfully to lobby the provincial government to exempt universities from the kind of protections followed in a movie theatre.

If you go to a movie youre going to be better protected than if you go to a large lecture hall at the University of Toronto, she says. The abolition of physical distancing and the 100 per cent occupancy rates are specifically being called out as reckless behaviour.

Zoric adds that out of all universities in the Greater Toronto Area, the University of Toronto has the largest classes at the highest occupancy rates.

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Matthew Farish, associate professor and associate chair, undergraduate in the Department of Geography and Planning, is one of the people who responded to the social media post. In an email to Yahoo News Canada, he said that his concerns werent being addressed, as the university was scheduling in-person classes without physical distancing.

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My tweet was in response to a university news-story that suggested otherwise, but fundamentally I'm concerned about the exception made with respect to distancing in classes and the scramble, at the department or individual scale, to alleviate the results, he wrote.

The school mandates that all students returning to school must be fully vaccinated.

Students reveal what happens in hallways, classrooms

Ucheck, the schools COVID-19 assessment web portal, requires students to upload proof of vaccination. Those who havent been fully vaccinated and have received a University-approved exemption to visit campus, must take a rapid-test or show proof of a negative test result.

Alireza, a computer engineering student, says he had a class this week where most of the seats were filled up but wasnt too concerned.

There were four people around me who were close, we werent physical distancing that much, but we were wearing masks the whole time and those rooms have air filters, which are working all the time, he says. Considering how low the case numbers are in Canada and Ontario right now, I'm feeling safe.

Masters student Diana Jokic says the one in-person class she attends adheres to all the protocol.

In the classroom theres one seat between everybody, in the lab its very controlled in terms of what door we come in and out of, she says.

However, she adds that hallways, entrances and foyers at the school are a different story, as shes witnessed lots of crowding in those areas.

Youll see a sea of people because theres no one there to enforce (physical distancing), she says.

Zoric says a petition is being launched that the universitys reopening plans be based on the science of its own professors in the School of Public Health.

This means when the Ontario Science Table says to reduce indoor density, maintain physical distancing, limit large gatherings and significantly reduce contact, that is what the University of Toronto ought to do, she says.

In an e-mail statement, a University of Toronto spokesperson referred to the direction from the Ministry of Colleges and Universities and its revised framework. It allows for flexible capacity limits and no requirement for physical distancing in indoor spaces like classrooms, libraries and labs, coupled with a mandatory vaccination requirement.

They added that since school has started more than 56,000 of the University of Toronto community had uploaded their vaccine documents into school's online system. Of those, 94 per cent were fully vaccinated, with most of the remaining students on their way to full vaccination.
Gabby Petito and her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie. Courtesy of Schmidt and Petito family

A private investigator told Insider the chance of finding a missing person alive after 2 weeks in the wild is "minimal."

But PI John Van Steenkiste also said someone with strong survival skills could survive.

His comments come amid an ongoing search for Gabby Petito, a missing 22-year-old woman.

Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

The clock is ticking as law enforcement and family members search for Gabby Petito, a 22-year-old woman who disappeared during a monthslong cross-country road trip with her boyfriend.

Petito's mother reported her daughter missing earlier this week after her daughter's boyfriend, Brian Laundrie, returned to the couple's Florida home in their shared van without Petito on September 1.

But a private investigator told Insider the chance of finding someone alive two weeks after they've gone missing is slim.

John Van Steenkiste, the lead investigator for Florida-based private investigator Compass Investigations, said the general likelihood of finding a person alive after they've been missing in the wild for two weeks is "minimal."

He cited dangerous terrain, starvation, and extreme weather as possible threats.

"If that person was alive when he left but was entrapped or incarcerated in some manner, in a cave, in a room, in a building, they're going to have not had any food for weeks," Van Steenkiste said.

"Assuming it was hot, that person is going to get dehydrated," he added.

Petito, a van-life vlogger, last spoke to her family in late August.

Since returning home without Petito, Laundrie has retained a lawyer and has not cooperated with investigators. North Port, Florida, police named him as a person of interest on Wednesday.

Petito's stepfather, James Schmidt, and a family friend left for Wyoming's Jackson Hole valley on Tuesday to search for the missing woman. Police say Petito's last known location is believed to be in the state's Grand Teton National Park.

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"They're trying to stay as close as they can to the Grand Teton National Park. That's the closest place I think they can find, so that they can spend as much time as possible looking for Gabby," Schmidt and the Petito family's lawyer Richard Stafford told Insider's Natalie Musumeci.

Guillermo Hechevarria, a criminal investigator with Investigation Services Unlimited in Florida, told Insider he believes Laundrie most likely left Petito alive somewhere in the Tetons. But he added that Laundrie retaining an attorney suggests to him that police also might want to look within a 1-mile radius of Laundrie's parents' home for a body.

Petito's family blasted Laundrie on Wednesday, urging him to cooperate with investigators and calling his silence "reprehensible." Petito's parents accused Laundrie of leaving Petito "in the wilderness with grizzly bears and wolves while he sits in the comfort of his home."

Van Steenkiste did provide a sliver of hope, though, telling Insider that it wouldn't be unlikely for someone to be found alive after weeks missing in a national park if they had strong survival skills.

If "she has a good skill set of survival, it's a good possibility," he said. "It's a possibility."

Read the original article on Insider
These nine Tougaloo College students held the first "read-in" in Mississippi when they attempted to desegregate the all-white Jackson Public Library. The Tougaloo Nine are, from left, Joseph Jackson, Geraldine Edwards, James Cleo Bradford, Evelyn Pierce, Albert Lassiter, Ethel Sawyer, Meredith C. Anding Jr., Janice L. Jackson and Alfred Lee Cook.

On March 27, 1961, nine Black college students sat at tables at a whites-only library and helped change the course of American history. The students, enrolled at Tougaloo College outside Jackson, Mississippi, were quickly arrested, fueling a freedom movement that inspired young people at other historically Black colleges and universities across the nation to rally against segregation.

Sixty years later, USA TODAY is inviting readers to examine how racism continues to shape our country in a free virtual event titled, Freedom Now: How Institutions of Power Fuel and Stall Change.

USA TODAY is collaborating with Tougaloo College for this conversation on the roles law enforcement, media, government and education leaders serve in civil rights movements. The event is scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 29, at 7 p.m. EDT. Register here.

Police Chief George H. Guy poses beside the "White waiting room" sign posted outside the Greyhound bus terminal in McComb, Miss., on Nov. 2, 1961.

The event is part of USA TODAYs Seven Days of 1961 project, which spotlights seven pivotal protests in 1961 that fueled the civil rights movement and helped end legal segregation and extend voting rights to millions of Black Americans. This sprawling multimedia project features stories from the last generation of civil rights-era veterans to be published from September through December.

This project arrives more than a year after the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and many other Black Americans. It comes amid a divisive national debate over systemic racism, equal access to the voting booth, how we teach American history and what role institutions such as the police, media and government serve in making our society safe and fair for all.

The Freedom Now event is inspired by mass meetings held in Black communities to end segregation. These gatherings served to keep hope alive through song, prayer and testimony.

It will feature a musical performance from Charles Neblett, one of the original Freedom Singers, a group formed in 1962 to raise money for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, one of the most prominent organizations of the era. Tracy K. Smith, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet who served as the 22nd Poet Laureate of the United States from 2017 through 2019, will read one of her poems.

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NAACP President Derrick Johnson

Deborah Barfield Berry

The panelists include Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP; JaMal Green, a Chicago Black Lives Matter activist; Georgia state Sen. Kimberly S. Jackson; Brenda Travis, an NAACP student leader in the 1960s; and Gerard Robinson, vice president for education at the Advanced Studies in Culture Foundation at the University of Virginia. Daphne Chamberlain, an associate professor of history at Tougaloo College, and Deborah Barfield Berry, USA TODAY national correspondent on race and politics, will help moderate the event.

Audience members will have the opportunity to pose questions to the panel.

This is the first of three virtual events USA TODAY will host as part of the Seven Days of 1961 project.

Want more news on race & identity? Subscribe to This is America, USA TODAY's weekly newsletter. With a vibrant, unflinching look into current events, popular culture and the key figures who define life in America today, "This is America" aims to spark crucial conversations and build bridges between Black, Indigenous people, people of color and their allies.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: USA TODAY free event explores racism and systems of power
Every birthday is a milestone after 100 - especially for the oldest World War II veteran in the United States.

Lawrence Brooks turned 112 on Sept. 12 with a boisterous party outside his New Orleans home, including a vehicle parade, two brass bands and, of course, his favorite chocolate cake.

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At one point during the hour-long celebration, Brooks confidently rose from his wheelchair. He danced, he smiled and he waved.

This is his third year as a supercentenarian - meaning age 110 and older.

"We like to tell him, 'Mr. Brooks, as long as you keep having birthdays, we're going to keep throwing your birthday party,' " said Peter Crean, a vice president at the National WWII Museum in New Orleans.

The event was orchestrated by the museum, which has thrown Brooks a birthday celebration for the past eight years.

"He is a fixture here at the museum, but also in the community," Crean said. "He is a wonderful human being who is inspiring to everyone he meets."

Brooks, born in Norwood, La., in 1909, was one of 15 children. He was drafted in 1940 and served until 1945 as a private in the predominantly Black 91st Engineer Battalion, which was stationed in New Guinea and the Philippines.

"We was building roads, bridges and airstrips for planes to land," Brooks recalled in a 2018 video.

After the war, Brooks - who was unable to participate in an interview with The Washington Post because of recent health challenges - worked as a forklift operator until retiring in his 70s.

Brooks is the beloved patriarch of his family: He has five children, 13 grandchildren and 22 great-grandchildren. His wife, Leona B. Brooks, died in 2008.

The National World War II Museum first connected with Brooks in 2013, after a volunteer introduced him to staff.

"He was coming up on his 105th birthday. It was pretty remarkable, and we thought we should have some sort of celebration," Crean said.

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"Mr. Brooks represents a generation that saved the world that we know. He was one of 16 million Americans who did his part for his country and the world to make it a better place," Crean said. "He is important to this museum, this city, and he is also important to our country."

So staff began organizing yearly birthday parties for Brooks, all of which - aside from the past two - were at the museum. Each year, the museum hosts a special ceremony honoring Brooks, followed by several musical performances and sweet treats.

Last year, the pandemic forced the museum to put Brooks's traditional birthday festivities on pause, but it refused to cancel the event entirely.

Instead, it brought the party to his doorstep and organized a drive-by parade outside his home, where he lives with his daughter. The museum also campaigned to collect birthday cards, and more than 21,000 notes poured in from around the world.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, and amid the ongoing pandemic, the museum mobilized to throw Brooks another socially distanced, outdoor birthday party to mark his 112th.

This year's celebration was the first time Brooks had used a wheelchair. Every other year he walked with a cane.

"He's beginning to slow down," Crean said, adding that Brooks stayed in Veterans Affairs Hospital during the hurricane to ensure he would have proper electricity and air conditioning. Still, "he is in remarkably good shape for 112. He is vibrant."

The party featured musical performances from the museum's vocal trio, the Victory Belles, as well as several other local musicians. Neighbors, community members and fellow veterans danced on their front porches and on Brooks's lawn, as dozens of cars lined up with decorated signs that read: "Happy birthday Mr. Brooks."

In honor of Brooks's birthday, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, D, tweeted: "Happy 112th birthday to Mr. Lawrence Brooks, America's oldest living World War II veteran and a proud Louisianan," along with a photo of them together.

Brooks is recognized by his community not just for his military service, but also for his kindness.

"My mother and father always raised me to love people, and I don't care what kind of people they are," Brooks said in a 2020 interview with National Geographic.

According to Crean, the supercentenarian says the secret to his long life is simple: "Be nice to people."

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America's oldest World War II vet just turned 112. He stood from his wheelchair and danced.

Justices say Supreme Court split by philosophical - not partisan - differences, but timing works against them
Sep. 15An administrative law judge has ruled against an appeal filed by a now-terminated UND vice president, in a discrimination case.

Administrative Law Judge Benjamin E. Thomas ruled on Aug. 26, that an appeal filed by Cara Halgren, former vice president of student affairs, did not merit overturning an initial ruling that found she discriminated against former UND Police Chief Eric Plummer because of his political beliefs. Halgren was removed from her position by UND President Andrew Armacost on Tuesday, Sept. 14.

The initial ruling was handed down by Hope Hogan, also an administrative law judge, on July 30. Halgren appealed the ruling on Aug. 1, and asked that it be overturned, and that the conclusions related to the complaint be removed from her personnel record.

"Halgren has not stated any valid grounds for an appeal of (Hogan's) Investigative Determination," wrote Thomas in his ruling. "As such, Halgren's appeal must be dismissed and the Investigative Determination dated July 30, 2021, is final."

In late January, Plummer filed complaints against Halgren and Cassie Gerhardt, associate vice president of student affairs, after he claimed they discriminated against him when they learned he voted for Donald Trump in 2016. Hogan found that only Halgren discriminated against Plummer, and that Gerhardt did not. Plummer appealed the ruling given in favor of Gerhardt, and that appeal has not yet been decided. Plummer left UND in February.

In her appeal, Halgren laid out five separate claims to have the initial ruling overturned, each of which Thomas found to be incorrect or without merit. The Herald received a copy of Thomas' ruling through an open records request to UND.

In the first claim, Halgren alleged that North Dakota does not "recognize political belief or affiliation as a protected class under the law." Also, she said that UND, which prohibits discrimination against political beliefs, "does not have the right to hold an employee responsible for violating a policy that it had no right to execute."

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Thomas struck this claim down based on the fact the schools in the North Dakota University System are, as a matter of policy, required to adopt a discrimination policy consistent with state and federal laws. North Dakota law does not specifically reference political beliefs as being protected from discrimination, but includes language stating that "participation in lawful activity off the employer's premises during non-working hours"  voting, for example  is protected. North Dakota courts, Thomas wrote, have interpreted this language to mean that political activity is protected from discrimination.

In the second claim, Halgren alleged that there was a conflict of interest in having Donna Smith, associate vice president of equal opportunity and Title IX, serve as coordinator of the investigation while also being a witness in the investigation. Smith's office deals with such complaints at UND.

On Feb. 2, shortly after Plummer filed his complaint against Halgren, Smith notified both Plummer and Halgren UND would begin investigating the complaint. Less than a week later, UND hired trainED to act as an outside investigating party. That entity is a division of the Lathrop GPM law firm, based in Minneapolis, which offers compliance and investigative services for institutions of higher education.

Thomas disagreed there was a conflict of interest, because, among other reasons, Smith took no part in creating the report compiled by investigators, and had no role in choosing an administrative law judge to give a ruling on it.

Halgren also said that the choice to go with an administrative law judge denied her the right to cross examine witnesses, and that a hearing should have been held instead. Thomas said UND policy on resolving discrimination reports does not include a requirement to hold such a hearing, nor does it give the right to cross examine a witness.

"As such, Halgren's allegations regarding her right to a hearing and a right to cross-examine witnesses are without merit," Thomas wrote.

Thomas also disagreed with Halgren when she said information about Gerhardt should not have been shared with her during the investigation, as she was Gerhardt's superior at UND. Thomas' ruling did not detail what information was shared with Halgren, but noted that Halgren said it created challenges for her and Gerhardt.

Even if true, Thomas said the allegation of hearing information about a subordinate co-worker did not factor into the report compiled by trainED, nor did it impact the initial ruling, and does not form the basis of an appeal.

In Halgren's final allegation, she said the investigation far exceeded the timeframe for completion laid out in UND policy. That policy aims to "resolve the complaint within 120 calendar days" of receiving one. Halgren said she was twice notified of delays by investigators.

Thomas concluded that UND's policy allows for necessary breaks, such as school holidays and the time it takes to make witnesses available, among other reasons. He said investigators were correct in notifying her of delays, that the delays did not impact the outcome of the investigation, and that Halgren did not provide evidence the investigation violated UND's standards for timeliness.
Sep. 15Lebanon city workers won't be required to have a COVID-19 vaccine as a condition of employment, and residents won't be discriminated or prohibited from entering the city building based on their vaccination status.

Lebanon City Council adopted an emergency ordinance Tuesday night to codify that policy. Vice Mayor Mark Messer, who presided over the meeting due to the absence of Mayor Amy Brewer, said, "medical freedom should not be mandated."

The ordinance, which took immediate effect after the vote, allows workers to decide for themselves whether to get a vaccine. Council members said they believe the legislation will protect individual rights in connection with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and that the privacy rights of citizens remain protected, specifically health care information.

Last week President Joe Biden issued executive orders that would require vaccines for employers with more than 100 workers or frequent testing. Lebanon City Attorney Mark Yurick said the regulations for Biden's executive order are still being drafted, but that he doesn't believe it will affect city governments.

The city ordinance also does not allow the city to implement any type of vaccine passport program or mandate to require or request someone obtain a vaccination. It also says individuals have a right to expect that their health care choices shall not result in discriminatory treatment. The proposed ordinance said the policy will remain in effect in all circumstances, including emergencies.

Councilman Doug Shope said he "greatly objects" to mandating vaccinations for anyone.

The state recorded more than 7,747 new cases on Wednesday. In the past three weeks, the state is averaging 6,037 cases a day. Ohio also reported 292 new hospitalizations on Wednesday and 21,265 people have died in the state from COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic.

Council approved a resolution in support of health care workers, first responders, teachers and citizens' individual rights during the COVID-19 pandemic "who are being coerced and threatened by an overreaching government." It also supports an individual's right whether or not to get vaccinated.

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A second resolution also requests the Ohio Department of Health to revisit the quarantine guidelines.

Concerns listed in the council resolution include: The mental health of people that become socially isolating healthy people; minimizing disruptions to the integrity of education, economic, civic and social systems so people are not put into unnecessarily difficult situations to provide services, products and experiences; healing distrust and anger in the community due to the "one-size fits all quarantine strategy being used;" and supporting families and businesses that are disrupted when people get sent home for weeks at a time.

The resolution also supports the pilot program developed by the school superintendents of Warren County to modify quarantine rules to keep more students in the classroom.
Victor Osimhen denied Leicester the perfect start in the Europa League as Napoli hit back from 2-0 down to snatch a point.

The striker struck twice in the second half as the visitors deservedly grabbed a 2-2 draw in Group C at the King Power Stadium.

Ayoze Perezs first goal since March and Harvey Barnes second-half goal gave the Foxes a commanding lead.

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But Osimhen grabbed a classy lifeline for the visitors and then headed in a late leveller, with Leicesters frustrations compounded when Wilfred Ndidi was sent off in injury time.

Police and stewards had to control a disturbance between the home and travelling fans at full time with missiles thrown between supporters.

Napoli controlled much of the game and were almost left to rue several missed chances with Osimhen, Hirving Lozano, Piotr Zielinski and Kevin Malcuit all wasteful in the first half.

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The Foxes  who only introduced Jamie Vardy as a late substitute  go to Legia Warsaw, who won at Spartak Moscow on Wednesday, in two weeks.

Leicester and Napoli started the tournament as joint favourites to lift the trophy in Seville in May and went at each other as if to prove their credentials.

Napoli threatened first and Kasper Schmeichel spilled Osimhens early drive from distance before David Ospina came to the visitors rescue.

The former Arsenal goalkeeper flung himself at Barnes feet to turn his close-range shot wide after Perez bullied his way through and Kelechi Iheanacho helped on his cross.

Ayoze Perez gave Leicester the lead (PA)

But Ospina could not thwart the Foxes for long and they grabbed the opener after just nine minutes.

It owed much to Barnes direct running when the winger collected the ball on the left from Ryan Bertrands clearance.

He burst forward, swapped passes with Patson Daka and delivered a deep cross for Perez to volley in at the far post.

Napoli responded well and the lively Osimhen slashed wide before teeing up Malcuit to shoot over after 29 minutes.

Osimhen continued to be a menace and, when he beat Jonny Evans to cross, only a combination of Timothy Castagne and Schmeichel kept out Zielinski.

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Harvey Barnes got Leicesters second goal (PA)

Napoli, who had won all three Serie A games this season, had slowly taken control and skipper Lorenzo Insigne drilled wide as the Foxes struggled to regain a rhythm.

The Italians were in command but were becoming wasteful with Nigeria international Osimhen firing another opportunity over before Schmeichel ensured Leicester went into the break ahead.

The Foxes had lived dangerously and survived another warning when Malcuits cross found Lozano drifting into space and his header was parried by Schmeichel.

Leicester, playing their first home European game with fans since their Champions League quarter final with Atletico Madrid in 2017, needed a remedy.

Boss Brendan Rodgers recognised it, replacing Perez and Jonny Evans with Youri Tielemans and Caglar Soyuncu at the break, but Leicester initially failed to stem the tide.

Yet, the Foxes thought they had doubled their lead after 59 minutes.

Patson Dakas celebration was in vain (PA)

Tielemans was involved, poking the ball through to Daka for the striker to drill in, only to be denied his first Leicester goal by a marginal VAR offside call.

Five minutes later, though, the Foxes did find their second goal.

Iheanacho won the ball in midfield and his perfect pass found Barnes on the left for the winger to tease Malcuit and drill into the corner.

Napoli had paid the price for their profligacy but they pulled a goal back in style with 21 minutes left.

A slick move on the edge of the box involving Insigne, Elif Elmas and Fabian Ruiz ended with Osimhen holding off Jannik Vestergaard and lifting the ball over Schmeichel from six yards.

Victor Osimhen hit both goals for Napoli (PA)

Unsurprisingly, Napoli pressed for the leveller and Schmeichel turned Elmas shot away but the Foxes could not hang on.

Osimhen had been a constant threat and he netted again with three minutes left to level, heading in Matteo Politanos cross from eight yards.

Ndidi was then dismissed in stoppage time for collecting a second yellow card after he pulled back Adam Ounas.
There's a new fly (fly, fly, fly, uh oh, uh oh) in town: Please welcome to the stage, Miss "Opaluma RuPaul!"

An Australian scientist has named a new fly species after the Emmy-winning RuPaul's Drag Race host, thanks to the rainbow-hued insects "charisma and uniqueness" among the bug community.

Dr. Bryan Lessard of Australia's National Research Collections gave the colorful fly its title to raise awareness about the insect world in the region, especially after the devastating toll taken by the Black Summer bushfires  particularly in Queensland's Lamington National Park, where this endangered species dwells  between 2019 and 2020.

Mama Ru tweeted about the news Wednesday, highlighting an interview in which Lessard said the fly had "a costume of shiny metallic rainbow colors" and "legs for days," just like its namesake drag superstar.

RuPaul; Opaluma Rupaul fly

World of Wonder; CSIRO RuPaul now has a fly, the 'Opaluma RuPaul,' named after him.

"I'd been watching a lot of RuPaul's Drag Race when I was examining the specimen under the microscope, so it was on my mind!" Lessard told CNN. "And I really wanted to give this group of flies a memorable name because it needs the attention  the first specimen of this RuPaul fly was collected over a hundred years ago and sat neglected in a museum collection until someone with the knowledge of that group came along to name and document them."

The Opaluma RuPaul isn't the first Drag Race-insect crossover, however; many queens from the long-running reality competition have worn bug-inspired outfits on the runway. Recent All Stars 6 competitor Silky Nutmeg Ganache debuted a fly-inspired look back on season 11, BenDeLaCreme once werked the main stage dressed as a beetle, and Alaska famously wore a cockroach-patterned dress for the All Stars 2 reunion episode.

In addition to the RuPaul tribute, Lessard also named three rare beetles after a trio of hard-to-find characters from the Pokemon franchise: Binburrum Articuno, Binburrum Zapdos, and Binburrum Moltres.

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Subscribe to EW's BINGE podcast for full recaps of RuPaul's Drag Race, including our new season diving into all five All Stars seasons, featuring exclusive interviews with Jujubee, Alexis Mateo, Shea Coulee, Alaska, Detox, BenDeLaCreme, Kennedy Davenport, and more. And be sure to catch up on our BINGE recaps of RuPaul's Drag Race seasons 1-13 with Symone, Jaida Essence Hall, Trixie Mattel, Katya, Peppermint, Bianca Del Rio, Bob the Drag Queen, Sasha Velour, and more!

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Joey, Nick, Chelsea, Paige and Natalie Schulte.

When Paige Schulte and her family needed more space earlier this year, they decided to sell their house and buy a new one.

But buying a house in Gig Harbor, Washington, didnt prove to be so easy, as they were competing with multiple buyers on every house they saw.

We specifically wanted a certain floor plan that was really popular here, Schulte says.

The seller wanted $1.5 million for the house they ultimately settled on. To make their bid stand out from all the rest, Schulte, a real estate agent, looked for ways they could offer the seller better terms than other buyers. "Price is king but terms are queen and she runs the show, Schulte says.

First, they sweetened the deal through the appraisal: If it turned out to be lower than expected, they offered to cover the gap between the appraised price and the purchase price.

Then they reassured the seller that they would not back out of the deal by waiving the inspection. I knew that once I got in there, I would have an inspector come in and I would pay for whatever needed to be fixed, she says.

Their strategy worked and the Schultes closed on their house in February.

While Schulte admits those concessions are not in the best interests of the buyer  and would readily tell her clients that  those are the types of strategies buyers are using to buy a house in todays market.

Bad news for home buyers

In their 2021 Housing Forecast, Realtor.com predicted that 2021 would be tough for buyers. Sellers would be able to command high offers and home prices would soar. On top of that, they projected housing inventories would remain somewhat low because of buyer demand.

That spells bad news for home buyers, as increased competition means sellers are more likely to have their pick of potential bids.

Bidding wars are clearly a sign of supply and demand, says Alison Bernstein, founder of Suburban Jungle, a real estate advisory firm that helps home buyers leave urban areas for suburban ones. Once a buyer enters one, the key is not to get discouraged but to suit up.

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That means getting creative and finding a way to make your bid stand out.

Rebecca Hallstrom and her husband , John, in her studio.

Competitive housing market

When Elizabeth Porter and her husband Cameron were looking for a house in central Michigan earlier this year, Porter had no idea how competitive the market was until they had made five offers for houses and lost every single one of them.

We were going up against six, seven, sometimes eight offers on each house that we wanted, she says. That was when I was like, Okay, we're going to need to do something different.

To stand out, Porter tried to put herself in the shoes of the seller to see how her family could make their life easier. First, the Porters offered to spend a few hundred dollars extra on some of the sellers smaller closing costs such as title transfer fees.

Since her mother lived nearby, Porter let the seller know if they sold to her family, they could take as long as they needed to move out of the house without paying rent. Such an offer gives them a sense of relief if they are also trying to secure a new residence, says Porter. 

The seller took them up on the offer, and after the Porters closed on their house in June, they stayed an extra four weeks at no cost while the house they relocated to was repaired.

Another tactic for many home buyers is the love letter  a personal note to the seller meant to foster a personal connection and a sale. However, in Oregon, a new law will ban any communication that provides information about the sellers race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, marital status or familial status. Even in regions that dont have a law on the books, some real estate professionals recommend against letters that provide identifying information and instead seek a connection with sellers in other ways.

Rebecca Hallstrom of Oldsmar, Florida, used a love letter to convey her passion for art. She had been looking for two years for a house with studio space so she could practice her art, and in her love letter, she wrote: I am searching for that perfect home that I can set up my easel and paint every day.

The seller later told her the house would be perfect for an artist because it had an enclosed sunroom with plenty of light that would be ideal for a studio. I am convinced that the personalized letter made all the difference, she says.

If youre still unsure how best to compete in a sellers market, here are some other options for buyers looking to stand out.

Escalation clause for home offers

Agree to pay a certain amount above any offers that are up to your budget limit, says Dino DiNenna, a broker and realtor in Hilton Head, South Carolina. Suppose the offer you made for your dream house is $200,000, you can offer $1,000 up to $210,000 to outbid any competing offer.

Get your home financing right

Sellers dont want to worry that the financing will fall through. Attractive offers are cash because there is no risk of the buyer not qualifying for a third party's approval, says Bill Samuel, a real estate developer with Blue Ladder Development in the Chicago area.

A conventional loan with a high downpayment would be the next best thing.

Negotiate upwards, not downwards. While a lowball offer may snag you a deal in a buyers market, it may simply keep you from being competitive in a hot market, says Kerry Sherin, consumer advocate for Ownerly, a real estate analytics company.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Housing market: Home buying is tough but you can win a bidding war
New Delhi: Kia India on Thursday said it has launched the updated version of its premium multi-purpose vehicle Carnival with a price starting at Rs 24.95 lakh (ex-showroom).

The refreshed Carnival will now feature Kia's new corporate logo giving a fresh new look to the vehicle, the automaker said in a statement.

The company has also rejigged the trim line-up with the introduction of Limousine and Limousine+ variants to offer unique product USPs at an attractive price point, it added.

The model will now be offered in four variants - Limousine+, Limousine, Prestige and Premium. (Also Read: PF subscribers alert! EPFO could soon allow investors to hike investments in equity)

"The refreshed Carnival is a part of Kia's efforts towards offering customers an exceptional product experience that surpasses all expectations. Since its launch, Carnival has been able to create a niche for itself in the Indian market and with this product intervention, we plan to provide even greater comfort and convenience to buyers," Kia India Executive Director and Chief Sales and Business Strategy Officer Tae-Jin Park said.(Also Read: SBI festive bonanza: Home loans rates slashed to 6.70%, 0% processing fee, offers for non-salaried borrowers)

To date, the company has sold close to 8,000 units of Carnival in the country, he added.

"We hope to achieve newer records with this product in future. We are confident that the refreshed Carnival will be received with the same enthusiasm and excitement by the Indian customers," Park stated.

The all-new Limousine variant of the refreshed Carnival comes equipped with multiple premium features, like an air purifier with virus protection, over and above the prestige trim.

The Limousine+ variant comes with features like a Harman Kardon premium 8 speaker sound system, electronic parking brake, 10-way power driver seat, driver seat ventilation, among others.

The Carnival range starts from Rs 24.95 lakh and goes up to Rs 33.9 lakh (ex-showroom).
New Delhi: The national capital saw almost 25 per cent less crime against women in 2020 as compared to 2019 following the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data.

In 2020, 10,093 cases were reported in the city against 13,395 cases in 2019 which is 24.65 per cent less than the previous year. Delhi reported 997 cases of rape in 2020, the highest in the UTs.

In 2020, Delhi reported 1,840 cases of assault on women with intent to outrage their modesty, 2,938 cases of kidnapping and abduction of women, nine cases of attempt to commit rape and one murder with rape or gangrape, the data said.

The Delhi Police have always emphasised that women safety is one of the top priorities for them. According to the NCRB data, the national capital registered 2,557 cases of cruelty by husband or his relatives (section 498 A of the IPC) last year.

A total of 416 cases were registered of insulting the modesty of women and 110 cases of dowry deaths (section 304B of the IPC) were registered in 2020, it stated. Last year, there were two cases of acid attack (section 326A of the IPC), it added.

Offences against states down by 26% in 2020

The offences against the states were down by 26.68 per cent in 2020 as 5,613 offences were reported in the year 2020 as against 7,656 cases in 2019, the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) said in its latest report.

According to the data, Uttar Pradesh recorded 2,217 cases during the last year while the numbers were 2107 in 2019, followed by Tamil Nadu (668) and Assam (333).

Jammu and Kashmir reported 317 offences against the state which was 284 in 2019. A total of 66 cases of sedition under Section 124A of the IPC were reported in 2020.

As many as 75 cases were reported under imputation and assertions prejudicial to national integration, 4,498 cases were filed under the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, 503 cases were registered under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, while 36 cases were filed under the Official Secrets Act in 2020.

In the UT of J&K, 287 cases were registered under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in 2020, two for sedition, eight for imputation and assertions prejudicial to national integration, and 13 under the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act.

A total of 169 cases were registered under the Unlawful Activity (Prevention) Act in Manipur in 2020, followed by Jharkhand (86), Assam (76) and Uttar Pradesh (72).

Out of 36 cases reported under the Official Secrets Act, Maharashtra reported 10 cases in 2020, followed by Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh (6 each), and Punjab (4).

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NEW DELHI: In a big boost to the cash-strapped telecom sector, the Centre has announced major reforms that are likely to usher the telecom industry into a new era, push investment and reduce the debt burden.

The Union Cabinet, which cleared the big-bang reforms on Wednesday, also approved a massive relief package for the telecom sector that includes a four-year moratorium on payment of statutory dues by telecom companies as well as allowing 100 per cent foreign investment through the automatic route.

Here are the major Telecom sector reforms announced by the govt

-100 per cent FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) in telecom via the automatic route

-Easing the cash flow issues being faced by some big players in the industry.

-The definition of AGR, which had been a major reason for the stress in the sector, has been rationalised by excluding non-telecom revenue of telecom companies. AGR refers to revenues that are considered for payment of statutory dues.

-A four-year moratorium to pay government dues but with interest

-Permission to share scarce airwaves. It also includes the scrapping of spectrum usage charge (SUC) for airwaves acquired in future spectrum auctions.

-The new reforms provide telecom companies with an option to pay the interest amount arising due to the deferment of payment by way of equity.

-Allocation of spectrum through an auction for a period of 30 years, compared with the 20-year period prevalent at present. Also, telecom operators will be allowed to surrender the spectrum that will be acquired in future auctions after 10 years of the lock-in period.

-Easing of customer acquisition norms for telecom operators by replacing the need to fill physical forms with digital forms.

Union Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that as part of the reforms in the telecom sector, the Cabinet has allowed a four-year moratorium on all dues that telecom operators have to pay to the government, including annual payments of dues arising out of the AGR judgment and spectrum purchased in past auctions excluding the March 2021 auction.

"All those who will avail of the moratorium will have to pay some interest. The moratorium will start from October 1. The reforms are deep and broad. They are structural. These reforms will bring in change today, tomorrow and in the future as well. I do not like to put a number on the package as it is revenue-neutral for the government, the Union Minister said, adding that the moratorium will not impact the governments revenues.

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New Delhi: Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel on Thursday inducted several new faces in the state cabinet despite strong dissent among those who were part of the previous Vijay Rupani-led cabinet but dropped this time.

A total of 24 ministers were sworn in the new cabinet in the presence of Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel and former CM Vijay Rupani. The Governor of Gujarat, Acharya Devvrat, administered oath to 24 ministers in the new cabinet of Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel at the Raj Bhawan in Gandhinagar.

Kanubhai Desai, Kiritsinh Rana, Naresh Patel, Pradip Parmar and Arjunsinh Chauhan, Rajendra Trivedi, Jitu Vaghani, Rushikesh Patel, Purnesh Modi and Raghavji Patel were administered oath as the Gujarat ministers.

According to reports, Harsh Sanghvi, Jagdish Panchal, Brijesh Merja, Jitu Choudhary, Manisha Vakil were sworn in as Ministers of State with independent charge.

A total of 24 ministers have been sworn in the new cabinet, in the presence of Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel and former CM Vijay Rupani. pic.twitter.com/LkzhOECTCg  ANI (@ANI) September 16, 2021

Rajendra Trivedi, who had resigned as Assembly Speaker earlier today, was among those who took oath as ministers today. A large number of ministers who were part of the cabinet headed by previous Chief Minister Vijay Rupani were dropped in the process.

The oath ceremony of the new cabinet of Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, which was slated to be held on Wednesday, was deferred at the last minute after elaborate arrangements were made at the Governor's house and large hoardings were put up.

Sources said that differences over the new council of ministers were possibly the reason for the sudden rescheduling.

The reshuffle in the Gujarat cabinet was done in view of indications that winning the crucial upcoming assembly election in Gujarat would have become a challenge if Vijay Rupani had continued as Chief Minister.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah and top BJP leaders, including Narendra Tomar and Prahlad Joshi, had held a series of meetings after the swearing-in ceremony of Bhupendra Patel on Monday to sort out the issues over the council of ministers and the new cabinet.

It may be noted that Bhupendra Patel took oath as the 17th Chief Minister of Gujarat on Monday. The party is counting on Patel to shore up the party`s fortunes ahead of the assembly elections towards the end of next year.

In the 2017 state election, the BJP won 99 of the state`s 182 Assembly seats and Congress got 77 seats.

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New Delhi: Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel on Thursday (September 16, 2021) allocated portfolios to 24 newly-inducted ministers, keeping a host of departments including Home with himself and without appointing any deputy. Kanubhai Desai was allocated Finance and Energy and Petrochemicals portfolios.

Besides the Home ministry, CM Patel will hold the charge of General Administration Department, Information and Broadcast, Industries, Mines and Minerals, Capital Projects, Urban Development, Urban Housing and Narmada and Ports, an official release said. The allocation was announced in the first cabinet meeting held in Gandhinagar after the ministers were sworn in earlier in the day.

Governor Acharya Devvrat administered the oath to 10 cabinet ministers and 14 ministers of state at 1.30 pm in a ceremony. The ministry formation exercise shows that the BJP has tried to balance caste and regional representation. The CM pick is a Patidar community leader and the BJP has given berth to six Patidars and OBCs each, four from scheduled tribes, three from scheduled castes, two each from among Brahmins and Kshatriyas and one member from the Jain community.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated the new state cabinet ministers. Taking to Twitter he wrote, "Congratulations to all Party colleagues who have taken oath as Ministers in the Gujarat Government. These are outstanding Karyakartas who have devoted their lives to public service and spreading our Partys development agenda. Best wishes for a fruitful tenure ahead."

Congratulations to all Party colleagues who have taken oath as Ministers in the Gujarat Government. These are outstanding Karyakartas who have devoted their lives to public service and spreading our Partys development agenda. Best wishes for a fruitful tenure ahead.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 16, 2021

The new ministry includes Rajendra Trivedi, Jitu Vaghani, Rushikesh Patel, Purnesh Modi, Raghavji Patel, Kanubhai Desai, Kiritsinh Rana, Naresh Patel, Pradip Parmar and Arjunsinh Chauhan were sworn in as cabinet ministers. Trivedi, Rana and Raghavji Patel have been ministers earlier. Harsh Sanghvi, Jagdish Panchal, Brijesh Merja, Jitu Choudhary and Manisha Vakil took the oath as ministers of state with independent charge. The nine other ministers of state are Mukesh Patel, Nimisha Suthar, Arvind Raiyani, Kuber Dindor, Kirtisinh Vaghela, Gajendrasinh Parmar, R C Makwana, Vinod Moradia and Deva Malam.

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Washington (US): In a worrying sign for the world, the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has said that Al Qaeda may be regrouping in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Stating that they are noticing early signs, the Deputy Director of the United States Central Intelligence Agency, David Cohen, said that current intelligence reports indicate "some potential motion of Al Qaeda (returning) to Afghanistan," reported Intelnews.org.

However, the CIA, in particular, is already working to develop "methods to work within the horizon", he said. Cohen said that American intelligence agencies are closely monitoring the situation. Speaking at the Intelligence and National Security Summit in Washington, DC, Cohen acknowledged that the shuttering of the United States embassy in Kabul, as well as the closure of a network of CIA stations across Afghanistan, had "diminished" the ability of American intelligence agencies to assess conditions on the ground, reported Intelnews.org. Cohen added that much of the intelligence that has been collected in recent weeks comes from "over-the-horizon platforms", meaning that the collection is taking place from countries that border Afghanistan.

At the moment, the United States intelligence community estimates that it could take Al Qaeda between one and two years to amass its former strike capability, so as to directly threaten American interests, reported Intelnews.org.The presence of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan was the primary reason behind the invasion of the country by the United States in 2001. However, with the Taliban back in power in Afghanistan, there are concerns that Al Qaeda may make a comeback in the war-torn country.

Under the leadership of Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda worked closely with the upper echelons of the Taliban in the 1990s and early 2000s. Contacts between the two groups continue to exist, and could potentially deepen following the exit of the United States and its Western allies from Afghanistan, reported Intelnews.org.

(With ANI inputs)

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New Delhi: Public fairs and exhibitions will be allowed in Delhi from Thursday, under a phased reopening of economic activities interrupted by the lockdown during the second wave of COVID-19 in the city.

In an order issued on Wednesday, the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) said banquet halls in the city will be allowed to hold such exhibitions and fairs.

Business-to-consumer exhibitions will be permitted in the city from September 16, it stated, adding that organisers will have to follow the standard operating procedure (SOP) issued by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, and in case any violation is found, strict penal or criminal action will be initiated.

Measures to be adopted by venue providers include separate entry and exit for visitors, disinfecting halls before giving possession, setting up permanent isolation centres and a well-planned garbage disposal, according to the SOP.

Similarly, fair organisers will have to stagger the operational hours of the exhibition so that there is an organised gathering. They will also have to regularly play recorded messages on precautionary measures and good practices, besides encouraging the use of technology to minimise human interface.

According to the SOP, the Aarogya Setu mobile app is recommended for all persons manning stalls, and it is mandatory for those with smartphones.

Schools in the city will, however, be closed for students up to Class 8, the DDMA order said.

Other activities prohibited and allowed by the DDMA will remain so till the intervening night of September 30 and October 1, it added.

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New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday (September 16) hit out at critics of the ambitious Central Vista project, and asserted that ease of living and ease of doing business was behind the spirit of the work being done under the initiative. Modi made the remarks after inaugurating two new multi-storey swanky office complexes at Kasturba Gandhi Marg and Africa Avenue for over 7,000 employees of the Defence Ministry and the armed forces.

"Today, in the 75th year of Independence, we are taking another step towards developing the capital of our country according to the needs and aspirations of the new India," Modi said. "These new defence office complexes are going to further strengthen our efforts to make the working of our forces more convenient and effective," Modi said.

The prime ministers said the modern offices will go a long way in effectively carrying out all the work related to the security of the nation by the three forces. "This is a big step towards the creation of a modern defence enclave in the capital," he said.

The officers and other staffers of the Defence Ministry and the armed forces are moving into the new office complexes from their existing workplaces in pre-Independence era hutments in and around the Raisina Hills. In his address, Modi criticised those who were opposed to the Central Vista project saying they never bothered to find out how the armed forces personnel were working in those hutments. "When we talk about the capital, it is not just a city. The capital of any country is a symbol of the thinking, determination, strength and culture of that country," Modi said. "India is the mother of democracy. Therefore, the capital of India should be such that its central focus should be people," he said.

The two buildings, constructed by the Housing and Urban Affairs with resources allocated by the Defence Ministry, have an office space of 9.60 lakhs sq feet. "Today, when we are focusing on ease of living and ease of doing business, modern infrastructure plays an equally important role in this. This is the spirit at the core of the work being done today related to Central Vista," the prime minister said.

Modi also said that he was confident that work on the new Parliament building will be completed on time. Fourteen offices are being relocated to the KG Marg complex having a built-up area of 4.52 lakh sq feet while 13 offices are being relocated to the Africa Avenue building that has a total built-up area of 5.08 lakh sq feet, officials said.

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New Delhi: Prime Minister Modi Narendra Modi will inaugurate the new Defence Ministry office complex in Delhi on Thursday (September 16, 2021) at 11 am. The Defence Ministry office, which houses close to 7,000 employees, and many other organisations are set to shift to two new complexes on Africa Avenue and Kasturba Gandhi Marg.

The move was prompted after the existing Defence Ministry at Dalhousie Road near South Block was shifted as the space was needed for the Prime Minister's new residence and office as part of the Central Vista Redevelopment project. The Defence Ministry shifting is expected to vacate 50 acres of land.

The plan also includes the relocation of the Vice President's new residence behind North Block and 10 new building blocks to accommodate government offices, including Shastri Bhavan, Nirman Bhavan, Udyog Bhavan, Krishi Bhavan and Vayu Bhavan.

According to ANI, the inaugural event will be attended by the Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, MoS Defence Ajay Bhatt, MoS Housing and Urban Affairs Kaushal Kishore, Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat, Chief of the Army Staff General Manoj Mukund Naravane, Chief of the Naval Staff -- Admiral Karambir Singh, Chief of the Air Staff --Air Chief Marshal Rakesh Kumar Singh Bhadauria.

Additionally, an official release by the Prime Minister's Office said, "Prime Minister will visit the Defence Office Complex at Africa Avenue and interact with Army, Navy, Air Force and Civilian Officers. This will be followed by his address to the gathering."

The new Defence Office is being said to be state-of-the-art and energy-efficient, with comprehensive security management measures Complexes. The new buildings will also provide modern amenities, connectivity and welfare facilities like canteens and banks.

According to IANS report, the office complex on Africa Avenue is a seven-storey space that will house the offices of only the Defence Ministry, while the eight-storey building on Kasturba Gandhi Marg will be used to temporarily accommodate offices currently located at Parivahan Bhawan and Shram Shakti Bhawan till their new offices are being built at the Central Secretariat Complex.

(With Agency inputs)

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New Delhi: Republican Party of India president and Union minister Ramdas Athawale has said that BJP should fight the next Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls in alliance with RPI (Athawale) and allocate 10-12 seats to us.

Talking to reporters in Gorakhpur on Wednesday, Ramdas Athawale said, "I've told BJP chief JP Nadda and Union Home Min Amit Shah that if BJP fights polls with us, it can be a major setback to BSP."

The RPI chief said that his party may field candidates on 10-12 seats dominated by Muslims, Scheduled Castes and backward classes in alliance with the BJP.

Union Minister Ramdas Athawale further said that his party will start its poll campaign by taking out a "Bahujan Kalyan Yatra" from Saharanpur on September 26. The yatra will culminate at Lucknow's Rama Bai Ambedkar Park on December 18.

Responding to a question, Athawale said that neither the BJP nor PM Modi is against the Muslim community as they believe in "sabka saath, sabka vikas".

In response to a question on farmers' agitation over the farm laws, the RPI chief said those protesting do not come from the farming community and claimed that 80 per cent of farmers are still with Modi and the BJP.

Athawale stressed the need for inter-caste marriage and said this is an effective way to bring social harmony in today's scenario.

When questioned on the caste-based census, Athawale, whose party is a constituent of the NDA at the national level, told ANI, "We are of the opinion that caste-based census should be conducted in the country."

(With Agency Inputs)
New Delhi: The Delhi Police has said that two terrorists, Zeeshan and Osama upon interrogation revealed that they had received training at Thatta in Pakistan to carry out blasts on bridges, railway tracks and large gatherings in India. Despite traveling to Pakistan, their passports are not stamped. They had taken the sea route and entered through Gwadar Port. They also used a motorboat while en route to Pakistan from Oman.

The investigation also revealed that the planning was similar to the 1993 Mumbai blasts. People from different locations were supposed to meet after conducting recces in different locations.Sources claimed that the role of sleeper cells has also emerged.1.5 kg RDX was recovered from the terrorists and the probe agency is investigating and connecting each and every dot.

As per sources in the Special Cell, 15 Bengali-speaking persons were also trained by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in a town named Jioni near Gwadar port along with two arrested terrorists. Police suspect they are from West Bengal. Maharastra ATS team is in Delhi for meeting Special Cell officers and joint interrogation of the suspects is likely. Delhi Police Special Cell on Tuesday (September 15) has busted a Pakistan organised terror module and arrested six operatives, including two Pakistani-trained terrorists.

The arrested suspects were planning to carry out targeted killings and blasts across the country, as per the police.
Chennai: Even as the authorities are mulling on the reopening of schools for junior classes in Tamil Nadu, a spike in COVID-19 cases among the school students has become a matter of worry for the state health and education departments. A few teachers have also tested positive since the schools reopened in the state on September 1.

A total of 34 students have tested Covid positive on Wednesday taking the total number of students to 117 since September 1 when the schools in Tamil Nadu for Classes 9 to 12 reopened in the state.

School Education Minister of Tamil Nadu Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi has, however, said the department has joined hands with the state health department and would plug the spread of the disease taking adequate measures.

The minister also said that the opening of classes for students from Class 1 to 8 will be done only after a review meeting with inputs from the state education and health departments on the ground level situation across Tamil Nadu. He also said that after the review meeting to be held on September 30 a decision on the same would be taken.

The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court had directed the state government to file a counter in a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition seeking a direction to stop physical classes in the schools following the spike in Covid cases.

A parent, K. Abdul Vahabudeen from Tirunelveli, had filed the PIL in Madurai bench of Madras High Court to close down physical classes as since the schools reopened on September 1, there has been a spike in the Covid cases.

In the petition, he said that the government directive on the permissible strengths to classes was not being followed and called upon the court to shut down physical classes.

The Madurai bench of the Madras high court represented by Justices M. Duraiswamy and K. Murali Shankar directed the state government to file a counter affidavit by September 30.

Meanwhile, 26 districts across Tamil Nadu, including Coimbatore and Chennai, reported an increase in new Covid positive cases on Wednesday. The number of cases reported on Wednesday was 1,658 while on Tuesday it was 1,591. This small hike in the number of Covid cases has worried the health authorities who are in the process of inoculating the whole population with at least one dose of the vaccine.

Also Read: COVID-19 unlock: Haryana government to reopen schools for Classes 1 to 3 from September 20

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Srinagar: A 17-year old girl died and six others were injured in a blast in a residential house in Kupwara district of Jammu and Kashmir, with officials saying the exact nature of the explosion was not immediately clear.

The explosion took place in the house of Ghulam Ahmad Wani at Taratpora in Handwara area of the district around 8.45 pm, the officials said.

They said Shabnum Wani (17) died in the incident, while six others, all believed to be the family members of the house-owner, sustained injuries.

The injured have been rushed to a hospital and the police have started investigation into the nature of the blast, the officials said.

They said police suspect the explosion was due to an LPG cylinder blast, but the exact cause will be known in due course.

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New Delhi: India is closely monitoring the investigation by the local Afghan authorities in the case of Bansuri Lal Arinde, an Indian national who reportedly went missing in Kabul, said the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Thursday (September 16).

MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said India is in touch with the local authorities in Kabul that are investigating the case. "Weve seen a missing person`s reports about a Indian national, Bansuri Lal, missing in Kabul. We're in touch with all concerned. We`ve seen reports about local authorities undertaking investigation," Bagchi said.

We've seen a missing person's reports about a reported Indian national - Bansuri Lal - missing in Kabul. We're in touch with all concerned. We've seen reports about local authorities undertaking investigation. We'll continue to monitor situation &tell you of any developments: MEA pic.twitter.com/FqK66R7V6x  ANI (@ANI) September 16, 2021

"Well continue to monitor the situation and tell you of any developments," he added.

Bagchi said that during operation Devi Shakti, the majority of the Indians were evacuated except some who were left due to the closure of Kabul Airport.

During the weekly MEA briefing, Bagchi also remarked about PM Modi`s participation in the Quad summit to be held in Washington.

"PM will participate in the first in-person Quad leaders` summit in Washington on September 24," MEA spokesperson said.

"On September 25, he will address the UN general debate of the UN General Assembly at its 76th session. While PM is in Washington, he will also have a bilateral meeting with President Biden," he added.

Bagchi said that Foreign Minister S Jaishankar`s has departed to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit in Dushanbe to be held on Friday.

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New Delhi: The Assam government on Thursday (September 16) decided to reopen schools for Class 10 students from September 20 amid improving COVID-19 situation.

Classes for Class X students in all high schools, high madrassas, residential schools and day boarding schools will be reopened from 20th September. School employees and workers to be fully vaccinated, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma was quoted as saying by ANI.

Classes for Class X students in all high schools, high madrassas, residential schools and day boarding schools will be reopened from 20th September. School employees and workers to be fully vaccinated: Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma pic.twitter.com/4t4HqbdwGT  ANI (@ANI) September 16, 2021

The decision was taken at a Cabinet meeting chaired by the CM. Apart from resuming physical classes for standard 10, several issues including rhino protection, premium for crop insurance, developing seed farms, state holiday on Karam Puja, ending license system for rickshaws, funds for infrastructure work were also discussed, CM Sarma informed through a tweet.

In the weekly #AssamCabinet, we took several major decisions regarding rhino protection, reopening of Class X, premium for crop insurance, developing seed farms, State holiday on Karam Puja, ending license system for rickshaws, funds for infrastructure work, among others. pic.twitter.com/PDAc51IE7T  Himanta Biswa Sarma (@himantabiswa) September 16, 2021

Earlier, the state government reopened physical classes for Class 12 students and those studying in final-year degree and post-graduation courses from the first week of September. The government had also made the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine mandatory for attending the offline classes.

Meanwhile, Assam logged 444 new coronavirus infections which pushed the caseload to 5,96,606, the National Health Mission said on Wednesday. With eight more people losing their lives, the death toll reached 5,775. Two deaths were reported from Tinsukia district and one each from Bishwanath, Dibrugarh, Golaghat, Karbi Anglong, Lakhimpur, and Sivasagar, PTI reported. As 706 patients recovered in the last 24 hours, the total recovered cases mounted to 5,85,435. The state currently has 4,049 active coronavirus cases.

(With agency inputs)

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New Delhi: BJP leader and candidate from Bhabanipur constituency Priyanka Tibrewal on Wednesday (September 15) denied allegations of violating COVID-19 norms while filing her nomination papers.

Replying to the Election Commission's show-cause notice over complaints of Model Code and Covid-rule violations, she said, "The Election Commission has sent me a letter after the Trinamool filed a complaint alleging that I had taken a huge number of people when I had gone to file my nomination and thus violated the Model Code of Conduct as well as the Covid-19 protocols. I will reply with whatever will be my answer, IANS reported.

"I would also like to say that Suvendu Adhikari was alone in my vehicle. There was no one else. Arjun Singh and Dinesh Trivedi came in their own vehicle. So how did I violate the poll code? There was no flag in my vehicle either," she added.

"They said a number of cars were following me for nomination. But I cannot stop the general public vehicles as the Chief Minister does. I only participated in a 'kirtan' which was organised by the locals and not by me," ANI quoted her as saying.

Attacking CM Banerjee, she alleged, "I had challenged Mamata Banerjee's nomination, so she has made this complaint to harass me. It doesn't matter, as they won't be able to prove anything because I didn't do anything."

BJP fielded advocate and leader Priyanka Tibrewal from Bhabanipur constituency in the upcoming bypolls where she will contest against Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. Banerjee has to win the Bhabanipur seat in the bypoll on September 30 to continue as the CM of West Bengal. The counting of votes will take place on October 3.

Tibrewal had come into limelight recently after she moved Calcutta High Court on the post-poll violence issue during Assembly polls and got a judgment in favour of the victims where the court ordered CBI probe into cases of rape and murder.

(With agency inputs)

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Patna: In a surprising incident, over crores of rupees was credited in the bank accounts of two children, as per IANS report.

The incident took place in Katihar district where two class 6 students, Ashish Kumar and Gurucharan Biswas received Rs 6,20,11,100 and Rs 90,52,21,223 in their bank accounts on September 15 respectively.

The children, native of Pastia village in Bagahura Panchayat, have bank accounts in Uttar Bihar Gramin Bank.

Udayan Mishra, the district magistrate of Katihar also confirmed that the children have received hefty amount.

"Big amounts were credited in the accounts of two children. The amount can be seen in the mini statements. The senior officials of the bank are being informed," Mishra was quoted as saying by IANS.

"As soon as we learnt about the money being credited in the accounts of two children, we have put the accounts on freeze and stopped withdrawal. When inquired with the parents of the children, they were also unable to reveal the source of the fund. Now, we are investigating the matter to find out who is the sender," said M.K. Madhukar, the LDM of Uttar Bihar Gramin Bank.

However, as per latest reports, Udayan Mishra, Katihar DM said, "Branch Manager said their account statement showed this due to an issue in CBS (Core Banking Solutions) system. No money transferred. Issue resolved."

Bihar | 2 boys in Katihar were rumoured to mysteriously receive crores of Rupees in their bank accounts Branch Manager said their account statement showed this due to an issue in CBS (Core Banking Solutions) system. No money transferred. Issue resolved: Udayan Mishra, Katihar DM pic.twitter.com/gQbDBG8TGZ  ANI (@ANI) September 16, 2021

Earlier, Ranjit Das of Bihar`s Khagaria district had also received Rs 5.5 lakh in his Uttar Bihar Gramin Bank account. Das refused to return the money saying that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised every citizen to give Rs 15 lakh in their bank accounts and he has received first instalment. After he did not return the amount, bank officials lodged an FIR against Das and he was arrested by Khagaria police.

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New Delhi: The Centre on Thursday (September 16) said that booster shots are not the central theme at this point in the fight against COVID-19 and that getting vaccinated with two doses remains the priority.

Indian Council of Medical Research Director General Balram Bhargava said that vaccine acceptance, COVID-appropriate behavior, responsible travel and celebration of festivals are some of the things that need to be taken care of.

Booster doses are not the central theme at the moment in the scientific and public healthcare discussion. Getting a full vaccination of two doses remains a major priority. Several agencies have recommended that antibody levels should not be measured, said Bhargava.

The call of the hour is - 1) Vaccine acceptance, 2) Maintenance of COVID-appropriate behaviour, 3) Responsible travel if necessary and 4) Responsible festivities, he added.

Bhargava noted that there has been a decline in new infections in Kerala and that other states are also in the path of averting future surge.

However, festivals are approaching and sudden increase in population density creates a conducive environment for virus spread, he cautioned.

NITI Aayogs Dr. VK Paul informed that Mizoram is a state of concern. In the coming 2-3 months, we have to maintain caution against any upsurge of COVID cases. We request everyone to remain careful in the coming quarter. We're happy to see the number of cases stabilising, even in Kerala, he said.

Talking about the recent reports of a rise in dengue fever cases, Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said, When water is accumulated, it leads to birth of Aedes mosquitoes responsible for of dengue outbreaks. Source reduction is done in all states every year. We've received reports of dengue outbreaks in Delhi, Haryana, West Bengal, UP, Gujarat and Assam.

Also Read: COVID-19 booster shots not needed for now: WHO

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New Delhi: The Haryana government on Thursday (September 16) announced that schools will reopen for classes 1 to 3 students in the state from September 20.

The offline classes for the students had been discontinued owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. With the COVID situation getting better, the government is planning to resume normal academic activities.

However, those students who wish to go to school will have to get written consent from their parents. Students who are not willing to attend physical classes will have to option to attend the online classes.

We are resuming classes for Standard 1st to 3rd from 20th September. Students need to get written consent from their parents. They will have the option of attending the classes either offline or online, Haryana Education Minister Kanwar Pal Gujjar was quoted as saying by ANI.

Earlier, schools reopened in the state for classes 4 and 5 on September 1. For students of classes 9 to 12, the schools reopened from July 16, and for Classes 6 to 8 from July 23.

Also Read: COVID-19 unlock: Jharkhand to allow reopening of religious places, schools for classes 6 to 8

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New Delhi: The Time Magazine has brought out the list of 100 most influential people in the world. The list includes US President Joe Biden, Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. The list also includes Mullah Baradar, the deputy prime minister of the Taliban government in Afghanistan. The inclusion of the founder of a terrorist organization in this list is a disgusting joke with all the peace-loving people of the world.

Zee News Editor-in-Chief Sudhir Chaudhary on Thursday (September 16) questioned the inclusion of Mullah Baradar in Time Magazines list and exposed the bias against PM Modi.

Time is an American magazine that released the list of the worlds 100 most influential people every year. According to this magazine, these 100 people are selected on three bases:

1. The people are those who have the power to make decisions that could affect the world such as big leaders and industrialists.

2. The people who do not have power, but their ideas have fundamentally changed or can change the world.

3. The people who have gained recognition for their fairness, ethics and talent.

The question is that which of these categories does Mullah Baradar fit in. Can the thoughts of Mullah Baradar, who spread terrorism in the name of Jihad, fundamentally change the world? Or can it be presented as an example to the world on the basis of morality? Or can his genius in spreading terrorism do the welfare of the world?

By including Baradar in this list, Time Magazine has legitimised and encouraged terrorism. Baradar must be very happy today as even he would have never imagined that one day his name will be taken along with the big leaders of the world who talk about the war on terror.

An article is also published separately about the people whom this magazine gives a place in its list. The article about Baradar has been written by Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid. In this, Baradar has been described as a charismatic military leader. It also mentions him as a holy person and a pillar of the future of Afghanistan. The article is full of praise for Mullah Baradar.

Apart from Baradar, PM Modi and Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee have also been included in the list. Banerjee's profile has been written by an Indian journalist who supports her ideologically, whereas PM Modi's profile has been written by Indian-American journalist Fareed Zakaria, who is known for writing articles against him.

The article describes Banerjee as someone with a humble background, who wears slippers and has become the aggressive face of Indian politics. It talks about how she won the West Bengal Legislative Assembly election despite the BJP's money and power. It talks about the poverty and struggle earlier in her life.

In contrast, the magazine makes no mention of PM Modis struggle and poverty. This clearly exposes their double standards. The magazine calls Modi a Hindu nationalist leader, anti-Muslim. It says that under his rule, India's democracy is going into darkness and that new laws are being made against journalists and NGOs in India.

In 2014, when Prime Minister Modi was first named among the 100 most influential people in the world, at that time as well, his profile was written by Fareed Zakaria who called him an autocratic leader and a dark Hindu nationalist.

Since 2014, Modi has been included in the list five times. And every time, according to a set agenda, his profile is written by journalists having pre-conceived notions about him. Only 2015 was a year when he was praised and it was because his profile was written by Barack Obama.

This is not the first time Time Magazine has courted such controversy. In 2007, this magazine included Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, in its list, whereas in the same year, the name of former US President George Bush was missing from it. The magazine had declared Germany's dictator Adolf Hitler in the year 1938, Joseph Stalin, the brutal ruler of the Soviet Union in the year 1942 and Ayatollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran in the year 1979, as the Man of the year.

It, therefore, doesnt come as a surprise that Mullah Baradar has found a place in the magazines list.

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New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday conducted raids at the premises linked to retired IAS officer Harsh Mander in connection with an alleged money laundering case.

According to the ED, the raids were conducted at his residence, office and a children's home run by him in the city.

Earlier, in October 2020, the National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) raided the two children's homes that Mander was associated with. Mander was also named in the Delhi Police's charge-sheets on the February 2020 North East Delhi violence.

Meanwhile, the ED today stated that it also conducted search operations at the office and residential premises of M/s. Paul Merchants Ltd. and others at Chandigarh, Panchkula, Mohali, Jalandhar and Delhi under Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), 1999 and seized currency worth Rs 3.88 crore and bullion worth Rs 24.2 lakh.

"ED has conducted search operation at the office and residential premises of M/s. Paul Merchants Ltd. and others at Chandigarh, Panchkula, Mohali, Jalandhar and Delhi under FEMA, 1999. During the search currency worth Rs 3.88 Crore and bullion worth Rs 24.2 Lakh have been seized," said ED in a tweet today.

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Mumbai: A day ahead of the GST Council meeting, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on Thursday (September 16) said that some of the commitments that weren't fulfilled should be fulfilled on priority. Pawar said that the states should be given the right to decide on their taxes.

Maharashtra Deputy CM Ajit Pawar told ANI, "Maharashtra's GST return of around Rs 32,000 crores hasn't been given to the state yet. States should be given the right to decide on their taxes."

Ajit Pawar further said, "We've requested virtual attendance at the GST Council meet. We've also given our written suggestions for the GST council meet tomorrow. The aim of GST was to promote one nation one tax."

Notably, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will preside over the 45th meeting of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council in Lucknow on Friday.

During the meeting, the GST Council is scheduled to discuss a number of important issues that may include a proposal to bring petrol and diesel under the GST regime.

A meeting of senior officers of the Union government and the participating states will give a final shape to the preparations for the meeting here on Thursday.

Union Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary and ministers from different states nominated to the council will also attend the meeting being held physically after a gap of 16 months.

Rate review, tax concession to 11 COVID drugs on cards

The GST Council may review the tax rate of over four-dozen items and extend till December 31, tax concessions on 11 COVID drugs. Also, taxing petrol and diesel under the single national GST tax and a proposal to treat food delivery apps such as Zomato and Swiggy as restaurants and levy a 5 per cent GST tax on supplies made by them would be taken up at its meeting in Lucknow on September 17.

"Finance Minister Smt @nsitharaman will chair the 45th GST Council meeting at 11 AM in Lucknow tomorrow. The meeting will be attended by MOS Shri @mppchaudhary besides Finance Ministers of States & UTs and Senior officers from Union Government & States," the Finance Ministry tweeted.

The Council, comprising central and state finance ministers, will deliberate on the proposal of extending the existing concessional tax rate structure on Amphotericin B, Tocilizumab, Remdesivir and anti-coagulants like Heparin, till December 31, 2021, from the present September 30.

The tax rate on Amphotericin B, Tocilizumab was cut to 'Nil', while Remdesivir and Heparin were reduced to 5 per cent in June 2021.

The Council on Friday may also discuss the proposal of reducing GST from 12 per cent to 5 per cent to seven more drugs till December 31, 2021. These are Itolizumab, Posaconazole, Infliximab, Bamlanivimab & Etesevimab, Casirivimab & Imdevimab, 2-Deoxy-D-Glucose and Favipiravir.

To curb tax evasion, the proposal to make the food delivery platforms like Swiggy and Zomato liable to pay the Goods and Services Tax on restaurant services supplied through them would also be considered by the Council.

Once approved by the GST Council, food delivery apps will have to collect and deposit GST with the government, in place of restaurants, for deliveries made by them. There would be no extra tax burden on the end consumer.

As per estimates, tax loss to the exchequer due to alleged under-reporting by food delivery aggregators is Rs 2,000 over the past two years.

(With Agency Inputs)

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A police officer, Arshid Ahmad Mir, was shot dead from point-blank range by terrorists in Khanyar area of Srinagar city, evoking strong reactions from various quarters in Kashmir. While huge crowds turning up for funerals of militants in the valley had become a norm till 2020, on Sunday, thousands of people participated in the last rites of SI Mir.

As the mortal remains of the young and brave officer reached his home in Kupwara district people were shocked. Everyone mourned his death with women wailing when the body reached the village. Later thousands of people joined the funeral with slogans against terrorists.

According to J&K police, Arshid Ahmad Mir, a Probation Sub-Inspector, was critically injured in a cowardly attack of terrorists at Khanyar. He was shifted to hospital where he succumbed.



DGP J&K Sh Dilbag Singh leads Police,Civil,CAPF officers & relatives in paying floral tributes to Martyr SI Arshid Ahmad Mir at a Wreath laying ceremony at Srinagar.Says every life lost is cause of concern for us

& perpetrators of criminal act would be brought to justice soon. pic.twitter.com/ADPcmhvZko  J&K Police (@JmuKmrPolice) September 12, 2021

At his son's funeral, father Mohammad Ashraf Mir had one question for his killer: "I want to know the fault of my son. What wrong he could have done in his two years of service?"

This made all the participants at the burial cry out loud.

People of Kashmir are showing anger against the killing of un armed personal, it is a clear resentment against the militants among the public. No one is happy when an unarmed police man is killed. People are now appreciating the police.

At the funeral of this brave young officer, a strong voice was raised by the Islamic scholars against the barbaric killing. Strong reactions erupted in the valley. The Police chief said we have identified the perpetrators .

"We have lost a brave young officer. He was learning the nuances of policing. It's a very tragic loss for us and his family. We express our deepest condolences. Perpetrators involved in this case have been identified and they will be brought to justice," DGP Dilbagh singh said.

Jammu and Kashmir Lt. Governor Manoj Sinha condemned the attack in strong words and said: "This is a handiwork of enemies of humanity and peace."

Kashmir civil society and netizens expressed grief on this dastardly and brutal attack.

A Netizen from Kashmir wrote on a microblogging site: "The dastardly attack on young, unarmed policeman left another family orphaned and it deserves highest possible condemnation."

Another wrote: "Day in and day out we are losing our gems, this must end, Kashmir must wake up against the terror cycle."

All the regional political parties also expressed grief over the killing of an unarmed police man, J&K Congress termed it inhuman and ghastly attack, while the NC and PDP termed the attack dastardly.

Every one in Kashmir is expressing their deepest sympathies with the bereaved family. Things are changing now this massive turnout at police officer's funeral is reminder of Kashmir's complex reality.

People from all walks of life are now fed up with daily killings in Kashmir. Terrorism has brought endless pain and suffering to the people of Jammu and Kashmir and it must end now, echo voices from all corners.

Terrorists are working as per the agenda of their handlers to keep this place in turmoil and agony. They are responsible for regular innocent killings of locals and attacks on security forces involved in maintaining and strengthening peaceful environment -- This all must stop.

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New Delhi: As per the National Crime Records Bureau`s (NCRB) report India on an average records 80 murders and 77 rape cases daily for the year 2020. In 2019, a total of 28,915 murders were reported with a daily average of 79 killings during the year it is a marginal increase of 1 per cent. Uttar Pradesh tops the chart among states with a total of 29,193 fatalities in the year.

Uttar Pradesh reports a maximum of 3,779 murder cases in 2020 followed by Bihar with 3,150 cases, in Maharashtra 2,163 cases were registered, 2,101 cases in Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal lodged 1,948 murder cases, as per the data. Additionally, Delhi logged 472 murder cases in 2020, according to the data for the year.

While, 77 rape cases were reported across India on an average every day in 2020, totalling 28,046 such incidents during the year. As many as 3,71,503 cases of crime against women were reported across the country last year, showing a decline of 8.3 per cent as 4,05,326 cases were registered in 2019, the NCRB stated.

As per the NCRB data, Rajasthan tops the charts with 5,310 rapes in 2020, followed by Uttar Pradesh with 2,769 cases, Madhya Pradesh (2,339 cases), and Maharashtra (2,061 cases). The crime rate registered per lakh women population is 56.5 in 2020 in comparison with 62.3 in 2019.

Overall India has seen a jump of 28 per cent in registration of crimes in 2020 compared to 2019, mainly due to COVID-19-related violations in the country.

In 2020, the registration of cases under IPC has increased by 31.9 per cent while cases under Special and Local Laws (SLL) has surged by 21.6 per cent compared to 2019.

The report also stated that a major increase has been witnessed in the cases registered under Disobedience to order duly promulgated by Public Servant (Section 188 IPC) from 29,469 to 6,12,179 in 2020.

(With ANI inputs)
Chennai: Madhan Kumar, a retired Major of the Indian Army who was also formerly an MBBS aspirant, has shared a touching and inspirational message for NEET aspirants. Suicide is no solution to failure. Exam is a common phenomenon and youll need to write exams for almost any career path. Failure is fine, but there are so many career options out there, he says. His message comes at a time when many students in Tamil Nadu have been taking extreme steps merely days after having written the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test(NEET) exam for medical entrance on Sunday.

Missed my MBBS seat by 9 marks against the cutoff.

Took 1 year break , improved my +12 score & then reappeared.

Met with a nasty accident enroute the exam centre. Missed it by 7 marks.

Life then gave me #Indianarmy.

Sucide is not a solution for failures.

Fight back #NEETexam  Major Madhan Kumar (@major_madhan) September 16, 2021

Via a tweet, the retired Major who hails from Tamil Nadu shared his own tale of how he couldnt clear his medical entrance test, owing to unfortunate circumstances. The post is now viral on social media and has gained a great amount of appreciation from people hailing from many walks of life. Madhan Kumar elaborated the contents of his tweet to Zee Media and wished to encourage, empower NEET aspirants, who were on the cusp of their adult life.

Back in 1997, Madhan had cleared his 12th Grade examination in Tamil Nadu and had been preparing hard for the MBBS entrance tests and attempted the entrance exams in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Karnataka. However, he fell short of the cutoff by nine marks. Eager to improve his score and achieve his dream of becoming a doctor, the young man spent an entire year preparing for the medical entrance and also re-attempted his 12th exams to better his score.

But life had unfortunate plans for him, as he met with an accident while heading towards his exam center in Chennai. Despite the delay, he managed to write the exam after getting basic first aid. In his second attempt, he missed the cutoff by 7 marks, which made him eligible for Veterinary, Dental or Agricultural courses in Tamil Nadu Government Colleges. While he did join the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, he dropped out in two months owing to the advice of his family. His father and brother were engineers and wanted him to pursue engineering.

At the time of completing his B.Tech in textile engineering and being eligible for placement, Madhan had cleared both his SSC (Short Service Commission) and CDS (Combined Defence Services) exam in the first go and bagged an all-India rank of 73. He then joined the Officers Training Academy in Chennai, following which he was Commissioned and an officer and served the Indian Army(between 2003-2010) in Kashmir and Delhi, until he rose to the rank of Major and later retired voluntarily.

Meeting with an accident on the day of my second MBBS exam attempt really broke me, as there was peer pressure, the feeling of having lost one year and what not! But, the happiness of having cleared the Defence exams is unparalleled and I wouldnt have been as happy, even had I qualified for MBBS. Our youth must believe that life always has something good in store for us he told Zee Media.

He urges NEET aspirants and their families to not lose hope over a failure, he urges them to consider a plethora of other allied streams such as Biotechnology, Veterinary medicine, Paramedic courses, Forensics and even options such as Armed Forces Medical College etc. Pointing out the glorification of those who take the extreme step and the payment of solatium/compensation to the bereaved family, he feels that the media and politicians must be responsible when handling such sensitive issues and not cause an unfortunate Domino effect of suicides.

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Rajasthan Police department has recommended a major penalty on the DSP and the woman constable, who were suspended after video clips purportedly showing them engaging in sexual activities in presence of her minor son had gone viral.

A senior home department official wishing anonymity has confirmed the development that the police department submitted its recommendation on Wednesday.

"Police department has recommended major penalty against the two police personnel. After approval from the CM office, the recommendation has been forwarded to the department of personnel for further action," he said.

The police department had recommended action under Rajasthan Civil Service rules 16/18, which works for imposing major penalties. Under major penalty, the duo can be terminated, demoted or all benefits can be stopped.

After the video went viral, the police department had suspended both the personnel on September 8. The Special Operations Group (SOG) was handed over the inquiry which lodged a case against DSP Heera Lal Saini and arrested him on September 9. The woman constable was arrested on September 12. They both are currently under SOG remand.

According to the police, the videos clips were shot by the mobile phone of the constable in a resort of Pushkar town in Ajmer district on July 10.

RPS officer Saini was posted as the Circle Officer of Beawar in Ajmer, while the constable was posted in Jaipur. The police had taken suo motu cognizance of the video being circulated on social media and arrested Saini. A case was registered at the cybercrime station of SOG. The police have lodged a case under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.

The video clip purportedly showed Saini in a compromising position with the constable in a swimming pool along with policewoman's six-year-old son who was also in the pool with them. Saini has reportedly claimed that the video is doctored.

Apart from Saini and the constable, who were suspended on Wednesday on moral misconduct after the clips surfaced, two other RPS officers and SHOs of two police stations of Jaipur and Nagaur were suspended for dereliction of duty.

The husband of the constable had forwarded a complaint to SP office Nagaur seeking registration of the FIR against both of them under the POCSO Act and the complaint was forwarded to the SHO of Chitawa police station on August 10 but he did not register the case.

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New Delhi: The Uttar Pradesh government on Thursday (September 16) announced the closure of all schools and colleges in the state for the next two days in view of the incessant showers.

The Chief Minister's Office (CMO) informed that the schools and colleges will stay closed on Friday and Saturday due to torrential rains in the state for the past couple of days.

Uttar Pradesh reopened primary schools on September 1 with strict COVID-19 guidelines in place. For standard 9 to 12, the physical classes resumed from August 16 in the state, while for standard 6-8, schools reopened from August 24. However, attendance is not compulsory and online classes are continuing.

#UPDATE | The schools and colleges in the state will remain closed for the next two days.  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) September 16, 2021

Earlier today, keeping the heavy rainfall in mind, Lucknow District Magistrate Abhishek Prakash advised people to remain indoors and avoid going out.

Meanwhile, twelve people were killed in incidents of house and wall collapse in Fatehpur, Pratapgarh, Kaushambi, Jaunpur and Barabanki districts due to heavy rains, according to the UP police.

Thirty districts including Lucknow, Kanpur, Barabanki, Sultanpur, Sitapur, Ayodhya, Varanasi, Gorakhpur, Prayagraj, Saharanpur, Moradabad, Sambhal, Bijnor and Amroha, have been witnessing heavy showers since late Wednesday night.

Several areas also faced power disruptions and trees were uprooted. Telecom services were also disrupted and traffic jams were reported from parts of Lucknow. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had to cancel his visit to Barabanki following waterlogging at the venues where functions were to be held.

The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) said that Pratapgarh and Ayodhya received 20 cm rainfall in the last 24 hours, resulting in waterlogging at several places. The weather department has also forecast thunderstorms with light to moderate intensity rain in various parts of the state for the next 24 hours. Along with rains, the IMD has also predicted strong gusts of wind at a speed of 87 kilometers per hour.

(With agency inputs)

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Kolkata: The West Bengal government on Thursday assured the people of the state that there was no reason to worry over the spurt in cases of fever and dysentery among children in Jalpaiguri district and its neighbourhood as the cause of the disease has been ascertained and the administration is working out ways to deal with it.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, during the day, held a high-profile meeting with senior officials and doctors of five medical colleges and hospitals here, following which health secretary NS Nigam told reporters that the "situation is under control".

"There is nothing to worry about these cases of infections. The virus, 'Respiratory Syncytial', is found to have caused the fever among children," Nigam stated.

The official further said that the three children who died in Jalpaiguri after contracting the fever had other ailments which led to their demise.

The state health department will soon release a standard operating procedure in connection with the treatment of children who have fallen sick due to the virus, he said. Later, state deputy health secretary Dr Ajay Chakraborty said that only one out of all the children admitted to hospitals with fever tested positive for COVID-19. He also said such respiratory ailments are nothing uncommon among them at this time of the year.

"The number of cases this time isn't as much as it was in the previous years. In Jalpaiguri District Hospital, a total of 1,195 children have been admitted between September 1 and 15.

"Two of them died -- one due to congenital heart disease and pneumonia and the other had birth asphyxia," he explained.

Drawing a parallel, Chakraborty said on an average 2,000 such admissions are usually recorded around this time of the year.

In 2017, six deaths due to various infections, including the one induced by RSV, were recorded and the year after, four fatalities were registered, he maintained.Last year, overall admissions in hospitals had showed a decline owing to the COVID-19 situation, the deputy health secretary underlined.

The health department recently constituted a committee of experts to find out the cause of the fever among hundreds of children, mostly in Jalpaiguri and its adjoining areas.

A senior paediatrician at SSKM hospital, who attended Thursday's meeting with the CM, told PTI that the virus isn't a new one and it has, in the past too, affected young ones.

Over 1,400 children in Jalpaiguri and neighbouring districts were hospitalised since the beginning of September with high fever and dysentery.

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The BSE Sensex scaled the 59,000-mark for the first time on Thursday, propelled by gains in Reliance Industries, ITC and ICICI Bank amid unabated foreign fund inflows and positive cues from European markets.

The 30-share index climbed 417.96 points or 0.71 per cent to close at 59,141.16. It touched an intra-day record of 59,204.29.

Similarly, the broader NSE Nifty surged 110.05 points or 0.63 per cent to its new closing high of 17,629.50. During the session, it scaled an all-time peak of 17,644.60.

IndusInd Bank was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, spurting over 7 per cent, followed by ITC, SBI, Reliance Industries, Kotak Bank, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank.(Also Read: SBI festive bonanza: Home loans rates slashed to 6.70%, 0% processing fee, offers for non-salaried borrowers)

On the other hand, TCS, Tech Mahindra, Tata Steel, Bharti Airtel, HCL Tech and Dr Reddy's were among the laggards.

Elsewhere in Asia, bourses in Shanghai, Seoul, Tokyo and Hong Kong ended with significant losses.

However, equities in Europe were trading with robust gains in mid-session deals. (Also Read:Good news for mutual fund investors! Tata Capital introduces digital loans against MF investments)

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) were net buyers in the capital markets as they purchased shares worth Rs 232.84 crore on Wednesday, as per provisional exchange data.

Meanwhile, international oil benchmark Brent crude rose 0.16 per cent to USD 75.58 per barrel

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New Delhi: TV actress Ankita Lokhande who won hearts with the show Pavitra Rishta recently opened up on the trolling she received on the sequel to her hit show - Pavitra Rishta 2 featuring Shaheer Sheikh.

While many fans are excited about the reboot of the show that originally featured Sushant Singh Rajput and Ankita Lokhande, there are people who are demanding a boycott of the show on social media.

In an interview with a leading daily, Ankita said that she can't keep worrying about trolls and asking people to like her.

Talking about the trolls, she told Indian Express, "Honestly, social media has brought us closer to our fans but also there is so much trolling involved. At the end of the day, everyone has a choice. I cannot go about telling people that I am nice and they should love me. I will go about living my life and I cannot worry about people judging me. I never have. My family is my strength and I can fight anything or anyone with their support."

Ankita expressed that she doesn't like it when trolls drag her family into negative comments about her. She said, "Dont follow me if you dont like me. Also, I am fine with what you tell me but when they drag your family, its unacceptable. It really gets bitter then."

For the unversed, the popular show Pavitra Rishta has rebooted as Pavitra Rishta 2.0 with Shaheer Sheikh and Ankita Lokhande in the lead.
New Delhi: The sour relations between yesteryear superstar Govinda, his wife Sunita Ahuja and their nephew Krushna Abhishek are known to everyone. Recently, we saw Govinda and his wife Sunita making an appearance on The Kapil Sharma Show and how Krushna giving the episode a miss, saying he doesn't want to face them. An angry Sunita said in an interview later that she doesn't ever want to see Krushna's face.

Now, famous actor-comedian-host Krushna Abhishek has asked for forgiveness from his estranged uncle and his wife. According to Krushna, his family feud with uncle Govinda and his family can be resolved. Krushna has asked for forgiveness, saying that he is extremely distressed by the confrontation.

The comedian told Spotboye he is ready to apologise to Govinda and Sunita repeatedly if needed. "I love my mama and mami. I seek their forgiveness. I've tried many times. But they won't accept my apology. And therein lies the problem. I don't know why they are not willing to forgive me when I am like their child. So many times in so many interviews I've said that we will resolve our issues, and theyve said so too. But we are still at loggerheads."

Krushna also accepted that he is upset by his aunt Sunita's explosive interview against him. He, however, added that it is coming from a place of love. "I know my mami said a lot of things against me. Of course, I was upset. But now I feel they are so angry with me because they love me the most. Saying something as filmy as 'I dont want to see his face ever again shows they are hurt. And you can only get hurt by someone who loves you," she told the publication.

Krushna had earlier too apologised to his estranged uncle-aunt during Ganesh Chaturthi festivities. "I love my mama and mami and their hostility disturbs me." However, his wife Kashmera Shah said in an interview that Govinda and his family doesn't exist for them.
New Delhi: Actor Salman Khans niece Alizeh Agnihotri was featured in an ad for a jewellery brand and netizens are in awe of her. Alizeh is the daughter of Salmans sister Alvira Khan and producer Atul Agnihotri. She is also gearing up to make her Bollywood debut soon.

In the ad video shared on Instagram, Alizeh can be seen wearing natural makeup, a green bralette and white pants. She is decked up in an 18 carat gold necklace,multiple rings, hand throng and a bracelet.

In the caption of the Instagram post, Alizeh opened up about her relationship with jewellery and how it has changed over time. A girls first piece of jewellery is usually a pair of earrings. However, Ive never had my ears pierced!A lot of people find it strange, because wearing earrings comes so naturally to most people, but somehow I havent had the desire, told Salmans niece.

She further added, My relationship with jewellery has changed a lot over the years, from wearing nothing at all, Ive come to this stage in my life where I pick out what jewellery I want to wear before decide my outfit. Jewellery to me is about finding new ways to express myself, and Ive always leaned towards doing that with rings, necklaces, anklets and even body chains.

Reacting to the post, many people dropped in heart eyes and fire emojis. @alizehagnihotri ur the most innocent beauty i ever seen in this earth, commented one user, while another wrote, Stunning.

Alizeh had previously modelled for Sohail Khans wife Seema Khan bridal couture line.

Earlier in 2019, late choreographer Saroj Khan told Hindustan Times that Alizeh is gearing up to join Bollywood and is taking dance training from her. I conduct dance classes for all young actresses, including Alizeh. She will become a heroine soon. Alizeh has joined me for a year and has already completed six months, she shared.
New Delhi: Actress Shilpa Shetty headed to Mata Vaishno Devi shrine in Katra, Jammu and Kashmir. Several pictures and videos of her flooded the internet. Her divine visit to the goddess temple at the hilltop coincided with Mumbai police filing a 1500-page charge sheet against her husband Raj Kundra.

ANI news agency shared pictures of Shilpa riding a horse as she heads to the divine pilgrimage. The actress along with her companion offered prayers at the famous Nav Durga goddess temple.

Jammu & Kashmir: Actor Shilpa Shetty visited Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine in Katra, yesterday pic.twitter.com/imYSyvKJy1  ANI (@ANI) September 16, 2021

Her visit to Vaishno Devi shrine temple coincided with the same day when Mumbai police filed a 1500 page charge sheet against Raj Kundra.

According to PTI report, businessman Raj Kundra was the "main facilitator" in a pornographic content case and he along with other accused exploited young women struggling in the movie industry by filming them in obscene ways, the Mumbai Police claimed in a supplementary charge-sheet filed in a court on Wednesday.

The nearly 1,500-page charge sheet against Kundra, 46, the husband of Bollywood actor Shilpa Shetty, and his associate Ryan Thorpe was filed before a magistrate court here by the crime branch. The case against Kundra, arrested in July, was related to the alleged creation of pornographic films and publishing them through some apps.

Two others, Yash Thakur, a resident of Singapore, and London-based Pardeep Bakshi have been shown as wanted accused in the chargesheet.

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New Delhi: Income tax department officials raided at least 6 properties linked to actor, philanthropist Sonu Sood on Wednesday (September 15) evening. Mumbai and Lucknow were the two cities where properties linked to the actor were raided. A real estate deal is under the scanner of the department.

Sonu Sood who rose to fame as a messiah during the COVID-19 pandemic for his relentless work to help migrant labourers reach back to their hometowns to helping COVID-19 patients find medicines and arranging hospital beds for them, during the peak of the COVID-19 crisis in India. The actor has also passionately spoken about children who have turned into orphans due to the pandemic and urged the government to sponsor their education.

The raids at his properties have taken his fans and supporters aback. The Internet is flooded with reactions and memes supporting Sonu.

Check out some of them:

Sonu Sood is not only hero of Punjab's Moga but real hero of entire India...Helped so many needy people ..#IndiaWithSonuSood pic.twitter.com/4evVLAryn5  I SUPPORT FARMERS.. (@mmmmmmmm1111_) September 15, 2021

Earlier, the Delhi government, led by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, had declared the 48-year-old actor as the brand ambassador of the Aam Aadmi Party government's 'Desh ka mentors' programme under which students will be guided in making their career choices.

(With inputs from PTI)
New Delhi: Bollywood actress Tara Sutaria revealed she disagrees with the idea that two heroine projects are not ideal. In an interview with a leading daily, she revealed that people tend to pit co-actresses against each other, however, she strays away from this practice.

Sutaria said that some people have even told her to not share screen space with another actress. But she completely disagrees with this thinking.

Speaking about the issue in detail, she told ETimes, "I dont look at films in this fashion. People like to pit your co-actresses against you and talk about how you are sharing screen space with another heroine and also suggest that it is not ideal to do a two-heroine project, but I completely disagree with it. Some of my favourite films feature an ensemble cast. I feel in these movies everyone has an equal part to play. You rather have a five-minute role and shine in a good film than play the lead of a not-so-great project."

In the same interview, she spoke about the quality that sets her apart from other artists. She said, "There are so many factors that go into choosing an actor for a particular role. What sets me apart? Well, after meeting certain people and working with certain directors, I have realised that the thing about me thats comforting is the fact that I am extremely real, which I feel is a good thing."

Tara Sutaria ventured into acting as a teen artist, she starred in kids sitcoms such as 'The Suite Life of Karan & Kabir' in 2012 and 'Oye Jassie' in 2013.

She made her Bollywood debut in a two-heroine film 'Student Of The Year 2' along with Tiger Shroff and Ananya Panday in 2019. In the same year, she played a mute girl in the action film 'Marjaavaan'.

She will next be seen in another two-heroine project Ek Villain Returns with Disha Patani and John Abraham.
New Delhi: Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), which manages Public Provident Fund (PPF), is planning to allow subscribers to select the percentage of the fund that they want to invest in equities.

As of now, EPFO subscribers dont have any such facility. The state-owned organisation currently invests up to 15 per cent of the fund through its fund managers in the equity market.

The decision could be taken on the backdrop of rising investors interest in the National Pension Scheme (NPS) investments, according to a report by ZeeBusiness. Currently, NPS allows investors to select the percentage of funds that they want to invest in equities.

As a result, investors are getting impressive returns in the NPS as compared to PPF. NPS also private and government employees to fix the investment limit on equities to protect them from market movements.

Currently, investors are receiving about 12% interest from their investments in the National Pension scheme. On the other hand, EPF investments are providing a return of about 8.5% for the fiscal year 2020-21.

So, to improve the returns on the investments made by its subscribers, EPFO could soon allow investors to select the percentage of funds that they want to invest in equities. Fund managers will take care of the rest. Also Read: Uber launches corporate shuttle service in Delhi, Mumbai, 5 other Indian cities

However, investments in equities are likely to be capped at 50% of the total contribution in the PPF. The maximum limit could be even lower. The final decision will be taken in a meeting of the Central Board of Trustees in the coming days. Also Read: iPhone 13 country wise price list: Compare India, US, Australia, UAE, Canada rates to save up to Rs 40,000

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New Delhi: Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan has started to play havoc with the countrys economy. And now, the real estate industry is showing clear signs of a downturn. The real estate prices and house rent in Afghanistans capital city of Kabul have plummeted in the past few days.

Property dealers in the city suggest that the property rates and rent have fallen by as much as 50%, according to a report by Afghanistan-based media outlet Tolo News.

The dealers also point out that the business has decreased dramatically, with not many citizens showing interest in buying new houses. People either dont have money to buy a house or theyre fleeing to some other nations, dealers noted.

According to a Kabul-based property dealer who is in the business for about 13 years, house rent prices have fallen by 50 per cent.

"House rent prices have fallen approximately by 50 per cent. If before this a house was rented for 20,000 Afs, now its rent is 10,000. The prices will fall further because people are migrating and are not interested in living in the country," the dealer was quoted as saying by Tolo News.

However, some residents are welcoming the decrease in the rent prices, as housing will become affordable for many who havent received their salaries since the shift in power.

On the other hand, property prices in Delhi NCR saw a modest increase in real estate prices in the last decade. According to property consultant Anarock, property prices in Delhi NCR grew by 19% between the 2010-Q1 2020-Q1 period.

Overall, property rates in India grew by around 38% on average across seven major cities in India in the last decade. Pun witnessed the maximum increase in real estate prices at 67%, followed by Bengaluru at 49%, and Hyderabad at 45%. Also Read: Tired of working from home! 72% Indians want to return to office, says survey

Real estate prices in Kolkata and Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) saw a jump of 44% and 33%, respectively. Also Read: 100% FDI for Telecom sector; read the major announcements of Modi govt here

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New Delhi: Apple has managed to keep the price of the iPhone 13 series the same as last year with iPhone 13 starting from Rs 79,900. In comparison, however, the iPhone 13 is priced at $699 (roughly Rs 51,310) in the United States. The difference in price led to an outcry on social media.

The reason for this price difference is the huge amount of taxes that Indian consumers have to pay on the newly launched smartphone. For instance, iPhone 13 models will be imported in India, which means that Indians will have to pay 22.5% of customs duties on the smartphone.

Indian customers will have to pay about Rs 10,880 as custom taxes on iPhone 13 mini purchases. Moreover, customers will have to pay GST on iPhone 13 purchases. At current rates, the GST on iPhone 13 stands at about Rs 10,662.

On the other hand, pricing in the United States doesn't include state taxes which vary from state to state. For example, the tax rate in New York City is 9% whereas in Florida it is just 7%.

Meanwhile, Apple has been expanding its assembly line in India. The tech giant last year starting iPhone 12 manufacturing in India, and it might soon start manufacturing iPhone 13 range in India.

Heres how much taxes customers will pay on iPhone 13 series range:

Total taxes on iPhone 13 mini: Rs 21,543

Total taxes on iPhone 13: Rs 24,625

Total taxes on iPhone 13 Pro: 36,952

Total taxes on iPhone 13 Pro Max: Rs 40,034

The taxes on iPhone 13 remain the biggest reason for the difference in price. However, other factors such as forex and commissions also add up to the price hike. For example, when calculating local pricing before the launch, companies like Apple have to keep a buffer for currency fluctuation and volatility too, per a Business Today report. Also Read: TVS Raider 125 cc bike with sporty design launched in India: Check price, features, specs and photos

The only respite for consumers could be the cashback offers. However, this year's offers are yet to be announced. iPhone 13 series will go on sale on September 24 in India. Also Read: Proud day for Indian investors! Indias stock market becomes 6th largest in the world
New Delhi: Ride-hailing platform Uber on Wednesday announced the launch of Uber Corporate Shuttle to enable companies to help employees get to and from work, safely and affordably amid the pandemic.

The service will be available across Delhi, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Mumbai, and Bengaluru, a statement said.

Uber Corporate Shuttle is a customised commute service for companies, offering seating capacity for anywhere between 10-50 employees in a single-vehicle, it added. (Also Read: Ford, Walmart and Argo AI team up to launch autonomous vehicle delivery service )

Using Uber's core technology to ensure a reliable, safe, and cost-effective ride, the service helps companies deliver on their sustainability goals by helping decongest cities, reduce pollution and free up office parking spaces.

"This is the first product from Uber's High Capacity Vehicles programme to be launched in India which has been specifically developed keeping in mind the unique challenges faced by office-goers in India and other emerging markets," it said.

A significant share of the work related to the technology and product build-out for Uber Corporate Shuttle is being led by Uber's technology team based out of Bengaluru.

Launched in 2014, the Uber for Business platform brings Uber's innovations and solutions organisations globally at scale. It has helped unlock employee productivity and elevated customer experiences for more than 1.5 lakh organisations around the world. (Also Read: Elon Musk's SpaceX makes history, sends first all-civilian crew into Earth orbit)

At Uber, we are focussed on meeting the changing needs of our customers. Uber Corporate Shuttle helps companies put their employees first. They get to and from work safely, without the stress of traffic jams, the expense of parking, and car maintenance," Uber for Business Head India and South Asia Abhinav Mittoo said.

He added that by making it easy for employees to give up their cars, the new service can reduce congestion, pollution, and emissions in cities.
HYDERABAD: In a sensational development, P Raju, the alleged rapist and killer of a six-year-old girl in Telangana, was found dead on the railway tracks in the Warangal district of the state.

This was confirmed by Telangana Director General of Police M Mahender Reddy who said that accused P Raju was found dead on railway tracks in Warangal.

#AttentionPlease : The accused of "Child Sexual Molestation and murder @ Singareni Colony, found dead on the railway track, in the limits of #StationGhanpurPoliceStation.

Declared after the verification of identification marks on deceased body. pic.twitter.com/qCPLG9dCCE  DGP TELANGANA POLICE (@TelanganaDGP) September 16, 2021

Deceased P Raju was absconding since September 9, the day when the victim was found dead in his house in the Singareni slum colony of Saidabad area in Hyderabad.

According to reports, Rajus mangled body was found on the tracks while searching for him.

The Telangana Police suspects that Raju possibly ended his life by jumping in front of a running train.

The incident is believed to have taken place around 9.45 AM although nothing is clear yet.

"Just been informed by @TelanganaDGP Garu that the beast who raped the child has been traced & found dead on a railway track at station Ghanpur," IT Minister KT Rama Rao said in a tweet.

The alleged rape and murder of the 6-year-old had triggered tension in the Saidabad, area after which several teams were formed to nab the culprit.

A massive manhunt was launched for Raju and the Hyderabad city police also announced a cash reward of Rs 10 lakh for any information leading to the arrest of the former.

On September 9, the minor had gone missing from her home in Saidabad, and hours later, her body was recovered from Raju's house, who was her neighbour.

The autopsy at Osmania General Hospital has confirmed that she was sexually assaulted before she was strangled to death. The victims mother suspected Raju to be the culprit as he too was missing from his house.

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NEW DELHI: Actor Saif Ali Khan will be seen making an appearance along with his 'Bhoot Police' co-stars Jacqueline Fernandez and Yami Gautam on 'The Kapil Sharma Show' to promote his upcoming film. The actor was left in splits when show host and actor-comedian Kapil Sharma questioned him about his 'jaundice'-styled sunglasses during his appearance on the show.

Saif looked absolutely dapper in white kurta and blue denim on the show. He jazzed his look up with a pair of yellow sunglasses. The eyewear caught Kapil's attention. "Ye jaundice waale chashme kaha se milte hai, sir (Where do you get these jaundice glasses, sir)?" Kapil asked Saif.

The actor broke into a fit of laughter with Archana Puran Singh, Yami and Jacqueline joining him. In the same video, Kapil then mocks Yami for wanting to take her entire family to her honeymoon. He informed her that he read Yami and Aditya insisted on their family joined them for their honeymoon. Joking about it, Kapil said in Hindi, "Didn't anyone tell you that you don't take your family there, you go there to start a family?"

To this, the 'Uri' actress responded, "We placed the condition that everyone would go together." Saif couldn't help but bring out his inner Vinod, from Hum Saath Saath Hai. "Really? Okay," he poked fun at his character.

Last week, Kapil had welcomed Kangana Ranaut and also Govinda and his wife Sunita. The episode with Govinda and Sunita made quite a few headlines due to their tiff with their nephew-actor Krushna Abhishek. Krushna announced his decision to bow out of the episode as he didn't want to face his estranged uncle and aunt.
New Delhi: The CBI has summoned West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's election agent Sheik Sufian on Thursday in connection with a murder case allegedly related to post-poll violence in Nandigram from where the TMC supremo had unsuccessfully contested.

The case pertains to a fatal attack on Debabrata Maity by unidentified people in Nandigram on May 3. Maity succumbed to injuries 10 days later while undergoing treatment, they said.

Nandigram had seen a high-pitched electoral battle between Banerjee and her confidante turned-rival Shuvendu Adhikari which was narrowly clinched by the latter.

Sufian, a TMC leader, was also a complainant in connection with an alleged attack on Banerjee during poll campaign.

The probe agency, meanwhile, has taken over one more case of murder related to alleged post-poll violence in West Bengal, taking the tally of such cases registered by the agency so far to 35, officials said on Wednesday.

The case was filed by one Gobindo Burman against 12 accused people who allegedly hurled bombs and fired at a voting booth in Cooch Behar where Burman and his family members had gone to cast their votes on April 10, the FIR alleged.

Burman alleged that one of the accused fired targeting his brother who fell on the ground and later succumbed to injuries while being taken to the hospital, they said.

"One of the 12 miscreants allegedly opened fire targeting the complainant's brother... The victim was taken to Sitalkuchi hospital where he was declared dead. The FIR was registered against 12 accused.

"CBI has so far registered 35 cases, taking over the investigation of these cases earlier registered at different police stations in West Bengal, in compliance with the orders of the Honourable High Court at Calcutta," CBI spokesperson RC Joshi said.

The agency took over the investigation into the post poll violence on the orders of the Calcutta High Court.

The court directives came after an NHRC committee submitted a report on the violence in the state after the poll results were announced on May 2, declaring the astounding victory of Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) humbling the BJP in a bitterly fought eight-phase electoral battle.

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New Delhi: A senior Taliban leader Qari Fasihuddin, while taking charge as the new army chief of Afghanistan, said that the country will soon have a regular and disciplined army of its own. Qari Fasihuddin in a press conference on Wednesday (September 15, 2021) in Kabul revealed that discussions are underway to decide on the formation of a regular, disciplined and strong army in the country in the near future.

According to an India Today report, the Taliban leader added that their soldiers will be trained to defend the boundaries of Afghanistan. Additionally, Taliban spokesman Ahmadullah Muttaqi also confirmed in a tweet that Afghanistan will "soon have a well-organised army and force".

"We will not let a civil war erupt. Those disturbing security and stability will be trampled and those opposing the Taliban will be arrested," Taliban army chief Qari Fasihuddin was quoted as saying.

ALSO READ | Changes in Afghanistan after Taliban takeover, see moving images from war-ravaged nation

Meanwhile, while refuting the rumors Taliban co-founder and acting Deputy Prime Minister Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar on Wednesday (September 15) denied that he was injured in a clash at the presidential palace in Kabul. Baradar in an interview with Afghan national TV, which was posted on Twitter by the Taliban`s political office in Doha refuted rumours that he had been injured or even killed in a dispute last week at the presidential palace in Kabul, reported CNN.

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New Delhi: The deputy prime minister in the Taliban's newly announced caretaker government and Taliban co-founder, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar has been named among the 100 most influential people of 2021 by Time magazine.

Additionally, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Serum Institute of India CEO Adar Poonawalla are also among the world's 100 most influential people of 2021 by TIME magazine.

Who is Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar?

Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar is co-founder of Taliban and was once a close friend of the Taliban's reclusive original leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, who gave him his nom de guerre "Baradar" or "brother". During the peace deal, Mullah Baradar led the Taliban in negotiations with the US. He also served as deputy defence minister when the Taliban last ruled Afghanistan.

Baradar served as a senior military commander responsible for attacks on coalition forces, following the fall of the Taliban government, a UN sanctions notice said.

Born in Uruzgan province in 1968, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar fought in the Afghan Mujahideen against the Soviets in the 1980s. In 1989, after the Russians withdrew, civil war broke out between warring parties in Afghanistan. It was then that Baradar set up a madrassa in Kandahar with Omar, his former commander and brother-in-law.

Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar quells rumours of death

Taliban co-founder and acting Deputy Prime Minister Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar refuted the internal rift in the new caretaker government of Taliban in Afghanistan and also denied that he was injured in a clash at the presidential palace in Kabul.

Baradar in an interview with Afghan national TV, which was posted on Twitter by the Taliban`s political office in Doha refuted rumours that he had been injured or even killed in a dispute last week at the presidential palace in Kabul, reported CNN.

When asked about the rumours, Baradar said, "No, this is not true at all. Praise be to God I am fit and well. And with regards to media claiming that we have an internal disagreement that is not true either. Praise be to God, we have a lot of kindness and mercy amongst us, such that does not even exist in a family. In addition, for many years, we have suffered and given sacrifices, in order to end the occupation. That is neither for power nor for the position."

Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar on Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan

The Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan, while some experts said was inevitable, but almost everyone was taken by surprise at the speed in which it all happened. "It was never expected that we will have victory in Afghanistan. Now comes the test. We must meet the challenge of serving and securing our nation, and giving it a stable life going forward," Baradar said after the Taliban captured Kabul.

(With Agency inputs)

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Islamabad (Pakistan): Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan is batting for the Taliban to develop a consensus that would lead to recognition of the new caretaker government of the "Islamic Emirate" in Afghanistan. Speaking to CNN, in the first interview with an international news organization since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan last month, Khan said that the best way forward for peace and stability in Afghanistan is to engage with the Taliban and "incentivize" them on issues such as women`s rights and inclusive government.

"The Taliban hold all of Afghanistan and if they can sort of now work towards an inclusive government, get all the factions together, Afghanistan could have peace after 40 years. But if it goes wrong and which is what we are really worried about, it could go to chaos. The biggest humanitarian crisis, a huge refugee problem," Khan said."It`s a mistake to think that someone from outside will give Afghan women rights. Afghan women are strong. Give them time. They will get their rights," said Khan."Women should have the ability in a society to fulfil their potential in life," said Khan.

Since assuming power, the group has attempted to paint a new picture with promises to uphold human rights, particularly regarding women and girls, and allow journalists to continue with their work. However, women have been omitted from the Taliban`s hard-line interim government, have been ordered to stay at home in some areas, and their education restricted. Protests against Taliban rule and for civil rights have been violently suppressed, with reports of journalists being arrested and severely beaten.Many in the international community are not hopeful the Taliban will make any progress on upholding women`s rights.

The Taliban, who ruled over Afghanistan from 1996 until 2001 have historically treated women as second-class citizens, subjecting them to violence, forced marriages and a near-invisible presence in the country, reported CNN. The group banned women from the workplace, stopped them from leaving the home unaccompanied and forced them to cover their entire bodies. In recent days the Taliban has mandated the segregation of genders in classrooms and said female students, lecturers and employees must wear hijabs in accordance with the group`s interpretation of Sharia law. And Taliban fighters have used whips and sticks against women protesters, who have taken to the streets in sporadic protests across the country demanding equal rights.

Khan also said that the world should give Taliban 'time' on human rights but fears 'chaos' without aid, reported CNN. Khan claimed that the Taliban are looking for international aid to avoid a crisis, which could be used to push the group in "the right direction towards legitimacy." However, he warned that Afghanistan could not be controlled by outside forces. "No puppet government in Afghanistan is supported by the people," he said. "So rather than sitting here and thinking that we can control them, we should incentivize them. Because Afghanistan, this current government, clearly feels that without international aid and help, they will not be able to stop this crisis. So we should push them in the right direction."

Meanwhile, Khan also commented on the "terrible" relationship with the United States that has been disastrous for Pakistan and how he is now seeking a more pragmatic approach in dealing with Afghanistan's new leaders."We (Pakistan) were like a hired gun," Khan said. "We were supposed to make them (the US) win the war in Afghanistan, which we never could."

Khan said he repeatedly warned US officials that America could not achieve its objectives militarily, and would "be stuck there." He said the US should have attempted a political settlement with the Taliban from a "position of strength," at the height of its presence in Afghanistan, not as it was withdrawing.

Khan has previously criticized the US' exit from Afghanistan and said he has not spoken with President Joe Biden since the Taliban takeover, despite Pakistan being a major non-NATO ally. "I would imagine he's very busy, but our relationship with the US is not just dependent on a phone call, it needs to be a multidimensional relationship," said Khan.

On Monday (September 16), Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US would reassess its ties with Pakistan following the withdrawal. He told Congress during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing that Pakistan has a "multiplicity of interests some that are in conflict with ours. "Khan called such comments "ignorant," telling CNN that "I have never heard such ignorance." According to Khan, thousands of Pakistanis lost their lives in terrorist attacks by militant groups owing to his country's support for the US. "Just because we sided with the US, we became an ally of the US after 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan. The suffering this country went through with at one point there were 50 militant groups attacking our government... on top of it, they must also know there were 480 drone attacks by the US in Pakistan," he added.

"Only time a country has been attacked by its ally," he said of the US strikes.The US has repeatedly accused Pakistan of harbouring terrorists and given them safe haven, a claim Khan denied."What are these safe havens?" Khan asked. "The area of Pakistan along the border of Afghanistan had the heaviest surveillance by the United States drones ... surely they would have known if there were any safe havens?" Khan said he cannot destroy his country to "fight someone else's war."

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Paris: France accused US President Joe Biden on Thursday (September 16) of stabbing it in the back and acting like his predecessor Donald Trump after Paris was pushed aside from a lucrative defence deal that it had signed with Australia for submarines. The United States, Britain and Australia said they would establish a security partnership for the Indo-Pacific that will help Australia acquire US nuclear-powered submarines and scrap the $40 billion French-designed submarine deal.

"This brutal, unilateral and unpredictable decision reminds me a lot of what Mr Trump used to do," Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told franceinfo radio. "I am angry and bitter. This isn't done between allies."

In 2016, Australia had selected French shipbuilder Naval Group to build a new submarine fleet worth $40 billion to replace its more than two-decades-old Collins submarines. Two weeks ago, the Australian defence and foreign ministers had reconfirmed the deal to France, and French President Emmanuel Macron lauded decades of future cooperation when hosting Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison in June.

"It's a stab in the back. We created a relationship of trust with Australia and that trust has been broken," Le Drian said. Relations between Trump and Macron soured during Trump`s presidency, and diplomats say there have been concerns in recent months that Biden is not being forthright with his European allies.

Washington's actions in Australia are likely to further strain Transatlantic ties. The European Union was due to roll out its Indo-Pacific strategy later on Thursday and Paris is preparing to take on the EU presidency.

"This is a clap of thunder and for many in Paris a Trafalgar moment," Bruno Tertrais, Deputy Director of the Paris-based think tank the Foundation of Strategic Research said on Twitter, referring to a French naval defeat in 1805 that was followed by British naval supremacy. He said it would "complicate the transatlantic cooperation in and about the region. Beijing will benefit."

Biden said on Wednesday (September 15) France remained a "key partner in the Indo-Pacific zone." Morrison said in a statement that Australia looked forward to continuing to work "closely and positively" with France, adding: "France is a key friend and partner to Australia and the Indo-Pacific."

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Kabul: A UN official met with Afghanistan`s new interior minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, who is one of the world`s most wanted terrorists, and discussed the ongoing situation of Afghanistan and humanitarian aid. According to Taliban spokesperson Suhail Shaheen, Haqqani met Deborah Lyons, head of UNAMA, and her delegation on Wednesday.

"Sirajuddin Haqqani, Minister of Interior, IEA, met Head of UNAMA Deborah Lyons and her delegation yesterday. They discussed the ongoing situation of Afghanistan and humanitarian aids. IEA Interior Minister stressed that UN personnel can conduct their work without any hurdle," he tweeted.

Sirajuddin Haqqani, the leader of the notorious Haqqani network, was named as interior minister earlier this month. The network is a US-designated terror group aligned with the Taliban and al Qaeda.

Haqqani has a USD 5 million US bounty on his head. He is suspected of organising a series of bombings in Kabul in 2008 and plotting the assassination of then-Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Afghanistan has plunged into humanitarian and security crises after the Taliban took control of the country last month. The UN refugee agency, UNHCR has termed the Afghanistan situation a "humanitarian emergency of internal displacement" as more than half a million Afghan civilians have been displaced from the war-ravaged country.

UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric had said that the UN remains committed to delivering humanitarian assistance to millions of people in need across Afghanistan.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently convened a high-level humanitarian conference for Afghanistan on Monday in response to the growing humanitarian needs in the country.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had urged the international community should urgently offer a "lifeline" to millions of vulnerable Afghans "who face perhaps their most perilous hour".

"Development gains must also be protected to link the humanitarian response with the medium and long-term stability of Afghanistan. The rights, safety, and wellbeing of women and girls are an essential part of this link," he had said.

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